But yet the pity of it, Iago! O Iago, the pity of it, Iago!
These successes were entirely owing to the genius, valour and profound but unscrupulous policy of Cortes; and the account of them which he transmitted to Spain excited the admiration of his countrymen. The extent of his conquests, and the ability he had displayed, effaced the censure which he had incurred by the irregularity of his operations; and public opinion having declared in his favour, Charles V., disregarding the pretensions of Velazquez, appointed him governor and captain-general of Mexico, at the same time conferring on him the valley of Oaxaca, which was erected (1529) into a marquisate, with a considerable revenue. But although his power was thus confirmed by royal authority, and although he exerted himself to consolidate Spanish domination throughout all Mexico, the means he employed were such that the natives, reduced to despair, took arms against the Spaniards. This revolt, however, was speedily subdued, and the Mexicans were everywhere forced to yield to the ascendancy of European discipline and valour. Guatemotzin, who had been recognized as emperor, and a great number of caciques, accused of having conspired against the conquerors, were publicly executed, with circumstances of great cruelty, by order of Cortes. Meanwhile the court of Madrid, dreading the ambition and popularity of the victorious chief, sent commissioners to watch his conduct and thwart his proceedings; and whilst he was completing the conquest of New Spain his goods were seized by the fiscal of the Council of the Indies, and his retainers imprisoned and put into irons. Indignant at the ingratitude of his sovereign, Cortes returned in person to Spain to appeal to the justice of the emperor, and appeared there with great splendour. The emperor received him with every mark of distinction, and decorated him with the order of St Iago. Cortes returned to Mexico with new titles but diminished authority, a viceroy having been entrusted with the administration of civil affairs, whilst the military department, with permission to push his conquests, was all that remained to Cortes. This division of powers became a source of continual dissension, and caused the failure of the last enterprises in which he engaged. Nevertheless, in 1536, he discovered the peninsula of Lower California, and surveyed a part of the gulf which separates it from Mexico. Entry: CORTES
In 1868-1869 Edwin Booth built a theatre of his own--Booth's theatre, at the corner of 23rd Street and 6th Avenue, New York--and organized an excellent stock company, which produced _Romeo and Juliet_, _The Winter's Tale_, _Julius Caesar_, _Macbeth_, _Much Ado about Nothing_, _The Merchant of Venice_ and other plays. In all cases Booth used the true text of Shakespeare, thus antedating by many years a similar reform in England. Almost invariably his ventures were successful, but he was of a generous and confiding nature, and his management was not economical. In 1874 the grand dramatic structure he had raised was taken from him, and with it went his entire fortune. By arduous toil, however, he again accumulated wealth, in the use of which his generous nature was shown. He converted his spacious residence in Gramercy Park, New York, into a club--The Players'--for the elect of his profession, and for such members of other professions as they might choose. The house, with all his books and works of art, and many invaluable mementos of the stage, became the property of the club. A single apartment he kept for himself. In this he died on the 7th of June 1893. Among his parts were Macbeth, Lear, Othello, Iago, Shylock, Wolsey, Richard II., Richard III., Benedick, Petruccio, Richelieu, Sir Giles Overreach, Brutus (Payne's), Bertuccio (in Tom Taylor's _The Fool's Revenge_), Ruy Blas, Don Cesar de Bazan, and many more. His most famous part was Hamlet, for which his extraordinary grace and beauty and his eloquent sensibility peculiarly fitted him. He probably played the part oftener than any other actor before or since. He visited London in 1851, and again in 1880 and in 1882, playing at the Haymarket theatre with brilliant success. In the last year he also visited Germany, where his acting was received with the highest enthusiasm. His last appearance was in Brooklyn as Hamlet in 1891. Booth was twice married: in 1860 to Mary Devlin (d. 1863), and in 1869 to Mary F. McVicker (d. 1881). He left by his first wife one daughter, Edwina Booth Grossman, who published _Edwin Booth: Recollections_ (New York, 1894). Entry: BOOTH
Distinctiveness, as the primary requisite in dramatic characterization, is to be demanded in the case of all personages introduced into a dramatic action, but not in all cases in an equal degree. Schiller, in adding to the _dramatis personae_ of his _Fiesco_ superscriptions of their chief characteristics, labels Sacco as "an ordinary person," and this, no doubt, suffices for Sacco. But with the great masters of characterization a few touches, of which the true actor's art knows how to avail itself, distinguish even their lesser characters from one another; and every man is in his humour down to the "third citizen." Elaboration is necessarily reserved for characters who are the more important contributors to the action, and the fulness of elaboration for its heroes. Many expedients may lend their aid to the higher degrees