Tom Taylor and the Victorian Drama 9780231898515

Table of contents :
PREFACE
CONTENTS
Chapter I .THE ENGLISH THEATER 1840-80
Chapter II. EARLY YEARS
Chapter III. BURLESQUES AND EXTRAVAGANZAS
Chapter IV. EARLY PLAYS 1844-52
Chapter V .THE PERIOD OF COLLABORATION WITH CHARLES READE 1852-56
Chapter VI. PLAYS FOR THE OLYMPIC 1853-60
Chapter VII. HAYMARKET COMEDIES 1857-70
Chapter VIII. MELODRAMAS AND DRAMAS 1860-70
Chapter IX. POETIC AND PROSE PLAYS 1870-80
Chapter X. NONDRAMATIC WRITING
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Citation preview

TOM

TAYLOR and the

VICTORIAN

DRAMA

Number 148 of the Columbia University Studies in English And Comparative Literature

TOM

TAYLOR

and the VICTORIAN

By WINTON

DRAMA

TOLLES

New York : Morningside COLUMBIA

Heights

UNIVERSITY I 9 4 O

PRESS

COPYRIGHT

1940

C O L U M B I A U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS, NEW Y O R K Foreign agents: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, Humphrey Milford, Amen House, London, E.C. 4, England, AND B. I. Building, Nicol Road, Bombay, India;

MARUZEN COMPANY, LTD., 6

Tori-Nichome, Tokyo, Japan

MANUFACTURED

IN T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S OF

Nihonbashi,

AMERICA

PREFACE E POSSESS little detailed modern criticism of English playwriting between 1840 and 1880. Professor Allardyce Nicoll's A History of the Early Nineteenth Century Drama (1925) thoroughly reviews the London stage during the first half of the nineteenth century. T o the plays of its last two decades, the years which witnessed a renascence of English drama, many critics have paid careful attention. For a study of the playwrights and dramatic genres of the forty years which preceded this renascence, however, the student must depend chiefly upon encyclopedia articles or the brief survey chapters which serve as introductions to such books as Richard Cordell's Henry Arthur Jones and the Modern Drama (1932) and Thomas Dickinson's The Contemporary Drama of England (1920). Of all the playwrights who wrote for the London stage between 1840 and 1880 only one, T o m Robertson, has received ample treatment, and the most complete review of his work, T . E. Pemberton's Life and Writings of T. W. Robertson (1893), is now somewhat dated. T h e major reason for this scarcity of critical material is of course the dearth of effective literary drama and dramatists during the period. Yet the time was filiea with dramatic activity which led English playwriting from a state of inanition in 1840 to one of promise in 1880. During most of these forty years T o m Taylor was one of the most popular and representative of English playwrights. Though he was far from being a great or even a first-rate dramatist, he was a competent and interesting writer. T h e real sig-

PREFACE

vi

nificance of his work is to be found in the manner in which it reflects most of the experiments made by early and mid-Victorian dramatists. Hence this volume seeks to recount not only Taylor's achievements, but also, through an analysis of his plays, to reveal the weakness and the strength of the drama of his age. T h i s study is particularly concerned with making his plays throw light upon the raison

d'etre and the character of the many

different types of Victorian theatrical entertainment which flourished during his lifetime and the specialized activities of the various London theaters of his day. No full-length study of T a y l o r has previously been made. Critical estimates of his work are few, appearing either in articles printed in various periodicals or as comments scattered through the pages of Victorian memoirs. T h i s , then, is the first thorough account of all his works and indeed the first volume to present a complete and accurate list of the titles of all Taylor's plays. Its author has no startling discoveries to report and no novel theories to advance. H e has been content to gather and to present as much information as he could discover that would increase our understanding of the stage for which T o m T a y l o r wrote and the contributions which he made to its life and growth. Since the book is concerned primarily with the theater, it presents only a m i n i m u m of information about T a y l o r ' s life. For the same reason it treats only briefly the large amount of writing that he did in fields other than the drama. In brief, the study seeks solely to make a substantial contribution to the yet unwritten history of Victorian drama. Many people have aided in my work. T h e late Professor Ashley T h o r n d i k e suggested the subject and supervised the early stages of its preparation. After Professor T h o r n d i k e ' s death Professor George Odell for some time directed my research. I found his abundant knowledge of the theater and his genial manner a constant source of genuine assistance and enjoyment.

PREFACE

vii

Professors Ernest Wright, Joseph Krutch, and Emery Neff read my manuscript and made valuable suggestions for its improvement. My greatest thanks, however, are due to Professor Oscar James Campbell. His penetrating criticism, his tempered wisdom, and his sympathetic personality have sharpened my judgments, encouraged my spirit, and challenged my best efforts. I am also grateful to President Gilbert Mead, of Washington College, whose generous assistance enabled me to secure a leave of absence from my teaching in order to complete this book. For much of the best in my work these men are responsible. For its failings I alone stand accountable. W. T . CHESTERTOWN, MARYLAND MAY

15,

I94O

CONTENTS I. II.

The English Theater, 1840-80

1

Early Years

26

III.

Burlesques and Extravaganzas

35

IV.

Early Plays, 1844-52

62

V.

The Period of Collaboration with Charles Reade, 1852-56

82

VI.

Plays for the Olympic, 1853-60

114

VII.

Haymarket Comedies, 1857-70

149

Melodramas and Dramas, 1860-70

188

Poetic and Prose Plays, 1870-80

221

Nondramatic Writing

258

Bibliography

275

Index

287

VIII. IX. X.

Chapter THE

I

ENGLISH

THEATER

1840-80 N 1840 a German visitor to London remarked that the English people had the finest drama in the whole world in their old books and the worst in the whole world on their modern stages. 1 T h e English theater of 1840 was indeed in a state of confusion and change. All London playhouses were uncertain of their exact legal status, and only Drury Lane and Covent Garden were invulnerable to an order from the Lord Chamberlain forbidding the presentation of spoken drama. These "too great theaters," each with a seating capacity of more than three thousand, depended principally 011 spectacle and novelty. T h e smaller theater had not yet established itself as the proper medium for the plays and production methods of the future. There existed only a vague idea of the possibilities for effective staging offered by the picture-frame stage and the box set. Natural costuming in the theater was largely unknown. T h e style of acting "a step above or below nature" was only beginning to feel the influence of an easier, more realistic stage manner. As a social institution the London theater of 1840 was an outcast shunned by the socially and intellectually favored classes. T o the inferior entertainment offered by the mammoth and ill1

Tomlins, A Brief View of the English Drama, p. 73.

2

THE

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appointed theaters came a noisy and vulgar rabble intent on converting the playhouse into a Donnybrook Fair. In the drama as a form of art this rabble had no interest. When plays failed to provide broad and spectacular effects, these audiences hooted them into oblivion. After the failure of one or two of their productions the more literary writers, unwilling either to expose their work to the howls and catcalls of the mob or to make concessions to its interests, left playwriting largely in the hands of inferior men who were satisfied to pander to the low taste of their audiences. T h e better people naturally avoided the discomforts of the playhouse, the distractions of the unruly audiences, and the debased entertainment. T h e Church condemned the playhouse as a cesspool of sin. So great, indeed, was the prejudice against the stage that an actor, even when he could afford to send his son to a good school, found difficulty in having him accepted. In 1840 styles in drama were also in a state of confusion. Old forms had lost their vitality, and satisfactory substitutes had not yet been developed. Imitations of Elizabethan tragedy were lifeless. Attempts at high comedy were dull and awkward; sentimental comedy had been absorbed by melodrama. Burlesques and farces were a part of every theater bill. T h e only attempts at social drama were gay, lively, and often colloquial in their dialogue; but they were also short, unpretentious, and only tentative in their realism. Melodrama, the dominant serious form, was sometimes realistic, frequently absurd, and always crude. By 1880 the English theater had solved most of the difficulties which had perplexed it forty years earlier. It was nearly ready for the inspiration of Ibsen and the guidance of Pinero and Jones. T h e freedom of all regular theaters to perform legitimate drama had been an accomplished fact for thirtyseven years. T h e playhouse with a maximum seating capacity of fifteen hundred persons had demonstrated its worth. Real-

THE

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3

istic methods of staging, costuming, and acting had triumphed. Theaters were now comfortable and pleasant. T h e character of audiences had changed considerably. T h e upper classes, following the example set by Queen Victoria, were now returning to the playhouse. Literary, social, and religious prejudices against the theater were dying. As able and outstanding a critic as Matthew Arnold was speaking hopefully of a better drama just over the horizon. Tennyson conceived of a series of historical plays as the climax to his literary career. T h e time was not far distant when a prominent actor-manager could expect knighthood. In summarizing this altered outlook on the theater Professor Allardyce Nicoll 2 writes: T o these smaller theaters came, too, a slightly changed audience. Life was not so dissolute as it had been in the early nineteenth century, and Queen Victoria set a more sober tone in Court circles. No longer were the theaters the chosen home of gamblers, rakes, and prostitutes. The middle classes, honest and quiet minded, came to witness plays in security, unoffended by coarse conversation round them or by missiles playfully flung at spectators or actors. The theaters became more and more houses of artistic endeavor. Between 1840 and 1880 equally important changes were effected in theatrical entertainment. By 1880 burlesque had become the property of the variety entertainer. Farces no longer disputed on the same bill with serious plays for the attention of audiences. T h e poetic drama had been limited to historical or fantastic themes. Melodrama had passed its zenith. A new technique of plot construction, learned from the French theater, had been adapted to native material. It was evident that the drama of the immediate future was to combine some of the elements of both comedy and tragedy and to treat the situations of everyday life. T h e popular play was about to become artistic and provocative of thought as well as entertaining. T h e work of T o m Taylor bridged the two periods. He wrote 2 The British

Drama, p. 338.

THE

4

ENGLISH

THEATER

his first p r o f e s s i o n a l p l a y in 1 8 4 4 at t h e a g e of t w e n t y - s e v e n , last i n 1 8 7 8 , t w o y e a r s b e f o r e his d e a t h . M o s t of the

his

important

c h a n g e s in t h e m a n y d r a m a t i c g e n r e s c a n b e traced in his w o r k . C e r t a i n a l t e r a t i o n s in t h e t h e a t r i c a l s i t u a t i o n , h o w e v e r , w e r e of p r i m e i m p o r t a n c e in the i m p r o v e m e n t fore w e can survey

intelligently

playwriting between

of d r a m a t i c

forms.

the progress m a d e in

Be-

English

1 8 4 0 a n d 1 8 8 0 , p a r t i c u l a r l y as t h i s p r o g r e s s

is r e v e a l e d in T a y l o r ' s c a r e e r , w e m u s t e x a m i n e the

conditions

of the p l a y h o u s e d u r i n g these years. T h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t of a f r e e stage w a s a n early a n d step

toward

the transformation

of

the d r a m a

important

from

a state

i n a n i t i o n to o n e of v i t a l i t y a n d p r o m i s e . B y p l a c i n g all theaters u p o n a parity before the law, the T h e a t e r Bill

of

1843

terminated

an

three m a j o r houses, D r u r y

intolerable

Regulation

condition.

Previously

L a n e , C o v e n t G a r d e n , a n d the

m a r k e t , h a d c l a i m e d t h e e x c l u s i v e r i g h t of p r e s e n t i n g drama.

The

other

London

theaters

were

limited

f o r m a n c e s of s u c h i l l e g i t i m a t e d r a m a as t h e L o r d would 3

permit.3

This

emancipation

of

the

of

London

Hay-

legitimate

to

the

per-

Chamberlain

playhouses

did

not

T h e prerogative of Drury L a n e and Covent Garden rested on the patents issued to Sir William Davenant and T h o m a s Killigrew by Charles II granting to them a n d their assignees the exclusive right to present dramatic entertainments in London. T h e Licensing Act of 1737 reaffirmed the patent rights and made the L o r d Chamberlain the regulator of the stage. T h e legal existence of the Haymarket began in 1766, when Samuel Foote received R o y a l permission to present dramatic entertainments annually from May 15 to September 15. After Foote's death the Haymarket was licensed by the L o r d Chamberlain and was hence not strictly a patent theater, but because of its extended privileges it was often so considered. T h e various holders of the Lord Chamberlain's office not only granted the Haymarket an annual license without question, but allowed the theater to extend its season so that by 1838 it was open ten months in the year. All other L o n d o n theaters except these three were licensed either by the Lord Chamberlain or by local magistrates on the authority of a law enacted in 1752, the original purpose of which was to control disorderly houses. T h e s e minor houses could legally present only musical and novelty entertainments, among which the burletta a n d the melodrama were the most prominent. Since the Lord Chamberlain would usually license as a burletta any piece less than five acts in length the script of which provided for five or six songs in each act, by meeting the prescribed requirements the minor houses were able to stage old plays as well as new comedies or dramas as burlettas. T h e y even went further and lessened o r eliminated entirely in the actual performances the music for which the script called. Despite these liberties, however, the position of the minors was precarious.

THE

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THEATER

5

produce an immediate improvement in the quality of dramatic entertainments, but the important developments of the future took place in the theaters which prospered through their release from legal restrictions. Of even greater importance was the fact that a free stage removed the stigma of illegitimacy from the shorter forms which had been developed at the minor houses. Before 1843 the drama had looked for guidance mainly to the five-act models of the past. It now turned to newer types which were to prove a better medium for its future. At a minor playhouse, the Olympic, Madame Vestris, its manager from 1831 to 1839, introduced many refinements. Alone among managers of that time, she attempted to make the auditorium of a playhouse attractive and comfortable. By 1880 her ideas had prevailed in all prominent London theaters. Auditoriums were then tastefully painted and decorated. T h e narrow, hard pit benches had been reduced to a few rows huddled together under the balcony at the rear of the ground floor or altogether eliminated. The pit was now occupied principally by comfortable stalls with cushioned seats, backs, and arm rests. Pimps and prostitutes no longer paraded openly in the theater saloons. An efficient system of reserving seats led to the abolition of the practice, very common before i860, of selling more tickets than the seating capacity of the house warranted. Madame Vestris also greatly influenced the development of refined and realistic stage sets and dress. Before her management scenic brilliance was found largely in the poetic drama, pantomime, and the more spectacular melodramas. Charles Farley, John Kemble's stage manager, observed the sets for King John and wondered what new beauty was left for the pantosince they never knew when the whims of the Lord Chamberlain might reduce them to the necessity of presenting dancing, singing, horseback riding, and pantomime or might even revoke their license. For a complete analysis of the knotty problem of the legal rights of the various theaters see Nicholson, The Struggle for a Free Stage in London. A shorter review may he found in Watson, Sheridan to Robertson, chap. ii.

6

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ENGLISH

THEA

TER

mime. William Elliston expended £5,000 for the Drury Lane production in 1823 of William Moncrieff's The Cataract of the Ganges and enlisted the aid of the London waterworks and Astley's powerful stud. T h e staging of the average play, however, was slipshod and unattractive. No attempt was made to more than suggest the scene of the actions and realities, as properties were rare. Sutherland Edwards 4 reports: "Very little money was spent on stage productions. Painted calico did duty for silk and satin, spangles for jewelry." Setting out to banish this tawdriness, Madame Yestris took particular pains in the preparation of sets and costumes. "Drawing rooms were fitted up like drawing rooms, and furnished with care and taste. T w o chairs no longer indicated that two persons were to be seated, two chairs being removed indicating that two persons were not to be seated." 5 For Alary, Queen of Scots ( 1 8 3 1 ) the manageress carefully reproduced the interior of Lochleven Castle with furniture of carved oak marked with the Stuart coat of arms. A similar spirit of refinement in costuming, first introduced into burlesque as produced for Vestris by James R . Planché, soon influenced other types of drama. " A claret-coloured coat, salmon-coloured trousers with a black stripe, a sky-blue neckcloth with large paste brooch, and a cut-steel eye-glass with a pink ribbon no longer marked the 'light comedy gentleman.' " 6 Similar departures from tradition were apparent in the dress of other characters, and "the public at once recognized and appreciated the change." 7 Madame Vestris sponsored these reforms for the sake of refinement rather than in the interests of intense realism. She attracted the eye of the critics by the magnificence of her sets and made little attempt to reproduce scenes from the humbler side of life. As a chambermaid Vestris often displayed more jewelry and finer gowns than her mistress. Her interest in de* Personal Recollections, p. 12. s The Life of Charles James Mathews, Chiefly Autobiographical, eIbid. ^ Ibid.

II, 75.

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7

tail and her care in planning the scene, however, served as a beginning for stage realism. Madame Vestris was better as a singer and dancer than as an actress; but Charles Mathews, who joined her company in 1835 and who from 1838 until her death in 1856 was her husband and associate in theatrical management, effected a change in acting methods comparable in importance to the change made by Vestris in production. Before his appearance, and indeed for some years afterward, the prevailing style in both comedy and tragedy was based on tradition. It was stiff, stilted, and seldom free from pose and exaggeration. T h e tragic manner of Macready, who dominated the legitimate stage in the thirties, combined the classicism of John Kemble and the romanticism of Edmund Kean. The Kemble school believed that the interpretation of tragedy should be a step above nature. Its ideal was to create the impression of grandeur. The actions were stiff and aimed at sweeping effects; the delivery was declamatory, and pronunciation was pedantic. In the hands of inferior successors to Kemble and Mrs. Siddons this style became "stagey," artificial, and frigid. Edmund Kean's manner, marked by an emotional vehemence which held his audiences enthralled during its greatest moments, was also a personal style which in his imitators degenerated into rant and raving. Both Kemble and Kean paid the greatest attention to the making of traditional " points.' With them the success of a performance rested, not on its interpretation of a character throughout the play, but on the applause gained in reputedly effective scenes. The leading part was everything; the selection, direction, and performance of the subordinate actors meant little. Macready instituted many noteworthy reforms, including careful casting, full acting at rehearsals, and attention to the planning of stage business for the supporting cast, but he also clung to the tradition of the star that: "His own part was everything; the opportunities of his fellow-actors and even the poet's

8

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text, must all give place to the complete development of his effects." 8 T h e manner of comic acting before the debut of Mathews was likewise based on tradition, exaggeration, and

isolated

rather than composite effect. Low comedians such as Liston and R e e v e departed from the text to provoke laughter by every conceivable trick of facial contortion, bodily writhing, and eccentric pronunciation. W i l l i a m Farren, the great exponent of high comedy in his day, possessed a brilliant, hard, and brittle manner, which was wonderfully adapted to the comedies of the past, but hardly suited to a drama of contemporary life. As the " C o c k Salmon" of the market, he felt that his part should be the leading attraction, and he regularly addressed the audience rather than the characters on the stage. Mathews definitely opposed the dependence on tradition and the exaggeration in the styles which preceded him. In explaini n g his reasons for joining the O l y m p i c company he wrote: " T h e lighter phase of comedy, representing the more natural and less laboured school of modern life, and holding the mirror up to nature without regard to the conventionalities was the aim I had in view."

9

Contrasted with prevailing styles of act-

ing, the technique of Mathews was thus easy, even casual, and free from pose or exaggeration. Westland Marston, 1 0 a keen analyst and outstanding critic of early Victorian actors, writes: Mathew's moderation . . . was the desire to keep close to the truth, to adhere strictly to the sentiment and habits of a typical man of the day . . . There was not a tone, look, or gesture which might not have been employed by a city man of the time . . . His changes of expression, and certain familiar, everyday actions, gave life and point to the dialogue. A finger inserted in a waistcoat pocket, the deprecatory movement of an arm, or the flourish of a handkerchief gave him as much emphasis in comedy as the heroic gestures of serious actors have given in tragedy. Archer, William Charles Macready, p. 210. » The Life of Charles James Mathews, II, 75.

8

10

Our Recent

Actors, p. 299.

THE

ENGLISH

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9

T h e English theater in 1840, then, had inherited styles of acting adapted to past forms of drama and had acquired the beginnings of a new school adjusted to the portrayal of characters and scenes from everyday life. It inherited also a philosophy of stage management which either stressed the beautiful and the spectacular or was careless and slovenly and one which paid attention to elegance, refinement, and detail. Probably the best method to survey the developments of the next forty years is to review the activities of the individual playhouses. Between 1840 and 1866 no new theaters were built in London. During that time eight major metropolitan playhouses— Drury Lane, the Haymarket, Adelphi, Lyceum, Olympic, Strand, St. James, and Princess—were open almost every season for the performance of plays. In 1865 the Prince of Wales, formerly the insignificant Queen's, sprang into prominence. One of the signs of a revived material prosperity for the theater between 1866 and 1880 was the erection of twelve new playhouses. T h e prominent suburban houses active between 1840 and 1880 included the Garrick, Pavilion, and Effingham in the East End; the Standard and the City of London in Norton Folgate; the Grecian, Albert, Britannia, and Sadler's Wells at or near "Merrie Islington"; the Marylebone in West London; and Astley's, the Surrey, Victoria, and Bower on the Surrey Side. Nothing of importance to an understanding of the progress of playwriting in general or of Taylor's dramatic activity in particular will be illustrated by a discussion of the theaters built between 1866 and 1880. Except for the Gaiety, the celebrated home of later burlesque, there was little particulaily distinctive or celebrated in the type of entertainment presented by these houses during their early years. The suburban theaters, except Sadler's Wells, were similarly unimportant. They were neighborhood houses devoted to supplying a particular locality with its favorite brand of nautical, equestrian, supernatural, romantic, or domestic melodrama.

io

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Of the metropolitan theaters to be discussed, three may be dismissed very briefly. When Macready retired from the management of Drury Lane, in 1843, England's most famous theater became the home chiefly of novelty, spectacle, and an occasional "star." The attempt of F. B. Chatterton from 1863 to 1869 to revive the glory of this playhouse ended with the celebrated dictum, "Shakespeare spells ruin, Byron bankruptcy." From the time the St. James was opened in 1835 until John Hare assumed its management in 1879 it struggled under a reputation for being unlucky. The Strand was a more popular house. This "pocket theater," from its inception in 1832 until its destruction in 1879, was devoted to light entertainment. During the golden age of burlesque, from 1858 to 1870, it was a mecca for all who wished to hear cheerful music, enjoy spirited dancing, see pretty girls, and roar at buffoonery and broad witticisms. Opera boufje and elaborate Gaiety burlesques eventually captured public favor, but veterans of the period fairly glow when they recall the Strand burlesque in its best days. There remain for consideration Sadler's Wells, Haymarket, Adelphi, Lyceum, and Prince of Wales. The productions at the first two followed conservative lines; those at the others reflected changing conditions and methods. A highly successful defense of conservatism was conducted by Samuel Phelps at Sadler's Wells between 1844 and 1862. His management, the first important result of the emancipation of the theaters, was of manifest influence in restoring dignity to the London stage. He conducted his playhouse according to his conception of "what a theater ought to be—a place for justly representing the work of our great dramatic poets." 1 1 He revived all the plays of Shakespeare except four, as well as more than a dozen other English stage classics. From contemporary writers he selected thirteen original verse plays for representation. His management, however, made no notable 11 Scott, The Drama of Yesterday and Today, 1899, I, 154.

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11

contributions to the development of stagecraft. His own acting was effective, but conventional. His company favored the elocutionary style of Kemble. His stage mountings were adequate without being remarkable for either brilliance or scholarly accuracy. T h e place of Samuel Phelps in theatrical history is that of an earnest and respected supporter of literary and stage traditions. As the critic and dramatist John Oxenford wrote in the London Times at the time of Phelps's retirement from theatrical management: " N o one ever quitted Sadler's Wells without the conviction that he had devoted his evening to a highly intellectual entertainment, most conscientiously prepared." 12 T h e conservative tendencies of the Haymarket were less universally admired than those of Phelps. T h e very mention of the Haymarket curdled the blood of T o m Robertson, William Gilbert, and other advocates of stage realism and careful stage management. Since the days of Samuel Foote this house had been considered the home of comedy. In 1837 Benjamin Webster became the sole lessee. Before he left in 1853 Webster presented a number of eminent actors, engaged for short terms, in an extensive repertoire of established classics. Only two contemporary comedies, Bulwer-Lytton's Money (1840) and Masks and Faces (1852) by Taylor and Charles Reade proved genuinely successful. When J. B. Buckstone succeeded Webster as manager, he built up a permanent company whose members were seen in the same type of part year after year. His first season extended over a period of five years, during which the house was not closed for one night when the law permitted it to be open. After the success of Robertsonian comedy at the Prince of Wales, the Haymarket began to offer more variety of entertainment by means of such productions as Taylor's New Men and Old Acres (1869) and Gilbert's poetic comedies; but the company was too old and too well grounded in tradition to alter its style greatly. W h e n Buckstone retired in 1876, he 12 Ibid., I, 161.

12

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surrendered a fading tradition to John Sleeper Clarke. T h e coming of the Bancroft management to the Haymarket in 1880 signified that the last stronghold of conservatism had been captured. Buckstone's policy was to present comedy of the old-fashioned type to an old-fashioned public in an old-fashioned way. Success hardened him against any proposal that seemed to suggest change. When he wrote "rubbish" across the manuscript of Robertson's Society (1865), he succinctly expressed his opinion of new schools—not only of writing, but of acting and staging as well. The success of a Haymarket comedy depended almost entirely on the actors. The shabby, painted exteriors and interiors were no attraction. The wardrobe supplied little beauty or variety. An actress sometimes appeared in the third act wearing the same dress she had worn in the first, although years were supposed to have intervened. Rehearsals were short and sketchy. Each actor was expected "to paint his own picture," and improvised dialogue and stage business were customary at every performance. All this was true, yet the productions were successful because the male members of the company in particular were superbly equipped to give life and humor to the broad characterizations and farcical scenes furnished by writers— among whom Tom Taylor was foremost—who knew the capabilities of each member of the cast. Buckstone himself, William Chippendale, Henry Compton, Henry Howe, and Edward Askew Sothern, each a specialist in eccentric characterization, were among the actors who made the Haymarket of the mid-century the recognized home of a particular form of farcical comedy. The Adelphi, like the Haymarket, was associated with a particular brand of entertainment, and its management was considered reactionary; but the style of its plays and the technique of its actors reflected new developments. The importance of the Adelphi began when the production of The Pilot (1825) and Luke the Laborer (1826) established a form of native melo-

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13

drama which came to be known as "Adelphi drama." This genre consistently presented a sensational narrative, strengthened by spectacular staging and made thoroughly British by the use of native settings, characters, and idiomatic dialogue. Under Benjamin Webster, who became joint manager with Madame Celeste in 1844 and sole director in 1852, the Adelphi drama continued as a form in which "there should be mystery, villainy, comic business, smugglers, caves, crossing of swords, firing of guns, lost daughters mysteriously recovered, shrieking their way into their fathers' arms, hair-breadth perils, executions, reprieves." 13 The staging of plays at the Adelphi was largely a matter of indifference. Parts were rehearsed at a nearby tavern over a tankard of ale, which may be one reason why several performers were regularly less than perfect in their lines. The phrase "Adelphi guests" became a byword for ill-dressed, poorly trained supers. The "Adelphi moon" was a recognized object for ridicule. The energy devoted to scene construction was expended in preparing sensational effects such as shipwrecks, mine disasters, and burning buildings. A few yards of blue gauze to represent water running in and out of a cave filled the theater with a delighted audience for months. The art of its actors was responsible for much of the success of the Adelphi drama. The comedians, Paul Bedford, Edward Wright, and John L. Toole, followed the traditional style of the comic actor to whom the text meant little and who believed in establishing so close a rapport with the audience that he could "gag" and frolic on the stage as he pleased. Many of the other performers, however, developed a natural manner very suitable for the homely scenes and characters of the melodramas. Doubtless today the interpretations would seem badly exaggerated, but their own time found them very realistic. Madame Celeste introduced the naturalness and refine13 Morley, The Journal of a London Playgoer from 1851 to 1866, p. 82.

i4

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ment of French technique before its value had been fully appreciated on the English stage. Her skill in pantomime and her command of scenes involving womanly tenderness and undeserved suffering fully compensated for the decided French accent of her speech. The vigorous, sprightly, emotional style of Sarah Woolgar provided an effective contrast to the manner of Madame Celeste. The realistic villainy depicted by Richard Smith, better known as "O. Smith," the ease of style with which Leigh Murray played romantic leads, and the insight, subtlety, and finesse with which Webster interpreted a wide variety of characters were all in accord with the newer mode of realistic acting. T h e crude and unsophisticated methods and plays of the Adelphi had no place in the management of Charles Kean at the Princess from 1850 to 1859. He depended on the support of a well-drilled cast. During arduous five- and six-hour rehearsals he intently supervised not only the principal members of his company but also his supers. The costumes and settings of a Kean production were invariably accurate and beautiful. His Shakespearean revivals were staged on a grander and more meticulous scale than had ever before been attempted in an English theater. Of even greater immediate influence on the development of English drama than his revivals were his productions of four adaptations from the French theater, Louis XI, Pauline, The Corsican Brothers, and The Courier of Lyons. In the words of Barton Baker, these plays "gallicized our stage for a generation . . . fascinated the playgoer . . . were veritably a new dish for his jaded palate, and from that time he was continually craving more." 14 In these plays also Kean made certain changes in his manner of acting which were of considerable influence. In Shakespearean characters he largely imitated his father and attained only moderate success. In portraying the heroes of French romantic drama, however, he found 14

Baker, The History of the London Stage, 1904, p. 484.

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15

himself unfettered by tradition, and he developed a thoroughly effective and natural stage manner which occupied a middle position between the classic style and that of Charles Fechter. As a producer of sumptuous and scholarly Shakespearean revivals, as the introducer of French romantic drama to the London stage, as a manager who attracted the better type of playgoer to his theater, and as an exponent of natural acting, Charles Kean deserves a notable place in the history of the English theater. The immediate successor to the management of Kean as a sponsor for romantic drama was that of Charles Fechter at the Lyceum from 1863 to 1867. The romantic spirit of Fechter's productions ran counter to the realistic trend of English drama, but their skillful and unified plot construction did not. Of great importance also were the lessons Fechter taught the stage carpenter. He brought in a new order of things, sweeping away worn-out traditions . . . He began by revolutionizing the stage itself . . . and thereby rendered possible such mechanical effects as we never dreamed of before . . . The ancient grooves, trap doors, and sticky flats were done away with, the floorings were so constructed that they could be taken to pieces like a child's puzzle, and scenery could be raised or sunk in any part; while all the shifting was done on the mezzanine beneath. Ceilings were no longer represented by hanging cloths, or the walls of a room by open wings, but were solidly built.15 "The sweeping away of worn-out tradition" was also Fechter's contribution to the art of acting. In many ways he was only another "star" whose romantic repertoire, picturesque dress, and love making soon lost the ability to attract London audiences. But because he denounced tradition as "a worm-eaten and unwholesome prison where dramatic art languishes in fetters," he altered the course of English acting. That he played Hamlet with a flaxen wig or that he insisted on a Gothic rather than a is Ibid., p. 295.

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Norman castle of Elsinore mattered little; but it was significant that the details of his performance were based on his own conceptions. He eliminated "point-making." T h e r e was a naturalness, a fervor, a subtle command of changing emotions in his style whicli actors of all types found inspiring. In ninety-four years of existence the Olympic, built in 1805, had two important periods of management. T h e first, conducted by Madame Vestris from 1831 to 1839, greatly influenced production methods, introduced the extravaganzas and burlesques of Planché, and attracted interest in light comedies of the French school. T h e second began in 1850, when William Farren moved his company from the Strand to the new Olympic which had replaced the building burned the year before. Until 1870, under a succession of managers, the theater was the home of sophisticated melodrama and drawing-room comedy and drama. As a prominent home for the "well-made" play, the house was of prime importance in the development of nineteenth-century English drama. It served as a laboratory in which British playwrights, by adaptation and imitation, learned the French technique of molding dramatic material. T h e staging of plays at the Olympic stressed the elegant and the picturesque; but it was not strongly realistic. Drawingrooms suggested the refinement, but not the detail, of actuality. Greater attention was paid to a backdrop showing the Thames or the country near Versailles than to niceties such as leatherbound books and monogrammed handkerchiefs. T h e stage direction was often careless. T h i s theater never had a manager as serious as Phelps or Charles Kean to insist on adequate rehearsals. T h e r e was a tendency to sacrifice composite effects for the sake of individual performers. T h e acting, however, although the highly emotional style of the plays tended to remove it a step from the manner of everyday life, was realistic in its trend. Many outstanding performers of the mid-century appeared at the Olympic. T w o of the greatest attractions were

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Frederick Robson, a theatrical sensation who burst into sudden flame and burned out while still at white heat, and Mrs. Fanny Stirling, one of the most versatile actresses ever produced by the English stage. Other Olympic performers included Alfred Wigan, recognized for his natural manner, Samuel Emery, a picturesque actor, George Vining and Henry Neville, both excellent interpreters of romantic leads, Mrs. Alfred Wigan, Kate Terry, Emily Fowler, Ada Cavendish, Lydia Foote, Miss Herbert, and "Granny" Stephens. Before the management of the Bancrofts at the Prince of Wales, no Victorian theater presented a greater variety of able performers than the Olympic or exerted a more salutary influence on the development of an efficient technique of plot construction for plays of a realistic trend. The contrasted styles of acting, staging, and entertainment presented by the major theaters, particularly between 1840 and 1865, exerted a strong influence on the methods of playwrights. Perhaps more than ever before or since in the history of the English theater writers sought to satisfy the demands of the actors and the audiences of a specific house. No playwright of the time was more successful in adjusting his material to existing conditions than Tom Taylor. For years he was the principal dramatist for two very different houses—the Olympic and the Haymarket. He was also a successful writer for the Adelphi, Sadler's Wells, and the Keeley management of the Lyceum. Frederick Robson, Mrs. Stirling, the Wigans, Henry Neville, Kate Terry, Amy Sedgwick, J. B. Buckstone, William Chippendale, Madame Celeste, Benjamin Webster, Phelps, and E. A. Sothern were only a few of many performers who gained much of their fame in his plays. Although during their Prince of Wales management, which marked the culmination of the progressive improvement in theatrical conditions instituted by Madame Vestris, the Bancrofts produced none of Taylor's original plays, they successfully revived many of them.

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The conversion of the notorious Queen's Theater into the Prince of Wales, the most attractive and influential playhouse in London from 1865 to 1880, is a landmark of theatrical history. For the first time in English stage history the properly correlated forces of actor, director, stage carpenter, costumer, and author were combined in a unified effort under the Bancrofts. The modern theater was then created. Toward this creation the stream of progress had been moving since 1830. Phelps, Kean, and Fechter had helped to restore dignity to a theater which needed it sorely. T h e improvements instituted by Madame Vestris in stage settings and dress had been furthered by the work of Kean, Fechter, and to a lesser extent by the managers of the Olympic. T h e Bancrofts applied the methods of these predecessors in a more realistic manner. With them staging was improved, but, above all, the art of the scene painter and the machinist supported rather than supplanted that of the author. As detailed attention was given to scenes from everyday life as to the picturesque and the romantic. Under the Bancrofts also the conception of a carefully planned and rehearsed performance in which each actor should give the proper emphasis to his part and in which all stage business was carefully planned and timed was definitely established. After the time of Mathews's professional debut the style of English acting had become progressively less affected and more realistic, until under the management of Fechter and the Bancrofts simplicity and naturalness in stage delivery and movement may be considered to have triumphed over older, more theatrical methods. No other period in English dramatic history had seen so many important developments in the playhouse as did the years between 1840 and 1880. Against this background of activity in the theater, we may examine the work of the dramatists during that time. Throughout, the plays of Tom Taylor hold a prominent place. In the preface to Ruy Bias Victor Hugo divides the theater

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public into three classes—the "crowd," who demand action and sensation, the pleasure of the eyes; the women, who demand passion and emotion, the pleasure of the heart; and the thinkers, who demand character study, the pleasure of the mind. English drama between 1840 and 1880 was written almost entirely for the "crowd." There was "go" in the burlesque, bustle in the farce, physical conflict in the melodrama, excitement in the drama, melodramatic and farcical infiltrations in the comedy. For the "women" there were scenes of shallow and sentimental emotion. For the "thinkers" there was practically nothing. T h e explanation may be that during those years no man of great intellectual powers devoted himself wholeheartedly to the theater. It is generally recognized that during that period every writer for the English playhouse was merely a competent playwright or a poet, usually totally unable to satisfy the demands of the stage. In his comprehensive study of Victorian literature Hugh Walker 16 feels it necessary to devote to the drama only some thirty pages, more than half of them to closet drama. Many reasons have been advanced for this dearth of firstclass dramatists. Possibly an improvement in conditions at the playhouse had to precede a renascence of dramatic writing. Perhaps it required the work of a generation of stage writers to effect the discarding of past models and the establishment of a new technique for presenting dramatic material. Certain it is that the £50 to £150 payment for the average play, much less attractive than the returns to be gained from even mediocre novels and from journalism, fostered hasty work, which the laxness of the copyright laws encouraged by making French pieces easily available for adaptation and translation. Indeed, so strong is the influence exerted by the French theater that some understanding of it is a prerequisite to an analysis of the development of nineteenth-century English drama. Because they were written for the "thinkers," the social is The Literature

of the Victorian

Era.

20

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dramas of Dumas fils and Augier were left largely untouched; but on almost everything else in the French theater, from Pixerecourt to Sardou, English playwrights laid eager hands. T o indicate the extent of the debt incurred by each play a novel system of nomenclature was devised. Taylor explained this in a series of letters printed in the theater columns of the Athenaeum from April 13 to May 27, 1871. According to him the use of the term "a play" indicated a translated piece; "a new play" was one in which the author reworked, but closely followed the material of another; "a new and original play" accepted, at the most, only the barest suggestions from other sources. William Gilbert, in the foreword to his Original Plays (1876), states in corroboration of Taylor's exposition: "It has been generally held, I believe, that if a dramatist uses the mere outline of an existing story for dramatic purposes he is at liberty to describe the play as 'original.' " Before the abolition of the London theatrical monopoly the Parisian influence on English drama was confined largely to short comedies, extravaganzas, and melodramas. Before 1843 the only English writer whose work shows marked traces of French influence was Bulwer-Lytton. Even "the adaptive Mr. Boucicault" wrote his first important piece, London Assurance, with his eyes on Sheridan and the elder Colman. After 1843 the rise of the romantic drama of Victor Hugo and the "well-made" play of Eugene Scribe added to the strength of the French invasion by equipping it to furnish full-length pieces, and consequently the importance of past English forms as models for British playwrights declined. Between 1850 and 1870 the French influence was at its height. So prevalent was it in 1866 that newspapers automatically carried the title of Robertson's Ours as L'Ours. After 1870 the improved state of the English theater produced a greater number of original pieces, but the lack of effective new English plays caused the Bancrofts to fall back on

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revivals and adaptations. Not until the nineties did the English theater definitely assert its freedom. The French forms which exerted the greatest influence on styles of nineteenth-century English drama are the féerie, the mélodrame, the comédie-vaudeville, and the pièce bien faite. The féerie served as the model for Planché's extravaganzas. T h e French genre may be defined as a poetic piece, accompanied by music and spectacle, the action of which rests on a fantastic theme and the style of which is light, humorous, and often satiric. The history of the féerie goes back to the seventeenthcentury pièces à machine such as Ulysse dans l'île de Circe and Les Amours de Jupitre et de Sémélé. Toward the end of the eighteenth century in the similar pieces produced in the Boulevard theaters of Paris, fairies and enchanters usually replaced the gods and goddesses of Olympus. In 1798 Arlequin dans un oeuf started the real fashion for the féerie, and during the next thirty years it played an important part in the theatrical entertainment of Paris. Very different in spirit from the féerie, but also a product of the Boulevard theaters, was the mélodrame developed by Guilbert de Pixérecourt from the pantomime dialoguée. T h e plays of Pixérecourt and his many imitators are short pieces, devoid of literary merit, which make great use of spectacle, dancing, singing, and pantomime. Their sensational stories deal with the protracted suffering of the innocent and their ultimate triumph over the unnaturally wicked. Thomas Holcroft's A Tale of Mystery (1802), adapted from Pixérecourt's Coeline, was the first English piece to be styled a "melo-drame," but the spirit and most of the formal characteristics of the species had been common in the English theater toward the end of the eighteenth century. The Pixérecourt formula simply compressed the popular elements of an exciting story, mystery, pathos, humor, spectacle, and music into a form which was

22

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easily translated and imitated. Because it contained only two acts and included music, the melodrama was considered an "illegitimate" form by the Lord Chamberlain, and all London theaters were permitted to produce it. Its immediate popularity was tremendous, and it all but engulfed other forms of entertainment. Almost all the melodramas produced on the English stage before 1825 were based 011 French pieces or on novels and tales. Few present characters lower than the nobility, except for the purpose of comic relief, and few have settings of English domestic life. The production of Edward Fitzball's The Pilot (1825) gave an impetus to the development of a native melodrama by its realistic pictures of the British tar and the glorification of the Union Jack. Buckstone's Luke the Laborer (1826) and Douglas Jerrold's Black Eyed Susan (1829) established a form of English melodrama with an original story, British characters, and considerable local color. Thus by 1830 the mélodrame had been thoroughly Anglicized. Of far greater importance to the English stage than either the mélodrame or the féerie were the comédie-vaudeville and the pièce bien faite of Eugene Scribe. All dramatists of the nineteenth century who aimed at skillful plot construction profited, consciously or unconsciously, from the methods of Scribe. He taught the technique of writing an interesting play without recourse to the sensationalism of melodrama, the broad humor of farce, the side play of verbal wit, or the embellishment of poetry. Scribe developed his technique in the comédie-vaudeville which he evolved by refining the crude vaudeville of the Boulevard theaters, and expanded it in his five-act "comedy dramas." A Scribe play, long or short, is a masterpiece of plot construction. It is as artistically put together as a master watch; the smallest piece is perfectly in place, and the removal of any part would ruin the whole. Such a "well-made" play always displays fertility of invention, dexterity in the selection and arrangement of incidents, and careful planning. Everything is

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done with the greatest economy. Every character is essential to the action, every speech develops it. There is no time for verbal wit, no matter how clever, or for philosophical musing, no matter how enlightening. T h e action is all-important. Scribe wrote for the popular theater. His plots, however probable they may appear at first, are too neat and too dependent on coincidence to be intensely real. His characters are little more than established types. His humor depends on the familiar, not on the original. He never probes social or moral problems. He is a craftsman, not an artist. But these weaknesses, as well as the strength, made the technique and the material used by Scribe extremely adaptable to the English stage. His pieces were written for the "crowd." Their crispness and adroitness were refreshing. Nothing in them was so deeply embedded in French life that it could not be transferred easily to an English setting. The alteration of a character's name made him as English as he had been French; a drawing-room in London had as many doors for opportune exits and entrances as one in Paris. The art of arranging the incidents, although difficult to duplicate, was easy to imitate. All types of serious and comic drama benefited from the "well-made" play formula of Scribe; but in England the drawing-room dramas of the Olympic between 1850 and 1870 most consistently approximated its material, technique, and spirit, and of all the Olympic dramatists of the period Tom Taylor best understood the workings of the Scribe method and was the most adept at putting them into practice. In addition to analyzing conditions in the English playhouse and the chief influences from the French theater, it is necessary at this point to say only a word concerning the actual developments in English playwriting between 1840 and 1880. In 1880 the clarification and changes of forty years, while not as great as that in the playhouse, had provided a promising future for dramatic writing. Immediately prior to the establishment of a free stage, a playwright contemplating the composition of a

24

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literary play had thought in terms of closet drama or in those of a pseudo-Elizabethan tragedy or a spurious comedy of manners to be produced in one of the mammoth patent houses. A less ambitious playwright, handicapped by the restrictions of "illegitimacy," had before him crude melodramas as a model for serious work and light comediettas, broad farces, and sprightly extravaganzas as the patterns for humorous work. N o writer of the day, always excepting Bulwer-Lytton, had a grasp on the principles of facile construction as applied to full-length drama. Much clearer was the view in 1880. T h e Elizabethan influence, artificial comedy, burlesque, farce, and comedietta, as well as a good share of melodrama, had been diverted from the main stream of English drama. A realistic if sentimental full-length comedy, a serious but not absurd domestic drama, and a sophisticated drawing-room drama were molds into which a great number of original plots, fine characterizations, and themes provocative of more thought could be poured. In all forms of drama there was apparent an interest in efficient arrangement of material and in a technique of plot construction which had been learned through imitation and practice. Also evident was a serious, if not yet highly effective, desire to mirror the contemporary scene. Pinero and Jones were to join soon with Wilde, Galsworthy, and Shaw in making English drama what it had not consistently been since the days of the Restoration— a form of literature as well as a source of entertainment. Whereas in 1840 a German visitor could see on the London stage only the worst drama in the whole world, in 1882 Henry Arthur Jones could see a theater where "all was crude, confused, tentative, aspiring. But there was life in it." 17 T h e life had been put there by a generation of playwrights among whom T o m Taylor was prominent. During his thirty" Quoted in Dickinson, The Contemporary of Jones's comment is not given.

Drama of England,

p. 54. T h e source

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four years of prolific writing he experimented with

almost

every phase of Victorian drama, and this writing reflects almost every important development in the many types of theatrical entertainment of that day. Every important theater management of his time, except that of Charles Fechter, produced at least one of his pieces. J u d g e d by the variety of companies for which he wrote and by the diversity of dramatic forms in which he worked, n o other playwright of his day displayed such a wide range. Planché, Boucicault, Robertson, and Gilbert excelled him in particular forms, but Taylor's work always equaled and was very often superior to the average of its competitors. T h r o u g h o u t his writing T a y l o r illustrates the tendencies, the strength, and the weakness of early Victorian drama. Contemporary manners and realism often attracted his attention; careful plot construction usually did. Like most of his fellow playwrights he was indebted to the French theater for much of his material, b u t the majority of his adaptations are thoroughly English in their setting and spirit. Measured by modern standards his plays, like the others of the period, are overfond of melodramatic plot devices, weak in their characterization, excessively sentimental, and devoid of a serious criticism of life; but many of the most popular entertainments of the time are among them. As Ellen T e r r y wrote, 18 T a y l o r was so completely of his age that his dramatic work was quickly forgotten. T h a t age, however, prepared the way for modern drama. is The Story of My Life, p. 129: " H e lived entirely for his age. and so was more prominent in it than Charles Reade, for instance, whose name, no doubt, will live longer."

Chapter EARLY (

II YEARS

L I F E of T o m Taylor

was industrious and respectable, rather than exciting. He was a capable man who, after having acquired sound academic training, discovered early and without enduring much hardship the type of work for which he was best fitted. By the time he was thirty-three he had won an important place for himself in three major fields of activity. During the remaining thirty years of his life he worked diligently and effectively as government servant, journalist, and playwright. H e was born on October 19, 1 8 1 7 , in Bishop-Wearmouth, a suburb of the industrial city of Sunderland. T h o u g h his interests and work made him a Londoner for the greater part of his life, they never effaced his affection for his native section of England. A "Tynesider," as he termed a man from the north of England, was certain to receive particularly generous treat1

1 T h e most complete accounts of the life of T a y l o r are: (1) a biographical sketch by J o h n Sheehan, a journalist who knew T a y l o r personally, in Dublin University Magazine, X C (No. 142, August, 1877), pp. 1 4 2 - 1 5 8 ; (2) the article on T a y l o r in the Dictionary of National Biography, written by Charles Kent, w h o had at his disposal information supplied by T a y l o r ; (3) the chapter on T a y l o r in J o h n Coleman's Players and Playwrights I Have Known; (4) the article " I n M e m o r i a m — T o m Magazine, X L I I (No. 298, August, T a y l o r , " by T h o m a s Hughes in Macmillan's 1880), pp. 298-301. A m o n g the Victorian memoirs which contain some important references to T a y l o r are: Sir Squire and Marie Bancroft, Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft on and off the Stage; Charles and Frances Brookfield, Mrs. Brookfield and Her Circle; Mrs. J a n e t Ross, The Fourth Generation; and Three Generations of English Women; Ellen T e r r y , The Story of My Life; and F.dmund Yates, Fifty Years of London Life.

EARLY

YEARS

27

ment from the notably large-hearted Taylor. His father, Thomas Taylor, began life as a farm laborer, but by hard work, thrift, and a shrewd business sense he rose to a position as head partner of a brewery in the town of Durham, fourteen miles from Sunderland. Tom Taylor's grandparents on the maternal side were Germans from Frankfurt-am-Main; but his mother, whose maiden name was Arnold, was born in Durham. 2 At the time of her marriage she was a governess to the Earl of Brownlow's daughters, at Belton House, the Brownlow family estate, near Grantham, Lincolnshire. An intelligent, sensitive woman, she probably fostered in her son a taste for art, music, and literature. His sturdy common sense and fiery temper seem to have been inherited from his father. From boyhood Taylor displayed an interest in the theater. For his brothers and sisters he wrote plays, which he produced in the byre, stable loft, or saddle room. In these entertainments the youthful manager prided himself on contriving striking stage effects. One accomplishment, widely heralded by his comrades, was his simulation of the sound of thunder by means of rosin. His parents, fearing that this sound effect might set the barn on fire, forbade the continued exhibition of his achievement and gave him a foretaste of later and sterner conflicts with censor, critic, and public. At school he gained great popularity by presenting marionette plays and by appearing as master of revels in juvenile celebrations; but he attained his greatest fame among his schoolmates because of his ability to act as impromptu showman who defined "whatever rubbish was brought to him by handsful . . . article by article, with some aptly comic description, or ludicrous commentary." 3 Not all young Taylor's dramatic talent, however, was displayed as producer, manager, and impromptu barker. He also began to show ability as an actor, for in plays presented at his school he performed parts 2 Kent, op. cit., states that the mother was born in Durham; but Sheehan, a less reliable authority, reports that she was born in Germany. ® Sheehan, op. cit.

28

EARLY

YEARS

such as Parmeno in Terence's Eunuchus and L'Intime in Racine's Les Plaideurs. This early mélange of original plays, marionette shows, improvised museums, and classical comedies foreshadows the variety of his later work as a professional playwright. Taylor's academic career was highly successful. At the Sunderland Grange School he earned several scholastic honors. In 1832 he matriculated at the University of Glasgow, where, although in attendance for only two terms, he received three gold medals and a number of minor prizes. In 1837, after private study, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, and within two years he had won a competitive scholarship. When he was awarded the degree of B. A., in 1840, he was a junior optime in mathematics, and as a classical tripos, first class, he was recognized as a scholar who had won high honors in the final examinations in the classics. His academic record helped him to obtain a fellowship in 1842. A year later he was made a Master of Arts. Having secured his bachelor's degree, Taylor became a "coach" to Trinity undergraduates, a usual procedure for intelligent, yet none-too-affluent, graduates who hoped to continue their studies as fellows. One of his pupils, the young American, Charles Astor Bristed, regarded his "coach" as an instructor who could teach students more in seven months than they could otherwise have learned in two years. T h e American knew his tutor also as a genial host. T h e following passage from Bristed's informative book, Five Years in an English University, in which Taylor appears as Travis, furnishes a picture of the Englishman about 1840, when he was twenty-three years old. At the head of the table sits our worthy "coach," Tom Travis. His fine person is not displayed to full advantage in a loose plaid shooting coat, and his very intellectual but decidedly ugly features are far from being improved by a black wool smoking cap of surpassing hideousness. Take him as he is, he is a rare fellow—with American

EARLY

YEARS

29

versatility and English thoroughness. He knows nearly a dozen ancient and modern languages, more or less correctly, and when you bring him out on Greek he would astonish a room-full of Yankee Professors . . . You may count on him for a Fellowship, probably his second trial. And after that what will he do? He is gay; a Puritan might call him dissipated, but it is not wickedness aforethought, but an incurable passion for seeing character which drags him into all sorts of society . . . He is independent in church matters, very fond of law and equally so of theology—fonder of the theatre than either. Perhaps he will be a nominal barrister and an actual writer for Punch and the Magazines. Perhaps he will go quite mad and write a tragedy . . . Or perhaps, some day there will be stuck on the Hall screen a small notice to the effect that "Mr. Travis requests the college testimonials for orders." And after all there are worse parsons than he would make—yea even in Connecticut, for there is great earnestness in the man and benevolence extraordinary. Any of these things T o m Travis may be, at present he is a bachelor scholar and a "coach" of rising reputation. 4 A l l his life T a y l o r displayed the faculty indicated by Bristed for m i n g l i n g the light with the serious, the entertaining with the instructive. A t his Cambridge parties he contrived to mix discussions of Punch

with comments on Sophocles; recipes for

mint juleps with lines from Euripides. His tutoring periods were frequently broken by humorous interludes, b u t his pupils usually did well in their examinations. As an undergraduate he had an encounter with gypsies which he described twelve years later in a series of articles for the Illustrated News.5

London

T h e s e essays contain both a romantic account of the

adventure and serious observations on R o m a n y life and language. His collegiate friendships, like those of his later life, were extremely varied. A t the same time that he was on drinkBristed, Five Years in an English University, pp. 72-75. 5 T h e s e sketches appeared in the issues of November 29, December 13 and 27» 1851. T h e y were signed " R o u m a n y R e i , " b u t the identity of the author is well established. C u t h b e r t Bede, Notes and Queries, 6th Series, II (November 6, 1880), 362, states that M a r k L e m o n , editor of the Illustrated London News, told him that the articles were by T o m T a y l o r . See W i l l i a m Cushing, Initials and Pseudonyms, 1885, and G . F. Black, Gypsy Bibliography, 1913. 4

3o

EARLY

YEARS

ing terms with the "sports" he was a member of more serious undergraduate groups such as the University R e f o r m C l u b and the "Apostles." A t C a m b r i d g e , T a y l o r ' s interest in the theater continued. W h e n e v e r a traveling company played there, lie attended its productions. W e r e shillings and pence sufficiently plentiful, he and a g r o u p of comrades took the coach for London to see Macready's performances at C o v e n t Garden or Drury Lane. Sometimes he had to pawn his watch to finance the return journey. A t this time there was no regular dramatic group among the students. T h e old organization, which contained many of the original "Apostles," no longer existed, and the Amateur Dramatic C l u b had not yet been established. T a y l o r , however, directed occasional stage entertainments among the undergraduates. In 1842 he joined W i l l i a m Bolland, Frederick Ponsonby, and G . Cavendish B e n t i n c k — a quartet drawn together by the common interests of Cambridge, cricket, and

dramatics—in

founding a celebrated amateur theatrical organization—the Old Stagers. For more than forty years d u r i n g Cricket W e e k at Canterbury this g r o u p sponsored a festival of plays. T h e professional finish of their work was generally recognized. Lord L e n n o x , for example, writes: As a company I found the Old Stagers far superior to any amateurs I have ever seen. They were evidently men who, possessing every requisite for the stage, had laboriously studied the characters they represented . . . Not only were the most trivial parts ably filled, but there was an absence of jealousy and the striving to produce an effect at the expense of a brother actor.6 A typical evening's entertainment by the O l d Stagers opened with a L o n d o n success in which professional feminine talent assisted. T h i s was commonly followed by a farce, written and acted by members of the group. A t least one of T a y l o r ' s farces 8 My Recollections,

II, 106.

EARLY

YEARS

31 7

seems to have been written especially for the Old Stagers. The Barefaced Impostors, a collaboration by Taylor, Cavendish Bentinck, and Frederick Ponsonby, was first performed at Canterbury, on August 15, 1854. This piece, a free translation of Scribe's early comédie-vaudeville, L'Ours et le Pasha, is representative of the broad buffoonery in which the Old Stagers reveled. In lines filled with puns and interspersed with musical numbers the farce describes the plight of two cockney showmen, Bill Stumps and Jack Hocus, who have traveled to the palace of an oriental monarch, Pasha Schahabaham. Stumps, dressed in a bear skin and directed by his partner, performs so entertainingly as a trained bruin that the pasha orders his own favorite white bear brought in to compete with the visiting animal. Not knowing that the white bear has died and that Prime Minister Mustapha is masquerading in its white skin, Stumps and Hocus fear bodily harm. Mustapha is similarly terrified. After considerable broad comedy the piece closes with the unmasking of the "bear-faced impostors." The popularity of this piece with the Canterbury Players, as the Old Stagers were often called, and with the Cambridge Amateur Dramatic Club testifies to the skill with which the authors fitted their work to the requirements of nonprofessional actors. When they had produced their farcical afterpiece the Old Stagers gathered with a few chosen friends for food and fun. T o the group this was the happiest part of the evening. Here, as Lord Lennox describes it: Songs, jests and repartee were carried on with the greatest hilarity until midnight when an extemporaneous performance took place under the immediate direction of Tom Taylor. He suggested the ideas, gave valuable hints, superintended the dresses of the respective *Sheehan, op. cit., implies that A Trip to Kissengen was originally written for the Old Stagers, and Thomas Hughes, op. cit., makes a similar claim for To Parents and Guardians; but Taylor, writing of these two pieces in Theatre, I (series 2, January, 187g), 410-18 ("Some personal reminiscences of Alfred Wigan"), does not mention their presentation at Canterbury.

32

EARLY

YEA

RS

characters—which were improvised out of curtains, table covers, kitchen utensils—and took a prominent part for himself. Then the mirth became fast and furious, but never outstepped its proper bounds. 8 N o t only at the supper, where he was the perennial toastmaster and director of the impromptu entertainment, but in all the activities of the O l d Stagers, T a y l o r was for years the moving spirit. T h e young showman of Sunderland became their manager, epilogue writer, and one of their most prominent actors. O n one occasion he was cast as Miles Bertram in the melodrama The

Wreck Ashore.

In the last scene Bertram, wounded, stag-

gers across the stage. It was customary to simulate the production of blood with red ochre, but T a y l o r devised the idea of using the juicc of a ripe mulberry. Unfortunately the prompter signaled for a premature closing of the curtain, and T a y l o r lost the chance to test his plan. His fiery temper blazed. John Coleman, who never lets a story lose its force, reports: When Taylor found that he had been deprived not only of his death scene, but his novel effect as well, his rage knew no bounds. He called down anathema maranatha in every living and nearly every dead language (for he had a copious and florid vocabulary) on the head of the unhappy prompter and indeed was restrained with the utmost difficulty from mingling his gore with the juice of the precious mulberry. 9 W o r k i n g with the O l d Stagers, however, was recreation, and long before they had become celebrated T a y l o r was faced with the problem of choosing his life work. In 1844 he left Cambridge to study law in London. His former income as a "coach" he partially replaced by writing for newspapers and periodicals. His first contributions were to the Morning

Chronicle

News. In 1848 he joined the staff of the Times,

and the Daily where until his

death he was a critic of literature, drama, and art. His earliest professional work for London periodicals was probably done • Plays, Players, and Playhouses, II, 74. • Players and Playwrights I Have Known, II, 133.

EARLY

YEARS

33

for Douglas Jerrold's Illuminated Magazine, then a proving ground for young writers. He was among the contributors to Puck before it surrendered the field of humor to Punch. Taylor's first contribution to Punch appeared on October 19, 1844, and marked the beginning of a long and important association with the famous weekly. From 1874 until his death in 1880 Taylor served as its editor. 10 While he was gaining a foothold in journalistic circles and preparing for the law, Taylor turned to teaching. In 1845 he became Professor of English Language and Literature at the recently established University College, now the University of London. He held his professorship for two years. Of his success as a teacher we have no definite record. 11 Since instruction in English at that time was largely philological, his knowledge of linguistics doubtless proved useful. His humor, frequently expressing itself by means of puns, probably kept his classes awake. His excellence as a reader and speaker, attested by many of his contemporaries, must have been another asset in his teaching. He voluntarily resigned his position to devote more time to the practice of law. In 1846, having kept his terms at the Inner Temple, he was called to the bar. For the next four years he maintained an office in London and annually made the northern circuit. In 1850, however, he was willing to exchange the uncertain income of a barrister for the fixed salary of an assistant secretary to the newly created Board of Health. Taylor became interested in the correction of the horrible health conditions of London in writing a series of articles on sanitation for the Daily News. After Parliament created the General Board of Health, in 1848, he followed its work closely even before he accepted a position with it. His official connection continued from the time of his appointment until his retirement in 1871. In 1854, when Sir 10 Taylor's work for Punch is discussed in chap. x. 11 See Bellot, University College, London.

34

EARLY

YEARS

Benjamin Hall was made president of the board, Taylor advanced to the position of secretary at a salary of £ 1 , 0 0 0 . In 1 8 7 1 , after the passage of James Stansfeld's bill which placed various local governing units under the central authority of the Local Governing Board, Taylor was offered an opportunity to retire. Bored by the routine work, comfortably situated financially, and extremely busy with his various writing assignments, he gladly accepted an opportunity to resign with a yearly pension of £650. As a government employee Taylor performed his duties capably and conscientiously. As a liaison officer between the board and the public he delivered several lectures similar to that on sanitary law reprinted in Lectures to Ladies on Practical Subjects. In this essay he clearly and carefully explained the purposes and methods of the Board of Health, particularly as they influenced the lives of average citizens. T h e Athenaeum praised his explanatory The Health Laws of 1858 12 as " a most useful and very valuable handbook" for the lay reader. Usually Taylor's contemporaries thought of him, however, not as a civil servant, but as an art critic, a member of the Punch staff, and particularly as a popular and successful playwright. No. 1629 (January 15. 1859), p. 80.

Chapter BURLESQUES

AND

III EXTRAVAGANZAS

/ O M E understanding of the nature and development of C

' the almost entirely forgotten Victorian burlesque and ex-

travaganza is essential for a proper appreciation of T a y l o r ' s work in these a n d allied forms of entertainment. T h e s e rhymed pieces of the Victorian theater are peculiar to their own time. A l t h o u g h traces of their influence may be f o u n d in musical comedies, follies, revues, and the Christmas spectacles of London theaters, they have no counterpart on the modern stage. T h e three most clearly defined nineteenth-century genres of this character are the revue, the extravaganza, and the burlesque. Each owes its style largely to the influence of the " g r a n d old m a n " of the Victorian theater, J a m e s R . Planché. T h e qualities c o m m o n to all include fantastic plots, gaiety, sprightly satire, humorous dialogue in couplets of i a m b i c pentameter, frequent puns, new lyrics set to old tunes, solo and chorus dancing, and a b u n d a n t spectacle. T h e characteristics of the revue which distinguish it from its two related groups are a lighthearted survey, mingled with good-humored criticism, of recent dramatic or other contemporary events, an extremely sketchy plot, and abundant topical allusions. Planché's Success ( 1 8 2 5 ) introduced the revue to the English stage. In this piece several actors, m i m i c k i n g characters from various dramatic productions of the season, woo Success, the daughter of Fashion. She rejects them all and voluntarily

36

BURLESQUES

AND

EXTRAVAGANZAS

selects Jocko, the monkey—a tribute to the popularity of Mazurier in Jocko; or, The Ape of Brazil. Originally the author termed the piece "a new grand mock-heroical, operatical, magical, anything but tragical burletta"; but in 1879 he suggested the more concise classification "revue." 1 Despite a modest popularity the Victorian revue was a less prominent form of entertainment than either the burlesque or the extravaganza. Planché first applied the term "extravaganza" to his blank verse fantasy High, Low, Jack, and the Game, produced at the Olympic in 1833; but he later stated that Riquet with the Tuft. produced at the same theater in 1836, was the first of his genuine extravaganzas. This genre he defined as "a whimsical treatment of a poetical subject as distinguished from the broad caricature of a tragedy or serious opera which was correctly described as burlesque." 2 The extravaganza and the burlesque are substantially alike except for the nature of the plot and the manner in which it is treated. An extravaganza is based on a fairy tale that is told respectfully, so that the charm of the story, rather than the parody and the humor, holds the interest of the reader. The Victorian burlesques are parodies, sometimes of classical mythology or medieval legends, more often of serious operas, turgid melodramas, or sensational novels. They owe their chief appeal to the ludicrous treatment of familiar material. An extravaganza may be appreciated even if the original story is unknown; much of the fun in a burlesque depends upon recognizing the distortion of the source. Before 1831 the English burlesque tradition, that of The Knight of the Burning Pestle, The Rehearsal, Tom Thumb, and The Critic, aimed to ridicule very baldly the absurdity and bombast of certain types of English drama. Madame Vestris's productions of Olympic Revels ( 1 8 3 1 ) and Olympic Devils ( 1 8 3 1 ) , parodies of the Prometheus-Pandora and Orpheus1 See the preface to Success, The Extravaganzas of ]. R. Planché, 2 Preface to Riquet with the Tuft, Extravaganzas, Vol. I.

Vol. I.

