A NEW HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH STAGE.* Ix reviewing Mr.
Percy Fitzgerald's last book, The Life of George IV., while speaking of the author as a bookmaker, we protested against the interpretation of that word which gives it a necessarily depreciatory significance. Book manufacture
is as legitimate, and often as valuable in its way, as book crea- tion; and Mr. Fitzgerald, as a recognised manufacturer, has a true locus stancli in the court of criticism. Even book-making, however, is an intellectual process : it is, or ought to be, something more than a mere employment of scissors and paste ; and the really fair adverse critic of this New History of the English Stage will complain of it not because it is manufacture, bat because it is not manufacture,—be-
cause its producer has simply gathered together a mass of raw material, which owes such unity as it has to the printer or bookbinder, as much as to the editor whose name appears upon the title-page. It is less a compilation proper than a mere collection of extracts, strung together in that rough-and ready style which is the bane of so much of our contemporary literary hack-work ; and the heterogeneous materials, having been subjected to no process of fusion and consolidation, are altogether lacking, not merely in singleness of general effect, but even in harmony of detail.
Then, too, Mr. Fitzgerald's work is so altogether uncritical as to be all but valueless to the student who, while reading for more than mere amusement, has not sufficient information to enable him to judge of the relative trustworthiness of the authorities cited. An extract, which may fairly be accepted as authoritative, is sandwiched between a record of unverified rumour and a statement inspired by strong personal feeling, few indeed and far between being the instances in which Mr. Fitzgerald condescends to give hints as to the comparative value of his miscellaneous materials. All is fish that comes to his net, and he does not trouble himself with the trivial differentiation of a flounder from a turbot, or a mackerel from a salmon : the reader, like the little boy at the peep-show, "pays his money" —in the shape of a library subscription—and "takes his choice" among Mr. Fitzgerald's facts, fancies, and fictions. Of course, it need hardly be said that a book constructed on this fashion is not distinguished for accuracy in small details. Were the game worth the candle, a considerable space might be de- voted to a list of Mr. Fitzgerald's mistakes in names, in dates, and in more important matters of fact, not to mention the
• A New History of the Eyelet Stage, from the Restoration to the Liberty of the Theatres. By Percy Fitzgerald, MA. 2 vols. London: Tinsley Brothers.
numerous instances in which his very slipshod composition makes him seem more inaccurate than he really is; but the minute examination which Macanky gave to Croker's edition of Boswell would be out of place, in speaking of a work which neither its author nor any one else would dream of placing among candidates for classical honours. It is obvious, how- ever, that when a considerable number of very palpable errors, clearly editorial, can be detected by a critic who has only a general acquaintance with English literature, many more are likely to be discovered by those readers who can boast of special acquaintance with Mr. Fitzgerald's chosen field of research.
There is, as a matter of course, so much that is amusing and interesting in this book, that we dislike writing of it as if we held a brief against it or its author, and though we should be shrinking from duty in suppressing our complaints, we will dis- miss them as hastily as may be. We have already spoken of the carelessness of Mr. Fitzgerald's style. It can, indeed, hardly be called a style at all, for we come across numerous paragraphs which are composed, wholly or in part, not of sen- tences that can be analysed and parsed, but of formless memo- randa. Here is a sample, not unfairly selected :—
" Sir H. Herbert now sent a dealer to prison for lending a church robe, with the name of our Lord on it, to the players. In 1637, March let, an order forbidding plays, on account of the Plague. This was disregarded at the Cockpit, when Michael Moon and others were fetched before the Privy Council, and an order to that nature, for- bidding plays, which was in force several months. On June 10th, a Chamberlain's order forbidding printing of plays to the prejudice of the company to which they belonged. In 1639 died Massinger, at his house near the theatre, on the bridge. In 1639, Davenant obtained letters under the Great Seal for erecting a new theatre, 120 feet square, upon a piece of ground at the back of the Three Keys Ordinary, in Fleet Street. This, for many years to come, was to be the last in- dulgence granted to the Stage. -Now come the disorders of civil wars."
With every disposition to be kind to Mr. Fitzgerald, it is hard to treat with leniency a writer who presents to us as literature such a confused, jerky, and incoherent jumble as this ; and he is frequently not merely inelegant, but positively ungrammatical. Nor do we complain merely of his manner, but of his matter also. In a book which is obviously intended not for the student, but for that intellectual butterfly, the general reader, the story of the patents is told with too much elaboration, and the documentary material connected with it is given at really irritating length. A man may choose his audience, and having chosen, no one has a right to quarrel with his choice ; but when the selection has been made, it ought to be adhered to, and Mr. Fitzgerald ignores the likings of his circulating-library clients, without really satisfying the wants of the more critical reader.