of distinctiveness. Much is gained by a significant introduction of hero or heroine--thus Antigone is dragged in by the watchman, Gloucester enters alone upon the scene, Volpone is discovered in adoration of his golden saint. Nothing marks character more clearly than the use of contrast--as of Othello with Iago, of Ottavio with Max Piccolomini, of Joseph with Charles Surface. Nor is direct antithesis the only effective kind of contrast; Cassius is a foil to Brutus, and Leonora to her namesake the Princess. But, besides impressing the imagination as a conception distinct in itself, each character must maintain a consistency between its conduct in the action and the features it has established as its own. This consistency does not imply uniformity; for, as Aristotle observes, there are characters which, to be represented with uniformity, must be presented as uniformly un-uniform. Of such consistently complex characters the great critic cites no instances, nor indeed are they of frequent occurrence in Greek tragedy; in the modern drama Hamlet is their unrivalled exemplar; and Weislingen in Goethe's _Götz_, and Alceste in the _Misanthrope_, may be mentioned as other illustrations in dramas differing widely from one another. The list might be enlarged almost indefinitely from the gallery of female characters, in view of the greater pliability and more habitual dependence of the nature of women. It should be added that those dramatic literatures which freely admit of a mixture of the serious with the comic element thereby enormously increase the opportunities of varied characterization. The difficulty of the task at the same time enhances the effect resulting from its satisfactory accomplishment; and, if the conception of a character is found to meet a variety of tests resembling that which life has at hand for every man, its naturalness, as we term it, becomes more obvious to the imagination. "Naturalness" is only another word for what Aristotle terms "propriety"; the artificial rules by which usage has at times sought to define particular species of character are in their origin only a convenience of the theatre, though they have largely helped to conventionalize dramatic characterization. Lastly, a character should be directly effective with regard to the dramatic action in which it takes part--that is to say, the influence it exerts upon the progress of the action should correspond to its distinctive features; the conduct of the play should seem to spring from the nature of its characters. In other words, no characterization can be effective which is not what may be called economical, i.e. which does not strictly limit itself to suiting the purposes of the action. Even the minor characters should not idly intervene; while the chief characters should predominate over, or determine, the course of the action, its entire conception should harmonize with their distinctive features. It is only a Prometheus whom the gods bind fast to a rock, only a Juliet who will venture into a living death for her Romeo. Thus, in a sense, chance is excluded from dramatic action, or rather, like every other element in it, bends to the dramatic idea. Entry: 1
_History._--Jamaica was discovered by Columbus on the 3rd of May 1494. Though he called it Santiago, it has always been known by its Indian name Jaymaca, "the island of springs," modernized in form and pronunciation into Jamaica. Excepting that in 1505 Columbus once put in for shelter, the island remained unvisited until 1509, when Diego, the discoverer's son, sent Don Juan d'Esquivel to take possession, and thenceforward it passed under Spanish rule. Sant' Iago de la Vega, or Spanish Town, which remained the capital of the island until 1872, was founded in 1523. Sir Anthony Shirley, a British admiral, attacked the island in 1596, and plundered and burned the capital, but did not follow up his victory. Upon his retirement the Spaniards restored their capital and were unmolested until 1635, when the island was again raided by the British under Colonel Jackson. The period of the Spanish occupation is mainly memorable for the annihilation of the gentle and peaceful Arawâk Indian inhabitants; Don Pedro d'Esquivel was one of their cruellest oppressors. The whole island was divided among eight noble Spanish families, who discouraged immigration to such an extent that when Jamaica was taken by the British the white and slave population together did not exceed 3000. Under the vigorous foreign policy of Cromwell an attempt was made to crush the Spanish power in the West Indies, and an expedition under Admirals Penn and Venables succeeded in capturing and holding Jamaica in 1655. The Spanish were entirely expelled in 1658. Their slaves then took to the mountains, and down to the end of the 18th century the disaffection of these Maroons, as they were called, caused constant trouble. Jamaica continued to be governed by military authority until 1661, when Colonel D'Oyley was appointed captain-general and governor-in-chief with an executive council, and a constitution was introduced resembling that of England. He was succeeded in the next year by Lord Windsor, under whom a legislative council was established. Jamaica soon became the chief resort of the buccaneers, who not infrequently united the characters of merchant or planter with that of pirate or privateer. By the Treaty of Madrid, 