BURLESQUES

AND

EXTRAVAGANZAS

37

Eurydice legends, respectively, introduced a change. In these pieces Planché discarded the traditional method of parodying general types of drama and demonstrated the possibilities inherent in the ridiculous treatment of a specific story, the incidents of which were carefully burlesqued in detail. He also established a graceful, witty couplet style as the model for the burlesques of the immediate future. Attention to their costuming and settings made Planché's pieces attractive for their beauty as well as for their humor. T h e history of Victorian burlesque and extravaganza may be divided into three periods. T h e first, extending to approximately 1855, was dominated by Planché. Because of his influence the extravaganza was the more popular form. Even before 1855, however, there were signs of a coming change. Unable to approximate the graceful, polished style of their master, other writers (among whom Albert Smith, T o m Taylor, Robert and William Brough, and Francis Talfourd were prominent) began to exaggerate the parody and the satire and to introduce more frequent topical allusions. T h e term "burlesque-extravaganza" became more and more frequently used to describe this sort of parody. During the second period, which lasted until approximately 1870, the broad burlesque at the Strand set the fashion and led to the almost complete eclipse of the extravaganza. T h e most prolific authors were H. J. Byron, the leader of the new school, F. C. Burnand, Robert Reece, and Andrew Halliday. Their verses lacked the grace of Planché's and were heavily peppered with puns. T h e more atrocious the puns, the more delirious was the laughter they provoked. T h e parody and the caricature became more emphatic, and the story tended to be interrupted and obscured by dancing, singing, and comedy. After 1870 deterioration in the style both of extravaganza and of burlesque is apparent. T h e former existed only in the form of the elaborate spectacles which replaced the simple pantomime openings of the early century. T h e themes were those of the old

38

BURLESQUES

AND

EXTRAVAGANZAS

extravaganza, but the treatment was not the same. The author furnished merely the outline of the story; the dancers, singers, and particularly the comedians did the rest. By 1870 the spirit of "legs and limelight" had transformed the burlesque also into entertainment better fitted for the music hall than for the dramatic stage. Theaters which presented regular drama no longer included it in their programs. Burlesque was thus confined to a few houses, chiefly to the Gaiety. Here "burlesque in short clothes" developed, after the style of opéra bouffe, into a three-act form with original music. Any coherence in the plot was thoroughly obscured by the long comic scenes, the dancing and singing, and the attraction of a chorus in black tights. During the nineties burlesque as it had been understood by Planché and H. J . Byron was replaced by musical comedy. When Taylor took up residence in London in 1844 preparatory to becoming a barrister, he became interested in the theater as a form of recreation and also as a potential source of income. At that time a prospective professional playwright was certain to find extremely attractive the field of rhymed entertainment, for which the work of Planché had created a vogue. The demand for this type of work was great; the supply of writers trained to provide it, limited. A successful writer in this field needed primarily a sense of humor, some skill in versification, and familiarity with classical and legendary stories. These qualities Taylor possessed. Naturally, then, he wrote many of his early pieces in the field of burlesque and its allied forms. Within a year after his first professional play, the farce A Trip to Kissengen, had been produced, he collaborated on four burlesqueextravaganzas. Before 1864, when he abandoned this type of work, he wrote nine more rhymed plays. It will be found expedient to postpone consideration of the other pieces by him presented between 1844 and 1864 and to examine in this chapter his first farce and all of his verse plays.

BURLESQUES

AND

EXTRAVAGANZAS

39

Taylor's debut as a professional playwright was sponsored by the Keeleys. During the forties only the stage partnership of Madame Vestris and Charles Mathews in light comedy was more popular than that of Mary and Robert Keeley. Mrs. Keeley—a short, bright-eyed, pert actress, whose style resembled that of Madame Vestris—specialized in "breeches" parts. Her lively, sparkling performances contrasted admirably with the droll, phlegmatic manner of her husband. By opening the Lyceum as a home for light entertainment on April 4, 1844, the two joined the ranks of actor-managers. Alfred Wigan, whose artistry was just becoming recognized, and his wife, the former Leonora Pincott, were the principal members of the supporting company. For £50 the Keeleys purchased A Trip to Kissengen, the joint work of Taylor and A. A. Knox (a fellow law student and later a prominent magistrate), and they staged it on November 14, 1844. In the January, 1879, issue of Theatre Taylor furnished an account of the composition and the nature of his first professional play. The farce was a joint piece of work by a college friend, then fresh like myself from Trinity, and the writer. It was knocked off at a breath; literally, a day's work, my collaborator holding the pen, suggesting and supplying, while I dictated. He had just come from a visit to the watering place where we laid our action, so he supplied a correct mise-en-scene. The piece turned on the misadventures of Hercules Crisis (Keeley), an aspiring little Cockney visitor to Kissengen. Ensnared by the bright eyes of Fifine (Mrs. Wigan), a French cocotte—the wife and ally of Comte de Carambole (Wigan), a swindler who has carried out a scheme for passing forged notes— Crisis is induced to exchange his passport for that of Carambole, hard pressed by the police. He in his turn nearly drives the little Cockney mad with jealousy by flirting with his wife (Mrs. Keeley) when, arriving unexpectedly at Kissengen under the escort of her uncle, she finds her faithless spouse gallivanting with Fifine. It was a broad piece of fun and bustle, affording good opportunities to the actors; and was accepted, read, cast, put in rehearsal with a prompt-

40

BURLESQUES

AND

EXTRAVAGANZAS

ness as rare as refreshing, and ran for some fifty nights—a great run in those days.' A reading of the play confirms Taylor's implication that the success of A Trip to Kissengen was due to the rapid sequence of absurd incidents. This was the distinguishing characteristic of Scribe's technique and became the dominant quality in almost all popular Victorian farces. No sooner has the hapless Crisis extricated himself from one tangle than either the guile of Fifine and Carambole or the determination of Mrs. Crisis to punish his philanderings plunges him into another. The climax is reached when, faced with imprisonment, he protests that he is really Crisis, when everyone else present stoutly maintains that he is the fugitive Carambole. Only identification of the Frenchman by means of a secret mark on his left shoulder enables the Cockney to obtain freedom. 4 The success of this piece led to Taylor's collaboration with Albert Smith and Charles Kenney in the composition of four rhymed fairy tales treated in the manner of burlesque. They were written for the managers of the Lyceum, who, seeking to duplicate the successful productions of Vestris in that genre, decided to give burlesque a more important place in their repertory. Some idea of this almost wholly forgotten form of theatrical entertainment may be gained from an analysis of Whittington and His Cat, first staged on March 24, 1845. This collaborative effort of Smith, Kenney, and Taylor represents the burlesque when half way along its decline from the graceful form which Planché gave it to the more rough-and-ready parodies of less adroit imitators. Let the reader imagine himself part of an audience which is s Theatre, I (series 2, January, 1879), 411. * This brisk farce was often revived during the next twenty years, although it never held a prominent place in the repertoire of any actor or any company. In America it was first produced at the New York Olympic, on March 3, 1845, with George Holland as Crisis, Charles Wolcot as Carambole, and Constania Clarke as Mrs. Crisis.

BURLESQUES

AND EXTRAVAGANZAS

41

anticipating a rollicking parody of the legendary story, satiric topical allusions, numerous songs and dances, and a gorgeous scenic display. T h e curtain rises on: The Yard of the Tabard Inn, Southwark in the fourteenth century— Time, before daylight—Lights are seen in a large low window . . . Some Fairies are grouped . . . others prying about to the air of "Where the bee lurks"—At last, assembling, they break into a dance to the air—The Young May Moon. Following this offering to Terpsichore, Puck and R o b i n Goodfellow complain that the enclosure of fields threatens their domain. Puck.

Good bye, the glades and moonlight beams that kissed 'em, They're all cut up by the allotment system. T o take in Hampstead Heath, I'm told they mean. Robin. What? T a k e in Hampstead Heath, it's not so green. Friar Rush groans, although not at the word play, and emerges from a hamper. Robin. How came you there? Rush. From Chertsey, labelled, "this side up, with care"! Friar Rush's occupation's gone! alas, My Jack-o'-lantern is just out of gas! They've even lighted all the lamps of late From Hammersmith right up to Hyde Park Gate. Robin. T h e country then's no go? Rush. I should say not. Each town its "Institution" now has got, There's not a Hamlet left— Robin. So they complain At Covent Garden and at Drury Lane. At the sound of mortal footsteps the fairies promptly flee. T h e footsteps prove to be those of the Canterbury pilgrims, who lard their conversation with puns and anachronisms such as the following:

42

BURLESQUES

AND

EXTRAVAGANZAS

Monk. T h i n k ye we'll reach a Beckett's shrine by lunch? Squire. I know but one a Beckett, he's on Punch. Monk. Sir Cook, your bill of fare, (reads) now by my cowl, "Spring chickens"—"chicken p i e " — t h i s fare's all foul. W h e n the P i l g r i m s h a v e d e p a r t e d , W h i t t i n g t o n is driven o n in the Chertsey W a g o n . H e bids the d r i v e r g o o d b y e in a lyric w h i c h begins " I f other trips in o t h e r carts," a p a r o d y of " W h e n o t h e r lips a n d other hearts." A d r i n k i n g c h o r u s serves to b r i n g D o t t r e l l a n d his c o m p a n i o n s f r o m the T a b a r d . D o t t r e l l promises to h e l p D i c k find w o r k at Master F i t z w a r r e n ' s shop, and t h e t w o d e p a r t as the d r i n k i n g f r i e n d s c o n c l u d e the scene with a song a n d dance. A t Fitzwarren's, D i c k is so s m i t t e n w i t h t h e c h a r m s of the m e r c h a n t ' s d a u g h t e r A l i c e that n o t h i n g can dissuade h i m from t a k i n g the position as o d d boy. Alice.

Ohl pause, before you enter on O u r kitchen is a constant scene Don't mention it. I feel to wait I could exist even in a constant

Dick.

your toils, of broils. on you stew.

A f t e r a q u a r t e t n u m b e r by A l i c e , D i c k , D o t t r e l l , a n d Fitzwarren, the action shifts to the k i t c h e n w h e r e U r s u l a , the cook, complains: Ursula. A h ! always the same thing—fret, fume, and haste, I wish I had something beside meat to baste . . . My poor life won't much longer stand the racket, If I'd a small boy, how I'd lace his jacket. (Enter Alice and Whittington) Alice. A t once, dame Ursula, your wish enjoy. New boy, the old c o o k — o l d cook, new boy. One only needs upon her face to look T o see that she is really a plain cook.

Dick.

F u r t h e r insults f r o m D i c k soon p r o v o k e a r o w d y scene. runs

about,

ladle—he

Ursula catches

pursuing

a pot

him.

She

strikes

at him

lid for a shield—grotesque

"He

with

a

combat."

BURLESQUES

AND

EXTRAVAGANZAS

43

T h e cat enters and comforts the maltreated boy, but when Ursula ejects the cat, Dick decides to leave despite the musical plea of Alice. Spectacle is now given its turn. T h e next backdrop shows a view of L o n d o n from Holloway H i l l at sunset. (Music. Whittington sleeps—It grows dark—The Fairies appear up the hollow way and from behind stones to the fairy music in the last scene from "Merry Wives of Windsor/' with lights. Dance of the fairies . . . Music while the Fairies mesmerize Whittington. Song by a Fairy . . . During the song clouds cover the scene as Whittington rises in a state of clairvoyance . . . The clouds open and the first tableau appears.) T h i s tableau reveals the y o u n g apprentice as the future husband of Alice. A second vision shows him as the L o r d Mayor of L o n d o n welcoming Henry V at O l d T e m p l e Bar after the Battle of Agincourt; a third reveals him as a hero immortalized by a statue. T h e cat then pronounces the prophecy " W h i t t i n g t o n , three times L o r d Mayor of L o n d o n , " which, as the hero leaps u p "a la Richard the T h i r d , " is taken u p by a chorus of voices. A f t e r two more comic scenes and several songs, the major characters board a "large, practicable ship" for Barbary. A l i c e is dressed as a sailor speaking the "lingo of T . P. C o o k e . " T h e cat is turned away by a seaman, b u t as the boat leaves the dock Cat takes a Harlequin Act

leap into a port-hole.

Tableau.

"The

End of

I."

T h e second act opens with a scenic display showing the ship stranded on a rock and W h i t t i n g t o n and his friends tossing about on a raft. T h e y reach shore safely and are promptly seized by the natives. Preceded by a chorus of dancing girls, the mighty monarch, M u l e y Moloch, enters in a cart drawn by lions. A chief greets him. Chief (prostrating himself). Hail! Mightyl Muley, hail. Muley. You're wrong again. You're always hailing—can't you let me reign?

44

BURLESQUES

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T h e k i n g , despite his a p p e a r a n c e of p o w e r , is u n d e r the domi n a n c e of a F r e n c h m a n , A l c i d e B e l l e P o u l e , w h o p a r t i c u l a r l y irks H i s M a j e s t y by insisting o n the r i g h t to confiscate the t r u n k s of all visitors, thus d e p r i v i n g the C r o w n of a pleasant source of r e v e n u e . A l i c e , still dressed as a sailor, finds h e r way i n t o the h a r e m , w h i c h she threatens to m a k e " h a r e m - s c a r e m , " a n d falls asleep. She is discovered by the princess, M u l e y ' s T h e e n s u i n g d i a l o g u e is as risqué as the L o r d

daughter.

Chamberlain,

censor of the stage, was likely to p e r m i t . Prin.

Alice Prin. Alice. Prin. Alice. Prin.

I think I've heard from more experienced misses T h e r e are some improper things called kisses; As they're improper, I've no doubt they're nice, I'll try on h i m — h i s rosy lips entice. (Kisses Alice) (awakening). H a n g those mosquitoesl W h a t a horrid bore. Who's there? A woman. Oh! I breathe once more. You're in the Harem. Oh! I am the Princess. Indeed that's very fortunate, no d o u b t You will be kind enough to let me out. (aside). Oh! what a stupid! Wants to leave this place A n d he's not even asked to see my face, Rash man!

Alice.

O h I'm a m a n — I must be rude, Let me read in your eyes, I don't intrude. (Raises Princess' veil) Hushl Hush!—don't scream, my darling, it's all right. Conceal me here at all events tonight. Prin. ' T w o u l d be so very w r o n g — Alice. Yes, but so pleasant, Now do. Prin. Well, I can't promise just at present. T o the t u n e of the " C e l l a r i u s W a l t z , " A l i c e then sings a c h a r m i n g lyric. Ah, list to me, As for my history, It is a mystery, I cannot tell to thee.

BURLESQUES

AND

EXTRAVAGANZAS

45

If I should flee, It is not fantasy, But woman's love is not for me. Do not chide me, Only hide me, If love's denied me, but your kindness I'll repay. Let me free, dear, And you'll see, dear, You'll have cause to bless the day. Alcide and Whittington then join the princess and Alice in a waltz, which is interrupted by the mighty Muley. H e condemns Alice to death for having entered the harem uninvited, b u t promises a reprieve if Whittington can rid the palace of the ten thousand rats which infest it. Dick produces the cat, for he claims, " T h e Cat's the thing with which I'll smooth the bristles of the King." After a comic dance by the cat and Muley, an agreement is reached that if the animal kills the rats within five minutes, the visitors may be free; otherwise they die. T h e concluding scene takes place against the luxurious background of an oriental court. After a ballet of warriors and dancing girls and a dance, pas styrien, by the princess and Alcide, the cat kills the rats. During the contest lively betting in the style of that at a Newmarket race takes place, and Fitzwarren, who has arrived in an aerial ship, wins Alcide's last guinea. T h e princess, discovering that Alice is a girl, accepts Alcide as her f u t u r e husband. Despite entreaties to remain, Dick insists on taking his party back to England, where he is to be "Thrice Lord Mayor." H e summons the aerial ship, bids farewell to his host, and the entire company join in a finale to the tune of "Roger de Coverley." After that, "Whittington goes on to the ship—It ascends, discovering the Harem as before—Natives come forward—Fairies flying about the air—Tableau—General rejoicing—Curtain falls." Only a very d o u r or a very sophisticated person would deny that such a zestful and varied piece, properly staged, must have

46

BURLESQUES

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p r o v e d e n t e r t a i n i n g . T h e s p r i g h t l y Mrs. K e e l e y as D i c k , winsome Miss F a i r b r o t h e r as A l i c e , the d r o l l K e e l e y as M u l e y , the d a p p e r W i g a n as A l c i d e , a n d a c r o b a t i c C o l l y e r as the cat w e r e ideally s u i t e d

to their roles. W h e n

the puns, the

eccentric

rhymes, a n d the g r o t e s q u e h u m o r b e g a n to pall, they w e r e relieved by c o m i c a n d artistic d a n c i n g , by b u o y a n t lyrics, a n d by spectacular display. T h e

c o m i c a l l y distorted

narrative

never

d r a g g e d , b u t m a i n t a i n e d a c o h e r e n t interest. A t an entertainm e n t l i k e this t h e tired V i c t o r i a n business m a n c o u l d forget t e m p o r a r i l y t h e fall in consols a n d the latest w a r scare. It s h o u l d be clear f r o m this r e v i e w that S m i t h , T a y l o r , a n d K e n n e y foll o w e d t h e fashion set by P l a n c h é in s e l e c t i n g their stories f r o m the r e a l m s of l e g e n d a n d fantasy; b u t that they treated

the

narratives w i t h less respect than he d i d a n d that for his whimsical, polished style they s u b s t i t u t e d s o m e of the spirit of b r o a d parody a n d b l u n t satire w h i c h b e c a m e later the d o m i n a n t elem e n t in the p r o d u c t i o n s at the S t r a n d . H e n c e t h e t e r m " b u r l e s q u e - e x t r a v a g a n z a , " f r e q u e n t l y used at that t i m e in connection w i t h t h e L y c e u m pieces, is a h a p p i l y chosen

descriptive

phrase. T h e titles of t h e b u r l e s q u e - e x t r a v a g a n z a s o n w h i c h

Taylor

w o r k e d as j o i n t a u t h o r for t h e K e e l e y s m a y be d e t e r m i n e d o n his o w n a u t h o r i t y a n d v e r i f i e d b y other r e f e r e n c e s . In the

Theatre

article p r e v i o u s l y m e n t i o n e d , T a y l o r writes: A casual acquaintanceship with Albert Smith and Charles Kenney, who were then purveyors in ordinary of light literature for the Keeleys in their management of the Lyceum, led to my becoming joint author with them of the third rhymed fairy-tale which they produced at that theatre. . . . O u r subject was Valentine and Orson. It was in connection with his part of Sir Henfrey . . . that I first knew Alfred Wigan. . . . He filled indifferent parts in our rhymed fairy-tales of Cinderella, Whittington and His Cat, and The Enchanted Horse which followed Valentine and Orson.-' s Theatre, I, 4 1 1 . A l t h o u g h no o t h e r single a u t h o r i t y agrees w i t h T a y l o r in n a m i n g h i m , S m i t h , a n d K e n n e y as t h e c o l l a b o r a t o r s on every o n e o£ these pieces,

BURLESQUES

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47

The method of collaboration followed by Smith, Taylor, and Kenney is indicated by Edmund Yates, who as the son of an important manager of the Adelphi had entree to inner theatrical circles, when he describes, "the sparkling burlesques concocted by Albert Smith and Tom Taylor, while Charles Kenney would sit by and occasionally throw in a joke or two." 6 Clearly Smith wrote the greater part of these pieces. By the fall of 1844, when Taylor first collaborated with him, Smith was an established playwright. Aladdin (1844), his first Lyceum piece, in many ways set the style for that theater's type of spectacular entertainment. Smith was also on intimate personal terms with the Keeleys, whose elder daughter, Mary, he eventually married in 1859. I* logical to assume that Robert Keeley, having recognized Taylor's ability, placed the young Master of Arts under the guidance of the more experienced Smith. Charles Kenney, then only twenty-three, was a minor member of the triumvirate. Seldom without a barbed comment on his tongue, he had the reputation for being one of the wittiest men in London; but he never displayed much ability as a creative writer. His contributions were probably limited to a few lines or a clever suggestion. The exact dates of the initial productions of the four burthe general tenor of the evidence supports his statement. Newspaper and periodical reviews of the time usually mention the entertainments as the joint work of Smith and Taylor, with the name of Kenney occasionally joined to theirs. T h e biographical sketch of Taylor by John Sheehan, Dublin University Magazine, X C , 144, makes these four pieces in part the work of Taylor, but that by Charles Kent in the D.N.B. does not mention The Enchanted Horse. T h e handlist of plays in the second volume of Professor Allardyce Nicoll's History of Early Nineteenth Century Drama assigns Cinderella to Taylor alone, The Enchanted Horse to Smith and Taylor, and Valentine and Orson and Whittington to unknown authors. James M. Thorington in the standard biography of Smith, Mont Blanc Sideshow: the Life and Times of Albert Smith, names him and Taylor as the authors of Valentine, Whittington, and Cinderella; but Thorington says nothing of The Enchanted Horse except to list it as by Smith. Only one of these burlesques, Whittington, appears to have been published. Its title page attributes the authorship to Albert Smith and J . Taylor, certainly an error for T . Taylor. 6 Fifty Years of London Life, I, 190.

48

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lesque-extravaganzas written by Smith and his fellow authors, dates substantiated by press notices as well as by Professor Allardyce Nicoll's handlist of plays,7 are December 23, 1844, for Valentine and Orson, and March 24, May 12, and December 26, all in 1845, for Whittington, Cinderella, and The Enchanted Horse, respectively. All were written and produced in the spirit of Whittington. In Valentine and Orson, the legend of the foundling who was reared in the forest by a bear and brought to court as an untamed giant to conquer the enemies of his twin brother and to win the love of ladies, was retold with full regard for the possibilities for burlesque and scenic splendor which the story offered. T h e scene in which the bear nurse became inebriated and the scene in which the oracle of the Brazen Head uttered its prophecies in the style of answers to correspondents in the Sunday newspapers were the most amusing. Spectacle was strongest in the battle scene which depicted the army led by Valentine and Orson defeating the Saracens. Keeley's performance as the wild man, Orson, and Mrs. Keeley's as Valentine were outstanding. T h e run of the piece surpassed that of any other Christmas novelty of the year, and its production at the Adelphi in 1855, with new jests apropos of the time, marked it as one of the few works of its kind to be revived. Cinderella, the Whitsun Week specialty, replaced Whittington, the Easter feature. T h e new piece was notable for spectacular staging and for parodies of current theatrical attractions. T h e scene constructors' greatest achievement was: 1 T h e dates set down by Charles Kent in the D.N.B. are clearly in error. Kent places Valentine and Orson in March, 1844; but at that time the Lyceum was closed for renovation, and the Keeleys were playing in the provinces. T h e burlesque on their first program, April 14, 1844, was Open Sesame, by Gilbert k Beckett and Mark Lemon. Whittington and His Cat, contrary to Kent's statement, was not produced on this date; nor is there any record of the performance of Cinderella during this year. Kent is also mistaken in classifying A Trip to Kissengen as a burlesque. For Professor Nicoll's handlist of plays see A History of Early Nineteenth Century Drama.

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49

A clever transformation of the pumpkin, rats, and lizards into the equipage for the ball . . . not in the clumsy mechanical methods in which it has hitherto been done, but by a phantasmagoria process which allowed the forms to blend insensibly, one into the other, the theater being in total darkness.8 Aided by Collyer, Mrs. Keeley performed a very successful burlesque of Lucile Grahn's dancing. The love scenes of Macready and Helen Faucit in The Lady of Lyons were imitated by Wigan and Mrs. Keeley. Frampton, a prominent dancing master, trained a group of his pupils so cleverly to imitate the Viennese troupe then in London that the act was later borrowed for other pieces. These parodies were responsible for much of the popularity enjoyed by Cinderella. The story of The Enchanted Horse was taken from the Arabian Nights. Critics of that time remarked on the spectacular stage effects achieved in the flying-steed scenes, but they are annoyingly vague as to the specific methods by which these effects were obtained. 9 Judged by the critical notices, The Enchanted Horse appears to have received less attention than its three predecessors. This may have been because its importance was overshadowed by the production on the same bill of Smith's The Cricket on the Hearth, the first of at least twelve dramatic versions of the same story presented within a month. Taylor's first rhymed piece to follow The Enchanted Horse was the Strand Christmas feature, Diogenes and His Lantern, first produced on December 28, 1849. During the next four years his activity in this type of work was at its height, and the following six verse plays were produced at various theaters: The «Illustrated London News, V I (May 17, 1845), 3 1 4 . » In connection with this entertainment the L o r d Chamberlain demonstrated the pettiness of his censorship by eliminating a pun which referred to Prince Shah as carrying away his loved o n e on a flying steed because it was an elopement in "high life." T h e censor gave as his reason the fact that the joke seemed dangerously reminiscent of several recent events in high society. Illustrated London Xews, V I I I (Feb. 7, 1846), 98.

5o

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Philosopher's Stone ( M a y 20, 1850, Strand); Novelty Fair (May 20, 1850, Lyceum); Prince Dorus (December 26, 1850, Olympic); Little Red Riding Hood (December 26, 1851, Adelphi); Wittikind (April 12, 1852, Princess); and HarUquin Columbus (December 26, 1853, Olympic). After 1853 h:s interest in burlesque and its allied forms seems to have wined. At any rate, during his long career as playwright he composed only two other pieces belonging to this genre—An Awful Rise in Spirits (September 7, 1863, Olympic) and Sense and Sensation (May 16, 1864, Olympic). Except for the didactic tendencies displayed in this last piece and in Diogenes and The Philosopher's Stone, Taylor's work followed conventional lines. T o review it in chronological order will prove as satisfactory a method as any. Diogenes and His Lantern is a classical burlesque patterned after Planch£'s Olympic Devils and Olympic Revels. T h e smallness of the Strand precluded great scenic displays, and the author, always capable of adjusting himself to the theater for which he was working, omitted spectacle and concentrated on humor. T h e slight plot turns on the search for an honest man conducted by Diogenes and Minerva, "a strong-minded and proportionately unpopular Goddess." T h e i r efforts are thwarted by the other Gods and Goddesses, who descend to earth and pose as unscrupulous mortals. Satire is thus presented through Mars as a pacifist, Bacchus as the head of a Temperance Society, Jupiter as a demagogue, and J u n o as a shrewish wife. Universal objects of ridicule such as cosmetics, feminine extravagance, and marital troubles are hit frequently. More localized satire is directed at concert manager Jullien, Parliament, and the dirtiness of London. T h e dialogue, filled with expected puns, is not too sparkling in its wit. Taylor's unaided talent was not capable of the light humorous touch that this type of work demanded, as the following excerpts show:

BURLESQUES Atticus Minerva. Atticus. Diogenes. Atticus. Minerva. Atticus. Diogenes.

AND

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51

(a tailor turned poet). Could you oblige me with a rhyme for trowser? When speaking to a lady you might bow sir! Hal Bow sir—trowser—bow sir, Oh! Thank you! Just what I want quite apropos . . . Are you a maniac? Sir, I'm a poet A nascitur non fit. Your garments show it. I turn to dress the music of the spheres. Excuse me, you mean the music of the shears.

In Diogenes

the seriousness of Taylor's n a t u r e — w h i c h w o u l d

have made him a better minister than some, "yea even in Connecticut"—asserts itself. A solemn didactic tone intrudes at intervals in the dialogue and does not harmonize with the predominant broad humor. Diogenes cannot ridicule hypocritical reformers without carefully adding: Diogenes.

Nay T o think humbugs should turn reformers, say But as the sunniest peach most insects draws So humbug infests the noblest cause.

T h e conclusion points a definite moral that honesty does exist: Not on platform or on husting, where conceit and cant are thrusting, Not in monster fortunes suddenly amassed; But in good deeds meekly done, in honest gains hard won, In humble homes, where happy lives are past, T h e humbugs pass away, the mighty means decay— But the still small voice of truth still wins a hearing, And the mightier it grows, the more feeble wax its foes, T i l l in triumph see her fair front where she's rearing, While crouching at her feet lie Falsehood, Cant, and Fraud Unmasked at Truth's radiant appearing. (The scene opens and discovers an allegorical group. Truth gazes upwards while Falsehood, Cant, and Fraud cower around, their masks awry and their sceptres falling from, their hands.)

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A few other burlesques or extravaganzas, such as Planche's Discreet

Princess

The

(1855), contain miniature sermons, b u t their

authors assume a pulpit manner less pontifically than does T a y lor. A similar turn toward facile didacticism disfigures The

Phi-

losopher's Stone, produced at the Strand on May 20, 1850. Paracelsus offers his soul to K i n g G o l d in return for the philosopher's stone. By means of his magic gift the alchemist makes himself y o u n g and wealthy; but these attractions, as well as those of the beautiful Louise d ' O r , soon pall. T h e simple flower girl, Veilchen, points out to him the error in his philosophy: Veil. You've pleased your own tastes, tickled your own senses, Been mighty generous in your own expenses; But have you used it in a single feature, Of Life, to aid, cheer, bless, a fellow creature? In an attempt to rectify his mistake Paracelsus distributes money to everyone in the town. A song by a chorus of marketers describes the result: Here's none to sell, all wish to b u y — Gold here's as cheap as dirt elsewhere; No odds to us are prices high, But none to sell has ought to spare. Threatened by death at the hands of the starving inhabitants, Paracelsus escapes and hears Veilchen explain the real moral of the piece. Veil. Would you know the true stone turns all to gold? Secret of secrets—Industry behold! And would you learn the true Elixir, sent T o give perpetual youth? It is—Content. But where Content and Industry are found, See smiling Plenty sends a blessing round. Apart from the moralizing tendencies there is nothing distinctive in the piece, and a modern reader will find it dull and silly.

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53

Somewhat more lively than The Philosopher's Stone is Novelty Fair; or, Hints for 1851, which the title page announces as "an exceedingly premature and thoroughly apropos revue by Albert Smith and Tom Taylor." In this piece the Year 1851, played by Charles Mathews, arrives ahead of time and acts as master of ceremonies and press agent for the Crystal Palace exposition. His introduction of characters representative of the various nationalities who will visit the display furnishes considerable satire. His running commentary also directs both criticism and praise at scenic displays of the telegraph, the new Houses of Parliament, the National Gallery, Trafalgar Fountain, the Thames, and other objects. The conclusion of the piece presents several tableaux demonstrating the superiority of British industry over that displayed by the French, the Italians, and the Spanish. An audience expected no coherent story in a revue and derived its amusement from the scenery, the musical numbers, and the references to current events. Since a modern critic can reconstruct the art of the stage carpenter only from the descriptions of the text, and since time has obscured many of the allusions to contemporary events, only a rough estimate of the effectiveness of this type of entertainment can be made. Novelty Fair, however, appears to have contained all the qualities requisite for an effective revue, and critics of the day found it effective. The Illustrated London News reports: It is a clever satire by Mr. Albert Smith and Mr. Tom Taylor—a sort of revue, having, however, the future for its object, and the royally supported Exposition for its theme. . . . The piece was quite successful; and the author being called for, Mr. Albert Smith was led across the stage.10 The entertainment doubtless provided publicity for the coming exposition, stimulated a little patriotism, and amused its share of playgoers. It was, in fact, a typical Victorian revue. Among the rhymed pieces of the time none are more at10 X V I (May 25, 1850), 370.

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tractive than those which imitate the style of the féerie as introduced into England by Planché in Riquet with the Tuft. T h e whimsical plots of these pieces, their spirit of fantasy, and the absence of excessive puns and of grotesque comedy set them apart from the more broadly humorous burlesque types. In this field of graceful extravaganza Taylor wrote two attractive pieces, Prince Dorus and Wittikind. T h e story of the first, described on its title page as "a new aerial, floreal conchological fairy tale," is taken from the works of Countess d'Aulnoy and is humorously, b u t faithfully retold. T h e opening scene reveals the lightness and delicacy of the style in contrast with a Lyceum burlesque-extravaganza like Whitlington. Srene 1—Nursery in the Palare of Frangipane. . . . Slightly to the left of the centre is placed a gilt and decorated cradle under a canopy of Crimson. Goruped around as the curtain rises are Fairies Belle, Gentila, Graciosa, Spirituella, clothed iri iuhite with circlets of stars and wands. The moon shines through the casement. . . . The Curtain rises to the air of "The Angel's Whisper," sung by the Fairies.

Gra.

Bel. Gra. Bel. Gra. Bel. Gra.

The baby is sleeping, and loyally keeping Our watch round the Prince in his cradle are we; In these days of rebelling, 'tis easy foretelling, Royal berths rather ticklish are likely to be. Yes, sister Fairies, this round baby face, Heir to a crown, crown with each air and grace; Be liberal to him of the precious things We keep for peasants oftener than kings. . . . Here's to his highness, then, a charming face. A winning air, a form of manly grace. Teeth of the pearliest Hair of the sunniest Small talk of the readiest Bon Mots of the funniest, A pair of lips like one of Cupid's bows. (Fairy Furiosa rises behind the cradle; she is dressed in black, and has a snake wreath around her head, and a snake for a wand.)

Fur. Shaded by a portentous length of nose—

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55

A nose that keeps perpetually growing, Covered with blossoms, but too long for blowing . . . Bel. T h e nose, I fear must have it. 'Tis too bad; But to her curse this codicil I add— Our Prince's beak shall shrink from its enormity, When he himself admits his own deformity. . . . Gra. So all the beauties that our love bestows T h e poor dear Prince must pay for through the nose. Hark I the cocks crow, sisters, the night grows grey, Morning must not o'ertake us—hence—away. At the suggestion of Furiosa's ally, the necromancer Clairvoyant, the king decrees: King. He dies the death who dares our infant wrong By saying any nose can be too long. Consequently, at the age of twenty Prince Dorus believes himself a handsome gentleman whose most perfect feature is his nose. From a gallery of portraits lie selects Mignonette to be his bride, and he awaits her arrival. Her knowledge of his appearance has been gained solely from a picture which normalized his most prominent feature. One sight of the proboscis sends her into a swoon; but on the advice of Clairvoyant, himself bewitched by her charms, she agrees to conceal her horror. She and her lady-in-waiting, Bluette, flee accompanied by Clairvoyant and Carmine, the court painter. T h e prince and his chamberlain, Count Coqueluche, take up the pursuit. In an effort to protect the girls, the wily Clairvoyant changes them successively into trees, flowers, and mermaids. Each of these transformations affords an opportunity for scenic display. T h e flower spectacle must have been a thing of beauty. The moonlight lake . . . a bay with a sloping rock bank toward the centre, over which cluster broad-leaved water plants . . . Clumps of shrubs, with rose bushes, foxglove, blue-bell, and honey suckle, growing on and over the rocks. Water lilies float on the surface of the water which is lighted by a bright moon. As the scene opens the animated flowers are discovered . . . These are all girls with cos-

5

BURLESQUES

6

tumes

representing

names

they

bear.

AND the

leaves

EXTRAVAGANZAS

and

. . . Mignonette

blossoms is the

of the

rose.

flowers

. . . Dance

whose of

the

Flowers.

Prince Dorus, aided by Fairy Belle, eventually overtakes the magician and conquers him in "a terrific combat." T h e prince then attempts to kiss Mignonette, asleep in a casket of glass, but finds his elongated nose a distinct impediment. He so fervently wishes for a nose of normal size that his wish brings the desired result. Fairy Belle then joins the lovers and gives them her blessing. T h e graceful story, the atmosphere of fairyland, the light humor, and the lavish spectacle make Prince Dorus an excellent example of the Victorian extravaganza. IVittikind

is less humorous and more dramatic, but its style

is not so different that it calls for detailed consideration. T h e story of the wicked queen who turned seven stepsons into swans and her husband into a horned eagle was based on G r i m m ' s version of the "Seven Swans" and elaborated by other bits of traditional fairy lore. T h r o u g h o u t , the piece throws down the gauntlet for spectacle. A m o n g the scenes brilliantly staged by Charles Kean were the Mountains of Märchenland, the Fountain of the Fay, and the Illuminated Gardens and the Royal Fete. Other stage features included the transformation of the k i n g and his sons, the magical entrance of the Princess Melusine, a m o o n rising across the sky, the land disappearing under the sea, and a fight between a hawk and a swan. T a y l o r ' s best work in burlesque and extravaganza has now been discussed. O n l y three minor pieces and one ambitious but unsuccessful experiment remain to be considered. Probably he was the author of Little A d e l p h i on D e c e m b e r 26,

Red

Riding

1851. 11

Hood,

presented at the

A c c o r d i n g to its press notices

11 T h e piece was never published, but it may well have been by Taylor. T h e lists of his plays printed on the title pages of several of his pieces contain the title Little Red Riding Hood. Except for the A d e l p h i version, all Victorian dramatizations of the story may be attributed definitely to some other author. During the early fifties T a y l o r was doing some writing for the Adelphi. A b o u t 1850 he wrote Our American Cousin to provide a part for Joshua Silsbee, then an Adelphi

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57

the piece seems to have been a routine affair, similar in spirit to the L y c e u m burlesque-extravaganzas. Taylor's only work as a writer of pantomime openings was for Harlequin

Columbus,

the O l y m p i c Christmas feature in

1853. W e must depend on reviews for information concerning it. T h e Illustrated

London

News remarked:

T h e scene opens with Lethe's Wharf and proceeds to Granada with a distant view of the Alhambra. Their majesties, Ferdinand and Isabella, grant to Columbus permission to explore the New World; after which the great adventurer is represented on his outward voyage until he and his crew land on the shores of "the undiscovered country." In the temple of Guanahani a ball and a banquet are given by Cacique Taxemandeatemala. Columbus and his friends are disgusted by the cannibalism of the natives, and a quarrel ensues from which the former are delivered by some friendly sprites who transform the characters [i. e., into the figures of the Harlequinade]. T h e Messrs. Rochez as Clown and Pantaloon well perform their respective parts; and some of the scenery, particularly that of the arctic regions, was exceedingly effective. T h e piece was decidedly successful.12 Harlequin

Columbus

thus appears to have been a typical mid-

century pantomime. T h e opening, a complete burlesque in itself, dominated the entertainment and quite overshadowed the work of the Messrs. Rochez. In 1863 the fashion for stage ghosts induced T a y l o r to return to the burlesque field, after an absence of ten years, with An Awful

Rise in Spirits.

T h e fad for specters was originated

in April of that year by the production at the suburban Britannia of C o l i n Hazlewood's drama Faith,

Hope,

and

Charity,

which made spectacular use of a mechanical device adapted to actor, although the play was never produced at the Adelphi. In 1852 Taylor worked with Mark Lemon in writing Slave Life for the Adelphi. Shortly afterward the same theater presented Helping Hands, by T a y l o r , and Two Loves and a Life, by T a y l o r and Reade. It is not a matter of great importance, but the slight evidence that is available points to T a y l o r as the author of the version of Little Red Riding Hood which A d e l p h i patrons saw on B o x i n g Night, 1851. 12 X X I I I (December 31, 1853), 599.

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the stage by a certain Professor Pepper. By a simple arrangement of glass, black cloth, and a concentrated beam of light the contrivance enabled figures to appear on the stage as moving spectral visitors from the world beyond in a manner which terrified audiences. Webster, the first West End Manager to use the device, displayed it on J u n e 20 in a version of Dickens's Haunted Man, and from the Adelphi the craze spread to rival London theaters and thence to America. Taylor's piece, which did not appear until September 7, displayed two professors roaming a graveyard in search of ghosts. T h e i r quest was not entirely fruitless, since the Bleeding Nun, Hamlet, Banquo, and St. Agnes lead "an awful rise in spirits" climaxed by the appearance of Shakespeare, who protested against bad actors and secondrate playwrights and eulogized science as a producer of phantoms. Professor Pepper's machine was plainly the hero and chief attraction of the entertainment. Some of Taylor's hopes and fears for his last rhymed piece, Sense and Sensation, are expressed in its preface. This piece is an experiment—though it may prove an unsuccessful one—to restore to the stage something like the old "morality" of the Tudor age. Accustomed as our audiences are, in the rhymed pieces of the present day, to practical fun and broad burlesque, peppered with a profusion of puns, it is not much to be wondered at if they should turn with disappointment from a piece in which the forms of rhymed extravaganza are combined with a satirical and almost didactic aim, and which hardly effects word play. Unfortunately for Taylor's ambitious attempt to stem the tendency toward farcical humor of the Strand type of entertainment and to open new channels, Sense and Sensation was a stage failure and had no influence on the course of burlesque. T h e serious note previously displayed in Diogenes and The Philosopher's Stone dominates Taylor's final work in burlesque and makes it dreary reading.

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59

T h e allegorical story of this burlesque-morality depicts the struggle between Sense and Sensation for control of the world. When the piece opens, Sense is living with his "seven sweet daughters," the seven Virtues, on " T h u l e , the happiest isle in Western Waters." One daughter, Courage, persuades her sisters to unite in regaining the world from Sensation. Sensation promptly sends his sons, the Seven Deadly Sins, to corrupt the daughters. Faith, Hope, and Charity are enticed to a life of sin. Cast off by their tempters, the young ladies are forced to work in the sweat shop of Grindoff, Snap, and Neversink. T h e author is thus able to satirize the social philosophy of industry as expressed by Snap. Snap. Now the machine invades our trades, and means We must treat our young ladies like machines. The machine eats no meat—of iron made is— Sews without resting—so must our young ladies. Still, while both work, girl 'gainst machine won't pay; Machines cost money to replace or mend 'em, Young ladies pay us premiums to end 'em. You see 'twould be Utopian insanity To allow the slightest margin of humanity. T h e three Virtues are next lured to apply for work in Gravetraps' Theater, managed by Sensation. He tests them in a "sensation drama" in which the most attractive scenes are supposedly those in which performers are shot through trap doors or raised to the ceiling. Sensation directs the rehearsal thus: Sensation. Now heave 'em up! Heave higher! To the flies! You'll make no nit with one of your sighs. . . . Can't say how high your salary I'd raise If you were going to sing on the trapeze. T o save his daughters Sense enters the theater as a prospective producer. Sensation exhibits the talent of his company by putting the Virtues and Vices through a dull burlesque of Othello

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acted in doggerel couplets spoken with a French accent. W h e n Sense can stand no m o r e — a n d he displays great powers of end u r a n c e — h e attempts to claim his daughters, but Sensation drops him through a trap door. U n d a u n t e d , Sense rises in his proper guise, waves a magic wand, changes the scene to T h u l £ , and orders his daughters to remain there until the world is more ready to receive them. 13 T h e weaknesses in the pseudo-morality are obvious.

The

elimination of the broad fun of burlesque and the whimsy of extravaganza leaves nothing but a dreary, over-long spectacle, feebly enlivened by dull satire. O n l y because the other part of the bill on which it appeared was the popular Ticket

of

Leave

Man, the piece enjoyed a run of a month. T h e dramatic critic of the Athenaeum

presents the consensus of opinion among re-

viewers of that time when he writes: " A l l this [i. e., Sense and Sensation] is gorgeously done, fairly acted, and the dialogue ambitiously embellished with epigram, puns, and eccentric rhymes; but, notwithstanding all these aids to cheerfulness, the result is a heavy spectacle."

14

T h i s piece was Taylor's last attempt at a rhymed play. In estimating his achievement in this genre we must remember that many of its characteristics were designed to meet a taste which was peculiar to the audience of that day and which now seems extremely naive. In his fabrication of the elements of the burlesque and the extravaganza which survive on the modern musical comedy stage, however, we may pronounce him a capable but undistinguished workman. As a collaborator at the Lyceum he assisted in furnishing a preview of the Byron type of Strand burlesque. In the revue and the burlesque pantomime opening his work was average. Of the more graceful extravaganzas, which all too soon lost their appeal for audiences, he 13 Four scenes omitted in the stage presentation attack sensational methods in the courts, financial speculation, medicine, and temperance movements. « No. 1908 (May 21, 1864), p. 717.

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61

contributed two notable examples. His attempts to convert burlesque into a serious dramatic form failed. His verse pieces thus served to further popular forms of entertainment and to mark their limitations.

Chapter EARLY

IV PLAYS

1844-52 E C A U S E the Victorian rhymed pieces represent a disC / t _ A i n c t type of theatrical entertainment, all Tayor's work in this field has been treated in one chapter. We m » now return to the year 1844, when he began writing for tie professional theater, and trace his development as an autho in other genres. T h e remainder of his dramatic work may be discussed in this and subsequent chapters in its chronological irder. In 1844 styles of drama were in a state of confusion, \lthough the Theater Regulation Bill of 1843 effaced leg.l distinctions between the words "legitimate" and "illegitimae" as applied to the theater, a line of demarcation among dramatic genres was still evident. Legitimate dramatists tool as their models either Elizabethan tragedy or eighteenth-cenury comedy. In tragedy they dealt with ideals, themes, and iidividuals beyond the range of common experience. In consdy they treated characters from high life and sought to enterain more by wit, however strained, than by action. In both conedy and tragedy this group of writers considered five acts reqiisite for a play. During his management of Covent Garden fom 1837 to 1839 and of Drury Lane from 1841 to 1843, Macredy sponsored a revival of poetic tragedy, principally by producng works by Browning, Thomas Talfourd, and Sheridan Knwles; but

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all these men had ceased to write for the stage by 1844, and Macready had retired from management. Samuel Phelps, Macready's successor as the leading producer for the legitimate, gained acclaim for his Shakespearean revivals; but he found contemporary dramatists such as the Reverend James White, Frederick Tomlins, and Westland Marston inferior defenders of the poetic tradition. In comedy the spirit of the past, as upheld chiefly by the productions of Webster at the Haymarket, proved even less helpful in reviving literary drama. Mrs. Gore and Robert Bell typified a group of writers who failed utterly to revivify the comic forms of Sheridan, the elder Colman, or even Thomas Morton. T h e legitimate drama, patterned after decadent models, may have remained literary; certainly its deadly dullness as theatrical entertainment was proof that it was moribund. In 1844 the illegitimate dramatists wrote chiefly the shorter forms of burlesque, farce, comedietta, and melodrama. T o them literary style was not a major interest. T h e y aimed to appeal to the "crowd" through pieces filled with action. In general, except in burlesque, they drew their material from the experience and situations of everyday life. T h e story of the development of English playwriting between 1840 and 1880 is a story of the growth and improvement of minor dramatic forms, through the amalgamation of French techniques, into fulllength melodrama, domestic and drawing-room drama, and realistic comedy. In miniature this progress may be traced in the work of T o m Taylor. Writing always to satisfy the demands of his audiences and actors rather than to follow any preconceived literary theories, he developed (like many of his contemporary playwrights) from a writer of short pieces into one who could construct popular longer plays. Chronologically his career as a playwright may be divided into three periods. From 1844 to 1852 he was an apprentice learning the art of play making. T h e production of Masks and

64

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Faces, in 1 8 5 2 , first placed him among the ranking dramatists of the day, and until 1 8 7 0 he remained a prolific and generally successful writer of varied types of theatrical pieces. During the last decade of his life, as the author principally of poetic and historical plays, he Avas a less active, although still a respected, dramatist. H i s apprenticeship produced five short comic pieces and two longer adaptations. 1 T h e short pieces are Friends

at

1 It should be made clear that certain plays staged between 1835 and 1850 have sometimes been incorrectly assigned to T o m Taylor. In the compilation of the plays produced in London between 1800 and 1850 printed in the second volume of A History of Early Nineteenth Century Drama Professor Allardyce Nicoll lists twenty-five plays by T h o m a s Prochis Taylor, whom he considers to be T o m Taylor. Of these pieces only five—A Trip to Kissengen, Cinderella, To Parents and Guardians, The Enchanted Horse, and Diogenes and His Lantern—are definitely by T o m Taylor. T h e others certainly (or in a few instances probably) are by another playwright, T h o m a s Prochis (Proclus) Taylor. T h e confusion between these two writers arises from the fact that Professor Nicoll quite naturally assumes the name " T o m " to be a contraction of " T h o m a s " and hence regards the two Taylors as one and the same person. Writers of that time, however, are careful to make the distinction. T o m T a y l o r — " w h o was baptized T o m and only T o m " (New York World, J u l y 13, 1880, p. 5)—was referred to regularly bv the short name which proved uncommon enough to attract attention. Indeed the unconventional given name served as a distinctive trademark on Taylor's work, as Charles Mathews implied in an after-dinner speech when he mentioned the man "who cunningly contrived to have himself christened ' T o m . ' " (F. C. Burnand, Personal Reminiscences of the University Dramatic Club, p. 84.) Printed work of this Taylor invariably carries the name " T o m T a y l o r " and is so referred to by the reviewers with great scrupulousness. In addition to the evidence furnished by the use of the unusual given name we have T o m Taylor's own statement on his early writing. He definitely says in his article for Theatre, J a n u a r y , 1879 (Vol. I, series 2), that his first writing for professional theatrical consumption was in the burlesque Cinderella and in the farce A Trip to Kissengen, both produced in 1844. T h i s evidence proves that the nine plays in Nicoll's list which were licensed before 1844 must be by another writer. T h o s e that have been printed—The Miser's Daughter (1835), The Chain of Guilt (1836), and Fair Rosamond (1838)—give the author's name as either T . P. T a y l o r or T h o m a s Proclus Taylor. Of the eleven plays enumerated by Professor Nicoll as produced between 1844 and 1850 which are not certainly by T o m Taylor, either printed copies or press references make it clear that Gypsy Bride (Bower, 1845), The Village Outcast (Britannia, 1846), The Bottle (City of London, 1847), The Drunkard's Children (City of London, 1848) and The Waits (Standard, 1849) are by T h o m a s P. Taylor. Of the remaining six, Frank Heartwell (1848), a production of the suburban City of London, is probably by Thomas, although I have been unable to verify this. Dombey and Son, which Nicoll lists as a Strand offering of 1849, might well have been by either man; but the fact that it is not mentioned in any of the other enumerations of Tom Taylor's pieces inclines me to believe it the work of the other Taylor. Regarding the other four plavs I am unable to add to the statement made by Nicoll, "Before 1850 were produced The Life Boat, A Lonelye Spot, Boz's Pickwick, and The Green Hills of Tyrol," except to point out that I have found no evidence to indicate that they were the work of the widely known T o m T a y l o r .

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Court, To Parents and Guardians, and Wanted a Hermit, staged by the Keeley Lyceum management on June 9, 1845, September 14, 1846, and May 18, 1847, respectively; Our Clerks, acted by the Keeleys at the Princess on March 6, 1852; and A Nice Firm, first produced at the Lyceum on November 16, 1853. The short comic pieces of the Victorian theater, which until the establishment of a one-piece bill flourished as "curtainraisers" and "after-pieces," may be divided into farces, comediettas, and comic dramas. The outstanding characteristic of the Victorian farces is their bustling action. They invariably reflect the influence of the Scribe formula and display amazing dexterity in the manipulation of plot material. T h e narrative never stands still, and the original ludicrous situation is twisted in a clever fashion. Eccentric characters are not introduced unless they are essential to the development of the story, and the dialogue, although filled with broad witticisms, moves rapidly, depends for its humor on the situation, and does not interfere with the swift action. During the fifties and sixties, in particular, "screaming" farces appeared by the hundreds; some were poor, many mediocre, but scores had a command of plot technique which cannot be surpassed in their field. The comedietta was an attempt to reproduce the comédievaudeville of Scribe. The Reader for April 8, 1865, defined the English form as: "that dwarf species of comedy that is not as broad as farce, nor so light as vaudeville, nor so tragic as melodrama." 2 The true comedietta is gay and sprightly. It displays an interest in reviving the spirit of social comedy, especially by avoiding the grotesque humor of farce. Because of its clever plots, the comedietta may resemble the farce; but it is always more sophisticated and less absurd. Sometimes it presents a 2 T h e English word, according to the New English Dictionary, was first used in the Gentleman's Magazine for April 1, 1836. T h e style of the comedietta, although not the name, began to appear in English pieces by men such as Leman R e d e , J o h n Poole, and R i c h a r d Peake as soon as the influence of Scribe crossed the channel. T h e management of M a d a m e Vestris at the O l y m p i c f r o m 1831 to 1839 gave a strong impetus to its acclimatization, a n d the genre soon became an important part of the light repertoire of practically every L o n d o n playhouse.

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slight discussion of some problem, usually concerned with marital relationships. T h e action of the comedietta, always deftly presented, is usually amusing, frequently improbable, but never crude. T h e characters are civilized beings from the drawing-rooms or country homes of England and France. Naturalness may be sacrificed to the exigencies of their plots, but the illusion of reality is never totally destroyed. T h e dialogue, although it rarely sparkles with wit, often strikes an easy colloquial note. As a form in which playwrights practiced the art of weaving an interesting story around urbane characters speaking a natural language the comedietta made a distinct contribution to the development of English drama. In the comic drama, a genre much less popular than either the farce or the comedietta, action of a serious nature becomes very prominent and often completely displaces the comedy. In all three fields of short comic entertainment T a y l o r produced notable work. Taylor's Friends at Court, his first piece in the field of prose comedy after A Trip to Kissengen, was never printed. T h e Athenaeum for J u n e 14, 1845, furnishes an adequate description of this second piece. A new comedy in two acts was produced on Monday, with somewhat equivocal success. It is by the author of A Trip to Kissingen and entitled Friends at Court. It furnished little opportunity for clever acting except in the part assumed by Mrs. Keeley, Charles de Marillac, a young Gascon who arrives in Paris as a soldier of fortune, and of whom the king, Louis the Fourteenth, and Marquis de Lauzun seek to make a victim by entrapping him into a marriage of convenience with a certain Mademoiselle, one Louise de Chemeraut . . . Unsuspicious of the trick played upon him, and really loving the lady, the young Gascon is embarrassed and annoyed by the means taken after the ceremony to prevent him from having communications with his bride. Out of this, such amusement as the piece attempts is made to grow, but the notion is deficient in novelty, and, as here treated, barren of attraction.3 s No. 920, p. 595.

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T h e continental setting and the marital intrigue suggest a French adaptation. Despite the reviewer's lack of enthusiasm, the piece appears to have been moderately successful, and in c o n j u n c t i o n with Cinderella

and a well-advertised ballet it ran

for the better part of a month. Its stage popularity marked Taylor's next Lyceum piece, Parents

and Guardians,

To

as the most successful of all his short

comedies. A l t h o u g h this play was and is often referred to as a "farce," it lacks the bustling action of the typical Victorian farce. T h e sentimental and dramatic elements, fully as prominent as the broad humor, prove that the author

correctly

termed it "a comic d r a m a . " T h e action takes place in a boys' school, reminiscent of Dotheboys Hall and ironically named Jubilee House. Swish, the tyrannical Master, is patterned after Squeers. A m o n g the teachers is elderly Monsieur T o u r b i l l o n , a former C o u n t and now a refugee from the Revolution. Underfed, underpaid, plagued by the boys, and abused by the master, T o u r b i l l o n finds his only pleasure in thinking of his daughter, Virginie, from w h o m he was separated

fifteen

years earlier.

Swish learns that T o u r b i l l o n ' s estates and titles have been restored. H o p e f u l of personal gain, the master suddenly displays amazing respect for his employee and even suggests that his daughter Mary become Madame T o u r b i l l o n . His offers overwhelm the hitherto ill-treated usher. Swish. You'll dine with me today, my dear Sir? Tour. Monsieur! (aside) He is a generous! Swish. I think you'd better not sleep any longer in the dormitory; you shall have a separate bed-room. Tour. Monsieur! (aside) He is a noble! Swish. You must no longer be troubled with the charge of the boys out of school. Tour. Monsieur! (aside) He is a extravagant! Swish. As soon as possible I'll make arrangements for admitting you into partnership. Tour. Monsieur! (aside) He is a dronk!

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Swish. And, such is my regard for you, you shall marry my daughter. T o u r . Monsieur! (aside) I can no more; he is mad! ! Virginie,

obeying

the

instructions

given

her

by

her

dying

m o t h e r to seek o u t her father in E n g l a n d , appears at the school as a vagrant m i n s t r e l a n d begs the students for help. H e r plight does n o t impress the boys, however, a n d u n d e r t h e leadership o f B u l l y S k u l t e r they tease h e r until she is r e s c u e d by B o b Nettles, a mischievous b u t kind-hearted p u p i l . N e t t l e s a n d M a r y Swish are very fond of each o t h e r . W h e n they learn t h a t Swish i n t e n d s his d a u g h t e r for T o u r b i l l o n , they devise t h e plan of h a v i n g V i r g i n i e pose as the F r e n c h m a n ' s wife. N o t k n o w i n g that T o u r b i l l o n is really her father, V i r g i n i e shows h i m t h e p i c t u r e of h e r m o t h e r . U p o n seeing it, he faints. T h e e n s u i n g scene stressed t h e t e n d e r domestic feeling which c o u l d hardly b e too lavishly presented for the tastes o f V i c t o r i a n a u d i e n c e s . Vir. See, he breathes again; de color return to his lip—see—(853)-

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already married to an unsophisticated childhood

sweetheart.

H i s wife's absence from town has given him the opportunity of becoming the prop of the Cocoa-Tree—the star of Ranelagh—the Lauzun of the Green Room . . . that bower where fairies put off their wings and Goddesses become dowdies—where Lady Macbeth weeps over her lapdog's indignation and Belvidera groans over the amount of her milliner's last bill. In a word, the Green Room . . . where actors and actresses become mere men and women. V a n e has planned a dinner at his home for P e g and her associates of the theater. Pomander, who has learned from a chance meeting with the wife that she is planning to return unexpectedly, anticipates the blow which will fall on Peg's hopes. In this manner the audience also is prepared for the climactic moment when the two women, each unaware of the other's relationship to Vane, shall meet. Another visitor to the G r e e n R o o m is the pathetic T r i p l e t . His efforts as dramatist, poet, painter, and miscellaneous writer have proved uniformly unsuccessful; but disappointment has shaken, not conquered, his spirit. T o u c h e d by the plight of an old friend, Peg promises to secure a reading for his tragedies and to sit for him so that he may finish a portrait of her. She also commissions him to b r i n g some congratulatory verses to the dinner. T r i p l e t ' s departing speech is thoroughly in character. Trip. On the fly leaf of each work, madam, you will find the address of James Triplet, painter, actor, and dramatic author, and Mrs. Woffington's humble and devoted servant. (Bows ridiculously low, moves away, but returns with an attempt at a jaunty manner) Madam, you have inspired a son of Thespis with dreams of eloquence; you have tuned to a higher key a poet's lyre; you have tinged a painter's existence with brighter colors; and—and—God in heaven bless you. T h e second scene of the first act is laid at Vane's home. Mabel, his wife, returns eager to see her husband. W h e n she meets Vane

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and his guests, it seems that she must learn of her husband's philandering; but Peg, moved by the wife's innocence and devotion, conceals her own disillusionment at learning that Vane is married and refuses to reveal his deceit. Assuming an air of gaiety, Peg gives each guest the name of his favorite stage character and introduces them as ladies and gentlemen from high society. Kitty Clive is thus presented as Lady Lurewell, J a m e s Quin as Sir J o h n Brute Falstaff, Colley C i b b e r as Lord Foppington, and Peg herself as Lady Betty Modish. Mabel is delighted that her husband knows such fine people. W h e n the others have retired to the garden, Mabel receives T r i p l e t . T h e i r scene commences on a humorous note as the half-starved poet drinks wine, nibbles biscuits, and attempts to read his verses; but it ends pathetically when Mabel realizes that the poem which she first thought was a tribute from her husband is meant for Peg. At this moment the suave Pomander makes love to her; b u t although she is shaken by the conduct of her husband, Mabel has strength to reject his advances. T h e second act takes place entirely in the garret occupied by T r i p l e t and his family. T h e opening dialogue skillfully combines humor and pathos. T h e harassed playwright is struggling with the composition of a comedy amid the distracting complaints of his famished children, poetically christened

Lysi-

machus and Roxalana. Trip. Do keep those children quiet, Jane. Mrs. T . Hush, my dears, let your father write his comedy. Comedy seems so troublesome to write. Trip. YesI somehow sorrow comes more natural to me. I've got a bright thought; you see, Jane, they are all at a sumptuous banquet; all the Dramatis Personae except the poet. (writes) Music— sparkling wine—massive plate—soups—fish shall I have three dishes of fish?—venison—game—pickles and provocatives in the centre, than up jumps one of the guests, and says he— Boy. Oh dearl I am so hungry.

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Girl. A n d so am I. T r i p . T h a t is an absurd remark, Lysimachus, not four hours after breakfast. Boy. But father—there wasn't any breakfast for breakfast! T r i p . Now I ask you, Mrs. T r i p l e t — a n d how am I to write comic scenes if you let Lysimachus and Roxalana there put the heavy business in every five minutes. Mrs. T . Forgive them, the poor things are hungry! T r i p . T h e n they must learn to be hungry in another room. T h e y shan't cling around my pen and paralyze it, just when it is going to make all our fortunes; but you women have no consideration— send 'em all to bed, every man Jack of 'em. Hungry! Hungry! Is that a proper expression to use before a father w h o is sitting down (seats himself) all gayety to write a c o m — a com—(chokes) Where's the youngest—where's Cleopatra? (Mrs. T. brings child to him—he takes her on his knee) Girl. Father, I'm not so very hungry! Boy. A n d I'm not hungry at a l l — I had a piece of bread and butter yesterday. T r i p . Wife; they'll drive me mad! Boy. (sollo voice) Mother; father made us hungry out of his book. Girl. Is it a cookery book, father? T r i p . Ha! ha! is my comedy a cookery book? T h e young rogues say more good things than I d o — t h a t is the worst of it. P e g arrives w i t h a basket of f o o d , a n d despite t h e fact that she is still s u f f e r i n g f r o m h e r d i s a p p o i n t m e n t in V a n e she forces herself to e n c o u r a g e the T r i p l e t s . She then sits for T r i p l e t to c o m p l e t e his p o r t r a i t of her; b u t the artist b e c o m e s d i s c o u r a g e d by his f a i l u r e to d o j u s t i c e to his s u b j e c t a n d slashes a k n i f e across the p a i n t i n g . A t this m o m e n t the step of visitors is heard o u t s i d e tne d o o r . H e a d e d by the f o r m i d a b l e critics, Snarl a n d S o a p e r , the G r e e n R o o m c o m p a n y has c o m e to e x a m i n e the p i c t u r e . P e g takes h e r p l a c e b e h i n d the f r a m e a n d shows her face t h r o u g h the c u t in t h e canvas. T h e e n s u i n g s c e n e — i n w h i c h t h e visitors p o m p o u s l y attack the p i c t u r e a n d are e x p o s e d in their o w n p e d a n t r y — i s a d m i r a b l e c o m e d y .

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Clive. It's a pretty head enough, but not a bit like Woffington. Quin. Nay—compare paint with paint, Kitty—who ever saw Woffington's real face? Soap. Now I call it beautiful; so smooth, polished, and uniform. Snarl. Whereas nature delights in irregular and finely graduated surfaces. Your brush is not destitute of a certain crude talent, Mr. Triplet; but you are deficient in the great principles of art; the first of which is a loyal adherence to truth; beauty itself is but one of the forms of truth, and nature is our finite exponent of infinite truth. Soap. W h a t wonderful criticism! One quite loses oneself among such grand words! Snarl. Now in nature, a woman's face at this distance has a softness of outline—whereas your work is hard and tea-boardy. Soap. Well, it is a leetle tea-boardy perhaps. But the light and shade. Mr. Snarl! the—the—what d'ye call—the um—you know—eh? Snarl. You mean the chiaroscuro. Soap. Exactly. Snarl. T h e chiaroscuro is all wrong. In nature, the nose intercepting the light on one side of the face throws a shadow under the eye. Caravaggio, the Venetian, and the Bolognese do particular justice to this—no such shade appears in your portrait. Cibber. 'Tis so—stap my vitals. Soap. But my dear Mr. Snarl, if there are no shades, there are lights —loads of lights. Snarl. T h e r e are, only they are impossible. You have, however, succeeded tolerably well in the mechanical parts of the dress, for example; but your Woffington is not a woman, sir, nor nature. (All shake their heads in assent) Wolf. (speaking from the picture) Woman! for she has tricked four men; nature! for a fluent dunce does not know her when he sees her! Cibber. Why—what the deuce? Clive. Woffington! Woff. (stepping from the picture) A pretty face and not like Woffington. I owe you two, Kitty Clive. (to Quin) Who ever saw Peggy's real face? Look at it now if you can without blushing. Snarl. For all this I maintain on the unalterable rules of art— All. Ha! ha! ha! Snarl. Goths! Good morning, ladies and gentlemen! I have a criticism

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to write of last night's performance. I shall sit on your pictures one day, Mr. Brush. Trip. Pictures are not eggs, sir—they are not meant to be sat upon. Soap. You shall always have my good word, Mr. Triplet. Trip. I shall try and not deserve it, Mr. Soaper. Cibber. But we were all too hard upon poor Trip; and if he will accept my apology— Trip. Thank you! "Colley Cibber's Apology" can be got at any book-stall. Cibber. Confound his impertinence. Come along, Jemmy. Quin. If you ever paint my picture— Trip. T h e Bear from Hockley Hall shall sit for the head. Quin. Curse his impudence. Have with you, Mr. Cibber. Clive. I did intend to have my face painted, sir, but after this— Trip. You will continue to do it yourself. Clive. Brute! T h i s is the best scene in the play. W h a t follows is designed to offer Peg an opportunity for unselfish sacrifice and is almost entirely sentimental and edifying. Mabel enters, but not before Peg has resumed her place behind the picture. Mabel addresses the supposed portrait in a tearful apostrophe filled with the feelings of an injured wife. Peg, who had intended to show no sympathy, is touched, and the two women become reconciled. T h e actress undertakes to restore the affections of the husband to the wife. After summoning both Pomander and Vane to the garret, she assumes the disguise of Mabel and in that character pretends to accept the addresses of Pomander. T h i s brings on a quarrel between the two men; but before it develops into a duel, Peg appears in her own character and falsely assures Vane that her interest in him was solely to win a wager that she could gain the love of any man named. Disgusted at having been trifled with, Vane renounces his mistress and begs forgiveness of his wife. With this scene the play should end, but at the time of the original production Webster felt that the audience would demand a more cheerful conclusion. Accordingly the actors and

go

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critics are brought back with the news that one of Triplet's tragedies has been accepted. T h e piece then concludes with each character speaking a couplet in the conventional rhymed "tag" which served as the finale for almost every theatrical entertainment of the day. Vane. So I have played at love—witched from my will. Mabel. My love was always Ernest, and is still. Cibber. Pshaw! stap my vitals! "Manners make the man." They have made me! 'Tis about all they can! Snarl. Soap. Yes; Mr. Cibber's epitaph shall be He played Lord Foppington at seventy-three. Trip. Be kind tonight; in triplet tone I sue, As actor, manager, and author too. Mind that for sentence when they call the cause on, Pom. You've at least one Peg here—to hang applause on. Woff. Yes; sure those kind eyes and bright smiles one traces; Are not deceptive masks—but honest faces. I'd swear it—but if your hands make it certain, That all is right on both sides of the curtain. T h e inappropriateness of this anticlimactic ending with its sudden change from pathos to comedy was sensed by the Bancrofts when they decided to revive the play in 1875. In order to retain the proper mood, they eliminated the "tag" and dropped the curtain almost immediately after the scene of reconciliation between husband and wife. Mrs. Bancroft herself describes the closing scene as it was acted in the Prince of Wales production. The change which I suggested was this: After Peg's farewell to Mabel, and while still kissing her, her eyes meet Ernest's; she stands gazing at him, as if to realize the fact that he could have been capable of so much cruelty. Pale with emotion, she hands Mabel to him and watches them as they are going through the doorway, casting a last lingering look upon him. At the beautiful moment of her anguish, crushed and broken, I am convinced that she should be left to commune with her thoughts, with no one by her side but her one tried old friend Triplet,

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upon whose breast she leans, and at last gives way to her tears which have up to now been denied her. T h e curtain should fall upon the two figures, leaving Peg in the hearts of her audience, who have followed her in her sorrows, and must, therefore, pity her.5 " T o a modern reader," writes William Archer, "the play seems hopelessly tricky and artificial."

