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Cfwreuter* 
 
 OF 
 
 SHAKESPEARE PLAYS. 
 
 BY WILLIAM HAZLITT. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 Printed by C. H. Reynell, 21, Piccadilly, 
 FOR R. HUNTER, SUCCESSOR TO MR. JOHNSON, 
 
 IN ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD} 
 
 AND C. AND J. OLLIER, 
 
 WELBECK-STREET, CAVENDISH -SQUARE. 
 
 1817- 
 
T" 
 
 
 
TO 
 
 CHARLES LAMB, Esq. 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED, AS A MARK OF 
 
 OLD FRIENDSHIP 
 
 AND LASTING ESTEEM, 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE - - - - . - - - . - vii 
 
 CYMBELINE 1 
 
 MACBETH -, . . . | 15 
 
 JULIUS CAESAR ---*---.-- 33 
 
 OTHELLO - - 42 
 
 TIMON OF ATHENS - 61 
 
 CORIOLANUS - G9 
 
 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA - - - - - - 83 
 
 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 95 
 
 CAMLET ........... 103/ 
 
 -.THE TEMPEST - 115 
 
 ^ THE MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM - - - - 126 
 
 ROMEO AND JULIET ....... 135 
 
 LEAR -_.„-. 153 
 
 ^RICHARD II. .---..... 178 
 
 ^VHENRY IV. Part I. and II. '.*^fc - r - ' ..- - - c 188 
 
 HENRY V. --.,,..,.-- -203 
 
 ^ HENRY VI. in Three Parts - 215 
 
 ^ RICHARD TIL 226 
 
 HENRY VIII. , . .237 
 
 KING JOHN - - ** 243 
 
 TWELFTH NIGHT ; or, WHAT YOU WILL - - - 255 
 
 ^THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA .... 265 
 
 THE MERCHANT OF VENICE - - - - - - 269 
 
 THE WINTER'S TALE - 278 
 
 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL - - - . - 287 
 
 LOVE'S LABOUR LOST -_..... 2 93 
 
 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING - - - - - 298 
 
 AS YOU LIKE IT 305 
 
 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 312 
 
 MEASURE FOR MEASURE - - - - - - 320 
 
 THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR - - - -327 
 
 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS 331 
 
 DOUBTFUL PLAYS OF SHAKESPEAR - - . - 335 
 
 POEMS AND SONNETS 316 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 
 21, /. 13— /or " and who" read " who." 
 
 66, I. 23— for " manners" read " marrows." 
 
 92, Z. 12— /or " what was coming" read " what is coming. 
 
 203, I. 5— for « himself" read " him." 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It is observed by Mr. Pope, that " If ever 
 any author deserved the name of an original, 
 it was Shakespear. Homer himself drew not 
 his art so immediately from the fountains of 
 nature ; it proceeded through ^Egyptian strain- 
 ers and channels, and came to him not with- 
 out some tincture of the learning, or some 
 cast of the models, of those before him. The 
 poetry of Shakespear was inspiration indeed: he 
 is not so much an imitator, as an instrument of 
 nature; and it is not so just to say that he 
 speaks from her, as that she speaks through him. 
 " His characters are so much nature herself, 
 that it is a sort of injury to call them by so dis- 
 tant a name as copies of her. Those of other 
 poets have a constant resemblance, which shews 
 that they received them from one another, and 
 were but multipliers of the same image : each 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 picture, like a mock-rainbow, is but the reflec- 
 tion of a reflection. But ej^rjr_^ijJje^Jb^iracter 
 inJShakespear, is as much an individual, as those 
 in li£aitsej£^it is as impossible to find any two 
 alike ; and such, as from their relation or affi- 
 nity in any respect appear most to be twins, 
 will, upon comparison, be found remarkably 
 distinct. To this life and variety of character, 
 we must add the wonderful preservation of it ; 
 which is such throughout his plays, that had all 
 the speeches been printed without the very 
 names of the persons, I believe one might have 
 applied them with certainty to every speaker." 
 The object of the volume here offered to the 
 public, is to illustrate these remarks in a more 
 particular manner by a reference to each play. 
 A gentleman of the name of Mason, the au- 
 thor of a Treatise on Ornamental Gardening, 
 (not Mason the poet) began a work of a similar 
 kind about forty years ago, but he only lived to 
 finish a parallel between the characters of Mac- 
 beth and Richard III. which is an exceedingly 
 ingenious piece of analytical criticism. Rich- 
 ardson's Essays include but a few of Shake- 
 spear's principal characters. The only work 
 which seemed to supersede the necessity of an 
 attempt like the present was SchlegePs very 
 admirable Lectures on the Drama, which give 
 by far the best account of the plays of Shake- 
 spear that has hitherto appeared. The only 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 circumstances in which it was thought not im- 
 possible to improve on the manner in which the 
 German critic has executed this part of his de- 
 sign, were in avoiding an appearance of mysti- 
 cism in his style, not very attractive to the 
 English reader, and in bringing illustrations from 
 particular passages of the plays themselves, of 
 which Schlegel's work, from the extensiveness 
 of his plan, did not admit. We will at the same 
 time confess, that some little jealousy of the 
 character of the national understanding was not 
 without its share in producing the following 
 undertaking, for " we were piqued" that it 
 should be reserved for a foreign critic to give 
 ic reasons for the faith which we English have 
 in Shakespear." Certainly, no writer among 
 ourselves has shewn either the same enthusias- 
 tic admiration of his genius, or the same philo- 
 sophical acuteness in pointing out his charac- 
 teristic excellences. As we have pretty well 
 exhausted all we had to say upon this subject 
 in the body of the work, we shall here transcribe 
 Schlegel's general account of Shakespear, which 
 is in the following words:— * 
 
 " Never, perhaps, was there so comprehensive 
 a talent for the delineation of character as Shake- 
 spear's. It riot only' grasps the diversities of 
 rank, sex, and age, down to the dawnings of 
 infancy; not only do the king and -the beggar, 
 
x PREFACE. 
 
 the hero and the pickpocket, the sage and the 
 idiot speak and act with equal truth; not only 
 does he transport himself to distant ages and 
 foreign nations, and pourtray in the most accu- 
 rate manner, with only a few apparent violations 
 of costume, the spirit of the ancient Romans, of 
 the French in their wars with the English, of 
 the English themselves during a great part of 
 their history, of the Southern Europeans (in 
 the serious part of many comedies) the culti- 
 vated society of that time, and the former rude 
 and barbarous state of the North ; his human 
 characters have not only such depth and pre- 
 cision that they cannot be arranged under classes, 
 and are inexhaustible, even in conception: — no 
 — this Prometheus not merely forms men, he 
 opens the gates of the magical world of spirits; 
 calls up the midnight ghost ; exhibits before us 
 his witches amidst their unhallowed mysteries; 
 peoples the air with sportive fairies and sylphs : 
 — and these beings, existing only in imagination, 
 possess such truth and consistency, that even 
 when deformed monsters like Caliban, he extorts 
 the conviction, that if there should be such be- 
 ings, they would so conduct themselves. In a 
 word, as he carries with him the most fruitful 
 and daring fancy into the kingdom of nature, — 
 on the other hand, he carries nature into the re- 
 gions of fancy, lying beyond the confines of real- 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 ity. We are lost in astonishment at seeing the 
 extraordinary, the wonderful, and the unheard 
 of, in such intimate nearness. 
 
 " If Shakespear deserves our admiration for 
 his characters, he is equally deserving of it for 
 his exhibition of passion, taking this word in its 
 widest signification, as including every mental 
 condition, every tone from indifference or fami- 
 liar mirth to the wildest rage and despair. He 
 gives us the history of minds ; he lays open to 
 us, in a single word, a whole series of preceding 
 conditions. His passions do not at first stand 
 displayed to us in all their height, as is the case 
 with so many tragic poets, who, in the language 
 of Lessing, are thorough masters of the legal 
 style of love. He paints in a most inimitable 
 manner, the gradual progress from the first ori- 
 gin. " He gives," as Lessing says, " a living 
 picture of all the most minute and secret arti- 
 fices by which a feeling steals into our souls; of 
 all the imperceptible advantages which it there 
 gains ; of all the stratagems by which every other 
 passion is made subservient to it, till it becomes 
 the sole tyrant of our desires and our aversions." 
 Of all poets, perhaps, he alone has pourtrayed 
 the mental diseases, melancholy, delirium, lu- 
 nacy, with such inexpressible, and, in every re- 
 spect, definite truth, that the physician may 
 enrich his observations from them in the same 
 manner as from real cases. 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 " And yet Johnson has objected to Shake- 
 spear, that his pathos is not always natural and 
 free from affectation. There are, it is true, pas- 
 sages, though, comparatively speaking, very few, 
 where his poetry exceeds the bounds of true 
 dialogue, where a too soaring imagination, a too 
 luxuriant wit, rendered the complete dramatic 
 forgetfulness of himself impossible. With this 
 exception, the censure originates only in a fan- 
 ciless way of thinking, to which every thing ap- 
 pears unnatural that does not suit its own tame 
 insipidity. Hence, an idea has been formed of 
 simple and natural pathos, which consists in ex- 
 clamations destitute of imagery, and nowise 
 elevated above every-day life. But energetical 
 passions electrify the whole of the mental 
 powers, and will, consequently, in highly fa- 
 voured natures, express themselves in an inge- 
 nious and figurative manner. It has been often 
 remarked, that indignation gives wit; and, as 
 despair occasionally breaks out into laughter, it 
 may sometimes also give vent to itself in anti- 
 thetical comparisons. 
 
 " Besides, the rights of the poetical form have 
 not been duly weighed. Shakespear, who was 
 always sure of his object, to move in a suffi- 
 ciently powerful manner when he wished to do 
 so, has occasionally, by indulging in a freer play, 
 purposely moderated the impressions when too 
 painful, and immediately introduced a musical 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 alleviation of our sympathy. He had not those 
 rude ideas of his art which many moderns seem 
 to have, as if the poet, like the clown in the pro- 
 verb, must strike twice on the same place. An 
 ancient rhetorician delivered a caution against 
 dwelling too long on the excitation of pity ; for 
 nothing, he said* dries so soon as tears; and 
 Shakespear acted conformably to this ingenious 
 maxim, without knowing it. 
 
 " The objection* that Shakespear wounds our 
 feelings by the open display of the most disgust- 
 ing moral odiousness, harrows up the mind un- 
 mercifully* and tortures even our senses by the 
 exhibition of the most insupportable and hateful 
 spectacles, is one of much greater importance. 
 He has never, in fact, varnished over wild and 
 blood-thirsty passions with a pleasing exterior, — 
 never clothed crime and want of principle with 
 a false show of greatness of soul ; and in that 
 respect he is every way deserving of praise. 
 Twice he has pourtrayed downright villains; and 
 the masterly way in which he has contrived to 
 elude impressions of too painful a nature, may 
 be seen in Iago and Richard the Third. The 
 constant reference to a petty and puny race must 
 cripple the boldness of the poet. Fortunately 
 for his art, Shakespear lived in an age extremely 
 susceptible of noble and tender impressions, but 
 which had still enough of the firmness inherited 
 from a vigorous olden time, not to shrink back 
 
xiv PREFACE. 
 
 with dismay from every strong and violent pic- 
 ture. We have lived to see tragedies of which 
 the catastrophe consists in the swoon of an ena- 
 moured princess. If Shakespear falls occasion- 
 ally into the opposite extreme, it is a noble er- 
 ror, originating in the fulness of a gigantic 
 strength : and yet this tragical Titan, who storms 
 the heavens, and threatens to tear the world 
 from off its hinges ; who, more terrible than 
 jEschylus, makes our hair stand on end, and 
 congeals our blood with horror, possessed, at the 
 same time, the insinuating loveliness of the 
 sweetest poetry. He plays with love like a 
 child ; and his songs are breathed out like melt- 
 ing sighs. He unites in his genius the utmost 
 elevation and the utmost depth ; and the most 
 foreign, and even apparently irreconcileable pro- 
 perties subsist in him peaceably together. The 
 world of spirits and nature have laid all their 
 treasures at his feet. In strength a demi-god, 
 in profundity of view a prophet, in all-seeing 
 wisdom a protecting spirit of a higher order, he 
 lowers himself to mortals, as if unconscious of 
 his superiority : and is as open and unassuming 
 as a child. 
 
 " Shakespear's comic talent is equally won- 
 derful with that which he has shown in the 
 pathetic and tragic : it stands on an equal eleva- 
 tion, and possesses equal extent and profundity. 
 All that I before wished was, not to admit that 
 
PREFACE. xv 
 
 the former preponderated. He is highly in- 
 ventive in comic situations and motives. It will 
 be hardly possible to show whence he has taken 
 any of them ; whereas, in the serious part of his 
 drama, he has generally laid hold of something 
 already known. His comic characters are 
 equally true, various, and profound, with his se- 
 rious. So little is he disposed to caricature, that 
 we may rather say many of his traits are almost 
 too nice and delicate for the stage, that they can 
 only be properly seized by a great actor, and 
 fully understood by a very acute audience. Not 
 only has he delineated many kinds of folly; he 
 has also contrived to exhibit mere stupidity 
 in a most diverting and entertaining manner." 
 Vol. ii. p. 145. 
 
 We have the rather availed ourselves of this 
 testimony of a foreign critic in behalf of Shake- 
 spear, because our own countryman, Dr. John- 
 son, has not been so favourable to him. It may 
 be said of Shakespear, that " those who are not 
 for him are against him :" for indifference is here 
 the height" of injustice. We may sometimes, in 
 order " to do a great right, do a little wrong." 
 An overstrained enthusiasm is more pardonable 
 with respect to Shakespear than the want of it; 
 for our admiration cannot easily surpass his 
 genius. We have a high respect for Dr. John- 
 son's character and understanding, mixed with 
 something like personal attachment: but he was 
 
xvi PREFACE. 
 
 neither a poet nor a judge of poetry. He might 
 in one sense be a judge of poetry as it falls with- 
 in the limits and rules of prose, but not as it is 
 poetry. Least of all was he qualified to be a 
 judge of Shakespear, who " alone is high fan- 
 tastical." Let those who have a prejudice 
 against Johnson read Boswell's Life of him: as 
 those whom he has prejudiced against Shake- 
 spear should read his Irene. We do not say 
 that a man to be a critic must necessarily be a 
 poet: but to be a good critic, he ought not to 
 be a bad poet. Such poetry as a man delibe- 
 rately writes, such, and such only will he like. 
 Dr. Johnson's Preface to his edition of Shake- 
 spear looks like a laborious attempt to bury the 
 characteristic merits of his author under a load 
 of cumbrous phraseology, and to weigh his excel- 
 lences and defects in equal scales, stuffed full 
 of " swelling figures and sonorous epithets." 
 Nor could it well be otherwise ; Dr. John- 
 son's general powers of reasoning overlaid his 
 critical susceptibility. All his ideas were cast 
 in a given mould, in a set form : they were 
 made out by rule and system, by climax, in- 
 ference, and antithesis : — Shakespear's were the 
 reverse. Johnson's understanding dealt on^ 
 ly in round numbers: the fractions were lost 
 upon him. He reduced every thing to the 
 common standard of conventional propriety; and 
 the most exquisite refinement or sublimity pro- 
 
PREFACE. xvii 
 
 duced an effect on his mind, only as they could 
 be translated into the language of measured prose. 
 To him an excess of beauty was a fault; for it 
 appeared to him like an excrescence ; and his 
 imagination was dazzled by the blaze of light. 
 His writings neither shone with the beams of 
 native genius, nor reflected them. The shift- 
 ing shapes of fancy, the rainbow hues of things, 
 made no impression on him : he seized only on 
 the permanent and tangible. He had no idea 
 of natural objects but " such as he could mea- 
 sure with a two-foot rule, or tell upon ten fin- 
 gers:" he judged of human nature in the same 
 way, by mood and figure: he saw only the defi- 
 nite, the positive, and the practical, the average 
 forms of things, not their striking differences, 
 their classes, not their degrees. He was a 
 man of strong common sense and practical wis- 
 dom, rather than of genius or feeling. He 
 retained the regular, habitual impressions of 
 actual objects, but he could not follow the rapid 
 flights of fancy, or the strong movements of pas- 
 sion. That is, he was to the poet what the 
 painter of still life is to the painter of history. 
 Common sense sympathizes with the impres- 
 sions of things on ordinary minds in ordinary 
 circumstances: genius catches the glancing com- 
 binations presented to the eye of fancy, under 
 the influence of passion. It is the province of 
 the didactic reasoner to take cognizance of those 
 
xviii PREFACE. 
 
 results of human nature which are constantly- 
 repeated and always the same, which follow 
 one another in regular succession, which are 
 acted upon by large classes of men, and embodi- 
 ed in received customs, laws, language, and in- 
 stitutions ; and it was in arranging, comparing, 
 and arguing on these kind of general results, that 
 Johnson's excellence lay. But he could not 
 quit his hold of the common-place and mechan- 
 ical, and apply the general rule to the particular 
 exception, or shew how the nature of man was 
 modified by the workings of passion, or the 
 infinite fluctuations of thought and accident. 
 Hence he could judge neither of the heights nor 
 depths of poetry. Nor is this all ; for being 
 conscious of great powers in himself, and those 
 powers of an adverse tendency to those of his 
 author, he would be for setting up a foreign ju- 
 risdiction over poetry, and making criticism a 
 kind of Procrustes' bed of genius, where he 
 might cut down imagination to matter-of-fact, 
 regulate the passions according to reason, and 
 translate the whole into logical diagrams and 
 rhetorical declamation. Thus he says of Shake- 
 spear's characters, in contradiction to what Pope 
 had observed, and to what every one else feels, 
 that each character is a species, instead of being 
 an individual. He in fact found the general 
 species or didactic form in Shakespear's charac- 
 ters, which was all he sought or cared for ; he 
 
PREFACE. xix 
 
 did not find the individual traits, or the dramatic 
 distinctions which Shakespear has engrafted 
 on this general nature, because he felt no in- 
 terest in them. Shakespear's bold and happy 
 flights of imagination were equally thrown away 
 upon our author. He was not only without 
 any particular fineness of organic sensibility, 
 alive to all the " mighty world of ear and eye," 
 which is necessary to the painter or musician, 
 but without that intenseness of passion which, 
 seeking to exaggerate whatever excites the feel- 
 ings of pleasure or power in the mind, and 
 moulding the impressions of natural objects ac- 
 cording to the impulses of imagination, produces 
 a genius and a taste for poetry. According to Dr. 
 Johnson, a mountain is sublime, or a rose is 
 beautiful ; for that their name and definition im- 
 ply. But he would no more be able to give the 
 description of Dover cliff in Lear, or the de- 
 scription of flowers in The Winter's Tale, than 
 to describe the objects of a sixth sense; nor 
 do we think he would have any very profound 
 feeling of the beauty of the passages here re- 
 ferred to. A stately common-place, such as 
 Congreve's description of a ruin in the Mourn- 
 ing Bride, would have answered Johnson's pur- 
 pose just as well, or better than the first ; and 
 an indiscriminate profusion of scents and hues 
 would have interfered less with the ordinary 
 
xx PREFACE. 
 
 routine of his imagination than Perdita's lines, 
 which seem enamoured of their own sweet- 
 ness — ■ 
 
 « Daffodils 
 
 That come before the swallow dares, and take 
 The winds of March with beauty j violets dim, 
 But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, 
 Or Cytherea's breath." — 
 
 No one who does not feel the passion which 
 these objects inspire can go along with the ima- 
 gination which seeks to express that passion and 
 the uneasy sense of delight by something still 
 more beautiful, and no one can feel this pas- 
 sionate love of nature without quick natural 
 sensibility. To a mere literal and formal ap- 
 prehension, the inimitably characteristic epithet, 
 " violets dim" must seem to imply a defect, 
 rather than a beauty ; and to any one, not feel- 
 ing the full force of that epithet, which suggests 
 an image like " the sleepy eye of love," the al- 
 lusion to " the lids of Juno's eyes" must appear 
 extravagant and unmeaning. Shakespear's fancy 
 lent words and images to the most refined 
 sensibility to nature, struggling for expression : 
 his descriptions are identical with the things 
 themselves, seen through the fine medium of 
 passion : strip them of that connection, and try 
 them by ordinary conceptions and ordinary rules, 
 and they are as grotesque and barbarous as 
 
PREFACE. xxi 
 
 you please. — By thus lowering Shakespear's 
 genius to the standard of common-place inven- 
 tion, it was easy to shew that his faults were 
 as great as his beauties: for the excellence, 
 which consists merely in a conformity to rules, 
 is counterbalanced by the technical violation of 
 them. Another circumstance which led to Dr. 
 Johnson's indiscriminate praise or censure of 
 Shakespear, is the very structure of his style. 
 Johnson wrote a kind of rhyming prose, in which 
 he was compelled as much to finish the different 
 clauses of his sentences, and to balance one pe- 
 riod against another, as the writer of heroic verse 
 is to keep to lines of ten syllables with similar 
 terminations. He no sooner acknowledges the 
 merits of his author in one line than the periodical 
 revolution of his style carries the weight of his 
 opinion completely over to the side of objection, 
 thus keeping up a perpetual alternation of per- 
 fections and absurdities. We do not otherwise 
 know how to account for such assertions as the 
 following : — " In his tragic scenes, there is al- 
 ways something wanting, but his comedy often 
 surpasses expectation or desire. His comedy 
 pleases by the thoughts and the language, and 
 his tragedy, for the greater part, by incident and 
 action. His tragedy seems to be skill, his co- 
 medy to be instinct." Yet after saying that 
 " his tragedy was skill," he affirms in the next 
 
xxii PREFACE. 
 
 page, " His declamations or set speeches are 
 commonly cold and weak, for his power was the 
 power of nature: when he endeavoured, like 
 other tragic writers, to catch opportunities of 
 amplification, and instead of inquiring what the 
 occasion demanded, to shew how much his 
 stores of knowledge could supply, he seldom 
 escapes without the pity or resentment of his 
 reader/" Poor Shakespear ! Between the 
 charges here brought against him, of want of 
 nature in the first instance, and of want of skill 
 in the second, he could hardly escape being con- 
 demned. And again, " But the admirers of this 
 great poet have most reason to complain when 
 he approaches nearest to his highest excellence, 
 and seems fully resolved to sink them in dejec- 
 tion, or mollify them with tender emotions by 
 the fall of greatness, the danger of innocence, or 
 the crosses of love. What he does best, he soon 
 ceases to do. He no sooner begins to move 
 than he counteracts himself; and terror and pity, 
 as they are rising in the mind, are checked and 
 blasted by sudden frigidity." In all this, our 
 critic seems more bent on maintaining the equi- 
 librium of his style than the consistency or truth 
 of his opinions. — If Dr. Johnson's opinion was 
 right, the following observations on Shakespear's 
 Plays must be greatly exaggerated, if not ridi- 
 culous. If he was wrong, what has been said 
 
PREFACE. xxiii 
 
 may perhaps account for his being so, without 
 detracting from his ability and judgment in other 
 things. 
 
 It is proper to add, that the account of the 
 Midsummer Nighfs Dream has appeared in 
 another work. 
 
 April 15, 1817- 
 
CYMBELINE, 
 
 CymbelIne is one of the most delightful of 
 Shakespear's historical plays. It may be con- 
 sidered as a dramatic romance, in which the 
 most striking parts of the story are thrown into 
 the form of a dialogue, and the intermediate 
 circumstances are explained by the different 
 speakers, as occasion renders it necessary. The 
 action is less concentrated in consequence ; but 
 the interest becomes more aerial and refined 
 from the principle of perspective introduced into 
 the subject by the imaginary changes of scene 
 as well as by the length of time it occupies. The 
 reading of this play is like going a journey with 
 some uncertain object at the end of it, and in 
 which the suspense is kept up and heightened by 
 the long intervals between each action. Though 
 the events are scattered over such an extent of 
 
 B 
 
3 CYMBELINE. 
 
 surface, and relate to such a variety of charac- 
 ters, yet the links which bind the different in- 
 terests of the story together are never entirely 
 broken. The most straggling and seemingly 
 casual incidents are contrived in such a man- 
 ner as to lead at last to the most complete de- 
 velopement of the catastrophe. The ease and 
 conscious unconcern with which this is effected 
 only makes the skill more wonderful. The bu- 
 siness of the plot evidently thickens in the last 
 act : the story moves forward with increasing 
 rapidity at every step ; its various ramifications 
 are drawn from the most distant points to the 
 same centre; the principal characters are brought 
 together, and placed in very critical situations; 
 and the fate of almost every person in the drama 
 is made to depend on the solution of a single 
 circumstance — the answer of Iachimo to the 
 question of Imogen respecting the obtaining of 
 the ring from Posthumus. Dr. Johnson is of 
 opinion that Shakespear was generally inatten- 
 tive to the winding up of his plots. We think 
 the contrary is true ; and we might cite in proof 
 of this remark not only the present play, but 
 the conclusion of Lear, of Romeo and Juliet, 
 of Macbeth, of Othello, even of Hamlet, and of 
 other plays of less moment, in which the last act 
 is crowded with decisive events brought about 
 by natural and striking means. 
 
CYMBELINE. 3 
 
 The pathos in Cymbeline is not violent or 
 tragical, but of the most pleasing and amiable 
 kind. A certain tender gloom overspreads the 
 whole. Posthumus is the ostensible hero of 
 the piece, but its greatest charm is the cha- 
 racter of Imogen. Posthumus is only interest- 
 ing from the interest she takes in him, and she 
 is only interesting herself from her tenderness 
 and constancy to her husband. It is the pecu- 
 liar characteristic of Shakespear's heroines, that 
 they seem to exist only in their attachment to 
 others. They are pure abstractions of the affec- 
 tions. We think as little of their persons as 
 they do themselves, because we are let into the 
 secrets of their hearts, which are more important. 
 We are too much interested in their affairs to 
 stop to look at their faces, except by stealth and 
 at intervals. No one ever hit the true perfec- 
 tion of the female character, the sense of weak- 
 ness leaning on the strength of its affections for 
 support, so well as Shakespear — no one ever so 
 well painted natural tenderness free from affec- 
 tation and disguise — no one else ever so well 
 shewed how delicacy and timidity, when driven 
 to extremity, grow romantic and extravagant; 
 for the romance of his heroines (in which they 
 abound) is only an excess of the habitual pre- 
 judices of their sex, scrupulous of being false 
 to their vows, truant to their affections, and 
 taught by the force of feeling when to forego 
 
4 CYMBELINE. 
 
 the forms of propriety for the essence of it. His 
 women were in this respect exquisite logicians ; 
 for there is nothing so logical as passion. They 
 knew their own minds exactly ; and only fol- 
 lowed up a favourite idea,, which they had 
 sworn to with their tongues, and which was 
 engraven on their hearts, into its untoward con- 
 sequences. They were the prettiest little set of 
 martyrs and confessors on record. — Cibber, in 
 speaking of the early English stage, accounts for 
 the want of prominence and theatrical display 
 in Shakespear's female characters from the cir- 
 cumstance, that women in those days were not 
 allowed to play the parts of women, which made 
 it necessary to keep them a good deal in the 
 back-ground. Does not this state of manners 
 itself, which prevented their exhibiting them- 
 selves in public, and confined them to the rela- 
 tions and charities of domestic life, afford a truer 
 explanation of the matter ? His women are 
 certainly very unlike stage-heroines; the reverse 
 of tragedy-queens. 
 
 We have almost as great an affection for Imo- 
 gen as she had for Posthumus ; and she deserves 
 it better. Of all Shakespear's women she is 
 perhaps the most tender and the most artless. 
 Her incredulity in the opening scene with Iachi- 
 mo, as to her husband's infidelity, is much the 
 same as Desdemona's backwardness to believe 
 Othello's jealousy. Her answer to the most 
 
CYMBELINE. 5 
 
 distressing part of the picture is only, " My 
 lord, I fear, has forgot Britain." Her readiness 
 to pardon Iachimo's false imputations and his 
 designs against herself, is a good lesson to 
 prudes ; and may shew that where there is a 
 real attachment to virtue, it has no need to 
 bolster itself up with an outrageous or affected 
 antipathy to vice. The scene in which Pisanio 
 gives Imogen his master's letter, accusing her of 
 incontinency on the treacherous suggestions of 
 Iachimo, is as touching as it is possible for any 
 thing to be: — 
 
 " Pisanio. What cheer, Madam ? 
 
 Imogen. False to his bed ! What is it to be false ? 
 To lie in watch there, and to think on him ? 
 To weep 'twixt clock and clock ? If sleep charge nature, 
 To break it with a fearful dream of him, 
 And cry myself awake ? That's false to's bed, is it ? 
 
 Pisanio. Alas, good lady ! 
 
 Imogen. I false ? thy conscience witness, Iachimo, 
 Thou didst accuse him of incontinency, 
 Thou then look'dst like a villain : now methinks, 
 Thy favour's good enough. Some Jay of Italy, 
 Whose mother was her painting, hath betrayed him : 
 Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion, 
 And for I am richer than to hang by th' walls, 
 I must be ript ; to pieces with me. Oh, 
 Men's vows are women's traitors. All good seeming 
 By thy revolt, oh husband, shall be thought 
 Put on for villainy : not born where' t grows, 
 But worn a bait for ladies. 
 
 Pisanio. Good Madam,, hear me-— 
 
6 CYMBEMNE. 
 
 Imogen. Talk thy tongue weary, speak ; 
 I have heard I am a strumpet, and mine ear, 
 Therein false struck, can take no greater wound, 
 Nor tent to bottom that." 
 
 When Pisanio, who had been charged to kill 
 his mistress, puts her in a way to live, she says, 
 
 tc Why, good fellow, 
 What shall I do the while ? Where bide ? How live ? 
 Or in my life what comfort, when I am 
 Dead to my husband ?" 
 
 Yet when he advises her to disguise herself 
 in boy's clothes, and suggests " a course pretty 
 and full in view/' by which she may " happily 
 be near the residence of Posthumus," she ex- 
 claims, 
 
 " Oh, for such means, 
 Though peril to my modesty, not death on't, 
 I would adventure." 
 
 And when Pisanio, enlarging on the conse- 
 quences, tells her she must change 
 
 Fear and niceness, 
 
 The handmaids of all women, or more truly, 
 Woman its pretty self, into a waggish courage, 
 Ready in gibes, quick answer'd, saucy, and 
 As quarrellous as the weazel" — 
 
 she interrupts him hastily : — 
 
 " Nay, be brief 5 
 I see into thy end, and am almost 
 A man already." 
 
CYMBELINE. 
 
 In her journey thus disguised to Milford- 
 Haven, she loses her guide and her way ; and 
 unbosoming her complaints, says beautifully, — 
 
 . " My dear Lord, 
 
 Thou art one of the false ones -, now I think on thee, 
 My hunger's gone ; but even before, I was 
 At point to sink for food." 
 
 She afterwards finds, as she thinks, the dead 
 body of Posthumus, and engages herself as a 
 footboy to serve a Roman officer, when she has 
 done all due obsequies to him whom she calls 
 her former master 
 
 (C And when 
 
 With wild wood-leaves and weeds I ha' strew' d his grave, 
 
 And on it said a century of pray'rs, 
 
 Such as I can, twice o'er, I'll weep and sigh, 
 
 And leaving so his service, follow you, 
 
 So please you entertain me." 
 
 Now this is the very religion of love. She all 
 along relies little on her personal charms, which 
 she fears may have been eclipsed by some painted 
 Jay of Italy ; she relies on her merit, and her 
 merit is in the depth of her love, her truth and 
 constancy. Our admiration of her beauty is 
 excited with as little consciousness as possible 
 on her part. There are two delicious descrip- 
 tions given of her, one when she is asleep, and 
 one when she is supposed dead. Arviragus 
 thus addresses her — 
 
CYMBELINE. 
 
 With fairest flowers, 
 
 While summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, 
 I'll sweeten thy sad grave ; thou shalt not lack 
 The flow'r that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor 
 The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins, no, nor 
 The leaf of eglantine, which not to slander, 
 Out-sweeten' d not thy breath.' ■ 
 
 The yellow Iachimo gives another thus, when 
 he steals into her bed-chamber: — 
 
 Cytherea, 
 
 How bravely thou becom'st thy bed ! Fresh lity, 
 And whiter than the sheets ! That I might touch — ■ 
 But kiss, one kiss — 'Tis her breathing that 
 Perfumes the chamber thus : the flame o' th' taper 
 Bows toward her, and would under- peep her lids 
 To see th' enclosed lights now canopied 
 Under the windows, white and azure, laced 
 With blue of Heav'ns own tinct — on her left breast 
 A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops 
 I' the bottom of a cowslip." 
 
 There is a moral sense in the proud beauty of 
 this last image, a rich surfeit of the fancy,— as 
 that well-known passage beginning, " Me of my 
 lawful pleasure she restrained, and prayed me 
 oft forbearance," sets a keener edge upon it by 
 the inimitable picture of modesty and self-de- 
 nial. 
 
 The character of Cloten, the conceited, booby 
 lord, and rejected lover of Imogen, though not 
 very agreeable in itself, and at present obsolete, 
 is drawn with great humour and knowledge of 
 
CYMBELINE. 9 
 
 character. The description which Imogen gives 
 of his unwelcome addresses to her — " Whose 
 love-suit hath been to me as fearful as a siege" — 
 is enough to cure the most ridiculous lover of 
 his folly. It is remarkable that though Cloten 
 makes so poor a figure in love, he is described 
 as assuming an air of consequence as the Queen^s 
 son in a council of state, and with all the absur- 
 dity of his person and manners, is not without 
 shrewdness in his observations. So true is it 
 that folly is as often owing to a want of proper 
 sentiments as to a want of understanding ! The 
 exclamation of the ancient critic, Oh Menander 
 and Nature, which of you copied from the 
 other ! would not be misapplied to Shakespear. 
 The other characters in this play are repre- 
 sented with great truth and accuracy, and as it 
 happens in most of the author's works, there is 
 not only the utmost keeping in each separate 
 character ; but in the casting of the different 
 parts, and their relation to one another, there 
 is an affinity and harmony, like what we may 
 observe in the gradations of colour in a picture. 
 The striking and powerful contrasts in which 
 Shakespear abounds could not escape observa- 
 tion ; but the use he makes of the principle of 
 analogy to reconcile the greatest diversities of 
 character and to maintain a continuity of feeling 
 throughout, has not been sufficiently attended 
 to. In Cymbeline, for instance, the principal 
 
10 CYMBELINE. 
 
 interest arises out of the unalterable fidelity of 
 Imogen to her husband under the most trying 
 circumstances. Now the other parts of the pic- 
 ture are filled up with subordinate examples of 
 the same feeling, variously modified by dif- 
 ferent situations, and applied to the purposes of 
 virtue or vice. The plot is aided by the amor- 
 ous importunities of Cloten, by the tragical 
 determination of Iachimo to conceal the defeat 
 of his project by a daring imposture : the faith- 
 ful attachment of Pisanio to his mistress is an 
 affecting accompaniment to the whole ; the 
 obstinate adherence to his purpose in Bellarius, 
 who keeps the fate of the young princes so long 
 a secret in resentment for the ungrateful return 
 to his former services, the incorrigible wicked- 
 ness of the Queen, and even the blind uxorious 
 confidence of Cymbeline, are all so many lines 
 of the same story, tending to the same point. 
 The effect of this coincidence is rather felt than 
 observed ; and as the impression exists uncon- 
 sciously in the mind of the reader, so it probably 
 arose in the same manner in the mind of the 
 author, not from design, but from the force of 
 natural association, a particular train of feeling 
 suggesting different inflections of the same pre- 
 dominant, principle, melting into, and strength- 
 ening one another, like chords in music. 
 
 The characters of Bellarius, Guiderius, and 
 Arviragus, and the romantic scenes in which 
 
CYMBELINE. 11 
 
 they appear, are a fine relief to the intrigues and 
 artificial refinements of the court from which* 
 they are banished. Nothing can surpass the 
 wildness and simplicity of the descriptions of 
 the mountain life they lead. They follow the 
 business of huntsmen, not of shepherds ; and 
 this is in keeping with the spirit of adventure 
 and uncertainty in the rest of the story, and with 
 the scenes in which they are afterwards called 
 on to act. How admirably the youthful fire and 
 impatience to emerge from their obscurity in 
 the young princes is opposed to the cooler cal- 
 culations and prudent resignation of their more 
 experienced counsellor ! How well the dis- 
 advantages of knowledge and of ignorance, of so- 
 litude and society, are placed against each other! 
 
 " Guiderius. Out of your proof you speak : we poor 
 unfledg'd 
 Have never wing'd from view o' th' nest ; nor know not 
 What air's from home. Haply this life is best, 
 If quiet life is best 3 sweeter to you 
 That have a sharper known ; well corresponding 
 With your stiff age : but unto us it is 
 A cell of ignorance j travelling a-bed, 
 A prison for a debtor, that not dares 
 To stride a limit. 
 
 Arviragus. What should we speak of 
 When we are old as you ? When we shall hear 
 The rain and wind beat dark December ! How, 
 In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse 
 The freezing hours away ? We have seen nothing. 
 
12 CYMBELINE. 
 
 We are beastly ; subtle as the fox for prey, 
 Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat : 
 Our valour is to chase what flies -, our cage 
 We make a quire, as doth the prison'd bird. 
 And sing our bondage freely." 
 
 The answer of Bellarius to this expostulation 
 is hardly satisfactory ; for nothing can be an an- 
 swer to hope, or the passion of the mind for 
 unknown good, but experience. — The forest of 
 Arden in As you like it can alone compare with 
 the mountain scenes in Cymbeline : yet how 
 different the contemplative quiet of the one from 
 the enterprising boldness and precarious mode of 
 subsistence in the other! Shakespear not only 
 lets us into the minds of his characters, but 
 gives a tone and colour to the scenes he de- 
 scribes from the feelings of their imaginary in- 
 habitants. He at the same time preserves the 
 utmost propriety of action and passion, and gives 
 all their local accompaniments. If he was equal 
 to the greatest things, he was not above an 
 attention to the smallest. Thus the gallant 
 sportsmen in Cymbeline have to encounter 
 the abrupt declivities of hill and valley: Touch- 
 stone and Audrey jog along a level path. The 
 deer in Cymbeline are only regarded as objects 
 of prey, " The game's a-foot," &c. — with Jaques 
 they are fine subjects to moralize upon at lei- 
 sure, " under the shade of melancholy boughs." 
 
 We cannot take leave of this play, which is 
 
CYMBELINE. 13 
 
 a favourite with us, without noticing some oc- 
 casional touches of natural piety and morality. 
 We may allude here to the opening of the scene 
 in which Bellarius instructs the young princes 
 to pay their orisons to heaven : 
 
 '* See, Boys ! this gate 
 
 Instructs you how t' adore the Heav'ns ; and bows you 
 To morning's holy office. 
 
 Guiderius. Hail, Heav'n ! 
 
 Arviragus. Hail, Heav'n ! 
 
 Bellarius. Now for our mountain-sport, up to yon hill." 
 
 What a grace and unaffected spirit of piety 
 breathes in this passage ! In like manner, one 
 of the brothers says to the other, when about to 
 perform the funeral rites to Fidele, 
 
 * ' Nay, Cad wall, we must lay his head to the east ; 
 My Father hath a reason for't.'' 
 
 Shakespear's morality is introduced in the 
 same simple, unobtrusive manner. Imogen will 
 not let her companions stay away from the 
 chase to attend her when sick, and gives her 
 reason for it — 
 
 " Stick to your journal course ; the breach of custom 
 Is breach of all /" 
 
 When the Queen attempts to disguise her mo- 
 tives for procuring the poison from Cornelius, by 
 
14 CYMBELIXE. 
 
 saying she means to try its effects on " creatures 
 not worth the hanging," his answer conveys at 
 once a tacit reproof of her hypocrisy, and a use- 
 ful lesson of humanity — 
 
 a/ 
 
 ""Your Highness 
 
 Shall from this practice but make hard your heart." 
 
MACBETH. 
 
 <c The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling 
 
 Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ; 
 
 And as imagination bodies forth 
 
 The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
 
 Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing 
 
 A local habitation and a name." 
 
 Macbeth and Lear, Othello and Hamlet, are 
 usually reckoned Shakespear's four principal 
 tragedies. Lear stands first for the profound 
 intensity of the passion ; Macbeth foiL -lhe 
 wHdnes^^o^ 
 
 of the action ; Othello for the progressive in- 
 terest and powerful alternations of feeling ; 
 Hamlet for the refined developement of thought 
 and sentiment. If the force of genius shewn 
 in each of these works is astonishing, their 
 variety is not less so. They are like dif- 
 ferent creations of the same mind, not one of 
 which has the slightest reference to the rest. 
 
16 MACBETH. 
 
 This distinctness and originality is indeed the 
 necessary consequence of truth and nature. 
 Shakespear's genius alone appeared to possess 
 the resources of nature. He is " your only tra- 
 gedy-maker" His plays have the force of things 
 upon the mind. What he represents is brought 
 home to the bosom as a part of our experience, 
 implanted in the memory as if we had known 
 the places, persons, and things of which he 
 treats. Macbeth is like a record of a preter- 
 natural and tragical event. It has the rug- 
 ged severity of an old chronicle with all that 
 the imagination of the poet can engraft upon 
 traditional belief. The castle of Macbeth, 
 round which " the air smells wooingly," and 
 where " the temple-haunting martlet builds," 
 has a real subsistence in the mind ; the Weird 
 Sisters meet us in person on sc the blasted heath ;" 
 the " air-drawn dagger" moves slowly before 
 our eyes ; the " gracious Duncan," the " blood- 
 boultered Banquo" stand before us ; all that 
 passed through the mind of Macbeth passes, 
 without the loss of a tittle, through our's. All 
 that could actually take place, and all that is 
 only possible to be conceived, what was said 
 and what was done, the workings of passion, 
 the spells of magic, are brought before us with 
 the same absolute truth and vividness. — Shake- 
 spear excelled in the openings of his plays : 
 that of Macbeth is the most striking of any. 
 
MACBETH 17 
 
 The wildness of the scenery, the sudden shifting 
 of the situations and characters, the bustle, the 
 expectations excited, are equally extraordinary. 
 From the first entrance of the Witches and the 
 description of them when they meet Macbeth, 
 
 " What are these 
 
 So wither'd and so wild in their attire, 
 
 That look not like the inhabitants of th' earth 
 
 And yet are on't?" 
 
 the mind is prepared for all that follows. 
 
 This tragedy is alike distinguished for the lofty 
 imagination it displays, and for the tumultuous 
 vehemence of the action ; and the one is made 
 the moving principle of the other. The over- 
 whelming pressure of preternatural agency urges 
 on the tide of human passion with redoubled 
 force. Macbeth himself^appears driven along 
 by the violence of his fate like a vessel drift- 
 ins: before a storm ; he reels to and fro like 
 a drunken man ; he staggers under the weight 
 of his own purposes and the suggestions of 
 others.;, he stands at bay with his situation ; 
 and from the superstitious awe and breathless 
 suspense into which the communications of the 
 Weird Sisters throw him, is hurried on with 
 darin g i m patien ce , jto verify" their predictions, 
 and with impious and bloody hand to tear aside 
 the veil which hides the uncertainty of the fu- 
 ture. He is not equal t o the struggle with Jate 
 and conscience^ He now " bends up each 
 
 c 
 
18 MACBETH. 
 
 corporal instrument to the terrible feat;" at 
 other times higLJ&eanjmisgives him, and he is 
 cowed and abashed by his success. " The deed, 
 no less than the attempt, confounds him." His 
 min^is^assdJfidJbjL JEfelLgtings of remorse, and full 
 of " preternatural solicitings." His speeches 
 and soliloquies are dark riddles on human life, 
 baffling solution, and entangling him in their la- 
 byrinths. In thought he is absent and perplexed, 
 sudden and desperate in act, from a distrust of 
 his own resolution. His energy springs from 
 the anxiety and agitation of his mind. His 
 blindly rushing forward on the objects of his am- 
 bition and revenge, or his recoiling from them, 
 equally betrays the harassed state of his feelings. 
 — This part of his character is admirably jet off 
 by being brought in connection with that of Lady 
 Macbeth, whose obdurate strength of will and 
 masculine firmness give her the ascendancy over 
 her husband's faultering virtue. She at once 
 seizes on the opportunity that offers for the ac- 
 complishment of all their wished-for greatness, 
 and never flinches from her object till all is 
 over. The magnitude of her resolution almost 
 covers the magnitude of her guilt. She is a great 
 bad woman, whom we hate, but whom we fear 
 more than we hate. She does not excite our 
 loathing and abhorrence like Regan and Gone- 
 rill. She is only wicked to gain a great end ; 
 and is perhaps more distinguished by her com- 
 
MACBETH. 19 
 
 manding presence of mind and inexorable self- 
 will, which do not suffer her to be diverted from 
 a bad purpose, when once formed, by weak and 
 womanly regrets, than by the hardness of her 
 heart or want of natural affections. The im- 
 pression which her lofty determination of cha- 
 racter makes on the mind of Macbeth is well 
 described where he exclaims, 
 
 ' c Bring forth men children only j 
 
 For thy undaunted mettle should compose 
 Nothing but males !" 
 
 Nor do the pains she is at to " screw his courage 
 to the sticking-place", the reproach to him, 
 not to be " lost so poorly in himself," the assu- 
 rance that " a little water clears them of this 
 deed," shew any thing but her greater consis- 
 tency in depravity. Her strong-nerved ambi- 
 tion furnishes ribs of steel to " the sides of his 
 intent;" and she is herself wound up to the exe- 
 cution of her baneful project with the same un- 
 shrinking fortitude in crime, that in other cir- 
 cumstances she would probably have shewn 
 patience in suffering. The deliberate sacrifice 
 of all other considerations to the gaining " for 
 their future days and nights sole sovereign sway 
 and masterdom," by the murder of Duncan, is 
 gorgeously expressed in her invocation on hear- 
 ing of " his fatal entrance under her battle- 
 ments :" — 
 
20 MACBETH. 
 
 Come all you spirits 
 
 That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here : 
 And fill me, from the crown to th' toe, top-full 
 Of direst cruelty ; make thick my blood, 
 Stop up the access and passage to remorse, 
 That no compunctious visitings of nature 
 Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between 
 The effect and it. Come to my woman's breasts, 
 And take my milk for gall, you murthering ministers, 
 Wherever in your sightless substances 
 You wait on nature's mischief. Come, thick night ! 
 And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, 
 That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, 
 Nor heav'n peep through the blanket of the dark, 
 To cry, hold, hold!"— 
 
 When she first hears that " Duncan comes there 
 to sleep" she is so overcome by the news, which 
 is beyond her utmost expectations, that she 
 answers the messenger, " Thou'rt mad to say 
 it :" and on receiving her husband's account of 
 the predictions of the Witches, conscious of his 
 instability of purpose, and that her presence is 
 necessary to goad him on to the consummation 
 of his promised greatness, she exclaims — 
 
 <( Hie thee hither, 
 That I may pour my spirits in thine ear, 
 And chastise with the valour of my tongue 
 All that impedes thee from the golden round, 
 Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem 
 To have thee crowned withal." 
 
 This swelling exultation and keen spirit of tri- 
 umph, this uncontroulable eagerness of anticipa- 
 
MACBETH. 21 
 
 tion, which seems to dilate her form and take 
 possession of all her faculties, this solid, sub- 
 stantial flesh and blood display of passion, ex- 
 hibit a striking contrast to the cold, abstracted, 
 gratuitous, servile malignity of the Witches, who 
 are equally instrumental in urging Macbeth to 
 his fate for the mere love of mischief, and from 
 a disinterested delight in deformity and cruel- 
 ty. They are hags of mischief, obscene panders 
 to iniquity, malicious from their impotence of 
 enjoyment, enamoured of destruction, because 
 they are themselves unreal, abortive, half-exis- 
 tences, and who become sublime from their 
 exemption from all human sympathies and con- 
 tempt for all human affairs, as Lady Macbeth 
 does by the force of passion ! Her fault seems 
 to have been an excess of that strong principle 
 of self-interest and family aggrandisement, not 
 amenable to the common feelings of compas- 
 sion and justice, which is so marked a feature in 
 barbarous nations and times. A passing reflec- 
 tion of this kind, on the resemblance of the 
 sleeping king to her father, alone prevents her 
 from slaying Duncan with her own hand. 
 
 In speaking of the character of Lady Mac- 
 beth, we ought not to pass over Mrs. Siddons's 
 manner of acting that part. We can conceive 
 of nothing grander. It was something above 
 nature. It seemed almost as if a being of a su- 
 perior order had dropped from a higher sphere to 
 
22 MACBETH. 
 
 awe the world with the majesty of her appear-: 
 ance. Power was seated on her brow, passion 
 emanated from her breast as from a shrine ; she 
 was tragedy personified. In coming on in the 
 sleepjng-scene, her eyes were open, but their 
 sense was shut. She was like a person bewil- 
 dered and unconscious of what she did. Her 
 lips moved involuntarily — all her gestures were 
 involuntary and mechanical. She glided on and 
 off the stage like an apparition. To have seen 
 her in that character was an event in every one's 
 life, not to be forgotten. 
 
 The dramatic beauty of the character of Dun- 
 can, which excites the respect and pity even 
 of his murderers, has been often pointed out. 
 It forms a picture of itself. An instance of the 
 author's power of giving a striking effect to a 
 common reflection, by the manner of introducing 
 it, occurs in a speech of Duncan, complaining 
 of his having been deceived in his opinion of 
 the Thane of Cawdor, at the very moment that 
 he is expressing the most unbounded confidence 
 in the loyalty and services of Macbeth. 
 
 <e There is no art 
 To find the mind's construction in the face : 
 He was a gentleman, on whom I built 
 An absolute trust. 
 
 O worthiest cousin, (addressing himself to Macbeth) 
 The sin of my ingratitude e'en now 
 Was great upon me/' &c 
 
MACBETH. 23 
 
 Another passage to shew that Shakespear lost 
 sight of nothing that could in any way give 
 relief or heightening to his subject, is the con- 
 versation which takes place between Banquo 
 and Fleance immediately before the murder- 
 scene of Duncan. 
 
 " Banquo. How goes the night, boy ? 
 
 Fleance, The moon is down : I have not heard the clock 
 
 Banquo. And she goes down at twelve. 
 
 Fleance. I take't, 'tis later, Sir. 
 
 Banquo. Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry in 
 heav'n, 
 Their candles are all out. — 
 A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, 
 And yet I would not sleep : Merciful Powers, 
 Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature 
 Gives way to in repose." 
 
 In like manner, a fine idea is given of the 
 gloomy coming on of evening, just as Banquo 
 is going to be assassinated. 
 
 " Light thickens and the crow 
 
 Makes wing to the rooky wood." 
 
 *********** 
 
 " Now spurs the lated traveller apace 
 To gain the timely inn." 
 
 Macbeth (generally speaking) is done upon 
 a stronger and more systematic principle of con- 
 trast than any other of Shakespear's plays. It 
 
24 MACBETH. 
 
 moves upon the verge of an abyss, and is a con- 
 stant struggle between life and death. The 
 action is desperate and the reaction is dreadful. 
 It is a huddling together of fierce extremes, a war 
 of opposite natures which of them shall destroy 
 the other. There is nothing but what has a 
 violent end or violent beginnings. The lights 
 and shades are laid on with a determined hand; 
 the transitions from triumph to despair, from 
 the height of terror to the repose of death, are 
 sudden and startling; every passion brings in 
 its fellow - contrary, and the thoughts pitch 
 and jostle against each other as in the dark. 
 The whole play is an unruly chaos of strange 
 and forbidden things, where the ground rocks 
 under our feet. Shakespear's genius here took 
 its full swing, and trod upon the farthest bounds 
 of nature and passion. This circumstance will 
 account for the abruptness and violent antitheses 
 of the style, the throes and labour which run 
 through the expression, and from defects will 
 turn them into beauties. " So fair and foul a day 
 I have not seen," &c. " Such welcome and un- 
 welcome news together." " Men*s lives are like 
 the flowers in their caps, dying or ere they sick- 
 en." u Look like the innocent flower, but be the 
 serpent under it." The scene before the castle- 
 gate follows the appearance of the Witches on 
 the heath, and is followed by a midnight murder, 
 
MACBETH. 25 
 
 Duncan is cut off betimes by treason leagued 
 with witchcraft, and Macduff is ripped untimely 
 from his mother's womb to avenge his death. 
 Macbeth, after the death of Banquo, wishes for 
 his presence in extravagant terms, " To him and 
 all we thirst," and when his ghost appears, cries 
 out, " Avaunt and quit my sight," and being 
 gone, he is " himself again." Macbeth resolves 
 to get rid of Macduff, that " he may sleep in 
 spite of thunder;" and cheers his wife on the 
 doubtful intelligence of Banquo's taking-off with 
 the encouragement — " Then be thou jocund : ere 
 the bat has flown his cloistered flight ; ere to 
 black Hecate's summons the shard-born beetle 
 has rung night's yawning peal, there shall be 
 done — a deed of dreadful note." In Lady Mac- 
 beth's speech " Had he not resembled my father 
 as he slept, I had done 't," there is murder and 
 filial piety together, and in urging him to fulfil 
 his vengeance against the defenceless king, her 
 thoughts spare the blood neither of infants nor 
 old age. The description of the Witches is full 
 of the same contradictory principle ; they " re- 
 joice when good kings bleed," they are neither 
 of the earth nor the air, but both ; " they 
 should be women, but their beards forbid it;" 
 they take all the pains possible to lead Mac- 
 beth on to the height of his ambition, only 
 to betray him in deeper consequence, and after 
 
26 MACBETH. 
 
 shewing him all the pomp of their art, dis- 
 cover their malignant delight in his disappointed 
 hopes, by that bitter taunt, " Why stands Mac- 
 beth thus amazedly >" We might multiply such 
 instances every where. 
 
 The leading features in the character of 
 Macbeth are striking enough, and they form 
 what may be thought at first only a bold, rude, 
 Gothic outline. By comparing it with other 
 characters of the same author we shall per- 
 ceive the absolute truth and identity which is 
 observed in the midst of the giddy whirl and 
 rapid career of events. Macbeth in Shakespear 
 no more loses his identity of character in the 
 fluctuations of fortune or the storm of passion, 
 than Macbeth in himself would have lost the 
 identity of his person. Thus he is as distinct a 
 being from Richard III. as it is possible to ima- 
 gine, though these two characters in common 
 hands, and indeed in the hands of any other 
 poet, would have been a repetition of the same 
 general idea, more or less exaggerated. For 
 both are tyrants, usurpers, murderers, both as- 
 piring and ambitious, both courageous, -cruel, 
 treacherous. But Richard is cruel from nature 
 and constitution. Macbeth becomes so from 
 accidental circumstances. Richard is from his 
 birth deformed in body and mind, and natu- 
 rally incapable of good. Macbeth is full of " the 
 
MACBETH. 27 
 
 milk of human kindness," is frank, sociable, 
 generous, Hejs^ of 
 
 guilt by golden opportunities, by the instiga- 
 tions of his wife, and by prophetic warnings. 
 Fate and metaphysical aid conspire against his 
 virtue and his loyalty. Richard on the con- 
 trary needs no prompter, but wades through a se- 
 ries of crimes to the height of his ambition from 
 the ungovernable violence of his temper and a 
 reckless love of mischief. He is never gay but 
 in the prospect or in the success of his villainies: 
 M acbeth is full of hoj^^L^t^Jie_ibLQiights of jhe 
 murder of -Duacan,^which.he is with difficulty 
 prevailed on to jcommit, and of j^m^sja^fterJLts 
 perpetration. Richard has no mixture of com- 
 mon humanity in his composition, no regard to 
 kindred or posterity, he owns no fellowship with 
 others, he is " himself alone." Macbeth is 
 not destitute of J^lj,ni[s„gX§xmrjathv:,Js accessi- 
 ble to pity,Js even made, in some measure the 
 
 dupe of his u xor iousness,.., jcaa ka the los s of 
 
 friends, of the cordial 4ove,afJWs^ollow<ej^_and 
 of his good najae^maogJi^^ 
 made him weary of life, and regrets that he has 
 ever seized the crown by unjust means, since he 
 cannot transmit it to his posterity— 
 
 <f For Banquo's issue have I 'fil'd my mind — 
 For them the gracious Duncan have I murther'd., 
 To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings." 
 
