Lived Mary Arden, the mother of Shakespeare, in a house still standing, a venerable, weather-beaten, gabled structure, in the parish of Aston Cantlow, about four miles from Stratford.

The version of "The Taming of the Shrew," which for many years has been used on the stage, in one form or another, is the version, in three acts, that was made by Garrick, produced at Drury Lane, and published in 1756, under the name of "Katherine and Petruchio." That version omits several scenes, transposes other parts of the original, and converts the comedy into an efficient farce. An alteration of Garrick's piece, made and long used by Edwin Booth, who still frequently acts Petruchio, was published in 1878, with a Preface and Notes by the writer of this sketch. Booth's version is in two acts, and it has been adopted by several other actors, of late years. Neither the Garrick nor the Booth book of this play includes "The Induction "or the under-plot relative to the love of Horten sio and Bianca. It seems strange that such wealth of dramatic substance and opportunity should have been neglected. But so it is: and from the beginning of American stage history until the time of Mr. Daly's present revival of it, the comedy of "The Taming of the Shrew" has never been presented here as Shakespeare wrote it. That exquisite actress, Marie Seebach, when she visited America, in 1870, produced it here, in the Ger man language, under the name of "Die Widerspenstige," in a four-act version, a little cut and changed; but this did not include the Induction.

On the English stage this comedy has been the parent of several popu lar plays. Aside from its rattling fun the subject itself seems to possess a particular interest for the average Briton-one of whose chief articles of faith is the subordination of woman to man. Long ago it became a settled principle of the common law of England that a man may beat his wife with a stick not thicker than his thumb, which, as the English thumb goes, would be a stick of considerable thickness. The "Ducking Stool "—a chait affixed to the end of a beam which rested on a pivot, and so arranged that the culprit, bound into it, could be repeatedly soused in a pond or riverwas used in that country, to punish a scolding woman, as late as 1809 John Taylor, the water-poet, counted sixty whipping-posts within one mile of London, prior to 1630, and it was not till 1791 that the whipping of fe male vagrants was forbidden by statute. The "Brank," a peculiar and cruel kind of gag, formerly in common use, has been employed to punish a certain sort of women within the memory of persons still alive. Thack eray's well-known caustic ballad of "Damages Two Hundred Pounds affords an instructive glimpse of the view that is taken now, by British law of British masculine severity toward women. It is not meant that the gen tlemen of England are tyrannical and cruel in their treatment of the women far from it; but that the predominance of John Bull, in any question be tween himself and Mrs. Bull, is a cardinal doctrine of the English social constitution, and that plays illustrative of the application of discipline

› rebellious women have continually found favor with the English auience.

"Sawney the Scot," by John Lacy, acted at Drury Lane and published 1698, is an alteration of "The Taming of the Shrew," and is not so good play; yet it had success. Another play derived from this original is The Cobler of Preston," by Charles Johnson, a two-act farce, acted at rury Lane and published in 1716. A piece, by Christopher Bullock, havg the same title, was acted at the same time at Lincoln's Inn Fields heatre. Both these seem to have been well received. John Fletcher's Rule a Wife and have a Wife" (1640) is perhaps the most notable type f the popular plays of this class. In this piece Leon pretends meekness nd docility, in order to win Margarita, and presently becomes imperative or the control of her. Garrick used to personate Leon, in an alteration f the comedy attributed to his own hand. It is worthy of note that letcher, whose views of women are always somewhat stern and severe [he as the son of that Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough, who embittered the ist moments of Mary Stuart Queen of Scots, by his importunate religious xhortations to her upon the scaffold at Fotheringay Castle], nevertheless rote a sequel to "The Taming of the Shrew," in which Petruchio reapcars, Katherine being dead, with a new wife, by whom he is henpecked nd subdued. This is entitled "The Woman's Prize, or the Tamer amed," and it was printed in 1647. John Tobin's comedy of "The Ioneymoon" (1805), based on ideas derived from Shakespeare, Fletcher, nd Shirley, portrays a husband's conquest of his wife's affections by peronal charm, irradiating manliness and firmness of character; and this iece is deservedly held in high esteem. Petruchio's method is to meet urbulence with still greater turbulence, remaining, however, entirely goodatured throughout the stormiest paroxysms of violence, till at last his oisterous, kindly, rough, sinewy vigor and clamorous tumult overwhelm Katherine and disgust her with the exaggerated image of her own faults.