6

H e might well have

added, "and in many passages excessively sentimental." T h e s e comments are just, yet the piece proved successful on the stage because it possessed the very qualities Archer condemns. T o an audience willing to overlook the somewhat arbitrary methods by which the crucial situations are achieved the play would still seem effective. T h e setting provides a picturesque background. T h e major characters, for the most part, are firmly drawn and skillfully contrasted. T h e r e is a judicious blend of sprightly humor with the pathos. T h i s play is one of the earliest in England to combine some of the polished style of the comedy of manners with the artfully contrived scenes of the "well-made" play. T h e n u m b e r of eminently actable episodes show that the authors clearly grasp the principle that an incident, carefully prepared for, in which an actor displays one emotion toward the characters on the stage and suggests another to the audience is certain to prove effective. A t least four of the scenes in Masks and Faces make excellent use of this form of dramatic irony. A t the dinner party, when Peg learns that Vane is married, she must subtly show the audience that she is deeply hurt; but when she introduces the guests to Mabel, she must appear nonchalant and even gay. A little later Mabel must not allow either T r i p l e t or Pomander to observe now deeply she is w o u n a e a by her husband's misconduct, but the audience must be made to realize that her apparent indifference masks her true feelings. W h e n Peg appears gay and cheerful before the Triplets, she must at the same time transfer the ache in her heart across the s Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft on and off the Stage, II, 51. « The Old Drama and the New, p . 255.

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footlights. Similarly, at the close of the play Vane must never know that he meant more to her than a mere passing fancy; but the audience must sense that his deceit has left her alone—disillusioned and without faith in men. Such scenes always have been and always will be effective in the theater. T h a t an increasing number of them appeared in plays of that time was a sign that many playwrights were acquiring a mastery over effective principles of dramatic construction. From various sources it is possible to obtain a fairly clear conception of the evolution of Masks and Faces.1 T h e completed piece was the work of a genuine and close collaboration in which each writer made an important contribution. 8 If either man is entitled to a major share of the credit, it is Reade. He devised the idea of a play about Peg Woffington and developed the first conception of the majority of the characters, of the garret scene in which Triplet attempts to write the comedy, and of the incident involving the critics and the portrait. Taylor was responsible for the characterization of Mabel Vane, for the concluding scene of the first act, and for most of the incidents after Mabel and Peg are reconciled. He also performed valuable service by reducing the verbosities of his partner's style and by rendering the original outline less "higgledy piggledy." T h e desire to write a play which would redeem the reputation of Peg Woffington came to Reade one day in the Garrick C l u b after a long look at Hogarth's painting of the actress reclining on a couch. 9 Having decided on his theme, he outlined the plot and wrote a tentative version of the Triplet family scene, as well as a sketch of several Green Room episodes. T h i s work he 7 See n o t e i, a b o v e . 8 T h e a u t h o r i t y o f C h a r l e s R e a d e himself as r e p o r t e d by S q u i r e B a n c r o f t (Air. and Mrs. Bancroft, I I , 41) may be q u o t e d . S q u i r e B a n c r o f t writes: " W e had m a n y a talk t o g e t h e r a b o u t the play w i t h C h a r l e s R e a d e as to w h i c h w a s his share a n d w h i c h w a s T o m T a y l o r ' s ; h e f r a n k l y told us t h e w h o l e story of its g r o w t h a n d c o m p l e t i o n , a l w a y s r e g a r d i n g t h e w o r k as fairly d i v i d e d b e t w e e n t h e m . " 9Ibid.; also Percy Fitzgerald, The Garrick Club, p. 183. R e a d e boasted to E l l e n T e r r y t h a t t h e c o n c e p t i o n of P e g w a s entirely his (The Story of My Life, p. 133).

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showed to Taylor, and after several conferences the two agreed to develop the play jointly. Reade then composed a lengthy first act laid entirely in the Green Room, sketched the situations at the Vane home, and prepared the comic portrait scene almost in its final form. Into this framework Taylor fitted the incident of Mabel's return to her home and the devices by which Peg eventually reconciles husband and wife. He also reduced and eliminated much of what his partner had written. Upon returning from the office in the evening he would regularly cut down the long passages which Reade had composed during the day. T h e next morning at breakfast Reade would say to his partner's mother, half in fun and half in sorrow: "There, Mrs. Taylor, my gentleman has been at his old game. He cut out every line of that dialogue and all those sentiments you so much admired when I read them to you yesterday." 10 In both the first draft, rejected by Mrs. Stirling, and in the second draft, which Webster ordered revised, the play contained three acts. Over the protests of Reade, Taylor reduced these to two by cutting down the lengthy Green Room episodes with which Reade had opened the play. 11 T h e original cast for Masks and Faces, as it was presented at the Haymarket on November 20, 1852, included Mrs. Stirling as Peg, Webster as Triplet, Parselle as Vane, Rosa Bennett as Mabel, and Leigh Murray as Pomander. T h e Athenaeum re10 Charles Reade

(Charles L . and C o m p t o n Reade), p. 191.

Some of the discarded material appears in the first two chapters of Reade's novel Peg Woffington, published in 1853, the year following the production of the play. O n e incident relates the celebrated story that Peg once dressed as a man to win the affection of a girl with w h o m her lover had become infatuated. In another episode of the novel Peg, to disprove the opinion that she is not a real actress, disguises herself as the elderly Mrs. Bracegirdle and interprets the part with so much realism that even the Green R o o m critics are deceived. T h e s e passages are amusing, b u t their omission from the play is advantageous, since they would only have detracted f r o m the main narrative. In his letter to the first biographers of Reade, A r n o l d T a y l o r asserts that his brother protested at the publication of the novel Peg Woffington under Reade's name alone; whereupon R e a d e inserted the dedicatory preface to the book, which reads: " T o T . T a y l o r , Esq., m y friend and coadjutor in the comedy of Masks and Faces to w h o m the reader owes m u c h of the best matter in this story." 11

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view indicates that the authors were fortunate in the interpretations furnished the two key roles of Peg and Triplet. The drama is excellently acted throughout; but Mrs. Stirling and Mr. Webster must merit especial mention. The portraiture of the actress, given by the former, was lifelike, buoyant, fertile in resources, and brilliantly executed. The peculiarities of character that distinguish poor Triplet require that special aptitude for which Mr. Webster is remarkable; its humor and its pathos, in his hands, contend for praise, and are equally entitled to it. 12 For a quarter of a century after the initial production hardly a season passed that did not see the work produced at some theater. Mrs. Stirling was always a great favorite as Peg; but Sarah Woolgar, Kate Bateman, Henrietta Hodson, and Mrs. Herman Vczin also played the role with success. T h e most famous revival of the comedy was that presented very successfully by the Bancrofts at the Prince of Wales for a run of seven weeks beginning on November 6, 1875. 1 3 Mrs. Bancroft played Peg; Ellen Terry, Mabel Vane; and Bancroft made a superb Triplet, the first to bear favorable comparison in England with Webster's interpretation. On February 5, 1881, at the Haymarket, the Bancrofts again presented the play. During this second run of more than one hundred nights Arthur Cecil and Squire Bancroft 011 alternate evenings played the roles of Triplet and Cibber, respectively. T h e Bancrofts stated that among their productions the popularity of Masks and Faces was surpassed only by that of School, Ours, and Diplomacy.14 12 No. 1309 (November 27, 1852), p. 1304. is T h e Bancrofts made certain revisions in the original te\t. In addition to altering the conclusion, they e x p a n d e d the piece to three acts by lengthening the first scene to a complete act. Mrs. Bancroft herself prepared a sketch of the addition in the form of an interview between Quin and Kilty Clive, which terminated in a quarrel over their criticisms. R e a d e , who had repurchased the play from Webster, was then the sole o w n e r and was entitled to the royalties. He generously suggested that T a y l o r be engaged to write the new dialogue. For this work T a y l o r received £ 5 0 . For his entire share in the original version he earned onlv £ 7 5 . 14 T h a t the work of T a y l o r and R e a d e should outdraw such celebrated pieces as Caste, Money, Society, Play, Feodora, and London Assurance for the Bancrofts is a high compliment to its p o p u l a r appeal.

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T h e Woffington comedy also had a very successful career on the American stage, where it was first presented at Burton's on December 29, 1853. Burton was the original T r i p l e t ; but on January 7 he resigned the role to Charles Fisher, w h o had previously interpreted Vane. Fisher's performance of T r i p l e t became one of the classics of the American stage. Charles Wheatleigh and J. H. Stoddart also played the poor poet with marked success. Many great American actresses, from Laura Keene to Rose Coghlan, made the role of Peg delightful. A m o n g them were Charlotte Mitchell, Fanny Davenport, M m e Ponisi, Mrs. Hoey, and Madeline Henriques. W i t h actors and audiences of both A m e r i c a and England the popularity of no other nineteenth-century comedy surpassed that of Masks and Faces. O n N o v e m b e r 29, 1852, nine days after the production of Masks and Faces, the A d e l p h i offered Slave Life, a dramatization by Mark L e m o n and T a y l o r of Uncle

Tom's

Cabin.

During

1852 almost every suburban theater, as well as the O l y m p i c and the A d e l p h i in the West End, presented a version of the American novel. Since they were among the last playwrights to treat the story, T a y l o r and L e m o n felt compelled to show considerable ingenuity. T h e Illustrated

London

News makes it evident

that they did not hesitate to revise the original. T h e compilers have aimed at something more than usual, not contenting themselves with placing certain disjointed scenes on the stage calculated to recall the novel from which they are taken, but not to explain the plot to the uninitiated spectator. They have dared to conceive a dramatic unity of their own, and discipline the material of the romance into a modified expression of an original purpose. New combinations of incidents and characters have accordingly been effected; such for instance as an amalgam between T o m Loker, Haley, and Legree—between Topsy and the boy who follows George in his escape and adventures—and between Emmeline and Eliza. St. Clare, likewise, is sunk in Shelby, while Cassy is extended into a pervading guardian personage, worthy of being represented by Madame Celeste. Uncle Tom, as on other boards, is also on these deprived

g6

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of his "methodism," and, thereby the character shorn of its chief significance. Thus, the terrible Legree, excited to irrepressible passion by his slave's contumacy, stabs with a bowie-knife; but is afterwards himself killed in pursuing George Harris, the incident being transferred to him from T o m Loker, with the addition of a fatal result. 15 T h e success of this piece may have suggested to T a y l o r the possibilities of further work for the same theater. Two and a Life,

Loves

his second collaboration with Reade, is a splendid

example of the type of entertainment then popularly referred to as " A d e l p h i drama." T h i s form, which flourished especially in the theater whose name it bore and in suburban houses, came into existence through the domestication of the Pixerecourt mrlodrame.

It was written to appeal to unsophisticated audi-

ences by means of exaggerated contrasts. Untainted happiness precedes and follows the direst calamity; the extremely good struggle with the very wicked; spectacular and romantic settings alternate with those of the plainest kind; for every tear there is a smile; for every smile, a thrill. Usually the plot is original rather than adapted and loosely, even crudely, constructed. It concerns the unnatural rescue of innocence and virtue from the gravest jeopardy. T h e r e is always abundant farcical comic relief, and almost equal attention is devoted to scenes of intense pathos and to those of excitement arising from violent physical action. T h e characters, largely localized British types, are mainly from the poorer classes, except for the unmitigated villain, who may be from a higher social group. T h e moral worth of a character is usually established before he appears on the stage or by 1 5 X X I ( D e c e m b e r 4, 1852), 491. T h e A d e l p h i d r a m a t i z a t i o n was strongly cast. O . S m i t h acted U n c l e T o m , a n d the greatly e n l a r g e d p a r t of Cassv was giver t o M a d a m e Celeste. Miss VVoolgar a p p e a r e d as Eliza, S a m u e l E m e r y as L e g r e e , A l fred W i g a n as G e o r g e , a n d Mrs. Keeley as T o p s y . T h e craft of t h e stage constructor a i d e d the success o f the d r a m a in scenes such as those d e p i c t i n g t h e escape on t h e ice a n d p l a n t a t i o n life. T h e p l a y , a late comer a m o n g E n g l i s h stage version! of t h e n o v e l t h o u g h it was, held its o w n w i t h its c o m p e t i t o r s , a n d its later presentation at t h e same theater on F e b r u a r y 11, 1875, m a r k e d it as o n e of t h e few v e r s b n s of t h e n o v e l to be revived o n t h e E n g l i s h stage.

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his dress and first words. T h e speeches extol the virtues of the humble life as opposed to the corruption and wickedness of wealth. Picturesque local color is introduced by the use of dialect and by settings such as alehouses, fairs, farms, and seacoast homes. For the perilous rescue or escape, which is almost a sine qua non of the species, the stage carpenter is called upon to furnish spectacular mechanical effects. The poorer native melodramas are crude and absurd; the better specimens display considerable ingenuity in plot devices and a vigorous realism in character portrayal, dialogue, and studies of English life. In Luke the Laborer (1826) 1 4 John Baldwin Buckstone cut the pattern for native melodrama. Only slightly altered, the same pattern may be traced in such pieces as Buckstone's Wreck Ashore (1830), Edward Stirling's Grace Darling (1836), Buckstone's Green Bushes (1845), and The Writing on the Wall (1852), by Thomas and John Morton. After the Adelphi production of Dion Boucicault's The Colleen Bawn (i860) a distinct improvement in the style of native melodrama became noticeable. Boucicault combined the familiar qualities of Adelphi drama into a more neatly constructed and more unified form. His plays contained only one plot, in which the humorous element formed an integral part. By means of Scribean technique the action was made to provide greater suspense. Boucicault pruned his speeches of everything which did not bear directly on the progress of the story. He inserted local color with a more picturesque and authoritative hand. As a practical man of the theater he took advantage of the latest mechanical devices to make his stage effects so novel and spectacular that his type of melodrama was often referred to as the "sensation drama." He added nothing new to native melodrama, but he improved it vastly. Later writers of this type of entertainment followed the technique of Boucicault without greatly improving it. His own >8 All dates given f o r plays refer to date of first production.

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plays, such as Arrah-na-Pogue (1865) and Formosa (1869) are effective examples of later melodrama. T h e same may be said for such popular pieces as Peep O'Day (1861), by Edmund Falconer, Taylor's celebrated The Ticket of Leave Man (18G3), Watts Phillips's Maud's Peril (1867), and the play which is often considered the finest English melodrama, Henry Arthur Jones's The Silver King (1882). With this last play the type of entertainment instituted by Luke the Laborer reached its peak. T h e genre had lent vigor and energy to dramatic writing when they were greatly needed. It had served as a laboratory for experiments in plot construction. It had interested writers in a realistic treatment of commonplace people and scenes. It had helped to introduce a new style of acting. Its day was now over. Audiences were ready for something finer and less naive. Henceforth pure melodrama was to be a minor form of stage entertainment. Two Loves and a Life, first presented on March 20, 1854, is representative of "Adelphi drama" at a time when its plots were somewhat more advanced than those of Luke the Laborer and The Wreck Ashore and only slightly less unified and deftlypieced together than those of Boucicault. Reade and T a y l o r thoroughly understood the demands placed upon them, and their play contained the requisite qualities in a manner which unsophisticated playgoers were certain to find attractive. T h e discerning critic Henry Morley felt Two Loves and a Life to be an admirable example of its particular dramatic genre. It is the Adelphi drama spiritualized, and in that sense a perfect study. The authors had evidently determined that they would deprive the Adelphi audience of not one of the usual delights . . . There is the Adelphi audience fitted to perfection with its play, and every actor fitted to perfection with his or her part; yet, after all, nothing is displayed more perfectly than the true powers of the authors of the entertainment. We may imagine how we are indebted, now to Mr. Reade's power of expressing passion, now to Mr. Tom Taylor's constructive skill, everywhere to the skill which both gentlemen have

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as polished writers, and a quick sense both of humor and of pathos. Thus it happens that we have here all the vulgar elements of an Adelphi drama, lifted far above the regions of vulgarity, the oldest tricks of the stage being made new and striking by some touch which sets the stamp of genius upon them.17 In examining this play, then, we may be certain that we are analyzing an effective example of a very popular, vigorous, and important form of entertainment. A romantic background is provided by placing the action at the time of the Jacobite threat of 1745. Father Radcliffe and Gervase Rokewode have a price upon their heads as plotters against the crown; but under the names of Fisher and Hyde, respectively, they are living in the northern village of Ulverstone and, unsuspected, are laying plans to bring the Young Pretender to the throne. High-spirited Ruth Ravenscar, who had been washed ashore as a babe tied to the breast of her dead mother, loves Rokewode passionately; but he cannot return her affection because he and Anne Musgrave, the gentle daughter of the villainous village postmaster, love each other deeply. Intelligence reaches the town that the Duke of Cumberland is leading his troops across the treacherous Leven Sands, and fear is felt that the party will be lost in the fog and destroyed by the incoming tide. No one dares to guide them, until Ruth speaks. Ruth. I'm a woman, but I've a heart that makes a man of me when fear turns yours to water. While the villagers watch anxiously, she disappears into the fog and returns leading the soldiers. The

music

rises gradually.

nearer.

Shouts

nearer.

Some

A

approaching; of the men

Torches next,

are seen trumpets

run in with

torches

flashing

nearer

and

are heard

nearer

and

and

hurrah

joyfully.

march.

Ruth proudly refuses money for her service, but she does accept a ring from the duke to remind her always that "a brave gentle" Journal of a London Playgoer, p. 8«.

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man calls himself my debtor." Musgrave, who cannot read, has long made it a practice to open the letters which come to his postoffice and to force his daughter, much against her will, to read them to him. In this manner he illicitly gains much valuable information. Ruth, who suspects Musgrave, determines that she will hear what takes place in the upper room of his house. While the audience watches with bated breath, "she takes out a knife, which she places between her teeth and begins to climb. As she gets within arm's length of the panel, she sticks her knife warily in the interstice of the panel, and using it as a handhold, puts her ear to the panel." Within the room Musgrave opens a letter addressed to Hyde. T h e blank piece of paper which it contains, when held over a fire, reveals an innocent message which Anne reads to her father. This he shrewdly decodes and learns the plans of Rokewode and Father Radcliffe. When Musgrave has left the room, Ruth enters. T h e ensuing scene is saturated with the spirit of Adelphi drama. Anne (looks up startled). Ruth, you here? Ruth (points to the open panel). I have overheard all. Anne (pointing downward). Speak low. Ruth ( k n i f e in her hand). So, between you both, you would murder him. Anne. I! O Ruth, you terrify me. (cowers) Ruth. Yes; you and your father. Anne. I, who would give my life for his. I murder him, Ruth! I love him! Ruth (drops her knife). You love him? Anne. With all my soul! (pause; turns suddenly on Ruth, and reads her face) Ah! you love him! Ruth. With every drop of my blood! Anne. How dare you come between me and my lover? Ruth. Your lover? He is mine! From the first day he came here he has been dear to me. Anne. T o you. O Ruth, if you love, help me to save him. Ruth. Help you to save him? Be assured I will save him without

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your help. He owes his danger to y o u — h e shall owe his life to me. (Anne hides her face in her hands) Harkl the old man's stepl He closes the outer door; he locks it. Are we prisoners? Anne. No, I have another key. R u t h . Quick, (she is going toward the door) Harkl (laying her hand on her arm; a loud sound is heard) W h a t is that noise? Anne. He has shot the outer bolt—lostl lost! R u t h . T h i s window? Anne. ' T i s twenty feet from the ground. Heaven have mercy on usl W h o can save him now? (She sinks into a chair) R u t h (springing from the window sill). T H E W O M A N W H O LOVES HIM BEST! (Anne

starts up, and stretches

out her hands, as if in

terror)

A s R u t h ' s leap e n d s t h e s e c o n d act, w e can almost hear t h e clapp i n g of hands a n d t h e s t a m p i n g of feet in the pit a n d galleries. A f t e r an e x c i t i n g p u r s u i t the soldiers of the c r o w n , g u i d e d by M u s g r a v e , o v e r p o w e r t h e P r e t e n d e r ' s supporters at a s m u g g l e r s ' cave. H o w e v e r , R a d c l i f f e escapes, a n d R o k e w o d e is c o n c e a l e d by A n n e in her r o o m . H e is nevertheless e v e n t u a l l y

captured

a n d t a k e n to t h e T o w e r to a w a i t e x e c u t i o n . W h e n she learns the fate of h e r lover, A n n e is seized w i t h a fever. A s her father watches h e r l y i n g o n h e r b e d , he expresses the p r o p e r r e m o r s e of an A d e l p h i v i l l a i n . Mus. Her breathing comes more gently and there is moisture on her brow . . . How thin and white her hands are! and her cheek is so wasted. (He wrings his hands) A n d this is thy father's work, w h o dreamed of riches, that he might be happy and honored in thee above all. For this I broke my trust and lied, and overreached and betrayed. O, have I not my reward? In his T o w e r cell G e r v a s e awaits death like "a gallant spirit, b u t a stubborn traitor." W h i l e visiting him Radcliffe and

Ruth

discover f r o m a cross w h i c h was left w i t h her w h e n she was a s h i p w r e c k e d b a b y that she is R a d c l i f f e ' s d a u g h t e r by a m a r r i a g e m a d e b e f o r e he e n t e r e d the priesthood. A tearful r e u n i o n follows.

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Rad. Ruth! Juanita! my own flesh and blood, what does your heart say? Ruth. You are my father, (kneels) Rad. No—closer—closer—to my dead bosom that lives and burns again at the sacred touch. O, how good Heaven is. (sobs) I have a daughter. Ruth. I have a father. Anne also visits the cell, and Father Radcliffe marries her to Gervase. Dressed in her clothes, he escapes; but when he learns that she is to be executed in his place, he surrenders. T h r o u g h the intercession of the Duke of Cumberland, R u t h secures a pardon for Rokewode; but when she discovers that the man she loves is married to another, she threatens to destroy it. H e r father urges her to be generous, and at length she agrees to help Gervase. As the executioner lays his hand on the condemned man, she darts forward screaming, "A reprieve! A pardon!" Freed, Rokewode and Anne thank Ruth, who forces herself to kiss the successful rival and then buries her head in her father's bosom as he pronounces the benediction. Rad. Farewell all—be happy—I take my dove to a land of safety. (Music) A father's love, tender and watchful as the love of Angels is round her and about her. The great heart suffers—but survives; and these, its noble struggles, are each a step upon its path to Heaven. No Adelphi patron could justifiably have been disappointed at this piece. T h e leading roles were assigned to favorite actors. Leigh Murray, the idol of feminine eyes, carried the part of Gervase, with Webster as Father Radcliffe. Anne and R u t h , the contrasted heroines, were played by Madame Celeste and Miss Woolgar, respectively. T h e villainous Musgrave was interpreted by the bad man par excellence, O. Smith. Abundant comic relief, only vaguely related to the serious action, was furnished by Robert Keeley as a simple schoolmaster and Rogers as a country barber. T h e piece contained its full share of sensational

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scenes of physical action. Domestic pathos was lavishly inserted. Anyone who has heard the wave of applause which sweeps a modern motion picture house when the sheriff, single-handed, captures the cattle rustlers and saves the elderly rancher and his beautiful daughter from ruin will realize that the subject matter of this type of entertainment changes with the years, but not its spirit. Helping Hands, Taylor's second play for the Adelphi, was produced on June 20, 1855. This piece represents the type of theatrical entertainment which might be classified as "domestic drama" as differentiated from the more spectacular Adelphi or native melodrama. The distinction between the two forms is principally that while the native melodrama mingles sensational excitement, pathos, and humor, the domestic drama eliminates the excitement. The domestic drama retains the theme of the arbitrary rescue of innocence from distress, but it discards the incidents of sensational physical action and the spectacular stage effects in favor of a tearful narrative relieved by occasional humor. T h e characteristics of domestic drama are of course to be found in Elizabethan plays like A Woman Killed with Kindness and in eighteenth-century bourgeois tragedy and sentimental comedy; but during the early nineteenth-century influx of melodrama the sensational element is so intertwined with the pathetic that it is almost impossible to distinguish a separate domestic genre. After 1840, however, there are numerous examples of such a species to be clearly differentiated from native melodramas like Luke the Laborer and Two Loves and a Life. Helping Hands omits few of the familiar touches which embellish the standard story of honest poverty which is eventually rewarded, after much suffering. Margaret Hartman (Madame Celeste) and her blind old father (Webster) are living in "a mean room on the upper floor of a poor lodging house." Before he lost his sight the father was a celebrated musician, but the few pence which he now earns by playing his violin in the streets

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are not e n o u g h to buy even sufficient food. By copying music Margaret struggles to increase the slight income; but because her father's pride would never permit his daughter to support him, she is forced to do her copying secretly at night. T h e consequent lack of sleep has helped to b r i n g her to the verge of consumption, a disease from which only a trip to a warmer climate will save her. Y o u n g Doctor Merton is in love with Margaret, but he is too wretchedly poor to help. Because the rent is three weeks in arrears, the hard-hearted landlady obtains an order to sell the possessions of the Hartmans. ' T i l d a (Mrs. Keeley), the domestic servant who sympathizes so deeply with the plight of the Hartmans that she weeps whenever it is mentioned, enlists the aid of her sweetheart, R u f u s (Keeley). As a boy K u f u s had been adopted by the Hartmans, b u t "he turned bad and robbed 'em." T o make amends he pays the rent in exchange for some of the possessions. A m o n g them is a Stradivarius, which he sells to W o l f f , a dealer in second-hand goods, intending to use the money to send Margaret away. W h e n the father discovers the loss of his instrument, he berates his daughter. Lord Quaverly, a dilettante collector, agrees to buy the violin from Wolff. Urged by his brother, Caverly Hautbois (Murray), w h o has designs on Margaret, Quaverly invites Hartman to inspect his rare violins. Should the old musician flatter Quaverly's taste, he is assured ample payment; but honesty compels h i m to pronounce the collection spurious. Margaret likewise rejects the temptation of riches offered by Hautbois. As the father is leaving Quaverly's home, he hears a violin, and from its tone he recognizes his Stradivarius. T h e old man denounces Quaverly as a robber; b u t w h e n R u f u s explains why the instrum e n t was sold and when the father realizes what sacrifices his daughter has made, he pretends that the violin meant little to him. Arbitrary devices produce the denouement.

Quaverly's

infant son is stricken by a severe attack of croup. As the family physician can in no way be reached, R u f u s , always present at the

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right moment, summons Merton. For his services in curing the boy the y o u n g doctor is liberally paid and offered any gift he may select. He chooses the Stradivarius, returns it to Hartman, and claims the hand of Margaret. H a r m o n y between father and daughter, a coming marriage, and the prospects of a trip to the sunny shores of Italy thus produce a veritable delirium of good cheer. T h e dialogue of the piece alternates between the strongly sentimental and the broadly humorous. T h e sentiment may be illustrated by Margaret's description of her father's decline. Marg. My earliest recollections are of ease, almost luxury . . . My mother was alive then; my father was first violin at the opera . . . Oh, it was terrible to watch, day by day, that passage from dimness to darkness . . . We sank, sank, slowly but surely, from ease to want; my mother was not so strong as I was; she died from consumption they said—I knew it was from misery; poor father struggled hard for his wife and child; he was not too proud to give miserably paid lessons, to play at cheap houses of entertainment, and when, owing to his increased infirmities, even these resources failed him, he tried the streets. T h e mediocre comic relief is provided largely by ' T i l d a and Rufus. A brief specimen may be selected from their recollections of their pranks d u r i n g their poorhouse days. 'Tilda. Oh, wasn't you a bad 'un. Rufus. Wasn't I?—just. 'Tilda. Do you remember when you put the mouse in the gruel? Oh, warn't it fun? Rufus. And the time when I turned off the soup into the washing coppers! Oh, such a lark I And didn't I catch it neither? 'Tilda. And when you pumped— Rufus. On the beadle—and you wouldn't spill't. And the asfedity in the old man's 'bacca? Oh, 'Tilda. T h e play will not amuse a modern reader. T h e absence of the sensational episodes which give life to a piece like Two

Loves

and a Life leaves only a story of maudlin sentiment ineffectively

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relieved by strained humorous interludes. The part played by coincidence appears more obvious and less pleasing than it might in sensational Adelphi drama where the reader rightfully anticipates a bold plunge into the improbable. In Helping Hands, also, the self-sacrificing heroine, the unappreciative father who awakens to the debt he owes his daughter, and the impoverished hero who becomes a favored child of fortune seem conventional and wooden. Yet it should be remembered that a play of this type contributed something toward the improvement of Victorian drama. It represents an effort to treat people from humble society seriously and to present their problems without recourse to the more sensational exaggerations of melodrama. In this particular work the attempt to mirror common experience becomes sentimental and dull; but efforts such as this broke the monopoly held by melodrama over serious prose drama during the first forty years of the nineteenth century. From this domestic genre evolved pieces such as William Gilbert's Dan'l Druce (1876) and Pinero's The Squire (1881) as evidence that apart from native melodrama there had been established a realistic and serious prose drama that was neither absurd nor inane and a drama that was capable of interpreting the experience of common folk. T h e consideration of the pieces written jointly by Taylor and Reade, interrupted by the discussion of Helping Hands, may now be resumed. On October 2, 1854, the St. James opened under the nominal direction of Mrs. Laura Seymour; but it was an open secret that Reade's money and influence were behind the enterprise. Blindly certain that his friend was a great actress, the infatuated author believed that were she established as the leading lady of her own company all London would recognize her talents. For the opening attraction of her management Reade obtained Taylor's assistance in writing The Kings Rival. Despite its numerous comic episodes this play is essentially

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a domestic drama in romantic dress. T h e authors followed the formula of Masks and Faces by presenting a sympathetic picture of another vixen of the past, Nell G w y n n e . By a curious Victorian metamorphosis she becomes a sweet young lady w h o passes one half of her time in longing for honest wedlock and the other half in playfully foiling the amorous advances of courtiers like Samuel Pepys and Buckhurst. She is not only the central

figure

in the humorous incidents b u t also the mo-

tivating force in bringing together the t w o lovers, Frances Stewart and the D u k e of R i c h m o n d . R i c h m o n d , depicted as the one honest nobleman in the corrupt court of Charles II, is deeply in love with La Belle Stewart; but his faith in her has been shaken by ugly rumors that she has become the latest mistress of the Merry Monarch. Actually the lady has rejected the king's advances; but, aware that His Majesty will have n o scruples at removing a rival, she feigns indifference toward R i c h m o n d . T h i s convinces him that she is merely a coquette willing to sell her charms to the highest bidder. In desperation he signs a pledge for the Puritan M a j o r W i l d m a n that he will j o i n a conspiracy to dethrone Charles. W h e n Mistress Stewart goes to the aid of W i l d m a n , when he is stricken with the plague, the document comes into her hands. Ignorant of the fact that it stamps her lover as a traitor, she gives it to the king. Richmond

turns

for solace

from

his disappointment

in

Frances to Nell, but she realizes that he has never ceased to care for his first love and determines to reunite the couple. Hidi n g Mistress Stewart behind a curtain, Nell induces R i c h m o n d to pour forth the story of his true love. U p o n hearing this Mistress Stewart is moved to explain her supposed indifference. W h e n the lovers have been reconciled, Nell insists that they marry and defy the king. She even tricks Charles into lighting a fire with the incriminating paper, but he produces a duplicate and on its evidence sentences R i c h m o n d to death. T h e wife's earnest plea that R i c h m o n d is a loyal nobleman who joined the

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conspiracy in a moment of despair and her reminder of his past services to the Crown persuade Charles to pardon both the indiscretion and the marriage without royal permission. The play undoubtedly owes much to the spirit of the French romantic drama, especially as it was reflected on the English stage in such plays as Lytton's Richelieu (1839); but the authors of The King's Rival have not failed to pay tribute to the fetish of domesticity. Over the wickedness of the carefree, cynical Restoration era they have grafted the morality of their own age. T h e characters speak of corruption and vice; but their actions rarely support their words. The king and his courtiers seem to be merely Victorian gentlemen enjoying a holiday from their moral standards. Even the supposedly dissolute Charles, so free with his affections, bows without hesitation before the sacredness of marriage vows. Once Mistress Stewart is properly a wife she ceases to be fair game even for His Majesty. Domesticity scores another triumph in the picture of the monarch's neglected wife. Through all her husband's many philanderings she remains faithful, loving if not loved, and living in the hope that her devotion will some day lure her husband back to the ways of a good man and a loving father. As the play closes, we feel that for a time Charles will don his slippers and dressing gown to sit before the fire, his arm about his wife, in a picture of connubial bliss. T h e authors' treatment of Nell Gwynne is a clear illustration of this contrast between the spirit of the Restoration and Victorian periods. It is impossible to conceive of the real Nell saying to Frances and Richmond: Heaven's blessing be on you! Yours is a sacred union. It seals the love that makes hearts pure, and fits them for a better world than this. I shall never stand so before a priest! The Church will never give me Heaven's blessing! No honest man will love so me. I shall die Nelly Gwynne—and men will say I was a wanton! Who will

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believe my heart was not corrupt. Ah, woe is me, woe is me. Heaven pity mel Heaven pity me! Surely this is Tennyson's Guinevere who speaks. At times Nell does strive desperately to play the jade, but the lady doth protest too much. At heart she is a moral little soul, very conscious of her inferior social position and yearning for the refuge of marriage. The spirit of the French romantic drama made little impress on the Victorian theater, because, as this piece indicates, the temper of English audiences and consequently of English playwrights was more suited to domestic themes. The King's Rival was kept on the board of the St. James for a month's run, but as an attraction for audiences it proved a great disappointment. T h e primary reason for its comparative failure was undoubtedly the inability of Mrs. Seymour to carry the leading part of Nell Gwynne. Everyone except Reade recognized her as merely another competent, but by no means brilliant, actress, and a playhouse of which she was to be the chief support was predestined to fail. Another handicap for the original production was the lack of a company which would work harmoniously together. George Vandenhoff, who played the role of Charles, and Miss Glyn, the Mistress Stewart, were veterans nearing the end of their careers. Trained in the "star" tradition, they concentrated on individual performances rather than on composite effects. Tom Mead, who interpreted the part of Richmond, also served as the stage manager. He was a former Surrey favorite with a thorough training in London and the provinces, but he was not clever or intelligent enough to direct a major company. John L. Toole, then making one of his first London appearances, played the part of Pepys in a broadly humorous style, which was amusing but hardly helpful to the general effect of a serious drama. George Vandenhoff himself supports the view that the rendition, rather than the play itself, was at fault.

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In the serious scenes the action was allowed to flag horribly. Both Reade and T o m Taylor will bear me out in this, I am sure, from what fell from them immediately after the play on the first night . . . T h e play itself is an excellent one and ought to have succeeded. It would have done so, too, had there been a competent stage director. Had Mr. YVallack, for example, put it on the stage it would have been a certain success.18 According to the barometer of stage popularity each of the collaborations by T a y l o r and R e a d e was less successful than its predecessor, and their last joint work, The

First Printer,

was

a distinct failure. T h i s piece, produced by Charles Kean at the Princess T h e a t e r on March 3, 1856, was never printed, but from reviews we learn that it was an historical play founded on the Dutch legend that one Laurens Costar, a native of Holland, invented the printing press and that John G u t e n b e r g stole both the device and the honor. T h e play was well received by the critics, but "after nine representations it was withdrawn, simply because the receipts fell regularly below the nightly expenditures, without any prospect of reaction."

19

T h e friendship between Reade and T a y l o r remained close and u n b r o k e n until the latter's death. Reade's unconventional relationship with Mrs. Seymour outlawed them from many circles, but it did not trouble T a y l o r and his wife. Reade and "his housekeeper like Moliere's" often visited the T a y l o r home, and they received the T a y l o r s at A l b e r t Gate. Each of these men aided the other d u r i n g the twenty-four years following the close of their theatrical partnership. T a y l o r corrected the proofs of Reade's novels for an American edition and frequently criticized his friend's manuscripts. In 1871, when T a y l o r was accused by T h o m a s Purnell, dramatic critic of the Athenaeum,

of

borrowing the plots of his plays without making proper ac18 Leaves from an Actor's Notebook, p . 268. In A m e r i c a The King's Rix'al p r o v e d m o d e r a t e l y p o p u l a r . L a u r a K e e n e p r o d u c e d it at her theater o n A p r i l 7, 1856. A d e l a i d e a n d J o s e p h i n e G o u g e n h e i m p l a y e d in it f r e q u e n t l y . M a r y Provost was a n o t h e r actress w h o e n j o y e d success as N e l l G w y n n e . 1» C o l e , Life and Theatrical Times of Charles Kean, II, 164.

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knowledgment of their sources, Reade came to Taylor's defense with a series of letters to the newspapers. The parting of their ways as co-authors was caused, not by any break in their personal regard for each other, but by the fact that each preferred to devote himself to the cultivation of his separate talents. On June 19, 1855, while he and Reade were active partners, Taylor married Laura Wilson Barker, the third daughter of the Reverend Thomas Barker, vicar of Thirkelby, Yorkshire. At the time of his marriage he resided at Eagle Lodge, Brompton. Three years after their marriage the Taylors built a home, Lavendar Sweep, on Clapham Common, Wandsworth. Many writers of memoirs have left brief accounts of this charming residence and of the talented people who gathered there. Ellen Terry wrote: The Taylors' home was one of the most softening and culturing influences of my early life. Would that I could give an impression of the dear host at the head of his dinner-table, dressed in black silk knee-breeches and a velvet cutaway coat—a survival of politer times, not an affectation of it—beaming on his guests with his very brown eyes.20 Life at Lavendar Sweep was indeed very pleasant. T h e Taylors were a compatible couple, noted for their hospitality. Upon first acquaintance Mrs. Taylor gave the impression of being austere; but her intimates found her warm-hearted and jovial. 21 Friends from many circles visited Lavendar Sweep. On Sunday evenings a musicale was the regular attraction, and Charles Reade rarely failed to sing " T h e Girl I Left behind Me" with such pathos that he moved himself to tears. On other evenings 20 The Story of My Life, p. 129. 21 Mrs. T a y l o r was a talented musician. As a child she studied with Paganini and played duets with Mendelssohn. After her marriage she composed music for the lyrics of famous poets. A m o n g other poems she set to music Herrick's Daffodils and some of Blake's Songs of Innocence. She also wrote music to accompany her husband's historical drama, Jeanne Dare, and adapted several Breton tunes for his translations of the Barsaz-Briez ballads collected by the French scholar L a Villemarqui. In 1900, twenty years after her husband's death, she conducted a program of her own orchestral compositions at the Birmingham music festival.

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Tennyson and Taylor would sit and smoke their pipes together, or perhaps the laureate, in a voice better suited for reading than music, would sing some of his own poems to tuhes composed by Mrs. Taylor. Ellen Terry could not remember a time when she had not known Taylor, and his wife seemed like a second mother to her. Indeed the playwright's interest in the T e r r y girls was as great as though they had been his own children. Letter after letter from him in an almost unreadable scrawl proffered advice on their acting and their conduct. In one respect Taylor's influence on Ellen was not wise; he was too deeply interested in selecting her husbands. It was he who introduced her to Watts and urged her to marry him. When the artist tired of her beauty and immaturity, Taylor was among those who advocated their separation and "drove" her back to the stage. Later, pained by her illegal union with Godwin, the playwright pressed her unfortunate marriage to Charles Kelley. This interference caused a slight rift in the friendship between the actress and her adviser, but later she wrote: "When T o m Taylor died, I lost a friend the like of whom I never had again." 22 Taylor's private life was marked by its industry. Almost every morning, after drinking a cup of milk, he was at his desk for three hours of work. He then walked hurriedly from Lavendar Sweep to his Whitehall office. After five, if there was no important dramatic opening or Punch meeting to be attended, he hastened back to Lavendar Sweep and further work. During his rare vacations he usually went with his family to the country. Even there the mornings were devoted to writing, and amid the swimming parties and picnics which took up the remainder of the day he often discussed theatrical matters with his friend and neighbor, J o h n Coleman. Taylor's appearance during his middle years is well described by Coleman: " A man of middle height, with lithe, sinewy figure, a massive brow, covered with 22 The Story of My Life, p. 130.

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a thatch of iron-grey hair, rugged features, and a celestially defiant nose, a pugilistic jaw, bristling with a crisp beard of grey, and eyes which glittered like steel."

23

As the hair turned gray,

the beard became snowy white. Except when he became excited, T a y l o r ' s manner was quiet and gentlemanly. N o t h i n g about him recalled that he was the son of a laboring man. H e could converse intelligently on many subjects, and he appears to have been a better talker than listener. N o taint of scandal touched his life. A m o n g journalists his temperance was notable. Sir Francis Burnand in particular testifies that T a y l o r was never a party to the excesses of the O w l ' s Roost crowd. "Shirley (Brooks) belonged to the period when journalism . . . meant no business could be discussed without it being made, at any time of the day or night, an excuse for a glass. It was the same with most of Shirley's confreres, the notable exception being T o m T a y l o r . "

24

As a husband T a y l o r was considerate and faithful. As a father he was devoted to his two children, Lucy and Wycliffe. His kindness and generosity were proverbial, and few m e n have been as free with their time, money, and energy in the assistance of others. W h e n he presented fifteen pounds to a veteran actress, Mrs. T a y l o r ' s only surprise was that the gift had not been twice as large. W h e n he died, Mrs. Janet Ross expressed what many felt w h e n she wrote: " H o w m u c h sunshine went out of the life of those w h o loved him on that fatal July 12th. O n e could no longer say, with the certainty of receiving excellent a d v i c e — 'I'll ask T o m T a y l o r . ' "

23

23 Players and Playwrights I Have Known, II, 117. Layard, A Great Punch Editor . . . Shirley Brooks, p. 250. 25 The Fourth Generation, p. 206.

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1853-60 N I M P O R T A N T portion of Taylor's work, indicative C / ~ L o i the widespread French influence on the English drama of that day, is the group of plays which he wrote for the Olympic between 1853 an< ^ i860. "Olympic drama," as the term was then understood, meant a drama adapted from or modeled after a "well-made" play. It will be recalled that Eugene Scribe evolved the formula for this type of entertainment to provide for the construction of an interesting play without recourse to the exaggerations of melodrama or to the wit and poetry of literary drama. T h e formula was of prime importance to the nineteenth century, because it indicated the method for creating a popular, yet civilized, drama of the contemporary scene. T h e basic element of a "well-made" play is a cleverly devised, deftly manipulated, exciting narrative. T w o human forces, A and B, are opposed to each other in a struggle to be decided by brains and chance—not by sheer brawn. T h e conflict arises in a curious situation pregnant with possibilities. T h e exposition clearly and briefly gives the audience certain facts, many seemingly unimportant, but all essential to the master plan. T h e action then leads the opposing forces through a series of artfully contrived crises, each more exciting and piquant than the last. Suspense is constantly present, and surprise occurs repeatedly as

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first A and then B gains the supremacy through the amazing influence of some apparently trivial factor. T h e most common device to throw the weight first on one side and then on the other is the shifting possession of some material object, preferably a letter. As the play develops, the pace with which the commanding position changes accelerates, until in a whirlwind climax one force attains final victory. It is as though A and B were on a see-saw. A is up, B is down; but as the weight shifts, B is up, and A is down. While this "teeter-tottering" continues, it increases its speed until the maximum is attained. T h e n , with a final, unexpected push A or B is toppled from the see-saw and the motion ceases. Actually the forces on the see-saw are puppets controlled by the playwright, who subtly shifts the weight to produce the "teeter-tottering" and ends it when he can no longer increase its speed. So rapid is the action, however, and so well concealed is the influence of the playwright that an observer uninitiated into the tricks of the game becomes absorbed in the "teeter-tottering" and fails to note the arbitrary methods which control it. English audiences appreciated the crispness and adroitness of this form of drama as a relief from dreary literary pieces and absurdly sensational melodramas. T o playwrights the "wellmade" play appealed not only because of its popularity but also because of its adaptability. Applied to a struggle with humorous implication the formula would produce uproarious comedy, but it also could be used to create a tense drama. Nor was the material of the "well-made" play deeply rooted in French life. Translated, a piece of this type might well prove interesting to an English audience; adapted, by Anglicizing the setting and the dialogue, it was likely to provide even better entertainment. Together with the romantic drama of Victor Hugo the "wellmade" play dominated the English stage throughout the middle years of the century. Original plays, in the sense that their plots were not borrowed or in the sense that they were indigenous

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to English society, were rare. British playwrights, who had yet to master the dramaturgy of the new forms, rejoiced in the absence of stringent copyright regulations and imported

their

wares free of charge from across the channel. T h e less careful and less capable playwrights unimaginatively

translated

the

sources; the more serious and more skillful, among whom was T a y l o r , usually took pains to alter the originals better to suit the tastes of their audiences. O f t e n these changes justified the classification " n e w " according to the theory propounded

by

T a y l o r and others that the term "new play" might properly be applied to any adaptation which considerably altered its source. 1 A t the O l y m p i c the full-length pieces, both borrowed and original, produced d u r i n g the

fifties

represented the art of

Scribe better than those at any other theater of that time. As acted by a company headed by the strongly emotional actor Frederick Robson and the exceedingly natural performer Mrs. Stirling, these " O l y m p i c dramas" were at once recognized as urbane entertainment, more realistic than the romantic pieces staged by Kean, more sophisticated than the " A d e l p h i drama," and more serious than the usual L y c e u m fare. For after-pieces and curtain-raisers the various managements of the theater depended principally upon comediettas borrowed or imitated from the numerous comédie-vaudevilles

which fitted the pattern cut

by Scribe. T h e s e O l y m p i c short pieces, although perhaps less distinctive than the longer offerings, also displayed skillful plots and a sophisticated air. Since in an O l y m p i c p l a y — l o n g or short, adapted or original — a skillfully developed narrative was the prime consideration, characterization and realistic dialogue were of secondary importance. A n y t h i n g approaching a serious criticism of life or i In t h e p r e f a c e to The Fool's Revenge T a y l o r e x p o u n d e d his theory r e g a r d i n g t h e use of " n e w " a n d " o r i g i n a l " in c o n n e c t i o n w i t h d r a m a s . I n slightly g r e a t e r d e t a i l h e e x p l a i n e d his t h e o r y in letters to t h e Athenaeum theater columns from A p r i l 13 to M a y 27, 1871, Nos. 2270, 2272, 2274. T h e s e letters, written d u r i n g a c o n t r o v e r s y w i t h " Q , " p e n n a m e of T h o m a s P u r n e l l , f o r m a n y years d r a m a t i c critic of t h e p e r i o d i c a l , a r e r e p r i n t e d in Dramatists of the Present Day, by Q.

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the analysis of social and moral problems was included by accident, not design. These pieces seem shallow and artificial to a period which has seen and read Ibsen, Shaw, Galsworthy, O'Neill, Chekhov, Hauptmann, and other twentieth-century exponents of realism, naturalism, and expressionism; but the importance of the Olympic as a laboratory in which by adaptation and imitation English playwrights mastered the art of rendering dramatic material malleable and effective should not be overlooked. After i860 the "well-made" play was common in many other London theaters, and the Olympic consequently lost much of its individuality. From approximately 1853 to i860, however, the house stood definitely apart as the home of a distinctive type of entertainment. During these years T o m Taylor, John Oxenford, and Horace Wigan were the leading Olympic playwrights. Of the work of this group that of Taylor was unquestionably the most outstanding and successful. His earliest connection with this theater had been as the author of Diogenes (1849), The Vicar of Wakefield (1850), and Sir Roger de Coverley (1851). Plot and Passion, first staged on October 17, 1853, was, however, his first true "Olympic drama." Below are the titles of the other pieces which he wrote for this theater before i860, together with dates of first production: To Oblige Benson, March 6, 1854; A Blighted Being, October 17, 1854; Still Waters Run Deep, May 14, 1855; Retribution, May 12, 1856; A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing, February 19, 1857; Going to the Bad, June 5, 1858; Nine Points of the Law, April 11, 1859; Payable on Demand, July 11, 1859; and A Christmas Dinner, April 23, i860. With this group may well be considered The House or the Home?, a "well-made" play presented by the Wigans at the Adelphi on May 16, 1859. In general the dramatic works which fall within the scope of this chapter may be discussed satisfactorily in their chronological order. O n October 17, 1853, the Olympic opened, under the management of Alfred Wigan, as a home for sophisticated dramatic

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and humorous entertainments. T o permit fashionable patrons to linger over their dinners, the doors did not open until seven —an hour later than the customary time. T h e opening attractions were Planches Camp and Passion,

at the Olympic

and Taylor's

Plot

the first full-length play in which he consciously

imitated the technique of Scribe. Unlike the majority of later Olympic plays, Plot

and Passion

is largely original with its

author.2 It is an excellent example of the "well-made," melodramatic, drawing-room drama. A maze of treachery and intrigue, complicated by secret panels and sliding doors, constitutes the plot. T h e narrative is based on the historical fact that Fouche, Napoleon's efficient and unscrupulous minister of police, employed as spies certain women "with the enormous recommendation of an unblemished character," whom some weakness had placed in his power. Among - J o h n Lang, a barrister and minor novelist, claimed a share in the authorship of Plot and Passion and was often considered a collaborator. T h e r e seems to be no evidence available, however, to contradict T a y l o r ' s statement in the Athenaeum for May 1 3 , 1871 (No. 2272, p. 607), in which he claims the sole authorship. T a y l o r wrote: " J o h n Lang never wote a line, suggested a character, or invented an incident of the play. Mr. J o h n L a n g , it is true, called my attention to the story on which the play is founded—that F o u c h i employed a body of abandoned women, whom he called his coliorte Cytherienne, to lure his enemies within his reach. M r . L a n g suggested this as a good subject for collaboration of M r . C. R e a d e and myself, who were then working together. Mr. L a n g himself wrote a play and a story on the subject . . . T h e story is published . . . My play was written without consultation, collaboration, or communication with Mr. L a n g and during his absence from L o n d o n . " Malcolm Elwin, in his biographical study Charles Reade, states that R e a d e refused to collaborate with T a y l o r in working u p Lang's idea because he was still smarting from Mrs. Stirling's rejection of his personal advances a n d would have nothing to do with any play in which she was to have a part. T h e play by L a n g referred to by T a y l o r was rejected by A l f r e d Wigan in favor of Plot and Passion. Lang's novel, Secret Police, was published in 1859 (Ward a n d Lock, London). In the preface L a n g speaks of himself as the part author of Plot and Passion. When " Q " called this fact to T a y l o r ' s attention, T a y l o r made direct answer in the Athenaeum for May 27, 1871 (No. 2274, p. 665). "First let me set at rest the question of the authorship of Plot and Passion to which ' Q ' refers. H e quotes from the preface to M r . Lang's Secret Police two assertions—that the author of the story is the joint author with me of Plot and Passion, and that Plot and Passion was dramatized from the story. T h e only substance of fact underlying both these assertions is . . . that Mr. L a n g called my attention to the anecdote on which the play and the story are both founded. H e never saw the play in progress; never wrote a line or suggested an incident of it; and I never saw his story before the play was written."

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this cohorte cythérienne Taylor places the beautiful Madame Marie de Fontanges, a lady whom an inordinate passion for roulette has brought within Fouché's net. Another of the minister's tools is the ugly, fawning, and crafty Desmarets, whom Fouché himself characterizes as "the most unmitigated rascal and the most invaluable head of a secret department in Europe." T h e one redeeming passion of Desmarets's life is his love for Marie; but although she is not above borrowing his money to feed her appetite for gambling, she detests his ugly appearance and mocks his love. Also in Fouché's power is the stupid Marquis de Cevennes, another admirer of Marie, who serves as messenger to the court circles of Europe, unwittingly bearing secret messages hidden in the bonbons, pâté de snipe, and beautiful gowns which he transports as presents. Desmarets is secretly plotting the downfall of his superior, and to that end is surreptitiously supplying young Henri de Neuville with authentic and supposedly inaccessible secret information. Neuville is using this in a series of slashing pamphlets revealing the duplicity of Fouché, who is as friendly with the enemies of Napoleon as with the great man himself. As the technique of the "well-made" play insures, the nature of these characters and their relations to each other are made clear to the audience by crisp, economical dialogue, which makes some pretense to naturalness while it whets curiosity concerning impending developments. Having learned that Neuville is the author of the dangerous pamphlets, Fouché shrewdly arranges that he shall be escorted 'to a fiacre on the right of the entrance." According to a prearranged plan the occupant of this carriage is to be killed. Desmarets, however, guides Henri "to the carriage on the left," which has been guaranteed safe passage to Prague. Determined to silence Neuville, Fouché orders Marie, on pain of having her dealings with the police exposed, to follow "to Prague where he has taken refuge; and employ those charms which are

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so irresistible when you like to exert them to attract him again to Paris." As the first act ends, Marie is vainly protesting against such debasement of her womanhood. T h e concluding lines give an excellent impression of the artificial dialogue and melodramatic atmosphere which mark the crucial moments of the play. de Fon. You will not, you cannot have the heart to put this choice on me. You know me for what I am, but still I have a high place and a fair face in the world. I will be your slave—your unquestioning tool in all besides this—but do not set me between such business and such dishonour. Fouché. Choose! de Fon. I know you cannot feel respect for me, but there may be some woman in the world you reverence or love—a mother, a sister or a wife. If there be, think of her and spare me. Do—do—only in this—only in this! Fouché. Choose! de Fon. He is pitiless! Fouché. I give you five minutes. ( T a k e s out his watch—pause) de Fon. Better face my own conscience than the world—I will go. (She faints) Fouché. I thought she would! Des. (aside) I hoped she would not. (Moves toward the Bell) Fouché. Do not alarm the servants—a glass of water! (Desmarets brings one—Fouché leisurely sprinkles her brow) T h e action in the second act, which takes place two months later at Prague, drags somewhat. A mutual passion has arisen between Marie and Henri, which prevents her from luring him back to Paris. Desmarets arrives to investigate the delay, again offers himself to Marie, and promises to save her from Fouché if she will but promise to " e n d u r e " him. Pressed for proof that " a small worm may sink a big ship," he reveals to Marie the secret hiding place of valuable papers behind a secret panel in Fouché's home. Marie sees in this information the means of freeing herself and Henri from Fouché's clutches. She escapes to Paris in the carriage of De Cevennes, who has stopped at Prague on his way from Russia to France. Secreted in the head

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of a cane which he is bringing as a present to Fouche is a letter which reveals the minister's treachery to Napoleon. According to the rules of the "well-made" play this cane, as an apparently trivial but actually vital object, must play an important part in the denouement. By discovering Marie's farewell note to Henri, Desmarets learns the true state of her affections. His former love turned to hate, he hastens in pursuit, after having persuaded Henri that Marie has fled with another lover and that the insult to honor must be avenged. In the last act the struggle for supremacy constantly "teetertotters" and accelerates the action. Marie reaches Fouche's home at midnight and hastens to the secret passage. It seems that she will soon expose the villain; but when the panel opens she finds him already in the passage, a barrier to the vital papers. She begs him to spare Henri, but he only laughs. She then sends De Cevennes to the emperor with the treacherous letter which she has removed from the head of the cane while he slept. T h e revenge of Desmarets takes the form of exposing Marie to Henri as a spy. T h e young lover cannot believe this, until Fouche smilingly vouches for its truth. Marie, expecting that both she and Henri are about to die, passionately tells him the whole truth. H e believes her, and they engage in a last, lingering embrace when Fouche and Desmarets enter as a signal for their end. A t this moment an officer from Napoleon enters and arrests the minister. A t first Fouche attempts to brazen out the charges; but when Desmarets produces further evidence, he bows gracefully to the inevitable, and the way is cleared for a happy conclusion. T h e play was adroitly designed to appeal to O l y m p i c patrons. T h e struggle seemed tense and exciting, and suspense and surprise were skillfully mingled in its development. T h e narrative unfolded without recourse to scenes of violent physical action and without interruption by extraneous subplots or detached scenes of comic relief. T h e recurrence of stories concerning a

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w o m a n w h o falls in love with the man she must betray and a villain whose love turns to hate is proof of their theatrical effectiveness. T h e suave, implacable Fouche, the shrewd, revengeful Desmarets, and the b e a u t i f u l Marie caught in a web of her own weaving are effective although superficial stage figures. T h e play had an air of sophistication and a touch of the r o m a n t i c which offered a pleasing change to audiences which had been forced to depend largely on crude Adelphi drama for their excitement. M o d e r n readers are likely to find the play more amusing than thrilling. Nearly a century of practice has taught playwrights to do this sort of thing better. Yet after slight alterations the story of Plot and Passion would make effective material for a stage or screen melodrama today. Its theme is striking, its characters well conceived, and secret panels, sliding doors, and canes with secret recesses are still i m p o r t a n t adjuncts of similar plays. W h a t does give the piece a decidedly archaic flavor is the artificial and melodramatic language into which the dialogue lapses in m o m e n t s of strong excitement or emotion. T h e passage already q u o t e d from the conclusion of the first act may be cited as evidence, as may also a passage f r o m a love scene in the second act. Neuville. Oh, why will you not lay bare your heart to me, as I do mine to you? de Fon. How do you know that I have one? Neuville. By the color that mounts to your cheek when I speak to you of love; by the languor that veils your eyes when we sit together and watch the sunset in a silence too passionate for speech; by the trembling of your voice when we bid each other farewell . . . You have a heart, Marie de Fontanges, and that heart is mine. (He seizes her hand) de Fon. (overcome) Henri, my own. (Starts back from his embrace) Sir, you forget yourself. You have no right to put my nervous susceptibility to the proof of such excellent acting.

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We might forgive the extravagance of Henri as a product of his romantic fervor, but what excuse can there be for a lady who, in such a moment, worries about her "nervous susceptibility"? It is difficult for a present-day reader to take seriously a drama which is couched in such obviously artificial and "stagey" language. Whatever the modern judgment on this play may be, however, its own time approved it. The Athenaeum spoke of it as "a prose drama in three acts written with extraordinary care, power, and elegance . . . The drama well deserved the unbounded applause with which it was received." 3 The original performances by the leading actors were all outstanding. Mrs. Stirling as Marie, Alfred Wigan as Henri, and Emery as Fouche were all effective; but the triumph of the evening unquestionably belonged to Robson who as Desmarets had his first serious role on a London stage. Henry Morley wrote: The drama had been but a short while opened on Monday night when the general interest fixed itself on that ill-dressed, meagre, dwarfish figure, and whoever else might occupy the scene, the eye still sought him out. For the present, therefore, the little man is undoubtedly the great fact at the Olympic.4 T h e Times for October 27 had explicit praise for Robson's work. His power of facial expression is something marvelous, and the manner in which, by means apparently comic, he produces the most profound tragic passion is perfectly wonderful. The intensity of his emotion when he declares his love for Marie de Fontanges in the second act was the ne plus ultra—tnough ludicrous it was intensely real and effective. Robson's portrayal definitely established him as a serious actor and refuted the opinion that he would never be more than a a No. 1356 (October 22, 1853), p. 1262. * Journal of a London Playgoer, p. 63.

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striking burlesque performer. A l t h o u g h the play was never as prominent in the repertoire of any other actor, it became a stock favorite. As late as 1883 it drew well in L o n d o n with H e r m a n Vezin as Desmarets. T h e most important American representation was at L a u r a Keene's on J u n e 17, 1857, with Miss Keene as Marie, Wheatleigh as Desmarets, and Burnett as Fouché. In this country the play appears to have been an occasional, rather than a great, favorite. 5 In

To

Oblige

come die-vaudeville

Benson,

which

Taylor

Un Service á Blanchard,

adapted

from

the

by Eugene Moreau

and A l f r e d Delacour, as his second piece for the W i g a n management, he furnished the Victorian stage one of its cleverest and most popular comediettas. A deftly manipulated succession of humorous crises results from the action of Meredith, clerk for the barrister Benson, in slipping a flirtatious note into the glove of his employer's wife. Mrs. T r o t t e r Southdown, an intimate friend of the Bensons, discovers the note and attempts to convince both the clerk and the wife that such indiscretions are dangerous. She enlists the services of her devoted husband, a simple soul whose great interest aside from his wife is his farm. By informing him that he can "oblige Benson" she induces her husband to pretend to have discovered that she is involved in an affair and to feign a jealous rage. W i t h the aid of constant promptings from his wife, Southdown manages a fairly conv i n c i n g and thoroughly amusing scene. A brief excerpt will indicate the spirit. South. (crossing very politely and quietly). How do you do, Mrs. Benson. Mrs. S. (aside to him). Be in a rage. South. I'm in a rage, ma'am—a towering rage—a tremendous rage. Mrs. S. (aside to him). Capital! South. I say I'm in a tremendous rage; because of course—(aside) what the deuce am I in a tremendous rage for? s T h e most prominent American performer, aside from Miss Keene, who played Plot and Passion often was Carlotta Leclercq.

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Mrs. B. I assure you, Mrs. Southdown and I have been sitting here quietly by ourselves. Mrs. S. Oh, he will not believe what you say. (Aside to him) Say you don't believe her. South. No, madam, no; stuff and nonsense, madame; I don't believe you. Mrs. S. (crying). Oh, I'm an unhappy woman. T o expose me thus before my friend—to exhibit your insane jealousy. Oh, you'll break my heart! South, (goes to her). Eh, break your heart, Toody? Comel (She pinches him) Oh! (resuming violence) I don't care, Mrs. Trotter Southdown—break away! Mrs. B. This violence from you, Mr. Southdown, whom I always thought the mildest of m e n — South. Well, I am the mild— Mrs. S. (aside to him). Be a brute. South. Mild. I am mild, naturally—no I am not—that is, I don't know what I am—on the contrary; because of course—in short there are circumstances—(aside) What the deuce ought I to say? Mrs. S. (aside to him). Stride about the room. South, (aside to her). Eh, stride! Yes, I can't stand quiet. My agitation forces me to stride about the room—in this style, madam. (Walks about the room in long strides. Then aside to Mrs. S.) Will that do, Toody? Mrs. S. (aside). Capital! Go on. Sir, you are a brute, a tyrant! (aside to him) T e a r your hair. South, (aside). T o oblige Benson? Mrs. S. (aside). Of course! South. It's enough to make a man tear his hair out by the roots. (He seizes his hair and pretends to tear it) Mrs. B. But, Mr. Southdown— Mr?. S (aside to him). Capital! Now throw the furniture about and go. South, (aside). T o oblige Benson! (aloud) But I will restrain myself no longer—there! (Begins to fling furniture about in pretended rage, but puts it down gently again; flings a chair against door which hits Benson who enters at the moment) Benson attempts to pacify Southdown by lecturing him on the dangers of neglecting a wife. Since Benson himself has been guilty of exactly the behavior for which he reprimands his friend

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and since it is Benson's wife who has taken up a flirtation, his remarks furnish ironic humor. Instead of calming Southdown, the conversation convinces him that his wife has really been engaged in an affair, and he rapidly works himself into a state of genuine rage. At first she believes he is still acting and applauds his art; but when he smashes furniture and vases, she feels that his performance is a bit too realistic and pretends to faint. Southdown ignores her and storms from the room. His wife then learns from Benson that Trotter is genuinely convinced of her guilt. She hastens to clear herself by telling her husband that Mrs. Benson is the indiscreet lady and that all her plans have been "to oblige Benson" by convincing the deceived husband that another woman has flirted with Meredith. Trotter proudly so informs Benson; but the latter, believing Caesar's wife above reproach, thinks that Mrs. Southdown has only told a desperate lie to clear herself. T o protect her, however, Benson pretends to accept the story. Benson blandly believes Mrs. Southdown guilty, but he is willing to appear convinced of his own wife's guilt. Poor Southdown does not know what to believe. Only an examination of the letter will reveal the truth. When Meredith appears, both husbands demand the evidence. Meredith passes the letter to Mrs. Southdown. She in turn slips it to Mrs. Benson, who drops it. When Benson picks it up, it appears that all efforts "to oblige Benson" will fail and that he will learn the truth. Southdown tries to get the letter, but Benson utters a magnanimous speech to the effect that he forgives his wife—something he feels totally unnecessary—and tosses the damaging epistle into the fire. Trotter sees a piece of the letter, recognizes Mrs. Benson's handwriting, and "to oblige Benson" conceals the truth and pretends to forgive his wife. Thus everybody learns the truth except Benson, who remains perfectly happy because he feels certain that his wife is blameless and that by pretending to forgive her he has helped a friend. To Oblige Benson owed its popularity to its deftly developed

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plot and to its skillful adaptation to the tastes of English audiences. For the first quality the authors of the French original deserve the credit; for the second, Taylor is responsible. The French vaudeville furnishes a piquant situation from which a series of effective episodes evolve. The contrast between the feigned and the genuine tirades of Southdown is well managed. When the humor has been drawn from these episodes, the interest shifts to the question whether Benson and Southdown will discover the truth. The rapid transfer of suspicion from one lady to the other arouses keen interest. The irony of having Benson reprimand the Southdowns for behavior of which he and his wife are guilty is cleverly brought out. The denouement, which leaves Benson smugly satisfied that he has behaved most nobly and yet makes him the only character ignorant of the truth, is particularly adroit. Throughout the piece the humor is ironical and witty—not absurd and ridiculous. In a farce like Our Clerks grotesque incidents, such as an unfortunate initiation to cigar smoking and the concealment of babies in a closet, followed each other in such a rapid and absurd fashion that all pretense of reality was destroyed. In To Oblige Benson, however, the situation always maintains a semblance of reality. The difference between the Victorian farce and the comedietta, as illustrated by the contrast between the two Taylor pieces, is similar to the difference between "slap-stick" low comedy and at least a tentative attempt to unite the technique of Scribe with social comedy. Pieces such as the Taylor comedietta paved the way for longer, original high comedies like Jones's The Liars by demonstrating the possibilities inherent in a clever and humorous, but not ridiculous, treatment of marital relations. Taylor recognized the merits of the plot furnished by the French authors, but he also realized that certain alterations would make the play more acceptable to English-speaking audiences. These modifications are typical of those which he consistently makes in his sources. He moves the action from Paris

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to London and fills the dialogue with sufficient local color in the form of native references and idioms to make the play seem well-rooted in English soil. Even more important, he alters the tone of the original so that a comédie-vaudeville which verges toward the risqué becomes a comedietta of which even the most exacting Lord Chamberlain would approve. This purification is accomplished principally by changing the tone of the flirtation. In the original, Paul, the counterpart of Meredith, has pressed his love for his employer's wife in a very fervent manner; in the English version Meredith has met the lady at an innocent picnic and has merely slipped a note into her glove. Paul feels no compunction over his action; Meredith carefully informs the audience in his opening lines that he realizes the flirtation is wrong. The English comedy is thus based on what is really an innocent affair; in the French play infidelity is definitely suggested. In addition the English dialogue is much less risqué and insinuating. Taylor deletes a joke on the bearing of children, several references to the "can-can" dance, and numerous sly innuendoes. At Wyndham's Criterion or at a music hall such as the Philharmonic in the late seventies a faithful adherence to the spirit of its original would have proved a definite asset to the success of To Oblige Benson; but the temper of audiences in the fifties dictated the advisability of some changes in the French source, and Taylor was wise enough to make them. T h e original performance of Taylor's piece, on March 6, 1854, was well received. Mrs. Stirling as Mrs. Southdown, Robson as Trotter, and Sam Emery as Benson played their parts well. In his delineation of jealousy, both real and feigned, Robson was, as always, very successful in combining the elements of humor and strong emotion. The play soon became a stock afterpiece and curtain raiser which could be seen several times a year in various London theaters. In America the piece was a particular favorite with the comedians Davidge and Holland.

