'" J^ d 7 "^ • < O '^K' / A -^^R-* /% .,.^,, ^ IQ, • AT ^0^ . ** !nL% II '^c ^% *' V*\. CHARACTERS OF Shakspeare^s Plajs Br WILLIAM HAZLITT. BOSTON : PUBLISHED BY WELLS AND LILLY. 1818. 1 a -^ it/ TO CHARLES LAMB, Esq. 4 ? THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED, AS A MARK OF OLD FRIENDSHIP AND LASTING ESTEEM, BY THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS. PAGE PRktACE Vii Cymbeline 25 Facbeth 37 V ius Caesar 52 Othello 60 " non of Athens XJ -oiiolanus " 84 Troilus and Cressida ..*..• 96 Antony and Cleopatra 107 Hamlet 114 The Tempest 124 The Midsummer Night's Dream 134 Romeo and Juliet 141 Lear 156 Richard II 177 Henry IV. Part I. and II 186 Henry V 198 Henry VI., in Three Parts 208 Richard III 217 Henry VIII. . . . , 226 King John 231 Twelfth Night ; or, What you Will 241 1 * Vi CONTENTS. PAGB The Two Gentlemen of Verona :..••• 250 The Merchant of Venice 253 The Winter's Tale 261 All's Well that ends Well 268 Love's Labour's Lost ' • 273 Much Ado about Nothing 277 As You Like It 282 The Taming of the Shrew 287 Measure for Measure 294 The Merry Wives of Windsor 300 The Comedy of Errours 304 Doubtful Plays of Shakspeare 308 Poems and Sonnets * , ... 318 PREFACE. It is observed by Mr. Pope, that " If ever any author deserved the name of an original, it was Shakspeare. Horner himself drew not his art so immediately from the fountains of nature; it proceeded through jEgyptain 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 Shakspeare 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 il 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 '1 Vlll PREFACE. picture, like a mock rainbow, is but the reflec- tion of a reflection. But every single character • in Shakspeare, is as much an individual, as those in life itself; 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 Ihis 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 publick, is to illustrate these remarks in a more particular manner by a reference to each play. A gentleman by 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 Shak- speare's principal characters. The only work which see'ued to snpersede the necessity of an attempt liLe the present was Schlegel's very admirable Lectures on the Drama, which give by far the best account of the plays of Shak- speare 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 critick 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 SchlegePs 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 are piqued" that it should be reserved for a foreign critick to give " reasons for the faith which we English have in Shakspeare." Certainly, no writer among ourselves has shewn either the same enthusias- tick admiration of his genius, or the same philo- sophical acuteness in pointing out his charac- teristick excellencies. As we have pretty well exhausted all we had to say upon this subject in the body of the work, we shall here tran- scribe Schlegel's general account of Shak- speare, which is in the following words : — " Never, perhaps, was there so comprehensive a talent for the delineation of character as Shak- speare's. It not only grasps the diversities of rank, sex, and age, down to the dawnings of infancy ; not only do the king and the beggarj 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 atseeing the extraordinarj, the wonderful, and the unheard of, in such intimate nearness. " If Shakspeare 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 tragick 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 if, 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 observatious from them in the same manner as from real cases. Xll PREFACE. " And yet Johnson has objected to Shak- speare, that his pathos is not alwajs natural and free from affectation. There are, it is true, pas- sages, though, comparatively speaking, very (ew, where his poetry exceeds the bounds of true dialogue, where a too soaring imagination, a too luxmiunl wit, rendered the complete dramatick forgetfulness of himself impossible. With (his exceplion, the censure originales only in a fan- ciless way of thinking^, lo which every thing ap- pears unnatural that does not suit ils 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. Shakspeare, 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. Xlll 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 Shakspeare acted conformably to this ingenious maxim, without knowing it. " The objection, that Shakspeare 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 lago and Richard the Third. The constant reference to a petty and puny race mugt cripple the boldness of the poet. Fortunately for his art, Shakspeare 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 2 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 Shakspeare falls occasion- ally into the opposite extreme, it is a noble er- rour, originating in the fulness of a gigantick, strength : and yet this tragical Titan, who storms the heavens, and threatens to tear the world from off its hinges ; who, more terrible than ^schylus, makes our hair stand on end, and congeals our blood with horrour, 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 unassjuraing as a child. «' Shakspeare's comick talent is equally won- derful with that which he has shown in the pathetick and tragick: 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 comick 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 comick 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 ^ery 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 critick in behalf of Shak- speare, because our own countryman. Dr. John- son, has not been so favourable to him. It may be said of Shakspeare, 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 Shakspeare 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 Shakspeare, 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 Shak- speare should read his Irene. We do not say that a man to be a critick must necessarily be a poet : but to be a good critick, 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 Shak- speare looks like a laborious attempt to bury the characteristick merits of his author under a load of cumbrous phraseology, and to weigh his excel- lencies 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 : — Sbakspeare'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 com- mon standard of conventional propriety ; and the most exquisite refinement or sublimity pro^ PREFACE. XVll diiced an effect on his mind, only as ihey 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 raiebow 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 posilive, 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 and 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 didactick reasoner to fake cognizance of those 9 # XVlil 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 ; an^d it was in arranging, comparing, and arguing on these kinds of general results, that J.ohnson's excellence lay. But he could not quit his hold of the common place and mecha- nical, 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 Shak- speare'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 didactick form in Shakspeare's charac- ters, which was all be sought or cared for; he PREFACE,. XIX did not find the individual traits, or the dramatick distinctions which Shakspeare has engrafted on this general nature, because he felt no in- terest in them. Shakspeare's bold and happy flights of imagination were equally thrown away upon our author. H§ was not only without any. particular fineness of organick 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 a& 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 r*. 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 ; 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 characteristick epithet, " violets dim,'' must seem lo 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. Shakspeare's fancy lent words and images to the most refined sensibility to nature, struggling for expression : bis descriptions are identical with the things themselves, seen through the fine medium of passion : strij) Ihem of that connexion, and try them by ordinary conceptions and ordinary rules, and they are as grotesc^ue and barbarous as PREFACE. XXI you please. — By thus lowering Shakspeare'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 Shakspeare, 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 heroick 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 periodi- cal revolution of his style carries the weight of his opinion completely over to the side of objec- tion, thus keeping up a perpetual alternation of perfections and absurdities. We do not other- wise know how to account for such assertions as the following: — *' In his tragick scenes, there is always something wanting, but his comedy often surpa&ses 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 XXll 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 tragick 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 Shakspeare ! 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 terrour and pity, as they are rising in the mind, are checked and blasted by sudden frigidi!e (hat though Cloten makes so poor a figure in love, he is 32 CYMBELINE. described as assuming an air of consequence as the Qi.eerj's son in a council of s(Mle, nnd wiih al! the absurdity of his person and minuers, is not without shrewdness in his observations. So true is it that folly is as often owing to a v\Mnt of proper sentiments as to a want of understanding ! The exclamation of the p.ncient criiick, Oh Menanderand Nature, which of you copied from the other ! would not be misappli- ed to Shakspeare. The other chiracters in this play are represented with great truth and accuracy, and as it happens in most of the author's works, there is not only the ut- most keepins in each separate character; but in the casting or the different parts and their relation to one another, there is an affinity and harmony, like what we m^y observe in the o;radations of colour in a |-icture. The striking and powerful contrasts in which Shak- speare abounds could not escape observation ; but the use he mikes of the princijile of analogy to recon- cile the greatest diversities of character and to main- tain a continuity of feeling throughout, has not been sufficiently attended to. In Cymbeline, for instance, the principal interest arises out of the unalterable fidelity of Imosjen to her husband under the most trying circumstances. Now the other parts of the picture are fiiled up with subonlinate examples of the same feeling, variously modified by diiferent situa- tions, and applied to the purposes of virtue or vice. The plot is aided by the amorous importunities of Cloten, by the tragical determination of lachmo to conceal the defeat of his project by a daring impos- ture : the faithful attachment of Fisanio to his mistress CYMBELINE. 33 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 wickedness of the Queen, and even tiie blind uxorious confidence of Cymbe- liue, 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 unconsciously 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 sug- gesting different inflections of the same predominant principle, melting into, and strengthening one another, like chords in musick. The characters of Bellarius, Guiderius, and Arvi- ragus, and the romantick scenes in which they ap- pear, are a fine relief to the intrigues and artificial refinements of the court from which they are banish- ed. Nothing can surpass the wildness and simplici- ty of the descriptions of the mountain life they lead. They follow the business of huntsmen, not of shep- herds ; and this is in keeping with the s[)irit 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 calcula- tions and prudeut ress:re experienc- ed counsellor ! How well the disadvantages of 34 CYMBELINE. knowledge and of ignorance, of solitude and society, are placed against each other ! " Guidtrius. 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 ; sweeter to you F That have a sharprr known ; well corresponding , i ~ With your stiff age : but unto us it is ®^* A cell of ignorance ; 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 care, shall we discourse V The freezing hours away ? We hnve seen nothing. We are beastly j 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, ^^ Aud sing our bondage freely." The answer of Beliarius to this expostulation is hardly satisfoctory ; for nothing can be an answer to :^ hope, or the passion of the m'indrogressive in- terest and powerful alternations of feeling; Hamlet for the retined development of thought and senti- ment. If the force of genius shewn in each of these works is astonishing, their variety is not less so. They are like ditferent creations of the same mind, not one of which has the slightest reference to the rest. This distinctness and originality is indeed the necessary consequence of truth and nature. Shak- speare's genius alone appeared to possess the re- sources of nature. He is "your only tragedy-maker.^'' His plays have the force of things upon the mind. 3B MACBETH. What he represents is brought home to the bosom as a part of our experience, implanted in the memory as if we had kno^n the places, persons, and things of which he treats. Macbeth is like a record of a pre- ternatural and tragical event. It has the rugged se- verity of an old chronicle, with all that the imagina- tion of the poet can engraft upon traditional belief. The castle of Macbeth, round which " the air smells wooiogly," and where "the temple-haunting martlet buiids,"has a real subsistence in the mind ; the Weird Sisters meet us in person on " the blasted heath ;" the « air-drawn dagger" moves slowly before our eyes ; the ''gracious Duncan," the " blood-boultered Ban- quo" stand before us; all that passed through the mind of Macbeth passes, without the loss of a tittle, through ours. 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 magick, are brought before us with the same abso- lute truth and vividness.— Shakspeare excelled in the openings of his plays : that of Macbeth is the most striking of any. The wildness of the scenery, the sudden shifting of the situations and characters, the bustle, the expectations excited, are equally extraor- dinary. From ibe tirst entrance of the Witches and the description of them when they meet Macbeth, " Wliat 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 p" the mind is prepared for all that follows. MACBETH. 39 This tragedy is alike distinguished for the lofty imagination it displays, and for the tumultuous vehe- mence of the action ; and the one is made the moving principle of the other. The overwhelming pressure of preternatural agency urges on the tide of human passion with redoubled force. Macbeth him- self appears driven along by the violence of his fate, like a vessel drifting 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 daring impatience to verify their predictions, and with impious and bloody hand to tear aside the veil which hides the uncertainty of the future. He is not equal to the struggle with fate and conscience. He now " bends up each corporal instrument to the terrible feat;" at other times his heart misgives him, and he is cowed and abashed by his success. " The deed, no less than the attempt, confounds him," His mind is assailed by the stings of remorse, and full of "■ preternatural solicitings." His speeches and soliloquies are dark riddles on human life, baffling solution, and entangling him in their labyrinths. In thought he is absent and per- plexed, sudden and desperate in act, from a distrust of his own resolutit)n. His energy springs from the anxiety and agitation of his mind. His blindly rush- ing fv)rward on the oltjecls of his ambition and revenge, or his recoiling from them, equally betrays the harassed state of his feelings. — This part of his 40 MACBETH. character is admirably set off by being brought iu connexion with that of Lady Macbeth, whose obdu- rate strength of will and masculine firmness give her the ascendancy over her husband's fauitering virtue. She at once seizes on the opportunity that offers for the accorajdishment 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 Gonerill. She is only wicked to gain a great end ; and is perhaps more distinguished by her commanding 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 wo- manly regrets, than by the hardness of her heart or want of natural affections. The impression, which her loffy deteimination of character makes on the mind of Macbeth, is well described where he ex- claims, " Bring forth men children only j For thy undaunted mettle should compose INothing 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 assurance that " a little water clears them of this deed,*' shew any thing but her greater consistency in depravity. Her strong nerved ambition furnishes ribs of steel to **■ the sides of his intent ;" and she is herself wound up to MACBETH. 41 the execution of her baneful project with the same unshrinking fortitude in crime, that in other circum- stiinces she would probably have shewn patience in suffering. The deliberate sacrilice of all other con- siderations to the gaining *' for their future days and nights, sole sovereign sway and mastercidm," by the murtier of Duncan, is gorgeously expressed in her invocation on hearing of " his fatal entrance under her battlements :" — . • " Come all you spirits That tend on mortal tiiouglits, iinsex me here : And fill me, from the crown to th' toe, top-full Of direst cruelty ; make thick my blood, Stop Dp the accesss 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 n iture's mischief. Come, thick night ! And pall thee in the duunest 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 !"— Wlien 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 receiv- ing 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 consu.'U nation of his promised greatness, she ex- claims — 42 MACBETH. -" Hie thee hither. That I may pour my spirits in thine ear, And cliastise with the valour of my tongue All that impedes tliee from the golden round, Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem To have thee crowned withal." This swelling exultation and keen spirit of triumpbj this uncontrolable eagerness of anticipation, which seems to dilate her form and take possession of all her faculties, this solid, substantial flesh and blood display of passion, exhibit 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 cruelty. They are hags of mischief, obscene [>anders to iniquity, malicious from their impotence of enjoy- ment, enamoured of destruction, because they are themselves unreal, abortive, half existences, who be- come sublime from their exemption from all human sympathies and contempt 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 compassion and justice, which is so marked a feature in barbarous nations and times. A passing reflection 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 Macbeth, we ought not to pass over Mrs. Siddoas's manner of MACBETH. 43 acting that part. We can conceive of nothing grand- er. It was something above nature. It seemed almost as if a being of a superiour order had dropped from a higher sphere to awe the world with the ma- jesty of her appearance. Power was seated on her brow, passion emanated from her breast as from a shrine; she was tragedy personified. In comina; on in the sleeping scene, her eyes were open, but their sense was shut. She was like a person bewildered 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 draraatick beauty of (he character of Duncan, T^'hich excites the respect and pity even of his mur- derers, has been often pointed out. It forms a pic- ture 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. " 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. Another passage to shew that Shakspeare lost sight of nothing that could in any way give relief or 44 MACBETH. heightening to his subject, is the conversation which takes place between Banquo and Fleance immtdi- ately before the murder scene of Duncan. " Bonquo How goes the night, boy ? Fleance. The inoon 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'a, Their candles are all out. — A heavy summons lies like lead upon me. And yet 1 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. " liight thicken?, and the crow Makes wing to the rooky wood." •' NoTV spurs the lated traveller apace To gain the timely iwn." Macbeth (generally speaking) is done upon a stronger and more systemalick principle of contrast than any other of Shakspeare's plays. It moves up- on the verge of an abyss, and is a constant struggle between life and death. The action is desperate aud 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 ; MACBETH. 4B the transitions from triumph to despair, from the height of terrour 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. Shakspeare'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 antithe- ses 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 unwelcome news together." " Men's lives are like the fiowers in their caps, dying or ere they sicken." " Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it." The scene before the castle gate follows the appear- ance of the Witches on the heath, and is followed by a midnight murder. Duncan is cut off betimes by treason leagued with witchcraft, and Macdufif is rip- ped 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, " A vaunt and quit my. sight," and being gone, he is " himself again." Macbeth resolves to get rid of iVIacduif that " he may sleep in spite of thunder;" and cheers his wife on the doubtful intelligence of Banquo's taking otf, with the encouragement — " Then be thou jocund: ere the bat has t5own his cloistered flight; ere to black Hecate's summons the shard-bora 46 MACBETH. beetle has rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done — a deed of dreadful note." In Lady Macbeth's speech " Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done 't," there is murder and filial piety to- gether, and in urging him to fulfil his vengeance' against the defenceless king, her thoughts spare the blood neither of infants nor old age. The descrip- tion of the Witches is full of the same contradictory principle; they *' rejoice when good kings hleed," 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 Macbeth on to the height of his ambition, only to betray him in deeper consequence, and after shewing him all the pom{) of their art, discover their malignant delight in his disappointed ho{)es, by that bitter taunt, '' Why stands Macbeth thus amazediy ?" 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, Gothick outline. By comparing it with other characters of the s^ime author, we shall perceive the absolute truth nnd iden- tity which is observed in the midst of the gi:ns. In his last extremity can we only regard him as a wild beast taken in the toils ; we never entirely lose our concern for Mac!>eth; and he calls back nil our sytn,)athy by that fine close of thoughtful melan- choly, " My way of life is fallen into the sear. The yellow leaf; and that which s^hould accompany old age, As honour, troops of friends, I mnst not look lo have ; But in their stead, cjirses, not 'oud but dtep, 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 iday Mric- beth properly, or lo look like a man ihcu had encountered the \Vt ird Sisters. All the actors that we have ever seen, apptar as if they had encounter- 5 50 MACBETH. ed them on the boards of Covent-garden or Drury- lane, but not on the heath at Foris, and as if they did not believe what they had seen. The Witches of Macbeth indeed are ridiculous on the modern stage, and we doubt if the Furies of ^schylus would be more respected. The progress of manners and knowledge has an influence on the stage, and will in time perhaps destroy both tragedy and comedy. Filch's picking pockets in the Beggafs Opera is not so good a jest as it used to be : by the force of the po- lice and of philosophy, Lillo's murders and the ghosts in Shakspeare will become obsolete. At last, there w411 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 Shakspeare's Witches, which has been well answer- ed by Mr Lamb in his notes to the '* Specimens of Early Dramatick PoetrJ^" *' Though some resemblance may be traced be- tween the charms in Macbeth, and the incantations in this play, (the Witch of Middleton) which is sup- posed to have preceded it, this coincidence will not detract much from the originality of Shakspeare. His Witches are distinguished from the AVitches of Middleton by essential differences. These are crea- tures to whom man or woman plotting some dire mischief 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 ; Mi^CBETH. 51 those have power over the soul.— Hecate in Middle- ton has a son, a low buffoon : the hags of Sbakspeare have neither child of their own, nor seem to be de- scended 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 musick. 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 IVIiddleton has given to his hags, excite smiles. The Weird Sisters are 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 satrf o'er life:' ^ JULIUS C^SAB Julius Cesar was one of the three principal plays, by different authors, pitched upon by the celebrated Earl of Halifax to be brought out in a splendid manner by subscription, in the year 1707. The other two were the King and ^^o King of Fletcher, and Dryden's Maiden Queen. There perhaps might be political rensons for this selection, as far as regards our author. Otherwise, Shakspeare's Julius C-^ESAR is not equal, as a whole, to either of his other plays taken from the Roman history. It is inferiour in interest to Coriolanus, and both in interest and power to Antony and Cleopatra. It however abounds in admirable and affecting passages, and is remark- able for the profound knowledge of character, ia which Shakspeare could scarcely fail. Jf there is any exception to this remark, it is in the hero of the piece himself. We do not much admire the representation here given of Julius Cffisar, nor do we think it answers to the portrait given of him in his Commentaries. He makes several vapouring and rather pedantick speeches, and does nothing. In- deed, he has nothing to do. So far, the fault of the character might be the fault of the plot. JUUUS CESAR. o^ 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 different factions, is shewn in the first scene, when Flavins and Marullus, tribunes of the people, and some citi- zens of Rome, appear upon the stage. " Flavins. Thou art a cobbler, art thou ? Cobbler. Truly, Sir, all that I live by, is the and .• \ meddle with no tradesman's matters, nor woman's matters, but jvilh al, I am indeed, Sir, a surgeon to old shoes j when they are in great danger, I recover them. Flavins. But wherefore art not in thy shop to day p Why do'st thou lead these men about the streets p Cobbler. 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 immediate- ly follows that unexpected and animated burst of in- dignant eloquence, put into the mouth of one of the angry tribunes. •• Mnmllus. Wherefore rejoice ! — What conquest brings he home ? 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 p Many a time and oft Have you climb'd up to wails and battlements, To towers and windows, yea, to chimney lops, Your infants in your arm?, 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 uiiiveisal shout, That Tiber trembled underneath his Iwoks 5 * .^4 JULIUS CiESAR. 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 cut an holiday ? And do you now strew flowers in his way That comes in triumph over Pompey'^ blood ? Begone Run to your houses, fall upon your knee?, * Pray to the Gods to intermit the plague. That needs must light on this ingratitude." The -svell known dialogue between Bru(us and Cassias, in which the latter breaks the design of the conspiracy to the former, and partly gains him over to it, is a noble piece of high nJnded declama- tion. Cassius's insisting on the pretended effemina- cy of Caesar'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 |)erhaps the whole is not equal to the short scene which follows when Caesar enters with his train. " Brutus. The games are done, and Csssar is returning, Cassius. As I hey pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve, And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you What has proceeded worthy note to day. Briihis. \ will do so : but look you, Cassius — The angry spot doth glow ou Cse^sar's brow, And all the rest look like a chidden train. Calphurnia's cheek is pale; and Cicero Looks with siich ferret and such fiery eyes^ As we have seen him in the Capitol, Being ciost in conference by some senators. Cassius. Casca will teli us what the matter.ia. CcESnr. Actonius Av.iony, Csesar? JULIUS C^SAR. b'^ Ccemr. Let roe have men about me that are fat, Sleek headed men, and such as sleep a nights : Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look, He thinks too much ; such men are dangerous. Antony. Fear him not, Caesar, he's not dangerous : He is a noble Roman, and well given. Cotmr. 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 sooii as tiiat spare Cassias. He reads much ; He is a great observer ; and he looks Quite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays^ As thou dost, \ntony j he liears no musick: Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort, As if he mock'd hiiDself, 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, Wiiilst they behold a greater than themselves ] And therefore are they very dangerous. I rather tell thee what is to be feai'd Than what I fear ; for always I am Caesar. Come on my right hand, for tiiis ear is deaf. And tell me truly what thou think'st of him." We know hardly any passage more expressive of the genius of Shakspeare than this. It is as if he had been actually present, had known the different characters and what they tliought of one another, and had taken down what he heard and saw, their looks, words, and gestures, just as they happenecL The character of Mark Antony is farther speculat- ed u[)on 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 Csesai's ariD, Whea Csesai's head is otF. 56 JULIUS CiESAR. Cassius. Yet do 1 fear him : For in th* ingrafted love he bears to Caesar — Brutus. Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him : If he loves Caesar, all that he can do Is to himself, take thought, and die for Caesar; And that were much, he should ; for he is giv'n To sports, to wilduess, and much company. Trebonius. There is no fear in him ; 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 Brutiis is however suffi- cient to find out the unfitness of Cicero to be includ- ed in tijeir enterprise, from his affected egotism and literary vanity. " O, name him not : let us not break with him ; For he will never foMow any thing, That other men begin." His skepticism as to {)rodigies and his moralizing on the weather — " This disturlted sky is not to walk in" — are in the same sjjirit of refined iml.ecilily. Shakspeare has in this play and elsewhere, shewn the same penetration into political character, and the springs of publick events, as into those of every-day life. For instance, the whole design to liberate their country fails from the generous temprer and overweening confidence of Bruliis in the goodness of their cause and the assistance of others. Thus it has always been. Those who mean well themselves think well of others, and fill a jirey to their secu- rity. Tiiat humanity and sincerity which dispose men to resist injustice and tyranny render tliem un- fit to cope with the cunning and power of those JULIUS C^SAR. 57 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 publick good with the least possible hurt to its ene- mies, who have no regard to any thing but their own unprincipled ends, and stick at nothing to ac- complish them. Cassius was better cut out for a conspirator. FJis heart prompted his head. His huhitual jealousy miale him fear the worst that mi^ht hap()en, and his irritability of temper added to his inveteracy of purpose, and sharpened his patriotism. 