[Werner was produced, for the first time, at the Park Theatre, New York, in 1826. Mr. Barry played "Werner." Werner was brought out at Drury Lane Theatre, and played, for the first time, December 15, 1830. Macready appeared as "Werner," J. W. Wallack as " Ulric," Mrs. Faucit as "Josephine," and Miss Mordaunt as "Ida." According to the Times, December 16, 1830, "Mr. Macready appeared to very great advantage. We have never seen him exert himself more-we have never known him to exert himself with more powerful effect. Three of his scenes were masterpieces." Genest says that Werner was acted seventeen times in 1830-31. There was a revival in 1833. Macready says (Diary, March 20) that he acted "Werner' with unusual force, truth, and collectedness... finished off each burst of passion, and, in consequence, entered on the following emotion with clearness and earnestness" (Macready's Reminiscences, 1875, i 36.6). 66 Werner was played in 1834, 5, 6, 7, 9; in 1841; in 1843-4 (New York, Boston, Baltimore, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Montreal); in 1845 (Paris, London, Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin); in 1846, 1847; in America in 1848; in the provinces in 1849; in 1850; and, for the last time, at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, January 14, 1851. At the farewell performance Macready appeared as "Werner," Mr. Davenport as “Ulric,” Mrs. Warner as "Josephine," Mrs. Ryder as Ida." In the same year (1851) a portrait of Macready as Werner," by Daniel Maclise, R.A., was on view at the Exhibition at the Royal Academy. The motto was taken from Werner, act i. sc. 1, lines 114, sq. (See, for a detailed criticism of Macready's "Werner," Our Recent Actors, by Westland Marston, 1881, i. 89-98; and for the famous "Macready burst," in act ii. sc. 2, and act v. sc. 1, vide ibid., i. 97.) 66 66 Werner was brought out at Sadler's Wells Theatre, November 21, 1860, and repeated November 22, 23, 24, 28, 29; December, 3, 4, 11, 13, 14, 1860. Phelps appeared as "Werner," Mr. Edmund Phelps as Ulric," "Miss Atkinson as "Josephine." Perhaps the old actor never performed the part so finely as he did on that night. The identity between the real and ideal relations of the characters was as vivid to him as to the audience, and gave a deeper intensity, on both sides, to the scenes between father and son." (See The London Stage, by H. Barton Baker, 1889, ii. 217.) On the afternoon of June 1, 1887, Werner (four acts, arranged by Frank Marshall) was performed at the Lyceum Theatre for the benefit of Westland Marston. [Sir] Henry Irving appeared as "Werner," Miss Ellen Terry as “Josephine," Mr. Alexander as "Ulric. (See for an appreciation of Sir Henry Irving's presentation of Werner, the Athenæum, June 4, 1887.)] INTRODUCTION TO WERNER. WERNER; or, The Inheritance, was begun at Pisa, December 18, 1821, and finished January 20, 1822. At the end of the month, January 29, Byron despatched the MS., not to Murray, but to Moore, then in retreat at Paris, intending, no doubt, that it should be placed in the hands of another publisher; but a letter from Murray "melted him," and on March 6, 1822 (Letters, 1901, vi. 34), he desired Moore to forward the packet to Albemarle Street. The play was set up in type, and revised proofs were returned to Murray at the end of June; but, for various reasons, publication was withheld, and, on October 31, Byron informed John Hunt that he had empowered his friend Douglas Kinnaird to obtain Werner, with other MSS., from Murray. None the less, milder counsels again prevailed, and on Saturday, November 23, 1822, Werner was published, not in the same volume with Heaven and Earth, as Byron intended and expected, nor by John Hunt, as he had threatened, but by itself, and, as heretofore, by John Murray. Werner was "the last of all the flock" to issue from Murray's fold. In his Preface to Werner (vide post, p. 337) Byron disclaims all pretensions to originality. "The following drama," he writes, "is taken entirely from the 'German's Tale, Kruitzner, published . . . in Lee's Canterbury Tales. . . . I have adopted the characters, plan, and even the language, of many parts of this story." Kruitzner seems to have made a deep impression on his mind. When he was a boy of thirteen (ie. in 1801, when the fourth volume of the Canterbury Tales was published), and again in 1815, he set himself to turn the tale into a drama. His first attempt, named Ulric and Ilvina, he threw into the fire, but he had nearly completed the first act of his second and maturer adaptation when he was "interrupted by circumstances," that is, no doubt, the circumstances which led up to and ended in the separation from his wife. (See letter of October 9, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 391.) On his leaving England for the Continent, April 25, 1816, the fragment was left behind. Most probably the MS. fell into his sister's hands, for in October, 1821, it was not forthcoming when Byron gave directions that Hobhouse should search for it "amongst my papers." Ultimately it came into the possession of the late Mr. Murray, and is now printed for the first time in its entirety (vide post, pp. 453-466: selections were given in the Nineteenth Century, August, 1899). It should be borne in mind that this unprinted first act of Werner, which synchronizes with the Siege of Corinth and Parisina, was written when Byron was a member of the sub-committee of management of Drury Lane Theatre, and, as the numerous stage directions testify, with a view to stagerepresentation. The MS. is scored with corrections, and betrays an unusual elaboration, and, perhaps, some difficulty and hesitation in the choice of words and the construction of sentences. In the opening scene the situation is not caught and gripped, while the melancholy squalor of the original narrative is only too faithfully reproduced. The Werner of 1821, with all its shortcomings, is the production of a playwright. The Werner of 1815 is the attempt of a highly gifted amateur. When Byron once more bethought himself of his old subject, he not only sent for the MS. of the first act, but desired Murray "to cut out Sophia Lee's" (vide post, p. 337) "German's Tale from the Canterbury Tales, and send it in a letter" (Letters, 1901, v. 390). He seems to have intended from the first to construct a drama out of the story, and, no doubt, to acknowledge the source of his inspiration. On the whole, he carried out his intention, taking places, characters, and incidents as he found them, but recasting the materials and turning prose into metre. But here and there, to save himself trouble, he "stole his brooms ready made,” and, as he acknowledges in the Preface, "adopted even the language of the story." Act ii. sc. 2, lines 87-172; act iii. sc. 4; and act v. sc. 1, lines 94-479, are, more or less, faithful and exact reproductions of pp. 203-206, 228-232, and 252-271 of the novel (see Canterbury Tales, ed. 1832, vol. ii.). On the other hand, in the remaining three-fourths of the play, the language is not Miss Lee's, but Byron's, and the "conveyance" of incidents occasional and insignificant. Much, too, was imported into the play (e.g. almost the whole of the fourth act), of which there is neither hint nor suggestion in the story. Maginn's categorical statement (see “O'Doherty on Werner,” Miscellanies, 1885, i. 189) that "here Lord Byron has invented |