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Dramatic publishers in this country still report that the work is in considerable demand by amateurs. On October 17, 1854, Taylor followed the success of To Oblige Benson with a similar piece, A Blighted Being, a oneact farce closely adapted from an anonymous comédie-vaudeville. Une Existence decolorée. As J o b Wort, the principal character, Robson had one of his most successful comic roles. Wort is an extremely disillusioned young man who has found the world singularly impervious to his literary efforts. His financial resources exhausted by the publication of his "antediluvian epic in sixteen books," which "fell dead from the press," and his hopes of an inheritance from an uncle blasted, Wort determines to die. Unable to arouse the courage to commit suicide, he hires an Irish druggist to kill him; but he makes the proviso that the means and the time of the fatal attempt are to be kept a secret even from him. No sooner has he arranged for his own murder, however, than he finds himself in love and the recipient of an annual income of £800. He now wishes to live, yet he expects death at any moment. After several agonizing scenes in which he believes himself both shot and poisoned, notification that the plans for the murder have gone astray bring about the happy conclusion. In adapting the farce for the London stage Taylor was satisfied to retain the original plot, but according to his custom he changed the scene from France to England and liberally supplied the dialogue with English idioms and references. A competent, but by no means brilliant, piece of work, the farce should be noted principally as one that aided the meteoric stage career of Robson. His peculiar talents admirably suited the part of Wort. As the disillusioned poet he reveled in his protests against the world's injustice. When he reached the moment which brought the news of his inheritance and the discovery that the girl he admired loved him, Robson was at his best as he alternated between expressions of joy at his prospects and

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of horror at the thought of his approaching, self-ordered death. The audience forgot that they were witnessing a farce and with the actor suffered in agony as they awaited the blow which would end his life. Westland Marston has left a graphic picture of Robson in this role. In the farce of A Blighted Being his Job Wort . . . could have been represented by no actor but Robson, with the double and even simultaneous effect of convulsing the house with absurdities of the character and inspiring it with a sense of relief when he escapes from the fancied danger that haunts him . . . As the blighted genius, Robson's melancholy but haughty intonation, his fitful gesture, his look of dejection alternating with that of pity and contempt for the world . . . at times a colloquial turn in the midst of highlywrought excitement formed a wonderful caricature of the unappreciated man in real life; while his horror of death, though ludicrous under the circumstances, had a ghastly seriousness in it, which, though it only proved the actor's power, was surely somewhat misplaced in burlesque. It was perhaps, however, his unison of the terrible with the droll which most recommended him to general favor.8 Like A Blighted Being, Taylor's two-act farce Going to the Bad/ produced four years later, on June 5, 1858, was essentially a one-part play written for Robson. Peter Potts, the character he interpreted, is at heart "mild, confiding, and tenderhearted"; but upon being rejected by the lady of his choice, he decides to become a dashing Byronic rogue no matter how much the new pose goes against his nature. He commences his career of sin by downing a glass of brandy and attempting to embrace Lucy, his landlord's niece—much to her disgust, since she had been fond of him as a quiet, gentlemanly lodger. Life as a gay adventurer leads him through a complicated series of farcical episodes which reach an amusing climax at a masquerade, where mistaken identities, arrests of innocent people, 8 Our Recent Actors, p. 362. Both D a v i d g e and Johnstone acted A Blighted Being in America with modest success. 11 have been unable to discover any source for Going to the Bad, although its technique suggests a French original.

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tangled love affairs, and an unwillingly arranged duel are all caused by his resolution to be a determined sinner. The next morning, upon sobering from the champagne of the night before, he realizes that he has challenged his closest friend to a duel. As was to be expected in a Robson farce, the tension of suspense increases as the play moves toward its conclusion. Finding that he cannot withdraw from the duel without being branded a coward, Potts heroically resolves to fire into the air and to allow his opponent to kill him. The intervention of the police prevents the duel, however, and reconciliation with the estranged friend follows. Potts then renounces all pretensions to a Byronic career and determines to return to his normal, even manner of living. The piece was competently fitted to the talents of the actor for whom it was written. It gave Robson an opportunity to display a kaleidoscopic variety of emotion, in which he reached the height of his powers in the scenes when he dramatically determined to die. Here he made audiences forget the comic aspects of the situation and sent an emotional shiver through the house. Once the piece had served its temporary purpose, however, it soon disappeared from the stage.8 The discussion of Taylor's Olympic pieces in their chronological order, which was interrupted by examination of Going to the Bad, may now be resumed. His next Olympic play following A Blighted Being was one of his most noted stage works, the three-act drama Still Waters Run Deep, first produced on May 14, 1855. A dramatization of Charles Bernard's novelette Le Gendre, it proved an excellent study of domestic relations, artfully constructed and having many qualities destined to win popular approval. The adage which forms the title describes the character of John Mildmay, a taciturn and apparently dull gentleman, who has allowed himself to be superseded as the master of his household by his wife's aunt, the officious Mrs. Sternhold. Emily, the wife, has come to think her husband a bit 8

In America, J o h n B r o u g h a m played the piece occasionally at Wallack's.

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stodgy because he enjoys an after-dinner nap, putters in his garden, and prefers " A u l d R o b i n G r a y " to Beethoven. T o her suave Captain Hawksley, a frequent visitor at the house, appears far more interesting, with his proposals to visit her secretly at night and to make love as he mastered the art in Seville, where " m y blood has learned its impetuosity, my tongue its music." T h e captain, however, is interested in something besides a flirtation, for he has persuaded Potter, Emily's father, to invest £ 1 , 0 0 0 of his daughter's money in the Galvanic Navigation Company and believes that he has interested Mildmay in a similar proposition. Mrs. Sternhold, once the captain's very intimate friend, is now urging her brother Potter to invest more of Mrs. Mildmay's money with Hawksley. From hints dropped by her brother and from an overheard conversation Mrs. Sternhold learns that she is about to be displaced in Hawksley's affections by Emily. She faces the captain, but he forestalls her plan to prevent Mildmay from investing in the Galvanic Company by threatening to make thirteen of her passionate love letters "part of the literature of the world." Mildmay, who has conveniently overheard their conversation, decides that the time has come for him to act. In the second act he prepares to administer the necessary coup d'état. First he persuades Potter to endorse to him the stock already purchased; then, armed with some damaging information concerning Hawksley's past, he proceeds to the captain's office. Hawksley welcomes him with open arms and launches into a eulogy of the new company. Mildmay apparently agrees with the promoter's statements; but when Hawksley attempts to close the deal, the supposed victim coolly states that he has come to sell, not buy. Hawksley first treats this as a joke, then attempts to bluster, and finally resorts to force. But Mildmay, after a physical demonstration that "a hale Lancashire m a n " is more than a match for " a battered London roué" produces thç

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evidence that Hawksley is an ex-forger wanted by the police. In order to keep out of prison the captain buys back the stock sold to Potter and turns over Mrs. Sternhold's letters in exchange for the damaging evidence. Once this has been burned Hawksley's confidence returns, and he challenges his opponent to a duel. Mildmay refuses to fight with a swindler and a forger, and he leaves the office with Hawksley's threat to horsewhip him ringing in his ears. As an artfully devised crisis the scene is well contrived from the point of view of stage effectiveness. T h e audience knows that Mildmay will not prove an innocent lamb for Hawksley to shear and enjoys the manner with which the overconfident captain apparently entraps his victim. A striking contrast between the two men is well maintained. W h e n Hawksley finds himself outwitted, he passes through several emotional reactions, each of which Mildmay calmly faces. T h e evidence of Hawksley's past is effectively introduced and is something for which the audience has been properly prepared. T h e scene, although a dramatic unit in itself, at the same time builds suspense by means of Hawksley's warning that he intends to seek revenge. T h e third act rises to another climax in the final defeat of Hawksley. Upon returning home, Mildmay returns the letters to Mrs. Sternhold and then definitely puts her in her place. Mildmay. I'm a man—not an automaton, as you've always considered me . . . I'm neither a hero, nor a conjuror, but I'm a straight-forward man, and I'm not deficient in common sense. When I married your niece, I looked forward to a quiet life with a woman I loved in my own undemonstrative way, and who, I thought, would have loved me—and so she would have done, but for you . . . You thought proper to ridicule and despise me, and she followed your lead . . . For ten months I've tried what patience, indulgence, and submission would do—that plan has been a failure. From this hour I change my tactics. You are my wife's nearest female relative, and you shall never find me wanting in

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duty and respect, but from this day forth, remember, there is only one master in this house, and his name is John Mildmay. Now go and dress for dinner. Mildmay next proceeds to speak his mind gently, but firmly and effectively, to his wife. Having corrected two of his troubles, he awaits the arrival of Hawksley. For this final encounter he is prepared by the arrival of a police officer with further evidence sufficient to bring about the captain's arrest. Before guests assembled for dinner Hawksley challenges Mildmay to a duel. Still unruffled, Mildmay surprises the group by accepting the challenge despite Hawksley's reputation as a deadly shot. T h e conditions laid down by Mildmay because of his rights as the challenged man, however, equalize the adversaries. Mildmay. You have often boasted you can hit the pip of an ace at twenty paces. I never fired a pistol at anything more formidable than a sparrow. I am willing to risk my life against yours on equal terms; but if we stand up opposite to each other at twelve paces, each with a loaded pistol—skill against skill—what becomes of the equality of the risk? Your friend has loaded one of the pistols —let us leave the other unloaded—put both under the cloth—each draw one and fire together across the table; now, close your eyes and choose. You hesitate. Hawksley not only hesitates, but scorns the proposal as beneath attention. Before he can leave the house, however, the police arrest him as a forger. His departure is dignified with the suavity which stage villains, past and present, display in their moments of adversity. Hawksley. Mrs. Sternhold, I am sorry I shall not have the pleasure of dining with you. Mrs. Mildmay, no chance for another tête-àtête, I fear. Potter, my boy, you were just in time with those shares; give my compliments to the Board, Dunbilk. Mildmay—(grinding his teeth)—if ever I come back, I shall make a point of repaying all I owe you; and, till then, I shall let the debt accumulate at compound interest.

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Having thus preserved the sanctity and happiness of his home, Mildmay leads his wife into dinner justifiably proud at having demonstrated that "still waters run deep." T h e reasons for the popularity of the play are not hard to discover. Its construction produced a unified plot, unmarred by extraneous characters or incidents. T h e clearly defined struggle rises and falls deftly to and from the climactic scene which concludes each act. T h r o u g h o u t the piece runs a vein of quiet humor which relieves the dramatic narrative without detracting from it. A brief excerpt from a scene between Potter and Mrs. Sternhold may illustrate this humor. Mrs. S. Then what have you to say? Potter. Well, my dear, I say— Mrs. S. Black, because I say white. That's always the way. I wonder what would happen if you could once agree with me on any subject. Potter. Well, I'm sure, sister, I always do end by agreeing with you. Mrs. S. Then why not begin with it? It would save so much disagreeable discussion. Although not very brilliant, such a passage furnishes a restful contrast with the predominant dramatic interest of the play. T h e piece contains also distinct characterizations which avoid caricature. T h e part of Mildmay is particularly attractive. T h e turning of a long-suffering individual against his oppressors always meets with popular approval. T h e stage roles of Mrs. Sternhold as the scorned woman and Hawksley as the suave villain are scarcely less effective. Although less prominent, the characters of Mrs. Mildmay as the young wife bored by domesticity and of the innocuous Potter are well drawn. T h e play also stimulates a certain amount of thought from the reader, something most Victorian plays fail to do. T h e action centers in the problem of a husband's behavior when he sees his wife drifting toward infidelity. T h i s situation contains the element

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necessary for a "problem play," and Taylor offers a concrete, if not very profound, solution. Aside from the tendency toward artificial dialogue, with which plays of the day were consistently hampered, the only outstanding weakness in the construction of the play is the excessive use of coincidence. Mildmay has the assistance not only of overheard conversations but also of extremely o p p o r t u n e knowledge of his adversary's crimes. In this manner the struggle becomes essentially uneven. Mildmay's advantage, furthermore, does not arise from the action of the drama itself, but from external sources. We all know how distasteful to us is a mystery story in which the author has placed in the hands of a detective intelligence which has been denied the reader and has thus given the detective an unjust advantage. Much the same reaction is created by the fact that Mildmay twice rather unnaturally receives information concerning Hawksley's past. Had Mildmay outfaced his opponent without this aid from coincidence the effect of the play would be distinctly stronger. Taylor's piece, nevertheless, need bow to none of its contemporaries when judged as effective drama. If Taylor had been more than the clever adapter of this play, he could claim a more estimable place in the rank of English dramatists than he now holds. H e must, however, more than share honors with the witty French novelist Charles Bernard. T h e central idea for the narrative, as well as its details, are taken with few important changes directly from Le Gendre. Since Bernard uses considerable direct dialogue, Taylor was able to translate many conversational passages. In other places he paraphrased the narrative by t u r n i n g it into dialogue. His changes in the original are of the type which he usually made in adaptation. By placing the scene of his action at Brompton, by altering the names of the characters, and by generous use of idiomatic English he thoroughly Anglicizes the setting and characters. By making the ladies who compete for Hawksley's

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favors aunt and niece, instead of mother and daughter, he avoids some of the unpleasant reactions which the original conflict might have had on English audiences. Taylor also purges the dialogue of many insinuating lines. The most notable example of this is in the scenes between the villain and his exmistress. Chadieu, the French counterpart of Hawksley, is far more insulting and frank in discussing his former relations with Madame Ballieul than is Hawksley when he casts off Mrs. Sternhold. Taylor's one significant alteration in the incidents of the plot is the introduction of the pistol scene which concludes the action. T h e novel has no such dramatic episode. In making the alteration, however, Taylor used a standard theatrical device which had been seen on the London stage very recently in Oxenford's adaptation of Pauline. T h e stage history of Still Waters Run Deep attests the skill of Taylor's adaptation. From the time of its initial production the play took a first rank among contemporary pieces and rapidly became the perennial favorite among drawing-room dramas that Masks and Faces was among comedies. The original performances of Mildmay by Alfred Wigan, Hawksley by George Vining, and Potter by Samuel Emery all proved effective. Mrs. Alfred Wigan soon replaced Mrs. Melfort, who proved unsatisfactory in the leading feminine role of Mrs. Sternhold. For years the parts of Mildmay and Mrs. Sternhold were outstanding in the repertoire of the Wigans. We find them, for example, playing it at various theaters in 1859, i860, 1863, and 1867. Ellen Terry, who played Mrs. Mildmay in the production of 1867, notes that the drama still sparkled with life. 9 Although the Bancrofts never included it among their revivals, other actors found it considerably more than a museum piece. Leigh Murray, H. J . Montague, the Kendals, and Charles Wyndham were among those who presented it successfully. In America its popularity fully equaled that attained in England. First staged » The Story of My Life, p. 79.

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in this country at Barnum's on September 10, 1855, within six months the drama was running in at least four other American theaters. During the spring of 1856 in New York alone three houses offered the play simultaneously. Among the better American Mrs. Sternholds were Laura Keene, Mrs. Hoey, and Mrs Conway. Burton, Walcot, Wallack, William Warren, and John Gilbert all won favor in the part of Mildmay. As a play with a tenacious hold on public favor Still Waters Run Deep possesses a record which few Victorian pieces can equal. On May 12, 1856, almost a year to the day after the produc tion of the Mildmay drama, another novel by Charles Bernard, La Peine du Talion, was dramatized for the Olympic as Retribution. Of this second piece Taylor was unquestionably part author, although probably not the sole author. Title pages of printed copies of the play name Taylor as the only author; but critical reviews of the time refer to the piece frequently with phrases such as "reputedly by Mr. Taylor" or "in part at least the work of Mr. Taylor." Henry Morley, well acquainted with theatrical conditions, states: " A new drama called Retribution, put together, it is understood, by so many hands that there is somebody in town who calls it 'Contribution' has been offered this week." 10 The play is excellent drawing-room melodrama—tense and fast-moving. The theme is the determination of Count Priuli to take revenge on the betrayer of his wife. T o Priuli ordinary vengeance is not sufficient, and he is determined first to seduce his enemy's wife and then to kill his enemy. He becomes an intimate friend of the betrayer, Oscar de Beaupre, and then commences to undermine the virtue of his wife, Clarisse. Priuli's 10 The Journal of a London Playgoer, p. 133. In the enumeration of his plavs made on the title pages of Taylor's various works, Retribution is sometimes included in the group of which he is listed as the sole author, and sometimes in the group of which he was a collaborator. T h e play, unlike the majority of his adaptations, is not Anglicized in characterization or in setting. From the tenor of the external and internal evidence, therefore, it appears that Taylor was not the sole adapter of Retribution.

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plans are crossed by the interference of his younger brother, Victor, who is genuinely in love with Clarisse. De Beaupre discovers Victor at a rendezvous with Clarisse and is forced into a duel in which Victor is killed. Unaware of his brother's death, Priuli arranges a meeting with Clarisse with the intention of seducing her. Her innocence and trust prevent him from playing the villain, and when her husband enters the room, Priuli escapes through a window. W h e n his brother's body is brought to him, Priuli forces the issue and kills De Beaupre in a duel. He repents, however, of his original intention of making his victim believe Clarisse to have been unfaithful and praises her integrity to the dying man. T h e play closes with Priuli's didactic statement: " A n d for this I have dared to usurp Heaven's work of retribution. His blood and Victor's are both upon my head. I have sowed the wind and round me lies the whirlwind's harvest." In this conclusion English love of sentiment mars the more logical ending of the original. In the novel, although Priuli cannot bring himself to seduce Clarisse, he does not soften toward De Beaupre, but instead tortures the dying man by displaying Clarisse's picture as an insinuation that she has been unfaithful. T h e Priuli of the novel does not admit that vengeance belongs to the Lord, but rejoices in his own actions. T h e ending of the drama may be more Biblical and moral than Bernard's ending, but it is also less dramatic and less psychologically truthful. Other changes made in the stage version are minor. T h e most interesting is that the play omits a vivid description of the manner in whicii Clarisse has denied her husband the enjoyment of her bed. For this deletion the adapters partially compensate by gratuitously making Priuli an opium addict. Despite the modified denouement the piece did not attract London audiences. It reads as though it would make exciting entertainment, and it was well acted by a cast which included

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Alfred Wigan, Vining, Emery, Leigh Murray, and Miss Herbert. Perhaps the tragic ending, uncommon in English plays of that day, reacted against its success; but more probably the atmosphere of infidelity was incompatible with contemporary standards. T h e Athenaeum critic, for example, wrote: "Retribution . . . deals with phases of feeling repulsive at once from their immorality and want of beauty. We more than doubt the judgement of selecting such an argument for the English stage." 1 1 When he repeated the play in the fall of 1856, Wigan attempted to assuage the reviewers and the public by printing an address on the playbill defending the piece as "a salutary lesson" which "inculcates a moral." 12 T h e second production, however, proved no more successful than the first; and although as late as 1882 Retribution could occasionally be seen in a London theater, the melodrama, despite its possibilities, never became popular. 13 No charges of immorality could justifiably have been directed at A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing, Taylor's next Olympic play, produced on February 19, 1857. In this one-act domestic drama, skillfully adapted from Madame de Girardin's Une Femme qui deteste son mari, a faithful wife saves the life of her husband. T h e action takes place at Taunton immediately following the battle of Sedgemoor. Kirke's Lambs are terrorizing the countryside, ferreting out Monmouth men and stringing them up to the signboards of inns. Anne Carew feigns love for the detested Lord Kirke in order to prevent him from searching her home and finding Jasper, her rebel husband, who has been reported dead, but who is actually concealed in the house. Her coquetry with Kirke, never allowing him so much as one kiss and yet making him believe that she will eventually be his, is cleverly set forth. The contrast between the scenes in which she " No. 1490 (May 17, 1856), p. 624. 12 Athenaeum, No. 15 ' 3 (October 25, 1856). p. 1313* is In New York the piece was performed at the Bowery on October 15, 1856, by a cast which included Brougham. Conrad Clarke, and Kate Reignolds. On February 27. 1857, it appeared at Burton's with Brougham, Fisher, and Ada Plunket in the leading roles.

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flirts with him and those in which she shows genuine love for her husband is also effective. The same may be said of her poignant refusal to see her own daughter, Sybil, in order that she may more completely deceive the Jacobite officer into believing that she has renounced all sympathy with her husband's cause and her own past. As the action "teeter-totters," three times only the maneuvers of Anne prevent the discovery of Jasper. At last, however, Kirke finds Anne, Jasper, and Sybil united in a Tennysonian domestic scene. At this moment the melodramatic intervention of Lord Churchill, appointed to relieve Kirke of his command, saves the lives of the Carews. Since Kirke has previously sworn to Jasper's death, hoping by this ruse to secure the property for Anne and eventually for himself, Churchill refuses to recognize the legal existence of Jasper and considers him one of Anne's "servants." A pass permitting her and her "servants" to enjoy free passage to Holland completes the defeat of Kirke. The action of Madame de Girardin's drama occurs during the Reign of Terror, but by changing the time to 1685 and utilizing certain events in English history Taylor was able to Anglicize the setting thoroughly. One other modification is typical of the purifying process through which Taylor regularly passed his sources. The French villain is endeavoring to persuade the heroine to secure a divorce; Lord Kirke is seeking to obtain control of property. The change is slight, but it enables the English writer to avoid the subject of divorce and remarks concerning the legitimacy of children, which are prominent in the original. In tne Engiisn version, also, a pair of nondescript servants are converted into two Somersetshire natives, who furnish considerable humor by their naive remarks and who add local color by their dialect. Their presence injects an element of comedy which is absent from the French play. Taylor's play ran in direct competition with another version of the Girardin drama, which opened three days earlier at the

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Haymarket as The Wicked World, and with Stirling Coyne's adaptation, Angel or Devil, staged two weeks later at the Lyceum. T h e other two English playwrights followed their source closely, but T a y l o r so altered it that his piece seems thoroughly English in setting and spirit. Morley paid Taylor's work a high compliment which might well apply to several of his other adaptations. Morley wrote: " A happier instance of the skillful transfer of a story from one period and country to another, and of adaptation from the French in the best sense of the phrase, than the Sheep in Wolf's Clothing, I have seldom 14 seen." T h e well-constructed, tense action, the sharply contrasted characters, and the touches of English history made the play a popular short entertainment. Mrs. Stirling, the original Anne, took full advantage of the opportunities for displaying varied emotions and played the part frequently. Mrs. Kendal, supported by her husband, Kate Terry, and Mrs. Bernard Beere, who played the role as late as 1898, were other actresses of note who enjoyed success in the part of Anne. In America, Carlotta Leclercq often acted in A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing, but the most famous name connected with the play in this country is that of Minnie Maddern, later Mrs. Fiske, who in the part of the daughter Sybil had one of her earliest stage roles. 15 Mrs. Stirling also played effectively in Taylor's clever comedietta, Nine Points of the Law, first produced on April 1 1 , 1859. She took the part of Mrs. Smylie, a charming and vivacious widow who suddenly learns that the cottage which she has been occupying is not legally hers. John Britton, a friend of Mrs. Smylie's niece, offers his assistance as a lawyer, but the widow intends to depend on a woman's wiles. J o h n Ironside, the rightful owner, is a misogynist who rejoices that he has never "Put 14

The Journal of a London Playgoer, p. 166. T h e first appearance of Minnie Maddern as Sybil Carcu was at the Theatre Français, New York, on May 30, 1870. Mrs. Conway often acted Anne Carew in American theaters. 15

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his head under any woman's apronstring." Accompanied by his lawyer, Cunningame, and buttressed with legal arguments and the determination to be firm, Ironside expects to be confronted by "a busy, notable woman . . . with a brassy face, a bright eye, and a tongue like a mill clack." Consequently he is taken off guard when Mrs. Smylie greets him—a demure and sorrowful widow who does not question his right to the cottage, but humbly thanks him for his kindness and tearfully asks that she be permitted to remain for only one week longer. When she talks with Cunningame, however, Mrs. Smylie is another type of woman, and the lawyer, forewarned by Ironside to expect a helpless sort of person, finds a brisk, intelligent woman who bandies legal terms with him and defeats him on his own grounds. Before he realizes it, Cunningame has renounced his client and offered his services as lawyer and suitor to the widow. By convincing Ironside that she intends to accept Rollingstone, a rascally promoter whom she does not love, as a husband who will care for her, Mrs. Smylie gains her opponent's sympathy and finally his love. Conquered by her apparent helplessness and her charm, Ironside surrenders to the battery of her wiles and offers her both the cottage and marriage. Unlike most of Taylor's Olympic plays, this comedietta was not adapted from the French; instead its plot and much of the dialogue were taken from an English novelette, Clover Cottage, by Marmion Savage. In her interpretation of Mrs. Smylie, Mrs. Stirling admirably mingled the feminine charm and poise which marked her stage manner. In a command performance at Windsor Castle on January 3 1 , i860, sne selected this play as one which would please Her Majesty. T h e original production was also aided by the scenic elegance which was a regular feature of an Olympic production. The management did not stress the detailed realism which the Bancrofts later considered so important, but it took pains to make its scenery attractive. T h e Athenaeum comment on the staging of Taylor's piece is in-

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dicative of the kind which strengthened almost every Olympic production. " T h e action all passes in one scene—a handsome prospect commanding a fine view, painted in Mr. Telbin's best style." 18 Another short piece which Taylor designed for the popular Mrs. Stirling was the one-act comic drama A Christmas Dinner, based on the French vaudeville, Je dine chez ma mère. Taylor's play, staged on April 23, i860, was thoroughly Anglicized. In the original a French actress finds herself deserted by her admirers on New Year's Day and faced with the prospect of dining alone. An artist brings a portrait of her mother, and she sits down to the table happy in the imagined presence of her parent. Taylor placed the action of his version in eighteenthcentury London. By substituting Christmas as the holiday and by using Peg Woffington as the actress and Hogarth as the artist he attempted to make the play thoroughly English. His work, however, was not a successful stage piece. In commenting upon it Henry Morley wrote: Mr. Tom Taylor's adaptation of a French sentimental comic sketch into the Christmas Dinner gives an opportunity to Mrs. Stirling for some capital acting, to Horace Wigan for a clever make-up as Hogarth, and to Mrs. Emden for one of her sturdiest and pleasantest sketches of maid servants. But although the appeal seems to be throughout to the English home feeling, the expression of it is still somewhat foreign to its sentiment, and it does not altogether come home to the audience. What little applause the piece receives is earned, and is indeed less than is earned, by Mrs. Stirling. 17 Payable on Demand, produced at the Olympic on July 1 1 , 1859, was the last play by Taylor in which Robson appeared. It is a mediocre domestic drama based on a popular theme—the distressed father. A legendary account of the rise of the Rothschild fortune suggested the narrative. In the first act, laid at Frankfort, in 1792, Reuben Goldsched, supposedly the first of No. 1642 (April 16, 1859), p. 524. " Journal of a London Playgoer, p. 251.

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the Rothschilds, receives a large sum of money from the Marquis de St. Cast for safe keeping. Reuben gives him a receipt written in invisible ink making the money payable on demand. When the Revolutionists have murdered St. Cast, Reuben gloats over possession of the money and dreams of what he can do with it. In the second act, which takes place in London in 1814, Reuben has become a wealthy man through shrewd investment of the Marquis' money. He is so engrossed in making money, however, that he has no time to devote to his daughter Lina. She has fallen in love with Victor, a poor but deserving music teacher. Victor, of course, turns out to be the Marquis' son and the rightful owner of the "payable on demand" note which is discovered in the secret drawer of a cabinet bought by Reuben as a birthday present for Lina. For a time it appears that Victor will remain unpaid, however, since Reuben has all his money invested in stocks which the victory of Napoleon will render worthless. News of the French general's success against the Allies continues to arrive; but when things look blackest for Reuben, a carrier pigeon is shot down with a message attached to its leg bringing the information that the Allies have triumphed. Reuben is able to pay the debt without ruining his own fortune; Victor is a rich and recognized nobleman; Lina will soon have a title and a husband. What more could be expected? The play is not very attractive to a modern reader, although it contains many Scribean mannerisms, notably the possession of the note as the familiar object to denote supremacy. Mawkish sentiment spoils any realistic effect which the domestic scenes might have been intended to create. A potentially interesting theme for a social drama, the union of Reuben, a Jew, with his Christian wife, Lina, who dies at the end of the first act, is entirely neglected. Domestic drama was an important form in leading theatrical entertainment away from the absurdity of melodrama into a quieter and more realistic genre; but often, as in this piece, Helping Hands, and Marston's Pure Gold

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(1863), the result is something less than happy. T h e superb performance of Robson as Reuben, however, made the initial production of Payable on Demand a decided success. T h e Olympic favorite was excellent in his fluctuations between miserly greed and devotion to his daughter, between hope and fear, kindness and hate. On August 20, when he closed the theater over which he had assumed the management, Robson named Taylor's piece as one of the five most popular pieces of the year. Taylor's work was also the opening attraction of the fall season which commenced on September 20. His ability to keep the play alive is a high compliment to Robson s powers. 18 As a "well-made" drama Taylor's The House or the Home?, produced at the Adelphi on May 16, 1859, during a temporary engagement of the Alfred Wigans, may logically be considered with liis Olympic plays. The title of this piece, a close translation of Octave Feuillet's Peril dans la demeure, indicates the clash which exists in the life of a member of Parliament between his public and his private interests. Sir Horace Chetwynd has been devoting more time to his official duties than to his wife, Lady Helen. She finds comfort with a friend, Frederick Wardour, and an innocent flirtation gradually arouses a real passion in the young man. Frederick's mother attempts to break off the affair, but Chetwynd is blind to the truth and thwarts Mrs. Wardour's plans by perversely bringing Lady Chetwynd and her young admirer together. T h e vigilant mother, however, by her interruption of a rendezvous between Lady Helen and Frederick, manages to avert the danger until Sir Horace can learn the truth. Indignant at first, upon reflection he accepts the lesson and resolves to pay more attention to his wife. Frederick, convinced that Lady Helen never seriously thought of deserting her husband, accepts a diplomatic position abroad. 18 T h e motion picture The House of the Rothschilds, in which George Arliss acted, makes use of much of the same material as Payable on Demand, but this fact does not necessarily mean that Taylor's piece had any direct bearing on the composition of the motion picture scenario, since the material is traditional with the story of the rise of the Rothschilds.

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Taylor followed his customary procedure of thoroughly Anglicizing the translation, but his other changes were of negligible importance. T h e play reads as though it would have been a very acceptable drama. T h e plot is well knit, the characters are clearly delineated, and the atmosphere of a drawing-room is well maintained. That the play was not popular may have been because of its relative lack of action. Still Waters Run Deep, for example, which is of a similar nature, proved far more successful, probably because it contained a more dramatic struggle. 18 Since the year i860 marks a turning point in Taylor's development as a playwright, his later Olympic plays may better be examined in subsequent chapters. The pieces which he composed for that theater between 1853 and i860 made him the most popular English playwright of that time. They reveal him primarily as a skillful adapter of French plays and technique to the stage and the actors of a prominent London playhouse. Olympic playgoers demanded theatrical entertainment, humorous and dramatic, which was deft in construction, more or less realistic in setting, and somewhat sophisticated in tone. Suitable subjects properly treated, Taylor found ready made in the work of French playwrights and novelists. Even when he developed his own plot, as in Plot and Passion and Payable on Demand, he consciously imitated the style of Scribe. As an adapter he deftly modified his sources by Anglicizing their settings and by purging them of suggestive situations and lines. He did this better to suit the interests and tastes of London audiences. Taylor also kept in mind the particular capabilities of the actors for whom he was writing. Performers with such different styles as those of Robson and Mrs. Stirling built a large part of their reputation on performances in his plays. None of his Olympic pieces before i860 proved a failure, and the success of many was is L a u r a Keene presented The House New York theater on August 29, 1859. withdrawn.

or the HomeT at the fall opening of her proved a disappointment and was soon

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by no means limited to the original production. Still Waters Run Deep, Plot and Passion, To Oblige Benson, and A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing in particular maintained prominent places on the stage for nearly thirty years. It is not only as popular entertainments of the day, however, that Taylor's Olympic pieces possess significance. Their deft plot construction and their experimental realism influenced the future of English drama. Through these plays the technique of writing popular drama divorced from the absurdities of melodrama and farce passed to the generation of playwrights headed by Pinero and Jones. Before their advent as effective dramatists Robertson had introduced improved characterization and more natural dialogue and Ibsen had made realistic drama a form of art as well as of entertainment; but during the fifties the plays of the Olympic were among the first to lay the foundations for the modern English theater by introducing the technique which enabled playwrights to construct an interesting drama of the contemporary scene. This technique had yet to be improved by practice, to free itself from the shackles of the French stage, and to be applied seriously to important themes; but until it had been popularized on the English stage such improvements were unlikely. In the initiation of the movement represented by the mid-century productions of the Olympic no playwright exerted a greater influence than Tom Taylor. The difference between Still Waters Run Deep and The Second Mrs. Tanqueray is, after all, not so much in the basic selection and treatment of dramatic material, as it is in the technique of plotting, characterization, and style.

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1857-70 O R a modern reader Taylor's comedies are unquestionably marred by many failings. T h e humor is more often trite and childish than it is witty, original, and mature. T o give the plays body and length he frequently mixed sentimental and melodramatic elements with the humorous in an artless and incongruous fashion. For the most part the comic characters are caricatures, drawn in the style of an inferior Dickens; and the reappearance of certain stock figures in several different pieces becomes decidedly monotonous. Despite these failings Taylor's comic writing for the theater is interesting and often amusing. It would be worth a passing glance as the type of writing against which the Robertsonian school of "cup and saucer" drama rebelled, but it also presents other claims for attention. In their day Taylor's comic pieces consistently played to crowded houses. They were the most popular entertainments given at the Haymarket, practically the only London theater attempting to keep alive the form of full-length comedy during the fifties and early sixties. Many notable actors, among whom J . B. Buckstone and E. A. Sothern were the most prominent, gained much of their fame by performing in Taylor's comedies. Finally, although no one of his pieces, except possibly New Men and Old Acres, consistently maintains a level of humor which modern judgment

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would approve, almost all include scenes and characters which will evoke chuckles and even hearty laughs from a reader who is willing to enter into the spirit of "Haymarket comedy." In order to approach sympathetically a study of this portion of Taylor's work, a modern critic must remember that almost all of it was written to conform to the pattern demanded by a specific theater. T o the actors and audiences of that theater many of the qualities in entertainment which today are considered as liabilities were regarded as distinct assets. T h e palmy days of "Haymarket comedy" as an individual type of entertainment began when Buckstone advanced to the management of the theater in March, 1853. The production of Robertson's Society at the Prince of Wales twelve years later announced the advent of a more realistic type of comedy and sounded the warning for the final curtain to drop on the Haymarket genre. Buckstone's policies were frankly conservative. He opposed any change or novelty in either the personnel of his company or the style of his productions. Year after year he engaged the same male performers. Each of these men had his well-defined sphere of stage interpretation, and every play written for them was expected to supply all of them with suitable parts. Since these performers were well grounded in the traditional and exaggerated style of comic acting which had prevailed before the debut of Charles Mathews with his more realistic stage manner, the comic roles in Haymarket plays were invariably familiar caricatures. Dramatic and sentimental scenes were considered by the actors and the audience alike only unimportant interludes between the scenes of eccentric comedy. The sets, the properties, the stage management, even the play as a whole, were all deemed of less importance than the individual performances of Buckstone and his fellow comedians. T o be appreciated genuinely, a Haymarket comedy had to be seen. Chippendale as a mincing fop, Howe as an irascible old man, Compton and his quiet drollery, Sothern with his amusing man-

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nerisms, Buckstone calling into action his command of facial contortion, his deep bass voice, and his inimitable art of mimicry —these masters of their particular trades gave life and humor to much that on the printed page seems dull and even silly. Taylor was well equipped by nature and by experience to write for this company. From the beginning of his journalistic and dramatic career he had displayed an effective sense of humor in his writing. His pieces for various theaters, particularly those for the Olympic, demonstrated his talent for understanding and satisfying the specific demands made by individual actors and their clientele. T h e number of his stage successes indicated that he possessed the knack of writing popular plays. It was natural, then, that Buckstone should seek the services of so outstanding and adaptable a playwright. During the decade which followed the production of his first Haymarket comedy, Victims, on July 8, 1857, Taylor was the leading dramatist for that theater as he was for the Olympic between 1853 and 1870. Six of his pieces were written specifically for the Haymarket; below are the titles and dates of first production of the other five: An Unequal Match, November 7, 1857; The Contested Election, June 29, 1859; The Late Lamented, November 21, 1859; The Overland Route, February 23, i860; and Babes in the Wood, November 10, i860. Four other plays by Taylor, not originally written for the Haymarket, received their first London performance there: A Duke in Difficulties, March 6, 1861; Our American Cousin, November 16, 1861; Lesson for Life, December 26, 1866; and New Men and Old Acres, in which Taylor was assisted by Augustus Dubourg, October 25, 1869. Taylor's Handsome Is That Handsome Does, first performed at the Olympic on September 3, 1870, also may well be considered with the other comedies. Since The Overland Route illustrates the particular distinguishing qualities of "Haymarket comedy" better than any of Taylor's other pieces, it will be examined first. The first two

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acts take place on b o a r d the S.S. " S i m o o n " d u r i n g a voyage f r o m I n d i a to E n g l a n d . Various passengers are involved in farcical a n d serious situations. T h e best of the absurd h u m o r centers a b o u t Lovibond. T e n years earlier he had left h o m e to escape " t h e chains of m a t r i m o n y " imposed by a shrewish wife. For the present voyage he has taken b o t h the n a m e of a m a n called D o w n e y a n d the place reserved for h i m on the boat. O n the evidence of the assumed n a m e a n d some stolen securities f o u n d in Downey's luggage, Lovibond is arrested a n d forced to walk the decks h a n d c u f f e d to detective Moleskin. U p o n discovering t h a t his wife is on board the u n l u c k y prisoner is faced with t h e d i l e m m a of either disclosing himself to her that she may establish his i d e n t i t y or facing prison. H e selects the first alternative. In a n interview, in which he at first disguises his voice a n d hides his face, his wife expresses regret at her former ill t r e a t m e n t of h i m . T h e i r r e u n i o n is completely comic. Lov. (strikes an attitude, removes his hat, and resumes his natural voice). Yes, Clarinda, behold your long-lost Gussy! Mrs. L. Augustus! Is it possible? You stand apart. Won't you take me in your arms? Lov. Would if I could. (shows handcuffs) . . . But I can't. These manacles! Overpowered as I am by emotion! I can't even blow my —would you blow it for me? (She wipes his nose with her pocket handkerchief) Moleskin, a l t h o u g h he accepts Mrs. Lovibond's identification of h e r h u s b a n d , m a i n t a i n s that the prisoner may have used the n a m e Downey as an alias a n d keeps h i m fettered. T o add to L o v i b o n d ' s troubles, M a j o r M c T u r k , an a d m i r e r of C l a r i n d a , challenges the h u s b a n d to a duel—first because he has comp r o m i s e d the lady by e m e r g i n g f r o m h e r stateroom, a n d second because as a h u s b a n d he is a b r u t e . M c T u r k ' s emissary, Sir Solom o n Fraser, presents the second challenge. Sir S. Pardon me . . . It may as well be you should know he is a dead shot, and that he labors under the impression that, in shooting you, he will be ridding the world of a monster.

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Lov. Don't talk in that ridiculous mannerl Do I look like a monster? Sir S. You will excuse my entering upon that question. A second comic plot involves the sprightly Mrs. Sebright and her two elderly suitors, Sir Solomon Fraser and Mr. Colepepper. With only slight exaggeration Sir Solomon is described by his rival as "a battered old beau—vain—frivolous—with a made-up face—dyed hair—and false teeth." Colepepper is similarly pictured by Fraser as "sixty-five if he's a day—ruined constitution —a bad temper—and anything but brilliant prospects." Mrs. Sebright is actually happily married to a husband who is waiting for her at Suez, but she is entertaining herself on the trip by posing as a widow not at all averse to replacing her former mate. Her artful maneuvers in ingeniously playing the suitors against each other furnish many amusing moments. T h e dramatic and sentimental interest of the play centers in T o m Dexter, a young surgeon returning from India so down on his luck that he is forced to travel in the steerage. Until his appointment to replace the ship's doctor, who is ill, gives him access to the salon, the state of his fortunes prevents Dexter from competing with snobbish Captain Clavering for the affections of Colepepper's daughter, Mary. As the ship's medical officer, Dexter divides his time among the occupations of caring for the sick, making love to Mary, and rescuing passengers who have fallen overboard. When the ship strikes a reef at the conclusion of the second act, he leads the work of saving the passengers. In act three drama and sentiment are more prominent than comedy. T h e passengers have been shipwrecked on a desert island. T h e experience brings out their true characters, for, as Dexter explains, " T h i s is life—stripped to the buff. In our artificial world men are so buckrammed, and padded, and corksoled by aids and appliances that they neither show nor use their muscles. After all, we have a few curs among us; b u t on the whole, Englishmen peel well." T h e young doctor has become the recognized leader, and Mary much prefers him to Captain

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Clavering, who, together with Major M c T u r k , appears to be one of the "curs." Mrs. Sebright, n o longer interested in flirtations, is an angel of mercy who realizes "that it is much pleasanter to wait than to be waited upon." Colepepper gathers wood, carries water, and makes himself generally useful. H e is worried, however, by his conviction that the loss of some vouchers will involve him in trouble with the English government. W h e n Dexter learns of this trouble of his sweetheart's father, he conveniently remembers that a box which he rescued during a mutiny in India probably contains the missing papers. T h e box is "under twenty fathoms of Red Sea water, and the stevedores only know how many tons of luggages," but the undaunted hero "dives like an otter" to the bottom of the sea and retrieves the valuable property. Comedy in this act is provided by Sir Solomon's search for his false teeth, which have been swallowed u p in the jaws of the "hocean," and by Lovibond's complete dominance over his once terrifying wife. T h e intelligence that the real Downey, who had slipped into the steerage under one of his many aliases, has confessed frees Lovibond from the attentions of Moleskin. When Lovibond discovers M c T u r k attempting to steal an extra ration of beer he settles his score with that gentleman by exposing him as a hypocrite and a coward. Sir Solomon, having found his teeth, announces that a steamer, captained by Jack Sebright, is headed for the island, and the characters all utter joyful "hurrahs" and gather for the final tableau. In both its strength and its weaknesses the play is representative of Haymarket comedy. T h e plot, original with its author, not adapted from any "well-made" French piece, is carelessly pieced together and brazen in its dependence on coincidence. T h e r e are no tense struggles, no plots and counterplots, no moments of suspense. T h e serious scenes are obviously of secondary importance to the comic. T h e writer was aiming at the construction of a piece filled with farcical comedy which the

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actors could interpret in their broadly humorous style. Because the first two acts contain a greater number of such amusing incidents, they are superior to the third act. T h e h u m o r is the result of low comedy of various sorts— ridiculous situations, eccentric characterization, absurd physical behavior, and diction filled with unnatural polysyllabic words and occasional puns. T h e first entrance and speech of Buckstone, w h o as L o v i b o n d played the leading comic role, combines all these characteristics. Lov. ( T h e door of Lovibond's cabin . . . opens, and Lovibond looks hastily out. He wears a white cotton nightcap, a long white flannel dressing-gown, and is endeavoring with a towel, to staunch the blood from a cut he has given himself in shaving) . . . I wish I could get some sticking plaster (shows cut on jaw). This is the sanguinary consequence of trying to shave one's self under the mingled effects of vertigo and a swing-glass. I thought myself uncommonly lucky to secure a passage at Aden by taking Mr. Downey's berth off his hands . . . What would I have given to have changed places with him yesterday! T h e agonies I've suffered in the last twenty-four hours on that layer of hard substance which they call a bed—in that elevated coffin, which they call a berth. T h e shiver of the screw, and the gnawing of the timbers, and the clashing of the chains overhead; and the pitching and the tossing, and worse than all, the rattle of knives and forks out there, and the notion that eating was going on within arm's length of my—(turns sick). I feel a leetle (smiling) better this morning. But my head still seems set on a pivot . . . I'm on my way to England after nine years broiling at Singapore. I never could have endured my exile, but that England meant Clarinda, and the chains of matrimony . . . What a temper the woman had. Oh! good heavens what a temper to be sure! Even a Singapore sun was better than the perpetual domestic broil I endured with Mrs. Lovibond. T h e scene is manufactured from the raw and coarse materials of low c o m e d y — a n absurd get-up, ridiculous bodily

antics,

facetious diction, broad jests on the familiar themes of seasickness and marital troubles. In order even to begin to enjoy it,

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one must project himself back into the nineteenth century, seat himself in the orchestra of the Haymarket in a state of eagerness to see and hear "Bucky." His voice runs the gamut of humorous intonations; it bends, it cracks, it cackles. Facial contortions light up every word. Gesticulating hands and arms evoke a laugh with every movement. T h e speech is delivered with the zest and fire of a skilled comedian trained in the broad style of popular acting. T h e lines "What a temper that woman had. Oh! good heavens, what a temper to be sure" are not amusing to read, but Buckstone made them funny. T h e first sentence is spoken casually, almost indifferently. Then the realization of what he lias said and the memories of past indignities race through his mind. His face assumes a wry expression, his hands clasp his head, his body writhes as from a physical lashing, his voice becomes agony itself. T h e tricks of double inflection and changing emphasis are brought into play. "O—o—h, go-od heavens! What a temper, to be sure!" Most of the humor in The Overland Route is similar to that inspired by Lovibond's soliloquy. Laughs were provoked by incidents such as the attempt of two people to pass through a door at the same time; the handcuffed Lovibond's use of Moleskin's coat to wipe his nose on; Sir Solomon's use of a hamper lid for a hat to protect himself from the rays of the sun; Colepepper being loaded down with Mrs. Sebright's possessions; and Lovibond's mortification at the discovery that the handcuffs prevent his swimming from the sinking ship. It would be incorrect to assume, however, that the humor of the piece was entirely dependent on the efforts of the actors. Taylor not only provided them with parts fitted to their individual styles but also created some clever and humorous situations. Lovibond's troubles accumulate in a highly entertaining manner. T h e amusing triangle involving Mrs. Sebright, Colepepper, and Sir Solomon is well conceived and executed. T h e play is evidently the work of

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a writer who possessed mastery of all the devices of farce and a thorough familiarity with stagecraft. Henry Morley's review may be accepted as typical of the general approbation which greeted the initial presentation of the play. In part, Morley wrote: " T h e scheme of the drama is a pleasant one . . . cleverly adapted to its actors, and at the same time written with unusual care . . . the result is another of those thorough successes with which the Haymarket has of late been favored." 1 As Lovibond, Buckstone had one of his best roles; and he was well supported by Compton, Chippendale, and Rogers in the respective parts of Sir Solomon, Colepepper, and McTurk. Charles Mathews, whose temporary engagement had added strength to the Haymarket company, played Dexter. Mrs. Mathews appeared as Mrs. Sebright, Mrs. Wilkins as Mrs. Lovibond, and Miss Ternan as Mary Colepepper. The Overland Route was for many years a great Haymarket favorite. Few seasons under Buckstone's management passed without at least one revival of the play. Whenever a new piece failed, the lines of the Taylor comedy were likely to be "gotten up" quickly to fill the gap until another production could be prepared. As late as 1882 the Bancrofts selected this comedy as the opening attraction of their Haymarket season. Many critics then found the play flimsy and dated, but the producers were pleased. Squire Bancroft records: "Our revival of the old comedy began the season brilliantly, and was well received with all the favor given to a successful new production." 2 The American première of the play took place at Wallack's on May 14, i8tio. The strong cast included Walcot as Lovibond, Dyott as Colepepper, Blake as Sir Solomon Fraser, Brougham as McTurk, Lester Wallack as Dexter, Mrs. Hoey as Mrs. Sebright, and Mary Gannon as Mrs. Lovibond. The play, which ran until 1 Journal of a London Playgoer, p. 243. 2 Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft on and off the Stage, II, 309.

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the middle of J u n e , was one of the successes of the season. Among many subsequent American productions the most notable were probably those in which H. J . Montague, a great matinee idol in this country, achieved considerable success as Dexter. Taylor's other Haymarket pieces are similar to The Overland Route in spirit and style. Victims, chronologically the first, produced on July 8, 1857, is a broad satire on literary dilettantes. Merry weather, a sound business man, intended to select an equally sensible wife, but her decided disdain for "the sordid pursuits of gain" and her rapturous devotion to the arts threaten to disrupt his married life. He is particularly embarrassed when a bachelor friend calls at the house one morning and finds the wife still in bed, and in place of "chops, cold meat, and eggs for breakfast" only "tea without cream and a breakfast table without muffins." Among the aesthetic coterie who gather around the suffering angel, Mrs. Merryweather, are her particular favorite—the poetaster Herbert Fitzherbert, Minerva Crane, "a strong-minded woman," and Miss Crane's fiancé, Joshua Butterby. Fitzherbert lives too much in the ethereal realms of Pegasus to be much concerned over commonplace matters of finance, and his devoted wife is forced to take in sewing and play the piano in order to earn a little money. T o protect her husband's name, which must not be associated with "the sordid trafficking of your men of business," Mrs. Fitzherbert works under her maiden name, Lucy Aiken. When Mrs. Merryweather engages her to play at a large party, she is as impressed with Lucy's devotion and self-sacrifice as she is disgusted with the husband's neglect and false pride. When it is revealed at the party that Fitzherbert is the thoughtless man, he is ashamed, and Mrs. Merryweather, who has been flirting with him rather steadily, recognizes the solid merit of her own husband. T r u e to the Haymarket type, the sentimental story serves chiefly as a framework into which the eccentric characters and

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broad humor are fitted. Among the minor aesthetes are Mr. Mudlemist, Hegelian sophist, Mr. Curdle, dour Scotch disciple of Adam Smith, and Mr. Hornblower, editor of the "Weekly Beacon." T h e two most important comic figures, both excellent caricatures, are Miss Minerva Crane, who preaches the emancipation of women, and her affianced Joshua. H e fears her tongue and mistrusts her theories, but he cannot free himself from the charms of her 3 percent bonds. Minerva's distinct views do not promise a husband much marital happiness. Min. In the present state of society it may be our duty to bow the knee, to stoop the neck, and even to bridle the tongue, but it shall not be so always; when I marry, dear Emily, I will show a different example . . . Joshua understands me. He feels, as I do, that a woman's mission is anything but submission. I've taught him the rudiments of the question and after we are married, I'll complete the lesson. T h e climax of the farcical comedy occurs when Joshua, hoping to mend a quarrel, sends her what he believes to be a beautiful dress. T h e package erroneously contains a pair of trousers, but the blissfully ignorant Joshua presents his peace offering after reading some verses of his own composition. Jos. Yes: a humble tribute which devoted affection lays at the shrine of loveliness. Listen to my votive song. (All gather) " T o Minerva—with a dress: In sudden wrath Minerva frowned—" Need I say who is Minerva? "And Damon sank as 'neath a spell!—" Who Damon is, is obvious. "That frown divine on all around Sank, blighting whereso'er it fell. His angry goddess to appease. Sad Damon sought with hope and fear: Some charms e'en goddesses can please— May Damon hope he's found one here!"

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T h a t is in this parcel. " T h e n , take, great goddess, where you sit—" In point of fact, you ain't sitting, but the posture is figurative. " T h e gift he proffers on his knee (kneels) T o female empire tribute fit, And when you wear it, think of me." (He opens the parcel, and takes out a pair of trousers, then starts astounded and lets them fall at his feet) Min. Ohl this is too much! (Screams and faints in ladies' arms— agitation—Rowley and Merryweather burst into laughter) T h e satire on the aesthetic poses of Fitzherbert and Mrs. M e r r y w e a t h e r , although by no means very subtle, is less blunt than most of the h u m o r in the piece. A brief excerpt f r o m one of their scenes is quoted below. Fitz. Poets are like swans—when we become vocal, 'tis in the hour of their closing agony. Mrs. M. But despair must not be locked in the heart, or it may shatter it. Fitz. What matter when the heart is already in ruins—besides we have our pens. Mrs. M. Oh! if you knew the comfort your poems have been to me —their melancholy cadence falls like an echo of my own sighs. Griefs I have never confided to human ears are laid bare in your verses. Fitz. How mysterious is the free masonry of suffering. T h i s last line strikes one as being particularly delightful in its phrasing and its import. In its own way the piece is good f u n , and H a y m a r k e t audiences enjoyed it. Buckstone was of course amusing as Butterby. His s u p p o r t i n g cast included W i l l i a m Farren, J r . as Fitzherbert, H o w e as Merryweather, Miss R e y n o l d s as Mrs. Merryweather, and Mrs. Poynter as M i n e r v a Crane. T h e most famous L o n d o n revival of the comedy was staged at the Court, by J o h n H a r e , in J a n u a r y , 1878. For this production, in which Ellen T e r r y played Mrs. Merryweather and J o h n Clarke, Butterby, T a y l o r revised the dialogue in an attempt to bring the satire u p to date.

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He also eliminated several minor characters. Like many of Taylor's plays, Victims had its initial American performance at Laura Keene's, where it was staged on September 7, 1857, with Jefferson as Butterby and the manageress as Mrs. Merryweather. In this country John E. Owens most successfully played the comedy. As Butterby he was sure of a warm welcome until he retired. The once popular An Unequal Match, Taylor's next Haymarket piece, produced on November 7, 1857, differs from the usual style of Buckstone's productions, because the leading role is a feminine one, and the sentimental story overshadows the comic elements. The first act takes place against the rustic setting of a Yorkshire inn. Hester Grazebrook, the charming but naive daughter of a country blacksmith, rejects the proposal of Doctor Botcherby to accept that of Harry Arncliffe—whom she believes to be a poor artist, but who is really a London blueblood. The second act, laid at Arncliffe Manor, is concerned with the troubles precipitated by the differences in the early environments of the married couple. Hester's lack of sophistication and her disdain for society etiquette frequently amuse Arncliffe's friends and embarrass him. Hester has reason to believe that the haughty Mrs. Montressor, an admirer of her husband, would not be averse to becoming his second wife. Dr. Botcherby, now Mrs. Montressor's personal physician, tries to help Hester by recommending that his patient visit the watering resort of Ems. Arncliffe has been ordered to the same resort by his doctor; but to spare Hester worry, he does not tell her why he is leaving London. When she learns that her husband and Mrs. Montressor are leaving for the same destination, she suspects the worst. T o Ems, where the last act takes place, come rumors of a beautiful English singer whose continental tour has left a chain of broken hearts. The singer proves to be a worldly wise and sophisticated Hester, who ridicules such plebeian amusements

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as picnics, rebukes her husband for smoking a meerschaum pipe, and torments him by nonchalantly speaking of having an affair with a duke. H e r behavior renders Arncliffe so uncomfortable that he longs for the return of the simple country girl he married. W h e n she has properly impressed him with the worth of her natural manner, Hester resumes it and effects the expected reconciliation. T h e customary rhymed tag points the moral. Hes. I wished to prove that in fair battle set— The genuine woman 'gainst the sly coquette— 'Twixt arts that charm and virtues that attach— 'Tis long—and long be it—"An Unequal Match." T h e play sets forth the sentimental story of the t r i u m p h of simplicity over artifice in a coherent and unified fashion. T h e narrative is, of course, artificial and theatrical, but it is not essentially ridiculous. If to a modern reader it frequently appears so, the reason may be found in the excessively sentimental and unnatural dialogue provided for the climactic moments. An excellent idea of the more realistic language which Robertson introduced to the English stage may be gathered from a comparison of the proposal made by George d'Alroy to Esther Eccles in Caste with a similar incident in An Unequal Match. In each scene a man of noble birth and high social standing offers marriage to a girl of less elevated position. In Taylor's work the episode is presented in unnaturally long speeches and with diction which is theatrical—not the counterpart of that used in life. Am. For all these happy months, Hester, I have been reading your heart, learning to respect in you that womanhood which I once despaired of ever trusting again. T h e sight of the woman whose heartlessness has made me an unbeliever has only increased my faith in you. Oh, Hester, though no word of wooing has passed between us, you must have read my looks—you must have interpreted the feeling that made my tongue falter and my cheek flush when at your side. What need was there to say, I love you I Hes. (tremblingly). Mr. Arncliffe, these are solemn words, they would

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make me very happy if they meant as much in your mouth as they would in mine; but I know something of the world—we are not equals. Arn. You are as much above me as innocence and truth can be above selfishness and folly. I've been a better man since I knew you; your simplicity is all the more charming to me for its contrast with the hollow affectations of the world I have left forever. Hes. Forever is a long time, Mr. Arncliffe. Arn. Yes; I would live and die here, Hester, in this quiet valley, where you have taught me that life might still have some purpose. Hester, you have been my better angel; be so still, be my wife. Hes. Your wife! Oh, I am not good enough for that. Arn. Not good enough! You not good enough for a poor artist's wife, for I'm no better now, and you little know how humbly the world ranks artists. Why, your father's a richer man than I am, if my debts are paid, as they shall be before we marry. Why, my little darling, you will have to stoop to the home I have chosen for us here. Robertson's treatment of a similar situation is i m m e a s u r a b l y m o r e realistic. T h e characters are less loquacious, and in their inability to express in

flowery

terms the emotions w h i c h are

very near and real to t h e m , the p l a y w r i g h t has i m p l i e d some of the reticence w h i c h comes to normal beings in their moments of great e m o t i o n a l stress. George. But you'll go away, and I shan't see you. Esther. P'rhaps it will be for the best. What future is there for us? You're a man of rank, and I am a poor girl who gets her living by dancing. It would have been better that we never met. Geo. No. Est. Yes, it would, for I'm afraid t h a t — Geo. You love me? Est. I don't know. I'm not sure; but I think I do. Geo. (trying to seize her hand). Esther! Est. No, think of the difference in our station. Geo. That's what Hawtree says! Caste! caste! curse caste! . . . Est. But we must listen to reason. Geo. I hate reason.

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Est. I wonder what it means. Geo. Everything disagreeable. When people talk unpleasantly they always say, "Listen to reason" . . . When people love, there's no such thing as money—it doesn't exist. Est. Yes, it does. Geo. Then it oughtn't to . . . I never think of anything but you. Est. Really? . . . And shall you always love me as you do now? Geo. More. It might not be too much to say that in the decade which intervened between the production of the two plays a language for a new drama and a new theatrical outlook on life had been created. T h e unnatural dialogue of An Unequal Match was no handicap to its enjoyment by Haymarket playgoers. T h e y applauded the sentimental and sententious speeches and approved the opportunities for elocutionary delivery. T o audiences and actors alike, however, the role of Hester was the greatest attraction of the play. H e r simplicity, her devotion to her husband, her amusing efforts to conform to the convention of society, and her admirably assumed worldiness were all effective. T h e characterization of her husband, originally played by the younger William Farren, was commonplace; b u t the subordinate characters offered excellent opportunities for comic acting. Buckstone, as the straightforward Botcherby, had a role freer from farcical comedy than was usual with him. Not until the last act, when he appeared as a doctor for a German principality, "dressed in a uniform much padded and laced, a cocked hat, and a n u m b e r of orders," did he seem like the favorite low comedian. Compton, as Arncliffe's butler, and Mrs. Fitzwilliam, as Hester's maid, formed an amusing couple, who "quarreled so continually before marriage that there seemed some chance that they might agree after it." Other good supporting roles were those of Sir Sowerby Honeywood an eccentric nobleman who detested activity of any sort, originally played by Chippendale, and old Grazebrook, interpreted by Rogers. Mrs. Buck-

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ingham White made a very snobbish and effective Mrs. Montr essor. The outstanding performance of the original cast was unquestionably that by Amy Sedgwick as Hester. In his journal Henry Morley records, "This was Miss Sedgwick's first appearance here in a part for the acting of which she was without help from the traditions of the stage. Her success was great, and it was fairly earned." 3 As long as she remained on the stage, the part seemed almost her personal property, and no other prominent English actress dared to play it. When she retired, she willed it to a protégée Annie Lafontaine, who appeared as Hester at the Charing Cross Theater on November 10, 1875. During the fall season of 1877 the Bancrofts gave An Unequal Match as one of their carefully staged revivals. Mrs. Bancroft acted as the heroine; Charles Sugden as Arncliffe. In America the play was introduced by Laura Keene at her theater on January 4, 1858. It achieved great success during its initial run of three weeks and remained a favorite in Miss Keene's repertoire. E. A. Sothern made his debut with her company in the role of Arncliffe at a subsequent revival on May 12 of the same year. Madeline Henriques was another popular Hester. In 1882, in the same role, Lillie Langtry, the noted and beautiful "Jersey Lillie," made her American debut at Wallack's. The next Haymarket play by Taylor was The Contested Election, played for the first time on June 29, 1859. It is a genuinely humorous and broad satire on elections. From the time the curtain rises on Dodgson, an amusing and scheming lawyer who is hiding himself in his safe to avoid his importunate creditor, the butcher Peckover, until it falls on the conclusion of a most complicated election, the action remains in the realm of farcical comedy. The two candidates for Parliament, Gaper and Gabletton, have agreed not to spend any money on their campaigns. This is distressing both to Dodgson, who hoped to be engaged s Journal of a London

Playgoer,

p. 198.