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. Ty- ranny and servility are to be dealt with after their own fashion : otherwise, they will triumph over those who spare them, and tiually pronounce their funeral panegyrick, as Antony did that of Brutus. •' All the conspirators, save only he, Did that they did, in envy of gieat Caesar : He only in a general honest thought And common good to all, made one of them." The quarrel between Brutus and Cassius is managed in a masterly way. The dramatick fluctuation of passion, the calmness of Brutus, the heat of Cas- sius, 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 killing when I crost you so ?" gives double force to all that has gone before. The scene between Brutus and Portia, where she endeavours to 58 JULIUS C^SAR. extort the secret of the conspiracy from him, is con^ ceived in the most heroical spirit, and the burst of tenderness in Brutus — " You are my true and honourable wife ; As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart" — is justified by her whole behaviour. Portia's breath- less impatience to learn the event of the conspiracy^ in the dialogue with Lucius, is full of passion. The interest which Portia takes in Brulus, and that which Calphurnia takes in the fate of Caesar, are discrimi- nated with the nicest f»recision. 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 Brutus certainly is not so good. The entrance of the conspirators to the house of JBrutus at midnight is rendered very impressive. In the midst of this scene, we meet with one of those careless and natural digressions which occur so frequently and beautifully in Shakspeare. 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; and yon grey lines, That fret the clouds, are messengers of day. Casca. You shall confess, that you are both deceiv'd ■• Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises, Which ia a great way growing on the south, JULIUS C^SAR. 59 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 familiarity better than all the formality in the world. The truth of history in Julius CiESAR is very ably worked up with draraatick effect. The councils of generals, the doubtful turns of battles are represent- ed to the life. The death of Brutus is worthy of him — it has the dignity of the Roman senator with the firmness of the Stoick philosopher. 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 master in his tent, the night before the battle. Nature had played him the same forgetful trick once before on the night of the con- spiracy. The humanity of Brutus is the same on both occasions. " It is no matter Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber. Tiioii hast no figures nor no fantasies, Which busy care draws in tiie brains of men. Therefore theu sleep'st so sound." OTHELLO. It has been said that trao:edy purifies the affections by terrourand pity. That is, it substitutes imag;ina- ry sympathy for mere selfishness. It gives us a high and permanent interest, beyond ourselves, in humani- ty as such. It raises the great, the remote, and the possible to an equality with the real, the little and the near. It makes man a partaker with his kind. It subdues 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 nothing in- different to us that can affect our common nature. It excites our sensibility by exhibiting the passions wound up to the utmost pitch by (he power of imagi- nation or the temj)talion of circumstances; and cor- rects their fatal excesses in ourselves, l:y 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 spectators in the lists of life. It is the refiner of the OTHELLO. 61 species; a discipline of humanity. The habitual 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 ^nd mechani- cal. It exercises the understanding upon things out of ourselves, while it leaves the affections un- employed, or engrossed with our own immediate, narrow interests. — Othello furnishes an illustration of these remarks. It excites our sympathy in an extraordinary degree. The moral it conveys has a closer application to the concerns of human life than that of any other of Shakspeare's plays. "It comes directly home to the bosoms and business of men." The pathos in Lear is indeed more dreadful and overpowering : but it is less natural, and less of every day's occurrence. We have not the same de- gree of sympathy with the passions described in Macbeth. The interest in Hamlet is more remote and reflex. That of Othello is at once equally pro- found and affecting. The picturesque contrasts of character in this play are almost as remarkable as the depth of the passion. The Moor Othello, the gentle Desdemona, the villain lago, the good natured Cassio, the fool Rode- rigo, present a range and variety of character as striking and palpable as that produced by the oppo- sition of costume in a picture. Their distinguish- ing 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 pre- sent to us as ever. These characters^ and the images 6 62 OTHELLO. they stamp upon the mind are the farthest asunder possible, the distance between them is immense : j^et the compass of knowledge and invention, which the poet has shewn in embodying these extreme cre- ations of his genius, is only greater than the truth and felicitj , with which he has identified each cha- racter with itself, or blended their different quali- ties together in the same story. What a contrast the character of Othello forms to that of lago : 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 while, the one unprincipled, the other unfortunate in the extreme, would have an- swered the common purposes of effect, and satisfied the ambition of an ordinary painter of character. Shakspeare has laboured the finer shades of differ- ence in both, with as much care and skill, as if he had had to depend on the execution alone for the suc- cess 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 difference 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 mistaken, as the com- plexions of their husbands. OTHELLO. 63 The movement of the passion in Othello is exceed- ingly different from that of Macbeth. In Macbeth there is a violent struggle between opposite feelings, between ambition and the stings of conscience, almost from first to last : in Olheilo, the doubtful conflict between contrary 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 unforseen change from the fondest love and most unbounded confidence, to the tortures 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, confiding, tender, and generous ; but his blood is of the most inflammable kind ; and being once roused by a sense of his WTongs, 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 work- ing his noble nature up to this extremity, through ra- pid 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 resentment, jealousy and remorse, in unfolding the strength and the weak- nesses of our nature, in uniting sublimity of thought with the anguish of the keenest wo, in putting in motion the various impulses that agitate this our mor- tal being, and at last blending them in that noble tide of deep and sustained passion, impetuous but majestick, that *' flows on to the Propontick, and 64 OTHELLO. knows no ebb," that Shakspeare has shewn the mas- tery 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 uncontrolable agony, of the power of inflicting torture and of suffering it. Not only is the tumult of passion heaved up from the very bottom of the soul, but even the slightest undulation of feeling is seen on the surface, as it arises from the impulses of imagination or the different probabilities maliciously suggested by lago. The progressive preparation for the catastrophe is wonderfully manag^ed from the Moor's first gallant recital of the story of his love, of *' the spells and witchcraft he had used," from his unlocked for and roraantick success, the fond satisfac- tion with which he dotes on his own happiness, the unreserved tenderness of Desdemona and her inno- cent importunities in favour of Cassio, irritating the suspicions instilled into her husband's mind by the perfidy of Ligo, 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 lago begins to put his scheme in practice, pleading for Cassio with all the thoughtless gayety of friend- ship and winning confidence in the love of Othello. " What ! Michael Cassio ? That came a wooing with you, and so many a time, W^hen I have spoke of you dispraisingly, OTHELLO. 65 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 own person. Nay, when 1 have a suit, Wherein 1 mean to touch your love indsed, It shall be full of poise, and fearful to be granted." Othello's confidence, at first only staggered by broken hints and insinuations, recovers itself at sight of Desdemona ; and he exclaims " If she be false, O then Heav'n mocks itself : I'll not believe it." But presently after, on brooding over his suspicions by himself, and yielding to his apprehensions of the worst, his smothered jealousy breaks out into open fury, and he returns to demand satisfaction of lago, like a wild beast stung with the envenomed shaft of the hunters. " Look where he comes," &c. In this state of exasperation 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," lago 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. ♦' Now do I see 'tis true. Look here, lago, All my fond love thus do 1 blow to Heav'a. 'Tis^one. • See the passage beginning, " It is impossible you shouM see this, were they as prime as goats," &c. 6* t>6 OTHELLO. 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." 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 regrets 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 Cas- sio 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 praising her accomplishments and relapse into a momentary fit of weakness, " Yet, Oh the pity of it, lago, the pity of it !" This returning fond ness however only serves, as il 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 an irrepara- ble sense of his loss. " My wife ! My wife ! What wife P I have no wife. Oh insupportable! Oh heavy hour !" This happens before he is assured of her inno= cence; but afterwards bis remorse is as dreadful as OTHELLO. 6r his revenge has been, and yields only to fixed and death-like despair. His farewell 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 sym- pathy with Othello, or compassion for his fate, it would be the frankness and generosity of his nature, which so little deserve it. When lago first begins to practice upon his unsuspecting friendship, he answers — '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 1 draw The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt, For she had eyes and chose me." This character is beautifully (and with affecting sim- plicity) confirmed by what Desdemona herself says of him to jEmilia after she has lost the handker- chief, the first pledge of his love to her. '* Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse Full of cruuadoes. And but my noble Moor Is true 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 ? 1 think the sun where he was born Drew all sach humours from him." 68 OTHELLO. In a short speech of iEmelia*s, there occurs one of those side intimations of the fluctuations of pas- sion which we seldom meet with but in Shakspeare. After Othello has resolved upon the death of his wife, and bids her dismiss her attendant for the night, she answers, •' I will, my Lord. Emilia. How goes it now ? He looks gentler than he did." Shakspeare has here put into half 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 Othel- lo's groundless jealousy, and with the foul con- spiracy of which she is the innocent victim. Her beauty and external graces are only indirectly glanced at; we see " her visage in her mind;" her character every where predominates over her per- son. " A maiden never bold : Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion Blushed at itself." There is one fine compliment paid to her by Cas- sio, who exclaims trium})hantly 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 Shak- speare's females, we lose sight of her personal charms OTHELLO. 69 in her attachment and devotedness to her husband. " She is subdued even to the very quality of her lord;" and to Othello's "honours and his valiant parts her soul and fortunes consecrates." The lady protests so much herself, and she is as good as her word. The truth of conception, with which timidi- ty and boldness are united in the same character, is marvellous. The extravagance of her resolu- tions, the pertinacity 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 commencement of her passion, which is a little fantastical and head- strong (though even that may perhaps be consist- ently accounted for from her inability to resist a rising inclination*) her whole character consists in having no will of her own, no prompter but her obedience. Her romantick turn is only a conse- quence of the domestick and practical part of her disposition; and instead of following Othello to the wars, she would gladly have " remained at home a moth of peace," if her husband could have staid with her. Her resignation and angelick sweetness of temper do not desert her at the last. The scenes in which she laments and tries to account for Othel- lo's estrangement from her are exquisitely beauti- ful. After he has struck her, and called her names, she says, * " lago. Ay, too gentle. Othello. IV ay, that's certain." TQ OTHELLO. Alas, lago, What shall I do to win my lord again ? Good friend, go lohim; for by this light of heaTen, I know not how I lost hire. Here I kneel j If e'er my will did tresp^.ss 'gaiost his love, Either in discoiirfe, or ihou^lt, or actual deed, . Or that mine eyes, ipine ears, or an} 6ease Delighted th?m < r any other forni j Or tb?t I do not, red ever did, And trer will, tbcogh be t^o shake n\e off To beggarly divorcocent. love bim dear:y, Ccrnio-t fc-swear me. UnkjoJness r^ay do much. And his unklndnf.-s may dt/eat .liy life, But never taint my iove lago. I pray you be content: 'tis but his humour. The bosiness of the state does him ofiroce. Dtsdemona. If 'twere no other !" — The scene '^hich follows with iEmilia and the song of the Willow, are equally beautiful, and shew the author's extreme power of varying the expres- sion of passion, in all its moods and in alt circum- stances. jEmilia. Would you had never seen him. Dtsdemona. So would not I : my love doth so approve him, That even his stubbomuess, his checks, his frowns. Have grace and favour in tbein," &:c. Not the unjust suspicions of Othello, not lago's treachery, place Desdemona in a more amiable or in- teresting light than the casual conversation (half earnest, half jest) between her and Emilia, 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 OTHELLO. 71 prevented the whole catastrophe ; but then it would have spoiled the play. The character of lago is one of the supereroga- tions of Shakspeare's genius. Some persons, more nice than wise, have thought this whole character unnatural, because his villany is without a sufficient motive. Shakspeare, 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 de- monstrated to him by a logical diagram, merely from seeing children paddle in the dirt or kill flies for sport. lago in fact belongs to a class of characters, common to Shakspeare, and at the same time peculiar to him ; whose heads are as acute and active as their hearts are hard and callous. lago is to be sure an ex- treme instance of the kind ; that is to say, of diseased intellectual activity, with an almost perfect indiffer- ence to moral good or evil, or rather with a decided preference of the latter, because it falls more readi- ly 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. " Our ancient" is a philosopher, who fancies that a lie that kills has more point in it than an alliteration or an antithesis; who thinks a fatal experiment on the peace of a family a better thing than watching the m^ 72 OTHELLO. palpitations in the heart of a flea in a microscope ; who plots the ruin of his friends as an exercise for his ingenuity, and stabs men in the dark to prevent ennui. His gayety, such as it is, arises from the suc- cess of his treachery ; his ease from the torture he has inflicted on others. He is an amateur of trage- dy in real life ; and instead of employing his inven- tion on 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 connexions, and rehearses it in downright earnest, with steady nerves and unabated resolution. We will just give an illus- tration or two. One of his most characteristick speeches is that immediately after the marriage of Othello. " Roderigo. What a full fortune does the thick lips owe, If he can carry her thus ! lago. Call up her father : Rouse him {Olhello) nsake after him, poison his delight, Proclaim him in the streets, incense her kinsmen, And the' 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 enthusi- asm. " Roderigo. Here is her father's house : I'll call aloud lago. Do, with like limorous accent and dire yell, As when, by night and negligecce, the fire Is spied in populous cities." OTHELLO. 73 One of his most favourite topicks, on which he is rich indeed, and in descanting on which his spleen serves him for a Muse, is the disproportionate 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 in- sinuations against Desdemona, Roderigo says, " I cannot believe that in her — she's full of most blest conditions. lago. Bless'd fig's end. The wine she drinks is made of grapes. If she had been blest, she would never Jiave married the Moor," And again with still more spirit and fatal effect af- terwards, when he turns this very suggestion arising in Othello's own breast to her prejudice. " Othello. And yet, how nature erring from itself — lago. Aye, there's the point j— as to be bold with you, Not to aflfect many proposed matches Of her own clime, complexion, and degree." &c. This is probing to the quick. lago here turns the character of poor Desdemona, as it were, inside out. It is certain that nothing but the genius of Shak- speare could have preserved the entire interest and delicacy of the part, and have even drawn an ad- ditional elegance and dignity from the peculiar cir- cumstances in which she is placed. — The habitual licentiousness of lago'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 thing, and of proving himself an over- match for appearances. He has none of " the milk 7 ^"4 OTHELLO. of human kindness" in his composition. His imagi- nation rejects every thing that has not a strong in- fusion of the most unpalatable ingredients ; his mind digests only poisons. Virtue, or goodness, or what- ever has the least "relish of salvation in it," is, to his depraved appetite, sickly and insipid : and he even resents the good opinion entertained of his ov\rn integrity, as if it were an affront cast on the mas- culine 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 musick, as honest as I am'^ — his character of bonhommie not sitting 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 be- lieve nothing ever came up to the profound dissimu- lation and dextrous artifice of the well known dia- logue in the third act, where he first enters upon the execution of his design. ' ' la go . M y noble lord . Othello. What dost thou say, lagop lago. Did Michael Cassio, When you woo'd my lady, know of your lovep Othello. He did, from first to last. Why dost thou ask ? Jago. But for a satisfaction of my thought, No further harm. Othello. Why of thy thought, lago ? lago. I did not think he had been acquainted with it. Othello. O yes, and went between>s very oft - lago. Indeed I Othello. Indeed.^ Ay, indeed. Discern'st thou aught of that P OTHELLO. T5 h he not honest ? lago. Honesty my lord ? Othello. Honest ? Ay, honest. lago. My lord, for aught I know. OUiello. What do'st thou think ? lago. Think, my lord ! Othello. Think, my lord ! Alas, thou ccho'st me, As if there was some monster in thy thouglit Too hideous to be shewn."— The stops and breaks, the deep v/orkings of treachery under the mask of fove and lionesty, Ihe anxious wa^chfuhiess, the cool earnestness, and if we may so say, the passion of hypocrisy marked in every line, receive their last finishing in that incon- ceivable burst of pretended indignation 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 tiiis profit, and from hence I'll love no friend, since love breeds such offence." If lago is detestable enough vshen he has busi- ness on bis 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 indiffe- rence when Othello falls into a swoon, is perfectly diabolical. " lago. How is it, General ? Have you not hurt your head p Othello. Do'st thou mock me;^ laero. I mock vnn not hv Mpnvpn " ,S/f Othello. Do'st thou mock me;^ lago. 1 mock you not, by Heaven," &c. 76 OTHELLO. The part indeed would hardly be tolerated, eTen as a foil to the virtue and generosity of the other characters in the play, but for its indefatigable in- dustry and inexhaustible resources, which divert the attention of the spectator (as well as his own) from the end he has in view to the means by which it must be accomplished.— Edmund the Bastard in Lear is something of the same character, placed in less prominent circumstances. Zanga is a vulgar cari- cature of it. TIMON OF ATHENS. TiMON OP Athens always appeared to us to be •written with as intense a feeling of his subject as any one play of Shakspeare. It is one of the few in which he seems to be in earnest throughout, never to trifie 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 predominant 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 con- ceived, both in the snarling, captious answers of the cynick Apemantus, and in the impassioned and more terrible imprecations of Timon. The latter remind the classical reader of the force and swel- ling impetuosity of the moral declamations in Juvenal, while the former have all the keenness and caustick severity of the old Stoick philosophers. The soul of Diogenes appears to have been seated on the lips of Apemantus. The churlish profession of misan- thropy in the cynick is contrasted with the profound feeling of it in Timon, and also with the soldier- 7 * TS TIMON OF ATHENS. like and determined resentment of Alcibiades against his countrymen, who have banished him, though this forms only an incidental episode in the tra- gedy. 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 sav- age life, and privation of all social intercourse. The change is as rapid as it is complete; nor is the de- scription of the rich and generous Timon, banquet- ting in gilded palaces, pampered by every luxury, prodigal of his hospitality, courted by crowds of flatterers, poets, painters, lords, ladies, who — " Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance, Rain sacrificial wisperings iu liis 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 exposure in a wild forest digging roots from the earth for his sustenance, with a lofty spirit of self-denial, and bit- ter scorn of the world, which raise him higher in our esteem than the dazzling gloss of prosperity could do. He grudges himself the means of life, and is only busy iu preparing his grave. How forcibly is the difference 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 thon, That the bleak air, thy boisterous chamberlain, Will put thy shirt on warm ? will these moist trees TIMOiV OF ATHENS. 79 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 ? OaU 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 affect- ing great attention to the other, and each taken up with his own vanity, and the superiority of his own art. Shakspeare has put into the mouth of the former a very lively description 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 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 exposed, as well as the different disguises to which the mean- ness 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 con- temi)t for the preteo^ions of others. Even the two courtezans who accompany Alcibiades to the cave of Timoa are very characteristically sketched ; and 80 TIMON OF ATHENS. the thieves who came to visit him are also " true men" in their way. — An excej)tion to this general picture of selfish de})ravity is found in the old and honest steward Flavius, to whom Timon pays a full tribute of tenderness, fehf^.kspeare was unwilling to draw a picture " all over vgty with hypocrisy.'''' He owed this character to the good natured solicitations of his Muse. His mind was well said by Ben Jon- son to be the "sphere of humanity." 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 varie- ty. Every topick of contempt or indignation is here exhausted; but while the sordid licentiousness of Apemantus, which turns every thing to gall and bitterness, shews only the natural virulence of his temper and antipathy to good or evil alike, Timon does not utter an imprecation without betraying the extravagant workings of disappointed passion, of love altered to hate. Apemantus sees nothing good in any object, and exaggerates whatever is disgusting Timon is tormented with the perpetual contrast be- tween things and appearances, between the fresh, tempting outside, and the rottenness within, and in- vokes mischiefs on the heads of mankind propor- tioned to the sense of bis wrongs and of their treache- ries. He impatiently cries out, when he finds the gold, " This yellow slave Will knit and break religions ; biess the accurs'd; Make the hoar leprosy adord ; place thieves, And give them title, knee, and approbation, ■With senators on the bench : this is it. TJMON OF ATHENS. 81 That makes the wappen'd widow wed again ; She, whom the spital house Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices To th? 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 ; Obedience fail in children ; slaves and fools Pluck the grave wrinkled senate from the bench, And minister in their steadg. 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, Domestick awe, night-rest, and npighbourhood, 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 Gn 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 marrows of our youth, That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive, And drown themselves in riot ! Itches, blains, Sow all th' Athenian bosoms ; and their crop Be general leprosy : breath infect breath. That their society (as their friendship) may Be merely poison !" 82 TIMON OF ATHENS. Timon is here just as ideal in bis passion for ill, as he had before been in his belief of good. Apeman- tus was satisfied with the mischief existing in the world, and with his own ill-nature. 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 compare with thy flatterers ? Timon. Women nearest : but men, men are the things them- selves." Apemantus, it is said, ** loved few things better 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 adversity, he wishes to sink mto the quiet of the grave. On that subject his thoughts are intent, on that he finds time and place to grow romantick. He digs his own grave by the sea shore; contrives his funeral ceremonies amidst the pomp of desolation, and builds his mau- soleum of the elements. " Come not to me again ; but say to Athens, Timon hath made his everlasting mansion Upon the beached verge of the salt flood j W^hich once a day with his embossed froth The turbulent surge shall cover. — Thither come, And let my gravestone be youi oracle." And again, Alcibiades, after reading his epitaph, says of him, TIMON OF ATHENS. 83 " These well express in thee thy latter spirits : Though thou abhorred'st in us our human griefs, 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 splen- dour of his life-time. CORIOLANUS, Shakspeare has in this play shewn himself well versed in history and state affairs. Coriolanus is a storehouse of political common places. Any one who studies it may save himself the trouble of read- ing 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 privi- leges 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 spirit of a poet and the acuteness of a philosopher. Shakspeare himself seems to have had a leaning to the arbitrary side of the question, perhaps from some feeling of contempt for his own origin ; and to have spared no occasion of baiting 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 sub- ject for poetry : it admits of rhetorick, which goes into argument and explanation, but it presents no imme- CORIOLANUS. 85 diate 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 poetry naturally falls in with the language of power. The imagination is an exagge- rating and exclusive faculty : it takes from one thing to add to another : it accumulates circumstances to- gether to give the greatest possible effect to a favour- ite object. The understanding is a dividing and measuring faculty : it judges of things, not according to their immediate impression on the mind, but ac- cording to their relations to one another. The one is a monopolizing faculty, which seeks the greatest quantity of present excitement by inequality and dis- proportion ; the other is a distributive faculty, which seeks the greatest quantity of ultimate good, by jus- tice and proportion. The one is an aristocratical, the other a republican faculty. The principle of [)0- etry is a very anti-levelling principle. It aims at effect, it exists by contrast. It admits of no medium. It is every thing by excess. It rises above the or- dinary standard of sufferings and crimes. It presents a dazzling appearance. It shews its head turretted, crowned, and crested. Its front is gi(t and blood- stained. Before it " it carries noise, and behind it tears." It has its altars and its victims, sacrifices, hu- man sacrifices. Kings, priests, nobles, are its train- bearers, tyrants and slaves its executioners. — " Car- nage is its daughter." — Poetry is right-royal. It puts the individual for the species, the one above the infi- nite many, might before right. A lion hunting a flock of sheep or a herd of wild asses is a more poeti- 8 S6 CORIOLANUS. cal object than they ; and we even take part with the lordly beast, because our vanity or some other feeling makes us disposed to place ourselves in the situation of the strongest party. So we feel some concern for the poor citizens of Rome when they meet together to compare their wants and grievances, till Coriolanus comes in and with blows and big words drives this set of " poor rats," this rascal scum, to their homes and beggary before him. There is no- thing heroical in a multitude of miserable rogues not wishing 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 ad- miration of his prowess is immediately converted into contempt for their 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 flat- ter 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 op- pressor than the oppressed. The love of power in ourselves and the admiration 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 circumstance 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 bis country. If his country was not worth defending, why did he build his pride on its defence ? CORIOLANUS. 87 He is a conqueror and a hero ; he conquers other countries, 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 infirmity." He scoffs at one of their tribunes for maintaining their rights and fran- chises : " Mark you his absolute shall .