serted a prosy, spasmodic colloquy of sixty-one lines, to close the tragedy.

RIVALRY OF GARRICK AND BARRY

GARRICK'S first presentment of "Romeo and Juliet"-not the original, which he never produced, but his alteration of itwas made on November 29, 1748, at Drury Lane. The cast included Spranger Barry as Romeo, Mrs. Cibber (Susanna Maria Arne, the most pathetic and tragical actress of her day) as Juliet, and Henry Woodward as Mercutio. Garrick had attended the rehearsals precedent to that production and, according to Arthur Murphy's "Life" of him (1801), "solicitous for the success of his alterations, had communicated all his ideas to the performers.' Abundant success attended the revival, but dissension ensued, and Barry and Mrs. Cibber left Drury Lane and went to Covent Garden, where James Quin and Peg Woffington joined them, making Rich's company very strong. Then arose between Garrick and Barry a determined competition for the supreme popularity. On September 28, 1750, "Romeo and Juliet" was presented by both factions. At Covent Garden the Romeo was Barry, the Juliet Mrs. Cibber, the Mercutio Charles Macklin. At Drury Lane Garrick acted. Romeo, Henry Woodward Mercutio, and George Anne Bellamy Juliet. The softer, more sensuous, and more convincing Romeo was that of Barry; the more intense, passionate, tragical Juliet that of Mrs. Cibber. The better Mercutio was Woodward, an exceptionally brilliant player. According to contemporary records, all the performances were good, and the chief of them, excepting that of Mercutio, by Macklin, whose forbidding aspect and manner marred the effect of his intelligent acting, were excellent. Barry surpassed in the expression of amorous rapture; Garrick and Mrs. Cibber in that of tragic passion. A contemporary female observer of the rival performances said that Garrick's animation in the garden scene was so eager that, had she been Juliet, she should have thought he was going to jump up to her, while Barry was so tender and magnetically attractive that, in the same position, she should have felt inclined to jump down to him. The anecdote has become trite in repetition, but it is too instruc

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tively significant to be omitted. Garrick's characteristic powers were exhibited in the scene in which Romeo is told of the sentence of "banishment," in the scene with the Apothecary, and in the tomb scene. Mrs. Bellamy, a handsome, blue-eyed young woman of the languishing, seductive, fascinating order, captivated the populace. She was not deficient in dramatic talent, but in feeling and the tragic expression of it she could not bear comparison with Mrs. Cibber. Her Juliet possessed the advantage of being younger and prettier than that of the better actress. Mrs. Cibber, according to honest Tom Davies, who often saw her, was not symmetrical in form; but her features were regular, her eyes dark and brilliant, her manner was elegant, her voice magical, and of the tender emotions her command was supreme.

COSTUME

THE scenic investiture anciently provided for this tragedy was meager, and the dressing, while opulent in some particulars, was never even approximately correct. In Shakspere's time it was customary to dress his characters in raiment of his period, and although for more than a century afterward some of those characters were invariably dressed as they had been when first shown on the stage, the practice of arraying them in accordance with contemporary English fashions was adopted in the time of King Charles the Second,when the theaters, which had long been closed, were again opened, -and it prevailed in the time of Queen Anne and in the later times of King George the Second and King George the Third. Burbage, as Romeo, looked like Queen Elizabeth's Essex or Leicester. Harris, as Romeo, and Betterton, as Mercutio, looked. like the ruffled, bewigged courtiers of the Merry Monarch. Barry's costume, as Romeo, consisted of a square-cut coat, a figured waistcoat, knee-breeches, silk stockings, buckled shoes, a small sword, and a heavy periwig. Garrick, who arrayed Hamlet in a court-dress of the time of King George the Second, and Macbeth in the scarlet, white, and gold garb of an English military officer, adhered, as Romeo, to his invariable custom of clothing Shakspere's characters in English habiliments of his own time. Woodward's costume for

Mercutio comprised a periwig, a squarecut coat, an ample waistcoat, which depended over his thighs, knee-breeches, silk stockings, high-heeled shoes garnished with gold buckles, a muslin scarf trimmed with lace, a sword, and a three-cornered black hat, edged with gold lace.

According to Corte's "History of Verona," in which the story of "Romeo and Juliet" is related as true, the time of the catastrophe of their loves was 1303, and it is accordingly maintained by some authorities that the costumes used in presenting the play should accord with the fashions of dress prevalent in Italy about 600 years ago; but as Italian dresses of that period present in general a somewhat cumbersome appearance, inhibitory of graceful demeanor and detrimental to romantic seeming, the use of them is destructive of pleasing effect. Historical accuracy of costume is instructive and, within reason, desirable, but the paramount object in dressing "Romeo and Juliet" should be the creation of poetic atmosphere. A young man swathed in tunics, super-tunics, and cloaks, with rows of buttons sewed up and down the front and arms of his garments, with a capuchin shaped like a peddler's bag hanging down his back, and with his head incased in fantastic gear, might feel, and a good actor thus attired could simulate, the passion and agony of Romeo; but in theatrical representation such a costume would seem grotesquely absurd, and it would distract attention from both play and acting. The right way, manifestly, is to take as a basis the ascertained fashion of the known or accepted period of any specific old play, and then, wherever essential for effect, vary the costume and accoutrement sufficiently to insure picturesque, romantic, effective semblance for all the characters. That is substantially the method of the best modern productions of Shakspere's plays, notably, in the case of the tragedy of "Romeo and Juliet," in the productions made by Edwin Booth (1869), Henry Irving (1882), Mary Anderson, after she had become established (first in London, 1884, then in New York, 1885), and E. H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe (1904).

