1855.] SAUNDERS'S LOVE'S MARTYRDOM. 245 She read the play mendations, to which she was bound to listen with respect, and with a request that she would play the heroine. It was called Love's Martyrdom, by Mr John Saunders, a gentleman who had done much excellent literary work, and who became afterwards well known as the author of Abel Drake's Wife and other novels. In the preface to the then unpublished play were letters by Charles Dickens and Walter Savage Landor, speaking of it in the most enthusiastic terms. Mr Landor, for example, found in it "passages worthy of Shakespeare." "He did not know what tragedy he might compare with it, among the best of those which divided in their day the world with Shakespeare." Miss Faucit was bound to respect such weighty authority. carefully and admired much of the writing. she well knew does little for a stage success. attained without situations to arouse and maintain suspense and sympathy, characters true to nature, aptness and brevity in the dialogue, and a rising interest sustained to the end. In these qualities, much to her regret, she found the play deficient; and at a resting-place on our journey to the north, she wrote to the author an elaborate criticism, pointing out in what his work failed for the purposes of the stage, and showing among other things, what experts know well to be a most dangerous defect, that the strong scenes—and strong scenes they undoubtedly were culminated in the third and fourth acts, and that the interest fell off instead of rising in the fifth. Her recent experience of the reception in London of Mr Browning's fine play made her more than doubtful of the success of any new poetical drama. Nevertheless, she felt so much for the author, that she told him, either in that letter or afterwards, that she would do what she could for him, if any London manager would undertake to produce his play. Here the matter slept for some time. In the early part of 1855 my wife performed in Glasgow, and afterwards in Dublin, and in both places a great advance was recognised in the treatment of the characters with which her audiences were already familiar. A letter, written while she was in Dublin, to her old friend Sir A. Alison, brought the following interesting reply : 242 LETTER AS TO BROWNING'S PLAYS. [1853. Scutcheon, which was withdrawn before it had time to make its way with the public. Poor acting destroyed the success of Colombe's Birthday. His first play, Strafford, failed very much from the same cause. When Mrs Richmond Ritchie was writing her reminiscences of the Brownings, she asked Lady Martin to write her recollections of the production of that play. For Thackeray's daughter, whom she had loved for many years, Lady Martin would have done anything. Little, therefore, as she ever cared to write about her theatrical experiences, the request produced the following reply : : "April 30, 1891, BRIGHTON. "The production of Browning's Strafford which you ask me about, occurred so early in my career, that anything I could say about it, would be, I fear, of little use to you. I was so young then, and just a mere novice in my art, so that my first feeling, when I heard the play read, was one of wonder, that such a weighty character as Lucy, Countess of Carlisle, should be entrusted to my hands. I was told that Mr Browning had particularly wished me to undertake it. I naturally felt the compliment implied in the wish, but this only increased my surprise, which did not diminish as I advanced in the study of the character. "Lady Carlisle, as drawn by Mr Browning-a woman versed in all the political struggles and intrigues of the times-did not move me. The only interest she awoke in me was due to her silent love for Strafford, and devotion to his cause; and I wondered why, depending so absolutely as he did upon her sympathy, her intelligence, her complete self-abnegation, he should only have, in the early part, a common expression of gratitude to give her in return. "This made the treatment of Lucy's character, as you will readily see, all the more difficult, in the necessity it imposed upon me of letting her feeling be seen by the audience, without its being perceptible to Strafford. "Of course I did my best to carry out what I conceived was Mr Browning's view; and he, at all events, I had reason to know, was well satisfied with my efforts; I had met him at Mr and Mrs 1855.] HOW ACTED. 247 tone, but with an underglow and richness of inflection, that, as I have myself seen, often drew an applause from those within. hearing, which took her by surprise. Of this Mr Saunders had an experience, which he thus records in the preface to an edition (published in 1883) of his play as originally written: "During one of the rehearsals, when she was nearly perfect in the words. of her part, and was speaking them with head thrown back, eyes half shut, the sound of her voice so low that only one near to her, as I happened to be, could hear it at all, I had for some minutes the most exquisite pleasure of my life. And when I could recur to myself, it was to feel for the first time assured as to my own verses, for I knew then they could not be unworthy of such delicious utterance." It took Mr Saunders some time to "recur to himself." I was standing by his side, and he turned to me in a state of apparent surprise, and said he could not believe that the lines she had