^" not marking his own absolute will to take every thing from them, his impatience of the slightest opposition to his own pretensions being in proportion to their arrogance and absurdity. If the great and powerful had the benefi- cence and wisdom of Gods, then all this would have been well : if with a greater knowledge of what is good for the people, they had as great a care for their interest as they have themselves, if they were seat- ed above the world, sympathizing with the welfare but not feeling the passions of men, receiving neither good nor hurt froca them, but bestow iug their benefits as free gifts on them, they might then rule over them like another Providence. But this is not the case. Coriolanus is unwilling that the senate should shew their " cares" for the people, lest their " cares" should be construed into " fears," to the subversion of all due authority ; and he is no sooner disappointed in his schemes to deprive the people, not only of the cares of the state, but of all power to redress them- selves, 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 88 CORIOLANUS. 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 maternal afifeclion, or to the domestick 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 community, that they are in direct and necessary opposition to them ; their power is at the expense 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 superiour 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 dramatick moral of Coriolanus 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 ignorant ; therefore they ought not to be allowed to feel that they want food, or clothing, or rest, that they are enslaved, oppressed, and mise- rable. This is the logick of the imagination and the passions ; which seek to aggrandise what excites admiration, and to heap contempt on miserj^, to raise power into tyranny, and to make tyranny absolute ; to thrust down that which is low still lower, and to make wretches desperate : to exalt magistrates into kings, kings into gods ; to degrade subjects to the CORIOLANUS. 89 rank of slaves, and slaves to the condition of brutes. The history of mankind is a romance, a mask, a tragedy, constructed 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 havock 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 success of Coriolanus by his wife and mother. The one is only anxious for his honour ; the other is fearful for his life. " Volumnia. Methinks T hither hear your husband's drum I see him pluck AuBdius down by th' hair : Methinks I see him stamp thus— and call thus — Come 01), ye cowards ; ye were got in fear Though you were born in Rome ; 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, 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 ;iim he leaves tears. 8* 98 CORIOLANUS. 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 inflexible sternness of his will : his love of glory is a determined desire to bear down all opposition, and to extort the admi- ration both of friends and foes. His contempt for popular favour, his unwillingness 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 actions, 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." His magnanimity is of the same kind. He admires in an enemy that courage which he honours in him- self: he places himself on the hearth of Auftdius with the same confidence that he would have met him in the field, and feels that by putting himself in his pow- er, he takes from him all temptation fot' using it against him. In the titlepage of Coriolanus, it is said at the bottom of the Dramatis Personae, " The whole histo- ry exactly followed, and many of the principal speeches copied from the life of Coriolanus in Plu° tarch." It will be interesting to our readers to se« CORIOLANUS. 91 how far this is the case. Two of the principal scenes, those between Coriolanus and Aufidius, and between Coriolanus and his mother, are thus given in Sir Tliomas North's.tranalation of Plutarch, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, 1579. The first is as follows : — " It was even twilight when he entered the city of Antium, and many people met him in the streets, but no man knew him. So he went directly to TuUus AuGdiiis's 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 Hot bid him rise. For ill favouredly muffled and disguised as he was, yet there appeared a certain majesty in his countenance and in his silence : whereupon they went to Tullus, who was at suppe."-, to tell him of the strange disguising 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 thoa knowest me not yet, Tullus, and seeing 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 par- ticularly, and to all the Volsces generally, great hurt and mischief, which 1 cannot deny for my surname of Coriolanus that I bear. For I never had other benefit nor recompense of the true and painful ser- vice I have done, and the extreme dangers 1 have been in, but this only surname : a good memory and witness of the malice and dis- pleasure thou shouldest bear me. Indeed the name only remaineth with me ; for the rest, the envy and cruelty of the people of Rome have taken from me, by the sufferance of the dastardly nobility and magistrates, who have forsaken me, and let me be banished by the people. This extremity hath now driven me to come as a poor suitor, to take thy chimney-hearth, not of any hope I have to save my life thereby. For if I had feared death, 1 would not have eome hither to put myself in hazard : 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, asd so use it as my S2 CORIOLANUS. service may be a benefit to the Volsces : promising thee, that I will fight with better good will for all you, than I did when I was against you, knowing that they fight more valiantly who know the force of the enemy, than such as have never proved it. And if it be so that thou dare not, and that thou art weary to prove fortune any more, then am I also weary to live any longer. And it 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 Martius, 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 en- tertained him in the honourablest manner he coold, 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 bis wife which came foremost, he determined at the first to persist in bis obstinate and inflexible rancour. But overcome in the end with natural 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 kis?ed his mother, and embraced her a pretty while, then his wife and little children. And nature so wrcuglit with him, that the tears fell from his eyes, and he could not keep himself from making rouch'of them, but yielded to the affection of his blood, as if he had been violently carried with the fiiry of a most swift running stream. After he had thus lovingly received them, and perceiving that his mother Voluumia would begin to speak to him, he called the ehiefest of the council of the Volsces to hear what she would say. Then she spake in this sort: ' If we held our peace, my son, aud determined not to speak, the state of our poor bodies, and present sight of our raiment, would easily betray to Uiee what life we have led at home, siaee thy esilc CORIOLANUS. 93 and abode abroad ; but think now with thyself, how much more unfortunate than all the women living, we are come hither, consid- erino that the sight which should be most pleasant to all others to behold, spiteful fortune had made most fearful to us : making myself to see my son, and my daughter here her husband, besieging the walls of his native country : so as that which is the only comfort to all others in their adversity and misery, to pray unto the God?, 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 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 ihy wife and children, to forego one cf the two : either to lose the person of thyself, or the nurse of their native country. For myself, my son, I am determined not "bQ tarry till fortune in my lifetime do make an end of this war. For if I cannot persuade thee rather to do good unto both parties, than to overthrow and destroy the one, preferring love and nature before 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. And 1 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 country. For if it were so, that my request tended to save thy country, in destroying the Volsces, I must confess, thou wouldest hardly and doubtfully resolve on that. For as to destroy thy natural country, it is altogether unmeet and unlawful, so were it not just and less honourable to betray those that put their trust in thee. But my only demand consisteth, to make a goal delivery of all evils, which delivereth equal benefit and safety, both to the one and the other, but most honourable for the Volsces. For it shall appear, that having victory in their hands, they have of special favour granted us singular 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 deservedly shalt carry the shameful reproach and burthen of either party. So, though the end of war be uncertain, yet this notwithstanding is most certain, that if it be thy chance to conquer, this benefit shalt ^thou reap of thy goodly coa- 94 CORIOLANUS. quest, to be chronicled the plague and destroyer of thy country. And if fortune overthrow thee, 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 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 weighty a cause p Dost thou take it honourable for a nobleman, to remember'^ the wrongs and injuries done him, and dost not in like case think it an honest nobleman's part to be thankful for the goodness that parents do shew to their children, acknowledging the duty and reverence they ought to bear unto them P No man living is more bound to shew himself thankful in all parts and respects than thyself ; who so universally shewest all ingratitude. Moreover, my son, thou hast sorely taken of thy country, exacting grievous payments upon them, in revenge of the injuries offered thee j besides, thou hast not hitherto shewed thy poor mother any courtesy. And, therefore, it is not only honest, but due unto me, that without compulsion 1 should obtain my so just and reasonable request of thee. But since by reason I cannot persuade thee to it, to what purpose do I defer my last hopep' And with these words herself, his wife and children, fell down upon their knees before him : Martius seeing that, could refrain no longer, but went straight and lifted iier up, crying out, ' Oh mother, what have you done to me p' And holding her hard by the right hand, Oh mother,' said he, ' you have won a happy victory for your country, but mortal and unh ippy for your son : for 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 remain- ing in the camp that night, the next morning he dislodged, and marched homeward unto the Volsces' country again." Shakspeare has, in giving a dramalick form to tliis passage, adhered very closely and properly to the text. He did not think it necessary to improve CORIOLANUS. 95 upon the truth of nature. Several of the scenes in Julius Ccesar, particularly Portia's appeal to the confidence of her husband by shewing him the wound she had given herself, and the appearance of the ghost of Csesar to Brutus, are, in like manner, taken from the history. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, This 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. Troi- lus himself is no character : he is merely a com- mon lover : but Cressida 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, Shakspeare 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 examples of didac- tick 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, But for these instances. The specialty of rule hath been neglected. The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre, Observe degree, priority, and place, Insisture, course, proportioD, season, form, TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 97 Office, and custom, in all line of order : And therefore is tiie glorious planet, Sol, In noble eminence, enthron'd and spher'd Amidst the other, whose med'ciuable eye Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil. And posts, like the commandment of a king. Sans chtck, to good and bad. But, when the planets. In evil mixture to disorder wander. What pligues and what portents p what mutinies? What raging of the sea ? shaking of earth ? Commotion in the winds p frights, changes, horrours, Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calra of states Quite from their fixture .' O, when degree is shaken, (Which is the ladder to all high designs) The enterprise 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 authentick 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 (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 ; 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, wh^n degree is suffocate, Follows the choking : And this negleciion of degree it is, 58 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. That by a pace goes backward, in a purpose It hath to climb. The general's disdained By him one step below j he, by the next ; That next, by him beneath : so every step, Exampled by the first pace that is sick Of his superiour, grows to an envious fever Of pale and bloodless emulation ; 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 Shakspeare, as was said of some one, that he was " without o'erflowing 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 dis- tinction in his thoughts" (to borrow his own expres- sion) " As doth a battle when they charge on heaps The enemy flying." There is another passage, the speech of Ulysses to Achilles, shewing him the thankless nature of popularity, which has a still greater depth of moral observation and richness of illustration 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 criticks, that the poet's genius was not confined to the production of stage effect by preternv^tural means. — " Ulysses. Time hnth, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for Obiivioti ; A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes : TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 99 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'errun 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 outstretch'd, as he would fly, Grasps in the comer : the Welcome ever smiles, And Farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was ; for beauty, wit. High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all 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 prodi- gious ; and though they sometimes jostle against one 100 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. another, Ihey every where raise and carry on the feeling, which is metaphysically true and profound. The debates between the Trojan chiefs on the re- storing of Helen are full of knowledge of human mo- tives and character. Troilus enters well into the philosophy of war, when he says in answer to soma- thing 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, She is a theme of honour and renown, A spur to valiant and magnauimous deeds." The character of Hector, in the few slight indi- cations which appear of it, is made very amiable. His death is sublime, and shews in a striking light the mixture of barbarity and heroism of the age. The threals 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 ; And when 1 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 (hen finds Hector and slays him, as if he had been hunting down a wild beast. There is some- thing revolting as well as terrifick in the ferocious coolness with which he singles out his prey : nor does TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 101 the splendour of the achievement reconcile us to the cruelty of the means. The characters of Cressida and Pandarus are very amusing and instructive. The disinterested willing- ness of Pandarus to serve his friend in an affair which lies next his heart is immediately brought forward. *' Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way ; had I a sister were a Grace, or a daughter were a Goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man ! Paris, Paris is dirt to him, and I warrant Helen, to change, would give mouey 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 prettiest villain, she fetches her breath so short as a new ta'eu sparrow." Both characters are originals, 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 children or no) who has an alternate eye to her character, her interest, and her pleasure . Shakspeare's Cressida is a giddy girl, an unpractised jilt, who falls in love with Troilus, as she afterwards deserts him, from mere levity and thoughtlessness 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 governed by sub- stantial reasons than by caprice or vanity. Panda- rus again, in Chaucer's story, is a friendly sort of go- between, tolerably busy, officious, and forward in bringing matters to bear : but in Shakspeare he has 9 * 102 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. " a stamp exclusive and professional :" 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 different genius of the two poets. There is no double entendre in the characters of Chaucer : they are either quite serious or quite co- mick. In Shakspeare the ludicrous and ironical are constantly blended with the stately and the impas- sioned. We see Chaucer's characters as they saw themselves, not as they appeared to others or might have appeared to the poet. He is as deeply impli- cated 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 confi- dant. There is little relief, or light and shade in his pictures. The conscious 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. — Shakspeare never committed himself to his characters. He trilled, laughed, or wept with them as he chose. He has no prejudices 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 min- gled yarn, good and ill together." His genius was dramatick, as Chaucer's was historical. He saw both sides of a question, the different views taken of it according to the different interests of the parties concerned, and he was at once an actor afid spectator in thp scene. If any thing, he is too various and flexible ; too full of transitions, of glancing lights, of TROrLUS AND CRESSIDA. 103 salient points. If Chaucer followed up his subject too doggedly, perhaps Shakspeare was too volatile and heedless. The Muse's win^ too often lifted him off his feet. He made infinite excursions to the right and the left. He hath done Mad and fantasticlc expoutlon, Engaging and redeemino; of himself With such a cart'less force and forceless care, As if that hick in very spite of cunning Bade hiai win all." Chaucer attended chiefly to Ihe real and natural, that is, to the involuntary and inevitable impressions on Ihe mind in g;iven circumstances: Shakspeare ex- hibited also the possible and the fantastical, — not only what things are in themselves, hut whatever they misjht seem to be, their different reflections, their endless combinations. He lent his fancy, wit, invention, to others, and borrowed their feelings in return. Chaucer excelled in the force of habitual sentiment ; Shakspeare added to it every variety of passion, every suggestion of thought or accident. 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 tangible : — Shakspeare-s imagination threw over them a lustre — " Prouder than when blue Iris bends.'* , Every thing in Chaucer has a downright reality, A simile or a sentiment is as if if were sriven in upon evidence. In Shakspeare the commonest matter of 104 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. fact has a romantick 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 resour- ces of invention to lay open the stores of nature or the human heart with the same radiant light, that Shakspeare has done. However fine or profound the thought, we know what is coming, whereas the effect of reading Shakspeare is " like the eye of vassalage encountering majesty." Chaucer's mind was conse- cutive, rather than discursive. He arrived at truth through a certain process ; Shakspeare saw every thing by intuition. Chaucer had great variety of power, but he could do only one thing at once. He set himself to w^ork on a particular subject. His ideas were kept separate, labelled, ticketed, and parcelled out in a set form, in pews and compart- ments by themselves. They did not play into one another's hands. They did not re-act upon one another, as the blower's breath moulds the yielding glass. There is something hard and dry in them. What is the most wonderful thing in Shakspeare's faculties is their excessive sociability, and how they gossiped and compared notes together. 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, TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 105 And, after, sicker doth her voice outring ; Right so Cresseide, when that her dread stent, Opened her heart, and told him her intent." See also the two next stanzas, and particularly that divine one beginning " Her armes small, her back both straight and soft," &c. Compare this with the following speech of Troilus to Cressida in the play : " 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, Outliving beauties outward, with a mind That doth renew swifter than blood decays. Or, that persiiasion 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." These passages may not seem very characteristick at first sight, though we think they are so. We will give two, that cannot be mistaken. Patroclus says to Achilles, " Rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold, And like a dewdrop from the lion's mane, Be shook to air." Troilus, addressing the God of Day on the ap- proach of the morning that parts him from Cressida, says with much scorn, 106 TRGILUS AND CRESSIDA. " What ! proffer'st thou thy light here for to sell ? Go, sell it then) that snoalle sel§s grave." If nobody but Sbakspeare could have written the former, nobody but Chaucer would have thought of the latter.— Chaucer is the most literal of poets, as Richardson is of prose writers. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. This is a very noble play. Though not in the first class of Shakspeare'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 assumed a certain tone of character and sentiment, in conformity to known facts, instead of trusting to his observations of ge- neral nature or to the unlimited indulgence of his own fancy. What he has added to the history, is upon a par vi'ith it. His genius was, as it were, a match for history as well as nature, and could grap- ple at will with either. This play is full of that pervading comprehensive power by which the po^t could always make himself master of time and cir- cumstances. It presents a fine picture of Roman pride and Eastern magnificence : and in the struggle between the two, the empire of the world seems sus- pended, " like the swan's down' feather, " That stands upon the swell at full of tide, And neither way inclines." 108 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. The characters breathe, move, and live. Shak- speare does not stand reasoning on what his charac- ters 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 ma- chines making set speeches on human life, and acting from a calculation of ostensible 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, without the least tincture of pedantry of logick or rhetorick. 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 occa- sion. — 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 volup- tuous, ostentatious, conscious, boastful of her charms, haughty, tyrannical, fickle. The luxurious pomp and gorgeous extravagance of the Egyptian queen are displayed in all their force and lustre, as well as the irregular grandeur of the soul of Blark An- 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 reckon'd. Cleopatra. I'll set a bourn how far to he belov'd. Antony. Then must thou needs find out new heav'n, new earth." ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 109 The rich and poetical description of her person, beginning — " The barge she sat in, like a biirnish'd throne, Burnt on the water ; the poop was beaten gold, Purple tlie sails, and so perfumed, that The winds were lovesick" — seeofis to prepare the way for, and almost to jus- tify, the subsequent infatuation of Antony when in the seafight at Actium, he leaves the battle, and, " like a doating mallard," follows her flying sails. Few things in Shakspeare (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 up resolution to risk another fight — " It is my birth- day ; I 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 sur- prises the messenger of Caesar kissing her hand — " To let a fellow that will take rewards, And say, God quit you, be familiar with, My playfellow, your hand j this kingly seal, And plighter of high hearts." It is no wonder that he orders him to be whipped J 10 no AxNTONY AND CLEOPATRA. but his low condition is not the true reason : there is another feeling which lies deeper, though Anto- ny'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 consideration. Octavia is a dull foil to her, and Fulvia a shrew and shrill-tongued. What a picture do those lines give of her — " Age cannot wither lier, nor custom steal Her infinite variety. Other women cloy The appetites they feed, but she mates hungry Where most she satisfies." What a spirit and fire in her conversation with Antony's messenger who brings her the 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 beauty of her death almost redeems them. She learns from the depth of despair and 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 fond- ness— ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. HI ** 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 Shakspeare has contrasted the extreme magnificence of the descrip- tions in this play with pictures of extreme suffering and physical horrour, not less striking — partiy per- haps to excuse the effeminacy of Mark Antony to whom they are related 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 Wert beaten frona Mutina, where thou slew'st Hirtiu3 and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel Did famine follow, whom thou fought'st against. Though daintily brought up, with patience more Than savages could suffer. Thou didst diink 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 tlie Alps, It is reported, thou didst 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 Augustus, where he is made to say — " Yes, yes ; he at Philippi kept His sword e'en like a dancer ; while I struck 112 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. The lean and crinkled 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 princi- ple 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 romaatick dream, long, obscure, and infinite, into a smartly contested, three hours' inaugural disputation on its merits by the different candidates for theatrical applause. The latter scenes of Antony and Cleopatra are full of the changes of accident and passion. Success and defeat follow one another with start- ling 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 dragonisli, 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. Tliou 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 make it indistinct ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 113 As water is in water. Eros. It does, my lord. Antony. My good knave, Eros, now tliy captain is Even such a body," &c. This is, without doubt, one of the finest pieces of poetry in Shakspeare. The splendour of the image- ry, the semblance of reality, the lofty range of pic- turesque objects hanging over the world, their evan- escent nature, the total uncertainty of what is left behind, are just like the mouldering schemes of hu- man greatness. It is finer than Cleopatra's passion- ate lamentation over his fallen grandeur, because it is more dim, unstable, unsubstantial. Antony's headstrong presumption and infatuated determina- tion to yield to Cleopatra'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 com- mented upon by CEnobarbus. " I see men's judgments 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 treachery to his master is the most affecting part of the [day. He cannot recover from the blow which Antony's generosity gives him, and he dies broken hearted " a master leaver and a fugitive." Shakspeare's genius has spread over the whole play a richness like the overflowing of the Nile. 10 * HAMLET. This is that Hamlet the Dane, whom we read of ia our youth, and whom we seem almost to remember in our after years ; he who made that famous solilo- quy on life, who gave the advice to the players, who thought " this goodly frame, the earth, a steril pro- montory, and this brave o'erhanging firmament, the air, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours ;" whom " man delighted not, nor woman neither ;" he who talked with the gravediggers, and moraliz- ed on Yorick's skull ; the schoolfellow of Rosen- craus 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 fa- ther'*s death; who lived at the court of Horwendillus five hundred years before we were born, but all whose thoughts we seem to know as well as we do our own, because we have read them in Shak- speare. Hamlet is a name : his speeches and sayings but the idle coinage of the poet's brain. What then, are HAMLET. 115 they not real ? They are as real as our own thoughts. Their reality is in the reader's mind. It is rve who are Hamlet. This play has a prophetick truth, which is above that of history. Whoever has be- come 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 nothing left re- markable 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 appari- tions 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 a play as his best resource to shove off, to a second remove, the evils of life by a mock representation of them — this is the true Ham- let. 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 Shakspeare's plays that we think of 116 HAMLET. oftenest, because it abounds most in striking reflec- tions on human life, and because the distresses of Hamlet are transferred, by the turn of his mind, to the general account of humanity. Whatever hap- pens to him, we apply to ourselves, because he applies it so himself as a means of general reason- ing. He is a great moralizer ; and what makes him worth attending to is, that he moralizes 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 in- genuity, originality, and unstudied development of character. Shakspeare had more magnanimity 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 unfold. 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 themselves. 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 musick borne on the wind. The whole play is an exact transcript of what might be supposed to have taken place at the court of Den- mark, at the remote period of time lixed upon, before the modern refinements in morals and manners were heard of. It would have been interesting enough to have been admitted 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 HAMLET. 