T. W. ROBERTSON'S PLAYS.* THE " brief chronicle" of his
father's life prefixed to the first authorised edition of his works by the dramatist's only son, though valueless from the critical point of view, does great credit to the writer's heart. Thus, speaking of Caste, he says : —" True to the theory of his genius, which had already enabled him to successfully give to the stage plays free from the incubus of conventionality, he reached the level of his own ideal, and gave to the stage for all time a play which, for
originality of treatment and lifelike verisimilitude, has never been surpassed." Turning for the moment from criticism to narrative, we learn that Robertson came of an old theatrical family, and was familiar with the footlights from his earliest infancy. Both his father and mother were on the stage, and with the exception of one brief interval, when, in a fit of impatience, he deserted his family and accepted an engagement as English- speaking usher in a school at Utrecht, he stuck to the boards, until the success of his plays enabled him to devote himself entirely to their composi- tion. After a great deal of hard work in the " Lincoln circuit," as it was called, he came to London at the age of nineteen, to make a living anyhow. One of his pieces was acted at the Olympic in 1851, but failed utterly. These were the days in which H. J. Byron and he shared a dress suit between them, and when any sort of engagement, even at a guinea a week, was welcome. He wrote indefatigably for all manner of papers and magazines, and besides original com- positions, executed a great many translations of foreign plays. At one time we find him employed as prompter at the Olympic Theatre; at another he endeavoured to enlist, but was rejected on the score of a weak heart. Marrying in 1856, he and his wife toured in Ireland and the provinces, and played at the minor Metropolitan theatres. At last he met his good genius in Sothern, 'who was so taken with the dramatised version of his novel, David Garrick—which, by-the-way, every manager in town had refused—that he gave him L50 down " on account " for it. It was for Sothern that Robertson wrote Society, pro- duced in Liverpool in 1865, and introduced to a London audience at the Prince of Wales's Theatre in the same year. He had now got his foot on the ladder, and for the remaining six years of his brief life—he died at forty-two--was removed from the pinch of poverty. Success only stimulated his activity : he wrote play after play with the greatest rapidity, though with varying results. The last productions of his pen show a decided falling-off ; and War, which was played while he was dying, proved a complete fiasco. Only superlative acting could have saved the piece, instead of which the cast was below par ; and one of the chief performers, a French actor of large proportions, dressed in a tight-fitting uniform, instead of commanding the respect of his audience, only moved them to laughter. Birth, the piece with which this collection opens, is one of Robertson's latest and weakest efforts. The motive is the
same as that of Old Men and New Acres, the contrast between aristocrats and plutocrats who begin by hating each other, and end by indiscriminate intermarriage. The part of Jack Randall, written for Sothern, is full of forced merriment, and we are not surprised to hear that it proved a failure. The manufacturer's sister is intolerably rude, and, what is intended for naïve interest in all that concerns pedigree, is simple, downright, shoddy vulgarity. Earii, do not address their sisters as " sister," nor do gamekeepers—even the gamekeepers of Earls—use such words as "to bode." A Breach of Promise
• The Principal Dramatic Works of Thomas William Robertson. With Memoir by his Son. 2 vo!s. London : Sampson Low and Co. need not detain us : it is merely an extravagant bourgeois farce, as the names Ponticopp, Croodle, and Fullawords will suffi- ciently indicate. But with Caste, produced in 1867, we see Robertson at his best. His son speaks of his free- dom from conventionality,—rather, we should say, freedom from stage conventions. The great merit of such a play as Caste is its fidelity in reproducing the conventionalities of real life. If we except the Marquise, who is a thorough denizen of Stageland, there is a great deal of natural- ness and truth about. the various characters. They do not make set speeches a /a Lady of Lyons—excepting that one falsetto passage where Esther, believing her husband to be dead, expresses a desire to be a soldier, " to fight the wretches who destroyed him, to gallop miles upon their upturned faces "—but they comport themselves in romantic situations with that reserve and dearth of demonstrativeness which is the characteristic of the Saxon. Sam Gerridge, the mechanic who looks at human nature through a gaspipe, is an excellent creation. His most expressive metaphors are always borrowed from his calling. Thus, when Hawtree says, " We must break the news to her gently and by degrees," Sam replies : " Yes, if you turn the tap on to full pressure, she'll explode." And, again, when his feelings prove too much for him, he explains his appearance to Polly by saying that the water has got into his meter. David Garrick, adapted from a French version of a German play, is certainly one of the most effective of Robertson's productions, but in virtue of the author's indebtedness to others, cannot claim considera- tion as an original work. Dreams, a five-act drama with a musician-hero, is one of Robertson's most ambitious efforts ; but it lacks the reserve which made Caste a success. The author seems to think, from his picture of the young Earl, that really generous and even heroic feelings can coexist with a most arrogant contempt for social inferiors. The Earl's snobbishness, as illustrated by his outburst, " You are not my equals," is an absurd parody of caste-feeling. Mr. Hibbs, the commercial man, is the counterpart to Sam Gerridge. All his imagery is drawn from the day-book and ledger. Hibbs is as good as the aristocrats are absurd. For instance, take the exceedingly highly pitched dialogue between the Earl and Lady Clara., in which she winds up by saying : "I love you because you are brave and generous and handsome—because you are Leo, my Lion.