sometimes of further remark. Hannah More (17451833), most famous for her work in education and religion, as a dramatist was strongest in Percy (1777) and The Fatal Falsehood (1779). In the first of these plays she availed herself of the new taste for romanticism; in both, however, she discussed topics of interest in her day. Mrs. Hannah Cowley (1743-1809), a successful writer of comedy, began her work with a sentimental play, The Runaway (1776), but soon shifted to the comedy of humor and episode. "In The Belle's Stratagem (1780), Laetitia Hardy, to be sure of winning the affections of her betrothed, first disgusts him by pretending to be a hoyden and then, while disguised at a masquerade, conquers his heart by her real charms." Stronger perhaps than other playwrights of the period, however, was General John Burgoyne (1722-1792), who before going to America produced a classical comedy of the old school, The Maid of the Oaks (1774), and who on his return again proceeded to work in a field in which he had long been interested and wrote The Heiress (1786). This play "won a fortune and was preferred by some critics to The School for Scandal. . [It] has the unusual merit of combining the features of a comedy of manners with those of a comedy of pathos." Thomas Holcroft (1745-1809), who was of the circle of Godwin and Paine, introduces something of his social theory in The Road to Ruin (1792) and The Deserted Daughter (1795). Mrs. Elizabeth Inchbald (17531821), who knew well the life of the theatre, was singularly successful in adapting her work to popular taste. I'll Tell You What (1784) was especially well constructed; Such Things Are (1787) deftly makes use of Howard's agitation for prison reform; Wives as They Were (1797),

"a study of a pleasure-loving girl in high society whose nobler qualities are gradually developed by the influence of her father in disguise," was afterwards elaborated into the strong novel, A Simple Story; and Every one Has his Fault (1793) is a domestic play of ill-sorted marriage. George Colman, the younger (1762-1836), has an interesting place in the history of the English drama. "Toward the end of the eighteenth century the rage for dumb show and musical additions invaded the regular drama. Even Kotzebue 10 had to be decked out with songs and choruses. This species seems to have been mainly due to the ingenuity of George Colman. Those of his plays verging on tragedy, of which The Battle of Hexham (1789), The Surrender of Calais (1791), The Mountaineers (1793), and The Iron Chest (1796) are the chief, are lively medleys of tragedy, comedy, opera, and farce. . . . In his use of all the well-worn motives of serious drama and his constant imitation of Shakespearean and Elizabethan diction, Colman displays remarkable as well as the most cheerful effrontery. He popularized, vulgarized, and musicalized the great traditions of English tragedy, and passed them along to the nineteenth century as the possession of the illegitimate drama.” 11

1o See next section, 78.

11 Thorndike: Tragedy, 333-34.

CHAPTER XI

EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY DRAMA:

ROMANTICISM

78. Era of Romanticism.-Important as furnishing a background for the drama are the theatrical conditions that obtained in London in the earlier years of the nineteenth century. We have seen that in the last period the theatres were primarily frequented by a special group in society, though as time went on one heard more and more about "illegitimate" playhouses. The fact is that the theatres were still officially under the control of the court; and the Lord Chamberlain recognized only the two patent" theatres, Drury Lane and Covent Garden, and the one in the Haymarket. When near the turn of the century the people in greater numbers began to attend the playhouses, these three theatres proved to be altogether inadequate for the demands of a city as large as London, though the first two were enlarged until they were really enormous in size. Accordingly, in defiance of the law, there arose various other theatres which were not supposed to encroach on the field of the legitimate drama, but with emphasis on music and dancing and other features to correspond rather to the modern "variety" or vaudeville houses. In spite of all the uncertainty as to their existence, however, these theatres with increasing assurance offered to their patrons the regular drama until in 1843 they were formally legalized.

With the entrance of the people at large into the theatres

there developed an emphasis on sensational incident which the impulse of romanticism, now at its height, was only too willing to satisfy. A new species of play, melodrama (from the French mélodrame), came into existence. "The peculiar novelties of the mélodrame were the supplementing of the dialogue by a large amount of dumb-show and the accompaniment of both dialogue and dumb-show by descriptive orchestral music; otherwise, with its songs, sensations, and mechanical devices, it resembled the preceding musical drama of Colman and others. . . The term melodrama ceased after a time to denote the peculiar species brought from France in 1802, and came to be applied to all plays depending for effect on situation, sensa tion, or machinery, rather than characterization." 1 The origins of romanticism itself of course go back to the preceding century, and for the present purpose importance attaches especially to the "Gothic" romance of Horace Walpole and Mrs. Radcliffe. "Walpole himself wrote an unacted play, The Mysterious Mother, in 1768, which is not an unworthy companion of The Castle of Otranto, itself adapted for the stage and acted in 1781, as The Count of Narbonne. Other Gothic tragedies' are Robert Jephson's Braganza, 1775, which boasts itself, in the prologue, as 'warm from Shakespeare's school,' his Julia, 1787, a very popular play, the scene of which is Elizabethan England, and Cumberland's Carmelite, 1784; and all preceded the German romantic influence." 2 All other single influences, however, were secondary to that of the German Kotzebue, who about the years 1797-1801 had a vogue such as perhaps has never been equaled in the history of the English theatre. This dramatist attacked the 1 Thorndike, 334-36. Schelling: English Drama, 312

2

English stage at its weak point, sentimentality, and more than a score of his productions were rapidly translated. Even Sheridan, as we have seen, yielded to the demand of the moment, and within twelve years Pizarro passed through twenty-nine editions. "The phenomenal fortune of Kotzebue in England has been attributed to several causes. In the first place he is a consummate master of stagecraft and often as witty as he is clever. Secondly, he appealed strongly to the prevailing love of the sentimental from which English drama seems never to have been able to shake itself free; and this appeal is given a wider social and political character which fell in thoroughly with the democratic and humanitarian temper of the moment." For at least one season, that of 1797-98, The Castle Spectre of M. G. Lewis, with its emphasis on terror and mediaevalism, was a serious rival of the works of Kotzebue; but the underlying appeal was of course largely the same.

3

This was the period of Scott, whose poetry was for a number of years singularly successful in satisfying the taste of the public; and one has only to recall the great critics of the day to know that at the time there was much genuine appreciation of the best that was to be found in the national literature. Lamb issued his Specimens of English Dramatic Poets (1808), Gifford brought out a new edition of Jonson in nine volumes (1816), Coleridge wrote Biographia Literaria (1817), and Hazlitt produced such works as Characters of Shakespeare's Plays (1817) and Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth (1820). In a period of uncertainty in the creative drama moreover, some actors of the highest order of merit appeared. Easily foremost were Sarah Siddons (1755Schelling, 313.