117 spectators. "We have not only " the outward pa- geants 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 dramalick writers give us very fine versions and paraphrases of nature: but Shakspeare, together with his own comments, gives us the origi- nal text, that we may judge for ourselves. This is a very great advantage. The character of Hamlet is itself a pure effusion of genius. It is not a character marked by strength of will or even of passion, but by refinement 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 circumstances, questioning with fortune and refining on his own feelings, and forced from the natural bias of his disposition by the strangeness of his situation. He seems incapable of deliberate 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 Rosen- craus and Guildenstern are taking with them to En- gland, purporting his death. At other times, when he is most bound to act, he remains puzzled, unde- cided, and skeptical, dallies with his purposes, till the occasion is lost, and always finds some pretence to relapse into indolence and thoughtfulness 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 118 HAMLET. resolution, defers his reveage to some more fatal opportunity, when he shall be engaged in some act " that has no relish of salvation in it." '* He kneels and pray?, And now I'll do't, and so he goes to heaven, And so am I reveng'd : Vuil txould be scami'd. He kill'd ray 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." He is the prince of philosophical speculators, and because he cannot have his revenge perfect, ac- cording 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 j^roof of his uncle's guilt, and then rests satisfied with this confirmation of his sus- picions, 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. " 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 ; no more. Sure he that made us with such large discourse. Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and godlike 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 quartered, hath but one part wisdona, And ever three parts coward ;— I do not know HAMLET. 119 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 pufTd, Makes mouths at the invisible event. Exposing what is mortal and unsure To all that fortune, death, and danger dare, Even from an eggshell. 'Tis not to be great. Never to stir without great argument ; But greatly to find quarrel in a strav*', 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 ru- ling passion is to think, not to act : and any vague pretence that flatters this propensity instantly diverts him from his previous purposes. 120 HAMLET. 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 faultless. The ethical delineations of " that noble and liberal casuist" (as Shakspeare has been well called) do not exhibit the drab-coloured quakerism of morality. His plays are not copied either from The Whole Duty of Man, or from The Academy of Compliments ! We con- fess, we are a little shocked at the want of refinement in those who are shocked at the want of refinement in Hamlet. The want of punctilious exactness in his behaviour either partakes of the " license of the time," or else belongs to the very excess of intellec- tual 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 contemplation to lay as much stress as he ought on the practical consequences of things. His habitual principles of action are unhinged and out of joint with the time. His conduct to Ophelia is quite natural in his circum- stances. It is that of assumed severity only. It is the effect of disappointed hope, of bitter regrets. of affection suspended, not obliterated, by the dis- tractions of the scene around him! Amidst the na- tural and preternatural horrours of his situation, he might be excused in delicacy from carrying on a regular courtship. When " his father's spirit was in arms," it was not a time for the son to make love in. He could neither marry Ophelia, nor wound her mind HAMLET. 121 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 explanation on the point. In the harrassed 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 sura." Nothing can be more affecting or beautiful than the Queen's apostrophe to Ophelia on throwing flow- ers into the grave. ' Sweets to the sweet, farewell. I hop'd thou should 'st have been my Hamlet's wife : I thought thy bridebed to have deck'd, sweet maid, And not have strew'd thy grave." Shakspeare was thoroughly a master of the mixed motives of human character, and he here shews us the Queen, who was so criminal in some respects, not without sensibility and affection in other rela- tions of life.— Ophelia is a character almost too exquisitely touching to be dwelt upon. Oil rose of May, oh flower too soon faded ! Her love, her mad- ness, her death, are described with the truest touches of tenderness and pathos. It is a character which nobody but Shakspeare could have drawn in the way that he has done, and to the conception of which there is not even the smallest approach, 11 J 22 HAMLET. except in some of the old romantick ballads. Her brother, Laertes, is a character we do not like so well : he is too hot and cholerick, and somewhat rodomontade. Polonius is a perfect character in its kind ; nor is there any foundation for the objec- tions 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 Laertes 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 father, and is sincere in it ; he gives the other as a mere courtier, a busybody, and is accordingly officious, garrulous, and imperti- nent. In short, Shakspeare has been accused of inconsistency in this and other characters, only be- cause h« has kept up the distinction which there is in nature, between the understandings and the moral habits of men, between the absurdity in 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 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 act- ed. Mr. Kemble unavoidably fails in this charac- ter from want of ease and variety. The charac- ter of Hamlet is made up of undulating lines; it has the yielding flexibility of a " a wave o' th' sea." HAIVHuET. 123 Mr. Kemble plays it like a man in armour, with a determined inveteracy of purpose, in one undeviat- ing straight line, which is as remote from the natu- ral grace and refined susceptibility of the character, as the sharp angles and abrupt starts which Mr. Kean introduces into the part. Mr. Kean's Ham- let is as much to splenetick and rash as Mr. Kem- ble's is too deliberate and formal. His manner is too strong and pointed. He throws a severity, approaching to virulence, into the common obser- vations and answers. There is nothing of this in Hamlet. He is, as it were, wrapped up in his re~ flections, and only thinks aloud. There should therefore be 'no attempt to impress what he says upon others by a studied exaggeration of emphasis or manner ; no talking at his hearers. There should be as much of the gentleman and scholar as possi- ble 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 weakness and melan- choly, but there is no harshness in his nature. He is the most amiable of misanthropes. THE TEMPEST. A'here can be little doubt that Shakspeare was the most universal genius that ever lived. " Either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, hi&torical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unli- mited, he is the only man. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus 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 un bounded range of fanciful invention, whether terri ble 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 cha racter and nature, and the same spirit of humanity His ideal beings are as true and natural as his^ real characters; 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 tcp- mendous imprecations of the Witches in Macbeth, THE TEMPEST. 125 when they do " a deed without a name," to the sylph-like expressions of Ariel, who " does his spiriting gently ;" the mischievous trichs and gossip- ing of Robin Goodfellow, or the uncouth gabbling and emphatick gesticulations of Caliban In this play. The Tempest is one of the most original and perfect of Shakspeare's productions, and he has shewn in it all the variety of his powers. It is full of grace and grandeur. The human and imagina- ry characters, the dramatick and the grotesque, are blended together with the greatest art^ and w ithout any appearance of it. Though he has here given " to airy nothing a local habitation and a name," yet that part which is only the fanlastick creation of his mind, has the same palpable texture, and co- heres " semblably" with the rest. As the preter- natural part has the air of reality, and almost haunts the imagination with a sense of truth, the real cha- racters 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 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 Ferdi- nand, cast by fate upon the haven of his happiness in this idol of his love; the delicate Ari(;I; the savage Caliban, half brute, half demon ; the drunk- en 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 charac- 11* 126 THE TEMPEST. ter with the subject. Prospero's enchanted island seems to have risen up out of the sea ; the airy musick, the tempest-tost vessel, the turbulent waves, ail have the effect of the landscape background of some fine picture. Shakspeare'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 par- takes of " the liberty of wit," is also subjected to " the law" of the understanding. 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 fel- lows, 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. The character of Caliban is generally thought (and justly so) to be one of the author's masterpieces. It is not, indeed, pleasant to see this character on the stage, any more than it is to see the God Pan personated there. But in ilself it is one of the wild- est and most abstracted of all Shakspeare's characters, whose deformity, whether of body or mind, is redeem- ed by the power and truth of the imagination dis^ played in it. It is the essence of grossness, but there is not a particle of vulgarity in it. Shakspeare has described the brutal mind of Caliban in contact with the pure and original forms of nature ; the cha- racter grows out of the soil where it is rooted uu- THE TEMPEST. 127 controled, 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 fashion is the commonplace affectation of what is elegant and refined without any feeling of the es- sence of it. Schiegel, the admirable German cri- tick on Shakspeare, observes, that Caliban is a po- etical character, and "always speaks in blank verse." He first comes in thus : •' Caliban. As wicked dew as e'er my mother briish'd With raven's feather from unwliolesome fen, Drop on you both : a southvi'est blow on ye. And blister you all o'er ! Prospero. For this, be sure, to night thou shall have cramps, Side-sliches that shall pen thy breath up ; 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 ; would'st give me Water with berries in't ; and teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less That burn by day and night ; and then I 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 ! 128 THE TEMPEST. 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 : I'll pluck thee berries, I'll i5sh for thee, and get tJ)ee wood enough. I pr'ythee let me bring thee where crabs grow, 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 Prospe- ro's 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 rausick, Caliban, to encourage them, ac- counts 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 ; and then in dreaming. The clouds methought would open, and shew riches Ready to drop upon me : when I wak'd 1 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. Shakspeare had to paint the human animal rude and THE TEMPEST. 129 without choice in its pleasures, but not without the sense of pleasure or some germ of the affections. Master Barnardine in Measure for Measure^ the sav- age of civilized life, is an admirable philosophical counterpart to Caliban. Shakspeare 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 con- ceived than this contrast between the material and the spiritual, the gross and delicate. Ariel is ima- ginary power, the swiftness of thought personified. When told to make good speed by Prospero, he says, " I drink the air before me." This is some- thing like Puck's boast on a similar occasion, " I'll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes.'* But Ariel differs from Puck in having a fellow feel- ing in the interests of those he is employed about. How exquisite is the following dialogue between him and Prospero ! ** And. Your charm so strongly works 'em, That if you now beheld them, your affections Would become tender. Prospero. Dost thou think so, spirit p Jrid. 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 p" It has been observed that there is a peculiar charm in the songs introduced in Shakspeare, which, with- out conveying any distinct images, seem to recall 130 THE TEMPEST. all the feelings connected win that hang the pensive head," of evanescent smiles and sighs that breathe not, of delicacy that shrinks from the touch, and feebleness that scarce supports itself, an elaborate vacuity of thought, and an artificial dearth of sfuse, spirit, truth, and nnture! It is the reverse of all this. It is Shakspeare ail over, and Shakspeare 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 rational esteem for one an- other, who have had no experience of the good or ills of life, or whose raptures or desj)air must be there- fore equally 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 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 German plays, where they do things by contraries, and transpose nature to inspire sentiment and create philosophy. Shakspeare pro- ceeded in a more strait-forward, and, we think, efifec- tual 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 " gath- er 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 ROMEO AND JULIET. 143 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 w^as theirs, ^t that untried source of promised happiness they slaked their thirst, and the first eager draught made them drunk with love and joy. They •were in full possession of their senses and their affec- tions. Their hopes were of air, their desires of fire. Youth is the season of love, because the heart is then first melted in tenderness 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 experience comes to check and kill it. Juliet exclaims on her first interview with Romeo — " 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 indiflference 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 ore the desires and the hopes of youthful passion, such is the keenness of its disappointments, and their baleful effect. Such is the transition ia this play from the highest bliss to the lowest despair^ from the nup- 144 ROMEO AND JULIET. tial couch to an untimelj grave. The only evil that even in apprehension 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, Shakspeare has but followed nature, which existed in his time, as well as now. The modern philosophy, which reduces the whole theory of the mind to habitual 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 earli- est attachments, which has led Mr. Wordsworth to indulge in the mystical visions of Platonism in his Ode on the Progress of Life. He has very admirably described the vividness of our impres- sions in youth and childhood, and how " they fade by degrees into the light of common day," and he ascribes the change to the supposition of a pre- existent state, as if our early thoughts were nearer heaven, reflections of former trails of glory> sha- dows of our past being. This is idle. It is not from the knowledge of the past that the first im- pressions 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 pros- pect of life with hope, as it is the cloud which reflects the rainbow. There is no occasion to resort ROMEO AND JULIET. 145 to any mystical union and transmission of feeling through different states of being to account for the romantick enthusiasm of youth ; nor to plant the root of hope in the 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 desire, 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 em- balms the first kiss of love ? It is the delight of novelty, 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 purjjle 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 sense of pleasure precedes the love of pleasure, but 13 146 ROMEO AND JULIET. 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 occupies years, and embraces the circle of the affections from child- hood to old age. Juliet has become a great girl, a young woman, since we tirst remember her a little thing in the idle prattle 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 follow- ing, and one generation pushes another off the stage. One of the most striking passages to shew the in- tense feeling of youth in this play, is Capulet's invi- tation to Paris to visit his entertainment. " At niy poor house, look to behold this night Earth treading stars that make dark heav'n light; Such comfort as do lusty yoLing men feel "When well-apparel'd April on the heel 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 be- fore the author's mind, in writing this poem, in pro- ROMEO AND JULIET. H7 fusion. Here is another of exquisite beauty, brougtit in more by accident than by necessity. Montague declares of his son smit with a hopeless passion which he will not reveal — " 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 fiantick fondness on " the white wonder of his Juliet's hand." The reader may, if he pleases, contrast the exquisite pastoral simplicity of the above lines with the gor- geous description of Juliet when Romeo tirst 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 p O she doth teach the torches to burn bright ; 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 gar- den scenes is the finest, that where he first conver- ses 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 refine- ment and delicacy of Shakspeare's conception of the female character. It is wonderful how Collins, who was a critick and a poet of great sensibility, should 148 ROMEO AND JULIET. have encouraged the coramoa errour on this subject by saying — " But stronger Shakspeare felt for man alone." The passage we mean is Juliet's apology for her maiden boldness. *' Thou tnow'st the mask of night is on my face j Else would a maiden bhish 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 farewell compliment : Dost thou love me ? I know thou wilt say, ay, And I will take thee at thy word — Yet if thou swear'st, Thou may'st prove false j at lovers' perjuries They say Jove laughs. Oh gentle Romeo, If thou dost love, prouotmce it faithfully j Or if thou thick I am too quickly won, I'll frown and be perverse, and say thee nay, 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 ; But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true Than thoste that have more cunning to be strange. I should have been more strange, I must confess, But that thou overheard'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 dictat- ed to her tongue, and " calls true love spoken, sim- ple modesty." Of the same sort, but bolder in vir- gin innocence, is her soliloquy after her marriage with Romeo. " Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, Towards Phoebus' mansion; such a waggoner As Phaeton would whip you to the west, ROMEO AND JULIET. H9 And bring in cloudy night immediately, Spread thy close curtain, love-perforining night ; That runaways' eyes may wink ; 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. And learn me how to lose a winning match, Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods : Hood my unmann'd blood bating in ray cheeks, With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold, Thinks true love acted, simple modesty. Come, night ! — Come, Romeo ! come, thou day in night j 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, 1 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 inip^itienl child, that hath new robes. And may not wear them." We the ralher insert this passage here, in as much as we have no doubt it has been expunged from the Family Shakspeare. Such criticks do not perceive that the feelings of the heart sanctify, without dis- guising, the impulses of nature. Without refinement themselves, they confound modesty with hypocrisy. Not so the German critick, Schlegel. Speaking of Romeo and Juliet, he says, " It was reserved for Shakspeare to unite purity of heart and the glow of imagination, sweetness, and dignity of manners, and 13 * 350 ROMEO AND JULIET. passionate violence, in one ideal picture." The cha- racter 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 modest, for it has no thought that it wishes to conceal. It reposes in conscious innocence on the strength of its affections. Its de- licacy does not consist in coldness and reserve, but in combining warn^th of imagination and tenderness of heart with the niost voluptuous sensibility. Love is a gentle flame that rarefies and expands her w hole being. A^'hat 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, 'i'hat idles in the wanton summer air, And yet not fall, so light is vanity." The tragick part of this character is of a piece with the rest. It is the heroick founded on tender- ness and delicacy. Of this kind are her resolution to follow the Friar's advice, and the conflict in her bosom between apprehension and love when she comes to take the sleeping poison. Shakspeare 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 sim))licity of Juliet's attachment to her first love, and the convenient policy of the nurse in advising her to marry Paris, which excites such indignation in her mistress. " Ancient damnation ! oh most wick- ed fiend," &c. ROMEO ANB JULIET. 151 Romeo is Hamlet in iove. 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 them- selves in a world of imagination. Hamlet is abstract- ed from every thing; Romeo is abstracted from e\ery thing but his love, and lost in it. His " frail thoughts dally with faint surmise," and are fash- ioned out of the suggestions of hope, " the flatte- ries 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 ! " What said my man when ray 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 tidings of her death — *' If I may trust the flattery of sleep, My dreams presage some joyful news at hand j My bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne, And all this day an unaccustora'd spirit Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts. I dreamt my lady came ahd found me dead, (^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, W^hen but love's shadows are so rich in joy I" Romeo's passion for Juliet is not a first love : it succeeds and drives out his passion for another mis- 152 ROMEO AND JULIET. tress, Rosaline, as the sun hides the stars. This is perhaps an artifice (not absolutely necessary) to give us a higher opinion of the lady, while the first ab- solute surrender of her heart to him enhances the richness of the prize. The commencement, pro- gress, and ending of his second passion are however complete in themselves, not injured, if they are not bettered by the first. The outline of the play is taken from an Italian novel ; but the dramatick ar- rangement of the different scenes between the lov- ers, the more than dramatick interest in the progress of the story, the development of the characters with time and circumstances, just according to the degree and kind of interest escited, are not inferi- our 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 im- probability of the main incident in the [jiece, the ad- ministering of the sleeping potion, is softened and obviated from (he beginning by the introduction of the Friar on his first appearance culling simples and descanting on their virtues. Of the passionate scenes in this tragedy, that belAveen the Friar and Romeo when he is told of his sentence of banish- ment, 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 pas- sion, after the first shock of surprise, thro^NS its weight into the scale of her affections) and the last scene at tiie tomb, are among the most natural and over- powering. In all of these it is not merely the force of any one passion that is given, but the slightest and most unlooked for transitions from one to an- ROMEO AND JULIET. 153 other, the mingling currents of every different feel- ing rising up and prevailing in turn, swayed by the master-mind of the poet, as the waves undulate be- neath the gliding storm. Thus, when Juliet has by her complaints encouraged the Nurse to say, " Shame come to Romeo," she instantly repels the wish, which she had herself occasioned, by answering—- " Blister'd be thy tongue For such a wish, he was uot born to shame. Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit, For 'tis a throne where honour may be crowu'd Sole monarch of the universal earth ! O, what a beast was I to chide him so ! Nurse. W^ill you speak well of him that kill'd your cousId ? Juliet. Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband ? Ah my poor lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name. When 1, thy three-hours' wife, have mangled it ?" And then follows on the neck of her remorse and returning fondness, that wish treading almost on the brink of imj»iety, 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 frantick grief and disappointment in the next scene at be- ing 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 repetition of the word. Banished. He treads close, indeed, upon the genius of his author. A passage which this celebrated actor and able commentator on Shakspeare (actors are the best commentators on the poets) did not give with equal truth or force of feeling, was the one which Romeo 154 ROMEO AND JULIET. makes at the tomb of Juliet, before he drinks the poison. Let me peruse this face- Mercutio's kin?man ! 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 P 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 misfortuue's book ! I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave For here lies Juliet, ******** O, my love ! my wife ! Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy brtalb, 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 ! J 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; And never from this palace of dim night Depart again : here, here will I remain With worms that are thy chambermaids ; 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 conduct, come, unsavoury guide ! ROMEO AND JULIET. 155 Thou desperate pilot, nove 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 loveliness of Juliet, who is supposed to be dead, have been compared to those in which it is said 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 pretend to decide. We can more easily de- cide between Shakspeare 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. Sheridan, on being shown a volume of the Beauties of Shakspeare, very properly asked — " But where are the other eleven ?" The character of Mercutio in this play is one of the most mercurial and spirited of the productions of Shakspeare's comick muse. LEAE, W^E 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 Shakspeare'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. Th^ 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 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, immovable basis of natural affec- tion, and the rapid, irregular starts of imagination, suddenly wrenched from all its accustomed holds and resting places in the soul, this is what Shak- LEAR. 157 speare has given, ane? what nobody else but he conld give. So v/e believe. — The mind of Lear staggering between the weight of attachrneni and the hurried movements 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 liTied ir the bottom of the sea; or it is like the shirj» r circled by the eddying vvbir'jjool that foams au'' against it, or like the solid nromoatory j)usl its basis by the force of an earthquake. The charae- tuosity, his blindness to every thing l>ut the diet;Ueg of his {.assions or atlections. that producer a!! his misf(irtuiiies, that aggravates his im|>aiience of them, that enforces our pity for him. The part which Cordelia bears in the scene is extremtly beauti- ful : the story is almost told in the first wor(is she utters. We see at otice the precipice on which the poor* old king stands from his own extravagant and credulous importunity, the indiscreet simplicity of her love (which, to be sure, has a little of hep father's obstinacy in it) and the hollowness of her sisteis' pretensions. Almost the first burst of that noble tide of passion, which runs through the play, is w in the remonstrance of Kent to his roj'al master on the injustice of his sentence against his j'oungest daughter—" Be Kent unmannerly, when Lear is mad !" This m inly plainness, which draws down on him the dis;>leasure of the unadvised king, is worthy of the fidelity with which he adheres to ^ 14 i58 LEAR. his fallen fortunes. The true character of the two eldest daughters, Regau and Goneriil, (thry are so thoroughly hateful thai 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 pro}3ortion to their determina- tion to do wrong, and to their hypocritical preten- sions to do right. Their deliberate hypocrisy adds the last finishing to the odiousness of their chnrac- ters. It is the absence of this detestable quality that is the only relief in the character of Edmund the Bastard, and that at times reconciles us to him. We are not tempted to exaggerate the guilt of his con- duct, when he himself gives it up as a bad business, and writes himself down " plain villain." Nothing more can be said about it. Kis religious ho- nesty in this respect is admirable. One speech of his is worth a million. His father, Gloster, w'lhom he has just deluded with a forged story of his brother Edgar's designs against his life, ac- counts 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 oyr disasters the sun, the moon, and stars : as if we were villains on necessity ; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treacher- ous by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine LEAR. 15f thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposil ion 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. 1 should liave been what I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing." — The whole character, its careless, light-hearted villany, contrasted with the sullen, rancorous malignity of Regan and Goneriii, its con- nexion with the conduct of the under-plot, in which Gloster's persecution of one of his sons and the in- gratitude of another, form a counterpart to the mis- takes 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 o( Othello and tiie three first acts of Lear, are Shakspeare's great masterpieces in the logick of passion : that they contain the highest examples not only of the force of individual passion, but of its dramatick vicissitudes and striking effects arising from the different circumstances and characters of the persons speaking. We see the ebb and flow of the feeling, its psuses anct to make room fOr the entra»»ce of Edgar as Mad T^m, which well accords with the LEAR. 161 increasing bustle and wildness of the incidents; and nothing can be more complete than the distinction between Lear's real and Edgar's assumed mndntss, while the resemblance in the cause of their distress- es, from the severing of the nearest ties of natural affection, keeps up a unity of interest. Shakspeare'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 systematick adherence to rules, and that anticipated and outdid all the efforts of the most refined art, not inspired and rendered instinc- tive by genius. One of the most perfect displays of dramatick power is the tirst 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 hunting, 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 faithful Kent in disguise, and retains him in his service ; and the first trial of iiis honest duty is to trip up the heels of the officious Steward who makes so prominent anil despicable a figure through the f>iece. On the entrance of Gone- rill the following dialogue takes place : — ** Ltar. How now, flaughter p what makes that frontlet on ? Methinks, yoii are too much of late i' the frown. Fool. Thou wast a pretty fellow, when thou hadst no need to care for her frowning ; now thou art an O without a figure : I am het- ter than thou art now; lam a fool, thou art nothing. Yes, for- sooth, I will hold my tongue j [To Gonerill.] so your face bids me, though you say nothing. Mum, mum. 14 * 162 LEAR. He that kepps nor crust nor cruin, 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 raaking^ 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 ; which if you stiould, 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, nunele, 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. Are you our daughter? Gonerill. Come, sir, I would, you would make use of that good wisdont 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 f— 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 ^-Lear's shadow ? I would learn that : for by the marks Of sov'reignty, of knowledge, and of reason, 1 should be false persuaded 1 had daughters. > Your name, fair gentlewoman ? Gonerill Come, sir : This admiration is mucii o' the favoiir LEAR. 163 Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you To understand njy purposes aright: ^\s you are old and reverend, you should be wise: Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires j 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 'Tor 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. Lear. Darkness and devils ! Saddle my horses ; call my train togfther. Degenerate bastard ! I'll not trouble theej Yet have I left a daughter. Gonerill. You strike my people i 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. hear. Detested kite ! thou liest. [To Gontrill. My train are men of choice and rarest parts, That all particulars of duty know ; And in the most exact regard support Th^ 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 htad. And thy dear judgment out ! Go, go, my people ! 