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Shakespeare on the Stage in Restoration Dublin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

R. C. Bald*
Affiliation:
Cornell University

Extract

The Folger Shakespeare Library possesses a number of separate plays, all from the Shakespearian Third Folio, and all bearing unmistakable signs of theatrical annotation. They were acquired by Mr. Folger from a variety of sources: the majority were bought from a bookseller in Munich, one was purchased in London, and another came with the Warwick Castle collection of Shakespeariana. There are nine plays in all: The Comedy of Errors, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Twelfth Night, The Winter's Tale, Henry VIII, Timon of Athens, Macbeth, King Lear, and Othello, but three of them—The Merry Wives, Macbeth, and Othello—are imperfect. It soon became clear that they were all from the same original volume, which, apparently, had belonged to Halliwell-Phillipps and was dismembered by him. The bindings of the separate plays—half leather, with boards of marbled paper or purplish-brown cloth—are obviously all the work of one binder, and are similar to the bindings of other books which have passed through Halliwell-Phillipps's hands. In addition, his handwriting is to be found in six of them: in The Merry Wives and Macbeth there is an inscription on one of the preliminary flyleaves, and in the other four there is a mere “C. and P.” on a fly-leaf at the end of the book.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1941

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References

Note 1 in page 369 The author's grateful acknowledgements are due to Dr. J. Q. Adams, Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, for granting access to the materials on which this article is based, and to Dr. W. van Lennep for criticism and suggestions.

Note 2 in page 369 I.e., collated and perfect.

Note 3 in page 369 Two leaves (pp. 53–56) are lacking in the printed copy. The manuscript occupies eight numbered leaves, the last page being a blank. It was apparently transcribed from another copy of the Third Folio, and has no theatrical marks or notes of any kind. It begins “fford: A Buck basket,” which are the first words of p. 53, and ends “I had other things &c/go to ye printed page (57).”

Note 4 in page 369 Containing the second column of p. 355 and the first column of p. 356.

Note 5 in page 369 Pages 795–800 (three leaves) of Othello are missing, as well as p. 817, on the verso of which is the first page of Antony and Cleopatra. P. 788, the first page of Othello, is at the end of the Lear volume.

Note 6 in page 370 J. R. Mullins, Catalogue of the Shakespeare Memorial Library, Birmingham; Second Part, Section One (Birmingham, 1876), nos. 4844 and 4845.

Note 7 in page 370 P. 2257 in the edition of Henry Bohn (1871).

Note 8 in page 370 N & Q, 1st ser., v, 484–485. According to Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual this book was item no. 1270 in the second part of the Dent sale. The library of John Dent, M.P., F.R.S. was sold in two parts in March and April, 1827. For an account of Dent and his library, including a reference to this volume, see W. Y. Fletcher, English Book Collectors (London, 1902), pp. 277–280.

Note 9 in page 370 P. vi.

Note 10 in page 370 P. vii.

Note 11 in page 370 At iv, i, 90–94.

Note 12 in page 371 The “Mr” of the first three names is an afterthought, having been crowded in later between the names of the characters and those of the actors.

Note 13 in page 371 W. R. Chetwood, A General History of the Stage (London, 1749), pp. 56, 80.

Note 14 in page 371 Ibid., p. 231.

Note 15 in page 371 Richards was in Dublin for a short time in 1662. A warrant dated August 17 of that year is preserved in the Public Record Office (printed by La Tourette Stockwell, Dublin Theatres and Theatre Customs, 1637–1820 (1938), p. 31); it orders Richards to return from Dublin and complete his articles under Sir William Davenant in the Duke of York's Company.

Note 16 in page 371 Both David Williams and Joseph Williams appear in the cast of Dryden's version of Troilus and Cressida (1678), but as Joseph can be traced on the London stage until after 1705 it is probable that David is the man referred to in the list. Montague Summers, in the index to The Playhouse of Pepys, identifies the Williams who appeared, along with Richards, in the cast of The Counterfeiters (1678) with David Williams.

