" Here it seems clear that
his hopes of the actor were unfulfilled. However, he saw _Henry IV._
again a few months later, and had the grace to describe it as "a good
play." On a third occasion he wrote that, "contrary to expectation,"
he was pleased by the delivery of Falstaff's ironical speech about
honour. For whatever reason, Pepys's affection for Shakespeare's fat
knight, as he figured on the stage of his day, never touched the note
of exaltation.
Of Shakespeare's great tragedies Pepys saw three--_Othello_, _Hamlet_,
and _Macbeth_. But in considering his several impressions of these
pieces, we have to make an important proviso. Only the first two of
them did he witness in the authentic version. _Macbeth_ underwent in
his day a most liberal transformation, which carried it far from its
primordial purity. The impressions he finally formed of _Othello_ and
_Hamlet_ are not consistent one with the other, but are eminently
characteristic of the variable moods of the average playgoer.
_Othello_ he saw twice, and he tells us more of the acting than of the
play itself. On his first visit he notes that the lady next him
shrieked on seeing Desdemona smothered: a proof of the strength of the
histrionic illusion.
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