164 LEAR. Albany. My lord, I am guiltless, as I am ignorant Of what hath mov'd you. Lear. It may he so, niy lord Hear, nature, hear ! dear goddes?, hear I Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst ioteud To make this creature fruitful ! Into her womb convey sterility j Dry up in her the organs of increase ; 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 j With cadent tears fret channels in lier cheeks; Turn all her mother's pains, and benefits. To laughter and contempt ; that she may feel How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless child ! Away, away ! [Exii. 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, Sfty of my followers at a clap ! Within a fortnight ! Albany. What's the matter, sir p Lear. I'll tell thee ; life and death ! I am ashara'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. Blasts and fogs upon thee ! The untented woundings of a father's curse Pierce every sense about thee ! Otd fond eyes Beweep this cause again, I'll pluck yoD out ; And cast you, with the waters that you loose, To temper clay. Ha ! is it come to this ? Let it be so : Yet have 1 left a daughter, Who, I am sure, is kind and comfortable ; When she shall hear this of thee, with her nails LEAR. 165 She'll flea thy wolfish visage. Thou shalt find, Tiiat I'Uiesiime the shape, which thou dost think I hyive 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 hea- vens," feeling: its effects by antici;)ation : l)ut fine as is this burst of rage and indijjnation at the first blow ainned at his hopes and expectations, it is nothing near so fine as what follows from his double disap- pointment, and his lingering efforts to see which of them he shall lean upon for support and find com- fort in, when both his daughters turn against his age and weakness. It is with some ditficulty 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 purpose 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, ♦' Vengeance ! Phgue ! Death ! Conftision ! Fiery ? What fiery quality p Why, Gloster, VfX speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife." Afterwards, feeling perlians not well himself, he is inclined to admit their excuse from illrjess, hut then recollecting that they have set his mtssenger (Kent) in the stocks, all his susjticions are roused again, and he insists on seeing them. " Enter Cornwatx, Rkgan, Giosthr, and Servants. Lear. Good morrow to you both. Corntvall. Hail to your grace ! [Kent is set at liberty. 166 LEAR. Regan. I ara glad to see your highness. Lear. Regan, 1 think you are ; i know what reason I have to think so ; if thou should'st not be glad, I would divorce me from my mother's tomb, Sepulch'ring 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 j I have hope You less know how to value her desert, Than she to scant her duly. Lear. Say, how is that ? Regan. I cannot think my sister in the least Would fail her obligation ; if, sir, perchance, She have restrained 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, 1 pray you, That to our sister you do make return ; Say, you have wrong'd her, sir. Lear. Ask h«r forgiveness ? Do you but mark iiow this becomes the use ? Dear danghtet*, I confess that I nm old ; Age is unnecessary ; on my knees I beg, That you'll vouchsafe me raiment., bed, and food. Regan. Good sir, no more ; these are unsightly tricks ; Return you to my sister. Ltar. Never, Regan: She hath abated me of half my train ; Look'd blank upon me ; struck me with her tongue, Most serpent like, upon the very heart : All the stor'd vengeances of heaven fall LEAR. 167 On lier ungrateful top ! Strike her young bones, You lakmg airs, wit!) lameness ! Cornwall. Fie, sir, fie ! Lear. You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames Into her scornful eyes ! Infect her beauty, You fen-auck'd fo^s, drawn by the powerful sun. To fall, aud blast lier priue ! Regan. O the blest gods ! So will you wish on me, when the rash mood is on. Lear. No, Regan, thou shall never have my curse j Thy tender-hefted nature shall uot give Thee o'er to harslnifrss ; 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 coiring in : thou bettei- know'ot The offices of nature, bond of childhood, Eff'r'Cts of courtesy, dues of gratitude ; Thy half o' the kingdom thou hast uot forgot, Wherein I thee endow'd. Regain. Good sir, to the purpose. [Trumpets nithin. Lear. Who put n»y 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 boi row'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 GoNERii.t. If you do love old men, if your sweet sway j Allow obedience, if yourselves are old, Make it your cause j seod down, and take my part ! — Art not asham'd to look upon this beard .!^— . [To Gonerill. O, Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand p 168 LEAR. Gonerill Why not by the hand, sir ," How have I offended ? All's noi ofFefice, that indiscretion finds, And dotage terms so. Lear. O, sides, you are too tough I Will you yet hold • — How came my man i' the stocks ? Cornwall. I set him there, sir; but his own disorders DeservM much less advancement. Lear. You ! did you j^ ^ Regan. I pray you, f^ither, being weak, seem so. If, till the expiration of your month, You will return and sojourn with nty sister. Dismissing liaif your train, come then to me ; I am now from home, and out of that provision Which shall be needful for your eriiertainment. Lear. Reiiiin to her, and fifty m^n dismiss'd ? Ko, rather 1 abjure all roofs, and choose To be a comrade with the wolf ^nd owl To waj'e against the enmity o' the air, Necessity's sLiarp pinch ! Retin-n with her ! Why, the hot-blooded France, th^it dowerless took Our youngest born, I could as well be bmusrht To knee his throne, and squire- like pensiOi; beg To keep base life afoot. Return with her ! Persuade mr rather to be slave and sumpter To thi? detested groom. [Looking on the Stercard. Gonerill. At your choice, sir. Lear. Now, I pr'ythee, daugliter, do not make me mad ; I will not trouble thee, my child j farewell : We'll no more meet, no more see one another : But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter ; Or, ralliei', a disease that's in my flesh, Wliich 1 must rueds call mine : thou art a bile, A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncie. In my corrupted blood. Ful I'll not cltide thee ; Lei 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 opiiiion ; but chiefly, a villanous 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 ; Why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at p Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a raicher, and eat blackberries? A queslicu not to be ask'd. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and take purses ? A question to be ask'd. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by tlie name of pitch : this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile ; so doth the company thou keepest : for, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink, but in tears ; not in pleasure, but in passiou ; not in words only, but in woes also:— and yet theie is a virtuous man, whom I have often uoted in thy compauy, but I know not his nanje. 192 HENRY IV. P. Henry. What manner of man, an it like your majesty? Falsinff. A goodly portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent ; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage ; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by'r-lady, inclining to threescore j and now I do remember me, his name is FalstaflF: if that man should be lewdly given, he decciveth me j 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 majes- tically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rab- bit-sucker, or a poulterer's hare. P. Henry. Well, here I am set. Falstaff. And here I stand :— judge, my laasters. P. Henry. Now, Harry, whence come you ? Falstaff. My noble lord, from Eastcheap. P. Henry. The complaints I hear of tliee 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 old man ; a tun of man is thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of hu- mours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swoln parcel of drop- sies, that huge bombard 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 itp wherein cunning, but in craft.'' wherein crafty, but in villany i* wherein villanous, but in all things P wherein worthy, but in nothing ? Falstaff. I would, yoiir grace would take me with you i whom means your grace ? P. Henry. Tiiat villanous, abominable misleader of youth, Fal- staflF, that old white-bearded Satan. Falstaff. My lord, the man 1 know. P. Henry, i know thou dost. HENRY IV. 193 Falstaff. But to say, I know more harm in hiin than in myself, were to say more than I know. That he is eld (the more the pity) his white hairs do witness it : but that he is (saving your reverence) a whoremaster, 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 tliat I know is damned : if to be fat be to be hated, then Pharoah's lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord ; banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins : but for sweet Jack F^alstafF, 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. 1 do, I will. [Knocking ; and Hostess and Bardolph go out. Reenter Bardolph, running. Bardolph. O, my lord, my lord } the sheriff, with a most mon- strous watch, is at the door. Falstaff. Out, you rogue ! play out the play : I have much to say in the behalf of that Falstaff." One of the most characteristick 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, tltyself, 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 Ewear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it p Did not good- wife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then, and call me gossip Quickly p coming in to borrow a mess of viuegar j telling us she had a good dish of prawns; whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I told thee, they were ill for a green wound p And didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more 80 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." 17 ^94 HENRY IV. This scene is to us the most convincing prooi of Falstaflf's poAver of gaining over the good will of those he was familiar with, except indeed Bar- dolph's somewhat profane exclamation on hearing the account of his death, *' Would I were with him, wheresoe'er he is, whether in heaven or hell." One of the topicks of exulting superiority over others most common in Sir John's mouth, is his corpulence, and the exterior marks of good Jiving which he carries about him, thus " turning 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 grada- tion of character than that between Falstaflf and Shallow, and Shallow and Silence. It seems diffi- cult 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 ex- claims, " Would, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that which this knight and I have seen !" — *' Aye, Master Shallow, we have heard the chimes at midnight," says Sir John. To Falstaff's obser- vation " I did not think Master Silence 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 conveyed of a prodigality of living? What good husbandry and economical self-denial in his pleasures ? What a stock of lively recollec- tions ? It is curious that Shakspeare has ridiculed in Justice Shallow, who was " in some authority HENRY IV. 195 under the king," that disposition to unmeaning tau- tology which is the regal infirmiiy of later times, and which, it may be supposed, he acquired from talking to his cousin Silence, and receiving no an- swers. '■^ 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. Weil said, Davy. Fulstaff. This Davy serves you for good uses. Shallow. A good varlet, a good varlet, a very good varlet. By the mass, I have drank loo much sack at supper. A good varlet. Now sit down, now sit down. Come, cousin." The true spirit of humanity, the thorough know- ledge of the stuff we are made of, the practical wis- dom 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 paral- lel any where else. In one point of view, they are laughable in the extreme ; in another they are equally afifecting, if it is affecting to shew 7vhat a little thing- is human life, what a poor forked creature man is ! The heroick and serious part of these two plays, founded on the story of Henry IV., is not infe- riour to the comick and farcical. The characters of Hotspur and Prince Henry are two of the most beautiful and dramatick, both in themselves 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 unfortu- nate. — The characters of their fathers, Henry IV., and old Northumberland, are kept up equally well. 196 HENRY IV. Henry naturally succeeds by his prudence and cau- tion in keeping wliat 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 intelli- gible and thoroughly natural. The disputes be- tween 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 tight between Glendower and Mortimer. " ^Vhen, 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 ; 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," The peculiarity and the excellence of Shakspeare's poetry is, that it seems as if he made his imagination the handmaid of nature, and nature the plaything 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 Hot- spur's rage when Henry IV. forbids him to speak of Mortimer, his insensibility to all that his father and uncle urge to calm him, and his fine abstractedjapos- trophe to honour, "By heaven methinks it were an HENRY IV. 197 easy leap to pluck bright honour from the moon," &c. After all, notwithstanding the gallantry, gene- rosity, good temper, and idle freaks of the mad-cap Prince of Wales, we should not have been sorry, if Northumberland's force had come up in time to de- cide the fate of the battle at Shrewsbury ; at least, we always heartily sympathize 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 Falstafif ; though perhaps Shak- speare knew what was best, according to the history, the nature of the times, and of the man. We speak only as dramatick criticks. Whatever terrour the French in those days might have of Henry V., yet to the readers of poetry at present, Falstaff is the better man of the two. We think of him and quote him oftener. 17 HENRY V. Henry V. is a very favourite monarch with the English nation, and he appears to have been also a favourite with Shakspeare, who labours hard to apo- logize 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 sub- jected to a kind of regal license; in publick affairs, he seemed to have no idea of any rule of right or WTong, but brute force, glossed over with a little re- ligious hypocrisy and archi-episcopal advice. His principles did not change with his situation and pro- fessions. His adventure on Gadshill was a prelude to the affair of Agincourt, only a bloodless one ; Falstaffwasa puny [irompler of violence and outrage, compared with the pious and politick Archbishop of Canterbury, who gave the king carte hlanche, 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 HENRY V. 199 the speeches in Shakspeare, where the hidden mo- tives 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, be immediately un- dertook (a cheap and obvious resource of sovereignty) to do all the mischief he could. Even if absolute monarchs had the wit to find out objects of laudable ambition, they could onl}^ " plume up their wills" in adhering to the more sacred formula 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 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 object of war formerly, when the people adhered to their allegiance, was to depose kings ; the object lat- terly, since the people swerved from their allegiance, has been to restore kings, and to make common cause 200 HENRY V. 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 de- posed the descendant of this very Hugh Capet, on the plea that he was a usurper and illegitimate. What would the great modern catspaw of legitimacy and restorer of divine right have said to the claim of Hen- ry and the title of the descendants of Hugh Capet ? Henry V., it is true, was a hero, a king of England, and the conqueror of the king of France. Yet we feel little love or admiration for him. He was a hero, that is, he was ready to sacrifice his own life for the pleasure of destroying thousands of other lives : he was a king of England, but not a constitutional one, and we only like kings according 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 mon- ster, 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 horrour from their glis- tening eyes, their velvet paws, and dreadless roar* so we take a very romantick, heroick, patriotick, and poetical delight in the boasts and feats of our younger Harry, as (hey appear on the stage and are confined to lines of ten syllables; where no blood follows i-he stroke that wounds our ears, where no harvest bends beneath horses' hoofs, no city flames, no little child is butchered, no dead men's bodies are found piled on heaps and festering the next morning — ia the orchestra! HENRY V. 2(M So much for the politicks of this play ; now for the poetry. Perhaps one of the most striking images in all Shakspeare is that given of war in the tirst 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. Assume the port of Mars, and at his heels Leash''d in like hounds, should famine, sword, and Jirt Crouch for employment.^'' Rubens, if he had painted it, would not have im- proved upon this simile. The conversation between the Archbishop of Can- terbury and the Bishop of Ely relating to the sud- den change in the manners of Henry V. is among the well known Beauties of Shakspeare. It is in- deed admirable both for strength and grace. It has sometimes occurred to us that Shakspeare, in de- scribing " the reformation" of the Prince, might have had an eye to himself — •* Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it, Since his addiction was to courses vain, His companies unletfer'd, rude and shallow, His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports ; And never noted in hira 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 ao 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." 202 HENRY V. This at least is as probable an account of the progress of the poet's mind, as we have met with in any of the Essays on the Learning of Shak- speare. Nothing can be better managed than the cau- tion which the king gives the meddling Archbishop, not to advise him 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. "And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord, That you should fashion, wrest, or bovy 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 j 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 wo, 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 j 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 characteristick instance of the blindness of human nature to every thing but its own interests, is the complaint made by the king of '* the ill neigh- bourhood" of the Scot in attacking England when she w^as attacking France. HENRY V. 203 " 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 t the moral inference does not at all depend upon the nature of the actions, but on the dignity or meanness of the persons committing 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 right, without equivocation or disguise, in that heroick and chivalrous age. The substitution of right for might, even in theory, is among the refinements and abuses of modern philo- sophy. A more beautiful rhetorical delineation of the ef- fects of subordination in a commonwealth can hardly be conceived than the following : — " For government, though-high and low and lower, Put into parts, doth keep in one consent, Congruing io a full and natural close, Like rausick. Therefore heaven doth divide The state of man in divers functions, Setting endeavour in continual motion ; Te which is fixed, as an aim or butt, 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 j Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds; Which pillage they witli merry march bring home 204 HENRY V. To the tent-royal of their emperour j Who, busied in his majesty, surveys The singing mason building roofs of gold, The civil citizens kneading up the honey, The poor mechanick 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 Shakspeare'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," *' As is the oozy botfom of the sea With sunken wrack and sumless treasuries." Of this sort are the king's remonstrance to Scroop, Orey, and Cambridge, on the detection of their trea- son, his address to the soldiers at the siege of Har- fleur, and the still finer one before the battle of Agin- court, the description of the night before the battle, and the reflections on ceremony put into the mouth of the king. "O hard condition ; and twinborn 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, HENRY V. 205 That privates have not too, save ceremony ? Save general ceremony ? And what art thou, thou idol ceremony ? What kind of god art thou, that suflFer'st more Of mortal griefs, than do thy worshippers ? What are thy rents? what are thy comings in? ceremony, shew me but thy worth ! What is thy soul, O adoration ? Art thou ought 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 P 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? Can'st thou, when thou comraand'st the beggar's knee, Command the health of it ? No, thou proud dream. That play'st so subtly with a king's repose, 1 am a king, that find thee : and I know, 'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball, The sword, the mace, tlie crown iiiiperial, The enter-tissu'd robe of gold aud pearl. The farsed title running 'f jre the kiog. 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; Who, with a body fill'd, and vacant raiud. Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread, Never sees horrid night, the child of hell : But, 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 everrunuiug year With profitable labour, to his grave : And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, 18 206 HENRY V. Wiodiog up days with toil and nights with sleep, Has the forehand and vantage of a king. The slave, a member of tlie 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 all well known : there is one, which we do not remember to have seen noticed, and yet it is no whit inferiour to the rest in heroick beauty. It is the account of the deaths of York and Suffolk. " Exeter. The duke of York commends him to your majesty. K. Henry. Lives he, good uncle ? thrice within this hour, I saw him down j 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 insteep'd, And takes him by the beard ; kisses the gashes, That bloodily did yawn upon his face ; And cries aloud— Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk 7 My soul shall thine keep company to heaven : Tarry, sneet soul, for mine, thenfly abreast ; As, in this glorious and well foughten field, We kepi 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— Deor, my lord, Commend my service to my sovereig^x. 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, witb blood he seal'd A testament of noble-ending love." But we must have done with splendid quotations. The behaviour of the king, in the difficult and HENRY V. 207 doubtful circumstances in which he is placed, is as patient and modest as it is spirited and lofty in his prosperous fortune. The character of the French nobles is also very admirably depicted; and the Dauphin's praise of his horse shews the vanity of that class of persons in a very striking point of view. Shakspeare always accompanies a foolish prince with a satirical courtier, as we see in this instance. The comick parts of Henry V. are very inferiour to those of Henry IF. Falstaffis dead, and without him, Pistol, Nym, and Bardolph, are sateliiles with- out a sun. Fluellen the Welchman is the most entertaining character in the jiiect-. rie is goon- natured, brave, cholerick, and pedantick. His paral- lel 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 treatment of Pistol is as good as Pistol's treatment of his French prisoner. There are two other remarkable prose passages in this play : the conversation of Henry in disguise Avith the three sentinels on the duties of a soldier, and his court- ship of Katherine in broken French. We like them both exceedingly, though the first sfivours 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 Shakspeare has given us a very lively picture of the scene. The three parts of Henry VI. convey a picture of very little else : and are inferiour to the other historical plays. They have brilliant passages ; but the general groundwork is comparatively poor and meagre, the style " fiat and unraised." There are few lines like the following : — " Glory is like a circle in the water ; 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 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 HENRY VI. 209 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 descrip- tion of his own treatment while a prisoner to the French not less remarkable. " Salisbury. Yet tell'st thou not how thou wert entertain'd, Talbot. With scoffs and scorns, and contunaelions taunts, In open market-place produced they me, To be a publick spectacle to all. Here, said they, is the terrour of the French, The scarecrow that aflfrights our children so. Then broke I from the officers that led nie, And with my nails digg'd stones out of the ground To hurl at the beholders of my shame. My grisly countenance made others fiy, None durst come near for fear of sudden death. In iron walls they deera'd me not secure : So great a fear my name amongst them spread. That they supposM 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 nie every minute-while ; 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 contests between the nobles during the minority of Henry, and the death of Gloucester, the good Duke Hum- phrey. The character of Cardinal Beaufort is the most prominent in the group : the account of his death is one of our author's masterpieces. 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 18 * 210 HENRY VI. the episodes, the tragicomedy of Jack Cade, and the detection of the irapostor 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 Gloucester, after- wards King Richard, is here very powerfully com- menced, and his dangerous designs and long-reach- ing ambition are fully described in his soliloquy in the third act, beginning, " Aye, Edward will use women honourably." Henry VI, is drawn as dis- tinctly as his high spirited Queen, and notwith- standing 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 Shakspeare was scarcely more remarkable for the force and marked contrasts of bis characters, than for the truth and subtlety with which he has distinguished those which approached the nearest to each other. For instance, the soul of Othello is hardly more distinct from that of lago, than that of Desdemona is shewn to be from ^^milia's ; the am!)ition of Macbeth is as dis- tinct from the ambition of Richard III. as it is from the meekness of Duncan; the real madness ef Lear is as different from the feigned madness of Edgar* as from the babbling of the fool : the constrast be- tween wit and folly in Falstaff and Shallow is not more characteristick though more obvious than the * There is another instance of the same distinction in Hamlet and Ophelia. Hamlet's pretendt^d madness vouldmake a very good real Kiadoess in any other author. HENRY VI. 211 gradations of folly, loquacious or reserved, in Shal- low and Silence; and again, the gallantry of Prince Henry is as little confounded with that of Hotspur as with the cowardice of FalstafiF, or as the sensual and philosophick cowardice of the Knight is with the pitiful and cringing cowardice of Parolles. All these several personages were as different in Shakspeare as they would have been in themselves: his imagi- nation borrowed from the life, and every circum- stance, 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 Shakspeare's imagiuation was this truth, accompa- nied with the unconsciousness of nature ; indeed, imagination to be perfect must be unconscious, at least in production ; for nature is so. — We shall at- tempt one example more in the characters of Richard II. and Henry VI. The characters and situations of both these per- sons were so nearly alike, that they would have been completely confounded by a commonplace poet. Yet they are kept quite distinct in Shak- speare. Both were kings, and both unfortunate. Both lost their crowns owing to their mismanage- ment 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 mis- fortunes 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 re- gain ; the other seems only to regret that he had 212 HENRY VI ever been king, and is glad to be rid of the power, with the trouble; the effeminacy of the one is that of a voluptuary, proud, revengeful, impatient of contradiction, and inconsolable in his misfortunes ; the effeminacy of the other is that of an indolent, good-natured mind, naturally averse to the turmoils of ambition and the cares of greatness, and who wishes to pass his time in monkish indolence and contemplation. — Richard bewails the loss of the kingly power only as it was the means of gratifj'^ing his pride and luxury; Henry regards it only as a means of doing right, and is less desirous of the ad- vantages to be derived from possessing it than afraid of exercising it wrong. In knighting a young soldier, he gives him ghostly advice — " Edward Plantagenet, arise a knight, And learn this lesson, draw thy sword in right." Richard li. in the first speeches of the play be- trays 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 ex- claims — " Mock not ray 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 HENRY VI. 213 A glorious angel ; then if angels fight, Weak men must fall j for Heaven still guards the right." Yet, notwithstanding this royal confession of faith, on the very first news of actual disaster, all his con- ceit of himself as the peculiar favourite of Provi- dence 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; For time hath set a blot upon my pride." Immediately after, however, recollecting that " cheap defence" of the divinity of kings which is to he found in opinion, he is for arming his name against his enemies. '* Awake, thoa coward Majesty, thou sleep'st j 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 vapouring 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 kingdom, 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 indignant- ly 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 : — 214 HENRY VI. *^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 cause 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 oih- 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 j Some haunted by the ghosts they dispossess'd ; Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd i Ail murder'd : — for within the hollow crown. That rounds the mortal temples of a king, Keeps death his court : and there the antick 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 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 I 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 ycu, feel want, taste grief, Need friends, like you ;— subjected thus, How can you say to me — I am a king p" There is as little sincerity afterwards in his al- fected resignation to his fate, as there is fortitude in this exaggerated picture of his misfortunes before they have happened. HENRY VI. 215 When Northumberland comes back with the mes- sage from Bolingbroke, he exclaims, anticipating the result,— *^ " What must the king do now ? Must he submit? 