Note 17 in page 372 Historical Manuscripts Commission, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormonde, vi, 425. I owe the knowledge of this letter to the Rev. Montague Summers, who quotes it (The Playhouse of Pepys, p. 101) without, however, indicating its source.

Note 18 in page 372 John Dunton, The Dublin Scuffle (1699), quoted by Stockwell, op. cit., p. 40. See also Chetwood, p. 55.

Note 19 in page 372 Chetwood (pp. 174–176) has an interesting note on Baker, who played Casca. He was a master-paver by trade, and used to learn his parts in the streets while he was watching his men at work; he was famous for his comic parts. “Mr. Johnson informed me,” Chetwood continues, “when he returned to England he gave Mr. Betterton the Manner of Baker's playing Falstaff; which that Actor not only approv'd of, but imitated; and allowed the Manner was better than his own.”

Some further information concerning the actors appearing in Dublin about this time is furnished by the manuscript of John Wilson's Belphegor in the Folger Shakespeare Library. This manuscript is in the hand of the scribe of The Merry Wives fragment, and contains corrections in the text as well as a prologue and epilogue in what is apparently the hand of the author. There are also elaborate prompt annotations in three other hands. According to a note by Oldys “Wilson sometimes resided in Dublin, where he wrote his Belphegor,” and the play must have been produced there between 1674 and the end of 1682, most probably after 1679, when Wilson was forced to leave his employment in Londonderry (See John Wilson, The Cheats, ed. M. C. Nahm (Oxford, 1935), pp. 28–29, 35–40). Of the actors named in the Shakespearian plays three, Cudworth, Barnes, and Freeman, are mentioned in the Belphegor manuscript.

Note 20 in page 372 Stockwell, op. cit., p. 40.

Note 21 in page 373 It is probable that this actor also appeared in Othello and Macbeth; in a badly mutilated list of names for the “Duke, Senators and Officers” in Othello, i, iii “Jell” is visible, and in Macbeth, v, v, “[Mes]senger []erdell” is found.

Note 22 in page 373 According to the evidence of the Belphegor manuscript, Freeman had appeared in Dublin previously. He is listed by Summers (The Playhouse of Pepys, p. 109) as one of the Duke's company before the union, and he appeared in Rochester's version of Valentinian at the Theatre Royal in the beginning of 1684. The evidence shows, as one would expect, that the minor actors moved about from company to company, and that they might spend a season or two in Dublin. Mrs. Osborn, who is also mentioned in the Belphegor manuscript, is traceable on the London stage between 1672 and 1676, and again in 1692 (The Playhouse of Pepys, pp. 330, 391, 405, 418).

Note 23 in page 373 Chetwood, pp. 56 and 168–169.

Note 24 in page 373 It is noteworthy that, unlike nearly all the other plays, The Comedy of Errors has no notes referring to the intervals between the acts, and no indications for change of scenery.

Note 25 in page 374 “A Restoration Prompt-Book,” Essays in Petto, pp. 101–110.

Note 26 in page 374 Cf. the page from The Sisters reproduced by Summers in The Restoration Theatre, p. 142.

Note 27 in page 375 Essays in Petto, p. 106.

Note 28 in page 375 Originally “Towne,” but probably altered when Davenant's witch song was added to this scene (see below).

Note 29 in page 376 Nothing but sheer prudery could have been responsible for such tamperings with the text as the alteration and cut (indicated by italics and square brackets respectively) in the following lines from Macbeth, ii. iii, 124–128:

Look to the Lady: “ instantly
[And when we have our naked Frailties hid,
That suffer in exposure;] let us meet, ...

Note 30 in page 377 The passage quoted by Singer (p. vii) similarly shows the relationship between the alterations in this text and Davenant's version of the play.

Note 31 in page 378 P. 36.

Note 32 in page 378 Chetwood, pp. 54, 231.

Note 33 in page 378 D. O'Bryan, Authentic Memoirs ... of Mr. Robert Wilkes (1732), quoted by Stockwell, p. 38.