"
[83] This description applies to old Adam in As You Like It. Many
are the evidences that Shakespeare's reputation had from time to time
a struggle to maintain itself. James Howard, in Pepys's day--
"Belonged to the faction which affected to believe that there was no
popular love for Shakespeare, to render whom palatable he arranged
Romeo and Juliet for the stage, with a double denouement--one
serious, the other hilarious. If your heart were too sensitive to
bear the deaths of the loving pair, you had only to go on the
succeeding afternoon to see them wedded, and set upon the way of a
well-assured domestic felicity."
In 1678 Rymer asserted (was it undesignedly a true testimony to the
acting of his time?) that Shakespeare had depicted Brutus and Cassius
as "Jack Puddins."
Here, as in many another detail, we are reminded, of course, of the
difference between our own and past times in mimic as in real life.
For Prynne one of the great horrors of the stage was the introduction
of actresses from France by Henrietta Maria, to take the place of
young [84] male actors of whom Dr. Doran has some interesting
notices. Who the lady was who first trod the stage as a professional
actress is not known, but her part was Desdemona.
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