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 ; My gorgeous palace for a hermitage; My gay apparel for an alms-man's gown ; My figur'd goblets for a dish of wood ; 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 Hen- ry's soliloquy during the battle with Edward'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 1 sit me down ; 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. For what is in this world but grief and wo ? O God ! methinks it were a happy life 'Jo 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 .- 216 HENRY VI. 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 shepherd's homely curds, » His cold ttiin 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." This is a true and beautiful description of a na- turally quiet^and contented disposition, and not, like the former, the spienetick efifusion of 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 allegiance and the sancli{y of an oath; and when stabbed by Gloucester in the Tower, reproach- es 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 chietJy 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 appeared, and in which he acquired his fame. Shakspeare we have always with us: actors we have only for a few seasons; and therefore some ac- count of them may be acceptable, if not to our con- temporaries, 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 Blr. Kean : but we cannot imagine any character represented with greater distinctness and precision, more per- fectly articulated in every part. Perhaps indeed there is too much of what is technically called exe- cution. When we first saw this celebrated actor in the part, we thought he sometimes failed from an 19 218 RICHARD III. exuberance of manner, and dissipated the impression of the general character by tlie variety of his re- sources. To be complete, his delineation of it should have more solidity, depths, sustained and im- passioned feeling, with somewhat less brilliancy, with fewer glancing lights, pointed transitions, and panto- mimick evolutions. The Richard of Shakspeare is towering and lofty ; equally impetuous and commanding ; haughty, vio- lent, and subtle ; bold and treacherous ; confi- dent in his strength as well as 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 Plantageuet. " 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 indeed omitted in the miserable medley acted for Richard III.) is never lost sight of by Shakspeare, and should not be out of the actor's mind for a moment. The restless and sanguinary Richard is not a man striving to be great, 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 con- centrating all the lines of the character, as drawn by Shakspeare, he gives an animation, vigour, and relief to the part which we have not seen equal- led. He is more refined than Cooke ; more bold. RICHARD III. 219 varied, and original than Kemble in the same character. In some parts he is deficient in digni- ty, and particularly in the scenes of state business, he has by no means an air of artificial authority. There is at times an aspiring elevation, an enthu- siastick rapture in his expectations of attaining the crown, and at others a gloating expression of sullen delight, as if he already clenched the bau- ble, and held it in his grasp. The courtship scene with Lady Anne is an admirable exhibition of smooth and smiling villauy. 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 ha^ smoothed his way before him. The late Mr. Cooke's manner of re- presenting this scene was more vehement, hurried, and full of anxious uncertainty. This, though more natural in general, was less in character in this par- ticular instance. Richard should woo less as a lover than as an actor — to shew his mental su- periority, and power of making others the play- things of his purposes. Mr. Kean's attitude in lean- ing 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 appearance. This has been since imitated and caricatured by others, and he himself uses the artifice more sparing" 220 RICHARD III. ly than he did. His by-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 consider- ing the^tplanof 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 tills 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 action. 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 with his hands stretched out, after his sword is wrested from him, has a preternatural and terrifick 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 mea- sure, effaced the impression of his Richard III. by the superiour efforts of his genius in Othello, (his masterpiece,) in the murder scene in Macbeth, in Richard II., in Sir Giles Overreach, 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 be- cause we bore our feeble but, at that time, not use- less testimony, to the merits of this very original actor, on which the town was considerably di- vided for no other reason than because they were original. The manner in which Shakspeare's plays have been generally altered, or rather mangled by mo- dern mechanists, is a disgrace to the English stage, RICHARD III. 1*-^! The patchwork Richard III., which is acted un- der the sanction of his name, and which was manu- factured by Gibber, is a striking example of this remark. The play itself is undoubtedly a very powerful eflfusion of Shakspeare's genius. The groundwork of the character of Richard, that mixture of intel- lectual vigour with moral depravity, in which Shak- speare delighted to shew his strength — gave full scope as well as temptation to the exercise of his imagination. The character of his hero is almost every where predominant, and marks its lurid track throughout. The original play is however too long for representation, and there are sonae 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 Shak- speare is to retrench certain passages which may be considered either as superfluous or obsolete, but not tes to the hour, Still and anon chear'd up the heavy time. Saying, what lack you ? and where lies your grief .9 Or, what good love may I perform for you P 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, Pf ay, you may think my love was crafty love, x\nd 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 i* These eyes, that never did, and never shall, So much as frown on you ? Hubert. I've sworn to do it ; And with hot irons must 1 burn them oat. Arthur. Oh if an iangel should have come to mq, And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes, i would not have believ'd a tongue but Hubert'&> KING JOHN. :iti5 Hubert. Come forth j do as I bid you. [Stamps, and the men enter, Arthur. () save me, Hubert, save ine ! 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. For heav'n's sake, Hubert, let me not be bound. Nay, hear me, Hubert, drive these men away^ AJid 1 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 witliin ; let me alone with him. Executioner. I am best pleas'd to be from such a deed. [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 waud'ring hair, Any annoyance in that precious sense : Then feeling what pmall things are boist'rous there, Your vile intent must need^ seem horrible. Hubert. Is this your promise ? go to, hold your tongue. Arthur. Let me not hold my toiigue ; let me not, Hubert ^ Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue. So I rcfay keep mine eyes. (> 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 ; see else yourself, There is no malice in this buroing coal ; 236 KING JOHN. \ The breath of heav'n hath blown its spirit out, And strew'd repentant ashes on its head. Hubert. But with ray breath I can revive it, boy. Arthur. AH things that you should use to do me wrong. Deny their office ; ouly 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 1 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. I'll 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 ; Much danger do 1 undergo for thee. [Exeunt.'''* His death afterwards, when he throws himself from his prison-walls, excites the utmost pity for his innocence and friendless situation, and well justifies the exaggerated denunciations of Falcon- bridge to Hubert whom he suspects wrongfully of the deed. " There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell As thou shall be, if thou didst kill this child. — If thou diilst but consent To this njost cruel act, do but despair: And if tljou want'st a cord, the smallest thread That ever spider twistc^d from her womb Wi'si straui?ie thee ; a rush vriil be a beam To haiip '.hee on : or would'st thou drown thyself. Put but a little w Uer in a spoon, And it ^hali be as all the ocean, Enough to stifle such a villain up." KING JOHN. 237 The excess of maternal tenderness, rendered desperate by the fickleness of friends and the in- justice 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 Austria 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 : 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, 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 ; 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 cf grief." The contrast between the mild resignation of Queen Katharine to her own wrongs, and the wild, uucon- 238 KING JOHN. trolable affliction of Constance for the wrongs which she sustains as a mother, is no less naturally con- ceived than it is ably sustained throughout these two wonderful characters. The accompaniment of the comick character of the Bastard was well chosen to relieve the piognant agony of suffering, and the cold, cowardly policy of behaviour in the principal characters of this play. Its spirit, invention, volubility of tongue, and for- wardness in action, are unbounded. Aliquando siffflaminandus eraU says Ben Jonson of Shakspeare. But we should be sorry if Ben Jonson had been his licenser. We prefer the heedless magnanimity of his wit infinitely to ail Jonson's laborious caution. The character of the Bastard's comick humour is the same in essence as that of other comick charac- ters in Shakspeare ; 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 spirits. The difl'erence 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 gallantry by his jokes, his ene- mies feeling the sharpness of his blows and the sting of his sarcasms at the same time. Among his hap- piest 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 An- giers shews that his resources were not confined to KING JOHN. 239 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 dis- gusting repetition. This, like the other plays taken from English his- tory, 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 versification, which is most common in the three parts of Henri/ VI., has been as- signed as a reason why those plays were not written by Shakspeare. But the same structure of verse occurs in his other undoubted plays, as in Richard IL, and in King John. The following are instan- ces :■ " 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 ihan in Blanch ? If love ambitfous 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 biassed man, Left to be finished by such as she ; And she a ftir divified excellence. Whose fullness of peifection lies in hioi. O, two such silver currents, when they join, 240 KING JOHN. Do glorify the banks that bound them in : And two such shores to two such streams made one, Two such controling bounds, t^hall you be, kings, To these two princes, if you marry them." Another iastance, which is certainly very happy as an example of the sioiple enumeration of a num- ber of particulars, is Salisbury's remonstrance against the second crowning of the king. " Therefore to be possessed with double pomp, To guard a title that was rich before; To gild reS.ned 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; WHAT YOU WILL. This is justly considered as one of the most de- lightful of Shakspeare'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 man- kind, not despise them, and still less bear any ill will towards them. Shakspeare's comick genius resem- bles the bee 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 prevailing 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 themselves off in the happiest lights, than renders them contemptible in the perverse construction of the wit or malice 21 242 TWELFTH NIGHT,- OR, of others. — There is a certain stage of society in which people become conscious of their peculiari- ties and absurdities, affect to disguise what thej are, and set up pretensions to what they are not. This gives rise to a corresponding style of comed}^ 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 pos- sible, 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 neutralizing the materials of comick character, both natural and artificial, leaves no comedy at all — but the sentimental. Such is our modern co- medy. There is a period in the progress of man- ners anteriour 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 there- fore unconscious of them themselves, or care not who knows them, if they can but have their whim out; and in which, as there is no attempt at imposition, the spectators rather receive pleasure from humouring the inclinations of the persons they Jaugh at, than w^ish to give them pain by exposing their absurdity. This may be called the comedy of nature, and it is t^ie comedy which we generally find in Shakspeare. WHAT YOU WILL. 243 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 «ystematick in his extravagance than Shakspeare. Shakspeare's comedy is of a pastoral and poetical cast. Folly is indigenous to the soil, and shoots out with native, happy, unchecked luxuriance. Ab- surdity has every encouragement afforded it ; and nonsense has room to flourish in. Nothing is stunted by the churlish, icy hand of indifference or severity. The poet runs riot in a conceit, and idolizes a quibble. His whole object is to turn the meanest or rudest objects to a pleasurable ac- count. The relish which he has of a pun, or of the quaint humour 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, and Sir Andrew Ague-cheek. For instance, nothing can fall much lower than this last character 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 244 TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, 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 consti- tution 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 roman- tick and enthusiastick, 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 but affectation on one side, and incredulity on the other.' — Much as we like Shakspeare's comedies, 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 some- times led him to trifle with the seriousness of trage- dy, the poetical and impassioned passages are the best parts of his comedies. The great and secret charm of Twelfth Night is the character of Viola. Much as we like catches and cakes and ale, there is something that we like better. We have a friendship 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 Blalvolio, and sym- 1 WHAT YOU WILL. 245 pathize 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 hlanky my lord, she never told her love -. She let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud, Prey on her dainaslc 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 love 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. 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 ; — and yet I know not." — Shakspeare alone could describe the effect of his owa 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 is it 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 Sebastian, 21 ^ 246 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, whom she supposes to have already deceived her in a promise of marriage. " Blame not this haste of mine : if you mean well, Now go with rae 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 Shakspeare'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 j 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 chant it : it is silly sooth, And dailies with the innocence of love. Like the old age. SONG. Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid j Fly away, fly away, breath ; 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 fiower, not a flower sweet, On my black cofBn let there be strewn j Not a friend, not a frieud 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. Too weep there." WHAT YOU WILL. 24? Who after this will say that Shakspeare's genius was only fitted for comedy ? Yet after reading other parts of this play, and particularly the garden scene where Malvolio picks up the 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 P 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 : observe him, for the love of mock- ery; for 1 know this letter will make a contemplative idiot of hira. Close, in the name of jesting ! Lie thou there ; for here come's the trout that must be caught with tickling. [They hide themselves. Maria throws dann 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 complexion. Besides, she uses me witli a more exalted respect than any one else that follows her. What should I think on't ? Sir Toby. Here's an over-weening ropue ! 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 J — Sir Toby. Ah, rogue ! Sir Andrew. Pistol iiim, pistol him. Sir Toby. Peace, peace ! Malvolio. There is example for't j the lady of the Strachy married the yeoman of the wardrobe. Sir Andrew, Fie oq him, Jezebel ! 248 TWELFTH NIGHT; OK, Fabian. O, peace ! now he's deeply in ; look, how iicaginatioB 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 ! Mulvolio. 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. O peace, peace ! Malvolio. And then to have the humour of state : and after a de- mure 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 : 1 frown the while ; 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. 1 extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar smile with an austere regard of control : Sir Toby. And does not Toby take you a blow o'the lips tben ? Malvolio. Saying — Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me oi* your niece, give me this prerogative of speech ; — Sir Toby. W hat, what ? Malvdio. 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— Sir Andrew. That's mp, I warrant you. Malvolio. One Sir Andrew Sir Andrew, 1 knew, 'twas I ; for many do call me fool. Malvolio. What employment have we here.^ {Taking up the letter.''^ The letter and bis comments on it are equally good. If poor Mai V olio's treatmeat afterwards is WHAT YOU WILL. 249 a little hard, poetical justice is done in the unea- siness which Olivia suffers on account of her mistaken attachment to Cesario, as her insensi- bility to the violence of the Duke's passion is atoned for by the discovery of Viola's concealed love of him. ! THE TWO GEiNTLEMEN OF VERONA. This is little more than the first outlines of a come- dy loosely sketched in. It is the story of a novel dramatised with very little labour or pretension; yet there are passages of high poetical spirit, and of inimitable quaintness of humour, which are undoubt- edly Shakspeare's, and there is throughout the con- duct 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 Gentlemen 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 following note to the very next (the second) scene. " This whole scene, like many others in these plays (some of which I be- lieve were written by Shakspeare, and others inter- TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 251 polated 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: Populo 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 critick should fall so soon from praising to reprobating. The style of the familiar parts of this comedy is indeed made up of conceits — low they may be for whjrt 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 master to be in love deficient in wit or sense, though the style may be criticised as not sim- ple enouti,h for the modern taste. " Valentine. Why, how know you that I am io love ? Speed Marry, by these special marks : first, you have learned, like Sir Protheus, to wreathe your arms like a raal-content, to reh'sli a love-song like a robin red breast, to walk alone like one that had the pestilence, to sigh like a schoojhoy that had lost his A B C, to weep like a youn>/ wench that had lost her grandam, to fast like one th:it tdkv^s diet, to watch like one tliat fears robbing, to speak puling like a beggar at Hallowmas. You were wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock ; when you walked, to walk like one of the lions ; when you fasted, it was presently after dinner; when you looked sadly, it was for want of money; and now you are metamorphosed with a mistress, that when I look on you, I can hardly think you my master," The tender scenes in this play, though not so high- ly wrought as in some others, have often much sweet- ness of sentiment and expression. There is some- I 252 TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. thing pretty and playful in the conversation of Julia with her maid, when she shews such a disposition to coquetry about receiving the letter from Protheus ; and her behaviour afterwards and her disappoint- meot, when she finds him faithless to his vows, re- mind us at a distance of Imogen's tender constancy. Her answer to Lucetta, who advises her against fol- lowing 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 extreraest rage, Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason. Julia. The uiore thou damm'st it up, the more it burns ; The current that with gentle murmur glides, Thoji know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage ; But when his fair course is not hindered. He makes sweet musick with th' enamell'd stones, Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge He overtaketh in his pilgrimage : And so by many winding nooks he strays, With willing sport, to the wild ocean.* Then let me go, and hinder not my course ; 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 ; And there I'll rest, as after much turmoil, A blessed soul doth in Elysium." If Shakspeare indexed 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 Shakspeare, 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. 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. Shakspeare's malignant 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 be- comes a half-favourite with the philosophical part of the audience, who are disposed 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 sinning." 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 deposi- tary of the vengeance of his race ; and though the long habit of brooding over daily insults and injuries has crusted over his temper with inveterate misan- thropy, and hardened him against the contempt of mankind, this adds but little to the triumphant 22 254 MERCHANT OF VENICE. pretensions of his enemies. There is a strong, quick, and deep sense of justice mixed up with the gall and bitterness of his resentment. The constant apprehension of being burnt alive, plundered, banish- ed, 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 senss of w rong ; and we can hardly help sympathizing with the proud spirit, hid beneath his " Jewish gaberdine," stung to mad- ness by repeated undeserved provocations, and labouring to throw oflf the load of obloquy and oppression heaped upon him and all his tribe, by one desperate act of " lawful" revenge, till the ferocious- ness 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 sanguinary revenge wilh which he had glutted his hopes, and exposed to beggary and contempt by the letter of the law on which he had insisted wilh so little remorse, we pity him, and think him hardly dealt with by his judges. In all his answers and retorts upon his adversaries, he has the best not only of the argument but of the question, reasoning on their ow n principles and prac- tice. 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, MERCHANT OF VENICE. , 255 and for these curtesies request he'll lend them so much monies." — Anthonio, his old enemy, instead of any acknowledgment of the shrewdness and jus- tice of his remonstrance, which would have been preposterous in a respectable Catholick 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 hi» 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 mil - lion, laugh'd at my losses, mock'd at ray gains, scorn'd my nation, thwarted my bargains, cool'd my friends, heated mine enemies ; and what's his reason .'' I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes ; hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions ; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same dis- eases, 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 p If you tickle us, do we not laugh ? If you poison us do we not die.P 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 I' revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example ? why revenge. The villany 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 masterpiece of drama- 256 MERCHANT OF VENICE. tick skill. The legal acuteness, the passionate de- clamations, the sound maxims of jurisprudence, the wit and irony interspersed in it, the fluctuations of hope and fear in the different persons, and the com- pleteness and suddenness of the catastrophe, cannot be surpassed. Shylock, \vho is his own counsel, defends himself well, and is triumphant on all the general topicks that are urged against him, and only fails through a legal flaw. Take the following as an instance ; — •' Shylock. What judgment shall I dread, doiog 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, Because you bought them :— shall I say to you, Ijet 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 sueh viands ? you will answer, The slaves are ours :— so do 1 answer you : The pound of flesh, which I demand of hiai, Is dearly bought, is mine, and I will have it: If you deny me, fie upon your law ! There is no force iu the decrees of Venice : 1 stand for judgment : auswer ; shall I have it ?'* The keenness of his revenge awakes all his facul- ties ; and he beats back all opposition to his purpose, whether grave or gay, whether of wit or argument, with an equal degree of earnestness and self-posses- sion. His characterls 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 de- scent and origin, his thrift and doraestick economy, his affection for his daughter, whom he loves next to his wealth, his courtship and his first present to Leah MERCHANT OF VENICE. 257 his wife ! " I would not have parted with it" (the ring which he first gave her) " for a wilderness of monkies !" What a fine Hebraism 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 afiectation and pedantry about her, which is very unusual in Shakspeare's women, but which perhaps was a proper qualification for the office of a " civil doctor," which she undertakes and exe- cutes so successfully. The speech about Mercy is very well ; but there are a thousand finer ones in Shakspeare. 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, beginning " 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 mas- ter's service and the other to stay in it, is exquisitely humorous. Gratiano is a very admirable subordinate charac- ter. He is the jester of the piece : yet one speech of his, in his own defence, contains a whole volume of wisdom. " Jnthonio. 1 hold the world but as the world, Gratiaoo, A stage, where every one must play his part j And mine a sad one. 22* 258 MERCHANT OF VENICE. Gratiano. Let me play the fool : With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come y 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 the what, Anthonio— I love thee, and it is my love that speaks j — 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 ; As who should say, / am Sir Oracle, Arid nhen 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 ; who, I am rery 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 tliis melancholy bait. For this fool's gudgeoD,this opinion." Gratiano's speech on the philosophy of love, aiul 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 tra-- gick business is despatched, is one of the happiest in- stances of Shakspeare's knowledge of the principles of the drama. We do not mean the pretended quar- rel between Portia and Nerissa and their husbands about the rings, which is amusing enough, but the conversation just before and after the return of Portia to her own house, beginning " How sweet the moon- light sleeps upon this bank," and ending " Peace ! how the mooQ sleeps with EndymioD, and would not MERCHANT OF VENICE. 