1670, the British title to the island was recognized, and the buccaneers were suppressed. The Royal African Company was formed in 1672 with a monopoly of the slave trade, and from this time Jamaica was one of the greatest slave marts in the world. The sugar-industry was introduced about this period, the first pot of sugar being sent to London in 1673. An attempt was made in 1678 to saddle the island with a yearly tribute to the Crown and to restrict the free legislature. The privileges of the legislative assembly, however, were restored in 1682; but not till 46 years later was the question of revenue settled by a compromise by which Jamaica undertook to settle £8000 (an amount afterwards commuted to £6000) per annum on the Crown, provided that English statute laws were made binding in Jamaica. Entry: JAMAICA
BOOTH, EDWIN [THOMAS] (1833-1893), American actor, was the second son of the actor Junius Brutus Booth, and was born in Belair, Maryland, on the 13th of November 1833. His father (1796-1852) was born in London on the 1st of May 1796, and, after trying printing, law, painting and the sea, made his first appearance on the stage in 1813, and appeared in London at Covent Garden in 1815. He became almost at once a great favourite, and a rival of Kean, whom he was thought to resemble. To Kean's Othello nevertheless he played Iago on several occasions. Richard III., Hamlet, King Lear, Shylock and Sir Giles Overreach were his best parts, and in America, whither he removed in 1821, they brought him great popularity. His eccentricities sometimes bordered on insanity, and his excited and furious fencing as Richard III. and as Hamlet frequently compelled the Richmond and Laertes to fight for their lives in deadly earnest. Entry: BOOTH
It was in the impersonation of the great creations of Shakespeare's genius that the varied beauty and grandeur of the acting of Kean were displayed in their highest form, although probably his most powerful character was Sir Giles Overreach in Massinger's _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, the effect of his first impersonation of which was such that the pit rose _en masse_, and even the actors and actresses themselves were overcome by the terrific dramatic illusion. His only personal disadvantage as an actor was his small stature. His countenance was strikingly interesting and unusually mobile; he had a matchless command of facial expression; his fine eyes scintillated with the slightest shades of emotion and thought; his voice, though weak and harsh in the upper register, possessed in its lower range tones of penetrating and resistless power, and a thrilling sweetness like the witchery of the finest music; above all, in the grander moments of his passion, his intellect and soul seemed to rise beyond material barriers and to glorify physical defects with their own greatness. Kean specially excelled as the exponent of passion. In Othello, Iago, Shylock and Richard III., characters utterly different from each other, but in which the predominant element is some form of passion, his identification with the personality, as he had conceived it, was as nearly as possible perfect, and each isolated phase and aspect of the plot was elaborated with the minutest attention to details, and yet with an absolute subordination of these to the distinct individuality he was endeavouring to portray. Coleridge said, "Seeing him act was like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning." If the range of character in which Kean attained supreme excellence was narrow, no one except Garrick has been so successful in so many great impersonations. Unlike Garrick, he had no true talent for comedy, but in the expression of biting and saturnine wit, of grim and ghostly gaiety, he was unsurpassed. His eccentricities at the height of his fame were numerous. Sometimes he would ride recklessly on his horse Shylock throughout the night. He was presented with a tame lion with which he might be found playing in his drawing-room. The prizefighters Mendoza and Richmond the Black were among his visitors. Grattan was his devoted friend. In his earlier days Talma said of him, "He is a magnificent uncut gem; polish and round him off and he will be a perfect tragedian." Macready, who was much impressed by Kean's Richard III. and met the actor at supper, speaks of his "unassuming manner ... partaking in some degree of shyness" and of the "touching grace" of his singing. Kean's delivery of the three words "I answer--NO!" in the part of Sir Edward Mortimer in _The Iron Chest_, cast Macready into an abyss of despair at rivalling him in this rôle. So full of dramatic interest is the life of Edmund Kean that it formed the subject for a play by the elder Dumas, entitled _Kean on désordre et génie_, in which Frederick-Lemaître achieved one of his greatest triumphs. Entry: KEAN