28 MACBETH. 
 
 In the agitation of his thoughts, he envies those 
 whom he has sent to peace. " Duncan is in his 
 grave ; after life's fitful fever he sleeps well." — 
 fit is true, he becomes more caJlous as he plunges 
 deeper in guilt, " direness is thus rendered fa- 
 miliar to his slaughterous thoughts," and he in 
 the end anticipates his wife in the boldness and 
 bloodiness of his enterprises, while she for want 
 of the same stimulus of action, is " troubled 
 with thick-coming fancies that rob her of her 
 rest," goes mad and dies. Macbeth endeavours 
 to escape from reflection on his crimes by repel- 
 ling their consequences, and banishes remorse 
 for the past by the meditation of future mischief. 
 This is not the principle of Richard's cruelty, 
 which resembles the wanton malice of a fiend 
 as much as the frailty of human passion. Mac- 
 beth isjgoj^p^oji j£_a£t^o^ 
 tion by necessity; to Richard, blood is a pastime. 
 — There are other decisive differences inherent 
 in the two characters. Richard may be regarded 
 as a man of the world, a plotting, hardened knave, 
 wholly regardless of every thing but his own 
 ends, and the means to secure them — Not so 
 Macbeth. The superstitions of the age, the 
 rude state of society, the local scenery and cus- 
 toms, all give a wildness and imaginary grandeur 
 to his character. From the strangeness of the 
 events that surround him, he is full of _,am3£gr 
 
MACBETH. 29 
 
 ment and fear; and stands in doubt between 
 the world of reality and the world of fancy. He 
 sees sights not she wn to mo rtajh^^an'jd hears 
 unearthly music. All is tumult and disorder 
 within and without his mind; his purposes re- 
 coil upon himself, are broken and disjointed ; 
 he is the double thrall of his passions and his 
 evil destiny, Richard is not a character either 
 of imagination or pathos, but of pure self-will. 
 There is no conflict of opposite feelings in his 
 breast. The apparitions which he sees only 
 haunt him in his sleep; nor does he Jive like 
 JVlajsbetl^in^a^w^ Macbeth has 
 
 co nsi derab lft „en .ergyan d manliness of^crTaracter ; 
 but then he is " subject to all the skyey influ- 
 ences." He is sure of nothing but the present 
 moment. Richard in the busy turbulence of 
 his projects never loses his self-possession, and 
 makes use of every circumstance that happens 
 as an instrument of his long-reaching designs. 
 In his last extremity we can only regard him as 
 a wild beast taken in the toils: /we nev er en - 
 t«y%_io^e_j&LL^^ 
 
 c alls back all our sympathy by that fin e close of 
 thoughtful melancholy— 
 
 " My way of life is fallen into the sear, 
 The yellow leaf; and that which should accompany old age, 
 As honour, troops of friends, I must not look to have 5 
 But in their stead, curses not loud but deep, 
 
30 MACBETH. 
 
 Mouth-honour, breath, which the poor heart 
 Would fain deny and dare not." 
 
 We can conceive a common actor to play 
 Richard tolerably well ; we can conceive no 
 one to play Macbeth properly, or to look like a 
 man that had encountered the Weird Sisters. 
 All the actors that we have ever seen, appear as 
 if they had encountered them on the boards of 
 Covent-garden or Drury-lane, but not on the 
 heath at Fores, and as if they did not believe what 
 they had seen. The Witches of Macbeth in- 
 deed are ridiculous on the modern stage, and we 
 doubt if the furies of iEschylus would be more 
 respected. The progress of manners and know- 
 ledge has an influence on the stage, and will in 
 time perhaps destroy both tragedy and comedy. 
 Filch's picking pockets, in the Beggars 9 Opera, 
 is not so good a jest as it used to be : by the 
 force of the police and of philosophy, Lillo's 
 murders and the ghosts in Shakespear will be- 
 come obsolete. At last there will be nothing 
 left, good nor bad, to be desired or dreaded, on 
 the theatre or in real life. A question has been 
 started with respect to the originality of Shake- 
 spear's Witches, which has been well answered 
 by Mr. Lamb in his notes to the " Specimens 
 of Early Dramatic Poetry." — 
 
 " Though some resemblance may be traced 
 
MACBETH. SI 
 
 between the charms in Macbeth, and the in- 
 cantations in this play, (the Witch of Middle- 
 ton) which is supposed to have preceded it, 
 this coincidence will not detract much from the 
 originality of Shakespear. His Witches are dis- 
 tinguished from the Witches of Middleton by 
 essential differences. These are creatures to 
 whom man or woman plotting some dire mis- 
 chief might resort for occasional consultation. 
 Those originate deeds of blood, and begin bad 
 impulses^to men. From the moment that their 
 eyes first meet with Macbeth's, he is spell- 
 bound. That meeting sways his destiny. „He 
 can never break the fascination. These Witches 
 can hurt the body ; those have power over the 
 soul. — Hecate in Middleton has a son, a low 
 buffoon : the hags of Shakespear have neither 
 child of their own, nor seem to be descended 
 from any parent. They are foul anomalies, of 
 whom we know not whence they are sprung, 
 nor whether they have beginning or ending. As 
 they are without human passions, so they seem 
 to be without human relations. They come 
 with thunder and lightning, and vanish to airy 
 music. This is all we know of them. — Except 
 Hecate, they have no names, which heightens 
 their mysteriousness. The names, and some of 
 the properties which Middleton has given to 
 his hags, excite smiles. The Weird Sisters are 
 
32 MACBETH. 
 
 serious things. Their presence cannot co-exist 
 with mirth. But, in a lesser degree, the Witches 
 of Middleton are fine creations. Their power 
 too is, in some measure, over the mind. They 
 raise jars, jealousies, strifes, like a thick scurf 
 o'er life:' 
 
JULIUS C^SAR. 
 
 Julius Cesar was one of three principal plays 
 by different authors, pitched upon by the cele- 
 brated Earl of Hallifax to be brought out in a 
 splendid manner by subscription, in the year 
 1707. The other two were the King and No 
 King of Fletcher, and Dryden^s Maiden Queen. 
 There perhaps might be political reasons for this 
 selection, as far as regards our author. Other- 
 wise, Shakespear's Julius Caesar is not equal as 
 a whole, to either of his other plays taken from 
 the Roman history. It is inferior in interest to 
 Coriolanus, and both in interest and power to 
 Antony and Cleopatra. It however abounds 
 in admirable and affecting passages, and is re- 
 markable for the profound knowledge of cha- 
 racter, in which Shakespear could scarcely fail. 
 If there is any exception to this remark, it is in 
 
34 JULIUS C^SAR. 
 
 the hero of the piece himself. We do not much 
 admire the representation here given of Julius 
 Caesar, nor do we think it answers to the portrait 
 given of him in his Commentaries. He makes 
 several vapouring and rather pedantic speeches, 
 and does nothing. Indeed, he has nothing to 
 do. So far, the fault of the character might be 
 the fault of the plot. 
 
 The spirit with which the poet has entered at 
 once into the manners of the common people, 
 and the jealousies and heart-burnings of the dif- 
 ferent factions, is shewn in the first scene, when 
 Flavius and Marullus, tribunes of the people, and 
 some citizens of Rome, appear upon the stage. 
 
 " Flavins. Thou art a cobler, art thou ? 
 
 Cobler. Truly, Sir, all that I live by, is the awl : I med- 
 dle with no tradesman's matters, nor woman's matters, but 
 with-al, I am indeed, Sir, a surgeon to old shoes -, when 
 they are in great danger, I recover them. 
 
 Flavius. But wherefore art not in thy shop to day ? 
 Why do'st thOu lead these men about the streets ? 
 
 Cobler. Truly, Sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself 
 into more work. But indeed, Sir, we make holiday to see 
 Caesar, and rejoice in his triumph." 
 
 To this specimen of quaint low humour im- 
 mediately follows that unexpected and animated 
 burst of indignant eloquence, put into the 
 mouth of one of the angry tribunes. 
 
 Marullus. " Wherefore rejoice ! — What conquest brings 
 he home ? 
 
JULIUS CAESAR. 35 
 
 What tributaries follow him to Rome, 
 To grace in captive-bonds his chariot-wheels ? 
 Oh you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome ! 
 Knew you not Pompey ? Many a time and oft 
 Have you climb'd up to walls and battiements, 
 To towers and windows, yea, to chitnney-tops, 
 Your infants in your arms, and there have sat 
 The live-long day with patient expectation, 
 To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome : 
 And when you saw his chariot but appear, 
 Have you not made an universal shout, 
 That Tyber trembled underneath his banks 
 To hear the replication of your sounds, 
 Made in his concave shores ? 
 And do you now put on your best attire ? 
 And do you now cull out an holiday ? 
 And do you now strew flowers in his way 
 That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood ? 
 
 Begone 
 
 Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, 
 Pray to the Gods to intermit the plague, 
 That needs must light on this ingratitude." 
 
 The well-known dialogue between Brutus and 
 Cassius, in which the latter breaks the design 
 of the conspiracy to the former, and partly gain9 
 him over to it, is a noble piece of high-minded 
 declamation. Cassius's insisting on the pre- 
 tended effeminacy of Ceesar's character, and his 
 description of their swimming across the Tiber 
 together, " once upon a raw and gusty day," 
 are among the finest strokes in it. But per- 
 haps the whole is not equal to the short scene 
 
36 JULIUS CESAR. 
 
 which follows when Caesar enters with bis 
 train. 
 
 " Brutus. The games are done, and Caesar is returning. 
 Cassius. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve, 
 And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you 
 What has proceeded worthy note to day. 
 
 Brutus. I will do so ; but look you, Cassius — 
 The angry spot doth glow on Caesar's brow, 
 And all the rest look like a chidden train. 
 Calphurnia's cheek is pale ; and Cicero 
 Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes, 
 As we have seen him in the Capitol, 
 Being crost in conference by some senators. 
 Cassius. Casca will tell us what the matter is. 
 
 Ccesar. Antonius 
 
 Antony. Caesar ? 
 
 CcEsar. Let me have men about me that are fat. 
 Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights : 
 Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look, 
 He thinks too much j such men are dangerous. 
 
 Antony. Fear him not, Caesar, he's not dangerous ; 
 He is a noble Roman, and well given. 
 
 Ccesar. Would he were fatter ; but I fear him not : 
 Yet if my name were liable to fear, 
 I do not know the man I should avoid 
 So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much ; 
 He is a great observer -, and he looks 
 Quite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays. 
 As thou dost, Antony ; he hears no music : 
 Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort, 
 As if he mock'd himself, and scorn'd his spirit,, 
 That could be mov'd to smile at any thing. 
 Such men as he be never at heart's ease, 
 Whilst they behold a greater than themselves ; 
 
JULIUS CESAR. 37 
 
 And therefore are they very dangerous. 
 I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd 
 Than what I fear j for always I am Caesar. 
 Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf, 
 And tell me truly what thou think'st of him." 
 
 We know hardly any passage more expressive 
 of the genius of Shakespear than this. It is as 
 if he had been actually present, had known the 
 different characters and what they thought of 
 one another, and had taken down what he heard 
 and saw, their looks, words, and gestures, just 
 as they happened. 
 
 The character of Mark Antony is farther spe- 
 culated upon where the conspirators deliberate 
 whether he shall fall with Caesar. Brutus is 
 against it— 
 
 " And for Mark Antony, think not of him : 
 For he can do no more than Caesar's arm, 
 When Caesar's head is off. 
 
 Cassius. Yet do I fear him : 
 For in th' ingrafted love he hears tp Caesar— 
 
 Brutus. Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him : 
 If he love Caesar, all that he can do 
 Is to himself, take thought, and die for Caesar : 
 And that were much, he should 5 for he is giv'n 
 To sports, to wildness, and much company. 
 
 Trebonius. There is no fear in him 5 let him not die : 
 For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter." 
 
 They were in the wrong ; and Cassius was right. 
 The honest manliness of Brutus js however 
 
38 JULIUS CAESAR. 
 
 sufficient to find out the unfitness of Cicero to be 
 included in their enterprize, from his affected 
 egotism and literary vanity ? 
 
 " O, name him not : let us not break with him 3 
 For he will never follow any thing, 
 That other men begin." 
 
 His scepticism as to prodigies and his mo^ 
 ralising on the weather — " This disturbed sky 
 is not to walk in" — are in the same spirit of 
 refined imbecility. 
 
 Shakespear has in this play and elsewhere 
 shewn the same penetration into political cha- 
 racter and the springs of public events as into 
 those of every-day life. For instance, the 
 whole design to liberate their country fails 
 from the generous temper and overweening 
 confidence of Brutus in the goodness of their 
 cause and the assistance of others. Thus it 
 has always been. Those who mean well" them- 
 selves think well of others, and fall a prey to 
 their security. That humanity and sincerity 
 which dispose men to resist injustice and tyran- 
 ny render them unfit to cope with the cunning 
 and power of those who are opposed to them. 
 The friends of liberty trust to the professions of 
 others, because they are themselves sincere, and 
 endeavour to secure the public good with the 
 least possible hurt to its enemies, who have no 
 regard to any thing but their own unprincipled 
 
JULIUS C^SAR. 39 
 
 ends, and stick at nothing to accomplish them. 
 Cassius was better cut out for a conspirator. 
 His heart prompted his head. His habitual jea- 
 lousy made him fear the worst that might hap- 
 pen, and his irritability of temper added to his 
 inveteracy of purpose, and sharpened his patri- 
 otism. The mixed nature of his motives made 
 him fitter to contend with bad men. The vices 
 are never so well employed as in combating one 
 another. Tyranny and servility are to be dealt 
 with after their own fashion : otherwise, they 
 will triumph over those who spare them, and 
 finally pronounce their funeral panegyric, as An- 
 tony did that of Brutus. 
 
 t( All the conspirators, save only he, 
 
 Did that they did in envy of great Csesar : 
 
 He only in a general honest thought 
 
 And common good to all, made one of them." 
 
 The quarrel between Brutus and Cassius is ma- 
 naged in a masterly way. The dramatic fluctu- 
 ation of passion, the calmness of Brutus, the 
 heat of Cassius, are admirably described ; and 
 the exclamation of Cassius on hearing of the 
 death of Portia, which he does not learn till 
 after their reconciliation, " How 'scap'd I kil- 
 ling when I crost you so?" gives double force 
 to all that has gone before. The scene between 
 Brutus and Portia, where she endeavours to ex- 
 tort the secret of the conspiracy from him, is 
 
4a JULIUS C^iSAR. 
 
 conceived in the most heroical spirit, and the 
 burst of tenderness in Brutus — 
 
 ff You are my true and honourable wife j 
 As dear to me as are the ruddy drops 
 That visit my sad heart" — 
 
 is justified by her whole behaviour. Portia's 
 breathless impatience to learn the event of the 
 conspiracy, in the dialogue with Lucius, is full 
 of passion. The interest which Portia takes in 
 Brutus and that which Calphurnia takes in the 
 fate of Caesar are discriminated with the nicest 
 precision. Mark Antony's speech over the dead 
 body of Caesar has been justly admired for the 
 mixture of pathos and artifice in it : that of Bru- 
 tus certainly is not so good. 
 
 The entrance of the conspirators to the house 
 of Brutus at midnight is rendered very impres- 
 sive. In the midst of this scene, we meet with 
 one of those careless and natural digressions 
 which occur so frequently and beautifully in 
 Shakespear. After Cassius has introduced his 
 friends one by one, Brutus says, 
 
 " They are all welcome. 
 What watchful cares do interpose themselves 
 Betwixt your eyes and night ? 
 
 Cassius. Shall I entreat a word? (They whisper.) 
 
 Decius. Here lies the east : doth not the day break here * 
 
 Casca. No. 
 
 Cinna. O pardon. Sir, it doth 5 and yon grey lines, 
 That fret the clouds, are messengers of day. 
 
JULIUS C^SAR. 41 
 
 Casca. You shall confess, that you are both deeeiv'd : 
 Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises, 
 Which is a great way growing on the south, 
 Weighing the youthful season of the year. 
 Some two months hence, up higher toward the north 
 He first presents his fire, and the high east 
 Stands as the Capitol, directly here." 
 
 We cannot help thinking this graceful famili- 
 arity better than all the formality in the world. 
 The truth of history in Julius Caesar is very 
 ably worked up with dramatic effect. The coun- 
 cils of generals, the doubtful turns of battles are 
 represented to the life. The death of Brutus is 
 worthy of him — it has the dignity of the Roman 
 senator with the firmness of the Stoic philoso- 
 pher. But what is perhaps better than either, is 
 the little incident of his boy, Lucius, falling asleep 
 over his instrument, as he is playing to his mas- 
 ter in his tent, the night before the battle. Na- 
 ture had played him the same forgetful trick 
 once before on the night of the conspiracy. The 
 humanity of Brutus is the same on both occa- 
 sions. 
 
 " It is no matter : 
 
 Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber. 
 Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies, 
 Which busy care draws in the brains of men. 
 Therefore thou sleep'st so sound." 
 
OTHELLO 
 
 It has been said that tragedy purifies the affec- 
 tions by terror and pity. That is, it substitutes, 
 imaginary sympathy for mere selfishness. It 
 gives us a high and permanent interest, beyond 
 ourselves, in humanity as such. It raises the 
 great, the remote, and the possible to an equa- 
 lity with the real, the little and the near. It 
 makes man a partaker with his kind. It sub- 
 dues and softens the stubbornness of his will. 
 It teaches him that there are and have been 
 others like himself, by shewing him as in a glass 
 what they have felt, thought, and done. It opens 
 the chambers of the human heart. It leaves no-* 
 thing indifferent to us that can affect our com- 
 mon nature. It excites our sensibility by exhi- 
 biting the passions wound up to the utmost 
 pitch by the power of imagination or the temp- 
 
OTHELLO. 43 
 
 tation of circumstances ; and corrects their fatal 
 excesses in ourselves by pointing to the greater 
 extent of sufferings and of crimes to which they 
 have led others. Tragedy creates a balance of 
 the affections. It makes us thoughtful specta- 
 tors in the lists of life. It is the refiner of the 
 species ; a discipline of humanity. The habi- 
 tual study of poetry and works of imagination 
 is one chief part of a well-grounded education. 
 A taste for liberal art is necessary to complete 
 the character of a gentleman. Science alone is 
 hard and mechanical. It exercises the under- 
 standing upon things out of ourselves, while it 
 leaves the affections unemployed, or engross- 
 ed with our own immediate, narrow interests. 
 — Othello furnishes an illustration of these 
 remarks. It excites our sympathy in an ex- 
 traordinary degree. The moral it conveys has 
 a closer application to the concerns of human 
 life than that of any other of Shakespear's plays. 
 " It comes directly home to the bosoms and 
 business of men." The pathos in Lear is in- 
 deed more dreadful and overpowering : but it is 
 less natural, and less of every day's occurrence. 
 We have not the same degree of sympathy with 
 the passions described in Macbeth. The inter- 
 est in Hamlet is more remote and reflex. That 
 of Othello is at once equally profound and af- 
 fecting. 
 
 The picturesque contrasts of character in this 
 
44 OTHELLO. 
 
 play are almost as remarkable as the depth of 
 the passion. The Moor Othello, the gentle 
 Desdemona, the villain Iago, the good-natured 
 Cassio, the fool Roderigo, present a range and 
 variety of character as striking and palpable as 
 that produced by the opposition of costume in 
 a picture. Their distinguishing qualities stand 
 out to the mind's eye, so that even when we 
 are not thinking of their actions or sentiments, 
 the idea of their persons is still as present to us 
 as ever. These characters and the images they 
 stamp upon the mind are the farthest asunder 
 possible, the distance between them is immense: 
 yet the compass of knowledge and invention 
 which the poet has shewn in embodying these 
 extreme creations of his genius is only greater 
 than the truth and felicity with which he has 
 identified each character with itself, or blended 
 their different qualities together in the same 
 story. What a contrast the character of Othello 
 forms to that of Iago : at the same time, the 
 force of conception with which these two figures 
 are opposed to each other is rendered still more 
 intense by the complete consistency with which 
 the traits of each character are brought out 
 in a state of the highest finishing. The making 
 one black and the other white, the one unprinci- 
 pled, the other unfortunate in the extreme, would 
 have answered the common purposes of effect, 
 and satisfied the ambition of an ordinary painter 
 
OTHELLO. 45 
 
 of character. Shakespear has laboured the finer 
 shades of difference in both with as much care 
 and skill as if he had had to depend on the exe- 
 cution alone for the success of his design. On 
 the other hand, Desdemona and ^Emilia are not 
 meant to be opposed with any thing like strong 
 contrast to each other. Both are, to outward 
 appearance, characters of common life, not more 
 distinguished than women usually are, by dif- 
 ference of rank and situation. The difference 
 of their thoughts and sentiments is however laid 
 as open, their minds are separated from each 
 other by signs as plain and as little to be mis- 
 taken as the complexions of their husbands. 
 
 The movement of the passion in Othello is 
 exceedingly different from that of Macbeth. In 
 Macbeth there is a violent struggle between op- 
 posite feelings, between ambition and the stings 
 of conscience, almost from first to last : in 
 Othello, the doubtful conflict between contra- 
 ry passions, though dreadful, continues only 
 for a short time, and the chief interest is excited 
 by the alternate ascendancy of different passions, 
 the entire and unforeseen change from the fondest 
 love and most unbounded confidence to the tor- 
 tures of jealousy and the madness of hatred. 
 The revenge of Othello, after it has once taken 
 thorough possession of his mind, never quits it, 
 but grows stronger and stronger at every moment 
 of its delay. The nature of the Moor is noble, 
 
46 OTHELLO. 
 
 confiding, tender, and generous ; but his blood 
 is of the most inflammable kind ; and being 
 once roused by a sense of his wrongs, he is 
 stopped by no considerations of remorse or pity 
 till he has given a loose to all the dictates of his 
 rage and his despair. It is in working his noble 
 nature up to this extremity through rapid but 
 gradual transitions, in raising passion to its 
 height from the smallest beginnings and in spite 
 of all obstacles, in painting the expiring conflict 
 between love and hatred, tenderness and resent- 
 ment, jealousy and remorse, in unfolding the 
 strength and the weaknesses of our nature, 
 in uniting sublimity of thought with the anguish 
 of the keenest woe, in putting in motion the 
 various impulses that agitate this our mortal 
 being, and at last blending them in that noble 
 tide of deep and sustained passion, impetuous 
 but majestic, that " flows on to the Propontic, 
 and knows no ebb," that Shakespear has shewn 
 the mastery of his genius and of his power over 
 the human heart. The third act of Othello 
 is his master-piece, not of knowledge or passion 
 separately, but of the two combined, of the 
 knowledge of character with the expression of 
 passion, of consummate art in the keeping up 
 of appearances with the profound workings of 
 nature, and the convulsive movements of un- 
 controulable agony, of the power of inflicting 
 torture and of suffering it. Not only is the tu- 
 
OTHELLO. 47 
 
 mult of passion heaved up from the very bottom 
 of the soul, but every the slightest undulation 
 of feeling is seen on the surface, as it arises from 
 the impulses of imagination or the different pro- 
 babilities maliciously suggested by Iago. The 
 progressive preparation for the catastrophe is 
 wonderfully managed from the Moor's first gal- 
 lant recital of the story of his love, of " the spells 
 and witchcraft he had used," from his unlooked- 
 for and romantic success, the fond satisfaction 
 with which he dotes on his own happiness, the 
 unreserved tenderness of Desdemona and her in- 
 nocent importunities in favour of Cassio, irri- 
 tating the suspicions instilled into her husband's 
 mind by the perfidy of Iago, and rankling there 
 to poison, till he loses all command of himself, 
 and his rage can only be appeased by blood. 
 She is introduced, just before Iago begins to put 
 his scheme in practice, pleading for Cassio with 
 all the thoughtless gaiety of friendship and win- 
 ning confidence in the love of Othello. 
 
 " What ! Michael Cassio ? 
 That came a wooing with you, and so many a time, 
 When I have spoke of you dispraisingly, 
 Hath ta'en your part, to have so much to do 
 To bring him in ? — Why this is not a boon : 
 'Tis as I should intreat you wear your gloves, 
 Or feed on nourishing meats, or keep you warmj 
 Or sue to you to do a peculiar profit 
 To your person. Nay, when I have a suit, 
 Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed, 
 It shall be full of poise, and fearful to be granted." 
 
48 OTHELLO. 
 
 Othello's confidence, at first only staggered by 
 broken hints and insinuations, recovers itself at 
 sight of Desdemona ; and he exclaims 
 
 t( If she be false, O then Heav'n mocks itself: 
 I'll not believe it." 
 
 But presently after, on brooding over his suspi* 
 cions by himself, and yielding to his apprehen- 
 sions of the worst, his smothered jealousy breaks 
 out into open fury, and he returns to demand 
 satisfaction of Iago like a wild beast stung with 
 the envenomed shaft of the hunters. " Look 
 where he comes," &c. In this state of exaspe- 
 ration and violence, after the first paroxysms of 
 his grief and tenderness have had their vent in 
 that passionate apostrophe, " I felt not Cassio's 
 kisses on her lips," Iago by false aspersions, 
 and by presenting the most revolting images to 
 his mind,* easily turns the storm of passion from 
 himself against Desdemona, and works him up 
 into a trembling agony of doubt and fear, in 
 which he abandons all his love and hopes in a 
 breath. 
 
 u Now do I see 'tis true. Look here, Iago, 
 
 All my fond love thus do I blow to Heav'n. Tis gone. 
 
 Arise black vengeance from the hollow hell ; 
 
 Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne 
 
 To tyrannous hate ! Swell bosom with thy fraught ; 
 
 For 'tis of aspicks' tongues." 
 
 * See the passage beginning, {( It is impossible you. 
 should see this, were they as prime as goats," &c. 
 
OTHELLO. 49 
 
 From this time, his raging thoughts " never 
 look back, ne'er ebb to humble love" till his 
 revenge is sure of its object, the painful re- 
 grets and involuntary recollections of past 
 circumstances which cross his mind amidst 
 the dim trances of passion, aggravating the 
 sense of his wrongs, but not shaking his pur- 
 pose. Once indeed, where lago shews him 
 Cassio with the handkerchief in his hand, and 
 making sport (as he thinks) of his misfortunes, 
 the intolerable bitterness of his feelings, the 
 extreme sense of shame, makes him fall to prais- 
 ing her accomplishments and relapse into a 
 momentary fit of weakness, " Yet, Oh the pity 
 of lago, the pity of it !" This returning fond- 
 ness however only serves, as it is managed by 
 lago, to whet his revenge, and set his heart 
 more against her. In his conversations with 
 Desdemona, the persuasion of her guilt and 
 the immediate proofs of her duplicity seem 
 to irritate his resentment and aversion to her ; 
 but in the scene immediately preceding her 
 death, the recollection of his love returns upon 
 him in all its tenderness and force ; and after 
 her death, he all at once forgets his wrongs in 
 the sudden and irreparable sense of his loss. 
 
 " My wife ! My wife ! What wife ? I have no wife, 
 Oh insupportable ! Oh heavy hour !" 
 
 This happens before he is assured of her inno- 
 
 B 
 
50 OTHELLO. 
 
 cence ; but afterwards his remorse is as dreadful as 
 his revenge has been, and yields only to fixed and 
 death-like despair. His farevvel speech, before 
 he kills himself, in which he conveys his reasons 
 to the senate for the murder of his wife, is equal 
 to the first speech in which he gave them an 
 account of his courtship of her, and " his whole 
 course of love." Such an ending was alone 
 worthy of such a commencement. 
 
 If any thing could add to the force of our 
 sympathy with Othello, or compassion for his 
 fate, it would be the frankness and generosity 
 of his nature, which so little deserve it. When 
 Iago first begins to practise upon his unsuspect- 
 ing friendship, he answers — 
 
 <e 'Tis not to make me jealous> 
 
 To say my wife is fair., feeds well, loves company, 
 Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well j 
 Where virtue is, these are most virtuous. 
 Nor from my own weak merits will I draw 
 The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt, 
 For she had eyes and chose me." 
 
 This character is beautifully (and with affect- 
 ing simplicity) confirmed by what Desdemona 
 herself says of him to ^Emilia after she has lost 
 the handkerchief, the first pledge of his love to 
 her. 
 
 " Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse 
 Full of cruzadoes. And but my noble Moor 
 
OTHELLO. 51 
 
 Is trite of mind, and made of no such baseness., 
 As jealous creatures are, it were enough 
 To put him to ill thinking. 
 
 Emilia. Is he not jealous ? 
 
 Desdemona. Who he ? I think the sun where he was 
 born 
 Drew all such humours from him." 
 
 In a short speech of ./Emilia's, there occurs one 
 of those side-intimations of the fluctuations of 
 passion which we seldom meet with but in 
 Shakespear. After Othello has resolved upon 
 the death of his wife, and bids her dismiss her 
 attendant for the night, she answers, 
 
 <g I will, my Lord. 
 
 ^Emilia. How goes it nOw ? He looks gentler than he 
 did." 
 
 Shakespear has here put into ha'f a line what 
 some authors would have spun out into ten set 
 speeches. 
 
 The character of Desdemona herself is inimi- 
 table both in itself, and as it contrasts with 
 Othello's groundless jealousy, and with the foul 
 conspiracy of which she is the innocent victim* 
 Her beauty and external graces are only indi- 
 rectly glanced at; we see " her visage in her 
 mind;" her character every where predominates 
 over her person. 
 
 " A maiden never bold : 
 
 Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion 
 
 Blushed at itself." 
 
52 OTHELLO. 
 
 There is one fine compliment paid to her by 
 Cassio, who exclaims triumphantly when she 
 comes ashore at Cyprus after the storm, 
 
 " Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds.. 
 As having sense of beauty, do omit 
 Their mortal natures^ letting safe go by 
 The divine Desdemona." 
 
 In general, as is the case with most of Shake- 
 spear's females, we lose sight of her personal 
 charms in her attachment and devotedness to her 
 husband. " She is subdued even to the very qua- 
 lity of her lord;" and to Othello's " honours and 
 his valiant parts her soul and fortunes conse- 
 crates." The lady protests so much herself, and 
 she is as good as her word. The truth of con- 
 ception., with which timidity and boldness are 
 united in the same character, is marvellous. 
 The extravagance of her resolutions, the perti- 
 nacity of her affections, may be said to arise out 
 of the gentleness of her nature. They imply 
 an unreserved reliance on the purity of her own 
 intentions^ an entire surrender of her fears to 
 her love, a knitting of herself (heart and soul) 
 to the fate of another. Bating the commence- 
 ment of her passion, which is a little fantastical 
 and headstrong (though even that may perhaps 
 be consistently accounted for from her inability 
 to resist a rising inclination*) her whole charac- 
 
 * " Iago. Ay, too gentle. 
 Othello. Nay, that'* certain." 
 
OTHELLO. 53 
 
 ter consists in having no will of her own, no 
 prompter but her obedience. Her romantic 
 turn is only a consequence of the domestic and 
 practical part of her disposition ; and instead of 
 following Othello to the wars, she would gladly 
 have u remained at home a moth of peace," if 
 her husband could have staid with her. Her 
 resignation and angelic sweetness of temper do 
 not desert her at the last. The scenes in which 
 she laments and tries to account for Othello's 
 estrangement from her are exquisitely beautiful. 
 After he has struck her, and called her names, 
 she says, 
 
 ~f f Alas, Iago, 
 
 What shall I do to win my lord again ? 
 
 Good friend, go to him } for by this light of heaven, 
 
 I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel; 
 
 If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love, 
 
 Either in discourse, or thought, or actual deed, 
 
 Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense 
 
 Delighted them on any other form ; 
 
 Or that I do not, and ever did, 
 
 And ever will, though he do shake me off 
 
 To beggarly divorcement, love him dearly. 
 
 Comfort forswear me. Unkindness may do much, 
 
 And his unkindness may defeat my life, 
 
 But never taint my love. 
 
 Iago. I pray you be content : 'tis but his humour. 
 The business of the state does him offence. 
 
 Desdemona. If 'twere no other !" — 
 
 The scene which follows with ^Emilia and the 
 
54 OTHELLO 
 
 song of the Willow, are equally beautiful, and 
 shew the author's extreme power of varying the 
 expression of passion, in all its moods and in all 
 circumstances. 
 
 JEmilia. Would you had never seen him. 
 
 Desdemona. So would not I : my love doth so approve 
 him. 
 That even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns, 
 Have grace and favour in them," &c. 
 
 Not the unjust suspicions of Othello, not Iago's 
 treachery, place Desdemona in a more amiable 
 or interesting light than the casual conversation 
 (half earnest, half jest) between her and y£mi- 
 lia on the common behaviour of women to their 
 husbands. This dialogue takes place just before 
 the last fatal scene. If Othello had overheard 
 it, it would have prevented the whole catas- 
 trophe; but then it would have spoiled the play. 
 The character of Iago is one of the super- 
 erogations of Shakespear's genius. Some per- 
 sons, more nice than wise, have thought this 
 whole character unnatural, because his villainy 
 is without a sufficient motive. Shakespear, who 
 was as good a philosopher as he was a poet, 
 thought otherwise. He knew that the love of 
 power, which is another name for the love of 
 mischief, is natural to man. He would know 
 this as well or better than if it had been demon- 
 strated to him by a logical diagram, merely from 
 
OTHELLO. 55 
 
 seeing children paddle in the dirt or kill flies for 
 sport. Iago in fact belongs to a class of cha- 
 racters, common to Shakespear and at the same 
 time peculiar to him ; whose heads are as acute 
 and active as their hearts are hard and callous. 
 Iago is to be sure an extreme instance of the 
 kind ; that is to say, of diseased intellectual 
 activity, with an almost perfect indifference to 
 moral good or evil, or rather with a decided pre- 
 ference of the latter, because it falls more readily 
 in with his favourite propensity, gives greater 
 zest to his thoughts and scope to his actions. 
 He is quite or nearly as indifferent to his own 
 fate as to that of others ; he runs all risks for a 
 trifling and doubtful advantage ; and is himself 
 the dupe and victim of his ruling passion — an 
 insatiable craving after action of the most difficult 
 and dangerous kind. < 6 Our ancient" is a philo- 
 sopher, who fancies that a lie that kills has 
 more point in it than an alliteration or an anti- 
 thesis ; who thinks a fatal experiment on the 
 peace of a family a better thing than watching 
 the palpitations in, the heart of a flea in a mi- 
 croscope ; who plots the ruin of his friends as 
 an exercise for his ingenuity, and stabs men in 
 the dark to prevent ennui. His gaiety, such as 
 it is, arises from the success of his treachery ; 
 his ease from the torture he has inflicted on 
 others. He is an amateur of tragedy in real 
 life ; and instead of employing his invention on 
 
56 OTHELLO 
 
 imaginary characters, or long -forgotten inci- 
 dents, he takes the bolder and more desperate 
 course of getting up his plot at home, casts the 
 principal parts among his nearest friends and 
 connections, and rehearses it in downright earn- 
 est, with steady nerves and unabated resolution. 
 We will just give an illustration or two. 
 
 One of his most characteristic speeches is that 
 immediately after the marriage of Othello. 
 
 ' e Roderigo. What a full fortune does the thick lips owe, 
 If he can carry her thus ! 
 
 Iago. Call up her father : 
 Jtouse him (Othello) make after him, poison his delight. 
 Proclaim him in the streets, incense her kinsmen, 
 And tho' he in a fertile climate dwell, 
 Plague him with flies : Tho' that his joy be joy, 
 Yet throw such changes of vexation on it. 
 As it may lose some colour." 
 
 In the next passage, his imagination runs riot 
 in the mischief he is plotting, and breaks out 
 into the wildness and impetuosity of real en- 
 thusiasm. 
 
 c ' Roderigo. Here is her father's house : I'll call aloud. 
 
 Iago. Do, with like timourous accent and dire yell, 
 As when, by night and negligence, the fire 
 Is spied in populous cities." 
 
 One of his most favourite topics, on which 
 he is rich indeed, and in descanting on which 
 his spleen serves him for a Muse, is the dispro-? 
 
OTHELLO. 57 
 
 portionate match between Desdemona and the 
 Moor. This is a clue to the character of the 
 lady which he is by no means ready to part with. 
 It is brought forward in the first scene, and he 
 recurs to it, when in answer to his insinuations 
 against Desdemona, Roderigo says, 
 
 " I cannot believe that in her — she's full of most blest 
 conditions. 
 
 Iago. Bless'd fig's end. The wine she drinks is made of 
 grapes. If she had been blest, she would never have mar- 
 ried the Moor." 
 
 And again with still more spirit and fatal effect 
 afterwards, when he turns this very suggestion 
 arising in Othello's own breast to her prejudice. 
 
 ff Othello. And yet how nature erring from itself — 
 Iago. Aye,, there's the point j — as to be bold with you, 
 Not to affect many proposed matches 
 Of her own clime, complexion, and degree," &c. 
 
 This is probing to the quick. Iago here turns 
 the character of poor Desdemona, as it were, 
 inside out. It is certain that nothing but the 
 genius of Shakespear could have preserved the 
 entire interest and delicacy of the part, and have 
 even drawn an additional elegance and dignity 
 from the peculiar circumstances in which she is 
 placed. — The habitual licentiousness of Iago's 
 conversation is not to be traced to the pleasure 
 he takes in gross or lascivious images, but to 
 his desire of finding out the worst side of every 
 
58 OTHELLO. 
 
 thing, and of proving himself an over-match for 
 appearances. He has none of " the milk of hu- 
 man kindness" in his composition. His imagi- 
 nation rejects every thing that has not a strong 
 infusion of the most unpalatable ingredients ; 
 his mind digests only poisons. Virtue or good- 
 ness or whatever has the least " relish of salva- 
 tion in it," is, to his depraved appetite, sickly 
 and insipid: and he even resents the good 
 opinion entertained of his own integrity, as if 
 it were an affront cast on the masculine sense 
 and spirit of his character. Thus at the meeting 
 between Othello and Desdemona, he exclaims 
 — " Oh, you are well tuned now : but I'll set 
 down the pegs that make this music, as honest 
 as I am" — his character of bonhommie not sit- 
 ting at all easily upon him. In the scenes, 
 where he tries to work Othello to his purpose, 
 he is proportionably guarded, insidious, dark, 
 and deliberate. We believe nothing ever came 
 up to the profound dissimulation and dextrous 
 artifice of the well-known dialogue in the third 
 act, where he first enters upon the execution of 
 his design. 
 
 " Iago. My noble lord. 
 
 Othello. What dost thou say, Iago ? 
 
 Iago. Did Michael Cassio, 
 When you woo'd my lady, know of your love ? 
 
 Othello. He did from first to last. 
 Why dost thou ask * 
 
OTHELLO. 59 
 
 Iago. But for a satisfaction of my thought, 
 No further harm. 
 
 Othello. Why of thy thought, Iago ? 
 
 Iago. I did not think he had been acquainted with it. 
 
 Othello. O yes, and went between us very oft — 
 
 Iago. Indeed ! 
 
 Othello. Indeed ? Ay, indeed. Discern'st thou aught 
 of that ? 
 Is he not honest ? 
 
 Iago. Honest, my lord? 
 
 Othello. Honest ? Ay, honest. 
 
 Iago. My lord, for aught I know. 
 
 Othello. What do'st thou think ? 
 
 Iago. Think, my lord ! 
 
 Othello. Think, my lord ! Alas, thou echo'st me, 
 As if there was some monster in thy thought 
 Too hideous to be shewn." — 
 
 The stops and breaks, the deep workings of 
 treachery under the mask of love and honesty, 
 the anxious watchfulness, the cool earnestness, 
 and if we may so say, the passion of hypocrisy 
 marked in every line, receive their last finishing 
 in that inconceivable burst of pretended indig- 
 nation at Othello's doubts of his sincerity. 
 
 " O grace ! O Heaven forgive me ! 
 
 Are you a man ? Have you a soul or sense ? 
 
 God be wi' you ; take mine office. O wretched fool, 
 
 That lov'st to make thine honesty a vice ! 
 
 Oh monstrous world ! take note, take note, O world ! 
 
 To be direct and honest, is not safe. 
 
 I thank you for this profit, and from hence 
 
 I'll love no friend, since love breeds such offence." 
 
60 OTHELLO. 
 
 If Iago is detestable enough when he has bu- 
 siness on his hands and all his engines at work, 
 he is still worse when he has nothing to do, and 
 we only see into the hollowness of his heart. 
 His indifference when Othello falls into a swoon, 
 is perfectly diabolical. 
 
 <f Iago. How is it, General ? Have you not hurt your 
 
 head? 
 Othello. Dost thou mock me 3 
 Iago. I mock you not, by Heaven," &c. 
 
 The part indeed would hardly be tolerated, 
 even as a foil to the virtue and generosity 
 of the other characters in the play, but for its 
 indefatigable industry and inexhaustible re- 
 sources, which divert the attention of the spec- 
 tator (as well as his own) from the end he has in 
 view to the means by which it must be accom- 
 plished.— Edmund the Bastard in Lear is some- 
 thing of the same character, placed in less pro- 
 minent circumstances. Zanga is a vulgar cari- 
 cature of it. 
 
TIMON OF ATHENS 
 
 Timon of Athens always appeared to us to 
 be written with as intense a feeling of his sub- 
 ject as any one play of Shakespear. It is one 
 of the few in which he seems to be in earnest 
 throughout, never to trifle nor go out of his way. 
 He does not relax in his efforts, nor lose sight 
 of the unity of his design. It is the only play 
 of our author in which spleen is the predomi- 
 nant feeling of the mind. It is as much a satire 
 as a play : and contains some of the finest 
 pieces of invective possible to be conceived, 
 both in the snarling, captious answers of the 
 cynic Apemantus, and in the impassioned and 
 more terrible imprecations of Timon. The 
 latter remind the classical reader of the force 
 and swelling impetuosity of the moral decla- 
 mations in Juvenal, while the former have all 
 
62 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 the keenness and caustic severity of the old 
 Stoic philosophers. The soul of Diogenes ap- 
 pears to have been seated on the lips of Ape- 
 mantus. The churlish profession of misanthropy 
 in the cynic is contrasted with the profound 
 feeling of it in Timon, and also with the soldier- 
 like and determined resentment of Alcibiades 
 against his countrymen, who have banished him, 
 though this forms only an incidental episode in 
 the tragedy. 
 
 The fable consists of a single event ; — of the 
 transition from the highest pomp and profusion 
 of artificial refinement to the most abject state 
 of savage life, and privation of all social inter- 
 course. The change is as rapid as it is com- 
 plete ; nor is the description of the rich and 
 generous Timon, banquetting in gilded palaces, 
 pampered by every luxury, prodigal of his hos- 
 pitality, courted by crowds of flatterers, poets, 
 painters, lords, ladies, wh< 
 
 " Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance. 
 Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear ; 
 And through him drink the free air" — 
 
 more striking than that of the sudden falling off 
 of his friends and fortune, and his naked ex- 
 posure in a wild forest digging roots from the 
 earth for his sustenance, with a lofty spirit of 
 self-denial, and bitter scorn of the world, which 
 raise him higher in our esteem than the daz- 
 
TIMON OF ATHENS. 63 
 
 zling gloss of prosperity could do. He grudges 
 himself the means of life, and is only busy in 
 preparing his grave. How forcibly is the differ- 
 ence between what he was, and what he is 
 described in Apemantus's taunting questions, 
 when he comes to reproach him with the change 
 in his way of life ! 
 
 « What,, think'st thou, 
 
 That the bleak air, thy boisterous chamberlain, 
 
 Will put thy shirt on warm ? will these moist trees 
 
 That have out-liv'd the eagle, page thy heels, 
 
 And skip when thou point'st out ? will the cold brook, 
 
 Candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste 
 
 To cure thy o'er-night's surfeit ? Call the creatures, 
 
 Whose naked natures live in all the spight 
 
 Of wreakful heav'n, whose bare unhoused trunks, 
 
 To the conflicting elements expos' d, 
 
 Answer mere nature, bid them flatter thee." 
 
 The manners are every where preserved with 
 distinct truth. The poet and painter are very 
 skilfully played off against one another, both 
 affecting great attention to the other, and each 
 taken up with his own vanity, and the superi- 
 ority of his own art. Shakespear has put into 
 the mouth of the former a very lively descrip- 
 tion of the genius of poetry and of his own in 
 particular. 
 
 A thing slipt idly from me. 
 
 Our poesy is as a gum, which issues 
 
 From whence 'tis nourish'd. The fire i' th' flint 
 
64 tflMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 Shews not till it be struck : our gentle flame 
 Provokes itself — and like the current flies 
 Each bound it chafes." 
 
 The hollow friendship and shuffling evasions 
 of the Athenian lords, their smooth professions 
 and pitiful ingratitude, are very satisfactorily ex- 
 posed, as well as the different disguises to which 
 the meanness of self-love resorts in such cases 
 to hide a want of generosity and good faith. The 
 lurking selfishness of Apemantus does not pass 
 undetected amidst the grossness of his sarcasms 
 and his contempt for the pretensions of others. 
 Even the two courtezans who accompany Alci- 
 biades to the cave of Timon are very characteris- 
 tically sketched ; and the thieves who come to 
 visit him are also " true men" in their way. — 
 An exception to this general picture of selfish 
 depravity is found in the old and honest steward 
 Flavius, to whom Timon pays a full tribute of 
 tenderness. Shakespear was unwilling to draw 
 a picture " all over ugly with hypocrisy " He 
 owed this character to the good-natured solici- 
 tations of his Muse. His mind was well said 
 by Ben Jonson to be the " sphere of human- 
 ity." 
 
 The moral sententiousness of this play equals 
 that of Lord Bacon's Treatise on the Wisdom 
 of the Ancients, and is indeed seasoned with 
 greater variety. Every topic of contempt or 
 indignation is here exhausted ; but while the 
 
TIMON OF ATHENS. 65 
 
 sordid licentiousness of Apemantus, which turns 
 every thing to gall and bitterness, shews only 
 the natural virulence of his temper and antipa- 
 thy to good or evil alike. Timon does not utter 
 an imprecation without betraying the extrava- 
 gant workings of disappointed passion, of love 
 altered to hate. Apemantus sees nothing good 
 in any object, and exaggerates whatever is dis- 
 gusting: Timon is tormented with the perpe- 
 tual contrast between things and appearances, 
 between the fresh, tempting outside and the 
 rottenness within, and invokes mischiefs on the 
 heads of mankind proportioned to the sense of 
 his wrongs and of their treacheries. He im- 
 patiently cries out, when he finds the gold, 
 
 ts This yellow slave 
 Will knit and break religions ; bless the accurs'd 5 
 Make the hoar leprosy ador'd j place thieves, 
 And give them title, knee, and approbation, 
 With senators on the bench j this is it, 
 That makes the wappen'd widow wed again -, 
 She, whom the spital-house 
 Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices 
 To tti April day again." 
 
 One of his most dreadful imprecations is 
 that which occurs immediately on his leaving 
 Athens. 
 
 " Let me look back upon thee, O thou wall, 
 That girdlest in those wolves ! Dive in the earth, 
 And fence not Athens ! Matrons, turn incontinent : 
 F 
 
66 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 Obedience fail in children -, slaves and fools 
 
 Pluck the grave wrinkled senate from the bench, 
 
 And minister in their steads. To general filths 
 
 Convert o' th' instant green virginity ! 
 
 Do't in your parents' eyes. Bankrupts, hold fast ; 
 
 Rather than render back, out with your knives, 
 
 And cut your trusters' throats ! Bound servants, steal : 
 
 Large-handed robbers your grave masters are, 
 
 And pill by law. Maid, to thy master's bed : 
 
 Thy mistress is o' th' brothel. Son of sixteen, 
 
 Pluck the lin'd crutch from thy old limping sire, 
 
 And with it beat his brains out ! Fear and piety, 
 
 Religion to the Gods, peace, justice, truth, 
 
 Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood, 
 
 Instructions, manners, mysteries and trades, 
 
 Degrees, observances, customs and laws, 
 
 Decline to your confounding contraries ; 
 
 And let confusion live ! — Plagues, incident to men, 
 
 Your potent and infectious fevers heap 
 
 On Athens, ripe for stroke ! Thou cold sciatica, 
 
 Cripple our senators, that their limbs may halt 
 
 As lamely as their manners ! Lust and liberty 
 
 Creep in the minds and manners of our youth, 
 
 That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive, 
 
 And drown themselves in riot ! Itches, blains, 
 
 Sow all th' Athenian bosoms j and their crop 
 
 Be general leprosy : breath infect breath, 
 
 That their society (as their friendship) may 
 
 Be merely poison !" 
 
 Timon is here just as ideal in his passion for 
 ill as he had before been in his belief of good. 
 Apemantus was satisfied with the mischief ex- 
 isting in the world, and with his own ill-na- 
 
TIMON OF ATHENS. 67 
 
 ture. One of the most decisive intimations of 
 Timon's morbid jealousy of appearances is in 
 his answer to Apemantus, who asks him, 
 
 " What things in the world can'st thou nearest com- 
 pare with thy flatterers? 
 
 Timon. Women nearest : but men, men are the things 
 themselves." 
 
 Apemantus, it is said, " loved few things bet- 
 ter than to abhor himself." This is not the case 
 with Timon, who neither loves to abhor himself 
 nor others. All his vehement misanthropy is 
 forced, up-hill work. From the slippery turns of 
 fortune, from the turmoils of passion and adversi- 
 ty, he wishes to sink into the quiet of the grave. 
 On that subject his thoughts are intent, on that 
 he finds time and place to grow romantic. He 
 digs his own grave by the sea-shore ; contrives his 
 funeral ceremonies amidst the pomp of desola- 
 tion, and builds his mausoleum of the elements. 
 
 f ' Come not to me again j but say to Athens, 
 Timon hath made his everlasting mansion 
 Upon the beached verge of the salt flood ; 
 Which once a-day with his embossed froth 
 The turbulent surge shall cover. — Thither come, 
 And let my grave-stone be your oracle." 
 
 And again, Alcibiades, after reading his epi- 
 taph, says of him, 
 
 " These well express in thee thy latter spirits : 
 Though thou abhorred'st in us our human griefs, 
 
68 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 Scorn'd'st our brain's flow, and those our droplets, which 
 From niggard nature fall ; yet rich conceit 
 Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye 
 On thy low grave" 
 
 thus making the winds his funeral dirge, his 
 mourner the murmuring ocean ; and seeking in 
 the everlasting solemnities of nature oblivion of 
 the transitory splendour of his life-time. 
 
CORIOLANUS, 
 
 Shakespear has in this play shewn himself 
 well versed in history and state-affairs. Corio- 
 lanus is a store-house of political common- 
 places. Any one who studies it may save him- 
 self the trouble of reading Burke's Reflections, 
 or Paine's Rights of Man, or the Debates in 
 both Houses of Parliament since the French 
 Revolution or our own. The arguments for and 
 against aristocracy or democracy, on the privile- 
 ges of the few and the claims of the many, on liber- 
 ty and slavery, power and the abuse of it, peace 
 and war, are here very ably handled, with the spi- 
 rit of a poet and the acuteness of a philosopher. 
 Shakespear himself seems to have had a lean- 
 ing to the arbitrary side of the question, perhaps 
 from some feeling of contempt for his own ori- 
 gin; and to have spared no occasion of baiting 
 
70 CORIOLANUS. 
 
 the rabble. What he says of them is very true : 
 what he says of their betters is also very true, 
 though he dwells less upon it. — The cause of 
 the people is indeed but little calculated as a 
 subject for poetry : it admits of rhetoric, which 
 goes into argument and explanation, but it 
 presents no immediate or distinct images to the 
 mind, " no jutting frieze, buttress, or coigne of 
 vantage" for poetry *' to make its pendant bed 
 and procreant cradle in." The language of poe- 
 try naturally falls in with the language of power. 
 The imagination is an exaggerating and exclu- 
 sive faculty: it takes from one thing to add to 
 another : it accumulates circumstances together 
 to give the greatest possible effect to a favourite 
 object. The understanding is a dividing and 
 measuring faculty : it judges of things, not ac- 
 cording to their immediate impression on the 
 mind, but according to their relations to one 
 another. The one is a monopolizing faculty, 
 which seeks the greatest quantity of present ex-* 
 citement by inequality and disproportion ; the 
 other is a distributive faculty, which seeks the 
 greatest quantity of ultimate good, by justice 
 and proportion. The one is an aristocratical, 
 the other a republican faculty. The principle 
 of poetry is a very anti-levelling principle. It 
 aims at effect, it exists by contrast. It ad- 
 mits of no medium. It is every thing by excess. 
 It rises above the ordinary standard of suffer- 
 
CORIOLANUS. 71 
 
 ings and crimes. It presents a dazzling ap- 
 pearance. It shews its head turretted, crown- 
 ed, and crested. Its front is gilt and blood- 
 stained. Before it " it carries noise, and be- 
 hind it tears." It has its altars and its vic- 
 tims, sacrifices, human sacrifices. Kings, priests, 
 nobles, are its train-bearers, tyrants and slaves 
 its executioners.—" Carnage is its daughter." 
 • — Poetry is right-royal, It puts the individual 
 for the species, the one above the infinite many, 
 might before right. A lion hunting a flock of 
 sheep or a herd of wild asses is a more poetical 
 object than they ; and we even take part with the 
 lordly beast, because our vanity Qr some other 
 feeling makes us disposed to place purselves in 
 the situation of the strongest party. So we feel 
 some concern for the poor citizens, of Rome 
 when they meet together to compare thejr wants 
 and grievances, till Coriolanus comes in and 
 with blows and big words drives this s,et of 
 wi poor rats," this rascal scum, to their homes and 
 beggary before him. There is nothing heroi- 
 cal in a multitude of miserable rogues not wish? 
 ing to be starved, or complaining that they are 
 like to be so : but when a single man comes 
 forward to brave their cries and to make them 
 submit to the last indignities, from mere pride 
 and self-will, our admiration of his prowess is 
 immediately converted into contempt for their 
 
73 CORIOLANUS. 
 
 pusillanimity. The insolence of power is 
 stronger than the plea of necessity. The tame 
 submission to usurped authority or even the 
 natural resistance to it has nothing to excite or 
 flatter the imagination : it is the assumption of 
 a right to insult or oppress others that carries 
 an imposing air of superiority with it. We had 
 rather be the oppressor than the oppressed. 
 The love of power in ourselves and the admi- 
 ration of it in others are both natural to man : 
 the one makes him a tyrant, the other a slave. 
 Wrong dressed out in pride, pomp, and cir- 
 cumstance has more attraction than abstract 
 right. — Coriolanus complains of the fickleness 
 of the people : yet the instant he cannot gratify 
 his pride and obstinacy at their expense, he 
 turns his arms against his country. If his 
 country was not worth defending, why did he 
 build his pride on its defence? He is a con- 
 queror and a hero ; he conquers other coun- 
 tries, and makes this a plea for enslaving his 
 own ; and when he is prevented from doing so, 
 he leagues with its enemies to destroy his 
 country. He rates the people " as if he were 
 a God to punish, and not a man of their infir- 
 mity." He scoffs at one of their tribunes for 
 maintaining their rights and franchises: " Mark 
 you his absolute shall/' 3 not marking his own 
 absolute will to take every thing from them, 
 
CORIOLANUS. 73 
 
 his impatience of the slightest opposition to his 
 own pretensions being in proportion to their ar- 
 rogance and absurdity. If the great and power- 
 ful had the beneficence and wisdom of Gods, 
 then all this would have been well : if with a 
 greater knowledge of what is good for the peo- 
 ple, they had as great a care for their interest 
 as they have themselves, if they were seated 
 above the world, sympathising with the welfare, 
 but not feeling the passions of men, receiving 
 neither good nor hurt from them, but bestow- 
 ing their benefits as free gifts on them, they 
 might then rule over them like another Provi- 
 dence. But this is not the case. Coriolanus 
 is unwilling that the senate should shew their 
 u cares" for the people, lest their " cares" 
 should be construed into " fears," to the subver- 
 sion of all due authority ; and he is no sooner 
 disappointed in his schemes to deprive the peo- 
 ple not only of the cares of the state, but of all 
 pow r er to redress themselves, than Volumnia is 
 made madly to exclaim, 
 
 " Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome, 
 And occupations perish." 
 
 This is but natural : it is but natural for a 
 mother to have more regard for her son than for 
 a whole city ; but then the city should be left to 
 take some care of itself. The care of the state 
 cannot, we here see, be safely entrusted to ma- 
 
74: CORIOLANUS. 
 
 ternal affection, or to the domestic charities of 
 high life. The great have private feelings of 
 their own, to which the interests of humanity 
 and justice must courtesy. Their interests are 
 so far from being the same as those of the com- 
 munity, that they are in direct and necessary 
 opposition to them ; their power is at the ex- 
 pense of our weakness ; their riches of our 
 poverty ; their pride of our degradation ; their 
 splendour of our wretchedness ; their tyranny 
 of our servitude. If they had the superior 
 knowledge ascribed to them (which they have 
 not) it would only render them so much more 
 formidable ; and from Gods would convert them 
 into Devils. The whole dramatic moral of Co- 
 riolanus is that those who have little shall 
 have less, and that those who have much shall 
 take all that others have left. The people are 
 poor ; therefore they ought to be starved. They 
 are slaves ; therefore they ought to be beaten. 
 They work hard ; therefore they ought to be 
 treated like beasts of burden. They are igno- 
 rant ; therefore they ought not to be allowed 
 to feel that they want food, or clothing, or rest, 
 that they are enslaved, oppressed, and misera- 
 ble. This is the logic of the imagination and the 
 passions ; which seek to aggrandise what ex- 
 cites admiration and to heap contempt on mi- 
 sery, to raise power into tyranny, and to make 
 tyranny absolute ; to thrust down that which is 
 
CORIOLANUS. 75 
 
 low still lower, and to make wretches desperate : 
 to exalt magistrates into kings, kings into gods ; 
 to degrade subjects to the rank of slaves, and 
 slaves to the condition of brutes. The history of 
 mankind is a romance, a mask, a tragedy, con- 
 structed upon the principles of poetical justice; 
 it is a noble or royal hunt, in which what is sport 
 to the few, is death to the many, and in which 
 the spectators halloo and encourage the strong 
 to set upon the weak, and cry havoc in the 
 chase, though they do not share in the spoil. 
 We may depend upon it that what men delight 
 to read in books, they will put in practice in 
 reality. 
 
