Stage" (Account of the English Stage, viii. 585, 586). In this revival Kean made his appearance as Timon, the cast including Bengough as Apemantus, Wallack as Alcibiades, Holland as Flavius, Harley as Lucius, S. Penley as Lucullus, and Bernard as Sempronius. It was not a great success, and was acted seven times. Hazlitt's precious series of criticisms upon Kean's performances in Shakespeare does not include Timon, and the ordinary organs of theatrical criticism pass over the representation without notice. Procter (Barry Cornwall) apologizes for Kean,declares the play unadapted for representation, and says that Kean, by dint of his own single strength, was unable to make it popular. He continues: "In fact, although one of the finest, it is at the same time one of the least dramatic works of Shakespeare. It is more of a monodrame than a play" (Life of Kean, ii. 163). The dialogue was given by Kean with prodigious effect," his retorts upon Apemantus, and his curses on ungrateful Athens Let me look back upon thee. O thou wall were made as fierce as voice and expression could render them. But he did not exhibit the whole character. We beheld in him the bitter sceptic, but not the easy, lordly, and magnificent Timon" (ib. ii. 163, 164). Mr. Hawkins, in his Life of Kean, i. 398, quotes from an unpublished letter of Mr. Harry Stoe Van Dyk, that Kean breathed the very soul of melancholy and tenderness in those impressive words:- approach of military music; he starts, waits its approach silently, and at last in comes the gallant Alcibiades with a train of splendid soldiery. Never was scene more effectively managed. First you heard a sprightly quick march playing in the distance. Kean started, listened, and leaned in a fixed and angry manner on his spade, with frowning eyes and lips full of the truest feeling, compressed, but not too much so; he seemed as if resolved not to be deceived, even by the charm of a thing inanimate; the audience were silent; the march threw forth its gallant notes nearer and nearer, the Athenian standards appear, then the soldiers come treading on the scene with that air of confident progress which is produced by the accompaniment of music; and at last, while the squalid misanthrope still maintains his posture and keeps his back to the strangers, in steps the young and splendid Alcibiades, in the flush of victorious expectation. It is the encounter of hope with despair" (ib. 398, 399). Another long interval passed before Timon was again revived. Genest, indeed, chronicles no other performance. Warned by previous experience, Macready left the character of Timon unattempted, and his example was followed by Charles Kean. Not, indeed, until it was revived by Phelps is Timon traceable on the stage. Be On the 15th September, 1851, with more than usual attention to the mise en scène, Phelps produced Timon at Sadler's Wells. On this occasion the performance triumphed over the defects, real or imaginary, of the play. tween its first production and the following Christmas it was played some forty times. In the Life of Phelps by W. May Phelps and John Forbes-Robertson, the bill of this interesting performance is given (p. 273). Though respectable in their day, the actors of the subordinate parts are now wholly forgotten. It is not necessary accordingly to give more than the principal characters which were thus cast: High praise was bestowed upon the revival, though the encomiums upon Phelps are lukewarm. John Oxenford, one of the most capable, if also one of the most lenient of critics, gave in The Times an elaborate analysis of the performance, dwelling especially upon the scenery, which was by Fenton. From his notice it is evident that some experiments, perhaps questionable, were made with a view of adding to the attractions of a play that managers still regard askance. A moving picture, representing the march of Alcibiades to Athens, was thus introduced, and the last scene presented the sea with the tomb of Timon as a conspicuous object. Timon, Oxenford declares, is one of Phelps's most effective characters. Coming to details, however, the critic dwells upon picturesqueness and the presentation of the "inherent dignity of the misanthrope." Of the delivery of the curse at the close of the third act, however, Oxenford speaks with more warmth. It is said to be "grandly impressive." "The feeling of wrong has kindled itself into a prophetic inspiration, and the parasites shrink before their awful host as before a supernatural presence" (quoted in Life of Phelps, p. 224). Of Marston's Apemantus it is said, "With a countenance deformed by malignity, an abject deportment, a sharp spiteful glance, and a hard-hitting delivery of the pointed language, this personage was a most admirable type of the worst species