Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/399

 But in almost the same breath Dryden declared that Shakespeare was held in as much veneration as Æschylus among the Athenians, and that ‘he was the man who of all modern and perhaps ancient poets had the largest and most comprehensive soul. … When he describes anything, you more than see it—you feel it too’ (Essay on Dramatic Poesie, 1668). Writers of such opposite temperaments as Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle (1664), and Sir Charles Sedley (1693) vigorously argued for Shakespeare's supremacy, and the many adaptations of his plays that were contrived to meet Restoration sentiment failed to supersede their originals. Dryden and D'Avenant converted ‘The Tempest’ into an opera (1670); D'Avenant singlehanded adapted ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen’ (1668) and ‘Macbeth’ (1674); Dryden dealt similarly with ‘Troilus’ (1679); Thomas Duffett with ‘The Tempest’ (1675); Shadwell with ‘Timon’ (1678); Nahum Tate with ‘Richard II’ (1681), ‘Lear’ (1681), and ‘Coriolanus’ (1682); John Crowne with ‘Henry VI’ (1681); D'Urfey with ‘Cymbeline’ (1682); Ravenscroft with ‘Titus’ (1687); Otway with ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (1692), and John Sheffield, duke of Buckingham, with ‘Julius Cæsar’ (1692). But during the same period the chief actor of the day, Thomas Betterton, won his spurs as the interpreter of Shakespeare's chief tragic parts, mainly in unrevised versions. ‘Hamlet’ was accounted that actor's masterpiece (cf. Shakspere's Century of Praise, 1591–1693, New Shakspere Soc., ed. Ingleby and Toulmin Smith, 1879; and Fresh Allusions, ed. Furnivall, 1886).

From the accession of Queen Anne to the present day the tide of Shakespeare's reputation, both on the stage and among critics, has flowed onward almost uninterruptedly. The censorious critic, John Dennis, in his ‘Letters’ on Shakespeare's ‘genius,’ gave his work in 1711 whole-hearted commendation, and two of the greatest men of letters of the eighteenth century, Pope and Johnson, although they did not withhold all censure, paid him the homage of becoming his editor. Through the middle and late years of the century many critics, of whom Theobald and Capell were the most acute, concentrated their energies on textual emendation of difficult and corrupt passages, and they founded a school of textual criticism, which has never ceased its activity (cf., Critical Examination of the Text of Shakespeare, 1859). At the end of the eighteenth century Edmund Malone [q. v.] devoted himself with unprecedented zeal to the biography of the poet and the contemporary history of the stage, and he secured later disciples in Francis Douce, Joseph Hunter, J. P. Collier, and J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps. Meanwhile a third school arose to expound exclusively the æsthetic excellence of the plays. Coleridge in his ‘Notes and Lectures’ (which was written partly under German influences), and Hazlitt in his ‘Characters of Shakespeare's Plays’ (1817), are the chief representatives of the æsthetic school, and, although Professor Dowden, in his ‘Shakespeare, his Mind and Art’ (1874), and Mr. Swinburne in his ‘Study of Shakespeare’ (1880), are worthy successors, Coleridge and Hazlitt remain as æsthetic critics unsurpassed. In the effort to supply a fuller interpretation of Shakespeare's works—textual, historical, and æsthetic—two publishing societies have done much valuable work. ‘The Shakespeare Society’ was founded in 1841 by J. P. Collier, J. O. Halliwell, and their friends, and published some forty-eight volumes before its dissolution in 1853. The New Shakspere Society, which was founded by Dr. Furnivall in 1874, issued during the ensuing twenty years twenty-seven publications, illustrative mainly of the text and of contemporary life and literature.

In 1769 Shakespeare's ‘jubilee’ was celebrated for three days (6–8 Sept.) at Stratford, under the direction of Garrick, Dr. Arne, and Boswell. The festivities were repeated on a small scale in April 1827 and April 1830; while ‘the Shakespeare tercentenary festival,’ which was held at Stratford from 23 April to 4 May 1864, claimed to be a national celebration (, Shakespeare and the Tercentenary Celebration, 1864).

On the English stage the name of every eminent actor since Betterton has been chiefly identified with Shakespearean parts. Robert Wilks and Charles Macklin were in the middle of the eighteenth century eclipsed by David Garrick [q. v.] The latter's enthusiasm for the poet and histrionic genius did much to strengthen Shakespeare's hold on public taste, but Garrick did not scrupulously adhere to the authorised text. To Garrick, who was ably seconded by Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. Pritchard, soon succeeded John Philip Kemble and his sister, Mrs. Siddons; and during the present century the torch has been kept alive by Edmund Kean, by Macready, by Samuel Phelps, by Helen Faucit (afterwards Lady Martin), by C. A. Calvert, by Miss Ellen Terry, and Sir Henry Irving.