Othello appears as a naturalised V'enetian. But I have
quoted it chiefly as being an exception that proves a rule. It
is the only case in my knowledge of a curious inconsistency
in J.''s judgments on matters dramatic. For, in spite of this
expressed view as to what ought to be Othello's attitude, to
be expressed presumably by the actor of Othello, towards
Desdemona, he yet had a passionate admiration for Salvini's
Othello, which certainly was intended to be very Oriental, and
W. H. Tollock 249
certainly in the last scene was nothing if not raging. Fechter
came much nearer to the suy-oestion in J.'s letter than did
Salvini. As to the Italian actof, I well remember the trend
of many conversations and arguments with J. upon the render-
ing which Salvini gave; arguments wherein we agreed about
the earlier scenes, including the dismissal of Cassio, after which
we parted company. But, generally, a passage in another of J."'s
letters speaks decisively for itself on that question. " I once
made a Tripos List," he wrote, " of the best things I had
seen in the way of acting." He set out the scheme of this
Tripos, which I do not quote in full because he left out many
English and Continental actors of whom I know he thought
highly. The noteworthy point to illustrate what has been
said is that he put " Salvini in Othello " in Class I all by
himself, and added that " after Salvini a broad line should be
drawn. He is not only the best actor I ever saw, but he went
farther than I thought dramatic art could go." Close on this
he wrote in high praise of M. Mounet-Sully's ffidipe, and this
passage is so characteristic, and will recall J. so vividly to any-
one who knew him, that it is worth quoting almost in full : —
" Mounet in ffidipe rises to the height of tragic power.
He not only puts before his audience the profundity of sorrow
for a crime of which he is, in fact, innocent ; but he portrays
his character. Oedipus is before you — the rather vulgar self-
satisfied person on whom all things have smiled, and who, when
he does talk to his inferiors, does it in a very condescending,
patronizing way. Such a man feels the crash more than
another would ; and the royalty in ruins is something appalling
as a picture of despair. I tried to copy it here [Cambridge]
when we played (Edipus, and was only scolded for putting
lioiTors before the audience. I replied that my critics evidently
had not read the play, and advised them to go home and do so."
To turn to another French version of a Greek tragedy,
the following passage shows not only how well J. knew " Greek
Play," but is also a good instance of how alert and ready for
new, even at the expense of old, impressions he kept his mind ;
250 y.'s Love of the Theatre
a quality as valuable in a critic as in an artist. The concluding
sentences make one wish that J. had "taken up his pen" for
the burlesque he suggests : —
"I went last night [21st August 1907] to the Franc^'ais to
see Electra. I don't feel quite so sure as I did before that
Sophocles was a great dramatist. A one-part play, the prin-
cipal character in which is always screaming, is not attractive.
Mme. Silvain is excellent, from a certain point of view, but if
she would only have given us ' a few brilliant flashes of silence ""
her performance would have been infinitely finer. For instance,
she spoilt the recognition scene, which was famous, if I mistake
not, even in the ancient world, by yelling at the top of her
voice, and Orestes did the same. It resembled nothing so
much as two cats screaming at each other. If only she had
fallen into his arms in silence ! One can imagine how Rachel
would have done it had she attempted the part. I confess that
I sympathised a good deal with Clytemnestra, who for ten years
or more had endured the presence of this ' furie,' as she calls
her, at the domestic fireside. What a burlesque might be
written on it ! The dresses were good, and the scene pretty,
but I doubt its accuracy both as a landscape and from an
archaeological point of view."
I quote from one more letter concerning the actors at the
Fran^ais because it shows how evenly, as a rule, its writer held
the scales of dramatic judgment even when he was most
strongly inclined to praise, as he certainly was in the case of
the Fran^ais company generally, and not least in that of the
admirable actor Edmond Got. He went in December 1882 to
see Le lioi s'Amuse, was full of high expectations, and was
" sorry to record a very great disappointment. Worth seeing
it is; but, alas ! badly done from beginning to end, and, unlike
the Franc^-ais, the small parts are so bad ; the courtiers are
common, and the stage-business clumsy, full of blunders.
