Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/55

 when the piece was successfully revived at the Lyceum in 1885.

The dramatist now produced with great rapidity a quantity of very inferior work. ‘Nell Gwynne,’ given at the Royalty in May 1878; ‘Vanderdecken,’ based upon the legend of the ‘Flying Dutchman’ (Lyceum, June 1878); ‘Ellen,’ afterwards called ‘Brag’ (Haymarket, April 1879); ‘Bolivar’ (Theatre Royal, Dublin, November 1879); ‘Ninon’ (Adelphi, February 1880); ‘Forced from Home’ (Duke's Theatre, February 1880); ‘Iolanthe’ (Lyceum, May 1880); ‘William and Susan’ (St. James's, October 1880); ‘Juana’ (Court, May 1881); ‘Sedgmoor’ (Sadler's Wells, August 1881); and ‘Jane Eyre’ (Globe, December 1882). In 1882 Henry Herman, Mr. Wilson Barrett's manager, provided a ‘plot’ on which Wills was coaxed into basing the play ‘Claudian’ (successfully produced at the Princess's in December 1883), a strange compound of tinsel and hollow columns, in which the old legend of the Wandering Jew is turned to melodramatic purpose. ‘Gringoire,’ given at the Prince's Theatre in June 1885, was followed in December by Wills's version of ‘Faust’ for the Lyceum. In this, as in ‘Claudian,’ he appeared merely as the text writer to a series of scenes and situations; his sub-archaic verbiage was not devoid of romantic resonance and was scrupulously cut into blank-verse lengths. Like qualities are conspicuous in his ‘Melchior,’ a blank-verse poem in thirty-two cantos, dedicated to Robert Browning and published in 1885. The long-drawn descriptions are often mere pinchbeck, but Wills had some of the faculty of an Irishman as a balladist, clearly shown in such songs as ‘I'll sing thee songs of Araby’ and ‘The Ballad of Graf Bröm.’

In the intervals of dramatic work Wills spent much time at Étretat and a few weeks occasionally at Paris, where he rented a studio. His real interest was still in oil-painting; his oil-painting of Ophelia is now in the foyer at the Lyceum. His plays were a by-product, in which he took little interest after he had furnished the manuscript. He seldom attended rehearsals, and his recommendations, even when feasible, were generally unheeded by the actors; he was never present at the première of one of his own plays.

On 3 April 1887 Wills's mother died, and her loss removed one of the few incentives he had to exert himself. He moved his ‘studio’ to Walham Green, was henceforth little seen by his friends at the Garrick Club or elsewhere, and wrote little. His health began to break, and at the close of 1891 he was by his own request removed to Guy's Hospital, where he died on 13 Dec. 1891. Many of the leading actors and playwrights of the day were present at his interment in Brompton cemetery. His last piece, ‘A Royal Divorce,’ was being played at the Olympic at the time of his death. A previous play, on the subject of ‘Don Quixote,’ was produced at the Lyceum with very moderate success in May 1895. ‘Charles I’ and his adaptation of the first part of ‘Faust’ are the only plays by Wills which were issued in printed form.

Wills was a born writer of dramatic scenes, but his gifts were neutralised to a large extent by his inability to concentrate and by the essential lack of firm taste and self-critical power. He is ably summed up in the acute judgment of M. Filon: ‘His Bohemian life, his impassioned character, his hasty methods of production, gave him in the distance the look of genius. But it was a misleading look .... his pieces are founded upon conceptions which crumble away upon analysis, and the versification is too poor to veil or redeem the weakness of the dramatic idea.’

[‘W. G. Wills, Dramatist and Painter,’ a well-written biography by the dramatist's brother, Freeman Wills, appeared in 1898, with a good portrait and facsimile autograph. See also Archer's English Dramatists of To-day, 1888, pp. 352–80; Archer's About the Theatre, 1886, pp. 240 sq.; Filon's English Stage, 1897; Fitzgerald's Henry Irving, 1893, chaps. xiv. xv.; O'Donoghue's Poets of Ireland, p. 261; An Evening in Bohemia (Temple Bar, June 1896); Celebrities of the Century; Times, 15 Dec. 1891; The Theatre, 1 Feb. 1892 (with portrait); Era, 19 Dec. 1891.]  WILLS, WILLIAM HENRY (1810–1880), miscellaneous writer, was born at Plymouth on 13 Jan. 1810. His father, at one time a wealthy shipowner and prize-agent, met with misfortunes, and at his death the chief care of supporting his family devolved upon William Henry, or Harry Wills as he was always called. Wills became a journalist, and contributed to periodical publications such as the ‘Penny’ and ‘Saturday’ magazines, and McCulloch's ‘Geographical Dictionary.’ He was one of the original literary staff of ‘Punch,’ and had some share in the composition of the draft prospectus. He contributed to the first number (17 July 1841) the mordant epigram on Lord Cardigan called ‘To the Blackballed of the United Service Club.’ He was for some time the regular dramatic critic, in which capacity he ridiculed Jullien, the introducer of the promenade concerts