ossed the sea to America. With that beginning the way was
opened for the growth of superb stock-companies, in the early days of
the American theatre. The English, next to the Italians, were the first
among modern peoples to create a dramatic literature and to establish
the acted drama, and they have always led in this field--antedating,
historically, and surpassing in essential things the French stage which
nowadays it is fashionable to extol. English influence, at all times
stern and exacting, stamped the character of our early theatre. The tone
of society, alike in the mother country, in the colonies, and in the
first years of our Republic, was, as to these matters, formal and
severe. Success upon the stage was exceedingly difficult to obtain, and
it could not be obtained without substantial merit. The youths who
sought it were often persons of liberal education. In Philadelphia, New
York, and Boston the stock-companies were composed of select and
thoroughly trained actors, many of whom were well-grounded classical
scholars. Furthermore, the epoch was one of far greater leisure and
repose than are possible now--- when the civilised world is at the
summit of sixty years of scientific development such as it had not
experienced in all its recorded centuries of previous progress.
Naturally enough the dramatic art of our ancestors was marked by
scholar-like and thorough elaboration, mellow richness of colour,
absolute simplicity of character, and great solidity of merit. Such
actors as Wignell, Hodgkinson, Jefferson, Francis, and Blissett offered
no work that was not perfect of its kind. The tradition had been
established and accepted, and it was transmitted and preserved.
Everything was concentrated, and the public grew to be entirely familiar
with it. Men, accordingly, who obtained their ideas of acting at a time
when they were under influences surviving from those ancient days are
confused, bewildered, and distressed by much that is offered in the
theatres now. I have listened to the talk of an aged American
acquaintance (Thurlow Weed), who had seen and known Edmund Kean, and
who said that all modern tragedians were insignificant in comparison
with him. I have listened to the talk of an aged English acquaintance
(Fladgate), who had seen and known John Philip Kemble, and who said that
his equal has never since been revealed. The present day knows what the
old school was,[1] when it sees William Warren, Joseph Jefferson,
C