Mounet-Sully looks Fran(^'ois I^'" but cannot act him, except in
the love-scene in Act II, where he is very good. Got cannot
play Triboulet. He is a good, comfortable old gentleman who
W. H. Tollock 251
could never say a funny thing or do a wicked one ; and he
speaks the sublime monologue of the fifth act without con-
viction, like a schoolboy on a speech-day. It seems to him to
be the most ordinary thing in the world to have the body of a
King in a sack ; and he speaks those splendid lines : —
' Que je suis grand ici, ma colere de feu
Va de pair cette nuit avec celle de Dieu,'
as though they had no particular significance. I should like to
see Coquelin or Taillade do it. Jacques Reubell said a very
good thing about him in Act I, when he carries a cap and bells :
' II a Tair d'un bon bourgeois qui parcourt le Louvre pour
epousseter les meubles."* Fran^^ois would not have kept such a
dull jester for an hour. Of course he has moments. The great
scene with the Courtiers in Act III was very good. Again, he
was very good in Act IV with Saltabadil when the latter asks
the name of the man whom he is to murder. 'II s'appelle le
crime, et moi le chatiment.' Oddly enough he was at his best
in the scene with the bystanders when the body of Blanche had
been found in the sack. There he was really pathetic, and I had
a genuine thrill. From my general condemnation of the whole
piece I must except Mile, liartet, who did her best with Blanche
and was very charming. But Lord ! what rot Hugo makes the
poor thing talk ! It is almost as well that I am not going to
write an article on it in the Saturday : I should feel compelled
to speak against the Fran^ais as I never thought I should have
to speak." Le Roi s' Amuse was a great favourite with J., and
it is interesting to note that in 1904 he printed privately a very
telling version of Act V.
J.'s love for the Fran(^'ais (the Temple, as he usually called it)
was a very real thing, and his first visit to the house as rebuilt
after the fire was a shock to him. In January 1901 he wrote :
" The spectacle presented by the house is navrant — there is no
other word for it. The fire having made havoc with the one
relic of the ancien reg^ime left to us, the architect of the theatre
has finished it off. The passages and vestibules remind one
252 y.^s Love 0/ the Theatre
of a provincial railway station. Floors and staircases are of
stone, the balustrades of common ironwork, the walls coloured
yellow, the boxes made of light-brown oak. At the top of
the grand staircase, where the statue of Rachel used to stand,
and where the door was which led to the Loges des Artistes,
are three cold vulgar arches of stone, and an ascenseui' ! The
Foyer and the statue of Voltaire have been suffered to remain,
but the long gallery leading out of it has been vulgarised,
and the statue of George Sand has disappeared. In the
house the horrid yellow pursues you, alternating with dull
red. The one change that was really wanted has, of course,
not been made. The floor is still too low, so that you cannot
see the feet of the artists. The proscenium makes you shudder
to look at it. A broad band of oak-leaves, evidently made
of plaster, goes all round, thickly covered with yellow paint ;
and at the bottom two ridiculous flower-beds of sham flowers."
Certainly the change, as vividly described by J. in 1901, must
have been amazingly unpleasing to anyone who had known
and cared for the old Theatre Francais, and there can hardly
have been an Englishman who knew it better and loved it
better than did J.
As to English dramatic art, I went with J. to plays in
London less often than I did to plays in Paris. But I know
certain things as to his tastes and opinions. He always loved
a melodrama, and delighted in such pieces as The Silver
King, The Lyons Mail, and The Bells. He was worried,
perhaps unduly, by some of Sir Henry Irving's mannerisms,
but not the less he fully recognised and admired the actor"'s
genius; and it is for many reasons noteworthy that he specially
admired Irving's King Lear, in which part he also had a real
admiration for Mr. Benson. Mrs. John Wood, who certainly
was inimitable, was a special favourite of his ; and he dis-
cerned the very high, individual, and latterly very flexible talent
of John Clayton before it had found full public recognition,
and before he had any personal knowledge of the actor. I
believe Clayton was the only actor on the English stage whom
W. H. To Hock 253
he knew well in private life. Clayton once paid him a visit
at Cambridge, and J/s delight then was as unaffected and
pleasing to see as was his earlier joy in the passing visit from
some of the old Haymarket Company. But for Clayton he
had a real friendship. As I write I am reminded of a good
instance of J.'s aptness in summing up the essence of an actor's
achievement in a particular part. Clayton had been cast for
Dazzle in London Assurance, a part which then seemed not
altogether in his line. I asked J., who had seen Charles
Mathews, the original Uazzle, what he thought of it, and
how it compared with Mathews's rendering. He replied, " It
was a fine, well-thought-out piece of work. Clayton knew
how he, personally, could get big effects, and he got them.