 One of the most natural traits in this play is 
 the difference of the interest taken in the suc- 
 cess of Coriolanus by his wife and mother. The 
 one is only anxious for his honour ; the other is 
 fearful for his life. 
 
 f Volumnia. Methinks I hither hear your husband's 
 drum : 
 I see him pluck Aufidius down by th' hair : 
 Methinks I see him stamp thus — and call thus — 
 Come on, ye cowards 5 ye were got in fear 
 Though you were born in Rome j his bloody brow 
 With his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes 
 Like to a harvest man, that's task'd to mow 
 Or all, or lose his hire. 
 
 Virgilia. His bloody brow ! Oh Jupiter, no blood. 
 
 Volumnia. Away, you fool ; it more becomes a man 
 Than gilt his trophy. The breast of Hecuba, 
 
76 CORIOLANUS. 
 
 When she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier 
 Than Hector's forehead, when it spit forth blood 
 At Grecian swords contending." 
 
 When she hears the trumpets that proclaim 
 her son's return, she says in the true spirit of a 
 Roman matron, 
 
 " These are the ushers of Martius : before him 
 He carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears. 
 Death, that dark spirit, in's nervy arm doth lie, 
 Which being advanc'd, declines, and then men die." 
 
 Coriolanus himself is a complete character : 
 his love of reputation, his contempt of popular 
 opinion, his pride and modesty are consequences 
 of each other. His pride consists in the inflexi- 
 ble sternness of his will : his love of glory is a 
 determined desire to bear down all opposition, 
 and to extort the admiration both of friends and 
 foes. His contempt for popular favour, his un- 
 willingness to hear his own praises, spring from 
 the same source. He cannot contradict the 
 praises that are bestowed upon him ; therefore 
 he is impatient at hearing them. He would 
 enforce the good opinion of others by his ac- 
 tions, but does not want their acknowledgments 
 in words. 
 
 " Pray now, no more : my mother, 
 Who has a charter to extol her blood, 
 When she does praise me, grieves me." 
 
CORIOLANUS. 77 
 
 His magnanimity is of the same kind. He 
 admires in an enemy that courage which he 
 honours in himself: he places himself on the 
 hearth of Aufidius with the same confidence 
 that he would have met him in the field, and 
 feels that by putting himself in his power, he 
 takes from him all temptation for using it against 
 him. 
 
 In the title-page of Coriolanus, it is said 
 at the bottom of the Dramatis Personae, " The 
 whole history exactly followed, and many of 
 the principal speeches copied from the life of 
 Coriolanus in Plutarch." It will be interest- 
 ing to our readers to see how far this is the case. 
 Two of the principal scenes, those between Co- 
 riolanus and Aufidius and between Coriolanus 
 and his mother, are thus given in Sir Thomas 
 North's translation of Plutarch, dedicated to 
 Queen Elizabeth, 1579. The first is as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 <( It was even twilight when he entered the city of An- 
 tium, and many people met him in the streets, but no man 
 knew him. So he went directly to Tullus Aufidius' house, 
 and when he came thither, he got him up straight to the 
 chimney-hearth, and sat him down, and spake not a word 
 to any man, his face all muffled over. They of the house 
 spying him, wondered what he should be, and yet they 
 durst not bid him rise. For ill-favouredly muffled and dis- 
 guised as he was, yet there appeared a certain majesty in 
 his countenance and in his silence : whereupon they went to 
 Tullus, who was at supper, to tell him of the strange dis* 
 
78 CORIOLANUS. 
 
 guising of this man. Tullus rose presently from the board, 
 and coming towards him, asked him what he was, and 
 wherefore he came. Then Martins unmuffled himself, and 
 after he had paused awhile, making no answer, he said 
 unto himself, If thou knowest me not yet, Tullus, and see- 
 ing me, dost not perhaps believe me to be the man I am 
 indeed, I must of necessity discover myself to be that I am. 
 ' I am Caius Martius, who hath done to thyself particu- 
 f larly, and to all the Volsces generally, great hurt and 
 < mischief, which I cannot deny for my surname of Corio- 
 f lanus that I bear. For I never had other benefit nor re- 
 ( compence of the true and painful service I have done, and 
 ( the extreme dangers I have been in, but this only sur- 
 ( name : a good memory and witness of the malice and 
 ' displeasure thou shouldest bear me. Indeed the name 
 ' only remaineth with me ; for the rest, the envy and cru- 
 f elty of the people of Rome have taken from me, by the 
 ' sufferance of the dastardly nobility and magistrates, who 
 f have forsaken me, and let me be banished by the people. 
 ' This extremity hath now driven me to come as a poor 
 c suitor, to take thy chimney-hearth, not of any hope I 
 ' have to save my life thereby. For if I had feared death, 
 ' I would not have come hither to put myself in hazard : 
 s but pricked forward with desire to be revenged of them 
 ' that thus have banished me, which now I do begin, in 
 ' putting my person into the hands of their enemies. 
 ' Wherefore if thou hast any heart to be wrecked of the 
 * injuries thy enemies have done thee, speed thee now, 
 ( and let my misery serve thy turn, and so use it as my 
 1 service may be a benefit to the Volsces : promising thee, 
 ' that I will fight with better good will for all you, than I 
 s did when I was against you, knowing that they fight 
 { more valiantly who know the force of the enemy, than 
 e such as have never proved it. And if it be so that thou 
 f dare not, and that thou art weary to prove fortune any 
 
CORIOLANUS. 79 
 
 * more, then am I also weary to live any longer. And it 
 f were no wisdom in thee to save the life of him who hath 
 
 * been heretofore thy mortal enemy, and whose service now 
 
 * can nothing help, nor pleasure thee.' Tullus hearing 
 what he said, was a marvellous glad man, and taking 
 him by the hand, he said unto him : ■' Stand up, O Mar- 
 ' tius, and be of good cheer, for in proffering thyself unto 
 ' us, thou doest us great honour : and by this means thou 
 ' mayest hope also of greater things at all the Volsces* 
 ' hands.' So he feasted him for that time, and entertained 
 him in the honourablest manner he could, talking with him 
 of no other matter at that present : but within few days 
 after, they fell to consultation together in what sort they 
 should begin their wars." 
 
 The meeting between Coriolanus and his 
 mother is also nearly the same as in the play. 
 
 <( Now was Martius set then in the chair of state, with 
 all the honours of a general, and when he had spied the 
 women coming afar off, he marvelled what the matter 
 meant : but afterwards knowing his wife which came fore- 
 most, he determined at the first to persist in his obstinate 
 and inflexible rancour. But overcome in the end with na- 
 tural affection, and being altogether altered to see them, 
 his heart would not serve him to tarry their coming to his 
 chair, but coming down in haste, he went to meet them, 
 and first he kissed his mother, and embraced her a pretty 
 while, then his wife and little children. And nature so 
 wrought with him, that the tears fell from his eyes, and 
 he could not keep himself from making much of them, but 
 yielded to the affection of his blood, as if he had been vio- 
 lently carried with the fury of a most swift-running stream. 
 After he had thus lovingly received them, and perceiving 
 that his mother Volumnia would begin to speak to him, he 
 
80 CORIOLANUS. 
 
 called the chiefest of the council of, the Volsces to hear what 
 she would say. Then she spake in this sort : ' If we held 
 f our peace, my son, and determined not to speak, the 
 e state of our poor bodies, and present sight of our rai- 
 c ment, would easily betray to thee what life we have led 
 e at home, since thy exile and abode abroad ; but think 
 r now with thyself, how much more unfortunate than all 
 ' the women living, we are come hither, considering that 
 c the sight which should be most pleasant to all others to 
 f behold, spiteful fortune had made most fearful to us : 
 c making myself to see my son, and my daughter here her 
 f husband, besieging the walls of his native country : so as 
 f that which is the only comfort to all others in their ad- 
 e versity and misery, to pray unto the Gods, and to call to 
 ' them for aid, is the only thing which plungeth us into 
 
 * most deep perplexity. For we cannot, alas, together 
 
 * pray, both for victory to our country, and for safety of 
 f thy life also : but a world of grievous curses, yea more 
 ' than any mortal enemy can heap upon us, are forcibly 
 
 * wrapped up in our prayers. For the bitter sop of most hard 
 ' choice is offered thy wife and children, to forego one of 
 ' the two : either to lose the person of thyself, or the 
 f nurse of tneir native country. For myself, my son, I am 
 ' determined not to tarry till fortune in my lifetime do 
 ( make an end of this war. For if I cannot persuade the 
 
 ' rather to do good unto both parties, than to overthrow 
 1 and destroy the one, preferring love and nature before 
 r the malice and calamity of wars, thou shalt see, my son, 
 ' and trust unto it, thou shalt no sooner march forward to 
 { assault thy country, but thy foot shall tread upon thy 
 ' mother's womb, that brought thee first into this world. 
 s And I may not defer to see the day, either that my son 
 ' be led prisoner in triumph by his natural countrymen, or 
 { that he himself do triumph of them, and of his natural 
 e country. For if it were so, that my request tended to 
 
CORIOLANUS. 81 
 
 c save thy country, in destroying the Volsces, I must con- 
 f fess, thou wouldest hardly and doubtfully resolve on that. 
 ' For as to destroy thy natural country, it is altogether un- 
 i meet and unlawful, so were it not just and less honour- 
 f; able to betray those that put their trust in thee. But 
 c my only demand consisteth, to make a goal delivery of 
 f all evils, which delivereth equal benefit and safety, both 
 c to the one and the other, but most honourable for the 
 f Volsces. For it shall appear, that having victory in their 
 e hands, they have of special favour granted us singular 
 s graces, peace and amity, albeit themselves have no less 
 ' part of both than we. Of which good, if so it came to 
 < pass, thyself is the only author, and so hast thou the only 
 ( honour. But if it fail, and fall out contrary, thyself alone 
 c deservedly shalt carry the shameful reproach and burthen 
 e of either party. So, though the end of war be uncertain, 
 c yet this notwithstanding is most certain, that if it be thy 
 
 * chance to conquer, this benefit shalt thou reap of thy 
 c goodly conquest, to be chronicled the plague and de- 
 ' stroyer of thy country. And if fortune overthrow thee, 
 c then the world will say, that through desire to revenge 
 ' thy private injuries, thou hast for ever undone thy good 
 ' friends, who did most lovingly and courteously receive 
 e thee.' Martius gave good ear unto his mother's words, 
 without interrupting her speech at all, and after she had 
 said what she would, he held his peace a pretty while, and 
 answered not a word. Hereupon she began again to speak 
 unto ,him, and said : ' My son, why dost thou not answer 
 ( me } Dost thou think it good altogether to give place unto 
 ' thy choler and desire of revenge, and thinkest thou it 
 ( not honesty for thee to grant thy mother's request in so 
 f weighty a cause? Dost thou take it honourable for a 
 f nobleman, to remember the wrongs and injuries done 
 ( him, and dost not in like case think it an honest noble- 
 ' man's part to be thankful for the goodness that parents 
 
 * do shew to their children, acknowledging the duty and 
 
 G 
 
82 CORIOLANUS. 
 
 ■ reverence they ought to bear unto them ? No man living 
 e is more bound to shew himself thankful in all parts and 
 c respects than thyself $ who so universally shewest all in- 
 c gratitude. Moreover, niy son, thou hast sorely taken of 
 ' thy country., exacting grievous payments upon them, in 
 i revenge of the injuries offered thee ; besides, thou hast 
 f not hitherto shewed thy poor mother any courtesy. And 
 f therefore it is not only honest, but due unto me, that 
 ' without compulsion I should obtain my so just and rea- 
 ' sonable request of thee. But since by reason I cannot 
 ' persuade thee to it, to what purpose do I defer my last 
 e hope ?' And with these words herself, his wife and chil- 
 dren, fell down upon their knees before him : Martius 
 seeing that, could refrain no longer, but went straight and 
 lifted her up, crying out, ' Oh mother, what have you 
 c done to me ?' And holding her hard by the right hand, 
 ' Oh mother,' said he, ( you have won a happy victory for 
 ' your country, but mortal and unhappy for your son : for 
 f I see myself vanquished by you alone.' These words 
 being spoken openly, he spake a little apart with his mother 
 and wife, and then let them return again to Rome, for so 
 they did request him -, and so remaining in the camp that 
 night, the next morning he dislodged, and marched home- 
 ward unto the Volsces' country again." 
 
 Shakespear has, in giving a dramatic form to 
 this passage, adhered very closely and properly 
 to the text. He did not think it necessary to 
 improve upon the truth of nature. Several of 
 the scenes in Julius Ccesar, particularly Portia's 
 appeal to the confidence of her husband by shew- 
 ing him the wound she had given herself, and 
 the appearance of the ghost of Caesar to Brutus, 
 are, in like manner, taken from the historv. 
 
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 
 
 Ihis is one of the most loose and desultory 
 of our author's plays : it rambles on just as it 
 happens, but it overtakes, together with some 
 indifferent matter, a prodigious number of fine 
 things in its way. Troilus himself is no cha- 
 racter : he is merely a common lover : but Cres- 
 sida and her uncle Pandarus are hit off with 
 proverbial truth. By the speeches given to the 
 leaders of the Grecian host, Nestor, Ulysses, 
 Agamemnon, Achilles, Shakespear seems to 
 have known them as well as if he had been a 
 spy sent by the Trojans into the enemy's camp 
 — to say nothing of their being very lofty exam- 
 ples of didactic eloquence. The following is 
 a very stately and spirited declamation : 
 
 Ulysses. Troy, yet upon her basis, had been down, 
 And the great Hector's sword had lack'd a master j, 
 
84 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 
 
 But for these instances. 
 
 The specialty of rule hath been neglected. 
 
 *********** 
 
 The heavens themselves, the planets, and this center, 
 
 Observe degree, priority, and place, 
 
 Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, 
 
 Office, and custom, in all line of order : 
 
 And therefore is the glorious planet, Sol, 
 
 In noble eminence, enthron'd and spher'd 
 
 Amidst the other, whose med'cinable eye 
 
 Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil, 
 
 And posts, like the commandment of a king, 
 
 Sans check, to good and bad. But, when the planets. 
 
 In evil mixture to disorder wander, 
 
 What plagues and what portents ? what mutinies ? 
 
 What raging of the sea ? shaking of earth ? 
 
 Commotion in the winds ? frights, changes, horrors, 
 
 Divert and crack, rend and deracinate 
 
 The unity and married calm of states 
 
 Quite from their fixture ! O, when degree is shaken , 
 
 (Which is the ladder to all high designs) 
 
 The enterprize is sick ! How could communities, 
 
 Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities, 
 
 Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, 
 
 The primogenitive and due of birth, 
 
 Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, 
 
 (But by degree) stand in authentic place ? 
 
 Take but degree away, untune that string, 
 
 And hark what discord follows ! each thing meets 
 
 In mere oppugnancy. The bounded waters 
 
 Would lift their bosoms higher than the shores, 
 
 And make a sop of all this solid globe : 
 
 Strength would be lord of imbecility, 
 
 And the rude son would strike his father dead : 
 
 Force would be right ; or rather, right and wrong 
 
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 85 
 
 (Between whose endless jar Justice resides) 
 
 Would lose their names, and so would Justice too. 
 
 Then every thing includes itself in power, 
 
 Power into will, will into appetite j 
 
 And appetite (an universal wolf, 
 
 So doubly seconded with will and power) 
 
 Must make perforce an universal prey, 
 
 And last, eat up himself. Great Agamemnon, 
 
 This chaos, when degree is suffocate, 
 
 Follows the choking : 
 
 And this neglection of degree it is, 
 
 That by a pace goes backward, in a purpose 
 
 It hath to climb. The general's disdained 
 
 By him one step below ; he, by the next ; 
 
 That next, by him beneath : so every step, 
 
 Exampled by the first pace that is sick 
 
 Of his superior, grows to an envious fever 
 
 Of pale and bloodless emulation j 
 
 And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot, 
 
 Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length, 
 
 Troy in our weakness lives, not in her strength." 
 
 It cannot be said of Shakespear, as was said 
 of some one, that he was " without overflowing 
 full." He was full, even to o'erflowing. He 
 gave heaped measure, running over. This was 
 his greatest fault. He was only in danger " of 
 losing distinction in his thoughts" (to borrow 
 his own expression) 
 
 ** As doth a battle when they charge on heaps 
 The enemy flying." 
 
 There is another passage, the speech of Ulys- 
 ses to Achilles, shewing him the thankless na- 
 
S6 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 
 
 ture of popularity, which has a still greater 
 depth of moral observation and richness of il- 
 lustration than the former. It is long, but worth 
 the quoting. The sometimes giving an entire 
 extract from the unacted plays of our author 
 may with one class of readers have almost the 
 use of restoring a lost passage ; and may serve 
 to convince another class of critics, that the poet's 
 genius was not confined to the production of 
 stage effect by preternatural means. — 
 
 ' ' Ulysses. Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back* 
 Wherein he puts alms for Oblivion ; 
 A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes : 
 Those scraps are good deeds past, 
 Which are devour'd as fast as they are made, 
 Forgot as soon as done : Persev'rance, dear my lord., 
 Keeps Honour bright : to have done, is to hang 
 Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail 
 In monumental mockery. Take the instant way ; 
 For Honour travels in a strait so narrow, 
 Where one but goes abreast ; keep then the path. 
 For Emulation hath a thousand sons, 
 That one by one pursue ; if you give way, 
 Or hedge aside from the direct forth -right, 
 Like to an entered tide, they all rush by^ 
 
 And leave you hindmost ; 
 
 Or, like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank; 
 
 O'er-run and trampled on : then what they do in present, 
 
 Tho' less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours : 
 
 For Time is like a fashionable host, 
 
 That slightly shakes his parting guest by th' hand, 
 
 And with his arms out-stretch' d, as he would fly, 
 
 Crrasps in the comer : the Welcome ever smiles. 
 
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 87 
 
 And Farewel goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek 
 Remuneration for the thing it was j for beauty, wit, 
 High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, 
 Love, friendship, charity, are subjects ajl 
 To envious and calumniating time : 
 One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. 
 That all, with one consent, praise new-born gauds, 
 Tho' they are made and moulded of things past. 
 The present eye praises the present object. 
 Then marvel not, thou great and complete man, 
 That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax ; 
 Since things in motion sooner catch the eye, 
 Than what not stirs. The cry went out on thee^ 
 And still it might, and yet it may again, 
 If thou would' st not entomb thyself alive, 
 And case thy reputation in thy tent." — ■ 
 
 The throng of images in the above lines is 
 prodigious ; and though they sometimes jostle 
 against one another, they every where raise 
 and carry on the feeling, which is metaphysi- 
 cally true and profound. The debates between 
 jhe Trojan chiefs on the restoring of Helen are 
 full of knowledge of human motives and cha- 
 racter. Troilus enters well into the philosophy 
 of war, when he says in answer to something 
 that falls from Hector, 
 
 " Why there you touch'd the life of our design : 
 Were it not glory that we more affected, 
 Than the performance of our heaving spleens, 
 I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood 
 Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector> 
 
88 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 
 
 She is a theme of honour and renown, 
 
 A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds.'' 
 
 The character of Hector, in the few slight in- 
 dications which appear of it, is made very amia- 
 ble. His death is sublime, and shews in a 
 striking light the mixture of barbarity and hero- 
 ism of the age. The threats of Achilles are 
 fatal ; they carry their own means of execution 
 with them. 
 
 " Come here about me, you my Myrmidons, 
 Mark what I say. — Attend me where I wheel : 
 Strike not a stroke, but keep yourselves in breath 5 
 And when I have the bloody Hector found, 
 Empale him with your weapons round about : 
 In fellest manner execute your arms. 
 Follow me, sirs, and my proceeding eye." 
 
 He then finds Hector and slays him, as if he 
 had been hunting down a wild beast. There is 
 something revolting as well as terrific in the fe- 
 rocious coolness with which he singles out his 
 prey : nor does the splendour of the atchieve- 
 ment reconcile us to the cruelty of the means. 
 
 The characters of Cressida and Pandarus are 
 very amusing and instructive. The disinte- 
 rested willingness of Pandarus to serve his friend 
 in an affair which lies next his heart is immedi- 
 ately brought forward. " Go thy way, Troilus, 
 go thy way ; had I a sister were a grace, or a 
 daughter were a goddess, he should tal^e his 
 
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 89 
 
 choice. O admirable man ! Paris, Paris is dirt 
 to him, and I warrant Helen, to change, would 
 give money to boot." This is the language he 
 addresses to his niece : nor is she much behind- 
 hand in coming into the plot. Her head is as 
 light and fluttering as her heart. " It is the pret- 
 tiest villain, she fetches her breath so short as a 
 new-ta'en sparrow." Both characters are origi- 
 nals, and quite different from what they are in 
 Chaucer. In Chaucer, Cressida is represented as 
 a grave, sober, considerate personage (a widow — 
 he cannot tell her age, nor whether she has chil- 
 dren or no) who has an alternate eye to her 
 character, her interest, and her pleasure: Shake- 
 spear's Cressida is a giddy girl, an unpractised 
 jilt, who falls in love with Troilus, as she after- 
 wards deserts him, from mere levity and thought- 
 lessness of temper. She may be wooed and won 
 to any thing and from any thing, at a moment's 
 warning : the other knows very well what she 
 would be at, and sticks to it, and is more go- 
 verned by substantial reasons than by caprice or 
 vanity. Pandarus again, in Chaucer's story, is a 
 friendly sort of go-between, tolerably busy, offici- 
 ous, and forward in bringing matters to bear : but 
 in Shakespear he has " a stamp exclusive and pro- 
 fessional :" he wears the badge of his trade ; he is 
 a regular knight of the game. The difference of 
 the manner in which the subject is treated arises 
 perhaps less from intention, than from the differ- 
 
90 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 
 
 ent genius of the two poets. There is no double 
 entendre in the characters of Chaucer: they are 
 either quite serious or quite comic. In Shake- 
 spear the ludicrous and ironical are constantly 
 blended with the stately and the impassioned. 
 We see Chaucer's characters as they saw them- 
 selves, not as they appeared to others or might 
 have appeared to the poet. He is as deeply im- 
 plicated in the affairs of his personages as they 
 could be themselves. He had to go a long 
 journey with each of them, and became a kind 
 of necessary confidant. There is little relief, or 
 light and shade in his pictures. The con- 
 scious smile is not seen lurking under the brow 
 of grief or impatience. Every thing with him 
 is intense and continuous — a working out of 
 what went before. — Shakespear never committed 
 himself to his characters. He trifled, laughed, 
 or wept with them as he chose. He has no preju- 
 dices for or against them ; and it seems a matter 
 of perfect indifference whether he shall be in jest 
 or earnest. According to him " the web of our 
 lives is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together/' 
 His genius was dramatic, as Chaucer's was his- 
 torical. He saw both sides of a question, the 
 different views taken of it according to the dif- 
 ferent interests of the parties concerned, and he 
 was at once an actor and spectator in the scene. 
 If any thing, he is too various and flexible ; too 
 full of transitions, of glancing lights, of salient 
 
TROILUS AND CRESS-IDA. 91 
 
 points. If Chaucer followed up his subject too 
 doggedly, perhaps Shakespear was too volatile 
 and heedless. The Muse's wing too often lifted 
 him off his feet. He made infinite excursions 
 to the right and the left. 
 
 He hath done 
 
 Mad and fantastic execution, 
 Engaging and redeeming of himself 
 With such a careless force and forceless care, 
 As if that luck in very spite of cunning 
 Bad him win all." 
 
 Chaucer attended chiefly to the real and na^ 
 tural, that is, to the involuntary and inevitable 
 impressions on the mind in given circumstances: 
 Shakespear exhibited also the possible and the 
 fantastical, — not only what things are in them- 
 selves, but whatever they might seem to be, 
 their different reflections, their endless com- 
 binations. He lent his fancy, wit, invention, to 
 others, and borrowed their feelings in return. 
 Chaucer excelled in the force of habitual senti- 
 ment ; Shakespear added to it every variety of 
 passion, every suggestion of thought or acci- 
 dent. Chaucer described external objects with 
 the eye of a painter, or he might be said to have 
 embodied them with the hand of a sculptor, 
 every part is so thoroughly made out, and tan- 
 gible : — Shakespear's imagination threw over 
 them a lustre 
 
 — " Prouder than when blue Iris bends.- 
 
92 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 
 
 Every thing in Chaucer has a downright rea- 
 lity. A simile or a sentiment is as if it were 
 given in upon evidence. In Shakespear the 
 commonest matter-of-fact has a romantic grace 
 about it ; or seems to float with the breath of 
 imagination in a freer element. No one could 
 have more depth of feeling or observation than 
 Chaucer, but he wanted resources of invention 
 to lay open the stores of nature or the human 
 heart with the same radiant light, that Shake- 
 spear has done. However fine or profound the 
 thought, we know what was coming, whereas 
 the effect of reading Shakespear is " like the eye 
 of vassalage encountering majesty." Chaucer's 
 mind was consecutive, rather than discursive. 
 He arrived at truth through a certain process ; 
 Shakespear saw every thing by intuition. Chau- 
 cer had great variety of power, but he could do 
 only one thing at once. He set himself to work 
 on a particular subject. His ideas were kept 
 separate, labelled, ticketed and parcelled out 
 in a set form, in pews and compartments by 
 themselves. They did not play into one ano- 
 ther's hands. They did not re-act upon one 
 another, as the blower's breath moulds the yield- 
 ing glass. There is something hard and dry in 
 them. What is the most wonderful thing in 
 Shakespear's faculties is their excessive socia- 
 bility, and how they gossipped and compared 
 notes together. 
 
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 93 
 
 We must conclude this criticism ; and we will 
 do it with a quotation or two. One of the 
 most beautiful passages in Chaucer's tale is the 
 description of Cresseide's first avowal of her 
 love. 
 
 " And as the new abashed nightingale, 
 That stinteth first when she beginneth sing, 
 When that she heareth any herde's tale, 
 Or in the hedges any wight stirring, 
 And, after, sicker doth her voice outring j 
 Right so Cresseide, when that her dread stent, 
 Opened her heart, and told him her intent." 
 
 See also the two next stanzas, and particular- 
 ly that divine one beginning 
 
 ce Her armes small, her back both straight and soft/' &c. 
 
 Compare this with the following speech of 
 Troilus to Cressida in the play. 
 
 fC O, that I thought it could be in a woman ; 
 And if it can, I will presume in you, 
 To feed for aye her lamp and flame of love, 
 To keep her constancy in plight and youth, 
 Out-living beauties out-ward, with a mind 
 That doth renew swifter than blood decays. 
 Or, that persuasion could but thus convince me, 
 That my integrity and truth to you 
 Might be affronted with the match and weight 
 Of such a winnow' d purity in love ; 
 How were I then uplifted ! But alas, 
 I am as true as Truth's simplicity, 
 And simpler than the infancy of Truth." 
 
94 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 
 
 These passages may not seem very character- 
 istic at first sight, though we think they are so. 
 We will give two, that cannot be mistaken. 
 Patroclus says to Achilles, 
 
 " Rouse yourself j and the weak wanton Cupid 
 
 Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold. 
 And like a dew-drop from the lion's mane, 
 Be shook to air." 
 
 Troilus, addressing the God of Day on the 
 approach of the morning that parts him from 
 Cressida, says with much scorn, 
 
 " What! proffer'st thou thy light here for to sell? 
 Go, sell it them that smalle" sele*s grave." 
 
 If nobody but Shakespear could have written 
 the former, nobody but Chaucer would have 
 thought of the latter. — Chaucer was the most 
 literal of poets, as Richardson was of prose- 
 writers. 
 
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 This is a very noble play. Though not in the 
 first class of Shakespear's productions, it stands 
 next to them, and is, we think, the finest of 
 his historical plays, that is, of those in which 
 he made poetry the organ of history, and as- 
 sumed a certain tone of character and sentiment, 
 in conformity to known facts, instead of trusting 
 to his observations of general nature or to the 
 unlimited indulgence of his own fancy. What 
 he has added to the history, is upon a par with 
 it. His genius was, as it were, a match for his- 
 tory as well as nature, and could grapple at will 
 with either. This play is full of that pervading 
 comprehensive power by which the poet could 
 always make himself master of time and circum- 
 stances. It presents a fine picture of Roman 
 pride and Eastern magnificence : and in the 
 
96 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 
 
 struggle between the two, the empire of the 
 world seems suspended, " like the swan's down- 
 feather, 
 
 " That stands upon the swell at full of tide, 
 And neither way inclines." 
 
 The characters breathe, move, and live. Shake- 
 spear does not stand reasoning on what his cha- 
 racters would do or say, but at once becomes 
 them, and speaks and acts for them. He does 
 not present us with groups of stage-puppets or 
 poetical machines making set speeches on hu- 
 man life, and acting from a calculation of ostensi- 
 ble motives, but he brings living men and women 
 on the scene, who speak and act from real feelings, 
 according to the ebbs and flows of passion, with- 
 out the least tincture of the pedantry of logic or 
 rhetoric. Nothing is made out by inference and 
 analogy, by climax and antithesis, but every thing 
 takes place just as it would have done in reality, 
 according to the occasion. — The character of 
 Cleopatra is a master-piece. What an extreme 
 contrast it affords to Imogen ! One would think 
 it almost impossible for the same person to have 
 drawn both. She is voluptuous, ostentatious, 
 conscious, boastful of her charms, haughty, ty- 
 rannical, fickle. The luxurious pomp and gor- 
 geous extravagance of the Egyptian queen are 
 displayed in all their force and lustre, as well as 
 the irregular grandeur of the soul of Mark An- 
 
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 97 
 
 tony. Take only the first four lines that they 
 speak as an example of the regal style of love- 
 making. 
 
 " Cleopatra. If it be love, indeed, tell me how much ? 
 
 Antony. There's beggary in the love that can be reck- 
 on' d. 
 
 Cleopatra. I'll set a bourn how far to be belov'd. 
 
 Antony. Then must thou needs find out new heav'n, 
 new earth." 
 
 The rich and poetical description of her per- 
 son, beginning— 
 
 '* The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, 
 Burnt on the water j the poop was beaten gold, 
 Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that 
 The winds were love-sick" — 
 
 seems to prepare the way for, and almost to jus- 
 tify the subsequent infatuation of Antony when 
 in the sea-fight at Actium, he leaves the battle, 
 and " like a doating mallard" follows her flying 
 sails. 
 
 Few things in Shakespear (and we know of 
 nothing in any other author like them) have 
 more of that local truth of imagination and cha- 
 racter than the passage in which Cleopatra is 
 represented conjecturing what were the employ- 
 ments of Antony in his absence. " He's speak- 
 ing now, or murmuring — Where's my serpent of 
 old Nile?" Or again, when she says to Antony, 
 after the defeat at Actium, and his summoning 
 
 H 
 
98 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 
 
 up resolution to risk another fight — " It is my 
 birth-day; 1 had thought to have held it poor; 
 but since my lord is Antony again, I will be 
 Cleopatra." Perhaps the finest burst of all is 
 Antony's rage after his final defeat when he 
 comes in, and surprises the messenger of Csesar 
 kissing her hand— 
 
 (< To let a fellow that will take rewards, 
 And say, God quit you, be familiar with, 
 My play-fellow, your hand -, this kingly seal, 
 And plighter of high hearts." 
 
 It is no wonder that he orders him to be whip- 
 ped ; but his low condition is not the true reason : 
 there is another feeling which lies deeper, though 
 Antony's pride would not let him shew it, except 
 by his rage ; he suspects the fellow to be Caesar's 
 proxy. 
 
 Cleopatra's whole character is the triumph of 
 the voluptuous, of the love of pleasure and the 
 power of giving it, over every other considera- 
 tion. Octavia is a dull foil to her, and Fulvia a 
 shrew and shrill-tongued. What a picture do 
 those lines give of her — 
 
 <c Age cannot wither her, nor custom steal 
 Her infinite variety. Other women cloy 
 The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry 
 Where most she satisfies. 
 
 What a spirit and fire in her conversation 
 with Antony's messenger who brings her the 
 
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 99 
 
 unwelcome news of his marriage with Octavia ! 
 How all the pride of beauty and of high rank 
 breaks out in her promised reward to him — 
 
 " There's gold, and here 
 
 My bluest veins to kiss !" — 
 
 She had great and unpardonable faults, but 
 
 the beautv of her death almost redeems them. 
 
 %/ 
 
 She learns from the depth of despair the strength 
 of her affections. She keeps her queen-like 
 state in the last disgrace, and her sense of the 
 pleasurable in the last moments of her life. She 
 tastes a luxury in death. After applying the 
 asp, she says with fondness — 
 
 <c Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, 
 That sucks the nurse asleep ? 
 As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle. 
 Oh Antony!" 
 
 It is worth while to observe that Shakespear 
 has contrasted the extreme magnificence of the 
 descriptions in this play with pictures of ex- 
 treme suffering and physical horror, not less 
 striking — partly perhaps^to excuse the effemi- 
 nacy of Mark Antony to whom they are re- 
 lated as having happened, but more to preserve 
 a certain balance of feeling in the mind. Caesar 
 says, hearing of his conduct at the court of 
 Cleopatra, 
 
 Antony, 
 
 Leave thy lascivious wassels. When thou once 
 
100 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 
 
 Wert beaten from Mutina, where thou slew'st 
 
 Hirtius and J*ansa, consuls, at thy heel 
 
 Did famine follow, whom thou fought' st against, 
 
 Though daintily brought up, with patience more 
 
 Than savages could suffer. Thou did'st drink 
 
 The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle 
 
 Which beast would cough at. Thy palate then did deign 
 
 The roughest berry on the rudest hedge, 
 
 Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets, 
 
 The barks of trees thou browsed'st. On the Alps, 
 
 It is reported, thou did'st eat strange flesh, 
 
 Which some did die to look on : and all this, 
 
 It wounds thine honour, that I speak it now, 
 
 Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek 
 
 So much as lank'd not." 
 
 The passage after Antony's defeat by Augus- 
 
 tus where he is made to say 
 
 <e Yes, yes ; he at Philippi kept 
 His sword e'en like a dancer ; while I struck 
 The lean and wrinkled Cassius, and 'twas I 
 That the mad Brutus ended" — 
 
 is one of those fine retrospections which shew 
 us the winding and eventful march of human 
 life. The jealous attention which has been paid 
 to the unities both of time and place has taken 
 away the principle of perspective in the drama, 
 and all the interest which objects derive from 
 distance, from contrast, from privation, from 
 change of fortune, from long-cherished passion ; 
 and contracts our view of life from a strange and 
 romantic dream, long, obscure, and infinite, into 
 
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 101 
 
 a smartly contested, three hours' inaugural dis- 
 putation on its merits by the different candi- 
 dates for theatrical applause. 
 
 The latter scenes of Antony and Cleopa- 
 tra are full of the changes of accident and pas- 
 sion. Success and defeat follow one another 
 with startling rapidity. Fortune sits upon her 
 wheel more blind and giddy than usual. This 
 precarious state and the approaching dissolution 
 of his greatness are strikingly displayed in the 
 dialogue between Antony and Eros. 
 
 " Antony. Eros, thou yet behold' st me ? 
 
 Eros. Ay, noble lord. 
 
 Antony. Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish, 
 A vapour sometime, like a bear or lion, 
 A towered citadel, a pendant rock, 
 A forked mountain, or blue promontory 
 With trees upon't, that nod unto the world 
 And mock our eyes with air. Thou hast seen these signs, 
 They are black vesper's pageants. 
 
 Eros. Ay, my lord. 
 
 Antony. That which is now a horse, even with a thought 
 The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct 
 As water is in water. 
 
 Eros. It does, my lord* 
 
 Antony. My good knave, Eros, now thy captain is 
 Even such a body," &c. 
 
 This is, without doubt, one of the finest pieces 
 of poetry in Shakespear. The splendour of the 
 imagery, the semblance of reality, the lofty range 
 of picturesque objects hanging over the world, 
 
102 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 
 
 their evanescent nature, the total uncertainty of 
 what is left behind, are just like the mouldering 
 schemes of human greatness. It is finer than 
 Cleopatra's passionate lamentation over his fallen 
 grandeur, because it is more dim, unstable, un- 
 substantial. Antony's headstrong presumption 
 and infatuated determination to yield to Cleopa- 
 tra's wishes to fight by sea instead of land, meet 
 a merited punishment ; and the extravagance of 
 his resolutions, increasing with the desperateness 
 of his circumstances, is well commented upon 
 by CEnobarbus. 
 
 - <e I see men judgements are 
 
 A parcel of their fortunes, and things outward 
 Do draw the inward quality after them 
 To suffer all alike." 
 
 The repentance of CEnobarbus after his trea- 
 chery to his master is the most affecting part of 
 the play. He cannot recover from the blow 
 which Antony's generosity gives him, and he 
 dies broken-hearted " a master-leaver and a 
 fugitive." 
 
 Shakespear's genius has spread over the whole 
 play a richness like the overflowing of the Nile. 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 This is that Hamlet the Dane, whom we read 
 of in our youth, and whom we seem almost to 
 remember in our after-years ; he who made that 
 famous soliloquy on life, who gave the advice 
 to the players, who thought " this goodly frame, 
 the earth, a steril promontory, and this brave 
 o'er-hanging firmament, the air, this majesti- 
 cal roof fretted with golden fire, a foul and pes- 
 tilent congregation of vapours ;" whom " man 
 delighted not, nor woman neither;" he who 
 talked with the grave-diggers, and moralised on 
 Yorick's skull; the school-fellow of Rosencraus 
 and Guildenstern at Wittenberg ; the friend of 
 Horatio ; the lover of Ophelia ; he that was mad 
 and sent to England ; the slow avenger of his 
 father's death ; who lived at the court of Hor- 
 wendillus five hundred years before we were 
 
104 HAMLET. 
 
 bora, but all whose thoughts we seem to know 
 as well as we do our own, because we have read 
 them in Shakespear. 
 
 Hamlet is a name : his speeches and sayings 
 but the idle coinage of the poet's brain. What 
 then, are they not real ? They are as real as 
 our own thoughts* Their reality is in the 
 reader's mind. It is we who are Hamlet. This 
 play has a prophetic truth, which is above that 
 of history. Whoever has become thoughtful 
 and melancholy through his own mishaps or 
 those of others ; whoever has borne about with 
 him the clouded brow of reflection, and thought 
 himself "too much i' th' sun;" whoever has 
 seen the golden lamp of day dimmed by envious 
 mists rising in his own breast, and could find in 
 the world before him only a dull blank with no- 
 thing left remarkable in it; whoever has known 
 " the pangs of despised love, the insolence of 
 office, or the spurns which patient merit of the 
 unworthy takes ;" he who has felt his mind sink 
 within him, and sadness cling to his heart like 
 a malady, who has had his hopes blighted and 
 his youth staggered by the apparitions of strange 
 things ; who cannot be well at ease, while he 
 sees evil hovering near him like a spectre; whose 
 powers of action have been eaten up by thought, 
 he to whom the universe seems infinite, and 
 himself nothing ; whose bitterness of soul makes 
 him careless of consequences, and who goes to 
 
HAMLET. 105 
 
 a play as his best resource to shove off, to $ 
 second remove, the evils of life by a mock-re- 
 presentation of them — this is the true Hamlet. 
 
 We have been so used to this tragedy that we 
 hardly know how to criticise it any more than 
 we should know how to describe our own faces. 
 But we must make such observations as we can. 
 It is the one of Shakespear's plays that we think 
 of oftenest, because it abounds most in striking 
 reflections on human life, and because the dis- 
 tresses of Hamlet are transferred, by the turn of 
 his mind, to the general account of humanity. 
 Whatever happens to him, we apply to our- 
 selves, because he applies it so himself as a 
 means of general reasoning. He is a great mo- 
 raliser; and what makes him worth attending 
 to is, that he moralises on his own feelings and 
 experience. He is not a common-place pedant. 
 If Lear shews the greatest depth of passion, 
 Hamlet is the most remarkable for the inge- 
 nuity, originality, and unstudied developement 
 of character. Shakespear had more magnani- 
 mity than any other poet, and he has shewn 
 more of it in this play than in any other. 
 There is no attempt to force an interest : every 
 thing is left for time and circumstances to un- 
 fold. The attention is excited without effort, 
 the incidents succeed each other as matters of 
 course, the characters think and speak and act 
 just as they might do, if left entirely to them- 
 
106 HAMLET. 
 
 selves. There is no set purpose, no straining 
 at a point. The observations are suggested by 
 the passing scene — the gusts of passion come 
 and go like sounds of music borne on the wind. 
 The whole play is an exact transcript of what 
 might be supposed to have taken place at the 
 court of Denmark, at the remote period of time 
 fixed upon, before the modern refinements in 
 morals and manners were heard of. It would 
 have been interesting enough to have been ad- 
 mitted as a by-stander in such a scene, at such 
 a time, to have heard and seen something of 
 what was going on. But here we are more than 
 spectators. We have not only " the outward 
 pageants and the signs of grief ;" but " we have 
 that within which passes shew." We read the 
 thoughts of the heart, we catch the passions 
 living as they rise. Other dramatic writers give 
 us very fine versions and paraphrases of nature : 
 but Shakespear, together with his own com- 
 ments, gives us the original text, that we may 
 judge for ourselves. This is a very great advan- 
 tage. 
 
 The character of Hamlet is itself a pure effu- 
 sion of genius. It is not a character marked by 
 strength of will or even of passion, but by re- 
 finement of thought and sentiment. Hamlet is 
 as little of the hero as a man can well be : but 
 he is a young and princely novice, full of high 
 enthusiasm and quick sensibility — the sport of 
 
HAMLET. 107 
 
 circumstances, questioning with fortune and re- 
 fining on his own feelings, and forced from the 
 natural bias of his disposition by the strangeness 
 of his situation. He seems incapable of delibe- 
 rate action, and is only hurried into extremi- 
 ties on the spur of the occasion, when he has 
 no time to reflect, as in the scene where he kills 
 Polonius, and again, where he alters the letters 
 which Rosencraus and Guildenstern are taking 
 with them to England, purporting his death. 
 At other times, when he is most bound to act, 
 he remains puzzled, undecided, and sceptical, 
 dallies with his purposes, till the occasion is 
 lost, and always finds some pretence to relapse 
 into indolence and thoughtful ness again. For 
 this reason he refuses to kill the King when he 
 is at his prayers, and by a refinement in malice, 
 which is in truth only an excuse for his own 
 want of resolution, defers his revenge to some 
 more fatal opportunity, when he shall be en- 
 gaged in some act " that has no relish of salva- 
 tion in it." 
 
 <c He kneels and prays, 
 
 And now I'll do't, and so he goes to heaven, 
 
 And so am I reveng'd : that would be scanned. 
 
 He kill'd my father, and for that, 
 
 I, his sole son, send him to heaven. 
 
 Why this is reward, not revenge. 
 
 Up sword and know thou a more horrid time, 
 
 When he is drunk, asleep, or in a rage." 
 
108 HAMLET. 
 
 He is the prince of philosophical speculators, 
 and because he cannot have his revenge perfect, 
 according to the most refined idea his wish can 
 form, he misses it altogether. So he scruples 
 to trust the suggestions of the Ghost, contrives 
 the scene of the play to have surer proof of his 
 uncle's guilt, and then rests satisfied with this 
 confirmation of his suspicions, and the success 
 of his experiment, instead of acting upon it. Yet 
 he is sensible of his own weakness, taxes himself 
 with it, and tries to reason himself out of it. 
 
 ff How all occasions do inform against me, 
 And spur my dull revenge ! What is a man, 
 If his chief good and market of his time 
 Be but to sleep and feed ? A beast j no more. 
 Sure he that made us with such large discourse, 
 Looking before and after, gave us not 
 That capability and god-like reason 
 To rust in us unus'd : now whether it be 
 Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple 
 Of thinking too precisely on th' event, — 
 A thought which quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom, 
 And ever three parts coward ; — I do not know 
 Why yet I live to say, this thing's to do ; 
 Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means 
 To do it. Examples gross as earth excite me : 
 Witness this army of such mass and charge, 
 Led by a delicate and tender prince, 
 Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd; 
 Makes mouths at the invisible event, 
 Exposing what is mortal and unsure 
 To all that fortune, death, and danger dare. 
 
HAMLET. 109 
 
 Even for an egg-shell. 'Tis not to be great, 
 
 Never to stir without great argument ; 
 
 But greatly to find quarrel in a straw, 
 
 When honour's at the stake. How stand I then. 
 
 That have a father kill'd, a mother stain' d, 
 
 Excitements of my reason and my blood, 
 
 And let all sleep, while to my shame I see 
 
 The imminent death of twenty thousand men, 
 
 That for a fantasy and trick of fame, 
 
 Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot 
 
 Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, 
 
 Which is not tomb enough and continent 
 
 To hide the slain ? — O, from this time forth, 
 
 My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth." 
 
 Still he does nothing; and this very speculation 
 on his own infirmity only affords him another 
 occasion for indulging it. It is not for any want 
 of attachment to his father or abhorrence of 
 his murder that Hamlet is thus dilatory, but it 
 is more to his taste to indulge his imagination 
 in reflecting upon the enormity of the crime and 
 refining on his schemes of vengeance, than to 
 put them into immediate practice. His ruling 
 passion is to think, not to act: and any vague 
 pretence that flatters this propensity instantly 
 diverts him from his previous purposes. 
 
 The moral perfection of this character has 
 been called in question, we think, by those who 
 did not understand it. It is more interesting than 
 according to rules: amiable, though not fault- 
 less. The ethical delineations of " that noble 
 
110 HAMLET. 
 
 and liberal casuist" (as Shakespear has been well 
 called) do not exhibit the drab-coloured qua- 
 kerism of morality. His plays are not copied 
 either from The Whole Duty of Man, or from 
 The Academy of Compliments I We confess, 
 we are a little shocked at the want of refinement 
 in those who are shocked at the want of refine- 
 ment in Hamlet. The want of punctilious ex- 
 actness in his behaviour either partakes of the 
 " license of the time," or else belongs to the 
 very excess of intellectual refinement in the 
 character, which makes the common rules of 
 life, as well as his own purposes, sit loose upon 
 him. He may be said to be amenable only to 
 the tribunal of his own thoughts, and is too 
 much taken up with the airy world of contem- 
 plation to lay as much stress as he ought on 
 the practical consequences of things. His habi- 
 tual principles of action are unhinged and out 
 of joint with the time. His conduct to Ophelia 
 is quite natural in his circumstances. It is that 
 of assumed severity only. It is the effect of 
 disappointed hope, of bitter regrets, of affec- 
 tion suspended, not obliterated, by the distrac- 
 tions of the scene around him ! Amidst the 
 natural and preternatural horrors of his situa- 
 tion, he might be excused in delicacy from 
 carrying on a regular courtship. When " his fa- 
 ther's spirit was in arms," it was not a time for 
 the son to make love in. He could neither marry 
 
HAMLET. Ill 
 
 Ophelia, nor wound her mind by explaining 
 the cause of his alienation, which he durst 
 hardly trust himself to think of. It would have 
 taken him years to have come to a direct expla- 
 nation on the point. In the harassed state of 
 his mind, he could not have done otherwise 
 than he did. His conduct does not contradict 
 what he says when he sees her funeral, 
 
 " I loved Ophelia : forty thousand brothers 
 Could not with all their quantity of love 
 Make up my sum." 
 
 Nothing can be more affecting or beautiful 
 than the Queen's apostrophe to Ophelia on 
 throwing flowers into the grave. 
 
 " Sweets to the sweet, farewell. 
 
 I hop'd thou should'st have been my Hamlet's wife : 
 I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid, 
 And not have strew' d thy grave." 
 
 Shakespear was thoroughly a master of the 
 mixed motives of human character, and he 
 here shews us the Queen, who was so crimi- 
 nal in some respects, not without sensibi- 
 lity and affection in other relations of life. — 
 Ophelia is a character almost too exquisitely 
 touching to be dwelt upon. Oh rose of May, 
 oh flower too soon faded! Her love, her mad- 
 ness, her death, are described with the truest 
 
112 HAMLET. 
 
 touches of tenderness and pathos. It is a cha- 
 racter which nobody but Shakespear could have 
 drawn in the way that he has done, and to the 
 conception of which there is not even the small- 
 est approach, except in some of the old romantic 
 ballads. Her brother, Laertes, is a character 
 we do not like so well: he is too hot and cho- 
 leric, and somewhat rodomontade. Polonius 
 is a perfect character in its kind ; nor is there 
 any foundation for the objections which have 
 been made to the consistency of this part. It 
 is said that he acts very foolishly and talks 
 very sensibly. There is no inconsistency in 
 that. Again, that he talks wisely at one time 
 and foolishly at another ; that his advice to La- 
 ertes is very sensible, and his advice to the King 
 and Queen on the subject of Hamlet's madness 
 very ridiculous. But he gives the one as a fa- 
 ther, and is sincere in it ; he gives the other 
 as a mere courtier, a busy-body, and is accord- 
 ingly officious, garrulous, and impertinent. In 
 short, Shakespear has been accused of incon- 
 sistency in this and other characters, only be- 
 cause he has kept up the distinction which 
 there is in nature, between the understandings 
 and the moral habits of men, between the ab- 
 surdity of their ideas and the absurdity of their 
 motives. Polonius is not a fool, but he makes 
 himself so. His folly, whether in his actions or 
 
HAMLET. 113 
 
 speeches, comes under the head of impropriety 
 of intention. 
 
 We do not like to see our author's plays 
 acted, and least of all, Hamlet. There is no 
 play that suffers so much in being transferred 
 to the stage. Hamlet himself seems hardly 
 capable of being acted. Mr. Kemble unavoid- 
 ably fails in this character from a want of ease 
 and variety. The character of Hamlet is made 
 up of undulating lines ; it has the yielding flexi- 
 bility of " a wave o' th' sea." Mr. Kemble 
 plays it like a man in armour, with a deter- 
 mined inveteracy of purpose, in one undeviat- 
 ing straight line, which is as remote from the 
 natural grace and refined susceptibility of the 
 character, as the sharp angles and abrupt starts 
 which Mr. Kean introduces into the part. Mr. 
 Kean's Hamlet is as much too splenetic and 
 rash as Mr. Kemble's is too deliberate and for- 
 mal. His manner is too strong and pointed. 
 He throws a severity, approaching to virulence, 
 into the common observations and answers. 
 There is nothing of this in Hamlet. He is, as 
 it were, wrapped up in his reflections, and only 
 thinks aloud. There should therefore be no 
 attempt to impress what he says upon others 
 by a studied exaggeration of emphasis or man- 
 ner ; no talking at his hearers. There should 
 be as much of the gentleman and scholar as 
 
114 HAMLET. 
 
 possible infused into the part, and as little of 
 the actor. A pensive air of sadness should sit 
 reluctantly upon his brow, but no appearance 
 of fixed and sullen gloom. He is full of weak- 
 ness and melancholy, but there is no harshness 
 in his nature. He is the most amiable of mi- 
 santhropes. 
 
THE TEMPEST. 
 
 There can be little doubt that Shakespear 
 was the most universal genius that ever lived. 
 " Either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, 
 pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, scene in- 
 dividable or poem unlimited, he is the only 
 man. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plau- 
 tus too light for him." He has not only the 
 same absolute command over our laughter and 
 our tears, all the resources of passion, of wit, 
 of thought, of observation, but he has the most 
 unbounded range of fanciful invention, whe- 
 ther terrible or playful, the same insight into 
 the world of imagination that he has into the 
 world of reality; and over all there presides 
 the same truth of character and nature, and 
 the same spirit of humanity. His ideal be- 
 ings are as true and natural as his real cha- 
 
116 THE TEMPEST. 
 
 racters ; that is, as consistent with themselves, 
 or if we suppose such beings to exist at all, they 
 could not act, speak, or feel otherwise than as 
 he makes them. He has invented for them a 
 language, manners, and sentiments of their own, 
 from the tremendous imprecations of the Witches 
 in Macbeth, when they do " a deed without a 
 name," to the sylph-like expressions of Ariel, 
 who "does his spiriting gently; 55 the mischiev- 
 ous tricks and gossipping of Robin Goodfellow, 
 or the uncouth gabbling and emphatic gesticu- 
 lations of Caliban in this play. 
 
 The Tempest is one of the most original and 
 perfect of Shakespear's productions, and he has 
 shewn in it all the variety of his powers. It is 
 full of grace and grandeur. The human and 
 imaginary characters, the dramatic and the 
 grotesque, are blended together with the greatest 
 art, and without any appearance of it. Though 
 he has here given " to airy nothing a local habi- 
 tation and a name, 55 yet that part which is only 
 the fantastic creation of his mind, has the same 
 palpable texture, and coheres " semblably 55 with 
 the rest. As the preternatural part has the air 
 of reality, and almost haunts the imagination 
 with a sense of truth, the real characters and 
 events partake of the wildness of a dream. The 
 stately magician, Prospero, driven from his 
 dukedom, but around whom (so potent is his 
 art) airy spirits throng numberless to do his 
 
THE TEMPEST. 117 
 
 bidding; his daughter Miranda (" worthy of 
 that name") to whom all the power of his art 
 points, and who seems the goddess of the isle ; 
 the princely Ferdinand, cast by fate upon the 
 haven of his happiness in this idol of his love ; 
 the delicate Ariel; the savage Caliban, half brute, 
 half demon ; the drunken ship's crew — are all 
 connected parts of the story, and can hardly 
 be spared from the place they fill. Even the 
 local scenery is of a piece and character with 
 the subject. Prosperous enchanted island seems 
 to have risen up out of the sea ; the airy music, 
 the tempest-tost vessel, the turbulent waves, all 
 have the effect of the landscape back-ground of 
 some fine picture. Shakespear's pencil is (to use 
 an allusion of his own) " like the dyer's hand, 
 subdued to what it works in." Every thing in 
 him, though it partakes of " the liberty of wit," is 
 also subjected to " the law" of the understand- 
 ing. For instance, even the drunken sailors, who 
 are made reeling-ripe, share, in the disorder of 
 their minds and bodies, in the tumult of the 
 elements, and seem on shore to be as much at 
 the mercy of chance as they were before at the 
 mercy of the winds and waves. These fellows 
 with their sea-wit are the least to our taste of any 
 part of the play : but they are as like drunken 
 sailors as they can be, and are an indirect foil 
 to Caliban, whose figure acquires a classical 
 dignity in the comparison. 
 
118 THE TEMPEST. 
 
 The character of Caliban is generally thought 
 (and justly so) to be one of the author's master- 
 pieces. It is not indeed pleasant to see this cha- 
 racter on the stage any more than it is to see 
 the God Pan personated there. But in itself it 
 is one of the wildest and most abstracted of all 
 Shakespear's characters, whose deformity whe- 
 ther of body or mind is redeemed by the power 
 and truth of the imagination displayed in it. 
 It is the essence of grossness, but there is not 
 a particle of vulgarity in it. Shakespear has 
 described the brutal mind of Caliban in contact 
 with the pure and original forms of nature; the 
 character grows out of the soil where it is rooted 
 uncontrouled, uncouth and wild, uncramped by 
 any of the meannesses of custom. It is " of the 
 earth, earthy." It seems almost to have been 
 dug out of the ground, with a soul instinctively 
 superadded to it answering to its wants and 
 origin. Vulgarity is not natural coarseness, but 
 conventional coarseness, learnt from others, 
 contrary to, or without an entire conformity 
 of natural power and disposition ; as fash- 
 ion is the common-place affectation of what 
 is elegant and refined without any feeling of 
 the essence of it. Schlegel, the admirable 
 German critic on Shakespear, observes that 
 Caliban is a poetical character, and " always 
 speaks in blank verse." He first comes in 
 thus : 
 
THE TEMPEST. 119 
 
 %< Caliban. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd 
 With raven's feather from unwholesome fen, 
 Drop on you both : a south-west blow on ye, 
 And blister you all o'er ! 
 
 Prospero. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have 
 cramps, 
 Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up j urchins 
 Shall for that vast of night that they may work, 
 All exercise on thee : thou shalt be pinch'd 
 As thick as honey- combs, each pinch more stinging 
 Than bees that made 'em. 
 
 Caliban. I must eat my dinner. 
 This island's mine by Sycorax my mother, 
 Which thou tak'st from me. When thou earnest first, 
 Thou stroak'dst me,, and mad'st much of me j would' st 
 
 give me 
 Water with berries in't 5 and teach me how 
 To name the bigger light and how the less 
 That burn by day and night j and then 1 lov'd thee, 
 And shew'd thee all the qualities o' th' isle, 
 The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile : 
 Curs'd be I that I did so ! All the charms 
 Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you ! 
 For I am all the subjects that you have, 
 Who first was mine own king ; and here you sty me 
 In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me 
 The rest o' th' island. 
 
 And again, he promises Trinculo his services 
 thus, if he will free him from his drudgery. 
 
 " I'll shew thee the best springs j I'll pluck thee ber- 
 ries, 
 I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough. 
 I pr'ythee let me bring thee where crabs grow, 
 
120 THE TEMPEST. 
 
 And I with my long nails will dig thee pig -nuts : 
 Shew thee a jay's nest, and instruct thee how 
 To snare the nimble marmozet : I'll bring thee 
 To clust'ring filberds -, and sometimes I'll get thee 
 Young scamels from the rock." 
 
