Phelps's single-handed effort brought the people of London for
eighteen years face to face with the great English drama at his
playhouse at Sadler's Wells. "I made that enterprise pay," he said,
after he retired; "not making a fortune certainly, but bringing up a
large family and paying my way." Private troubles and illness
compelled him suddenly to abandon the enterprise at the end of
eighteen years, when there happened to be none at hand to take his
place of leader. All that was wanting to make his enterprise
permanent, he declared, was some public control, some public
acknowledgment of responsibility which, without impeding the efficient
manager's freedom of action, would cause his post to be filled
properly in case of an accidental vacancy. Phelps thought that if he
could do so much during eighteen years by his personal, isolated, and
independent endeavour, much more could be done in permanence under
some public method of safeguard and guarantee. Phelps's services to
the literary drama can hardly be over-estimated. His mature judgment
is not to be lightly gainsaid. It is just to his memory to put his
faith to a practical test.
VII
ASPECTS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PHILOSOPHY[24]
[Footnote 24: This paper, which was originally prepared in 1899 for
the purposes of a popular lecture, is here printed for the first
time.
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