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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2014
The Athenian Captive (1838) was to constitute the last significant use of Greek tragedy on the professional stage in Britain for a radical political purpose until Gilbert Murray's stagings of Euripides in the Edwardian era.
Edith HallI believe in the Revolution.
Robert Brough, 1855The fiercest political debates in 1850s Britain were inextricably bound up with the Classical past. Traditionalists and eulogists, priests and pamphleteers, doctors and revolutionaries all set their arguments and their ideals within a Classical framework. Amongst those who sought to use the ancient for decidedly contemporary purposes, Robert Brough was one of the most passionate. He was a revolutionary, a playwright, and a Classicist—though up until the performance of his burlesque Medea (on July 14th 1856), he had never been all three at once. This article will explore how, at the time, the myth of Medea was the perfect vehicle for radical politics—and how Brough exploited its potential to the full. It will frame his play within some of the most controversial debates of the period. It will explore Brough's (on the face of it, startling) claim that his burlesque would give the audience more to think about than any play they had seen before, that it would be ‘a conjugal lesson, surpassing in intensity anything ever before presented’. Brough wrote his Medea believing in ‘the Revolution’. And, as I hope to show, he wanted his audiences to leave the theatre believing in it too.
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2. Brough, Robert B., Songs of the ‘Governing Classes’ and Other Lyrics: Written in a Seasonable Spirit of ‘Vulgar Declamation’ (London 1855), 9.Google Scholar
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4. Extraordinary Trial! Norton v. Viscount Melbourne for Critn. Con. Damages laid at £10,000!!! published by Marshall, William (London 1836Google Scholar) is a fair example of the tone of this genre.
5. Illustrated London News, January 12th 1856, p.42.
6. Conolly, John, The Treatment of the Insane Without Mechanical Restraints (Lahr 1856), 149f.Google Scholar
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8. Cf. the debates on the Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866 and 1869 for articulations of the threat many thought female prostitution posed.
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13. The Bishop of Oxford opposed the Divorce Act on the grounds that there was not ‘a shadow of a foundation in the gospel for such an extension of the right of divorce’—The Times, July 4th 1856, p.6.
14. Patmore (n.9 above), 7.
15. Patmore (n.9 above), 20.
16. Patmore (n.9 above), 22.
17. Patmore (n.9 above), 188.
18. Patmore (n.9 above), 60.
19. Patmore (n.9 above), 60.
20. Patmore (n.9 above), 77.
21. Han way (n.10 above), 66.
22. Hanway (n.10 above), 156.
23. Cf. Euripides, Medea, 1078-80: 
(‘and I understand the evil which I am about to do, but my rage is stronger than my reason, rage which is the root of mankind’s greatest evils’).
24. Cf. Nightingale, Florence, Suggestions for Thought to the Searchers after Truth among the Artizans of England (privately printed 1860), ii.374-411.Google Scholar
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29. Legouvé (n.28 above), 24.
30. For an example of this genre, cf. A.F. Sergent-Marceau (after Augustin de Saint-Aubin), The Happy Mother (L’Heureuse Mère). For a British equivalent, cf. Cope, Charles’s Life Well Spent (1862Google Scholar), where a euphoric-looking mother is surrounded by her children.
31. Hanway (n.10 above), 160.
32. Legouvé (n.28 above), 23.
33. Legouvé (n.28 above), 25.
34. Examples include Colman’s ‘The Jealous Wife’, which opened in January 1856; cf. Illustrated London News, January 26th 1856, p.90.
35. Illustrated London News, July 19th 1856, p.65.
36. Illustrated London News, July 19th 1856, p.5.
37. Lord Brougham, for one, credited her with significantly altering the final form of the Divorce Act—cf. Acland, Alice (pseudonym for Anne Marreco), Caroline Norton (London 1948), 203.Google Scholar
38. Norton, Caroline Elizabeth, English Laws for Women in the Nineteenth Century (London 1850), 173f.Google Scholar
39. Nightingale (n.24 above), ii.374f.
40. The Times, July 15th 1856, p. 12.
41. Illustrated London News, July 19th 1856, p.65.
42. Brough (n.3 above), 11.
43. Cf. Acland (n.37 above), 195-97.
44. Hansard, May 20th 1856, 3rd ser. 142.410.
45. Shanley, Mary Lyndon, ‘One who must ride behind’, Victorian Studies 25 (1982), 355-76Google Scholar, at 360.
46. Acland (n.37 above), 198.
47. Brough (n.3 above), 31.
48. Acland (n.37 above), 198.
49. Nead(n.11 above), 129.
50. Brough (n.3 above), 9.
51. This, of course, was quite the opposite of the received view—cf. Augustus Egg’s Past and Present series, exhibited in 1858, for one of many contemporary narratives of how a wife’s behaviour (adultery, in this case) leads to the breakup of a home.