of the cynic breed" (ib.). A word of commendation is spared for Mr. Ray's Flavius. On the 11th of October, 1856, Timon was again revived. Once more warm commendation was bestowed. Francis Guest Tomlins, secretary of the original Shakespeare Society, instituted comparisons between the Shakespearean revivals at Sadler's Wells and those by Charles Kean at the Princess's, wholly to the credit of the former. At the head of the Princess's was a showman who as lavishly illustrated Pizarro as Macbeth; at that of Sadler's Wells was an artist who assigned fervour and genius predominance over archæology. Professor Morley, with higher praise, says that Shakespeare's plays, as revived at Sadler's Wells, are always poems, and declares that Timon of Athens is wholly a poem to the Sadler's Wells audience (Journal of a London Playgoer, p. 154). His praise of Phelps is more well-meaning than comprehensible: "Mr. Phelps in his own acting of Timon treats the character as an ideal, as the central figure in a mystery. As the liberal Athenian lord, his gestures are large, his movements free-out of himself everything pours, towards himself he will draw nothing” (ib. p. 155). With this representation the stage history of Timon ends. Two men alone have, so far as surviving records attest, played the part of Shakespeare's Old Timon with the noble heart, Of Kean and Phelps as Timon some memories survive. Of actors who presented Timon in paternal aspects, or as an impassioned wooer, enough has been said. A subject so devoid of feminine interest is, of course, unpromising-Timon has, accordingly, in most countries, been "severely" left alone. Lucian's dialogue has been translated into French by Brécourt, and produced as a one-act comedy, played in 1684 under the title of Timon, and also under that of Les Flatteurs trompés ou l'ennemi des faux amis. Timon le Misanthrope, a three-act comedy of Delisle, produced at the Theatre des Italiens in 1722, is a mythological spectacle, bringing Mercury and Plutus on to the earth. Neither piece, it is needless to say, owes anything to Shakespeare. In Notes and Queries 7th s. iii. 46 it is recorded that John Honeycott, the master of the charity school, Clerkenwell, had on 6th Feb. 1711, "with the children of the school, publicly acted the play called 'Timon of Athens,' and by tickets signed by himself had invited several people to it." For this he was called over the coals by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the trustees of the school. See also Secretan's Life of Robert Nelson, Lond. 1860, p. 130. This performance of a play of Shakespeare is held to be "evidence of a considerable amount of culture in a neighbourhood where one would scarcely expect to find it." The question arises, however—was the play Shakespeare or Shadwell?— J. K. CRITICAL REMARKS. Timon of Athens is a study of the disastrous effects of a reverse of fortune upon an unbalanced mind. The subject was hardly capable of being handled so effectively as those of the other great tragedies, and the comparative unpopularity of the play is easily accounted for. But if it does not carry us along with the thrilling interest of a Macbeth or an Othello, it is by no means deficient either in design or execution. Although the dialogue becomes a little tedious here and there, the plot is well sustained, the leading situations are impressive, and the principal characters powerfully drawn. Timon's character is not hard to understand. He is a man of generous impulses but defective judgment. His weakness is a facile goodnature, which leads him to make friends indiscriminately with everyone; he is not at the pains to form any estimate of the true character of those who flock to enjoy his hospitality, but lavishes upon them his riches with an unwise prodigality: for he has no thought for the future; with a careless magnificence he seeks only to gratify the momentary impulse of generosity, and although not a helpless victim to flattery, he is not insensible to the "feast-won, fast-lost" popularity which follows. Thus his knowledge of mankind is merely superficial, his friendship does not rest upon those foundations which alone can render it permanent, he has no reserve of strength in his own heart to fall back upon, and it is not to be wondered at that when the crash comes he is unprepared to meet it, and that when his so-called friends desert him, and the false paradise which he has created for himself vanishes away, he is powerless to grapple with the stern realities which stare him in the face, and takes refuge in self- banishment and a passionate and uncompromising hatred of the human race. In this, if he shows weakness, he does not show meanness of character. Had he followed the advice of the Cynic Apemantus he would have acquiesced in the low morality which surrounded him: he would have turned flatterer himself and sought to thrive by that which had undone him. But his nature is too noble for that; curse he can-but never smile and be a villain. Not that cursing is a pleasure to him; he is as dissatisfied with himself as with the rest of the world, and from his intolerable bitterness of soul- -a bitterness relieved only by one touch of nature, his relenting towards his faithful stewardthe sole release is death; yet though he dies with imprecations on his lips, the play does not end without a hint that those he cursed have forgiven him, and remember rather his virtues than his faults: rich conceit for aye Dead (v. 4. 