spoken were his. Low as was the voice, its vibrant quality had reached many ears besides his, for I remember well the burst of applause with which the passage was received, led off by old Mr Farren, who had come to the rehearsal. The play, as Miss Faucit had feared, met with only a succès d'estime, its defects, which able writing had concealed from its readers, becoming apparent under the practical test of representation. Thus the Morning Chronicle said of it (June 12, 1855), "More than to any merits of its own, the success of Love's Martyrdom is due to the admirable acting of Miss H. Faucit in the character of the heroine." As she had predicted, the interest was exhausted in a powerful scene in the fourth act, where her acting called down a storm of applause, after which the fifth act dwindled into a feeble close. The character of Mr Saunders's hero, Franklyn, too, demanded a subtler treatment than Mr Barry Sullivan could give it. We dwell [the Globe critic wrote] on Mr Sullivan's mistaken rendering of the character, because it spoiled the beauty of the dramatist's work as much as Miss Faucit's lovely and artistic embodiment of Margaret added lustre to it. It is many years since we saw this actress. In the interval her powers have matured, and her performance came upon us like a glad surprise. For grace of deportment, finish in details, and complete identification with the part she played, Miss Faucit's acting was equal to that of a first-rate 244 THE NORTHERN MEETING, INVERNESS. [1854. critics seem to have little knowledge of the infinite pains bestowed in all respects before their day upon the representation of historical and Shakespearian plays, and noteworthy people in romance and history. "I can see my gowns now, in Lucy Percy, made from a Vandyck picture, and remember the thought bestowed even upon the kind of fur with which the gown was trimmed. The same minute attention to accuracy of costume prevailed in all the characters produced. The scenery was alike accurate, if not so full of small details as at present. The human beings dominated all." 1 After the close of the Haymarket engagement, Miss Faucit did not act again that year (1853) except for a few nights in Manchester, which she agreed to do chiefly for the sake of introducing Colombe's Birthday to a public, among whom she knew there were many on whom its fine qualities would not be lost. After a long rest, and a pleasant sojourn of some months abroad, she appeared again in Manchester in July 1854. At its close we went on a series of visits to friends in the Highlands, when she made her first acquaintance with "the land of the mountain and the flood," as we passed onwards to Inverness by way of Loch Lomond, the Pass of Glencoe, and the Caledonian Canal. All the warmth of a Highland welcome awaited her. Many new friends were made. She was a conspicuous figure at the two annual Northern Meeting Balls. Dancing was always to her a great delight, and she held her own gallantly in even the lengthened Highland reels, where it is the pride of the ladies to weary out first the pipers and then the orchestral band. It needs not be said how much admiration this excited among the Celtic lookerson. It was a happy time, and the kind hearts, that made their hospitality doubly precious, were always held by her in grateful remembrance. When we left London for the north, she had hoped to leave all dramatic cares behind her. But this was not to be. To her, writers of poetical dramas naturally looked for encouragement, and a play had just been put into her hands with strong recom 1 This letter was published in Mrs Ritchie's Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning. London, 1892. CHAPTER XII. AFTER a year of rest from professional work, Miss Faucit, in June 1856, acted again for a few weeks in answer to urgent calls from her friends in Dublin and Belfast. Her health, then very delicate, made her turn a deaf ear to the pressing solicitations of theatrical managers, who had always found it to their profit to secure her services. They had good reason for this. It was a matter of pride with her, that no manager ever lost money by her. She made it her rule, that he should reap as much profit by her performances as she did, and this after, in some cases, deducting from the receipts a given sum for expenses of performance. She objected, too, to the prices being raised, as these might enrich herself, but must have the effect of diminishing the regular receipts in the subsequent weeks, and in this way hurt the general business of the theatre, and possibly affect the salaries, never too large, of the performers. It was natural, therefore, that in these days, when there was what was called a stock company in the provincial theatres she visited,—a thing now wholly unknown, -that her coming should be eagerly welcomed by the local managers. At home she was now the centre of an ever-widening circle of friends, which, together with a large correspondence, absorbed all her leisure. Mrs Browning's Aurora Leigh, recently published, was at this time much talked about in literary circles. Much as I myself admired the poem, I persuaded my wife to wait till she was in stronger health before reading it, as I knew it would excite her too much. Her friend Miss Stokes wrote asking her opinion about this very remarkable book. This was her reply (February 2, 1857): |