Part 25 (2/2)

[6] The latter, no doubt, accompanied by the band, except when the clown played the tabor while he danced alone

[7] This ns that _Macbeth_ was altered after Shakespeare's retirement or death

[8] Surely every company that plays Shakespeare should include a boy

There would then be no excuse for giving to a woman such parts as Ariel and Brutus's boy Lucius

[9] This question will not be answered by the citation of one famous speech of Cleopatra's--a speech, too, which is strictly in character

But, as to this matter and the other considerations put forward above, I must add that, while my impression is that what has been said of Shakespeare holds of most of the contemporary dramatists, I have not verified it by a research A student looking for a subject for his thesis ht well undertake such a research

[10] When the lecture was given (in 1902) I wentarrived at certain conclusions mainly by an examination of Elizabethan dramas I suppress them here because I have been unable to study all that has since been written on the Elizabethan stage The reader who is interested in the subject should refer in the first instance to an excellent article by Mr Archer in the _Quarterly Review_ for April, 1908

[11] This is a description of a public theatre A private one, it will be remembered, had seats in the area (there called the pit), was completely roofed, and could be darkened

[12] 'The doors are open, and the surfeited grooe with snores,' says Lady Macbeth on the stage below; and no doubt the tiring-house doors _were_ open

[13] This view, into the grounds of which I cannot go, ie, and, in another, the back stage; but the Elizabethans, I believe, would make no difficulty about that

[14] Perhaps It seee, as well as its front, could be open; otherwise many of the spectators could not have seen what took place there But it is not _necessary_, so far as I remember, to suppose that the sides could be closed by curtains The Elizabethans probably would not have been troubled by seeing dead bodies get up and go into the tiring-house when a play or even a scene was over

[15] Where this contrivance was used at all it probably only announced the general place of the action throughout the play: _eg_ _Denmark_, or, a little nificant that _Macbeth_ and the _Te more 'shews' than most, are exceptionally short

[17] It suffices for this rough experiment to read a column in an edition like the Globe, and then to multiply the time taken by the number of colue size of our theatres differs much from that of the Elizabethan The diameter of the area at the _Fortune_ and the _Globe_ seems to have been fifty feet

[19] I mean by a scene a section of a play before and after which the stage is unoccupied Most editions of Shakespeare are faulty in the division of scenes (see _Shakespearean Tragedy_, p 451)

[20] So it very nearly does in some Restoration coed only twice in the five acts, though there are e, which had curtains, must, I suppose, have been too small to accommodate the number of persons coedy I do not know if any recent writer has raised and discussed the questions how often the back stage is used in the last scene of an Elizabethan play, and, again, whether it is often e of the curtains, the kind of effect referred to in the paragraph above Perhaps the fact that the curtains had to be closed by an actor, within them or without, made this effect impossible Or perhaps it was not desired In Shakespeare's tragedies, ifappeals of an outward kind (apart, of course, from actions) are those produced by supernatural appearances and disappearances, as in _Haed by means of the trap-door, which, it would seee These ation if they have not already received it

[22] I do not refer to such deliberate and sustained effort as a reader may sometimes make It is not coinative or intellectual matter, however enjoyable, involves considerable strain If at a lecture or ser late or leaving early, the eyes of half the audience will turn to him and follow him And the reason is not always that the speaker bores them; it is that involuntarily they seek relief fro may be seen in the concert-room or theatre, but very much less at a panorama, because the mere use of the eyes, even when continuous, is co here, or elsewhere, to such a moderate use of scenery in Shakespearean perfor_ Mr Benson) now adopt I regret it in so far as it involves a curtailing of the play; but I do not think it withdraws from the play any attention that is of value, and for sohtens the dramatic effect Still, in my belief, it would be desirable to decrease it, because the less there is of it, thenecessary, and the more of the play itself can be acted Some use of scenery, with its consequences to the play, must unquestionably be accepted as the rule, but I would add that it ought always to be possible for us to see performances, such as ed to Mr Poel, nearer to those of Shakespeare's time

[24] When, in the time of Malone and Steevens, the question was debated whether Shakespeare's stage had scenery, it was argued that it must have had it, because otherwise the contrast between the words and the visible stage in the passage referred to would have been hopelessly ludicrous

[25] 'Enter invisible' (a coe-direction) means 'Enter in the dress which means to the audience that you are invisible'

[26] Probably he never needed to think of the audience, but wrote what pleased his own iination, which, like theirs, was not only dramatic but, in the best sense, theatrical

[27] Their abundance in _Hamlet_ results partly from the character of the hero They helped, however, to ; and the omission of 'How all occasions' from the Folio doubtless means that the company cut this soliloquy (whether they did so in the author's life-time we cannot tell) It ns of revision by Shakespeare hi poetical speeches

In some of these lectures[1]--for the duties and pleasures that have fallen to me as Professor of Poetry are now to end--I may have betrayed a certain propensity to philosophise But I should ask pardon for this only if I believed it to intrude where it has no place, in the i been at holish philosophical thought during the last five-and-thirty years Oxford has played a leading part; and I hope the tiise to his brethren for talking philosophy Besides, though I owe her gratitude for ave ift was the conviction that what iht love as philosophy, and that in the end these are tays of saying the sa in these lectures (for instance, with reference to the poets of Wordsworth's time) on the connection of poetry with the wider life around it, to correct an i lecture seems here and there to have left Not that I can withdraw or even le function of spiritual life can be said to have an intrinsic value, poetry, it seems to me, possesses it just as other functions do, and it is in each case irreplaceable And further, it see so makes its contribution to the whole, most surely and fully when it seeks its own end without atte to reach those of co-ordinate functions, such as the attainress But then I believe this because I also believe that the unity of human nature in its diverse activities is so intimate and pervasive that no influence can affect any one of thee without transe of paradox I would say that the pursuit of poetry for its own sake is the pursuit both of truth and of goodness Devotion to it is devotion to 'the good cause of the world'; and wherever the ie we have not, we should discover no idle fancy but the ie of a truth