STU ;IBS 
 
 SH AKSPEEE 
 
 BY CHARLES KNIGHT. 
 
 U >' *' I 
 
 Assuredly that criticism of Shaksperc will alone be genial which is reverential." 
 
 COLERIDGE, 
 
 L N D 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, 
 
 THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE. 
 NEW YORK : 416, BROOME STREET. 
 
 1868. 
 

 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 THE present Volume, entitled c Studies of Shakspere,' will consist of a republication, with 
 additions and corrections, of the critical Notices that are scattered through my editions of 
 Shakspere, known as ' the Pictorial' and ' the Library.' These Notices are not included in 
 my edition in one volume, nor in my { Cabinet ' edition. 
 
 It may appear somewhat presumptuous that I should devote a volume of a ' National 
 Library of Select Literature' to a republication of my own writings. I have seriously 
 weighed this possible objection, and I thus meet it. There are very few readers who have 
 not access to some edition of the works of " the greatest in our literature the greatest in all 
 literature." But there are a vast number who have no aids in the proper appreciation of 
 Shakspere's excellence, dependent as such a judgment is upon an adequate comprehen- 
 sion of his principles of art. In developing those principles I have felt it necessary, on the 
 one hand, to combat some opinions of former editors which were addressed to an age nearly 
 without poetry ; which looked upon the age of Shakspere as equally remarkable for the rude- 
 ness as for the vigour of its literature ; and which considered Shakspere himself under the 
 vulgar aspect of the miraculous, a genius perfectly untaught and unregulated. On the other 
 hand, I have as sedulously brought forward and enforced the doctrines of that more recent 
 school of aesthetics which holds that " the Englishman who, without reverence, a proud and 
 affectionate reverence, can utter the name of William Shakspere, stands disqualified for the 
 office of critic." These Essays, therefore, are not to be received as the opinions of an indi- 
 vidual, but as an embodiment of the genial spirit of the new school of Shaksperean criticism, 
 as far as a humble disciple may interpret that spirit. 
 
 But even to those who are familiar with critical editions of Shakspere, and with the 
 great mass of critical writings upon Shakspere, the present volume will have the value of a 
 comprehensive arrangement. It will exhibit the rude beginnings of the Drama previous to 
 Shakspere's appearance ; it will trace the growth of his powers, as far as can be gathered 
 from positive and circumstantial evidence, in his earliest works ; it will carry forward the 
 same analysis through the second period of his meridian splendour ; it will show, in like 
 manner, the glory of his mature day, and the sober lustre of his evening. In each of these 
 periods the characters and productions of his dramatic contemporaries will be examined. 
 The reader will proceed step by step in a systematic knowledge of the Shaksperean Art, 
 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 and view it in connection with the circumstances which attended it in each successive stage 
 of its advancement. 
 
 Since the completion of my larger editions of Shakspere many new materials for the 
 History of our Dramatic Literature have been published by 'The Shakespeare Society,' 
 and by individual critics and antiquaries. It will be my duty to consult these 
 authorities, so that this work may be rendered of some additional value to those friends 
 who, possessing my 'Pictorial' or 'Library' editions, have expressed a desire to see the 
 1 Notices'' of each play in a collected form, and sold at a cheap rate, so as to form a Com- 
 panion Volume to the many thousand copies of Shakspere which are diffused amongst our 
 countrymen. 
 
 CHARLES KNIGHT. 
 JANUARY 1, 1849. 
 
STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 PAGEANTS AND MYSTERIES. 
 
 THE city of Coventry, within a moderate 
 distance of Stratford upon Avon, was 
 amongst the last places which retained the 
 ancient pageants. Before the Reformation, 
 these pageants, "acted with mighty state 
 and reverence by the friars of this house 
 [the Grey Friars], had theatres for the several 
 scenes, very large and high, placed upon 
 wheels, and drawn to all the eminent parts 
 of the city for the better advantage of spec- 
 tators ; and -contained the story of the New 
 Testament composed into old English rhyme, 
 as appeareth by an ancient manuscript, en- 
 titled iMdus Corporis Christi, or Ludus Co- 
 ventrice"* Henry V. and his nobles took 
 great delight in seeing the pageants ; Queen 
 Margaret, in the days of her prosperity, 
 came from Kenilworth to Coventry privily 
 to see the play, and saw all the pageants 
 played save one, -which could not be played 
 because night drew on ; the triumphant 
 Richard III. came to see the Corpus Christi 
 plays ; and Henry VII. much commended 
 themf. In these Corpus Christi plays there 
 were passages which had a vigorous sim- 
 plicity, fit for the teaching of an unin- 
 structed people. In the play of ' The Crea- 
 tion,' the pride of Lucifer disdained the wor- 
 ship of the angels, and he was cast down 
 
 " With mirth and joy never more to mell." 
 
 * Dugdale. 
 
 t See Sharp's quotations from the manuscript Annals of 
 Coventry, ' Dissertation,' page 4. 
 
 In the play of < The Fall,' Eve s2ng 
 
 " In this garden I will go see 
 All the flowers of fair beauty, 
 And tasten the fruits of great plenty 
 That be in Paradise;" 
 
 In the same play we have a hymn of Abel, 
 very sweet in its music : 
 
 " Almighty God, and full of might, 
 
 By whom all thing is made of nought, 
 To thee my heart is ready dight, 
 For upon thee is all my thought." 
 
 In the play of l Noah,' when the dove re- 
 turned to the ark with the olive-branch, 
 there was a joyful chorus : 
 
 "Mareviditctfugit, 
 Jordanis con versus est retrorsum, 
 Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, 
 Sed nomini tuo da gloriam." 
 
 These ancient Coventry plays were forty- 
 three in number . The general spread of 
 knowledge might have brought other teach- 
 ing, but they familiarized the people with 
 the great scriptural truths ; they gave them 
 amusements of a higher nature than mili- 
 tary games, and contentions of mere brute 
 force. In the boyhood of Shakspere the 
 same class of subjects was handled by rude 
 artificers Let us attempt to describe such 
 
 i See the ' Ludus Coventriae/ published by the ' Shake- 
 speare Society.' 
 
STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK i. 
 
 a scene as the great city of the Black Prince 
 would have presented during the boyhood 
 of Shakspere. 
 
 The morning of Corpus Christi comes, and 
 soon after sunrise there is stir in the 
 streets of Coventry. The old ordinances for 
 this solemnity require that the Guilds should 
 be at their posts at five o'clock. There is to 
 be a solemn procession formerly, indeed, 
 after the performance of the pageant and 
 then, with hundreds of torches burning 
 around the figures of our Lady and St. John, 
 candlesticks and chalices of silver, banners 
 of velvet and canopies of silk, and the mem- 
 bers of the Trinity Guild and the Corpus 
 Christi Guild bearing their crucifixes and 
 candlesticks, with personations of the angel 
 Gabriel lifting up the lily, the twelve apos- 
 tles, and renowned virgins, especially St. 
 Catherine and St. Margaret. The Reforma- 
 tion has, of course, destroyed much of the 
 ceremonial ; and, indeed, the spirit of it has 
 in great part evaporated. But now, issuing 
 from the many ways that lead to the Cross, 
 there is heard the melody of harpers and 
 the voice of minstrelsy; trumpets sound, 
 banners wave, riding-men come thick from 
 their several halls; the mayor and aldermen 
 in their robes, the city servants in proper 
 liveries, St. George and the Dragon, and 
 Herod on horseback. The bells ring, boughs 
 are strewed in the streets, tapestry is hung 
 out of the windows, officers in scarlet coats 
 struggle in the crowd while the procession 
 is marshalling. The crafts are getting into 
 their ancient order, each craft with its 
 streamer and its men in harness. There are 
 " Fysshers and Cokes, Baxters and Milners, 
 Bochers, Whittawers and Glovers, Pyn- 
 ners, Tylers, and Wrightes, Skynners, 
 Barkers, Corvysers, Smythes, Wevers, 
 "Wirdrawers, Cardemakers, Sadelers, Peyn- 
 tours, and Masons, Gurdelers, Taylours, 
 Walkers, and Sherman, Deysters, Drapers, 
 Mercers." * At length the procession is ar- 
 ranged. It parades through the principal 
 lines of the city, from Bishopgate on the 
 north to the Grey Friars' Gate on the south, 
 and from Broadgate on the west to Gosford 
 Gate on the east. The crowd is thronging 
 
 * Sharp's ' Dissertation,' page 160. 
 
 to the wide area on the north of Trinity 
 Church and St. Michael's, for there is the 
 pageant to be first performed. There was a 
 high house or carriage which stood upon 
 six wheels ; it was divided into two rooms, 
 one above the other. In the lower room 
 were the performers ; the upper was the 
 stage. This ponderous vehicle was painted 
 and gilt, surmounted with burnished vanes 
 and streamers, and decorated with imagery ; 
 it was hung round with curtains, and a 
 painted cloth presented a picture of the 
 subject that was to be performed. This 
 simple stage had its machinery, too ; it was 
 fitted for the representation of an earth- 
 quake or a storm ; and the pageant in most 
 cases was concluded in the noise and flame 
 of fireworks. It is the pageant of the com- 
 pany of Shearmen and Tailors, which is to 
 be performed, the subject the Birth of 
 Christ and Offering of the Magi, with the 
 Flight into Egypt and Murder of the Inno- 
 cents. The eager multitudes are permitted 
 to crowd within a reasonable distance of the 
 car. There is a moveable scaffold erected 
 for the more distinguished spectators. The 
 men of the Guilds sit firm on their horses. 
 Amidst the sound of harp and trumpet the 
 curtains are withdrawn, and Isaiah appears, 
 prophesying the blessing which is to come 
 upon the earth. Gabriel announces to Mary 
 the embassage upon which he is sent from 
 Heaven. Then a dialogue between Mary 
 and Joseph, and the scene changes to the 
 field where shepherds are abiding in the 
 darkness of the night a night so dark that 
 they know not where their sheep may be ; 
 they are cold and in great heaviness. Then 
 the star shines, and they hear the song of 
 " Gloria in excelsis Deo." A soft melody of 
 concealed music hushes even the whispers of 
 the Coventry audience ; and three songs are 
 sung, such as may abide in the remembrance 
 of the people, and be repeated by them at 
 their Christmas festivals. "The first the 
 shepherds sing :" 
 
 " As I rode out this endersf night, 
 Of three jolly shepherds I saw a sight, 
 And all about their fold a star shone bright ; 
 
 t Endci-s night last night. 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 PAGEANTS AND MYSTERIES. 
 
 They sang terli terlow: 
 
 So merrily the shepherds their pipes can blow." 
 
 There is then a song " the women sing :" 
 
 " Lully, lulla, you little tiny child ; 
 By, by, lully, lullay, you little tiny child : 
 
 By, by, lully, lullay. 
 
 sisters two, how may we do 
 
 For to preserve this day 
 
 This poor youngling, for whom we do sing 
 
 By, by, lully, lullay] 
 
 Herod the king, in his raging, 
 Charged he hath this day 
 His men of might, in his own sight, 
 All young children to slay. 
 
 That woe is me, poor child, for thee, 
 And ever mourn and say, 
 For thy parting neither say nor sing 
 By, by, lully, lullay." 
 
 The shepherds again take up the song : 
 
 " Down from heaven, from heaven so high, 
 Of angels there came a great company, 
 With mirth, and joy, and great solemnity: 
 They sang terly, terlow : 
 So merrily the shepherds their pipes can blow." 
 
 The simple melody of these songs has come 
 down to us : they are part songs, each hav- 
 ing the treble, the tenor, and the bass*. 
 The star conducts the shepherds to the 
 " crib of poor repast," where the child lies ; 
 and, with a simplicity which is highly cha- 
 racteristic, one presents the child his pipe, 
 the second his hat, and the third his mittens. 
 Prophets now come, who declare in length- 
 ened rhyme the wonder and the blessing : 
 
 " Neither in halls nor yet in bowers 
 Born would he not be, 
 Neither in castles nor yet in towers 
 That seemly were to see." 
 
 The messenger of Herod succeeds ; and very- 
 curious it is, and characteristic of a period 
 when the king's laws were delivered in the 
 language of the Conqueror, that he speaks 
 in French. This circumstance would carry 
 
 * This very curious pageant, essentially different from 
 the same portion of Scripture-history in the ' Litdus Co- 
 ventrice,' is printed entire in Mr. Sharp's 'Dissertation,' as 
 well as the score of these songs. 
 
 back the date of the play to the reign of 
 Edward III., though the language is occa- 
 sionally modernized. We have then the 
 three kings with their gifts. They are 
 brought before Herod, who treats them 
 courteously, but is inexorable in his cruel 
 decree. Herod rages in the streets ; but 
 the flight into Egypt takes place, and then 
 the massacre. The address of the women to 
 the pitiless soldiers, imploring, defying, is 
 not the least curious part of the perform- 
 ance ; for example 
 
 " Sir knightes, of your courtesy, 
 This day shame not your chivalry, 
 But on my child have pity," 
 
 is the mild address of one mother. Another 
 raves 
 
 " He that slays my child in sight, 
 If that my strokes on him may light, 
 Be he squire or knight, 
 I hold him but lost." 
 
 The fury of a third is more excessive : 
 
 " Sit he never so high in saddle, 
 But I shall make his brains addle, 
 And here with my pot ladle 
 With him will I fight." 
 
 We have little doubt that he who described 
 the horrors of a siege, 
 
 " Whiles the mad mothers with their howls con- 
 fused 
 
 Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry 
 At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen," f 
 
 had heard the bowlings of the women in the 
 Coventry pageant. And so "fynes lude de 
 taylars and scharmen." 
 
 The pageants thus performed by the 
 Guilds of Coventry were of various subjects, 
 but all scriptural. The Smiths' pageant 
 was the Crucifixion ; and most curious are 
 their accounts, from 1449 till the time of 
 which we are speaking, for expenses of hel- 
 mets for Herod, and cloaks for Pilate ; of 
 tabards for Caiaphas, and gear for Pilate's 
 wife ; of a staff for the Demon, and a beard 
 for Judas. There are payments, too, to a 
 man for hanging Judas, and for cock-crow- 
 ing. The subject of the Cappers' pageant 
 
 t Henry V., Act m., Scene in. 
 
6 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK i. 
 
 was the Resurrection. They have charges 
 for making the play-book and pricking the 
 songs ; for money spent at the first rehearsal 
 and the second rehearsal ; for supper on the 
 play-day, for breakfasts and for dinners. 
 The subject of the Drapers' pageant was 
 that of Doomsday ; and one of their articles 
 of machinery sufficiently explains the cha- 
 racter of their performance " A link to set 
 the world on fire," following " Paid for the 
 barrel for the earthquake." We may readily 
 believe that the time was fast approaching 
 when such pageants would no longer be 
 tolerated. It is more than probable that 
 the performances of the Guilds were origin- 
 ally subordinate to those of the Grey Friars ; 
 perhaps devised and supported by the paro- 
 chial clergy*. But when the Church be- 
 came opposed to such representations when, 
 indeed, they were incompatible with the 
 spirit of the age it is clear that the efforts 
 of the laity to uphold them could not long 
 be successful. They would be certainly per- 
 formed without the reverence which once 
 belonged to them. Their rude action and 
 simple language would be ridiculed ; and, 
 when the feeling of ridicule crept in, their 
 nature would be altered, and they would be- 
 come essentially profane. There is a very 
 curious circumstance connected with the 
 Coventry pageants, which shows the struggle 
 that was made to keep the dramatic spirit 
 of the people in this direction. In 1584 the 
 Smiths performed, after many preparations 
 and rehearsals, a new pageant, the Destruc- 
 tion of Jerusalem. The Smiths applied to 
 one who had been educated in their own 
 town, in the Free School of Coventry, and 
 who in 1584 belonged to St. John's, Oxford, 
 to write this new play for them. The fol- 
 lowing entry appears in the city accounts : 
 " Paid to M r Smythe of Oxford the xv th daye 
 of aprill 1584 for hys paynes for writing of the 
 tragedy e xiij 1 , vj s , viij d ." 
 
 We regret that this play, so liberally paid 
 for when compared with subsequent pay- 
 ments to the Jonsons and Dekkers of the 
 
 * It is clear, we think, that the pageants performed by 
 the Guilds were altogether different from the ' Ludr.s 
 Coventriae,' which Dugdale expressly tells us were per- 
 formed by the Grey Friars. 
 
 true drama, has not been preserved. It 
 would be curious to contrast it with the 
 beautiful dramatic poem on the same sub- 
 ject, by an accomplished scholar of our own 
 day, also a member of the University of Ox- 
 ford. But the list of characters remains, 
 which shows that the play was essentially 
 historical, exhibiting the contests of the 
 Jewish factions as described by Josephus. 
 The accounts manifest that the play was got 
 up with great magnificence in 1584 ; but it 
 was not played again until 1591, when it 
 was once more performed along with the 
 famous Hock Tuesday. It was then ordered 
 that no other plays whatever should be per- 
 formed ; and the same order, which makes 
 this concession "at the request of the Com- 
 mons," directs "that all the May-poles that 
 now are standing in this city shall be taken 
 down before Whitsunday next, and none 
 hereafter to be set up." In that year Co- 
 ventry saw the last of its pageants. But 
 Marlowe and Shakspere were in London, 
 building up something more adapted to that 
 age ; more universal : dramas that no change 
 of manners or policies can destroy. 
 
 The pageant of 'The Nine Worthies' 
 was often performed by the dramatic body 
 of the Coventry Grammar School ; the an- 
 cient pageant, such as was presented to 
 Henry VI. and his Queen in 1455, and of 
 which the Leet-book contains the faithful 
 copyf. The lofty speeches which the three 
 Hebrews, Joshua, David, and Judas Mac- 
 cabeus ; the three Infidels, Hector, Alexan- 
 der, and Julius Cajsar ; and the three Chris- 
 tians, Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of 
 Boulogne, utter in this composition, are 
 singular specimens of the mock heroic. 
 Hector thus speaks : 
 
 " Most pleasant princes, recorded that may be, 
 I, Hector of Troy, that am chief conqueror, 
 Lowly will obey you, and kneel on my knee." 
 
 And Alexander thus : 
 "I, Alexander, that for chivalry beareth the 
 
 ball, 
 Most courageous in conquest through the 
 
 world am I named, 
 Welcome you princes." 
 
 f Shr.rp, page 145 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 BIBLE HISTORIES AND MORALITIES. 
 
 And Julius Caesar thus : 
 " I, Julius Caesar, sovereign of knighthood 
 
 And emperor of mortal men, most high and 
 mighty, 
 
 "Welcome you, princes, most benign and good." 
 
 Surely it was little less than plagiary, if it 
 were not meant for downright parody, when, 
 in a pageant of 'The Nine Worthies' pre- 
 sented a few years after*, Hector comes in 
 to say 
 " The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty, 
 
 Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion : 
 A man so breathed, that certain he would 
 fight, yea, 
 
 From morn to night out of his pavilion. 
 
 I am that flower." 
 And Alexander : 
 
 " When in the world I lived, I was the world's 
 
 commander; 
 By east, west, north, and south, I spread my 
 
 conquering might : 
 
 My 'scutcheon plain declares that I am Alis- 
 auder." 
 
 And Pompey, usurping the just honours of 
 his triumphant rival : 
 
 " I, Pompey am, Pompey surnamed the Great, 
 That oft in field, with targe and shield, did 
 make my foe to sweat." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 BIBLE HISTORIES AND MORALITIES. 
 
 WE have very distinct evidence that stories 
 from the Sacred Scriptures, in character per- 
 haps very little different from the ancient 
 Mysteries, were performed upon the London 
 stage at a period when classical histories, 
 romantic legends, and comedies of intrigue, 
 attracted numerous audiences both in the 
 capital and the provinces. At the period 
 which immediately preceded the true drama 
 there was a fierce controversy on the sub- 
 ject of theatrical exhibitions ; and from the 
 very rare tracts then published we are en- 
 abled to form a tolerably accurate estimate 
 of the character of the early theatre. In 
 one of these tracts, which appeared in 1580, 
 entitled A Second and Third Blast of Re- 
 trait from Plaies and Theaters,' we have the 
 following passage : " The reverend word of 
 God, and histories of the Bible, set forth on 
 the stage by these blasphemous players, are 
 so corrupted by their gestures of scurrility, 
 and so interlaced with unclean and whorish 
 speeches, that it is not possible to draw any 
 profit out of the doctrine of their spiritual 
 moralities. For that they exhibit under 
 laughing that which ought to be taught 
 and received reverendly. So that their au- 
 
 * ' Love's Labour's Lost,' Act. v. 
 
 ditory may return made merry in mind, 
 but none comes away reformed in manners. 
 And of all abuses this is most undecent 
 and intolerable, to suffer holy things to be 
 handled by men so profane, and defiled by 
 interposition of dissolute words." (Page 103.) 
 Those who have read the ancient Mysteries, 
 and even the productions of Bishop Bale 
 which appeared not thirty years before 
 this was written, will agree that the players 
 ought not wholly to have the blame of the 
 " interposition of dissolute words." But un- 
 questionably it was a great abuse to have 
 " histories of the Bible set forth on the 
 stage;" for the use and advantage of such 
 dramatic histories had altogether ceased. 
 Indeed, although scriptural subjects might 
 have continued to have been represented in 
 1580, we apprehend that they were princi- 
 pally taken from apocryphal stories, which 
 were regarded with little reverence even by 
 those who were most earnest in their hos- 
 tility to the stage. Of such, a character 
 is the very curious play, printed in 1565, 
 entitled ' A pretie new Enterlude, both 
 pithie and pleasaunt, of the story of King 
 Daryus, being taken out of the third and 
 fourth chapter of the third book of Esdras.' 
 
8 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPEEE. 
 
 [BOOK i. 
 
 " The Prolocutor " first comes forward to 
 explain the object of "The worthy Enter- 
 tainment of King Daryus : " 
 
 " Good people, hark, and give ear awhile, 
 For of this enterlude I will declare the style. 
 
 A certain king to you we shall hring in 
 Whose name was Darius, good and virtuous; 
 This king commanded a feast to be made, 
 And at that banquet many people had. 
 
 And when the king in counsel was set 
 Two lords commanded he to be fet, 
 As concerning matters of three young men; 
 "Which briefly showed their fantasy then : 
 In writings their meanings they did declare, 
 And to give them to the king they did not 
 spare. 
 
 Now silence I desire you therefore, 
 For the Vice is entering at the door." 
 
 The stage-direction then says, " The Pro- 
 logue goeth out and Iniquity comes in." 
 This is " the formal Vice Iniquity " of 
 'Richard III.;' the "Vetus Iniquitas" of 
 1 The Devil is an Ass ;' the Iniquity with 
 a "wooden dagger," and "a juggler's jerkin 
 with false skirts," of < The Staple of News.' 
 But in the interlude of ' Darius ' he has less 
 complex offices than are assigned him by 
 Gifford " to instigate the hero of the piece 
 to wickedness, and, at the same time, to pro- 
 tect him from the devil, whom he was per- 
 mitted to buffet and baffle with his wooden 
 sword, till the process of the story required 
 that both the protector and the protected 
 should be carried off by the fiend, or the 
 latter driven roaring from the stage by some 
 miraculous interposition in favour of the re- 
 pentant offender."* The first words which 
 Iniquity utters indicate, however, that he 
 was familiar with the audience, and the 
 audience familiar with him : 
 
 " How now, my masters; how gocth the world 
 
 now? 
 I come gladly to talk with you." 
 
 And in a most extraordinary manner he 
 does talk ; swaggering and bullying as if 
 the whole world was at his command, till 
 
 * Ben Jonson's Works. Note on ' The Devil is an Ass.' 
 
 Charity comes in, and reads him a very 
 severe lecture upon the impropriety of his 
 deportment. It is of little avail ; for two 
 friends of Iniquity Importunity and Par- 
 tiality come to his assistance, and fairly 
 drive Charity off the stage. Then Equity 
 enters to take up the quarrel against 
 Iniquity and his fellows ; but Equity is 
 no match for them, and they all make way 
 for King Darius. This very long scene has 
 nothing whatever to do with the main ac- 
 tion of the piece, or rather what professes to 
 be its action. Its tediousness is relieved by 
 the Vice, who, however dull was his profligacy, 
 contrived to make the audience laugh by the 
 whisking of his tail and the brandishing of 
 his sword, assisted no doubt by some well- 
 known chuckle like that of the Punch of our 
 own days. King Darius, however, at length 
 comes with all his Council ; and most capi- 
 tal names do his chief councillors bear, not 
 unworthy to be adopted even in courts of 
 greater refinement Perplexity and Curiosity. 
 The whole business of this scene of King 
 Darius is to present a feast to the admiring 
 spectators. Up to the present day the 
 English audience delights in a feast, and 
 will endure that two men should sit upon 
 the stage for a quarter of an hour, uttering 
 the most unrepeatable stupidity, provided 
 they seem to pick real chicken-bones and 
 drink real port. The Darius of the inter- 
 lude feasted whole nations upon the repre- 
 sentative system ; and here Ethiopia, Persia, 
 Judah, and Media eat their fill, and are very 
 grateful. But feasts must have their end ; 
 and so the curtain closes upon the eaters, 
 and Iniquity "cometh in singing:" 
 
 " La, soule, soule, fa, my, re, re, 
 I miss a note I dare well say : 
 I should have been low when I was so high; 
 I shall have it right anon verily." 
 
 Again come his bottle-holders, Importunity 
 and Partiality ; and in the course of their 
 gabble Iniquity .tells them that the Pope 
 is his father. Unhappily his supporters go 
 out ; and then Equity attacks him alone. 
 Loud is their debate ; and faster and more 
 furious is the talk when Constancy and 
 Charity come in. The matter, however, 
 
CHAP. II.l 
 
 BIBLE HISTORIES AND MORALITIES. 
 
 ends seriously ; and, they resolving that it is 
 useless to argue longer with this impenitent 
 sinner, "somebody casts fire to Iniquity," and 
 he departs in a tempest of squibs and crackers. 
 The business of the play now at length begins. 
 Darius tells his attendants that the three men 
 who kept his chamber while he slept woke 
 him by their disputing and murmuring, 
 
 Every man to say a weightier matter than the 
 other." 
 
 The subject of their dispute was, what is the 
 strongest thing ; and their answers, as we are 
 informed by the King's attendants, had been 
 reduced to writing : 
 
 " The sentence of the first man is this, 
 "Wine a very strong thing is; 
 The second also I will declare to you, 
 That the king is stronger than any other 
 
 thing verily; 
 
 The third also I will declare 
 Women, saith he, is the strongest of all, 
 Though by women we had a fall." * 
 
 Of their respective texts the three young 
 men are then called in to make exposition ; 
 and certainly, whatever defects of manners 
 were exhibited by the audiences of that day, 
 they must have possessed the virtue of pa- 
 tience in a remarkable degree to have en- 
 abled them to sit out these most prolix 
 harangues. But they have an end ; and 
 the king declares Zorobabel to be deserv- 
 ing of signal honours, in his demonstration 
 that, of all things, woman is the strongest. 
 A metrical prayer for Queen Elizabeth, ut- 
 tered by Constancy, dismisses the audience 
 to their homes*. 
 
 The most precise and interesting account 
 which we possess of one of the earliest of 
 the theatrical performances is from the re- 
 collection of a man who was born in the 
 same year as William Shakspere. In 1639 
 R. W. (R. Willis), stating his age to be se- 
 venty-five, published a little volume, called 
 ' Mount Tabor,' which contains a passage 
 which is essential to be given in any his- 
 tory or sketch of the early stage : 
 
 * There is a copy of this very curious production in the 
 Garrick Collection of Plays in the British Museum ; and a 
 transcript of Garrick *s copy is in the Bodleian Library. 
 
 " UPON A STAGE PLAY, WHICH I SAW WHEN 
 
 I WAS A CHILD. 
 
 " In the city of Gloucester the manner is 
 (as I think it is in other like corporations) 
 that, when players of interludes come to town, 
 they first attend the mayor to inform him 
 what nobleman's servants they are, and so 
 to get license for their public playing ; and 
 if the mayor like the actors, or would show 
 respect to their lord and master, he appoints 
 them to play their first play before himself 
 and the aldermen and common council of 
 the city ; and that is called the mayor's play, 
 where every one that will comes in without 
 money, the mayor giving the players a re- 
 ward as he thinks fit, to show respect unto 
 them. At such a play my father took me 
 with him, and made me stand between his 
 legs, as he sat upon one of the benches, 
 where we saw and heard very well. The 
 play was called 'The Cradle of Security,' 
 wherein was personated a king or some great 
 prince, with his courtiers of several kinds, 
 amongst which three ladies were in special 
 grace with him, and they, keeping him in 
 delight and pleasures, drew him from his 
 graver counsellors, hearing of sermons, and 
 listening to good counsel and admonitions, 
 that in the end they got him to lie down in 
 a cradle upon the stage, where these three 
 ladies, joining in a sweet song, rocked him 
 asleep, that he snorted again, and in the 
 mean time closely conveyed under the clothes 
 wherewithal he was covered a vizard like a 
 swine's snout upon his face, with three wire 
 chains fastened thereunto, the other end 
 whereof being holden severally by those 
 three ladies, who fall to singing again, and 
 then discovered his face, that the spectator 
 might see how they had transformed him 
 going on with their singing. Whilst all this 
 was acting, there came forth of another door 
 at the farthest end of the stage two old men, 
 the one in blue, with a sergeant-at-arms his 
 rnace on his shoulder, the other in red, with 
 a drawn sword in his hand, and leaning with 
 the other hand upon the other's shoulder, 
 and so they two went along in a soft pace, 
 round about by the skirt of the stage, till at 
 last they came to the cradle, when all the 
 
10 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK i. 
 
 court was in greatest jollity, and then the 
 foremost old man with his mace stroke a 
 fearful blow upon the cradle, whereat all 
 the courtiers, with the three ladies and the 
 vizard, all vanished ; and the desolate prince, 
 starting up barefaced, and finding himself 
 thus sent for to judgment, made a lament- 
 able complaint of his miserable case, and so 
 was carried away by wicked spirits. This 
 prince did personate in the moral the 
 wicked of the world ; the three ladies, 
 pride, covetousness, and luxury ; the two 
 old men the end of the world and the last 
 judgment. This sight took such impres- 
 
 sion in me, that when I came towards man's 
 estate it was as fresh in my memory as if 
 I had seen it newly acted." 
 
 It would appear from Willis's descrip- 
 tion that 'The Cradle of Security' was for 
 the most part dumb show. It is probable 
 that he was present at its performance at 
 Gloucester when he was six or seven years 
 of age. It evidently belongs to that class 
 of moral plays which were of the simplest 
 construction. And yet it was popular long 
 after the English drama had reached its 
 highest eminence. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 ITINERANT PLAYERS. 
 
 IN a later period of the stage, when the 
 actors chiefly depended upon the large sup- 
 port of the public, instead of receiving 
 the wages of noblemen, however wealthy 
 and powerful, the connection of a company 
 of players with a great personage, whose 
 " servants " they were called, was scarcely 
 more than a licence to act without the in- 
 terference of the magistrate. But, in the 
 period of the stage which we are now 'de- 
 scribing, it would appear that the players 
 were literally the retainers of powerful 
 lords, who employed them for their own 
 recreation, and allowed them to derive a 
 profit from occasional public exhibitions. 
 In ' The Third Blast of Retreat from Plays 
 and Theatres ' we have the following pas- 
 sage, which appears decisive upon this point : 
 " What credit can return to the nobleman 
 to countenance his men to exercise that 
 quality which is not sufferable in any com- 
 monweal ? Whereas, it was an ancient cus- 
 tom that no man of honour should retain 
 any man but such as was as excellent in 
 some one good quality or another, whereby, 
 if occasion so served, he might get his own 
 living. Then was every nobleman's house a 
 commonweal in itself. But since the retain- 
 ing of these caterpillars the credit of noble- 
 
 men hath decayed, and they are thought 
 to be covetous by permitting their servants, 
 which cannot live by themselves, and whom 
 for nearness they will not maintain, to live 
 on the devotion or alms of other men, pass- 
 ing from country to country, from one gentle- 
 man's house to another, offering their service, 
 which is a kind of beggary. Who, indeed, 
 to speak more truly, are become beggars for 
 their servants. For commonly the good-will 
 men bear to their lords makes them draw 
 the strings of their purses to extend their 
 liberality to them, where otherwise they 
 would not." Speaking of the writers of 
 plays, the same author adds, " But some 
 perhaps will say the nobleman delighteth 
 in such things, whose humours must be con- 
 tented, partly for fear and partly for com- 
 modity ; and if they writs matters pleasant 
 they are best preferred in Court among the 
 cunning heads." In the old play of ' The 
 Taming of a Shrew ' the players in the ' In- 
 duction ' are presented to us in very homely 
 guise. The messenger tells the lord 
 
 " Your players be come, 
 And do attend your honour's pleasure here." 
 
 The stage-direction then says, " Buter two 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 ITINERANT PLAYERS. 
 
 11 
 
 of the players with, packs at their backs, and 
 a boy." To the question of the lord, 
 
 " Now, sirs, what store of plays have you 1 ?" 
 the Clown answers, " Marry, my lord, you 
 may have a tragical or a commodity, or 
 what you will;" for which ignorance the 
 other player rebukes the Clown, saying, 
 " A comedy, thou shouldst say : zounds ! 
 thou 'It shame us all." Whether this pic- 
 ture belongs to an earlier period of the 
 stage than the similar scene in Shakspere's 
 ' Induction,' or whether Shakspere was fa- 
 miliar with a better order of players, it is 
 clear that in his scene the players appear 
 as persons of somewhat more importance, 
 and are treated with more respect : 
 
 " Lord. Sirrah, go see what trumpet 't is 
 
 that sounds : 
 
 Belike, some noble gentleman, that means, 
 Travelling some journey, to repose him here. 
 
 He-enter a Servant. 
 How now] who is it 1 
 
 Serv. An it please your honour, 
 
 Players, that offer service to your lordship. 
 Lord. Bid them come near. 
 
 Enter Players. 
 
 Now, fellows, you are welcome. 
 Players. We thank your honour. 
 Lord. Do you intend to stay with me to- 
 night] 
 2 Play. So please your lordship to accept 
 
 our duty. 
 Lord. With all my heart." 
 
 The lord, however, even in this scene, gives 
 his order, " Take them to the buttery," 
 a proof that the itinerant companies were 
 classed little above menials. 
 
 Of the performances of an itinerant com- 
 pany at this period we will select an example 
 of "Comedy." 
 
 ' A Pleasant Comedie called Common Con- 
 ditions ' is neither a Mystery nor a Moral 
 Play. It dispenses with impersonations of 
 Good and Evil ; Iniquity holds no con- 
 troversy with Charity, and the Devil is 
 not brought in to buffet or to be buffeted. 
 The play is written in rhymed verse, and 
 very ambitiously written. The matter is 
 " set out with sweetness of words, fitness 
 of epithets, with metaphors, allegories, hy- 
 
 perboles, amphibologies, similitude." * It- 
 is a dramatized romance, of which the title 
 expresses that it represents a possible aspect 
 of human life ; and the name of the chief 
 character, Common Conditions, from which 
 the play derives its title, would import that 
 he does not belong to the supernatural or al- 
 legorical class of personages. Mr. Collier, in 
 his ' History of Dramatic Poetry,' expresses 
 an opinion that the character of Common 
 Conditions is the Vice of the performance. 
 It appears to us, on the contrary, that the 
 ordinary craft of a cunning knave a little, 
 restless, tricky servant works out all the 
 action, in the same way that the Vice 
 had formerly interfered with it in the 
 moral plays ; but that he is essentially 
 and purposely distinguished from the Vice. 
 Mr. Collier also calls this play merely an 
 interlude : it appears to us in its outward 
 form to be as much a comedy as the 
 1 Winter's Tale.' 
 
 Three tinkers appear upon the stage, 
 singing, 
 
 " Hey tisty toisty, tinkers good fellows they be; 
 In stopping of one hole, they used to make 
 
 three." 
 
 These worthies are called Drift, Unthrift, 
 and Shift; and, trade being bad with them, 
 they agree to better it by a little robbing. 
 Unthrift tells his companions, 
 
 " But, masters, wot ye what ] I have heard news 
 
 about the court this day, 
 That there is a gentleman with a lady gone 
 
 away; 
 And have with them a little parasite full of 
 
 money and coin." 
 
 These travellers the tinkers agree to rob ; 
 and we have here an example of the readi- 
 ness of the stage to indulge in satire. The 
 purveyors who, a few years later, were de- 
 nounced in Parliament, are, we suppose, here 
 pointed at. Shift says, 
 " We will take away their purses, and say we do 
 it by commission ;" 
 
 to which Drift replies, 
 
 " Who made a commissioner of you 1 
 If thou make no better answer at the bar, thou 
 wilt hang, I tell thee true." 
 
 * Gosson. ' Plays Confuted,' second action. 
 
12 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK i. 
 
 The gentleman and lady from the court, 
 Sedmond and Clarisia, then come out of 
 the wood, accompanied by their servant, 
 Conditions. It appears that their father 
 has long been absent, and they are travel- 
 ling to seek him. Clarisia is heavy-hearted ; 
 and her brother thus consoles her, after the 
 fashion of " epithets, metaphors, and hyper- 
 boles:" 
 
 " You see the chirping birds begin you melody 
 
 to make, 
 But you, ungrateful unto them, their pleasant 
 
 voice forsake : 
 You see the nightingale also, with sweet and 
 
 pleasant lay, 
 
 Sound forth her voice in chirping wise to ba- 
 nish care away. 
 You see Dame Tellus, she with mantle fresh 
 
 and green, 
 For to display everywhere most comely to be 
 
 seen; 
 You see Dame Flora, she with flowers fresh 
 
 and gay, 
 Both here and there and everywhere, her 
 
 banners to display." 
 
 The lady will have no comfort. She replies 
 to her brother in a long echo to his speech, 
 ending 
 
 " And therefore, brother, leave off talk ; in vain 
 
 you seem to prate : 
 
 Not all the talk you utter can, my sorrows can 
 abate." 
 
 Conditions ungallantly takes part against the 
 lady, by a declamation in dispraise of women ; 
 which is happily cut short by the tinkers 
 rushing in. Now indeed we have movement 
 which will stir the audience. The brother 
 escapes ; the lady is bound to a tree ; Con- 
 ditions is to be hanged ; but his adroitness, 
 which is excessively diverting, altogether re- 
 minding one of another little knave, the Flib- 
 bertigibbet of Scott, sets the audience in a 
 roar. They are realizing the description of 
 G os son, " In the theatres they generally 
 take up a wonderful laughter, and shout alto- 
 gether with one voice when they see some 
 notable cozenage practised."* When the 
 tinkers have the noose round the neck of 
 Conditions, he persuades them to let him 
 
 * ' Plays Confuted,' &c. 
 
 hang himself, and to help him up in the 
 tree to accomplish his determination. They 
 consent, arguing that if he hangs himself 
 they shall be free from the penalty of hang- 
 ing him; and so into the tree he goes. Up 
 the branches he runs like a squirrel, halloo- 
 ing for help, whilst the heavy tinkers have 
 no chance against his activity and his Shef- 
 field knife. They finally make off; and Con- 
 ditions releases his mistress. The next scene 
 presents us Sedmond, the brother, alone. He 
 laments the separation from his sister, and 
 the uncertainty which he has of ever finding 
 his father : 
 
 " But farewell now, my coursers brave, attrapped 
 to the ground; 
 
 Farewell, adieu, all pleasures eke, with comely 
 hawk and hound : 
 
 Farewell, ye nobles all; farewell each martial 
 knight; 
 
 Farewell, ye famous ladies all, in whom I did 
 delight." 
 
 Sedmond, continuing his lament, says, 
 
 " Adieu, my native soil ; adieu, Arbaccas king ; 
 Adieu, each wight and martial knight; adieu, 
 
 each living thing : 
 
 Adieu, my woful sire, and sister in like case, 
 Whom never I shall see again each other to 
 
 embrace; 
 For now I will betake myself a wandering 
 
 knight to be, 
 Into some strange and foreign land, their 
 
 comeliness to see." 
 
 When Conditions released the lady, we learnt 
 that the scene was Arabia : 
 "And, lady, it is not best for us in Arabia 
 longer to tarry." 
 
 It is to Arabia, his native soil, that Sedmond 
 bids adieu. But the audience learn by a very 
 simple expedient that a change is to take 
 place: a board is stuck up with the word 
 " Phrygia" upon it, and a new character, 
 Galiarbus, entereth " out of Phrygia." He 
 is the father of the fugitives, who, banished 
 from Arabia, has become rich, and obtained 
 a lordship from the Duke of Phrygia ; but he 
 thinks of his children, and bitterly laments 
 that they must never meet. Those children 
 have arrived in Phrygia ; for a new character 
 appears, Lamphedon, the son of the Duke, 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 ITINERANT PLAYERS. 
 
 13 
 
 who has fallen violently in love with a lady 
 whom we know by his description to be 
 Clarisia. Conditions has discovered that his 
 mistress is equally in love with Larnphedon ; 
 all which circumstances are described and 
 not rendered dramatic : and then Conditions, 
 for his own advantage, brings the two lovers 
 together, and they plight their troth, and are 
 finally married. The lost brother, Sedmond, 
 next makes his appearance under the name 
 of Nomides ; and with him a Phrygian lady, 
 Sabia, has fallen in love. But her love is 
 unrequited; she is rejected, and the un- 
 courteous knight flies from her. Larnphedon 
 and Clarisia are happy at the Duke's court ; 
 but Conditions, as it obscurely appears, want- 
 ing to be travelling again, has irritated the 
 Duchess against her daughter-in-law, and 
 they both, accompanied by Conditions, fly to 
 take ship for Thracia. They fall in with 
 pirates, who receive them on ship-board, hav- 
 ing been secretly promised by Conditions that 
 they will afford a good booty. We soon learn, 
 by the appearance of Lamphedon, that they 
 have thrown him overboard, and that he has 
 lost his lady ; but the pirates, who are by no 
 means bad specimens of the English, mariner, 
 soon present themselves again, with a sea- 
 song, which we transcribe; for assuredly it 
 was fitted to rejoice the hearts of the play- 
 goers of a maritime nation : 
 
 " Lustily, lustily, lustily, let us sail forth ; 
 The wind trim doth serve us, it blows from 
 
 the north. 
 All things we have ready and nothing we want 
 
 To furnish our ship that rideth hereby ; 
 Victuals and weapons they be nothing scant ; 
 Like worthy mariners ourselves we will try. 
 Lustily, lustily, &c. 
 
 Her flags be new trimmed, set flaunting aloft; 
 Our ship for swift swimming, oh, she doth 
 
 excel : 
 
 We fear no enemies, we have escaped them oft: 
 Of all ships that swimmeth, she beareth the 
 bell. 
 
 Lustily, lustily, &c. 
 And here is a master excelleth in skill, 
 
 And our master's mate he is not to seek ; 
 And here is a boatswain will do his good will, 
 And here is a ship, boy, we never had leak. 
 Lustily, lustily, &c. 
 
 If Fortune then fail not, and our next voyage 
 
 prove, 
 
 We will return merrily and make good cheer, 
 And hold altogether as friends link'd in love; 
 The cans shall be filled with wine, ale, and 
 beer. 
 
 Lustily, lustily," &c. 
 
 The action of this comedy is conducted for 
 the most part by description ; an easier thing 
 than the dramatic development of plot and 
 character. Lamphedon falls in with the 
 pirates, and by force of arms he compels them 
 to tell him of the fate of his wife. She has 
 been taken, it seems, by Conditions, to be 
 sold to Cardolus, an island chief; and then 
 Lamphedon goes to fight Cardolus, and he 
 does fight him, but finds not the lady. Con- 
 ditions has however got rid of his charge, by 
 persuading her to assume the name of Me- 
 trsea, and enter the service of Leosthines. 
 Hardship must have wonderfully changed 
 her ; for after a time her brother, Sedmond, 
 arrives under his assumed name, and becomes 
 a candidate for her affections. The good old 
 man under whose protection she remains has 
 adopted her as his daughter. Lamphedon is 
 on the way to seek her, accompanied by Con- 
 ditions ; and thus by accident, and by the in- 
 trigues of the knavish servant, all those are 
 reunited who have suffered in separation : for 
 Leosthines is the banished father*. How 
 Conditions is disposed of is not so clear. He 
 is constantly calling himself a little knave, 
 and a crafty knave, a parasite, a turncoat ; 
 and he says, 
 " Conditions 1 nay, double Conditions is my 
 
 name, 
 That for my own advantage such dealings can 
 
 frame." 
 
 It is difficult to discover what advantage he 
 derives from his trickiness, yet he has al- 
 ways a new trick. It is probable that he 
 was personated by some diminutive per- 
 former, whose grimaces and ugliness would 
 make the audience roar with delight. The 
 tinkers in the first scene say they know not 
 what to do with him, except to " set him to 
 keep crows." The object of the writer of the 
 
 * A leaf or two is lost of the original copy, but enough 
 remains to let us see how the plot will end. We learn that 
 Nomides repents of his rejection of Sabia. 
 
14 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK i. 
 
 comedy, if he had any object, -would appear 
 to be to show that the purposes of craft may 
 produce results entirely unexpected by the 
 crafty one, and that happiness may be finally 
 obtained through the circumstances which 
 appear most to impede its attainment. This 
 comedy is remarkable for containing none of 
 the ribaldry which was so properly objected 
 to in the plays of the early stage. It is cha- 
 racterised, also, by the absence of that melo- 
 dramatic extravagance which belonged to 
 this period, exhibiting power, indeed, but not 
 the power of real art. These extravagances 
 are well described by the author of 'The 
 Third Blast of Retreat from Plays and Thea- 
 tres;' although his notion that an effort of 
 imagination, and a lie, are the same thing is 
 very characteristic: "The writers of our 
 time are so led away with vain glory that 
 their only endeavour is to pleasure the hu- 
 mour of men, and rather with vanity to con- 
 tent their minds than to profit them with 
 good ensample. The notablest liar is become 
 the best poet; he that can make the most 
 notorious lie, and disguise falsehood in such 
 sort that he may pass unperceived, is held 
 the best writer. For the strangest comedy 
 brings greatest delectation and pleasure. 
 Our nation is led away with vanity, which 
 the author perceiving, frames himself with 
 novelties and strange trifles to content the 
 vain humours of his rude auditors, feigning 
 countries never heard of, monsters and pro- 
 digious creatures that are not: as of the 
 Arimaspie, of the Grips, the Pigmies, the 
 Cranes, and other such notorious lies." Sid- 
 ney, writing of the same period of the drama, 
 speaks of the apparition of " a hideous mon- 
 ster with fire and smoke."* And Gosson, 
 having direct reference to some romantic 
 
 * ' Defence of Poesy. 
 
 dramas formed upon romances and legendary 
 tales, as 'Common Conditions' was, says, 
 " Sometimes you shall see nothing but the 
 adventures of an amorous knight, passing 
 from country to country for the love of his 
 lady, encountering many a terrible monster 
 made of brown paper ; and at his return is 
 so wonderfully changed, that he cannot be 
 known but by some posy in his tablet, or by 
 a broken ring, or a handkerchief, or a piece 
 of cockle-shell." t When the true masters of 
 the romantic drama arose, they found the 
 people prepared for the transformation of the 
 ridiculous into the poetical. We have ana- 
 lysed this very curious comedy from the 
 transcript in the Bodleian Library made 
 under the direction of Malone from the only 
 printed copy, and that an imperfect one, 
 which is supposed to exist. In the page 
 which contains the passage "Farewell, ye 
 nobles all," &c., Malone has inserted the fol- 
 lowing foot-note, after quoting the celebrated 
 lines in Othello, " Farewell the tranquil 
 mind," (fee. : " The coincidence is so striking 
 that one is almost tempted to think that 
 Shakspeare had read this wretched piece." 
 It is scarcely necessary for us to point out 
 how constantly the date of a play must be 
 borne in mind to allow us to form any fair 
 opinion of its merits. Malone himself con- 
 siders that this play was printed about the 
 year 1570, although we believe that this con- 
 jecture fixes the date at least ten years too 
 early. It appears to us that it is a remark- 
 able production even for 1580; and if, as a 
 work of art, it be of little worth, it certainly 
 contains the elements of the romantic drama, 
 except the true poetical element, which could 
 only be the result of extraordinary indi- 
 vidual genius. 
 
 t ' Plays Confuted. 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 ZHE LAWFULNESS OF PLAYS. 
 
 15 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE LAWFULNESS OF PLAYS. 
 
 THE controversy upon the lawfulness of stage- 
 plays was a remarkable feature of the period 
 which we are now describing ; and pamphlets 
 were to that age what newspapers are to ours. 
 The dispute about the Theatre was a contest 
 between the holders of opposite opinions in 
 religion. The Puritans, who even at that 
 time were strong in their zeal if not in their 
 numbers, made the Theatre the especial ob- 
 ject of their indignation; for its unquestion- 
 able abuses allowed them so to frame their 
 invectives that they might tell with double 
 force against every description of public 
 amusement, against poetry in general, against 
 music, against dancing, associated as they 
 were with the excesses of an ill-regulated 
 stage. A Treatise of John Northbrookej li- 
 censed for the press in 1577, is directed 
 against " dicing, dancing, vain plays, or in- 
 terludes." Gossou, who had been a student 
 of Christchurch, Oxford, had himself written 
 two or three plays previous to his publica- 
 tion, in 1579, of ' The School of Abuse, con- 
 taining a Pleasant Invective against Poets, 
 Pipers, Players, Jesters, and such-like Cater- 
 pillars of a Commonwealth.' This book, writ- 
 ten with considerable ostentation of learning, 
 and indeed with no common vigour and oc- 
 casional eloquence, defeats its own purposes 
 by too large an aim. Poets, whatever be the 
 character of their poetry, are the objects of 
 Gosson's new-born hostility : " Tiberius the 
 Emperor saw somewhat when he judged 
 Scaurus to death for writing a tragedy ; Au- 
 gustus when he banished Ovid ; and Nero 
 when he charged Lucan to put up his pipes, 
 to stay his pen, and write no more." Music 
 comes in for the same denunciation, upon the 
 authority of Pythagoras, who "condemns 
 them for fools that judge music by sound 
 and ear." The three abuses of the time are 
 held to be inseparable: "As poetry and 
 piping are cousin-germans, so piping and 
 playing are of great affinity, and all three 
 chained in links of abuse." It is not to be 
 
 thought that declamation like this would 
 produce any great effect in turning a poeti- 
 cal mind from poetry, or that even Master 
 Gosson's contrast of the "manners of Eng- 
 land in old time" and " New England," 
 would go far to move a patriotic indignation 
 against modern refinements. We have, on 
 one hand, Dion's description how English- 
 men " went naked and were good soldiers ; 
 they fed upon roots and barks of trees ; they 
 would stand up to the chin many days in 
 marshes without victuals ;" and, on the other 
 hand, " but the exercise that is now among 
 us is banqueting, playing, piping, and danc- 
 ing, and all such delights as may win us to 
 pleasure, or rock us in sleep. Quantum mu- 
 tatus ab iltof" In this his first tract the 
 worthy man has a sneaking kindness for the 
 Theatre which he can with difficulty suppress : 
 "As some of the players are far from abuse, 
 so some of their plays are without rebuke, 
 which are easily remembered, as quickly 
 reckoned. The two prose books played at 
 the Bel Savage, where you shall find never 
 a word without wit, never a line without 
 pith, never a letter placed in vain. ' The 
 Jew,' and ' Ptolemy,' shown at the Bull ; the 
 one representing the greediness of worldly 
 choosers, and bloody minds of usurers ; the 
 other very lively describing how seditious 
 estates with their own devices, false friends 
 with their own swords, and rebellious com- 
 mons in their own snares, are overthrown ; 
 neither with amorous gesture wounding the 
 eye, nor with slovenly talk hurting the ears, 
 of the chaste hearers. ( The Blacksmith's 
 Daughter,' and ' Catiline's Conspiracies,' 
 usually brought in at the Theatre : the first 
 containing the treachery of Turks, the ho- 
 nourable bounty of a noble mind, the shining 
 of virtue in distress. The last, because it is 
 known to be a pig of mine own sow, I will 
 speak the less of it ; only giving you to un- 
 derstand that the whole mark which I shot 
 at in that work was to show the reward of 
 
16 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK i. 
 
 traitors in Catiline, and. the necessary go- 
 vernment of learned men in the person of 
 Cicero, which foresees every danger that is 
 likely to happen, and forestalls it continu- 
 ally ere it take effect." 
 
 The praise of the " two prose books at the 
 Bel Savage," that contained "never a word 
 without wit, never a line without pith, never 
 a letter placed in vain," is quite sufficient to 
 show us that these prose books exhibited nei- 
 ther character nor passion. The ' Ptolemy ' 
 and the ' Catiline,' there can be no doubt, 
 were composed of a succession of tedious 
 monologues, having nothing of the principle 
 of dramatic art in them, although in their 
 outward form they appeared to be dramas. 
 Gosson says, " These plays are good plays 
 and sweet plays, and of all plays the best 
 plays, and most to be liked, worthy to be 
 sung of the Muses, or set out with the cun- 
 ning of Roscius himself ; yet are they not Jit 
 for every man's diet, neitlier ought they com- 
 monly to be shown" It is clear that these 
 good plays and sweet plays had not in them- 
 selves any of the elements of popularity ; 
 therefore they were utterly barren of real 
 poetry. The highest poetry is essentially 
 the popular poetry : it is universal in its 
 range, it is unlimited in its duration. The 
 lowest poetry (if poetry it can be called) is 
 conventional; it lives for a little while in 
 narrow corners, the pet thing of fashion or 
 of pedantry. When Gosson wrote, the poetry 
 of the English drama was not yet born ; and 
 the people contented themselves with some- 
 thing else that was nearer poetry than the 
 plays which were " not fit for every man's 
 diet." Gosson, in his second tract, which, 
 provoked by the answer of Lodge to his 
 ' School of Abuse,' is written with much 
 more virulence against plays especially, thus 
 describes what the people most delighted in : 
 "As the devil hath brought in all that Poetry 
 can sing, so hath he sought out every strain 
 that Music is able to pipe, and drawn all 
 kinds of instruments into that compass, 
 simple and mixed. For the eye, beside the 
 beauty of the houses and the stages, he 
 sendeth in garish apparel, masks, vaulting, 
 tumbling, dancing of jigs, galliards, moriscos, 
 hobby-horses, showing of juggling casts ; no- 
 
 thing forgot that might serve to set out the 
 matter with pomp, or ravish the beholders 
 with variety of pleasure." Lodge, in his re- 
 ply to Gosson's ( School of Abuse,' had indi- 
 rectly acknowledged the want of moral pur- 
 pose in the stage exhibitions ; but he con- 
 tends that, as the ancient satirists were 
 reformers of manners, so might plays be 
 properly directed to the same end. " Surely 
 we want not a Roscius, neither are there 
 great scarcity of Terence's profession : but 
 yet our men dare not nowadays presume so 
 much as the old poets might : and therefore 
 they apply their ivritings to the people's vein; 
 whereas, if in the beginning they had ruled, 
 we should nowadays have found small spec- 
 tacles of folly, but of truth You 
 
 say, unless the thing be taken away, the vice 
 will continue ; nay, I say, if the style were 
 changed, the practice would profit." To this 
 argument, that the Theatre might become 
 the censor of manners, Gosson thus replies : 
 " If the common people which resort to the- 
 atres, being but an assembly of tailors, tink- 
 ers, cordwainers, sailors, old men, young 
 men, women, boys, girls, and such-like, be 
 the judges of faults there pointed out, the 
 rebuking of manners in that place is neither 
 lawful nor convenient, but to be held for a 
 kind of libelling and defaming." The no- 
 tion which appears to have possessed the 
 minds of the writers against the stage at 
 this period is, that a fiction and a lie were 
 the same. Gosson says, "The perfectest 
 image is that which maketh the thing to 
 seem neither greater nor less than indeed 
 it is ; but, in plays, either the things are 
 feigned that never were, as Cupid and Psyche 
 played at Paul's, and a great many come- 
 dies more at the Blackfriars, and in every 
 playhouse in London, which, for brevity sake, 
 I overskip ; or, if a true history be taken in 
 hand, it is made like our shadows, longest at 
 the rising and fall of the sun; shortest of all 
 at high noon." 
 
 It has scarcely, we think, been noticed that 
 the justly celebrated work of Sir Philip Sid- 
 ney forms an important part of the contro- 
 versy, not only against the Stage, but against 
 Poetry and Music, that appears to have com- 
 menced in England a little previous to 1580. 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 THE LAWFULNESS OP PLAYS. 
 
 17 
 
 Gosson, as we have seen, attacks the Stage, 
 not only for its especial abuses, but because 
 it partakes of the general infamy of Poetry. 
 According to this declaimer, it is " the whole 
 practice of poets, either with fables to show 
 their abuses, or with plain terms to unfold 
 their mischief, discover their shame, discre- 
 dit themselves, and disperse their poison 
 throughout the world." Gosson dedicated 
 his ' School of Abuse ' to Sidney ; and Spen- 
 ser, in one of his letters to Gabriel Harvey, 
 shows how Sidney received the compliment : 
 " New books I hear of none : but only of 
 one that, writing a certain book called ' The 
 School of Abuse,' and dedicating it to Master 
 Sidney, was for his labour scorned ; if, at least, 
 it be in the goodness of that nature to scorn. 
 Such folly is it not to regard aforehand the 
 inclination and quality of him to whom we 
 dedicate our books." We have no doubt that 
 the { Defence of Poesy,' or, as it was first 
 called, 'An Apology for Poetry,' was intended 
 as a reply to the dedicator. There is every 
 reason to believe that it was written in 1581. 
 Sidney can scarcely avoid pointing at Gosson 
 when he speaks of the " Poet-haters " as of 
 " people who seek a praise by dispraising 
 others," that they "do prodigally spend a 
 great many wandering words in quips and 
 scoffs, carping and taunting at each thing 
 which, by stirring the spleen, may stay the 
 brain from a thorough beholding the worthi- 
 ness of the subject." We have seen how the 
 early fanatical writers against the stage held 
 that a Poet and a Liar were synonymous. 
 To this ignorant invective, calculated for the 
 lowest understandings, Sidney gives a brief 
 and direct answer : " That they should be 
 the principal liars, I answer paradoxically, 
 but truly, I think truly, that, of all writers 
 under the sun, the poet is the least liar, and, 
 though he would, as a poet can scarcely be 
 a liar. The astronomer, with his cousin the 
 geometrician, can hardly escape when they 
 take upon them to measure the height of the 
 stars. How often, think you, do the physi- 
 cians lie, when they aver things good for 
 sicknesses, which afterwards send Charon a 
 great number of souls drowned in a potion 
 before they come to his ferry ? And no less 
 of the rest which take upon them to affirm : 
 
 Now for the poet, he nothing affirmeth, and 
 therefore never lieth ; for, as I take it, to lie 
 is to affirm that to be true which is false : So 
 as the other artists, and especially the his- 
 torian, affirming many things, can, in the 
 cloudy knowledge of mankind, hardly escape 
 from many lies : But the poet, as I said be- 
 fore, never affirmeth, the poet never rnaketh 
 any circles about your imagination to con- 
 jure you to believe for true what he writeth : 
 He citeth not authorities of other histories, 
 but even for his entry calleth the sweet 
 Muses to aspire unto him a good invention : 
 In troth, not labouring to tell you what is 
 or is not, but what should or should not be. 
 And therefore, though he recount things not 
 true, yet, because he telleth them not for 
 true, he lieth not, unless we will say that 
 Nathan lied in his speech, before alleged, to 
 David ; which as a wicked man durst scarce 
 say, so think I none so simple would say that 
 .ZEsop lied in the tales of his beasts ; for who 
 thinketh that JSsop wrote it for actually true 
 were well worthy to have his name chro- 
 nicled among the beasts he writeth of. What 
 child is there that, coming to a play and seeing 
 'Thebes' written in great letters upon an 
 old door, doth believe that it is Thebes ? If 
 then a man can arrive to the child's age, to 
 know that the poet's persons and doings are 
 but pictures what should be, and not stories 
 what have been, they will never give the lie 
 to things not affirmatively, but allegorically 
 and figuratively, written; and therefore, as 
 in history, looking for truth, they may go 
 away full fraught with falsehood, so in poesy, 
 looking but for fiction, they shall use the 
 narration but as an imaginative ground-plat 
 of a profitable invention." 
 
 The notion of Sidney's time evidently was, 
 that nothing ought to be presented upon the 
 stage but what was an historical fact ; that 
 all the points belonging to such a history 
 should be given ; and that no art should 
 be used in setting it forth beyond that ne- 
 cessary to give the audience, not to make 
 them comprehend, all the facts. It is quite 
 clear that such a process will present us little 
 of the poetry or the philosophy of history. 
 The play- writers of 1580, weak masters as 
 they were, knew their art better than Gosson; 
 
18 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK i. 
 
 they made history attractive by changing it 
 into a melo-drama : " The poets drive it 
 (a true history) most commonly unto such 
 points as may best show the majesty of their 
 pen in tragical speeches, or set the heroes 
 agog with discourses of love, or paint a few 
 antics to fit their own humours with scoffs 
 and taunts, or bring in a show to furnish the 
 stage when it is bare. When the matter of 
 itself comes short of this, they follow the 
 practice of the cobbler, and set their teeth 
 to the leather to pull it out. So was the 
 history of ' Caesar and Pompey,' and the play 
 of ' The Fabii,' at the theatre both amplified 
 there where the drums might walk or the 
 pen ruffle. When the history swelled or ran 
 too high for the number of the persons who 
 should play it, the poet with Proteus cut the 
 same to his own measure : when it afforded 
 no pomp at all, he brought it to the rack to 
 make it serve. Which invincibly proveth on 
 my side that plays are no images of truth." 
 The author of 'The Blast of Retreat,' who 
 describes himself as formerly " a great af- 
 fector of that vain art of play-making," 
 charges the authors of historical plays not 
 only with expanding and curtailing the 
 action, so as to render them no images of 
 truth, but with changing the historical facts 
 altogether : " If they write of histories that 
 are known, as the life of Pompey, the mar- 
 tial affairs of Cassar, and other worthies, they 
 give them a new face, and turn them out 
 like counterfeits to show themselves on the 
 stage." From the author of 'The Blast of 
 Retreat ' we derive the most accurate ac- 
 count of those comedies of intrigue of which 
 none have come down to us from this early 
 period of the drama. We might fancy he 
 was describing the productions of Mrs. Behn 
 or Mrs. Centlivre, in sentences that might 
 appear to be quoted from Jeremy Collier's 
 attacks upon the stage more than a century 
 later : " Some, by taking pity upon the de- 
 ceitful tears of the stage-lovers, have been 
 moved by their complaint to rue on their 
 
 secret friends, whom they have thought to 
 have tasted like torment : some, having 
 noted the ensamples how maidens restrained 
 from the marriage of those whom their 
 friends have misliked, have there learned 
 a policy to prevent their parents by steal- 
 ing them away : some, seeing by ensample of 
 the stage-player one carried with too much 
 liking of another man's wife, having noted 
 by what practice she has been assailed and 
 overtaken, have not failed to put the like in 
 effect in earnest that was afore shown in jest. 
 .... The device of carrying and recarrying 
 letters by laundresses, practising with pedlars 
 to transport their tokens by colourable means 
 to sell their merchandise, and other kind of 
 policies to beguile fathers of their children, 
 husbands of their wives, guardians of their 
 wards, and masters of their servants, is it not 
 aptly taught in ' The School of Abuse ? '" * 
 Perhaps the worst abuse of the stage of this 
 period was the licence of the clown or fool 
 an abuse which the greatest and the most 
 successful of dramatic writers found it es- 
 sential to denounce and put down. The au- 
 thor of ' The Blast of Retreat ' has described 
 this vividly : " And all be [although] these 
 pastimes were not, as they are, to be con- 
 demned simply of their own nature, yet be- 
 cause they are so abused they are abominable. 
 For the Fool no sooner showeth himself in 
 his colours, to make men merry, but straight- 
 way lightly there followeth some vanity, not 
 only superfluous, but beastly and wicked. 
 Yet we, so carried away by his unseemly 
 gesture and unreverenced scorning, that we 
 seem only to be delighted in him, and are 
 not content to sport ourselves with modest 
 mirth, as the matter gives occasion, unless 
 it be intermixed with knavery, drunken 
 merriments, crafty cunnings, undecent jug- 
 glings, clownish conceits, and such other 
 cursed mirth, as is both odious in the sight 
 of God, and offensive to honest ears." 
 
 * Theeditorof the tract appends anote : "He meancth 
 plays, who are not unfitly so called." 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 THE EARLIEST HISTORICAL DRAMA. 
 
 19 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE EAELIEST HISTOKICAL DEAMA. 
 
 WHEN the ancient pageants and mysteries 
 had been put down by the force of public 
 opinion, when spectacles of a dramatic cha- 
 racter .had ceased to be employed as instru- 
 ments of religious instruction, the profes- 
 sional players who had sprung up founded 
 their popularity for a long period upon the 
 old habits and associations of the people. 
 Our drama was essentially formed by a course 
 of steady progress, and not by rapid tran- 
 sition. "We are accustomed to say that the 
 drama was created by Shakspere, Marlow, 
 Greene, Kyd, and a few others of distin- 
 guished genius ; but they all of them worked 
 upon a rough foundation which was ready 
 for them. The superstructure of real tra- 
 gedy and comedy had to be erected upon the 
 moral plays, the romances, the histories, 
 which were beginning to be popular in the 
 very first days of Queen Elizabeth, and con- 
 tinued to be so, even in their very rude 
 forms, beyond the close of her long reign. 
 
 In the controversial writers who, about 
 1580, attacked and defended the early Stage, 
 we find no direct mention of those Histories, 
 " borrowed out of our English Chronicles, 
 wherein our forefathers' valiant acts, that 
 have been long buried in rusty brass and 
 worm-eaten books, are revived, and they 
 themselves raised from the grave of oblivion, 
 and brought to plead their aged honours in 
 open presence." This is a description of the 
 early Chronicle Histories of the stage, as 
 given by Thomas Nashe, in 1592. Nashe 
 goes on to say : " In plays, all cosenages, all 
 cunning drifts, over-gilded with outward ho- 
 liness, all stratagems of war, all the canker- 
 worms that breed in the rust of peace, 
 are most lively anatomised. They show the 
 ill success of treason, the fall of hasty 
 climbers, the wretched end of usurpers, the 
 misery of civil dissention, and how just God 
 is evermore in punishing murder. And to 
 prove every one of these allegations could I 
 propound the circumstances of this play and 
 
 that.' 1 '' In the same pamphlet Nashe de- 
 scribes the plays to the performance of which 
 "in the afternoon" resorted "men that are 
 their own masters, as gentlemen of the court, 
 the inns of court, and the number of captains 
 and soldiers about London." To this audi- 
 | ence, then, not the rudest or least refined, 
 however idle and dissipated, the represent- 
 ation of some series of events connected 
 with the history of their country had a charm 
 which, according to Nashe, was to divert 
 them from grosser excitements. In another 
 passage the same writer says, " What a glo- 
 rious thing it is to have King Henry V. 
 represented on the stage leading the French 
 king prisoner, and forcing both him and the 
 Dauphin to swear fealty." Something like 
 this dramatic action is to be found in one of 
 those elder historical plays which have come 
 down to us, ' The Famous Victories of 
 Henry V., containing the Honourable Battle 
 of Agincourt.' Nothing can be ruder or 
 more inartificial than the dramatic conduct 
 of ' The Famous Victories :' nothing grosser 
 than the taste of many of its dialogues. The 
 old Coventry play of 'Hock Tuesday,' ex- 
 hibited before Queen Elizabeth in Kenilworth 
 Castle, in 1575, did not more essentially 
 differ in the conduct of its action from the 
 structure of a regular historical drama, than 
 such a play as ' The Famous Victories' dif- 
 fered, in all that constitutes dramatic beauty 
 and propriety, from the almost contemporary 
 histories of Marlow and Shakspere. To un- 
 derstand what Shakspere especially did for 
 English History, we may well bestow a little 
 study upon this extraordinary composition. 
 
 'The Famous Victories' is a regal story ; 
 its scenes changing from the tavern to the 
 palace, from England to France ; now ex- 
 hibiting the wild Prince striking the repre- 
 sentative of his father on the seat of justice, 
 and then, after a little while, the same 
 Prince a hero and a conqueror. A raised 
 floor furnishes ample room for all these dis- 
 
 C 2 
 
20 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK i. 
 
 plays. A painted board leads the imagina- 
 tion of the audience from one country to 
 another ; and when the honourable battle of 
 Agincourt is to be fought, " two armies fly 
 in, represented with four swords and buck- 
 ler s, and then what hard heart will not re- 
 ceive it for a pitched field 1 " (Sidney ' De- 
 fence of Poesy.') The curtain is removed, 
 and without preparation we encounter the 
 Prince in the midst of his profligacy. Ned 
 and Torn are his companions ; and when the 
 Prince says, " Think you not that it was a 
 villainous part of me to rob my father's re- 
 ceivers ? " Ned very charitably answers, 
 " Why no, my lord, it was but a trick of 
 youth." Sir John Oldcastle, who passes by 
 the familiar name of Jockey, joins this plea- 
 sant company, and he informs the Prince 
 that the town of Deptford has risen with 
 hue and cry after the Prince's man who has 
 robbed a poor carrier. The accomplished 
 Prince then meets with the receivers whom 
 he has robbed ; and, after bestowing upon 
 them the names of villains and rascals, 
 he drives them off with a threat that if they 
 say a word about the robbery he will have 
 them hanged. With their booty, then, 
 will they go to the tavern in Eastcheap, 
 upon the invitation of the Prince : " We 
 are all fellows, I tell you, sirs ; an the king 
 my father were dead, we would be all kings." 
 The scene is now London, with John Cob- 
 bler, Robin Pewterer, and Lawrence Coster- 
 monger keeping watch and ward in the ac- 
 customed style of going to sleep. There is 
 short rest for them ; for Derrick, the carrier 
 who has been robbed by the Prince's ser- 
 vant, is come to London to seek his goods. 
 Tarleton, the famous Clown, plays the Kent- 
 ish carrier. It matters little what the author 
 of the play has written down for him, for 
 his "wondrous plentiful pleasant extemporal 
 wit" will do much better for the amusement 
 of his audience than the dull dialogue of 
 the prompt-books. In the scene before us 
 he has to catch the thief, and to take him 
 before the Lord Chief Justice ; and when 
 the Court is set in order, and the Chief Jus- 
 tice cries, " Gaoler, bring the prisoner to the 
 bar," Derrick speaks according to the book, 
 " Hear you, my lord, I pray you bring the 
 
 bar to the prisoner ;" but what he adds, 
 having this hint for a clown's licence, soon 
 renders the Chief Justice a very insignificant 
 personage. The real wit of Tarleton pro- 
 bably did much to render the dullness of 
 the early stage endurable by persons of any 
 refinement. Henry Chettle, in his curious 
 production, 'Kind-Hartes Dreame,' written 
 about four years after Tarleton's death, thus 
 describes his appearance in a vision ; " The 
 next, by his suit of russet, his buttoned cap, 
 his tabor, his standing on the toe, and other 
 tricks, I knew to be either the body or re- 
 semblance of Tarleton, who, living, for his 
 pleasant conceits was of all men liked, and, 
 dying, for mirth left not his fellow." The 
 Prince enters and demands the release of 
 his servant, which the Chief Justice refuses. 
 The scene which ensues when the Prince 
 strikes the Chief Justice is a remarkable ex- 
 ample of the poetical poverty of the early 
 stage. In the representation, the action 
 would of course be exciting, but the dialogue 
 which accompanies it is beyond comparison 
 bald and meaningless. The audience was, 
 however, compensated by Tarleton's iteration 
 of the scene : " Faith, John, I'll tell thee 
 what : thou shalt be my lord chief justice, 
 and thou shalt sit in the chair ; and I '11 be 
 the young prince, and hit thee a box on the 
 ear ; and then thou shalt say, To teach you 
 what prerogatives mean, I commit you to 
 the Fleet." The Prince is next presented 
 really in prison, where he is visited by Sir 
 John Oldcastle. The Prince, in his dialogue 
 with Jockey, Ned, and Tom, again exhibits 
 himself as the basest and most vulgar of 
 ruffians ; but, hearing his father is sick, he 
 goes to Court, and the bully, in the twink- 
 ling of an eye, becomes a saintly hypocrite : 
 " Pardon me, sweet father, pardon me : 
 good my lord of Exeter, speak for me ; par- 
 don me, pardon, good father : not a word : 
 ah, he will not speak one word : ah, Harry, 
 now thrice unhappy Harry. But what shall 
 I do ? I will go take me into some solitary 
 place, and there lament my sinful life, 
 and, when I have done, I will lay me down 
 and die". The scene where the Prince 
 removes the crown possesses a higher in- 
 terest, when we recollect the great parallel 
 
THE EARLIEST HISTORICAL DRAMA. 
 
 21 
 
 scene of Shakspere's Henry IV. Part II., 
 beginning 
 
 " I never thought to hear you speak again." 
 
 'The Famous Victories' was printed in 
 1594. In that copy much of the prose is 
 chopped up into lines of various lengths, in 
 order to look like some kind of measure : 
 
 Hen. V. Most sovereign lord, and well-beloved 
 
 father, 
 
 I came into your chamber to comfort the melan- 
 choly 
 
 Soul of your body, and finding you at that time 
 Past all recovery, and dead to my thinking, 
 God is my witness, and what should I do, 
 But with weeping tears lament the death of you, 
 
 my father ; 
 
 And after that, seeing the crown, I took it. 
 And tell me, my father, who might better take 
 
 it than I, 
 
 After your death 1 ? but, seeing you live, 
 I most humbly render it into your majesty's 
 
 hands, 
 
 And the happiest man alive that my father lives; 
 And live my lord and father for ever ! 
 
 Hen. IV. Stand up, my son; 
 Thine answer hath sounded well in mine ears, 
 For I must needs confess that I was in a very 
 
 sound sleep, 
 
 And altogether unmindful of thy coming : 
 But come near, my son, 
 
 And let me put thee in possession whilst I live, 
 That none deprive thee of it after my death. 
 Hen. V. Well may I take it at your majesty's 
 
 hands, 
 But it shall never touch my head so long as my 
 
 father lives. [He takeih the crown. 
 
 Hen. IV. God give thee joy, my son; 
 God bless thee and make thee his servant, 
 And send thee a prosperous reign; 
 For God knows, my son, how hardly I came by it, 
 And how hardly I have maintained it. 
 
 Hen. V. HoAvsoever you came by it I know 
 
 not; 
 And now I have it from you, and from you I 
 
 will keep it : 
 And he that seeks to take the crown from my 
 
 head, 
 Let him look that his armour be thicker than 
 
 mine, 
 
 Or I will pierce him to the heart, 
 Were it harder than brass or bullion. 
 Hen. IV. Nobly spoken, and like a king. 
 
 Now trust me, my lords, I fear not but my son 
 "Will be as warlike and victorious a prince 
 As ever reigned in England." 
 
 Henry IV. dies ; Henry V. is crowned ; 
 the evil companions are cast off; the Chief 
 Justice is forgiven ; and the expedition to 
 France is resolved upon. To trace the course 
 of the war would be too much for the patience 
 of our readers. The clashing of the four 
 swords and bucklers might have rendered its 
 stage representation endurable. 
 
 ' The True Tragedy of Richard III.' is the 
 only other History, of which we possess a 
 printed copy, that we can assign to the period 
 before the first real dramatists. This old play 
 is a work of higher pretension than ' The 
 Famous Victories.' Like that play, it con- 
 tains many prose speeches which are printed 
 to have some resemblance to measured lines ; 
 but, on the other hand, there are many pas- 
 sages of legitimate verse which are run to- 
 gether as prose. The most ambitious part of 
 the whole performance is a speech of Richard 
 before the battle : and this we transcribe : 
 
 " King. The hell of life that hangs upon the 
 
 crown, 
 
 The daily cares, the nightly dreams, 
 The wretched crews, the treason of the foe, 
 And horror of my bloody practice past, 
 Strikes such a terror to my wounded conscience, 
 That, sleep I, wake I, or whatsoever I do, 
 Methinks their ghosts come gaping for revenge 
 Whom I have slain in reaching for a crown. 
 Clarence complains and crieth for revenge ; 
 My nephews' bloods, Revenge ! revenge ! doth 
 
 cry; 
 
 The headless peers come pressing for revenge; 
 And every one cries, Let the tyrant die. 
 The sun by day shines hotly for revenge; 
 The moon by night eclipseth for revenge; 
 The stars are turn'd to comets for revenge; 
 The planets change their courses for revenge ; 
 The birds sing not, but sorrow for revenge; 
 The silly lambs sit bleating for revenge; 
 The screeching raven sits croaking for revenge ; 
 Whole heads of beasts come bellowing for re- 
 venge; 
 
 And all, yea, all the world, I think, 
 Cries for revenge, and nothing but revenge : 
 But to conclude, I have deserved revenge. 
 In company I dare not trust my friend; 
 Being alone, I dread the secret foe; 
 
22 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK i. 
 
 I doubt my food, lest poison lurk therein; 
 
 My bed is uneoth, rest refrains my head. 
 
 Then such a life I count far worse to be 
 
 Than thousand deaths unto a damned death ! 
 
 How ! was 't death, I said 1 who dare attempt 
 my death 1 ? 
 
 Nay, who dare so much as once to think my 
 death] 
 
 Though enemies there be that would my body 
 kill, 
 
 Yet shall they leave a never-dying mind. 
 
 But you, villains, rebels, traitors as you are, 
 
 How came the foe in, pressing so near? 
 
 Where, where slept the garrison that should a 
 beat them back] 
 
 "Where was our friends to intercept the foe? 
 
 All gone, quite fled, his loyalty quite laid a-bed. 
 
 Then vengeance, mischief, horror, with mis- 
 chance, 
 
 Wild-fire, with whirl winds, light upon your heads, 
 
 That thus betray'd your prince by your untruth !" 
 
 There is not a trace in the elder play of the 
 character of Shakspere's Richard : in that 
 play he is a coarse ruffian only an intellec- 
 tual villain. The author has not even had 
 the skill to copy the dramatic narrative of 
 Sir Thomas More in the scene of the arrest 
 of Hastings. It is sufficient for him to make 
 Richard display the brute force of the tyrant. 
 The affected complacency, the mock passion, 
 the bitter sarcasm of the Richard of the his- 
 torian, were left for Shakspere to imitate and 
 improve. 
 
 Rude as is the dramatic construction, and 
 coarse the execution, of these two relics of 
 the period which preceded the transition 
 state of the stage, there can be no doubt 
 that these had their ruder predecessors, 
 dumb-shows, with here and thtre explana- 
 tory rhymes adapted to the same gross po- 
 pular taste that had so long delighted in 
 the Mysteries and Moralities which even 
 still held a divided empire. The growing 
 love of the people for " the storial shows," 
 as Laneham calls the Coventry play of 
 'Hock Tuesday,' was the natural result of 
 the energetic and inquiring spirit of the age. 
 There were many who went to the theatre to 
 be instructed. In the prologue to ' Henry 
 VIII.' we find that this great source of the 
 popularity of the early Histories was still 
 active : 
 
 " Such as give 
 
 Their money out of hope they may believe, 
 May here find truth too." 
 
 Hey wood, in his ' Apology for Actors,' thus 
 writes in 1612 : >" Plays have made the 
 ignorant more apprehensive, taught the 
 unlearned the knowledge of many famous 
 histories, instructed such as cannot read 
 in the discovery of our English Chronicles: 
 and what man have you now of that weak 
 capacity that cannot discourse of any no- 
 table thing recorded even from William the 
 Conqueror, nay, from the landing of Brute, 
 until this day, being possessed of their 
 true use ? " There is a tradition reported 
 by Gildon, (which Percy believes, though 
 Malone pronounces it to be a fiction,) that 
 Shakspere, in a conversation with Ben 
 Jonson upon the subject of his historical 
 plays, said that, " finding the nation ge- 
 nerally very ignorant of history, he wrote 
 them in order to instruct the people in that 
 particular." It is not recessary that we 
 should credit or discredit this anecdote, to 
 come to the conclusion that, when Shakspere 
 first became personally interested in pro- 
 viding entertainment and instruction for the 
 people, there was a great demand already 
 existing for that species of drama, which 
 subsequently became important enough to 
 constitute a class apart from Tragedy or 
 Comedy. 
 
 The Legendary History of England was 
 seized upon at an early period, as possess- 
 ing dramatic capabilities ; and in ' Ferrex 
 and Porrex,' (sometimes called ' GORBODTJC,') 
 we have the work of two poetical minds, 
 labouring, however, upon false principles. 
 This drama was acted before Queen Elizabeth 
 as early as 1562. Thomas Sackville, Lord 
 Buckhurst, its joint author with Thomas 
 Norton, was a man of real genius ; yet the 
 dramatic form overmastered his poetical 
 capacity. Stately harangues stand in the 
 place of earnest passion ; rhetorical descrip- 
 tion thrusts out scenic action. Some of the 
 lines, no doubt, are forcible and impressive, 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 THE EARLIEST HISTORICAL DRAMA. 
 
 23 
 
 such as those on the causes and miseries of 
 civil war : 
 
 " And thou, Britain ! whilom in renown, 
 Whilom in wealth and fame, shalt thus he torn, 
 Dismember'd thus, and thus be rent in twain, 
 Thus wasted and defac'd, spoil'd and destroy'd: 
 These he the fruits your civil wars will bring. 
 Hereto it comes, when kings will not consent 
 To grave advice, but follow wilful will. 
 This is the end, when in fond princes' hearts 
 Flattery prevails, and sage rede hath no place. 
 These are the plagues, when murder is the 
 
 mean 
 
 To make new heirs unto the royal crown. 
 Thus wreak the gods, when that the mother's 
 
 wrath 
 Nought but the blood of her own child may 
 
 'suage. 
 
 These mischiefs spring when rebels will arise, 
 To work revenge, and judge their prince's fact. 
 This, this ensues, when noble men do fail 
 In loyal truth, and subjects will be kings. 
 And this doth grow, when lo ! unto the prince, 
 Whom death or sudden hap of life bereaves, 
 No certain heir remains ; such certain heir 
 As not all only is the rightful heir, 
 But to the realm is so made known to be, 
 And truth thereby vested in subjects' hearts." 
 
 To the Legends of England belongs ' LO- 
 CRINE,' a play falsely ascribed to Shakspere 
 himself, and Shakspere's own 'Lear.' The 
 'Lear' wholly belongs to the Tragic Drama, 
 " the most perfect specimen of the dramatic 
 art existing in the world." ' LOCRINE ' may 
 here claim a slight notice : 
 
 The subject of this tragedy was a favourite 
 with the early poets. We find it in ' The 
 Mirror of Magistrates,' in Spenser, and in 
 Drayton ; occupying seven stanzas of ' The 
 Faery Queen ' (Book II., Canto 10), and fifty 
 lines of the ' Poly-Olbion.' The legend of 
 Brutus is circumstantially related in Milton's 
 ' History of England,' where the story of 
 Locrine is told with the power of a poet : 
 
 "After this, Brutus, in a chosen place, 
 builds Troja Nova, changed in time to 
 Trinovantum, now London, and began to 
 enact laws, Heli being then high priest in 
 Judaea ; and, having governed the whole 
 
 isle twenty-four years, died, and was buried 
 in his new Troy. His three sons, Locrine, 
 Albanact, and Camber, divide the land by 
 consent. Locrine has the middle part, 
 Lcegria ; Camber possessed Cambria, or 
 Wales ; Albanact, Albania, now Scotland. 
 But he in the end, by Hymber, king of 
 the Hunns, who with a fleet invaded that 
 land, was slain in fight, and his people diove 
 back into Loegria. Locrine and his brother 
 go out against H umber ; who, noiv inarch- 
 ing onwards, was by them defeated, and in 
 a river drowned, which to this day retains 
 his name. Among the spoils of his camp 
 and navy were found certain young maids, 
 and Estrildis above the rest, passing fair, 
 the daughter of a king in Germany ; from 
 whence Humber, as he went wasting the sea 
 coast, had led her captive ; whom Locrine, 
 though before contracted to the daughter 
 of Corineus, resolves to marry. But being 
 forced and threatened by Corineus,' whose 
 authority and power he feared, Guendolen 
 the daughter he yields to marry, but in se- 
 cret loves the other : and ofttimes retiring, 
 as to some private sacrifice, through vaults 
 and passages made under ground, and seven 
 years thus enjoying her, had by her a daugh- 
 ter equally fair, whose name was Sabra. But 
 when once his fear was off by the death of 
 Corineus, not content with secret enjoyment, 
 divorcing Guendolen, he made Estrildis now 
 his queen. Guendolen, all in rage, departs 
 into Cornwall, where Madan, the son she 
 had by Locrine, was hitherto brought up by 
 Corineus, his grandfather. And gathering 
 an army of her father's friends and subjects, 
 gives battle to her husband by the river 
 Sture ; wherein Locrine, shot with an arrow, 
 ends his life. But not so ends the fury of 
 Guendolen ; for Estrildis, and her daughter 
 Sabra, she throws into a river ; and, to leave 
 a monument of revenge, proclaims that the 
 stream be thenceforth called after the dam- 
 sel's name, which, by length of time, is 
 changed now to Sabrina, or Severn." 
 
 In ' Comus ' Milton lingers with delight 
 about the same story : 
 " There is a gentle nymph not far from hence, 
 That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn 
 stream, 
 
2-1 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK I. 
 
 Sabrina is her name, a virgin pure ; 
 "Whilome she was the daughter of Locrine, 
 That had the sceptre from his father Brute. 
 She, guiltless damsel, flying the mad pursuit 
 Of her enraged stepdame, Guendolen, 
 Commended her fair innocence to the flood, 
 That stay'd her flight with his cross-flowing 
 course." 
 
 The dumb-show, as it is called, of 'Lo- 
 crine' is tolerably decisive as to the date of 
 the performance. It belongs essentially to 
 that period when the respective powers of 
 action and of words were imperfectly under- 
 stood ; when what was exhibited to the eye 
 required to be explained, and what was con- 
 veyed to the imagination of the audience by 
 speech was to be made more intelligible by a 
 sign-painting pantomime. Nothing could be 
 more characteristic of a very rude state of 
 art, almost the rudest, than the dumb-shows 
 which introduce each act of ' Locrine.' Act I. 
 is thus heralded : 
 
 " Thunder and lightning. Enter Ate in black, 
 with a burning torch in one hand, and a bloody 
 sword in the other. Presently let there come 
 forth a lion running after a bear; then come 
 forth an archer, who must kill the lion in a 
 dumb show, and then depart. Ate remains." 
 
 Ate then tells us, in good set verse, that a 
 mighty lion was killed by a dreadful archer ; 
 and the seventeen lines in which we are told 
 this are filled with a very choice description 
 of the lion before he was shot, and after he 
 was shot. And what has this to do with the 
 subject of the play ? It is an acted simile : 
 
 " So valiant Brute, the terror of the world, 
 Whose only looks did scare his enemies, 
 The archer Death brought to his latest end. 
 0, what may long abide above this ground, 
 In state of bliss and healthful happiness]" 
 
 In the second act we have a dumb-show of 
 Perseus and Andromeda ; in the third " a 
 crocodile sitting on a river's bank, and a 
 little snake stinging it ; " in the fourth Om- 
 phale and Hercules ; in the fifth Jason, 
 Medea, and Creon's daughter. Ate, who is 
 the great show-woman of these scenes, intro- 
 duces her puppets on each occasion with a 
 line or two of Latin, and always concludes 
 her address with "So" "So valiant Brute" 
 
 "So fares it with young Locrine" "So 
 Humber" "So martial Locrine" " So 
 Guendolen." A writer in the c Edinburgh 
 Review' most justly calls Locrine "a cha- 
 racteristic work of its time." If we were to 
 regard these dumb-shows as the most deci- 
 sive marks of its chronology, we should carry 
 the play back to the age when the form of 
 the moralities was in some degree indispen- 
 sable to a dramatic performance ; when the 
 action could not move and develop itself 
 without the assistance of something ap- 
 proaching to the character of a chorus. Thus 
 in ' Tancred and Gismunda,' originally acted 
 before Queen Elizabeth in 1568, previous to 
 the first act " Cupid cometh out of the 
 heavens in a cradle of flowers, drawing forth 
 upon the stage, in a blue twist of silk, from 
 his left hand, Vain Hope, Brittle Joy ; and 
 with a carnation twist of silk from his right 
 hand, Fair Resemblance, Late Repentance." 
 We have their choruses at the conclusion of 
 other acts ; and, previous to the fourth act, 
 not only "Megsera riseth out of hell, with 
 the other furies," but she subsequently mixes 
 in the main action, and throws her snake 
 upon Tancred. Whatever period therefore 
 we may assign to ( Locrine,' varying between 
 the date of ' Tancred and Gismunda' and its 
 original publication in 1594, we may be sure 
 that the author, whoever he was, had not 
 power enough to break through the tram- 
 mels of the early stage. He had not that 
 confidence in the force of natural action and 
 just characterization which would allow a 
 drama to be wholly dramatic. He wanted 
 that high gift of imagination which conceives 
 and produces these qualities of a drama ; 
 and he therefore dealt as with an unimagi- 
 native audience. The same want of the 
 dramatic power renders his play a succession 
 of harangues, in which the last thing thought 
 of is the appropriateness of language to situa- 
 tion. The first English dramatists, and 
 those who worked upon their model, appear 
 to have gone upon the principle that they 
 produced the most perfect work of art when 
 they took their art entirely out of the pro- 
 vince of nature. The highest art is a repre- 
 sentation of Nature in her very highest forms ; 
 something which is above common reality, 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 THE EARLIEST HISTORICAL DRAMA. 
 
 25 
 
 but at the same time real. The lowest art 
 embodies a principle opposite to nature ; 
 something purely conventional, and conse- 
 quently always uninteresting, often grotesque 
 and ridiculous. ' Locrine' furnishes abundant 
 examples of the characteristics of a school of 
 art which may be considered as the anti- 
 thesis of the school of Shakspere. 
 
 We hopelessly look for any close parallel 
 of the fustian of ' Locrine' in the accredited 
 works of Greene, or Marlowe, or Kyd, who 
 redeemed their pedantry and their extrava- 
 gance by occasional grandeur and sweetness. 
 The dialogue from first to last is inflated 
 beyond all comparison with any contempo- 
 rary performance with which we are ac- 
 quainted. Most readers are familiar with a 
 gentleman who, when he is entreated to 
 go down, says, " to Pluto's damned lake, to 
 the infernal deep, with Erebus and tor- 
 tures vile also." The valiant Pistol had, no 
 doubt, diligently studied l Locrine ;' but he 
 was a faint copyist of such sublime as the 
 following : 
 
 " You ugly spirits that in Cocytus mourn, 
 And gnash your teeth with dolorous laments; 
 You fearful dogs that in black Lethe howl, 
 And scare the ghosts with your wide-open 
 
 throats; 
 
 You ugly ghosts, that flying from these dogs 
 Do plunge yourselves in Puryflegethon ; 
 Come all of you, and with your shrieking notes 
 Accompany the Britons' conquering host. 
 Come, fierce Erinnys, horrible with snakes; 
 Come, ugly furies, armed with your whips; 
 You threefold judges of black Tartarus, 
 And all the army of your hellish fiends, 
 With new-found torments rack proud Locrine's 
 bones ! " 
 
 The speech of Sabren, before she " com- 
 mended her fair innocence to the flood," 
 with other scattered passages here and there, 
 afford evidence that, if the author possessed 
 little or nothing of what may be properly 
 called dramatic power, he might, could he 
 have shaken off the false learning and ex- 
 travagance of his school, have produced 
 something which with proper culture might 
 have ripened into poetry : 
 
 " You mountain nymphs which in these deserts 
 reign, 
 
 Cease off your hasty chase of savage beasts ! 
 Prepare to see a heart oppress'd with care ; 
 Address your ears to hear a mournful style ! 
 No human strength, no work can work my 
 
 weal, 
 
 Care in my heart so tyrant-like doth deal. 
 You Dryades and lightfoot Satyri, * 
 You gracious fairies, which at even-tide 
 Your closets leave, with heavenly beauty stor'd, 
 And on your shoulders spread your golden 
 
 locks; 
 
 You savage bears, in caves and darken'd dens, 
 Come wail with me the martial Locrine's 
 
 death; 
 Come mourn with me for beauteous Estrild's 
 
 death ! 
 
 Ah ! loving parents, little do you know 
 What sorrow Sabren suffers for your thrall." 
 
 According to Tieck, ' Locrine ' is the 
 earliest of Shakspere's dramas. He has a, 
 theory that it has altogether a political 
 tendency: "It seems to have reference 
 to the times when England was suffering 
 through the parties formed in favour of 
 Mary Stuart, and to have been written 
 before her execution, while attacks were 
 feared at home, and invasions from abroad." 
 It was corrected by the author, and printed, 
 he further says, in 1595, when another 
 Spanish invasion was feared. We confess 
 ourselves utterly at a loss to recognise in 
 ' Locrine ' the mode in which Shakspere 
 usually awakens the love of country. The 
 management in this particular is essentially 
 different from that of f King John ' and 
 1 Henry V.' ' Locrine ' is one of the works 
 which Tieck has translated, and his trans- 
 lation is no doubt a proof of the sincerity 
 of his opinions ; yet he says, frankly enough, 
 " It bears the marks of a young poet un- 
 acquainted with the stage, who endeavours 
 to sustain himself constantly in a posture 
 of elevation, who purposely neglects the 
 necessary rising and sinking of tone and 
 effect, and who, with wonderful energy, en- 
 deavours from beginning to end to make his 
 personages speak in the same highly- wrought 
 and poetical language, while at the same 
 time he shakes out all his school-learning 
 on every possible occasion." To reduce this, 
 very just account of the play to elementary 
 
26 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK i. 
 
 criticism, Tieck says, first, that the action 
 of the play is not conducted upon drama- 
 tic principles ; second, that the language is 
 not varied with the character and situation ; 
 third, that the poetry is essentially conven- 
 tional, being the reflection of the author's 
 school-learning. It must be evident to all 
 our readers that these characteristics are the 
 very reverse of Shakspere. Schlegel says of 
 ' Locrine,' " The proofs of the genuineness of 
 this piece are not altogether unambiguous ; 
 the grounds for doubt, on the other hand, 
 are entitled to attention. However, this 
 question is immediately connected with that 
 respecting ' Titus Andronicus,' and must be 
 at the same time resolved in the affirmative 
 or negative." We dissent entirely from this 
 opinion. It appears to us that the differences 
 are as strikingly marked between ' Locrine ' 
 and ' Titus Andronicus ' as between { Titus 
 Andronicus' and 'Othello.' Those produc- 
 tions were separated by at least twenty years. 
 The youth might have produced Aaron ; the 
 perfect master of his art, lago. There is the 
 broad mark of originality in the characteri- 
 zation and language of ' Titus Andronicus.' 
 The terrible passions which are there de- 
 veloped by the action find their vent in the 
 appropriate language of passion, the bold 
 and sometimes rude outpourings of nature. 
 The characters of 'Locrine' are moved to 
 
 passion, but first and last they speak out 
 of books. In Shakspere, high poetry is the 
 most natural language of passion. It be- 
 longs to the state of excitement in which the 
 character is placed ; it harmonizes with the 
 excited state of the reader or of the audience. 
 But the whole imagery of ' Locrine ' is my- 
 thological. In a speech of twenty lines 
 we have Rhadamanthus, Hercules, Eurydice, 
 Erebus, Pluto, Mors, Tantalus, Pelops, Ti- 
 thonus, Minos, Jupiter, Mars, and Tisiphone. 
 The mythological pedantry is carried to such 
 an extent, that the play, though unquestion- 
 ably written in sober sadness, is a perfect 
 travesty of this peculiarity of the early 
 dramatists. Conventional as Greene and 
 Marlowe are in their imagery, a single act 
 of 'Locrine' contains more of this tinsel 
 than all their plays put together, prone 
 as they are to this species of decoration. 
 In the author of ' Locrine ' it becomes so 
 entirely ridiculous, that this quality alone 
 would decide us to say that Marlowe had 
 nothing to do with it, or Greene either. 
 It belongs, if not to a period scarcely re- 
 moved from the rude art of the early stages, 
 at least to a period when the principles of 
 real dramatic poetry had not been generally 
 received. It is essentially of the first tran- 
 sition state, in point of conception and exe- 
 cution. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE DRAMATISTS OF SHAKSPERE'S FIRST PERIOD. 
 
 THE royal- patent of 1574 authorized in the 
 exercise of their art and faculty "James 
 Burbadge, John Perkyn, John Lanham, Wil- 
 liam Johnson, and Robert Wilson," who are 
 described as the servants of the Earl of 
 Leicester. Although on the early stage the 
 characters were frequently doubled, we can 
 scarcely imagine that these five persons were 
 of themselves sufficient to form a company 
 of comedians. They had, no doubt, subordi- 
 nate actors in their pay ; they being the 
 
 proprietors or shareholders in the general 
 adventure. Of these five original patentees, 
 four remained as the " sharers in the Black- 
 friars Playhouse" in 1589, the name only of 
 John Perkyn being absent from the sub- 
 scribers to a certificate to the Privy Council, 
 that the company acting at the Blackfriars 
 "have never given cause of displeasure in 
 that they have brought into their plays mat- 
 ters of state and religion." This certificate 
 which bears the date of November, 1589 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 THE DRAMATISTS OF SHAKSPERE S FIRST PERIOD. 
 
 27 
 
 exhibits to us the list of the professional 
 companions of Shakspere in an early stage 
 of his career, though certainly not in the 
 very earliest. The certificate represents the 
 persons subscribing it as "her Majesty's 
 poor players/' and sets forth that they are 
 " all of them sharers in the Blackfriars Play- 
 house." Their names are presented in the 
 following order : 
 
 1. James Burbadge. 
 
 2. Richard Burbadge. 
 
 3. John Laneham. 
 
 4. Thomas Greene. 
 
 5. Robert Wilson. 
 
 6. John Taylor. 
 
 7. Anth. Wadeson. 
 
 8. Thomas Pqpe. 
 
 9. George Peele. 
 
 10. Augustine Phillipps. 
 
 11. Nicholas Towley. 
 
 12. William Shakespeare. 
 
 13. William Kempe. 
 
 14. William Johnson. 
 
 15. Baptiste Goodale. 
 
 16. Robert Armyn. 
 
 In the e Account of GEORGE PEELE and his 
 Writings/ prefixed to Mr. Dyce's valuable 
 edition of his works (1829), the editor says, 
 " I think it very probable that Peele occa- 
 sionally tried his histrionic talents, particu- 
 larly at the commencement of his career, 
 but that he was ever engaged as a regular 
 actor I altogether disbelieve." But the pub- 
 lication, in 1835, by Mr. Collier, of the above 
 certificate of the good conduct in 1589 of 
 the Blackfriars company, which he discovered 
 amongst the Bridgewater Papers, would ap- 
 pear to determine the question contrary to 
 the belief of Mr. Dyce. Mr. Collier, in the 
 tract in which he first published this im- 
 portant document*, says, with reference to 
 the enumeration of Peele in the certificate, 
 " George Peele was unquestionably the dra- 
 matic poet, who, I conjectured some years 
 ago, was upon the stage early in life." The 
 name of George Peele stands ninth on this 
 list ; that of William Shakespeare the twelfth. 
 The name of William Kempe immediately 
 follows that of Shakspere. Kempe must 
 have become of importance to the company 
 
 * ' New Facts regarding the Life of Shakespeare." 
 
 at least a year before the date of this certi- 
 ficate ; for he was the successor of Tarleton 
 in the most attractive line of characters, and 
 Tarleton died in 1588. We hold that Shak- 
 spere had won his position in this company 
 at the age of twenty-five by his success as a 
 dramatic writer ; and we consider that in 
 the same manner George Peele had preceded 
 him, and had acquired rank and property 
 amongst the shareholders, chiefly by the 
 exercise of his talents as a dramatic poet. 
 
 There can be little doubt that upon the 
 early stage, the occupations of actor and 
 " maker of plays " for the most part went to- 
 gether. The dialogue was less regarded 
 than the action. A plot was hastily got up, 
 with rude shows and startling incidents. 
 The characters were little discriminated ; 
 one actor took the tyrant line, and another 
 the lover ; and ready words were at hand 
 for the one to rant with and the other to 
 whine. The actors were not very solicitous 
 about the words, and often discharged their 
 mimic passions in extemporaneous eloquence. 
 In a few years the necessity of pleasing more 
 refined audiences changed the economy of 
 the stage. Men of high talent sought the 
 theatre as a ready mode of maintenance by 
 their writings ; but their connexion with the 
 stage would naturally begin in acting rather 
 than in authorship. The managers, them- 
 selves actors, would think, and perhaps 
 rightly, that an actor would be the best 
 judge of dramatic effect ; and a Master of 
 Arts, unless he were thoroughly conversant 
 with the business of the stage, might better 
 carry his taffeta phrases to the publishers of 
 sonnets. The rewards of authorship through 
 the medium of the press were in those days 
 small indeed ; and paltry as was the drama- 
 tist's fee, the players were far better pay- 
 masters than the stationers. To become a 
 sharer in a theatrical speculation offered a 
 reasonable chance of competence, if not of 
 wealth. If a sharer existed who was " ex- 
 cellent" enough in "the quality" he pro- 
 fessed to fill the stage creditably, and added 
 to that quality " a facetious grace in writ- 
 ing," there is no doubt that with " upright- 
 ness of dealing" he would, in such a com- 
 pany as that of the Blackfriais, advance 
 
28 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK i. 
 
 rapidly to distinction, and have the counte- 
 nance and friendship of " divers of worship." 
 Such was the character given to Shakspere 
 himself in 1592. One of the early puritani- 
 cal attacks upon the stage has this coarse 
 invective against players : "Are they not 
 notoriously known to be those men in their 
 life abroad, as they are on the stage, roysters, 
 brawlers, ill-dealers, boasters, lovers, loiterers, 
 ruffians ? So that they are always exercised 
 in playing their parts and practising wicked- 
 ness ; making that an art, to the end that 
 they might the better gesture it in their 
 parts ? " By the side of this silly abuse may 
 be placed the modest answer of Thomas Hey- 
 wood, the most prolific of writers, himself an 
 actor : " I also could wish that such as are 
 condemned for their licentiousness might by 
 a general consent be quite excluded our 
 society ; for, as we are men that stand in the 
 broad eye of the world, so should our man- 
 ners, gestures, and behaviours, savour of such 
 government and modesty, to deserve the 
 good thoughts and reports of all men, and to 
 abide the sharpest censure even of those that 
 are the greatest opposites to the quality. 
 Many amongst us I know to be of substance, 
 of government, of sober lives, and temperate 
 carriages, housekeepers, and contributory to 
 all duties enjoined them, equally with them 
 that are ranked with the most bountiful ; 
 and if, amongst so many of sort, there be 
 any few degenerate from the rest in that 
 good demeanour which is both requisite and 
 expected from their hands, let me entreat 
 you not to censure hardly of all for the mis- 
 deeds of some, but rather to excuse us, as 
 Ovid doth the generality of women : 
 1 Parcite paucarum diffundere crimen in onmes; 
 Spectetur meritis quseque puella suis.'"* 
 Those of Peele's dramatic works which have 
 come down to us afford evidence that he pos- 
 sessed great flexibility and rhetorical power, 
 without much invention, with very little dis- 
 crimination of character, and with that ten- 
 dency to extravagance in the management 
 of his incidents which exhibits small ac- 
 quaintance with the higher principles of the 
 dramatic art. He no doubt became a writer 
 for the stage earlier than Shakspere. He 
 * ' Apology for Actors.' 
 
 brought to the task a higher poetical feeling, 
 and more scholarship, than had been pre- 
 viously employed in the rude dialogue which 
 varied the primitive melodramatic exhibi- 
 tions, which afforded a rare delight to au- 
 diences with whom the novel excitement of 
 the entertainment compensated for many of 
 its grossnesses and deficiencies. Thomas 
 Nash, in his address 'To the Gentlemen Stu- 
 dents of both Universities,' prefixed to 
 Greene's 'Menaphon,' mentions Peele amongst 
 the most celebrated poets of the day, " as 
 the chief supporter of pleasance now living, 
 the Atlas of poetry, anfl primus verborum 
 artifex; whose first increase, the 'Arraign- 
 ment of Paris,' might plead to your opinions 
 his pregnant dexterity .of wit, and manifold 
 variety of invention, wherein (iiie judice) he 
 goeth a step beyond all that write." ' The 
 Arraignment of Paris,' which Nash describes 
 as Peele's first increase, or first production, 
 was performed before the Queen in 1584, by 
 the children of her chapel. It is called in 
 the title-page "a pastoral." It is not im- 
 probable that the favour with which this 
 mythological story of the Judgment of Paris 
 was received at the Court of Elizabeth 
 might in some degree have given Peele his 
 rank in the company of the Queen's players, 
 who appear to have had some joint interest 
 with the children of the chapel. The pas- 
 toral possesses little of the dramatic spirit ; 
 but we occasionally meet with passages of 
 great descriptive elegance, rich in fancy, 
 though somewhat overlaboured. The god- 
 desses, however, talk with great freedom, we 
 might say with a slight touch of mortal vul- 
 garity. This would scarcely displease the 
 courtly throng; but the approbation would 
 be overpowering at the close, when Diana 
 bestows the golden ball, and Venus, Pallas, 
 and Juno cheerfully resign their pretensions- 
 in favour of the superior beauty, wisdom, 
 and princely state, of the great Eliza. Such 
 scenes were probably not for the multitude 
 who thronged to. the Blackfriars. Peele was 
 the poet of the City as well as of the Court, 
 He produced a Lord Mayor's Pageant in 
 1585, when Sir Wolstan Dixie was chief ma- 
 gistrate, in which London, Magnanimity, 
 Loyalty, the Country, the Thames, the Sol- 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 THE DRAMATISTS OP SHAKSPERE S FIRST PERIOD. 
 
 29 
 
 dier, the Sailor, Science, and a quaternion of 
 nymphs, gratulate the City in melodious 
 verse. Another of his pageants before " Mr. 
 William Web, Lord Mayor," in 1591, has 
 come down to us. He was ready with his 
 verses when Sir Henry Lee resigned the 
 office of Queen's Champion in 1590 ; and upon 
 the occasion also of an Installation at Windsor 
 in 1593. When Elizabeth visited Theobalds 
 in 1591, Peele produced the speeches with 
 which the Queen was received, in the absence 
 of Lord Burleigh, by members of his house- 
 hold, in the characters of a hermit, a gar- 
 dener, and a mole-catcher. In all these 
 productions we find the facility which dis- 
 tinguished his dramatic writings, but nothing 
 of that real power which was to breathe a new 
 life into the entertainments for the people. 
 The early play of 'Sir Clyomon and Sir 
 Clamydes' is considered by Mr. Dyce to be 
 the production of Peele. It is a most tedious 
 drama, in the old twelve-syllable rhyming 
 verse, in which the principle of alliteration is 
 carried into the most ludicrous absurdity, 
 and the pathos is scarcely more moving than 
 the woes of Pyramus and Thisby in A 'Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream.' One example of a 
 lady in distress may suffice : 
 
 " The sword of this my loving knight, behold, I 
 
 here do take, 
 Of this my woeful corpse, alas, a final end to 
 
 make ! 
 Yet, ere I strike that deadly stroke that shall 
 
 my life deprave, 
 Ye, Muses, aid me to the gods for mercy first 
 
 to crave!" 
 
 In a few years, perhaps by the aid of better 
 examples, Peele worked himself out of many 
 of the absurdities of the early stage ; but he 
 had not strength wholly to cast them off. 
 We shall notice his historical play of ' Ed- 
 ward I.' in the examination of the theory 
 that he was the author of the three Parts of 
 Henry VI. in their original state ; and it is 
 scarcely necessary for us here to enter more 
 minutely into the question of his dramatic 
 ability. It is pretty manifest that a new 
 race of writers, with Shakspere at their head, 
 was rising up to push Peele from the posi- 
 tion which he held in the Blackfriars com- 
 
 pany in 1589. He is one of the three to 
 whom Robert Greene in 1592 addressed his 
 dying warning. Peele was, according to the 
 repentant profligate, driven, like himself, to 
 extreme shifts. He was in danger, like 
 Greene, of being forsaken by the puppets 
 " that speak from our mouths." The reason 
 that the players are not to be trusted is 
 because their place is supplied by another : 
 " Yes, trust them not ; for there is an upstart 
 crow beautified with our feathers, that, with 
 his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide, 
 supposes he is as well able to bombast out a 
 blank verse as the best of you ; and, being an 
 absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own 
 conceit the only Shake-scene in a country." 
 
 ROBERT GREENE has been described by his 
 friend Henry Chettle as a " man of indifferent 
 years, of face amiable, of body well-propor- 
 tioned, his attire after the habit of a scholar- 
 like gentleman, only his hair somewhat long." 
 Greene took his degree of Bachelor of Arts 
 at Cambridge in 1578, and his Master's degree 
 in 1583. The "somewhat long hair" is 
 scarcely incompatible with the " attire after 
 the habit of a scholar." Chettle's description 
 of the outward appearance of the man would 
 scarcely lead us to imagine, what he has 
 himself told us, that "his company were 
 lightly the lewdest persons in the land." In 
 one of his posthumous tracts, ' The Repent- 
 ance of Robert Greene,' which Mr. Dyce, the 
 editor of his works, holds to be genuine, he 
 says, "I left the University and away to 
 London, where (after I had continued some 
 short time, and driven myself out of credit 
 with sundry of my friends) I became an 
 author of plays, and a penner of love pam- 
 phlets, so that I soon grew famous in that 
 quality, that who for that trade grown so 
 ordinary about London as Robin Greene ? 
 Young yet in years, though old in wicked- 
 ness, I began to resolve that there was no- 
 thing bad that was profitable : whereupon I 
 grew so rooted in all mischief, that I had as 
 great a delight in wickedness as sundry hath 
 in godliness ; and as much felicity I took in 
 villainy as others had in honesty." The 
 whole story of Greene's life renders it too 
 probable that Gabriel Harvey's spiteful cari- 
 cature of him had much of that real re- 
 
30 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK i. 
 
 semblance which renders a caricature most 
 effective: "I was altogether unacquainted 
 with the man, and never once saluted him 
 by name : but who in London hath not heard 
 of his dissolute and licentious living ; his 
 fond disguising of a Master of Art with 
 ruffianly hair, unseemly apparel, and more 
 unseemly company; his vainglorious and 
 Thrasonical braving ; his fripperly extem- 
 porizing and Tarletonizing ; his apish coun- 
 terfeiting of every ridiculous and absurd toy ; 
 his fine cozening of jugglers, and finer jug- 
 gling with cozeners ; his villainous cogging 
 and- foisting ; his monstrous swearing and 
 horrible forswearing ; his impious profaning 
 of sacred texts ; his other scandalous and 
 blasphemous raving ; his riotous and out- 
 rageous surfeiting ; his continual shifting of 
 lodgings ; his plausible mustering and ban- 
 queting of roysterly acquaintance at his first 
 coming ; his beggarly departing in every 
 hostess's debt ; his infamous resorting to the 
 Bank side, Shoreditch, South wark, and other 
 filthy haunts ; his obscure lurking in basest 
 corners ; his pawning of his sword, cloak, and 
 what not, when money came short ; bis im- 
 pudent pamphleting, fantastical interluding, 
 and desperate libelling, when other cozening 
 shifts failed?"* This is the bitterness of 
 revenge, not softened even by the penalty 
 which the wretched man had paid for his 
 offence, dying prematurely in misery and 
 solitariness, and writing from his lodging at 
 a poor shoemaker's these last touching lines 
 to the wife whom he had abandoned : " Doll, 
 I charge thee by the love of our youth, and 
 by my soul's rest, that thou wilt see this man 
 paid : for if he and his wife had not succoured 
 me, I had died in the streets." As a writer 
 he was one amongst the most popular of his 
 day. His little romances of some fifty pages 
 each were the delight of readers for amuse- 
 ment, for half a century. They were the 
 companions of the courtly and the humble, 
 eagerly perused by the scholar of the Uni- 
 versity and the apprentice of the City. They 
 reached the extreme range of popularity. 
 In Anthony Wood's time they were " mostly 
 sold on ballad-monger's stalls ;" and Sir 
 Thomas Overbury describes his Chambermaid 
 
 * ' Four Letters, &c., 1592.' 
 
 as reading " Greene's works over and over." 
 Some of these tales are full of genius, ill- 
 regulated no doubt, but so pregnant with in- 
 vention, that Shakspere in the height of his 
 fame did not disdain to avail himself of the 
 stories of his early contemporary. The dra- 
 matic works of Greene were probably much 
 more numerous than the few which have 
 come down to us ; and the personal character 
 of the man is not unaptly represented in 
 these productions. They exhibit great pomp 
 and force of language ; passages which de- 
 generate into pure bombast from their am- 
 bitious attempts to display the power of 
 words ; slight discrimination of character ; 
 incoherence of incident ; and an entire ab- 
 sence of that judgment which results in har- 
 mony and proportion. His extravagant 
 pomp of language was the characteristic 
 of all the writers of the early stage except 
 Shakspere ; and equally so were those at- 
 tempts to be humorous which sank into the 
 lowest buffoonery. In the lyrical pieces 
 which are scattered up and down Greene's 
 novels, there is occasionally a quiet beauty 
 which exhibits the real depths of the man's 
 genius. Amidst all his imperfections of cha- 
 racter, that genius is fully acknowledged by 
 the best of his contemporaries. 
 
 THOMAS LODGE was Greene's senior in age, 
 and greatly his superior in conduct. He 
 had been a graduate of Oxford ; next a 
 player, though probably for a short time ; 
 was a member of Lincoln's Inn ; and, finally, 
 a successful physician of the name of Thomas 
 Lodge is held to be identical with Lodge 
 the poet. He was the author of a tragedy, 
 ' The Wounds of Civil War : lively set forth 
 in the true Tragedies of Marius and Rylla.' 
 He had become a writer for the stage before 
 the real power of dramatic blank verse had 
 been adequately conceived. His lines pos- 
 sess not the slightest approach to flexibility; 
 they invariably consist of ten syllables, with 
 a pause at the end of every line "each alley 
 like its brother;" the occasional use of the 
 triplet is the only variety. Lodge's tragedy 
 has the appearance of a most correct and la- 
 boured performance ; and the result is that 
 of insufferable tediousness. In conjunction 
 with Greene he wrote ' A Looking Glass for 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 THE DRAMATISTS OF SHAKSPERE S FIRST PERIOD. 
 
 31 
 
 London,' one of the most extraordinary pro- 
 ductions of that period of the stage, the cha- 
 racter of which is evidently derived not from 
 any desire of the writers to accommodate 
 themselves to the taste of an unrefined au- 
 dience, but from an utter deficiency of that 
 common sense which could alone recommend 
 their learning and their satire to the popular 
 apprehension. For pedantry and absurdity 
 'The Looking Glass for London' is unsur- 
 passed. Lodge, as well as Greene, was a 
 writer of little romances ; and here he does 
 not disdain the powers of nature and simpli- 
 city. The early writers for the stage, indeed, 
 seem one and all to have considered that 
 the language of the drama was conventional; 
 that the expressions of real passion ought 
 never there to find a place ; that grief should 
 discharge itself in long soliloquies, and anger 
 explode in orations set forth upon the most 
 approved forms of logic and rhetoric. There 
 is some of this certainly in the prose ro- 
 mances of Greene and Lodge. Lovers make 
 very long protestations, which are far more 
 calculated to display their learning than 
 their affection. This is the sin of most pas- 
 torals. But nature sometimes prevails, and 
 we meet with a touching simplicity, which 
 is the best evidence of real power. Lodge, 
 as well as Greene, gave a fable . to Shak- 
 spere. 
 
 Another of the chosen companions of 
 Robert Greene was THOMAS NASH, who in his 
 " beardless years " had thrown himself upon 
 the town, having forfeited the honours which 
 his talents would have commanded in the 
 due course of his University studies. In an 
 age before that of newspapers and reviews, 
 this young man was a pamphleteering critic; 
 and very sharp, and to a great extent very 
 just, is his criticism. The drama, even at 
 this early period, is the bow of Apollo for 
 all ambitious poets. It is Nash who, in the 
 days of Locrine, and Tamburlaine, and per- 
 haps Andronicus, is the first to laugh at 
 "the servile imitation of vainglorious tra- 
 gedians, who contend not so seriously to ex- 
 cel in action, as to embowel the clouds in a 
 speech of comparison ; thinking themselves 
 more than initiated in poets' immortality if 
 they but once get Boreas by the beard, and 
 
 the heavenly Bull by the dewlap."* It is 
 he who despises the "idiot art-masters that 
 intrude themselves to our ears as the alchy- 
 mists of eloquence, who, mounted on the 
 stage of arrogance, think to outbrave better 
 pens with the swelling bombast of bragging 
 blank verse."t In a year or two Nash was 
 the foremost of controversialists. There are 
 few things in our language written in a 
 bitterer spirit than his pamphlets in the 
 " Marprelate " controversy, and his letters to 
 Gabriel Harvey. Greene, as it appears to us, 
 upon his deathbed warned Nash of the dan- 
 ger of his course : '' With chee [Marlowe] 
 I join young Juvenal, that biting satirist, 
 that lastly with me together writ a comedy. 
 Sweet boy, might I advise thee, be advised, 
 and get not many enemies by bitter words : 
 inveigh against vain men, for thou canst do 
 it, no man better, no man so well : thou hast 
 a liberty to reprove all, and name none : for 
 one being spoken to, all are offended ; none 
 being blamed, no man is injured. Stop shal- 
 low water still running, it will rage ; tread 
 on a worm, and it will turn : then blame not 
 scholars who are vexed with sharp and bitter 
 lines, if they reprove thy too much liberty of 
 reproof." It is usual to state that Thomas 
 Lodge is the person thus addressed. So 
 say Malone and Mr. Dyce. The expression, 
 "that lastly with me together writ a comedy," 
 is supposed to point to the union of Greene 
 and Lodge in the composition of l The Look- 
 ing-Glass for London.' But it is much easier 
 to believe that Greene and Nash wrote a 
 comedy which is unknown to us, than that 
 Greene should address Lodge, some years his 
 elder, as " young Juvenal," and " sweet boy." 
 Neither have we any evidence that Lodge 
 was a " biting satirist," and used " bitter 
 words " and personalities never to be for- 
 given. We hold that the warning was meant 
 for Nash. It was given in vain ; for he spent 
 his high talents in calling others rogue and 
 fool, and having the words returned upon him 
 with interest ; bespattering, and bespattered. 
 That impatient spirit, with the flashing eye 
 and the lofty brow, is CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. 
 It is he who addressed his first audience in 
 
 * Epistle prefixed to Greene's ' Menaphon.' 
 f Ibid. 
 
32 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK i. 
 
 words which told them that one of high pre- 
 tensions was come to rescue the stage from 
 the dominion of feebleness and buffoonery : 
 
 " From jiggling veins of rhyming mother wits, 
 As such conceits as clownage keeps in pay, 
 "We '11 lead you to the stately tent of war, 
 Where you shall hear the Scythian Tambur- 
 
 laine, 
 Threat'ning the world with high astounding 
 
 terms." * 
 
 His daring was successful. It is he who is 
 accounted the " famous gracer of tragedians."t 
 It is he who has "gorgeously invested with 
 rare ornaments and splendid habiliments the 
 English tongue."! It is he who. after his 
 tragical end, was held 
 
 " Fit to write passions for the souls below." 
 
 It is he of the " mighty line." [| The name 
 of Tamburlaine was applied to Marlowe him- 
 self by his contemporaries. It is easy to 
 imagine that he might be such a man as 
 he has delighted to describe in his Scythian 
 Shepherd : 
 
 " Of stature tall, and straightly fashioned, 
 Like his desire lift upward and divine ; 
 So large of limbs, his joints so strongly knit, 
 Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly 
 
 bear 
 
 Old Atlas' burthen. 
 Pale of complexion, wrought in him with 
 
 passion, 
 
 Thirsting with sovereignty and love of arms. 
 His lofty brows in folds do figure death, 
 And in their smoothness amity and life ; 
 About them hangs a knot of amber hair, 
 Wrapped in curls, as fierce Achilles' was, 
 On which the breath of heaven delights to 
 
 play, 
 
 Making it dance with wanton majesty. 
 His arms and fingers, long and snowy-white, 
 Betokening valour and excess of strength." "ft 
 
 The essential character of his mind was that 
 of a lofty extravagance, shaping itself into 
 words that may be likened to the trumpet 
 in music, and the scarlet in painting per- 
 
 * Prologue to ' Tamburlaine the Great." \ Greene. 
 $ Meres. Peele. || Jonson. 
 
 |f ' Tamburlaine,' Part I., Act rr. 
 
 petual trumpet, perpetual scarlet. One of 
 the courtiers of Tamburlaine says, 
 
 "You see, my lord, what working words he 
 hath." 
 
 Hear a few of these " working words : " 
 
 " The god of war resigns his room to me, 
 Meaning to make me general of the world : 
 Jove, viewing me in arms, looks pale and wan, 
 Fearing my power should pull him from his 
 
 throne. 
 
 Where'er I come the fatal sisters sweat, 
 And grisly death, by running to and fro, 
 To do their ceaseless homage to my sword; 
 And here, in Afric, where it seldom rains, 
 Since I arriv'd with my triumphant host, 
 Have swelling clouds, drawn from wide-gasp- 
 ing wounds, 
 
 Been oft resolv'd in bloody, purple showers, 
 A meteor that might terrify the earth, 
 And make it quake at every drop it drinks."** 
 
 Through five thousand lines have we the 
 same pompous monotony, the same splendid 
 exaggeration, the same want of truthful 
 simplicity. But the man was in earnest. 
 His poetical power had nothing in it of af- 
 fectation and pretence. There is one speech 
 of Tamburlaine which unveils the inmost 
 mind of Tamburlaine's author. It is by far 
 the highest passage in the play, revealing to 
 us something nobler than the verses which 
 "jet on the stage in tragical buskins, every 
 word filling the mouth like the faburden of 
 Bow-Bell." 
 
 " Nature that form'd us of four elements, 
 Warring within our breasts for regiment, 
 Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds; 
 Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend 
 The wondrous architecture of the world, 
 And measure every wandering planet's course, 
 Still climbing after knowledge infinite, 
 And always moving as the restless spheres, 
 Will us to wear ourselves, and never rest, 
 Until we reach the ripest fruit of all." ft 
 
 The " ripest fruit of all," with Tamburlaine, 
 was an " earthly crown ; " but with Marlowe, 
 there can be little doubt, the " climbing after 
 knowledge infinite " was to be rewarded with 
 wisdom, and peace, the fruit of wisdom. But 
 he sought for the " fruit " in dark and for- 
 
 ** ' Tamburlaine,' Part I., Act v ft Ibid. Part I., Act n. 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 THE DRAMATISTS OF SHAKSPERE's FIRST PERIOD. 
 
 33 
 
 bidden paths. He plunged into the haunts 
 of wild and profligate men, lighting up their 
 murky caves with his poetical torch, and 
 gaming nothing from them but the renewed 
 power of scorning the unspiritual things of 
 our being, without the resolution to seek for 
 wisdom in the daylight track which every 
 man may tread. If his life had not been 
 fatally cut short, the fiery spirit might have 
 learnt the value of meekness, and the daring 
 sceptic have cast away the bitter " fruit " 
 of half-knowledge. He did not long survive 
 the fearful exhortation of his dying com- 
 panion, the unhappy Greene : "Wonder not, 
 thou famous gracer 6f tragedians, that Greene, 
 who hath said with thee, like the fool in his 
 heart, there is no God, should now give glory 
 unto His greatness : for penetrating is His 
 power, His hand lies heavy upon me, He hath 
 spoken unto me with a voice of thunder, and 
 I have felt He is a God that can punish ene- 
 mies. Why should thy excellent wit, His gift, 
 be so blinded that thoushouldest give no glory 
 to the giver 1 ?" Marlowe resented the accu- 
 sation which Greene's words conveyed. We 
 may hope that he did more ; that he felt, 
 to use other words of the same memorable 
 exhortation, that the " liberty " which he 
 sought was an " infernal bondage." 
 
 " Eloquent and witty JOHN LYLY " * was 
 called, by a bookseller who collected his 
 plays some forty years or more after their 
 appearance, "the only rare poet of that 
 time, the witty, comical, facetiously quick, 
 and unparalleled John Lyly, Master of Arts." 
 Such is the puff-direct of a title-page 01* 
 1632. The title-pages and the puffs have 
 parted company in our day, to carry on their 
 partnership in separate fields, and sometimes 
 looking loftily on each other, as if they were 
 not twin-brothers. He it was that took hold 
 of the somewhat battered and clipped but 
 sterling coin of our old language, and, mint- 
 ing it afresh, with a very sufficient quantity 
 of alloy, produced a sparkling currency, the 
 very counters of court compliment. It was 
 truly said, and it was meant for praise, that 
 he " hath stepped one step further than any 
 either before or since he first began the witty 
 discourse of his 'Euphues.'"f According 
 
 * Mercs, f Webbe's ' Discourse of English Poetry, '1586. 
 
 to. Nash, " he is but a little fellow, but he 
 hath one of the best wits in England."! 
 The little man knew 
 
 " What hell it is in suing long to bide." 
 
 He had been a dreary time waiting and pe- 
 titioning for the place of Master of the 
 Revels. In his own peculiar phraseology he 
 tells the Queen, in one of his petitions, 
 " For these ten years I have attended with 
 an unwearied patience, and now I know not 
 what crab took me for an oyster, that in the 
 middest of your sunshine, of your most gra- 
 cious aspect, hath thrust a stone between the 
 shells to rate me alive that only live on dead 
 hopes." Dray ton described him truly, at a 
 later period, when poetry had asserted her 
 proper rights, as 
 
 " Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies, 
 Playing with words, and idle similies." 
 
 Lyly was undoubtedly the predecessor* of 
 Shakspere. His ( Alexander and Campaspe,' 
 acted not only at Court but at the Black- 
 friars, was printed as early as 1584. It is 
 not easy to understand how a popular au- 
 dience could ever have sat it out ; but the 
 incomprehensible and the excellent are some- 
 times confounded. What should we think 
 of a prologue, addressed to a gaping pit, and 
 hushing the cracking of nuts into silence, 
 which commences thus ? " They that fear 
 the stinging of wasps make fans of peacocks' 
 tails, whose spots are like eyes : and Lepidus, 
 which could not sleep for the chattering of 
 birds, set up a beast whose head was like a 
 dragon : and we, which stand in awe of re- 
 port, are compelled to set before our owl 
 Pallas's shield, thinking by her virtue to 
 cover the other's deformity." Shakspere 
 was a naturalist, and a true one ; but Lyly 
 was the more inventive, for he made his own 
 natural history. The epilogue to the same 
 play informs the confiding audience that 
 " Where the rainbow toucheth the tree no 
 caterpillars will hang on the leaves ; where 
 the glow-worm creepeth in the night no 
 adder will go in the day." ' Alexander and 
 Campaspe' is in prose. The action is little, 
 
 ' Apology of Pierce Pennilesse.' 
 
 Petition to the Queen in the Harleian MSS. : Dods- 
 ley's Old Plays, 1825, vol. ii. 
 
34 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE". 
 
 [BOOK i. 
 
 the talk is everything. Hephaestion exhorts 
 Alexander against the danger of love, in a 
 speech that with very slight elaboration 
 would be long enough for a sermon. Apelles 
 soliloquizes upon his own love for Campaspe 
 in a style so insufferably tedious, that we 
 could wish to thrust the picture that he 
 sighs over down his rhetorical throat (even 
 as Pistol was made to swallow the leek), if 
 he did not close his oration with one of the 
 prettiest songs of our old poetry : 
 
 " Cupid and my Campaspe play'd 
 At cards for kisses, Cupid paid; 
 He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows, 
 His mother's doves and team of sparrows; 
 Loses them, too; then down he throws 
 The coral of his lip, the rose 
 Growing on 's cheek (but none knows how), 
 With these the crystal of his brow, 
 And then the dimple of his chin ; 
 All these did my Campaspe win. 
 At last he set her both his eyes, 
 She won, and Cupid blind did rise. 
 Love ! has she done this to thee? 
 What shall, alas ! become of me?" 
 
 The dramatic system of Lyly is a thing 
 unique in its kind. He never attempts to 
 deal with realities. He revels in pastoral 
 and mythological subjects. He makes his 
 gods and goddesses, his nymphs and shep- 
 herds, all speak a language which common 
 mortals would disdain to use. In prose or in 
 verse, they are all the cleverest of the clever. 
 They are, one and all, passionless beings, 
 with no voice but that of their showman. 
 But it is easy to see how a man of consider- 
 able talent would hold such things to be 
 the proper refinements to banish for ever 
 the vulgarities of the old comedy. He had 
 not the genius to discover that the highest 
 drama was essentially for the people ; and 
 that its foundations must rest upon the ele- 
 mental properties of mankind, whether to 
 produce tears or laughter that should com- 
 mand a lasting and universal sympathy. 
 Lyly came too early, or too late, to gather 
 any enduring fame ; and he lived to see a 
 new race of writers, and one towering above 
 the rest, who cleared the stage of his tin- 
 selled puppets, and filled the scene with 
 noble copies of humanity. His fate was a 
 
 hard one. Without the vices of men of 
 higher talent, he had to endure poverty and 
 disappointment, doomed to spin his "pithy 
 sentences and gallant tropes " for a thank- 
 less Court and a neglectful multitude ; and, 
 with a tearful merriment, writing to his 
 Queen, "In all humility I intreat that I 
 may dedicate to your Sacred Majesty Lyly 
 de Tristibus, wherein shall be seen patience, 
 labours, and misfortunes." 
 
 THOMAS KYD was the author of 'Jero- 
 nimo,' which men long held as the only best 
 and judiciously penned play in Europe."* 
 Wherever performed originally, the prin- 
 cipal character was adapted to an actor of 
 very small stature. It is not impossible that 
 a precocious boy, one of the children of 
 Paul's, might have filled the character. 
 Jeronimo the Spanish marshal, and Bal- 
 thazar the Prince of Portugal, thus exchange 
 compliments : 
 
 " Balthazar. Thou inch of Spain, 
 Thou man, from thy hose downward scarce so 
 
 much, 
 
 Thou very little longer than thy beard, 
 Speak not such big words; they '11 throw thee 
 
 down, 
 
 Little Jeronimo : words greater than thyself ! 
 It must be. 
 
 Jeronimo. And thou, long thing of Por- 
 tugal, why not 1 
 Thou that art full as tall 
 As an English gallows, upper beam and all, 
 Devourer of apparel, thou huge swallower, 
 My hose will scarce make thee a standing 
 collar : 
 What ! have I almost quited you?" 
 
 There can be no doubt that ( Jeronimo,' 
 whatever remodelling it may have received, 
 belongs essentially to the early stage. There 
 is killing beyond all reasonable measure. 
 Lorenzo kills Pedro, and Alexandro kills 
 Rogero : Andrea is also killed, hut he does 
 not so readily quit the scene. After a decent 
 interval, occupied by talk and fighting, the 
 man comes again in the shape of his own 
 ghost, according to the following stage- 
 direction : " Enter two, dragging of en- 
 signs ; then the funeral of Andrea : next 
 
 * Jonson's Induction to 'Cynthia's Revels.' 
 
CHAP. VII.] 
 
 ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF SHAKSPERE S PLAYS. 
 
 35 
 
 Horatio and Lorenzo leading Prince Bal- 
 thazar captive : then the Lord General, with 
 others, mourning : a great cry within, Charon, 
 a boat, a boat : then enter Charon and the 
 Ghost of Andrea." Charon, Revenge, and 
 the Ghost have a little pleasant dialogue ; 
 and the Ghost then vanishes with the fol- 
 lowing triumphant words : 
 
 " I am a happy ghost ; 
 
 Eevenge, my passage now cannot be cross'd : 
 Come, Charon; come, hell's sculler, waft me 
 o'er 
 
 Your sable streams which look like molten 
 
 pitch ; 
 My funeral rites are made, my hearse hung rich." 
 
 HENRY CHETTLE, a friend of Greene, but 
 who seems to have been a man of higher 
 morals, if of inferior genius ; and ANTHONY 
 MTJNDAY, who was called by Meres " the best 
 plotter" (by which he probably means a 
 manufacturer of dumb shows), are the only 
 remaining dramatists, whose names have 
 escaped oblivion, that can be called con- 
 temporaries of Shakspere in his early days 
 at the Blackfriars. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF SHAKSPERE'S PLAYS. 
 
 THE order in which the thirty-six plays con- 
 tained in the folio of 1623 are presented to 
 the reader is contained in the following list, 
 which forms a leaf of that edition : 
 
 "A CATALOGUE OF THE SEVERAL COMEDIES, HIS- 
 TORIES, AND TRAGEDIES CONTAINED IN THIS 
 VOLUME. 
 
 Comedies. 
 The Tempest. 
 
 The Two Gentlemen of Verona. 
 The Merry Wives of Windsor. 
 Measure for Measure. 
 The Comedy of Errors. 
 Much Ado about Nothing. 
 Love's Labour's Lost. 
 Midsummer Night's Dream. ^ 
 The Merchant of Venice. 
 As You Like It. 
 The Taming of the Shrew. 
 All's Well that Ends Well. 
 Twelfth Night, or What You Will. * 
 The Winter's Tale. 
 
 Histories. 
 
 The Life and Death of King John. 
 The Life and Death of King Richard II. 
 The First Part of King Henry IV. 
 The Second Part of King Henry IV. 
 The Life of King Henry V. 
 The First Part of King Henry VI. 
 The Second Part of King Henry VI. 
 The Third Part of King Henry VI. 
 The Life and Death of Richard III. 
 The Life of King Henry VIII. 
 
 Tragedies. 
 
 Troilus and Cressida. 
 
 The Tragedy of Coriolanus. 
 
 Titus Andronicus. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 Timon of Athens. 
 
 The Life and Death of Julius Caesar. 
 
 The Tragedy of Macbeth. 
 
 The Tragedy of Hamlet. 
 
 King Lear. 
 
 Othello, the Moor of Venice. 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra. 
 
 Cymbeline, King of Britain." 
 The general division here given of the 
 plays into three classes is manifestly a dis- 
 criminating and a just one. The editors 
 were thoroughly cognizant of the distinction 
 which Shakspere drew between his Histories 
 and Tragedies, as works of art. Subsequent 
 editors have not so accurately seen this dis- 
 tinction ; for they have inserted 'Macbeth' 
 immediately after the Comedies, and pre- 
 ceding ' King John,' as if it were a History, 
 taking its place in the chronological order 
 of events. It will be observed, also, that 
 the original editors had a just regard to the 
 order of events in their arrangement of the 
 Histories, properly so called. But the order 
 of succession in the Comedies and Tragedies 
 must be considered an arbitrary one. Sub- 
 sequent editors have introduced an order 
 still more arbitrary j and to Malone belongs 
 
 P2 
 
36 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK i. 
 
 the credit of having endeavoured to place 
 the Comedies and Tragedies in the order in 
 which he supposed them to have been writ- 
 ten. This arrangement took place in his 
 posthumous edition ; but, his preliminary 
 notices to each play consisting of the various 
 opinions of the commentators generally, the 
 advantage of considering each with refer- 
 ence to the supposed epoch of its production 
 was very imperfectly p,ttained in that edi- 
 tion. We therefore resolved, previous to the 
 commencement of our ' Pictorial Edition,' 
 to establish in our own minds certain prin- 
 ciples, which should become to us a ge- 
 neral guide as to the order in which we 
 should publish the Comedies and Tragedies ; 
 still, however, keeping the classes separate, 
 and not mixing them, according to their 
 supposed dates, as Malone had done. But 
 we did not pretend, nor even desire, to esta- 
 blish an exact date for the original produc- 
 tion of each play. We attempted only to 
 obtain a general notion of the date of their 
 production in several groups. There would, 
 of course, occur, with reference to each play, 
 some detailed investigation, which would 
 exhibit facts having a tendency to approxi- 
 mate that play to a particular year ; but we 
 knew, and we have subsequently shown, 
 that, with very few exceptions indeed, the 
 confident chronological orders of Malone, 
 and Chalmers, and Drake, have been little 
 more than guesses, sometimes ingenious and 
 plausible, but oftener unsatisfactory and 
 almost childish. But it appeared to us that 
 there were certain broad principles to be 
 kept in view, which would offer no incon- 
 siderable assistance in forming a just esti- 
 mate of the growth of the poet's powers, 
 and of his peculiarities of thought and style 
 at different periods of his life. It is obvious 
 that, upon some such estimate as this, how- 
 ever imperfect, much that is most valuable 
 in any critical analysis of his works, and 
 especially in any comparison with the works 
 of his contemporaries, must in a large degree 
 depend. The general views which we have 
 taken differ considerably from those of our 
 predecessors ; and they do so, for the most 
 part, because we have more facts to guide 
 us, and especially the one fact that he was 
 
 established in London, as a shareholder in 
 the leading company of players, as early as 
 the year 1589. We begin, therefore, by as- 
 suming that he was a writer for the stage 
 five years at least before the period usually 
 assigned for the commencement of his career 
 as a dramatic poet. It may be convenient 
 here briefly to recapitulate the reasons for 
 this opinion, which we shall have to enforce 
 in many subsequent passages of these " stu- 
 dies." 
 
 We shall first present an Abstract of Ma- 
 lone's last Chronological Order, as a case 
 upon which to ground our argument. 
 
 Poet's 
 Age. 
 
 1. First Part of King Henry YI. . 1589 25 
 
 2. Second Part of King Henry VI. 1591 ] 
 
 3. Third Part of King Henry VI. . 1591 I 27 
 
 4. Two Gentlemen of Verona . .1591] 
 
 5. Comedy of Errors ..... 1592 28 
 
 6. King Richard II ...... 1593) 
 
 7. King Richard III ...... 1593 j ^ 
 
 8. Love's Labour's Lost .... 15941 
 
 9. Merchant of Venice ..... 1594 [ 30 
 
 10. Midsummer Night's Dream . . 1594 J 
 
 11. Taming of the Shrew . . . .1596] 
 
 12. Romeo and Juliet ..... 1596 [ 32 
 
 13. King John ........ 1596 J 
 
 14. First Part of King Henry IV. . 1597 33 
 
 15. Second Part of King Henry IV. 1599] 
 
 16. As you Like It ...... 1599 I 35 
 
 17. King Henry V ....... 1599 J 
 
 18. Much Ado about Nothing . . 1600) 
 
 19. Hamlet ..... .... 1600) d( 
 
 20. Merry Wives of Windsor . . .1601 37 
 
 21. Troilus and Cressida .... 1602 38 
 
 22. Measure for Measure . . . . 1603) 
 
 23. Henry VIII ........ 1603) *' 
 
 24. Othello ......... 1604 40 
 
 25. Lear .......... 1605 41 
 
 26. All's Well that Ends Well . . 1606) 
 
 27. Macbeth ......... 1606) 4 " 
 
 28. Julius Csesar ....... 1607) 
 
 29. Twelfth Night ....... 1607) 
 
 30. Antony and Cleopatra .... 1608 44 
 
 31. Cymbeline ........ 1609 45 
 
 32. Coriolanus ...... .. . 1610) 
 
 33. Timon of Athens ...... 1610) 4( 
 
 34. Winter's Tale ....... 1611 \ 4 >- 
 
 35. Tempest .......... 1611 J ' 
 
 36. Pericles . . . .) Omitted as 
 
 37. Titus Andronicus . J doubtful. 
 
 
CHAP. VII.] 
 
 ON THE CHRONOLOGY OP SHAKSPERE S PLAYS. 
 
 37 
 
 Iii 1598 Francis Meres published his 
 'Palladia Tamia, Wit's Treasury,' which 
 contains the most important notice of Shak- 
 spere of any contemporary writer : " As 
 Plautus and Seneca are accounted the Lest 
 for comedy and tragedy among the Latins, 
 so Shakespeare, among the English, is the 
 most excellent in both kinds for the stage : 
 for comedy, witness his e Gentlemen of Ve- 
 rona/ his ' Errors,' his ( Love's Labour's Lost.' 
 his ' Love Labours Won,' his ' Mid-summer's 
 Night Dream,' and his ' Merchant of Venice ;' 
 for tragedy, his ' Richard II.,' ' Richard III.,' 
 < Henry IV.,' 'King John,' 'Titus Andro- 
 nicus,' and his ' Romeo and Juliet.' " 
 
 This notice fixes the date of thirteen plays, 
 as having been produced up to 1598. But 
 this list can scarcely be supposed to be a 
 complete one. The expression which Meres 
 uses, "for comedy witness^ implies that he 
 selects particular examples of excellence. 
 We know that the three parts of ' Henry VI.' 
 existed before 1598 : we believe that ' The 
 Taming of the Shrew' was amongst the early 
 plays ; and that the original sketch of 
 1 Hamlet ' had been produced at the very 
 outset of Shakspere's dramatic career. 'All's 
 Well that Ends Well,' we believe, also, to 
 have been an early play, known to Meres as 
 ' Love's Labour's Won.' But carry the list 
 of Meres forward two years, and we have to 
 add 'Much Ado about Nothing' and 'Henry 
 V.,' which were then printed. The account, 
 therefore, stands thus in 1600 : 
 
 Plays mentioned by Meres, considering 
 
 Henry IV. as Two Parts 13 
 
 Henry VI., Three Parts 3 
 
 Taming of the Shrew ") 2 
 
 Hamlet (sketch) j ' 
 
 Much Ado about Nothing ) 2 
 
 Henry V. ) ' ' L' 
 
 20 
 
 We have now seventeen plays, including 
 ' Pericles,' left for the seventeenth century ; 
 but some of these have established their 
 claim to an earlier date than has been usually 
 assigned to them. 'Twelfth Night' and 
 'Othello' were performed in 1602. Under 
 the usual chronological order we are com- 
 pelled, according to the analysis which we 
 
 have just given, to crowd twenty plays into 
 ten years. But, putting aside ' Titus Andro- 
 nicus,' Meres gives us a list of twelve original 
 plays existing when his book was printed in 
 1598 twelve plays which we would not ex- 
 change for all the contemporary dramatic 
 literature produced in the years between 
 1593 and 1598. In support of these asser- 
 tions, and these computations, not the slight- 
 est direct evidence has ever been offered. 
 The indirect evidence constantly alleged 
 against Shakspere being a writer before he 
 Tras twenty-seven years old is that he had 
 obtained no reputation, and is not even men- 
 tioned by any contemporary, previously to 
 the satirical notice of him in the last pro- 
 duction of Robert Greene, who died in Sep- 
 tember, 1592, in which he is called "the 
 only Shake-scene in the country." The very 
 terms used by Greene would imply that the 
 successful author of whom he was envious 
 had acquired a reputation. But this is not 
 the usual construction put on the words. 
 The silence of other writers with regard to 
 Shakspere is minutely set forth by Malone ; 
 and his opinions, as it appears to us, have 
 been much too implicitly received some- 
 times indolently sometimes for the support 
 of a theory that would recognise Shakspere 
 as a mere actor, or, at most, as the repairer 
 of other men's works whilst the original 
 genius of Marlowe, and half a dozen inferior 
 writers, was in full activity around him. The 
 omission of all notice of Shakspere by Webbe, 
 Puttenham, Harrington, Sidney, are brought 
 forward by Malone as unquestionable proofs 
 that our poet had not written before 1591 or 
 1592. He says that in Webbe's ' Discourse 
 of English Poetry,' published in 1586, we 
 meet with the names of the most celebrated 
 poets of that time, particularly those of the 
 dramatic writers Whetstone and Munday ; 
 but that we find no trace of Shakspere or of 
 his works. But Malone does not tell us that 
 Webbe makes a general apology for his omis- 
 sions, saying, "Neither is my abiding in such 
 place where I can with facility get know- 
 ledge of their works." " Three years after- 
 wards," continues Malone, "Puttenham 
 printed his ' Art of English Poesy ;' and in 
 that work also we look in vain for the name 
 
38 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK i. 
 
 of Shakspere." The book speaks of the one- 
 and-thirty years' space of Elizabeth's reign, 
 and thus puts the date of the writing a year 
 earlier than the printing. But we here look 
 in vain for some other illustrious names 
 besides that of Shakspere. Malone has not 
 told us that the name of Edmund Spenser is 
 not found in Puttenham ; nor, what is still 
 more uncandid, that not one of Shakspere's 
 early dramatic contemporaries is mentioned 
 neither Marlowe, nor Greene, nor Peele, 
 nor Kyd, nor Lyly. The author evidently 
 derives his knowledge of " poets and poesy " 
 from a much earlier period than that in 
 which he publishes. He does not mention 
 Spenser by name, but he does " that other 
 gentleman who wrote the late ( Shepherd's 
 Calendar.' " The ' Shepherd's Calendar' of 
 Spenser was published in the year 1579. 
 Malone goes on to argue that the omission 
 of Shakspere's name, or any notice of his 
 works, in Sir John Harrington's ' Apology of 
 Poetry,' printed in 1591, in which " he takes 
 occasion to speak of the theatre, and men- 
 tions some of the celebrated dramas of that 
 time," is a proof that none of Shakspere's 
 dramatic compositions had then appeared. 
 The " celebrated dramas " which Harrington 
 mentions are Latin plays, and an old London 
 comedy called ' Play of the Cards.' Does he 
 mention ' Tamburlaine,' or ' Faustus,' or 
 'The Massacre of Paris,' or 'Th6 Jew of 
 Malta ?' As he does not, it may be assumed 
 with equal justice that none of Marlowe's 
 compositions had appeared in 1591 ; and yet 
 we know that he died in 1593. So of Lyly's 
 1 Galathea,' ' Alexander and Campaspe,' ' En- 
 dymion,' &c. So of Greene's ' Orlando 
 Furioso,' ' Friar Bacon,' ' James IV.' So of 
 the ( Jeronimo' of Kyd. The truth is, that 
 Harrington in his notice of celebrated 
 dramas was even more antiquated than Put- 
 tenham ; and his evidence, therefore, in this 
 matter is utterly worthless. But Malone has 
 given his crowning proof that Shakspere had 
 not written before 1591, in the following 
 words : " Sir Philip Sidney, in his ' Defence 
 of Poesie,' speaks at some length of the low 
 state of dramatic literature at the time he 
 composed this treatise, but has not the 
 slightest allusion to Shakspere, whose plays, 
 
 had they then appeared, would doubtless 
 have rescued the English stage from the 
 contempt which is thrown upon it by the 
 accomplished writer, and to which it was 
 justly exposed by the wretched compositions 
 of those who preceded our poet. ' The De- 
 fence of Poesie' was not published till 1595, 
 but must have been written some years be- 
 fore." There is one slight objection to this 
 argument : Sir Philip Sidney was killed at 
 the battle of Zutphen, in the year 1586 ; and 
 it is tolerably well ascertained that 'The 
 Defence of Poesie' was written in the year 
 1581. 
 
 If the indirect evidence that Shakspere 
 had not acquired any reputation in 1591 
 thus breaks down, we may venture to inquire 
 whether the same authority has not been 
 equally unsuccessful in rejecting the belief, 
 which was implicitly adopted by Dry den and 
 Rowe, that the reputation of Shakspere as a 
 comic poet was distinctly recognised by 
 Spenser in his 'Thalia,' in 1591 *. 
 
 What, then, is the theory which we build 
 upon the various circumstances we have 
 brought together, and which we oppose to 
 the prevailing theory in England as to the 
 dates of Shakspere's works ? We ask that 
 the author of twenty plays, existing in 1600, 
 which completely changed the face of the 
 dramatic literature of England, should be 
 supposed to have begun to write a little 
 earlier than the age of twenty-seven ; that 
 we should assign some few of those plays to 
 a period antecedent to 1590. We have reason 
 to believe that, up to the close of the six- 
 teenth century, Shakspere was busied as an 
 actor as well as an author. It is something 
 too much to expect, then, even from the 
 fertility of his genius, occupied as he was, 
 that he should have produced twenty plays 
 in nine years ; and it is still more unreason- 
 able to believe that the consciousness of 
 power which he must have possessed should 
 not have prompted him to enter the lists 
 with other dramatists (whose highest pro- 
 ductions may, without exaggeration, be 
 stated as every way inferior to his lowest), 
 
 * This poem of 'Thalia' is noticed in 'The Life and 
 Writings of Shakspere,' in Knight's ' Cabinet 1 and One 
 Volume editions of Shakspre. 
 
CHAP. VII.] 
 
 ON THE CHRONOLOGY OP SHAKSPERE'S PLAYS. 
 
 39 
 
 until lie had gone through a probation of six 
 or seven years' acquaintance with the stage 
 as an humble actor. We cannot reconcile it 
 to probability that he who ceased to be an 
 actor when he was forty should have been 
 contented to have been only an actor till he 
 was twenty-seven. We cling to the belief 
 that Shakspere, by commencing his career as 
 a dramatic writer some four or five years 
 earlier than is generally maintained, may 
 claim, in common with his less illustrious 
 early contemporaries, the praise of being one 
 of the great founders of our dramatic litera- 
 ture, instead of being the mere follower and 
 improver of Marlowe, and Greene, and Peele, 
 and Kyd. 
 
 Our belief, then, as to the periods of the 
 original production of Shakspere's Plays, 
 shapes itself into something like the follow- 
 ing arrangement : 
 
 FIRST PERIOD, 1585 to 1593. From his 21st 
 
 year to his 29th. 
 Titus Andronicus. 
 Hamlet. The first sketch. 
 Henry YL Three Parts. 
 Two Gentlemen of Yerona. 
 Comedy of Errors. 
 Love's Labour's Lost. 
 
 All's Well that Ends Well (perhaps imper- 
 fect). 
 Taming of the Shrew (the same). 
 
 SECOND PERIOD, 1594 to 1600. From his 
 
 30th year to his 36th. 
 Eichard III. 
 Kichard II. 
 
 Henry IV. Two Parts. 
 Henry V. 
 King John. 
 
 A Midsummer Night's Dream. 
 Romeo and Juliet. 
 Merchant of Yenice. 
 Much Ado about Nothing. 
 Merry Wives of Windsor. 
 
 THIRD PERIOD, 1601 to 1607. From his 
 
 37th year to his 43rd. 
 As You Like It. 
 Twelfth Night. 
 Measure for Measure. 
 Hamlet (complete). 
 Othello. 
 Lear. 
 
 Macbeth. 
 
 Timon of Athens (probably revision of an 
 earlier play). 
 
 FOURTH PERIOD, 1608 to 1616. From his 
 
 44th year to his death. 
 Cymbeline (probably revision of an earlier 
 
 play). 
 
 A Winter's Tale. 
 Pericles (probably revision of an earlier 
 
 play). 
 
 The Tempest. 
 Troilus and Cressida. 
 Henry VIII. 
 Coriolanus. 
 Julius Caesar. 
 Antony and Cleopatra. 
 
 There is another view in which the chro- 
 nological order of Shakspere's plays may be 
 regarded': and we think that it presents a 
 key to the workings of his genius, in con- 
 nexion with that desire which men of the 
 highest genius only entertain, when a con- 
 stant succession of new productions is de- 
 manded of them by the popular appetite 
 namely, to generalize their works by certain 
 principles of art, producing novel combina- 
 tions ; which principles impart to groups of 
 them belonging to the same period a corre- 
 sponding identity. In Shakspere this is to 
 be regarded more especially with reference 
 to the nature of the dramatic action. We 
 put down these groups, rather as materials 
 for thought in the reader, than as a decided 
 expression of our own conviction ; because 
 all such circumstances and relations must 
 be modified by other facts of which we have 
 an incomplete knowledge, 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OP HORRORS. 
 
 Titus Andronicus -\ Earliest pe- 
 
 Hamlet. First sketch i- riod; 1585 
 
 Borneo and Juliet. First sketch* J to 1588. 
 
 ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 Of a Tragic Cast. 
 
 Henry YL Three Parts -\ Second early 
 
 Richard III. L period; 
 
 Richard II. J 1589 to 1593. 
 
 * Our reasons for considering the first ' Hamlet ' and 
 ' Romeo and Juliet' to belong to this class are given in 
 the next chapter, on ' Titus Andronicus.' 
 
40 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. [BOOK I. 
 
 Of Mixed Tragedy and Comedy. 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF SHAKSPERE'S PLAYS. 
 
 King John >> 1596 to 1599; 
 
 Henry VI., Part I. . . Alluded to by Nashe in 
 
 Henry IV. Two Parts middle 
 Henry V. J period. 
 
 ' Pierce Pennilesse,' . 1592 
 Henry VI., Part II. . . Printed as 'The First Part 
 of the Contention,' . 1594 
 
 
 Henry VI., Part III. . . Printed as The True 
 
 COMEDY. 
 
 Tragedy of Richard 
 
 Two Gentlemen of Verona ") 
 
 DukeofYork,' . . 1595 
 
 Comedy of Errors 
 Love's Labour's Lost 
 
 Second early 
 _ j 
 
 Richard II. ... Printed .... 1597 
 Richard III. . . . Printed .... 1597 
 Romeo and Juliet . . Printed . 1597 
 
 All's Well that Ends Well 
 
 period ; 
 
 Love's Labour's Lost . Printed .... 1593 
 
 Taming of the Shrew 
 Midsummer Night's Dream 
 
 1589tol593. 
 
 Henry IV., Part I. . . Printed . . . .1598 
 Henry IV., Part II. . . Printed .... 1600 
 Henry V Printed .... 1GOO 
 
 Merchant of Venice 
 
 
 Merchant of Venice . . Printed 1600. Mentioned 
 
 Much Ado about Nothing 
 Merry Wives of Windsor 
 
 1594 to 1599; 
 
 by Meres . . .1598 
 Midsummer Night's Dream Printed 1600. Mentioned 
 by Meres . . .1598 
 
 Twelfth Night 
 
 - middle pe- 
 
 Much Ado about Nothing Printed .... 1600 
 
 
 riod. 
 
 As You Like It . . . Entered at Stationers' 
 
 
 
 Hall .... 1600 
 
 Eomeo and Juliet (complete) 
 
 
 All's Well that Ends Well Held to be mentioned by 
 
 
 Meres as 'Love's La- 
 
 THE TKAGEDY OF PASSION AND CHARACTER. 
 
 bour's Won' . . . 1598 
 
 
 Two Gentlemen of Verona Mentioned by Meres . 1598 
 
 Hamlet (complete) 
 Othello 
 
 First matured 
 
 Comedy of Errors . . Mentioned by Meres . 1598 
 King John .... Mentioned by Meres . 1598 
 
 J-jCtir 
 
 period; 
 
 Titus Andronicus . . Printed .... 1600 
 
 Macbeth 
 
 1600tol608. 
 
 Merry Wives of Windsor Printed .... 1602 
 Hamlet .... Printed .... 1603 
 
 
 Twelfth Night . . . Acted in the Middle Tem- 
 
 THE POETICAL LEGENDARY TALE, OR ROMANTIC 
 
 ple Hall .... 1C02 
 
 
 Othello .... Acted at Harefield . . 1602 
 
 DRAMA. 
 
 Measure for Measure . Acted at Whitehall . . 1604 
 
 As You Like It . 
 
 Lear Printed 1608. Acted at 
 
 Cymbeline First matured 
 Winter's Tale I period ; 
 
 Whitehall . . . 1607 
 Taming of the Shrew . Supposed to have been 
 acted at Henslow's The- 
 
 Tempest 1600tol608. 
 
 atre, 1593. Entered at 
 
 Pericles -^ 
 
 Stationers' Hall . . 1607 
 
 
 Troilus and Cressida . Printed 1609. Previously 
 
 
 acted at Court . . 1609 
 
 TRAGI-COMEDY. 
 
 
 Measure for Measure 
 
 Second ma- 
 
 The Tempest . . . Acted at Whitehall . . 1611 
 The Winter's Tale . . Acted at Whitehall . . 1611 
 
 Troilus and Cressida 
 
 tured period; 
 
 Henry VIII. Acted as a new play when 
 
 Timon of Athens 
 
 1609 to 
 
 the Globe was burned . 1613 
 
 
 1 fil fi. 
 
 
 
 Out of the thirty-seven Plays of Shakspere, 
 
 ROMAN PLAYS. 
 
 the dates of thirty-one are thus to some ex- 
 
 Coriolanus -. 
 
 tent fixed in epochs. These dates are, of 
 
 Julius Ceesar 
 
 feecond ma- 
 
 course, to be modified by other circumstances. 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra 
 
 tured period; 
 
 There are only six Plays remaining, whose 
 
 
 
 1609 to 
 
 1 PI K 
 
 dates are not thus limited by publication, by 
 
 Henry VIII. 
 
 lOlO. 
 
 the notice of contemporaries, or by the record 
 
 We subjoin a Chronological Table of Shak- 
 spere's Plays, which we have constructed 
 
 of their performances; and these certainly 
 belong to the poet's latter period. They are 
 
 with some care, showing the positive facts 
 
 Macbeth. Julius Caesar. 
 
 which, determine dates previous to which 
 
 Cymbeline. Antony and Cleopatra. 
 
 they were produced. 
 
 
 Tirnon of Athens. Coriolanus. 
 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 TITUS ANDRONICUS. 
 
 41 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TITUS ANDRONICUS. 
 
 THE external evidence that bears 'upon the 
 authorship of 'Titus Andronicus' is of two 
 kinds : 
 
 1. The testimony which assigns the play 
 to Shakspere, wholly or in part. 
 
 2. The testimony which fixes the period of 
 its original production. 
 
 The direct testimony of the first kind is 
 unimpeachable : Francis Meres, a contempo- 
 rary of Shakspere a man intimately ac- 
 quainted with the literary history of his day 
 not writing even in the later period of 
 Shakspere's life, but as early as 1598 com- 
 pares, for tragedy, the excellence of Shak- 
 spere among the English, with Seneca among 
 the Latins, and says, witness, "for tragedy, 
 ' his Richard II.,' ' Richard III.,' ' Henry IV.,' 
 'King John,' 'Titus Andronicus,' and his 
 ' Romeo and Juliet.' " 
 
 The indirect testimony is nearly as im- 
 portant. The play is printed in the first 
 folio edition of the poet's collected works 
 an edition published within seven years after 
 his death by his intimate friends and "fel- 
 lows;" and that edition contains an entire 
 scene not found in either of the previous 
 guarto editions which have come down to us. 
 That edition does not contain a single other 
 play upon which a doubt of the authorship 
 has been raised ; for even those who deny 
 the entire authorship of ' Henry VI.' to 
 Shakspere have no doubt as to the partial 
 authorship. 
 
 Against this testimony of the editors of 
 the first folio, that Shakspere was the author 
 of ' Titus Andronicus,' there is only one fact 
 to be opposed that his name is not on the 
 title-page of either of the quarto editions, 
 although those editions show us that it was 
 acted by the company to which Shakspere 
 
 belonged. But neither was the name of 
 Shakspere affixed to the first editions of 
 ' Richard II.,' ' Richard III.,' and ' Henry IV., 
 Part I. ; ' nor to the first three editions of 
 ' Romeo and Juliet ; ' nor to ' Henry V.' These 
 similar facts, therefore, leave the testimony 
 of Hemings and Condell unimpeached. 
 
 We now come to the second point the 
 testimony which fixes the date of the original 
 production of ' Titus Andronicus.' There are 
 two modes of viewing this portion of the 
 evidence; and we first present it with the 
 interpretation w r hich deduces from it that the 
 tragedy was not written by Shakspere. 
 
 Ben Jonson, in the Induction to his ' Bar- 
 tholomew Fair,' first acted in 1614, says 
 "He that will swear 'Jeronimo,' or 'An- 
 dronicus,' are the best plays yet, shall pass 
 unexcepted at here, as a man whose judg- 
 ment shows it is constant, and hath stood 
 still these five-and-twenty or thirty years. 
 Though it be an ignorance, it is a virtuous 
 and staid ignorance; and, next to truth, a 
 confirmed error does well." Percy offers 
 the following comment upon this passage, in 
 his ' Reliques of Ancient Poetry : ' " There 
 is reason to conclude that this play was 
 rather improved by Shakespeare with a few 
 fine touches of his pen, than originally written 
 by him : for, not to mention that the style is 
 less figurative than his others generally are, 
 this tragedy is mentioned with discredit in 
 the Induction to Ben Jonson's 'Bartholomew 
 Fair,' in 1614, as one that had been then ex- 
 hibited 'five-and-twenty or thirty years;' 
 which, if we take the lowest number, throws 
 it back to the year 1589, at which time 
 Shakespeare was but 25 : an earlier date than 
 can be found for any other of his pieces." 
 With the views we entertain as to the com- 
 
42 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK n. 
 
 mencement of Shakspere's career as a dra- 
 matic author, the proof against his author- 
 ship of ' Titus Andronicus, ' thus brought 
 forward by Percy, is to us amongst the most 
 convincing reasons for not hastily adopting 
 the opinion that he was not its author. The 
 external evidence of the authorship, and the 
 external evidence of the date of the author- 
 ship, entirely coincide : each supports the 
 other. The continuation of the argument 
 derived from the early date of the play 
 naturally runs into the internal evidence of 
 its authenticity. The fact of its early date 
 is indisputable; and here, for the present, 
 we leave it. 
 
 We can scarcely subscribe to Mr. Hallam's 
 strong opinion, given with reference to this 
 question of the authorship of 'Titus An- 
 dronicus,' that, " in criticism of all kinds, we 
 must acquire a dogged habit of resisting 
 testimony, when res ipsa per se vociferatur to 
 the contrary."* The res ipsa may be looked 
 upon through very different media by dif- 
 ferent minds : testimony, when it is clear, and 
 free from the suspicion of an interested bias, 
 although it appear to militate against con- 
 clusions that, however strong, are not in- 
 fallible, because they depend upon very nice 
 analysis and comparison, must be received, 
 more or less, and cannot be doggedly resisted. 
 Mr. Hallam says, " 'Titus Andronicus' is now, 
 by common consent, denied to be, in any 
 sense, a production of Shakspeare." Who 
 are the interpreters of the "common con- 
 sent ? " Theobald, Johnson, Farmer, Stee- 
 vens, Malone, M. Mason. These critics are 
 wholly of one school ; and we admit that they 
 represent the "common consent" of their 
 own school of English literature upon this 
 point till within a few years the only school. 
 But there is another school of criticism, which 
 maintains that 'Titus Andronicus 1 is in every 
 sense a production of Shakspere. The Ger- 
 man critics, from W. Schlegel to Ulrici, agree 
 to reject the "common consent" of the Eng- 
 lish critics. The subject, therefore, cannot 
 be hastily dismissed ; the external testimony 
 cannot be doggedly resisted. But, in enter- 
 ing upon the examination of this question 
 with the best care we can bestow, we con- 
 * * Literature of Europe,* vol. ii. p. 385. 
 
 sider that it possesses an importance much 
 higher than belongs to the proof, or disproof, 
 from the internal evidence, that this painful 
 tragedy was written by Shakspere. The 
 question is not an isolated one. It requires 
 to be treated with a constant reference to 
 the state of the early English drama, the 
 probable tendencies of the poet's own mind 
 at the period of his first dramatic produc- 
 tions, the circumstances amidst which he 
 was placed with reference to his audiences, 
 the struggle which he must have undergone 
 to reconcile the contending principles of the 
 practical and the ideal, the popular and the 
 true, the tentative process by which he 
 must have advanced to his immeasurable 
 superiority over every contemporary. It is 
 easy to place ' Titus Andronicus ' by the side 
 of ' Hamlet,' and to say, the one is a low 
 work of art, the other a work of the highest 
 art. It is easy to say that the versification 
 of 'Titus Andronicus' is not the versification 
 of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' It is 
 easy to say that Titus raves and denounces 
 without moving terror or pity ; but that Lear 
 tears up the whole heart, and lays bare all 
 the hidden springs of thought and passion 
 that elevate madness into sublimity. But 
 this, we venture to think, is not just criticism. 
 We may be tempted, perhaps, to refine too 
 much in rejecting all such sweeping com- 
 parisons ; but what we have first to trace is 
 relation, and not likeness: if we find like- 
 ness in a single " trick or line," we may in- 
 deed add it to the evidence of relation. But 
 relation may be established even out of dis- 
 similarity. No one who has deeply contem- 
 plated the progress of the great intellects of 
 the world, and has traced the doubts, and 
 fears, and throes, and desperate plunges of 
 genius, can hesitate to believe that excellence 
 in art is to be attained by the same process 
 through which we may hope to reach excel- 
 lence in morals by contest, and purification, 
 until habitual confidence and repose suc- 
 ceed to convulsive exertions and distracting 
 aims. He that would rank amongst the heroes 
 must have fought the good fight. Energy of 
 all kinds has to work out its own subjection 
 to principles, without which it can never be- 
 come power. In the course of this struggle 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 TITUS ANDRONICFS. 
 
 43 
 
 what it produces may be essentially unlike 
 to the fruits of its after-peacefulness : for 
 the good has to be reached through the evil 
 the true through the false the universal 
 through the partial. The passage we sub- 
 join is from Franz Horn ; and we think that 
 it demands a respectful consideration : 
 
 "A mediocre, poor, and tame nature finds 
 itself easily. It soon arrives, when it endea- 
 vours earnestly, at a knowledge of what it 
 can accomplish, and what it cannot. Its 
 poetical tones are single and gentle spring- 
 breathings ; with which we are well pleased, 
 but which pass over us almost trackless. A 
 very different combat has the higher and 
 richer nature to maintain with itself; and 
 the more splendid the peace, and the brighter 
 the clearness, which it reaches through this 
 combat, the more monstrous the fight which 
 must have been incessantly maintained. 
 
 " Let us consider the richest and most 
 powerful poetic nature that the world has 
 ever yet seen ; let us consider Shakspere, as 
 boy and youth, in his circumscribed external 
 situation, without one discriminating friend, 
 without a patron, without a teacher, with- 
 out the possession of ancient or modern lan- 
 guages, in his loneliness at Stratford, fol- 
 lowing an uncongenial employment ; and 
 then, in the strange whirl of the so-called 
 great world of London, contending for long 
 years with unfavourable circumstances, in 
 wearisome intercourse with this great world, 
 which is, however, often found to be little ; 
 but also with nature, with himself, and 
 with God : What materials for the deepest 
 contemplation ! This rich nature, thus cir- 
 cumstanced, desires to explain the enigma of 
 the human being and the surrounding world. 
 But it is not yet disclosed to himself. Ought 
 he to wait for this ripe time before he ven- 
 tures to dramatise ? Let us not demand 
 anything super-human : for, through the ex- 
 pression of error in song, will he find what 
 accelerates the truth ; and well for him that 
 he has no other sins to answer for than poeti- 
 cal ones, which later in life he has atoned 
 for by the most glorious excellences ! 
 
 "The elegiac tone of his juvenile poems 
 allows us to imagine very deep passions in 
 the youthful Shakspere. But this single 
 
 tone was not long sufficient for him. He 
 soon desired, from that stage ' which signi- 
 fies the world' (an expression that Schiller 
 might properly have invented for Shakspere), 
 to speak aloud what the world seemed to 
 him, to him, the youth who was not yet 
 able thoroughly to penetrate this seeming. 
 Can there be here a want of colossal errors 'I 
 Not merely single errors. No : we should 
 have a whole drama which is diseased at its 
 very root, which rests upon one single mon- 
 strous error. Such a drama is this 'Titus.' 
 The poet had here nothing less in his mind 
 than to give us a grand Doomsday-drama. 
 But what, as a man, was possible to him in 
 ' Lear,' the youth could not accomplish. He 
 gives us a torn-to-pieces world, about which 
 Fate wanders like a bloodthirsty lion, or as 
 a more refined or more cruel tiger, tearing 
 mankind, good and evil alike, and blindly 
 treading down every flower of joy. Never- 
 theless a better feeling reminds him that 
 some repose must be given ; but he is not 
 sufficiently confident of this, and what he 
 does in this regard is of little power. The 
 personages of the piece are not merely hea- 
 thens, but most of them embittered and 
 blind in their heathenism ; and only some 
 single aspirations of something better can 
 arise from a few of the best among them ; 
 aspirations which are breathed so gently as 
 scarcely to be heard amidst the cries of 
 desperation from the bloody waves that roar 
 almost deafeningly." 
 
 The eloquent critic adds, in a note, " Is 
 it not as if there sounded through the whole 
 piece a comfortless complaint of the incom- 
 prehensible and hard lot of all earthly ? Is 
 it not as if we heard the poet speaking with 
 Faust 'All the miseries of mankind seize 
 upon me ? ' Or with his own ' Hamlet,' 
 ' How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable 
 
 Seem to me all the uses of this world ! 
 
 Pie on 't ! 0, fie ! 't is an unweeded garden 
 
 That grows to seed ; things rank arid gross in 
 nature 
 
 Possess it merely.' 
 
 " And now, let us bethink ourselves, in oppo- 
 sition to this terrible feeling, of the sweet 
 blessed peacefulness which speaks from out 
 of all the poet's more matured dramas : for 
 
44 
 
 STUDIES OF SHA.KSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK IT. 
 
 instance, from the inexhaustibly joyful- 
 minded 'As You Like It.' Such a contest 
 followed by such a victory ! " 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to point out that 
 this argument of the German critic is 
 founded upon the simple and intelligible 
 belief that Shakspere is, in every sense of 
 the word, the author of 'Titus Andronicus.' 
 Here is no attempt to compromise the ques- 
 tion, by the common English babble that 
 " Shakspere may have written a few lines in 
 this play, or given some assistance to the 
 author in revising it." This is Malone's 
 opinion, founded upon an idle tradition, men- 
 tioned by Ravenscroft in the time of James 
 II., a tradition contradicted by Ravenscroft 
 himself, who, in a prologue to his alteration 
 of ' Titus Andronicus,' says > 
 
 " To-day the pocfc does not fear your rage ; 
 Shakespear, by him revived, now treads the 
 stage." 
 
 In Malone's posthumous edition, by Boswell, 
 " those passages in which he supposed the 
 hand of Shakspere may be traced are marked 
 with inverted commas." This was the sys- 
 tem which Malone pursued with 'Henry 
 VI. ; ' and, as we fully believe, it was founded 
 upon a most egregious fallacy. The drama 
 belongs to the province of the very highest 
 poetical art ; because a play which fully 
 realizes the objects of a scenic exhibition 
 requires a nicer combination of excellences, 
 and involves higher difficulties, than belong 
 to any other species of poetry. Taking the 
 qualities of invention, power of language, 
 versification, to be equal in two men, one 
 devoting himself to dramatic poetry, and 
 the other to narrative poetry, the dramatic 
 poet has chances of failure which the nar- 
 rative poet may entirely avoid. The dia- 
 logue, and especially the imagery, of the 
 dramatic poet are secondary to the invention 
 of the plot, the management of the action, 
 and the conception of the characters. Lan- 
 guage is but the drapery of the beings that 
 the dramatic poet's imagination has created. 
 They must be placed by the poet's power of 
 combination in the various relations which 
 they must maintain through a long and 
 sometimes complicated action : he must see 
 
 the whole of that action vividly, with refer- 
 ence to its capacity of manifesting itself 
 distinctly to an audience, so that even the 
 deaf should partially comprehend : the 
 pantomime must be acted over and over 
 again in his mind, before the wand of the 
 magician gives the agents voice. When all 
 this is done, all contradictions reconciled, all 
 obscurities made clear, the interest prolonged 
 and heightened, and the catastrophe natu- 
 rally evolved and matured, the poet, to use 
 the terms of a sister-art, has completed that 
 design which colour and expression are to 
 make manifest to others with something 
 like the distinctness with which he himself 
 has seen it. We have no hesitation in be- 
 lieving that one of the main causes of Shak- 
 spere's immeasurable superiority to other 
 dramatists is that all-penetrating power of 
 combination by which the action of his 
 dramas is constantly sustained ; whilst in 
 the best pieces of his contemporaries, with 
 rare exceptions, it flags or breaks down into 
 description, or is carried off by imagery, 
 or the force of conception in one character 
 overpowers the management of the other 
 instruments cases equally evidencing that 
 the poet has not attained the most difficult 
 art of controlling his own conceptions. And 
 thus it is that we so often hear Christopher 
 Marlowe, or Philip Massinger, to name the 
 very best of them, speaking themselves 
 out of the mouths of their puppets, whilst 
 the characterization is lost, and the action is 
 forgotten. But when do we ever hear the 
 individual voice of the man William Shak- 
 spere 1 When does he come forward to bow 
 to the audience, as it were, between the 
 scenes 1 Never is there any pause with him, 
 that we may see the complacent author 
 Avhispering to his auditory " This is not ex- 
 actly what I meant ; my inspiration carried 
 me away ; but is it not fine ?" The great dra- 
 matic poet sits out of mortal ken. He rolls 
 away the clouds and exhibits his world. 
 There is calm and storm, and light and 
 darkness ; and the material scene becomes 
 alive ; and we see a higher life than that of 
 our ordinary nature : and the whole soul is 
 elevated ; and man and his actions are pre- 
 sented under aspects more real than reality, 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 TITUS ANDRONICUS. 
 
 45 
 
 and our control over tears or laughter is 
 taken away from us ; and, if the poet be a 
 philosopher, and without philosophy he 
 cannot be a poet, deep truths, before dimly 
 seen, enter into our minds and abide there. 
 Why do we state all this 1 Utterly to reject 
 the belief that Shakspere was a line-maker : 
 that, like Gray, for example, he was a manu- 
 facturer of mosaic poetry; that he made 
 verses to order : and that his verses could 
 be produced by some other process than an 
 entire conception of, and power over, the 
 design of a drama. It is this mistake which 
 lies at the bottom of all that has been writ- 
 ten and believed about the two Parts of 
 'The Contention of the Houses of York and 
 Lancaster' being polished by Shakspere into 
 the Second and Third Parts of ' Henry VI.' 
 The elder plays which the English anti- 
 quarian critics persist in ascribing to Mar- 
 lowe, or Greene, or Peele, or all of them 
 contain all the action, even to the exact suc- 
 cession of the scenes, all the characteriza- 
 tion, a very great deal of the dialogue, in- 
 cluding the most vigorous thoughts : and 
 then Shakspere was to take the matter in 
 hand, and add a thousand lines or two up 
 and down, correct an epithet here and there, 
 and do all this without the slightest exercise 
 of invention, either in movement or charac- 
 terization ; producing fine lines without 
 passing through that process of inspiration 
 by which lines having dramatic beauty and 
 propriety can alone be produced. We say 
 this, after much deliberation, not only with 
 reference to the ' Henry VI.' and to the play 
 before us, but with regard to the general 
 belief that Shakspere, in the outset of his 
 career, was a mender of the plays of other 
 men. 'Timon,' according to our belief, is 
 the only exception ; and we regard that not 
 as an exception to the principle, because 
 there the characterization of Timon himself 
 is the Shaksperian creation ; and that de- 
 pends extremely little upon the general ac- 
 tion, which, to a large extent, is episodical. 
 
 But we must guard ourselves from being 
 understood tD deny that many of the earliest 
 plays of Shakspere were founded upon some 
 rude production of the primitive stage. An- 
 dronicus had, no doubt, its dramatic cinces- 
 
 tor, who exhibited the same Gothic view of 
 Roman history, and whose scenes of blood 
 were equally agreeable to an audience re- 
 quiring strong excitement. ' Pericles,' how- 
 ever remodelled at an after period, belonged, 
 we can scarcely doubt, to Shakspere's first 
 efforts for the improvement of some popular 
 dramatic exhibition which he found ready 
 to his hand. So of 'The Taming of the 
 Shrew,' of which we may without any vio- 
 lence assume that a common model existed 
 both for that and for the other play with a 
 very similar name, which appears to belong 
 to the same period. From the first, Shak- 
 spere, with that consummate judgment which 
 gave a fitness to everything that he did, or 
 proposed to do, held his genius in subjection 
 to the apprehension of the people, till he 
 felt secure of their capability to appreciate 
 the highest excellence. In his case, as in 
 that of every great artist, perfection could 
 only be attained by repeated efforts. He 
 had no models to work upon ; and in the 
 very days in which he lived the English 
 drama began to be created. It was not 
 "Learning's triumph o'er her barbarous 
 foes " which " first rear'd the stage," but a 
 singular combination of circumstances which 
 for the most part grew out of the reforma- 
 tion of religion. He took the thing as he 
 found it. The dramatic power was in him 
 so supreme that, compared with the feeble 
 personifications of other men, it looks like 
 instinct. He seized upon the vague abstrac- 
 tions which he found in the histories and 
 comedies of the Blackfriars and- the Bel 
 Savage, and the scene was henceforth filled 
 with living beings. But not as yet were 
 these individualities surrounded with the 
 glowing atmosphere of burning poetry. The 
 philosophy which invests their sayings with 
 an universal wisdom that enters the mind 
 and becomes its loadstar was scarcely yet 
 evoked out of that profound contemplation 
 of human actions and of the higher things 
 dimly revealed in human nature, which be- 
 longed to the maturity of his wondrou 
 mind. The wit was there in some degree 
 from the first, for it was irrepressible ; but 
 it was then as the polished metal, which 
 dazzlingly gives back the brightness of the 
 
46 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ii. 
 
 sunbeams ; in after times it was as the dia- 
 mond, which reflects everything, and yet ap- 
 pears to be self-irradiated in its lustrous 
 depths. If these qualities, and if the humour 
 which seems more especially the ripened 
 growth of the mental faculty, could have 
 been produced in the onset of Shakspere's 
 career, it is probable that the career would 
 not have been a successful one. He had to 
 make his audience. He himself has told us 
 of a play of his earliest period, that " I re- 
 member pleased not the million ; 'twas 
 caviarie to the general : but it was (as I re- 
 ceived it, and others, whose judgments in 
 such matters cried in the top of mine) an 
 excellent play ; well digested in the scenes ; 
 set down with as much modesty as cunning. 
 I remember, one said there were no sallets 
 in the lines to make the matter savoury ; nor 
 no matter in the phrase that might indite 
 the author of affectation ; but called it an 
 honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and 
 by very much more handsome than fine." * 
 Was this play an attempt of Shakspere him- 
 self to depart from the popular track ? If it 
 were, we probably owe much to the million. 
 We hold, then, that Malone's principle of 
 marking with inverted commas those pas- 
 sages in which he supposed the hand of 
 Shakspere might be traced in this play of 
 1 Titus Andronicus ' is based upon a vital 
 error. It is not with us a question whether 
 the passages which Malone has marked ex- 
 hibit, or not, the critic's poetical taste : we 
 say that the passages could not have been 
 written except by the man, whoever he be, 
 who conceived the action and the characteri- 
 zation. Take the single example of the 
 character of Tamora. She is the presiding 
 genius of the piece ; and in her we see, as 
 we believe, the outbreak of that wonderful 
 conception of the union of powerful intellect 
 and moral depravity which Shakspere was 
 afterwards to make manifest with such con- 
 summate wisdom. Strong passions, ready 
 wit, perfect self-possession, and a sort of 
 oriental imagination, take Tamora out of the 
 class of ordinary women. It is in her mouth 
 that we find, for the most part, what readers 
 of Malone's school would call the poetical 
 
 * ' Hamlet,' Act n., Sc. n. 
 
 language of the play. We will select a few 
 specimens (Act II., Scene 3) : 
 
 " The birds chant melody on every bush ; 
 The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun; 
 The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind, 
 And make a chequer'd shadow on the ground : 
 Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit, 
 And whilst the babbling echo mocks the 
 
 hounds, 
 
 Replying shrilly to the well-tuned horns, 
 As if a double hunt were heard at once 
 Let us sit down." 
 
 Again, in the same scene : 
 " A barren detested vale, you see, it is : 
 The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and 
 
 lean, 
 
 O'ercome with moss and baleful misseltoe. 
 Here never shines the sun; here nothing 
 
 breeds, 
 
 Unless the nightly owl, or fatal raven. 
 And, when they show'd me this abhorred pit, 
 They told me, here, at dead time of the night, 
 A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes, 
 Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins, 
 "Would make such fearful and confused cries, 
 As any mortal body, hearing it, 
 Should straight fall mad, or else die sud- 
 denly." 
 
 In Act IV., Scene 4 : 
 "King, be thy thoughts imperious, like thy 
 
 name. 
 
 Is the sun dimm'd, that gnats do fly in it? 
 The eagle suffers little birds to sing, 
 
 And is not careful what they mean thereby; 
 Knowing that, with the shadow of his wing, 
 He can at pleasure stint their melody." 
 
 And, lastly, where the lines are associated 
 with the high imaginative conception of the 
 speaker, that she was to personate Re- 
 venge : 
 
 " Know thou, sad man, I am not Tamora; 
 She is thy enemy, and I thy friend : 
 I am Revenge; sent from the infernal king- 
 dom, 
 
 To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind, 
 By working wreakful vengeance on thy foes. 
 Come down, and welcome me to this world's 
 light." 
 
 The first two of these passages are marked 
 by Malone as the additions of Shakspere to 
 the work of an inferior poet. If we had 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 TITUS ANDKONICUS. 
 