 In conducting Stephano and Trinculo to Pros- 
 perous cell, Caliban shews the superiority of 
 natural capacity over greater knowledge and 
 greater folly; and in a former scene, when Ariel 
 frightens them with his music, Caliban to en- 
 courage them accounts for it in the eloquent 
 poetry of the senses. 
 
 — " Be not afraid, the isle is full of noises, 
 
 Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. 
 
 Sometimes a thousand twanging instruments 
 
 Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices, 
 
 That if I then had waked after long sleep, 
 
 Would make me sleep again 5 and then in dreaming, 
 
 The clouds methought would open, and shew riches 
 
 Ready to drop upon me : when I wak'd 
 
 I cried to dream again." 
 
 This is not more beautiful than it is true. 
 The poet here shews us the savage with the 
 simplicity of a child, and makes the strange 
 monster amiable. Shakespear had to paint the 
 human animal rude and without choice in its 
 pleasures, but not without the sense of pleasure 
 or some germ of the affections. Master Bar- 
 nardine in Measure for Measure, the savage of 
 
THE TEMPEST. 121 
 
 civilized life, is an admirable philosophical coun- 
 terpart to Caliban. 
 
 Shakespear has, as it were by design, drawn 
 off from Caliban the elements of whatever is 
 ethereal and refined, to compound them in the 
 unearthly mould of Ariel. Nothing was ever 
 more finely conceived than this contrast be- 
 tween the material and the spiritual, the gross 
 and delicate. Ariel is imaginary power, the 
 swiftness of thought personified. When told 
 to make good speed by Prospero, he says, " I 
 drink the air before me." This is something 
 like Puck's boast on a similar occasion, " Pll 
 put a girdle round about the earth in forty mi- 
 nutes." But Ariel differs from Puck in having 
 a fellow feeling in the interests of those he is 
 employed about. How exquisite is the fol- 
 lowing dialogue between him and Prospero ! 
 
 " Ariel. Your charm so strongly works 'em, 
 That if you now beheld them, your affections 
 Would become tender. 
 
 Prospero. Dost thou think so, spirit? 
 
 Ariel. Mine would, sir, were I human. 
 
 Prospero. And mine shall. 
 Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling 
 Of their afflictions, and shall not myself, 
 One of their kind, that relish all as sharply, 
 Passion'd as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?" 
 
 It has been observed that there is a peculiar 
 charm in the songs introduced in Shakespear, 
 
U1 THE TEMPEST. 
 
 which, without conveying any distinct images, 
 seem to recall all the feelings connected with 
 them, like snatches of half-forgotten music heard 
 indistinctly and at intervals. There is this effect 
 produced by Ariel's songs, which (as we are told) 
 seem to sound in the air, and as if the person 
 playing them were invisible. We shall give one 
 instance out of many of this general power. 
 
 (C Enter Ferdinand ; and Ariel invisible, playing and 
 singing. 
 
 ARIEL'S SONG. 
 Come unto these yellow sands, 
 And then take hands j 
 Curt'sied when you have, and kiss'd, 
 (The wild waves whist j) 
 Foot it featly here and there -, 
 And sweet sprites the burden bear. 
 
 [Burden dispersedly. 
 
 Hark, hark! bowgh-wowgh: the watch-dogs 
 Bowgh-wowgh. [bark, 
 
 Ariel. Hark, hark ! I hear 
 
 The strain of strutting chanticleer 
 Cry cock-a-doodle-doo. 
 
 Ferdinand. Where should this music be? in air or earth ? 
 It sounds no more : and sure it waits upon 
 Some god o' th' island. Sitting on a bank 
 Weeping against the king my father's wreck, 
 This music crept by me upon the waters, 
 Allaying both their fury and my passion 
 With its sweet air j thence I have follow'd it, 
 
THE TEMPEST, 123 
 
 Or it hath drawn me rather :— but 'tis gone. — 
 No, it begins again. 
 
 ARIEL'S SONG. 
 Full fathom five thy father lies, 
 
 Of his bones are coral made : 
 Those are pearls that were his eyes, 
 
 Nothing of him that doth fade, 
 But doth suffer a sea change, 
 Into something rich and strange. 
 Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell — 
 Hark ! now I hear them, ding-dong bell. 
 
 [Burden ding-dong. 
 
 Ferdinand. The ditty does remember my drown'd father. 
 This is no mortal business, nor no sound 
 That the-earth owns : I hear it now above me." — 
 
 The courtship between Ferdinand and Mi- 
 randa is one of the chief beauties of this play. 
 It is the very purity of love. The pretended 
 interference of Prospero with it heightens its in- 
 terest, and is in character with the magician, 
 whose sense of preternatural power makes him 
 arbitrary, tetchy, and impatient of opposition. 
 
 The Tempest is a finer play than the Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream, which has sometimes 
 been compared with it ; but it is not so fine a 
 poem. There are a greater number of beautiful 
 passages in the latter. Two of the mosr striking 
 in the Tempest are spoken by Prospero. The 
 one is that admirable one when the vision which 
 he has conjured up disappears, beginning " The 
 
124 THE TEMPEST. 
 
 cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces," Sec, 
 which has been so often quoted, that every 
 school-boy knows it by heart ; the other is that 
 which Prospero makes in abjuring his art. 
 
 ct Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves, 
 And ye that on the sands with printless foot 
 Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him 
 When he comes back ; you demi-puppets, that 
 By moon-shine do the green sour ringlets make, 
 Whereof the ewe not bites ; and you whose pastime 
 Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice 
 To hear the solemn curfew, by whose aid 
 (Weak masters tho' ye be) I have be-dimm'd 
 The noon-tide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds, 
 And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault 
 Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder 
 Have I giv'n fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak 
 With his own bolt ; the strong-bas'd promontory 
 Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck' d up 
 The pine and cedar ; graves at my command 
 Have wak'd their sleepers ; op'd, and let 'em forth 
 By my so potent art. But this rough magic 
 I here abjure ; and when I have requir'd 
 Some heav'nly music, which ev'n now I do, 
 (To work mine end upon their senses that 
 This airy charm is for) I'll break my staff, 
 Bury it certain fadoms in the earth, 
 And deeper than did ever plummet sound, 
 I'll drown my book." — 
 
 We must not forget to mention among other 
 things in this play, that Shakespear has antici- 
 
THE TEMPEST. 125 
 
 pated nearly all the arguments on the Utopian 
 schemes of modern philosophy. 
 
 " Gonzalo. Had I the plantation of this isle, my lord — 
 
 Antonio. He'd sow't with nettle-seed. 
 
 Sebastian. Or docks or mallows. 
 
 Gonzalo. And were the king on't, what would I do ? 
 
 Sebastian. 'Scape being drunk, for want of wine. 
 
 Gonzalo. T th' commonwealth I would by contraries 
 Execute all things : for no kind of traffic 
 Would I admit ; no name of magistrate j 
 Letters should not be known j wealth, poverty, 
 And use of service, none ; contract, succession, 
 Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; 
 No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil ; 
 No occupation, all men idle, all, 
 And women too ; but innocent and pure : 
 No sov'reignty. 
 
 Sebastian. And yet he would be king on't. 
 
 Antonio. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets 
 the beginning. 
 
 Gonzalo. All things in common nature should produce 
 Without sweat or endeavour. Treason, felony, 
 Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine 
 Would I not have ; but nature should bring forth, 
 Of its own kind, all foizon, all abundance 
 To feed my innocent people ! 
 
 Sebastian. No marrying 'mong his subjects? 
 
 Antonio. None, man; all idle; whores and knaves. 
 Gonzalo. I would with such perfection govern, sir, 
 T' excel the golden age. 
 
 Sebastian. Save his majesty !" 
 
THE 
 
 MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM. 
 
 Bottom the Weaver is a character that has 
 not had justice done him. He is the most ro- 
 mantic of mechanics. And what a list of com- 
 panions he has — Quince the Carpenter, Snug 
 the Joiner, Flute the Bellows-mender, Snout 
 the Tinker, Starveling the Tailor; and then 
 again, what a group of fairy attendants, Puck, 
 Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustard- 
 seed ! It has been observed that Shakespear's 
 characters are constructed upon deep physiolo- 
 gical principles ; and there is something in this 
 play which looks very like it. Bottom the 
 Weaver, who takes the lead of 
 
 " This crew of patches, rude mechanicals, 
 That work for bread upon Athenian stalls/' 
 
MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 12? 
 
 follows a sedentary trade, and he is accordingly 
 represented as conceited, serious, and fantasti- 
 cal. He is ready to undertake any thing and 
 every thing, as if it was as much a matter of 
 course as the motion of his loom and shuttle. 
 He is for playing the tyrant, the lover, the 
 lady, the lion. " He will roar that it shall do 
 any man's heart good to hear him ;" and this 
 being objected to as improper, he still has a 
 resource in his good opinion of himself, and 
 " will roar you an 'twere any nightingale." 
 Snug the Joiner is the moral man of the piece, 
 who proceeds by measurement and discretion in 
 all things. You see him with his rule and com- 
 passes in his hand. " Have you the lion's part 
 written ? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I 
 am slow of study." — " You may do it extem- 
 pore," says Quince, " for it is nothing but roar- 
 ing." Starveling the Tailor keeps the peace, 
 and objects to the lion and the drawn sword. 
 " I believe we must leave the killing out when 
 all's done." Starveling, however, does not start 
 the objections himself, but seconds them when 
 made by others, as if he had not spirit to ex- 
 press his fears without encouragement. It is 
 too much to suppose all this intentional : but 
 it very luckily falls out so. Nature includes 
 all that is implied in the most subtle analyti- 
 cal distinctions ; and the same distinctions will 
 be found in Shakespear. Bottom, who is not 
 
12S MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 
 
 only chief actor, but stage -manager for the 
 occasion, has a device to obviate the danger of 
 frightening the ladies : " Write me a prologue, 
 and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no 
 harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not 
 killed indeed ; and for better assurance, tell 
 them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but 
 Bottom the Weaver : this will put them out of 
 fear." Bottom seems to have understood the 
 subject of dramatic illusion at least as well as 
 any modern essayist. If our holiday mechanic 
 rules the roast among his fellows, he is no less 
 at home in his new character of an ass, " with 
 amiable cheeks, and fair large ears." He in- 
 stinctively acquires a most learned taste, and 
 grows fastidious in the choice of dried peas and 
 bottled hay. He is quite familiar with his new 
 attendants, and assigns them their parts with 
 all due gravity. " Monsieur Cobweb, good 
 Monsieur, get your weapon in your hand, and 
 kill me a red-hipt humble-bee on the top of a 
 thistle, and, good Monsieur, bring me the ho- 
 ney-bag." What an exact knowledge is here 
 shewn of natural history ! 
 
 Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, is the leader of 
 the fairy band. He is the Ariel of the Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream; and yet as unlike 
 as can be to the Ariel in The Tempest. No 
 other poet could have made two such different 
 characters out of the same fanciful materials 
 
MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM. 129 
 
 and situations. Ariel is a minister of retribu- 
 tion, who is touched with a sense of pity at 
 the woes he inflicts. Puck is a mad-cap sprite, 
 full of wantonness and mischief, who laughs at 
 those whom he misleads — " Lord, what fools 
 these mortals be!" Ariel cleaves the air, and 
 executes his mission with the zeal of a winged 
 messenger ; Puck is borne along on his fairy 
 errand like the light and glittering gossamer 
 before the breeze. He is, indeed, a most Epi- 
 curean little gentleman, dealing in quaint de- 
 vices, and faring in dainty delights. Prospero 
 and his world of spirits are a set of moralists : 
 but with Oberon and his fairies we are launched 
 at once into the empire of the butterflies. How 
 beautifully is this race of beings contrasted with 
 the men and women actors in the scene, by a 
 single epithet which Titania gives to the latter, 
 " the human mortals !" It is astonishing that 
 Shakespear should be considered, not only by 
 foreigners., but by m;iny of our own critics, as 
 a gloomy and heavy writer, who painted no- 
 thing but " gorgons and hydras, and chimeras 
 dire." His subtlety exceeds that of all other 
 dramatic writers, insomuch that a celebrated 
 person of the present day said that he regarded 
 him rather as a metaphysician than a poet. His 
 delicacy and sportive gaiety are infinite. In 
 the Midsummer Night's Dream alone, we 
 should imagine, there is more sweetness and 
 
 K 
 
130 MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S BREAM. 
 
 beauty of description than in the whole range 
 of French poetry put together. What we mean 
 is this, that we will produce out of that single 
 play ten passages, to which we do not think any 
 ten passages in the works of the French poets can 
 be opposed, displaying equal fancy and imagery. 
 Shall we mention the remonstrance of Helena 
 to Hermia, or Titania's description of her fairy 
 train, or her disputes with Oberon about the 
 Indian boy, or Puck's account of himself and 
 his employments, or the Fairy Queen's exhor- 
 tation to the elves to pay due attendance upon 
 her favourite, Bottom ; or Hippolita's descrip- 
 tion of a chace, or Theseus's answer ? The 
 two last are as heroical and spirited as the 
 others are full of luscious tenderness. .The 
 reading of this play is like wandering in a grove 
 by moonlight : the descriptions breathe a sweet- 
 ness like odours thrown from beds of flowers. 
 
 Titania's exhortation to the fairies to wait upon 
 Bottom, which is remarkable for a certain cloy- 
 ing sweetness in the repetition of the rhymes,, 
 is as follows : — 
 
 " Be kind and courteous to this gentleman. 
 Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes, 
 Feed him with apricocks and dewberries, 
 With purple grapes, green figs and mulberries 5 
 The honey-bags steel from the humble bees, 
 And for night tapers crop their waxen thighs, 
 And Kght them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes.. 
 
MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM. 131 
 
 To have my love to bed, and to arise : 
 And pluck the wings from painted butterflies., 
 To fan the moon -beams from his sleeping eyes ; 
 Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies." 
 
 The sounds of the lute and of the trumpet 
 are not more distinct than the poetry of the 
 foregoing passage, and of the conversation be- 
 tween Theseus and Hippolita. 
 
 " Theseus. Go, one of you, find out the forester, 
 For now our observation is perform' d ; 
 And since we have the vaward of the day, 
 My love shall hear the music of my hounds. 
 Uncouple in the western valley, go, 
 Dispatch, I say, and find the forester. 
 We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain's top, 
 And mark the musical confusion 
 Of hounds and echo in conjunction. 
 
 Hippolita. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once., 
 When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear 
 With hounds of Sparta ; never did I hear 
 Such gallant chiding. For besides the groves, 
 The skies, the fountains, every region near 
 Seem'd all one mutual cry. I never heard 
 So musical a discord, such sweet thunder. 
 
 Theseus. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, 
 So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung 
 With ears that sweep away the morning dew ; 
 Crook-knee' d and dew-lap'd, like Thessalian bulls, 
 Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells, 
 Each under each. A cry more tuneable 
 Was never halloo'd to, nor cheer'd with horn, 
 In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly : 
 Judge when you hear." — 
 
132 MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM. 
 
 Even Titian never made a hunting- piece of a 
 gusto so fresh and lusty, and so near the first 
 ages of the world as this. — 
 
 It had been suggested to us, that the Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream would do admirably 
 to get up as a Christmas after-piece ; and our 
 prompter proposed that Mr. Kean should play 
 the part of Bottom, as worthy of his great ta- 
 lents. He might, in the discharge of his duty, 
 offer to play the lady like any of our actresses 
 that he pleased, the lover or the tyrant like any 
 of our actors that he pleased, and the lion like 
 " the most fearful wild-fowl living." The car- 
 penter, the tailor, and joiner, it was thought, 
 would hit the galleries. The young ladies in 
 love would interest the side-boxes ; and Robin 
 Goodfellow and his companions excite a lively 
 fellow-feeling in the children from school. 
 There would be two courts, an empire within 
 an empire, the Athenian and the Fairy King 
 and Queen, with their attendants, and with 
 all their finery. What an opportunity for pro- 
 cessions, for the sound of trumpets and glitter- 
 ing of spears! What a fluttering of urchins 5 
 painted wings; what a delightful profusion of 
 gauze clouds and airy spirits floating on them! 
 
 Alas, the experiment has been tried, and has 
 failed ; not through the fault of Mr. Kean, who 
 did not play the part of Bottom, nor of Mr. 
 
U . ' MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 133 
 
 Liston, who did, and who played it well, but 
 from the nature of things. 'The Midsummer 
 Night's Dream, when acted, is converted 
 from a delightful fiction into a dull pantomime. 
 All that is finest in the play is lost in the repre- 
 sentation. The spectacle was grand ; but the 
 spirit was evaporated, the genius was fled. — 
 Poetry and the stage do not agree well together. 
 The attempt to reconcile them in this instance 
 fails not only of effect, but of decorum. The 
 ideal can have no place upon the stage, which is 
 a picture without perspective : every thing there 
 is in the fore-ground. That which was merely 
 an airy shape, a dream, a passing thought, 
 immediately becomes an unmanageable reality. 
 Where all is left to the imagination (as is the 
 case in reading) every circumstance, near or 
 remote, has an equal chance of being kept in 
 mind, and tells according to the mixed impres- 
 sion of all that has been suggested. But the 
 imagination cannot sufficiently qualify the actual 
 impressions of the senses. Any offence given 
 to the eye is not to be got rid of by explanation. 
 Thus Bottom's head in the play is a fantastic 
 illusion, produced by magic spells: on the stage, 
 it is an ass's head, and nothing more; certainly 
 a very strange costume for a gentleman to ap- 
 pear in. Fancy cannot be embodied any more 
 than a simile can be painted; and it is as idle 
 to attempt it as to personate Wall or Moonshine. 
 
134 MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 
 
 Fairies are not incredible, but fairies six feet 
 high are so. Monsters are not shocking, if they 
 are seen at a proper distance. When ghosts 
 appear at mid-day, when apparitions stalk along 
 Cheapside, then may the Midsummer Night's 
 Dream be represented without injury at Co- 
 vent-garden or at Drury-lane. The boards of a 
 theatre and the regions of fancy are not the 
 same thing. 
 
ROMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 rtOMEO and Juliet is the only tragedy which 
 Shakespear has written entirely on a love-story. 
 It is supposed to have been his first play, and 
 it deserves to stand in that proud rank. There 
 is the buoyant spirit of youth in every, line, in 
 the rapturous intoxication of hope, and in the 
 bitterness of despair. It has been said of Romeo 
 and Juliet by a great critic, that " whatever 
 is most intoxicating in the odour of a southern 
 spring, languishing in the song of the nightin- 
 gale, or voluptuous in the first opening of the 
 rose, is to be found in this poem." The descrip- 
 tion is true ; and yet it does not answer to our 
 idea of the play. For if it has the sweetness of 
 the rose, it has its freshness too; if it has the 
 languor of the nightingale's song, it has also its 
 giddy transport ; if it has the softness of a south- 
 
136 ROMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 ern spring, it is as glowing and as bright. There 
 is nothing of a sickly and sentimental cast. 
 Romeo and Juliet are in love, but they are not 
 Jove-sick. Every thing speaks the very soul 
 of pleasure, the high and healthy pulse of the 
 passions: the heartbeats, the blood circulates 
 and mantles throughout. Their courtship is not 
 an insipid interchange of sentiments lip-deep, 
 learnt at second-hand from poems and plays, — 
 made up of beauties of the most shadowy kind, 
 of " fancies wan that hang the pensive head/' 
 of evanescent smiles and sighs that breathe not, 
 of delicacy that shrinks from the touch and fee- 
 bleness that scarce supports itself, an elaborate 
 vacuity of thought, and an artificial dearth of 
 sense, spirit, truth, and nature'. It is the re- 
 verse of all this. It is Shakespear all over, and 
 Shakespear when he was young. 
 
 We have heard it objected to Romeo and 
 Juliet, that it is founded on an idle passion 
 between a boy and a girl, who have scarcely 
 seen and can have but little sympathy or ra- 
 tional esteem for one another, who have had no 
 experience of the good or ills of life, and whose 
 raptures or despair must be therefore equallv 
 groundless and fantastical. Whoever objects to 
 the youth of the parties in this play as " too 
 unripe and crude" to pluck the sweets of love, 
 and wishes to see a first-love carried on into a 
 
ROMEO AND JULIET. 137 
 
 good old age, and the passions taken at the 
 rebound, when their force is spent, may find 
 all this done in the Stranger and in other Ger- 
 man plays, where they do things by contraries, 
 and transpose nature to inspire sentiment and 
 create philosophy. Shakespear proceeded in a 
 more strait-forward, and, we think, effectual way. 
 He did not endeavour to extract beauty from 
 wrinkles, or the wild throb of passion from the 
 last expiring sigh of indifference. He did not 
 " gather grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles/' 
 It was not his way. But he has given a picture 
 of human life, such as it is in the order of nature. 
 He has founded the passion of the two lovers 
 not on the pleasures they had experienced, but 
 on all the pleasures they had not experienced. 
 All that was to come of life was theirs. At 
 that untried source of promised happiness they 
 slaked their thirst, and the first eager draught 
 made them drunk with love and joy. They 
 w r ere in full possession of their senses and 
 their affections. Their hopes were of air, their 
 desires of fire. Youth is the season of love, 
 because the heart is then first melted in ten- 
 derness from the touch of novelty, and kindled 
 to rapture, for it knows no end of its enjoyments 
 or its wishes. Desire has no limit but itself. 
 Passion, the love and expectation of pleasure, 
 is infinite, extravagant, inexhaustible, till ex- 
 
138 ROMEO ANB JULIET. 
 
 perience comes to check and kill it. Juliet 
 exclaims on her first interview with Romeo — 
 
 cc My bounty is as boundless as the sea, 
 My love as deep." 
 
 And why should it not? What was to hinder 
 the thrilling tide of pleasure, which had just 
 gushed from her heart, from flowing on without 
 stint or measure, but experience which she was 
 yet without ? What was to abate the transport 
 of the first sweet sense of pleasure, which her 
 heart and her senses had just tasted, but indif- 
 ference which she was yet a stranger to? What 
 was there to check the ardour of hope, of faith, 
 of constancy, just rising in her breast, but dis- 
 appointment which she had not yet felt ? As 
 are the desires and the hopes of youthful pas- 
 sion, such is the keenness of its disappoint- 
 ments, and their baleful effect. Such is the 
 transition in this play from the highest bliss to 
 the lowest despair, from the nuptial couch to an 
 untimely grave. The only evil that even in ap- 
 prehension befalls the two lovers is the loss of the 
 greatest possible felicity ; yet this loss is fatal 
 to both, for they had rather part with life than 
 bear the thought of surviving all that had made 
 life dear to them. In all this, Shakespear has but 
 followed nature, which existed in his time, as 
 well as now. The modern philosophy, which 
 
ROMEO AND JULIET. 139 
 
 reduces the whole theory of the mind to habi- 
 tual impressions, and leaves the natural impulses 
 of passion and imagination out of the account, 
 had not then been discovered ; or if it had, 
 would have been little calculated for the uses of 
 poetry. 
 
 It is the inadequacy of the same false system 
 of philosophy to account for the strength of our 
 earliest attachments, which has led Mr. Words- 
 worth to indulge in the mystical visions of Pla- 
 tonism in his Ode on the Progress of Life. He 
 has very admirably described the vividness of 
 our impressions in youth and childhood, and how 
 " they fade by degrees into the light of common 
 day," and he ascribes the change to the supposi- 
 tion of a pre-existent state, as if our early thoughts 
 were nearer heaven, reflections of former trails of 
 glory, shadows of our past being. This is idle. 
 It is not from the knowledge of the past that the 
 first impressions of things derive their gloss and 
 splendour, but from our ignorance of the future, 
 which fills the void to come with the warmth of 
 our desires, with our gayest hopes, and brightest 
 fancies. It is the obscurity spread before it that 
 colours the prospect of life with hope, as it is 
 the cloud which reflects the rainbow. There is 
 no occasion to resort to any mystical union and 
 transmission of feeling through different states 
 of being to account for the romantic enthusiasm 
 of youth ; nor to plant the root of hope in the 
 
140 ROMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 grave, nor to derive it from the skies. Its root 
 is in the heart of man : it lifts its head above 
 the stars. Desire and imagination are inmates 
 of the human breast. The heaven " that lies 
 about us in our infancy" is only a new world, of 
 which we know nothing but what we wish it to 
 be, and believe all that we wish. In youth and 
 boyhood, the world we live in is the world of de- 
 sire, and of fancy: it is experience that brings 
 us down to the world of reality. What is it that 
 in youth sheds a dewy light round the evening 
 star ? That makes the daisy look so bright ? 
 That perfumes the hyacinth ? That embalms 
 the first kiss of love? It is the delight of no- 
 velty, and the seeing no end to the pleasure that 
 we fondly believe is still in store for us. The 
 heart revels in the luxury of its own thoughts, 
 and is unable to sustain the weight of hope and 
 love that presses upon it. — The effects of the 
 passion of love alone might have dissipated Mr. 
 Wordsworth's theory, if he means any thing more 
 by it than an ingenious and poetical allegory. 
 That at least is not a link in the chain let down 
 from other worlds ; " the purple light of love" 
 is not a dim reflection of the smiles of celestial 
 bliss. It does not appear till the middle of life, 
 and then seems like " another morn risen on 
 mid-day." In this respect the soul comes into 
 the world " in utter nakedness." Love waits 
 for the ripening of the youthful blood. The 
 
ROMEO AND JULIET. 141 
 
 sense of pleasure precedes the love of pleasure, 
 but with the sense of pleasure, as soon as it is 
 felt, come thronging infinite desires and hopes 
 of pleasure, and love is mature as soon as born. 
 It withers and it dies almost as soon ! 
 
 This play presents a beautiful coup-d'ceil of 
 the progress of human life. In thought it occu- 
 pies years, and embraces the circle of the affec- 
 tions from childhood to old age. Juliet has 
 become a great girl, a young woman since we 
 first remember her a little thing in the idle prat- 
 tle of the nurse, Lady Capulet was about her 
 age when she became a mother, and old Capulet 
 somewhat impatiently tells his younger visitors, 
 
 * I've seen the day, 
 
 That I have worn a visor, and could tell 
 
 A whispering tale in a fair lady's ear, 
 
 Such as would please : 'tis gone,, 'tis gone, 'tis gone." 
 
 Thus one period of life makes way for the fol- 
 lowing, and one generation pushes another off 
 the stage. One of the most striking passages to 
 shew the intense feeling of youth in this play is 
 Capulet's invitation to Paris to visit his enter- 
 tainment. 
 
 " At my poor house, look to behold this night 
 Earth- treading stars that make dark heav'n light j 
 Such comfort as do lusty young men feel 
 When well-apparel'd April on the heel 
 
142 ROMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 Of limping winter treads, even such delight 
 Among fresh female-buds shall you this night 
 Inherit at my house." 
 
 The feelings of youth and of the spring are 
 here blended together like the breath of opening 
 flowers. Images of vernal beauty appear to have 
 floated before the author's mind, in writing this 
 poem, in profusion. Here is another of exqui- 
 site beauty, brought in more by accident than 
 by necessity. Montague declares of his son 
 smit with a hopeless passion, which he will not 
 reveal — 
 
 <c But he, his own affection's counsellor, 
 Is to himself so secret and so close, 
 So far from sounding and discovery, 
 As is the bud bit with an envious worm, 
 Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air, 
 Or dedicate his beauty to the sun." 
 
 This casual description is as full of passionate 
 beauty as when Romeo dwells in frantic fond- 
 ness on " the white wonder of his Juliet's hand." 
 The reader may, if he pleases, contrast the ex- 
 quisite pastoral simplicity of the above lines with 
 the gorgeous description of Juliet when Romeo 
 first sees her at her father's house, surrounded 
 by company and artificial splendour. 
 
 " What lady's that which doth enrich the hand 
 Of yonder knight } 
 
ROMEO AND JULIET. 143 
 
 O she doth teach the torches to burn bright 5 
 Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night, 
 Like a rich jewel in an ^Ethiop's ear." 
 
 It would be hard to say which of the two 
 garden scenes is the finest, that where he first 
 converses with his love, or takes leave of her 
 the morning after their marriage. Both are like 
 a heaven upon earth : the blissful bowers of 
 Paradise let down upon this lower world. We 
 will give only one passage of these well known 
 scenes to shew the perfect refinement and de- 
 licacy of Shakespear's conception of the female 
 character. It is wonderful how Collins, who 
 was a critic and a poet of great sensibility, should 
 have encouraged the common error on this sub- 
 ject by saying — " But stronger Shakespear felt 
 for man alone." 
 
 The passage we mean is Juliet's apology for 
 her maiden boldness. 
 
 " Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face 5 
 Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek 
 For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night. 
 Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny 
 What I have spoke — but farewel compliment : 
 Dost thou love me 3 I know thou wilt say, ay, 
 And I will take thee at thy word — Yet if thou swear'st, 
 Thou may'st prove false ; at lovers' perjuries 
 They say Jove laughs. Oh gentle Romeo, 
 If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully 3 
 Or if thou think 1 am too quickly won., 
 I'll frown and be perverse, and say thee nay, 
 
144 ROMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 So thou wilt woo : but else not for the world. 
 In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond ; 
 And therefore thou may'st think my 'haviour light 5 
 But trust me, gentleman, I'll piove more true 
 Than those that have more cunning to be strange, 
 I should have been more strange, I must confess, 
 But that thou over-heard'st, ere I was ware, 
 My true love's passion ; therefore pardon me, 
 And not impute this yielding to light love, 
 Which the dark night hath so discovered." 
 
 In this and all the rest her heart fluttering be- 
 tween pleasure, hope, and fear, seems to have 
 dictated to her tongue, and " calls true 'love 
 spoken simple modesty." Of\the same sort, but 
 bolder in virgin innocence, is her soliloquy after 
 her marriage with Romeo, 
 
 " Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, 
 Towards Phoebus' mansion 5 such a waggoner 
 As Phaeton would whip you to the west, 
 And bring in cloudy night immediately. 
 Spread thy close curtain, love- performing night 5 
 That run-aways' eyes may wink j and Romeo 
 
 Leap to these arms, untalked of, and unseen ! 
 
 Lovers can see to do their amorous rites 
 By their own beauties : or if love be blind, 
 It best agrees with night. — Come, civil night, 
 Thou sober-suited matron, all in black, 
 v And learn me how to lose a winning match, 
 Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods : 
 Hood my unmann'd blood bating in my cheeks, 
 With thy black mantle j till strange love, grown bold, 
 Thinks true love acted, simple modesty. 
 Come night ! — Come, Romeo ! come, thou day in night ; 
 
ROMEO AND JULIET. 145 
 
 For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night 
 Whiter than new snow on a raven's back. 
 
 Come, gentle night -, come, loving, black-brow'd night, 
 Give me my Romeo : and when he shall die, 
 Take him and cut him out in little stars, 
 And he will make the face of heaven so fine, 
 That all the world shall be in love with night, 
 
 And pay no worship to the garish sun. 
 
 O, I have bought the mansion of a love, 
 But not possess'd it ; and though I am sold, 
 Not yet enjoy'd : so tedious is this day, 
 As is the night before some festival 
 To an impatient child, that hath new robes, 
 And may not wear them." 
 
 We the rather insert this passage here, inas- 
 much as we have no doubt it has been expunged 
 from the Family Shakespear. Such critics do 
 not perceive that the feelings of the heart sanc- 
 tify, without disguising, the impulses of nature. 
 Without refinement themselves, they confound 
 modesty with hypocrisy. Not so the German 
 critic, Schlegel. Speaking of Romeo and Ju- 
 liet, he says, " It was reserved for Shakespear 
 to unite purity of heart and the glow of imagina- 
 tion, sweetness and dignity of manners and pas- 
 sionate violence, in one ideal picture." The 
 character is indeed one of perfect truth and 
 sweetness. It has nothing forward, nothing coy, 
 nothing affected or coquettish about it ; — it is a 
 pure effusion of nature. It is as frank as it is 
 
 L 
 
146 ROMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 modest, for it has no thought that it wishes to 
 conceal. It reposes in conscious innocence on 
 the strength of its affections. Its delicacy does 
 not consist in coldness and reserve, but in com- 
 bining warmth of imagination and tenderness of 
 heart with the most voluptuous sensibility. 
 Love is a gentle flame that rarefies and expands 
 her whole being. What an idea of trembling 
 haste and airy grace, borne upon the thoughts of 
 love, does the Friar's exclamation give of her, 
 as she approaches his cell to be married — 
 
 " Here comes the lady. Oh, so light of foot 
 Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint : 
 A lover may bestride the gossamer, 
 That idles in the wanton summer air, 
 And yet not fall, so light is vanity." 
 
 The tragic part of this character is of a piece 
 with the rest. It is the heroic founded on ten- 
 derness and delicacy. Of this kind are her reso- 
 lution to follow the Friar's advice, and the con- 
 flict in her bosom between apprehension and 
 love when she comes to take the sleeping poison. 
 Shakespear is blamed for the mixture of low 
 characters. If this is a deformity, it is the source 
 of a thousand beauties. One instance is the 
 contrast between the guileless simplicity of Ju- 
 liet's attachment to her first love, and the conve- 
 nient policy of the nurse in advising her to marry 
 Paris, which excites such indignation in her 
 
ROMEO AND JULIET. 147 
 
 mistress. " Ancient damnation ! oh most wicked 
 fiend," &c. 
 
 Romeo is Hamlet in love. There is the same 
 rich exuberance of passion and sentiment in the 
 one, that there is of thought and sentiment in 
 the other. Both are absent and self-involved, 
 both live out of themselves in a world of imagi- 
 nation. Hamlet is abstracted from every thing ; 
 Romeo is abstracted from every thing but his 
 love, and lost in it. His " frail thoughts dally 
 with faint surmise," and are fashioned out of the 
 suggestions of hope, " the flatteries of sleep." 
 He is himself only in his Juliet; she is his only 
 reality, his heart's true home and idol. The 
 rest of the world is to him a passing dream. 
 How finely is this character pourtrayed where 
 he recollects himself on seeing Paris slain at the 
 tomb of Juliet! 
 
 tc What said my man when my betossed soul 
 Did not attend him as we rode ? I think 
 He told me Paris should have married Juliet.** 
 
 And again, just before he hears the sudden tid- 
 ings of her death — 
 
 " If I may trust the flattery of sleep, 
 My dreams presage some joyful news at hand 3 
 My bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne, 
 And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit 
 Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts, 
 I dreamt my lady came and found me dead, 
 
148 ROMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 (Strange dream ! that gives a dead man leave to think) 
 
 And breath'd such life with kisses on my lips, 
 
 That I reviv'd and was an emperour. 
 
 Ah me ! how sweet is love itself possess'd, 
 
 When but love's shadows are so rich in joy !" 
 
 Romeo's passion for Juliet is not a first love : 
 it succeeds and drives oift his passion for another 
 mistress, Rosaline, as the sun hides the stars. 
 This is perhaps an artifice (not absolutely neces- 
 sary) to give us a higher opinion of the lady, 
 while the first absolute surrender of her heart to 
 him enhances the richness of the prize. The 
 commencement, progress, and ending of his se- 
 cond passion are however complete in them- 
 selves, not injured, if they are not bettered by 
 the first. The outline of the play is taken from 
 an Italian novel ; but the dramatic arrangement 
 of the different scenes between the lovers, the 
 more than dramatic interest in the progress of 
 the story, the developement of the characters 
 with time and circumstances, just according to 
 the degree and kind of interest excited, are not 
 inferior to the expression of passion and nature. 
 It has been ingeniously remarked among other 
 proofs of skill in the contrivance of the fable, 
 that the improbability of the main incident in 
 the piece, the administering of the sleeping-po- 
 tion, is softened and obviated from the beginning 
 by the introduction of the Friar on his first ap- 
 pearance culling simples and descanting on their 
 
ROMEO AND JULIET. 149 
 
 virtues. Of the passionate scenes in this tra- 
 gedy, that between the Friar and Romeo when 
 he is told of his sentence of banishment, that 
 between Juliet and the Nurse when she hears of 
 it, and of the death of her cousin Tybalt (which 
 bear no proportion in her mind, when passion 
 after the first shock of surprise throws its weight 
 into the scale of her affections) and the last 
 scene at the tomb, are among the most natural 
 and overpowering. In all of these it is not 
 merely the force of any one passion that is given, 
 but the slightest and most unlooked-for transi- 
 tions from one to another, the mingling currents 
 of every different feeling rising up and prevailing 
 in turn, swayed by the master-mind of the poet, 
 as the waves undulate beneath the gliding storm. 
 Thus when Juliet has by her complaints encou- 
 raged the Nurse to say, " Shame come to Ro- 
 meo," she instantly repels the wish, which she 
 had herself occasioned, by answering — 
 
 " Blister' d be thy tongue 
 For such a wish, he was not born to shame. 
 Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit, 
 For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd 
 Sole monarch of the universal earth ! 
 O, what a beast was I to chide him so ? 
 
 Nurse. Will you speak well of him that kill'd your 
 cousin ? 
 
 Juliet. Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband ? 
 Ah my poor lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, 
 When I, thy three-hours' wife, have mangled it?" 
 
150 ROMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 And then follows on the neck of her remorse 
 and returning fondness, that wish treading al- 
 most on the brink of impiety, but still held back 
 by the strength of her devotion to her lord, 
 that " father, mother, nay, or both were dead," 
 rather than Romeo banished. If she requires 
 any other excuse, it is in the manner in which 
 Romeo echoes her frantic grief and disappoint- 
 ment in the next scene at being banished from 
 her. — Perhaps one of the finest pieces of acting 
 that ever was witnessed on the stage, is Mr. 
 Kean's manner of doing this scene and his repe- 
 tition of the word, Banished. He treads close 
 indeed upon the genius of his author. 
 
 A passage which this celebrated actor and 
 able commentator on Shakespear (actors are the 
 best commentators on the poets) did not give 
 with equal truth or force of feeling was the one 
 which Romeo makes at the tomb of Juliet, be- 
 fore he drinks the poison. 
 
 " Let me peruse this face — 
 
 Mercutio's kinsman ! noble county Paris ! 
 What said my man, when my betossed soul 
 Did not attend him as we rode ! I think, 
 He told me, Paris should have marry 'd Juliet ! 
 Said he not so ? or did I dream it so ? 
 Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet, 
 
 To think it was so ? O, give me thy hand, 
 
 One writ with me in sour misfortune's book ! 
 
 I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave 
 
 For here lies Juliet. 
 
ROMEO AND JULIET. 151 
 
 ****** 
 — O, my love ! my wife ! 
 
 Death that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath, 
 Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty : 
 Thou art not conquer' d ; beauty's ensign yet 
 Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks, 
 
 And Death's pale flag is not advanced there. 
 
 Tybalt, ly'st thou there in thy bloody sheet ? 
 
 O, what more favour can I do to thee, 
 
 Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain, 
 
 To sunder his that was thine enemy ? 
 
 Forgive me, cousin ! Ah, dear Juliet, 
 
 Why art thou yet so fair ! I will believe 
 
 That unsubstantial death is amorous ; 
 
 And that the lean abhorred monster keeps 
 
 Thee here in dark to be his paramour. 
 
 For fear of that, I will stay still with thee j 
 
 And never from this palace of dim night 
 
 Depart again : here, here will I remain 
 
 With worms that are thy chamber-maids ; O, here 
 
 Will I set up my everlasting rest ; 
 
 And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars 
 
 From this world-wearied flesh. — Eyes, look your last ! 
 
 Arms, take your last embrace ! and lips, O you 
 
 The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss 
 
 A dateless bargain to engrossing death ! 
 
 Come, bitter conduet, come unsavoury guide ! 
 Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on 
 The dashing rocks my sea-sick weary bark ! 
 Here's to my love ! — [Drinks.] O, true apothecary ! 
 Thy drugs are quick. — Thus with a kiss I die. 
 
 The lines in this speech describing the love- 
 liness of Juliet, who is supposed to be dead, 
 have been compared to those in which it is said 
 
152 ROMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 of Cleopatra after her death, that she looked 
 " as she would take another Antony in her 
 strong toil of grace ;" and a question has been 
 started which is the finest, that we do not pre- 
 tend to decide. We can more easily decide 
 between Shakespear and any other author, than 
 between him and himself. — Shall we quote any 
 more passages to shew his genius or the beauty 
 of Romeo and Juliet ? At that rate, we 
 might quote the whole. The late Mr. Sheri- 
 dan, on being shewn a volume of the Beauties of 
 Shakespear, very properly asked — " But where 
 are the other eleven ?" The character of Mer- 
 cutio in this play is one of the most mercurial 
 and spirited of the productions of Shakespear^ 
 comic muse. 
 
LEAR 
 
 We wish that we could pass this play over, 
 and say nothing about it. All that we can say 
 must fall far short of the subject; or even of 
 what we ourselves conceive of it. To attempt 
 to give a description of the play itself or of its 
 effect upon the mind, is mere impertinence: yet 
 we must say something. — It is then the best 
 of all Shakespear's plays, for it is the one in 
 which he was the most in earnest. He was here 
 fairly caught in the web of his own imagination. 
 The passion which he has taken as his subject 
 is that which strikes its root deepest into the 
 human heart ; of which the bond is the hardest 
 to be unloosed ; and the cancelling and tearing 
 to pieces of which gives the greatest revulsion 
 to the frame. This depth of nature, this force 
 of passion, this tug and war of the elements of 
 
154 LEAR. 
 
 our being, this firm faith in filial piety, and 
 the giddy anarchy and whirling tumult of the 
 thoughts at finding this prop failing it, the 
 contrast between the fixed, immoveable basis of 
 natural affection, and the rapid, irregular starts 
 of imagination, suddenly wrenched from all its 
 accustomed holds and resting-places in the soul, 
 this is what Shakespear has given, and what 
 nobody else but he could give. So we believe. 
 — The mind of Lear staggering between the 
 weight of attachment and the hurried move- 
 ments of passion is like a tall ship driven about 
 by the winds, buffetted by the furious waves, 
 but that still rides above the storm, having its 
 anchor fixed in the bottom of the sea; or it is 
 like the sharp rock circled by the eddying whirl- 
 pool that foams and beats against it, or like the 
 solid promontory pushed from its basis by the 
 force of an earthquake. 
 
 The character of Lear itself is very finely con- 
 ceived for the purpose. It is the only ground 
 on which such a story could be built with the 
 greatest truth and effect. It is his rash haste, 
 his violent impetuosity, his blindness to every 
 thing but the dictates of his passions or affec- 
 tions, that produces all his misfortunes, that 
 aggravates his impatience of them, that enfor- 
 ces our pity for him. The part which Cor- 
 delia bears in the scene is extremely beautiful : 
 the story is almost told in the first words she 
 
LEAR. 155 
 
 utters. We see at once the precipice on which 
 the poor old king stands from his own extrava- 
 gant and credulous importunity, the indiscreet 
 simplicity of her love (which, to be sure, has a 
 little of her father's obstinacy in it) and the 
 hollowness of her sisters' pretensions. Almost 
 the first burst of that noble tide of passion, 
 which runs through the play, is in the remon- 
 strance of Kent to his royal master on the in- 
 justice of his sentence against his youngest 
 daughter — " Be Kent unmannerly, when Lear is 
 mad !" This manly plainness which draws down 
 on him the displeasure of the unadvised king 
 is worthy of the fidelity with which he adheres 
 to his fallen fortunes. The true character of 
 the two eldest daughters, Regan and Gonerill 
 (they are so thoroughly hateful that we do not 
 even like to repeat their names) breaks out in 
 their answer to Cordelia who desires them to 
 treat their father well — " Prescribe not us our 
 duties" — their hatred of advice being in propor- 
 tion to their determination to do wrong, and to 
 their hypocritical pretensions to do right. Their 
 deliberate hypocrisy adds the last finishing to 
 the odiousness of their characters. It is the 
 absence of this detestable quality that is the 
 only relief in the character of Edmund the Bas- 
 tard, and that at times reconciles us to him. 
 We are not tempted to exaggerate the guilt of 
 his conduct, when he himself gives it up as 
 
156 LEAR. 
 
 a bad business, and writes himself down " plain 
 villain." Nothing more can be said about it. His 
 religious honesty in this respect is admirable. 
 One speech of his is worth a million. His father, 
 Gloster, whom he has just deluded with a forged 
 Story of his brother Edgar's designs against his 
 life, accounts for his unnatural behaviour and 
 the strange depravity of the times from the late 
 eclipses in the sun and moon. Edmund, who 
 is in the secret, says when he is gone — " This 
 is the excellent foppery of the world, that when 
 we are sick in fortune (often the surfeits of our 
 own behaviour) we make guilty of our disasters 
 the sun, the moon, and stars : as if we were 
 villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compul- 
 sion ; knaves, thieves, and treacherous by sphe- 
 rical predominance ; drunkards, liars, and adul- 
 terers by an enforced obedience of planetary 
 influence ; and all that we are evil in, by a di- 
 vine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of 
 whore-master man, to lay his goatish disposition 
 on the charge of a star ! My father compounded 
 with my mother under the Dragon's tail, and my 
 nativity was under Ursa Major : so that it follows, 
 I am rough and lecherous. I should have been 
 what I am, had the maidenliest star in the fir- 
 mament twinkled on my bastardising." — The 
 whole character, its careless, light-hearted vil- 
 lainy, contrasted with the sullen, rancorous 
 malignity of Regan and Gonerill, its connection 
 
LEAR. 157 
 
 with the conduct of the under-plot, in which 
 Gloster's persecution of one of his sons and the 
 ingratitude of another, form a counterpart to the 
 mistakes and misfortunes of Lear, — his double 
 amour with the two sisters, and the share which 
 he has in bringing about the fatal catastrophe, 
 are all managed with an uncommon degree of 
 skill and power. 
 
 It has been said, and we think justly, that the 
 third act of Othello and the three first acts of 
 Lear, are Shakespear's great master-pieces in 
 the logic of passion: that they contain the high- 
 est examples not only of the force of individual 
 passion, but of its dramatic vicissitudes and 
 striking effects arising from the different circum- 
 stances and characters of the persons speaking. 
 We see the ebb and flow of the feeling, its 
 pauses and feverish starts, its impatience of op- 
 position, its accumulating force when it has 
 time to recollect itself, the manner in which it 
 avails itself of every passing word or gesture, its 
 haste to repel insinuation, the alternate contrac- 
 tion and dilatation of the soul, and all " the daz- 
 zling fence of controversy" in this mortal combat 
 with poisoned weapons, aimed at the heart, 
 where each wound is fatal. We have seen in 
 Othello, how the unsuspecting frankness and 
 impetuous passions of the Moor are played 
 upon and exasperated by the artful dexteri- 
 ty of Iago. In the present play, that which 
 
158 LEAR. 
 
 aggravates the sense of sympathy in the rea- 
 der, and of uncontroulable anguish in the 
 swoln heart of Lear, is the petrifying indif- 
 ference, the cold, calculating, obdurate self- 
 ishness of his daughters. His keen passions 
 seem whetted on their stony hearts. The con- 
 trast would be too painful, the shock too great, 
 but for the intervention of the Fool, whose well- 
 timed levity comes in to break the continuity of 
 feeling when it can no longer be borne, and to 
 bring into play again the fibres of the heart just 
 as they are growing rigid from over-strained 
 excitement. The imagination is glad to take 
 refuge in the half-comic, half-serious comments 
 of the Fool, just as the mind under the extreme 
 anguish of a surgical operation vents itself in 
 sallies of wit. The character was also a gro- 
 tesque ornament of the barbarous times, in 
 which alone the tragic ground-work of the story 
 could be laid. In another point of view it is 
 indispensable, inasmuch as while it is a diver- 
 sion to the too great intensity of our disgust, it 
 carries the pathos to the highest pitch of which 
 it is capable, by shewing the pitiable weakness 
 of the old king's conduct and its irretrievable 
 consequences in the most familiar point of view. 
 Lear may well " beat at the gate which let his 
 folly in," after, as the Fool says, " he has made 
 his daughters his mothers." The character is 
 
LEAR. 159 
 
 dropped in the third act to make room for the 
 entrance of Edgar as Mad Tom, which well ac- 
 cords with the increasing bustle and wildness of 
 the incidents ; and nothing can be more com- 
 plete than the distinction between Lear's real 
 and Edgar's assumed madness, while the resem- 
 blance in the cause of their distresses, from the 
 severing of the nearest ties of natural affection, 
 keeps up a unity of interest. Shakespear's 
 mastery over his subject, if it was not art, was 
 owing to a knowledge of the connecting links of 
 the passions, and their effect upon the mind, 
 still more wonderful than any systematic adhe- 
 rence to rules, and that anticipated and outdid 
 all the efforts of the most refined art, not in- 
 spired and rendered instinctive by genius. 
 
 One of the most perfect displays of dramatic 
 power is the first interview between Lear and his 
 daughter, after the designed affronts upon him, 
 which till one of his knights reminds him of 
 them, his sanguine temperament had led him to 
 overlook. He returns with his train from hunt- 
 ing, and his usual impatience breaks out in his 
 first words, " Let me not stay a jot for dinner; 
 go, get it ready." He then encounters the faith- 
 ful Kent in disguise, and retains him in his 
 service ; and the first trial of his honest duty is 
 to trip up the heels of the officious Steward 
 who makes so prominent and despicable a figure 
 
160 LEAR. 
 
 through the piece. On the entrance of Gonerill 
 the following dialogue takes place: — 
 
 <c Lear. How now, daughter r what makes that front- 
 let on ? 
 Methinks, you are too much of late i' the frown. 
 
 Fool. Thou wast a pretty fellow, when thou had'st no 
 need to care for her frowning ; now thou art an O without 
 a figure : I am better than thou art now ; lama fool, thou 
 
 art nothing. Yes, forsooth, I will hold my tongue 3 [To 
 
 Gonerill.'] so your face bids me, though you say nothing. 
 Mum, mum. 
 
 He that keeps nor crust nor crum, 
 Weary of all, shall want some- 
 
 That's a sheal'd peascod ! [Pointing to Lear. 
 
 Gonerill. Not only, sir, this your all-licens'd fool, 
 But other of your insolent retinue 
 Do hourly carp and quarrel ; breaking forth 
 In rank and not -to-be-endured riots. 
 I had thought, by making this well known unto you, 
 To have found a safe redress ; but now grow fearful. 
 By what yourself too late have spoke and done, 
 That you protect this course, and put it on 
 By your allowance 5 which if you should, the fault 
 "Would not 'scape censure, nor the redresses sleep, 
 Which in the tender of a wholesome weal, 
 Might in their working do you that offence, 
 (Which else were shame) that then necessity 
 Would call discreet proceeding. 
 Fool. For you trow, nuncle, 
 
 The hedge sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, 
 That it had its head bit off by its young. 
 
 So out went the candle, and we were left darkling. 
 
LEAR. 161 
 
 Lear. Are you our daughter ? 
 Gonerill. Come, sir, 
 I would, you would make use of that good wisdom 
 Whereof I know you are fraught ; and put away 
 These dispositions, which of late transform you 
 From what you rightly are. 
 
 Fool. May not an ass know when the cart draws the 
 horse ? Whoop, Jug, I love thee. 
 
 Lear. Does any here know me ? Why, this is not 
 
 Lear : 
 Does Lear walk thus ? speak thus ? — Where are his eyes ? 
 Either his notion weakens, or his discernings 
 
 Are lethargy'd Ha ! waking ? — Tis not so. 
 
 Who is it that can tell me who I am J — Lear's shadow? 
 
 I would learn that : for by the marks 
 
 Of sov'reignty, of knowledge, and of reason, 
 
 I should be false persuaded I had daughters. 
 
 Your name, fair gentlewoman ? 
 
 Gonerill. Come, sir : 
 This admiration is much o' the favour 
 Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you 
 To understand my purposes aright : 
 As you are old and reverend, you should be wise : 
 Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires ; 
 Men so disorder'd, so debauch'd, and bold, 
 That this our court, infected with their manners, 
 Shews like a riotous inn : epicurism and lust 
 Make it more like a tavern, or a brothel, 
 Than a grac'd palace. The shame itself doth speak 
 For instant remedy : be then desir'd 
 By her, that else will take the thing she begs, 
 A little to disquantity your train ; 
 And the remainder, that shall still depend, 
 To be such men as may besort your age, 
 And know themselves and you. 
 M 
 
162 LEAR. 
 
 Lear. Darkness and devils ! 
 
 Saddle my horses ; call my train together. 
 
 Degenerate bastard ! I'll not trouble thee j 
 Yet have I left a daughter. 
 
 Gonerill. You strike my people ; and your disorder'd 
 rabble 
 Make servants of their betters. 
 
 Enter Albany. 
 
 Lear. Woe, that too late repents — O, sir, are you come ? 
 
 Is it your will ? speak, sir. — Prepare my horses. 
 
 [To Albany. 
 Ingratitude ! thou marble-hearted fiend, 
 More hideous, when thou shew'st thee in a child, 
 Than the sea-monster ! 
 
 Albany. Pray, sir, be patient. 
 
 Lear. Detested kite ! thou liest. [To Gonerill. 
 
 My train are men of choice and rarest parts, 
 That all particulars of duty know ; 
 And in the most exact regard support 
 
 The worships of their name. O most small fault, 
 
 How ugly didst thou in Cordelia shew ! 
 
 Which, like an engine, wrench'd my frame of nature 
 
 From the fixt place ; drew from my heart all love, 
 
 And added to the gall. O Lear, Lear, Lear ! 
 
 Beat at the gate, that let thy folly in, [Striking his head. 
 
 And thy dear judgment out ! Go, go, my people ! 
 
 Albany. My lord, I am guiltless, as I am ignorant 
 Of what hath mov'd you. 
 
 Lear. It may be so, my lord 
 
 Hear, nature, hear ! dear goddess, hear ! 
 Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend 
 To make this creature fruitful ! 
 Into her womb convey sterility ; 
 
LEAR. 163 
 
 Dry up in her the organs of increase 5 
 
 And from her derogate body never spring 
 
 A babe to honour her ! If she must teem, 
 
 Create her child of spleen : that it may live, 
 
 To be a thwart disnatur'd torment to her ! 
 
 Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth 5 
 
 With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks 5 
 
 Turn all her mother's pains, and benefits, 
 
 To laughter and contempt 5 that she may feel 
 
 How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is 
 
 To have a thankless child ! Away, away ! [Exit. 
 
 Albany. Now, gods, that we adore, whereof comes this ? 
 
 Gonerill. Never afflict yourself to know the cause ; 
 But let his disposition have that scope 
 That dotage gives it. 
 
 Re-enter Lear. 
 
 Lear. What, fifty of my followers at a clap ! 
 Within a fortnight ! 
 
 Albany. What's the matter, sir? 
 
 Lear. I'll tell thee 5 life and death ! I am asham'd 
 That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus : 
 
 {To Gonerill. 
 That these hot tears, which break from me perforce, 
 Should make thee worth them. ■ B lasts and fogs upon 
 
 thee! 
 The untented woundings of a father's curse 
 
 Pierce every sense about thee ! Old fond eyes 
 
 Beweep this cause again, I'll pluck you out ; 
 And cast you, with the waters that you lose, 
 
 To temper clay. Ha ! is it come to this ? 
 
 Let it be so : Yet have I left a daughter, 
 
 Who, I am sure, is kind and comfortable ; 
 When she shall hear this of thee, with her nails 
 She'll flea thy wolfish visage. Thou shalt find, 
 
164 LEAR. 
 
 That I'll resume the shape, which thou dost think 
 I have cast off for ever. 
 
 [Exeunt Lear, Kent, and Attendants.*' 
 
 This is certainly fine : no wonder that Lear 
 says after it, " O let me not be mad, not mad, 
 sweet heavens," feeling its effects by anticipa- 
 tion : but fine as is this burst of rage and indig- 
 nation at the first blow aimed at his hopes and 
 expectations, it is nothing near so fine as what fol- 
 lows from his double disappointment, and his 
 lingering efforts to see which of them he shall 
 lean upon for support and find comfort in, when 
 both his daughters turn against his age and 
 weakness. It is with some difficulty that Lear 
 gets to speak with his daughter Regan, and her 
 husband, at Gloster's castle. In concert with 
 Gonerill they have left their own home on pur- 
 pose to avoid him. His apprehensions are 
 first alarmed by this circumstance, and when 
 Gloster, whose guests they are, urges the fiery 
 temper of the Duke of Cornwall as an excuse 
 for not importuning him a second time, Lear 
 breaks out, 
 
 ' f Vengeance ! Plague ! Death ! Confusion ! 
 Fiery ? What fiery quality ? Why, Gloster, 
 I'd speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife." 
 
 Afterwards, feeling perhaps not well himself, 
 he is inclined to admit their excuse from illness, 
 but then recollecting that they have set his mes- 
 
LEAR. 165 
 
 senger (Kent) in the stocks, all his suspicions 
 are roused again, and he insists on seeing them. 
 
 " Enter Cornwall, Regan, Gloster, and Servants. 
 
 Lear. Good-morrow to you both. 
 
 Cornwall. Hail to your grace ! [Kent is set at liberty. 
 
 Regan. I am glad to see your highness. 
 
 Lear. Regan, I think you are ; I know what reason 
 I have to think so : if thou should'st not be glad, 
 I would divorce me from thy mother's tomb, 
 
 Sepulchring an adultress. O, are you free ? 
 
