actor has to his credit the fact that he was the first to give recognition to the dramatic work of Knowles, BulwerLytton, and Browning. The work of Charles Wells and Thomas Lovell Beddoes at the beginning of the decade of the reign of George IV (1820-1830) belongs primarily to the field of the “closet drama." Wells is remembered for Joseph and his Brethren (1823), which passed practically unnoticed at the time of its first appearance, but which was greatly praised by Rossetti and Swinburne for its poetic beauty fifty years later, and revised. Beddoes, distinguished for his imagination and his wealth of imagery, was influenced by the Elizabethans, especially Marlowe and Webster, and also by the Germans and by Shelley and Keats. The Bride's Tragedy, published in 1822 when the author was still a student at Oxford, is a work of unusual fascination and power. Death's Jest-Book was printed long afterwards (1851) and again exhibited Beddoes's peculiar quality. Richard Lalor Sheil (1791-1851), probably more famous for his work in the public life of the nation than as a dramatist, first produced Adelaide, or The Emigrants, a story of the French Revolution, which was played in Dublin in 1814 and for one night only in Covent Garden, being severely attacked by Hazlitt because of its French royalist leanings. A second tragedy, The Apostate (Covent Garden, 1817), was somewhat more successful, but also received Hazlitt's disapproval because of the too great violence and horror of its situations. Bellamira, or The Fall of Tunis (Covent Garden, 1818) is the author's best play, but again the success was primarily theatrical rather than truly dramatic. Somewhat more artistic-natu rally, one might say, as it was built on Shirley's The Traitor was Evadne, or The Statue (1819). Montoni (1820) was extravagant in incident though it contained some good verse; and The Huguenot (written 1819, but produced two or three years later) exhibited some of Sheil's characteristic extravagances, and was a practical failure. A revision of John Banim's Damon and Pythias, however, was much more successful than any of his own plays. Charles Robert Maturin (1782-1824), an Irish clergyman, in 1816 and 1817 produced three tragedies-Bertram, or The Castle of St. Aldobrond, Manuel, and Fredolfo -all in the highest vein of " Gothicism" and the German drama of Kotzebue. Maturin had considerable sensitiveness to beauty and genuine poetic quality, and his Bertram was especially successful. Hazlitt, however, the mentor of the drama at the time, said of this play as of others, "There is no action; there is neither cause nor effect. . . The passion described does not arise naturally out of the previous circumstances, nor lead necessarily to the consequences that follow; " and time has justified his opinion. Somewhat surer in touch was Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868), afterwards dean of St. Paul's and distinguished as scholar and historian, who sought inspiration in the Elizabethan tradition rather than in a more extravagant romanticism. His plays include Fazio (published 1815, produced 1818), whose superb acting qualities kept it on the stage for three decades, The Fall of Jerusalem (1820), The Martyr of Antioch (1822), Belshazzar (1822), noteworthy for its good lyrics, and Anne Boleyn (1826), unfortunately marred by an extreme desire to make out a case for Protestantism against Roman Catholi cism. Milman wrote with intelligence and good taste, and fully deserved the measure of success he received. Mary Russell Mitford (1787-1855), also well known as a novelist, had a great desire to excel in the field of the poetic drama, and after two or three earlier efforts produced at least one highly successful play Rienzi (1828). This contained a passage, Rienzi's address to the Romans, which became a famous selection for declamation throughout the century. An interesting sidelight on the English stage within the period is thrown by the career of the American, John Howard Payne, in some of whose work at least Kean performed.9 81. James Sheridan Knowles.-Stronger on the whole than the dramatists just mentioned was James Sheridan 'See Quinn: "The Early Drama, 1756-1860,” in Cambridge History of American Literature, Vol. I. This is the most authoritative discussion of the subject that has yet appeared. Dr. Quinn, who is Dean of the College and Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, has further popularized the study of the drama in America by his collection of twenty-five plays for college use, Representative American Plays (The Century Co., New York, 1917). Of this and related works note review, "The American Drama: A Survey," by Archibald Henderson, Sewanee Review, April, 1918. Note also important three-volume collection for library service, Moses: Representative Plays by American Dramatists (E. P. Dutton & Co., New York, 1918). In the early period importance attaches to the work of William Dunlap (1766-1839), who wrote or adapted not less than fifty plays and in 1833 published an authoritative two-volume History of the American Theatre. Edwin Forrest (1806-72), contemporary with Macready, greatly encouraged native American effort and touched the life of the English stage in more ways than one. The American drama of the last sixty years, including the work of such men as Bronson Howard, Denman Thompson, James A. Herne, David Belasco, Clyde Fitch, Augustus Thomas, Charles Klein, William Gillette, William Vaughn Moody, Percy Mackaye, and Edward Sheldon, is of course a study in itself. Knowles (1784-1862), a descendant of Sheridan on his mother's side. This playwright in the main sought to purge the poetic drama of the extravagances of German romanticism, and in this he succeeded. He was not well paid for his work, however, and accordingly he not only tried several professions and occupations but also gave attention to tragedy, romantic comedy, domestic plays, melodrama, and any other kind of work that for the moment would seem to succeed. Prominent among his sixteen plays were the tragedies, Virginius (1820), Caius Gracchus (produced 1823, though written earlier), and William Tell (1825). The first two of these plays are famous for their declamation, and into them-probably under the influence of the era of social reform in which he lived-Knowles introduced a new consciousness of class distinction. In William Tell one can see still more the work of social revolution. In such plays as these Knowles did away with the high-sounding words of the old romanticism, used simpler diction, and in general let his situations arise out of his subject and characters. This he did at the same time that his imagination and versification were commonplace, and his work even frequently careless; and assisted by the acting of Helen Faucit and Macready, he almost restored the poetic drama to its old dignity. For the moment, however, his comedies were even more successful than his tragedies. Special popularity attached to a rather heavy play, The Hunchback (1832), but The Beggar's Daughter of Bethnal Green, The Love Chase, and Old Maids were also well received. 82. Edward Bulwer-Lytton.-In the very early years of the Victorian era Knowles was surpassed in popularity only by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), one of the most remarkable figures in the political, social, and literary life of England in the nineteenth century. His versatility and industry were amazing. He tried many things and narrowly missed greatness in all of them. An aristocrat and a man of fashion, he made in Parliament a more than respectable showing; one who veered with the wind in fiction, he wrote in The Last Days of Pompeii one of the best historical novels in the national literature; an amateur and a dilettante in the drama, he yet wrote the most popular romantic play of the century. He was, however, unfortunately rooted in emotionalism and rhetoric; he seldom went below the surface of his art; and the air of ostentation and superiority that he assumed not only irritated his contemporaries but have also invited undue belittlement at the hands of later critics. 'Aside from his two most famous productions the list of Bulwer-Lytton's plays includes the titles, The Duchess de la Vallière (1837), Not so Bad as we Seem (1851), Money (1840), The Rightful Heir (1868), Walpole, and the unfinished Darnley. His reputation rests, however, on The Lady of Lyons (1838) and Richelieu, or The Conspiracy (1839). The first of these two plays has been criticized again and again for its tawdry imagery, its false taste, and its sentimentality; but it was full of life and in Claude Melnotte and Pauline Deschappelles furnished Macready and Helen Faucit with excellent acting parts. Similarly Richelieu, while possessing little historical faithfulness, exhibited much clever artistry and has furnished to many great actors a medium for their art. Verily to Bulwer-Lytton must be accorded the tribute of actual success. 83. Robert Browning.-What Bulwer-Lytton lacked |