 47- 
 
 adopted Malone's theory, we should have 
 marked the two other passages ; and have 
 gone even further in our selection of the j 
 poetical lines spoken by Tamora. But we 
 hold that the lines could not have been pro- 
 duced, according to Malone's theory, even by 
 Shakspere. Poetry, and especially dramatic 
 poetry, is not to be regarded as a bit of 
 joiner's work or, if you please, as an affair 
 of jewelling and enamelling. The lines 
 which we have quoted may not be amongst 
 Shakspere's highest things ; but they could 
 not have been produced except under the 
 excitement of the full swing of his dramatic 
 power bright touches dashed in at the very 
 hour when the whole design was growing 
 into shape upon the canvass, and the form of 
 Tamora was becoming alive with colour and 
 expression. To imagine that the great pas- 
 sages of a drama are produced like " a copy 
 of yerses," under any other influence than 
 the large and general inspiration which 
 creates the whole drama, is, we believe, 
 utterly to mistake the essential nature of 
 dramatic poetry. It would be equally just 
 to say that the nice but well-defined traits 
 of character, which stand out from the phy- 
 sical horrors of this play, when it is carefully 
 studied, were superadded by Shakspere to 
 the coarser delineations of some other man. 
 Aaron, the Moor, in his general conception 
 is an unmitigated villain something alien 
 from humanity a fiend, and therefore only 
 to be detested. But Shakspere, by that in- 
 sight which, however imperfectly developed, 
 must have distinguished his earliest efforts, 
 brings Aaron into the circle of humanity ; 
 and then he is a thing which moves us, and 
 his punishment is poetical justice. One 
 touch does this his affection for his child : 
 " Come on, you thick-lipp'd slave, I '11 bear you 
 
 hence; 
 
 For it is you that puts us to our shifts : 
 I '11 make you feed on berries, and on roots, 
 And feed on curds and whey, and suck the 
 
 goat, 
 
 And cabin in a cave; and bring you up 
 To be a warrior, and command a camp." 
 
 Did Shakspere put in these lines, and the 
 previous ones which evolve the same feeling, 
 under the system of a cool editorial mending 
 
 of a second man's work ? The system may 
 do for an article ; but a play is another 
 thing. Did Shakspere put these lines into 
 the mouth of Lucius, when he calls to his 
 son to weep over the body of Titus 1 
 
 " Come hither, boy; come, come, and learn of us 
 To melt in showers : Thy grandsire lov'd thee 
 
 well : 
 
 Many a time he danced thee on his knee, 
 Sung thee asleep, his loving breast thy pillow; 
 Many a matter hath he told to thee, 
 Meet and agreeing with thine infancy; 
 In that respect then, like a loving child, 
 Shed yet some small drops from thy tender 
 
 spring, 
 Because kind nature doth require it so." 
 
 Malone has not marked these ; they are too 
 simple to be included in his poetical gems. 
 But are they not full to overflowing of those 
 deep thoughts of human love which the 
 great poet of the affections has sent into so 
 many welcoming hearts 1 Malone marks 
 with his commas the address to the tribunes 
 at the beginning of the third act. The lines 
 arc lofty and rhetorical ; and a poet who had 
 undertaken to make set speeches to another 
 man's characters might perhaps have added 
 these. Dryden and Tate did this service for 
 Shakspere himself. But Malone does not 
 mark one line which has no rhetoric in it, 
 and does not look like poetry. The old man 
 has given his hand to the treacherous Aaron, 
 that he may save the lives of his sons ; but 
 the messenger brings him the heads of those 
 sons. It is for Marcus and Lucius to burst 
 into passion. The father, for some space, 
 speaks not ; and then he speaks but one 
 line : 
 " When will this fearful slumber have an end?" 
 
 Did Shakspere make this line to order 1 The 
 poet who wrote the line conceived the whole 
 situation, and he could not have conceived 
 the situation unless the whole dramatic 
 movement had equally been his conception. 
 Such things must be wrought out of the red- 
 heat of the whole material not filled up 
 out of cold fragments. 
 
 Accepting 'Titus' as a play produced 
 somewhere about the middle of the ninth 
 decade of the sixteenth century, it possesses 
 
48 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ii. 
 
 other peculiarities than such as we have 
 noticed, which, upon the system of Malone's 
 inverted commas, would take away a very 
 considerable number from the supposed 
 original fabricator of the drama, and bestow 
 them upon the reviser. We must extract a 
 passage from Malone before we proceed to 
 point out these other peculiarities : " To 
 enter into a long disquisition to prove this 
 piece not to have been written by Shakspere 
 would be an idle waste of time. To those 
 who are not conversant with his writings, if 
 particular passages were examined, more 
 words would be necessary than the subject is 
 worth ; those who are well acquainted with 
 his works cannot entertain a doubt on the 
 question. I will, however, mention one mode 
 by which it may be easily ascertained. Let 
 the reader only peruse a few lines of ' Appius 
 and Virginia,' ' Tancred and Gismund,' ' The 
 Battle of Alcazar,' ' Jeronimo,' ' Selimus, Em- 
 peror of the Turks,' ' The Wounds of Civil 
 War,' ' The Wars of Cyrus,' 'Locrine,' ' Arden 
 of Feversham,' 'King Edward I.,' 'The 
 Spanish Tragedy,' ' Solyrnan and Perseda,' 
 'King Leir,' the old 'King John,' or any 
 other of the pieces that were exhibited be- 
 fore the time of Shakspeare, and he will at 
 once perceive that ' Titus Andronicus ' was 
 coined in the same mint." What Malone 
 requests to be perused is limited to " a few 
 lines " of these old plays ; if he could have 
 bestowed many words upon the subject, he 
 would have examined "particular passages." 
 Such an examination has of course reference 
 only to the versification. It is scarcely ne- 
 cessary to say that we do not agree with the 
 assumption that the pieces Malone has men- 
 tioned were exhibited " before the time of 
 Shakspeare." It is difficult, if not impos- 
 sible, to settle the exact time of many of 
 these ; but we do know that one of the plays 
 here mentioned belongs to the same epoch 
 as ' Titus Andronicus.' " He that will swear 
 ' Jeronimo,' or ' Andronicus,' are the best 
 plays yet, shall pass unexcepted at here, as 
 a man whose judgment shows it is constant, 
 and hath stood still these five-and-twenty 
 or thirty years." We shall confine, therefore, 
 any comparison of the versification of ' Titus 
 Andronicus ' entirely to that of ' Jeronimo.' 
 
 ' Titus Andronicus ' contains very few 
 couplets, a remarkable thing in so early a 
 play. Of ' Jeronimo' one-half is rhyme. Of 
 the blank verse of ' Jeronimo ' we will quote 
 a passage which is, perhaps, the least mono- 
 tonous of that tragedy, and which Mr. Col- 
 lier has quoted in his ' History of Dramatic 
 Poetry,' pointing out that " Here we see 
 trochees used at the ends of the lines, and 
 the pauses are even artfully managed ; while 
 redundant syllables are inserted, and lines 
 left defective, still farther to add to the 
 variety :" 
 
 " Come, valiant spirits*; you peers of Portugal, 
 That owe your lives, your faiths, and services, 
 To set you free from base captivity : 
 let our father's scandal ne'er be seen 
 As a base blush upon our free-born cheeks : 
 Let all the tribute that proud Spain received 
 Of those all captive Portugales deceased, 
 Turn into chafe, and choice their insolence. 
 Methinks no moiety, not one little thought, 
 Of them whose servile acts live in their graves, 
 But should raise spleens big as a cannon- 
 bullet 
 
 Within your bosoms : for honour, 
 Your country's reputation, your lives' freedom, 
 Indeed your all that may be term'd revenge, 
 Now let your bloods be liberal as the sea ; 
 And all those wounds that you receive of 
 
 Spain, 
 
 Let theirs be equal to quit yours again. 
 Speak, Portugales : are you resolved as I, 
 To live like captives, or as free-born die"?" 
 
 We have no hesitation in saying (in opposi- 
 tion to Malone's opinion) that the freedom 
 of versification which is discovered in ' Titus 
 Andronicus ' is carried a great deal further 
 than even this specimen of 'Jeronimo ;' and 
 we cannot have a better proof of our as- 
 sertion than this that Steevens anxiously 
 desired, and indeed succeeded, in reducing 
 several of the lines to the exact dimen- 
 sions of his ten-syllable measuring-tape. 
 The Shaksperian versification is sufficiently 
 marked in ' Titus,' even to the point of of- 
 fending the critic who did not understand it. 
 But the truth of the matter is, that the com- 
 parison of the versification of ' Titus ' with 
 
 * Ordinarily pronounced in early dramatic poetry as a 
 monosyllabic. 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 TITUS ANDKONICUS. 
 
 49 
 
 the old plays mentioned by Malonc is al- 
 together a fallacy. Like the ' Henry VI.' 
 it wants, for the most part, the 
 
 " Linked sweetness long drawn out." 
 
 of the later plays, and so do 'The Two 
 Gentlemen of Verona,' and 'The Comedy of 
 Errors.' But to compare the play, as a whole, 
 even with ' Jeronimo ' (and Kyd, in freedom 
 and variety of rhythm, whatever he may want 
 in majesty, is superior to Marlowe) argues, 
 we think, an incompetent knowledge of the 
 things compared. To compare it with the 
 old ' King Leir,' and the greater number of 
 the plays in Malone's list, is to compare the 
 movement of the hunter with that of the 
 horse in the mill. The truth is, that, after 
 the first scene of ' Andronicus,' in which the 
 author sets out with the stately pace of his 
 time, we are very soon carried away, by the 
 power of the language, the variety of the 
 pause, and the especial freedom with which 
 trochees are used at the ends of lines, to 
 forget that the versification is not altogether 
 upon the best Shaksperean model. There is 
 the same instrument, but the performer has 
 not yet thoroughly learnt its scope and its 
 power. 
 
 Horn has a very just remark on the lan- 
 guage of ' Titus Andronicus : ' " Foremost 
 we may recognise with praise the almost 
 never-wearying power of the language, 
 wherein no shift is ever used. We know 
 too well how often, in many French and 
 German tragedies, the princes and princesses 
 satisfy themselves to silence with a necessary 
 Relas! Oh del! Schiclcsal! (0 Fate!) and 
 similar cheap outcries : but Shakspere is 
 quite another man, who, for every degree 
 of pain, knew how to give the right tone 
 and the right colour. In the bloody sea of 
 this drama, in which men can scarcely keep 
 themselves afloat, this, without doubt, must 
 have been peculiarly difficult." We regard 
 this decided language, this absence of stage 
 conventionalities, as one of the results of the 
 power which the poet possessed of distinctly 
 conceiving his situations with reference to 
 his characters. The Ohsf and Ahs ! and 
 Heavens! of the English stage, as well as 
 the Ciel! of the French, are a consequence 
 
 of feebleness, exhibiting itself in common- 
 places. The greater number of the old 
 English dramatists, to do them justice, had 
 the same power as the author of ' Titus 
 Andronicus ' of grappling with words which 
 they thought fitting to the situations. But 
 their besetting sin was in the constant use 
 of that " huffing, braggart, puft " language, 
 which Shakspere never employs in the 
 dramas which all agree to call his, and of 
 which there is a very sparing portion even 
 in 'Titus Andronicus.' The temptation to 
 employ it must have been great indeed ; for 
 when, in every scene, the fearful energies of 
 the action 
 
 " On horror's head horrors accumulate," 
 
 it must have required no common forbearance, 
 and therefore no common power, to prescribe 
 that the words of the actors should not 
 
 " Outface the brow of bragging horror." 
 
 The son of Tamora is to be killed ; as he is 
 led away, she exclaims 
 
 " Oh ! cruel, irreligious piety ! " 
 
 Titus kills Mutius : the young man's brother 
 earnestly says 
 
 " My lord, you are unjust." 
 
 When Tamora prescribes their terrible 
 wickedness to her sons, Lavinia remon- 
 strates 
 
 " ! Tamora, thou bear'st a woman's face." 
 
 When Marcus encounters his mutilated 
 niece, there is much poetry, but no raving. 
 When woe upon woe is heaped upon Titus, 
 we have no imprecations : 
 
 " For now I stand as one upon a rock, 
 Environ'd with a wilderness of sea; 
 Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by 
 
 wave, 
 
 Expecting ever when some envious surge 
 Will in his brinish bowels swallow him." 
 
 In one situation, after Titus has lost his hand, 
 Marcus says 
 
 " Oh ! brother, speak with possibilities, 
 And do not break into these deep extremes." 
 
 What are the deep extremes ? The unhappy 
 
50 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ii. 
 
 man has scarcely risen into metaphor, much 
 less into braggardism : 
 
 " 0, here I lift this one hand up to heaven, 
 And bow this feeble ruin to the earth : 
 If any power pities wretched tears, 
 To that 1 call -.What, wilt thou kneel with 
 
 me ? [To LAVINIA. 
 
 Do then, dear heart; for heaven shall hear our 
 
 prayers : 
 Or with our sighs we '11 breathe the welkin 
 
 dim, 
 And stain the sun with fog, as sometime 
 
 clouds, 
 When they do hug him in their melting 
 
 bosoms." 
 
 And in his very crowning agony we hear 
 only 
 
 " Why, I have not another tear to shed." 
 
 It has been said, " There is not a shade of 
 difference between the two Moors, Eleazar 
 and Aaron."* Eleazar is a character in 
 'Lust's Dominion,' incorrectly attributed to 
 Marlowe. Trace the cool, determined, sarcas- 
 tic, remorseless villain, Aaron, through these 
 blood-spilling scenes, and see if he speaks in 
 " King Cambyses' vein," as Eleazar speaks in 
 the following lines : 
 
 " Now, Tragedy, thou minion of the night, 
 Khamnusia's pew-fellow, to thee 1 11 sing 
 Upon an harp made of dead Spanish bones 
 The proudest instrument the world affords ; 
 When thou in crimson jollity shall bathe 
 Thy limbs, as black as mine, in springs of 
 
 blood 
 
 Still gushing from the conduit-head of Spain. 
 To thee that never blushest, though thy cheeks 
 Are full of blood, Saint Eevenge, to thee 
 I consecrate my murders, all my stabs, 
 My bloody labours, tortures, stratagems, 
 The volume of all wounds that wound from 
 
 me, 
 Mine is the Stage, thine the Tragedy." 
 
 But enough of this. It appears to us ma- 
 nifest that, although the author of 'Titus 
 Andronicus' did choose in common with the 
 best and the most popular of those who wrote 
 for the early stage, but contrary to his after- 
 practice a subject which should present to 
 his comparatively rude audiences the excite- 
 
 * C. A. Brown's ' Autobiographical Poems of Shakspere.' | 
 
 ment of a succession of physical horrors, he 
 was so far under the control of his higher 
 judgment, that, avoiding their practice, he 
 steadily abstained from making his " verses 
 jet on the stage in tragical buskins ; every 
 word filling the mouth like the faburden of 
 Bow-Bell, daring God out of heaven with that 
 atheist Tamburlaine, or blaspheming with the 
 mad priest of the sun."t 
 
 It is easy to understand how Shakspere, at 
 the period when he first entered upon those 
 labours which were to build up a glorious 
 fabric out of materials that had been pre- 
 viously used for the basest purposes, with- 
 out models, at first, perhaps, not volunta- 
 rily choosing his task, but taking the busi- 
 ness that lay before him so as to command 
 popular success, ignorant, to a great degree, 
 of the height and depth of his own intellec- 
 tual resources, not seeing, or dimly seeing, 
 how poetry and philosophy were to elevate 
 and purify the common staple of the coarse 
 drama about him, it is easy to conceive 
 how a story of fearful bloodshed should force 
 itself upon him as a thing that he could 
 work into something better than the dumb 
 show and fiery words of his predecessors and 
 contemporaries. It was in after-years that 
 he had to create the tragedy of passion. 
 Lamb has beautifully described Webster, as 
 almost alone having the power "to move a 
 horror skilfully, to touch a soul to the quick, 
 to lay upon fear as much as it can bear, to 
 wean and weary a life till it is ready to drop, 
 and then step in with mortal instruments to 
 take its last forfeit." Lamb adds, "Writers of 
 inferior genius mistake quantity for quality." 
 The remark is quite true, when examples of 
 the higher tragedy are accessible, and when 
 the people have learnt better than to require 
 the grosser stimulant. Before Webster had 
 written { The Duchess of Malfi ' and ' Yittoria 
 Corombona,' Shakspere had produced ( Lear ' 
 and ' Othello.' But there were writers, not of 
 inferior genius, who had committed the same 
 mistake as the author of ' Titus Andronicus ' 
 who use blood as they would " the paint of 
 the property-man in the theatre." Need we 
 mention other names than Marlowe and Kyd ? 
 The " old Jeronimo," as Ben Jonson calls it, 
 
 t Greene, 1588. 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 TITUS AffDRONICUS. 
 
 51 
 
 perhaps the most popular play of the early 
 stage, and, in many respects, a work of great 
 power, thus concludes, with a sort of Chorus 
 spoken by a ghost : 
 
 " Ay, now my hopes have end in their effects, 
 "When blood and sorrow finish my desires. 
 Horatio murder 5 d in his father's bower ; 
 Yile Serberine by Pedringano slain; 
 False Pedringano hang'd by quaint device; 
 Fair Isabella by herself misdone ; 
 Prince Balthazar by Belimperia stabb'd; 
 The Duke of Castille, and his wicked son, 
 Both done to death by old Hieronimo, 
 By Belimperia fallen, as Dido fell; 
 And good Hieronimo slain by himself: 
 Ay, these were spectacles to please my soul." 
 
 Here is murder enough to match even 
 'Andronicus.' This slaughtering work was 
 accompanied with another peculiarity of the 
 unformed drama the dumb show. Words 
 were sometimes scarcely necessary for the ex- 
 position of the story ; and, when they were, 
 no great care was taken that they should be 
 very appropriate or beautiful in themselves. 
 Thomas Heywood, himself a prodigious ma- 
 nufacturer of plays in a more advanced pe- 
 riod, writing as late as 1612, seems to look 
 upon these semi-pageants, full of what the 
 actors call " bustle," as the wonderful things 
 of the modern stage: "To see, as I have 
 seen, Hercules, in his own shape, hunting 
 the boar, knocking down the bull, taming 
 the hart, fighting with Hydra, murdering 
 Geryon, slaughtering Diomed, wounding the 
 Stymphalides, killing the Centaurs, pash- 
 ing the lion, squeezing the dragon, dragging 
 Cerberus in chains, and, lastly, on his high 
 pyramides writing Nil ultra oh, these were 
 sights to make an Alexander."* With a 
 stage that presented attractions like these 
 to the multitude, is it wonderful that the 
 young Shakspere should have written a 
 Tragedy of Horrors ? 
 
 But Shakspere, it is maintained, has given 
 us no other tragedy constructed upon the 
 principle of ' Titus Andronicus.' Are we 
 quite sure 1 Do we know what the first 
 ' Hamlet ' was ? We have one sketch, which 
 may be most instructively compared with 
 
 * 'An Apology for Actors.' 
 
 the finished performance ; but it has been 
 conjectured, and we think with perfect pro- 
 priety, that the ' Hamlet ' which was on the 
 stage in 1589, and then sneered at by Nash, 
 " has perished, and that the quarto of 1603 
 gives us the work in an intermediate state 
 between the rude youthful sketch and the 
 perfected ' Hamlet,' which was published 
 in 1604."f All the action of the perfect 
 ' Hamlet ' is to be found in the sketch 
 published in 1603 ; but the profundity of 
 the character is not all there, very far 
 from it. We have little of the thought- 
 ful philosophy, of the morbid feeelings, of 
 Hamlet. But let us imagine an earlier 
 sketch, where that wonderful creation of 
 Hamlet's character may have been still 
 more unformed ; where the poet may .hare 
 simply proposed to exhibit in the young 
 man a desire for revenge, combined with 
 irresolution perhaps even actual madness. 
 Make Hamlet a common dramatic charac- 
 ter, instead of one of the subtilest of meta- 
 physical problems, and what is the tragedy ? 
 A tragedy of blood. It offends us not now, 
 softened as it is, and almost hidden, in the 
 atmosphere of poetry and philosophy which 
 surrounds it. But look at it merely with re- 
 ference to the action; and of what materials 
 is it made ? A ghost described ; a ghost ap- 
 pearing ; the play within a play, and that a 
 play of murder ; Polonius killed ; the ghost 
 again ; Ophelia mad and self-destroyed ; the 
 struggle at the grave between Hamlet and 
 Laertes ; the queen poisoned ; Laertes killed 
 with a poisoned rapier ; the king killed by 
 Hamlet ; and, last of all, Hamlet's death. 
 No wonder Fortinbras exclaims 
 
 " This quarry cries on havoc." 
 
 Again, take another early tragedy, of which 
 we may well believe that there was an earlier 
 sketch than that published in 1597 ' Romeo 
 and Juliet.' We may say of the delicious 
 poetry, as Romeo says of Juliet's beauty, 
 that it makes the charnel-house " a feast- 
 ing presence full of light." But imagine 
 a ' Romeo and Juliet ' conceived in the im- 
 maturity of the young Shakspere's power 
 a tale of love, but surrounded with horror. 
 
 t ' Edinburgh Review,' vol. Ixxi. p. 475. 
 
52 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ii. 
 
 There is enough for the excitement of an 
 uninstructed audience: the contest between 
 the houses; Mercutio killed; Tybalt killed; 
 the apparent death of Juliet ; Paris killed in 
 the churchyard ; Romeo swallowing poison ; 
 Juliet stabbing herself. The marvel is, that 
 the surpassing power of the poet should make 
 us forget that e Romeo and Juliet ' can pre- 
 sent such an aspect. All the changes which 
 
 we know Shakspere made in 'Hamlet/ and 
 'Romeo and Juliet,' were to work out the 
 peculiar theory of his mature judgment 
 that the terrible should be held, as it were, 
 in solution by the beautiful, so as to produce 
 a tragic consistent with pleasurable emotion. 
 Herein he goes far beyond Webster. His art 
 is a higher art. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 PEEICLES. 
 
 THE external testimony that Shakspere was 
 the author of ' Pericles ' would appear to rest 
 upon strong evidence ; it was published with 
 Shakspere's name as the author during his 
 lifetime. But this evidence is not decisive. 
 In 1600 was printed ' The first part of the 
 true and honourable history of the Life of 
 Sir John Oldcastle, &c. Written by William 
 Shakespeare ; ' * and we should be entitled to 
 receive that representation of the writer of 
 ' Sir John Oldcastle ' as good evidence of the 
 authorship, were we not in possession of a 
 fact which entirely outweighs the bookseller's 
 insertion of a popular name in his title-page. 
 In the manuscript diary of Philip Henslowe, 
 preserved at Dulwich College, is the follow- 
 ing entry : " This 16 of October, 99, Receved 
 by me, Thomas Downton, of Phillip Henslow, 
 to pay Mr. Monday, Mr. Drayton, and Mr. 
 Wilson and Hathway, for the first pte of the 
 Lyfe of Sr Jhon Ouldcasstell, and in earnest 
 of the Second Pte, for the use of the com- 
 payny, ten pownd, I say receved 101i."f 
 The title-page of 'Pericles,' in 1609, might 
 have been as fraudulent as that of ' Sir John 
 Oldcastle 'in 1600. 
 
 The play of ' Pericles,' as we learn by the 
 original title-page, was " sundry times acted 
 by his Majesty's servants at the Globe." 
 The proprietary interest in the play for the 
 purposes of the stage (whoever wrote it) no 
 
 * "Some of the copies have not Shakespeare's name on 
 the title." COLLIER. 
 f ' Diary of Philip Henslowe ;' edited by J. Payne Collier. 
 
 doubt remained in 1623 with the proprietors 
 of the Globe Theatre Shakspere's fellow- 
 shareholders. Of the popularity of ' Pericles ' 
 there can be no doubt. It was printed three 
 times separately before the publication of the 
 folio of 1623 ; and it would have been to the 
 interest of the proprietors of that edition to 
 have included it amongst Shakspere's works. 
 Did they reject it because they could not 
 conscientiously affirm it to be written by 
 him, or were they unable to make terms 
 with those who had the right of publica- 
 tion? 
 
 It is a most important circumstance, 
 with reference to the authenticity of ' Titus 
 Andronicus,' that Meres, in 1599, ascribed 
 that play to Shakspere. We have no such 
 testimony in the case of ( Pericles ; ' but the 
 tradition which assigns it to Shakspere 
 is pretty constant. Malone has quoted a 
 passage from ' The Times displayed, in Six 
 Sestiads,' a poem published in 1646, and 
 dedicated by S. Shephard to Philip, Earl of 
 Pembroke : 
 
 " See him, whose tragic scenes Euripides 
 Doth equal, and with Sophocles we may 
 Compare great Shakspeare : Aristophanes 
 Never like him his fancy could display : 
 Witness The Prince of Tyre, his Pericles: 
 His sweet and his to be admired lay 
 He wrote of lustful Tarquin's rape, shows he 
 Did understand the depth of poesie." 
 
 Six years later, another writer, J. Tatham, 
 in verses prefixed to Richard Brome's 'Jovial 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 PERICLES. 
 
 53 
 
 Crow,' 1652, speaks slightingly of Shakspere, 
 and of this particular drama : 
 
 " But Shakespeare, the plebeian driller, was 
 Founder'd in his Pericles, and must not pass." 
 
 Dryden, in his prologue to Charles Davenant's 
 
 ' Circe,' in 1675, has these lines : 
 
 " Your Ben and Fletcher, in their first young 
 
 flight, 
 
 Did no Volpone, nor no Arbaces, write; 
 But hopp'd about, and short excursions made 
 From bough to bough, as if they were afraid, 
 And each was guilty of some slighted maid. 
 Shakspeare's own Muse his Pericles first bore; 
 The Prince of Tyre was elder than the Moor. 
 'T is miracle to see a first good play : 
 All hawthorns do not bloom on Christmas- 
 day." 
 
 The mention of Shakspere as the author of 
 'Pericles' in the poems printed in 1646 and 
 1652 may in some respect be called tradi- 
 tionary ; for the play was not printed after 
 1635, till it appeared in the folio of 1664. 
 Dryden, most probably, read the play in that 
 folio edition. Mr. Collier says, " I do not at 
 all rely upon Dryden's evidence farther than 
 to establish the belief as to the authorship 
 entertained by persons engaged in theatrical 
 affairs after the Restoration." But is such 
 evidence wholly to be despised? and must 
 the belief be necessarily dated " after the 
 Restoration 1 " Dryden was himself forty-four 
 years of age when he wrote " Shakspeare's 
 own Muse," &c. He had been a writer for the 
 stage twelve years. He was the friend of 
 Davenant, who wrote for the stage in 1626. 
 Of the original actors in Shakspere's plays 
 Dryden himself might have known, when he 
 was a young man, John Lowin, who kept the 
 Three Pigeons Inn at Brentford, and died 
 very old, a little before the Restoration ; and 
 Joseph Taylor, who died in 1653, although, 
 according to the tradition of the stage, he 
 was old enough to have played Hamlet un- 
 der Shakspere's immediate instruction ; and 
 Richard Robinson, who served in the army 
 of Charles I., and has an historical import- 
 ance through having been shot to death by 
 Harrison, after he had laid down his arms, 
 with this exclamation from the stern repub- 
 lican, "Cursed is he that doth the work of 
 
 the Lord negligently." It is impossible to 
 doubt then that Dryden was a competent re- 
 porter of the traditions of the stage, and not 
 necessarily of the traditions that survived 
 after the Restoration. We can picture the 
 young poet, naturally anxious to approach 
 as closely to Shakspere as possible, taking a 
 cheerful cup with poor Lowin in his humble 
 inn, and listening to the old man's recital of 
 the recollections of his youth amidst those 
 scenes from which he was banished by the 
 violence of civil war and the fury of purita- 
 nical intolerance. We accept, then, Dryden's 
 assertion with little doubt ; and we approach 
 to the examination of the internal evidence 
 of the authenticity of ' Pericles ' with the con- 
 viction that, if it be the work of Shakspere, 
 the foundations of it were laid when his art 
 was imperfect, and he laboured somewhat 
 in subjection to the influence of those ruder 
 models for which he eventually substituted 
 his own splendid examples of dramatic ex- 
 cellence. 
 
 There is a very striking passage in Sidney's 
 'Defence of Poesy,' which may be taken pretty 
 accurately to describe the infancy of the dra- 
 matic art in England, being written some four 
 or five years before we can trace any connec- 
 tion of Shakspere with the stage. The passage 
 is long, but it is deserving of attentive con- 
 sideration : 
 
 " But they will say, how then shall we 
 set forth a story which contains both many 
 places and many times? And do they not 
 know that a tragedy is tied to the laws of 
 Poesy, and not of History, not bound to fol- 
 low the story, but having liberty either to 
 feign a quite new matter, or to frame the 
 history to the most tragical convenience ? 
 Again, many things may be told which can- 
 not be showed : if they know the difference 
 betwixt reporting and representing. As for 
 example, I may speak, though I am here, 
 of Peru, and in speech digress from that to 
 the description of Calecut : but in action I 
 cannot represent it without Pacolet's horse. 
 And so was the manner the ancients took 
 by some Nuntius, to recount things done in 
 former time, or other place. 
 
 u Lastly, if they will represent an History, 
 they must not (as Horace saith) begin above, 
 
54 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK IT. 
 
 but they must come to the principal point 
 of that one action which they will represent. 
 By example this will be best expressed. I 
 have a story of young Polydorus, delivered, 
 for safety's sake, with great riches, by his fa- 
 ther Priamus, to Polymnestor, king of Thrace, 
 in the Trojan war time. He, after some jears, 
 hearing of the overthrow of Priamus, for to 
 make the treasure his own, murthereth the 
 child ; the body of the child is taken up ; 
 Hecuba, she, the same day, findeth a sleight 
 to be revenged most cruelly of the tyrant. 
 Where, now, would one of our tragedy-writers 
 begin, but with the delivery of the child ? 
 Then should he sail over into Thrace, and 
 to spend I know not how many years, and 
 travel numbers of places. But where doth 
 Euripides? Even with the finding of the 
 body, leaving the rest to be told by the spirit 
 of Polydorus. This needs no farther to be 
 enlarged ; the dullest wit may conceive it." 
 
 Between this notion which Sidney had 
 formed of the propriety of a tragedy which 
 should understand "the difference betwixt 
 reporting and representing," there was a long 
 space to be travelled over, before we should 
 arrive at a tragedy which should make the 
 whole action manifest, and keep the interest 
 alive from the first line to the last without 
 any "reporting" at all. When l Hamlet' 
 and ' Othello' and 'Lear' were perfected, this 
 culminating point of the dramatic art had 
 been reached. But it is evident that Sidney 
 described a state of things in which even 
 the very inartificial expedient of uniting de- 
 scription with representation had not been 
 thoroughly understood, or at least had not 
 been generally practised. The "tragedy- 
 writers" begin with the delivery of the 
 young Polydorus, and travel on with him 
 from place to place, till his final murder. 
 At this point Euripides begins the story, 
 leaving something to be told by the spirit 
 of Polydorus. It is not difficult to conceive 
 a young dramatic poet looking to something 
 beyond the "tragedy- writers" of his own day, 
 and, upon taking up a popular story, invent- 
 ing a machinery for "reporting," which should 
 emulate the ingenious device of Euripides in 
 making the ghost of Polydorus briefly tell the 
 history which a ruder stage would have exhi- 
 
 bited in detail. There was a book no doubt 
 familiar to that young poet ; it was the ' Con- 
 fessio Amantis, the Confessyon of the Louer,' 
 of John Grower, printed by Caxton in 1493, 
 and by Berthelet in 1532 and 1554. That 
 the book was popular, the fact of the publi- 
 cation of three editions in little more than 
 half a century will sufficiently manifest. 
 That it was a book to be devoured by a 
 youth of poetical aspirations, who can doubt? 
 That a Chaucer and a Gower were accessible 
 to a young man educated at the grammar- 
 school at Stratford, we may readily believe. 
 That was not a day of rare copies ; the boun- 
 tiful press of the early English printers was 
 for the people, and the people eagerly de- 
 voured the intellectual food which that press 
 bestowed upon them. ( Appollinus, The Prince 
 of Tyr,' is one of the most sustained, and, per- 
 haps, altogether one of the most interesting, 
 of the old narratives which Gower introduced 
 into the poetical form. What did it matter 
 to the young and enthusiastic reader that 
 there were Latin manuscripts of this story 
 as early as the tenth century; that there is 
 an Anglo-Saxon version of it ; that it forms 
 one of the most elaborate stories of the 'Gesta 
 Romanorum?' What does all this matter 
 even to us, with regard to the play before 
 us ? Mr. Collier says, "The immediate source 
 to which Shakespeare resorted was probably 
 Laurence Twine's version of the novel of 
 ' Appollonius, King of Tyre,' which first came 
 out in 1576, and was afterwards several times 
 reprinted. I have before me an edition with- 
 out date, ' Imprinted at London by Valentine 
 Simmes for the widow Newman,' which very 
 likely was that used by our great dramatist." * 
 Mr. Collier has reprinted this story of Laurence 
 Twine with the title f Appollonius, Prince of 
 Tyre : upon which Shakespeare founded Pe- 
 ricles.' We cannot understand this. We have 
 looked in vain throughout this story to find 
 a single incident in ' Pericles,' suggested by 
 Twine's relation, which might not have been 
 equally suggested by Gower's poem. We will 
 not weary our readers, therefore, with any ex- 
 tracts from this narrative. That the author 
 of 'Pericles' had Gower in his thoughts, and, 
 what is more important, that he felt that 
 
 * ' Farther Particulars,' p. 36. 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 PERICLES. 
 
 his audience were familiar with Gower, is, 
 we think, sufficiently apparent. Upon what 
 other principle can Gower perpetually take 
 up the dropped threads of the action ? Upon 
 what other principle are the verses spoken by 
 Gower, amounting to several hundred lines, 
 formed upon a careful imitation of his style ; 
 so as to present to an audience at the latter 
 end of the sixteenth century some notion of 
 a poet about two centuries older ? It is per- 
 fectly evident to us that Gower, and Gower 
 only, was in the thoughts of the author of 
 ' Pericles.' 
 
 We call the play before us by the name of 
 'PERICLES,' because it was so called in the 
 first rudely printed copies, and because the 
 contemporaries of the writer, following the 
 printed copies, so called it in their printed 
 books. But Malone has given us an epigram 
 of Richard Flecknoe, 1670, ' On the Play of 
 the Life of PYROCLES.' There can be little 
 doubt, we think, as Steevens has very justly 
 argued, that Pyrocles was the name of the 
 hero of this play. For who was Pyrocles? 
 The hero of Sidney's ' Arcadia.' Steevens 
 says, "It is remarkable that many of our 
 ancient writers were ambitious to exhibit 
 Sidney's worthies on the stage ; and, when 
 his subordinate agents were advanced to 
 such honour, how happened it that Pyrocles, 
 their leader, should be overlooked?" To a 
 young poet, who, probably, had access to the 
 ' Arcadia,' in manuscript, before its publi- 
 cation in 1590, the name of Pyrocles would 
 naturally present itself as worthy to succeed 
 the somewhat unmanageable Appollinus of 
 Gower ; and that name would recommend 
 itself to an audience who, if they were of 
 the privileged circles, such as the actors of 
 the Blackfriars often addressed, were familiar 
 with the 'Arcadia' before its publication. 
 After 1590 the 'Arcadia' was the most po- 
 pular work of the age. 
 
 It will be seen, then, that we advocate the 
 belief that 'Pyrocles,' or 'Pericles,' was a 
 very early work of Shakspere, in some form, 
 however different from that which we possess. 
 That it was an early work, we are constrained 
 to believe ; not from the evidence of particular 
 passages, which may be deficient in power, or 
 devoid of refinement, but from the entire con- 
 
 struction of the dramatic action. The play is 
 essentially one of movement, which is a great 
 requisite for dramatic success ; but that move- 
 ment is not held in subjection to a unity of 
 idea. The writer, in constructing the plot, 
 had not arrived to a perfect conception of the 
 principle "That a tragedy is tied to the laws 
 of Poesy, and not of History, not bound to 
 follow the story, but having liberty either to 
 feign a quite new matter, or to frame the 
 history to the most tragical convenience." 
 But with this essential disadvantage we can- 
 not doubt that, even with very imperfect 
 dialogue, the action presented a succession 
 of scenes of very absorbing interest. The 
 introduction of Gower, however inartificial it 
 may seem, was the result of very profound 
 skill. The presence of Gower supplied the 
 unity of idea which the desultory nature 
 of the story wanted ; and thus it is that, 
 in " the true history " formed upon the play 
 which Mr. Collier has analysed, the unity 
 of idea is kept in the expression of the 
 title-page, " as it was lately presented by 
 the worthy and ancient poet, John Gower." 
 Nevertheless, such a story we believe could 
 not have been chosen by Shakspere in the 
 seventeenth century, when his art was fully 
 developed in all its wondrous powers and 
 combinations. With his perfect mastery of 
 the faculty of representing, instead of record- 
 ing, the treatment of a story which would 
 have required perpetual explanation and 
 connection would have been painful to him, 
 if not impossible. 
 
 Dr. Drake has bestowed very considerable 
 attention upon the endeavour to prove that 
 ' Pericles ' ought to be received as the indis- 
 putable work of Shakspere. Yet his argu- 
 ments, after all, amount only to the esta- 
 blishment of the following theory : " No 
 play, in fact, more openly discloses the hand 
 of Shakspeare than 'Pericles,' and fortunately 
 his share in its composition appears to have 
 been very considerable : he may be distinctly, 
 though not frequently, traced in the first 
 and second acts ; after which, feeling the in- 
 competence/ of his fellow-labourer, he seems 
 to have assumed almost the entire manage- 
 ment of the remainder, nearly the whole of 
 the third, fourth, and fifth acts bearing in- 
 
56 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK n. 
 
 disputable testimony to the genius and exe- 
 cution of the great master." * This theory 
 of companionship in the production of the 
 play is merely a repetition of the theory of 
 Steevens : " The purpurei panni are Shak- 
 speare's, and the rest the productions of some 
 inglorious and forgotten play-wright." We 
 have no faith whatever in this very easy 
 mode of disposing of the authorship of a 
 doubtful play of leaving entirely out of 
 view the most important part of every drama, 
 its action, its characterization, looking at 
 the whole merely as a collection of passages, 
 of which the worst are to be assigned to 
 some dme damnee, and the best triumph- 
 antly claimed for Shakspere. There are 
 some, however, who judge of such matters 
 upon broader principles. Mr. Hallam says, 
 " Pericles is generally reckoned to be in 
 part, and only in part, the work of Shak- 
 speare. From the poverty and bad manage- 
 ment of the fable, the want of any effective 
 or distinguishable character (for Marina is 
 no more than the common form of female 
 virtue, such as all the dramatists of that 
 age could draw), and a general feebleness of 
 the tragedy as a whole, I should not be- 
 lieve the structure to have been Shakspeare's. 
 But many passages are far more in his man- 
 ner than in that of any contemporary writer 
 with whom I am acquainted." t Here "the 
 poverty and bad management of the fable" 
 " the want of any effective or distinguish- 
 able character," are assigned for the belief 
 that the structure could not have been Shak- 
 spere's. But let us accept Dryden's opinion, 
 that 
 
 " Shakspeare's own muse his Pericles first bore," 
 
 with reference to the original structure of 
 the play, and the difficulty vanishes. It 
 was impossible that the character of the 
 early drama should not have been impressed 
 upon Shakspere's earliest efforts. Sidney 
 has given us a most distinct description of 
 that drama ; and we can thus understand 
 how the author of ' Pericles ' improved upon 
 what he found. Do we therefore think that 
 the drama, as it has come down to us, is 
 
 * ' Shakspeare and his Times,' vol. ii. p. 2G8. 
 f ' History of Literature,' vol. iii. p. 569. 
 
 presented in the form in which it was first 
 written ] By no means. We agree with 
 Mr. Hallam that in parts the language seems 
 rather that of Shakspere's " second or third 
 manner than of his first." But this belief 
 is not inconsistent with the opinion that the 
 original structure was Shakspere's. No other 
 poet that existed at the beginning of the 
 seventeenth century perhaps no poet that 
 came after that period, whether Massinger, 
 or Fletcher, or Webster could have written 
 the greater part of the fifth act. Coarse as 
 the comic scenes are, there are touches in 
 them unlike any other writer but Shakspere. 
 Horn, with the eye of a real critic, has 
 pointed out the deep poetical profundity of 
 one apparently slight passage in these un- 
 pleasant scenes : 
 
 "Mar. Are you a woman? 
 Bawd. What would you have me be, an I be 
 
 not a woman ] 
 Mar. An honest woman, or not a woman." 
 
 Touches such as these are not put into the 
 work of other men. Who but Shakspere 
 could have written 
 
 " The blind mole casts 
 Copp'd hills towards heaven, to tell, the earth 
 
 is throng'd 
 By man's oppression ; and the poor worm 
 
 doth die for 't." 
 
 And yet this passage comes naturally enough 
 in a speech of no very high excellence. The 
 purpurei panni must be fitted to a body, as 
 well for use as for adornment. We think 
 that Shakspere would not have taken the 
 trouble to produce these costly robes for the 
 decoration of what another had essentially 
 created. We are willing to believe that, 
 even in the very height of his fame, he 
 would have bestowed any amount of labour 
 for the improvement of an early production 
 of his own, if the taste of his audiences had 
 from time to time demanded its continuance 
 upon the stage. It is for this reason that 
 we think that ' Pericles,' which appears to 
 have been in some respects a new play at 
 the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
 was the revival of a play written by Shak- 
 spere some twenty years earlier. 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 THE HAMLET OP 1603. 
 
 f>7 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE HAMLET OF 1603. 
 
 THE earliest edition of ' Hamlet ' known to 
 exist is that of 1603. It bears the following 
 title : ' The Tragicall Historic of Hamlet, 
 Prince of Denmarke, by William Shake- 
 speare. As it hath beene diverse times acted 
 by his Highnesse servants in the Cittie of 
 London : as also in the two Universities of 
 Cambridge and Oxford, and elsewhere. At 
 London, printed for N. L. and John Trun- 
 dell, 1603.' The only known copy of this 
 edition is in the library of the Duke of 
 Devonshire ; and that copy is not quite per- 
 fect. It was reprinted in 1825. 
 
 The second edition of ' Hamlet ' was 
 printed in 1604, under the following title : 
 'The Tragicall Historic of Hamlet, Prince 
 of Denmarke. By William Shakespeare. 
 Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as 
 much againe as it was, according to the true 
 and perfect coppie.' 
 
 In the reprint of the edition of 1603, it is 
 stated to be " the only known copy of this 
 tragedy, as originally written by Shakespeare, 
 which he afterwards altered and enlarged." 
 We believe that this description is correct ; 
 that this remarkable copy gives us the play 
 as originally written by Shakspere. It may 
 have been piratical, and we think it was so. 
 It may, as Mr. Collier says, have been " pub- 
 lished in haste from a short-hand copy, taken 
 from the mouths of the players." But this 
 process was not applied to the finished ' Ham- 
 let ;' the 'Hamlet' of 1603 is a sketch of 
 the perfect ' Hamlet,' and probably a corrupt 
 copy of that sketch. Mr. Caldecott believes 
 that this copy exhibits, " in that which was 
 afterwards wrought into a splendid drama, 
 the first conception, and comparatively fee- 
 ble expression, of a great mind." We think, 
 further, that this first conception was an 
 early conception ; that it was remodelled, 
 " enlarged to almost as much againe as it 
 was," at the beginning of the 17th century ; 
 and that this original copy, being then of 
 comparatively little value, was piratically 
 published. 
 
 The interest of this edition of 1603 con- 
 sists, as we believe, in the opportunity which 
 it affords of studying the growth, not only 
 of our great poet's command over language 
 not only of his dramatical skill, but of 
 the higher qualities of his intellect his 
 profound philosophy, his wonderful penetra- 
 tion into what is most hidden and obscure 
 in men's characters and motives. We re- 
 quest the reader's indulgence whilst we 
 attempt to point out some of the more im- 
 portant considerations which have suggested 
 themselves to us, in a careful study of this 
 original edition. 
 
 And, first, let us state that all the action 
 of the amended ' Hamlet ' is to be found in 
 the first sketch. The play opens with the 
 scene in which the Ghost appears to Horatio 
 and Marcellus. The order of the dialogue 
 is the same ; but, in the quarto of 1604, it 
 is a little elaborated. The grand passage 
 beginning 
 
 " In the most high and palmy state of Kome," 
 is not found in this copy ; and it is omitted 
 in the folio. The second scene introduces 
 us, as at present, to the King, Queen, Ham- 
 let, Polonius, and Laertes, but in this copy 
 Polonius is called Corambis. The dialogue 
 here is much extended in the perfect copy. 
 We will give an example : 
 
 QUARTO OP 1603. 
 
 " Ham. My lord, 't is not the sable suit I wear; 
 No, nor the tears that still stand in my eyes, 
 Nor the distracted 'haviour in the visage, 
 Nor altogether mixt with outward semblance, 
 Is equal to the sorrow of my heart; 
 Him have I lost I must of force forgo, 
 These, but the ornaments and suits of woe." 
 
 QUARTO OF 1604. 
 
 "Ham. 'T is not alone my inky cloak, good 
 
 mother, 
 
 Nor customary suits of solemn black, 
 Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, 
 No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, 
 Nor the dejected 'haviour of the visage, 
 
58 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ii. 
 
 Together with all forms, modes, shows of 
 
 grief, 
 
 That can denote me truly : these, indeed, seem, 
 For they are actions that a man might play; 
 But I have that within which passeth show; 
 These, but the trappings and the suits of woe." 
 
 We would ask if it is possible that such a 
 careful working up of the first idea could 
 have been any other work than that of the 
 poet himself? Can the alterations be ac- 
 counted for upon the principle that the first 
 edition was an imperfect copy of the com- 
 plete play, " published in haste from a short- 
 hand copy taken from the mouths of the 
 players ? " Could the players have trans- 
 formed the line 
 
 " But I have that within which passeth show," 
 into, 
 
 " Him have I lost I must of force forgo." 
 The haste of short-hand does not account 
 for what is truly the refinement of the poeti- 
 cal art. The same nice elaboration is to be 
 found in Hamlet's soliloquy in the same 
 scene. In the first copy we have not the 
 passage so characteristic of Hamlet's mind, 
 
 " How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, 
 Seem to me all the uses of this world." 
 
 Neither have we the noble comparison of 
 " Hyperion to a satyr." The fine Shaksperean 
 phrase, so deep in its metaphysical truth, 
 " a beast that wants discourse of reason" is, 
 in the first copy, " a beast devoid of reason" 
 Shakspere must have dropt verse from his 
 mouth, as the fairy in the Arabian tales 
 dropt pearls. It appears to have been no 
 effort to him to have changed the whole ar- 
 rangement of a poetical sentence, and to 
 have inverted its different members ; he did 
 this as readily as if lie were dealing with 
 prose. In the first copy we have these 
 lines, 
 
 " Why, she would hang on him as if increase 
 Of appetite had grown by what it look'd on." 
 
 In the amended copy we have 
 
 " Must I remember ? Why, she would hang on 
 
 him 
 
 As if increase of appetite had grown 
 By what it fed on." 
 
 Such changes are not the work of short- 
 hand writers. 
 
 The interview of Horatio, Bernardo, and 
 Marcellus, with Hamlet, succeeds as in the 
 perfect copy, and the change here is very 
 slight. The scene between Laertes and 
 Ophelia in the same manner follows. Here 
 again there is a great extension. The in- 
 junction of Laertes in the first copy is con- 
 tained in these few lines : 
 
 " I see Prince Hamlet makes a show of love. 
 Beware, Ophelia; do not trust his vows. 
 Perhaps he loves you now, and now his tongue 
 Speaks from his heart; but yet take heed, my 
 
 sister. 
 
 The chariest maid is prodigal enough 
 If she unmask her beauty to the moon; 
 Virtue itself 'scapes not. calumnious thoughts : 
 Believe 't, Ophelia; therefore keep aloof, 
 Lest that he trip thy honour and thy fame." 
 
 Compare this with the splendid passage 
 which we now have. Look especially at the 
 following lines, in which, we see the deep 
 philosophic spirit of the mature Shak- 
 spere : 
 
 " For nature, crescent, does not grow alone 
 In thews, and bulk ; but, as this temple waxes, 
 The inward service of the mind and soul 
 Grows wide withal." 
 
 Polonius and his few precepts next occur ; 
 and here again there is slight difference. 
 The lecture of the old courtier to his daugh- 
 ter is somewhat extended. In the next scene, 
 where Hamlet encounters the Ghost, there 
 is very little change. The character of 
 Hamlet is fully conceived in the original 
 play, whenever he is in action, as in this 
 scene. It is the contemplative part of his 
 nature which is elaborated in the perfect 
 copy. This great scene, as it was first 
 written, appeared to the poet to have been 
 scarcely capable of improvement. 
 
 The character of Polonius, under the 
 name of Corambis, presents itself in the 
 original copy with little variation. We have 
 extension, but not change. As we proceed, 
 we find that Shakspere in the first copy 
 more emphatically marked the supposed 
 madness of Hamlet than he thought fit to 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 THE HAMLET OF 1603. 
 
 59 
 
 do in the amended copy. Thus Ophelia 
 does not, as now, say, 
 "Alas my lord, my lord, I have been so af- 
 frighted;" 
 
 but she comes at once to proclaim Hamlet 
 mad : 
 " my dear father, such a change in nature, 
 
 So great an alteration in a prince ! 
 
 He is bereft of all the wealth he had; 
 
 The jewel that adorn'd his feature most 
 
 Is filch'd and stolen away his wit's bereft 
 
 him." 
 
 Again, in the next scene, when the King 
 communicates his wishes to Rosencrantz and 
 Guildenstern, he does not speak of Hamlet 
 as merely put "from the understanding of 
 himself ; " but in this first copy he says 
 " Our dear cousin Hamlet 
 
 Hath lost the very heart of all his sense." 
 
 In the description which Polonius, in the 
 same scene, gives of Hamlet's madness for 
 Ophelia's love, the symptoms are made much 
 stronger in the original copy : 
 " He straightway grew into a melancholy; 
 
 From that unto a fast; then unto distraction; 
 
 Then into a sadness; from that unto a mad- 
 ness; 
 
 And so, by continuance and weakness of the 
 brain, 
 
 Into this frenzy which now possesses him." 
 
 It is curious that, in Burton's ' Anatomy of 
 Melancholy,' we have the stages of melan- 
 choly, madness, and frenzy, indicated as 
 described by Celsus ; and Burton himself 
 mentions frenzy as the worst stage of mad- 
 ness, " clamorous, continual." In the first 
 copy, therefore, Hamlet, according to the 
 description of Polonius, is not only the 
 prey of melancholy and madness, but, " by 
 continuance," of frenzy. In the amended 
 copy the symptoms, according to the same 
 descriptioD, are much milder ; a sadness 
 a fast a watch a weakness a lightness 
 and a madness. The reason of this change 
 appears to us tolerably clear. Shakspere 
 did not, either in his first sketch or his 
 amended copy, intend his audience to be- 
 lieve that Hamlet was essentially mad ; and 
 he removed, therefore, the strong expressions 
 which might encourage that belief. 
 
 Immediately after the scene of the origi- 
 nal copy in which Polonius describes Ham- 
 let's frenzy, Hamlet comes in and speaks 
 the celebrated soliloquy. In the amended 
 copy this passage, as well as the scene with 
 Ophelia which follows it, is placed after 
 Hamlet's interview with the players. The 
 soliloquy in the first copy is evidently given 
 with great corruptions, and some of the 
 lines appear transposed by the printer : on 
 the contrary, the scene with Ophelia is very 
 slightly altered. The scene with Polonius, 
 now the second scene of the second act, fol- 
 lows that with Ophelia in the first copy. In 
 the interview with Guildenstern and Rosen- 
 crantz the dialogue is greatly elaborated in 
 the amended copy ; we have the mere germ 
 of the fine passage, " This goodly frame, the 
 earth," <fec. prose with almost more than 
 the music of poetry. In the first copy, in- 
 stead of this noble piece of rhetoric, we 
 have the following somewhat tame pas- 
 sage : 
 
 " Yes, faith, this great world you see contents 
 me not; no, nor the spangled heavens, nor 
 earth, nor sea ; no, nor man that is so glorious 
 a creature contents not me; no, nor woman too, 
 though you laugh." 
 
 We pass over for the present the dialogue 
 between Hamlet and the players, in which 
 there are considerable variations, not only 
 between the first and second quartos, but 
 between the second quarto and the folio, 
 tending, as we think, to fix the date of each 
 copy. In the same way we pass over the 
 speeches from the play "that pleased not 
 the million," as well as the directions to the 
 players in the next act. These passages, as 
 it appears to us, go far to establish the point, 
 that the 'Hamlet' of the edition of 1603 
 was an early production of the poet. Our 
 readers, we think, will be pleased to compare 
 the following passage of the first copy and 
 the amended play, which offer us an ex- 
 ample of the most surpassing skill in the 
 elaboration of a first idea 
 
 QUARTO OF 1603. 
 
 " Ham. Horatio, thou art even as just a man 
 As e'er my conversation coped withal. 
 Hor. 0, my lord ! 
 
60 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ii. 
 
 Ham. Nay, why should I flatter thee? 
 Why should the poor be flatter'd? 
 What gain should I receive by flattering thee, 
 That nothing hath but thy good mind 1 ? 
 Let flattery sit on those time-pleasing tongues, 
 To glose with them that love to hear their praise, 
 And not with such as thou, Horatio." 
 
 QUARTO OF 1604. 
 
 " Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man 
 As e'er my conversation coped withal. 
 Hor. 0, my dear lord, 
 Ham. Nay, do not think I flatter: 
 
 For what advancement may I hope from thee, 
 That no revenue hast, but thy good spirits, 
 To feed, and clothe thee? Why should the poor 
 
 be flatter'd? 
 
 No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp; 
 And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, 
 Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou 
 
 hear? 
 
 Since my dear soul was mistress of my choice, 
 And could of men distinguish, her election 
 Hath seal'd thee for herself : for thou hast been 
 As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing; 
 A man that fortune's buffets and rewards 
 Has ta'en with equal thanks: and bless'd are 
 
 those, 
 Whose blood and judgment are so well co- 
 
 mingled, 
 
 That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger 
 To sound what stop she please : Give me that 
 
 man 
 
 That is not passion's slave, and 1 will wear him 
 In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart, 
 As I do thee. Something too much of this." 
 
 Schlegel observes, that " Shakspere has 
 composed 'the play' in 'Hamlet' altogether 
 in sententious rhymes, full of antitheses." 
 Let us give an example of this in the open- 
 ing speech of the king : 
 " Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone 
 
 round, 
 
 Neptune's salt wash, and Tellus' orbed ground; 
 And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen, 
 About the world have times twelve thirties 
 
 been, 
 Since love our hearts and Hymen did our 
 
 hands 
 Unite, commutual in most sacred bands." 
 
 Here is not only the antithesis, but the artifi- 
 cial elevation, that was to keep the language 
 of the interlude apart from that of the 
 
 real drama. Shakspere has most skilfully 
 managed the whole business of the player- 
 king and queen upon this principle ; but, as 
 we think, when he wrote his first copy, his 
 power as an artist was not so consummate. 
 In that copy, the first lines of the player- 
 king are singularly flowing and musical ; and 
 their sacrifice shows us how inexorable was 
 his judgment : 
 
 " Full forty years are pass'd, their date is gone, 
 Since happy time join'd both our hearts as one; 
 And now the blood that fill'd my youthful 
 
 veins 
 
 Runs weakly in their pipes, and all the strains 
 Of music, which whilome pleased mine ear, 
 Is now a burthen that age cannot bear." 
 
 The soliloquy of the king in the third act 
 is greatly elaborated from the first copy ; 
 and so is the scene between Hamlet and his 
 mother. In the play, as we now have it, 
 Shakspere has left it doubtful whether the 
 queen was privy to the murder of her hus- 
 band ; but in this scene, in the first copy, 
 she says, 
 
 " But, as I have a soul, I swear by heaven, 
 1 never knew of this most horrid murder." 
 
 And Hamlet, upon this declaration, says, 
 
 " And, mother, but assist me in revenge, 
 And in his death your infamy shall die." 
 
 The queen, upon this, protests 
 
 " I will conceal, consent, and do my best, 
 What stratagem soe'er thou shalt devise." 
 
 In the amended copy, the queen merely 
 says, 
 
 " Be thou assured if words be made of breath, 
 And breath of life, I have no life to breathe 
 What thou hast said to me." 
 
 The action of the amended copy, for the 
 present, proceeds as in the first copy. Ger- 
 trude describes the death of Polonius, and 
 Hamlet pours forth his bitter sarcasm upon 
 the king : " Your fat king and your lean 
 beggar are but variable services." Hamlet 
 is despatched to England. Fortinbras and 
 his forces appear upon the stage. The fine 
 scene between Hamlet and the captain, and 
 Hamlet's subsequent soliloquy, are not to be 
 found in the quarto of 1603. The madness 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 THE HAMLET OP 1603. 
 
 61 
 
 of Ophelia is beautifully elaborated in the 
 amended copy, but all her snatches of songs 
 are the same in both editions. What she 
 sings, however, in the first scene of the ori- 
 ginal copy, is with great art transposed to 
 the second scene of the amended one. The 
 pathos of 
 
 "And will he not come again T' 
 
 is doubled, as it now stands, by the presence 
 of Laertes. 
 
 We are now arrived at a scene in the 
 quarto of 1603, altogether differnet from any- 
 thing we find in the amended copy. It is a 
 short scene between Horatio and the queen, 
 in which Horatio relates Hamlet's return to 
 Denmark, and describes the treason which 
 the king had plotted against him, as well as 
 the mode by which he had evaded it, by the 
 sacrifice of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. 
 The queen, with reference to the 
 
 " subtle treason that the king had plotted/' 
 
 says 
 
 " Then I perceive there's treason in his looks 
 That seem'd to sugar o'er his villainy; 
 Bat I will soothe and please him for a time, 
 For murderous minds are always jealous." 
 
 This is decisive as to Shakspere's original in- 
 tentions with regard to the queen ; but the 
 suppression of the scene in the amended 
 copy is another instance of his admirable 
 judgment. She does not redeem her guilt 
 by entering into plots against her guilty 
 husband ; and it is far more characteristic 
 of the irregular impulses of Hamlet's mind, 
 and of his subjection to circumstances, that 
 he should have no confidences with his 
 mother, and should not form with her and 
 Horatio any plans of revenge. The story of 
 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is told in six 
 lines : 
 
 Queen. " But what became of Gilderstone and 
 
 Rossencraft] 
 
 Hor. He being set ashore, they went for Eng- 
 land, 
 
 And in the packet there writ down that doom 
 To be perform'd on them pointed for him : 
 And by great chance he had his father's seal, 
 So all was done without discovery." 
 
 The expansion of this simple passage into 
 
 the exquisite narrative of Hamlet to Hora- 
 tio of the same circumstances, presents, to 
 our minds, a most remarkable example of the 
 difference between the mature and the youth- 
 ful intellect. 
 
 The scene of the grave-digger, in the ori- 
 ginal copy, has all the great points of the 
 present scene. The frenzy of Hamlet at the 
 grave is also the same. Who but the poet 
 himself could have worked up this line 
 
 " Anon, as mild and gentle as a dove," 
 into 
 
 " Anon, as patient as the female dove, 
 When that her golden couplets are disclosed, 
 His silence will sit drooping." 
 
 The scene with Osric is greatly expanded 
 in the amended copy. The catastrophe ap- 
 pears to be the same ; but the last leaf of 
 the copy of 1603 is wanting. 
 
 There is a general belief that some play 
 under the title of ' Hamlet' had preceded the 
 ' Hamlet' of Shakspere. Probable as this 
 may be, it appears to us that this belief is 
 sometimes asserted too authoritatively. Mr. 
 Collier, whose opinion upon such matters is 
 indeed of great value, constantly speaks of 
 " The old ' Hamlet,' " in his ' Annals of the 
 Stage.' Mr. Skottowe is more unqualified 
 in his assertion of this fact : " The history 
 of 'Hamlet' formed the subject of a play 
 which was acted previous to 1589 ; and, ar- 
 guing from the general course of Shakspere's 
 mind, that play influenced him during the 
 composition of his own ' Hamlet.' But, un- 
 fortunately, the old play is lost." In a very 
 useful and accurate work, l Lowndes's Biblio- 
 grapher's Manual,' we are told in express 
 terms of " KycTs old play of ' Hamlet.' " Mr. 
 Skottowe and Mr. Lowndes have certainly 
 mistaken conjecture for proof. Not a tittle 
 of distinct evidence exists to show that there 
 was any other play of 'Hamlet' but that of 
 Shakspere ; and all the collateral evidence 
 upon which it is inferred that an earlier 
 play of ' Hamlet' than Shakspere's did exist, 
 may, on the other hand, be taken to prove 
 that Shakspere's original sketch of ' Hamlet ' 
 was in repute at an earlier period than is 
 
62 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ii. 
 
 commonly assigned as its date. This evidence 
 is briefly as follows : 
 
 1. Dr. Farmer, in his c Essay on the Learn- 
 ing of Shakspere,' first brought forward a 
 passage in ( An Epistle to the Gentlemen 
 Students of the Two Universities,' by Thomas 
 Nash, prefixed to Green's ' Arcadia,' which 
 he considers directed " very plainly at Shak- 
 spere in particular." It is as follows : " It 
 is a common practise now-a-days, among a 
 sort of shifting companions, that runne 
 through every art, and thrive by none, to 
 leave the trade of Noverint, whereto they 
 were born, and busie themselves with the 
 endevors of art, that could scarcely latinize 
 their neck-verse if they should have neede ; 
 yet English Seneca, reade by candle-light, 
 yields many good sentences, as Bloud is a 
 beggar, and so forth : and, if you intreat him 
 farre in a frosty morning, he will affoord you 
 whole HamJets, I should say, handfuls, of tra- 
 gical speeches." Farmer adds, " I cannot de- 
 termine exactly when this epistle was first 
 published, but I fancy it would carry the 
 original 'Hamlet' somewhat further back 
 than we have hitherto done.'' Malone found 
 that this epistle was published in 1589 ; Mr. 
 Dyce says 1587 ; but no proof of this earlier 
 date is given (Greene's Works) ; and he, 
 therefore, was inclined to think that the 
 allusion was not to Shakspere's drama, con- 
 jecturing that the ' Hamlet ' just mentioned 
 might have been written by Kyd. Mr. 
 Brown, in his ingenious work on Shakspere's 
 Sonnets, contends that the passage applies 
 distinctly to Shakspere ; that the expres- 
 sion, " the trade of Noverint" had reference 
 to some one who had been a lawyer's clerk ; 
 and that the technical use of law phrases 
 by Shakspere proves that his early life had 
 been so employed. We have then only the 
 difficulty of believing that the original 
 sketch of ' Hamlet' was written in, or before, 
 the year 1589. Mr. Brown leaps over the 
 difficulty, and assigns this sketch, as pub- 
 lished in the quarto of 1603, to the year 
 1589. We see nothing extravagant in this 
 belief. Let it be remembered that in that 
 very year, when Shakspere was twenty-five, 
 it has been distinctly proved by Mr. Collier 
 that he was a sharer in the Blackfriars The- 
 
 atre, with others, and some of note, below 
 him in the list of sharers. 
 
 2. In the accounts found at Dulwich Col- 
 lege, which were kept by Henslowe, an actor 
 contemporary with Shakspere, we find the 
 following entry as connected with the theatre 
 at Newington Butts : 
 
 " 9 of June 1594, Ed. at hamlet . . vra s." 
 
 The eight shillings constituted Henslowe's 
 share of the profits of this representation. 
 Malone says, that this is a full confirmation 
 that there was a play on the subject of Ham- 
 let prior to Shakspere's ; for " it cannot be 
 supposed that our poet's play should have 
 been performed but once in the time of this 
 account, and that Mr. Henslowe should have 
 drawn from such a piece but the sum of 
 eight shillings, when his share in several 
 other plays came to three and sometimes 
 four pounds." We cannot go along with 
 this reasoning. Henslowe's accounts are 
 thus headed : " In the name of God, Amen, 
 beginning at Newington, my lord admirell 
 men, and my lord chamberlen men, as fol- 
 loweth, 1594." Now, " my lord chamberlen" 
 men were the company to which Shakspere 
 belonged ; and one of their theatres, the 
 Globe, was erected in the spring of 1594. 
 The theatre was wholly of wood, according to 
 Hentzner's description of it ; it would, there- 
 fore, be quickly erected ; and it is extremely 
 probable that Shakspere's company only used 
 the theatre at Newington Butts for a very 
 short period, during the completion of their 
 own theatre, wbich was devoted to summer 
 performances. We can find nothing in Ma- 
 lone's argument to prove that it was not 
 Shakspere's 'Hamlet' which was acted by 
 Shakspere's company on the 9th of June, 
 1594. On the previous 16th of May, Hen- 
 slowe's accounts are headed, "by my lord 
 admirell's men ;" and it is only on the 3rd 
 of June that we find the " lord chamberlen 
 men," as well as the " lord admirell men," 
 performing at this theatre. Their occupa- 
 tion of it might have been very temporary ; 
 and, during that occupation, Shakspere's 
 ' Hamlet' might have been once performed. 
 The very next entry, the llth of June, is, 
 " at the taminge of a shrewe ;" and Malone, 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 THE HAMLET OP 1603. 
 
 63 
 
 in a note, adds, " the play which preceded 
 Shakspere's." When Malone wrote this note, 
 he believed that Shakspere's ' Taming of the 
 Shrew' was a late production ; but, in the 
 second edition of his ' Chronological Order/ 
 he is persuaded that it was one of his very 
 early productions. There is nothing to prove 
 that both these plays thus acted were not 
 Shakspere's. 
 
 3. In a tract entitled ' Wit's Miserie, or 
 the World's Madnesse,' by Thomas Lodge, 
 printed in 1596, one of the devils is said to 
 be " a foul lubber, and looks as pale as the 
 vizard of the ghost, who cried so miserably 
 at the theatre, Hamlet, revenge" In the first 
 edition of Malone's ' Chronological Order,' he 
 says, " If the allusion was to our author's 
 tragedy, this passage will ascertain its ap- 
 pearance in or before 1596 ; but Lodge may 
 have had the elder play in his contempla- 
 tion." In the second edition of this essay, 
 Malone changes his opinion, and says, "Lodge 
 must have had the elder play in his contem- 
 plation." 
 
 4. Steevens, in his Preliminary Remarks 
 to ' Hamlet,' has this passage : " I have 
 seen a copy of Speght's edition of l Chaucer,' 
 which formerly belonged to Dr. Gabriel 
 Harvey (the antagonist of Nash), who, in his 
 own hand- writing, has set down ' Hamlet ' as 
 a performance with which he was well ac- 
 quainted, in the year 1598." Malone con- 
 sidered this decisive in the first edition of 
 his ' Chronological Order,' but in the second 
 edition, having seen the book, he persuaded 
 himself that the date 1598 referred to the 
 time when Harvey purchased it ; and he 
 therefore rejects the evidence. He then 
 peremptorily fixes the first appearance of 
 1 Hamlet' in 1600, from the reference that is 
 made in it to the " inhibition" of the players. 
 We shall speak of this presently. In the 
 mean time it may be sufficient to remark, 
 that the passage is not found in the first 
 quarto of 1603, of the existence of which 
 Malone was uninformed ; and that, therefore, 
 this proof goes for nothing. 
 
 And now, leaving our readers to form their 
 own judgment upon the external evidence as 
 to the date of l Hamlet,' we must express our 
 decided opinion, grounded upon an attentive 
 
 comparison of the original sketch with the 
 perfect play, that the original sketch was an 
 early production of our poet. The copy of 
 1603 is no doubt piratical; it is unquestion- 
 ably very imperfectly printed. But, if the 
 passage about the "inhibition" of the players 
 fixes the date of the perfect play at 1600, 
 which we believe it does, the essential differ- 
 ences between the sketch and the perfect 
 play differences which do not depend upon 
 the corruption of a text can only be ac- 
 counted for upon the belief that there was 1 a 
 considerable interval between the production 
 of the first and second copy, in which the 
 author's power and judgment had become 
 mature, and his peculiar habits of philo- 
 sophical thought had been completely esta- 
 blished. This is a matter which does not 
 admit of proof within our limited space ; but 
 the passages which we have already given 
 from the original copy do something to prove 
 it, and we have other differences of the same 
 character to point out, which we shall do as 
 briefly as possible. 
 
 Mr. Hallam (in his admirable work, the 
 ' Introduction to the Literature of Europe'), 
 speaking of 'Romeo and Juliet' as an early 
 production of our poet, points out, as a proof 
 of this, " the want of that thoughtful philo- 
 sophy, which, when once it had germinated 
 in Shakspere's mind, never ceased to display 
 itself."* 'Hamlet,' as it now stands, is full 
 of this " thoughtful philosophy." But the 
 original sketch, as given in the quarto of 
 1603, exhibits few traces of it in the fon. 
 of didactic observations. The whole dra- 
 matic conduct of the action is indeed de- 
 monstrative of a philosophical conception of 
 incidents and characters ; but, in the form to 
 which Mr. Hallam refers, the " thoughtful 
 philosophy" is almost entirely wanting in 
 that sketch. We must indicate a few ex- 
 amples very briefly, of passages illustrating 
 this position, which are not there found, re- 
 questing our readers to refer to the text : 
 Act I., Sc. 3. " For nature, crescent," &c. 
 
 4. " This heavy-headed revel," &c. 
 II., 2. " There is nothing, either good 
 
 or bad, but thinking makes 
 
 it so," &c. 
 
 * Vol. ii. p. 390. 
 
64 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ii. 
 
 Act II., Sc. 2. " I could be bounded in a nut- 
 shell," &c. 
 
 III., 4. " Bring me to the test, and I 
 the matter will re-word," &c. 
 IV., 3. " I see a cherub," &c. 
 
 5. " Nature is fine in love," &c. 
 V., 2. "There's a divinity," &c. 
 
 Further, Mr. Hallam observes, "There 
 seems to have been a period of Shakspeare's 
 life when his heart was ill at ease, and ill 
 content with the world or his own conscience : 
 the memory of hours mis-spent, the pang of 
 affection misplaced or unrequited, the expe- 
 rience of man's worser nature, which inter- 
 course with ill-chosen associates, by choice or 
 circumstance, peculiarly teaches, these, as 
 they sank down into the depths of his gf eat 
 mind, seem not only to have inspired into it 
 the conception of Lear and Timon, but that 
 of one primary character, the censurer of 
 mankind." The type, Mr. Hallam proceeds to 
 say, is first seen in Jaques, then in the ex- 
 iled duke of the same play, and in the duke 
 of 'Measure for Measure;' but in these in 
 the shape of "merely contemplative phi- 
 losophy." "In 'Hamlet' this is mingled 
 with the impulses of a perturbed heart, un- 
 der the pressure of extraordinary circum- 
 stances." These plays, Mr. Hallam points 
 out, all belong to the same period the be- 
 ginning of the seventeenth century: he is 
 speaking of the 'Hamlet,' "in its altered 
 form" Without admitting the absolute cor- 
 rectness of this reasoning, we may ground an 
 opinion upon it. If this type be not found in 
 the 'Hamlet' of the original sketch, we may 
 refer that sketch to an earlier period. It is 
 remarkable that in this sketch the misan- 
 thropy, if so it may be called, of ' Hamlet,' 
 can scarcely be traced; his feelings have 
 altogether reference to his personal griefs 
 and doubts. Mr. Hallam says that, in the 
 plays subsequent to these mentioned above, 
 " much of moral speculation will be found ; 
 but he has never returned to this type of 
 character in the personages."* We shall 
 give a few examples, as in the case of the 
 " thoughtful philosophy," of the absence in 
 the first sketch of the passages which indi- 
 
 * Vol. iii. pp. 568 and 569. 
 
 cate the existence of the morbid feelings to 
 
 which Mr. Hallam alludes : 
 
 Act I., Sc. 2. " How weary, flat, stale, and 
 
 unprofitable," &c. 
 II., 2. " Denmark 's a prison," &c. 
 
 " I have of late (but wherefore 
 I know not) lost all my 
 mirth," &c. 
 
 III., 1. The soliloquy. All that ap- 
 pears in the perfect copy as 
 the outpouring of a wounded 
 spirit, such as "the pangs 
 - of dispriz'd love," " the 
 insolence of office," " the 
 spurns that patient merit of 
 the unworthy takes," are 
 generalized in the quarto of 
 1603, as follows : 
 
 "Who'd bear the scorns and flattery of the 
 
 world, 
 
 Scorn'd by the rich, the rich cursed of the poor, 
 The widow being oppress' d, the orphan wrong' d, 
 The taste of hunger, or a tyrant's reign, 
 And thousand more calamities beside V 
 
 Act V., Sc. 2. " Absent thee from felicity 
 
 awhile, 
 
 And in this harsh world draw 
 thy breath of pain." 
 
 We could multiply examples. But there are 
 differences between the first and second 1 copies 
 which address themselves more distinctly to 
 the understanding, in corroboration of our 
 opinion that there was a considerable interval 
 between the production of the sketch and the 
 perfect play. 
 
 We will first take the passage relating to 
 the "tragedians of the city," placing the 
 text of the first and second quartos in juxta- 
 position : 
 
 QUARTO OP 1603. 
 
 " Ham. Players, what players be they? 
 
 Eos. My lord, the tragedians of the city, those 
 that you took delight to see so often. 
 
 Ham. How comes it that they travel 1 ? Do 
 they grow restie? 
 
 Gil. No, my lord, their reputation holds as it 
 was wont. 
 
 Ham. How then 1 ? 
 
 Gil. Yfaith, my lord, novelty carries it away; 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 THE HAMLET OP 1603. 
 
 for the principal public audience that came to 
 them are turned to private plays, and to the 
 humour of children." 
 
 QUARTO OF 1604. 
 
 "Ham. What players are they] 
 
 jRos. Even those you were wont to take such 
 delight in, the tragedians of the city. 
 
 Ham. How chances it they travel? their resi- 
 dence, both in reputation and profit, was better 
 both ways. 
 
 JRos. I think their inhibition comes by the 
 means of the late innovation. 
 
 Ham. Do they hold the same estimation they 
 did when I was in the city? are they so fol- 
 lowed? 
 
 fios. No, indeed are they not." 
 
 We thus see that in the original play the 
 " tragedians of the city," by which are un- 
 questionably meant certain players of Shak- 
 spere's own day, were not adequately re- 
 warded, because the public audience " turned 
 to private plays, and to the humour of chil- 
 dren." On the contrary, in the augmented 
 play, published in the following year, they 
 were not so followed they were inhibited in 
 consequence of a late innovation. The words 
 "inhibition" and "innovation" point to some 
 public proceeding; "novelty," on the other 
 hand, " private plays," and " the humour of 
 children," would seem to have reference to 
 some popular caprice. " The humour of 
 children," in the first copy, points to a period 
 when plays were acted by children; when 
 the novelty of such performances, diminish- 
 ing the attractions of the tragedians of the 
 city, compelled them to travel. The chil- 
 dren of Paul's represented plays in their 
 singing school at a very early period. Several 
 of Lyly's pieces were presented by them sub- 
 sequent to 1584, according to Mr. Collier; but 
 in 1591 we find these performances sup- 
 pressed. In the address of the printer before 
 Lyly's 'Endymion,' published in 1591, the 
 suppression is mentioned as a recent event : 
 " Since the plays in Paul's were dissolved, 
 there are certain comedies come to my hand." 
 In 1596 the interdict was not taken off; for 
 Nash, in his ' Have with You to Saffron Wai- 
 don,' printed in that year, wishes to see the 
 "plays at Paul's up again." But in 1600 
 
 we find a private play, attributed to Lyly, 
 " acted by the children of Powles." In 
 ' Jack Drum's Entertainment,' 1601, we find 
 the performances of these children described, 
 with the observation, "The apes in time 
 will do it handsomely." The audience is 
 mentioned as a "good gentle audience." Our 
 belief, founded upon this passage, is, that the 
 first copy of 1603 refers to the period before 
 1591, when "the humour of children" pre- 
 vailed; and that the "innovation," men- 
 tioned in the second copy, refers to the re- 
 moval of the interdict, which removal occa- 
 sioned the revival of plays at Paul's, about 
 1600. In that year came the "inhibition." 
 On the 22nd of June, 1600, an order of the 
 Privy Council appeared, " for the restraint of 
 the immoderate use of play-houses;" and it 
 is here prescribed " that there shall be about 
 the city two houses and no more allowed, to 
 serve for the use of the common stage plays." 
 No restraint was, however, laid upon the 
 children of Paul's. It appears to us, there- 
 fore, that the inhibition and innovation are 
 distinctly connected in Shakspere's mind. 
 The passage is to us decisive, as fixing the 
 date of the augmented play about 1600; as 
 it is equally clear to us that the passage of 
 the first copy has reference to an earlier 
 period. The text, as we now have it, 
 "There is, Sir, an ayrie of children," who 
 "so berattle the common stages," belongs 
 to a later period, when the children of Paul's 
 acted the plays of Marston, Dekker, and 
 other writers of repute, and the Blackfriars' 
 Theatre was in the possession of a company 
 of boys. In 1612, the performances of chil- 
 dren had been made the vehicle for scurrility, 
 and they were again suppressed. (See Mr. 
 Collier's ' Annals of the Stage,' vol. i. pp. 279, 
 282 ; and Malone's l Historical Account of 
 the English Stage,' Boswell's edition, pp. 62 
 and 453.) 
 
 The speech from the play that was " never 
 acted, or not above once," that "pleased 
 not the million," is found, with very slight 
 alteration, in the quarto of 1603; and so is 
 Hamlet's commendation of it. We agree with 
 Coleridge, that "the fancy that a burlesque 
 was intended sinks below criticism." War- 
 burton expressed the same opinion, in oppo- 
 
STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ii. 
 
 sition to Dryden and Pope. Coleridge very 
 justly says, that the diction of these lines 
 was authorized by the actual style of the 
 tragedies before.Shakspere's time. Ritson, we 
 think, has hit the truth : " It appears to me 
 not only that Shakspere had the favourable 
 opinion of these lines which he makes Hamlet 
 express, but that they were extracted from 
 some play which he, at a more early period, 
 had either produced or projected upon the 
 story of ' Dido and -5Sneas.' The verses re- 
 cited are far superior to those of any coeval 
 writer ; the parallel passage in Marlowe and 
 Nash's 'Dido' will not bear the comparison. 
 Possibly, indeed, it might have been his first 
 attempt, before the divinity that lodged 
 within him had instructed him to despise the 
 tumid and unnatural style so much and so 
 unjustly admired in his predecessors or con- 
 temporaries." The introduction of these 
 lines, we think, cannot be accounted for upon 
 any other supposition but that they were 
 written by Shakspere himself; and he is so 
 thoroughly in earnest in his criticism upon 
 the play, and his complaint of its want of 
 success is so apparently sincere, that it is 
 impossible to imagine that the passage had 
 reference to something non-existent. But 
 would Shakspere, then, have produced such 
 a play, except in his very early career, before 
 he understood his own peculiar powers ? 
 and would he have written so sensitively 
 about it, except under the immediate in- 
 fluence of the disappointment occasioned by 
 its failure 1 The dates of the first copy of 
 'Hamlet,' and of the play which contained 
 the description of "Priam's slaughter," are 
 certainly not far removed. 
 
 Lastly, we are of opinion that the direc- 
 tions to the players, especially as given in the 
 first copy, point to a state of the stage an- 
 terior to the period when Shakspere had him- 
 self reformed it. The mention of "Terma- 
 gant" and "Herod" has reference to the 
 time when these characters possessed the 
 stage in pageants and mysteries. Again, the 
 reproof of the extemporal clowns the in- 
 junction that they should speak no more 
 than is set down for them applied to the 
 infancy of the stage. Shakspere had reformed 
 the clowns before the date usually assigned 
 
 to ' Hamlet.' In a book, called ' Tarleton's 
 Jeast's,' published in 1611, we have some 
 specimens of the licence which this prince oi 
 clowns was wont to take. The author, how- 
 ever, adds " But would I see our clowns in 
 these days do the like? No, I warrant ye.' 
 In the original copy of 'Hamlet,' the reproof 
 of the clowns is more diffuse than in the 
 augmented copy ; and the following passage 
 distinctly shows one of the evils which Shak- 
 spere had to contend with, and which he 
 probably had overcome before the end of the 
 sixteenth century: "And then you have 
 some again that keeps one suit of jests, as a 
 man is known by one suit of apparel ; and 
 gentlemen quote his jests down in their tables 
 before they come to the play, as thus : Can- 
 not you stay till I eat my porridge ? and, you 
 owe me a quarter's wages; and, my coat 
 wants a cullison ; and, your beer is sour ; and 
 blabbering with his lips, and thus keeping 
 in his cinkapase of jests, when, God knows, 
 the warm clown cannot make a jest unless 
 by chance, as the blind man catcheth a hare : 
 Masters, tell him of it." The additions to 
 these directions to the players, in the aug- 
 mented copy, are, on the other hand, such 
 as bespeak a consciousness of the elevation 
 which the stage had attained in its "high 
 and palmy state," a little before the death of 
 Elizabeth, when its purpose, as realised by 
 Shakspere and Jonson especially, was " to 
 hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature: to 
 show virtue her own feature, scorn her own 
 image, and the very age and body of the 
 time, his form and pressure." 
 
 The history of Hamlet, or Hamleth, is found 
 in the Danish historian, Saxo Grammaticus, 
 who died about 1204. The works of Saxo 
 Grammaticus are in Latin, and in Shakspere's 
 time had not been translated into any modern 
 language. It was inferred, therefore, by Dr. 
 Grey and Mr. Whalley that Shakspere must 
 have read the original. The story, however, 
 is to be found in Belleforest's collection of 
 novels, begun in 1564; and an English trans- 
 lation of this particular story was published 
 as a quarto tract, entitled ' The Hystorie of 
 Hamblet, Prince of Denmarke.' Capell, in his 
 'School of Shakspere,' has given some extracts 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 THE HAMLET OP 1603. 
 
 67 
 
 from an edition of this very rare book, dated 
 1608 ; but he conjectures that it first appeared 
 about 1570. He has also printed the heads of 
 chapters as they are given in this ' History. 
 Mr. Collier has since reprinted this tract from 
 the only copy known, which is preserved 
 amongst Capell's collection at Cambridge. 
 Horvendile, in the novel, is the name of 
 Hamlet's father, Fengon that of his uncle, 
 and Geruth that of his mother. Fengon 
 traitorously slays Horvendile, and marries 
 his brother's wife. In the second chapter 
 we are informed, " how Hamlet counterfeited 
 the madman, to escape the tyrrany of his 
 uncle, and how he was tempted by a wo- 
 man (through his uncle's procurement), who 
 thereby thought to undermine the Prince, 
 and by that means to find out whether he 
 counterfeited madness or not." In the third 
 chapter we learn " how Fengon, uncle to 
 Hamlet, a second time to entrap him in his 
 politic madness, caused one of his counsellors 
 to be secretly hidden in the Queen's chamber, 
 behind the arras, to hear what speeches past 
 between Hamlet and the Queen; and how 
 Hamlet killed him, and escaped that danger, 
 and what followed." It is in this part of the 
 action that Shakspere's use of this book may 
 be distinctly traced. Capell says. "Amidst 
 this resemblance of persons and circumstances, 
 it is rather strange that none of the relater's 
 expressions have got into the play: and yet 
 not one of them is to be found, except the 
 following, in Chapter III., where Hamlet kills 
 the counsellor (who is described as of a greater 
 reach than the rest, and is the Poet's Polonius) 
 behind the arras : here, beating the hangings, 
 and perceiving something to stir-under them, 
 he is made to cry out 'a rat, a rat,' and pre- 
 sently drawing his sword, thrust it into the 
 hangings, which done, pulled the counsellor 
 (half dead) out by the heels, made an end of 
 killing him." In the fourth chapter Hamlet 
 
 is sent to England by Fengon, "with secret 
 letters to have him put to death ;" and, while 
 his companions slept, Hamlet counterfeits the 
 letters " willing the King of England to put 
 the two messengers to death." Here ends the 
 resemblance between the history and the play. 
 The Hamlet of the history returns to Denmark, 
 slays his uncle, burns his palace, makes an 
 oration to the Danes, and is elected king. 
 His subsequent adventures are rather extra- 
 vagant. He goes back to England, kills the 
 king of that country, returns to Denmark 
 with two English wives, and, finally, falls 
 himself through the treachery of one of these 
 ladies. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to point out how 
 little these rude materials have assisted 
 Shakspere in the composition of the great 
 tragedy of ' Hamlet.' He found, in the re- 
 cords of a barbarous period, a tale of adultery, 
 and murder, and revenge. Here, too, was a 
 rude indication of the character of Hamlet. 
 But what he has given us is so essentially a 
 creation from first to last, that it would be 
 only tedious to point out the lesser resem- 
 blances between the drama and the history. 
 That Shakspere adopted the period of the 
 action as related by Saxo Grammaticus, there 
 can be no doubt. The following passage is 
 decisive : 
 "And, England, if my love thou hold'st at 
 
 aught 
 (As my great power thereof may give thee 
 
 sense; 
 
 Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw find red 
 After the Danish sword, and thy free awe 
 Pays homage to us), thou mayst not coldly set 
 Our sovereign process." 
 
 We have here a distinct indication of the 
 period before the Norman Conquest, when 
 England was either under the sovereignty 
 of the Northmen, as in the time of Canute, 
 or paid tribute to the Danish power. 
 
68 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ii. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 ' THE Life of Tymon of Athens ' was first 
 published in the folio collection of 1623 ; 
 and immediately previous to that publica- 
 tion it was entered in the books of the 
 Stationers' Company, as one of the plays 
 "not formerly entered to other men." The 
 text, in this first edition, has no division into 
 acts and scenes. We have reason to believe 
 that, with a few exceptions, it is accurately 
 printed from the copy which was in the 
 possession of Heminge and Condell ; and we 
 judged it important to follow that copy 
 with very slight variations in the text 
 of * The Pictorial ' and other editions. 
 
 The text which is ordinarily printed, that 
 of Steevens, has undergone, in an almost 
 unequalled extent, what the editors call 
 " regulation." Steevens was a great master 
 in this art of " regulation " a process by 
 which what was originally printed as prose 
 is sometimes transformed into verse, with 
 the aid of transposition, omission, and sub- 
 stitution; and what, on the contrary, stood 
 in the original as verse is changed into 
 prose, because the ingenuity of the editor 
 has been unable to render it strictly metrical. 
 There are various other modes of "regulation," 
 which have been most extensively employed 
 in ' Timon of Athens ;' and the consequence 
 is that some very important characteristics 
 have been utterly destroyed in the modern 
 copies the record has been obliterated. 
 The task, however, which Steevens under- 
 took was in some cases too difficult a one 
 to be carried through consistently; and he 
 has been compelled, therefore, to leave se- 
 veral passages, that invited his ambition to 
 "regulate," even as he found them. For ex- 
 ample, in that part of the first scene where 
 Apemantus appears, we have a dialogue, 
 of which Steevens thus speaks: "The very 
 imperfect state in which the ancient copy 
 of this play has reached us leaves a doubt 
 whether several short speeches in the pre- 
 sent scene were designed for verse or prose ; 
 
 I have, therefore, made no attempt at 're- 
 gulation.'" Boswell upon this very sensibly 
 asks, " Why should not the same doubt exist 
 with regard to other scenes, in which Mr. 
 Steevens has not acted with the same mo- 
 deration ? " It will be necessary that we 
 should here call the attention of the reader 
 to a few specimens of the difference between 
 the ancient and the modern text. 
 
 The original presents to us in particular 
 scenes a very considerable number of short 
 lines, occurring in the most rapid succession. 
 We have no parallel example in Shakspere 
 of the frequency of their use. The hemistich 
 is introduced with great effect in some of 
 the finest passages in ' Lear.' But, in ' Timon 
 of Athens,' its perpetual recurrence in some 
 scenes is certainly not always a beauty. 
 The "regulation," however, has not only 
 concealed this peculiar feature, but has 
 necessarily altered the structure of the 
 verses preceding or following the hemistich. 
 We print a few such passages in con- 
 secutive order : 
 
 ANCIENT COPIES. 
 
 ACT i. SCENE i. 
 
 " Tim. What trumpet's that 1 
 Mess. 'T is Alcibiades, and some twenty horse, 
 All of companionship. 
 
 SCENE n. 
 
 Ven. Most honoured Timon, 
 It hath pleas'd the gods to remember my father's 
 
 age, 
 And call him to long peace. 
 
 ACT in. SCENE rv. 
 
 Stew. Ay, if money were as certain as your 
 
 waiting, 
 
 'T were sure enough. 
 
 Why then preferr'd you not your sums and bills, 
 When your false masters eat of my lord's meat? 
 Then they could smile, and fawn upon his debts, 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 GO 
 
 And take down th' interest into their glutt'nous 
 
 maws. 
 
 You do yourselves but wrong, to stir me up; 
 Let me pass quietly. 
 
 ACT iv. SCENE in. 
 Tim. Had I a steward, 
 So true, so just, and now so comfortable? 
 It almost turns my dangerous nature wild. 
 Let me behold thy face : Surely, this man 
 Was born of woman." 
 
 MODERN COPIES. 
 
 ACT i. SCENE i. 
 " Tim. What trumpet's that 1 
 Serv. 'T is Alcibiades, and 
 
 Some twenty horse, all of companionship. 
 
 SCENE n. 
 Yen. Most honour'd Timon, 't hath pleas'd 
 
 the gods remember 
 My father's age, and call him to long peace. 
 
 ACT m. SCENE iv. 
 
 Flav. Ay, 
 
 If money were as certain as your waiting, 
 'T were sure enough. Why then preferr'd you 
 
 not 
 
 Your sums and bills, when your false masters eat 
 Of my lord's meat ] Then they could smile and 
 
 fawn 
 
 Upon his debts, and take down th' interest 
 Into their gluttonous maws. You do yourselves 
 
 but wrong, 
 To stir me up; let me pass quietly. 
 
 ACT rv. SCENE in. 
 
 Tim. Had I a steward so true, so just, and now 
 So comfortable 1 ? It almost turns 
 My dangerous nature wild. Let me behold 
 Thy face. Surely this man was born of woman." 
 
 No one, we believe, having the passages 
 thus exhibited, will consider that Steevens 
 has improved the poet by his "regulation." 
 But, even if there should be differences of taste 
 in this particular with reference to the pas- 
 sages before us, we maintain that in those 
 passages, and in the examples we are about 
 to give, the integrity of the text ought to 
 have been preserved, upon a principle. 
 
 The next examples which we shall take 
 
 are those in which the prose of the original 
 has been turned into verse : 
 
 ANCIENT COPIES. 
 
 ACT i. SCENE n. 
 
 "Tim. Now, Apemantus, if thou wert not 
 sullen, I would be good to thee. 
 
 Apem. No. I '11 nothing; for, if I should be 
 brib'd too, there would be none left to rail upon 
 thee, and then thou wouldst sin the faster. 
 Thou giv'st so long, Timon, I fear me thou wilt 
 give away thyself in paper shortly. 
 
 ACT n. SCENE n. 
 
 Tim. I will dispatch you severally. 
 
 You to Lord Lucius, to Lord Lucullus you. 
 I hunted with his honour to-day; you to Sem- 
 pronius; commend me to their loves; and I am 
 proud, sa} r , that my occasions have found time 
 to use 'em toward a supply of money: let the 
 request be fifty talents. 
 
 ACT iv. SCENE m. 
 
 Ale. Noble Timon, what friendship may I do 
 thee] 
 
 Tim. None, but to maintain my opinion. 
 
 Ale. What is it, Timon] 
 
 Tim. Promise me friendship, but perform 
 none. If thou wilt not promise, the gods plague 
 thee, for thou art a man : if thou dost perform, 
 confound thee, for thou art a man." 
 
 MODERN COPIES. 
 
 ACT i. SCENE n. 
 " Tim. Now, Apemantus, if thou wert not 
 
 sullen, 
 I 'd be good to thee. 
 
 Apem. No, I '11 nothing ; for, 
 
 If I should be brib'd too, there would be none 
 
 left 
 To rail upon thee ; and thou wouldst sin the 
 
 faster. 
 
 Thou giv'st so long, Timon, I fear me, thou 
 Wilt give away thyself in paper shortly. 
 
 ACT ii. SCENE n. 
 Tim. I will despatch you severally. You to 
 
 lord Lucius, 
 
 To lord Lucullus you; I hunted with hia 
 Honour to day; you, to Sempronius; 
 
70 
 
 STUDIES OE SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ii. 
 
 Commend me to their loves; and, I am proud, 
 
 say, 
 
 That my occasions have found time to use them 
 Toward a supply of money : let the request 
 Be fifty talents. 
 
 ACT iv. SCENE HI. 
 Ale. Noble Timon, 
 
 What friendship may I do thee 1 ? 
 
 Tim. None, but to 
 
 Maintain my opinion. 
 Ale. What is it, Timon? 
 
 Tim. Promise me friendship, but perform 
 
 none: If 
 
 Thou wilt not promise, the gods plague thee, for 
 Thou art a man ! if thou dost perform, confound 
 
 thee, 
 For thou 'rt a man ! " 
 
 The third and last series of examples 
 which we shall furnish exhibits the meta- 
 morphosis of the verse of the original into 
 prose : 
 
 ANCIENT COPIES. 
 
 ACT v. SCENE i. 
 " Painter. Good as the best. 
 Promising is the very air o' th' time; 
 It opens the eyes of expectation. 
 Performance is ever the duller for his act, 
 And, but in the plainer and simpler kind of 
 
 people, 
 
 The deed of saying is quite out of use. 
 To promise is most courtly and fashionable; 
 Performance is a kind of will and testament 
 Which argues a great sickness in his judgment 
 That makes it. 
 
 Poet. I am thinking 
 
 What I shall say I have provided for him : 
 It must be a personating of himself: 
 A satire against the softness of prosperity, 
 With a discovery of the infinite flatteries 
 That follow youth and opulency." 
 
 MODERN COPIES. 
 
 ACT v. SCENE i. 
 
 "Painter. Good as the best. Promising is 
 the very air o' the time; it opens the eyes of 
 expectation : performance is ever the duller for 
 his act; and, but in the plainer and simpler 
 
 kind of people, the deed of saying is quite out 
 of use. To promise is most courtly and fash- 
 ionable : performance is a kind of will, or testa- 
 ment, which argues a great sickness in his 
 judgment that makes it. 
 
 Poet. I am thinking what I shall say I have 
 provided for him : It must be a personating of 
 himself: a satire against the softness of pros- 
 perity; with a discovery of the infinite flatteries 
 that follow youth and opulency." 
 
 We have thus prepared the reader, who is 
 familiar with the ordinary text, not to rely 
 upon it as a transcript of the ancient copies ; 
 and we shall now endeavour to show that, 
 by a careful examination of the original, we 
 may arrive at some conclusions with regard 
 to this drama which have been hitherto en- 
 tirely overlooked. 
 
 The disguises of the ancient text, which 
 have been so long accepted without hesita- 
 tion, have given to the ' Timon of Athens' 
 something of the semblance of uniformity in 
 the structure of the verse ; although in reality 
 the successive scenes, even in the modern 
 text, present the most startling contrarieties 
 to the ear which is accustomed to the versi- 
 fication of Shakspere. The ordinary expla- 
 nation of this very striking characteristic is, 
 that the ancient text is corrupt. This is the 
 belief of the English editors. Another theory, 
 which has been received in Germany, is, that 
 the ' Timon,' being one of the latest of Shak- 
 spere's performances, has come down to us 
 unfinished. The conviction to which we 
 have ourselves arrived neither rests upon 
 the probable corruption of the text, nor the 
 possibility that the poet has left us only 
 an unfinished draft of his performance ; but 
 upon the belief that the differences of style, 
 as well as the more important differences 
 in the cast of thought, which prevail in 
 the successive scenes of this drama, are so 
 remarkable as to justify the conclusion that 
 it is not wholly the work of Shakspere. We 
 think it will not be very difficult so to exhi- 
 bit these differences in detail as to warrant 
 us in requesting the reader's acquiescence 
 in the principle which we seek to establish, 
 namely, that the ' Timon of Athens ' was a 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 71 
 
 play originally produced by an artist very 
 inferior to Shakspere, and which probably 
 retained possession of the stage for some time 
 in its first form ; that it has come down to us 
 not only re-written, but so far re-modelled 
 that entire scenes of Shakspere have been 
 substituted for entire scenes of the elder play; 
 and lastly, that this substitution has been 
 almost wholly confined to the character of 
 Timon, and that in the development of that 
 character alone, with the exception of some 
 few occasional touches here and there, we 
 must look for the unity of the Shaksperean 
 conception of the Greek Misanthropes the 
 Timon of Aristophanes and Lucian and 
 Plutarch " the enemy to mankind," of the 
 popular story books of the ' Pleasant His- 
 tories and excellent Novels,' which were 
 greedily devoured by the contemporaries of 
 the boyish Shakspere*. 
 
 The contrast of style which is to be traced 
 throughout this drama is sufficiently striking 
 in the two opening scenes which now con- 
 stitute the first act. Nothing can be more 
 free and flowing than the dialogue between 
 the Poet and the Painter. It has all the 
 equable graces of Shakspere's facility, with 
 occasional examples of that condensation of 
 poetical images which so distinguishes him 
 from all other writers. For instance : 
 
 " All those which were his fellows but of late, 
 (Some better than his value,) on the moment 
 Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tend- 
 ance, 
 
 Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear, 
 Make sacred even his stirrup, and through 
 
 him 
 Drink the free air." 
 
 The foreshadowing of the fate of Timon in 
 the conclusion of this dialogue is part of 
 the almost invariable system by which Shak- 
 spere very early infuses into his audience a 
 dim notion of the catastrophe, most fre- 
 quently indeed in the shape of some pre- 
 sentiment. When Timon enters, we feel 
 certain that he is the Timon of Shakspere's 
 own conception. He is as graceful as he is 
 generous ; his prodigality is without the 
 
 * ' The Palace of Pleasure,' in which the story of Timon 
 is found, was first published in 1575. 
 
 slightest particle of arrogance ; he builds 
 his munificence upon the necessity of grati- 
 fying without restraint the deep sympathies 
 which he cherishes to all of the human 
 family. He is the very model too of patrons, 
 appearing to receive instead of to confer a 
 favour in his reward of art, a complete 
 gentleman even in the act of purchasing a 
 jewel of a tradesman. That the Apemantus 
 of this scene belongs wholly to Shakspere is 
 not to our minds qutie so certain. There is 
 little of wit in any part of this dialogue ; 
 and the pelting volley of abuse between the 
 Cynic, the Poet, and the Painter, might 
 have been produced by any writer who was 
 not afraid of exhibiting the tu quoque style 
 of repartee which distinguishes the angry 
 rhetoric of fish- wives and school-boys. Shak- 
 spere, however, has touched upon the original 
 canvas ; no one can doubt to whom these 
 lines belong : 
 
 "So, so; there! 
 
 Aches contract and starve your supple joints ! 
 That there should be small love 'mongst these 
 
 sweet knaves, 
 And all this court'sy ! The strain of man 's bred 
 
 out 
 Into baboon and monkey." 
 
 These lines in the original are printed as 
 prose ; and they continued so to be printed 
 by Theobald and the editors who succeeded 
 him, probably from its not being considered 
 that aches is a dis-syllable. This circum- 
 stance is a confirmation to us that the dia- 
 logue with Apemantus is not entirely Shak- 
 spere's ; for it is a most remarkable fact 
 that, in all those passages of which there 
 cannot be a doubt that they were wholly 
 written by our poet, there is no confusion of 
 prose for verse, no difficulties whatever in 
 the metrical arrangement, no opportunity 
 presented for the exercise of any ingenuity 
 in "regulation." It was this fact which 
 first led us to perceive, and subsequently to 
 trace, the differences between particular 
 scenes and passages. Wherever the modern 
 text follows the ancient text with very slight 
 changes, there we could put our finger un- 
 doubtingly upon the work of Shakspere. 
 Wherever the tinkering of Steevens had 
 
72 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK IT. 
 
 been at work, we could discover that he had 
 been attempting to repair, not " the chinks 
 which time had made," but something very 
 different from the materials with which 
 Shakspere constructed. The evidence of 
 this is at hand. 
 
 If, in the first scene, it would be very dif- 
 ficult to say with certainty what is not 
 Shakspere's, so in the second scene it appears 
 to us equally difficult to point out what is 
 Shakspere's. We believe that scarcely any 
 part of this scene was written by him ; we 
 find ourselves at once amidst a different 
 structure of verse from' the foregoing. We 
 encounter this difference remarkably in the 
 first speech of Timon : 
 
 " I gave it freely ever; and there 's none 
 Can truly say he gives, if he receives : 
 If our betters play at that game, we must not 
 
 dare 
 To imitate them; faults that are rich are fair." 
 
 In the first scene we do not find a single 
 rhyming couplet ; in the second scene their 
 recurrence is more frequent than in any of 
 Shakspere's plays, even the earliest. This 
 scene alone gives us sixteen examples of 
 this form of verse ; which, in combination 
 with prose or blank verse, had been almost 
 entirely rejected by the mature Shakspere, 
 except to render emphatic the close of a 
 scene. In the instance before us, we find 
 the couplet introduced in the most arbitrary 
 and inartificial manner in itself neither 
 impressive nor harmonious. But the con- 
 trast between the second scene and the first 
 is equally remarkable in the poverty of the 
 thought, and the absence of poetical imagery. 
 It will be sufficient, we think, to exhibit 
 together the Cynic of this scene and of a 
 subsequent scene, to show the impossibility 
 of the character having been wholly minted 
 from the same die : 
 
 ACT i. SCENE IT. 
 " Hey day, what a sweep of vanity comes this 
 
 way! 
 
 They dance ! they are mad women : 
 Like madness is the glory of this life, 
 As this pomp shows to a little oil and root. 
 We make ourselves fools to disport ourselves; 
 And spend our flatteries, to drink those men, 
 
 Upon whose age we void it up again, 
 With poisonous spite and envy. 
 Who lives that 's not depraved, or depraves ] 
 Who dies, that bears not one spurn to their 
 
 graves 
 
 Of their friends' gift ? 
 
 I should fear, those that dance before me now, 
 Would one day stamp upon me : It has been 
 
 done : 
 Men shut their doors against a setting sun. 
 
 ACT rv. SCENE m. 
 
 " Thou hast cast away thyself, being like thy- 
 self; 
 
 A madman so long, now a fool : What, think st 
 That the bleak air, thy boisterous chamber- 
 lain, 
 Will put thy shirt on warm? Will these moist 
 
 trees, 
 
 That have outliv'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 1 ? call the crea- 
 tures, 
 
 Whose naked natures live in all the spite 
 Of wreakful heaven; whose bare unhoused 
 
 trunks, 
 
 To the conflicting elements expos'd, 
 Answer mere nature, bid them flatter thee; 
 ! thou shalt find " 
 
 Let us try the Steward of the first act 
 and the Steward of the second act by the 
 same test. We print the speech of the first 
 act as we find it in the original. With 
 the exception of the two rhyming couplets, 
 it is difficult to say whether it is prose or 
 verse. It has been "regulated" into verse, but 
 no change can make it metrical ; the feeble- 
 ness of the thought is the same under every 
 disguise. On the other hand, the harmony, 
 the vigour, the poetical elevation of the 
 second passage, like the greater part of the 
 fourth and fifth acts, effectually prevent all 
 substitution and transposition : 
 
 ACT i. SCENE n. 
 
 " Flav. What will this come to? 
 
 He commands us to provide, and give great 
 
 gifts, 
 
 And all out of an empty coffer. 
 Nor will he know his purse ; or yield me this, 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 TIMON OP ATHENS. 
 
 73 
 
 To show him what a beggar his heart is, 
 Being of no power to make his wishes good; 
 His promises fly so beyond his state, 
 That what he speaks is all in debt, he owes for 
 
 every word; 
 
 He is so kind, that he now pays interest for't; 
 His lands put to their books. Well, 'would I 
 
 were 
 
 Gently put out of office, before I were forc'd out ! 
 Happier is he that hath no friend to feed, 
 Than such that do even enemies exceed. 
 I bleed inwardly for my lord. 
 
 ACT ii. SCENE n. 
 
 Flav. If you suspect my husbandry, or false- 
 hood, 
 
 Call me before the exactest auditors, 
 And set me on the proof. So the gods bless me, 
 When all our offices have been oppress'd 
 With riotous feeders ; when our vaults have wept 
 With drunken spilth of wine; when every room 
 Hath blaz'd with lights, and bray'd with min- 
 strelsy; 
 
 I have retir'd me to a wasteful cock, 
 And set mine eyes at flow. 
 
 Tim. Prithee, no more. 
 
 Flav. Heavens, have I said, the bounty of 
 
 this lord ! 
 
 How many prodigal bits have slaves, and pea- 
 sants, 
 
 This night engluttcd ! Who is not Timon's? 
 What heart, head, sword, force, means, but is 
 
 lord Timon's 1 
 
 Great Timon; noble, worthy, royal Timon! 
 Ah! when the means are gone that buy this 
 
 praise, 
 
 The breath is gone whereof this praise is made : 
 Feast- won, fast-lost; one cloud of winter showers, 
 These flies are couch'd." 
 
 The modern division of this play into acts 
 and scenes has given us a remarkable short 
 second act. The Senator of the first scene 
 may be Shakspere's. The scene between 
 the Servants, the Fool, and the Cynic, has very 
 little of his animation or his wit. But who 
 is the Fool's mistress 1 Johnson saw the 
 want of connexion between this dialogue 
 and what had preceded it : "I suspect 
 some scene to be lost, in which the entrance 
 of the Fool and the Page that follows him 
 was prepared by some introductory dialogue, 
 in which the audience was informed that 
 
 they were the fool and page of Phrynia, 
 Timandra, or some other courtezan, upon 
 the knowledge of which depends the greater 
 part of the ensuing jocularity." We shall 
 have occasion to notice this want of con- 
 nexion in other scenes of the play. In that 
 before us, if the ' Timon' were an older 
 drama remodelled by Shakspere, the reason 
 for the retention of the scene, disjointed as 
 it is, is obvious. The audience had been 
 accustomed to the Fool ; and it was of little 
 consequence whether his speeches had any 
 very strict connexion with the more import- 
 ant scenes. The whole thing wants the 
 spirit of Shakspere, and it wants also the 
 play upon words which he almost invariably 
 employed upon such occasions. The Fool, 
 the Page, the Cynic, and the Servants, are 
 simply abusive. . 
 
 The scene between Timon and the Steward, 
 to the end of the act, is unquestionably 
 from the master-hand of our poet. The 
 character of Timon as his ruin is approaching 
 him is beautifully developed. His reproach 
 of his Steward, slightly unjust as it is, is in 
 a tone perfectly in accordance with the kind- 
 ness of his nature ; and his rising anger is 
 forgotten in a moment in his complete con- 
 viction of the integrity of that honest ser- 
 vant. His entire reliance upon the grati- 
 tude of his friends is most touching. Tho- 
 roughly Shaksperean is the Steward's descrip- 
 tion of the coldness of the Senators ; and 
 Timon's answer is no less characteristic of 
 the great interpreter of human feelings. 
 
 We venture to express a conviction that 
 very little of the third act is Shakspere's. 
 The ingratitude of Lucullus .in the first 
 scene, and of Lucius in the second, is amu- 
 singly displayed ; but there is little power in 
 the development of character little dis- 
 crimination. The passionate invective of 
 Flaminius is forcible ; but the force is not 
 exactly that of Shakspere. The dialogue 
 between the Strangers, at the end of the 
 second scene, is unmetrical enough in the 
 original ; Steevens has made it hobble still 
 worse. The third scene has the same in- 
 curable defects. It seems to us perfectly 
 impossible that Shakspere could have pro- 
 duced thoughts so commonplace, and verse 
 
74 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAK3PEBE. 
 
 [BOOK ii. 
 
 so unmusical, as we find in the speech of 
 Sempronius. The fourth scene, again, has 
 little peculiarity. It might be Shakspere's, 
 or it might be the work of an inferior writer. 
 Of the fifth scene we venture to say most 
 distinctly that it is not Shakspere's. Inde- 
 pendently of the internal evidence of thought 
 and style (which we shall come to presently), 
 this scene of the banishment of Alcibiades, 
 and the concluding scene of his return to 
 Athens, appear to belong to a drama of 
 which the story of this brave and profligate 
 Athenian formed a much more important 
 feature than in the present play. That story 
 stands here * strictly as an episode. The 
 banishment of Alcibiades is perfectly uncon- 
 nected with the misanthropy of Timon ; 
 the return of Alcibiades takes place after 
 Timon's death. We feel no interest in either 
 event. Ulrici has noticed the uncertain 
 connexion of this drama as a whole, particu- 
 larly in the scene before us, " where it re- 
 mains quite unknown who is the unfortunate 
 friend for whom Alcibiades petitions so 
 earnestly that he is banished for it." In 
 Shakspere's hand the banishment of Alci- 
 biades is only used in connexion with the 
 wonderful scene in the fourth act. In the 
 older drama we have no doubt that it formed 
 an integral portion of the action, and that 
 Timon himself was only incidental to the 
 catastrophe. Shakspere was satisfied to take 
 the frame-work, as he found it, of the story 
 which he might connect with his display of 
 the character of Timon. The scene before 
 us, and the concluding scene of the fifth 
 act, present, we think, nearly every charac- 
 teristic by which the early contemporaries 
 of Shakspere are to be distinguished from 
 him ; and the negation, in the same degree, 
 of all those qualities which render him so 
 immeasurably superior to every other dra- 
 matic poet. 
 
 The scene between Alcibiades and the 
 Senate consists of about a hundred and 
 twenty lines. Of these lines twenty-six 
 form rhyming couplets. This of itself is 
 enough to make us look suspiciously upon 
 the scene, when presented as the work of 
 Shakspere. Gould the poet have proposed 
 any object to himself, by this extraordinary 
 
 departure from his usual principle of versi- 
 fication, presenting even in this play an 
 especial contrast to the mightv rush and 
 sustained grandeur of the blank verse in the 
 speeches of Timon in the fourth and fifth 
 acts ? Is not the perpetual and offensive 
 recurrence of the couplet an evidence that 
 this and other scenes of the play were of 
 the same school as ' The History of King 
 Lear and his Three Daughters,' upon which 
 Shakspere founded his own ' Lear 2 ' 
 
 The whole of the senate scene in Timon is 
 singularly unmetrical; but, wherever the 
 verse becomes regular, it is certainly not the 
 metre of Shakspere. Mark the pause, for 
 example, that occurs at the end of ever}' line 
 of the first speech of Alcibiades. "The 
 linked sweetness long drawn out " is utterly 
 wanting. The last scene of the fifth act has 
 the same peculiarity. But, in addition to the 
 structure of the verse, the character of the 
 thought is essentially different from that of 
 the true Shaksperean drama. Where is our 
 poet's imagery ? From the first line of this 
 scene to the last, the speeches, though cast 
 into the form of verse, are in reality nothing 
 but measured prose. The action of this scene 
 admitted either of passion or reflection ; and 
 we know how Shakspere puts forth either 
 power whenever the occasion demands it. 
 The passion of Alcibiades is of the most 
 vapid character: 
 
 " X ow the gods keep you old enough ; that you 
 
 may live 
 Only in bone that none may look on you !" 
 
 Let us contrast for a moment the Shak- 
 sperean Coriolanus, under somewhat similar 
 circumstances : 
 
 " You common cry of curs, whose breath I hate, 
 As reek o' th' rotten fens : whose loves I prize, 
 As the dead carcasses of unburied men, 
 That do corrupt my air : I banish you." 
 
 In this scene between Alcibiades and the 
 senate, the usually profound reflection of 
 Shakspere, which plunges us into the depths 
 of our own hearts, and the most unfathom- 
 able mysteries of the world around us and 
 beyond us, is exchanged for such slight 
 axioms as the following : 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 75 
 
 " For pity is the virtue of the law, 
 And none but tyrants use it cruelly." 
 
 " To revenge is no valour, but to bear." 
 
 " To be in anger is impiety, 
 But who is man that is not angry]" 
 
 The form of expression in these scenes with 
 Alcibiades appears to us as remarkably un- 
 Shaksp'erean as the character of the thought. 
 By nothing is our poet more distinguished 
 than by his conciseness, the quality that 
 makes him so often apparently obscure. 
 Shakspere would have dismissed the follow- 
 ing idea in three words instead of three 
 lines : 
 " By decimation, and a tithed death,J 
 
 (If thy revenges hunger for that food 
 
 Which nature loathes,) take thou the destin'd 
 tenth." 
 
 The original stage direction of the sixth 
 scene of the fourth act is, "Enter divers 
 Friends at several doors;" and there is a 
 subsequent direction at the end of the scene 
 "-Enter -the Senators with other Lords." 
 Ulrici, looking at the modern stage direction, 
 " Enter divers Lords," is surprised that 
 Timon's most intimate friends (Lucius, 
 Lucullus, Sempronius) are omitted. We 
 doubt whether the previous scenes in which 
 these friends are introduced are those of 
 Shakspere ; and in the same way it appears 
 to us that our poet took the scene before us 
 as he found it, adding perhaps Timon's vehe- 
 ment imprecations against his 
 
 "' Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites." 
 The scene concludes with, this line 
 
 " One day he gives us diamonds, next day 
 stones." 
 
 Steevens had seen a MS. play, written or 
 transcribed about 1600, entitled 'Timon,' 
 which was in the possession of Mr. Strutt. 
 Of this play he says " There is a scene in 
 it resembling Shakspere's banquet given by 
 Timon to his flatterers. Instead of warm 
 water, he sets before them stones painted 
 like artichokes." This manuscript has passed 
 into the possession of the Rev. A. Dyce ; and 
 the Shakspere Society have printed the play 
 under Mr. Dyce's superintendence. We 
 transcribe the passage (modernizing the or- 
 
 thography) in which Timon, having invited 
 his false friends to a banquet, resents their 
 perfidy and ingratitude. Laches is the faith- 
 ful steward of this old play. The guests are 
 Gelasimus, Eutrapelus, Demeas, Philargurus, 
 Hermogenes, and Stilpo : 
 
 " Timon. happy me, equal to Jove himself ! 
 I going touch the stars. Break out, joy, 
 And smother not thyself within my breast ! 
 So many friends, so many friends I see; 
 Not one hath falsified his faith to me. 
 What if I am oppressed with poverty! 
 And grief doth vex me? fortune left me poor? 
 All this is nothing: they relieve my wants; 
 The one doth promise help, another gold, 
 A third a friendly welcome to his house, 
 And entertainment; each man acts his part; 
 All promise counsel and a faithful heart. 
 
 Oelas. Timon, thou art forgetful of thy feast. 
 
 Tim. Why do ye not fall to 1 1 am at home : 
 1 11 standing sup, or walking, if I please. 
 Laches, bring here the artichokes with speed. 
 Eutrapelus, Demeas, Hermogenes, 
 I '11 drink this cup, a health to all your healths ! 
 
 Loch. Convert it into poison, ye gods ! 
 Let it be ratsbane to them 1 {Aside, 
 
 Gelas. What, wilt thou have the leg or else 
 the wing? 
 
 Eutr. Carve ye that capon. 
 
 Dem,. I will cut him up, 
 And make a beast of him. 
 
 Phil. Timon, this health to thee. 
 
 Tim. 1 11 pledge you, sir. 
 These artichokes do no man's palate please. 
 
 Dem. I love them well, by Jove ! 
 
 Tim. Here, take them, then ! 
 
 [Stones painted like to them : and 
 
 throws them at them. 
 
 Nay, thou shalt have them, thou, and all of ye ! 
 To wicked, base, perfidious rascals, 
 Think ye my hate 's so soon extinguished! 
 
 (Tim. beats Herm. above aU the rest. 
 
 Dem. O my head ! 
 
 Herm. my cheeks ! 
 
 PhU. Is this a feast! 
 
 Gelas. Truly, a stony one. 
 
 Stil. Stones sublunary have the same matter 
 with the heavenly. 
 
 Tim. If I Jove's horrid thunderbolt did hold 
 Within my hand, thus, would I dart it ! 
 
 [He hits Herm. 
 
 Herm. Woe and alas, my brains are dashed 
 out! 
 
76 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK 
 
 Gelas. Alas, alas, 'twill never be my hap 
 To travel now to the Antipodes ! 
 Oh ! that I had my Pegasus but here ! 
 I 'd fly away, by Jove ! 
 
 {Exeunt all except Tim. and Lach. 
 
 Tim. Ye are a stony generation, 
 Or harder, if aught harder may be found ; 
 Monsters of Scythia inhospital, 
 Nay, very devils, hateful to the gods. 
 
 LacJi. Master, they are gone." 
 
 It is pretty clear that Shakspere owed no 
 obligation to the writer of this scene. Mr. 
 Dyce justly says, " I entertain considerable 
 doubts of his having been acquainted with a 
 drama which was certainly never performed 
 in the metropolis, and which was likely to 
 have been read only by a few of the author's 
 particular friends, to whom transcripts of it 
 had been presented." We have little doubt, 
 however, that Timon was familiar to the 
 stage before Shakspere took up the subject ; 
 although it is tolerably evident that the 
 play which Mr. Dyce has given to the world 
 was not the play which Shakspere, as we be- 
 lieve, partly made his own. Shakspere, 
 according to our belief, did what he under- 
 took to do, and perhaps he did more than he 
 intended. He completely remodelled the 
 character of Timon. He left it standing 
 apart in its naked power and majesty, with- 
 out much regard to what surrounded it. It 
 might have been a hasty experiment to pro- 
 duce a new character for Burbage, the 
 greatest of Elizabethan actors. That Timon 
 is so all in all in the play is, to our minds, 
 much better explained by the belief that 
 Shakspere engrafted it upon the feebler 
 Timon of a feeble drama that held possession 
 of the stage, than by the common opinion 
 that he, having written the play entirely, 
 had left us only a corrupt text, or left it un- 
 finished, with parts not only out of harmony 
 with the drama as a whole, in action, in sen- 
 timent, in versification, but altogether dif- 
 ferent from anything he had himself pro- 
 duced in his early, his mature, or his later 
 years. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary for us very mi- 
 nutely to follow the successive passages of 
 the fourth and fifth acts, in our endeavours 
 to trace the hand of Shakspere. We may, 
 
 however, briefly point out the passages which 
 we believe not to be his. The second scene 
 of the fourth act, between the Steward and 
 his servants, has some touches undoubtedly 
 of the master's hand ; the Steward's speech, 
 after the servants have left, again presents 
 us the rhyming couplets, and the unmetrical 
 blank verse. The scene between the Poet 
 and the Painter, at the commencement of 
 the fifth act, is so unmetrical, that it has 
 been printed as prose by all modern editors. 
 We have already exhibited a specimen of 
 this hobbling approach to metre the cha- 
 racteristic of several of the rude plays which 
 preceded Shakspere, such as ' The Famous 
 Victories of Henry the Fifth.' Mr. Collier 
 considers that play to be wholly prose ; but 
 he adds, " by the time it was printed, blank 
 verse had completely superseded both rhyme 
 and prose : the publisher seems, on this 
 account, to have chopped up much of the 
 original prose into lines of various lengths, 
 in order to look like some kind of measure, 
 and now and then he has contrived to find lines 
 of ten syllables each, that run with tolerable 
 smoothness, and as if they had been written for 
 blank verse" We venture to think, that, 
 although the greater part of ' The Famous 
 Victories ' was intended for prose, " the lines 
 of ten syllables each that run with tolerable 
 smoothness" were written for blank verse; 
 and this, we believe, is the case with parts 
 of the scene in ' Timon' which we are now 
 describing. But, whether they speak in 
 prose or verse, the Poet and the Painter of 
 this scene are as unlike the Poet and the 
 Painter of the first act, in the tone of their 
 dialogues, as can be well imagined. Timon, 
 in the lines which he speaks aside, has 
 caught this infection of unmetrical blank 
 verse which reads like prose, and jingling 
 couplets which want the spirit of poetry. 
 The soldier at Timon's tomb is marked by 
 the same characteristics. Of the concluding 
 scene of the return of Alcibiades to Athens, 
 we have already spoken. 
 
 It is not by looking apart at the scenes 
 and passages which we have endeavoured to 
 separate from the undoubted scenes and pas- 
 sages of Shakspere in this pla} r , that we can 
 rightly judge of their inferiority. They muefc 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 77 
 
 contrasted with, the great scenes of the 
 fourth act, and with Timon's portion of the 
 fifth, the essentially tragic portions of this 
 extraordinary drama. In power those scenes 
 are almost unequalled. They are not pleas- 
 ng they are sometimes positively repulsive 
 n the images which they present to us : but 
 n the tremendous strength of passionate in- 
 vective we know not what can be compared 
 to them. In ' Lear,' the deep pity for the 
 father is an ever-present feeling, mingling 
 with the terror which he produces by his 
 denunciations of his daughters ; but, in ' Ti- 
 rnon,' the poet has not once sought to move 
 our pity : by throwing him into an attitude 
 of undiscriminating hostility to the human 
 race, he scarcely claims any human sympathy. 
 Properly to understand the scenes of the 
 fourth and fifth acts, we must endeavour to 
 form a general estimate of the character 
 which Shakspere has here created. 
 
 The Timon of Shakspere is not the Timon 
 of the popular stories of Shakspere's day. 
 The twenty-eighth novel of ' The Palace of 
 Pleasure' has for its title, ' Of the strange 
 and beastly nature of Timon of Athens, enemy 
 to mankind. 1 ' According to this authority, 
 f! he was a man but by shape only," he lived 
 "a beastly and churlish life." The story 
 further tells us, " at the same time there was 
 in Athens another of like quality called Ape- 
 mantus, of the very same nature, different 
 from the natural kind of man." Neither 
 was the Timon of Plutarch the Timon of 
 Shakspere. The Greek biographer, indeed, 
 tells us, that he was angry with all men, and 
 would trust no man, " for the unthankfulness 
 of those he had done good unto, and whom 
 he took to be his friends," but that he was 
 represented as "a viper and malicious man 
 unto mankind, to shun all other men's com- 
 panies but the company of young Alcibiades, 
 a bold and insolent youth, whom he would 
 greatly feast, and make much of, and kissed 
 him very gladly." Plutarch also adds, "This 
 Timon sometimes would have Apemantus in 
 his company, because he was much liked to 
 his nature and conditions, and also followed 
 him in manner of life." The Timon, there- 
 fore, of Plutarch, and of the popular stories 
 of Shakspere's time, was little different from 
 
 the ordinary cynic, such as he is described 
 by Lucian : " But now, mind how you are 
 to behave : you must be bold, saucy, and 
 abusive to everybody, kings and beggars 
 alike ; this is the way to make them look 
 upon you, and think you a great man. Your 
 voice should be barbarous, and your speech 
 dissonant, as like a dog as possible ; your 
 countenance rigid and inflexible, and your 
 gait and demeanour suitable to it : every- 
 thing you say savage and uncouth : modesty, 
 equity, and moderation you must have no- 
 thing to do with : never suffer a blush to 
 come upon your cheek: seek the most public 
 and frequented place ; but, when you are 
 there, desire to be alone, and permit neither 
 friend nor stranger to associate with you; 
 for these things are the ruin and destruction 
 of power and empire." * The contrast in 
 Shakspere between Timon and Apemantus, 
 as developed in the fourth act, is one of the 
 most remarkable proofs of our poet's wonder- 
 ful sagacity in depicting the nicer shades of 
 character. Johnson, speaking of the scene 
 between the misanthrope and the cynic in 
 the fourth act, says, " I have heard Mr. 
 Burke commend the subtlety of discrimina- 
 tion with which Shakspere distinguishes the 
 present character of Timon from that of 
 Apemantus, whom to vulgar eyes he would 
 now resemble." The ' Timon' of Shakspere 
 is in many respects essentially different from 
 any model with which we are acquainted, 
 but it approaches nearer, as Mr. Skottowe 
 first observed, to the ' Tirnon' of Lucian than 
 the commentators have chosen to point out : 
 " It has been deemed a satisfactory conclu- 
 sion that he derived none of his materials 
 from Lucian, because no translation of the 
 dialogue of ' Timon' is known to have existed 
 in Shakspere's age. But it should rather 
 have been inferred, from the many striking 
 coincidences between the play and the dia- 
 logue, that Lucian had some influence over 
 the composition of ' Timon,' although the 
 channel through which that influence was 
 communicated is no longer to be traced." f 
 Before we proceed to an analysis of the 
 
 * Lucian's Sale of Philosophers.' Franklin's Transla- 
 tion, 
 f Life of ShaksptMre," vol. ii. p. 280. 
 
78 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ii 
 
 Shaksperean 'Timon,' it may be well to take 
 a rapid glance at the dialogue of Lucian, to 
 which Mr. Skottowe refers. 
 
 ' Timon, or the Misanthrope,' opens with 
 an address of Timon to Jupiter, the pro- 
 tector of friendship and of hospitality. The 
 misanthrope asks what has become of the 
 god's thunderbolt, that he no longer revenges 
 the wickedness of men 1 He then describes 
 his own calamities. After having enriched 
 a crowd of Athenians that he had rescued 
 from misery, after having profusely distri- 
 buted his riches amongst his friends, those 
 ungrateful men despise him because he has 
 become poor. Timon speaks from the desert, 
 where he is clothed with skins, and labours 
 with a spade. Jupiter inquires of Mercury 
 who it is cries so loud from the depth of the 
 valley near Mount Hymettus ; and Mercury 
 answers that he is Timon that rich man 
 who so frequently offered whole hecatombs 
 to the gods; and adds, that it was at first 
 thought that he was the victim of his good- 
 ness, his philanthropy, and his compassion 
 for the unfortunate, but that he ought to 
 attribute his fall to the bad choice which he 
 made of his friends, and to the want of dis- 
 cernment which prevented him seeing that 
 he was heaping benefits upon wolves and 
 ravens : " Whilst these vultures were prey- 
 ing upon his liver, he thought them his best 
 friends, and that they fed upon him out of 
 pure love and affection. After they had 
 gnawed him all round, eaten his bones bare, 
 and if there was any marrow in them sucked 
 it carefully out, they left him, cut down to 
 the roots and withered ; and, so far from re- 
 lieving or assisting him in their turns, would 
 not so much as know or look upon him. This 
 has made him turn digger; and here, in his 
 skin garment, he tills the earth for hire; 
 ashamed to show himself in the city, and 
 venting his rage against the ingratitude of 
 those who, enriched as they had been by 
 him, now proudly pass along, and know not 
 whether his name is Timon." Jupiter re- 
 solves to despatch Mercury and Plutus to 
 bestow new wealth upon Timon, and the god 
 of riches very reluctantly consents to go, be- 
 cause, if he return to Timon, he should again 
 become the prey of parasites and courtezans. 
 
 The subsequent dialogue between Mercury 
 and Plutus, upon the use of riches, is ex- 
 ceedingly acute and amusing. The gods 
 upon approaching Timon, descry him work- 
 ing with his spade, in company with Labour, 
 Poverty, Wisdom, Courage, and all the vir- 
 tues that are in the train of indigence. 
 Poverty thus addresses Plutus : " You come 
 to find Timon; and as to me who have 
 received him enervated by luxury, he would 
 forsake me when I have rendered him vir- 
 tuous ; you come to enrich him anew, which 
 will render him as before, idle, effeminate, 
 and besotted." Timon rejects the offers 
 which Plutus makes him ; and the gods leave 
 him, desiring him to continue digging. He 
 then finds gold, and thus apostrophizes it : 
 " It is, it must be, gold, fine, yellow, noble 
 
 gold ; heavy, sweet to behold Burning 
 
 like fire, thou shinest day and night : come 
 to me, thou dear delightful treasure ! now 
 do I believe that Jove himself was once 
 turned into gold: what virgin would not 
 spread forth her bosom to receive so beautiful 
 a lover?" But the Timon of Lucian has 
 other uses for his riches than Plutus antici- 
 pated ; he will guard them without employ- 
 ing them ; he will, as he says, " purchase 
 some retired spot, there build a tower* to 
 keep my gold in, and live for myself alone : 
 this shall be my habitation ; and, when I am 
 dead, my sepulchre also : from this time 
 forth it is my fixed resolution to have no 
 commerce or connexion with mankind, but 
 to despise and avoid it. I will pay no regard 
 to acquaintance, friendship, pity, or compas- 
 sion : to pity the distressed, or to relieve the 
 indigent, I shall consider as a weakness, 
 nay, as a crime ; my life, like the beasts of 
 the field, shall be spent in solitude, and 
 Timon alone shall be Timon's friend. I will 
 treat all beside as enemies and betrayers ; to 
 converse with them were profanation ; to 
 herd with them, impiety : accursed be the 
 day that brings them to my sight!" The 
 most agreeable name to me, he adds, shall 
 be that of Misanthrope. A crowd approach 
 who have heard of his good fortune ; and 
 first comes Gnathon, a parasite, who brings 
 
 * A building called the Tower of Timon is mentioned 
 by Fausauias. 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 79 
 
 him a new poem a dithyrambe. Timon 
 strikes him down with his spade. Another, 
 and another, succeeds ; and ne comes from 
 the senate to hail him as the safeguard of 
 the Athenians. Each in his turn is welcomed 
 with blows. The dialogue concludes with 
 Timon's determination to mount upon a 
 rock, and to receive every man with a shower 
 of stones. 
 
 There can be no doubt, we think, that a 
 great resemblance may be traced between 
 the Greek satirist and the English dramatist. 
 The false friends of Timon are much more 
 fully described by Lucian than by Plutarch. 
 The finding the gold is the same. the rejec- 
 tion of it by the Timon of Shakspere is 
 essentially the same : the Poet of the play 
 was perhaps suggested by the flatterer who 
 came with the new ode ; the senator with 
 his gratulations is not very different from 
 the senators in the drama ; the blows and 
 stones are found both in the ancient and the 
 modern. There are minor similarities which 
 might be readily traced, if we believed that 
 Shakspere had gone direct to Lucian. But 
 our opinion is that he found those similari- 
 ties in the play which we are convinced he 
 remodelled. It is in the conception and the 
 execution of the character of Timon that the 
 original power of Shakspere is to be traced. 
 
 The vices of Shakspere's Timon are not 
 the vices of a sensualist. It is true that 
 his offices have been oppressed with riotous 
 feeders, that his vaults have wept with 
 drunken spilth of wine, that every room 
 
 "Hath blaz'd with lights, and bray'd with 
 minstrelsy;" 
 
 but he has nothing selfish in the enjoyment 
 of his prodigality and his magnificence. He 
 himself truly expresses the weakness, as well 
 as the beauty, of his own character : " Why, 
 I have often wished myself poorer, that I 
 might come nearer to you. We are born to 
 do benefits, and what better or properer can 
 we call our own, than the riches of our friends? 
 0, what a precious comfort 't is, to have so 
 m any, like brothers, comman ding one another's 
 fortunes ! " Charles Lamb, in his contrast be- 
 tween ' Timon of Athens ' and Hogarth's 
 'Rake's Progress,' has scarcely done justice 
 
 to Timon : " The wild course of riot and ex- 
 travagance, ending in the one with driving 
 the Prodigal from the society of men into 
 the solitude of the deserts ; and, in the other, 
 with conducting Hogarth's Rake through his 
 several stages of dissipation into the still 
 more complete desolations of the mad-house, 
 in the play and in the picture are de- 
 scribed with almost equal force and nature." 
 Hogarth's Rake is all sensuality and selfish- 
 ness ; Timon is essentially high-minded and 
 generous : he truly says, in the first chill of 
 his fortunes, 
 
 " No villainous bounty yet hath pass'd my heart. 
 Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given." 
 
 In his splendid speech to Apemantus in the 
 fourth act, he distinctly proclaims that, in 
 the weakness with which he had lavished 
 his fortunes upon the unworthy, he had not 
 pampered his own passions 
 
 " Hadst thou, like us, from our first swath, pro- 
 ceeded 
 
 The sweet degrees that this brief world affords 
 To such as may the passive drugs of it 
 Freely command, thou wouldst have plunged 
 
 thyself 
 
 In general riot; melted down thy youth 
 In different beds of lust; and never learn'd 
 The icy precepts of respect, but follow'd 
 The sugar'd game before thee. But myself, 
 Who had the world as my confectionary; 
 The mouth, the tongues, the eyes, and hearts 
 
 of men 
 
 At duty, more than I could frame employ- 
 ment; 
 
 That numberless upon me stuck, as leaves 
 Do on the oak, have with one winter's brush 
 Fell from their boughs, and left me open, bare 
 For every storm that blows." 
 
 The all-absorbing defect of Timon the root 
 of those generous vices which wear the garb 
 of virtue is the entire want of discrimi- 
 nation, by which he is also characterized 
 in Lucian's dialogue. Shakspere has seized 
 upon this point, and held firmly to it. 
 He releases Ventidius from prison, he be- 
 stows an estate upon his servant, he lavishes 
 jewels upon all the dependants who crowd 
 his board; 
 
 " Methinks I could deal kingdoms to my friends, 
 And ne'er be weary." 
 
80 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ir. 
 
 That universal philanthropy, of which the 
 most selfish men sometimes talk, is in Timon 
 an active principle ; but let it be observed 
 that he has no preferences. It appears to 
 us a most remarkable example of the pro- 
 found sagacity of Shakspere, to exhibit Tirnon 
 without any especial affections. It is thus 
 that his philanthropy passes without any 
 violence into the extreme of universal hatred 
 to mankind. Had he loved a single human 
 being with that intensity which constitutes 
 affection in the relation of the sexes, and 
 friendship in the relation of man to man, 
 he would have been exempt from that un- 
 judging lavishness which was necessary to 
 satisfy his morbid craving for human sym- 
 pathy. Shakspere, we think, has kept this 
 most steadily in view. His surprise at the 
 fidelity of his steward is exhibited, as if 
 the love for any human being in preference 
 to another came upon him like a new sensa- 
 tion : 
 
 " Flav. I beg of you to know me, good my 
 
 lord, 
 To accept my grief, and whilst this poor wealth 
 
 lasts, 
 To entertain me as your steward still. 
 
 Tim. Had I a steward 
 So true, so just, and now so comfortable] 
 It almost turns my dangerous nature wild. 
 Let me behold thy face. Surely, this man 
 Was born of woman. 
 Forgive my general and excoptless rashness, 
 You perpetual-sober gods ! I do proclaim 
 One honest man, mistake me not, but one ; 
 No more, I pray, and he is a steward. 
 How fain would I have hated all mankind, 
 And thou redeem'st thyself ! But all, save thee, 
 I fell with curses." 
 
 With this key to Timon's character, it ap- 
 pears to us that we may properly understand 
 the " general and exceptless rashness " of his 
 misanthropy. The only relations in which 
 he stood to mankind are utterly destroyed. 
 In lavishing his wealth as if it were a com- 
 mon property, he had believed that the same 
 common property would flow back to him in 
 his hour of adversity. " 0, you gods, think I, 
 what need we have any friends, if we should 
 never have need of tiiem 1 they were the 
 most needless creatures living, should we 
 
 ne'er have use for them : and would most re- 
 semble sweet instruments hung up in cases, 
 that keep their sounds to themselves." His 
 false confidence is at once, and irreparably, 
 destroyed. If Timon had possessed one 
 friend with whom he could have inter- 
 changed confidence upon equal terms, he 
 would have been saved from his fall, and 
 certainly from his misanthropy. If he had 
 even fallen by false confidence, he would 
 have confined his hatred to his 
 
 " Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites, 
 Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek 
 bears." 
 
 But his nature has sustained a complete re- 
 vulsion, because his sympathies were forced, 
 exaggerated, artificial. It is then that all 
 social life becomes to him an object of abo- 
 mination : 
 
 " Piety and fear, 
 
 Eeligion to the gods, peace, justice, truth, 
 Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood, 
 Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades 
 Degrees, observances, customs, and laws, 
 Decline to your confounding contraries, 
 And yet confusion live ! Plagues incident to 
 
 men, 
 
 Your potent and infectious fevers heap 
 On Athens, ripe for stroke ! thou cold sciatica, 
 Cripple our senators, that their limbs may halt 
 As lamely as their manners ! lust and liberty 
 Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth; 
 That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may 
 
 strive, 
 
 And drown themselves in riot ! itches, blains, 
 Sow all the Athenian bosoms; and their crop 
 Be general leprosy; breath infect breath; 
 That their society, as their friendship, may 
 Be merely poison ! " 
 
 Nothing can be more tremendous than this 
 imprecation, nothing, under the circum- 
 stances, more true and natural. 
 
 It is observed by Ulrici that the misanthropy 
 of Timon is as idealized as his philanthropy. 
 " But, as that idealized philanthropy was his 
 life's element, the equally idealized misan- 
 thropy was a choke-damp in which he could 
 not long breathe : his destroying rage against 
 himself, and all human kind, must of course 
 first destroy himself." Considering Timon's 
 artificial love of mankind and his artificial 
 
ARDEN OF FEVER8I1AM. 
 
 81 
 
 hate as the results of the same ill-regu- 
 lated temperament, we can appreciate the 
 beautiful distinction which Shakspere has 
 drawn between the intellectual cynicism of 
 Apemantus and the passionate misanthropy 
 of Timon. The misanthropy of Tiinon is not 
 practical it wastes itself in generalizations ; 
 the misanthropy of Apemantus is not imagi- 
 native it gratifies itself in petty insults and 
 unkindnesses : 
 
 " Apem. I love thee better now than e'er I 
 did. 
 
 Tim. I hate thee worse. 
 
 Apem. Why? 
 
 Tim. Thou flatter'st misery. 
 
 Apem. I flatter not; but say thou art a 
 caitiff. 
 
 Tim. Why dost thou seek me out? 
 
 Apem. To vex thee. 
 
 Tim. Always a villain's office, or a fool's; 
 Dost please thyself in 't? 
 
 Apem. Ay. 
 
 Tim. What ! a knave too ?-" 
 
 The soldier, the courtezan, the thief, are 
 equally included in Timon's fiery denuncia- 
 tions; but they are all equally gratified in 
 essentials. The equanimity with which the 
 fair companions of Alcibiades submit to his 
 railings, when accompanied by his gifts, is 
 profoundly satirical : 
 
 " More counsel with more money, bounteous 
 Timon." 
 
 It tells, in a word, the impotence of his mis- 
 anthropy. It is cherished for his own gra- 
 tification alone. Deeper than this fancy of 
 hatred to the human race lies the romantic 
 feeling with which he cherishes images of 
 tranquillity beyond this agitating life : 
 
 " Come not to me again : but say to Athens, 
 Timon hath made his everlasting mansion 
 Upon the beached verge of the salt flood ; 
 Whom once a day with his embossed froth 
 The turbulent surge shall cover." 
 
 The novelist of the ' Palace of Pleasure' thus 
 explains Timon's choice of "his everlasting 
 mansion : " " He ordained himself to be in- 
 terred upon the sea- shore, that the waves and 
 surges might beat and vex his dead carcass." 
 Shakspere has made Alcibiades furnish a more 
 poetical solution of this choice, which is at 
 the same time a key to Timon's general cha- 
 racter : 
 
 " Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs, 
 Scorn' dst our brain's flow, and those our drop- 
 lets which 
 
 From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit 
 Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for 
 
 aye 
 On thy low grave, on faults forgiven." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 ARDEN OF FEVEESHAM. 
 
 IN 1592 was first published l The lamentable 
 and true Tragedie of M. Arden of Feversham 
 in Kent.' Subsequent editions of this tragedy 
 appeared in 1599 and 1633. Lillo, the author 
 of ' George Barn well,' who died in 1739, left 
 an unfinished tragedy upon the same subject, 
 in which he has used the play of the 16th 
 century very freely, but with considerable 
 judgment. In 1770 the 'Arden of Fever- 
 sham ' originally published in 1592 was for 
 the first time ascribed to Shakspere. It was 
 then reprinted by Edward Jacob, a resident 
 of Feversham (who also published a history 
 
 of that town and port), with a preface, in 
 which he endeavours to prove that the tra- 
 gedy was written by Shakspere, upon the 
 fallacious principle that it contains certain 
 expressions which are to be found in his ac- 
 knowledged works. This is at once the 
 easiest and the most unsatisfactory species 
 of evidence. Resemblances such as this may 
 consist of mere conventional phrases, the 
 common property of all the writers of a par- 
 ticular period. If the phrases are so striking 
 that they must have been first created by an 
 individual process of thought, the repetition 
 
82 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ii. 
 
 of them is no proof that they have been 
 twice used by the same person. Another 
 may have adopted the phrase, perhaps un- 
 consciously. General resemblances of style 
 lead us into a wider range of inquiry; but 
 even here we have a narrow inclosed ground 
 compared with the entire field of criticism, 
 which includes not only style, but the whole 
 system of the poet's art. It has been said 
 of this play, " Arden of Feversham, a domes- 
 tic tragedy, would, in point of absolute 
 merit, have done no discredit to the early 
 manhood of Shakspere himself; but, both in 
 conception and execution, it is quite unlike 
 even his earliest manner ; while, on the other 
 hand, its date cannot possibly be removed so 
 far back as the time before which his own 
 style had demons trably been formed." * 
 Tieck has translated the tragedy into Ger- 
 man, and he assigns it with little hesitation 
 to Shakspere. Ulrici also subscribes to this 
 opinion ; but he makes a lower estimate of 
 its merit than his brother critic. The versi- 
 fication he holds to be tedious and monoto- 
 nous, and the dialogue, he says, is conducted 
 with much exaggeration of expression. The 
 play appears to us deserving of a somewhat 
 full consideration. It was printed as early 
 as 1592, and was most probably performed 
 several years earlier ; the event which forms 
 its subject took place in 1551. What is very 
 remarkable too for a play of this period (and 
 in this opinion we differ from Ulrici), there 
 is very little extravagance of language ; and 
 the criminal passion in all its stages is con- 
 ducted with singular delicacy. There are 
 many passages too which aim to be poetical, 
 and are in fact poetical ; but for the most 
 part they want that vivifying dramatic power 
 which makes the poetry doubly effective 
 from its natural and inseparable union with 
 the situation which calls it forth and the 
 character which gives it utterance. The 
 tragedy is founded upon a real event which 
 had been popularly told with great minute- 
 ness of detail ; and the dramatist has evi- 
 dently thought it necessary to present all 
 the points of the story, and in so doing has 
 of course sometimes divided and weakened 
 the interest. Of invention, . properly so 
 
 * Edinburgh Review, vol. Ixxi. p. 471. 
 
 called, there is necessarily very little; but 
 there is still some invention, and that of a 
 nature to show that the author had an ima- 
 ginative conception of incident and cha- 
 racter. Upon the whole, we should be in- 
 clined to regard it as the work of a young 
 man ; and the question then arises whether 
 that young man was Shakspere. If ' Arden 
 of Feversham,' like the ' Yorkshire Tragedy,' 
 had been founded upon an event which hap- 
 pened in Shakspere's mature years, that cir- 
 cumstance would have been decisive against 
 his being in any sense of the word the 
 author. But whilst we agree with the writer 
 in the ' Edinburgh Review' that " both in 
 conception and execution it is quite unlike 
 even his earliest manner," we are, not so con- 
 f.dent that " its date cannot possibly be 
 removed so far back as the time before which 
 his own style had demonstrablybeen formed." 
 Whether it be due to the absorbing nature 
 of the subject, or to the mode in which the 
 story is dramatically treated, we think that 
 'Arden of Feversham' cannot be read for 
 the first time without exciting a very con- 
 siderable interest; and this interest is cer- 
 tainly not produced by any violent exhibi- 
 tions of passion, any sudden transitions of 
 situation, or any exciting display of rhetoric 
 or poetry ; but by a quiet and natural suc- 
 cession of incidents, by a tolerably consistent, 
 if not highly forcible, delineation of character, 
 and by equable and unambitious dialogue, in 
 which there is certainly less extravagance of 
 expression than we should readily find in 
 any of the writers for the stage between 1585 
 and 1592. Do we then think that ' Arden of 
 Feversham' belongs to the early manhood of 
 Shakspere? We do not think so with any 
 confidence ; but we do think that, consider- 
 ing its date, it is a very remarkable play, 
 and we should be at a loss to assign it to any 
 writer whose name is associated with that 
 early period of the drama, except to Shak- 
 spere. In questions of this nature there 
 may be a conviction resulting from an exa- 
 mination of the whole evidence, the reasons 
 for which cannot be satisfactorily communi- 
 cated to others. But we are less anxious to 
 make our readers think with us than to en- 
 able them to think for themselves ; and we 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM. 
 
 83 
 
 shall endeavour to effect this object in the 
 analysis to which we now proceed. 
 
 The murder of Arden of Feversham must 
 have produced an extraordinary and even 
 permanent sensation in an age when deeds 
 of violence were by no means unfrequent. 
 Holinshed's ' Chronicle' was first published 
 in 1577 ; the event happened twenty-six 
 years before, but the writer of the ' Chro- 
 nicle ' says,* " The which murder, for the 
 horribleness thereof, although otherwise it 
 may seem to be but a private matter, and 
 therefore as it were impertinent to this his- 
 tory, I have thought good to set it forth 
 somewhat at large, having the instructions 
 delivered to me by them that have used 
 some diligence to gather the true under- 
 standing of the circumstances." The narra- 
 tive in Holinshed occupies seven closely 
 printed columns, and all the details are 
 brought out with a remarkable graphic 
 power. We have no doubt that this narra- 
 tive strongly seized upon the imagination of 
 the writer of the play. To judge correctly 
 of the poetical art of that writer, we must 
 follow the narrative step by step. The rela- 
 tive position of the several parties is thus 
 described : 
 
 " This Arden was a man of a tall and comely 
 personage, and matched in marriage with a 
 gentlewoman, young, tall, and well favoured of 
 shape and countenance, who chancing to fall in 
 familiarity with one Mosbie, a tailor by occupa- 
 tion, a black swart man, servant to the Lord 
 North, it happened this Mosbie upon some mis- 
 taking to fall out with her ; but she, being de- 
 sirous to be in favour with him again, sent him 
 a pair of silver dice by one Adam Foule, dwell- 
 ing at the Flower-de-luce, in Feversham. After 
 which he resorted to her again, and oftentimes 
 lay in Arden's house ; and although (as it was 
 said) Arden perceived right well their mutual 
 familiarity to be much greater than their 
 honesty, yet because he would not offend her, 
 and so lose the benefit he hoped to gain at 
 some of her friends' hands in bearing with her 
 lewdness, which he might have lost if he should 
 have fallen out with her, he was contented to 
 wink at her filthy disorder, and both permitted 
 and also invited Mosbie very often to lodge in 
 his house. And thus it continued a good space 
 before any practice was begun by them against 
 
 Master Arden. She at length, inflamed in love 
 with Mosbie, and loathing her husband, wished, 
 and after practised, the means how to hasten his 
 end." 
 
 The first evidence of a sound judgment 
 in the dramatist is the rejection of the im- 
 putation of the chronicler that Arden con- 
 nived at the conduct of his wife from mer- 
 cenary motives. In the opening scene he 
 puts Arden in a thoroughly different posi- 
 tion. The play opens with a dialogue be- 
 tween Master Arden and his friend Master 
 Franklin, in which Franklin exhorts him to 
 cheer up his spirits because the king has 
 granted him letters-patent of the lands of 
 the abbey of Feversham. This is the answer 
 of Arden : 
 
 " Franklin, thy love prolongs my weary life ; 
 And but for thee, how odious were this life, 
 That shows me nothing, but torments my 
 
 soul; 
 
 And those foul objects that offend mine eyes, 
 Which make me wish that, for* this veil of 
 
 heaven, 
 
 The earth hung over my head and covered me! 
 Love-letters post 'twixt Mosbie and my wife, 
 And they have privy meetings in the town; 
 Nay, on his finger did I spy the ring 
 Which, at our marriage, the priest put on : 
 Can any grief be half so great as this]" 
 
 Presently Arden breaks out into a burst of 
 passion, and Franklin thus counsels him : 
 
 " Be patient, gentle friend, and learn of me 
 To ease thy grief and save her chastity : 
 Entreat her fair; sweet words are fittest 
 
 engines 
 
 To raze the flint walls of a woman's breast; 
 In any case be not too jealous, 
 Nor make no question of her love to thee, 
 But, as securely, presently take horse, 
 And lie with me at London all this term ; 
 For women when they may, will not, 
 But, being kept back, straight grow out- 
 rageous." 
 
 Alice, the wife of Arden, enters ; and he 
 accuses her, but mildly, of having called on 
 Mosbie in her sleep ; the woman dissembles, 
 and they part in peace. We have then ^he 
 incident of the silver dice sent to the para- 
 
 * For instead of. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK n. 
 
 mour by Adam of the Flower-de-luce. The 
 chronicler has represented Alice as the prin- 
 cipal agent in procuring the murder of her 
 husband ; and the dramatist has, it appears 
 to us with considerable skill, shown the 
 woman from the first under the influence of 
 a headlong passion, which cannot stop to 
 conceal its purposes, which has no doubts, 
 no suspicions, no fears. The earnestness 
 with which she proceeds in her terrible de- 
 sign is thoroughly tragic ; and her ardour is 
 strikingly contrasted with the more cautious 
 guilt of her chief accomplice. She avows 
 her passion for Mosbie to the landlord of 
 the Flower-de-luce ; she openly prompts 
 Arden's own servant Michael to murder his 
 master, tempting him with a promise to 
 promote his suit to Mosbie's sister. The 
 first scene between Mosbie and Alice is a 
 striking one : 
 
 " Mosbie. Where is your husband] 
 
 Alice. 'T is now high water, and he is at 
 
 the quay. 
 Mosbie. There let him; henceforward, know 
 
 me not. 
 Alice. Is this the end of all thy solemn 
 
 oaths? 
 
 Is this the fruit thy reconcilement buds? 
 Have I for this given thee so many favours, 
 Incurr'd my husband's hate, and out, alas ! 
 Made shipwreck of mine honour for thy sake 1 ? 
 And dost thou say, henceforward know me 
 
 not? 
 
 Remember when I lock'd thee in my closet, 
 What were thy words and mine? Did we not 
 
 both 
 
 Decree to murder Arden in the night? 
 The heavens can witness, and the world can 
 
 tell, 
 
 Before I saw that falsehood look of thine, 
 Tore I was tangled with thy 'ticing speech, 
 Arden to me was dearer than my soul, 
 And shall be still. Base peasant, get thee gone, 
 And boast not of thy conquest over me, 
 Gotten by witchcraft and mere sorcery, 
 For what hast thou to countenance my love, 
 Being descended of a noble house, 
 And match'd already with a gentleman, 
 Whose servant thou mayst be; and so, fare- 
 well. 
 Mosbie. Ungentle and unkind Alice, now I 
 
 see 
 
 That which I ever fear'd, and find too true : 
 A woman's love is as the lightning flame, 
 Which even in bursting forth consumes itself. 
 To try thy constancy have I been strange : 
 Would I had never tried, but liv'd in hopes ! 
 Alice. What needs thou try me, whom thou 
 
 never found false ? 
 
 Mosbie. Yet, pardon me, for love is jealous. 
 Alice. So lists the sailor to the mermaid's 
 
 song; 
 
 So looks the traveller to the basilisk. 
 I am content for to be reconcil'd, 
 And that I know will be mine overthrow. 
 Mosbie. Thine overthrow? First let the 
 
 world dissolve. 
 Alice. Nay, Mosbie, let me still enjoy thy 
 
 love, 
 And happen what will, I am resolute." 
 
 It is impossible to doubt, whoever was the 
 writer of this play, that we have before us 
 the work of a man of no ordinary power. 
 The transitions of passion in this scene are 
 true to nature ; and, instead of the extrava- 
 gant ravings of the writers of this early 
 period of our drama, the appropriateness of 
 the language to the passion is most remark- 
 able. There is poetry too, in the ordinary 
 sense of the word, but the situation is not 
 encumbered with the ornament. We would 
 remark also, what is very striking through 
 out the play, that the versification possesses 
 that freedom which we find in no other 
 writer of the time but Shakspere. TJlrici 
 holds a contrary opinion, but we cannot con- 
 sent to surrender our judgment to a foreign 
 ear. There is too in this scene the conden- 
 sation of Shakspere, that wonderful quality 
 by which he makes a single word convey a 
 complex idea: 
 
 " Is this the fruit thy reconcilement buds ?" 
 
 is an example of this quality. The whole 
 scene is condensed. A writer of less genius, 
 whoever he was, would have made it thrice 
 as long. The guilty pair being reconciled, 
 Mosbie says that he has found a painter who 
 can so cunningly produce a picture that the 
 person looking on it shall die. Alice is for 
 more direct measures for a poison to be 
 given in her husband's food. Here again 
 the ( Chronicle' is followed : 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 ARDEN OP FEVERSHAM. 
 
 85 
 
 " Tliere was a painter dwelling in Feversham, 
 who had skill of poisons, as was reported ; she 
 therefore demanded of him whether it were true 
 that he had such skill in feat or not ] And he 
 denied not but that he had indeed. Yea, 
 said she, but I would have such a one made as 
 should have most vehement and speedy opera- 
 tion to despatch the eater thereof. That can I do, 
 quoth he ; and forthwith made her such a one. 
 The painter enters, and his reward, it ap- 
 pears, is to be Susan Mosbie. The painter 
 is a dangerous and wicked person, but he 
 speaks of his art and of its inspiration with 
 a high enthusiasm : 
 
 " For, as sharp-witted poets, whose sweet verse 
 Make lieavenly gods break off their nectar- 
 draughts, 
 
 And lay their ears down to the lowly earth, 
 Use humble promise to their sacred muse ; 
 So we, that are the poets' favourites, 
 Must have a love. Ay, love is the painter's 
 
 muse, 
 
 That makes him frame a speaking counte- 
 nance, 
 A weeping eye that witnesseth heart's grief." 
 
 The conference is interrupted by the en- 
 trance of Arden, of whom Mosbie readily 
 asks about the abbey-lands. The following 
 scene ensues, and it is an example of the 
 judgment with which the dramatist has 
 adopted the passage from the 'Chronicle' 
 that Arden " both permitted and also invited 
 Mosbie very often to lodge in his house," 
 without at the same time compromising his 
 own honour : 
 
 "Arden. Mosbie, that question we'll decide 
 
 anon. 
 
 Alice, make ready my breakfast, I must hence. 
 
 [Exit ALICE. 
 
 As for the lands, Mosbie, they are mine 
 By letters-patent of his majesty. 
 But I must have a mandat for my wife ; 
 They say you seek to rob me of her love : 
 Villain, what mak 'st thou in her company ] 
 She 's no companion for so base a groom. 
 Mosbie. Arden, I thought not on her, I 
 came to thee ; 
 
 But rather than I '11 put up this wrong 
 
 Franklin. What will you do, sir ? 
 
 Mosbie. Revenge it on the proudest of you 
 
 both. 
 [Then ARDEN draivs forth MOSBIE'S sword. 
 
 Arden. So, sirrah, you may not wear a 
 
 sword, 
 
 The statute made against artificers forbids it. 
 I warrant that I do*. Now use your bodkin, 
 Your Spanish needle, and your pressing-iron ; 
 For thia shall go with me : And mark my 
 
 words, 
 
 You, goodman botcher, 't is to you I speak, 
 The next time that I take thee near my house, 
 Instead of legs, I '11 make thee crawl on 
 
 stumps. 
 
 Mosbie. Ah, master Arden, you have in- 
 jured me, 
 
 I do appeal to God and to the world. 
 Franklin. Why, canst thou deny thou wert 
 
 a botcher once 1 
 Mosbie. Measure me what 1 am, not what 
 
 I once was. 
 Arden. Why, what art thou now but a velvet 
 
 drudge, 
 
 A cheating steward, and base-minded peasant ] 
 Mosbie. Arden, now hast thou belch'd and 
 
 vomited 
 
 The rancorous venom of thy mis-swoln heart, 
 Hear me but speak : As I intend to live 
 With God, and his elected saints in heaven, 
 I never meant more to solicit her, 
 And that she knows ; and all the world shall 
 
 see : 
 
 I lov'd her once, sweet Arden ; pardon me : 
 I could not choose; her beauty fir'd my heart; 
 But time hath quenched these once-raging 
 
 coals ; 
 
 And, Arden, though I frequent thine house, 
 'T is for my sister's sake, her waiting-maid, 
 And not for hers. Mayst thou enjoy her long ! 
 Hell fire and wrathful vengeance light on me 
 If I dishonour her, or injure thee ! 
 
 Arden. With these thy protestations 
 The deadly hatred of my heart 's appeas'd, 
 And thou and I '11 be friends if this prove true. 
 As for the base terms that I gave thee late, 
 Forget them, Mosbie ; I had cause to speak, 
 When all the knights and gentlemen of Kent 
 Make common ^able-talk of her and thee. 
 Mosbie. Who lives that is not touch'd with 
 
 slanderous tongues 1 
 Franklin. Then, Mosbie, to eschew the 
 
 speech of men, 
 
 Upon whose general bruit all honour hangs, 
 Forbear his house. 
 
 Arden. Forbear it ! nay, rather frequent it 
 more : 
 
 * I justify that which I do. 
 
86 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ii. 
 
 The world shall see that I distrust her not. 
 To warn him on the sudden from my house 
 Were to confirm the rumour that is grown." 
 
 The first direct attempt of Alice upon her 
 husband's life is thus told by the chroni- 
 cler : 
 
 " Now, Master Arden purposing that day to 
 ride to Canterbury, his wife brought him his 
 breakfast, which was wont to be milk and 
 butter. He, having received a spoonful or two 
 of the milk, misliked the taste and colour 
 thereof, and said to his wife, Mistress Alice, 
 what milk have you given me here] Where- 
 withal she tilted it over with her hand, saying, 
 I ween nothing can please you. Then he took 
 horse and rode toAvards Canterbury, and by the 
 way fell into extreme sickness, and so escaped 
 for that time." 
 
 In the tragedy the incident is exactly fol- 
 lowed. Upon parting with her husband the 
 dissembling of Alice is heart-sickening, but 
 the scene is still managed naturally and 
 consistently. 
 
 There is no division of this play into acts 
 and scenes, but it is probable that the first 
 act ends with the departure of Arden for 
 London. Another agent appears upon the 
 scene, whose motives and position are thus 
 described in the ' Chronicle : ' 
 
 " After this his wife fell in acquaintance with 
 one Greene, of Feversham, servant to Sir An- 
 thony Ager, from which Greene Master Arden 
 had wrested a piece of ground on the back side 
 of the Abbey of Feversham, and there had great 
 blows and great threats passed betwixt them 
 about that matter. Therefore she, knowing that 
 Greene hated her husband, began to practise 
 with him how to make him away ; and con- 
 cluded that, if he could get any that would kill 
 him, he should have ten pounds for a reward." 
 
 The manner in which the guilty wife prac- 
 tises with this revengeful man is skilfully 
 wrought out in the tragedy. She sympa- 
 thises with his supposed wrongs, she tells a 
 tale of her own injuries, and then she pro- 
 ceeds to the open avowal of her purpose. 
 Greene is to procure agents to murder her 
 husband, and his reward, besides money, is 
 to be the restoration of his lands. She com- 
 municates her proceedings to Mosbie, but 
 
 he reproaches her for her imprudence in 
 tampering with so many agents. 
 
 The course of the 'Chronicle' continues 
 to be followed with much exactness. The 
 scene changes to the road for London, and 
 the following description is then dramatized. 
 It is so curious a picture of manners, as in- 
 deed the whole narrative is, that we need 
 scarcely apologize for its length : 
 
 " This Greene, having doings for his master 
 Sir Anthony Ager, had occasion to go up to 
 London, where his master then lay, and, having 
 some charge up with him, desired one Brad- 
 shaw, a goldsmith of Feversham, that was his 
 neighbour, to accompany him to Gravesend, 
 and he would content him for his pains. This 
 Bradshaw, being a very honest man, was con- 
 tent, and rode with him. And when they came 
 to Eainhamdown they chanced to see three or 
 four servingmen that were coming from Leeds ; 
 and therewith Bradshaw espied, coming up the 
 hill from Kochester, one Black Will, a terrible 
 cruel ruffian, with a sword and a buckler, and 
 another with a great staff on his neck. Then 
 said Bradshaw to Greene, We are happy that 
 there cometh some company from Leeds, for 
 here cometh up against us as murdering a knave 
 as any is in England : if it were not for them, 
 we might chance hardly escape without loss of 
 our money and lives. Yea, thought Greene (as 
 he after confessed), such a one is for my purpose ; 
 and therefore asked, Which is he ] Yonder is 
 he, quoth Bradshaw, the same that hath the 
 sword and buckler; his name is Black Will. 
 How know you that ? said Greene. Bradshaw 
 answered, I knew him at Boulogne, where we 
 both served ; he was a soldier and I was Sir 
 Richard Cavendish's man ; and there he com- 
 mitted many robberies and heinous murders on 
 such as travelled betwixt Boulogne and France. 
 By this time the other company of servingmen 
 came to them, and they, going altogether, met 
 with Black Will and his fellow. The serving- 
 men knew Black Will, and, saluting him, de- 
 manded of him whither he went 1 He answered, 
 By his blood (for his use was to swear almost 
 at every word), I know not, nor care not ; but 
 set up my staff, and even as it falleth I go. If 
 thou, quoth they, will go back again to Graves- 
 end, we will give thee thy supper. By his blood, 
 said he, I care not ; I am content ; have with 
 you : and so he returned again with them. 
 Then Black Will took acquaintance of Brad- 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM, 
 
 87 
 
 shaw, saying, Fellow Bradshaw, how dost thou 1 
 Bradshaw, unwilling to renew acquaintance, or 
 to have aught to do with so shameless a ruffian, 
 said, Why, do ye know me ] Yea, that I do, 
 quoth he; did not we serve in Boulogne to- 
 gether ] But ye must pardon me, quoth Brad- 
 shaw, for I have forgotten you. Then Greene 
 talked with Black Will, and said, When ye have 
 supped, come to mine host's house at such a 
 sign, and I will give you the sack and sugar. 
 By his blood, said he, I thank you ; I will come 
 and take it, I warrant you. According to his 
 promise he came, and there they made good 
 cheer. Then Black Will and Greene went and 
 talked apart from Bradshaw, and there con- 
 cluded together, that if he would kill Master 
 Arden he should have ten pounds for his labour. 
 Then he answered, By his wounds, that I will if 
 I may know him. Marry, to-morrow in Paul's 
 I will show him thee, said Greene. Then they 
 left their talk, and Greene bad him go home to 
 his host's house. Then Greene wrote a letter to 
 Mistress Arden, and among other things put in 
 these words, We have got a man for our pur- 
 pose; we may thank my brother Bradshaw. 
 Now Bradshaw, not knowing anything of this, 
 took the letter of him, and in the morning de- 
 parted home again, and delivered the letter to 
 Mistress Arden, and Greene and Black Will 
 went up to London at the tide." 
 
 The scene in the play seizes upon the prin- 
 cipal points of this description, but the 
 variations are those of a master. Bradshaw, 
 it seems, is a goldsmith, and he is involved 
 in a charge of buying some stolen plate. 
 He thus describes the man who sold it him, 
 and we can scarcely avoid thinking that 
 here is the same power, though in an inferior 
 degree, which produced the description of 
 the apothecary in ' Romeo and Juliet : ' 
 
 " Will. What manner of man was he? 
 
 Brad. A lean-faced writhen knave, 
 Hawk-nosed and very hollow-eyed; 
 With mighty furrows in stormy brows; 
 Long hair down to his shoulders curl'd; 
 His chin was bare, but on his upper lip 
 A mutchado, which he wound about his ear. 
 
 Witt. What apparel had he 1 ? 
 
 Brad. A watchet satin doublet all to-torn : 
 The inner side did bear the greater show : 
 A pair of threadbare velvet hose seam-rent; 
 A worsted stocking rent above the shoe; 
 
 A livery cloak, but all the lace was off; 
 'T was bad, but yet it serv'd to hide the plate." 
 One of the sources of the enchaining in- 
 terest of this drama is to be found in the 
 repeated escapes of Arden from the machina- 
 tions of his enemies. We have seen the poi- 
 son fail, and now the ruffian, whom no or- 
 dinary circumstances deterred from the com- 
 mission of his purpose, is to be defeated by 
 an unforeseen casualty. The ' Chronicle ' 
 says, f 
 
 "At the time appointed Greene showed Black 
 Will Master Arden walking in Paul's. Then 
 said Black Will, What is he that goeth after 
 him? Marry, said Greene, one of his men. By 
 his blood, said Black Will, I will kill them both. 
 Nay, said Greene, do not so, for he is of counsel 
 with us in this matter. By his blood, said he, 
 I care not for that; I will kill them both. Nay, 
 said Greene, in any wise do not so. Then Black 
 Will thought to have killed Master Arden in 
 Paul's churchyard, but there were so many gen- 
 tlemen that accompanied him to dinner, that he 
 missed of his purpose." 
 
 The dramatist presents the scene much more 
 strikingly to the senses, in a manner which 
 tells us something of the inconveniences of 
 old London. The ruffians are standing before 
 a shop ; an apprentice enters saying 
 
 " 'T is very late, I were best shut up my stall, 
 for here will be old* filching when the press 
 comes forth of Paul's." 
 
 The stage direction which follows is : " Then 
 lets he down his window, and it breaks Black 
 Will's head." The accident disturbs the im- 
 mediate purpose of the ruffians. The cha- 
 racter of Black Will is drawn with great 
 force, but there is probably something of a 
 youthful judgment in making the murderer 
 speak in high poetry : 
 
 " I tell thee, Greene, the forlorn traveller, 
 Whose lips are glued with summer-scorching 
 
 heat, 
 
 Ne'er long'd so much to see a running brook 
 As I to finish Arden's tragedy." 
 
 The other ruffian is Shakebag, and in the 
 same way he speaks in the language which 
 a youthful poet scarcely knows how to avoid 
 
 * Old excessive. 
 
88 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ii. 
 
 summoning from the depths of his own 
 imagination : 
 
 " I cannot paint my valour out with words : 
 But give me place and opportunity. 
 Such mercy as the starven lioness, 
 When she is dry suck'd of her eager young, 
 Shows to the prey that next encounters her, 
 On Arden so much pity would I take." 
 The propriety of putting poetical images in 
 the mouths of the low agents of crime cannot 
 exactly be judged by looking at such pas- 
 sages apart from that by which they are sur- 
 rounded. There is no comedy in ' Arden of 
 Feversham.' The characters and events are 
 lifted out of ordinary life of purpose by the 
 poet. The ambition of a young writer may 
 have carried this too far, but the principle 
 upon which he worked was a right one. He 
 aimed to produce something higher than a 
 literal copy of every-day life, and this con- 
 stitutes the essential distinction between 'Ar- 
 den of Feversham' and the 'Yorkshire Tra- 
 gedy,' as between Shakspere and Heywood, 
 and Shakspere and Lillo. In the maturity 
 of his genius Shakspere did not vulgarize 
 even his murderers. At the instant before 
 the assault upon Banquo, one of the guilty 
 instruments of Macbeth says, in the very 
 spirit of poetry, 
 
 " The west yet glimmers with some streaks of 
 day: 
 
 "Now spurs the lated traveller apace, 
 
 To gain the timely inn." 
 
 Early in the drama, as we have seen, Alice 
 proposes to her husband's servant to make 
 away with his master. The circumstance 
 has come to the knowledge of Greene, who, 
 after the defeat of the plan through the 
 apprentice's shutter, has to devise with his 
 ruffians another mode of accomplishing Ar- 
 den's death. The 'Chronicle' thus tells the 
 story : 
 
 " Greene showed all this talk to Master Ar- 
 den's man, whose name was Michael, which ever 
 after stood in doubt of Black Will, lest he should 
 kill him. The cause that this Michael conspired 
 with the rest against his master was, for that it 
 was determined that he should marry a kins- 
 woman of Mosbie's. After this, Master Arden 
 lay at a certain parsonage which he held in 
 London, and therefore his man Michael and 
 
 Greene agreed that Black Will should come in 
 the night to the parsonage, where he should find 
 the doors left open that he might come in and 
 murder Master Arden." 
 
 The scene in which Michael consents to this 
 proposal, with great reluctance, is founded 
 upon the above text. We have a scene 
 of Arden and Franklin, before they go to 
 bed, in which Arden is torn with apprehen- 
 sion of the dishonour of his wife. There is 
 great power here ; but there is something of 
 a higher order in the conflicting terrors of 
 Michael when he is left alone, expecting the 
 arrival of the pitiless murderer : 
 " Conflicting thoughts, encamped in my breast, 
 Awake me with the echo of their strokes ; 
 And I, a judge to censure either side, 
 Can give to neither wished victory. 
 My master's kindness pleads to me for life, 
 With just demand, and I must grant it him : 
 My mistress she hath forc'd me with an oath, 
 For Susan's sake, the which I may not break, 
 For that is nearer than a master's love : 
 That grim-fac'd fellow, pitiless Black Will, 
 And Shakebag stern, in bloody stratagem 
 (Two rougher ruffians never liv'd in Kent) 
 Have sworn my death if I infringe my vow 
 A dreadful thing to be consider'd of. 
 Methinks I see them with their bolster'd hair, 
 Staring and grinning in thy gentle face, 
 And, in their ruthless hands their daggers 
 
 drawn, 
 
 Insulting o'er thee with a peck of oaths, 
 Whilst thou, submissive pleading for relief, 
 Art mangled by their ireful instruments ! 
 Methinks I hear them ask where Michael is, 
 And pitiless Black Will cries, 'Stab the slave; 
 The peasant will detect the tragedy.' 
 The wrinkles of his foul death-threatening face 
 Gape open wide like graves to swallow men : 
 My death to him is but a merriment ; 
 And he will murder me to make him sport. 
 He comes ! he comes ! Master Franklin, help; 
 Call up the neighbours, or we are but dead." 
 This in a young poet would not only be pro- 
 mise of future greatness, but it would be the 
 greatness itself. The conception of this scene 
 is wholly original. The guilty coward, driven 
 by the force of his imagination into an agony 
 of terror so as to call for help, and thus de- 
 feat the plot in which he had been an accom- 
 plice, is a creation of real genius. The 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 ARDEN OP FEVEBSHAM. 
 
 transition of his fears, from the picture of 
 the murder of his master to that of himself, 
 has a profundity in it which we seldom find 
 except in the conceptions of one dramatist. 
 The narrative upon which the scene is 
 founded offers us a mere glimpse of this most 
 effective portion of the story : 
 
 " This Michael, having his master to bed, left 
 open the doors according to the appointment. 
 His master, then being in bed, asked him if he 
 had shut fast the doors, and he said Yea; but yet 
 afterwards, fearing lest Black Will would kill 
 him as well as his master, after he was in bed 
 himself he rose again, and shut the doors, bolt- 
 ing them fast." 
 
 In the drama the ruffians arrive, and are of 
 course disappointed of their purpose by the 
 closing of the doors. They swear revenge 
 against Michael, but he subsequently makes 
 his peace by informing them that his master 
 is departing from London, and that their 
 purpose may be accomplished on Rainham- 
 down. 
 
 The scene now changes, with a skilful dra- 
 matic management, to exhibit to us the 
 guilty pair at Feversham. Mosbie is alone, 
 and he shows us the depth of his depravity 
 in the following soliloquy : 
 
 "Mosbie. Disturbed thoughts drive me 
 
 from company, 
 
 And dry my marrow with their watchfulness; 
 Continual trouble of my moody brain 
 Peebles my body by excess of drink, 
 And nips me as the bitter north-east wind 
 Doth check the tender blossoms in the spring. 
 Well fares the man, howe'er his cates do taste, 
 That tables not with foul suspicion ; 
 And he but pines among his delicates 
 Whose troubled mind is stuff d with discon- 
 tent. 
 
 My golden time was when I had no gold ; 
 Though then I wanted, yet I slept secure ; 
 My daily toil begat me night's repose, 
 My night's repose made daylight fresh to me: 
 But since I climb'd the top bough of the tree, 
 And sought to build my nest among the clouds, 
 Each gentle stary* gale doth shake my bed, 
 And makes me dread my downfall to the earth. 
 But whither doth contemplation carry me ] 
 
 * Stary stirring. Our word star is supposed to be de- 
 rived from the Anglo-Saxon stir-an, to move. 
 
 The way I se ek to find where pleasure dwells 
 Is hedgd behind me, that I cannot back, 
 But needs must on, although to danger's gate. 
 Then, Arden, perish thou by that decree ; 
 For Greene doth heir the land, and weed thec 
 
 up 
 
 To make my harvest nothing but pure corn ; 
 And for his pains I '11 heave him up awhile, 
 And after smother him to have his wax ; 
 Such bees as Greene must never live to sting. 
 Then is there Michael, and the painter too, 
 Chief actors to Arden's overthrow, 
 Who, when they see me sit in Arden's seat, 
 They will insult upon me for my meed, 
 Or fright me by detecting of his end : 
 I '11 none of that, for I can cast a bone 
 To make these curs pluck out each other's 
 
 throat, 
 
 And then am I sole ruler of mine own : 
 Yet Mistress Arden lives, but she's myself, 
 And holy church-rites make us two but one. 
 But what for that? I may not trust you, 
 
 Alice ! 
 
 You have supplanted Arden for my sake, 
 And will extirpen me to plant another ; 
 'Tis fearful sleeping in a serpent's bed ; 
 And I will cleanly rid my hands of her. 
 But here she comes ; and I must flatter her. 
 [Here enters ALICE." 
 
 The unhappy woman has already begun to 
 pay the penalty of her sin : she has moments 
 of agonizing remorse, not enduring, however, 
 but to be swept away again by that tempest 
 of passion which first hurried her into guilt. 
 The following scene is, we think, unmatched 
 by any other writer than Shakspere in a play 
 published as early as 1592, perhaps written 
 several years earlier. It might have been 
 written by Webster or Ford, but they belong 
 to a considerably later period. It possesses in 
 a most remarkable degree that quiet strength 
 which is the best evidence of real power. 
 Except in Shakspere, it is a strength for 
 which we shall vainly seek in the accredited 
 writings of any dramatic poet who, as far as 
 we know, had written for the stage some 
 ten years before the close of the sixteenth 
 century ; 
 
 "Mosbie. Ungentle Alice, thy sorrow is my 
 
 sore ; 
 
 Thou know'st it well ; and 't is thy policy 
 To forgo distressful looks to wound a breast 
 
90 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK IT. 
 
 "Where lies a heart that dies when thou art 
 
 sad : 
 It is not love that loves to anger love. 
 
 Alice. It is not love that loves to murder 
 
 love. 
 
 Mosbie. How mean you that 1 
 Alice. Thou know'st how dearly Arden 
 loved me. 
 
 Mosbie. And then 
 
 Alice. And then conceal the rest, for 't is 
 
 too bad, 
 
 Lest that my words be carried with the wind, 
 And publish'd in the world to both our 
 
 shames ! 
 I pray thee, Mosbie, let our spring-time 
 
 wither ; 
 Our harvest else will yield but loathsome 
 
 Forget, I pray thee, what has pass'd betwixt 
 
 us, 
 
 For now I blush and tremble at the thoughts. 
 Mosbie. What, are you chang'd ? 
 Alice. Ay ! to my former happy life again ; 
 From title of an odious strumpet's name, 
 To honest Arden's wife, not Arden's honest 
 
 wife. 
 
 Ah, Mosbie ! 't is thou hast rifled me of that, 
 And made me slanderous to all my kin : 
 Even in my forehead is thy name engraven 
 A mean artificer ; that low-born name ! 
 I was bewitch'd wo-worth the hapless hour 
 And all the causes that enchanted me ! 
 Mosbie. Nay, if thou ban, let me breathe 
 
 curses forth ; 
 
 And if you stand so nicely at your fame, 
 Let me repent the credit I have lost. 
 I have neglected matters of import 
 That would have stated me above thy state ; 
 Forslow'd advantages, and spurn'd at time ; 
 Ay, Fortune's right hand Mosbie hath for- 
 sook, 
 
 To take a wanton giglot by the left. 
 I left the marriage of an honest maid, 
 Whose dowry would have weigh'd down all 
 
 thy wealth, 
 Whose beauty and demeanour far exceeded 
 
 thee: 
 
 This certain good I lost for changing bad, 
 And wrapp'd my credit in thy company. 
 I was bewitch'd that is no theme of thine, 
 And thou, unhallow'd, hast enchanted me. 
 But I will break thy spells and exorcisms, 
 And put another sight upon these eyes, 
 That show'd my heart a raven for a dove. 
 
 Thou art not fair ; I view'd thee not till now : 
 Thou art not kind ; till now I knew thee not : 
 And now the rain hath beaten off thy gilt, 
 Thy worthless copper shows thee counterfeit. 
 It grieves me not to see how foul thou art, 
 But mads me that ever I thought thee fair. 
 Go, get thee gone, a copesmate for thy hinds ; 
 I am too good to be thy favourite. 
 Alice. Ay, now I see, and too soon find it 
 
 true, 
 
 Which often hath been told me by my friends, 
 That Mosbie loves me not but for my wealth, 
 Which, too incredulous, I ne'er believed. 
 Nay, hear me speak, Mosbie, a word or two : 
 I '11 bite my tongue if it speak bitterly. 
 Look on me, Mosbie, or else I '11 kill myself ; 
 Nothing shall hide me from thy stormy look. 
 If thou cry war, there is no peace for me; 
 I will do penance for offending thee, 
 And burn this prayer-book, where I here use 
 The holy word that hath converted me. 
 See, Mosbie, I will tear away the leaves, 
 And all the leaves, and in this golden cover 
 Shall thy sweet phrases and thy letters dwell, 
 And thereon will I chiefly meditate, 
 And hold no other sect but such devotion. 
 Wilt thou not look 1 ? Is all thy love o'erwhelm'd? 
 Wilt thou not hear 1 ? What malice stops thine 
 
 ears'? 
 Why speak'st thou not? What silence ties thy 
 
 tongue ? 
 
 Thou hast been sighted as the eagle is, 
 And heard as quickly as the fearful hare, 
 And spoke as smoothly as an orator, 
 When I have bid thee hear, or see, or speak. 
 And art thou sensible in none of these? 
 Weigh all my good turns with this little 
 
 fault, 
 
 And I deserve not Mosbie's muddy looks ; 
 A fence of trouble is not thicken' d still ; 
 Be clear again ; I '11 no more trouble thee. 
 Mosbie. fie, no ; I am a base artificer ; 
 My wings are feather'd for a lowly flight ; 
 Mosbie, fie ! no, not for a thousand pound 
 Make love to you why 't is unpardonable 
 We beggars must not breathe where gentles 
 
 are ! 
 
 Alice. Sweet Mosbie is as gentle as a king, 
 And I too blind to judge him otherwise : 
 Flowers sometimes spring in fallow lands, 
 Weeds in gardens ; roses grow on thorns : 
 So, whatsoe'er my Mosbie's father was, 
 Himself is valued gentle by his worth. 
 
 Mosbie. Ah ! how you women can insinuate 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 ARDEN OP FEVERSHAM. 
 
 91 
 
 And clear a trespass with your sweetest 
 
 tongue ! 
 
 I will forget this quarrel, gentle Alice, 
 Provided 1 11 be tempted so no more." 
 
 The man who wrote that scene was no or- 
 dinary judge of the waywardness and wicked- 
 ness of the human heart. It would be diffi- 
 cult to say that Shakspere at any time could 
 have more naturally painted the fearful con- 
 test of a lingering virtue with an over- 
 whelming passion. 
 
 We have seen the conspiracy to murder 
 Arden on Rainhamdown. The devoted man 
 again escapes by accident, and the 'Chronicle' 
 thus briefly records the circumstance : 
 
 " When Master Arden came to Kochester, his 
 man, still fearing that Black Will would kill 
 him with his master, pricked his horse of 
 purpose and made him to halt, to the end he 
 might protract the time, and tarry behind. His 
 master asked him why his horse halted. He 
 said, I know not. Well, quoth his master, when 
 ye come at the smith here before (between Ko- 
 chester and the hill-foot over against Chatham) 
 remove his shoe, and search him, and then come 
 after me. So Master Arden rode on: and ere 
 he came at the place where Black Will lay in 
 wait for him, there overtook him divers gentle- 
 men of his acquaintance, who kept him com- 
 pany; so that Black Will missed here also of his 
 purpose." 
 
 The dramatist shows us Greene and the two 
 ruffians waiting for their prey, and the ex- 
 cuse of Michael to desert his master. Arden 
 and Franklin are now upon the stage ; and 
 the dialogue which passes between them is a 
 very remarkable example of the dramatic 
 skill with which the principal characters are 
 made to sustain an indifferent conversation, 
 but which is still in harmony with the tone 
 of thought that pervades the whole drama. 
 Arden is unhappy in his domestic circum- 
 stances, and he eagerly listens to the tale of 
 another's unhappiness. The perfect ease with 
 which this conversation is managed appears 
 to us a singular excellence, when we regard 
 the early date of this tragedy : 
 
 "Frank. Do you remember where my tale 
 
 did cease ? 
 
 Arden. Ay, where the gentleman did check 
 his wife. 
 