 [To Kent. 
 Some other time for that. Beloved Regan, 
 
 Thy sister's naught : O Regan, she hath tied 
 
 Sharp-tooth' d unkindness, like a vulture, here 
 
 [Points to his heart. 
 I can scarce speak to thee -, thou'lt not believe, 
 Of how deprav'd a quality O Regan ! 
 
 Regan. I pray you, sir, take patience ; I have hope 
 You less know how to value her desert, 
 Than she to scant her duty. 
 
 Lear. Say, how is that ? 
 
 Regan. I cannot think my sister in the least 
 Would fail her obligation j if, sir, perchance, 
 She have restrain' d the riots of your followers, 
 'Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end, 
 As clears her from all blame. 
 
 Lear. My curses on her ! 
 
 Regan. O, sir, you are old ; 
 Nature in you stands on the very verge 
 Of her confine : you should be rul'd, and led 
 By some discretion, that discerns your state 
 Better than you yourself : therefore, I pray you, 
 That to our sister you do make return -, 
 Say, you have wrong' d her, sir. 
 
166 LEAR. 
 
 Lear. Ask her forgiveness } 
 Do you but mark l\ow this becomes the use ? 
 Dear daughter, I confess that I am old ; 
 Age is unnecessary ; on my knees I beg, 
 That you'll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food. 
 
 Regan. Good sir, no more j these are unsightly tricks : 
 Return you to my sister. 
 
 Lear. Never, Regan: 
 She hath abated me of half my train -, 
 Look'd blank upon me j struck me with her tongue, 
 
 Most serpent-like, upon the very heart : 
 
 All the stor'd vengeances of heaven fall 
 
 On her ungrateful top ! Strike her young bones, 
 
 You taking airs, with lameness ! 
 
 Cornwall. Fie, sir, fie ! 
 
 Lear. You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames 
 Into her scornful eyes ! Infect her beauty, 
 You fen-suck' d fogs, drawn by the powerful sun, 
 To fall, and blast her pride ! 
 
 Regan. O the blest gods ! 
 So will you wish on me, when the rash mood is on. 
 
 Lear. No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse -, 
 Thy tender -hefted nature shall not give 
 Thee o'er to harshness ; her eyes are fierce, but thine 
 Do comfort, and not burn : 'Tis not in thee 
 To grudge my pleasures, to cut off my train, 
 To bandy hasty words, to scant my sizes, 
 And, in conclusion, to oppose the bolt 
 Against my coming in : thou better know'st 
 The offices of nature, bond of childhood, 
 Effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude ; 
 Thy half o' the kingdom thou hast not forgot, 
 Wherein I thee endow'd. 
 
LEAR. 167 
 
 Regan. Good sir, to the purpose. [Trumpets within. 
 Lear. Who put my man i' the stocks } 
 Cornwall. What trumpet's that > 
 
 Enter Steward. 
 
 Regan. I know't, my sister's • this approves her letter, 
 That she would soon be here. — Is your lady come ? 
 
 Lear. This is a slave, whose easy-borrow'd pride 
 
 Dwells in the fickle grace of her he follows : 
 
 Out, varlet, from my sight ! 
 
 Cornwall. What means your grace ? 
 
 Lear. Who stock'd my servant ? Regan, I have good 
 hope 
 Thou did'st not know on't. — — Who comes here ? O 
 heavens, 
 
 Enter Gone rill. 
 
 If you do love old men, if your sweet sway 
 
 Allow obedience, if yourselves are old, 
 
 Make it your cause 5 send down, and take my part ! — 
 
 Art not asham'd to look upon this beard? — [lb Goner ill. 
 
 O, Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand ? 
 
 Gonerill. Why not by the hand, sir ? How have I of- 
 fended ? 
 All's not offence, that indiscretion finds, 
 And dotage terms so. 
 
 Lear. O, sides, you are too tough ! 
 Will you yet hold ? — How came my man i' the stocks ? 
 
 Cornwall. I set him there, sir : but his own disorders 
 Deserv'd much less advancement. 
 
 Lear. You ! did you ? 
 
 Regan. I pray you, father, being weak, seem so. 
 If, till the expiration of your month, 
 You will return and sojourn with my sister, 
 Dismissing half your train, come then to me} 
 
168 LEAR. 
 
 I am now from home,, and out of that provision 
 Which shall be needful for your entertainment. 
 
 Lear. Return to her, and fifty men dismiss'd ? 
 No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose 
 
 To be a comrade with the wolf and owl 
 
 To wage against the enmity o' the air* 
 
 Necessity's sharp pinch ! Return with her ! 
 
 Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless took 
 Our youngest born, I could as well be brought 
 To knee his throne, and squire-like pension beg 
 
 To keep base life afoot. Return with her ! 
 
 Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter 
 
 To this detested groom. [Looking on the Steward. 
 
 Gonerill. At your choice, sir. 
 
 Lear. Now, I pr'ythee, daughter, do not make me mad j 
 I will not trouble thee, my child ; farewell : 
 
 We'll no more meet, no more see one another : 
 
 But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter j 
 
 Or, rather, a disease that's in my flesh, 
 
 Which I must needs call mine : thou art a bile, 
 
 A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle, 
 
 In my corrupted blood. But I'll not chide thee ; 
 
 Let shame come when it will, I do not call it : 
 
 I did not bid the thunder-bearer shoot, 
 
 Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove : 
 
 Mend, when thou canst ; be better, at thy leisure : 
 
 I can be patient ; I can stay with Regan, 
 
 I, and my hundred knights. 
 
 Regan. Not altogether so, sir ; 
 I look'd not for you yet, nor am provided 
 For your fit welcome : Give ear, sir, to my sister j 
 For those that mingle reason with your passion 
 
 Must be content to think you old, and so 
 
 But she knows what she does. 
 
 Lear. Is this well spoken now ? 
 
 
LEAR. 169 
 
 Regan, I dare avouch it, sir : What, fifty followers 2 
 Is it not well ? What should you need of more ? 
 Yea, or so many ? Sith that both charge and danger 
 Speak 'gainst so great a number ? How, in one house, 
 Should many people, under two commands, 
 Hold amity ? 'Tis hard -, almost impossible. 
 
 Gonerill. Why might not you, my lord, receive at- 
 tendance 
 From those that she calls servants, or from mine } 
 
 Regan. Why not, my lord ? If then they chanc'd to 
 slack you, 
 We would controul them : if you will come to me 
 (For now I spy a danger) I entreat you 
 To bring but five-and- twenty ; to no more 
 Will I give place, or notice. 
 
 Lear. I gave you all 
 
 Regan. And in good time you gave it. 
 Lear. Made you my guardians, my depositaries ; 
 But kept a reservation to be follow'd 
 With such a number : what, must I come to you 
 With five-and-twenty, Regan ! said you so ? 
 
 Regan. And speak it again, my lord -, no more with me. 
 Lear. Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favourM, 
 When others are more wicked ; not being the worst, 
 
 Stands in some rank of praise : I'll go with thee -, 
 
 \To Gonerill 
 Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty, 
 And thou art twice her love. 
 
 Gonerill. Hear me, my lord j 
 What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five, 
 To follow in a house, where twice so many 
 Have a command to tend you ? 
 Regan. What need one ? 
 
 Lear. O, reason not the need : our basest beggars 
 Are in the poorest thing superfluous : 
 
170 LEAR. 
 
 Allow not nature more than nature needs, 
 
 Man's life is cheap as beast's : thou art a lady ; . 
 
 If only to go warm were gorgeous, 
 
 Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st 5 
 
 Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true 
 
 need 
 
 You heavens, give me that patience which I need ! 
 
 You see me here, you gods ; a poor old man, 
 
 As full of grief as age ; wretched in both ! 
 
 If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts 
 
 Against their father, fool me not so much 
 
 To bear it tamely j touch me with noble anger ! 
 
 O, let no woman's weapons, water-drops, 
 
 Stain my man's cheeks ! No, you unnatural hags, 
 
 I will have such revenges on you both, 
 
 That all the world shall 1 will do such things 
 
 What they are, yet I know not ; but they shall be 
 The terrors of the earth. You think, I'll weep : 
 
 No, I'll not weep : 
 
 I have full cause of weeping ; but this heart 
 Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws, 
 
 Or e'er I'll weep : O, fool, I shall go mad ! 
 
 [Exeunt Lear, Gloster, Kent, and jPooZ." 
 
 If there is any thing in any author like this 
 yearning of the heart, these throes of tender- 
 ness, this profound expression of all that can be 
 thought and felt in the most heart-rending situ- 
 ations, we are glad of it ; but it is in some au- 
 thor that we have not read. 
 
 The scene in the storm, where he is exposed 
 to all the fury of the elements, though grand 
 and terrible, is not so fine, but the moralising 
 
LEAR. 171 
 
 scenes with Mad Tom, Kent, and Gloster, are 
 upon a par with the former. His exclamation 
 in the supposed trial-scene of his daughters, 
 " See the little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch, and 
 Sweetheart, see they bark at me," his issuing his 
 orders, " Let them anatomize Regan, see what 
 breeds about her heart/' and his reflection when 
 he sees the misery of Edgar, " Nothing but his 
 unkind daughters could have brought him to 
 this," are in a style of pathos, where the extremest 
 resources of the imagination are called in to lay 
 open the deepest movements of the heart, which 
 was peculiar to Shakespear. In the same style 
 and spirit is his interrupting the Fool who asks, 
 " whether a madman be a gentleman or a yeo- 
 man," by answering " A king, a king !" — 
 
 The indirect part that Gloster takes in these 
 scenes where his generosity leads him to relieve 
 Lear and resent the cruelty of his daughters, at 
 the very time that he is himself instigated to 
 seek the life of his son, and suffering under the 
 sting of his supposed ingratitude, is a striking 
 accompaniment to the situation of Lear. In- 
 deed, the manner in which the threads of the 
 story are woven together is almost as wonderful 
 in the way of art as the carrying on the tide of 
 passion, still varying and unimpaired, is on the 
 score of nature. Among the remarkable in- 
 stances of this kind are Edgar's meeting with 
 his old blind father ; the deception he practises 
 
172 LEAR. 
 
 upon him when he pretends to lead him to the 
 top of Dover-cliff — " Come on, sir, here's the 
 place/' to prevent his ending his life and mise- 
 ries together; his encounter with the perfidious 
 Steward whom he kills, and his finding the let- 
 ter from Gonerill to his brother upon him which 
 leads to the final catastrophe, and brings the 
 wheel of Justice " full circle home" to the guilty 
 parties. The bustle and rapid succession of 
 events in the last scenes is surprising. But the 
 meeting between Lear and Cordelia is by far the 
 most affecting part of them. It has all the wild- 
 ness of poetry, and all the heartfelt truth of na- 
 ture. The previous account of her reception of 
 the news of his unkind treatment, her involuntary 
 reproaches to her sisters, " Shame, ladies, shame," 
 Lear's backwardness to see his daughter, the 
 picture of the desolate state to which he is re- 
 duced, " Alack, 'tis he ; why he was met even 
 now, as mad as the vex'd sea, singing aloud," 
 only prepare the way for and heighten our expec- 
 tation of what follows, and assuredly this ex- 
 pectation is not disappointed when through the 
 tender care of Cordelia he revives and recollects 
 her. 
 
 f ' Cordelia. How does my royal lord 1 How fares your 
 
 majesty ! 
 Lear. You do me wrong, to take me out o* the grave : 
 Thou art a soul in bliss 5 but I am bound 
 
LEAH. 173 
 
 Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears 
 Do scald like molten lead. 
 
 Cordelia. Sir, do you know me ? 
 
 Lear. You are a spirit I know : when did you die ? 
 
 Cordelia. Still, still, far wide ! 
 
 Physician. He's scarce awake j let him alone awhile. 
 
 Lear. Where have I been ? Where am I ? — Fair day- 
 light 3 
 
 I am mightily abus'd. — I should even die with pity, 
 
 To see another thus.— r4 know not what to say. 
 
 I will not swear these are my hands : — let's see 5 
 I feel this pin prick. 'Would I were assur'd 
 Of my condition. 
 
 Cordelia. O, look upon me, sir, 
 And hold your hands in benediction o'er me :— — 
 No, sir> you must not kneel. 
 
 Lear. Pray, do not mock me : 
 1 am a very foolish fond old man, 
 Fourscore and upward ; 
 
 Not an hour more, nor less : and, to deal plainly, 
 I fear, I am not in my perfect mind. 
 Methinks, I shou'd know you, and know this man j 
 Yet I am doubtful : for I am mainly ignorant 
 What place this is ; and all the skill I have 
 Remembers not these garments 3 nor 1 know not 
 Where I did lodge last night : do not laugh at me ; 
 For, as I am a man, I think this lady 
 To be my child Cordelia. 
 
 Cordelia. And so I am, I am!" 
 
 Almost equal to this in awful beauty is their 
 consolation of each other when, after the triumph 
 of their enemies, they are led to prison. 
 
174 LEAR. 
 
 (l Cordelia. We are not the first, 
 Who, with best meaning, have incurr'd the worst. 
 For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down 5 
 Myself could else out-frown false fortune's frown. — 
 Shall we not see these daughters, and these sisters ? 
 
 Lear. No, no, no, no ! Come, let's away to prison : 
 We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage : 
 When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down, 
 And ask of thee forgiveness : so we'll live, 
 And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh 
 At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues 
 Talk of court news ; and we'll talk with them too — 
 Who loses, and who wins ; who's in, who's outj — 
 And take upon us the mystery of things, 
 As if we were God's spies : and we'll wear out, 
 In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones, 
 That ebb and flow by the moon. 
 
 Edmund. Take them away. 
 
 Lear. Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia, 
 The gods themselves throw incense." 
 
 The concluding events are sad, painfully sad; 
 but their pathos is extreme. The oppression of 
 the feelings is relieved by the very interest we 
 take in the misfortunes of others, and by the re- 
 flections to which they give birth. Cordelia is 
 hanged in prison by the orders of the bastard 
 Edmund, which are known too late to be coun- 
 termanded, and Lear dies broken-hearted, la- 
 menting over her. 
 
 tc Lear. And my poor fool is hang'd ! No, no, no life : 
 Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, 
 
LEAR. 175 
 
 And thou no breath at all ? O, thou wilt come no more, 
 
 Never, never, never, never, never ! 
 
 Pray you, undo this button : thank you, sir." 
 
 He dies, and indeed we feel the truth of what 
 Kent says on the occasion — 
 
 <l Vex not his ghost : O, let him pass ! he hates him, 
 That would upon the rack of this rough world 
 Stretch him out longer." 
 
 Yet a happy ending has been contrived for 
 this play, which is approved of by Dr. Johnson 
 and condemned by Schlegel. A better author- 
 ity than either, on any subject in which poetry 
 and feeling are concerned, has given it in favour 
 of Shakespear, in some remarks on the acting 
 of Lear, with which we shall conclude this ac- 
 count. 
 
 " The Lear of Shakespear cannot be acted. 
 The contemptible machinery with which they 
 mimic the storm which he goes out in, is not 
 more inadequate to represent the horrors of the 
 real elements than any actor can be to represent 
 Lear. The greatness of Lear is not in corpo- 
 ral dimension, but in intellectual ; the explo- 
 sions of his passions are terrible as a volcano : 
 they are storms turning up and disclosing to the 
 bottom that rich sea, his mind, with all its vast 
 riches. It is his mind which is laid bare. This 
 case of flesh andjblood seems too insignificant to 
 be thought on ; even as he himself neglects it. 
 
1?6 LEAR. 
 
 On the stage we see nothing but corporal infir- 
 mities and weakness, the impotence of rage ; 
 while we read it, we see not Lear, but we are 
 Lear ; — we are in his mind, we are sustained by 
 a grandeur, which baffles the malice of daughters 
 and storms ; in the aberrations of his reason, we 
 discover a' mighty irregular power of reasoning, 
 immethodised from the ordinary purposes of life, 
 but exerting its powers, as the wind blows where 
 it listeth, at will on the corruptions and abuses of 
 mankind. What have looks or tones to do with 
 that sublime identification of his age with that of 
 the heavens themselves, when in his reproaches to 
 them for conniving at the injustice of his chil- 
 dren, he reminds them that " they themselves 
 are old [" What gesture shall we appropriate 
 to this ? What has the voice or the eye to do 
 with such things ? But the play is beyond all 
 art, as the tamperings with it shew: it is too 
 hard and stony : it must have love-scenes, and 
 a happy ending. It is not enough that Cordelia 
 is a daughter, she must shine as a lover too. 
 Tate has put his hook in the nostrils of this 
 Leviathan, for Garrick and his followers, the 
 shewmen of the scene, to draw it about more 
 easily. A happy ending ! — as if the living mar- 
 tyrdom that Lear had gone through, — the flaying 
 of his feelings alive, did not make a fair dismis- 
 sal from the stage of life the only decorous thing 
 for him. If he is to live and be happy after, if 
 he could sustain this world's burden after, why 
 
LEAR. 177 
 
 all this pudder and preparation — why torment us 
 with all this unnecessary sympathy ? As if the 
 childish pleasure of getting his gilt robes and 
 sceptre again could tempt him to act over again 
 his misused station, — as if at his years and with 
 his experience, any thing was left but to die."* 
 Four things have struck us in reading Lear: 
 
 1. That poetry is an interesting study, for 
 this reason, that it relates to whatever is most 
 interesting in human life. Whoever therefore 
 has a contempt for poetry, has a contempt for 
 himself and humanity. 
 
 2. That the language of poetry is superior to 
 the language of painting; because the strongest 
 of our recollections relate to feelings, not to faces. 
 
 3. That the greatest strength of genius is 
 shewn in describing the strongest passions: for 
 the power of the imagination, in works of inven- 
 tion, must be in proportion to the force of the na- 
 tural impressions, which are the subject of them. 
 
 4. That the circumstance which balances the 
 pleasure against the pain in tragedy is, that in 
 proportion to the greatness of the evil, is our 
 sense and desire of the opposite good excited ; 
 and that our sympathy with actual suffering is 
 lost in the strong impulse given to our natural 
 affections, and carried away with the swelling 
 tide of passion, that gushes from and relieves the 
 heart. 
 
 * See an article, called Theatralia, in the second volume 
 of the Reflectory by Charles Lamb. 
 
 N 
 
RICHARD II. 
 
 Richard II. is a play little known compared 
 with Richard HI. which last is a play that 
 every unfledged candidate for theatrical fame 
 chuses to strut and fret his hour upon the stage 
 in; yet we confess that we prefer the nature 
 and feeling of the one to the noise and bustle 
 of the other ; at least, as we are so often forced 
 to see it acted. In Richard II. the weakness 
 of the king leaves us leisure to take a greater 
 interest in the misfortunes of the man. After 
 the first act, in which the arbitrariness of his 
 behaviour only proves his want of resolution, 
 we see him staggering under the unlooked-for 
 blows of fortune, bewailing his loss of kingly 
 power, not preventing it, sinking under the 
 aspiring genius of Bolingbroke, his authority 
 trampled on, his hopes failing him, and his 
 pride crushed and broken down unjler insults 
 
I 
 
 RICHARD Hi 179 
 
 and injuries, which his own misconduct had 
 provoked, but which he has not courage or 
 manliness to resent. The change of tone and 
 behaviour in the two Competitors for the throne 
 according to their change of fortune, from the 
 capricious sentence of banishment passed by 
 Richard upon Bolingbroke, the suppliant offers 
 and modest pretensions of the latter on his return, 
 to the high and haughty tone with which he ac- 
 cepts Richard's resignation of the crown after the 
 loss of all his power, the use which he makes of 
 the deposed king to grace his triumphal progress 
 through the streets of London, and the final 
 intimation of his wish for his death, which im- 
 mediately finds a servile executioner, is marked 
 throughout with complete effect and without 
 the slightest appearance of effort. The steps 
 by which Bolingbroke mounts the throne are 
 those by which Richard sinks into the grave. 
 We feel neither respect nor love for the deposed 
 monarch; for he is as wanting in energy as in 
 principle: but we pity him, for he pities him- 
 self. His heart is by no means hardened against 
 himself, but bleeds afresh at every new stroke 
 of mischance, and his sensibility, absorbed in 
 his own person, and unused to misfortune, is 
 not only tenderly alive to its own sufferings, 
 but without the fortitude to bear them. He is, 
 however, human in his distresses; for to feel 
 pain, and sorrow, weakness, disappointment, 
 
180 RICHARD II. 
 
 remorse and anguish, is the lot of humanity, and 
 we sympathize with him accordingly. The suf- 
 ferings of the man make us forget that he ever 
 was a king. 
 
 The right assumed by sovereign power to 
 trifle at its will with the happiness of others as a 
 matter of course, or to remit its exercise as a 
 matter of favour, is strikingly shewn in the sen- 
 tence of banishment so unjustly pronounced on 
 Bolingbroke and Mowbray, and in what Boling- 
 broke says when four years of his banishment 
 are taken off, with as little reason. 
 
 *'*■ How long a time lies in one little word ! 
 Four lagging winters and four wanton springs 
 End in a word : such is the breath of kings." 
 
 A more affecting image of the loneliness of a 
 state of exile can hardly be given than by what 
 Bolingbroke afterwards observes of his having 
 " sighed his English breath in foreign clouds;" 
 or than that conveyed in Mowbray's complaint 
 at being banished for life. 
 
 <c The language I have learned these forty years. 
 My native English, now I must forego ; 
 And now my tongue's use is to me no more 
 Than an unstringed viol or a harp, 
 Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up, 
 Or being open, put into his hands 
 That knows no touch to tune the harmony. 
 I am too old to fawn upon a nurse, 
 Too far in years to be a pupil now." — 
 
RICHARD II. 181 
 
 How very beautiful is all this, and at the same 
 time how very English too ! 
 
 Richard II. may be considered as the first of 
 that series of English historical plays, in which 
 " is hung armour of the invincible knights of 
 old," in which their hearts seem to strike against 
 their coats of mail, where their blood tingles for 
 the fight, and words are but the harbingers of 
 blows. Of this state of accomplished barba- 
 rism the appeal of Bolingbroke and Mowbray 
 is an admirable specimen. Another of these 
 " keen encounters of their wits," which serve 
 to whet the talkers* swords, is where Aumerle 
 answers in the presence of Bolingbroke to the 
 charge which Bagot brings against him of being 
 an accessory in Gloster's death. 
 
 c ' Fitzwater. If that thy valour stand on sympathies, 
 There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine ; 
 By that fair sun that shows me where thou stand' st 
 I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it, 
 That thou wert cause of noble Gloster's death. 
 If thou deny'st it twenty times thou liest, 
 And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart 
 Where it was forged, with my rapier's point. 
 
 Aumerle. Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see the day. 
 
 Fitzwater. Now, by my soul, I would it were this, hour. 
 
 Aumerle. Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this. 
 
 Percy. Aumerle, thou liest ; his honour is as true, 
 In this appeal, as thou art all unjust ; 
 And that thou art so, there I throw my gage 
 To prove it on thee, to th' extremest point 
 Of mortal breathing. Seize it, if thou dar'st. 
 
182 RICHARD II. 
 
 Aumerle. And if I do not, may my hands rot off, 
 And never brandish more revengeful steel 
 Over the glittering helmet of my foe. 
 Who sets me else ? By heav'n, I'll throw at all. 
 I have a thousand spirits in my breast, 
 To answer twenty thousand such as you. 
 
 Surry. My lord Fitzwater, I remember well 
 The very time Aumerle and you did talk. 
 
 Fitzwater. My lord, 'tis true : you were in presence then: 
 And you can witness with me, this is true. 
 
 Surry. As false, by heavn, as heav'n itself is true. 
 Fitzwater. Surry, thou liest. 
 Surry. Dishonourable boy, 
 That lie shall lye so heavy on my sword, 
 That it shall render vengeance and revenge, 
 Till thou the lie-giver and that lie rest 
 In earth as quiet as thy father's skull. 
 In proof whereof, there is mine honour's pawn : 
 Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st. 
 
 Fitzwater. How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse : 
 If 1 dare eat or drink or breathe or live, 
 I dare meet Surry in a wilderness, 
 And spit upon him, whilst I say he lies, 
 And lies, and lies : there is my bond of faith, 
 To tie thee to thy strong correction. 
 As I do hope to thrive in this new world, 
 Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal." 
 
 The truth is, that there is neither truth nor 
 honour in all these noble persons : they answer 
 words with words, as they do blows with blows, 
 in mere self defence : nor have they any prin- 
 ciple whatever but that of courage in maintain- 
 ing any wrong they dare commit, or any false- 
 
RICHARD II. 183 
 
 hood which they find it useful to assert. How 
 different were these noble knights and " barons 
 bold" from their more refined descendants in the 
 present day, who instead of deciding questions 
 of right by brute force, refer every thing to 
 convenience, fashion, and good breeding! In 
 point of any abstract love of truth or justice, 
 they are just the same now that they were then. 
 The characters of old John of Gaunt and of 
 his brother York, uncles to the King, the one 
 stern and foreboding, the other honest, good- 
 natured, doing all for the best, and therefore 
 doing nothing, are well kept up. The speech 
 of the former, in praise of England, is one of 
 the most eloquent that ever was penned. We 
 should perhaps hardly be disposed to feed the 
 pampered egotism of our countrymen by quoting 
 this description, were it not that the conclusion 
 of it (which looks prophetic) may qualify any 
 improper degree of exultation. 
 
 " This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, 
 This earth of Majesty, this seat of Mars, 
 This other Eden, demi-Paradise, 
 This fortress built by nature for herself 
 Against infection and the hand of war 3 
 This happy breed of men, this little world, 
 This precious stone set in the silver sea, 
 Which serves it in the office of a wall 
 (Or as a moat defensive to a house) 
 Against the envy of less happy lands : 
 This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, 
 
184 RICHARD II. 
 
 Fear'd for their breed and famous for their birth, 
 Renown' d for their deeds, as far from home. 
 For Christian service and true chivalry, 
 As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry 
 Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's son ; 
 This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, 
 Dear for her reputation through the world, 
 Is now leas' d out (I die pronouncing it) 
 JL/ike to a tenement or pelting farm. 
 England bound in with the triumphant sea, 
 Whose rocky shore beats back the envious surge 
 Of wat'ry Neptune, is bound in with shame, 
 With inky-blots and rotten parchment bonds. 
 That England, that was wont to conquer others, 
 Hath made a shameful conquest of itself." r 
 
 The character of Bolingbroke, afterwards 
 Henry IV. is drawn with a masterly hand : — 
 patient for occasion, and then steadily availing 
 himself of it, seeing his advantage afar off, but 
 only seizing on it when he has it within his reach, 
 humble, crafty, bold, and aspiring, encroaching 
 by regular but slow degrees, building power on 
 opinion, and cementing opinion by power. His 
 disposition is first unfolded by Richard himself, 
 who however is too self-willed and secure to 
 make a proper use of his knowledge. 
 
 " Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green, 
 Observed his courtship of the common people : 
 How he did seem to dive into their hearts, 
 With humble and familiar courtesy, 
 What reverence he did throw away on slaves ; 
 Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles, 
 
RICHARD IT. 185 
 
 And patient under-bearing of his fortune, 
 
 As 'twere to banish their affections with him. 
 
 Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench ; 
 
 A brace of draymen bid God speed him well, 
 
 And had the tribute of his supple knee, 
 
 With thanks my countrymen, my loving friends ; 
 
 As were our England in reversion his, 
 
 And he our subjects' next degree in hope." 
 
 Afterwards, he gives his own character to Percy, 
 in these words: 
 
 " I thank thee, gentle Percy, and be sure 
 I count myself in nothing else so happy, 
 As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends 5 
 And as my fortune ripens with thy love, 
 It shall be still thy true love's recompense." 
 
 We know how he afterwards kept his pro- 
 mise. His bold assertion of his own rights, 
 his pretended submission to the king, and the 
 ascendancy which he tacitly assumes over him 
 without openly claiming it, as soon as he has 
 him in his power, are characteristic traits of 
 this ambitious and politic usurper. But the 
 part of Richard himself gives the chief interest 
 to the play. His folly, his vices, his misfor- 
 tunes, his reluctance to part with the crown, 
 his fear to keep it, his weak and womanish 
 regrets, his starting tears, his fits of hectic 
 passion, his smothered majesty, pass in succes- 
 sion before us, and make a picture as natural 
 as it is affecting. Among the most striking 
 
186 RICHARD II. 
 
 touches of pathos are his wish " O that I were 
 a mockery king of snow to melt away before 
 the sun of Bolingbroke/ 5 and the incident of 
 the poor groom who comes to visit him in pri- 
 son, and tells him how " it yearned his heart 
 that Bolingbroke upon his coronation day rode 
 on Roan Barbary." We shall have occasion to 
 return hereafter to the character of Richard II. 
 in speaking of Henry VI. There is only one 
 passage more, the description of his entrance 
 into London with Bolingbroke, which we should 
 like to quote here, if it had not been so used 
 and worn out, so thumbed and got by rote, so 
 praised and painted ; but its beauty surmounts 
 all these considerations. 
 
 <c Duchess. My lord, you told me you would tell the rest, 
 When weeping made you break the story off 
 Of our two cousins coming into London. 
 
 York. Where did I leave ? 
 
 Duchess. At that sad stop, my lord, 
 Where rude misgovern'd hands, from window tops, 
 Threw dust and rubbish on king Richard's head. 
 
 York. Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke, 
 Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed, 
 Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know, 
 With slow, but stately pace, kept on his course, 
 While all tongues cried — God save thee, Bolingbroke ! 
 You would have thought the very windows spake, 
 So many greedy looks of young and old 
 Through casements darted their desiring eyes 
 Upon his visage -, and that all the walls, 
 With painted imag'ry, had said at once — 
 
RICHARD II. 18? 
 
 Jesu preserve thee ! welcome, Bolingbroke ! 
 Whilst he, from one side to the other turning, 
 Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed's neck, 
 Bespake them thus — I thank you, countrymen : 
 And thus still doing thus he pass'd along. 
 
 Duchess. Alas, poor Richard ! where rides he the while ? 
 
 York. As in a theatre, the eyes of men, 
 After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, 
 Are idly bent on him that enters next, 
 Thinking his prattle to be tedious : 
 Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes 
 Did scowl on Richard ; no man cried God save him ! 
 No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home : 
 But dust was thrown upon his sacred head! 
 Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off — 
 His face still combating with tears and smiles., 
 The badges of his grief and patience — 
 That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd 
 The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted, 
 And barbarism itself have pitied him." 
 
HENRY IV. 
 
 IN TWO PARTS. 
 
 If Shakespear's fondness for the ludicrous some- 
 times led to faults in his tragedies (which was 
 not often the case) he has made us amends by 
 the character of FalstafT. This is perhaps the 
 most substantial comic character that ever was 
 invented. Sir John carries a most portly pre- 
 sence in the mind's eye; and in him, not to 
 speak it profanely, " we behold the fulness of 
 the spirit of wit and humour bodily." We are 
 as well acquainted with his person as his mind, 
 and his jokes come upon us with double force 
 and relish from the quantity of flesh through 
 w r hich they make their way, as he shakes his 
 fat sides with laughter, or " lards the lean earth 
 as he walks along." Other comic characters 
 seem, if we approach and handle them, to re- 
 solve themselves into air, " into thin air;" but 
 this is embodied and palpable to the grossest 
 
HENRY IV. 189 
 
 apprehension: it lies ''• three fingers deep upon 
 the ribs," it plays about the lungs and the 
 diaphragm with all the force of animal enjoy- 
 ment. His body is like a good estate to his 
 mind, from which he receives rents and revenues 
 of profit and pleasure in kind, according to its 
 extent, and the richness of the soil. Wit is 
 often a meagre substitute for pleasurable sen- 
 sation ; an effusion of spleen and petty spite 
 at the comforts of others, from feeling none in 
 itself. FalstafFs wit is an emanation of a fine 
 constitution; an exuberance of good -humour 
 and good-nature ; an overflowing of his love 
 of laughter, and good-fellowship ; a giving vent 
 to his heart's ease and over-contentment with 
 himself and others. He would not be in cha- 
 racter, if he were not so fat as he is; for there is 
 the greatest keeping in the boundless luxury 
 of his imagination and the pampered self-indul- 
 gence of his physical appetites. He manures 
 and nourishes his mind with jests, as he does 
 his body with sack and sugar. He carves out 
 his jokes, as he would a capon, or a haunch of 
 venison, where there is cut and come again; 
 and pours out upon them the oil of gladness. 
 His tongue drops fatness, and in the chambers 
 of his brain " it snows of meat and drink." He 
 keeps up perpetual holiday and open house, 
 and we live with him in a round of invitations 
 to a rump and dozen. — Yet we are not to sup- 
 
190 HENRY IV. 
 
 pose that he was a mere sensualist. All this 
 is as much in imagination as in reality. His 
 sensuality does not engross and stupify his other 
 faculties, but " ascends me into the brain, clears 
 away all the dull, crude vapours that environ 
 it, and makes it full of nimble, fiery, and delec- 
 table shapes." His imagination keeps up the 
 ball after his senses have done with it. He 
 seems to have even a greater enjoyment of the 
 freedom from restraint, of good cheer, of his 
 ease, of his vanity, in the ideal exaggerated de- 
 scriptions which he gives of them, than in fact. 
 He never fails to enrich his discourse with allu- 
 sions to eating and drinking, but we never see 
 him at table. He carries his own larder about 
 with him, and he is himself " a tun of man." 
 His pulling out the bottle in the field of battle 
 is a joke to shew his contempt for glory accom- 
 panied with danger, his systematic adherence 
 to his Epicurean philosophy in the most trying 
 circumstances. Again, such is his deliberate 
 exaggeration of his own vices, that it does not 
 seem quite certain whether the account of his 
 hostess's bill, found in his pocket, with such an 
 out-of-the-way charge for capons and sack with 
 only one halfpenny-worth of bread, was not put 
 there by himself as a trick to humour the jest 
 upon his favourite propensities, and as a con- 
 scious caricature of himself. He is represented 
 as a liar, a braggart, a coward, a glutton, &c. 
 
HENRY IV. 191 
 
 and yet we are not offended but delighted with 
 him; for he is all these as much to amuse others 
 as to gratify himself. He openly assumes all 
 these characters to shew the humourous part of 
 them, » The unrestrained indulgence of his own 
 ease, appetites, and convenience, has neither ma- 
 lice nor hypocrisy in it. In a word, he is an actor 
 in himself almost as much as upon the stage, and 
 we no more object to the character of Falstaffin 
 a moral point of view than we should think of 
 bringing an excellent comedian, who should re- 
 present him to the life, before one of the police 
 offices. We only consider the number of plea- 
 sant lights in which he puts certain foibles (the 
 more pleasant as they are opposed to the re- 
 ceived rules and necessary restraints of society) 
 and do not trouble ourselves about the conse- 
 quences resulting from them, for no mischie- 
 vous consequences do result. Sir John is old 
 as well as fat, which gives a melancholy retro- 
 spective tinge to the character; and by the dis- 
 parity between his inclinations and his capacity 
 for enjoyment, makes it still more ludicrous and 
 fantastical. 
 
 The secret of Falstaff^s wit is for the most 
 part a masterly presence of mind, an absolute 
 self-possession, which nothing can disturb. His 
 repartees are involuntary suggestions of his self- 
 love; instinctive evasions of every thing that 
 threatens to interrupt the career of his trium- 
 
192 HENRY IV. 
 
 phant jollity and self-complacency M His very 
 size floats him out of all his difficulties in a sea 
 of rich conceits; and he turns round on the pivot 
 of his convenience, with every occasion and at 
 a moment's warning. His natural repugnance 
 to every unpleasant thought or circumstance of 
 itself makes light of objections, and provokes 
 the most extravagant and licentious answers in 
 his own justification. His indifference to truth 
 puts no check upon his invention, and the more 
 improbable and unexpected his contrivances are, 
 the more happily does he seem to be delivered 
 of them, the anticipation of their effect acting 
 as a stimulus to the gaiety of his fancy. The 
 success of one adventurous sally gives him spirits 
 to undertake another: he deals always in round 
 numbers, and his exaggerations and excuses are 
 " open, palpable, monstrous as" the father that 
 begets them. 3 ' His dissolute carelessness of 
 what he says discovers itself in the first dialogue 
 with the Prince. 
 
 " Falstaff. By the lord, thou say'st true, lad 5 and is not 
 mine hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench ? 
 
 P. Henry. As the honey of Hibla, my old lad of the cas- 
 tle ; and is not a buff-jerkin a most sweet robe of durance? 
 
 Falstaff. How now, how now, mad wag, what in thy 
 quips and thy quiddities ? what a plague have I to do with 
 a buff-jerkin? 
 
 P. Henry. Why, what a pox have I to do with mine hos- 
 tess of the tavern?" 
 
HENRY IV. 193 
 
 In the same scene he afterwards affects me- 
 lancholy, from pure satisfaction of heart, and 
 professes reform, because it is the farthest thing 
 in the world from his thoughts. He has no 
 qualms of conscience, and therefore would as 
 soon talk of them as of any thing else when the 
 humour takes him. 
 
 " Falstaff. But Hal, I pr'ythee trouble me no more with 
 vanity. I would to God thou and I knew where a commo- 
 dity of good names were to be bought : an old lord of coun- 
 cil rated me the other day in the street about you, sir ; but 
 I mark'd him not, and yet he talked very wisely, and in 
 the street too. 
 
 P. Henry.* Thou didst well, for wisdom cries out in the 
 street, and no man regards it. 
 
 Falstaff. O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed 
 able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm unto 
 me, Hal ; God forgive thee for it. Before I knew thee, 
 Hal, I knew nothing, and now 1 am, if a man should speak 
 truly, little better than one of the wicked. I must give 
 over this life, and I will give it over, by the lord j an I do 
 not, I am a villain. I'll be damn'd for never a king's son 
 in Christendom. 
 
 P. Henry. Where shall we take a purse to-morrow, Jack ? 
 
 Falstaff. Where thou wilt, lad, I'll make one j an I do 
 not, call me villain, and baffle me. 
 
 P. Henry. I see good amendment of life in thee, from 
 praying to purse-taking. 
 
 Falstaff. Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation, Hal. 'Tis no sin 
 for a man to labour in his vocation." 
 
 Of the other prominent passages, his account 
 of his pretended resistance to the robbers, " who 
 
 o 
 
194 HENRY IV. 
 
 grew from four men in buckram into eleven" as 
 the imagination of his own valour increased with 
 his relating it, his getting off when the truth is 
 discovered by pretending he knew the Prince, 
 the scene in which in the person of the old king 
 he lectures the prince and gives himself a good 
 character, the soliloquy on honour, and descrip- 
 tion of his new-raised recruits, his meeting with 
 the chief justice, his abuse of the Prince and 
 Poins, who overhear him, to Doll Tearsheet, 
 his reconciliation with Mrs. Quickly who has 
 arrested him for an old debt, and whom he per- 
 suades to pawn her plate to lend him ten pounds 
 more, and the scenes with Shallow and Silence, 
 are all inimitable. Of all of them, the scene in 
 which FalstafT plays the part, first, of the King, 
 and then of Prince Henry, is the one that has 
 been the most often quoted. We must quote 
 it once more in illustration of our remarks. 
 
 f ' Falstaff. Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest 
 thy time, but also how thou art accompanied i for though 
 the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, 
 yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears. That 
 thou art my son, I have partly thy mother's word, partly 
 my own opinion j but chiefly, a villainous trick of thine eye, 
 and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant 
 
 me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point 3 
 
 Why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at ? Shall the 
 blessed sun of heaven prove a micher, and eat blackberries ? 
 A question not to be ask'd. Shall the son of England prove 
 a thief, and take purses ? a question not to be ask'd. There 
 
HENRY IV. 195 
 
 is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of, and it is 
 known to many in our land by the name of pitch : this pitch, 
 as ancient writers do report, doth defile ; so doth the com- 
 pany thou keepest : for, Harry, now I do not speak to thee 
 in drink, but in tears j not in pleasure, but in passion ; not 
 in words only, but in woes also : — and yet there is a virtu- 
 ous man, whom I have often noted in thy company, but I 
 know not his name. 
 
 P. Henry. What manner of man, an it like your majesty? 
 
 Falstaff. A goodly portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent ; 
 of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carri- 
 age ; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by'r-lady, in- 
 clining to threescore j and now I do remember me, his 
 name is Falstaff: if that man should be lewdly given, he 
 deceiveth me ; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If 
 then the fruit may be known by the tree, as the tree by the 
 fruit, then peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in that 
 Falstaff: him keep with, the rest banish. And tell me 
 now, thou naughty varlet, tell me, where hast thou been 
 this month ? 
 
 P. Henry. Dost thou speak like a king ? Do thou stand 
 for me, and I'll play my father. 
 
 Falstaff. Depose me ? if thou dost it half so gravely, so 
 majestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the 
 heels for a rabbit-sucker, or a poulterer's hare. 
 
 P. Henry. Well, here I am set. 
 
 Falstaff. And here I stand : — judge, my masters. 
 
 P. Henry. Now, Harry, whence come you? 
 
 Falstaff. My noble lord, from Eastcheap. 
 
 P. Henry. The complaints I hear of thee are grievous. 
 
 Falstaff. S'blood, my lord, they are false : — nay, I'll tickle 
 ye for a young prince, i' faith. 
 
 P. Henry. Swearest thou, ungracious boy ? henceforth 
 ne'er look on me. Thou art violently carried away from 
 grace : there is a devil haunts thee, in the likeness of a fat 
 
196 HENRY IV. 
 
 old man ; a tun of man is thy companion. Why dost thou 
 converse with that trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch 
 of beastliness, that swoln parcel of dropsies, that huge bom- 
 bard of sack, that stuft cloak-bag of guts, that roasted 
 Manning-tree ox with the pudding in his belly, that rever- 
 end vice, that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity 
 in years ? wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink 
 it ? wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat 
 it ? wherein cunning, but in craft ? wherein crafty, but in 
 villainy \ wherein villainous, but in all things ? wherein 
 worthy, but in nothing ? 
 
 Falstaff. 1 would, your grace would take me with you ; 
 whom means your grace \ 
 
 P. Henry. That villainous, abominable mis-leader of youth, 
 Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan. 
 
 Falstaff. My lord, the man I know. 
 
 P. Henry. I know thou dost. 
 
 Falstaff. But to say, I know more harm in him than in 
 myself, were to say more than I know. That he is old (the 
 more the pity) his white hairs do witness it : but that he is 
 (saving your reverence) a whore-master, that I utterly deny. 
 If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked ! if to 
 be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I 
 know is damned : if to be fat be to be hated, then Pha- 
 roah's lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord ; banish 
 Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins : but for sweet Jack 
 Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack 
 Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being as he is, old 
 Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry's company; banish 
 plump Jack, and banish all the world. 
 
 P. Henry. I do, I will. 
 
 [Knocking ; and Hostess and Bardolph go out. 
 Re-enter Bardolph, running. 
 
 Bardolph. O, my lord, my lord ; the sheriff, with a most 
 monstrous watch, is at the door. 
 
HE1STRY IV. 197 
 
 Falstaff. Out, you rogue ! play out the play : I have much 
 to say in the behalf of that Falstaff." 
 
 One of the most characteristic descriptions of 
 Sir John is that which Mrs. Quickly gives of him 
 when he asks her " What is the gross sum that 
 I owe thee ?" 
 
 " Hostess. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself, 
 and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel- 
 gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at the round 
 table, by a sea- coal fire on Wednesday in Whitsun-week, 
 when the prince broke thy head for likening his father to a 
 singing man of Windsor ; thou didst swear to me then, as 
 I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my 
 lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife 
 Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then, and call me gossip 
 Quickly } coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar j telling 
 us, she had a good dish of prawns ; whereby thou didst de- 
 sire to eat some j whereby I told thee, they were ill for a 
 green wound ? And didst thou not, when she was gone 
 down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with 
 such poor people ; saying, that ere long they should call 
 me madam? And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me 
 fetch thee thirty shillings ? I put thee now to thy book- 
 oath ; deny it, if thou canst." 
 
 This scene is to us the most convincing proof 
 of FalstafFs power of gaining over the good will 
 of those he was familiar with, except indeed 
 Bardolph's somewhat profane exclamation on 
 hearing the account of his death, " Would I were 
 
198 HENRY IV. 
 
 with him, wheresoever he is, whether in hea- 
 ven or hell/' 
 
 One of the topics of exulting superiority 
 over others most common in Sir John's mouth 
 is his corpulence and the exterior marks of good 
 living which he carries about him, thus " turn- 
 ing his vices into commodity." He accounts for 
 the friendship between the Prince and Poins, 
 from " their legs being both of a bigness ;" and 
 compares Justice Shallow to " a man made after 
 supper of a cheese-paring." There cannot be 
 a more striking gradation of character than that 
 between Falstaffand Shallow, and Shallow and 
 Silence. It seems difficult at first to fall lower 
 than the squire ; but this fool, great as he is, 
 finds an admirer and humble foil in his cousin 
 Silence. Vain of his acquaintance with Sir 
 John, who makes a butt of him, he exclaims, 
 " Would, cousin Silence, that thou had'st seen 
 that which this knight and I have seen !" — 
 " Aye, Master Shallow, we have heard the 
 chimes at midnight," says Sir John. To Fal- 
 stafFs observation " I did not think Master Si- 
 lence had been a man of this mettle," Silence 
 answers, " Who, I ? I have been merry twice 
 and once ere now." What an idea is here con- 
 veyed of a prodigality of living } What good 
 husbandry and economical self-denial in his 
 pleasures ? What a stock of lively recollee- 
 
HENRY IV. 199 
 
 tions ? It is curious that Shakespear has ridi- 
 culed in Justice Shallow, who was " in some 
 authority under the king/' that disposition to 
 unmeaning tautology which is the regal infir- 
 mity of later times, and which, it may be sup- 
 posed, he acquired from talking to his cousin 
 Silence, and receiving no answers. 
 
 " Falstaff. You have here a goodly dwelling, and a rich. 
 
 Shallow. Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars 
 all, Sir John : marry, good air. Spread Davy, spread Davy. 
 Well said, Davy. 
 
 Falstaff. This Davy serves you for good uses. 
 
 Shallow. A good varlet, a good varlet, a very good varlet. 
 By the mass, I have drank too much sack at supper. A good 
 varlet. Now sit down, now sit down. Come, cousin." 
 
 The true spirit of humanity, the thorough 
 knowledge of the stuff we are made of, the prac- 
 tical wisdom with the seeming fooleries in the 
 whole of the garden-scene at Shallow's country- 
 seat, and just before in the exquisite dialogue 
 between him and Silence on the death of old 
 Double, have no parallel any where else. In 
 one point of view, they are laughable in the ex- 
 treme ; in another they are equally affecting, if 
 it is affecting to shew what a little thing is hu- 
 man life, what a poor forked creature man is ! 
 
 The heroic and serious part of these two plays 
 founded on the story of Henry IV. is not in- 
 ferior to the comic and farcical. The characters 
 
200 HENRY IV. 
 
 of Hotspur and Prince Henry are two of the 
 most beautiful and dramatic, both in them- 
 selves and from contrast, that ever were drawn. 
 They are the essence of chivalry. We like 
 Hotspur the best upon the whole, perhaps 
 because he was unfortunate.— The characters 
 of their fathers, Henry IV. and old Northum- 
 berland, are kept up equally well. Henry na- 
 turally succeeds by his prudence and caution 
 in keeping what he has got ; Northumberland 
 fails in his enterprise from an excess of the same 
 quality, and is caught in the web of his own 
 cold, dilatory policy. Owen Glendower is a 
 masterly character. It is as bold and original 
 as it is intelligible and thoroughly natural. The 
 disputes between him and Hotspur are managed 
 with infinite address and insight into nature. 
 We cannot help pointing out here some very 
 beautiful lines, where Hotspur describes the 
 fight between Glendower and Mortimer. 
 
 te When on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank., 
 
 In single opposition hand to hand. 
 
 He did confound the best part of an hour 
 
 In changing hardiment with great Glendower : 
 
 Three times they breath'd, and three times did they drink, 
 
 Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood 5 
 
 Who then affrighted with their bloody looks, 
 
 Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds, 
 
 And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank, 
 
 Blood-stained with these valiant combatants." 
 
HENRY IV. 201 
 
 The peculiarity and the excellence of Shake- 
 spear's poetry is, that it seems as if he made his 
 imagination the hand-maid of nature, and nature 
 the play-thing of his imagination. He appears 
 to have been all the characters, and in all the 
 situations he describes. It is as if either he had 
 had all their feelings, or had lent them all his 
 genius to express themselves. There cannot 
 be stronger instances of this than Hotspur's rage 
 when Henry IV. forbids him to speak of Mor- 
 timer, his insensibility to all that his father and 
 uncle urge to calm him, and his fine abstracted 
 apostrophe to honour, " By heaven methinks 
 it were an easy leap to pluck bright honour from 
 the moon," &c. After all, notwithstanding the 
 gallantry, generosity, good temper, and idle 
 freaks of the mad-cap Prince of Wales, we 
 should not have been sorry, if Northumber- 
 land's force had come up in time to decide the 
 fate of the battle at Shrewsbury; at least, we 
 always heartily sympathise with Lady Percy's 
 grief, when she exclaims, 
 
 " Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers, 
 To-day might I (hanging on Hotspur's neck) 
 Have talked of Monmouth's grave." 
 
 The truth is, that we never could forgive the 
 Prince's treatment of Falstaff; though perhaps 
 Shakespear knew what was best, according to 
 
202 HENRY IV. 
 
 the history, the nature of the times, and of the 
 man. We speak only as dramatic critics. What- 
 ever terror the French in those days might 
 have of Henry V. yet to the readers of poetry 
 at present, FalstarT is the better man of the 
 two. We think of him and quote him oftener. 
 
HENRY V. 
 
 Henry V. is a very favourite monarch with 
 the English nation, and he appears to have 
 been also a favourite with Shakespear, who la- 
 bours hard to apologise for the actions of the 
 king, by shewing us the character of the man, 
 as " the king of good fellows." He scarcely 
 deserves this honour. He was fond of war and 
 low company : — we know little else of him. He 
 was careless, dissolute, and ambitious; — idle, 
 or doing mischief. In private, he seemed to 
 have no idea of the common decencies of life, 
 which he subjected to a kind of regal licence ; 
 in public affairs, he seemed to have no idea of 
 any rule of right or wrong, but brute force, 
 glossed over with a little religious hypocrisy and 
 archiepiscopal advice. His principles did not 
 change with his situation and professions. His 
 adventure on Gadshill was a prelude to the 
 
204 HENRY V. 
 
 affair of Agincourt, only a bloodless one ; FalstarT 
 was a puny prompter of violence and outrage, 
 compared with the pious and politic Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, who gave the king carte blanche^ 
 in a genealogical tree of his family, to rob and 
 murder in circles of latitude and longitude abroad 
 ! — to save the possessions of the church at home. 
 This appears in the speeches in Shakespear, 
 where the hidden motives that actuate princes 
 and their advisers in war and policy are better 
 laid open than in speeches from the throne or 
 woolsack. Henry, because he did not know 
 how to govern his own kingdom, determined to 
 make war upon his neighbours. Because his 
 own title to the crown was doubtful, he laid 
 claim to that of France. Because he did not 
 know how to exercise the enormous power, 
 which had just dropped into his hands, to any 
 one good purpose, he immediately undertook 
 (a cheap and obvious resource of sovereignty) 
 to do all the mischief he could. Even if abso- 
 lute monarchs had the wit to find out objects of 
 laudable ambition, they could only " plume up 
 their wills" in adhering to the more sacred for- 
 mula of the royal prerogative, " the right divine 
 of kings to govern wrong," because will is only 
 then triumphant when it is opposed to the will 
 of others, because the pride of power is only 
 then shewn, not when it consults the rights 
 and interests of others, but when it insults and 
 
HENRY V. 205 
 
 tramples on all justice and all humanity. Henry 
 declares his resolution " when France is his, to 
 bend it to his awe, or break it all to pieces" — 
 a resolution worthy of a conqueror, to destroy 
 all that he cannot enslave; and what adds to the 
 joke, he lays all the blame of the consequences 
 of his ambition on those who will not submit 
 tamely to his tyranny. Such is the history of 
 kingly power, from the beginning to the end of 
 the world ; — with this difference, that the ob- 
 ject of war formerly, when the people adhered 
 to their allegiance, was to depose kings ; the 
 object latterly, since the people swerved from 
 their allegiance, has been to restore kings, and 
 to make common cause against mankind. The 
 object of our late invasion and conquest of 
 France was to restore the legitimate monarch, 
 the descendant of Hugh Capet, to the throne : 
 Henry V. in his time made war on and deposed 
 the descendant of this very Hugh Capet, on the 
 plea that he was a usurper and illegitimate. 
 What would the great modern cats paw of legi- 
 timacy and restorer of divine right have said to 
 the claim of Henry and the title of the descen- 
 dants of Hugh Capet? Henry V. it is true> 
 was a hero, a king of England, and the con- 
 queror of the king of France. Yet we feel little 
 love or admiration for him. He was a hero, 
 that is, he was readv to sacrifice his own life 
 for the pleasure of destroying thousands of other 
 
20G HENRY V. 
 
 lives: he was a king of England, but not a 
 constitutional one, and we only like kings ac- 
 cording to the law ; lastly, he was a conqueror 
 of the French king, and for this we dislike him 
 less than if he had conquered the French people. 
 How then do we like him ? We like him in 
 the play. There he is a very amiable monster, 
 a very splendid pageant. As we like to gaze at 
 a panther or a young lion in their cages in the 
 Tower, and catch a pleasing horror from their 
 glistening eyes, their velvet paws, and dreadless 
 roar, so we take a very romantic, heroic, patrio- 
 tic, and poetical delight in the boasts and feats 
 of our younger Harry, as they appear on the 
 stage and are confined to lines of ten syllables ; 
 where no blood follows the stroke that wounds 
 our ears, where no harvest bends beneath horses* 
 hoofs, no city flames, no little child is but- 
 chered, no dead men's bodies are found piled on 
 heaps and festering the next morning— in the 
 orchestra ! 
 
 So much for the politics of this play; now for 
 the poetry. Perhaps one of the most striking 
 images in all Shakespear is that given of war in 
 the first lines of the Prologue. 
 
 " O for a muse of fire, that would ascend 
 The brightest heaven of invention, 
 A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, 
 And monarchs to behold the swelling scene ! 
 Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, 
 
HENRY V. 207 
 
 Assume the port of Mars, and at his heels 
 
 Leastid in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire 
 
 Crouch for employment." 
 
 Rubens, if he had painted it, would not have 
 improved upon this simile. 
 
 The conversation between the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely relating to 
 the sudden change in the manners of Henry V. 
 is among the well-known Beauties of Shake- 
 spear. It is indeed admirable both for strength 
 and grace. It has sometimes occurred to us 
 that Shakespear, in describing " the reforma- 
 tion" of the Prince, might have had an eye to 
 himself — 
 
 <c Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it, 
 
 Since his addiction was to courses vain, 
 
 His companies unletter'd, rude and shallow, 
 
 His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports 5 
 
 And never noted in him any study, 
 
 Any retirement, any sequestration 
 
 From open haunts and popularity. 
 
 Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle, 
 And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best 
 Neighbour' d by fruit of baser quality : 
 And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation 
 Under the veil of wildness, which no doubt 
 Grew like the summer-grass, fastest by night, 
 Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty." 
 
 This at least is as probable an account of the 
 progress of the poet's mind as we have met with 
 
208 HENRY V. 
 
 iu any of the Essays on the Learning of Shake- 
 spear. 
 
 Nothing can be better managed than the cau- 
 tion which the king gives the meddling Arch- 
 bishop, not to advise himself rashly to engage in 
 the war with France, his scrupulous dread of 
 the consequences of that advice, and his eager 
 desire to hear and follow it. 
 
 <e And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord, 
 That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading, 
 Or nicely charge your understanding soul 
 With opening titles miscreate, whose right 
 Suits not in native colours with the truth. 
 For God doth know how many now in health 
 Shall drop their blood, in approbation 
 Of what your reverence shall incite us to. 
 Therefore take heed how you impawn your person, 
 How you awake our sleeping sword of war ; 
 We charge you in the name of God, take heed. 
 For never two such kingdoms did contend 
 Without much fall of blood, whose guiltless drops 
 Are every one a woe, a sore complaint 
 'Gainst him, whose wrong gives edge unto the swords 
 That make such waste in brief mortality. 
 Under this conjuration, speak, my lord ; 
 For we will hear, note, and believe in heart, 
 That what you speak, is in your conscience wash'd, 
 As pure as sin with baptism." 
 
 Another characteristic instance of the blind- 
 ness of human nature to every thing but its 
 own interests is the complaint made by the 
 
HENRY V. <209 
 
 king of " the ill neighbourhood" of the Scot 
 in attacking England when she was attacking 
 France. 
 
 " For once the eagle England being in prey, 
 To her unguarded nest the weazel Scot 
 Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs." 
 
 It is worth observing that in all these plays, 
 which give an admirable picture of the spirit of 
 the good old times, the moral inference does not 
 at all depend upon the nature of the actions, but 
 on the dignity or meanness of the persons com- 
 mitting them. " The eagle England" has a right 
 " to be in prey," but " the weazel Scot" has 
 none " to come sneaking to her nest," which 
 she has left to pounce upon others. Might was 
 rihgt, without equivocation or disguise, in that 
 heroic and chivalrous age. The substitution of 
 right for might, even in theory, is among the 
 refinements and abuses of modern philosophy. 
 
