Page:The portrait of Mr. W. H (IA portraitofmrwh01wild).pdf/91

 “loose action, mimic gesture By a poor boy clad in a princely vesture,”

is but one of the many—

“tempting baits of hell Which draw more youth unto the damned cell Of furious lust, than all the devil could do Since he obtained his first overthrow.”

Deuteronomy was quoted and the ill-digested learning of the period laid under contribution. Even our own time had not appreciated the artistic conditions of the Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. One of the most brilliant and intellectual actresses of this century had laughed at the idea of a lad of seventeen or eighteen playing Imogen, or Miranda, or Rosalind. “How could any youth, however gifted and specially trained, even faintly suggest these fair and noble women to an audience? ... One quite pities Shakespeare, who had to put up with seeing his brightest creations marred, misrepresented, and spoiled.” In his book on “Shakespeare’s Predecessors” Mr John Addington Symonds also had talked of “hobbledehoys” trying to represent the pathos of Desdemona and Juliet’s passion. Were