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by one of them as manager, and to Peckover, who intended to sell to the highest bidder the votes he controls as head of the " B l u e Lambs." Dodgson undertakes to find a candidate with money to spend, and he induces the socially ambitious Mrs. Honeybun to force her husband to run. Poor Honeybun, who enjoys nothing more than a good nap, finds himself plunged unwillingly into a political campaign. T o satisfy his wife he must lay out money under Dodgson's direction to purchase meat and beer for his constituents and to provide bands and triumphal arches for their parades. At the same time he secretly gives Dodgson large sums to guarantee the election of another candidate. Honeybun's daughter, Clara, agrees to marry Wapshott if he will insure the defeat of her father. Wapshott accordingly enters the race himself and considerably annoys Mrs. Honeybun by belittling her husband. Mrs. Honeybun is also upset because Clara seems to enjoy hearing her father criticized by her future husband. Eventually Wapshott secures control of Dodgson's campaign funds and exposes the lawyer for playing two ends against the middle. Honeybun is defeated, Wapshott resigns, Gabletton is elected, and everyone except Mrs. Honeybun is satisfied. T h e piece is capital farce. T h e plot is adroitly developed by the hand of a craftsman experienced in the art of joining together a number of comic situations. T h e confusion over the election is deftly complicated by each succeeding incident. Particularly clever is the treatment of Honeybun's predicament as a candidate who wants to be defeated, but who dares not show it. Several scenes effectively satirize actual conditions. Perhaps the best is that in which Dodgson turns aside the questions put by voters—telling them nothing, yet leaving them satisfied with generalities. Throughout, there is a sufficiently accurate impression of reality to lend the piece a sting. With Buckstone as Peckover, Compton as Honeybun, William Farren as Wapshott, Charles Mathews as Dodgson, and

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Mrs. Mathews as Mrs. Honeybun, the original production enjoyed a successful run. 4 A brief explanation is needed for the presence of Mathews, one of the earliest exponents of natural acting on the English stage, in the same cast with the regular Haymarket favorites (whose stage manner was not definitely realistic) and in a part, which unlike that of Dexter in The Overland Route is definitely farcical and demanded the employment of a broad style. T h e apparent contradiction may be accounted for by the fact that Mathews possessed two somewhat different styles for presenting his interpretations. T h e first and more important was the realistic manner with which he played gentlemen in "well-made" plays. T h e second, a broader and more exaggerated manner, was devoted to the performance of farce. George Lewes indicates the existence of these contrasted styles when he writes of Mathews: The difference between his performance in He Would be an Actor or Patter Versus Clatter and in The Game of Speculation or The Day of Reckoning is all the difference between a clever mimic and a fine comedian—between a lively caricaturist and a skillful portrait painter.5 In the interval between the productions of The Contested Election and The Overland Route T a y l o r furnished Mathews with another piece, The Late Lamented, which offered the actor opportunities as " a lively caricaturist." T h i s unpublished comedy was presented by Buckstone on November 2 1 , 1859. It may well have been an adaptation from the French. 6 T h e Athenaeum 7 comment is adequate: * T h e piece was produced at L a u r a Keene's T h e a t e r on October 26, 1859, as The Election. A f t e r a disappointing reception it was w i t h d r a w n on November 2. In Annals of the New York Stage (VII, 219) Professor Odell writes, "It was an ill omen to see T o m T a y l o r going down twice to defeat (i. e., The House or the Home? and The Election) so soon after his American Cousin." 5 On Actors and the Art of Acting, p. 60. 8 Toupinel, T h e theine of T a y l o r ' s piece is somewhat similar to Bisson's Feu adapted by Fred Horner as The Late Lamented (1891). T h e details of T a y l o r ' s treatment, however, differ greatly from those of the French comedy. ' No. 1674 (November 26, 1859), p. 7 1 1 .

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The Late Lamented is . . . constructed on primitive principles, the characters being merely abstractions, with titles, but without names, and the plot a simple situation . . . Mr. C. Mathews appears as the nameless Marquis, Miss Reynolds as the Marchioness, Mrs. C. Mathews as the servant or Lisette, and Mr. Buckstone as the valet or Frontin. The Marchioness has been previously married, and is always in tears for her first husband who died on a diplomatic mission. The Marquis enters into a plot with Frontin, who has accompanied "the late lamented" in his travels. Accordingly, Frontin tells his mistress a long melancholy story—that her husband is not dead but a prisoner in Algeria, condemned to the monstrous task of hatching eggs, from which misery he may be delivered by a ransom. This the Marquis professes himself ready to pay at once, but the Marchioness refuses, and paints "the late lamented" in the blackest colours. T h e moral was too obvious, and the piece failed to please. From the Illustrated

London

News

8

we learn that:

A new drama by Mr. Tom Taylor entitled The Late Lamented . . . was hissed on the first night, but has since been acted . . . though it is not likely to become popular. Following the success of The Overland Route in the spring of i860, the next Haymarket play by Taylor, Babes in the Wood, proved a distinct disappointment. In its original form as produced on November 10, i860, it required more than four hours for presentation, and even its shortened text seems verbose and seriously lacking in dramatic action. These weaknesses are only partially compensated for by the presence of some excellent farce comedy. T h e principal narrative is distinctly sentimental and heavily colored with domestic pathos. Blanche and Frank Rushton, a pair of newly-weds whose marriage in opposition to the wishes of their aristocratic parents has stopped their allowances, have taken lodgings at a boarding house managed by the tyrannical Mrs. Beetle and her submissive husband. T h e Earl of Lazenby, Blanche's father, is ready to forgive the Rushtons, but he dares not defy his wife. Secretly he leaves a £ 5 0 note in his daughter's room. Frank accuses 8 X X X V (November a6, 1859), 505.

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B l a n c h e of h a v i n g accepted the money f r o m a former a d m i r e r , and she counters by c h a r g i n g h i m w i t h h a v i n g borrowed it and thus b r o k e n his promise n o t to deal w i t h money lenders. A f t e r a brief lovers' q u a r r e l the matter is forgotten. In order to raise m o r e m o n e y , B l a n c h e secretly pawns a d i a m o n d r i n g in Mrs. Beetle's n a m e and then loses the claim ticket. T h i s is f o u n d by a man-about-town, w h o shows it to Beetle. T h e latter suspects his w i f e of stealing the ring, and she entertains a similar idea a b o u t h i m . Blanche's confession explains the affair just before T o d d , a m o n e y lender, has b o t h Frank and Beetle imprisoned for long-outstanding debts. B l a n c h e accompanies her h u s b a n d to prison, w h e r e they lead a pleasant domestic existence in a r o o m w h i c h she decorates w i t h " c h i n t z covers, curtains, and flowers"

u n t i l " t h e place seems transformed into a paradise."

M o v e d by his daughter's courage in the face of adversity, the earl defies his w i f e a n d promises to aid the couple. H e also offers to secure Beetle's release; and the latter, w h o has genuinely e n j o y e d the respite f r o m his wife's tirades, agrees to accept the assistance only because Mrs. Beetle has "struck her colours, and I'm to be captain of my o w n ship in the f u t u r e . " Little in the narrative of the R u s h t o n s is either effective or attractive. T h e story of their

financial

struggles is told in an

u n e x c i t i n g m a n n e r a n d w i t h o u t p r o b i n g the problems w h i c h previously u n e n c o u n t e r e d poverty m i g h t present to a newly married couple. Some of their early conversations on the subjects of marriage and finance are amusing, b u t their later scenes are largely tawdry s e n t i m e n t and u n c o n v i n c i n g pathos. T h e i r discussion of a b u d g e t furnishes one of the amusing scenes. Blanche. Yes, with your £400 and my £300, I'm sure we shall get on beautifully. I've arranged our expenses so nicely, dear! (takes out a little mother-of-pearl memorandum book) There's a hundred for our lodgings—a hundred for your man and my maid, at board wages—and a hundred for my toilette—and a hundred for your tailor. Frank. Stop, that's f o u r —

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Bla. Which leaves us three for our eating and drinking—you know they cost a mere nothing—and our sundries. Frank. Sundries? What do you mean by sundries? Bla. Oh, such trifles as lace and trinkets, and knick-knacks, and visiting and charity, and books, and stalls at the theaters and the opera, and sketching things, and a piano, and music—(she pauses for breath) Fra. And my club-subscriptions—and fishing tackle, and shooting traps, and a brougham in the season—and the tennis court—and Pratt's—and Lord's—and a drag now and then—and hats—and boots, and gloves—and Eau de Cologne—and walking sticks—and a run on the continent. I say, Blanche, I'm afraid our miscellaneous estimates will be rather high. Bla. But you know, dear, these are things one must have. Fra. I don't dispute the necessity of having 'em, I was only afraid they won't leave much for eating and drinking. Bla. I have been consulting Mrs. Beetle about that. She says a fowl costs 3s 6d, and 365 three and sixpences only come to £63 17s 6d. Fra. But we can't live on roast fowls all the year round. I propose we suppress the eating and drinking altogether, and like Napoleon's army, quarter ourselves upon the enemy—I mean our friends' country houses. Bla. Well, we can do that for six months in the year. Oh, I'm sure we shall get on famously. I mean to be so economical. T h e spirit of such a scene is not very different from that which makes later satiric comedies, such as Jones's Dolly forming

Herself,

so delightful;

but T a y l o r

was unable

Reto

maintain the dialogue at this level. First it grows dull, and then it passes into the saccharine sentiment and exaggerated pathos which dominate all early Victorian plays of domesticity. Blanche's maudlin remembrance of her father is a typical specimen of this unwelcome note. " B u t my heart is yearning for my father—I see him before me n o w — h i s grey hairs—his worn, venerable face, that always had a smile for m e — h e is sitting all alone—he looks sad, but there is no Blanche to cheer him now—to take his hand, and sing him the soft, low song he used to love so well."

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W o r k i n g with the familiar material of low comedy, T a y l o r is consistently more successful in his treatment of the incidents involving the Beetles. Mrs. Beetle is well depicted as a hatchetfaced tyrant who reclines in bed to receive her muffins and rasher of bacon, while Beetle, who describes himself as "a little black thing that runs around the kitchen and is always in a hurry," is the man-of-all-work. Indeed, as he himself says, " t h e division of labour is ignored in my p e r s o n — I ' m a rotary knife grinder, an American washing machine, a ragged brigade shoeblack, and a London Parcels Delivery Company rolled into o n e . " W h e n Beetle has been imprisoned for the debt which is really his wife's, but for which " t h e jaundiced eye of the law" holds him responsible, his wife realizes his value and begs him to seek his release. T h e change in their relations revealed during her visit to the prison provides capital farce comedy. Mrs. B. (in a soft voice). Jeremiah! Beetle ( o f f e r i n g her a chair in a formal manner). Pray be seated, Madam. May I ask to what I am indebted for the honour of this visit? Mrs. B. Oh, Jeremiah! how can you treat your Arabella in this cutting manner when she comes to console you in the loneliness of your imprisonment? Beetle. Hadn't you better have waited 'til I applied for that particular form of consolation? Mrs. B. I couldn't bear the separation any longer. Beetle. Oh, I've long been aware our tastes differed. T h e triumphant Beetle is able to state his own terms for returning home as "master in the house . . . released from menial offices," and he even hears his wife humbly beg for a kiss " i n token of forgiveness." T h i s he grants, after repeated requests, with the condescending admonition, " T h e r e , but let this be a lesson to you, Arabella." In the original production Buckstone ably performed the part of Beetle. Mrs. W i l k i n s acted Mrs. Beetle, and the sentimental roles of the Rushtons were assigned to Amy Sedgwick

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and William Farren, J r . T h e piece was presented at the Winter Garden, New York, on April 1, 1 8 6 1 , by a cast headed by the splendid comedian J o h n Sleeper Clarke as Beetle. Clarke found the part one of his most successful interpretations, and he played Taylor's comedy many times, first in America, and later in London, under the title Babes and Beetles. Although Babes in the Woods was the last play which T a y l o r wrote for the Haymarket company, Buckstone produced four more of his plays at that theater. A Duke in Difficulties, presented on March 6, 1861, was dramatized from a story, " T h e Duke's Dilemma," in Blackwood's Magazine of September, 1853. Taylor intended the play for a Drury Lane presentation by Mrs. Stirling, but it reached the Haymarket when Buckstone engaged her services early in 1861. Despite the acting of the gifted Mrs. Stirling and of the comedians Buckstone, Compton, and John Clarke, the play failed. It was never printed, but ample descriptions of it are available. Part of the Illustrated London News 9 review is quoted below: The new drama is a long conversational comedy, the humor of which consists in a Grand Duke of Kleinstadt-Waldstein forming his cabinet of a vagabond company of players in place of his regular ministers who have resigned because they could not get their salaries regularly paid. Of the theatrical troupe thus engaged in novel roles, M. De la Rampc (Buckstone) is the manager, and accordingly becomes the Premier of the Grand Duke. As such he has to thread his way through the mazes of diplomacy and opposition. He begins by imprisoning the former Ministry who would have bargained away the Duchy . . . The agent in this nefarious transaction is Baron von Dampfnoodel (Rogers) who, with his vulgar wife (Mrs. Wilkins) becomes the butt of the other characters. T h e newly installed Premier does his business thoroughly, and satisfactorily provides for the reception of the Landgrave of Braunsbach and the Princess YVilhelmina. The former falls in love with the young actress Colombe (Fannie Stirling), the daughter of La Joconde (Mrs. Stirling), and causes much anxiety to the mother, until the latter is assured that he means » X X X V I I I (March 16, 1861), 237.

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honourably by his intentions. This young lady turns out to be the sister of the Grand Duke . . . Mr. Compton had the humorous part of a stage lover, who carries his professional character into common life, and makes love to the Baroness von Dampfnoodel, whereby her diplomatic husband is much embarrassed and perplexed in his mission. The synopsis indicates that the piece was a routine mixture of drama, sentiment, and eccentric comedy. The story followed the source closely, except for the addition of the love episode involving La Joconde and her daughter. The alteration was undoubtedly made for the purpose of furnishing Mrs. Stirling and her daughter, who had very recently made her professional debut, with suitable roles. 10 T h e history of Our American Cousin, Taylor's most celebrated comedy, illustrates the caprice which the Goddess of Chance often elects to display toward the theatrical productions offered up before her. Originally a mediocre melodrama, which was discarded without a production by a London manager and judged unworthy of performance by a second-rate American actor, the piece was first presented by a cast which had little faith in its success merely to fill a gap caused by the failure of scene builders to complete the sets for a lavish Shakespearean revival. By adopting some obviously ridiculous mannerisms and some equally absurd lines the actor who was the least pleased with his part in the performance transformed a routine drama into one of the most famous comedies ever produced in America. Even then the Goddess of Chance did not terminate her influence When the play was brought to England, it was so nearly deemed a failure that its withdrawal had already been announced when suddenly the eccentric performance of this same actor captured the fancy of the public and made the piece as popular on that side of the ocean as it had been on the other. 10 Under the title Our (The) First President, A Duke in Difficulties was the main dramatic attraction, on September 25, 1861, at the grand opening of Wallack's new theater at Broadway and Thirteenth Street, New York.

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Thus the success of Our American Cousin was due only slightly to the work of its author and almost entirely to chance and to the performance of Edward Askew Sothern as Lord Dundreary. The play was inspired by the crowds of Americans who came to England to visit the Crystal Exhibition of 1851. Their colorful slang attracted attention. Lord John Russell, says one reporter, "guessed" and "calculated," Palmerston and Disraeli "whittled," and the Royal Family dined on "peanuts" and "pumpkin pie." T o cap it all, Cardinal Wiseman and the Bishop of London were seen playing "poker" over "bourbon slings." 1 1 Taylor, always alert for topical subjects, prepared a commonplace Adelphi drama which embodied something of the current interest in Americans and their queer additions to the English language. In this piece "our American cousin," a crude Yankee named Asa Trenchard, comes to England for the purpose of claiming an inheritance which Mary Meredith, an unsophisticated cousin, expects will be hers. Another cousin, Florence Trenchard, is in love with Harry Vernon, but their prospects of marriage are dependent upon his appointment to the command of a ship. Coyle, steward to Florence's father, Sir Edward Trenchard, has dishonestly gained control of practically all his employer's money and property. Unless Sir Edward will force his daughter to marry Coyle, the steward proposes to evict the entire Trenchard family. T o all but Mary, Asa's boorish manners, depicted in the burlesque style made popular by Mrs. Trollope's account of her American travels, and his strange talk of "soft soap," "small potatoes," and "some pumpkins" appear very laughable; but his actions soon prove his worth. With the aid of Abel Murcott, a former tutor at Trenchard Manor, whom Coyle has kept drunk and used as a tool, Asa exposes the steward and forces him to return Sir Edward's property. "Our American cousin" also helps Vernon 11 Quoted in T . Edgar Pemljerton, A Memoir of F.divard Askew Sothern, from a newspaper clipping preserved among Sothern's private papers.

p. 155,

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t o secure a ship, and, as a final s a m p l e of his generosity, b u r n s t h e will w h i c h n a m e d h i m h e i r a n d thus makes M a r y r i c h . S h e t h e n accepts his proposal o f m a r r i a g e . T h e play c o n t a i n e d p l e n t y of t h e strong d r a m a d e m a n d e d by A d e l p h i playgoers. T h e c e l l a r scene, in which Asa a n d

Mur-

c o t t m a k e Coyle d r u n k a n d t h e n secure the keys which give t h e m access to his private papers, is typical of the violent a c t i o n . Asa. Now then, quick, Murcott, before the butler comes back, get his keys. (Murcott gets keys from Coyle's pockets and throws them to Asa) Is this all? Mur. No; the key of his private bureau is on his watch chain, and I can't get it off. Asa. T a k e watch and all. Mur. No; he will accuse us of robbing him. Asa. Never mind, I'll take the responsibility. (Coyle moves) Mur. He is getting up. Asa. Well, darn me, knock him down again. Mur. I can't. Asa. Can't you? Well, I can. (Pulls Murcott away. Knocks Coyle down; is going towards door, meets Binney with tray and glasses; kicks it; knocks Binney down and exits up staircase, followed by Murcott carrying candle. Dark stage. Binney rises. Coyle ditto. Blindly encounter each other and pummel soundly.) T a y l o r also i n c l u d e d m a n y o f the farcical scenes which provided c o m i c r e l i e f in an A d e l p h i d r a m a . I n several Asa is involved in e n c o u n t e r s w i t h a state of society somewhat

more

polished t h a n that to w h i c h he had b e e n a c c u s t o m e d in A m e r i c a . A b r i e f e x c e r p t from his conversation with t h e b u t l e r , B i n n e y , will i n d i c a t e the spirit. Bin. W i l l you take a baath before you dress? Asa. T a k e a baath? Bin. A baath. Asa. I suppose you mean a bath. Wal, man, I calkalate I ain't going to expose myself to the shakes by getting into cold water in this cruel climate of yours, so make tracks.

176 Bin. Asa. Bin. Asa. Bin. Asa. Bin. Asa. Bin.

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Make what? Vamoose I Make vamoose? Absquatulate. Ab—what, sir? Skedaddle. Skedaddle? Oh! get out. Oh!

Additional humor was furnished by Lord Dundreary, a simpering English nobleman who made asinine remarks and acted in a generally ridiculous manner. At the end of the play he wins the equally simple Georgina Mountchessington, after the two men whom her fortune-hunting mother selected for her have become engaged to other ladies. In Taylor's original manuscript the role of Dundreary was decidedly minor and limited to some forty-seven lines. As he frequently did, Taylor wrote the principal part in his drama for a definite actor, in this instance an American named Joshua Silsbee, or Silsby. Silsbee, one of the numerous Yankee performers in England at the time whose chief stock in trade was a farcical presentation of American manners, was then acting at the Adelphi. Webster purchased Our American Cousin for £80, but he was not particularly attracted by it. When Silsbee returned to America, Webster gave him the American rights to the as yet unproduced piece. The actor toured in this country, principally in the West, for some years after that; but, although he placed the play in rehearsal while he was in California, he never acted it. When Taylor learned of Silsbee's death, he asked John Chandler Bancroft Davis, then the New York correspondent for the London Times, to seek an American market for the piece. In his memoirs Lester Wallack continues the story.12 i2 Lester Wallack, Memories

of Fifty Years,

p. 139.

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Bancroft Davis, an old friend of my father's, came to him one day at the Broome Street House [the theater then managed by the elder Wallack] with a play which Mr. T o m Taylor of London, who knew nothing of American theaters or American dramatic possibilities, had sent out to this country for a market . . . I read the manuscript, was struck with the title, Our American Cousin, but saw that it contained no part which could compare with the titular one— created by Mr. Taylor no doubt with an idea of pleasing theatergoers on our side of the Atlantic as well as his. I told Mr. Davis that it wanted a great Yankee character actor; that Mr. Joseph Jefferson, then a stock-actor in Miss Laura Keene's company, was the very man for it, and advised its presentation to her . . . He took the play to Miss Keene, who read it. She did not see any great elements of popularity in it, but she thought that it might do to fill a gap some time, and she pigeon-holed it. She was just then busy getting up a Shakespearean revival. Midsummer Night's Dream. She had Mr. Blake with her and Mr. Jefferson as well as Mr. Sothern, who was engaged to play such parts as I was playing at the other house. She was taking great pains with Midsummer Night's Dream, in which these people were all to appear; but it so happened that her scene-painters and her mechanics disappointed her in regard to the time in which she could produce it, and she found that they would delay her quite two weeks. Then she thought of Our American Cousin, and she cast Mr. Blake for Binney, the butler, Mr. Couldock for Abel Murcott, Sara Stevens for Mary Meredith, Mr. Sothern for Lord Dundreary, with Mr. Jefferson, of course, for Asa Trenchard. Blake positively refused to play the part of Binney, which was played by Charles Peters. Sothern, on looking over Lord Dundreary, found it was a part of forty or fifty lines, a sort of second old man; at least that was the view he took of it, and he went to Miss Keene, laid it upon her desk, and told her that he absolutely declined to play it . . . Miss Keene did not know what to do. She thought the play was a weak one and she wanted all her best talent in it, though Sothern was not considered a great man then. At last, she appealed to his generosity and asked him to do this as a mere matter of loyalty to her. At last he said, "Well, Miss Keene, I have read the part carefully, and if you will let me 'gag' it and do what I please with it, I will undertake it, though it is pretty bad." Miss Keene said, "Do anything you like with it, only play it." T h e n Sothern set about to think how he should

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dress it. That was a time when the long frock-coat was in fashion— a coat that came almost to the heels and was made like what is now an Albert coat—a coat that Punch took hold of and caricatured unmercifully. It happened that Brougham had borrowed from me the coat in which I played a part called "the debilitated cousin" in Bleak House, and with true Irish liberality . . . he generously lent it to Sothern. On October 15, 1858, the play was acted with the cast indicated by Wallack. 13 At first Jefferson was regarded as the stellar performer; but as the play ran on week after week Asa Trenchard became commonplace, and Lord Dundreary, with his wellbred air married to a vacant stare, his bland and hopeless stupidity mingled with an astonishing shrewdness, and his absurd mannerisms and inane lines, became the gjeat attraction. As Sothern added "gags" and "business," the part increased in prominence until it all but dwarfed the remainder of the play. T h e transformation of Lord Dundreary from a minor role in a mediocre drama into one of the most celebrated comic parts of the nineteenth-century theater was accomplished by a great character actor, not by accident, but by a conscious and shrewd attention to details of dress and manner, by the interpolation of numerous lines illuminating the eccentric and foolish character of the nobleman, and by studied and earnest effort. Sothern's make-up in the part was eccentric, but faultless and striking. In addition to the ankle-length coat, he adopted peg-top plaid trousers, a flowing cravat, long weeping whiskers, and a monocle. His speech was characterized by a quaint lisp and stutter; his walk, by "that odd impediment in the gait" which became famous as "the Dundreary hop." In rewriting the part, Sothern introduced practically all the lines which, when accompanied by the perfectly expressed mannerisms, sent audiences into paroxysms of laughter. T h e twisted aphorisms known as "Dundrearyisms," such as "birds of a feather gather no moss," created a vogue for this type of witticism. Equally popular were the " Miss Keene played Florence T r e n c h a r d .

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absurd riddles which Dundreary continually propounded. Perhaps the most celebrated of Sothern's additions to the text was the letter from Dundreary's brother Sam, "the immortal Sam who never had a 'uel.' " T h e reading of this letter used to leave playgoers absolutely sore with laughter. Sothern was constantly revising the play by adding new lines and business and eliminating portions of the text which had outlived their appeal. His aim was to make the part a caricature which, while exaggerated in many ways, was not totally devoid of resemblance to life. He wished to create a fool more ridiculous than any one actual "swell," but a fool whose words and actions were based on life. Of all the many mannerisms which distinguished the part, only the famous Dundreary hop was introduced by accident. One day when in an effort to keep warm at rehearsal in New York Sothern was shuffling about the stage in a curious fashion imitative of Don Bryant's negro minstrels, Miss Keene sarcastically inquired whether he intended to include that antic in the interpretation of Dundreary. Nettled, Sothern replied that he did. T o no one's surprise more than his own, the gesture "caught on" and became one of his most popular mannerisms. The other actions, however, were the product of thought and study. Great acting made the part of Dundreary popular, but behind that lay the fact that Sothern depicted a character who was attractive in his stupidity. He was attractive because he realized and laughed at his own incapabilities, because he was a fool, but not a hypocrite, and because the audience could see through his blundering and comic mental processes and could feel superior to the character at which they laughed. Following its American success, Our American Cousin was brought to London and produced at the Haymarket 011 November 16, 1861. Sothern, of course, was Dundreary. Buckstone played the relatively serious role of Asa Trenchard, a part in which he was universally regarded as miscast. As in America,

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the actors, even including Sothern, were dubious of the play's success. A t first their fears appeared justified, and Buckstone announced the withdrawal of the comedy, but Charles Mathews urged him to retain it on the boards. Suddenly

Dundreary's

humor began to attract all London, and the play, having gained a second wind, went on to run for four hundred nights. Dundreary shoes, hats, dressing gowns, whiskers, and monocles were advertised throughout England. Couples danced the Dundreary hop. Dundrearyisms interrupted even the most serious of business conferences. T h e part of the foolish lord was by all odds Sothern's most successful role. W h e n he retired from the stage, his son, E. H . Sothern, fell heir to the character which he played as late as 1915. In that year the play received its last important professional performance at the Booth T h e a t e r in N e w York, where it was fairly successful as a museum exhibit, although obviously outmoded. 1 4 O n l y three of T a y l o r ' s comedies remain for discussion. T h e first of these, the unpublished Lesson for Life,

is unimportant.

It was originally written for amateur presentation in 1859 by the Whitehall volunteer military company, of which the author was a member. Its first professional production took place in the Haymarket, on December 26, 1866. T h e action centered in Harry Vivian, a C a m b r i d g e undergraduate, played by Sothern, whose

financial

extravagance had all but ruined his father.

Vivian's frankness and remorse, however, eventually

gained

him the forgiveness of the college authorities, his father, and his sweetheart. T h e chief attraction of the piece for Haymarket audiences was Sothern's acting. i* Our American Cousin was the play being performed at Ford's T h e a t e r , Washington, on the night Lincoln was shot. W h e n the Presidential party entered the house, the action was more than half-way through the firt act. Florence Trenchard was trying to explain one of Asa's witticisms to Dundreary. "Can't you see that?" she pleaded. " N o , " retorted Dundreary, "I can't sec that." T h e n , noticing the Lincoln party, Miss Keene as Florence Trenchard waved her hand toward the state box and cried, " A n y b o d y can see that." T h e orchestra struck up " H a i l the chief," and the cheers of the audience delayed the play for several minutes. T h e assassination shot was apparently fired during one of Asa's soliloquies in the second scene of the third act.

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T o the modern reader New Men and Old Acres, presented at the Haymarket on October 25, 1869, is Taylor's most attractive comedy. T h e plot, character studies, and dialogue clearly reflect the influence of Robertsonian drama. Both farcical and melodramatic tendencies are subdued, and the comic tone is consistently maintained at an effective level. Only two of the characters are broadly caricatured, the others appearing as comparatively natural people. T h e language is witty, colloquial, and distinctly realistic in its tendencies. In writing the piece Taylor was assisted by Augustus Dubourg—a minor playwright, best known for his comic sketch Twenty Minutes under an Umbrella (1873). No evidence seems to be available regarding the respective parts played by each man in the collaboration, but the tenor of comments on the piece indicates that Taylor was considered the more important author. In fact, frequently the name Dubourg is not mentioned in connection with the comedy. 15 T h e opening lines of the play place the reader in an atmosphere which is definitely more realistic than that usually found in Haymarket comedies. There are no awkward conversations between servants and no unnatural soliloquies to place essential information before the audience. Instead, by means of smooth and natural dialogue it is revealed by the lawyer, Seeker, that Cleve Abbey, long the home of the Vavasour family, must be sold to satisfy its mortgagee. Since Marmaduke, the ineffectual head of the house, is afraid to tell his wife the facts, we are prepared to meet a weak and hysterical woman in Lady Matilda Vavasour. At first she does appear to be a flighty and impractical wife who thinks principally in terms of social life. Lady M. So, my dear Mr. Seeker, I want you to write at once, and engage a good house for the season. I think I should prefer Mayfair to Belgravia; and, on the whole, I think we'd better take our own horses . . . is T h e account furnished by the Bancrofts, Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft, II, 261, indicates that in discussing the production of the play they considered Taylor the sole author.

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Seek. If arrangements are to be made for a season in T o w n , your ladyship must find the means, as well as the orders. Lady M. Pardon me; that's your affair. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, you settle the B u d g e t — I only vote the Appropriation Bill. Vavas. But how if the ways and means are not forthcoming, my dear? Lady M. (gaily). Oh! then we must take a vote on account till the budget's brought in. It won't be the first time, you k n o w — w e did it last year. W h e n the true state of her husband's f o r t u n e is revealed, however, Lady V a v a s o u r displays a c o m p l e t e l y different side of her c h a r a c t e r — s h e is severely critical of the lack of

partnership

w h i c h has existed b e t w e e n her a n d her h u s b a n d and is det e r m i n e d to save C l e v e A b b e y . T h a t Lady Vavasour, despite her apparently superficial manner, is actually very astute is f u r t h e r b r o u g h t o u t in her conversations with her d a u g h t e r , L i l i a n . T h e mother's o b j e c t in life is to see that her d a u g h t e r secures a proper husband. L a d y V a v a s o u r describes her criteria of the successful marriage simply a n d succinctly. Lady M. I have lived to see more and more clearly that in our station, fortune is the main, nay, the indispensable requisite for happiness. Without that, nothing can make life pleasant. With that, most things that make life unpleasant can be got over. L i l i a n is a lively, lovable, u n c o n v e n t i o n a l girl w h o m any actress w o u l d be glad to portray. H e r entrances seem to b r i n g a cool and refreshing breeze i n t o the play. T o her mother's dismay, L i l i a n is addicted to the use of such slang expressions as "fast wives," " f l o o r e d , " " c a d , " and " d u f f e r , " words w h i c h no wellbred girl should use. H e r disregard for c o n v e n t i o n has b e e n f u r t h e r evidenced by the fact that only the n i g h t b e f o r e she d a n c e d w i t h a m a n outside her o w n social set, S a m u e l B r o w n , a rich L i v e r p o o l m e r c h a n t and a friend of the c r u d e , n e w l y rich B u n t e r family. W h e n

L a d y M a t i l d a learns that B r o w n holds

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the mortgage on Cleve Abbey, she realizes the possibilities in a match between him and Lilian and skillfully brings them together. A n honest love grows between them, independent of either her position or his money. T h e mother is overjoyed when Brown asks for the daughter's hand, but she simulates surprise. After a pretense at hesitation she agrees to accept him as a sonin-law. Her harmless hypocrisy is delightful. Brown. Then looking at the thing from a business point of view— Lady M. Oh, no, no—really a mother can't look at marriage that way. Brown. Even marriage has its business side. Lady M. Well—go on—though I protest— Lady M. In point of fortune you are all we could desire in a sonin-law, and your generosity has swept away every objection I should, naturally, have raised on the score of position or family. Brown. Then I have your consent to speak to Lilian? Lady M. Yes, and my best wishes. I fear Mr. Vavasour will have a strong prejudice against the marriage, chiefly on social grounds; but I hope to satisfy him that these present no insuperable difficulty. Previous to her courtship by Brown, Lilian has been wooed by her cousin Bertie Fitzurse, a good-natured, rather unintelligent young man. After she has tactfully, but effectively rejected him, Bertie falls in love with Fanny Bunter. Fanny is delightfully presented as a young lady overwhelmed by "Ruskinism-run-mad." Through her, Taylor ridicules over-aesthetic people far more cleverly than he did earlier in Victims. Her philosophy of life may be taken as a good specimen of the satire. Fanny. Give me art and intellect, sweetness and light, you know— a cottage and a crust—a lovely landscape and "The Stones of Venice." Oh, I could live upon Ruskin. Her invitation and advice to Lilian are genuinely amusing, and its obvious parody on High Churchism is of some interest.

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Fanny. Ah, you should see my oratory—all black draperies, ebony furniture, and the sweetest death's head in ivory. Do come over some morning, and let's revel in "In Memoriam" together. One long sigh, interspersed with sobs . . . You should mortify yourself, clear. Keep the fasts and vigils—try bread and water twice a week, and you've no idea how low spirited you'll soon feel. Robertson's theatrical device of contrasting humorous and serious love scenes is duplicated by T a y l o r in alternating the light banter between Fanny and Bertie with the more emotional passages between Lilian and Brown. T o w a r d the middle of the play the plot turns toward melodrama more than one might wish, yet not so much as to destroy the comic spirit. Brown learns that his company is on the verge of failure. T h i s leads him to release L i l i a n from their engagement and to transfer the mortgage on the Vavasour property to Bunter. Bunter and his partner, Blasenbalg, have discovered iron on the estate; but, before they can foreclose, an anonymous warning discloses the secret of the existence of the mineral to the Vavasours and enables them to raise the money with which to pay Bunter. W h e n Lilian learns that it was Brown w h o sent the warning, she makes the amazing gesture, for a nice girl in her day at least, of proposing to her future husband. New Men and Old Acres is not a great comedy, but it compares favorably with any of its time. T h e clash of the middleclass merchant with established social barriers, an apt subject for dramatic treatment, is developed in both its serious and comic aspects. T h e characters are effectively contrasted. Against Bunter, the unpleasant self-made man, is placed Brown, also self-made, but a gentleman. As a foil for the thoroughly advanced and lively Lilian is the feminine aesthete Fanny. Marmaduke Vavasour, weak and incompetent, is contrasted with his resourceful wife. T h e crudeness of the newly rich Mrs. Bunter, w h o feels that money will buy culture and build ruins on her estate like those of C l e v e A b b e y , serves to emphasize the good

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breeding and dignity of Lady Matilda. Only Bunter and his wife are drawn with the broad strokes of a standard Haymarket caricature. All the other people are delineated with subtler and more individual touches. T h e comic situations throughout are admirably conceived, and the dialogue is easy, natural, humorous, and even witty. Among its contemporaries this comedy of Taylor and Dubourg is surpassed only by the best of Robertson. New Men and Old Acres was originally written for presentation by the Alfred Wigans, and in deference to Mrs. Wigan the part of Lady Vavasour was then more prominent than that of the daughter. When the Wigans closed their management at the Queen's theater suddenly, they returned the unproduced play to its authors. T a y l o r then submitted it to the Bancrofts and suggested that the part of Lilian be strengthened for Mrs. Bancroft. T h e Bancrofts liked the piece, but they had promised to produce first Tame Cats, a comedy by Edmund Yates, and Robertson's School. Since the average run for one of their productions was two hundred nights, they warned Taylor that it would be almost two years before they could present New Men and Old Acres. At his request they relinquished the play, which was then offered to Buckstone. Since he expected Ellen T e r r y to appear as Lilian, Taylor followed up his suggestion to Mrs. Bancroft and greatly enlarged the part. Buckstone did not care much for the Robertsonian tendencies of the piece, but rather reluctantly he opened the fall season of 1869 with his "old men" in a new type of comedy. He himself played the broadest of the characters, Bunter. Chippendale acted Marmaduke Vavasour, Mrs. Chippendale, Lady Matilda, and Madge Robertson, rather than Ellen T e r r y , received the enlarged part of the daughter. T h e great success of New Men and Old Acres, however, was achieved in a later production under Hare's direction at the Court theater. 10 In this production Ellen Terry appeared in the i« In America Sew Men and Old Acres was presented at Wallack's on April 6, 1870. T h e cast included W'allack as Brown, Stoddart as Bunter, Madeline Henriques as Lilian, and Emily Mestoyer as Lady Matilda.

186

HAYMARKET

COMEDIES

part which Taylor had enlarged for her and which admirably fitted her style and personality. It was her acting as Lilian Vavasour that convinced Bernard Shaw that she was the actress to lead English drama out of the morass in which he felt it was bogged. New Men and Old Acres proved to be Taylor's last comedy, except the inconsequential Handsome Is That Handsome Does. After a try-out at Manchester the latter piece opened in London at the Olympic on September 3, 1870. T h e former Haymarket veteran, Henry Compton, for whose particular talents the work was written, performed the leading role of Joshua Gawthwaite, a village schoolmaster. T h e author of this unpublished piece followed the familiar plan of presenting a sentimental story, not unlike that of An Unequal Match, as the main plot, which he bolstered with numerous farcical episodes involving eccentric and secondary characters. Henry Cleveland, one of a reading party from Cambridge which was staying in Westmoreland, fell in love with Elsie Fleming, the daughter of a village "statesman." T h e combined opposition of the father and Gawthwaite broke up the match. Cleveland was reconciled to a girl of his own social status, and Elsie finally perceived the worth of her faithful admirer, Gawthwaite. Among the subordinate characters were: A youth perpetually catching butterflies, a second pronouncing everything he met with "bad form"; and a third jumping in and out of windows, together with a classical "coach" misquoting Latin. 17 Compton's performance as Gawthwaite earned the play the transient success it deserved. For some years previous to the production of this comedy Taylor's interests as a playwright had been veering away from the writing of humorous pieces. During the decade of the sixties he devoted his attention chiefly to dramas and melodramas. During the seventies, also, he concerned himself largely with serious plays. He thus concentrated his work as a comic dramai ' Athenaeum,

No. 2237 (September 10, 1870), p. 347.

HAY MARKET

COMEDIES

187

tist between 1857 and 1861. For some years afterward the phenomenal success of Our American Cousin maintained his reputation as a writer of humor, even though the greater portion of the amusement furnished by that play was the work of Sothern; but after i860 his new comedies, with the exception of New Men and Old Acres, are few and unimportant. When Buckstone's Haymarket company was in its prime, he provided the manager, Rogers, Howe, Chippendale, and the other individual members with the eccentric characters in which they specialized. Playgoers enjoyed the risible scenes of farcical comedy which earned Victims, The Contested Election, The Overland Route, and other of his pieces more than moderate popularity. But contemporaneously with the waning of the success of Haymarket entertainment as a distinct and individual form, Taylor's popularity as a comic playwright declined.

Chapter MELODRAMAS

VIII AND

DRAMAS

1860-70 H E Y E A R i860 marks a turning point in Taylor's career as playwright. At the age of forty-three he was England's leading and most versatile living dramatist. During sixteen years of theatrical work he had demonstrated a real command over various types of plot, characterization, and style. Throughout this work was apparent a steady improvement which augured continued development. From collaboration in rhymed pieces he had advanced to the creation of short humorous plays, and then to the writing of full-length comedy, melodrama, and drama. Among the exponents of each genre he had risen to a front rank. He had never succumbed so slavishly to sentimental or crassly theatrical attractions as to destroy hope that he might later escape from their enervating effects. As an adapter he had displayed sufficient originality to hold promise of becoming a resourceful independent workman. For the fall season of i860 three managers—Madame Celeste of the Lyceum, Alfred Wigan of the St. James, and Buckstone of the Haymarket—turned to T a y l o r for plays with which to open their theaters. Had he then produced anything but mediocre and routine work, he might have instituted a definite revival of English drama; but his failure to continue his development and to maintain a vigorous and vital spirit in his writing

MELODRAMAS

AND

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may be taken as an indication that henceforth his influence in the English theater was destined to become progressively weaker. This is not to say that he was to write no more successful plays. Despite the increased number of his stage failures, several of his popular pieces were produced after i860. For the most part, however, his work reveals little in its style or content that is new, and it tends to conform placidly to conventional theatrical patterns of the day. During the decade of the sixties Taylor's new theatrical pieces were almost entirely dramas or melodramas. This decade of serious drama was a prolific one for Taylor. Almost every year at least one piece of his, and often several pieces, reached the boards. The haste with which he wrote was surely one reason for the inferior quality of his work. Many of his dramas presented during the sixties require only brief discussion. Since they conform to patterns which he had previously cut, their nature can be quickly indicated. Several, since they were never published, can be examined only through the medium of reviews. T h e mediocrity of many renders any lengthy analysis unprofitable. Between i860 and 1870 fourteen of Taylor's dramas and melodramas were produced for the first time in London. These plays, together with the theater and date of the initial representation, are listed below: A Tale of Two Cities (Lyceum, January 30, i860); The Brigand and His Banker (Lyceum, October 1, i860); Up at the Hills (St. James, October 29, i860); The Ticket of Leave Man (Olympic, May 27, 1863); The Hidden Hand (Olympic, November 2, 1864); Settling Day (Olympic, March 4, 1865); The Serf (Olympic, June 30, 1865); Henry Dunbar (Olympic, December 9, 1865); The Whiteboy (Olympic, September 27, 1866); A Sister's Penance (Adelphi, November 26, 1866); The Antipodes (Holborn, June 8, 1867); Narcisse (Lyceum, February 17, 1868); Won by a Head (Queen's, March 29, 1869); and Mary Warner (Haymarket, June 2 1 , 1869). In The

i9o

MELODRAMAS

AND

DRAMAS

Hidden Hand Taylor collaborated with Horace Wigan and in A Sister's Penance with Augustus Dubourg. Of the other pieces he was the sole author or adapter. The plays may be considered satisfactorily in their chronological order. On November 28, 1859, Madame Celeste undertook the sole direction of the Lyceum. T h e loss of her youth had diminished her charm and emphasized the disadvantages of a markedly foreign pronunciation, but as a picturesque and emotional actress she remained an outstanding performer in melodrama. Among the more successful productions of her initial season at the Lyceum was Taylor's A Tale of Two Cities, first performed on January 30, i860. The piece is a faithful and practicable stage version of Dickens's novel. The playwright develops the action, which he places entirely at Paris, in a prologue and two acts. In the prologue, a dramatization of the letter by Doctor Manette which is read before the tribunal near the conclusion of the book, the St. Evremond brothers imprison young Doctor Manette in the Bastille to prevent him from disclosing their murder of Colette and her brother. The first act, "Recalled to Life," the time of which is twenty-five years later than the prologue, relates Manette's release from prison, the acquittal of Charles Darnay because of his amazing physical resemblance to Sydney Carton, and Darnay's affection for Lucie Manette. Then follow Carton's touching proposal to Lucie, the intelligence brought by Jarvis Lorry that her father is alive, the spilling of the wine cask before Defarge's shop, the vindictive nature of Madame Defarge as she knits the names of her enemies against the day when the populace shall render judgment, the death of the peasant child under the wheels of the Marquis' coach, and the removal of Manette from Defarge's garret. In Act II, "Reaping the Whirlwind," the time of which is eleven years later, the first scene reveals Jerry Cruncher's activities as a grave robber. In quick succession follow Darnay's

MELODRAMAS

AND

DRAMAS

191

arrest by the Republicans and the storming of the Bastille by the mob led by Madame Defarge. T h e next episode is the trial before the tribunal. In this scene, into which Taylor neatly compresses the two trials of the novel, Darnay is sentenced to the guillotine on the evidence provided by Manette's account of his arrest. Subsequent incidents develop rapidly. Carton gains admission to the prison, drugs Darnay, and watches him carried to safety. Carton's famous farewell is delivered in prison, not, as in the novel, at the foot of the guillotine. Darnay returns to the retreat of his wife and child and is urged by Defarge to leave Paris. Madame Defarge, seeking the destruction of everyone connected with the Evremond family, tries to shoot Lucie. In the book Miss Pross, Lucie's nurse, inadvertently kills the Republican Tigress during a struggle over the gun; in the play Defarge is similarly made the agent of his wife's death. T h e drama concludes with a distant view of Carton on his way to the guillotine. T h e play satisfactorily adapts the abundant action and varied scenes of the novel to the restrictions imposed by the stage. 1 T h e placing of the action entirely in Paris, although it makes the title a slight misnomer, unifies the story and eases the task of the scene-builder. T h e stage characters are much as the novelist conceived them. Only Defarge, whom T a y l o r makes less vindictive than his model, seems greatly changed. Fully threefourths of the dialogue is taken directly from Dickens. T h e m a j o r change in the order of the episodes is the early presentation of Manette's imprisonment, an incident which Dickens conceals as a mystery until late in the story. T h i s modification is wisely dictated by the law of the drama, inoperative in fiction, that essential information concerning the basis for plot development or for motivation of characters should never long be withheld from the audience. Admirers of Dickens's comic 1 Samuel French, of New York, dramatic publishers, still keep Taylor's play in print to meet the demands of amateur performers.

ig2

MELODRAMAS

AMD

DRAMAS

touch may regret the deletion of most of the novel's humor from the play. Also missing in the stage version are dramatic episodes such as the hanging of Foulon and the murder of the marquis. Nevertheless, Taylor does succeed in providing a faithful and acceptable dramatization of a great novel. In this respect his work compares favorably with The Only Way (i899), 2 a stage version by Freeman Wills; but it differs from Watts Phillips's The Dead Heart (1859) a n d Al1 for Her ( l 8 7 5 ) by Palgrave Simpson and Herman Merivale, two plays in which the denouement rests on an act of self-sacrifice similar to Sydney Carton's, but which otherwise bear no close resemblance either to each other or to the novel. For the initial performance of Taylor's piece Madame Celeste provided the spectacular staging so often associated with Victorian melodramas. T h e mob scenes were "replete with wild groupings and individual characteristics." 3 T h e frantic dance of the Carmagnole, the scenes in the wine shop, the representation of the tribunal, and the view of Carton passing to the guillotine found particular favor with the critics. From among the original cast the manageress in the dual role of Colette and Madame Defarge, James Vining as Manette, and Kate Seville as Lucie were singled out for praise. 4 T h e favorable reception accorded A Tale of Two Cities emphasized the dismal failure of Taylor's The Brigand and His Banker, an unpublished dramatization of the French novel Le Roi des montagnes, by Edmond About, and the piece which z Critics regarded The Only Way as a beautiful and reasonably effective play. Although often true to the incidents of the novel, it was not as faithful a dramatization as Taylor's. Wills, for example, dismissed Madame Defarge entirely and introduced a prominent new character in M i m i , a girl devoted to Carton. Mimi took the place first of Miss Pross and subsequently of the seamstress who accompanied Carton to his death. s Illustrated London Sews, X X X V I (February 4, i860), 107. * T a y l o r ' s drama was promptly exported to America where it appeared at the Bowery T h e a t e r , New York, on April 13, i860, with a cast of Bowerv favorites including G . C. Boniface, M. B. Pike, J . G. Hanley, Fanny Herring, and Mrs. W. G. Jones.

MELODRAMAS

AND

DRAMAS

193

inaugurated Madame Celeste's second season at the Lyceum, on October 1, i860. In the stage piece a group of tourists near Athens were captured and held for ransom by a band of brigands headed by the quixotic Hadgi Stravos. Stravos, depicted as a Balkan Robin Hood, conducted his business on the principle of a stock company, banked with a reliable English house, and was the soul of politeness to his victims. A f t e r a number of comic and dramatic adventures the prisoners were rescued through the intervention of Photini, Stravos's daughter, who had formed a romantic attachment for one of their number, Captain Obadiah Harris. In Photini, a Greek girl, T a y l o r provided Madame Celeste with a part in which her decided foreign accent was no great handicap and one in which she could display her ability as an emotional actress and her grace as a dancer. T h e original production was also strikingly mounted with romantic sets of mountains and Greek ruins. T h e play, however, failed to please. Henry Morley's impressions are typical of the consensus of critical comment. " T h e Lyceum play, however, was so ill-contrived and feebly written that not even the personal efforts of Mrs. Keeley and Madame Celeste, the beautiful scenery and dresses, and the indulgence of an opening night could save it from the fate it merited." 5 T h e blow dealt Taylor's reputation by the failure of The Brigand and His Banker was repeated twice within two months by the poor reception given Up at the Hills, which introduced Alfred Wigan's management at the St. James, on October 29, and the Haymarket Babes in the Woods, acted on November 10. Wigan and his wife, recalling the success of Still Waters Run Deep and The House or the Home?, expected a new play by Taylor to provide an auspicious opening for their venture at the St. James, but they were deeply disappointed in Up at the '•> Mountains Taylor's play was produced in New York 011 October 15, 1 8 6 1 , as the second production of the magnificent new Wallack's theater, but, as in London, neither the scenic effects nor the acting could save it from failure.

i94

MELODRAMAS

Hills.

AND

DRAMAS

Despite the fact that the theme of Taylor's drama and

the leading roles of Stonihurst and Mrs. M c C a n n were designed to bring out the particular talents of the Wigans as protagonists in a battle of wits between the sexes, even their artistry proved insufficient to carry the dull piece, and they shortly fell back upon the tested Still

Waters

Run

T h e story of Up at the Hills

Deep.6 is original with T a y l o r , but its

construction is a puerile reproduction of the Scribe formula. T h e title is derived from the setting of the action at a hill station of the English army in India. Major Stonihurst, the villain, has involved Captain Slack, a veteran in the Indian service whose moral fiber has been warped by the climate, in a plot by which young Lieutenant Greenway has been made drunk and fleeced at cards. Stonihurst has also made intense love to Monee, a native girl; but the prospect of controlling the fortune of the charming widow Mrs. Eversleigh, impels him to press the English lady to marry him. Should she be inclined to refuse, Stonihurst intends to force her acceptance by threatening to publish her ardent love letters, indiscreetly written to him while her husband was still living. Mrs. McCann, an adversary who understands the major's true character from a previous encounter with him, opposes his schemes. With frigid politeness the protagonists state their intentions. Mrs. McC. Then this is a declaration of war. Ston. It is, but with every attention to good breeding. While we are cutting each other's throats, there's no reason anybody else should suspect we're not on the best terms in the world. Mrs. McC. As you please. T h e English and French were very polite to each other at Fontenoy, but I never heard they fought the worse for it. Ston. On the contrary. Small swords would not be nearly so deadly « Up at the Hills was produced at Wallack's on December 19, 1862, and was withdrawn on December 28. T h e cast included Charles Fisher as Stonihurst, \V. H. Norton as Slack, W. R. Floyd as Greenway, Mrs. Hoey as Mrs. McCann, Fanny Morant as Mrs. Eversleigh, and Madeline Henriques as Monee.

MELODRAMAS

AND

DRAMAS

195

if they were not so highly polished. So, au revoir, and war to the death. (bows politely and exits) Mrs. McC. So the trenches are opened! Stonihurst is an adversary worth checkmating. A few adroit moves effect the checkmate. By a loan of £300 w i t h w h i c h to balance his accounts Mrs. M c C a n n prevails u p o n Slack to sign a confession e x p o s i n g the plot against G r e e n w a y , a n d her sharp r e p r i m a n d

persuades G r e e n w a y

to

renounce

d r i n k i n g and the c o m p a n i o n s h i p of Stonihurst. T h e emancipation of Mrs. Eversleigh f r o m the m a j o r ' s charms a n d power proves only slightly m o r e difficult. T h e disclosure of his part in the G r e e n w a y affair convinces the w i d o w that her suitor is despicable, b u t the threatened exposure of the letters still prevents a c o m p l e t e break b e t w e e n the two. By p r o m i s i n g M o n e e that the act w i l l restore Stonihurst's love the r e s o u r c e f u l Mrs. M c C a n n persuades her to steal the b o x c o n t a i n i n g the incrimi n a t i n g e v i d e n c e f r o m his b u n g a l o w . T h e

b o x , however, is

locked, and the only key hangs on the m a j o r ' s watch chain. Exactly w h y the destruction of the b o x u n o p e n e d or the f o r c i n g of it w o u l d n o t serve Mrs. M c C a n n ' s purpose is never made clear, b u t she proceeds as though o n l y the u n l o c k i n g of the casket w o u l d free Mrs. Eversleigh and induces M o n e e to secure a w a x impression of the key. T h i s the native girl

melodra-

matically accomplishes d u r i n g an embrace. T o recover the letters Stonihurst pays a secret n o c t u r n a l visit to Mrs. Eversleigh's r o o m , w h e r e he is c o n f r o n t e d by the omniscient Mrs. M c C a n n . In the presence of witnesses he is made to o p e n the b o x , but to his discomfiture he finds that it contains, not the letters, b u t the evidence of his c o m p l i c i t y in the c h e a t i n g of G r e e n w a y . T h e victorious Mrs. M c C a n n magnanimously allows S t o n i h u r s t to conceal the f u l l e x t e n t of his d o u b l e dealing, and he m a k e s partial restitution by a g r e e i n g to marry M o n e e . Mrs. Eversleigh accepts the m a t r i m o n i a l offer of an old f r i e n d , and t w o of Mrs. M c C a n n ' s nieces pair off w i t h acceptable

ig6

MELODRAMAS

AND

DRAMAS

suitors. T h e air " u p at the hills" may not have been very healthful for English morality, but it apparently favored the efforts of C u p i d . T h e play might have presented a realistic study of AngloIndian life, but it does not. T h e characters talk constantly of the disintegrating and enervating effects of the climate on the physical and moral stamina of Englishmen, but the unhealthful atmosphere never seems very genuine or potent to the reader. A few words from Mrs. M c C a n n quickly set Slack and Greenway on a steady moral keel. In Taylor's piece also the problems of social adjustment between two races are barely mentioned. Even Stonihurst's offer of marriage to Monee, which w o u l d certainly seem to show an amazing disdain for conventional standards, calls forth only an inane play on words. Greenway. Marry a nigger! only think, Katie! Katie. And why shouldn't a dark horse come in a winner? Perhaps a serious social drama was beyond the capabilities of any English dramatist in i860, but an exciting "well-made" play was not. T a y l o r had previously demonstrated that he understood the formula for that genre, but in Up at the

Hills,

possibly because he worked without a suggestion or source for his plot, he failed to put into satisfactory practice the technique borrowed from Scribe. T h e proper elements are present, but they are poorly assembled. Stonihurst and Mrs. M c C a n n furnish the opposing forces in a conflict to be decided by wits. T h e b o x of letters represents the familiar material object, possession of which will decide the struggle. A n air of good breeding is maintained throughout, extraneous comic scenes are avoided, and the dialogue is intended to be crisp and economical. W h a t the piece lacks is the tenseness and excitement which furnish the interest in a Scribe drama at the same time that they conceal the artificiality of the plot devices. T h i s weakness may be traced primarily to the fact that the struggle is uneven and that it does

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AND

DRAMAS

197

not fluctuate—first one contending force and then the other gaining supremacy. W h e n the action commences, Stonihurst's power is at its height; but it declines rapidly and without interruption once Mrs. McCann opposes it. She has too little difficulty in thwarting and exposing her adversary. T h e result is that the action, unrelieved by any amazing developments or subtle twists, soon becomes as dull as any uneven contest. After the dismal failures of 1860 no new piece by Taylor was produced in London until May 27, 1863, when The Ticket of Leave Man, perhaps his most celebrated play, was performed at the Olympic. This famous melodrama, based on the French play Léonard, by Édouard Brisebarre and Eugène Nus, 7 is the story of Bob Brierly, a naïve Lancashire youth who undertakes to explore the excitement of London. T w o veteran criminals, James Dalton, alias the Tiger, and Melter Moss, initiate him into the doubtful pleasures of drinking and gambling, and after winning his money use him as an unwitting accomplice in a scheme to pass forged bank notes. T h e indefatigable Hawkshaw, whose many disguises and powers as a sleuth have since become legendary, attempts to capture the Tiger and Brierly. Dalton escapes after a sensational struggle, but Bob is taken and sentenced to three years in prison. After being paroled as "a ticket of leave man" he returns to the patiently waiting May Edwards, a young singer whom he once befriended. With her aid he secures a position in the brokerage office of Gibson. Industry has raised Brierly to a trusted post, when disaster strikes. On the day of his wedding to May, Dalton and Moss reappear; and after circumventing Hawkshaw's plans for their capture they expose Bob's past to Gibson, who discharges him. As the criminals, who hope to force Brierly to desert his honest ways, continue to prevent him from earning a living, he sinks lower and lower, financially and spiritually. Only May, now his wife, 1 Léonard was first presented at the T h é â t r e du Boulevard on December 31, 1869. In A p r i l , i860, it had been published as Le Retour de Melun in a v o l u m e entitled Les Drames de vie (La Libraire nouvelle, Bourdillet).

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MELODRAMAS

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DRAMAS

stands b y h i m . A t last he pretends to j o i n D a l t o n and Moss in r o b b i n g G i b s o n ' s office; b u t he first manages to w a r n H a w k shaw, w h o , disguised as a disreputable sailor, has b e e n trailing his old o p p o n e n t s . T h e detective arrives in time to capture the c r i m i n a l s a n d to establish the i n n o c e n c e and heroism of Brierly, w h o is w o u n d e d in a fierce conflict with the T i g e r . G i b s o n repays B o b by r e e n g a g i n g h i m as a m a n w h o has properly demonstrated that " t h e r e may be some g o o d left in a 'ticket of leave man' after all." Amusing

scenes

of

incidental

comedy

are

interspersed

t h r o u g h o u t this d r a m a t i c story. B r o a d h u m o r of eccentric characterization is p r o v i d e d by the St. E v r e m o n d s , an o u t m o d e d pair of entertainers. T h e i r a d o p t i o n of the wife's h i g h - s o u n d i n g family name is their only r e m n a n t of prosperity, b u t aided by roseate dreams of the f u t u r e they m a i n t a i n a c h e e r f u l manner. F u r t h e r c o m e d y , t i n g e d w i t h s e n t i m e n t and pathos, is prov i d e d by the efforts of May's landlady, the v o l u b l e Mrs. VVill o u g h b y , to rear p r o p e r l y her obstreperous grandson, Sam. May. I'm sure he loves you very dearly, and has an excellent heart. Mrs. W. Heart, my dear—which I wish it had been his heart I found in his right-'and pocket as I was a mending his best trousers last night, which it was a short pipe, which it is nothing but the truth, and smoked to that degree as it had been black-leaded, which many's the time when he've come in, I've said, "Sam," I've said, " I smell tobacco," I've said. "Grandmother," he'd say to me, quite grave and innocent, "p'raps it's the chimbley"—and him a child of fifteen, and a short pipe in his right-'and pocket! I'm sure I could have broke my 'eart over it, I could, let alone the pipe, which I flung into the fire; but a happy moment since is a thing I hive not known. (pauses for breath) E v e n t u a l l y Sam o v e r c o m e s his propensities for a "fast l i f e , " and in the climactic struggle w i t h the criminals he assists in the capt u r e of the T i g e r . T a y l o r ' s work is a n o t h e r e x a m p l e of his skill at adaptation.

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DRAMAS

199

The narrative is taken directly from Léonard; but the dialogue is thoroughly Anglicized, and the comic characters are original with the English playwright. A just specimen of the thoroughly colloquial language with which Taylor paraphrases his source may be selected from the conversation between Dalton and Moss in which they discuss the idyllic gullibility of their victim, Brierly. Dal. A Lancashire lad; an' only son he tells me. The old folks spoiled him as long as they lived, left him a few hundreds and now he's got the collar over his head, and is kicking 'em down, seeing life. And life in London ain't to be seen without paying at the doors, eh, Melter? Moss. Ha, ha, ha! and you're selling him the bill of the play. Dal. I'm putting him up to a thing or two—cards, skittles, billiards, sporting houses, sparring houses, night houses, casinos—and every short cut to the devil and the bottom of a flat's purse. He's as green as a leek, and as soft as new cheese; no vice, steady to ride or drive, and runs in a snaffle. Upon hearing such thoroughly Anglo-Saxon vernacular no one would be likely to suspect its connection with a foreign piece. Equally English were the settings of London life at Bellevue Tea Gardens, Gibson's office, Mrs. Willoughby's lodging house, and St. Nicholas churchyard. T h e adaptation, completed according to rumor in two weeks, earned Taylor £200 at the standard rate of £ 5 0 an act, but he never received another shilling from the work. During its author's lifetime The Silver King (1882), a no more popular and only slightly better play, brought Henry Arthur Jones more than £18,000 and is still earning royalties for his heirs. These facts provide some indication of the cogent influence exerted by the royalty system in raising the financial position of the English playwright. Had Taylor, like Jones, been capable enough or willing to devote himself to a conscious effort to improve British drama, he would have found the income derived with-

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MELODRAMAS

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DRAMAS

o u t the benefit of royalties f r o m his theatrical w o r k i n a d e q u a t e to secure h i m the financial i n d e p e n d e n c e e n j o y e d by the later dramatist. T h e i m m e d i a t e a n d prolonged popularity of T a y l o r ' s melod r a m a rested o n

its c o m p l e t e a c c o r d w i t h

the

tastes of

the

" c r o w d " in V i c t o r i a n t h e a t e r s . T h e c h o i c e of a t h e m e t r e a t i n g L o n d o n "low life" happily and doubtless intentionally t a i l e d w i t h a r e v i v a l of i n t e r e s t in t h e o l d Tom

and Jerry

dovestories,

b y P i e r c e E g a n . T h e c h a r a c t e r s a n d the n a r r a t i v e o f t h e p l a y possessed a c e r t a i n a m o u n t of r e a l i s m .

It r e q u i r e d

no

great

s t r e t c h of i m a g i n a t i o n f o r e v e r y m i l l h a n d a n d c l e r k w h o saw t h e d r a m a t o p i c t u r e h i m s e l f as B o b , a n d e v e r y s h o p g i r l c o u l d c o n c e i v e of herself as t h e f a i t h f u l M a y . T h e s i m p l e a n d c o m p a c t p l o t , s k i l l f u l l y b o l s t e r e d by t h e c o m e d y , d e v e l o p e d n e a t l y in a c c o r d a n c e w i t h t h e s t y l e o f B o u c i c a u l t ' s " s e n s a t i o n d r a m a " a n d paid d u e a t t e n t i o n to the sensational, the tearful, and the sententious. T h e action was often exciting: (Hawkshaw . . . has dropped over the wall at the back, seizes Moss from behind, stops his mouth with one hand, and handcuffs him.) H a w k . No, Jem D a l t o n ! It's my turn! Dal. H a w k s h a w ! (They struggle; Hawkshaw is forced down on a tombstone and nearly strangled. Sam appears outside the rails, springs over them, and seizes Dalton by the legs and throws him over. Hawkshaw rises and puts the handcuffs on Dalton.) T h e d i a l o g u e was f r e q u e n t l y p r o p e r l y s e n t i m e n t a l a n d d o m e s t i c : Bri. Every blow that has fallen, every door that has been shut between me and an honest livelihood, every time that clean hands have ever been d r a w n away from mine, and respectable faces turned aside as I came near them, I've come to thee for comfort, and love, a n d hope, and I've f o u n d them till now. M a y . O h , yes! what's the good of a sunshine wife? It's hard weather tries us women best, dear; you men ain't half so stout-hearted. A t o t h e r t i m e s t h e s p e e c h e s stress t h e d i d a c t i c .

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Bri. Sam, my lad, listen to me . . . A bad beginning makes a bad end, and you're beginning badly; the road you're on leads downwards, and once in the slough at the bottom o't—oh! trust one who knows it—there's no working clear again. T h e characters are planned as effective roles for actors versed in a broad style of interpretation. Brierly runs the gamut of emotions. May appears as a starved, b u t honest singer, as a girl eagerly and timidly awaiting the return of her sweetheart, as a woman suddenly confronted with disaster in the midst of happiness, and as a devoted wife w h o must first serve as a bulwark against the misfortunes that assail her husband before she can rejoice in his safety, valor, and prosperity. Dalton and Moss are colorful criminals. Hawkshaw is an exaggerated, even grotesque, portrait, but one with popular appeal. T h e eccentric St. Evremonds, the loquacious Mrs. W i l l o u g h b y , and the blustering Sam are effective humorous types. It would indeed be difficult to recall any of the superficial attractions of plot, characterization, and style popular in early Victorian drama which are not woven into texture of Ticket

of Leave Man. It possesses the appeal of Lillo's

Merchant

The

London

and the added attractions of more sensational action

and abundant comic relief. Like the eighteenth-century tragedy, T a y l o r ' s piece was applauded for its didactic note. Defenders of the theater boasted that attendance at this play actually led absconding clerks to repentance. 8 W h a t no critic of the time appears to have observed is that T a y l o r ' s story involves the social problem of the correct attitude of society toward the paroled criminal. Galsworthy, as a dramatist of this century, would have stressed that theme; T a y l o r , a typical Victorian playwright, neglected it. T h e enthusiastic reception given the original performance of Taylor's piece revived the luster of the O l y m p i c , of late somewhat tarnished by the withdrawal of Mrs. Stirling and the de« Neville, The Stage, p. 98.

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cline in Robson's power. Henry Neville found Bob Brierly a role which established him as a prominent actor and one which he played successfully until his retirement in 1910. Kate Seville became the first of a long line of actresses who enjoyed the tear-fetching scenes assigned to May. T h e popular conception of Hawkshaw was created by Horace Wigan. George Vincent made an instant success of the part of Melter Moss, originally intended for Robson, by this time a physical wreck from intemperate living. Miss Raynham in the "breeches" part of Sam Willoughby, " G r a n n y " Stephens as Mrs. Willoughby, Robert Soutar and Miss Hughes as the St. Evremonds completed a cast of which the Athenaeum reviewer wrote: " E v e r y character without exception is well played . . . One and all looked and acted the characters confided to them with a completeness seldom realized on the stage." 9 Numerous later productions followed the initial run of more than four hundred nights. During each of the first twenty years after its debut the play was performed in at least one London theater. Long after it had worn out its metropolitan welcome it drew audiences in the provinces. In America, where its popularity equaled that in England, Mr. and Mrs. W . J . Florence, who introduced the play at the Winter Garden, on November 30, 1863, for a run of one hundred and two consecutive performances, were its leading exponents. Other American actors played it with success. Early in 1864 three New York theaters were simultaneously drawing crowded houses with it. Among the most interesting of its many representations was that by Joseph Jefferson in Tasmania before an enthusiastic convict audience. Probably no other nineteenth-century play enjoyed a more widespread and popular career. During the three years immediately following the initial production of The Ticket of Leave Man Taylor was represented on the stage principally by a series of plays in which a » Athenaeum, No. 1858 (June 6, 1863), p. 753.

