PREFACE. THIS book is distinctively an American esti mate of the characteristics and achievements of an English actor, whose influence on the player's art and a new form of dramatic literature was as marked with us as in England. It may be safely said that many of Bulwer's plays have been seen by greater multitudes in America than in the land of their first production. The unfortunate complication with Edwin Forrest furnished an incident that will remain a striking bit of stage history. It is almost needless to say that a recognition of Macready's power and services to the stage is fundamental to the trustworthiness of this account of him; but a frank analysis of his character is just as essential to a full understanding of his relation to our stage history. Warmth of admiration for his artistic work career. should not preclude a study of his characteristics as a man as they relate to his public The endeavor is also made to convey, largely from contemporary testimony, the impressions of his acting; and, recognizing the fact that plays fall into disuse, ample details of the plays from which his fame was most largely derived are given, with a citation of scenes. This, indeed, is the only way to give living force to a record of this kind-a method that would seem to be indispensable with the general reader, whose sympathies and intelligent interest should be awakened by the page before him and not be dependent on additional research. A short life of Macready by William Archer presents the main incidents of his career, but Macready's own “Reminiscences and Selections from his Diaries and Letters, edited by Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart.," furnish the basis of all that may be written concerning the actor. The English reader may be inclined to resent some of the passages of this book, but the spirit of the writer is one of kindly frankness, and the privilege of comment is amply justified in the share that America had in providing for the great actor the means for an early retire ment from the stage to spend more than twenty years in dignified and philosophic ease-a benediction that was his constant prayer, and which was, in so large a measure, made possible by a people that gave him honor, and protected him from indignity and personal peril at a cost. Moreover, these printed pages, frank as they are, seek to serve his fame. W. T. PRICE. NEW YORK, October, 1894. |