 Frank. She being reprehended for the fact, 
 Witness produc'd that took her with the deed, 
 Her glove brought in which there she left be- 
 hind, 
 
 And many other assured arguments, 
 Her husband ask'd her whether it were not so. 
 Arden. Her answer then 1 ? I wonder how 
 
 she look'd, 
 
 Having forsworn it with such vehement oaths, 
 And at the instance so approv'd upon her. 
 Frank. First did she cast her eyes down to 
 
 the earth, 
 Watching the drops that fell amain from 
 
 thence ; 
 
 Then softly draws she forth her handkercher, 
 And modestly she wipes her tear-stain'd face ; 
 Then hemm'd she out, to clear her voice should 
 
 seem, 
 
 And with a majesty address'd herself 
 To encounter all their accusations : 
 Pardon me, Master Arden, I can no more ; 
 This fighting at my heart makes short my 
 
 wind. 
 Arden. Come, we are almost now at Eain- 
 
 hamdown : 
 
 Your pretty tale beguiles the weary way; 
 I would you were in case to tell it out." 
 
 This " fighting at the heart," of which Frank- 
 lin complains, is an augury of ill. Black 
 Will and Shakebag are lurking around 
 them; but the "divers gentlemen" of Ar- 
 den's acquaintance arrive. Lord Cheinie and 
 his men interrupt the murderers' purpose. 
 Arden and his friend agree to dine with the 
 nobleman the next day. They reach Fever- 
 sham in safety. The occurrences of the next 
 day are thus told in the ' Chronicle : ' 
 
 " After that Master Arden was come home, he 
 sent (as he usually did) his man to Sheppy, to 
 Sir Thomas Cheinie's, then lord warden of the 
 Cinque Ports, about certain business, and at his 
 coming away he had a letter delivered, sent by 
 Sir Thomas Cheinie to his master. When he 
 came home, his mistress took the letter and 
 kept it, willing her man to tell his master that 
 he had a letter delivered him by Sir Thomas 
 Cheinie, and that he had lost it : adding, that he 
 thought it best that his master should go the 
 next morning to Sir Thomas, because he knew 
 not the matter : he said he would, and therefore 
 he willed his man to be stirring betimes. In 
 this mean while, Black Will, and one George 
 
92 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ii. 
 
 Shakebag, his companion, were kept in a store- 
 house of Sir Anthony Ager's, at Preston, by 
 jrreene's appointment; and thither came Mrs. 
 Arden to see him, bringing and sending him 
 meat and drink many times. He, therefore, 
 lurking there, and watching some opportunity 
 for his purpose, was willed in any wise to be up 
 early in the morning, to lie in wait for Master 
 Arden in a certain broomclose betwixt Fever- 
 sham and the ferry (which close he must needs 
 
 3s), there to do his feat. Now Black Will 
 stirred in the morning betimes, but missed the 
 way, and tarried in a wrong place. 
 
 " Master Arden and his man coming on their 
 way early in the morning towards Shornelan, 
 where Sir Thomas Cheinie lay, as they were 
 almost come to the broomclose, his man, always 
 fearing that Black Will would kill him with his 
 master, feigned that he had lost his purse. 
 Why, said his master, thou foolish knave, couldst 
 thou not look to thy purse, but lose it 1 What 
 was in it ] Three pounds, said he. Why, then, 
 go thy ways back again, like a knave (said his 
 master), and seek it, for being so early as it is 
 there is no man stirring, and therefore thou 
 mayst be sure to find it; and then come and 
 overtake me at the ferry. But nevertheless, by 
 reason that Black Will lost his way, Master Ar- 
 den escaped yet once again. At that time Black 
 Will yet thought that he should have been sure 
 to have met him homewards ; but whether that 
 some of the lord warden's men accompanied 
 him back to Feversham, or that being in doubt, 
 for that it was late, to go through the broom- 
 close, and therefore took another way, Black 
 Will was disappointed then also." 
 
 The incident of the visit to Lord Cheinie is, 
 as we have seen, differently managed by the 
 dramatist. The escape of Arden on this oc- 
 casion is very ingeniously contrived. A 
 sudden mist renders it impossible for the 
 ruffians to find their way. Black Will thus 
 describes his misadventure : 
 
 " Mosbie. Black Will and Shakebag, what 
 
 make you here 1 
 
 What ! is the deed done ] is Arden dead 1 
 Will What could a blinded man perform 
 
 in arms] 
 
 Saw you not how till now the sky was dark, 
 That neither horse nor man could be discern'd] 
 Yet did we hear their horses as they pass'd." 
 
 As Arden and Franklin return they are in- 
 
 tercepted by Read, a sailor, who accuses Ar- 
 den of a gross injustice in depriving him of 
 a piece of land. This incident is founded 
 upon a statement of the chronicler, in ac- 
 cordance with the superstition of the times, 
 that where the murdered body of Arden was 
 first laid the grass did not grow for two 
 years, and that of this very field he had 
 wrongfully possessed himself : 
 
 "Many strangers came in that mean time, 
 beside the townsmen, to see the print of his 
 body there on the ground in that field; which 
 field he had, as some have reported, most cruelly 
 taken from a woman that had been a widow to 
 one Cooke, and after married to one Richard 
 Read, a mariner, to the great hindrance of her 
 and her husband, the said Read; for they had 
 long enjoyed it by a lease, which they had of it 
 for many years, not then expired; nevertheless 
 he got it from them. For the which the said 
 Read's wife not only exclaimed against him in 
 shedding many a salt tear, but also cursed him 
 most bitterly even to his face, wishing many a 
 vengeance to light upon him, and that all the 
 world might wonder on him." 
 
 There is surely great power in the following 
 passage ; and the denunciation of the sailor 
 comes with a terrible solemnity after the 
 manifold escapes to which we have been 
 witness : 
 
 " Read. What ! wilt thou do me wrong and 
 
 threaten me too ? 
 Nay, then, I'll tempt thee, Arden; do thy 
 
 worst. 
 
 God ! I beseech thee show some miracle 
 On thee or thine, in plaguing thee for this : 
 That plot of ground which thou detainest from 
 
 me, 
 
 I speak it in an agony of spirit, 
 Be ruinous and fatal ^into thee ! 
 Either there be butcher'd by thy dearest 
 
 friends, 
 
 Or else be brought for men to wonder at, 
 Or thou or thine miscarry in that place, 
 Or there run mad and end thy cursed days. 
 Frank. Fie, bitter knave ! bridle thine en- 
 vious tongue ; 
 
 For curses are like arrows shot upright, 
 Which falling down light on the shooter's head. 
 Read. Light where they will, were I upon 
 
 the sea, 
 As oft I have in many a bitter storm, 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 ABDEN OP FEVERSIIAM. 
 
 93 
 
 And saw a dreadful southern flaw at hand, 
 The pilot quaking at the doubtful storm, 
 And all the sailors praying on their knees, 
 Even in that fearful time would I fall down, 
 And ask of God, whate'er betide of me, 
 Vengeance on Arden, or some misevent, 
 To show the world what wrong the carle hath 
 
 done. 
 
 This charge I'll leave with my distressful wife; 
 My children shall be taught such prayers as 
 
 these ; 
 And thus I go, but leave my curse with thee." 
 
 We have next a scene in which, by the device 
 of Alice, Mosbie and Black Will fasten a 
 pretended quarrel upon Arden and his friend ; 
 but Mosbie is wounded, and Black Will runs 
 away. A reconcilement takes place through 
 the subtilty of the wife. Arden invites Mosbie 
 with other friends to supper, and the con- 
 spirators agree that their deed of wickedness 
 shall be done that night. The Chronicler 
 briefly tells the story : 
 
 ' They conveyed Black Will into Master Ar- 
 den's house, putting him into a closet at the 
 nd of his parlour. Before this they had sent 
 out of the house all the servants, those excepted 
 which were privy to the devised murder. Then 
 went Mosbie to the door, and there stood in a 
 nightgown of silk girded about him, and this 
 was betwixt six and seven of the clock at night 
 Master Arden, having been at a neighbour's 
 house of his, named Dumpkin, and having 
 cleared certain reckonings betwixt them, came 
 home, and, finding Mosbie standing at the door, 
 asked him if it were supper-time] I think not 
 (quoth Mosbie) ; it is not yet ready. Then let us 
 go and play a game at the tables in the mean 
 season, said Master Arden. And so they went 
 straight into the parlour; and as they came by 
 through the hall, his wife was walking there, 
 and Master Arden said, How now, Mistress 
 Alice 1 ? But she made small answer to him. In 
 the mean time one chained the wicket-door oJ 
 the entry. When they came into the parlour, 
 Mosbie sat down on the bench, having his face 
 toward the place where Black Will stood. Then 
 Michael, Master Arden's man, stood at his mas 
 tor's back, holding a candle in his hand, to 
 shadow Black Will, that Arden might by no 
 means perceive him coming forth. In their 
 play Mosbie said thus (which seemed to be the 
 watchword for Black Will's coming forth), Now 
 
 may I take you, sir, if I will. Take me? quoth 
 Master Arden; which way? With that Black 
 Will stepped forth, and cast a towel about his 
 neck, so to stop his breath and strangle him. 
 Then Mosbie, having at his girdle a pressing- 
 
 ron of fourteen pounds weight, struck him on 
 the head with the same, so that he fell down 
 and gave a great groan, insomuch that they 
 
 hought he had been killed." 
 
 The tragedy follows, with very slight vari- 
 ation, the circumstances here detailed. The 
 guests arrive ; but Alice betrays the greatest 
 inquietude : she gets rid of them one by one, 
 imploring them to seek her husband, and in 
 the mean while the body is removed. The 
 dramatist appears here to have depended 
 upon the terrible interest of the circum- 
 stances more than upon any force of expres- 
 sion in the characters. The discovery of the 
 murder follows pretty closely the narrative 
 of the Chronicler : 
 
 " Here enter the Mayor and the Watch. 
 
 Alice. How now, master Mayor 1 ? have you 
 brought my husband home 1 
 
 Mayor. I saw him come into your house 
 an hour ago. 
 
 Alice. You are deceived ; it was a Lon- 
 doner. 
 
 Mayor. Mistress Arden, know you not one 
 that is call'd Black Will] 
 
 Alice. I know none such; what mean these 
 questions ? 
 
 Mayor. I have the council's warrant to ap- 
 prehend him. 
 
 Alice. I am glad it is no worse. [Aside. 
 Why, master Mayor, think you I harbour 
 any such ] 
 
 Mayor. We are informed that here he is ; 
 And therefore pardon us, for we must search. 
 
 Alice. Ay, search and spare you not, through 
 
 every room : 
 Were my husband at home you would not 
 offer this. 
 
 Here enter FRANKLIN. 
 Master Franklin, what mean you come so 
 sad ? 
 
 Frank. Arden thy husband, and my friend 
 is slain. 
 
 Alice. Ah! by whom'? master Franklin 
 can you tell ] 
 
 Frank. I know not, but behind the abbey 
 There he lies murder'd, in most piteous case. 
 
94 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ii. CH. v. 
 
 Mayor. But, master Franklin, arc you sure 
 
 't is he ? 
 Frank. I am too sure ; would God I were 
 
 deceiv'd ! 
 Alice. Find out the murderers; let them 
 
 be known. 
 Frank. Ay, so they shall : come you along 
 
 with us. 
 
 Alice. Wherefore? 
 Frank. Know you this hand-towel and this 
 
 knife ! 
 Susan. Ah, Michael ! through this thy 
 
 negligence, 
 
 Thou hast betrayed and undone us all. [A side. 
 Mich. I was so afraid, I knew not what I 
 
 did; 
 
 I thought I had thrown them both into the 
 well. [Aside. 
 
 Alice. It is the pig's blood we had to sup- 
 per. 
 But wherefore stay you ? find out the mur- 
 
 derers. 
 Mayor. I fear me you'll prove one of them 
 
 yourself. 
 Alice. I one of them? what mean such 
 
 questions ? 
 Frank. I fear me he was murder'd in this 
 
 house, 
 
 And carried to the fields ; for from that place, 
 Backwards and forwards, may you see 
 The print of many feet within the snow; 
 And look about this chamber where we are, 
 And you shall find part of his guiltless blood, 
 For in his slip-shoe did I find some rushes, 
 Which argue he was murder'd in this room. 
 Mayor. Look in the place where he was 
 
 wont to sit : 
 
 See, see, his blood ; it is too manifest. 
 Alice. It is a cup of wine which Michael 
 
 shed. 
 
 Mich. Ay, truly. 
 Frank. It is his blood, which, strumpet, 
 
 thou hast shed ; 
 
 But, if I live, thou and thy complices, 
 Which have conspired and wrought his death, 
 Shall rue it." 
 
 In a subsequent scene the unhappy woman 
 makes confession : 
 
 "Mayor. See, Mistress Arden, where your 
 
 husband lies. 
 
 Confess this foul fault, and be penitent. 
 Alice. Arden, sweet husband, what shall I 
 siav 1 
 
 The more I sound his name the more he 
 
 bleeds. 
 
 This blood condemns me, and in gushing forth 
 Speaks as it falls, and asks me why I did it. 
 Forgive me, Arden ! I repent me now ; 
 And would my death save thine, thou shouldst 
 
 not die. 
 
 Rise up, sweet Arden, and enjoy thy love, 
 And frown not on me when we meet in heaven : 
 In heaven I love thee, though on earth I did 
 
 not." 
 
 The concluding scene shows us the principal 
 culprits condemned to die : 
 
 " Mayor. Leave to accuse each other now, 
 And listen to the sentence I shall give : 
 Bear Mosbie and his sister to London straight, 
 Where they in Smithfield must be executed : 
 Bear Mistress Arden unto Canterbury, 
 Where her sentence is, she must be burnt : 
 Michael and Bradshaw in Feversham 
 Must suffer death. 
 
 Alice. Let my death make amends for all 
 my sin. 
 
 Mosbie. Fie upon women, this shall be my 
 song." 
 
 After the play, Franklin, in a sort of epilogue, 
 somewhat inartificially tells us that Shakebag 
 was murdered in Southwark, and Black Will 
 burnt at Flushing ; that Greene was hanged 
 at Osbridge, and the painter fled. Bradshaw, 
 according to the 'Chronicle' and the dra- 
 matic representation, was an innocent person. 
 The drama concludes with the following 
 apologetical lines : 
 
 " Gentlemen, we hope you '11 pardon this naked 
 
 tragedy, 
 
 Wherein no filed points are foisted in 
 To make it gracious to the ear or eye ; 
 For simple truth is gracious enough, 
 And needs no other points of glozing stuff." 
 
 These lines appear to us as an indication 
 that the author of 'Arden of Feversham,' 
 whoever he might be, was aware that such a 
 story did not call for the highest efforts of 
 dramatic art. It was a "naked tragedy," 
 "simple truth," requiring "no filed 
 points" or "glozing stuff." To a very young 
 man, whose principles of art were not 
 formed, and who had scarcely any models 
 before him, this tragic story might have ap- 
 
BOOK III. C1I. I.J 
 
 THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 
 
 95 
 
 peared not only easy to be dramatized, but a 
 worthy subject for his first efforts. We have 
 to consider, too, how familiar the fearful nar- 
 rative must have been to the young Shak- 
 spere. The name of his own mother was 
 Arden ; perhaps the Kentish Arden had 
 some slight relationship with her family ; 
 but it is evident that the play originally 
 bore the name of Arden of Fevershain, as if 
 it were to mark the distinction between that 
 family and the Ardens of Wilmecote. The 
 tale, too, was narrated at UP common length 
 in the ' Chronicle ' with which Shakspere was 
 very early familiar. There is considerable 
 inequality in the style of this play, but that 
 inequality is not sufficient to lead us to be- 
 lieve that more than one hand was engaged 
 in it. The dramatic management is always 
 skilful ; the interest never flags ; the action 
 steadily goes forward ; there are no secondary 
 plots ; and the little comedy that we find is 
 not thrust in to produce a laugh from a few 
 barren spectators. The writer, we think, was 
 familiar with London, which is not at all in- 
 consistent with the belief that it belongs to 
 the youth of Shakspere. Still, the utter 
 absence of external evidence must have left 
 the matter exceedingly doubtful, even if the 
 tragedy had possessed higher excellences 
 than belong to it. It was never attributed 
 
 to Shakspere by any of his contemporaries ; 
 and yet it must have been a popular play, 
 for it was reprinted forty years after its pub- 
 lication. Without doubt there may have 
 .been some writer, of whose name and works 
 we know nothing, to whom this play may 
 have been assigned ; but if it be improbable 
 that Shakspere had written it, it is equally 
 improbable that any of the known dramatists 
 who had attained a celebrity in 1592 should 
 have written it. It has none of the charac- 
 teristics of any one of them their extrava- 
 gance of language ; their forced passion ; 
 their overloading of classical allusions ; their 
 monotonous versification. Its power mainly 
 lies in its simplicity. The unhappy woman 
 is the chief character in the drama ; and it 
 appears to us that the author especially ex- 
 hibits in "Mistress Arden" that knowledge 
 of the hidden springs of human guilt and 
 weakness which is not to be found in the 
 generalities of any of the early contempora- 
 ries of Shakspere. Still we must be under- 
 stood as not attempting to pronounce any 
 decided opinion upon the question of author- 
 ship. We neither hold with the German 
 critics, whose belief approaches credulity in 
 this and other cases, nor with the English, 
 who appear to consider, in most things, that 
 scepticism and sound judgment are identical. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 
 
 A CHAKGE which has been urged against 
 Shakspere, with singular complacency on the 
 part of the accusers, is, that he did not in- 
 vent his plots. A writer, who in these later 
 days has thought that to disparage Shak- 
 spere would be a commendable task, says, 
 " If Shakspere had little of what the world 
 
 calls learning, he had less of invention, so far 
 as regards the fable of his plays. For every 
 one of them he was, in some degree, indebted 
 to a preceding piece."* The assertion that 
 the most inventive of poets was without in- 
 vention, " as far as regards the fable of his 
 
 * ' Life of Shakspcare,' in Lardner's Cyclopaedia 
 
96 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK in. 
 
 plays," is as absurd as to say that Scott did 
 not invent the fable of ' Kenilworth,' because 
 the sad tale of Amy Robsart is found in 
 Mickle's beautiful ballad of ' Cumnor Hall.' 
 The truth is, that no one can properly appre- 
 ciate the extent as well as the subtilty of 
 Shakspere's invention its absorbing and 
 purifying power who has not traced him to 
 his sources. It will be our duty, in many 
 cases, to direct especial attention to the ma- 
 terial upon which Shakspere worked, to show 
 how the rough ore became, under his hands, 
 pure and resplendent converted into some- 
 thing above all price by the unapproachable 
 skill of the artist. It is not the workman 
 polishing the diamond, but converting by 
 his wonderful alchymy, something of small 
 value into the diamond. The student of 
 Shakspere will understand that we here more 
 particularly allude to the great plays which 
 are founded on previous imaginative works, 
 such as ' Romeo and Juliet,' and ' Lear ;' and 
 not to those in which, like ' The Two Gen- 
 tlemen of Verona,' a few incidents are bor- 
 rowed from the romance-writers. 
 
 " But what shall we do ? " said the barber 
 in ' Don Quixote,' when, with the priest, the 
 housekeeper, and the niece, he was engaged 
 in making a bonfire of the knight's library 
 " what shall we do with these little books 
 that remain 1 " " These," said the priest, 
 " are probably not books of chivalry, but of 
 poetry." And, opening one, he found it was 
 the ' Diana' of George Montemayor, and said 
 (believing all the rest of the same kind), 
 " These do not deserve to be burnt like the 
 rest, for they cannot do the mischief that 
 those of chivalry have done : they are works 
 of genius and fancy, and do nobody any 
 hurt." Such was the criticism of Cervantes 
 upon the ' Diana ' of Montemayor. The ro- 
 mance was the most popular which had ap- 
 peared in Spain since the days of ' Amadis de 
 Gaul ;'* and it was translated into English 
 by Bartholomew Yong, and published in 
 1598. The story involves a perpetual con- 
 fusion of modern manners and ancient my- 
 thology ; and Ceres, Minerva, and Venus, as 
 well as the saints, constitute the machinery. 
 The one part which Shakspere has borrowed, 
 
 * Dtmlop's ' History of Fiction.' 
 
 or is supposed to have borrowed, is the story 
 of the shepherdess Felismena, which is thus 
 translated by Mr. Dunlop : " The first part 
 of the threats of Venus was speedily accom- 
 plished ; and, my father having early fol- 
 lowed my mother to the tomb, I was left an 
 orphan. Henceforth I resided at the house 
 of a distant relative ; and, having attained 
 my seventeenth year, became the victim of 
 the offended goddess by falling in love with 
 Don Felix, a young nobleman of the pro- 
 vince in which I lived. The object of my 
 affections felt a reciprocal passion ; but his 
 father, having learned the attachment which 
 subsisted between us, sent his son to court, 
 with a view to prevent our union. Soon after 
 his departure I followed him in the disguise 
 of a page, and discovered on the night of my 
 arrival at the capital, by a serenade I heard 
 him give, that Don Felix had already dis- 
 posed of his affections. Without being re- 
 cognised by him, I was admitted into his 
 service, and was engaged by my former 
 lover to conduct his correspondence with the 
 mistress who, since our separation, had sup- 
 planted me in his heart." 
 
 This species of incident, it is truly observed 
 by Steevens, and afterwards by Dunlop, is 
 found in many of the ancient novels. In 
 'Twelfth Night,' where Shakspere is sup- 
 posed to have copied Bandello, the same ad- 
 venture occurs ; but in that delightful 
 comedy, the lady to whom the page in dis- 
 guise is sent falls in love with him. Such is 
 the Story of Felismena. It is, however, clear 
 that Shakspere must have known this part of 
 the romance of Montemayor, although the 
 translation of Yong was not published till 
 1598 ; for the pretty dialogue between Julia 
 and Lucetta, in the first act, where Julia up- 
 braids her servant for bringing the letter of 
 Proteus, corresponds, even to some turns of 
 expression, with a similar description by Fe- 
 lismena of her love's history. We give a 
 passage from the old translation by Bar- 
 tholomew Yong, which will enable our 
 readers to compare the romance-writer and 
 the dramatist : 
 
 " Yet to try if by giving her some occasion I 
 might prevail, I said unto her And is it so, 
 Rosina, that Don Felix, without any regard to 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 
 
 97 
 
 mine honour, dares write unto nie 1 These are 
 things, mistress (said she demurely to me again), 
 that are commonly incident to love, wherefore, 
 I beseech you, pardon me ; for, if I had thought 
 to have angered you with it, I would have first 
 pulled out the balls of mine eyes. How cold 
 my heart was at that blow, God knows ; yet did 
 I dissemble the matter, and suffer myself to re- 
 main that night only with my desire, and with 
 occasion of little sleep." P. 55. 
 
 The writer in Lardner's Cyclopaedia, whom 
 we have already mentioned, says, " ' The Two 
 Gentlemen of Verona ' (a very poor drama) 
 is indebted for many of its incidents to two 
 works the ' Arcadia ' of Sidney, and the 
 ' Diana' of Montemayor." The single inci- 
 dent in Sidney's ' Arcadia' which bears the 
 slightest resemblance to the story of ' The 
 Two Gentlemen of Verona' is where Pyro- 
 cles, one of the two heroes of the f Arcadia,' 
 is compelled to become the captain of a band 
 of people called Helots, who had revolted 
 from the Lacedaemonians ; and this is sup- 
 posed to have given origin to the thoroughly 
 Italian incident of Valentine being compelled 
 to become the captain of the outlaws. The 
 English, travellers in Italy, in the time of 
 Shakspere, were perfectly familiar with ban- 
 ditti, often headed by daring adventurers of 
 good family. Fynes Moryson, who travelled 
 between Rome and Naples in 1594, has de- 
 scribed a band headed by " the nephew of 
 the Cardinal Cajetano." We may, therefore, 
 fairly leave the uninventive Shakspere to 
 have found his outlaws in other narratives 
 than thai of the * Arcadia.' With regard to 
 the 'Diana' of Montemayor, we have stated 
 the entire amount of what the author of 
 ' The Two Gentlemen of Verona' is supposed 
 to have borrowed from it. 
 
 Amongst the objections which Dr. John- 
 son, in the discharge of his critical office, 
 appears to have thought it his duty to raise 
 against every play of Shakspere, he says, 
 with regard to the plot of this play, " he 
 places the emperor at Milan, and sends his 
 young men to attend him, but never men- 
 tions him more." As the emperor had no- 
 thing whatever to do with the story of ' The 
 Two Gentlemen of Verona,' it was quite un- 
 necessary that Shakspere should mention 
 
 him more ; and the mention of him at all 
 was only demanded by a poetical law, which 
 Shakspere well understood, by which the 
 introduction of a few definite circumstances, 
 either of time or place, is sought for, to take 
 the conduct of a story, in ever so small a 
 degree, out of the region of generalization, 
 and, by so doing, invest it with some of the 
 attributes of reality. The poetical value of 
 this single line 
 
 "Attends the emperor in his royal court"* 
 
 can only be felt by those who desire to 
 attach precise images to the descriptions 
 which poetry seeks to put before the mind, 
 and, above all, to the incidents which dra- 
 matic poetry endeavours to group and em- 
 body. Had this line not occurred in the 
 play before us, we should have had a very 
 vague idea of the scenes which are here 
 presented to us ; and, as it is, the poet has 
 left just such an amount of vagueness as is 
 quite compatible with the free conduct of 
 his plot. He is not here dramatizing history. 
 He does not undertake to bring before us 
 the fierce struggles for the real sovereignty 
 of the Milanese between Francis I. and the 
 Emperor Charles V., while Francesco Sforza, 
 the Duke of Milan, held a precarious and 
 disputed authority. He does not pretend to 
 tell us of the dire calamities, the subtle in- 
 trigues, and the wonderful reverses which 
 preceded the complete subjection of Italy to 
 the conqueror at Pavia. He does not show 
 us the unhappy condition of Milan, in 1529, 
 when, according to Guicciardini, the poor 
 people who could not buy provisions at the 
 exorbitant prices demanded by the governor 
 died in the streets, when the greater num- 
 ber of the nobility fled from the city, and 
 those who remained were miserably poor, 
 and when the most frequented places were 
 overgrown with grass, nettles, and brambles. 
 He gives us a peaceful period, when courtiers 
 talked lively jests in the duke's saloons, and 
 serenaded their mistresses in the duke's 
 courts. This state of things might have 
 existed during the short period between the 
 treaty of Cambray, in 1529 (when Francis 
 I. gave up all claims to Milan, and it became 
 
 .* Act i. Scene in. 
 
98 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK in 
 
 a fief of the empire under Charles V.), and the 
 death of Francesco Sforza, in 1535 ; or it might 
 have existed at an earlier period in the life 
 of Sforza, when after the battle of Pavia, he 
 was restored to the dukedom of Milan ; or 
 when, in 1525, he received a formal investi- 
 ture of his dignity. All that Shakspere at- 
 tempted to define was some period when 
 there was a Duke of Milan holding his au- 
 thority in a greater or less degree under the 
 emperor. That period might have been 
 before the time of Francesco Sforza. It 
 could not have been after it, because, upon 
 the death of that prince, the contest for the 
 sovereignty of the Milanese was renewed 
 between Francis I. and Charles V., till, in 
 1540, Charles invested his son Philip (after- 
 wards husband of Mary of England) with 
 the title, and the separate honours of a Duke 
 of Milan became merged in the imperial 
 family. 
 
 The one historical fact, then, mentioned 
 in this play, is that of the emperor holding 
 his court at Milan, which was under the 
 government of a duke, who was a vassal of 
 the empire. Assuming that this fact pre- 
 scribes a limit to the period of the action, 
 we must necessarily place that period at 
 least half a century before the date of the 
 composition of this drama. Such a period 
 may, or may not, have been in Shakspere's 
 mind. It was scarcely necessary for him to 
 have defined the period for the purpose of 
 making his play more intelligible to his 
 audience. That was all the purpose he had 
 to accomplish. He was not, as we have 
 said before, teaching history, in which he 
 had to aim at all the exactness that was 
 compatible with the exercise of his dramatic 
 art. He had here, as in many other cases, 
 to tell a purely romantic story : and all that 
 he had to provide for with reference to what 
 is called costume, in the largest sense of that 
 word, was, that he should not put his cha- 
 racters in any positions, nor conduct his story 
 through any details, which should run coun- 
 ter to the actual knowledge, or even to the 
 conventional opinions, of his audience. That 
 this was the theory upon which he worked 
 as an artist we have little doubt ; and that 
 he carried this theory even into wilful ana- 
 
 chronisms we are quite willing to believe 
 He saw, and we think correctly, that there 
 was not less real impropriety in making the 
 ancient Greeks speak English than in making 
 the same Greeks describe the maiden "in 
 shady cloister mew'd" by the modern name 
 of a nun*. He had to translate the images 
 of the Greeks, as well as their language, into 
 forms of words that an uncritical English 
 audience would apprehend. Keeping this 
 principle in view, whenever we meet with a 
 commentator lifting up his eyes in astonish- 
 ment at the prodigious ignorance of Shak- 
 spere, with regard to geography, and chro- 
 nology, and a thousand other proprieties to 
 which the empire of poetry has been sub- 
 jected by the inroads of modern accuracy, 
 we picture to ourselves a far different being 
 from the rude workman which their pedantic 
 demonstrations have figured as the beau 
 ideal of the greatest of poets. "We see the 
 most skilful artist employing his materials 
 in the precise mode in which he intended to 
 employ them ; displaying as much know- 
 ledge as he intended to display ; and, after 
 all, committing fewer positive blunders, and 
 incurring fewer violations of accuracy, than 
 any equally prolific poet before or after him. 
 If we compare, for example, the violations 
 of historical truth on the part of Shakspere, 
 who lived in an age when all history came 
 dim and dreary before the popular eye, and 
 on the part of Sir Walter Scott, who lived 
 in an age when all history was reduced to a 
 tabular exactness if we compare the great 
 dramatist and the great novelist in this one 
 point alone, we shall find that the man who 
 belongs to the age of accuracy is many de- 
 grees more inaccurate than the man who 
 belongs to the age of fable. There is, in 
 truth, a philosophical point of view in which 
 we must seek for the solution of those con- 
 tradictions of what is real and probable, 
 which, in Shakspere, his self-complacent cri- 
 tics are always delighted to refer to his 
 ignorance. One of their greatest discoveries 
 of his geographical ignorance is furnished 
 in this play : Proteus and his servant go to 
 Milan by water. It is perfectly true that 
 Verona is inland, and that even the river 
 
 * ' Midsummer Night's Dream.' 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 
 
 99 
 
 Adige, which waters Verona, does not take 
 its course by Milan. Shakspere, therefore, 
 was most ignorant of geography ! In Shak- 
 spere's days countries were not so exactly 
 mapped out as in our own, and therefore he 
 may, from lack of knowledge, have made a 
 boat sail from Verona, and have given Bo- 
 hemia a seabord. But let it be borne in 
 mind that, in numberless other instances, 
 Shakspere has displayed the most exact ac- 
 quaintance with what we call geography 
 an acquaintance not only with the territorial 
 boundaries and the physical features of par- 
 ticular countries, but with a thousand nice 
 peculiarities connected with their govern- 
 ment and customs, which nothing but the 
 most diligent reading and inquiry could 
 furnish. Is there not, therefore, another 
 solution of the ship at Verona, and the sea- 
 bord of Bohemia, than Shakspere's igno- 
 rance ? Might not his knowledge have 
 been in subjection to what he required, or 
 fancied he required, for the conduct of his 
 dramatic incidents ? Why does Scott make 
 the murder of a Bishop of Liege, by William 
 de la Marck, the great cause of the quarrel 
 between Charles the Bold and Louis XL, 
 to revenge which murder the combined 
 forces of Burgundy and France stormed the 
 city of Liege, when, at the period of the 
 insurrection of the Liegeois described in 
 ' Quentin Durward,' no William de la Marck 
 was upon the real scene, and the murder 
 of a Bishop of Liege by him took place four- 
 teen years afterwards ? No one, we suppose, 
 imputes this inaccuracy to historical igno- 
 rance in Scott. He was writing a romance, 
 we say, and he therefore thought fit to sacri- 
 fice historical truth. The real question, in 
 all these cases, to be asked, is, Has the writer 
 of imagination gained by the violation of 
 propriety a full equivalent for what he has 
 lost ? In the case of Shakspere we are not 
 to determine this question by a reference to 
 the actual state of popular knowledge in our 
 own time. What startles us as a violation 
 of propriety was received by the audience of 
 Shakspere as a fact, or, what was nearer 
 the poet's mind, the fact was held' by the 
 audience to be in subjection to the fable 
 which he sought to present ; the world of 
 
 reality lived in a larger world of art ; art 
 divested the real of its formal shapes, and 
 made its hard masses plastic. In our own 
 days we have lost the power of surrender- 
 ing our understanding, spell-bound, to the 
 witchery of the dramatic poet. We cannot 
 sit for two hours enchained to the one scene 
 which equally represents Verona or Milan, 
 Rome or London, and ask no aid to our 
 senses beyond what the poet supplies us in 
 his dialogue. We must now have changing 
 scenes, which carry us to new localities ; and 
 pauses, to enable us to comprehend the time 
 which has elapsed in the progress of the 
 action ; and appropriate dresses, that we 
 may at once distinguish a king from a pea- 
 sant, and a Roman from a Greek. None of 
 these aids had our ancestors : but they had 
 what we have not a thorough love of the 
 dramatic art in its highest range, and an 
 appreciation of its legitimate authority. 
 Wherever the wand of the enchanter waved, 
 there were they ready to come within his 
 circle and to be mute. They did not ask, as 
 we were long too accustomed to ask, for 
 happy Lears and unmetaphysical Hamlets. 
 They were content to weep scalding tears 
 with the old king, when his " poor fool was 
 hanged," and to speculate with the unre- 
 solving prince even to the extremest depths 
 of his subtlety. They did not require tra- 
 gedy to become a blustering melodrame, or 
 comedy a pert farce. They could endure 
 poetry and wit they understood the alter- 
 nations of movement and repose. We have, 
 in our character of audience, become de- 
 graded even by our advance in many appli- 
 ances of civilization with regard to which 
 the audiences of Shakspere were wholly 
 ignorant. We know many small things 
 exactly which they were content to leave 
 unstudied ; but we have lost the perception 
 of many grand and beautiful things which 
 they received instinctively and without 
 effort. They had great artists working for 
 them, who knew that the range of their art 
 would carry them far beyond the hard, dry, 
 literal copying of every-day Nature which 
 we call Art ; and they laid down their shreds 
 and patches of accurate knowledge as a 
 tribute to the conquerors who came to sub- 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK in. 
 
 due them to the dominion of imagination. 
 What cared they, then, if a ship set sail 
 from Verona to Milan, when Valentine and 
 his man ought to have departed in a car- 
 riage ? or what mattered it if Hamlet went 
 " to school at Wittemberg," when the real 
 Hamlet was in being five centuries before 
 the university of Wittemberg was founded 1 
 If Shakspere had lived in this age, he might 
 have looked more carefully into his maps 
 and his encyclopaedias. We might have 
 gained something, but what should we not 
 have lost ? 
 
 " Shakspere," says Malone, " is fond of al- 
 luding to events occurring at the time when 
 he wrote ;"* and Johnson observes that many 
 passages in his works evidently show that 
 " he often took advantage of the facts then 
 recent, and the passions then in motion." t 
 This was a part of the method of Shakspere, 
 by which he fixed the attention of his au- 
 dience. The Nurse, in ' Romeo and Juliet,' 
 says, " It is now since the earthquake eleven 
 years." Dame Quickly, in ' The Merry Wives 
 of Windsor,' talks of her " knights, and lords, 
 and gentlemen, with their coaches, I warrant 
 you, coach after coach." Coaches came into 
 general use about 1605. "Banks's horse," 
 which was exhibited in London in 1589, is 
 mentioned in ' Love's Labour 's Lost.' These, 
 amongst other instances which we shall have 
 occasion to notice, are not to be regarded as 
 determining the period of the dramatic ac- 
 tion; and, indeed, they are, in many cases, 
 decided anachronisms. In ' The Two Gentle- 
 men of Verona' there are several very curious 
 and interesting passages which have distinct 
 reference to the times of Elizabeth, and which, 
 if Milan had then been under a separate du- 
 cal government, would have warranted us in 
 placing the action of this play about half 
 a century later than we have done. As it 
 is, the passages are remarkable examples of 
 Shakspere's close attention to "facts then 
 recent;" and they show us that the spirit 
 of enterprise, and the intellectual activity, 
 which distinguished the period when Shak- 
 spere first began to write for the stage, found 
 
 * Life, vol. ii. p. 331, edit. 1821. 
 t Note on ' King John.' 
 
 a reflection in the allusions of this accurate 
 observer. / 
 
 The pursuits of the gallant spirits of the ! 
 court of Elizabeth are reflected in several 
 expressions of this comedy. The incidental 
 notices of the general condition of the people 
 are less decided ; but a few passages that 
 have reference to popular manners may be 
 pointed out. 
 
 The boyhood of Shakspere was passed in 
 a country town where the practices of the 
 Roman church had not been wholly eradi- 
 cated either by severity or reason. We 
 have one or two passing notices of these. 
 Proteus, in the first scene, says, 
 
 " I will be thy beadsman, Valentine." 
 
 Shakspere had, doubtless, seen the rosary 
 still worn, and the " beads bidden," perhaps 
 even in his own house. Julia compares 
 the strength of her affection to the un- 
 wearied steps of " the true-devoted pilgrim." 
 Shakspere had, perhaps, heard the tale of 
 some ancient denizen of a ruined abbey, 
 who had made the pilgrimage to the shrine 
 of Our Lady at Loretto, or had even visited 
 the sacred tomb at Jerusalem. Thurio and 
 Proteus are to meet at " St. Gregory's well." 
 This is the only instance in Shakspere in 
 which a holy well is mentioned ; but how 
 often must he have seen the country people, 
 in the early summer morning, or after their 
 daily labour, resorting to the fountain which 
 had been hallowed from the Saxon times as 
 under the guardian influence of some vene- 
 rated saint ! These wells were closed and 
 neglected in London when Stow wrote ; but 
 at the beginning of the last century the cus- 
 tom of making journeys to them, according 
 to Bourne, still existed amongst the people 
 of the North ; and he considers it to be " the 
 remains of that superstitious practice of the 
 Papists of paying adoration to wells and 
 fountains." This play contains several in- 
 dications of the prevailing taste for music, 
 and exhibits an audience proficient in its 
 technical terms ; for Shakspere never ad- 
 dressed words to his hearers which they 
 could not understand. This taste was a 
 distinguishing characteristic of the age of 
 Elizabeth ; it was not extinct in that of the 
 
JHAP. I.] 
 
 THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 
 
 101 
 
 n 
 
 j first Charles; but it was lost amidst the pu- 
 ritanism of the Commonwealth and the pro- 
 I fligacy of the Restoration. There is one al- 
 I lusion in this play to the games of the people 
 " bid the base," which shows us that the 
 j social sport which the school-boy and school- 
 i girl still enjoy, that of prison-base, or prison- 
 bars, and which still makes the village green 
 vocal with their mirth on some fine evening 
 of spring, was a game of Shakspere's days. 
 In the long winter nights the farmer's hearth 
 was made cheerful by the well-known ballads 
 of Robin Hood ; and to " Robin Hood's fat 
 friar" Shakspere makes his Italian outlaws 
 allude. But with music, and sports, and ales, 
 and old wives' stories, there was still much 
 misery in the land. " The beggar " not only 
 spake " puling " " at Hallowmas," but his 
 importunities or his threats were heard at 
 all seasons. The disease of the country was 
 vagrancy ; and to this deep-rooted evil there 
 were only applied the surface remedies to 
 which Launce alludes, " the stocks " and 
 " the pillory." The whole nation was still 
 in a state of transition from semi-barbarism 
 to civilization ; but the foundations of mo- 
 dern society had been laid. The labourers 
 had ceased to be vassals ; the middle class 
 had been created; the power of- the aristo- 
 cracy had been humbled, and the nobles had 
 clustered round the sovereign, having cast 
 aside the low tastes which had belonged 
 to their fierce condition of independent 
 chieftains. This was a state in which li- 
 terature might, without degradation, be 
 adapted to the wants of the general peo- 
 ple ; and " the best public instructor " then 
 was the drama. Shakspere found the taste 
 created ; but it was for him, most especially, 
 to purify and exalt it. 
 
 Without any reference to the period of the 
 poet's life in which ' The Two Gentlemen 
 of Verona ' was written, Theobald tells us, 
 "This is one of Shakspeare's worst plays." 
 Hanmer thinks Shakspere " only enlivened 
 it with some speeches and lines, thrown in 
 here and there." Upton determines "that, 
 if any proof can be drawn from manner and 
 style, this play must be sent packing, and 
 seek for its parent elsewhere." Johnson, 
 though singularly favourable in his opinion 
 
 of this play, says of it, " There is a strange 
 mixture of knowledge and ignorance, of care 
 and negligence." Mrs. Lenox (who, in the 
 best slip-slop manner, does not hesitate to 
 pass judgment upon many of the greatest 
 works of Shakspere) says, " 'T is generally 
 allowed that the plot, conduct, manners, 
 and incidents of this play are extremely 
 deficient." On the other hand, Pope gives 
 the style of this comedy the high praise of 
 being "natural and unaffected;" although 
 he complains that the familiar parts are 
 "composed of the lowest and most trifling 
 conceits, to be accounted for only by the 
 gross taste of the age he lived in." Johnson 
 says, " When I read this play, I cannot but 
 think that I find, both in the serious and lu- 
 dicrous scenes, the language and sentiments 
 of Shakspere. It is not, indeed, one of his 
 most powerful effusions ; it has neither many 
 diversities of character, nor striking deli- 
 neations of life. But it abounds in yvapLat 
 (sententious observations) beyond most of 
 his plays ; and few have more lines or 
 passages which, singly considered, are emi- 
 nently beautiful." Coleridge, the best of 
 critics on Shakspere, has no remark on this 
 play beyond calling it " a sketch." Hazlitt, 
 in a more elaborate criticism, follows out 
 the same idea : " This is little more than the 
 first outlines of a comedy loosely sketched in. 
 It is the story of a novel dramatised with 
 very little labour or pretension ; yet there 
 are passages of high poetical spirit, and 
 of inimitable quaintness of humour, which 
 are undoubtedly Shakspere's ; and there is 
 throughout the conduct of the fable a care- 
 less grace and felicity which marks it for 
 his." We scarcely think that Coleridge and 
 Hazlitt are correct in considering this play 
 " a sketch," if it be taken as a whole. In 
 the fifth act, unquestionably, the outlines are 
 " loosely sketched in." The unusual short- 
 ness of that act would indicate that it is, in 
 some degree, hurried and unfinished. If the 
 text be correct which makes Valentine offer 
 to give up Silvia to Proteus, there cannot 
 be a doubt that the poet intended to have 
 worked out this idea, and to have exhibited 
 a struggle of self-denial, and a sacrifice to 
 friendship, which very young persons are in- 
 
102 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK 111. ! 
 
 clined to consider possible. Friendship has 
 its romance as well as love. In the other 
 parts of the comedy there is certainly ex- 
 tremely little that can be called sketchy. 
 They appear to us to be very carefully finished. 
 There may be a deficiency of power, but not 
 of elaboration. A French writer who has ana- 
 lysed all Shakspere's plays (M. Paul Duport) 
 considers that this play possesses a powerful 
 charm, which he attributes to the brilliant 
 and poetical colouring of its style. He thinks, 
 and justly, that a number of graceful compa- 
 risons, and of vivid and picturesque images, 
 here take the place of the bold and natural 
 conceptions (the " vital and organic " style, 
 as Coleridge expresses it) which are the ge- 
 neral characteristic of his genius. In these 
 elegant generalizations M. Duport properly 
 recognises the vagueness and indecision of 
 the youthful poet*. The remarks of A. W. 
 Schlegel on this comedy are acute, as usual : 
 " ' The Two Gentlemen of Verona ' paints 
 the irresolution of love, and its infidelity to- 
 wards friendship, in a pleasant, but, in some 
 degree, superficial manner ; we might almost 
 say with the levity of mind which a passion 
 suddenly entertained, and as suddenly given 
 up, presupposes. The faithless lover is at last 
 forgiven without much difficulty by his first 
 mistress, on account of his ambiguous repent- 
 ance. For the more serious part, the preme- 
 ditated flight of the daughter of a prince, the 
 captivity of her father along with herself by 
 a band of robbers, of which one of the two 
 gentlemen, the faithful and banished friend, 
 has been compulsively elected captain, for 
 all this a peaceful solution is soon found. 
 It is as if the course of the world was obliged 
 to accommodate itself to a transient youthful 
 caprice, called love."t A writer, who has 
 well studied Shakspere, and has published 
 a volume of very praiseworthy research , 
 distinguished for correct taste and good feel- 
 ing (although some of its theories may be 
 reasonably doubted), considers this comedy 
 Shakspere's first dramatic production, and 
 
 * ' Essais Litt^raires sur Shakspeare,' tome li. p. 357. 
 Paris, 1828. 
 
 t 'Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature,' Black's 
 translation, vol. ii. p. 156. 
 
 t ' Shakspeare's Autobiographical Pooms,\tc. By Charles 
 Armitage Brown. 1838. 
 
 imagines that it might have been written 
 at Stratford, and have formed his chief re- 
 commendation to the Blackfriars company. 
 He adds, " This play appears to me en- 
 riched with all the freshness of youth ; with 
 strong indications of his future matured 
 poetical power and dramatic effect. It is 
 the day-spring of genius, full of promise, 
 beauty, and quietude, before the sun has 
 arisen to its splendour. I can likewise dis- 
 cern in it his peculiar gradual development 
 of character, his minute touches, each tend- 
 ing to complete a portrait ; and if these /ire 
 not executed by the master-hand, as shown 
 in his later plays, they are by the same 
 apprentice-hand, each touch of strength 
 sufficient to harmonise with the whole." 
 Johnson says of this play, " I am inclined 
 to believe that it was not very successful." 
 It is difficult to judge of the accuracy of 
 this belief. The "quietude," the "minute 
 touches," may not have been exactly suited 
 to an audience who had as yet been unaccus- 
 tomed to the delicate lights and shadows of 
 the Elizabethan drama. Shakspere, in some 
 degree, stood in the same relation to his prede- 
 cessors as Raffaelle did to the earlier painters. 
 The gentle gradations, the accurate distances, 
 the harmony and repose, had to be superadded 
 to the hard outlines, the strong colouring, and 
 the disproportionate parts of the elder artists, 
 in the one case as in the other. But our 
 dramatist, who unquestionably always looked 
 to what the stage demanded from him, how- 
 ever he may have looked beyond the mere 
 wants of his present audience, put enough of 
 attractive matter into ' The Two Gentlemen 
 of Verona' to command its popularity. No 
 " clown " that had appeared on the stage be- 
 fore his time could at all approach to Launce 
 in real humour. But the clowns that the 
 celebrated Tarleton represented had mere 
 words of buffoonery put into their mouths ; 
 and it is not to be wondered at that Shakspere 
 retained some of their ribaldry. It would be 
 some time before he would be strong enough 
 to assert the rights of his own genius, as he 
 unquestionably did in his later plays. He 
 must, as a young writer, have been some- 
 times forced into a sacrifice to the popula* 
 requirements. 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 THE TWO OEXTLEMEN OF VERONA. 
 
 103 
 
 Mr. Boaden, as it is stated by Malone, is 
 of opinion that ' The Two Gentlemen of 
 Verona' contains the germ of other plays 
 which Shakspere afterwards wrote*. The 
 expression, " germ of other plays," is some- 
 what undefined. There are in this play the 
 germ of several incidents and situations 
 which occur in the poet's rnaturer works 
 the germ of some others of his most admired 
 characters the germ of one or two of his 
 most beautiful descriptions. When Julia is 
 deputed by Proteus to bear a letter to Silvia, 
 urging the love which he ought to have 
 kept sacred for herself, we are reminded of 
 Viola, in ' Twelfth Night,' being sent to 
 plead the Duke's passion for Olivia, although 
 the other circumstances are widely different ; 
 when we see Julia wearing her boy's dis- 
 guise, with a modest archness and spirit, our 
 thoughts involuntarily turn not only to 
 Viola, but to Rosalind, and to Imogen, three 
 of the most exquisite of Shakspere's exqui- 
 site creations of female character; when 
 Valentine, in the forest of Mantua, ex- 
 claims, 
 
 " How use doth breed a habit in a man ! 
 This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods, 
 I better brook than flourishing peopled towns," 
 
 we hear the first faint notes of the same de- 
 licious train of thought, though greatly mo- 
 dified by the different circumstances of the 
 speaker, that we find in the banished Duke 
 of the forest of Ardennes : 
 
 " Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile, 
 Hath not old custom made this life more 
 
 Than that of painted pomp 1 ?" 
 When Valentine exclaims, 
 
 "And why not death, rather than living tor- 
 ment 1 ?" 
 
 we recollect the grand passage in ' Macbeth,' 
 where the same thought is exalted, and ren- 
 dered terrible, by the peculiar circumstances 
 of the speaker's guilt : 
 
 " Better be with the dead, 
 Whom we, to gain our place, have sent to 
 peace, 
 
 * Malone's Shakspeare, by Boswell, vol. ii. p. 32. 
 
 Than on the torture of the mind to lie 
 In restless ecstacy." 
 
 There are, generally speaking, resemblances 
 throughout the works of Shakspere, which 
 his genius alone could have preserved from 
 being imitations. But, taking the particu- 
 lar instance before us, when with matured 
 powers he came to deal with somewhat similar 
 incidents and characters in other plays, and 
 to repeat the leading idea of a particular 
 sentiment, we can, without difficulty, per- 
 ceive how vast a difference had been pro- 
 duced by a few years of reflection and ex- 
 perience ; how he had made to himself an 
 entirely new school of art, whose practice 
 was as superior to his own conceptions as 
 embodied in his first works, as it was beyond 
 the mastery of his contemporaries, or of 
 any who have succeeded him. It was for 
 this reason that Pope called the style of 
 1 The Two Gentlemen of Verona' " simple 
 and unaffected." It was opposed to Shak- 
 spere's later style, which is teeming with 
 allusion upon allusion, dropped out of the 
 exceeding riches of his glorious imagination. 
 With the exception of the few obsolete 
 words, and the unfamiliar application of 
 words still in use, this comedy has, to our 
 minds, a very modern air. The thoughts 
 are natural and obvious, the images familiar 
 and general. The most celebrated passages 
 have a character of grace rather than of 
 beauty; the elegance of a youthful poet 
 aiming to be correct, instead of the splen- 
 dour of the perfect artist, subjecting every 
 crude and apparently unmanageable thought 
 to the wonderful alchymy of his all-pene- 
 trating genius. Look, in this comedy, at 
 the images, for example, which are derived 
 from external nature, and compare them 
 with the same class of images in the later 
 plays. We might select several illustrations, 
 but one will suffice : 
 
 " As the most favour'd bud 
 Is eaten by the canker ere it blow ; 
 Even so by love the young and tender wit 
 Is turn'd to folly; blasted in the bud, 
 Losing his verdure even in the prime." 
 
 Here the image is feeble, because it is ge- 
 
104 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK in. 
 
 neralized. But compare it with the same 
 image in ' Romeo and Juliet : ' 
 
 " But he, his own affection's counsellor, 
 Is to himself I will not say how true, 
 But to himself so secret and so close, 
 So far from sounding and discovering, 
 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" 
 
 Johnson, as we have already seen, con- 
 sidered this comedy to be wanting in "di- 
 versity of character." The action, it must 
 be observed, is mainly sustained by Proteus 
 and Valentine, and by Julia and Silvia ; 
 and the conduct of the plot is relieved by ' 
 the familiar scenes in which Speed and 
 Launce appear. The other actors are very 
 subordinate, and we scarcely demand any 
 great diversity of character amongst them ; 
 but it seems to us, with regard to Proteus 
 and Valentine, Julia and Silvia, Speed and 
 Launce, that the characters are exhibited, 
 as it were, in pairs, upon a principle of very 
 defined though delicate contrast. We will 
 endeavour to point out these somewhat nice 
 distinctions. 
 
 Coleridge says, " It is Shakspere's peculiar 
 excellence, that, throughout the whole of 
 his splendid picture-gallery (the reader will 
 excuse the acknowledged inadequacy of this 
 metaphor), we find individuality everywhere, 
 mere portrait nowhere. In all his various 
 characters we still feel ourselves communing 
 with the same nature, which is everywhere 
 present as the vegetable sap in the branches, 
 sprays, leaves, buds, blossoms, and fruits, 
 their shapes, tastes, and odours. Speaking 
 of the effect, that is, his works themselves, 
 we may define the excellence of their me- 
 thod as consisting in that just proportion, 
 that union and interpenetration of the uni- 
 versal and the particular, which must ever 
 pervade all works of decided genius and 
 true science."* Nothing can be more just 
 and more happy than this definition of the 
 distinctive quality of Shakspere's works, a 
 quality which puts them so immeasurably 
 above all other works, "the union and 
 interpenetration of the universal and the 
 
 * ' The Friend.' 3rd edit. 1837, vol. in. p. 121. 
 
 particular." It constitutes the peculiar 
 charm of his matured style, it furnishes 
 the key to the surpassing excellence of his 
 representations, whether of facts which are 
 cognizable by the understanding or by the 
 senses, in which a single word individualizes 
 the "particular" object described or alluded 
 to, and, without separating it from the 
 " universal," to which it belongs, gives it all 
 the value of a vivid colour in a picture, per- 
 fectly distinct, but also completely har- 
 monious. The skill which he attained in 
 this wonderful mastery over the whole world 
 ef materials for poetical construction was 
 the result of continued experiment. In his 
 characters, especially, we see the gradual 
 growth of this extraordinary power, as 
 clearly as we perceive the differences be- 
 tween his early and his matured forms of 
 expression. But it is evident to us, that, in 
 his very earliest delineations of character, 
 he had conceived the principle which was 
 to be developed in "his splendid picture- 
 gallery." In the comedy before us, Valen- 
 tine and Proteus are the "two gentlemen" 
 Julia and Silvia the two ladies "beloved" 
 Speed and Launce the two "clownish" 
 servants. And yet how different is the one 
 from the other of the same class ! Proteus, 
 who is first presented to us as a lover, is 
 evidently a very cold and calculating one. 
 He is "a votary to fond desire;" but he 
 complains of his mistress that she has me- 
 tamorphosed him 
 
 " Made me neglect my studies lose my time." 
 
 lie ventures, however, to write to Julia ; 
 and when he has her answer, " her oath for 
 love, her honour's pawn," he immediately 
 takes the most prudent view of their posi- 
 tion : 
 " Oh that our fathers would applaud our loves !" 
 
 But he has not decision enough to demand 
 this approbation : 
 " I fear'd to show my father Julia's letter, 
 Lest he should take exceptions to my love." 
 
 lie parts with his mistress in a very formal 
 and well-behaved style ; they exchange 
 rings, but Julia has first offered " this re- 
 membrance" for her sake; he makes a 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 
 
 105 
 
 commonplace vow of constancy, whilst Julia 
 rushes away in tears ; he quits Verona for 
 Milan, and has a new love at first sight the 
 instant he sees Silvia. The mode in which 
 he sets about betraying his friend, and woo- 
 ing his new mistress, is eminently charac- 
 teristic of the calculating selfishness of his 
 nature : 
 
 " If I can check my erring love, I will ; 
 If not, to compass her I '11 use my skill." 
 
 He is of that very numerous class of men 
 who would always be virtuous, if virtue 
 would accomplish their object as well as 
 vice ; who prefer truth to lying, when lying 
 is unnecessary; and who have a law of 
 justice in their own minds, which if they 
 can observe they "will ;" but "if not," if 
 they find themselves poor erring mortals, 
 which they infallibly do, they think 
 
 " Their stars are more in fault than they." 
 
 This Proteus is a very contemptible fellow, 
 who finally exhibits himself as a ruffian and 
 a coward, and is punished by the heaviest 
 infliction that the generous Valentine could 
 bestow his forgiveness. Generous, indeed, 
 and most confiding, is our Valentine a per- 
 fect contrast to Proteus. In the first scene 
 he laughs at the passion of Proteus, as if he 
 knew that it was alien to his nature ; but, 
 when he has become enamoured himself, 
 with what enthusiasm he proclaims his de- 
 votion ! 
 
 " Why, man, she is mine own; 
 And I as rich in having such a jewel 
 As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl." 
 
 In this passionate admiration we have the 
 germ of Romeo, and so also in the scene 
 where Valentine is banished : 
 
 "And why not death, rather than living tor- 
 ment?" 
 
 But here is only a sketch of the strength of 
 a deep and all-absorbing passion. The whole 
 speech of Valentine upon his banishment is 
 forcible and elegant ; but compare him with 
 Romeo in the same condition : 
 
 " Heaven is here 
 
 Where Juliet lives; and every cat, and dog, 
 And little mouse, every unworthy thing, 
 
 Live here in heaven, and may look on her, 
 But Romeo may not." 
 
 We are not wandering from our purpose of 
 contrasting Proteus and Valentine, by show- | 
 ing that the character of Valentine is com- 
 pounded of some of the elements that we 
 find in Romeo ; for the strong impulses of 
 both these lovers are as much opposed as it 
 is possible to the subtle devices of Proteus. 
 The confiding Valentine goes to his banish- 
 ment with the cold comfort that Proteus 
 gives him : 
 
 " Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that." 
 
 He is compelled to join the outlaws, but he 
 makes conditions with them that exhibit the 
 goodness of his nature ; and we hear no 
 more of him till the catastrophe, when his 
 traitorous friend is forgiven with the same 
 confiding generosity that has governed all 
 his intercourse with him. We have little 
 doubt of the incorrect sense in which the 
 passage is usually received, in which he is 
 supposed to give up Silvia to his false friend 
 or, at any rate, of its unfinished nature. 
 But it is perfectly natural and probable 
 that he should receive Proteus again into his 
 confidence, upon his declaration of "hearty 
 sorrow," and that he should do so upon 
 principle : 
 
 " Who by repentance is not satisfied, 
 Is nor of heaven, nor earth." 
 
 It is, to our minds, quite delightful to find 
 in this, which we consider amongst the earli- 
 est of Shakspere's plays, that exhibition of 
 the real Christian spirit of charity which, 
 more or less, pervades all his writings ; but 
 which, more than any other quality, has 
 made some persons, who deem their own 
 morality as of a higher and purer order, cry 
 out against them, as giving encouragement 
 to evil doers. We shall have frequent occa- 
 sion to speak of the noble lessons which 
 Shakspere teaches dramatically (and not 
 According to the childish devices of those 
 who would make the dramatist write a 
 "moral" at the end of five acts, upon the 
 approved plan of a Fable in a spelling-book), 
 and we therefore pass over, for the present, 
 those profound critics who say " he has no 
 
106 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK in. 
 
 moral purpose in view."* But there are 
 some who are not quite so pedantically wise 
 as to affirm " he paid no attention to that 
 retributive justice which, when human affairs 
 are rightly understood, pervades them all,"t 
 but who yet think that Proteus ought to 
 have been at least banished, or sent to the 
 galleys for a few years with the outlaws ; 
 that Angelo, in ' Measure for Measure,' 
 should have been hanged ; that Leontes, in 
 1 The Winter's Tale,' was not sufficiently 
 punished for his cruel jealousy by sixteen 
 years of sorrow and repentance ; that 
 lachimo, in e Cymbeline,' is not treated with 
 poetical justice when Posthumus says, 
 " Kneel not to me : 
 The power that I have on you is to spare 
 
 you;" 
 
 and that Prospero is a very weak magician 
 not to apply his power to a better purpose 
 than only to give his wicked brother and 
 his followers a little passing punishment ; 
 weak indeed, when he has them in his hands, 
 to exclaim, 
 
 " Though with their high wrongs I am struck 
 
 to the quick, 
 
 Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury 
 Do I take part : the rarer action is 
 In virtue than in vengeance : they being 
 
 penitent, 
 
 The sole drift of my purpose doth extend 
 Not a frown further : go release them, Ariel." 
 
 Not so thought Shakspere. He, that never 
 represented crime as virtue, had the largest 
 pity for the criminal. " He has never var- 
 nished over wild and bloodthirsty passions 
 with a pleasing exterior never clothed 
 crime and want of principle with a false 
 show of greatness of soul:"^ but, on the 
 other hand, he has never made the criminal 
 a monster, and led us to flatter ourselves 
 that he is not a man. It is as a man, sub- 
 ject to the same infirmities as all are who 
 are born of woman, that he represents Pro- 
 teus, and lachimo, and other of the lesser 
 criminals, as receiving pardon upon repent- 
 ance. It is not so much that they are de- 
 
 * Lardner's Cyclopaedia, ' Literary and Scientific Men,' 
 ' vol. ii. p. 128. 
 
 t Ibid., vol. iii. p. 122. 
 
 }: A. W. Schlegel, Black's trans., vol. ii. p. 137- 
 
 serving of pardon, but that it would be in- 
 consistent with the characters of the par- 
 doners that they should exercise their power 
 with severity. Shakspere lived in an age 
 when the vindictive passions were too fre- 
 quently let loose by men of all sects and 
 opinions, and much too frequently in the 
 name of that religion which came to teach 
 peace and good will. Is it to be objected to 
 him, then, that wherever he could he as- 
 serted the supremacy of charity and mercy ; 
 that he taught men the " quality " of that 
 blessed principle which 
 
 " Droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven ; " 
 
 that he proclaimed no doubt to the annoy- 
 ance of all self-worshippers that " the web 
 of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and 
 ill together ;" and that he asked of tho.-e 
 who would be hard upon the wretched, "Use 
 every man after his desert, and who shall 
 'scape whipping ? " We may be permitted 
 to believe that this large toleration had its 
 influence in an age of racks and gibbets ; 
 and we know not how much of this chari- 
 table spirit may have come to the aid of the 
 more authoritative and holier teaching of 
 the same principle, forgotten even by the 
 teachers, but gradually finding its way into 
 the heart of the multitude, till human 
 punishments at length were compelled to be 
 subservient to other influences than those of 
 the angry passions, and the laws could only 
 dare to ask for justice, but not for ven- 
 geance. 
 
 The generous, confiding, courageous, and 
 forgiving spirit of Valentine are well ap- 
 preciated by the Duke " Thou art a gentle- 
 man." In this praise are included all the 
 virtues which Shakspere desired to represent 
 in the character of Valentine ; the absence 
 of which virtues he has also indicated in 
 the selfish Proteus. The Duke adds, " and 
 well derived." " Thou art a gentleman," in 
 "thy spirit" a gentleman in "thy unri- 
 valled merit ;" and thou hast the honours of 
 ancestry the further advantage of honour- 
 able progenitors. 
 
 We have dwelt so long upon the contrasts 
 in the character? of the "two gentlemen," 
 Proteus and Valentine, that we may appear 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 
 
 107 
 
 to have forgotten our purpose of also tracing 
 the distinctive peculiarities of the two ladies 
 "beloved." Julia, in the sweetest feminine 
 tenderness, is entirely worthy of the poet of 
 Juliet and Imogen. Amidst her deep and 
 sustaining love she has all the playfulness 
 that belongs to the true woman. When she 
 receives the letter of Proteus, the struggle 
 between her affected indifference and her 
 real disposition to cherish a deep affection is 
 exceedingly pretty. Then comes, and very 
 quickly, the development of the change 
 which real love works, the plighting her 
 troth with Proteus, the sorrow for his ab- 
 sence, the flight to him, the grief for his 
 perjury, the forgiveness. How full of 
 heart and gentleness is all her conduct after 
 she has discovered the inconstancy of Pro- 
 teus ! How beautiful an absence is there of 
 all upbraiding either of her faithless lover 
 or of his new mistress ! Of the one she says, 
 
 " Because I love him, I must pity him ; " 
 
 the other she describes, without a touch of 
 envy, as 
 
 " A virtuous gentlewoman, mild, and beautiful." 
 
 Silvia is a character of much less intensity of 
 feeling. She plays with her accepted lover 
 as with a toy given to her for her amuse- 
 ment ; she delights in a contest of words be- 
 tween him and his rival Thurio ; she avows 
 she is betrothed to Valentine, when she re- 
 proves Proteus for his perfidy, but she al- 
 lows Proteus to send for her picture, which 
 is, at least, not the act of one who strongly 
 felt and resented his treachery to his friend. 
 When she resolves to escape from her prison, 
 she does not go forth to danger and difficulty 
 with the spirit of Julia, " a true-devoted 
 pilgrim," but she places herself under the 
 protection of Eglamour (" a very perfect 
 gentle knight," as Chaucer would have 
 called him) 
 
 " For the ways are dangerous to pass." 
 
 She goes to her banished lover, but she flies 
 from her father 
 
 " To keep me from a most unholy match." 
 When she encounters Proteus in the forest, 
 
 she, indeed, spiritedly avows her love for 
 Valentine and her hatred for himself; nor 
 is there, in any of the slight distinctions 
 which we have pointed out, any real in- 
 feriority in her character to that of Julia. 
 She is only more under the influence of cir- 
 cumstances. Julia, by her decision, subdues 
 the circumstances of her situation to her own 
 will. 
 
 Turn we now to Speed and Launce, the 
 two " clownish " servants of Valentine and 
 Proteus. 
 
 In a note introducing the first scene be- 
 tween Speed and Proteus, Pope says, "This 
 whole scene, like many others in these plays 
 (some of which I believe were written by 
 Shakspere, and others interpolated by the 
 players), is composed of the lowest and most 
 trifling conceits, to be accounted for only by 
 the gross taste of the age he lived in ; populo 
 ut placerent. I wish I had authority to leave 
 them out." There are passages in Shakspere 
 which an editor would desire to leave out, if 
 he consulted only the standard of taste in his 
 own age ; just as there are passages in Pope 
 which we now consider filthy and corrupting, 
 which the wits and fine ladies of the court of 
 Anne only regarded as playful and piquant. 
 The scenes, however, in which Speed and 
 Launce are prominent, with the exception 
 of a few obscure allusions, which will not be 
 discovered unless a commentator points them 
 out, and of one piece of plain speaking in 
 Launce, which is refinement itself when com- 
 pared with the classical works of the Dean of 
 St. Patrick's, these scenes offer a remarkable 
 instance of the reform which Shakspere was 
 enabled to effect in the conduct of the English 
 stage, and which, without doubt, banished 
 a great deal of what had been offensive to 
 good manners, as well as good taste. The 
 " clown " or " fool " of the earlier English 
 drama was introduced into every piece. He 
 came on between the acts and sometimes in- 
 terrupted even the scenes by his buffoonery. 
 Occasionally the author set down a few words 
 for him to speak ; but out of these he had 
 to spin a monologue of doggrel verses created 
 by his "extemporal wit." The 'Jeasts' of 
 Richard Tarleton, the most celebrated of 
 these cloAvn?, were published in 1611 ; and 
 
108 
 
 STUDIES OP 8HAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK in. 
 
 fortunate it must have been for the morals 
 of our ancestors that Shakspere constructed 
 dialogue for his " Clowns," and insisted on 
 their adhering to it : " Let those that play 
 your clowns speak no more than is set down 
 for them." The " Clown " was the successor 
 of the " Vice " of the old Moralities ; and 
 he was the representative of the domestic 
 "Jester" that flourished before and during 
 the age of Shakspere. The " clownish " 
 servant was something intermediate between 
 the privileged "fool" of the old drama and 
 the pert lackey of the later comedy. But he 
 originally stood in the place of the genuine 
 " Clown ; " and his " conceits " are to be re- 
 garded partly as a reflection of the manners 
 of the most refined, whose wit, in a great 
 degree, consisted in a play upon words, and 
 partly as a law of the established drama, 
 which even Shakspere could not dispense 
 with, if he had desired so to do. But his 
 instinctive knowledge of the value of his 
 dramatic materials led him to retain the 
 " Clowns " amongst other inheritances of the 
 old stage ; and who that has seen the use he 
 has made of the "allowed fool" in 'Twelfth 
 Mght,' and 'As You Like It,' and 'All's Well 
 that Ends Well,' and especially in 'Lear,' 
 of the country clown in ' Love's Labour 's Lost' 
 and ' The Merchant of Venice,' and of the 
 " clownish " or witty servant in ' The Two 
 Gentleman of Verona,' will regret that he 
 did not cast away what Pope has called 
 "low" and "trifling," determining to retain 
 a machinery equally adapted to the relief of 
 the tragic and the heightening of the comic, 
 and entirely in keeping with what we now 
 call the romantic drama, an edifice of which 
 Shakspere found the scaffolding raised and 
 the stone quarried, but which it was reserved 
 for him alone to build up upon a plan in which 
 the most apparently incongruous parts were 
 subjected to the laws of fitness and proportion, 
 and wherein even the grotesque (like the grin- 
 ning heads in our fine Gothic cathedrals) was 
 in harmony with the beautiful and the sublime. 
 
 Speed and Launce are both punsters ; but 
 Speed is by far the more inveterate one. He 
 begins with a pun my master "is shipp'd 
 already, and I have play'd the sheep (ship) j 
 in losing him." The same play upon words 
 which the ship originates runs through the 
 scene ; and we are by no means sure that, 
 if Shakspere made Verona a seaport in ig- 
 norance (which we very much doubt), if, 
 like his own Hotspur, he had "forgot the 
 map," whether he would, at any time, have 
 converted Valentine into a land-traveller, and 
 have lost his pun upon a better knowledge. 
 In the scene before us, Speed establishes his 
 character for "a quick wit ;" Launce, on the 
 contrary, very soon earns the reputation of 
 "a mad-cap" and "an ass." And yet Launce 
 can pun as perseveringly as Speed. But he 
 can do something more. He can throw in 
 the most natural touches of humour amongst 
 his quibbles ; and, indeed, he altogether for- 
 gets his quibbles when he is indulging his 
 own peculiar vein. That vein is unques- 
 tionably drollery, as Hazlitt has well de- 
 scribed it, the richest farcical drollery. 
 His descriptions of his leave-taking, while 
 "the dog all this while sheds not a tear," 
 and of the dog's misbehaviour when be thrust 
 " himself into the company of three or four 
 gentlemanlike dogs," are perfectly irresistible. 
 We must leave thee, Launce; but we leave 
 thee with less regret, for thou hast worthy 
 successors. Thou wert among the first fruits, 
 we think, of the creations of the greatest 
 comic genius that the world has seen, and 
 thou wilt endure for ever, with Bottom, and 
 Malvolio, and Parolles, and Dogberry. Thou 
 wert conceived, perhaps, under that humble 
 roof at Stratford, to gaze upon which all na- 
 tions have since sent forth their pilgrims ! 
 Or, perhaps, when the young poet was, for 
 the first time, left alone in the solitude of 
 London, he looked back upon that shelter 
 of his boyhood, and shadowed out his own 
 parting in thine, Launce! 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 
 
 109 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 
 
 { THE Comedy of Errors ' was clearly one of 
 Shakspere's very early plays. It was pro- 
 bably untouched by its author after its first 
 production. We have here no existing sketch 
 to enable us to trace what he introduced, 
 and what he corrected, in the maturity of 
 his judgment. It was, we imagine, one of 
 the pieces for which he would manifest little 
 solicitude after his genius was fully developed. 
 The play is amongst those mentioned by Meres 
 in 1598. The only allusion in it which can be 
 taken to fix a date is one which is supposed 
 to refer to the civil contests of France upon 
 the accession of Henry IV. 
 
 We must depend, then, upon the internal 
 evidence of this being a very early play. 
 This evidence consists, 
 
 1. In the great prevalence of that measure 
 which was known to our language _as jearlj 
 as the time of Chaucer by the name of "rime 
 dogerel." This peculiarity is found only in 
 three of our author's plays, in ' Love's La- 
 bour 's Lost,' in ' The Taming of the Shrew,' 
 and in ' The Comedy of Errors.' But this 
 measure was a distinguishing characteristic 
 of the early English drama. It prevails very 
 much more in this play than in 'Love's La- 
 bour 's Lost : ' for prose is here much more 
 sparingly introduced. The doggrel seems 
 to stand half-way between prose and verse, 
 marking the distinction between the lan- 
 guage of a work of art and that of ordinary 
 life, in the same way that the recitative 
 does in a musical composition. It is to be 
 observed, too, in ' The Comedy of Errors,' 
 that this measure is very carefully regulated 
 by somewhat strict laws : 
 
 "We came into the world like brother and 
 
 brother, 
 
 And now let 's go hand in hand, not one be- 
 fore another." 
 
 This concluding passage, which is cast in 
 the same mould as the other similar verses 
 of the play, is much more regular in its 
 
 Love's 
 
 structure than the following in 
 
 Labour 's Lost : ' 
 
 " And such barren plants are set before us, that 
 
 we thankful should be, 
 Which we of taste and feeling are, for those 
 
 parts that do fructify in us more than he." 
 
 The latter line almost reminds us of 'Mrs. 
 
 Harris's Petition,' which, according to Swift, 
 
 " Humbly sheweth 
 
 " That I went to warm myself in Lady Betty's 
 
 chamber, because I was cold, 
 And I had in a purse seven pounds four shil- 
 lings and sixpence, besides farthings, in 
 money and gold." 
 
 The measure in ' The Comedy of Errors ' was 
 formed by Shakspere upon his rude prede- 
 cessors. In some of these it is not only 
 occasionally introduced, but constitutes the 
 great mass of the dialogue. In ' Gammer 
 Gurton's Needle,' for example, the doggrel 
 measure prevails throughout, as in the con- 
 cluding lines : 
 " But now, my good masters, since we must be 
 
 gone, 
 
 And leave you behind us, here all -alone, 
 Since at our lasting ending thus merry we be, 
 For Gammer Gurton's Needle's sake, let us 
 
 have a plaudytie." 
 
 The comedy of ' Ralph Roister Doister ' is 
 composed in the same measure. Nor was it 
 in humorous performances alone that this 
 structure of verse (which Shakspere always 
 uses as a vehicle of fun) was introduced. 
 In ' Damon and Pithias,' a serious play, which 
 was probably produced about 1570, the sen- 
 tence of Dionysius is thus pronounced upon 
 Pithias : 
 " Pithias, seeing thou takest me at my word, 
 
 take Damon to thee : 
 For two months he is thine ; unbind him ; I 
 
 set him free; 
 Which time once expired, if he appear not 
 
 the next day by noon, 
 
 Without further delay thou shalt lose thy life, 
 and that full soon." 
 
110 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 There cannot, we think, be a stronger proof | 
 that 'The Comedy of Errors' was an early j 
 play of our author, than its agreement, 
 in this particular, with the models which 
 Shakspere found in his almost immediate ! 
 predecessors. 
 
 2. In ' Love's Labour 's Lost,' ' Romeo and | 
 Juliet,' ' A Midsummer Night's Dream,' and 
 'The Comedy of Errors,' alternate rhymes 
 are very frequently introduced. Shakspere 
 obtained the mastery over this species of 
 verse in the ' Venus and Adonis,' " the first 
 heir of his invention," as he himself calls it. 
 He writes it with extraordinary facility 
 with an ease and power that strikingly con- 
 trast with the more laboured elegiac stanzas 
 of modern times. Nothing can be more har- 
 monious, or the harmony more varied, than 
 this measure in Shakspere's hands. Take, 
 for example, the well-known lines in the 
 'Venus and Adonis,' which, themselves the 
 most perfect music, have been allied to one 
 of the most successful musical compositions 
 of the present day : 
 
 " Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear, 
 
 Or, like a fairy, trip upon the green, 
 Or, like a nymph, with long dishevell'd hair, 
 Dance on the sands, and yet no footing 
 
 seen." 
 
 Compare these with the following in ' Love's 
 Labour 's Lost : ' 
 
 " A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn, 
 Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye : 
 Beauty doth varnish age, as if new born, 
 And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy." 
 
 Or with these, in ' Romeo and Juliet : ' 
 
 " If I profane with my unworthiest hand 
 
 This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this, 
 My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand, 
 To smooth that rough touch with a tender 
 
 kiss." 
 
 Or with some of the lines in ' A Midsummer 
 Night's Dream,' such as 
 " Why should you think that I should woo in 
 
 scorn 1 ? 
 
 Scorn and derision never come in tears : 
 Look, when I vow, I weep; and vows so born, 
 In their nativity all truth appears." 
 
 Or, lastly, with the exquisite address of 
 
 Antipholus of Syracuse to Luciana, in the 
 third act of ' The Comedy of Errors : ' 
 " Teach me, dear creature, how to think and 
 
 speak; 
 
 Lay open to my earthy gross conceit, 
 Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak, 
 The folded meaning of your word's deceit." 
 
 There was clearly a time in Shakspere's 
 poetical life when he delighted in this 
 species of versification ; and, in many of 
 the instances in which he has employed 
 it in the dramas we have mentioned, the 
 passages have somewhat of a fragmentary 
 appearance, as if they were not originally 
 cast in a dramatic mould, but were amongst 
 those scattered thoughts of the young poet 
 which had shaped themselves into verse, 
 without a purpose beyond that of embody- 
 ing his feeling of the beautiful and the har- 
 monious. When the time arrived that he 
 had fully dedicated himself to the great 
 work of his life, he rarely ventured upon 
 cultivating these offshoots of his early versi- 
 fication. The doggrel was entirely rejected ; 
 the alternate rhymes no longer tempted him 
 by their music to introduce a measure which 
 is scarcely akin with the dramatic spirit ; 
 the couplet was adopted more and more 
 sparingly; and he finally adheres to the 
 blank verse which he may almost be said 
 to have created, in his hands certainly the 
 grandest as well as the sweetest form in 
 which the highest thoughts were ever un- 
 folded to listening humanity. 
 
 The commentators have puzzled them- 
 selves, after their usual fashion, with the 
 evidence which this play undoubtedly pre- 
 sents of Shakspere's ability to read Latin, 
 and their dogged resolution to maintain the 
 opinion that in an age of grammar-schools 
 our poet never could have attained that 
 common accomplishment. The speech of 
 uEgeon, in the first scene, 
 
 " A heavier task could not have been imposed 
 
 Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable," 
 is, they admit, an imitation of the 
 
 " Infandum, Regina, jubes renovare dolorem" 
 of Virgil. 
 
 " Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine," 
 
II.] 
 
 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 is in Catullus, Ovid, and Horace. The " owls" 
 that " suck our breath" are the " striges" of 
 Ovid. The apostrophe of Droinio to the vir- 
 tues of "beating" "When I am cold he 
 heats me with beating ; when I am warm he 
 cools me with beating ; I am waked with it 
 when I sleep; raised with it when I sit; 
 driven out of doors with it when I go from 
 home ; welcomed home with it when I re- 
 turn " is modelled upon Cicero : " Hsec 
 studia adolescentiam agunt, senectutem ob- 
 lectant, secundas res ornant, adversis perfu- 
 giuni ac solatium praebent, delectant domi, 
 non impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, 
 peregrinantur, rusticantur." The burning 
 of the conjuror's beard is an incident copied 
 from the twelfth book of Virgil's '^Eneid,' 
 where Corinseus singes " the goodly bush of 
 hair" of Ebusus, in a manner scarcely con- 
 sistent with the dignity of heroic poetry. 
 Lastly, in the original copy of ' The Comedy 
 of Errors,' the Antipholus of Ephesus is 
 called SeceptUB a corrupiiojj of the epithet 
 by which one of the twin brothers in Plautus 
 is distinguished Mencechmus Surreptus. 
 There was a translation of this comedy of 
 Plautus, to which we shallj)resently more 
 fully advert. " If the poet had not dipped 
 into the original Plautus," says Cap ell, " Sur- 
 reptus had never stood in his_capy, the trans- 
 lation having no such agnomen, but calling 
 one brother simply Mencechmus, the other 
 Sosides" With all these admissions on the 
 part of some of those who proclaimed tha*t 
 Farmer had made a wonderful discovery 
 when he attempted to prove that Shakspere 
 did not know the difference between cfarus 
 and carus, they will not swerve from their 
 belief that his mind was so constituted as to 
 be incapable of attaining that species of 
 knowledge which was of the easiest attain- 
 ment in his own day, and for the teaching 
 of which a school was expressly endowed at 
 Stratford-upon-Avon. Steevens says, " Shak- 
 speare might have taken the general plan of 
 this comedy from a translation of ' The 
 Mensechmi ' of Plautus, by W. W., i. e. (ac- 
 cording to Wood) William Warner, in 1595." 
 Ritson thinks that Shakspere was under no 
 obligation to this translation ; but that ' The 
 Comedy of Errors' " was not originally his, 
 
 but proceeded from some inferior playwright, 
 who was capable of reading the ' Menaechmi ' 
 without the help of a translation." Malone 
 entirely disagrees with Ritson's theory that 
 this comedy was much indebted to an earlier 
 production ; but sets up a theory of his own 
 to get over the difficulty started by Ritson, 
 that not a single name, word, or line is 
 taken from Warner's translation : a play 
 called ' The Historic of Error ' was enacted 
 before Queen Elizabeth, " by the children of 
 Powles," in 1576 ; and from this piece, says 
 Malone, " it is extremely probable that he 
 was furnished with the fable of the present 
 comedy," as well as the designation of " sur- 
 reptus" Here is, unquestionably, a very 
 early play of Shakspere, and yet Steevens 
 maintains that it was taken from a transla- 
 tion of Plautus, published in 1595 ; the play 
 has no resemblance, beyond the general 
 character of the incidents, to this transla- 
 tion, and therefore Ritson pronounces that 
 it is not entirely Shakspere's work ; and, 
 while Malone denies this, he guesses that 
 ' The Comedy of Errors ' was founded upon 
 a much older play. And why all this con- 
 tradictory hypothesis 1 Simply because these 
 most learned men are resolved to hold their 
 own heads higher than Shakspere, by main- 
 taining that he could not do what they 
 could read Plautus in the original. We 
 have not a doubt that ' The Comedy of 
 Errors ' was written at least five years before 
 the publication of Warner's translation of 
 ' The Menaechmi;' and, further, that Shak- 
 spere, in the composition of his own play, 
 was perfectly familiar with ' The Menaechmi ' 
 of Plautus. In Hamlet he gives, in a word, 
 the characteristics of two ancient dramatists ; 
 his criticism is decisive as to his familiarity 
 with the originals : " Seneca cannot be too 
 heavy, nor Plautus too light" We shall fur- 
 nish a few extracts from this translation of 
 1595 ; whence it will be seen, incidentally, 
 that the lightness of the free and natural 
 old Roman is wondrously loaded by the pro- 
 saic hand of Master William Warner. 
 
 The original argument of ' The Menaechmi,' 
 it will be perceived, at once gave Shakspere 
 the epithet surreptus, as well as furrusaed 
 him with some of the characters of his play, 
 
112 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPEEE. 
 
 [BOOK in. 
 
 much more distinctly than the translation, 
 which we present with it : 
 
 [PLAUTUS.] 
 
 " Mercator Siculus, cui erant gemini filii ; 
 Ei, surrepto altero, mors obtigit. 
 Nomen surreptitii illi indit qui domi est 
 Avus paternus, facit Mengechmum Sosiclem. 
 Et is germanum, postquam adolevit, quaeritat 
 Circum omnes oras. Post Epidanmum de- 
 
 venit : 
 
 Hie fuerat auctus ille surreptitius. 
 Meneechmum civem credunt omnes advenam : 
 Eumque appellant, meretrix, uxor et soccr. 
 li se cognoscunt fratres postremo invicem." 
 
 [WAKNER.] 
 
 i Two twinborn sons a Sicill merchant had, 
 Menechmus one, and Sosicles the other : 
 The first his father lost a little lad, 
 v The grandsire named the latter like his 
 
 brother. 
 
 This (grown a man) long travel took to seek 
 His brother, and to Epidanmum came, 
 Where th' other dwelt enrich' d, and him so 
 
 like, 
 
 That citizens there take him for the same : 
 Father, wife, neighbours, each mistaking 
 
 either, 
 Much pleasant error, ere they meet together." 
 
 This argument is almost sufficient to point 
 out the difference between the plots of 
 Plautus and of Shakspere. It stands in the 
 place of the beautiful narrative of JSgeon; 
 in the first scene of ' The Comedy of Errors.' 
 In Plautus we have no broken-hearted father 
 bereft of both his sons : he is dead ; and the 
 grandfather changes the name of the one 
 child who remains to him. Shakspere does 
 not stop to tell us how the twin-brothers 
 bear the same name ; nor does he explain 
 the matter any more in the case of the 
 Dromios, whose introduction upon the scene 
 is his own creation. In Plautus, the brother, 
 Mensechmus Sosicles, who remained with the 
 grandsire, comes to Epidamnum in search of 
 his twin-brother who was stolen, and he is 
 accompanied by his servant Messenio ; but 
 all the perplexities that are so naturally 
 occasioned by the confusion of the two twin- 
 servants are entirely wanting. The mistakes 
 are carried on by the " merefcrix, irxor, et 
 
 socer " (softened by Warner into " father, 
 wife, neighbours "). We have " Medicus," 
 the prototype of Dr. Pinch ; but the mother 
 of the twins is not found in Plautus. We 
 scarcely need say that the Parasite and the 
 Father-in-law have no place in Shakspere's 
 comedy. The scene in ' The Comedy of 
 Errors ' is changed from Epidamnum to 
 Ephesus ; but we have mention of Epidam- 
 num once or twice in the play. 
 
 ' The Mensechrni' opens with the favourite 
 character of the Roman comedy the Para- 
 site ; the scene is at Epidamnum. The 
 Parasite is going to dine with Mensechmus, 
 who comes out from his house, upbraiding 
 his jealous wife. But his wife is not jealous 
 without provocation : 
 
 "Hanc modo uxori intus palam surripui; ad 
 scortum fero." 
 
 The Antipholus of Shakspere does not pro- 
 pose to dine with one " pretty and wild," 
 and to bestow " the chain " upon his hostess, 
 till he has been provoked by having his own 
 doors shut upon him. Our poet has thus 
 preserved some sympathy for his Antipholus, 
 which the Menaschmus of Plautus forfeits 
 upon his first entrance. Mensechmus and 
 the Parasite go to dine with Erotium (mere- 
 trix). Those who talk of Shakspere's ana- 
 chronisms have never pointed out to us what 
 formidable liberties the translators of Shak- 
 spere's time did not scruple to take with 
 their originals. Menaechmus gives very 
 precise directions for his dinner, after the 
 most approved Roman fashion : 
 
 "Jube igitur nobis tribus apud te prandium 
 
 accurarier, 
 Atque aliquid scitamentorum de foro obso- 
 
 narier, 
 Glandionidem suillam, laridum pernonidem, 
 
 aut 
 Sinciput, aut polimenta porcina, aut aliquid 
 
 ad eum modum." 
 
 This passage^ W. W. thus interprets : " Let 
 a good dinner be made for us three. Hark 
 ye, some oysters, a mary-bone pie or two, 
 some artichokes, and potato-roots ; let our 
 other dishes be as you please." In reading 
 this bald attempt to transfuse the Roman 
 luxuries into words accommodated to Eng- 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 
 
 113 
 
 lish ideas, we are forcibly reminded how 
 "rare Ben" dealt with the spirit of antiquity 
 in such matters : 
 
 "The tongues of carps, dormice, and camels' 
 heels, 
 
 Boil'd in the spirit of sol, and dissolved pearl, 
 
 Apicius' diet 'gainst the epilepsy : 
 
 And 1 will eat these broths with spoons of 
 amber, 
 
 Headed with diamond and carbuncle. 
 
 My footboy shall eat pheasants, calver'd sal- 
 mons, 
 
 Knots, godwits, lampreys : I myself will have 
 
 The beards of barbels served, instead of salads; 
 
 Oil'd mushrooms," &c. 
 
 Alchymist, Act II., Scene 1. 
 
 The second act in Plautus opens with the 
 landing of Meneechmus Sosicles and Messenio 
 at Epidamnum. The following is Warner's 
 translation of the scene : 
 
 " Men. Surely, Messenio, I think seafarers 
 never take so comfortable a joy in anything as, 
 when they have been long tossed and turmoiled 
 in the wide seas, they hap at last to ken land. 
 
 Mes. 1 11 be sworn, I should not be gladder 
 to see a whole country of mine own than I have 
 been at such a sight. But, I pray, wherefore 
 are we now come to Epidamnum] must we needs 
 go to see every town that we hear of? 
 
 Men. Till I find my brother, all towns are 
 alike to me : I must try in all places. 
 
 Mes. Why then, let 's even as long as we live 
 seek your brother: six years now have we 
 roamed about thus Istria, Hispania, Massylia, 
 Illyria, all the upper sea, all high Greece, all 
 haven-towns in Italy. I think if we had sought 
 a needle all this time we must needs have found 
 it, had it been above ground. It cannot be that 
 he is alive ; and to seek a dead man thus among 
 the living, what folly is it ! 
 
 Men. Yea, could I but once find any man 
 that could certainly inform me of his death, I 
 were satisfied; otherwise I can never desist 
 seeking: little knowest thou, Messenio, how 
 near my heart it goes. 
 
 Mes. This is washing of a blackamoor. Faith, 
 let 's go home, unless ye mean we should write 
 a story of our travel. 
 
 Men. Sirrah, no more of these saucy speeches. 
 I perceive I must teach you how to serve me, 
 not to rule me. 
 
 Mes. Ay, so; now it appears what it is to be 
 
 a servant. Well, I must speak my conscience. 
 Do ye hear, sir] Faith I must tell you one thing: 
 when I look into the lean estate of your purse, 
 and consider advisedly of your decaying stock. 
 I hold it very needful to be drawing homeward, 
 lest in looking your brother we quite lose our- 
 selves. For this assure yourself, this town, Epi- 
 damnum, is a place of outrageous expenses, ex- 
 ceeding in all riot and lasciviousness ; and, I 
 hear, as full of ribalds, parasites, drunkards, 
 catchpoles, coney-catchers, and sycophants, as it 
 can hold. Then for courtezans, why here 's the 
 currentest stamp of them in the world. You 
 must not think here to scape with as light cost 
 as in other places. The very name shows the 
 nature ; no man comes hither sine damno. 
 
 Men. You say very well indeed : give me my 
 purse into mine own keeping, because I will so 
 be the safer, sine damno" 
 
 Steevens considered that the description 
 of Ephesus in ' The Comedy of Errors,' 
 
 " They say this town is full of cozenage," &c. 
 
 was derived from Warner's translation, where 
 " ribalds, parasites, drunkards, catchpoles, 
 coney-catchers, sycophants, and courtezans," 
 are found ; the voluptarii, potatores, syco- 
 phantce, palpatores, and meretrices of Plautus. 
 But surely the " jugglers," " sorcerers," 
 " witches," of Shakspere are not these. With 
 his exquisite judgment, he gave Ephesus 
 more characteristic " liberties of sin." The 
 cook of the courtezan in Plautus first mis- 
 takes the wandering brother for the profli- 
 gate of Epidamnum. Erotium next encoun- 
 ters him, and with her he dines ; and, leaving 
 her, takes charge of a cloak, which the Me- 
 nEechmus of Epidamnum had given her. In 
 ' The Comedy of Errors' the stranger brother 
 dines with the wife of him of Ephesus. The 
 Parasite next meets with the wanderer, and, 
 being enraged that the dinner is finished in 
 his absence, resolves to disclose the infideli- 
 ties of Mensechmus to his jealous wife. The 
 ' errors" proceed, in the maid of Erotium 
 bringing him a chain which she says he had 
 stolen from his wife : he is to cause it to be 
 made heavier and of a newer fashion. The 
 traveller goes his way with the cloak and 
 the chain. The jealous wife and the Parasite 
 lie in wait for the faithless husband, who, 
 the Parasite reports, is carrying the cloak to 
 
114 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEKE. 
 
 [BOOK in. 
 
 the dyer's ; and they fall with their re- 
 proaches upon the Menaechnius of Epidam- 
 num, who left the courtezan to attend to his 
 business. A scene of violence ensues ; and 
 the bewildered man repairs to Erotium for 
 his dinner. He meets with reproaches only ; 
 for he knows nothing of the cloak and the 
 chain. The stranger Mensechmus, who has 
 the cloak and chain, encounters the wife of 
 his brother, and of course he utterly denies 
 any knowledge of her. Her father comes to 
 her assistance, upon her hastily sending for 
 him. He first reproaches his daughter for 
 her suspicions of her husband, and her 
 shrewish temper : Luciana reasons in a 
 somewhat similar way with Adriana, in ' The 
 Comedy of Errors ;' and the Abbess is more 
 earnest in her condemnation of the com- 
 plaining wife. The scene in Plautus wants 
 all the elevation that we find in Shakspere ; 
 and the old man seems to think that the 
 wife has little to grieve for, as long as she 
 has food, clothes, and servants. Mensechmus, 
 the traveller, of course cannot comprehend 
 all this ; and the father and daughter agree 
 that he is mad, and send for a doctor. He 
 escapes from the discipline which is pre- 
 paring for him ; and the doctor's assistants 
 lay hold of Menaechmus, the citizen. He is 
 rescued by Messenio, the servant of the tra- 
 veller, who mistakes him for his master, and 
 begs his freedom. The servant, going to his 
 inn, meets with his real master ; and, while 
 disputing with him, the Menaechmus of 
 Epidamnum joins them. Of course, the 
 eclaircisstment is the natural consequence of 
 the presence of both upon the same scene. 
 The brothers resolve to leave Epidamnum 
 together ; the citizen making proclamation 
 that he will sell all his goods, and adding, 
 with his accustomed loose notions of conjugal 
 duty, 
 
 " Venibit uxor quoque etiam, si quis emptor 
 venerit." 
 
 Hazlitt has said, " This comedy is. taken 
 very much from ' The Meneechmi' of Plautus, 
 and is not an improvement on it." We 
 think he is wrong in both assertions. 
 
 We have noticed some of the anachronisms 
 which the translator of Plautus, in Slut! 
 
 spere's time, did not hesitate to introduce 
 into his performance. W. W. did not do 
 this ignorantly ; for he was a learned person ; 
 and, we are told in an address of ' The Printer 
 to his Readers,' had " divers of this poet's 
 comedies Englished, for the use and delight 
 of his private friends, who in Plautus' own 
 words are not able to understand them." 
 There was, no doubt, a complete agreement 
 as to the principle of such anachronisms in 
 the writers of Shakspere's day. They em- 
 ployed the conventional ideas of their own 
 time, instead of those which properly be- 
 longed to the date of their story ; they 
 translated images as well as words ; they 
 were addressing uncritical readers and spec- 
 tators, and they thought it necessary to 
 make themselves intelligible by speaking of 
 familiar instead of recondite things. Thus 
 W. W. not only gives us mary-bone pies and 
 potatoes, instead of the complicated messes 
 of the Roman sensualist, but he talks of 
 constables and toll-gatherers, Bedlam fools 
 and claret. In Douce's ' Essay on the Ana- 
 chronisms and some other Incongruities of 
 Shakspere,' the offences of our poet in ' The 
 Comedy of Errors ' are thus summed up : 
 " In the ancient city of Ephesus we have 
 ducats, marks, and guilders, and the Abbess 
 of a Nunnery. Mention is also made of 
 several modern European kingdoms and of 
 America ; of Henry the Fourth of France*, 
 of Turkish tapestry, a rapier, and a striking 
 clock ; of Lapland sorcerers, Satan, and even 
 of Adam and Noah. In one place Antipholus 
 calls himself a Christian. As we are un- 
 acquainted with the immediate source whence 
 this play was derived, it is impossible to 
 ascertain whether Shakspere is responsible 
 for these anachronisms." The ducats, marks, 
 guilders, tapestry, rapier, striking-clock, and 
 Lapland sorcerers belong precisely to the 
 same class of anachronisms as those we have 
 already exhibited from the pen of the trans- 
 lator of Plautus. Had Shakspere used the 
 names of Grecian or Roman coins, his audi- 
 ence would not have understood him. Such 
 matters have nothing whatever to do with 
 the period of a dramatic action. But we 
 
 * Mention is certainly not made of Henry IV. ; there is a 
 SU]>IM>SI'<I allusion to him. 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 
 
 115 
 
 think Douce was somewhat hasty in pro- 
 claiming that the Abbess of a Nunnery, Satan, 
 Adam and Noah, and Christian were ana- 
 chronisms, in connexion with the " ancient 
 city of Ephesus." 
 
 Douce, seeing that 'The Comedy of Errors' 
 was suggested by 'The Menaechmi' of Plau- 
 tus, considers, no doubt, that Shakspere in- 
 tended to place his action at the same period 
 as the Roman play. It is manifest to us that 
 be intended precisely the contrary. 'The 
 Menaechmi' contains invocations in great 
 number to the ancient divinities; Jupiter 
 and Apollo are here familiar words. From 
 the first line of 'The Comedy of Errors' to 
 the last we have not the slightest allusion 
 to the classical mythology. Was there not 
 a time, then, even in the ancient city of 
 Ephesus, when there might be an Abbess 
 men might call themselves Christians and 
 Satan, Adam, and Noah might be names of 
 common use ? We do not mean to affirm that 
 Shakspere intended to select the Ephesus of 
 Christianity the great city of churches and 
 councils for the dwelling-place of Anti- 
 pholus, any more than we think that Duke 
 Solinus was a real personage that "Duke 
 Menaphon, his most renowned uncle," ever 
 hadany existence or that even his name 
 could be found in any story more trust- 
 worthy than that of Greene's 'Arcadia.' The 
 truth is, that, in the same way that Ardennes 
 was a sort of terra incognita of chivalry, the 
 poets of Shakspere's time had no hesitation 
 in placing the fables of the romantic ages in 
 classical localities, leaving the periods and 
 the names perfectly undefined and unap- 
 preciable. Who will undertake to fix a period 
 for the action of Sir Philip Sidney's great 
 romance, when the author has conveyed his 
 reader into the fairy or pastoral land, and 
 informed him " what manner of life the in- 
 habitants of that region lead 1 " We cannot 
 open a page of Sidney's 'Arcadia' without 
 being struck with what we are accustomed 
 to call anachronisms, and these from a very 
 severe critic, who, in his 'Defence of Poesy,' 
 denounces with merciless severity all viola- 
 tion of the unities of the drama. One example 
 will suffice : Histor and Damon sing a 
 "double sestine." The classical spirit that 
 
 pervades the following lines belongs to the 
 " true Arcadian" age : 
 
 " Mercury, foregoer to the evening, 
 heavenly huntress of the savage mountains, 
 lovely star entitled of the morning, 
 While that my voice doth fill these woful 
 
 valleys, 
 
 Vouchsafe your silent ears to plaining music, 
 Which oft hath echo tired in secret forests." 
 
 But to what period belongs the following 
 lines of the ' Phaleuciacs,' which Zelmene 
 sings, whose voice "strains the canary- 
 birds?" 
 
 " Her cannons be her eyes, mine eyes the walls 
 
 be, 
 
 Which at first volley gave too open entry, 
 Nor rampier did abide; my brain was up- 
 
 blown, 
 Undermined with a speech, the piercer of 
 
 thoughts." 
 
 Warton has prettily said, speaking of Spencer, 
 " exactness in his poem would have been like 
 the cornice which a painter introduced in the 
 grotto of Calypso." Those who would define 
 everything in poetry are the makers of cor- 
 niced grottos. As we are not desirous of be- 
 longing to this somewhat obsolete fraternity, 
 to which even Warton himself affected to be- 
 long when he wrote what is truly an apology 
 for 'The Fairy Queen,' we will leave our 
 readers to decide whether Duke Solinus 
 reigned at Ephesus before " the great temple, 
 after having risen with increasing splendour 
 from seven repeated misfortunes, was finally 
 burnt by the Goths in their third naval in- 
 vasion;"* or whether he presided over the 
 decaying city, somewhat nearer to the period 
 when Justinian " filled Constantinople with 
 its statues, and raised his church of St. So- 
 phia on its columns ; " t or, lastly, whether 
 he approached the period of its final desola- 
 tion, when the " candlestick was removed out 
 of its place," and the Christian Ephesus be- 
 came the Mohammedan Aiasaluck. 
 
 But, decide as our readers may and if 
 they decide not at all they will not derive 
 less satisfaction from the perusal of this 
 drama it has become necessary for the de- 
 
 * Gibbon, chap. x. 
 
 f Chandler. 
 
116 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK in. 
 
 mands of the modern theatre that the scenery 
 and costume should belong to some definite 
 period. This desire for exactness is, to a 
 certain extent, an evil; and it is an evil 
 which necessarily belongs to what, at first 
 appearance, is a manifest improvement in the 
 modern stage. The exceeding beauty and 
 accuracy of scenery and dress in our days is 
 destructive, in some degree, to the poetical 
 truth of Shakspere's dramas. It takes them 
 out of the region of the broad and universal, 
 to impair their freedom and narrow their 
 range by a topographical and chronological 
 minuteness. When the word "Thebes"* 
 was exhibited upon a painted board to Shak- 
 spere's audience, their thoughts of that city 
 were in subjection to the descriptions of the 
 poet ; but, if a pencil as magical as that of 
 Stanfield had shown them a Thebes that the 
 child might believe to be a reality, the words 
 to which they listened would have been com- 
 paratively uninteresting, in the easier gratifi- 
 cation of the senses instead of the intellect. 
 Poetry must always have something of the 
 vague and indistinct in its character. The 
 exact has its own province. Let science ex- 
 plore the wilds of Africa, and map out for us 
 where there are mighty rivers and verdant 
 plains, in the places where the old geo- 
 graphers gave us pictures of lions and ele- 
 phants to designate undiscovered desolation. 
 But let poetry still have its undefined coun- 
 tries ; let Arcadia remain unsurveyed ; let us 
 not be too curious to inquire whether Dromio 
 was an ancient heathen or a Christian, nor 
 whether Bottom the weaver lived precisely 
 at the time when Theseus did battle with 
 the Centaurs. 
 
 Coleridge has furnished the philosophy of 
 all just criticism upon ' The Comedy of 
 Errors' in a note, which we shall copy en- 
 tire from his 'Literary Remains:' 
 
 " The myriad-minded man, our, and all 
 men's Shakspere, has in this piece presented 
 us with a legitimate farce in exactest con- 
 sonance with the philosophical principles 
 and character of farce, as distinguished from 
 comedy and from entertainments. A proper 
 farce is mainly distinguished from comedy 
 by the licence allowed, and even required, in 
 
 * S?e Sydney's ' Defence of Poesy.' 
 
 the fable, in order to produce strange and 
 laughable situations. The story need not be 
 probable, it is enough that it is possible. A 
 comedy would scarcely allow even the two 
 Antipholuses ; because, although there have 
 been instances of almost indistinguishable 
 likeness in two persons, yet these are mere 
 individual accidents, casus ludentis naturce, 
 and the verum will not excuse the inveri- 
 simile. But farce dares add the two Dro- 
 mios, and is justified in so doing by the laws 
 of its end and constitution. In a word, 
 farces commence in a postulate, which must 
 be granted." 
 
 This postulate granted, it is impossible to 
 imagine any dramatic action to be managed 
 with more skill than that of ' The Comedy 
 of Errors.' Hazlitt has pronounced a cen- 
 sure upon the play which is in reality a 
 commendation: "The curiosity excited is 
 certainly very considerable, though not of 
 the most pleasing kind. We are teased as 
 with a riddle, which, notwithstanding, we 
 try to solve." To excite the curiosity, by 
 presenting a riddle which we should try to 
 solve, was precisely what Plautus and Shak- 
 spere intended to do. Our poet has made 
 the riddle more complex by the introduction 
 of the two Dromios, and has therefore increased 
 the excitement of our curiosity. But whe- 
 ther this excitement be pleasing or annoying, 
 and whether the riddle amuse or tease us, 
 entirely depends upon the degree of atten- 
 tion which the reader or spectator of the 
 farce is disposed to bestow upon it. Hazlitt 
 adds, "/In reading the play, from the same- 
 ness of the names of the two Antipholuses 
 and the two Dromios, as well as 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 cha- 
 racters distinct in the mind. And again, on 
 the stage, either the complete similarity of 
 their persons and dress must produce the 
 same perplexity whenever they first enter, 
 or the identity of appearance which the 
 story supposes will be destroyed. We still, 
 however, having a clue to the difficulty, can 
 tell which is which, merely from the con- 
 tradictions which arise as soon as the dif- 
 ferent parties begin to speak; and we are 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 
 
 11 
 
 indemnified for the perplexity and blunders 
 into which we are thrown, by seeing others 
 thrown into greater and almost inextricable 
 ones." Hazlitt has here, almost undesign- 
 edly, pointed out the source of the pleasure 
 which, with an " effort of attention," not a 
 'painful effort," we think, a reader or spec- 
 tator of 'The Comedy of Errors' is sure to 
 receive from this drama. We have " a clue 
 to the difficulty;" we know more than the 
 actors in the drama; we may be a little 
 perplexed, but the deep perplexity of the 
 characters is a constantly increasing triumph 
 to us. We have never seen the play; but 
 one who has seen it thus describes the effect : 
 "Until I saw it on the stage (not mangled 
 into an opera), I had not imagined the ex- 
 tent of the mistakes, the drollery of them, 
 their unabated continuance, till, at the end of 
 the fourth act, they reached their climax 
 with the assistance of Dr. Pinch, when the 
 audience in their laughter rolled about like 
 waves."* Mr. Brown adds, with great truth, 
 " To the strange contrast of grave astonish- 
 ment among the actors, with their laughable 
 situations in the eyes of the spectators, who 
 are let into the secret, is to be ascribed the 
 irresistible effect." The spectators, the read- 
 ers, have the clue, are let into the secret, by 
 the story of the first scene. Nothing can be 
 more beautifully managed, or is altogether 
 more Shaksperean, than the narrative of 
 -SSgeon : and that narrative is so clear and so 
 impressive, that the reader never forgets it 
 amidst all the errors and perplexities which 
 follow. The Duke, who, like the reader or 
 spectator, has heard the narrative, instantly 
 sees the real state of things when the denoue- 
 ment is approaching : 
 
 " Why, here begins his morning story right." 
 
 The reader or spectator has seen it all along, 
 certainly by an effort of attention, for 
 without the effort the characters would be 
 confounded like the vain shadows of a half- 
 waking dream; and, having seen it, it is 
 impossible, we think, that the constant readi- 
 ness of the reader or spectator to solve the 
 riddle should be other than pleasurable. It 
 
 * ' Shakespeare's Autobiographical Poems,' &e. liy 
 Charles Armitage Brown. 
 
 appears to us that every one of an audience 
 of 'The Comedy of Errors,' who keeps his 
 eyes open, will, after he has become a little 
 familiar with the persons of the two Anti- 
 pholuses and the two Dromios, find out some 
 clue by which he can detect a difference be- 
 tween each, even without " the practical con- 
 tradictions which arise as soon as the dif- 
 ferent parties begin to speak." Schlegel 
 says, " In such pieces we must always pre- 
 suppose, to give an appearance of truth to 
 the senses at least, that the parts by which 
 the misunderstandings are occasioned are 
 played with masks: and this the poet, no 
 doubt, observed." Whether masks, properly 
 so called, were used in Shakspere's time in 
 the representation of this play, we have some- 
 doubt. But, unquestionably, each pair of 
 persons selected to play the twins must be 
 of the same height, with such general re- 
 semblances of the features as may be made 
 to appear identical by the colour and false 
 hair of the tiring-room, and be dressed with 
 apparently perfect similarity. But let every 
 care be taken to make the deception perfect, 
 and yet the observing spectator will detect 
 a difference between each ; some peculiarity 
 of the voice, some "trick o' the eye," some 
 dissimilarity in gait, some minute variation 
 in dress. We once knew two adult twin-bro- 
 thers who might have played the Dromios 
 without the least aids from the arts of the 
 theatre. They were each stout, their stature 
 was the same, each had a sort of shuffle in 
 his walk, the voice of each was rough and 
 unmusical, and they each dressed without 
 any manifest peculiarity. One of them had 
 long been a resident in the country town 
 where we lived within a few doors of him, 
 and saw him daily ; the other came from a 
 distant county to stay with our neighbour. 
 Great was the perplexity. It was perfectly 
 impossible to distinguish between them, at 
 first, when they were apart; and we well 
 remember walking some distance with the 
 stranger, mistaking him for his brother, and 
 not discovering the mistake (which he hu- 
 moured) till we saw his total ignorance of 
 the locality. But after seeing this Dromio 
 ermticus a few times the perplexity was at 
 an end. There was a difference which was 
 
STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK in. i 
 
 palpable, though not exactly to be defined. 
 If the features were alike, their expression 
 was somewhat varied; if their figures were 
 the same, the one was somewhat more erect 
 than the other ; if their voices were similar, 
 the one had a different mode of accentuation 
 f i om the other ; if they each wore a blue coat 
 with brass buttons, the one was decidedly 
 more slovenly than the other in his general 
 appearance. If we had known them at all 
 intimately, we probably should have ceased 
 to think that the outward points of identity 
 were even greater than the points of differ- 
 ence. We should have, moreover, learned 
 the difference of their characters. It appears 
 to us, then, that as this farce of real life was 
 very soon at an end when we had become a 
 little familiar with the peculiarities in the 
 persons of those twin brothers, so the spec- 
 tator of ' The Comedy of Errors ' will very 
 ;-oon detect the differences of the Dromios 
 and Antipholuses ; and that, while his curio- 
 sity is kept alive by the effort of attention 
 which is necessary for this detection, the 
 riddle will not only not tease him, but its 
 perpetual solution will afford him the utmost 
 satisfaction. 
 
 But has not Shakspere himself furnished 
 a clue to the understanding of the Errors, by 
 his marvellous skill in the delineation of 
 character 1 Pope forcibly remarked that, if 
 our poet's dramas were printed without the 
 names of the persons represented being 
 attached to the individual speeches, we 
 should know who is speaking by his wonder- 
 ful discrimination in assigning to every 
 character appropriate modes of thought and 
 expression. It appears to us that this is 
 unquestionably the case with the characters 
 of each of the twin-brothers in ' The Comedy 
 of Errors.' 
 
 The Dromio of Syracuse is described by his 
 master as 
 
 " A trusty villain, sir ; that very oft, 
 When I am dull with care and melancholy, 
 Lightens my humour with his merry jests." 
 
 But the wandering Antipholus herein de- 
 scribes himself : he is a prey to " care and 
 melancholy." He has a holy purpose to 
 
 execute, which he has for years pursued 
 
 without success : 
 
 " He that commends me to mine own content 
 Commends me to the thing I cannot get. 
 I to the world am like a drop of water 
 That in the ocean seeks another drop." 
 
 Sedate, gentle, loving, the Antipholus of 
 Syracuse is one of Shakspere's amiable crea- 
 tions. He beats his slave according to the 
 custom of slave-beating ; but he laughs with 
 him and is kind to him almost at the same 
 moment. He is an enthusiast, for he falls 
 in love with Luciana in the midst of his 
 perplexities, and his lips utter some of the 
 most exquisite poetry : 
 
 "Oh, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, 
 
 To drown me in thy sister flood of tears; 
 Sing, syren, for thyself, and I will dote : 
 Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden 
 hairs." 
 
 But he is accustomed to habits of self-com- 
 mand, and he resolves to tear himself away 
 even from the syren : 
 " But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong, 
 1 11 stop mine ears against the mermaid's 
 
 song." 
 
 As his perplexities increase, he ceases to be 
 angry with his slave : 
 " The fellow is distract, and so am I; 
 And here we wander in illusions : 
 Some blessed power deliver us from hence ! " 
 
 Unlike the Mensechmus Sosicles of Plautus 
 he refuses to dine with the courtezan. He 
 is firm yet courageous when assaulted by the 
 Merchant. When the Errors are clearing 
 up, he modestly adverts to his love for 
 Luciana ; and we feel that he will be happy. 
 Antipholus of Ephesus is decidedly inferior 
 to his brother in the quality of his intellect 
 and the tone of his morals. He is scarcely 
 justified in calling his wife " shrewish." Her 
 fault is a too sensitive affection for him. 
 Her feelings are most beautifully described 
 in that address to her supposed husband : 
 
 " Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine : 
 Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine; 
 Whose weakness, married to thy stronger 
 
 state, 
 Makes me with thy strength to communicate : 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 
 
 119 
 
 If aught possess thee from me, it is dross, 
 Usurping ity, briar, or idle moss." 
 
 The classical image of the elm and the vine 
 would have been sufficient to express the 
 feelings of a fond and confiding woman ; the 
 exquisite addition of the 
 
 " Usurping ivy, briar, or idle moss," 
 
 conveys the prevailing uneasiness of a loving 
 and doubting wife. Antipholus of Ephesus 
 has somewhat hard measure dealt to him 
 throughout the progress of the Errors ; but 
 he deserves it. His doors are shut against 
 him, it is true ; in his impatience he would 
 force his way into his house, against the 
 remonstrances of the good Balthazar : 
 
 " Your long experience of her wisdom, 
 Her sober virtue, years, and modesty, 
 Plead on her part some cause to you un- 
 known." 
 
 He departs, but not " in patience ; " he is 
 content to dine from home, but not at " the 
 Tiger." His resolve 
 
 " That chain will I bestow 
 (Be it for nothing but to spite my wife) 
 Upon mine hostess" 
 
 would not have been made by his brother in 
 a similar situation. He has spited his wife ; 
 he has dined with the courtezan. But he is 
 not satisfied : 
 
 " Go thou 
 
 And buy a rope's end ; that will I bestow 
 Among my wife and her confederates." 
 We pity him not when he is arrested, nor 
 when he receives the " rope's end " instead 
 of his " ducats." His furious passion with 
 his wife, and the foul names he bestows on 
 her, are quite in character ; and when he 
 has 
 
 " Beaten the maids a-row, and bound the doctor," 
 
 we cannot have a suspicion that the doctor 
 was practising on the wrong patient. In a 
 word, we cannot doubt that, although the 
 Antipholus of Ephesus may be a brave sol- 
 dier, who took " deep scars " to save his 
 prince's life, and that he really has a right 
 to consider himself much injured, he is 
 strikingly opposed to the Antipholus of 
 Syracuse ; that he is neither sedate, nor 
 
 gentle, nor truly-loving; that he has no 
 habits of self-command ; that his tempera- 
 ment is sensual ; and that, although the 
 riddle of his perplexity is solved, he will 
 still find causes of unhappiness, and enter- 
 tain 
 
 " a huge infectious troop 
 Of pale distemperatures." 
 
 The characters of the two Dromios are not 
 so distinctly marked in their points of dif- 
 ference, at the first aspect. They each have 
 their " merry jests ;" they each bear a beat- 
 ing with wonderful good temper ; they each 
 cling faithfully to their master's interests. 
 But there is certainly a marked difference in 
 the quality of their mirth. The Dromio of 
 Ephesus is precise and antithetical, striving 
 to utter his jests with infinite gravity and 
 discretion, and approaching a pun with a sly 
 solemnity that is prodigiously diverting : 
 
 " The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit; 
 The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell ; 
 My mistress made it one upon my cheek : 
 She is so hot, because the meat is cold." 
 
 Again : 
 
 " I have some marks of yours upon my pate, 
 Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoul- 
 ders, 
 But not a thousand marks between you both." 
 
 He is a formal humorist, and, we have no 
 doubt, spoke with a drawling and monoto- 
 nous accent, fit for his part in such a dia- 
 logue as this : 
 
 "Ant. E. Were not my doors lock'd up, and I 
 
 shut outl 
 Dro. E. Perdy, your doors were lock'd, and 
 
 you shut out. 
 Ant. E. And did not she herself revile me 
 
 there? 
 Dro. E. Sans fable, she herself reviled you 
 
 there. 
 Ant. E. Did not her kitchen-maid rail, taunt, 
 
 and scorn me? 
 Dro. E. Certes, she did ; the kitchen-vestal 
 
 scorn'd you." 
 
 On the contrary, the "merry jests " of Dro- 
 mio of Syracuse all come from the outpour- 
 ing of his gladsome heart. He is a creature 
 of prodigious animal spirits, running over 
 
120 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK in. 
 
 with fun and queer similitudes. He makes 
 not the slightest attempt at arranging a 
 joke, but utters what comes uppermost with 
 irrepressible volubility. He is an untutored 
 wit, and, we have no doubt, gave his tongue 
 such active exercise, by hurried pronuncia- 
 tion and variable emphasis, as could alone 
 make his long descriptions endurable by his 
 sensitive master. Look at the dialogue in 
 the second scene of Act II., where Antipholus, 
 after having repressed his jests, is drawn 
 into a tilting-match of words with him, in 
 which the merry slave has clearly the victory. 
 Look, again, at his description of the "kitchen- 
 wench," coarse, indeed, in parts, but alto- 
 gether irresistibly droll. The twin-brother 
 was quite incapable of such a flood of fun. | 
 
 Again, what a prodigality of wit is displayed 
 in his description of the bailiff! His epi- 
 thets are inexhaustible. Each of the Dromios 
 is admirable in his way : but we think that 
 he of Syracuse is as superior to the twin- 
 slave of Ephesus as our old friend Launce is 
 to Speed, in ' The Two Gentlemen of Verona.' 
 These distinctions between the Antipholuses 
 and Dromios have not, as far as we know, 
 been before pointed out ; but they certainly 
 do exist, and appear to us to be defined by 
 the great master of character with singular 
 force as well as delicacy. Of course the 
 characters of the twins could not be violently 
 contrasted, for that would have destroyed 
 the illusion. They must still 
 " Go hand in hand, not one before another." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 LOVE'S LABOUR 'S LOST*. 
 
 THIS play was one of those published in 
 Shakspere's lifetime. The first edition ap- 
 peared in 1598, under the following title: 
 1 A pleasant conceited Comedie, called Loues 
 Labors Lost. As it was presented before 
 her Highnes this last Christmas. Newly 
 corrected and augmented by W. Shakespere.' 
 We have seen, from the title of the first 
 edition of ' Love's Labour's Lost,' that, when 
 it was presented before Queen Elizabeth, at 
 the Christmas of 1597, it had been "newly 
 corrected and augmented." As no edition 
 of the comedy, before it was corrected and 
 augmented, is known to exist (though, as 
 in the case of the unique ' Hamlet ' of 1603, 
 
 * Low's Labour 's Lost. The title of this play stands as 
 follows in the folio of 1623: ' Loues Labour's Lost.' The 
 modes in which the genitive case and the contraction of 
 w after a substantive are printed in the titles of other plays 
 j in this e lition, and in some of the earlier copies, lead us to 
 | believe that the author intended to call his play ' Love's 
 Labour is Lost.' The apostrophe is not given as the mark 
 of the genitive case in these instances' The Winters Tale,' 
 ' A Midsummer Nights Dream' (so printed). But, when 
 the verb is forms a part of the title, the apostrophe is in- 
 troduced, as in 'All 's Well that Ends Well.' We do not 
 think ourselves justified, therefore, in printing either 
 ' Love's Labour Lost,' or ' Love's Labours Lost,' as some 
 have recommended. 
 
 one may some day be discovered), we have 
 no proof that the few allusions to temporary 
 circumstances, which are supposed in some 
 degree to fix the date of the play, may not 
 apply to the augmented copy only. Thus, 
 when Moth refers to " the dancing horse " 
 who was to teach Armado how to reckon 
 what "deuce-ace amounts to," the fact that 
 Banks's horse first appeared in London in 
 1589 does not prove that the original play 
 might not have been written before 1589. 
 This date gives it an earlier appearance than 
 Malone would assign to it, who first settled 
 it as 1591, and afterwards as 1594. A sup- 
 posed allusion to ' The Metamorphosis of 
 Ajax,' by Sir John Harrington, printed in 
 1596, is equally unimportant with reference 
 to the original composition of the play. The 
 " finished representation of colloquial excel- 
 lence,"* in the beginning of the fifth act, 
 is supposed to be an imitation of a passage 
 in Sidney's ( Arcadia,' first printed in 1590. 
 The passage might have been introduced in 
 the augmented copy ; to say nothing of the 
 fact that the f Arcadia ' was known in inanu- 
 
 * Johnson. 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 LOVE'S LABOUR 'S LOST. 
 
 121 
 
 script before it was printed. Lastly, the 
 mask in the fifth act, where the King and 
 his lords appear in Russian habits, and the 
 allusions to Muscovites, which this mask pro- 
 duces, are supposed by Warburton to have 
 been suggested by the public concern for the 
 settlement of a treaty of commerce with 
 Russia in 1591. But the learned commen- 
 tator overlooks a passage in Hall's 'Chro- 
 nicle,' which shows that a mask of Muscovites 
 was a court recreation in the time of Henry 
 VIII. 
 
 In the extrinsic evidence, therefore, which 
 this comedy supplies, there is nothing what- 
 ever to disprove the belief which we enter- 
 tain that, before it had been " corrected and 
 augmented," l Love's Labour 's Lost ' was one 
 of the plays produced by Shakspere about 
 1589, when, being only twenty-five years of 
 age, he was a joint-proprietor of the Black- 
 friars theatre. The intrinsic evidence ap- 
 pears to us entirely to support this opinion ; 
 and, as this evidence involves several curious 
 particulars of literary history, we have to 
 request the reader's indulgence whilst we 
 examine it somewhat in detail. 
 
 Coleridge, who always speaks of this 
 comedy as a "juvenile drama" "a young 
 author's first work," says, " The characters 
 in this play are either impersonated out of 
 Shakspere's own multiformity by imaginative 
 self-position, or out of such as a country town 
 and a schoolboy's observation might supply."* 
 For this production, Shakspere, it is pre- 
 sumed, found neither characters nor plot in 
 any previous romance or drama. " I have 
 not hitherto discovered," says Steevens, "any 
 novel on which this comedy appears to have 
 been founded: and yet the story of it has 
 most of the features of an ancient romance." 
 Steevens might have more correctly said, 
 that the story has most of the features which 
 would be derived from an acquaintance 
 with the ancient romances. The action of 
 the comedy, and the higher actors, are the 
 creations of one who was imbued with the 
 romantic spirit of the middle ages who was 
 conversant " with their Courts of Love, and 
 all that lighter drapery of chivalry, which 
 engaged even mighty kings with a sort of 
 
 * 'Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 102. 
 
 serio-comic interest, and may well be sup- 
 posed to have occupied more completely the 
 smaller princes." t Our poet himself, in 
 this play, alludes to the Spanish romances of 
 chivalry : 
 
 " This child of fancy, that Armado hight, 
 
 For interim to our studies, shall relate, 
 In high-born words, the worth of many a 
 
 knight 
 
 From tawny Spain, lost in the world's de- 
 bate." 
 
 With these materials, and out of his own 
 " imaginative self-position," might Shakspere 
 have readily produced the King and Princess, 
 the lords and ladies, of this comedy ; and he 
 might have caught the tone of the court of 
 Elizabeth, the wit, the play upon words, 
 the forced attempts to say and do clever 
 things, without any actual contact with 
 the society which was accessible to him after 
 his fame conferred distinction even upon the 
 highest and most accomplished patron. The 
 more ludicrous characters of the drama were 
 unquestionably within the range of "a school- 
 boy's observation." 
 
 And first, of Don Armado, whom Scott calls 
 " the Euphuist."! The historical events 
 which are interwoven with the plot of Scott's 
 ' Monastery ' must have happened about 1562 
 or 1563, before the authority of the unhappy 
 Queen of Scots was openly trodden under 
 foot by Murray and her rebellious lords ; and 
 she had at least the personal liberty, if not 
 the free will, of a supreme ruler. Our great 
 novelist is, as is well known, not very exact 
 in the matter of dates ; and in the present 
 instance his licence is somewhat extravagant. 
 Explaining the source of the affectations of 
 his Euphuist, Sir Piercie Shafton, he says 
 " it was about this period that ' the only rare 
 poet of his time, the witty, comical, face- 
 tiously-quick, and quickly-facetious John 
 Lyly he that sate at Apollo's table, and to 
 whom Phoebus gave a wreath of his own 
 bays without snatching ' he, in short, who 
 wrote that singularly coxcombical work 
 
 t ' Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 104. 
 + Introduction to ' The Monastery.' 
 Extract from Blount, the editor of six of Lyly's plays, 
 
122 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 in. 
 
 called ' Euphues and his England '' was in 
 the very zenith of his absurdity and reputa- 
 tion. The quaint, forced, and unnatural 
 style which he introduced by his ' Anatomy 
 of Wit ' had a fashion as rapid as it was 
 momentary; all the court ladies were his 
 scholars, and to parler Euphuisme was as 
 necessary a qualification to a courtly gallant 
 as those of understanding how to use his 
 rapier, or to dance a measure."* This state- 
 ment is somewhat calculated to mislead the 
 student of our literary history as to the 
 period of the commencement, and of the 
 duration, of Lyly's influence upon the struc- 
 ture of " polite conversation." ' Euphues, 
 the Anatomy of Wit,' was first published in 
 1580; and 'Euphues and his England' in 
 1581 some eighteen or twenty years after 
 the time when Sir Piercie Shafton (the Eng- 
 glish Catholic who surrendered himself to 
 the champions of John Knox and the Re- 
 formation) explained to Mary of Avenel the 
 merits of ' The Anatomy of Wit ' " that 
 all-to-be-unparalleled volume that quintes- 
 sence of human wit that treasury of quaint 
 invention that exquisitely-pleasant-to-read 
 and inevitably-necessary-to-be-remembered 
 manual of all that is worthy to be known." t 
 Nor was the fashion of Euphuism as mo- 
 mentary as Scott represents it to have been. 
 The prevalence of this " spurious and un- 
 natural mode of conversation"! is alluded 
 to in Jonson's 'Everyman out of his Hu- 
 mour,' first acted in 1599; and it forms one 
 of the chief objects of the satire of rare Ben's 
 ' Cynthia's Revels,' first acted in 1600. But 
 the most important question with reference 
 to Shakspere's employment of the affected 
 phraseology which he puts into the mouth of 
 Armado is, whether this " quaint, forced, and 
 unnatural style " was an imitation of that 
 said to be introduced by Lyiy; if, indeed, 
 Lyly did more than reduce to a system those 
 innovations of language which had obtained 
 a currency amongst us for some time pre- 
 vious to the appearance of his books. Blount, 
 it is true, says "Our nation are in his 
 debt for a new English which he taught them. 
 
 * ' Monastery,' chap. xiv. 
 
 t Ibid. 
 
 Gifford's ' Works of Ben Jonson,' vol. ii. p. 2.1 
 
 p. 250. 
 
 ' Euphues and his England ' began first that 
 language." It is somewhat difficult pre- 
 cisely to define what " that language " is ; 
 but the language of Armado is not very dif- 
 ferent from that of Andrew Borde, the phy- 
 sician, who, according to Hearne, " gave rise 
 to the name of Merry Andrew, the fool of 
 the mountebank stage." His 'Breviary of 
 Health,' first printed in 1547, begins thus : 
 "Egregious doctours and maysters of the 
 eximious and archane science of physicke, of 
 your urbanitie exasperate not your selve." 
 Nor is Armado's language far removed from 
 the example of "dark words and ink-horn 
 terms" exhibited by Wilson, in his 'Arte of 
 Rhetorike,' first printed in 1553, where he 
 gives a letter thus devised by a Lincolnshire 
 man for a void benefice : " Ponderyng, ex- 
 pendyng, and revolutyng with myself, your 
 ingent affabilitie, and ingenious capacitie for 
 mundane affaires, I cannot but celebrate and 
 extoll your magnificall dexteritie above all 
 other. For how could you have adapted 
 suche illustrate prerogative, and dominicall 
 superioritie, if the fecunditie of your ingenie 
 had not been so fertile and wonderfull preg- 
 naunt?"|| In truth, Armado, the braggart, 
 and Holof ernes th'e pedant, both talk in this 
 vein; though the schoolmaster may lean 
 more to the hard words of Lexiphanism, and 
 the fantastic traveller to the quips and 
 cranks of Euphuism. Our belief is, that, 
 although Shakspere might have been familiar 
 with Lyly's ' Euphues' when he wrote 'Love's 
 Labour 's Lost,' he did not, in Armado, point 
 at the fashion of the court " to parley Eu- 
 phuism."^" The courtiers in this comedy, be 
 it observed, speak, when they are wearing an 
 artificial character, something approaching 
 to this language, but not the identical lan- 
 guage. They, indeed, "trust to speeches 
 penn'd " they " woo in rhyme " they em- 
 ploy 
 
 " Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, 
 Three-pil'd hyperboles;" 
 
 they exhibit a "constant striving after logical 
 precision, and subtle opposition of thoughts, 
 
 Quoted in Warton's 'History of English Poetry,' 
 vol. iii. p.355: 1824. 
 || Ibid., vol. iv. p. 160. 
 *[ Blount. 
 
r 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 LOVE S LABOUR S LOST. 
 
 123 
 
 together with the making the most of every 
 conception or image, by expressing it under 
 the least expected property belonging to it."* 
 But of no one of them can it be said, " He 
 speal's not like a man of God's making." 
 Ben Jonson, on the contrary, when, in ' Cyn- 
 thia's Revels,' he satirized '" the special foun- 
 tain of manners, the court," expressly makes 
 the courtiers talk the very jargon of Euphu- 
 ism ; as for example : " You know I call 
 madam Philautia my Honour ; and she calls 
 me her Ambition. Now, when I meet her in 
 the presence anon, I will come to her, and 
 say, Sweet Honour, I have hitherto contented 
 my sense with the lilies of your hand, but 
 now I will taste the roses of your lips ; and 
 withal kiss her : to which she cannot but 
 blushing answer, Nay, now you are too am- 
 bitious. And then do I reply, I cannot be 
 too ambitious of Honour, sweet lady." But 
 Armado, 
 
 " A refined traveller of Spain ; 
 A man in all the world's new fashion planted, 
 That hath a mint of phrases in his brain," 
 
 is the only man of "fire -new words." The 
 pedant even laughs at him as a "fanatical 
 phantasm." But such a man Shakspere 
 might have seen in his own country-town: 
 where, unquestionably, the schoolmaster and 
 the curate might also have nourished. If he 
 had found them in books, Wilson's * Rhetorike' 
 might as well have supplied the notion of 
 Armado and Holofernes, as Lyly's ' Euphues ' 
 of the one, or Florio's ' First Fruits ' of the 
 other. 
 
 Warburton, in his usual "discourse pe- 
 remptory," tells us, "by Holofernes is de- 
 signed a particular character, a pedant and 
 schoolmaster of our author's time, one John 
 Florio, a teacher of the Italian tongue in 
 London, who has given us a small Dictionary 
 of that language under the title of ' A World 
 of Words.'" What Warburton asserted 
 Farmer upheld. Florio, says Farmer, had 
 given the first affront, by saying, " the plays 
 that they play in England are neither right 
 comedies nor right tragedies, but representa- 
 tions of histories without any decorum." 
 Florio says this in his ' Second Fruites,' pub- 
 
 * Coleridge's ( Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 104. 
 
 lished in 1591. Now, if Shakspere felt him- 
 self aggrieved at this statement, which was 
 true enough of the English drama before his 
 time, he was betrayed by his desire for re- 
 venge into very unusual inconsistencies. For, 
 in truth, the making of a teacher of Italian 
 the prototype of a country schoolmaster, who, 
 whilst he lards his phrases with words of 
 Latin, as if he were construing with his class, 
 holds to the good old English pronunciation, 
 and abhors l - such rackers of orthography as to 
 speak dout, fine, when he should say doitbt" 
 &c., is such an absurdity as Shakspere, who 
 understood his art, would never have yielded 
 to through any instigation of caprice or pas- 
 sion. The probability is, that, when Shak- 
 spere drew Holofernes, whose name he found 
 in Rabelais*, he felt himself under consider- 
 able obligations to John Florio for having 
 given the world " his First Fruites ; which 
 yeelde familiar speech, merie proverbes, wittie 
 sentences, and golden sayings." This book 
 was printed in 1578. But, according to War- 
 burton, Florio, in 1598, in the preface to a 
 new edition of his ' V^orld of Words,' is fu- 
 rious upon Shakspere in the following pas- 
 sage : " There is another sort of leering curs, 
 that rather snarl than bite, whereof I apuld 
 instance in one, who, lighting on a good sonnet 
 of a gentleman's, a friend of mine, that loved 
 better to be a poet )than to be counted so, 
 called the author a rhymer. Let Aristo- 
 phanes and his comedians make plays, and 
 scour their mouths on Socrates, those very 
 mouths they make to vilify shall be the 
 means to amplify 1 his virtue." Warburton 
 maintains that the sonnet was Florio's own, 
 and that it was parodied in the " extemporal 
 epitaph on the death of the deer," beginning 
 
 "The praiseful princess pierced and prick'd a 
 pretty pleasing pricket." 
 
 This is very ingenious argument, but some- 
 what bold ; and it appears to us that Tho- 
 mas Wilson was just as likely to have sug- 
 gested the alliteration as John Florio. In 
 ' The Arte of Rhetorike,' which we have al- 
 ready quoted, we find this sentence : " Some 
 use over-muche repetition of one letter, as 
 
 * "De faict, 1'on luy ensegna ung grand docteur so 
 phiste, nomme' maistre Thubal Holoferne." Gargantua, 
 livre i. chap. xiv. 
 
124 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK 
 
 pitifull povertie prajeth for a penie, but 
 puffed presumpcion passeth not a point." 
 Indeed, there are many existing proofs of 
 the excessive prevalence of alliteration in 
 the end of the sixteenth century. Bishop 
 Andrews is notorious for it. Florio seems 
 to have been somewhat of a braggart, for he 
 always signs his name "Resolute John 
 Florio." But, according to the testimony of 
 Sir William Cornwallis, he was far above the 
 character of a fantastical pedant. Speaking of 
 his translation of Montaigne (the book which 
 has now acquired such interest by bearing 
 Shakspere's undoubted autograph), Sir Wil- 
 liam Cornwallis says, " Divers of his (Mon- 
 taigne's) pieces I have seen translated ; they 
 that understand both languages say very 
 well done ; and, I am able to say (if you will 
 take the word of ignorance), translated into 
 a style admitting as few idle words as our 
 language will endure."* Holofernes, the 
 pedant, who had " lived long on the alms- 
 basket of words" who had "been at a 
 great feast of languages and stolen the 
 scraps," was not the man to deserve the 
 praise of writing " a style admitting as few 
 idle words as our language will endure." 
 
 As far then as we have been able to trace, 
 the original comedy of ' Love's Labour 's 
 Lost' might have been produced by Shak- 
 spere without any personal knowledge of 
 the court language of Euphuism, without 
 any acquaintance with John Florio, and 
 with a design only to ridicule those extra- 
 vagances which were opposed to the maxim 
 of Roger Ascham, the most unpedantic of 
 schoolmasters, "to speak as the common people 
 do, to think as wise men do."t The further 
 intrinsic evidence that this comedy was a 
 very early production is most satisfactory. 
 Coleridge has a very acute remark (which in 
 our minds is worth all that has been written 
 about the learning of Shakspere) as to his 
 early literary habits : " It is not unimport- 
 ant to notice how strong a presumption the 
 diction and allusions of this play afford, that, 
 though Shakspere's acquirements in the 
 dead languages might not be such as we 
 suppose in a learned education, his habits 
 had, nevertheless, been scholastic, and those 
 
 * Essays. 1GOO. f ' Toxophilus. 
 
 of a student. For a young author's first 
 work almost always bespeaks his recent pur- 
 suits, and his first observations of life are 
 either drawn from the immediate employ- 
 ments of his youth, and from the characters 
 and images most deeply impressed on his 
 mind in the situations in which those em- 
 ployments had placed him ; or else they 
 are fixed on such objects and occurrences m 
 the world as are easily connected with, and 
 seem to bear upon, his studies and the 
 hitherto exclusive subjects of his medita- 
 tions." The frequent rhymes, the alter- 
 nate verses, the familiar metre which has 
 been called doggrel (but which Anstey and 
 Moore have made classical by wit, and by 
 fun even more agreeable than wit) lines 
 such as 
 
 " His face's own margent did quote such amazes, 
 That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with 
 
 the sonnets full of quaint conceits, or run- 
 ning off into the most playful anacreontics, 
 the skilful management of the pedantry, 
 with a knowledge far beyond the pedantry, 
 and the happy employment of the ancient 
 mythology, all justify Coleridge's belief 
 that the materials of this comedy were 
 drawn from the immediate employments of 
 Shakspere's youth. Still the play, when 
 augmented and corrected, might have re- 
 ceived many touches derived from the power 
 which he had acquired by experience. If 
 it were not presumptuous to attempt to put 
 our finger upon such passages, we would say 
 that Biron's eloquent speech at the end of 
 the fourth act, beginning 
 
 " Have at you then, affection's men at arms," 
 and Rosaline's amended speech at the end 
 of the play, 
 
 " Oft have I heard of you, my lord Biron," 
 must be amongst the more important of 
 these augmentations. 
 
 CHARLES LAMB was wont to call 'Lore's 
 Labour's Lost' the Comedy of Leisure. It 
 is certain that, in the commonwealth of King 
 Ferdinand of Navarre, we have 
 
 " All men idle, all ; 
 And women too." 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 LOVE S LABOUR 8 LOST. 
 
 The courtiers, in their pursuit of "that 
 angel knowledge," waste their time in subtle 
 contentions how that angel is to be won ; 
 the ladies from France spread their pavi- 
 lions in the sunny park, and there keep up 
 their round of jokes with their " wit's ped- 
 dler," Boyet, " the nice ;" Armado listens 
 to his page while he warbles ' Concolinel ;' 
 Jaquenetta, though she is "allowed for 
 the dey," seems to have no dairy to look 
 after ; Costard acts as if he were neither 
 ploughman nor swineherd, and born for no 
 other work than to laugh for ever at Moth, 
 and, in the excess of his love for that " pa- 
 thetical nit," to exclaim, " An I had but one 
 penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to 
 buy gingerbread;" the schoolmaster ap- 
 pears to be without scholars, the curate 
 without a cure, the constable without watch 
 and ward. There is, indeed, one parenthesis 
 of real business connected with the progress 
 of the action the difference between France 
 and Navarre, in the matter of Aquitain. 
 But the settlement of this business is de- 
 ferred till "to-morrow" the "packet of 
 specialties" is not come ; and whether Aqui- 
 tain goes back to France, or the hundred 
 thousand crowns return to Navarre, we never 
 learn. This matter, then, being postponed 
 till a more fitting season, the whole set 
 abandon themselves to what Dr. Johnson 
 calls " strenuous idleness." The King and 
 his courtiers forswear their studies, and 
 every man becomes a lover and a sonneteer ; 
 the refined traveller of Spain resigns him- 
 self to his passion for the dairy-maid ; the 
 schoolmaster and the curate talk learnedly 
 after dinner ; and, at last, the King, the 
 nobles, the priest, the pedant, the braggart, 
 the page, and the clown join in one dance 
 of mummery, in which they all laugh, and 
 are laughed at. But still all this idleness is 
 too energetic to warrant us in calling this 
 the Comedy of Leisure. Let us try again. 
 Is it not the Comedy of Affectations ? 
 
 Moli^re, in his ' Precieuses Ridicules,' has 
 admirably hit off one affectation that had 
 found its way into the private life of his 
 own times. The ladies aspired to be wooed 
 after the fashion of the Grand Cyrus. Ma- 
 delon will be called PolixSne, and Cathos 
 
 Aminte. They dismiss their plain honest 
 lovers, because marriage ought to be at the 
 end of the romance, and not at the begin- 
 ning. They dote upon Mascarille (the dis- 
 guised lacquey) when he assures them " Les 
 gens de qualite savent tout sans avoir jamais 
 rien appris." They are in ecstasies at every- 
 thing. Madelon is "furieusement pour les 
 portraits ;" Cathos loves " terriblement 
 les enigmes." Even Mascarille's ribbon is 
 "furieusement bien choisi ;" his gloves 
 " sentent terriblement bons ;" and his 
 feathers are " effroyablement belles." But, in 
 the 'Precieuses Ridicules,' Moliere, as we have 
 said, dealt with one affectation ; in ' Love's 
 Labour's Lost' Shakspere presents us almost 
 every variety of affectation that is founded 
 upon a misdirection of intellectual activity. 
 We have here many of the forms in which 
 cleverness is exhibited as opposed to wisdom, 
 and false refinement as opposed to simplicity. 
 The affected characters, even the most fan- 
 tastical, are not fools ; but, at the same time, 
 the natural characters, who, in this play, are 
 chiefly the women, have their intellectual 
 foibles. All the modes of affectation are 
 developed in one continued stream of fun 
 and drollery ; every one is laughing at the 
 folly of the other, and the laugh grows 
 louder and louder as the more natural cha- 
 racters, one by one, trip up the heels of the 
 more affected. The most affected at last 
 join in the laugh with the most natural ; 
 and the whole comes down to " p.ain kersey 
 yea and nay," from the syntax of Holo- 
 fernes, and the "fire-new words" of Armado, 
 to " greasy Joan " and " roasted crabs." 
 Let us hastily review the comedy under this 
 aspect. 
 
 The affectation of the King and his cour- 
 tiers begins at the very beginning of the 
 play. The mistake upon which they set out, 
 in their desire to make their court "a little 
 academe," is not an uncommon one. It is 
 the attempt to separate the contemplative 
 from the active life ; to forego duties for 
 abstractions ; to sacrifice innocent pleasures 
 for plans of mortification, difficult to be 
 executed, and useless if carried through. 
 Many a young student has been haunted by 
 the same dream ; and he only required to 
 
126 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK in. 
 
 be living in an age when vows bound man- 
 kind to objects of pursuit that now present 
 but the ludicrous side, to have had his 
 dreams converted into very silly realities. 
 The resistance of Biron to the vow of his 
 fellows is singularly able, his reasoning is 
 deep arid true, and ought to have turned 
 them aside from their folly : 
 
 " Study is like the heaven's glorious sun, 
 
 That will not be deep-search'd with saucy 
 
 looks ; 
 
 Small have continual plodders ever won, 
 Save base authority from others' books." 
 
 But the vow is ratified, and its abjuration 
 will only be the result of its practical incon- 
 venience. The "French king's daughter." 
 the " admired princess," is coming to confer 
 with the King and his court, who have re- 
 solved to talk with no woman for three 
 years : 
 
 " So study evermore is overshot." 
 
 But the " child of fancy" appears the 
 "fantastic" the "magnificent" the "man 
 of great spirit who grows melancholy" he 
 who is " ill at a reckoning, because it fitteth 
 the spirit of a tapster" he who confesses 
 to be a " gentleman and a gamester," because 
 " both are the varnish of a complete man." 
 How capitally does Moth, his page, hit him 
 off, when he intimates that only " the base 
 vulgar" call deuce-ace three ! And yet this 
 indolent piece of refinement is 
 
 " A man in all the world's new fashions planted, 
 That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;" 
 
 and he himself has no mean idea of his 
 abilities he is " for whole volumes in folio." 
 Moth, who continually draws him. out to 
 laugh at him, is an embryo wag, whose com- 
 mon sense is constantly opposed to his mas- 
 ter's affectations ; and Costard is another 
 cunning bit of nature, though cast in a 
 coarser mould, whose heart runs over with 
 joy at the tricks of his little friend, this 
 " nit of mischief." 
 
 The Princess and her train arrive at Na- 
 varre. We have already learnt to like the 
 King and his lords, and have seen their fine 
 natures shining through the affectations by 
 
 which they are clouded. We scarcely re- 
 quire, therefore, to hear their eulogies de- 
 livered from the mouths of the Princess's 
 ladies, who have appreciated their real worth. 
 Biron, however, has all along been our fa- 
 vourite ; and we feel that, in some degree, 
 he deserves the character which Rosaline 
 gives him : 
 
 " A merrier man, 
 
 Within the limit of becoming mirth, 
 I never spent an hour's talk withal : 
 His eye begets occasion for his wit ; 
 For every object that the one doth catch 
 The other turns to a mirth-moving jest; 
 Which his fair tongue (conceit's expositor) 
 Delivers in such apt and gracious words, 
 That aged ears play truant at his tales, 
 And younger hearings are quite ravished; 
 So sweet and voluble is his discourse." 
 
 But, with all this disposition to think highly 
 of the nobles of the self-denying court, the 
 " mad wenches " of France are determined 
 to use their " civil wits " on " Navarre and 
 his bookmen," for their absurd vows ; and 
 well do they keep their determination. 
 Boyet is a capital courtier, always ready for 
 a gibe at the ladies, and always ready to bear 
 their gibes. Costard thinks he is " a most 
 simple clown ;" but Biron more accurately 
 describes him at length : 
 
 " Why, this is he 
 
 That kiss'd away his hand in courtesy : 
 This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice, 
 That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice 
 In honourable terms ; nay, he can sing 
 A mean most meanly; and, in ushering, 
 Mend him who can : the ladies call him, sweet; 
 The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet." 
 
 We are very much tempted to think that, in 
 his character of Boyet, Shakspere had in view 
 that most amusing coxcomb Master Robert 
 Laneham, whose letter from Kenilworth, in 
 which he gives the following account of him- 
 self, was printed in 1575 : "Always among 
 the gentlewomen with my good will, and 
 when I see company according, then I can 
 be as lively too. Sometimes I foot it with 
 dancing ; now with my gittern and else with 
 my cittern ; then at the virginals ; ye know 
 nothing comes amiss to me ; then carol I up 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 LOVE S LABOUR S LOST. 
 
 127 
 
 a song withal, that by and by they come 
 flocking about me like bees to honey, and 
 ever they cry, 'Another, good Laneham, 
 another.' " 
 
 Before the end of Navarre's first interview 
 with the Princess, Boyet has discovered that 
 he is " infected." At the end of the next 
 act, we learn from Biron himself that he is 
 in the same condition. Away then goes the 
 vow with the King and Biron. In the fourth 
 act we find that the infection has spread to 
 all the lords ; but the love of the King and 
 his courtiers is thoroughly characteristic. It 
 may be sincere enough, but it is still love 
 fantastical. It hath taught Biron " to rhyme 
 and to be melancholy." The King drops 
 his paper of poesy ; Longaville reads his 
 sonnet, which makes flesh "a deity;" and 
 Dumain, in his most beautiful anacreontic, 
 as sweet a piece of music as Shakspere 
 ever penned shows "how love can vary 
 wit." The scene in which each lover is de- 
 tected by the other, and all laughed at by 
 Biron, till he is detected himself, is tho- 
 roughly dramatic ; and there is perhaps no- 
 thing finer in the whole range of the Shak- 
 sperean comedy than the passage where Biron 
 casts aside his disguises, and rises to the 
 height of poetry and eloquence. The burst 
 when the " rent lines" discover "some love" 
 of Biron is incomparably fine : 
 
 " Who sees the heavenly Kosaline, 
 That Iik6 a rude and savage man of Inde, 
 
 At the first opening of the gorgeous east, 
 Bows not his vassal head; and, strucken blind, 
 Kisses the base ground with obedient 
 breast]" 
 
 The famous speech of Biron, which follows, 
 is perhaps unmatched as a display of poetical 
 rhetoric, except by the speeches of Ulysses 
 to Achilles in the third act of ' Troilus and 
 Cressida.' Coleridge has admirably de- 
 scribed this speech of Biron. " It is logic 
 clothed in rhetoric ; but observe how Shak- 
 spere, in his twofold being of poet and phi- 
 losopher, avails himself of it to convey pro- 
 found truths in the most lively images the 
 whole remaining faithful to the character 
 supposed to utter the lines, and the expres- 
 sions themselves constituting a further de- 
 
 velopment of that character."* The rhetoric 
 of Biron produces its effect. " Now to plain 
 dealing," says Longaville ; but Biron, the 
 merry man, whose love is still half fun, is for 
 more circuitous modes than laying their 
 hearts at the feet of their mistresses. He is 
 of opinion that 
 
 " Eevels, dances, masks, and merry hours, 
 Forerun fair Love ;" 
 
 and he therefore recommends " some strange 
 pastime" to solace the dames. But "the 
 gallants will be task'd." 
 
 King and Princess, lords and ladies, must 
 make way for the great pedants. The form 
 of affectation is now entirely changed. It is 
 not the cleverness of rising superior to all 
 other men by despising the "affects" to 
 which every man is born it is not the clever- 
 ness of labouring at the most magnificent 
 phrases to express the most common ideas ; 
 but it is the cleverness of two persons using 
 conventional terms, which they have picked 
 up from a common source, and which they 
 believe sealed to the mass of mankind, in- 
 stead of employing the ordinary colloquial 
 phrases by which ideas are rendered intelli- 
 gible. This is pedantry and Shakspere 
 shows his excellent judgment in bringing a 
 brace of pedants upon the scene. In O'Keefe's 
 ' Agreeable Surprise,' and in Colman's ' Heir 
 at Law,' we have a single pedant the one 
 talking Latin to a milk-maid, and the other 
 to a tallow-chandler. This is farce. But the 
 pedantry of Holofernes and the curate is 
 comedy. They each, address the other in 
 their freemasonry of learning. They each 
 flatter the other. But for the rest of the 
 world, they look down upon them. " Sir," 
 saith the curate, excusing the " twice-sod 
 simplicity" of Goodman Dull, "he hath 
 never fed of the dainties that are bred in a 
 book ; he hath not eat paper, as it were ; 
 he hath not drunk ink : his intellect is not 
 replenished." But Goodman Dull has his 
 intellect stimulated by this abuse. He has 
 heard the riddles of the "ink-horn" men, 
 and he sports a riddle of his own : 
 
 * ' Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 105. 
 
128 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK IIT. 
 
 " You two are book-men : Can you tell by your 
 
 wit, 
 
 What was a month old at Cain's birth, that 's 
 not five weeks old as yetf 
 
 The answer of Holofernes is the very quin- 
 tessence of pedantry. He gives Goodman 
 Dull the hardest name for the moon in the 
 mythology. Goodman Dull is with difficulty 
 quieted. Holofernes then exhibits his poetry ; 
 and he " will something affect the letter, for 
 it argues facility." He produces, as all pe- 
 dants attempt to produce, not what is good 
 when executed, but what is difficult of exe- 
 cution. Satisfied with his own performances 
 " the gift is good in those in whom it is 
 acute, and I am thankful for it" he is pro- 
 fuse in his contempt for other men's produc- 
 tions. He undertakes to prove Biron's can- 
 zonet " to be very unlearned, neither savour- 
 ing of poetry, wit, nor invention." The 
 portrait is two hundred years old, and yet 
 how many of the present day might sit for 
 it ! Holofernes, however, is not meant by 
 Shakspere for a blockhead. He is made of 
 better stuff than the ordinary run of those 
 who " educate youth at the charge-house." 
 Shakspere has taken care that we should see 
 flashes of good sense amidst his folly. To say 
 nothing of the curate's commendations of his 
 " reasons at dinner," we have his own de- 
 scription of Armado, to show how clearly he 
 could discover the ludicrous side of others. 
 The pedant can see the ridiculous in pedantry 
 of another stamp. But the poet also takes 
 care that the ridiculous side of " the two 
 learned men " shall still be prominent. Moth 
 and Costard are again brought upon the 
 scene to laugh at those who " have been at a 
 great feast of languages, and have stolen the 
 scraps." Costard himself is growing affected. 
 He has picked up the fashion of being clever, 
 and he has himself stolen lionorificdbilitudi- 
 nitatibus out of " the alms-basket of words." 
 But business proceeds : Holofernes will pre- 
 sent before the Princess the nine worthies, 
 and he will play three himself. The soul of 
 the schoolmaster is in this magnificent de- 
 vice ; and he looks down with most self- 
 
 i satisfied pity on honest Dull, who has spoken 
 
 j no word, and understood none. 
 
 The ladies have received verses and jewels 
 from their lovers ; but they trust not to the 
 verses they think them "bootless rhymes," 
 the effusions of " prodigal wits :" 
 
 " Folly in fools bears not so strong a note 
 As foolery in the wise." 
 
 When Boyet discloses to the Princess the 
 scheme of the mask of Muscovites, she is 
 more confirmed in her determination to laugh 
 at the laughers : 
 
 " They do it but in mocking merriment ; 
 And mock for mock is only my intent." 
 
 The affectation of " speeches penn'd " is over- 
 thrown in a moment by the shrewdness of 
 the women, who encounter the fustian ha- 
 rangue with prosaic action. Moth comes in 
 crammed with others' affectations : 
 
 " All hail, the richest beauties on the earth ! 
 A holy parcel of the fairest dames" 
 
 The ladies turn their backs on him 
 
 "That ever turn'd their lacks to mortal 
 
 views!" 
 
 Biron in vain gives him the cue " their eyes, 
 villain, their eyes :" " the pigeon-egg of dis- 
 cretion" has ceased to be discreet he is out, 
 and the speech is ended. The maskers will 
 try for themselves. They each take a masked 
 lady apart, and each finds a wrong mistress, 
 who has no sympathy with him. The keen 
 breath of "mocking wenches " has puffed out 
 all their fine conceits : 
 
 "Well, better wits have worn plain statute- 
 caps." 
 
 The sharp medicine has had its effect. The 
 King and his lords return without their dis- 
 guises ; and, being doomed to hear the echo 
 of the laugh at their folly, they come down 
 from their stilts to the level ground of com- 
 mon sense: from "taffeta phrases" and 
 " figures pedantical" to 
 
 " Eusset yeas, and honest kersey noes." 
 
 But the Worthies are coming ; we have 
 not yet done with the affectations and the 
 mocking merriment. Biron maliciously de- 
 sires " to have one show worse than the 
 King's and his company." Those who have : 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 ALL S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 
 
 129 
 
 been laughed at now take to laughing at 
 others. Costard, who is the most natural of 
 the Worthies, comes off with the fewest hurts. 
 He has performed Pompey marvellously well, 
 and he is not a little vain of his performance 
 "I hope I was perfect." When the learned 
 curate breaks down as Alexander, the apology 
 of Costard for his overthrow is inimitable : 
 " There, an 't shall please you ; a foolish mild 
 man ; an honest man, look you, and soon 
 dashed ! He is a marvellous good neighbour, 
 in sooth ; and a very good bowler ; but, for 
 Alisander, alas ! you see how 't is ; a little 
 o'erparted." Holofernes comes off worse than 
 the curate "Alas, poor Machabseus, how 
 hath he been baited ! " We feel, in spite of 
 our inclination to laugh at the pedant, that 
 his remonstrance is just " This is not gene- 
 rous, not gentle, not humble." We know 
 that to be generous, to be gentle, to be hum- 
 ble, are the especial virtues of the great ; 
 and Shakspere makes us see that the school- 
 master is right. Lastly, comes Armado. 
 His discomfiture is still more signal. The 
 malicious trick that Biron suggests to Cos- 
 tard shows that Rosaline's original praise of 
 him was not altogether deserved that his 
 merriment was not always 
 
 " Within the limit of becoming mirth." 
 The affectations of Biron are cast aside, but 
 
 he has a natural fault to correct, worse than 
 any affectation ; and beautifully does Rosa- 
 line hold up to him the glass which shows 
 him how 
 
 " To choke a gibing spirit, 
 Whose influence is begot of that loose grace 
 Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools." 
 
 The affectations are blown into thin air. 
 The King and his courtiers have to turn 
 from speculation to action from fruitless 
 vows to deeds of charity and piety. Armado 
 is about to apply to what is useful : " I have 
 vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for 
 her sweet love three years." The voices of 
 the pedants are heard no more in scraps of 
 Latin. They are no longer " singled from the 
 barbarous." But, on the contrary, " the dia- 
 logue that the two learned men have com- 
 piled, in praise of the owl and the cuckoo," 
 is full of the most familiar images, expressed 
 in the most homely language. Shakspere, 
 unquestionably, to our minds, brought in 
 this most characteristic song (a song that 
 he might have written and sung in the 
 chimney-corner of his father's own kitchen, 
 long before he dreamt of having a play acted 
 before Queen Elizabeth) to mark, by an 
 emphatic close, the triumph of simplicity 
 over false refinement. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 ALL 'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 
 
 IN Dr. Farmer's 'Essay on the Learning of 
 Shakspeare,' we find this passage : " The 
 story of 'All's Well that Ends Well' or, as 
 I suppose it to have been sometimes called, 
 'Love's Labour Wonne'" (and here Farmer 
 inserts a reference to Meres' 'Wits' Trea- 
 sury,' where ' Love's Labour Wonne ' is men- 
 tioned amongst plays by Shakspere,) " is 
 originally indeed the property of Boccace, 
 but it came immediately to Shakspeare from 
 Painter's ' Giletta of Narbon.'" Mr. Hun- 
 
 ter, in his 'Disquisition on the Tempest,' 
 repudiates the notion that 'Love's Labour 
 Won' and 'All's Well that Ends Well' are 
 identical. Mr. Hunter states that a passing 
 remark of Dr. Farmer, in the ' Essay on the 
 Learning of Shakspeare,' first pointed out 
 this supposed identity; and he adds, "the 
 remark has since been caught up and re- 
 peated by a thousand voices. Yet it was 
 made in the most casual, random, and hasty 
 manner imaginable. It was supported by 
 
130 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK in. 
 
 no kind of argument or evidence ; and I 
 cannot find that any persons who have re- 
 peated it after him have shown any probable 
 grounds for the opinion." Malone, in the 
 first edition of his ( Chronological Order of 
 Shakspeare's Plays/ assigns the date of this 
 comedy to 1598, upon the authority of the 
 passage in Meres. He says, "No other of 
 our author's plays could have borne that 
 title (' Love's Labour Won ') with so much 
 propriety as that before us ; yet it must be 
 acknowledged that the present title is in- 
 serted in the body of the play : 
 
 * All 'a well that ends well : still the fine 's the 
 crown.' 
 
 This line, however, might certainly have 
 suggested the alteration of what has been 
 thought the first title, and affords no deci- 
 sive proof that this piece was originally 
 called 'All 's Well that Ends Well.' " When 
 Coleridge describes this play as "originally 
 intended as the counterpart of 'Love's La- 
 bour's Lost,'" when Mrs. Jameson, with 
 reference to the nature of the plot and the 
 suitableness of the title found in Meres, 
 states, complainingly, "Why the title was 
 altered, or by whom, I cannot discover," 
 and when Tieck says, "The poet probably 
 first called this play 'Love's Labour Won/" 
 we may add the opinions of these eminent 
 writers on Shakspere to the original opinion 
 of Malone, in opposition to the opinion of 
 Mr. Hunter, that " the leading features of 
 the story in ' All's Well ' cannot be said to 
 be aptly represented by the title in Meres' 
 list." 
 
 Coleridge described this play as the coun- 
 terpart of ' Love's Labour's Lost.' Shakspere's 
 titles, in the judgment of our philosophical 
 critic, always exhibit "great significancy." 
 The Labour of Love which is Lost is not a 
 very earnest labour. The King and his 
 courtiers are fantastical lovers. They would 
 win their mistresses by "bootless rhymes" 
 and " speeches penn'd," and their most sin- 
 cere declarations are thus only received as 
 "mocking merriment." The concluding 
 speeches of the ladies to their lovers show 
 clearly that Shakspere meant to mark the 
 cause why their labour was lost it was 
 
 labour hastily taken up, pursued in a light 
 temper, assuming the character of " pleasant 
 jest and courtesy." The Princess and her 
 ladies would not accept it as " labour" with- 
 out a year's probation. It was offered, they 
 thought, " in heat of blood ; " theirs was a 
 love which only bore " gaudy blossoms." 
 What would naturally be the counterpart of 
 such a story ? One of passionate, enduring, 
 all-pervading love of a love that shrinks 
 from no difficulty, resents no unkindness, 
 fears no disgrace, but perseveres, under the 
 most adverse circumstances, to vindicate its 
 own claims by its own energy, and to achieve 
 success by the strength of its own will. 
 This is the Labour of Love which is Won. 
 Is not this the story of ' All 's Well that 
 Ends Well?' 
 
 When Helena, in the first scene, so beau- 
 tifully describes the hopelessness of her 
 love 
 
 " It were all one 
 
 That I should love a bright particular star, 
 And think to wed it, he is so above me" 
 
 could she propose to come within " his 
 sphere" without some extraordinary effort ? 
 " Hie labor, hoc opus est." She does resolve 
 to make the effort ; it is within the bounds 
 of possibility that her labour may be suc- 
 cessful, and therefore her " intents are 
 fix'd:" 
 
 " The mightiest space in fortune nature brings 
 To join like likes, and kiss like native things. 
 Impossible be strange attempts to those 
 That weigh their pains in sense, and do sup- 
 pose 
 What hath been cannot be." 
 
 Inferior natures, that estimate their labours 
 by a common standard "that weigh their 
 pains in sense" that are not supported in 
 their labours by a spirit which rejects all 
 fear and embraces all hope, confound the 
 difficult with the impossible : they know 
 that courage has triumphed over difficulty, 
 but they still think " what hath been cannot 
 be " again. Helena is not of their mind : 
 
 " My project may deceive me. 
 But my intents are fix'd, and will not leave 
 me." 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 ALL 3 WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 
 
 131 
 
 This is the purpose avowed from the com- 
 mencement of the dramatic action ; which 
 marks every stage of its progress ; which is 
 essentially 'Love's Labour,' whether it be 
 won or be lost. How beautifully does Shak- 
 spere relieve us from the feeling that it is 
 unsexual for the labour to be undertaken by 
 Helena, through the compassion which she 
 inspires in the good old Countess : 
 
 " It is the show and seal of nature's truth, 
 Where love's strong passion is impress'd in 
 youth." 
 
 How delicately, too, does he make Helena 
 hold to her determination, even whilst she 
 confesses to the Countess the secret of her 
 ambitious love : 
 
 " My friends were poor but honest ; so 's my 
 
 love : 
 
 Be not offended; for it hurts not him 
 That he is loved of me : I follow him not 
 Be any token of presumptuous suit ; 
 Nor would I have him, till I do deserve him" 
 
 Again : 
 
 " There 's something hints, 
 More than my father's skill, which was the 
 
 Of his profession, that his good receipt 
 Shall, for my legacy, be sanctified 
 By the luckiest stars in heaven" 
 
 not for the cure of the King only, but for 
 the winning of her labour. To obtain the 
 full advantage of her legacy no common 
 qualities were required in Helena. "Wis- 
 dom and constancy" are her characteristics, 
 as Lafeu truly describes. The " constancy" 
 with which she enforces her power upon the 
 mind of the incredulous King is prominently 
 exhibited by the poet. Her modesty never 
 overcomes the ruling purpose of her soul. 
 She indeed says, 
 
 " I will no more enforce mine office on you;" 
 
 but she immediately after presses her " fix'd 
 intents :" 
 
 " What I can do can do no hurt to try." 
 She succeeds : 
 
 "Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth 
 speak." 
 
 The reward, however, which she seeks is 
 avowed without hesitation. Her will was 
 too strong to admit of that timidity which 
 might have clung to a feebler mind : 
 
 "Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly 
 
 hand, 
 What husband in thy power I will command." 
 
 Up to this point all has been "labour" 
 the conception of a high and dangerous pur- 
 pose the carrying it through without shrink- 
 ing. When the cure is effected, and she has 
 to avow her choice, comes a still greater 
 labour. The struggle within herself is most 
 intense : 
 
 " Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly;" 
 and 
 
 " The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me, 
 ' We blush, that thou shouldst choose,' " 
 
 these expressions sufficiently give the key to 
 what passes within her. Her feelings amount 
 almost to agony when Bertram refuses her, 
 and for a moment she abandons her fix'd 
 intent : 
 
 " That you are well restored, my lord, I 'm glad; 
 Let the rest go." 
 
 " But shall she weakly relinquish the golden 
 opportunity, and dash the cup from her lips 
 at the moment it is presented 1 Shall she 
 cast away the treasure for which she has 
 ventured both life and honour, when it is 
 just within her grasp 1 Shall she, after com- 
 promising her feminine delicacy by the pub- 
 lic disclosure of her preference, be thrust 
 back into shame, ' to blush out the remain- 
 der of her life,' and die a poor, lost, scorned 
 thing ? This would be very pretty and in- 
 teresting and characteristic in Viola or 
 Ophelia, but not at all consistent with that 
 high determined spirit, that moral energy, 
 with which Helena is portrayed." * Helena 
 suffers Bertram to be forced upon her and 
 this is the greatest "labour" of all. 
 
 After the marriage and the desertion 
 "Love's labour" is still most untiringly 
 tasked. Love next assumes the sweet and 
 
 * Mrs. Jameson's Characteristics,' vol. i. p. 212. 
 
 K -2 
 
132 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEKE. 
 
 [BOOK in. 
 
 smiling aspect of duty. " What 's his will 
 else ?" " what more commands he ?" 
 
 " In everything I wait upon his will " 
 
 are all the replies she makes to the harsh 
 commands of her lord, conveyed by a frivo- 
 lous messenger. In her parting interview 
 with Bertram, in which his coldness and dis- 
 like are scarcely attempted to be concealed, 
 the same spirit alone exists. She has a 
 harder trial still. Her lord avows his final 
 abandonment of her, except upon apparently 
 impossible conditions. She has only one 
 complaint, 
 
 "This is a dreadful sentence;" 
 
 but her intense love has destroyed in her all 
 the feeling of self through which she was 
 enabled to accomplish the triumph of her 
 own will : 
 
 " Poor lord ! is 't 1 
 
 That chase thee from thy country, and expose 
 Those tender limbs of thine to the event 
 Of the none-sparing war?" 
 
 When she says " I will be gone," she pro- 
 bably had no purpose of seeking Bertram, 
 and of endeavouring to reverse his " dreadful 
 sentence" by her own management. But 
 "love's labours "were not yet ended. Her 
 mind was not framed to shrink from diffi- 
 culty; and we soon meet her at Florence. 
 The plot after this is such a one as Shak- 
 spere could only have found in the legendary 
 history of an unrefined age, preserved from 
 oblivion by one who was imbued with the 
 kindred genius of unveiling the brightness 
 of the poetical, even when it was concealed 
 from ordinary vision by the clouds of a 
 prosaic, atmosphere. Mrs. Jameson has truly 
 observed, " All the circumstances and details 
 with which Helena is surrounded are shock- 
 ing to our feelings, and wounding to our 
 delicacy ; and yet the beauty of the charac- 
 ter is made to triumph over all." The beauty 
 of the character is in its intensity. By that 
 is Helena enabled to pass through all the 
 slough of her last " labours " without con- 
 tamination ; her purpose sanctifies her acts. 
 From the first scene to the last her life is 
 one continued struggle. But the hopeful 
 I quality cf her soul never forsakes her : 
 
 " The time will bring on summer, 
 When briars shall have leaves as well as 
 
 thorns, 
 And be as sweet as sharp." 
 
 She repines at no exertion she shrinks from 
 no fatigue : 
 
 " But this exceeding posting, day and night, 
 Must wear your spirits low," 
 
 has no reference to herself. When she finds 
 the King has left Marseilles she has no re- 
 grets : 
 
 " All 's well that ends well, yet; 
 Though time seem so adverse, and means 
 unfit." 
 
 Her final triumph at last arrives ; but it is 
 a happiness that cannot be spoken of. Her 
 feelings find vent in 
 
 " my dear motlier, do I see you living ! " 
 She can now, indeed, call the Countess 
 mother. In the early scenes she dared only 
 to name her as " mine honourable mistress." 
 By her energy and perseverance she has 
 conquered. Is this, or is it not, Love's La- 
 bour Won ? 
 
 Malone, as we have already expressed our 
 belief, has applied the true test to the appli- 
 cation of Meres' title of ' Love's Labour Won :' 
 "No other of our author's plays could have 
 borne that title with so much propriety as 
 that before us." The application, be it un- 
 derstood, is limited to the comedies. The 
 title cannot be applied to ' The Two Gentle- 
 men of Verona,' 'The Comedy of Errors,' 
 ' Love's Labour 's Lost,' ' A Midsummer 
 Night's Dream,' * The Merchant of Venice,' 
 for those are also mentioned in Meres' list 
 as existing in 1598. Can it have reference 
 to 'The Merry Wives of Windsor,' than 
 which no title can be more definite ; to 
 'The Taming of the Shrew,' equally defined; 
 to 'Twelfth Night' or 'Measure for Measure,' 
 or 'Much Ado about Nothing,' or 'As You 
 Like- It,' or ' The Winter's Tale ?' We think 
 not ; we are sure that none of our readers 
 who are familiar with the plots of these plays 
 can believe that either of them was so named. 
 We, of course, here put the question of 
 chronology out of view. Mr. Hunter, to 
 support his opinion that 'The Tempest' was 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 ALL S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 
 
 133 
 
 written in 1596, boldly maintains the fol- 
 lowing opinion : " But if not to the ' All 's 
 Well,' to what play of Shakspere was this 
 title once attached? I answer, that of the 
 existing plays there is only ' The Tempest ' 
 to which it can be supposed to belong : and, 
 so long as it suits so well with what is a 
 main incident of this piece, we shall not be 
 driven to the gratuitous and improbable sup- 
 position that a play once so called is lost." 
 The "main incident" relied upon by Mr. 
 Hunter for the support of this theory is the 
 following speech of Ferdinand, in the third 
 act of ' The Tempest : ' 
 
 "There be some sports are painful, and their 
 
 labour 
 
 Delight in them sets off; some kinds of base- 
 ness 
 
 Are nobly undergone ; and most poor matters 
 Point to rich ends. This my mean task 
 Would be as heavy to me as odious, but 
 The mistress which I serve quickens what 's 
 
 dead, 
 
 And makes my labours pleasures : Oh, she is 
 Ten times more gentle than her father 's 
 
 crabbed ; 
 And he 's composed of harshness. I must 
 
 remove 
 
 Some thousands of these logs, and pile them up ; 
 Upon a sore injunction: My sweet mistress 
 Weeps when she sees me work ; and says, such 
 
 baseness 
 
 Had never like executor. I forget : 
 But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my 
 
 labours." 
 
 "Here then," says Mr. Hunter, "are the 
 Love Labours. In the end they won the 
 lady." We venture to say that our belief 
 in the significancy of Shakspere's titles 
 would be at an end if even a " main in- 
 cident " was to suggest a name, instead of 
 the general course of the thought or action. 
 In this case there are really no Love Labours 
 at all. The lady is not won by the piling 
 of the logs ; the audience know that both 
 Ferdinand and Miranda are under the in- 
 fluence of Prospero's spells, and the magician 
 bias explained to them why he enforces these 
 tiarsh "labours." In the first act, when 
 Ferdinand and Miranda are thrown together. 
 Prospero says, 
 
 " It goes on, I see, 
 As my soul prompts it. Spirit, fine spirit, 
 
 1 11 free thee 
 Within two days for this." 
 
 Again : 
 
 " At the first sight 
 
 They have changed eyes : Delicate Ariel, 
 I '11 set thee free for this." 
 
 Yet he adds, 
 
 " They are both in cither's powers : But this 
 
 swift business 
 
 I must uneasy make, lest too light winning 
 Make the prize light" 
 
 Would Shakspere have chosen this incident 
 not a "main incident," for we all along 
 know Prospero's real intentions as that 
 which would furnish a title to his play ? 
 The pain which Ferdinand endures is very 
 transient ; and Prospero, when he removes 
 the infliction, says, 
 
 " All thy vexations 
 
 Were but my trials of thy love, and thou 
 Hast strangely stood the test." 
 
 We know that the Love Labours of Ferdinand 
 are not severe trials, and that at their worst 
 they were refreshed with " sweet thoughts." 
 Can they be compared with the Love's Labour 
 of Helena ? 
 
 Mr. Hunter rejects the claim of 'All's Wel3 
 that Ends Well ' to be named Love's Labour 
 Won, most decisively, but upon one ground \ 
 only: "If ever there was a play," he says, ! 
 " which itself bespoke its own title from the 
 beginning, it is this: 
 
 'We must away; 
 
 Our waggon is prepared, and time revives us : : 
 
 All's Well that Ends Well : still the fine 's the ! 
 crown; 
 
 Whate'er the course, the end is the renown.' 
 
 " Again : 
 
 'All's well that Ends Well,' yet ; 
 Though time seem so adverse, and means 
 unfit.' 
 
 " And, as if this were not sufficient, in the 
 epilogue : 
 
 ' The king 's a beggar, now the play is done : 
 All is well ended, if this suit is won.' " 
 
 We venture to think that the use of the 
 
134 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK in. 
 
 word won in the last line might have sug- 
 gested to Mr. Hunter the possibility of the 
 play having a double title the one derived 
 from the one great incident of the piece, 
 the other from the application of its dra- 
 matic action. Mr. Hunter, however, rejects 
 the claim of < All 's Well that Ends Well ' 
 to the title of Meres, upon the assumption 
 that it could only have had a single title ; 
 whilst he seeks to establish the claim of 
 'The Tempest' to the title of Meres, upon 
 the assumption that it had a double title: 
 " I suspect that the play originally had a 
 double title, 'The Tempest, or Love's Labour 
 Won;' just as another of the plays had a 
 double title, ' Twelfth Night, or What You 
 Will.' " This reasoning is, to say the least 
 of it, illogical. If the argument is good for 
 'The Tempest,' it is good for 'All's Well 
 that Ends Well.' 
 
 Whether or no 'The Tempest,' looking at 
 the internal evidence of its date, could have 
 been included in Meres' list, there can be 
 no doubt that ' All 's Well that Ends Well ' 
 has many evidences of having been an early 
 composition unquestionably so in parts. 
 When Malone changed his theory with re- 
 gard to the date, and assigned it to 1606, in 
 the posthumous edition of his ' Chronological 
 Order,' he relied principally upon the tone of 
 a particular passage : " The beautiful speech 
 of the sick King in this play has much 
 the air of that moral and judicious reflec- 
 tion that accompanies an advanced period of 
 life, and bears no resemblance to Shakspere's 
 manner in his earlier plays." The mind of 
 Shakspere was so essentially dramatic, that 
 when he puts serious and moral words into 
 the mouth of a sick King, who is growing 
 old, we should be no more disposed to believe 
 that the sentiment has reference to the indi- 
 vidual feelings of the poet than we should 
 believe that all the exuberant gaiety of some 
 of his comic characters could only have been 
 produced by the reflection of his own spirit 
 of youth. " Shakspere's manner in his earlier 
 plays " has, however, much more to assist us 
 in approximating to a date. The manner 
 by which we mean the metrical arrange- 
 ment and the peculiarities of construction 
 in 'All's Well that Ends Well' certainly 
 
 places it, for the most part, in the class of 
 his earlier plays. Where, except in the class 
 of the earlier plays, shall we find one in which 
 the rhyming couplet so constantly occurs ? 
 But then, again, we occasionally encounter 
 all the music and force of thought of his 
 most perfect blank-verse. Tieck is of opinion 
 that the play, as we have it, contains an 
 engrafting of the poet's later style upon his 
 earlier labours. He says, " Rich subject- 
 matter, variety of situation, marvellous de- 
 velopment, and striking catastrophe allured 
 the young poet, who probably, later in life, 
 would not hare chosen a subject so unsuited 
 to dramatic treatment. Some passages, not 
 merely difficult, but almost impossible to be 
 understood, remain out of the first attempt ; 
 and here the poet combats with language 
 and thought the verse is artificial, the ex- 
 pressions forced. Much of what I consider 
 later alterations reminds us of the Sonnets, 
 and of ' Venus and Adonis.' The prose, 
 particularly in the last acts, is so pure and 
 clear, the scenes with Parolles are so ex- 
 cellently written, that in all that concerns 
 the language we must reckon them amongst 
 Shakspere's best efforts. The first act is the 
 most obscure ; and here are probably the 
 most extensive remains of the older work. 
 The last half of the delineation of Parolles 
 must belong to Shakspere's later period." 
 
 Malone assigns his second conjectural date 
 of this play to 1606 upon other ground than 
 that of Shakspere's manner: "Another cir- 
 cumstance which induces me to believe that 
 this is a later play than I had formerly 
 supposed is the satirical mention made of 
 the puritans, who were the objects of King 
 James's aversion." Surely the poet might 
 allude to the famous contention about wear- 
 ing the surplice, without being led to it by 
 the aversions of King James. The contest had 
 been going on for many years, and Hooker, 
 in his fifth book of ' Ecclesiastical Polity,' 
 published in 1597, refutes the puritanical 
 opinions upon this matter at great length. 
 Upon the subject of the surplice he dis- 
 tinctly says that the hostility of the puri- 
 tans was much modified when he wrote. 
 The controversy had raged with the greatest 
 violence at the period when Shakspere, ac- 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 ALL 'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 
 
 135 
 
 cording to our belief, was most likely to 
 have produced 'All's Well that Ends Well,' 
 perhaps not as it has been handed down 
 to us, but in an imperfect form. That period 
 was probably not very widely separated from 
 the period when ' Love's Labour 's Lost ' was 
 produced; to which, as we do not hesitate 
 to think, with Coleridge, this play was the 
 counterpart. 
 
 Having thus traced the principal drama- 
 tic action of ' All 's Well that Ends Well ' in 
 the endeavour to show that it is identical 
 with 'Love's Labour Won,' we may con- 
 clude this notice with a brief sketch of its 
 characters. 
 
 Of Helena we have necessarily spoken at 
 length. Mrs. Jameson quotes a passage from 
 Foster's 'Essays' to explain the general idea 
 of her character: "To be tremblingly alive 
 to gentle impressions, and yet be able to 
 preserve, when the prosecution of a design 
 requires it, an immoveable heart amidst even 
 the most imperious causes of subduing emo- 
 tion, is perhaps not an impossible constitu- 
 tion of mind, but it is the utmost and rarest 
 endowment of humanity." This " constitu- 
 tion of mind" has been created by Shakspere 
 in his Helena, and who can doubt the truth 
 and nature of the conception ? 
 
 Bertram, like all mixed characters, whe- 
 ther in the drama or in real life, is a great 
 puzzle to those who look without tolerance 
 on human motives and actions. In a one- 
 sided view he has no redeeming qualities. 
 Johnson says, " I cannot reconcile my heart 
 to Bertram; a man noble without gene- 
 rosity, and young without truth ; who mar- 
 ries Helena as a coward, and leaves her as 
 a profligate : when she is dead by his unkind- 
 ness sneaks home to a second marriage: is 
 accused by a woman whom he has wronged, 
 defends himself by falsehood, and is dismissed 
 to happiness." If the Bertram of the comedy 
 were a real personage of flesh and blood, with 
 whom the business of life associated us, and 
 of whom the exercise of prudence demanded 
 that we should form an accurate estimate, 
 we should say 
 " Too bad for a blessing, too good for a curse, 
 
 I wish from my soul thou wert better or 
 worse." 
 
 But we are called upon for no such judgment 
 when the poet presents to us a character of 
 contradictory qualities. All that we have 
 then to ask is, whether the character is na- 
 tural, and consistent with the circumstances 
 amidst which he moves ? We have no desire 
 to reconcile our hearts to Bertram ; all that 
 we demand is, that he should not move our 
 indignation beyond the point in which his 
 qualities shall consist with our sympathy for 
 Helena in her love for him. And in this 
 view the poet, as it appears to us, has drawn 
 Bertram's character most skilfully. With- 
 out his defects the dramatic action could not 
 have proceeded ; without his merits the dra- 
 matic sentiment could not have been main- 
 tained. Shakspere, from the first, makes us 
 understand that the pride of birth in Bertram 
 constrained him to regard Helena as greatly 
 his inferior. His parting with her is decisive: 
 " The best wishes that can be forged in your 
 thoughts be servants to you." This is the 
 kindness of one who had known her long, 
 and pitied her dependent state. But he 
 leaves no doubt as to the sense which he 
 entertains of her condition : " Be comfortable 
 to my mother, your mistress, and make much 
 of her." When the King proposes Helena 
 to him as his wife, he assigns but one reason 
 for his rejection of her but that is all in 
 all: 
 
 " I know her well ; 
 
 She had her breeding at my father's charge : 
 A poor physician's daughter my wife ! " 
 
 If Bertram had seen Helena with the eyes 
 of his mother, as 
 
 " A maid too virtuous 
 For the contempt of empire," 
 
 or with those of the King and of Lafeu, 
 he would not have rejected her, and the co- 
 medy would have been only a common love- 
 tale. Johnson says he marries Helena "as 
 a coward." This is unjust. Johnson over- 
 looked the irresistible constraint to which 
 his will was subjected, and the scorn with 
 which he spoke out his real purposes even at 
 the moment of submission : 
 
 " Pardon, my gracious lord ; for I submit 
 My fancy to your eyes : When I consider 
 
136 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEEE. 
 
 [BOOK in. 
 
 What great creation, and what dole of honour, 
 Flies where you bid it, I find, that she, which 
 
 late 
 
 Was in my nobler thoughts most base, is now 
 The praised of the king ; who, so ennobled, 
 Is, as 't were, born so." 
 
 Nothing can be less like cowardice than this 
 speech. It is the bitterest irony of a de- 
 sperate will, bowed for a time, but not sub- 
 dued. Nor does Bertram leave Helena as 
 " a profligate." We, who know the intensity 
 of her love, which he could not know, may 
 think that he was unwise to fly from his own 
 happiness ; but he believed that he fled from 
 constraint and misery ; from 
 
 " The dark house, and the detested wife." 
 
 The Bertram of the Florentine wars has some- 
 thing to recommend him besides his ancestry : 
 "he has done worthy service." But the 
 young, proud, courageous Bertram is also a 
 libertine. Schlegel asks, "Did Shakspere 
 ever attempt to mitigate the impression of 
 his unfeeling pride and giddy dissipation? 
 He intended merely to give us a military 
 portrait." This is quite true. The liber- 
 tines of the later comedy are the only gene- 
 rous, spirited, intellectual persons of the 
 drama; the virtuous characters are as dull 
 as they are discreet. Shakspere goes out of 
 his usual dramatic spirit in this play, to 
 mark emphatically the impression which 
 Bertram's actions produce upon his own as- 
 sociates. In the third scene of the fourth 
 act they comment with indignation upon his 
 desertion of Helena, and his practices to- 
 wards Diana : " As we are ourselves what 
 things are we ! " But then all the Shak- 
 sperean tolerance is put forth to make us 
 understand that Bertram is not isolated in 
 his vices, and that even his vices, as those of 
 all other men, are not alone to be regarded 
 in our estimates of character : " The web of 
 our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill 
 together : our virtues would be proud if our 
 faults whipped them not; and our crimes 
 would despair if they were not cherished by 
 our virtues." This is philosophy, and, what 
 is more, it is religion for it is charity. In 
 this spirit the poet undoubtedly intended 
 that we should judge Bertram. He is cer- 
 
 tainly not a hypocrite : and, when he returns 
 to Rousillon, we are bound to believe him 
 when he speaks of Helena as 
 
 " She, whom all men praised, and whom my- 
 self 
 
 Since I have lost have loved." 
 