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Terry. 1 0

leading role was interpreted by Kate T h e first of these dramas was The Hidden Hand, presented on November 2, 1864, at the fall opening of the Olympic. In the very close adaptation of this play from L'Aïeule, by Adolphe Dennery and Charles Edmond, Taylor probably had the assistance of Horace Wigan, since reviews of the English piece, published anonymously, frequently mention Wigan as a co-author. The Hidden Hand is a "well-made" drawing-room melodrama similar in spirit and technique to Plot and Passion. T h e only important change made by the adapters is the transference of the setting from France to Wales during the reign of James II. T h e action centers in a poison plot. T h e partially paralyzed Lady Gryffydd is the mother of Lord Penarvon and the grandmother of Enid, her son's daughter by his first wife, and of Muriel, a daughter by a second wife, the present Lady Penarvon. Lady Gryffydd attempts to poison Muriel and thus advance the interests of Enid. Lady Penarvon is unjustly suspected of attempting to murder her own daughter to remove a rival for the affections of Caerlon, a Welsh noble. Some bitter scenes between Lord Penarvon and his wife lead the action to its climax. T o prove her innocence Lady Penarvon watches by the ill Muriel's bedside, but she falls asleep and fails to see a hand protruding through the tapestry and pouring poison into the patient's glass. Enid, entering the room at this instant, dashes the deadly mixture to the floor. Critics lavishly praised this bit of melodrama. "Of all the sensation scenes that we have lately witnessed," reports the Athenaeum,11 "this is certainly the most thrilling." Enid is reluctant to expose her grandmother, but when at a family 1 0 Kate T e r r y , six years older than her more famous sister Ellen, first attained prominence in 1863 as leading lady for Charles Fechter at the Lyceum. T h e following year Horace Wigan engaged her for the Olympic. O n the stage her beauty of face and figure was striking, and she displayed a discerning and powerful command of emotional interpretation. Her retirement from the stage in 1867 to marry A r t h u r Lewis unquestionably deprived the theater of an outstanding and promising performer. T a y l o r had strong faith in the acting ability of all the T e r r y girls, but he visualized Kate as the coming queen of the London stage. 11 No. 1933 (November 12, 1864), p. 643.

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gathering the latter attempts to administer a draught to Muriel, Enid intercepts the glass and offers to drink its contents. T h e malignant Lady Gryffydd then rises from her chair, wrests the glass from Enid, swallows the potion, and dies. T h e piece was typical Olympic fare—sophisticated in setting, well constructed and sensational in plot. Strong acting parts were provided, particularly for Kate T e r r y as Lady Penarvon, Henry Neville as her husband, and Miss Bovering as Lady Gryffydd. It is a play of a bad class [writes Henry Morley] remarkably well adapted for clever acting throughout the second and third of its four acts, and cleverly acted by Miss Terry, who, emancipated from the Lyceum panorama, gives evidence of a dramatic energy that may secure, even for The Hidden Hand, a long lease of public favor . . , 12 A more interesting play is Settling Day, "a story of the time" presented by the Olympic company on March 4, 1865. T h i s quiet drawing-room drama, which resembles Still Waters Run Deep in tone, has much to recommend it in its theme, its character sketches, and its realistic presentation of financial chicanery. T h e opening scene of Settling Day reveals the fact that Markland, a highly successful private banker, has been neglecting business for the pleasures of a honeymoon. During his absence from the office his partner, Meiklam, has involved the firm in unfortunate and dishonest speculations. In the hope of saving the firm from bankruptcy Markland unwillingly sanctions the continuation of the illegal maneuvers. During a secret visit to a brokerage office Mrs. Markland, by conveniently overhearing conversations, learns of her husband's troubles. Although hurt that he has not confided in her, she sentimentally expresses her determination to stand by him. Miss Hargrave, Mrs. Mark12 Journal of a London Playgoer, p. 349. Taylor's play is not to be confused with the American drama The Hidden Hand, first presented at the National Theater in New York on May 9, 1859. T h e latter, a favorite stage piece in minor theaters during the next twenty years, was dramatized from Mrs. Southworth's widely read story and had nothing in common with Taylor's work except its name.

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land's sister, also learns of the i m p e n d i n g disaster to the

205 firm

and places her private f o r t u n e at the disposal of the creditors. T h i s act, h o w e v e r , is concealed f r o m the a u d i e n c e until the conclusion of the play. M e a n w h i l e , M e i k l a m ' s n e p h e w Frank, an unpleasant y o u n g m a n , by e a v e s d r o p p i n g and p e e k i n g t h r o u g h keyholes has learned the i n c r i m i n a t i n g secrets. A t a b r i l l i a n t birthday party for Mrs. M a r k l a n d , Frank threatens to force a marriage b e t w e e n himself and Miss H a r g r a v e by p r o m i s i n g to expose the firm's precarious position if she refuses him. B e f o r e he can make his threat effective, h o w e v e r , the intelligence of the assistance r e n d e r e d by Miss H a r g r a v e and a remittance f r o m a supposedly inactive a c c o u n t rather arbitrarily establish

the

solvency of the partners. M e i k l a m is e x p e l l e d f r o m the firm, and M a r k l a n d avows his intentions n e v e r again to stray f r o m the paths of honesty. Miss Hargrave, w h o had previously q u a r r e l e d w i t h H a r r i n g t o n , her suitor, over her refusal to c o n f o r m to the c o n v e n t i o n that a married w o m a n must relinquish the control of her money and property to her h u s b a n d , mends the break by disclosing that her earlier attitude was motivated only by the desire to conceal the use she had m a d e of her fortune, not by any advanced belief in " w o m e n ' s rights." T h e piece m e t c o n t e m p o r a r y d e m a n d s for satisfactory drawing-room d r a m a . T h e strands of the plot w e r e deftly j o i n e d , and the use of c o i n c i d e n c e appeared n o m o r e o b v i o u s than in m a n y other V i c t o r i a n dramas. A j u d i c i o u s use of dramatic irony p r o d u c e d m a n y e m i n e n t l y actable scenes. In their actions and speech the characters preserved the u r b a n i t y of well-bred society. T h e party at M a r k l a n d ' s villa suggested fashionable brilliance and glitter. A scene in a stockbroker's office p r o v i d e d a natural b a c k g r o u n d for the

financial

dealings. A brief excerpt

may indicate the realistic spirit. Fermor (reading from his list). Mr. Martin, three hundred Venezuelans for money, fifty confederates, forty Buenos Ayres sixes.

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(exit customer who was at lower pigeon-hole, having paid a cheque) Six hundred Spanish New Deferreds, for next account, ist Clerk (coming out with his hat on and with his note-book in which he has made the entry). Yes, sir. Fermor. How are Buffalo and Lake Hurons? 2nd Clerk. Last business done at five, sir. (Fermor makes a note) Fermor. We've an order for sixty when they touch four-three-eighths. (exit Client who was at upper pigeon-hole) Did you see Mr. Laxton in the house? . . . (enter a brother Broker who just shows his head at the door) Broker. Got any money? Fermor. How much? Broker. Three—till tomorrow. Fermor. Cheque, Mr. Martin. (Broker goes to lower pigeon-hole and waits till a cheque is handed out to him—Fermor takes it as he passes, reads and calls) Three fifteen! (enter a Client with stock receipts, Client passes up to lower pigeon-hole and waits till A'o. i gets cheque and exits, then puts in his receipt and waits) A modern reader, unimpressed by the arbitrary manipulation of the story, regrets that the realism of the play does not extend beneath the surface. Set in an atmosphere of financial legerdemain reminiscent of our own 1928, the piece might have been an incisive satire on a money-mad society. It might have probed the relationship between financial security and marital happiness, or it might have attempted serious discussion either of the share which a woman should have in the business life of her husband or of the rights due a wife in the control of her own money and property. In such a manner the play might have foreshadowed A Doll's House, the story of which is also essentially melodramatic in a Scribean fashion. Taylor, however, like the typical playwright of the time that he was, neglected the social aspects of his material and produced a conventional piece in which sentiment, superficial characterization, and tricks of plotting supplanted criticism of life, psychological analysis, and reality. Settling

Day was accorded a typical Olympic presentation.

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207

Considerable attention was devoted to brilliant staging, and the acting was highly effective. Critics admired the reproduction of the broker's office for its fidelity and the sets of Markland's villa and the terrace overlooking the Thames for their beauty and elaboration. Kate T e r r y performed brilliantly as Mrs. Markland, and she was capably supported by Neville as her husband, Horace Wigan as Meiklam, George Vincent as Frank, and Lydia Foote as Miss Hargrave. A part of the Athenaeum review may be quoted as typical of the favorable consensus of critical opinion on Taylor's style. Mr. Taylor has shown an intimate acquaintance with the "ways" both of business and pleasure. As a comedy of manners, we recollect no recent production of equal note . . . The merits of the piece are undoubtedly great, and as a picture of actual manners it will commend itself to judicious audiences. 13 T h e tremendous popularity of The Ticket of Leave Man and the favorable reception accorded The Hidden Hand and Settling Day reestablished T a y l o r in the position which he had previously held from 1853 to i860 of house dramatist for the Olympic. T h e r e , on J u n e 30, 1865, The Serf, his second play of the year, was produced. T h i s is a full-blooded "sensation drama" of Russian class strife. Ivan Khorvich, a serf, is sent by his kind master to study art at Paris, where, posing as a noble, he falls in love with the Countess Marguerite de Mauleon. When he is on the verge of fighting a duel with an overbearing rival suitor, Ivan learns that his opponent is Count Fedor Karateff, his new master since the death of the former count. T h e serf is forced to withdraw ignominiously from the duel and to appear as a coward to Marguerite. T h e action then shifts to Russia. T h e unmitigated cruelty with which Karateff treats his serfs is concentrated on Ivan and his sister, Acoulina. On a visit to Karateff's estate the countess discovers Ivan's shame and tries without success to soften his master's tyranny. Khor, Ivan's wily 13 No. 1950 (March 1 1 , 1865), p. 355.

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f a t h e r , e n d e a v o r s to inspire his son to lead an u p r i s i n g of t h e serfs, b u t t h e efforts p r o v e fruitless u n t i l K a r a t e f f ' s a t t e m p t e d a t t a c k o n A c o u l i n a goads the b r o t h e r i n t o p a r t i c i p a t i n g in a p l o t to b l o w u p the C o u n t ' s c h a t e a u . I v a n m a k e s the c o n d i t i o n , h o w e v e r , that first M a r g u e r i t e be r e m o v e d to safety. T h i s p l a n is t h w a r t e d , h o w e v e r , w h e n Karateff arranges that her carriage b r e a k d o w n , and she r e t u r n s w h e n the fatal signal, the r i n g i n g of t h e t o w e r bell three times, is a b o u t to b e g i v e n . T h e great " s e n s a t i o n s c e n e " follows. Ivan. My condition, father, she is here! Khor. She was gone—she has returned—let her take the consequences. Ivan. Back, I tell you! You shall not give the signal. K h o r (who has got the rope). Let me go! (bell sounds) Ivan. Not with life! Khor. W i t h o u t it then. (bell sounds a second time—Ivan drags Khor from bell rope; Khor draws his knife and is about to stab Ivan, who catches his arm, and they struggle down the stairs, and fall on the stage, Ivan underneath) M a d M. (screams). Help! Help! (The

door is heard to unlock

and is thrown open from

without)

K h o r , m o r t a l l y w o u n d e d in the struggle, reveals b e f o r e he dies t h a t I v a n is, not a serf, b u t the l e g i t i m a t e son of the o l d master a n d t h e t r u e heir. T h i s r e v e l a t i o n r e m o v e s all social barriers b e t w e e n t h e m a r r i a g e of Ivan a n d M a r g u e r i t e a n d promises a n e w era of better t r e a t m e n t for the serfs. T h e usual strong O l y m p i c cast acted the play. T h e l e a d i n g roles of I v a n and the countess received the best efforts of H e n r y N e v i l l e a n d K a t e T e r r y , respectively. H o r a c e W i g a n as K h o r a n d G e o r g e V i n c e n t as Karateff f u r n i s h e d a b l e s u p p o r t . A u d i ences r e g a r d e d the d r a m a as e x c i t i n g e n t e r t a i n m e n t . It effect i v e l y c o m b i n e d the t e c h n i q u e of the " w e l l - m a d e " play w i t h the v i o l e n t a c t i o n , sentiment, a n d local c o l o r of n a t i v e m e l o d r a m a . T h e n a r r a t i v e m o v e d r a p i d l y a n d p a i d d u e a t t e n t i o n to the necessity of t h r i l l i n g the a u d i e n c e b y u n a b a s h e d sensation and

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violent surprise. T h e tortured hero, the poor but virtuous maiden, the faithful heroine, and the implacable villain were clearly delineated as stock characters. At least the superficial aspects of the conflict between nobles and serfs were presented, and the dialogue contained a sufficient number of Russian words and idioms to lend an air of reality to the setting. There were ample sententious and sentimental speeches on such themes as the dangers of drink and the sanctity of womanhood. It is indeed difficult to recall any important traits of a well-constructed and effective "sensation drama" which Taylor did not include. 14 Taylor's third Olympic play of 1865, Henry Dunbar, presented on December 9, was dramatized from the novel of the same name by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Previous to its treatment by Taylor the popular book had already been produced as a play in Paris with "feverish success." 15 T h e English stage version is a reasonably effective mystery-melodrama. T h e murder of Henry Dunbar, a wealthy banker, by his former employee, Wentworth, precipitates the major dramatic interest. Thirty years before the time of the play Wentworth committed forgery at the urging of Dunbar and as a result served a prison term. Upon Dunbar's return from India, where he emigrated immediately after the trial, Wentworth meets him secretly. When the banker refuses a plea for financial assistance, a violent quarrel ensues, during which he is killed. Wentworth then assumes the dead man's name and position, something he is able to do because nobody in England has seen Dunbar for thirty-five years. Wentworth's enjoyment of his newly acquired wealth is marred, however, by his tortured conscience and by the necessity of avoiding his daughter Margaret. T h e Major, a suave criminal, is another source of annoyance to Wentworth, because he has learned the secret and uses it as a source for blackmail. Mar14 In New York The Serf was produced on September s i , 1865, as the first play of the fifth season at Wallack's. E. L. Davenport played Ivan; Gilbert, Khor; Norton, Karateff; Madeline Henriques, Marguerite; and lone Burke, Acoulina. 1 5 At L'Ambigu on November n , 1864, as L'Ouvrière de Londres.

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garet eventually meets the supposed Dunbar and is shocked to learn that he is really her father. Detective Carter also discovers the impostor's identity and guilt. Margaret and her father, closely pursued by Carter, escape to the Major's home. Carter captures the Major, and Wentworth dies from a shock brought on by the excitement. Two routine love stories are joined to the main plot. Margaret, once her father is dead, is free to marry Clement Austin. T h e solution of the mystery also permits the real Dunbar's daughter, Laura, to accept her suitor, Arthur Lovell. T h e piece is an example of practiced theatrical construction. Although Taylor followed his source so closely, especially in many passages of dialogue, that it is evident that he wrote with the novel before him, he did not hesitate to alter the original. In suppressing many of the pathetic troubles confronting Laura —in the novel unhappily married to Lord Haughton, murderer of his first wife, until his death sets her free—the playwright concentrated the interest of the narrative upon Wentworth and Margaret. Miss Braddon presented the murder of Dunbar as the result of premeditated strangulation, but Taylor made it the outcome of a provoked quarrel. This alteration and the increased compassion which Wentworth displays toward his daughter transform the stage Wentworth into a more sympathetic character than his model. His death, which in the novel does not occur until some months after his arrest, provides a scene of strong pathos and spares him the ignominy of actually being captured by Carter. Taylor also changed the character of the Major, who in his poise and sophistication is so completely different from his counterpart, the strolling player and clown, Herr Von Volterchoker, that he becomes practically an original characterization. Carter, whose skill and persistence recall Hawkshaw, is likewise a figure largely developed by the playwright. These modifications, although they do not greatly alter either the plan of the original narrative or its excitement and sentiment,

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render it more unified and effective as a stage piece than a more faithful transcription would have done. Strong performances aided the original production of Henry Dunbar. Neville created the part of Wentworth, and Kate Terry performed effectively, especially in the emotional scenes assigned to Margaret. The dependable character actor, George Vincent, Robert Soutar, handsome Harry Montague, and Ellen Leigh rendered able assistance in their respective roles as the Major, Carter, Clement Austin, and Laura Dunbar.' 8 T h e opening attraction at the Olympic for the fall season of 1866 was Taylor's The Whiteboy, a drama based on Mrs. S. C. Hall's similarly entitled novel. The book, first published in 1845, i s a romantic tale disclosing the evils of English rule in Ireland. The title is derived from " T h e White Boys," an organization of Irish patriots who in a manner similar to that of the American Ku Klux Klan dressed in white and perpetrated a series of night raids to terrorize the English and their supporters. T h e play was not published, but accounts of its performance indicate that the playwright treated the source freely by discarding most of the propaganda and greatly altering the plot. The story of the stage piece, judged by its reviews, was a routine mixture of sentiment, melodrama, and local color. The play failed to please the public and was soon withdrawn. One of the factors contributing to a lukewarm reception for The Whiteboy was the absence of Kate Terry from its cast. For her last season on the stage this outstanding actress had joined the Adelphi company, with which on November 26, 1866, she appeared in A Sister's Penance, by Taylor and Augustus Dubourg. The material and style of this piece are typical of later Adelphi drama. The first act, laid in London, holds unfulfilled promise of interesting characterization and relief from many conventions of melodrama. Alice Vernon is deeply in love with 16 In America, where it was first presented at Wallack's on January 10, 1866, Henry Dunbar was long one of the successes played by J . W. Wallack, Jr.

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Markham, but he prefers her sister Marion. Marion sends a note of rejection by Alice to another suitor, Drayton, but Markham sees the note and believes the refusal is intended for him. Before Alice can bring herself to disillusion him, he has departed. Alice's part in deceiving him is realistically presented. Unlike a conventional villain, she does not deliberately set out to achieve her ends by intentional wickedness; but rather, as with a George Eliot character, a flaw in her moral nature causes her to take advantage of a favorable, though unjust, turn of events. Another potentially promising theme involves the love of Ahmedoolah, an educated Hindu, for Alice. Her sympathy for him gains the scorn of her friends, and their attitude angers the Indian. T h e possibilities for a probing study of racial prejudice, however, never develop. T h e first act also introduces Stubbs and Pamela, Alice's devoted maid, the two characters who provide the farcical comic relief demanded by Adelphi audiences. In the second act the story descends to routine melodrama. Devious devices bring the principal characters to India. Ahmedoolah, nettled by Alice's refusal to marry him, incites the sepoys to revolt. Alice and Markham become separated from the others during the attack. Believing she is about to be killed, Alice confesses her part in deceiving him; but he cannot be cruel at such a time, and forgives her. During the battle Markham is wounded before the British soldiers effect a spectacular rescue of their countrymen. T h e last act returns to England. Markham is convalescing. Marion is unhappily married to Drayton, who is with his mistress in Spain. Alice wishes to tell Marion why Markham left her so suddenly years before, but he forbids the confession lest it increase Marion's unhappiness. Ahmedoolah, now delineated as an unrelieved villain lurking about in the disguise of a lascar, presses his revenge by poisoning Markham's tonic. This the Englishman is about to drink, when a letter arrives announcing Drayton's death. Overcome

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by the news, Alice swallows the draught before Ahmedoolah can prevent her. Confounded at having poisoned the one person he loves, the Indian confesses his crime and bursts from the house to throw himself over a cliff. His valedictory has a truly melodramatic ring. Ahm. If there be a life beyond the grave, we shall be equal there. Alice, they stood between us living—they cannot separate us dead. Allah! Allah! Because she believes she is about to die Alice reveals her sin to her sister; but Doctor Handyside, long an admirer of Alice, discovers that Pamela has previously emptied the glass of tonic, for no apparent reason except that she did not want it about, and substituted water. "This sudden and accidental change of fortune contrived for the purpose of bringing about a more popular conclusion" 17 clears the way for the reconciliation of the sisters and happier marital alignments for all. T h e few moments of genuine dramatic interest, notably the rescue of Alice and Markham from the sepoys and the climactic poison episode, hardly compensate for the slow-moving, artificial narrative. T h e sentiment is cloying, and after the first act the characterization becomes decidedly superficial. T h e improbabilities which influence the action, particularly the unnatural device which saves Alice's life, are extremely annoying to a modern reader and were no more highly regarded at the time. "A drama in which such a transparent trick is used," writes the Athenaeum 18 reviewer, "forfeits the title of high-class and sinks at once to the level of mere theatrical comoosition." Taylor's next three plays, all unpublished, were decided failures. The Antipodes, presented at the Holborn on June 8, 17 Athenaeum, No. S040 (December 1, 1866), p. 723. is Ibid. During its brief run A Sister's Penance was well acted. Kate Terry gave her usually fine performance as Alice. Herman Vezin, a strongly emotional, though somewhat stilted, performer, played Markham, and John Billington, a character actor who was one of the main supports of the Adelphi at that time, gave a colorful performance as Ahmedoolah.

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1867, derived its curious title from the fact that the action occurred both in England and Australia and also from the fact that the characters who were masters in England became servants in the colony, where the former servants became masters. In choosing his characters from sporting circles and in using colloquial language Taylor unsuccessfully sought to imitate the qualities which had made Boucicault's Flying Scud, the previous Holborn drama, extremely popular. T h e words of Ellen Terry, who interpreted the heroine of The Antipodes, might well serve as the play's obituary: "It was a bad play, and I had a bad part, but Telbin's scenery was lovely." 18 Narcisse, staged at the Lyceum on February 17, 1868, was an adaptation of Brachvogel's play of the same name, which in turn was based 011 Goethe's translation of Diderot's novel, Le Neveu de Rameau. Taylor prepared his version to introduce to the London public Daniel Bandmann, an actor with an established reputation in the flourishing German playhouses of New York. Neither Bandmann's performance, which was definitely in the "star" tradition of the elocutionary Kemble school, nor Taylor's treatment of the romantic story of the actor who discovers Madame Pompadour to be the wife who deserted him, received a very hearty welcome in England. The narrative of Won by a Head, produced at the Queen's Theater on March 29, 1869, was based on the life of the celebrated Tom Ward, who rose from a trainer's boy and jockey to the position of chief minister to the Duke of Parma. Only the impersonation of the Archduchess Herminia given by the now aging Mrs. Stirling found favor with either the critics or the public. Almost four years had passed since the production of Henry Dunbar, the latest of Taylor's plays to attain any great degree of stage success, when the performance of Mary Warner at the Haymarket, on June 21, 1869, demonstrated that its author still 1» The Story of My Life,

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possessed the ability to write popular pieces. Mary Warner is a representative example of the full-fledged domestic drama of the mid-Victorian p e r i o d — a form differentiated from the closely allied native melodrama chiefly by its lack of scenes involving violent physical action and by its extravagant appeal to sentiment and pathos. T h e story of Taylor's play is typically simple and unadorned. George Warner, an honest and capable workman, is accused of stealing a sum of money from his employer. B o b Levitt, a fellow workman, is the actual criminal, but the circumstantial evidence against Warner is so convincing that even his wife, Mary, believes him guilty. T o save her husband she takes the blame u p o n herself and is sentenced to a five-year imprisonment. George accepts her confession as true and visits her only once at the prison. O n that occasion an angry scene of recrimination between the two leaves them bitter

enemies.

U p o n her release from prison Mary resolves not to rejoin her husband and her six-year-old daughter, and she goes to live with Milly Rigg, the unhappy wife of B o b Levitt. In order to buy food for her sick baby, Milly steals a gentleman's purse, and Mary is arrested for the crime. T h e victim of the theft is George Warner, now a successful manufacturer. H e recognizes his wife and establishes her innocence; b u t before he can speak to her, she leaves the courtroom. Levitt now confesses his guilt in the first robbery to his wife, and they plan to restore Mary to her husband. Milly persuades her to seek work at Warner's house, but does not reveal the name of the prospective employer. Here Mary recognizes her small daughter; b u t after a tearful scene, she is about to leave without revealing her identity to Warner, w h e n he enters. Mrs W. George Warner! (starts to her feet, fierce tone) Don't touch me! I have not told her! I am going away! I did not k n o w — War. I know all! T h a t cowardly scoundrel Bob Levitt has confessed all. Mrs W. All—what?

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War. T h a t he stole the cash-box from Dutton 8c Downes. Mrs W. T h e n it was not youl And I could think you guilty? Ohl (falls into Warner's arms) War. And I have been guiltyl Guilty of doubting the bravest, sweetest wife man ever had! Only for that cur we might not have had five years full of regrets. Mrs W. Can you forgive me? War. Forgive youl Why I have nothing to forgive you. But let the past burn up its ashesl A bright future is now before us and we will never look back to the black border of such a broad ocean of happiness. T h e final tableau reveals George a n d his wife in a t e n d e r embrace, each h o l d i n g one of the d a u g h t e r ' s hands. T h e play was designed for audiences that were willing a n d even eager to weep at time-honored devices for arousing tears. A wife wrenched f r o m h e r h a p p y h o m e , her loving h u s b a n d , and her cradled i n f a n t by an act of self-sacrifice which b r o u g h t her only sorrow t h r o u g h five t r o u b l e d years p r o v i d e d a n apt focal p o i n t for the sharply contrasted and exaggerated scenes of joy a n d misery. T h e extremely s e n t i m e n t a l and sententious lines stressed the themes of m o t h e r love, womanly devotion, a n d trusting friendship. T h e piece was constructed also with the p r i m a r y view of p r o v i d i n g a n u m b e r of varied and strongly emotional scenes for the actress playing Mary W a r n e r . H e r devotion to her h u s b a n d , her love for her child, a n d her tributes to domestic happiness created a p i c t u r e of her as a f o r t u n a t e wife to be b r o k e n by the false confession. I n d i g n a t i o n blazed in the prison scene, when she t u r n e d on W a r n e r because he seemed impervious to her suffering a n d sacrifice. T h e pity inspired by her miserable life after her release f r o m prison rose to a crescendo in the scene in which she was tried for stealing the purse, b u t t h e climax of m a u d l i n pathos was reached w h e n she tearfully embraced the child she dared n o t claim as her d a u g h t e r . Mrs W. Warnerl Is that your name? (very passionately) T h e n you, you are my child! (embraces daughter) My child, my darling, my

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long lost angel! (kisses her) my own! (looks at her) Yes, George's eyes! (kisses her) and my hair! (weeps over her) . . . (calmer) I am mad. (sobbing) Don't mind me. (presses her to her forehead) I thought you were my little girl, my child! Don't call! don't tell your papa that I spoke to you. He might be angry. Don't tell your papa! for I am going away—far away, and you will never see me again. Try to think it was your own mamma, come back to see you and love you for a moment! Won't you give me a kiss! (kisses her) You won't mind if I cut one little piece of hair? (takes scissors from table) One little piece—only one piece—no one will find out. A modern reader, like astute Victorian critics, will remain distinctly unimpressed and unmoved by the rampant domestic pathos, the artificially contrived suffering, and the superficial sentimentality of the drama, but the "crowd" of the Victorian theater regarded Mary Warner as the epitome of all that domestic drama represented, and enjoyed a good cry over the agonies of the heroine. T a y l o r wrote the part of Mary for Kate Bateman, a daughter of the American showman "Colonel" H. L. Bateman, under whose Lyceum management Henry Irving first advanced to the front rank of the acting profession. As an "infant phenomenon" Miss Bateman appeared at the Surrey in 1852, but her real debut in London followed several years of stage work in America and took place at the Adelphi in 1863, when she played the heroine in Leah. As a Jewish maiden, cast off by her faithless lover, who returned years later to weep over the child named for her, Miss Bateman gave an emotional performance which became the talk of play-going London. In Mary Warner Taylor plainly intended the scene in which Mary denounces her husband and that in which she recognizes her daughter as parallels to similar incidents in Leah. Miss Bateman's performance as Mary disappointed neither her author nor her audiences. Dutton Cook strongly disapproved of the drama, but he could find only praise for the work of its heroine.

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A t the same time, it should be said that Miss Bateman played with very genuine force and feeling . . . O n the whole she has perhaps played no part so evenly, and therefore so well, as Mary Warner. Whether the part was worth playing at all is another question. 20 In t h e o r i g i n a l p r o d u c t i o n several H a y m a r k e t favorites supp o r t e d Miss B a t e m a n . A l t h o u g h he was patently too old in app e a r a n c e for the earlier scenes, H o w e played w e l l as G e o r g e W a r n e r . W i l l i a m K e n d a l , as yet a relatively u n r e c o g n i z e d performer, interpreted Bob Levitt. Compton, Rogers, and Braid f o u n d n o parts suited to their respective c o m i c styles, b u t they a p p e a r e d satisfactorily in s u b o r d i n a t e roles. In the H a y m a r k e t p r o d u c t i o n s the sets were u n u s u a l l y d e t a i l e d a n d realistic. O n e scene is occupicd with vast steam engines in full operation, in another a picture of the interior of Brixton prison is provided. T h e r e are further, elaborate representations of a squalid alley in Lambeth lit with real gas-lamps; of a grimy garret interior commanding the usual fine view of the illuminated clock tower at Westminster; and of a police court with a prisoner's dock, witness-box, constables, spectators, and presiding magistrate all complete. 21 T h e s e e f f e c t i v e m o u n t i n g s , the w o r k of the s u p p o r t i n g cast, and especially the p e r f o r m a n c e by K a t e B a t e m a n o v e r r o d e the obj e c t i o n s m a d e by the critics to the superficiality a n d exaggerations of the d r a m a , a n d it a c h i e v e d great success d u r i n g its initial r u n . Miss B a t e m a n , w h o f r e q u e n t l y revived the play, both in this c o u n t r y a n d in E n g l a n d , i n t r o d u c e d it to A m e r i c a at Booth's, o n O c t o b e r

18, 1869. C a r l o t t a L e c l e r c q was another

20 Nights at the Play, p. 31. T h e p r e s e n t a t i o n of Mary Warner involved T a y lor in a suit for p l a g i a r i s m filed by D r . W i l l i a m G i l b e r t , f a t h e r of the a u t h o r of t h e Savoy opera librettos. Dr. G i l b e r t c h a r g e d that T a y l o r h a d taken the n a r r a t i v e f o r Mary Warner directly f r o m h i s novel Margaret Meadows. Arbiters of t h e suit o r d e r e d T a y l o r to pay D r . G i l b e r t £200 and to p e r m i t G i l b e r t ' s n a m e to a p p e a r o n the p l a y b i l l s . T h a t r i g h t , by Dr. Gilbert's e x p r e s s c o m m a n d , was n e v e r exercised. T h e similarities b e t w e e n t h e n o v e l , first p u b l i s h e d in 1859, and Mary Warner are not extensive. In e a c h work, a n innocent w o m a n suffers imp r i s o n m e n t a n d disgrace f o r t h e sake of a m a n she loves, but in Margaret Meadows the sacrifice is p e r f o r m e d by a m o t h e r to protect her son. 21 Sights

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actress who was celebrated in this country for her interpretation of Mary Warner. In i860 Taylor was England's most popular and promising living playwright; in 1870 his name still bore weight in theatrical circles, but it was becoming increasingly evident that the immediate development of English drama was to be in the hands of younger men, such as H. J. Byron, William Gilbert, James Albery, and Herman Merivale. During the decade of the sixties, although many of his plays proved popular, his dramatic writing in general reflected a tired and unadventuresome spirit which was willing and even eager to conform to conventional and mediocre theatrical patterns. Even when judged from the point of view of stage popularity much of his work during this period was distinctly disappointing. From among the fourteen melodramas and dramas discussed in this chapter, t h r e e — T h e Brigand and His Banker, The Antipodes, and Won by a Head —failed miserably, and f o u r — U p at the Hills, The Whiteboy, A Sister's Penance, and Narcisse—proved only slightly more successful. T h e others contain no more than the qualities already displayed by him of facile plot construction, effective but superficial characterization, and a style adjusted to the demands of specific theaters. The Hidden Hand is practically a translation of a French play; A Tale of Two Cities and Henry Dunbar are skilled dramatizations of popular novels. The Serf is merely another effective "well-made" but routine "sensation drama." More interest pertains to Settling Day as an example of the Victorian theater's disregard for social problems than as a conventional drawing-room drama of that time. T h e two great stage successes—The Ticket of Leave Man and Mary Warner—owed their popularity, not to any intrinsic or permanent worth, but rather to their perfect agreement with certain tastes of the "crowd." Taylor's dramatic work before i860 offered hope that the author might eventually produce some original, capable, and

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permanent work. T o a modern critic surveying from the vantage point of the present the course of English drama throughout the nineteenth century Taylor's dramas and melodramas of the sixties carry with them the conviction that he would never be more than a popular and transient Victorian playwright.

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1870-80 O A N Y O N E who regards the mid-Victorian period as the seed time of a realistic prose drama and hence of modern English dramatic art, the plays written by Taylor during the last decade of his life are distinctly disappointing. They are either chronicle history plays in verse or conventional prose dramas. Although the poetic pieces contain many effective scenes, their verse is inferior, and their dependence on historical themes and on the blank verse medium is reactionary. In Lady Clancarty, decidedly the best of Taylor's last prose dramas, the use of a historical setting likewise runs counter to the interest in contemporary life which was to dominate the English theater of the immediate future. T h e other prose pieces written by Taylor during the seventies are unimpressive. T h e poetic plays include the popular 'Twixt Axe and Crown (Queen's, January 2a, 1870), the lavishly staged Jeanne Dare (Queen's, April 10, 1871), and the extremely sentimental Anne Boleyn (Haymarket, February 7, 1876). T h e prose plays are Dead or Alive (Queen's, July 22, 1872), Arkwright's Wife (Globe, October 6, 1873), Lady Clancarty (Olympic, March 9, 1874), Such Is the Law (St. James, April 20, 1878), and Love or Life (Olympic, J u n e 10, 1878). In these last two pieces Taylor collaborated with a minor playwright, Paul Merritt; of the others he was

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the sole author or adapter. In discussing Taylor's dramatic work of the seventies it will be advantageous first to analyze the poetic plays and Lady Clancarty as the more important works and then to review the less prominent productions in their chronological order. In connection with this second group mention may be made also of Taylor's version of Hamlet, performed at the Crystal Palace on May 3, 1873, and of his possible share in the authorship of Abel Drake, a drama acted at the Princess on May 20, 1876. Between 1843, when Macready retired from the management of Drury Lane, and approximately 1870, interest in original English verse plays languished. T h e efforts of Samuel Phelps and Charles Kean to encourage this type of entertainment encountered only slight success. Westland Marston was an earnest but dull playwright; the work of other early Victorian poetic dramatists, men like James White, Abraham Heraud, and Frederick Tomlins, proved almost totally ineffective on the stage. T h e renewed attention to dramatic art which followed the early years of the Bancroft regime, however, reawakened interest in the possibilities of English poetic drama. T h e spirit of Shakespeare and his fellow Elizabethans still hovered over the stage, and the conception yet lingered that blank verse cloaked theatrical entertainment with respectability. In this Victorian revival of the verse drama William Gorman Wills, T o m Taylor, and the poet laureate, Tennyson, were the leaders. T h e i r plays, although poetic and historical, did not closely imitate either Elizabethan or classical models, but were rather domestic dramas dressed in verse and historical trappings. These pieces added nothing to the growing movement toward realistic treatment of contemporary themes, but they did add dignity and seriousness of purpose to the Victorian theater. They were an indication that the drama once more was being considered as a form of art by audiences and playwrights alike. When Taylor commenced the writing of the poetic dramas

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which formed the most important part of his dramatic work during his last years, he was already the author of a celebrated verse play, The Fool's Revenge. In 1858, at the request of Frederick Robson, he had freely adapted this piece from Victor Hugo's Le Roi s'amuse. Robson, then at the zenith of his meteoric career, was eager to test his powers in a play of established literary reputation, but when Taylor had completed the adaptation, Robson lost confidence in his ability to sustain the piece and declined to act it. Taylor then offered it to Samuel Phelps who presented it at his dignified Sadler's Wells playhouse on October 18, 1859. The Fool's Revenge is a melodramatic but effective romantic drama. Its skillful craftsmanship, its judicious use of dramatic irony, its colorful setting, and the presence of one striking character might well render it effective on the modern stage. T h e story, familiar to modern times as the libretto for Verdi's Rigoletto, also based on Le Roi s'amuse, takes place at the court of Duke Galeotto Manfredi, of Faenza, in 1488. T h e action centers in the efforts of the hunchbacked court jester, Bertuccio, to be revenged 011 Guido Malatesta, a dissolute noble. Some years before the time of the opening of the narrative, Malatesta abducted Bertuccio's wife. Ber. Because he was a noble—great and strong, He bore her from my side—by force—and after I never saw her more; they brought me news That she was dead! . . . And I was mad For years and years, and when my wits came back— If e er they came—ihey brought one haunting purpose That since has shaped my life—to have revenge! Revenge upon her wronger and his order; Revenge in kind; to quit him—wife for wife! Circumstances provide the jester with an apparently admirable opportunity for his revenge. Manfredi, tired of his own wife, Francesca, has become deeply infatuated with Malatesta's young

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wife, Ginerva. Bertuccio slyly suggests that the duke abduct Ginerva from her home and take by force what he cannot gain by persuasion. T h r o u g h this act the court fool hopes not only to pay Malatesta in his own coin b u t also, by arousing the anger of Francesca, to punish Manfredi for his scornful and condescending manner. With venomous joy Bertuccio anticipates his long-awaited triumph. Ber.

Take my curse among you— Fair, false, big, brainless, outside shows of men; For once your gibes and jeers fall pointless from me! My great revenge is nigh, and drowns all sense, I am straight, and fair, and well-shaped as yourselves; Vengeance swells out my veins, and lifts my head, And makes me terrible!—Come, sweet to-morrow, And put my enemy's heart into my hand That I may gnaw it.

Circumstances ironically combine to turn Bertuccio's revenge back on himself. H e has but recently brought his beautiful and innocent daughter, Fiordelisa, to Faenza from the convent where he had placed her as a child. H e endeavors to conceal her identity and to hide her from the lustful eyes of the court, but at least two men see her and are attracted by her beauty. T h e young poet Dell Aquila falls honestly in love with her; but Torelli, one of Manfredi's licentious parasites, eyes her with different intentions. Hoping to win the duke's gratitude by uncovering fresh game for him, Torelli describes her to Manfredi in lecherous terms. T h e two men secretly gain access to her retreat and, hidden behind an arras, overhear a pathetic scene between father and daughter which discloses her parentage. They likewise listen to Dell Aquila persuade Fiordelisa to flee to Ginerva for shelter from their amorous advances. Manfredi accepts Torelli's diabolical proposal to permit her escape and then to allow Bertuccio unwittingly to assist his own daughter to the arms of her ravisher. H e r abduction is successfully

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carried out, and M a n f r e d i and T o r e l l i secretly gloat at h a v i n g m a d e a d u p e of the jester. T h e irony of Bertuccio's speech of t r i u m p h w h e n he believes he has r e v e n g e d himself o n his e n e m y , although he has actually threatened his o w n d a u g h t e r w i t h r u i n , is truly striking. Every l i n e carries a d o u b l e and tragic m e a n i n g to the audience. Ber.

Now, Malatesta, Learn what it is to wake, and find her gone, T h a t was the pride and joy of your dim eyes— T h e comfort of your agel I welcome you T o the blank hearth—the hunger of the s o u l — T h e long dark days, and miserable nights! These you gave m e — I give them back to you!

In the ensuing climactic scene sensational d e v e l o p m e n t s follow each other rapidly. O u t s i d e M a n f r e d i ' s b a n q u e t r o o m , f r o m w h i c h sounds of revelry are heard, Bertuccio glories in his revenge. Francesca, w h o m he has s u m m o n e d to witness proof of her husband's infidelity, is aroused to poison the flagons of w i n e b e i n g borne to the i n n e r room. Bertuccio can n o w hardly restrain his joy. Malatesta n e x t appears and dampens the c o u r t fool's t r i u m p h b y his calmness, b u t Bertuccio feels that the d u p e d husband is b u t p u t t i n g u p a bold front and soon must cry o u t in pain. W h e n Malatesta leads in G i n e r v a , however, the jester sees that the revenge has failed. H e has barely realized this, w h e n Dell A q u i l a tells h i m that the w o m a n carried from G i n e r v a ' s h o m e was Fiordelisa. T h e previous b r a v a d o and e x u l t a t i o n are n o w replaced by terror and remorse. Ber. (with a wild cry). My child! My child! wronged! murdered! Aqu. Ha! By whom? Ber. (wildly). By me! by me! Her father—her own father! T h a t would have grasped heaven's vengeance and have drawn T h e bolt on my own head, and her's—and her's! Aqu. What do you mean? Ber. I counselled the undoing O f Malatesta's w i f e — I stood and watched,

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And laughed for joy, and held the ladder for them. And all the while, 'twas my own innocent child! Look not so scared—'tis true—I am not mad! She's here—now—in their clutches! (Laughter within) Hark—they laugh! 'Tis the hyena o'er their prey—my child— And I stand here and cannot lift a hand! Desperately Bertuccio struggles to enter the inner room, but the duke's orders prevent him. As a last resort he cries that he has poisoned the wine. T h e doors to the banquet room are thrown open, revealing Manfredi and Fiordelisa lying senseless on the floor. Manfredi is dead, but Fiordelisa, who has not touched the wine, is revived and restored to her father " p u r e as when she kissed thy lips last night." Francesca assumes responsibility for the murder, and Bertuccio contritely and thankfully embraces his daughter. T h e play combines a romantic setting and an exciting narrative with domestic pathos and poetic justice. T h e theme of a subtly planned revenge reacting violently on its perpetrator is ingeniously contrived and economically developed. T h e clever twists of the "well-made" play formula keep interest at a high pitch. Throughout, dramatic irony is effectively employed. As a striking romantic stage part few characters offer greater opportunities for effective acting than Bertuccio. His rapidly changing moods of cynicism, sullen brooding, tenderness, revenge, triumph, despair, and humility would permit an actor to display kaleidoscopic pictures of his art. T h e other characters are superficially sketched, but they fit easily into the story. T h e somewhat arbitrary happy ending was certain to please a generation of playgoers reared on melodrama. Equally attractive to Victorian audiences were the domestic pathos of father and daughter and the didactic note that revenge is not a proper province of man. As exciting entertainment, as a vehicle for the display of histrionic ability by an emotional actor, and as a piece of deft craftsmanship The Fool's Revenge must certainly be judged a sue-

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cess. From the point of view of stage effectiveness it outranks almost any other English verse play of the nineteenth century, indeed almost any other since Otway's Venice Preserved. Taylor's share in the composition of The Fool's Revenge has frequently been underestimated. T h e piece is far more than a mere translation or even a close adaptation of either Le Roi s'amuse or Rigoletto. T h e statement of the English writer in the preface to the printed play adequately summarizes his contributions. This drama is in no sense a translation, and ought not, I think, in fairness, to be called even an adaptation of Victor Hugo's fine play, Le Roi S'Amuse. On looking at Victor Hugo's drama . . . I found so much in it that seemed to me inadmissible on our stage—so much, besides, that was wanting in dramatic motive and cohesion, and— I say it in all humility—so much that was defective in that central secret of stage effect, climax, that I determined to take the situation of the jester and his daughter, and to recast in my own way the incidents in which their story was invested . . . The motives of Bertuccio, the machinery by which his revenge is diverted from its intended channel, and the action in the court subsequent to the carrying off of his daughter, are my own, and I conceive that these features give me the fullest right to call The Fool's Revenge a new play, even if the use of Victor Hugo's Triboulet and Blanche disentitle it to the epithet "original"—which is matter of opinion. A comparison of The Fool's Revenge with its only source, Le Roi s'amuse, proves that Taylor justly indicated his slight indebtedness. T h e extent of his revisions fairly entitled his work to the classification "new." Indeed, in the sense that it is a thorough reworking of the material provided by another playwright, The Fool's Revenge is original as many of Shakespeare's plays are original. From a romantic tragedy with a somewhat somber and sordid story, Taylor has fashioned a didactic, romantic melodrama. Taylor actually retains little more of the original than the theme of a misshapen court jester who unwittingly assists in carrying his own daughter to the arms of a licentious nobleman.

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H e discards much of Hugo's story and greatly revises what he employs. In the French play the jester, T r i b o u l e t , unsuspectingly helps to abduct his daughter, Blanche, for the e n j o y m e n t of Francis I — n o t from any desire for revenge, but merely as a prank. Blanche is actually seduced by the king, and the narrative continues for two more acts. Blanche falls deeply in love with the king and refuses to agree to her father's proposals for revenge until she has proof of her lover's infidelity. Disguised as a boy, she secretly enters the king's private retreat, where she is stabbed and murdered by her father, who believes that he is killing her seducer. T h e curtain thus falls at the end of H u g o ' s play on an extremely tragic scene. In addition to modif y i n g the narrative, the English playwright transfers the setting from the French court of Francis I to renaissance Faenza and reduces the n u m b e r of important characters from twenty to ten. N o n e of his dialogue appears to have been translated or even closely paraphrased from its source. T h e alterations made by T a y l o r m o d i f y not only the outlines of the original story but also its spirit. In the main his changes render the English version a more effective stage piece and one better suited to the tastes of Anglo-Saxon audiences. T h e background of renaissance Italy seems particularly appropriate for the story of dissipation, seduction, murder, and attempted revenge. T h e reduction in the number of characters and the concentration of the climax in one scene immediately following the abduction of the heroine render the English drama more compact and unified. By introducing the motive of revenge into Bertuccio's plans T a y l o r immensely heightens the dramatic irony. He also avoids many of the immoral implications of the original by preventing the actual seduction of his heroine and by contrasting the honest love of Dell A q u i l a to the sordid passions of the courtiers. T h e domestic feeling and the relatively happy conclusion are largely the result of his alterations. So also is the didactic note that revenge is God's w o r k — a n idea

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which is not stressed in the French play. Since Taylor was a writer of verse, not a poet, The Fool's Revenge lacks the poetic merit of its original and consequently loses some of Hugo's emotional and tragic impact. Taylor's piece is, however, better planned for the tastes of its audiences and a more skillful piece of theatrical craftsmanship. T h e original production of The Fool's Revenge was well received. Phelps provided his customary adequate and careful mounting and stage direction. T h e costumes, although actually appropriate to a period slightly later than that of the story, were regarded by critics as becoming and in good taste. Although the part of Bertuccio never ranked with Phelps's greatest performances, his interpretation won approval. He revived the piece occasionally in later years, but the actor with whom it was most closely associated was the great American tragedian, Edwin Booth. N o part in his repertoire added more to his notable stage reputation than that of the hunchbacked jester. T h e personation of Bertuccio, says the astute and well-informed Clement Scott, was "far and away the best thing I ever saw Edwin Booth do." 1 During the season of 1860-61 Booth introduced the play in America at the Academy of Music, in Philadelphia, but his reputation as Bertuccio was really established by his performance on March 28, 1864, at Niblo's Garden, New York. His biographer, the American dramatic critic and student William Winter, has left a vivid impression of Booth as Bertuccio. The character makes a deep draft upon imagination and sensibility. Booth's personation of it was superb. Fierce vitality, sardonic humor, and mad vindictiveness made the embodiment a horrible incarnation of gleeful wickedness and insane rage. Yet through all there ran a golden vein of pathos. At one time the actor seemed a Fury raving in madness—when, under the night sky and in the lonely street, Bertuccio calls down upon his enemy the tortures which have so long burned and seethed in his own bosom. At another time he was as pitiable as Lear in the climax of his awful agony. That was in a 1 The Drama of Yesterday and Today, I, iga.

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scene outside the door of the banquet hall, when the Fool pleads for admittance to rescue his child. T h e simulation of glee, through which the father's frantic grief and terror broke at last, in wild lamentable cries of anguish was one of the finest things ever done by an actor, and one of the most affecting expositions that Booth ever afforded of the power of his genius.A clear indication of Taylor's versatility as a playwright is the fact that simultaneously Sadler's Wells, the home of literary drama, was presenting his Fool's Revenge, and Astley's, the seat of sensational equestrian entertainment, was offering his hippodrame, Garibaldi. Astley's was noted for a type of showmanship peculiar to itself. Here, truly, the gauntlet for spectacle was thrown down. Amid noise, blood, thunder, and gunpowder, the plays of Shakespeare, the poems of Byron, and the great battles of history were impartially converted and perverted by hack writers into hippodrames in which the hoof beats of the horses were a greater attraction than the words of the actors. T o offer an original piece by a man as prominent as Taylor was novel for this house. Garibaldi, first performed on October 24, 1859, and never printed, paid due attention to the salient features of a true Astley drama. Its four scenes presented the leading events in the life of the Italian patriot between the time of his services for the Republic of Uruguay in 1846 and that of his exploits for Italian liberty in 1850. T h e illicit and rejected love of a Captain Mancini for Garibaldi's wife provided a unifying dramatic interest. Mancini's ultimate villainy was the stealing of Garibaldi's daughter; but she was properly rescued, and the traitor was slain by the hero himself. In addition to making ample provision for equestrian spectacle, the author introduced some literary touches usually absent from this form of entertainment. T h e Athenaeum, which rarely deigned to notice the 2 Life and Art of Edwin Booth, 1893, p. 3 1 . Booth presented a version of the play almost identical with that written by T a y l o r . Cf. Tom Taylor's drama of the Fool's Revenge, 1868, in which the editor, Henry L . Hinton, states in his prefacc: " T h i s present adaptation varies but slightly f r o m the author's copy, one transposition being made, and a few lines omitted."

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productions at Astley's, remarked: "As a spectacle the piece is certainly interesting from its connexion with recent events, and the libretto by Mr. Taylor presents much meritorious dialogue, and many interesting situations." 3 Eleven years after the production of The Fool's Revenge Taylor returned to the field of poetic drama with 'Tuiixt Axe and Crown, the first and best of his three verse treatments of historical subjects. T h e popularity of this piece, originally presented at the spacious new Queen's theater on January 22, 1870,4 was instrumental in establishing the renascence of poetic drama which produced, among other plays, such notable works as Charles I (1872) and Vanderdecken (1878), both by W. G. Wills, Herman Merivale's The White Pilgrim (1874), and Tennyson's Queen Mary (1876) and Beckett, published in 1884 and first acted in 1893. 'Twixt Axe and Crown, a sentimental drama of English history in the days of Queen Mary, was based on the six-act German play, Elizabeth Prinzessin von England by Madame Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer; but the extent of the alterations, all of which are carefully and fairly enumerated in the preface to the English piece, justify Taylor's statement that "the original material far exceeds, in bulk and dramatic importance, what is retained from the German play or suggested by it. . . . Throughout the play, the Author has resorted to the German drama rather for the marshalling of incidents than for the purposes of dialogue." T h e action of 'Twixt Axe and Crown occurs in the interval between the accession of "Bloody Mary" to the crown in 1553 ana her death in 1558. The plight of Princess Elizabeth provides the central theme. Consistent dramatic interest is furnished by the love triangle of Mary, Elizabeth, and Edward Courtenay, Duke of Devonshire. T h e queen, sympathetically presented as the unwitting tool of Bishop Gardiner and the Spanish am3 No. 1670 (October 29, 1859), p. 571. * In Taylor's Historical Dramas ihe date is incorrectly given as May, 1870.

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bassador, Simon Renard, loves Courtenay; but his affections are centered on Elizabeth. Nettled by the queen's refusal to permit her the seat nearest the throne, Elizabeth asks for permission to retire to seclusion at Ashridge. Here Courtenay comes urging rebellion. T h i s Elizabeth refuses to consider, since she will not "let English hands at English throats." Upon the entrance of the Queen's soldiers, Courtenay hides behind a secret panel; but as Elizabeth is about to be arrested, he melodramatically rushes forth, sword drawn, to defend her. At her request, however, he surrenders. With Elizabeth and Courtenay in the tower, Gardiner and Renard persuade Mary to sanction a general execution of Protestants; but they dare not brave the temper of the people by beheading Elizabeth and Courtenay without further proof of their treason. In the hope of securing such evidence they urge Sir Thomas Wyatt, on his way to the scaffold, to name Courtenay a fellow conspirator and thus gain pardon. Like the traditional gallant soldier, however, Wyatt unflinchingly attests Courtenay's innocence and passes to his own doom. Having failed to involve Courtenay through Wyatt, Gardiner and Renard next bring Elizabeth and her lover together in the hope of overhearing them talk treason: but their plot is rewarded only by a scene in which the lovers swear eternal devotion. After Courtenay is released from prison, Elizabeth from her cell sees visions of past victims who have gone from the tower to the scaffold. Her lines constitute the strongest poetic passage in the play. Eliz. 'Twas here Jane Grey was lodged. Out of this window She saw her Dudley guarded to the block; Saw him brought back anon, a headless corpse. 'Twas hence she walked with calm face, and firm step, T o the scaffold, where her saintly head received A higher crown than England's. Nay, who knows, Perhaps 'twas here my mother waited summons T o the same scaffold. (Shudders) Almost through the dark I could think that bodiless eyes were looking on me!

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Pale And And One

shapes of Queens, with dim discrowned brows, each a ring of red about her neck; youngest, fairest of them all, my mother! hand held to her throat! (Clutches own neck) and one that points Toward Tower Green.

T h e entrance of Gardiner with a warrant for Elizabeth's execution interrupts these gloomy meditations, but the L i e u t e n a n t of the T o w e r refuses to carry out the order until it bears the Queen's signature. Unfortunately for Gardiner, Mary, broken by the suffering of her people, the loss of Calais, and the faithlessness of her betrothed, Philip of France, dies. Elizabeth is proclaimed queen, but news that Courtenay has died at Padua mars her m o m e n t of glory. T h e concluding scene is properly sentimental, pathetic, and patriotic. Harrington. T h e Lords of the Council and the great ones Of the city come to hail their gracious Queen Elizabeth. Eliz. (sadly). What love is left me now But their love? What to live for, but to make T h e m happier than their Queen can ever be? ('Trumpets—Enter Procession—Tableau) Omnes (kneeling). Long live Elizabeth! Long live the Queen! Eliz. (rising with great emotion—lays her hand upon the crown). Great King of Kings! 'Tis thou has willed it me. Guide me, that I may wear it by thy will. (Trumpets and cheering) Despite its historical trappings 'Twixt

Axe and Crown is es-

sentially a domestic drama. Elizabeth is delineated, not as an ambitious princess or as a mistress of intrigue, but as a sweet home-loving person. H e r great concern is, not that she may never attain the throne or even that she faces death " 'twixt axe and crown," but rather that she and Courtenay cannot enjoy their love quietly in some country retreat far removed from the arena of political strife. T h e playwright did not intend audi-

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ences to rejoice in her rise to the throne one whit more than to regret the fact that Courtenay w o u l d never bless her with domestic love. Similarly, the great tragedy of Mary's l i f e — m o r e vital to her than the loss of Calais, the defeat of Catholicism, or the suffering of her country—is that because of the defection of P h i l i p she will never be a happy w i f e . Mary. I shall not hold a husband's hand in mine, Nor lean my head upon a husband's heart, T i l l heart and hand are cold. If he but knew How ill's all with me here! How sore my need (Pressing her hand on her heart and brow) Of some kind presence—some small word of love— I do not look for much. A l t h o u g h the sentimental tone of the play seems incongruous to the robust Elizabethan spirit, and although the verse is generally mediocre, the drama possesses one of the prime requisites f o r stage success in that its action displays the compact and consistent movement often lacking in chronicle history plays. Interest in the love of Courtenay and Elizabeth binds the episodes together and prevents the piece f r o m being a succession of picturesque but disjointed scenes. T h e refusal of Elizabeth to take a place other than that next to the q u e e n , the arrest of Courtenay, Wyatt's denial of Courtenay's guilt, the parting of Elizabeth and her lover, the death of M a r y , and the crowning of Elizabeth are all scenes written by a practiced playwright. T h e s e incidents, moreover, are carefully fitted into a well-planned narrative which follows the Scribe f o r m u l a in that the opposing forces meet in a constantly

fluctuating

struggle which is not

decided until the conclusion of the action. T a y l o r wrote the play to provide in the part of Elizabeth a role suitable for the talents of Clara R o u s b y , an actress new to L o n d o n and whose unusual beauty created a brief sensation a m o n g playgoers. Mrs. R o u s b y was the w i f e of W y b e r t R o u s b y , a competent actor and theater manager f r o m the Isle of Jer-

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sey. Immediately after her marriage in 1868, at the age of sixteen, she assumed leading parts in her husband's company. Her beauty attracted the attention of metropolitan aesthetes, and the Academy painter William Frith recommended her to the attention of Taylor. On the advice of the playwright and somewhat under his sponsorship the Rousbys ventured the London stage, first appearing in 1869 in The Fool's Revenge at the Queen's. It was not until Mrs. Rousby's performance in 'Twixt Axe and Crown, however, that she became a temporary sensation. Her artistic equipment hardly extended beyond an shapely figure, a madonna-like face, and a musical voice; but the part of Elizabeth enabled her to display her beauty without unduly straining her limited talents. Captivated by her physical charm, critics wrote charitably of her acting, even though they implied that in it they felt some hidden want. The public expressed its adoration by purchasing Rousby bonnets, Rousby gloves, and Rousby dresses. Unexpected adulation overwhelmed the inexperienced girl, and intimate admirers easily swept her into a life of dissipation which quickly took its toll. Over the follies of her last years Victorian writers draw a discreet curtain. Ill health often caused the postponement of her performances, and irregular living rapidly diminished a beauty which had already begun to satiate audiences. In 1878 she appeared on the stage for the last time, and the following year she died a painful death. Princess Elizabeth was the first and most popular part created by the unfortunate Mrs. Rousby. For the initial performance she was supported by a reasonably strong cast, headed by her husband, an industrious ana reliabie performer. As always at the Queen's considerable attention was devoted to elaborate and beautiful scenic effects. Mrs. Rousby frequently revived 'Twixt Axe and Crown, a drama in which she was practically assured a favorable reception. Most of the other plays she attempted proved beyond her powers. It was as Elizabeth that she made her American debut, at the Lyceum, New York, on January 4,

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1875. Interrupted by her illness, the piece ran with considerable success until February 3. Mrs. Scott-Siddons, a finer performer than Mrs. Rousby, was introduced to the New York stage at the initial American representation of Taylor's historical drama, at Wood's Museum on September 5, 1870. Jeanne Dare, so spelled in Taylor's Historical Dramas, was the second of his plays written for Mrs. Rousby. It comprises a number of spectacular but loosely joined episodes, and hence it lacks the unity of the earlier drama. 5 After several delays, caused by the recurrent illness of Mrs. Rousby, Jeanne Dare opened at the Queen's, on April 10, 1871. T h e drama, making abundant provision for the spectacles which the enormous stage and the latest mechanical inventions at the Queen's encouraged, faithfully reproduces the chief events in the life of the heroine. In Act I, entitled " T h e Maid Mystic," Jeanne obeys the visions which have come to her and rides to offer her services to the uncrowned king of France, Charles VII. In the second act, " T h e Maid Missionary," Jeanne, through the intercession of Marie of Anjou, secures an audience with the king and by her psychic powers of prophecy persuades him to accept her help. The next act, " T h e Maid Martial," is devoted to a series of battle scenes in which the divinely inspired heroine leads her soldiers to victory over the English. Some idea of the scenic spectacle with which the play was strengthened can be gathered from the stage directions for the battle of Tourelles. Scene changes to Fortress of Tourelles. In flat, seen in perspective, a view of the bridge and town of Orleans across the river . . . two large towers with an archway, gate, and drawbridge . . . a palisade . . . about which . . . the fight is fiercest. Cannon on clumsy wheeled carriages are run on from the wings and fired. Others reply to them from the palisadeos and gate. Crossbow-men wheel on their large pavesses or wooden screens, loopholed, and shoot from behind them . . . The s T a y l o r f o u n d his material chiefly in Harriet Parr's The Life and Death of Jeanne d'Arc (1866), an English abridgment of the five-volume biography edited f r o m source material and printed by the Société de l'Histoire de France.

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French rally and raise ladders against the palisadeos, up which they climb, while the English defenders thrust and strike them down. Several ladders, with the men on them, are hurled into the ditch. Single figures are seen to fall into the ditch as if they had reached the top, been killed, and flung back . . . The gate is burst open, and the French pour through it and over the palisadeos, which are set on fire . . . The fire spreads to the gate and round the top of the tower. Amid the smoke and confusion of the fight Jeanne is seen to ride through the gateway waving her standard. Loud shouts from the French.

Act IV, " T h e Maid Manifest," depicts a most elaborate and ceremonial coronation of Charles at Rheims; and in the last act, " T h e Maid Martyr," Jeanne is convicted of witchcraft and burned at the stake. Properly mounted with colorful costumes, brilliant settings, and effective mechanical devices, the play may well have provided an imposing spectacle; but it is dreary reading. A series of chapters from Jeanne's life are set forth with little attention to the construction of a regular plot. T h e struggle is too uneven to arouse suspense, and the verse too wooden to move the emotions. T h e character of the heroine, which might well have furnished dramatic interest, seems unconvincing and colorless. She is neither an inspired saint nor a gallant w a r r i o r — m e r e l y a girl overwhelmed by the noise and turmoil about her, longing for her home at Domremy and happier making bandages than wielding a lance. N o n e of her speeches carry much conviction or emotional impact. A specimen quoted from her lines to the judges at her trial will illustrate the quality of the blank verse. Jeanne. Hear me, you cruel judges, hear the Maid Not now abjure her faith, but witness it In face of rack and pilel I hear my voices! I see my sweet St. Katherine and St. Margaret Again—they smile on me, and say "Well done! Endure unto the end—we will be with thee!" Lo you—I here recant my recantation And doom first to fire the hand that signed it!

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What I said of my voice and visions Was true. Do I not hear and see them now? All I have done was well done—and from Heaven! After hearing Mrs. Rousby chant verse such as this, Sir Arthur Pinero in his early days as a playgoer found that her physical beauty could not divert him from the boredom of the play, and he rightfully decided that Taylor was not to be taken seriously as a poetic dramatist." Anne Boleyn, the last of Taylor's verse pieces, is also more a dramatic version of an illustrated textbook than a play. Its five acts are so loosely bound together that when the original version proved too long for satisfactory stage representation, the first act was omitted without harming the continuity of the story.7 Indeed, any of the other acts might similarly have been deleted. T h e play attempts to dignify and idealize the character of its heroine. Anne, delineated as thoroughly ingenuous, sweet, and virtuous, plights troth with Lord Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland; but when his father opposes the match, Lord Percy wavers and is renounced by Anne. After four years of courtship from King Henry she agrees against her better judgment to marry him. As queen, Anne is the object of malicious and false rumors regarding her platonic relations with her faithful admirer, the poet Wyatt. Jane Seymour, "that coy Wiltshire wench," in particular brings Henry to the point where he quarrels with Anne and sends her to the Tower. From there she is led to a somewhat pathetic, if unconscionably lengthy, death scene. T h e painstaking and often painful regard for history which the author displays may be commended for academic accuracy and deplored for retarding the action and cluttering the stage with unnecessary characters. Although the piece lacks unity of construction and rapidity of movement, it is not without well« "Poetic Drama in the Seventies," by Sir Arthur W i n g Pinero, in The Seventies i 1929). t Academy, I X (new series, February 17, 1876), 183.

Eighteen

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conceived and executed scenes and characters. Frank, honest Anne Boleyn is adroitly contrasted with subtle, designing J a n e Seymour. One of their scenes, written in the style of the " R i v a l Queens," proved particularly effective. T h e separation between Percy and Anne, her final quarrel with Henry, and her death scene are composed by a hand skilled by long training in depicting pathos. T h e play was first presented at the Haymarket, on February 7, 1876, and despite the manifest disapproval expressed by many critics, it ran until the first week in April. A good share of its popularity was won by the work of the cast. T h e comely Adelaide Neilson brought a sincerity to the portrayal of Anne which contrasted well with the " f e l i n e " manner with which Miss Carlisle interpreted J a n e Seymour. Charles Harcourt made an adequate King Henry. Several of the minor roles were well acted, especially Eustace Chapius, a conspirator against the queen, played by Arthur Cecil; Lord Percy, by Harold Kyrle; and the stealthy Lady Rochford, another enemy of the queen, by a Miss Henri. More popular than any of the historical verse plays was Lady CAancarty, a prose drama of the Assassination Plot of 1696. In this piece, first presented at the Olympic, on March g, 1874, T a y l o r successfully worked some pages from Macaulay's History of England into an effective, "well-made" romantic drama. T h e dramatic interest is based on one of the child marriages common at the time of the narrative. In the hearty English usually attributed to heroes of romantic drama Earl Clancarty describes this youtnful marriage and its consequences. We were buckled by my Lord Sunderland's contrivance when she was twelve, poor innocent, and I was under fifteen. But then it wasn't me my Lord was marrying her to, but my estates, that covered the best of two Irish counties then. It's my hat can cover them now. Man and wife parted at the church door, to go back to their school-rooms . . . Since I gave her my first and last kiss at parting some ten years since . . . I've not clapt eyes on her till this day.