Mathews's Dazzle was like the finest champagne; Clayton's
was like the finest burgundy." I saw Clayton in Dazzle, and
could imagine Mathews in the character from J.'s descriptions,
and from seeing him in not dissin)ilar parts ; and it seemed to
me that the distinction could not have been better drawn than
it was by J.
Mention of Clayton, excellent actor and excellent com-
panion and friend, reminds me of a subject on which J. and I
were wont to cap experiences, the subject being the astounding
perversions of a French author's meaning that used to obtain
in English "conveyances" from French playwrights. On the
occasion of Clayton's visit to J. at Cambridge he took a hand
in this game. J. and I offered instances, some of which I
still remember. One was a special favourite of J.'s and came
from a Proverbe bv Musset. The French line is, " J'ai mis
M. de Savigny a la porte avec son petit meuble " (a pincushion
or something similar which Savigny had brought with him).
The line given to the English actor was, " I have put Monsieur
de Savigny at the door with his little piece of furniture." Then
there was, in the English version oiLes Damclieff', for " N'eveillez
pas le medecin qui dort" (which of course should have been
rendered " Let sleeping doctors lie "), " Do not arouse a slum-
bering physician." And again, among other absurdities, in
2 54 J?'*'-^ Love of the Theatre
an English version of a French perversion of The School for
Scandal is the remarkable line, " I assure you my wife shines
in society like an artificial fire." When J. and I had for the
time being exhausted our examples, Clayton put the final
touch by recounting how once, playing a youth making love
to a woman of the world, who good-naturedly laughed at him,
he had to say (with an emphasis which he could not resist),
" Madam, you treat me like a scholar ! " Of which line the
original is obvious enough.
That J. was as thorough and keen a critic of English as he
was of French plays and players may be seen in the following
extract from a letter written in 1895 : —
" I went last night to see Mrs. EhhsmUh. I suppose one
ought not to judge so careful a work, on which the author
has evidently spent months of thought and labour, at a first
hearing ; but I must admit that in the first place it is dull.
There is no action — talk, talk, talk for three mortal hours ; and
talk uttered by, or about, two invertebrate persons who don't
know their own minds. Mrs. Patrick Campbell acts splendidly.
I had no idea what a real artist she was till I saw her in this,
but her part is a thankless one; and there is no justification
for the sudden change of front in the second act when she
"fc>"
appears in an outre dress, looking like a cracker off a
Christmas tree, as Freddy Bentinck said. This change should
have been carefully prepared. Then again, the much-vaunted
scene of the burning of the Bible fell quite flat last night —
there was no applause at all. It seemed to me that the
audience had got bored with the stove, which all the characters
had been fiddling at ever since the curtain went up. First
the servants make up the fire ; then Cleeve burns a lot of
letters in it; then she and he are always sitting down in front
of it, and opening and shutting the door. When you know
what the great scene is to bo, this wretched piece of furniture
gets on your nerves."
With this characteristically keen quotation I close my
personal and other recollections of J., whereof the setting
W. H. ToIIock 2SS
down has been naturally y\vKV7rtfcpov, though there is nought
but pleasure in the thought that between him and me there was
never an atom of bitterness.
There are very few subjects (bar politics, on which we agreed
to differ totally) concerning the thoughts or deeds of mankind
which I have not, at one time or another, discussed with J. in
Paris, in London, in Cambridge, before and during his married
life. Always I found these talks delightful, and never, I
think, did I miss learning something from them. Whenever
and wherever we were for long in company together we were
pretty sure, sooner or later, " to return to Bressant," in other
words to matters dramatic. On these, from the Greek tragedies
and comedies to the latest farce or melodrama of the moment,
his knowledge and command of illustration were unique. In
conversation or argument concerning them he was always
learned, constantly enthusiastic in praise or blame, often
brilliant, and never tedious.
In addition to his general interest in dramatic art at home
and abroad, there were three particular manifestations of it at
Cambridge in which J. played an important executive part.