LATER ENGLISH REVIVALS

IN the long interval between the Garrick period and that of Henry Irving and

or

are

Johnston Forbes-Robertson, many presentations of "Romeo and Juliet" have been made on the British stage, and in the list of distinguished performers who have assumed Romeo, and who, in theatrical chronicles, have been variously commended condemned, conspicuous names those of Richard Wroughton, John Philip Kemble, Robert William Elliston, William Augustus Conway, Edmund Kean, William Charles Macready, Charles John Kean, William Abbott, Charles Kemble, James Robert Anderson, Henry Irving, William Terriss, and Johnston ForbesRobertson. Wroughton, who played many parts, ranging from Jaques to Young Mirabel, was "a sterling, sound, sensible performer," and his Romeo was respectable. John Philip Kemble, one of the most intellectual of actors, a man of philosophic, meditative habit of mind, proved too massive for Romeo. "Youthful love," says his reverent, admiring biographer, James Boaden, "was never well expressed by Kemble: the thoughtful strength of his features was at variance with juvenile passion." His brother Charles, on the contrary, as Romeo, filled a perfect ideal of a youthful lover, precisely as, when acting Mercutio, he filled a perfect ideal of the gay comrade and galliard gentleman. The critical opinion of his time, indeed, without a dissenting voice, accounted him supreme in both those characters. His daughter, Fanny Kemble, testified that "He was one of the best Romeos, and incomparably the best Mercutio, that ever trod the English stage."

Edmund Kean did not like the part of Romeo, and his appearance in it at Drury Lane, January 2, 1815, made against his inclination, was not successful. He was indifferent and tame until he reached Romeo's apprehension of the Prince's edict, but in that scene he gave startling effect to the lines:

Ha, banishment! be merciful, say "death"; For exile hath more terror in her look, Much more than death!

In the tomb scene, likewise, he put forth his utmost skill in the use of pathos, and deeply moved his audience. Hazlitt, an enthusiast of Kean, greatly admired the performance, and said that the actor's utterance of the word "banished" was, in

particular, of transcendent dramatic value; adding, "He treads close indeed upon the genius of his author," meaning Shakspere. Kean, in fact, used Garrick's perversion of the original play. It is probable that, in the course of his performance of Romeo, he gave a moving presentment of Edmund Kean in a frenzy, and a signally effective portrayal of the agonies of death by poison. He could be overwhelmingly pathetic and he could be irresistibly terrific. His aspect of brooding melancholy, when he sat silent as the Stranger, caused spectators to weep, and Byron, who greatly admired him, actually fainted at one point in his personation of Sir Giles Overreach.

VARIOUS NOTABLE ROMEOS

ELLISTON, a dashing comedian, a paragon of effrontery, and, as a stage lover, coarsely animal, could not have been a good Romeo. Conway was an actual Romeo: he loved Eliza O'Neill, famous as Juliet, with whom he acted, and loved her in vain. His performance was much admired. Disappointment in love and the malignantly hostile criticisms of Theodore Hook drove him from the English stage and from his native land. He came to America, and, a confirmed victim of melancholia, in 1828 he committed suicide by leaping overboard from a steamship, at the mouth of Charleston Harbor. As to Charles Kean as Romeo, critical praise is languid. My vivid remembrance of his personality and his acting persuade me that he was constitutionally unfit for that character. Abbott was the Romeo on the memorable occasion when Fanny Kemble, as Juliet, made her first appearance on the stage, October 10, 1829, at Covent Garden, London, saving the fortunes of that theater, then imperiled, by 120 consecutive performances, which elicited general admiration and earned much money. Abbott's Romeo was a failure. Long afterward, Fanny Kemble wrote of him:

Mr. Abbott was not a bad actor, though a perfectly uninteresting one in tragedy. . . His performance [of Romeo], not certainly of the highest order, was nevertheless not below inoffensive mediocrity.

Anderson, who acted at the old Park Theater, New York, in 1844, was the con

ventional Romeo, handsome, fervent, correct, and pleasing.

It was as Romeo that Macready made his first appearance on the stage, June 7, 1810, at Birmingham, and he long retained the part in his repertory. His performance was comparatively little admired, except by himself. It must have been a fine study of the operation of love upon a romantic temperament in youth, because from the first and always there was discriminative mind in Macready's acting; and also it must have been powerful in the tragic portions and artistically formed and rounded. In the early part of his career that great actor had not adopted the peculiar method of elocution, marred by gasps, grunts, and long pauses, which he used in later years, but spoke naturally and freely. It is, however, difficult to believe that a man of Macready's austere visage, stalwart figure, dominant mentality, and sternly authoritative manner ever really caused the effect of being identified with Romeo or with any other juvenile lover. He was the original impersonator of Alfred Evelyn, in "Money," and in embodying the rather grim kind of lover indicated by that character he probably was facile and entirely successful.

Samuel Phelps, Macready's compeer and rival, always scrupulously careful to use as much as possible of the original text of Shakspere, effected a scholar-like revival of the tragedy at Sadler's Wells Theater, on September 16, 1846. Romeo was assumed by William Creswick, afterward well known on the New York stage as Wolsey, Brutus, and Macbeth; Juliet by Laura Addison; while Phelps acted Mercutio, a part in which he exulted and excelled. On a later occasion, September 10, 1859, the play was again presented by Phelps, Romeo being performed by Frederick C. P. Robinson (in 1865–66 a member of Lester Wallack's company, in New York, and lately deceased), and Juliet by Caroline Heath, afterward Mrs. Wilson Barrett.

IRVING'S PRESENTATION

THE most carefully made, the longest, and, I believe, the best version of "Romeo and Juliet" presented on the stage in our time is the one that was made by Henry Irving, and produced by him at the London Lyceum Theater, where I saw and