 For ourselves, we can see no poetical injustice 
 that he is " dismissed to happiness ; " for, 
 unless he has become a " sadder and a wiser 
 man," he will not be happy. 
 
 " In this piece," says Schlegel, " age is ex- 
 hibited to singular advantage : the plain 
 honesty of the King, the good-natured im- 
 petuosity of old Lafeu, the maternal indul- 
 gence of the Countess to Helena's love of her 
 son, seem all, as it were, to vie with each 
 in endeavours to conquer the arrogance of 
 the young Count." The general benevolence 
 of these characters, and their particular kind- 
 ness towards Helena, are the counterpoises 
 to Bertram's pride of birth, and his disdain 
 of virtue unaccompanied by adventitious dis- 
 tinctions. The love of the Countess towards 
 Helena is habit, that of the King is grati- 
 tude : in Lafeu the admiration which he per- 
 severingly holds towards her is the result of 
 his honest sagacity. He admires what is di- 
 rect and unpretending, and he therefore loves 
 Helena : he hates what is evasive and boast- 
 ful, and he therefore despises Parolles. 
 
 Parolles has been called by Ulrici "the 
 little appendix of the great Falstaff." Schle- 
 gel says, " Falstaff has thrown Parolles into 
 the shade." Johnson goes farther, and de- 
 clares, " Parolles has many of the lineaments 
 of Falstaff." In our view this opinion of 
 Johnson exhibits a singular want of dis- 
 crimination in one who relished Falstaff so 
 highly. Parolles is literally what he is de- 
 scribed by Helena : 
 
 " I know him a notorious liar, 
 
 Think him a great way fool, solely a coward." 
 
 For the " fool," take the scene in the second 
 act, in which he pieces out the remarks of 
 Lafeu upon the King's recovery with the 
 most impertinent commonplaces ending 
 " Nay, 't is strange, 't is very strange, that is 
 the brief and the tedious of it." It was in 
 this dialogue that Lafeu " smoked him ; " 
 and he makes no secret, afterwards, of his 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 ALL S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 
 
 137 
 
 opinion : " I did think thee, for two ordina- 
 ries, to be a pretty wise fellow ; thou didst 
 make tolerable vent of thy travel ; it might 
 pass : yet the scarfs and the bannerets about 
 thee did manifoldly dissuade me from believ- 
 ing thee a vessel of too great a burthen. I 
 have now found thee." To the insults of 
 Lafeu the boaster has nothing to oppose, 
 neither wit nor courage. His very impu- 
 dence is overborne. We thoroughly agree 
 with Lafeu, that " there can be no kernel in 
 this light nut." All this is but a prepara- 
 tion for the comic scenes in which he is to 
 play so conspicuous a part in which his 
 folly, his falsehood, and his cowardice con- 
 spire to make him odious and ridiculous. 
 Before this exhibition he is denounced to 
 Bertram, by his companions in warfare, as 
 " a hilding" " a bubble " " a most notable 
 coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly 
 promise-breaker, the owner of no one good 
 quality." The disclosure which he makes of 
 his own folly before he is- seized, when the 
 lords overhear him, is perfectly true to na- 
 ture, and therefore in the highest degree 
 true comedy : 
 
 " Par. Ten o'clock : within these three hours 
 't will be time enough to go home. What shall 
 I say I have done 1 ? It must be a very plausive 
 invention that carries it : They begin to smoke 
 me: and disgraces have of late knocked too 
 often at my door. I find my tongue is too fool- 
 hardy ; but my heart hath the fear of Mars be- 
 fore it, and of his creatures, not daring the 
 reports of my tongue. 
 
 1 Lord. This is the first truth that e'er thine 
 own tongue was guilty of. [Aside. 
 
 Par. What the devil should move me to 
 undertake the recovery of this drum ; being not 
 ignorant of the impossibility, and knowing I 
 had no such purpose 1 ? I must give myself some 
 hurts, and say I got them in exploit : Yet slight 
 ones will not carry it : They will say, Came you 
 off with so little] and great ones I dare not give. 
 Wherefore] what 's the instance] Tongue, I must 
 put you into a butter-woman's mouth, and buy 
 myself another of Bajazet's mule, if you prattle 
 me into these perils. 
 
 1 Lord. Is it possible lie should know what he 
 is, and be that he is? Aside." 
 
 The last sentence is worth a folio of 'Moral 
 
 Essays.' But Parolles certainly knows him- 
 self. There is nothing but plain knavery, 
 mistaking its proper tools, in his lies and his 
 treacheries. The meanness of his nature is 
 his safeguard : after his detection the con- 
 solations of his philosophy are most cha- 
 racteristic : 
 
 " Yet am I thankful : if my heart ivere great, 
 'T would burst at this: Captain I '11 be no 
 
 more; 
 
 But I will eat and drink, and sleep as soft 
 As captain shall ; simply the thing I am 
 Shall make me live. Who knows himself a 
 
 braggart 
 
 Let him fear this ; for it will come to pass, 
 That every braggart shall be found an ass. 
 Rust, sword ! cool, blushes ! and, Parolles, 
 
 live 
 Safest in shame ! being fool'd by foolery 
 
 thrive ! 
 There 's place and means for every man alive." 
 
 And he will "live." Lafeu understands him 
 to the last, when he says, " Though you are 
 a fool and a knave, you shall eat." 
 
 And is this crawling, empty, vapouring, 
 cowardly representative of the off-scourings 
 of social life, to be compared for a moment 
 with the inimitable Falstaff? to be said to 
 have "many lineaments in common" with 
 him to be thrown into the shade by him 
 to be even " a little appendix " to his great- 
 ness ? Parolles is drawn by Shakspere as 
 utterly contemptible, in intellect, in spirit, 
 in morals. He is diverting from the situa- 
 tions into which his folly betrays him ; and 
 his complete exposure and humiliation con- 
 stitute the richness of the comedy. If he 
 had been a particle better, Shakspere would 
 have made his disgrace less ; and it is in his 
 charity even to the most degraded that he 
 has represented him as utterly insensible to 
 his own shame, and even hugging it as a 
 good : 
 
 " If my heart were great, 
 
 'T would burst at this." 
 
 But FalstafF, witty beyond all other charac- 
 ters of wit cautious, even to the point of 
 being thought cowardly swaying all men 
 by his intellectual resources under the great- 
 est difficulty boastful and lying only in a 
 
138 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK in. 
 
 spirit of hilarity, which makes him the first 
 to enjoy his own detection and withal, 
 though grossly selfish, so thoroughly genial 
 that many love him and few can refuse to 
 laugh with him is Falstaff to be compared 
 with Parolles, the notorious liar great way 
 fool solely a coward 1 The comparison will 
 not bear examining with patience, and much 
 less with painstaking. 
 
 But Parolles in his own way is infinitely 
 comic. " The scene of the drum," according 
 to a French critic, "is worthy of Moliere."* 
 This is the highest praise which a French 
 writer could bestow; and here it is just. 
 
 * Letourneur, Traduction,' tome ix. p. 329. 
 
 The character belongs to the school of which 
 Moliere is the head, rather than to the school 
 of Shakspere. 
 
 And what shall we say of the clown 1 He 
 is "the artificial fool ;" and we do not like 
 him, therefore, quite so much as dear Launce 
 and dearer Touchstone. To the Fool in 
 ' Lear ' he can no more be compared than 
 Parolles to Falstaff. But he is, nevertheless, 
 great something that no other artist but 
 Shakspere could have produced. Our poet 
 has used him as a vehicle for some biting 
 satire. There can be no doubt that he is 
 "a witty fool," "a shrewd knave, and an 
 unhappy." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 
 
 'THE TAMING OP THE SHREW' was first 
 printed in the folio collection of Shakspere's 
 Plays in 1623. It is not one of those plays 
 enumerated as Shakspere's by Meres, in 
 1598. 
 
 The matured opinion of Malone as to the 
 date of this play is thus given : " I had 
 supposed the piece now under consideration 
 to have been written in the year 1606. On a 
 more attentive perusal of it, and more expe- 
 rience in our author's style and manner, I am 
 persuaded that it was one of his very early 
 productions, and near, in point of time, to 
 'The Comedy of Errors,' 'Love's Labour's 
 Lost,' and ' The Two Gentlemen of Verona.' 
 In the old comedies, antecedent to the time 
 of our author's writing for the stage (if, in- 
 deed, they deserve that name), a kind of 
 doggrel measure is often found, which, as I 
 have already observed, Shakspeare adopted 
 in some of those pieces which were undoubt- 
 edly among his early compositions : I mean 
 his 'Errors' and 'Love's Labour's Lost.' 
 This kind of metre, being found also in the 
 play before us, adds support to the supposi- 
 tion that it was one of his early produc- 
 tions." Mr. Collier, however, doubts whether 
 'The Taming of the Shrew' can be treated 
 
 altogether as one of Shakspere's perform- 
 ances : " I am satisfied," he says, " that 
 more than one hand (perhaps at distant 
 dates) was concerned in it, and that Shake- 
 speare had little to do with any of the scenes 
 in which Katharine and Petruchio are not 
 engaged." Farmer had previously expressed 
 the same opinion, declaring the Induction to 
 be in our poet's best manner, and a great 
 part of the play in his worst, or even below 
 it. To this Steevens replies " I know not 
 to whom I could impute this comedy, if 
 Shakspeare was not its author. I think his 
 hand is visible in almost every scene, though 
 perhaps not so evidently as in those which 
 pass between Katharine and Petruchio." 
 Mr. Collier judges that "the underplot much 
 resembles the dramatic style of William 
 Haughton, author of an extant comedy, 
 called 'Englishmen for my Money,' which 
 was produced prior to 1598." 
 
 But there is another play, 'The Taming of 
 a Shrew,' which first appeared in 1594, under 
 the following title : * A pleasant conceited 
 Historic called the taming of a Shrew. As 
 it was sundry times acted by the Right 
 honourable the Earle of Pembrooke his ser- 
 vants. Printed at London by Peter Short, 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 
 
 139 
 
 and are to be sold by Cuthbert Burble, at 
 his shop at the Royal Exchange, 1594.' The 
 comedy opens with an Induction, the cha- 
 racters of which are a Lord, Slie, a Tapster, 
 Page, Players, and Huntsmen. The incidents 
 are precisely the same as those of the play 
 which we call Shakspere's. There is this 
 difference in the management of the cha- 
 racter of Sly in the anonymous comedy, that, 
 during the whole of the performance of ' The 
 Taming of a Shrew,' he occasionally makes 
 his remarks ; and is finally carried back to 
 the alehouse door in a state of sleep. In 
 Shakspere we lose this most diverting per- 
 sonage before the end of the first act. After 
 our poet had fairly launched him in the In- 
 duction, and given a tone to his subsequent 
 demeanour during the play, the performer of 
 the character was perhaps allowed to con- 
 tinue the dialogue extemporally. We doubt, 
 by the way, whether this would have been 
 permitted after Shakspere had prescribed 
 that the Clowns should " speak no more than 
 what is set down for them." 
 
 The scene of 'The Taming of a Shrew' is 
 laid at Athens ; that of Shakspere's at Padua. 
 The Athens of the one and the Padua of the 
 other are resorts of learning; the former 
 opening thus : 
 
 " Welcome to Athens, my beloved friend, 
 To Plato's school, and Aristotle's walks." 
 
 Alfonso, a merchant of Athens (the Baptista 
 of Shakspere), has three daughters, Kate, 
 Emilia, and Phylema. Aurelius, son of the 
 duke of Cestus (Sestos), is enamoured of one, 
 Polidor of another, and Ferando (the Petru- 
 cio of Shakspere) of Kate, the Shrew. The 
 merchant hath sworn, before he will allow 
 his two younger daughters to be addressed 
 by suitors, that 
 
 " His eldest daughter first shall be espoused." 
 
 The wooing of Kate by Ferando is exactly in 
 the same spirit as the wooing by Petrucio ; 
 so is the marriage ; so the lenten entertain- 
 ment of the bride in Ferando's country- 
 house ; so the scene with the Tailor and 
 Haberdasher ; so the prostrate obedience of 
 the tamed Shrew. The underplot, however, 
 is essentially different. The lovers of the 
 
 younger sisters do not woo them in assumed 
 characters ; though a merchant is brought 
 to personate the Duke of Cestus. The real 
 duke arrives, as Vincentio arrives in our 
 play, to discover the imposture ; and his in- 
 dignation occupies much of the latter part 
 of the action, with sufficient tediousness. All 
 parties are ultimately happy and pleased ; 
 and the comedy ends with the wager, as in 
 Shakspere, about the obedience of the several 
 wives, the Shrew pronouncing a homily upon 
 the virtue and beauty of submission, which 
 sounds much more hypocritical even than 
 that of the Kate of our poet. There cannot 
 be a doubt that the anonymous author and 
 Shakspere sometimes used the same images 
 and forms of expression occasionally seve- 
 ral whole lines : the incidents of those scenes 
 in which the process of taming the shrew is 
 carried forward are invariably the same. 
 The spectators of each play had the same 
 plots to delight them. They would equally 
 enjoy the surprise and self-satisfaction of the 
 drunken man 'when he became a lord ; equally 
 relish the rough wooing of the master of 
 " the taming school ;" rejoice at the dignity 
 of the more worthy gender when the poor 
 woman was denied " beef and mustard ;" and 
 hold their sides with convulsive laughter 
 when the tailor was driven off with his gown, 
 and the haberdasher with his cap. This un- 
 doubted resemblance involves some necessity 
 for conjecture, with very little guide from 
 evidence. The first and most obvious hypo- 
 thesis is, that ( The Taming of a Shrew ' was 
 an older play than Shakspere's ; and that he 
 borrowed from that comedy. The question 
 then arises, who was its author ? 
 
 The dramatic works of Greene, which have 
 been collected as his, are only six in number ; 
 and one was written in connexion with 
 Lodge. The ' Orlando Furioso ' is known to 
 have been his, by having been mentioned by 
 a contemporary writer. This play, in its 
 form of publication, appears to us to bear a 
 striking resemblance to 'The Taming of a 
 Shrew.' The title of the first edition is as 
 follows : ' The Historic of Orlando Furioso, 
 one of the twelve Pieres of France. As it 
 was plaid before the Queenes Maiestie. Lon- 
 don, Printed by John Danter for Cuthbert 
 
140 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK HI. 
 
 Burble, and are to be sold at his Shop nere 
 the Royal Exchange, 1594.' Compare this 
 with the title of < The Taming of a Shrew.' 
 Each is a " Historic ;" each is without an 
 author's name ; each is published by Cuth- 
 bert Burbie ; each is published in the same 
 year, 1594. Might not the recent death of 
 Greene the reputation which he left behind 
 him the unhappy circumstances ;,t tending 
 his death, for he perished in extreme poverty 
 and the remarkable controversy between 
 Nash and Harvey, in 1592, "principally 
 touching Robert Greene" have led the 
 bookseller to procure and publish copies of 
 these plays, if they were both written by 
 him ? It is impossible, we think, not to be 
 struck with the striking resemblance of these 
 anonymous performances, in the structure of 
 the verse, the extravagant employment of 
 mythological allusions, the laboured finery 
 intermixed with feebleness, and the occa- 
 sional outpouring of a rich and gorgeous 
 fancy. In the comic parts, too, it appears to 
 us that there is an equal similarity in the 
 two plays a mixture of the vapid and the 
 coarse, which looks like the attempt of an 
 educated man to lower himself to an unin- 
 formed audience. It is very difficult to 
 establish these opinions without being tedi- 
 ous ; but we may compare a detached pas- 
 sage or two : 
 
 ORLANDO FURIOSO. 
 
 " Orl. Is not my love like those purple- 
 coloured swans, 
 
 That gallop by the coach of Cynthia? 
 Org. Yes, marry is she, my lord. 
 Orl. Is not her face silver'd like that milk- 
 white shape, 
 
 When Jove came dancing down to Semele 1 
 Org. It is, my lord. 
 Orl. Then go thy ways and climb up to the 
 
 clouds, 
 
 And tell Apollo, that Orlando sits 
 Making of verses for Angelica. 
 And if he do deny to send me down 
 The shirt which Deianira sent to Hercules, 
 To make me brave upon my wedding-day, 
 Tell him, I '11 pass the Alps, and up to Meroe, 
 (I know he knows that watery lakish hill,) 
 And pull the harp out of the minstrel's hands, 
 And pawn it unto lovely Proserpine, 
 That she may fetch the fair Angelica." 
 
 TAMING OF A SHREW. 
 " Per. Tush, Kate, these words add greater 
 
 love in me, 
 
 And make me think thee fairer than before : 
 Sweet Kate, thou lovelier than Diana's purple 
 
 robe, 
 
 "Whiter than are the snowy Apennines, 
 Or icy hair that grows on Boreas' chin. 
 Father, I swear by Ibis' golden beak, 
 More fair and radiant is my bonny Kate 
 Than silver Xanthus when he doth embrace 
 The ruddy Simois at Ida's feet ; 
 And care not thou, sweet Kate, how I be clad ; 
 Thou shalt have garments wrought of Median 
 
 silk, 
 
 Enchased with precious jewels fetch 'd from far 
 By Italian merchants, that with Russian stems 
 Plough up huge furrows in the terrene main." 
 
 Take a passage, also, of the prose, or comic, 
 parts of the two plays, each evidently in- 
 tended for the clowns : 
 
 ORLANDO FURIOSO. 
 
 " Tom. Sirrah Ralph, an thou 'It go with me, 
 I '11 let thee see the bravest madman that ever 
 thou sawest. 
 
 Ralph. Sirrah Tom, I believe it was he that 
 was at our town o' Sunday : I '11 tell thee what 
 he did, sirrah. He came to our house when all 
 our folks were gone to church, and there was 
 nobody at home but I, and I was turning of the 
 spit, and he comes in and bade me fetch him 
 some drink. Now, I went and fetched him 
 some; and ere I came again, by my troth, he 
 ran away with the roast meat, spit and all, and 
 so we had nothing but porridge to dinner. 
 
 Tom. By my troth, that was brave; but, 
 sirrah, he did so course the boys last Sunday: 
 and, if ye call him madman, he '11 run after you, 
 and tickle your ribs so with flap of leather that 
 he hath, as it passeth." 
 
 TAMING OF A SHREW. 
 
 " San. Boy, oh disgrace to my person ! Zounds, 
 boy, of your face, you have many boys with such 
 pickadenaunts, I am sure. Zounds, would you 
 not have a bloody nose for this ? 
 
 Boy. Come, come, I did but jest; where is 
 that same piece of pie that I gave thee to keep ? 
 
 San. The pie? Ay, you have more mind of 
 your belly than to go see what your master does. 
 
 Boy. Tush, 't is no matter, man ; I prithee 
 give it me, I am very hungry I promise thee. 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 
 
 141 
 
 San. Why, you may take it, and the devil 
 burst you with it ! one cannot save a bit after 
 supper, but you are always ready to munch 
 it up. 
 
 Boy. Why, come, man, we shall have good 
 cheer anon at the bride-house, for your master 's 
 gone to church to be married already, and there's 
 such cheer as passeth. 
 
 San. brave ! I would I had eat no meat 
 this week, for I have never a corner left in my 
 belly." 
 
 ' The Historic of Alphonsus King of Ara- 
 gon' one of the plays published with 
 Greene's name, after his death furnishes a 
 passage or two which may be compared with 
 the old ' Taming of a Shrew :' 
 
 ALPHONSUS KING OF ARAGON. 
 " Thou shalt ere long be monarch of the world. 
 All christeu'd kings, with all your pagan dogs, 
 Shall bend their knees unto Iphigena. 
 The Indian soil shall be thine at command, 
 Where every step thou settest on the ground 
 Shall be received on the golden mines. 
 Rich Pactolus, that river of account, 
 Which doth descend from top of Tivole mount, 
 Shall be thine own, and all the world beside." 
 
 " Go, pack thou hence unto the Stygian lake, 
 And make report unto thy traitorous sire, 
 How well thou hast enjoy 'd the diadem, 
 Which he by treason set upon thy head ; 
 And, if he ask thee who did send thee down, 
 Alphonsus say, who now must wear thy crown. 
 
 What, is he gone 1 the devil break his neck ! 
 The fiends of hell torment his traitorous 
 
 corpse ! 
 
 Is this the quittance of Belinus' grace, 
 Which he did show unto that thankless 
 
 wretch, 
 That runagate, that rakehell, yea, that thief?' 
 
 TAMING OF A SHREW. 
 " When I cross'd the bubbling Canibey, 
 And sail'd along the crystal Hellespont, 
 I fill'd my coffers of the wealthy mines; 
 Where I did cause millions of labouring Moors 
 To undermine the caverns of the earth, 
 To seek for strange and new-found precious 
 
 stones, 
 
 And dive into the sea to gather pearl, 
 As fair as Juno offer'd Priam's son ; 
 And you shall take your liberal choice of all." 
 
 " I swear by fair Cynthia's burning rays, 
 By Merops' head, and by seven-mouthed Nile, 
 Had I but known ere thou hadst wedded her, 
 Were in thy breast the world's immortal soul, 
 This angry sword should rip thy hateful chest, 
 And hew thee smaller than the Libyan sands. 
 
 That damned villain that hath deluded me, 
 Whom I did send for guide unto my son. 
 Oh that my furious force could cleave the 
 
 earth, 
 
 That I might muster bands of hellish fiends, 
 To rack his heart and tear his impious soul !" 
 
 The English commentators and dramatic 
 antiquaries, in looking around for a, pro- 
 bable author of ' The Taming of a Shrew,' 
 named Greene, and Peele, and Kyd. A cor- 
 respondent of the editor of ' The Pictorial 
 Shakspere,' on the other side the Atlantic, 
 has brought forward some remarkable resem- 
 blances between this unknown author and 
 Marlowe. He says, "A peculiarity of ex- 
 pression (' Russian stems ') in Marlowe's first 
 play, 'Tamburlaine,' which had before puz- 
 zled me in the old ( Taming of a Shrew,' led 
 me to compare the two passages, and (judge 
 my surprise) I found the one an almost ver- 
 batim reprint of the other. This coincidence 
 induced me to compare more closely the 
 style of the metrical portion of ' The Taming 
 of a Shrew ' with that of ' Tamburlaine,' and 
 afterwards of Marlowe's other plays, in which 
 I found so strong a general resemblance, as, 
 conjoined with many direct transfers of lines 
 from one to the other, seem to afford good 
 ground for attributing both to one author. 
 As the first witness in this case, I will place 
 side by side such passages from Marlowe's 
 acknowledged works as are copied into the 
 one without a claimant : 
 
 MARLOWE. 
 
 ' Now that the gloomy shadow of the night, 
 Longing to view Orion's drizzling look, 
 Leaps from the antarctic world unto the sky, 
 And dims the welkin with his pitchy breath.' 
 Faustus, p. 8, ed. 1818. 
 
 ' Fairer than rocks of pearl and precious stone, 
 
 Whose eye:-: are brighter than the lamps of 
 heaven.' 
 
 T<mil>Hrlainp. I., Act TIL, Sc. 3. 
 
142 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEBE. 
 
 [BOOK in- 
 
 (Applied to a Man.} 
 ' Image of honour and nobility 
 
 In whose sweet person is comprised the sum 
 Of nature's skill and heavenly majesty.' 
 
 Tamburlaine, I., Act V., Sc. 2. 
 
 ' Eternal Heaven sooner be dissolved, 
 And all that pierceth Phoebus' silver eye, 
 Before such hap /aft! to Zenocrate.' 
 
 Tamburlaine, I., Act III., Sc. 2. 
 
 ' Thy garments shall be made of Median silk, 
 Enchased with precious jewels of mine own.' 
 Tamburlaine, I., Act I., Sc. 2. 
 
 'And Christian merchants that with Russian 
 
 stems 
 
 Plough up huge furrows in the Caspian Sea.' 
 Tamburlaine, I., Act L, Sc. 2. 
 ' The terrene main.' II., Act L, Sc. 1. 
 
 ' Wagner. Come hither, sirrah boy ! 
 Robin. Boy ! oh disgrace to my person ! 
 Zounds, boy in your face ! You have seen many 
 boys with beards, I am sure.' 
 
 Faustus, p. 12, ed. 1818. 
 
 "With ravishing sounds of his melodious harp.' 
 
 Faustus, p. 20. 
 
 UNKNOWN AUTHOR. 
 
 ' ]S"ow that the gloomy shadow of the night, 
 Longing to view Orion's drisling looks, 
 Leaps from th' antarctic world unto the sky, 
 And dims the welkin with her pitchy breath.' 
 Taming of a Shrew, p. 161, rep. 1779. 
 ' Whose eyes are brighter than the lamps of 
 
 heaven, 
 
 Fairer than rocks of pearl and precious stone.' 
 
 P. 167. 
 
 (Applied to a Woman.) 
 ' The image of honor and nobility, 
 In whose sweet person is comprised the summe 
 Of nature's skill and heavenly majesty !' 
 
 P. 169. 
 
 ' Eternal Heaven sooner be dissolVd, 
 And all that pierceth Phoebus' silver eye, 
 Before such hap befall to Polidor.' 
 
 P. 181. 
 ' Thou shalt have garments wrought of Median 
 
 silk, 
 
 Enchas'd with precious jewels fetch'd from far.' 
 Pp. 183, 184. 
 
 ' By Italian merchants, that with Russian stems 
 
 Plough up huge furrows in the terrene 
 
 main.' P. 184. 
 
 * Boy. Come hither, sirra boy ! 
 Sander. Boy ! oh disgrace to my person ! 
 Sounes, boy of your face ! You have many boys 
 with such pickadenaunts, I am sure.' P. 184. 
 
 ' And ravishing sounds of his melodious harp.' 
 
 P. 200. 
 
 " In other passages the imitation is strong, 
 but not so direct ; for example, 
 
 ' Her sacred beauty hath enchanted heaven ; 
 And, had she lived before the siege of Troy, 
 Helen (whose beauty summon'd Greece to 
 
 arms, 
 
 And drew a thousand ships to Tenedos) 
 Had not been named in Homer's Iliades.' 
 
 Tamburlaine, II., Act II., Sc. 2. 
 
 Whose sacred beauty hath enchanted me ; 
 More fair than was the Grecian Helena, 
 For whose sweet sake so many princes died 
 That came with thousand ships to Tenedos.' 
 Taming of a Shrew, p. 169. 
 
 " The ' thousand ships' is a favourite allu- 
 sion of Marlowe's. We have it again in 
 ' Faustus.' It seems to have been in unison 
 with his characteristic love of the magnifi- 
 cent." 
 
 The writer then proceeds to say, " What- 
 ever view is taken of such glaring imita- 
 tions, they may be well termed extraordinary. 
 That an author should so closely repeat him- 
 self is at least unusual. That any one should 
 so openly plagiarise from the works of a 
 living writer universally known, and where 
 detection would be certain, is next to incre- 
 dible. Is not the latter hypothesis, also, 
 rendered peculiarly improbable from the 
 fact that the thefts are not from a single 
 work, but are scattered over three distinct 
 plays 1 Does it not appear more reasonable 
 to suppose that the author of those three 
 works should use a second time images 
 familiar to his mind, than that another 
 should to such an extent collect and appro- 
 priate them ? 
 
 "A point naturally suggested here is, 'Are 
 there any repetitions, like those under con- 
 sideration, in the acknowledged works of 
 Marlowe V which I think may be answered 
 in the affirmative. For, on very hastily run- 
 ning over them, a number have presented 
 themselves, not, perhaps, so striking as those 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 THE TAMING OF TUB SHREW. 
 
 143 
 
 by which they have to be paralleled, and yet 
 sufficiently for the purpose." The passages 
 subsequently quoted certainly bear out this 
 assertion. 
 
 The writer then proceeds to show that the 
 versification of this play, stiff and monotonous 
 though it is, appears not to move so slowly 
 as that of Greene; the poetical figures are 
 poured out with a vehemence which he could 
 not afford; and there is a glow, a voluptuous 
 warmth, in the descriptions of female beauty, 
 before which even the classical allusions (so 
 cold in Greene) acquire something of life and 
 heat. There are pictures of wealth also, which 
 could scarcely have come from anyone but the 
 author of the ' Jew of Malta.' No dramatist 
 that he remembers at all approaches Marlowe 
 in such gorgeous passages. Further, there 
 is scarcely a single classical reference in the 
 ' Taming ' which does not occur in 'Faustus' 
 or ' Tamburlaine.' The only existing speci- 
 men we have of Marlowe's comic power is in 
 'Faustus.' The Sander and Boy of 'The 
 Taming a Shrew' are pretty much a repeti- 
 tion of the Wagner and Robin of that play, 
 from which indeed they borrow verbatim the 
 commencement of a dialogue. Nor does the 
 horse-play of the taming scenes appear out 
 of Marlowe's reach. There is in them a vio- 
 lence done to 'the modesty of Nature,' a 
 pandering to coarse taste, analogous in co- 
 medy to the monstrous rants and the bloody 
 feasts which disfigure his tragic efforts. At- 
 tempt what he would, Marlowe's ' fiery soul ' 
 could not be restrained from 'working out 
 its way.' 
 
 Do we, then, entirely agree with our cor- 
 respondent that Marlowe was the author of 
 ' The Taming of a Shrew,' in every sense ? 
 We do not go quite so far. We think that 
 he has clearly made out that Marlowe has as 
 good a title to the work as Greene perhaps 
 a better. Be it one or the other, they each 
 belonged to the same school of poetry ; Shak- 
 spere created a new school. But there are 
 passages and incidents in ' The Taming of a 
 Shrew' which are unlike Marlowe such as 
 the scenes with Sly ; these are unlike Greene 
 also ; they are fused more readily into 
 Shakspere's own materials, because they are 
 natural. We now propose a second theory. 
 
 Was there not an older play than ' The Ta- 
 ming of a Shrew,' which furnished the main 
 plot, some of the characters, and a small part 
 of the dialogue, both to the author of ' The 
 Taming of a Shrew ' and the author of ' The 
 Taming of the Shrew 1 ' This play we may 
 believe, without any violation of fact or pro- 
 bability, to have been used as the rude ma- 
 terial for both authors to work upon. There 
 was competition between them; one pro- 
 duced a play for the Earl of Pembroke's ser- 
 vants, the other for the Lord Chamberlain's 
 servants, out of some older play, much of 
 which was . probably improvisated by the 
 clowns, and whose main action, the discipline 
 of the Shrew, would be irresistibly attractive 
 to a rough audience, without the pompous 
 declamation of the .one remodeller, or the 
 natural poetry or rich humour of the other. 
 Whether the author or improver of the play 
 printed in 1594 be Marlowe or Greene, there 
 can be little question as to the characteristic 
 superiority of Shakspere's work. His was, 
 perhaps, a more careful remodelling or re- 
 creation. In ' The Taming of a Shrew ' it is 
 not difficult to detect, especially in Sly and 
 Sander, coarser things than belong either to 
 Greene or Marlowe. 
 
 But there is a third theory, that of Tieck 
 that 'The Taming of a Shrew' was a 
 youthful work of Shakspere himself. To our 
 minds that play is totally different from the 
 imagery and the versification of Shakspere. 
 
 Shakspere's undoubted play, ' The Taming 
 of the Shrew,' was produced in a " taming " 
 age. Men tamed each other by the axe and 
 the fagot ; parents tamed their children by 
 the rod and the ferrule, as they stood or 
 knelt in trembling silence before those who 
 had given them life ; and, although England 
 was then called the "paradise of women," 
 and, as opposed to the treatment of horses, 
 they were treated " obsequiously," husbands 
 thought that " taming," after the manner of 
 Petrucio, by oaths and starvation, was a 
 commendable fashion. Fletcher was some- 
 what heretical upon this point ; for he wrote 
 a play called 'The Tamer Tamed, or the 
 Taming of the Tamer,' in which Petrucio, 
 having married a second wife, was subjected 
 to the same process by which he conquered 
 
144 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK in. 
 
 ' Katharine the curst." The discipline ap- 
 peared to be considered necessary for more 
 than a century afterwards; for we find in 
 ' The Tatler' a story, told as new and original, 
 of a gentleman in Lincolnshire who had four 
 daughters, one of whom was " so imperious 
 a temper (usually called a high spirit), that 
 it continually made great uneasiness in the 
 family," but who was entirely reclaimed by 
 the Petrucio recipe of "taking a woman 
 down in her wedding shoes." 
 
 We are the happier our fortune living 
 in an age when this practice of Petrucio is 
 not universally considered orthodox ; and we 
 owe a great deal to him who has exhibited 
 the secrets of the " taming school " with so 
 much spirit in this comedy, for the better 
 belief of our age, that violence is not to be 
 subdued by violence. It was he who said, 
 when the satirist cried out 
 
 " Give me leave 
 To speak my mind, and I will through and 
 
 through 
 Cleanse the foul body of the infected world" 
 
 it was he who said, in his own proper spirit 
 of gentleness and truth, 
 
 "Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst 
 
 do- 
 Most mischievous foul sin in chiding sin." 
 
 It was he who found " a soul of goodness in 
 things evil," who taught us, in the same 
 delicious reflection of his own nature, the 
 real secret of conquering opposition : 
 
 " Your gentleness shall force, 
 More than your force move us to gentleness."* 
 
 Pardon be for him, if, treading in the foot- 
 steps of some predecessor whose sympathies 
 with the peaceful and the beautiful were im- 
 measurably inferior to his own, and sacri- 
 ficing something to the popular appetite, he 
 should have made the husband of a froward 
 ! woman " kill her in her own humour," and 
 bring her upon her knees to the abject obe- 
 dience of a revolted but penitent slave : 
 
 " A foul contending rebel, 
 'And graceless traitor to her loving lord." 
 
 * ' As You Like It.' 
 
 Pardon for him? If there be one reader of 
 Shakspere, and especially if that reader be a 
 female, who cherishes unmixed indignation 
 when Petrucio, in his triumph, exclaims 
 
 " He that knows better how to tame a shrew, 
 Now let him speak," 
 
 we would say, the indignation which you 
 feel, and in which thousands sympathize, 
 belongs to the age in which you live ; but the 
 principle of justice, and of justice to women 
 above all, from which it springs, has been 
 established, more than by any other lessons 
 of human origin, by him who has now moved 
 your anger. It is to him that woman owes, 
 more than to any other human authority, the 
 popular elevation of the feminine character, 
 by the most matchless delineations of its 
 purity, its faith, its disinterestedness, its 
 tenderness, its heroism, its union of intellect 
 and sensibility. It is he that, as long as the 
 power of influencing mankind by high 
 thoughts, clothed in the most exquisite lan- 
 guage, shall endure, will preserve the ideal 
 elevation of women pure and unassailable 
 from the attacks of coarseness or libertinism, 
 ay, and even from the degradation of the 
 example of the crafty and worldly-minded 
 of their own sex : for it is he that has de- 
 lineated the ingenuous and trusting Imogen, 
 the guileless Perdita, the impassioned Juliet, 
 the heart-stricken but loving Desdemona, the 
 generous and courageous Portia, the uncon- 
 querable Isabella, the playful Rosalind, the 
 world-unknowing Miranda. Shakspere may 
 have exhibited one froward woman wrongly 
 tamed : but who can estimate the number of 
 those from whom his all-penetrating influence 
 has averted the curse of being froward ? 
 
 If Shakspere requires any apology for ' The 
 Taming of the Shrew,' it is for having adopted 
 the subject at all not for his treatment of 
 it. The Kate of the comedy to which this 
 bears so much resemblance, upon the surface, 
 is a thoroughly unfeminine person, coarse 
 and obstreperous, without the humour which 
 shines through the violence of Shakspere's 
 Katharine. He describes his Shrew 
 
 " Young and beauteous ; 
 
 Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman." 
 
 She has a "scolding tongue," "her only 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 
 
 145 
 
 fault." (Her temper, as Shakspere has de- 
 lineated it, is the result of her pride and her 
 love of domination. She is captious to her 
 father; she tyrannizes over her younger 
 sister; she is jealous of the attractions of that 
 sister's gentleness. ^ This is a temper that 
 perhaps could not be subdued by kindness, 
 except after Petrucio's fashion of " killing a 
 wife with kindness." At any rate, it could 
 not be so subdued, except by a long course 
 of patient discipline, quite incompatible with 
 the hurried movement of a dramatic action. 
 In the scene where Katharine strikes Bianca 
 her temper has been exhibited at the worst. 
 It is bad enough ; but not quite so bad as 
 appears from the following description of a 
 French commentator: "Catharine bat sa 
 soeur par fantaisie et pour passer le temps, 
 malgre les prieres et les larmes de Bianca, 
 qui ne se defend que par la douceur. Bap- 
 tista accourt, et met Bianca en surete dans 
 sa chambre. Catharine sort, enragee de 
 n'avoir plus personne a battre."* It is in 
 her worst humour that Petrucio woos her; 
 and surely nothing can be more animated 
 than the wooing: 
 
 " For you are call'd plain Kate, 
 And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the 
 
 curst ; 
 
 But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom, 
 Kate of Kate-Hall, my super-dainty Kate, 
 For dainties are all cates; and therefore, Kate, 
 Take this of me, Kate of my consolation; 
 Hearing thy mildness praised in every town, 
 Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded 
 (Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs), 
 Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife." 
 
 Mr. Brownf has very judiciously pointed 
 out the conduct of this scene as an example 
 of Shakspere's intimate knowledge of Italian 
 manners. The conclusion of it is in reality 
 a betrothment; of which circumstance no 
 indication is given in the other play. The 
 imperturbable spirit of Petrucio, and the 
 daring mixture of reality and jest in his 
 deportment subdued Katharine at the first 
 interview : 
 
 " Setting all this chat aside, 
 
 * Paul Duport, ' Essais Litt^raire^,' torn. ii. p. 305. 
 f ' Shakspeare's Autobiographical Poems.' 
 
 Thus in plain terms : Your father hath con- 
 sented 
 
 That you shall be my wife; your dowry 
 'greed on ; 
 
 And will you, nill you, I will marry you." 
 
 Katharine denounces him as 
 
 " A madcap ruffian, and a swearing Jack;" 
 Petrucio heeds it not : 
 
 " We have 'greed so well together, 
 That upon Sunday is the wedding-day." 
 
 Katharine rejoinds, 
 
 * I '11 see thee hang'd on Sunday first;" 
 
 but, nevertheless, the betrothment pro- 
 ceeds : 
 
 " Give me thy hand, Kate : I will unto Yenice, 
 To buy apparel 'gainst the wedding-day : 
 Provide the feast, father, and bid the guests ; 
 I will be sure my Katharine shall be fine. 
 Bap. I know not what to say : but give me 
 
 your hands ; 
 
 God send you joy, Petrucio ! 't is a match. 
 Ore. Tra. Amen, say we ; we will be wife- 
 
 " Father and Wife," says Petrucio. The be- 
 trothment is complete; and Katharine ac- 
 knowledges it when Petrucio does not come 
 to his appointment : 
 
 " Now must the world point at poor Katharine, 
 And say Lo ! there is mad Petrucio's wife, 
 If it would please him come and marry her." 
 
 The " taming " has begun ; her pride is 
 touched in a right direction. But Petrucio 
 does come. What passes in the church is 
 matter of description, but the description is 
 Shakspere all over. When we compare the 
 freedom and facility which our poet has 
 thrown into these scenes with the drawling 
 course of the other play which deals with the 
 same incidents, we are amazed that any one 
 should have a difficulty in distinctly tracing 
 his " fine Roman hand." Nor are the scenes 
 of the under-plot in our opinion less certainly 
 his. Who but Shakspere could have written 
 these lines ? 
 
 " Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move, 
 And with her breath she did perfume the air; 
 Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her." 
 
46 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK in. 
 
 Compare this exquisite simplicity, this tender 
 nd unpretending harmony, with the bom- 
 )astic images, and the formal rhythm, of 
 he other play; the following passage, for 
 xample : 
 
 " Come, fair Einelia, my lovely love, 
 Brighter than the burnish'd palace of the sun, 
 The eyesight of the glorious firmament, 
 In whose bright looks sparkles the radiant 
 
 fire 
 Wily Prometheus slily stole from Jove." 
 
 A.nd who but Shakspere could have created 
 Grrumio out of the materials which supplied 
 ,he stupid Sander of ' The Taming of a 
 Shrew r That 
 
 " Ancient, trusty, pleasant, servant Grumio," 
 
 s one of those incomparable characters who 
 drove the old clowns and fools off the stage, 
 and trampled their wooden daggers and cox- 
 combs for ever under foot. He is one of that 
 numerous train that Shakspere called up, of 
 whom Shadwell said that "they had more 
 wit than any of the wits and critics of his 
 time." When Grumio comes with Petrucio 
 to wed, he says not a word ; but who has not 
 pictured him " with a linen stock on one leg, 
 and a kersey boot-hose on the other a very 
 monster in apparel ; and not like a Christian 
 footboy, or a gentleman's lackey ? " We 
 imagine him, like Sancho or Ralpho, some- 
 what under-sized. His profound remark, 
 " considering the weather, a taller man than 
 I would take cold," is indicative equally 
 of his stature and his wit. In the scene 
 with Curtis, in the fourth act, he is almost 
 as good as Launce and Touchstone. 
 
 But we are digressing from Petrucio, the 
 soul of this drama. Hazlitt's character oJ 
 him is very just : " Petrucio is a madman 
 in his senses ; a very honest fellow, who 
 hardly speaks a word of truth, and succeeds 
 in all his tricks and impostures. He acts 
 his assumed character to the life, with the 
 most fantastical extravagance, with com- 
 plete presence of mind, with untired anima 
 spirits, and without a particle of ill-humoui 
 from beginning to end." The great skil 
 which Shakspere has shown in the manage 
 ment of this comedy is established in the 
 conviction which he produces all along tha 
 
 > etrucio's character is assumed. Whatever 
 te may say, whatever he may do, we are 
 atisfied that he has a real fund of good 
 lumour at the bottom of all the outbreaks 
 >f his inordinate self-will. We know that, 
 f he succeeds in subduing the violence of 
 lis wife by a much higher extravagance of 
 violence, he will be prepared not only to re- 
 ,urn her affection, but to evoke it, in all the 
 strength and purity of woman's love, out of 
 :he pride and obstinacy in which it has been 
 )uiied. His concluding line, 
 
 " Why, there 's a wench ! Come on, and kiss 
 me, Kate," 
 
 is an earnest of his happiness. 
 
 Of the ' Induction' we scarcely know how 
 to speak without appearing hyperbolical in 
 our praise. It is to us one of the most pre- 
 cious gems in Shakspere's casket. The ele- 
 gance, the truth, the high poetry, the con- 
 summate humour, of this fragment are so 
 remarkable, that, if we apply ourselves to 
 compare it carefully with the Induction of 
 the other play, and with the best of the dra- 
 matic poetry of his contemporaries, we shall 
 in some degree obtain a conception, not only 
 of the qualities in which he equalled and 
 excelled the highest things of other men, 
 and in which he could be measured with 
 them, but of those wonderful endowments in 
 which he differed from all other men, and to 
 which no standard of comparison can be 
 applied. Schlegel says, " The last half of 
 this prelude, that in which the tinker in his 
 new state again drinks himself out of his 
 senses, and is transformed in his sleep into 
 his former condition, from some accident or 
 other is lost." We doubt whether it was 
 ever produced ; and whether Shakspere did 
 not exhibit his usual judgment in letting 
 the curtain drop upon honest Christopher, 
 when his wish was accomplished at the close 
 of the comedy which he had expressed very 
 early in its progress : 
 
 " *T is a very excellent piece of work, madam 
 lady; 'Would 't were done !" 
 
 Had Shakspere brought him again upon th< 
 scene, in all the richness of his first exhibi 
 
LANCASTER AND YORK. 
 
 147 
 
 tion, perhaps the impatience of the audience 
 would never have allowed them to sit through 
 the lessons of "the taming-school." We 
 have had farces enough founded upon the 
 legend of Christopher Sly, but no one has 
 
 ventured to continue him. Neither this 
 fragment, nor that of " Cambuscan bold," 
 could be made perfect, unless we could 
 " Call up him that left half told 
 The story." 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE Dramas of Shakspere are in no particu- 
 lar more remarkable than in the almost com- 
 plete absence of any allusion to their author 
 any reference to his merely personal 
 thoughts and circumstances any intimation, 
 that might naturally enough have been con- 
 veyed in Prologue or Epilogue, of the rela- 
 tions in which the Poet stood with regard to 
 his audience. There are only ten of his 
 plays in which any one of the characters, at 
 the conclusion, comes forward as an actor to 
 deprecate censure or solicit applause. There 
 are only two out of these ten plays in which 
 the Author, through the actor, directly ad- 
 dresses the spectators. In the Epilogue to 
 ' The Second Part of Henry IV.' the Dancer 
 says, in a light manner, " Our humble Author 
 will continue the story." In the concluding 
 Chorus to ' Henry V.,' the Poet, then in the 
 very zenith of his popularity, addresses him- 
 self to the audience, of course through the 
 actor, more seriously and emphatically : 
 
 " Thus far, with rough and all unable pen, 
 
 Our bending author hath pursued the story; 
 In little room confining mighty men, 
 
 Mangling by starts the full course of their 
 
 glory. 
 Small time, but in that small most greatly 
 
 lived 
 This star of England : fortune made his 
 
 sword 
 
 By which the world's best garden he achieved, 
 And of it left his son imperial lord. 
 
 Henry the sixth, in infant bands crown'd king 
 Of France and England, did this king suc- 
 ceed ; 
 
 Whose state so many had the managing, 
 That they lost France, and made his Eng- 
 land bleed : 
 Which oft our stage hath shown; and for 
 
 their sake, 
 In your fair minds let this acceptance take." 
 
 " The story " which the author " hath pur- 
 sued thus far" is the story which began with 
 the deposition of Richard II. The story of 
 the triumphant progress of the house of Lan- 
 caster, up to the period when the son of 
 Bolingbroke had " achieved the world's best 
 garden," had been told by the poet in four 
 dramas, of which ' Henry V.' was the conclud- 
 ing one. These dramas had been linked to- 
 gether with the most scrupulous care, so 
 that, although for the purposes of represen- 
 tation there were necessarily distinct pauses 
 in the action, they were essentially one great 
 drama. They were written, it is highly pro- 
 bable, almost consecutively ; for not only 
 does the external evidence show that they 
 were given to the world during the last 
 three years of the sixteenth century, but their 
 whole dramatic construction, as well as their 
 peculiarities of style, determine them to be- 
 long to one and the same period of the poet's 
 life, when his genius grasped a subject with 
 the full consciousness of power, and revelled 
 in its own luxuriance, whether of wit or 
 
 L 2 
 
I 148 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEEE. 
 
 [BOOK iv. 
 
 fancy, without timidity. But there was 
 another great division of the story, which had 
 3een previously told. As the glories of the 
 louse of Lancaster, consummated in the 
 victory of Agincourt,had been traced through 
 ;hese four great dramas, so the ruin of the 
 house of Lancaster, and all the terrible con- 
 sequences of the struggles between that 
 house and the other branch of the Planta- 
 genets, even up to the final termination of 
 the struggle at the field of Bosworth, had 
 been developed in four other dramas of an 
 earlier date : 
 
 " Henry the sixth, in infant bands crown'd king 
 Of France and England, did this king suc- 
 ceed ; 
 
 Whose state so many had the managing, 
 That they lost France, and made his Eng- 
 land bleed : 
 Which oft our stage hath shown." 
 
 Of this other series of dramas thus described 
 the second in the order of events, the first 
 in the order of their composition and per- 
 formance "the bending author" in his 
 Chorus to 'Henry V.' makes no equivocal 
 mention. The events which " lost France " 
 and made "England bleed" had the "stage" 
 of Shakspere often "shown," in dramas 
 which had long been familiar to his audience, 
 and were unquestionably in the highest de- 
 gree popular. As early as 1592 Thomas 
 Nashe thus writes * " How would it have 
 joyed brave Talbot, the terror of the French, 
 to think that after he had lain two hundred 
 years in his tomb he should triumph again on 
 the stage ; and have his bones new embalmed 
 with the tears of ten thousand spectators at 
 least (at several times), who, in the trage- 
 dian that represents his person, behold him 
 fresh bleeding !"* In 1596, when Ben Jon- 
 son produced his ' Every Man in his Hu- 
 mour,' he accompanied it with a Prologue t, 
 levelled against what appeared to him the 
 absurdities of the romantic drama, in which 
 is this passage : 
 
 * ' Pierce Pennilesse his Supplication to the Devil.' 
 t Giffbrd has clearly demonstrated that the Prologue 
 appeared originally with Jonson's first comedy, and was 
 not appended long afterwards, as the commentators have 
 supposed, for the sake of sneering at Shakspere's later 
 dramas. 
 
 " With three rusty swords, 
 And help of some few foot and half-foot 
 
 words:}:, 
 
 Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars, 
 And in the tiring-house bring wounds to 
 
 scars." 
 
 That the play in which the brave Talbot 
 triumphed "again on the stage" was what 
 we call ' The First Part of Henry VI.,' there 
 can be no reasonable doubt ; that what we 
 call the Second and Third Parts of ' Henry 
 VI.,' and perhaps ' Richard III.,' were those 
 in which were fought over " York and Lan- 
 caster's long jars," is equally clear. Shak- 
 spere, as it appears to us, does not hesitate 
 to adopt this series of plays as his own. The 
 author of ' Henry V.' asks that the success 
 of these earlier dramas should commend his 
 later play to a favourable reception : 
 
 " For their sake, 
 In your fair minds let this acceptance take." 
 
 For a critical study of the plays of Shak- 
 spere there is an important advantage in 
 tracing the growth of his powers through the 
 probable order in which his dramas were 
 produced. Following out this principle 
 strictly, we should treat of ' Henry VI.' and 
 1 Richard III.' before 'Richard II.," Henry 
 IV.,' and Henry V.' But, on the other hand, 
 we may consider this series of eight plays as 
 the development of a great idea of dramatic 
 unity, conceived, it may be, by the poet in 
 his earliest period, although produced in de- 
 tached portions, and not grouped into one 
 " story " till ' Henry V.' completed the series. 
 The circumstances which suggested " the 
 story " would naturally arise out of his youth- 
 ful position. The "story" of the Wars of the 
 Roses was presented to him with ancestral 
 and local associations. When Shakspere was 
 about five years of age, a grant of arms was 
 made by the College of Heralds to his father. 
 The father was unquestionably engaged in 
 business of some sort in Stratford-upon-Avon ; 
 he was an agriculturist, in all likelihood ; 
 but he lived in an age when the pride of an- 
 cestry was not lightly regarded, and when a 
 distinction such as this was of real and per- 
 
 t Jonson, in another place, has translated the " sesquipt- 
 dalia verba," by this phrae. 
 
LANCASTER AND YORK. 
 
 149 
 
 manent importance. The grant was con- 
 firmed in 1599 ; and the reason for the con- 
 firmation of arms is stated with minute 
 particularity in the "exemplification" then 
 granted by Sir William Dethick and the 
 great Camden : " Know ye that in all na- 
 tions and kingdoms the record and remem- 
 brance of the valiant facts and virtuous dis- 
 positions of worthy men have been known 
 and divulged by certain shields of arms and 
 tokens of chivalry ; the grant and testimony 
 whereof appertaineth unto us, by virtue of 
 our offices from the queen's most excellent 
 majesty and her highness' most noble and 
 victorious progenitors ; wherefore, being so- 
 licited, and by credible report informed that 
 John Shakspeare, now of Stratford-upon- 
 Avon, in the county of Warwick, gent., 
 whose parent and great-grandfather, late an- 
 tecessor, for his faithful and approved service 
 to the late most prudent prince King Henry 
 VII. of famous memory, was advanced and 
 rewarded with lands and tenements, given to 
 him in these parts of Warwickshire, where 
 they have continued by some descents in 
 good reputation and credit," &c., &c. It is 
 not difficult to imagine the youthful Shak- 
 spere sitting at his mother's feet, to listen to 
 the tale of his " antecessor's " prowess ; or to 
 picture the boy led by his father over the 
 field of Bosworth to be shown the great 
 morass which lay between both armies and 
 Radmoor Plain, where the battle began 
 and Dickon's Nook, where the tyrant ha- 
 rangued his army and the village of Dad- 
 lington, where the graves of the slain still 
 indented the ground. Here was the scene of 
 his antecessor's " faithful and approved ser- 
 vice." In the humble house of Shakspere's 
 boyhood there was, in all probability, to be 
 
 found a thick squat folio volume, then some 
 thirty years printed, in which might be read, 
 " what misery, what murder, and what exe- 
 crable plagues this famous region hath suf- 
 fered by the division and dissention of the 
 renowned houses of Lancaster and York." 
 This, to the generation of Shakspere's boy- 
 hood, was not a tale buried in the dust of 
 ages ; it was one whose traditions were 
 familiar to the humblest of the land, whilst 
 the memory of its bitter hatreds still ruffled 
 the spirits of the highest. " For what noble- 
 man liveth at this day, or what gentleman of 
 any ancient stock or progeny is clear, whose 
 lineage hath not been infested and plagued 
 with this unnatural division ? " In that old 
 volume from which we quote, " the names of 
 the histories contained " are thus set forth : 
 "I. 'The Unquiet Time of King Henry the 
 Fourth.' II. 'The Victorious Acts of King 
 Henry the Fifth.' III. ' The Troublous Sea- 
 son of King Henry the Sixth.' IV. 'The 
 Prosperous Reign of King Edward the 
 Fourth.' V. ' The Pitiful Life of King Ed- 
 ward the Fifth.' VI. ' The Tragical Doings 
 of King Richard the Third.' VII. The Po- 
 litic Governance of King Henry the Seventh.' 
 VIII. 'The Triumphant Reign of King 
 Henry the Eighth.' " This book was Hall's 
 ' Chronicle.' 
 
 The subject, then, of this division of our 
 ' Studies ' will be Shakspere's Dramatic Chro- 
 nicle " of the two noble and illustrious fami- 
 lies of Lancaster and York, being long in 
 continual dissention for the Crown of this 
 realm," the ' Chronicle/ which commences 
 with the banishment of Bolingbroke by 
 Richard II., and ends with the overthrow of 
 the descendant of " the first author of the 
 division " on the field of Bosworth. 
 
150 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK iv. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 KING RICHARD II. 
 
 THE Richard II. of Shakspere is the Richard 
 II. of real history. 
 
 But there is a question whether, as the 
 foundation of this drama, Shakspere worked 
 upon any previous play. No copy of any 
 such play exists. The character of Richard 
 is so entire so thoroughly a whole that we 
 can have little doubt in believing it to be a 
 creation, and not a character adapted to the 
 received dramatic notions of the poet's au- 
 dience. But still there is every reason to 
 suppose that there was another play of 
 ' Richard II.' perhaps two others ; and tha't 
 one held possession of the stage long after 
 Shakspere's exquisite production had been 
 acted and published. There is a curious 
 matter connected with the state history of 
 Shakspere's own times that has regard to the 
 performance of some play of ( Richard II.' On 
 the afternoon previous to the insurrection of 
 the Earl of Essex, in February, 1601, Sir 
 Gilly Merrick, one of his partisans, procured 
 to be acted before a great company of those 
 who were engaged in the conspiracy, " the 
 play of deposing Richard II." The official 
 pamphlet of the declarations of the treasons 
 of the Earl of Essex states that, when it 
 was told Merrick, "by one of the players, 
 that the play was old, and they should have 
 loss in playing it, because few would come to 
 it, there was forty shillings extraordinary 
 given to play it ; and so, thereupon, played 
 it was." In the printed account of the ar- 
 raignment of Merrick, it is said that he 
 ordered this play " to satisfy his eyes with a 
 sight of that tragedy which he thought soon 
 after his lord should bring from the stage to 
 the state." There is a passage in Camden's 
 ' Annals ' which would appear to place it be- 
 yond a doubt that the play so acted was an 
 older play than that of Shakspere. It is 
 there charged against Essex that he procured, 
 by money, the obsolete tragedy (exoletam 
 tragoediam) of the abdication of Richard II. 
 to be acted in a public theatre before the 
 
 conspiracy. Bacon hints at a systematic 
 purpose of bringing Richard II. " upon the 
 stage and into print in Queen Elizabeth's 
 time." Elizabeth herself, in a conversation 
 with Lambarde, the historian of Kent, and 
 keeper of the Records in the Tower, going 
 over a pandect of the Rolls which Lambarde 
 had prepared, coming to the reign of Richard 
 II., said, " I am Richard II., know ye not 
 that ?" Any allusion to Richard II. at that 
 time was the cause of great jealousy. Hay- 
 warde, in 1599, very narrowly escaped a state 
 prosecution for his ' First Part of the Life 
 and Reign of King Henry IV.' This book 
 was the deposition of Richard II. put " into 
 print," to which Bacon alludes. It appears 
 to us that, without further evidence, there 
 can be no doubt that the play acted before 
 the partisans of the Earl of Essex was not 
 the play of Shakspere. The deposition scene, 
 as we know by the title-page, professed to 
 be added to the edition of 1608. The play 
 which Merrick ordered was, in 1601, called 
 an obsolete play. Further, would Shakspere 
 have continued in favour with Elizabeth, 
 had he been the author of a play whose per- 
 formance gave such deep offence 1 
 
 But we have now further evidence that 
 there was an old play of ' Richard II.,' which 
 essentially differed from Shakspere's play. 
 Mr. Collier, whose researches have thrown so 
 much light upon the stage in general, and 
 upon Shakspere's life in particular, has pub- 
 lished some very curious extracts from a 
 manuscript in the Bodleian Library, which 
 describe, from the observations of a play- 
 goer in the time of James I., a play of 
 'Richard II.,' essentially different in its 
 scenes from the play of Shakspere. Dr. 
 Syrnon Forman, who was a sort of quack and 
 astrologer, and who, being implicated in the 
 conspiracy to murder Sir Thomas Overbury, 
 had escaped public accusation by suddenly 
 dying in 1611, kept "a book of plays and 
 notes thereof, for common policy ;" by which 
 
I.] 
 
 RICHARD II. 
 
 151 
 
 " common policy " he means for maxims of 
 prudence. His first entry is entitled " in 
 Richard II., at the Globe, 1611, the 30 of 
 April, Thursday." From the extract which 
 we shall take the liberty of giving from Mr. 
 Collier's book, it will be seen that at Shak- 
 spere's own theatre, the Globe, a ' Richard 
 II.' was performed, which was, unquestion- 
 ably, not his ' Richard II.' 
 
 "Remember therein how Jack Straw, by his 
 overmuch boldness, not being politic nor sus- 
 pecting anything, was suddenly, at Smithfield 
 Bars, stabbed by Walworth, the Mayor of Lon- 
 don, and so he and his whole army was over- 
 thrown. Therefore, in such case, or the like, 
 never admit any party without a bar between, 
 for a man cannot be too wise, nor keep himself 
 too safe. 
 
 " Also remember how the Duke of Glocester, 
 the Earl of Arundel, Oxford, and others, cross- 
 ing the King in his humour about the Duke of 
 Erland (Ireland) and Bushy, were glad to fly 
 and raise a host of men ; and, being in his 
 castle, how the Duke of Erland came by night 
 to betray him, with three hundred men ; but, 
 having privy warning thereof, kept his gates 
 fast, and would not suffer the enemy to enter, 
 which went back again with a fly in his ear, 
 and after was slain by the Earl of Arundel in 
 the battle. 
 
 "Remember, also, when the Duke (i. e. of 
 Glocester) and Arundel came to London with 
 their army, King Richard came forth to them, 
 and met them, and gave them fair words, and 
 promised them pardon, and that all should be 
 well, if they would discharge their army : upon 
 whose promises and fair speeches they did it ; 
 and after, the King bid them all to a banquet, 
 and so betrayed them and cut off their heads, 
 &c., because they had not his pardon under his 
 hand and seal before, but his word. 
 
 " Remember therein, also, how the Duke of 
 Lancaster privily contrived all villainy to set 
 them all together by the ears, and to make the 
 nobility to envy the King, and mislike him and 
 his government ; by which means he made his 
 own son king, which was Henry Bolingbroke. 
 
 " Remember, also, how the Duke of Lancaster 
 asked a wise man whether himself should ever 
 be king, and he told him no, but his son should 
 be a king : and when he had told him, he 
 hanged him up for his labour, because he should 
 not bruit abroad, or s;>eak thereof to others. 
 
 This was a policy in the commonwealth's opi- 
 nion, but I say it was a villain's part, and a 
 Judas' kiss, to hang the man for telling him 
 the truth. Beware, by this example, of noble- 
 men and their fair words, and say little to them, 
 lest they do the like to thee for thy good 
 will." * 
 
 From Forman's account of this play it will 
 be seen that it embraces the earlier period 
 of Richard II., containing the insurrection 
 of Jack Straw. It seems very doubtful 
 whether it includes the close of the reign. 
 We have a talk for " policy " about the Duke 
 of Lancaster's (Gaunt's) machinations ; but 
 nothing about Henry Bolingbroke. Were 
 there two plays of ' Richard II.' of which we 
 know nothing the obsolete play of the depo- 
 sition, which Merriek caused to be acted in 
 1601, and the play containing Jack Straw, 
 which Forman noted in 1611 ? 
 
 We scarcely know how to approach this 
 drama, even for the purpose of a simple ana- 
 lysis. We are almost afraid to trust our 
 own admiration when we turn to the cold 
 criticism by which opinion in this country 
 has been wont to be governed. We have 
 been told that it cannot " be said much to 
 affect the passions or enlarge the under- 
 standing.'^ It may be so. And yet, we 
 think, it might somewhat " affect the pas- 
 sions," for " gorgeous tragedy " hath here 
 put on her " scepter'd pall," and if she bring 
 not Terror in her train, Pity, at least, claims 
 the sad story for her own. And yet it may 
 somewhat " enlarge the understanding," 
 for, though it abound not in those senten- 
 tious moralities which may fitly adorn " a 
 theme at school," it lays bare more than one 
 human bosom with a most searching ana- 
 tomy ; and, in the moral and intellectual 
 strength and weakness of humanity, which 
 it discloses with as much precision as the 
 scalpel reveals to the student of our physical 
 nature the symptoms of health or disease, 
 may we read the proximate and final causes 
 of this world's success or loss, safety or dan- 
 ger, honour or disgrace, elevation or ruin. 
 And then, moreover, the profound truths 
 
 * New Particulars regarding the Works of Shake- 
 speare:' 1836. 
 t Johnson. 
 
 _J 
 
52 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK iv. 
 
 which, half hidden to the careless reader, are 
 o be drawn out from this drama, are con- 
 fined in such a splendid framework of the 
 )icturesque and the poetical, that the setting 
 >f the jewel almost distracts our attention 
 rom the jewel itself. We are here plunged 
 
 into the midst of the fierce passions and the 
 ;orgeous pageantries of the antique time. 
 
 We not only enter the halls and galleries, 
 
 where is hung 
 
 ' Armoury of the invincible knights of old," 
 
 but we see the beaver closed, and the spear 
 in rest : under those cuirasses are hearts 
 Smocking against the steel with almost more 
 chan mortal rage ; the banners wave, the 
 trumpet sounds heralds and marshals are 
 ready to salute the victor but the absolute 
 king casts down his warder, and the antici- 
 pated triumph of one proud champion must 
 end in the unmerited disgrace of both. The 
 transition is easy from the tourney to the 
 battle-field. A nation must bleed that a 
 subject may be avenged. A crown is to be 
 played for, though 
 
 " Tumultuous wars 
 
 Shall kin with kin and kind with kind con- 
 found." 
 
 The luxurious lord, 
 
 " That every day under his household roof 
 Did keep ten thousand men," 
 
 perishes in a dungeon ; the crafty usurper 
 sits upon his throne, but it is undermined by 
 the hatreds even of those who placed him on 
 it. Here is, indeed, " a kingdom for a 
 stage." And has the greatest of poets dealt 
 with such a subject without affecting the 
 passions or enlarging the understanding ? 
 No, no. Away with this. We will trust our 
 own admiration. 
 
 It is a sincere pleasure to us to introduce 
 our remarks upon the ' Richard II.' by some 
 acute and just observations upon Shakspere's 
 historical plays in general from a French 
 source. The following passage is from the 
 forty-ninth volume of the ' Dictionnaire de 
 la Conversation et de la Lecture.' (Paris, 
 1838.) The article bears the signature oi 
 Philarete Chasles : 
 
 " This poet, so often sneered at as a frantic 
 
 and barbarous writer, is, above all, remark- 
 ible for a judgment so high, so firm, so un- 
 ;ompromising, that one is almost tempted to 
 mpeach his coldness, and to find in this im- 
 passible observer something that may be 
 almost called cruel towards the human race. 
 In the historical pieces of Shakspere, the 
 picturesque, rapid, and vehement genius 
 which has produced them seems to bow be- 
 fore the superior law of a judgment almost 
 ironical in its clear-sightedness. Sensibility 
 to impressions, the ardent force of imagina- 
 tion, the eloquence of passion these brilliant 
 gifts of nature, which would seem destined 
 to draw a poet beyond all limits, are subor- 
 dinated in this extraordinary intelligence to 
 a calm and almost deriding sagacity, which 
 pardons nothing and forgets nothing. Thus, 
 the dramas of which we speak are painful as 
 real history. ^Eschylus exhibits to us Fate 
 hovering over the world ; Calderon opens to 
 us heaven and hell as the last words of the 
 enigma of life ; Voltaire renders his drama 
 an instrument for asserting his own peculiar 
 doctrines ; but Shakspere seeks his Fate in 
 the hearts of men, and when he makes us see 
 them so capricious, so bewildered, so irreso- 
 lute, he teaches us to contemplate, without 
 surprise the untoward events and sudden 
 changes of fortune. In the purely poetical 
 dramas to which this great poet has given 
 so much verisimilitude, we console ourselves 
 in believing that the evils which he paints 
 are imaginary, and that their truth is but 
 general. But the dramatic chronicles which 
 Shakspere has sketched are altogether real. 
 There we behold irrevocable evils we see 
 the scenes that the world has seen, and the 
 horrors that it has suffered. The more the 
 details that accompany these events are 
 irresistible in their truth, the more they 
 grieve us. The more the author is impartial, 
 the more he wounds and overpowers us. 
 This employment of his marvellous talent is 
 in reality a profound satire upon what we 
 are, upon what we shall be, upon what we 
 were." 
 
 It is this wonderful subjection of the 
 poetical power to the higher law of truth 
 to the poetical truth, which is the highest 
 truth, comprehending and expounding the 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 RICHARD II. 
 
 153 
 
 historical truth which must furnish the 
 clue to the proper understanding of the 
 drama of ( Richard II.' It appears to us 
 that, when the poet first undertook 
 
 "to ope 
 The purple testament of bleeding war," 
 
 to unfold the roll of the causes and conse- 
 quences of that usurpation of the house of 
 Lancaster which plunged three or four gene- 
 rations of Englishmen in bloodshed and 
 misery he approached the subject with an 
 inflexibility of purpose as totally removed as 
 it was possible to be from the levity of a 
 partisan. There were to be weighed in one 
 scale the follies, the weaknesses, the crimes 
 of Richard the injuries of Bolingbroke 
 the insults which the capricious despotism 
 of the king had heaped upon his nobles 
 the exactions under which the people groaned 
 the real merits and the popular attributes 
 of him who came to redress and to repair. 
 In the other scale were to be placed the 
 afflictions of fallen greatness the revenge 
 and treachery by which the fall was pro- 
 duced the heartburnings and suspicions 
 which accompany every great revolution 
 the struggles for power which ensue when 
 the established and legitimate authority is 
 thrust from its seat. All these phases, per- 
 sonal and political, of a deposition and an 
 usurpation, Shakspere has exhibited with 
 that marvellous impartiality which the 
 French writer whom we have quoted has 
 well described. The political impartiality is 
 so remarkable, that, during the time of Eli- 
 zabeth, the deposition scene was neither 
 acted nor printed, lest it should give occa- 
 sion to the enemies of legitimate succession 
 to find examples for the deposing of a mon- 
 arch. Going forward into the spirit of an- 
 other age, during the administration of 
 Walpole, the play, in 1738, had an unusual 
 success, principally because it contained 
 many passages which seemed to point to the 
 then supposed corruption of the court ; and, 
 on this occasion, a letter published in ' The 
 Craftsman,' in which many lines of the play 
 were thus applied to the political topics of 
 the times, was the subject of state prosecu- 
 tion. The statesmen of Elizabeth and of 
 
 George II. were thus equally in fear of the 
 popular tendencies of this history. On the 
 other hand, when Richard, speaking drama- 
 tically in his own person, says, 
 
 " Not all the water in the rough rude sea 
 Can wash the balm from an anointed king : 
 The breath of worldly men cannot depose 
 The deputy elected by the Lord;"- 
 
 Dr. Johnson rejoicingly says, " Here is the 
 doctrine of indefeasible right expressed in 
 the strongest terms ; but our poet did not 
 learn it in the reign of James, to which it is 
 now the practice of all writers whose opi- 
 nions are regulated by fashion or interest to 
 impute the original of every tenet which 
 they have been taught to think false or 
 foolish." Again, when the Bishop of Car- 
 lisle, in the deposition scene, exclaims, 
 
 " And shall the figure of God's majesty, 
 His captain, steward, deputy elect, 
 Anointed, crowned, planted many years, 
 Be judged by subject and inferior breath, 
 And he himself not present]" 
 
 Johnson remarks, " Here is another proof 
 that our author did not learn in King 
 James's court HIS elevated notions of the right 
 of Icings. I know not any flatterer of the 
 Stuarts who has expressed this doctrine in 
 much stronger terms." Steevens adds that 
 Shakspere found the speech in Holinshed, 
 and that " the politics of the historian were 
 the politics of the poet." The contrary 
 aspects which this play has thus presented 
 to those who were political partisans is a 
 most remarkable testimony to Shakspere's 
 political impartiality. He appears to us as 
 if he, " apart, sat on a hill retired," elevated!' 
 far above the temporary opinions of his own I 
 age, or of succeeding ages. His business is 
 with universal humanity, and not with a 
 fragment of it. He is, indeed, the poet of a 
 nation in his glowing and genial patriotism, 
 but never the poet of a party. Perhaps, the 
 most eloquent speech in this play is that of 
 Gaunt, beginning 
 
 " This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle." 
 
 It is full of such praise of our country as, 
 taken apart from the conclusion, might too 
 much foster the pride of a proud nation. 
 
154 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK iv. 
 
 But the profound impartiality of the master- 
 mind comes in at the close of this splendid 
 description, to show us that all these glories 
 must be founded upon just government. 
 
 It is in the sam^, lofty spirit of impartiality 
 which governs the general sentiments of this 
 drama that Shakspere has conceived the 
 mixed character of Richard. Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, in his admirable ' Discourses ' (a 
 series of compositions which present the 
 example of high criticism upon the art of 
 painting, when the true principles of criti- 
 cism upon poetry were neglected or mis- 
 understood), has properly reprobated " the 
 difficulty as well as danger in an endeavour 
 to concentrate in a single subject those 
 various powers, which, rising from different 
 points, naturally move in different direc- 
 tions." He says, with reference to this sub- 
 ject, " Art has its boundaries, though imagi- 
 nation has none." Here is the great line of 
 distinction between poetry and painting. 
 Painting must concentrate all its power upon 
 the representation of one action, one expres- 
 sion, in the same person. The range of 
 poetry is as boundless as the diversities of 
 character in the same individual. Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds has, however, properly laughed at 
 those principles of criticism which would 
 even limit the narrow range of pictorial ex- 
 pression to conventional, and therefore hack- 
 neyed, forms. He quotes a passage from 
 Du Piles, as an example of the attempt of a 
 false school of criticism to substitute the 
 " pompous and laboured insolence of gran- 
 deur " for that dignity which, " seeming to 
 be natural and inherent, draws spontaneous 
 reverence." " If you draw persons of high 
 character and dignity" (says Du Piles), 
 " they ought to be drawn in such an attitude 
 that the portraits must seem to speak to us 
 of themselves, and as it were to say to us, 
 ' Stop, take notice of me ; I am that invinci- 
 ble king, surrounded by majesty:' 'I am 
 that valiant commander who struck terror 
 everywhere : ' i I arn that great minister who 
 knew all the springs of politics : ' ' I am that 
 magistrate of consummate wisdom and pro- 
 bity.' " Now, this is absurd enough as re- 
 gards the painter ; but, absurd as it is, in its 
 limited application, it is precisely the same 
 
 sort of reasoning that the French critics in 
 the time of Voltaire, and the English who 
 caught the infection of their school, applied 
 to the higher range of the art of Shakspere. 
 The criticism of Dr. Johnson, for example, 
 upon the character of Richard II. is, for the 
 most part, a series of such mistakes. He 
 misinterprets Shakspere's delineation of 
 Richard, upon a preconceived theory of his 
 own. Thus he says, in a note to the second 
 scene in the third act, where Richard for a 
 moment appears resigned 
 
 " To bear the tidings of calamity," 
 
 " It seems to be the design of the poet to 
 raise Richard to esteem in his fall, and, con- 
 sequently, to interest the reader in his fa- 
 vour. He gives him only passive fortitude, 
 the virtue of a confessor rather than of a 
 king. In his prosperity we saw him im- 
 perious and oppressive ; but in his distress 
 he is wise, patient, and pious." Now this is 
 precisely the reverse of Shakspere's repre- 
 sentation of Richard. ! Instead of passive for- 
 titude, we have .passionate weakness ; and it 
 is that very weakness upon which our pity is 
 founded. Having mistaken Shakspere's pur- 
 pose in the delineation of Richard in his 
 fall, this able but sometimes prejudiced 
 writer flounders on in a series of carping 
 objections to the language which Richard 
 uses. After Richard has said, 
 
 " Or I '11 be buried in the king's highway, 
 Some way of common trade, where subjects' 
 
 feet 
 May hourly trample on their sovereign's head," 
 
 he flies off into a series of pretty imaginings, 
 and ends thus, 
 
 " Well, well, I see 
 I talk but idly, and you mock at me." 
 
 Now in nothing is the exquisite tact of the 
 poet more shown than in these riots of the 
 imagination in the unhappy king, whose 
 mind was altogether prostrate before the 
 cool and calculating intellect of Bolingbroke. 
 But Johnson, quite in Du Piles'' style, here 
 says, " Shakspere is very apt to deviate from 
 the pathetic to the ridiculous. Had the 
 speech of Richard ended at this line (' May 
 hourly trample on their sovereign's head'), 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 RICHARD II. 
 
 155 
 
 it had exhibited the natural language of 
 submissive misery, conforming its intention 
 to the present fortune, and calmly ending 
 its purposes in death." Now, it is most cer- 
 tain that Shakspere had no intention to ex- 
 hibit " the natural language of submissive 
 misery." Such a purpose would have been 
 utterly foreign to the great ideal truth of 
 his conception of Richard's character. Again, 
 in the interview with the queen, when Rich- 
 ard says, 
 
 " Tell thou the lamentable fall of me, 
 And send the hearers weeping to their beds. 
 For why, the senseless brands will sympa- 
 thize," &c., 
 
 Johnson observes, "The poet should have 
 ended this speech with the foregoing line, 
 and have spared his childish prattle about 
 the fire." Mr. Monck Mason very innocently 
 remarks upon this comment of Johnson, 
 " This is certainly childish prattle, but it is 
 of the same stamp with the other speeches 
 of Richard after the landing of Bolingbroke, 
 which are a strange medley of sense and 
 puerility." Of course they are so. There 
 are, probably, no passages of criticism upon 
 Shakspere that more forcibly point out to 
 us, than these of Johnson and his followers 
 do, the absurdity of trying a poet by laws 
 which he had of purpose cast off and spurned. 
 Had Johnson been applying his test of ex- 
 cellence to the conventional kings and he- 
 roes of the French stage, and of the Eng- 
 lish stage of his own day, he might have 
 been nearer the truth. But Shakspere un- 
 dertook to show us, not only a fallen king, 
 but a fallen man. Richard stands before us 
 in the nakedness of humanity, stripped of 
 the artificial power which made his strength. 
 The props are cut away upon which he 
 leaned. He is, 
 
 " in shape and mind, 
 Transformed and weaken' d," 
 
 humbled to the lot of the commonest slave, 
 to 
 
 " feel want, taste grief, 
 Need friends." 
 
 This is the Richard of our poet. Is it not 
 
 the Richard of history 1 We must trespass 
 upon the patience of the reader while we 
 run through the play, that we may properly 
 note the dependence of its events upon its 
 characters. 
 
 Froissart has given us the, key to two of 
 the most remarkable and seemingly opposite 
 traits of Richard's mind, cunning and cre- 
 dulity. Speaking of his devising the death 
 of his uncle of Gloster, Froissart says, " King 
 Richard of England noted well these said 
 words, the which was showed him in secret- 
 ness ; and, like an imaginative prince as he 
 was/within a season after that his uncles of 
 Lancaster and of York were departed out of 
 the court, then the king took more hardi- 
 ness on him." Lord Berners, the translator 
 of Froissart, always uses "imaginative" in 
 the sense of deviceful, crafty, following his 
 original. As to the king's credulity, the 
 same accurate observer, who knew the cha- 
 racters of his own days well, thus speaks : 
 " King Richard of England had a condition 
 that, if he loved a man, he would make him 
 so great, and so near him, that it was marvel 
 to consider, and no man durst speak to the 
 contrary ; and also he would lightly believe 
 sooner than any other king of remembrance 
 before him." Upon these historical truths is 
 Skakspere's Richard, in the first scenes of 
 this drama, the absolute Richard, founded. 
 But with what skill has Shakspere indicated 
 the evil parts of Richard's character just 
 as much as, and no more than, is sufficient 
 to qualify our pity for his fall. We learn 
 from Gaunt that Richard was the real cause 
 of Gloster's death ; the matter is once men- 
 tioned, and there an end. We ourselves see 
 his arbitrary bearing in the banishment of 
 Bolingbroke and Norfolk; his moral cow- 
 ardice in requiring an oath for his own 
 safety from the two enemies that he was at 
 that moment oppressing ; his meanness in 
 taunting Gaunt with his " party-verdict" as 
 to his son's banishment ; his levity in miti- 
 gating the sentence after it had been so- 
 lemnly delivered. After this scene we have 
 an exhibition of his cold-hearted rapacity in 
 wishing for the death of Gaunt : 
 " Now put it, Heaven, in his physician's mind 
 To help him to his grave immediately ! 
 
156 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK iv. 
 
 The lining of his coffers shall make coats 
 To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars." 
 
 This prepares us for the just reproaches of 
 his dying uncle in the next act ; when the 
 dissembling king is moved from his craft to 
 an exhibition of childish passion toward the 
 stern but now powerless Gaunt, before whom 
 he had trembled till he saw him on a death- 
 bed. The 
 
 "make pale our cheek" 
 was not a random expression. The king 
 again speaks in this way when he hears of 
 the defection of the Welsh under Salis- 
 bury : 
 " Have I not reason to look pale and dead]" 
 
 Richard, who was of a ruddy complexion, 
 exhibited in his cheeks the internal work- 
 ings of fear or rage. This was a part of his 
 weakness of character. The writer of the 
 'Metrical History'* twice notices the pecu- 
 liarity. When the king received a defying 
 message from the Irish chieftain, the French 
 knight, who was present, says, " This speech 
 was not agreeable to the king ; it appeared 
 to me that his face grew pale with anger." 
 When he heard of the landing of Boling- 
 broke, the writer again says, " It seemed to 
 me that the king's face at this turned pale 
 with anger." Richard's indignation at the 
 reproaches of Gaunt is, at once, brutal and 
 childish : 
 
 " And let them die, that age and sullens have." 
 
 Then comes the final act of despotism, which 
 
 was to be his ruin : 
 
 " We do seize to us 
 
 The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables, 
 Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd." 
 
 He is amazed that York is indignant at this 
 outrage. He is deaf to the prophetic de- 
 nunciation, 
 
 " You pluck a thousand dangers on your head." 
 
 Still, Shakspere keeps us from the point to 
 which he might have led us, of unmitigated 
 
 * ' Histoire du Roy d'Angleterre Richard,' &c. Of this 
 most curious Poem, written by a French gentleman who 
 was with Richard in Ireland, and bearing the date of 1399, 
 there is an admirable translation in the 20th Volume of the 
 ' Archaeologia.' 
 
 contempt towards Richard ; to make us 
 hate him was no part of his purpose. We 
 know that the charges of the discontented 
 nobles against him are just ; we almost wish 
 success to their enterprise ; but we are most 
 skilfully held back from discovering so much 
 of Richard's character as would have dis- 
 qualified us from sympathising in his fall. 
 It is highly probable, too, that Shakspere 
 abstained from painting the actual king as 
 an object to be despised, while he stood as 
 "the symbolic, or representative, on which 
 all genial law no less than patriotism, de- 
 pends."* The poet does not hesitate, when 
 the time is past for reverencing the king or 
 compassionating the man, to speak of Rich- 
 ard, by the mouth of Henry IV., with that 
 contempt which his weakness and his frivo- 
 lities would naturally excite : 
 
 " The skipping king, he ambled up and down 
 With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits, 
 Soon kindled and soon bum'd : carded his 
 
 state ; 
 
 Mingled his royalty with carping fools ; 
 Had his great name profaned with their 
 
 scorns ; 
 
 And gave his countenance, against his name, 
 To laugh at gibing boys," &c. 
 
 (' Henry IV.,' Part I.) 
 
 There is nothing of this bitter satire put in 
 the mouths of any of the speakers 'in Rich- 
 ard II. ;' and the poetical reason for this ap- 
 pears obvious. Yet it is perfectly true, his- 
 torically, that Richard "carded his state" 
 by indiscriminately mixing with all sorts of 
 favourites, who used the most degrading 
 freedoms towards him. 
 
 Bolingbroke (then Henry IV.) thus de- 
 scribes himself to his son : 
 
 " And then I stole all courtesy from heaven, 
 And dress'd myself in such humility, 
 That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts, 
 Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths, 
 Even in the presence of the crowned king." 
 
 The Bolingbroke who, in ' Henry IV.,' is thus 
 retrospectively painted, is the Bolingbroke 
 in action in * Richard II.' The king 
 
 "Observed his courtship to the common people." 
 * Coleridge. 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 RICHARD II. 
 
 157 
 
 When he returns from banishment, in arms 
 against his unjust lord, he wins Northum- 
 berland by his powers of pleasing : 
 
 " And yet our fair discourse hath been as sugar." 
 
 Mark, too, his professions to the "gentle 
 Percy :" 
 
 " I count myself in nothing else so happy, 
 As in a soul remembering my good friends." 
 
 When York accuses him of 
 
 " Gross rebellion and detested treason," 
 
 how temperate, and yet how convincing, is 
 his defence. York remains with him he 
 "cannot mend it." But Bolingbroke, with 
 all his humility to his uncle, and all his 
 courtesy to his friends, abates not a jot of 
 his determination to be supreme. He an- 
 nounces this in no under-tones he has no 
 confidences about his ultimate intentions ; 
 but we feel that he has determined to sit 
 on the throne, even while he says, 
 
 " I am a subject, 
 And challenge law." 
 
 He is, in fact, the king, when he consigns 
 Bushy and Green to the scaffold. He speaks 
 not as one of a council he neither vindi- 
 cates nor alludes to his authority. He ad- 
 dresses the victims as the one interpreter of 
 the law ; and he especially dwells upon his 
 own personal wrongs : 
 
 " See them deliver'd over 
 To execution and the hand of death." 
 
 Most skilfully does this violent and uncom- 
 promising exertion of authority prepare us 
 for what is to come. 
 
 We are arrived at those wonderful scenes 
 which, to our minds, may be classed amongst 
 the very highest creations of art even of 
 the art of Shakspere. "Barkloughly Castle" 
 is " at hand." Richard stands upon his 
 " kingdom once again." Around him are 
 armed bands ready to strip him of his crown 
 and life. Does he step upon his "earth" 
 with the self-confiding port of one who will 
 hold it against all foes ? The conventional 
 dignity of the king cannot conceal the in- 
 tellectual weakness of the man : and we see 
 that he must lose his "gentle earth" for 
 
 ever. His sensibility his plastic imagina- 
 tion his effeminacy, even when strongly 
 moved to love or to hatred his reliance 
 upon his office more than his own head and 
 heart doom him to an overthrow. How 
 surpassingly characteristic are the lines in 
 which he addresses his "earth" as if it were 
 a thing of life a favourite that he could 
 honour and cherish a friend that would 
 adopt and cling to his cause a partisan 
 that could throw a shield over him, and de- 
 fend him from his enemies : 
 
 " So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth, 
 And do thee favour ivitli my royal hands. 
 Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle 
 earth," &c. 
 
 He feels that this is a " senseless conjura- 
 tion ;" but when Aumerle ventures to say, 
 " we are too remiss," he reproaches his " dis- 
 comfortable cousin," by pointing out to him 
 the heavenly aid that a king might expect. 
 His is not the holy confidence of a high- 
 minded chieftain, nor the pious submission 
 of a humble believer. He, indeed, says, 
 
 " For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd 
 To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown, 
 God, for his Richard, hath in heavenly pay 
 A glorious angel." 
 
 But when Salisbury announces that the 
 "Welshmen" are dispersed, Richard, in a 
 moment, forgets the "angels" who will 
 guard the right. His cheek pales at the 
 evil tidings. After a pause, and upon the 
 exhortation of his friends, his "sluggard 
 majesty" awakes; the man still sleeps. 
 How artificial and externally sustained is 
 his confidence : 
 
 "Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes 
 At thy great glory. Look not to the ground, 
 Ye favourites of a king." 
 
 Scroop arrives ; and Richard avows that he 
 is prepared for the worst. His fortitude is 
 but a passing support. He dissimulates with 
 himself ; for, in an instant, he flies off into 
 a burst of terrific passion at the supposed 
 treachery of his minions. Aumerle, when 
 their unhappy end is explained, like a man 
 of sense casts about for other resources : 
 
 " Where is the duke my father with his power?" 
 
58 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK iv. 
 
 Jut Richard abandons himself to his de- 
 pair, in that most solemn speech, which is 
 t once so touching with reference to the 
 peaker, and so profoundly true in its ge- 
 neral application : 
 
 No matter where; of comfort no man speak." 
 iis grief has now evaporated in words : 
 This ague-fit of fear is over-blown; 
 An easy task it is to win our own. 
 Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his 
 power?" 
 
 Scroop's reply is decisive : 
 
 ' Your uncle York hath join'd with Boling- 
 
 broke." 
 
 Richard is positively relieved by knowing 
 the climax of his misfortunes. The alterna- 
 tions of hope and fear were too much for his 
 indecision. He is forced upon a course, and 
 he is almost happy in his weakness : 
 
 Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me 
 
 forth 
 
 Of that sweet way I was in to despair ! 
 What say you now? What comfort have we 
 
 now? 
 
 By heaven, I '11 hate him everlastingly 
 That bids me be of comfort any more." 
 
 Shakspere has painted indecision of cha- 
 racter in Hamlet but what a difference is 
 there between the indecision of Hamlet and 
 of Richard ! The depth of Hamlet's philo- 
 sophy engulfs his powers of action ; the re- 
 flective strength of his intellect destroys the 
 energy of his will: Richard is irresolute 
 and inert, abandoning himself to every new 
 impression, because his faculties, though 
 beautiful in parts, have no principle of cohe- 
 sion ; judgment, the key-stone of the arch, 
 is wanting. 
 
 Bolingbroke is arrived before Flint Castle 
 Mr. Courtenay says, " By placing the nego- 
 ciation with Northumberland at Flint, Shak- 
 spere loses the opportunity of describing the 
 disappointment of the king, when he found 
 himself, on his progress to join Henry at 
 Flint, a prisoner to Northumberland, who 
 had concealed the force by which he was ac- 
 companied."* A Mr. Goodhall, of Man- 
 
 * ' Shakspeare's Historical Plays considered Historically. 
 
 hester, in 1772, gave us a new ' Richard II.', 
 ' altered from Shakspere, and the style imi- 
 ated." We are constrained to say that such 
 criticism as we have extracted, and such 
 mitations of style as that of Mr. Goodhall, 
 are entirely on a par. Shakspere wanted 
 not the additional scene of Northumberland's 
 treachery to eke out the story of Richard's 
 "all. He was too sagacious to make an au- 
 dience think that Richard might have sur- 
 mounted his difficulties but for an accident. 
 It was his business to show what was essen- 
 tially true (though one episode of the truth 
 might be wanting), that Bolingbroke was 
 coming upon him with steps as certain as 
 that of a rising tide towards the shivering 
 tenant of a naked sea-rock. What was still 
 more important, it was his aim to exhibit 
 the overthrow of Richard, and the upraising 
 of Bolingbroke, as the natural result of the 
 collision of two such minds meeting in mor- 
 tal conflict. The mighty physical force which 
 Bolingbroke subdued to his purpose was 
 called forth by his astute and foreseeing in- 
 tellect : every movement of this wary chief 
 perhaps even from the hour when he re- 
 solved to appeal Norfolk was a consequence 
 from a calculated cause. On the other hand, 
 Richard threw away every instrument of de- 
 fence ; the " one day too late," with which 
 Salisbury reproaches him which delay was 
 the fruit of his personal weakness and vacil- 
 lation shows that it was impossible to save 
 him. Had he escaped from Con way, after 
 being reduced to the extremities of poverty 
 and suffering, in company with a few 
 wretched followers, he must have rushed, 
 from his utter want of the ability to carry 
 through a consistent plan, into the toils of 
 Bolingbroke. Shakspere, as we must repeat, 
 painted events whilst he painted characters. 
 Look at Bolingbroke's bearing when York 
 reproaches Northumberland for not saying 
 "King Richard ;" look at his decision \vhen 
 he learns the king is at Flint ; look at his 
 subtlety in the message to the king : 
 
 " Harry Bolingbroke 
 
 On both his knees doth kiss King Richard's 
 hand." 
 
 Compare the affected humility of his profes- 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 RICHARD II. 
 
 159 
 
 sions with the real, though subdued, haugh- 
 tiness of his threats 
 " If not, I $[ use the advantage of my power." 
 
 He marches "without the noise of threat'ning 
 drum ;" but he marches as a conqueror upon 
 an undefended citadel. On the one hand, 
 we have power without menaces ; on the 
 other, menaces without power. How loftily 
 Richard asserts to Northumberland the ter- 
 rors which are in store the " armies of pes- 
 tilence " which are to defend his " precious 
 crown ! " But how submissively he replies 
 to the message of Bolingbroke ! 
 
 " Thus the king returns : 
 His noble cousin is right welcome hither. 
 Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends." 
 
 Marvellously is the picture of the struggles 
 of irresolution still coloured : 
 
 " Shall we call back Northumberland, and send 
 Defiance to the traitor, and so die]" 
 
 Beautiful is the transition to his habitual 
 weakness to his extreme sensibility to evils, 
 and the shadows of evils to the consolation 
 which finds relief in the exaggeration of its 
 own sufferings, and in the bewilderments of 
 imagination which carry even the sense of 
 suffering into the regions of fancy. We have 
 already seen that this has been thought "de- 
 viating from the pathetic to the ridiculous." 
 Be it so. We are content to accept this and 
 similar passages in the character of Richard 
 as exponents of that feeling which made 
 him lie at the feet of Bolingbroke, fascinated 
 as the bird at the eye of the serpent : 
 
 " For do we must what force will have us do." 
 
 This is the destiny of tragedy ; but it is a 
 destiny with foregoing causes its seeds are 
 sown in the varying constitution of the hu- 
 man mind : and thus it may be said, even 
 'without a contradiction, that a Bolingbroke 
 governs destiny, a Richard yields to it. 
 
 We pass over the charming repose-scene of 
 the garden in which the poet, who in this 
 drama has avoided all dialogues of manners, 
 brings in " old Adam's likeness," to show us 
 how the vicissitudes of state are felt and un- 
 derstood by the practical philosophy of the 
 humblest of the people. We pass over, too, 
 
 the details of the quarrel scene in West- 
 minster Hall, merely remarking that those 
 who say, as Johnson has said, " This play is 
 extracted from the ' Chronicle' of Holinshed, 
 in which many passages may be found which 
 Shakspere has, with very little alteration, 
 transplanted into his scenes," would have 
 done well to have printed the passages of the 
 ' Chronicle ' and the parallel scenes of ' Rich- 
 ard II.' This scene is one to which the re- 
 mark refers. Will our readers excuse us 
 giving them half-a-dozen lines as a speci- 
 men of this " very little alteration ?" 
 
 HOLINSHED. 
 
 " The Lord Fitzwater herewith rose up, and 
 said to the king, that, where the Duke of Au- 
 merle excuseth himself of the Duke of Glou- 
 cester's death, I say (quoth he) that he was the 
 very cause of his death ; and so he appealed him 
 of treason, offering, by throwing down his hood 
 as a gage, to prove it with his body." 
 
 " If that thy valour stand on sympathies, 
 There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine : 
 By that fair sun that shows me where thou 
 
 stand'st, 
 I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st 
 
 it, 
 
 That thou wert cause of noble Gloster's death. 
 If thou deny'st it, twenty times thou liest ; 
 And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart, 
 Where it was forged, with my rapier's point." 
 
 We have long borne with these misrepresen- 
 tations of what Shakspere took from the 
 1 Chronicles,' and what Shakspere took from 
 Plutarch. The sculptor who gives us the 
 highest conception of an individual, idealized 
 into something higher than the actual man 
 (Roubiliac, for example, when he figured 
 that sublime image of Newton, in which the 
 upward eye, and the finger upon the prism, 
 tell us of the great discoverer of the laws of 
 gravity and of light) the sculptor has to 
 collect something from authentic records of 
 the features and of the character of the sub- 
 ject he has to represent. The * Chronicles ' 
 might, in the same way, give Shakspere the 
 general idea of his historical Englishmen, 
 as Plutarch of his Romans. But it was for 
 
160 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK iv. 
 
 the poet to mould and fashion these outlines 
 into the vital and imperishable shapes in 
 which we find them. This is creation not 
 alteration. 
 
 Richard is again on the stage. Is there a 
 jot in the deposition scene that is not per- 
 fectly true to his previous character ? As to 
 Bolingbroke's consistency, there cannot be a 
 doubt, even with the most hasty reader. The 
 king's dallying with the resignation of the 
 crown the prolonged talk, to parry, as it 
 were, the inevitable act the " ay, no ! no, 
 ay ;" the natural indignation at Northum- 
 berland's unnecessary harshness ; the ex- 
 quisite tenderness of self-shrinking abase- 
 ment, running off into poetry, " too deep for 
 tears" 
 
 " Oh, that I were a mockery king of snow, 
 Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke, 
 To melt myself away in water drops;" 
 
 and, lastly, the calling for the mirror, and 
 the real explanation of all his apparent 
 affectation of disquietude ; 
 
 " These external manners of laments 
 Are merely shadows to the unseen grief 
 That swells with silence in the tortured 
 soul:" 
 
 who but Shakspere could have given us these 
 wonderful tints of one human mind so 
 varying and yet so harmonious so forcible 
 and yet so delicate without being betrayed 
 into something different from his own unity 
 of conception 1 In the parting scene with 
 the queen we have still the same unerring 
 consistency. We are told that '" the inter- 
 view of separation between her and her 
 wretched husband is remarkable for its 
 poverty and tameness."* The poet who 
 wrote the parting scene between Juliet and 
 her Montague had, we presume, the command 
 of his instruments ; and though, taken 
 separately from what is around them, there 
 may be differences in the degree of beauty 
 in these parting scenes, they are each dra- 
 matically beautiful, in the highest sense of 
 the term. Shakspere never went from his 
 proper path to produce a beauty that was 
 out of place. And yet who can read these 
 
 * Skottowe's ' Life of Shakspeare,' vol. i. p. 441. 
 
 lines, and dare to talk of "poverty and 
 tameness 1 " 
 " In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire 
 
 With good old folks, and let them tell thee 
 tales 
 
 Of woeful ages, long ago betid; 
 
 And, ere thou bid good night, to quit their 
 grief, 
 
 Tell thou the lamentable fall of me, 
 
 And send the hearers weeping to their beds." 
 
 We are told, as we have already noticed, 
 that this speech ends with "childish prattle." 
 Remember, Richard II. is speaking. Lastly, 
 we come to the prison scene. The soliloquy 
 is Richard all over. There is not a sentence 
 in it that does not tell of a mind deeply re- 
 flective in its misfortunes, but wanting the 
 guide to all sound reflection the power of 
 going out of himself, under the conduct of 
 a loftier reason than could endure to dwell 
 upon the merely personal. His self-conscious- 
 ness (to use the word in a German sense) in- 
 tensifies, but lowers, every thought. And 
 then the beautiful little episode of " Roan 
 Barbary," and Richard's all-absorbing appli- 
 cation to himself of the story of the "poor 
 groom of the stable." Froissart tells a tale, 
 how Richard was " forsaken by his favourite 
 greyhound, which fawns on the earl." The 
 quaint historian, as well as the great dra- 
 matist who transfused the incident, knew 
 the avenues to the human heart. Steevens 
 thinks the story of Roan Barbary might have 
 been of Shakspere's own invention, but in- 
 forms us that " Froissart relates a yet more 
 silly tale ! " Even to the death, Richard is 
 historically as well as poetically true. His 
 sudden valour is shown as the consequence 
 of passionate excitement. A prose manu- 
 script in the library of the King of France, 
 exhibits a somewhat similar scene, when 
 Lancaster, York, Aumerle, and others, went 
 to him in the Tower, to confer upon his re- 
 signation : " The king, in great wrath, 
 walked about the room ; and at length broke 
 out into passionate exclamations and appeals 
 to heaven ; called them false traitors, and 
 offered to fight any four of them." The 
 Chronicles which Shakspere might consult 
 were somewhat meagre, and might gain 
 much by the addition of the records of this 
 
RICHARD II. 
 
 161 
 
 eventful reign which modern researches have 
 discovered. If we compare every account, 
 we must say that the Richard II. of Shak- 
 spere is rigidly the true Richard. The poet 
 is the truest historian in all that belongs to 
 the higher attributes of history. 
 
 But with this surpassing dramatic truth 
 in the ' Richard II.,' perhaps, after all, the 
 most wonderful thing in the whole play 
 that which makes it so exclusively and en- 
 tirely Shaksperean is the evolvement of the 
 truth under the poetical form. The character 
 of Richard, especially, is entirely subordi- 
 nated to the poetical conception of it to 
 something higher than the historical pro- 
 priety, yet including all that historical pro- 
 priety, and calling it forth under the most 
 striking aspects. All the vacillations' and' 
 weaknesses of the king, in the hands of an 
 artist like Shakspere, are reproduced with 
 the most natural and vivid colours, so as to 
 display their own characteristic effects, in 
 combination with the principle of poetical 
 beauty, which carries them into a higher re- 
 gion than the perfect command over the ele- 
 ments of strong individualization could alone 
 produce. For example, when Richard says 
 
 " Oh, that I were a mockery king of snow, 
 Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke !" 
 
 we see in a moment how this speech belongs 
 to the shrinking and overpowered mind of 
 the timid voluptuary, who could form no no- 
 tion of power apart from its external sup- 
 ports. But then, separated from the cha- 
 racter, how exquisitely beautiful is it in 
 itself ! Byron, in his finest drama of ' Sar-- 
 danapalus,' has given us an entirely different 
 conception of a voluptuary overpowered by 
 misfortune ; and though he has said, speak- 
 ing of his ideal of his own dramatic poem, 
 " You will find all this very wwlike Shak- 
 spere, and so much the better in one sense, 
 for I look upon him to be the worst of models, 
 though the most extraordinary of writers " 
 it is to us very doubtful if ' Sardanapalus ' 
 would have been written, had not the 
 ' Richard II.' of Shakspere offered the tempt- 
 ation to pull the bow of Ulysses in the di- 
 rection of another mark. ' The characters ex- 
 hibit very remarkable contrasts. Sardana- 
 
 palus becomes a hero when the king is in 
 danger ; Richard, when the sceptre is struck 
 out of his hands, forgets that his ancestors 
 won the sceptre by the sword. The one is 
 the sensualist of misdirected native energy, 
 who casts off his sensuality when the passion 
 for enjoyment is swallowed up in the higher 
 excitement of rash and sudden daring ; the 
 other is the sensualist of artificial power, 
 whose luxury consists in pomp without en- 
 joyment, and who loses the sense of gratifi- 
 cation when the factitious supports of his 
 pride are cut away from him. Richard, who 
 should have been a troubadour, has become 
 a weak and irresolute voluptuary through 
 the corruptions of a throne ; Sardanapalus, 
 who might have been a conqueror, retains a 
 natural heroism that a throne cannot wholly 
 corrupt. But here we stop. 'Sardanapalus' 
 is a beautiful poem, but the characters, and 
 especially the chief character, come before 
 us as something shadowy, and not of earth. 
 1 Richard II.' possesses all the higher attri- 
 butes of poetry, but the characters, and 
 especially the leading character, are of flesh 
 and blood like ourselves. 
 
 And why is it, when we have looked be- 
 neath the surface at this matchless poetical 
 delineation of Richard, and find the absolute 
 king capricious, rapacious, cunning, and 
 the fallen king irresolute, effeminate, intel- 
 lectually prostrate, why is it, when we see 
 that our Shakespere herein never intended 
 to present to us the image of " a good man 
 struggling with adversity," and conceived a 
 being the farthest removed from the ideal 
 that another mighty poet proposed to him- 
 self as an example of heroism when he de- 
 scribed his own fortitude 
 
 " I argue not 
 
 Against heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot 
 Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer 
 Right onward," 
 
 why is it that Richard II. still commands 
 our tears even our sympathies ? It is this : 
 His very infirmities make him creep into 
 our affections ; for they are so nearly allied 
 to the beautiful parts of his character, that, 
 if the little leaven had been absent, he might 
 have been a ruler to kneel before, and a man 
 
162 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK iv. 
 
 to love. We see, then, how thin is the par- 
 tition between the highest and the lowliest 
 parts of our nature and we love Richard 
 even for his faults, for they are those of our 
 common humanity. Inferior poets might 
 have given us Bolingbroke the lordly tyrant, 
 and Richard the fallen hero. We might 
 have had the struggle for the kingdom 
 painted with all the glowing colours with 
 which, according to the authorities which 
 once governed opinion, a poet was bound to 
 represent the crimes of an usurper and the 
 virtues of a legitimate king ; or, if the poet 
 had despised the usual current of authority, 
 
 he might have made the usurper one who 
 had cast aside all selfish and unpatriotic 
 principles, and the legitimate king an un- 
 mitigated oppressor, whose fall would have 
 been hailed as the triumph of injured hu- 
 manity. Impartial Shakspere ! llow many 
 of the deepest lessons of toleration and jus- 
 tice have we not learned from thy wisdom, 
 in combination with thy power ! If the 
 power of thy poetry could have been sepa- 
 rated from the truth of thy philosophy, how 
 much would the world have still wanted to 
 help it forward in the course of gentleness 
 and peace ! 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 KING HENRY IV. 
 
 SHAKSPERE found the stage in possession 
 of a rude drama, ' The Famous Victories 
 of Henry V.,' upon the foundation of which 
 he constructed not only his two Parts of 
 ' Henry IV.,' but his ' Henry V.'* That old 
 play was acted prior to 1588 ; Tarleton, a ce- 
 lebrated comic actor, who played the clown 
 in it, having died in that year. It is, in 
 many respects, satisfactory that this very 
 extraordinary performance has been pre- 
 served. None of the old dramas exhibit in 
 a more striking light the marvellous re- 
 formation which Shakspere, more than all 
 his contemporaries, produced in the dramatic 
 amusements of the age of Elizabeth. 
 
 It is to this rude drama (of which we have 
 previously given a slight analysis) that 
 the student of Shakspere must refer, to learn 
 what the popular notion of the conqueror of 
 Agincourt was at the period when Shakspere 
 began to write, and, perhaps, indeed, up to 
 the time when he gave us his own idea of 
 Henry of Monmouth. When we have seen 
 that, for some ten years at least, the Henry 
 of the stage was an ill-bred unredeemed 
 blackguard, without a single sparkle of a 
 " better hope," stirrounded by companions 
 of the very lowest habits, thieves and cut- 
 
 * Sec B.-ok I. chap. v. page 10. 
 
 throats, when we see him, not seduced from 
 the gravity of his station by an irrepressible 
 love of fun, kept alive by the wit of bis prin- 
 cipal associate, but given up only to drink- 
 ing and debauchery, to throwing of pots, and 
 brawls in the streets, when we see not a 
 single gleam of that " sun," 
 
 " Who doth permit the base contagious clouds 
 To smother up his beauty from the world;" 
 
 and when we know that nearly all the his- 
 torians up to the time of Shakspere took 
 pretty much the same view of Henry's cha- 
 racter, we may, perhaps, be astonished to 
 be told that Shakspere's fascinating repre- 
 sentation of Henry of Monmouth, " as an 
 historical portrait, is not only unlike the 
 original, but misleading and unjust in essen- 
 tial points of character." t Misleading and 
 unjust! We admire, and even honour, Mr. 
 Tyler's enthusiasm in the vindication of his 
 favourite hero from every charge of early 
 impurity. In the nature of things it was 
 impossible that Henry of Monmouth, in 
 many particulars so far above his age, in 
 literature, in accomplishments, in real magna- 
 nimity of character, should have been the 
 
 t ' Henry of Monmouth,' by J. Endell Tyler, B.D., 
 vol. i. r. 33d 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 HENRY IV 
 
 163 
 
 low profligate which nearly all the ancient 
 historians represent him to have been. But 
 Mr. Tyler, instead of blaming Shakspere for 
 the view which he took of Henry's character 
 instead of calling upon us " to allow it no 
 weight in the scale of evidence;" instead 
 of informing us that the poet's descriptions 
 are " wholly untenable when tested by facts, 
 and irreconcileable \vith what history places 
 beyond doubt;" instead of attempting to 
 shake our belief in Shakspere's general truth, 
 by minute comparisons of .particular passages 
 with real dates, trying the poet by a test al- 
 together out of the province of poetry; in- 
 stead of telling us that the great dramatist's 
 imagination worked " only on the vague tra- 
 ditions of a sudden change for the better in 
 the prince, immediately on his accession;" 
 instead of all this, Mr. Tyler ought to have 
 called our attention to the fact that Shakspeie 
 was the only man of his age who rejected the 
 imperfect evidence of all the historians as 
 to the- character of Henry of Monmouth, and 
 nobly vindicated him even from his own bio- 
 graphers, and, what was of more importance, 
 i'rom the coarser traditions embodied in a 
 popular drama of Shakspere's own day. It 
 is not our business to enter into a discussion 
 whether the early life of Henry was entirely 
 blameless, as Mr. Tyler would prove. This 
 is a question which, as far as an editor of 
 Shakspere is concerned, may be classed with 
 a somewhat similar question of the character 
 of Richard III., as argued in Walpole's 'His- 
 toric Doubts.' But the real question for us to 
 consider is this, what were the opinions of 
 all the historians up to Shakspere's own time? 
 Mr. Tyler himself says, " Before Shakspere's 
 day, the reports adopted by our historio- 
 graphers had fully justified him in his 
 representations of Henry's early courses." 
 But we contend that Shakspere did not rest 
 upon the historiographers; he did not give 
 credence to the vulgar traditions ; he did 
 not believe in the story of Henry's sudden 
 conversion; he did not make him the low 
 profligate of the old play, or of the older 
 Chronicles. We are very much accustomed 
 to say, speaking of Shakspere's historical 
 plays, that he follows Holinshed. He does 
 so, indeed, when the truth of the historian 
 
 is not incompatible with the higher poetical 
 truth of his own conceptions. Now, what 
 says Holinshed about Henry V. ? " After 
 that he was invested king, and had received 
 the crownj he determined with himself to 
 put upon him the shape of a new man, turn- 
 ing insolency and wildness into gravity and 
 soberness. And whereas he had passed his 
 youth in wanton pastime and riotous mis- 
 order, with a sort of misgoverned mates and 
 unthrifty playfeers, he now banished them 
 from his presence." Holinshed wrote this 
 in 1557 ; but did he invent this character ? 
 Thomas Elmham, a contemporary of Henry 
 V., who wrote his Life, distinctly tells us 
 of his passing the bounds of modesty, and, 
 " when not engaged in military exercises, 
 he also indulged in other excesses which 
 unrestrained youth is apt to fall into." Of 
 Henry's sudden conversion this author also 
 tells the story ; and he dates it from his 
 father's deathbed. Otterburn, another con- 
 temporary of Henry, gives us also the story 
 of his sudden conversion : "repente mutatus 
 est in virum alterum." Hardyng, another 
 contemporary, and an adherent of the house 
 of Lancaster, says 
 
 " The hour he was crowned and anoint 
 He changed was of all his old condition;" 
 
 or, as he says in the argument to this chapter 
 of his Chronicle, " he was changed from all 
 vices unto virtuous life." Walsingham, a 
 fourth contemporary, speaking of a heavy 
 fall of snow on the 9th of April, the day of 
 his coronation, says, " that some interpreted 
 this unseasonable weather to be a happy 
 omen ; as if he would cause the snow and 
 frost of vices to fall away in his reign, and 
 the serene fruit of virtues to spring up ; 
 that it might be truly said by his sub- 
 jects, ' Lo, the winter is past, the rain 
 is over and gone.' Who, indeed, as soon 
 as he was invested with the ensigns of 
 royalty, was suddenly changed into a new 
 man, behaving with propriety, modesty, and 
 gravity, and showing a desire to practise 
 every kind of virtue." There is a ballad oi 
 Henry IV.'s time addressed to Prince Henry 
 and his brothers, to dissuade them from 
 spending time in " youthed folily." Caxton, 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK iv. 
 
 who wrote in the time of Edward IV., says, [ 
 "Here is to be noted that the King Henry 
 V. was a noble prince after he was king and 
 crowned ; howbeit before in his youth he had 
 been wild, reckless, and spared nothing of his 
 lusts nor desires, but accomplished them after 
 his liking." Fabyan is even more severe : 
 ""This man before the death of his father 
 applied himself to -all vice and insolency." 
 The story of Henry insulting the Lord Chief 
 Justice, and being by him committed to pri- 
 son, was first told by Sir Thomas Elyot, in 
 1534, in his book entitled 'The Governor:' 
 and he sets out by saying, " The most re- 
 nowned prince King Henry V., late King of 
 England, during the life of his father was 
 noted to be fierce and of wanton courage." 
 His servant, according to this story, was ar- 
 raigned for felony, and the prince, "incensed 
 by light persons about him, in furious rage 
 came hastily to the bar." According to Sir 
 Thomas Elyot, the prince did not strike the 
 judge ; but, being "set all in a fury, all chafed, 
 in a terrible manner came up to the place of 
 judgment, men thinking that he would have 
 slain the judge." Holinshed makes the blow 
 to have been inflicted. Stow, whose Chronicle 
 was published in 1580, gives us a much more 
 natural version of the prince's robberies than 
 that of the old play : he makes them to have 
 been wanton frolics, followed by restitution. 
 Lastly, Hall collects and repeats all the 
 charges against Henry of the earlier his- 
 torians. In a word, there is not one solitary 
 writer up to the time of Shakspere that en- 
 tertained any doubt that 
 
 " His addiction was to courses vain; 
 
 His companies uiiletter'd, rude, and shallow; 
 
 His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, 
 
 sports." 
 
 This passage in ' Henry V.,' which is intro- 
 duced by the archbishop to heighten his 
 praises of the king by contrast with his 
 former state, is the severest passage which 
 Shakspere has against the early character of 
 the prince. It is stronger than his father's 
 reproof, in the third act of the First Part. 
 But where is the " insolency " of Holinshed 
 the " all vices " of Hardyng the " spared 
 nothing of his lusts and desires " of Caxton ? 
 Let it be observed, too, how careful Shakspere 
 
 has been to make the common tradition of 
 Henry's almost miraculous conversion rest 
 only upon the opinion of others. t The arch- 
 bishop indeed says, 
 
 never Hydra-headed wilfulness 
 
 So soon did lose his seat, and all at once, 
 As in this king." 
 
 But the prince, in the very first scene in 
 which he appears, thus apostrophizes his 
 companions, 
 
 " I know you all, and will awhile uphold 
 The unyoked humour of your idleness." 
 
 Even in the f Richard II.,' when Henry IV. 
 speaks of his " unthrifty son," we are pre- 
 pared, not for the coarse profligate of the old 
 play, but for a high-couraged and reckless 
 boy, offending in the very wantonness of his 
 hot blood, which despises conventional forms 
 and opinions : 
 
 " As dissolute as desperate; yet, through both, 
 I see some sparkles of a better hope." 
 
 But it is not from the representations of 
 others that we must form our opinion of 
 the character of the Prince of Shakspere. 
 He is, indeed, the "madcap prince of Wales," 
 
 " that daff'd the world aside," 
 
 but he is not the " sword and buckler prince 
 of Wales," that Hotspur would have "poisoned 
 with a pot of ale." He is a gentleman ; a 
 companion, indeed, of loose revellers, but one 
 who infinitely prefers the excitement of their 
 wit tq_their dissipation. How graceful too, 
 and how utterly devoid of meanness and 
 hypocrisy, is his apology to his father for his 
 faults ! } How gallantly he passes from the 
 revels at the Boar's Head to the preparations 
 for the battle-field! How just are his praises 
 of Hotspur! How modest his challenge! 
 
 " I have a truant been to chivalry." 
 
 What a key to his real kindness of heart and 
 good nature is his apostrophe to Falstaff : 
 
 " Poor Jack, farewell ! 
 
 I could have better spared a better man ! " 
 
 How magnanimous is his pleading for the 
 life of the Douglas ! Never throughout the 
 two plays is there a single expression of un 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 HENRY IV. 
 
 165 
 
 filial feeling towards his father. " My heart 
 Meeds inwardly," says the Prince of Shakspere, 
 " that my father is so sick." The low profli- 
 gate of the old play says, "I stand upon thorns 
 till the crown be on my head." The king's 
 description of his son in Shakspere is truly 
 in accordance with the poet's delineation of 
 his character : 
 
 " He hath a tear for pity, and a hand 
 Open as day for melting chaVity; 
 Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, he 's flint; 
 As humorous as winter." 
 
 And yet, according to Mr. Tyler, Shakspere 
 has done injustice to Henry of Monmouth. 
 When in ' Richard II.' Bolingbroke speaks 
 of his " unthrifty son," Mr. Tyler informs us 
 that the boy was only twelve years and a 
 half old. "At the very time," says Mr. Tyler, 
 " when, according to the poet's representation, 
 Henry IV. uttered this lamentation (Part I., 
 Act I. Scene 1), expressive of deep present 
 sorrow at the reckless misdoings of his son, 
 and of anticipations of worse, that very son 
 was doing his duty valiantly and mercifully 
 in Wales." Again, according to Mr. Tyler, 
 the noble scene between Henry and his father 
 in the third act of the First Part was not the 
 real" truth Henry was not then in London; 
 and from a letter of Henry to his council we 
 find that the king had received "most satis- 
 factory accounts of his very dear and well- 
 beloved son the prince, which gave him very 
 great pleasure." Mr. Tyler remarks upon 
 this letter, " It is as though history were de- 
 signed on set purpose, and by especial com- 
 mission, to counteract the bewitching fictions 
 of the poet." For our own parts, we have a 
 love of Henry as Shakspere evidently himself 
 had ; but we have derived that love more from 
 " the bewitching fictions " of the poet, than 
 from what we learn from history apart from 
 the poet. With every respect for Mr. Tyler's 
 excellent intentions, we are inclined to think 
 that Shakspere has elevated the character of 
 Henry, not only far above the calumnies of 
 the old Chroniclers, which, we believe, were 
 gross exaggerations, but has painted him 
 much more amiable, and just, and merciful 
 than we find him in the original documents 
 which Mr. Tyler has rendered popular. Mr. 
 
 Tyler has printed a letter of Prince Henry 
 to the council, written in 1401, and describing 
 his proceedings in Wales against Owen Glen- 
 dower. It contains the following passages : 
 '* So we caused the whole place to be set 
 on fire, and many other houses around it, be- 
 longing to his tenants. And then we went 
 straight to his other place * * * * * 
 there we burnt a fine lodge in his park, and 
 the whole country around. * * * * * 
 And certain of our people sallied forth, and took 
 a gentleman of high degree * * * * * 
 he was put to death ; and several of his com- 
 panions, who were taken the same day, met 
 with the same fate. We then proceeded to 
 the commote of Edionyon, in Merionethshire, 
 and there laid waste a fine and populous 
 country." Our tastes may be wrong ; but 
 we would rather hold in our affections "the 
 madcap prince of Wales " at the Boar's Head, 
 " of all humours, that have showed them- 
 selves humours, since the old days of goodman 
 Adam," than adulterate the poetical idea 
 with the documentary history of a precocious 
 boy, burning, wasting, and slaying ; or, as 
 Mr. Tyler says, " doing his duty valiantly." 
 There is sometimes a higher truth even than 
 documentary truth. The burnings and slay- 
 ings of Henry of Monmouth must be judged 
 of according to the spirit of his age. Had the 
 great dramatist represented these things, he 
 would, indeed, have done injustice to Henry 
 in his individual character. We believe that 
 he most wisely vindicated his hero from the 
 written and traditionary calumnies that had 
 gathered round his name, not by showing 
 him, as he did Prince John of Lancaster, a 
 " sober-blooded boy," but by divesting his 
 dissipation of the grossness which up to his 
 time had surrounded it ; and by exhibiting 
 the misdirected energy of an acute and ac- 
 tive mind, instead of the violent excesses and 
 the fierce passions that had anciently been at- 
 tributed to him. The praiseworthy attempt 
 of Mr. Tyler to prove that there was no solid 
 historical ground for Henry's early profligacy 
 is founded upon a very ingenious treatise, full 
 of antiquarian research, by Mr. Alexander 
 Luders*. That gentleman, as it appears to 
 
 * ' An Essay on the Character of Henry V. when Prince 
 of Wales.' 1813. 
 
166 
 
 STUDIES .OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK iv 
 
 us, has left the question pretty much where 
 he found it. He has, however, taken a right 
 view of what our poet did for the character 
 of Henry : " Shakspere seemed to struggle 
 against believing the current stories of mis- 
 conduct as much as he could, that he might 
 not let the prince down to their level/' 
 
 " In the Shaksperean drama there is a vi- 
 tality which grows and evolves itself from 
 within a key-note which guides and con- 
 trols the harmonies throughout."* It is 
 under the direction of a deep and absolute 
 conviction of the truth of this principle 
 not only as applied to the masterpieces of 
 Shakspere, the 'Lear,' the 'Macbeth,' the 
 ' Othello,' but to all his works without ex- 
 ception that we can alone presume to under- 
 stand any single drama of this poet much 
 less to attempt to lead the judgment of others. 
 Until by long and patient thought we believe 
 that we have traced the roots, and seen the 
 branches and buddings, of that " vitality " 
 until by frequent listening to those " har- 
 monies" we hear, or fancy we hear, that 
 "key-note" we hold ourselves to be utterly 
 unfitted even to call attention to a solitary 
 poetical beauty, or to develope the peculiari- 
 ties of a single character. Shakspere is not 
 to be taken up like an ordinary writer of 
 fiction, whose excellence may be tested by a 
 brilliant dialogue here, or a striking situation 
 there. The proper object of criticism upon 
 Shakspere is to show the dependence of the 
 parts upon the whole; for by that principle 
 alone can we come to a due appreciation even 
 of the separate parts. Dull critics, and bril- 
 liant critics, equally blunder about Shak- 
 spere, when they reject this safe guide to the 
 comprehension of his works. We have a 
 Frenchman before us M. Paul Duport who 
 gives us an 'Analyse Raisonnee' of our 
 poet, which is perfectly guiltless of any im- 
 aginative power to hide or adorn the dry 
 bones of the Analysis t. Mark the confidence 
 with which this gentleman speaks of the two 
 plays before us ! Of the first part he says, 
 "This piece has still less of action and in- 
 terest than those which preceded it ('John,' 
 
 * Coleridge's ' Literary Remains,' vol. i. p. 104. 
 
 ' E^sais Litteraires sur Shakspeare,' 2 torn. Paris, 1828. 
 
 and ' Richard II.'). It is only an historical 
 picture, the various circumstances of which 
 have no relation amongst themselves. There 
 is no personage who predominates over the 
 others, so as to fix the attention of the audi- 
 ence. It is the anarchy of the Scene. What, 
 however, renders it worthy an attentive ex- 
 amination is its division into a tragic and 
 a comic portion. The two species are here 
 very distinct. The tragic portion is c<dd, 
 disjointed, undecided; but the comic, al- 
 though absolutely foreign to the shadow of 
 the action which makes the subject of the 
 piece, merits sometimes to be placed by the 
 side of the better passages of the Regnards, 
 and even of the Molieres." This is pretty 
 decided for a blockhead ; and, indeed, the 
 decision with which he speaks could only pro- 
 ceed from a blockhead par excellence. Had 
 this Frenchman not been supremely dull and 
 conceited, he would have had some glimmer- 
 ings of the truth, though he might not have 
 seen the whole truth. Our own Johnson had 
 too strong a sympathy with the marvellous 
 talent which runs through the scenes of the 
 ' Henry IV.' not to speak of these plays with 
 more than common enthusiasm. The great 
 events, he says, are interesting ; the slighter 
 occurrences diverting ; the characters diver- 
 sified with the profoundest skill; Falstaff is 
 the ummjltated, uuimitable. But now comes 
 the qualification the result of Johnson look- 
 ing at the parts instead of the whole : " I 
 fancy every reader, when he ends this play, 
 cries out with Desdernona, ' most lame and 
 impotent conclusion ! ' As this play was not, 
 to our knowledge, divided into acts by the 
 author, I could be content to conclude it 
 with the death of Henry the Fourth." Let 
 u endeavour, in going through the scenes 
 of these plays, with the help of the great 
 guiding principle that Shakspere "worked 
 in the spirit of nature by evolving the germ 
 from within, by the imaginative power ac- 
 cording to an idea ; "J let us endeavour to 
 prove not, indeed, that these plays do not 
 want action and interest, and that the tragic 
 parts are not cold, disjointed, and undecided 
 but that all the circumstances have rela- 
 tion amongst themselves, and that the comic 
 
 % Coleridge's.' Literary Remains,' vol. i. p. 104. 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 HENRY IV. 
 
 167 
 
 parts, so far from being absolutely foreign to 
 the action, entirely depend upon it, and, to 
 a certain extent, direct it. If we succeed in 
 our attempt, we shall show that, from the 
 preliminary and connecting lines in ' Richard 
 II,'- 
 " Can no man tell of my unthrifty son]" 
 
 to "the most lame and impotent conclusion" 
 which Johnson would suppress, nothing can 
 be spared nothing can be altered; that 
 Dame Quickly and Justice Silence are as 
 essential to the progress of the action as 
 Hotspur and the King; that the Prince 
 could not advance without Falstaff, nor Fal- 
 staff without the Prince ; that the poetry 
 and the wit are co-dependent and insepa- 
 rable ; and, above all, that the minute shades 
 of character generally, and especially the ex- 
 traordinary fusion of many contrary quali- 
 ties in the character of Falstaff, j are to be 
 completely explained and reconciled only by 
 reference to their connexion with the dra- 
 matic action "the key-note which guides 
 and controls the harmonies throughout." 
 
 Some seventy lines from the commence- 
 ment of this play (we shall find it convenient 
 to speak of the two parts as forming one 
 drama), the "key-note" is struck. The King 
 communicates to his friends " the smooth and 
 welcome news" of the battle of Holmedon. 
 His exultation is unbounded: 
 
 " And is not this an honourable prize? 
 A gallant prize 1 ? ha, cousin, is it not 1 ?" 
 
 But when the King is told 
 " It is a conquest for a prince to boast of," 
 the one circumstance the 
 
 "One fatal remembrance, one sorrow that 
 
 throws 
 
 Its deep shade alike o'er his joys and his 
 woes," 
 
 the shame that extinguishes the right to 
 boast, comes across his mind : 
 
 " Yea, there thou mak'st me sad, and mak'st 
 
 me sin 
 
 In envy that my lord Northumberland 
 Should be the father of so bless'd a son : 
 A son, who is the theme of honour's tongue ; 
 Amongst a grove,, the very straightest plant ; 
 
 Who is sweet Fortune's minion, and her pride : 
 Whilst I, by looking on the praise pf him, 
 See riot and dishonour stain the brow 
 Of my young Harry. Oh, that it could be 
 
 proved, 
 
 That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged 
 In cradle-clothes our children where they lay, 
 X And call'd mine Percy, his Plantagenet ! 
 Then would I have his Harry, and he mine. 
 But let him from my thoughts." 
 
 The King forces his "young Harry" from 
 his thoughts, and talks of " young Percy's 
 pride." But the real action of the drama 
 has commenced, in this irrepressible disclosure 
 of the King's habitual feelings. It is for the 
 poet to carry on the exhibition of the " riot 
 and dishonour," their course, their ebbings 
 and Sowings, the circumstances which con- 
 trol, and modify, and subdue them. The 
 events which determine the career of the 
 Prince finally conquer the habits by which 
 he was originally surrounded ; and it is in 
 the entire disclosure of these habits as not 
 incompatible with their growing modification 
 and ultimate overthrow by those events 
 which constitute what is called the tragic 
 action of the drama that every incident 
 and every character becomes an integral part 
 of the whole a branch, or a leaf, or a bud, 
 or a flower, of the one " vitality." 
 
 We have seen in what spirit the Prince of 
 the old play which preceded Shakspere was 
 conceived. We have seen, also, the character 
 of the associates by whom he was surrounded. 
 We feel that the whole of such a representa- 
 tion must be untrue. The depraved and un- 
 feeling blackguard of that play could never 
 have become the hero of Agincourt. There 
 was no unity of character between the Prince 
 of the beginning and of the end of that 
 play ; and therefore there could have been 
 no unity of action. Perhaps no mind but 
 Shakspere's could have reconciled the appa- 
 rent contradiction which appears to lie upon 
 the surface both of the events by which the 
 Prince was moulded, and the characters by 
 which he was surrounded. It was for him 
 alone to exhibit a species of profligacy not 
 only capable of being conquered by the 
 higher energy which made the Prince chival- 
 rously brave and daring, but absolutely akin 
 
168 
 
 STUDIES OF SIIAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK 
 
 to that higher energy. This was to be 
 effected, not only by the peculiar qualities of 
 the Prince's own mind, but by the still more 
 peculiar qualities of his associates. As the 
 Prince of Shakspere, while he 
 
 " Daffd the world aside, and let it pass," ^ 
 
 never ceased to feel, in the depths of his 
 nobler nature, " thus we play the fools with 
 the time ; and the spirits of the wise sit in 
 the clouds and mock us," so he never could 
 have been surrounded by the "Ned" and 
 "Tom" of the old play, who must have ex- 
 tinguished all thoughts of " the wise," and 
 have produced irredeemable "dishonour." 
 Falstaff, the " unimitated, unimitable Fal- 
 staff," was the poetical creation that was 
 absolutely necessary to the conduct of the 
 great dramatic action, the natural trans- 
 formation of "the madcap Prince of Wales" 
 into King Henry V. So, indeed, were all the 
 satellites which revolve round Falstaff, 
 sharing and reflecting his light. It is the 
 perfect characterization of this drama 
 which makes the incidents consistent : the cha- 
 racters cannot live apart from the incident ; 
 the incidents cannot move on without the 
 characters. If we attempt to unravel the 
 characters, and the complicated character of 
 Falstaff especially, without reference to the 
 incidents, we are speedily in a labyrinth. 
 The vulgar notion of Falstaff, for example, 
 is the stage notion. Mrs. Inchbald truly 
 remarks, " To many spectators, all Falstaff 's 
 humour is comprised in his unwieldy per- 
 son." But the same lady adopts an equally 
 vulgar stage generalization, and calls him 
 the "cowardly Falstaff." The " wit" of Fal- 
 staff, though slightly received into the stage 
 conception of the character, is a very vague 
 notion compared with the bulk and the 
 cowardice of Falstaff. Mrs. Inchbald (we are 
 quoting from her prefaces to the acted plays) 
 says, " The reader who is too refined to laugh 
 at the wit of Sir John must yet enjoy Hot- 
 spur's picture of a coxcomb." The refine- 
 ment of the players is even more sensitive ; 
 for they altogether leave out in the repre- 
 sentation the scene where Falstaff and the 
 Prince alternately stand for the King and 
 Harry a scene to which nothing of comic 
 
 that ever was written, except, perhaps, a pas- 
 sage or two in Cervantes, can at all approach.^ 
 The players, however, are consistent. Their 
 intolerance of poetry and of wit are equal. 
 Not a line do they keep of the matchless 
 first scene of the third act, than which Shak- 
 spere ^v^r" wrote~anyTELTng more spirited, 
 more individualised, more harmonious. But 
 .we are digressing^ Falstaff, then, we see, in 
 the rude general conception of his character, 
 is fat, cowardly, and somewhat witty. The 
 players alwa'ys double and quadruple the au- 
 thor's notion of his fat and his cowardice; 
 and they kindly allow us a modicum of his 
 wit. To be fat and to be cowardly, and even 
 to have some wit, would go far to make an 
 excellent butt for a wild youn^ prince ; but 
 they would not make a FalstaffJ-These quali- 
 ties would be, to such a prince as Shakspere ) 
 has conceived, little better than Bardolph's 
 nose, or the Drawer's " Anon, anon, sir." To 
 understand Falstaff, however, we must take 
 him scene by scene, and incident by incident ; 
 we must study his character in its develop- 
 ment by the incidents, " Thou art so fat- 
 witted, with drinking of old sack, and unbut- 
 toning thee after supper, and sleeping upon 
 benches after noon." Here is the sensualist 
 introduced to us. We have here a vista of 
 " the halfpennyworth of bread to the intole- 
 rable deal of sack." But, if we look closely, 
 we shall see that the Prince is exaggerating ; 
 and that Falstaff humours the exaggeration. 
 It is Falstaff's cue to heighten all his own 
 infirmities and frailties. "Men of all sorts," 
 he says, " take a pride to gird at me." But 
 he has himself a pride in the pride which 
 they take : " The brain of this foolish-com- 
 pounded clay, man, is not able to invent 
 anything that tends to laughter, more than 
 I invent, or is invented on me : I am not 
 only witty in myself, but the cause that wit,- 
 is in other men." How immediately Falstaff 
 turns the prince from bantering to a position 
 in which he has to deal with an antagonist, 
 The thrusts of wit are exchanged like the 
 bouts of a fencing-match. The sensualist, 
 we see, has a prodigious activity of intellect; 
 and he at once passes out of the slough of 
 vulgar sensuality. But the man of wit is 
 also a man of action. He is ready for " purse- 
 
 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 HENRY IV. 
 
 U71, 
 
 taking j" 't is his "vocation." Is not this 
 again meant to be an exaggeration? The 
 "night's exploit on Gadshill" was the single 
 violence, as far as we know, of Fal staff as 
 well as of the Prince. His "vocation" was 
 that of a soldier. It is as a soldier that we 
 for the most part see him throughout this 
 drama a soldier having charge and au- 
 thority. But in the days of Henry IV., and 
 long after, the "vocation" of a soldier was 
 that of a plunderer, and "purse-taking" was 
 an object not altogether unfamiliar to Fal- 
 staff's professional vision. That Shakspere 
 ever meant to paint him as an habitual thief, 
 or a companion of thieves, is, in our view, 
 one of those absurdities which has grown up 
 out of stage exaggeration. The Prince and 
 Poins are equally obnoxious to the charge. 
 And yet, although Poins, the intimate of the 
 Prince, proposes to them, " My lads, my lads, 
 to-morrow morning, by four o'clock early at 
 Gadshill," the Piince refuses to go till Poins 
 shows him that he hath "a jest to execute." 
 The Prince, in the soliloquy which is in- 
 tended to keep him right with those who 
 look forward to the future king, does not 
 talk of Falstaff and Poins as of utterly base 
 companions : 
 
 " I know you all, and will awhile uphold 
 The unyoked humour of you&dle 
 
 /He saw, in Falstaff and Poins, the same 
 "idleness" which was in himself the idle- 
 ness of preferring the passing pleasure, 
 whether of sensual gratification, or of men- 
 tal excitement without an adequate end 
 which led him to their society. His re- 
 solution to forsake the "idleness" was a 
 very feeble one. He would for "awhile 
 uphold "it. 
 
 The Prince is looking forward to the 
 "virtue of the jest" that will follow the 
 adventure on Gadshill. The once proud 
 allies, but now haughty rivals, of his father, 
 are, at the same time, bearding that father 
 in his palace. Worcester is dismissed, for 
 his "presence is too bold and peremptory." 
 - Hotspur defends the denial of his prisoners, 
 irmTaf~most characteristic speech which re- 
 veals his rough and passionate spirit. All 
 the strength of his nature, the elevation 
 
 without refinement, the force of will rising 
 into poetry even by its own chafings, are 
 fully brought out in the rapid movement of 
 this scene. Never was the sublimity of an 
 over-mastering passion more consummately 
 displayed. No disjointed ravings, no callings 
 upon the gods, no clenchings of the fist or 
 tearings of the hair, no threats without a 
 purpose, none of the commonplaces which 
 make up the staple of ordinary tragedy ; but 
 the uncontrollable rush of an energetic 
 mind, abandoning itself from a sense of in- 
 jury to impulses impossible to be guided by 
 will or circumstance, and which finally 
 sweeps into its own torrent all the feeble 
 barriers of prudence which inferior natures 
 would oppose to it. It runs its course like 
 a mad blood horse ; and every attempt to 
 put on the bridle produces a new impatience. 
 Exhaustion at last comes, and then how 
 complete is the exhaustion ! " I have done 
 in sooth ;" a word or two of question, a 
 word or two of assent, to the calm proposals 
 of Worcester ; and the passion of talk is 
 ready to become the passion of action. We 
 may now understand what Shakspere meant 
 by approximating the ages of Hotspur and 
 Henry of Monmouth. Let us make Hotspur 
 forty-five years of age, and Henry sixteen, . 
 as the iiteralists would have it, and the 
 whole dramatic structure crumbles into dust. 
 Under the poet's hand we see that Hotspur 
 is the ffood destiny of. the,, young Henry; 
 that his higher qualities are to fire the 
 Prince's ambition ; that his rashness is to 
 lead to the Prince's triumph. Eastcheap is 
 Hal's holiday scene ; but the field of Shrews- 
 bury will be Harry's working-place. 
 
 All the minor characters and situations of 
 this drama are wonderfully wrought up. 
 The inn-yard at Rochester is one of those 
 little pictures which live for ever in the 
 memory, because they are thoroughly true 
 to nature. Who that has read this scene, 
 and has looked out upon the darkness of a 
 winter morning, has not thought of "Charles' 
 wain over the new chimney 1 ?" Who has 
 not speculated upon the grief of the man 
 with one idea, of Robin ostler, who " never ' 
 joyed since the price of oats rose ?" We 
 see not the "franklin from the wild of Kent, 
 
r ie r 
 
 STUDIES OP SIIAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK iv. 
 
 who hath brought three hundred marks 
 with him in gold ;" but we form a notion of 
 that sturdy and portly English yeoman. 
 The " eggs and butter" which the travellers 
 have at breakfast even interest us. This is 
 the art by which a fiction becomes a reality, 
 the art of a Defoe, as well as of a Shak- 
 spere. But all this is but a preparation for 
 the exploit of Gadshill. We hardly know 
 what limits there are to the comedy of hu- 
 mour, but it seems impossible to go beyond 
 this. Practical wit is here carried as far as 
 it can well go. There are other scenes in_ 
 this play where the sense of the comic is 
 brought from a deeper region of the heart ; 
 but there are none more laughter-pro- 
 voking. The helplessness of FaTstafF, without 
 his horse, is in itself a humorous situation ; 
 but how doubly rich does the humour become 
 by the contrast of his nimbleness of mind 
 with his heaviness of body ! His soliloquies 
 are always rich, but they are especially so, 
 in connexion with the odd situations out of 
 which they grow. Here his own sense of 
 the ludicrousness of his p'osition carries off 
 the ill humour which he feels at those who 
 have placed him in it. "Have you any 
 levers to lift me up again, being down ? " And 
 then how characteristic is his abuse of his 
 tormentors ! " An I have not ballads made 
 upon you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a 
 cup of sack be my poison." In the very act 
 of the robbery, Falstaff's habit of laughing 
 at himself is as predominant as when he is 
 making fun for the prince : " Hang ye, gor- 
 bettied knaves ; are ye undone ? No, ye fat 
 chuffs ; I would your store were here ! On, 
 bacons, on ! What, ye knaves, yowig men 
 must live." The robbery is complete. " The 
 thieves have bound the true men." The 
 Prince and Poins rob the thieves : 
 
 " Each takes his fellow for an officer." 
 
 The question here arises whether Falstaff, 
 thus discomfited, was meant by Shakspere 
 for a coward. A long essay, and a very able 
 -one, has been written to prove that Falstaff 
 was not a coward*. This essay, which was 
 originally published in 1777, is, considering 
 
 L 
 
 * ' An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John 
 Falstaff. By Maurice Morgann, Esq. 
 
 the time at which it appeared, a remarkable 
 specimen of genial criticism upon Shakspere. 
 The author then stood almost alone in the 
 endeavour to understand the poet in his 
 admiration of him. It would be beside our 
 purpose to furnish any analysis of this essay ; 
 and indeed this one disputed point of Fal- 
 staff's character is made to assume a dispro- 
 portionate importance by being the subject 
 of an elaborate defence. Mackenzie, in 
 1 The Lounger,' appears to us to have put 
 the point very neatly : f' Though I will not 
 go so far as a paradoxical critic has done, 
 and ascribe valour to Falstaff; yet, if his 
 cowardice is fairly examined, it will be found 
 to be not so much a weakness as a principle. 
 In his very cowardice there is much of the 
 sagacity I have remarked in him; he has 
 the sense of danger, but not the discom- 
 posure of fear."J 
 
 The interval 4>etween the double robbery 
 and the fun which is to result from it car- 
 ries us back to Hotspur. We are admitted 
 to a glimpse of the dangers which begin to 
 surround him ; the falling off of friends, 
 the confidence that rises over difficulties, 
 even to the point of rashness. But we have 
 a new interest in Hotspur. He has a wife, 
 one of those women that Shakspere only 
 has painted ; timid, restless, affectionate, 
 playful, submissive, a lovely woodbine 
 hanging on the mighty oak. The indiffe- 
 rence of Hotspur to every thought but the 
 one dominant idea is beautifully wrought 
 out in this little scene ; and the whole car- 
 ries on the action unobtrusively, but de- 
 cidedly : if has the combined beauty of re- 
 pose and movement. To those who cannot 
 see the connexion of the action, in Hotspur 
 and his wife at Warkworth, and the Prince 
 and Falstaff at Eastcheap, we would com- 
 mend M. Paul Duport. 
 
 Shakspere has opened to us a secret, in 
 the scene between the Prince and the Drawer. 
 " This scene," says Johnson, " helped by the 
 distraction of the Drawer and the grimaces 
 of the Prince, may entertain upon the stage, 
 but affords not much delight to the reader. 
 The author has judiciously made it short." 
 The scene, as we apprehend, was introduced 
 by Shakspere to show the quality of the 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 HENRY IV. 
 
 i7L 
 
 Prince's wit when unsustained by that of 
 Falstaff. The Prince goes to this boy-play 
 with the Jlra.w^r ; "to drive away the time 
 HTTFalstaff come." With Poms, who is a 
 cold gentlemanly hanger-on, the Prince has 
 no exuberance : he is playful, smart, voluble, 
 but not witty. I Falstaff is necessary to him 
 to call out the higher qualities of his in- 
 tellect. He fancies that he is laughing at 
 Falstaff: while, in truth, the sagacity, the 
 readiness, the presence of mind, thejcpvert 
 sarcasrn^lhe unrestrained impudence, and the 
 crowning wit of that extraordinary humorist, 
 at once rouse the Prince's mind into a state 
 of activity which, in itself, would be plea- 
 surable, but is doubly fascinating in con- 
 nexion with the self-complacency which tells 
 him that the man who thus stimulates him 
 has a thousand prominent points to be_ridi- 
 culed, and that the subject of the ridicule 
 will be the first to enjoy the jest. It would 
 be vain for us to attempt any dissection of 
 the great scene which follows. We would, 
 however, observe that, to our minds, " the 
 incomprehensible lies" which Falstaff tells, 
 the " two or three and fifty upon poor old 
 Jack," the " two rogues in buckram suits," 
 the four, the seven, the nine, the eleven, 
 the " three misbegotten knaves in Kendal 
 green," are lies that are_ intended to Jbe re- 
 ceived as lies, an incoherent exaggeration 
 for the purpose of drawing out the real 
 'facts. The unconquerable good humour and 
 elation of spirit which Falstaff displays 
 throughout the whole scene show as if he 
 had a glimpse or a shrewd jy^snieiaa of the 
 truth. But, in the midst of the revelry, the 
 " villainous news abroad" penetrates even 
 to the Boar's Head. Yet the fun never 
 stops ; and Falstaff is desirous to " play out 
 the play," even when the Sheriff is at the 
 door. When the Sheriff demands the "gross 
 fat man," whom the "hue and cry hath 
 followed," the Prince replies, 
 
 " The man, I do assure you, is not here." 
 
 Falstaff was behind the arras. We do not 
 go along with Steevens, who says, " Every 
 reader must regret that Shakspeare would 
 not give himself the trouble to furnish Prince 
 Henry with some more pardonable excuse, 
 
 without obliging him to have recourse to an 
 absolute falsehood, and that too uttered un- 
 der the sanction of so strong an assurance." 
 We do not agree with Steevens, because, in 
 our belief, it was Shakspere's intention to 
 show that the Prince could not come out of 
 these scenes without a moral contamination. 
 The lie was an inevitable consequence of the 
 participation in the robbery. The money 
 might be restored, but the accomplice must 
 be protected. 
 
 Is it by accident that we are now to pass 
 from the region of the highest wit into the 
 region of the highest poetry ? Brilliant as 
 the scenes at the Boar's Head are, they 
 leave an unsatisfactory impression upon the 
 moral sense ;. and they are meant to do so. 
 The character of Falstaff is essentially anti- 
 poetical. It may appear a truism to say 
 this, and yet he has fancy enough for a 
 large component part of a poet. His wit is 
 for the most part a succession_pf_images ; 
 but his imagination sees only the ludicrous 
 aspect of things, and so the images are all 
 of the earth they cannot go out of our 
 finite nature. Thus it is that, when in com- 
 pany with Falstaff, the prince exhibits no 
 one particle of that enthusiasm which goes 
 to form the chivalrous portion of his after- 
 character. Up to this point, then, his nature 
 appears essentially less elevated than the 
 natures of his enemies. Hotspur is a being 
 of lofty passions GHendower one of wild 
 and mysterious imaginations. How singu- 
 larly are their characters developed in the 
 scene at Bangor ! The solemn credulity of 
 the reputed magician, the sarcastic unbe- 
 lief of the impatient warrior, are equally 
 indications of men in earnest. Harry ~o" 
 Momnouth up to this time has been playing 
 a part. Excellently as he has played it, he 
 was still only the second actor ; for Falstaff 
 beats him out and out, through the rich' 
 geniality of his temperament. Falstaff at 
 this time approaches much nearer to the 
 earnestness of Glendower than Harry does 
 to the exaltation of Hotspur. When Falstaff 
 exclaims " Banish plump Jack, and banish 
 all the world," we feel that he is as sincere 
 as Glendower when he says, 
 " I say, the earth did shake when I was born." 
 
 If 
 
172 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 But the poetical elevation of the scene at 
 Bangor is a fit introduction also to the new 
 situation in which we shall see the Prince. 
 It is skilfully interposed between the revels 
 at the Boar's Head and the penitential inter- 
 view of Henry with his father. The players, 
 discarding this poetical scene, allow us no 
 resting-place between the debauch and the 
 repentance. In the "private conference" 
 between Henry IV. and his son, the charac- 
 ter of Bolingbroke is sustained with what 
 we may truly call historical accuracy. The 
 solemn dignity of the offended father, dis- 
 playing itself in the very structure of the 
 verse 
 
 " I know not whether God will have it so, 
 For some displeasing service I have done, 
 That, in his secret doom, out of my blood 
 He '11 breed revengement and a scourge for 
 me :" 
 
 the calm and calculating prudence with 
 which the king runs over the successful pas- 
 sages of his OAvn history the example that 
 he holds up to his son's ambition, of Percy, 
 who 
 " doth fill fields with harness in the 
 
 realm : " 
 
 the striking picture of the dangers with 
 which his throne is surrounded and the 
 final most bitter reproof 
 
 " Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes, 
 Which art my nearest and dearest enemy]" 
 
 all this exhibits the masterly politician, but 
 it does not show us the deep passion of the 
 father ; nor does it hold up to the Prince the 
 highest motives for a change of life. The 
 answer of the Prince partakes somewhat of 
 his father's policy. He is not moved to any 
 deep and agonizing remorse ; he extenuates 
 the offences that are laid to his charge ; his 
 ambition, indeed, is roused, and he proposes 
 to " salve the long grown wounds " of his 
 " intemperance" by redeeming " all on 
 Percy's head." The king is more than satis- 
 fied. The change of character of the Prince 
 was in progress, but not in completion. It 
 was for the old chroniclers to talk of his 
 miraculous conversion ; it was for Shakspere 
 to show the gradations of its course. 
 
 The character of Falstaff is developing ; 
 but it is not improving. His sensuality puts 
 on a grosser aspect when he is alone with 
 Bardolph his satellite. We see, too, that, if 
 his vocation be not absolutely to " taking 
 purses," his principles do not stand in the 
 way of his success. When the Hostess asks 
 him for money that he owes, he insults her. 
 When the Prince tells him he is good friends 
 with his father, " Rob me the exchequer, the 
 first thing thou doest," is the inopportune 
 answer. The Prince replies not. He is 
 evidently in a more sober vein. Falstaff, 
 however, has " a charge of foot ; " and the 
 alacrity which he shows is quite evidence 
 enough that Shakspere had no intention to 
 make him a constitutional coward. The 
 Prince and he are going to the same battle- 
 field. They may exchange a passing jest or 
 two, but the ties of intimate connexion be- 
 tween them seem somewhat loosened. The 
 higher portions of the Prince's nature areJ 
 expanding ; the grosser qualities of Falstaff 
 are coming more and more into view. Shak- 
 spere seldom attempts to add anything by 
 the descriptions of others to the power which 
 his characters have of developing them- 
 selves ; but in this case it was necessary to 
 present a distinct image to the spectator of 
 the altered Harry of the Boar's Head, before 
 he came himself upon another scene. The 
 description of Vernon 
 
 " I saw young Harry, with his beaver on, 
 His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd, 
 Eise from the ground like feather'd Mercury, 
 And vaulted with such ease into his seat 
 As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds, 
 To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, 
 And witch the world with noble horseman- 
 ship;" 
 
 this fine description is the preparation for 
 the gallant bearing of the prince in the fifth 
 act. 
 
 The historical action of ' The First Part of 
 Henry IV.' is the first insurrection of the 
 Percies, which was put down by the battle 
 of Shrewsbury. These events are the inevi- 
 table consequence of the circumstances 
 which attended the deposition of Richard If. 
 Bolingbroke mounted the throne by the 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 HENRY IV. 
 
 173 
 
 treachery of Richard's friends ; his partisans 
 were too great to remain merely partisans : 
 
 " King Eichard might create a perfect guess, 
 That great Northumberland, then false to him, 
 Would, of that seed, grow to a greater false- 
 
 The struggles for power which followed the 
 destruction of the legitimate power have 
 been here painted by Shakspere with that 
 marvellous impartiality of which we have 
 already spoken in the Notice upon ' Richard 
 II.' Our sympathies would be almost wholly 
 with Hotspur and his friends had not the 
 poet raised up a new interest in the chival- 
 rous bearing of Henry of Monmouth, to 
 balance the noble character of the young 
 Percy. The prudence and moderation of the 
 King, accompanied, to6, wilh LTpT'courage, 
 still further divide the interest ; and the 
 guilt of Worcester, in falsifying the issue of 
 his mission, completes this division, and 
 carries out the great political purpose of the 
 poet, which was to show how, if a nation's 
 internal peace be once broken, the prosperity 
 and happiness of millions are put at the 
 mercy__of the weakness and the wickedness 
 " 
 
 the interpreters of a nation's voice. Personal 
 fear and personal ambition are, in all such 
 cases, substituted for the public, principles 
 upon which the leaders on either side profess 
 to act. Shakspere shows us in these scenes 
 the hollowness of all motives but those which 
 result from high principles or impulses. 
 Rash, proud, ambitious, prodigal of blood, as 
 Hotspur is, we feel that there is not an atom 
 of meanness in Ms composition, and that 
 his ambition is even virtue under a system 
 of opinion that makes " the hero " out of 
 those qualities which have inflicted most 
 suffering upon humanity. When he ex- 
 claims 
 
 " Let them come ; 
 
 They come like sacrifices in their trim, 
 And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war, 
 All hot, and bleeding, will we offer them : 
 The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit, 
 Up to the ears in blood !" 
 
 our spirit is moved " as with a trumpet." 
 He would carry us away with him, were it 
 
 not for the milder courage of young Harry 
 the courage of principle and of mercy. 
 Frank, liberal, prudent, gentle, but yet brave 
 as Hotspur himself, the Prince shows us that, 
 even in his "wildest excesses, he has drunk 
 deeply of the fountains of truth and wisdom. 
 The wisdom of the King is that of a cold and 
 subtle politician ; Hotspur seems to stand 
 out from his followers as the haughty feudal 
 lord, too proud to have listened to any 
 teacher but his own will ; but t 
 
 in casting away the dignity of his station to 
 commune freely with his fellow-men, has 
 attained that strength which is above all 
 conventional power ; his virtues as well as 
 his frailties belong to our common humanity 
 the virtues capable, therefore, of the 
 highest elevation, the frailties not pampered 
 into crimes by the artificial incentives of 
 social position. His challenge to Hotspur 
 exhibits all the attributes of the gentle- 
 man as well as the hero mercy, sincerity, 
 modesty, courage : 
 
 " In both our armies there is many "a soul 
 Shall pay full dearly for this encounter, 
 If once they join in trial. Tell your nephew, 
 The prince of Wales doth join with all the 
 
 world 
 
 In praise of Henry Percy : By my hopes, 
 This present enterprise set off his head, 
 I do not think a braver gentleman, 
 More active-valiant, or more valiant-young, 
 More daring, or more bold, is now alive, 
 To grace this latter age with noble deeds. 
 For my part, I may speak it to my shame, 
 I have a truant been to chivalry; 
 And so, I hear, he doth account me too : 
 Yet this before my father's majesty, 
 I am content that he shall take the odds 
 Of his great name and estimation ; 
 And will, to save the blood on either side, 
 Try fortune with him in a single fight." 
 
 Could the Prince have reached this height 
 amidst the cold formalities of his father's 
 court ? We think that Shakspere meant 
 distinctly to show that Henry of Monmouth, 
 when he " sounded the very base-string of 
 humility," gathered out of his dangerous 
 experience that spirit of sympathy with 
 human actions and motives from which a 
 sovereign is almost necessarily excluded ; and 
 
174 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPEEE. 
 
 [BOOK iv. I 
 
 thus the Prince himself believes that " in 
 everything the purpose must weigh with the 
 folly." In the march from Harfleur to Agin- 
 court, the Henry V. of Shakspere says, 
 " When lenity and cruelty play for a king- 
 dom, the gentler gamester is the soonest 
 winner." Where did he learn this ? Was 
 it in the same school where his brother, John 
 of Lancaster, learnt the cold treachery which 
 the poet and the historian have both ex- 
 hibited in his conduct to Scroop, and Mow- 
 bray, and Hastings ? Henry of Monmouth, 
 when he supposes Falstaff dead, drops a tear 
 over him : 
 
 " What ! old acquaintance ! could not all this 
 
 flesh 
 
 Keep in a little life] Poor Jack, farewell ! 
 I could have better spared a better man. 
 Oh, I should have a heavy miss of thee, 
 If I were much in love with vanity." 
 
 Henry here shows the restraint which he 
 had really put upon himself in his wildest 
 levities : but he feels as a man the supposed 
 loss of his "old acquaintance:" John of 
 Lancaster, on the other hand, has no frail- 
 ties, but he has no sympathies. Falstaff 
 hits off his character in a word or two : " A 
 man cannot make him laugh." 
 
 Thus far have we shown the unity of pur- 
 pose with which Shakspere, in tracing the 
 course of the civil troubles which followed 
 the usurpation of Henry IV., has exhibited 
 the process by which the character of Henry 
 V. was established. The " mad wag " of 
 Gadshill is the hero of the field of Shrews- 
 bury : 
 
 " Thou hast redeem'd thy lost opinion." 
 
 The Percy lies at his feet. He looks upon 
 his adversary dead, with the same gentle 
 and chivalrous spirit as he manifested 
 towards him living : 
 
 " Fare thee well, great heart ! " 
 
 It is in the same spirit that he deals with 
 "the noble Scot :" 
 
 " Go to the Douglas, and deliver him 
 Up to his pleasure, ransomless, and free 
 His valour, shown upon our crests to-day. 
 
 Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds, 
 Even in the bosom of our adversaries." 
 
 The Second Part of this drama is bound 
 up with the First, through the most skilful 
 management of the poet. Each Part was, of 
 course, acted as a distinct play in Shakspere's 
 time. In our own day the Second Part is 
 very seldom produced ; but, when it is, the 
 players destroy the connecting link, by 
 suppressing one of the finest scenes which! 
 Shakspere ever wrote the scene between* 
 Northumberland, Lord Bardolph, and Morton, 
 at Warkworth Castle. Colley Gibber, however, 
 wrenched the scene out of its place, and, 
 cutting it up into a dozen bits, stuck it here 
 and there throughout his alteration of 
 ' Richard III.' Many false Cremonas are 
 thus manufactured out of one real one ; and 
 the musical dupe is contented with the neck, 
 or the sounding-board, of the true fiddle, 
 while the knave who has broken it up has 
 destroyed the one thing which constituted 
 its highest value the perfect adaptation of 
 all its parts. Let this outrage upon Shak- 
 spere, however, pass. We live in a time 
 when it cannot be repeated. The connecting- 
 scene between the First and Second Parts 
 brings us back to the Northumberland of 
 1 Richard II.' We have scarcely seen him 
 in ' The First Part of Henry IV.' but here 
 Ave are made to feel that the retribution 
 which awaited his treacherous and selfish 
 actions has arrived. He betrayed Richard 
 to Bolingbroke he insulted the unhappy 
 king in his hour of misery he incited his 
 son and his brother to revolt from Henry, 
 and then deserted them in their need. We 
 feel, then, that the misery which produces 
 his "strained passion" is a just visitation : 
 
 " Now let not Nature's hand 
 Keep the wild flood confined ! let order die ! 
 And let the world no longer be a stage 
 To feed contention in a lingering act ; 
 But let one spirit of the first-born Cain 
 Keign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set 
 On bloody courses, the rude scene may end, 
 And darkness be the burier of the dead ! " 
 His cold and selfish policy destroyed his son 
 at Shrewsbury, and he endures to be re- 
 proached for it by that son's widow : 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 HENRY IV. 
 
 175 
 
 "The time was, father, that you broke your 
 
 word, 
 
 When you were more endear'd to it than now; 
 When your own Percy, when my heart's dear 
 
 Harry, 
 Threw many a northward look, to see his 
 
 father 
 Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain." 
 
 He again yields to his own fears, even more 
 than to the entreaties of his wife and daugh- 
 jfc^r, and once more waits for " time and Van- 
 tage." His eventful fall, therefore, moves 
 no pity ; and we feel that the poet properly 
 dismisses him and his fate in three lines : 
 
 " The earl Northumberland, and the lord Bar- 
 
 dolph, 
 
 With a great power of English and of Scots, 
 Are by the sheriff of Yorkshire overthrown." 
 
 The conspirators against Henry IV., who 
 are now upon the scene, are far less inte- 
 resting than those of the former Part. We 
 have no character that can at all compare 
 with Hotspur, or Glendower, or Douglas. 
 Hastings has, indeed, the rashness of Hot- 
 spur, but without his fire and brilliancy ; 
 the Archbishop is dignified and sententious ; 
 Lord Bardolph sensible and prudent. Neither 
 the characters nor the incidents afford any 
 scope for the highest poetry. The finest 
 thing in the scenes where the conspirators 
 appear is the speech of the Archbishop : 
 " An habitation giddy and unsure 
 
 Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart." 
 
 To the conspirators are opposed John of 
 Lancaster and Westmoreland. In the scene 
 where these leaders (fitting representatives, 
 indeed, of the cruel and treacherous times 
 which we call the days of chivalry) tempt 
 Hastings, and Mowbray, and the Archbishop, 
 to disband their forces, and then arrest them 
 for treason, Shakspere has contrived to make 
 us hate the act and the actors with an in- 
 tensity which is the natural result of his 
 dramatic power. Johnson, however, says, 
 " It cannot but raise some indignation to 
 find this horrid violation of faith passed over 
 thus slightly by the poet, without any note 
 of censure or detestation." Malone agrees 
 in this complaint : " Shakspeare, here, as in 
 many other places, has merely followed the 
 
 historians, who related this perfidious act 
 
 without animadversion But there is 
 
 certainly no excuse ; for it is the duty of a 
 poet always to take the side of virtue." 
 Holinshed, in a marginal note, describes this 
 treachery as " The subtill policie of the Earle 
 of Westmerland." Now, we quite admit 
 that it was the duty of the historian to call 
 this " subtill policie " by some much harder 
 name ; but we utterly deny that it was the 
 duty of the poet to introduce a fine declama- 
 tion about virtue and honour, such as John- 
 son himself would have introduced, 
 
 " To please the boys, and be a theme at school." 
 
 Shakspere has made it perfectly evident that 
 the treachery by which the Archbishop and 
 his friends were sacrificed was deliberately 
 arranged by Prince John and Westmoreland. 
 When the young general is becoming violent 
 with Hastings, Westmoreland most artfully 
 reminds him that all this is waste of time 
 that they have something in store more 
 effective than reproaches : 
 
 " Pleaseth your grace to answer them directly, 
 How far-forth you do like their articles'?" 
 
 The crafty prince answers to his cue without 
 hesitation : 
 
 " I like them all, and do allow them well;" 
 and he follows up the promise of redress by 
 
 " here, between the armies, 
 Let 's drink together friendly, and embrace." 
 
 To this duplicity are opposed the frankness 
 of Hastings and the wisdom of the Arch- 
 bishop : 
 
 ' A peace is of the nature of a conquest : 
 For then both parties nobly are subdued, 
 And neither party loser." 
 
 In full contrast to the confiding honesty of 
 these men stands out the dirty equivocation 
 of Prince John : 
 
 "Arch. Will you thus break your faith] 
 P. John. I pawn'd thee none : 
 
 I promised you redress of these same grievances t 
 
 Whereof you did complain." 
 
 Is there anything more wanting to make us 
 detest " this horrid violation of faith ?" One 
 
176 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK iv. 
 
 thing, which the poet has given us, the 
 cruelty which follows the perfidy : 
 
 " Strike up our drums, pursue the scatter'd 
 stray." 
 
 To our minds, after this dramatic picture, we 
 can well dispense with any didactic .explana- 
 tions. The simple question of Mowbray 
 (which is evaded) 
 " Is this proceeding just and honourable 1 ?" 
 
 is quite enough to show the dullest that the 
 poet did " take the side of virtue." 
 
 The scene, in the first act of the Second 
 Part, between Falstaff and the Lord Chief 
 Justice, takes us back to the field of Shrews- 
 bury : 
 
 
 
 "Attendant. Falstaff, an't please your lord- 
 ship. 
 
 Ch. Justice. He that was in question for the 
 robbery] 
 
 Attendant. He, my lord : but he hath since 
 done good service at Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, 
 is now going with some charge to the lord John 
 of Lancaster." 
 
 We have seen Falstaff, in his progress to 
 that battle-field, an unscrupulous extortioner, 
 degrading his public authority by making it 
 the instrument for his private purposes : " I 
 have misused the king's press damnably. I 
 have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty 
 soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds." 
 We have seen his deportment in the battle : 
 " I have led my ragamuffins where they are 
 peppered ;" this is not cowardice. We have 
 seen him in the heat of the fight jestiug and 
 dallying with his bottle of sack : this is not 
 cowardice. Himself is his best expositor : 
 " I like not such grinning honour as Sir 
 Walter hath : Give me life : which if I can 
 save, so : if not, honour comes unlocked for, 
 and there 's an end." Again : " The better 
 part of valour is discretion ; in the which 
 better part, I have saved my life." What is 
 this but the absence of that higher quality 
 of the mind, be it a principle or a feeling, 
 which constitutes the heroic character 
 the poetry of action 1 We find the absence 
 of this quality in lago, as well as in Fal- 
 staff. Look at his reply to Cassio's lament : 
 " I have lost the immortal part, sir, of my- 
 
 self, and what remains is bestial. My repu- 
 tation, lago, my reputation." "As I am an 
 honest man, I thought you had received 
 some bodily wound ; there is more offence in 
 that than in reputation. Reputation is an 
 idle and most false imposition." This is per- 
 fectly equivalent to Falstaff 's "Can honour set 
 to a leg 1 . . . Honour is a mere scutcheon." 
 Falstaff 's assault, too, upon the dead Percy 
 is exactly in the same spirit, and so are the 
 lie and the boast which follow the exploit : 
 "I '11 take it upon my death, I gave him this 
 wound in the thigh : if the man were alive, 
 and would deny it, I would make him eat a 
 piece of my sword." Shakspere has drawn a 
 liar, a braggart, and a coward in Parolles*. 
 He has also in the play before us, and in 
 ' Henry V.,' given us Pistol, a braggart and 
 a coward. But how essentially different are 
 both these characters from Falstaff. And 
 yet Johnson, with a singular want of dis- 
 crimination in one who relished Falstaff 
 so highly, says, " Parolles has many of the 
 lineaments of Falstaff." Helena, in 'All's 
 Well that Ends Well,' thus truly describes 
 Parolles : 
 
 " I know him a notorious liar, 
 Think him a great way fool, solely a coward.'' 
 
 Parolles is a braggadocio who puts himself 
 into a difficulty by undertaking an adventure 
 for which he has not the requisite courage, 
 and then in his double cowardice endeavours 
 to lie himself out of the scrape. JEIpjN-en- 
 tirely different is this from Falstaff ! He 
 volunteers no prodigious feat from which he 
 shrinks. He exercises his accustomed sa- 
 gacity to make the most of his situation by 
 the side of the dead Percy : " Nothing con- 
 futes me but eyes, and nobody sees me ;'' 
 and when the lie is told," We rose both at 
 an instant, and fought a long hour by 
 Shrewsbury clock," it is precisely of the 
 same character as the "incomprehensible 
 lies" about the men in buckram ; some- 
 thing that the utterer and the hearers can- 
 not exactly distinguish for jest or earnest, 
 The Prince"thuFreceives the story : 
 
 " This is the strangest fellow, brother John." 
 * ' All 's Well that Ends Well.' 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 HENKY IV. 
 
 Again, look at Pistol swallowing the leek, in 
 ' Henry V.,' and Pistol kicked down stairs by 
 Falstaff, in this play, and note the dif- 
 ference between "a counterfeit cowardly 
 knave " and Falstaff. The truth is, all these 
 generalities about Falstaff, and false com- 
 parisons arising out of the generalities, are 
 popular mistakes too hastily received into 
 criticism. There is infinitely more truth in 
 Mackenzie's parallel between Falstaff and 
 Richard III. than in Johnson's comparison 
 of Falstaff with Parolles. "Both," says 
 Mackenzie, " are men of the world ; both 
 possess that sagacity and understanding 
 which is fitted for its purposes ; both despise 
 those refined feelings, those motives of deli- 
 cacy, those restraints of virtue, which might 
 obstruct the course they have marked out 
 for themselves Both use the weak- 
 nesses of others, as skilful players at a game 
 do the ignorance of their opponents ; they 
 enjoy the advantage, not only without self- 
 reproach, but with the pride of superiority. 
 
 Indeed, so much does Richard in 
 
 the higher walk of villainy resemble Falstaff 
 in the lower region of roguery and dissipa- 
 tion, that it were not difficult to show, in 
 the dialogue of the two characters, however 
 dissimilar in situation, many passages and 
 expressions in a style of remarkable resem- 
 blance." * Mackenzie has given us no ex- 
 ample of the remarkable resemblance of pas- 
 sages and expressions ; and, indeed, after a 
 careful comparison, we doubt whether such 
 resemblances of " expression " do exist. But 
 what is more to the purpose, and more in 
 confirmation of Mackenzie's theory, Falstaff 
 and Richard, throughout their career, display 
 the same "alacrity of spirit." the same "cheer 
 \ of mind," the same readiness in meeting dif- 
 ficulties, the same determination to surmount 
 them. One parallel, and that a very remark- 
 able one, will sufficiently illustrate this. The 
 first scene between the Lord Chief Justice 
 and Falstaff, that scene of matchless impu- 
 dence and self-reliance, and the scene where 
 Richard evades Buckingham's claim to the 
 earldom of Hereford, are as similar as the 
 difference of circumstances will allow them 
 to be. We give the parallel passages : 
 
 * ' Lounger,' No. R9. 
 
 FALSTAFF. 
 
 " Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. 
 
 Fed, My good lord ! Give your lordship good 
 time of day. I am glad to see your lordship 
 abroad : I heard say your lordship was sick : 1 
 hope your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your 
 lordship,, though not clean past your youth, hath 
 yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the 
 saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your 
 lordship to have a reverend care of your health. 
 
 Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your 
 expedition to Shrewsbury. 
 
 Fal. If it please your lordship, I hear his 
 majesty is returned with some discomfort from 
 Wales. 
 
 Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty: You 
 would not come when I sent for you. 
 
 Fal. And I hear, moreover, his highness is 
 fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy. 
 
 Ch. Just. Well, heaven mend him ! I pray, 
 let me speak with you. 
 
 Fed. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of 
 lethargy; a sleeping of the blood, a whoreson 
 tingling. 
 
 Ch. Just. What tell you me of it 1 ? be it as it is. 
 
 Fal. It hath its original from much grief; 
 from study, and perturbation of the brain : I 
 have read the cause of his effects in Galen ; it is 
 a kind of deafness. 
 
 Ch. Just. I think you are fallen into the 
 disease ; for you hear not what I say to you." 
 
 RICHAKD III. 
 
 " Buck. My lord, I claim the gift, my due 
 
 by promise, 
 For which your honour and your faith is 
 
 pawn'd; 
 
 The earldom of Hereford, and the moveables, 
 Which you have promised I shall possess. 
 K. Rich. Stanley, look to your wife ; if she 
 
 convey 
 
 Letters to Richmond, you shall answer it. 
 Buck. What says your highness to niy just 
 
 request ?- 
 K. Rich. I do remember me, Henry the 
 
 Sixth 
 
 Did prophesy that Richmond should be king, 
 When Richmond was a little peevish boy. 
 
 A king ! perhaps 
 
 Buck. My lord 
 
 K. Rich. How chance, the prophet could 
 
 not at that time 
 
 Have told me, I being by, that I should kill him 1 
 Buck. My lord, your promise for the earl- 
 dom, 
 
178 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK iv. 
 
 K. Rich. Richmond ! When last I was at 
 Exeter, 
 
 The mayor in courtesy show'd me the castle, 
 
 And called it Rouge-mont : at which name I 
 started; 
 
 Because a bard of Ireland told me once, 
 
 I should not live long after I saw Richmond. 
 
 Buck. My lord, 
 
 K. Rich. Ay, what's o'clock? 
 Buck. I am thus bold to put your grace in 
 mind 
 
 Of what you promised me. 
 K. Rich. Well, but what 's o'clock 1 ? 
 
 Buck. Upon the stroke of ten. 
 K. Rich. Well, let it strike." 
 
 Falstaff again not unfrequently reminds 
 us of lago. We have already noticed this 
 resemblance in one particular. The humor- 
 ous rogue and the sarcastic villain are equally 
 unscrupulous in their attacks upon the pro- 
 perty of others. Falstaff making the Hostess 
 withdraw the action and lend him more 
 money, and lago's advice to Roderigo, " Put 
 money in thy purse," supply an obvious ex- 
 ample. Falstaff, in his schemes upon Jus- 
 tice Shallow, hugs himself in the very philo- 
 sophy of roguery ; " If the young dace be a 
 bait for the old pike, I see no reason, in the 
 law of nature, but I may snap at him." 
 lago thinks it would be a disgrace to his 
 own intellectual superiority if he did not 
 plunder his dupe : 
 " Thus do I ever make my fool my purse : 
 
 For I mine own gain'd knowledge should pro- 
 fane, 
 
 If I would time expend with such a snipe, 
 
 But for my sport and profit." 
 Falstaff, however, is not all knave, as 
 Richard and lago are each all villain. Richard 
 and lago are creatures of antipathies ; Fal- 
 staff is a creature of sympathies. There is 
 something genial even in his knavery. With 
 Dame Quickly and Doll, with Bardolph and 
 the Page, his good humour is irresistible : 
 his followers evidently love him. The 
 Hostess speaks their thoughts : " Well, fare 
 thee well : I have known thee these twenty- 
 nine years come peascod-time ; but an 
 honester and truer-hearted man Well, fare 
 thee well." He extracts Shallow's money 
 from his purse as much by his sociality as 
 hi? cr.nninsr. Even the grave Lord Chief 
 
 Justice is half moved to laugh at him and 
 with him. We have already spoken of the 
 fascination which he exercised over the mind 
 of the prince ; and even when Harry is in 
 many respects a changed man when he has 
 shown us the heroical side of his character 
 we still learn that he has been " so much en- 
 grafted to Falstuff/' The dominion which he 
 exercised over all his associates he exercises 
 over every reader of Shakspere. 1 We are 
 /never weary of him ; we can nevertiate him ; 
 we doubt if we can despise him ; we are half 
 angry with the prince for casting him off ; 
 we are quite sure that there was no occasion 
 to send him to the Fleet ; when we hear in 
 ' Henry V,' that the " king has killed his 
 heart," \ve are certain that, with all his 
 selfishness, there were many kind and loving 
 feelings about that heart, which neglect and 
 desertion would deeply touch j and when at 
 List we see him, in poor Dame Quickly's de- 
 /scription of his deathbed, " fumble with the 
 sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon 
 his fingers' ends," we involuntarily exclaim, 
 " Poor Jack, farewell." 
 
 We must now recall the attention of our 
 readers to the principle with which we set 
 out, that the great dramatic action of these 
 plays is the change of character in the Prince 
 ,of Wales. In the first part we have seen his 
 levities cast away, when his ambition called 
 upon him to answer the reproofs of his father 
 by heroic actions : 
 " And, in the closing of some glorious day, 
 
 Be bold to tell you that I am your son." 
 Years pass on after the battle of Shrewsbury ; 
 and the Prince has not entirely cast aside his 
 habits. The duty of meeting the insurrec- 
 tion under Scroop is not committed to him. 
 We find him in London, playing the fool with 
 the time, but yet " sad," looking forward to 
 higher things ; " let the end try the /nan." 
 His sense of duty is, however, roused into 
 instant action at the news from the north : 
 " By Heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame, 
 
 So idly to profane the precious time; 
 
 When tempest of commotion, like the south, 
 
 Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt, 
 
 And drop upon our bare unarmed heads. 
 
 Give me my sword and cloak : Falstaff, good 
 night" 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 HENRY IV. 
 
 179 
 
 I The Prince and Falstaff never again meet in 
 i fellowship. Falstaff goes to the wars ; and 
 he throws a spirit into those scenes of 
 treachery and bloodshed which we look for" 
 in vain amidst the policy of Westmoreland 
 and the solemnity of John of Lancaster. 
 In Falstaff and his recruits we see the under- 
 current of all warfare the things of com- 
 mon life that are mixed up with great and 
 fearful events the ludicrous by the side of 
 the tragic. The scene of Falstaff choosing 
 i his recruits the corruption of Bardolph 
 the defence of that corruption by his most 
 impudent captain the amazement of the 
 justices the different tempers with which 
 the recruits meet their lot furnish altoge- 
 ther one of the richest realities of this un- 
 equalled drama. We here see how war, and 
 especially civil war, presses upon the com- 
 forts even of the lowliest : " My old dame 
 will be undone now for one to do her hus- 
 bandry." Is he who won the crown by civil 
 tumult, and who wears it uneasily as the 
 consequence of his usurpation is he hap- 
 pier than the peasant who is dragged from 
 his hut to fight in a cause which he neither 
 cares for nor understands ? Beautifully 
 has Shakspere shown us what happiness 
 Bolingbroke gained by the deposition of 
 Richard : 
 
 " How many thousand of my poorest subjects 
 Are at this hour asleep ! sleep, gentle 
 
 sleep, 
 
 Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, 
 That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids 
 
 down, 
 And steep my senses in forgetfulnessV' 
 
 Henry is a politic and wise king ; but he is 
 a melancholy man. The conduct of the 
 Prince still lies heavy at his heart, and his 
 grief 
 
 " Stretches itself beyond the hour of death," 
 
 in dread of the "rotten times" that would 
 i ensue when the Prince's riot hath no curb. 
 ' The King too is " much ill ;" 
 
 " The incessant care and labour of his mind 
 Hath wrought the mure, that should confine 
 
 it in, 
 
 So thin, that life looks through, and will 
 break out." 
 
 We are approaching that final scene when 
 the reformation of the Prince is to be fully ^ 
 accomplished in the spectacle of his father's 
 deathbed. The King has swooned. The 
 prince enters gaily : 
 
 " How now ! rain within doors, and none abroad! 
 How doth the king?" 
 
 Bu^fc his gaiety is presently subdued : 
 " I will sit and watch here by the king." 
 
 The French critic (a very unfit representa- 
 tive of the present state of opinion in France 
 as to the merits of Shakspere) gives us the 
 following most egregious description of the 
 scene which follows : " The King wakes. 
 He calls out misses his crown commands 
 the Prince to come to him and overwhelms 
 him with reproaches for that impatience 
 to seize upon his inheritance which will not 
 wait even till his father's body is cold. 
 Henry, with an hypocrisy worse than the 
 action which he would defend, pretends only 
 to have taken away the crown through in- 
 dignation that it had shortened the days of 
 his father ! " This is to read poetry in a 
 literal spirit. We commend the fourth scene 
 of the fourth act (Part II.) to our readers, 
 without another remark that may weaken 
 the force of M. Paul Duport's objections. 
 
 Through that great trial which has for 
 awhile softened and purified the hearts of 
 most men the death of a father has Henry i 
 passed. But he has also put on the state of i 
 a king. He has done so amidst the remem- 
 brances and fears of his brothers and ad- I 
 visers : 
 
 " You all look strangely on me." 
 
 The scene with the Lord Chief Justice en- 
 sues, written with all Shakspere's rhetorical 
 power. Henry has solemnly taken up his 
 position : 
 
 " The tide of blood in me 
 Hath proudly floVd in vanity, till now : 
 Now doth it turn, and ebb back to the sea." 
 
 It is in this solemn assurance, publicly made 
 upon the first occasion of meeting his sub- 
 jects, that we must rest the absolute and in- 
 evitable necessity of Henry's harshness to 
 Falstaff. The poet has most skilfully con- 
 trived to bring out the worst parts of Fal- 
 
 w 2 
 
180 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK iv. en. in. 
 
 staft's character when he learns the death of 
 Henry IV. his presumption his rapacity 
 his evil determinations : " Let us take any 
 man's horses ; the laws of England are at 
 my commandment. Happy are they which 
 have been my friends ; and woe to my lord 
 chief justice." When he plants himself in 
 the way of the coronation procession to 
 "leer" upon the King when he exclaims 
 God save thy grace, king Hal," Henry 
 was compelled to assert his consistency by 
 his severity. Warburton has truly observed 
 that, in his homily to FalstafF, Henry makes 
 a trip, and is sliding into his old habit of 
 laughing at Falstaff's bulk : 
 
 " know, the grave doth gape 
 For thee thrice wider than for other men." 
 
 He saw the rising smile, and the smothered 
 retort, upon Falstaff's lip, and he checks 
 him with 
 
 " Reply not to me with a fool-born jest; 
 Presume not that I am the thing I was." 
 
 The very struggle, in this moment of trial, 
 which the king had between his old habits 
 and affections and his new duties, demands 
 this harshness. We understand from Prince 
 John that, though Falstaff is taken to the 
 Fleet, he is not to be utterly deserted : 
 
 " He hath intent, his wonted followers 
 Shall all be very well provided for; 
 But all are banish' d, till their conversations 
 Appear more wise and modest to the world." 
 
 The dramatic action is complete. Henry of 
 Monmouth has passed through the danger- 
 ous trial of learning the great lessons of 
 humanity amidst men with whom his follies 
 made him an equal. The stains of this con- 
 tact were on the surface. His heart WHS 
 first elevated by ambition then purified by , 
 sorrow and so 
 
 " Consideration like an angel came, 
 And whipp'd th' offending Adam out of him.' 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 KING HENKY V. 
 
 ' HENRY V.' was first printed in 1600, under 
 the following title : ' The Chronicle History 
 of Henry the Fift, with his battell fought 
 at Agin Court in France. Together with 
 auntient Pistoll.' This copy, which differs 
 most materially from the text of the folio, was 
 reprinted in 1602, and again in 1608. The 
 quarto of 1600 runs only to 1800 lines ; 
 \vhilst the lines in the folio edition amount 
 to 3500. Not only is the play thus augmented 
 by the additions of the choruses and new 
 scenes, but there is scarcely a speech, from 
 the first scene to the last, which is not ela- 
 borated. In this elaboration the old mate- 
 rials are very carefully used up ; but they 
 are so thoroughly refitted and dovetailed 
 with what is new, that the operation can 
 only be compared to the work of a skilful 
 architect, who, having an ancient mansion 
 to enlarge and beautify, with a strict regard 
 to its original character, preserves every 
 
 feature of the structure, under other combi- 
 nations, with such marvellous skill, that no 
 unity of principle is violated, and the whole 
 has the effect of a restoration in which the 
 new and the old are undistinguishable. The 
 alterations are so manifestly those of the 
 author working upon his first sketch, that 
 we are utterly at a loss to conceive upon 
 what principle some of our editorial pre- 
 decessors have reconciled the differences 
 upon the easy theory of a surreptitious copy. 
 A passage in the chorus to the fifth act 
 proves, beyond doubt, that the choruses 
 formed a part of the performance in 1599 ; 
 but this does not prove that there was not 
 an earlier performance without the choruses. 
 The first quarto was printed in 1600, after 
 the choruses were brought upon the stage ; 
 but, because they are not found in that first 
 quarto, it is asserted that the copy from 
 which that edition was printed was "not a 
 
III.] 
 
 HENRY V. 
 
 181 
 
 first draught or hasty sketch." Malone and 
 Steevens appear to us to have fallen into the 
 mistake that a copy could not, at one and 
 the same time, be a piracy and a sketch. 
 According to their theory, if it is procured 
 by fraud, it must be an " imperfect tran- 
 script." Is it not much more easy to believe 
 that, after a play had been thoroughly re- 
 modelled, the original sketch which existed 
 in some playhouse copy might be printed 
 without authority, and continue so to be 
 printed, rather than that an imperfect 
 transcript should be printed, and continue 
 to be printed, in which the most striking 
 and characteristic passages of the play were 
 omitted ? But the question of " imperfect 
 transcript" or "hasty sketch" may, to our 
 minds, be at once disposed of by internal 
 evidence. We will take a passage from the 
 very first scene of the quarto of 1608, and 
 print with it the text of the folio. Open 
 the book where we may, similar examples 
 will present themselves : 
 
 QUARTO OF 1608. 
 " Bishop. God and his angels guard your 
 
 sacred throne, 
 
 And make you long become it ! 
 King. Sure, we thank you: and, good my 
 
 lord, proceed 
 Why the law Salique which they have in 
 
 France, 
 
 Or should or should not stop in us our claim : 
 And God forbid, my wise and learned lord.^- 
 That you should fashion, frame, or wrest {he 
 
 same. 
 
 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 our 
 
 person, 
 
 How you awake the sleeping sword of war : 
 We charge you, in the name of God, take heed. 
 After this conjuration, speak, my lord: 
 And we will judge, note, and believe in heart, . 
 That what you speak is wash'd as pure 
 As sin in baptism." 
 
 FOLIO OF 1623. 
 "Canterbury. God and his angels guard 
 
 your sacred throne, 
 And make you long become it ! 
 
