Lowe. John C.
Nimmo.
[73] THOSE who care for the history of the drama as a branch of
literature, or for the history of that general development of human
manners of which the stage has been always an element and a very
lively measure or index, will be grateful to Mr. Lowe for this
revised and charmingly illustrated edition of Dr. Doran's pleasant
old book. Three hundred years and more of a singularly varied and
vivacious sort of history!--it was a bold thing to undertake; and Dr.
Doran did his work well--did it with adequate "love." These Annals
of the English Stage, from Thomas Betterton to Edmund [74] Kean, are
full of the colours of life in their most emphatic and motley
contrasts, as is natural in proportion as the stage itself
concentrates and artificially intensifies the character and
conditions of ordinary life. The long story of "Their Majesties'
Servants," treated thus, becomes from age to age an agreeable
addition to those personal memoirs--Evelyn's, and the like--which
bring the influence and charm of a visible countenance to the dry
tenour of ordinary history, and the critic's work upon it naturally
becomes, in the first place, a mere gathering of some of the flowers
which lie so abundantly scattered here and there.
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