Antiquaries in the Age of Romanticism: 1789-1851 - Queen Mary ...

Chapter Six
Walter Scott’s ‘mighty wizzard’ 1 : the antiquaries’ Shakespeare
In the instalment of his Autobiography first published in 1849 John Britton devoted a
characteristically ambitious appendix to: ‘Essays on the merits and characteristics of William
Shakspere also Remarks on his birth and burial-place, his monument, portraits and
associations.’ 2 In it he noted that:
Since the commencement of this century, it may be asserted that more has been written and published on the life and
literary works of Shakspere, than during the whole of the preceding period between the acting of his first drama and
the year 1800. 3
He might have added that more had also been painted and, in the case of the Birthplace,
reconstructed and indeed constructed. But while it was undoubtedly true that the volume of
writing about Shakespeare and his works increased enormously during that half century, the
process of acceleration may be said to have begun a decade earlier, with the publication in
November 1790 of Edmond Malone’s edition of The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare.
In the theatre too ‘the French Revolution... was ... productive of a revolution’ in the presentation
of the plays, ‘on both sides of the channel’, especially in the use of historic costume. 4 Here, as in
other areas of antiquarian activity, Anglo-French collaboration and mutual admiration persisted
throughout hostilities, and ‘the toga and the paludamentum found their way from the French
stage to ours’. 5 For Shakespeare studies, therefore, the decades covered by this thesis begin with
the establishment of a new standard for textual scholarship and historically authentic costume
and end, at the time of Britton’s Autobiography, with the purchase of the Stratford Birthplace
1
Scott, Journal, p.509.
2
Britton, Autobiography, (1850), Appendix, pp. 1-48. There were several variant spellings at this date, I have not
added ‘sic’ to each.
3
Britton, Autobiography, (1850), Appendix, p.43.
4
Planché, History of Stage Costume, p.172.
5
Planché’, History of Stage Costume, p.172.
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