These were the A.D.C. performances ; the series of productions
of Greek plays; and the regular New Theatre pieces. The
first two have been alluded to elsewhere. With regard to the
last, J.'s connexion with the regular drama in Cambridge goes
back to the time when the more enlightened members of town
and University were agitating and memorialising to get that
part of the Theatres Act of 1843 repealed which gave the Vice-
Chancellor absolute power to prohibit dramatic performances
within the borough or fourteen miles thereof. It is difficult to
realise at the present time the strength of the opposition to the
establishment of a theatre in Cambridge. But it would appear
that in the seventies many would have been found to agree
with an eminent dissenting minister who in quite recent years
256 y.^s Love of the Theatre
was heard to describe the pit entrance of the New Theatre
as the mouth of Hell !
It was largely due to the untiring efforts of Mr. W. B.
Red fern that this state of things came to an end. By the
Cambridge University and Corporation Act of 1894 the Vice-
Chancellor was to some extent shorn of his powers, and in the
following year the present New Theatre was built on the site
of the earlier Saint Andrew's Hall, where Mr. Redfern had for
some time been providing more or less regular dramatic enter-
tainment. A company was formed to work the New Theatre,
with Mr. Redfern as Managing Director. Of this company J.
was a Director from its formation, and after the death of Mr.
T. Hyde Hills he became its chairman, an office to which he
was elected in 1902 and which he held until his death. He
took the warmest interest in the fortunes of the theatre, was
constantly present at performances, and did all in his power to
provide good plays and to put a stop to the occasional vul-
garities of a small section of the audience.
APPENDIX I
J. AS SUPERINTENDENT OF THE MUSEUM
OF ZOOLOGY
The zoological collections belonging to the University are
housed in the Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy
and in the Bird -room, and are under the control of a Superin-
tendent, who is now elected by the Special Board of Biology
and Geology. The Museum has a double origin, (i) from the
collections belonging to the Philosophical Society, and (ii) from
the comparative — anatomical, physiological, and osteological
specimens prepared or purchased by successive holders of the
Chair of Anatomy.
The Philosophical Society was founded in 1819, and
received its Royal Charter in 1832. In this latter year the
Society launched out and built themselves the spacious, if un-
lovely, house which now shelters the Hawk's Club and overlooks
the old churchyard of All Saints, The house was well adapted
for the Society's purpose with a Lecture-room, Reading-room,
Museum, and other apartments, but its cost was beyond their
means. For a time, however, the Society flourished, but, as
the years passed, the number of members declined, the burden
of the building expenses bore with increasing weight on the
diminished membership, and in 1865 the house had to be sold.
The Society and their Library were then housed by the Uni-
versity in the present (1912) Philosophical Council Room, and
their Museum — known as the Museum of Zoology — was made
over to the University.
I. — The Musetcm of Zoology
This Museum was fully described in the Cambridge Port-
folio, 1838, by the well-known naturalist, Mr. Leonard Jenyns.
Its character remained the same till its transference to the
257 1^
2^S y. at the 3[luseum of Zoology
Museums — that is to say, it remained essentially a British
faunistic collection, and, to a considerable extent, a local one.
Largely it consisted of stuffed vertebrates, birds"* eggs, and
pinned-out insects collected in Cambridgeshire, but, as will be
seen from Mr. Jenyns's account, an exception must be made
to these statements when the fishes are mentioned. Mr. Jenyns
writes : —
" The Cambridge Philosophical Society has been employed
from the period of its first establishment in 1819, in gradually
forming a Museum of Natural History. With a view to this
end, it has from time to time effected several purchases, as
well as received the contributions of various donors. The
Museum, however, is not large; partly owing to the limited
funds which can be appropriated to its support, and partly
to the necessarily restricted space allotted for its reception
in the Society's house. It is principally, though not ex-
clusively, devoted to the illustration of the British Fauna.
The foundation of the Museum may be attributed to Pro-
fessor Henslow, who presented to the Society at its first in-
stitution his entire collection of British Insects and Shells,
arranged respectively in two cabinets. Several smaller dona-
tions quickly followed, leading the Society to take an increased
interest in this part of its establishment. In 1828, a spirited
subscription was commenced amongst its members to assist
in purchasing a most valuable collection of British Birds, for
obtaining which an opportunity then offered itself. This
collection had belonged formerly to Mr. John Morgan of
London. It was extremely rich, especially in the rarer species.
