The feeling was that of Goethe's own weird and suggestive scene of the Open Field, the black horses, and the raven-stone; or that of the shuddering lines of Coleridge:-- "As one that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And, having once turned round, walks on And turns no more his head, Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread." III. ADELAIDE NEILSON AS IMOGEN AND JULIET. Shakespeare's drama of _Cymbeline_ seems not at any time in the history of the stage to have been a favourite with theatrical audiences. In New York it has had but five revivals in more than a hundred years, and those occurred at long intervals and were of brief continuance. The names of Thomas Barry, Mrs. Shaw-Hamblin (Eliza Marian Trewar), and Julia Bennett Barrow are best remembered in association with it on the American stage. It had slept for more than a generation when, in the autumn of 1876, Adelaide Neilson revived it at Philadelphia; but since then it has been reproduced by several of her imitators. She first offered it on the New York stage in May 1877, and it was then seen that her impersonation of Imogen was one of the best of her works. If it be the justification of the stage as an institution of public benefit and social advancement, that it elevates humanity by presenting noble ideals of human nature and making them exemplars and guides, that justification was practically accomplished by that beautiful performance. The poetry of _Cymbeline_ is eloquent and lovely. The imagination of its appreciative reader, gliding lightly over its more sinister incidents, finds its story romantic, its accessories--both of the court and the wilderness--picturesque, its historic atmosphere novel and exciting, and the spirit of it tender and noble. Such a reader, likewise, fashions its characters into an ideal form which cannot be despoiled by comparison with a visible standard of reality. It is not, however, an entirely pleasant play to witness. The acting version, indeed, is considerably condensed from the original, by the excision of various scenes explanatory of the conduct of the story, and by the omission of the cumbersome vision of Leonatus; and the gain of brevity thereby made helps to commend the work to a more gracious acceptance than it would be likely to obtain if acted exactly according to Shakespeare. Its movement also is imbued with additional alacrity by a rearrangement of its divisions. It is customarily presented in six acts. Yet, notwithstanding the cutting and editing to which it has been subjected, _Cymbeline_ remains somewhat inharmonious alike with the needs of the stage and the apprehension of the public.