259 be awaked." There is a number of beautiful thoughts crowded into that short space, and linked together by the most natural transitions. When we ftrst went to see Mr. Kean in Shylock, 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 congealed in the expression of his countenance, sullen, morose, gloomy, inflexi- ble, 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 single 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 mar- riageable, which does not imply that he is old at all. It would be too much ta 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 has more ideas than any other person in the piece ; and if he is intense and inveterate in the pursuit of his purpose, he shews the utmost elasticity, 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 errour. The stage is not in general the best place to study our author's characters in. — ■ It is too often filled with traditional commonplace conceptions of the part, handed down from sire to 260 MERCHANT OF VENICE. son, and suited to the taste of the great vulgar and the sfiiall. — "'Tis an unweeded garden: things rank and gross do merely gender in it I" If a man of ge- oius comes once in an age to clear away the rubbish, to malte it fruitful and wholesome, they cry, " 'Tis a bad school : it may be like nature, it may be like Shakspeare, but it is not like us." Admirable cri- ticks \ — THE AVINTER'S TALE. AV^E wonder that Mr. Pope should have entertaiaed doubts of the genuiaeness of this play. He was, we suppose, shocked (as a certain critick 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 seacoast of Bohemia. These slips or blemishes how- ever do not prove it not to be Shakspeare's ; for he was as likely to fall into them as any body ; but we do not know any body but himself who could pro- duce the beauties. The stuff of which the tragick passion is composed, the roniantick sweetness, the comick humour, are evidently his. Even the crab- bed 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 Shakspeare's peculiar manner of conveying the painful struggle of different thoughts and feelings, labouring for utterance, and almost strangled in the birth. For instance : — " Ha' not you seen, Camillop (.But that's past doubt : you have, or your eye-glass 262 THE WINTER'S TALE. Is thicker than a cuckold's horn) or heard P (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 wiit, 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 apprehension, 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 unjust suspicious to Camillo, who ir- ritates 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 p is meeting ooses ? Kissing with inside lip i^ 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 p Hours, minutes ? the noon, midnight p and all eyes Blind with the pin and "Keh, but theirs ; theirs only. That would, unseen, be wicked p is this nothing? Why then the world, and all that's in't, is nothing, The covering sky is nollung, Bohemia's nothing, My wife is nothing !" The character of Hermione is as much distinguish- ed by its saint-like resignation and patient forbear- ance, as that of Paulina is by her zealous and spirit- ed remonstrances against the injustice done to the queen, and by her devoted attachment to her mis- fortunes. Hermione^s restoration to her husband THE WINTER'S TALE. 263 and her child, after her long separation from them, is as affecting in itself as it is striking in the repre- sentation. Camillo, 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 pleasant, thriving rogue; and (what is the best feather in the cap of all knavery) he escapes with impunity in the end. The Winter's Tale is one of the best-acting 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 afterpiece of the Wedding day. Nothing could go ofi* with more eclatt with more spirit, and grandeur of effect. Mrs. Sid- dons played Hermione, and in the last scene acted the painted statue to the life — with true monumental dignity and noble passion; Mr. Kemble, in Leon- tes, worked himself up into a very fine classical phrenzy ; 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. Ac- tors grow old, or no longer surprise us by their no- velty. But true poetry, like nature, is always young ; and we still read the courtship of Florizel and Per- dita, as we welcome the return of spring, with the same feelings as ever. *^ Florizel. Thou dearest Perdlta, With tliese forc'd thoughts, I pr'ythee, darken not The mirth o'the the feast : or, I'll be thine, my fair. Or not ray father's : for 1 cannot be 264 THE WINTER'S TALE. Mine own, nor any thing to any, if I be not thine. To this I ana 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. Ferdita. O lady fortune^ Stand you auspicious ! Enter Shepherd, Clorvn, Mopsa, Dohcas, Servants ; ivith Polixenes. and Cami llo, disguUed. Florisel. See, your guests approach : Address yourself to entertain them sprightly, And let's be red with mirth. Shepherd. Fie, daughter J when my old wife liv'd, upon This day, she was both paotler, butler, cook j Both dame and servant : welcom'd all, serv'd all : Would sing her song, and dance iier 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 ; 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 Poliicenes and Camillo. It is my father's will I should take on me The hostee?-ship o' the day : you're welcome, sir ! Give me tfiose flowers there, Dorcas. — Reverend sirs, For you tliere's rosemarj' and rue ; these keep Seeming, and savour, all the winter long : Grace and remembrance be unto you both, And welcome to our shearing I THE WINTER'S TALE. 265 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-fiowers. Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind Our rustick garden's barren; and I care not To get slips of them. Polixenes. Wherefore, gentle maiden, Do you neglect them ? Perdiia. For I have heard it said There is an art, which, in their piedness, shares With great creating nature. Polixenes. Say, there he : 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 nobhr race. This is an art Which dops mend nature, change it rather; but The art itself is nature. Perdita. So it is. P'dixenes. 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; No more than, were 1 painted, 1 would wish This youth should say, 'twere well ; and only therefore Desire to breed by me.— Here's flowers for you ; Hot lavender, mint'^, savoury, marjoram ; The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun. And with liim rises, weeping •• these are flowers Of middle stunmer, and, 1 think, they are given To men of middle age. You are very welcome. Cainillo. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock, And only live by gazing. 23 1 266 THE WINTER'S TALE. 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 Becoffie your time of day ; and your's, and your's, That wear upon your virgin branches yet Your maiden -heads growing : O Proserpina, For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou leV'st fall From Dis's wagon ! dafibdils, That come before 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 1 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; Methinks, I play as I have seen them do In Whitsun pastorals : sure this robe of mine Does change my disposition. Flo7-izel. What you do, Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet, I'd have you do it ever : when you sing, I'd have you buy and sell so ; so give alms ; Pray so j and for the ordering your afiairs, 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 Doricle?, Your praises are too large ; but that your youth And the true blood, which peeps forth fairly through it, THE WINTER'S TALE. 267 Do plainly give you out an unstained shepherd ; With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles, You woo'd me the false way. Ftorisel. I think you have As little skill to fear, as I have pui-pose 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 between his son and Perdita. When Polixenes goes out Perdita says, " 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, begone ? [To FloristL 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." 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 stor}'-, and the fine romance of poetry is reconciled to the strictest court etiquette. ALL'S 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 comick na- ture. The character of Helen is one of great sweetness and delicacy. She is placed in circum- stances of the most critical kind, and has to court her husband both as a virgin and a wife: yet the most scrupulous nicely of female 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 romautick attachment of a beautiful and vir- tuous girl to one placed above her hopes by the circumstances of birth and fortune, was never so exquisitely expressed as in the reflections which she utters when young Roussillon leaves his mother's house, under whose protection she has been brought up with him, to repair to the French king's court. *' Helen. Oh, were that all — I think not on my father, And these great tears gnice 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'? ALL'S WELL TJ^AT ENDS WELL. 269 I am undone, thf ' j iviug, aone, If Bertram be away. It were all one That I should love a b- '* Particular star, And think towtd it ; heiv. '; a novo me: In his bright r?:Hr:nc.- and .'o;L.u;ra' light Must I be comfortea, nut iu Wh spi-tre. Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itself ; The hind that would be mated by the lion, Muit die for love. 'Twas pretty, 'tlio 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 relicks." The interest excited by this beautiful picture of /%& fond and innocent heart is kept up afterwards by her resolution to follow him to France, the success of her experiment in restoring the king's health, her demanding Bertram in marriage as a recompense, his leaving her in disdain, her interyiew with him afterwards disguised as Diana, a young lady whom he importunes with his secret addresses, and their final reconciliation when the consequences of her stratagem and the {)roofs of her love are fully made known. The persevering gratitude of the French king to his benefactress, who cures him of a languish- ing distemper by a prescription hereditary in her family, the indulgent kindness of the Countess, whose pride of birth yields, almost without a strug- gle, to her affection for Helen, the honesty and up- rightness of the good old lord Lafeu, make very in- teresting parts of the picture. The wilful stub- bornness and youthful petulance of Bertram are also very admirably described. The comick part of the play turns on the folly, boasting, and cowardice of 23 * SrO ALL'S WELL TH4T ENDS WELL. ParoIIes, a parasite t .; h^r- - ? Bertram's, the detection of whose fa' e p "^ ravery and honour forms a very ^...._, .^, He is first found out by the o. > >.ti, who ^ays, " The soul of this man is in -'is cloihes;" and it is proved afterwards that his heart is in his tongue, and that both are false anf^ hollow. The adventure of" the bringing off of his drum" has become proverbial as a satire on all ridiculous and blustering undertakings, which the person never means to perform : nor can any thing be more severe than what one of the bye- standers remarks uj)on what Parolles says of him- self, '' Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that he is ?" Yet Parolles himself gives the best solution of the difficulty afterwards, when he is thank- v ful 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 pretensions, to which he had sense enough to know he had no real claim, and which he had assumed only as a means to live. " Parolles. Yet I am thanlcftil : if my heart were great, 'Twould burst at tliis. Captaii) I'll be do more, But 1 win eat and driok, and^leep as soft As captain shall, bimpiy the thing I am Shall make me live: who knows himself a braggart, Let him fear this ; for it shall come to pass, That eve^y hragg-trt shall h6 found an ass. Rust sword, cool blushes, and Parolles live Safest lu shame . being fool'd, by fooi'ry thrive ; There's place and means for every man alive. I'll afler them. Th^ story of All's Well that ends Well, and of several others of Shakspeare's plays, is taken ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 2T1 from Boccacio. The poet has dramatised the origin- al novel with great skill and comick spirit, and has preserved all the beauty of character and sentiment without improving upon it, which was impossible. There is indeed in Boccacio's serious pieces a truth, a pathos, and an exquisite refinement of sentiment, hich is hardly to be met with in any other prose \ riter whatever. Justice has not been done him by the world. He has in general passed for a mere nar- rator of lascivious tales or idle jests. This character probably originated in his obnoxious attacks on the monks, and has been kept up by thegrossness of man- kind, 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 h^^ns carried sentiment of every kind to its very highest purity and perfection. By sentiment we would here understand the habitual workings of some one powerful feeling, where thfetieart reposes almost entirely upon itself, without the violent excite- ment of opposing duties or untoward circumstances. In this way, nothing ever came up to the story of Frederigo Alberigi and his Falcon. The perseve- rance in attachment, the spirit of gallantry and gene- rosity displayed 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 circumstances, 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 cir- cumstances and in the catastro[)he. Dryden has done justice to the impassioned eloquence of the 272 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. Tancred and Sigismunda; 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 subject. The proof of unalterable affection given in the story of Jeronymo, and the simple touches of nature and picturesque beauty in the sto- ry of the two holiday lovers, who were poisoned by tasting a leaf in the garden at Florence, are perfect masterpieces. The epithet of Divine was well be- stowed on this great painter of the human heart. The invention implied in his different tales is im- mense : but we are not to infer that it is all his own. He probably availed himself of all the common tradi- tions which were floating in his time, and which he was the first to appropriate. Homer appears the most original of all authors — probably for no other reason than that we can trace the plagiarism no far- ther. Boccacio has furnished subjects to number- less writers since his time, both dramalick and narra- tive. The story of Griselda is borrowed from his Decameron by Chaucer; as is the Knight's Tale (Palamon and Arcite) from bis poem of the Theseid, LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. If we were to part with any of the author's come- dies, 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 schoolmaster, and their dispute after dinner on " the golden cadences of poesy ;" with Costard the clown, or Dull the constable. Biron is too accomplished a character 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 savoursmore of the pedantick spirit of Shak- speare's time than of his own genius ; more of con- troversial divinity, and the logick 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 274 LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. or the fairy land of his own imagination. Shak- speare has set himself to imitate the tone of polite conversation 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 bot- tomed periwig, or Raphael had attempted to give ex- pression to the tapestry figures in the House of Lords. Shakspeare has put an excellent description of (his 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 tiothing can be more marked than the difference when he breaks loose from the trammels he had im- posed 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 Elizabeth and her maids of honour ; ^^ Biron. O ! and I, forsooth, in love, 1 that have been love's whip ; A very beadle to an amorous sigh : A critickj nay, a night-watch constable, A domiueeruig pedant o'er the boy, Thau whom no mortal more magnificent. This whirapled, whining, purblind, wayward boy, This signior Junio, giant dwarf, Don 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 iroperator, 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 ? 1 love ! I sue ! I seek a wife ! A, woman, that is like a German clock, LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. 275 Still a repairing; ever out of frame; And never going aright, being a watch, And being watch'd, that it may still go right P Nay, to be perjur'd, which ia 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; 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, 1 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 excellent. The scene which has the greatest dramatick 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 sweet- hearts 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 ; Full of comparisons, and wounding flouts ,- Which you on all estates will execute, 1 276 LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. That lie within the mercy of your wit. To weed this wormwood from your faithful brain ; And therewithal to win n»e, if you please, (Without the which I am not to be won) You shall tliis 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 ciinriot 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 laughins; hearers give to fools : 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, DeaPd with the clamours of their own dear groans, Will hear your idle scorns, continue then, And I will have yoii, 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 ? WelF, befall what will befall, I'll jest a twelvemonth in a 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. Tins admirable comedy used to be frequentlj acted till of late years. Mr. Garrick's Benedick 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 instances that we have noticed. Hero is the principal figure in the piece, and leaves an indelible impression on the mind by her beauty, her tenderness, and the hard trial of her love. The passage in which Claudio first makes a confession of his affection towards her conveys as pleasing an image of the entrance of love into a youthful bosom as can well be im- agined. "Oh, my lord, When you went onward with this ended action, I look'd U[i0n her with a soldier's eye, That lik'd, but had a rougher task in hand Than to drive liking to the name of love ; But now I am return'd and that war-thoughts Have left their places vacant ; in their rooms Come thronging soft and delicate desires, AH 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 in- 24 278 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. continence against her, and as it were divorces her in the very marriage-ceremonv, her appeals to her ovrn conscious innocence and honour are made with the most affecting simplicity. " Claudia. 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 ; But you are more intemperate in your blood Than Venus, or those pampei '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! OGodl"— The justification of Hero in the end, and her re- storation to the confidence and arms of her lover, is brought about by one of those temporary consign- ments to the grave of which Shakspeare seems to have been fond. He has perhaps explained the theory of this predilection in the following lines : — *' Friar. She dying, as it must be so maintain'd, Upon the instant that she wns 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 W'hilst 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 iMUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 279 Into his study of imagination ; Aud 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 comick 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 effected by the pre- tended 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 practised on Benedick, or that in which Beatrice is prevailed on to take pity on him by overhearing 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 k de- scribed 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, *' What fire is in mine ears ? Can this be true ? Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much ? Contempt, farewell ! 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 ; If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee To bind our loves up in an holy band : 280 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. For others say thou dost deserve j 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 sup- posed inamorata. "This can be do trick; the conference was sadly borne. — They have the trulli of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady j it seems her afiectioas have the full bent. Love me ! why, it must be requited. I hear how I am ceusar'd : they .^ay, I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her ; they say too, that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. — 1 did never think to marry : I must not seem pr oud :— 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; — nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. — 1 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 matt lores the meat in his youth, that he cannot endure in his age. — Shall quipsj and sentences, and these paper bullets of the brain, awe a man from the career of his humour ? 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 characters of the persons so entrapped. Benedick is a profess- ed 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 281 " 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 afiFectioo, 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 j If low, an agate very vilely cut : If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds } If silent, why, a block moved with none. So turns she every man the wrong side out ; And never gives to truth and virtue that Which simpleness and merit purchaseth.'* These were happy materials for Shakspeare 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, retriin nothing but their humanity. Dogberry and Verges in this play are inimitable specimens of quaint blundering and misprisions of meaning; and are a standing record of that formal gravity of pretension and total want of com- mon understanding, which Shakspeare no doubt co- pied from real life, and which in the course of two huiidied yenrs appear to have ascended from the lowest to the highest offices in the state. 24 * AS YOU LIKE IT. Shakspeare 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 author's plays. It is a pastoral drama, in which the in- terest arises more out of the sentiments and charac- ters than out of the actions or situations. 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 banished 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 felt them knowingly," softened by time and dis- tance. ' They hear the tumult, and are still." The very air of the place seems lo breathe a spirit of philosophical poetry ; to stir the thoughts, to touch the heart with pity, as the drowsy fores,t rustles to the sighing gale. Never was there such I AS YOU LIKE IT. 288 beautiful moralizing, equally free from pedantry or petulance. " And this their life, exempt from publick haunts, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in every thing." Jaques is the only purely contemplative character in Shakspeare. lie thinks, and does nothing. 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 pas- sion 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 re- sents 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 sovereigsity, 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." Within the sequestered and romantick 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 sportive gayety and natural tenderness : her tongue runs the faster to conceal the pressure at her heart. She talks herself out of breatii, 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 conversatioa with Orlando — 284 AS YOU LIKE IT. — " In heedless mazes running With wanton haste and giddy cunning." How full of real fondness and pretended cruelty 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 theyare wives: Twill be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over liis hen ; more clamorous than a parrot against rain ; more new-fangled than an ape ; more giddy in ray desires than a monkey ; I will weep for nothing like Diana in the fountain, and 1 will do that when you are disposed to be merry ; I will laugh like a hyena, and that when yoii are inclined to sleep. Orlando. But will ray Rosalind do so ? Rosalind. By my life she will do as 1 do." The silent and retired character of Celia is a ne- cessary relief to the provoking loquacity of Rosa- lind, nor can any thing be better conceived or more beautifully described than the mutual affection be- tween the two cousins. — " We still have slept together, Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together. And wlieresoe'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 commonest scents of life, and the rubs and stops which nature throws in ils way, where fortune has placed none. Touchstone is not in love, but he will have a mis- tress as a subject for the exercise of his grotesque humour, and to shew his contem ,t fv;r the passion, by his indifference about the person. He is a rare AS YOU LIKE IT. 285 fellow. He is a mixture of the ancient cynick phi- losopher witli 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 e^iemy to the prejudices of opinion in other respects. The lofty tone of en- thusiasm, which the Duke and his companions in ex- ile spread over the stillness and solitude of a coun- try life, receives a pleasant shock from Touchstone's skeptical determination of the question. " Corin. Aud how like you this shepherd's life, Mr. Touch- stone ? Clown. Truly, shepherd, iu respect of itself, it is a good lifej 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 respect that it is pri- vate, it is a very vile life. Now in respect it is in the fields, it pleas- eth 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 discover3 only half the sense of this passage. There is hardly any of Shakspeare'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 recollec- tion. Such are the meeting between Orlando and Adam, the exquisite appeal of Orlando to the hu- manity of the Duke and his company to supply him with food for the old man, and their answer, the Duke's description of a country life, and the account 286 AS YOU LIKE IT. of Jaques moralizing on the wounded deer, his meet- ing with Touchstone in the forest, his apology 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," Ros- alind'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 panegyrick 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 es- caped him, and with it we shall close our account of As YOU LIKE IT. It is Phebe's description of Gani- med at the end of the third act. "Think not I love him, the' I ask for him j '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 veiy pretty ; But sure he's proud, and yet his pride becomes him ; He'll make a proper man j the best thiug in him Is his complexion ; and faster than his tongue Did ma"ke oflPence, his eye did heal it up : He is not very tall, yet for his years he's tall ; His leg is but so so, and yet 'tis well; There was a pretty redness in his lip, A little riper, and more lusty red Than that mix'd in his cheek ; 'twas just the difference 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 1 love him not, nor hate him not; and yet I have.more cause to hate hira than to love him ; For what had he to do to chide at me?'* THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. The Taming of the Shrew is almost the only one of Shakspeare's comedies that has a regular plot, and downright moral. It is full of bustle, ani- mation, and rapidity of action. II shews admirably how self-will is only to be got the better of by stronger will, and how one degree of ridiculous per- versity 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 sticceeds in all his tricks and impostures. He acts his assumed character to the life, with the most fantastical extravagance, with complete pre- sence of mind, with untired animal spirits, and without a particle of ill humour from beginning to end. — The situation of poor Katherine, worn out by his incessant persecutions, become at last almost as pitiable as it is ludicrous, and it is difficult to say which to admire most, the unaccountableness of his actions, or the unalterableness of his resolutions. 288 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. It is a character which most husbands ought to study, unless perhaps the very audacity of Petruchio's at- tempt might alarm them more than his success would eucourage them. What a sound must the fol- lowing speech carry to some married ears ! *' Think you a little dio can daunt my ears ? Have I not in ray lime heard lions roar p Have I not heard the sea, puflTd 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 { not iu a pitched battle heard Loud larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang P And do you tell me of a woman's tongue, That gives not half so great a blow to hear Ab will a cheauut in a farmer's fire ?" Not all Petruchio's rhetorick would persuade more than "some dozen followers" to be of this heretical way of thiaking. He unfolds his scheme for the Taming of the Shrew, on a principle of contradiction, thus : — " Pll 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 ; Say that stie frown, I'll say she looks as clear As morning roses newiy wash'd with dew j Say she be mule, and will not speak a word, Then I'll commend her volubility, 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 ; If she deny to wed, I'll crave the day, When i shall ask the banns, and when be married ?" He accordingly gains her consent to the match, by telling her father that he has got it; disappoints THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 289 iier by not returning at the time he has promis- ed to wed her, and when he returns, creates no small consternation by the oddity of his dress and equipage. This however is nothing to the astonish- ment excited by his mad-brained behaviour at the marriage. Here is the account of it by an eye wit- ness : — " Grtmio. Tut, she's a lamb, a dove, a fool to him : I'll tell you. Sir Lucentio ; when the priest Should ask if Katherine should be his wife ? Ay, by gogs woons, quoth he ; and swore so loud, That, all amaz'd, the priest let fall the book ; 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. Tranio. What said the wench when he rose up again ? Grtmio. Trewbled and shook y for why, he stamp'd and swore. As if the vicar meant to cozen him. But after many ceremonies done. He calls for wine ; a health, quoth he ; as if He'd been aboard carousing with his mates After a storm; quaftoffthe muscadel. And threw the sops all in the sexton's facej 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 clamorous smack, that at their parting ' All the church echoed : and I seeing this, Came thence for very shame ; and after me, I know, the rout is coming ; Such a mad marriage never was before." The most striking and at the same time laughable Pet 25 feature In the character of Petruchio throughout is 290 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. the studied approximation to the intractable charac- ter of real madness, his apparent insensibility to all external considerations, and utter indifference 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 purposes, 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 reason- able is a reason against it. The airs he gives himself are iniinite, and his caprices are sudden as they are groundless. The whole of his treatment of his wife at home is in the same spirit of ironical attention and inverted gallantry. Every thing files before his will, like a conjuror's wand, and he only metamorphoses his wife's temper by metamorphosing her senses and all the objects 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 Vincen- tio, whom Petruchio immediately addresses as a young lady : — " Petruchio. Good morrow, gentle mistress, where away P Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too, Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman ? Such war of white and red within her cheeks ; What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty, As those two eyes becoa^e 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. Kaiherine. Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweef^ "Whither away, or where is thy abode ? THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 291 Happy the parents of so fair a child : Happier the man whom favourable stars Allot tiiee 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. Katkerine. 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 whole is carried off with equal spirit, as if the poet's comick 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 musick masters and masters of philosophy. They were things of greater rarity in those days than they are now. Nothing however can be bet- ter than the advice which Tranio gives his master for the prosecution of his studies : — *'jThe mathematicks, and the metaphysicks, Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you : iVo profit grows, where is no pleasure ta'en: In brief, sir, study what you most aflFect." We have heard the Honey Moon called *' an ele- gant 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 description of his mistress ele- gant. " Tranio, 1 saw her coral lips to move, And with her breath she did perfume the air : Sacred and sweet was all 1 saw in her." 292 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. When Biondello tells the same Lucentio for his en- Gouragement, " I knew a wench married in an after- noon as she went to the garden for parsley to stuff a rabbit, and so may you, sir" — there is nothing ele- gant 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 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 catls 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 Chris- tophero 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 1 have no more doub- lets than backs, no more stockings 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- heath, by birth a pedlar, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker ? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat THE TAMING OF THE SHREV7. 293 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 lying'st knave in Christendom." This is honest. " The Slies are no rogues," as he says of himself. We have a great predilection for this representative of the family ; and what makes us like him the better is, that we take him to be of kin (not many degrees removed) to Sancho Panza. 25 * MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 1 HIS is a play as full of genius as it is of wisdom. Yet there is an original sin in the nature of the sub- ject, 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 plajs. 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 influences the story is that of Angelo; and yet he seems to have a much greater passion for hypocrisy 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, as if it had been put to some less disinterested trial. As to the Duke, who makes a very imposing and mysterious stage character, he is more absorbed in his own plots and gravity than anxious for the welfare of the state ; more tenacious of bis own character thao attentive to the feelings MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 295 and apprehensions of others. Claudio is the only person who feels naturally ; and yet he is placed in circumstances of distress which almost preclude the wish for his deliverance. Mariana 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 dififer- ent characters and the sympathy of the reader or the audience. This principle of repugnance 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 dread- fully 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 hypocrisy of the other characters of the play. Bar- nardine is Caliban transported from Prospero's wizard island to the forests of Bohemia or the prisons of Vienna. He is the creature of bad habits as Cali- ban is of gross instincts. He has however a strong notion of the natural fitness of things, according to his own sensations — " He has been drinking hard all night, and he will not be hanged that day*' — and Shakspeare has let him off at last. We do not understand why the philosophical German critick, Schlegel, should be so severe on those pleasant persons, Lucio, Pompey, and Master Froth, as to call them " wretches." They a|)pear all mighty comfortable in their occupations, and deter- mined to pursue them, *' as the flesh and fortune should serve." A very good exposure of the want of self-knowledge and contempt for olhersj which 296 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. is so common in the world, is put into the. mouth of Abhorson, the jailor, when the Provost proposes to associate Pompey with him in his office — " A bawd, sir ? Fie upon him, he will discredit ouf mystery." And the same answer would serve in nine instances out of ten to the same kind of remark, " Go to, sir, you weigh equally ; a feather will turn the scale." Shakspeare 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 object of the pedantick 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 Barnardine 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, as well as if counsel had been assigned him. In one sense, Shakspeare was no moralist at all : in another, lie was the greatest of all moralists. 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 knowledge of humanity with the greatest fellow-feeiing for it. One of the most dramattck passages in the present 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, 1 do fear thee, Claudio : and I quate. Lest thou a feverous life should'st entertain, And six or seven winters more respect MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 297 Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die p The sense of death is most in apprehension ; And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, In corporal sufiferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies. Ctaudio. Why give you me this shame ? Think you 1 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. Tbere spake my brother ! there my father's grave Did utter forth a voice ! Yes, thou must die : Thou art too uobie to conserve a life In base appliances. This outward sainted deputy — Whose settled visage and deliberate word Nips youth i' the head, and follies doth emmew, As falcon doth the fowl— is yet a devil. Claudia. The princely Angelo ? Isabella. Oh, 'tis the cunning livery of hell, The daraned'st body to invest and cover In princely guards ! Dost thou think, Claudio, Jf 1 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 ofiTeoce, So to oftend 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 piu. Claudio. Thanks, dear Isabel. Isabella. Be ready, (Claudio, for your death to-morrow. Claudio. Yes. — Has he affections in him, That thus can n)ake 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 ..omentary trick Be perdurably 6o'd ? Oh, Isabel ! 298 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 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 Dot where j To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot ; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod ; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice j To be imprison'd in the viewlesi 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 ! — 'lis 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 dramatick beauty of this scene and the effect of Claudio's passionate attachment to life is, that it immediately follows the Duke's lec- ture to him^, in the character of the Friar, recom- mending 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 labour'st 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 DursM by baseness : thou art by no means valiant ; MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 299 For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork 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 j For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains That issue out of dust : happy thou art not j For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get ; And what thou hast, forget'st : thou art not certain ; For thy complexion shifts to strange effects, After the moon ; if thou art rich, thou art poor ; For, like,an ass, whose back with ingots bows, Thou bear'st thy heavy riclies but a journey, And death unloads thee : friend thou hast none j For thy own bowels, which do call thee sire, The mere effusion of thy proper loins, Do curse the gout, serpigo, and t!ie rheum. For ending thee no sooner : thou hast nor youth, nor agej 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 p Yet in this life Lie hid more thousand deaths ; yet death we fear, That makes these odds all even." THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. The Merry Wives op Windsor is no doubt a very amusing play, with a great deal of humour, character, and nature in it: but we shouhl liave liked it much better, if any one else had been the hero of it, instead of Falstaff. We could have been contented if Shaksoeare had not been " com- manded to shew the knight in love." Wits and phi- loso;>hers, for the mosl part, do not shine in that character; and Sir John himself, by no means, comes off with flying colours. Many people com- plain of the degradation and insults to which Don Quixote is so frequently exposed in his various adventures. But what are the unconscious indigni= ties which he suffers, compared with the sensible mortifications which Falataff is made to bring upon himsHlf ? What are the blows and buffettings which the Don receives from the staves of the Yanguesian carriers, or from Sancho Fanz^'s more hard-hearted hands, compared with tlie contamination of the buck- THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 301 basket, the disguise of the fat woman of Brentford, and the horns of Heme the hunter, which are dis- covered on Sir John's head ? In reading the play, we indeed wish him well through all these dis- comfitures, but it would have been as well if he had not got into them. Falstafif in the Merry Wives of Windsor is not the man he was in the two parts of Henry IF. His wit and elo- quence 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, barefaced 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 ascendency a|)[)ears. He is like a person recalled to the stage to perform an unac- customed 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 Tear sheet, of Mrs. Quickly's account of his desiring *' to eat some of housewife Keach's prawns," and telling her " to be no more so familiarity with such people," is worth the whole of the Merry Wives of Windsor put together. Ford's jea- lousy, which is the mainspring of the comick inci- dents is certainly very well managed. Page, on the contrary, appears to be somewhat uxorious in his disposition ; and we have pretty plain in- dications of the effect of the characters of the hus- bands on the different degrees of fidelity in their 302 THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. wives. Mrs. Quickly makes a very lively go-be- tween, both between FalstaflF and his Dulcineas, and Anne Page and her lovers, and seems in the latter case so intent on her own interest, as total- ly to overlook the intentions of her employers. Her master, Doctor Caius, the Frenchman, and her fellow^ servant Jack Bugby, are very com- pletely 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 telltale, nor no breedbate ; his worst fault is that he is given to prayer ; he is something peev- ish 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 laughable. He has " very good discretions, and very odd humours." The duel scene with Caius gives him an opportuni- ty to shew his " cholers and his tremblings of mind," his valour and his melancholy, in an irre- sistible manner. In the dialogue, which at his mother's request he holds with his pupil, William Page, to shew his progress 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 Juslice Shallow himself has liltle of his con- sequence left. But his cousin. Slender, makes up-for the deficiency. He is a very potent piece of imbecility. In him the pretensions of the wor- thy Gloucestershire family are well kept up, and THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, 305 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. Shakspeare is the only writer who was as great in describing weakness as strength. iUE COMEDY OF ERROUBS. This comedy is taken very much from the Me- naeehmi of Plautus, and is not an improvement on it. Shakspeare appears to have bestowed 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 notwilhstandiog 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 com- plete similarity of their persons and dress must pro- duce the same perplexity whenever they first en*er, or THE COMEDY OF ERROURS. 305 the identity of appearaDce 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 different parties begin to speak ; and we are indemnified 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 Shakspeare was not what is called a classical scholar. We do not think h\s forte would ever have lain in imitating 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 excellencies. 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 Shakspearian cast in this comedy is the one in which the Abbess, with admirable characteristick artifice, makes Adriana confess her own misconduct in driving her husband mad. *' Abbess. How long hath this possession held the man ? Adriana. This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad, And uiuch, much difFerent from the man he was j 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 ? Adriana. To none of these, except it be the last : Namely, some love, that drew him oft from home. 26 * 306 THE COMEDY OF ERROURS. Abbess. You should for that have reprehended him. Jdriana. Why, so I did. Abbess. But not rough enough. Adriana. As roughly as ray modesty would let me. Abbess. Haply, in private. Adiiana. 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 ? lu company, I often glanced at it ; Still did I tell him it was vile and bad. Abbess. A nd therefore came it that the man was mad r 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 brawlg ; Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue, But moody and dull melancholy, Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair j And, at her heels, a huge infectious troop Of pale disteraperalures, and foes to life."* In food, in sport, aud life preserving rest To be disturbed would mad or man or beast ; The consequence is then, thy jealous fits Have scar'd thy husband from the use of wits. Lucirtna. She never reprehended him but mildly, When he demeaned himself rough, rude, and wildly. — Why bear you these rebukes and answer not ? Adriana. She did betray me to my own reproof." Pinch the conjuror is also an excrescence not to be found in Plaulus. He is indeed a very formidable anachronisQS. THE COMEDY OF ERROURS. 307 " They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-fac'd villain, A nieer 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 portraits to be met with in Hogarth. DOUBTFUL PLATS. SHAKSPEARE. We shall give for the satisfaction of the reader what the celebrated German critick, Schlegel, says on this subject, and then add a very few remarks of our own. *' All the editors, with the exception of Capell, are unanimous in rejecting Titus Andronicus as unwor- thy of Shakspeare, 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 external grounds, evidences, &c. and to weigh their worth ; and then to adduce the internal reasons derived from the quality of the work. The criticks of Shakspeare follow a course directly the reverse of this ; they set out with a preconceived opinion against a piece, and seek, in justification of this opinion, to render the historical grounds sus- DOUBTFUL PLAYS. 30» picious, and to set them aside. Titus Andronicus is to be found in the first folio edition of Shakspeare's works, which it was known was conducted by He- niinge and Condell, for many years his friends and fellow-managers of the same theatre. Is it possi- ble to persuade ourselves that they would not have known if a piece in their repertory did or did not ac- tually belong to Shakspeare ? 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 Shakspeare, 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 Shakspeare, mentions Titus Andronicus in an enumeration of his works, in the year 1598. Meres was personally ac- quainted with the poet, and so very intimately, that the latter read over to him his Sonnets before they were printed. 1 cannot conceive that all the cri- tical skepticism 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 tragick, which by an accumulation of cruelties and enormities degenerates into the horri- ble, and yet leaves no deep impression behind : the story of Tereus and Philomela is heightened and overcharged and under other names, and mixed up with the repast of Atreus and Thyestes, and many other incidents. In detail there is no want of beau- tiful lines, bold images, nay, even features which be- tray the peculiar conception of Shakspeare. Among 310 DOUBTFUL PLAYS. these we may reckon the joy of the treacherous Moor at the blackness and ugliness of his child be- got in adultery ; and in the compassion of Titus An- dronicus, 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 ene- my, we recognize the future poet of Lear. Are the criticks afraid that Shakspeare's fame would be in- jured, 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 Shakspeare's situation at the commencement of his career. He found only a few indifiFerent 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 digging deeper in hig own mind, discovered the richest veins of a noble metal ? It is even highly 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; hut art is to be learned, and must be acquired by practice and experience. In Shakspeare'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 already formed. I consider it as extremely probable, that Shakspeare DOUBTFUL PLAYS, 311 began to write for the theatre at a much earlier pe- riod than the one which is generally stated, namely, Dot till after the year 1390. It appears that, as early as the year 1584, when only twenty years of age, he had It^ft his paternal home and repaired to London. Can we im .gine that such an active head would remain idle for six whole years without mak- ing any attempt to emerge by his talents from an un- congenial situation ? That in the dedication of the poem of Venns and Adonis he calls it, " the first heir of his invention," proves nothing against the supposition. Il was (he first which he printed; he might have composed it at ati earlier period; per- hai)s, als:i, he did not include theatrical labours, as they then possessed but little literary dignity. The earlier Shukspeare begr.n to compose for the thea- tre, the less are we enabled to consider the immatu- rity and imperfection of a work as a proof of its s[>ui'iousness 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 iieen produced iu the period betwixt Titus An- dronicits, and the earliest of the acknowledged pieces. * At last, Steevens published seven pieces as- cribed to Shaksf>eare iu tA^o ?uppl*^mentary volumes. It is to be remarked, that they all appeared in print in Shakspeare's life-time, with his name prefixed at |full length. They are the following; : — " 1. Locnnc. The proofs of the genuineness lof this piece are not altogether un.jm!»iguous ; the grounds fir doubt, on the other hand, are entitled to attention. However, this question is immediately connected with that respecting Titus Andronicus^ 312 DOUBTFUL PLAYS. and must be at the same time resolved in the affirma- tive or negative. *'2. Pericles, Prince of Tyre. This piece was acknowledged by Dryden, but as a youthful work of Shakspeare. It is most undoubtedly his, and it has been admitted into several of the late editions. The supposed imperfections originate in the circum- stance, that Shfikspeare 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 deliver a prologue entirely in his an- tiquated language and versification. This power of assuming so foreign a manner is at least no proof of helplessness. " 3. The London Prodigal. If we are not mis- taken, Lessing pronounced this piece to be Shak- speare's, and wished to bring it on the German stage. *'4. The Puritan; or, the Widow of Watling Street. One of my literary friends, intimately ac- quainted with Shakspeare, was of opinion that the poet must have wished to write a play for once in the style of Bea Jonson, and that in this way we must account for the difference between the present piece and his usual manner. To follow out this idea how- ever would lead to a very nice critical investiga- tion. " 5. Thomas, Lord Cromwell. '' 6. Sir John Oldcasfls— First Part. ''7. A Yorkshire Tragedy. " The three last pieces are not only unquestiona- bly Shakspeare's, but in my opinion they deserve to DOUBTFUL PLAYS. 313 be classed among his best and maturest works. — Steevens admits at last, in some degree, that they are Shakspeare's, as well as the others, excepting Locrine, but he speaks of all of them with great con- tempt, as quite worthless productions. This condem- natory sentence is not however in the slightest de- gree convincing, nor is it supported by critical acu, men. I should like to see how such a critick would, of his own natural suggestion, have decided on Shak- speare's acknowledged masterpieces, and what he would have thought of praising in them, had the publick opinion not imposed on him the duty of ad- miration. Thomas^ Lord Cromwell, and Sir John Oldcastle, are biographical dramas, and models in this species : the first is linked, from its subject, 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 dis- covered in England, or whether it is lost. The Yorkshire Tragedy is a tragedy in one act, a dra- matised tale of murder : the tragical effect is over- powering, and it is extremely important to see how poetically Shakspeare could handle such a subject. " There have been still farther ascribed to him :— 1st. The Merry Devil of Edmonton, a comedy in one act, printed in Dodsley's old plays. This has certainly some appearances in its favour. It con- tains a merry landlord, who bears a great similarity to the one in the Merry Wives of Windsor. How- ever, at all events, though an ingenious, it is but a hasty sketch. 2d. The Accusation of Paris. 3d. 27 314 DOUBTFUL PLAYS. The Birth of Merlin. 4th. Edward the Third. b{\\. The Fair Emma. 6tli. Mucedoms. 7 th. Jrden of Feversham. I have never seen any of these, and cannot therefore say any thing respecting them. From the 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 Fever- sham 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 circumstance would afford an additional probability in its favour.. For such motives were not foreign to Shakspeare : he treated Henry the Seventh, who ^bestowed lands on his forefathers for services performed by them, with a visible partiality. " Whoever takes from Shakspeare 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 ? Shakspeare's competitors in the drama- tick walk are pretty well known, and if those of them who have even acquired a considerable name, a Lilly, a Marlow, a Heywood, 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 Dramatick Literature, vol. ii. page 252. 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 Shakspeare's best works are very superiour to those of Marlow, or DOUBTFUL PLAYS. 315 Heywood, but it is not true that llie best of the doubtful plays above enumerated are S^ujieriour or even equal to the best of theirs. The Yorkshire Tragedy, which Sehlegel speaks of as an undoubted! production of our author's, is much more in the man- ner of Heywood than of Shakspeare. The effect is indeed overpowering, l)ut the mode of producing it is by no means poetical. The praise which Sehlegel gives to Thomas, Lord Cromwell, and to Sir John Oldcastle, is altogether exaggerated. They are very indifferent compositions, which have not the slightest pretensions to rank with Henry V. or Hen- ry VHI. We suspect that the German critick was not very well acquainted with the dramatick con- temporaries of Shakspeare, or aware of their general merits; and that he accordingly mistakes a resem- blance in style and manner for an equal degree of excellence. Shakspeare differed from the other writers of his age not in the mode of treating his subjects, but in the grace and power which he dis^ played in them. The reason assigned by a literary friend of Schlegel's for supposing The Puritan ; or^ the Widow of Wailing Street, to be Shakspeare's, viz. that it is tn the style of Ben Jonson, that is to say, in a style just the reverse of his own, is not very satisfactory to a plain English understanding. Locrine, and The London Prodigal, if they were Shakspeare's at all, must have been among the sins of his youth. Arden of Feversham contains several striking passages, but the passion which they ex- press is rather that of a sanguine temperament than of a lofty imagination ; and in this respect they ap- proximate more nearly to the style of other writers 516 DOUBTFUL PLAYS. of the time than to Shakspeare's. Titus Andronicus is certainly as unlike Shakspeare's usual style as it is possible. It is an accumulation of vulgar physi- cal horrours, in which the power exercised by the poet bears no proportion to the repugnance excited by the subject. The character of Aaron the Moor, is the only thing which shews any originality of conception; 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 Shak- speare. Even this is worthy of him only in the display of power, for it gives no pleasure. Shak- apeare 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 systematick prefer- ence of violent effect to every thing else. There are occasional detached images of great beauty and delicacy, but these were not beyond the powers of other writers then living. The circumstance which inclines us to reject the external evidence in favour of this play being Shakspeare's is, that the gramma- tical construction is constantly false and mixed up with vulgar abbreviatioHS, a fault that never oc- curs in any of his genuine plays. A similar de- fect, and the halting measure of the verse, are the chief objections to Pericles of Tyre, if we except the far-fetched and complicated absurdity of the story. The movement of the thoughts and pas- sions has something in it not unlike Shakspeare, and several of the descriptions are either the DOUBTFUL PLAYS. 317 original hints of passages which Shakspeare has ingrafted on his other plays, or are imitations of them by some cotemporary poet. The most memorable idea in it is in Marina's speech, where she com- pares the world to *'a lasting storm, hurrying her from her friends." 27 POEMS AND SONNETS. Our idolatry of Shakspeare (not to say our admira- tion) ceases with his plays. In his other produc- tions, 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 always waiting for the prompter's cue. In expressing the thoughts of others, he seem- ed inspired ; in expressing his own, he was a me- ehanick. The license 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 cf custom. In his plays, he was " as broad and casing as the gene- ral air :" in his poems, on the contrary, he appears to be "cooped, and cabined in" by all the techni- calities of art, by all the petty intricacies of thought and language, which poetry had learned from the controversial jargon of the schools, where words had been made a substitute for things. There was, if we mistake not, something of modesty, and a painful sense of personal propriety at the bottom POEMS AND SONNETS. 319 of this. Shakspeare'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 fult scope to his genius ; but returned into his closet again, and having assumed the badge of his profes- sion, he could only labour in his vocation, and con- form himself to existing models. The thoughts, the passions, the words which the poet's pen, " glanc- ing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven," lent to others, shook off the fetters of pedantry and affectation; while his own thoughts and feelings, standing by themselves, were seized upon as lawful prey, and tortured to death according to the esta- blished rules and practice of the day. In a word, we do not like Shakspeare's poems, because we like' his plays : the one, in all their excellencies, are just the reverse of the other. It has been the fash- ion of laie to cry up our author's poems, as equal to his plays : this is the desperate cant of modern criticism. We would ask was there the slightest comparison between Shakspeare, 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 cha- racters would feel, but of what he shall say; and as it must happen in all such cpses, he always puts into their mouths those things which they would be 320 POEMS AN^D SONNETS. the last to think of, and which it shews the greatest ingenuity in him to find out. The whole is la- boured, up-hill work. The poet is perpetually sing- ling out the difficulties of the art to make an ex- hibition of his strength and skill in wrestling with them. He is making perpetual trials of them as if his mastery 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 upon it, like splendid patch-work, or remain quite distinct from it, like detached substances, painted and var- nished over. A beautiful thought is sure to be lost in an endless commentarj^ upon it. The speakers are like persons who have both leisure and inclina- tion to make riddles on their own situation, and to twist and turn every object or incident into acros- ticks and anagrams. Every thing is spun out into allegory ; and a digression is always preferred to the main story. Sentiment is built up upon plays of words ; the hero or heroine feels, not from the im- pulse of passion, but from the force of dialecticks. 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 invo- cation to Opportunity in the Tarquin and Lucrece, is full of thoughts and images, but at the same time it is over-loaded by them. The concluding staa= POEMS AND SONNETS. 321 za expresses all our objections to this kind of poetry : — " Oh ! idle words, servants to sliallow fools ; Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators j Busy yourselves in skill contending schools; Debate when leisure serves with dull debaters ; To trembling clients be their mediators : For me 1 force not argument a straw, Since that my case is past all help of law." The description of the horse in Venus and Ado- nis has been particularly admired, and not without reason : — " Round hoof'd, 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, 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 know- ledge of the horse ; and is good matter of fact poetry. Let the reader but compare it with a speech in the Midsummer Nighfs Dream where Theseus describes his hounds — " 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 Shakspeare'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 Shakspeare's. Of the sonnets we do not well know what to say. The subject of them seems to be somewhat equivo- 322 POEMS AND SONNETS. cal ; but many of them are highly beautiful in them- selves, and interesting as they relate to the state of the personal feelings of the author. The following are some of the most striking : — CONSTANCY. " Let those who are in favour with their stars, Of publick 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 ; And in themselves their pride lies buried. For at a frown they in their glory die. The painful warriour 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 reroov'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, Fcatur'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 eartii) 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 f I love Dot less, though less the show appear : POEMS AND SONNETS. 323 That love is raerchandis'd, whose rich esteeming The owner's tongjie 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 Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, But that wild musick 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. *' 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 see'st the twilight of such day, As after sun-set fadeth in the west. Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's secotid 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 olhers, there is a mild tone of sentiment, deep, mellow, and sustained very different from the crudeuess of his earlier poems. Tfifl: END. 1 ep-1!:mH 45 1 85 %. °4* Y-^ Ul i- .^ ^^' <^ f Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. ^» Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Feb. 2009 '^ A^"^ •^^^"^ *%> ^'^^ PreservationTechnologies %><^ *» /^™'»"^i ^. ^^ ^^ A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION , iV*** 111 Thomson Park Drive aV ^^ Cranberry Township, PA 16066 ^ ^ (724)779-2111 ^ fe « • « « *<**>. ' ' f>^~ * * * » * ''o JT '.♦•^ vv -.*«,. v./ ••*^-" >!b^"-. ^ •-'♦ "^ .<^" "<«■ '••• iKi m m •p?"i *^; "i f' m '^^^ jf.>' s'V^I 'nA at m.