The real interest of the book lies in its anecdotal illustrations of Stage manners and morals ; and it must be admitted that, in spite of Mr. Fitzgerald's theatrical enthusiasm, his picture of the life of the average actor goes a long way to justify the Puritan prejudice against the theatre, or, at any rate, to explain what seems to many its extraordinary vitality. The candid critic has regretfully to confess that, whatever may be said of the actors of the present, those of the past have been only too skilful in combining the vices of Bohemia and Philistia, which at first sight seem mutually exclusive. There are recklessness, improvidence, and profligacy in abundance, but there is no great display of the generosity, the manliness, and the brotherly kindness which are supposed to atone for these reprehensible but very human weaknesses. After reading a few of Mr. Fitz- gerald's chapters, we are surprised at nothing in the shape of meanness or villainy, but we are very much surprised when we come across such an illustration of inherent nobleness, made available at the moment of need, as is furnished by the anec- dote of the actor Ryan, who, when a ruffian approached him with a pistol, and wantonly shot him through the head, ex- claimed, finely," Friend, you have killed me, but I forgive you."
Nor can the significance of these unpleasant facts be consider- ably reduced by the argument that society, having made the actor a pariah, is really responsible for his lack of the virtues of a higher caste, for histrionic depravity long survived histrionic degradation. Since the days of Garrick, to go no further back, no actor of genius or culture has been denied the most abundant social recognition, and yet much of the record of the post- Garrick period is, in many essential respects, as unedify- ing as that of the period by which it was preceded. Still, Puritanism cannot possibly deny that in this respect there has of late years been a marked improvement, and the obvious reflection that there can be no necessary connection between acting and profligacy, which at one time seemed to be contradicted by facts, is now largely supported by them. Stage scandals there are still, just as there are army scandals, and even clerical scandals ; but the stage scandal is not, any more than these others, considered a matter of course, and this one fact indicates a real advance.
On opening Mr. Fitzgerald's book, we naturally expected to find a number of quotable anecdotes, but in this we have been disappointed. There is much matter which, in its place, is enter- taining enough, but which will not stand transplanting; and the anecdotes, though numerous, are either too lengthy, or too well known, for reproduction. Seeing that the writer is gleaning a field which, in previous volumes, he has fairly well reaped—a field which has, indeed, been reaped by a good many literary labourers—no great novelty was to be expected ; but really some of Mr. Fitzgerald's stories are familiar to us with that familiarity which breeds contempt, and accordingly, when we see them transcribed for the thousand and first time in these volumes, our welcome to them is not very hearty. Among the stories which we are not sure whether we have or have not seen before, is one of a conversation between George III. and Elliston, the King's part in which is amusingly characteristic :—
" At Weymouth, Elliston made a good impression while playing before his Majesty, who asked the actor Well, well, Elliston' said he, 'where—where have you been acting lately ?'—' At Wells and Shepton Mallet, your Majesty, in which places I was manager.' --‘ Manager—manager ! that won't do—that won't do, eh, Charlotte ? Managers go to the wall—get the worst of it.'—' It didn't do, your Majesty. At Wells I was particularly unfortunate.'—' At Wells— Wells !' replied the King, good-humouredly, "mongst the Bishops ! Quite right—quite right ! no business with the Bishops, eh, Charlotte ? Bishops don't go to plays—no business at plays—you no business with them. Well, well, where next ?'—'I returned to Weymouth, where I have redeemed everything, in the honour of serving your Majesty.'—' Eh, eh ?' responded the King, in the same affability of tone and manner—' what, kings better than bishops, eh ?—found it out—found it out, Elliston.'"
Even here, Mr. Fitzgerald is as slipshod in expression as in the passage previously quoted ; indeed, the one fault of the book, in which all other thoughts are included, is a pervading careless- ness, and carelessness is the only literary vice for which there is no adequate palliation. The author of this New History of the Bilglish Stage may not have the art of lucid arrangement or the gift of attractive expression, but he has sufficient literary ex- perience and knowledge of his subject to justify us in demanding from him better work than is to be found in these volumes, and in making vigorous complaint when he refuses to satisfy our demand.
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