BARRETT, LAWRENCE (1838-1891), American actor, was born of Irish parents in Paterson, New Jersey, on the 4th of April 1838. His family name was Brannigan. He made his first stage appearance at Detroit as Murad in _The French Spy_ in 1853. In December 1856 he made his first New York appearance at the Chambers Street theatre as Sir Thomas Clifford in _The Hunchback_. In 1858 he was in the stock company at the Boston Museum. He served with distinction in the Civil War as captain in the 28th Massachusetts infantry regiment. From 1867 to 1870, with John McCullough, he managed the California theatre, San Francisco. Among his many and varied parts may be mentioned Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, Shylock, Richard III., Wolsey, Benedick, Richelieu, David Garrick, Hernani, Alfred Evelyn, Lanciotto in George Henry Boker's (1823-1890) _Francesca da Rimini_, and James Harebell in _The Man o' Airlie_. He played Othello to Booth's Iago and Cassius to his Brutus. He acted in London in 1867, 1881, 1883 and 1884, his Richelieu in Bulwer Lytton's drama being considered his best part. He wrote a life of Edwin Forrest in the _American Actors Series_ (Boston, 1881), and an admirable sketch of Edwin Booth in _Edwin Booth and his Contemporaries_ (Boston, 1886). He died on the 20th of March 1891. Entry: BARRETT
While the modern drama appeared to have relapsed into a comatose condition, poetic and romantic drama was giving some signs of life. At the Lyceum in 1871 Henry Irving had leapt into fame by means of his performance of Mathias in _The Bells_, an adaptation from the French of Erckmann-Chatrian. He followed this up by an admirably picturesque performance of the title-part in _Charles I._ by W. G. Wills. In the autumn of 1874 the great success of Irving's Hamlet was hailed as the prelude to a revival of tragic acting. As a matter of fact, it was the prelude to a long series of remarkable achievements in romantic drama and melodrama. Irving's lack of physical and vocal resources prevented him from scaling the heights of tragedy, and his Othello, Macbeth, and Lear could not be ranked among his successes; but he was admirable in such parts as Richard III., Shylock, Iago and Wolsey, while in melodramatic parts, such as Louis XI. and the hero and villain of _The Lyons Mail_, he was unsurpassed. Mephistopheles in a version of _Faust_ (1885), perhaps the greatest popular success of his career, added nothing to his reputation for artistic intelligence; but on the other hand his Becket in Tennyson's play of that name (1893) was one of his most masterly efforts. His management of the Lyceum (1878-1899) did so much to raise the status of the actor and to restore the prestige of poetic drama, that the knighthood conferred upon him in 1895 was felt to be no more than an appropriate recognition of his services. But his managerial career had scarcely any significance for the living English drama. He seldom experimented with a new play, and, of the few which he did produce, only _The Cup_ and _Becket_ by Lord Tennyson have the remotest chance of being remembered. Entry: P
MACKLIN, CHARLES (c. 1699-1797), Irish actor and playwright, whose real name was McLaughlin, was born in Ireland, and had an adventurous youth before coming to Bristol, where he made his first appearance on the stage as Richmond in _Richard III_. He was at Lincoln's Inn Fields about 1725, and by 1733 was at Drury Lane, where the quarrel between the manager and the principal actors resulted in his getting better parts. When the trouble was over and these were taken from him, he went to the Haymarket, but he returned in 1734 to Drury Lane and acted there almost continuously until 1748. Then for two seasons he and his wife (d. _c._ 1758), an excellent actress, were in Dublin under Sheridan, then back in London at Covent Garden. He played a great number of characters, principally in comedy, although Shylock was his greatest part, and Iago and the Ghost in _Hamlet_ were in his repertory. At the end of 1753 Macklin bade farewell to the stage to open a tavern, near the theatre, where he personally supervised the serving of dinner. He also delivered an evening lecture, followed by a debate, which was soon a hopeless subject of ridicule. The tavern failed, and Macklin returned to the stage, and played for a number of years in London and Dublin. His quick temper got him into constant trouble. In a foolish quarrel over a wig in 1735 he killed a fellow actor in the green-room at Drury Lane, and he was constantly at law over his various contracts and quarrels. The bitterest of these arose on account of his appearing as Macbeth at Covent Garden in 1772. The part was usually played there by William Smith, and the public would not brook a change. A few nights later the audience refused to hear Macklin as Shylock, and shouted their wish, in response to the manager's question, to have him discharged. This was done in order to quell the riot. His lawsuit, well conducted by himself, against the leaders of the disturbance resulted in an award of £600 and costs, but Macklin magnanimously elected instead that the defendants should take £100 in tickets at three benefits--for himself, his daughter and the management. He returned to Covent Garden, but his appearances thereafter were less frequent, ending in 1789, when as Shylock, at his benefit, he was only able to begin the play, apologize for his wandering memory, and retire. He lived until the 11th of July 1797, and his last years were provided for by a subscription edition of two of his best plays, _The Man of the World_ and _Love in a Maze_. Macklin's daughter, Mary Macklin (_c._ 1734-1781), was a well-known actress in her day. Entry: MACKLIN