52. Brough (n.3 above), 8.
53. Norton (n.38 above), 173.
54. Norton (n.38 above), 175.
55. Brough (n.3 above), 12.
56. Brough (n.2 above), 34.
57. Brough, Robert B., B&ranger’s Songs of the Empire, the Peace, and the Restoration (London 1856).Google Scholar
58. Stray, Christopher, Classics Transformed: Schools, Universities and Society in England, 1830-1960 (Oxford 1998), 36.Google Scholar
59. Quoted in Stray (n.58 above), 39.
60. Disraeli, Benjamin, Tancred (London 1847Google Scholar), Book 1, Chapter 4.
61. Roth, like the forthcoming Rev. Zincke, and many of the characters in this narrative, is someone whose works I have come across in the archive. It has been difficult to discern much about these individuals that is independent from their own self-presentation.
62. Roth, Mathias, A Letter to the Rt. Hon. the Earl of Granville, on the importance of Rational Gymnastics as a branch of National Education (London 1854), 6.Google Scholar
63. Hansard, June 25th 1850, 3rd ser. 112.444.
64. ‘It is the duty of every one who aims at high mental culture to make himself acquainted with it [Greek history].’—Niebuhr, Barthold Georg, Lectures on Ancient History: From the Earliest Times to the Taking of Alexandria by Octavianus, tr. Schmitz, Leonhard (London 1852), i.lfGoogle Scholar.
65. Niebuhr (n.64 above), i.146.
66. Niebuhr (n.64 above), i.157.
67. Vance, Norman, The Victorians and Ancient Rome (Oxford 1997), 68.Google Scholar
68. Quarterly Review 39 (Jan. 1829), 8f.
69. A typical example: ‘The city [Thebes] was taken by storm, and destroyed with the same fury as Magdeburg’. Niebuhr (n.64 above), ii.362.
70. Rev. Zincke, Foster Barham, Why must we educate the whole people? and what prevents our doing it? (London 1850), 52.Google Scholar
71. Rev. Zincke, Foster Barham, How much longer are we to continue teaching nothing more than what was taught two or three centuries ago? (London 1850), 24.Google Scholar
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73. Zincke (n.70 above), 32.
74. Zincke (n.70 above), 7.
75. Whitty, Edward, The Governing Classes of Great Britain (London 1859), 68.Google Scholar
76. Brough (n.2 above), 1.
77. Brough (n.2 above), 6f.
78. Brough (n.2 above), 9.
79. Brough (n.2 above), 6.
80. Brough (n.2 above), 32.
81. Brough (n.2 above), 64.
82. Brough (n.2 above), 99.
83. Throughout the volume, Brough is vitriolic. A typical passage: ‘So, torn by the roots from each bed and tree,/And into the bonfire cast/To blaze on the dunghill, perchance may be/The strawberry’s [symbol of the peerage] fate at last.’—Brough (n.2 above), 107.
84. Cf. Brough (n.57 above), 98: “Tis wondrous how the smallest folks,/Whom you have wrong’d, can tease ye!’; Zincke (n.71 above), 27f.: ‘Will any one deny that these same [English] labourers and artizans do amongst ourselves submit with more resolution and with more cheerfulness, to hardships and self-denial, than any class amongst the ancients?’
85. Brough (n.2 above), 34.
86. The Times, July 15th 1856, p. 12
87. From a speech delivered in the House of Commons on 19th February 1855, quoted in Conacher, J.B., Britain and the Crimea, 1855-56: Problems of War and Peace (London 1987), 18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
88. Russell, W.H., The Times foreign correspondent, quoted in Elizabeth Grey, The Noise of Drums and Trumpets: W.H. Russell reports from the Crimea (London 1971), 67f.Google Scholar
89. W.H. Russell, quoted in Grey (n.88 above), 61.
90. W.H. Russell, quoted in Grey (n.88 above), 37.
91. Quoted in Vulliamy, C.E., Crimea: The Campaign of 1854-56 (London 1939), 65.Google Scholar
92. W.H. Russell, quoted in Grey (n.88 above), 42.
93. Ryan, George, Our Heroes of the Crimea (London 1855), 13.Google Scholar
94. Vulliamy (n.91 above), 126.
95. Ryan (n.93 above), 36.
96. Ryan (n.93 above), 90.
97. Vulliamy (n.91 above), 352.
98. Elton, Arthur Hallam (1855), An inquiry into the alleged justice and necessity of the war with Russia (London 1855), 10Google Scholar and 112f.
