The Voltairean wit vas found as "delightful in this as
in the last century."
Of Shakespeare on the stage Dr. Doran has a hundred curious things to
note:--that Richard the Third, for instance, who has retained a so
unflattering possession of the stage, was its "first practically
useful patron." We see Queen Elizabeth full of misgiving at a
difficult time at the popularity of Richard the Second:--"The
deposition and death of King Richard the [82] Second." "Tongues
whisper to the Queen that this play is part of a great plot to teach
her subjects how to murder kings." It is perhaps not generally known
that Charles Shakespeare, William's brother, survived till the
Restoration.
Oldys says, a propos of the restoration of the stage at that time:--
"The actors were greedily inquisitive into every little circumstance,
more especially in Shakespeare's dramatic character, which his
brother could relate of him. But he, it seems, was so stricken in
years, and possibly his memory so weakened by infirmities, that he
could give them but little light into their inquiries; and all that
could be recollected from him of his brother Will in that station was
the faint, general, and almost lost ideas he had of having once seen
him act a part in one of his own comedies, wherein being present to
personate a decrepit old man, he wore a long beard, and appeared so
weak and drooping and unable to walk, that he was forced to be
supported and carried by another person to a table, at which he was
seated among some company who were eating, and one of them sang a
song.
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