 K. Hen. Sure, we thank you. 
 
 My learned lord, we pray you to proceed : 
 And justly and religiously unfold, 
 Why the law Salique, that they have in 
 
 France, 
 
 Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim. 
 And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord, 
 That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your 
 
 reading, 
 
 Or nicely charge your understanding soul 
 With opening titles miscreate, whose right 
 Suits not in native colours with the truth; 
 For God doth know, how many, now in health, 
 Shall drop their blood in approbation 
 Of what your reverence shall incite us to : 
 Therefore take heed how you impawn our 
 
 person, 
 
 How you awake the sleeping sword of war : 
 We charge you, in the name of God, take 
 
 heed: 
 
 For never two such kingdoms did contend 
 Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless 
 
 drops 
 
 Are every one a woe, a sore complaint, 
 'Gainst him whose wrongs give edge unto the 
 
 swords 
 
 That make such waste in brief mortality. 
 Under this conjuration, speak, my lord : 
 For we will hear, note, and believe in heart, 
 That what you speak is in your conscience 
 
 wash'd 
 As pure as sin with baptism." 
 
 Can any one doubt that this careful elabora- 
 tion, involving nice changes of epithets, was 
 the work of the author himself? Would 
 the amanuensis or the reciter have given us 
 some passages so correctly, and altogether 
 omitted others, making substitutions which 
 required him to reconstruct particular lines, 
 so that the rhythm might be preserved ? In 
 the prose passages the same process of 
 change and elaboration may be as clearly 
 traced. 
 
 Our belief, then, is, that the original 
 quarto of 1600 was printed after the play 
 had appeared in its amended and corrected 
 form, such as we have received it from the 
 folio of 1623 ; but that this quarto, and the 
 subsequent quartos, were copies of a much 
 shorter play, which had been previously pro- 
 duced, and, perhaps, hastily written for some 
 temporary occasion. We further believe j 
 
182 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK iv. 
 
 that the text of these quartos was surrep- 
 titiously obtained from the early playhouse 
 copy, and continued through three editions 
 to be palmed upon the public, the author 
 and his co-proprietors in the Globe Theatre 
 not choosing that the amended copy should 
 be published. 
 
 The single passage in the play which fur- 
 nishes any evidence as to its date is found in 
 the chorus to the fifth act : 
 
 " Were now the general of our gracious empress 
 (As, in good time, he may) from Ireland 
 
 coming, 
 
 Bringing rebellion broached on his sword, 
 How many would the peaceful city quit, 
 To welcome him ! " 
 
 The allusion cannot be mistaken. "About 
 the end of March" (1599), says Camden, 
 " the Earl of Essex set forward for Ireland, 
 and was accompanied out of London with a 
 fine appearance of nobility and gentry, and 
 the most cheerful huzzas of the common 
 people." Essex returned to London on the 
 28th of September of the same year. This 
 play, then, with the choruses, must have been 
 performed in the summer of 1599. Without 
 the choruses there is nothing to show that 
 it might not have been performed earlier. 
 
 " Shakspere," says Frederick Schlegel, " re- 
 garded the drama as entirely a thing for the 
 people, and, at first, treated it throughout 
 as such. He took the popular comedy as he 
 found it, and whatever enlargements and 
 improvements he introduced into the stage 
 were all calculated and conceived according 
 to the peculiar spirit of his predecessors, and 
 of the audience in London."* This is espe- 
 cially true with regard to Shakspere's His- 
 tories. In the case of the < Henry V.' it 
 appears to us that our great dramatic poet 
 would never have touched the subject, had 
 not the stage previously possessed it in the 
 old play of 'The Famous Victories.' ' Henry 
 IV.' would have been perfect as a dramatic 
 whole, without the addition of ; Henry V.' 
 The somewhat doubtful mode in which he 
 speaks of continuing the story appears to us 
 a pretty certain indication that he rather 
 
 * ' Lectures on the History of Literature,' vol. ii. 
 
 shrunk from a subject which appeared to 
 him essentially undramatic. It is, however, 
 highly probable that, having brought the 
 history of Henry of Monmouth up to the 
 period of his father's death, the demands of 
 an audience, who had been accustomed to 
 hail " the madcap Prince of Wales " as the 
 conqueror of Agincourt, compelled him to 
 " continue the story." That he originally 
 contemplated lending to it the interest of 
 his creation of Falstaff is also sufficiently 
 clear. It would be vain to speculate why 
 he abandoned this intention ; but it is evi- 
 dent that, without the interest which Fal- 
 staff would have imparted to the story, the 
 dramatic materials presented by the old 
 play, or by the circumstances that the poet 
 could discover in the real course of events, 
 were extremely meagre and unsatisfying. It 
 is our belief, therefore, that, having hastily 
 met the demands of his audience by the first 
 sketch of ' Henry V.,' as it appears in the 
 quarto editions, he subsequently saw the 
 capacity which the subject presented for 
 being treated in a grand lyrical spirit. In- 
 stead of interpolating an under-plot of petty 
 passions and intrigues, such, for the most 
 part, as we find in the dramatic treatment 
 of an heroic subject by the French poets, 
 he preserved the great object of his drama 
 entire by the intervention of the chorus. 
 Skilfully as he has managed this, and mag- 
 nificent as the whole drama is as a great 
 national song of triumph, there can be no 
 doubt that Shakspere felt that in this play 
 he was dealing with a theme too narrow for 
 his peculiar powers. His drama, generally, 
 was cast in an entirely different mould from 
 that of the Greek tragedy. The Greek stage 
 was, in reality, more lyrical than dra- 
 matic : 
 
 " Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught 
 In Chorus or Iambic, teachers best 
 Of moral prudence, with delight received 
 In brief sententious precepts, while they treat 
 Of fate, and chance, and change in human 
 
 life; 
 
 High actions and high passions best describ- 
 ing." 
 
 The didactic lessons of moral prudence, the 
 
OUAP. III.] 
 
 HENRY V. 
 
 brief sententious precepts, the descriptions 
 of high actions and high passions, are alien 
 from the whole spirit of Shakspere's drama. 
 The ' Henry V.' constitutes an exception to 
 the general rules upon which he worked. 
 " High actions " are here described as well 
 as exhibited ; and " high passions," in the 
 Shaksperean sense of the term, scarcely make ' 
 their appearance upon the scene. Here are 
 no struggles between will and fate ; no 
 frailties of humanity dragging down its vir- 
 tues into an abyss of guilt and sorrow, no 
 crimes, no obduracy, no penitence. We 
 have the lofty and unconquerable spirit of 
 national and individual heroism riding tri- 
 umphantly over every danger ; but the spirit 
 is so lofty that we feel no uncertainty for 
 the issue. We should know, even if we had 
 no foreknowledge of the event, that it must 
 conquer. We can scarcely weep over those 
 who fall in that " glorious and well-foughten 
 field," for " they kept together in their 
 chivalry," and their last words sound as a 
 glorious hymn of exultation. The subject is 
 altogether one of lyric grandeur ; but it is 
 not one, we think, which Shakspere would 
 have chose^ fc: i drama. 
 
 And yet, how exquisitely has Shakspere 
 thrown his dramatic power into this undra- 
 matic subject ! The character of the King 
 is altogether one of the most finished por- 
 traits that has proceeded from this master- 
 hand. It could, perhaps, only have been 
 thoroughly conceived by the poet who had 
 delineated the Henry of the Boar's Head, 
 and of the Field of Shrewsbury. The sur- 
 passing union, in this character, of spirit 
 and calmness, of dignity and playfulness, of 
 an ever-present energy, and an almost me- 
 lancholy abstraction, the conventional au- 
 thority of the king, and the deep sympathy, 
 with the meanest about him, of the man, 
 was the result of the most philosophical and 
 consistent appreciation by the poet of the 
 moral and intellectual progress of his own 
 Prince of Wales. And let it not be said that 
 the picture which he has painted of his 
 favourite hero is an exaggerated and flatter- 
 ing representation. The extraordinary merits 
 of Henry V. were those of the individual ; 
 his demerits were those of his times. Stand- 
 
 ing now upon the vantage-ground of four 
 centuries of experience, in which civilization 
 has marched onwards at a pace which could 
 only be the result of great intellectual im- 
 pulses, we may, indeed, say that, if Henry V. 
 was justly fitted to be a leader of chivalry, 
 fearless, enterprising, persevering, gene- 
 rous, pious, he was, at the same time, rash, 
 obstinate, proud, superstitious, seeking after 
 vain renown and empty conquests, instead 
 of making his people happy by wise laws 
 and the cultivation of sound knowledge. 
 But Henry's character, like that of all other 
 men, must be estimated by the circumstances 
 amidst which he moved. After four centu- 
 ries of illumination, if we find the world still 
 suffering under the dominion of unjust go- 
 vernors and ambitious conquerors, we may 
 pardon one who acted according to his lights, 
 believing that his cause justified his attempt 
 to seize upon another crown, instead of 
 wearing his own wisely and peacefully. At 
 any rate, it was not for the poet to regard 
 the most popular king of the feudal times , 
 with the cold and severe scrutiny of the 
 philosophical historian. It was for him to 
 embody in the person of Henry V. the prin- 
 ciple of national heroism ; it was for him to 
 call forth " the spirit of patriotic remi- 
 niscence." There are periods in the history of 
 every people when their nationality, lifting 
 them up almost into a frenzy of enthusiasm, 
 is one of the sublimest exhibitions of the 
 practical poetry of social life. In the times 
 of Shakspere such an aspect of the English 
 mind was not unfrequently presented. Nei- 
 ther in our own times have such manifesta- 
 tions of the mighty -heart been wanting. But 
 there have been, and there may again be, 
 periods of real danger when the national 
 spirit shows itself drooping and languishing. 
 It is under such circumstances that the 
 heart-stirring power of such a play as ' Henry 
 V.' is to be tested. Frederick Schlegel says, 
 " The feeling by which Shakspere seems to 
 have been most connected with ordinary 
 men is that of nationality." But how dif- 
 ferent is his nationality from that of ordinary 
 men. It is reflective, tolerant, generous. 
 It lives not in an atmosphere of falsehood 
 and prejudice. Its theatre is war and con- 
 
184 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK i \ 
 
 quest ; but it does not hold up war and con- 
 quest as fitting objects for nationality to 
 dedicate itself to, except under the pressure 
 of the most urgent necessity. Neither does 
 it attempt to conceal the fearful responsibili- 
 ties of those who carry the principle of 
 nationality to the last arbitrement of arms, 
 nor the enormous amount of evil which 
 always attends the rupture of that peace, in 
 the cultivation of which nationality is best 
 displayed. Shakspere, indeed, speaks proudly 
 as a member of that English family 
 
 " Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof; " 
 
 but he never forgets that he belongs to the 
 larger family of the human race. When 
 Henry tells the people of Harfleur, 
 
 " The gates of mercy shall be all shut up," 
 
 and draws that most fearful picture of the 
 horrors of a sacked city, the poet tells us, 
 though not in sententious precepts, that 
 nationality, when it takes the road of vio- 
 lence, may be driven to put off all the gently 
 attributes of social life, and, assuming the 
 " action of the tiger," have the tiger's un- 
 discriminatingbloodthirstiness. When Henry, 
 on the eve of the battle, walks secretly amidst 
 his soldiers, the poet makes him hear that 
 truth which kings seldom hear, and which, 
 however the hero, in this instance, may con- 
 tend with it, cannot be disguised or contro- 
 verted : " If the cause be not good, the 
 king himself hath a heavy reckoning to 
 make ; when all those legs, and arms, and 
 heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join to- 
 gether at the latter day, and cry all we 
 died at such a place ; some, swearing ; some, 
 crying for a surgeon ; some, upon their wives 
 left poor behind them ; some, upon the debts 
 they owe ; some, upon their children rawly 
 left. I am afeard there are few die well that 
 die in battle ; for how can they charitably 
 dispose of anything when blood is their argu- 
 ment ? " Again, when Henry has won France, 
 what a France does the poet present to the 
 winner ! 
 
 " All her husbandry doth lie on heaps, 
 Corrupting in its own fertility. 
 Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart, 
 Unpmned dies : her hedges even-pleach'd, 
 
 Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair 
 Put forth disorder'd twigs: her fallow leas 
 The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory, 
 Doth root upon; while that the coulter rusts, 
 That should deracinate such savagery : 
 The even mead, that erst brought sweetly 
 
 forth 
 
 The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover, 
 Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank, 
 Conceives by idleness; and nothing teems 
 But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, 
 
 burs, 
 
 Losing both beauty and utility : 
 And as our vineyards, fallows, meads, and 
 
 Defective in their natures, grow to wildness; 
 Even so our houses, and ourselves, and chil- 
 dren, 
 
 Have lost, or do not learn, for want of time, 
 The sciences that should become our country ; 
 But grow, like savages, as soldiers will, 
 That nothing do but meditate on blood, 
 To swearing, and stern looks, diffused attire, 
 And everything that seems unnatural." 
 
 Thoughts such as these, coming from the 
 great poet of humanity and wisdom, are the 
 correctives of a, false nationality. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary for us to trace the 
 conduct of the dramatic action of ' Henry V.' 
 in connexion with its characters. In the 
 inferior persons of the play the comic cha- 
 racters the poet has displayed that power 
 which he, above all men, possesses, of com- 
 bining the highest poetical conceptions with 
 the most truthful delineations of real life. 
 In the amusing pedantry of Fluellen, and 
 the vapourings of Pistol, there is nothing in 
 the slightest degree incongruous with the 
 main action of the scene. The homely 
 bluntness of the common soldiers of the 
 army brings us still closer to a knowledge of 
 the great mass of which a camp is composed. 
 Perhaps one of the most delicate but yet 
 most appreciable instances of Shakspere's 
 nationality, in all its power and justice, is 
 the mode in which he has exhibited the cha- 
 racters of these common soldiers. They are 
 rough, somewhat quarrelsome, brave as lions, 
 but without the slightest particle of anything 
 low or grovelling in their composition. They 
 are fit representatives of the " good yeomen, 
 whose limbs were made in England." We 
 
CI1AP. IV.] 
 
 HENRY VI. AND RICHARD III. 
 
 185 
 
 almost as anxiously desire that these men 
 should triumphantly show the " mettle of 
 their pastures," as that the heroic Harry and 
 his " band of brothers " should 
 
 " Be copy now to men of grosser blood, 
 And teach them how to war." 
 
 On the other hand, the discriminating truth 
 of the poet is equally shown in exhibiting to 
 us three arrant cowards in Pistol, Nym, and 
 Bardolph. His impartiality could afford to 
 paint the bullies and blackguards that even 
 our nationality must be content to reckon as 
 component parts of every army. 
 
 This drama is full of singularly beautiful 
 
 detached passages : for example, the reflec- 
 tions of the King upon ceremony, the de- 
 scription of the deaths of York and Suffolk, 
 the glorious speech of the King before the 
 battle, the chorus of the fourth act, are 
 remarkable illustrations of Shakspere's power 
 as a descriptive poet. Nothing can be finer, 
 also, than the commonwealth of bees in the 
 first act. It is full of the most exquisite 
 imagery and music. The art employed in 
 transforming the whole scene of the hive 
 into a resemblance of humanity is a perfect 
 study every successive object, as it is 
 brought forward, being invested with its 
 characteristic attribute. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 KING HENKY VI. AND KING RICHARD III. 
 
 WITH the local and family associations that 
 must have belonged to his early years*, the 
 subject of these four dramas of Henry VI. 
 and Richard III., or rather the subject of 
 this one great drama in four parts, must 
 have irresistibly presented itself to the mind 
 of Shakspere, as one which he was especially 
 qualified to throw into the form of a chro- 
 nicle history. It was a task peculiarly fitted 
 for the young poet during the first five years 
 of his connexion with the theatre. Historical 
 dramas, in the rudest form, presented un- 
 equalled attractions to the audiences who 
 flocked to the rising stage. Without any 
 undue reliance on his own powers, he might 
 believe that he could produce something 
 more worthily attractive than the rude dia- 
 logue which ushered in the " four swords 
 and a buckler " of the old stage. He had 
 not here to invent a plot, or to aim at the 
 unity of action, of time, and of place, which 
 the more refined critics of his day held to be 
 essential to tragedy. The form of a chronicle 
 history might appear to require little beyond 
 a poetical exposition of the most attractive 
 facts of the real Chronicles. It is in this 
 
 * Seepage 148. 
 
 spirit, we think, that Shakspere approached 
 the execution of ' The First Part of Henry 
 VI.' It appears to us, also, that in that very 
 early performance he in some degree held 
 his genius in subordination to the necessity 
 of executing his task, rather with reference 
 to the character of his audience and the 
 general nature of his subject than for the 
 fulfilment of his own aspirations as a poet. 
 There was before him one of two courses. 
 He might have chosen, as the greater num- 
 ber of his contemporaries chose, to consider 
 the dominions of poetry and of common 
 sense to be far sundered ; and, unconscious 
 or doubtful of the force of simplicity, he 
 might have resolved, with them, to substitute 
 what would more unquestionably gratify a 
 rude popular taste the force of extrava- 
 gance. On the other hand, it was open to 
 him to transfer to the dramatic shape the 
 spirit-stirring recitals of the old chronicle- 
 writers, in whose narratives, and especially 
 in that portion of them in which they make 
 their characters speak, there is a manly and 
 straightforward earnestness which in itself 
 not "seldom becomes poetical. Shakspere 
 chose this latter course. When we begin to 
 
186 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPEHE. 
 
 [liOOK IV. 
 
 study the ' Henry VI.,' we find in the First 
 Part that the action does not appear to progress 
 to a catastrophe ; that the author lingers 
 about tiie details, as one who was called 
 upon to exhibit an entire series of events 
 rather than the most dramatic portions of 
 them ; there are the alternations of success 
 and loss, and loss and success, till we some- 
 what doubt to which side to assign the vic- 
 tory. The characters are firmly drawn, but 
 without any very subtle distinctions, and 
 their sentiments and actions appear occa- 
 sionally inconsistent, or at any rate not 
 guided by a determined purpose in the writer. 
 It is easy to perceive that this mode of deal- 
 ing with a complicated subject was the most 
 natural and obvious to be adopted by an 
 unpractised poet, who was working without 
 models. But, although the effect may be, to 
 a certain extent, undramatic, there is im- 
 pressed upon the whole performance a won- 
 derful air of truth. Much of this must have 
 resulted from the extraordinary quality of 
 the poet's mind, which could tear off all the 
 flimsy conventional disguises of individual 
 character, and penetrate the real moving 
 principle of events with a rare acuteness, 
 and a rarer impartiality. In our view, that 
 whole portion of ' The First Part of Henry 
 VI. 1 which deals with the character and 
 actions of Joan of Arc is a remarkable exam- 
 ple of this power in Shakspere. We find her 
 described in the Chronicles under every form 
 of vituperation, a monstrous woman, a 
 monster, a ramp, a devilish witch and satani- 
 cal enchantress, an organ of the devil. She 
 was the main instrument through which 
 England had lost France ; and thus the 
 people still hated her memory. She claimed 
 to be invested with supernatural powers ; 
 and thus her name was not only execrated, 
 but feared. Neither the patriotism nor the 
 superstition of Shakspere's age would have 
 endured that the Pucelle should have been 
 dismissed from the scene without vengeance 
 taken upon her imagined crimes ; or that con- 
 fession should not be made by her which 
 would exculpate the authors of her death. 
 Shakspere has conducted her history up to 
 the point when she is handed over to the 
 stake. Other writers would have burnt her 
 
 upon the scene, and the audience would 
 have shouted with the same delight that 
 they felt when the Barabas of Marlowe was 
 thrown into the caldron. Shakspere, follow- 
 ing the historian, has made her utter a con- 
 tradictory confession of one of the charges 
 against her honour ; but he has taken care 
 to show that the brutality of her English 
 persecutors forced from her an inconsistent 
 avowal, if it did not suggest a false one, for 
 the purpose of averting a cruel and instant 
 death. In the treatment which she receives 
 from York and Warwick, the poet has not 
 exhibited one single circumstance that might 
 excite sympathy for them. They are cold, 
 and cruel, and insolent, because a defence- 
 less creature whom they had dreaded is in 
 their power. Her parting malediction has, 
 as it appears to us, especial reference to the 
 calamities which await the authors of her 
 death : 
 " May never glorious sun reflex his beams 
 
 Upon the country where you make abode ! 
 
 But darkness and the gloomy shade of death 
 
 Environ you." 
 
 But in all the previous scenes Shakspere 
 has drawn the character of the Maid with 
 an undisguised sympathy for her courage, 
 her patriotism, her high intellect, and her 
 enthusiasm. If she had been the defender 
 of England, and not of France, the poet could 
 not have invested her with higher attributes. 
 It is in her mouth that he puts his choicest 
 thoughts and his most musical verse. It is 
 she who says, 
 
 " Glory is like a circle in the water, 
 Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, 
 Till, by broad spreading, it disperse to nought." 
 
 It is she who solicits the alliance of Burgundy 
 in a strain of impassioned eloquence which 
 belongs to one fighting in a high cause with 
 unconquerable trust, and winning over ene- 
 mies by the firm resolves of a vigorous under- 
 standing and an unshaken will. The lines 
 beginning 
 " Look on thy country, look on fertile France," 
 
 might have given the tone to everything that 
 has been subsequently written in honour of 
 the Maid. It was his accurate knowledge of 
 
CHAP, iv.] 
 
 HENRY VI. AND RICHARD III. 
 
 187 
 
 the springs of character, which in so young 
 a man appears almost intuitive, that made 
 Shakspere adopt this delineation of Joan of 
 Arc. He knew that, with all the influence 
 of her supernatural pretension, this extra- 
 ordinary woman could not have swayed the 
 destinies of kingdoms, and moulded princes 
 and warriors to her will, unless she had been 
 a person of very rare natural endowments. 
 She was represented by the Chroniclers as a 
 mere virago, a bold and shameless trull, a 
 monster, a witch ; because they adopted the 
 vulgar view of her character, the view, in 
 truth, of those to whom she was opposed. 
 The^j were rough soldiers, with all the vir- 
 tues and all the vices of their age ; the crea- 
 tures of brute force ; the champions, indeed, 
 of chivalry, but with the brand upon them 
 of all the selfish passions with which the 
 highest deeds of chivalry were too invariably 
 associated. The wonderful thing about ' The 
 First Part of Henry VI.' is, that these men, 
 who stood in the same relation of time to 
 Shakspere's age as the men of Anne do to 
 ours, should have been painted with a pencil 
 at once so vigorous and so true. The English 
 Chroniclers, in all that regards the delineation 
 of characters and manners, give us abundant 
 materials upon which we may form an estimate 
 of actions, and motives, and instruments ; but 
 they do not show us the instruments moving 
 in their own forms of vitality ; they do not 
 lay bare their motives ; and hence we have 
 no real key to their actions. Froissart is, 
 perhaps, the only contemporary writer who 
 gives us real portraits of the men of mail. 
 But Shakspere marshalled them upon his 
 stage, in all their rude might, their coarse 
 ambition, their low jealousies, their factious 
 hatreds mixed up with their thirst for glory, 
 their indomitable courage, their warm friend- 
 ships, their tender natural affections, their 
 love of country. They move over his scene, 
 displaying alike their grandeur and their 
 littleness. He arrays them, equally indiffer- 
 ent whether their faults or their excellences 
 be most prominent. The "terrible Talbot" 
 denounces his rival Fastolfe with a bitterness 
 unworthy a companion in arms, enters into 
 a fierce war of words with the Pucelle, in 
 which her power of understanding leaves 
 
 him almost contemptible, and fights onward 
 from scene to scene as if there were nothing 
 high in man except the power of warring 
 against his fellows: but he weeps like a lover 
 over the fruitless gallantry of his devoted son; 
 and he folds his dead boy in his rough arms, 
 even as the mother, perishing with her child, 
 takes the cold clay of the dear one to her 
 bosom. This is the truth which Shakspere 
 substituted for the vague delineations of the 
 old stage. These are the pictures of manners 
 which he gave to the people, when other poets 
 adopted the easier expedient of separating the 
 imaginative from the vulgar view of human 
 actions and passions, only by rejecting what- 
 ever was real. He gave to his audiences new 
 characters and new manners, simply because 
 he presented to them the characters and 
 manners of the ages which he undertook to 
 delineate. Other men were satisfied to find 
 the new in what never had an existence. 
 
 But, with all this truth of characterization 
 and of costume, the scattered events, the 
 multifarious details, the alternations from 
 factions at home to wars abroad, would have 
 never hung together as a dramatic whole, 
 had the poet not supplied a principle of 
 cohesion, by which what is distant either 
 in time or space, or separated in the natu- 
 ral progression of events, is bound together. 
 We feel in the First Part of the ' Henry VI.' 
 that some unseen principle is in operation 
 by which the action still moves onward to a 
 fixed point. One by one the great soldiers of 
 Henry V. fade from the scene the Salisburys, 
 and Bedford s, and Talbots, who held France 
 as their hunting-ground. Other actors come 
 upon the busy stage, more distinctly asso- 
 ciated with the scenes of factious strife which 
 are to follow. The beginnings of those strifes 
 are heard even amidst the din of the battle- 
 fields of France ; and, surrounded by terrible 
 slaughter and fruitless victories, we have an 
 unstable peace and a marriage without hope 
 an imbecile king and a discontented nobility. 
 Amidst all this involvement the poet disdains, 
 as it were, to illuminate the thick darkness 
 beyond with a single ray. We see only the 
 progression of events without their conse- 
 quences ; and the belief produced upon the 
 mind is, that a fate presides over their direc- 
 
188 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK iv. 
 
 tion. The effect is achieved by the masterly 
 skill with which the future is linked to the 
 present felt, but not seen. 
 
 It appears to us that one of the most de- 
 cisive proofs that Shakspere was the original 
 author of the three Parts of ' Henry VI.' is 
 to be derived from the evidence which these 
 plays present of the gradual increase of power 
 in the writer. We say this without reference 
 to the passages which have been added to 
 'The Contention;'* for all the real dra- 
 matic power is most thoroughly developed in 
 the original plays that have grown into the 
 Second and Third Parts of the < Henry VI.' 
 The succeeding process to which they were 
 subjected was simply one of technical ela- 
 boration and refinement. We have no doubt 
 at all that 'The First Part of Henry VI.' ori- 
 ginally existed in a rougher form. Whoever 
 compares it critically with the two Parts of 
 ' The Contention ' will perceive that much of 
 the ruggedness which belongs to those dramas 
 has no place in this first drama of the series. 
 For instance, it has very few Alexandrines; 
 the use of old words, such as " belike," is 
 very rare, that word being frequently found 
 in ' The Contention ; ' and the versification al- 
 together, though certainly more monotonous, 
 is what we may call more correct than that 
 of ' The Contention.' How it could ever have 
 been held that this play has undergone no 
 repair, is to us one of the many marvellous 
 things that belong to the ordinary critical 
 estimation of it. Be the changes it has passed 
 through few or many, it is evident to us that 
 all the material parts of the original struc- 
 ture are still to be found. But whatever 
 rapidity of action, truth of characterization, 
 and correctness of style it may possess, in a 
 pre-eminent degree, as compared with other 
 plays of the period, it is not, in all the higher 
 essentials of dramatic excellence, to be placed 
 in the same scale as the two Parts of ' The 
 Contention.' It wants, speaking generally, 
 
 * In 1594 was published ' The first Part of the Conten- 
 tion between the two famous Houses of York and Lan- 
 caster.' This play, in the entire conduct of the scenes, 
 and a great part of the dialogue, is the ' Second Part of 
 Henry VI.' In 1595 appeared ' The true Tragedy of Richard 
 Duke of York, 'known also as the Second Part of the 
 Contention.' This is the parallel play to the ' Third Part of 
 Henry VI.' The first Part of Henry VI.' originally ap- 
 peared in the folio of 1623. 
 
 the high poetry of those plays not the 
 mere poetry of description, but the teeming 
 thought, the figurative expression, the single 
 word that conveys a complex idea with more 
 distinctness and much more force than the 
 periphrasis of ordinary writers. It results 
 from this very defect that ' The First Part 
 of Henry VI.' has far less obscurity than the 
 succeeding parts. We may venture to say 
 that there is no play of the whole number 
 received as Shakspere's which exhibits so few 
 passages of doubtful meaning; and this we 
 hold to be a consequence of its being one of 
 his very earliest performances. All the very 
 early plays possess this attribute, more or less. 
 We can understand how a poet of Shakspere's 
 extraordinary judgment the quality which 
 we hold to be as remarkable in him as his 
 invention should, surrounded as he was 
 with dramatic productions teeming with ex- 
 travagance and unreality of every descrip- 
 tion, first endeavour to be correct and to be 
 intelligible. But of what other author, who 
 belonged to the transition-state of the drama, 
 can it be said that intelligibility was a cha- 
 racteristic 1 Who else has attempted to give 
 us the familiar without the vapid or the gross, 
 and the dignified without the inflated ? Who, 
 in a word, of our dramatic writers between 
 1585 and 1590, trusted to the power of the 
 real? 
 
 The value of any work of art is to be tested 
 rather by its efiect as a whole than by the ef- 
 fect of particular parts. And this especially 
 applies to a work of dramatic art ; for parts 
 even fine in themselves may, with reference 
 to the entire effect of a drama, be blemishes 
 instead of beauties. No writer that ever 
 lived has approached Shakspere in the skill 
 by which the whole is made to produce its 
 entire and undisturbed effect. He is thus, 
 of all poets, the least to be appreciated from 
 the study alone of "specimens." For, although 
 these may be sufficient to place him in the 
 highest rank, in comparison with the " speci- 
 mens " of other writers, yet, separated from 
 the parts by which they are naturally sur- 
 rounded, they furnish no idea of the ex- 
 traordinary harmony with which they are 
 blended with all that has preceded and all 
 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 HENRY VI. AND RICHARD III. 
 
 Itti) 
 
 that follows them. Shakspere, beyond every 
 other dramatic writer, possesses the power 
 of sustaining the continuous idea, which im- 
 parts its own organization and vitality to the 
 most complex and apparently incongruous ac- 
 tion, to the most diversified and seemingly 
 isolated characters. 
 
 Without understanding the paramount 
 idea, the manufacturers of acting plays 
 have proceeded to the abridgment and 
 transposition of Shakspere's scenes, and 
 have produced such monsters as Davenant's 
 * Tempest' and Tate's 'Lear.' It is in the 
 same spirit that the critics upon the ' Henry 
 VI.' hold that these dramas are greatly in- 
 ferior to Shakspere's other performances ; 
 and hence the theory of their spuriousness. 
 But, as we believe, the informing idea in all 
 its dramatic power and unity runs through 
 the entire series of these plays, and, as we 
 think, is most especially manifest in the 
 two Parts of ' The Contention.' For what 
 is the effect which the poet intended in 
 these two dramas to produce on the minds 
 of his audience ? There was to be shown a ! 
 dark chaotic mass of civil tumult, of fac- 
 tious strifes, of fierce and bloody hatreds, 
 of desperate ambition, of political profligacy,) 
 of popular ignorance, of weak government. 
 The struggle was to be continued, while 
 each faction had its alternations of success ; 
 each was to exhibit the same demoralising 
 effects of the same frenzied ambition which 
 drove them onward ; the course of events 
 was sometimes to be determined by energy 
 and sometimes by accident ; weakness was to 
 throw away what power and good fortune 
 had won ; alliances were to be broken by 
 causeless quarrels, and cemented by motive- 
 less treachery ; and, lastly, when the ever- 
 present fate which seemed to dominate over 
 this wild and fearful confusion gave the 
 final battle to the feeble, and hurled down 
 the mighty from the car of victory, there 
 was to be superfluous guilt in the hour of 
 success, and the conquerors were to march to 
 thrones with their hands red with murder. 
 But what principle was to hold together 
 all these apparently incongruous elements ? 
 How were the separate scenes, each so care- 
 , as it were, linked with the other. 
 
 to produce one overwhelming interest, sti- 
 mulate one prevailing curiosity, satisfy one 
 irresistible craving in the spectators? The 
 stern majesty of justice was made to preside 
 over the course of these wild and mysterious 
 events sometimes dimly seen, sometimes 
 wholly hidden, but rising up ever and anon 
 out of thick clouds and darkness, to assert 
 the overruling power of some government 
 of events, more equal, more enduring, more 
 mighty, and more fearful, than the direction 
 which they received from human energy, and 
 passion, and intellect, and guilt. Shakspere 
 has never chosen to exhibit this tremendous 
 agency after that unnatural manner which 
 we are accustomed to call poetical justice 
 he developes the progress of that real justice 
 which sometimes, for inscrutable purposes, 
 permits the good to be forsaken, to be hu- 
 miliated, to be crushed, to perish, but which 
 invariably follows the guilty with some dis- 
 mal retribution, more striking if it be seen, 
 more terrible if it be hidden from all eyes, 
 and revealed only in the innermost heart of 
 the peace-abandoned. He never distorts and 
 vulgarises the manifest workings of a pro- 
 vidential arbitrement of human actions, by 
 heaping every calamity upon the good man, 
 searing his heart with tortures which leave 
 the wheel and the stake but little to inflict, 
 and then, hey presto, turning the dirge 
 into a dance the prison into a palace, 
 whilst the tyrant and the villain has his 
 profitable account settled with a stab or an 
 execution. Poetical justice is " your only 
 jig-maker." But Shakspere never forgets 
 that in the general course of actual events 
 there is a slow but unerring retribution thatij 
 follows the violation of justice, evolved, not 
 by the shifting of a scene, but out of the na- 
 tural consequences of the events themselves. 
 Let us endeavour to trace how this para- 
 mount idea is brought out in the dramas 
 before us. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott somewhere speaks, through 
 
 one of his characters, of the "Lancastrian 
 
 prejudices " of Shakspere. The great novelist 
 
 had probably in his mind the delineation 
 
 i of Richard. But it would be difficult, we 
 
 j think, to have conducted the entire chronicle 
 
 i history of ' The Contention between the two 
 
190 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPE11E. 
 
 [BOOK iv. 
 
 famous houses of York and Lancaster' with 
 more rigid impartiality. This just and tole- 
 rant view of human events and characters 
 constitutes one of the most remarkable pecu- 
 liarities of the mind of Shakspere ; and its 
 manifestation in the drama before us fur- 
 nishes one of the many proofs, and to us not 
 the least convincing, that they could alone 
 have emanated from that mind. For, let us 
 turn to the very first scenes of these dramas, 
 and we shall find the character of the Lan- 
 castrian Margaret gradually displaying itself 
 in an aptitude for bold and dangerous in- 
 trigue, founded upon her pride and impa- 
 tience of a rival in authority. The Duchess 
 of Gloster is tempted by her own weak ambi- 
 tion to meddle with the " lime-twigs " that 
 have been set for her. But it is the passion- 
 ate hatred of Margaret, lending itself to 
 schemes of treachery and bloodshed, that 
 drives on the murder of the "good Duke 
 Humphrey." With the accomplices of Mar- 
 garet the retribution is instant and terrible. 
 The banished Suffolk falls, not by the hand 
 of the law, but by some mysterious agency 
 which appears to have armed against him a 
 power mightier than the law, which seizes 
 upon its victim with an obdurate ferocity, 
 and hurries him to death in the name of a 
 wild and irregular justice. To the second 
 great conspirator against the Protector the 
 retribution is even more fearful the death, 
 not of violence but of mental torture, far 
 more terrible than any bodily pain. The 
 " Look, look, comb down his hair ! " * of Beau- 
 fort speaks of sufferings far higher than those 
 of the proud Suffolk, when the pirate had 
 denounced him as "Poole, puddle, kennel, 
 sink, and dirt ! " and he saw the prophecy of 
 the " cunning wizard " about to be accom- 
 plished. The justice which followed the 
 other conspirator against Humphrey had 
 not yet unsheathed its sword. His punish- 
 ment was postponed till the battle-day of 
 Wakefield. 
 
 The scenes of the first four acts of ' The 
 First Part of the Contention ' may appear to 
 a superficial observation to be very slightly 
 
 * In the passages which we quote, the reader will find 
 ; some slight differences in the text of the Second and Third 
 Parts of ' Henry VI.' We quote from the older plays. 
 
 linked with the after-scenes of the great con- 
 test of the Roses. But it was the object of 
 the poet to show the beginnings of faction, 
 continued onward in the same form from the 
 previous drama. The Protectorship was 
 essentially a government of weakness, through 
 the jealousies which it engendered and the 
 intrigues by which it was surrounded. But 
 the removal of the Protector left the govern- 
 ment more weak, subjected as it then was 
 to the capricious guidance of the imbecility 
 of Henry and the violence of Margaret. Of 
 such a rule popular commotions are the na- 
 tural fruit. The author of ' The Contention,' 
 with a depth of political wisdom which 
 Shakspere invariably displays, has exhibited 
 the insurrection of Cade, not as a revolt for 
 specific objects, such as the removal of public 
 oppressors or the redress of popular wrongs, 
 but as a movement of the most brutal igno- 
 rance, instigated by a coarse ruffian, upon 
 promises which could be realised in no con- 
 dition of society, and for ends which pro- 
 posed only such peace and security as would 
 result from the overthrow of all rule and 
 order. "You shall have seven halfpenny' 
 loaves for a penny, and the three-hooped pot 
 shall have ten hoops, and it shall be felony 
 to drink small beer," is the proper prologue 
 to "Henceforward all things shall be in 
 common, and in Cheapside shall my palfrey 
 go to grass." The same political sagacity; 
 has given us the inconstancy, as well as the 
 violence, of the multitude. Nor are these 
 remarkable scenes an episode only in this 
 great dramatic history. Cade perishes, but 
 York is in arms. The civil war is founded 
 upon the popular tumult. 
 
 The civil war is begun. The Yorkists are 
 in the field. The poet has delineate^ the 
 character of their leader with a nice dis- 
 crimination, and certainly without any of the 
 coarseness of partisanship. He conveys to 
 us that York is ambitious and courageous, 
 but somewhat weak, and, to a great extent, 
 a puppet in the hands of others. In the 
 early scene in the Temple Garden his am- 
 bition is rashly discovered, in a war of words, 
 commenced in accident and terminated in 
 fruitless passion. That ambition first con- 
 tents itself " to be restored to my blood ;" 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 HENRY IV. AND RICHARD III. 
 
 191 
 
 and, when Harry grants his wish, the 
 submission of the half-rebel is almost 
 grovelling : 
 " Thy humble servant vows obedience, 
 
 And humble service, till the point of death." 
 The full development of his ambition is the 
 result of his estimation of the character of 
 Henry, and his sense of the advantage which 
 he derives from the factions which grow out of 
 an imbecile government. But he is still only 
 a dissembler, exciting his fancies with some 
 shadowy visions of a crown, lending himself to 
 the dark intrigues of his natural and avowed 
 enemies, and calling up the terrible agency 
 of popular violence, reckless of any conse- 
 quences so that confusion be produced : 
 " From Ireland then comes York again 
 
 To reap the harvest which that coystrill sow'd." 
 The schemes of York are successful, and he 
 is at length in arms ; but he still dissembles. 
 When Buckingham demands " the reason of 
 these arms," and addresses him as a " sub- 
 ject, as I am," his wounded pride has vent in 
 the original play in a few words. But Shak- 
 spere, in his additions to the sketch, has 
 marked the inflated weakness of York's cha- 
 racter by putting in his mouth words of 
 " sound and fury" which he is afraid to speak 
 aloud : 
 " 0, 1 could hew up rocks, and fight with flint, 
 
 I am so angry at these abject terms; 
 
 And now, like Ajax Telamonius, 
 
 On sheep or oxen could I spend my fury ! 
 
 I am far better born than is the king; 
 
 More like a king, more kingly in my thoughts : 
 
 But I must make fair weather yet awhile, 
 
 Till Henry be more weak, and I more strong." 
 Passion, however, precipitates that decided 
 movement which prudence would have 
 avoided ; and the battle of St. Alban's is the 
 result. 
 
 The poet has now fairly opened 
 " The purple testament of bleeding war." 
 Smothered dislikes are now to become scorch- 
 ing hatreds ; and the domestic affections, 
 bruised and wounded, are to be the stimulants 
 of the most savage revenge. Shakspere has, 
 with wonderful knowledge of human nature, 
 made the atrocities of Clifford spring from the 
 very depths of his filial love. The original 
 
 conception is found in 'The Contention;' but 
 its elaboration in ' The Second Part of Henry 
 VI.' is perhaps unsurpassed in beauty of 
 expression by any passage of our matchless 
 poet : 
 
 " Wast thou ordain' d, dear father, 
 To lose thy youth in peace, and to achieve 
 The silver livery of advised age, 
 And in thy reverence, and thy chair-days, thus 
 To die in ruffian battle] Even at this sight 
 My heart is turn'd to stone : and while 't is 
 
 mine 
 
 It shall be stony." 
 
 With this preparation the savage ferocity of 
 Clifford, in the murder of Rutland, is ren- 
 dered less revolting : 
 
 " Thy father slew my father, therefore die." 
 
 This is the key to his cold-blooded partici- 
 pation in the butchery of York : 
 " There 's for my oath, there 's for my father's 
 
 death." 
 
 And what a real exhibition is this of the 
 foulest crimes perpetrated under gentle im- 
 pulses, where ill-regulated love and hate 
 keep together as twin-sisters! But this is 
 chivalry. Here, even the kindly affections 
 have an aspect of intense selfishness; and 
 " fierce wars and faithful loves " spring from 
 the same want of the principle of self-control, 
 and the same ignorance of the duties of a 
 large and comprehensive charity. The par- 
 tisanship of chivalry, displaying itself in 
 bold adventure and desperate courage, looks 
 to be something high and glorious. But it 
 is the same blind emanation of self-love as 
 the factious partisanship of modern politics, 
 in which the leader and the serf are equally 
 indifferent to the justice of the quarrel, and 
 equally regardless of the ends by which vic- 
 tory is to be achieved. Shakspere has given 
 us every light and shadow of the partisanship) 
 of chivalry in his delineation of the various 
 characters in these two wonderful dramas. 
 Apart and isolated from all active agency in 
 the quarrel stands out the remarkable 
 creation of Henry. The poet, with his in- 
 stinctive judgment, has given the King a much 
 higher character than the chroniclers assign 
 to him. Their relations leave little doubt 
 upon our minds that this imbecility was 
 
192 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK iv. 
 
 very nearly allied to utter incapacity ; and 
 that the thin partition between weakness 
 and idiocy was sometimes wholly removed. 
 But Shakspere has never painted Henry 
 under this aspect ; he has shown us a king 
 with virtues un suited to the age in which he 
 lived ; with talents unfitted for the station in 
 which he moved ; contemplative amidst 
 friends and foes hurried along by a distem- 
 pered energy ; peaceful under circumstances 
 that could have no issue but in appeals to 
 arms ; just in thought, but powerless to as- 
 sert even his own sense of right amidst the 
 contests of injustice which hemmed him in. 
 The entire conception of the character of 
 Henry, in connexion with the circumstances 
 to which it was subjected, is to be found in 
 the Parliament-scene of ' The Third Part of 
 Henry VI.' This scene is copied from 'The 
 Contention,' with scarcely the addition or 
 alteration of a word. We may boldly affirm 
 that none but Shakspere could have depicted 
 with such marvellous truth the weakness, 
 based upon a hatred of strife the vacilla- 
 tion, not of imbecile cunning, but of clear- 
 sighted candour the assertion of power 
 through the influence of habit, but of a power 
 ' trembling even at its own authority the 
 glimmerings of courage utterly extinguished 
 by the threats of "armed men," and pro- 
 posing compromise even worse than war. 
 We request our readers to peruse this scene, 
 and endeavour to recollect if any poet besides 
 i Shakspere ever presented such a reality in 
 the exhibition of a mind whose principles 
 have no coherency and no self-reliance ; one 
 moment threatening and exhorting his fol- 
 lowers to revenge, the next imploring them 
 to be patient ; now urging his rival to peace, 
 and now threatening war ; turning from the 
 assertion of his title to acknowledge its 
 weakness ; and terminating his display of 
 " words, frowns, and threats " with 
 
 " Let me but reign in quiet while I live." 
 
 1 It was weakness such as this which inevi- 
 j tably raised up the fiery partisans which the 
 poet has so wonderfully depicted ; the bloody 
 Clifford the " she-wolf of France" the dis- 
 sembling York the haughty Warwick the 
 voluptuous Edward and, last and most ter- 
 
 rible of all, he that best explains his own 
 character, " I am myself alone." 
 
 One by one the partisans that are thus 
 marshalled by the poet in the Parliament- 
 scene of London are swept away by the steady 
 progress of that justice which rides over 
 their violence and their subtlety. The hollow 
 truce is broken. Margaret is ready to assail 
 York in his castle ; York is prepared for the 
 field, having learned from the precocious 
 sophist Richard how " an oath is of no mo- 
 ment." Now are let loose all the " dogs of 
 war." The savage Clifford strikes down the 
 innocent Rutland; the more savage Mar- 
 garet dips her napkin in his blood. York 
 perishes under the prolonged retribution that 
 awaited the ambition that dallied with mur- 
 der and rebellion. Clifford, to whom nothing 
 is so odious as " harmful pity," falls in the 
 field of Towton, where the son was arrayed 
 against the father, and the father against 
 the son; and the king, more "woe-begone" 
 than the unwilling victims of ambition, mo- 
 ralises upon the "happy life" of the " homely 
 swain." The great actors of the tragedy are 
 changed. Edward and Richard have become 
 the leaders of the Yorkists, with Warwick, " the 
 king-maker," to rest upon. Henry has fled 
 to Scotland ; Margaret to France. Then is 
 unfolded another leaf of that Sibylline book. 
 Edward is on the throne careless of everything 
 but self-gratification ; despising his sup- 
 porters, offending even his brothers. War- 
 wick takes arms against him ; Clarence deserts 
 to Warwick ; Richard alone remains faithful, 
 sneering at his brother, and laughing in the 
 concealment of his own motives for fidelity. 
 Edward is a fugitive, and finally a captive ; 
 but Richard redeems him, and Clarence again 
 cleaves to him. The second revolution is 
 accomplished. The "king-maker" yields his 
 " body to the earth" in the field of Barnet ; 
 Margaret and her son become captives in the 
 plains near Tewksbury. Then comes the 
 terrible hour to the unhappy queen that 
 hour which she foresaw not when she gave 
 the "bloody napkin" to the wretched York 
 that hour whose intensity of suffering 
 reached its climax of expression in " You 
 have no children." But Richard is fled 
 
 " To make a bloody supper in the Tower." 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 HENRY VI. AND KICHAKD III. 
 
 193 
 
 The three that stab the defenceless Edward 
 equally desire another murder ; but one is to 
 do the work. It is accomplished. 
 
 And here then, according to the critical 
 authorities that we have long followed in 
 England, rested the history of ' The Conten- 
 tion of the Two Famous Houses of York and 
 Lancaster,' as far as the original author car- 
 ried that history. It was to conclude with 
 deeds of violence, as fearful and as atrocious 
 as any we have yet witnessed. The slaughter 
 of Rutland by the Lancastrian Clifford was 
 to find its parallel in the stabbing of Edward 
 by the three brothers of York ; the butchery 
 of York, amidst the taunts and execrations 
 of Margaret and her followers, was to be 
 equalled by the sudden murder of the 
 desolate Hen'ry in his prison-house. There 
 was to be no retribution for these later 
 crimes. The justice which had so long pre- 
 sided over this eventful story was now to 
 sleep. If there was vengeance in reserve, it 
 was to be distant and shadowy. The scene 
 was to close with "stately triumphs;" 
 " drums and trumpets " were to sound ; Hope 
 was to display to the conqueror her visions 
 of "lasting joy." If the poet had here 
 closed his chronicle, he would have been an 
 imperfect interpreter of his own idea. We 
 open another leaf of the same volume, and 
 all becomes clear and consistent. 
 
 To understand the character of the Richard 
 III. of Shakspere, we must have traced its 
 development by the author of ' The Conten- 
 tion.' The character was a creation of the 
 early author ; the unity was preserved be- 
 tween the last of these four dramas, which 
 everybody admits to be the work of the 
 " greatest name in all literature," in an un- 
 broken link with the previous drama, which 
 everybody has been in the habit of assigning 
 to some obscure and very inferior writer. 
 We are taught to open ' The Life and Death 
 of King Richard III.,' and to look upon the 
 extraordinary being who utters the opening 
 lines as some new creation, set before us in 
 the perfect completeness of self-formed vil- 
 lainy. We have not learnt to trace the 
 growth of the mind of this bold bad man ; to 
 see how his bravery became gradually dark- 
 ened with ferocity ; how his prodigious 
 
 talents insensibly allied themselves with 
 cunning and hypocrisy ; how, in struggling 
 for his house, he ultimately proposed to 
 struggle for himself ; how, in fact, the bad 
 ambition would be naturally kindled in his 
 mind, to seize upon the power which was 
 sliding from the hands of the voluptuous 
 Edward, and the "simple, plain Clarence." 
 He that wrote 
 
 " I have no brothers, I am like no brothers; 
 And this word love, which greybeards term 
 
 divine, 
 
 Be resident in men like one another, 
 And not in me; I am myself alone" 
 
 prepared the way for the Richard that was 
 to tell us 
 
 " If I fail not in my deep intent, 
 Clarence hath not another day to live : 
 Which done, God take King Edward to his 
 
 mercy, 
 And leave the world for me to bustle in ! " 
 
 The poet of the 'Richard III.' goes 
 straightforward to his object ; for he has 
 made all the preparation in the previous 
 dramas. No gradual development is want- 
 ing of the character which is now to sway 
 the action. The struggle of the houses up 
 to this point has been one only of violence ; 
 and it was therefore anarchical. " The big- 
 boned " Warwick, and the fiery Clifford, al- 
 ternately presided over the confusion. The 
 power which changed the 
 
 " Dreadful marches to delightful measures" 
 seemed little more than accident. But 
 Richard proposed to himself to subject events 
 to his domination, not by courage alone, or 
 activity, or even by the legitimate exercise 
 of a commanding intellect, but by the clear- 
 est and coolest perception of the strength 
 which he must inevitably possess who unites 
 the deepest sagacity to the most thorough 
 unscrupulousness in its exercise, and is an 
 equal master of the weapons of force and of 
 craft. The character of Richard is essen- 
 tially different from any other character 
 which Shakspere has drawn. His bloody 
 violence is not that of Macbeth ; nor his 
 subtle treachery that of lago. It is difficult 
 to say whether he derives a greater satisfac- 
 tion from the success of his crimes, or from 
 
194 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK 
 
 the consciousness of power which attends 
 the working of them. This is a feature which 
 he holds in common with lago. But then he 
 does not labour with a " motiveless ma- 
 lignity," as lago does. He has no vague sus- 
 picions, no petty jealousies, no remembrance 
 of slight affronts, to stimulate him to a dis- 
 proportioned and unnatural vengeance. He 
 does not hate his victims ; but they stand in 
 his way, and, as he does not love them, they 
 perish. He chuckles in the fortitude which 
 this alienation from humanity confers upon 
 him : 
 " Simple, plain Clarence ! I do love thee so, 
 
 That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven, 
 
 If Heaven will take the present at our hands." 
 Other men, the most obdurate, have been 
 wrought upon by a mother's tears and a 
 mother's prayers : they are to him a jest : 
 " Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy, 
 
 I did not see your grace: Humbly on my 
 knee 
 
 I crave your blessing. 
 
 Duck. God bless thee, and put meekness in 
 thy breast, 
 
 Love, charity, obedience, and true duty! 
 Glo. Amen; and make me die a good old 
 man! 
 
 That is the butt-end of a mother's blessing; 
 
 I marvel that her grace did leave it out." 
 Villains of the blackest dye disguise their 
 crimes even from themselves. Richard 
 shrinks not from their avowal to others, for 
 a purpose. The wooing of Lady Anne is, 
 perhaps, the boldest thing in the Shak- 
 sperean drama. It is perpetually on the 
 verge of the impossible ; yet the marvellous 
 consistency of character with which it is 
 conducted renders the whole of this conduct 
 probable, if we once get over the difficulty 
 which startles Richard himself : 
 
 " "Was ever woman in this humour woo'd? 
 Was ever woman in this humour won]" 
 
 His exultation at having accomplished his 
 purpose by the sole agency of "the plain 
 devil, and dissembling looks" is founded on 
 his unbounded reliance upon his mental 
 powers ; and that reliance is even strong 
 enough to afford that he should abate so 
 much of his self-love as to be joyous in the 
 contemplation of his own bodily deformity. 
 
 It is the result of the peculiar organiza- 
 tion of Richard's mind, formed as it had 
 been by circumstances as well as by nature, 
 that he invariably puts himself in the atti- 
 tude of one who is playing a part. It is this 
 circumstance which makes the character 
 (clumsy even as it has been made by the 
 joinery of Gibber) such a favourite on the 
 stage. It cannot be over-acted. It was not 
 without a purpose that the author of ' The 
 Contention' put in the mouth of Henry 
 
 "What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?" 
 
 Burbage, the original player of Richard, ac- 
 cording to Bishop Corbet's description of his 
 host at Bosworth*, was identified with him. 
 This aptitude for subjecting all his real 
 thoughts and all his natural impulses to the 
 exigencies of the scene of life in which he 
 was to play the chief part, equally govern 
 his conduct whether he is wooing Lady 
 Anne or denouncing the relations of the 
 queen or protesting before the king, 
 
 " 'T is death to me to be at enmity" 
 
 or mentioning the death of Clarence as a 
 thing of course or begging the strawberries 
 from the Bishop of Ely when he is meditating 
 the execution of Hastings or appearing on 
 the Tower walls in rusty armour or reject- 
 ing the crown which the citizens present to 
 him or dismissing Buckingham with 
 " Thou troublest me, I am not in the vein" 
 
 or soliciting the mother of his murdered 
 nephews to win for him her daughter, 
 
 " As I intend to prosper and repent." 
 
 * " Mine host was full of ale and history, 
 And in the morning when he brought us nigh, 
 Where the two Roses join'd, you would suppose 
 Chaucer ne'er made the Romaunt of the Rose. 
 Hear him. See you yon wood ? There Richard lay 
 With his whole army. Look the other way, 
 And lo! while Richmond in a bed of gorse 
 Encamp'd himself allniglit, and all his force, 
 Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell 
 The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell. 
 Besides what of his knowledge he could say, 
 He had authentic notice from the play; 
 Which I might guess by marking up the ghosts, 
 And policies not incident to hosts ; 
 But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing 
 Where he mistook a player for a king. 
 For when he would have said, King Richard died, 
 And call'd, A horse ! a horse ! he Burbage cned." 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 HENRY VI. AND KICHARD III. 
 
 195 
 
 It is only in the actual presence of a 
 powerful enemy that Richard displays any 
 portion of his natural character. His bravery 
 required no dissimulation to uphold it. In 
 his last battle-field he puts forth all the re- 
 sources of his intellect in a worthy direction. 
 But the retribution is fast approaching. It 
 was not enough for offended justice that he 
 should die as a hero : the terrible tortures of 
 conscience were to precede the catastrophe. 
 The drama has exhibited all it could exhibit 
 the palpable images of terror haunting a 
 mind already anticipating the end. " Rad- 
 cliff, I fear, I fear," is the first revelation of 
 the true inward man to a fellow-being. But 
 the terror is but momentary : 
 
 " Let not our babbling dreams affright our 
 souls." 
 
 To the last the poet exhibits the supremacy 
 of Richard's intellect, his ready talent, and 
 his unwearied energy. The tame address of 
 Richmond to his soldiers, and the spirited 
 exhortation of Richard, could not have been 
 the result of accident. 
 
 It appears to us, then, that the complete 
 development of the character of Richard was 
 absolutely essential to the completion of the 
 great idea upon which the poet constructed 
 these four dramas. There was a man to be 
 raised up out of the wild turbulence of the 
 long contest not cruel, after the mere 
 fashion of a Clifford's cruelty not revenge- 
 ful, according to the passionate impulses of 
 the revenge of a Margaret and of an Edward 
 not false and perjured, in imitation of the 
 irresolute weakness of a Clarence but one 
 who was cruel, and revengeful, and treache- 
 rous, upon the deepest premeditation and 
 with the most profound hypocrisy. That man 
 was also to be so confident in his intellectual 
 power, that no resolve was too daring to be 
 acted upon, no risk too great to be encoun- 
 tered. Fraud and force were to go hand in 
 hand, and the one was to exterminate what 
 the other could not win. This man was to 
 be an instrument of that justice which was 
 to preside to the end of this " sad eventful 
 history." By his agency was the house of 
 York to fall, as the house of Lancaster had 
 fallen. The innocent by him were to be 
 
 swept away with the guilty. Last of all, the 
 Fate was to be appeased the one great 
 criminal was to perish out of the consequences 
 of his own enormities. 
 
 It is an observation of Horace Walpole 
 that Shakspere, in his * Richard III.,' " seems 
 to deduce the woes of the house of York 
 from the curses which Queen Margaret had 
 vented against them." It was the faith of 
 Margaret that curses were all-powerful : 
 
 " I '11 not believe but they ascend the sky, 
 And there awake God'sgentle-sleeping peace." * 
 
 This was the poetical faith of the author of 
 these dramas the power of the curse was 
 associated with the great idea of a presiding 
 Fate. But Margaret's were not the only 
 curses. Richard himself, in one passage, 
 where he appears to make words exhibit 
 thoughts and not conceal them, refers to the 
 same power of a curse that of his father, in- 
 sulted in his death-hour by the scorns of 
 Margaiet, and moved to tears by her atro- 
 cious cruelty. This is the assertion of the 
 equal justice which is displayed in the dra- 
 matic issue of these fearful events ; not jus- 
 tice upon the house of York alone, which 
 Horace Walpole thinks Shakspere strove to 
 exhibit in deference to Tudor prejudices, but 
 justice upon the house of Lancaster as well 
 as the house of York, for those individual 
 crimes of the leaders of each house that had 
 made a charnel-ground of England. When* 
 that justice had asserted its supremacy, tran- . 
 quillity was to come. The poet has not 
 chosen to exhibit the establishment of law 
 and order in the astute government of Henry 
 VII. ; but in his drama of ' Henry VIII.' he 
 has carried us onward to a new state of 
 things, when the power of the sword was at?, 
 an end. He came as near to his own times 
 as was either safe or fitting ; but he contrasts 
 his own times with the days of civil fury, in 
 a prophetic view of the reign of Elizabeth : 
 
 " In her days, every man shall eat in safety, 
 Under his own vine, what he plants; and sing 
 The merry songs of peace to all his neigh- 
 bours.'^ 
 
 * ' Richard III.,' Act i., Scene in. 
 f Henry VIII.,' Act v., Scene iv. 
 
 2 
 
196 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 KING JOHK 
 
 THERE can be no doubt that Shakspere's 
 ' King John ' is founded on a former play. 
 That play, which consists of two Parts, is 
 entitled ' The Troublesome Raigne of John 
 King of England, with the Discoverie of 
 King Richard Cordelion's base son, vulgarly 
 named the Bastard Fauconbridge ; also the 
 death of King John at Swinstead Abbey.' 
 This play was first printed in 1591. The first 
 edition has no author's name in the title- 
 page ; the second, of 1611, has, "Written 
 by W. Sh. ;" and the third, of 1622, gives 
 the name of "William Shakspeare." We 
 think there can be little hesitation in affirm- 
 ing that the attempt to fix this play upon 
 Shakspere was fraudulent ; yet Steevens, in 
 his valuable collection of " Twenty of the 
 Plays" that were printed in quarto, says, 
 " the author (meaning Shakspere) seems to 
 have been so thoroughly dissatisfied with 
 this play as to have written it almost entirely 
 anew." Steevens afterwards receded from 
 this opinion. Coleridge, too, in the classifi- 
 cation which he attempted in 1802, speaks 
 of the old ' King John' as one of Shakspere's 
 " transition-works not his, yet of him." 
 The German critics agree in giving the ori- 
 ginal authorship to Shakspere. Tieck holds 
 that the play first printed in the folio of 
 1623 is amongst the poet's latest works 
 not produced before 1611 ; and that pro- 
 duction, he considers, called forth a new 
 edition of the older play, which he deter- 
 mines to have been one of the earliest works 
 of Shakspere. Ulrici holds that 'The Trou- 
 blesome Reign of King John' was written 
 very soon after the defeat of the Spanish 
 Armada, which is shown by its zeal against 
 
 Catholicism, which he describes as fanatical, 
 by its glowing patriotism and warlike feel- 
 ings ; and he also assigns it for the most part 
 to Shakspere. But he believes that the poet 
 here wrought upon even an older produc- 
 tion, or that it was written in companionship 
 with some other dramatic author. In the 
 comic scenes, particularly those between 
 Faulconbridge and the monks and nuns, he 
 can discover little of Shakspere's " facetious 
 grace," but can trace only rudeness and vul- 
 garity. He suffered, however, says Ulrici, 
 the scenes to remain, because they suited 
 the humour of the people. Ulrici perceives, 
 further, a marked difference in the style of 
 this old play and the undoubted works of 
 our poet. In the greater portion, he main- 
 tains, the language and characterization are 
 worthy of the great master. Still it is a 
 youthful labour imperfect, feeble, essen- 
 tially crude. He considers that the notice 
 of Meres applies to this elder performance. 
 It is a transition to the ' Henry VI.,' in 
 which Shakspere is more himself. Horn is 
 more decided. In this old play Shakspere, 
 in his opinion, manifested his knowledge of 
 the relations between poetry and history, 
 and in his youthful hand wielded the magic 
 wand which was to become so potent in his 
 riper years. 
 
 Assuming that Shakspere did not write the 
 'King John' of 1591, it is impossible now, 
 except on very general principles, to deter- 
 mine why a poet, who had the authentic ma- 
 terials of history before him, and possessed 
 beyond all men the power of moulding those 
 materials, with reference to a dramatic ac- 
 tion, into the most complete and beautiful 
 
KING JOHM. 
 
 197 
 
 forms, should have subjected himself, in the 
 full vigour and maturity of his intellect, to 
 a general adherence to the course of the 
 conventional "history" of the stage. But so 
 it is. The ' King John ' of Shakspere is not 
 the 'King John' of the historians whom 
 Shakspere had unquestionably studied ; it is 
 not the ' King John ' of his own imagination, 
 casting off the trammels which a rigid adop- 
 tion of the facts of those historians would 
 have imposed upon him ; but it is the * King 
 John,' in the conduct of the story, in the 
 juxtaposition of the characters, and in the 
 catastrophe in the historical truth, and in 
 the historical error of the play which pre- 
 ceded him some few years. This, certainly, 
 was not an accident. It was not what, in the 
 vulgar sense of the word, is called a pla- 
 giarism. It was a submission of his own 
 original powers of seizing upon the feelings 
 and understanding of his audience, to the 
 stronger power of habit in the same audience. 
 The history of John had been familiar to 
 them for almost half a century. The fa- 
 miliarity had grown out of the rudest days 
 of the drama, and had been established in 
 the period of its comparative refinement 
 which immediately preceded Shakspere. The 
 old play of ' The Troublesome Reign ' was, 
 in all likelihood, a vigorous graft upon the 
 trunk of an older play, which " occupies an 
 intermediate place between moralities and 
 historical plays," that of 'Kynge Johan,' 
 by John Bale, written probably in the reign 
 of Edward VI. Shakspere, then, had to 
 choose between forty years of stage tradition 
 and the employment of new materials. He 
 took, upon principle, what he found ready to 
 his hand. But upon this theory, that ' The 
 Troublesome Reign' is by another poet, none of 
 the transformations of classical or oriental 
 fable, in which a new life is transfused into an 
 old body, can equal this astonishing example 
 of the life-conferring power of a genius such 
 as Shakspere's. On the other hand, if ' The 
 Troublesome Reign' be a very early play by 
 Shakspere himself (and we doubt this 
 greatly), the undoubted ' King John' offers 
 the most marvellous example of the resources 
 of a mature intellect, in the creation of cha- 
 racters, in the conduct of a story, and the 
 
 employment of language, as compared with 
 the crude efforts of an unformed mind. The 
 contrast is so remarkable that we cannot be- 
 lieve in this theory, even with the whole 
 body of German critics in its favour. 
 
 Bale's "pageant" of 'Kynge Johan' has 
 been published by the Camden Society, under 
 the judicious editorship of Mr. J. P. Collier. 
 This performance, which is in two Parts, has 
 been printed from the original manuscript in 
 the library of the Duke of Devonshire. Sup- 
 posing it to be written about the middle of 
 the sixteenth century, it presents a more re- 
 markable example even than ' Howleglas,' or 
 ' Hick Scorner ' (of which an account is given 
 in Percy's agreeable ' Essay on the Origin of 
 the English Stage ') *, of the extremely low 
 state of the drama only forty years before 
 the time of Shakspere. Here is a play 
 written by a bishop ; and yet the dirty 
 ribaldry which is put into the mouths of 
 some of the characters is beyond all descrip- 
 tion, and quite impossible to be exhibited by 
 any example- in these pages. We say no- 
 thing of the almost utter absence of any 
 poetical feeling of the dull monotony of 
 the versification of the tediousness of the 
 dialogue of the inartificial conduct of the 
 story. These matters were not greatly 
 amended till a very short period before 
 Shakspere came to "reform them altogether." 
 Our object in mentioning this play is to show 
 that the ' King John ' upon which Shak- 
 spere built was, in some degree, constructed 
 upon the 'Kynge Johan' of Bale ; and that 
 a traditionary ' King John ' had thus pos- 
 sessed the stage for nearly half a century 
 before the period when Shakspere wrote his 
 ' King John.' There might, without injury 
 to this theory, have been an intermediate 
 play. We avail ourselves of an extract from 
 Mr. Collier's Introduction to the play of 
 Bale : 
 
 " The design of the two plays of ' Kynge 
 Johan' was to promote and confirm the 
 Reformation, of which, after his conver- 
 sion, Bale was one of the most strenuous and 
 unscrupulous supporters. This design he 
 executed in a manner until then, I appre- 
 hend, unknown. He took some of the lead- 
 
 * ' Reliques of English Poetry,' vol. i. 
 
198 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 ing and popular events of the reign of King 
 John, his disputes with the pope, the suffer- 
 ing of his kingdom under the interdict, his 
 subsequent submission to Rome, and his im- 
 puted death by poison from the hands of a 
 monk of Swinstead Abbey, and applied them 
 to the circumstances of the country in the 
 latter part of the reign of Henry VIII. 
 #*** TM S early application of historical 
 events, of itself, is a singular circumstance, 
 but it is the more remarkable when we re- 
 collect that we have no drama in our lan- 
 guage of that date in which personages con- 
 nected with, and engaged in, our public 
 affairs, are introduced. In 'Kynge Johan' 
 we have not only the monarch himself, who 
 figures very prominently until his death, but 
 Pope Innocent, Cardinal Pandulphus, Ste- 
 phen Langton, Simon of Swinsett (or Swin- 
 stead), and a monk called Raymundus ; 
 besides abstract impersonations, such as 
 England, who is stated to be a widow, 
 Imperial Majesty, who is supposed to take 
 the reins of government after the death of 
 King John, Nobility, Clergy, Civil Order, 
 Treason, Verity, and Sedition, who may be 
 said to be the Vice, or Jester, of the piece. 
 Thus we have many of the elements of his- 
 torical plays, such as they were acted at our 
 public theatres forty or fifty years after- 
 wards, as well as some of the ordinary ma- 
 terials of the old moralities, which were 
 gradually exploded by the introduction of 
 real or imaginary characters on the scene. 
 Bale's play, therefore, occupies an interme- 
 diate place between moralities and historical 
 plays, and it is the only known existing spe- 
 cimen of that species of composition of so 
 early a date." 
 
 That the ' Kynge Johan ' of the furious 
 Protestant bishop was known to the writer 
 of the ' King John' of 1591, we have little 
 doubt. Our space will not allow us to point 
 out the internal evidences of this ; but one 
 minute but remarkable similarity may be 
 mentioned. When John arrives at Swinstead 
 Abbey, the monks, in both plays, invite him 
 to their treacherous repast by the cry of 
 " Wassail." In the play of Bale we have no 
 incidents whatever beyond the contests be- 
 tween John and the pope the surrender of 
 
 the crown to Pandulph and the poisoning 
 of John by a monk at Swinstead Abbey. 
 The action goes on very haltingly ; but not 
 so the wordy war of the speakers. A vocabu- 
 lary of choice terms of abuse, familiarly used 
 in the times of the Reformation, might be 
 constructed out of this curious performance. 
 Here the play of 1591 is wonderfully re- 
 formed ; and we have a diversified action, 
 in which the story of Arthur and Constance, 
 and the wars and truces in Anjou, are brought 
 to relieve the exhibition of papal domination 
 and monkish treachery. The intolerance of 
 Bale against the Romish church is the most 
 fierce and rampant exhibition of passion 
 that ever assumed the ill-assorted garb of 
 religious zeal. In the John of 1591 we have 
 none of this violence ; but the writer has ex- 
 hibited a scene of ribaldry, in the incident of 
 Faulconbridge hunting out the " angels " of 
 the monks ; for he makes him find a nun 
 concealed in a holy man's chest. This, no 
 doubt, would be a popular scene. Shakspere 
 has not a word of it. Mr. Campbell, to our 
 surprise, thinks that Shakspere might have 
 retained " that scene in the old play where 
 Faulconbridge, in fulfilling King John's in- 
 junction to plunder religious houses, finds a 
 young smooth-skinned nun in a chest where 
 the abbot's treasures were supposed to be de- 
 posited."* \yiien did ever Shakspere lend 
 his authority to fix a stigma upon large 
 classes of mankind, in deference to popular 
 prejudice ? One of the most remarkable 
 characteristics of Shakspere's ' John,' as op- 
 posed to the grossness of Bale and the ribaldry 
 of his immediate predecessor, is the utter 
 absence of all invective or sarcasm against 
 the Romish church, apart from the attempt 
 of the pope to extort a base submission from 
 the English king. Here, indeed, we have 
 his nationality in full power ; but how dif- 
 ferent is that from fostering hatreds between 
 two classes of one people ! 
 
 It may amuse such of our readers as have 
 not access to the play of Bale, or to the 'King 
 John' of 1591, to see an example of the dif- 
 ferent modes in which the two writers treat 
 
 * ' Remarks on Life and History of Shakspere,' prefixed 
 to Moxon's edition, 1838. 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 KINQ JOHN. 
 
 199 
 
 the same subject the surrender of the crown 
 to Pandulph : 
 
 THE ' KYNGE JOHAN ' OF BALE. 
 
 "P. This outward remorse that ye show 
 
 here evident 
 
 Is a great likelihood and token of amendment. 
 How say ye, Kinge Johan, can ye find now in 
 
 your heart 
 To obey Holy Church and give over your 
 
 froward part ] 
 K. J. Were it so possible to hold the enemies 
 
 back, 
 That my sweet England perish not in this 
 
 shipwreck. 
 P. Possible, quoth he ! yea, they should go 
 
 back indeed, 
 And their great armies to some other quarters 
 
 lead, 
 Or else they have not so many good blessings 
 
 now, 
 But as many cursings they shall have, I make 
 
 God avow. 
 I promise you, sir, ye shall have special 
 
 favour 
 If ye will submit your self to Holy Church 
 
 here. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 K. J. I have cast in my mind the great dis- 
 pleasures of war, 
 The dangers, the losses, the decays, both near 
 
 and far ; 
 The burning of towns, the throwing down of 
 
 buildings, 
 Destruction of corn and cattle, with other 
 
 things ; 
 Defiling of maids, and shedding of Christian 
 
 blood, 
 With such like outrages, neither honest, true, 
 
 nor good. 
 These things considered, I am compelled this 
 
 hour 
 To resign up here both crown and regal power. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 K. J. Here I submit me to Pope Innocent 
 
 the thred [third], 
 Desiring mercy of his holy fatherhead. 
 
 P. Give up the crown, then, it shall be the 
 
 better for ye : 
 He will unto you the more favourable be." 
 
 THE ' KING JOHN' OP 1591. 
 "Pandulph. John, now I see thy hearty 
 penitence, 
 
 I rue and pity thy distrest estate : 
 One way is left to reconcile thyself, 
 And only one, which I shall show to thee. 
 Thou must surrender to the see of Eome 
 Thy crown and diadem, then shall the pope 
 Defend thee from th' invasion of thy foes. 
 And where his holiness hath kindled France, 
 And set thy subjects' hearts at war with thee, 
 Then shall he curse thy foes, and beat them 
 
 down, 
 
 That seek the discontentment of the king. 
 K. J. From bad to worse, or I must lose 
 
 my realm, 
 
 Or give my crown for penance unto Rome : 
 A misery more piercing than the darts 
 That break from burning exhalations' power. 
 What, shall I give my crown with this right 
 
 hand] 
 No : with this hand defend thy crown and 
 
 thee. 
 What news with thee 1 
 
 * * * * 
 
 K. J. How now, lord cardinal, what 's your 
 
 best advice 1 ? 
 
 These mutinies must be allayed in time, 
 By policy or headstrong rage at least. 
 John, these troubles tire thy wearied soul, 
 And, like to Luna in a sad eclipse, 
 So are thy thoughts and passions for this news. 
 . Well may it be, when kings are grieved so, 
 The vulgar sort work princes' overthrow. 
 Card. King John, for not effecting of thy 
 
 plighted vow, 
 
 This strange annoyance happens to thy land : 
 But yet be reconciled unto the church, 
 And nothing shall be grievous to thy state." 
 
 We might furnish several similar parallels 
 between the 'King John' of 1591, and the 
 ' King John ' of Shakspere, if the general reader 
 would not be likely to weary of such minute 
 criticism. But we may, without risk, select two 
 specimens. The first exhibits the different 
 mode in which the character of the Bastard 
 is treated in the two plays. In the play of 
 1591 he is a bold, mouthing bully, who talks 
 in " Ercles' vein," and somewhat reminds one 
 of " Ancient Pistol." There is not a particle 
 in this character of the irrepressible gaiety 
 the happy mixture of fun and sarcasm the 
 laughing words accompanying the stern deeds 
 which distinguish the Bastard of Shak- 
 spere. We purposely have selected a short 
 
200 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAK8PERE. 
 
 [BOOK Y. 
 
 parallel extract ; but the passages furnish a 
 key to the principle upon which a dull cha- 
 racter is made brilliant. Our poet has let 
 in the sunlight of prodigious animal spirits, 
 without any great intellectual refinement, 
 (how different from Mercutio!) upon the 
 heavy clod that he found ready to his 
 hand : 
 
 THE * KING JOHN' OF 1591. 
 " Lym. Methinks that Kichard's pride and 
 
 Kichard's fall 
 
 Should be a precedent t' affright you all. 
 Bast. What words are these 1 ? how do my 
 
 sinews shake ] 
 
 My father's foe clad in my father's spoil ! 
 A thousand furies kindle with revenge 
 This heart that choler keeps a consistory, 
 Searing my inwards with a brand of hate : 
 How doth Alecto whisper in mine ears, 
 Delay not, Philip, kill the villain straight ; 
 Disrobe him of the matchless monument 
 Thy father's triumph o'er the savages ! 
 Base herdgroom, coward, peasant, worse than 
 
 a threshing slave, 
 What mak'st thou with the trophy of a king?" 
 
 SHAKSPERE'S ' KING JOHN.' 
 "Aust. Peace! 
 Bast. Hear the crier. 
 
 Aust. What the devil art thou ? 
 
 Bast. One that will play the devil, sir, with 
 
 you, 
 
 An 'a may catch your hide and you alone. 
 You are the hare of whom the proverb goes, 
 Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard. 
 I'll smoke your skin-coat, an I catch you right; 
 Sirrah, look to 't ; i' faith, I will, i' faith. 
 Blanch. Oh, well did he become that lion's 
 
 robe, 
 That did disrobe the lion of that robe ! 
 
 Bast. It lies as sightly on the back of him 
 As great Alcides' shoes upon an ass : 
 But, ass, I '11 take that burthen from your 
 
 back, 
 
 Or lay on that shall make your shoulders 
 crack." 
 
 The second extract we shall make is for 
 the purpose of exhibiting the modes in which 
 the same passion is dealt with under the 
 same circumstances. The situation in each 
 play is where Arthur exhorts his mother to 
 
 be content, after the marriage between Lewis 
 and Blanch, and the consequent peace 
 between John and Philip : 
 
 THE ' KING JOHN' OF 1591. 
 "Art. Madam, good cheer, these drooping 
 
 languishments 
 
 Add no redress to salve our awkward hapa : 
 If Heaven have concluded these events, 
 To small avail is bitter pensiveness : 
 Seasons will change, and so our present grief 
 May change with them, and all to our relief. 
 Const. Ah, boy, thy years I see are far too 
 
 green . 
 
 To look into the bottom of these cares : 
 But I, who see the poise that weigheth down 
 Thy weal, my wish, and all the willing means 
 Wherewith thy fortune and thy fame should 
 
 mount, 
 What joy, what ease, what rest can lodge in 
 
 me, 
 
 With whom all hope and hap do disagree ? 
 Art. Yet ladies' tears, and cares, and solemn 
 
 shows, 
 Bather than helps, heap up more work for 
 
 woes. 
 Const. If any power will hear a widow's 
 
 plaint, 
 
 That from a wounded soul implores revenge, 
 Send fell contagion to infect this clime, 
 This cursed country, where the traitor's breath, 
 Whose perjury (as proud Briareus) 
 Beleaguers all the sky with misbelief. 
 He promised, Arthur, and he sware it too, 
 To fence thy right, and check thy foeman's 
 
 pride; 
 
 But now, black-spotted perjure as he is, 
 He takes a truce with Elinor's damn'd brat, 
 And marries Lewis to her lovely niece, 
 Sharing thy fortune, and thy birth-day's gift, 
 Between these lovers : ill betide the match ! 
 And as they shoulder thee from out thine 
 
 own, 
 
 And triumph in a widow's tearful cares, 
 So Heavens cross them with a thriftless course ! 
 Is all the blood spilt on either part, 
 Closing the crannies of the thirsty earth, 
 Grown to a love-game and a bridal feast]" 
 
 SHAKSPERE'S ' KING JOHN.' 
 " Art. I do beseech you, madam, be content. 
 Const. If thou, that bidd'st me be content, 
 
 wert grim, 
 Ugly, and sland'rous to thy mother's womb, 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 KING JOHN. 
 
 201 
 
 Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains, 
 Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious, 
 Patch'd with foul moles and eye-offending 
 
 marks, 
 
 I would not care, I then would be content; 
 For then I should not love thee; no, nor thou 
 Become thy great birth, nor deserve a crown. 
 But thou art fair ; and at thy birth, dear boy, 
 Nature and Fortune join'd to make thee great : 
 Of Nature's gifts thou mayst with lilies boast, 
 And with the half-blown rose : but Fortune, ! 
 She is corrupted, changed, and won from thee; 
 She adulterates hourly with thy uncle John; 
 And with her golden hand hath pluck'd on 
 
 France 
 
 To tread down fair respect of sovereignty, 
 And made his majesty the bawd to theirs. 
 France is a bawd to Fortune, and king John; 
 That strumpet Fortune, that usurping John : 
 Tell me, thou fellow, is not France forsworn] 
 Envenom him with words ; or get thee gone, 
 And leave those woes alone, which I alone 
 Am bound to under-bear. 
 
 Scd. Pardon me, madam, 
 
 I may not go without you to the kings. 
 Const. Thou mayst, thou shalt ; I will not 
 
 go with thee : 
 
 I will instruct my sorrows to be proud : 
 For grief is proud, and makes his owner stoop. 
 To me, and to the state of my great grief, 
 Let kings assemble ; for my grief's so great, 
 That no supporter but the huge firm earth 
 Can hold it up : here I and sorrows sit ; 
 Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it." 
 
 Dr. Johnson, in his preface to Shakspere, 
 speaking of the division, by the players, of 
 our author's works into comedies, histories, 
 and tragedies, thus defines what, he says, 
 was the notion of a dramatic history in those 
 times : " History was a series of actions, with 
 no other than chronological succession, in- 
 dependent on each other, and without any 
 tendency to introduce and regulate the con- 
 clusion." Again, speaking of the unities of 
 the critics, he says of Shakspere " His his- 
 tories, being neither tragedies nor comedies, 
 are not subject to any of their laws ; nothing 
 more is necessary to all the praise which 
 they expect than that the changes of action 
 be so prepared as to be understood, that the 
 incidents be various and affecting, and the 
 
 characters consistent, natural, and distinct. 
 No other unity is intended, and, therefore, 
 none is to be sought. In his other works he 
 has well enough preserved the unity of ac- 
 tion" Taking these observations together, as 
 a general definition of the character of Shak- 
 spere's histories, we are constrained to say 
 that no opinion can be farther removed from 
 the truth. So far from the " unity of action" 
 not being regarded in Shakspere's histories, 
 and being subservient to the " chronological 
 succession," it rides over that succession 
 whenever the demands of the scene require 
 " a unity of a higher order, which connects 
 the events by reference to the workers, gives 
 a reason for them in the motives, and presents 
 men in their causative character."* It 
 is this principle which in Shakspere has 
 given offence to those who have not formed 
 a higher notion of an historical play than 
 that the series of actions should be the 
 transcript of a chronicle, somewhat elevated, 
 and somewhat modified, by the poetical form, 
 but " without any tendency to introduce and 
 regulate the conclusion." 
 
 The great connecting link of the chain 
 that binds together all the series of actions 
 in the ' King John' of Shakspere, is the fate 
 of Arthur. In this series of actions we find 
 no events that arise out of other causes. 
 From the first to the last scene, the hard 
 struggles and the cruel end of the young 
 Duke of Brittany either led to the action, or 
 form a portion of it, or are the direct causes 
 of an ulterior consequence. We must entreat 
 the indulgence of our readers whilst we en- 
 deavour to establish this principle somewhat 
 in detail. 
 
 In the whole range of the Shaksperean 
 drama there is no opening scene which more 
 perfectly exhibits the effect which is pro- 
 duced by coming at once, and without the 
 slightest preparation, to the main business of 
 the piece: 
 
 " Now say, Chatillon, what would France with 
 us?" 
 
 In three more lines the phrase " borrow'd 
 majesty" at once explains the position of 
 
 * Coleridge's ' Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 160. 
 
202 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 John; and immediately afterwards we come 
 to the formal assertion by France of the "most 
 lawful claim" of "Arthur Plantagenet" 
 
 " To this fair island, and the territories ; 
 To Ireland, Poictiers,Anjou, Touraine, Maine." 
 
 As rapid as the lightning of which John 
 speaks is a defiance given and returned. 
 The ambassador is commanded to " depart 
 in peace;" the king's mother makes an im- 
 portant reference to the "ambitious Con- 
 stance;" and John takes up the position for 
 which he struggles to the end, 
 
 " Our strong possession, and our right, for us." 
 
 The scene of the Bastard is not an episode 
 entirely cut off from the main action of the 
 piece ; his loss of " lands," and his " new-made 
 honour," were necessary to attach him to the 
 cause of John. The Bastard is the one 
 partisan who never deserts him. 
 
 The second act brings us into the very 
 heart of the conflict on the claim of Arthur. 
 What a Gothic grandeur runs through the 
 whole of these scenes ! "We see the men of 
 six centuries ago, as they played the game 
 of their personal ambition now swearing 
 hollow friendships, now breathing stern de- 
 nunciations; now affecting compassion for 
 the weak and the suffering, now breaking 
 faith with the orphan and the mother ; now 
 
 " Gone to be married, gone to swear a peace;" 
 
 now keeping the feast "with slaughtered 
 men ; " now trembling at, and now braving, 
 the denunciations of spiritual power; and 
 agreeing in nothing but to bend "then- 
 sharpest deeds of malice" on unoffending 
 and peaceful citizens, unless the citizens 
 have some "commodity" to offer which shall 
 draw them 
 
 " To a most base and vile-concluded peace." 
 
 With what skill has Shakspere, whilst he 
 thus painted the spirit of the chivalrous 
 times, lofty in words, but sordid in acts, 
 given us a running commentary which in- 
 terprets the whole in the sarcasms of the 
 Bastard ! But amidst all the clatter of con- 
 ventional dignity which we find in the 
 speeches of John, and Philip, and Lewis, and 
 
 Austria, the real dignity of strong natural 
 affections rises over the pomp and circum- 
 stance of regal ambition with a force of 
 contrast which is little less than sublime. In 
 the second act Constance is almost too much 
 mixed up with the dispute to let us quite 
 feel that she is something very much higher 
 than the " ambitious Constance." Yet, even 
 here, how sweetly does the nature of Arthur 
 rise up amongst these fierce broils, con- 
 ducted at the sword's point with words that 
 are as sharp as swords, to assert the su- 
 premacy of gentleness and moderation : 
 
 " Good my mother, peace ! 
 I would that I were low laid in my grave; 
 I am not worth this coil that 's made for me." 
 
 This is the key-note to the great scene of 
 Arthur and Hubert in the fourth act. But 
 in the mean time the maternal terror and 
 anguish of Constance become the prominent 
 objects; and the rival kings, the haughty 
 prelate, the fierce knights, the yielding citi- 
 zens, appear but as puppets moved by destiny 
 to force on the most bitter sorrows of that 
 broken-hearted mother. We have here the 
 true characteristic of the drama as described 
 by the philosophical critic, " fate and will 
 in opposition to each other." Mrs. Jameson, 
 in her very delightful work, ' The Character- 
 istics of Women,' has formed a most just 
 and beautiful conception of the character of 
 Constance : 
 
 " That which strikes us as the principal 
 attribute of Constance is power power of 
 imagination, of will, of passion, of affection, 
 of pride: the moral energy, that faculty 
 which is principally exercised in self-control, 
 and gives consistency to the rest, is deficient ; 
 or rather, to speak more correctly, the ex- 
 traordinary development of sensibility and 
 imagination, which lends to the character its 
 rich poetical colouring, leaves the other 
 qualities comparatively subordinate. Hence 
 it is that the whole complexion of the cha- 
 racter, notwithstanding its amazing grandeur, 
 is so exquisitely feminine. The weakness of 
 the woman, who by the very consciousness 
 of that weakness is worked up to desperation 
 and defiance, the fluctuations of temper and 
 the bursts of sublime passion, the terrors, 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 KING JOIIN. 
 
 203 
 
 the impatience, and the tears, are all most 
 true to feminine nature. The energy of 
 Constance, not being based upon strength of 
 character, rises and falls with the tide of 
 passion. Her haughty spirit swells against 
 resistance, and is excited into frenzy by 
 sorrow and disappointment; while neither 
 from her towering pride nor her strength of 
 intellect can she borrow patience to submit, 
 or fortitude to endure." 
 
 How exquisitely is this feminine nature 
 exhibited when Constance affects to disbelieve 
 the tale of Salisbury that the kings are " gone 
 to swear a peace;" or rather makes her 
 words struggle with her half-belief, in very 
 weakness and desperation ! 
 
 " Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me, 
 For I am sick, and capable of fears ; 
 Oppress'd with wrongs, and therefore full of 
 
 fears; 
 
 A widow, husbandless, subject to fears; 
 A woman, naturally born to fears; 
 And, though thou now confess thou didst but 
 
 jest 
 
 With my vex'd spirits, I cannot take a truce, 
 But they will quake and tremble all this day." 
 
 Here is the timid helpless woman, sick even 
 at the shadows of coming events ; but, when 
 the shadows become realities, the haughty 
 will, 
 
 " Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds," 
 
 asserts its supremacy in little matters which 
 are yet within its control : 
 
 " Sal. Pardon me, madam, 
 
 I may not go without you to the kings. 
 
 Const. Thou mayst, thou shalt, I will not 
 go with thee : 
 
 * * * * here I and sorrows sit; 
 Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it." 
 
 The pride of grief for a while triumphs over 
 the grief itself: 
 
 " Arm, arm, you heavens, against these perjured 
 kings ! " 
 
 She casts away all fear of consequences, and 
 defies her false friends with words that ap- 
 pear as irrepressible as her tears. When 
 Pandulph arrives upon the scene, she sees 
 the change which his mission is to work, only 
 
 through the medium of her own personal 
 wrongs : 
 
 " Good father cardinal, cry thou, amen, 
 To my keen curses : for, without my wrong, 
 There is no tongue hath power to curse him 
 right." 
 
 Reckless of what may follow, she, who 
 formerly exhorted Philip, 
 
 " Stay for an answer to your embassy, 
 Lest unadvised you stain your swords with 
 blood," 
 
 is now ready to encounter all the perilous 
 chances of another war, and to exhort France 
 to fall off from England, even upon her knee 
 "made hard with kneeling." This would 
 appear like the intensity of selfishness, did 
 we not see the passion of the mother in every 
 act and word. It is thus that the very weak- 
 ness of Constance the impotent rage, the 
 deceiving hope become clothed with the 
 dignity that in ordinary cases belongs to 
 patient suffering and reasonable expectations. 
 Soon, however, this conflict of feeling almost 
 as terrible as the " hysterica passio " of Lear 
 is swallowed up in the mother's sense of 
 her final bereavement : 
 
 " 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, 
 Eemembers me of all his gracious parts, 
 Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form ; 
 Then, have I reason to be fond of grief. 
 Fare you well : had you such a loss as I, 
 I could give better comfort than you do, 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Lord ! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son ! 
 My life, my joy, my food, my all the world ! 
 My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure ! " 
 
 Matchless as is the art of the poet in these 
 scenes; matchless as an exhibition of 
 maternal sorrow only, apart from the whirl- 
 wind of conflicting passions that are mixed 
 up with that sorrow ; matchless in this single 
 point of view when compared with the 
 'Hecuba' which antiquity has left us*, 
 and with the ' Merope ' which the imitators 
 of the Greek drama have attempted to revive ; 
 
 * In the ' Troades ' of Euripides. 
 
204 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 are we to believe that Shakspere intended 
 that our hearts should sustain this laceration, 
 and that the effects should pass away when 
 Constance quits the stage 1 Are we to believe 
 that he was satisfied that his "incidents 
 should be various and affecting," but " inde- 
 pendent on each other, and without any 
 tendency to produce and regulate the con- 
 clusion ?" Was there to be no "unity of 
 feeling" to sustain and elevate the action to 
 the end 1 Was his tragedy to be a mere dance 
 of Fantoccini ? No, no. The remembrance of 
 Constance can never be separated from the 
 after-scenes in which Arthur appears ; and, at 
 the very last, when the poison has done its 
 work upon the guilty king, we can scarcely 
 help believing that the spirit of Constance 
 hovers over him, and that the echo of the 
 mother's cries is even more insupportable 
 than the "burn'd bosom" and the "parched 
 lips," which neither his " kingdom's rivers " 
 nor the "bleak winds" of the north can 
 " comfort with cold." 
 
 Up to the concluding scene of the third 
 act we have not learnt from Shakspere to 
 hate John. We may think him an usurper. 
 Our best sympathies may be with Arthur 
 and his mother. But he is bold and con- 
 fident, and some remnant of the indomitable 
 spirit of the Plantagenets gives him a lofty 
 and gallant bearing. We are not even sure, 
 from the first, that he had not something of 
 justice in his quarrel, even though his 
 mother confidentially repudiates " his right." 
 In the scene with Pandulph we completely 
 'go with him. We have yet to know that he 
 would one day crouch at the feet of the 
 power that he now defies ; and he has there- 
 fore all our voices when he tells the wily 
 and sophistical cardinal 
 
 " That no Italian priest 
 Shall tithe or toll in our dominions." 
 
 But the expression of one thought that had 
 long been lurking in the breast of John 
 sweeps away every feeling but that of hatred, 
 and worse than hatred ; and we see nothing, 
 hereafter, in the king, but the creeping, 
 cowardly assassin, prompting the deed which 
 he is afraid almost to name to himself, with 
 the lowest flattery of his instrument, and 
 
 showing us, as it were, the sting which 
 wounds, and the slaver which pollutes, of the 
 venomous and loathsome reptile. The 
 
 " Come hither, Hubert. my gentle Hubert, 
 
 "We owe thee much" 
 the 
 
 " By Heaven, Hubert, I am almost ashamed 
 To say what good respect I have of thee " 
 
 make our flesh creep. The warrior and the 
 king vanish. If Shakspere had not exercised 
 his consummate art in making John move 
 thus stealthily to his purpose of blood if he 
 had made the suggestion of Arthur's death 
 what John afterwards pretended it was 
 " the winking of authority " the " humour" 
 
 "Of dangerous majesty, when, perchance, it 
 frowns," 
 
 we might have seen him hemmed in with 
 revolted subjects and foreign invaders with 
 something like compassion. But this exhibi- 
 tion of low craft and desperate violence we 
 can never forgive. 
 
 At the end of the third act, when Pan- 
 dulph instigates the Dauphin to the invasion 
 of England, the poet overleaps the historical 
 succession of events by many years, and 
 makes the expected death of Arthur the 
 motive of policy for the invasion : 
 
 The hearts 
 
 Of all his people shall revolt from him, 
 And kiss the lips of unacquainted change; 
 And pick strong matter of revolt, and wrath, 
 Out of the bloody fingers' ends of John." 
 
 Here is the link which holds together the 
 dramatic action still entire ; and it wonder- 
 fully binds up all the succeeding events of 
 the play. 
 
 In the fourth act the poet has put forth 
 all his power of the pathetic in the same 
 ultimate direction as in the grief of Con- 
 stance. The theme is not now the affection 
 of a mother driven to frenzy by the circum- 
 stances of treacherous friends and victorious 
 foes ; but it is the irresistible power of the 
 very helplessness of her orphan boy, triumph- 
 ing in its truth and artlessness over the evil 
 nature of the man whom John had selected 
 to destroy his victim, as one 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 KING JOHN. 
 
 205 
 
 " Fit for bloody villainy, 
 Apt, liable, to be employed in danger." 
 
 It would be worse than idle to attempt any 
 lengthened comment on that most beautiful 
 scene between Arthur and Hubert, which 
 carries on the main action of this play. 
 Hazlitt has truly said, " If anything ever was 
 penned, heart-piercing, mixing the extremes 
 of terror and pity, of that which shocks and 
 that which soothes the mind, it is this 
 scene." When Hubert gives up his purpose, 
 we do not the less feel that 
 
 " The bloody fingers' ends of John" 
 have not been washed of their taint : 
 " Your uncle must not know but you are dead," 
 tells us, at once, that no relenting of John's 
 purpose had prompted the compassion of 
 Hubert. Pleased, therefore, are we to see 
 the retribution beginning. The murmurs of 
 the peers at the " once again crown' d," the 
 lectures which Pembroke and Salisbury read 
 to their sovereign, are but the preludes to 
 the demand for " the enfranchisement of 
 Arthur." Then come the dissembling of 
 John, 
 
 " "We cannot hold mortality's strong hand," 
 
 and the bitter sarcasms of Salisbury and 
 Pembroke : 
 
 " Indeed we fear'd his sickness was past cure. 
 Indeed we heard how near his death he was, 
 Before the child himself felt he was sick." 
 
 "This must be answer'd" is as a knell in 
 John's ears. Throughout this scene the king 
 is prostrate before his nobles ; it is the 
 prostration of guilt without the energy 
 which too often accompanies it. Contrast 
 the scene with the unconquerable intellectual 
 activity of Bichard III., who never winces at 
 reproach, seeing only the success of his 
 crimes and not the crimes themselves, as, 
 for example, his answer in the scene where 
 his mother and the widow of Edward up- 
 braid him with his murders, 
 
 " A flourish, trumpets ! strike alarums, drums ! 
 Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women 
 Rail on the Lord's anointed." 
 
 The messenger appears from France : the 
 
 mother of John is dead ; " Constance in a 
 frenzy died ;" the " powers of France " have 
 arrived " under the Dauphin." Superstition 
 is brought in to terrify still more the weak 
 king, who is already terrified with " subject 
 enemies" and "adverse foreigners." The 
 "prophet of Pomfret " and the "five moons" 
 affright him as much as the consequences of 
 "young Arthur's death." He turns upon 
 Hubert in the extremity of his fears, and 
 attempts to put upon his instrument all the 
 guilt of that deed. Never was a more striking 
 display of the equivocations of conscience 
 in a weak and guilty mind. Shakspere is 
 here the true interpreter of the secret excuses 
 of many a criminal, who would shift upon 
 accessories the responsibility of the deviser 
 of a wicked act, and make the attendant 
 circumstances more powerful for evil than 
 the internal suggestions. When the truth 
 is avowed by Hubert, John does not rejoice 
 that he has been spared the perpetration of 
 a crime, but he is prompt enough to avail 
 himself of his altered position : i 
 " haste thee to the peers." 
 
 Again he crawls before Hubert. But the 
 storm rolls on. 
 
 The catastrophe of Arthur's death follows 
 instantly upon the rejoicing of him who 
 exclaimed, "Doth Arthur live ?" in the hope 
 to find a safety in his preservation upon the 
 same selfish principle upon which he had 
 formerly sought a security in his destruction. 
 In a few simple lines we have the sad dra- 
 matic story of Arthur's end : 
 " The wall is high; and yet will I leap down: 
 Good ground, be pitiful, and hurt me not ! 
 There 's few, or none, do know me; if they did, 
 This ship-boy's semblance hath disguised me 
 
 quite. 
 I am afraid; and yet I'll venture it." 
 
 How marvellously does Shakspere subject all 
 his characters and situations to the empire 
 of common sense ! The Arthur of the old 
 play, after receiving his mortal hurt, makes 
 a long oration about his mother. The great 
 dramatist carries on the now prevailing 
 feeling of the audience by one pointed 
 line : 
 " me ! my uncle's spirit is in these stones." 
 
206 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 If any other recollection were wanting, these 
 simple words would make us feel that John 
 was as surely the murderer of Arthur, when 
 the terrors of the boy drove him to an incon- 
 siderate attempt to escape from his prison, 
 as if the assassin, as some have represented, 
 rode with him in the dim twilight by the 
 side of a cliff that overhung the sea, and 
 suddenly hurled the victim from his horse 
 into the engulfing wave ; or as if the king 
 tempted him to descend from his prison at 
 Rouen at the midnight hour, and, instead of 
 giving him freedom, stifled his prayers for 
 pity in the waters of the Seine. It is thus 
 that we know the anger of " the distemper'd 
 lords " is a just anger, when, finding Arthur's 
 body, they kneel before that " ruin of sweet 
 life," and vow to it the " worship of revenge." 
 The short scene between Salisbury, Pem- 
 broke, the Bastard, and Hubert, which im- 
 mediately succeeds, is as spirited and 
 characteristic as anything in the play. 
 Here we see " the invincible knights of 
 old" in their most elevated character 
 fiery, implacable, arrogant, but still drawing 
 their swords in the cause of right, when that 
 cause was intelligible and undoubted. The 
 character of Faulconbridge here rises far 
 above what we might have expected from 
 the animal courage and the exuberant spirits 
 of the Faulconbridge of the former acts. 
 The courage is indeed here beyond all 
 doubt : 
 
 " Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury : 
 If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot, 
 Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame, 
 1 11 strike thee dead." 
 
 But we were scarcely prepared for the rush 
 of tenderness and humanity that accompany 
 the courage, as in the speech to Hubert : 
 
 " If thou didst but consent 
 To this most cruel act, do but despair, 
 And, if thou want'st a cord, the smallest 
 
 thread 
 
 That ever spider twisted from her womb 
 Will serve to strangle thee ; a rush will be 
 A beam to hang thee on ; or, wouldst thou 
 
 drown thyself, 
 
 Put but a little water in a spoon, 
 And it shall be as all the ocean, 
 Enough to stifle such a villain up." 
 
 It is this instinctive justice in Faulconbridge, 
 this readiness to uplift the strong hand in 
 what he thinks a just quarrel, this aban- 
 donment of consequences in the expression 
 of his opinions, that commands our sympa- 
 thies for him whenever he appears upon the 
 scene. The motives upon which he acts are 
 entirely the antagonist motives by which 
 John is moved. We have, indeed, in Shak- 
 spere none of the essay-writing contrasts of 
 smaller authors. We have no asserters of 
 adverse principles made to play at see-saw, 
 with reverence be it spoken, like the Moloch 
 and Belial of Milton. But, after some re- 
 flection upon what we have read, we feel 
 that he who leapt into Coeur-de-lion's throne, 
 and he who hath " a trick of Coeur-de-lion's 
 face," are as opposite as if they were the 
 formal personifications of subtlety and can- 
 dour, cowardice and courage, cruelty and 
 kindliness. The fox and the lion are not 
 more strongly contrasted than John and 
 Faulconbridge ; and the poet did not make 
 the contrast by accident. And yet with what 
 incomparable management are John and the 
 Bastard held together as allies throughout 
 these scenes. In the onset the Bastard 
 receives honour from the hands of John, 
 and he is grateful. In the conclusion he 
 sees his old patron, weak indeed and guilty, 
 but surrounded with enemies, and he will 
 not be faithless. When John quails before 
 the power of a spiritual tyrant, the Bastard 
 stands by him in the place of a higher and a 
 better nature. He knows the dangers that 
 surround his king : 
 " All Kent hath yielded ; nothing there holds 
 
 out 
 
 But Dover castle : London hath received, 
 Like a kind host, the dauphin and his powers : 
 Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone 
 To offer service to your enemy." 
 
 But no dangers can daunt his resolution : 
 
 " Let not the world see fear, and sad distrust, 
 Govern the motion of a kingly eye : 
 Be stirring as the time ; be fire with fire ; 
 Threaten the threat'ner, and outface the brow 
 Of bragging horror : so shall inferior eyes, 
 That borrow their behaviours from the great, 
 Grow great by your example, and put on 
 The dauntless spirit of resolution." 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 
 
 207 
 
 The very necessity for these stirring words 
 would show us that from henceforth John is 
 but a puppet without a will. The blight of 
 Arthur's death is upon him ; and he moves 
 on to his own destiny, whilst FaulconbriJge 
 defies or fights with his enemies ; and his 
 revolted lords, even while they swear 
 
 " A voluntary zeal, and unurged faith," 
 
 to the invader, bewail their revolt, and 
 lament 
 
 " That, for the health and physic of our right, 
 We cannot deal but with the very hand 
 Of stern injustice and confused wrong." 
 
 But the great retribution still moves on- 
 ward. The cause of England is triumphant ; 
 " the lords are all come Lack :" but the 
 king is " poisoned by a monk :" 
 
 "Poison'd, ill fare; dead, forsook, cast off: 
 And none of you will bid the winter come, 
 To thrust his icy fingers in my maw; 
 Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course 
 Through my burn'd bosom; nor entreat the 
 
 north 
 To make his bleak winds kiss my parched 
 
 lips, 
 And comfort me with cold : I do not ask you 
 
 much, 
 
 I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait, 
 jfnd so ingrateful, you deny me that." 
 
 The interval of fourteen years between the 
 death of Arthur and the death of John is 
 
 annihilated. Causes and consequences, 
 separated in the proper history by long 
 digressions and tedious episodes, are brought 
 together. The attributed murder of Arthur 
 lost John all the inheritances of the house 
 of Anjou, and allowed the house of Capet to 
 triumph in his overthrow. Out of this grew 
 a larger ambition, and England was invaded. 
 The death of Arthur and the events which 
 marked the last days of John were separated 
 in their cause and effect by time only, over 
 which the poet leaps. It is said that a man 
 who was on the point of drowning saw, in an 
 instant, all the events of his life in connection 
 with his approaching end. So sees the poet. 
 It is his to bring the beginnings and the 
 ends of events into that real union and de- 
 pendence which even the philosophical 
 historian may overlook in tracing their 
 course. It is the poet's office to preserve a 
 unity of action ; it is the historian's to show 
 a consistency of progress. In the chroniclers 
 we have manifold changes of fortune in the 
 life of John after Arthur of Brittany has 
 fallen. In Shakspere Arthur of Brittany is 
 at once revenged. The heartbroken mother 
 and her boy are not the only sufferers from 
 double courses. The spirit of Constance is 
 appeased by the fall of John. The Niobe of 
 a Gothic age, who vainly sought to shield 
 her child from as stern a destiny as that 
 with which Apollo and Artemis pursued the 
 daughter of Tantalus, may rest in peace. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. 
 
 'A MIDSUMMER-BIGHT'S DREAM' was first 
 printed in 1600. In that year there ap- 
 peared two editions of the play: the one 
 published by Thomas Fisher, a bookseller ; 
 the other by James Roberts, a printer. The 
 differences between these two editions are 
 very slight. Steevens, in his collection of 
 twenty plays, has reprinted that by Roberts, 
 giving the variations of the edition by 
 
 Fisher. It is difficult to say whether both of 
 these were printed with the consent of the 
 author, or whether one was genuine and the 
 other pirated. If the entries at Stationers' 
 Hall may be taken as evidence of a pro- 
 prietary right, the edition by Fisher is the 
 genuine one, ' A booke called A Mydsomer 
 Nyghte Dreame' having been entered by 
 him Oct. 8, 1600. One thing is perfectly 
 
208 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 clear to us that the original of these 
 editions, whichever it might be, was printed 
 from a genuine copy, and carefully super- 
 intended through the press. The text ap- 
 pears to us as perfect as it is possible to be, 
 considering the state of typography in that 
 day. There is one remarkable evidence of 
 this. The prologue to the interlude of the 
 Clowns, in the fifth act, is purposely made 
 inaccurate in its punctuation throughout. 
 The speaker " does not stand upon points." 
 It was impossible to have effected the object 
 better than by the punctuation of Roberta's 
 edition; and this is precisely one of those 
 matters of nicety in which a printer would 
 have failed, unless he had followed an ex- 
 tremely clear copy, or his proofs had been 
 corrected by an author or an editor. The 
 play was not reprinted after 1600, till it was 
 collected into the folio of 1623 ; and the 
 text in that edition differs in few instances, 
 and those very slight ones, from that of the 
 preceding quartos. 
 
 Malone has assigned the composition of 
 ' A Midsummer-Night's Dream' to the year 
 1594. We are not disposed to object to this, 
 indeed we are inclined to believe that he 
 has pretty exactly indicated the precise year, 
 as far as it can be proved by one or two 
 allusions which the play contains. But we 
 entirely object to the reasons upon which 
 Malone attempts to show that it was one of 
 our author's " earliest attempts in comedy." 
 He derives the proof of this from "' the poetry 
 of this piece, glowing with all the warmth of 
 a youthful and lively imagination, the many 
 scenes which it contains of almost continual 
 rhyme, the poverty of the fable, and want of 
 discrimination among the higher personages." 
 j Malone would place ' A Midsummer-Night's 
 Dream' in the same rank as ' The Two Gen- 
 tlemen of Verona,' ' Love's Labour 's Lost,' 
 and 'The Comedy of Errors;' and he sup- 
 poses all of them written within a year or 
 two of each other. We have no objection to 
 believe that our poet wrote ' A Midsummer- 
 Night's Dream' when he was thirty years of 
 age, that is in 1594. But it so far exceeds 
 the three other comedies in all the higher 
 attributes of poetry, . that we cannot avoid 
 repeating here the opinion which we have 
 
 before expressed, that he had written these 
 for the stage before his twenty-fifth year, 
 when he was a considerable shareholder in 
 the Blackfriars company, some of them, per- 
 haps, as early as 1585, at which period the 
 vulgar tradition assigns to Shakspere a 
 husband, a father, and a man conscious of 
 the possession of the very highest order of 
 talent the dignified office of holding horses 
 at the theatre door. The year 1594 is, as 
 nearly as possible, the period where we would 
 place ' A Midsummer-Night's Dream,' with 
 reference to our strong belief that Shakspere's 
 earliest plays must be assigned to the com- 
 mencement of his dramatic career ; and that 
 two or three even of his great works had 
 then been given to the world in an unformed 
 shape, subsequently worked up to complete- 
 ness and perfection. But it appears to us a 
 misapplication of the received meaning of 
 words to talk of " the warmth of a youthful 
 and lively imagination" with reference to 
 ' A Midsummer-Night's Dream,' and the 
 Shakspere of thirty. We can understand 
 these terms to apply to the unpruned luxu- 
 riance of the ' Venus and Adonis ; ' but the 
 poetry of this piece, the almost continual 
 rhyme, and even the poverty of the fable, 
 are to us evidences of the very highest art 
 having obtained a perfect mastery of* its 
 materials after years of patient study. Of 
 all the dramas of Shakspere there is none 
 more entirely harmonious than ' A Mid- 
 summer-Night's Dream.' All the incidents, 
 all the characters, are in perfect subordina- 
 ation to the will of the poet. " Throughout,, 
 the whole piece," says Malone, "the more 
 exalted characters are subservient to the 
 interests of those beneath them." Precisely 
 so. An unpractised author one who had 
 not " a youthful and lively imagination " 
 under perfect control, when he had got 
 hold of the Theseus and Hippolyta of the 
 heroic ages, would have made them ultra- 
 heroical. They would have commanded 
 events, instead of moving with the super- 
 natural influence around them in harmony 
 and proportion. " Theseus, the associate of 
 Hercules, is not engaged in any adventure 
 worthy of his rank or reputation, nor is he 
 in reality an agent throughout the play." 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT 8 DREAM. 
 
 209 
 
 Precisely so. An immature poet, again, if 
 the marvellous creation of Oberon and Ti- 
 tania, and Puck, could have entered into such 
 a mind, would have laboured to make the 
 power of the fairies produce some strange 
 and striking events. But the exquisite 
 beauty of Shakspere's conception is, that, 
 under the supernatural influence, " the 
 human mortals" move precisely according 
 to their respective natures and habits. De- 
 metrius and Lysander are impatient and 
 revengeful ; Helena is dignified and affec- 
 tionate, with a spice of female error ; 
 Hermia is somewhat vain and shrewish. 
 And then Bottom ! Who but the most skilful 
 artist could have given us such a character ? 
 Of him Malone says, "Shakspeare would 
 naturally copy those manners first with 
 which he was first acquainted. The am- 
 bition of a theatrical candidate for applause 
 he has happily ridiculed in Bottom the 
 weaver." A theatrical candidate for ap- 
 plause ! Why, Bottom the weaver is the 
 representative of the whole human race. 
 His confidence in his own power is equally 
 profound, whether he exclaims, "Let me 
 play the lion too;" or whether he sings 
 alone, "that they shall hear I am not 
 afraid ;" or whether, conscious that he is 
 surrounded with spirits, he cries out, with 
 his voice of authority, " Where 's Peas-blos- 
 som?" In every situation Bottom is the 
 same, the same personification of that self- 
 love which the simple cannot conceal, and 
 the wise can with difficulty suppress. Ma- 
 lone thus concludes his analysis of the 
 internal evidence of the chronology of 'A 
 Midsummer-Night's Dream : ' " That a 
 drama, of which the principal personages 
 are thus insignificant, and the fable thus 
 meagre and uninteresting, was one of our 
 author's earliest compositions, does not, there- 
 fore seem a very improbable conjecture ; nor 
 are the beauties with which it is em- 
 bellished inconsistent with this supposition." 
 The beauties with which it is embellished 
 include, of course, the whole rhythmical 
 structure of the versification. The poet has 
 here put forth all his strength. We ven- 
 ture to offer an opinion that, if any single 
 composition were required to exhibit the 
 
 power of the English language for purposes 
 of poetry, that composition would be the 
 ' Midsummer-Night's Dream.' This won- 
 derful model, which, at the time it appeared, 
 must have been the commencement of a 
 great poetical revolution, and which has 
 never ceased to influence our higher poetry, 
 from Fletcher to Shelley, was, according to 
 Malone, the work of "the genius of Shak- 
 speare, even in its minority" 
 
 Mr. Hallam has, as might be expected, 
 taken a much more correct view of this 
 question than Malone. He places ' A Mid- 
 summer-Night's Dream' among the early 
 plays ; but, having mentioned ( The Comedy 
 of Errors,' ' The Two Gentlemen of Verona,' 
 ' Love's Labour 's Lost,' and ' The Taming of 
 the Shrew,' he adds, " Its superiority to those 
 we have already mentioned affords some 
 presumption that it was written after them."* 
 
 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream' is men- 
 tioned by Francis Meres in 1598. The date 
 of the first publication of the play, therefore, 
 in 1600, does not tend to fix its chronology. 
 Nor is it very material to ascertain whether 
 it preceded 1598 by three, or four, or five 
 years. The state of the weather in 1593 
 and 1594, when England was visited with 
 peculiarly ungenial seasons, may have sug- 
 gested Titania'a beautiful description in Act 
 II., Scene 2. The allusion of two lines in 
 Act V. is by no means so clear : 
 
 "The thrice three Muses mourning for the 
 
 death 
 Of learning, late deceased in beggary." 
 
 This passage was once thought to allude 
 to the death of Spenser. But the misfortunes 
 and the death of Spenser did not take place 
 till 1599. Even if the allusion were inserted 
 between the first production of the piece and 
 its publication in 1600, it is difficult to 
 understand how an elegy on the great poet 
 could have been called 
 
 " Some satire, keen and critical." 
 
 T. Warton suggested " that Shakspeare here, 
 perhaps, alluded to Spenser's poem entitled 
 ' The Tears of the Muses, on the Neglect and 
 Contempt of Learning.' This piece first 
 
 * ' Literature of Europe,' vol. ii. p. 387. 
 
210 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 appeared in quarto, with others, 1591." We 
 greatly doubt the propriety of this conjec- 
 ture, which Malone has adopted. Spenser's 
 poem is certainly a satire in one sense of the 
 word ; for it makes the Muses lament that 
 all the glorious productions of men that 
 proceeded from their influence had vanished 
 from the earth. All that 
 
 was wont to work delight 
 
 Through the divine infusion of their skill, 
 And all that else seemed fair and fresh in sight, 
 So made by nature for to serve their will, 
 Was turned now to dismal heaviness, 
 Was turned now to dreadful ugliness." 
 
 Clio complains that mighty peers "only 
 boast of arms and ancestry;" Melpomene, 
 that "all man's life meseems a tragedy;" 
 Thalia is "made the servant of the many;" 
 Euterpe weeps that "now no pastoral is to 
 be heard ;" and so on. These laments do 
 not seem to be identical with the 
 
 " mourning for the death 
 
 Of learning, late deceased in beggary" 
 
 These expressions are too precise and limited 
 to refer to the tears of the Muses for the 
 decay of knowledge and art. We cannot 
 divest ourselves of the belief that some real 
 person, and some real death, were alluded to. 
 May we hazard a conjecture ? Greene, a 
 man of learning, and one whom Shakspere 
 in the generosity of his nature might wish 
 to point at kindly, died in 1592, in a con- 
 dition that might truly be called beggary. 
 But how was his death, any more than that 
 of Spenser, to be the occasion of " some 
 satire, keen and critical 1 " Every student 
 of our literary history will remember the 
 famous controversy of Nash and Gabriel 
 Harvey, which was begun by Harvey's pub- 
 lication, in 1592, of ' Pour Letters, and certain 
 Sonnets, especially touching Robert Greene, 
 and other parties by him abused.' Robert 
 Greene was dead ; but Harvey came forward, 
 in revenge of an incautious attack of the 
 unhappy poet, to satirize him in his grave 
 to hold up his vices and his misfortunes to 
 the public scorn to be " keen and critical" 
 upon " learning, late deceased in beggary." 
 The conjecture which we offer may have 
 
 little weight, and the point is certainly of 
 very small consequence. 
 
 " This is the silliest stuff that e'er I heard," 
 says Hippolyta, wh^.n Wall has " discharged" 
 his part. The auswer of Theseus is full of 
 instruction : " The best in this kind are but 
 shadows ; and the worst are no worse, if 
 imagination amend them." It was in this 
 humble spirit that the great poet judged of 
 his own matchless performances. He felt 
 the utter inadequacy of his art, and indeed 
 of any art, to produce its due effect upon the 
 mind, unless the imagination, to which it 
 addressed itself, was ready to convert the 
 shadows which it presented into living forms 
 of truth and beauty. "I am convinced," 
 Asays Coleridge, '' that Shakspeare availed 
 himself of the title of this play in his own 
 mind, and worked upon it as a dream through- 
 out." The poet says so, in express words : 
 
 " If we shadows have offended, 
 
 Think but this, (and all is mended), 
 That you have but slumber'd here, 
 While these visions did appear. 
 And this weak and idle theme, 
 No more yielding but a dream, 
 Gentles, do not reprehend." 
 
 But to understand this dream to have all 
 its gay, and soft, and harmonious colours 
 impressed upon the vision to hear all the 
 golden cadences of its poesy to feel the 
 perfect congruity of all its parts, and thus 
 to receive it as a truth we must not suppose 
 that it will enter the mind amidst the 
 lethargic slumbers of the imagination. We 
 must receive it 
 
 " As youthful poets dream 
 On summer eves by haunted stream." 
 
 Let no one expect that the beautiful in- 
 fluences of this drama can be truly felt when 
 he is under the subjection of the literal and 
 prosaic parts of our nature : or, if he ha- 
 bitually refuses to believe that there are 
 higher and purer regions of thought than 
 are supplied by the physical realities of the 
 world. In these cases he will have a false 
 standard by which to judge of this, and of 
 all other high poetry such a standard as 
 that possessed by a critic acute, learned, in 
 
CHAP. II.J 
 
 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 
 
 211 
 
 many respects wise Dr. Johnson, who lived 
 in a prosaic age, and fostered in this par- 
 ticular the real ignorance by which he was 
 surrounded. He sums up the merits of ' A 
 Midsummer-Night's Dream,' after this ex- 
 traordinary fashion : " Wild and fantastical 
 as this play is, all the parts in their various 
 modes are well written, and give the kind of 
 pleasure which the author designed. Fairies, 
 in his time, were much in fashion : common 
 tradition had made them familiar, and Spen- 
 ser's poem had made them great." It is 
 perfectly useless to attempt to dissect such 
 criticism : let it be a beacon to warn us, and 
 not a "load-star" to guide us. Old Pepys, 
 with his honest hatred of poetry " To the 
 King's Theatre, where we saw ' Midsummer- 
 Night's Dream,' which I had never seen 
 before, nor shall ever again, for it is the 
 most insipid, ridiculous play that ever I saw 
 in my life" is to us more tolerable. 
 
 Mr. Hal lam accounts ' A Midsummer- 
 Night's Dream' poetical, more than dra- 
 matic ; " yet rather so, because the inde- 
 scribable profusion of imaginative poetry in 
 this play overpowers our senses, till we can 
 hardly observe anything else, than from any 
 deficiency of dramatic excellence. For, in 
 reality, the structure of the fable, consisting 
 as it does of three, if not four actions, very 
 distinct in their subjects and personages, 
 yet wrought into each other without effort 
 or confusion, displays the skill, or rather 
 instinctive felicity, of Shakspeare, as much 
 as in any play he has written." Yet, cer- 
 tainly, with all its harmony of dramatic 
 arrangement, this play is not for the stage 
 at least not for the modern stage. It may 
 reasonably be doubted whether it was ever 
 eminently successful in performance. The 
 tone of the epilogue is decidedly apologetic, 
 and " the best of this kind are but shadows " 
 is in the same spirit. Hazlitt has admirably 
 described its failure as an acting drama in 
 his own day : 
 
 " The ' Midsummer-Night's Dream,' when ' 
 acted, is converted from a delightful fiction j 
 into a dull pantomime. All that is finest in '. 
 the play is lost in the representation. The ', 
 spectacle was grand ; but the spirit was 
 evaporated, the genius was fled. Poetry and 
 
 the stage do not agree well together. The 
 attempt to reconcile them in this instance 
 fails not only of effect, but of decorum. The 
 ideal can have no place upon the stage, 
 which is a picture without perspective : 
 everything there is in the foreground. That 
 which was merely an airy shape, a dream, a 
 passing thought, immediately becomes an 
 unmanageable reality. Where all is left to 
 the imagination (as is the case in reading), 
 every circumstance, near or remote, has an 
 equal chance of being kept in mind, and tells 
 accordingly to the mixed impression of all 
 that has been suggested. But the imagination 
 cannot sufficiently qualify the actual im- 
 pressions of the senses. Any offence given 
 to the eye is not to be got rid of by ex- 
 planation. Thus Bottom's head in the play 
 is a fantastic illusion, produced by magic 
 spells : on the stage it is an ass's head, and 
 nothing more ; certainly a very strange 
 costume for a gentleman to appear in. Fancy 
 cannot be embodied any more than a simile 
 can be painted ; and it is as idle to attempt 
 it as to personate Wall or Moonshine" 
 
 And yet, just and philosophical as are 
 these remarks, they offer no objection to the 
 opinion of Mr. Hallam, that in this play 
 there is no deficiency of dramatic excellence. 
 We can conceive that, with scarcely what 
 can be called a model before him, Shakspere's 
 early dramatic attempts must have been a 
 series of experiments to establish a standard 
 by which he should regulate what he ad- 
 dressed to a mixed audience. The plays of 
 his middle and mature life, with scarcely an 
 exception, are acting plays ; and they are so, 
 not from the absence of the higher poetry, 
 but from the predominance of character and 
 passion in association with it. But even in 
 those plays which call for a considerable 
 exercise of the unassisted imaginative faculty 
 in an audience, such as ' The Tempest,' and 
 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream,' where the 
 passions are not powerfully roused, and the 
 senses are not held enchained by the interests 
 of a plot, he is still essentially dramatic. 
 What has been called of late years the dra- 
 matic poem that something between the 
 epic and the dramatic which is held to form 
 an apology for whatever of episodical or 
 
 p 2 
 
212 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPEEE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 incongruous the author may choose to intro- 
 duce was unattempted by him. ' The 
 Faithful Shepherdess' of Fletcher a poet 
 who in some things knew how to accommo- 
 date himself to the taste of a mixed audience 
 more readily than Shakspere was con- 
 demned on the first night of its appearance. 
 Seward, one of his editors, calls this the 
 scandal of our nation. And yet it is ex- 
 tremely difficult to understand how the 
 event should have been otherwise ; for ' The 
 Faithful Shepherdess' is essentially undra- 
 matic. Its exquisite poetry was therefore 
 thrown away upon an impatient audience 
 its occasional indelicacy could not propitiate 
 them. Milton's ' Comus' is in the same way 
 essentially undramatic ; and none but such 
 a refined audience as that at Ludlow Castle 
 could have endured its representation. But 
 the 'Midsummer-Night's Dream' is composed 
 altogether upon a different principle. It 
 exhibits all that congruity of parts, that 
 natural progression of scenes, that subor- 
 dination of action and character to one 
 leading design, that ultimate harmony 
 evolved out of seeming confusion, which 
 constitute the dramatic spirit. With " audi- 
 ence fit, though few," with a stage not 
 encumbered with decorations, with actors 
 approaching (if it were so possible) to the 
 idea of grace and archness which belong to 
 the fairy troop, the subtle and evanescent 
 beauties of this drama might not be wholly 
 lost in the representation. But under the 
 most favourable circumstances much would 
 be sacrificed. It is in the closet that we 
 must not only suffer our senses to be over- 
 powered by its " indescribable profusion of 
 imaginative poetry," but trace the instinctive 
 felicity of Shakspere in the "structure of 
 the fable." If the * Midsummer-Night's 
 Dream' could be acted, there can be no 
 doubt how well it would act. Our imagina- 
 tion must amend what is wanting. It is no 
 real objection to this belief that it has been 
 acted with surpassing success since these 
 observation's were originally written. It was 
 revived at Covent-Garden Theatre as a pan- 
 tomimic opera, with exquisite scenery, and 
 abundant music, and Oberon and Titania 
 moving in golden chariots amongst silver 
 
 clouds, and fairies floating in ether, held up 
 by very invisible strings. And so the poetry 
 was borne for the sake of the sight-seeing 
 and the songs. But, for a just comprehension 
 of Shakspere's surpassing beauties in this 
 divine poem, we would rather hear the second 
 scene of Act II. read as we have heard it 
 read by a poet, than see the play, accom- 
 panied with every scenic propriety and pomp, 
 to show, after all, that " the best in this kind 
 are but shadows." 
 
 Schlegel has happily remarked upon this 
 drama, that " the most extraordinary com- 
 bination of the most dissimilar ingredients 
 seems to have arisen without effort by some 
 ingenious and lucky accident ; and the 
 colours are of such clear transparency, that 
 we think the whole of the variegated fabric 
 may be blown away with a breath." It is 
 not till after we have attentively studied 
 this wonderful production that we under- 
 stand how solidly the foundations of the 
 fabric are laid. Theseus and Hippolyta 
 move with a stately pace as their nuptial 
 hour draws on. Hermia takes time to pause, 
 before she submits 
 
 " To death, or to a vow of single life," 
 
 secretly resolving " through Athens' gates to 
 steal." Helena, in the selfishness of her own 
 Jove, resolves to betray her friend. Bottom 
 the weaver, and Quince the carpenter, and 
 Snug the joiner, and Flute the bellows- 
 mender, and Snout the tinker, and Starveling 
 the tailor, are " thought fit through all 
 Athens to play in the interlude before the 
 duke and duchess on his wedding-day, at 
 night." Here are, indeed, " dissimilar in- 
 gredients." They appear to have no aptitude 
 for combination. The artists are not yet 
 upon the scene, who are to make a mosaic 
 out of these singular materials. We are only 
 presented in the first act with the extremes 
 of high and low with the slayer of the 
 Centaurs, and the weaver, who "will roar 
 you an 't were any nightingale," with the 
 lofty Amazon, who appears elevated above 
 woman's hopes and fears, and the pretty and 
 satirical Hermia, who swears 
 
 " By all the vows that ever men have broke, 
 In number more than ever women spoke." 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 
 
 213 
 
 " The course of true love" does not all "run 
 smooth" in these opening scenes. We have 
 the love that is crossed, and the love that is 
 unrequited ; and, worse than all, the unhap- 
 piness of Helena makes her treacherous to 
 her friend. We have little doubt that all 
 this will be set straight in the progress of 
 the drama ; but what Quince and his com- 
 pany will have to do with the untying of 
 this knot is a mystery. 
 
 To offer an analysis of this subtle and 
 ethereal drama would, we believe, be as 
 unsatisfactory as the attempts to associate it 
 with the realities of the stage. With scarcely 
 an exception, the proper understanding of 
 the other plays of Shakspere may be assisted 
 by connecting the apparently separate parts 
 of the action, and by developing and recon- 
 ciling what seems obscure and anomalous in 
 the features of the characters. But to follow 
 out the caprices and illusions of the loves of 
 Demetrius and Lysander, of Helena and 
 Hermia ; to reduce to prosaic description 
 the consequence of the jealousies of Oberon 
 and Titania ; to trace the Fairy Queen 
 under the most fantastic of deceptions, 
 where grace and vulgarity blend together 
 like the Cupids and Chimeras of Raffaelle's 
 Arabesques ; and, finally, to go along with 
 the scene till the illusions disappear till 
 the lovers are happy, and " sweet bully 
 Bottom" is reduced to an ass of human 
 dimensions ; such an attempt as this would 
 be worse even than unreverential criticism. 
 No, the ' Midsummer-Night's Dream ' must 
 be left to its own influences. 
 
 " It is probable," says Steevens, " that the 
 hint of this play was received from Chaucer's 
 ' Knight's Tale.' " We agree with this 
 
 opinion. Malone has, with great hardihood, 
 asserted that the part of the fable which 
 relates to the quarrels of Oberon and Titania 
 was "not of our author's invention." He 
 has nothing to show in support of this, but 
 the opinion of Tyrwhitt, that Pluto and 
 Proserpina, in Chaucer's ' Merchant's Tale,' 
 were the true progenitors of Oberon and 
 Titania ; that Robert Greene boasts of having 
 performed the King of the Fairies, and that 
 Greene has introduced Oberon in his play of 
 'James IV.' Malone's assertion, and the 
 mode altogether in which he speaks of this 
 drama, furnish a decisive proof of his incom- 
 petence to judge of the higher poetry of 
 Shakspere. Because the names of Oberon 
 and Titania existed before Shakspere, he did 
 not invent his Oberon and Titania ! The 
 opinion of Mr. Hallam may correct some of 
 the errors which the commentators have 
 laboured to propagate. " The t Midsummer- 
 Night's Dream' is, I believe, altogether 
 original in one of the most beautiful con- 
 ceptions that ever visited the mind of a 
 poet, the fairy machinery. A few before him 
 had dealt in a vulgar and clumsy manner 
 with popular superstitions ; but the sportive, 
 beneficent, invisible population of the air 
 and earth, long since established in the creed 
 of childhood, and of those simple as children, 
 had never for a moment been blended with 
 'human mortals' among the personages of 
 the drama. Lyly's ' Maid's Metamorphosis ' 
 is probably later than this play of Shak- 
 speare, and was not published till 1600. It 
 is unnecessary to observe that the fairies of 
 Spenser, as he has dealt with them, are 
 wholly of a different race."* 
 
 * Literature of Europe,' vol. ii. p. 388. 
 
214 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 ROMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 ' ROMEO AND JULIET ' was first printed in the 
 year 1597, under the following title : ' An 
 excellent conceited Tragedie of Romeo and 
 Juliet. As it hath heen often (with great 
 applause) plaid publiquely, by the right 
 honourable the L. of Hunsdon his Seruants.' 
 The second edition was printed in 1599, 
 under the following title : ' The most ex- 
 cellent and lamentable Tragedie, of Romeo 
 and Juliet. Newly corrected, augmented, 
 and amended : As it hath bene sundry times 
 publiquely acted, by the right Honourable 
 the Lord Chamberlaine his Seruants.' 
 
 The subsequent original editions, and the 
 folio of 1623, are founded upon the quarto 
 of 1599, from which they difier very slightly. 
 
 The quarto of 1599 was declared to be 
 "newly corrected, augmented, and amended." 
 There can be no doubt whatever that the 
 corrections, augmentations, and emendations 
 were those of the author. There are typo- 
 graphical errors in this edition, and in all 
 the editions, and occasional confusions of the 
 metrical arrangement, which render it more 
 than probable that Shakspere did not see 
 the proofs of his printed works. But that 
 the copy, both of the first edition and of 
 the second, was derived from him, is, to 
 our minds, perfectly certain. We know of 
 nothing in literary history more curious or 
 more instructive than the example of mi- 
 nute attention, as well as consummate skill, 
 exhibited by Shakspere in correcting, aug- 
 menting, and amending the first copy of 
 this play. We would ask, then, upon what 
 canon of criticism can an editor be justified 
 in foisting into a copy, so corrected, passages 
 of the original copy, which the matured judg- 
 ment of the author had rejected ? Essentially 
 the question ought not to be determined by 
 any arbitrement whatever other than the 
 judgment of the author. Even if his cor- 
 rections did not appear, in every case, to 
 be improvements, we should be still bound 
 to receive them with respect and deference. 
 
 We would not, indeed, attempt to establish 
 it as a rule implicitly to be followed, that 
 an author's last corrections are to be inva- 
 riably adopted ; for, as in the case of Cowper's 
 ' Homer,' and Tasso's ' Jerusalem,' the cor- 
 rections which these poets made in their first 
 productions, when their faculties were in a 
 great degree clouded and worn out, are pro- 
 perly considered as not entitled to supersede 
 what they produced in brighter and happier 
 hours. Mr. Southey has admirably stated 
 the reason for this in the advertisement to 
 his edition of Cowper's ' Homer.' But, in the 
 case of Shakspere's ' Romeo and Juliet,' the 
 corrections and augmentations were made 
 by him at that epoch of his life when he 
 exhibited " all the graces and facilities of 
 a genius in full possession and habitual 
 exercise of power."* The augmentations, 
 with one or two very trifling exceptions, 
 are amongst the most masterly passages in 
 the whole play, and include many of the 
 lines that are invariably turned to, as some 
 of the highest examples of poetical beauty. 
 These augmentations, further, are so large in 
 their amount, that, in Steevens's reprint, the 
 first edition occupies only seventy-three pages; 
 while the edition of 1609, in the same volume, 
 printed in the same type as the first edition, 
 occupies ninety-nine pages. The corrections 
 are made with such exceeding judgment, 
 such marvellous tact, that of themselves 
 they completely overthrow the theory, so 
 long submitted to, that Shakspere was a 
 careless writer. Such being the case, we 
 consider ourselves justified in treating the 
 labour of Steevens and other editors, in 
 making a patchwork text out of the author's 
 first and second copies, as utterly worthless. 
 We most readily acknowledge our own par- 
 ticular obligations to them ; for, unless they 
 had collected a great mass of materials, no 
 modern edition could have been properly un- 
 dertaken. But we, nevertheless, cannot conceal 
 
 * Coleridge's 'Literary Remains.' 
 
EOMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 215 
 
 our opinion, that as editors they were rash, 
 and as critics they were cold and unimagi- 
 native; and we hold it to be the highest 
 duty to attempt to undo what they have 
 clone, when they approach their author, as 
 ! in their manufacture of a text for ' Romeo 
 ! and Juliet,' " without reverence." We be- 
 lieve, as they did not, "that his own judg- 
 ment is entitled to more respect than that 
 of any or all his critics;"* and we shall 
 attempt to vindicate that judgment on every 
 ccasion, upon the great principle laid down 
 !>y Bentley : " The point is not what he 
 
 ' t have done, but what he has done." 
 In attempting to settle the Chronology 
 if Shakspere's plays, there are, as in every 
 other case of literary history, two species 
 i of evidence to be regarded the extrinsic 
 and the intrinsic. Of the former species of 
 evidence we have the one important fact 
 that a ' Borneo and Juliet,' by Shakspcre, 
 however wanting in the completeness of the 
 ' Romeo and Juliet ' which we now possess, 
 was published in 1597. The enumeration of 
 this play, therefore, in the list by Francis 
 Meres, in 1598, adds nothing to our previous 
 information. In the same manner, the men- 
 tion of this play by Marston, in his tenth 
 satire, first published in 1599, only shows us 
 how popular it was : 
 
 " Luscus, what 's play'd to-day 1 i' faith, now I 
 
 know ; 
 
 I see thy lips abroach, from whence doth flow 
 Nought but pure Juliet and Borneo." 
 
 Of the positive intrinsic evidence of the 
 date of ' Romeo and Juliet,' the play, as it 
 appears to us, only furnishes one passage. 
 The Nurse, describing the time when Juliet 
 was weaned, says, 
 
 " On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen; 
 That shall she, marry ; I remember it well. 
 
 'T is since the earthquake now eleven years ; 
 ***** 
 
 Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall, 
 
 *#*** 
 
 Shake, quoth the dove-house : 't was no need, 
 
 I trow, 
 
 To bid me trudge. 
 And since that time it is eleven years." 
 
 * Sou they (speaking of Cowperj. 
 
 All this particularity with reference to the 
 earthquake 
 
 " I never shall forget it, 
 Of all the days of the year " 
 
 was for the audience. The poet had to ex- 
 hibit the minuteness with which unlettered 
 people, and old people in particular, establish 
 a date, by reference to some circumstance 
 which has made a particular impression upon 
 their imagination ; but in this case he chose 
 a circumstance which would be familiar to 
 his audience, and would have produced a 
 corresponding impression upon themselves. 
 Tyrwhitt was the first to point out that this 
 passage had, in all probability, a reference 
 to the great earthquake which happened in 
 England in 1580. Stow has described this 
 earthquake minutely in his Chronicle, and so 
 has Holinshed. " On the 6th of April, 1580, 
 being Wednesday in Easter week, about six 
 o'clock toward evening, a sudden earthquake 
 happened in London, and almost generally 
 throughout all England, caused such an 
 amazedness among the people as was won- 
 derful for the time, and caused them to make 
 their earnest prayers to Almighty God ! " 
 The circumstances attendant upon this earth- 
 quake show that the remembrance of it would 
 not have easily passed away from the minds 
 of the people. The great clock in the palace 
 at Westminster, and divers other clocks and 
 bells, struck of themselves against the ham- 
 mers with the shaking of the earth. The 
 lawyers supping in the Temple " ran from 
 the tables, and out of their halls, with their 
 knives in their hands." The people as- 
 sembled at the theatres rushed forth into 
 the fields, lest the galleries should fall. 
 The roof of Christ Church, near to Newgate 
 Market, was so shaken, that a large stone 
 dropped out of it, killing one person, and 
 mortally wounding another, it being sermon- 
 time. Chimneys toppled down, houses were 
 shattered. Shakspere, therefore, could not 
 have mentioned an earthquake with the mi- 
 nuteness of the passage in the Nurse's speech 
 without immediately- calling up some asso- 
 ciations in the minds of his audience. He 
 knew the double world in which an excited 
 audience lives, the half belief in the world 
 
216 
 
 STUDIES OP 8HAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 of poetry amongst which they are placed 
 during a theatrical representation, and the 
 half consciousness of the external world of 
 their ordinary life. The ready disposition 
 of every audience to make a transition from 
 the scene before them to the scene in which 
 they ordinarily move, to assimilate what is 
 shadowy and distant with what is distinct 
 and at hand, is perfectly well known to all 
 who are acquainted with the machinery of 
 the drama. Actors seize upon the principle 
 to perpetrate the grossest violations of good 
 taste ; and authors who write for present 
 applause invariably do the same when they 
 offer us, in their dialogue, a passing allu- 
 sion, which is technically called a clap-trap. 
 In the case before us, even if Shakspere had 
 not this principle in view, the association 
 of the English earthquake must have been 
 strongly in his mind when he made the 
 Nurse date from an earthquake. Without 
 reference to the circumstance of Juliet's 
 age, 
 
 " Even or odd, of all days in the year, 
 Come Lammas-eve at night, shall she be four- 
 teen," 
 
 he would naturally, dating from the earth- 
 quake, have made the date refer to the 
 period of his writing the passage instead 
 of the period of Juliet's being weaned : 
 " Then she could stand alone." But, ac- 
 cording to the Nurse's chronology, Juliet 
 had not arrived at that epoch in the lives 
 of children till she was three years old. 
 The very contradiction shows that Shak- 
 spere had another object in view than that 
 of making the Nurse's chronology tally with 
 the age of her nursling. Had he written, 
 
 " 'T is since the earthquake now just thirteen 
 years," 
 
 we should not have been so ready to believe 
 that 'Romeo and Juliet' was written in 1593; 
 but as he has written, 
 
 " 'T is since the earthquake now eleven years," 
 
 in defiance of a very obvious calculation on 
 the part of the Nurse, we have little doubt 
 that he wrote the passage eleven years after 
 the earthquake of 1580, and that, the passage 
 being also meant to fix the attention of an 
 
 audience, the play was produced, as well as 
 written, in 1591. 
 
 Reasoning such as this would, we acknow- 
 ledge, be very weak if it were unsupported 
 by evidence deduced from the general cha- 
 racter of the performance, with reference 
 to the maturity of the author's powers. 
 But, taken in connection with that evidence, 
 it becomes important. Now, we have no 
 hesitation in believing, although it would 
 be exceedingly difficult to communicate the 
 grounds of our belief fully to our readers, 
 that the alterations made by Shakspere upon 
 his first copy of ' Romeo and Juliet,' as 
 printed in 1597 (which alterations are shown 
 in the second copy as printed in 1599), ex- 
 hibit differences as to the quality of his mind 
 differences in judgment differences in the 
 cast of thought differences in poetical power 
 which cannot be accounted for by the 
 growth of his mind during two years only. 
 If the first ' Romeo and Juliet ' were pro- 
 duced in 1591, and the second in 1599, we 
 have an interval of eight years, in which 
 some of his most finished works had been 
 given to the world. During this period his 
 richness, as well as his sweetness, had been 
 developed ; and it is this development which 
 is so remarkable in the superadded passages 
 in ' Romeo and Juliet.' We almost fancy 
 that the " Queen Mab " speech will of itself 
 furnish an example of what we mean. 
 
 " Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut, 
 Made- by the joiner squirrel, or old grub, 
 Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers." 
 
 These lines are not in the first copy; but 
 how beautifully they fit in after the descrip- 
 tion of the spokes the cover the traces 
 the collars the whip and the waggoner ; 
 while, in their ' peculiarly rich and pic- 
 turesque effect, they stand out before all 
 the rest of the passage ! Then, the " I have 
 seen the day * * * * 't is gone, 't is gone, 
 't is gone," of old Capulet seems to speak 
 more of the middle-aged than of the youth- 
 ful poet, of whom all the passages by which 
 it is surrounded are characteristic. Again, 
 the lines in the. friar's soliloquy, beginning 
 
 " The earth, that 's Nature's mother, is her 
 
 tomb," 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 ROMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 217 
 
 look like the work of one who had been 
 reading and thinking more deeply of na- 
 ture's mysteries than in his first delineation 
 of the benevolent philosophy of this good 
 old man. But, as we advance in the play, 
 the development of the writer's powers is 
 more and more displayed in his additions. 
 The critical reader may trace what has been 
 added by the foot-notes in the ' Pictorial ' 
 and ' Library ' editions. 
 
 Tieck, who, as a translator of Shakspere, 
 and as a profound and beautiful critic, has 
 done very much for cultivating the know- 
 ledge, built upon love, which the Germans 
 possess of our poet, has not been trammelled 
 by Malone and Chalmers, but has placed 
 'Romeo and Juliet' amongst Shakspere's 
 early plays. We have no exact statements 
 on this subject by Tieck ; but, in a very 
 delightful imaginary scene between Marlowe 
 and Greene, he has made Marlowe describe 
 to his brother dramatist the first performance 
 of * Romeo and Juliet ' of which he had been 
 witness*. Tieck has made this imaginary 
 conversation a vehicle for the most enthu- 
 siastic praise of this play. Marlowe de- 
 scribes the performance as taking place at 
 the palace of the Lord Hunsdon. He had 
 expected, he says, that one of his own plays 
 would have been performed ; but he found 
 that it was " that old poem, which we have 
 all long known, worked up into a tragedy." 
 After Marlowe has run through the general 
 characteristics of the play, with an eloquent 
 admiration, mingled with deep regret that 
 he himself had been able to approach so 
 distantly the excellence of that " out-sound- 
 ing mouth, which a godlike muse has herself 
 inspired with the sweetest of her kisses," he 
 thus replies to Greene's inquiry as to who 
 was the poet : " Wilt thou believe ? one 
 of Henslowe's common comedians, who has 
 already served him many years on very low 
 wages." " And now, if thy fever has passed," 
 said Greene, "let us look on this thing in 
 the broad light. This is merely such a 
 passing apparition as we have seen many of 
 before admired, gaped at, praised without 
 limit but full of faults and imperfections, 
 and soon to be altogether forgotten." " The 
 
 * ' Dichterleben/ von Tieck: Berlin, lf!28, p. 12, &c. 
 
 same thing," said Marlowe, " the same words 
 were whispered to me by my base envy 
 when I observed the universal delight, the 
 deep emotion, of every spectator. I en- 
 deavoured to comfort myself therewith, and 
 again to recover my lost honours in this 
 miserable manner. I fled from the company ; 
 and the house-steward, who had acted as an 
 assistant, gave me the manuscript of the 
 play. In my lonely chamber I sat and read 
 the whole night, and read again, and each 
 time admired the more ; for much that had 
 appeared to me episodical or superfluous 
 acquired, on more exact examination, a sig- 
 nificancy and needful fulness. The good 
 house-steward gave me also another poem, 
 which the author has not yet quite com- 
 pleted, ' Venus and Adonis,' that I might 
 read it in my nightly leisure. My friend, 
 even here, even in this sweet narrative, 
 even in this soft speech and voluptuous 
 imagery, in this intoxicating realm, where 
 I, till now, only looked upon likenesses of 
 myself, I am completely, completely beaten. 
 this man, this more than mortal ! to him 
 (I feel as if my life depends on it) I must 
 become the most intimate friend or the most 
 bitter enemy. Either I will yet find my 
 way to him, or I will succumb to this Apollo, 
 and he may then speak over my outstretched 
 corpse the last words of praise or blame." 
 Tieck has thus decidedly placed the date of 
 the performance of ' Romeo and Juliet ' be- 
 fore 1592, for Greene died in that year, and 
 Marlowe in the year following. The ' Venus 
 and Adonis,' which is here mentioned as not 
 quite completed, was published in 1593. 
 Tieck built his opinion, no doubt, upon in- 
 ternal evidence ; and upon this evidence we 
 must be content to let the question rest. 
 
 WHEN Dante reproaches the Emperor Albert 
 for neglect of Italy, 
 
 " Thy sire and thou have suffer'd thus, 
 Through greediness of yonder realms detain'd, 
 The garden of the empire to run waste/' 
 
 he adds, 
 
 ' Come, see the Capulets and Montagues, 
 The Filippeschi and Monaldi, man 
 
218 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEKE. 
 
 [liOOK. V. 
 
 Who car'sfc for nought ! those sunk in grief, 
 
 and these 
 With dire suspicion rack'd."* 
 
 The Capulets and Montagues were amongst 
 the fierce spirits who, according to the poet, 
 had rendered Italy " savage and unmanage- 
 able." The Emperor Albert was murdered 
 in 1308 : and the Veronese, who believe the 
 story of f Romeo and Juliet ' to be his- 
 torically true, fix the date of this tragedy as 
 1303. At that period the Scalas, or Scaligers, 
 ruled over Verona. 
 
 If the records of history tell us little of 
 the fair Capulet and her loved Montague, 
 whom Shakspere has made immortal, the 
 novelists have seized upon the subject, as 
 might be expected from its interest and its 
 obscurity. Massuccio, a Neapolitan, who 
 lived about 1470, was, it is supposed, the 
 writer who first gave a somewhat similar 
 story the clothing of a connected fiction. 
 He places the scene at Sienna, and, of course, 
 there is no mention of the Montagues and 
 Capulets. The story, too, of Massuccio varies 
 in its catastrophe ; the bride recovering 
 from her lethargy, produced by the same 
 means as in the case of Juliet, and the hus- 
 band being executed for a murder which 
 had caused him to flee from his country. 
 Mr. Douce has endeavoured to trace back 
 the groundwork of the tale to a Greek 
 romance by Xenophon Ephesius. Luigi da 
 Porto, of Vicenza, gave a connected form to 
 the legend of Romeo and Juliet, in a novel, 
 under the title of ' La Giulietta,' which was 
 published after his death in 1535. Luigi, in 
 an epistle which is prefixed to this work, 
 states that the story was told him by " an 
 archer of mine, whose name was Peregrino, 
 a man about fifty years old, well practised 
 ! in the military art, a pleasant companion, 
 I and, like almost all his countrymen of 
 Verona, a great talker." Bandello, in 1554, 
 published a novel on the same subject, the 
 ninth of his second collection. It begins, 
 " When the Scaligers were lords of Verona," 
 and goes on to say that these events hap- 
 pened " under Bartholomew Scaliger" (Bar- 
 tolomeo della Scala). The various materials 
 
 * Purgatory,' Canto 6: Cary's Translation. 
 
 to be found in these sources were embodied 
 in a French novel by Pierre Boisteau, a 
 translation of which was published by 
 Painter in his ' Palace of Pleasure,' in 1567 ; 
 and upon this French story was founded the 
 English poem by Arthur Brooke, published 
 in 1562, under the title of ' The tragicall 
 Historye of Romeus and Julie.t, written first 
 in Italian by Bandell, and nowe in Englishe 
 by AT. Br.' It appears highly probable that 
 an English play upon the same subject had 
 appeared previous to Brooke's poem ; for a 
 copy of that poem, which was in the pos- 
 session of the Rev. H. White, of Lichfield, 
 contains the following passage, in an address 
 to the reader: "Though I saw the same 
 argument lately set forth on the stage with 
 more commendation than I can look for, 
 being there much better set forth than I 
 have or can do, yet the same matter, penned 
 as it is, may serve to like good effect, 
 if the readers do bring with them like 
 good minds to consider it, which hath the 
 more encouraged me to publish it, such as 
 it is." We thus see that Shakspere had 
 materials enough to work upon. But, in 
 addition to these sources, there is a play by 
 Lope de Vega in which the incidents are 
 very similar ; and an Italian tragedy also 
 by Luigi Groto, which Mr. Walker, in his 
 historical memoir of Italian tragedy, thinks 
 that the English bard read with profit. Mr. 
 Walker gives us passages in support of his 
 assertion, such as a description of a nightin- 
 gale when the lovers are parting, which 
 appear to confirm this opinion. 
 
 To attempt to show, as many have at- 
 tempted, what Shakspere took from the 
 poem of ' Romeus and Juliet,' and what from 
 Painter's ' Palace of Pleasure' how he was 
 " wretchedly misled in his catastrophe," as 
 Mr. Dunlop has it, because he had not read 
 Luigi da Porto and how he invented only 
 one incident throughout the play, that of 
 the death of Paris, and created only one 
 character, that of Mercutio, according to the 
 sagacious Mrs. Lenox appears to us some- 
 what idle work. 
 
 The slight foundation of historical truth 
 which can be established in the legend of 
 'Romeo and Juliet' that of the "civil 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 KOMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 219 
 
 broils" of the two rival houses of Verona 
 would place the period of the action about 
 the time of Dante. But this one circum- 
 stance ought not, as it appears to us, very 
 I strictly to limit this period. The legend is 
 so obscure, that we may be justified in car- 
 rying its date forward or backward, to the 
 extent even of a century, if anything may 
 be gained by such a freedom. In this case, 
 we may venture to associate the story with 
 the period which followed the times of 
 Petrarch and Boccaccio verging towards 
 the close of the fourteenth century a period 
 full of rich associations. Then, the literary 
 treasures of the ancient world had been 
 rescued out of the dust and darkness of ages, 
 the language of Italy had been formed, in 
 great part, by the marvellous 'Visions' of 
 her greatest poet ; painting had been revived 
 by Giotto and Cimabue ; architecture had 
 put on a character of beauty and majesty, 
 and the first necessities of shelter and de- 
 fence had been associated with the higher 
 demands of comfort and taste ; sculpture 
 had displayed itself in many beautiful produc- 
 tions, both in marble and bronze ; and music 
 had been cultivated as a science. All these 
 were the growth of the freedom which pre- 
 vailed in the Italian republics, and of the 
 wealth which had been acquired by com- 
 mercial enterprise, under the impulses of 
 freedom. To date the period of the action 
 of ' Romeo and Juliet ' before this revival of 
 learning and the arts, would be to make its 
 accessories out of harmony with the ex- 
 ceeding beauty of Shakspere's drama. Even 
 if a slight portion of historical accuracy be 
 sacrificed, his poetry must be surrounded 
 with an appropriate atmosphere of grace 
 and richness. 
 
 " Of the truth of Juliet's story, they (the 
 Veronese) seem tenacious to a degree, in- 
 sisting on the fact, giving a date (1303), and 
 showing a tomb. It is a plain, open, and 
 partly decayed sarcophagus, with withered 
 leaves in it, in a wild and desolate con- 
 ventual garden, once a cemetery, now ruined 
 to the very graves. The situation struck 
 me as very appropriate to the legend, being 
 blighted as their love." Byron thus de- 
 scribed the tomb of Juliet to his friend 
 
 Moore, as he saw it at the close of autumn, 
 when withered leaves had dropped into the 
 decayed sarcophagus, and the vines that 
 are trailed above it had been stripped of 
 their fruit. His letter to Moore, in which 
 this passage occurs, is dated the 7th Novem- 
 ber*. But this wild and desolate garden 
 only struck Byron as appropriate to the 
 legend to that simple tale of fierce hatreds 
 and fatal loves which tradition has still pre- 
 served, amongst those who may never have 
 read Luigi da Porto or Bandello, and who, 
 perhaps, never heard the name of Shakspere. 
 To the legend only is the blighted place 
 appropriate. For who that has ever been 
 thoroughly imbued with the story of Juliet, 
 as told by Shakspere, who that has heard 
 his "glorious song of praise on that in- 
 expressible feeling which ennobles the soul 
 and gives to it its highest sublimity, and 
 which elevates even the senses themselves 
 into soul,""f who that, in our great poet's 
 matchless delineation of Juliet's love, has 
 perceived " whatever is most intoxicating in 
 the odour of a southern spring, languishing 
 in the song of the nightingale, or voluptuous 
 on the first opening of the rose,"J who, 
 indeed, that looks upon the tomb of the 
 Juliet of Shakspere, can see only a shapeless 
 ruin amidst wildness and desolation ? 
 
 " A grave 1 Oh, no ; a lantern, . . . 
 For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes 
 This vault a feasting presence full of light." 
 
 Wordsworth has a philosophical remark 
 upon Shakspere which is applicable to all 
 his tragedies : " Shakspere's writings, in 
 the most pathetic scenes, never act upon us 
 as pathetic beyond the bounds of pleasure." 
 Wordsworth adds, that this effect, "in a 
 much greater degree than might at first be 
 imagined, is to be ascribed to small, but 
 continual and regular, impulses of plea- 
 surable surprise from the metrical arrange- 
 ment.'^ In Romeo and Juliet the principle 
 of limiting the pathetic according to the 
 degree in which it is calculated to produce 
 
 * Moore's ' Life of Byron,' 8vo. : 1838, p. 327. 
 
 t A. W. Schlegei's Lectures,' Black's translation, vol. ii., 
 p. 187. 
 
 t Ibid. 
 
 Observations prefixed to the second edition of Lyrical 
 Ballads.' 
 
220 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 emotions of pleasure is interwoven with 
 the whole structure and conduct of the 
 play. The tragical part of the story, from 
 the first scene to the last, is held in subjec- 
 tion to the beautiful. It is not only that 
 the beautiful comes to the relief of the 
 tragic, as in ' Lear ' and ' Othello,' but here 
 the tragic is only a mode of exhibiting the 
 beautiful under its most striking aspects. 
 Shakspere never intended that the story of 
 'Romeo and Juliet' should lacerate the 
 heart. "When Mrs. Inchbald, therefore, said, 
 in her preface to the acted play, " ' Romeo 
 and Juliet' is called a pathetic tragedy, but 
 it is not so in reality it charms the under- 
 standing and delights the imagination, with- 
 out melting, though it touches, the heart," 
 she paid the highest compliment to Shak- 
 spere's skill as an artist, for he had thoroughly 
 worked out his own idea. " Otway," Mrs. 
 Inchbald adds, " would have rendered it 
 more effective." Otway did render it " more 
 effective." It is quite sufficient to refer to 
 his ' Caius Marius,' to show his success in 
 converting beauty into what is called force. 
 He did exactly what Garrick's less skilful 
 hand ventured to do to make Juliet wake 
 before Romeo dies. It is marvellous how 
 acute and ingenious men, such as Thomas 
 Warton, for example, should be betrayed 
 into criticism which deals with such a poem 
 as * Romeo and Juliet' as if there were no 
 unity of feeling, no homogeneousness, in its 
 entire construction. Warton says, " Shak- 
 spere, misled by the English poem, missed 
 the opportunity of introducing a most affect- 
 ing scene by the natural and obvious con- 
 clusion of the story. In Luigi's novel, Juliet 
 awakes from her trance in the tomb before 
 the death of Romeo."* Shakspere misled ! 
 Shakspere missing the opportunity! Shak- 
 spere working in the dark ! Let us see what 
 has been done by those who were not " mis- 
 led," and who seized upon "the oppor- 
 tunity." Garrick has written sixty lines of 
 good, orthodox, commonplace dialogue be- 
 tween Romeo and Juliet in the tomb, in 
 which Romeo, before he begins to rave, talks 
 very much in the style of one of Shenstone's 
 shepherds, as, for example, 
 
 * ' History of English Poetry,' vol. iv. p. 301 (1824). 
 
 " And all my mind was happiness and thee." 
 
 Garrick, moreover, has omitted all such 
 Shaksperean images as would be offensive 
 to superfine ears, such as 
 
 " Here, here will I remain 
 With worms that are thy chambermaids." 
 
 And yet, with all his efforts to destroy the 
 beautiful, and all his managerial skill to 
 thrust forward that species of pathetic 
 which the actor delights in, for the pur- 
 pose of exhibiting himself and bringing 
 down the galleries, ' Romeo and Juliet,' ac- 
 cording to Mrs. Inchbald, " seldom attracts 
 an elegant audience. The company that 
 frequent the side-boxes will not come to a 
 tragedy, unless to weep in torrents ; and 
 'Romeo and Juliet' will not draw even a 
 copious shower of tears." Why, no ! The 
 vulgar pathos that Garrick has daubed over 
 Shakspere's catastrophe, with the same skill 
 with which a picture-dealer would mend a 
 Correggio, only serves to make the beauty, 
 that he has been constrained to leave un- 
 touched, more unintelligible to "the com- 
 pany that frequent the side-boxes." The 
 whole thing has become out of keeping. 
 Instead of the sweetness that "ends with 
 a long deep sigh, like the breeze of the 
 evening," t we have a rant about "cruel, 
 cursed fate," which shrieks like the gusty 
 wind in the chinks of a deserted and poverty- 
 stricken hut. Instead of that beautiful close 
 in which " the spring and the winter meet, 
 winter assumes the character of spring, and 
 spring the sadness of winter,"!}! we have 
 here a fierce storm, "such sheets of fire, 
 such bursts of horrid thunder," which pro- 
 duces the effect of mere physical terror. 
 Instead of " the flower that is softly shed 
 on the earth, yet putting forth undying 
 odours," we have the rank and loathsome 
 weeds of the charnel-house. It is some 
 praise to our age that any new attempts to 
 "improve" Shakspere would not be tolerated. 
 It is a higher praise that the endeavour to 
 revive upon the stage what the greatest 
 master of the dramatic art really wrote has, 
 
 f Coleridge; ' Drake's Memorials.' 
 | Coleridge's ' Literary Remains.' 
 ' Retrospective Review.' 
 
III.] 
 
 110MEO ANb JULIET. 
 
 221 
 
 in some few instances, received adequate en- 
 couragement. But we have yet a great deal 
 to learn, and a great deal to unlearn, before 
 the principle upon which ' Romeo and Juliet' 
 was written would be thoroughly appreciated 
 by an audience. With the millions that read 
 Shakspere throughout the civilized world 
 there is no difficulty. 
 
 Coleridge has described the homogeneous- 
 ness the totality of interest which is the 
 great characteristic of this play, by one of 
 those beautiful analogies which could only 
 proceed from the pen of a true poet : 
 
 " Whence arises the harmony that strikes 
 us in the wildest natural landscapes, in the 
 relative shapes of rocks, the harmony of 
 colours in the heaths, ferns, and lichens, the 
 leaves of the beech and the oak, the stems 
 and rich brown branches of the birch and 
 other mountain trees, varying from verging 
 autumn to returning spring, compared with 
 the visual effect from the greater number of 
 artificial plantations? From this, that the 
 natural landscape is effected, as it were, by 
 a single energy modified ab intra in each 
 component part. And, as this is the par- 
 ticular excellence of the Shaksperean drama 
 generally, so is it especially characteristic of 
 the ' Romeo and Juliet.' " * 
 
 Schlegel carried out the proofs of this as- 
 sertion in an 'Essay on Romeo and Juliet ;'t 
 in which, to use his own words, he " went 
 through the whole of the scenes in their 
 order, and demonstrated the inward neces- 
 sity of each with reference to the whole ; 
 showed why such a particular circle of cha- 
 racters and relations was placed around the 
 two lovers ; explained the signification of the 
 mirth here and there scattered ; and justified 
 the use of the occasional heightening given 
 to the poetical colours."! Schlegel wisely 
 did this to exhibit what is more remarkable 
 in Shakspere than in any other poet, "the 
 thorough formation of a work, even in its 
 minutest part, according to "a leading idea 
 the dominion of the animating spirit over all 
 the means of execution." The general 
 
 * ' Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 150. 
 t ' Charakteristiken und Kritiken.' 
 i ' Lectures,' vol. ii. p. 127. 
 Ibid., p. 153. 
 
 criticism of Schlegel upon 'Romeo and Juliet ' 
 is based upon a perfect comprehension of 
 this great principle upon which Shakspere 
 worked. Schlegel, we apprehend, succeeded 
 Coleridge in giving a genial tone to criticism 
 upon Shakspere for Coleridge first lectured 
 on the drama in 1802, and Schlegel in 1808 ; 
 and Schlegel may also have owed something 
 indirectly to Coleridge, to that master-mind 
 who filled other minds as if they were con- 
 duits from his exhaustless fountain. But he 
 in himself is a most acute and profound critic; 
 and what he has done to make Shakspere 
 properly known, even in this country, where 
 our perception of his greatness had long been 
 obscured amidst the deep gloom of the critical 
 fog that had hung over us for more than a 
 century, ought never to be forgotten. The 
 following is the close of a celebrated passage 
 from Schlegel, upon ' Romeo and Juliet," which 
 has often been quoted ; but it is altogether 
 so true and so beautiful, that we cannot 
 resist the pleasure of circulating it still 
 more widely : 
 
 " Whatever is most intoxicating in the 
 odour of a southern spring, languishing in 
 the song of the nightingale, or voluptuous 
 on the first opening of the rose, is breathed 
 into this poem. But, even more rapidly than 
 the earliest blossoms of youth and beauty de- 
 cay, it hurries on from the first timidly bold 
 declaration of love and modest return, to 
 the most unlimited passion, to an irrevocable 
 union ; then, amidst alternating storms of 
 rapture and despair, to the death of the two 
 lovers, who still appear enviable, as their 
 love survives them, and as by their death 
 they have obtained a triumph over every 
 separating power. The sweetest and the 
 bitterest, love and hatred, festivity and dark 
 forebodings, tender embraces and sepulchres, 
 the fulness of life and self-annihilation, are 
 all here brought close to each other ; and 
 all these contrasts are so blended in the har- 
 monious and wonderful work into a unity of 
 impression, that the echo which the whole 
 leaves behind in the mind resembles a single 
 but endless sigh."|| 
 
 In selecting these passages to establish in 
 the minds of our readers the great principle 
 
 || ' Lectures,' vol. ii. p. 186. 
 
222 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 of the unity of feeling which so thoroughly 
 pervades the ' Romeo and Juliet,' and which 
 constitutes the " particular excellence of 
 the Shaksperean drama," we have indirectly 
 furnished the proof of the assertion with 
 which we set out, that the tragical part of 
 the story, from the first scene to the last, 
 is held in subjection to the beautiful. The 
 structure of the play essentially required 
 this. Coleridge has said that " Shakspere 
 meant the ' Romeo and Juliet ' to approach 
 to a poem ; " but, of course, Coleridge meant 
 a poem entirely modified by the dramatic 
 power. We shall venture to trespass upon 
 the attention of our readers, whilst we ex- 
 amine the conduct of the story and the 
 development of the characters under this 
 aspect. When we have arrived at a due 
 conception of the principle of art on which 
 this drama was constructed that of sub- 
 limating all that is literal and common in 
 human actions and human thoughts, by the 
 force of passion and imagination, throwing 
 their rich colours upon the chief actors, 
 and colouring, upon an indispensable law of 
 harmony, all the groups around them we 
 shall reject, as utterly unworthy, all that 
 miscalled criticism which takes its stand 
 upon a material foundation, and, dealing 
 with high poetry as if it were a thing of 
 demonstrations and syllogisms, tells us that 
 Shakspere's comic scenes are here "happily 
 wrought, but his pathetic strains are always 
 polluted with some unexpected depravations. 
 His persons, however distressed, have a con- 
 ceit left them in their misery, a miserable 
 conceit."* 
 
 The first scenes of nearly every play of 
 Shakspere are remarkable for the skill with 
 which they prepare the mind for all the 
 after scenes. We do not see the succession 
 of scenes ; the catastrophe is unrevealed. 
 But we look into a dim and distant prospect, 
 and by what is in the foreground we can 
 form a general notion of the landscape that 
 will be presented to us, as the clouds roll 
 away, and the sun lights up its wild moun- 
 tains or its fertile valleys. When Sampson | 
 and Gregory enter " armed with swords and 
 bucklers " when we hear, " a dog of the 
 
 * Johnson's concluding Remarks on Romeo and Juliet.' 
 
 house of Montague moves me " we know 
 that these are not common servants, and live 
 not in common times : with them the excite- 
 ment of party-spirit does not rise into strong 
 passion, it presents its ludicrous side. They 
 quarrel like angry curs, who snarl, yet are 
 afraid to bite. But the " furious Tybalt " in 
 a moment shows us that these hasty quarrels 
 cannot have peaceful endings. The strong 
 arm of authority suspends the affray ; but 
 the spirit of enmity is not put down. The 
 movement of this scene is as rapid as the 
 quarrel itself. It produces the effect upon 
 the mind of something which startles almost 
 terrifies ; which passes away into repose, but 
 which leaves an ineffaceable impression upon 
 the senses. The calm immediately succeeds. 
 Benvolio's speech, 
 
 " Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun 
 Peer'd forth the golden window of the east," 
 
 at once shows us that we are entering into 
 the region of high poetry. Coleridge remarks 
 that the succeeding speech of old Montague 
 exhibits the poetical aspect of the play even 
 more strikingly: 
 
 " Many a morning hath he there been seen, 
 With tears augmenting the fresh morning's 
 dew." 
 
 It is remarkable that the speech thus com- 
 mencing, which contains twenty lines as 
 highly wrought as anything in Shakspere, is 
 not in the first copy of this play. The ex- 
 perience of the artist taught him where to 
 lay on the poetical colouring brighter and 
 brighter. How beautifully these lines pre- 
 pare us for the appearance of Romeo the 
 now musing, abstracted Romeo the Romeo, 
 who, like the lover of Chaucer, 
 
 " Solitary was ever alone, 
 And waking all the night, making moan." 
 
 The love of Romeo was unrequited love. It 
 was a sentiment rather than a passion a 
 love which displayed itself " in the numbers 
 that Petrarch flowed in" a love that solaced 
 itself in antithetical conceits upon its own 
 misery, and would draw consolation from 
 melancholy associations. It was the love 
 without the "true Promethean fire." But 
 it was the fit preparation for what was to 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 KOMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 223 
 
 follow. The dialogue between Capulet and 
 Paris prepares us for Juliet the "hopeful 
 lady of his earth," who 
 " Hath not seen the change of fourteen years." 
 
 The old man does not think her " ripe to be 
 a bride ;" but we are immediately reminded 
 of the precocity of nature under a southern 
 sun, by another magical touch of poetry, 
 which tells us of youth and freshness of 
 summer in " April" of " fresh female buds" 
 breathing the fragrance of opening flowers. 
 Juliet at length comes. We see the sub- 
 missive and gentle girl ; but the garrulity of 
 the Nurse carries us back even to the 
 " Prettiest babe that e'er I nursed." 
 
 Neither Juliet nor Romeo had rightly read 
 their own hearts. He was sighing for a 
 shadow she fancied that she could subject 
 her feelings to the will of others : 
 
 " I '11 look to like, if looking liking move : 
 But no more deep will I endart mine eye, 
 Than your consent gives strength to make it 
 
 fly." 
 
 The preparation for their first interview goes 
 forward : Benvolio has persuaded Romeo to 
 go to Capulet's feast. There is a slight 
 pause in the action, but how gracefully is it 
 filled up ! Mercutio comes upon the scene. 
 Coleridge has described him as "that ex- 
 quisite ebullience and overflow of youthful 
 life, wafted on over the laughing waves of 
 pleasure and prosperity, as a wanton beauty 
 that distorts the face on which she knows 
 her lover is gazing enraptured, and wrinkles 
 her forehead in the triumph of its smooth- 
 ness ! Wit ever wakeful, fancy 'busy and 
 procreative as an insect, courage, an easy 
 mind that, without cares of its own, is at 
 once disposed to laugh away those of others, 
 and yet to be interested in them, these and 
 all other congenial qualities, melting into 
 the common copula of them all, the man of 
 rank and the gentleman, with all its excel- 
 lences and all its weaknesses, constitute the 
 character of Mercutio!"* Is this praise of 
 Mercutio overcharged ? We think not, 
 looking at him dramatically. He is placed 
 by the side of Romeo, to contrast with him, 
 
 * ' Literary Remains,' vol. ii. 
 
 but also to harmonize. The poetry of Mer- 
 cutio is that of fancy : the poetry of Romeo 
 is that of imagination. The wit of Mercutio 
 is the overflow of animal spirits, occasionally 
 polluted, like a spring pure from the well- 
 head, by the soil over which it passes : the 
 wit of Romeo is somewhat artificial, and 
 scarcely self-sustained ; it is the unaccus- 
 tomed play of the intellect when the passions 
 " have come to the clenching point," but it 
 is under control it has no exuberance which, 
 like the wit of Mercutio, admits the colouring 
 of the sensual and the sarcastic. The courage 
 of Mercutio is, in the same way, the courage 
 of high animal spirits, fearless of conse- 
 quences, and laughing even when it has 
 paid the penalty of its rashness "Ask for 
 me to-morrow, and you .shall find me a grave 
 man." The courage of Romeo is reflective 
 and forbearing, 
 
 " I do protest, I never injured thee." 
 
 But, when his friend has fallen, his " newly 
 entertained revenge" casts off all control: 
 
 " Away to heaven, respective lenity !" 
 
 Then, again, how finely the calm, benevolent 
 good sense of Benvolio blends with these 
 opposites ! 
 
 But the masquerade waits. We have here 
 the realization of youth and freshness which 
 Capulet promised to Paris ; but at the 
 moment when we see " the guests and the 
 maskers" we have a touch, in the expression 
 of the old man's natural feelings, which tells 
 us how perishable these things are : 
 
 " I have 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 ; 't is gone, 't is gone, 
 't is gone ! " 
 
 But Juliet appears, and we think not of 
 decay. We forget that " one generation 
 pushes another off the stage." The very 
 first words of Romeo show the change that 
 has come o'er him. He went into that " hall 
 in Capulet's house," fearing 
 
 " Some consequence yet hanging in the stars." 
 
 He had " a soul of lead" he would be " a 
 candle-holder and look on." But he has 
 
224 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 seen Juliet : and with what gorgeous images 
 has that sight filled his imagination ! 
 
 " Oh, she doth teach the torches to hum bright ! 
 Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night 
 As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear." 
 
 We have now the poetry of passion bursting 
 upon us with its purple light. Compare this 
 with the pale poetry of sentiment in the first 
 scene, when he talks of Rosaline being 
 " too fair, too wise, wisely too fair." 
 
 Perfectly in accordance with this exaltation 
 of mind is the address of Romeo to Juliet. 
 The dialogue must be considered as that of 
 persons each acting a character. But there 
 is more in it than meets the ear ; it is not 
 entirely the half expression of the thoughts 
 of two maskers : -there is an under-current 
 of reality which blends the language of 
 affection with the language of compli- 
 ment. When Romeo asks of the Nurse, 
 " What is her mother ? " and when Juliet 
 inquires, 
 
 " What 's he that now is going out of door ?" 
 
 we see " the beginning of the end." But we 
 do not forget that the anger of Tybalt at 
 Romeo's presence has thrown a shadow over 
 the brightness of their young love. The 
 maskers are gone the torches are extin- 
 guished the voice of the revelry has ceased. 
 Romeo has leapt the wall of Capulet's 
 garden. There are no longer 
 
 "Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven 
 light." 
 
 He has found a sequestered spot far apart 
 from that banqueting-hall from which his 
 Juliet descended, amidst the gay groups 
 that floated about in that garden, to hang 
 
 " upon the cheek of night 
 As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear." 
 
 He is alone. The moon 
 " Tips with silver all those fruit-tree tops." 
 
 He hears in the distant street the light- 
 hearted Mercutio calling upon him by the 
 names of 
 
 "Humours! madman! passion! lover!" 
 
 But he heeds him not. Juliet appears. 
 She speaks. 
 
 " Oh, speak again, bright angel ! for thou art 
 As glorious to this night, being o'er my head, 
 As is a winged messenger of heaven 
 Unto the white-upturned wond'ring eyes 
 Of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him, 
 When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds, 
 And sails upon the bosom of the air." 
 
 From this poetical elevation it would seem 
 almost impossible for the lover to descend to 
 earth, and yet the earth hath visions of 
 tenderness and purity, which equally belong 
 to the highest regions of poetry. The fears 
 of Juliet for his safety; the "farewell 
 compliment ;" the 
 
 " In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond;" 
 the " do not swear ; " the 
 
 "Stay but a little, I will come again;" 
 the 
 
 " If that thy bent of love be honourable :" 
 
 all these indications of the union of " purity 
 of heart and the glow of imagination" belong 
 to the highest region of an ideal world, and 
 yet are linked to this our own world of 
 beauty and frailty. This is one of the great 
 scenes of the poem which cannot be com- 
 prehended if disjoined from all that is about 
 it ; any more than Juliet's soliloquy, in the 
 third act, after her marriage. It is one of the 
 scenes that is consequently obnoxious to a 
 false ridicule, and, what is worse, to a grovel- 
 ling criticism. In the midst of the intensity 
 of Juliet's " timidly bold declaration of love," 
 Steevens inserts one of the atrocious notes 
 that he perpetrated under the fictitious name 
 of Amner. It is a warning to us how far a 
 prosaic spirit may descend into dirt, when it 
 attempts to deal with a great artist without 
 reverence for his art. There are three modes 
 in which criticism, or what is called criticism, 
 may be applied to high art. The first is, 
 where the critic endeavours to look at an 
 entire work, not at parts of a work only, 
 in some degree through the same medium as 
 the poet looked at his unformed creations. 
 The second is, where the critic rejects that 
 medium, for the most part through inca- 
 pacity of using it, ad peers through the 
 smoked glass of -what he calls common sense, 
 that his eyes, forsooth, may not be dazzled. 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 ROMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 225 
 
 The third is, where the critic, from a super- 
 abundance of the power of detecting what 
 appears the ridiculous side of things (which 
 results from a deficiency of imagination), 
 takes a caricaturist's view of the highest 
 exercises of the intellect, and asserts his own 
 cleverness by presenting a travestie. The first 
 system, though it may be the most difficult, 
 is the most safe ; the third, though it appears 
 the most insidious, is the least injurious ; 
 the second is, at once, easy and debasing ; it 
 may begin in Steevens and end in Amner. 
 
 The " silver-sweet " sound of " lovers' 
 tongues by night" is hushed. " The grey- 
 eyed morn " sees the Friar in his cell, bearing 
 his "osier-cage" of 
 
 " Baleful weeds, and precious juiced flowers." 
 
 Here is a new link in the conduct of the 
 story. And what a beautiful transition have 
 we made from the elevated poetry of passion 
 to the scarcely less elevated poetry of phi- 
 losophy ! The old man, whose pious thoughts 
 shape themselves into sweet and solemn 
 cadences, stands as the antagonist principle 
 of the passionate conflicts that are going on 
 around him. He is to be a great agent in 
 the workings of the drama. He would close 
 up the dissensions of the rival houses he 
 would make the new lovers blessed in their 
 union he would assuage the misery of 
 Romeo's exile he would save his lady from 
 an unholy marriage he would join them 
 again in life, although the tomb appears to 
 have separated them. The good old man 
 will rely too much upon his philosophy, and 
 his skilful dealing with human actions ; as 
 the lovers have already relied too much 
 upon the integrity of their passion as a 
 shield against calamity. The half-surprise, 
 the half-gladness of the Friar, when Romeo 
 tells him where his " heart's dear love is 
 set," are delightful. The reproof that is 
 meant for a commendation the "come, young 
 waverer" the "wisely and slow," are all 
 true to nature. But Romeo has secured his 
 purpose, and his heart is at ease. Then is 
 he fit to play a part in the comic scenes that 
 succeed, to bandy words with Mercutio 
 to be pleasant with the Nurse. But Juliet's 
 
 soliloquy while she is waiting for the 
 Nurse, 
 
 " Oh, she is lame ! love's heralds should be 
 thoughts," 
 
 and the scene with Romeo, Juliet, and the 
 Friar, again bring us back to the high region 
 of poetry. The latter scene was greatly 
 elaborated after the first draft. 
 
 We have almost lost sight of the quarrels 
 of the rival houses of Verona. We see only 
 the two lovers, who cannot sum up "half 
 their sum of wealth," and have forgotten 
 their names of Montague and Capulet as 
 names of strife. But an evil hour is ap- 
 proaching. The brawl with which the drama 
 opened is to be renewed 
 
 " The day is hot, the Capulets abroad." 
 
 The "fiery Tybalt" and the "bold Mercutio" 
 are thejij^victims o.tJjis factious hate 
 arkr^rTomeo is~ Ba'nished. 'Tn'e" action (foee 
 not move laggingly all is heat and pre- 
 cipitation. Juliet sits alone in her bower, 
 unconscious of all but her impassioned 
 imaginings. She thinks aloud in the soli- 
 tude which is around her, with a charac- 
 teristic vehemence of temperament ; but in 
 this soliloquy " there is something so almost 
 infantine in her perfect simplicity, so playful 
 and fantastic in the imagery and language, 
 that the charm of sentiment and innocence 
 is thrown over the whole."* The scene in 
 which the Nurse tells her disjointed story of 
 Tybalt's death is a masterpiece. We have 
 here to encounter the often-repeated ob- 
 jection, that Shakspere uses conceits when 
 he ought to be expressing the language of 
 vehement passion. The conceits are not in 
 accordance with the general taste of our own 
 age, though they were so with that of Shak- 
 spere's. But they have a much higher 
 justification. They are the results of strong 
 emotion, seeking to relieve itself by a violent 
 effort of the intellect, that the will may ^\ 
 recover its balance. Immediately after the * 
 lines in which we have that play upon words 
 whose climax is 
 
 " I am not I, if there be such an /," 
 
 * Mrs. Jameson's ' Characteristics of Women, third 
 edition, vol. i. p. 193. 
 
226 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 we come at once to an exclamation of the 
 deepest pathos and simplicity : 
 
 " Oh, break my heart ! poor bankrout;" 
 
 and then, when Juliet knows that Romeo is 
 not dead, but that Tybalt has fallen by the 
 hand of her husband, what a natural revulsion 
 of feeling succeeds ! 
 
 " Oh, that deceit should dwell 
 In such a gorgeous palace ! " 
 
 The transition from her reproach of Tybalt's 
 murderer, to a glorious trust in the integrity 
 of her lord, is surpassingly beautiful. Not 
 less beautiful is the passion which Romeo 
 exhibits in the Friar's cell. Each of the 
 lovers in these scenes shows the intensity of 
 their abandonment to an overmastering will. 
 " They see only themselves in the universe." 
 That is the true moral of their fate. But, 
 even under the direst calamity, they catch 
 at the one joy which is left the short 
 meeting before the parting. And what a 
 parting that is! Here, again, comes the 
 triumph of the beautiful over the merely 
 tragic. They are once more calm. Their 
 love again breathes of all the sweet sights 
 and sounds in a world of beauty. They are 
 parting but the almost happy Juliet says 
 
 " It is not yet near day : 
 Believe me, love, it was the nightingale." 
 
 Romeo, who sees the danger of delay, is not 
 deceived : 
 
 " It was the lark, the herald of the morn." 
 Then what a burst of poetry follows ! 
 
 " Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day 
 Stands tiptoe on the misty mountains' tops." 
 
 The scene closes with that exquisite display 
 of womanly tenderness in Juliet, which 
 hurries from the forgetfulness of joy in her 
 husband's presence to apprehension for his 
 safety. After this scene we are almost con- 
 tent to think, as Romeo fancied he thought, 
 
 " come what sorrow can, 
 It cannot countervail the exchange of joy." 
 
 The sorrow does come upon poor Juliet 
 with redoubled force. The absolute father, 
 the unyielding mother, the treacherous 
 Nurse, all hurrying her into a loathed 
 marriage, might drive one less resolved to 
 
 the verge of madness. But from this moment 
 her love has become heroism. She sees 
 
 " No pity sitting in the clouds" 
 
 she rejects her Nurse she resolves to deceive 
 her parents. This scene brings out her 
 character in its strongest and most beautiful 
 relief. The Nurse, in the grossness of her 
 nature, has dared to talk to the wife of 
 Romeo the all-loving and devoted wife of 
 the green eye of Paris ! The Nurse mistook 
 the one passion of Juliet the sense raised 
 into soul for a grovelling quality that her 
 lofty imagination would utterly despise. " 
 most wicked fiend ! " Not so Juliet's other 
 counsellor. The Friar estimated her con- 
 stancy, and he did "spy a kind of hope" 
 that it might be rewarded. He saw that 
 Juliet would, at all hazards, put away " the 
 shame" of marrying Paris. Well had the 
 Friar reckoned upon her " strength of will." 
 The scene in his cell, and the subsequent 
 scene when she swallows the draught, are 
 amongst the most powerful in the play; and 
 yet we never lose sight of the highest poetry, 
 mingling what is grand with what is beau- 
 tiful. When Juliet is supposed to be dead, 
 nature again asserts her empire over the 
 tetchy and absolute father, and the mother 
 weeps over the 
 
 " One, poor one, one poor and loving child." 
 
 Here, again, the gentle poetry of common 
 feelings comes to the relief of the scene ; 
 and the Friar brings in a higher poetry in 
 the consolations of divine truth. 
 
 As we approach the catastrophe, the poeti- 
 cal cast of Romeo's mind becomes even more 
 clearly defined than in the earlier scenes. 
 It was first fanciful, then imaginative, then 
 impassioned but when deep sorrow has been 
 added to his love, and he treads upon the 
 threshold of the world of shadows, it puts on 
 even a higher character of beauty. As to 
 the celebrated speech of the ' Apothecary,' 
 we refuse to believe that it forms an ex- 
 ception to the general character of the 
 beauty that throws its rich evening light 
 over the closing scenes. 
 
 The criticism of the French school has not 
 spared this famous passage. Joseph Warton, 
 an elegant scholar, but who belonged to this 
 
OIIAP. III.] 
 
 ROMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 227 
 
 school, has the following observations in his 
 < Virgil' (1763, vol. i. p. 301) : 
 
 " It may not be improper to produce the 
 following glaring instance of the absurdity 
 of introducing long and minute descriptions 
 into tragedy. When Romeo receives the 
 dreadful and unexpected news of Juliet's 
 death, this fond husband, in an agony of 
 grief, immediately resolves to poison himself. 
 But his sorrow is interrupted, while he gives 
 us an exact picture of the apothecary's shop 
 from whom he intended to purchase the 
 poison : 
 
 ' I do remember an apothecary/ &c. 
 