 A more beautiful rhetorical delineation of the 
 effects of subordination in a commonwealth can 
 hardly be conceived than the following : — 
 
 « ]? or government, though high and low and lower, 
 Put into parts, doth keep in one consent, 
 Congruing in a full and natural close, 
 Like music. 
 
 Therefore heaven doth divide 
 
 The state of man in divers functions, 
 Setting endeavour in continual motion j 
 To which is fixed, as an aim or butt, 
 P 
 
210 HENHY V. 
 
 Obedience : for so work the honey bees ; 
 Creatures that by a rule in nature, teach 
 The art of order to a peopled kingdom. 
 They have a king, and officers of sorts 
 Where some, like magistrates, correct at home ; 
 , Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad ; 
 Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, 
 Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds -, 
 Which pillage they with merry march bring home 
 To the tent-royal of their emperor -, 
 Who, busied in his majesty, surveys 
 The singing mason building roofs of gold, 
 The civil citizens kneading up the honey, 
 The poor mechanic porters crowding in* 
 Their heavy burthens at his narrow gate ; 
 The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum, 
 Delivering o'er to executors pale 
 The lazy yawning drone. I this infer, 
 That many things, having full reference 
 To one consent, may work contrariously : 
 As many arrows, loosed several ways, 
 Come to one mark , as many ways meet in one town ; 
 As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea ; 
 As many lines close in the dial's centre ; 
 So may a thousand actions, once a-foot, 
 End in one purpose, and be all well borne 
 Without defeat." 
 
 Henry V. is but one of Shakespear's second- 
 rate plays. Yet by quoting passages, like this, 
 from his second-rate plays alone, we might make 
 a volume " rich with his praise," 
 
 f ' As is the oozy bottom of the sea 
 
 With sunken wrack and sumless treasuries." 
 
HENRY V 211 
 
 Of this sort are the king's remonstrance to 
 Scroop, Grey, and Cambridge, on the detection 
 of their treason, his address to the soldiers at 
 the siege of Harfleur, and the srill finer one 
 before the battle of Agincourt, the description 
 of the night before the battle, and the reflections 
 on ceremony put into the mouth of the king. 
 
 ei O hard condition ; twin-born with greatness, 
 Subjected to the breath of every fool, 
 Whose sense no more can feel but his own wringing ! 
 What infinite heart's ease must kings neglect, 
 That private men enjoy ? and what have kings, 
 That privates have not too, save ceremony ? 
 Save general ceremony ? 
 And what art thou, thou idol ceremony : 
 What kind of god art thou, that suffer' st more 
 Of mortal griefs, than do thy worshippers ? 
 What are thy rents ? what are thy comings-in ? 
 O ceremony, shew me but thy worth ! 
 What is thy soul, O adoration ? 
 Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form, 
 Creating awe and fear in other men ? 
 Wherein thou art less happy, being feared, 
 Than they in fearing. 
 
 What drink' st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, 
 But poison'd flattery ? O, be sick, great greatness, 
 And bid thy ceremony give thee cure ! 
 Think'st thou, the fiery fever will go out 
 With titles blown from adulation ? 
 Will it give place to flexure and low bending ? 
 Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee, 
 Command the health of it > No, thou proud dream, 
 That play'st so subtly with a king's repose, 
 
212 HENRY V. 
 
 I am a king, that find thee : and I know, 
 
 'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball, 
 
 The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, 
 
 The enter- tissu'd robe of gold and pearl, 
 
 The farsed title running 'fore the king, 
 
 The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp 
 
 That beats upon the shore of the world, 
 
 No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony, 
 
 Not all these, laid in bed majestical, 
 
 Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave j 
 
 Who, with a body fill'd, and vacant mind, 
 
 Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread, 
 
 Never sees horrid night, the child of hell : 
 
 Kut, like a lacquey, from the rise to set, 
 
 Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night 
 
 Sleeps in Elysium ; next day, after dawn, 
 
 Doth rise, and help Hyperion to his horse ; 
 
 And follows so the ever- running year 
 
 With profitable labour, to his grave : 
 
 And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, 
 
 Winding up days with toil, and nights with sleep, 
 
 Has the forehand and vantage of a king. 
 
 The slave, a member of the country's peace, 
 
 Enjoys it ; but in gross brain little wots, 
 
 What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace, 
 
 Whose hours the peasant best advantages." 
 
 Most of these passages are well known: there 
 is one, which we do not remember to have seen 
 noticed, and vet it is no whit inferior to the rest 
 in heroic beauty. It is the account of the deaths 
 of York and Suffolk. 
 
 11 Exeter. The duke of York commends him to your 
 majesty. 
 
HENRY. V. 213 
 
 A". Henry. Lives he, good uncle ? thrice within this hour, 
 I saw him clown ; thrice up again, and fighting ; 
 From helmet to the spur all blood he was. 
 
 Exeter. In which array (brave soldier) doth he lie, 
 Larding the plain : and by his bloody side 
 (Yoke-fellow to his honour-owing wounds) 
 The noble earl of Suffolk also lies. 
 Suffolk first died : and York,, all haggled o'er, 
 Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteepd, 
 And takes him by the beard ; kisses the gashes, 
 That bloodily did yawn upon his face ; 
 And cries aloud — Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk ! 
 My soul shall thine keep company to heaven : 
 Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, thenjiy a-breast; 
 As, in this glorious and well-foitghten field, 
 We kept together in our chivalry ! 
 Upon these words I came, and cheer' d him up : 
 He smil'd me in the face, raught me his hand, 
 And, with a feeble gripe, says — Dear my lord, 
 Commend my service to my sovereign. 
 So did he turn, and over Suffolk's neck 
 He threw his wounded arm, and kiss'd his lips ; 
 And so, espous'd to death, with blood he seal'd 
 A testament of noble-ending love." 
 
 But we must have done with splendid quota- 
 tions. The behaviour of the king, in the diffi- 
 cult and doubtful circumstances in which he is 
 placed, is as patient and modest as it is spirited 
 and lofty in his prosperous fortune. The cha- 
 racter of the French nobles is also very admira- 
 bly depicted ; and the DauphiiVs praise of his 
 horse shews the vanity of that class of persons 
 in a very striking point of view. Shakespear 
 
214 HENRY V. 
 
 always accompanies a foolish prince with a sati- 
 rical courtier, as we see in this instance. The 
 comic parts of Henry V. are very inferior to 
 those of Henry IV. Falstaff is dead, and with- 
 out him, Pistol, Nym, and Bardolph, are satel- 
 lites without a sun. Fluellen the Welchman is 
 the most entertaining character in the piece. 
 He is good-natured, brave, choleric, and pedan- 
 tic. His parallel between Alexander and Harry 
 of Monmouth, and his desire to have " some 
 disputations" with Captain Macmorris on the 
 discipline of the Roman wars, in the heat of 
 the battle, are never to be forgotten. His treat- 
 ment of Pistol is as good as Pistol's treatment 
 of his French prisoner. There are two other 
 remarkable prose passages in this play: the con- 
 versation of Henry in disguise with the three 
 centinels on the duties of a soldier, and his 
 courtship of Katherine in broken French. We 
 like them both exceedingly, though the first 
 savours perhaps too much of the king, and the 
 last too little of the lover. 
 
HENRY VI. 
 
 IN THREE PARTS. 
 
 During the time of the civil wars of York and 
 Lancaster, England was a perfect bear-garden, and 
 Shakespear has given us a very lively picture of 
 the scene. The three parts of Henry VI. con- 
 vey a picture of very little else ; and are inferior 
 to the other historical plays. They have bril- 
 liant passages ; but the general ground-work is 
 comparatively poor and meagre, the style " flat 
 and unraised." There are few lines like the fol- 
 lowing : — 
 
 " Glory is like a circle in the water j 
 Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, 
 Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought." 
 
 The first part relates to the wars in France 
 after the death of Henry V. and the story of the 
 Maid of Orleans. She is here almost as scurvily 
 
216 . HENRY VI. 
 
 treated as in Voltaire's Pucelle. Talbot is a 
 very magnificent sketch : there is something as 
 formidable in this portrait of him, as there would 
 be in a monumental figure of him or in the sight 
 of the armour which he wore. The scene in 
 which he visits the Countess of Auvergne, who 
 seeks to entrap him, is a very spirited one, and 
 his description of his own treatment while a 
 prisoner to the French not less remarkable. 
 
 " Salisbury. Yet tell'st thou not how thou wert enter - 
 tain'd. 
 
 Talbot. With scoffs and scorns, and contumelious taunts, 
 In open market-place produced they me, 
 To be a public spectacle to all. 
 Here, said they, is the terror of the French, 
 The scarecrow that affrights our children so. 
 Then broke I from the officers that led me, 
 And with my nails digg'd stones out of the ground, 
 To hurl at the beholders of my shame. 
 My grisly countenance made others fly, 
 None durst come near for fear of sudden death. 
 In iron walls they deem'd me not secure : 
 So great a fear my name amongst them spread, 
 That they suppos'd I could rend bars of steel, 
 And spurn in pieces posts of adamant. 
 Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had : 
 They walk'd about me every minute-while j 
 And if I did but stir out of my bed, 
 Ready they were to shoot me to the heart." 
 
 The second part relates chiefly to the con- 
 tests between the nobles during the minority of 
 
HENRY VI 217 
 
 Henry, and the death of Gloucester, the good 
 Duke Humphrey. The character of Cardinal 
 Beaufort is the most prominent in the group: 
 the account of his death is one of our author's 
 master-pieces. So is the speech of Gloucester 
 to the nobles on the loss of the provinces of 
 France by the king's marriage with Margaret of 
 Anjou. The pretensions and growing ambition 
 of the Duke of York, the father of Richard III. 
 are also very ably developed. Among the epi- 
 sodes, the tragi-comedy of Jack Cade, and the 
 detection of the impostor Simcox are truly edi- 
 fying. 
 
 The third part describes Henry's loss of his 
 crown : his death takes place in the last act, 
 which is usually thrust into the common acting 
 play of Richard III. The character of Glouces- 
 ter, afterwards King Richard, is here very pow- 
 erfully commenced, and his dangerous designs 
 and long-reaching ambition are fully described in 
 his soliloquy in the third act, beginning, " Aye, 
 Edward will use women honourably." Henry 
 VI. is drawn as distinctly as his high-spirited 
 Queen, and notwithstanding the very mean 
 figure which Henry makes as a king, we still 
 feel more respect for him than for his wife. 
 
 We have already observed that Shakespear 
 was scarcely more remarkable for the force and 
 marked contrasts of his characters than for the 
 truth and subtlety with which he has distin- 
 
218 HENRY VI. 
 
 guished those which approached the nearest to 
 each other. For instance, the soul of Othello 
 is hardly more distinct from that of Iago than 
 that of Desdemona is shewn to be from iEmi- 
 lia's ; the ambition of Macbeth is as distinct 
 from the ambition of Richard III. as it is from 
 the meekness of Duncan ; the real madness of 
 Lear is as different from the feigned madness of 
 Edgar* as from the babbling of the fool ; the 
 contrast between wit and folly in Falstaff and 
 Shallow is not more characteristic though more 
 obvious than the gradations of folly, loquacious 
 or reserved, in Shallow and Silence ; and again, 
 the gallantry of Prince Henry is as little con- 
 founded with that of Hotspur as with the cow- 
 ardice of Falstaff, or as the sensual and philoso- 
 phic cowardice of the Knight is with the pitiful 
 and cringing cowardice of Parolles. All these 
 several personages were as different in Shake- 
 spear as they would have been in themselves: his 
 imagination borrowed from the life, and every 
 circumstance, object, motive, passion, operated 
 there as it would in reality, and produced a 
 world of men and women as distinct, as true and 
 as various as those that exist in nature. The 
 peculiar property of Shakespear's imagination 
 
 * There is another instance of the same distinction in 
 Hamlet and Ophelia. Hamlet's pretended madness would 
 make a very good real madness in any other author. 
 
HENRY VI. 219 
 
 was this truth, accompanied with the uncon- 
 sciousness of nature : indeed, imagination to be 
 perfect must be unconscious, at least in produc- 
 tion ; for nature is so. — We shall attempt one 
 example more in the characters of Richard II. 
 and Henry VI. 
 
 The characters and situations of both these 
 persons were so nearly alike, that they would 
 have been completely confounded by a com- 
 mon-place poet. Yet they are kept quite dis- 
 tinct in Shakespear. Both were kings, and both 
 unfortunate. Both lost their crowns owing to 
 their mismanagement and imbecility ; the one 
 from a thoughtless, wilful abuse of power, the 
 other from an indifference to it. The manner 
 in which they bear their misfortunes corresponds 
 exactly to the causes which led to them. The 
 one is always lamenting the loss of his power 
 which he has not the spirit to regain ; the other 
 seems only to regret that he had ever been king, 
 and is glad to be rid of the power, with the trou- 
 ble ; the effeminacy of the one is that of a vo- 
 luptuary, proud, revengeful, impatient of con- 
 tradiction, and inconsolable in his misfortunes ; 
 the effeminacy of the other is that of an indo- 
 lent, good-natured mind, naturally averse to the 
 turmoils of ambition and the cares of greatness, 
 and who wishes to pass his time in monkish in- 
 dolence and contemplation. — Richard bewails 
 the loss of the kingly power only as it was the 
 
220 HENRY VI. 
 
 means of gratifying his pride and luxury ; Henry 
 regards it only as a means of doing right, and 
 is less desirous of the advantages to be derived 
 from possessing it than afraid of exercising it 
 wrong. In knighting a young soldier, he gives 
 him ghostly advice — 
 
 <e Edward Plantagenet, arise a knight, 
 
 And learn this lesson, draw thy sword in right." 
 
 Richard II. in the first speeches of the play 
 
 betravs his real character. In the first alarm of 
 
 *> 
 
 his pride, on hearing of Bolingbroke's rebellion, 
 before his presumption has met with any check, 
 he exclaims — 
 
 " Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords : 
 This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones 
 Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king 
 Shall faulter under proud rebellious arms. 
 ************* 
 
 Not all the water in the rough rude sea 
 
 Can wash the balm from an anointed king ; 
 
 The breath of worldly man cannot depose 
 
 The Deputy elected by the Lord. 
 
 For every man that Bolingbroke hath prest, 
 
 To lift sharp steel against our golden crown, 
 
 Heaven for his Richard hath in heavenly pay 
 
 A glorious angel ; then if angels fight, 
 
 Weak men must fall; for Heaven still guards the right." 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding this royal confession of 
 faith, on the very first news of actual disaster, 
 
HENRY VI. 221 
 
 all his conceit of himself as the peculiar favour- 
 ite of Providence vanishes into air. 
 
 " But now the blood of twenty thousand men 
 Did triumph in my face, and they are fled. 
 All souls that will be safe fly from my side 5 
 For time hath set a blot upon my prides" 
 
 Immediately after, however, recollecting that 
 " cheap defence" of the divinity of kings which 
 is to be found in opinion, he is for arming his 
 name against his enemies. 
 
 f ' Awake, thou coward Majesty, thou sleep'st $ 
 Is not the King's name forty thousand names } 
 Arm, arm, my name : a puny subject strikes 
 At thy great glory." 
 
 King Henry does not make any such vapour- 
 ing resistance to the loss of his crown, but lets 
 it slip from off his head as a weight which he is 
 neither able nor willing to bear; stands quietly 
 by to see the issue of the contest for his king- 
 dom, as if it were a game at push-pin, and is 
 pleased when the odds prove against him. 
 
 When Richard first hears of the death of his 
 favourites, Bushy, Bagot, and the rest, he indig- 
 nantly rejects all idea of any further efforts, and 
 only indulges in the extravagant impatience of 
 his grief and his despair, in that fine speech 
 which has been so often quoted : — 
 
222 HENRY VI. 
 
 <c Aumerle. Where is the duke my father, with his power? 
 
 K. Richard. No matter where : of comfort no man speak : 
 Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs, 
 Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes 
 Write sorrow in the bosom of the earth ! 
 Let's chuse executors, and talk of wills : 
 And yet not so — for what can we bequeath, 
 Save our deposed bodies to the ground ? 
 Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's, 
 And nothing can we call our own but death, 
 And that small model of the barren earth, 
 Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. 
 For heaven's sake let us sit upon the ground, 
 And tell sad stories of the death of Kings : 
 How some have been depos'd, some slain in war ; 
 Some haunted by the ghosts they dispossess'd j 
 Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd ; 
 All murder 'd : — for within the hollow crown, 
 That rounds the mortal temples of a king, 
 Keeps death his court : and there the antic sits, 
 Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp ! 
 Allowing him a breath, a little scene 
 To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks 7 
 Infusing him with self and vain conceit — 
 As if this flesh, which walls about our life, 
 Were brass impregnable ; and, humour' d thus, 
 Comes at the last, and, with a little pin, 
 Bores through his castle wall, and — farewell king ! 
 Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood 
 With solemn reverence ; throw away respect, 
 Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty, 
 For you have but mistook me all this while : 
 I live on bread like you, feel want, taste grief, 
 Need friends, like you ; — subjected thus, 
 How can you say to me — I am a king V* 
 
HENRY VI. 223 
 
 There is as little sincerity afterwards in his 
 affected resignation to his fate, as there is forti- 
 tude in this exaggerated picture of his misfor- 
 tunes before they have happened. 
 
 When Northumberland comes back with the 
 message from Bolingbroke, he exclaims, antici- 
 pating the result, — 
 
 " What must the king do now ? Must he submit 1 
 The king shall do it : must he be depos'd ? 
 The king shall be contented : must he lose 
 The name of king ? O' God's name let it go. 
 I'll give my jewels for a set of beads 5 
 My gorgeous palace for a hermitage j 
 My gay apparel for an alms-man's gown 5 
 My figur'd goblets for a dish of wood 3 
 My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff} 
 My subjects for a pair of carved saints, 
 And my large kingdom for a little grave — 
 A little, little grave, an obscure grave." 
 
 How differently is all this expressed in King 
 Henry's soliloquy during the battle with Ed- 
 ward's party : — 
 
 " This battle fares like to the morning's war, 
 When dying clouds contend with growing light, 
 What time the shepherd blowing of his nails, 
 Can neither call it perfect day or night. 
 Here on this mole-hill will I sit me down 5 
 To whom God will, there be the victory ! 
 For Margaret my Queen and Clifford too 
 Have chid me from the battle, swearing both 
 They prosper best of all whence I am thence. 
 Would I were dead, if God's good will were so. 
 
224 HENRY VL 
 
 For what is in this world but grief and woe $ 
 
 O God ! methinks it were a happy life 
 
 To be no better than a homely swain, 
 
 To sit upon a hill as I do now, 
 
 To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, 
 
 Thereby to see the minutes how they run : 
 
 How many make the hour full complete, 
 
 How many hours bring about the day, 
 
 How many days will finish up the year, 
 
 How many years a mortal man may live. 
 
 When this is known, then to divide the times : 
 
 So many hours must I tend my flock, 
 
 So many hours must I take my rest, 
 
 So many hours must I contemplate, 
 
 So many hours must I sport myself ; 
 
 So many days my ewes have been with young. 
 
 So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean, 
 
 So many months ere I shall shear the fleece : 
 
 So many minutes, hours, weeks, months, and years 
 
 Past over, to the end they were created, 
 
 Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. 
 
 Ah ! what a life were this ! how sweet, how lovely ! 
 
 Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade 
 
 To shepherds looking on their silly sheep, 
 
 Than doth a rich embroidered canopy 
 
 To kings that fear their subjects' treachery \ 
 
 O yes it doth, a thousand fold it doth. 
 
 And to conclude, the shepherds' homely curds. 
 
 His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle, 
 
 His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade, 
 
 All which secure and sweetly he enjoys, 
 
 Is far beyond a prince's delicates, 
 
 His viands sparkling in a golden cup, 
 
 His body couched in a curious bed, 
 
 When care, mistrust, and treasons wait on him." 
 
HENRY VI. 225 
 
 This is a true and beautiful description of a 
 naturally quiet and contented disposition, and 
 not, like the former, the splenetic effusion of u 
 disappointed ambition. 
 
 In the last scene of Richard II. his despair 
 lends him courage : he beats the keeper, slays 
 two of his assassins, and dies with imprecations 
 in his mouth against Sir Pierce Exton, who 
 " had staggered his royal person." Henry, 
 when he is seized by the deer-stealers, only 
 reads them a moral lecture on the duty of alle- 
 giance and the sanctity of an oath ; and when 
 stabbed by Gloucester in the Tower, reproaches 
 him with his crimes, but pardons him his own 
 death. 
 
RICHARD III. 
 
 ?* 
 
 Richard III. may be considered as properly 
 a stage-play : it belongs to the theatre, rather 
 than to the closet. We shall therefore criticise 
 it chiefly with a reference to the manner in 
 which we have seen it performed. It is the 
 character in which Garrick came out: it was 
 the second character in which Mr. Kean ap- 
 peared, and in which he acquired his fame. 
 Shakespear w 7 e have always with us: actors we 
 have only for a few seasons ; and therefore some 
 account of them may be acceptable, if not to 
 our cotemporaries, to those who come after us, 
 if " that rich and idle personage, Posterity," 
 should deign to look into our writings. 
 
 It is possible to form a higher conception of the 
 character of Richard than that given by Mr. Kean: 
 but we cannot imagine any character represented 
 with greater distinctness and precision, more 
 
RICHARD III. 227 
 
 perfectly articulated in every part. Perhaps in- 
 deed there is too much of what is technically 
 called execution. When we first saw this cele- 
 brated actor in the part, we thought he some- 
 times failed from an exuberance of manner, and 
 dissipated the impression of the general charac- 
 ter by the variety of his resources. To be 
 complete, his delineation of it should have more 
 solidity, depth, sustained and impassioned feel- 
 ing, with somewhat less brilliancy, with fewer 
 glancing lights, pointed transitions, and panto- 
 mimic evolutions. 
 
 The Richard of Shakespear is towering and 
 lofty ; equally impetuous and commanding ; 
 haughty, violent, and subtle ; bold and treacher- 
 ous; confident in his strength as well as in his 
 cunning; raised high by his birth, and higher 
 by his talents and his crimes; a royal usurper, a 
 princely hypocrite, a tyrant and a murderer of 
 the house of Plantagenet. 
 
 " But I was born so high ; 
 
 Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top, 
 
 And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun." 
 
 The idea conveyed in these lines (which are 
 lindeed omitted in the miserable medley acted 
 for Richard III.) is never lost sight of by 
 jShakespear, and should not be out of the actor's 
 tind for a moment. The restless and sangui- 
 lary Richard is not a man striving to be great, 
 
223 RICHARD III. 
 
 but to be greater than he is; conscious of his 
 strength of will, his power of intellect, his daring 
 courage, his elevated station ; and making use of 
 these advantages to commit unheard-of crimes, 
 and to shield himself from remorse and infamy. 
 If Mr. Kean does not entirely succeed in 
 concentrating all the lines of the character, as 
 drawn by Shakespear, he gives an animation, 
 vigour, and relief to the part which we have not 
 seen equalled. He is more refined than Cooke; 
 more bold, varied, and original than Kemble in 
 the same character. In some parts he is defi- 
 cient in dignity, and particularly in the scenes 
 of state business, he has by no means an air of 
 artificial authority. There is at times an aspir- 
 ing elevation, an enthusiastic rapture in his ex- 
 pectations of attaining the crown, and at others 
 a gloating expression of sullen delight, as if he 
 already clenched the bauble, and held it in his 
 grasp. The courtship scene with Lady Anne is 
 an admirable exhibition of smooth and smiling 
 villainy. The progress of wily adulation, of 
 encroaching humility, is finely marked by his 
 action, voice and eye. He seems, like the first 
 Tempter, to approach his prey, secure of the 
 event, and as if success had smoothed his way 
 before him. The late Mr. Cooke's manner of 
 representing this scene was more vehement, 
 hurried, and full of anxious uncertainty. This, 
 though more natural in general, was less in 
 
RICHARD III. «29 
 
 character in this particular instance. Richard 
 should woo less as a lover than as an actor — 
 to shew his mental superiority, and power of 
 making others the play-things of his purposes. 
 Mr. Kean's attitude in leaning against the side 
 of the stage before he comes forward to address 
 Lady Anne, is one of the most graceful and 
 striking ever witnessed on the stage. It would 
 do for Titian to paint. The frequent and rapid 
 transition of his voice from the expression of 
 the fiercest passion to the. most familiar tones 
 of conversation was that which gave a peculiar 
 grace of novelty to his acting on his first appear- 
 ance. This has been since imitated and carica- 
 tured by others, and he himself uses the artifice 
 more sparingly than he did. His bye-play is 
 excellent. His manner of bidding his friends 
 " Good night/' after pausing with the point of 
 his sword, drawn slowly backward and forward 
 on the ground, as if considering the plan of the 
 battle next day, is a particularly happy and 
 natural thought. He gives to the two last acts 
 of the play the greatest animation and effect. 
 He fills every part of the stage; and makes up 
 for the deficiency of his person by what has 
 been sometimes objected to as an excess of ac- 
 tion. The concluding scene in which he is 
 killed by Richmond is the most brilliant of the 
 whole. He fights at last like one drunk with 
 wounds ; and the attitude in which he stands 
 
230 RICHARD III. 
 
 wjth his hands stretched out, after his sword 
 is Wrested from him, has a preternatural and 
 terrific grandeur, as if his will could not be 
 disarmed, and the very phantoms of his despair 
 had power to kill. — Mr. Kean has since in a great 
 measure effaced the impression of his Richard 
 III. by the superior efforts of his genius in 
 Othello (his master-piece), in the murder-scene 
 in Macbeth, in Richard II. in Sir Giles Over- 
 reach, and lastly in Oroonoko ; but we still like 
 to look back to his first performance of this 
 part, both because it first assured his admirers 
 of his future success, and because we bore our 
 feeble but, at that time, not useless testimony 
 to the merits of this very original actor, on 
 which the town was considerably divided for 
 no other reason than because they were original. 
 
 The manner in which Shakespear's plays have 
 been generally altered or rather mangled by mo- 
 dern mechanists, is a disgrace to the English 
 stage* The patch-work Richard III. which 
 is acted under the sanction of his name, and 
 which was manufactured by Cibber, is a striking 
 example of this remark. 
 
 The play itself is undoubtedly a very pow- 
 erful effusion of Shakespear's genius. The 
 ground-work of the character of Richard, that 
 mixture of intellectual vigour with moral de- 
 pravity, in which Shakespear delighted to shew 
 his strength — gave full scope as well as temp- 
 
RICHARD III. 231 
 
 tation to the exercise of his imagination. The 
 character of his hero is almost every where pre- 
 dominant, and marks its lurid track throughout. 
 The original play is however too long for repre- 
 sentation, and there are some few scenes which 
 might be better spared than preserved, and by 
 omitting which it would remain a complete 
 whole. The only rule, indeed, for altering 
 Shakespear is to retrench certain passages which 
 may be considered either as superfluous or ob- 
 solete, but not to add or transpose anything. 
 The arrangement and developement of the 
 story, and the mutual contrast and combination 
 of the dramatis per sonce, are in general as finely 
 managed as the developement of the characters 
 or the expression of the passions. 
 
 This rule has not been adhered to in the 
 present instance. Some of the most important 
 and striking passages in the principal character 
 have been omitted, to make room for idle and 
 misplaced extracts from other plays; the only 
 intention of which seems to have been to make 
 the character of Richard as odious and disgust- 
 ing as possible. It is apparently for no other 
 purpose than to make Gloucester stab King 
 Henry on the stage, that the fine abrupt intro- 
 duction of the character in the opening of the 
 play is lost in the tedious whining morality of 
 the uxorious king (taken from another play); — 
 
232 RICHARD III. 
 
 we say tedious, because it interrupts the busi- 
 j ness of the scene, and loses its beauty and effect 
 by having no intelligible connection with the 
 previous character of the mild, well-meaning 
 monarch. The passages which the unfortunate 
 Henry has to recite are beautiful and pathetic 
 in themselves, but they have nothing to do 
 with the world that Richard has to " bustle 
 in." In the same spirit of vulgar caricature 
 is the scene between Richard and Lady Anne 
 (when his wife) interpolated without any au- 
 thority, merely to gratify this favourite propen- 
 sity to disgust and loathing. With the same 
 perverse consistency, Richard, after his last fatal 
 struggle, is raised up by some Galvanic process, 
 to utter the imprecation, without any motive 
 but pure malignity, which Shakespear has so 
 properly put into the mouth of Northumberland 
 on hearing of Percy's death. To make room 
 for these worse than needless additions, many 
 of the most striking passages in the real play 
 have been omitted by the foppery and ignorance 
 of the prompt-book critics. We do not mean 
 to insist merely on passages which are fine as 
 poetry and to the reader, such as Clarence's 
 dream, &c. but on those which are important to 
 the understanding of the character, and pecu- 
 liarly adapted for stage-effect. We will give 
 the following as instances among several others. 
 
RICHARD III. 233 
 
 The first is the scene where Richard enters 
 abruptly to the queen and her friends to defend 
 himself: — 
 
 " Gloucester. They do me wrong, and I will not endure it. 
 Who are they that complain unto the king, 
 That I forsooth am stern, and love them not ? 
 By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly, 
 That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours : 
 Because I cannot flatter and look fair, 
 Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog, 
 Duck with French nods, and apish courtesy, 
 I must be held a rancourous enemy. 
 Cannot a plain man live, and think no harm, 
 But thus his simple truth must be abus'd 
 With silken, sly, insinuating Jacks ? 
 
 Gray. To whom in all this presence speaks your grace ? 
 
 Gloucester. To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace ; 
 When have I injur'd thee, when done thee wrong ? 
 Or thee ? or thee ? or any of your faction ? 
 A plague upon you all!" 
 
 Nothing can be more characteristic than the 
 turbulent pretensions to meekness and simpli- 
 city in this address. Again, the versatility and 
 adroitness of Richard is admirably described in 
 the following ironical conversation with Braken- 
 bury : — 
 
 (f Brakenbury. I beseech your graces both to pardon me. 
 His majesty hath straitly given in charge, 
 That no man shall have private conference, 
 Of what degree soever, with your brother. 
 
 Gloucester. E'en so, and please your worship, Braken- 
 bury, 
 
234 RICHARD III. 
 
 You may partake of any thing we say : 
 We speak no treason, man — we say the king 
 Is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen 
 Well strook in years, fair, and not jealous. 
 We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot, 
 A cherry lip, a passing pleasing tongue 3 
 That the queen's kindred are made gentlefolks. 
 How say you, sir ? Can you deny all this ? 
 
 Brakenbury. With this, my lord, myself have nought 
 to do. 
 
 Gloucester. What, fellow, naught to do with mistress 
 Shore? 
 I tell you, sir, he that doth naught with her, 
 Excepting one, were best to do it secretly alone. 
 
 Brakenbury. What one, my lord? 
 
 Gloucester. Her husband, knave — would'st thou betray 
 me?" 
 
 The feigned reconciliation of Gloucester with 
 the queers kinsmen is also a master-piece. 
 One of the finest strokes in the play, and which 
 serves to shew as much as any thing the deep, 
 plausible manners of Richard, is the unsuspect- 
 ing security of Hastings, at the very time when 
 the former is plotting his death, and when that 
 very appearance of cordiality and good-humour 
 on which Hastings builds his confidence arises 
 from Richard's consciousness of having betrayed 
 him to his ruin. This, with the whole charac- 
 ter of Hastings, is omitted. 
 
 Perhaps the two most beautiful passages in 
 the original play are the farewel apostrophe of 
 the queen to the Tower, where her children are 
 
RICHARD III. 935 
 
 shut up from her, and Tyrrel's description of 
 their death. We will finish our quotations with 
 them. 
 
 ". Queen. Stay, yet look back with me unto the Tower ; 
 Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes, 
 Whom envy hath immured within your walls j 
 Rough cradle for such little pretty ones, 
 Rude, rugged nurse, old sullen play-fellow, 
 For tender princes !" 
 
 The other passage is the account of their death 
 by Tyrrel : — 
 
 " Dighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn 
 To do this piece of ruthless butchery, 
 Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs, 
 Wept like to children in their death's sad story : 
 O thus ! quoth Dighton, lay the gentle babes ; 
 Thus, thus, quoth Forrest, girdling one another 
 Within their innocent alabaster arms ; 
 Their lips were four red roses on a stalk, 
 And in that summer beauty kissed each other -, 
 A book of prayers on their pillow lay, 
 Which once, quoth Forrest, almost changed my mind : 
 But oh the devil! — there the villain stopped j 
 When Dighton thus told on — we smothered 
 The most replenished sweet work of nature, 
 That from the prime creation ere she framed." 
 
 These are some of those wonderful bursts 
 of feeling, done to the life, to the very height 
 of fancy and nature, which our Shakespear 
 alone could give. We do not insist on the 
 
236 RICHARD III. 
 
 repetition of these last passages as proper for 
 the stage: we should indeed be loth to trust 
 them in the mouth of almost any actor: but we 
 should wish them to be retained in preference at 
 least to the fantoccini exhibition of the young 
 princes, Edward and York, bandying childish 
 wit with their uncle. 
 
HENRY VIII. 
 
 This play contains little action or violence of 
 passion, yet it has considerable interest of a more 
 mild and thoughtful cast, and some of the most 
 striking passages in the author's works. The 
 character of Queen Katherine is the most per- 
 fect delineation of matronly dignity, sweetness* 
 and resignation, that can be conceived. Her 
 appeals to the protection of the king, her re- 
 monstrances to the cardinals, her conversations 
 with her women, shew a noble and generous 
 spirit accompanied with the utmost gentleness 
 of nature. What can be more affecting than 
 her answer to Campeius and Wolsey, who come 
 to visit her as pretended friends. 
 
 ■ <c Nay, forsooth, my friends, 
 
 They that my trust must grow to, live not here ; 
 They are, as all my comforts are, far hence, 
 lii mine own country, lords.'' 
 
238 HENRY V11I. 
 
 Dr. Johnson observes of this play, that " the 
 meek sorrows and virtuous distress of Katherine 
 have furnished some scenes, which may be justly 
 numbered among the greatest efforts of tragedy. 
 But the genius of Shakespear comes in and goes 
 out with Katherine. Every other part may be 
 easily conceived and easily written/' This is 
 easily said ; but with all due deference to so 
 great a reputed authority as that of Johnson, it 
 is not true. For instance, the scene of Buck- 
 ingham led to execution is one of the most af- 
 fecting and natural in Shakespear, and one to 
 which there is hardly an approach in any other 
 author. Again, the character of Wolsey, the 
 description of his pride and of his fall, are in- 
 imitable, and have, besides their gorgeousness 
 of effect, a pathos, which only the genius of 
 Shakespear could lend to the distresses of a 
 proud, bad man, like "Wolsey. There is a 
 sort of child-like simplicity in the very help- 
 lessness of his situation, arising from the recol- 
 lection of his past overbearing ambition. After 
 the cutting sarcasms of his enemies on his dis- 
 grace, against which he bears up with a spirit 
 conscious of his own superiority, he breaks out 
 into that fine apostrophe — 
 
 " FareweL, a long farewell to all my greatness ! 
 This is the state of man j to-day he puts forth 
 The tender leaves of hope/ to-morrow blossoms, 
 
HENRY VIII. 239 
 
 And bears his blushing hontnirs thick upon him ; 
 The third day, comes a frost, a killing frost ; 
 And — when he thinks, good easy man, full surely 
 His greatness is a ripening — nips his root, 
 And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur'd, 
 Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, 
 These many summers in a sea of glory ; 
 But far beyond my depth : my high-blown pride 
 At length broke under me j and now has left me, 
 Weary and old with service, to the mercy 
 Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me. 
 Vain pomp and glory of the world, I hate ye ! 
 I feel my heart new open'd : O how wretched 
 Is that poor man, that hangs on princes' favours ! 
 There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to, 
 That sweet aspect of princes, and our ruin, 
 More pangs and fears than war and women have 5 
 And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, 
 Never to hope again !" — 
 
 There is in this passage, as well as in the well- 
 known dialogue with Cromwell which follows, 
 something which stretches beyond common- 
 place; nor is the account which Griffiths gives 
 of Wolsey's death less Shakespearian; and the 
 candour with which Queen Katherine listens 
 to the praise of " him whom of all men while 
 living she hated most" adds the last graceful 
 finishing to her character. 
 
 Among other images of great individual beau- 
 ty might be mentioned the description of the 
 effect of Ann Boleyn's presenting herself to the 
 crowd at her coronation. 
 
240 HENRY VIIL 
 
 '' While her grace sat down 
 
 To rest awhile, some half an hour or so, 
 In a rich chair of state, opposing freely 
 The beauty of her person to the people. 
 Believe me, sir, she is the goodliest woman 
 That ever lay by man. Which when the people 
 Had the full view of, such a noise arose 
 As the shrouds make at sea in a stiff tempest, 
 As loud and to as many tunes." 
 
 The character of Henry VIIL is drawn with 
 great truth and spirit. It is like a very dis- 
 agreeable portrait, sketched by the hand of a 
 master. His gross appearance, his blustering 
 demeanour, his vulgarity, his arrogance, his 
 sensuality, his cruelty, his hypocrisy, his want 
 of common decency and common humanity, are 
 marked in strong lines. His traditional pecu- 
 liarities of expression complete the reality of the 
 picture. The authoritative expletive, " Ha I" 
 with which he intimates his indignation or sur- 
 prise, has an effect like the first startling sound 
 that breaks from a thunder-cloud. He is of all 
 the monarchs in our history the most disgust- 
 ing: for he unites in himself all the vices of 
 barbarism and refinement, without their virtues. 
 Other kings before him (such as Richard III.) 
 were tyrants and murderers out of ambition or 
 necessity : they gained or established unjust 
 power by violent means : they destroyed their 
 enemies, or those who barred their access to 
 
HENRY VIII. 241 
 
 the throne or made its tenure insecure. But 
 Henry VIII/s power is most fatal to those whom 
 he loves : he is cruel and remorseless to pamper 
 his luxurious appetites: bloody and voluptuous; 
 an amorous murderer ; an uxorious debauchee. 
 His hardened insensibility to the feelings of 
 others is strengthened by the most profligate 
 self-indulgence. The religious hypocrisy, under 
 which he masks his cruelty and his lust, is ad- 
 mirably displayed in the speech in which he 
 describes the first misgivings of his conscience 
 and its increasing throes and terrors, which 
 have induced him to divorce his queen. The 
 only thing in his favour in this play is his treat- 
 ment of Cranmer: there is also another circum- 
 stance in his favour, which is his patronage of 
 Hans Holbein. — It has been said of Shakespear 
 — " No maid could live near such a man." It 
 might with as good reason be said — " No king 
 could live near such a man." His eye would 
 have penetrated through the pomp of circum- 
 stance and the veil of opinion. As it is, he has 
 represented such persons to the life — his plays 
 are in this respect the glass of history — he has 
 done them the same justice as if he had been 
 a privy counsellor all his life, and in each succes- 
 sive reign. Kings ought never to be seen upon 
 the stage. In the abstract, they are very disa- 
 greeable characters : it is only while living that 
 they are " the best of kings." It is their power, 
 
 R 
 
242 HENRY VIII. 
 
 their splendour, it is the apprehension of the 
 personal consequences of their favour or their 
 hatred, that dazzles the imagination and sus- 
 pends the judgment of their favourites or their 
 vassals ; but death cancels the bond of allegi- 
 ance and of interest ; and seen as they were, 
 their power and their pretensions look mon- 
 strous and ridiculous. The charge brought 
 against modern philosophy as inimical to loyalty- 
 is unjust, because it might as well be brought 
 against other things. No reader of history can 
 be a lover of kings. We have often wondered 
 that Henry VIII. as he is drawn by Shakespear, 
 and as we have seen him represented in all the 
 bloated deformity of mind and person, is not 
 hooted from the English stage. 
 
KING JOHN. 
 
 King John is the last of the historical plays 
 we shall have to speak of; and we are not sorry 
 that it is. If we are to indulge our imagina- 
 tions, we had rather do it upon an imaginary 
 theme ; if we are to find subjects for the exer- 
 cise of our pity and terror, we prefer seeking 
 them in fictitious danger and fictitious distress. 
 It gives a soreness to our feelings of indignation 
 or sympathy, when we know that in tracing 
 the progress of sufferings and crimes, we are 
 treading upon real ground, and recollect that 
 the poet's " dream" denoted a foregone conclu- 
 sion — irrevocable ills, not conjured up by fancy, 
 but placed beyond the reach of poetical jus- 
 tice. That the treachery of King John, the 
 death of Arthur, the grief of Constance, had a 
 real truth in history, sharpens the sense of pain, 
 while it hangs a leaden weight on the heart and 
 
244 KING JOHN. 
 
 the imagination. Something whispers us that 
 we have no right to make a mock of calamities 
 like these, or to turn the truth of things into 
 the puppet and play-thing of our fancies. " To 
 consider thus" may be " to consider too curi- 
 ously ;" but still we think that the actual truth 
 of the particular events, in proportion as we are 
 conscious of it, is a drawback on the pleasure 
 as well as the dignity of tragedy. 
 
 King John has all the beauties of language 
 and all the richness of the imagination to re- 
 lieve the painfulness of the subject. The cha- 
 racter of King John himself is kept pretty much 
 in the back-ground ; it is only marked in by 
 comparatively slight indications. The crimes he 
 is tempted to commit are such as are thrust upon 
 him rather by circumstances and opportunity 
 than of his own seeking : he is here represented 
 as more cowardly than cruel, and as more con- 
 temptible than odious. The play embraces only 
 a part of his history. There are however few 
 characters on the stage that excite more disgust 
 and loathing. He has no intellectual grandeur 
 or strength of character to shield him from the 
 indignation which his immediate conduct pro- 
 vokes : he stands naked and defenceless, in that 
 respect, to the worst we can think of him: and 
 besides, we are impelled to put the very worst 
 construction on his meanness and cruelty by 
 the tender picture of the beauty and helplessness 
 
KING JOHN. 245 
 
 of the object of it, as well as by the frantic 
 and heart-rending pleadings of maternal despair. 
 We do not forgive him the death of Arthur be- 
 cause he had too late revoked his doom and 
 tried to prevent it, and perhaps because he has 
 himself repented of his black design, our moral 
 sense gains courage to hate him the more for it. 
 We take him at his word, and think his pur- 
 poses must be odious indeed, when he himself 
 shrinks back from them. The scene in which 
 King John suggests to Hubert the design of 
 murdering his nephew is a master-piece of dra- 
 matic skill, but it is still inferior, very infe- 
 rior to the scene between Hubert and Arthur, 
 when the latter learns the orders to put out his 
 eyes. If any thing ever was penned, heart- 
 piercing, mixing the extremes of terror and pity, 
 of that which shocks and that which soothes the 
 mind, it is this scene. We will give it entire, 
 though perhaps it is tasking the reader's sympa- 
 thy too much. 
 
 <( Enter Hubert and Executioner. 
 
 Hubert. Heat me these irons hot, and look you stand 
 , Within the arras ; when I strike my foot 
 Upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth 
 And bind the boy, which you shall find with me, 
 Fast to the chair : be heedful : hence, and watch. 
 
 Executioner. I hope your warrant will bear out the deed. 
 
 Hubert. Uncleanly scruples ! fear not you ; look to't. — 
 Young lad, come forth ; I have to say with you. 
 
246 KING JOHN. 
 
 Enter Arthur. 
 
 Arthur. Good morrow, Hubert. 
 
 Hubert. Morrow, little Prince. 
 
 Arthur. As little prince (having so great a title 
 To be more prince) as may be. You are sad. 
 
 Hubert. Indeed I have been merrier. 
 
 Arthur. Mercy on me ! 
 Methinks no body should be sad but I ; 
 Yet I remember when I was in France, 
 Young gentlemen would be as sad as night, 
 Only for wantonness. By my Christendom, 
 So were I out of prison, and kept sheep, 
 I should be merry as the day is long. 
 And so I would be here, but that I doubt 
 My uncle practises more harm to me. 
 He is afraid of me, and I of him. 
 Is it my fault that I was GeofFery's son ? 
 Indeed it is not, and I would to heav'n 
 I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert. 
 
 Hubert. If I talk to him, with his innocent prate 
 He will awake my mercy, which lies dead 5 
 Therefore I will be sudden, and dispatch. [Aside. 
 
 Arthur. Are you sick, Hubert ? you look pale to-day ? 
 In sooth, I would you were a little sick, 
 That I might sit all night and watch with you. 
 Alas, I love you more than you do me. 
 
 Hubert. His words do take possession of my bosom. 
 Read here, young Arthur— [Shewing a paper. 
 
 How now, foolish rheum, [Aside. 
 
 Turning dis-piteous torture out of door ! 
 1 must be brief, lest resolution drop 
 Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears. — 
 Can you not read it ? Is it not fair writ ? 
 
 Arthur. Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect. 
 Must you with irons burn out both mine eyes ? 
 
KING JOHN. 247 
 
 Hubert. Young boy, I must. 
 
 Arthur. And will you ? 
 
 Hubert. And I will. 
 
 Hubert. Have you the heart ? When your head did but 
 ache, 
 I knit my handkerchief about your brows, 
 (The best I had, a princess wrought it me) 
 And I did never ask it you again ; 
 And with my hand at midnight held your head J 
 And, like the watchful minutes to the hour, 
 Still and anon chear'd up the heavy time, 
 Saying, what lack you ? and where lies your grief ? 
 Or, what good love may I perform for you ? 
 Many a poor man's son would have lain still, 
 And ne'er have spoke a loving word to you ; 
 But you at your sick service had a prince. 
 Nay, you may think my love was crafty love, 
 And call it cunning. Do, and if you will : 
 If heav'n be pleas' d that you must use me ill, 
 
 Why then you must. Will you put out mine eyes ? 
 
 These eyes, that never did, and never shall, 
 So much as frown on you ? 
 
 Hubert. I've sworn to do it 5 
 And with hot irons must I burn them out. 
 
 Arthur. Oh if an angel should have come to me^ 
 And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes, 
 I would not have believ'd a tongue but Hubert's. 
 
 Hubert. Come forth ; do as I bid you. 
 
 [Stamps, and the men enter. 
 
 Arthur. O save me, Hubert, save me ! my eyes are out 
 Ev'n with the fierce looks of these bloody men. 
 
 Hubert. Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here. 
 
 Arthur. Alas, what need you be so boist'rous rough ? 
 I will not struggle, I will stand stone-still. 
 
248 KING JOHN. 
 
 For heav'n's sake, Hubert, let me not be bound. 
 
 Nay, hear me, Hubert, drive these men away, 
 
 And I will sit as quiet as a lamb. 
 
 I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word, 
 
 Nor look upon the iron angrily : 
 
 Thrust but these men away, and I'll forgive you, 
 
 Whatever torment you do put me to. 
 
 Hubert. Go, stand within ; let me alone with him. 
 
 Executioner. I am best pleas'd to be from such a dee<J. 
 
 [Exit. 
 
 Arthur. Alas, I then have chid away my friend. 
 He hath a stern look, but a gentle heart ; 
 Let him come back, that his compassion may 
 Give life to yours. 
 
 Hubert. Come, boy, prepare yourself. 
 
 Arthur. Is there no remedy ? 
 
 Hubert. None, but to lose your eyes. 
 
 Arthur. O heav'n ! that there were but a moth in yours, 
 A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wand'ring hair, 
 Any annoyance in that precious sense : 
 Then feeling what small things are boist'rous there, 
 Your vile intent must needs seem horrible. 
 
 Hubert. Is this your promise ? go to, hold your tongue. 
 
 Arthur. Let me not hold my tongue 5 let me not, Hu- 
 bert ; 
 Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue, 
 So I may keep mine eyes. O spare mine eyes ! 
 Though to no use, but still to look on you. 
 Lo, by my troth, the instrument is cold, 
 And would not harm me. 
 
 Hubert. I can heat it, boy. 
 
 , Arthur. No, in good sooth, the fire is dead with grief. 
 Being create for comfort, to be us'd 
 In undeserv'd extremes j see else yourself, 
 
KING JOHN. 249 
 
 There is no malice in this burning coal j 
 
 The breath of heav'n hath blown its spirit out, 
 
 And strew' d repentant ashes on its head. 
 
 Hubert. But with my breath I can revive it, boy. 
 
 Arthur. All things that you should use to do me wrong, 
 Deny their office ; only you do lack 
 That mercy which fierce fire and iron extend, 
 Creatures of note for mercy-lacking uses. 
 
 Hubert. Well, see to live ; I will not touch thine eyes 
 For all the treasure that thine uncle owns : 
 Yet I am sworn, and I did purpose, boy, 
 With this same very iron to burn them out. 
 
 Arthur. O, now you look like Hubert. All this while 
 You were disguised. 
 
 Hubert. Peace : no more. Adieu,. 
 Your uncle must not know but you are dead. 
 Ill fill these dogged spies with false reports • 
 And, pretty child, sleep doubtless and secure, 
 That Hubert, for the wealth of all the world, 
 Will not offend thee. 
 
 Arthur. O heav'n ! I thank you, Hubert. 
 
 Hubert. Silence, no more ; go closely in with me j 
 Much danger do I undergo for thee. [Exeunt.' 1 
 
 His death afterwards, when he throws him- 
 self from his prison-walls, excites the utmost 
 pity for his innocence and friendless situation, 
 and well justifies the exaggerated denunciations 
 of Falconbridge to Hubert whom he suspects 
 wrongfully of the deed. 
 
 <( There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell 
 As thou shalt be, if thou did'st kill this child. 
 — If thou did'st but consent 
 
250 KING JOHN. 
 
 To this most cruel act, do but despair : 
 
 And if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread 
 
 That ever spider twisted from her womb 
 
 Will strangle thee ; a rush will be a beam 
 
 To hang thee on : or would'st thou drown thyself, 
 
 Put but a little water in a spoon, 
 
 And it shall be as all the ocean, 
 
 Enough to stifle such a villain up." 
 
 The excess of maternal tenderness, rendered 
 desperate by the fickleness of friends and the 
 injustice of fortune, and made stronger in will, 
 in proportion to the want of all other power, was 
 never more finely expressed than in Constance. 
 The dignity of her answer to King Philip, when 
 she refuses to accompany his messenger, " To 
 me and to the state of my great grief, let 
 kings assemble," her indignant reproach to Aus- 
 tria for deserting her cause, her invocation to 
 death, " that love of misery," however fine and 
 spirited, all yield to the beauty of the passage, 
 where, her passion subsiding into tenderness, 
 she addresses the Cardinal in these words : — 
 
 " Oh father Cardinal, I have heard you say 
 That we shall see and know our friends in heav'n t 
 If that be, I shall see my boy again, 
 For since the birth of Cain, the first male child, 
 To him that did but yesterday suspire, 
 There was not such a gracious creature born. 
 But now will canker-sorrow eat my bud, 
 And chase the native beauty from his cheek, 
 And he will look as hollow as a ghost, 
 
KING JOHN. 251 
 
 As dim and meagre as an ague's fit, 
 And so he'll die; and rising so again, 
 When I shall meet him in the court of heav'n, 
 I shall not know him; therefore never, never 
 Must I behold my pretty Arthur more. 
 
 K. Philip. You are as fond of grief as of your child. 
 
 Constance. Grief fills the room up of my absent child : 
 Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me 5 
 Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, 
 Remembers me of all his gracious parts ; 
 Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form. 
 Then have I reason to be fond of grief." 
 
 The contrast between the mild resignation of 
 Queen Katherine to her own wrongs, and the 
 wild, uncontroulable affliction of Constance for 
 the wrongs which she sustains as a mother, 
 is no less naturally conceived than it is ably 
 sustained throughout these two wonderful cha- 
 racters. 
 
 The accompaniment of the comic character 
 of the Bastard was well chosen to relieve the 
 poignant agony of suffering, and the cold, cow- 
 ardly policy of behaviour in the principal cha-, 
 racters of this play. Its spirit, invention, volu- 
 bility of tongue, and forwardness in action, are 
 unbounded. Aliquando sufflaminandus erat, says 
 Ben Jonson of Shakespear. But we should be 
 sorry if Ben Jonson had been his licenser. We 
 prefer the heedless magnanimity of his wit infi- 
 nitely to all Jonson's laborious caution. The 
 character of the Bastard's comic humour is the 
 
252 KING JOHN. 
 
 same in essence as that of other comic characters 
 in Shakespear ; they always run on with good 
 things and are never exhausted ; they are always 
 daring and successful. They have words at 
 will and a flow of wit, like a flow of animal spi- 
 rits. The difference between Falconbridge and 
 the others is that he is a soldier, and brings his 
 wit to bear upon action, is courageous with his 
 sword as well as tongue, and stimulates his gal- 
 lantry by his jokes, his enemies feeling the 
 sharpness of his blows and the sting of his sar- 
 casms at the same time. Among his happiest 
 sallies are his descanting on the composition of 
 his own person, his invective against " commo- 
 dity, tickling commodity," and his expression 
 of contempt for the Archduke of Austria, who 
 had killed his father, which begins in jest but 
 ends in serious earnest. His conduct at the siege 
 of Angiers shews that his resources were not con- 
 fined to verbal retorts. — The same exposure of 
 the policy of courts and camps, of kings, nobles, 
 priests, and cardinals, takes place here as in the 
 other plays we have gone through, and we shall 
 not go into a disgusting repetition. 
 
 This, like the other plays taken from English 
 history, is written in a remarkably smooth and 
 flowing style, very different from some of the 
 tragedies, Macbeth, for instance. The passages 
 consist of a series of single lines, not running 
 into one another. This peculiarity in the versifi- 
 
KING JOHN. 253 
 
 cation, which is most common in the three parts 
 of Henry VI. has been assigned as a reason why 
 those plays were not written by Shakespear. 
 But the same structure of verse occurs in his 
 other undoubted plays, as in Richard II. and 
 in King John. The following are instances : — 
 
 " That daughter there of Spain, the lady Blanch, 
 Is near to England ; look upon the years 
 Of Lewis the dauphin, and that lovely maid. 
 If lusty love should go in quest of beauty, 
 Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch ? 
 If zealous love should go in search of virtue, 
 Where should he find it purer than in Blanch ? 
 If love ambitious sought a match of birth, 
 Whose veins bound richer blood than lady Blanch ? 
 Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth, 
 Is the young dauphin every way complete : 
 If not complete of, say he is not she ; 
 And she wants nothing, to name want, 
 If want it be not, that she is not he. 
 He is the half part of a blessed man, 
 Left to be finished by such as she ; 
 And she a fair divided excellence, 
 Whose fulness of perfection lies in him. 
 O, two such silver currents, when they join, 
 Do glorify the banks that bound them in : 
 And two such shores to two such streams made one, 
 Two such controuling bounds, shall you be, kings, 
 To these two princes, if you marry* them." 
 
 Another instance, which is certainly very 
 happy as an example of the simple enumeration 
 
254 KING JOHN. 
 
 of a number of particulars, is Salisbury's remon- 
 strance against the second crowning of the king. 
 
 <e Therefore to be possessed with double pomp 4 
 To guard a title that was rich before j 
 To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, 
 To throw a perfume on the violet, 
 To smooth the ice, to add another hue 
 Unto the rainbow, or with taper light 
 To seek the beauteous eye of heav'n to garnish ; 
 Is wasteful and ridiculous excess." 
 
TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT 
 YOU WILL. 
 