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" T h i s d a y " is the day on which Clancarty returns from St. Germain to join a Jacobite uprising against W i l l i a m of Orange. H e lands at a colorful smugglers' retreat on the coast of England. Here, without at first recognizing his wife and without being recognized at all by her, he rescues her and her sprightly companion, Lady Betty Noel, from the too-forward advances of one of the conspirators, the notorious " S c u m "

Goodman.

Clancarty also establishes himself as an honest enemy by his refusal to join in a plot to murder the king. Determined that K i n g W i l l i a m shall be beaten in open fight or not at all, Clancarty, upon arriving in London, warns him of the plot, but refuses to reveal either the names of the conspirators or his o w n identity. In London, Clancarty learns also that his wife has been true to him. Posing as a friend of her husband, he obtains an interview with her and permission to visit her secretly at night. Meanwhile Lord Spencer, Lady Clancarty's brother, plans to force her to divorce her husband and marry Lord W o o d stock, a Protestant noble. T h e proposal has the royal sanction, but not that of Lady Clancarty, Woodstock, or Lady Betty Noel. Lady Betty has long enjoyed coquetting with Woodstock by pretending that she despises him; but when she sees him thrust at another woman, she hastens to secure him by a secret marriage. O n a nocturnal visit to his wife Clancarty reveals his true identity and is rewarded by her sentimental declaration of constant love. In the arms of his wife Clancarty is arrested at the order of Lord Spencer and sent to prison as a traitor. Here he remains, condemned to death, until Lady Betty intervenes. She cajoles her husband into giving her a key which opens a secret passageway to the king. W i t h this key Lady Clancarty gains admittance to W i l l i a m and urges the pardon of her husband. T h e king, m i n d f u l of Clancarty's earlier assistance and impressed by the devotion of the wife, frees the earl on the condition that he and his wife leave the country.

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T h e piece is a skillful dramatization of historical data. 8 Employing no greater license than that customarily permitted an historical dramatist, Taylor weaves the material furnished principally by Macaulay into a reasonably exciting story. T h e r e is historical warrant for most of the details of the Assassination Plot as presented in the play. T h e child marriage of the Clancartys, their later meeting as strangers, the earl's arrest because of the intervention of his brother-in-law, his condemnation to death, and his eventual pardon are also historical. T h e playwright is chiefly answerable for implicating the hero in the Assassination Plot and for assigning him the function, actually performed principally by a Jacobite named Thomas Prendergass, or Prendergast, of exposing the plot. Since the reunion of the Clancartys and the attempted assassination were nearly contemporaneous events, their combination offers little insult to history and strengthens the dramatic effect.9 In developing the historical background Taylor displays adequate familiarity with the social life of the time, and his dialogue at least suggests a diction of the past. T h e seventeenth-century setting provided colorful and picturesque effects and an added source of interest for audiences. Divested of its historical dress, the play remains an exciting and efficient melodrama. T h e idea of husband and wife meeting as strangers is sufficiently curious to provide an effective basis for interest. T h e incidents which follow the meeting are developed with facility and swiftness. Once started, the action s For his historical material the playwright referred principally to Macaulay's History of England, Vol. IV, chap. xxi. »Among other minor deviations from historical fact in the play is that of having the assassination planned for the king's palace rather than for Richmond Park as an unexpected climax to a hunting party. Also fictional is the scene in which "Scum" Goodman confesses the plot to William and attempts to implicate Clancarty. This effort to save his own life by Goodman, whose real name was Cardell, hardly does much injustice to the memory of the rascally gamester and actor who was notorious for double dealing even in an age when such conduct was peculiarly common.

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places no undue strain on coincidence. The story of Lady Betty and Lord Woodstock, neatly dovetails with that of the Clancartys and furnishes both the comic relief and the denouement. The characters avoid most of the exaggerations of melodramatic people. Clancarty is not a too-absurd romantic hero, and his wife inspires respect. Lord Spencer, who acts from honest political and personal motives in urging the divorce and in bringing about the arrest of the hero, is more than a conventional villain. The vivacious manner and often sparkling dialogue of Lady Betty add wit and life to the action. T h e piece does not avoid the excessive sentimentality, the stilted dialogue, and the lack of intellectual and emotional depth which are the bane of most Victorian dramas. Yet for the period it represents a high point in dramatic construction. A properly mounted performance, for which the dialogue had been somewhat revised, might still be effective on the modern stage. The original production was eminently successful. The romantic actor, Henry Neville, and the rising Ada Cavendish interpreted Earl and Lady Clancarty, respectively. Emily Fowler provided an unqualified success as Lady Betty. The play ran for more than six months to well-filled houses. In subsequent years it was repeated often enough to attain the rank of a stock piece. The most successful of the many revivals was that staged by the Kendal-Hare management of the St. James in March, 1887. T h e cast for this sumptuous production, the costumes for which were specially designed by Marcus Stone, included William Kendal and his wife as the Clancartys and Mrs. Beerbohm Tree as Lady Betty. The impeccable stage management of John Hare, the acting, and the sets and dresses made the play one of the most successful offered by the joint managers. T o introduce their next season they revived the piece again during the following December. Among other performers who, both in England and America, enjoyed favor in the play were Helen Barry, Miss Bateman, and George Rignold.

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Taylor's other plays need only brief discussion. The prose dramas, even when judged by the standards of that time, were mediocre and conventional. His version of Hamlet was interesting, but hardly important. Dead or Alive, presented at the Queen's on July 22, 1872, was an unpublished dramatization of Balzac's novel, Le Colonel Chabert. In Balzac's cynical story of feminine greed the hero, returning home after some months spent in recovering from wounds received in battle, finds himself unrecognized by his friends because of his greatly changed appearance. His wife alone knows him, but when he attempts to establish his identity she has him committed to an insane asylum so that she may enjoy his money. According to reviews of the play Taylor considerably sentimentalized the original. He presented the hero as returning after eighteen years to find his wife dead, but his daughter alive. T h e daughter believed him to be a pathetic but insane impostor and helped place him in an asylum as the best method of caring for him. Some melodramatic discoveries enabled the father to establish his identity and to enjoy a tearful reunion with his daughter. T h e play was written for Daniel Bandmann and his wife. They had but recently returned to London from an American and Australian tour, during which they performed not only Taylor's script of Narcisse but also his imprinted adaptation of Faust, a version which was never presented in London. The Bandmanns enjoyed little success in Dead or Alive, and the piece was soon forgotten. Early in 1873 Taylor made the acquaintance of a young American actor, Steele Mackaye, with whom he was associated in his next production. 10 After studying dramatic art in Paris, Mackaye had recently come to London equipped with letters of introduction to Taylor and other prominent theatrical people. Taylor proved a pleasant host and a professional ally. He not 10 Percy Mackaye has written a biography of his father which is a valuable contribution to the history of the American theater, Epoch (1927), 2 vols.

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only entertained Mackaye at Lavendar Sweep but also secured h i m a part in The

Wife's Atonement,

a play by T a y l o r w h i c h

A d a Cavendish was planning to produce. Rehearsals proved so unsatisfactory, however, that the piece was shelved. 1 1 T a y l o r and Mackaye now began to plan a performance of Hamlet. aid of £200 advanced by Mackaye's father Hamlet,

W i t h the as adapted

by T o m T a y l o r and acted by Steele Mackaye, was performed at Crystal Palace on May 3, 1873. T h e acoustics of the mammoth theater, which was only occasionally

used for dramatic entertainment,

were

decidedly

poor; b u t the production created some interest. If T a y l o r ' s version may be judged accurately from its reviews, the alterations in Shakespeare's text and in the stage traditions of the play were minor. T h e court fool whom T a y l o r introduced for comic relief so irritated Ellen T e r r y that she termed the piece "a perversion," rather than "a version,"

12

but the work stirred up no

such antipathy among more regular critics. T h e

Athenaeum

review furnishes an adequate account of the adaptation and the consensus of critical opinion. T h e alterations Mr. Taylor has made in the acting version are slight, and, on the whole, unimportant . . . T h o u g h there is some gain accordingly in intensifying the solemnity of the early scenes, and rearranging the business of the play scene so as to leave the faces of Hamlet and the King open to public inspection, it is not considerable . . . VVe fail to see the advantage of bringing in a court fool in the first act to annoy Hamlet with impertinences, probable enough in themselves, but not warranted in the text. On the whole, what is important in the alteration is of questionable correctness, what is good is scarcely entitled to rank as novel or important. 13 Following its metropolitan performance Hamlet on a tour

14

was taken

in which it alternated with Taylor's new melodrama,

11 No play by Taylor entitled The Wife's Atonement was ever produced, but the name and the prospective producer suggest that it may have been a version of Such Is the Law, a collaboration of T a y l o r and Paul Merritt staged by Ada Cavendish in 1878. In this drama the wife does make some "atonement." 12 The Story of My Life, p. 125. " No. 2376 (May 10, 1873), p. 610. n T h i s comparatively new practice of sending London companies on the road

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Wife. In the latter play Mackaye acted the part of

Peter Hayes during the tour, but he disliked the role, and T a y lor disliked his interpretation of it. By mutual consent, therefore, Mackaye was replaced in the cast by the veteran Sam Emery for the London opening at the Globe on October 6, 1 8 7 3 . " For two acts Arkwright's

Wife is an interesting play, but

was becoming increasingly popular. Not only successful London productions but also new plays were thus tested by provincial audiences. In this manner the "tryout" system, a valuable aid to writers and actors in enabling them to try their work before submitting it to the acid test of a metropolitan production, was introduced. By their hearty and artistic cooperation, many Victorian managers of provincial theaters greatly encouraged the road companies. T w o of the more prominent of these men, Charles Calvert, of Manchester, and John Coleman, of Leeds, Taylor knew intimately. Before Calvert, whom Taylor designated as the most competent and high-reaching manager in the business, sailed for America in 1874, Taylor served as toastmaster and principal speaker at the farewell banquet. On the occasion of an amateur performance of As You Like It, produced at Manchester in 1878, as a tribute to Calvert, Taylor acted the part of Adam, always a favorite role with him because of the tradition that Shakespeare played it. For the Calvert Memorial production, a magnificent affair, Helen Faucit, then Lady Martin, emerged from her retirement for one night to assume the role of Rosalind. On at least two occasions Taylor materially aided John Coleman. During the summer of 1873 at Leeds he delivered a satirical attack on the local newspaper proprietor for having denied Coleman propter publicity. Thereafter the columns of the paper carried more abundant theatrical notices. Some years later, although a dispute over the mounting of one of Taylor's plays had led to a temporary break in their friendship, the playwright instantly offered all assistance possible when he heard of the burning of Coleman's theater. For Taylor this was a characteristic gesture. His willfulness and quick temper provoked many quarrels, but in time of trouble he was always ready to heal the breach by proffering aid. is An appendix to Epoch contains a copy of a document in which Taylor acknowledges Steele Mackaye as a collaborator on 'Twixt Axe and Crown, Jeanne Dare, The First Printer, Arkwright's Wife, and Lady Clancarty. Since the purpose of this document was to assign Mackaye the American rights to these pieces, his claim to their authorship need not be taken too seriously. T o satisfy the laws of the time it was necessary to name Mackaye as co-author of any pieces in which he was to have the American rights. Since he did not meet Taylor until 1873, he could hardly have assisted with The First Printer, 'Twixt Axe and Crown, or Jeanne Dare, all staged before 1873. It is chronologically possible that Mackaye aided in writing Arkwright's Wife and Lady Clancarty, but there is no evidence that he did so other than the document in question. Taylor could not assign the rights to any of his other pieces, because they belonged to the managers who had purchased them. With the exception of The First Printer, the plays assigned Mackaye were recent pieces which may well have been Taylor's property. The First Printer would normally have belonged to its producer, Charles Kean, but upon his retirement from the stage Kean had returned all the original plays in his possession to the control of their authors. In Epoch the same document names Mackaye as collaborator with Taylor of the following plays: Alive at the Roots, Between Block and Altar, Cromwell, The Homeopathic Cure, Lady Withsdale, A

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the last act is absurd melodrama. T h e story opens some years before the inventor Richard Arkwright has perfected the spinn i n g jenny, on which he is constantly at work. W h i l e traveling in rural England lie meets Margaret Hayes only a short time before the bailiffs enter her home to confiscate the furniture. H e r plight is the direct result of the actions of her father, Peter, a half-crazed inventor who sacrifices every shilling to mechanical experiments. Partly because he likes her and partly because he hopes to profit from her father's work Arkwright pays the bailiffs and marries Margaret. T h e early studies of the major characters are promising. A r k w r i g h t is a happy combination of rogue and idealist to whom the end justifies the means. Peter Hayes, obsessed by his ambition to create a spinning jenny, is unpleasant but convincing. His daughter is well d e l i n e a t e d — a woman who still loves her father with long-suffering devotion, although she has seen her mother killed and has had bread taken from her own mouth by her father's madness. Her motives in accepting Arkwright as a man who will guarantee her and her father security are entirely believable. Some time elapses between the first and the second acts. A deep love has developed between Margaret and her husband. U n k n o w n to her, Richard has completed his first spinning jenny. Peter discovers what his son-in-law has done. Jealous that another has succeeded, whereas he has failed, and enraged at the suspicion that his ideas have been stolen, the old man stirs u p the townspeople by persuading them that the new machine will create unemployment. Peter's act seems entirely n a t u r a l — not that of exaggerated villainy. Even more successfully the playwright exposes the folk psychology of fear toward anything new. T h e treatment is hardly inferior to the similar portrayal in Middlemarch

of the hatred of the common people for the

Queen's Revenge, Raleigh, Wat Tyler, The White Rose of Allandale, a n d Yellow Domino. I h a v e been u n a b l e to discover a n y record of a p e r f o r m a n c e of any p l a y s w i t h these titles. T h e y w e r e p r o b a b l y m a n u s c r i p t pieces for w h i c h n o m a r k e t w a s ever f o u n d .

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they attempt to destroy the new

machine by force. Margaret, w h o has been made its guardian by her husband, smashes it herself. T h i s act is somewhat motivated by the promise of the townspeople that if the machine is destroyed they will not touch her home; but to a larger extent Margaret is moved by her fear of mechanical inventions and by the belief that if his creation is destroyed her husband will adopt a more sensible way of earning a living. A f t e r this wellplanned scene, however, the play breaks down into absurd melodrama. W h e n A r k w r i g h t learns what his wife has done, he banishes her and her father from h i m in a scene which signifies the deterioration of a previously interesting play. Ark. Woman—for I can call thee wife no longer— Marg. No, no! Richardl Richard! Master! do not look at me with those cold, cruel eyes. Ark. Henceforth our ways of life must lie apart! (throwing her off) Old Man! this is not home henceforth for thee or her. (Tableau) T h e last act is silly. A r k w r i g h t has reproduced the destroyed spinning jenny and has been knighted for its success. Honors and wealth, however, have not erased the unhappiness caused by the absence of his wife and his lack of a real home. Margaret and her father have become little better than vagrants. Still obsessed by his hatred for Arkwright, Peter incites the country folk to burn the inventor's mill. Margaret tries to prevent them. T h e y are about to throw her into a stream, when A r k w r i g h t rescues her. T h e expected sentimental scene of reconciliation between husband and wife follows. In a letter printed in the Athenaeum

for August 2, 1873,

T a y l o r acknowledged that the plot for Arkwright's

Wife

was

suggested by a historical tale by the novelist and periodical writer, John Saunders. O n the playbills the two men were named as collaborators, but the actual dramatization was the work of T a y l o r alone. T h e outline of Arkwright's life and some of the incidents are historical, but the mainspring of the action, the

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destruction of the first jenny by the inventor's wife is apocryphal. The original London cast included, in addition to Samuel Emery as Hayes, Charles Kelley as Arkwright and Helen Barry as Margaret. Critics accorded the piece a generally favorable reception, but it met with very modest success. At least one player who saw Arkwright's Wife, however, was impressed with its possibilities. This is unquestionably "the old play of Tom Taylor's" to which Henry Arthur Jones referred as the inspiration for his early social drama The Middleman. In the later piece Cyrus Blenkham, through his inventions, has created the wealth of his employer, although he himself has been deprived of just financial reward for his work. Chandler forbids the marriage of his son to Blenkham's daughter, Mary, and sends the boy to Africa. As a deceived girl, Mary leaves home. Blenkham retires from Chandler's employment to revenge the injustice done him and his daughter. At great sacrifice he perfects an invention which ruins Chandler's business. At the conclusion of the play Mary and the son return home married, and a general reconciliation takes place. The one point of close similarity in the two plays is the character of the two inventors. Blenkham is delineated with greater sympathy than Hayes, but both men are obsessed by devotion to mechanical discovery, and both expend great energy on revenge. In general Jones's dialogue is more natural than Taylor's, but the first two acts of the latter's play are almost as well written as those by Jones. The great superiority of style shown by the later dramatist lies in freeing the last scenes from absurd and extravagant melodramatic lines and devices. In one respect The Middleman differs greatly from Arkwright's Wife. The former bristles with social criticism of the unjust relations existing between capital and labor, an aspect of the story in which Taylor was not interested. In miniature this distinction epitomizes much of the contrast between the modern playwright and the playwright of the early Victorians.

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Although the factual basis of Arkwright's Wife is so slight as hardly to warrant its classification as a historical play, Taylor included it in his volume of historical dramas published in 1877. Of the companion plays the "well-made" melodrama Plot and Passion and the romantic The Fool's Revenge are even less historical, but 'Twixt Axe and Crown, Jeanne Dare, Anne Boleyn, and Lady Clancarty qualify as representatives of their genre. In 1877 the publication of plays in book form had for more than fifty years been a rarity. Of Taylor's immediate contemporaries only Gilbert appears to have had his plays issued except as paper-covered pamphlets printed by T . H. Lacy and other dramatic publishers. Taylor prepared his book carefully and prefaced it with some serious remarks on the value of the drama as literature. He also expressed hope that a second volume, containing comedies, and a third volume, containing dramas, might be forthcoming. The sale of Historical Dramas was disappointing. No second printing was needed, and the prospective sequels never appeared. Had he selected for publication some of his more popular and lively pieces, for example Masks and Faces, Still Waters Run Deep, The Overland Route, The Ticket of Leave Man, To Oblige Benson, To Parents and Guardians, and Our Clerks, Taylor might have met with more encouragement in his attempt to popularize the issuing of plays in book form. Three minor pieces with which Taylor's name was associated remain to be discussed. His share in the authorship of Abel Drake, a drama founded on John Saunders's similarly entitled novel, was at best slight. When the play was acted by Daniel Bandmann at Leeds, on October 9, 1874, it was reported as the joint work of Saunders and Taylor, 19 but periodical and newspaper reviews of the London production at the Princess on May 20, 1876, credited Saunders with the sole authorship. Despite the fact that the drama had been well received at Leeds 1« Athenaeum,

No. 2451 (October 17, 1874), p. 522.

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17

and Glasgow, its initial London representation failed miserably, and Saunders requested the critics to withhold judgment until he could make certain revisions. According to Frederick Wedmore, dramatic commentator for the Academy, the result of the editing was as follows: " T h e play on Saturday night had one good act, and four bad ones. The play on Monday had one good act, and two bad ones." 18 The drama was later privately printed by Saunders in an edition which mentions no collaborator. Its story is that of Abel Drake, an inventor somewhat similar to Arkwright in his devotion to his ideas, who leaves his wife, Barbara, after his failure to provide food and medicine has caused the death of their child. Years later he returns with a machine—"the child of eight years' toil"—similar to a spinning jenny. By means of this he is able to secure a share in the business of his former employer. Rehabilitated financially, he also regains the love of his wife. At the Princess the principal parts of Abel and Barbara were acted by John Clayton and Rose Coghlan, respectively, but their talented efforts were insufficient to carry the feeble drama. Taylor closed his long and prolific career as playwright with two unpublished pieces written in collaboration with Paul Merritt. Trained as a melodramatist for the Grecian and other suburban houses and later a co-author for metropolitan theaters with Taylor, George Sims, Henry Pettit, and others, Merritt was a facile, popular, and practical playwright. Both of his collaborations with Taylor, among his earliest for major theaters, were moderately successful. The first, Such Is the Law, was carefully staged by Ada Cavendish at the St. James on April 20, 1878. The story was intended as a protest against the law prohibiting the marriage of a widower to his dead wife's sister, but the melodramatic tendencies and the arbitrary devices for complicating and relieving the situations rendered the play better " Illustrated London News, L X V I I I (May 27, 1876), 5 1 1 . 18 Academy, I X (new series. May 27, 1876), 521.

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entertainment than propaganda. T h e Athenaeum

251 account of the

original representation provides a satisfactory description. As an illustration of the law against marriage with a deceased wife's sister the new drama of Messrs. Taylor and Merritt is of doubtful value; as a dramatic entertainment it may claim a good position . . . A woman who has unconsciously married her sister's husband learns only of her misfortune when the supposed husband is believed to be dead, when she is told of it by the next-of-kin, who, for sinister ends, has purposely withheld from her and him the information. A due amount of agony having been undergone, happiness comes back, lugged in, it must be confessed, by the neck and shoulders. T h e partner she mourns is not dead, and the supposed marriage with her sister proves to be invalid. Here is the baldest possible outline of a plot which serves as a framework to sustain some very agreeable scenes, and one or two powerful, if not altogether novel, situations. It furnishes, moreover, opportunity for some capital acting . . . T h e piece is well mounted. It deserves to be an enduring success.19 N o sign of social criticism was apparent in the second joint play of T a y l o r and Merritt, Love

or Life,

produced at the

O l y m p i c on June 10, 1878. T h e authors faithfully reproduced the story of the narrative poem, "Smugglers and Poachers," which comprises Book X X I of George Crabbe's Tales of the Hall. T h e poet's account of two brothers, one wild and generous, the other conventional and selfish, w h o are in love with the same girl was treated in the style of tearful domestic drama. A satisfactory description of the piece may be quoted from the Illustrated

London

News.

T h e Whit Monday piece . . . is an old-fashioned melodrama . . . in which the fortunes of Dick Oakley, a poacher (Mr. Henry Neville) are related. Richard Oakley and his brother John Oakley (Mr. John Billington) are rivals in love for Hester Midhurst (Mrs. Dion Boucicault) . . . Hester really loves Richard, who gets into trouble and into prison. Nevertheless, John refuses to yield and proposes on condition that Hester will marry himself to save his brother's life, which he believes to be forfeit to the law. Hester's consent is wanted to the agree1» No. 2635 (April 27, 1878), p. 550.

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ment, and by previous agreement she lays the matter before her imprisoned lover . . . Richard Oakley is seized with an impatient desire for life, and, when left alone, gives way to a passionate determination to live, knocking at the door of his goal in frantic despair. This scene is acted with great power by Mr. Neville. Another scene with Hester, who has married his brother John, in the last act is likewise effective. Richard has suddenly returned from a sea voyage and reproaches Hester with her marriage. She naturally defends herself, and claims an acquittal with his compassion . . . John is now keeper for Squire Lockwood (Mr. Forbes-Robertson) and shows, indeed, by his conduct that between him and Hester there is no perfect accordance . . . Contrary to her counsel, he insists on doing his duty to the squire, and departs to dare an encounter with the poachers by night. He receives his death-wound, but returns to be reconciled with his brother and wife, and dies clasping both their hands. Much action and pathos distinguish nearly every scene of the drama, and produce an evident effect on pit and gallery. The popularity of the piece may be taken for granted.20 Love or Life was the last dramatic work in which Taylor had a share. His death came with some suddenness on July 12, 1880. Less than two weeks earlier he had been in vigorous health, but during a hurried walk from Lavendar Sweep to his office in Whitehall he loosened a blood clot from a varicose vein and caused a stroke. His physician ordered him to bed, where he continued to work. He suggested the Punch cartoon which appeared in the issue for July 17. He also wrote a letter to the Times denying that his illness, which he termed gout, was serious, and expressing his belief that there was much good work in him yet. For once, however, his energy played him false. In disobedience to medical advice he arose from bed to secure a book. T h e exertion caused the clot to reach his heart, and he died almost instantly. He was buried in Brompton Cemetery, on July 15. According to Thomas Hughes, members of Parliament, ambassadors, government workers, artists, literary 20 Illustrated

London News, L X X 1 I (June 15, 1878), 563.

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men, and actors were present to pay their respects; but the Theatre reproached the theatrical profession for the fact that only a dozen of its representatives gathered to pay a final tribute to the man whose works had made the fortunes of many.22 T h e funeral procession moved, two by two, to the grave, where, after prayers had been read, the coffin, covered with lilies, was lowered. Taylor's character, if not always his work, was praised in the comments on his death. In a letter to his mother Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote in a tone typical of that used by the more critical. "He was not always an unprejudiced critic, I think, but he was a man of many private charities which will miss him sorely." 23 Keen regret was expressed by those who knew the playwright best. From a literary standpoint the finest tribute to Taylor was the sonnet, " T o a Friend Recently Lost—T.T.," by George Meredith. 24 When I remember, friend, whom lost I call, Because a man beloved is taken hence, The tender humor and the fire of sense In your good eyes, how full of heart for all, And chiefly for the weaker by the wall, You bore the lamp of sane benevolence, Then see I round you death his shadows dense Divide, and at your feet his emblems fall. For surely are you one with that white host, Spirits whose memory is our vital air. Through the great love of Earth they had; lo, there, Like beams that throw the path on tossing seas, Can bid us feel we keep them in the ghost, Partakers of a strife they joyed to share. Only the Shavian Samuel Butler was glad that Taylor was dead, as he was glad that Eliot, Carlyle, and Dean Stanley had died; 21 " I n M e m o r i a m , " Macmillan's Magazine, X L I I , 300. 22 II (new series, A u g u s t , 1880), 125. 23 Rossetti Family 2« Cornhill Magazine, X L I I (October, 1880), 497.

Papers,

II, 361.

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because with each crumbled a pillar of the age and ideals with which he was at war.25 As stage attractions Taylor's plays did not long survive their author. During the decade of the eighties a few of his more celebrated pieces were revived in London; but by the nineties, except for occasional provincial performances of such pieces as The Ticket of Leave Man, Mary Warner, and To Oblige Benson, Taylor's dramatic work had passed into obscurity. This was rightly so, for, like most of the dramatic work produced during his lifetime, it lacks the qualities of enduring drama. Typical of the theater of that day, Taylor's pieces do not possess the intellectual or emotional depth, the honest realism, the penetrating characterization, or the natural dialogue requisite for permanency. His plays are saturated with sentimentality, pathos, domesticity, and other superficial qualities of popular appeal. Written for "the crowd," they entertained "the crowd." Invariably his work displays an interest in clever construction of plot and an acquaintance with the qualities of "good theater." Generally it is well adapted to the audiences and the actors for whom it was written. Hence it reflects admirably the theatrical interests of the time. That his work is so representative of the English theater between 1840 and 1880 is probably its strongest claim to our attention. His writing touched every existing field of dramatic activity. The decline of the burlesque and the extravaganza from the graceful forms of Planché to the more rowdy entertainments of the Gaiety "legs and limelight" type (entertainments soon banished from the theater to the music halls) was aided by Taylor. As long as the multiple piece bill persisted, he furnished many of the bustling farces, the clever comediettas, and the sentimental comic dramas which helped to complete the long evening's entertainment. He assisted in the development of the relatively crude "Adelphi drama" into a more 25 Jones, Samuel Butler, I, 336, 360.

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efficiently constructed type of melodrama. He aided the evolution of domestic drama by avoiding the violent and sensational scenes of physical action so prominent in native melodrama. He fostered the polished romantic drama of the school founded by Victor Hugo. His work for the Haymarket helped to popularize the eccentric type of comedy against which Robertson rebelled. As a writer for the Olympic he furthered the establishment of the various forms of mature drawing-room drama which stemmed from the comédie-drames of Scribe. His chronicle history plays stimulated a slight renascence of poetic drama. In all genres his work was among the best as well as the most typical. With only slight exaggeration it is true that among the playwrights of his generation Taylor, alone or in collaboration, wrote the best farce, Our Clerks; the best comedietta, To Oblige Benson; the best comic-drama, To Parents and Guardians; the best sentimental comedy, Masks and Faces; the best farcecomedy, The Overland Route; the best melodrama, The Ticket of Leave Alan; the best drawing-room drama, Still Waters Run Deep; the best domestic drama, Mary Warner; the best romantic drama, The Fool's Revenge; and the best historical play, 'Twixt Axe and Crown. Nor does this enumeration include such other popular and varied pieces as Prince Dorus, Plot and Passion, Two Loves and a Life, A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing, An Unequal Match, Our American Cousin, Settling Day, New Men and Old Acres, and Lady Clancarty. In its strength and its weakness his work was completely of its time. For this reason it is largely forgotten; but for this reason also no one can hope to understand the Victorian theater without an intimate knowledge of the plays of Tom Taylor. Although it produced no lasting drama, this period in which Taylor wrote is one of importance to the English theater. Without it the work of Pinero, Jones, Galsworthy, and Shaw might not have been possible. In the physical theater, as well as in styles of drama, the years between 1840 and 1880 produced

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important changes. During this time many of the refinements of the modern playhouse were developed. A natural style of acting and realistic staging conquered older methods. T h e elements of song and dance were diverted from the stream of legitimate drama. Outmoded, lifeless forms of drama were replaced by newer types better adjusted for an interesting and realistic treatment of contemporary life. In the changes effected in styles of drama Taylor's work was of prime importance. That he, along with the other popular playwrights of his time, avoided the models of the past clarified the fact, still obscure in 1840, that the English theater was to follow neither the magnified idealism and romanticism of Elizabeth tragedy nor the wit of Restoration and eighteenth-century comedy. Representative of a new generation of playwrights, he looked across the channel for his guidance and inspiration. He was one of the leaders in transplanting onto the English stage the material and methods of the French theater in general and of Scribe in particular. In so doing he worked largely as an adapter, but generally as a careful and discriminating borrower, not as a mere translator. Through this portion of his work, unconsciously perhaps, he helped to expose the immaturity of native melodrama, the unsuitability of romantic drama for the temper of the times, and the lack of vitality in poetic drama. He did demonstrate, primarily through his Olympic pieces and New Men and Old Acres, the possibilities inherent in a well-plotted piece, somewhat sophisticated and realistic in tone, the theme of which had at least some appeal to an intelligent playgoer. His writing thus helped mark the roads which English drama was to take, as well as those it was to avoid. Taylor wrote primarily for the income, however slight it may have been, which his plays earned. He neither sought nor deserves recognition as the founder of any movement, nor as a crusader for a finer theater. Yet he helped to make the English stage of 1880 one on which vitality and promise of better times

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to come had definitely replaced the inanition present forty years earlier. Playgoers of his own time thoroughly enjoyed the humorous and exciting entertainment which T o m Taylor provided. For whatever he taught the generation of playwrights who followed him concerning the material and methods of modern drama the English theater may be thankful.

Chapter NONDRAMATIC

X WRITING

A Y L O R ' S plays were always more important to him and to his contemporaries than was his other writing; but his more prominent work as art critic, verse writer, editor and contributor to Punch, and miscellaneous writer merits brief consideration. During his lifetime laymen regarded him as an art critic whose authority was second only to that of Ruskin. Professional circles were inclined to discount Taylor's opinions as those of a kindhearted Philistine, but to the untutored his dicta carried great weight. As art critic for the Times from 1857 to 1880 he spoke through London's leading newspaper. At the time of his death he had been for some years the art critic for the Graphic. Essays by him appeared frequently in important art periodicals, and for popular consumption he wrote numerous "handbooks." His professional and personal reputation led to his selection as editor of the manuscript autobiographies left by Robert Haydon and Charles Leslie and of Leslie's uncompleted life of Sir Joshua Reynolds. As art critic Taylor was not brilliant, but he was consistent and thorough. He displayed no exceptional insight into the form and spirit of painting; but he possessed sincere interest and the capacity for taking pains. Laymen could easily comprehend his orderly, detailed, and nontechnical style of criticism. Taylor's views on drawing and painting affirmed the majority opinion

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of the day. He enjoyed unassuming pictures, particularly those with a sentimental narrative interest. Toward the painters of the past his views were conventional and conservative. Of the painting of his contemporaries he preferred that of Charles Robert Leslie for its sentimental, didactic, and whimsical style. T o w a r d the more moderate pre-Raphaelites Taylor displayed tolerance. He could thoroughly enjoy the work of Holman Hunt, but Whistler's style was beyond his powers of comprehension. In 1878, at the trial of the libel suit brought against Ruskin by Whistler, the defense rested on Taylor's outspoken testimony which concluded: " A l l Mr. Whistler's work is unfinished. It is sketchy . . . I have expressed and still adhere to the opinion that these pictures only come one step nearer pictures than a delicately tinted wall paper." 1 Like Ruskin, Taylor believed that proper art exerted a moral influence upon the middle and laboring classes. He approved of Leslie's paintings principally because they were: "Stamped in every line with good taste, chastened humor, graceful sentiment . . . which make us happier, gentler, and better to look upon . . . which help us love good books more and to regard our fellow creatures with kindlier eyes." 2 He was delighted that such pictures were to be found in large cities: "Where they will counteract the ignobler refinements of industrial occupation by their inborn refinement, their liberal element of loveliness, their sweet sentiment of nature, their literary associations, and their genial humor." 3 Because he believed in this salutary influence of art upon the masses of men, Taylor consistently deplored the fact that financial necessity so often com1 Whistler was not the type of man to permit his adversaries to escape unscathed. Following the trial he wrote a series of pamphlets and public letters to the newspapers which made a stinging attack upon those who had opposed him in the courtroom. Although T a y l o r was not equipped to cope with Whistler's satire, he replied as best he could through newspaper letters. T h e series of attacks and counter-attacks which comprise this tifl are reprinted with illuminating footnotes by Whistler in The Gentle Art of Making Enemies (1890). 2 Autobiographical Recollections by the Late Charles Robert Leslie, Preface. 3 Ibid.

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pelled artists to resort to private portrait painting. That the populace might be exposed to the ennobling influence of good art he urged that the government adopt a policy of employing artists to decorate public buildings. For similar reasons he approved the exhibition of pictures in commercial galleries and steadily opposed the conservatism of the Royal Academy in refusing to encourage painters of humble and bourgeois subjects. Taylor expressed his views on the aesthetic and social values of art in his newspaper criticisms, his essays for art journals, his "handbooks," and his editorial work on the three biographies. One of his most impressive essays, " T h e State of English Painting in 1862," appeared in May, 1863, as the leading article for the first number of the Fine Arts Quarterly.4 This study clearly traces the development of a genuine school of English painting, beginning with Hogarth, and severely criticizes both the stagnation of the Royal Academy and the lack of government aid to artists. Other articles typical of Taylor's journalistic contribution on art appeared in the prominent periodical Portfolio. In a series of essays during 1870 and 1871 he reviewed the work of Philip Calderon, George Leslie, J . E. Hodgson, G. A. Storey, W. F. Yeames, and D. M. Wynfield—all members of what he termed "the St. John's Wood School." s This group of minor artists pleased him by their modest, sentimental style of historical painting and drawing. He saw their work also as a confirmation of his opinion that the Royal Academy was not providing the proper individual instruction to promising artists. None of the St. John's Wood circle, he pointed out, had found the rigid and formal class instruction at the Academy of genuine assistance. 4 Publication of this handsome periodical was begun with Her Majesty's personal encouragement under the direction of Bernard Woodward, Librarian to the Queen and Keeper of Prints and Drawings at Windsor Castle. s T a y l o r ' s articles during 1870 were part of a series entitled, "English Painters of the Present D a y " ; those during 1 8 7 1 , of a similar series " E n g l i s h Artists of the Present D a y . " At the close of the year in which these articles appeared, each series as written by T a y l o r and other prominent art critics appeared in a handsome volume designed to catch the eye of the holiday trade.

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Taylor wrote his essays in art journals for somewhat experienced followers of art, but he planned his "handbooks" for the uninitiated as well. A typical work of this kind was his Handbook to Pictures in the International Exhibition. At this exhibition, which opened on May 1, 1862, all the chief painters of England and the continental countries were well represented. Taylor's two-hundred page handbook, which sold for a shilling, furnished an elementary guide to their pictures. T h e author devoted more than half the work to English painters and in simple language presented the rise of English art, a brief biographical sketch of its leading painters, and a detailed account of the pictures on display. More briefly he similarly reviewed the chief painters of the other nations. T h e book was informative, rather than critical. Its clear and concise analyses were designed for the knowledge and interests of laymen. Immediately preceding the writing of this handbook Taylor had provided an art dealer, Louis Flatow, with a thirty-two page pamphlet descriptive of William Frith's picture, " T h e Railway Station." Flatow's method of enriching himself by catering to the nascent interest in art which the growth in wealth and education was developing among the middle classes was to purchase pictures of the simple narrative type and to place them on display for a small admission price. Despite an outlay of £ 5 , 2 0 0 for the sole rights to " T h e Railway Station," the dealer made a substantial profit from the 21,500 paid admissions to the seven-week exhibition. Such commercialization aroused protests from those who treasured the supposed sanctity of art, and Taylor devoted the last pages of his pamphlet to a refutation of this opinion by reiterating his belief that any scheme which brought the masses into contact with art was an asset to the aesthetic and moral fiber of the nation. Frith's picture, characterized by Taylor as "the prose of painting but fine prose," depicts a cross-section of life as seen in a railroad station. T h e central group comprises a newly married

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couple about to pass through the gates to the train as their friends wave affectionate farewells. On one side of the central group is a criminal handcuffed to detectives; on the other, are a recruiting sergeant and his heterogeneous party of prospective soldiers. T h e background figures include a family group sending two boys to school, a lady about to attempt a surreptitious violation of regulations by carrying her dog onto the train, and a sailor bidding farewell to his wife and infant child. T h e majority of Flatow's patrons were a little fearful lest they should not properly appreciate a painting by an Academy artist. T o make their task easier the dealer sold for a sixpence Taylor's descriptive pamphlet. In it the writer, avoiding any lengthy discussion of the artistic power of the picture, carefully describes the characters on the canvas and even supplies an imaginary account of their lives. For example, he describes the criminal as a man who, despite the pleadings of his wife, was led to embezzlement by bad company. Now, after a prolonged chase by detectives trained in the latest methods of their profession, he has been captured. Yet the arrest is not entirely tragic, for it brings him relief from fear and a troubled conscience. In his invention Taylor rarely loses an opportunity to stress the sentimental and didactic suggestions of the painting. Of a blackguard enlisted by the sergeant he tells a tearful story of the mother who, evil as her son may be, "still loves him, weeps on him, and stirs a slight spark in his heart." On the bridal scene, "the centre light of the picture both pictorially and morally," the writer becomes absurdly lyrical. "Oh lente, lente, currite, amoris equi. G o slow, dream horses of love that the feast of rapture served up only once in a life-time may not be cleared away too soon." Taylor made his most enduring contributions to the field of art as editor of the manuscript autobiographies left by Robert Haydon and Charles Leslie and of Leslie's unfinished biography of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Of the three books, that by Haydon is certainly the most interesting. In his associations and philosophy

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263

Robert Haydon, born in 1786 and killed by his own hand in 1846, was a true romanticist. A talented but eccentric and unsuccessful artist, his tempestuous spirit never adjusted itself to the world about it. His brush produced a few noted pictures, of which "The Entry to Jerusalem" is the most celebrated; but his autobiography is more enduring and greater than any of his paintings. This work, in three volumes, as edited from the artist's papers by Tom Taylor, was first published in the summer of 1853. 6 The editor's principal function was to abridge twenty-seven bulky folios containing diary entries, letters, and essays left by Haydon. Taylor also added many explanatory notes and critical comments and explained any deletions which he made in Haydon's material. Contemporary reviewers felt that in the main Taylor had done his work conscientiously and unostentatiously. The Edinburgh Review, for example, gave its general approval. "On the whole, however, a very difficult task has been executed, we think, with meritorious good faith and feeling." ' Taylor's attitude toward Haydon is, however, unsympathetic. Taylor was a sober Philistine; Haydon, a tempestuous Romanticist. T o Taylor the irregular genius of Haydon is no excuse for the artist's disregard for convention. He chides Haydon regularly for lack of consistent application to work. "With common « T a y l o r accepted the editorship of the autobiography only after it had been refused by many other literary persons. When H a y d o n committed suicide, he left a chest containing his memoirs at Elizabeth Barrett's W i m p o l e Street home. H e had previously indicated to Miss Barrett that he wished her eventually to edit these memoirs, and the thirteenth clause of his will repeated the suggestion. Despite her belief that it was her duty to accept the task, Miss Barrett refused because of her own literary work, her ill health, and Robert Browning's warning that the vindictiveness of H a y d o n ' s writing might provoke law suits. Sergeant T a l f o u r d , Haydon's executor, also declined the position as editor. It was then offered to Miss M i t f o r d , but she pleaded her age and recommended T a y l o r as a sane art critic who would prove a conscientious editor. T h e acid portraits, clever anecdotes, and touches of scandal in the autobiography helped to m a k e it such a success that in the fall T a y l o r prepared a second edition. N o f u r t h e r edition was printed until 1926 when the text prepared by T a y l o r was republished in a volume prefaced bv a discerning essay by Aldous H u x l e y on H a y d o n ' s life a n d character. J X C V I I I (Octobcr, 1853), 5 1 8 .

264

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energy," writes the editor, "he might have done wonders." He does not seem to have realized that unfortunately the energy of a man like Haydon cannot be turned on and off like water from a tap. Another source of annoyance to the editor is Haydon's haughty and careless attitude toward debt. Of the artist's condescending description of one of his many appearances in the Insolvent Court, Taylor comments: "In his account of his appearance there is evidently a kind of self-satisfaction. He would be a great man even in the Insolvent Court, and attitudinizes a great deal too consciously on that occasion." In Haydon's life and painting, moreover, the editor found none of the peace and conformity which characterized his own conduct and work, and he regularly censures the artist in passages such as the following. " T h e want of calm is alike apparent in his pictures and in his life, and both, while they contain much to command admiration and sympathy, fail of that true dignity before which the mind bows, so as to speak, involuntarily, and to which calm is essential." Seven years later than his work on Haydon's book Taylor performed a similar service for a totally dissimilar artist by editing from manuscript The Autobiographical Recollections by the Late Charles Robert Leslie. When he died, in 1859, Leslie had been recognized for more than thirty years as a painter of attractive domestic and historical scenes. Personally he was gentle of spirit, mild of manner, and modest of aim. His autobiography, more peaceful and infinitely duller than Haydon's, provides an unassuming account of his career and acquaintances. In editing Leslie's papers Taylor found no huge folios, but instead a methodical and careful account of the painter's life from birth until the time three years before his death when he abandoned the autobiography to devote himself to a biography of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Taylor completed the story of Leslie's life, inserted a few explanatory notes, made a judicious selection from Leslie's letters, and wrote an introductory essay in praise of Leslie's refined taste in painting, his satisfaction with simple subjects, his

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265

feeling for domesticity, and the essential morality of his work. John Murray, the publisher, assigned Taylor the task of completing Leslie's biography of Reynolds. So absorbed was Leslie in this work that even on his deathbed he dictated part of it. He had completed the first third and had gathered considerable data for the remainder. Taylor revised and supplemented this material, furnished commentaries on eighteenth-century life, added many notes, and traced the history of each of Reynolds's pictures from its earliest to its latest owner. In 1865 the biography, an extremely detailed and somewhat uninspired account of Reynolds's life, work, and environment, was published in two volumes totaling twelve hundred pages. A modern reader, accustomed to the psychological approach and vivid style of presentday biography, must inevitably find the book dull. Yet it contains more information on its subject than any other one source, and all later studies of Reynolds owe a tremendous debt to the extensive collection of facts compiled by Leslie and Taylor. Taylor's association with art led to the first appearance of his verses in book form. T o complete a volume of thirty fullpage drawings by the brilliant young artist Birket Foster, the Dalziel Brothers, noted printers and engravers, sought a series of short poems descriptive of the drawings. They first applied to Tennyson, but his wife declined for him. She wrote, "Poems do not come to him so." 8 Tennyson was a poet; Taylor, a writer of verse. T o the latter, accustomed to filling spaces in the Punch columns, the cutting of verses to fit preconceived patterns was an acceptable task. On June 5, 1863, he agreed to an offer of £ 1 0 0 for thirty short poems suitable to Foster's pictures. He further promised to have the work ready by the end of July and even offered to fit his writing more closely to a schedule by composing the poems at the rate of four a week.' Birket Foster's Pictures of English Landscape, as engraved by the Brothers Dalziel and accompanied by pictures in words by Tom Taylor, was published toward the close of 1863. The draws Edward and George Dalziel, The Brothers Dalziel, p. 143.

» Ibid.

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ings are distinctive and charming. T h e i r graceful style, enhanced by the engraving, depicts varying aspects of English rural life in scenes such as " T h e Mill," " T h e Farm Yard," and "A Winter Piece." For the pages opposite twenty-eight of the pictures Taylor wrote short poems, which are in sympathy with, rather than descriptive of, the scenes. His wife furnished the verses to accompany " T h e Smithy" and " T h e Brookside." Taylor's "word pictures" are what might be expected of a versifier writing against time and striving to adapt his lines to assigned subject matter. T h e rhyme and meter are accurate, though often strained, but the poems are seldom musical, imaginative, or strongly emotional. T h e i r tone is idyllic and extremely sentimental. A typical "word picture," " U n d e r the Moonbeams," may fairly represent the style used by Taylor throughout the book. Magic of light! but now I strayed Under a cope of darkling sky Whereon the gaunt oak's tracery Seemed but a blacker shade on shade. Sullen among the sighing reeds, The pitchy marish waters slept, And through the hair a horror crept As of a place for nameless deeds. When sudden from a drift of cloud, Burst the moon's disc, with arrowy light, Flooding the edges of the night, Like silver fringes on a shroud, Across the face of the black pool Rippled in smiles of gladsome beam, And searched the shade with level gleam, And ousted Horror's midnight rule. I thought of darkling souls, whose night Is lit with sudden burst of love And hope, irradiant from above, How all their blackness turns to light.

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267

T a y l o r ' s second and last volume of verse, Ballads and Songs of Brittany,

published in 1864, comprised poems which he

selected and carefully translated from the larger collection of Breton folk poetry contained in Barsaz-Briez,

by

Théodore

C l a u d e Henri Hersart, Vicomte de la Villemarqué. T a y l o r paid no attention to the scholarly problems suggested by L a Villem a r q u é regarding the antiquity of Breton poetry, but rather aimed to produce a book of interest to the lay reader. For an introduction on the history and geography of Brittany and for explanatory notes on the ballads he borrowed the material of his source. T h e English volume was handsomely printed and generously illustrated

by excellent artists such as

Tenniel,

Keene, Millais, and "Phiz." For the appendix Mrs. T a y l o r harmonized eighteen of the wild Breton melodies unearthed by La Villemarqué. She found some of the original music so irregular that it was unmanageable, but the airs which she arranged are attractive and recall old Welsh melodies. In his o w n work T a y lor set himself too stringent restrictions. H e attempted not only to provide a literal translation but also to approximate the original rhyme and meter. T o the uninitiated in Breton literature his verses are interesting, but their value as poetry is negligible. Since any detailed consideration of Taylor's abundant work for Punch

lies outside the intended scope of this book, only a

brief outline of this phase of his work will be given. In 1844, shortly after the first appearance of Punch,

T a y l o r , while still

in residence at Cambridge, was invited to write for the periodical by one of its founders, Ebenezer Landells. O n October 19, 1844, appeared his first contribution, " P u n c h to Messrs. Les Rédacteurs." French

10

T h i s was a satiric letter which reproached the

newspapers for their perturbation

over the

formal

reception tendered the French emperor by the D u k e of Wellington. For T a y l o r this work marked the beginning of a long in VII, 177.

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and increasingly important association with the famous weekly. For the issues of November, 1844, he furnished three columns. 1 1 By the end of 1847 he was contributing fifty columns annually. In 1855 he had won a place at the celebrated Wednesday night suppers at the Punch

table. U p o n the death of Shirley Brooks,

in 1874, T a y l o r advanced from his unofficial post as assistant editor to the editorship, a position which he held until his death in 1880. His seniority and dependability, rather than the brilliance of his writing, were responsible for his selection as editor. A l t h o u g h his work regularly occupied a prominent place in Punch,

he was not one of its most effective or celebrated

writers. T h e six-year period under his guidance marked the nadir of Punch

as a humorous publication. His attempts to

impart something of a serious and literary tone to the periodical displeased many readers. Others objected to the decided anti-Beaconsfield, anti-imperial policy which T a y l o r sponsored. Contemporary critics noted these failings, and a u d i b l e sighs of relief were breathed when T a y l o r ' s death freed the periodical from the depressing influence of his editorship. T h e contributions made to Punch

which can be identified as

by T a y l o r include short humorous prose sketches and poems of various kinds. T h e best of the prose h u m o r is a series of dialogues entitled " T h e Adventures of an Unprotected Female." For more than a year these sketches proved a definite attraction for readers. 12 T h e "Unprotected Female," a timid soul of uncertain years and features, was portrayed by the author as amusingly helpless when faced with such matter-of-fact details as those involved in boarding the correct bus or boat, purchasing a railroad ticket, ordering a meal, or entertaining a male caller. A f t e r he had married her to an extremely dilatory suitor, the author presented her as confronted with some of the problems of matrimony. 1 3 Taylor's other known prose contributions are See Spielman, The History of Punch. »2 Vols. X V I I - X V I I I (July, 1849-July, 1850).

11

13 Vols. X X - X X I (1851).

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269

largely short pieces of the "filler" type. T h e y include some jibes at Doctor Whewell of Trinity, 1 4 some burlesque lives of the Lord Mayors of London, 1 5 and a playlet, " T h e Atrocities of the Hair-Cutter." ia Except for the caricatures of the "Unprotected Female," Taylor's humorous work for Punch seems neither clever nor amusing. Taylor was more important to the periodical as a writer of verse than as a prose humorist. Many of his poems exhibit strong liberal tendencies. One of the most noted is "Our Flight with Russell," which accompanied a drawing by Doyle. 1T T h e author describes Punch and Lord Russell flying over London. T h e y see the squalor of the city and hear Respectability and Bumbledon oppose civic reform. Finally they listen to Newgate Prison proclaim her helplessness to fight crime unaided. Call Mother Church to help me; let Saint School do all she can; Give them the Child Crime to fight with, and leave me the full-grown man, Or soon the evil saps my wall, and down forthwith ye fall, Master Bumble, Sir Respectable, gig, mace, cocked hat, and all. T h e success of this poem inspired Taylor to write a similar piece, " O u r Flight with Louis Philippe," for another of Doyle's pictures.18 Here the author chides the French emperor for his autocratic errors of diplomacy. Other verses, certainly or almost certainly by Taylor, which also include strong liberal tendencies are "Britannia's Thanksgiving Day," 19 " T h e Fate of the Civic Narcissus," 20 " T h e Needlewoman's Funeral," 21 and " T h e Song of Cheap Customers." 22 Another type of Taylor's poetic work comprises verses of tribute to celebrated people. Such contributions include the lines of praise for Macready which begin "Is this the actor's death," 2S " T h e Laureate's Bust at Trinity," 24 in defense of the proposal that Tennyson's statue be placed in 1 4 IX, 34. " X I I I , 80. 20 X V I I , 228. 23 L X I V , 189.

" VIII, 215 et seq. isXIII.ijo. 21 X V I I I , 14. X X X V I I , 194.

1« VII, 267. 1» X V I I , 206. 22 VII, 255.

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the Cambridge Library while the poet was yet living, and " T h e Death of Whewell," 25 setting forth the debt of Trinity to the celebrated teacher. For Americans the most interesting of Taylor's Punch verses is doubtless the noted poem, "Abraham Lincoln Foully Assassinated." 28 Taylor's tribute takes the form of an accusation against Punch for his previous condescending attitude toward Lincoln. T o this charge Punch replies with an admission of guilt: Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer, To lame my pencil and confute my pen; T o make me own this hind of Princes peer, This rail-splitter a true born king of men. So he grew up, a destined work to do, And he lived to do it; four long-suffering years' Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report lived through, And then he heard the hisses change to cheers, The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise, And took both with the same unwavering mood; Till as he came on light, from darkling days And seemed to touch the goal from where he stood, A felon hand, between the goal and him, Reached from behind his back, a trigger prest— And those perplexed and patient eyes were dim, Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were laid to rest. In this poem Punch made an amazing retraction of its earlier enmity toward Lincoln. From its inception the periodical had treated all Americans as rustics and apt subjects for jest, but at the beginning of the Civil War its attitude was generally proNorthern. The cotton blockade and the Trent affair, however, transferred Punch with most of England to the side of the " L, 111.

28 XI.VIII, 182.

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271

Confederacy. T h e periodical then lashed out against the North with bitter caricatures of Lincoln and the symbolic Yankee, Brother Jonathan. The American President was regularly drawn with gorilla-like feature, and the prose and verse writers supported the insults of the cartoonists. The culminative effects of these attacks was so vicious that Taylor's verses symbolized a complete reversal of attitude and created a deep impression on both sides of the ocean.27 When Taylor replaced Shirley Brooks as editor of Punch, he also succeeded to the task of writing the history of Leicester Square which "Baron" Grant had asked Brooks to undertake. Albert Grant, commonly spoken of as "Baron," because of a title given him by the Italian King, was an unscrupulous promoter who before his eventual failure was regarded as something of a financial wizard. One of his favorite methods of gaining publicity was to make donations toward civic improvement. In 1874 he financed the conversion of the degenerate section of Leicester Square into an attractive park, and he requested Brooks to call the attention of all England to the rebuilt Square and—incidentally—to its benefactor. When he fell heir to the assignment, Taylor failed as the Baron's press agent. Although his book Leicester Square: Its Associations and Its Worthies contains many interesting glances at the social history of London and many attractive anecdotes concerning people who resided in or near the Square, it proved too scholarly, lengthy, and digressive to attract a wide public. T h e Baron himself was hardly mentioned until the last chapter, by See Walsh, Abraham Lincoln and the London Punch. T h e identity of the author of the Punch poem was at first unknown. Many thought Shirley Brooks to be the author; others, Tennyson. W. S. Layard, in his biography Shirley Brooks, p. 245, definitely established Taylor as the author of the poem by quoting from the entry for May 10, 1865, in Brooks's diary. T h e diary demonstrates that Brooks, Leigh, and Tenniel opposed publication of the poem. T h e discussion among the members of the staff was intense and bitter until the editor, Mark Lemon, handed down the decision in favor of printing the verses with the words, " T h e avowal that we have been mistaken is manly and just."

272

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which time many readers must have dropped by the wayside. Furthermore, the delay caused by the change in authors and the extent of Taylor's research prevented the work from being published until some weeks after the dedication of the new square, on July 2, 1874. This lack of timeliness was fatal to the sale of the book. T h e last book with which Taylor was associated, Pen Sketches from a Vanished Hand, was a posthumous collection of poems by Mortimer Collins, a journalist with a facility for versification, humorous novels, and light essays.28 When Collins died in 1876, his wife asked Taylor, who had known her husband as a fellow journalist, to assist in the preparation of his hitherto unpublished pieces. For the book, which appeared in 1878, Taylor wrote an introductory appreciation of Collins which is as genial and complimentary as possible to a man whom no stretch of imagination or claims of friendship could raise to the ranks of greatness. This essay, like almost all Taylor's work, was competently adjusted to the specific demand for it. He was primarily a popular playwright, but in other forms of literary activity he proved himself a capable workman. As an art critic he encouraged a nascent interest among laymen in painting and drawing. Lack of sympathy with Haydon did not prevent him from conscientiously editing an important autobiography. Through his revisions and additions he materially aided Leslie's autobiography and the biography of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Although he was not a successful editor, his dependable contributions were of some assistance in raising Punch to its place of prominence as a medium for humor and social criticism. His nondramatic writing reflects no trends in literary developments and is therefore less interesting than his plays, which constantly illuminate changing styles and impending growth in English 28 Stewart Ellis, in Wilkie Collins, Le Fanu and Others, presents a pleasant and entertaining sketch of Mortimer Collins.

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273

drama. All Taylor's writing, however, is that of an industrious and sound workman who aimed not at greatness or permanency for himself or his work, but rather at satisfying the demands of the public he so well understood.

THE

WORKS

OF TOM

TAYLOR

Plays T h e plays are arranged according to the chronological order of their first professional London performance. Each entry includes the title, the date and theater of the first London production, and the type of drama. Whenever Taylor had a collaborator or used the material of some other author the fact is properly indicated. At least the principal editions of the plays that were published are also listed. In reference to a few plays the exact day of the month on which the play was produced is in doubt, since the evidence, as represented by the texts of the plays, by periodical notices, and by subsequent lists of plays and dates are often in slight disagreement. In such instances I have selected, after careful consideration, the date which appears to be supported by the more authoritative evidence.

A T r i p to Kissengen, November 14, 1844, Lyceum, a farce with A. A. Knox; Dick's Standard Plays, No. 881. Valentine and Orson, December 23, 1844, Lyceum, a burlesque with Albert Smith and Charles Kenney. Whittington and His Cat, March 24, 1845, Lyceum, a burlesque, with Albert Smith and Charles Kenney; W. S. Johnson, London. Cinderella, May 12, 1845, Lyceum, a burlesque, with Albert Smith and Charles Kenney. Friends at Court, June g, 1845, Lyceum, a comedietta. T h e Enchanted Horse, December 26, 1845, Lyceum, a burlesque, with Albert Smith and Charles Kenney. T o Parents and Guardians, September 14, 1846, Lyceum, a comic drama; French's Standard Drama, No. 127; Lacy's Acting Edition, Vol. X I I I . Wanted a Hermit, May 18, 1847, Lyceum, a farce. Diogenes and His Lantern, December 28, 1849, Strand, a burlesque; Lacy, Vol. I. T h e Vicar of Wakefield, March 4, 1850, Olympic, a drama adapted from Oliver Goldsmith's novel; French's Standard Drama, No. 82; Lacy, Vol. II.

276

THE

WORKS

OF TOM

TAYLOR

Novelty Fair, May 20, 1850, Lyceum, a revue with Albert Smith; Lacy, Vol. I. T h e Philosopher's Stone, May 20, 1850, Strand, an extravaganza; Lacy, Vol. I. Prince Dorus, December 26, 1850, Olympic, an extravaganza; Lacy, Vol. III. Sir Roger de Coverley, April 21, 1851, Olympic, a drama suggested by the essays of Joseph Addison and Richard Steele; Lacy, Vol. IV. Little R e d Riding Hood, December 26, 1851, Adelphi, a burlesque. Our Clerks, March 6, 1852, Princess, a farce; Lacy, Vol. VI; Dewitt's Acting Plays, No. 94. Wittikind, April 12, 1852, Princess, an extravaganza based partially on Grimm's version of the story of the Seven Swans; Lacy, Vol. VI. Masks and Faces, November 20, 1852, Haymarket, a comedy vith Charles Reade; French's Standard Drama, No. 240; Spencer's Theater, Vol. I l l ; Bentley, London (1854); G. H. Lewes, ed., Selections from the Modern British Dramatists, Vol. II, Leipzig (1867). Slave Life, November 29, 1852, Adelphi, a drama adapted from Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Acting National Drama, Vol. X V I I . Plot and Passion, October 17, 1853, Olympic, a drama, subject iuggested by John Lang; Lacy, Vol. X I I I ; Dewitt, No. 61; Taylor, Historical Dramas. A Nice Firm, November 16, 1853, Lyceum, a farce; Lacy, Vol. X I I I . Harlequin Columbus, December 26, 1853, Olympic, a pantomime. T o Oblige Benson, March 6, 1854, Olympic, a comedietta, adapted from Un Service a Blanchard, by Eugene Moreau and Henry Delacour; Lacy, Vol. X I V ; French's Minor Drama, No. 86; Hilsenberg's Modern English Comic Theater, Series 5. T w o Loves and a Life, March 20, 1854, Adelphi, a drama with Charles Reade; French's Standard Drama, No. 165; Spencer's Theater, Vol. VI; Bentley, London (1854). T h e Barefaced Impostors, August 15, 1854, Canterbury Theater, a farce adapted from L'Ours at le Pasha, by Eugene Scribe, with George C. Bentinck and Frederick Ponsonby; Lacy, Vol. L X X . A Blighted Being, October 17, 1854, Olympic, a farce from the French vaudeville Une Existence decoloree; Lacy, Vol. X V I ; French's Minor Drama, No. 244; Spencer's Theater, No. 146. T h e King's Rival, October 2, 1854, St. James, a drama with Chailes

THE

WORKS

OF

TOM

TAYLOR

277

Reade; French's Standard Drama, No. 124; French's American Drama, No. 33; Bentley, London (1854). Still Waters Run Deep, May 14, 1855, Olympic, a drama from the story " L e Gendre," by Charles Bernard; Lacy, Vol. X X I I ; Spencer, Vol. XI, No. 84; Dewitt, No. 215. Helping Hands, June 20, 1855, Adelphi, a drama; Lacy, Vol. X X I I ; French's Standard Drama, No. 278; Spencer, Vol. X I I , No. 69. T h e First Printer, March 3, 1856, Princess, a drama with Charles Reade. Retribution, May 12, 1856, Olympic, a drama from the story " L a Peine du Talion," by Charles Bernard; Lacy, Vol. X X V I I ; French's Standard Drama, No. 1 5 1 . A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing, February 19, 1857, Olympic, a drama adapted from the play, Une Femme qui déteste son mari, by Madame Delphine de Girardin, Lacy, Vol. X X X V I I . Victims, July 8, 1857, Haymarket, a comedy; Lacy, Vol. X X X I I ; French's Standard Drama, No. 186. An Unequal Match, November 7, 1857, Haymarket, a comedy; Lacy, Vol. C X V I I I ; French's Standard Drama, No. 374. Going to the Bad, June 5, 1858, Olympic, a farce; Lacy, Vol. X X X V I I . Nine Points of the Law, April 1 1 , 1859, Olympic, a comedietta based on the story "Clover Cottage," by Marmion W. Savage; Lacy, Vol. X L ; Hilsenberg's Comic Theater, No. 6g. T h e House or the Home?, May 16, 1859, Adelphi, a drama from the play Péril dans la demeure, by Octave Feuillet; Lacy, Vol. X L I I . T h e Contested Election, June 29, 1859, Haymarket, a comedy; T . Chambers, Manchester (1868). Payable on Demand, J u l y 1 1 , 1859, Olympic, a drama; Lacy, Vol. XLI. T h e Fool's Revenge, October 18, 1859, Sadler's Wells, a poetic drama, freely adapted from the play Le Roi s'amuse, by Victor Hugo; Lacy, Vol. X L I I I ; French's Standard Drama, No. 330; Hurd and Houghton, New York (1868), edited by Edward Hinton; F. Hart 8: Co., New York, 1878; Taylor, Historical Dramas. Garibaldi, October 24, 1859, Astley's, a hippodrame. T h e Late Lamented, November 21, 1859, Haymarket, a comedy. A Tale of T w o Cities, January 30, i860, Lyceum, a drama from the novel by Charles Dickens; Lacy, Vol. X L V ; French's Acting Edition of Plays, No. 661.

278

THE

WORKS

OF

TOM

TAYLOR

T h e Overland Route, February 23, i860, Haymarket, a comedy; Lacy, No. 1853; Sergei's Acting Drama. A Christmas Dinner, April 23, 1860, Olympic, a comic drama from the French vaudeville Je dine chez ma mère. T h e Brigand and His Banker, October 1, i860, Lyceum, a drama based on the novel Le Roi des montagnes, by Edmond About. Up at the Hills, October 29, i860, St. James, a drama; Lacy, Vol. L. Babes in the Woods, November 10, i860, Haymarket, a comedy; Lacy, Vol. L. Also played as "Babes and Beetles." A Duke in Difficulties, March 6, 1861, Haymarket, a comedy From the story " A Duke's Dilemma" (Blackwood's Magazine, Vol. L X X I V , September, 1853). Our American Cousin, November 16, 1861, Haymarket, a comedy; French's Acting Drama; prompters' copies in New York Public Library. First presented at Laura Keene's Theater, New York, October 15, 1858. T h e Ticket of Leave Man, May 27, 1863, Olympic, a drama from the play Léonard by Édouard Brisebarre and Eugène Nus; Lacy, Vol. L I X ; French's Standard Drama, No. 329; H. L. Mencken, ed., The Drama, Vol. I l l , No. 13 (Aldine Publishing Co., London, 1889); J . Pohemus, New York (186-); M. J . Moses, ed., Representative British Dramas (Little, Brown, Boston, 1931). An Awful Rise in Spirits, September 7, 1863, Olympic, a burlesque. Sense and Sensation, May 16, 1864, Olympic, a burlesque-morality, Lacy, Vol. L X I I I . T h e Hidden Hand, November 2, 1864, Olympic, a drama, with Horace Wigan, from L'Aïeule, by Adolphe Dennery and Charles Edmond; Lacy, Vol. L X V . Settling Day, March 4, 1865, Olympic, a drama; Lacy, Vol. L X X X I I . T h e Serf, June 30, 1865, Olympic, a drama; Lacy, Vol. L X V I I I . Henry Dunbar, December 9, 1865, Olympic, a drama based on the novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon; Lacy, Vol. L X X V I . T h e Whiteboy, September 27, 1866, Olympic, a drama based on the novel by Mrs. S. C. Hall. A Sister's Penance, November 26, 1866, Adelphi, a drama with Augustus VV. Dubourg; Lacy, Vol. L X X V . Lesson for Life, December 26, 1866, Haymarket, a comedy. T h e Antipodes, June 8, 1867, Holborn, a drama. Narcisse, February 17, 1868, Lyceum, from Brachvogel's play. Won by a Head, March 29, 1869, Queen's, a drama.