Many additions, however, have been since made to it; and
the whole forms now a range of thirty large cases, which
are placed round the principal room in the Museum. The
birds are beautifully preserved ; and the cases of sufficient size
to admit, in many instances, of containing entire families.
One of the cases contains British Quadrupeds. In 1829, the
Society purchased a small collection of British Insects, which
was incorporated with that previously presented by Professor
3[Iuseum of Zoology 259
Henslow. This collection, which consisted of about 2000
species, was valuable from the specimens having been arranged
and named by Mr. Stephens, the celebrated Entomologist
of London. Various additions in the same department have
been since made from time to time by different contributors.
In 1833, the Society purchased Mr. Stephens"* entire collection
of British Shells, contained in two cabinets and comprising
a most extensive series of species as well as of individuals
of each. The Museum has been further enriched, in the
department of the British Fauna, by a collection of Birds'*
Eggs, presented in part by Mr. Yarrell and in part by Mr.
Leadbeater; also by a collection of Fish, obtained prin-
cipally on the southern shores of the island by Professor
Henslow and the Rev. L. Jenyns ; and by a small collection
of marine Invertehrata, obtained at Weymouth by the former
of the two gentlemen last mentioned.
" The foreign department of the Museum is not extensive,
consisting for the most part of single specimens which have
been presented at different times by different individuals. It
contains, however, a small collection of reptiles presented by
Mr. Thomas Bell. It is also rich in Ichthyological speci-
mens ; having been presented some years back with a collection
offish made at Madeira by the Rev. R. T. Lowe ; subsequently,
with another collection made in China by the Rev. C. Vachell ;
and yet more recently, with the entire collection of fish
brought home from South America and some other portions
of the globe by C. Darwin, Esq., of Christ's College, the
accompanying Naturalist in the late voyage of the Beagle^
under the command of Captain Fitzroy. The whole of the
fish above alluded to, as well as those belonging to the British
collection, are preserved in spirits. They amount to several
hundred species ; and many of those comprised in the Darwin
Collection are entirely new. Altogether, they constitute a highly
valuable as well as interesting portion of the Society's Museum.
" Independently of the collections above enumerated, the
Philosophical Society has made it an object to establish a
2 6o y-^t t^^ Museum of Zoology
separate collection of the principal animals found in Cam-
bridgeshire. This is a step of the utility of which there
can be no doubt. Local collections of this nature tend to
illustrate the Faunas of particular districts ; and local Faunas
offer the best materials for completing our knowledge of
the Zoology of the whole kingdom. They also throw light
upon the geographical distribution of animals. In proportion
to the number of places in which such collections are estab-
lished, they assist in determining the extreme range of the
different species, as well as the districts to which they are
ordinarily confined. In this department, however, the Birds
of Cambridgeshire and a few of its Mammalia are alone as
yet fitted up for public inspection ; but considerable collections
have been made in the other classes, which are destined one
day to take their place in the Museum also.
" The Museum of the Society, and that part of it in par-
ticular Avhich has been just alluded to, has been pi-obably
instrumental in exciting much interest in the University in
the science of Zoology, and diffusing amongst its members
a taste for such pursuits. Nor is the surrounding neighbour-
hood at all unfavourable for the researches of the naturalist.
On the contrary, Cambridgeshire may be considered as rich
in animal productions. From combining within itself a con-
siderable variety of soil and situation, it adapts itself to the
habits of very different species. The fens in particular are
inhabited by many rare aquatic birds and insects ; and some
of these, previous to the introduction of the present system
of drainage, were in considerable abundance. It may perhaps
be interesting to mention, that the entire number of vertebrate
animals found in Cambridgeshire amount to 281. Of these,
38 belong to the class Mammalia ; 204 to that of Birds ; 9
to that of Reptiles [and Amphibia] ; and 32 to that of Fish.^
^ In the Natural Ui.storii of Cainhridgcshirc, edited by Dr. Marr and
myself (Cambridge, V.KH), the number of Birds is given as 235 ; of Reptiles
and Amphibia, 11 ; of Fishes, 42. 'J'he number of Cambridgeshire Mammals