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Hamlet Under the Restoration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Hazelton Spencer
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Extract

On the evening of September 20, 1709, at about the hour when we are accustomed in our own theatres to see the curtain rising on the first act, an old man dressed in black clothes sat in a chair of state on the stage of the London Haymarket, and whispered for the last time, “The rest is silence.” Within the sound of his beautiful voice the wit and fashion of the capital were congregated, their customary laughter and chatter awed into stillness by the “divinity [that] hung round that man.” He had played the Prince for forty-eight years, and though he was now more than seventy, and occasionally younger men essayed the rôle, the “town” still preferred their old favorite.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , December 1923 , pp. 770 - 791
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1923

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References

1 Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, II, 443.

2 The phrase of Barton Booth, who succeeded him in many of his tragic roles. See Davies, Dramatic Miscellanies, III, 32.

3 In particular, Wilks and Powell.

4 Cf. Tony Aston's Brief Supplement. Reprinted in Lowe's ed. of Cibber's Apology, II, 301.

5 Downes, Roscius Anglicanus (Knight's reprint), p. 17.

6 See Robert W. Lowe, Thomas Betterton, p. 68.

7 Reprinted by J. Q. Adams, The Dramatic Records of Sir Henry Herbert, pp. 87-8.

8 Cf. Downes, Roscius Anglicanus (Knight's reprint), p. 18.

9 The latter were headed by Burt, Clun, Hart, and Mohun, all of whom had acted before the Wars.

10 See reprint of the Articles of Agreement by J. Q. Adams, The Dramatic Records of Sir Henry Herbert, pp. 96-100.

11 Lowe, Thomas Betterton, pp. 75 f. For later lists of plays belonging to the respective companies see Allardyce Nicoll, Dryden as an Adapter of Shakespeare, p. 35.

12 Not the spring of 1662, as Downes asserts.

13 Downes, Roscius Anglicanus (Knight's reprint), pp. 20-1.

14 There were two issues of Q 1703; the catchword is the last word in the text on page 1 : in one copy Bornardo, in the other Barnardo. There may have been two issues of Q 1676. The copy I have used, that of the Boston Public Library, differs in many cases from Furness's notes. He suspected the existence of two issues because he found the readings of the Cambridge editors frequently at variance with his own copy.

15 Furness, New Variorium Edition, IV, 35.

16 Furness's textual notes do not show the identity of these readings, since he did not collate Q 6. I base my citations on my own collation of Qs 6 and 1676 with Furness's notes on the other texts.

17 H. H. Furness, New Variorum Edition, IV, 35.

18 H. T. Hall, Shakespeare's Plays: The Separate Editions of, with the Alterations Done by Various Hands (1880), p. 72.

19 Poet-lore, IV, 370.

20 F. W. Kilbourne, Alterations and Adaptations of Shakespeare (1906), p. 153.

21 Sir Sidney Lee, A Life of William Shakespeare, Revised ed., 1917; p. 592.

22 T. R. Lounsbury, Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist (1901), p. 302.

23 G. C. D. Odell, Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving (1920), I, 25.

24 Ibid, p. 26.

25 Montague Summers, Shakespeare Adaptations (1922), p. lxxii.

26 A. H. Thorndike, Tragedy (1908), p. 265.

27 G. F. Vincke, “Bearbeitungen und Aufführungen Shakespeare'-scher Stücke vom Tode des Dichters bis zum Tode Garrick's,” Shakespeare Jahrbuch, IX, 53.

28 H. B. Wheatley, “Post Restoration Quartos of Shakespeare's Plays,” The Library, 3rd series, vol. 4, page 252.

29 816 lines and parts of lines were left out on the stage—a substantial reduction. Not all that were omitted are so marked, and some are evidently marked by mistake.

30 From the epistle To Congreve. This passage is sometimes cited in refutation of the charge that Shakespeare was not valued by the Restoration at his true worth. Unfortunately the last line quoted does not end with a full stop, but with a colon, and is thus followed:

“Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length;

Our beauties equal, but excel our strength.“

Dryden then goes on to assert Congreve's superiority to Fletcher and Jonson, and his equality with Shakespeare.

31 The grant of August 21, 1660 is reprinted by J. Q. Adams, The Dramatic Records of Sir Henry Herbert, pp. 87-8.

32 Unless the contrary is stated, the text first given is in each case that of Q 1676. Lines are numbered throughout this article to agree with the New Var. ed. of Furness. Words replaced or omitted are given according to Q 6.

33 If it had been, Pepys, who went there repeatedly during the winter and spring of 1660-1, would almost certainly have seen it. The first performance he witnessed was at Lincoln's Inn Fields, August 24, 1661. This agrees with Downes, who would surely have mentioned an earlier production if there had been one. The operations of D'Avenant‘s company during its interim at Salisbury Court have been obscured by the misconceptions of several historians, including Joseph Knight, and by a slip on the part either of Pepys or of his decipherers in recording one of his visits to that playhouse. In another article, dealing with the latter, I shall try to substantiate my conviction that D'Avenant‘s company remained at Salisbury Court until the new theatre was ready for them.

34 D'Avenant is often sneered at as a mere court favorite. As a matter of fact he was a practical man of the theatre, as well as poet and dramatist.

35 Downes, Roscius Anglicanus (Knight's reprint), p. 21.

36 An alteration of Measure for Measure, with trimmings appropriated from Much Ado about Nothing.

37 It is, of course, possible that the alterations were not made by D' Avenant till after its first performance. On the other hand they may have been made long before.

38 The quarto of 1673 does not represent the D'Avenant Macbeth.

39 In each case the text first given is that of D'Avenant‘s revision, either from the Macbeth quarto of 1674 or The Law against Lovers in the 1673 folio of D'Avenant‘s works. Line references to Measure for Measure agree with Neilson's Cambridge ed.; to Macbeth with Furness. Text from the unaltered plays is quoted in the case of Macbeth from Furness's reprint of F 1, and of Measure for Measure from the National Shakespeare reprint of the same text.

40 This identical change is also made in the Hamlet of 1676, III iv 118.