THE

WORKS

OF

TOM

TAYLOR

279

Mary Warner, J u n e 21, 1869, Haymarket, a drama based to some extent on the novel Margaret Meadows, by Dr. William Gilbert; Sergei's Acting Drama, No. 469. New Men and Old Acres, October 25, 1869, Haymarket, a comedy, with Augustus W. Dubourg; Lacy, Vol. X C ; Dewitt, No. 115. 'Twixt Axe and Crown, January 22, 1870, Queen's, a poetic drama taken in part from the drama Elizabeth Prinzessin von England, by Madame Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer; Taylor, Historical Dramas. Handsome Is T h a t Handsome Does, September 3, 1870, Olympic, a comedy. Jeanne Dare, April 10, 1871, Queen's, a poetic drama; Sergei's Acting Drama; Dewitt; Taylor, Historical Dramas. Faust, 1871, Haymarket, Melbourne, Australia, a drama from Goethe's play. Dead or Alive, July 22, 1872, Queen's, a drama based on the novel Le Colonel Chabert, by Honorc de Balzac. Hamlet, May 3, 1873, Crystal Palace, a version of Shakespeare's play. Arkwright's Wife, October 6, 1873, Globe, a drama suggested by John Saunders; Taylor, Historical Dramas. Lady Clancarty, March 9, 1874, Olympic, a drama; French's Standard Drama, No. 368; Taylor, Historical Dramas. Anne Boleyn, February 7, 1876, Haymarket, a poetic drama; Taylor, Historical Dramas. Abel Drake, May 20, 1876, Princess, a drama in three acts, with John Saunders, suggested by Saunders's story, Abel Drake's Wife, privately printed by John Saunders (1875). Such Is the Law, April 20, 1878, St. James, a drama, with Paul Mcrritt. Love or Life, June 10, 1878, Olympic, a drama, with Paul Merritt, based on the narrative poem "Smugglers and Poachers," Tales of the Hall, Book X X I , by George Crabbe. Collected

Editions

Three Dramas, 1854 (Masks and Faces, T h e King's Rival, T w o Loves and a Life), by T o m Taylor and Charles Reade. Bentley, London, 1854. Historical Dramas (The Fool's Revenge, Jeanne Dare, 'Twixt Axe and Crown, Lady Clancarty, Anne Boleyn, Plot and Passion, Arkwright's Wife), by T o m Taylor. Chatto and Windus, London, 1877.

28O

Published

THE

WORKS

Works

OF

Containing

TOM

His

TAYLOR

Nondramatic

Writing

T h e Life of Benjamin Robert Hayrion, from his autobiography and journals, edited and compiled by Tom Taylor. 2 vols. London and New York, 1853. Autobiography and Memoirs of Benjamin Robert Haydon, edited from his journals by T o m Taylor, with a preface by Aldous Huxley. London and New York, 1926. re Lectures to Ladies on Practical Subjects. London, 1855; " vised, London, 1857, under title "On Sanitary Law," by T o m Taylor. T h e Local Government Act, 1858, and the Acts Incorporated therewith, together with the Public Health Act, 1858, explained by T o m Taylor. London, 1858. Autobiographical Recollections by the Late Charles Robert Leslie, edited with a prefatory essay on Leslie as an artist and selections from his correspondence by Tom Taylor. 2 vols. L.ondon and Boston, i860. T h e Railway Station, painted by W. P. Frith, described by T o m Taylor. London, 1862. Handbook of the Pictures in the International Exhibition of 1862, by Tom Taylor. London, 1862. Birket Foster's Pictures of English Landscape, engraved by the Brothers Dalziel, with pictures in words by T o m Taylor. London, 1863; edition de luxe, London, 1881. Ballads and Songs of Brittany, translated from the Barsaz-Briez of Vicomte Hersart de la Villemarque by T o m Tay lor. London, 1864. Attic Wit, flowing from the pens of Tom Taylor, Mark Lemon, etc. New York, 1864. Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, commenced by Charles Robert Leslie, continued and concluded by Tom Taylor. 2 vols. London, 1865. Abraham Lincoln Foully Assassinated; a poem with an illustration from the London Punch for May 6, 1865, republished with an introduction by Andrew Boyd. Albany, N.Y., 1868. T h e Theater in England, some of its shortcomings and possibilities, by Tom Taylor. London, 1871. Reprinted from Dark Blue, I, 746 ff. English Painters of the Present Day, London, 1871. "Philip Hermogenes Calderon and the St. John's Wood School" and "George

THE

WORKS

OF

TOM

TAYLOR

281

D. Leslie, A.R.A." by Tom Taylor. Reprinted from Portfolio, 1870. English Artists of the Present Day, London, 1872, "J. E. Hodgson, G. A. Storey," "YV. F. Yeames, D. M. YVynfield" by Tom Taylor. Reprinted from Portfolio, 1871. Leicester Square; its association and its worthies, with a sketch of Hunter's scientific character and works by Richard Owen, by Tom Taylor. London, 1874. Exhibition of the Works of F. Walker, with a preface by Tom Taylor. London, 1876. Pen Sketches by a Vanished Hand, edited from the papers of Mortimer Collins with notes by Tom Taylor and Mrs. M. Collins. London, 1879.

GENERAL

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Except for the brief references mentioned on p. 26 n, little detailed biographical information on Tom Taylor is available. Similarly, explicit criticism of his writing is scarce and scattered. In preparing this study I have found the following material of special assistance. Nineteenth-Century

Biography,

Reminiscences,

and

Criticism Archer, William. About the Theater. London, 1886. English Dramatists of T o d a y . London, 1882. Valuable survey of English playwrights active immediately prior to 1880. William Charles Macready. London, 1890. Baker, Henry Barton. T h e History of the London Stage. 2 vols. London, 1889; [2d ed., 1 vol.] London, 1904. Celebrated study of dramatic activity in London from beginnings to 1880. Concerned with actors, managers, and theaters rather than with playwrights. Bancroft, Sir Squire, and Marie Bancroft. Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft on and off the Stage. 2 vols. London, 1888. Important memoirs. Bristed, Charles Astor. Five Years in an English University. London, 1852. Brookfield, Charles, and Frances Brookfield. Mrs. Brookfield and Her Circle. New York, 1905. Burnand, Sir Francis. T h e " A . D . C . , " Being Personal Reminiscences of the University Amateur Dramatic Club. London, 1880. Cole, J o h n William. L i f e and Theatrical Times of Charles Kean. 2 vols. London, 1859. Coleman, J o h n . Charles R e a d e as I Knew Him. London, 1904. Fifty Years of an Actor's Life. London, 1904. Players and Playwrights I Have Known. 2 vols. London, 1890. Cook, Dutton. Nights at the Play. London, 1883. Play reviews reprinted from periodicals.

GENERAL

BIBLIOGRAPHY

283

Dalziel, Edward, and George Dalziel. The Brothers Dalziel. London, 1901. Darbyshire, Alfred. The Art of the Victorian Stage. London, 1907. Edwards, Henry Sutherland. Personal Recollections. London, 1900. Filon, Augustin. The English Stage, translated from the French by Frederick Whyte with an introduction by Henry Arthur Jones. London, 1897. A standard work of criticism. Fitzgerald, Percy, The Garrick Club. London, 1904. Frith, William. My Autobiography and Reminiscences. London, 1887. Golden, William E. A Brief History of the English Drama. New York, 1890. Hollingshead, John, Gaiety Chronicles. London, 1898. My Lifetime. London, 1895. Hughes, Thomas. "In Memoriam—Tom Taylor," Macmillan's Magazine, X L I I (August, 1880), 298-301. Reprinted in Living Age, CXLVI, No. 802, and Eclectic Magazine, XCV, No. 496. Layard, George Somes. A Great Punch Editor . . . Shirley Brooks. London, 1907. Lennox, Lord William Pitt. My Recollections. London, 1874. Plays, Players, and Playhouses. London, 1881. Lewes, George Henry. On Actors and the Art of Acting. London, 1875. Selections from the Modern British Dramatists. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1861. Mackaye, Percy. Epoch, the Life and Times of Steele Mackaye. 2 vols. New York, 1927. Marston, Westland. Our Recent Actors. London, 1890. Mathews, Charles James. The Life of Charles James Mathews, Chiefly Autobiographical, edited by Charles Dickens, 2 vols. London, 1879. Meredith, George. Letters. New York, 1912. Morley, Henry. The Journal of a London Playgoer from 1851 to 1866. London, 1866. Very valuable criticism. Neville, Henry Carside. T h e Stage. London, 1875. Pemberton, T . Edgar. John Hare, Comedian. London, 1895. The Kendals. New York, 1900. Life and Writings of T . W. Robertson. London, 1893. A Memoir of Edward Askew Sothern. London, 1889.

284

GENERAL

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Phillips, Emma Watts. Watts Phillips. London, 1891. Planché, James Robinson. T h e Extravaganzas of J . R. Planché, edited by T . F. Dillon Croker and Stephen Tucker. London, 187g. T h e Recollections and Reflections of J . R . Planché. London, 1872. An important autobiography. Purnell, Thomas ("Q"). Dramatists of the Present Day. London, 1871. Brief sketches reprinted from the Athenaeum. Reade, Charles L., and Compton Reade. Charles Reade . . . a memoir compiled chiefly from his literary remains. New York, 1887. Ross, Janet Ann. T h e Fourth Generation. New York, 1912. Three Generations of English Women. London, 1888. Sala, George A. Things I Have Seen. 2 vols. London, 1894. Scott, Clement. T h e Drama of Yesterday and Today. 2 vols. London, 1899. Comprehensive and interesting memoirs. Sheehan, John. " T o m Taylor," Dublin University Magazine, X C , No. 142 (August, 1877), 142-58. Sims, George. My Life. London, 1917. Spielman, Marion H. T h e History of Punch. New York, 1895. Terry, Ellen. T h e Story of My Life. New York, 1909. Ellen Terry's Memoirs. Gollancz, 1933. Tomlins, Frederick Guest. A Brief View of the English Drama. London, 1840. Vandenhoff, George. Leaves from an Actor's Notebook. New York, i860. Wallack, Lester. Memories of Fifty Years. New York, 1889. Whistler, James. T h e Gentle Art of Making Enemies. New York, 1890. Wills, Freeman. W. G. Wills. London, 1898. Winter, William. T h e Life and Art of Edwin Booth. New York, 1893. Yates, Edmund. Fifty Years of London Life. New York, 1885. Twentieth-Century

Criticism

Allen, Percy. T h e Stage Life of Mrs. Stirling. London, 1922. Archer, William. T h e Old Drama and the New. Boston, 1923. Arvin, Neil Cole. Eugene Scribe and the French Theater. Cambridge, Mass., 1924. Bellen, Eise Carel van. Les Origines du melodrama. Utrecht, 1927.

GENERAL

BIBLIOGRAPHY

285

Beilot, Hugh Hale. University College, London. London, 1929. Cordell, Richard A. Henry Arthur Jones and the Modern Drama. New York, 1932. Dickinson, Thomas H. T h e Contemporary Drama of England. London, 1920. Dye, William S. A Study of Melodrama in England from 1800 to 1840. State College, Pa., 1919. Eighteen Eighties, The, edited by Walter de la Mare. Cambridge, 1930Eighteen Seventies, T h e , edited by Harley Granville-Barker. Cambridge, 1929. Eighteen Sixties, The, edited by John Drinkwater. Cambridge, 1932. Ellis, Stewart Marsh. Wilkie Collins, L e Fanu, and others. London,

1931Elwin, Malcolm. Charles Reade. London, 1931. Hammond, James, and Barbara Hammond. James Stansfeld. London, !932Jones, Henry F. Samuel Butler. 2 vols. London, 1919. Lei'chs, Frederick A. H. T h e Early German Theater in New York. New York, 1928. Meeks, Leslie Howard. Sheridan Knowles and the Theater of His Time. Bloomington, Indiana, 1933. Nicholson, Watson. T h e Struggle for a Free Stage in London. Boston, 1919. Nicoli, Allardyce. British Drama. New York, 1925. Development of the Theater. London, 1927. A History of the Early Nineteenth Century Drama. Cambridge, 1930. Odell, George Clinton. Annals of the New York Stage. 11 vols. New York, 1927-40. Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving. New York, 1920. Sawyer, Newell Wheeler. T h e Comedy of Manners from Sheridan to Maugham. Philadelphia, 1931. Sherson, Eroll. London's Lost Theaters of the Nineteenth Century. London, 1925. Thorington, James M. Mont Blanc Sideshow: T h e L i f e and Times of Albert Smith. Philadelphia, 1934. Thorndike, Ashley Horace. English Comedy. New York, 192g. Tragedy. Boston, 1908. Walker, Hugh. T h e Literature of the Victorian Era. Cambridge, 1931.

286

GENERAL

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Walsh, William S. Abraham Lincoln and the London Punch. New York, 1909. Watson, Ernest Bradlee. Sheridan to Robertson; a Study of the Nineteenth Century London Stage. Cambridge, Mass., 1926. Wilson, Albert Edward. Christmas Pantomime. London, 1934.

INDEX Abel Drake, 222, 249 About, Edmond, 192 "Abraham Lincoln Foully Assassinated," 270 Academy, 250 Academy of Music, Philadelphia, 229 Acting, Style of, 1, 3, 7, 8, 256; subordination to leading part, 7; art of, at Adelphi, 13; triumph of simplicity and naturalness, 18; comic, 150 Actors, social status, 2: Haymarket comedians, 12; Olympic's outstanding performers, 16 f.: f a m e gained in T.iylcr plays, 17; B'jckstone'r Haymarket group, 150; tryout system, 215" Addison and Steele, 78 Adelphi, 9, 10, 47, 48, 50, 56, 58, 95. 1 1 7 , 146, 176, 2 i i , 2 1 7 ; methods and plays, 12-14; a r t actors, 13: Taylor's writings for, 82, 95 ff„ 98-106 "Adelphi drama," 13, 96, 97, 98, 1 1 6 , 254 "Adventures of an Unprotected Female," 268, 269 After-pieces, 65, 1 1 6 Aïeule, V, 203 Aladdin, 47 Albert, 9 Albery, James, 2 1 9 Alive at the Roots, 245n All for Her, 192 America, T a y l o r plays produced in, 4on, 69, 73, 78, 95, n o n , 124, 128, >3>", 137, 1400, 142, 147«, 157. 1 6 1 , 165, 1670, 172, 1 7 3 1 , 176, 180, 18571, 19271, 19371, 1 9 4 1 , 202, 20471, 2 0 9 1 , 2 1 1 1 , 218, 229, 236, 242 American rights to T a y l o r plays, 176, 24571 Americans at Crystal Exhibition, slang, '74

Amours de Jupitre et de Semite, Les, 21 Angelo, 8471 Angel or Devil, 142 Anne Boleyn, 2 2 1 , 238 f „ 249 Antipodes, The, 189, 2 1 3 , 219 A q u a r i u m , 78 Arabian Nights, 49 Archer, William, quoted, 8, 91 Arkwright's Wife, 2 2 1 , 245-49 Arlequin dans un oeuf, 21 Arliss, George, 14671 Arnold (Mrs. T h o m a s Taylor), 27 Arnold, Ma'thew, 3 Arrah-na-Pogue, 98 Art, criticisms of T a y l o r , 258-62; aesthetic and social values, 259 f., 261 Assassination Plot, 239, 241 Astleys, 9: type of workmanship presented in, 230 As You Like It, Calvert Memorial production, 24571 Athenaeum, 1 1 0 , 11871, 247; Taylor's letters, 20, 11671; excerpt, 34, 60, 66, 77' 93 f - ' 2 3 . >40, 143 f „ 167, 186, 202, 203, 207, 2 1 3 , 230 f „ 244, 251 "Atrocities of the Hair-Cutter," 269 Audiences, character of, 2, 3 Auditoriums, 5 Augier, Smile, 20 Aulnoy, Countess d', 54 Autobiographical Recollections by the Late Charles Robert Leslie, 264 Awful Rise in Spirits, An, 50, 57 Babes and Beetles, 172 Babes in the Wood, 1 5 1 , 168-72, 193 Baker, Barton, quoted, 14, 15 Ballads and Songs of Britanny, 267 Balzac, 243 Bancrofts, the, 20, 69, 94, 137, 143, 165, 18171, 185; Drury Lane regime, 222;

288

INDEX

Bancrofts (Continued) management o( the Haymarket, 12, 157; management of the Prince of Wales, 17, 18; production of Masks and Faces, 90, 92«, 94, 157 Bandmann, Daniel, 214, 243, 249 Bandmann, Mrs. Daniel, 243 Barefaced Impostors, The, 31 Barker, I.aura Wilson (Mrs. Tom Taylor), 1 1 1 , 112, 266, 267 Barker, Thomas, 1 1 1 Barnum's, 138 Barrett, Elizabeth, 263») Barry, Helen, 242, 248 BarsazBriez, 11 in, 267 Bataille de dames, La, 8471 Bateman, "Colonel" H. L., 217 Bateman, Kate, 94, 217, 218, 242 Beckett, 231 Beckett, Gilbert á, 48ft Bedford, Paul, 13 Beere, Mrs. Bernard, 142 Bell, Robert, 63 Bennett, Rosa, 93 Bentinck, G. Cavendish, 30, 31 Bernard, Charles, 1 3 1 , 136, 138 Between Block and Altar, 245" Billington, John, 213?), 251 Birch-Pfeiffer, Charlotte, 231 Bisson, Alexandre, 167« Black Eyed Susan, 22 Blackwood's Magazine, 172 Blake, William, 78, 157, 177 Blake's Songs of Innocence, 11 in Blighted Being, A, 117, 129 f. Bol I and, William, 30 Boniface, G. C., 1920 Booth, Edwin, 229 Booth's Theater, New York, 180, 218 Bottle, The, 64n Boucicault, Dion, 20, 25, 200, 214, 251; technique, 97; plays, 97, 98 Bovering, Miss, 204 Bower (theater), g, 64n Bowery Theater, New York, 140«, ig2n Boy's Pickwick, 64n Brackvogel, Adalbert, 214 Braddon, Mary Elizabeth, 209 Braid, G. R „ 218 Breton folks poetry and music, 267 Brigand and His Banker, The, 189, 192 f., 219 Brisebarre, Édouard, 197

Bristed, Charles Astor, quoted, 28 Britannia, 9, 57, 640 Brooks, Shirley, 1 1 3 , 268, 271, 3 7 m Broome Street House, 177 Brough, Robert, 37 Brough, William, 37 Brougham, John, 1 3 m , 1400, 157, 178 Browning, Robert, 62, 2Ô3n Brownlow, Earl of, 27 Buckstone, John Baldwin, 17, 22, 97, 149, 157, 160, 164, 166, 167, 168, 171, 172, 179, 185, 187, 188; management of the Haymarket, 1 1 , 12, 150 t., 172; voice and acting, 151, 156 Bulwer-Lytton, 1 1 , 20, 24 Burke, lone, 2ogn Burlesques and extravaganzas, 35-61, 63; golden age at Strand, 10, 37; Planché's work, 35-38 passim; Taylor's, 38-61 Burletta, 4n Burnand, Sir Francis Cowley, 37; quoted, 1 1 3 Burnett, actor, 124 Burton, William, 6g, 138 Burton's Theater, 69, 73, 78, 95, i4on Butler, Samuel, 253 Byron, Lord, 230 Byron, H. J., 37, 38, 219 Calderon, Philip, 260 Calvert, Charles, 245»! Cambridge, Taylor's academic career at, 28-32 Camp at the Olympic, 118 Carlisle, Miss, 239 Caste, 94n, 162 Cataract of the Ganges, The, 6 Cavendish, Ada, 17, 242, 244, 250 Cecil, Arthur, 69, 94, 239 Celeste, Mme., 13, 1 7 , 9 6 ^ 102, 103, 192, 193; management of Lyceum, 188, 190, 192, 193 Chain of Guilt, The, 64« Chanfrau, Francis, 69 Charing Cross Theater, 165 Charles I, 231 Charles II, 4n Chatterton, F. B „ 10 Chekov, Anton, 1 1 7 Chippendale, William, 12, 17, 150, 157, 164, 185, 187

INDEX Chippendale, Mrs. William, 185 Christie Johnstone, 83 Christmas Dinner, A, 117, 144 Cinderella, 46 (T., 640, 67 City of London, g, 640 Clarke, Conrad, i4on Clarke, Constania, 4cm Clarke, John, 160, 172 Clarke, John Sleeper, 12, 69, 172 Clayton, John, 250 Clover Cottage, 143 Coeline, 21 Coghlan, Rose, 95, 250 Coleman, John, 245»!; quoted, 32, 1 1 2 Colleen Bawn, The, 97 Collins, Mortimer, 272 Collyer, actor at Lyceum, 46, 49 Colman, George (elder), 20, 63 Colonel Chabert, Le, 243 Comédie-vaudeville, 21, 22, 65, 116 Comediettas, 65 f., 116; one of cleverest, 124; difference between farce and, 127 Comedy, manner of acting, 8; Haymarkct the 1-oire cf, 1 1 , 12; rorric drama«, 22, 62, 63, 65, 66; curtain-raisers and after pieces, 65 t., 116; Taylor's Haymarket dramas of 1857-70, 149-87 Comic contributions to Punch, 268 f. Compton, Henry, 12, 74, 80, 150, 157, 164, 166, 172, 173, 186, 218 Conservatism, 10, 11 Contemporary life, movement toward realistic treatment of, 221, 222 Contested Election, The, 1 5 1 , 165-67, 187 Convicts, Jefferson plays before, 202 Conway, Mrs., 138, 142/» Cook, Dutton, 217; quoted, 218 Copyright regulations, absencei of, 116 Corsican Brothers, The, 14 Costar, Laurens, 1 1 0 Costuming, 1, 3, 5, 6 Couldock, Charles, 177 Courier of Lyons, The, 14 Court Theater, 78, 160, 185 Covent Garden, 1, 4, 62 Coyne, Stirling, 74, 77, 142 Crabbe, George, 251 Cricket on the Hearth, The, 49 Critic, The, 36 Cromwell, 245 n Crowd, drama for the, 19, 23; Taylor's

289

work in accord with tastes of, 200, 219, 254 Crystal Palace, 222, 244 Crystal Palace Exposition, 53, 174 Curtain-raisers, 65, 116 Daffodils, 11 in Daily News, 32, 33 Dalziel Brothers, 265 Dan'l Druce, 106 Davenant, Sir William, 4n Davenport, A. H., 78 Davenport, E. L „ 20971 Davenport, Fanny, 95 Davidge, William, 128, 1300 Davis, John Chandler Bancroft, 176, 177 Dead Heart, The, 192 Dead or Alive, 221, 243 Delacour, Henry, 124 Dennery, Adolphe, 203 Dibdin, Tom, 77n Dickens, Charles, 58, 190 Diderot, Denis, 214 D'ogene< and His I.antern, ¿9, 50-fj2, 58. 6471, 74, 117 Diplomacy, 94 Discreet Princess, The, 52 Doll's House, A, 206 Dolly Reforming Herself, 170 Dombey and Son (play), 640 Domestic drama, 103, 106, 255 Domesticity, tribute to, in plays, 108 Doyle, Richard, 269 Drama, types permitted, or forbidden, by Lord Chamberlain, 1, 2, 4, 62: worst in the world, 1, 24; confusion in styles, 2; changes and improvements effected, 3, 5, 255 f.; nomenclature to distinguish original from borrowings, 20, u 6 ; development of playwriting, 1840-80, 23 ff.; styles in state of confusion, 62 f.; story of development of, traced in work of Taylor, 63; short comic pieces, 65 ff., 116; domestic, 103, 106; poetic plays and playwrights, 221 ff.; see also Comedy; Melodrama; Tragedy Dramas, payments for, 19, 176, 199; publication in book form, 249 Dramatists, see Playwrights Drawing-room drama, 23, 24, 118, 255 Drunkard's Children, The, 6471

290

INDEX

Drury Lane, i , 4, 6, 9, 10, 62, 222 Dubourg, Augustus, collaboration with T a y l o r , 1 5 1 , 1 8 1 , 190, 2 1 1 Duke in Difficulties, A, 1 5 1 , 172 f. "Duke's D i l e m m a , T h e , " 172 Dumas fils, 20 Dundreary, L o r d . Sothern's performance, 174, 177-80 " D u n d r e a r y h o p , " 178, 179, 180 Dyott, actor, 157 Edinburgh Review, excerpt, 263 Edmond, Charles, 203 Edwards, Sutherland, quoted, 6 Effingham, 9 Egan, Pierce, 200 Election, The, 1670 Elizabeth, Queen, play based on plight o f , as princess, 231 Elizabethan tragedy, 62 Ellislon, W i l l i a m , 6 Elwin, Malcolm, u 8 n Emden, Mrs., 144 Emery, Samuel, 17, 96n, 1 2 3 , 128, 137, 140, 245, 248 Enchanted Horse, The, 46 ff., 49, 64*1 England, History of, 239, 2 4 m "English Artists of the Present Day," 26on "English Painters of the Present Day," 26on " E n t r y to Jerusalem, T h e , " 263 Epoch, appendix cited, 245« Existence decolorée, Une, 129 Extravaganzas, 36; see also Burlesques and extravaganzas Fairbrother, Miss, 46 Fair Rosamond, 640 Faith, Hope, and Charity, 57 Falconer, E d m u n d , 98 Farce, 65, 73; difference between comedietta and, 127 Farley, Charles, 5 Farren, Henry, 74, 78, 80 Farren, William, Sr., 8, 16, 74, 77n, 78, 80 Farren, William, J r . , 74, 78, 160, 164, 166, 172 Faucit, Helen (Lady M a r t i n ) , 49, 24571 Faust, Taylor's adaptation, 243 Fechter, Charles, 18, 25, 203*1; management of the L y c e u m , 15 f.

Féerie, 2 1 : rhymed pieces in imitation of, 54 Femme qui déteste son mari, Une, 140, 141 Feodora, 940 Feuillet, Octave, 146 Feu Toupinel, 167« Fine Arts Quarterly, 260 First President, Our (T/if),17371 First Printer, The, 82, n o , 2 4 5 1 Fisher, Charles, 95, 140«, 194« Fiske, Minnie Maddern, 142 Fitzball, Edward, 22 Fitzwilliam, Mrs., 164 Five Years in an English University (Bristed), 28 Flatow, Louis, brings masses into contact with art, 261 Florence, Mr. and Mrs. W. J . , 202 Floyd, W. R „ 194« Flying Scud, 214 Fool's Revenge, The, n 6 n , 223-30, 235, 249, 255; T a y l o r ' s share in composition of, 227 ff. Foote, Lydia, 17, 207 Foote, Samuel, 4n, 1 1 Forbes-Robertson, 252 Ford's Theater, Washington, i8on Formosa, 98 Foster, Birket, Pictures of English Landscape, 265 Fouché, Joseph, play based on, 118 ff. Fowler, Emily, 17, 242 Frampton, dancing master, 49 Frank Heartwell, 640 Free stage established, 2, 4, 62 French theater, influence of, 3, 19 ff., 109, 256; acting, 14; romantic drama introduced by Kean, 14, 15; technique of, learned at Olympic, 16; availability of plays o f , 19; forms which exerted greatest influence, 2 1 ; the "well-made" play, 22, 65, m f f . ; "Olympic d r a m a " indicative of influence, 1 1 4 ; T a y l o r ' s method of modifying plot, etc., 127, 147; see also Scribe, Eugene Friends at Court, 64, 66 Frith, William, 235, 261 Gaiety (theater), 9, 10, 38, 254 Galsworthy, J o h n , 24, 1 1 7 , 2 0 1 , 25^ G a n n o n , Mary, 78, 157

INDEX Garibaldi, 230 f. Garrick (theater), 9 Garrick Club, 83n, 92 Getidre, Le, 1 3 1 , 136 General Board of Health, 33 Gentleman's Magazine, 65n Ghosts, 57 Gilbert, J o h n , 138, 2090 Gilbert, William, 1 1 , 20, 25, 106, 2 1 8 0 , 219, 249 Girardin, Mme de, 140, 141 Globe (theater), 245 Glover, Julia, 74, 78 Glyn, Miss, 109 Godwin, Edward, Ellen Terry's union with, 1 1 2 Going to the Bad, 1 1 7 , 130 f. Gold, 840 Goldsmith, Oliver, plays based on novel, 74, 77, 78 Gore, Mrs. Charlotte, 63 Gougenheim, Adelaide, 1 ion Gougenheim, Josephine, u o n Government aid to artists, 260 Grace Dai ling, 97 Gralin, Lucile, 49 Grant, Albert ("Baron"), 271 Graphic, art critic, 258 Grecian (theater), 9 Green Bushes, 97 Green Hills of Tyrol, The, 6471 Grimm's version of the "Seven Swans," 56 Gutenberg, J o h n , 1 1 0 Gwynne, Nell, heroine of The King's Rival, 107 If. Gypsy Bride, 6471 Hall, Sir Benjamin, 34 Hall, Mrs. S. C „ 2 1 1 Halliday. Andrew, 37 Hamlet, Taylor's version, 222, 243, 244 "Handbooks" on art, 260, 261 Handsome Is That Handsome Does, 1 5 1 , 186 Hanley, J . G., 192» Harcourt, Charles, 239 Hare, J o h n , 10, 160, 185, 242 Harlequin Columbus, 50, 57 Haunted Man, 58 Hauptmann, Gerhart, 1 1 7 Haydon, Robert, autobiography, 258, 202 64; Taylor's attitude toward, 263

291

Haymarket, 4, 9, 10, 1 7 , 63, 74, -]-¡n, 82, 93, 94, 142. 188, 193, 214, 2 1 8 , 239; early history, conservatism, 11; managers, 11 f.; T a y l o r comedies, 14987. 255; attempt to keep full-length comedy form alive, 149 f.; Buckstone's management, 150 f.; waning success of entertainment as a distinct form, 187; Taylor's work for, 255 Hazlewood, Colin, 57 Health conditions, Taylor's interest in, 33 fHealth Laws of 1858, The (Taylor), 34 Helping Hands, 5'-¡n, 82, 103-6, 145 Henri. Miss, 239 Henriques, Madeline, 95, 165, 18571, 1 9 4 1 , 20971 Henry Dunbar, 189, 209-11, 219 Heraud, Abraham, 222 Herbert. Miss, 17, 140 Herrick's Daffodils, 11 in Herring, Fanny, ig2n Hidden Hand (American play), 204n Hidden Hand (Taylor), 189, 190, 203 f„ 219 High, Low, Jack, and the Game, 36 Hinton, Henry L., quoted, 23on Historical Dramas (Taylor), 236, 849 History of England, 239, 24 m Hodgson, J . E., 260 Hodson, Henrietta, 94 Hoey, Mrs., 78. 95, 138, 157. 1940 Hogarth, 144, 260; portrait of Peg Woffington, 92 Holborn, 2 1 3 , 214 Holcroft, T h o m a s , 21 Holland, George, 4on, 69, 128 Homeopathic Cure, The, 2450 Horner, Fred, 167n House or the Home? 1 1 7 , 1 4 6 ^ , 167« House of the Rothschilds, i46n Howard, Louisa, 80 Howe, Henry, 12, 150, 160, 187, 218 Hughes, Miss, 202 Hughes, T h o m a s , 252 Hugo, 20, 1 1 5 , 223, 227, 255; theater classification, 18 f. H u m b l e society seriously treated, 106 H u n t , Holman, 259 Huxley, Aldous, 263n Ibsen, Henrik, 2, 1 1 7 , 148 Illuminated Magazine, 33

292

INDEX

Illustrated London News, T a y l o r ' s articles, sg; excerpts, 53, 57, 70, 95, 168, 172, «51 International Exhibition, Handbook to Pictures in the, Î 6 I Irving, H e n r y , a 17 Jeanne Dare, 11 in, 2 2 1 , 236, 2450, 249 Je dine chez ma mère, 144 Jefferson, J o s e p h , 1 6 1 , 177, 178; before convict audience, 202 Jerrold, Douglas, 22, 33 J o a n of Arc, see Jeanne Dare Jocko, 36 Johnstone, actor, 1 3 0 « Jones, Henry A r t h u r , 2, 24, 98, 127, 148, 170. 199, 248, 255 Jones, Mrs. W. G „ ig2n Kean, Charles, 16, 18, 56, 70, 1 1 0 , 1 1 6 , 222; as p i o d u i e i and manager, 1 4 ! . ; returns original plays to control of authors, 245« Kean, E d m u n d , 7 Keeley, Mary (Mrs. Robert), 47, 49, 65, 66, g6n, 104, 193; management of Lyceum, 1 7 , 39 ft., 70; as actress, 39, 46, 48, 49. 69 Keeley, Mary (daughter), 47 Keeley, R o b e r t , 47, 65, 102, 104; management of the Lyceum, 17, 39 ff., 70; as actor, 39, 46, 48, 69 Keene, L a u r a , 95, l i o n , 124, 138, 1 6 1 , 178(1, i8on; production of Our American Cousin, 177 ff.; see also L a u r a Keene's theater Kelley, Charles, 248; marriage to Ellen Terry, 112 Kemble, H e n r y , 69 Kemble, J o h n , 5, 7 Kendal, William, 137, 142, 218, 242 Kendal, Mrs. William, 137, 142, 242 Kenney, Charles, collaboration with T a y l o r , 40, 46 ff., 53 Kent, Charles, 48n Killigrew, T h o m a s , 4n King John, 5 King of the Mountains, The, i93n King's Rival, The, 82, 106-10 Knight of the Burning Pestle, The, 36 Knowles, Sheridan, 62 K n o x , A. A., 39 Kyrie, H a r o l d , 239

Lacy, T . H., 249 Ladies' Battle, The, 84n Lady Clancarty, 2 2 1 , 222, 239-42, 345»!, 249. 255 Lady of Lyons, The, 49 Lady Withsdale, 245n L a f o n t a i n e , A n n i e , 165 Landells, Ebenezer, 267 L a n g , J o h n , 1 i8n L a n g t r y , Lillie, 165 Late Lamented, 151, 167t. L a u r a Keene's theater, 124, 1 4 7 " , 1 6 1 , 165, i67n I.avendar Sweep, T a y l o r ' s home, 1 1 1 Lawyers' Clerks, 73: see also Our Clerks L a y a r d , W. S „ 2 7 i n Leah, 2 1 7 Leclercq, Carlotta, 1240, 142, 218 Lectures to Ladies on Practical Subjects, 34 Legal rights of theaters, 1, 2, 4, 62 I .ego u v i , Ernest, 840 Leicester Square (history), 271 Leigh, Ellen, 2 1 1 Lemon, M a r k , 48n, 57n, 82, 95, 2 7 m L e n n o x , L o r d , quoted, 30, 31 Leonard, 197, 199 Leslie, Charles R o b e r t , autobiography, 258, 262, 264; biography of Sir J o s h u a Reynolds, 258, 262, 264 f.; T a y l o r ' s appreciation o f , 259, 264 Leslie, George, 260 Lesson for Life, 1 5 1 , 180 Lewes, George, quoted, 167 Lewis, A r t h u r , 203n Liars, The, 127 Licensing Act of 1737, 4n Life and Death of Jeanne d'Arc (Parr), 236n Life Boat, The, 640 Lillo, George, 201 Lincoln, shot at performance of Our American Cousin, i8on; Punch's attitude toward, and poem on, 270 Liston, J o h n , 8 Little Red Riding Hood, 50, 56 London Assurance, 20, 94*1 London Merchant, 201 London theater, see T h e a t e r Lonelye Spot, A, 640 L o r d C h a m b e r l a i n , control over theater, 1 , 4; made regulator of stage, 4 n; permits production of melo-

INDEX drama,

22; pettiness of

censorship,

49" L o r d Mayors of L o n d o n , 269 Lost Husband, The, 840 Louis XI, 14 Love or Life, 221, 251 f. Luke the Laborer, 12, 22, 97, 98, 103 L y c e u m , L o n d o n , g, 10, 480, 50, 54, 65, 73, 116, 142, 203n, 204, 214, 217: u n d e r Fechter's m a n a g e m e n t , 15 f.; Keeley's, 17, 39, 46 ff., 70; M a d a m e Celeste's. 188, 190, 193 L y c e u m , N e w Y o r k , 235 M a c a u l a y , T h o m a s B., 239, 24 m M a c k a y e , Percy, 2430 M a c k a y e , Steele, 243 f., 245; T a y l o r a c k n o w l e d g e s as c o l l a b o r a t o r in o r d e r to assign A m e r i c a n rights to, 24571 M a c r e a d y , W i l l i a m C h a r l e s , 7, 49, 222; retired f r o m m a n a g e m e n t of D r u r y L a n e , 10; sponsors revival of p o e t i c tragedy, 62; verses of t r i b u t e to, 269 M a d d e r n , M i n n i e (Mrs. Fiske), 142 Maigaret Meadows 2'8n M a r s h a l l , Polly, 69 Marston, Westland, 63, 145, 222; q u o t e d , 8, 130 M a r t i n , L a d y , 245?» Mary, Queen of Scots, 6 M a r y l e b o n e (theater), 9 Mary Warner, 189, 2 1 4 1 9 , 254, 255 Masks and Faces, 11, 63, 82, 83n, 84-95, 137, 249, 255; a p p r a i s e d , 90 ff.; e v o l u tion, 92; productions, 93 ff. Masses, i n f l u e n c e of art u p o n , 259, 261 Mathews, Charles, 18, 53, 640, 73, 74, 150, 157, 166, 168, 180: j o i n t m a n a g e m e n t of the O l y m p i c , 7 ff., 39; c h a n g e in acting m e t h o d s , 7, 8; contrasted styles, 167 M a t h e w s , Mrs. Charles, 157, 167, 168 Maud's Peril, 98 M a z u r i e r , 36 M e a d , T o m , 109 M e l f o r t , Mrs., 137 M e l o d r a m a , earliest in E n g l a n d , 21; allowed in all theaters, p o p u l a r i t y , 22; tvpes of native, 97 f.: b e c o m e s m i n o r f o r m of e n t e r t a i n m e n t , 98; n a t i v e , distinguished f r o m d o m e s t i c d r a m a , 103, 106 Mélodrame, 21 f., 96

293

Meredith, George, " T o a Friend Recently L o s t — T . T . , " 253 M e r i v a l e , H e r m a n , 192, 219, 231 M e r r i t t , P a u l , w o r k o f , 250; c o l l a b o r a tion w i t h T a y l o r , 221, 2440, 250, 251 M e s t o y e r , E m i l y , 18571 Middleman, The. 248 Middlemarch, 246 Miser's Daughter, The, 6471 M i t c h e l l , C h a r l o t t e , 95 M i t f o r d , Miss, 2630 M o d e r n theater, created, 18; O l y m p i c plays lay f o u n d a t i o n s for, 148 Moncrieff, William. 6 Money, 11, 940 M o n t a g u e , H . J., 137, 158, 211 M o r a l i n f l u e n c e of art, 259, 261 M o r a l i t y , V i c t o r i a n , 108 M o r a n t , Fanny, 194« M o r e a u , E u g e n e , 124 M o r l e y , H e n r y , q u o t e d , 13, 98, 123. 138, 142, 144, 157, 165, 193, 204 Morning Chronicle, 32 M o r t o n , J o h n , 97 M o r t o n , T h o m a s 63, 07 M u r r a y , J o h n , 265 M u r r a y , L e i g h , 14, 74, 78, 80, 93, 102, 104, 137, 140 M u r r a y , Mrs. L e i g h , 74, 80 Musical a n d n o v e l t y e n t e r t a i n m e n t s , 4 Musical c o m e d y , 38 M u s i c at T a y l o r h o m e , 111 Narcisse, 189, 214, 2 i g , 243 N a r r a t i v e in O l y m p i c d r a m a , 114, 116 N a t i o n a l T h e a t e r , New Y o r k , 204« N e i l s o n , A d e l a i d e , 239 Neveu de Rameau, Le, 214 N e v i l l e , H e n r y , 17, 202, 204, 207, 208, 211, 242, 251 New Men and Old Acres, 11, 149, 151, 181-86, 187, 255, 256 " N e w " plays. 20, 116 N e w Y o r k presentations, see A m e r i c a N i b l o ' s G a r d e n , 229 Nice Firm, A, 65, 73 f. N i c o l l , A l l a r d v c e , q u o t e d , 3; lists of plays, 48, 6471; confuses T o m and T h o m a s P. T a y l o r , 64 Nine Points of the Law, 117, 142-44 N o r t o n , W . H., 1941, 2ogn Nox/elty Fair, 50, 53 N u s , E u g e n e , 197

294

INDEX

Odell, Professor, quoted, 167H Old Stagers of Canterbury, 30-32 Olivia, 78 Olympic, London, 9, 1 7 , 18, 50, 5 2 , 5 7 , 840, 95, 1 5 1 , 186, 239. 2 5 1 ; under management of Vestris, 5 ff., 16, 6 5 0 ; of Mathews and Vestris, 7 ff.; importance in development of drama, 16; outstanding performers, 16 f., 2 0 3 0 ; drawing-room dramas, 23; Taylor's writings for (before i860), 82, 1 1 4 48 (after i860), 197, 203, 204, 206, 311, 2 5 5 ; distinctive type of entertainment, 1 1 6 , 1 1 7 : leading playwrights, 1 1 7 ; plays lay foundations for modern English theater, 148; tarnished luster revived, 201 Olympic, New York, 4 0 0 Olympic Devils, 36, 50 "Olympic d r a m a , " defined, 1 1 4 ; popularity, 1 1 6 Olympic Revels, 36, 50 O'Neill, Eugene, 1 1 7 Only Hay, The, 192 Open Sesame, 48« Opera bouffe, 10 Original Plays (Gilbert), 20 " O r i g i n a l " plays, 20, • 15 f. Otway, T h o m a s , 227 Our American Cousin, 5 6 n , 1 5 1 , 16771, 173-80, 187, 2 5 5 ; Wallack's story of first production, 176-78; Lord Dundreary, celebrated comic part, 178 f.; brought from America to London, 179; Lincoln shot at performance of, i8on Our Clerks, 65, 70-73, 8 1 , 127, 249, 255 Our (The) First President, 1730 " O u r Flight with Louis Philippe," 269 " O u r Flight with Russell," 269 Ours, 20, 94 Ours et le Pasha, L', 31 Overland Route, The, 1 5 1 - 5 8 , 187, 249, 255 Owens, J o h n E., 161 Oxenford, J o h n , 1 1 7 , 1 3 7 ; quoted, 11 Painting, Taylor's views on, 258-66 passim Pantomime dialoguee, 21 Parodies, 36, 37; see also Burlesques Parr, Harriet, 2 3 6 « Parselle, \V., 93

Pauline, 14, 137 Pavilion (theater), 9 Payable on Demand, 1 1 7 , 144-46, 147 Peake, Richard, 6 5 0 Peep O' Day, 98 Peg Woffmgton, 93n Peine du Talion, La, 138 Pen Sketches from a Vanished Hand, 272 Pepper, Professor, 58 Péril dans la demeure, 146 Peters, Charles, 177 Pettit, Henry, 250 Phelps, Samuel, 16, 1 7 , 18, 63, 2 2 2 , 2 2 3 , 229; management of Sadler's Wells, 10: place in theatrical history, 11 Phillips, Watts, 98, 192 Philosopher's Stone, The, 50, 52, 58 Pièce bien faite, 2 1 , 22 Pike, M. B „ 1 9 2 1 Pilot, The, 12, 22 Pincotl, Leonora, 39; see also W'igan, Mrs. Alfred Pinero, Arthur Wing, 2, 24, 106, 148, 238. 2.55 Pixérecourt, Guilbert de, 20, 2 1 , 96 Placide, Henry, 69 Planché, James R., works and their influence, 6, 16, 2 1 , 25, 3 5 - 3 8 passim, 40, 46, 50, 5 2 , 54, 1 1 8 Ploy. 9 4 " Playhouses, conditions between 1840 and 1880, 1, 3, 4-18; those permitted, or forbidden, to present spoken d r a m a , 1, 2, 4, 62; made comfortable and pleasant, 3, 5: metropolitan, suburban, 9; most famous, 10; those T a y l o r was dramatist for, 17 Playwriting, actual developments, 1840 to 1880, 23 ff. Playwrights, plot construction, 3 , 17, 2 2 , 65, 1 1 4 , 127; attempts to satisfy demands of actors and audiences of specific houses, 1 7 ; work of. examined, 18 ff.; French influence, 19 ff.; prices paid to, 19, 176, 199; comedy and tragedy as models for, 62; Olympic writers, 1 1 7 ; Olympic plays teach technique for constructing drama of the contemporary scene, 148; royalty system, 199; try-out system, 2450 Plot and Passion, 1 1 7 , 1 1 8 - 2 4 , 147, 148, 203, 249, 255

INDEX Plot construction, French influence, 3, 127; development of technique, 1 7 ; "well-made" play, 22, 65, 1 1 4 Plunket, Ada, 140^1 Poems, Taylor's, 265-67, 268, 269-70 Poetic plays and playwrights, 222, 2 3 1 ; work of T a y l o r , 221 ff. Ponisi, Mme, 95 Ponsonby, Frederick, 30, 31 Poole, J o h n , 65« Portfolio, 260 Poynter, Mrs., 160 Prejudices against theater, 1, 3 Pre-Raphaelites, 259 Prices for dramas, 19, 176, 199; influence of royalty system, 199 Prince Dorus, 50, 54-56, 255 Prince of Wales (theater), g, 10, 1 1 , 17, 90, 94, 150: under management of the Bancrofts, 17, 18; conversion of Queen's T h e a t e r into, 18 Princess, g, 50, 65, 70, 1 1 0 , 222, 249; under Kean's management, 14 f. Provincial theaters, plays tested in, "M5" Provost, Mary, n o n Publication of plays in book f o r m , 249 Punch, 178; T a y l o r ' s association with, 33, 252. 267-71, 272; attitude toward Lincoln and U.S., 270 Pure Gold, 145 Purnell, T h o m a s ("Q"), 1 1 0 , u 6 n , n 8 n " Q " (Thomas Purnell), 1 1 0 , i i 6 n , n 8 n Queen Mary, 231 Queen's Revenge, 2460 Queen's Theater (converted into Prince of Wales'), 9, 18; see also Prince of Wales Queen's T h e a t e r (new), 185, 214, 2 3 1 , 236, 243; scenic effects, 235, 236 " R a i l w a y Station, T h e , " 261 f. Raleigh, 246n R a y n h a m , Miss, 202 Reade, Charles, 25, 1 1 1 , n 8 n ; collaboration with T a y l o r , 1 1 , 57^1, 82-103, 106-10; friendship with Mrs. Seymour, 82, 106, 1 1 0 ; early work, 83, 8411; first original play, 84«; Peg H'offington, 9 3 « ; friendship with Taylor, 1 1 0 f. Reader, The, 65

295

Rede, L e m a n , 65« Reece, Robert, 37 Reeve, J o h n , 8 Rehearsal, The, 36 Reignolds, Kate, 140^1 Reserved seats, 5 Retribution, 1 1 7 , 138-40 R e v u e , characteristics, 35 Reynolds, Miss, 160, 168 Reynolds, Sir J o s h u a , biography, 258, 262, 264 f. R h y m e d pieces, 35-61; see also B u r lesques and extravaganzas Richelieu, 108 Rignold, George, 242 Rigoletto, 223, 227 Riquet with the Tuft, 36, 54 R o a d companies, 244?! Robertson, Agnes, 69 Robertson, Madge, 185 Robertson, T o m , 1 1 , 12, 20, 25, 148, 150, 1 8 1 , 184, 185, 255; " c u p and saucer" drama school, 149; dialogue compared with Taylor's, 162, 163 Robson, Frederick, 17, 1 1 6 , 128, 130, 144, 146, 147, 223; established as serious actor, 123; outstanding successes, i2g, 1 3 1 ; decline in power, 202 Rochez, Messrs., 57 Rogers, James, 102, 157, 164, 172, 187, 218 Roi des montagnes, Le, 192 Roi s'amuse, Le, 223, 227 Ross, J a n e t , quoted, 1 1 3 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 253 Rothschilds, plays based on rise of, 144, i46n Rousby, Clara, 234-36, 238 Rousby, Wybcrt, 234, 235 Royal Academy, 260 Royalty system, effects, 199 R u s k i n , J o h n , Whistler suit against, 259 Russell, Lord, 269

Sadler's Wells, 9, 10 f., 17, 223, 230 St. James, 9, 10, 82, 106, 242, 250; Alfred Wigan's management, 188, 193 St. J o h n ' s Wood School of artists, 260 Sanitation, articles on, 33; lectures, 34 Satire, 50, 53 Saunders, J o h n , 247, 249 f.

296

INDEX

Savage, M a r m i o n , 1 4 3 S a x o n , K a t e , 69 School, 94, 1 8 5 Scott, C l e m e n t , q u o t e d , i o , 229 Scott-Siddons, Mrs., 236 Scribe, E u g e n e , 84*1; influence, 20, 22 f., 65 n, 73, 1 1 8 , 147, 234, 2 5 5 , 256; f o r m u l a Tor " w e l l - m a d e " p l a y , 22 f., 40, 65, 1 1 4 ; art best represented by O l y m pic d r a m a , 1 1 6 ; see also F r e n c h theater Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The, 148 Secret Police, n8n S e d g w i c k , A m y , 1 7 , 165, 1 7 1 Sensation d r a m a . Serf as type o f , 209 Sense and Sensation, 50, 58-60 Serf, The, 189, 207-9, 2 ' 9 Service a Blanchard, Un, 124 Settling Day, 189, 204-7, 2 ' 9 - 2 5 5 "Seven Swans," 56 Seville, K a t e , 192, 202 S e y m o u r , L a u r a , 82, 8 3 « , 106, 109; f r i e n d s h i p w i t h R e a d e , 82, 106, 1 1 0 S h a k e s p e a r e a n revivals, 10, 14, 1 5 , 63 S h a w , G e o r g e B e r n a r d , 24, 1 1 7 , 255; o p i n i o n of E l l e n T e r r y , 186 Sheep in Wolf's Clothing, A, 1 1 7 , 14042, 148, 255 S h e r i d a n , R i c h a r d , 20, 63 Siddons, Mrs., 7 Silsbee, or Silsby, J o s h u a , 5 6 n , 1 7 6 Silver King, The, 98, 199 S i m p s o n , P a l g r a v e , 192 Sims, G e o r g e , 250 Sir Roger de Coverley, 117 Sir R o g e r d e Coverley essays, T a y l o r ' s v e r s i o n , 78-81 Sister's Penance, A, 189, 190, 2 1 1 - 1 3 , 2 1 9 S l a n g , A m e r i c a n , 174 Slave Life, 57n, 82, 95 S m i t h . A l b e r t , 3 7 . 47, 49, 7 7 n ; coll a b o r a t i o n w i t h T a y l o r , 40, 46 ff., 5 3 ; m a r r i a g e , 47 S m i t h , R i c h a r d ("O. S m i t h " ) , 14, 9 6 0 , 102 " S m u g g l e r s a n d Poachers," 2 5 1 Social institution, theater as, 1 , 3 Social p r o b l e m s , disregard f o r , 2 0 1 , 206, 219 Society, 1 2 , 9 4 " , 150 Songs of Innocence, inn S o t h e r n , E. H . . 180 S o t h e r n , E d w a r d Askew, 1 2 , 1 7 , 149,

1 5 0 , 165, 180; as L o r d 1 7 4 , 177-80 S o u t a r , R o b e r t , 202 S o u t h w o r t h , M r s . , 204n Squire, The, 106

Dundreary,

Stage effectiveness, o u t s t a n d i n g e x a m ple o f , 227 Stage ghosts, 57 S t a g i n g , 1 , 3 . 5 f., 1 2 , 13, 15, 1 6 . 18, 256 S t a n d a r d , 9, 6471 S t a n s f e l d , J a m e s , 34 " S t a t e of E n g l i s h P a i n t i n g in 1 8 6 2 , " 260 Stephens, " G r a n n y , " 1 7 , 202 Stevens, S a r a , 1 7 7 Still Waters Run Deep, 117, 131-38, 1 4 7 , 148, 194, 204, 249, 255 S t i r l i n g , E d w a r d , 97 S t i r l i n g , F a n n y (Mrs.), 1 7 , 74, 78, 80, 9 3 , 94, 1 1 6 , n 8 n , 1 2 3 , 128, 142, 1 4 3 , 144, 147, 1 7 2 , 1 7 3 , 2 0 1 , 2 1 4 ; responsible f o r T a y l o r - R e a d e c o l l a b o r a t i o n , 83, 84» S t i r l i n g , F a n n i e (daughter), 1 7 2 , 1 7 3 S t o d d a r t , J . H . , 95, 1 8 5 « Stone, M a r c u s , 78, 242 Storey, G . A . , 260 S t r a n d , 9, 16, 46, 49, 50, 58, 60, 64»»; f a m e d f o r b u r l e s q u e , 10, 37; c o m p a n y o r g a n i z e d b y the F a r r e n s , 74 Success, 3 5 Such Is the Law, 2 2 1 , 24471, 250 f. Sugden, Charles, 165 S u r r e y , 9, 7 7 n , 2 1 7

Tale of Mystery, A, 21 Tale of Two Cities, 189, 190-92, 2 1 9 T a l f o u r d , F r a n c i s , 37 T a l f o u r d , T h o m a s , 62, 2 6 3 " Tame Cats, 185 T a s m a n i a , J e f f e r s o n in, 202 T a y l o r , A r n o l d , 8 3 « , 9371 T a y l o r , L a u r a W i l s o n B a r k e r (Mrs. T o m ) , 1 1 1 , 1 1 2 , 266, 267 Taylor, Lucy, 1 1 3 T a y l o r , M r . a n d M r s . T h o m a s , 27 T a y l o r , T h o m a s Prochis, c o n f u s e d with T o m T a y l o r , 64n T a y l o r , T o m , b i r t h , 26: l i f e a n d career, 26-34; ancestry, 27; a c a d e m i c career, 28; c h a r a c t e r , 29, 1 1 3 , 2 5 3 ; as j o u r nalist, 3 2 ; w o r k f o r Punch, 33, 252, 2 6 7 - 7 1 , 272; as teacher, l a w y e r , a n d

INDEX government employee, 33 f.; interest in health conditions, 33; baptized T o m , confused with T h o m a s P. T a y lor, 64n; friendship with R e a d e , 83, n o f . : home and home life, i n f . ; marriage, 1 1 1 ; industry, appearance, 1 1 2 ; interest in the T e r r y girls, influence on E l l e n , 1 1 2 ; as husband and father, 1 1 3 : illness, death, burial, 252 f.; comments on his death, Meredith's tribute, 253; nondramatic writing, 258-73; price for poems, 265; Ballads and Songs 0/ Brittany, 267; "Unprotected F e m a l e " and other humorous sketches, 268; liberal tendencies, 269; Punch verses, 268, 269 f.; attitude toward, a n d poem on, Lincoln, 270 —as art critic, 258-62; edits Haydon's autobiography, 258, 262-64; edits Leslie's autobiography, 258, 262, 264; completes Leslie's biography of Reynolds, 258, 262, 265; opinion o f , and relations with, Whistler, 259; j p i n i c n of R o y a ! Academy, of St J o h n ' s Wood School, 260; first verses in book form descriptive of B i r k e t Foster drawings, 265 f. —as dramatist: story of the development of playwriting traced in work o f , 3, 18, 63; comedies written for, or produced at, the H a y m a r k e t , 1 1 , 12, 149-87, 255; p e r f o r m e r s f a m e d by his plays, 17; adjustment of material to existing conditions and specific demand, 17, 63, 8 1 , 150, 1 5 1 , 272; nomenclature devised for original and adapted plays, 20, 1 1 6 ; adapt at putting Scribe methods into practice, 23; writings d u r i n g forty-four years, 24 f.; work completely of its time, 25, 255; why it has passed into obscurity, 25, 254: early d r a m a t i c interests, 27, 30-32: faculty for mingling the light with the serious, 29, 5 1 ; first professional play, 38, 39; verse plays in field of burlesque and its allied forms, 38-69; verse plays estimated, 60; early plays f o r professional theater, 62-81; three periods of career chronologically divided, 63; plays incorrectly assigned to, 64x1; notable work in short comic enter-

297 tainment, 66; first full-length piece, 74; quarrel with Webster and Coyne over Vicar of Wakefield, 77n; apprenticeship as a p l a y w r i g h t ended, mastery of art of plotting, 8 1 ; increase in importance, composition of fulllength plays, 82; plays for the Adelphi, 82, 95 If., 98-106; for the Olympic (before i860), 82, 114-48 (after i860), 197, 203, 204, 206, 2 1 1 , 255: meeting with R e a d e , 83; accused of borrowing plots, 1 1 0 ; defended by R e a d e , 1 1 1 ; works o f , set to music by his wife, 1 1 i n ; method of modifying French plays, 127, 147 (see also French theater); modifications consistently m a d e in his sources, 127: influence u p o n f u t u r e of English drama, 148; comedies o f , appraised, 149; dialogue compared with Robertson's, 162, 163; most celebrated plays, '73- '97- s 4 2 - 2 55> prices paid for works by, 176, 199, 265; comedy most attractive to modern reader, 1 8 1 ; last comedies, 186; concentration of work as a comic dramatist, 186 f.; achievements u p to i860, a turning point in career, 188; the fourteen melodramas and dramas of the sixties, 188-220: waning influence, 189, 219; work in accord with tastes of the " c r o w d , " 200, 219, 254; neglect of social aspects of material, 201, 206, 219; reestablished as house dramatist for Olympic, 207; involved in suit for plagiarism, 2 i 8 n ; growing evidence that he would not produce permanent work, 2 1 9 f.; poetic a n d prose plays of the seventies, 221-57; work of his last decade disappointing, 2 2 1 ; version of Hamlet, 222, 243, 244; e x a m p l e of versatility as playwright, 230; Historical Dramas, 236, 249; painstaking regard for history, 238; Lady Clancarty a high point in dramatic construction, 242; plays in As You Like It, 245n; work representative of 1840-80 theater, touched every field of dramatic activity, 254 f.; in all genres his work among best as well as the most typical, 255; outstanding plays enumerated, 255; helped mark roads which

298

INDEX

T a y l o r , T o m (Continued) drama was to lake and to avoid, 256; writings appraised, 272 —collaboration: with Charles Reade, 1 1 , 57xi, 82-103, 106-10; with A. A. K n o x , 39; with Albert Smith and Charles Kenney, 40, 46 ff., 53: denies collaboration with J o h n L a n g , 118x1; author of Retribution138; collaboration with Augustus Dubourg, 1 5 1 , 1 8 1 , 190, 2 1 1 ; with Horace Wigan, 190, 203; with Paul Nlerritt, 2 2 1 , 2440, 250, 2 5 1 ; acknowledges Mackaye as collaborator in order to assign American rights to, 24511; collaboration with J o h n Saunders, 247, 249 f.

Topical allusions, 35, 37 T o u r , plays taken on, 244 T r a g e d y , style in acting, 7; models f o r dramatists, 62 T r e e , Mrs. Beerbohm, 242 Trip to Kissengen, A, 3 m , 38, 39 f., 64x1, 66 Trollope, Mrs., 174 " T r y o u t " system, 245x1 T u r n e r , H. J „ 74 Twenty Minutes under an Umbrella, 181 'Twixt Axe and Crown, 2 2 1 , 231-36,

T a y l o r , Wycliffe, 1 1 3 T e l b i n , scenery, 144, 214 Tennyson, Alfred, 3, 1 1 2 , 222, 2 3 1 , 265, 2 7 1 0 ; verses on, 269 T e r n a n , Miss, 157 T e r r y , Ellen, 69, 78, 94, 137, 160, 185, 203«; quoted, 25, 1 1 1 , 214, 244; friendship with T a y l o r , 1 1 2 ; marriages, 1 1 2 ; Shaw's opinion of, 186 T e r r y , Kate, 17, 142, 203, 204, 207, 208, 2 1 1 , 213»i/ beauty, career, 2030 T h e a t e r , French, see French theater T h e a t e r , in England from 1840-80, 125; two periods bridged by work of T a y l o r , 3; Hugo's classification, 18 f.: modern, 18. 148; freedom asserted in the nineties, 2 1 ; importance of period in which T a y l o r wrote, 255 f. T h e a t e r Regulation Bill, 4, 62 Theaters, see Playhouses Theatre, cited, 253; excerpts, 39, 46 Theatre Français, 142x1 T h i n k e r s , drama for, ig Ticket of Leave Man, The. 60, 98, 18g,

Ulysse dans Vile de Circe, 21 Uncle Tom's Cabin (novel), dramatic versions, Uncle Tom's Cabin (play). 82, 95 " U n d e r the Moonbeams," 266 Unequal Match, An, 1 5 1 , 161-65, >80. 255 University College, 33 "Unprotected F e m a l e " caricatures, 268, 269 Up at the Hills, 189, 193-97, 2 1 9

197-202, 219, 249, 254, 255 Times, The, London, excerpt, 123: art criticism, 258 Tom and Jerry stories, 200 T o m l i n s , Frederick, 63, 222 Tom Thumb, 36 To Oblige Benson, 1 1 7 , 124-29, 148, 249. 254. 255 T o o l e , J o h n L., 13, 10g T o Parents and Guardians, 31x1, 6411, 65, 67-70, 73, 8 1 , 249, 255: most successful of Taylor's short comedies, 67

2 4 5 " . 249, 255 Two Loves and a Life, 57x1, 82, 96 f „ 98-103, 105, 255: cast, 102

Valentine and Orson, 46 ff. Vandenholf, George, 109 Vanderdecken, 231 Venice Preserved, 227 Verdi, Rigoletto, 223 Vernon, Mrs., 78 Verse plays, see Poetic plays Vestris, Madame, management of the Olympic, 5 ff., 16, 18, 36, 39, 40, 65x1; as singer, dancer, and actress, 7 V'ezin, Herman, 124, 213x1 Vezin, Mrs. Herman, 94 Vicar of Wakefield, The (Coyne), 74, 77 J'icar of Wakefield, The (Taylor), 7478, 1 1 7 Victims, 1 5 1 , 158-61, 187 Victoria, Queen, 3, 143, 260x1 Victoria (theater), 9 Village Outcast, The, 64x1 Village Tale, A, 84x1 Villemarqud, T . C. H . Hersart, Vicomte de la, 267 Vincent, George, 202, 207, 208, 2 1 1

INDEX Vining, George, 17, 137, 140 Vining, J a m e s , 192 Waits, The, 6471 Walcot, Charles, 4on, 138, 157 Walker, H u g h , 19 Wallack, J . W „ J r . , 2 1 m Wallack, Lester, 1 1 0 , 138, 157, 18571; on Our American Cousin, 176-78 Wallack's, New York, 78, 1 3 m , 157, 165, 1 7 3 0 , 185«, 19371, 1940, 20971, 21 in Wanted a Hermit, 65, 70 W a r d , T o m , 214 Warren, W i l l i a m , 138 Watts, G . F., marriage to Ellen T e r r y , 112 Wat Tyler, 246« Webster, B e n j a m i n , 1 1 , 17, 58, 63, 93, 94, 102, 103, 176; management of the A d e l p h i , 13; acting, 14; refusal to yield rights in Vicar of Wakefield, 74. 7 7 " Wedmore, Frederick, quoted, 250 " V ' e l ' - r m d e " play, S c i b e ' s formula, 22, 65, 1 1 4 : basic elements, 1 1 4 ; domination of English stage, 1 1 5 ft. Wheatleigh, Charles, 95, 124 Whewell, Doctor, 26g, 270 Whistler, T a y l o r ' s attitude toward; suit against R u s k i n , 259 White. Mrs. Buckingham, 165 White, J a m e s , 63, 222 Whiteboy, The, 189, 2 1 1 , 219 " W h i t e Boys, T h e , " 2 1 1 Whitehall volunteers, 180 White Pilgrim, 231 White Rose of Allendale, 2460

299

Whittington and His Cat, 40-46, 48, 54 Wicked World, 142 Wife's Atonement, The, 244 W i g a n , A l f r e d , 17, 46, 49, 69, 70, 9671, 1 1 7 , n 8 n , 123, 124, 137, 140, 146, 185: artistry. 39; management at the St. J a m e s , 188, 193 Wigan, Mrs. A l f r e d , 17, 39. 1 1 7 , 124, 1 3 7 , 146, 185 W i g a n , Horace, 1 1 7 , 144, 202, 20371, 207, 208; collaboration with T a y l o r , 190, 203 Wilde, Oscar, 24 Wilkins, Mrs., 157, 1 7 1 , 172 Wills, Freeman, 192 Wills, W i l l i a m , 78, 222, 231 Windsor Castle performance, 143 Winter, William, quoted, 229 Winter G a r d e n , 172, 202 Wittikind, 50, 54, 56 Woflington, Peg, plays about, 84 IT., 144; portrait, 92 ]Voman Killed with Kindness, A, 103 W o m e n , drama for, 19 Won by a Head, 189, 214, 219 Wood's Museum, 236 W o o d w a r d , Bernard, 26071 Woolgar, Sarah, 14, 94, 9671, 102 Wreck Ashore, The, 32, 97, g8 Wright, E d w a r d , 13 Writing on the Wall, The, 97 W y n d h a m , Charles, 137 Wynfield, D. M., 260

Yates, E d m u n d , 47, 185 Yeames, W. F., 260 Yellow Domino, 246»!