During the remaining years of this period, the prose output of the Welsh press consisted mainly of devotional books, written or translated for or at the instigation of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. The Established Church, with the help of this society, made a gallant attempt to lighten the darkness of Wales by publishing books of this description, and it is mainly due to its exertions that the lamp of Welsh prose was kept burning during these years. Among the clergy who produced books of this description were Edward Samuel (1674-1748), who published among other works _Holl Ddyledswydd Dyn_, a translation of _The Whole Duty of Man_ (1718); Moses Williams (1684-1742), a most diligent searcher into Welsh MSS. and translator; Griffith Jones of Llanddowror (1683-1761), the father of Welsh popular education; Iago ab Dewi (1644?-1722) and Theophilus Evans (1694-1769), the famous author of _Drych y Prif Oesoedd_ (1716 and 1740). This book, like _Llyfr y Tri Aderyn_ and _Y Bardd Cwsc_, has an established position for all time in the annals of Welsh literature. Entry: 6
COOKE, GEORGE FREDERICK (1756-1811), English actor, was born in London, and made his first appearance on the stage in Brentford at the age of twenty as Dumont in _Jane Shore_. His first London appearance was at the Haymarket in 1778, but it was not until 1794 in Dublin, as Othello, that he attained high rank in his profession. In 1801 he appeared in London as Richard III., Iago, Shylock and Sir Giles Overreach, and became the rival of Kemble, with whom, however, and with Mrs Siddons, he acted from 1803. His intemperate habits unfortunately grew more and more notorious, and on at least one occasion the curtain had to be rung down owing to the audience hissing his drunken condition. He visited the United States in 1810, and died in New York on the 26th of September 1811. A monument to his memory was erected in St Paul's churchyard there by Edmund Kean. Entry: COOKE
FECHTER, CHARLES ALBERT (1824-1879), Anglo-French actor, was born, probably in London, on the 23rd of October 1824, of French parents, although his mother was of Piedmontese and his father of German extraction. The boy would probably have devoted himself to a sculptor's life but for the accident of a striking success made in some private theatricals. The result was an engagement in 1841 to play in a travelling company that was going to Italy. The tour was a failure, and the company broke up; whereupon Fechter returned home and worked assiduously at sculpture. At the same time he attended classes at the Conservatoire with the view of gaining admission to the Comédie Française. Late in 1844 he won the grand medal of the Académie des Beaux-Arts with a piece of sculpture, and was admitted to make his debut at the Comédie Française as Seide in Voltaire's _Mahomet_ and Valère in Molière's _Tartuffe_. He acquitted himself with credit; but, tired of the small parts he found himself condemned to play, returned again to his sculptor's studio in 1846. In that year he accepted an engagement to play with a French company in Berlin, where he made his first decisive success as an actor. On his return to Paris in the following year he married the actress Eléonore Rabut (d. 1895). Previously he had appeared for some months in London, in a season of French classical plays given at the St James's theatre. In Paris for the next ten years he fulfilled a series of successful engagements at various theatres, his chief triumph being his creation at the Vaudeville on the 2nd of February 1852 of the part of Armand Duval in _La Dame aux camélias_. For nearly two years (1857-1858) Fechter was manager of the Odéon, where he produced _Tartuffe_ and other classical plays. Having received tempting offers to act in English at the Princess's theatre, London, he made a diligent study of the language, and appeared there on the 27th of October 1860 in an English version of Victor Hugo's Ruy Blas. This was followed by _The Corsican Brothers_ and _Don César de Bazan_; and on the 20th of March 1861 he first attempted _Hamlet_. The result was an extraordinary triumph, the play running for 115 nights. This was followed by _Othello_, in which he played alternately the Moor and Iago. In 1863 he became lessee of the Lyceum theatre, which he opened with _The Duke's Motto_; this was followed by _The King's Butterfly_, _The Mountebank_ (in which his son Paul, a boy of seven, appeared), _The Roadside Inn_, _The Master of Ravenswood_, _The Corsican Brothers_ (in the original French version, in which he had created the parts of Louis and Fabian dei Franchi) and _The Lady of Lyons_. After this he appeared at the Adelphi (1868) as Obenreizer in _No Thoroughfare_, by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, as Edmond Dantes in _Monte Cristo_, and as Count de Leyrac in _Black and White_, a play in which the actor himself collaborated with Wilkie Collins. In 1870 he visited the United States, where (with the exception of a visit to London in 1872) he remained till his death. His first appearance in New York was at Niblo's Garden in the title rôle of _Ruy Blas_. He played in the United States between 1870 and 1876 in most of the parts in which he had won his chief triumphs in England, making at various times attempts at management, rarely successful, owing to his ungovernable temper. The last three years of his life were spent in seclusion on a farm which he had bought at Rockland Centre, near Quakertown, Pennsylvania, where he died on the 5th of August 1879. A bust of the actor by himself is in the Garrick Club, London. Entry: FECHTER