 This is justly considered as one of the most 
 delightful of Shakespear's comedies. It is full 
 of sweetness and pleasantry. It is perhaps too 
 good-natured for comedy. It has little satire, 
 and no spleen. It aims at the ludicrous rather 
 than the ridiculous. It makes us laugh at the 
 follies of mankind, not despise them, and still 
 less bear any ill-will towards them. Shake- 
 spear's comic genius resembles thejbee rather in 
 its power of extracting sweets from weeds or 
 poisons, than in leaving a sting behind it. He 
 gives the most amusing exaggeration of the pre- 
 vailing foibles of his characters, but in a way 
 that they themselves, instead of being offended 
 at, would almost join in to humour; he rather 
 contrives opportunities for them to shew them- 
 selves off in the happiest lights, than renders 
 
256 TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, 
 
 them contemptible in the perverse construction 
 of the wit or malice of others. — There is a cer- 
 tain stage of society in which people become 
 conscious of their peculiarities and absurdities, 
 affect to disguise what they are, and set up pre- 
 tensions to what they are not. This gives rise 
 to a corresponding style of comedy, the object 
 of which is to detect the disguises of self-love, 
 and to make reprisals on these preposterous as- 
 sumptions of vanity, by marking the contrast 
 between the real and the affected character as 
 severely as possible, and denying to those, who 
 would impose on us for what they are not, even 
 the merit which they have. This is the comedy 
 of artificial life, of wit and satire, such as we 
 see it in Congreve, Wycherley, Vanbrugh, &c. 
 To this succeeds a state of society from which 
 the same sort of affectation and pretence are 
 banished by a greater knowledge of the world 
 or by their successful exposure on the stage; 
 and which by neutralising the materials of comic 
 character, both natural and artificial, leaves no 
 comedy at all — but the sentimental. Such is 
 our modern comedy. There is a period in the 
 progress of manners anterior to both these, in 
 which the foibles and follies of individuals are 
 of nature's planting, not the growth of art or 
 study; in which they are therefore unconscious 
 of them themselves, or care not who knows 
 them, if they can but have their whim out ; and 
 
WHAT YOU WILL, 25? 
 
 in which, as there is no attempt at imposition^ 
 the spectators rather receive pleasure from hu- 
 mouring the inclinations of the persons they 
 laugh at, than wish to give them pain by expos- 
 ing their absurdity. This may be called the 
 comedy of nature, and it is the comedy which 
 we generally find in Shakespear. — Whether the 
 analysis here given be just or not, the spirit of 
 his comedies is evidently quite distinct from 
 that of the authors above mentioned, as it is in 
 its essence the same with that of Cervantes, and 
 also very frequently of Moliere, though he was 
 more systematic in his extravagance than Shake- 
 spear. Shakespear's comedy is of a pastoral 
 and poetical cast. Folly is indigenous to the 
 soil, and shoots out with native, happy, un- 
 checked luxuriance, Absurdity has every en- 
 couragement afforded it; and nonsense has room 
 to flourish in. Nothing is stunted by the churl- 
 ish, icy hand of indifference or severity. The 
 poet runs riot in a conceit, and idolises a quib- 
 ble. His whole object is to turn the meanest 
 or rudest objects to a pleasurable account. The 
 relish which he has of a pun, or of the quaint hu- 
 mour of a low character, does not interfere with 
 the delight with which he describes a beautiful 
 image, or the most refined love. The clown's 
 forced jests do not spoil the sweetness of the 
 character of Viola ; the same house is big enough 
 to hold Malvolio, the Countess, Maria, Sir Toby, 
 
258 TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, 
 
 and Sir Andrew Ague-cheek. For instance, 
 nothing can fall much lower than this last cha- 
 racter in intellect or morals: yet how are his 
 weaknesses nursed and dandled by Sir Toby 
 into something " high fantastical," when on Sir 
 Andrew's commendation of himself for dancing 
 and fencing, Sir Toby answers — " Wherefore 
 are these things hid? Wherefore have these gifts 
 a curtain before them ? Are they like to take 
 dust like mistress Moll's picture? Why dost 
 thou not go to church in a galliard, and come 
 home in a coranto? My very walk should be a 
 jig! I would not so much as make water but 
 in a cinque-pace. What dost thou mean ? Is 
 this a world to hide virtues in ? I did think 
 by the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was 
 framed under the star of a galliard !" — How Sir 
 Toby, Sir Andrew, and the Clown afterwards 
 chirp over their cups, how they " rouse the 
 night-owl in a catch, able to draw three souls out 
 of one weaver?" What can be better than Sir 
 Toby's unanswerable answer to Malvolio, " Dost 
 thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall 
 be no more cakes and ale ?" — In a word, the best 
 turn is given to every thing, instead of the worst. 
 There is a constant infusion of the romantic and 
 enthusiastic, in proportion as the characters are 
 natural and sincere : whereas, in the more arti- 
 ficial style of comedy, every thing gives way to 
 ridicule and indifference, there being nothing left 
 
WHAT YOU WILL, 259 
 
 but affectation on one side, and incredulity on 
 the other. — »Much as we like Shakespear's co- 
 medies, we cannot agree with Dr. Johnson that 
 they are better than his tragedies; nor do we 
 like them half so well. If his inclination to 
 comedy sometimes led him to trifle with the 
 seriousness of tragedy, the poetical and impas- 
 sioned passages are the best parts of his come- 
 dies. The great and secret charm of Twelfth 
 Night is the character of Viola. Much as we 
 like catches and cakes and ale, there is some- 
 thing that we like better. We have a friend- 
 ship for Sir Toby; we patronise Sir Andrew; 
 we have an understanding with the Clown, a 
 sneaking kindness for Maria and her rogueries; 
 we feel a regard for Malvolio, and sympathise 
 with his gravity, his smiles, his cross garters, 
 his yellow stockings, and imprisonment in the 
 stocks. But there is something that excites 
 in us a stronger feeling than all this- — it is Viola's 
 confession of her love. 
 
 " Duke. What's her history? 
 
 Viola. A blank , my lord, she never told her love : 
 She let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud, 
 Prey on her damask cheek, she pin'd in thought, 
 And with a green and yellow melancholy, 
 She sat like Patience on a monument, 
 Smiling at grief. Was not this Zore indeed? 
 We men may say more, swear more, but indeed, 
 Our shews are more than will ; for still we prove 
 Much in our vows, but little in our love. 
 
200 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, 
 
 Duke. But died thy sister of her love, my boy? 
 Viola. I am all the daughters of my father's house, 
 And all the brothers too 5 — and yet I know not." — 
 
 Shakespear alone could describe the effect of 
 his own poetry. 
 
 " Oh, it came o'er the ear like the sweet south 
 That breathes upon a bank of violets, 
 Stealing and giving odour." 
 
 What we so much admire here is not the image 
 of Patience on a monument, which has been 
 generally quoted, but the lines before and after 
 it. " They give a very echo to the seat where 
 love is throned/' How long ago it is since we 
 first learnt to repeat them; and still, still they 
 vibrate on the heart, like the sounds which 
 the passing wind draws from the trembling 
 strings of a harp left on some desert shore ! 
 There are other passages of not less impassioned 
 sweetness. Such is Olivia's address to Sebas- 
 tian whom she supposes to have already de- 
 ceived her in a promise of marriage. 
 
 ' ' Blame not this haste of mine : if you mean well, 
 Now go with me and with this holy man 
 Into the chantry by : there before him, 
 And underneath that consecrated roof, 
 Plight me the full assurance of your faith, 
 That my most jealous and too doubtful soul 
 May live at peace." 
 
 We have already said something of Shake- 
 
 
I WHAT YOU WILL. 261 
 
 spear's songs. One of the most beautiful of 
 them occurs in this play, with a preface of his 
 own to it. 
 
 " Duke. O fellow, come ; the song we had last night. 
 Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain ; 
 The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, 
 And the free maids that weave their thread with bones, 
 Do use to chaunt it : it is silly sooth, 
 And dallies with the innocence of love, 
 Like the old age. 
 
 SONG. 
 Come away, come away, death, 
 And in sad cypress let me be laid ; 
 
 Fly away, fly away, breath j 
 I am slain by a fair cruel maid. 
 My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, 
 
 O prepare it -, 
 My part of death no one so true 
 Did share it. 
 
 Not a flower, not a flower sweet, 
 On my black coffin let there be strewn ; 
 
 Not a friend, not a friend greet 
 My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown : 
 A thousand thousand sighs to save, 
 Lay me, O ! where 
 Sad true-love never find my grave, 
 To weep there." 
 
 Who after this will say that Shakespear's ge- 
 nius was only fitted for comedy? Yet after 
 reading other parts of this play, and particularly 
 the garden-scene where Malvolio picks up the 
 
262 TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, 
 
 letter, if we were to say that his genius for 
 comedy was less than his genius for tragedy, it 
 would perhaps only prove that our own taste in 
 such matters is more saturnine than mercurial. 
 
 " Enter Maria. 
 
 Sir Toby. Here comes the little villain : — How now, my 
 nettle of India ? 
 
 Maria. Get ye all three into the box-tree : Malvolio's 
 coming down this walk : he has been yonder i' the sun, 
 practising behaviour to his own shadow this half hour : ob- 
 serve him, for the love of mockery ; for I know this letter 
 will make a contemplative idiot of him. Close, in the name 
 of jesting! Lie thou there 5 for here come's the trout that 
 must be caught with tickling. 
 
 [ They hide themselves. Maria throws down a letter:, and 
 
 [Exit. 
 Enter Malvolio. 
 
 Malvolio. 'Tis but fortune; all is fortune. Maria once 
 told me, she did affect me ; and I have heard herself come thus 
 near, that, should she fancy, it should be one of my com- 
 plexion. Besides, she uses me with a more exalted respect 
 than any one else that follows her. What should I think 
 on't? 
 
 Sir Toby. Here's an over-weening rogue ! 
 
 Fabian. O, peace ! Contemplation makes a rare turkey- 
 cock of him ; how he jets under his advanced plumes ! 
 
 Sir Andrew. 'Slight, I could so beat the rogue :~— 
 
 Sir Toby. Peace, I say. 
 
 Malvolio. To be count Malvolio ;~? 
 
 Sir Toby. Ah, rogue! 
 
 Sir Andrew. Pistol him, pistol him, 
 
 Sir Toby. Peace, peace ! 
 
 Malvolio. There is example for't 3 the lady of the Strachy 
 married the yeoman of the wardrobe. 
 
WHAT YOU WILL. 263 
 
 Sir Andrew. Fie on him, Jezebel ! 
 
 Fabian. O, peace ! now he's deeply in j look, how imagi- 
 nation blows him. 
 
 Malvolio. Having been three months married to her, 
 sitting in my chair of state, 
 
 Sir Toby. O for a stone bow, to hit him in the eye ! 
 
 Malvolio. Calling my officers about me, in my branch'd 
 velvet gown ; having come from a day-bed, where I have 
 left Olivia sleeping. 
 
 Sir Toby. Fire and brimstone ! 
 
 Fabian. Ot peace, peace! 
 
 Malvolio. And then to have the humour of state: and 
 
 after a demure travel of regard,- telling them, I know 
 
 my place, as I would they should do theirs, — to ask for my 
 kinsman Toby. 
 
 Sir Toby. Bolts and shackles ! 
 
 Fabian. O, peace, peace, peace ! now, now. 
 
 Malvolio. Seven of my people, with an obedient start, 
 make out for him- I frown the while 5 and, perchance, 
 wind up my watch, or play with some rich jewel. Toby 
 approaches ; curtsies there to me : 
 
 Sir Toby. Shall this fellow live ? 
 
 Fabian. Though our silence be drawn from us with cares, 
 yet peace. 
 
 Malvolio. I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my 
 familiar smile with an austere regard of controul : 
 
 Sir Toby. And does not Toby take you a blow o'the lips 
 then? 
 
 Malvolio. Saying — Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast 
 me on your niece, give me this prerogative of speech 5 — 
 
 Sir Toby. What, what? 
 
 Malvolio. You must amend your drunkenness. 
 
 Fabian. Nay, patience, or we break the sinews of our plot. 
 
 Malvolio. Besides, you waste the treasure of your time 
 with a foolish knight — 
 
2<54 TWELFTH NIGHT. 
 
 Sir Andrew. That's me, I warrant you. 
 
 Malvolio. One Sir Andrew 
 
 Sir Andrew. I knew, 'twas I j for many do call me fool 
 Malvolio. What employment have we here ? 
 
 [Taking up the letter." 
 
 The letter and his comments on it are equally 
 good. If poor Malvolio's treatment afterwards 
 is a little hard, poetical justice is done in the 
 uneasiness which Olivia suffers on account of 
 her mistaken attachment to Cesario, as her in- 
 sensibility to the violence of the Duke's passion 
 is atoned for by the discovery of Viola's con* 
 cealed love of him. 
 
THE 
 
 TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 
 
 This is little more than the first outlines of a 
 comedy loosely sketched in. It is the story of 
 a novel dramatised with very little labour or 
 pretension ; yet there are passages of high poe- 
 tical spirit, and of inimitable quaintness of hu- 
 mour, which are undoubtedly Shakespear's, and 
 there is throughout the conduct of the fable, a 
 careless grace and felicity which marks it for 
 his. One of the editors (we believe, Mr. Pope) 
 remarks in a marginal note to the Two Gen- 
 tlemen of Verona — " It is observable (I 
 know not for what cause) that the style of this 
 comedy is less figurative, and more natural and 
 unaffected than the greater part of this author's, 
 though supposed to be one of the first he wrote." 
 Yet so little does the editor appear to have made 
 up his mind upon this subject, that we find the 
 
266 TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 
 
 following note to the very next (the second) 
 scene. " This whole scene, like many others 
 in these plays (some of which I believe were 
 written by Shakespear, and others interpolated 
 by the players) is composed of the lowest and 
 most trifling conceits, to be accounted for only 
 by the gross taste of the age he lived in : Po- 
 pulo ut placerent. I wish I had authority to 
 leave them out, but I have done all I could, set 
 a mark of reprobation upon them, throughout 
 this edition." It is strange that our fastidious 
 critic should fall so soon from praising to repro- 
 bating. The style of the familiar parts of this 
 comedy is indeed made up of conceits^— low 
 they may be for what we know, but then they 
 are not poor, but rich ones. The scene of 
 Launce with his dog (not that in the second, 
 but that in the fourth act) is a perfect treat in 
 the way of farcical drollery and invention ; nor 
 do we think Speed's manner of proving his mas- 
 ter to be in love deficient in wit or sense, though 
 the style may be criticised as not simple enough 
 for the modern taste. 
 
 ' ' Valentine. Why, how know you that I am in love ? 
 
 Speed. Marry, by these special marks : first, yon have 
 learned, like Sir Protheus, to wreathe yonr arms like a 
 mal-content, to relish a love-song like a robin-red-breast, 
 to walk alone like one that had the pestilence, to sigh like 
 a school-boy that had lost his ABC, to weep like a young 
 wench that had lost her grandam, to fast like one that 
 
TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. <267 
 
 takes diet, to watch like one that fears robbing, to speak 
 puling like a beggar at Hallowmas. You were wont, when 
 you laughed, to crow like a cock j when you walked, to 
 walk like one of the lions ; when you fasted, it was pre- 
 sently after dinner -, when you looked sadly, it was for want 
 of money j and now you are metamorphosed with a mistress, 
 that when I look on you, I can hardly think you my mas- 
 ter." 
 
 The tender scenes in this play, though not so 
 highly wrought as in some others, have often 
 much sweetness of sentiment and expression. 
 There is something pretty and playful in the 
 conversation of Julia with her maid, when she 
 shews such a disposition to coquetry about re- 
 ceiving the letter from Protheus; and her beha- 
 viour afterwards and her disappointment, when 
 she finds him faithless to his vows, remind us 
 at a distance of Imogen's tender constancy. 
 Her answer to Lucetta, who advises her against 
 following her lover in disguise, is a beautiful 
 piece of poetry. 
 
 " Lucetta. I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire, 
 But qualify the fire's extremest rage, 
 Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason. 
 
 Julia. The more thou damm'st it up, the more it burns ; 
 The current that with gentle murmur glides, 
 Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage ; 
 But when his fair course is not hindered, 
 He makes sweet music with th' enamell'd stones, 
 Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge 
 He overtaketh in his pilgrimage s 
 
268 TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 
 
 And so by many winding nooks he strays. 
 With willing sport, to the wild ocean.* 
 Then let me go, and hinder not my course j 
 I'll be as patient as a gentle stream, 
 And make a pastime of each weary step, 
 Till the last step have brought me to my love 5 
 And there I'll rest, as after much turmoil, 
 A blessed soul doth in Elysium." 
 
 If Shakespear indeed had written only this 
 and other passages in the Two Gentlemen 
 of Verona, he would almost have deserved 
 Milton's praise of him — 
 
 " And sweetest Shakespear, Fancy's child, 
 Warbles his native wood-notes wild." 
 
 But as it is, he deserves rather more praise than 
 this. 
 
 * The river wanders at its own sweet will. 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 
 
 This is a play that in spite of the change of 
 manners and of prejudices still holds undisputed 
 possession of the stage. Shakespear's malig- 
 nant has outlived Mr. Cumberland's benevolent 
 Jew. In proportion as Shylock has ceased to 
 be a popular bugbear, "baited with the rabble's 
 curse," he becomes a half-favourite with the 
 philosophical part of the audience, who are dis- 
 posed to think that Jewish revenge is at least as 
 good as Christian injuries. Shylock is a good 
 hater ; " a man no less sinned against than sin- 
 ning." If he carries his revenge too far, yet he 
 has strong grounds for " the lodged hate he 
 bears Anthonio," which he explains with equal 
 force of eloquence and reason. He seems the 
 depositary of the vengeance of his race ; and 
 though the long habit of brooding over daily in- 
 sults and injuries has crusted over his temper 
 
270 MERCHANT OF VENICE. 
 
 with inveterate misanthropy, and hardened him 
 against the contempt of mankind, this adds 
 but little to the triumphant pretensions of his 
 enemies. There is a strong, quick, and deep 
 sense of justice mixed up with the gall and bit- 
 terness of his resentment. The constant appre- 
 hension of being burnt alive, plundered, banished, 
 reviled, and trampled on, might be supposed to 
 sour the most forbearing nature, and to take 
 something from that " milk of human kindness," 
 with which his persecutors contemplated his in- 
 dignities. The desire of revenge is almost inse- 
 parable from the sense of wrong; and we can 
 hardly help sympathising with the proud spirit, 
 hid beneath his " Jewish gaberdine," stung to 
 madness by repeated undeserved provocations, 
 and labouring to throw off the load of obloquy 
 and oppression heaped upon him and all his tribe 
 by one desperate act of " lawful" revenge, till 
 the ferociousness of the means by which he is 
 to execute his purpose, and the pertinacity with 
 which he adheres to it, turn us against him, 
 but even at last, when disappointed of the san- 
 guinary revenge with which he had glutted his 
 hopes, and exposed to beggary and contempt 
 by the letter of the law on which he had insisted 
 with so little remorse, we pity him, and think him 
 hardly dealt with by his judges. In all his an- 
 swers and retorts upon his adversaries, he has 
 the best not only of the argument but of the 
 
MERCHANT OF VENICE. 271 
 
 question, reasoning on their own principles attd 
 practice. They are so far from allowing of any 
 measure of equal dealing, of common justice 
 or humanity between themselves and the Jew* 
 that even when they come to ask a favour of 
 him, and Shylock reminds them that " on such 
 a day they spit upon him, another spurned him, 
 another called him dog, and for these curtesies 
 request he'll lend them so much monies" — An- 
 thonio, his old enemy, instead of any acknow- 
 ledgment of the shrewdness and justice of his 
 remonstrance, which would have been preposter- 
 ous in a respectable Catholic merchant in those 
 times, threatens him with a repetition of the 
 same treatment — 
 
 " I am as like to call thee so again, 
 
 To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too." 
 
 After this, the appeal to the Jew's mercy, as 
 if there were any common principle of right and 
 wrong between them, is the rankest hypocrisy, 
 or the blindest prejudice; and the Jew's answer 
 to one of Anthonio's friends, who asks him 
 what his pound of forfeit flesh is good for, is 
 irresistible — 
 
 " To bait fish withal ; if it will feed nothing else, it will 
 feed my revenge. He hath disgrac'd me, and hinder'd me 
 of half a million, laugh'd at my losses, mock'd at my gains, 
 scorn' d my nation, thwarted my bargains, cool'd my friends, 
 heated mine enemies ; and what's his reason \ I am a Jew. 
 
272 MERCHANT OF VENICE. 
 
 Hath not a Jew eyes ; hath not a Jew hands, organs, di- 
 mensions, senses, affections, passions ; fed with the same 
 food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same 
 diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by 
 the same winter and summer that a Christian is ? If you 
 prick us, do we not bleed ? If you tickle us, do we not 
 laugh ? If you poison us, do we not die ? and if you wrong 
 us, shall we not revenge ) If we are like you in the rest, 
 we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, 
 what is his humility? revenge. If a Christian wrong a 
 Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example ? 
 why revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute, 
 and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction." 
 
 The whole of the trial-scene, both before and 
 after the entrance of Portia, is a master-piece 
 of dramatic skill. The legal acuteness, the pas- 
 sionate declamations, the sound maxims of 
 jurisprudence, the wit and irony interspersed in 
 it, the fluctuations of hope and fear in the dif- 
 ferent persons, and the completeness and sud- 
 denness of the catastrophe, cannot be surpassed. 
 Shylock, who is his own counsel, defends him- 
 self well, and is triumphant on all the general 
 topics that are urged against him, and only fails 
 through a legal flaw. Take the following as an 
 instance : — 
 
 " Shylock. What judgment shall I dread, doing no 
 wrong? 
 You have among you many a purchas'd slave, 
 Which, like your asses, and your dogs, and mules. 
 You use in abject and in slavish part, 
 
MERCHANT OF VENICE. 273 
 
 Because you bought them : — shall I say to you, 
 
 Let them be free, marry them to your heirs ? 
 
 Why sweat they under burdens ? let their beds 
 
 Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates 
 
 Be season'd with such viands ? you will answer, 
 
 The slaves are ours : — so do I answer you : 
 
 The pound of flesh, which I demand of him* > 
 
 Is dearly bought, is mine, and I will have it : 
 
 If you deny me, fie upon your law ! 
 
 There is no force in the decrees of Venice : 
 
 I stand for judgment : answer ; shall I have it ?" 
 
 The keenness of his revenge awakes all his 
 faculties ; and he beats back all opposition to 
 his purpose, whether grave or gay, whether of 
 wit or argument, with an equal degree of earn- 
 estness and self-possession. His character is 
 displayed as distinctly in other less prominent 
 parts of the play, and we may collect from a few 
 sentences the history of his life — his descent and 
 origin, hi$jhrift and domestic economy, his af- 
 fection for his daughter, whom he loves next to 
 his wealth, his courtship and his first present to" 
 Leah, his wife ! " I would not have parted 
 with it" (the ring which he first gave her) " for 
 a wilderness of monkies !" What a fine Heb- 
 raism is implied in this expression ! 
 
 Portia is not a very great favourite with us; 
 neither are we in love with her maid, Nerissa. 
 Portia has a certain degree of affectation and 
 pedantry about her, which is very unusual in 
 Shakespear's women, but which perhaps was a 
 
 T 
 
274 MERCHANT OF VENICE. 
 
 proper qualification for the office of a " civil 
 doctor," which she undertakes and executes so 
 successfully. The speech about Mercy is very 
 well ; but there are a thousand finer ones in 
 Shakespear. We do not admire the scene of 
 the caskets ; and object entirely to the Black 
 Prince Morocchius. We should like Jessica 
 better if she had not deceived and robbed her 
 father, and Lorenzo, if he had not married a 
 Jewess, though he thinks he has a right to 
 wrong a Jew. The dialogue between this 
 newly -married couple by moonlight, begin- 
 ning " On such a night," &c. is a collection 
 of classical elegancies. Launcelot, the Jew's 
 man, is an honest fellow. The dilemma in 
 which he describes himself placed between his 
 " conscience and the fiend," the one of which 
 advises him to run away from his master's ser- 
 vice and the other to stay in it, is exquisitely 
 humourous. 
 
 Gratiano is a very admirable subordinate cha- 
 racter. He is the jester of the piece : yet one 
 speech of his, in his own defence, contains a 
 whole volume of wisdom. 
 
 ee Anthonio. I hold the world but as the world, Gra- 
 tiano, 
 A stage, where every one must play his part ; 
 And mine a sad one. 
 
 Gratiano. Let me play the fool : 
 With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come ; 
 
MERCHANT OF VENICE. 275 
 
 And let my liver rather heat with wine. 
 
 Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. 
 
 Why should a man, whose blood is warm within, 
 
 Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster ? 
 
 Sleep when he wakes ? and creep into the jaundice 
 
 By being peevish ? I tell thee what, Anthonio — 
 
 I love thee, and it is my love that speaks $ — 
 
 There are a sort of men, whose visages 
 
 Do cream and mantle like a standing pond : 
 
 And do a wilful stillness entertain, 
 
 With purpose to be drest in an opinion 
 
 Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit 5 
 
 As who should say, I am Sir Oracle, 
 
 And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark ! 
 
 O, my Anthonio, I do know of these, 
 
 That therefore only are reputed wise, 
 
 For saying nothing 5 who, I am very sure, 
 
 If they should speak, would almost damn those ears, 
 
 Which hearing them, would call their brothers, fools. 
 
 I'll tell thee more of this another time : 
 
 But fish not, with this melancholy bait, 
 
 For this fool's gudgeon, this opinion." 
 
 Gratiano's speech on the philosophy of love, 
 and the effect of habit in taking off the force of 
 passion, is as full of spirit and good sense. The 
 graceful winding up of this play in the fifth act, 
 after the tragic business is despatched, is one of 
 the happiest instances of Shakespear's know- 
 ledge of the principles of the drama. We do 
 not mean the pretended quarrel between Portia 
 and Nerissa and their husbands about the rings, 
 which is amusing enough, but the conversation 
 
tn MERCHANT OF VENICE, 
 
 just before and after the return of Portia to 
 her own house, beginning " How sweet the 
 moonlight sleeps upon this bank," and ending 
 " Peace ! how the moon sleeps with Endymion, 
 and would not be awaked." There is a number 
 of beautiful thoughts crowded into that short 
 space, and linked together by the most natural 
 transitions. 
 
 When we first went to see Mr. Kean in Shy- 
 lock, we expected to see, what we had been 
 used to see, a decrepid old man, bent with age 
 and ugly with mental deformity, grinning with 
 deadly malice, with the venom of his heart con- 
 gealed in the expression of his countenance, 
 sullen, morose, gloomy, inflexible, brooding over 
 one idea, that of his hatred, and fixed on one 
 unalterable purpose, that of his revenge. We 
 were disappointed, because we had taken our 
 idea from other actors, not from the play. There 
 is no proof there that Shylock is old, but a sin- 
 gle line, " Bassanio and old Shylock, both stand 
 forth," — which does not imply that he is infirm 
 with age — and the circumstance that he has a 
 daughter marriageable, which does not imply 
 that he is old at all. It would be too much to 
 say that his body should be made crooked and 
 deformed to answer to his mind, which is bowed 
 down and warped with prejudices and passion* 
 That he has but one idea, is not true ; he ha& 
 more ideas than any other person in the piece i 
 
MERCHANT OF VENICE. 277 
 
 and if he is intense and inveterate in the pur- 
 suit of his purpose, he shews the utmost elasti- 
 city, vigour, and presence of mind, in the means 
 of attaining it. But so rooted was our habitual 
 impression of the part from seeing it caricatured 
 in the representation, that it was only from a 
 careful perusal of the play itself that we saw 
 our error. The stage is not in general the best 
 place to study our author's characters in. It is 
 too often filled with traditional common-place 
 conceptions of the part, handed down from sire 
 to son, and suited to the taste of the great vulgar 
 and the small. — " ^Tis an unweeded garden : 
 things rank and gross do merely gender in it !" 
 If a man of genius comes once in an age to clear 
 away the rubbish, to make it fruitful and whole- 
 some, they cry, " *Tis a bad school : it may be 
 like nature, it may be like Shakespear, but it is 
 not like us." Admirable critics ! — 
 
THE WINTER'S TALE. 
 
 We wonder that Mr. Pope should have enter- 
 tained doubts of the genuineness of this play. 
 He was, we suppose, shocked (as a certain cri- 
 tic suggests) at the Chorus, Time, leaping over 
 sixteen years with his crutch between the third 
 and fourth act, and at Antigonus's landing with 
 the infant Perdita on the sea-coast of Bohemia. 
 These slips or blemishes however do not prove 
 it not to be Shakespear's ; for he was as likely to 
 fall into them as any body; but we do not know 
 any body but himself who could produce the 
 beauties. The stuff of which the tragic passion 
 is composed, the romantic sweetness, the comic 
 humour, are evidently his. Even the crabbed 
 and tortuous style of the speeches of Leontes, 
 reasoning on his own jealousy, beset with doubts 
 and fears, and entangled more and more in the 
 thorny labyrinth, bears every mark of Shake- 
 
THE WINTERS TALE. 279 
 
 spear's peculiar manner of conveying the pain- 
 ful struggle of different thoughts and feelings, 
 labouring for utterance, and almost strangled in 
 the birth. For instance;-— 
 
 " Ha' not you seen, Camillo ? 
 (But that's past doubt ; you have, or your eye-glass 
 Is thicker than a cuckold's horn) or heard } 
 (For to a vision so apparent, rumour 
 Cannot be mute) or thought (for cogitation 
 Resides not within man that does not think) 
 My wife is slippery ; if thou wilt, confess^ 
 Or else be impudently negative., 
 To have nor eyes, nor ears,, nor thought."-— 
 
 Here Leontes is confounded with his passion, 
 and does not know which way to turn himself, 
 to give words to the anguish, rage, and appre- 
 hension, which tug at his breast. It is only as 
 he is worked up into a clearer conviction of his 
 wrongs by insisting on the grounds of his un- 
 just suspicions to Camillo, who irritates him 
 by his opposition, that he bursts out into the 
 following vehement strain of bitter indignation: 
 yet even here his passion staggers, and is as it 
 were oppressed with its own intensity. 
 
 ' ' Is whispering nothing ? 
 Is leaning cheek to cheek ? is meeting noses ? 
 Kissing with inside lip ? stopping the career 
 Of laughter with a sigh ? (a note infallible 
 Of breaking honesty ! ) horsing foot on foot ? 
 Skulking in corners ) wishing clocks more swift ? 
 
280 THE WINTER'S TALE. 
 
 Hours, minutes ? the noon, midnight ? and all eyes 
 Blind with the pin and web, but theirs ; theirs only, 
 That would, unseen, be wicked ? is this nothing } 
 Why then the world, and all that's in't, is nothing, 
 The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia's nothing, 
 My wife is nothing !" 
 
 The character of Hermione is as much dis- 
 tinguished by its saint-like resignation and pa- 
 tient forbearance, as that of Paulina is by her 
 zealous and spirited remonstrances against the 
 injustice done to the queen, and by her devoted 
 attachment to her misfortunes. Hermione's res- 
 toration to her husband and her child, after her 
 long separation from them, is as affecting in 
 itself as it is striking in the representation. Ca- 
 millo, and the old shepherd and his son, are 
 subordinate but not uninteresting instruments 
 in the developement of the plot, and though 
 last, not least, comes Autolycus, a very plea- 
 sant, thriving rogue ; and (what is the best 
 feather in the cap of all knavery) he escapes 
 with impunity in the end. 
 
 The Winters Tale is one of the best-act- 
 ing of our author's plays. We remember seeing 
 it with great pleasure many years ago. It was 
 on the night that King took leave of the stage, 
 when he and Mrs. Jordan played together in the 
 after-piece of the Wedding-day. Nothing could 
 go off with more eclat, with more spirit, and 
 grandeur of effect. Mrs. Siddons played Her- 
 
THE WINTER'S TALE. 281 
 
 mione, and in the last scene acted the painted 
 statue to the life — with true monumental dig- 
 nity and noble passion ; Mr. Kemble, in Leontes, 
 worked himself up into a very fine classical 
 phrensy ; and Bannister, as Autolycus, roared as 
 loud for pity as a sturdy beggar could do who 
 felt none of the pain he counterfeited, and was 
 sound of wind and limb. We shall never see 
 these parts so acted again ; or if we did, it would 
 be in vain. Actors grow old, or no longer sur- 
 prise us by their novelty. But true poetry, 
 like nature, is always young; and we still read 
 the courtship of Florizel and Perdita, as we 
 welcome the return of spring, with the same 
 feelings as ever. 
 
 " Florizel. Thou dearest Perdita., 
 With these forc'd thoughts, I pr'ythee, darken not 
 The mirth o'the feast: or, I'll be thine, my fair, 
 Or not my father's : for I cannot be 
 Mine own, nor any thing to any, if 
 I be not thine. To this I am most constant, 
 Tho' destiny say, No. Be merry, gentle ; 
 Strangle such thoughts as these, with any thing 
 That you behold the while. Your guests are coming : 
 Lift up your countenance ; as it were the day 
 Of celebration of that nuptial, which 
 We two have sworn shall come. 
 
 Perdita. O lady fortune, 
 Stand you auspicious ! 
 
 Enter Shepherd; Clown, Mopsa, Dorcas, Servants; with 
 Polixenes, and Camillo, disguised. 
 
 Florizel. See, your guests approach : 
 
282 THE WINTER'S TALE. 
 
 Address yourself to entertain them sprightly. 
 And let's be red with mirth. 
 
 Shepherd. Fie, daughter! when my old wife liv'd, upon 
 This day, she was both pantler, butler, cook 5 
 Both dame and servant : welcom'd all, serv'd all : 
 Would sing her song, and dance her turn : now here 
 At upper end o' the table, now i' the middle : 
 On his shoulder, and his ; her face o' fire 
 With labour ; and the thing she took to quench it 
 She would to each one sip. You are retir'd, 
 As if you were a feasted one, and not 
 The hostess of the meeting. Pray you, bid 
 These unknown friends to us welcome 3 for it is 
 A way to make us better friends, more known. 
 Come, quench your blushes ; and present yourself 
 That which you are, mistress o' the feast. Come on, 
 And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing, 
 As your good flock shall prosper. 
 
 Perdita. Sir, welcome ! [To Polixenes and Camilla. 
 
 It is my father's will I should take on me 
 The hostess -ship o' the day : you're welcome, sir ! 
 Give me those flowers there, Dorcas. — Reverend sirs> 
 For you there's rosemary and rue ; these keep 
 Seeming, and savour, all the winter long : 
 Grace and remembrance be unto you both, 
 And welcome to our shearing ! 
 
 Polixenes. Shepherdess, 
 (A fair one are you) well you fit our ages 
 With flowers of winter. 
 
 Perdita. Sir, the year growing ancient, 
 Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth 
 Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o' the season 
 Are our carnations, and streak' d gilly-flowers, 
 Which some call nature's bastards : of that kind 
 Our rustic garden's barren ; and I care not 
 To get slips of them. 
 
THE WINTER'S TALE. 383 
 
 Polixenes. Wherefore, gentle maiden, 
 Do you neglect them ? 
 
 Perdita. For I have heard it said 
 There is an art, which, in their piedness, shares 
 With great creating nature. 
 
 Polixenes. Say, there be : 
 Yet nature is made better by no mean, 
 But nature makes that mean : so, o'er that art 
 Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art 
 That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry 
 A gentler scyon to the wildest stock ; 
 And make conceive a bark of baser kind 
 By bud of nobler race. This is an art 
 Which does mend nature, change it rather : but 
 The art itself is nature. 
 
 Perdita. So it is. 
 
 Polixenes. Then make your garden rich in gilly-flowers, 
 And do not call them bastards. 
 
 Perdita. I'll not put 
 The dibble in earth, to set one slip of them j 
 No more than, were I painted, I would wish 
 This youth should say, 'twere well; and only therefore 
 Desire to breed by me. — Here's flowers for you -, 
 Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram -, 
 The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun. 
 And with him rises, weeping : these are flowers 
 Of middle summer, and, I think, they are given 
 To men of middle age. You are very welcome. 
 
 Camillo. I should leave grazing, were I of your flocks 
 And only live by gazing. 
 
 Perdita. Out, alas ! 
 You'd be so lean, that blasts of January 
 Would blow you through and through. Now my fairest 
 
 friends, 
 I would I had some flowers o' the spring, that might 
 Become your time of day ; and your's, and your's, 
 
234 THE WINTER'S TALE. 
 
 That wear upon your virgin branches yet 
 
 Your maiden-heads growing : O Proserpina, 
 
 For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st fall 
 
 From Diss waggon ! daffodils, 
 
 That come before the swallow dares, and take 
 
 The winds of March with beauty : violets dim, 
 
 But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, 
 
 Or Cytherea's breath -, pale primroses, 
 
 That die unmarried, ere they can behold 
 
 Bright Phoebus in his strength (a malady 
 
 Most incident to maids); bold oxlips, and 
 
 The crown-imperial ; lilies of all kinds, 
 
 The fleur-de-lis being one ! O, these I lack 
 
 To make you garlands of ; and, my sweet friend 
 
 To strow him o'er and o'er. 
 
 Florizel. What, like a corse ? 
 
 Perdita. No, like a bank, for love to lie and play on ; 
 Not like a corse ; or if — not to be buried, 
 But quick, and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers j 
 Methinks, I play as I have seen them do 
 In Whitsun pastorals : sure this robe of mine 
 Does change my disposition. 
 
 Florizel. What you do, 
 Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet, 
 I'd have you do it ever : when you sing, 
 Td have you buy and sell so -, so, give alms ; 
 Pray, so ; and for the ordering your affairs, 
 To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you 
 A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do 
 Nothing but that : move still, still so, 
 And own no other function. Each your doing, 
 So singular in each particular, 
 Crowns what you're doing in the present deeds, 
 That all your acts are queens. 
 
 Perdita. O Doricles, 
 Your praises are too large; but that your youth 
 
THE WINTER'S TALE. 285 
 
 And the true blood, which peeps forth fairly through it, 
 Do plainly give you out an unstained shepherd ; 
 With wisdom I might fear, my Dorieles, 
 You wood me the false way. 
 
 Florizel. I think you have 
 As little skill to fear, as I have purpose 
 To put you to't. But come, our dance, I pray ; 
 Your hand, my Perdita : so turtles pair, 
 That never mean to part. 
 
 Perdita. I'll swear for 'em. 
 
 Polixenes. This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever 
 Ran on the green-sward ; nothing she does, or seems, 
 But smacks of something greater than herself, 
 Too noble for this place. 
 
 Camillo. He tells her something 
 That makes her blood look out : good sooth she is 
 The queen of curds and cream." 
 
 This delicious scene is interrupted by the father 
 of the prince discovering himself to Florizel, and 
 haughtily breaking off the intended match be- 
 tween his son and Perdita. When Polixenes 
 goes out, Perdita says, 
 
 ' c Even here undone : 
 I was not much afraid ; for once or twice 
 I was about to speak ; and tell him plainly, 
 The self-same sun that shines upon his court, 
 Hides not his visage from our cottage, but 
 Looks on't alike. Wilt please you, sir, be gone ? 
 
 [To Florizel. 
 I told you what would come of this. Beseech you, 
 Of your own state take care : this dream of mine, 
 Being now awake, I'll queen it no inch farther, 
 But milk my ewes and weep." 
 
286 THE WINTER'S TALE. 
 
 As Perdita, the supposed shepherdess, turns out 
 to be the daughter of Hermione, and a princess 
 in disguise, both feelings of the pride of birth 
 and the claims of nature are satisfied by the 
 fortunate event of the story, and the fine ro- 
 mance of poetry is reconciled to the strictest 
 court-etiquette. 
 
ALUS WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 
 
 All's well that ends well is one of the 
 most pleasing of our author's comedies. The 
 interest is however more of a serious than of a 
 comic nature. The character of Helen is one 
 of great sweetness and delicacy. She is placed 
 in circumstances of the most critical kind, and 
 has to court her husband both as a virgin and 
 a wife: yet the most scrupulous nicety of fe- 
 male modesty is not once violated. There is 
 not one thought or action that ought to bring 
 a blush into her cheeks, or that for a moment 
 lessens her in our esteem. Perhaps the roman- 
 tic attachment of a beautiful and virtuous girl 
 to one placed above her hopes by the circum- 
 stances of birth and fortune, was never so ex- 
 quisitely expressed as in the reflections which 
 she utters when young Roussillon leaves his 
 mother's house, under whose protection she has 
 
288 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 
 
 been brought up wifch him, to repair to the 
 French king's court. 
 
 (i Helena. Oh, were that all — I think not on my father, 
 And these great tears grace his remembrance more 
 Than those I shed for him. What was he like ? 
 I have forgot him. My imagination 
 Carries no favour in it, but my Bertram's. * 
 
 I am undone, there is no living, none, 
 If Bertram be away. It were all one 
 That I should love a bright particular star, 
 And think to wed it ; he is so above me : 
 In his bright radiance and collateral light 
 Must I be comforted, not in his sphere. 
 Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itself 5 
 The hind that would be mated by the lion, 
 Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, tho' a plague, 
 To see him every hour, to sit and draw 
 His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls 
 In our heart's table : heart too capable 
 Of every line and trick of his sweet favour. 
 But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy 
 Must sanctify his relics." 
 
 The interest excited by this beautiful picture 
 of a fond and innocent heart is kept up after- 
 wards by her resolution to follow him to France, 
 the success of her experiment in restoring the 
 king's health, her demanding Bertram in mar- 
 riage as a recompense, his leaving her in disdain, 
 her interview with him afterwards disguised as 
 Diana, a young lady whom he importunes with 
 his secret addresses, and their final reconciliation 
 
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 289 
 
 when the consequences of her stratagem and the 
 proofs of her love are fully made known. The 
 persevering gratitude of the French king to his 
 benefactress, who cures him of a languishing dis- 
 temper by a prescription hereditary in her family, 
 the indulgent kindness of the Countess, whose 
 pride of birth yields, almost without a struggle, 
 to her affection for Helen, the honesty and up- 
 rightness of the good old lord Lafeu, make very 
 interesting parts of the picture. The wilful 
 stubbornness and youthful petulance pf Bertram 
 are also very admirably described. The comic 
 part of the play turns on the folly, boasting, 
 and cowardice of Parolles, a parasite and hang- 
 er-on of Bertram's, the detection of whose 
 false pretensions to bravery and honour forms a 
 very amusing episode. He is first found out 
 by the old lord Lafeu, who says, " The soul 
 of this man is in his clothes;" and it is proved 
 afterwards that his heart is in his tongue, and 
 that both are false ano) hollow. The adventure 
 of " the bringing off of his drum" has become 
 proverbial as a satire on all ridiculous and blus- 
 tering undertakings which the person never 
 means to perform: nor can any thing be more 
 severe than what one of the bye-standers re- 
 marks upon what Parolles says of himself, " Is 
 it ppssible he should know what he is, and be 
 that he is ?" Yet Parolles himself gives the 
 best solution of the difficulty afterwards when 
 
 u 
 
290 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 
 
 he is thankful to escape with his life and the 
 loss of character ; for, so that he can live on, he 
 is by no means squeamish about the loss of pre- 
 tensions, to which he had sense enough to know 
 he had no real claim, and which he had assumed 
 only as a means to live. 
 
 te Parolles. Yet I am thankful : if my heart were great, 
 'Twould burst at this. Captain, I'll be no more, 
 But I will eat and drink, and sleep as soft 
 As captain shall. Simply the thing I am 
 Shall make me live : who knows himself a braggart, 
 Let him fear this ; for it shall come to pass, 
 That every braggart shall be found an ass. 
 Rust sword, cool blushes, and Parolles live 
 Safest in shame ; being fool'd, by fool'ry thrive 3 
 There's place and means for every man alive. 
 I'll after them. 
 
 The story of Ali/s Well that ends Well, 
 and of several others of Shakespear's plays, is 
 taken from Boccacio. The poet has dramatised 
 the original novel with great skill and comic 
 spirit, and has preserved all the beauty of cha- 
 racter and sentiment without improving upon it, 
 which was impossible. There is indeed in Boc- 
 cacio's serious pieces a truth, a pathos, and an 
 exquisite refinement of sentiment, which is 
 hardly to be met with in any other prose writer 
 whatever. Justice has not been done him by 
 the world. He has in general passed for a mere 
 narrator of lascivious tales or idle jests. This 
 
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. -201 
 
 character probably originated in his obnoxious 
 attacks on the monks, and has been kept up by 
 the grossness of mankind, who revenged their 
 own want of refinement on Boccacio, and only 
 saw in his writings what suited the coarseness 
 of their own tastes. But the truth is, that he 
 has carried sentiment of every kind to its very 
 highest purity and perfection. By sentiment 
 we would here understand the habitual work- 
 ings of some one powerful feeling, where the 
 heart reposes almost entirely upon itself, with- 
 out the violent excitement of opposing duties or 
 untoward circumstances. In this way, nothing 
 ever came up to the story of Frederigo Alberigi 
 and his Falcon. The perseverance in attach- 
 ment, the spirit of gallantry and generosity dis- 
 played in it, has no parallel in the history of 
 heroical sacrifices. The feeling is so unconscious 
 too, and involuntary, is brought out in such 
 small, unlooked-for, and unostentatious circum- 
 stances, as to show it to have been woven into 
 the very nature and soul of the author. The 
 story of Isabella is scarcely less fine, and is more 
 affecting in the circumstances and in the catas- 
 trophe. Dry den has done justice to the impas- 
 sioned eloquence of theTancredandSigismunda; 
 but has not given an adequate idea of the wild 
 preternatural interest of the story of Honoria. 
 Cimon and Iphigene is by no means one of the 
 best, notwithstanding the popularity of the sub- 
 
292 ALLS WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 
 
 ject. The proof of unalterable affection given in 
 the story of Jeronymo, and the simple touches 
 of nature and picturesque beauty in the story of 
 the two holiday lovers, who were poisoned by 
 tasting of a leaf in the garden at Florence, are 
 perfect master-pieces. The epithet of Divine 
 was well bestowed on this great painter of the 
 human heart. The invention implied in his 
 different tales is immense: but we are not to 
 infer that it is all his own. He probably availed 
 himself of all the common traditions which were 
 floating in his time, and which he was the first 
 to appropriate. Homer appears the most origi- 
 nal of all authors — probably for no other reason 
 than that we can trace the plagiarism no farther. 
 Boccacio has furnished subjects to numberless 
 writers since his time, both dramatic and narra^ 
 tive. The story of Griselda is borrowed from 
 his Decameron by Chaucer ; as is the Knight's 
 Tale (Palamon and Arcite) from his poem of 
 the Theseid. 
 
LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. 
 
 If we were to part with any oT the author's 
 comedies* it should be this. Yet we should 
 be loth to part with Don Adriano de Armado, 
 that mighty potentate of nonsense, or his page, 
 that handful of wit; with Nathaniel the curate, 
 or Holofernes the school-master, and their dis- 
 pute after dinner on " the golden cadences of 
 poesy;" with Costard the clown, or Dull the 
 constable. Biron is too accomplished a charac- 
 ter to be lost to the world* and yet he could 
 not appear without his fellow courtiers and the 
 king: and if we were to leave out the ladies, 
 the gentlemen would have no mistresses. So 
 that we believe we may let the whole play stand 
 as it is, and we shall hardly venture to " set a 
 mark of reprobation on it." Still we have some 
 objections to the style, which we think savours 
 more of the pedantic spirit of Shakespear's time 
 
294 LOVES LABOURS LOST. 
 
 than of his own genius; more of controversial di- 
 vinity, and the logic of Peter Lombard, than of the 
 inspiration of the Muse. It transports us quite as 
 much to the manners of the court, and the quirks 
 of courts of law, as to the scenes of nature or the 
 fairy-laud of his own imagination. Shakespear 
 has set himself to imitate the tone of polite con- 
 versation then prevailing among the fair, the 
 witty, and the learned, and he has imitated it 
 but too faithfully. It is as if the hand of Titian 
 had been employed to give grace to the curls of a 
 full-bottomed periwig, or Raphael had attempted 
 to give expression to the tapestry figures in the 
 House of Lords. Shakespear has put an excel- 
 lent description of this fashionable jargon into 
 the mouth of the critical Holofernes " as too 
 picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it 
 were, too peregrinate, as I may call it ;" and 
 nothing can be more marked than the difference 
 when he breaks loose from the trammels he 
 had imposed on himself, " as light as bird from 
 brake," and speaks in his own person. We 
 think, for instance, that in the following soliloquy 
 the poet has fairly got the start of Queen Eliza- 
 beth and her maids of honour: — 
 
 ' ' Biron. O I and I forsooth in love, 
 I that have been love's whip ; 
 A very beadle to an amorous sigh : 
 A critic ; nay, a night-watch constable., 
 A domineering pedant o'er the boy. 
 
LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST 295 
 
 Than whom no mortal more magnificent. 
 
 This whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy, 
 
 This signior Junio, giant dwarf, Dan Cupid, 
 
 Regent of love-rhimes, lord of folded arms, 
 
 Th' anointed sovereign of sighs and groans : 
 
 Liege of all loiterers and malecontents, 
 
 Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces, 
 
 Sole imperator, and great general 
 
 Of trotting parators (O my little heart!) 
 
 And I to be a corporal of his field, 
 
 And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop ! 
 
 What ? I love ! I sue ! f seek a wife ! 
 
 A woman, that is like a German clock, 
 
 Still a repairing ; ever out of frame ; 
 
 And never going aright, being a watch, 
 
 And being watch'd, that it may still go right 2 
 
 Nay, to be perjur'd, which is worst of all : 
 
 And among three to love the worst of all, 
 
 A whitely wanton with a velvet brow, 
 
 With two pitch balls stuck in her face for eyes ; 
 
 Ay, and by heav'n, one that will do the deed., 
 
 Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard - 3 
 
 And I to sigh for her ! to watch for her ! 
 
 To pray for her ! Go to ; it is a plague 
 
 That Cupid will impose for my neglect 
 
 Of his almighty dreadful little might. 
 
 Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, and groan : 
 
 Some men must love my lady, and some Joan." 
 
 The character of Biron drawn by Rosaline and 
 that which Biron gives of Boyet are equally 
 happy. The observations on the use and abuse 
 of study, and on the power of beauty to quicken 
 the understanding as well as the senses, are ex- 
 
296 LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. 
 
 cellent. The scene which has the greatest dra- 
 matic effect is that in which Biron, the king, 
 Longaville, and Dumain, successively detect 
 each other and are detected in their breach of 
 their vow and in their profession of attachment 
 to their several mistresses, in which they suppose 
 themselves to be overheard by no one. The 
 reconciliation between these lovers and their 
 sweethearts is also very good, and the penance 
 which Rosaline imposes on Biron, before he can 
 expect to gain her consent to marry him, full of 
 propriety and beauty. 
 
 {< Rosaline. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Biron, 
 Before I saw you : and the world's large tongue 
 Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks j 
 Full of comparisons, and wounding flouts ; 
 Which you on all estates will execute, 
 That lie within the mercy of your wit. 
 To weed this wormwood from your faithful brain 3 
 And therewithal to win me, if you please, 
 (Without the which I am not to be won) 
 You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day 
 Visit the speechless sick, and still converse 
 With groaning wretches j and your task shall be, 
 With all the fierce endeavour of your wit, 
 T' enforce the pained impotent to smile, 
 
 Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of death ? 
 It cannot be : it is impossible : 
 Mirth cannot move a soul in agony. 
 
 Rosaline. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit, 
 Whose influence is begot of that loose grace, 
 Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools : 
 
LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. 297 
 
 A jest's prosperity lies in the ear 
 
 Of him that hears it ; never in the tongue 
 
 Of him that makes it : then, if sickly ears, 
 
 Deaf 'd with the clamours of their own dear groans, 
 
 Will hear your idle scorns, continue then, 
 
 And I will have you, and that fault withal \ 
 
 But, if they will not, throw away that spirit* 
 
 And I shall find you empty of that fault, 
 
 Right joyful of your reformation. 
 
 Biron. A twelvemonth ? Well, befall what will befall; 
 I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital." 
 
 The famous cuckoo-song closes the play: but 
 we shall add no more criticisms : " the words 
 of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo." 
 
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 
 
 X his admirable comedy used to be frequently 
 acted till of late years. Mr. Garrick's Bene- 
 dick was one of his most celebrated characters ; 
 and Mrs. Jordan, we have understood, played 
 Beatrice very delightfully. The serious part is 
 still the most prominent here, as in other in- 
 stances that we have noticed. Hero is the prin- 
 cipal figure in the piece, and leaves an indelible 
 impression on the mind by her beauty, her ten- 
 derness, and the hard trial of her love. The 
 passage in which Claudio first makes a confes- 
 sion of his affection towards her conveys as 
 pleasing an image of the entrance of love into a 
 youthful bosom as can well be imagined. 
 
 « Oh, my lord, 
 When you went onward with this ended action, 
 I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye, 
 That lik'd, but had a rougher task in hand 
 
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 299 
 
 Than to drive liking to the name of love ; 
 But now I am return'd, and that war-thoughts 
 Have left their places vacant 3 in their rooms 
 Come thronging soft and delicate desires, 
 All prompting me how fair young Hero is, 
 Saying, I lik'd her ere I went to wars." 
 
 In the scene at the altar, when Claudio, urged 
 on by the villain Don John, brings the charge 
 of incontinence against her, and as it were di- 
 vorces her in the very marriage-ceremony, her 
 appeals to her own conscious innocence and ho- 
 nour are made with the most affecting simplicity. 
 
 <c Claudio. No, Leonato, 
 I never tempted her with word too large, 
 But, as a brother to his sister, shew'd 
 Bashful sincerity, and comely love. 
 
 Hero. And seem'd I ever otherwise to you? 
 
 Claudio. Out on thy seeming, I will write against it : 
 You seem to me as Dian in her orb, 
 As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown j 
 But you are more intemperate in your blood 
 Than Venus, or those pamper'd animals 
 That rage in savage sensuality. 
 
 Hero. Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide ? 
 
 Leonato. Are these things spoken, or do I but dream ? 
 
 John. Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true. 
 
 Benedick. This looks not like a nuptial. 
 
 Hero. True! O God!"— 
 
 The justification of Hero in the end, and her 
 restoration to the confidence and arms of her 
 
300 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHINGS 
 
 lover, is brought about by one of those tempo- 
 rary consignments to the grave of which Shake- 
 spear seems to have been fond. He has perhaps 
 explained the theory of this predilection in the 
 following lines: — 
 
 f< Friar. She dying, as it must be so maintain' d, 
 Upon the instant that she was accus'd, 
 Shall be lamented, pity'd, and excus'd, 
 Of every hearer : for it so falls out, 
 That what we have we prize not to the worth, 
 While we enjoy it ; but being lack'd and lost> 
 Why then we rack the value ; then we find 
 The virtue, that possession would not shew us 
 Whilst it was ours. — So will it fare with Claudio : 
 When he shall hear she dy'd upon his words, 
 The idea of her love shall sweetly creep 
 Into his study of imagination j 
 And every lovely organ of her life 
 Shall come apparel'd in more precious habit, 
 More moving, delicate, and full of life, 
 Into the eye and prospect of his soul, 
 Than when she liv'd indeed." 
 
 The principal comic characters in Much ado 
 about Nothing, Benedick and Beatrice, are 
 both essences in their kind. His character as 
 a woman-hater is admirably supported, and his 
 conversion to matrimony is no less happily ef- 
 fected by the pretended story of Beatrice's love 
 for him. It is hard to say which of the two 
 scenes is the best, that of the trick which is thus 
 
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 301 
 
 practised on Benedick, or that in which Bea- 
 trice is prevailed on to take pity on him by over- 
 hearing her cousin and her maid declare (which 
 they do on purpose) that he is dying of love for 
 her. There is something delightfully picturesque 
 in the manner in which Beatrice is described as 
 coming to hear the plot which is contrived 
 against herself — 
 
 " For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs 
 Close by the ground, to hear our conference." 
 
 In consequence of what she hears (not a word 
 of which is true) she exclaims when these good- 
 natured informants are gone, 
 
 <e What fire is in mine ears ? Can this be true ? 
 
 Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much ? 
 Contempt, farewel ! and maiden pride adieu ! 
 
 No glory lives behind the back of such. 
 And, Benedick, love on, I will requite thee ', 
 
 Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand 5 
 If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee 
 
 To bind our loves up in an holy band : 
 For others say thou dost deserve ; and I 
 Believe it better than reportingly." 
 
 And Benedick, on his part, is equally sincere in 
 his repentance with equal reason, after he has 
 heard the grey-beard, Leonato, and his friend, 
 " Monsieur Love," discourse of the desperate 
 state of his supposed inamorata. 
 
303 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 
 
 " This can be no trick j the conference was sadly borne. 
 — They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to 
 pity the lady; it seems her affections have the full bent. 
 Love me ! why, it must be requited. I hear how I am 
 censur'd : they say, I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive 
 the love come from her j they say too, that she will rather 
 die than give any sign of affection. — I did never think to 
 marry : I must not seem proud : — happy are they that hear 
 their detractions, and can put them to mending. They say, 
 the lady is fair ; 'tis a truth, I can bear them witness : and 
 virtuous -, — 'tis so, I cannot reprove it : and wise — but for 
 loving me : — by my troth it is no addition to her wit 5 — 
 nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in 
 love with her. — I may chance to have some odd quirks and 
 remnants of wit broken on me, because I have rail'd so 
 long against marriage : but doth not the appetite alter ? 
 A man loves the meat in his youth, that he cannot endure 
 in his age. — Shall quips, and sentences, and these paper 
 bullets of the brain, awe a man from the. career of his hu- 
 mour ? No : the world must be peopled. When I said, I 
 would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I 
 were marry'd. — Here comes Beatrice : by this day, she's a 
 fair lady : I do spy some marks of love in her." 
 
 The beauty of all this arises from the charac- 
 ters of the persons so entrapped. Benedick is 
 a professed and staunch enemy to marriage, and 
 gives very plausible reasons for the faith that is 
 in him. And as to Beatrice, she persecutes him 
 all day with her jests (so that he could hardly 
 think of being troubled with them at night) she 
 not only turns him but all other things into jest, 
 and is proof against every thing serious. 
 
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 303 
 
 f Hero. Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, 
 Misprising what they look on ; and her wit 
 Values itself so highly, that to her 
 All matter else seems weak : she cannot love. 
 Nor take no shape nor project of affection, 
 She is so self- endeared. 
 
 Ursula. Sure, I think so ; 
 And therefore, certainly, it were not good 
 She knew his love, lest she make sport at it. 
 
 Hero. Why, you speak truth : I never yet saw man, 
 How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featur'd, 
 But she would spell him backward : if fair-fac'd, 
 She'd swear the gentleman should be her sister^ 
 If black, why, nature, drawing of an antick, 
 Made a foul blot : if tall, a lance ill- headed 5 
 If low, an agate very vilely cut : 
 If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds 3 
 If silent, why, a block moved with none. 
 So turns she every man the wrong side out 5 
 And never gives to truth and virtue that 
 Which simpleness and merit purchaseth." 
 