 I appeal to those who know anything of the 
 human heart, whether Romeo, in this dis- 
 tressful situation, could have leisure to think 
 of the alligator, empty boxes, and bladders, 
 and other furniture, of this beggarly shop, 
 and to point them out so distinctly to the 
 audience. The description is, indeed, very 
 lively and natural, but very improperly put 
 into the mouth of a person agitated with 
 such passion as Romeo is represented to be." 
 The criticism of Warton, ingenious as it 
 may appear, and true as applied to many 
 " long and minute descriptions in tragedy," 
 is here based upon a wrong principle. He 
 says that Romeo, in his distressful situation, 
 had not " leisure " to think of the furniture 
 of the apothecary's shop. What then had he 
 leisure to do 1 Had he leisure to run off into 
 declamations against fate, and into tedious 
 apostrophes and generalizations, as a less 
 skilful artist than Shakspere would have 
 made him indulge in ] From the moment he 
 had said, 
 
 " Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night. 
 Let 's see for means," 
 
 the apothecary's shop became to him the 
 object of the most intense interest. Great 
 passions, when they have shaped themselves 
 into firm resolves, attach the most distinct 
 importance to the minutest objects connected 
 with the execution of their purpose. He had 
 seen the apothecary's shop in his placid 
 moments as an object of common curiosity. 
 He had hastily looked at the tortoise and 
 the alligator, the empty boxes, and the 
 
 earthen pots ; and he had looked at the 
 tattered weeds and overwhelming brows of 
 their needy owner. But he had also said, 
 when he first saw these things, 
 
 " An if a man did need a poison now, 
 Whose sale is present death in Mantua, 
 Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him." 
 
 When he did need a poison, all these docu- 
 ments of the misery that was to serve him 
 came with a double intensity upon his vision. 
 The shaping of these things into words was 
 not for the audience. It was not to produce 
 " a long and minute description in tragedy" 
 that had no foundation in the workings of 
 nature. It was the very cunning of nature 
 which produced this description. Mischief 
 was, indeed, swift to enter into the thoughts 
 of the desperate man ; but, the mind once 
 made up, it took a perverse pleasure in going 
 over every item of the circumstances that 
 had suggested the means of mischief. All 
 other thoughts had passed out of Romeo's 
 mind. He had nothing left but to die ; and 
 everything connected with the means of his 
 death was seized upon by his imagination 
 with an energy that could only find relief in 
 words. 
 
 Shakspere has exhibited the same know- 
 ledge of nature in his sad and solemn poem 
 of ' The Rape of Lucrece,' where the injured 
 wife, having resolved to wipe out her stain 
 by death, 
 
 " calls to mind where hangs a piece 
 Of skilful painting, made for Priam's Troy." 
 
 She sees in that painting some fancied re- 
 semblance to her own position, and spends 
 the heavy hours till her husband arrives in 
 its contemplation. 
 
 " So Lucrece set a- work sad tales doth tell 
 To pencill'd pensiveness and colour'd sorrow; 
 She lends them words, and she their looks 
 doth borrow." 
 
 It was the intense interest in his own 
 resolve which made Romeo so minutely de- 
 scribe his apothecary. But, that stage past, 
 came the abstraction of his sorrow : 
 
 " What said my man, when my betossed soul 
 Did not attend him as we rode 1 I think 
 He told me Paris should have married Juliet." 
 
 OF "HE 
 
 UNJVEHSn 
 
 OF 
 
228 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 Juliet was dead ; and what mattered it to 
 his "betossed soul" whom she should have 
 married ? 
 
 " Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night," 
 
 was the sole thought that made him re- 
 member an "apothecary," and treat what 
 his servant said as a " dream." 
 
 The gentleness of Romeo is apparent, even 
 while he says 
 
 " The time and my intents are savage- wild;" 
 
 for he adds, with a strong effort, to his 
 faithful Balthasar, 
 
 "Live, and be prosperous; and farewell, good 
 fellow." 
 
 His entreaties to Paris "Oh, be gone !" are 
 full of the same tenderness. He is constrained 
 to fight with him he- slays him but he 
 almost weeps over him, as 
 
 " One writ with me in sour misfortune's book." 
 
 The remainder of Romeo's speech in the 
 tomb is, as Coleridge has put it, " the master 
 example, how beauty can at once increase 
 and modify passion." 
 
 " Oh, here 
 
 Will I set up my everlasting rest ; 
 
 And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars 
 
 From this world-wearied flesh." 
 
 This is the one portion of the " melancholy 
 
 elegy on the frailty of love, from its own 
 nature and external circumstances,"* which 
 Romeo sings before his last sleep. And how 
 beautifully is the corresponding part sung 
 by the waking and dying Juliet ! 
 
 " What 's here 1 a cup, closed in my true love's 
 
 hand ? 
 
 Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end : 
 churl ! drink all ; and left no friendly drop, 
 To help me after 1 I will kiss thy lips; 
 Haply, some poison yet doth hang on them, 
 To make me die with a restorative." 
 
 They have paid the penalty of the fierce 
 hatreds that were engendered around them, 
 and of their own precipitancy. But their 
 misfortunes and their loves have healed the 
 enmities of which they were the victims. 
 " Poor sacrifices ! " Capulet may now say, 
 
 " Oh, brother Montague, give me thy hand." 
 
 They have left a peace behind them which 
 they could not taste themselves. But their 
 first " rash and unadvised " contract was 
 elevated into all that was pure and beau- 
 tiful, by their after sorrows and their con- 
 stancy ; and in happier regions their af- 
 fections may put on that calmness of 
 immortality which the ancients typified in 
 their allegory of ' Love and the Soul.' 
 
 * A. W. Schlegel. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 
 
 ' THE MERCHANT OP VENICE,' like ' A Mid- 
 summer-Night's Dream,' was first printed in 
 1600; and it had a further similarity to 
 that play from the circumstance of two 
 editions appearing in the same year the 
 one bearing the name of a publisher, Thomas 
 Heyes, the other that of a printer, J. Roberts. 
 The play was not reprinted till it appeared 
 in the folio of 1623. In that edition there 
 are only a few variations from the quartos. 
 'The Merchant of Venice' is one of the 
 
 plays of Shakspere mentioned by Francis 
 Meres in 1598, and it is the last mentioned 
 in his list. From the original entry at 
 Stationers' Hall, in 1598, providing that it 
 be not printed without licence first had of 
 the Lord Chamberlain, it may be assumed 
 that it had not then been acted by the Lord 
 Chamberlain's, servants. We know, however, 
 so little about the formalities of licence that 
 we cannot regard this point as certain. 
 Stephen Gosson, who, in 1579, was moved 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 THE MERCHANT OP VENICE. 
 
 229 
 
 to publish a tract called ' The School of 
 Abuse, containing apleasant invective against 
 poets, pipers, players, jesters, and such like 
 caterpillars of the commonwealth,' thus 
 describes a play of his time : " The Jew, 
 shown at the Bull, representing the greedy- 
 ness of worldly choosers, and the bloody 
 minds of usurers." Mr. Skottowe somewhat 
 leaps to a conclusion that this play contains 
 the same plot as 'The Merchant of Venice :' 
 " The loss of this performance is justly a 
 subject of regret, for, as it combined within 
 its plot the two incidents of the bond and 
 the caskets, it would, in all probability, have 
 thrown much additional light on Shakspeare's 
 progress in the composition of his highly 
 finished comedy."* As all we know of this 
 play is told us by Gosson, it is rather bold to 
 assume that it combined the two incidents 
 of the bond and the caskets. The com- 
 bination of these incidents is perhaps one of 
 the most remarkable examples of Shakspere's 
 dramatic skill. " In the management of the 
 plot," says Mr. Hallam, " which is sufficiently 
 complex without the slightest confusion or 
 incoherence, I do not conceive that it has 
 been surpassed in the annals of any theatre." 
 The rude dramatists of 1579 were not re- 
 markable for the combination of incidents. 
 It was probably reserved for the skill of 
 Shakspere to bring the caskets and the bond 
 in juxtaposition. He found the incidents 
 far apart, but it was for him to fuse them 
 together. We cannot absolutely deny Mr. 
 Douce's conjecture that the play mentioned 
 by Gosson might have furnished our poet 
 with the whole of the plot ; but it is certainly 
 an abuse of language to say that it did 
 furnish him, because the Jew shown at the 
 Bull deals with " worldly choosers," and the 
 " bloody minds of usurers." We admit that 
 the coincidence is curious. 
 
 Warton first drew attention to a ballad 
 which he considers was written before ' The 
 Merchant of Venice,' ' A new Song, shewing 
 the cruelty of Gernutus, a Jew, who, lending 
 to a merchant an hundred crowns, would 
 have a pound of his flesh because he could 
 not pay him at the time appointed.' 
 
 * ' Life of Shakspeare,' vol.i. p. 330. 
 
 This curious production is printed in Percy's 
 < Reliques.' 
 
 Warton's opinion of the priority of this 
 ballad to ' The Merchant of Venice' is thus 
 expressed : " It may be objected that this 
 ballad might have been written after, and 
 copied from, Shakespeare's play. But, if that 
 had been the case, it is most likely that the 
 author would have preserved Shakespeare's 
 name of Shy lock for the Jew ; and nothing 
 is more likely than that Shakespeare, in 
 copying from this ballad, should alter the 
 name from Gernutus to one more Jewish . . . 
 Our ballad has the air of a narrative written 
 before Shakespeare's play; I mean, that, if 
 it had been written after the play, it would 
 have been much more full and circumstantial. 
 At present, it has too much the nakedness of 
 an original."* The reasoning of Warton is 
 scarcely borne out by a new fact, for which 
 we are indebted to the researches of Mr. 
 Collier. Thomas Jordan, in 1664, printed a 
 ballad, or romance, called ' The Forfeiture ; ' 
 and Mr. Collier says" So much does Shake- 
 speare's production seem to have been forgot- 
 ten in 1664, that Thomas Jordan made a ballad 
 of it, and printed it as an original story (at 
 least without any acknowledgment), in his 
 ' Royal Arbor of Loyd Poesie,' in that year. 
 In the same scarce little volume he also uses 
 the plot of the serious part of ' Much Ado 
 about Nothing,' and of ' The Winter's Tale,' 
 both of which had been similarly laid by for 
 a series of years, partly, perhaps, on account 
 of the silencing of the theatres from and after 
 1642. The circumstance has hitherto escaped 
 observation ; and Jordan felt authorized to 
 take such liberties with the story of ' The 
 Merchant of Venice,' that he has represented 
 the Jew's daughter, instead of Portia, as 
 assuming the office of assessor to the Duke 
 of Venice in the trial-scene, for the sake of 
 saving the life of the Merchant, with whom 
 she was in love."f Now, it is remarkable 
 that this ballad by Jordan, which was un- 
 questionably written after the play, is much 
 less full and circumstantial than the old 
 ballad of ' Gernutus ; ' so that Warton's 
 
 * ' Observations on the Fairy Queen,' 1807, vol.i. p. 182. 
 t ' New Particulars regarding the Works of Shake- 
 speare,' p. 36. 
 
230 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 argument, as a general principle, will not 
 hold. It appears to us that * Gernutus ' is, 
 in reality, very full and circumstantial ; and 
 that some of the circumstances are identical 
 with those of the play. Compare, for ex- 
 ample, 
 
 "Go with me to a notary, seal me there 
 Your single bond; and in a merry sport" &c. 
 
 with 
 
 " But we will have a 'merry jest, 
 
 For to be talked long ; 
 You shall make me a bond, quoth he, 
 That shall be large and strong." 
 
 And, again, compare 
 
 " Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly]" 
 with 
 
 " The bloudie Jew now ready is 
 With whetted blade in hand." 
 
 But the ballad of 'Gernutus' wants that 
 remarkable feature of the play, the inter- 
 vention of Portia to save the life of the 
 Merchant ; and this, to our minds, is the 
 strongest confirmation that the ballad pre- 
 ceded the comedy. Shakspere found that 
 incident in the source from which the ballad- 
 writer professed to derive his history : 
 
 " In Venice towne not long agoe, 
 
 A cruel Jew did dwell, 
 Which lived all on usurie, 
 As Italian writers tell." 
 
 It was from an Italian writer, Ser Giovanni, 
 the author of a collection of tales, called ' 11 
 Pecorone,' written in the fourteenth century, 
 and first published at Milan in 1558, that 
 Shakspere unquestionably derived some of 
 the incidents of his story, although he might 
 be familiar with another version of the same 
 tale. An abstract of this chapter of the 
 'Pecorone' may be found in Mr. Dunlop's 
 'History of Fiction;' and a much fuller 
 epitome of a scarce translation of the tale, 
 printed in 1755, was first given in Johnson's 
 edition of Shakspere, and is reprinted in all 
 the variorum editions. In this story we 
 have a rich lady at Belmont, who is to be 
 won upon certain conditions ; and she is 
 finally the prize of a young merchant, whose 
 friend, having become surety for him to a 
 Jew, under the same penalty as in the play 
 
 s rescued from the forfeiture by the adroit- 
 ness of the married lady, who is disguised as 
 a lawyer. The pretended judge receives, as 
 in the comedy, her marriage ring as a gra- 
 tuity, and afterwards banters her husband, 
 in the same way, upon the loss of it. 
 
 Some of the stories of ' 11 Pecorone? as 
 indeed of Boccaccio, and other early Italian 
 writers, appear to have been the common pro- 
 perty of Europe, derived from some Oriental 
 origin. Mr. Douce has given an extremely 
 curious extract from the English ' Gesta 
 RomanorumJ "a Manuscript, preserved in 
 the Harleian Collection, No. 7333, written in 
 the reign of Henry the Sixth," in which the 
 daughter of " Selestinus, a wise emperor in 
 Rome," exacts somewhat similar conditions, 
 from a knight who loved her, as the lady 
 in the ' Pecorone' Being reduced to poverty 
 by a compliance with these conditions, he 
 applies to a merchant to lend him money ; 
 and the loan is granted under the following 
 covenant : " And the covenaunt shalle be 
 this, that thou make to me a charter of thine 
 owne blood, in condicion that yf thowe kepe 
 not thi day of payment, hit shalle be lefulle 
 to me for to draw awey alle the flesh of thi 
 body froo the bone with a sharp swerde, and, 
 yf thow wolt assent hereto, I shalle fulfille 
 thi wille." In this ancient story the bor- 
 rower of the money makes himself subject 
 to the penalty without the intervention of 
 a friend ; and, having forgotten the day of 
 payment, is authorised by his wife to give 
 any sum which is demanded. The money is 
 refused by the merchant, and the charter of 
 blood exacted. Judgment is given against 
 the knight ; but, " the damysell, his love, 
 whenne she harde telle that the lawe passid 
 agenst him, she kytte of al the longe her of 
 hir hede, and claddie hir in precious clothing 
 like to a man, and yede to the palys." The 
 scene that ensues in the ' Gesta Romanorum ' 
 has certainly more resemblance to the con- 
 duct of the incident in Shakspere than the 
 similar one in the ' Pecorone.' Having given 
 a specimen of the language of the manuscript 
 of Henry the Sixth's time, which Mr. Douce 
 thinks was of the same period as the writing, 
 we shall continue the story in orthography 
 which will present fewer difficulties to many 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 
 
 231 
 
 of our readers, and which will allow them to 
 feel the beautiful simplicity of this ancient 
 romance. We have no doubt that Shak- 
 spere was familiar with this part of ' Gesta 
 Romanorum,] as well as with that portion from 
 which he derived the story of the caskets, to 
 which we shall presently advert : " Now, in 
 all this time, the damsel his love had sent 
 knights for to espy and inquire how the law 
 was pursued against him. And, when she 
 heard tell that the law passed against him, 
 she cut off all the long hair of her head, and 
 clad her in precious clothing like to a man, 
 and went to the palace where her leman was 
 to be judged, and saluted the justice, and all 
 trowed that she had been a knight. And 
 the judge inquired of what country she was, 
 and what she had to do there. She said, I 
 am a knight, and come of far country ; and 
 hear tidings that there is a knight among 
 you that should be judged to death, for an 
 obligation that he made to a merchant, and 
 therefore I am come to deliver him. Then 
 the judge said, It is law of the emperor, that 
 whosoever bindeth him with his own proper 
 will and consent without any constraining, he 
 shall be served so again. When the damsel 
 heard this, she turned to the merchant, and 
 said, Dear friend, what profit is it to thee 
 that this knight, that standeth here, ready 
 to the doom, be slain ? It were better to 
 thee to have money than to have him slain. 
 Thou speakest all in vain, quoth the merchant; 
 for, without doubt, I will have the law, since 
 he bound himself so freely ; and therefore 
 he shall have none other grace than law 
 will, for he came to me, and I not to him. 
 I desire him not thereto against his will. 
 Then, said she, I pray thee how much shall 
 I give to have my petition? I shall give 
 thee thy money double ; and, if that be not 
 pleasing to thee, ask of me what thou wilt, 
 and thou shalt have. Then said he, Thou 
 heardest me never say but that I would 
 have my covenant kept. Truly, said she ; 
 and I say before you, Sir Judge, and before 
 you all, thou shalt believe me with a right 
 knowledge of that I shall say to you. Ye 
 have heard how much I have proffered this 
 merchant for the life of this knight, and he 
 forsaketh all and asketh for more, and that 
 
 liketh me much. And, therefore, lordings 
 that be here, hear me what I shall say. 
 Ye know well that the knight bound him 
 by letter that the merchant should have 
 power to cut his flesh from the bones, but 
 there was no covenant made of shedding of 
 blood. Thereof was nothing spoken ; and, 
 therefore, let him set hand on him anon ; 
 and if he shed any blood with his shaving 
 of the flesh, forsooth, then shall the king 
 have good law upon him. And when the 
 merchant heard this, he said, Give me my 
 money, and I forgive my action. Forsooth, 
 quoth she, thou shalt not have one penny, 
 for before all this company I proffered to 
 thee all that I might, and thou forsook it, 
 and saidst loudly, I shall have my covenant ; 
 and therefore do thy best with him, but look 
 that thou shed no blood, I charge thee, for 
 it is not thine, and no covenant was thereof. 
 Then the merchant, seeing this, went away 
 confounded ; and so was the knight's life 
 saved, and no penny paid." 
 
 In ' The Orator,' translated from the French 
 of Alexander Silvayn, printed in 1596, the 
 arguments urged by a Jew and a Christian 
 under similar circumstances are set forth at 
 great length. It has been generally asserted 
 that Shakspere borrowed from this source; 
 but the similarity appears to us exceedingly 
 small. The arguments, or declamations, as 
 they are called, are given at length in the 
 variorum editions. 
 
 " It is well known," says Mrs. Jameson, 
 "that 'The Merchant of Venice' is founded on 
 two different tales ; and, in weaving together 
 his double plot in so masterly a manner, 
 Shakspere has rejected altogether the cha- 
 racter of the astutious lady of Belmont, with 
 her magic potions, who figures in the Italian 
 novel. With yet more refinement, he has 
 thrown out all the licentious part of the 
 story, which some of his contemporary dra- 
 matists would have seized on with avidity, 
 and made the best or the worst of it possible; 
 and he has substituted the trial of the caskets 
 from another source."* That source is the 
 1 Gesta Romanorum? In Mr. Douce' s elaborate 
 treatise upon this most singular collection of 
 ancient stories, we have the following analysis 
 
 * ' Characteristics of Women,' vol. i. p. 72. 
 
232 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 of the ninety-ninth chapter of the English 
 'Gestaf which, Mr. Douce says, "is obviously 
 the story which supplied the caskets of ' The 
 
 Merchant of Venice.' " "A marriage 
 
 was proposed between the son of Anselmus, 
 emperor of Rome, and the daughter of the 
 king of Apulia. The young lady in her 
 voyage was shipwrecked and swallowed by 
 a whale. In this situation she contrived to 
 make a fire and to wound the animal with 
 a knife, so that he was driven towards the 
 shore, and slain of an earl named Pirius, who 
 delivered the princess and took her under his 
 protection. Oil relating her story, she was 
 conveyed to the emperor. In order to prove 
 whether she was worthy to receive the hand 
 of his son, he placed before her three vessels. 
 The first was of gold, and filled with dead 
 men's bones ; on it was this inscription 
 ' Who chooses me shall find what he deserves' 
 The second was of silver, filled with earth, 
 and thus inscribed ' Who chooses me shall 
 find what nature covets? The third vessel 
 was of lead, but filled with precious stones ; 
 it had this inscription 'Who chooses me shall 
 find what God hath placed? The emperor then 
 commanded her to choose one of the vessels, 
 informing her that, if she made choice of that 
 which should profit herself and others, she 
 would obtain his son ; if of what should profit 
 neither herself nor others, she would lose him. 
 The princess, after praying to God for as- 
 sistance, preferred the leaden vessel. The 
 emperor informed her that she had chosen 
 as he wished, and immediately united her 
 with his son." 
 
 In dealing with the truly dramatic subject 
 of the forfeiture of the bond, Shakspere had 
 to choose between one of two courses that lay 
 open before him. The ' Gesta Romanorum' 
 did not surround the debtor and the creditor 
 with any prejudices. We hear nothing of 
 one being a Jew, the other a Christian. 
 There is a remarkable story told by Gregorio 
 Leti, in his 'Life of Pope Sixtus the Fifth,' 
 in which the debtor and creditor of ' The 
 Merchant of Venice' change places. The 
 debtor is the Jew, the revengeful creditor 
 the Christian ; and this incident is said to 
 have happened at Rome in the time of Sir 
 Francis Drake. This, no doubt, was a pure 
 
 fiction of Leti, whose narratives are by no 
 means to be received as authorities ; but it 
 shows that he felt the intolerance of the old 
 story, and endeavoured to correct it, though 
 in a very inartificial manner. Shakspere took 
 the story as he found it in those narratives 
 which represented the popular prejudice. If 
 he had not before him the ballad of ' Gernutus' 
 (upon which point it is difficult to decide), 
 he had certainly access to the tale of the 
 ' Pecorone? If he had made the contest con- 
 nected with the story of the bond between 
 two of the same faith, he would have lost 
 the most powerful hold which the subject 
 possessed upon the feelings of an audience 
 two centuries and a half ago. If he had 
 gone directly counter to those feelings (sup- 
 posing that the story which Leti tells had 
 been known to him, as some have supposed), 
 his comedy would have been hooted from 
 the stage. The ballad of 'Gernutus' has the 
 following amongst its concluding stanzas : 
 
 " Good people, that do hear this song, 
 
 For truth I dare well say, 
 That many a wretch as ill as he 
 Doth live now at this day; 
 
 That seeketh nothing but the spoil 
 
 Of many a wealthy man, 
 And for to trap the innocent 
 
 Deviseth what they can." 
 
 It is probable that, although the Jews had 
 been under an edict of banishment from 
 England from the time of Edward I., they 
 had crept into the country after the Re- 
 formation. Lord Bacon says that the ob- 
 jectors against usury maintained " That 
 usurers should have orange-tawny bonnets, 
 because they do judaize." The orange-tawny 
 bonnet was the descendant of the badge of 
 yellow felt, of the length of six inches, and of 
 the breadth of three inches, to be worn by 
 each Jew after he shall be seven years old, 
 upon his outer garment. (Stat. de Jeuerie^) 
 The persecuted race settled again openly in 
 England after the Restoration ; and the 
 pious wish, with which Thomas Jordan's 
 ballad concludes, has evidently reference to 
 this circumstance : 
 
 " I wish such Jews may never come 
 To England, nor to London." 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 THE MERCHANT OP VENICE. 
 
 233 
 
 The ' Prioress's Tale' of Chaucer belonged to 
 the period when the Jews were robbed, 
 maimed, banished, and most foully vilified, 
 with the universal consent of the powerful 
 and the lowly, the learned and the ig- 
 norant : 
 
 " There was in Asie, in a gret citee, 
 Amonges Cristen folk a Jewerie, 
 Sustened by a lord of that contree, 
 For foul usure, and lucre of vilanie, 
 Hateful to Crist, and to his compagnie." 
 
 It was scarcely to be avoided in those times 
 that even Chaucer, the most genuine and 
 natural of poets, should lend his great 
 powers to the support of the popular belief 
 that Jews ought to be proscribed as 
 
 " Hateful to Crist, and to his compagnie." 
 
 But we ought to expect better things when 
 we reach the times in which the principles 
 of religious liberty were at least germinated. 
 And yet what a play is Marlowe's 'Jew of 
 Malta,' undoubtedly one of the most popular 
 plays even of Shakspere's day, judging as 
 we may from the number of performances 
 recorded in Henslowe's papers ! That drama, 
 as compared with ' The Merchant of Venice,' 
 has been described by Charles Lamb, with 
 his usual felicity : " Marlowe's Jew does 
 not approach so near to Shakspere's as his 
 Edward II. Shylock, in the midst of his 
 savage purpose, is a man. His motives, 
 feelings, resentments, have something human 
 in them. ' If you wrong us, shall we not 
 revenge V Barabas is a mere monster, brought 
 in with a large painted nose, to please the 
 rabble. He kills in sport poisons whole 
 nunneries invents infernal machines. He 
 is just such an exhibition as a century or 
 two earlier might have been played before 
 the Londoners, by the Royal command, when 
 a general pillage and massacre of the Hebrews 
 had been previously resolved on in the 
 cabinet." 'The Jew of Malta' was written 
 essentially upon an intolerant principle. 
 ' The Merchant of Venice,' whilst it seized 
 upon the prejudices of the multitude, and 
 dealt with them as a foregone conclusion by 
 which the whole dramatic action was to be 
 governed, had the intention of making those 
 
 prejudices as hateful as the reaction of cruelty 
 and revenge of which they are the cause. 
 
 Mrs. Inchbald, in her edition of the ' Acted 
 Drama,' thus describes Lord Lansdown's ar- 
 rangement, with variations, of ' The Merchant 
 of Venice :' " The Jew of Venice, by Lord 
 Lansdown, is an alteration of this play, and 
 was acted in 1701. The noble author made 
 some emendations in the work ; but, having 
 made the Jew a comic character, as such he 
 caused more laughter than detestation, which 
 wholly destroyed the moral designed by the 
 original author." A.comic Shylockis certainly 
 the masterpiece of the improvements upon 
 Shakspere. We have reached a period when 
 it is scarcely necessary to discuss whether 
 this emendation of Shakspere were right or 
 wrong ; nor, indeed, whether Mrs. Inchbald 
 herself be perfectly correct in assuming that, 
 if the trial scene were now brought upon the 
 stage for the first time, " the company in the 
 side-boxes would faint or withdraw." ' The 
 Merchant of Venice' of the stage is, in many 
 respects, the play of Shakspere. Macklin 
 put down Lord Lansdown. But, up to a 
 very recent period, it has been, with green- 
 room propriety, accommodated to the taste 
 of " the company in the side-boxes " by the 
 omission of a great deal of what is highest 
 in its poetry, and by the substitution, in 
 some cases, of the actor's verses for Shak- 
 spere's. It is one of the best proofs that 
 Shakspere is now appreciated (because he is 
 understood), that what were considered as 
 authority, " the prompt-books" of the the- 
 atres, such as they existed some ten years 
 ago, have passed into utter contempt. 
 
 Turning from such matters, we come to an 
 opinion in which Mrs. Inchbald is by no 
 means singular that detestation of the Jew 
 is "the moral designed by the original author." 
 It is probable that, even in Shakspere's time, 
 this was the popular notion. In an anony- 
 mous MS. ' Elegy on Burbage,' " one of the 
 characters he is represented to have filled is 
 that of Shylock, who is called ' the red-hair'd 
 Jew.' This establishes that the part was 
 dressed in an artificial red beard and wig, in 
 order to render it more odious and objection- 
 able to the audience."* This circumstance 
 
 * Collier's ' New Particulars,' &c. 
 
STUDIES OF SHAKSPEEE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 however, is by no means a proof to us that 
 Shakspere intended the Jew to move the 
 audience to unmitigated odium. The players 
 might have thought, indeed, that he was not 
 odious enough for the popular appetite, and 
 in consequence made him, " more odious and 
 objectionable." The question may be better 
 understood as we proceed in an analysis of 
 the characters and incidents of this drama. 
 
 A contemporary German critic, Dr. Ulrici*, 
 has presented to us the entire plot of ' The 
 Merchant of Venice' under a very original 
 aspect. His object has been to discover, 
 what he maintains had not been previously 
 
 j discovered, the fundamental idea of the 
 drama the link which holds together all its 
 
 I apparently heterogeneous parts. The critic 
 first passes the several characters in review. 
 
 | Antonio is the noble and great-hearted, 
 yielding to a passive melancholy, produced 
 by the weight of a too agitating life of 
 action ; Bassanio, somewhat inconsiderate, 
 but generous and sensible, is the genuine 
 Italian gentleman, in the best sense of the 
 word ; Portia is most amiable, and intellec- 
 tually rich (geistreick) ; Jessica is a child of 
 nature, lost in an oriental love enthusiasm. 
 The critic presents these characteristics in a 
 very few words ; but his portrait of Shylock 
 is more elaborate. He is the well-struck 
 image of the Jewish character in general 
 of the fallen member of a race dispersed 
 over the whole earth, and enduring long 
 centuries of persecution. Their firmness had 
 become obstinacy ; their quickness of in- 
 tellect, craft ; their love of possessions, a 
 revolting avarice. " Nothing," says Dr. 
 Ulrici, " had kept its rank in their universal 
 decay, but the unconquerable constancy, the 
 dry mummy-like tenacity of the Jewish 
 nature. So appears Shylock a pitiable ruin 
 of a great and significant by-past time the 
 glimmering ash-spark of a faded splendour 
 which can no longer warm or preserve, but 
 can yet burn or destroy. We are as little 
 able to deny him our compassion, as we can 
 withhold our disgust against his modes of 
 thinking and acting." 
 
 Dr. Ulrici next proceeds to notice Shak- 
 
 * ' Ueber Shakspeare's dramatische Kunst, und sein 
 Vcrhaltniss zn Calderon und Gothe.' 
 
 spere's mastership in the composition, uniting, 
 and unfolding of the intricate plot. "We 
 have three curious, and in themselves very 
 complicated, knots wound into each other : 
 first,the process between Antonio and Shylock: 
 next, the marriages of Bassanio and Portia, 
 of Gratiano and Nerissa; and, lastly, the 
 elopement of Jessica, and her love's history 
 with Lorenzo. These various interests, 
 actions, and adventures are disposed with 
 such a clearness and fixedness one so 
 developes itself out of and with the others, 
 that we never lose the thread that every- 
 where reveals an animated and harmoniously 
 framed principle." The critic then proceeds 
 to say, that, although an external union of 
 the chief elements is clearly enough sup- 
 ported, the whole seems in truth to be 
 inevitably falling asunder ; and that " we 
 have now to inquire where lies the internal 
 spiritual unity which will justify the com- 
 bination of such heterogeneous elements in 
 one drama." 
 
 Throughout many of Shakspere's plays, 
 according to Dr. Ulrici, the leading fun- 
 damental idea, concentrated in itself, is so 
 intentionally hidden the single makes itself 
 so decidedly important, and comes before us 
 so free, and self-sustained, and complete, 
 that the entire work is occasionally exposed 
 to the ungrounded reproach of looseness of 
 plan and want of coherency. On the other 
 hand, there are sufficient intimations of the 
 meaning of the whole scattered throughout ; 
 so that whoever has in some degree penetrated 
 into the depths of the Shaksperean art cannot 
 well go wrong. The sense and significancy 
 of the process between Antonio and the Jew 
 rest clearly upon the old juridical precept, 
 Summum jus, summa injuria. Shylock has, 
 clearly, all that is material, except justice, 
 on his side ; but, while he seizes and follows 
 his right to the letter, he falls through it 
 into the deepest and most criminal injustice ; 
 and the same injustice, through the internal 
 necessity which belongs to the nature of sin, 
 falls back destructively on his own head. 
 The same aspect in which this principle is 
 presented to us in its extremest harshness, 
 in the case of Shylock, shows itself in various 
 outbursts of light and shadow throughout 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 
 
 235 
 
 all the remaining elements of this drama. 
 The arbitrary will of her father, which fetters 
 Portia's inclination, and robs her of all 
 participation in the choice of a husband, 
 rests certainly upon paternal right ; but even 
 this right, when carried to an extreme, be- 
 comes the highest injustice. The injustice 
 which lies in the enforcement of this paternal 
 right would have fallen with tragical weight, 
 if chance had not conducted it to a fortunate 
 issue. The flight and marriage of Jessica, 
 against her father's will, comprehends a 
 manifest injustice. Nevertheless, who will 
 condemn her for having withdrawn herself 
 from the power of such a father ? In the 
 sentence laid upon the Jew, by which he is 
 compelled to recognise the marriage of his 
 daughter, is again reflected the precept 
 Summum jus, summa injuria ; right and 
 unright are here so closely driven up into the 
 same limit, that they are no longer separated, 
 but immediately pass over one to the other. 
 Thus we see that the different, and ap- 
 parently heterogeneous, events unite them- 
 selves in the whole into one point. They 
 are only variations of the same theme. All 
 human life is a great lawsuit ; where right 
 is received as the centre and basis of our 
 being. From this point of view proceeds the 
 drama. But, the more this basis is built 
 upon, the more insecure does it exhibit itself. 
 Unquestionably, right and law ought to 
 uphold and strengthen human life. But 
 they are not its basis and true centre. In 
 them the whole truth of human existence 
 does not lie inclosed. In their one-sidedness 
 right becomes unright, and unright becomes 
 right. Law and right have their legality 
 and truth, not through and in themselves ; 
 but they rest upon the higher principles of 
 the true morality, from which they issue 
 only as single rays. Man has in and for 
 himself no rights, but only duties. But, at 
 the same time, against others his duties are 
 rights ; and there is no true living right that 
 does not include, and may be itself indeed, a 
 duty. Not upon right, then, but upon 
 heavenly grace, rests the human being and 
 life. The union of the human with the 
 Divine will is the true animating morality 
 of mankind through which right and un- 
 
 right first receive their value and signifi- 
 cancy. Shakspere indicates this in the 
 following beautiful verses : 
 
 " The quality of mercy is not strain'd ; 
 It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven 
 Upon the place beneath : it is twice bless'd ; 
 It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes : 
 'T is mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes 
 The throned monarch better than his crown ; 
 His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 
 The attribute to awe and majesty, 
 Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; 
 But mercy is above this sceptred sway, 
 It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, 
 It is an attribute to God himself; 
 And earthly power doth then show likest 
 
 God's 
 
 When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, 
 Though justice be thy plea, consider this 
 That in the course of justice, none of us 
 Should see salvation : we do pray for mercy; 
 And that same prayer doth teach us all to 
 
 render 
 The deeds of mercy." 
 
 We have thus very briefly, and, therefore, 
 somewhat imperfectly, exhibited the views 
 of Dr. Ulrici, with reference to the idea in 
 which this drama is conceived. They belong 
 to that philosophy which, whether for praise 
 or for blame, has been called transcendental. 
 We cannot avoid expressing our opinion 
 that, although Shakspere might not have 
 proposed to himself so systematic a display of 
 the contest that is unremittingly going 
 forward in the world between our con- 
 ventional and our natural being, he did 
 intend to represent the anomalies that have 
 always existed between the circumstances by 
 which human agents are surrounded and the 
 higher motives by which they should act. 
 And this idea, as it appears to us, is the 
 basis of the large toleration which belongs to 
 this drama, amidst its seeming intolerance. 
 Men are to be judged upon a higher prin- 
 ciple than belongs to mere edicts, by and 
 through all the associations amidst which 
 they have been nurtured, and by which they 
 have been impelled. We select a case or two 
 in point. 
 
 Antonio is one of the most beautiful of 
 Shakspere's characters. He does not take a 
 
236 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 very prominent part in the drama : he is a 
 sufferer rather than an actor. We view him, 
 in the outset, rich, liberal, surrounded with 
 friends; yet he is unhappy. He has higher 
 aspirations than those which ordinarily be- 
 long to one dependent upon the chances of 
 
 [ commerce ; and this uncertainty, as we think, 
 produces his unhappiness. He will not ac- 
 knowledge the forebodings of evil which 
 come across his mind. Ulrici says, " It was 
 the over-great magnitude of his earthly 
 riches, which, although his heart was by no 
 means dependent upon their amount, un- 
 consciously confined the free flight of his 
 
 | soul." We doubt if Shakspere meant this. 
 
 j He has addressed the reproof of that state of 
 
 i mind to Portia, from the lips of Nerissa : 
 
 " Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body 
 is a-weary of this great world. 
 
 Ner. You would be, sweet madam, if your 
 miseries were in the same abundance as your 
 good fortunes are: And yet, for aught I see, 
 they are as sick that surfeit with too much, as 
 they tlmt starve with nothing" 
 
 Antonio may say 
 
 " In sooth, I know not why I am so sad ;" 
 
 but his reasoning denial of the cause of his 
 sadness is a proof to us that the foreboding 
 of losses 
 " Enough to press a royal merchant down," 
 
 is at the bottom of his sadness. It appears 
 
 to us a self-delusion, which his secret nature 
 
 rejects, that he says, 
 
 " My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, 
 Nor to one place ; nor is my whole estate 
 Upon the fortune of this present year : 
 Therefore, my merchandize makes me not 
 sad." 
 
 When he has given the fatal bond, he has a 
 sort of desperate confidence, which to us 
 looks very unlike assured belief : 
 
 " "Why, fear not, man ; I will not forfeit it ; 
 Within these two months, that's a month 
 
 before 
 
 This bond expires, I do expect return 
 Of thrice three times the value of this bond." 
 
 And, finally, when his calamity has become 
 a real thing, and not a shadowy notion, his 
 
 deportment shows that his mind has been 
 iong familiar with images of ruin : 
 
 " Give me your hand, Bassanio ; fare you well ! 
 Grieve not that I am fallen to this for you ; 
 For herein fortune shows herself more kind 
 Than is her custom : it is still her use, 
 To let the wretched man outlive his wealth, 
 To view, with hollow eye and wrinkled brow, 
 An age of poverty; from which lingering 
 
 penance 
 Of such misery doth she cut me off." 
 
 The generosity of Antonio's nature unfitted 
 him for a contest with the circumstances 
 amid which his lot was cast. The Jew 
 says 
 
 " In low simplicity, 
 He lends out money gratis." 
 He himself says 
 " I oft deliver'd from his forfeitures 
 Many that have at times made moan to me." 
 
 Bassanio describes him as 
 
 " The kindest man, 
 
 The best condition'd and unwearied spirit 
 In doing courtesies." 
 
 To such a spirit, whose " means are in sup- 
 position" whose ventures are "squander'd 
 abroad" the curse of the Jew must have 
 sometimes presented itself to his own pro- 
 phetic mind : 
 
 " This is the fool that lends out money gratis." 
 Antonio and his position are not in harmony. 
 But there is something else discordant in 
 Antonio's mind. This kind friend, this 
 generous benefactor, this gentle spirit, this 
 man "unwearied in doing courtesies," can 
 outrage and insult a fellow-creature, because 
 he is of another creed : 
 
 " Shy. Fair sir, you spet on me on Wed- 
 nesday last ; 
 
 You spurn'd me such a day ; another time 
 
 You call'd me dog ; and for these courtesies 
 
 I '11 lend you thus much monies. 
 Ant. I am as like to call thee BO again, 
 
 To spet on thee again, to spurn thee too." 
 
 Was it without an object that Shakspere 
 made this man, so entitled to command our 
 affections and our sympathy, act so unworthy 
 a part, and not be ashamed of the act ? Most 
 assuredly the poet did not intend to justify 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 
 
 237 
 
 the indignities which were heaped upon 
 Shylock ; for in the very strongest way he 
 has made the Jew remember the insult in 
 the progress of his wild revenge : 
 
 "Thou call'dst me dog, before thou hadst a 
 
 cause : 
 But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs." 
 
 Here, to our minds, is the first of the lessons 
 of charity which this play teaches. Antonio 
 is as much to be pitied for his prejudices as 
 the Jew for his. They had both been nur- 
 tured in evil opinions. They had both been 
 surrounded by influences which more or less 
 held in subjection their better natures. The 
 honoured Christian is as intolerant as the 
 despised Jew. The one habitually pursues 
 with injustice the subjected man that he has 
 been taught to loathe ; the other, in the 
 depths of his subtle obstinacy, seizes upon 
 the occasion to destroy the powerful man 
 that he has been compelled to fear. The 
 companions of Antonio exhibit, more or less, 
 the same reflection of the prejudices which 
 have become to them a second nature. They 
 are not so gross in their prejudices as Launce- 
 lot, to whom " the Jew is the very devil in- 
 carnation." But to Lorenzo, who is about to 
 marry his daughter, Shy lock is a "faithless 
 Jew." When the unhappy father is bereft 
 of all that constituted the solace of his home, 
 and before he has manifested that spirit of 
 revenge which might well call for indignation 
 and contempt, he is to the gentlemanly 
 Solanio " the villain Jew," and " the dog 
 Jew." When the unhappy man speaks of 
 his daughter's flight, he is met with a brutal 
 jest on the part of Salarino, who, within his 
 own circle, is the pleasantest of men ; " I, 
 for my part, knew the tailor that made the 
 wings she flew withal." We can understand 
 the reproaches that are heaped upon Shy lock 
 in the trial scene as something that might 
 come out of the depths of any passion-stirred 
 nature : but the habitual contempt with 
 which he is treated by men who in every 
 other respect are gentle and good-humoured 
 and benevolent is a proof to us that Shakspere 
 meant to represent the struggle that must 
 inevitably ensue, in a condition of society 
 where the innate sense of justice is deadened 
 
 in the powerful by those hereditary pre- 
 judices which make cruelty virtue ; and 
 where the powerless, invested by accident 
 with the means of revenge, say with Shy lock, 
 " The villainy you teach me I will execute ; 
 and it shall go hard but I will better the 
 instruction." The climax of this subjection 
 of our higher and better natures to con- 
 ventional circumstances is to be found in the 
 character of the Jew's daughter. Young, 
 agreeable, intelligent, formed for happiness, 
 she is shut up by her father in a dreary 
 solitude. One opposed to her in creed gains 
 her affections j* and the ties which bind the 
 father and the child are broken for ever. 
 But they are not broken without com- 
 punction : 
 
 " Alack ! what heinous sin is it in me 
 To be ashamed to be my father's child ! " 
 
 This is nature. But when she has fled from 
 him, robbed him, spent fourscore ducats in 
 one night, given his turquoise for a monkey, 
 and, finally, revealed his secrets, with an 
 evasion of the ties that bound them which 
 makes one's flesh creep, 
 
 " When I was with him" 
 
 we see the poor girl plunged into the most 
 wretched contest between her duties and her 
 pleasures by the force of external circum- 
 stances. We grant, then, to all these our 
 compassion ; for they commit injustice ig- 
 norantly, and through a force which they 
 cannot withstand. Is the Jew himself not to 
 be measured by the same rule ? We believe 
 that it was Shakspere's intention so to mea- 
 sure him. 
 
 When Pope exclaimed of Macklin's per- 
 formance of Shylock, 
 
 " This is the Jew 
 That Shakspere drew ! " 
 
 the higher philosophy of Shakspere was little 
 appreciated. Macklin was, no doubt, from 
 all traditionary report of him, perfectly ca- 
 pable of representing the subtlety of the 
 Jew's malice and the energy of his revenge. 
 But it is a question with us whether he 
 perceived, or indeed if any actor ever ef- 
 ficiently represented, the more delicate traits 
 of character that lie beneath these two great 
 
238 
 
 STUDIES OF SIIAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 passions of the Jew's heart. Look, for 
 example, at the extraordinary mixture of 
 the personal and the national in his dislike 
 of Antonio. He hates him for his gentle 
 manners : 
 
 " How like a fawning publican he looks ! ' 
 
 He hates him, " for he is a Christian ; " he 
 hates him, for that "he lends out money 
 gratis;" but he hates him more than all, 
 because 
 
 " He hates our sacred nation." 
 
 It is this national feeling which, when 
 carried in a right direction, makes a patriot 
 and a hero, that assumes in Shy lock the 
 aspect of a grovelling and fierce personal 
 revenge. He has borne insult and injury 
 " with a patient shrug;" but ever in small 
 matters he has been seeking retribution : 
 
 " I am not bid for love ; they flatter me : 
 But yet I '11 go in hate, to feed upon 
 The prodigal Christian." 
 
 The mask is at length thrown off he has 
 the Christian in his power ; and his desire of 
 revenge, mean and ferocious as it is, rises 
 into sublimity, through the unconquerable 
 energy of the oppressed man's wilfulness. 
 " I am a Jew : Hath not a Jew eyes 1 hath 
 not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, 
 affections, passions ? fed with the same food, 
 hurt with the same weapons, subject to the 
 same diseases, healed by the same means, 
 warmed and cooled by the same winter and 
 summer, as a Christian is 1 If you prick us, 
 do we not bleed ? if you tickle us, do we not 
 laugh ? if you poison us, do we not die ? and, 
 if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If 
 we are like you in the rest, we will resemble 
 you in that." It is impossible, after this 
 exposition of his feelings, that we should not 
 feel that he has properly cast the greater 
 portion of the odium which belongs to his 
 actions upon the social circumstances by 
 which he has been hunted into madness. 
 He has been made the thing he is by society. 
 In the extreme wildness of his anger, when 
 he utters the harrowing imprecation, " I 
 would my daughter were dead at my foot, 
 and the jewels in- her ear! 'would she were 
 hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her 
 
 coffin," the tenderness that belongs to our 
 common humanity, even in its most pas- 
 sionate forgetfulness of the dearest ties, 
 comes across him in the remembrance of the 
 mother of that execrated child : " Out upon 
 her ! Thou torturest me, Tubal : it was my 
 turquoise ; I had it of Leah when I was a 
 bachelor." 
 
 It is in the conduct of the trial scene 
 that, as it appears to us, is to be sought the 
 concentration of Shakspere's leading idea in 
 the composition of this drama. The merchant 
 stands before the Jew a better and a wiser 
 man than when he called him "dog:" 
 
 " I do oppose 
 
 My patience to his fury ; and am arm'd 
 To suffer, with a quietness of spirit, 
 The very tyranny and rage of his." 
 
 Misfortune has corrected the influences which, 
 in happier moments, allowed him to forget 
 the gentleness of his nature, and to heap 
 unmerited abuse upon him whose badge was 
 sufferance. The Jew is unchanged. But, if 
 Shakspere in the early scenes made us en- 
 tertain some compassion for his wrongs, he 
 has now left him to bear all the indignation 
 which we ought to feel against one " un- 
 capable of pity." But we cannot despise the 
 Jew. His intellectual vigour rises supreme 
 over the mere reasonings by which he is 
 opposed. He defends his own injustice by 
 the example of as great an injustice of 
 every-day occurrence and no one ventures 
 to answer him : 
 
 " 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 parts, 
 Because you bought them : Shall I say to you, 
 Let them be free, marry them to your heirs? 
 Why sweat they under burthens? let their 
 
 beds 
 
 Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates 
 Be season'd with such viands? You will 
 
 answer, 
 
 The slaves are ours : So do I answer you. 
 The pound of flesh, which I demand of him, 
 Is dearly bought; 't is mine, and I will 
 
 have it : 
 If you deny me, fie upon your law ! " 
 
 It would have been exceedingly difficult for 
 
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 
 
 239 
 
 the Merchant to have escaped from the 
 power of the obdurate man, so strong in the 
 letter of the law, and so resolute to cany it 
 out by the example of his judges in other 
 matters, had not the law been found here, as 
 in most other cases, capable of being bent to 
 the will of its administrators. Had it been 
 the inflexible thing which Shylock required 
 it to be, a greater injustice would have been 
 committed than the Jew had finally himself 
 to suffer. Mrs. Jameson has very justly and 
 ingeniously described the struggle which 
 Portia had to sustain in abandoning the high 
 ground which she took in her great address 
 to the Jew ; " She maintains at first a calm 
 self-command, as one sure of carrying her 
 point in the end: yet the painful heart- 
 thrilling uncertainty in which she keeps the 
 whole court, until suspense verges upon 
 agony, is not contrived for effect merely ; it 
 is necessary and inevitable. She has two 
 objects in view : to deliver her husband's 
 friend, and to maintain her husband's honour 
 by the discharge of his just debt, though paid 
 out of her own wealth ten times over. It is 
 evident that she would rather owe the safety 
 of Antonio to anything rather than the legal 
 quibble with which her cousin Bellario has 
 armed her, and which she reserves as a last 
 resource. Thus all the speeches addressed to 
 Shylock, in the first instance, are either 
 direct or indirect experiments on his temper 
 and feelings. She must be understood, from 
 the beginning to the end, as examining with 
 intense anxiety the effect of her own words 
 on his mind and countenance ; as watching 
 for that relenting spirit which she hopes to 
 awaken either by reason or persuasion." * 
 
 Had Shylock relented after that most 
 beautiful appeal to his mercy, which Shak- 
 spere has here placed as the exponent of the 
 higher principle upon which all law and 
 right are essentially dependent, the real 
 moral of the drama would have been de- 
 stroyed. The weight of injuries transmitted 
 to Shylock from his forefathers, and still 
 heaped upon him even by the best of those 
 by whom he was surrounded, was not so 
 easily to become light, and to cease to ex- 
 asperate his nature. Nor would it have 
 
 * Characteristics of Women, vol. i. p. 75. 
 
 been a true picture of society in the six- 
 teenth century had the poet shown the 
 judges of the Jew wholly magnanimous in 
 granting him the mercy which he denied to 
 the Christian. We certainly do not agree 
 with the Duke, in his address to Shylock, 
 that the conditions upon which his life is 
 spared are imposed 
 
 " That thou shalt see the difference of our spirit." 
 Nor do we think that Shakspere meant to 
 hold up these conditions as anything better 
 than examples of the mode in which the 
 strong are accustomed to deal with the weak. 
 There is still something discordant in this, 
 the real catastrophe of the drama. It could 
 not be otherwise, and yet be true to nature. 
 But how artistically has the poet restored 
 the balance of pleasureable sensations ! 
 Throughout the whole conduct of the play, 
 what may be called its tragic portion has 
 been relieved by the romance which belongs 
 to the personal fate of Portia. But, after 
 the great business of the drama is wound up, 
 we fall back upon a repose which is truly 
 refreshing and harmonious. From the lips of 
 Lorenzo and Jessica, as they sit in the 
 " paler day" of an Italian moon, are breathed 
 the lighter strains of the most playful poetry, 
 mingled with the highest flights of the most 
 elevated. Music and the odours of sweet 
 flowers are around them. Happiness is in 
 their hearts. Their thoughts are lifted by 
 the beauties of the earth above the earth. 
 This delicious scene belongs to what is uni- 
 versal and eternal, and takes us far away 
 from those bitter strifes of our social state 
 which are essentially narrow and temporary. 
 And then come the affectionate welcomes, 
 the pretty, pouting contests, and the happy 
 explanations of Portia and Nerissa with 
 Bassanio and Gratiano. Here again we are 
 removed into a sphere where the calamities 
 of fortune, and the injustice of man warring 
 against man, may be forgotten. The poor 
 Merchant is once more happy. The " gentle 
 spirit" of Portia is perhaps the happiest, for 
 she has triumphantly concluded a work as 
 religious as her pretended pilgrimage " by 
 holy crosses." To use the words of Dr. 
 Ulrici, " the sharp contrarieties of right and 
 unright are played out." 
 
240 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 
 
 'MucH ADO ABOUT NOTHING' was first 
 printed in 1600. It had been entered at 
 Stationers' Hall on the 23rd of August of 
 the same year. The first edition is not 
 divided into acts ; but in the folio of 1623 
 we find this division. There was no other 
 separate edition. The variations between 
 the text of the quarto and that of the folio 
 are very few. There is a remarkable pecu- 
 liarity, however, in the text of the folio, 
 which indicates very clearly that it was 
 printed from the playhouse copy. In the 
 second act (Scene 3) we find this stage- 
 direction: "Enter Prince, Leonato, Claudio, 
 and Jack Wilson'' In the third act, when 
 the two inimitable guardians of the night 
 first descend upon the solid earth in Messina, 
 to move mortals for ever after with un- 
 extinguishable laughter, they speak to us 
 in their well-known names of Dogberry and 
 Verges ; but in the fourth act we find the 
 names of mere human actors prefixed to 
 what they say: Dogberry becomes Kempe, 
 and Verges Cowley. Here, then, we have a 
 piece of the prompter's book before us. 
 Balthazar, with his "Sigh no more, ladies, 
 sigh no more," is identified with Jack Wil- 
 son ; and Kempe and Cowley have come 
 down to posterity in honourable association 
 with the two illustrious "compartners of 
 the watch." We could almost believe that 
 the play-editors of the folio in 1623 pur- 
 posely left these anomalous entries as an 
 historical tribute to the memory of their 
 fellows. Kempe, we know, had been dead 
 some years before the publication of the 
 folio ; and probably Cowley and Jack Wil- 
 son had also gone where the voice of their 
 merriment and their minstrelsy was heard 
 no more. 
 
 The chronology of this comedy is suffi- 
 ciently fixed by the circumstance of its pub- 
 lication in 1600, coupled with the fact that 
 it is not mentioned by Meres in 1598. 
 
 "The story is taken from Ariosto," says 
 Pope. To Ariosto then we turn ; and we 
 are repaid for our labour by the pleasure of 
 reading that long but by no means tedious 
 story of Genevra, which occupies the whole 
 of the fifth book, and part of the sixth, 
 of the ' Orlando Furioso.' " The tale is a 
 pretty comical matter," as Harrington 
 quaintly pronounces it. The famous town 
 of St. Andrew's forms its scene ; and here 
 was enacted something like that piece of 
 villainy by which the Claudio of Shakspere 
 was deceived, and his Hero " done to death 
 by slanderous tongues." In Harrington's 
 good old translation of the ' Orlando ' there 
 are six-and-forty pictures, as there are six- 
 and-forty books ; and, says the translator, 
 " they are all cut in brass, and most of them 
 by the best workmen in that kind that have 
 been in this land this many years : yet I 
 will not praise them too much because I 
 gave direction for their making." The witty 
 godson of Queen Elizabeth "that merry 
 poet, my godson" adds, "the use of the 
 picture is evident, which is, that having 
 read over the book you may read it as it 
 were again in the very picture." He might 
 have said, you may read it as it were before; 
 and if we had copied this picture, in which 
 the whole action of the book is exhibited at 
 once in a bird's eye view, and where yet, as 
 he who gave "direction for its making" 
 truly says, "the personages of men, the 
 shapes of horses, and such like, are made 
 large at the bottom and lesser upward," 
 our readers would have seen at a glance how 
 far " the story is taken from Ariosto." For 
 here we have, " large at the bottom," a fair 
 one at a window, looking lovingly upon a 
 man who is ascending a ladder of ropes, 
 whilst at the foot of the said ladder an 
 unhappy wight is about to fall upon his 
 sword, from which fate he is with difficulty 
 arrested by one who is struggling with him. 
 
CIIAP. V] 
 
 MUCH ADO ABOUT NoTIUJW. 
 
 241 
 
 We here see at once the resemblance between 
 the story in Ariosto and the incident in 
 t Much Ado about Nothing ' upon which both 
 the tragic and comic interest of the play 
 hinges. But here the resemblance ceases. 
 As we ascend the picture, we see the King 
 of Scotland seated upon a royal throne, 
 but no Dogberry ; his disconsolate daughter 
 is placed by his side, but there is no veiled 
 Hero ; King, and Princess, and courtiers, 
 and people, are looking upon a tilting-ground, 
 where there is a fierce and deadly encounter 
 of two mailed knights, but there is no 
 Beatrice and no Benedick. The truth is, 
 that Ariosto found the incident of a lady 
 betrayed to suspicion and danger, by the 
 personation of her own waiting-woman, 
 amongst the popular traditions of the south 
 of Europe this story has been traced to 
 Spain ; and he interwove it with the adven- 
 tures of his Rinaldo as an integral part of 
 his chivalrous romance. The lady Genevra, 
 so falsely accused, was doomed to die unless 
 a true knight came within a month to do 
 battle for her honour. Her lover, Ariodant, 
 had fled, and was reported to have perished. 
 The wicked duke, Polinesso,vfho had betrayed 
 Genevra, appears secure in his treachery. 
 But the misguided woman, Dalinda, who 
 had been the instrument of his crime, flying 
 from her paramour, meets with Rinaldo, 
 and declares the truth ; and then comes the 
 combat, in which the guilty duke is slain by 
 the champion of innocence, and the lover 
 re-appears to be made happy with his spotless 
 princess. 
 
 The motive which influences the Polinesso 
 of Ariosto is the hope that by vilifying the 
 character of Genevra he may get rid of his 
 rival in her love. Spenser has told a similar 
 story in the 'Faerie Queene' (Book II., 
 Canto IV.), in which Phedon describes the 
 like treachery of his false friend Philemon. 
 The motive here was not very unlike 
 that of Don John in 'Much Ado about 
 Nothing.' 
 
 The European story, which Ariosto and 
 Spenser have thus adopted, has formed also 
 the groundwork of one of Bandello's Italian 
 novels. And here the wronged lady has 
 neither her honour vindicated in battle, as 
 
 in Ariosto ; nor is slain by her furious lover, 
 as in Spenser ; but she is rejected, believed 
 to be dead, and finally married in disguise, 
 as in f Much Ado about Nothing.' 
 
 Ariosto made this story a tale of chivalry ; 
 Spenser a lesson of high and solemn morality ; 
 Bandello an interesting love-romance. It 
 was for Shakspere to surround the main in- 
 cident with those accessories which he could 
 nowhere borrow, and to make of it such a 
 comedy as no other man has made ra comedy 
 not of manners or of sentiment, but of life 
 viewed under its profoundest aspects, whether 
 of the grave or the ludicrous. 
 
 We request thee, gentle reader, to 
 imagine for, as a lover of Shakspere, thou 
 canst imagine that thou wert extant in 
 the year of grace 1600 ; and that on a fine 
 summer's morning of that year, as thou wert 
 painfully guiding thy palfrey amongst the 
 deep ruts and muddy channels of Cheapside, 
 thou didst tarry in thy pilgrimage for a few 
 minutes to peruse a small printed bill affixed 
 rpon a post, which bore something like the 
 following announcement : 
 
 By THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD 
 
 CHAMBERLAINE HIS SERVANTS, 
 
 AT THE GLOBE THEATRE AT BANKSIDE, 
 
 This day, being Tuesday, July 11, 1600, will 
 
 be acted, 
 
 MUCH ADOE ABOUT NOTHING, 
 WRITTEN BY WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 
 
 This, thou seest for thou art cognizant of 
 the present time as well as imaginative of 
 the past is not a bill as big as a house, the 
 smallest letters of which are afflicted with 
 elephantiasis ; nor is it a bill which talks of 
 "prodigious hit" and "thunders of ap- 
 plause," nor in which you see Mr. William 
 Kempe's name towering in red letters above 
 all his fellows : but a modest, quiet, little 
 bill an innocent bill which ought not to 
 have provoked the abuse of the Puritans, 
 that " players, by sticking of their bills in 
 London, defile the streets with their infec- 
 tious filthiness." * In reading this bill thou 
 receivest especially into thy mind three 
 ideas which set thee thinking the company 
 
 * 'Mirror of Monsters,' 1587. 
 
242 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 of actors who perform the play, the name of 
 the play to be performed, the name of the 
 writer. Thou knowest that it is the best 
 company, and the best writer, of the day ; 
 but the play> is the play a tragedy, or a 
 history, or a comedy ? Thou opinest that it 
 is a comedy. If the title were 'Much Ado' 
 thou wouldst be puzzled ; but l Much Ado 
 about Nothing'' lets thee into a secret. Thou 
 knowest, assuredly, that the author of the 
 play will take the spectators into his con- 
 fidence ; that he will show them the pre- 
 paration, and the bustle, and the turmoil, 
 and it may be the distress, of some domestic 
 event, or chain of events, the ' Much Ado ' 
 to the actors of the events, who have not 
 the thread of the labyrinth ; but, to the 
 spectators, who sit with the book of fate 
 open before them, who know how all this 
 begins and expect how it will all end, it is 
 1 Much Ado about Nothing.' It is a comedy, 
 then ; in which surprise is for the actors, 
 expectation is for the audience. Thou wilt 
 cross London Bridge and see this comedy ; 
 for, " as the feeling with which we startle at 
 a shooting star, compared with that of 
 watching the sunrise at the pre-established 
 moment, such and so low is surprise com- 
 pared with expectation."* 
 
 We have no wish to tutoyer the gentle 
 reader any farther. We have desired only 
 to show the significancy of the title of this 
 play, by exhibiting it in slight connection 
 with the circumstances under which it was 
 published. For the title of this comedy, 
 rightly considered, is the best expositor of 
 the idea of this comedy. Dr. Ulrici, em- 
 ploying a dialect with which the English 
 ear is not quite familiar, tells us that the 
 fundamental idea lies in the antithesis which 
 the play exhibits of the objective reality of 
 human life to its subjective aspect. An able 
 anonymous writer translates this for us into 
 more intelligible language : " He considers 
 the play as a representation of the contrast 
 and contradiction between life in its real 
 essence and the aspect which it presents to 
 those who are engaged in its struggle."t 
 The " subjective aspect," then, is the 'Much 
 
 * Coleridge, ' Literary Remains," vol. ii. p. 78. 
 t ' Edinburgh Review,' July, 1840. 
 
 Ado ;' the "objective reality" the 'about 
 Nothing.'' The reviewer has given us clearly 
 and concisely the results to which the in- 
 quiry, pursued upon this principle, has con- 
 ducted the German critic. The contradic- 
 tion between life and its aspects " is set 
 forth in an acted commentary on the title of 
 the drama ; a series of incidents which, in 
 themselves neither real, nor strange, nor 
 important, are regarded by the actors as 
 being all these things. The war at the 
 opening, it is said, begins without reason 
 and ends without result ; Don Pedro 
 seems to woo Hero for himself, while he 
 gains her for his friend ; Benedick and 
 Beatrice, after carrying on a merry cam- 
 paign of words without real enmity, are 
 entrapped into a marriage without real love : 
 the leading story rests in a seeming faith- 
 lessness, and its results are a seeming death 
 and funeral, a challenge which produces no 
 fighting, and a marriage in which the bride 
 is a pretender ; and the weakness and sha- 
 dowiness of human wishes and plans are 
 exposed with yet more cutting irony in the 
 means that bring about the fortunate cata- 
 strophe, an incident in which the unwitting 
 agents headed by Dogberry, the very re- 
 presentative of the idea of the piece are 
 the lowest and most stupid characters of the 
 whole group." The reviewer adds " The 
 poet's readers may hesitate in following his 
 speculative critic the whole way in this 
 journey to the temple of abstract truth." 
 There are many of the poet's readers who 
 will altogether reject this abstract mode of 
 examining his works. To them the " abs- 
 tract truth" appears but as a devious and 
 uncertain glimmering a taper in the sun- 
 shine. Have we not in Shakspere, say they, 
 high poetry, sparkling wit, the deepest 
 pathos 1 are not the characters well defined, 
 adroitly grouped ; his plots interesting, his 
 incidents skilfully evolved ? True. And so, 
 in nature, we have sky and water, and the 
 forms and colours of leafy trees, and quiet 
 dells, and fertile fields, and dewy lawns, and 
 brilliant flowers ; and we can understand 
 the loveliness of separate objects, and we 
 partly see how they form what the eye calls 
 a picture. But there comes an artist, and 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 
 
 243 
 
 he sets us to look at the same objects from 
 another point of view ; and he watches a 
 moment when there is a sunny gleam upon 
 this part of the landscape, and a softened 
 shade upon the other part ; and he tells us 
 to look again with the eye of his technical 
 knowledge, and the scene has become al- 
 together picturesque; and, when we have 
 habituated ourselves to this mode of view- 
 ing the works of nature, we have acquired 
 almost a new sense. So it is with the works 
 of the poet : he looks upon nature, and 
 copies nature, not with a camera-lucida 
 fidelity, but with the higher truth of his 
 own art ; and, till we have arrived at some- 
 thing like a comprehension of the principle 
 of harmony in which he works, we are not 
 qualified to judge of his work as a whole, 
 however we may be pleased with many of 
 its details. With regard to Shakspere, a 
 great deal of the false judgment upon his 
 powers, which has long passed current, is 
 to be traced to the utter blindness of the 
 critics to the presence of any pervading idea 
 running through a particular work, which 
 should illuminate all its parts. Had the 
 Zoili of the last generation conceived that 
 Shakspere worked upon some principle 
 which, like the agencies of nature, was to 
 be seen more in its effects than in its mani- 
 festation of itself, could such a sentence as 
 this have been written of the comedy before 
 us 1 " This fable, absurd and ridiculous as 
 it is, was drawn from the foregoing story of 
 Genevra, in Ariosto's ' Orlando Furioso,' a 
 fiction which, as it is managed by the epic 
 poet, is neither improbable nor unnatural ; 
 but by Shakespear mangled and defaced, 
 full of inconsistencies, contradictions, and 
 blunders."* We have done with this style 
 of criticism, of course, now ; but it has only 
 been banished by the disposition of the world 
 to look at Shakspere's art, and at all art, a 
 little more from the abstract point of view. 
 
 But Mrs. Lenox, who, in default of a sense 
 of the poetical picturesque, has thus told 
 us of "inconsistencies, contradictions, and 
 blunders," and who is farther pleased to 
 say that Shakspere, in this play, l '' borrowed 
 just enough to show his poverty of invention, 
 
 * ' Shakespear Illustrated,' vol. iii. p. 261. 
 
 and added enough to prove his want of 
 judgment" this lady even is not insensible 
 to the merits of parts of the composition: 
 " There is a great deal of true wit and 
 humour in the comic scenes of this play ; the 
 characters of Benedick and Beatrice are 
 properly marked." But there are critics, and 
 those of a higher order, who do not quite 
 agree with Mrs. Lenox in giving to Shakspere 
 this comparatively small merit. Mr. Campbell 
 tells us, "during one half of the play we 
 have a disagreeable female character in that 
 of Beatrice. Her portrait, I may be told, is 
 deeply drawn and minutely finished. It is ; 
 and so is that of Benedick, who is entirely 
 her counterpart, except that he is less dis- 
 agreeable. But the best drawn portraits, by 
 the finest masters, may be admirable in 
 execution, though unpleasant to contemplate ; 
 and Beatrice's portrait is in this category 
 . . . . She is an odious woman."* With 
 every respect for a poet's opinion of a poet's 
 work, we presume to think that Mr. Campbell 
 has fallen into a mistake; and that his 
 mistake arises from his contemplation of 
 Beatrice as a single portrait cut out of a 
 large picture, and not viewed in reference to 
 its relative position with, and its dependence 
 upon, the other parts of that picture. For, 
 in truth, whether Beatrice be disagreeable 
 and odious, or " cette charmante et redoutable 
 femme" as a French critic has it, she could 
 be no other than the identical Beatrice, in 
 the place in which she is. For is she not 
 one that at first presents to us the prosaic 
 side of human nature the jesting, gibing, 
 sarcastic side ; one who has no faith in valour, 
 and is not to be subdued by courtesy ; who 
 prefers a " skirmish of wit" to making 
 "account of her life to a clod of wayward 
 marl?" But is not the real Beatrice at 
 bottom a true woman, a high-spirited, 
 imaginative woman, one who, with all her 
 wit, has no slight portion of woman's 
 sensibility about her ; and is by no means 
 very gay when she says "I may sit in a 
 corner, and cry, heigh ho ! for a husband 1 " 
 Truly she is a woman that falls into the 
 trap of affection with wonderful alacrity ; 
 who, while hidden in 
 
 * Moxon's Edition of Shakspeare. Life. 
 R 2 
 
244 
 
 STUDIES OP SIIAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 " the pleached bower, 
 Where honeysuckles, ripen'd by the sun, 
 Forbid the sun to enter," 
 
 hears it said of her, and hears it without any 
 violence or burst of passion, 
 
 " Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, 
 Misprising what they look on; and her wit 
 Values itself so highly, that to her 
 All matter else seems weak : she cannot love, 
 Nor take no shape nor project of affection, 
 She is so self-endeared." 
 
 And why is she so calm under this bitter 
 reproach, which she believes to be real 1 Why 
 shows she no after resentment against her 
 cousin for the representation which she has 
 drawn of her? Simply because she knows 
 she has been playfully wearing a mask to 
 hide the real strength of her sympathies. 
 
 " Contempt, farewell ! and maiden pride, adieu !" 
 
 She is not a thing of mere negations; a 
 fashionable, brilliant, untrusting thing. It 
 is she whom we next encounter, all heart, 
 presenting to us the poetical side of human 
 nature, when all around her is prosaic ; who, 
 when her cousin's wedding " looks not like a 
 nuptial," and that poor innocent Hero is 
 deserted by lover and father, has alone the 
 courage to say, 
 
 " Oh, on my soul, my cousin is belied." 
 
 It is the injury done to Hero which wrings 
 from Beatrice the avowal of her love for 
 Benedick. Is it a reproach to her that she 
 would have her lover peril his life against 
 the false accuser of her cousin? She has 
 thrown off her maidenly disguises, and 
 the earnestness of her soul will have vent. 
 She and Benedick are now bound for ever in 
 their common pity for the unfortunate. The 
 conventional Beatrice has become the actual 
 Beatrice. The "subjective appearance" has 
 become the " objective reality." The same 
 process is repeated throughout the character 
 of Benedick, for the original groundwork of 
 the character is the same as that of Beatrice. 
 " Would you have me speak after my custom, 
 as being a professed tyrant to their sex," 
 presents the same key to his character as 
 " I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, 
 
 than a man swear he loves me," does to 
 that of Beatrice. They are each acting ; and 
 the} r have each a shrewd guess that the other 
 is acting ; and each is in the other's thoughts ; 
 and the stratagem by which they are each 
 entrapped not, as we think, into an unreal 
 love, as Ulrici says is precisely in its 
 symmetrical simplicity what was necessary 
 to get rid of their reciprocal disguises, and to 
 make them straightforward and in earnest. 
 The conclusion of the affair is the playful 
 echo of all that is past : 
 
 " Bene. Come, I will have thee; but, by this 
 light, I take thee for pity. 
 
 Beat. I would not deny you; but, by this 
 good day, I yield upon great persuasion." 
 
 The 'Much Ado about Nothing' was acted 
 under the name of ' Benedick and Beatrice,' 
 even during the life of its author. These 
 two characters absorb very much of the 
 acting interest of the play. They are star- 
 characters, suited for the Garricks and Jordans 
 to display themselves in. But they cannot 
 be separated from the play without being 
 liable to misconstruction. The character of 
 Beatrice cannot be understood, except in 
 connection with the injuries done to Hero ; 
 and except, once again, we view it, as well 
 as the characters of all the other agents in 
 the scene, with reference to the one leading 
 idea, that there is a real aspect of things 
 which is to be seen by the audience and not 
 seen by the agents. The character of Don 
 John, for example, and the characters of his 
 loose confederates, are understood by the 
 spectators ; and their villainy is purposely 
 transparent. Without Don John the plot 
 could not move. He is not a rival in Claudio's 
 love, as the "wicked duke" of Ariosto : he 
 is simply a moody, ill-conditioned, spiteful 
 rascal: such a one as ordinarily takes to 
 backbiting and hinting away character. 
 Shakspere gets rid of him as soon as he can : 
 he fires the train and disappears. He would 
 be out of harmony with the happiness which 
 he has suspended but not destroyed ; and so 
 he passes from the stage, with 
 
 " Think not on him till to-morrow." 
 But his instrumentality has been of the utmost 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 
 
 245 
 
 importance. It has given us that beautiful 
 altar-scene, that would be almost too tragical 
 if we did not know that the "Much Ado" 
 was "about Nothing." But that maiden's 
 sorrows, and that father's passion, are real 
 aspects of life, however unreal be the cause 
 of them. The instrumentality, too, of the 
 hateful Don John has given us Dogberry and 
 Verges. Coleridge has said, somewhat hastily 
 we think, " any other less ingeniously 
 absurd watchmen and night-constables would 
 have answered the mere necessities of the 
 action." Surely not. Make Dogberry in the 
 slightest degree less self-satisfied, loquacious, 
 full of the official stuff of which functionaries 
 are still cut out, and the action breaks down 
 before the rejection of Hero by her lover. 
 For it is not the ingenious absurdity that 
 prevents the detection of the plot against 
 Hero ; it is the absurdity which prevents the 
 prompt disclosure of it after the detection. 
 Let us take a passage of this inimitable piece 
 of comedy to read apart, that we may see 
 how entirely the character of Dogberry is 
 necessary to the continuance of the action. 
 When Borachio and Conrade are overheard 
 and arrested, the spectators have an amiable 
 hope that the mischief of Don John's plot 
 will be prevented ; but when Dogberry and 
 Verges approach Leonato, the end, as they 
 think, is pretty sure. Let us see how the 
 affair really works : 
 
 " Leon. Neighbours, you are tedious. 
 
 Dogb. It pleases your worship to say so, but 
 we are the poor duke's officers; but, truly, for 
 mine own part, if I were as tedious as a king I 
 could find in my heart to bestow it all of your 
 worship. 
 
 Leon. All thy tediousness on me ! ha ! 
 
 Dogb. Yea, and 't were a thousand times more 
 than 'tis: for I hear as good exclamation on 
 your worship as of any man in the city; and 
 though I be but a poor man I am glad to 
 hear it. 
 
 Verg. And so am I. 
 
 Leon. I would fain know what you have to 
 say. 
 
 Verg. Marry, sir, our watch to-night, ex- 
 cepting your worship's presence, have ta'en a 
 couple of as arrant knaves as any in Messina. 
 
 Dogb. A good old man, sir; he will be 
 talking; as they say, When the age is in, the 
 
 wit ia out ; God help us ! it is a world to see ! 
 Well said, i' faith, neighbour Verges: well, 
 God's a good man ; and two men ride of a horse, 
 one must ride behind : An honest soul, i' faith, 
 sir; by my troth he is, as ever broke bread: but 
 God is to be worshipped : All men are not alike ; 
 alas, good neighbour ! 
 
 Leon. Indeed, neighbour, he comes too short 
 of you. 
 
 Dogb. Gifts, that God gives. 
 
 Leon. I must leave vou." 
 
 Truly did Don Pedro subsequently say, " This 
 learned constable is too cunning to be under- 
 stood." The wise fellow, and the rich fellow, 
 and the fellow that hath had losses, and one 
 that hath two gowns, and everything hand- 
 some about him, nevertheless holds his 
 prisoners fast ; and when he comes to the 
 Prince, with "Marry, sir, they have committed 
 false report; moreover, they have spoken 
 untruths ; secondarily, they are slanders ; 
 sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; 
 thirdly, they have verified unjust things; 
 and, to conclude, they are lying knaves," 
 though his method be not logical, his matter 
 is all-sufficient. And so we agree with Ulrici, 
 that it would be a palpable misunderstanding 
 to ask what the noble constable Dogberry 
 and his followers have to do with the play. 
 Dogberry is as necessary as all the other 
 personages ; to a certain degree more 
 necessary. The passionate lover, the calm 
 and sagacious Prince, the doting father, were 
 the dupes of a treachery, not well compact, 
 and carried through by dangerous instru- 
 ments. They make no effort to detect what 
 would not have been very difficult of 
 detection : they are satisfied to quarrel and to 
 lament. Accident discovers what intelligence 
 could not penetrate; and the treacherous 
 slander is manifest in all its blackness to the 
 wise Dogberry : 
 
 " Flat burglary as ever was committed." 
 
 Here is the crowning irony of the philosophical 
 poet. The players of the game of life see 
 nothing, or see minute parts only: but the 
 dullest by-stander has glimpses of something 
 more. 
 
 In studying a play of Shakspere with the 
 assurance that we have possessed ourselves of 
 
STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 the fundamental "idea" in which it was 
 composed, it is remarkable how many 
 incidents and expressions which have pre- 
 viously appeared to us at least difficult of 
 comprehension are rendered clear and satis- 
 factory. As believers in Shakspere we know 
 that he wrought in the spirit of the highest 
 art, producing in every case a work of unity, 
 out of the power of his own " multiformity." 
 But, as we have before said, we have not 
 always, as in the case of the natural landscape, 
 got the right point of view, so as to have the 
 perfect harmony of the composition made 
 manifest to us. Let us be assured, however, 
 
 that there is an entirety, and therefore a 
 perfect accordance in all its parts, in every 
 great production of a great poet, and above 
 all in every production of the world's greatest 
 poet ; and then, studying with this conviction, 
 when the parts have become familiar to us 
 as in the case before us, the sparkling raillery 
 of Benedick and Beatrice, the patient gentle- 
 ness of Hero, the most truthful absurdity of 
 Dogberry they gradually fuse themselves 
 together in our minds, and the whole at last 
 lies clear before us, 
 
 "A world 
 Of one entire and perfect chrysolite." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MERKY WIVES OF WINDSOR 
 
 THE first edition of this play was published 
 in 1602. The same copy was reprinted in 
 1619. The comedy, as it now stands, first 
 appeared in the folio of 1623 ; and the play 
 in that edition contains very nearly twice 
 the number of lines that the quarto contains. 
 The succession of scenes is the same in both 
 copies, except in one instance ; but the 
 speeches of the several characters are greatly 
 elaborated in the amended copy, and some of 
 these characters are not only heightened, but 
 new distinctive features given to them. For 
 example, the lender of the present comedy 
 one of the most perfect of the minor cha- 
 racters of Shakspere is a very inferior 
 conception in the first copy. Our Slender 
 has been worked up out of the first rough 
 sketch, with touches at once delicate and 
 powerful. Again, the Justice Shallow of the 
 quarto is an amusing person but he is not 
 the present Shallow; we have not even the 
 repetitions which identify him with the 
 Shallow of ' Henry IV.' We point out these 
 matters here, for the purpose of showing 
 that, although the quarto of 1602 was most 
 probably piratically published when the play 
 had been remodelled, and was reprinted 
 
 without alteration in 1619 (the amended 
 copy then remaining unpublished), the copy 
 of that first edition must not be considered 
 as an imperfect transcript of the complete 
 play. The differences between the two copies 
 are produced by the alterations of the author 
 working upon his first sketch. The extent 
 of these changes and elaborations can only 
 be satisfactorily perceived by comparing the 
 two copies, scene by scene. As an example, 
 we subjoin the scene at Herne's Oak, which 
 has no doubt been completely rewritten : 
 
 QUAETO OF 1602. 
 
 " Qui. You fairies that do haunt these shady 
 
 groves, 
 
 Look round about the wood if you can spy 
 A mortal that doth haunt our sacred round : 
 If such a one you can espy, give him his due, 
 And leave not till you pinch him black and 
 
 blue. 
 Give them their charge, Puck, ere they part 
 
 away. 
 Sir Hugh. Come hither, Peane, go to the 
 
 country houses, 
 
 And when you find a slut that lies asleep, 
 And all her dishes foul, and room unswept, 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 
 
 247 
 
 With your long nails pinch her till she cry, 
 And swear to mend her sluttish housewifery. 
 
 Fai. I warrant you, I will perform your will. 
 
 Hu. Where 's Pead 1 Go and see where 
 
 brokers sleep, 
 
 And fox-eyed Serjeants, with their mace, 
 Go lay the proctors in the street, 
 And pinch the lousy Serjeant's face: 
 Spare none of these when th' are a bed, 
 But such whose nose looks blue and red. 
 
 Qui. Away, begone, his mind fulfil, 
 And look that none of you stand still. 
 Some do that thing, some do this, 
 All do something, none amiss. 
 
 Sir Hugh. I smell a man of middle earth. 
 
 Fal. God bless me from that Welsh fairy. 
 
 Qui. Look every one about this round, 
 And if that any here be found, 
 For his presumption in this place, 
 Spare neither leg, arm, head, nor face. 
 
 Sir Hugh. See, I have spied one by good luck, 
 His body man, his head a buck. 
 
 Fal. God send me good fortune now, and I 
 care not. 
 
 Qui. Go straight, and do as I command, 
 And take a taper in your hand, 
 And set it to his fingers' ends, 
 And if you see it him offends, 
 And that he starteth at the flame, 
 Then is he mortal, know his name : 
 If with an F it doth begin, 
 Why then be sure he 's full of sin. 
 About it then, and know the truth, 
 Of this same metamorphos'd youth. 
 
 Sir Hugh. Give me the tapers, I will try 
 And if that he love venery. 
 
 FOLIO OF 1623. 
 
 Qui. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, 
 You moonshine-revellers, and shades of night, 
 You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny, 
 Attend your office and your quality. 
 Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes. 
 Pist. Elves, list your names; silence, you 
 
 airy toys. 
 
 Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap : 
 Where fires thou find'st unraked, and hearths 
 
 unswept, 
 
 There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry : 
 Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery. 
 Fal. They are fairies; he that speaks to 
 
 them shall die : 
 
 I '11 wink and couch : no man their works must 
 eye. [Lies down upon his face. 
 
 Eva. Where 's Pede ? Go you, and where 
 
 you find a maid, 
 
 That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said, 
 Raise up the organs of her fantasy, 
 Sleep she as sound as careless infancy; 
 But those as sleep and think not on their sins, 
 Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, 
 
 and shins. 
 Qu* About, about ; 
 
 Search Windsor-castle, elves, within and out : 
 Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room; 
 That it may stand till the perpetual doom, 
 In state as wholesome, as in state 't is fit; 
 Worthy the owner, and the owner it. 
 The several chairs of order look you scour 
 With juice of balm, and every precious flower: 
 Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest, 
 With loyal blazon evermore be bless'd ! 
 And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing, 
 Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring : 
 The expressure that it bears, green let it be, 
 More fertile-fresh than all the field to see ; 
 And, Hony soit qui mal y pense, write, 
 In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and 
 
 white : 
 
 Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery, 
 Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee : 
 Fairies use flowers for their charactery. 
 Away; disperse: But, till 't is one o'clock, 
 Our dance of custom, round about the oak 
 Of Herne the Hunter, let us not forget. 
 
 Eva. Pray you, lock hand in hand; your- 
 selves in order set : 
 
 And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be, 
 To guide our measure round about the tree. 
 But stay : I smell a man of middle earth. 
 
 Fal. Heavens defend me from that Welsh 
 
 fairy ! 
 Lest he transform me to a piece of cheese ! 
 
 Pist. Vild worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even 
 in thy birth. 
 
 Qui. With trial-fire touch me his finger end. 
 If he be chaste, the flame will back descend 
 And turn him to no pain; but, if he start, 
 It is the flesh of a corrupted heart. 
 
 Pist. A trial, come. 
 
 Eva. Come, will this wood take fire ? 
 
 [They burn him with their tapers. 
 
 Fal. Oh, oh, oh ! 
 
 * In the folio there is a distinction between the abbrevia- 
 tions of the names affixed to these speeches Qui. and Qu. 
 The one may be taken for Quickly the other for Queen. 
 It is certain that in the revised edition Anne was " to pre- 
 sent the fairy queen." 
 
248 
 
 STUDIES OF 8HAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 Qui. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire! 
 About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme; 
 And, as you trip, still pinch him to your 
 time. 
 
 If the quarto is not to be taken as a guide 
 in the formation of a text, it appears to us, 
 viewed in connection with some circum- 
 stances which we shall venture to point out 
 as heretofore in some degree unregarded, to 
 be a highly interesting literary curiosity. 
 
 Malone, contrary to his opinion with regard 
 to the quarto edition of ' Henry V.,' says of 
 the quarto of ' The Merry Wives of Windsor,' 
 " The old edition in 1602, like that of ' Romeo 
 and Juliet,' is apparently a rough draught, 
 and not a mutilated or imperfect copy." His 
 view, therefore, of the period when this play 
 was written applies to the "rough draught." 
 Malone's opinion of the date of this sketch is 
 thus stated in his ' Chronological Order :' 
 
 " The following line in the earliest edition 
 of this comedy, 
 
 ' Sail like my pinnace to those golden shores,' 
 
 shows that it was written after Sir Walter 
 Raleigh's return from Guiana in 1596. 
 
 " The first sketch of * The Merry Wives of 
 Windsor' was printed in 1602. It was entered 
 in the books of the Stationers' Company on 
 the 18th of January, 1601-2, and was there- 
 fore probably written in 1601 after the two 
 Parts of ' King Henry IV.,' being, it is said, 
 composed at the desire of Queen Elizabeth, 
 in order to exhibit Falstaff in love, when all 
 the pleasantry which he could afford in any 
 other situation was exhausted. But it may 
 not be thought so clear that it was written 
 after ' King Henry V.' Nym and Bardolph 
 are both hanged in ' King Henry V.,' yet 
 appear in * The Merry Wives of Windsor.' 
 Falstaff is disgraced in ' The Second Part of 
 King Henry IV.,' and dies in 'King Henry V. ;' 
 but, in ' The Merry Wives of Windsor,' he 
 talks as if he were yet in favour at court : 
 ' If it should come to the ear of the court 
 how I have been transformed,' &c. : and Mr. 
 Page discountenances Fenton's addresses to 
 his daughter because he 'kept company with 
 the wild prince and with Pointz.' These 
 circumstances seem to favour the supposition 
 that this play was written between the First 
 
 and Second Parts of ' King Henry IV.' But 
 that it was not written then may be collected 
 from the tradition above mentioned. The 
 truth, I believe, is, that, though it ought to 
 be read (as Dr. Johnson has observed) be- 
 tween the ' Second Part of King Henry IV.' 
 and ' King Henry V.,' it was written after 
 ' King Henry V.,' and after Shakspeare had 
 killed Falstaff. In obedience to the royal 
 commands, having revived him, he found it 
 necessary at the same time to revive all 
 those persons with whom he was wont to be 
 exhibited, Nym, Pistol, Bardolph, and the 
 Page, and disposed of them as he found it 
 convenient, without a strict regard to their 
 situations or catastrophes in former plays." 
 
 The opinion that this comedy was written 
 after the two Parts of ' Henry IV.' is not 
 quite in consonance with the tradition that 
 Queen Elizabeth desired to see Falstaff in 
 love ; for Shakspere might have given this 
 turn to the character in ' Henry V.,' after 
 the announcement in the Epilogue to ' The 
 Second Part of Henry IV.' " our humble 
 author will continue the story, with Sir John 
 in it." Malone's theory, therefore, that it 
 was produced after ' Henry V.,' is in accord- 
 ance with the tradition as received by him 
 with such an implicit belief. George Chal- 
 mers, however, in his 'Supplemental Apo- 
 logy,' laughs at the tradition, and at Malone's 
 theory. He believes that the three historical 
 plays and the comedy were successively 
 written in 1596, and in 1597, but that 'Henry 
 V.' was produced the last. He says, " In it 
 (' Henry V.') Falstaff does not come out 
 upon the stage, but dies of a sweat, after 
 performing less than the attentive auditors 
 were led to expect : and in it ancient Pistol 
 appears as the husband of Mistress Quickly ; 
 who also dies, during the ancient's absence 
 in the wars of France. Yet do the com- 
 mentators bring the knight to life, and re- 
 vive and unmarry the dame, by assigning the 
 year 1601 as the epoch of 'The Merry Wives 
 of Windsor.' Queen Elizabeth is said by 
 the critics to have commanded these miracles 
 to be worked in 1601, a time when she was 
 in no proper mood for such fooleries. The 
 tradition on which is founded the story of 
 Elizabeth's command to exhibit the facetious 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 THE. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 
 
 24!) 
 
 knight in love, I think too improbable for 
 belief." Chalmers goes on to argue that 
 after Falstaff's disgrace at the end of ' The 
 Second Part of Henry IV.' (which is followed 
 in 'Henry V.' by the assertion that "the 
 king has killed his heart") he was not in a 
 fit condition for " a speedy appearance 
 amongst the Merry Wives of Windsor ;" and 
 further, that if it be true, as the first act of 
 the Second Part evinces, that Sir John, soon 
 after doing good service at Shrewsbury, was 
 sent off, with some charge, to Lord John of 
 Lancaster at York, he could not consistently 
 saunter to Windsor, after his re-encounter 
 with the Chief Justice." Looking at these 
 contradictions, Chalmers places "the true 
 epoch of this comedy in 1596," and affirms 
 " that its proper place is before l The First 
 Part of Henry IV' " We had been strongly 
 impressed with the same opinion before we 
 had seen the passage in Chalmers, which is 
 not given under his view of the chronology 
 of ' The Merry Wives of Windsor.' But we 
 are quite aware that the theory is at first 
 sight open to objection : though it is clearly 
 not so objectionable as Malone's assertion 
 that Shakspere revived his dead Falstaff, 
 Quickly, Nym, and Bardolph ; and it per- 
 haps gets rid of the difficulties which belong 
 to Dr. Johnson's opinion that " the present 
 play ought to be read between ' Henry IV.' 
 and ( Henry V.' " The question, altogether, 
 appears to us very interesting as a piece of 
 literary history ; and we therefore request 
 the indulgence of our readers whilst we 
 examine it somewhat in detail. 
 
 And first, of the tradition upon which 
 Malone builds. Dennis, in an epistle pre- 
 fixed to ' The Comical Gallant,' an alteration 
 of this play which he published in 1702, 
 says, " This comedy was written at her 
 (Queen Elizabeth's) command, and by her 
 direction, and she was so eager to see it 
 acted that she commanded it to be finished 
 in fourteen days ; and was afterwards, as 
 tradition tells us, very well pleased at the 
 representation." The tradition, however, 
 soon became more circumstantial ; for Rowe, 
 and Pope, and Theobald each inform us that 
 Elizabeth was so well pleased with the Fal- 
 staff of the two Parts of ' Henry IV.,' that 
 
 she commanded a play to be written by 
 Shakspere in which he should show the 
 knight in love. Malone considers that the 
 tradition, as given by Dennis, came to him 
 from Dryden, who received it from Davenant ; 
 Rowe, Pope, and Theobald adopted a more 
 circumstantial tradition from Gildon, who 
 published it in his ' Remarks on Shakspere's 
 Plays,' in 1710. But even this authority is 
 more vague than the usual statement. It 
 runs thus : " The Fairies in the fifth act 
 make a handsome compliment to the queen, 
 in her palace of Windsor ; who had obliged 
 him [Shakspere] to write a play of Sir John 
 Falstaff in love, and which I am very well 
 assured he performed in a fortnight." The 
 tradition, as stated by Dennis, is not incon- 
 sistent with the belief that 'The Merry 
 Wives of Windsor ' (of course we speak of 
 the sketch) was produced before the two 
 Parts of ' Henry IV.' The more circum- 
 stantial tradition is completely reconcileable 
 only with Malone's theory, that Shakspere, 
 continuing the comic characters of the his- 
 torical plays in ' The Merry Wives of Wind- 
 sor,' ventured upon the daring experiment 
 of reviving the dead. 
 
 Malone, according to his theory, believes 
 that the sketch of 'The Merry Wives of 
 Windsor,' "finished in fourteen days," was 
 written in 1601 ; Chalmers that it was writ- 
 ten in 1596. We are inclined to think that 
 the period of the production of the original 
 sketch might have been earlier than 1596. 
 
 Raleigh returned from his expedition to 
 Guiana in 1596, having sailed in 1595. In 
 the present text of the ' Merry Wives ' (Act 
 I. Scene 3) Falstaff says, " Here 's another 
 letter to her : she bears the purse too ; she 
 is a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty. 
 I will be cheater to them both, and they 
 shall be exchequers to me : they shall be my 
 East and West Indies." In the original 
 sketch the passage stands thus : " Here is 
 another letter to her ; she bears the purse 
 too. They shall be exchequers to me, and 
 I '11 be cheaters to them both. They shall 
 be my East and West Indies." In the 
 amended text we have, subsequently, 
 
 " Sail like my pinnace to those golden shores ;'' 
 
250 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 which line is found in the quarto, the being 
 in the place of those. This line alone is 
 taken by Malone to show that the comedy, 
 in its first unfinished state, " was written 
 after Sir Walter Raleigh's return from 
 Guiana in 1596." Surely this is not precise 
 enough. Golden shores were spoken of me- 
 taphorically before Raleigh's voyage ; but 
 the region in Guiana is a very different in- 
 dication. To our minds it shows that the 
 sketch was written before Raleigh's return ; 
 the finished play after Guiana was known 
 and talked of. 
 
 'The Fairy Queen' of Spenser was pub- 
 lished in 1596. "The whole plot," says 
 Chalmers, " which was laid by Mrs. Page, to 
 be executed at the hour of fairy revel, 
 around Herne's Oak, by urchins, ouphes, 
 and fairies, green and white, was plainly an 
 allusion to 'The Fairy Queen' of 1596, 
 which for some time after its publication 
 was the universal talk." A general mention 
 of fairies and fairy revels might naturally 
 occur without any allusion to Spenser ; and 
 thus in the original sketch we have only 
 such a general mention. But in the amended 
 copy of the folio ' The Fairy Queen'' is pre- 
 sented to the audience three times as a 
 familiar name. If these passages may be 
 taken to allude to 'The Fairy Queen' of 
 Spenser, we have another proof (as far as 
 such proof can go) that the original sketch, 
 in which they do not occur, was written 
 before 1596. 
 
 Again, in Falstaff's address to the Merry 
 Wives at Herne's Oak, we have " Let the 
 
 sky rain potatoes, and snow eringoes." 
 
 These portions of a sentence are in Lodge's 
 ' Devils Incarnate,' 1596 ; but they are not 
 found in the original sketch of this comedy. 
 
 Whatever may be the date of the original 
 sketch, there can be no doubt, we think, that 
 the play, as we have received it from the 
 folio of 1623, was enlarged and revived after 
 the production of ' Henry IV.' Some would 
 assign this revival to the time of James I. 
 The passages which indicate this, according 
 to Malone and Chalmers, are those in which 
 Falstaff says, "You'll complain of me to 
 the king . ? " the word being council in the 
 quarto ; " these knights will hack " (see 
 
 Act II. Sc. 1) ; Mrs. Quickly's allusion to 
 coaches ; the poetical description of the in- 
 signia of the Garter ; and the mention of 
 the " Cotsatt " games. But, as not one of 
 these passages is found in the original 
 quarto, the question of the date of the sketch 
 remains untouched by them. The exact date 
 is of very little importance, because we do 
 not know the exact dates of the two Parts 
 of 'Henry IV.' But, before we leave this 
 branch of the subject, we may briefly notice 
 a matter which is in itself curious, and 
 hitherto unnoticed. 
 
 In the original sketch we have the follow- 
 ing passage : 
 
 "Doctor. Where be my host de gartir 1 ? 
 Host. Oh, here, sir, in perplexity. 
 Doctor. I cannot tell vat be dad, 
 
 But be-gar I will tell you von ting. 
 
 Dere be a Germane duke come to de court 
 
 Has cosened all the hosts of Brainford 
 
 And Redding," 
 
 This introduces the story of the "cozen- 
 age" of my host of the Garter, by some 
 Germans, who pretended to be of the retinue 
 of a German duke. Now, if we knew that 
 a real German duke had visited Windsor (a 
 rare occurrence in the days of Elizabeth), 
 we should have the date of the comedy 
 pretty exactly fixed. The circumstance 
 would be one of those local and temporary 
 allusions which Shakspere seized upon to 
 arrest the attention of his audience. In 
 1592 a German duke did visit Windsor. We 
 have before us, through the kindness of a 
 friend, a narrative, printed in the old German 
 language, of the journey to England of the 
 Duke of Wurtemberg, in 1592, which narra- 
 tive, drawn up by his secretary, contains a 
 daily journal of his proceedings. He was 
 accompanied by a considerable retinue, and 
 travelled under the name of " the Count 
 Mombeliard." 
 
 This curious volume contains a sort of 
 passport from Lord Howard, addressed to all 
 Justices of Peace, Mayors, and Bailiffs, 
 which we give without correction of the 
 orthography :- 
 
 " Theras this nobleman, Counte Mom- 
 beliard, is to passe ouer Contrye in England, 
 into the lowe Countryes, Thise schal be to wil 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 THE MERRY WIVES OP WINDSOR. 
 
 251 
 
 and command you in heer Majte. name for 
 such, and is heer pleasure to see him four- 
 nissed with post horses in his trauail to the 
 sea side, and ther to soecke up such schip- 
 pinge as schalbe fit for his transportations, 
 he pay nothing for the same, for wich tis 
 schal be your sufficient warrante soo see that 
 your faile noth thereof at your perilles. 
 From Bifleete, the 2 uf September, 1592. 
 Your friend, C. HOWARD." 
 
 "The "German duke" visited Windsor; 
 was shown "the splendidly beautiful and 
 royal castle ;" hunted in the " parks full of 
 fallow-deer and other game ;" heard the 
 music of an organ, and of other instruments, 
 with the voices of little boys, as well as a 
 sermon an hour long, in a church covered 
 with lead ; and, after staying some days, 
 departed for Hampton Court. His grace 
 and his suite must have caused a sensation 
 at Windsor. Probably mine host of the 
 Garter had really made " grand preparation 
 for a Duke de Jarmany ;" at any rate he 
 would believe Bardolph's story, " the Ger- 
 mans desire to have three of your horses." 
 Was there any dispute about the ultimate 
 payment for the duke's horses for which he 
 was " to pay nothing ?" Was my host out 
 of his reckoning when he said, " They shall 
 have my horses, but I '11 make them pay T' 
 Sir Hugh, who has a spite against mine host, 
 thus tells him the ill news. " Where is mine 
 Host of the Garter 1 Now, mine Host, I 
 would desire you to have a care of your 
 entertainments, for there is three sorts of 
 cosen garmombles is cosen all the Host of 
 Maidenhead and Readings." We have no 
 doubt whatever that the author of the 'Merry 
 Wives of Windsor' literally rendered the 
 tale of mine host's perplexity for the amuse- 
 ment of the Court. For who was the Ger- 
 man Duke who visited Windsor in the au- 
 | tumn of 1592 ? " His Serene Highness the 
 Right Honourable Prince and Lord, Frede- 
 rick Duke of Wiirtemberg and Teck, Count 
 of Miimpelgart" The passport of Lord 
 Howard describes him as Count Mombeliard. 
 And who are those who have rid away with 
 the horses 1 " Three sorts of cosen garmom- 
 bles." One device of the poets of that day 
 for masking a real name under a fictitious 
 
 was to invert the order of the syllables : 
 thus, in the ' Shepherd's Calendar,' Algrind 
 stands for Archbishop Grindal, and Morel 
 for Elmor, Bishop of London. In Lodge's 
 ' Fig for Momus,' we also find Denroy for 
 Matthew Royden, and Ringde for Dering. 
 Precisely according to this method, Oar- 
 momble is Momble^ar Mumpelgart. We 
 think this is decisive as to the allusion ; and 
 that the allusion is decisive as to the date of 
 the play. What would be a good joke when 
 the Court was at Windsor in 1593, with the 
 visit of the Duke fresh in the memory of 
 the courtiers, would lose its point at a later 
 period. 
 
 We now proceed to the more interesting 
 question was ' The Merry Wives of Wind- 
 sor' produced, either after 'The First Part 
 of Henry IV.,' after the ' Second Part,' after 
 ' Henry V.,' or before all of these historical 
 plays ? Let us first state the difficulties 
 which inseparably belong to the circum- 
 stances under which the similar characters of 
 the historical plays and the comedy are 
 found, if the comedy is to be received as a 
 continuation of the historical plays. 
 
 The Falstaff of the two Parts of 'Henry 
 IV.,' who dies in ' Henry V.,' but who, ac- 
 cording to Malone, comes alive again in 
 'The Merry Wives,' is found at Windsor 
 living lavishly at the Garter Inn, sitting "at 
 ten pounds a week," with Bardolph, and 
 Nym, and Pistol, and the Page, his "fol- 
 lowers." At what point of his previous life 
 is Falstaff in this flourishing condition ? At 
 Windsor he is represented as having com- 
 mitted an outrage upon one Justice Shallow. 
 Could this outrage have been perpetrated 
 after the borrowing of the " thousand pound," 
 which was unpaid at the time of Henry the 
 Fifth's coronation ; or did it take place 
 before Falstaff and Shallow renewed their 
 youthful acquaintance under the auspices of 
 Justice Silence ? Johnson says, " This play 
 should be read between ' King Henry IV.' 
 and ' King Henry V.,' " that is, after Fal- 
 stafFs renewed intercourse with Shallow, the 
 borrowing of the thousand pounds, and the 
 failure of his schemes at the coronation. 
 Another writer says, " It ought rather to be 
 read between the First and Second Part of 
 
252 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 < King Henry IV.' "that is, before Falstaff 
 had met Shallow at his seat in Gloucester- 
 shire, at which meeting Shallow recollects 
 nothing that had taken place at Windsor, 
 and had clean forgotten the outrages of Fal- 
 staff upon his keeper, his dogs, and his deer. 
 But Falstaff had been surrounded by much 
 more important circumstances than had 
 belonged to his acquaintance with Master 
 Shallow. He had been the intimate of a 
 Prince he had held high charge in the 
 royal army. We learn indeed that he is a 
 "soldier" when he addresses Mrs. Ford; 
 but he entirely abstains from any of those 
 allusions to his royal friend which might 
 have been supposed to be acceptable to a 
 Merry Wife of Windsor. In the folio copy 
 of the amended play we have, positively, 
 not one allusion to his connection with the 
 court. In the quarto there is one solitary 
 passage, which would apply to any court 
 to that of Elizabeth, as -well as to that of 
 Henry V. "Well, if the fine wits of the 
 court hear this, they '11 so whip me with 
 their keen jests that they '11 melt me out 
 like tallow." In the same quarto, when Fal- 
 staff hears the noise of hunters at Herne's 
 Oak, he exclaims, " I '11 lay my life the 
 mad Prince of Wales is stealing his father's 
 deer." This points apparently at the Prince 
 of l Henry IV.;' but we think it had re- 
 ference to the Prince of the ' Famous Vic- 
 tories,' a character with whom Shakspere's 
 audience was familiar. The passage is left 
 out in the amended play; but we find an- 
 other passage which certainly is meant for 
 a link, however slight, between ' The Merry 
 Wives' and 'Henry IV.:' Page objects to 
 Fenton that " he kept company with the 
 wild Prince and with Pointz." The corre- 
 sponding passage in the quarto is " the gen- 
 tleman is wild he knows too much." 
 
 What does Shallow do at Windsor he 
 who inquired " how a good yoke of bullocks 
 at Stamford fair?" Robert Shallow, of 
 Glostershire, " a poor esquire of this county, 
 and one of the king's justices of the peace? " 
 It is true that we are told by Slender that 
 he was " in the county of Gloster, justice of 
 peace, and coram," but this information is 
 first given us in the amended edition. In 
 
 the sketch, Master Shallow (we do not find 
 even his name of Robert) is indeed a "cavalero 
 justice," according to our Host of the Garter, 
 but his commission may be in Berkshire for 
 aught that the poet tells us to the contrary. 
 Slender, indeed, is "as good as is any in 
 Glostershire, under the degree of a squire," 
 and he is Shallow's cousin ; but of Shallow 
 "the local habitation" is undefined enough 
 to make us believe that he might have been 
 a son, or indeed a father (for he says, " I am 
 fourscore") of the real Justice Shallow. 
 Again : In ' Henry IV., Part I.,' we have a 
 Hostess without a name, the " good pint- 
 pot" who is exhorted by Falstaff "love thy 
 husband;'" in 'Henry IV., Part II.,' we 
 have Hostess Quickly, "a poor widow," 
 according to the Chief Justice, to whom 
 Falstaff owes himself and his money too ; 
 in 'Henry V.,' this good Hostess is "the 
 quondam Quickly," who has married Pistol, 
 and who, if the received opinion be correct, 
 died before her husband returned from the 
 wars of Henry V. Where shall we place the 
 Mistress Quickly, than whom " never a woman 
 in Windsor knows more of Anne's mind," 
 and who defies all angels "but in the way 
 of honesty?" She has evidently had no 
 previous passages with Sir John Falstaff; 
 she is " a foolish carrion" only, Dr. Caius's 
 nurse, or his dry nurse, or his cook, or his 
 laundry ; she has not heard Falstaff declaim, 
 "as like one of these harlotry players as I ever 
 see;" she has not sate with him by a sea- 
 coal fire, when goodwife Keech, the butcher's 
 wife, came in and called her "gossip Quickly ;" 
 she did not see him "fumble with the 
 sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon 
 his fingers' ends," when "there was but one 
 way." Falstaff and Quickly are strangers. 
 She is to him either "goodwife" or "good 
 maid," and at any rate only " fair woman." 
 Surely, we cannot place Mistress Quickly of 
 'The Merry Wives' after 'Henry V.,' when 
 she was dead ; or after ' The Second Part of 
 Henry IV.,' when she was a "poor widow;" 
 or before ' The Second Part,' when she had a 
 husband and. children. She must stand 
 alone in ' The Merry Wives,' an undefined 
 predecessor of the famous Quickly of the 
 Boar's Head. 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 
 
 253 
 
 But Pistol and Bardolph are they not the 
 same "irregular humourists" (as they are 
 called in the original list of characters to 
 ' The Second Part of Henry IV.') acting with 
 Falstaff under the same circumstances ? We 
 think not. The Pistol of ' The Merry Wives' 
 is not the " ancient " Pistol of ' The Second 
 Part of Henry IV.' and of ' Henry V.,' nor is 
 Bardolph the "corporal" Bardolph of 'The 
 Second Part of Henry IV.,' nor the "lieu- 
 tenant " Bardolph of l Henry V.' In the 
 title-page, indeed, of the sketch, published 
 as we believe without authority as a substitute 
 for the more complete play, we have "the 
 swaggering vaine (vein) of ancient Pistoll 
 and corporal Nym" Corporal Nym is no 
 companion of Falstaff in the historical plays, 
 for he first makes his appearance in the 
 ' Henry V.' Neither Pistol, nor Bardolph, 
 nor Nym, appear in ' The Merry Wives ' to 
 be soldiers serving under Falstaff. They are 
 his " cogging companions" of the first sketch ; 
 they are his " coney-catching rascals " of 
 the amended play; in both they are his 
 " followers," whom he can turn away, discard, 
 cashier; but Falstaff is not their "captain." 
 
 It certainly does appear to us that these 
 anomalous positions in which the characters 
 common to ' The Merry Wives of Windsor ' 
 and the 'Henry IV.' and 'Henry V.' are 
 placed, furnish a very strong presumption 
 that the comedy was not a continuation of 
 the histories. That 'The Merry Wives of 
 Windsor' was a continuation of 'Henry V.' 
 appears to us impossible. Malone does not 
 think it very clear that 'The Merry Wives 
 of Windsor 1 " was written after ' King Henry 
 V.' Nym and Bardolph are both hanged in 
 ' King Henry V.,' yet appear in ' The Merry 
 Wives of Windsor.' Falstaff is disgraced in 
 ' The Second Part of King Henry IV.,' and 
 dies in ' King Henry V. ;' but in ' The Merry 
 Wives of Windsor' he talks as if he were yet 
 in favour at court." Assuredly these are 
 very natural objections to the theory that 
 the comedy was written after 'Henry V.;' 
 but Malone disposes of the difficulty by the 
 summary process of revival. Did ever any 
 the most bungling writer of imagination 
 proceed upon such a principle as is here 
 imputed to the most skilful of dramatists 1 
 
 Would any audience ever endure such a 
 violence to their habitual modes of thought ? 
 Would the readers of 'The Spectator' have 
 tolerated the revival of Sir Roger de Coverley 
 in 'The Guardian?' Could the mother of 
 the Mary of Avenel of ' The Monastery ' be 
 found alive in ' The Abbot,' except through 
 the agency of the White Lady? The con- 
 ception is much too monstrous. 
 
 Every person who has written on the 
 character of Falstaff admits the inferiority of 
 the butt of ' The Merry Wives of Windsor' to 
 the wit of the Boar's Head. It is remarkable 
 that in Morgann's very elaborate ' Essay on 
 the Character of Falstaff' not one of his 
 characteristics is derived from the comedy. 
 It has been regretted, by more than one 
 critic, that Shakspere should have carried on 
 the disgrace of Falstaff in the conclusion of 
 'Henry IV.,' to the further humiliation of 
 the scenes at Datchet Mead and Herne's Oak ; 
 and, what is worse, that Shakspere should in 
 the comedy have exaggerated the vices of 
 Falstaff, and brought him down from his 
 intellectual eminence. Shakspere found 
 somewhat similar incidents to the adventures 
 of Falstaff with Mrs. Ford in a ' Story of the 
 Two Lovers of Pisa,' published in Tarleton's 
 'Newes out of Purgatorie,' 1590. In that 
 story an intrigue is carried on, with no 
 innocent intentions on the part of the lady, 
 with a young man who makes the old husband 
 his confidant, as Falstaff makes Brook, and 
 whose escapes in chests and up chimneys 
 may have suggested the higher comedy of 
 the buckbasket and the wise woman of 
 Brentford. The story is given at length in 
 Malone's edition of our poet. But Shakspere 
 desired to show a butt and a dupe not a 
 successful gallant ; a husband jealous without 
 cause not an unhappy old man plotting 
 against his betrayers. He gave the whole 
 affair a ludicrous turn. He made the lover 
 old, and fat, and avaricious ; betrayed by his 
 own greediness and vanity into the most 
 humiliating scrapes, so that his complete 
 degradation was the natural denouement of 
 the whole adventure, and the progress of 
 his shame the proper source of merriment. 
 Could the adroit and witty Falstaff of 
 ' Henry IV.' have been selected by Shakspere 
 
254 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 'or such an exhibition ? In truth the Falstaff 
 >f ' The Merry Wives,' especially as we have 
 him in the first sketch, is not at all adroit, and 
 not very witty. Read the very first scene in 
 which Falstaff appears in this comedy. To 
 Shallow's reproaches he opposes no weapon 
 >ut impudence, and that not of the sublime 
 dnd which so astounds us in the ' Henry IV.' 
 dead further the scene in which he discloses 
 lis views upon the Merry Wives to Pistol and 
 Nym. Here Pistol is the wit : 
 
 " Fal. My honest lads, I will tell you what I 
 am about. 
 
 Pist. Two yards and more. 
 Fal. No quips now, Pistol." 
 
 Again, in the same scene : 
 
 " Fal. Sometimes the beam of her view gilded 
 my foot, sometimes my portly belly. 
 
 Pist Then did the sun on dunghill shine." 
 
 There can be no doubt, however, that, when 
 the comedy was remodelled, which certainly 
 was done after the production of ' Henry IV.,' 
 the character of Falstaff was much heightened. 
 But still the poet kept him far behind the 
 Falstaff of 'Henry IV.' Falstaff 's descriptions, 
 first to Bardolph and then to Brook, of his 
 buckbasket adventure, are amongst the best 
 things in the comedy, and they are very 
 slightly altered from the original sketch. 
 But compare them with any of the racy 
 passages of the Falstaff of the Boar's Head, 
 and after the comparison we feel ourselves 
 in the presence of a being of far lower powers 
 of intellect than the Falstaff " unimitated, 
 unimitable." Is this acknowledged inferiority 
 of the Falstaff of 'The Merry Wives' most 
 easily reconciled with the theory that he was 
 produced before or after the Falstaff of the 
 'Henry IV.?' That Elizabeth might have 
 suggested 'The Merry Wives,' originally, 
 upon some traditionary tale of Windsor 
 that it might have been acted in the gallery 
 which she built at Windsor, and which still 
 bears her name we can understand; but 
 we cannot reconcile the belief that Shakspere 
 produced the Falstaff of ' The Merry Wives 
 after the Falstaff of ' Henry IV.' with our 
 unbounded confidence in the habitual power 
 of such a poet. To him Falstaff was a thing 
 of reality. He had drawn a man altogether 
 
 different from other men, but altogether in 
 nature. Could lie much lower the character 
 of that man ? Another and a feebler 
 dramatist might have given us the Falstaff 
 of ' The Merry Wives' as an imitation of the 
 Falstaff of ' Henry IV. ; ' but Shakspere must 
 have abided by the om Falstaff that he had 
 made after such a wondrous fashion of truth 
 and originality. 
 
 And then Justice Shallow never to be 
 forgotten Justice Shallow ! The Shallow 
 who will bring Falstaff "before the council" 
 is not the Shallow who with him " heard the 
 chimes at midnight." The Shallow of the 
 sketch of 'The Merry Wives' has not even 
 Shallow's trick of repetition. In the amended 
 Play this characteristic may be recognised ; 
 but in the sketch there is not a trace of it. 
 For example, in the first scene of the finished 
 play we find Shallow talking somewhat like 
 the great Shallow, especially about the fallow 
 greyhound; in the sketch this passage is 
 altogether wanting. In the sketch he says 
 to Page, " Though he be a knight, he shall 
 not think to carry it so away. Master Page, 
 I will not be wronged." In the finished play 
 we have, " He hath wronged me ; indeed, he 
 hath; at a word he hath: believe me; 
 Robert Shallow, esquire, saith he is wronged." 
 And Bardolph too ! Could it be predicated 
 that the Bardolph of a comedy which was 
 produced after the ' Henry IV.' would want 
 those "meteors and exhalations" which 
 characterize the Bardolph who was a standing 
 joke to Falstaff and the Prince ? Would his 
 zeal cease to " burn in his nose ? " Absolutely, 
 in the first sketch, there is not the slightest 
 allusion to that face which ever "blushed 
 extempore." One mention, indeed, there is 
 in the complete play of the " red face," and 
 one supposed allusion of " Scarlet and John." 
 The commentators have wished to show that 
 Bardolph in both copies is called " a tinder- 
 box" on account of his nose; but this is not 
 very clear. And then Pistol is not the 
 magnificent bully of 'The Second Part of 
 Henry IV.,' and of 'Henry V.' He has 
 "affectations," as Sir Hugh mentions, and 
 speaks " in Latin," as Slender has it ; 
 but he is here literally "a tame cheater," 
 but not without considerable cleverness. 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 
 
 255 
 
 "Why, then the world's mine oyster" 
 essentially higher than the obscure bombast 
 of the real Pistol. Of Mistress Quickly we 
 have already spoken as to the circumstances 
 in which she is placed; and these circum- 
 stances are so essentially different that we 
 can scarcely recognise any marked similarity 
 of character in the original sketch. 
 
 Having, then, seen the great and insuperable 
 difficulties which belong to the theory that 
 * The Merry Wives of Windsor ' was written 
 after the histories, let us consider what 
 difficulties, both of situation and character, 
 present themselves under the other theory, 
 that the comedy was produced before the 
 histories. 
 
 First, is it irreconcileablewith the tradition 
 referring to Queen Elizabeth ? It is not so, 
 if we adopt the tradition as related by Dennis 
 this comedy was written by Queen 
 Elizabeth's command, and finished in fourteen 
 days. This statement of the matter is plain 
 and simple ; because it is disembarrassed of 
 those explanations and inferences which 
 never belong to any popular tradition, but 
 are superadded by ingenious persons who 
 have a theory to establish. We can perfectly 
 understand how ' The Merry Wives of Windsor/ 
 as we have it in the first sketch, might have 
 been produced by Shakspere in a fortnight ; 
 and how such a slight and lively piece, 
 containing many local allusions, and perhaps 
 ome delineations of real characters, might 
 have furnished the greatest solace to Elizabeth 
 some seven or eight years before the end of 
 he sixteenth century, after mornings busily 
 employed in talking politics with Leicester, 
 or in translating Boetius in her own private 
 chamber. ,/ The manners throughout, and 
 without any disguise, are those of Elizabeth's 
 own time. Leave out the line in the amended 
 play of " the mad Prince and Poins," and 
 ;he line in the sketch about " the wild Prince 
 cilling his father's deer," and the whole 
 )lay (taken apart from the histories) might 
 with much greater propriety be acted with 
 ;he costume of the age of Elizabeth. It is 
 or this reason, most probably, that we find 
 o little of pure poetry either in the sketch 
 >r the finished performance. As Shakspere 
 laced his characters in his own country, 
 
 with the manners of his own days, he made 
 them speak like ordinary human beings 
 showing 
 
 " deeds and language such as men do use, 
 
 And persons such as Comedy would choose, 
 When she would show an image of the times, 
 And sport with human follies, not with 
 
 We may believe, therefore, the tradition 
 (without adopting the circumstances which 
 make it difficult of belief), and accept the 
 theory that ' The Merry Wives of Windsor 
 was written before the ' Henry IV.' 
 
 Secondly, is the theory that the comedy was 
 produced before the histories, irreconcileable 
 with the contradictory circumstances which 
 render the other theory so difficult of 
 admission 1 Assuming that the comedy was 
 written before the histories, it can be read 
 without any violence to our indelible recol- 
 lections of the situations of the characters in 
 the ' Henry IV.' and < Henry V.' It must be 
 read with a conviction that, if there be any 
 connection of the action at all, it is a very 
 slight one and that this action precedes the 
 ' Henry IV.' by some indefinite period. Then, 
 the Falstaff who in the quiet shades of 
 Windsor did begin to perceive he was " made 
 an ass" had not acquired the experience of 
 the city, for before he knew Hal he " knew 
 nothing;" then the fair maid Quickly, who 
 afterwards contrived to have a husband and 
 be a poor widow without changing her name, 
 knew no higher sphere than the charge of 
 Dr. Caius's laundry and kitchen ; then Pistol 
 was not an ancient, certainly had not married 
 the quondam Quickly, had not made the 
 dangerous experiment of jesting with Fluellen, 
 and occasionally talked like a reasonable 
 being ; then Shallow had some unexplained 
 business which took him from Glostershire 
 to Windsor, travelled without his man Davy, 
 bad not Jent a thousand pounds to Sir John 
 Falstaff, and was not quite so silly and so 
 delightful as when he had drunk " too much 
 sack at supper" toasting " all the cavaleroes 
 about London;" then, lastly, Bardolph was 
 not " master corporate Bardolph," and cer- 
 :ainly Nym and he had not been hanged. 
 
 * Ben Jonson, Prologue to ' Every Man in his Humour.' 
 
256 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEBE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 Thirdly, does the theory of the production 
 of 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' before 
 1 Henry IV.' and ' Henry V.' furnish a proper 
 solution of the remarkable inferiority in the 
 comedy of several of the characters which are 
 common to both ? If we accept the opinion 
 that the Falstaff, the Shallow, the Quickly, 
 the Pistol, Bardolph, and Nym, of 'The 
 Merry Wives,' were all originally con- 
 ceived by the poet before the characters 
 with similar names in the ' Henry IV.' and 
 ' Henry V. ;' and that, after they had been in 
 some degree adopted in the historical plays, 
 Shakspere remodelled 'The Merry Wives,' 
 and heightened the resemblances of character 
 which the resemblances of name implied, 
 the inferiority in several of these characters, 
 especially in the sketch, will be accounted 
 for, without assuming, with Johnson, that 
 " the poet approached as near as he could to 
 the work enjoined him; yet, having perhaps 
 in the former play completed his own idea, 
 seems not to have been able to give Falstaff 
 all his former powers of entertainment." 
 Johnson's opinion proceeds upon the very 
 just assumption that continuations are, for 
 the most part, inferior to original conceptions. 
 But ' The Merry Wives ' could not have been 
 proposed as a continuation of the 'Henry 
 IV.' and the ' Henry V.,' even if it had been 
 written after those plays. If it were written 
 after the histories, the author certainly 
 mystified all the new circumstances as 
 compared with those which had preceded 
 them, for the purpose of destroying the idea 
 of continuation. This appears to us too 
 violent an assumption. But no other can be 
 maintained. To attribute such interminable 
 contradictions to negligence is to assume 
 that Shakspere was not only the greatest 
 of poets, but of blunderers. 
 
 And now we must hazard a conjecture. It 
 has been attempted to show that the Falstaff 
 of the 'First Part of Henry IV.' was originally 
 called Oldcastle*. If that were the case, and 
 the balance of evidence is in favour of that 
 opinion, the whole matter seems to us clearer. 
 Let it be remembered that Falstaff and 
 Bardolph are the only characters that are 
 
 * See Notice of Sir John Oldcastle,' a play by some 
 attributed to Shakspere, Book vi. chap. 2. 
 
 common to the ' First Part of Henry IV.' 
 and 'The Merry Wives of Windsor;' for in 
 the original copy of ' Henry IV., Part I.,' the 
 person who stands amongst the modern list 
 of characters as Quickly is invariably called 
 the Hostess. If the Falstaff, then, of ' Henry 
 IV.' were originally Oldcastle, we have only 
 Bardolph left in common to the two dramas. 
 Was Bardolph originally called so in ' Henry 
 IV., Part I.' 1 When Poins proposes to the 
 Prince to go to Gadshill, he says, in the 
 original copy, " I have a jest to execute that 
 I cannot manage alone, Falstaff, Harvey, 
 Rossil, and Gadshill shall rob these men," &c. 
 We now read, " Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto, and 
 Gadshill," &c. It has been conjectured that 
 Harvey and Rossil were the names of actors ; 
 but, as Oldcastle remains where we now read 
 Falstaff in one. place of the original copy, 
 might not in the same way Bardolph have 
 been originally Harvey or Rossil? This 
 point, however, is not material. If Shakspere 
 were compelled, by a strong expression of 
 public opinion, to remove the name of 
 Oldcastle from the ' First Part of Henry IV.,' 
 the name of Falstaff w&$ ready to his hand 
 as a substitute. He had drawn a knight, fat 
 and unscrupulous, as he had represented 
 Oldcastle, but far his inferior in wit, humour, 
 inexhaustible merriment, presence of mind, 
 and intellectual activity. The transition was 
 not inconsistent from the Falstaff of 'The 
 Merry Wives' to the Falstaff of 'Henry IV.' 
 The character, when Shakspere remodelled 
 the first sketch of the comedy, required some 
 elevation ; but it still might stand at a long 
 distance, without offence to an audience who 
 knew that the inferior creation was first 
 produced. With Falstaff Shakspere might 
 have transferred Bardolph to the ' First Part 
 of Henry IV.,' but materially altered. The 
 base Hungarian wight who would " the spigot 
 wield" had, as a tapster, made his nose a 
 " fiery kitchen " to roast malt-worms ; and he 
 was fit to save him "a thousand marks in 
 links and torches." When, further, Falstaff 
 had completely superseded Oldcastle in the 
 ' First Part of Henry IV.,' Shakspere might 
 have adopted Pistol, and Shallow, and Quickly 
 in the Second Part, but greatly changed ; 
 and, lastly, have introduced Nym to the 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 
 
 257 
 
 'Henry V.' unchanged. All this being 
 accomplished, he would naturally have 
 remodelled the first sketch of ' The Merry 
 Wives/ making the relations between the 
 characters of the comedy and of the histories 
 closer, but still of purpose keeping the 
 situations sufficiently distinct. He thus for 
 ever connected ' The Merry Wives ' with the 
 historical plays. The Falstaff of the comedy 
 must now belong to the age of Henry IV. ; 
 but to be understood he must, we venture to 
 think, be regarded as the embryo Falstaff. 
 
 We request that it may be borne in mind 
 that the entire argument which we have 
 thus advanced is founded upon a conviction 
 that the original sketch, as published in the 
 quarto of 1602, is an authentic production of 
 our poet. Had no such sketch existed, we 
 must have reconciled the difficulties of 
 believing ' The Merry Wives of Windsor ' to 
 have been produced after 'Henry IV.' and 
 ' Henry V.' as we best might have done. 
 Then we must have acknowledged that the 
 characters of Falstaff and Shallow and Quickly 
 were the same in the comedy and the ' Henry 
 IV.,' though represented under different 
 circumstances. Then we must have believed 
 that the contradictory situations were to be 
 explained by the determination of Shakspere 
 boldly to disregard the circumstances which 
 resulted from his compliance with the 
 commands of Elizabeth " to show Falstaff 
 in love." But that sketch being preserved 
 to us, it is much easier, we think, to believe 
 that it was produced before the histories ; 
 and that the characters were subsequently 
 heightened, and more strikingly delineated, 
 to assimilate them to the characters of the 
 histories. After all, we have endeavoured, 
 whilst we have expressed our own belief, 
 fairly to present both sides of the question. 
 The point, we think, is of interest to the 
 lovers of Shakspere; for, inferring that the 
 comedy is a continuation of the history, the 
 inferiority of the Falstaff of 'The Merry 
 Wives' to the Falstaff of ' Henry IV.' implies 
 a considerable abatement of the poet's skill. 
 On the other hand, the conviction that the 
 sketch of the comedy preceded the history, 
 that it was an early play, and that it was 
 subsequently remodelled, is consistent with 
 
 the belitf in the progression of that extra- 
 ordinary intellect, which acquired greater 
 vigour the more its power was exercised. 
 
 Rightly to appreciate this comedy, it is, 
 we conceive, absolutely necessary to dissociate 
 it from the historical plays of ' Henry IV.' 
 and ' Henry V.' Whether Shakspere produced 
 the original sketch of < The Merry Wives of 
 Windsor' before those plays, and remodelled 
 it after their appearance, or whether he 
 produced both the original sketch and the 
 finished performance when his audiences were 
 perfectly familiar with the Falstaff, Shallow, 
 Pistol, Nym, Bardolph, and Mistress Quickly 
 of ' Henry IV.' and ' Henry V.' it is perfectly 
 certain that he did not intend * The Merry 
 Wives ' as a continuation. It is impossible, 
 however, not to associate the period of the 
 comedy with the period of the histories. For 
 although the characters which are common 
 to all the dramas act in the comedy under 
 very different circumstances, and are, to our 
 minds, not only different in their moods but 
 in some of their distinctive features, they 
 must each be received as identical alter et 
 idem. Still the connexion must be as far 
 as possible removed from our view, that we 
 may avoid comparisons which the author 
 certainly was desirous to avoid, when in 
 remodelling the comedy he introduced no 
 circumstances which could connect it with 
 the histories ; and when he not only did not 
 reject what would be called the anachronisms 
 of the first sketch, but in the perfect play 
 heaped on such anachronisms with a profuse- 
 ness that is not exhibited in any other of his 
 dramas. We must, therefore, not only 
 dissociate the characters of 'The Merry Wives' 
 from the similar characters of the histories, 
 but suffer our minds to slide into the belief 
 that the manners of the times of Henry IV. 
 had sufficient points in common with those 
 of the times of Elizabeth to justify the poet 
 in taking no great pains to distinguish 
 between them. We must suffer ourselves to 
 be carried away with the nature and fun of 
 this comedy, without encumbering our minds 
 with any precise idea of the social circum- 
 stances under which the characters lived. 
 We must not startle, therefore, at the mention 
 of Star-chambers, and Edward shovel-boards, 
 
258 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 and Sackerson, and Guiana, and rapiers, and 
 Flemish drunkards, and coaches, and pen- 
 sioners. The characters speak in the language 
 of truth and aature, which belongs to all 
 time ; and we must forget that they sometimes 
 use the expressions of a particular time to 
 which they do not in strict propriety belong. 
 The critics have been singularly laudatory 
 of this comedy. Warton calls it " the most 
 complete specimen of Shakspere's comic 
 powers." Johnson says, "This comedy is 
 remarkable for the variety and number of 
 the personages, who exhibit more characters 
 appropriated and discriminated than perhaps 
 can be found in any other play .... Its 
 general power, that power by which all works 
 of genius shall finally be tried, is such, that 
 perhaps it never yet had reader or spectator 
 who did not think it too soon at the end." 
 We agree with much of this ; but we certainly 
 cannot agree with Warton that it is " the 
 most complete specimen of Shakspere's comic 
 powers." We cannot forget ' As You Like It,' 
 and ' Twelfth Night,' and ' Much Ado about 
 Nothing.' We cannot forget those exquisite 
 combinations of the highest wit with the 
 purest poetry, in which the wit flows from 
 the same everlasting fountain as the poetry, 
 both revealing all that is most intense and 
 profound and beautiful and graceful in 
 humanity. Of those qualities which put 
 Shakspere above all other men that ever 
 existed, 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' 
 exhibits few traces. Some of the touches, 
 however, which no other hand could give, 
 are to be found in Slender, and we think in 
 Quickly. Slender, little as he has to do, is 
 the character that most frequently floats 
 before our fancy when we think of ' The 
 Merry Wives of Windsor.' Slender and 
 Anne Page are the favourites of our modern 
 school of English painting, which has 
 attempted, and successfully, to carry the 
 truth of the Dutch school into a more refined 
 region of domestic art. We do not wish 
 Anne Page to have been married to Slender, 
 but in their poetical alliance they are 
 inseparable. It is in the remodelled play 
 that we find, for the most part, such 
 Shaksperean passages in the character of j 
 Slender as, " If I be drunk, I' 11 be drunk 
 
 with those that have the fear of God, and 
 not with drunken knaves," which resolve, 
 as Evans says, shows his " virtuous mind." 
 In the remodelled play, too, we find the most 
 peculiar traces of the master-hand in Quickly, 
 such as, " His worst fault is that he i> 
 given to prayer; he is something peevish 
 that way;" and "The boy never need to 
 understand anything, for 't is not good tha 
 children should know any wickedness. Ok 
 folks, you know, have discretion, as they say. 
 and know the world;" and again, " Gooo 
 hearts, what ado here is to bring you 
 together ! Sure, one of you does not serve 
 heaven well that you are so crossed." Johnson 
 objects to this latter passage as profane ; but 
 he overlooks the extraordinary depth of the 
 satire. Shakspere's profound knowledge of 
 the human heart is as much displayed in 
 these three little sentences as in his Hamlet 
 and his lago. 
 
 The principal action of this comedy the 
 adventures of Falstaff with the Merry Wives 
 sweeps on with a rapidity of movement 
 which hurries us forward to the denouement 
 as irresistibly as if the actors were under the 
 influence of that destiny which belongs to 
 the empire of tragedy. No reverses, no 
 disgraces, can save Falstaff from his final 
 humiliation. The net is around him, but he 
 does not see the meshes ; he fancies himself 
 the deceiver, but he is the deceived. He will 
 stare Ford " out of his wits," he will "awe him 
 with his cudgel," yet he lives " to be carried 
 in a basket, like a barrow of butcher's offal; 
 and to be thrown in the Thames." But his 
 confidence is undaunted : " I will be thrown 
 into Etna, as I have been thrown into 
 Thames, ere I will leave her ; " yet, " since I 
 plucked geese, played truant, and whipped 
 top, I knew not what it was to be beaten, till 
 lately." Lastly, he will rush upon a third 
 adventure : " This is the third time ; I hope 
 good luck lies in odd numbers ; " yet his good 
 luck ends in " I do begin to perceive that I 
 am made an ass." The real jealousy of 
 Ford most skilfully helps on the merry 
 devices of his wife ; and with equal skill does 
 the poet make him throw away his jealousy, 
 and assist in the last plot against the "unclean 
 knight." The misadventures of Falstaff are 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 THE MEKRY WIVES OP WINDSOR. 
 
 259 
 
 most agreeably varied. The disguise of the 
 old woman of Brentford puts him altogether 
 in a different situation to his suffocation in 
 the buck-basket; and the fairy machinery 
 of Herne's Oak carries the catastrophe out of 
 the region of comedy into that of romance. 
 
 The movement of the principal action is 
 beautifully contrasted with the occasional 
 repose of the other scenes. The Windsor of 
 the time of Elizabeth is presented to us, as 
 the quiet country town, sleeping under the 
 shadow of its neighbour the castle. Amidst 
 its gabled houses, separated by pretty gar- 
 dens, from which the elm and the chestnut 
 and the lime throw their branches across 
 the unpaved road, we find a goodly company, 
 with little to do but gossip and laugh, and 
 make sport out of each other's cholers and 
 weaknesses. We see Master Page training j 
 his "fallow greyhound:" and we go with 
 Master Ford " a-birding." We listen to the 
 "pribbles and prabbles" of Sir Hugh Evans 
 and Justice Shallow, with a quiet satisfac- 
 tion : for they talk as unartificial men ordi- 
 narily talk, without much wisdom, but with 
 good temper and sincerity. We find our- 
 selves in the days of ancient hospitality, 
 when men could make their fellows welcome 
 without ostentatious display, and half a 
 dozen neighbours "could drink down all 
 unkindness" over "a hot venison pasty." 
 The more busy inhabitants of the town have 
 time to tattle, and to laugh, and be laughed 
 at. Mine Host of the Garter is the prince 
 of hosts ; he is the very soul of fun and good 
 temper : he is not solicitous whether Fal- 
 staff sit " at ten pounds a week" or at two ; 
 he readily takes " the withered servingman 
 for a fresh tapster ;" his confidence in his 
 own cleverness is delicious : " Am I politic ? 
 am I subtle ? am I a Machiavel ?" the 
 Germans " shall have my horses, but I '11 
 
 make them pay, I '11 sauce them." When 
 he loses his horses, and his " mind is heavy," 
 we rejoice that Fenton will give him "a 
 hundred pound in gold" more than his loss. 
 His contrivances to manage the fray between 
 the furious French doctor and the honest 
 Welsh parson are productive of the happiest 
 situations. Caius waiting for his adversary 
 "De herring is no dead so as I vill kill 
 him" is capital. But Sir Hugh, with his 
 
 " There will we make our peds of roses, 
 And a thousand fragrant posies, 
 To shallow 
 
 Mercy on me ! I have a great dispositions 
 to cry," is inimitable. 
 
 With regard to the underplot of Fenton 
 and Anne Page the scheme of Page to 
 marry her to Slender the counterplot of 
 her mother, "firm for Dr. Caius" and the 
 management of the lovers to obtain a triumph 
 out of the devices against them it may be 
 sufficient to point out how skilfully it is 
 interwoven with the Herne's Oak adventure 
 of Falstaff. Though Slender " went to her 
 in white, and cried ' mum,' and she cried 
 ' budget,' . . . yet it was not Anne, but a 
 postmaster's boy;" though Caius did "take 
 her in green," he " ha' married un gargon, a 
 boy, un paisan;" but Anne and Fenton, 
 
 " long since contracted, 
 Are now so sure, that nothing can dissolve 
 them." 
 
 Over all the misadventures of that night, 
 when " all sorts of deer were chas'd," Shak- 
 spere throws his own tolerant spirit of for- 
 giveness and content : 
 
 " Good husband, let us every one go home, 
 And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire; 
 Sir John and all." 
 
 s 2 
 
260 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEIIE. 
 
 [BOOK vi 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE DRAMATISTS OF SHAKSPERE'S SECOND PERIOD. 
 
 " MANY were the wit-combats betwixt him 
 and BEN JONSON ; which two I behold like a 
 Spanish great galleon and an English man- 
 of-war : Master Jonson (like the former) 
 was built far higher in learning ; solid, but 
 slow, in his performances. Shakespeare, 
 with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, 
 but lighter in sailing, could turn with all 
 tides, tack about, and take advantage of all 
 winds, by the quickness of his wit and in- 
 vention." Such is Thomas Fuller's well- 
 known description of the convivial inter- 
 course of Shakspere and Jonson, first pub- 
 lished in 1662. A biographer of Shakspere 
 says, " The memory of Fuller perhaps teemed 
 with their sallies." That memory, then, 
 must have been furnished at secondhand ; 
 for Fuller was not born till 1608. He be- 
 held them in his mind's eye only. Imper- 
 fect, and in many respects worthless, as the 
 few traditions of these wit-combats are, 
 there can be no doubt of the companionship 
 and ardent friendship of these two monarchs 
 of the stage. Fuller's fanciful comparison 
 of their respective conversational powers is 
 probably to some extent a just one. The 
 difference in the constitution of their minds, 
 and the diversity of their respective ac- 
 quirements, would more endear each to the 
 other's society. 
 
 Rowe thus describes the commencement 
 of the intercourse between Shakspere and 
 Jonson : " His acquaintance with Ben Jon- 
 son began with a remarkable piece of hu- 
 manity and good nature. Mr. Jonson, who 
 was at that time altogether unknown to the 
 world, had offered one of his plays to the 
 players, in order to have it acted ; and the 
 persons into whose hands it was put, after 
 
 having turned it carelessly and superciliously 
 over, were just upon returning it to him 
 with an ill-natured answer, that it would be 
 of no service to their company, when Shak- 
 spere luckily cast his eye upon it, and found 
 something so well in it as to engage him 
 first to read it through, and afterwards to 
 recommend Mr. Jonson and his writings to 
 the public."* The tradition which Rowe 
 thus records is not supported by minute 
 facts which have since become known. In 
 Henslowe's Diary of plays performed at his 
 theatre, we have an entry under the date of 
 the llth of May, 1597, of ' The Comedy of 
 Humours.' This was no doubt a new play, 
 for it was acted eleven times : and there can 
 be little question that it was Jonson's co- 
 medy of 'Every Man in his Humour.' A 
 few months after we have the following en- 
 try in the same document : " Lent unto 
 Benjamin Jonson, player, the 22nd of July, 
 1597, in ready money, the sum of four 
 pounds, to be paid it again whensoever either 
 I or my son shall demand it." Again: "Lent 
 unto Benjamin Jonson, the 3rd of December, 
 
 1597, upon a book which he was to write for 
 us before Christmas next after the date 
 hereof, which he showed the plot unto the 
 company : I say, lent in ready money unto 
 him the sum of twenty shillings." On the 
 5th of January, 1598, Henslowe records in 
 the same way the trifling loan of five shil- 
 lings. An advance is also made by Hen- 
 slowe to his company on the 13th of August, 
 
 1598, "to buy a book called 'Hot Anger 
 soon cold,' of Mr. Porter, Mr. Chettle, and 
 Benjamin Jonson, in full payment, the sum 
 of six pounds " We thus see, that in 1597 
 
 * ' Life of Shakspeare.' 
 
1 CHAP. I.] 
 
 THE DRAMATISTS OP SHAKSPERE's SECOND PERIOD. 
 
 261 
 
 and 1598 there was an intimate connection 
 of Jonson with the stage, but not with Shak- 
 spere's company. It can scarcely be sup- 
 posed that Jonson was a writer for the stage 
 earlier than 1597, and that the " remarkable 
 piece of humanity and good nature" re- 
 corded of Shakspere took place before the 
 connection of Jonson with Henslowe's the- 
 atre. He was born, according to Gifford, in 
 1574. In January, 1619, he sent a poetical 
 " picture of himself" to Drummond, in which 
 these lines occur : 
 
 " My hundred of grey hairs 
 Told six and forty years." 
 
 This would place his birth in 1573*. Drum- 
 mond, in narrating Jonson's account of "his 
 own life, education, birth, actions," up to 
 the period in which we have shown how 
 dependent he was upon the advances of a 
 theatrical manager, thus writes : " His 
 grandfather came from Carlisle, and, he 
 thought, from Annandale to it : he served 
 King Henry VIII., and was a gentleman. 
 His father lost all his estate under Queen 
 Mary, having been cast in prison and for- 
 feited ; at last turned minister : so he was a 
 minister's son. He himself was posthumous 
 born, a month after his father's decease ; 
 brought up poorly, put to school by a friend 
 (his master Camden) ; after, taken from it, 
 and put to another craft (I think was to be 
 a wright or bricklayer), which he could not 
 endure ; then went he to the Low Countries ; 
 but returning soon, he betook himself to his 
 wonted studies. In his service in the Low 
 Countries, he had, in the face of both the 
 camps, killed an enemy and taken opima 
 spolia from him ; and since his coming to 
 England, being appealed to the fields, he 
 had killed his adversary which had hurt him 
 in the arm, and whose sword was ten inches 
 longer than his ; for the which he was im- 
 prisoned, and almost at the gallows. Then 
 took he his religion by trust, of a priest 
 who visited him in prison. Thereafter he 
 was twelve years a Papist." Aubrey says in 
 his random way, " He killed Mr. Marlowe 
 the poet on Bunhill, coming from the Green 
 
 * See 'Jonson's Conversations with Drummond,' pub- 
 I lished by the Shakespeare Society. 
 
 Curtain Playhouse." We know where Mar- 
 lowe was killed, and when he was killed. 
 He was slain at Deptford in 1593. Gifford 
 supposes that this tragical event in Jonson's 
 life took place in 1595 ; but the conjecture 
 is set aside by an indisputable account of 
 the fact. Philip Henslowe, writing to his 
 son-in-law Alleyn on the 26th of September, 
 1598, says, " Since you were with me I have 
 lost one of my company, which hurteth me 
 greatly, that is Gabrell [Gabriel], for he is 
 slain in Hogsden Fields by the hands of 
 Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer ; therefore I 
 would fain have a little of your counsel, if 
 I could."* This event took place then, we 
 see, exactly at the period when Jonson was 
 in constant intercourse with Henslowe's com- 
 pany; and it probably arose out of some 
 quarrel at the theatre that he was " appealed 
 to the fields." The expression of Henslowe, 
 "Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer," is a re- 
 markable one. It is inconsistent with Jon- 
 son's own declaration that after his return 
 from the Low Countries he " betook himself 
 to his wonted studies." We believe that 
 Henslowe, under the excitement of that 
 loss for which he required the counsel of 
 Alleyn, used it as a term of opprobrium, that 
 was familiar to his company. Dekker, who 
 was a writer for Henslowe's theatre, and who 
 in 1599 was associated with Jonson in the 
 composition of two plays, ridicules his former 
 friend and colleague, in 1602, as a "poor 
 lime and hair rascal " as one who ambled 
 " in a leather pilch by a play-waggon in the 
 highway" "a foul-fisted mortar-treader" 
 "one famous for killing a player" one 
 whose face " looks for all the world like a 
 rotten russet-apple when it is bruised" 
 whose " goodly and glorious nose was blunt, 
 blunt, blunt" who is asked, "how chance 
 it passeth that you bid good bye to an honest 
 trade of building chimneys and laying down 
 bricks for a worse handicraftness ?" who is 
 twitted with " dost stamp, mad Tamburlaine, 
 dost stamp ; thou think'st thou 'st mortar 
 under thy feet, dost ?" one whose face was 
 punched full of eyelet-holes like the cover 
 of a warming-pan" "a hollow-cheeked 
 
 * Letter in Dulwich College, quoted in Collier's ' Me- i 
 moirs of Alleyn.' 
 
262 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vi. 
 
 scrag." It is evident from all this abuse, 
 | which we transcribe as the passages occur in 
 Dekker' s ' Satiro-Mastix,' that the poverty, 
 the personal appearance, and, above all, the 
 original occupation of Jonson, exposed him 
 to the vulgar ridicule of some of those with 
 whom he was brought into contact at the 
 theatre. They did not feel as honest old 
 Fuller felt, when, describing Jonson, being 
 in want of maintenance, as " fain to return 
 to the trade of his father-in-law," the old 
 chronicler of the Worthies says " Let not 
 them blush that have, but those who have 
 not, a lawful calling." We can understand 
 what Henslowe means when he says " Ben- 
 jamin Jonson, bricklayer." In the autumn 
 of 1598 the bricklayer-poet was lying in 
 prison. At the Christmas of that year 
 ' Every Man in his Humour,' greatly altered 
 from the original sketch produced by Hen- 
 slowe's company, was brought out by the 
 Lord Chamberlain's company at the Black- 
 friars. The doors of Henslowe's theatre on 
 the Bankside were probably shut against the 
 man who had killed Gabriel, " whose sword 
 was ten inches longer than his." There 
 seems to have been an effort on the part of 
 some one to console the unhappy prisoner 
 under his calamity. He was a writer for a 
 rival theatre, receiving its advances up to 
 the 13th of August, 1598. His improved 
 play was brought out by the company of a 
 theatre which stood much higher in the 
 popular and the critical estimation a few 
 months afterwards. There was an act of 
 friendship somewhere. May we not believe 
 that this proud man, who seems to have 
 been keenly alive to neglect and injury 
 who says that "Daniel was at jealousies 
 with him" that "Drayton feared him" 
 that " he beat Marston, and took his pistol 
 from him" that "Sir William Alexander 
 was not half kind to him" that "Mark- 
 ham was but a base fellow" that "such 
 were Day and Middleton" that "Sharp- 
 ham, Day, Dekker, were all rogues, and that 
 Minshew was one " that " Abraham Francis 
 was a fool"* may we not believe that 
 some deep remembrance of unusual kind- 
 
 * All these passages are extracted from his ' Conversa- 
 tion* with Drummond.' 
 
 ness induced him to write of Shakspere, " I 
 loved the man, and do honour his memory 
 on this side idolatry as much as any. He 
 was indeed honest, and of an open and free 
 nature ?" We have no hesitation in abiding 
 by the common sense of Gifford, who treated 
 with ineffable scorn all that has been written 
 about Jonson's envy, and malignity, and 
 coldness towards Shakspere. We believe 
 with him " that no feud, no jealousy ever 
 disturbed their connection ; that Shakspere 
 was pleased with Jonson, and that Jonson 
 loved and admired Shakspere." They worked 
 upon essentially different principles of art : 
 they had each their admirers and disciples : 
 but the field in which they laboured was 
 large enough for both of them, and they 
 each cultivated it after his own fashion. 
 With the exception of such occasional quar- 
 rels as those between Jonson and Dekker, 
 the poets of that time lived as a generous 
 brotherhood, whose cordial intercourse might 
 soften many of the rigours of their worldly 
 lot. Jonson was by nature proud, perhaps 
 arrogant. His struggles with penury had 
 made him proud. He had the inestimable 
 possession of a well-educated boyhood ; he 
 had the consciousness of great abilities and 
 great acquirements. He was thrown amongst 
 a band of clever men, some of whom perhaps 
 laughed^ as Dekker unworthily did, at his 
 honest efforts to set himself above the real 
 disgrace of earning his bread by corrupt 
 arts : who ridiculed his pimpled face, his 
 " one eye lower than t' other," and his " coat 
 like a coachman's coat, with slips under the 
 arm-pits." So Aubrey describes him who 
 laid down laws of criticism, and married 
 music and painting to the most graceful 
 verse. But when the bricklayer had the 
 gratification of seeing his first comedy per- 
 formed by the Lord Chamberlain's company, 
 to 
 
 " Sport with human follies, not with crimes/' 
 
 there was one amongst that company strong 
 enough to receive with kindliness even the 
 original prologue, in which the romantic 
 drama, perhaps some of his own plays, were 
 declaimed against by one who belonged to 
 another school of art. Shakspere could not 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 THE DRAMATISTS OF SHAKSPERE S SECOND PERIOD. 
 
 263 
 
 doubt that a man of vigorous understanding 
 had arisen up to devote himself to the ex 
 hibition of "popular errors," humours 
 passing accidents of life and character. He 
 himself worked upon more enduring ma 
 terials ; but he would nevertheless see thai 
 there was one fitted to deal with the comedy 
 of manners in a higher spirit than had ye1 
 been displayed. Not only was the amende 
 ' Every Man in his Humour ' acted by Shak- 
 spere's company, Shakspere himself taking 
 one of the characters ; but the second co- 
 medy from, the same satirist was first pro- 
 duced by that company in 1599. When the 
 author, in his Induction, exclaims 
 
 " If any here chance to behold himself, 
 Let him not dare to challenge me of wrong ; 
 For, if he shame to have his follies known, 
 First he should shame to act 'em : my strict 
 
 hand 
 
 Was made to seize on vice, and with a gripe 
 Squeeze out the humour of such spongy souls 
 As lick up every idle vanity," 
 
 the poet who " was not for an age, but for 
 all time," he, especially, who never once 
 comes before the audience in his individual 
 character, might gently smile at these 
 high pretensions. But he would stretch out 
 the hand of cordial friendship to the man ; 
 for he was in earnest his indignation against 
 vice was an honest one. Though a little 
 personal vanity might peep out though the 
 satirist might " venture on the stage when 
 the play is ended to exchange courtesies and 
 compliments with gallants in the lord's 
 rooms, to make all the house rise up in arms 
 and to cry, That's Horace, that 's he, that's 
 he, that's he, that pens and purges humours 
 and diseases,"* Shakspere's congratulations 
 on the success of Asper for so Jonson de- 
 lighted to call himself would come from 
 the heart. 
 
 The things "done at the Mermaid" were 
 not as yet. Francis Beaumont, who has 
 made them immortal by his description, was 
 at this period scarcely sixteen years of age. 
 His ' Letter to Jonson ' may, however, give 
 us the best notion of the earlier convivial 
 
 * ' Satiro-Mastix.' 
 
 intercourse of some of the illustrious band 
 to whom the young dramatist refers : 
 
 " Methinks the little wit I had is lost 
 Since I saw you; for wit is like a rest 
 Held up at tennis, which men do the best 
 With the best gamesters: what things have 
 
 we seen 
 Done at the Mermaid ! heard words that have 
 
 been 
 
 So nimble, and so full of subtile flame, 
 As if that every one from whence they came 
 Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, 
 And had resolved to live a fool the rest 
 Of his dull life ; then when there hath been 
 
 thrown 
 
 Wit able enough to justify the town 
 For three days past wit that might warrant 
 
 be 
 
 For the whole city to talk foolishly 
 Till that were cancell'd : and when that was 
 
 gone, 
 
 We left an air behind us, which alone 
 Was able to make the two next companies 
 Right witty: though but downright fools, 
 
 mere wise." 
 
 Sociality was the fashion of those days in 
 moderation, not a bad fashion. Gifford has 
 noticed this with great justness ; "Domestic 
 entertainments were, at that time, rare ; the 
 accommodations of a private house were ill 
 calculated for the purposes of a social meet- 
 ing : and taverns and ordinaries are there- 
 fore almost the only places in which we hear 
 of such assemblies. This, undoubtedly, gives 
 an appearance of licentiousness to the age, 
 which, in strictness, does not belong to it. 
 Long after the period of which we are now 
 speaking, we seldom hear of the eminent 
 characters of the day in their domestic 
 circles."* Jonson laughs at his own dis- 
 position to conviviality in connection with 
 bis habitual abstemiousness : " Canary, the 
 very elixir and spirit of wine ! This is that 
 our poet calls Castalian liquor, when he 
 comes abroad now and then, once in a fort- 
 night, and makes a good meal among players, 
 where he has caninum appetitum ; marry, at 
 lome he keeps a good philosophical diet, 
 )eans and buttermilk ; an honest pure rogue, 
 he will take you off three, four, five of these, 
 
 * ' Memoirs of BPTI Jonson,' p rxr. 
 
264 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPEBE. 
 
 [BOOK vi. I 
 
 one after another, and look villainously when 
 he has donfc, like a one-headed Cerberus."* 
 He puts these words into the mouth of a 
 buffoon. In his own person he speaks of 
 himself in a nobler strain : 
 " I that spend half my nights, and all my days, 
 
 Here in a cell to get a dark pale face, 
 To come forth worth the ivy and the bays ; 
 
 And, in this age, can hope no other grace." f 
 The alternations of excessive labour and 
 joyous relaxation belong to the energies of 
 the poetical temperament. Jonson has been 
 accused of excess in his pleasures. Drum- 
 mond ill-naturedly says, " Drink is one of 
 the elements in which he liveth." But no 
 one affirmed that in his convivial meetings 
 there was not something higher and better 
 than sensual indulgence : 
 
 "Ah, Ben! 
 Say how, or when 
 Shall we thy guests 
 Meet at those lyric feasts, 
 
 Made at the Sun, 
 The Dog, the Triple Tun? 
 Where we such clusters had, 
 As made us nobly wild, not mad ; 
 
 And yet each verse of thine 
 Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wme."$ 
 GEORGE CHAPMAN, as Anthony Wood tells 
 us, " was a person of most reverend aspect, 
 religious and temperate, qualities rarely 
 meeting in a poet." Anthony Wood has a 
 low notion of the poetical character, as many 
 other prosaic people have. He tells us of 
 an unhappy verse-maker of small merit who 
 was " exceedingly given to the vices of 
 poets." Chapman was, however, the senior 
 of the illustrious band who lighted up the 
 close of the sixteenth century, and might 
 be more reverend than many of them. He 
 was seven years older than Shakspere, being 
 born in 1557. Yet his inventive faculties 
 were brilliant to the last. Jonson told 
 Drummond, in 1619, that "next himself 
 only Fletcher and Chapman could make a 
 masque." He said also, what was more im- 
 portant, that " Chapman and Fletcher were 
 loved of him," No one can doubt the vigour 
 of the poet who translated twelve books of 
 
 * ' Every Man out of his Humour.' 
 
 t ' The Poetaster.' 
 
 t Herrick's ' Hesperides.' 
 
 the Iliad in six weeks, the daring fiery 
 spirit of him who, in the opinion of the j 
 more polished translator, gave us a Homer 
 such as he might have been before he had 
 come to the years of discretion. This is 
 meant by Pope for censure. Meres, in 1598, 
 enumerates Chapman amongst the " tragic 
 poets," and also amongst the "best poets for 
 comedy." We have no evidence that he 
 wrote before the period when Shakspere 
 raised the drama out of chaos. He had not 
 the power to become a great dramatist in 
 the strict sense of the word ; for his genius 
 was essentially didactic. He could not go 
 out of himself to paint all the varieties of | 
 passion and character in vivid action ; but I 
 he could analyze the passion, exhibit its 
 peculiarities, describe its current, with won- 
 drous force and originality, throwing in 
 touches of the purest poetry, clothed in 
 the most splendid combinations of language. 
 Dry den has not done justice to him, when 
 he says that "a dwarfish thought dressed up 
 in gigantic words is his characteristic." 
 There are the gigantic words, but the thought 
 is rarely dwarfish. Had he become a dra- 
 matist ten years earlier, as he well might 
 from the period in which he was born, we 
 should have found more extravagance and 
 less poetical fire. Shakspere rendered the 
 drama not so easy of approach by inferior 
 men, as it was in the early days of the 
 Greenes and Peeles. Chapman with his un- 
 dramatic mind has done wonders in his own 
 way. 
 
 JOHN FLETCHER, was born in 1576. His 
 father, the Bishop of London he who poured 
 into the ears of the unhappy Mary of Scots 
 on the scaffold that verbosam orationem, as 
 Camden has it, which had more regard to 
 his own preferment than the Queen's con- 
 version he who, marrying a second time, 
 fell under his royal mistress's displeasure, 
 and died of grief and excessive tobacco, in 
 1596, "seeking to lose his sorrow in a 
 mist of smoke,"* he left his son John to 
 carry his "sail of phantasy" into the dan- 
 gerous waters of the theatre. The union of 
 real talent with fashionable pretension, which 
 in time made him one of the most popular 
 
 * Fuller's ' Worthies.' 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 THE DRAMATISTS OF SHAKSPERE S SECOND PERIOD. 
 
 265 
 
 of dramatists, and the lyrical genius which 
 will place him for ever amongst the first of 
 English poets, were budding only at the 
 close of the sixteenth century. We can 
 scarcely believe that his genius was only 
 called out by the " wonderful consimility of 
 fancy " between him and Francis Beaumont ; 
 and that his first play was produced only in 
 1607, when he was thirty-one and Beaumont 
 twenty-one. It is possible that in his earlier 
 days he wrote in conjunction with some of 
 the veterans of the drama. Shakspere is 
 held to have been associated with him in the 
 ' Two Noble Kinsmen.' We shall discuss 
 that question elsewhere. At the end of the 
 sixteenth century, Fletcher would be gather- 
 ing materials, at any rate, for some of those 
 pictures of manners which reveal to us too 
 much of the profligacy of the fine people of 
 the early part of the seventeenth century. 
 The society of the great minds into which 
 he would be thrown at the Falcon, and the 
 Mermaid, and the Apollo Saloon, would call 
 out and cherish that freshness of his poetical 
 nature which survives, and indeed often 
 rides over, the sapless conventionalities and 
 frigid licentiousness of his fashionable ex- 
 perience. In the company of Shakspere, 
 and Jonson, and Chapman, and Donne, he 
 would be taught there was something more 
 in the friendship, and even in the mere in- 
 tercourse of conviviality, of men of high 
 intellect, than the town could give. He 
 would learn from Jonson's ' Leges Convi- 
 viales,' that there was a charm in the social 
 hours of the "eruditi, urbani, hilares, ho- 
 nesti" which was rarely found amidst the 
 courtly hunters after pleasure ; and that a 
 festival with them was something better 
 than even the excitement of wine and music. 
 A few years after this Fletcher ventured out 
 of the track of that species of comedy in 
 which he won his first success, giving a real 
 poem to the public stage, which, with all its 
 faults, was a noble attempt to emulate the 
 lyrical and pastoral genius of Shakspere. 
 To our minds there is as much covert advice, 
 if not gentle reproof, to Fletcher, as there is 
 of just and cordial praise, in Jonson's verses 
 upon the condemnation of 'The Faithful 
 Shepherdess' by the audience of 1610 : 
 
 " The wise, and many-headed bench, that sits 
 Upon the life and death of plays and wits, 
 (Compos'd of gamester, captain, knight, 
 
 knight's man, 
 
 Lady, or pucelle, that wears mask or fan, 
 Velvet, or taffeta cap, rank'd in the dark 
 With the shop's foreman, or some such brave 
 
 spark 
 
 That may judge for his sixpence) had, before 
 They saw it half, damn'd thy whole play, and 
 
 more : 
 
 Their motives were, since it had not to do 
 With vices, which they look'd for, and came 
 
 to. 
 
 I, that am glad thy innocence was thy guilt, 
 And wish that all the Muses' blood were spilt 
 In such a martyrdom, to vex their eyes, 
 Do crown thy murder'd poem : which shall 
 
 rise 
 
 A glorified work to time, when fire 
 Or moths shall eat what all those fools ad- 
 mire." 
 
 The diary of Henslowe during the last 
 three years of the sixteenth century contains 
 abundant notices of MICHAEL DRAYTON as a 
 dramatist. According to this record, of 
 which we have no reason to doubt the cor- 
 rectness, there were extant in 1597 ' Mother 
 Red Cap,' written by him in conjunction 
 with Anthony Munday ; and a play without 
 a name, which the manager calls a "book 
 wherein is a part of a Welshman," by Dray- 
 ton and Henry Chettle. In 1598 we have 
 'The Famous Wars of Henry I. and. the 
 Prince of Wales,' by Drayton and Thomas 
 Dekker ; ' Earl Goodwin and his three Sons,' 
 by Drayton, Chettle, Dekker, and Robert 
 Wilson ; the ' Second Part of Goodwin,' by 
 Drayton ; ' Pierce of Exton,' by the same 
 four authors ; ' The Funeral of Richard Cceur 
 de Lion,' by Wilson, Chettle, Munday, and 
 Drayton; 'The Mad Man's Morris,' 'Han- 
 nibal and Hermes,' and ' Pierce of Winches- 
 ter,' by Drayton, Wilson, and Dekker ; 'Wil- 
 liam Longsword,' by Drayton ; ' Chance 
 Medley,' by Wilson, Munday, Drayton, and 
 Dekker ; ' Worse Afeard than Hurt,' ' Three 
 Parts of the Civil Wars of France,' and 
 ' Connan, Prince of Cornwall,' by Drayton 
 and Dekker. In 1600 we have the 'Fair 
 Constance of Rome,' in two parts, by Mun- 
 day, Hathway, Drayton, and Dekker. In 
 
266 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vi. 
 
 1601, 'The Rising of Cardinal Wolsey,' by 
 Munday, Drayton, Chettle, and Wentworth 
 Smith. In 1602, ' Two Harpies,' by Dekker, 
 Drayton, Middleton, Webster, and Munday. 
 This is a most extraordinary record of the 
 extent of dramatic associations in those 
 days ; and it is more remarkable as it regards 
 Drayton, that his labours, which, as we see, 
 were not entirely in copartnership, did not 
 gain for him even the title of a dramatic 
 poet in the next generation. Langbaine 
 mentions him not at all. Philipps says no- 
 thing of his plays. Meres indeed thus 
 writes of him : " We may truly term Michael 
 Drayton Tragedioffraphus, for his passionate 
 penning the downfalls of valiant Robert of 
 Normandy, chaste Matilda, and great Gaves- 
 ton." But this praise has clearly reference 
 to the ' Heroical Epistles ' and the 'Legends.' 
 If 'The Merry Devil of Edmonton' be his, 
 the comedy does not place his dramatic 
 powers in any very striking light ; but it 
 gives abundant proofs, in common with all 
 his works, of a pure and gentle mind, and a 
 graceful imagination. Meres is enthusiastic 
 about his moral qualities ; and his testimony 
 also shows that the character for upright 
 dealing which Shakspere won so early was 
 not universal amongst the poetical adven- 
 turers of that day: "As Aulus Persius 
 Flaccus is reported among all writers to be 
 of an honest and upright conversation, so 
 Michael Drayton (quern toties honoris et 
 amoris causa nomino), among scholars, sol- 
 diers, poets, and all sorts of people, is held 
 for a man of virtuous disposition, honest 
 conversation, and well-governed carriage, 
 which is almost miraculous among good wits 
 in these declining and corrupt times, when 
 there is nothing but roguery in villainous 
 man, and when cheating and craftiness is 
 counted the cleanest wit and soundest wis- 
 dom." The good wits, according to Meres, 
 are only parcel of the corrupt and declining 
 times. Yet, after all, his dispraise of the 
 times is scarcely original : " You rogue, 
 here 's lime in this sack too. There is no- 
 thing but roguery to be found in villainous 
 man."* Jonson was an exception to the 
 best of his contemporaries when he said of 
 
 * Henry IV.,' Part I., Act rr., Sc. iv. 
 
 Drayton that " he esteemed not of him." 
 That Shakspere loved him we may readily 
 believe. They were nearly of an age, Dray- 
 ton being only one year his elder. They 
 were born in the same county they had 
 each the same love of natural scenery, and 
 the same attachment to their native soil. 
 Drayton exclaims 
 
 " My native country then, which so brave spirits 
 
 hath bred, 
 If there be virtues yet remaining in thy 
 
 earth, 
 Or any good of thine thou bred'st into my 
 
 birth, 
 Accept it as thine own, whilst now I sing of 
 
 thee ; 
 Of all thy later brood th' unworthiest though 
 
 I be." 
 
 It is his own Warwickshire which he in- 
 vokes. They had each the same familiar 
 acquaintance with the old legends and chro- 
 nicles of English history; the same desire 
 to present them to the people in forms which 
 should associate the poetical spirit with a 
 just patriotism. It was fortunate that they 
 walked by different paths to the same object. 
 However Drayton might have been asso- 
 ciated for a few years with the minor dra- 
 matists of Shakspere's day, it may be doubted 
 whether his genius was at all dramatic. 
 Yet was he truly a great poet in an age of 
 great poets. Old Aubrey has given us one 
 or two exact particulars of his life : " He 
 lived at the bay window house next the east 
 end of St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet Street." 
 Would that bay window house were stand- 
 ing ! Would that the other house of pre- 
 cious memory close by it, where Izaak Wal- 
 ton kept his haberdasher's shop, were stand- 
 ing also ! He "who has not left a rivulet 
 (so narrow that it may be stepped over) 
 without honourable mention ; and has ani- | 
 mated hills and streams with life and passion 
 above the dreams of old mythology ;" * and 
 he who delighted to sit and sing under the j 
 honeysuckle hedge while the shower fell so 
 gently upon the teeming earth, they loved 
 not the hills and streams and verdant mea- 
 dows the less because they daily looked upon 
 
 * Charles Lamb. 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 THE DRAMATISTS OF SHAKSPERE S SECOND PERIOD. 
 
 267 
 
 the tide of London life in the busiest of her 
 thoroughfares. 
 
 The ' Cleopatra' of SAMUEL DANIEL places 
 him amongst the dramatic poets of this 
 period ; but his vocation was not to the 
 drama. He was induced, by the persuasion 
 of the Countess of Pembroke, 
 
 " To sing of state, and tragic notes to frame." 
 
 After Shakspere had arisen he adhered to 
 the model of the Greek theatre. According 
 to Jonson, " Samuel Daniel was no poet." 
 Jonson thought Daniel " envied him," as he 
 wrote to the Countess of Rutland. He tells 
 Drummond that " Daniel was at jealousies 
 with him." Yet for all this even with Jon- 
 son he was " a good man." Spenser formed 
 the same estimate of Daniel's genius as the 
 Countess of Pembroke did : 
 
 " Then rouse thy feathers quickly, Daniel, 
 And to what course thou please thyself ad- 
 
 vance : 
 
 But most, meseems, thy accent will excel 
 In tragic plaints, and passionate mischance." * 
 
 Daniel did wisely when he confined his 
 "tragic plaints" to narrative poetry. He 
 went over the same ground as Shakspere in 
 his ' Civil Wars ;' and there are passages of 
 resemblance between the dramatist and the 
 descriptive poet which are closer than mere 
 accident could have produced. The imita- 
 tion, on whatever side it was, was indicative 
 of respect. 
 
 JOHN MARSTON, a man of original talent, 
 took his Bachelor's degree at Oxford in 1592. 
 There is very little known with any precision 
 about his life ; but a pretty accurate opinion 
 of his character may be collected from the 
 notices of his contemporaries, and from his 
 own writings. He began in the most dan- 
 gerous path of literary ambition, that of 
 satire, bitter and personal : 
 
 " Let others sing, as their good genius moves, 
 Of deep designs, or else of clipping loves. 
 Fair fall them all that with wit's industry 
 Do clothe good subjects in true poesy; 
 But as for me, my vexed thoughtful soul 
 Takes pleasure in displeasing sharp control. 
 
 * ' Colin Clout's come Home again.' 
 
 Quake, guzzle-dogs, that live on spotted lime, 
 Scud from the lashes of my yerking rhyme."* 
 
 His first performance, ' The Metamorphoses 
 of Pygmalion's Image,' has been thought by 
 Warton to have been written in ridicule of 
 Shakspere's Venus and Adonis. The author 
 says, 
 
 " Know, I wrot 
 
 These idle rhymes, to note the odious spot 
 And blemish, that deforms the lineaments 
 Of modern poesy's habiliments." 
 
 In his parody, if parody it be, he has con- 
 trived to produce a poem, of which the 
 licentiousness is the only quality. Thus we 
 look upon a sleeping Venus of Titian, and 
 see but the wonderful art of the painter ; a 
 dauber copies it, and then beauty becomes 
 deformity. He is angry that his object is 
 misunderstood, as well it might be : 
 
 " these same buzzing gnats 
 That sting my sleeping brows, these Nilus 
 
 rats, 
 Half dung, that have their life from putrid 
 
 slime, 
 These that do praise my loose lascivious 
 
 rhyme, 
 
 For these same shades I seriously protest, 
 I slubbered up that chaos indigest, 
 To fish for fools, that stalk in goodly shape : 
 What though in velvet cloak, yet still an 
 
 ape ! " 
 
 He had the ordinary fate of satirists to live 
 in a state of perpetual warfare, and to have 
 offences imputed to him of which he was 
 blameless. The "galled jade" not only 
 winces, but kicks. The comedy of 'The 
 Malecontent,' written in 1600, appears to 
 have been Marston's first play ; it was 
 printed in 1605. He says in the Preface, 
 " In despite of my endeavours, I understand 
 some have been most unadvisedly over- 
 cunning in misinterpreting me, and with 
 subtilty (as deep as hell) have maliciously 
 spread ill rumours, which springing from 
 themselves, might to themselves have heavily 
 returned." Marston says in the Preface to 
 one of his later plays, ' : So powerfully have 
 I been enticed with the delights of poetry, 
 
 * 'Scourge of Villainy; Three Books of Satire: ' l.m 
 
268 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEBE. 
 
 [BOOK vi. 
 
 and (I must ingenuously confess), above better 
 desert, so fortunate in these stage-pleasings, 
 that (let my resolutions be never so fixed, to 
 call mine eyes unto myself) I much fear that 
 most lamentable death of him 
 ' Qui nimis notus omnibus, 
 
 Ignotus moritur gibi.' " Seneca. 
 He adds, "the over-vehement pursuit of 
 these delights hath been the sickness of my 
 youth." He unquestionably writes as one 
 who is absorbed by his pursuit ; over whom 
 it has the mastery. In his plays, as well as 
 in his satires, there is no languid task-work ; 
 but, as may be expected, he cannot go out of 
 himself. It is John Marston who is lashing 
 vice and folly, whatever character may fill 
 the scene ; and from first to last in his 
 reproof of licentiousness we not only see his 
 familiarity with many gross things, but 
 cannot feel quite assured that he looks upon 
 them wholly with pure eyes. His temper 
 was no doubt capricious. It is clear that 
 Jonson had been attacked by him previous 
 to the production of ' The Poetaster.' He 
 endured the lash which was inflicted on him 
 in return, and became again, as he probably 
 was before, the friend of Jonson, to whom he 
 dedicates ' The Malecontent ' in 1605. Gifford 
 has clearly made out that the Crispinus of 
 'The Poetaster' was Marston. Tucca thus 
 describes him, in addressing the player : 
 " Go, and be acquainted with him then ; he 
 is a gentleman, parcel poet, you slave ; his 
 father was a man of worship, I tell thee. 
 Go, he pens high, lofty, in a new stalking 
 strain, bigger than half the rhymers in the 
 town again : he was born to fill thy mouth, 
 Minotaurus, he was ; he will teach thee to 
 tear and rand. Rascal, to him, cherish his 
 muse, go ; thou hast forty forty shillings, I 
 mean, stinkard ; give him in earnest, do, he 
 shall write for thee, slave ! If he pen for 
 thee once, thou shalt not need to travel with 
 thy pumps full of gravel any more, after a 
 blind jade and a hamper, and stalk upon 
 boards and barrel heads to an old cracked 
 trumpet." Jonson, in the same play, has 
 parodied Marston's manner, and has intro- 
 duced many of his expressions, in the fol- 
 lowing verses, which are produced as those of 
 Crispinus : 
 
 " Ramp up, my genius, be not retrograde ; 
 But boldly nominate a spade a spade. 
 What, shall thy lubrical and glibbery mase 
 Live, as she were defunct, like punk in stews ! 
 Alas ! that were no modern consequence, 
 To have cothurnal buskins frighted hence. 
 No, teach thy Incubus to poetize, 
 And throw abroad thy spurious snotteries, 
 Upon that puft-up lump of balmy froth, 
 Or clumsy chilblain'd judgment ; that with 
 
 oath 
 
 Magnificates his merit ; and bespawls 
 The conscious time with humorous foam, and 
 
 brawls, 
 
 As if his organons of sense would crack 
 The sinews of my patience. Break his back, 
 O poets all and some ! for now we list 
 Of strenuous vengeance to clutch the fist." 
 
 The following advice is subsequently given 
 to him : 
 
 " You must not hunt for wild outlandish terms, 
 To stuff out a peculiar dialect ; 
 But let your matter run before your words. 
 And if at any time you chance to meet 
 Some Gallo-Belgic phrase, you shall not 
 
 straight 
 
 Rack your poor verse to give it entertainment, 
 But let it pass ; and do not think yourself 
 Much damnified if you do leave it out, 
 When nor your understanding nor the sense 
 Could well receive it." 
 
 Marston, with all his faults, was a scholar 
 and a man of high talent ; and it is pleasant 
 to know that he and Ben were friends after 
 this wordy war. He appears to us to describe 
 himself in the following narrative of a 
 scholar in < What You Will :' 
 
 " I was a scholar : seven useful springs 
 Did I deflour in quotations 
 Of cross'd opinions 'bout the soul of man ; 
 The more I learnt the more I learnt to doubt, 
 Knowledge and wit, faith's foes, turn faith 
 about. 
 
 Nay, mark, list ! Delight, Delight, my spaniel, 
 
 slept, whilst I bauz'd * leaves, 
 Toss'd o'er the dunces, por'd on the old print 
 
 * Mr. Dilke, in his valuable ' Selection from the Early 
 Dramatic Writers,' prints three of Marston's plays. He 
 says this word may be derived from baiser, to kiss ; and that 
 been used by Chaucer in this sense. 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 SIB JOHN OLDCASTLE. 
 
 269 
 
 Of titled words, and still my spaniel slept. 
 Whilst I wasted lamp-oil, 'bated my flesh, 
 Shrunk up my veins, and still my spaniel 
 
 slept. 
 
 And still I held converse with Zabarell, 
 Aquinas, Scotus, and the musty saw 
 Of antic Donate, still my spaniel slept. 
 Still on went I, first an sit anima, 
 Then, an it were mortal ; oh, hold, hold, 
 At that they are at brain buffets, fell by the 
 
 ears, 
 Amain, pell-mell together; still my spaniel 
 
 slept. 
 
 Then whether 't were corporeal, local, fix'd, 
 Extraduce ; but whether 't had free will 
 Or no, philosophers, 
 
 Stood banding factions, all so strongly propp'd, 
 I stagger' d, knew not which was firmer part ; 
 But thought, quoted, read, observed, and 
 
 pried, 
 Stuff'd noting books, and still my spaniel 
 
 slept. 
 
 At length he wak'd, and yawn'd, and by yon 
 
 sky, 
 For aught I knew, he knew as much as I. 
 
 How 'twas created, how the soul exists : 
 
 One talks of motes, the soul was made of 
 
 motes ; 
 Another fire, t' other light, a third a spark of 
 
 star-like nature ; 
 Hippo, water ; Anaximenes, air ; 
 Aristoxenus, music ; Critias, I know not what ; 
 A company of odd Phrenetic! 
 Did eat my youth ; and when I crept abroad, 
 Finding my numbness in this nimble age, 
 I fell a railing" 
 
 In the following Chapters of this Book we 
 shall give a brief analysis of several of the 
 plays belonging to this period, which have 
 been ascribed to Shakspere. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SIK JOHN OLDCASTLE. PART I. 
 
 THE mode in which some of the German 
 critics have spoken of this play is a rebuke 
 to dogmatic assertions and criticism. Schle- 
 gel says putting 'Sir John Oldcastle,' 
 'Thomas Lord Cromwell,' and 'The York- 
 shire Tragedy' in the same class "The 
 last three pieces are not only unquestionably 
 Shakspere's, but in my opinion they deserve 
 to be classed among his best and maturest 
 works. . . . ' Thomas Lord Cromwell ' and 
 ' Sir John Oldcastle ' are biographical dra- 
 mas, and models in this species ; the first is 
 linked, from its subject, to ' Henry VIII.,' 
 and the second to ' Henry V.' " Tieck is 
 equally confident in assigning the authorship 
 of this play to Shakspere. Ulrici, on the 
 contrary, takes a more sober view of the 
 matter. He says "The whole betrays a 
 poet who endeavoured to form himself on 
 Shakspere's model, nay, even to imitate him, 
 
 but who stood far below him in mind and 
 talent." Our own critics, relying upon the 
 internal evidence, agreed in rejecting it. 
 Malone could " not perceive the least trace 
 of our great poet in any part of this play." 
 He observes that it was originally entered 
 on the Stationers' registers without the name 
 of Shakspere ; but he does not mention the 
 fact, that of two editions printed in 1600 one 
 bears the name of Shakspere, the other not. 
 i The one which has the name says " As it 
 j hath bene lately acted by the Right honor- 
 
 able the Earle of Notingham, Lord High 
 Admirall of England, his Seruants." In 
 1594 a play of Shakspere's might have been 
 acted, as, we believe, 'Hamlet' was, at Hen- 
 slowe's theatre, which was that of the Lord 
 High Admiral his servants, but in 1600 a 
 play of Shakspere's would have unquestion- 
 ably been acted by the Lord Chamberlain 
 
270 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vi 
 
 his servants. However, this conjectural 
 evidence is quite unnecessary. Henslowe, 
 the head of the Lord Admiral's company, as 
 we learn by his diary, on the 16th of October, 
 1599, paid " for The first part of the Lyfe of 
 Sir Jhon Ouldcastell, and in earnest of the 
 Second Pte, for the use of the company, ten 
 pound ;" and the money was received by 
 "Thomas Downton" "to pay Mr. Monday, 
 Mr. Drayton, Mr. Wilson, and Hathaway." 
 We might here dismiss the question of the 
 authorship of this play, did it not furnish a 
 very curious example of the imperfect man- 
 ner in which it was attempted to imitate the 
 excellence and to rival the popularity of 
 Shakspere's best historical plays at the time 
 of their original production. It is not the 
 least curious also of the circumstances con- 
 nected with 'The First Part of Sir John 
 Oldcastle,' that, whilst the bookseller affixed 
 the name of Shakspere to the performance, 
 it has been supposed that the Falstaff of his 
 ' Henry IV.' was pointed at in the following 
 prologue : 
 
 " The doubtful title, gentlemen, prefix'd 
 Upon the argument we have in hand, 
 May breed suspense, and wrongfully disturb 
 The peaceful quiet of your settled thoughts. 
 To stop which scruple, let this brief suffice : 
 It is no pamper 'd glutton we present, 
 Nor aged counsellor to youthful sin, 
 But one, whose virtue shone above the rest, 
 A valiant martyr, and a virtuous peer ; 
 In whose true faith and loyalty, express'd 
 Unto his sovereign and his country's weal, 
 We strive to pay that tribute of our love 
 Your favours merit. Let fair truth be grac'd, 
 Since forg'd invention former time defac'd." 
 
 The line in the prologue which we have 
 just quoted 
 
 " Since forg'd indention former time defac'd," 
 
 might appear to point to an earlier period of 
 the stage than that in which Shakspere's 
 ' Henry IV.' was produced. Indeed, the old 
 play of ' The Famous Victories ' contains the 
 character of Sir John Oldcastle. He is a 
 low, ruffianly sort of fellow, who may be 
 called "an aged counsellor to youthful sin ;" 
 but he is net represented as "a pampered 
 
 glutton." In our opinion, there was either 
 another play besides ' The Famous Victories ' 
 in which the name of Oldcastle was intro- 
 duced, or the remarks of contemporary 
 writers applied to Shakspere's Falstaff, who 
 had originally borne the name of Oldcastle. 
 The following passage is from Fuller's 
 ' Church History :' " Stage-poets have them- 
 selves been very bold with, and others very 
 merry at, the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, 
 whom they have fancied a boon companion, 
 a jovial royster, and a coward to boot. The 
 best is, Sir John Falstaff hath relieved the 
 memory of Sir John Oldcastle, and of late is 
 substituted buffoon in his place." This de- 
 scription of Fuller cannot apply to the Sir 
 John Oldcastle of 'The Famous Victories.' 
 The dull dog of that play is neither a jovial 
 companion nor a coward to boot. Whether 
 or not Falstaff was originally called Old- 
 castle, Shakspere was, after the character 
 was fairly established as Falstaff, anxious to 
 vindicate himself from the charge that he 
 had attempted to represent the Oldcastle of 
 history. In the epilogue to 'The Second 
 Part of Henry IV.' we find this passage : 
 "For anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a 
 sweat, unless already he be killed with your j 
 hard opinions ; for Oldcastle died a martyr, 
 and this is not the man." ' The Second Part 
 of Henry IV.,' the epilogue of which contains 
 this passage, was entered in the Stationers' 
 registers in 1600, and was published in that 
 year. When 'The First Part of Sir John 
 Oldcastle' was published in the same year, 
 Falstaff is distinctly recognised as the com- 
 panion of Prince Henry. In that play 
 Henry V. is represented as robbed by the 
 parson of Wrotham, a very queer hedge- 
 priest indeed, bearing the name of Sir John, 
 as if in rivalry of another Sir John ; and the 
 following dialogue takes place : 
 
 " Sir John. Sirrah, no more ado ; come, come, 
 give me the money you have. Despatch ; I 
 cannot stand all day. 
 
 K. Henry. Well, if thou wilt needs have it, 
 here it is. Just the proverb, one thief robs 
 another. Where the devil are all my old 
 thieves ? Falstaff, that villain, is so fat, he can- 
 not get on his horse ; but methinks Poins and 
 Peto should be stirring; hereabouts. 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE. 
 
 271 
 
 Sir John. How much is there on't, o' thy 
 word?" 
 
 Falstaff is again mentioned in the same scene 
 with the priest, who asserts that the king 
 was once a thief ; and in answer to the ques- 
 tion " How canst thou tell ? " replies, 
 
 " How ] because he once robbed me before I 
 fell to the trade myself, when that foul villain- 
 ous guts, that led him to all that roguery, was 
 in his company there, that Falstaff." 
 
 We have here tolerable evidence that Fal- 
 staff was "not the man" Oldcastle in 1600. 
 And yet the following very remarkable 
 letter, or dedication, is written some years 
 after : 
 
 " To my noble friend Sir Henry Bourchier : 
 " Sir Harry Bourchier, you are descended of 
 noble ancestry, and in the duty of a good man 
 love to hear and see fair reputation preserved 
 from slander and oblivion. Wherefore to you I 
 dedicate this edition of ' Ocleve,' where Sir John 
 Oldcastle appears to have been a man of valour 
 and virtue, and only lost in his own times be- 
 cause he would not bow under the foul super- 
 stition of Papistry, from whence, in so great a 
 light of Gospel and learning, that there is not 
 yet a more universal departure, is to me the 
 greatest scorn of men. But of this more in 
 another place, and in preface will you please to 
 hear me that which follows ] A young gentle 
 lady of your acquaintance, having read the 
 works of Shakespeare, made me this question : 
 How Sir John Falstaffe, or Fastolf, as it. is 
 written in the statute-book of Maudlin Col- 
 lege in Oxford, where every day that society 
 were bound to make memory of his soul, could 
 be dead in Harry's the Fifth's time and again 
 live in .the time of Harry the Sixth to be 
 banished for cowardice ? Whereto I made an- 
 swer that this was one of those humours and 
 mistakes for which Plato banished all poets out 
 of his commonwealth ; that Sir John Falstaff 
 was in those times a valiant soldier, as appears 
 by a book in the Heralds' office dedicated unto 
 him by a herald who had been with him, if I 
 well remember, for the space of 25 years in the 
 French wars ; that he seems also to have been 
 a man of learning, because in a library of Ox- 
 ford I find a book of dedicating churches sent 
 from him for a present unto Bishop Wainfleet, 
 and inscribed with his own name. That in 
 Shakespeare's first show of ' Harry the Fifth,' 
 
 the person with which he undertook to play a 
 buffoon was not Falstaff, but Sir John Oldcastle ; 
 and that, offence being worthily taken by per- 
 sonages descended from his title, as peradven- 
 ture by many others also who ought to have 
 him in honourable memory, the poet was put to 
 make an ignorant shift of abusing Sir John Fal- 
 stophe, a man not inferior of virtue, though not | 
 so famous in piety as the other, who gave wit- 
 ness unto the trust of our reformation with a 
 constant and resolute martyrdom, unto which 
 he was pursued by the priests, bishops, monks, 
 and friars of those days. Noble sir, this is all 
 my preface. God keep you and me, and all 
 Christian people, from the bloody designs of 
 that cruel religion. 
 