—Earl: And you shall be my lioness.— Clara : And our cage shall be home." Home is happily free from this vein, and except for a thoroughly conventional pair of youthful lovers—perhaps the most detestable institution of our modern comedy—is very pleasant reading. The part of Alfred Dorrison, alias Colonel White—written for Sothern—is full of Dundrearyish touches to which .that eccentric comedian must have given most pointed expression. The love-scene between Colonel White and Dora is very amusing, as the Colonel gets more and more confused, and eventually declares himself as follows :—" Colonel : I should like a wife [gasping], if I could have one invented especially for me, about your height, with black eyes. I should like my wife to always have black eyes. No—I mean [gasping] I should like all my wives to have black eyes [breaks down] and light hair, and she should wear a white dress ; and—and to be afraid of lightning—and—and her name should be Dora." Excellent, too, is the interview in which Colonel White gradually draws out the impostor Mountraffe. Of Robertson's drawing-room comedies, M.P., which follows, is one of the weakest. In The Nightingale he endeavoured not very happily to adapt his methods to the needs of an Adelphi audience. The best thing in the play is his instructions to the actors, which were always very much to the point,—e.g., Ismael, the villain, is thus described in a note :—" His manner amiable and agreeable, perpetually .smiling (no Iago-glances to the pit, and private information to the audience, that he is a villain, and that they shall see -what they shall see). A suave, bland Oriental, with the old Oriental dignity." With regard to Ours, which the author's son tells us is the most popular of all Robertson's plays in America, the advantages of revision are strikingly shown by the contrast between the original draft, quoted in the preface, and the version as it stands. It speaks well for Robertson's adroitness that he was able to carry off the absurdity of the ladies all arriving in the Crimea by his lightness of touch and the naturalness of the dialogue. One discrepancy we have noted in the text. Chacot alludes to himself as "a great hulking fellow" on p. 459, whereas on p. 486 he is called a little man. School, though the most improbable, is in parts the most amusing of all Robertson's pieces. Krux, the grotesque and impossible usher, had, it appears, a living pro- totype in the under-master at the school at Utrecht where Robertson served his abortive apprenticeship in the trade of schoolmastering. The scenes between Bella and Lord Beaufoy, and Naomi Tighe (Mrs. Bancroft's favourite part) and Jack Poyntz, are full of vivacity and animation; while Farintosh is one of the best character-parts in recent English comedy. Society—the part of the sporting literary barrister in which was intended for Sothern, but never played by him—is quite one of the most readable of all Robertson's plays, and, as was said of it at the time, it gives a very clever, sketchy picture of modern men and manners. The colours are laid on more coarsely than in some of his later work, but the humour of the Bohemian scenes is undoubted.
Without making any elaborate pretence to being a literary writer, Robertson wielded a facile pen. He had more than a smattering of languages, though he was in the main his own master, and a sure-footed instinct for fitting the right word to the meaning. Even apart from the associations called up by their perusal, at least half-a-dozen of the plays in these volumes are very good reading ; and as a faithful reflection of every-day romance in the middle of the nineteenth century, they will be read and remembered. His heroes are capable of heroism, but they do not indulge in heroics. When Naomi Tighe reminds Jack Poyntz that Othello used to tell Desde- mona of all his martial achievements, Jack replies : " Othello was a nigger, and didn't mind bragging." The situations are often improbable, but the way in which they are faced is generally founded on fact. His service to the stage was threefold. He successfully resisted the foreign invasion, and, as his son puts it, revived an interest in native plays. Secondly, he is to be regarded, on the authority of such experts as Messrs. W. S. Gilbert and John Hare, as the inventor of modern stage-management. Thirdly, he was the means of dealing a death-blow to that school in which he himself gained his experience,—the provincial stock company. The success of Caste induced the author to send a properly organised company into the provinces ; and, to quote his son's words, "this organisation never ceased its labours in the presenta- tion of Robertson's comedies for fourteen years, and was in existence seventeen years, under successive manage- ments." Of the stock-company system, Mr. Robertson junior has nothing good to say ; but the fact remains that all our good actors were made by it. Long runs and travelling companies are a fatal obstacle in the way of acquiring varied experience. But though an innovator in some directions, Robertson was thoroughly and healthily old- fashioned in others. There is nothing unwholesome in any single one of his plays. The pleasure he gave—and it was very considerable—is invariably attained by legitimate means. Again, though an eminently natural writer, he was a thorough believer in poetical justice. His plays always end happily and cheerfully.
We have only to say in conclusion that we are totally unable to discern on what principle the contents of these two volumes are arranged. The order is certainly not chrono- logical, nor are the plays arranged in classes. The printing and general " get-up " leave much to be desired ; and the illustrations—portraits of the chief actors and actresses who appeared in Robertson's plays—are exceptionally hideous specimens of photography.
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