99. Brough (n.2 above), 64.
100. Brough (n.2 above), 21.
101. Brough (n.2 above), 22.
102. Brough (n.2 above), 21.
103. Brough (n.2 above), 46.
104. Brough (n.3 above), 4.
105. Brough (n.3 above), 21.
106. Peel, Edmund, Ode to The British Army (London 1856), 13.Google Scholar
107. Illustrated London News, January 12th 1856, p.42.
108. Ryan (n.93 above), 53.
109. Anon, , (pseudonym ‘Veritas’), The Partition of Turkey: An Indispensable Feature of the Present Political Crisis (London 1853), 24f.Google Scholar
110. Ryan (n.93 above), 52.
111. Quoted in Vulliamy (n.91 above), 160.
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113. McPherson (n.112 above), 6.
114. Cf. Illustrated London News, January 19th 1856, p.80.
115. McPherson (n.112 above), 1.
116. Anon, , (pseudonym ‘Ex-MP’), The War Unmasked (London 1855), 15.Google Scholar
117. Brough (n.3 above), 6. Brough’s opinion of the ‘gentleman’ has already been touched on.
118. Brough (n.3 above), 18.
119. Brough (n.3 above), 12.
120. Cf. McPherson (n.112 above), 5 and 7.
121. The Times, July 2nd 1856, p.12.
122. Anon, , (pseudonym ‘One from the East’), The War, its Character and its Fatality, with Proposals of Peace (London 1854), 4.Google Scholar
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125. Hall (n.124 above), 44.
126. Brough, Robert B., The Siege of Troy: A Burlesque in One Act (Winchester 1858), 3.Google Scholar
127. Brough (n.126 above), 3.
128. Hall (n.124 above), 42.
129. Lemon, Mark, Medea, A Tragedy In One Act, British Library Additional MS 52,960 L (1856), 1.Google Scholar
130. Lemon (n.129 above), 3.
131. A slang word for ‘Magistrate’.
132. All theatres had to be licensed, and those licences were apt to be withdrawn by petulant officials.
133. Lemon (n.129 above), 6.
134. Buckingham, Leicester Silk, Belphegor (London 1856), 2.Google Scholar
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137. Talfourd, Francis, Alcestis (Travestie) (London 1850), 3Google Scholar and 5.
138. Buckingham (n.134 above), 2.
139. Planché (n.135 above), 12.
140. Lemon (n.129 above), 12.
141. Talfourd (n.137 above), 3.
142. Lemon (n.129 above), 1.
143. Lemon (n.129 above), 1. The ‘artist’ in question is the Medea, Adelaide Ristori.
144. Lemon (n.129 above), 1.
145. All this seems to call into question Hall’s argument that Classical burlesque, as a genre, consistently cut ‘a previously elite art form down to popular size’ (Hall [n.124 above], 48). Many of these earlier burlesques seem to offer a cut-rate, rather than a cut-down-to-size version of the Classical world. Here, it is not the Classical that has been humbled, merely its ‘unworthy’ imitators.
146. Quoted by Hall (n. 124 above), 43.
147. Planché, James Robinson, The Paphian Bower (London 1832), 5.Google Scholar
148. Brough (n.3 above), 25.
149. Buckingham, Leicester Silk, Virginius; or, the Trials of a fond papa! (London 1859[?]), 32.Google Scholar
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151. Talfourd, Francis, Atalanta, or, The Three Golden Apples (London 1857), 22.Google Scholar
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153. Buckingham (n.149 above), 19.
154. Buckingham (n.149 above), 16.
155. Buckingham (n.149 above), 25.
156. Brough (n.3 above), 2.
157. Dillon Croker, T.F., Romulus and Remus: or, Rome was not built in a day (privately printed 1859), 9.Google Scholar
158. Francis Talfourd (n.151 above), 3.
159. Talfourd, Francis, Electra In A New Electric Light (London 1859), 6.Google Scholar
160. Buckingham (n.149 above), 2.
161. Buckingham (n.149 above), 23.
162. Buckingham (n.149 above), 16.
163. Talfourd (n.159 above), 7. The problems of blood-guilt are overtly edited out: there is nothing wrong, it seems, with unseating a tyrant.
164. Cf. Hall (n.124 above), 285.
165. Cf. Whitty (n.75 above), Zincke (n.70 above), Zincke (n.71 above), et al.
166. Illustrated London News, July 19th 1856, p.65.