77-81.) Where Timon failed Alcibiades succeeded. It has been remarked that the part which Alcibiades plays is only remotely connected with the main story; but it cannot be doubted that he is intended to form a contrast to Timon, and point the moral of his fall. Like Timon, Alcibiades is wronged, but he does not unpack his heart in words and fall a cursing. He is a successful man of the world, who takes prompt measures to right his wrongs, and his triumph over the offending senators forms a fitting sequel to the story of Timon's barren misanthropy. None the less it is with Timon, and not with Alcibiades, that our sympathies rest. Had Timon possessed the practical virtues of the victorious commander he would have been saved from despair, and the catastrophe would have been averted; but as we lament over the wreck of a noble nature, we feel that there are nobler things in the world than worldly prosperity, and that failure may sometimes command a deeper respect than success. The character of Apemantus is a foil to Timon's. Timon hates men, and is miserable in his hatred; Apemantus hates them too, and enjoys it. Always a cynic and a carper, he never had any faith in the goodness of the human heart, and cannot open his mouth except to give utterance to a sneer or a surly repartee. He has no wrongs to avenge; he is not, like Timon, smarting under a sense of the injustice of mankind; he is a slave, whom Fortune's tender arm With favour never clasp'd; but bred a dog. (iv. 3. 250, 251.) He is unable to understand the righteous indignation which drove Timon to "affect his manners." He thinks Timon must be insincere in his misanthropy, that it is either a fit of temporary pique, or that he is reduced to it by sheer force of circumstances. He is not himself "sick of this false world;" and when Timon wishes that the world may be given over to the dominion of beasts, he is for putting off that catastrophe until he himself has quitted it. It should be noticed too that Timon never pretends to be better than others, and never lays claim to any special virtues; while in Apemantus we see that pride and self-complacency with which such cynicism as his is always accompanied. He hugs himself in his superiority to the human weaknesses of Timon's flatterers, in his abstinence from the banquets in which they revelled, and in his utter independence of all human ties (i. 2. 63–70): Immortal gods, I crave no pelf; Among the minor characters of the drama that of the Steward is the most prominent. He is a faithful and attached servant of a type which was a favourite with the later dramatists. He had that insight into human character which his master lacked. Timon in the simplicity of his soul imagined that if he were ever in need, the purses of his friends would be open to him with the same generosity that his was opened to them, but the Steward knew them better (ii. 2. 178-181): Ah, when the means are gone that buy this praise, The breath is gone whereof this praise is made: Feast-won, fast-lost; one cloud of winter showers, These flies are couch'd. The attachment of his servants to Timon is a proof of the inherent goodness of his heart. Had he been a mere hard-hearted, selfish prodigal, he would never have had so devoted a follower as Flavius, who, although unable to save him, was able to wring from him in his bitterest mood the confession that one honest man was left in the world. Timon of Athens is singular among Shakespeare's plays in the absence of any female character, for the brace of courtezans can hardly be counted. It is perhaps enough to say that Shakespeare did not find any women in his materials, and did not care to complicate the plot by the introduction of any creations of his own. But he may also have thought that the subject was not one in which the female character could be displayed to any advantage. Shadwell thought otherwise, and into his alteration he introduced two ladies-one with whom Timon was on the point of marriage, but who deserts him in his adversity; and another, whom he had himself deserted, but who stands by him to the last. 13 |