578 Mr. Walter H. Pollock [May 20, 



in which Shakspeare's genius ennobled his crude materials, after 

 which he discussed some of the criticisms and comments on ' Hamlet,' 

 as an example of the way in which the poet had been dealt with. 



" In Warburton," writes Gervinus, " in Johnson, and in Steevens 

 (the most intelligent of all) there are excellent explanations of certain 

 passages, traits, and characters which burst forth amid prejudices and 

 false judgment, as proofs of how the greatness of the poet prevailed 

 more and more even over the narrow minds of their criticisers. In 

 accordance with this partial investigation and with these passing 

 flashes of perception, alternating with greater darkness, was the 

 treatment of Shakspeare on the stage both in Germany and England. 

 The jubilee, two hundred years after Shakspeare's birth, celebrated in 

 Stratford-on-Avon in 1764, denotes about the time when the poet's 

 works were revived by Garrick on the English stage." It may be 

 well to remark, what Gervinus merely alludes to at this point, that 

 Garrick's representations were very far from being, — apart from his 

 own acting, — what would satisfy any critical audience nowadays. The 

 alterations to which Gervinus presently alludes were often of a most 

 disastrous kind, notably in the case of the complete excision of the 

 gravediggers in ' Hamlet.' It is a minor point that Garrick played 

 Shakspeare's characters in the costume of his own (Garrick's) time, 

 according to the then universal custom. The German critic goes on 

 to assert, and it might be difficult to quarrel with the assertion, that 

 "the man who first valued Shakspeare according to his full desert 

 was indisputably Lessing. With all the force of a true taste, he 

 pointed to Wieland's translation of the English dramatist when 

 scarcely any one in Germany knew him." Lessing, it will be remem- 

 bered, was born in 1729 and died in 1781, and it can hardly be 

 doubted that, as Gervinus says, his influence in Germany caused a 

 reaction in England, until " when Nathan Drake in 1817 published 

 his ample work upon ' Shakspeare and his Times ' the idolatry of the 

 poet had passed already to his native land." It is a pity that Gervinus, 

 who goes on to dwell with pleasure on the wide-spread interest in 

 Shakspeare again excited of late years in England, could not see the 

 artistic homage now paid to him on the stage of what has become our 



leading theatre. 



****** 



The only modern version of 'Hamlet' which has obtained any 

 real success on the stage in France was the one written by the great 

 Dumas, who had a keen appreciation of the genius of Shakspeare, 

 and who, indeed, was first fired to write for the stage by seeing 

 Shakspeare's plays represented in Paris by an English company in 

 English. Upon the arrival of this company, "I had never read," 

 he writes in his memoirs, "one play of the foreign drama. They 

 put up ' Hamlet.' I only knew the ' Hamlet ' of Ducis. I went to see 

 the ' Hamlet ' of Shakspeare. This it was that I had longed for ; this 

 it was that I had ever felt the want of. It was the players forgetting 

 the traditions of the stage, it was the imaginary life that art made 