The scene of the Induction is Warwickshire; that of the main action of he comedy at Padua, and at the country-house of Petruchio-who comes o Padua from Verona. The period indicated is the sixteenth century, bout the year 1535. The time supposed to be occupied by the action is our days. The correct spelling of the hero's name is Petrucio; the 'was robably introduced in order to suggest the correct pronunciation. The ame of Shakespeare's shrew is Katharina Minola. The Induction preents the only opportunity that Shakespeare's works afford for showing English costume of his own time. The Italian dresses required for the piece are of styles such as were contemporaneous with the poet. An actor named Sincklo, who is mentioned in the quarto edition of "Henry IV.," Part Second, and also in "Henry VI.," Part Third, is supposed to have acted in "The Taming of the Shrew," as well as in those two historiesot the inconclusive reason that a reference to him occurs in the old play :

the line "I think 'twas Soto that your honor means was originally given to Sincklo. It has long been customary, in acting this piece, to present Curtis, a serving-man in the original, as an old woman; and to allot tw or three words of speech to the servants who are named by Grumio, in his deprecatory speech to his master, in the arrival scene. It is neither necessary, desirable, nor usual to speak upon the stage every line of Shakespearean play: but this book will serve to show that in Mr. Daly's present revival of " The Taming of the Shrew" a careful and thoughtful effort is made to do absolute justice to the original piece.

8

WILLIAM WINTER.

AN ADDITIONAL WORD.

BUT few of Shakspere's comedies have attained an hundredth consecue representation. Such pieces as have done so were rather helped to at end by an unusual spectacular display in massing throngs and scenic bleaux, than merely through the inherent life and strength of the play itIf and the completeness of its acted parts. They were produced, in short, for a run ;" and, as in such instances as "The Tempest," "Much Adọ out Nothing," and the faerie "Midsummer Night's Dream," the proper tlay has frequently produced the desired result. But it has seldom hapned that a comedy pure and simple, produced as such, and decorated only those accessories of scenery and costume which a conscientious anager would give to any worthy new or standard play, has reached so sily and so surely its hundredth successive representation as "The ming of the Shrew" upon the present occasion.

I am inclined to attribute this remarkable success to the contempora ous spirit of the play. It seems to have been written (as with a predice pen) for our own time. In its varied and contrastive plots and charac's, and its short, crisp dialogue, and in the absence of long philosophical onologues or soliloquies, it might have been constructed by a Shakspere this century who had studied the methods and requirements of the ›dern comedy stage. The audiences which have witnessed the repreitation seemed wrapt in interest throughout each performance; and no ›dern piece of the past quarter of a century has so thoroughly captured : fancy of the public as this restored version of "The Shrew." People ve come again and again to enjoy it, and in many instances a dozen its have been made by the same parties.

As far as I have been able to ascertain, "The Taming of the Shrew" 1 never until now been acted in this country in its entirety, or with its y quaint "Induction."

In the year 1754, when Garrick was adapting, refitting, and rearrang; many of Shakspere's works to suit the demands of his audiences or : needs of the stage of his own time, he reduced "The Taming of the rew " from its original form to the proportions of a three-act farce. : also renamed the comedy "Katherine and Petruchio." The date the original production of this emasculated play was March 18, 1754,

and in that shape the piece has been kept alive ever since by tragic star who desired to show their versatility-or it has been played at the farc end of benefit entertainments, and when "double bills" were necessan to attract an otherwise reluctant public.

Under its original title I can find no mention of the production of thi piece on our stage. fr. Ireland, in his very comprehensive "Records the New York Theatres," notes several productions of "Catharine an Petruchio," but not one of "The Taming of the Shrew;" and, that may be certain that it was not the perfect play thus acted, we have the casts of its original production in New York City, April 14, 1768, in whic neither Christopher Sly nor any of the other characters of the induction a given; and again at the John Street Theatre, October 4, 1785, when Ha lam played Petruchio and a Mrs. Allen Catharine, but still no Sly, no L centio, no Lord, no Hostess appear in the cast, which is otherwise giv quite complete. The next date of the production of "Catharine and P truchio" is November 29, 1832, when Fanny Kemble was the "Shrew Charles Kemble her tamer. This was at the Old Park Theatre; and sin then, and as "Catharine and Petruchio," Shakspere's play has been a ed, hundreds of times probably, but never in its complete form, I believ until this year of grace, 1887, when the company of Daly's Theatre ma effort to give life and body to Shakspere's long disused characters.

a

Some writers have expressed regret that Shakspere permitted his ch acters in the "Induction" to slip out of sight entirely after the first act the comedy which is acted before them. In the earlier piece Sly is int duced frequently throughout the play within the play, to utter his ha drunken, half-sleepy, but thoroughly intelligent comments. And final at the end of the whole work (in the earlier play), the Lord orders to be carried in his sleep back to the ale-house door, where he is covered by the Tapster, who wakens him, and the dialogue goes on tween them to finish the play-as the following extract from the edition 1594 will show :

Then enter Two, bearing SLIE in his own apparel againe, and leaves him where found him, and then goes out, then enters the TAPSTER.

Tapster. Now that the darksome night is overpast

And dawning day appears in crystall skie,

Now must I haste abroade; but softe! who's this?

What, Slie? Oh! wondrous! hath he laine heere all night?

I'll wake him; I think he's starved by this,

But that his belly was stufft with ale:

Slie. [Awaking.] Sim, give's more wine. What, all the players gone? not a lord?

Tap. A lord, with a murrain? Come, art thou drunk still ?

Slie. Who's this? Tapster? Oh, I have had the bravest dream that ever heard'st in all thy life.