 " Yours in all observance, 
 
 "RICH. JAMES." 
 
 This letter is contained in a manuscript pre- 
 served in the Bodleian Library, written by 
 Dr. Richard James, who died in 1638. The ' 
 manuscript to which it is prefixed is entitled 
 ' The Legend and Defence of the Noble 
 Knight and Martyr, Sir John Oldcastel,' and 
 has been published by Mr. Halliwell, having 
 been pointed out to him by the Rev. Dr. 
 Bliss*. 
 
 The " young gentle lady " who, according 
 to this letter, was so well employed in study- 
 ing Shakspere's historical plays, read them 
 as many other persons read, without any 
 very accurate perception of what essentially 
 belongs to the province of imagination, and 
 of what is literally true. Whatever similarity 
 there may be in the names of Sir John Fal- 
 staff and Sir John Fastolf, the young lady 
 might have perceived that the poet had not 
 the slightest intention of proposing the Fas- 
 tolf of ' Henry VI.' as the Falstaff of ' Henry 
 IV.' Assuredly the Falstaff that we last see 
 in the closing scene of ' The Second Part of 
 Henry IV.' a jester, surfeit-swelled, old, 
 profane, as the king denounces him is not 
 the Fastolf that makes his appearance at the 
 battle of Patay, in ' The First Part of Henry 
 VI.,' and is subsequently degraded from 
 being a knight of the Garter for his conduct 
 on that occasion. In these scenes of ' Henry 
 VI.' Shakspere drew an historical character 
 and represented an historical fact. The 
 degradation of Fastolf was in all probability 
 
 * ' On the C haracter of Sir John Falstaff,' 1841. 
 
272 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vi. 
 
 an unjust sentence as unjust as that pro- 
 nounced by the worthy writer of the letter 
 in the Bodleian Library, that the wittiest of 
 all Shakspere's creations was "a buffoon," 
 and that he might be confounded with the 
 fighting knight whose chief distinction was 
 the garter on his leg. Fastolf was a respect- 
 able personage no doubt in his day, but not 
 "sweet Jack Fal staff, kind Jack Falstaff, 
 true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and 
 therefore more valiant, being, as he is, old 
 Jack Falstaff." It appears to us, therefore, 
 that, in the same manner as the "young 
 gentle lady " and Dr. Richard James, some- 
 what ignorantly as we think, confounded 
 Fastolf and Falstaff, so they erred in a simi- 
 lar way by believing that " in Shakspere's 
 first show of Harry the Fifth the person with 
 which he undertook to play a buffoon was 
 not Falstaff, but Sir John Oldcastle." Fuller, 
 in his ' Worthies,' speaking of Sir John Fal- 
 staff, has the same complaint, as we have 
 seen, against " stage-poets." Now, admitting 
 what appears possible, that Shakspere in his 
 ' Henry IV.' originally had the name of Old- 
 castle where we now find that of Falstaff, is 
 it likely that he could have meant the cham- 
 pion of the Reformation of Wickliff, who was 
 cruelly put to death for heresy in the fourth 
 year of Henry V., to have been the boon 
 companion of the youthful prince ; and who, 
 before the king went to the French wars, 
 died quietly in his bed, " e'en at the turn- 
 ing of the tide ?" And yet there is little 
 doubt that, when Shakspere adopted a name 
 familiar to the stage, he naturally raised up 
 this species of absurd misconception, which 
 had the remarkable fate of being succeeded 
 by a mistake still more absurd, that Falstaff 
 and Fastolf were one and the same. It is, 
 however, extremely probable that there were 
 other plays in which the character of Sir 
 John Oldcastle was presented historically, 
 and falsely presented ; that from this cir- 
 cumstance Shakspere saw the necessity of 
 substituting another name for Oldcastle, and 
 of making the declaration " Oldcastle died a 
 martyr, and this is not the man ;" and that 
 tke authors of the play before us, ' The First 
 Part of Sir John Oldcastle,' adopted a sub- 
 ject with which the public mind was at that 
 
 time familiar, and presented Sir John Old- 
 castle upon the stage, in a manner that would 
 be agreeable to " personages descended from 
 his title," and to the great body of the 
 people " who ought to have him in honour- 
 able memory." Whether the reputation of 
 Oldcastle derived much benefit from their 
 labours remains to be seen. 
 
 The play opens with a quarrel in the 
 street of Hereford between Lord Herbert, 
 Lord Powis, and their followers ; which is 
 put down by the judges, who are holding the 
 assize in the town. The commencement of 
 the conflict, in which blood was shed, is thus 
 described : 
 
 "Lord Powis detracted from the power of 
 
 Rome, 
 
 Affirming Wickliff 's doctrine to be true, 
 And Rome's erroneous : hot reply was made 
 By the Lord Herbert ; they were traitors all 
 That would maintain it. Powis answered, 
 They were as true, as noble, and as wise 
 As ye ; they would defend it with their lives ; 
 He nam'd for instance, sir John Oldcastle, 
 The Lord Cobham : Herbert replied again, 
 He, thou, and all are traitors that so hold. 
 The lie was given, the several factions drawn, 
 And so enrag'd that we could not appease it." 
 
 The second scene introduces us to the Bishop 
 of Rochester, denouncing Lord Cobham 
 (Oldcastle), as an heretic, to the Duke of 
 Suffolk. The bishop is supported by Sir John 
 of Wrotham, whose zeal is so boisterous as 
 to receive the following rebuke from the 
 Duke : 
 
 " Oh, but you must not swear ; it ill becomes 
 One of your coat to rap out bloody oaths." 
 
 The king appears, to hear the complaint of 
 the churchman ; and he promises to send for 
 Oldcastle "and school him privately." In 
 the third scene we have Lord Cobham and 
 an aged servant, and Lord Powis arrives in 
 disguise, and is concealed by Cobham. In the 
 second act we have a comic scene, amusing 
 enough, but anything but original ; a sumner 
 arrives to cite Lord Cobham before the Eccle- 
 siastical Court, and the old servant of the 
 noble reformer makes the officer eat the cita- 
 tion. Nashe tells us in his Pierce Penny- 
 lesse ' that he once saw Robert Greene " make 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 SIB JOHN OLDCASTLE. 
 
 273 
 
 an apparitor eat his citation, wax and all, 
 very handsomely served 'twixt two dishes." 
 We have something like the same incident 
 in the play of the * Pinner of Wakefield.' 
 The scene changes to London, where we have 
 an assembly of rebels, who give out that 
 Oldcastle will be their general. In the next 
 scene, which is probably the best sustained 
 of the play, we have Henry and Lord Cobham 
 in conference: 
 
 " K. Henry. 'T is not enough, Lord Cobham, 
 
 to submit ; 
 
 You must forsake your gross opinion. 
 The bishops find themselves much injured ; 
 And though, for some good service you have 
 
 done, 
 
 We for our part are pleased to pardon you, 
 Yet they will not so soon be satisfied. 
 
 Cob. My gracious lord, unto your majesty, 
 Next unto my God, I do owe my life ; 
 And what is mine, either by nature's gift, 
 Or fortune's bounty, all is, at your service. 
 But for obedience to the pope of Rome, 
 I owe him none; nor shall his shaveling 
 
 priests, 
 
 That are in England, alter my belief. 
 If out of Holy Scripture they can prove 
 That I am in an error, I will yield, 
 And gladly take instruction at their hands : 
 But otherwise I do beseech your grace 
 My conscience may not be encroach'd upon. 
 K. Henry. We would be loth to press our 
 
 subjects' bodies, 
 Much less their souls, the dear redeemed 
 
 part 
 
 Of Him that is the ruler of us all : 
 Yet let me counsel you, that might command. 
 Do not presume to tempt them with ill words, 
 Nor suffer any meetings to be had 
 Within your house ; but to the uttermost 
 Disperse the flocks of this new gathering sect. 
 Cob. My liege, if any breathe, that dares 
 
 come forth, 
 
 And say, my life in any of these points 
 Deserves the attainder of ignoble thoughts, 
 Here stand I, craving no remorse at all, 
 But even the utmost rigour may be shown." 
 The Bishop of Rochester appears, and de- 
 nounces Cobham for the contempt shown to 
 his citation ; the king reproves the bishop, 
 and dismisses Oldcastle in safety. It is 
 evident that the dramatic capabilities of 
 such a scene furnish an occasion for the dis- 
 
 play of high poetical power. Xhe interview 
 between Henry and his faithful friend and 
 adherent ; the anxiety of the reformer to 
 vindicate himself from disloyalty, whilst he 
 honestly supported his own opinions ; the 
 natural desire of the king to resist innova- 
 tion, whilst he respected the virtues of the 
 innovator, points like these would have 
 been handled by Shakspere, or one imbued 
 with his spirit, in a manner that would have 
 lived and abided in our memories. The 
 lines that we have quoted, which are the 
 best in the scene, furnish a sufficient proof 
 that the subject was in feeble hands. 
 
 The third act opens to us the conspiracy 
 of Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey. The con- 
 spirators meet Lord Cobham. The mode in 
 which they introduce their purpose is spirited 
 and dramatic. Cobham has invited them to 
 his house, and promises them hunters' fare 
 and a hunt. Cambridge thus replies, before 
 he presents the paper which discloses the 
 plot : 
 
 " Cam. Nay, but the stag which we desire to 
 
 strike, 
 
 Lives not in Cowling : if you will consent, 
 And go with us, we '11 bring you to a forest 
 Where runs a lusty herd ; among the which 
 There is a stag superior to the rest, 
 A stately beast, that, when his fellows run, 
 He leads the race, and beats the sullen earth, 
 As though he scorn'd it with his trampling 
 
 hoofs ; 
 
 Aloft he bears his head, and with his breast, 
 Like a huge bulwark, counterchecks the 
 
 wind : 
 And, when he standeth still, he stretcheth 
 
 forth 
 
 His proud ambitious neck, as if he meant 
 To wound the firmament with forked horns. 
 Cob. 'T is pity such a goodly beast should 
 
 die. 
 
 Cam. Not so, sir John ; for he is tyrannous, 
 And gores the other deer, and will not keep 
 Within the limits are appointed him. 
 Of late he 's broke into a several, 
 Which doth belong to me, and there he spoils 
 Both corn and pasture. Two of his wild race, 
 Alike for stealth and covetous encroaching, 
 Already are removed; if he were dead, 
 I should not only be secure from hurt, 
 But with his body make a royal feast." 
 
274 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vi. 
 
 Cobham then dissembles, and asks 
 
 " Is not this a train laid to entrap my life?" 
 They offer to swear fidelity ; but he requires 
 them only to subscribe the writing. The 
 time and place of meeting are appointed, 
 and they part. Cobham puts the paper in 
 his pocket, and goes off to betray them to 
 the king. The state-morality of the age of 
 Elizabeth might perhaps have made this 
 incident more palatable to an audience of 
 that day than to ourselves ; but we doubt 
 whether Shakspere would have put this 
 burthen upon the soul of one whom he 
 wished to represent as a hero and a martyr. 
 We have more scenes of the rebels ; followed 
 by the scene which we have already noticed 
 of the parson robbing the king. The same 
 worthy divine is afterwards found in the 
 king's camp, dicing with his majesty ; and 
 then the robbery is discovered, and the 
 robber pardoned. The rebels who were in 
 the field, headed by Sir Roger Acton, are 
 routed. The Bishop of Rochester affirms 
 that they were incited by Cobham, who 
 arrives at the moment of the accusation to 
 prove his loyalty by denouncing Scroop, 
 Grey, and Cambridge. The king is satisfied ; 
 but subsequently the Bishop of Rochester 
 seizes Cobham, and confines him in the 
 Tower, from which he very soon escapes. 
 With the exception of a scene in which Cam- 
 bridge and the other conspirators are seized 
 by the king, the whole of the fifth act is 
 occupied by the wanderings of Cobham and 
 his wife, their disguises and their escapes. 
 The following scene is prettily imagined, 
 and gracefully expressed : 
 
 "Cob. Come, madam, happily escaped. Here 
 
 let us sit ; 
 
 This place is far remote from any path ; 
 And here awhile our weary limbs may rest 
 To take refreshing, free from the pursuit 
 Of envious Rochester. 
 
 L. Cob. But where, my lord, 
 
 Shall we find rest for our disquiet minds'? 
 There dwell untamed thoughts, that hardly 
 
 stoop 
 
 To such abasement of disdained rags ; 
 We were not wont to travel thus by night, 
 Especially on foot. 
 
 Cob. No matter, love ; 
 
 Extremities admit no better choice, 
 And, were it not for thee, say froward time 
 Imposed a greater task, I would esteem it 
 As lightly as the wind that blows upon us : 
 But in thy sufferance I am doubly task'd ; 
 Thou wast not wont to have the earth thy 
 
 stool, 
 
 Nor the moist dewy grass thy pillow, nor 
 Thy chamber to be the wide horizon. 
 
 L. Cob. How can it seem a trouble, having 
 
 you 
 
 A partner with me in the worst I feel ? 
 No, gentle lord, your presence would give 
 
 ease 
 
 To death itself, should he now seize upon me. 
 [She produces some bread and dieese, 
 
 and a bottle. 
 
 Behold, what my foresight hath underta'en, 
 For fear we faint ; they are but homely cates ; 
 Yet, sauced with hunger, they may seem as 
 
 sweet 
 
 As greater dainties we were wont to taste. 
 Cob. Praise be* to Him whose plenty sends 
 
 both this 
 
 And all things else our mortal bodies need ! 
 Nor scorn we this poor feeding, nor the state 
 We now are in ; for what is it on earth, 
 Nay, under heaven, continues at a stay 1 
 Ebbs not the sea, when it hath overflow* d ] 
 Follows not darkness when the day is gone 1 
 And see we not sometimes the eye of heaven 
 Dimm'd with o'er-flying clouds 1 There 's not 
 
 that work 
 
 Of careful nature or of cunning art, 
 How strong, how beauteous, or how rich it be, 
 But falls in time to ruin. Here, gentle 
 
 madam, 
 
 In this one draught I wash my sorrow down. 
 
 [Drinks." 
 
 The persecuted pair fall asleep ; and, a mur- 
 dered body being found near them, they are 
 apprehended as the murderers, and conducted 
 to trial. They are discharged through the 
 discovery of the real murderer, and fly with 
 Lord Powis into Wales. 
 
 It will be evident from this analysis that 
 'The First Part of Sir John Oldcastle' is 
 entirely deficient in dramatic unity. Shak- 
 spere in representing a series of historical 
 events did not of course attempt to sustain 
 that unity of idea which we see so strikingly 
 in his best tragedies and comedies. We have 
 not one great action, but a succession of 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 THOMAS LORD CROMWELL. 
 
 275 
 
 actions ; and yet, through his wonderful 
 power of characterization, and his skill in 
 grouping a series of events round one leading 
 event, we have a principle upon which the 
 mind can determinately rest, and rightly 
 comprehend the whole diamatic movement. 
 In the play before us there is no distinct re- 
 lation between one scene and another. We 
 forget the connection between Oldcastle and 
 the events in which he is implicated ; and, 
 when he himself appears on the scene, the 
 
 development of character, in which a real 
 poet would have luxuriated, is made subor- 
 dinate to the hurry of the perplexed though 
 monotonous movement of the story. Tho- 
 roughly to understand the surpassing power 
 of Shakspere in the management of the his- 
 torical drama, it might be desirable to com- 
 pare ' King John,' or ' Richard II.,' or 
 ' Richard III.,' or ' Henry VIII.,' with this 
 play ; but, after all, the things do not admit 
 of comparison. 
 
 THE first edition of this play was 
 in 1602, under the title of-^^e 'Chronicle 
 History of Thomas Lord Cromwell.' No name 
 or initials of an author appear in the title- 
 page. In 1613 appeared ' The true Chronicle 
 Historic of the whole life and death of Thomas 
 Lord Cromwell. As it hath beene sundry 
 times publikely Acted by the Kings Majesties 
 Seruants. Written by W. S.' In 1602 the 
 registers of the Stationers' Company had the 
 entry of ' A Booke called the Lyfe and Deathe 
 of the Lord Cromwell, as yt was lately acted 
 by the Lord Chamberleyn his servants.' It 
 appears, therefore, that the play was originally 
 performed, and continued to be performed, 
 by the company in which Shakspere was a 
 chief proprieter. Beyond the initials W. S. 
 there is no external evidence whatever to 
 attribute the play to the great dramatizer of 
 English history. 
 
 Schlegel, as we have seen, calls ' Sir John 
 Oldcastle,' and 'Thomas Lord Cromwell,' 
 "biographical dramas and models in this 
 species." We have no hesitation in affirming 
 that a biographical drama, especially such 
 a drama as 'Thomas Lord Cromwell,' is 
 essentially undramatic. 'Oldcastle' takes a 
 portion only of the life of its hero ; but 
 'Cromwell' gives us the story of the man 
 from his boyhood to his execution. The 
 resemblance which it bears to any play of 
 Shakspere's is solely in the structure of the 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THOMAS LORD CROMWELL. 
 
 title; and 
 
 hnlds gr>r>d only WJtb 
 
 regard to one play, ' Lear,' according to its 
 original title, the 'True Chronicle Historic 
 of the Life and Death of King Lear and his 
 three Daughters.' In the folio collection of 
 1623 we have indeed ' The Life and Death of 
 King John,' 'The Life and Death of Richard 
 II.; 'The Life of King Henry V.,' 'The Life 
 and Death of Richard III.,' and ' The Life of 
 King Henry VIII.' So in the same edition 
 we have 'The Life and Death of Julius Caesar.' 
 But our readers are perfectly aware that in 
 all these dramas a very small portion of the 
 life of the hero of each is included in the 
 action. Shakspere knew his art too well to 
 attempt to teach history dramatically by 
 connecting a series of isolated events solely 
 by their relation to a principal agent, without 
 any other dependence. Nothing, for example, 
 can be more complete in itself than the action 
 of ' Richard II.,' or that of ' Henry V.,' of 
 'Richard III.,' and of 'Henry VIII.' We 
 have in these pieces nearly all the condensa- 
 tion which pure tragedy requires. But in 
 ' Thomas Lord Cromwell,' on the contrary, 
 what Shakspere would have told in a few 
 words, reserving himself for an exhibition of 
 character in the more striking situations, is 
 actually presented to us in a succession of 
 scenes that have no relation to any action of 
 deepening interest chapter upon chapter 
 which might have been very well spared, if 
 
 T 2 
 
276 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEEE. 
 
 [BOOK vi. 
 
 one chapter, that of the elevation and fall of 
 Cromwell, had occupied a space proportioned 
 to its importance. 
 
 We begin the drama in the shop of old 
 Cromwell, the blacksmith, at Putney, where 
 young Cromwell, with a want of sense that 
 ill accords with his future advancement, 
 insists that his father's men shall leave off 
 work because their noise disturbs his study. 
 His father coines, and like a sensible and 
 honest man reproves his son for his vagaries ; 
 and then the ambitious youth, who proclaims 
 the purpose of his presaging soul, that he 
 will build a palace 
 
 " As fine as is King Henry's house at Sheen," 
 thus soliloquizes : 
 
 " Crom. Why should my birth keep down 
 
 my mounting spirit] 
 
 Are not all creatures subject unto time 
 To time, who doth abuse the cheated world, 
 And fills it full of hodge-podge bastardy? 
 There 's legions now of beggars on the earth 
 That their original did spring from kings; 
 And many monarchs now, whose fathers were 
 The riff-raff of their age : for time and fortune 
 Wears out a noble train to beggary; 
 And from the dunghill millions do advance 
 To state and mark in this admiring world. 
 This is but course, which in the name of fate 
 Is seen as often as it whirls about. 
 The river Thames, that by our door doth pass, 
 His first beginning is but small and shallow; 
 Yet keeping on his course grows to a sea. 
 And likewise Wolsey, the wonder of our age, 
 His birth as mean as mine, a butcher's son; 
 Now who within this land a greater man 1 ? 
 Then, Cromwell, cheer thee up, and tell thy 
 
 soul, 
 That thou mayst live to flourish and control." 
 
 The young man, who despises work, imme- 
 diately gets employment without seeking it, 
 to be secretary to the English merchants at 
 Antwerp. Then commences the secondary 
 action of the drama, which consists of the 
 adventures of one Banister, an English 
 merchant, who is persecuted by Bagot, a 
 usurer, and relieved by a foreign merchant. 
 It is by no means clear what this has to do 
 with Thomas Lord Cromwell ; but it may be 
 satisfactory to know that eventually the 
 
 usurer is hanged and the merchant is restored 
 to competence. 
 
 It would have been difficult, with all the 
 author's contempt for unity of action, to have 
 contrived to have told the whole story of 
 Cromwell dramatically ; and so he occasionally 
 gives us a chorus. The second act thus 
 opens : 
 
 "Now, gentlemen, imagine that young 
 
 Cromwell 's 
 
 In Antwerp, leiger for the English merchants; 
 And Banister, to shun this Bagot's hate, 
 Hearing that he hath got some of his debts, 
 Is fled to Antwerp, with his wife and children ; 
 Which Bagot hearing is gone after them, 
 And thither sends his bills of debt before, 
 To be revenged on wretched Banister. 
 What doth fall out, with patience sit and see, 
 A just requital of false treachery." 
 
 Cromwell has nothing to do with this "just 
 requital of false treachery," which requital 
 consists in the usurer being arrested for 
 purchasing the king's stolen jewels. Crom- 
 well gets as tired of keeping accounts as he 
 previously was of the din of his father's 
 smithy ; so all in a moment he throws up his 
 commission and sets off upon his travels to 
 Italy, having very opportunely met in 
 Antwerp with Hodge, his father's man. And 
 so we get through the second act. 
 
 In the third act the capricious lad and his 
 servant are standing penniless upon the 
 bridge at Florence, and their immediate 
 necessities are relieved by the generous 
 Italian merchant who was succouring the 
 distress of the Englishman in the first act. 
 Cromwell is always moving ; and he sets off 
 for Bononia, where he rescues, by a stratagem, 
 Russell the Earl of Bedford from the agents 
 of the French king. We have the chorus 
 again in the middle of the act : 
 
 " Thus far you see how Cromwell's fortune 
 
 The Earl of Bedford, being safe in Mantua, 
 Desires Cromwell's company into France, 
 To make requital for his courtesy ; 
 But Cromwell doth deny the earl his suit, 
 And tells him that those parts he meant to see, 
 He had not yet set footing on the land ; 
 And so directly takes his way to Spain; 
 The earl to France; and so they both do part 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 THOMAS LORD CROMWELL. 
 
 277 
 
 i 
 
 Now let your thoughts, as swift as is the wind, 
 Skip some few years that Cromwell spent in 
 
 travel ; 
 
 And now imagine him to be in England, 
 Servant unto the master of the rolls; 
 Where in short time he there began to flourish : 
 An hour shall show you what few years did 
 
 cherish." 
 
 The scene shifts to London, where Sir 
 Christopher Hales is giving an entertainment 
 to Cardinal Wolsey and Sir Thomas More, 
 with Cromwell waiting on the guests. The 
 sudden preferment of Cromwell to the highes 
 confidence of Wolsey is accomplished with a 
 celerity which was perfectly necessary when 
 the poet had so many events to tell us : 
 
 " Wol. Sir Christopher, is that your man? 
 
 Holes. An 't like 
 
 Your grace, he is a scholar, and a linguist; 
 One that hath travelled through many parts 
 Of Christendom, my lord. 
 
 Wol. My friend, come nearer: have you 
 been a traveller? 
 
 Crom. My lord, 
 I have added to my knowledge the Low 
 
 Countries, 
 
 With France, Spain, Germany, and Italy; 
 And though small gain of profit I did find, 
 Yet it did please my eye, content my mind. 
 
 Wol. What do you think then of the several 
 
 And princes' courts as you have travelled? 
 Crom. My lord, no court with England 
 
 may compare, 
 
 Neither for state nor civil government. 
 Lust dwells in France, in Italy, and Spain, 
 From the poor peasant to the prince's train. 
 In Germany and "Holland, riot serves; 
 And he that most can drink, most he deserves. 
 England I praise not for I here was born, 
 But that she laughs the others unto scorn. 
 Wol. My lord, there dwells within that 
 
 spirit more 
 
 Than can be discern'd by the outward eye : 
 
 Sir Christopher, will you part with your man? 
 
 Hales. I have sought to proffer him unto 
 
 your lordship; 
 
 And now I see he hath preferr'd himself. 
 Wol. What is thy name? 
 Crom. Cromwell, my lord. 
 Wol. Then, Cromwell, here we make thee 
 solicitor 
 
 Of our causes, and nearest, next ourself ; 
 Gardiner, give you kind welcome to the man." 
 The fourth act opens again with a chorus : 
 " Now Cromwell's-feigfeest fortunes do begin. 
 Wolsey, that loved him as he did his life, 
 Committed all his treasure to his hands, 
 Wolsey is dead; and Gardiner, his man, 
 Is now created bishop of Winchester. 
 Pardon, if we omit all Wolsey's life, 
 Because our play depends on Cromwell's 
 
 death. ' 
 
 Now sit and see his highest state of all, 
 His height of rising, and his sudden falL 
 ^NPardBa-.ihe errors are already past, 
 a- "And live in hope the best doth come at last. 
 My hope upon your favour doth depend, 
 And looks to have your liking ere the end." 
 
 It was certainly needless for the author to 
 apologize for omitting "all Wolsey's life;" 
 but the apology is curious as exhibiting his 
 rude notions of what was properly within 
 the province of the drama. We have now 
 Cromwell, after the death of Wolsey, become 
 Sir Thomas Cromwell ; and Gardiner makes 
 a sudden resolution that he will have his 
 head. The Florence merchant comes to 
 London in want ; and we presently find him 
 at the hospitable board of Cromwell, with 
 money-bags showered upon him, and his debts 
 paid. We have in this act a scene between 
 Gardiner and Cromwell which, feeble as it 
 is, is amongst the best passages of the play : 
 
 " Crom. Good morrow to my lord of Win- 
 chester : I know 
 
 You bear me hard about the abbey lands. 
 " Gard. Have I not reason, when religion's 
 wrong'd? 
 
 You had no colour for what you have done, 
 Crom. Yes, the abolishing of antichrist, 
 
 And of his popish order from our realm. 
 
 I am no enemy to religion ; 
 
 But what is done, it is for England's good. 
 
 What did they serve for, but to feed a sort 
 
 Of lazy abbots and of full-fed friars? 
 
 They neither plough nor sow, and yet they 
 reap 
 
 The fat of all the land, and suck the poor. 
 
 Look, what was theirs is in King Henry's 
 hands; 
 
 His wealth before lay in the abbey lands. 
 Gard. Indeed these things you have alleged, 
 my lord ; 
 
278 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK v. 
 
 When, God doth know, the infant yet unborn 
 Will curse the time the abbeys were pull'd 
 
 down. 
 
 I pray now where is hospitality] 
 Where now may poor distressed people go, 
 For to relieve their need, or rest their bones, 
 When weary travel doth oppress their limbs? 
 And where religious men should take them in, 
 Shall now be kept back with a mastiff dog; 
 And thousand thousand " 
 
 Gardiner suborns witnesses to impute treason- 
 able words to Cromwell, and absolves them 
 by crucifix and holy water. 
 
 The real action of the play commences at 
 the fourth act ; all which precedes might have 
 been told by a skilful poet in a dozen lines. 
 The fifth act presents us the arrest of 
 Cromwell ; and after a soliloquy in the Tower, 
 and a very feeble scene between the unhappy 
 man, Gardiner, and the Dukes of Suffolk and 
 Norfolk, his son is introduced, of whom we 
 have before heard nothing : 
 
 " Lieu. Here is your son, sir, come to take 
 his leave. 
 
 Crom. To take his leave? Come hither, 
 
 Harry Cromwell. 
 
 Mark, boy, the last words that I speak to thee : 
 Flatter not Fortune, neither fawn upon her; 
 Gape not for state, yet lose no spark of honour : 
 Ambition, like the plague, see thou eschew it; 
 I die for treason, boy, and never knew it. 
 Yet let thy faith as spotless be as mine, 
 And Cromwell's virtues in thy face shall shine : 
 Come, go along, and see me leave my breath, 
 And I' 11 leave thee upon the floor of death." 
 
 Cromwell leaves the stage for his execution 
 with this speech : 
 
 "Exec. I am your deathsman; pray, my 
 lord, forgive me. 
 
 Crom. Even with my soul. Why, man, 
 
 thou art my doctor, 
 
 And bring'st me precious physic for my soul. 
 My lord of Bedford, I desire of you 
 Before my death a corporal embrace. 
 Farewell, great lord; my love I do commend, 
 My heart to you ; my soul to heaven I send. 
 This is my joy, that, ere my body fleet, 
 Your honour'd arms are my true winding- 
 sheet. 
 Farewell, dear Bedford; my peace is made in 
 
 heaven. 
 
 Thus falls great Cromwell, a poor ell in length, 
 To rise to unmeasured height, wing'd with new 
 
 strength, 
 
 The land of worms, which dying men discover : 
 My soul is shrined with heaven's celestial 
 cover." 
 
 It would be a waste of time to attempt to 
 show that ' Thomas Lord Cromwell ' could 
 not have been written by Shakspere. Its 
 entire management is most unskilful; there 
 is no art whatever in the dramatic conception 
 of plot or character ; from first to last there 
 is scarcely a passage that can be called 
 poetry ; there is nothing in it that gives us a 
 notion of a writer capable of better things ; 
 it has none of the faults of the founders of 
 the stage, false taste, extravagance, riches 
 needlessly paraded. We are acquainted with 
 no dramatic writer of mark or likelihood who 
 was a contemporary of Shakspere to whom 
 it may be assigned. If W. S. were Went worth 
 Smith, it must have been unlucky for him in 
 his own time that his initials might excite a 
 comparison with the great master of the 
 drama ; however fortunate he may have been 
 in having descended to after-times in the 
 same volume (the third folio edition of 
 Shakspere) with ten historical plays that 
 probably first stimulated his weak ambition. 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 KING EDWARD III. 
 
 279 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 KING EDWARD III. 
 
 ' THE Raigne of King Edward the third : As 
 it hath bin sundrie times plaied about the 
 Citie of London,' was first published in 1596. 
 It was entered on the registers of the Sta- 
 tioners' Company, December 1, 1595. The 
 play was reprinted in 1599, and, judging 
 from other entries in the Stationers' regis- 
 ters, also in 1609, 1617, and 1625. From 
 that time the work was known only to the 
 collectors of single plays, till, in 1760, Capell 
 reprinted it in a volume entitled f Prolu- 
 sions, or Select Pieces of Ancient Poetry,' as 
 " A play thought to be writ by Shakespeare." 
 The editor of that volume thus speaks of 
 the play in his preface : " But what shall 
 be said of the poem that constitutes the 
 second part ? or how shall the curiosity be 
 satisfied which it is probable may have been 
 raised by the great name inserted in the 
 title-page 1 That it was indeed written by 
 Shakespeare, it cannot be said with candour 
 that there is any external evidence at all : 
 something of proof arises from resemblance 
 between the style of his earlier performances 
 and the work in question ; and a more con- 
 clusive one yet from consideration of the 
 time it appeared in, in which there was no 
 known wiiter equal to such a play: the 
 fable of it too is taken from the same books 
 which that author is known to have followed 
 in some other plays, to wit, Holinshed's 
 'Chronicle,' and a book of novels called 
 ' The Palace of Pleasure.' But, after all, it 
 must be confessed that its being his work is 
 conjecture only, and matter of opinion ; and 
 the reader must form one of his own, guided 
 by what is now before him, and by what he 
 shall meet with in perusal of the piece 
 itself." Capell was not a person to offer 
 any critical reasons for his own belief ; but 
 the opinions of several able critics in our 
 own time would show that he was not to be 
 laughed at, as Steevens was inclined to 
 laugh at him, for rescuing this play from 
 
 the hands of the mere antiquarians*. An 
 acute critic says, " Capell was the first who 
 directed attention to this play, as perhaps 
 Shakspeare's ; and it is in every respect one 
 of the best dramas of its time. It is very 
 unequal, and its plot is unskilfully divided 
 into two parts ; but through most scenes 
 there reign a pointed strength of thought 
 and expression, a clear richness of imagery, 
 and an apt though rough delineation of 
 character, which entitle it to rank higher 
 than any historical play of the sixteenth 
 century, excepting Shakspere's admitted 
 works of this class, and Marlowe's ' Edward 
 II.' "f The opinion of Ulrici is very full 
 and decided upon the authorship of 'Edward 
 III.,' and we may as well present it at once 
 to the reader in its general bearings. 
 
 " The play of ' Edward III. and the Black 
 Prince,' &c., is entered not less than four 
 times in the registers of the Stationers' 
 Company ; first, on December 1, 1595 ; and 
 lastly, on February 23, 1625. It was first 
 printed in 1596, and reprinted in 1599, both 
 editions being without the name of the 
 author. Of any later edition I have no 
 knowledge. Both these early editions, being 
 anonymous, can, however, prove nothing. 
 But, even if the later editions were equally 
 without the announcement of the author, 
 this certainly rather striking fact may be 
 satisfactorily explained by the nature of the 
 piece itself. In the first two acts we find 
 many bitter attacks upon the Scots, inspired 
 by English patriotism : these were thoroughly 
 in place during Elizabeth's lifetime, who, it 
 is well known, loved her successor not much 
 better than she did his mother, and ever 
 stood in a guarded attitude against Scot- 
 
 * Steevens, in a note upon the entry in the Stationers' 
 registers, says " This is ascribed to Shakspeare by the 
 compilers of ancient catalogues." This was one of the 
 modes in which Steevens thought it clever to insult Capell 
 by a contemptuous neglect. 
 
 t ' Edinburgh Review,' vol. Ixxi. p. 471. 
 
280 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vi. 
 
 land. To James I., on the contrary, these 
 passages must have given offence. But 
 Shakspere was indebted to James for many 
 kindnesses ; and he has praised and cele- 
 brated him in several of his plays. Thus, 
 in order to avoid wounding his sense of 
 gratitude, he may either have expressly 
 denied the paternity of ' Edward III.,' or 
 have refused to recognize it, and abandoned 
 to its fate a piece that perhaps did not 
 satisfy him upon other grounds. And in 
 this way it may be also explained how a 
 poem, which bears Shakspere's stamp so 
 evidently, should have been overlooked or 
 intentionally omitted by his friends Heminge 
 and Condell, the editors of the first folio. 
 That the piece probably belongs to Shak- 
 spere's earlier labours (without doubt two 
 years at least before the date of its first 
 being printed) is evident from the language 
 and versification, from the many rhymed 
 passages, but more particularly from the 
 composition, which, if we consider the piece 
 as one whole, is incontestably faulty. For 
 the first two acts clearly stand alone much 
 too independently ; internally only partially 
 united, and not at all externally, with the 
 following three acts. In the first part the 
 point of the action turns upon the love of 
 the king for the beautiful Countess of Salis- 
 bury, whom he has released from the be- 
 sieging Scottish army. The whole of this 
 connection is no farther mentioned in the 
 following part ; it comes to a total conclu- 
 sion at the end of the second act, where the 
 king, conquered, and at the same tune 
 strengthened, by the virtuous greatness of 
 the countess, renounces his passion, and be- 
 comes again the master of himself. The 
 countess then disappears wholly from the 
 scene, which is changed to the victorious 
 campaign of Edward III. and his heroic son 
 the Black Prince. The play thus falls into 
 two different Parts. But the fault which 
 this involves wholly vanishes immediately 
 that we take the two halves for two different 
 pieces, united into a whole, in the same 
 manner as the two Parts of 'Henry IV.' 
 Everything then rounds itself into a complete 
 and beautiful historical composition, which 
 is throughout worthy of the great poet." 
 
 Of the value of this opinion of the very 
 able German critic before us we shall en- 
 deavour to lead our readers to form their 
 own judgment. If they come to the con- 
 clusion that the play is not Shakspere's, 
 they will at least acquire a familiarity with 
 some striking scenes and passages which are 
 little known to English readers. The early 
 editions are very rare ; and Capell's volume 
 is by no means a common book. 
 
 The view which Ulrici has taken that 'The 
 Reign of Edward III.' must be considered 
 as a play in two Parts is perfectly just. 
 But it must also be borne in mind that 
 Shakspere has himself furnished us no ex- 
 ample of such a complete division of the 
 action in any one historical play which he 
 has left us. The two Parts of ' Henry IV.' 
 comprised two distinct plays, each complete 
 in itself, each performed on a separate day, 
 but each connected with the other by a 
 chorus which fills up the gap of time. So 
 the three Parts of 'Henry VI.' and 'Richard 
 III.' are perfectly separate, although essen- 
 tially connected. The plan pursued in the 
 ' Edward III.' is, to say the least, exceedingly 
 inartificial. If the writer of this play had 
 possessed more dramatic skill, he might have 
 made the severance of the action less abrupt. 
 As it is, the link is snapped short. In the 
 first two acts we have the Edward of ro- 
 mance, a puling lover, a heartless seducer, 
 a despot, and then a penitent. In the last 
 three acts we have the Edward of history, 
 the ambitious hero, the stern conqueror, the 
 affectionate husband, the confiding father. 
 The one portion of the drama pretty closely 
 follows the apocryphal and inconsistent 
 story in 'The Palace of Pleasure,' how "A 
 King of England loved a daughter of one 
 of his noblemen, which was Countess of 
 Salisbury." And here the author has cer- 
 tainly produced some powerful scenes, and 
 considerably improved upon the fable which 
 he in great part followed. In the latter 
 portion of the play he has Froissart before 
 him ; and, dealing with those incidents 
 which were calculated to" call forth the 
 highest poetical efforts, such as the battle of 
 Poitiers and the siege of Calais, the drama- 
 tist is strikingly inferior to the fine old 
 
IV.] 
 
 KINQ EDWARD III. 
 
 281 
 
 
 chronicler. When Shakspere dealt with 
 heroic subjects, as in his ' Henry V.,' he kept 
 pretty closely to the original narratives ; but 
 he breathed a life into the commonest occur- 
 rences, which leaves us to wonder how the 
 exact could be so intimately blended with 
 the poetical, and how that which is the most 
 natural should, through the force of a few 
 magical touches, become the most sublime. 
 We do not trace this wonderful power in the 
 play before us : talent there certainly is, but 
 the great creative spirit is not visible. 
 
 The play opens with Robert of Artois 
 explaining to Edward III, the claims which 
 he has to the crown of France through his 
 mother Isabelle. This finished, the Duke of 
 Lorraine arrives to summon Edward to do 
 homage to the King of France for the duke- 
 dom of Guienne. The scene altogether 
 reminds us of the second scene of the first 
 act of ' Henry V.,' where the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury expounds the Salic law, and the 
 ambassadors of France arrive with an inso- 
 lent message to Henry fro'm the Dauphin. 
 The parallel scenes in both plays have some 
 resemblance to the first scene of ' King 
 John,' where Chatillon arrives with a mes- 
 sage from France. It is probable that the 
 ' Henry V.' of Shakspere was not written 
 till after this play of ' Edward III. ;' and 
 the ' King John,' as we now have it, might 
 probably be even a later play : but the 
 original ' King John,' in two Parts, belongs, 
 without doubt, to an earlier period than the 
 ' Edward III.,' and the same resemblance in 
 this scene holds good with that play. Upon 
 the departure of Lorraine, the rupture of 
 the league with the Scots is announced to 
 Edward, with the further news that the 
 Countess of Salisbury is besieged in the 
 castle of Roxburgh. The second scene shows 
 us the countess upon the walls of the castle, 
 and then King D.t d of Scotland enters, 
 and thus addresses himself to Lorraine : 
 
 "Dav. My lord of Lorraine, to our brother 
 
 of France 
 
 Commend us, as the man in Christendom 
 Whom we most reverence and entirely love. 
 Touching your embassage, return, and say, 
 That we with England will not enter parley, 
 Nor never make fair weather, or take truce ; 
 
 But burn their neighbour towns, and so per- 
 sist 
 
 With eager roads beyond their city York. 
 
 And never shall our bonny riders rest ; 
 
 Nor rusting canker have the time to eat 
 
 Their light-borne snaffles, nor their nimble 
 spurs ; 
 
 Nor lay aside their jacks of gymold mail ; 
 
 Nor hang their staves of grained Scottish ash 
 
 In peaceful wise upon their city walls ; 
 
 Nor from their button'd tawny leathern belts 
 
 Dismiss their biting whinyards, till your 
 king 
 
 Cry out 'Enough; spare England now for 
 pity.' 
 
 Farewell : and tell him, that you leave us 
 here 
 
 Before this castle ; say, you came from us 
 
 Even when we had that yielded to our hands." 
 
 If this speech be not Shakspere's, it is cer- 
 tainly a closer imitation of the freedom of 
 his versification, and the truth and force of 
 his imagery, than can be found in any of the 
 historical plays of that period. We do not 
 except even the ' Edward II.' of Marlowe, 
 in which it would be difficult to find a pas- 
 sage in which the poetry is so little conven- 
 tional as the lines which we have just quoted. 
 And this brings us to the important con- 
 sideration of the date of 'Edward III.' 
 Ulrici holds that it was written at least two 
 years before it was published. We cannot 
 see the reason for this opinion. It was en- 
 tered on the Stationers' registers on the 1st 
 of December, 1595, and we have pretty good 
 evidence in many cases that such entry was 
 concurrent with the time of the original 
 performance. If the 'Edward III.,' then, 
 was first produced in 1595, there can be no 
 doubt that Shakspere's historical plays were 
 already before the public the ' Henry VI.,' 
 and 'Richard III.,' in all probability the 
 ' Richard II.' Bearing this circumstance in 
 mind, we can easily understand how a new 
 school of writers should, in 1595, have been 
 formed, possessing, perhaps, less original 
 genius than some of the earlier founders of 
 the drama, but having an immense advan- 
 tage over them in the models which the 
 greatest of those founders had produced. 
 Still this consideration does not wholly war- 
 
STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vi. 
 
 rant us in hastily pronouncing the play be- 
 fore us not to be Shakspere's. As in the 
 case of ' Arden of Feversham,' we have to 
 look, and we look in vain, for some known 
 writer of the period whose works exhibit a 
 similar combination of excellences. 
 
 The Countess of Salisbury is speedily 
 relieved from her besiegers by the arrival of 
 Edward with his army. The king and the 
 countess meet, and Edward becomes her 
 guest. His position is a dangerous one, and 
 he rushes into the danger. There is a very 
 long and somewhat ambitious scene, in which 
 the king instructs his secretary to describe 
 his passion in verse. It is certainly not 
 conceived in a real dramatic spirit. The 
 action altogether flags, and the passion is 
 very imperfectly developed in such an out- 
 pouring of words. The next scene, in which 
 Edward avows his passion for the countess, 
 is conceived and executed with far more 
 success : 
 
 " Cou, Sorry I am to see my liege so sad : 
 What may thy subject do, to drive from thee 
 This gloomy consort, sullen melancholy 1 ? 
 
 Edw. Ah, lady, I am blunt, and cannot 
 
 straw 
 
 The flowers of solace in a ground of shame : 
 Since I came hither, countess, I am wrong'd. 
 
 Cou. Now, God forbid, that any in my 
 
 house 
 Should think my sovereign wrong! Thrice 
 
 gentle king, 
 Acquaint me with your cause of discontent. 
 
 Edw. How near then shall I be to remedy? 
 
 Cou. As near, my liege, as all my woman's 
 
 power 
 Can pawn itself to buy thy remedy. 
 
 Edw. If thou speak'st true, then have I my 
 
 redress : 
 
 Engage thy power to redeem my joys, 
 And I am joyful, countess; else, I die. 
 
 Cou. I will, my liege. 
 
 Edw. Swear, countess, that thou wilt. 
 
 Cou. By heaven I will. 
 
 Edw. Then take thyself a little way aside ; 
 And tell thyself a king doth dote on thee: 
 Say, that within thy power it doth lie 
 To make him happy; and that thou hast 
 
 sworn 
 
 To give me all the joy within thy power: 
 Do this, and tell me when I shall be happy. 
 
 Cou. All this is done, my thrice dread 
 
 sovereign : 
 
 That power of love, that I have power to give, 
 Thou hast with all devout obedience; 
 Employ me how thou wilt in proof thereof. 
 
 Edw. Thou hear'st me say that I do dote 
 on thee. 
 
 Cou. If on my beauty, take it if thou canst; 
 Though little, I do prize it ten times less : 
 If on my virtue, take it if thou canst; 
 For virtue's store by giving doth augment : 
 Be it on what it will, that I can give, 
 And thou canst take away, inherit it. 
 
 Edw. It is thy beauty that I would enjoy. 
 
 Cou. Oh, were it painted, I would wipe it off, 
 And dispossess myself, to give it thee : 
 But, sovereign, it is soldered to my life; 
 Take one, and both; for, like an humble 
 
 shadow, 
 It haunts the sunshine of my summer's life. 
 
 Edw. But thou mayst lend it me, to sport 
 withal. 
 
 Cou. As easy may my intellectual soul 
 Be lent away, and yet my body live, 
 As lend my body, palace to my soul, 
 Away from her, and yet retain my soul. 
 My body is her bower, her court, her abbey, 
 And she an angel, pure, divine, unspotted; 
 If I should lend her house, my lord, to thee, 
 I kill my poor soul, and my poor soul me." 
 
 The Earl of Warwick, father to the Countess 
 of Salisbury, is required by Edward, upon 
 his oath of duty, to go to his daughter, and 
 command her to agree with his dishonourable 
 proposals. This very unnatural and im- 
 probable incident is found in the story of 
 ' The Palace of Pleasure ;' but it gives 
 occasion to a scene of very high merit a 
 little wordy, perhaps, but still upon the 
 whole natural and effective. The skill with 
 which the father is made to deliver the 
 message of tbe king, and to appear to re- 
 commend a compliance with his demands, 
 but so at the same time as to make the 
 guilty purpose doubly abhorrent, indicates 
 no common power : 
 
 " War. How shall I enter in this graceless 
 
 errand 1 ? 
 I must not call her child; for where 's the 
 
 father 
 
 That will, in such a suit, seduce his child? 
 Then, Wife of Salisbury, shall I so begin? 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 KING EDWARD III. 
 
 283 
 
 No, he 's my friend ; and where is found the 
 
 friend 
 
 That will do friendship such endamagement 1 
 Neither my daughter, nor my dear friend's 
 
 wife. 
 
 I am not Warwick, as thou think'st I am, 
 But an attorney from the court of hell ; 
 That thus have housed my spirit in his form, 
 To do a message to thee from the king. 
 The mighty king of England dotes on thee : 
 He, that hath power to take away thy life, 
 Hath power to take thine honour; then con- 
 sent 
 
 To pawn thine honour, rather than thy life ; 
 Honour is often lost, and got again ; 
 But life, once gone, hath no recovery. 
 The sun, that withers hay, doth nourish grass ; 
 The king, that would distain thee, will advance 
 
 thee. 
 
 The poets write, that great Achilles' spear 
 Could heal the wound it made : the moral is, 
 What mighty men misdo, they can amend. 
 The lion doth become his bloody jaws, 
 And grace his foragement, by being mild 
 When vassal fear lies trembling at his feet. 
 The king will in his glory hide thy shame ; 
 And those, that gaze on him to find out thee, 
 Will lose their eyesight, looking in the sun. 
 What can one drop of poison harm the sea, 
 Whose hugy vastures can digest the ill, 
 And make it lose his operation] 
 The king's great name will temper thy mis- 
 deeds, 
 
 And give the bitter potion of reproach 
 A sugar'd sweet and most delicious taste : 
 Besides, it is no harm to do the thing 
 Which without shame could not be left un- 
 done. 
 
 Thus have I, in his majesty's behalf, 
 Apparell'd sin in virtuous sentences, 
 And dwell upon thy answer in his suit. 
 
 Cou. Unnatural besiege ! Woe me, unhappy, 
 To have escaped the danger of my foes, 
 And to be ten times worse invired by friends ! 
 Hath he no means to stain my honest blood, 
 But to corrupt the author of my blood, 
 To be his scandalous and vile solicitor 1 ? 
 No marvel though the branches be infected, 
 When poison hath encompassed the root : 
 No marvel though the leprous infant die, 
 When the stern dam envenometh the dug. 
 Why, then, give sin a passport to offend, 
 And youth the dangerous rein of liberty : 
 Blot out the strict forbidding of the law; 
 
 And cancel every canon that prescribes 
 A shame for shame, or penance for offence. 
 No, let me die, if his too boist'rous will 
 Will have it so, before I will consent 
 To be an actor in his graceless lust. 
 
 War. Why, now thou speak'st as I would 
 
 have thee speak ; 
 
 And mark how I unsay my words again. 
 An honourable grave is more esteem' d, 
 Than the polluted closet of a king : 
 The greater man, the greater is the thing, 
 Be it good, or bad, that he shall undertake : 
 An unreputed mote, flying in the sun, 
 Presents a greater substance than it is : 
 The freshest summer's day doth soonest taint 
 The loathed carrion that it seems to kiss : 
 Deep are the blows made with a mighty axe : 
 That sin doth ten times aggravate itself 
 That is committed in a holy place : 
 An evil deed, done by authority, 
 Is sin and subornation : Deck an ape 
 In tissue, and the beauty of the robe 
 Adds but the greater scorn unto the beast. 
 A spacious field of reasons could I urge 
 Between his glory, daughter, and thy shame : 
 That poison shows worst in a golden cup ; 
 Dark night seems darker by the lightning 
 
 flash; 
 
 Lilies, that fester, smell far worse than weeds; 
 And every glory that inclines to sin, 
 The shame is treble by the opposite. 
 So leave I, with my blessing in thy bosom; 
 Which then convert to a most heavy curse, 
 When thou convert'st from honour's golden 
 
 name 
 To the black faction of bed-blotting shame ! 
 
 [Exit. 
 Cou. I '11 follow thee : And, when my mind 
 
 turns so, 
 My body sink my soul in endless woe ! [Exit." 
 
 There is a line in the latter part of this 
 scene which is to be found also in one of 
 Shakspere's Sonnets the ninety-fourth : 
 
 " Lilies, that fester, smell far worse than weeds." 
 
 We are of opinion that the line was original 
 in the sonnet, and transplanted thence into 
 this play. The point is material in con- 
 sidering the date of the sonnet, but it throws 
 no light either upon the date of this play or 
 upon its authorship. 
 
 During the tempest of Edward's passion, 
 
284 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vi. 
 
 the Prince of Wales arrives at the Castl 
 of Roxburgh, and the conflict in the mind 
 of the king is well imagined : 
 
 " Edw. I see the boy. Oh, how his mother's 
 
 face, 
 
 Moulded in his, corrects my stray'd desire, 
 And rates my heart, and chides my thievish 
 
 eye; 
 
 Who, being rich enough in seeing her, 
 Yet seeks elsewhere ; and basest theft is that 
 Which cannot, check itself on poverty. 
 Now, boy, what news ? 
 Pri. I have assembled, my dear lord and 
 
 father, 
 
 The choicest buds of all our English blood, 
 For our affairs iu France; and here we come, 
 To take direction from your majesty. 
 
 Edw. Still do I see in him delineate 
 His mother's visage; those his eyes are hers, 
 Who, looking wistly on me, made me blush ; 
 For faults against themselves give evidence : 
 Lust is a fire ; and men, like lanthorns, show 
 Light lust within themselves, even through 
 
 themselves. 
 
 Away, loose silks of wavering vanity ! 
 Shall the large limit of fair Brittany 
 By me be overthrown? and shall I not 
 Master this little mansion of myself 1 ? 
 Give me an armour of eternal steel ; 
 I go to conquer kings : And shall I then 
 Subdue myself, and be my enemy's friend? 
 It must not be. Come, boy, forward, advance ! 
 Let 's with our colours sweep the air of France. 
 Lod. My liege, the countess, with a smiling 
 
 cheer, 
 Desires access unto your majesty. 
 
 [Advancing from the door, and whispering 
 
 him. 
 Edw. Why, there it goes ! that very smile 
 
 of hers 
 Hath ransom'd captive France; and set the 
 
 king, 
 
 The dauphin, and the peers, at liberty. 
 Go, leave me, Ned, and revel with thy friends. 
 [Exit Prince." 
 
 The countess enters, and with the following 
 scene suddenly terminates the ill-starred 
 passion of the king : 
 
 "Edw. Now, my soul's playfellow ! artthou 
 
 come. 
 
 To speak the more than heavenly word of yea, 
 To my objection in thy beauteous love? 
 
 Cou. My father on his blessing hath com- 
 manded 
 
 Edw. That thou shalt yield to me. 
 Cou. Ay, dear my liege, your due. 
 Edw. And that, my dearest love, can be no 
 
 less 
 Than right for right, and tender love for 
 
 love. 
 Cou. Than wrong for wrong, and endless 
 
 hate for hate. 
 
 But, sith I see your majesty so bent, 
 That my unwillingness, my husband's love, 
 Your high estate, nor no respect respected 
 Can be my help, but that your mightiness 
 Will overbear and awe these dear regards, 
 I bind my discontent to my content, 
 And, what I would not, I '11 compel I will; 
 Provided that yourself remove those lets 
 That stand between your highness' love and 
 
 mine. 
 Edw. Name them, fair countess, and, by 
 
 heaven, I will. 
 Cou. It is their lives, that stand between 
 
 our love, 
 
 That I would have chok'd up, my sovereign. 
 Edw. Whose lives, my lady? 
 Cou. My thrice loving liege, 
 
 Your queen, and Salisbury my wedded hus- 
 band ; 
 
 Who living have that title in our love, 
 That we cannot bestow but by their death. 
 Edw. Thy opposition is beyond our law. 
 Cou. So is your desire : If the law 
 Can hinder you to execute the one, 
 Let it forbid you to attempt the other : 
 I cannot think you love me as you say, 
 Unless you do make good what you have 
 
 sworn. 
 Edw. No more; thy husband and the queen 
 
 shall die. 
 
 Fairer thou art by far than Hero was; 
 Beardless Leander not so strong as I : 
 He sworn an easy current for his love : 
 But I will, through a helly spout of blood, 
 Arrive that Sestos where my Hero lies. 
 Cou. Nay, you '11 do more ; you '11 make 
 
 the river too, 
 With their heart-bloods that keep our love 
 
 asunder, 
 Of which, my husband, and your wife, are 
 
 twain. 
 Edw. Thy beauty makes them guilty of 
 
 their death, 
 And gives in evidence, that they shall die; 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 KING EDWARD III. 
 
 285 
 
 Upon which verdict, I, their judge, condemn 
 
 them. 
 Cou. perjured beauty ! more corrupted 
 
 judge ! 
 When, to the great star-chamber o'er our 
 
 heads, 
 
 The universal sessions calls to count 
 This packing evil, we both shall tremble 
 
 for it. 
 
 Edw. What says my fair love? is she reso- 
 lute? 
 
 Cou. Eesolute to be dissolved ; and, there- 
 fore, this, 
 Keep but thy word, great king, and I am 
 
 thine. 
 Stand where thou dost, I '11 part a little from 
 
 thee, 
 
 And see how I will yield me to thy hands. 
 [Turning suddenly upon him, and showing 
 two daggers. 
 
 Here by my side do hang my wedding knives : 
 Take thou the one, and with it kill thy 
 
 queen, 
 
 And learn by me to find her where she lies; 
 And with the other I '11 despatch my love, 
 Which now lies fast asleep within my heart : 
 When they are gone, then I '11 consent to 
 
 love. 
 
 Stir not, lascivious king, to hinder me; 
 My resolution is more nimbler far, 
 Than thy prevention can be in my rescue, 
 And, if thou stir, I strike; therefore stand 
 
 still, 
 
 And hear the choice that I will put thee to : 
 Either swear to leave thy most unholy suit, 
 And never henceforth to solicit me ; 
 Or else, by heaven [kneeling], this sharp- 
 pointed knife 
 Shall stain thy earth with that which thou 
 
 wouldst stain, 
 
 My poor chaste blood. Swear, Edward, swear, 
 Or I will strike, and die, before thee here. 
 Edw. Even by that Power I swear, that 
 
 gives me now 
 
 The power to be ashamed of myself, 
 I never mean to part my lips again 
 In any word that tends to such a suit. 
 Arise, true English lady; whom our isle 
 May better boast of, than e'er Roman might 
 Of her, whose ransack'd treasury hath task'd 
 The vain endeavour of so many pens : 
 Arise; and be my fault thy honour's fame, 
 Which after ages shall enrich thee with. 
 I am awaked from this idle dream." 
 
 The remarks of Ulrici upon this portion 
 of the play are conceived upon his usual 
 principle of connecting the action and cha- 
 racterization of Shakspere's dramas with the 
 development of a high moral, or rather 
 Christian, principle. He is sometimes carried 
 too far by his theory ; but there is something 
 far more satisfying in the criticism of his 
 school than in the husks of antiquarianisni 
 with which we have been too long familiar : 
 "We see, in the first two acts, how the 
 powerful king (who in his rude greatness, in 
 his reckless iron energy, reminds us of the 
 delineations of character in the elder * King 
 John,' 'Henry VI.,' and 'Richard III.') 
 sinks down into the slough of common life 
 before the virtue and faithfulness of a 
 powerless woman ; how he, suddenly en- 
 chained by an unworthy passion, abandons 
 his great plans in order to write verses and 
 spin intrigues. All human greatness, power, 
 and splendour fall of themselves, if not 
 planted upon the soil of genuine morality: 
 the highest energies of mankind are not 
 proof against the attacks of sin, when they 
 are directed against the weak unguarded 
 side this is the substance of the view of 
 life here taken, and it forms the basis of the 
 first Part. But true energy is enabled again 
 to elevate itself ! it strengthens itself from 
 the virtues of others, which by God's ap- 
 pointment are placed in opposition to it. 
 With this faith, and with the highest, most 
 masterly, deeply penetrating, and even sub- 
 lime picture of the far greater energy of a 
 woman, who, in order to save her own honour 
 and that of her royal master, is ready to 
 commit self-murder, the second act closes. 
 This forms the transition to the following 
 second Part, which shows us the true heroic 
 greatness, acquired through self-conquest, 
 not only in the king, but also in his justly 
 celebrated son. For even the prince has 
 also gone through the same school : he 
 proves this, towards the end of the second 
 act, by his quick silent obedience to the 
 order of his father, although directly opposed 
 to his wishes." 
 
 In the third act we are at once in the 
 heart of war ; we have the French camp, 
 where John with his court hears of the 
 
STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vi. 
 
 arrival of Edward's fleet, and the discom- 
 fiture of Ms own. The descriptions of these 
 events are, as we think, tedious and over- 
 strained ; at any rate they are undramatic. 
 The writer is endeavouring to put out his 
 aower, where the highest power would he 
 wasted. There is less ambition, but much 
 more force, in the following speech of a poor 
 Frenchman who is flying before the in- 
 vaders : 
 
 " Fly, countrymen, and citizens of France ! 
 Sweet-floVring peace, the root of happy life, 
 Is quite abandon'd and expulsed the land : 
 Instead of whom, ransack-constraining war 
 Sits like to ravens on your houses'. tops ; 
 Slaughter and mischief walk within your 
 
 streets, 
 
 And, unrestrain'd, make havoc as they pass : 
 The form whereof even now myself beheld, 
 Now, upon this fair mountain, whence I came. 
 For, so far as I did direct mine eyes, 
 I might perceive five cities all on fire, 
 Corn-fields, and vineyards, burning like an 
 
 oven: 
 
 And, as the leaking vapour in the wind 
 Turned aside, I likewise might discern 
 The poor inhabitants, escaped the flame, 
 Fall numberless upon the soldiers' pikes : 
 Three ways these dreadful ministers of wrath 
 Do tread the measures of their tragic march ; 
 Upon the right hand comes the conquering 
 
 king, 
 
 Upon the left his hot unbridled son, 
 And in the midst our nation's glittering host ; 
 All which, though distant, yet conspire in 
 
 one 
 To leave a desolation where they come." 
 
 Before the battle of Cressy we have an 
 interview between the rival kings. The 
 debate is not managed with any very great 
 dignity on either side. Upon the retiring of 
 John and his followers, the Prince of Wales 
 is solemnly armed upon the field : 
 
 " And, Ned, because this battle is the first 
 That ever yet thou fought'st in pitched field, 
 As ancient custom is of martialists, 
 To dub thee with the type of chivalry, 
 In solemn manner we will give thee arms." 
 
 The famous incident of the battle of Cressy, 
 that of the king refusing to send succour to 
 his gallant son, is told by Froissart. The 
 
 dramatist has worked out this circumstance 
 with remarkable spirit ; it is, we think, the 
 best business scene in the play not over- 
 wrought, but simple, and therefore most 
 effective *. 
 
 There is a fine scene where the Prince of 
 Wales is surrounded by the French army 
 before the batttle of Poitiers ; but it is some- 
 thing too prolonged and rhetorical ; it has 
 not the Shaksperean rush which belongs to 
 such a situation. One specimen will suffice, 
 where the prince exhorts his companion in 
 arms, old Audley, to fly from the danger : 
 
 " Now, Audley, sound those silver wings of 
 
 thine, 
 
 And let those milk-white messengers of time 
 Show thy time's learning in this dangerous 
 
 time : 
 
 Thyself art bruised and bent with many broils, 
 And stratagems forepast with iron pens 
 Are texed in thine honourable face ; 
 Thou art a married man in this distress, 
 But danger woos me as a blushing maid ; 
 Teach me an answer to this perilous time. 
 
 A ud. To die is all as common as to live ; 
 The one in choice, the other holds in chace ; 
 For, from the instant we begin to live, 
 We do pursue and hunt the time to die : 
 First bud we, then we blow, and after seed ; 
 Then presently we fall ; and, as a shade 
 Follows the body, so we follow death. 
 If then we hunt for death, why do we fear it ] 
 Or, if we fear it, why do we follow it ] 
 If we do fear, with fear we do but aid 
 The thing we fear to seize on us the sooner : 
 If we fear not, then no resolved proffer 
 Can overthrow the limit of our fate : 
 For, whether ripe or rotten, drop we shall, 
 As we do draw the lottery of our doom. 
 Pri. Ah, good old man, a thousand thou- 
 sand armours 
 These words of thine have buckled on my 
 
 back : 
 
 Ah, what an idiot hast thou made of life, 
 To seek the thing it fears ! and how disgraced 
 The imperial victory of murdering death ! 
 Since all the lives his conquering arrows 
 
 strike 
 
 Seek him, and he not them, to shame his 
 glory. 
 
 * Of the historical portions of Edward III.' we shall 
 have to give full extracts in the proposed volume of this 
 series' The Dramatic History of England.* 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 KING EDWARD III. 
 
 287 
 
 I will not give a penny for a life, 
 Nor half a halfpenny to shun grim death 
 Since for to live is but to seek to die, 
 And dying but beginning of new life : 
 Let come the hour when he that rules it will ! 
 To live, or die, I hold indifferent." 
 The victory of Poitiers ensues; but, pre- 
 vious to the knowledge of this triumph, the 
 celebrated scene of the surrender of Calais 
 is dramatized. It appears to us very in- 
 ferior, in the higher requisites of poetry, to 
 the exquisite narrative of Froissart. 
 
 The concluding scene, in which the Prince 
 of "Wales offers up to the Most High a prayer 
 and thanksgiving, is imbued with a patriotic 
 spirit, but it has not the depth and discrimi- 
 nation of Shakspere's patriotism : 
 
 " Now, father, this petition Edward makes : 
 To Thee [kneels], whose grace hath been his 
 
 strongest shield, 
 
 That, as thy pleasure chose me for the man 
 To be the instrument to show thy power, 
 So thou wilt grant, that many princes more, 
 Bred and brought up within that little isle, 
 May still be famous for like victories ! 
 And, for my part, the bloody scars I bear, 
 The weary nights that I have watch'd in field, 
 The dangerous conflicts I have often had, 
 The fearful menaces were proffer'd me, 
 The heat, and cold, and what else might dis- 
 please, 
 
 F wish were now redoubled twenty-fold ; 
 So that hereafter ages, when they read 
 The painful traffic of my tender youth, 
 Might thereby be inflamed with such resolve, 
 As not the territories of France alone, 
 But likewise Spain, Turkey, and what coun- 
 tries else 
 
 That justly would provoke fair England's ire, 
 Might, at their presence, tremble, and retire !" 
 
 We have thus presented to our readers 
 some of the striking passages of this play. 
 It does not, in our opinion, bear the marks 
 
 of being a very youthful performance of any 
 man. Its great fault is tameness ; the 
 author does not rise with the elevation of 
 his subject. To judge of its inferiority to 
 the matured power of Shakspere, dealing 
 with a somewhat similar theme, it should be 
 compared with the ' Henry V.' The question 
 then should be asked, Will the possible differ- 
 ence of age account for this difference of 
 power ? We say possible, for we have no evi- 
 dence that the l Edward III.' was produced 
 earlier than 1595, nor have we evidence that 
 the ' Henry V.,' in some shape, was produced 
 later. Ulrici considers that this play forms 
 an essential introduction to that series of 
 plays commencing with ' Richard II.' If 
 Shakspere wrote that wonderful series upon 
 a plan which necessarily included ' Henry 
 V.,' we think he would advisedly have 
 omitted l Edward III. ;' for the main subject 
 of the conquest of France would be included 
 in each play, The concluding observation 
 of Ulrici is " Truly, if this piece, as the 
 English critics assert, is not Shakspere's 
 own, it is a shame for them that they have 
 done nothing to recover from forgetfulness 
 the name of this second Shakspere, this 
 twin-brother of their great poet." Resting 
 this opinion upon one play only, the expres- 
 sion "twin-brother" has somewhat an un- 
 necessary strength. Admitting, which we do 
 not, that the best scenes of this play display 
 the same poetical power, though somewhat 
 immature, which is found in Shakspere's his- 
 torical plays, there is one thing wanting to 
 make the writer a " twin-brother," which is 
 found in all those productions. Where is 
 the comedy of ' Edward III.' ? The heroic 
 of Shakspere's histories might be capable of 
 imitation ; but the genius which created 
 Faulconbridge, and Cade, and Pistol, and 
 Fluelleii (Falstaff is out of the question) 
 could not be approached. 
 
288 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vi. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE MERRY DEVIL OP EDMONTON. 
 
 Merry Deuill of Edmonton: As it 
 hath been sundry times acted by his Maies- 
 ties Servants, at the Globe on the Banke- 
 side,' was originally published in 1608. 
 Kirkman, a bookseller, first affixed Shak- 
 spere's name to it in his catalogue. In ' The 
 Companion to the Playhouse,' published in 
 1764, it is stated, upon the authority of a 
 laborious antiquary, Thomas Coxeter, who 
 died in 1747, to have been written by Michael 
 Drayton; and in some posthumous papers 
 of another diligent inquirer into literary 
 history, Oldys, the same assertion is ad- 
 vanced. Charles Lamb, who speaks of this 
 play with a warmth of admiration which is 
 probably carried a little too far and which, 
 indeed, may in some degree be attributed to 
 his familiarity with the quiet rural scenery 
 of Enfield, Waltham, Cheshunt, and Edmon- 
 ton, in which places the story is laid says, 
 " I wish it could be ascertained that Michael 
 Drayton was the author of this piece : it 
 would add a worthy appendage to the renown 
 of that panegyrist of my native earth ; who 
 has gone over her soil (in his Polyolbion) 
 with the fidelity of a herald, and the painful 
 love of a son ; who has not left a rivulet (so 
 narrow that it may be stepped over) without 
 honourable mention ; and has animated hills 
 and streams with life and passion above the 
 dreams of old mythology."* 'The Merry 
 Devil' was undoubtedly a play of great 
 popularity. We find, from the account-bookg 
 of the Revels at Court, that it was acted 
 before the King in the same year, 1618, with 
 < Twelfth Night ' and ' A Winter's Tale.' In 
 1616, Ben Jonson, in his Prologue to ' The 
 Devil is an Ass,' thus addresses his au- 
 dience : 
 
 If you '11 come 
 
 To see new plays, pray you afford us room, 
 And show this but the same face you have 
 
 done 
 Your dear delight, ' The Devil of Edmonta*.' 
 
 * ' Specimens of English Dramatic Poets.' 
 
 Its popularity seems to have lasted much 
 longer : for it is mentioned by Edmund Gay- 
 ton, in 1654, in his ' Notes on Don Quixote.'f 
 The belief that the play was Shakspere's 
 has never taken any root in England. Some 
 of the recent German critics, however, adopt 
 it as his without any hesitation. Tieck has 
 translated it ; and he says that it un- 
 doubtedly is by Shakspere, and must have 
 been written about 1600. It has much of 
 the tone, he thinks, of ' The Merry Wives of 
 Windsor,' and "mine host of the George" 
 and "mine host of the Garter" are alike. 
 It is surprising that Tieck does not see that 
 the one character is, in a great degree, an 
 imitation of the other. Shakspere, in the 
 abundance of his riches, is not a poet who 
 repeats himself. Horn declares that Shak- 
 spere's authorship of 'The Merry Devil' is 
 incontestable. Ulrici admits the bare pos- 
 sibility of its being a very youthful work of 
 Shakspere's. The great merit, on the con- 
 trary, of the best scenes of this play consists 
 in their perfect finish. There is nothing 
 careless about them ; nothing that betrays 
 the very young adventurer ; the writer is a 
 master of his art to the extent of his power.. 
 But that is not Shakspere's power. 
 
 Fuller, in his ' Worthies,' thus records the 
 merits of Peter Fabel, the hero of this play : 
 " I shall probably offend the gravity of some 
 to insert, and certainly curiosity of others to 
 omit, him. Some make him a friar, others a 
 lay gentleman, all a conceited person, who, 
 with his merry devices, deceived the Devil, 
 who by grace may be resisted, not deceived 
 by wit. If a grave bishop in his sermon, 
 speaking of Brute's coming into this land, 
 said it was but a bruit, I hope I may say 
 without offence that this Fabel was but a 
 fable, supposed to live in the reign of King 
 i Henry the Sixth." His fame is more con- 
 fidingly recorded in the Prologue to ' The 
 Merry Devil :' 
 
 t Collier's ' Annals of the Stage,' vol. iii. p. 417- 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 THE MERRY DEVIL OP EDMONTON. 
 
 289 
 
 " 'T is Peter Fabel, a renowned scholar, 
 Whose fame hath still been hitherto forgot 
 By all the writers of this latter age. 
 In Middlesex his birth and his abode, 
 Not full seven miles from this great famous 
 
 city; 
 
 That, for his fame in sleights and magic won, 
 Was call'd the Merry Fiend of Edmonton. 
 If any here make doubt of such a name, 
 In Edmonton, yet fresh unto this day, 
 Fix'd in the wall of that old ancient church, 
 His monument remaineth to be seen : 
 His memory yet in the mouths of men, 
 That whilst he lived he could deceive the 
 
 devil." 
 
 The Prologue goes on to suppose him at 
 Cambridge at the hour when the term of his 
 compact with the fiend is run out. We are 
 not here to look for the terrible solemnity of 
 the similar scene in Marlowe's 'Faustus;' 
 but, nevertheless, that before us is written 
 with great poetical power. Coreb, the spirit, 
 thus addresses the magician : 
 
 " Coreb. Why, scholar, this is the hour my 
 
 date expires ; 
 I must depart, and come to claim my due. 
 
 Fabel. Hah ! what is thy due? 
 
 Coreb. Fabel, thyself. 
 
 Fabel. let not darkness hear thee speak 
 
 that word, 
 
 Lest that with force it hurry hence amain, 
 And leave the world to look upon my woe : 
 Yet overwhelm me with this globe of earth, 
 And let a little sparrow with her bill 
 Take but so much as she can bear away, 
 That, every day thus losing of my load, 
 I may again, in time, yet hope to rise." 
 
 While the fiend sits down in the necromantic 
 I chair, Fabel thus soliloquises : 
 
 " Fabel. that this soul, that cost so dear 
 
 a price 
 
 As the dear precious blood of her Redeemer, 
 Inspired with knowledge, should by that alone, 
 Which makes a man so mean unto the powers, 
 Ev'n lead him down into the depth of hell ! 
 When men in their own praise strive to know 
 
 more 
 
 Than man should know ! 
 For this alone God cast the angels down. 
 The infinity of arts is like a sea, 
 Into which when man will take in hand to 
 
 sail 
 
 Farther than reason (which should be his 
 
 pilot) 
 
 Hath skill to guide him, losing once his com- 
 pass, 
 
 He falleth to such deep and dangerous whirl- 
 pools, 
 
 As he doth lose the very sight of heaven : 
 The more he strives to come to quiet harbour, 
 The farther still he finds himself from land. 
 Man, striving still to find the depth of evil, 
 Seeking to be a God, becomes a devil." 
 
 But the magician has tricked the fiend ; the 
 chair holds him fast, and the condition of 
 release is a respite for seven years. The 
 supernatural part of the play may be said 
 here to end ; for, although throughout the 
 latter scenes there are some odd mistakes 
 produced by the devices of Fabel, they are 
 such as might have been accomplished by 
 human agency, and in fact appear to have 
 been so accomplished. Tieck observes, " It 
 is quite in Shakspere's manner that the 
 magical part becomes nearly superfluous." 
 This, as it appears to us, is not in Shak- 
 spere's manner. In ' Hamlet,' in ' Macbeth,' 
 in 'The Midsummer Night's Dream,' in 'The 
 Tempest,' the magical or supernatural part 
 is so intimately allied with the whole action 
 that it impels the entire movement of the 
 piece. Shakspere knew too well the sound- 
 ness of the Horatian maxim, 
 
 " Nee Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus," 
 
 to produce a ghost, a witch, or a fairy, 
 without necessity. However, the magical 
 part here finishes ; and we are introduced to 
 the society of no equivocal mortal, the host 
 of the George at Waltham. Sir Arthur 
 Clare, his wife Dorcas, his daughter Millisent, 
 and his son Harry, arrive at the inn, where 
 the host says, " Knights and lords have been 
 drunk in my house, I thank the destinies." 
 This company have arrived at the George to 
 meet Sir Richard Mounchensey, and his son 
 Raymond, to whom Millisent is betrothed ; 
 but old Clare informs his wife that he is 
 resolved to break off the match, to send his 
 daughter for a year to a nunnery, and then 
 to bestow her upon the son of Sir Ralph 
 Jerningham. Old Mounchensey, it seems, 
 has fallen upon evil days : 
 
STUDIES OP SHAKSPEBE. 
 
 [BOOK vi. 
 
 " Clare. For look you, wife, the riotous old 
 
 knight 
 
 Hath overrun his annual revenue, 
 In keeping jolly Christmas all the year : 
 The nostrils of his chimneys are still stuff'd 
 With smoke more chargeable than cane-to- 
 bacco ; 
 His hawks devour his fattest hogs, whilst 
 
 simple, 
 
 His leanest curs eat his hounds' carrion. 
 Besides, I heard of late his younger brother, 
 A Turkey-merchant, hath sure suck'd the 
 
 knight, 
 
 By means of some great losses on the sea : 
 That (you conceive me) before God, all 's 
 
 nought, 
 His seat is weak; thus, each thing rightly 
 
 scann'd, 
 You '11 see a flight, wife, shortly of his land." 
 
 Fabel, the kind magician, who has been the 
 tutor to Raymond, arrives at the same time 
 with the Mounchensey party. He knows 
 the plots against his young friend, and he is 
 determined to circumvent them : 
 
 " Raymond Mounchensey, boy, have thou and I 
 Thus long at Cambridge read the liberal arts, 
 The metaphysics, magic, and those parts 
 Of the most secret deep philosophy] 
 Have I so many melancholy nights 
 Watched on the top of Peter-house highest 
 
 tower, 
 
 And come we back unto our native home, 
 For want of skill to loose the wench thou 
 
 lov'sU 
 
 We '11 first hang Envil* in such rings of mist 
 As never rose from any dampish fen; 
 I '11 make the brined sea to rise at Ware, 
 And drown the marshes unto Stratford- 
 bridge : 
 I'll drive the deer from Waltham in their 
 
 walks, 
 
 And scatter them, like sheep, in every field. 
 We may perhaps be crossed ; but, if we be, 
 He shall cross the devil that but crosses me." 
 
 Harry Clare, Frank Jerningham, and Ray- 
 mond Mounchensey are strict friends ; and 
 there is something exceedingly delightful in 
 the manner in which Raymond throws away 
 all suspicion, and the others resolve to stand 
 
 * Envil Enfield. 
 
 by their friend, whatever be the intrigues of 
 their parents : 
 
 "Jem. Raymond Mounchensey, now I touch 
 
 thy grief 
 
 With the true feeling of a zealous friend. 
 And as for fair and beauteous Millisent, 
 With my vain breath I will not seek to 
 
 slubber 
 
 Her angel-like perfections : but thou know'st 
 That Essex hath the saint that I adore : 
 Where'er didst meet me, that we two were 
 
 jovial, 
 
 But like a wag thou hast not laugh'd at me, 
 And with regardless jesting mock'd my love? 
 How many a sad and weary summer's night 
 My sighs have drunk the dew from off the 
 
 earth, 
 
 And I have taught the nightingale to wake, 
 And from the meadows sprung the early lark 
 An hour before she should have list to sing : 
 I have loaded the poor minutes with my 
 
 moans, 
 
 That I have made the heavy slow-pac'd hours 
 To hang like heavy clogs upon the day. 
 But, dear Mounchensey, had not my affection 
 Seized on the beauty of another dame, 
 Before I'd wrong the chase, and leave the love 
 Of one so worthy, and so true a friend, 
 I will abjure both beauty and her sight, 
 And will in love become a counterfeit. 
 Moun. Dear Jerningham, thou hast begot 
 
 my life, 
 And from the mouth of hell, where now I 
 
 sate, 
 
 I feel my spirit rebound against the stars ; 
 Thou hast conquer'd me, dear friend, in my 
 
 free soul, 
 There time, nor death, can by their power 
 
 control. 
 Fdbel. Frank Jerningham, thou art a gallant 
 
 boy; 
 
 And, were he not my pupil, I would say, 
 He were as fine a, metall'd gentleman, 
 Of as free spirit, and of as fine a temper, 
 As is in England ; and he is a man 
 That very richly may deserve thy love. 
 But, noble Clare, this while of our discourse, 
 What may Mounchensey's honour to thyself 
 Exact upon the measure of thy grace 1 ? 
 
 Young Clare. Raymond Mounchensey, I 
 
 would have thee know, 
 He does not breathe this air, whose love I 
 
 cherish, 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 THE MERRY DEVIL OF EDMONTON. 
 
 291 
 
 And whose soul I love, more than Moun- 
 
 chensey's : 
 
 Nor ever in my life did see the man 
 Whom, for his wit and many virtuous parts, 
 I think more worthy of my sister's love. 
 But, since the matter grows unto this pass, 
 I must not seem to cross my father's will ; 
 But when thou list to visit her by night, 
 My horse is saddled, and the stable door 
 Stands ready for thee ; use them at thy plea- 
 sure. 
 
 In honest marriage wed her frankly, boy, 
 And if thou gett'st her, lad, God give thee joy. 
 Mown. Then, care away ! let fate my fall 
 
 pretend, 
 Back'd with the favours of so true a friend." 
 
 Charles Lamb, who gives the whole of this 
 scene in his 'Specimens,' speaks of it rap- 
 turously : " This scene has much of Shak- 
 speare's manner in the sweetness and good- 
 naturedness of it. It seems written to make 
 the reader happy. Few of our dramatists or 
 novelists have attended enough to this. They 
 torture and wound us abundantly. They are 
 economists only in delight. Nothing can be 
 finer, more gentlemanlike, and noble, than 
 the conversation and compliments of these 
 young men. How delicious is Raymond 
 Mounchensey's forgetting, in his fears, that 
 Jerningham has a ' saint in Essex ;' and how 
 sweetly his friend reminds him ! " 
 
 The ancient plotters, Clare and Jerningham, 
 are drawn as very politic but not over-wise 
 fathers. There is, however, very little that 
 is harsh or revolting in their natures. They 
 put out their feelers of worldly cunning 
 timidly, and they draw them in with con- 
 siderable apprehension when they see danger 
 and difficulty before them. All this is in 
 harmony with the thorough good humour of 
 the whole drama. The only person who is 
 angry is Old Mounchensey : . 
 
 " Clare. I do not hold thy offer competent ; 
 Nor do I like the assurance of thy land, 
 The title is so brangled with thy debts. 
 Old Moun. Too good for thee : and, knight, 
 
 thou know'st it well, 
 
 I fawn'd not on thee for thy goods, not I, 
 'T was thine own motion ; that thy wife doth 
 
 know. 
 
 Lady Clare. Husband, it was so ; he lies 
 not in that. 
 
 Clare. Hold thy chat, quean. 
 
 Old Moun. To which I hearkened willingly, 
 
 and the rather, 
 
 Because I was persuaded it proceeded 
 From love thou borest to me and to my boy ; 
 And gavest him free access unto thy house, 
 Where he hath not behaved him to thy child 
 But as befits a gentleman to do : 
 Nor is my poor distressed state so low 
 That I '11 shut up my doors, I warrant thee. 
 
 Clare. Let it suffice, Mounchensey, I mis- 
 like it; 
 Nor think thy son a match fit for my child. 
 
 Old Moun. I tell thee, Clare, his blood is 
 
 good and clear 
 
 As the best drop that panteth in thy veins: 
 But for this maid, thy fair and virtuous child, 
 She is no more disparag'd by thy baseness, 
 Than the most orient and the precious jewel, 
 Which still retains his lustre and his beauty 
 Although a slave were owner of the same." 
 
 For his " frantic and untamed passion" 
 Fabel reproves him. The comic scenes which 
 now occur are exceedingly lively. If the wit 
 is not of the highest order, there is real fun 
 and very little coarseness. We are thrown 
 into the midst of a jolly set, stealers of 
 venison in Enfield Chase, of whom the leader 
 is Sir John, the priest of Enfield. His 
 humour consists of applying a somewhat 
 pious sentence upon every occasion " Hem, 
 grass and hay we are all mortal let 's live 
 till we die, and be merry, and there's an 
 end." Mine host of the George is an asso- 
 ciate of this goodly fraternity. The comedy 
 is not overloaded, and is very judiciously 
 brought in to the relief of the main action. 
 We have next the introduction of Millisent 
 to the Prioress of Cheston (Cheshunt) : 
 
 "Lady Clare. Madam, 
 The love unto this holy sisterhood, 
 And our confirm'd opinion of your zeal, 
 Hath truly won us to bestow our child 
 Rather on this than any neighbouring cell. 
 
 Prioress. Jesus' daughter ! Mary's child ! 
 Holy matron ! woman mild ! 
 For thee a mass shall still be said, 
 Every sister drop a bead ; 
 And those again succeeding them 
 For you shall sing a requiem. 
 
 Sir Arthur. Madam, for a twelvemonth's 
 approbation, 
 
292 
 
 STUDIES OF SIIAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vi. 
 
 We mean to make this trial of our child. 
 Your care, and our dear blessing, in mean 
 
 time, 
 We pray may prosper this intended work. 
 
 Prioress. May your happy soul be blithe, 
 That so truly pay your tithe : 
 He that many children gave, 
 'T is fit that he one child should have. 
 Then, fair virgin, hear my spell, 
 For I must your duty tell. 
 
 Millisent. Good men and true, stand to- 
 gether, 
 And hear your charge. 
 
 Prioress. First, a mornings take your book, 
 The glass wherein yourself must look ; 
 Your young thoughts, so proud and jolly, 
 Must be turned to motions holy ; 
 For your busk attires, and toys, 
 Have your thoughts on heavenly joys : 
 And for all your follies past 
 You must do penance, pray, and fast. 
 You must read the morning mass, 
 You must creep unto the cross, 
 Put cold ashes on your head, 
 Have a hair-cloth for your bed ; 
 Bind your beads, and tell your needs, 
 Your holy aves, and your creeds : 
 Holy maid, this must be done, 
 If you mean to live a nun." 
 
 The sweetness of some of these lines argues 
 the practised poet. Indeed the whole play 
 is remarkable for its elegance rather than its 
 force ; and it appears to us exactly such a 
 performance as was within the range of 
 Drayton's powers. The device of Fabel 
 proceeds, in the appearance of Raymond 
 Mounchensey disguised as a friar. Sir Arthur 
 Clare has disclosed to him all his projects. 
 The " holy young novice" proceeds to the 
 priory as a visitor sent from Waltham House 
 to ascertain whether Millisent is about to 
 take the veil " from conscience and devotion." 
 The device succeeds, and the lovers are left 
 together : 
 
 " Mown. Life of my soul ! bright angel ! 
 
 Millisent. What means the friar? 
 
 Moun. Millisent ! 't is I. 
 
 Millisent. My heart misgives me; I should 
 
 know that voice. 
 
 You? who are you? the holy Virgin bless me ! 
 Tell me your name ; you shall ere you confess 
 
 Moun. Mounchensey, thy true friend. 
 
 Millisent. My Eaymond ! my dear heart ! 
 Sweet life, give leave to my distracted soul 
 To wake a little from this swoon of joy. 
 By what means earnest thou to assume this 
 shape? 
 
 Moun. By means of Peter Fabel, my kind 
 
 tutor, 
 
 Who, in the habit of friar Hildersham, 
 Frank Jerningham's old friend and confessor, 
 Plotted by Frank, by Fabel, and myself, 
 And so delivered to Sir Arthur Clare, 
 Who brought me here unto the abbey-gate, 
 To be his nun-made daughter's visitor. 
 
 Millisent. You are all sweet traitors to my 
 poor old father. 
 
 my dear life, I was a dream'd to-night, 
 That, as I was praying in my psalter, 
 There came a spirit unto me, as I kneel'd, 
 And by his strong persuasions tempted me 
 To leave this nunnery : and methought 
 He came in the most glorious angel shape 
 That mortal eye did ever look upon. 
 
 Ha ! thou art sure that spirit, for there 's no 
 form 
 
 Is in mine eye so glorious as thine own. 
 Moun. thou idolatress, that dost this 
 worship 
 
 To him whose likeness is but praise of thee ! 
 
 Thou bright unsetting star, which, through 
 this veil, 
 
 For very enry mak'st the sun look pale. 
 Millisent. Well, visitor, lest that perhaps 
 my mother 
 
 Should think the friar too strict in his de- 
 crees, 
 
 1 this confess to my sweet ghostly father; 
 If chaste pure love be sin, I must confess 
 
 I have offended three years now with thee. 
 Moun. But do you yet repent you of the 
 
 Millisent. T faith I cannot. 
 
 Moun. Nor will I absolve thee 
 
 Of that sweet sin, though it be venial: 
 Yet have the penance of a thousand kisses; 
 And I enjoin you to this pilgrimage : 
 That in the evening you bestow yourself 
 Here in the walk near to the willow-ground, 
 Where I '11 be ready both with men and 
 
 horse 
 
 To wait your coming, and convey you hence 
 Unto a lodge I have in Enfield Chase : 
 No more reply if that you yield consent : 
 I see more eyes upon our stay are bent. 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 TI1E MERRY DEVIL OF EDMONTON. 
 
 293 
 
 Millisent. Sweet life, farewell? 't is done, 
 
 let that suffice ; 
 
 What my tongue fails, I send thee by mine 
 eyes." 
 
 The votaress is carried off by her brother 
 and Jerningham ; but in the darkness of the 
 night they lose their way, and encounter the 
 deer-stealers and the keepers. A friendly 
 forester, however, assists them, and they 
 reach Enfield in safety. Not so fortunate 
 are Sir Arthur and Sir Ralph, who are in 
 pursuit of the unwilling nun. They are 
 roughly treated by the keepers, and, after a 
 night of toil, find a resting-place at Waltham. 
 The priest and his companions are terrified 
 by their encounters in the Chase : the lady 
 in white, who has been hiding from them, is 
 taken for a spirit ; and the sexton has seen 
 a vision in the church-porch. The morning 
 however arrives, and we see " Sir Arthur 
 Clare and Sir Ralph Jerningham trussing 
 their points, as newly up." They had made 
 good their retreat, as they fancied, to the 
 inn of mine host of the George, but the 
 merry devil of Edmonton had set the host 
 and the smith to change the sign of the 
 house with that of another inn ; and at the 
 real George the lovers were being happily 
 married by the venison-stealing priest, in 
 the company of their faithful friends. Sir 
 Arthur and Sir Ralph are of course very 
 angry when the truth is made known ; but 
 reconcilement and peace are soon accom- 
 plished : 
 
 " Fdbd. To end this difference, know, at 
 
 first I knew 
 
 What you intended, ere your love took flight 
 From old Mounchensey : you, Sir Arthur 
 
 Clare, 
 Were minded to have married this sweet 
 
 beauty 
 To young Frank Jerningham. To cross this 
 
 match 
 I used some pretty sleights, but, I protest, 
 
 Such as but sat upon the skirts of art; 
 No conjurations, nor such weighty spells 
 As tie the soul to their performancy; 
 These, for his love who once was my dear 
 
 pupil, 
 
 Have I effected. Now, methinks, 't is strange 
 That you, being old in wisdom, should thus 
 
 knit 
 Your forehead on this match; since reason 
 
 fails, 
 
 No law can curb the lover's rash attempt; 
 Years, in resisting this, are sadly spent: 
 Smile then upon your daughter and kind son, 
 And let our toil to future ages prove, 
 The Devil of Edmonton did good in love. 
 Sir Arthur. Well, 't is in vain to cross the 
 
 providence : 
 
 Dear son, I take thee up into my heart; 
 Rise, daughter, this is a kind father's part. 
 Host. Why, Sir George, send for Spindle's 
 
 noise presently: 
 Ha ! ere 't be night I '11 serve the good Duke 
 
 of Norfolk. 
 
 Sir John. Grass and hay, mine host; let's 
 live till we die, and be merry, and there 's an 
 end." 
 
 We lament with Tieck that the continua- 
 tion of the career of 'The Merry Devil' is 
 possibly lost. We imagine that we should 
 have seen him expiating his fault by doing 
 as much good to his fellow-mortals as he 
 could accomplish without the aid of necro- 
 mancy. Old Weever, in his ' Funeral Monu- 
 ments,' has no great faith in his art magic : 
 " Here (at Edmonton) lieth interred under a 
 seemelie Tome, without Inscription, the Body 
 of Peter Fabell (as the report goes) upon 
 whom this Fable was fathered, that he by 
 his wittie devises beguiled the devill : belike 
 he was some ingenious conceited gentleman, 
 who did use some sleighty trickes for his 
 owne disports. He lived and died in the 
 raigne of Henry the Seventh, saith the booke 
 of his merry pranks." 
 
294 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 BOOK VII. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 AS YOU LIKE IT. 
 
 * As You LIKE IT ' was first printed in the 
 folio collection of 1623. 
 
 The exact date of this comedy cannot be 
 fixed, but there is no doubt that it belongs 
 to the first or second year of the seventeenth 
 century. It is not mentioned in the list 
 published by Meres in 1598 ; and there is an 
 allusion in the comedy which fixes the limits 
 of its date in the other direction : " I will 
 weep for nothing," says Rosalind, " like Diana 
 in the fountain." The cross in Westcheap, 
 originally erected by Edward I., was recon- 
 structed in the reign of Henry VI., and con- 
 verted to the useful purpose of a conduit. 
 The images about the cross were often broken 
 and defaced, probably by the misdirected 
 zeal of the early reformers ; and so the 
 heathen deities were called in, and in 1596, 
 according to Stow, was set up " an alabaster 
 image of Diana, and water conveyed from 
 the Thames prilling from her breast." Stow 
 gives us this information in 1599 ; but in 
 1603, when the second edition of his 'Survey 
 of London' was published, the glories of 
 Diana were passed away ; her fountain was 
 no longer " prilling." " The same is ofttimes 
 dried up, and now decayed," says Stow. 
 There can be no doubt that Diana was 
 included in the popular hatred of this unfor- 
 tunate cross ; for although Elizabeth, on the 
 24th September, 1600, sent a special com- 
 mand to the city respecting "the con- 
 tinuance of that monument," in accordance 
 with which it was again repaired, gilded, 
 and cleansed from dust, " about twelve 
 nights following the image of our Lady was 
 again defaced by plucking off her crown, and 
 almost her head." When Rosalind made the 
 allusion to Diana in the fountain, we may be 
 pretty sure that the fountain was not " dried 
 up." 
 
 If we were to accept the oracular decisions 
 of Farmer and Steevens, as to the sources 
 from which Shakspere derived the story of 
 1 As You Like It,' we might dismiss the sub- 
 ject very briefly. The one says, with his 
 usual pedantic insolence, " ' As You Like It ' 
 was certainly borrowed, if we believe Dr. 
 Grey and Mr. Upton, from the ' Coke's Tale 
 of Gamelyn,' which, by the way, was not 
 printed till a century afterward, when, in 
 truth, the old bard, who was no hunter of 
 MSS., contented himself solely with 
 Lodge's 'Rosalynd, or Euphues' Golden 
 Legacy e,' quarto, 1590."* Thus "the old 
 bard," meaning Shakspere, did not take the 
 trouble of doing, or was incapable of doing, 
 what another old bard, Lodge (first a player, 
 and afterwards a naval surgeon), did with 
 great care consult the manuscript copy of 
 an old English tale attributed, but supposed 
 incorrectly so, to Chaucer. In spite, how- 
 ever, of Dr. Farmer, we shall take the liberty 
 of looking at the ' Tale of Gamelyn,' in the 
 endeavour to find some traces of Shakspere. 
 Steevens disposes of Lodge's 'Rosalynd 'in 
 as summary a way as Farmer does of 
 ' Gamelyn.' " Shakespeare has followed 
 Lodge's novel more exactly than is his 
 general custom when he is indebted to such 
 worthless originals, and has sketched some of 
 his principal characters and borrowed a few 
 expressions from it. The imitations, &c., 
 however, are in general too insignificant to 
 merit transcription." All this is very un- 
 scrupulous, ignorant, and tasteless. Lodge's 
 ' Rosalynd ' is not a worthless original ; 
 Shakspere's imitations of it are not insigni- 
 ficant. Lodge's novel is, in many respects, 
 however quaint and pedantic, informed with 
 
 * ' Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare, Boswell's 
 Edition, ]\ 214. 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 AS YOU LIKE IT. 
 
 295 
 
 a bright poetical spirit, and possesses a pas- 
 toral charrn which may occasionally be com- 
 pared with the best parts of Sydney's 
 Arcadia.' Lodge most scrupulously follows 
 the l Tale of Gamelyn,' as far as that poem 
 would harmonise with other parts of his 
 story which we may consider to be his own 
 invention. But he has added so much that 
 is new, in the creation of the incident of the 
 banished king, the adventures of Rosalynd 
 and Alinda (Celia) in the forest, the passion 
 of Rosader (Orlando), and the pretty mistake 
 of Phebe arising out of the disguise of 
 Rosalynd, that it is nothing less than absurd 
 to consider Shakspere's obligations to him as 
 insignificant. It is remarkable that in the two 
 instances where Shakspere founded dramas 
 upon the novels of two contemporary English 
 writers, the ' Rosalynd ' of Lodge, and the 
 ' Pandosto ' of Greene, he offered a decided 
 homage to their genius, by adopting their 
 incidents with great fidelity. But in the 
 process of converting a narrative into a 
 drama he manifests the wonderful superiority 
 of his powers over those of the most gifted 
 of his fellow-poets, even in a more remark- 
 able way than if, using the common language 
 of criticism, we might call the ' As You Like 
 It ' and the ' Winter's Tale ' his own inven- 
 tion ; especially in the exquisite taste with 
 which he combines old materials with new, 
 narrates what is unfit to be dramatically 
 represented, represents what he finds nar- 
 rated, informs the actors with the most lively 
 and discriminating touches of character, and 
 throws over the whole the rich light of his 
 poetry and his philosophy. We believe that 
 our readers will not, in this point of view 
 consider the space ill bestowed which we 
 shall devote to an analysis of Lodge's 
 ' Rosalynd,' as compared with the ' As You 
 Like It.' * 
 
 " The Coke's Tale of Gamelyn," says Tyr- 
 whitt, " is not to be found in any of the 
 MSS. of the first authority ; and the manner, 
 
 * A reprint of this uncommonly rare tract forms part of 
 a series entitled ' Shakespeare's Library, a Collection of the 
 Romances, Novels, and Histories used by Shakespeare as 
 the Foundation of his Dramas. Now first collected and 
 accurately reprinted from the Original Editions, with In- 
 troductory Notices by J Payne Collier, Esq., F.S.A.' Such 
 a work, so edited, is of the greatest value to the students 
 and lovers of Shakspere. 
 
 style, and versification, all prove it to have 
 been the work of an author much inferior to 
 Chaucer." He adds " As a relique of our 
 ancient poetry, and the foundation, perhaps, 
 of Shakespeare's ' As You Like It,' I could 
 have wished to see it more accurately printed 
 than it is in the only edition which we have 
 of it." f Of the antiquity of the poem there 
 can be no doubt. It not only employs the 
 old language in the old spirit, but its con- 
 ception of the heroic character is altogether 
 that of a rude age, when deeds of violence 
 did not present themselves to the imagina- 
 tion as any other than the natural accom- 
 paniments of bodily strength and undaunted 
 courage. There is nothing more remarkable 
 than the different modes in which Lodge 
 and Shakspere who, be it remembered, 
 were contemporaries, and therefore, with 
 the exception of the differences of their in- 
 dividual habits of thought, to be supposed 
 equally capable of modifying their impres- 
 sions by the associations of a different state 
 of society have dealt with their common 
 original. In the ' Tale of Gamelyn,' an old 
 doughty knight, Sir Johan of Boundis, is at 
 the point of death, and directs certain " wise 
 knights" to settle how he shall divide his 
 goods amongst his three sons. The division 
 which they make is, as we shall presently 
 see, not agreeable to the wishes of the father, 
 and he thus decrees that his land shall be 
 divided otherwise than the friends had 
 willed : 
 
 " For Godd 'is love, my neighbouris, 
 Standeith ye allfc still, 
 And I will delin my londe 
 After my owne will. 
 
 Johan myn eldest sone shall 
 Yhave plowis five, 
 That was my fadir's heritage 
 While that he was on live ; 
 
 And middillist sone shall 
 Five plowis have of lond 
 That I holpe for to gettin 
 With myn own righte hond; 
 
 And all myn othir purchasis 
 Of landis and of ledes 
 That I bequethe Gamelyn 
 And all my gode stedes." 
 
 t Intr ductory Discourse to the ' Canterbury Tales.' 
 
296 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 According to Lodge's 'Rosalynd,' Sir John 
 of Bourdeaux, in the presence of his fellow 
 knights of Malta, calls his sons before him, 
 and thus directs : 
 
 " As I leave you some fading pelf to counter- 
 check poverty, so I will bequeath you infallible 
 precepts that shall lead you unto virtue. First, 
 therefore, unto thee, Saladyne, the eldest, and 
 therefore the chiefest pillar of my house, wherein 
 should be engraved as well the excellency of 
 thy father's qualities, as the essential fortune of 
 his proportion, to thee I give fourteen plough- 
 lands, with all my manor-houses and richest 
 plate. Next, unto Fernandine I bequeath twelve 
 ploughlands. But, unto Rosader, the youngest, 
 I give my horse, my armour, and my lance, with 
 sixteen ploughlands ; for, if the inward thoughts 
 be discovered by outward shadows, Rosader will 
 exceed you all in bounty and honour." 
 
 The Orlando of Shakspere thus describes 
 his legacy: 
 
 " As I remember, Adam, it was upon this 
 fashion bequeathed me by will, but poor a thou- 
 sand crowns ; and, as thou say'st, charged my 
 brother, on his blessing, to breed me well." 
 
 The entire difference of the conception of 
 character between the Orlando of Shakspere 
 and the Rosader of Lodge follows this dif- 
 ference in the statement of the father's be- 
 quest. Shakspere, we have no doubt, was 
 led to this difference by his knowledge of 
 the original tale. We do not believe that 
 he " was no hunter of MSS." The mode in 
 which the friends of the old doughty knight 
 disposed of his wealth was this : 
 
 " For to delin them al too on 
 That was ther only thought, 
 And for that Gamelyn yongist was 
 He shuldk havin nought." 
 
 We see at once that the course which Shak- 
 spere has taken was necessary to his concep- 
 tion of the character of the younger brother. 
 Because his brother neglected to breed him 
 well, there begins his sadness : 
 
 "My father charged you in his will to give 
 me good education : you have trained me like a 
 peasant, obscuring and hiding me from all gentle- 
 manlike qualities : the spirit of my father grows 
 strong in me, and I will no longer endure it : 
 
 therefore allow me such exercises as may become 
 a gentleman, or give me the poor allottery my 
 father left me by testament ; with that I will go 
 buy my fortunes." 
 
 With the exception of the slight burst of 
 violence at the insolence of his elder brother, 
 the youngest son of Shakspere is perfectly 
 submissive, unrepining at his fortunes, with- 
 out revenge. In the < Tale of Gamelyn,' and 
 in Lodge's version of it, the youngest son 
 being endowed more largely than his elder 
 brother, there is a perpetual contest for power 
 going forward. The elder brother is envious 
 at the younger being preferred ; the younger 
 is indignant that the cunning of the elder 
 deprives him of the advantages of his father's 
 testament. It is singular how closely Lodge 
 has here copied the old tale. In his preface 
 he says, 
 
 " Having, with Captain Clarke, made a voyage 
 to the islands of Terceras and the Canaries, to 
 beguile the time with labour I write this book ; 
 rough, as hatched in the storms of the ocean, 
 and feathered in the surge of many perilous 
 
 It is quite clear that he had in his cabin a copy 
 in manuscript of the old ' Tale of Gamelyn.' 
 For example : 
 
 " Gamelyn stode upon a day 
 
 In his brotheris yerde, 
 
 And he began with his honde 
 
 To handilin his berde." 
 
 Compare Lodge : 
 
 " With that, casting up his hand, he felt hair 
 upon his face, and, perceiving his beard to bud, 
 for choler he began to blush, and swore to 
 himself he would be no more subject to such 
 slavery." 
 Again : 
 
 " After came his brothir in 
 Ywalkyng statelich thare, 
 And seidfc unto Gamelyn 
 What? is our mete yare? 
 
 Tho Gamelyn ywrothid hym, 
 And swore by Goddis boke, 
 Thou shalt y go, bake, luke, thy self; 
 I wol not be thy coke." 
 
 The parallel passage in Lodge is as follows : 
 
 " As thus he was ruminating of his melancholy 
 
 passions, in came Saladyne with his men, and 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 AS YOU LIKE 
 
 297 
 
 seeing his brother in a brown study, and to 
 forget his wonted reverence, thought to shake 
 him out of his dumps thus. ' Sirrah,' quoth he, 
 ' what, is your heart on your halfpenny, or are 
 you saying a dirge for your father's soul] what, 
 is my dinner ready?'' At this question Kosader, 
 turning his head askance, and bending his brows 
 as if anger there had ploughed the furrows of her 
 wrath, with his eyes full of fire, he made this re- 
 ply: 'Dost thou ask me, Saladyne,for thy cotes? 
 ask some of thy churls who are Jit for such an 
 office:" 
 
 In the 'Tale of Gamelyn,' which continues 
 to be almost literally followed by Lodge, we 
 have now a terrible conflict between the two 
 brothers. The elder calls his men to bind 
 and beat ; the younger seizes " a pestill," 
 (Lodge caUs it "a rake,") 
 
 " And droffe all his brother's men 
 Eight sone on a hepe." 
 
 But there is a touch of nature in the old 
 tale, equal in its pathos to the most beau- 
 tiful things in our ancient ballads, which 
 we look for in vain in Lodge, but which 
 unquestionably entered into Shakspere's 
 conception of the generous and forgiving 
 Orlando : 
 
 " The knight^ thoughtin on traison 
 But Gamelyn on none, 
 And went and kissid his brothir, 
 And then they were at one." 
 
 We are now arrived at the incident of the 
 wrestling. In the old tale there is no 
 treacherous agreement between the elder 
 brother and the wrestler. The knight simply 
 wishes that Gamelyn 
 
 " mightfe brekin his nek 
 In that ilk wrestiling." 
 
 But in Lodge we have the incident which is 
 dramatised in 'As You Like It,' Act I., 
 Scene 1. 
 
 " Saladyne, hearing of this, thinking now not 
 to let the ball fall to the ground, but to take 
 opportunity by the forehead, first by secret 
 means convented with the Norman, and procured 
 him with rich rewards to swear that if Kosader 
 came within his claws he would never more 
 return to quarrel with Saladyne for his posses- 
 
 But we turn again to the old tale, and we 
 find that Shakspere avails himself of whatever 
 exists in that story suited for his dramatic 
 object; although Lodge may have given a 
 different version of it. With that care with 
 which he distinguishes between what is 
 necessary as a preparation for a dramatic 
 incident, and the exhibition of another 
 incident not essentially dramatic, he engages 
 our sympathy for Orlando by narrating the 
 triumph of the wrestler over the old man's 
 three sons : 
 
 "Yonder they lie; the poor old man, their 
 father, making such pitiful dole over them, that 
 all the beholders take his part with weeping." 
 
 When Gamelyn arrived at the wrestling-place, 
 he lighted down from his steed and stood upon 
 the grass ; 
 
 " And ther he herd a frankelyn 
 
 Weloway for to sing, 
 
 And beganin all bittirly 
 
 His handisfor to wring" 
 
 Here we trace Shakspere ; in Lodge we lose 
 him. 
 
 "At this unlooked-for massacre the people 
 murmured, and were all in a deep passion of 
 pity; but the franklin, father unto these, never 
 changed his countenance, but as a man of 
 courageous resolution took up the bodies of his 
 sons without show of outward discontent." 
 
 Farther, in Lodge, when the champion 
 approaches Rosader, he simply gives him a 
 shake by the shoulder; in 'As You Like It' 
 he mocks Orlando with taunting speeches; 
 and so in Gamelyn he starts towards the 
 youth, 
 
 "And seide, Who is thy fadir, 
 
 And who is eke thy sire? 
 
 Forsothe thou art a gretfole, 
 
 For that thou camist hire." 
 
 Up to this point has Lodge followed his 
 original, with few exceptions, very literally ; 
 but he now gives a new interest to the story 
 by presenting to us Rosalynd. The style in 
 which he describes her beauty is amongst the 
 prettiest of poetical exaggerations : 
 
 "The blush that gloried Luna, when she 
 kissed the shepherd on the hills of Latmos, was 
 not tainted with such a pleasant dye as the 
 
298 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 vermilion flourished on the silver hue of 
 Rosalynd's countenance : her eyes were like those 
 lamps that make the wealthy covert of the 
 heavens more gorgeous, sparkling favour and 
 disdain; courteous and yet coy, as if in them 
 Venus had placed all her amorets, and Diana all 
 her chastity. The trammels of her hair, folded in 
 a caul of gold, so far surpassed the burnished 
 glister of the metal as the sun doth the meanest 
 star in brightness : the tresses that fold in the 
 brows of Apollo were not half so rich to the 
 sight, for in her hairs it seemed Love had laid 
 herself in ambush, to entrap the proudest eye 
 that durst gaze upon their excellence." 
 
 Mr. Collier, quoting this description of 
 Lodge, says it " puts one a little in mind of 
 James Shirley's excellent ridicule of over- 
 strained hyperbolical compliments and un- 
 natural resemblances, in his play of ' The 
 Sisters'" (1652).* We wonder Shakspere's 
 own playful sonnet did not occur to him as 
 a closer example of this ridicule : 
 
 " My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sunj 
 Coral is far more red than her lips' red: 
 If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun ; 
 If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. 
 I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, 
 But no such roses see I in her cheeks; 
 And in some perfumes is there more delight 
 Than in the breath that from my mistress 
 
 reeks. 
 
 I love to hear her speak, yet well I know 
 That music hath a far more pleasing sound; 
 I grant I never saw a goddess go, 
 My mistress, when she walks, treads on the 
 
 ground ; 
 
 And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare 
 As any she belied with false compare." 
 
 In this sonnet we see the dominant principle 
 of good sense by which Shakspere made his 
 poetry a reality. His Rosalind is a living 
 being, full of grace, and spirit, and tenderness ; 
 arch, witty, playful, impassioned. The 
 Rosalynd of Lodge is not exactly "of no 
 character at all," but she leaves no very 
 distinct or pleasing impression on our mind. 
 Shakspere's exquisite conception of her 
 character is in no place more clearly evinced 
 than in the manner with which he deals 
 
 *' Poetical Decameron,' vol. ii. p. 171. 
 
 with an incident that Lodge thus presents 
 to him : 
 
 " As the king and lords graced him (Kosader) 
 with embracing, so the ladies favoured him with 
 their looks, especially Rosalynd, whom the beauty 
 and valour of Hosader had already touched : but 
 she accounted love a toy, and fancy a momentary 
 passion; that, as it was taken in with a gaze, 
 might be shaken off with a wink, and therefore 
 feared not to dally in the flame; and, to make 
 Rosader know she affected him, took from her 
 neck a jewel, and sent it by a page to the young 
 gentleman." 
 
 Compare this with the following delicious 
 passage : 
 
 " fios. Gentleman, 
 
 [Giving him a chain from her neck. 
 "Wear this for me; one out of suits with 
 
 fortune; 
 That could give more, but that her hand lacks 
 
 means. 
 Shall we go, coz? 
 
 Gel. Ay : Fare you well, fair 
 
 gentleman. 
 Orl. Can I not say, I thank you] My better 
 
 parts 
 Are all thrown down; and that which here 
 
 stands up 
 
 Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block. 
 Eos. He calls us back : My pride fell with 
 
 my fortunes : 
 I '11 ask him what he would : Did you call, 
 
 sir] 
 
 Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown 
 More than your enemies. 
 
 del. Will you go, coz? 
 
 Eos. Have with you : Fare you well." 
 
 It is in Lodge that we find the story of an 
 usurping king and a banished brother, of 
 which there is nothing in Gamelyn. Lodge 
 tells us of 
 
 " Torismond, the King of France, who, having 
 by force banished Gerismond, their lawful king, 
 that lived as an outlaw in the forest of Arden, 
 sought now by all means to keep the French 
 busied with all sports that might breed their 
 content. Amongst the rest he had appointed 
 this solemn tournament, whereunto he in most 
 solemn manner resorted, accompanied with the 
 twelve peers of France, who, rather for fear than 
 
CUAP. I.] 
 
 AS YOU LIKE IT. 
 
 299 
 
 love, graced kini with the show of their dutiful 
 favours. To feed their eyes, and to make the 
 beholders pleased with the sight of most rare 
 and glistening objects, he had appointed his own 
 daughter Alinda to be there, and the fair 
 Kosalynd, daughter unto Gerismond, with all 
 the beautiful damsels that were famous for their 
 features in all France." 
 
 But after the tournament Lodge returns to 
 his original; and we have a succession of 
 contests of brute force between the younger 
 and the elder brother, which Shakspere 
 altogether rejects. Rosader, upon returning 
 home with a troop of young gentlemen, is 
 shut out of the house by his brother's order; 
 but he kicks down the door, breaks open the 
 buttery, and revels with his companions till 
 they have despatched five tuns of wine in 
 his brother's cellar. This is literally the 
 story of Gamelyn ; which has, however, the 
 pleasant accompaniment of the young 
 gentleman breaking the porter's neck and 
 throwing him into a well seven hundred 
 fathoms deep. These events are followed, 
 both in the old tale and the novel, by the 
 elder brother chaining the younger to a post 
 in the middle of his hall, where he continues 
 two or three days without meat. The story 
 thus proceeds : 
 
 " "Which Adam Spencer, the old servant of Sir 
 John of Bourdeaux, seeing, touched with the 
 duty and love he ought to his old master, felt 
 a remorse in his conscience of his son's mishap ; 
 and therefore, although Saladyne had given a 
 general charge to his servants that none of them 
 upon pain of death should give either meat or 
 drink to Kosader, yet Adam Spencer in the 
 night rose secretly, and brought him such 
 victuals as he could provide, and unlocked him, 
 and set him at liberty." 
 
 It was in Gamelyn that Lodge found Adam 
 Spencer : 
 
 " Then seide at last this Gamelyn 
 That stode boundin strong, 
 Adam Spencer, methinkith that 
 I faste al to long." 
 
 Gamelyn being released, he and Adam 
 Spencer effect a considerable slaughter of 
 the elder brother's friends, in which particular 
 Lodge nowise hesitates to follow his original. 
 
 Shakspere has avoided all this; and he has 
 given us instead one of the most delightful 
 of all his scenes. It is said that he played 
 the character of Adam himself. Oldys tells 
 a story of a relation of the poet, an old 
 man who lived after the restoration of 
 Charles II., describing " the faint, general, 
 and almost lost ideas he had of having once 
 seen him act a part in one of his own comedies, 
 wherein being to personate a decrepit old 
 man, he wore a long beard, and appeared so 
 weak and drooping, and unable to walk, that 
 he was forced to be supported and carried by 
 another person to a table, at which he was 
 seated among some company, who were eating, 
 and one of them sung a song." This was 
 unquestionably the Adam of 'As You Like 
 It;' and to us there is no tradition of 
 Shakspere so pleasing as that in the following 
 noble lines his lips uttered what his mind 
 had conceived : 
 
 " I have five hundred crowns, 
 The thrifty hire I saved under your father, 
 Which I did store, to be my foster nurse, 
 When service should in my old limbs lie lame, 
 And unregarded age in corners thrown; 
 Take that : and He that doth the ravens feed, 
 Yea, providently caters for the sparrow, 
 Be comfort to my age ! Here is the gold; 
 All this I give you: Let me be your servant; 
 Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty : 
 For in my youth I never did apply 
 Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood ; 
 Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo 
 The means of weakness and debility ; 
 Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, 
 Frosty, but kindly: let me go with you; 
 I '11 do the service of a younger man 
 In all your business and necessities." 
 
 The beauty of Rosalynd, according to 
 Lodge's novel, filling all men with her praises, 
 makes the usurping king resolved to banish 
 her. Her cousin defends her ; and the despot 
 banishes them both. We need scarcely point 
 out how judiciously Shakspere has made 
 Celia self-banished through her friendship. 
 He has not varied the circumstances of their 
 departure as related by Lodge : 
 
 "Alinda grieved at nothing but that they 
 might have no man in their company, saying, it 
 would be their greatest prejudice in that two 
 
300 
 
 STUDIES OF 8HAKSPEBE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 women went wandering without either guide or 
 attendant. Tush (quoth Rosalynd), art thou a 
 woman, and hast not a sudden shift to prevent 
 a misfortune] I, thou seest, am of a tall stature, 
 and would very well become the person and 
 apparel of a page : thou shalt be my mistress, 
 and I will play the man so properly, that (trust 
 me) in what company soever I come I will not 
 be discovered. I will buy me a suit, and have 
 my rapier very handsomely at my side, and, if 
 any knave offer wrong, your page will show 
 him the point of his weapon. At this Alinda 
 smiled, and upon this they agreed, and presently 
 gathered up all their jewels, which they trussed 
 up in a casket, and Rosalynd in all haste pro- 
 vided her of robes; and Alinda being called 
 Aliena, and Rosalynd Ganimede, they travelled 
 along the vineyards, and by many by-ways at 
 last got to the forest side, where they travelled 
 by the space of two or three days without seeing 
 any creature, being often in danger of wild 
 beasts, and pained with many passionate sor- 
 
 But where is Touchstone ? We find him not 
 in Lodge. Steevens tells us, " the characters 
 of Jaques,the Clown, and Audrey, are entirely 
 of the poet's own formation." 
 
 " Ay, now am I in Arden ! " Touchstone 
 thought that when he was at home he was 
 in a better place. But here is the home of 
 every true lover of poetry. What a world of 
 exquisite images do Shakspere's pictures of 
 this forest call up ! He gives us no positive 
 set descriptions, of trees, and flowers, and 
 rivulets, and fountains, such as we may cut 
 out and paste into an album. But a touch 
 here and there carries us into the heart of 
 his living scenery. And so, whenever it is 
 our happy lot to be wandering 
 
 " Under the shade of melancholy boughs," 
 
 we think of the oak beneath which Jaques 
 lay along, 
 
 " whose antique root peeps out 
 Upon the brook that brawls along this wood ;" 
 
 and of the dingle where Touchstone was 
 with Audrey and her goats ; and of the 
 
 " Sheepcote fenced about with olive-trees," 
 
 where dwelt Rosalind and Celia ; and of the 
 hawthorns and brambles upon which Orlando 
 
 hung odes and elegies. The description 
 which Lodge gives us of Arden leaves no 
 such impression; it is cold and classical, 
 vague and elaborate : 
 
 " With that they rose up, and marched 
 forward till towards the even, and then coming 
 into a fair valley (compassed with mountains, 
 whereon grew many pleasant shrubs) they 
 descried where two flocks of sheep did feed. 
 Then, looking about, they might perceive where 
 an old shepherd sat (and with him a young 
 swain) under a covert most pleasantly situated. 
 The ground where they sat was diapered with 
 Flora's riches, as if she meant to wrap Tellus 
 in the glory of her vestments: round about, 
 in the form of an amphitheatre, were most 
 curiously planted pine-trees, interseamed with 
 lemons and citrons, which with the thickness of 
 their boughs so shadowed the place, that Phoebus 
 could not pry into the secret of that arbour; so 
 united were the tops with so thick a closure 
 that Venus might there in her jollity have 
 dallied unseen with her dearest paramour. Fast 
 by (to make the place more gorgeous) was there 
 a fount so crystalline and clear, that it seemed 
 Diana with her Dryades and Hamadryades had 
 that spring, as the secret of all their bathings. 
 In this glorious arbour sat these two shepherds 
 (seeing their sheep feed) playing on their pipes 
 many pleasant tunes, and from music and 
 melody falling into much amorous chat." 
 
 Nothing can more truly show how im- 
 measurably superior was the art of Shakspere 
 to the art of other poets than the comparison 
 of such a description as this of Lodge with 
 the incidental scene-painting of his forest of 
 Arden. It has been truly and beautifully 
 said of Shakspere, " All his excellences, like 
 those of Nature herself, are thrown out 
 together; and, instead of interfering with, 
 support and recommend, each other. His 
 flowers are not tied up in garlands, nor his 
 fruits crushed into baskets but spring living 
 from the soil, in all the dew and freshness of 
 youth."* But there are critics of another 
 caste, who object to Shakspere's forest of 
 Arden, situated, as they hold, " between the 
 rivers Meuse and Moselle." They maintain 
 that its geographical position ought to have 
 been known by Shakspere; and that he is 
 
 * ' Edinburgh Review, 'vol. xxviii. 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 AS YOU LIKE IT. 
 
 301 
 
 consequently most vehemently to be repre- 
 hended for imagining that a palm-tree could 
 nourish, and a lioness be starving, in French 
 Flanders. We most heartily wish that the 
 critics would allow poetry to have its own 
 geography. We do not want to know that 
 Bohemia has no seabord ; we do not wish to 
 have the island of Sycorax defined on the 
 map; we do not require that our forest of 
 Arden should be the Ar duenna Sylva of 
 Caesar and Tacitus, and that its rocks should 
 be "clay-slate, grauwacke-slate, grauwacke, 
 conglomerate, quartz-rock, and quartzose 
 sandstone." We are quite sure that Ariosto 
 was thinking nothing of French Flanders 
 when he described how 
 
 " two fountains grew, 
 Like in the taste, but in effects unlike, 
 Placed in Ardenna, each in other's view: 
 Who tastes the one, love's dart his heart doth 
 
 strike; 
 
 Contrary of the other doth ensue, 
 Who drinks thereof, their lovers shall mis- 
 like.'"* 
 
 We are equally sure that Shakspere meant 
 to take his forest out of the region of the 
 literal, when he assigned to it a palm-tree 
 and a lioness. Lady Morgan tells us, " The 
 forest of Ardennes smells of early English 
 poetry. It has all the greenwood freshness 
 of Shakspere's scenes ; and it is scarcely 
 possible to feel the truth and beauty of his 
 exquisite * As You Like It,' without having 
 loitered, as I have done, amidst its tangled 
 glens and magnificent depths." t We must 
 venture to think that it was not necessary 
 for Shakspere to visit the Ardennes to have 
 described 
 
 " An old oak, whose boughs were moss'd with 
 
 age, 
 And high top bald with dry antiquity ;" 
 
 and that, although his own Warwickshire 
 Arden is now populous, and we no longer 
 meet there a " desert inaccessible," there are 
 fifty places in England where, with the As 
 You Like It' in hand, one might linger 
 
 * ' Orlando Furioso,' book i., stanza 78. Harrington's 
 Translation. 
 t ' The Princess, ' a novel, vol. iii. p. 207. 
 
 "from noon to dewy eve," and say, "Ay, 
 now am I in Arden." 
 
 Shakspere, as it appears to us, has not 
 only taken the geography of his Arden out 
 of the real, but has in the same way pur- 
 posely perplexed the chronology of his 
 comedy. In Lodge's ( Rosalynd ' the geo- 
 graphy is somewhat more perplexed ; for it 
 is minute enough to belong apparently to 
 the real, while it is essentially untrue. 
 Adam and Rosader travel from Bordeaux to 
 the forest of Arden : " Rosader and Adam, 
 knowing full well the secret ways that led 
 through the vineyards, stole away privily 
 through the province of Bordeaux, and 
 escaped safe to the forest of Arden." Secret 
 or public, the ways must have been suffi- 
 ciently wearisome which led completely 
 across France from the Garonne to the 
 Meuse. This is one of the many examples 
 of the disregard of exactness which we find 
 in Shakspere's contemporaries. But here 
 the inexactness looks only like a blunder : 
 in Shakspere's forest of Arden we have 
 nothing definite, and therefore we readily 
 pass into the imaginative. In the same way, 
 Lodge presents us with King Gerismond and 
 King Torismond, kings of France. Shak- 
 spere idealises these persons into dukes. We 
 thus are thrown out of the limits of real 
 history, unless we strain a point to come 
 within those limits. We grant that this 
 idealising is very perplexing to the stage 
 representation of this and other plays ; but 
 it must be remembered that this perplexity 
 arises from the altered condition of the stage 
 itself. Its scenes must now be copied from 
 nature; its dresses must now be true to a 
 quarter of a century in the doublet and the 
 hose. We do not object to this in its place; 
 and we hold that when the poet deals with 
 the real it is our duty to follow him with the 
 minutest scrupulosity. But with the same 
 reverence for his guidance we maintain that, 
 when he proclaims by tokens not to be 
 mistaken that he has entered the regions of 
 imagination, we are not to take him out of 
 those regions and surround him with the 
 boundaries of time and space. The view 
 which Ulrici takes of the extent to which 
 the ideal prevails in ' As You Like It ' has our 
 
302 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPEBE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 perfect concurrence : " Separately, nothing 
 appears directly opposed to reality : no super- 
 natural, or w?i-natural, beings or appearances. 
 Separately, every character, situation, and 
 incident, might belong to common actuality ; 
 it is only through the lions and serpents in 
 a European forest that it is lightly indicated 
 to us that we tread the soil of poetic fancy. 
 And yet more distinctly does the entire play 
 in its development, the involutions and 
 proportion of the parts to the whole, the 
 oneness of the relations and situations, the 
 actions and circumstances, render it clear 
 that this drama is by no means intended as 
 a representation of common actuality; but 
 rather of life as seen from a peculiar and 
 poetical point of view." 
 
 We have already said that the deviations 
 which Shakspere made in the conduct of his 
 story, from the original presented to him in 
 Lodge's' Rosalynd,' furnish a most remarkable 
 example of the wonderful superiority of his 
 art as compared with the art of other men. 
 But the additions which he has made to the 
 story of ' Rosalynd ' evince even a higher 
 power: they grow out of his surpassing 
 philosophy. To this quality Lodge sets up 
 no pretensions. When the younger brother 
 of the novelist has fled from his home with 
 his faithful servant when his Rosalynd and 
 Alinda have been banished from the court 
 they each enter into the pastoral life with 
 all imaginable prettiness; and there in the 
 forest wild they encounter native pastoral 
 lovers, and a dethroned king and his free 
 companions leading the hunter's life without 
 care or retrospection. Alinda and Rosalynd 
 have now become Aliena and Ganimede ; and 
 when thay sojourn in the forest they find 
 the verses of despairing shepherds graven 
 upon tall beech-trees, and hear interminable 
 eclogues recited between Montanus and 
 Coridon. How closely Shakspere follows the 
 incidents of his original may be gathered 
 from the address of Lodge's Aliena to one of 
 these poetical swains : 
 
 "Therefore let this suffice, gentle shepherd: 
 my distress is as great as my travail is dangerous, 
 and I wander in this forest to light on some 
 cottage where I and my page may dwell : for I 
 mean to buy some farm, and a flock of sheep, 
 
 and so become a shepherdess, meaning to live 
 low, and content me with a country life; for I 
 have heard the swains say that they drank 
 without suspicion, and slept without care. Marry, 
 mistress, quoth Coridon, if you mean so, you 
 came in good time, for my landlord intends to 
 sell both the farm I till and the flock I keep, 
 and cheap you may have them for ready money : 
 and for a shepherd's life (oh, mistress !) did you 
 but live awhile in their content, you would say 
 the court were rather a place of sorrow than of 
 solace. Here, mistress, shall not fortune thwart \ 
 you, but in mean misfortunes, as the loss of a 
 few sheep, which, as it breeds no beggary, so it ' 
 can be no extreme prejudice: the next year 
 may mend all with a fresh increase. Envy stirs 
 not us, we covet not to climb, our desires mount 
 not above our degrees, nor our thoughts above 
 our fortunes. Care cannot harbour in our 
 cottages, nor do our homely couches know 
 broken slumbers : as we exceed not in diet, so 
 we have enough to satisfy; and, mistress, I have 
 so much Latin, satis est quod sufficit. 
 
 " By my truth, shepherd (quoth Aliena), thou 
 makest me in love with your country life, and 
 therefore send for thy landlord, and I will buy 
 thy farm and thy flocks, and thou shalt still 
 under me be overseer of them both: only for 
 pleasure sake I and my page will serve you, lead 
 the flocks to the field, and fold them. Thus 
 will I live quiet, unknown, and contented." 
 
 Again, when Rosader and Adam enter the 
 forest, and in their extremity of distress 
 encounter the merry company of banished 
 courtiers, we have the exact prototype of the 
 action of Orlando and Adam of Shakspere : 
 
 " Rosader, full of courage (though very faint), 
 rose up, and wished A. Spencer to sit there till 
 his return; 'for my mind gives me,' quoth he, 'I 
 .shall bring thee meat.' With that, like a mad- 
 man, he rose up, and ranged up and down the 
 woods, seeking to encounter some wild beast 
 with his rapier, that either he might carry his 
 friend Adam food, or else pledge his life in 
 pawn for his loyalty. It chanced that day that 
 Gerismond, the lawful King of France, banished 
 by Torismond, who with a lusty crew of outlaws 
 lived in that forest, that day in honour of his 
 birth made a feast to all his bold yeomen, and 
 frolicked it with store of wine and venison, 
 sitting all at a long table under the shadow of 
 lemon-trees. To that place by chance fortune 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 AS YOU LIKE IT. 
 
 303 
 
 conducted Rosader, who seeing such a crew of 
 brave men, having store of that for want of 
 which he and Adam perished, he stepped boldly 
 to the board's end, and saluted the company 
 thus : 
 
 " Whatsoever thou be that art master of these 
 lusty squires, I salute thee as graciously as a 
 man in extreme distress may : know that I and 
 a fellow friend of mine are here famished in the 
 forest for want of food : perish we must, unless 
 relieved by thy favours. Therefore, if thou be 
 a gentleman, give meat to men, and to such as 
 are every way worthy of life. Let the proudest 
 squire that sits at thy table rise and encounter 
 with me in any honourable point of activity what- 
 soever, and if he and thou prove me not a man, 
 send me away comfortless. If thou refuse this, 
 as a niggard of thy cates, I will have amongst 
 you with my sword; for rather will I die 
 valiantly, than perish with so cowardly an ex- 
 treme. Gerismond, looking him earnestly in 
 the face, and seeing so proper a gentleman in so 
 bitter a passion, was moved with so great pity, 
 that, rising from the table, he took him by the 
 hand and bade him welcome, willing him to sit 
 down in his place, and in his room not only to 
 eat his fill, but be lord of the feast. ' Gramercy, 
 sir,' quoth Rosader, ' but I have a feeble friend 
 that lies hereby famished almost for food, aged, 
 and therefore less able to abide the extremity 
 of hunger than myself, and dishonour it were 
 for me to taste one crumb before I made him 
 partner of my fortunes : therefore I will run and 
 fetch him, and then I will gratefully accept of 
 your proffer.' Away hies Rosader to Adam 
 Spencer, and tells him the news, who was glad 
 of so happy fortune, but so feeble he was that he 
 could not go; whereupon Rosader got him up 
 on his back, and brought him to the place." 
 
 Exact, also, is the resemblance between the 
 Rosader of Lodge, wandering about and 
 carving on a tree " a pretty estimate of his 
 mistress's perfections," and the Orlando of 
 Shakspere, who in the same manner records 
 
 " The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she." 
 
 Literal is the copy, too, we have in Shakspere 
 of the situations of the lovers when Rosalind 
 passes with Orlando as the merry page : 
 
 " As soon as they had taken their repast, 
 Rosader, giving them thanks for his good cheer, 
 would have been gone; but Ganimede, that was 
 
 loth to let him pass out of her presence, began 
 thus : ' Nay, forester,' quoth she, 'if thy business 
 be not the greater, seeing thou sayest thou art 
 so deeply in love, let me see how thou canst 
 woo. I will represent Rosalynd, and thou shalt 
 be as thou art, Rosader. See in some amorous 
 eclogue, how if Rosalynd were present, how thou 
 couldst court her; and while we sing of love 
 Aliena shall tune her pipe and play us melody.' 
 'Content,' quoth Rosader; and Aliena, she, to 
 show her willingness, drew forth a recorder, and 
 began to wind it." 
 
 Far different, however, is the characterisation 
 arising out of these similar circumstances. 
 Lodge gives us a "wooing eclogue betwixt 
 Rosalynd and Rosader;" wherein the lover 
 thus swears in the good heroic vein : 
 
 "First let the heavens conspire to pull me 
 
 down, 
 And heaven and earth as abject quite refuse 
 
 me; 
 
 Let sorrows stream about my hateful bower, 
 And retchless horror hatch within my breast ; 
 Let beauty's eye afflict me with a lower, 
 Let deep despair pursue me without rest, 
 Ere Rosalynd my loyalty disprove, 
 Ere Rosalynd accuse me for unkind." 
 
 The beloved of Shakspere uses no such holiday 
 vows ; but is contented with, " By my troth, 
 and in good earnest, and so God mend me, and 
 by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous." 
 It is the wit and vivacity of Rosalind, opposed 
 to the poetical earnestness of Orlando, that 
 prevents the pastoral from sliding into the 
 ridiculous, as it has always a tendency to do. 
 The same art is again shown in the manage- 
 ment of the incident of Phebe's love for 
 Ganimede. Lodge thus presents it to us : 
 
 " Ganimede, overhearing all these passions of 
 Montanus, could not brook the cruelty of Phebe, 
 but, starting from behind a bush, said, 'And if, 
 damsel, you fled from me, I would transform 
 you as Daphne to a bay, and then in contempt 
 trample your branches under my feet.' Phebe, 
 at this sudden reply, was amazed, especially 
 when she saw so fair a swain as Ganimede; 
 blushing, therefore, she would have home gone, 
 but that he held her by the hand, and prosecuted 
 his reply thus : ' What, shepherdess, so fair and 
 so cruel 1 ? Disdain beseems not cottages, nor 
 coyness maids; for either they be condemned 
 
304 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 to be too proud, or too froward. Take heed, 
 fair nymph, that in despising love you be not 
 overreached with love, and, in shaking off all, 
 shape yourself to your own shadow, and so with 
 Narcissus prove passionate and yet unpitied. 
 Oft have I heard, and sometime have I seen, 
 high disdain turned to hot desires. Because 
 thou art beautiful be not so coy : as there is 
 nothing more fair, so there is nothing more 
 fading: as momentary as the shadows which 
 grow from a cloudy sun. Such, my fair shep- 
 herdess, as disdain in youth, desire in age, and 
 then they are hated in the winter that might 
 have been loved in the prime. A wrinkled 
 maid is like to a parched rose, that is cast up in 
 coffers to please the smell, not worn in the hand 
 to content the eye. There is no folly in love to 
 had I wist] and therefore be ruled by me, 
 love while thou art young, lest thou be disdained 
 when thou art old. Beauty nor time cannot be 
 recalled, and if thou love, like of Montanus; 
 for, if his desires are many, so his deserts are 
 great.' . 
 
 " Phebe all this while gazed on the perfection 
 of Ganimede, as deeply enamoured of his per- 
 fection as Montanus inveigled with hers: for 
 her eye made survey of his excellent feature, 
 which she found so rare, that she thought the 
 ghost of Adonis had leaped from Elysium in 
 the shape of a swain." 
 
 Compare this with the fifth scene of the third 
 act of ' As You Like It : ' 
 
 " Why, what means this] Why do you look 
 
 on me? 
 
 I see no more in you, than in the ordinary 
 Of nature's sale- work : Od 's my little life ! 
 I think, she means to tangle my eyes too : 
 No, 'faith, proud mistress, hope not after it; 
 'T is not your inky brows, your black silk 
 
 hair, 
 
 Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream, 
 That can entame my spirits to your worship. 
 You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow 
 
 her] 
 
 Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain] 
 You are a thousand times a properer man, 
 Than she a woman : 'T is such fools as you 
 That make the world full of ill-favoured 
 
 children : 
 
 'T is not her glass, but you, that flatters her; 
 And out of you she sees herself more proper, 
 Than any of her lineaments can show her; 
 
 But, mistress, know yourself; down on your 
 
 knees, 
 And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's 
 
 love." 
 
 It is unnecessary for us to pursue this parallel 
 farther. Shakspere follows Lodge, with 
 scarcely a deviation, in the conduct of his story. 
 We have the same incidents of the elder 
 brother's exile, his rescue from a savage 
 beast by the courage of the brother he had 
 injured, and his passion for the banished 
 daughter of the usurping king. We have, 
 of course, the same discovery of Rosalind to 
 her father, and the same happy marriage of 
 the princesses with their lovers, as well as 
 that of the coy shepherdess with her shepherd. 
 The catastrophe, however, is different. The 
 usurping king of Lodge comes out with a 
 mighty army to fight his rebellious peers, 
 when the sojourners in the forest join the 
 battle, the usurper is slain, and the rightful 
 king restored. Shakspere manages the matter 
 after a milder fashion : 
 
 " Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day 
 Men of great worth resorted to this forest, 
 Address'd a mighty power; which were on 
 
 foot, 
 
 In his own conduct, purposely to take 
 His brother here, and put him to the sword: 
 And to the skirts of this wild wood he came; 
 Where, meeting with an old religious man, 
 After some question with him, was converted 
 Both from his enterprise, and from the world : 
 His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother, 
 And all their lands restored to them again 
 That were with him exiled." 
 
 Dr. Johnson does not entirely disapprove of 
 this arrangement ; but he thinks that Shak- 
 spere lost a fit occasion for a serious discourse: 
 "By hastening to the end of this work, 
 Shakspere suppressed the dialogue between 
 the usurper and the hermit, and lost an 
 opportunity of exhibiting a moral lesson in 
 which he might have found matter worthy 
 of his highest powers." Shakspere, we venture 
 to imagine, hastened to the end of his work, 
 as his work was naturally approaching its 
 conclusion. His philosophy, according to 
 his usual practice, accompanies his action ; 
 and he does not reserve his moral till the 
 end. To him it can never be objected, 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 AS YOU LIKE IT. 
 
 305 
 
 " What tedious homily have you wearied 
 your parishioners withal, and never cried, 
 Have patience, good people ! " His " moral 
 lesson " is to be collected out of his in- 
 cidents and his chaiacters. Perhaps there 
 is no play more full of real moral lessons 
 than ' As You Like It.' What in Lodge was 
 a pastoral replete with quaintness, and an- 
 tithesis, and pedantry, and striving after 
 effect, becomes in Shakspere an imaginative 
 drama, in which the real is blended with the 
 poetical in such intimate union, that the 
 highest poetry appears to be as essentially 
 natural as the most familiar gossip ; and the 
 loftiest philosophy is interwoven with the 
 occurrences of every-day life, so as to teach 
 us that there is a philosophical aspect of the 
 commonest things. It is this spirit which 
 informs his forest of Arden with such life, 
 and truth, and beauty, as belongs to no other 
 representation of pastoral scenes ; which takes 
 us into the depths of solitude, and shows us 
 how the feelings of social life alone can give us 
 
 " tongues in trees, books in the running 
 
 brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything;" 
 
 which builds a throne for intellect "under 
 the greenwood *ree," and there, by character- 
 istic satire, gently indicates to us the vanity 
 of the things that bind us to the world; 
 whilst it teaches us that life has its happiness 
 in the cultivation of the affections, in con- 
 tent and independence of spirit. It was by 
 a process such as this that the novel of Lodge 
 was changed into the comedy of Shakspere. 
 The amalgamation of Jaques and Touchstone 
 with Orlando and Rosalind is one of the 
 most wonderful efforts of originality in the 
 whole compass of poetical creation. 
 
 Of all Shakspere's comedies we are inclined 
 to think that 'As You Like It' is the most 
 read. It possesses not the deep tragic interest 
 of ' The Merchant of Venice,' nor the brilliant 
 wit and diverting humour of 'Much Ado 
 about Nothing,' nor the prodigal luxuriance 
 of fancy which belongs to 'A Midsummer 
 Night's Dream,' nor the wild legendary 
 romance which imparts its charm to 'A 
 Winter's Tale,' nor the grandeur of the 
 poetical creation of 'The Tempest.' The 
 
 peculiar attraction of 'As You Like It' lies, 
 perhaps, in the circumstance that "in no 
 other play do we find the bright imagination 
 and fascinating grace of Shakspeare's youth 
 so mingled with the thoughtfulness of his 
 maturer age." This is the character which 
 Mr. Hallam gives of this comedy, and it 
 appears to us a very just one *. But in another 
 place Mr. Hallam says, " There seems to have 
 been a period of Shakspeare's life when his 
 heart was ill at ease and ill content with the 
 world or his own conscience. The memory 
 of hours misspent, the pang of affection 
 misplaced or unrequited, the experience of 
 man's worser nature, which intercourse with 
 ill-chosen associates, by chance or circum- 
 stances, peculiarly teaches; these, as they 
 sank down into the depths of his great mind, 
 seem &ot only to have inspired into it the 
 conception of ' Lear' and ' Timon,' but that 
 of one primary character, the censurer of 
 mankind. This type is first seen in the 
 philosophic melancholy of Jaques^ gazing with 
 an undiminished serenity, and with a gaiety 
 of fancy though not of manners, on the fol- 
 lies of the world. It assumes a graver cast 
 in the exiled Duke of the same play." Mr. 
 Hallam then notices the like type in 'Measure 
 for Measure,' and the altered 'Hamlet,' as 
 well as in 'Lear' and 'Timon;' and adds, 
 " In the later plays of Shakspeare, especially 
 in 'Macbeth' and 'The Tempest,' much of 
 moral speculation will be found, but he has 
 never returned to this type of character in 
 the personages." t Without entering into 
 a general examination of Mr. Hallam's theory, 
 which evidently includes a very wide range 
 of discussion, we must venture to think that 
 the type of character first seen in Jaques, 
 and presenting a graver cast in the exiled 
 Duke, is so modified by the whole conduct of 
 the action of this comedy, by its opposite 
 characterisation, and by its prevailing tone 
 of reflection, that it offers not the slightest 
 evidence of having been produced at a period 
 of the poet's life " when his heart was ill at 
 ease and ill content with the world or his 
 own conscience." The charm which this 
 play appears to us to possess in a most 
 
 * ' Literature of Europe,' vol. ii. p. 397. 
 Ib., vol. iii. p. SHiR. 
 
306 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPEEE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 remarkable degree, even when compared 
 with other works of Shakspere, is that, while 
 we behold "the philosophic eye, turned 
 inward on the mysteries of human nature" 
 (we use Mr. Hallam's own forcible expression) 
 we also see the serene brow and the playful 
 smile, which tell us that " the philosophic 
 eye" belongs to one who, however above us, 
 is still akin to us who tolerates our follies, 
 who compassionates even our faults, who 
 mingles in our gaiety, who rejoices in our 
 happiness; who leads us to scenes of sur- 
 passing loveliness, where we may forget the 
 painful lessons of the world, and introduces 
 us to characters whose generosity, and faith- 
 fulness, and affection, and simplicity may 
 obliterate the sorrows of our " experience of 
 man's worser nature." It is not in Jaques 
 alone, but in the entire dramatic group, that 
 we must seek the tone of the poet's mind, 
 and to that have our own minds attuned. 
 Mr. Campbell, speaking of the characters of 
 this comedy, says, " Our hearts are so stricken 
 by these benevolent beings that we easily 
 forgive the other more culpable but at last 
 repentant characters."* This is not the 
 effect which could have been produced if the 
 dark shades of a painful commerce with the 
 world had crossed that " sunshine of the 
 breast" which lights up the "inaccessible" 
 thickets, and sparkles amidst the "melan- 
 choly boughs " of the forest of Arden. Jaques 
 may be Shakspere's first type " of the 
 censurer of mankind ;" but Jaques is precisely 
 the reverse of the character which the poet 
 would have chosen, had he intended the 
 censure to have more than a dramatic force 
 to be universally true and not individually 
 characteristic. Jaques is strikingly a cha- 
 racter of inconsistency; one, as Ulrici ex- 
 presses it, " of witty sentimentality and merry 
 sadness." Nothing can be more beautiful 
 than the delineation ; but it appears to us to 
 be anything but the result of the poet's 
 self-consciousness. We are induced to believe 
 that Shakspere's unbounded charity made 
 him feel that there was a chance of Jaques 
 being held somewhat too much of an authority, 
 and that he in consequence made the Duke 
 reprove him when he says, 
 
 * Life prefixed toMoxon's edition, p. xlv. 
 
 " Invest me in my motley; give me leave 
 To speak my mind, and I will through and 
 
 through 
 
 Cleanse the foul body of the infected world, 
 If they will patiently receive my medicine. 
 Duke S. Fie on thee ! I can tell what thou 
 
 wouldst do. 
 Jaq. What, for a counter, would I do but 
 
 good? 
 Duke S. Most mischievous foul sin, in 
 
 chiding sin : 
 
 For thou thyself hast been a libertine, 
 As sensual as the brutish sting itself; 
 And all the embossed sores, and headed evils, 
 That thou with licence of free foot hast 
 
 caught, 
 
 Wouldst thou disgorge into the general 
 world." 
 
 The German critic Ulrici, speaking of the 
 characters of Jaques and Touchstone, calls 
 them " the two fools" We are not about to 
 pursue his argument ; but we accept his 
 classification, which is, indeed, startling. 
 What ! Is he a fool that moralises the spec- 
 tacle of 
 
 " a poor sequester'd stag, 
 That from the hunters' aim had ta'en a hurt," 
 
 and gives us, thereupon, "a thousand similes," 
 with which 
 
 " most invectively he pierceth through 
 The body of the country, city, court"? 
 
 Is he a fool that " can suck melancholy out 
 of a song as a weazel sucks eggs"? Is he a 
 fool that 
 
 "met a fool i' the forest;" 
 whose 
 
 " lungs began to crow like chanticleer, 
 That fools should be so deep-contempla- 
 tive"? 
 
 and who himself aspires to be a fool : 
 " I am ambitious for a motley coat"? 
 
 Is he a fool that tells us, 
 
 " All the world 's a stage, 
 And all the men and women merely players"? 
 
 Is he a fool who has gained his " experience," 
 and whom the "sundry contemplation" of 
 his travels wraps in a " most humorous 
 sadness " ? Is he a fool who commends him 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 AS YOU LIKE IT. 
 
 307 
 
 whom the critic calls his brother fool as 
 " good at anything, and yet a fool" ? Lastly, 
 is he a fool who rejects honour and advance- 
 ment, and deserts the. exiled Duke when he 
 is restored to his state, because 
 
 " out of these convertites 
 There is much matter to be heard and 
 learn'd"] 
 
 Assuredly, upon the first blush of the ques- 
 tion, we must say that the German critic is 
 wrong. 
 
 And yet, what is a fool, according to the 
 Shaksperean definition 1 The fool is one 
 
 " Who laid him down and bask'd him in the 
 
 sun, 
 
 And rail'd on lady Fortune in good terms, 
 In good set terms, and yet a motley fool." 
 
 The fool is one that doth "moral on the 
 time ; " one that hath been a courtier ; 
 
 " and in his brain, 
 Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit 
 After a voyage, he hath strange places 
 
 cramm'd 
 
 With observation, the which he vents 
 In mangled forms." 
 The fool is one that 
 
 " must have liberty 
 
 Withal, as large a charter as the wind.' 
 The fool is one who 
 
 " will through and through 
 Cleanse the foul body of the infected world." 
 
 The fool is one who aims at every man, but, 
 hitting or missing, thus justifies his attack : 
 
 " Let me see wherein 
 My tongue hath wrong'd him : if it do him 
 
 right, 
 
 Then he hath wrong'd himself; if he be free, 
 Why then, my taxing like a wild goose flies, 
 Unclaim'd of any man." 
 
 And thus Jaques describes himself. 
 
 Now let us see what is the character of the 
 companion fool, Touchstone. He introduces 
 himself to us with a bit of fool's logic that 
 is, a comment upon human actions, derived 
 from premises that are either above, or below, 
 which you please, the ordinary argument- 
 ation of the world. His story of " a certain 
 knight that swore by his honour they were 
 
 good pancakes" is not pointless. Perhaps it 
 is a fool's bolt, and soon shot ; yet it hits. 
 But the fool is not without his affections. 
 The friendship which Celia had for Rosalind 
 is reciprocated by the friendship which the 
 fool has for Celia : 
 
 " Ros. But, cousin, what if we essay'd to 
 
 steal 
 
 The clownish fool out of your father's court] 
 Would he not be a comfort to our travel] 
 Cel He '11 go along o'er the wide world 
 with me." 
 
 He is fled to the forest with the two ladies, 
 their comfort, their protector : 
 
 " My lord, the roynish clown, at whom so oft 
 Your grace was wont to laugh, is also missing." 
 
 They are in Arden ; and then the fool be- 
 comes a philosopher : 
 
 "Ay, now am I in Arden: the more fool I; 
 when I was at home I was in a better place ; 
 but travellers must be content." 
 
 And then he goes on to laugh at romance in 
 a land of romance, and tells us of "Jane 
 Smile." 
 
 But next we hear of him growing " deep- 
 contemplative" over his dial-. 
 
 " ' Thus we may see,' quoth he, ' how the world 
 
 wags: 
 
 'T is but an hour ago since it was nine ; 
 And after one hour more 't will be eleven ; 
 And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, 
 And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot, 
 And thereby hangs a tale.' " 
 
 The fool's manners are changing. He did 
 not talk thus in the court. He is quickly 
 growing a philosopher. Hazlitt truly tells 
 us that the following dialogue is better than 
 all ' Ziinniermann on Solitude,' where only 
 half the question is disposed of: 
 
 " Cor. And how like you this shepherd's life, 
 master Touchstone ] 
 
 Touch. Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself it 
 is a good life ; but in respect that it is a shep- 
 herd's life it is naught. In respect that it is soli- 
 tary I like it very well ; but in respect that it is 
 private it is a very vile life. Now, in respect it 
 is in the fields it pleaseth me well; but in 
 respect it is not in the court it is tedious. As it 
 is a spare life, look you, it fits my humour well; 
 but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes 
 
 x 2 
 
308 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEBE. 
 
 [BOOK vn. 
 
 much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy 
 in thee, shepherd]" 
 
 The fool has lived apart from human sym- 
 pathies. He has been a thing to make idle 
 people laugh ; to live in himself alone ; to 
 be in the world and not of the world ; to be 
 licensed and despised ; to have no responsi- 
 bilities. The fool goes out of the social state 
 in which he has moved, and he becomes a 
 human being. His affections are called forth 
 in a natural condition of society ; he is 
 restored to his fellow-creatures, a man, and 
 not a fool. We do not think that Shakspere 
 meant the courtship of Touchstone and Audrey 
 to be a travestic of the romantic passion of 
 Orlando and Rosalind. It appears to us that 
 it is anything but farce or irony when the 
 fool and the shepherdess thus commune : 
 
 " Touch. Truly, I would the gods had made 
 thee poetical. 
 
 And. I do not know what poetical is : Is it 
 honest in deed, and word] Is it a true thing]" 
 
 And there is anything but folly when Touch- 
 stone resolves 
 
 " Be it as it may be, I will marry thee." 
 
 A touch of the court of his old vocation of 
 saying without accountableness lingers with 
 him, when, rejoicing in that most original 
 hedge priest, who says, " Ne'er a fantastical 
 knave of them all shall flout me out of my 
 calling " (the Fleet prison priest of a 
 century ago) he hugs himself with the 
 belief that " I were better to be married of 
 him than of another;" but he is after all 
 the true lover, when he rejects the " most 
 vile Mar-text," and in the honesty of his 
 heart exclaims, " To-morrow is the joyful 
 day, Audrey ; to-morrow will we be married." 
 And thus, it appears to us, is Ulrici jus- 
 tified in denominating Jaques and Touchstone 
 " the two fools.'" It was the characteristic of 
 the Shaksperean fool to hang loose upon the 
 society in which he was cherished ; to affect 
 no concern in its anxieties, no sympathy in 
 its pleasures ; to be passionless and sarcastic. 
 Jaques, a banished courtier, refuses to seek 
 companionship in the solitary life ; he rejects 
 its freedom : he finds in it only a distorted 
 mirror of the social life. The wounded stag 
 
 is "a broken bankrupt," the "careless herd" 
 are " fat and greasy citizens." This is not 
 real philosophy; it is false sentimentality. 
 Jaques refusing to adopt the tone of his 
 companions, who have embraced the free life 
 of the woods, its freshness, its privacy has 
 put himself into the condition of the fool, 
 who belongs to the world only because he is 
 a mocker of the world. When his friends 
 sing, 
 
 " Who doth ambition shun, 
 And loves to live i' the sun, 
 Seeking the food he eats, 
 And pleased with what he gets," 
 
 Jaques answers, 
 
 " If it do come to pass 
 That any man turn ass, 
 Leaving his wealth and ease, 
 A stubborn will to please," &c. 
 
 This is the answer of one for whom "motley's 
 the only wear." 
 
 And yet how beautifully all this har- 
 monises with the pastoral character of this 
 delightful comedy! The professional fool 
 gradually slides into a real man, from the 
 power of sympathy, which is strong in him, 
 and which is called forth by the absence of 
 a just occasion for his professional unrealities. 
 He is no longer a chorus. The clever but 
 self-sufficient courtier, half in jest, half in 
 earnest, becomes a mocker and a pretended 
 misanthrope. He is passed into the chorus 
 of the real action. In the mean while the 
 main business of the comedy goes forward ; 
 and we live amongst all the natural and 
 kindly impulses of true thoughts and feelings, 
 mingled with weaknesses that are a part of 
 this sincerity. But most certainly the spirit 
 which breathes throughout is not one of 
 censure, or sarcasm, or irony. It is a most 
 loving, and sincere, and tolerant spirit 
 radiant with poetry, and therefore with truth. 
 We desire nothing better to show that Shak- 
 spere did not speak through Jaques than 
 these words : 
 
 "Jaques. Will you sit down with me] and we 
 two will rail against our mistress the world, and 
 all our misery. 
 
 Orlando. I mil chide no breather in the world 
 but myself ; against whom I know most faults." 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 TWELFTH NIGHT. 
 
 309 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 TWELFTH NIGHT. 
 
 THIS comedy was first printed in the folio 
 edition of 1623, under the title of ' Twelfe 
 Night, or What you will.' The text is 
 divided into acts and scenes ; and the order 
 of these has been undisturbed in the modern 
 editions. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to enter into any 
 detail of the conjectures of the commenta- 
 tors as to the chronology of ' Twelfth Night.' 
 Their guesses have been proved to be very 
 wide of the mark. There was found in the 
 British Museum, in 1828, a little manuscript 
 diary of a student of the Middle Temple, 
 extending from 1601 to 1603*, in which the 
 following decisive passage occurs : 
 
 Feb. 2, 1601 [2]. 
 
 "At our feast we had a play called 
 ' Twelve night or what you will,' much like 
 the comedy of errors, or Menechmis in Plau- 
 tus, but most like & neere to that in Italian 
 called Inganni. A good practise in it to 
 make the steward believe his lady widdowe 
 was in love with him, by counterfayting a 
 letter, as from his lady, in generall termes 
 telling him what shee liked best in him, & 
 prescribing his gestures, inscribing his ap- 
 paraile, &c., and then when he came to prac- 
 tise, making him beleeve they tooke him to 
 be mad." 
 
 Here is an end then of conjecture. The 
 play was no doubt publicly acted before this 
 performance at the Candlemas feast of the 
 Middle Temple ; and it belongs, therefore, 
 to the first year of the seventeenth century, 
 
 * We derive our particulars from Mr. Collier's va- 
 luable ' Annals of the Stage.' He says " I was fortunate 
 enough to meet with it among the Harleian Manuscripts 
 in the Museum." Mr. Hunter, in his Disquisition on the 
 Tempest,' says, " You may remember when, in 1828, I 
 called your attention, at the British Museum, to the dis- 
 covery which 1 had then made in the Diary of Manningham, 
 that ' Twelfth Night' was performed in 1602, before the 
 benchers of the Middle Temple." Mr. Hunter sub- 
 sequently came to a belief that the ' Diary' was that of 
 John Manningham, who was entered at the Middle Temple 
 in ]'><)7. 
 
 or the last of the sixteenth ; for it is not 
 found in the list of Meres, in 1598. 
 
 The romance literature of Europe was a 
 common property, from which the Eliza- 
 bethan writers of every grade drew materials 
 for their own performances, using them up 
 with all possible variety of adaptation. 
 | Italy was the great fountain-head of these 
 fictions ; although they might have travelled 
 thither from the East, and gradually as- 
 sumed European shape and character. In 
 the hands of real poets, such as Boccaccio 
 and Shakspere, the original material was 
 ; little more than the canvass upon which the 
 | artist worked. The commentators upon our 
 poet tell us, with regard to ' Twelfth Night,' 
 "There is great reason to believe that the 
 serious part of this comedy is founded on 
 some old translation of the seventh history 
 in the fourth volume of Belleforest's ' His- 
 toires Tragiques.' Belleforest took the story, 
 as usual, from Bandello. The comic scenes 
 appear to have been entirely the production of 
 Shakspeare" He did create, then, Sir An- 
 drew, and Sir Toby, and Malvolio, and the 
 Clown. But who created Viola, and Olivia, 
 and the Duke ? They were made, say the 
 critics, according to the recipe of Bandello : 
 Item, a twin brother and sister ; item, the 
 sister in love, and becoming a page in the 
 service of him she loved ; item, the said 
 page sent as a messenger to the lady whom 
 her master loved ; item, the lady falling in 
 love with the page ; item, the lady meeting 
 with the twin-brother ; item, all parties hap- 
 pily matched. All this will be found at 
 great length in Mrs. Lenox's Shakspeare 
 Illustrated,' accompanied with many pro- 
 found remarks upon the poet's stupidity in 
 leaving the safe track of the novelist ; which 
 remarks, being somewhat antiquated, may 
 be passed over. Nor is it necessary for us 
 to republish the entire story of ' Apolonius 
 and Silla,' as told in a collection published 
 
310 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 by Barnaby Rich, " containing very pleasant 
 discourses fit for a peaceable time, gathered 
 together for the only delight of the courteous 
 gentlewomen of England and Ireland." The 
 argument of Rich's story does not infer any 
 great resemblance in the plots of the novel 
 and the drama : " Apolonius, Duke, having 
 spent a year's service in the wars against 
 the Turk, returning homewards with his 
 company by sea, was driven by force of 
 weather to the isle of Cypres, where he was 
 well received by Pontus, governor of the 
 same isle, with whom Silla, daughter to 
 Pontus, fell so strangely in love, that, after 
 Apolonius was departed to Constantinople, 
 Silla, with one man, followed, and coming 
 to Constantinople she served Apolonius in 
 the habit of a man, and, after many pretty 
 accidents falling out, she was known to Apo- 
 lonius, who in requital of her love married 
 her." But in the "many pretty accidents" 
 we find a clear resemblance between the 
 poet and the novelist ; with the exception 
 that the poet has thrown his own exo^uisite 
 purity of imagination over the ct5nducL_-0f 
 the two heroines, and that the novelist is 
 not at all solicitous about this matter. 
 
 The following somewhat long extract, 
 which includes the main points of resem- 
 blance, will furnish a very adequate notion 
 of the difference between a dull and tedious 
 narration and a drama running over with 
 imagination, and humour, and wit ; in 
 which the highest poetry is welded with the' 
 most intense fun : and we are made to feel 
 that the loftiest and the most ludicrous 
 aspect of human affairs can only be ade- 
 quately presented by one who sees the whole 
 from an eagle-height to which ordinary men 
 cannot soar. But we do not complain that 
 Barnaby Rich was not a Shakspere : 
 
 "And now, to prevent a number of injuries 
 that might be proffered to a woman that was 
 left in her case, she determined to leave her 
 own apparel, and to sort herself into some of 
 those suits, that, being taken for a man, she 
 might pass through the country in the better 
 safety; and as she changed her apparel she 
 thought it likewise convenient to change her 
 name ; wherefore, not readily happening of any 
 other, she called herself Silvio, by the name of 
 
 her own brother, whom you have heard spoken 
 of before. 
 
 "In this manner she travelled to Constanti- 
 nople, where she inquired out the palace of the 
 Duke Apolonius, and, thinking herself now. to 
 be both fit and able to play the servingman, 
 she presented herself to the Duke, craving his 
 service. The Duke, very willing to give succour 
 unto strangers, perceiving him to be a proper 
 smooth young man, gave him entertainment. 
 Silla thought herself now more than satisfied 
 for all the casualties that had happened unto 
 her in her journey, that she might at her plea- 
 sure take but the view of the Duke Apolonius, 
 and above the rest of his servants was very 
 diligent and attendant upon him, the which the 
 Duke perceiving, began likewise to grow into 
 good liking with the diligence of his man, and 
 therefore made him one of his chamber : who 
 but Silvio, then, was most near about him, in 
 helping of him to make him ready in a morning 
 in the setting of his ruffs, in the keeping of his 
 chamber'? Silvio pleased his master so well, 
 that above all the rest of his servants about him 
 he had the greatest credit, and the Duke put 
 him most in trust. 
 
 "At this very instant there was remaining 
 in the city a noble dame, a widow, whose hus- 
 band was but lately deceased, one of the noblest 
 men that were in the parts of Grecia, who left 
 his lady and wife large possessions and great 
 livings. This lady's name was called Julina, 
 who, besides the abundance of her wealth and 
 the greatness of her revenues, had likewise the 
 sovereignty of all the dames of Constantinople 
 for her beauty. To this lady Julina, Apolonius 
 became an earnest suitor, and, according to the 
 manner of lovers, besides fair words, sorrowful 
 sighs, and piteous countenances, there must be 
 sending of loving letters, chains, bracelets, 
 brooches, rings, tablets, gems, jewels, and pre- 
 sents I know not what : * * * * Thus Apolo- 
 nius was so busied in his new study, that I war- 
 rant you there was no man that could challenge 
 him for playing the truant, he followed his pro- 
 fession with so good a will : and who must be 
 the messenger to carry the tokens and love- 
 letters to the lady Julina but Silvio his man 1 
 in him the Duke reposed his only confidence, to 
 go between him and his lady. 
 
 " Now, gentlewomen, do you think there 
 could have been a greater torment devised, 
 wherewith to afflict the heart of Silla, than her- 
 self to be made the instrument to work her own 
 
CHAP. II. J 
 
 TWELFTH NIGHT. 
 
 311 
 
 mishap, and to play the attorney in a cause that 
 made so much against herself] But Silla, al- 
 together desirous to please her master, cared 
 nothing at all to offend herself, followed his 
 business with so good a will as if it had been in 
 her own preferment. 
 
 " Julina, now having many times taken the 
 gaze of this young youth Silvio, perceiving him 
 to be of such excellent perfect grace, was so 
 entangled with the often sight of this sweet 
 temptation, that she fell into as great a liking 
 with the man as the master was with herself : 
 and on a time, Silvio being sent from his master 
 with a message to the lady Julina, as he began 
 very earnestly to solicit in his master's behalf, 
 Julina interrupting him in his tale, said, ' Silvio, 
 it is enough that you have said for your master; 
 from henceforth either speak for yourself, or say 
 nothing at all.' * * * * 
 
 " And now for a time leaving matters depend- 
 ing as you have heard, it fell out that the right 
 Silvio indeed (whom you have heard spoken of 
 before, the brother of Silla) was come to his 
 father's court, into the isle of Cypres, where, 
 understanding that his sister was departed in 
 manner as you have heard, conjectured that the 
 very occasion did proceed of some liking had 
 between Pedro, her man (that was missing with 
 her), and herself; but Silvio, who loved his 
 sister as dearly as his own life, and the rather 
 for that she was his natural sister both by father 
 and mother ; so the one of them was so like the 
 other in countenance and favour that there was 
 no man able to discern the one from the other 
 by their faces, saving by their apparel, the one 
 being a man, the other a woman. 
 
 "Silvio therefore vowed to his father not 
 only to seek out his sister Silla, but also to 
 revenge the villany which he conceived in Pedro 
 for the carrying away of his sister; and thus 
 departing, having travelled through many cities 
 and towns without hearing any manner of news 
 of those he went to seek for, at the last he 
 arrived at Constantinople, where, as he was 
 walking in an evening for his own recreation 
 on a pleasant green parade without the walls of 
 the city, he fortuned to meet with the lady 
 Julina, who likewise had been abroad to take 
 the air ; and as she suddenly cast her eyes upon 
 Silvio, thinking him to be her old acquaintance, 
 by reason they were so like one another, as you 
 have heard before, said unto him, 'I pray you 
 let me have a little talk with you, seeing I have 
 so luckily met you in this place.' 
 
 " Silvio, wondering to hear himself so rightly 
 named, being but a stranger not of above two 
 days' continuance in the city, very courteously 
 came towards her, desirous to hear what she 
 would say." 
 
 The rest may be imagined. 
 
 Mr. Collier informs us, in his 'Farther 
 Particulars/ that, after vainly searching for 
 eight years, he in 1839 met with the Italian 
 play of the ' Inganni,' mentioned in the 
 barrister's Diary. This play, as Mr. Collier 
 thinks, was known to Shakspere ; and cer- 
 tainly there is some resemblance between its 
 plot and that of ' Twelfth Night.' The dif- 
 ferences, however, are so considerable, that 
 the parallel would scarcely be worth follow- 
 ing out. We have to add that Mr. Hunter 
 mentions that he has traced, in an Italian 
 play called the ' Ingannati' (not the ( In- 
 ganni' 1 of Manningham), the foundation of 
 the serious part of ' Twelfth Night.' 
 
 There is something to our minds very pre- 
 cious in that memorial of Shakspere which 
 is preserved in the little Table-book of the 
 Student of the Middle Temple: "Feb. 2, 
 1601 [2]. At our feast we had a play called 
 ' Twelve night or what you will.' 1 " What a 
 scene do these few plain words call up before 
 us ! The Christmas festivities have lingered 
 on till Candlemas. The Lord of Misrule 
 has resigned his sceptre ; the Fox and the 
 Cat have been hunted round the hall; the 
 Masters of the Revels have sung their 
 songs ; the drums are silent which lent their 
 noisy chorus to the Marshal's proclamations; 
 and Sir Francis Flatterer and Sir Handle 
 Rackabite have passed into the ranks of 
 ordinary men*. But there is still a feast; 
 and after the dinner a play ; and that play 
 Shakspere's ' Twelfth Niglii? And the ac- 
 tual roof under which the happy company of 
 benchers, and barristers, and students first 
 listened to that joyous and exhilarating 
 play, full of the truest and most beautiful 
 humanities, especially fitted for a season of 
 cordial mirthfulness, is still standing ; and 
 we may walk into that stately hall and 
 think, Here Shakspere's 'Twelfth Night' 
 was acted in the Christmas of 1601 ; and 
 
 * Consult Dugdale's ' Origines Juridiciales.' 
 
312 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 here its exquisite poetry first fell upon the 
 ear of some secluded scholar, and was to 
 him as a fragrant flower blooming amidst 
 the arid sands of his Bracton and his Fleta ; 
 and here its gentle satire upon the vain and 
 the foolish penetrated into the natural heart 
 of some grave and formal dispenser of justice, 
 and made him look with tolerance, if not with 
 sympathy, upon the mistakes of less grave 
 and formal fellow-men ; and here its ever- 
 gushing spirit of enjoyment, of fun with- 
 out malice, of wit without grossness, of 
 humour without extravagance, taught the 
 swaggering, roaring, overgrown boy, mis- 
 called student, that there were higher 
 sources of mirth than affrays in Fleet Street, 
 or drunkenness in Whitefriars. Venerable 
 Hall of the Middle Temple, thou art to our 
 eyes more stately and more to be admired 
 since we looked upon that entry in the 
 Table-book of John Manningham ! The 
 Globe has perished, and so has the Black- 
 friars. The works of the poet who made 
 the names of these frail buildings immortal 
 need no associations to recommend them ; 
 but it is yet pleasant to know that there is 
 one locality remaining where a play of Shak- 
 spere was listened to by his contemporaries ; 
 and that play, 'Twelfth Night.' 
 
 Accepting, though somewhat doubtingly, 
 the statement of the commentators that 
 'Twelfth Night' was produced as late as 
 1614, Schlegel says, " If this was really the 
 last work of Shakspere, as is affirmed, he 
 must have enjoyed to the last the same 
 youthfulness of mind, and have carried with 
 him to the grave the whole fulness of his 
 talents."* There is something very agree- 
 able in this theory; but we can hardly la- 
 ment that the foundation upon which it 
 rests has been utterly destroyed. Shakspere 
 did, indeed, carry "with him to the grave 
 the whole fulness of his talents," but they 
 were talents, perhaps not of a higher order, 
 but certainly employed upon loftier subjects, 
 than those which were called out by the de- 
 licious comedies of the Shakspere of forty. 
 His " youthfulness of mind " too, even at 
 this middle period of his life, is something 
 
 * ' Lectures on Dramatic Literature/Rli k's translation, 
 vol. ii. p. 175. 
 
 very different from the honeyed luxuriance 
 of his spring-timemore subjected to his in- 
 tellectual penetration into the hidden springs 
 of human action more regulated by the 
 artistical skill of blending the poetical with 
 the comic, so that in fact they are not pre- 
 sented as opposite principles constrained to 
 appear in a patchwork union, but are es- 
 sentially one and the same creation of the 
 highest imaginative power. We are told 
 that of ' Twelfth Night ' the scenes in which 
 Malvolio, and Sir Toby, and Sir Andrew 
 appear are Shakspere's own. The Duke, 
 and Olivia, and Viola, and Sebastian, belong 
 to some one else, it is said, because they 
 existed, before he evoked them from their 
 hiding-places, in the rude outlines of story- 
 books without poetry, and comedies without 
 wit. Honoured be the memories of Bandello 
 and Barnaby Rich, not so much for their own 
 work as for the happy accident by which 
 they saved some popular tradition from ob- 
 livion, for a Shakspere to make his own for 
 all ages ! Honoured be the learned or un- 
 learned authors of the ' Inganni ' and the 
 ' IngannatiJ if they suggested to him that 
 their shadowy representations of a wandering 
 brother and sister, coming through mistakes 
 and crosses to love and happiness, had in 
 them dramatic capabilities such as he could 
 deal with ! Honoured be they, as we would 
 honour the man, were his name recorded, 
 who set the palette of Raphael or made 
 Paganini's violin! Whether a writer in- 
 vents, in the commonly received meaning ,of 
 invention, that is, whether his incidents 
 and characters be spick-and-span new; or 
 whether he borrows, using the same ordinary 
 phraseology, his incidents and characters 
 from tradition, or history, or written legends, 
 he is not a poet unless his materials are 
 worked up into a perfect and consistent 
 whole : and if the poetry be not in him, it 
 matters little whether he raises his fabric 
 "all out of his own head," as children say, 
 or adopts a bit here and a bit there, and 
 pieces them together with a bit of his own, 
 for his house will not stand ; it is built 
 upon the sands. Now it is this penetration 
 of his own imaginative power in and through 
 nil his materials which renders it of little 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 TWELFTH NIGHT. 
 
 313 
 
 more account than as a matter of antiquarian 
 curiosity where Shakspere picked up hints 
 for the plots of his plays. He might have 
 found the germ of Viola in Barnaby Rich ; 
 and he might have altogether invented 
 Malvolio : but Viola and Malvolio are for 
 ever indissolubly unite:!, in the exact pro- 
 portions in which the poetic and the comic 
 work together for the production of a har- 
 monious effect. The neutral title of ' Twelfth 
 Night ' conveying as it does a notion of 
 genial mirth might warrant us in thinking 
 that there was a preponderance of the comic 
 spirit. Charles I. appears to have thought 
 so, when, in his copy of the second edition of 
 Shakspere, he altered the title with his own 
 pen to that of ' Malvolio" * But Malvolio 
 is not the predominant idea of the comedy } 
 nor is he of that exclusive interest that the 
 whole action, even of the merely comic por- 
 tions, should turn upon him. When Shak- 
 spere means one character to be the centre 
 of the dramatic idea, he for the most part 
 tells us so in his title : Hamlet, Othello, 
 Lear, Macbeth, Timon. Not one of the 
 comedies has such a personal title, for the 
 evident reason that the effect in them must 
 mainly depend upon the harmony of all the 
 parts, rather than upon the absorbing passion 
 of the principal character. The 'Twelfth 
 Night ' is especially of this description. It 
 presents us with the golden and the silver 
 sides of human life, the romantic and the 
 humorous. But the two precious metals are 
 moulded into one statue. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary for us to enter into 
 any analysis of the plot of this charming 
 comedy, or attempt any dissection of its 
 characters, for the purpose of opening to the 
 reader new sources of enjoyment. It is im- 
 possible, we think, for one of ordinary sensi- 
 bility to read through the first act without 
 yielding himself up to the genial temper in 
 which the entire play is written. " The sun- 
 shine of the breast " spreads its rich purple 
 iight over the whole champaign, and pene- 
 trates into every thicket and every dingle. 
 
 This copy, which formerly belonged to Steevens, was 
 purchased for the private library of George III., and was 
 retained when George IV. gave that valuable collection to 
 the nation. It is now in the Queen's Library at Windsor. 
 
 From the first line to the last from the 
 Duke's 
 
 " That strain again ; it had a dying fall," 
 to the Clown's 
 
 " "With hey, ho, the wind and the rain," 
 there is not a thought, nor a situation, that 
 is not calculated to call forth pleasurable 
 feelings. The love-melancholy of the Duke 
 is a luxurious abandonment to one pervading 
 impression not a fierce and hopeless con- 
 test with one o'ermastering passion. It de- 
 lights to lie " canopied with bowers," to 
 listen to " old and antique " songs, which 
 dally with its "innocence," to be "full of 
 shapes," and "high fantastical." The love 
 of Viola is the sweetest and tenderest emo- 
 tion that ever informed the heart of the 
 purest and most graceful of beings with a 
 spirit almost divine. 'Perhaps in the whole 
 range of Shakspere's poetry there is nothing 
 which comes more unbidden into the mind, 
 and always in connection with some image 
 of the ethereal beauty of the utterer, than 
 Viola's " She never told her love." The love 
 of Olivia, wilful as it is, is not in the slightest 
 degree repulsive. With the old stories before 
 him, nothing but the refined delicacy of 
 Shakspere's conception of the female cha- 
 racter could have redeemed Olivia from ap- 
 proaching to the anti-feminine. But as it is 
 we pity her, and we rejoice with her. These 
 are what may be called the serious characters, 
 because they are the vehicles for what we 
 emphatically call the poetry of the play. 
 But the comic characters are to us equally 
 poetical that is, they appear to us not mere 
 copies of the representatives of temporary 
 or individual follies, but embodyings of the 
 universal comic, as true and as fresh to-day 
 as they were two centuries and a half ago. 
 Malvolio is to our minds as poetical as 
 Don Quixote ; and we are by no means sure 
 that Shakspere meant the poor cross-gartered 
 steward only to be laughed at, any more 
 than Cervantes did the knight of the rueful 
 countenance. He meant us to pity him, as 
 Olivia and the Duke pitied him ; for, in truth, 
 the delusion by which Malvolio was wrecked, 
 only passed out of the romantic into the 
 comic through the manifestation of the 
 
314 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 vanity of the character in reference to his 
 situation. But if we laugh at Malvolio we 
 are not to laugh ill-naturedly, for the poet 
 has conducted all the mischief against him 
 in a spirit in which there is no real malice 
 at the bottom of the fun. Sir Toby is a most 
 genuine character, one given to strong po- 
 tations and boisterous merriment ; but with 
 a humour about him perfectly irresistible. 
 His abandon to the instant opportunity of 
 laughing at and with others is something 
 so thoroughly English, that we are not sur- 
 prised the poet gave him an English name. 
 And like all genuine humorists Sir Toby 
 must have his butt. What a trio is pre- 
 sented in that glorious scene of the second 
 act, where the two Knights and the Clown 
 
 "make the welkin dance;" the humorist, 
 the fool, and the philosopher ! for Sir Andrew 
 is the fool, and the Clown is the philosopher. 
 We hold the Clown's epilogue song to be the 
 most philosophical Clown's song upon record; 
 and a treatise might be written upon its 
 wisdom. It is the history of a life, from 
 the condition of " a little tiny boy," through 
 "man's estate," to decaying age "when I 
 came unto my bed;" and the conclusion is, 
 that what is true of the individual is true of 
 the species, and what was of yesterday was 
 of generations long past away for 
 
 " A great while ago the world begun." 
 Steevens says this " nonsensical ditty " is 
 utterly unconnected with the subject of the 
 comedy. We think he is mistaken. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 
 
 THIS comedy was first printed in the 
 folio collection of 1623, and there had been 
 no previous claim to the right of printing it 
 made by any entry in the registers of the 
 Stationers' Company. We are very much 
 inclined to think, from the state of the 
 original text, that the editors of the first 
 folio possessed no copy but that from which 
 they printed. Some of the sentences through- 
 out the play are so involved that they have 
 very little the appearance of being taken 
 from a copy which had been used by the 
 actors ; and in two cases a word is found in 
 the text (prenzie) which could never have 
 been given upon the stage, and appears to 
 have been inserted by the printer in despair 
 of deciphering the author's manuscript. 
 On the other hand, the metrical arrange- 
 ment, which has been called "rough, re- 
 dundant, and irregular," was strictly copied, 
 we have no doubt, from the author's original ; 
 for a printer does not mistake the beginnings 
 and ends of blank- verse lines, although little 
 attention might be paid to such matters in 
 a prompter's book. The peculiar structure 
 
 of the versification in this comedy was, we 
 are satisfied, the result of the author's 
 system ; and, from the integrity with which 
 it has been preserved in the first edition, we 
 believe that the original manuscript passed 
 directly through the hands of the printer, 
 who made the best of it without any re- 
 ference to other copies. 
 
 We cannot trace that any allusion to 
 ' Measure for Measure ' is to be found in the 
 works of Shakspere's contemporaries. There 
 is, indeed, a passage in a poem published in 
 1607 which conveys the same idea as a pas- 
 sage in ' Measure for Measure :' 
 " And like as when some sudden extasy 
 Seizeth the nature of a sickly man; 
 When he's discern'd to swoon, straight by 
 
 and by 
 
 Folk to his help confusedly have ran, 
 And seeking with their art to fetch him back, 
 So many throng, that he the air doth lack." 
 (' Myrrha, the Mother of Adonis/ by 
 William Barksted.) 
 
 The following is the parallel passage in the 
 comedy : 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 MEASURE FOB MEASURE. 
 
 315 
 
 " So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons; 
 Come all to help him, and so stop the air 
 By which he should revive." 
 Mai one says of this coincidence, "That 
 'Measure for Measure' was written before 
 1607 may be fairly concluded from the fol- 
 lowing passage in a poem published in that 
 year, which we have good ground to believe 
 was copied from a similar thought in this 
 play, as the author, at the end of his piece, 
 professes a personal regard for Shakspeare, 
 and highly praises his 'Venus and Adonis.' "* 
 The other arguments of Malone as to the 
 date of this play, which, he assigns to 1603, 
 have reference ta public circumstances. Chal- 
 mers contends for the date of 1604.-' 
 
 Conjectures such as these are too often 
 laborious trifling. But, for once, they are 
 pretty nearly borne out by incontrovertible 
 testimony. The perseverance of Mr. Peter 
 Cunningham has been rewarded by discover- 
 ing in the Audit Office certain passages in 
 the original Office Books of the Masters and 
 Yeomen of the Revels, which fix the date of 
 the representation at Court of some of Shak- 
 spere's plays. The Office Book shows that 
 'Measure for Measure' was presented at 
 Court by the King's Players in 1604. 
 
 The 'Promos and Cassandra' of George 
 Whetstone, printed in 1578, but not acted, 
 was, there can be no doubt, the foundation 
 upon which Shakspere built his ' Measure 
 for Measure.' Whetstone tells us in a sub- 
 sequent work that he constructed his play 
 upon a novel of Giraldi Cinthio, of which he 
 gives us a translation ; observing, " This his- 
 tory, for rareness thereof, is livelily set out 
 in a comedy by the reporter of the work, 
 but yet never presented upon stage." t 
 
 The performance of Whetstone, as might 
 be expected in a drama of that date, is feeble 
 and monotonous, not informed with any real 
 dramatic power, drawling or bombastic in 
 its tragic parts, extravagant in its comic. It 
 is scarcely necessary to offer to our readers 
 any parallel examples of the modes in which 
 Whetstone and Shakspere have treated the 
 same incidents. 
 
 * ' Chronological Order," p. 387- 
 
 f ' Heptameron of Civil Discourses,' 1582. 
 
 "Look, the unfolding star calls up the 
 shepherd." In the midst of the most busi- 
 ness-like and familiar directions occur these 
 eight words of the highest poetry. By a 
 touch almost magical Shakspere takes us in 
 an instant out of that dark prison, where we 
 have been surrounded with crime and suffer- 
 ing, to make us see the morning star bright 
 over the hills, and hear the tinkle of the 
 sheep-bell in the folds, and picture the shep- 
 herd bidding the flock go forth to pasture, 
 before the sun has lighted up the dewy 
 lawns. In the same wuy, throughout this 
 very extraordinary drama, in which the 
 whole world is represented as one great 
 prison-house, full of passion, and ignorance, 
 and sorrow, we have glimpses every now and 
 then of something beyond, where there shall 
 be no alternations of mildness and severity, 
 but a condition of equal justice, serene as 
 the valley under " the unfolding star," and 
 about to rejoice in the day spring. 
 
 The little passage which we have quoted 
 is one amongst the numberless poetical gems 
 which are scattered up and down this comedy 
 with a profusion such as only belongs to one 
 poet. It has been said of Shakspere, "He 
 is the text for the moralist and the philo- 
 sopher. His bright wit is cut out ' into 
 little stars ;' his solid masses of knowledge 
 are meted out in morsels and proverbs ; and, 
 thus distributed, there is scarcely a corner 
 which he does not illuminate, or a cottage 
 which he does not enrich."* This is by no 
 means his highest praise, and his ' Beauties ' 
 give a very imperfect idea of his attributes ; 
 but certainly no other man ever wrote single 
 sentences that to such an extent have now 
 become mixed up with the habits of thought 
 of millions of human beings. This play 
 appears to us especially glittering with these 
 "little stars." We cannot open a scene in 
 which we do not encounter some passage 
 that has set us thinking at some moment of 
 our lives. Of such distinct passages, which 
 the memory never parts from, the following 
 will be recognised by all as familiar friends : 
 " Heaven doth with us as we with torches do ; 
 
 Not light them for themselves : for if our 
 virtues 
 * 'Retrospective Review,' vol. vii. p. 381. 
 
316 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii 
 
 Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike 
 
 As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely 
 
 touch'd 
 But to fine issues." 
 
 " 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 skiey influences,) 
 That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st, 
 Hourly afflict." 
 
 " Merciful heaven ! 
 Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous 
 
 bolt, 
 
 Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, 
 Than the soft myrtle : But man, proud man ! 
 Dress'd in a little brief authority ; 
 Most ignorant of what he 's most assured, 
 His glassy essence, like an angry ape, 
 Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, 
 As make the angels weep." 
 
 " The sense of death is most in apprehension ; 
 And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, 
 In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great 
 As when a giant dies." 
 
