# Julius Caesar (1919) Yale/Appendix B

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APPENDIX B
The History of the Play
The earliest extant version of Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar is that found in the famous First Folio collected edition of his plays, published in 1623, which therefore necessarily forms the basis of all modern texts; for the only known Quarto editions belong to the late Restoration period and so, unfortunately, have little critical value for the solution of the problems presented by the original text. It seems fairly certain now that Julius Cæsar was written and first produced in 1599, for on the twenty-first of September in that year a German traveller witnessed a performance of what was presumably Shakespeare's play at the Globe Theatre (cf. 'Londoner Theater und Schauspiele im Jahre 1599,' G. Binz, Anglia, xxii, 456, 1899). The next performance that we can date seems to have taken place at court early in 1613, the next at St. James', January 31, 1636–7, and the next at the Cockpit, November 13, 1638; but that the popularity of the play was far greater than these meagre records suggest is attested by various kinds of evidence, from Henslowe's effort to capitalize its success ​by producing a rival Cæsar play, in 1602, to Digges' striking tribute prefixed to the First Folio.
After the Restoration, Julius Cæsar is one of the three Shakespearean dramas listed by Downes ('Roscius Anglicanus,' 1708) among the 'Principal Old Stock Plays' given by Killigrew's company in the 1660's. Charles Hart (d. 1683), grandson of Shakespeare's sister Joan, was the great Brutus of this period, and was succeeded by the famous Thomas Betterton (1635 ?-1710); it is Betterton's cast (see the frontispiece to the present volume) that is given in the six Quarto editions published between 1684 and 1691, evidently printed as playgoers' guides (cf. 'Quarto Editions of Julius Cæsar,' by Miss H. C. Bartlett, The Library, 1913).
It is worthy of note that Julius Cæsar is one of the few Shakespearean plays that escaped mutilation at the hands of so-called adapters or revisers, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for the abortive efforts in 1719 and 1722 had no success or significance (cf. F. W. Kilbourne's 'Alterations and Adaptations of Shakespeare,' Boston, 1906). A plausible sketch by Miss C. Porter ('How Shakespeare Set and Struck the Scene for Julius Cæsar in 1599,' Mod. Lang. Notes, 1916) gives a pleasant glimpse into Elizabethan stage procedure, and William Winter's 'Shakespeare on the Stage' (Second Series, 1915) supplies many illuminating hints about the stage 'business' in succeeding and modern productions; while Brander Matthews ('Shaksperian Stage Traditions' in 'Shaksperian Studies,' Columbia Univ. Press, 1916) gives a spirited picture of the Meiningen company's remarkable presentation of the Forum scene and Antony's oration.
​In the early eighteenth century Robert Wilks (1665?–1732), the friend of Farquhar, was a brilliant Antony, while Barton Booth (1681–1733) and James Quin (1693–1766) excelled as Brutus. Garrick never acted in Julius Cæsar, but his rival, Spranger Barry (1719–1777), was a most moving Antony. The famous Peg Woffington (1714?–1760) appeared as Portia in several performances about 1750, but because the part is such a minor one it has not been taken by many great actresses since then. Coming down to the nineteenth century, we find all the greatest actors appearing in the play. The Kembles and Young, Macready and Davenport, Wallack, Charles Kean, J. B. Booth, Samuel Phelps, and Beerbohm Tree have all presented one or more of the four leading roles. The first American performance was given at Charleston, S. C., April 20, 1774. Edwin Forrest and John Edward McCullough are also associated with the play, as are Tyrone Power, William Faversham, and Robert Bruce Mantell in our own time; but the crowning achievement in America's production of Julius Cæsar will always be the magnificent double triumph of Edwin Booth and Lawrence Barrett, in the '60's, '70's, and '80's, with honorable mention, perhaps, of Richard Mansfield's sombre portrayal of Brutus' tragic loneliness, beginning October 14, 1902. It is not easy nowadays to realize the power and effectiveness attributed by tradition to these great players of the past, but fortunately it is still possible to gain some impression of Edwin Booth's thrilling personal magnetism and manifest genius from the inspired portrait by John S. Sargent in the Players' Club, New York City.