 These were happy materials for Shakespear to 
 work on, and he has made a happy use of them. 
 Perhaps that middle point of comedy was never 
 more nicely hit in which the ludicrous blends 
 with the tender, and our follies, turning round 
 against themselves in support of our affections, 
 retain nothing but their humanity. 
 
 Dogberry and Verges in this play are inimita- 
 ble specimens of quaint blundering and mispri- 
 sions of meaning ; and are a standing record of 
 
304 |tIUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 
 
 that formal gravity of pretension and total want 
 of common understanding, which Shakespear no 
 doubt copied from real life, and which in the 
 course of two hundred years appear to have as- 
 cended from the lowest to the highest offices in 
 the state. 
 
AS YOU LIKE IT. 
 
 Shakespear has here converted the forest of 
 Arden into another Arcadia, where they " fleet 
 the time carelessly, as they did in the golden 
 world." It is the most ideal of any of this au- 
 thor's plays. It is a pastoral drama in which 
 the interest arises more out of the sentiments 
 and characters than out of the actions or situa- 
 tions. It is not what is done, but what is said, 
 that claims our attention. Nursed in solitude, 
 " under the shade of melancholy boughs," the 
 imagination grows soft and delicate, and the 
 wit runs riot in idleness, like a spoiled child, 
 that is never sent to school. Caprice and fancy 
 reign and revel here, and stern necessity is ba- 
 nished to the court. The mild sentiments of 
 humanity are strengthened with thought and 
 leisure ; the echo of the cares and noise of the 
 world strikes upon the ear of those " who have 
 
306 AS YOU LIKE IT. 
 
 felt them knowingly," softened by time and dis- 
 tance. " They hear the tumult, and are still." 
 The very air of the place seems to breathe 
 a spirit of philosophical poetry ; to stir the 
 thoughts, to touch the heart with pity, as the 
 drowsy forest rustles to the sighing gale. Never 
 was there such beautiful moralising, equally free 
 from pedantry or petulance. 
 
 " And this their life, exempt from public haunts, 
 Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in every thing." 
 
 Jaques is the only purely contemplative cha- 
 racter in Shakespear. He thinks, and does no- 
 thing. His whole occupation is to amuse his 
 mind, and he is totally regardless of his body and 
 his fortunes. He is the prince of philosophical 
 idlers ; his only passion is thought ; he sets no 
 value upon any thing but as it serves as food 
 for reflection. He can " suck melancholy out 
 of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs ;" the motley 
 fool, " who morals on the time," is the greatest 
 prize he meets with in the forest* He resents 
 Orlando's passion for Rosalind as some dispa- 
 ragement of his own passion for abstract truth ; 
 and leaves the Duke, as soon as he is restored to 
 his sovereignty, to seek his brother out who has 
 quitted it, and turned hermit. 
 
 — ' ' Out of these convertites 
 There is much matter to be heard and learnt.'* 
 
AS YOU LIKE IT. 307 
 
 Within the sequestered and romantic glades 
 of the forest of Arden, they find leisure to be 
 good and wise, or to play the fool and fall in 
 love; Rosalind's character is made up of sport- 
 ive gaiety and natural tenderness : her tongue 
 runs the faster to conceal the pressure at her 
 heart. She talks herself out of breath, only to 
 get deeper in love. The coquetry with which 
 she plays with her lover in the double character 
 which she has to support is managed with the 
 nicest address. How full of voluble, laughing 
 grace is all her conversation with Orlando — 
 
 — " In heedless mazes running 
 With wanton haste and giddy cunning.'* 
 
 How full of real fondness and pretended cru- 
 elty is her answer to him when he promises to 
 love her " For ever and a day !" 
 
 " Say a day without the ever : no, no, Orlando, men are 
 April when they woo, December when they wed : maids 
 are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when 
 they are wives : I will be more jealous of thee than a Bar- 
 bary cock-pigeon over his hen ; more clamorous than a par- 
 rot against rain 5 more new-fangled than an ape j more 
 giddy in my desires than a monkey ; I will weep for nothing 
 like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you are 
 disposed to be merry ; I will laugh like a hyen, and that 
 when you are inclined to sleep. 
 
 Orlando. But will my Rosalind do so ? 
 
 Rosalind. By my life she will do as I do." 
 
308 AS YOU LIKE IT. 
 
 The silent and retired character of Celia is a 
 necessary relief to the provoking loquacity of 
 Rosalind, nor can any thing be better conceived 
 or more beautifully described than the mutual 
 affection between the two cousins. 
 
 — " We still have slept together, 
 Rose at an instant, learn' d, play'd, eat together, 
 And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans, 
 Still we went coupled and inseparable." 
 
 The unrequited love of Silvius for Phebe 
 shews the perversity of this passion in the com- 
 monest scenes of life, and the rubs and stops 
 which nature throws in its way, where fortune 
 has placed none. Touchstone is not in love, but 
 he will have a mistress as a subject for the exer- 
 cise of his grotesque humour, and to shew his 
 contempt for the passion, by his indifference 
 about the person. He is a rare fellow. He is 
 a mixture of the ancient cynic philosopher with 
 the modern buffoon, and turns folly into wit, and 
 wit into folly, just as the fit takes him. His 
 courtship of Audrey not only throws a degree 
 of ridicule on the state of wedlock itself, but 
 he is equally an enemy to the prejudices of 
 opinion in other respects. The lofty tone of 
 enthusiasm, which the Duke and his com- 
 panions in exile spread over the stillness and 
 solitude of a country life, receives a pleasant 
 
AS YOU LIKE IT. 309 
 
 shock from Touchstone's sceptical determination 
 of the question. 
 
 " Corin. And how like you this shepherd's life, Mr. Touch- 
 stone ? 
 
 Clown. Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good 
 life ; but in respect that it is a shepherd's life, it is naught. 
 In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well j but in re- 
 spect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now in respect 
 it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well ; but in respect it is 
 not in the court, it is tedious. As it is a spare life, look 
 you, it fits my humour ; but as there is no more plenty in 
 it, it goes much against my stomach." 
 
 Zimmerman's celebrated work on Solitude dis- 
 covers only half the sense of this passage. 
 
 There is hardly any of Shakespear's plays that 
 contains a greater number of passages that have 
 been quoted in books of extracts, or a greater 
 number of phrases that have become in a manner 
 proverbial. If we were to give all the striking 
 passages, we should give half the play. We 
 will only recall a few of the most delightful to 
 the reader's recollection. Such are the meeting 
 between Orlando and Adam, the exquisite ap- 
 peal of Orlando to the humanity of the Duke 
 and his company to supply him with food for 
 the old man, and their answer, the Duke's de- 
 scription of a country life, and the account of 
 Jaques moralising on the wounded deer, his 
 meeting with Touchstone in the forest, his apo- 
 
310 AS YOU LIKE IT. 
 
 logy for his own melancholy and his satirical 
 vein, and the well-known speech on the stages 
 of human life, the old song of " Blow, blow, 
 thou winter's wind," Rosalind's description of 
 the marks of a lover and of the progress of time 
 with different persons, the picture of the snake 
 wreathed round Oliver's neck while the lioness 
 watches her sleeping prey, and Touchstone's 
 lecture to the shepherd, his defence of cuckolds, 
 and panegyric on the virtues of " an If." — All 
 of these are familiar to the reader : there is one 
 passage of equal delicacy and beauty which may 
 have escaped him, and with it we shall close 
 our account of As you like it. It is Phebe's 
 description of Gammed at the end of the third 
 act. 
 
 ■ f Think not I love him, tho' I ask for him 5 
 Tis but a peevish boy, yet he talks well j — 
 But what care I for words ! yet words do well, 
 When he that speaks them pleases those that hear : 
 It is a pretty youth ; not very pretty ; 
 But sure he's proud, and yet his pride becomes him j 
 He'll make a proper man 3 the best thing in him 
 Is his complexion j and faster than his tongue 
 Bid make offence, his eye did heal it up : 
 He is not very tall, yet for his years he's tall j 
 His leg is but so so, and yet 'tis well 5 
 There was a pretty redness in his lip, 
 A little riper, and more lusty red 
 Than that mix'd in his cheek 5 'twas just the difference 
 
AS YOU LIKE IT. 311 
 
 Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask. 
 
 There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him 
 
 In parcels as I did, would have gone near 
 
 To fall in love with him : but for my part 
 
 I love him not, nor hate him not ; and yet 
 
 I have more cause to hate him than to love him 5 
 
 For what had he to do to chide at me ?" 
 
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, 
 
 JLhe Taming of the Shrew is almost the 
 ©nly one of Shakespear's comedies that has a re- 
 gular plot, and downright moral. It is full of bus- 
 tle, animation, and rapidity of action. It shews 
 admirably how self-will is only to be got the 
 better of by stronger will, and how one degree 
 of ridiculous perversity is only to be driven out 
 by another still greater. Petruchio is a madman 
 in his senses; a very honest fellow, who hardly 
 speaks a word of truth, and succeeds in all his 
 tricks and impostures. He acts his assumed 
 character to the life, with the most fantastical 
 extravagance, with complete presence of mind, 
 with untired animal spirits, and without a par- 
 ticle of ill-humour from beginning to end. — The 
 situation of poor Katherine, worn out by his in- 
 cessant persecutions, becomes at last almost as 
 pitiable as it is ludicrous, and it is difficult 
 
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 313 
 
 to say which to admire most, the unaccounta- 
 bleness of his actions, or the unalterableness of 
 his resolutions. It is a character which most 
 husbands ought to study, unless perhaps the 
 very audacity of Petruchio's attempt might alarm 
 them more than his success would encourage 
 them. What a sound must the following speech 
 carry to some married ears ! 
 
 ' ' Think you a little din can daunt my ears ? 
 Have I not in my time heard lions roar ? 
 Have I not heard the sea, puff'd up with winds, 
 Rage like an angry boar, chafed with sweat ? 
 Have I not heard great ordnance in the field ? 
 And heav'n's artillery thunder in the skies ? 
 Have I not in a pitched battle heard 
 Loud larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang ? 
 And do you tell me of a woman's tongue, 
 That gives not half so great a blow to hear, 
 As will a chesnut in a farmer's fire ?" 
 
 Not all Petruchio's rhetoric would persuade 
 more than " some dozen followers" to be of this 
 heretical way of thinking. He unfolds his 
 scheme for the Taming of the Shrew , on a prin- 
 ciple of contradiction, thus: — 
 
 " I'll woo her with some spirit when she comes. 
 Say that she rail, why then I'll tell her plain 
 She sings as sweetly as a nightingale j 
 Say that she frown, I'll say she looks as clear 
 As morning roses newly wash'd with dew 5 
 Say she be mute, and will not speak a word, 
 Then I'll commend her volubility, 
 
314 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 
 
 And say she uttereth piercing eloquence : 
 
 If she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks, 
 
 As tho' she bid me stay by her a week 5 
 
 If she deny to wed, I'll crave the day, 
 
 When I shall ask the banns, and when be married r" 
 
 He accordingly gains her consent to the match, 
 by telling her father that he has got it ; disap- 
 points her by not returning at the time he has 
 promised to wed her, and when he returns, 
 creates no small consternation by the oddity of 
 his dress and equipage. This however is no- 
 thing to the astonishment excited by his mad- 
 brained behaviour at the marriage. Here is the 
 account of it by an eye-witness: — 
 
 <e Gremlo. Tut, she's a lamb, a dove, a fool to him : 
 I'll tell you, Sir Lucentio j when the priest 
 Should ask if Katherine should be his wife ? 
 Ay, by gogs woons, quoth he 3 and swore so loud, 
 That, all amaz'd, the priest let fall the book 3 
 And as he stooped again to take it up, 
 This mad-brain'd bridegroom took him such a cuff; 
 That down fell priest and book, and book and priest. 
 Now take them up, quoth he, if any list. 
 
 Tran'io. What said the wench when he rose up again ? 
 
 Gremio. Trembled and shook 3 for why, he stamp'd and 
 swore, 
 As if the vicar meant to cozen him. 
 But after many ceremonies done, 
 He calls for wine 5 a health, quoth he 3 as if 
 He' ad been aboard carousing with his mates 
 After a storm j quaft off the muscadel, 
 
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 315 
 
 And threw the sops all in the sexton's face ; 
 
 Having no other cause but that his beard 
 
 Grew thin and hungerly, and seem'd to ask 
 
 His sops as he was drinking. This done, he took 
 
 The bride about the neck, and kiss'd her lips 
 
 With such a clamourous smack, that at their parting 
 
 All the church echoed : and I seeing tjiis, 
 
 Came thence for very shame ; and after me, 
 
 I know, the rout is coming j 
 
 Such a mad marriage never was befpre." 
 
 The most striking and at the same time laugh- 
 able feature in the character of Petruchio through- 
 out is the studied approximation to the intrac- 
 table character of real madness, his apparent in- 
 sensibility to all external considerations, and 
 utter indifferepce to every thing but the wild 
 and extravagant freaks of his own self will. 
 There is no contending with a person on whom 
 nothing makes any impression but his own pur- 
 poses, and who is bent on his own whims just 
 in proportion as they seem to want common 
 sense. With him a thing's being plain and rea- 
 sonable is a reason against it. The airs he gives 
 himself are infinite, and his caprices as sudden 
 as they are groundless. The whole of his treat- 
 ment of his wife at home is in the same spirit of 
 ironical attention and inverted gallantry. Every 
 thing flies before his will, like a conjuror's wand, 
 and he only metamorphoses his wife's temper 
 by metamorphosing her senses and all the objects 
 
S16 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 
 
 she sees, at a word's speaking. Such are his 
 insisting that it is the moon and not the sun 
 which they see, &c. This extravagance reaches 
 its most pleasant and poetical height in the scene 
 where, on their return to her father's, they meet 
 old Vincentio, whom Petruchio immediately 
 addresses as a young lady : — 
 
 " Petruchio. Good morrow, gentle mistress, where 
 away ? 
 Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too, 
 Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman ? 
 Such war of white and red within her cheeks j 
 What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty, 
 As those two eyes become that heav'nly face ? 
 Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee : 
 Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty's sake. 
 
 Hortensio. He'll make the man mad to make a woman 
 of him. 
 
 Katherine. Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and 
 sweet, 
 Whither away, or where is thy abode ? 
 Happy the parents of so fair a child ; 
 Happier the man whom favourable stars 
 Allot thee for his lovely bed-fellow. 
 
 Petruchio. Why, how now, Kate, I hope thou art not 
 mad : 
 This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, wither'd, 
 And not a maiden, as thou say'st he is. 
 
 Katherine. Pardon, old father, my mistaken eyes 
 That have been so bedazed with the sun 
 That every thing I look on seemeth green. 
 Now I perceive thou art a reverend father." 
 
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 317 
 
 The whole is carried off with equal spirit, as 
 if the poet's comic Muse had wings of fire. 
 It is strange how one man could be so many 
 things ; but so it is. The concluding scene, in 
 which trial is made of the obedience of the new- 
 married wives (so triumphantly for Petruchio) is 
 a very happy one. — In some parts of this play 
 there is a little too much about music-masters 
 and masters of philosophy. They were things 
 of greater rarity in those days than they are now. 
 Nothing however can be better than the advice 
 which Tranio gives his master for the prosecu- 
 tion of his studies: — 
 
 " The mathematics , and the metaphysics, 
 Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you : 
 No profit grows, where is no pleasure ta'en : 
 In brief, sir, study what you most affect." 
 
 We have heLfd the Honey -Moon called " art 
 elegant Katherine and Petruchio." We suspect 
 we do not understand this word elegant in the 
 sense that many people do. But in our sense 
 of the word, we should call Lucentio's descrip- 
 tion of his mistress elegant. 
 
 et Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move, 
 And with her breath she did perfume the air : 
 Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her." 
 
 When Biondello tells the same Lucentio for his 
 encouragement, " I knew a wench married in an 
 
318 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 
 
 afternoon as she went to the garden for parsley 
 to stuff a rabbit, and so may you, sir" — there is 
 nothing elegant in this, and yet we hardly know 
 which of the two passages is the best. 
 
 The Taming of the Shrew is a play 
 within a play. It is supposed to be a play acted 
 for the benefit of Sly the tinker, who is made 
 to believe himself a lord, when he wakes after a 
 drunken brawl. The character of Sly and the 
 remarks with which he accompanies the play 
 are as good as the play itself. His answer when 
 he is asked how he likes it, " Indifferent well ; 
 'tis a good piece of work, would 'twere done," 
 is in good keeping, as if he were thinking of his 
 Saturday night's job. Sly does not change his 
 tastes with his new situation, but in the midst 
 of splendour and luxury still calls out lustily and 
 repeatedly " for a pot o' the smallest ale." He 
 is very slow in giving up his personal identity 
 in his sudden advancement. — " I am Christo- 
 phero Sly, call not me honour nor lordship. 
 I ne'er drank sack in my life : and if you give 
 me any conserves, give me conserves of beef: 
 ne'er ask me what raiment I'll wear, for I have 
 no more doublets than backs, no more stock- 
 ings than legs, nor no more shoes than feet, 
 nay, sometimes more feet than shoes, or such 
 shoes as my toes look through the over-leather. 
 — What, would you make me mad ? Am not 
 I Christophero Sly, old Sly's son of Burton- 
 
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 319 
 
 heath, by birth a pedlar, by education a card- 
 maker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now 
 by present profession a tinker ? Ask Marian 
 Hacket, the fat alewife of Wincot, if she know 
 me not ; if she say I am not fourteen pence on 
 the score for sheer ale, score me up for the ly- 
 ing'st knave in Christendom." 
 
 This is honest. " The Slies are no rogues," 
 as he says of himself. We have a great predilec- 
 tion for this representative of the fajnily; and 
 what makes us like him the better is, that we 
 take him to be of kin (not many degrees re- 
 moved) to Sancho Panza. 
 
MEASURE EOR MEASURE. 
 
 1 his is a play as full of genius as it is of wis- 
 dom. Yet there is an original sin in the nature 
 of the subject, which prevents us from taking 
 a cordial interest in it. " The height of moral 
 argument" which the author has maintained in 
 the intervals of passion or blended with the more 
 powerful impulses of nature, is hardly surpassed 
 in any of his plays. But there is in general a 
 want of passion ; the affections are at a stand ; 
 our sympathies are repulsed and defeated in 
 all directions. The only passion which influ- 
 ences the story is that of Angelo; and yet he 
 seems to have a much greater passion for hy- 
 pocrisy than for his mistress. Neither are we 
 greatly enamoured of Isabella's rigid chastity, 
 though she could not act otherwise than she did. 
 We do not feel the same confidence in the virtue 
 that is " sublimely good" at another's expense. 
 
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 321 
 
 as if it had been put to some less disinterested 
 triaL As to the Duke, who makes a very im- 
 posing and mysterious stage-character, he is 
 more absorbed in his own plots and gravity than 
 anxious for the welfare of the state ; more tena- 
 cious of his own character than attentive to the 
 feelings and apprehensions of others. Claudio 
 is the only person who feels naturally ; and yet 
 he is placed in circumstances of distress which al- 
 most preclude the wish for his deliverance. Ma- 
 riana is also in love with Angelo, whom we hate. 
 In this respect, there may be said to be a general 
 system of cross-purposes between the feelings of 
 the different characters and the sympathy of the 
 reader or the audience. This principle of re- 
 pugnance seems to have reached its height in 
 the character of Master Barnardine, who not 
 only sets at defiance the opinions of others, but 
 has even thrown off all self-regard, — " one that 
 apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a 
 drunken sleep ; careless, reckless, and fearless 
 of what's past, present, and to come." He is a 
 fine antithesis to the morality and the hypo- 
 crisy of the other characters of the play. Bar- 
 nardine is Caliban transported from Prosperous 
 wizard island to the forests of Bohemia or the 
 prisons of Vienna. He is the creature of bad 
 habits as Caliban is of gross instincts. He has 
 however a strong notion of the natural fitness of 
 things, according to his own sensations — u He 
 
 Y 
 
322 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 
 
 has been drinking hard all night, and he will not 
 be hanged that day" — and Shakespear has let 
 him off at last. We do not understand why the 
 philosophical German critic, Schlegel, should be 
 so severe on those pleasant persons, Lucio, 
 Pompey, and Master Froth, as to call them 
 " wretches." They appear all mighty comfor- 
 table' in their occupations, and determined to 
 pursue them, " as the flesh and fortune should 
 serve." A very good exposure of the want of 
 self-knowledge and contempt for others, which 
 is so common in the world, is put into the 
 mouth of Abhorson, the jailor, when the Pro- 
 vost proposes to associate Pompey with him in 
 his office — " A bawd, sir ? Fie upon him, he 
 will discredit our m'ystery." And the same an- 
 swer would serve in nine instances out often to 
 the same kind of remark, " Go to, sir, you weigh 
 equally ; a feather will turn the scale." Shake- 
 spear was in one sense the least moral of all 
 writers ; for morality (commonly so called) is 
 made up of antipathies ; and his talent consisted 
 in sympathy with human nature, in all its shapes, 
 degrees, depressions, and elevations. The ob- 
 ject of the pedantic moralist is to find out the 
 bad in every thing : his was to shew that " there 
 is some soul of goodness in things evil." Even 
 Master Bamardine is not left to the mercy of 
 what others think of him ; but when he comes 
 in, speaks for himself, and pleads his own cause, 
 
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 3<23 
 
 as well as if counsel had been assigned him. 
 In one sense, Shakespear was no moralist at 
 all: in another, he was the greatest of all moral- 
 ists. He was a moralist in the same sense in 
 which nature is one. He taught what he had 
 learnt from her. He shewed the greatest know- 
 ledge of humanity with the greatest fellow-feel- 
 ing for it. 
 
 One of the most dramatic passages in the pre- 
 sent play is the interview between Claudio and 
 his sister, when she comes to inform him of the 
 conditions on which Angelo will spare his life. 
 
 " Claudio. Let me know the point. 
 
 Isabella. O, I do fear thee, Claudio : and I quake, 
 Lest thou a feverous life should' st entertain, 
 And six or seven winters more respect 
 Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die ? 
 The sense of death is most in apprehension 5 
 And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, 
 In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great 
 As when a giant dies. 
 
 Claudio. Why give you me this shame ? 
 Think you I can a resolution fetch 
 From flowery tenderness ; if I must die, 
 I will encounter darkness as a bride, 
 And hug it in mine arms. 
 
 Isabella. There spake my brother! there my father's 
 grave 
 Did utter forth a voice ! Yes, thou must die : 
 Thou art too noble to conserve a life 
 In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy — 
 Whose settled visage and deliberate word 
 
324 MEASURE FOR MEASURE, 
 
 Nips youth i' the head, and follies doth emmew, 
 As faulcon doth the fowl — is yet a devil. 
 
 Claudio The princely Angelo ? 
 
 Isabella. Oh, 'tis the cunning livery of hell, 
 The damned'st body to invest and cover 
 In princely guards ! Dost thou think, Claudio, 
 If I would yield him my virginity, 
 Thou might'st be freed ? 
 
 Claudio. Oh, heavens ! it cannot be. 
 
 Isabella. Yes, he would give it thee, for this rank of- 
 fence, 
 So to offend him still : this night's the time 
 That I should do what I abhor to name, 
 Or else thou dy'st to-morrow. 
 
 Claudio. Thou shalt not do't. 
 
 Isabella. Oh, were it but my life, 
 I'd throw it down for your deliverance 
 As frankly as a pin. 
 
 Claudio. Thanks, dear Isabel. 
 
 Isabella. Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow 
 
 Claudio. Yes. — Has he affections in him, 
 That thus can make him bite the law by the nose ? 
 When he would force it, sure it is no sin ; 
 Or of the deadly seven it is the least. 
 
 Isabella. Which is the least ? 
 
 Claudio. If it were damnable, he, being so wise, 
 Why would he for the momentary trick 
 Be perdurably fin'd ? Oh, Isabel ! 
 
 Isabella. What says my brother ? 
 
 Claudio. Death is a fearful thing. 
 
 Isabella. And shamed life a hateful. 
 
 Claudio. Aye, but to die, and go we know not where ; 
 To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot -, 
 This sensible warm, motion to become 
 A kneaded clod 5 and the delighted spirit 
 
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 325 
 
 To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside 
 
 In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice j 
 
 To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, 
 
 And blown with restless violence round about 
 
 The pendant world ; or to be worse than worst 
 
 Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts 
 
 Imagine howling ! — 'tis too horrible ! 
 
 The weariest and most loathed worldly life, 
 
 That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment 
 
 Can lay on nature, is a paradise 
 
 To what we fear of death. 
 
 Isabella. Alas ! alas ! 
 
 Claudio. Sweet sister, let me live : 
 What sin you do to save a brother's life. 
 Nature dispenses with the deed so far, 
 That it becomes a virtue." 
 
 What adds to the dramatic beauty of this 
 scene and the effect of Claudio's passionate at- 
 tachment to life is, that it immediately follows 
 the Duke's lecture to him, in the character of 
 the Friar, recommending an absolute indifference 
 to it. 
 
 — " Reason thus with life, — • 
 If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing, 
 That none but fools would keep : a breath thou art, 
 Servile to all the skyey influences 
 That do this habitation, where thou keep'st, 
 Hourly afflict : merely, thou art death's fool ; 
 For him thou labourist by thy flight to shun, 
 And yet run'st toward him still : thou art not noble ; 
 For all the accommodations, that thou bear'st, 
 Are nurs'd by baseness : thou art by no means valiant 3 
 For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork 
 
326 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 
 
 Of a poor worm : thy best of rest is sleep, 
 
 And that thou oft provok'st ; yet grossly fear'st 
 
 Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself ; 
 
 For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains 
 
 That issue out of dust : happy thou art not ; 
 
 For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get 5 
 
 And what thou hast, forget'st : thou art not certain 5 
 
 For thy complexion shifts to strange effects, 
 
 After the moon -, if thou art rich, thou art poor 5 
 
 For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows, 
 
 Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, 
 
 And death unloads thee : friend thou hast none -, 
 
 For thy own bowels, which do call thee sire, 
 
 The mere effusion of thy proper loins, 
 
 Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum, 
 
 For ending thee no sooner : thou hast nor youth, nor age j 
 
 But, as it were, an after- dinner's sleep, 
 
 Dreaming on both : for all thy blessed youth 
 
 Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms 
 
 Of palsied eld ; and when thou art old, and rich, 
 
 Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, 
 
 To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this, 
 
 That bears the name of life ? Yet in this life 
 
 Lie hid more thousand deaths 5 yet death we fear. 
 
 That makes these odds all even." 
 
THE 
 
 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 
 
 I he Merry Wives of Windsor is no doubt 
 a very amusing play, with a great deal of hu- 
 mour, character, and nature in it: but we should 
 have liked it much better, if any one else had 
 been the hero of it, instead of Falstaff. We could 
 have been contented if Shakespear had not been 
 " commanded to shew the knight in love." Wits 
 and philosophers, for the most part, do not shine 
 in that character ; and Sir John himself, by no 
 means, comes off with flying colours. Many 
 people complain of the degradation and insults 
 to which Don Quixote is so frequently exposed 
 in his various adventures. But what are the 
 unconscious indignities which he suffers, com- 
 pared with the sensible mortifications which 
 Falstaff is made to bring upon himself? What 
 are the blows and buffettings which the Don re- 
 
328 THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 
 
 ceives from the staves of the Yanguesian car- 
 riers or from Sancho Panza's more hard-hearted 
 hands, compared with the contamination of the 
 buck-basket, the disguise of the fat woman of 
 Brentford, and the horns of Heme the hunter, 
 which are discovered on Sir John's head? In read- 
 ing the play, we indeed wish him well through 
 all these discomfitures, but it would have been 
 as well if he had not got into them. Falstaffin 
 the Merry Wives of Windsor is not the man 
 he was in the two parts of Henry IV. His wit 
 and eloquence have left him. Instead of making 
 a butt of others, he is made a butt of by them. 
 Neither is there a single particle of love in him 
 to excuse his follies : he is merely a designing, 
 bare-faced knave, and an unsuccessful one. The 
 scene with Ford as Master Brook, and that with 
 Simple, Slender's man, who comes to ask after 
 the Wise Woman, are almost the only ones 
 in which his old intellectual ascendancy ap- 
 pears. He is like a person recalled to the stage 
 to perform an unaccustomed and ungracious 
 part ; and in which we perceive only " some 
 faint sparks of those flashes of merriment, that 
 were wont to set the hearers in a roar." But 
 the single scene with Doll Tearsheet, or Mrs. 
 Quickly's account of his desiring " to eat some 
 of housewife Reach's prawns," and telling her 
 " to be no more so familiarity with such peo- 
 ple," is worth the whole of the Merry Wives 
 
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 329 
 
 of Windsor put together. Ford's jealousy, 
 which is the main spring of the comic incidents, 
 is certainly very well managed. Page, on the 
 contrary, appears to be somewhat uxorious in 
 his disposition ; and we have pretty plain indi- 
 cations of the effect of the characters of the hus- 
 bands on the different degrees of fidelity in their 
 wives. Mrs. Quickly makes a very lively go- 
 between, both between Falstaff and his Dulci- 
 neas, and Anne Page and her lovers, and seems 
 in the latter case so intent on her own interest 
 as totally to overlook the intentions of her em- 
 ployers. Her master, Doctor Caius, the French- 
 man, and her fellow-servant Jack Bugby, are 
 very completely described. This last-mentioned 
 person is rather quaintly commended by Mrs. 
 Quickly as " an honest, willing, kind fellow, as 
 ever servant shall come in house withal, and I 
 warrant you, no tell-tale, nor no breed-bate; 
 his worst fault is that he is given to prayer ; he 
 is something peevish that way ; but no body 
 but has his fault." The Welch Parson, Sir 
 Hugh Evans (a title which in those days was 
 given to the clergy) is an excellent character in 
 all respects. He is as respectable as he is laugh- 
 able. He has " very good discretions, and very 
 odd humours." The duel-scene with Caius 
 gives him an opportunity to shew his " cholers 
 and his tremblings of mind," his valour and his 
 melancholy, in an irresistible manner. In the 
 
330 THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 
 
 dialogue, which at his mother's request he holds 
 with his pupil, William Page, to shew his pro- 
 gress in learning, it is hard to say whether the 
 simplicity of the master or the scholar is the 
 greatest. Nym, Bardolph, and Pistol, are but 
 the shadows of what they were; and Justice 
 Shallow himself has little of his consequence 
 left. But his cousin, Slender, makes up for the 
 deficiency. He is a very potent piece of imbe- 
 cility. In him the pretensions of the worthy 
 Gloucestershire family are well kept up, and 
 immortalised. He and his friend Sackerson and 
 his book of songs and his love of Anne Page 
 and his having nothing to say to her can never 
 be forgotten. It is the only first-rate character 
 in the play : but it is in that class. Shakespear 
 is the only writer who was as great in describ- 
 ing weakness as strength. 
 
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS, 
 
 This comedy is taken very much from the 
 Menaechmi of Plautus, and is not an improve- 
 ment on it. Shakespear appears to have be- 
 stowed no great pains on it, and there are but a 
 few passages which bear the decided stamp of 
 his genius. He seems to have relied on his 
 author, and on the interest arising out of the 
 intricacy of the plot. The curiosity excited is 
 certainly very considerable, though not of the 
 most pleasing kind. We are teazed as with a 
 riddle, which notwithstanding we try to solve. 
 In reading the play, from the sameness of the 
 names of the two Antipholises and the two 
 Dromios, as well from their being constantly 
 taken for each other by those who see them, it 
 is difficult, without a painful effort of attention, 
 to keep the characters distinct in the mind. 
 And again, on the stage, either the complete 
 
332 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 
 
 similarity of their persons and dress must pro- 
 duce the same perplexity whenever they first 
 enter, or the identity of appearance which the 
 story supposes, will be destroyed. We still, 
 however, having a clue to the difficulty, can 
 tell which is which, merely from the practical 
 contradictions which arise, as soon as the dif- 
 ferent parties begin to speak; and we are in- 
 demnified for the perplexity and blunders into 
 which we are thrown by seeing others thrown 
 into greater and almost inextricable ones. — 
 This play (among other considerations) leads us 
 not to feel much regret that Shakespear was not 
 what is called a classical scholar. We do not 
 think his forte would ever have lain in imitat- 
 ing or improving on what others invented, so 
 much as in inventing for himself, and perfecting 
 what he invented, — not perhaps by the omission 
 of faults, but by the addition of the highest ex- 
 cellencies. His own genius was strong enough 
 to bear him up, and he soared longest and best 
 on unborrowed plumes. — The only passage of 
 a very Shakespearian cast in this comedy is the 
 one in which the Abbess, with admirable cha- 
 racteristic artifice, makes Adriana confess her 
 own misconduct in driving her husband mad. 
 
 (C Abbess. How long hath this possession held the man: 
 Adriana. This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad., 
 And much, much different from the man he was 3 
 
f HE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 333 
 
 But, till this afternoon, his passion 
 Ne'er brake into extremity of rage. 
 
 Abbess. Hath he not lost much wealth by wreck at sea ? 
 Bury'd some dear friend ? Hath not else his eye 
 Stray'd his affection in unlawful love ? 
 A sin prevailing much in youthful men, 
 Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing. 
 Which of these sorrows is he subject to 3 
 
 Adriana. To none of these, except it be the last : 
 Namely.) some love, that drew him oft from home. 
 
 Abbess. You should for that have reprehended him. 
 
 Adriana. Why, so I did. 
 
 Abbess. But not rough enough. 
 
 Adriana. As roughly as my modesty would let me. 
 
 Abbess. Haply, in private. 
 
 Adriana. And in assemblies too. 
 
 Abbess. Aye, but not enough. 
 
 Adriana. It was the copy of our conference : 
 In bed, he slept not for my urging it ; 
 At board, he fed not for my urging it ; 
 Alone it was the subject of my theme? 
 In company, I often glanc'd at it ; 
 Still did I tell him it was vile and bad. 
 
 Abbess. And therefore came it that the man was mad : 
 The venom'd clamours of a jealous woman 
 Poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth. 
 It seems, his sleeps were hinder'd by thy railing : 
 And therefore comes it that his head is light. 
 Thou say'st his meat was sauc'd with thy upbraidings : 
 Unquiet meals make ill digestions, 
 Therefore the raging fire of fever bred : 
 And what's a fever but a fit of madness ? 
 Thou say'st his sports were hinder'd by thy brawls : 
 Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue, 
 But moody and dull melancholy, 
 
334 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 
 
 Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair ; 
 And, at her heels, a huge infectious troop 
 Of pale distemperatures, and foes to life r 
 In food, in sport, and life-preserving rest 
 To be disturb'd, would mad or man or beast: 
 The consequence is then, thy jealous fits 
 Have scar'd thy husband from the use of wits. 
 
 Luciana. She never reprehended him but mildly., 
 When he demeaned himself rough, rude, and wildly.— 
 "Why bear you these rebukes, and answer not r 
 
 Adriana. She did betray me to my own reproof." 
 
 Pinch the conjuror is also an excrescence not 
 to be found in Plautus. He is indeed a very 
 formidable anachronism. 
 
 " They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-fac'd villain, 
 A meer anatomy, a mountebank, 
 A thread-bare juggler and a fortune-teller, 
 A needy, hollow-ey'd, sharp-looking wretch, 
 A living dead man." 
 
 This is exactly like some of the Puritanical por- 
 traits to be met with in Hogarth. 
 
DOUBTFUL PLAYS 
 
 OF 
 
 SHAKESPEAR. 
 
 Vv e shall give for the satisfaction of the reader 
 what the celebrated German critic, Schlegel, says 
 on this subject, and then add a very few remarks 
 of our own. 
 
 " All the editors, with the exception of Ca- 
 pell, are unanimous in rejecting Titus Androni- 
 cus as unworthy of Shakespear, though they 
 always allow it to be printed with the other 
 pieces, as the scape-goat, as it were, of their 
 abusive criticism. The correct method in such 
 an investigation is first to examine into the ex- 
 ternal grounds, evidences, &c. and to weigh their 
 worth ; and then to adduce the internal reasons 
 derived from the quality of the work. The cri- 
 tics of Shakespear follow a course directly the 
 reverse of this ; they set out with a preconceived 
 opinion against a piece, and seek, in justifi- 
 cation of this opinion, to render the historical 
 
336 DOUBTFUL PLAYS. 
 
 grounds suspicious, and to set them aside. Titus 
 Andronicus is to be found in the first folio edition 
 of Shakespear's works, which it was known was 
 conducted by Heminge and Condell, for many 
 years his friends and fellow-managers of the same 
 theatre. Is it possible to persuade ourselves 
 that they would not have known if a piece in 
 their repertory did or did not actually belong to 
 Shakespear ? And are we to lay to the charge 
 of these honourable men a designed fraud in 
 this single case, when we know that they did 
 not shew themselves so very desirous of scraping 
 every thing together which went by the name of 
 Shakespear, but, as it appears, merely gave those 
 plays of which they had manuscripts in hand ? 
 Yet the following circumstance is still stronger: 
 George Meres, a contemporary and admirer of 
 Shakespear, mentions Titus Andronicus in an 
 enumeration of his works, in the year 1598. 
 Meres was personally acquainted with the poet, 
 and so very intimately, that the latter read over 
 to him his Sonnets before they w r ere printed. I 
 cannot conceive that all the critical scepticism 
 in the world would be sufficient to get over such 
 a testimony. 
 
 " This tragedy, it is true, is framed according 
 to a false idea of the tragic, which by an accu- 
 mulation of cruelties and enormities degenerates 
 into the horrible, and yet leaves no deep im- 
 pression behind : the story of Tereus and Philo- 
 
DOUBTFUL PLAYS. 337 
 
 mela is heightened and overcharged under other 
 names, and mixed up with the repast of Atreus 
 and I hyestes, and many other incidents. In 
 detail there is no want of beautiful lines, bold 
 images, nay, even features which betray the pe- 
 culiar conception of Shakespear. Among these 
 we may reckon the joy of the treacherous Moor 
 at the blackness and ugliness of his child begot 
 in adultery; and in the compassion of Titus 
 Andronicus, grown childish through grief, for a 
 fly which had been struck dead, and his rage 
 afterwards when he imagines he discovers in it 
 his black enemy, we recognize the future poet 
 of Lear. Are the critics afraid that Shakespear's 
 fame would be injured, were it established that 
 in his early youth he ushered into the world a 
 feeble and immature work ? Was Rome the less 
 the conqueror of the world because Remus could 
 leap over its first walls ? Let any one place 
 himself in Shakespear's situation at the com- 
 mencement of his career. He found onlv a few 
 indifferent models, and yet these met with the 
 most favourable reception, because men are never 
 difficult to please in the novelty of an art before 
 their taste has become fastidious from choice 
 and abundance. Must not this situation have 
 had its influence on him before he learned to 
 make higher demands on himself, and by dig- 
 ging deeper in his own mind, discovered the 
 richest veins of a noble metal? It is even highly 
 
 z 
 
338 DOUBTFUL PLAYS. 
 
 probable that he must have made several failures 
 before getting into the right path. Genius is in 
 a certain sense infallible, and has nothing to 
 learn ; but art is to be learned, and must be ac- 
 quired by practice and experience. In Shake- 
 spear's acknowledged works we find hardly any 
 traces of his apprenticeship, and yet an appren- 
 ticeship he certainly had. This every artist 
 must have, and especially in a period where he 
 has not before him the example of a school al- 
 ready formed. I consider it as extremely pro- 
 bable, that Shakespear began to write for the 
 theatre at a much earlier period than the one 
 which is generally stated, namely, not till after 
 the year 1590. It appears that, as early as the 
 year 1584, when only twenty years of age, he 
 had left his paternal home and repaired to Lon- 
 don. Can we imagine that such an active head 
 would remain idle for six whole years without 
 making any attempt to emerge by his talents 
 from an uncongenial situation ? That in the 
 dedication of the poem of Venus and Adonis he 
 calls it, " the first heir of his invention," proves 
 nothing against the supposition. It was the 
 first which he printed ; he might have composed 
 it at an earlier period ; perhaps, also, he did not 
 include theatrical labours, as they then possessed 
 but little literary dignity. The earlier Shake- 
 spear began to compose for the theatre, the less 
 are we enabled to consider the immaturity and 
 
DOUBTFUL PLAYS. 339 
 
 imperfection of a work as a proof of its spurious- 
 ness in opposition to historical evidence, if we 
 only find in it prominent features of his mind. 
 Several of the works rejected as spurious, may 
 still have been produced in the period betwixt 
 Titus Andronicus, and the earliest of the ac- 
 knowledged pieces. 
 
 " At last, Steevens published seven pieces as- 
 cribed to Shakespear in two supplementary vo- 
 lumes. It is to be remarked, that they all ap- 
 peared in print in Shakespear's life-time, with 
 his name prefixed at full length. They are the 
 following : — 
 
 " 1. Locrine. The proofs of the genuineness 
 of this piece are not altogether unambiguous ; 
 the grounds for doubt, on the other hand, are 
 entitled to attention. However, this question is 
 immediately connected with that respecting Ti- 
 tus Andronicus, and must be at the same time 
 resolved in the affirmative or negative. 
 
 " 2. Pericles, Prince of Tyre, This piece was 
 acknowledged by Dryden, but as a youthful 
 work of Shakespear. It is most undoubtedly 
 his, and it has been admitted into several of the 
 late editions. The supposed imperfections ori- 
 ginate in the circumstance, that Shakespear here 
 handled a childish and extravagant romance of 
 the old poet Gower, and was unwilling to drag 
 the subject out of its proper sphere. Hence he 
 even introduces Gower himself, and makes him 
 
340 DOUBTFUL PLAYS. 
 
 deliver a prologue entirely in his antiquated 
 language and versification. This power of as- 
 suming so foreign a manner is at least no proof 
 of helplessness. 
 
 " 3. The London Prodigal. If we are not 
 mistaken, Lessing pronounced this piece to be 
 Shakespear's, and wished to bring it on the 
 German stage. 
 
 " 4. The Puritan; or, the Widow of Watting 
 Street. One of my literary friends, intimately 
 acquainted with Shakespear, was of opinion that 
 the poet must have wished to write a play for 
 once in the style of Ben Jonson, and that in 
 this way we must account for the difference be- 
 tween the present piece and his usual manner. 
 To follow out this idea however would lead to a 
 very nice critical investigation. 
 
 "5. Thomas, Lord Cromwell. 
 
 "6. Sir John Oldcastle — First Part. 
 
 " 7. A Yorkshire Tragedy. 
 
 " The three last pieces are not only unques- 
 tionably Shakespear's, but in my opinion they 
 deserve to be classed among his best and ma- 
 turest works. — Steevens admits at last, in some 
 degree, that they are Shakespear's, as well as the 
 others, excepting Locrine, but he speaks of all of 
 them with great contempt, as quite worthless 
 productions. This condemnatory sentence is 
 not however in the slightest degree convincing, 
 nor is it supported by critical acumen. I should 
 
DOUBTFUL PLAYS. 341 
 
 like to see how such a critic would, of his own 
 natural suggestion, have decided on Shakespear's 
 acknowledged master-pieces, and what he would 
 have thought of praising in them, had the public 
 opinion not imposed on him the duty of admira- 
 tion. Thomas, Lord Cromwell, and Sir John 
 Oldcastle, are biographical dramas, and models 
 in this species: the first is linked, from its sub- 
 ject, to Henri/ the Eighth, and the second to 
 Henry the Fifth. The second part of Oldcastle 
 is wanting ; I know not whether a copy of the 
 old edition has been discovered in England, or 
 whether it is lost. The Yorkshire Tragedy is a 
 tragedy in one act, a dramatised tale of murder: 
 the tragical effect is overpowering, and it is ex- 
 tremely important to see how poetically Shake- 
 apear could handle such a subject. 
 
 " There have been still farther ascribed to 
 him : — 1st. The M err y Devil of Edmonton, a co- 
 medy in one act, printed in Dodsley's old plays. 
 This has certainly some appearances in its fa- 
 vour. It contains a merry landlord, who bears 
 a great similarity to the one in the Merry Wives 
 of Windsor. However, at all events, though an 
 ingenious, it is but a hasty sketch. 2d. The 
 Accusation of Paris. 3d. The Birth of Merlin. 
 4th. Edward the Third. 5th. The Fair Emma. 
 6th. Mucedorus. 7th. Arden of Fever sham. I 
 have never seen any of these, and cannot there- 
 fore say any thing respecting them. From the 
 
342 DOUBTFUL PLAYS. 
 
 passages cited, I am led to conjecture that the 
 subject of Mucedorus is the popular story of Va- 
 lentine and Orson ; a beautiful subject which 
 Lope de Vega has also taken for a play. Arden of 
 Feversham is said to be a tragedy on the story of 
 a man, from whom the poet was descended by the 
 mother's side. If the quality of the piece is not 
 too directly at variance with this claim, the cir- 
 cumstance would afford an additional probability 
 in its favour. For such motives were not foreign 
 to Shakespear : he treated Henry the Seventh, 
 who bestowed lands on his forefathers for ser- 
 vices performed by them, with a visible par- 
 tiality. 
 
 " Whoever takes from Shakespear a play early 
 ascribed to him, and confessedly belonging to 
 his time, is unquestionably bound to answer, 
 with some degree of probability, this question: 
 who has then written it ? Shakespear's compe- 
 titors in the dramatic walk are pretty well known, 
 and if those of them who have even acquired a 
 considerable name, a Lilly, a Marlow, a Hey- 
 wood, are still so very far below him, we can 
 hardly imagine that the author of a work, which 
 rises so high beyond theirs, would have remained 
 unknown." — Lectures on Dramatic Literature, 
 vol. ii. page 2o2. 
 
 We agree to the truth of this last observation, 
 but not to the justice of its application to some of 
 the plays here mentioned. It is true that Shake- 
 
DOUBTFUL PLAYS. 343 
 
 spear's best works are very superior to those of 
 Marlow, or Heywood, but it is not true that the 
 best of the doubtful plays above enumerated are 
 superior or even equal to the best of theirs. 
 The Yorkshire Tragedy, which Schlegel speaks 
 of as an undoubted production of our author's, is 
 much more in the manner of Heywood than of 
 Shakespear. The effect is indeed overpowering, 
 but the mode of producing it is by no means 
 poetical. The praise which Schlegel gives to 
 Thomas, Lord Cromwell, and to Sir John Old- 
 castle, is altogether exaggerated. They are very 
 indifferent compositions, which have not the 
 slightest pretensions to rank with Henri/ V. or 
 Henry VIII. We suspect that the German critic 
 was not very well acquainted with the dramatic 
 contemporaries of Shakespear, or aware of their 
 general merits ; and that he accordingly mistakes 
 a resemblance in style and manner for an equal 
 degree of excellence. Shakespear differed from 
 the other writers of his age not in the mode of 
 treating his subjects, but in the grace and power 
 which he displayed in them. The reason as- 
 signed by a literary friend of SchlegePs for sup- 
 posing The Puritan; or, the Widow of Watling 
 Street, to be Shakespear's, viz. that it is in the 
 style of Ben Jonson, that is to say, in a style 
 just the reverse of his own, is not very satisfac- 
 tory to a plain English understanding. Locrine, 
 and The London Prodigal, if they were Shake- 
 
344 DOUBTFUL PLAYS. 
 
 spear's at all, must have been among the sins of 
 his youth. Arden of Fevers ham contains several 
 striking passages, but the passion which they 
 express is rather that of a sanguine temperament 
 than of a lofty imagination ; and in this respect 
 they approximate more nearly to the style of 
 other writers of the time than to Shakespear's. 
 Titus Andronicus is certainly as unlike Shake- 
 spear's usual style as it is possible. It is an ac- 
 cumulation of vulgar physical horrors, in which 
 the power exercised by the poet bears no pro- 
 portion to the repugnance excited by the subject. 
 The character of Aaron the Moor is the only 
 thing which shews any originality of concep- 
 tion ; and the scene in which he expresses his 
 joy " at the blackness and ugliness of his child 
 begot in adultery," the only one worthy of Shake- 
 spear. Even this is worthy of him only in the 
 display of power, for it gives no pleasure. 
 Shakespear managed these things differently. 
 Nor do we think it a sufficient answer to say 
 that this was an embryo or crude production of 
 the author. In its kind it is full grown, and its 
 features decided and overcharged. It is not like 
 a first imperfect essay, but shews a confirmed 
 habit, a systematic preference of violent effect 
 to every thing else. There are occasional de- 
 tached images of great beauty and delicacy, 
 but these were not beyond the powers of other 
 writers then living. The circumstance which 
 
DOUBTFUL PLAYS. S45 
 
 inclines us to reject the external evidence in 
 favour of this play being Shakespear's is, that the 
 grammatical construction is constantly false and 
 mixed up with vulgar abbreviations, a fault that 
 never occurs in any of his genuine plays. A si- 
 milar defect, and the halting measure of the verse 
 are the chief objections to Pericles of Tyre, if 
 we except the far-fetched and complicated ab- 
 surdity of the story. The movement of the 
 thoughts and passions has something in it not 
 unlike Shakespear, and several of the descrip- 
 tions are either the original hints of passages 
 which Shakespear has ingrafted on his other 
 plays, or are imitations of them by some co- 
 temporary poet. The most memorable idea in 
 it is in Marina's speech, where she compares 
 the world to " a lasting storm, hurrying her from 
 her friends." 
 
POEMS AND SONNETS. 
 
 Our idolatry of Shakespear (not to say our ad- 
 miration) ceases with his plays. In his other 
 productions, he was a mere author, though not 
 a common author. It was only by representing 
 others, that he became himself. He could go out 
 of himself, and express the soul of Cleopatra ; 
 but in his own person, he appeared to be al- 
 ways waiting for the prompter's cue. In expres- 
 sing the thoughts of others, he seemed inspired; 
 in expressing his own, he was a mechanic. The 
 licence of an assumed character was necessary 
 to restore his genius to the privileges of nature, 
 and to give him courage to break through the 
 tyranny of fashion, the trammels of custom. In 
 his plays, he was " as broad and casing as the 
 general air :" in his poems, on the contrary, he 
 appears to be " cooped, and cabined in" by all 
 the technicalities of art, by all the petty intrica- 
 
POEMS AND SONNETS. 347 
 
 cies of thought and language, which poetry had 
 learned from the controversial jargon of the 
 schools, where words had been made a sub- 
 stitute for things. There was, if we mistake 
 not, something of modesty, and a painful sense 
 of personal propriety at the bottom of this. 
 Shakespear's imagination, by identifying itself 
 with the strongest characters in the most try- 
 ing circumstances, grappled at once with nature, 
 and trampled the littleness of art under his feet: 
 the rapid changes of situation, the wide range 
 of the universe, gave him life and spirit, and 
 afforded full scope to his genius ; but return- 
 ed into his closet again, and having assumed 
 the badge of his profession, he could only labour 
 in his vocation, and conform himself to existing 
 models. The thoughts, the passions, the words 
 which the poet's pen, " glancing from heaven to 
 earth, from earth to heaven/' lent to others, 
 shook off the fetters of pedantry and affec- 
 tation ; while his own thoughts and feelings, 
 standing by themselves, were siezed upon as 
 lawful prey, and tortured to death according to 
 the established rules and practice of the day. In 
 a word, we do not like Shakespear's poems, be- 
 cause we like his plays : the one, in all their 
 excellencies, are just the reverse of the other. 
 It has been the fashion of late to cry up our 
 author's poems, as equal to his plays: this is 
 the desperate cant of modern criticism. We 
 
348 POEMS AND SONNETS. 
 
 would ask, was there the slightest comparison 
 between Shakespear, and either Chaucer or 
 Spenser, as mere poets ? Not any. — The two 
 poems of Venus and Adonis and of Tarquin and 
 Lucrece appear to us like a couple of ice-houses. 
 They are about as hard, as glittering, and as cold. 
 The author seems all the time to be thinking of 
 his verses, and not of his subject, — not of what 
 his characters would feel, but of what he shall 
 say ; and as it must happen in all such cases, 
 he always puts into their mouths those things 
 which they would be the last to think of, and 
 which it shews the greatest ingenuity in him to 
 find out. The whole is laboured, up-hill work. 
 The poet is perpetually singling out the difficul- 
 ties of the art to make an exhibition of his 
 strength and skill in wrestling with them. He is 
 making perpetual trials of them as if his mas- 
 tery over them were doubted. The images, 
 which are often striking, are generally applied to 
 things which they are the least like; so that they 
 do not blend with the poem, but seem stuck up- 
 on it, like splendid patch-work, or remain quite 
 distinct from it, like detached substances, painted 
 and varnished over. A beautiful thought is sure 
 to be lost in an endless commentary upon it. The 
 speakers are like persons who have both leisure 
 and inclination to make riddles on their own si- 
 tuation, and to twist and turn every object or 
 incident into acrostics and anagrams. Every 
 
POEMS AND SONNETS. 340 
 
 thing is spun out into allegory; and a digression 
 is always preferred to the main story. Senti- 
 ment is built up upon plays of words ; the hero 
 or heroine feels, not from the impulse of passion, 
 but from the force of dialectics. There is besides 
 a strange attempt to substitute the language of 
 painting for that of poetry, to make us see their 
 feelings in the faces of the persons ; and again, 
 consistently with this, in the description of the 
 picture in Tarquin and Lucrece, those circum- 
 stances are chiefly insisted on, which it would be 
 impossible to convey except by words. The in- 
 vocation to Opportunity in the Tarquin and Lu- 
 crece is full of thoughts and images, but at the 
 same time it is over-loaded by them. The con- 
 cluding stanza expresses all our objections to 
 this kind of poetry : — 
 
 c ' Oh ! idle words, servants to shallow fools ; 
 Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators j 
 Busy yourselves in skill-contending schools ; 
 Debate when leisure serves with dull debaters 5 
 To trembling clients be their mediators : 
 For me I force not argument a straw, 
 Since that my case is past all help of law." 
 
 The description of the horse in Venus and 
 Adonis has been particularly admired, and not 
 without reason: — 
 
 <c Round hoofd, short jointed, fetlocks shag and long, 
 Broad breast, full eyes, small head and nostril wide, 
 High crest, short ears, strait legs, and passing strong, 
 Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide, 
 
350 POEMS AND SONNETS. 
 
 Look what a horse, should have, he did not lack, 
 Save a proud rider on so proud a back." 
 
 Now this inventory of perfections shews great 
 knowledge of the horse ; and is good matter-of- 
 fact poetry. Let the reader but compare it with 
 a speech in the Midsummer Night's Dreamwhere 
 Theseus describes his hounds — 
 
 <c And their heads are hung 
 With ears that sweep away the morning dew" — 
 
 and he will perceive at once what we mean by 
 the difference between Shakespear's own poetry, 
 and that of his plays. We prefer the Passionate 
 Pilgrim very much to the Lover's Complaint. 
 It has been doubted whether the latter poem is 
 Shakespear's. 
 
 Of the sonnets we do not well know what to 
 say. The subject of them seems to be somewhat 
 equivocal ; but many of them are highly beau- 
 tiful in themselves, and interesting as they re- 
 late to the state of the personal feelings of the 
 author. The following are some of the most 
 striking : — 
 
 CONSTANCY. 
 
 ee Let those who are in favour with their stars, 
 Of public honour and proud titles boast, 
 Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars, 
 Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most. 
 Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread. 
 But as the marigold in the sun's eye 3 
 
POEMS AND SONNETS. 351 
 
 And in themselves their pride lies buried, 
 
 For at a frown they in their glory die. 
 
 The painful warrior famous' d for fight, 
 
 After a thousand victories once foil'd, 
 
 Is from the book of honour razed quite, 
 
 And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd : 
 Then happy I, that love and am belov'd, 
 Where I may not remove, nor be remov'd." 
 
 LOVE'S CONSOLATION. 
 
 " When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, 
 I all alone beweep my out-cast state, 
 And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, 
 And look upon myself, and curse my fate, 
 Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, 
 Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd, 
 Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, 
 With what I most enjoy contented least: 
 Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, 
 Haply I think on thee, — and then my state 
 (Like to the lark at break of day arising 
 From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate ; 
 For thy sweet love remember'd, such wealth brings, 
 That then I scorn to change my state with kings." 
 
 NOVELTY. 
 
 " My love is strengthen' d, though more weak in seeming; 
 I love not less, though less the show appear : 
 That love is merchandis'd, whose rich esteeming 
 The owner's tongue doth publish every where. 
 Our love was new, and then but in the spring, 
 When I was wont to greet it with my lays : 
 As Philomel in summer's front doth sing, 
 And stops his pipe in growth of riper days : 
 Not that the summer is less pleasant now 
 
352 POEMS AND SONNETS. 
 
 Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, 
 But that wild music burdens every bough, 
 And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. 
 Therefore, like her, I sometime hold my tongue, 
 Because I would not dull you with my song." 
 
 LIFE'S DECAY. 
 
 t( That time of year thou may'st in me behold 
 When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang 
 Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, 
 Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. 
 In me thou seest the twilight of such day, 
 As after sun-set fadeth in the west, 
 Which by and by black night doth take away, 
 Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. 
 In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire, 
 That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, 
 As the death -bed whereon it must expire, 
 Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. 
 This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, 
 To love that well which thou must leave ere long." 
 
 In all these, as well as in many others, there 
 is a mild tone of sentiment, deep, mellow, and 
 sustained, very different from the crudeness of 
 his earlier poems. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON: PRINTED BY C. H. REYNELL, 
 21, PICCADILLY.— 1817. 
 
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