 We select these, contrary to our usual 
 practice of not separating the parts from 
 the whole, for the purpose of pointing out 
 that there is something deeper in them than 
 the power of expressing a moral observation 
 strikingly and poetically. They are imbued 
 with the writer's philosophy. They form a 
 part of the system upon which the play is 
 written. But, opposed to passages like these, 
 there are many single sentences scattered 
 through this drama which, so far from dwell- 
 ing on with pleasure, we hurry past which 
 we like not to look upon again which appear 
 to be mere grossnesses. They are, never- 
 theless, an integral portion of the drama 
 they also form part of the system upon 
 which the play is written. What is true of 
 single passages is true of single scenes. 
 Those between Isabella and Angelo, and 
 Isabella and Claudio, are unsurpassed in the 
 Shaksperean drama, for force, and beauty, 
 and the delicate management of a difficult 
 subject. But there are other scenes which 
 appear simply revolting, such as those in 
 which the Clown is conspicuous ; and even 
 
 Barnardine, one of the most extraordinary 
 of Shakspere's creations, will produce little 
 beyond disgust in the casual reader. But 
 these have, nevertheless, not crept into this 
 drama by accident certainly not from the 
 desire " to make the unskilful laugh." Per- 
 haps the effect of their introduction, coupled 
 with the general subject of the dramatic 
 action, is to render the entire comedy not 
 pleasurable. Coleridge says, " This play, 
 which is Shakspeare's throughout, is to me 
 the most painful say, rather, the only pain- 
 ful part of his genuine works." This is a 
 strong opinion ; and, upon the whole, a just 
 one. But it requires explanation. 
 
 The general outline of the story upon 
 which ' Measure for Measure' is founded is 
 presented to us in such different forms, and 
 with reference to such distinct times and 
 persons, that, whether historically true or 
 not, we can have no doubt of its universal 
 Interest. It is told of an officer of Charles 
 the Bold, Duke of Burgundy ; of Oliver le 
 Diable, the wicked favourite of Louis XL ; 
 of Colonel Kirke, in our-e-w.n country ; of a 
 captain of the Duke of Ferrarav In all these 
 cases an unhappy woman sacrifices her own 
 honour for the promised safety of xme she 
 loves ; and in all, with the exception of the 
 case of Colonel Kirke, the abuser of authority 
 is punished with death. Whatever interest 
 may attach to the narrative of such an 
 event, it is manifest that the dramatic con- 
 duct of such a story is full of difficulty, 
 especially in a scrupulous age. But the 
 public opinion, which, in this particular, 
 would operate upon a dramatist in our own 
 day, would not affect a writer for the stage 
 in the times of Elizabeth and James ; and, 
 in point of fact, plots far more offensive 
 became the subject of very popular dramas 
 long after the times of Shakspere. It ap- 
 pears to us that, adopting such a subject in 
 its general bearings, he has managed it with 
 uncommon adroitness by his deviations from 
 the accustomed story. By introducing a 
 contrivance by which the heroine is not 
 sacrificed, he preserves our respect for her, 
 which would be involuntarily lost if she fell, 
 even though against her own will ; and by 
 this management be is also enabled to spare 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 
 
 317 
 
 the great offender without an unbearable 
 violation of our sense of justice. But there 
 was a higher aim in this even than the en- 
 deavour to produce a great dramatic effect. 
 
 It may be convenient if we first regard 
 this comedy as a work of art, constructed 
 with reference to the production of such 
 dramatic effect. Without referring, then, to 
 the peculiar character of the Duke, and his 
 secret objects in delegating " mercy and 
 mortality" to Angelo, we have to look only 
 at the sudden and severe sentence which the 
 fault of Claudio has called down upon him, 
 and at the circumstances which arise out of 
 the intervention of Isabella to procure a 
 remission of his punishment. This is the 
 simple view of the matter which we find in 
 the novel of Cinthio, in Whetstone's play of 
 ' Promos and Cassandra,' and in the pseudo- 
 historical stories which deal with the same 
 popular legend. It is in this point of view 
 that we may consider the character of Isa- 
 bella, acting upon one single and direct 
 principle, without reference to the machinery 
 of which she afterwards forms a part for 
 carrying out the complicated management 
 of the Duke. She is a being separated from 
 all the evil influences criminal, or ignorant, 
 or weak by which she is surrounded. Jn 
 the eyes of the habitual profligate with 
 \vhom she comes in contact she is 
 
 " a thing enskied and sainted." 
 
 In the eyes of the tempter her purity is her 
 most fearful charm. To her a more strict 
 restraint than is laid upon the votaries of 
 St. Clare would be a benefit and not an evil. 
 To the subjection of all rebellious thoughts 
 in herself, to the cultivation of the spiritual 
 parts of her nature, is she dedicated. She 
 weeps for her brother ; but she shrinks from 
 the thought of going out of her own peculiar 
 region to become his advocate : 
 
 " Alas ! what poor 
 Ability 's in me to do him good ]" 
 
 When she has taken her resolution, she is 
 still doubtful of herself: 
 
 " I '11 see what I can do." 
 
 Few and timid are her words to Lucio ; 
 
 shrinking and half ashamed is her first sup- 
 plication to Angelo. She is as severe in her 
 abstract view of guilt as the stern deputy 
 himself: 
 
 " There is a vice that most I do abhor, 
 And most desire should meet the blow of jus- 
 tice." 
 
 At the first repulse she is abashed and 
 would retire. She is the cloistress, to whom 
 it appears that to plead for guilt has the 
 semblance of excusing it ; but she gradually 
 warms into sympathy and earnestness. She 
 recollects that mercy, as well as justice, is 
 amongst the divine attributes. She first 
 ventures upon the enunciation of a general 
 truth : 
 
 " No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, 
 Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, 
 The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, 
 Become them with one half so good a grace 
 As mercy does." 
 
 But this general truth leads her to the de- 
 claration of the higher truth which she has 
 most studied : 
 
 " Alas ! alas ! 
 
 Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once; 
 And He that might the vantage best have took 
 Found out the remedy : How would you be, 
 If He, which is the top of judgment, should 
 But judge you as you are ] 0, think on that; 
 And mercy then will breathe within your lips, 
 Like man new made." 
 
 From this moment she is self-possessed ; and 
 she stands before the organ of power pouring 
 forth an impassioned eloquence with all the 
 authority of a heavenly messenger. Then 
 she is bold, even to the point of attacking 
 the self-consciousness of the individual 
 judge: 
 
 " Go to your bosom ; 
 Knock there; and ask your heart, what it doth 
 
 know 
 
 That 's like my brother's fault : if it confess 
 A natural guiltiness, such as is his, 
 Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue 
 Against my brother's life." 
 
 And at last, when she believes he will relent, 
 she offers him no thanks, she supplicates him 
 with no tears ; but she promises him the re- 
 ward of 
 
318 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 " True prayers, 
 
 That shall be up at heaven, and enter there, 
 Ere sunrise." 
 
 The foundation of Isabella's character is 
 eliyion. In the second scene with Angelo 
 he same spirit breathes in every line. Her 
 mmility 
 
 Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, 
 But graciously to know I am no better ;" 
 
 icr purity, which cannot understand the ob- 
 ique purposes of the corrupt deputy; her 
 martyr-like determination when the hateful 
 alternative is proposed to her 
 
 " Were I under the terms of death, 
 The impression of keen whips I 'd wear as 
 
 rubies, 
 
 And strip myself to death, as to a bed 
 That longing had been sick for, ere I 'd 
 
 yield ; " 
 
 her simplicity, that believes for a moment 
 that virtue has only to denounce wickedness 
 to procure its fall ; her confidence in her 
 brother's "mind of honour ;"-^all these are 
 the results of the same mental discipline. 
 Most fearfully is her endurance tried, when 
 she has to tell Claudio upon what terms his 
 life may be spared. The unhappy man has 
 calmly listened to the philosophical homily 
 of the Duke, in which he finds what is really 
 somewhat difficult to find in such general 
 exhortations to patience and fortitude 
 
 " To sue to live, I find I seek to die ; 
 And seeking death find life." 
 
 He is to be sorely tempted ; and his sister 
 knows that he wants the one sustaining 
 power which can resist temptation : 
 
 " 0, I do fear thee, Claudio ; and I quake, 
 Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain, 
 And six or seven winters more respect 
 Than a perpetual honour." 
 
 -Is her burst of passion, when her fears be- 
 come true, and he utters the sophistry 
 
 " What sin you do to save a brother's life, 
 Nature dispenses with the deed so far, 
 That it becomes a virtue," 
 
 is that terrible indignation, " take my de- 
 fiance," unnatural or unjust in a mind so 
 
 constituted and so educated? The alter- 
 native was not for innocence to welcome 
 death, but for purity to be reconciled to 
 pollution. A lady, whose work Dr. Johnson 
 has recommended as elegantly illustrating 
 Shakspere's departures from the novel of 
 Cinthio, has been pleased to call Isabella 
 " a vixen " and " a prude." It is satis- 
 factory that, if the last age had its Lenox, 
 who understood as little of her own sex as 
 she did of Shakspere, the present has its 
 Jameson. It was truly said by the editors 
 of the first folio, addressing their readers, 
 " if then you do not like, surely you are 
 in some manifest danger not to understand 
 him." Mrs. Lenox set out upon the prin- 
 ciple of depreciating Shakspere, and she 
 therefore utters absurdities such as these. 
 Mrs. Jameson begins by reverencing him, 
 and she therefore habitually gives us 
 criticism as true and as beautiful as that 
 which we now extract : 
 
 " Nor should we fail to remark the deeper 
 interest which is thrown round Isabella, by 
 one part of her character, which is betrayed, 
 rather than exhibited, in the progress of the 
 action ; and for which we are not at first 
 prepared, though it is so perfectly natural. 
 It is the strong under- current of passion and 
 enthusiasm flowing beneath this calm and 
 saintly self-possession ; it is the capacity for 
 high feeling, and generous and strong in- 
 dignation, veiled beneath the sweet austere 
 composure of the religious recluse, which, 
 by the very force of contrast, powerfully 
 impress the imagination. As we see in real 
 life that where, from some external or ha- 
 bitual cause, a strong control is exercised 
 over naturally quick feelings and an im- 
 petuous temper, they display themselves 
 with a proportionate vehemence when thai 
 restraint is removed ; so the very violence 
 with which her passions burst forth, when 
 opposed or under the influence of strong 
 excitement, is admirably characteristic." 
 
 The leading idea, then, of the character 
 of Isabella, is that of one who abides th 
 direst temptation which can be presented to 
 a youthful, innocent, unsuspecting, and af- 
 fectionate woman the temptation of saving 
 the life of one most dear, by submitting to a 
 
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 
 
 319 
 
 shame which the sophistry of self-love might 
 represent as scarcely criminal. It is manifest 
 that all other writers who have treated the 
 subject have conceived that the temptation 
 could not be resisted. Shakspere alone has 
 confidence enough in female virtue to make 
 Isabella never for a moment even doubt of 
 her proper course. But he has based this 
 virtue, most unquestionably, upon the very 
 highest principle upon which any virtue can 
 be built. The character of Angelo is the 
 antagonist to that of Isabella. In a city of 
 licentiousness he is 
 " A man of stricture and firm abstinence." 
 
 He is 
 
 " Precise j 
 
 Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses 
 That his blood flows." 
 He is one who 
 
 " Doth rebate and blunt his natural edge 
 With profits of the mind, study and fast." 
 
 But he wanted the one sustaining principle 
 by which Isabella was upheld. Ulrici has 
 sketched his character vigorously and truly : 
 " Angelo, who makes profession of a ri- 
 gorous moral purity, boasts continually of 
 Ins virtue, urges chastisement and severity, 
 and inexorably persecutes sin and weakness, 
 who, in fact, has also the will to be what 
 he seems, even he falls from his arrogant 
 height, in a far worse manner, into the same 
 crime that, contrary to his pledged word, he 
 would punish with the full severity of the 
 law. Once subdued by human weakness, he 
 becomes the basest hypocrite and deceiver. 
 The vain self-trusting-virtue shows itself in 
 him in its thorough weakness and inanity." 
 
 After Shakspere had conceived the cha- 
 racter of Isabella, and in that conception 
 had made it certain that her virtue must 
 pass unscathed through the fire, he had to 
 contrive a series of incidents by which the 
 catastrophe should proceed onward through 
 all the stages of Angelo's guilt of inten- 
 tion, and terminate in his final exposure. 
 Mr. Hallam says, " There is great skill in 
 the invention of Mariana, and without this 
 the story could not have anything like a sa- 
 tisfactory termination." But there is great 
 skill also in the management of the incident 
 
 in the Duke's hands, as well as in the inven- 
 tion ; and this is produced by the wonderful 
 propriety with which the character of the 
 Duke is drawn. He is described by Hazlitt 
 as a very imposing and mysterious stage 
 character, absorbed in his own plots and 
 gravity. This is said depreciatingly. But 
 it is precisely this sort of character that 
 Shakspere meant to put in action. Chalmers 
 has a random hit, which comes, we think, 
 something near the truth. " The com- 
 mentators seem not to have remarked that 
 the character of the Duke is a very accurate 
 delineation of that of King James." James 
 was a pedant, and the Duke is a philosopher; 
 but there is the same desire in each to get 
 behind the curtain and pull the strings which 
 move the puppets. We are not sure that 
 Angelo's flattery did not save him, as much 
 as Isabella's intercession : 
 
 " my dread lord, 
 
 I should be guiltier than my guiltiness, 
 
 To think I can be undiscernible, 
 
 When I perceive your grace, like power di- 
 vine, 
 
 Hath look'd upon my passes." 
 
 As a ruler of men the Duke is weak, and he 
 knows his own weakness : 
 
 " Fri. It rested in your grace 
 
 To unloose this tied-up justice when you 
 
 pleased : 
 And it in you more dreadful would have 
 
 seem'd 
 Than in lord Angelo. 
 
 Duke. I do fear, too dreadful : 
 
 Sith 't was my fault to give the people scope, 
 'T would be my tyranny to strike and gall 
 
 them 
 For what I bid them do." 
 
 And yet he does really strike and gall them 
 through another; but he saves himself the 
 labour and the slander. 
 
 And here, then, as it appears to us, we 
 have a key to the purpose of the poet in 
 the introduction of what constitutes the 
 most unpleasant portion of this play, the 
 exhibition of a very gross general profligacy. 
 There is an atmosphere of impurity hanging 
 like a dense fog over the city of the poet. 
 The philosophical ruler, the saintly votaress, 
 and the sanctimonious deputy, appear to be- 
 
320 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 long to another region to that in which they 
 move. The grossness is not merely described 
 or inferred ; but we see those who minister 
 to the corruptions, and we are brought in 
 contact with the corrupted. This, possibly, 
 was not necessary for the higher dramatic 
 effects of the comedy; but it was necessary 
 for those lessons of political philosophy which 
 we think Shakspere here meant to inculcate, 
 and which he appears to us on many occa- 
 sions to have kept in view in his later plays. 
 Mr. Hallam has most truly said of ' Measure 
 for Measure' that "the depths and intricacies 
 of being, which he (Shakspere) has searched 
 and sounded with intense reflection, perplex 
 and harass him." In this play he manifests, 
 as we apprehend, his philosophical view of 
 a corrupt state of manners fostered by weak 
 government : but the subject is scarcely dra- 
 matic, and it struggles with his own pro- 
 per powers. Here we have an exhibition of 
 crimes of passion, and crimes of ignorance. 
 There stands the Duke, the representative of 
 a benevolent and tolerant executive power 
 which does not meddle with the people, 
 which subjects them to no harsh restrictions, 
 which surrounds them with no biting penal- 
 ties ; but which utterly fails in carrying out 
 the essential principle of government when 
 it disregards prevention, and sees no middle 
 course between neglect and punishment. A 
 new system is to be substituted ; the laissez 
 faire is to be succeeded by the " axe upon 
 the block, very ready;" and then come all 
 the commonplaces by which a reign of terror 
 is to be defended : 
 
 " We must not make a scarecrow of the law, 
 Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, 
 And let it keep one shape, till custom make it 
 Their perch, and not their terror." 
 ***** 
 
 " The law hath not been dead, though it hath 
 
 slept : 
 
 Those many had not dared to do that evil, 
 If the first that did the edict infringe 
 Had answer'd for his deed ; now, 't is awake." 
 
 The philosophical poet sweeps these saws 
 away with an indignation which is the more 
 emphatic as coming from the mouth of the 
 only truly moral character of the whole 
 drama : 
 
 " Could great men thunder 
 
 As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be 
 quiet, 
 
 For every pelting, petty officer 
 
 Would use his heaven for thunder : nothing 
 
 but thunder." 
 
 But he does more he exhibits to us the 
 every-day working of the hot fit succeeding 
 the cold of legislative and executive power. 
 It works always with injustice. The Duke 
 of the c<j|Qedy is behind the scenes, and sees 
 how it works. The weak governor resumes 
 his authority, and with it he must resume 
 his principles, and he therefore pardons all. 
 The mouth- repenting deputy, and the callous 
 ruffian, they each escape. We forget ; he 
 does not pardon all; the prating coxcomb, 
 who has spoken slander of his own person, 
 is alone punished. Was this accident in the 
 poet ? Great crimes may be looked over by 
 weak governments, but the pettiest libeller 
 of power is inevitably punished. The cata- 
 strophe of this comedy necessarily leaves 
 upon the mind an unsatisfactory impression. 
 Had Angelo been adequately punished it 
 would have been more unsatisfactory. When 
 the Duke took the managpment of the affair 
 into his own hands, and averted the con- 
 sequences of Angelo's evil 1 - intentions by a 
 series of deceptions, he threw away the 
 power of punishing those evil intentions. 
 We agree with Coleridge that the pardon 
 and marriage of Angelo "baffle the strong 
 indignant claims of justice;" but we cannot 
 see how it could be otherwise. The poet, 
 as it appears to us, exhibits to the end the 
 inadequacy of human laws to enforce public 
 morals upon a system of punishment. But 
 he has not forgotten to exhibit to us in- 
 cidentally the most beautiful lessons of to- 
 lerance; not using 'Measure for Measure' in 
 the sense of the jus tcdionis, but in a higher 
 spirit that spirit which moves Isabella to 
 supplicate for mercy towards him who had 
 most wronged her : 
 
 " Most bounteous sir, 
 
 Look, if it please you, on this man condemn' d, 
 As if my brother lived : I partly think, 
 A due sincerity govern'd his deeds, 
 Till he did look on me ; since it is so, 
 Let him not die." 
 
IV.J 
 
 HAMLET. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 HAMLET. 
 
 THE comprehension of this tragedy is the 
 history of a man's own mind. In some shape 
 or other, "Hamlet the Dane" very early 
 becomes familiar to almost every youth of 
 tolerable education. He is sometimes pre- 
 sented through the medium of the stage ; 
 more frequently in some one of the mani- 
 fold editions of the acted play. The sublime 
 scenes where the ghost appears are known 
 even to the youngest school-boy, in his 
 'Speakers' and 'Headers;' and so is the so- 
 liloquy, "To be, or not to be." As we in 
 early life become acquainted with the com- 
 plete acted play*, we hate the King, we 
 weep for Ophelia, we think Hamlet is 
 cruel to her, we are perhaps inclined with 
 Dr. Johnson to laugh at Hamlet's madness, 
 ("the pretended madness of Hamlet causes 
 much mirth,") we wonder that Hamlet does 
 not kill the King earlier, and we believe, 
 as Grarrick believed, that the catastrophe 
 might have been greatly improved, seeing 
 that the wicked and the virtuous ought not 
 to fall together, as it were by accident. 
 
 A few years onward, and we have become 
 acquainted with the ' Hamlet ' of Shakspere, 
 not the ' Hamlet ' of the players. The 
 book is now the companion of our lonely 
 walks ; its recollections hang about our most 
 cherished thoughts. We think less of the 
 dramatic movement of the play than of the 
 glimpses which it affords of the high and 
 solemn things that belong to our being. 
 We see Hamlet habitually subjected to the 
 spiritual part of his nature, communing 
 with thoughts that are not of this world, 
 abstracted from the business of life, but 
 yet exhibiting a most vigorous intellect, and 
 an exquisite taste. But there is that about 
 him which we cannot understand. Is he 
 essentially " in madness," or mad " only in 
 craft 1 " Where is the line to be drawn be- 
 tween his artificial and his real character? 
 
 * A notice of the earliest edition of Hamlet ' will be 
 found in Book JL, chapter in., pag>> 57. 
 
 There is something altogether indefinable 
 and mysterious in the poet's delineation of 
 this character; something wild and irre- 
 gular in the circumstances with which the 
 character is associated ; we see that Hamlev 
 is propelled, rather than propelling. But 
 why is this turn given to the delineation? 
 We cannot exactly tell. Perhaps some of 
 the very charm of the play to the adult 
 mind is its mysteriousness. It awakes n,ot 
 only thoughts of 'the grand and the beautiful, 
 but of the incomprehensible. Its obscurity 
 constitutes a portion of its sublimity. This 
 is the stage in which most minds are content 
 to rest, and, perhaps, advantageously so, with 
 regard to the comprehension of ' Hamlet.' 
 
 The final appreciation of the * Hamlet ' of 
 Shakspere belongs to the development of the 
 critical faculty, to the cultivation of it by 
 reading and reflection. Without much ac- 
 quaintance with the thoughts of others, many 
 men, we have no doubt, being earnest and 
 diligent students of Shakspere, have ar- 
 rived at a tolerably adequate comprehension 
 of his idea in this wonderful play. In passing 
 through the stage of admiration, they have 
 utterly rejected the trash which the com- 
 mentators have heaped upon it, under the 
 name of criticism, the solemn common- 
 places of Johnson, the flippant and insolent 
 attacks of Steevens. When the one says, 
 " the apparition left the regions of the dead 
 to little purpose," and the other talks of 
 the "absurdities" which deform the piece, 
 and " the immoral character of Hamlet, "- 
 the love for Shakspere tells them, that re- 
 marks such as these belong to the same cUo3 
 of prejudices as Voltaire's " monstruosites et 
 fossoyeurs" But, after they have rejected 
 all that belongs to criticism without love, 
 the very depth of the reverence of another 
 school of critics may tend to perplex them. 
 This is somewhat our own position. The 
 quantity alone that has been written in 
 illustration of ' Hamlet ' is 
 
322 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 Goethe, Coleridge, Schlegel, Lamb, Hazlitt, 
 and we may add Mrs. Jameson, besides 
 anonymous writers out of number, and some 
 of the very highest order of excellence, 
 have brought to the illustration of this play 
 a most valued fund of judgment, taste, and 
 aesthetical knowledge. To condense what 
 is most deserving of remembrance in these 
 admirable productions, within due limits, 
 would be impossible. We must endeavour, 
 therefore, to feel ourselves in the condition 
 of one who has, however imperfectly, worked 
 out in his own mind a comprehension of the 
 idea of Shakspere ; occasionally assisting our 
 development of this inadequate comprehen- 
 sion by a few extracts from some of the elo- 
 quent pages to which we have adverted. 
 
 The opening of ' Hamlet ' is one of the 
 most absorbing scenes in the Shaksperean 
 drama. It produces its effect by the super- 
 natural being brought into the most im- 
 mediate contact with the real. The sentinels 
 are prepared for the appearance of the ghost, 
 Horatio is incredulous, but they are all 
 surrounded with an atmosphere of common 
 life. " Long live the King,"" Get thee to 
 bed," "Tis bitter cold," "Not a mouse 
 stirring," and the familiar pleasantry of 
 Horatio, " a piece of him," exhibit to us 
 minds under the ordinary state of human 
 feeling. At the moment when the recollec- 
 tions of Bernardo arise into that imaginative 
 power which belongs to the tale he is about 
 to tell, the ghost appears. All that was 
 doubtful in the narrative of the supernatural 
 vision what left upon Horatio's mind the 
 impression only of a " thing," becomes as 
 real as the silence, the cold, and the midnight. 
 The vision is then, " most like the King," 
 
 " Such was the very armour he had on." 
 
 The ghost remains but an instant; and we 
 are again amongst the realities of common 
 life, the preparations for war the history 
 of the quarrel that caused the preparation. 
 The vision, in the mind of Horatio, is con- 
 nected with the fates of his " climatures and 
 countrymen." When the ghost re-appears, 
 there is still a tinge of scepticism in the 
 soldiers : 
 
 " Shall I strike at it with my partizan ]" 
 
 But their incredulity is at once subdued ; 
 and a resolution is taken by Horatio upon 
 the conviction that what he once held as a 
 " fantasy," is a dreadful thing, of whose ex- 
 istence there can be no doubt : 
 
 " Let us impart what we have seen to-night 
 Unto young Hamlet : for, upon my life, 
 This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him." 
 
 We have here, by anticipation, all the deep 
 and inexplicable consequences of this vision 
 laid upon young Hamlet ; it is his destiny 
 it is to him the 
 
 " Prologue to the omen coming on." 
 
 Goethe, in his ' Wilhelm Meister,' has 
 made his hero describe the mode in which 
 he endeavoured to understand ' Hamlet.' 
 " I set about investigating every trace of 
 Hamlet's character, as it had shown itself 
 before his father's death. I endeavoured to 
 distinguish what in it was independent of 
 this mournful event ; independent of the 
 terrible events that followed ; and what 
 most probably the young man would have 
 been, had no such, thing occurred." In this 
 spirit he tells us, that he was pleasing, 
 polished, courteous, united the idea of moral 
 rectitude with princely elevation, desirous of 
 praise, puie in sentiment, tasteful, calm in 
 his temper, artless in his conduct, possessing 
 more mirth of humour than of heart. This 
 is ingenious, but it appears to us to refine 
 somewhat too much. In Shakspere's dramas, 
 the characters, as they are developed by the 
 incidents, expound themselves, and in the 
 order in which the exposition becomes neces- 
 sary. Wilhelm Meister's preliminary analysis 
 of Hamlet's character stands only in the 
 place of the description by which dramatists 
 inferior to Shakspere present a character to 
 an audience. Our poet first shows us what 
 Hamlet is, before his mind is laid under the 
 terrific weight and responsibility of a revela- 
 tion. His moral sense is outraged by the in- 
 decent marriage of his mother. We have a 
 slight intimation that his honourable ambi- 
 tion was disappointed in the election of his 
 uncle to the sovereignty. The sudden death 
 of his father had called forth all the sensi- 
 
OHAP. IV.] 
 
 HAMLET. 
 
 323 
 
 bilities that belonged to a deeply meditative 
 nature : 
 
 " I have that within which passeth show." 
 
 It is in this period that his own eujQjled 
 spirit compels him to look with a jaundiced 
 eye upon "all the uses of this wprld," y and.-tb 
 indulge a wish, restrained only by a sense of 
 piety, that the " unweeded garden " might 
 be left by him to be possessed by "things 
 rank, and gross in nature." But he com- 
 munes with himself in a tone which bespeaks 
 the habitual refinement of his thoughts ; and 
 his words shape themselves into images which 
 belong to the high and cultivated intellect. 
 The mode in which he receives Horatio shows 
 that his dejection is not habitual. It has 
 been impressed on his nature by a sudden 
 blow ; a father dead, a mother disgrace- 
 fully married, a crown snatched from him. 
 He welcomes his old friend with the warmth 
 and frankness of the gentleman ; but the 
 abiding sorrow in a moment comes over 
 him :- 
 
 " I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student." 
 
 The disclosure of Horatio's purpose in his 
 visit is admirably managed in its abruptness. 
 Nothing, it appears to us, within the power 
 of language, can produce the effect of the 
 questions which Hamlet puts to Horatio ; 
 and his answer to the somewhat common- 
 place remark, " It would have much amaz'd 
 you ;" " very like, very like," is something 
 beyond art ; it looks like an instinctive per- 
 ception of the most complex mental pro- 
 cesses. 
 
 Coleridge calls the next scene, that be- 
 tween Laertes, Ophelia, and Polonius, " one 
 of Shakspere's lyric movements ;" and he 
 elegantly adds, " you experience the sensa- 
 tion of a pause without the sense of a stop." 
 It was necessary to interpose a scene between 
 Horatio's narrative and the appearance of 
 the ghost to Hamlet ; and the scene before 
 us carries out the dramatic characters which 
 are essential to the plot, without interrupt- 
 ing the main interest. But the hour of 
 Hamlet's trial is come. The revelation is to 
 be made. He is to endure an ordeal which 
 is to shake his disposition, 
 
 "With thoughts beyond the reaches of our 
 souls." , 
 
 The vision, which, even when his incredulity 
 has passed away, seems to Horatio only a 
 "thing majestical," is to Hamlet, "king, 
 father, royal Dane." From the first word 
 of Horatio's narrative to this moment of the 
 real presence of the apparition, Hamlet has 
 no doubts. The excited state of his mind 
 had prepared him to welcome the belief that 
 " there are- more things in heaven and earth 
 than are dreamt of in our philosophy." 
 Beautifully characteristic is his determina- 
 tion to follow the vision ; and when the 
 revelation comes, who could have managed 
 it like Shakspere ! The images are of this 
 world, and are not of this world. They 
 belong \t once to popular superstition, 
 and to the highest poetry. Nothing can be 
 more distinct than the narrative of the 
 vision ; nothing more mysterious than the 
 " eternal blazon " that " must not be to ears 
 of flesh and blood." How exquisite are the 
 last lines of the ghost ; full of the poetry 
 of external nature, and of the depth of 
 human affections, as if the spirit that had 
 for so short a time been cut off from life, 
 to know the secrets of the "prison-house," 
 still clung to the earthly remembrance of 
 the beautiful and the tender that even a 
 spirit might indulge : 
 
 " The glow-worm shows the matin to be near, 
 And 'gins to pale his ineffectual fire : 
 Adieu, adieu, Hamlet ! remember me." 
 
 The modes in which Hamlet thinks aloud, 
 after the spirit has faded away, suggests this 
 subtle illustration to Coleridge : " Shakspere 
 alone could have produced the vow of Ham- 
 let to make his memory a blank of all 
 maxims and generalized truths that ' ob- 
 servation had copied there,' followed im- 
 mediately by the speaker noting down the 
 generalized fact 
 
 'That one may smile, and smile, and.be a 
 villain.' " 
 
 Coleridge, of course, means to offer this as a 
 trait of the disturbance of Hamlet's intel- 
 lect (not madness, even in the popular 
 sense of the term, certainly not madness, 
 
 T 2 
 
324 
 
 STUDIES OP SIIAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 physiologically speaking, but unfixedness, 
 derangement, we would have said, had not 
 that word become a sort of synonym for 
 madness), which Shakspere intended, as it 
 appears to us, to exhibit as the result of his 
 supernatural visitation. Goethe says, " To 
 me it is clear that Shakspere meant, in the 
 present case, to represent the effects of a 
 great action laid upon a soul unfit for the 
 performance of it." Coleridge, in speaking 
 of that part of the scene after the interview 
 with the ghost, in which Hamlet assumes 
 what has been called " an improbable eccen- 
 tricity," attributes to Hamlet " the disposi- 
 tion to escape from his own feelings of the 
 overwhelming and supernatural by a wild 
 transition to the ludicrous, a sort of cunning 
 bravado, bordering on the flights of delirium." 
 He adds, " For you may perhaps observe that 
 Hamlet's wildness is but half false" It is 
 under the immediate influence of this " dis- 
 order in his soul," this " shaking and un- 
 settling of its powers from their due sources 
 of action,"* that Hamlet takes the instan- 
 taneous resolution of feigning himself mad. 
 He feels that his mind is horridly disturbed 
 with thoughts beyond mortal reach ; but he 
 believes that the habitual powers of his in- 
 tellect can control this disturbance, and 
 even render it an instrument of his own 
 safety. The very able writer from whose 
 anonymous paper we have just quoted says, 
 "If there be anything disproportioned in 
 his mind, it seems to be this only, that in- 
 tellect is in excess. It is even ungovernable, 
 and too subtle. His own description of per- 
 fect man, ending with ' In apprehension how 
 like a god ! ' appears to me consonant with 
 that character, and spoken in the high and. 
 overwrought consciousness of intellect. 
 Much that requires explanation in the play 
 may perhaps be explained by this predomi- 
 nance and consciousness of great intellectual 
 power. Is it not possible that the instan- 
 taneous idea of feigning himself mad belongs 
 to this?" 
 
 It is here, then, that the complexity of 
 Hamlet's character begins. It is in the de- 
 scription of Ophelia that he is first presented 
 
 * ' Blackwood's Magazine, vol. n. page 504. 
 
 to us, at some short period after the super- 
 natural visitation : 
 
 " He took me by the wrist, and held me hard ; 
 Then goes he to the length of all his arm; 
 And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow, 
 He falls to such perusal of my face, 
 As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so ; 
 At last, a little shaking of mine arm, 
 And thrice his head thus waving up and 
 
 down, 
 
 He rais'd a sigh so piteous and profound, 
 That it did seem to shatter all his bulk, 
 And end his being : That done, he lets me go : 
 And, with his head over his shoulder turn'd, 
 He seem'd to find his way without his eyes ; 
 For out o' doors he went without their help, 
 And, to the last, bended their light on me." 
 
 This was not the " antic disposition" which 
 Hamlet thought meet to put on. It was 
 not the " ecstacy of love," produced by 
 Ophelia's coldness, according to Polonius. 
 But it was the utterance, as far as it could 
 be uttered, of his sense of the hard necessity 
 that was put upon him to go forth to a 
 mortal struggle with evil powers and in- 
 fluences ; to cast away all the high and 
 pleasant thoughts that belonged to the cul- 
 tivation of his understanding ; to tear him- 
 self from all the soothing and delicious 
 fancies that would arise out of the growth 
 of his affection for that simple maid upon 
 whom he bestowed "a sigh so piteous." 
 Under the pressure of theonjg_jjji&orbmg 
 " commandment " that Tiad been imposed 
 upon him, he had vowed that it should live 
 " within the volume of his brain, unmixed 
 with baser matter." All else in the world 
 had become to him mean and unimportant. 
 TAVA wag pn w ...to him, a "trivial fnnrl re- 
 
 " the wisdom of philosophy, " the saws 
 oF books." AjLJiiha^ymi^^uid^bse^xa* 
 tion copied," was to be forgotten in that 
 dread word, " remember me." But Hamlet 
 had put the "antic disposition on." The 
 King had seen his "transformation." The 
 courtiers talked familiarly of his "lunacy." 
 The disguise which he had adopted was not 
 accidentally chosen, ^he subtlety of his 
 intellect directed him to that tone of way- 
 ward sarcasm in which, while he appeared 
 to others to be merely wandering, the bitter- 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 gess of Jiis soul might be relieved by the 
 utterance of "wild amd hucli&g- words." 
 But even in this disguise his intellectual 
 supremacy is constantly manifested. MIe 
 is far gone, far gone," says Polonius ; but, 
 " how pregnant his replies are," very quickly 
 follows. In the scene with Rosencrantz and 
 Guildenstern the natural Hamlet instantly 
 comes back. They were his school-fellows ; 
 they ought to have been his friends. To 
 them, therefore, he is the Hamlet they once 
 knew ; the gentleman the scholar. He 
 even discloses to them a glimpse of the 
 deep melancholy with which his soul la- 
 boured : " God ! I could be bounded in a 
 nut-shell, and count myself a king of in- 
 finite space ; were it not that I have bad 
 dreams." But he goes no further : he sees 
 through their purpose ; " nay, then I have 
 an eye of you." They were to be spies upon 
 him ; and from that moment he hates them. 
 They stood, or they appeared to stand, be- 
 tween him and the great purpose of his life. 
 But he suppresses his feelings, and bursts 
 out in that majestic piece of rhetoric which 
 could only have been conceived by a being 
 of the highest intellectual power, in the 
 full possession of that power : " What a 
 piece of work is a man ! How noble in reason ! 
 how infinite in faculty ! in form and 
 moving, how express and admirable ! in 
 action, how like an angel ! in apprehension, 
 how like a god ! " The writer in Blackwood 
 truly says, that this is " spoken in the high 
 and overwrought consciousness of intellect." 
 Hamlet has described his melancholy to his 
 old school-fellows,- the indifference with 
 which he views " this visible world." Here 
 again, unquestionably, he is not feigning. 
 He knows that the admission of his melan- 
 choly will put the spies upon a false scent. 
 Burton's ' Anatomy' was not published when 
 Shakspere wrote this play ; and yet how con- 
 sonant is the following passage of that book 
 with Shakspere's conception of the melan- 
 choly Hamlet : " Albertus Durer paints 
 Melancholy like a sad woman, leaning on 
 her arm with fixed looks, neglected habit, 
 &c., held therefore by some proud, soft, sot- 
 tish, or half-mad, as the Abderites esteemed 
 of Democritus : and yet of a deep reach, 
 
 325 
 
 excellent apprehension, judicious, wise, and 
 witty." In the scene with the players Ham- 
 let is perfectly at ease, "judicious, wise, and 
 witty." He has escaped for a moment, out 
 of the dense clouds of the one o'er-mastering 
 thought, into the sunny region of taste 
 and fancy in which he once dwelt. But 
 even here the one thought follows him : 
 " Dost thou hear me, old friend ; can you 
 play the murder of Gonzago ? " Then comes, 
 " Now I am alone ;" and, as Charles Lamb 
 has beautifully expressed it, "the silent 
 meditations with which his bosom is burst- 
 ing are reduced to words, for the sake of the 
 reader." But, in the midst of his paroxysm, 
 his intellectual activity predominates : 
 " About, my brains j" and he escapes from 
 the thought 
 
 " I should have fatted all the region kites 
 
 With this slave's offal," 
 into 
 
 " I '11 have grounds 
 More relative than this : The play's the thing." 
 
 The indecision of Hamlet is thus described 
 by Goethe : I A lovely, pure, noble, and most 
 moral nature, without the strength of nerve 
 which forms a hero, sinks beneath a burden 
 which it cannot bear, and must not cast 
 away.'J The writer in ' Blackwood's Maga- 
 zine' takes another view of this indecision, 
 which, to our minds, is more philosophic: 
 " He sees no course clear enough to satisfy 
 his understanding." Hamlet, be it observed, 
 is not without nerve. Let us recollect " I 
 will watch to-night," and, 
 
 " My fate cries out, 
 
 And makes each petty artery in this body 
 As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve." 
 
 He is not without nerve. But his will is 
 subject to higher faculties. He would have 
 been greater had he been less great. 
 
 We are scarcely yet cognizant of the depths 
 of Hamlet's meditations. Under the first 
 pressure of his wounded sensibilities we have 
 heard him exclaim 
 
 " Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt;' 
 
 but he has since communed with unearthly 
 things, and he now fearlessly approaches the 
 great questions that have reference to the 
 
326 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii 
 
 " something after death," as if the mystery 
 could be pierced by the eye of reason. Of 
 the soliloquy, " To be, or not to be," Coleridge 
 remarks, " This speech is of absolutely 
 universal interest, and yet to which of all 
 Shakspere's characters could it have been 
 appropriately given but to Hamlet ] " But 
 we must mark the period of its introduction. 
 It immediately precedes the scene of Hamlet's 
 abrupt behaviour to Ophelia. It does so in 
 the original sketch. She comes upon him 
 with 
 
 " My lord, I have remembrances of yours," 
 
 at a moment when his mind had surrendered 
 itself to a train of the most solemn thought, 
 induced by following out all the mysterious 
 and fearful circumstances connected with his 
 own being, and the awful responsibilities 
 that were imposed upon him. It appears to 
 us, that his rude denial of having given 
 Ophelia " remembrances," and his " Ha, ha ! 
 are you honest 1 " with all the bitter words 
 that follow, are meant to indicate the dis- 
 turbance which is produced in his mind by 
 the clashing of his love for her with the 
 predominant thought that now makes all that 
 belongs to his personal happiness worthless. 
 His invective against women is not more 
 bitter than his invective against himself: 
 " What should such fellows as I do crawling 
 between heaven and earth ! " His bitterness 
 escapes in generalizations : it is not against 
 Ophelia, but against her sex, that he exclaims. 
 To that gentle creature, the harshest thing 
 he says is, " Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure 
 as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny." 
 Coleridge thinks that the " certain harshness" 
 in Hamlet's manner is produced by his 
 perceiving that Ophelia was acting a part 
 towards him and that they were watched. 
 We doubt whether Shakspere intended 
 Hamlet to be here feigning. The passionate 
 words are merely the exponents of the contest 
 within, the contest between his love and 
 the purpose which appeared to him to exclude 
 all other thoughts. There was a real dis- 
 turbance of his soul, which could only recover 
 its balance by such an outbreak. The 
 character of the disturbance is indicated by 
 the contradiction of " I did love you once," 
 
 and "I loved you not;" and, perhaps, as 
 Lamb expresses it, these "tokens of an 
 unhinged mind" are mixed "with a profound 
 artifice of love, to alienate Ophelia by affected 
 discourtesies, so to prepare her mind for the 
 breaking off of that loving intercourse which 
 can no longer find a place amidst business so 
 serious as that which he has to do." At any 
 rate, the gentle and tender Ophelia is not 
 outraged. Her pity only is excited ; and, if 
 the apparent harshness of Hamlet requires 
 a proper appreciation of his character to 
 reconcile it with our admiration of him, 
 Shakspere has at this moment most adroitly 
 presented to us that description of him which 
 Goethe anticipated 
 
 " The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, 
 
 sword, 
 The expectancy and rose of the fair state." 
 
 Hamlet recovers a temporary tranquillity. 
 He has something to do ; and that something 
 is connected with his great business. It is 
 more agreeable that it postpones that one 
 duty, while it seems to lead onward to it. 
 He has to prepare the players to speak his 
 speech. Those who look upon the surface 
 only may think these directions uncharacter- 
 istic of Hamlet ; but nothing can really be 
 more appropriate than that these rules of art, 
 so just, so universal, and so complete, should 
 be put by Shakspere into the mouth of him 
 who had pre-eminently "the scholar's tongue." 
 Hamlet revels in this lesson; and it has 
 produced a calm in his spirits, which is 
 displayed in that affectionate address to 
 Horatio, in which he appears to repose upon 
 his friend as one 
 
 "Whose blood and judgment are so well co- 
 
 mingled," 
 
 to be, as it were, a prop to his own " weakness 
 and melancholy." Be it observed that this 
 is the first indication we have had that he 
 has admitted Horatio into his confidence : 
 
 " There is a play to-night before the king : 
 One scene of it comes near the circumstance 
 Which I have told thee of my father's death." 
 
 The satisfaction he takes in the device of the 
 "one scene" the hopes which he has that 
 his doubts may be resolved lend a real 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 HAMLET. 
 
 327 
 
 elevation to his spirits, which may pass for 
 his feigned " madness." He utters whatever 
 comes uppermost ; and the freedoms which 
 he takes with Ophelia, while they are equally 
 remote from bitterness or harshness, are such 
 as in Shakspere's age would not offend pure 
 cars. The mixture in his wild speeches of 
 fun and pathos is nevertheless most touching. 
 " What should a man do, but be merry ? " 
 comes from the profoundest depths of a 
 wounded spirit. The test is applied; the 
 King is "frighted with false fire," his 
 " occulted" guilt has unkennelled itself. The 
 elation of Hamlet's mind is at its height. 
 His contempt of the King is openly pro- 
 nounced to his creatures ; Rosencrantz and 
 Guildenstern quail before his biting sarcasm ; 
 Polonius is his butt. All this is, as he 
 thinks, the coruscations of the cloud before 
 the deadly flash. " Now could I drink hot 
 blood," is the feeling that is at the bottom of 
 all. Then comes the scene in which the King 
 prays, and Hamlet postpones his revenge, 
 with an excuse almost too dreadful to belong 
 to human motives. They were not his motives. 
 Coleridge discriminates between " impetuous, 
 horror-striking fiendishness," and "the marks 
 of reluctance and procrastination;" and it is 
 sufficient to note this distinction, without 
 entering into any refutation of opinions which 
 show that it is easier to write mouthingly or 
 pertly, as some have done, than to understand 
 Shakspere. It is in the scene with the Queen 
 that Hamlet vindicates his own sanity 
 
 " It is not madness 
 
 That I have uttered : bring me to the test, 
 And I the matter will re-word; which madness 
 Would gambol from." 
 
 This is 'Shakspere's Test of Insanity ;' the 
 title of an Essay by Sir H. Halford, in which 
 lie illustrates from his experience the ac- 
 curacy of our great poet's delineations of the 
 phenomena of mental disorder. Our readers 
 will find a very able article on this Essay in 
 ' The Quarterly Review,' vol. xlix. p. 181. 
 
 Hamlet al 'stained from killing the King 
 when he was " praying." This was a part 
 of his weakness. But he did not abandon 
 his purpose. The forced devotion of the 
 guilty man, the " physic," as Hamlet calls 
 
 it, did but prolong his "sickly days." Polonius 
 falls by an accident, instead of his " betters." 
 The "wretched, rash, intruding fool" was 
 sacrificed to a sudden impulse, which stood 
 in the place of a determinate exercise of the 
 will. Hamlet scarcely regrets the accident : 
 " take thy fortune." His mind is eased by 
 his colloquy with his mother. The vision 
 again appears to whet his " almost blunted 
 purpose ; " but nothing is done. His intellect 
 is again at its subtleties : 
 
 " There 's letters seal'd : and my two school- 
 fellows, 
 
 Whom I will trust, as I will adders fang'd, 
 They bear the mandate; they must sweep my 
 
 way, 
 
 And marshal me to knavery: Let it work; 
 For 't is the sport, to have the engineer 
 Hoist with his own petar : and 't shall go hard, 
 But I will delve one yard below their mines, 
 And blow them at the moon." 
 
 He casts himself like a feather upon the 
 great wave of fate ; he embraces the events 
 that marshalled him "to knavery." Dangerous 
 as they be, they are better than doubt. He 
 believes that he pierces through the darkness 
 of his fate : " I see a cherub, that sees him." 
 He leaves for England; not forgetting him 
 whose 
 
 " Form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to 
 
 stones, 
 Would make them capable;" 
 
 but still meditating instead of acting. It 
 would be a curious problem to be solved, 
 but it will never be solved, whether Shakspere 
 himself obliterated the scene which only 
 appears in the second quarto*, in which the 
 workings of Hamlet's mind at this juncture 
 are so distinctly revealed to us. That he 
 meant the character to be mysterious, though 
 not inexplicable, there can be no doubt. Does 
 it become too plain when Hamlet's meeting 
 with the Norwegian captain leads him into a 
 train of thought, at first made up of gene- 
 ralizations, but in the end most conclusive as 
 to the causes of his indecision ? 
 
 " Now, whether it be 
 Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple 
 
 * Act iv., Scene iv. 
 
I 328 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vn 
 
 Of thinking too precisely on the event, 
 
 (A thought, which, quartered, hath but one 
 
 part wisdom, 
 
 And ever, three parts coward), I do not know 
 Why yet I live to say, 'This thing's to do;' 
 Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and 
 
 means, 
 To do V 
 
 It was not " bestial oblivion."- Oh, no. The 
 eternal presence of the thought "this 
 thing 's to do,'-' made him incapable of doing 
 it. It was the "thinking too precisely on 
 the event" that destroyed his will. It was 
 in the same spirit that his will had been 
 "puzzled" by the "dread of something after 
 death," that his conscience (conscious- 
 ness) "sicklied o'er" his "native hue of 
 resolution." The "delicate and tender prince" 
 exposed what was mortal and unsure to 
 fortune, death, and danger, even for an egg- 
 shell. Twenty thousand men, for a fantasy 
 and trick of fame, went to their graves like 
 beds. But, then, the men and their leader 
 made " mouths at the invisible event." The 
 " large discourse" of Hamlet, "looking before, 
 and after," absorbed the tangible and present. 
 In actions that appear indirectly to advance 
 the execution of the great "commandment" 
 that was laid upon him, he has decision and 
 alacrity enough. His relation to Horatio 
 (we are somewhat anticipating) of his suc- 
 cessful device against Rosencrantz and 
 Guildenstern would appear to come from a 
 man who is all will. His intellectual activity 
 revels in the telling of the story. Coleridge 
 has admirably pointed out, in ' The Friend,' 
 how "the circumstances of time and place 
 are all stated with equal compression and 
 rapidity ;" but still, with the relater's general 
 tendency to generalize. The event has 
 happened, and Hamlet does not think too 
 precisely of its consequences. The issue will 
 be shortly known. 
 
 " It will be short : the interim is mine ; 
 And a man's life's no more than to say one." 
 
 This looks like decision, growing out of the 
 narrative of the events in which Hamlet had 
 exhibited his decision. But, even in his own 
 account, the beginning of this action was his 
 
 " indiscretion," proceeding from sudden anc 
 indefinable impulses : 
 " Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting 
 
 That would not let me sleep." 
 Wonderfully, indeed, has Shakspere managed 
 to follow the old history "How Fengon 
 devised to send Hamlet to the king of England 
 with secret letters to have him put to death, 
 and how Hamlet, when his companions slept, 
 read the letters, and, instead of them, 
 counterfeited others, willing the king of 
 England to put the two messengers to death," 
 without destroying the unity of his own 
 conception of Hamlet. 
 
 / Mrs. Jameson, in her delightful ' Character- 
 istics of Women,' has sketched the character 
 of Ophelia with all a woman's truth and 
 tenderness. One passage only can we venture 
 to take, for it is an image that to our minds 
 is far better than many words : " Once at 
 Murano, I saw a dove caught in a tempest ; 
 perhaps it was young, and either lacked 
 strength of wing to reach its home, or the 
 instinct which teaches to shun the brooding 
 storm; but so it was and I watched it, 
 pitying, as it flitted, poor bird ! hither and 
 thither, with its silver pinions shining against 
 the black thunder-cloud, till, after a few 
 giddy whirls, it fell, blinded, affrighted, and 
 bewildered, into the turbid wave beneath, 
 and was swallowed up for ever. It reminded 
 me then of the fate of Ophelia; and now, 
 when I think of her, I see again before me 
 that poor dove, beating with weary wing, 
 bewildered amid the storm." And why is it, 
 when we think upon the fate of the poor 
 storm-striken Ophelia, that we never reproach 
 Hamlet? We are certain that it was no 
 " trifling of his favour" that broke her heart. 
 We are assured that his seeming harshness 
 did not sink deep into her spirit. We believe 
 that he loved her more than " forty thousand 
 brothers "-^though a very ingenious question 
 has been raised upon that point.1 And yet 
 she certainly perished through Hamlet and 
 his actions. But we blame him not ; for her 
 destiny was involved in his. ^We cannot 
 avoid transcribing a passage from the article 
 in 'Blackwood's Magazine,' which we have 
 already mentioned : " Soon as we connect her 
 destiny with Hamlet, we know that darkness 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 HAMLET. 
 
 329 
 
 is to overshadow her, and that sadness and 
 sorrow will step in between her and the 
 ghost-haunted avenger of his father's murder. 
 Soon as our pity is excited for her, it con- 
 tinues gradually to deepen ; and, when she 
 appears in her madness, we are not more 
 prepared to weep over all its most pathetic 
 movements than we afterwards are to hear 
 of her death. Perhaps the description of 
 that catastrophe by the Queen is poetical 
 rather than dramatic; but its exquisite 
 beauty prevails, and Ophelia, dying and dead, 
 is still the same Ophelia that first won our 
 love. Perhaps the very forgetfulness of her, 
 throughout the remainder of the play, leaves 
 the soul at full liberty to dream of the 
 departed. She has passed away from the 
 earth like a beautiful air a delightful dream. 
 There would have been no place for her in 
 the agitation and tempest of the final 
 catastrophe." / 
 
 Garrick omitted the grave-diggers. He 
 had the terror of Voltaire before his eyes. 
 The English audience compelled their resto- 
 ration. Was it that " the groundlings " could 
 not endure the loss of the ten waistcoats 
 which the clown had divested himself of, 
 time out of mind? or, was there in this 
 scene something that brought Hamlet home 
 to the humblest, in the large reach of his 
 universal philosophy 1 M. Yillemain, in his 
 Essay on Shakspere, appears to us utterly to 
 have mistaken this scene*: "Strike not out 
 from the tragedy of 'Hamlet,' as Garrick 
 had attempted to do, the labours and the 
 pleasantries of the grave-diggers. Be present 
 at this terrible buffoonery; and you will 
 behold terror and gaiety rapidly moving an 
 
 immense audience Youth and beauty 
 
 contemplate with insatiable curiosity images 
 of decay, and minute details of death ; and 
 then the uncouth pleasantries which are 
 blended with the action of the chief per- 
 sonages seem from time to time to relieve 
 the spectators from the weight which oppresses 
 them, and shouts of laughter burst from every 
 seat. Attentive to this spectacle, the coldest 
 countenances alternately manifest their gloom 
 or their gaiety; and even the statesman 
 
 * We translate from the last edition of his Essay. Paris, 
 1839. 
 
 smiles at the sarcasm of the grave-digger 
 who can distinguish between the skull of a 
 courtier and a buffoon." This may be the 
 Hamlet of the theatre; but M. Villemain 
 should have looked at the Hamlet of the 
 closet. The conversation of the clowns before 
 Hamlet comes upon the scene is indeed 
 pleasantry intermixed with sarcasm ; but, the 
 moment that Hamlet opens his lips, the 
 meditative richness of his mind is poured out 
 upon us, and he grapples with the most 
 familiar and yet the deepest thoughts of 
 human nature, in a style that is sublime 
 from its very obviousness and simplicity. 
 Where is the terror, unless it be terrible to 
 think of " the house appointed for all living ;" 
 and what is to provoke the long peals of 
 laughter, where the grotesque is altogether 
 subordinate to the solemn and the philo- 
 sophical ? It is the entire absorption of the 
 fellow who " has no feeling of his business," 
 by him of " daintier sense " who considers it 
 "too curiously," that makes this scene so 
 impressive to the reader. 
 
 Of Hamlet's violence at the grave of Ophelia 
 we think with the critic on Sir Henry Hal- 
 ford's Essay, that it was a real aberration, 
 and not a simulated frenzy. His apparently 
 cold expression, " What, the fair Ophelia ! " 
 appears to us to have been an effort of 
 restraint, which for the moment overmastered 
 his reason. In the interval between this 
 " towering passion " and the final catastrophe, 
 Hamlet is thoroughly himself meditative 
 to excess with Horatio most acute, playful, 
 but altogether gentlemanly, in the scene 
 with the frivolous courtier. But observe 
 that he forms no plans. He knows the danger 
 which surrounds him ; and he still feels with 
 regard to the usurper as he always felt : 
 
 " Is 't not perfect conscience, 
 To quit him with this arm ]" 
 
 But his will is still essentially powerless ; and 
 now he yields to the sense of predestination : 
 " If it be now, 't is not to come ; if it be not 
 to come, it will be now ; if it be not now, yet 
 it will come: the readiness is all." The 
 catastrophe is perfectly in accordance with 
 this prostration of Hamlet's mind. It is the 
 result of an accident, produced we know not 
 
330 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPEKE. 
 
 [BOOK vn. 
 
 how. Some one has suggested a polite 
 ceremonial on the part of Hamlet, by which 
 the foils might be exchanged with perfect 
 consistency. We would rather not know how 
 they were exchanged. " The catastrophe," 
 says Johnson, " is not very happily produced ; 
 the exchange of weapons is rather an ex- 
 pedient of necessity than a stroke of art. 
 A scheme might easily be formed to kill 
 Hamlet with the dagger, and Laertes with 
 the bowl." No doubt. A tragedy terminated 
 by chance appears to be a capital thing for 
 the rule-and-line men to lay hold of. But 
 they forget the poet's purpose. Had Hamlet 
 been otherwise, his will would have been the 
 predominant agent in the catastrophe. The 
 empire of chance would have been over-ruled ; 
 the guilty would have been punished; the 
 innocent perhaps would have been spared. 
 
 Have we lost anything? Then we should 
 not have had the Hamlet who is " the darling 
 of every country in which the literature of 
 England has been fostered;"* then we 
 should not have had the Hamlet who is " a 
 concentration of all the interests that belong 
 to humanity ; in whom there is a more intense 
 conception of individual human life than 
 perhaps in any other human composition: 
 that is, a being with springs of thought, and 
 feeling, and action, deeper than we can 
 search ; " f then we should not have had the 
 Hamlet, of whom it has been said, " Hamlet 
 is a name ; his speeches and sayings but the 
 idle coinage of the poet's brain. What, then, 
 are they not real ? They are as real as our 
 own thoughts. Their reality is in the reader's 
 mind. It is we who are Hamlet." $ 
 
 * Coleridge. 
 
 t Blackwood, vol. ii. 
 
 Hazlitt. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OTHELLO. 
 
 ON the 6th of October, 1621, Thomas Walk- 
 ley entered at Stationers' Hall l The Tragedie 
 of Othello, the Moore of Venice.' In 1622, 
 Walkley published the edition for which he 
 had thus claimed the copy. It is, as was 
 usual with the separate plays, a small quarto, 
 and it bears the following title : ' The Tra- 
 gcedy of Othello, the Moore of Venice. As 
 it hath beene diverse times acted at the 
 Globe, and at the Black-Friars, by his Majes- 
 ties Servants. Written by William Shake- 
 speare.' It contains, also, a prefatory ad- 
 dress, which is curious : " The Stationer to 
 the Reader. To set forth a book without an 
 Epistle were like to the old English proverb, 
 a Hue coat without a badge; and the au- 
 thor being dead, I thought good to take that 
 piece of work upon me : to commend it I 
 will not; for that which is good, I hope 
 every man will commend, without entreaty : 
 and I am the bolder, because the author's 
 name is sufficient to vent his work. Thus 
 leaving every one to the liberty of judgment, 
 I have ventured to print this play, and leave 
 
 it to the general censure. Yours, Thomas 
 Walkley." 
 
 'The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of 
 Venice,' commences on page 310 of the Tra- 
 gedies in the first folio collection. It extends 
 to page 339 ; and after it follow, ' Antony 
 and Cleopatra,' and 'Cymbeline.' It is not 
 entered at Stationers' Hall by the proprie- 
 tors of the folio edition, which affords some 
 presumption that Walkley was legally en- 
 titled to his copy. But it is by no means 
 certain to our minds that Walkley's edition 
 was published before the folio. The usual 
 date of that edition is, as our readers know, 
 1623 ; but there is a copy in existence bear- 
 ing the date of 1622. We have, however, 
 no doubt, that the copy of ' Othello ' in the 
 folio was printed from a manuscript copy, 
 without reference to the quarto ; for there 
 are typographical errors in the folio, arising, 
 no doubt, from illegibility in the manuscript, 
 which would certainly have been avoided 
 had the copy been compared with an edition 
 printed from another manuscript. The fair 
 
CHAP. V.] OTE 
 
 inference, therefore, is, that the ' Othello ' of 
 the folio was printed off before the quarto 
 of 1622 appeared. Had it been the last 
 play in the book, we should have retained 
 the same opinion, from internal evidence. 
 As two plays succeed it in the volume, we are 
 strengthened in the belief that the original 
 quarto and folio editions were printing at 
 one and the same time. The folio edition is 
 regularly divided into acts and scenes ; the 
 quarto edition has not a single indication of 
 any subdivision in the acts, and omits the 
 division between Acts II. and III. The 
 folio edition contains 163 lines which are 
 not found in the quarto, and these some of 
 the most striking in the play : the number 
 of lines found in the quarto which are not 
 in the folio do not amount to 10. 
 
 The date of the first production of ' Othello' 
 is settled as near as we can desire it to be. 
 The play certainly belongs to the most 
 vigorous period of Shakspere's intellect 
 "at its very point of culmination." Chal- 
 mers, upon the very questionable belief that 
 the expression new heraldry refers to the 
 creation by James I. of the order of baronets, 
 gave it to 1614 ; Mai one, in the early edi- 
 tions of his 'Essay,' to 1611; Drake, to 
 1612. In the later edition of Malone's 
 'Essay,' published by Boswell, in 1821, 
 Malone says, without any explanation, " we 
 know it was acted in 1604, and I have there- 
 fore placed it in that year." Mr. Collier, 
 however, has been able most satisfactorily to 
 place it two years earlier. There are de- 
 tailed accounts preserved at Bridgewater 
 House, in the handwriting of Sir Arthur 
 Mainwaring, of the expenses incurred by 
 Sir Thomas Egerton, afterwards Lord Elles- 
 mere, in entertaining Queen Elizabeth and 
 her court three days at Harefield. Amongst 
 the entries in these accounts is the follow- 
 ing : 
 
 "6 Aug. 1602. Rewardes to the 
 
 Vaulters, Players, and 
 
 Dauncers. Of this 10 
 
 to Burbidge's players of 
 
 Othello . . . . 64 18 10." 
 Burbidge's players were those of the Black- 
 friars and Globe Shakspere's company. Mr. 
 Collier adds, " Perhaps it is not too much to 
 
 331 
 
 presume that the dramas represented on 
 these joyous occasions for the amusement of 
 Elizabeth were usually new and popular 
 performances. ' Othello ' was unquestionably 
 popular, and most likely new, in 1602."* 
 
 When Shakspere first became acquainted 
 with the 'Moor of Venice' of Giraldi Cinthi 
 (whether in the original Italian, or the 
 French translation, or in one of the little 
 story-books that familiarized the people 
 with the romance and the poetry of the 
 south), he saw in that novel the scaffolding 
 of ' Othello.' There was formerly in Venice 
 a valiant Moor, says the story. It came to 
 pass that a virtuous lady of wonderful 
 beauty, named Desdemona, became ena- 
 moured of his great qualities and noble 
 virtues. The Moor loved her in return, and 
 they were married in spite of the opposition 
 of the lady's friends. It happened too (says 
 the story) that the senate of Venice ap- 
 pointed the Moor to the command of Cyprus, 
 and that his lady determined to accompany 
 him thither. Amongst the officers who at- 
 tended upon the General was an ensign, of 
 the most agreeable person, but of the most 
 depraved nature. The wife of this man was 
 the friend of Desdemona, and they spent 
 much of their time together. The wicked 
 ensign became violently enamoured of Des- 
 demona ; but she, whose thoughts were 
 wholly engrossed by the Moor, was utterly 
 regardless of the ensign's attentions. His 
 love then became terrible hate, and he re- 
 solved to accuse Desdemona to her husband 
 of infidelity, and to connect with the accusa- 
 tion a captain of Cyprus. That officer, having 
 struck a sentinel, was discharged from his 
 command by the Moor ; and Desdemona, 
 interested in his favour, endeavoured to re- 
 instate him in her husband's good opinion. 
 The Moor said one day to the ensign, that 
 his wife was so importunate for the restora- 
 tion of the officer, that he must take him 
 back. " If you would open your eyes, you 
 would see plainer," said the ensign. The 
 romance-writer continues to display the per- 
 fidious intrigues of the ensign against Des- 
 demona. He steals a handkerchief which 
 
 * ' New Particulars ,' dec. 
 

 332 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 the Moor had given her, employing the 
 agency of his own child. He contrives with 
 the Moor to murder the captain of Cyprus, 
 after he has made the credulous husband 
 listen to a conversation to which he gives a 
 false colour and direction ; and, finally, the 
 Moor and the guilty officer destroy Desde- 
 mona together, under circumstances of great 
 brutality. The crime is, however, concealed, 
 and the Moor is finally betrayed by his 
 accomplice. 
 
 Mr. Dunlop, in his ' History of Fiction,' 
 has pointed out the material differences be- 
 tween the novel and the tragedy. He adds, 
 " In all these important variations, Shak- 
 spere has improved on his original. In a 
 few other particulars he has deviated from 
 it with less judgment ; in most respects he 
 has adhered with close imitation. The cha- 
 racters of lago, Desdemona, and Cassio are 
 taken from Cinthio with scarcely a shade of 
 difference. The obscure hints and various 
 artifices of the villain to raise suspicion in 
 the Moor are the same in the novel and the 
 drama." M. Guizot, with the eye of real 
 criticism, has seen somewhat further than 
 Mr. Dunlop. "There was wanting in the 
 narrative of Cinthio the poetical genius 
 which furnished the actors which created 
 the individuals which imposed upon each a 
 figure and a character which made us see 
 their actions, and listen to their words 
 which presented their thoughts and pene- 
 trated their sentiments : that vivifying 
 power which summons events to arise, to 
 progress, to expand, to be completed : that 
 creative breath which, breathing over the 
 past, calls it again into being, and fills it 
 with a present and imperishable life : this 
 was the power which Shakspere alone pos- 
 sessed, and by which, out of a forgotten 
 novel, he has made ' Othello.' " 
 
 Before we can be said to understand the 
 idea of Shakspere in the composition of 
 ' Othello,' we must disabuse ourselves of 
 some of the commonplace principles upon 
 which he has been interpreted. The novel, 
 be it observed, is a very intelligible and con- 
 sistent story, of wedded happiness, of unlaw- 
 ful and unrequited attachment, of revenge 
 growing out of disappointment, of jealousy 
 
 too easily abused, of confederacy with the 
 abuser, of most brutal and guilty violence, 
 of equally base falsehood and concealment. 
 This is a story in which we see nothing out 
 of the common course of wickedness ; no- 
 thing which licentious craft might not 
 prompt, and frenzied passion adopt. The 
 lago of the tragedy, it is said, has not suffi- 
 cient motives for his crimes. Mr. Skottowe 
 tells us that in the novel, except as a means 
 of vengeance on Desdemona, the infliction 
 of pain upon the Moor forms no part of the 
 treacherous officer's design. But, with re- 
 gard to the play, he informs us, that it is 
 surely straining the matter beyond the limits 
 of probability to attribute lago's detestation 
 of Othello to causes so inadequate and vague 
 as the dramatist has assigned*. We have 
 here the two principles upon which the 
 novelist and the dramatist worked thoroughly 
 at issue ; and the one is to be called natural, 
 and the other unnatural. The one would 
 have produced such an 'Othello' as is 
 cleverly described in the introduction to a 
 French translation of the play recently pub- 
 lished f : in which the nature of jealousy 
 and all its cruel effects would have been ex- 
 plained, with great pomp of language, by a 
 confidante in an introductory monologue ; 
 and the same subject would have served for 
 a continued theme, until the fatal conclusion, 
 which was long foreseen, of an amiable wife 
 becoming the victim of a cruel oppressor. 
 This is the Zaire of Voltaire. Upon the 
 other principle, we have no explanations, no 
 regular progress of what is most palpable in 
 human action. We have the "motiveless 
 malignity " of Tago, " a being next to devil, 
 and only not quite devil, and yet a character 
 which Shakspeare has attempted and ex- 
 ecuted without scandal," t as the main 
 spring of all the fearful events which issue 
 out of the unequal contest between the 
 powers of grossness and purity, of falsehood 
 and truth. This is the Othello of Shak- 
 spere. 
 
 If it had been within the compass of 
 
 * The Life of Shakspeare.' By Augustine Skottowe. 
 Vol. ii. p. 76. 
 
 t ' Chefs-d'GEuvre de Shakspeare. Tomeii . Paris, 1839. 
 t Coleridge. 
 
CHAP. V.] OTH 
 
 Shakspere's great scheme of the exposition 
 of human actions and the springs of action, 
 to have made lago a supernatural incarna- 
 tion of the principle of evil, he would not 
 have drawn him very differently from what 
 he is. In all essentials he is "only not 
 quite devil." He is very much less " than 
 archangel ruined." Milton, when he paints 
 his Satan as about to plunge our first parents 
 in irretrievable misery, makes him exhibit 
 " signs of remorse :" 
 
 " Should I at your harmless inno- 
 cence 
 
 Melt, as \ do, yet public reason just, 
 Honour and empire with revenge enlarged, 
 By conquering this new world, compels me 
 
 now 
 To do what else, though damn'd, I should 
 
 abhor. 
 
 So spake the Fiend/ and with necessity, 
 The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds." 
 
 When lago beholds a picture of happiness, 
 not much inferior to that upon which the 
 Satan of Milton looked, he has no compunc- 
 tious visitings at the prospect of destroying 
 it : 
 
 " Oh, you are well tuned now ! 
 
 But I'll set down the pegs that make this 
 
 music, 
 As honest as I am." 
 
 But there is another great poetical creation 
 to which lago bears more resemblance the 
 Mephistophiles of Goethe. Take away the 
 supernatural power in Mephistophiles, and 
 the sense of the supernatural power in Faust, 
 and the actions of the human fiend and of 
 the real fiend are reduced to pretty much 
 the same standard. It could not be other- 
 wise. Goethe, to make the incarnation of 
 the evil principle intelligible in its dealing 
 with human affairs, could only paint what 
 Shakspere has painted a being passionless, 
 self-possessed, unsympathizing, sceptical of 
 all truth and purity, intellectually gross and 
 sensual, of a will uncontrolled by fear for 
 himself or respect for others, the abstract 
 of the reasoning power in the highest state 
 of activity, but without love, without vene- 
 ration, without hope, unspiritualized, earthy. 
 Mephistophiles and lago have this in com- 
 
 333 
 
 mon, also, that they each seek to destroy 
 their victims through their affections, and 
 each is successful in the attempt. If Shak- 
 spere had made lago actually exhibit the 
 vulgar attributes of the fiend, when Othello 
 exclaims 
 
 " I look down towards his feet " 
 
 would the character have been a particle 
 more real 1 Fiends painted by men are but 
 reflections of the baser principles of hu- 
 manity. Shakspere embodied those prin- 
 ciples in lago ; and, it being granted that 
 great talent combined with an utter destitu- 
 tion of principle, and a complete denudation 
 of sympathy, has produced the monsters 
 which history has described, who shall say 
 that the character is exaggerated 1 
 
 The list of "persons represented," affixed 
 to the folio edition of Othello, and called 
 "the names of the actors," is as little 
 wanted for the information of the reader of 
 this tragedy as any preparatory scenic de- 
 scription of the characters. In this list we 
 have " lago, a villain," " Roderigo, a gull'd 
 gentleman." But Shakspere has given us 
 very clear indications by which to know the 
 gull from the rogue. We have not read a 
 dozen sentences before we feel the intel- 
 lectual vigour of lago, and the utter want 
 of honour, which he is not ashamed to avow. 
 He parries in an instant the complaint of 
 Roderigo, 
 
 " That thou, lago, who hast had my purse," 
 
 and commands a sympathy with his own 
 complaints against the Moor. He is not 
 nice in the avowal of his principles of ac- 
 tion : 
 
 " In following him I follow but myself." 
 
 He lays bare, without the slightest appre- 
 hension, the selfish motives upon which he 
 habitually acts. And is not this nature 1 
 Roderigo, blinded by his passion and vanity, 
 overlooks, as all men do under similar cir- 
 cumstances, the risk which he himself runs 
 from such a confederate ; and lago knows 
 that he will overlook it. He never makes a 
 similar exposition of himself directly to 
 persons of nice honour and sensitive morality. 
 To Othello he is the hypocrite : 
 
334 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vn. 
 
 " I lack iniquity, 
 
 Sometime to do me service." 
 And therefore, in Othello's opinion, 
 
 " A man he is of honesty and trust." 
 And even to the " gull'd gentleman," while 
 he is counselling the most abominable wicked- 
 ness, he is a sort of moralist, up to the point 
 of securing attention and belief : " our 
 bodies are our gardens." When he is alone, 
 he revels in the pride of his intellect : 
 " Thus do I ever make my fool my purse : 
 
 For I mine own gain'd knowledge should pro- 
 fane, 
 
 If I would time expend with such a snipe, 
 
 But for my sport and profit." 
 To Desdemona, in the first scene at Cyprus, 
 he is " nothing if not critical," according 
 to his own account, but retailing " old 
 fond paradoxes," to conceal his real opinions. 
 When he tasks his understanding to meet 
 Desdemona's demand of " What praise 
 couldst thou bestow on a deserving wo- 
 man indeed 1 " he exhibits the very per- 
 fection of satirical verse, the precise 
 model of the poetry of smartness and 
 antithesis, the light without warmth of 
 cleverness without feeling. To Cassio, a 
 frank and generous soldier, somewhat easily 
 tempted to folly, and with morals loose 
 enough, but not so loose as to destroy his 
 native love of truth and purity, he ventures 
 to exhibit himself more openly. The dia- 
 logue in the third scene of the second act, 
 where they discourse of Desdemona, is a key 
 to the habitual grossness of his imagination. 
 His sarcasm to Cassio after the anger of 
 Othello, "As I am an honest man, I had 
 thought you had received some bodily wound ; 
 there is more sense in that than in reputa- 
 tion," discloses the utter absence from his 
 mind of the principle of honour. And then, 
 again, he can accommodate himself to all the 
 demands of the frankest joviality : 
 
 " And let me the canakin clink, clink." 
 Other dramatists would have made him 
 gloomy and morose, but Shakspere knew 
 that the boon companion, and the cheat and 
 traitor, are not essentially distinct characters. 
 In these lighter demonstrations of his real 
 nature we have seen the clever scoundrel 
 
 and the passionless sensualist tainted with 
 impurity to the extremest depth of his will 
 and his understanding. We have seen, too, 
 at the very commencement of the play, his 
 hatred to Othello exhibited in the rousing 
 up of Desdemona's father. We have learned 
 something, also, of the motive of this hatred 
 the preferment of Cassio : 
 
 " Now, sir, be judge yourself, 
 
 Whether I in any just term am affined 
 To love the Moor." 
 
 But it remained for lago himself, thinking 
 aloud, or, as we call it, soliloquizing, to dis- 
 close the entire scope of his villainy. He is 
 to get Cassio's place, and " to abuse Othello's 
 ear." To justify even to himself this second 
 fiendish determination, he shows us, as Cole- 
 ridge has beautifully expressed it, "the 
 motive hunting of a motiveless malignity." 
 We may well add with Coleridge, " how 
 awful it is ! " To understand the confidence 
 with which lago exclaims, " I have it, it is 
 engender'd," we must examine the elements 
 of Othello's character. 
 
 lago paints the Moor with bitter satire, 
 as one " loving his own pride and purposes." 
 He exhibits him lofty and magniloquent, 
 using " a bombast circumstance." This is 
 the mode in which a cold, calculating man 
 of the world looks upon the imaginative 
 man. The practical men, as they are called, 
 regard with dislike those who habitually 
 bring high thoughts and forcible expressions 
 into the commerce of life. And yet lago is 
 compelled to do justice to the Moor's high 
 talent : 
 
 "Another of his fathom they have none, 
 To lead their business." 
 
 The frankness and generosity of the Moor, 
 on the contrary, is a subject for his utter 
 scorn. Here he has no sympathy with 
 him : 
 " The Moor is of a free and open nature, 
 
 That thinks men honest that but seem to 
 be so ; 
 
 And will as tenderly be led by the nose, 
 
 As asses are." 
 Again, 
 
 The Moor howbeit that I endure him not 
 Is of a constant, loving, noble nature." 
 
CHAP. V.j 
 
 OTHELLO. 
 
 335 
 
 It is his dependence upon this constant, 
 loving, noble nature, it is upon Othello's 
 freedom from all low suspicion, that lago 
 relies for his power to 
 
 "Make the Moor thank me, love me, and 
 
 reward me, 
 
 For making him egregiously an ass, 
 And practising upon his peace and quiet 
 Even to madness." 
 
 But let Othello speak for himself. Not vain, 
 but proud ; relying upon himself, his birth, 
 his actions, he is calm at the prospect of any 
 injury that Brabantio can do him. He is 
 bold when he has to confront those who come 
 as his enemies : 
 
 " I must be found ; 
 
 My parts, my title, and my perfect soul, 
 Shall manifest me rightly." 
 
 When the old senator exclaims, " down with 
 him thief ! " how beautiful is his self-com- 
 mand ! 
 
 " Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will 
 rust them." 
 
 It was his forbearance and self-restraint, 
 bottomed upon the most enthusiastic energy, 
 that made him a hero. When he is wrought 
 into frenzy, lago himself is surprised at the 
 storm which he has produced ; and he looks 
 upon the tempest of passion as a child does 
 upon some machine which he has mis- 
 chievously set in motion for damage and 
 destruction, but which under guidance is a 
 beautiful instrument of usefulness. " Can 
 he be angry 1 " Ludovico, in the same way, 
 does justice to his habitual equanimity : 
 
 " Is this the noble Moor whom our full senate 
 Call all-in-all sufficient 1 ? Is this the nature 
 Whom" passion could not shake V 
 
 The senate scene is the triumph of Othello's 
 perfect simplicity and fearless enthusiasm : 
 
 " I think this tale would win my daughter too." 
 
 And then his affection for Desdemona. Before 
 the assembled senators he puts on no show 
 of violence no reality, and, unquestionably, 
 no affectation, of warmth and tenderness : 
 
 " She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd. 
 And I loved her that she did pity them." 
 
 But when the meeting comes at Cyprus, 
 after their separation and their danger, the 
 depth of his affection bursts forth in irre- 
 pressible words : 
 
 " If it were now to die, 
 
 'T were now to be most happy; for, I fear 
 My soul hath her content so absolute, 
 That not another comfort like to this 
 Succeeds in unknown fate." 
 
 Such are the materials upon which lago has 
 to work in Othello. But, had Desdemona 
 been otherwise than she was, his success 
 would not have been so assured. Let us 
 dwell for a moment upon the elementary 
 character of this pure and gentle being. 
 Desdemona's father first describes h jr : 
 
 " A maiden never bold ; 
 
 Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion 
 Blush'd at herself." 
 
 Yet upon her very first appearance she does 
 not shrink from avowing the strength of her 
 affections : 
 
 " That I love the Moor to live with him, 
 My downright violence and storm of fortunes 
 May trumpet to the world." 
 
 But she immediately adds the reason for 
 
 this : 
 
 " My heart 's subdued 
 
 Even to the very quality of my lord" 
 
 The impressibility of Desdemona is her dis- 
 tinguishing characteristic. With this key, 
 the tale of Othello's wooing is a most con- 
 sistent one. The timid girl is brought into 
 immediate contact with the earnest warrior. 
 She hears of wonders most remote from her 
 experience; caves and deserts, rocks and 
 h,ills, in themselves marvels to an inhabitant 
 of the city of the sea, 
 
 " Of most disastrous chances ; 
 
 Of moving accidents by flood and field." 
 
 How exquisite is the domestic picture which 
 follows : 5--- 
 
 " But still the house affairs would draw her 
 
 thence ; 
 
 Which ever as she could with haste despatch, 
 She 'd come again, and with a greedy ear 
 Devour up my discourse." 
 
 But this impressibility, this exceedii!: 
 
336 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 pathy arising out of the tenderness of her 
 nature, is under the control of the most 
 perfect purity. lago does full justice to this 
 purity, whilst he sees that her kindness of 
 heart may be abused : 
 
 " For 't is most easy 
 The inclining Desdemona to subdue 
 In any honest suit; she 's framed as fruitful 
 As the free elements." 
 
 Her confidence in the power which she 
 possesses over Othello is the result of the 
 perfect sympathy which she has bestowed 
 and received. And her zeal in friendship, 
 without a thought that she might be mis- 
 taken, has its root in the same confiding 
 nature : 
 
 " I give thee warrant of thy place : assure thee, 
 If 1 do vow a friendship 1 11 perform it 
 To the last article." 
 
 The equivocation about the handkerchief is 
 the result of the same impressibility. She is 
 terrified out of her habitual candour. The 
 song of ' Willow,' and the subsequent dialogue 
 with Emilia, are evidences of the same sub- 
 jection of the mind to external impressions. 
 But her unassailable purity is above all. 
 " I do not think there is any such woman," 
 is one of those minute touches which we in 
 vain seek for in any other writer but Shak- 
 spere. 
 
 Understanding, then, the native characters 
 of Othello and Desdemona, we shall appre- 
 ciate the marvellous skill with which Shak- 
 sperc has conducted the machinations of 
 lago. If the novel of Cinthio had fallen 
 into common hands to be dramatized, and 
 the dramatist had chosen to depart from 
 the motive of revenge against Desdemona 
 which there actuates the villain, the plot 
 would probably have taken this course : 
 The Desdemona would have been some- 
 what less pure than our Desdemona ; the 
 Cassio would have been somewhat more 
 presumptuous than our Cassio, and have 
 not felt for Desdemona the religious ve- 
 neration which he feels ; the Othello would 
 have been " easily jealous," and would have 
 done something " in hate," but not " all 
 in honour," as our Othello. It is a part of 
 the admirable knowledge of human nature 
 
 possessed by Shakspere, that lago does not, 
 even for a moment, entertain the thought of 
 tampering with the virtue of Desdemona, 
 either through Gassio, or Roderigo, or any 
 other instrument. Coleridge has boldly and 
 truly said that " Othello does not kill Des- 
 demona in jealousy, but in a conviction 
 forced upon him by the almost superhuman 
 art of lago such a conviction as any man 
 would and must have entertained who had 
 believed lago's honesty as Othello did. We, 
 the audience, know that lago is a villain 
 from the beginning ; but, in considering the 
 essence of the Shaksperean Othello, we must 
 perseveringly place ourselves in his situation, 
 and under his circumstances." 
 
 But Othello was not only betrayed by his 
 reliance on "lago's honesty," but also by 
 his confidence in lago's wisdom : 
 " This fellow 's of exceeding honesty, 
 
 And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit, 
 
 Of human dealings." 
 Again, 
 " thou art wise ; 't is certain." 
 
 When Othello thus bows his own lofty 
 nature before the grovelling but most acute 
 worldly intellect of lago, his habitual view 
 of " all qualities " had been clouded by the 
 breath of the slanderer. His confidence in 
 purity and innocence had been destroyed. 
 The sensual judgment of " human dealings " 
 had taken the place of the spiritual. The 
 enthusiastic love and veneration of his wife 
 had been painted to him as the result of 
 gross passion: 
 
 " Not to affect many proposed matches/' &c. 
 His belief in the general prevalence of vir- 
 tuous motives and actions had been degraded 
 to a reliance on the libertine's creed that all 
 are impure : 
 
 " there 's millions now alive," &c. 
 
 When the innocent and the high-minded 
 submit themselves DO the tutelage of the 
 man of the world, as he is called, the process 
 of mental change is precisely that produced 
 in the mind of Othello. The poetry of life 
 is gone. On them never more 
 " The freshness of the heart can fall like dew." 
 They abandon themselves to the betrayer, 
 
CHAP. VI.J 
 
 KING LEAK. 
 
 337 
 
 and they prostrate themselves before the 
 energy of Ms "gained knowledge." They 
 feel that in their own original powers of 
 judgment they have no support against the 
 dogmatism, and it may be the ridicule, of 
 experience. This is the course with the 
 young when they fall into the power of 
 the tempter. But was not Othello in all 
 essentials young? Was he not of an en- 
 thusiastic temperament, confiding, loving, 
 most sensitive to opinion, jealous of his 
 honour, truly wise, had he trusted to his 
 own pure impulses ? But he was most 
 weak, in adopting an evil opinion against 
 his own faith, and conviction, and proof, in 
 his reliance upon the honesty and judgment 
 of a man whom he really doubted and had 
 never proved. Yet this is the course by 
 which the highest and noblest intellects are 
 too often subjected to the dominion of the 
 subtle understanding and the unbridled will. 
 It is an unequal contest between the prin- 
 ciples that are struggling for mastery in 
 the individual man, when the attributes of 
 the serpent and the dove are separated, and 
 become conflicting. The wisdom which be- 
 longed to Othello's enthusiastic temperament 
 
 was his confidence in the truth and purity of 
 the being with whom his life was bound up, 
 and his general reliance upon the better part 
 of human nature, in his judgment of his 
 friend. When the confidence was destroyed 
 by the craft of his deadly enemy, his sustain- 
 ing power was also destroyed ; the balance 
 of his sensitive temperament was lost; his 
 enthusiasm became wild passion ; his new 
 belief in the dominion of grossness over the 
 apparently pure and good shaped itself into 
 outrage ; his honour lent itself to schemes of 
 cruelty and revenge. But, even amidst the 
 whirlwind of this passion, we every now and 
 then hear something which sounds as the 
 softest echo of love and gentleness. Perhaps 
 in the whole compass of the Shaksperean 
 pathos there is nothing deeper than "But 
 yet the pity of it, lago ! Oh, lago, the pity of 
 it, lago ! " It is the contemplated murder of 
 Desdemona which thus tears his heart. But 
 his " disordered power, engendered within 
 itself to its own destruction," hurries on the 
 catastrophe. We would ask, with Coleridge, 
 " As the curtain drops, which do we pity the 
 most?" 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 KING LEAR. 
 
 THE first edition of ( King Lear ' was pub- 
 lished in 1608; its title was as follows: 
 'Mr. William Shake-speare his True Chronicle 
 History of the Life and Death of King Lear, 
 and his three Daughters. With the un- 
 fortunate Life of Edgar, Sonne and Heire 
 to the Earle of Glocester, and his sullen 
 and assumed Humour of Tom of Bedlam. 
 As it was plaid before the King's Majesty 
 at White-Hall, uppon S. Stephens Night ; 
 in Christmas Hollidaies. By his Majesties 
 Servants playing usually at the Globe on the 
 Banck-side. Printed for Nathaniel Butter, 
 and are to be sold at his Shop in Paul's 
 Church-yard at the Signe of the Pied Bull 
 
 neere St. Austins Gate, 1608.' Two other 
 editions were published by Butter in the 
 same year. It is remarkable that a play of 
 which three editions were demanded in one 
 year should not have been reprinted till it 
 was collected in the folio of 1623. Other of 
 the plays, which were originally published in 
 a separate form during the poet's life-time, 
 were frequently reprinted before the folio 
 collection. Whether 'Lear' was piratical, or 
 whether a limited publication was allo'wed, it 
 is clear, we think, that by some interference 
 the continued publication was stopped. 
 
 In the folio text of ' Lear,' as compared 
 with the text of the quarto, there are verbal 
 
338 
 
 STUDIES OF SUAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 corrections, and additions and omissions ; but 
 in the quarto text of that play the metrical 
 arrangement is one mass of confusion. This 
 circumstance appears to us conclusive that 
 these quarto copies could not have been 
 printed from the author's manuscript ; and 
 yet they might have been printed from a 
 genuine playhouse copy. The text of the 
 folio, in one material respect, differs con- 
 siderably from that of the quartos. Large 
 passages which are found in the quartos are 
 omitted in the folio : there are, indeed, some 
 lines found in the folio which are not in the 
 quartos, amounting to about fifty. These 
 are scattered passages, not very remarkable 
 when detached, but for the most part essential 
 to the progress of the action or to the develop- 
 ment of character. On the other hand, the 
 lines found in the quartos which are not in 
 the folio amount to as many as two hundred 
 and twenty-five ; and they comprise one en- 
 tire scene, and one or two of the most striking 
 connected passages in the drama. It would 
 be easy to account for these omissions by 
 the assumption that in the folio edition the 
 original play was cut down by the editors ; 
 for ' Lear,' without the omissions, is one 
 amongst the longest of Shakspere's plays. 
 But this theory would require us to assume, 
 also, that the additions to the folio were 
 made by the editors. These comprise several 
 such minute touches as none but the hand of 
 the master could have superadded. 
 
 The period of the first production of ' Lear' 
 may be fixed with tolerable certainty. We 
 collect, from the registers of the Stationers' 
 Company, that 'Lear' was played before King 
 James, at Whitehall, upon St. Stephen's night, 
 in the year 1606 that is, on the 26th of De- 
 cember. Here is the limit in one direction. 
 In the other direction we have the publi- 
 cation, in 1603, of Harsnet's ' Declaration 
 of egregious Popish Impostures,' from which 
 book Shakspere undoubtedly derived some 
 materials which he employed in the assumed 
 madness of Edgar. It is pretty clear, also, 
 from two passages in the text of the quarto 
 editions, that the author or the actors of the 
 tragedy, " as it was played before the king's 
 majesty," were careful to make two minute 
 changes which would be agreeable to James. 
 
 After the accession of James, when he was 
 proclaimed King of Great Britain, it was 
 usual to merge the name of England in that 
 of Britain. Bacon thus explains the com- 
 pletion of the old prophecy, " When hernpe 
 is sponne, England 's donne." The ancient 
 metrical saying, " Fy, fo, fum, I smell the 
 blood of an English man," becomes in ' Lear,' 
 " I smell the blood of a British man ; " and 
 in the quarto editions (Act IV., Scene 6) we 
 have 
 
 " And give the letters, which thou find'st about 
 
 me, 
 
 To Edmund, earl of Gloster ; seek him out 
 Upon the British party." 
 
 The allusions derived from Harsnet's book 
 fix the -date of the tragedy as near as we can 
 desire it to be fixed. All that we can hope 
 for in these matters is an approximation to a 
 date. It is sufficient for us to be confirmed, 
 through such a fact, in the belief, derived from 
 internal evidence, that ' Lear ' was produced 
 at that period when the genius of Shakspere 
 was " at its very point of culmination." 
 
 The story of ' Lear ' belongs to the popular 
 literature of Europe. It is a pretty episode 
 in the fabulous chronicles of Britain ; and, 
 whether invented by the monkish historians, 
 or transplanted into our annals from some 
 foreign source, is not very material. In the 
 ' Gesta Romanorum,' the same story is told of 
 Theodosius, " a wise emperor in the city of 
 Rome." Douce has published this story from 
 the manuscript in the Harleian Collection. 
 It may be sufficient to give the beginning of 
 this curious narrative, to show how clearly 
 all the histories have been derived from a 
 common source : 
 
 " Theodosius regned, a wys emperour in the 
 cite of Rome, and myghti he was of power ; the 
 whiche emperour had thre doughters. So hit 
 liked to this emperoar to knowe which of his 
 doughters lovid him best. And tho he seid to 
 the eldest doughter, how moche lovist thou me ? 
 fforsoth, quod she, more than I do myself, there- 
 fore, quod he, thou shalt be hily avaunsed, and 
 maried her to a riche and myghti kyng. Tho 
 he cam to the secund, and seid to her, doughter, 
 how moche lovist thou me ] As moche forsoth, 
 she seid, as I do myself. So the emperour 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 KING LEAR. 
 
 339 
 
 marled her to a clue. And tho he seid to the 
 third doughter, how moche lovist thou me 1 ? 
 fforsoth, quod she, as moche as ye beth worthi, 
 and no more. Tho seid the emperour, doughter, 
 sith thou lovist me no more, thou shalt not be 
 maried so richely as thi susters beth. And tho 
 he maried her to an erle." 
 
 The French have a famous romance entitled 
 ' La tres elegante delicieuse melliflue et tres 
 plaisante kystoire du tres victorieux & ex- 
 cellentissime Roy Perceforest Roy de la grant 
 Bretaigne,' of the veritable contents of which 
 an account will be found in the ' Censura 
 Literaria,' vol. viii. These chronicles, ac- 
 cording to Sir Egerton Brydges, " begin with 
 the foundation of Troy, which they affirm to 
 have been in the third age of the world, and 
 that it was taken while Abdon was judge 
 over Israel. The travels of Brutus, and his 
 wars in Great Britain and Aquitaine, follow, 
 which took place while Saul reigned in Judea, 
 and Aristeus in Lacedemon. His grandson, 
 Rududribas, father of the celebrated Bladud, 
 founded the ancient city of Canterbury, which 
 occurred during the time in which Haggai, 
 Amos, and Joel prophesied. These curious 
 circumstances are succeeded by the story of 
 Lear (son to Bladud) and his three daughters, 
 which was in the time of Isaiah and Hosea, 
 I at which period also the city of Rome was 
 I bounded." The exact chronology of the 
 J romancers and chroniclers is well worthy 
 attention. Geoffrey of Monmouth is quite 
 i as precise as Pierceforest : " At this time 
 j nourished the prophets Isaiah and Hosea, 
 j and Rome was built upon the eleventh of the 
 Calends of May, by the two brothers Romulus 
 and Remus." With such unquestionable 
 authority for the date of the story of Lear, 
 well may Malone have been shocked when 
 Edgar says, " Nero was an angler in the lake 
 of darkness ;" and we ought to be grave when 
 we are also informed, with the most perfect 
 gravity, "Nero is introduced in the present 
 play above eight hundred years before he 
 was born." Shakspere found the story in his 
 favourite Holinshed ; and he probably did 
 not trouble himself to refer to Geoffrey of 
 Monmouth, from whom Holinshed abridged 
 it. We subjoin the legend as told by 
 Holinshed : 
 
 " Leir, the son of Baldud, was admitted ruler 
 over the Britains in the year of the world 3105. 
 At what time Joas reigned as yet in Juda. 
 This Leir was a prince of noble demeanour, 
 governing his land and subjects in great wealth. 
 He made the town of Cairleir, now called 
 Leicester, which standeth upon the river of 
 Dore. It is writ that he had by his wife three 
 daughters, without other issue, whose names 
 were Gonorilla, Regan, and Cordilla, which 
 daughters he greatly loved, but especially the 
 youngest, Cordilla, far above the two elder. 
 
 " When this Leir was come to great years, 
 and began to wear unwieldy through age, he 
 thought to understand the affections of his 
 daughters towards him, and prefer her whom 
 he best loved to the succession of the kingdom ; 
 therefore, he first asked Gonorilla, the eldest, 
 how well she loved him : the which, calling her 
 gods to record, protested that she loved him 
 more than her own life, which by right and 
 reason should be most dear unto her ; with 
 which answer the father, being well pleased, 
 turned to the second, and demanded of her 
 how well she loved him ] which answered (con- 
 firming her sayings with great oaths) that she 
 loved him more than tongue can express, and 
 far above all other creatures in the world. 
 
 " Then called he his youngest daughter, 
 Cordilla, before him, and asked of her what 
 account she made of him : unto whom she 
 made this answer as followeth : Knowing the 
 great love and fatherly zeal you have always 
 borne towards me (for the which, that I may not 
 answer you otherwise than I think, and as my 
 conscience leadeth me), I protest to you that 
 I have always loved you, and shall continually 
 while I live love you, as my natural father; 
 and if you would more understand of the love 
 that I bear you, ascertain yourself, that so much 
 as you have, so much you are worth, and so 
 much I love you, and no more. 
 
 " The father, being nothing content with this 
 answer, married the two eldest daughters, the 
 one unto the duke of Cornwall, named Henninus, 
 and the other unto the duke of Albania, called 
 Maglamis ; and betwixt them, after his death, 
 he willed and ordained his land should be di- 
 vided, and the one-half thereof should be im- 
 mediately assigned unto them in hand ; but for 
 the third daughter, Cordilla, he reserved nothing. 
 
 " Yet it foi omed that one of the princes of 
 Gallia (which now is called France), whose name 
 was Aganippus, hearing of the beauty, woman- 
 
 z 2 
 
340 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 hood, and good conditions of the said Cordilla, 
 desired to have her in marriage, and sent over j 
 to her father, requiring that he might have her 
 to wife ; to whom answer was made, that he 
 might have his daughter, but for any dowry 
 he could have none, for all was promised and 
 assured to her other sisters already. 
 
 " Aganippus, notwithstanding this answer of 
 denial to receive anything by way of dower with 
 Cordilla, took her to wife, only moved thereto 
 (I say) for respect of her person and amiable 
 virtues. This Aganippus was one of the twelve 
 kings that ruled Gallia in those days, as in the 
 British history it is recorded. But to proceed : 
 after that Leir was fallen into age, the two dukes 
 that had married his two eldest daughters, 
 thinking it long ere the government of the 
 land did come to their hands, arose against him 
 in armour, and reft from him the governance of 
 the land, upon conditions to be continued for 
 term of life : by the which he was put to his 
 portion ; that is, to live after a rate assigned to 
 him for the maintenance of his estate, which 
 in process of time was diminished, as well by 
 Maglanus as by Henninus. 
 
 " But the greatest grief that Leir took was to 
 see the unkindness of his daughters, who seemed 
 to think that all was too much which their father 
 had, the same being never so little, in so much 
 that, going from the one to the other, he was 
 brought to that misery that they would allow 
 him only one servant to wait upon him. In 
 the end, such was the unkindness, or, as I may 
 say, the unnaturalness, which he found in his 
 two daughters, notwithstanding their fair and 
 pleasant words uttered in time past, that, being 
 constrained of necessity, he fled the land, and 
 sailed into Gallia, there to seek some comfort of 
 his youngest daughter, Cordilla, whom before he 
 hated. 
 
 " The lady Cordilla, hearing he was arrived 
 in poor estate, she first sent to him privately 
 a sum of money to apparel himself withall, 
 and to retain a certain number of servants, that 
 might attend upon him in honourable wise, as 
 appertained to the estate which he had borne. 
 And then, so accompanied, she appointed 
 him to come to the court, which he did, and 
 was so joyfully, honourably, and lovingly re- 
 ceived, both by his son-in-law Aganippus, and 
 also by his daughter Cordilla, that his heart was 
 greatly comforted : for he was no less honoured 
 than if he had been king of the whole country 
 himself. Also, after that he had informed his 
 
 son-in-law and his daughter in what sort he had 
 been used by his other daughters, Aganippus 
 caused a mighty army to be put in readiness, 
 and likewise a great navy of ships to be rigged 
 to pass over into Britain, with Leir his father-in- 
 law, to see him again restored to his kingdom. 
 
 " It was accorded that Cordilla should also 
 go with him to take possession of the land, 
 the which he promised to leave unto her, as 
 his rightful inheritor after his decease, not- 
 withstanding any former grants made unto her 
 sisters, or unto their husbands, in any manner 
 or wise; hereupon, when this army and navy 
 of ships were ready, Leir and his daughter 
 Cordilla, with her husband, took the sea, and, 
 arriving in Britain, fought with their enemies, 
 and discomfirted them in battle, in the which 
 Maglanus and Henninus were slain, and then 
 was Leir restored to his kingdom, which he 
 ruled after this by the space of two years, and 
 then died, forty years after he first began to 
 reign. His body was buried at Leicester, in 
 a vault under the channel of the river Dore, 
 beneath the town." 
 
 The subsequent fate of Cordelia is also 
 narrated by Holinshed. She became Queen 
 after her father's death; but her nephews 
 "levied war against her, and destroyed a 
 great part of the land, and finally took her 
 prisoner, and laid her fast in ward, wherewith 
 she took such grief, being a woman of a 
 manly courage ; and, despairing to recover 
 liberty, there she slew herself." Spenser, in 
 the second book of ' The Fairy Queen,' 
 canto 10, has told the story of Lear and his 
 daughters, in six stanzas, in which he has 
 been content to put in verse, with very slight 
 change or embellishment, the narrative of 
 the chroniclers. The concluding stanza will 
 be a sufficient specimen : 
 
 " So to his crown she him restor'd again, 
 In which he dy'd, made ripe for death by eld, 
 And after will'd it should to her remain; 
 Who peaceably the same long time did weld, 
 And all men's hearts in due obedience held; 
 Till that her sisters' children, woxen strong, 
 Through proud ambition against her rebell'd, 
 And overcomen, kept in prison long, 
 Till, weary of that wretched life, herself she 
 
 hong." 
 
 The story of Lear had unquestionably been 
 dramatised before Shakspere produced his 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 KING LEAR. 
 
 341 
 
 tragedy. l The true Chronicle History of 
 King Leir and his three Daughters, Gonorill, 
 Ragan, and Cordelia, as it hath been divers 
 and sundry times lately acted,' was printed, 
 probably for the first time, in 1605; but 
 there can be no doubt that it belongs to a 
 period some ten, fifteen, or perhaps twenty 
 years earlier. In 1594 an entry was made 
 at Stationers' Hall, of 'The moste famous 
 Chronicle Hystorie of Leire King of England, 
 and his Three Daughters.' Theobald calls 
 this old play "an execrable performance;" 
 Percy, " a very poor and dull performance;" 
 and Capell, " a silly old play." It is certainly 
 all these, when compared with the wonderful 
 production of Shakspere ; but we are by no 
 means certain that it is not as good as half 
 the pieces which occupied the stage, and not 
 unsuccessfully, at the very time that Shak- 
 spere had produced some of his most glorious 
 works. We subjoin a scene which will enable 
 our readers to compare it with the first scene 
 of Shakspere's ' Lear.' 
 
 "Lear. Dear Gonoril, kind Eegan, sweet 
 
 Cordelia, 
 
 Ye flourishing branches of a kingly stock, 
 Sprung from a tree that once did flourish 
 
 green, 
 
 Whose blossoms now are nipt with winter's frost, 
 And pale grim death doth wait upon my steps, 
 And summons me unto his next assizes. 
 Therefore, dear daughters, as ye tender the 
 
 safety 
 
 Of him that was the cause of your first being, 
 Resolve a doubt which much molests my mind, 
 Which of you three to me would prove most 
 
 kind; 
 Which loves me most, and which at my 
 
 request 
 
 Will soonest yield unto their father's best. 
 " Gonoril. I hope, my gracious father makes 
 
 no doubt 
 
 Of any of his daughters' love to him : 
 Yet, for my part, to show my zeal to you, 
 Which cannot be in windy words rehears'd, 
 I prize my love to you at such a rate, 
 I think my life inferior to my love. 
 Should you enjoin me for to tie a millstone 
 About my neck, and leap into the sea, 
 At your command I willingly would do it : 
 Yea, for to do you good, I would ascend 
 The highest turret in all Brittany, 
 And from the top leap headlong to the ground : 
 
 Nay, more, should you appoint me for to marry 
 The meanest vassal in the spacious world, 
 Without reply I would accomplish it: 
 In brief, command whatever you desire, 
 And, if I fail, no favour I require. 
 
 " Lear. Oh, how thy words revive my dying 
 
 soul! 
 
 " Cordelia. Oh, how I do abhor this flattery ! 
 "Lear. But what saith Regan to her 
 
 father's will ] 
 "Regan. Oh, that my simple utterance could 
 
 suffice 
 
 To tell the true intention of my heart, 
 Which burns in zeal of duty to your grace, 
 And never can be quench'd, but by desire 
 To show the same in outward forwardness. 
 Oh, that there were some other maid that 
 
 durst 
 
 But make a challenge of her love witti me ; 
 I 'd make her soon confess she never loved 
 Her father half so well as I do you. 
 I then my deeds should prove in plainer case, 
 How much my zeal aboundeth to your grace : 
 But for them all, let this one mean suffice 
 To ratify my love before your eyes : 
 I have right noble suitors to my love, 
 No worse than kings, and haply I love one : 
 Yet, would you have me make my choice anew, 
 I 'd bridle fancy, and be ruled by you. 
 
 " Lear. Did never Philomel sing so sweet 
 
 a note. 
 " Cordelia. Did never flatterer tell so false 
 
 a tale. 
 " Lear. Speak now, Cordelia, make my joys 
 
 at full, 
 
 And drop down nectar from thy honey lips. 
 " Cordelia. I cannot paint my duty forth in 
 
 words, 
 
 I hope my deeds shall make report for me : 
 But look what love the child doth owe the 
 
 father, 
 
 The same to you I bear, my gracious lord. 
 "Gonoril. Here is an answer answerless 
 
 indeed : 
 Were you my daughter, I should scarcely 
 
 brook it. 
 
 "Regan. Dost thou not blush, proud pea- 
 cock as thou art, 
 
 To make our father such a slight reply] 
 " Lear. Why how now, minion, are you 
 
 grown so proud] 
 
 Doth our dear love make you thus peremptory ] 
 What, is your love become so small to us, 
 As that you scorn to tell us what it is] 
 
342 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPEBE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 Do you love us, as every child doth love 
 Their father ] True indeed, as some, 
 Who by disobedience short their father's days, 
 And so would you; some are so father-sick, 
 That they make means to rid them from the 
 
 world ; 
 
 And so would you : some are indifferent, 
 Whether their aged parents live or die; 
 And so are you. But, didst thou know, 
 
 proud girl, 
 
 What care I had to foster thee to this, 
 Ah, then thou wouldst say as thy sisters do : 
 Our life is less, than love we owe to you. 
 " Cordelia. Dear father, do not so mistake 
 
 my words, 
 
 Nor my plain meaning be misconstrued; 
 My tongue was never used to flattery. 
 
 " Gonoril. You were not best say I flatter: 
 
 if you do, 
 
 My deeds shall shew, I flatter not with you. 
 I love my father better than thou canst. 
 " Cordelia. The praise were great, spoke 
 
 from another's mouth : 
 But it should seem your neighbours dwell 
 
 far off. 
 " Regan. Nay, here is one, that will confirm 
 
 as much 
 
 As she hath said, both for myself and her. 
 I say, thou dost not wish my father's good. 
 
 " Cordelia. Dear father 
 
 "Lear. Peace, bastard imp, no issue of 
 
 king Lear, 
 
 1 will not hear thee speak one tittle more. 
 Call not me father, if thou love thy life, 
 Nor these thy sisters once presume to name : 
 Look for no help henceforth from me or mine; 
 Shift as thou wilt, and trust unto thyself: 
 My kingdom will I equally divide 
 'Twixt thy two sisters to their royal dower, 
 And will bestow them worthy their deserts : 
 This done, because thou shalt not have the hope 
 To have a child's part in the time to come, 
 I presently will dispossess myself, 
 And sot up these upon my princely throne. 
 " Gonoril. I ever thought that pride would 
 
 have a fall. 
 "Regan. Plain-dealing sister: your beauty 
 
 is so sheen, 
 
 You need no dowry, to make you be a queen. 
 {Exeunt LEAK, GONORIL, KEGAN." 
 
 Mr. Skottowe has, with great diligence and 
 minuteness, attempted to trace Shakspere in 
 what he is supposed to have "borrowed from 
 
 the old play, and also in the points of 
 difference. Our readers will easily imagine, 
 from the extract with which we have furnished 
 them, that Shakspere had, at all events, to 
 create the poetical diction of ' Lear,' without 
 any obligation to his lumbering predecessor. 
 In the conduct of the plot he is equally 
 original. It may be sufficient for us to state 
 that of the madness of Lear we have no trace 
 in the old play ; and that, like the chronicle, 
 it ends with the triumphant restoration of 
 Lear to his kingdom. 
 
 There is a ballad, printed in Percy's 
 'Reliques,' on the story of Lear. It is 
 without a date, and Percy says, "Here is 
 found the hint of Lear's madness, which the 
 old chronicles do not mention, as also the 
 extravagant cruelty exercised on him by his 
 daughters. In the death of Lear they like- 
 wise very exactly coincide. The misfortune 
 is, that there is nothing to assist us in 
 ascertaining the date of the ballad but what 
 little evidence arises from within." We print 
 the passages to which Percy alludes : 
 " Her father, old king Leir, this while 
 
 With his two daughters staid; 
 Forgetful of their promised loves, 
 
 Full soon the same decay'd ; 
 And living in queen Ragan's court, 
 
 The eldest of the twain, 
 She took from him his chiefest means, 
 
 And most of all his train. 
 " For, whereas twenty men were wont 
 
 To wait with bended knee, 
 She gave allowance but to ten, 
 
 And after scarce to three : 
 Nay, one she thought too much for him : 
 
 So took she all away, 
 In hope that in her court, good king, 
 
 He would no longer stay. 
 " 'Am I rewarded thus,' quoth he, 
 
 ' In giving all I have 
 Unto my children, and to beg 
 
 For what I lately gave? 
 I '11 go unto my Qonorell ; 
 
 My second child, I know, 
 Will be more kind and pitiful, 
 
 And will relieve my woe.' 
 " Full fast he hies then to her court; 
 Where when she hears his moan, 
 Returu'd him answer, That she grie^d 
 That all his means were gone : 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 KING LEAR. 
 
 343 
 
 But no way could relieve his wants; 
 
 Yet if that he would stay 
 Within her kitchen, he should have 
 
 What scullions gave away. 
 **** 
 
 " And calling to remembrance then 
 
 His youngest daughter's words, 
 That said, the duty of a child 
 
 Was all that love affords; 
 But doubting to repair to her, 
 
 Whom he had banish'd so, 
 Grew frantic mad ; for in his mind 
 
 He bore the wounds of woe : 
 " Which made him rend his milk-white locks 
 
 And tresses from his head, 
 And all with blood bestain his cheeks, 
 
 With age and honour spread; 
 To hills and woods and wat'ry founts 
 
 He made his hourly moan, 
 Till hills and woods and senseless things 
 
 Did seem to sigh and groan. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 " And so to England came with speed, 
 
 To re-possess king Leir, 
 And drive his daughters from their thrones 
 
 By his Cordelia dear: 
 Where she, true-hearted noble queen, 
 
 Was in the battle slain : 
 Yet he, good king, in his old days, 
 
 Possess'd his crown again. 
 " But when he heard Cordelia's death, 
 
 Who dy'd indeed for love 
 Of her dear father, in whose cause 
 
 She did this battle move; 
 He swooning fell upon her breast, 
 
 From whence he never parted : 
 But on her bosom left his life, 
 
 That was so truly hearted. 
 " The lords and nobles, when they saw 
 
 The ends of these events, 
 The other sisters unto death 
 
 They doomed by consents; 
 And being dead, their crowns they left 
 
 Unto the next of kin : 
 Thus have you seen the fall of pride, 
 
 And disobedient sin." 
 
 In Sidney's 'Arcadia' there is a chapter 
 entitled ' The pitiful state and story of the 
 Paphlagonian unkind king, and his kind 
 son, first related by the son, then by the 
 blind father.' This unquestionably furnished 
 the dramatic foundation of Gloster and 
 
 Edgar. It may be sufficient for us to give 
 the relation of the " kind son :" 
 
 " This old man, whom I lead, was lately 
 rightful prince of Paphlagonia, by the hard- 
 hearted ungratefulness of a son of his, deprived 
 not only of his kingdom, but of his sight, the 
 riches which nature grants to the poorest crea- 
 tures; whereby and by other his unnatural 
 dealings, he hath been driven to such griefs, as 
 even now he would have had me to have led 
 him to the top of this rock, thence to cast him- 
 self headlong to death; and so would have had 
 me, who received my life of him, to be the 
 worker of his destruction." 
 
 Criticism, as far as regards the very 
 highest works of art, must always be a 
 failure. What criticism (and in that term 
 we include description and analysis) ever 
 helped us to an adequate notion of the Bel- 
 vedere Apollo, or the Cartoons of Raffaelle ? 
 We may try to apply general principles to 
 the particular instances, as far as regards 
 the ideal of such productions ; or, what is 
 more common, we may seize upon the salient 
 points of their material and mechanical ex- 
 cellences. If we adopt this comparatively 
 easy and therefore common course, criticism 
 puts on that technical and pedantic form 
 which is the besetting sin of all who attempt 
 to make the great works of painting or 
 sculpture comprehensible by the medium of 
 words. If we take the more difficult path, 
 we are quickly involved in the vague and 
 obscure, and end in explanations without 
 explanation. "The Correggiescity of Cor- 
 reggio," after all, and in sober truth, tells as 
 much as the critics have told us. And is it 
 different with poetry of the very highest 
 order ? What criticism, for example, can 
 make the harmony of a very great poem 
 comprehensible to those who have not stu- 
 died such a poem again and again, till all 
 its scattered lights, and all its broad masses 
 of shadow, are blended into one pervading 
 tint, upon which the mind reposes, through 
 the influence of that mighty power by which 
 the force of contrast is subjected to the 
 higher force of unity ? Criticism may, to a 
 certain extent, stimulate us to the apprecia- 
 tion of the great parts of the highest crea- 
 tions of poetical genius ; but, in the exact 
 
344 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 degree in which it is successful in leading to 
 a comprehension of details, is it injurious to 
 the higher purpose of its vocation that of 
 illuminating a whole. It is precisely the 
 same with regard to the modes in which 
 even the most tasteful minds attempt to 
 convey impressions to others of the effects of 
 real scenery. There are, probably, recol- 
 lections lingering around most of us of some 
 combination of natural grandeur or beauty 
 which can never be forgotten which has 
 moved us even to tears. What can we de- 
 scribe of such scenes ? Take a common in- 
 stance a calm river sleeping in the moon- 
 light familiar hills, in their massy outlines 
 looking mountain-like the well-known vil- 
 lage on the river's bank, giving forth its 
 cottage lights, each shining as a star in the 
 depth of the transparent stream. The de- 
 scription of such a scene becomes merely 
 picturesque. It is the harmony which can- 
 not be described the harmony which re- 
 sults from some happy combinations not 
 always, and indeed rarely, present which 
 has thus invested the commonest things with 
 life-lasting impressions. The " prevailing 
 poet," in his great productions, converts 
 what is accidental in nature into a principle 
 in art. But the workings of the principle 
 must, to a great extent, be felt and under- 
 stood, rather than analysed and described. 
 
 Hazlitt, applying himself to write a set 
 criticism upon * Lear,' says " We wish that 
 we could pass this play over, and say nothing 
 about it. All that we can say must fall far 
 short of the subject, or even of what we 
 ourselves conceive of it. To attempt to 
 give a description of the play itself, or of 
 its effect upon the mind, is mere imper- 
 tinence." This is not affectation. The 
 " effect upon the mind" which 'Lear' pro- 
 duces is the result of combinations too 
 subtle to be described almost so to be de- 
 fined to ourselves ; and yet, to continue the 
 sentence of Hazlitt, "we must say some- 
 thing." 
 
 There is an English word-joiner author 
 we will not call him who has had the 
 temerity to accomplish two things, either of 
 which would have been enough to have con- 
 ferred upon him a bad immortality. Nahum 
 
 Tate has succeeded, to an extent which defies 
 all competition, in degrading the Psalms of 
 David and the 'Lear' of Shakspere to the 
 condition of being tolerated, and perhaps 
 even admired, by the most dull, gross, and 
 anti-poetical capacity. These were not easy 
 tasks ; but Nahum Tate has enjoyed more 
 than a century of honour for his labours ; 
 and his new versions of the Psalms are still 
 sung on (like the shepherd in Arcadia piped) 
 as if they would never be old, and his ' Lear' 
 was ever the ' Lear' of the playhouse, until 
 Mr. Macready ventured upon a modern 
 heresy in favour of Shakspere. To have 
 enjoyed so extensive and lasting a popularity, 
 Nahum Tate must have possessed more than 
 ordinary power in the reduction of the 
 highest things to the vulgar standard. He 
 set about the Metamorphosis of 'Lear' with 
 a bold hand, nothing doubting that he had 
 an especial vocation to the office of tumbling 
 that barbaric pile into ruins, for the purpose 
 of building up something compact, and 
 pretty, and modern, after the fashion of the 
 architecture of his own age. He talks, in- 
 deed, of his feat, in the way in which the 
 court jeweller talks at the beginning of a 
 new reign, when he pulls the crown to pieces, 
 and re-arranges the emeralds and rubies of 
 our Edwards and Henries according to the 
 newest taste. " It is a heap of jewels, un- 
 strung and unpolished, yet so dazzling in 
 their disorder that I soon perceived I had 
 seized a treasure." We are grateful, how- 
 ever, to Tate for what he has done ; for he 
 has enabled us to say something about Shak- 
 spere's ' Lear,' when, without him, we might 
 have shrunk into " expressive silence." We 
 propose to show what the ' Lear' is, in some 
 of its highest attributes, by an investigation 
 of the process by which one of the feeblest 
 and most prosaic of verse-makers has turned 
 it into something essentially different. Tate 
 thus becomes a standard by which to mea- 
 sure Shakspere ; and we are relieved from 
 the oppressive sense of the vast, by the 
 juxta-position of the minute. We judge of 
 the height of the pyramids by the scale of 
 the human atoms at their base. 
 
 Shelley, in his eloquent ' Defence of 
 Poetry,' published in his ' Posthumous 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 KINO LEAR. 
 
 345 
 
 Essays,' &c., has stated the grounds for his 
 belief that the 'Lear' of Shakspere may 
 sustain a comparison with the master-pieces 
 of the Greek tragedy. " The modern prac- 
 tice of blending comedy with tragedy, though 
 liable to great abuse in point of practice, is 
 undoubtedly an extension of the dramatic 
 circle ; but the comedy should be as in 
 'King Lear,' universal, ideal, and sublime. 
 It is, perhaps, the intervention of this prin- 
 ciple which determines the balance in favour 
 of ' King Lear' against the ' (Edipus Tyran- 
 nus,' or the ' Agamemnon,' or, if you will, 
 the trilogies with which they are connected ; 
 unless the intense power of the choral poetry, 
 especially that of the latter, should be con- 
 sidered as restoring the equilibrium. * King 
 Lear,' if it can sustain that comparison, may 
 be judged to be the most perfect specimen 
 of the dramatic art existing in the world." 
 We can understand this now. But, if any 
 writer before the commencement of the pre- 
 sent century, and indeed long after, had 
 talked of the comedy of 'Lear' as being 
 "universal, ideal, and sublime," and had 
 chosen that as the excellence to balance 
 against "the intense power of the choral 
 poetry" of ^Eschylus and Sophocles, he 
 would have been referred to the authority 
 of Voltaire, who, in his letter to the Academy, 
 describes such works of Shakspere as form- 
 ing " an obscure chaos, composed of murders 
 and buffooneries, of heroism and meanness, 
 of the language of the Halles, and of the 
 highest interests." In certain schools of 
 criticism, even yet, the notion that 'Lear' 
 "may be judged to be the most perfect 
 specimen of the dramatic art existing in 
 the world," would be treated as a mere 
 visionary conceit ; and we should still be 
 reminded that Shakspere was a " wild and 
 irregular genius," producing these results 
 because he could not help it. In France 
 are still heard the feeble echoes of the con- 
 test between the disciples of the romantic 
 and the classic schools. M. Guizot stated, 
 some twenty-five years ago, with his usual 
 acuteness and good sense, some of the mis- 
 takes into which the opponents of the ro- 
 mantic school had fallen, from not perceiving 
 that the productions of that school contained 
 
 within themselves a principle of art. " This 
 intellectual ferment can never cease, as long 
 as the question shall be mooted as a contest 
 between science and barbarism the beauties 
 of order, and the irregular influences of dis- 
 order ; as long as we shall obstinately refuse 
 to see, in the system of which Shakspere has 
 traced the first outlines, nothing more than 
 a liberty without restraint an indefinite 
 latitude, which lies open as much to the 
 freaks of the imagination as to the course 
 of genius. If the romantic system has its 
 beauties, it has necessarily its art and its 
 rules. Nothing is beautiful for man that 
 does not owe its effect to certain combina- 
 tions, of which our judgment may always 
 disclose to us the secret when our emotions 
 have borne witness to their power. The 
 employment of these combinations consti- 
 tutes art. Shakspere had his own art. To 
 discover it in his works we must examine 
 the means which he used, and the results to 
 which he aspired."* These combinations^ 
 of which Guizot speaks, were as unknown 
 to what has been called the Augustan age of 
 English literature as the properties of elec- 
 tro-magnetism ; and poor Nahum Tate did 
 not unfitly represent his age when he said of 
 'Lear,' " It is a heap of jewels, unstrung and 
 unpolished, yet so dazzling in their disorder 
 that I soon perceived I had seized a trea- 
 sure." The principle of appropriation here 
 is exquisite. But, after all, we fancy that 
 Tate was something like the cock in the 
 fable, who, having found the jewel, in his 
 secret heart wished it had been a grain of 
 barley. Be this as it may, he set to work in 
 good earnest in the stringing and polishing 
 process. Let us proceed to examine the 
 character of his workmanship. 
 
 Coleridge has remarked emphatically, 
 what every diligent student of Shakspere 
 must have been impressed with, the striking 
 judgment which he displays in the manage- 
 ment of his first scenes. The first scene of 
 ' Lear' is very short, perfectly simple, has no 
 elaborate descriptions of character, and con- 
 tains only a slight and incidental notice of 
 the events upon which the drama is to turn. 
 Of course Tate rejected this scene ; and, 
 
 * Vie de Shakspeare.' 
 
346 
 
 STUDIES OP 8HAKSPEEE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 without the necessary preparation of the 
 dialogue between Kent and Gloster, he brings 
 at once Edmund before us in the soliloquy, 
 " Thou, nature, art my goddess." Shakspere, 
 in his soliloquies, makes his characters pur- 
 sue a certain train of ideas to a conclusion ; 
 and, by causing them to think aloud, he is 
 enabled, without the slightest violation of 
 propriety, to give the audience a due im- 
 pression of their latent motives. He very 
 rarely employs this expedient, but he never 
 employs it in vain, or goes beyond its legiti- 
 mate use. We have an example in the 
 soliloquy of lago at the end of the first act 
 of ' Othello ;' and the soliloquy of Edmund 
 in the second scene of 'Lear' has precisely 
 the same object in view. Tate, not under- 
 standing the art of Shakspere, and having 
 no dramatic art in himself, makes the soli- 
 loquy an instrument for telling the audience 
 what has happened ; and instead of exhibit- 
 ing the management by which Gloster is 
 made to distrust and hate Edgar, he gives 
 us a narrative of the affair, which Edmund 
 tells to the audience under the pretence of 
 talking to himself: 
 
 " With success 
 
 I Ve practised yet on both their easy natures. 
 
 Here comes the old man, chafed with the in- 
 formation 
 
 Which last I forged against my brother Edgar ; 
 
 A tale so plausible, so boldly utter'd, 
 
 And heighten'd by such lucky accidents, 
 
 That now the slightest circumstance confirms 
 him, 
 
 And base-born Edmund, spite of law, in- 
 herits." 
 
 It is no part of the plan of this notice to 
 point out the differences between the lan- 
 guage of Tate and the language of Shak- 
 spere. It is with the conduct of the drama 
 only that we wish to deal. Gloster, of course, 
 after this preparation, enters in a furious 
 passion. 
 
 The main business of the tragedy, by 
 Tate's arrangement, has been thus made 
 subordinate to the secondary plot. But Lear 
 is not quite forgotten: Gloster says to 
 Kent, 
 
 " My -Lord, you wait the king, who conies re- 
 solved 
 
 To quit the toils of empire, and divide 
 
 His realms amongst his daughters. HeaVn 
 
 succeed it, 
 But much I fear the change." 
 
 To which Kent replies, 
 
 " I grieve to see him 
 
 With such wild starts of passion hourly seized 
 As render majesty beneath itself." 
 
 We may be sure that, if a dramatic purpose 
 would have been served by a description of 
 the temper of Lear, instead of an exhibition 
 of it, Shakspere would have introduced such 
 a description. But that was not his art ; it 
 was for the jewel-stringer to convey impres- 
 sions by such clumsy and commonplace 
 means. We have one more new combination 
 to notice in Tate's introductory scene Edgar 
 and Cordelia in love. Of the results of this 
 combination we shall have presently to 
 speak. In the mean time, let the lovers 
 explain themselves through the nine lines 
 in the preparation of which Tate has put 
 out his poetical strength : 
 
 " Edg. Cordelia, royal fair, turn yet once 
 
 more, 
 
 And ere successful Burgundy receive 
 The treasure of thy beauties from the king, 
 Ere happy Burgundy for ever fold thee, 
 Cast back one pitying look on wretched 
 
 Edgar. 
 " Cord. Alas ! what would the wretched 
 
 Edgar with 
 
 The more unfortunate Cordelia, 
 Who, in obedience to a father's will, 
 Flies from her Edgar's arms to Burgundy's 1 ?" 
 
 The second scene of Tate, like the second 
 scene of Shakspere, exhibits the trial by 
 Lear of his daughters' affections, and the 
 subsequent division of the kingdom. It was 
 perfectly clear that, in changing the dramatic 
 situation of Cordelia, Tate would destroy 
 her character. But it is not within the 
 range of human ingenuity to conjecture 
 how effectually he has contrived to render 
 one of the loveliest of Shakspere's creations 
 not only uninteresting, but positively repul- 
 sive he has -produced a selfish and dissimu- 
 lating Cordelia. These are the first words 
 which she utters : 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 KING LEAR. 
 
 347 
 
 " Now comes my trial. How am I distress'd 
 That must with cold speech tempt the choleric 
 
 king 
 Eather to leave me dowerless, than condemn 
 
 me 
 To Burgundy's embraces !" 
 
 " Of the heavenly beauty of soul of Cor- 
 delia, pronounced in so few words, I will 
 not venture to speak." This was the im- 
 pression which Shakspere's Cordelia produced 
 upon Schlegel. In the whole range of the 
 Shaksperean drama there is nothing more 
 extraordinary than the effect upon the mind 
 of the character of Cordelia. Mrs. Jameson 
 has truly said, " Everything in her seems to 
 lie beyond our view, and affects us in a 
 manner, which we feel rather than perceive." 
 In the first act she has only forty-three lines 
 assigned to her : she does not appear again 
 till the fourth act, in the fourth scene of 
 which she has twenty-four lines, and, in the 
 seventh, thirty-seven. In the fifth act she 
 has five lines. Yet during the whole pro- 
 gress of the play we can never forget her ; 
 and, after its melancholy close, she lingers 
 about our recollections as if we had seen 
 some being more beautiful and purer than a 
 thing of earth, who had communicated with 
 us by a higher medium than that of words. 
 And yet she is no mere abstraction ; she is 
 nothing more nor less than a personification 
 of the holiness of womanhood. She is a 
 creature formed for all sympathies, moved 
 by all tenderness, prompt for all duty, pre- 
 pared for all suffering ; but she cannot talk 
 of what she is, and what she purposes. The 
 King of France describes the apparent re- 
 serve of her character as 
 
 " A tardiness in nature, 
 Which often leaves the history unspoke 
 That it intends to do." 
 
 She herself says, 
 
 " If for I want that glib and oily art, 
 To speak, and purpose not ; since what I well 
 
 intend, 
 I '11 do 't before I speak." 
 
 But the conception of a character that 
 should fill our minds without much talk, 
 and withal magniloquent talk, was something 
 too ethereal for Tate : so Cordelia is turned 
 
 into a French intrigante. She does not pro- 
 fess as her sisters professed, not because she 
 wanted the " glib and oily art," but because 
 she desired to accomplish a secret purpose, 
 that was to be carried by silence better than 
 by words she would lose her dower that 
 she might marry Edgar. One more spe- 
 cimen of the Tatification of Cordelia, and 
 we have done. The love-scenes, be it under- 
 stood, go forward ; and in the third act 
 Cordelia, herself wandering about, encoun- 
 ters Edgar in his mad disguise. " The tardi- 
 ness in nature" of Shakspere is thus inter- 
 preted in the production which " Garrick 
 and his followers, the showmen of the scene," 
 have inflicted upon us almost up to the pre- 
 sent day, under the sanction of Dr. John- 
 son : 
 
 "Cord. Come to my arms, thou dearest, 
 
 best of men, 
 And take the kindest vows that e'er were 
 
 By a protesting maid. 
 "Edg. Is 't possible 1 
 " Cord. By the dear vital stream that 
 
 bathes my heart, 
 These hallow'd rags of thine, and naked 
 
 virtue, 
 
 These abject tassels, these fantastic shreds, 
 To me are dearer than the richest pomp 
 Of purpled monarchs." 
 
 Need we exhibit more of the Cordelia which 
 is not Shakspere's ? 
 
 The mixed character of Shakspere's ' Lear' 
 has been admirably dissected by Coleridge : 
 " The strange, yet by no means unnatural 
 'mixture of selfishness, sensibility, and habit 
 of feeling, derived from, and fostered by, the 
 particular rank and usages of the individual ; 
 the intense desire of being intensely beloved, 
 selfish, and yet characteristic of the selfish- 
 ness of a loving and kindly nature alone ; 
 the self-supportless leaning for all pleasure 
 on another's breast; the craving after 
 sympathy with a prodigal disinterestedness, 
 frustrated by its own ostentation, and the 
 mode and nature of its claims ; the anxiety, 
 the distrust, the jealousy, which more or less 
 accompany all selfish affections, and are 
 amongst the surest contradistinctions of mere 
 fondness from true love, and which originate 
 
348 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 Lear's eager wish to enjoy his daughter's 
 violent professions, whilst the inveterate 
 habits of sovereignty convert the wish into 
 claim and positive right, and an incompliance 
 with it into crime and treason ; these facts, 
 these passions, these moral verities, on which 
 the whole tragedy is founded, are all prepared 
 for, and will to the retrospect be found 
 implied, in the first four or five lines of the 
 play." They are implied, certainly, but the 
 character which they make up is not described 
 by Shakspere. When Regan and Goneril 
 speak slightingly of their father, immediately 
 after he has been lavishing his kingdom 
 upon them, it is not the object of the poet 
 to make us understand Lear, but to make ui 
 understand Regan and Goneril. This, again, 
 was Shakspere's art : Tate, the represen tat iv< 
 of the vulgar notion of art, must have 
 defined character something positive, some- 
 thing generic a bad man, a good man 
 a mild man, a passionate man a good son, a 
 cruel son. Upon this principle the Lear of 
 Tate is the choleric king. Because Goneril 
 characteristically speaks of "the unruly 
 waywardness that infirm and choleric years 
 bring with them," Gloster, in Tate, is made 
 to say of Lear, 
 
 " Yet has his temper ever been unfix'd, 
 Chol'ric and sudden;" 
 
 and, as if this were not enough to disturb an 
 audience in the proper comprehension of the 
 real Lear, we must have Cordelia call him 
 "the choleric king," and, last of all, Lear 
 himself must exclaim, in the trial-scene, 
 " 't is said that I am choleric." And now, then, 
 that we have got a choleric king a simple, 
 unmixed, ranting, roaring, choleric king, he 
 is in a fit condition to be stirred up by " the 
 showmen of the scene." Charles Lamb would 
 be immortal as a critic if he had only written 
 these words : " Tate has put his hook in the 
 nostrils of this leviathan, for Garrick and his 
 followers, the showmen of the scene, to draw 
 the mighty beast about more easily." All 
 the wonderful gradations of his character 
 are utterly destroyed ; all the thin partitions 
 which separate passion from wildness, and 
 wildness from insanity, and insanity from a 
 partial restoration to the most intense of 
 
 human feelings, a father's concentrated 
 love ; all these traces of what Shakspere 
 only could effect, are utterly destroyed by the 
 stage conception of Lear, such as has been 
 endured amongst us for more than a century. 
 When the "showmen" banished the Fool, 
 they rendered it impossible that the original 
 nature of Lear should be understood^-Jlt is 
 the Fool who interprets to us the old man's 
 sensitive tenderness lying at the bottom of 
 his impatience. He cannot bear to hear that 
 "the Fool hath much pined away." "No 
 more of that, I have noted it well." From 
 the Fool, Lear can bear to hear truth; his 
 jealous pride is not alarmed : he indeed calls 
 him "a pestilent gall," "a bitter fool;" 
 but the 
 
 " Poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man," 
 
 in the depths of his misery, having scarcely 
 \ anything in the world to love but the Fool, 
 thus clings to him : 
 
 " My wits begin to turn 
 Come on, my boy : How dost, my boy? Art 
 
 cold] 
 I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my 
 
 fellow] 
 
 The art of our necessities is strange, 
 That can make vile things precious. Come, 
 
 your hovel : 
 Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my 
 
 heart 
 That 's sorry yet for thee." 
 
 And all this is gone in the stage Lear. The 
 "universal, ideal, and sublime" comedy, of 
 which the Fool is the principal exponent, 
 would have been incomprehensible to the 
 Augustan age. We are quite sure that Tate 
 would have got rid of the assumed madness 
 of Edgar, if he had not found it convenient 
 for the purpose of tacking a love-scene to it. 
 As it is, he has brought the mad Tom and 
 the mad king into juxtaposition. We do 
 not suspect Tate of comprehending the 
 metaphysical principle upon which Shakspere 
 worked, and which Coleridge has so well 
 expounded : " Edgar's assumed madness 
 serves the great purpose of taking off part of 
 the shock which would otherwise be caused 
 by the true madness of Lear, and further 
 displays the profound difference between the ' 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 KING LEAK. 
 
 349 
 
 two. In every attempt at representing 
 madness throughout the whole range of dra- 
 matic literature, with the single exception of 
 Lear, it is mere light-headedness, as especially 
 in Otway. In Edgar's ravings, Shakspere 
 all the while lets you see a fixed purpose, a 
 practical end in view; in Lear's there is 
 only the brooding of the one anguish, an 
 eddy without progression." Tate has left us 
 this contrast ; but he has taken away the 
 Fool, which completes the wonderful power 
 of the third act of Shakspere's ' Lear.' The 
 Fool, as well as Edgar, takes off" part of the 
 shock which would otherwise be caused by 
 the madness of Lear, whilst he yet contributes 
 to the completeness of that moral chaos 
 which Shakspere has represented "all ex- 
 ternal nature in a storm, all moral nature 
 convulsed." A writer of very rare depth 
 and discrimination has thus described these 
 scenes of which Edgar and the Fool make 
 up such important accessories : " The two 
 characters, father and king, so high to our 
 imagination and love, blended in the reverend 
 image of Lear both in their destitution, yet 
 both in their height of greatness the spirit 
 blighted, and yet undepressed the wits gone, 
 and yet the moral wisdom of a good heart 
 left unstained, almost unobscured the wild 
 raging of the elements, joined with human 
 outrage and violence to persecute the helpless, 
 unresisting, almost unoffending sufferer 
 and he himself, in the midst of all imaginable 
 misery and desolation, descanting upon 
 himself, on the whirlwinds that drive around 
 him, and then turning in tenderness to some 
 of the wild motley associations of sufferers 
 among whom he stands all this is not like 
 what has been seen on any stage, perhaps in 
 any reality ; but it has made a world to our 
 imagination about one single imaginary 
 individual, such as draws the reverence and 
 sympathy which would seem to belong 
 properly only to living men. It is like the 
 remembrance of some wild perturbed scene 
 of real life. Everything is perfectly woful in 
 this world of woe. The very assumed madness 
 of Edgar, which, if the story of Edgar stood 
 alone, would be insufferable, and would 
 utterly degrade him to us, seems, associated 
 as he is with Lear, to come within the 
 
 consecration of Lear's madness. It agrees 
 with all that is brought together ; the night 
 the storms the houselessness Gloster 
 with his eyes put out the Fool the 
 semblance of a madman, and Lear in his 
 madness, are all bound together by a strange 
 kind of sympathy, confusion in the elements of 
 nature, of human society and the human 
 soul ! Throughout all the play is there not 
 sublimity felt amidst the continual presence 
 of all kinds of disorder and confusion in the 
 natural and moral world ; a continual 
 consciousness of eternal order, law, and 
 good ? This it is that so exalts it in our 
 eyes."* 
 
 The love-scene between Edgar and Cordelia, 
 in the first scene of the first act of Tate's 
 1 Lear,' was an assurance, under the hand 
 and seal of Tate, that the play would end 
 happily. He might be constrained, in the 
 impossibility of wholly destroying Shakspere, 
 to exhibit to us some of the most terrific 
 conflicts of human passion, and the most 
 striking displays of human suffering. He 
 could not utterly conceal the terrible workings 
 of the mind of Lear, which had been laid 
 bare by the " explosions of his passion." But 
 he takes care to let it be understood that 
 there is nothing real in this ; that all will be 
 right in the end ; that, though the flames rage, 
 the house is insured ; that a wedding and a 
 dance will terminate the play much better 
 than the "dead march" of Shakspere. "Cor- 
 delia," says Dr. Johnson, " from the time of 
 Tate, has always retired with victory and 
 felicity. And, if my sensations could add 
 anything to the general suffrage, I might 
 relate, I was many years ago so shocked by 
 Cordelia's death, that I know not whether I 
 ever endured to read again the last scenes of 
 the play till I undertook to revise them as 
 an editor." 
 
 This was a bold or a lazy avowal in 
 Johnson ; for Aristotle describes the popular 
 admiration of the tragedy which ends happily 
 for the good characters, and fatally for the 
 bad, as a result of the "weakness of the 
 spectators ;"f and though Johnson vigorously 
 attacked Aristotle's Unities or rather the 
 
 * ' Blackwood s Mag.,' vol. v. 
 
 t ' Treatise on Poetry 'Twin ing's Translation. 
 
STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vir. 
 
 doctrine of the Unities imputed to Aristotle 
 the good critic must have been sleeping 
 when he gave his voice to the general suffrage 
 at the risk of being accounted weak. John- 
 son was too clever a man not to know that 
 he lost something by not reading " the last 
 scenes" of Shakspere's 'Lear;' and we have 
 considerable doubts whether he ever looked 
 into the last scenes of Tate's ' Lear.' Carrying 
 the principle to the end with which we set 
 out, we venture to print the last scene of 
 each writer ; and we ask our readers to apply 
 the scale of Tate, in the manner which we 
 have indicated, to the admeasurement of 
 
 . [TATE.] 
 
 " Enter ALBANY, KENT, and Knights to 
 
 LEAR and CORDELIA in Prison. 
 Lear. Who are you] 
 My eyes are none o' th' best, 1 11 tell you 
 
 straight : 
 
 Oh, Albany ! Well, sir, we are your captives, 
 And you are come to see death pass upon us. 
 Why this delay? Or, is 't your highness' 
 
 pleasure- 
 To give us first the torture? Say you so? 
 Why here 's old Kent, and I, as tough a pair 
 As e're bore tyrant stroke; but my Cordelia, 
 
 My poor Cordelia here, pity 
 
 Alb. Thou injured majesty, 
 The wheel of fortune now has made her 
 
 circle, 
 And blessings yet stand 'twixt thy grave and 
 
 thee. 
 Lear. Com'st thou, inhuman lord, to sooth 
 
 us back 
 
 To a fool's paradise of hope, to make 
 Our doom more wretched? Go to; we are 
 
 too well . 
 
 Acquainted with misfortune, to be gull'd 
 With lying hope; no, we will hope no more. 
 
 Alb. Since then my injuries, Lear, fall in 
 
 with thine, 
 
 I have resolved the same redress for both. 
 Kent. What says my lord? 
 Cord. Speak ; for methought I heard 
 The charming voice of a descending god. 
 Alb. The troops by Edmund raised, I have 
 
 disbanded : 
 Those that remain are under my command. 
 
 What comfort may be brought to cheer your 
 
 age, 
 And heal your savage wrongs, shall be ap- 
 
 For to your majesty we do resign 
 
 Your kingdom, save what part yourself con- 
 
 ferr'd 
 
 On us in marriage. 
 Kent. Hear you that, my liege? 
 Cord. Then there are gods, and virtue is 
 
 their care. 
 
 Lear. Is 't possible? 
 Let the spheres stop their course, the sun 
 
 make halt, 
 The winds be hush'd, the seas and fountains 
 
 rest, 
 
 All nature pause, and listen to the change ! 
 Where is my Kent, my Caius? 
 Kent. Here, my liege. 
 Lear. Why, I have news that will recall thy 
 
 youth; 
 Ha ! didst thou hear 't? or did th' inspiring 
 
 gods 
 
 Whisper to me alone? Old Lear shall be 
 A king again. 
 Kent. The prince, that like a god has 
 
 pow"r, has said it. 
 Lear. Cordelia then shall be a queen, mark 
 
 that; 
 Cordelia shall be queen: winds, catch the 
 
 sound, 
 
 And bear it on your rosy wings to heaven, 
 Cordelia is a queen. 
 
 Alb. Look, sir, where pious Edgar comes, 
 Leading Ms eyeless father. 0, my liege, 
 His wond'rous story well deserves your leisure ; 
 What he has done and suffer'd for your sake, 
 What for the fair Cordelia's. 
 
 Re-enter EDGAR with GLOSTER. 
 Glost. Where 's my liege? Conduct me to 
 
 his knees, to hail 
 
 His second birth of empire : My dear Edgar 
 Has, with himself, reveal'd the king's blest 
 
 restoration. 
 
 Lear. My poor dark Gloster ! 
 Glost. Oh, let me kiss that once more scep- 
 
 ter'd hand] 
 Lear. Hold, thou mistak'st the majesty; 
 
 kneel here; 
 
 Cordelia has our pow'r, Cordelia 's queen. 
 Speak, is not that the noble, suff'ring Edgar? 
 'Glost. My pious son, more dear than my 
 lost eyes. 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 KING LEAR. 
 
 351 
 
 Lear. I wrong'd him too; but here's the 
 fair amends. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Edg. Divine Cordelia, all the gods can 
 
 witness 
 
 How much thy love to empire I prefer. 
 Thy bright example shall convince the world, 
 Whatever storms of fortune are decreed, 
 That truth and virtue shall at last succeed. 
 
 (Flourish of Drums and Trumpets.)" 
 
 [SHAKSPEBE.] 
 " Enter LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his 
 
 arms ; EDGAR, Officer, and others. 
 Lear. Howl, howl, howl ! 0, you are meu 
 
 of stones ; 
 
 Had I your tongues and eyes I'd use them so 
 That heaven's vault should crack: She 's 
 
 gone for ever ! 
 I know when one is dead, and when one 
 
 lives ; 
 She 's dead as earth: Lend me a looking- 
 
 If that her breath will mist or stain the stone, 
 Why, then she lives. 
 
 Kent. Is this the promised end ] 
 
 Edg. Or image of that horror] 
 Alb. Fall, and cease ! 
 
 Lear. This feather stirs ; she lives ! if it 
 
 be so, 
 
 [t is a chance which does redeem all sorrows 
 That ever I have felt. 
 Kent. my good master ! 
 
 {Kneeling. 
 
 Lear. Pr'ythee, away. 
 Edg. 'T is noble Kent, your friend. 
 
 Lear. A plague upon you, murderers, trai- 
 tors all ! 
 I might have saved her; now she 's gone for 
 
 ever 
 
 Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little. Ha ! 
 What is't thou say'st? Her voice was ever soft, 
 Gentle, and low ; an excellent thing in 
 
 woman : 
 
 I kill'd the slave that was a hanging thee. 
 Off. 'T is true, my lords, he did. 
 Lear. Did I not, fellow 1 ? 
 
 I have seen the day, with my good biting 
 
 faulchion 
 
 I would have made them skip : I am old now, 
 And these same crosses spoil me. Who are 
 
 you? 
 
 Mine eyes are not o' the best : I '11 tell you 
 straight. 
 
 Kent. If fortune brag of two she loved and 
 
 hated, 
 
 One of them we behold. 
 Lear. This is a dull sight. Are you not 
 
 Kent] 
 
 Kent, The same; 
 Your servant Kent: Where is your servant 
 
 Cams'? 
 Lear. He 's a good fellow, I can tell you 
 
 that; 
 He '11 strike, and quickly too : He 's dead and 
 
 rotten. 
 
 Kent. No, my good lord; I am the very- 
 man ; 
 
 Lear. I '11 see that straight. 
 Kent. That, from your first of difference 
 
 and decay, 
 
 Have follow'd your sad steps. 
 Lear. You are welcome hither. 
 
 Kent. Nor no man else; all's cheerless, 
 
 dark, and deadly. 
 
 Your eldest daughters have fore-done them- 
 selves, 
 
 And desperately are dead. 
 Lear. Ay, so I think. 
 
 Alb. He knows not what he says; and vain 
 
 it is 
 
 That we present us to him. 
 Edg. Very bootless. 
 
 Enter an Officer. 
 Off. Edmund is dead, my lord. 
 Alb. That 's but a trifle here. 
 
 You lords, and noble friends, know our intent. 
 What comfort to this great decay may come 
 Shall be applied : For us, we will resign, 
 During the life of this old majesty, 
 To him our absolute power: You, to your 
 rights : [To EDGAR and KENT. 
 
 With boot, and such addition as your honours 
 Have more than merited. All friends shall 
 
 taste 
 
 The wages of their virtue, and all foes 
 The cup of their deservings. Oh, see, see ! 
 Lear. And my poor fool is hang'd ! No, no, 
 
 no life : 
 
 Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, 
 And thou no breath at all ? Thou 'It come no 
 
 more. 
 
 Never, never, never, never, never ! 
 Pray you undo this button : Thank you, sir. 
 Do you see this 1 ? Look on her, look, her 
 
 lips, 
 
 Look there, look there ! [He dies. 
 
 Edg. He faints ! My lord, my lord, 
 
352 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEEE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 Kent. Break, heart; I pr'ythee, break ! 
 Edg. Look up, my lord. 
 
 Kent. Vex not his ghost : Oh, let him pass ! 
 
 he hates him 
 That would upon the rack of this tough 
 
 world 
 Stretch him out longer. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 [Exeunt with a dead march." 
 
 And why do we ask any one of our readers 
 to compare what cannot be compared ? why 
 do we put one of the most divine conceptions 
 of poetry side by side with the meanest 
 interpretation of the most unimaginative 
 feelings equally remote from the verisi- 
 militude of common life, as from the truth 
 of ideal beauty 1 ? It is, as we have said 
 before, because we feel unable to impart to 
 others our own conceptions of the marvellous 
 power of the 'Lear' of Shakspere, without 
 employing some agency that may give dis- 
 tinctness to ideas which must be otherwise 
 vague. There is only one mode in which 
 such a production as the ' Lear' of Shakspere 
 can be understood by study, and by reve- 
 rential reflection. The age which produced 
 the miserable parody of c Lear ' that till 
 within a few years has banished the ' Lear' 
 
 of Shakspere from the stage, was, as far as 
 regards the knowledge of the highest efforts 
 of intellect, a presumptuous, artificial, and 
 therefore empty age. Tate was tolerated 
 because Shakspere was not read. We have 
 arrived, in some degree, to a better judgment, 
 because we have learnt to judge more 
 humbly. We have learnt to compare the 
 highest works of the highest masters of 
 poetry, not by the pedantic principle of 
 considering a modern great only to the 
 extent in which he is an imitator of an 
 ancient, but by endeavouring to comprehend 
 the idea in which the modern and the ancient 
 each worked. The Cordelia of Shakspere and 
 the Antigone of Sophocles have many points 
 of similarity ; but they each belong to a 
 different system of art. It is for the highest 
 minds only to carry their several systems to 
 an approach to the perfection to which 
 Shakspere and Sophocles have carried them. 
 It was for the feeblest of imitators, in a 
 feeble age, to produce such parodies as we 
 have exhibited, under the pretence of sub- 
 stituting order for irregularity, but in utter 
 ignorance of the principle of order which 
 was too skilfully framed to be visible to the 
 grossness of their taste. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MACBETH. 
 
 * THE Tragedie of Macbeth ' was first pub- 
 lished in the folio collection of 1623. Its 
 place in that edition is between ' Julius 
 Caesar ' and ' Hamlet.' In the entry on the 
 Stationers' register, immediately previous to 
 the publication of the edition of 1623, it is 
 also classed amongst the Tragedies. And yet, 
 in modern reprints of the text of Shakspere, 
 ' Macbeth ' is placed the first amongst the 
 Histories. This is to convey a wrong no- 
 tion of the character of this great drama. 
 Shakspere's Chronicle-histories are essentially 
 conducted upon a different principle. The 
 interest of 'Macbeth' is not an historical 
 interest. It matters not whether the action 
 
 is true, or has been related as true: it be- 
 longs to the realms of poetry altogether. 
 We might as well call ' Lear ' or f Hamlet ' 
 historical plays, because the outlines of the 
 story of each are to be found in old records 
 of the past. 
 
 Malone and Chalmers agree in assigning 
 this tragedy to the year 1606. Their proofs, 
 as we apprehend, are entirely frivolous and 
 unsatisfactory. The Porter says, " Here 's a 
 farmer, that hanged himself on the expecta- 
 tion of plenty:" the year 1606 was a year of 
 plenty, and therefore f Macbeth ' was written 
 in 1606. Again, the same character says, 
 " Here 's an equivocator, that could swear 
 
CHAP. VII.] 
 
 MACBETH. 
 
 353 
 
 in both the scales, against either scale." 
 This passage Malone most solemnly tells 
 us, " without doubt, had a direct reference 
 to the doctrine of equivocation avowed and 
 maintained by Henry Garnet, superior of the 
 order of the Jesuits in England, on his trial 
 for the Gunpowder Treason, on the 28th of 
 March, 1606, and to his detestable perjury." 
 There is more of this sort of reasoning, in 
 the examination of which it appears to us 
 quite unnecessary to occupy the time of 
 our readers. We have two facts as to the 
 chronology of this play which are indis- 
 putable: the first is, that it must have 
 been written after the crowns of England 
 i and Scotland were united in one monarch, 
 j who was a descendant of Banquo : 
 
 " Some I see 
 
 That two-fold balls and treble sceptres carry." 
 The second is, that Dr. Form an has most 
 minutely described the representation of this 
 tragedy in the year 1610. The following- 
 extract from his 'Book of Plays, and Notes 
 thereof, for common Policy,' is copied by Mr. 
 Collier from the manuscript in the Bodleian 
 Library : 
 
 "In 'Macbeth/ at the Globe, 1610, the 20th 
 of April, Saturday, there was to be observed, 
 first, how Macbeth and Banquo, two noblemen 
 of Scotland, riding through a wood, there stood 
 before them three women, fairies, or nymphs, 
 and saluted Macbeth, saying three times unto 
 him, Hail, Macbeth, King of Condor, for thou 
 shalt be a king, but shalt beget no kings, c. 
 Then said Banquo, What, all to Macbeth and 
 none to me] Yes, said the nymphs, Hail to 
 thee, Banquo 1 thou shalt beget kings, yet be 
 no king. And so they departed, and came to 
 the court of Scotland, to Duncan, King of Scots, 
 and it was in the days of Edward the Con- 
 fessor. And Duncan bade them both kindly 
 welcome, and made Macbeth forthwith Prince 
 of Northumberland ; and sent him home to his 
 own castle, and appointed Macbeth to provide 
 for him, for he would sup with him the next 
 day at night, and did so. 
 
 And Macbeth contrived to kill Duncan, and 
 through the persuasion of his wife did that night 
 murder the king in his own castle, being his 
 guest. And there were many prodigies seen 
 that night and the day before. And when 
 Macbeth had murdered the king, the blood 
 
 on his hands could not be washed off by any 
 means, nor from his wife's hands, which handled 
 the bloody daggers in hiding them, by which 
 means they became both much amazed and 
 affronted. 
 
 " The murder being known, Duncan's two sons 
 fled, the one to England, the other to Wales, to 
 save themselves : they being fled, were supposed 
 guilty of the murder of their father, which was 
 nothing so. 
 
 " Then was Macbeth crowned king, and then 
 he, for fear of Banquo, his old companion, that 
 he should beget kings but be no king himself, 
 he contrived the death of Banquo, and caused 
 him to be murdered on the way that he rode. 
 The night, being at supper with his noblemen, 
 whom he had bid to a feast (to the which also 
 Banquo should have come), he began to speak of 
 noble Banquo, and to wish that he were there. 
 And as he thus did, standing up to drink a 
 carouse to him, the ghost of Banquo came and j 
 sat down in his chair behind him. And he, j 
 turning about to sit down again, saw the ghost I 
 of Banquo, which fronted him, so that he fell in 
 a great passion of fear and fury, uttered many ; 
 words about his murder, by which, when they j 
 heard that Banquo was murdered, they suspected j 
 Macbeth. 
 
 " Then Macduff fled to England to the king's 
 son, and so they raised an army and came j 
 into Scotland, and at Dunston Anyse overthrew j 
 Macbeth. In the mean time, while Macduff was j 
 in England, Macbeth slew Macduff's wife and j 
 children, and after, in the battle, Macduff slew 
 Macbeth. 
 
 " Observe, also, how Macbeth's queen did rise 
 in the night in her sleep and walk, and talked 
 and confessed all, and the doctor noted her 
 words." 
 
 Here, then, the date of ihis tragedy must 
 be fixed after the accession of James I. in 
 1603, and before the representation at which 
 Forman was present in 1610. Mr. Collier is 
 inclined to believe that the play was a new 
 one when Forman saw it acted. Be that as 
 it may, we can have no doubt that it be- 
 longed to the last ten years of the poet's 
 life. 
 
 That Shakspere found sufficient materials 
 for this great drama in Holinshed's ' History 
 of Scotland ' is a fact that renders it quite 
 unnecessary for us to enter into any dis- 
 cussion as to the truth of this portion of 
 
354 
 
 STUDIES OF SUAKSPEBE. 
 
 [BOOK vii 
 
 the history, or to point out the authorities 
 upon which the narrative of Holinshed was 
 founded. Better authorities than Holinshed 
 had access to have shown that the contest 
 for the crown of Scotland between Duncan 
 and Macbeth was a contest of factions, and 
 that Macbeth was raised to the throne by 
 his Norwegian allies after a battle in which 
 Duncan fell : in the same way, after a long 
 rule, was he vanquished and killed by the 
 son of Duncan, supported by his English 
 allies*. But with the differences between 
 the real and apocryphal history it is ma- 
 nifest that we can here have no concern. 
 There is another story told also in the same 
 narrative, which Shakspere with consummate 
 skill has blended with the story of Macbeth. 
 It is that of the Murder of King Duff by 
 Donwald and his wife in Donwald's castle 
 of Forres 
 
 " The king got him into his privy chamber, 
 only with two of his chamberlains, who, having 
 brought him to bed, came forth again, and then 
 fell to banqueting with Donwald and his wife, 
 who had prepared divers delicate dishes and 
 sundry sorts of drinks for their rear-supper or 
 collation, whereat they sat up so long, till they 
 had charged their stomachs with such full gorges, 
 that their heads were no sooner got to the pillow 
 but asleep they were so fast that a man might 
 have removed the chamber over them sooner than 
 to have awaked them out of their drunken sleep. 
 
 " Then Donwald, though he abhorred the act 
 greatly in heart, yet through instigation of his 
 wife he called four of his servants unto him 
 (whom he had made privy to his wicked in- 
 tent before, and framed to his purpose with 
 large gifts), and now declaring unto them after 
 what sort they should work the feat, they gladly 
 obeyed his instructions, and, speedily going 
 about the murder, they enter the chamber (in 
 which the king lay) a little before cock's crow, 
 where they secretly cut his throat as he lay 
 sleeping, without any bustling at all ; and im- 
 mediately by a postern gate they carried forth 
 the dead body into the fields. ***** 
 Donwald, about the time that the murder was 
 in doing, got him amongst them that kept 
 the watch, and so continued in company with 
 them all the residue of the night. But in the 
 morning, when the noise was raised in the 
 
 * See Skene's ' Highlanders of Scotland,' vol. i. p. 
 
 king's chamber how the king was slain, his 
 body conveyed away, and the bed all beraid 
 with blood, he with the watch ran thither, as 
 though he had known nothing of the ^matter, 
 and breaking into the chamber, and finding 
 cakes of blood in the bed and on the floor 
 about the sides of it, he forthwith slew the 
 chamberlains as guilty of that heinous murder. 
 ****** p or ^ e S p ace O f s i x months 
 
 together, after this heinous murder thus com- 
 mitted, there appeared no sun by day, nor moon 
 by night, in any part of the realm, but still 
 was the sky covered with continual clouds, and 
 sometimes such outrageous winds arose, with 
 lightnings and tempests, that the people were 
 in great fear of present destruction." 
 
 It was originally the opinion of Steevens 
 and Malone that a play by Thomas Middle- 
 ton, entitled ' The Witch,' had preceded 
 ' Macbeth,' and that Shakspere was con- 
 sequently indebted to Middleton for the 
 general idea of the witch incantations. 
 Malone subsequently changed his opinion; 
 for in a posthumous edition of his ' Essay on 
 the Chronological Order,' he has maintained 
 that ' The Witch ' was a later production 
 than 'Macbeth.' 
 
 There is an interesting point connected 
 with the origin of ' Macbeth,' namely, 
 whether an actual visit to Scotland sug- 
 gested some of the descriptions, and pro- 
 bably the very story of this tragedy. The 
 question ' Did Shakspere visit Scotland ? ' 
 was first raised, in 1767, by William Guthrie, 
 in his 'General History of Scotland:' "A.D. 
 1599. The King, to prove how thoroughly 
 he was now emancipated from the tutelage 
 of his clergy, desired Elizabeth to send him 
 this year a company of English comedians. 
 She complied, and James gave them a li- 
 cence to act in his capital and in his court. 
 I have great reason to think that the 
 immortal Shakspere was of the number." 
 Guthrie, a very loose and inaccurate com- 
 piler, gives no authority for his statement; 
 but it is evidently founded upon the fol- 
 lowing passage in Archbishop Spottiswood's 
 ' History of the Church of Scotland,' which 
 the writer says was "penned at the com- 
 mand of King James the Sixth, who bid the 
 author write the truth and spare not:"- 
 
CHAP. VII.] 
 
 MA.CBETH. 
 
 355 
 
 " In the end of the year [1599] happened 
 some new jars betwixt the King and the 
 ministers of Edinburgh ; because of a com- 
 pany of English comedians, whom the King 
 had licensed to play within the burgh. The 
 ministers, being offended with the liberty 
 given them, did exclaim in their sermons 
 against stage-players, their unruliness and 
 immodest behaviour ; and in their sessions 
 made an act, prohibiting people to resort 
 unto their plays, under pain of the church 
 censures. The King, taking this to be a 
 discharge of his licence, called the sessions 
 before the council, and ordained them to 
 annul their act, and not to restrain the 
 people from going to these comedies : which 
 they promised, and accordingly performed ; 
 whereof publication was made the day after, 
 and all that pleased permitted to repair 
 unto the same, to the great offence of the 
 ministers." This account by Spottiswood is 
 abundantly confirmed by some very curious 
 entries in the accounts of the Lord High 
 Treasurer and the Acts of the Privy Council, 
 which are preserved in the Register House 
 at Edinburgh. The Lord High Treasurer's 
 accounts show that in October, November, 
 and December, 1599, the large sum of 
 426 was distributed among certain English 
 comedians. 
 
 The fortieth volume of the registers of 
 the Town Council of Aberdeen contains 
 some remarkable entries which show that 
 in October, 1607, a company of players, 
 specially recommended by the King, were 
 paid a gratuity from the Corporation of 
 Aberdeen for their performances in that 
 town, one of them subsequently receiving 
 the freedom of the borough; that they are 
 called "the King's servants, who played 
 comedies and stage-plays." The circum- 
 stance that they are recommended by the 
 King's special letter is not so important 
 as the description of them as the King's 
 servants. Thirteen days after the entry of 
 the 9th of October, at which first period 
 these servants of the King had played 
 some of their comedies, Lawrence Fletcher, 
 comedian to his Majesty, is admitted a 
 burgess of Guild of the borough of Aberdeen 
 the greatest honour which the Corporation 
 
 could bestow. He is admitted to this honour 
 in company with a nobleman of France vi- 
 siting Aberdeen for the gratification of his 
 curiosity, and recommended by the King to 
 be favourably entertained; as well as with 
 three men of rank, and others, who were 
 directed by his Majesty to accompany "the 
 said Frenchman." All the party are described 
 in the document as knights and gentlemen. 
 We have to inquire, then, who was Lawrence 
 Fletcher, comedian to his Majesty 1 As- 
 suredly the King had not in his service a 
 company of Scotch players. In 1599 he had 
 licensed a company of English comedians to 
 play at Edinburgh. Fond as James was of 
 theatrical exhibitions, he had not the means 
 of gratifying his taste, except through the 
 visits of English comedians. Scotland had 
 no drama. 
 
 " Lawrence Fletcher, comedian to his 
 Majesty," was undoubtedly an Englishman ; 
 and "The King's servants presently in this 
 borough who play comedies and stage-plays" 
 were as certainly English players. There 
 are not many facts known by which we can 
 trace the history of Lawrence Fletcher. He 
 is not mentioned amongst " the names of the 
 principal actors in all these plays," which 
 list is given in the first folio edition of 
 Shakspere ; but he undoubtedly belonged 
 to Shakspere's company. The patent of 
 James I., dated at Westminster on the 
 nineteenth of May, 1603, in favour of the 
 players acting at the Globe, is headed " Pro 
 Laurentio Fletcher et Willielmo Shakespeare 
 & aliis;" and it licenses and authorises the 
 performances of "Laurence Fletcher, William 
 Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, Augustine 
 Phillippes, John Hemings, Henrie Condel, 
 William Sly, Robert Armin, Richard Cowly, 
 and the rest of their associates." The con- 
 nection in 1603 of Fletcher and Shakspere 
 cannot be more distinctly established than 
 by this document. 
 
 The patent of James the First of England 
 directed to Lawrence Fletcher, William 
 Shakspere, and others, eighteen months 
 after the performances at Aberdeen, is di- 
 rected to those persons as "our servants." 
 It does not appoint them the King's servants, 
 but recognises the appointment as already 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 existing. Can there be a reasonable doubt 
 that the appointment was originally made 
 by the King in Scotland, and subsisted when 
 the same King ascended the English throne? 
 Lawrence Fletcher was admitted a burgess 
 of Guild of the borough of Aberdeen as 
 comedian to his Majesty, in company with 
 other persons who were servitors to his 
 Majesty. He received that honour, we may 
 conclude, as the head of the company, also 
 the King's servants. We know not how he 
 attained this distinction amongst his fellows, 
 but it is impossible to imagine that accident 
 so favoured him in two instances. The 
 King's servant who was most favoured at 
 Aberdeen, and the King's servant who is 
 first in the patent in 1603, was surely placed 
 in that position by the voice of his fellows, 
 the other King's servants. William Shak- 
 spere is named with him in a marked 
 manner in the heading of the patent. Seven 
 of their fellows are also named, as dis- 
 tinguished from "the rest of their associates." 
 There can be no doubt of the identity of the 
 Lawrence Fletcher, the servant of James VI. 
 of Scotland, and the Lawrence Fletcher, the 
 servant of James I. of England. Can we 
 doubt that the King's servants who played 
 comedies and stage-plays in Aberdeen, in 
 1601, were, taken as a company, the King's 
 servants who were licensed to exercise the 
 art and faculty of playing, throughout all 
 the realm, in 1603 1 If these points are 
 evident, what reason have we to doubt that 
 William Shakspere, the second named in 
 the licence of 1603, was amongst the King's 
 servants at Aberdeen in 1601 ? Every cir- 
 cumstance concurs in the likelihood that he 
 was of that number recommended by the 
 King's special letter ; and his position in the 
 licence, even before Burbage, was, we may 
 well believe, a compliment to him who in 
 1601 had taught "our James" something of 
 the power and riches of the English drama. 
 
 These circumstances give us, we think, 
 warranty to conclude that the story of 
 Macbeth might have been suggested to 
 Shakspere upon Scottish ground ; that the 
 accuracy displayed in the local descriptions 
 and allusions might have been derived from 
 a rapid personal observation ; and that some 
 
 of the peculiarities of the witchcraft imagery 
 might have been found in Scottish supersti- 
 tions, more especially in those which are 
 known to have been rife at Aberdeen at the 
 beginning of the seventeenth century. 
 
 In Coleridge's early sonnet 'to the Author 
 of the Robbers,' his imagination is enchained 
 to the most terrible scene of that play ; 
 disregarding, as it were, all the accessories 
 by which its horrors are mitigated and 
 rendered endurable : 
 
 " Schiller ! that hour I would have wish'd to die, 
 If through the shuddering midnight I had sent 
 From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent 
 That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cry | 
 Lest in some after-moment aught more mean 
 Might stamp me mortal ! A triumphant shout 
 Black Horror scream'd, and all her goblin rout 
 Diminish' d shrunk from the more withering 
 scene ! " 
 
 It was in a somewhat similar manner that 
 Shakspere's representation of the murder of 
 Duncan affected the imagination of Mrs. 
 Siddons : " It was my custom to study my 
 characters at night, when all the domestic 
 cares and business of the day were over. On 
 the night preceding that on which I Avas to 
 appear in this part for the first time, I shut 
 myself up, as usual, when all the family were 
 retired, and commenced my study of Lady 
 Macbeth. As the character is very short, I 
 thought I should soon accomplish it. Being 
 then only twenty years of age, I believed, as 
 many others do believe, that little more was 
 necessary than to get the words into my 
 head; for the necessity of discrimination, 
 and the development of character, at that 
 time of my life, had scarcely entered into 
 my imagination. But to proceed. I went 
 on with tolerable composure, in the silence 
 of the night, (a night I can never forget,) till 
 I came to the assassination scene, when the 
 horrors of the scene rose to a degree that 
 made it impossible for me to get farther. I 
 snatched up my candle, and hurried out of 
 the room in a paroxysm of terror. My dress 
 was of silk, and the rustling of it, as I 
 ascended the stairs to go to bed, seemed to 
 my panic-struck fancy like the movement of 
 a spectre pursuing me. At last I reached j 
 
CHAP. VII.] 
 
 MACBETH. 
 
 357 
 
 my chamber, where I found my husban 1 fast 
 asleep. I clapped my candlestick down upon 
 the table, without the power of putting it 
 out ; and I threw myself on my bed, without 
 daring to stay even to take off my clothes." * 
 This most interesting passage appears to us 
 to involve the consideration of the principles 
 upon which the examination of such a work 
 of art as 'Macbeth' can alone be attempted. 
 To analyse the conduct of the plot, to exhibit 
 the obvious and the latent features of the 
 characters, to point out the proprieties and 
 the splendours of the poetical language, 
 these are duties which, however agreeable 
 they may be to ourselves, are scarcely 
 demanded by the nature of the subject ; and 
 they have been so often attempted, that there 
 is manifest danger of being trite and weari- 
 some if we should enter into this wide field. 
 We shall, therefore, apply ourselves as strictly 
 as possible to an inquiry into the nature of 
 that poetical Art by which the horrors of 
 this great tragedy are confined within the 
 limits of pleasurable emotion. 
 
 If the drama of 'Macbeth' were to pro- 
 duce the same effect upon the mind of an 
 imaginative reader as that described by Mrs. 
 Sid Jons, it would not be the great work of art 
 which it really is. If our poet had resolved, 
 using the words of his own Othello, to 
 
 " abandon all remorse, 
 On horror's head horrors accumulate/' 
 the midnight terrors, such as Mrs. Siddons 
 has described, would have indeed been a 
 tribute to power, but not to the power which 
 has produced 'Macbeth.' The paroxysm of 
 fear, the panic-struck fancy, the prostrated 
 senses, so beautifully described by this im- 
 passioned actress, were the result of the 
 intensity with which she had fixed her mind 
 upon that part of the play which she was 
 herself to act. In the endeavour to get the 
 words into her head, her own fine genius was 
 naturally kindled to behold a complete vision 
 of the wonderful scene. Again, and again, 
 were the words repeated, on that night which 
 she could never forget, in the silence of 
 that night when all about her were sleeping. 
 And then she heard the owl shriek, amidst 
 
 * Memoranda by Mrs. Siddons, inserted in her 
 by Mr. Campbell. 
 
 Life' 
 
 the hurried steps in the fatal chamber, and 
 she saw the bloody hands of the assassin, 
 and, personifying the murderess, she rushed 
 to dip her own hands in the gore of Duncan. 
 It is perfectly evident that this intensity of 
 conception has carried the horrors far beyond 
 the limits of pleasurable emotion, and has 
 produced all the terrors of a real murder. No 
 reader of the play, and no spectator, can 
 regard this play as Mrs. Siddons regarded it. 
 On that night she, probably for the first 
 time, had a strong though imperfect vision 
 of the character of Lady Macbeth, such as 
 she afterwards delineated it; and in that 
 case, what to all of us must, under any 
 circumstances, be a work of art, however 
 glorious, was to her almost a reality. It was 
 the isolation of the scene, demanded by her 
 own attempt to conceive the character of 
 Lady Macbeth, which made it so terrible to 
 Mrs. Siddons. We have to regard it as a 
 part of a great whole, which combines and 
 harmonises with all around it ; for which we 
 are adequately prepared by what has gone 
 before ; and which, even if we look at it as a 
 picture which represents only that one por- 
 tion of the action, has still its own repose, 
 its own harmony of colouring, its own 
 chiaroscuro, is to be seen under a natural 
 light. There was a preternatural light upon 
 it when Mrs. Siddons saw it as she has 
 described. 
 
 The assassination scene of the second act 
 is dimly shadowed out in the first lines of the 
 drama, when those mysterious beings, 
 " So wither'd, and so wild in their attire ; 
 
 That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth, 
 
 And yet are on %" 
 have resolved to go 
 " Upon the heath : 
 
 There to meet with Macbeth." 
 We know there is to be evil. One of the 
 critics of the last age has observed, "The 
 Witches here seem to be introduced for no 
 other purpose than to tell us they are to 
 meet again." If the Witches had not been 
 introduced in the first scene, if we had not 
 known that they were about " to meet with 
 Macbeth," the narrative of Macbeth's 
 prowess in the second scene, and the reso- 
 lution of Duncan to create him Thane of 
 
358 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vii. 
 
 Cawdor, would have been comparatively 
 pointless. The ten lines of the first Witch- 
 scene give the key-note of the tragedy. They 
 take us out of the course of ordinary life; 
 they tell us there is to be a " supernatural 
 soliciting ; " they show us that we are entering 
 into the empire of the unreal, and that the 
 circle of the magician is to be drawn about 
 us. When the Witches "meet again," their 
 agency becomes more clear. There they are, 
 again muttering of their uncouth spells, in 
 language which sounds neither of earth nor 
 heaven. Fortunate are those who have never 
 seen the stage-witches of Macbeth, hag-like 
 forms, with beards and brooms, singing 
 D'Avenant's travestie of Shakspere's lyrics, 
 to music, fine and solemn indeed, but 
 which is utterly inadequate to express the 
 Shaksperean idea, as it does not follow the 
 Shaksperean words. Fortunate are they ; for, 
 without the stage recollections, they may 
 picture to themselves beings whose "character 
 consists in the imaginative disconnected from 
 the good ; the shadowy obscure and fearfully 
 anomalous of physical nature, the lawless of 
 human nature, elemental avengers without 
 sex or kin." * The stage- witches of ' Macbeth ' 
 are not much elevated above the Witch of 
 Edmonton of Rowley and Dekker " the 
 plain traditional old-woman witch of our 
 ancestors; poor, deformed, and ignorant; 
 the terror of villages, herself amenable to a 
 justice." Charles Lamb (from whom we 
 quote these words) has, with his accustomed 
 discrimination, also shown the essential 
 differences between the witches of Shakspere 
 and the witches of Middleton : " These 
 (Middleton's) are creatures 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, he is 
 spell-bound. That meeting sways his destiny. 
 He can never break the fascination. These 
 witches hurt the body; those have power 
 over the soul."t But the witches of the 
 stage 'Macbeth' are Middleton's witches, 
 
 * Coleridge's' Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 238. 
 \ ' Specimens of English Dramatic Poets,' vol. i. 
 p. 187- 
 
 and not Shakspere's ; and they sing Middle- 
 ton's lyrics, as stolen by D'Avenant, but 
 they are not Shakspere's lyrics. The witches 
 of Shakspere essentially belong to the action. 
 From the moment they exclaim 
 " A drum, a drum : 
 
 Macbeth doth come," 
 
 all their powers are bent up to the accom- 
 plishment of his ruin. Shakspere gives us 
 no choruses of 
 
 " We dance to the echoes of our feet ;" 
 and 
 
 " We fly by night 'mongst troops of spirits." 
 He makes the superstition tell upon the 
 action of the tragedy, and not a jot farther; 
 and thus he makes the superstition harmonize 
 with the action, and prepare us for its fatal 
 progress and consummation. It was an effect 
 of his unequalled skill to render the super- 
 stition essentially poetical. When we hear 
 in imagination the drum upon that wild 
 heath, and see the victorious generals in the 
 " proper temperament for generating or 
 receiving superstitious impressions," J we 
 connect with these poetical situations the 
 lofty bearing of the " imperfect speakers," 
 and the loftier words of the " prophetic 
 greeting : " 
 "All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of 
 
 Glamis ! 
 All hail, Macbeth ! hail to thee, thane of 
 
 Cawdor ! 
 
 All hail, Macbeth ! that shalt be king here- 
 after." 
 
 It is the romance of this situation which 
 throws its charm over the subsequent hor- 
 rors of the realization of the prophecy, and 
 keeps the whole drama within the limits 
 which separate tragedy from the ' Newgate 
 Calendar.' If some Tate had laid his hand 
 upon ( Macbeth,' as upon ' Lear ' (for D'Ave- 
 nant, who did manufacture it into something 
 which up to the time of Quin was played as 
 Shakspere's, had yet a smack of the poet in 
 him) if some matter-of-fact word-monger 
 had thought it good service to " the rising 
 generation " to get rid of the Witches, and 
 had given the usurper and his wife only 
 their ambition to stimulate their actions, he 
 
 4. Coleridge. 
 
CHAP. VII.] 
 
 MACBETH. 
 
 359 
 
 would have produced a George Barnwell in- 
 
 ^~ -stead of a Macbeth. 
 
 V It is upon the different reception of the 
 supernatural influence, proceeding out of 
 the different constitution of their minds, 
 by which we must appreciate the striking 
 differences in the characters of Macbeth, 
 Banquo, and Lady Macbeth. These are the 
 three who are the sole recipients of the pro- 
 phecy of the Witches ; and this considera- 
 tion, as it appears to us, must determine all 
 that has been said upon the question 
 whether Macbeth was or was not a brave 
 map. There can be no doubt of his bravery 
 when he was' acting under the force of his 
 own will. In the contest with " the merci- 
 less Macdonwald " he was " valour's minion." 
 In that with " Norway himself" he was 
 "Bellona's bridegroom." But when he en- 
 countered the Witches, and his will was laid 
 prostrate under a belief in destiny, there 
 was a new principle introduced into his 
 mind. His self-possession and his self-re- 
 liance were gone : 
 
 " Go od sir, why do you start ; and seem to fear 
 Things that do sound so fair?" 
 
 But he yet depended upon his reason. With 
 marvellous art Shakspere at this moment 
 throws on the straw which is to break the 
 camel's back : 
 
 " The thane of Cawdor lives, 
 A prosperous gentleman; and, to be king, 
 Stands not within the prospect of belief, 
 No more than to be Cawdor." 
 
 In a few minutes he knows he is Cawdor : 
 
 " Glamis, and thane of Cawdor : 
 The greatest is behind." 
 
 But Banquo receives the partial consumma- 
 tion of the prophecy with an unsubdued 
 mind : 
 
 " Oftentimes, to win us to our harm, 
 The instruments of darkness tell us truths ; 
 Win us with honest trifles, to betray us 
 In deepest consequence." 
 
 The will of Banquo refuses to be mixed up 
 I with the prophecy. The will of Macbeth 
 | becomes the accomplice of the " instruments 
 
 of darkness," and is subdued to their pur- 
 
 " Why do I yield to that suggestion 
 Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair, 
 And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, 
 Against the use of nature?" 
 
 And then comes the refuge of every man 
 of unfirm mind upon whom temptation is 
 laid : 
 "If chance will have me king, why, chance 
 
 may crown me, 
 Without my stir." 
 
 If he had opposed the chance, he would 
 have been safe ; but his will was prostrate 
 before the chance, and he perished. It is 
 perfectly clear that the faint battle had 
 been fought between his principle and his 
 "black and deep desires" when he saw some- 
 thing to "o'er-leap" even beyond the life of 
 Duncan, "the prince of Cumberland." In 
 the conflict of his mind it is evident that he 
 communicates to his wife the promises of 
 those who " have more in them than mortal 
 knowledge," not only that she might not 
 lose the "dues of rejoicing," but that he 
 might have some power to rely upon stronger 
 than his own will. He was not deceived 
 there. It is clear that Lady Macbeth had 
 no reliance upon the prophecy ?vorking out 
 itself. She had no belief that chance would 
 make him king without his stir : 
 " Glamis thou art, and Cawdor j and shalt be 
 
 What thou art promised." 
 It was not thou mayst be, or thou wilt be, 
 but thou shalt be. The only fear she had 
 was of his nature. She would "catch the 
 nearest way." She instantly saw that way. 
 The prophecy was to her nothing but as it 
 regarded the effect to be produced upon him 
 who would not play false, and yet would 
 wrongly win. All that is coming is clear 
 before her, through the force of her will : 
 
 " The raven himself is hoarse 
 That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 
 Under my battlements." 
 
 Upon the arrival of Macbeth, the breathless 
 rapidity with which she subjects him to her 
 resolve is one of the most appalling things 
 in the whole drama. Her tremendous will 
 is the real destiny which subjugates his in- 
 decision. Not a word of question or expla- 
 
360 
 
 STUDIES OP SIIAKSPERE. 
 
 [ROOK VII. 
 
 nation ! She salutes him as Glamis and 
 Oawdor, and 
 
 " Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter." 
 
 This is the sole allusion to the weird sisters. 
 " We will speak further," seals his fate. 
 
 Here then, up to this point, we have the 
 supernatural influence determining the pro- 
 gress of the action with a precipitation 
 which in itself appears almost supernatural ; 
 and yet it is in itself strictly consonant to 
 nature. It works in and through human 
 passions and feelings. It works through un- 
 belief as well as through belief. It per- 
 vades the entire action, whether in its repose 
 or in its tumult. When "the heavens' 
 breath smells wooingly " in Macbeth's castle, 
 we feel that it is as treacherous to the 
 "gentle senses" of Duncan as the blandish- 
 ments of his hostess ; and that this calm is 
 but the prelude to that " unruly" night which 
 is to follow, with its "lamentings" and its 
 " strange screams of death." But this is a 
 part of the poetry of the action, which 
 keeps the horror within the bounds pre- 
 scribed by a high art.( The beautiful adap- 
 tation of the characters to the action con- 
 stitutes a higher essential of the poetry ^ 
 The last scene of the first act, where Mac- 
 beth marshals before him the secondary con- 
 sequences of the meditated crime, and the 
 secondary arguments against its commission, 
 all the while forgetting that the real 
 question is that of the one step from inno- 
 cence into guilt, and where all these pru- 
 dential considerations are at once over- 
 whelmed by a guilty energy which despises 
 as well as renounces them, that scene is 
 indeed more terrible to us than the assas- 
 sination scene ; for it shows us how men fall 
 through their own weakness and the bad 
 strength of others. But in all this we see 
 the deep philosophy of the poet, his pro- 
 i found knowledge of the springs of human 
 [ action, derived perhaps from his experience 
 of every-day crime and folly, but lifted into 
 the highest poetry by his marvellous imagi- 
 nation. We know that after this the scene 
 of the murder must come. All the pre- 
 paratory incidents are poetical. The moon 
 is down ; Banquo and Fleance walk by torch- 
 
 light ; the servants are moving to rest ; 
 Macbeth is alone. He sees " the air-drawn 
 dagger" which leads him to Duncan ; he is 
 still under the influence of some power 
 stronger than his will ; he is beset with false 
 creations ; his imagination is excited ; he 
 moves to bloodshed amidst a crowd of poeti- 
 cal images, with which his mind dallies, as 
 it were, in its agony. Half frantic he has 
 done the deed. His passion must now have 
 vent. It rushes like a torrent over the calm- 
 ness which his wife opposes to it. His terrors 
 embody themselves in gushing descriptions 
 of those fearful voices that rang in the mur- 
 derer's ears. Reproaches and taunts have 
 now no power over him : 
 
 " 1 11 go no more : 
 
 1 am afraid to think what I have done; 
 Look on 't again, I dare not." 
 
 It is impossible, we apprehend, for the poet 
 to have more clearly indicated the mode in 
 which he meant to contrast the characters 
 of Macbeth and his wife than in the scene 
 before us. It is a mistake to characterise 
 the intellect of Lady Macbeth as of a higher 
 order than that of her husband. Her force 
 of character was stronger, because her in- 
 tellect was less. She wanted that higher 
 power which he possessed the power of 
 imagination. She hears no noises in that 
 terrible hour but the scream of the owl and 
 the cry of the crickets. To her, 
 
 " The sleeping, and the dead, 
 Are but as pictures." 
 
 In her view 
 
 " A little water clears us, of this deed." 
 
 We believe that, if it had not been for the 
 necessities of a theatrical representation, 
 Shakspere would never have allowed it to 
 have been supposed that a visible ghost was 
 presented in the banquet-seen 3. It is to him 
 who saw the dagger, and heard the voices 
 cry " sleep no more," and who exclaimed 
 
 " Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood 
 Clean from my hand?" 
 
 it is to him alone that the spectral appear- 
 ances of that "solemn supper" are visible. 
 Are they not then the forms only of his 
 
CHAP. VI I. j 
 
 MACBETH. 
 
 361 
 
 imagination ? The partner of his guilt, who 
 looked upon the great crime only as a 
 business of necessity, who would have com- 
 mitted it herself but for one touch of feeling, 
 confessed only to herself, 
 
 " Had he not resembled 
 My father as he slept I had done 't," 
 
 who had before disclaimed even the tenderest 
 feelings of a mother if they had stood 
 between her and her purpose, she sees no 
 spectre, because her obdurate will cannot 
 co-exist with the imagination which produces 
 the terror and remorse of her husband. It is 
 scarcely the "towering bravery of her mind,"* 
 in the right sense of the word : it is some- 
 thing lower than courage ; it is the absence 
 of impressibility : the tenacious adherence to 
 one dominant passion constitutes her force of 
 character. 
 
 As Macbeth recedes from his original 
 nature under the influence of his fears and 
 his superstitions, he becomes, of necessity, a 
 lower creature. It is the natural course of 
 guilt. The " brave Macbeth " changes to a 
 counterfeiter of passions, a hypocrite, 
 
 " Oh, yet I do repent me of my fury, 
 That I did kill them." 
 
 He descends not only to the hire of mur- 
 derers, but to the slander of his friend to 
 stimulate their revenge. But his tempera- 
 ment is still that of which poets are made. 
 In his murderous purposes he is still imagi- 
 native : 
 
 " Ere the bat hath flown 
 
 His cloister'd flight; ere, to black Hecate's 
 summons, 
 
 The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hums, 
 
 Hath rung night's yawning peal, 
 
 There shall be done a deed of dreadful note." 
 
 It is this condition of Macbeth's mind which, 
 we must again repeat, limits and mitigates 
 the horror of the tragedy. After the tumult 
 of the banquet-scene the imagination of 
 Macbeth again overbears (as it did after the 
 murder) the force of the will in Lady 
 Macbeth. It appears to us that her taunts 
 and reproaches are only ventured upon by 
 her when his excitement is beginning. After 
 
 * Mrs. Jameson. 
 
 it has run its terrific course, and theirighttd 
 guests have departed, and the guilty man 
 mutters " it will have blood," then is her 
 intellectual energy utterly helpless before 
 his higher passion. Mrs. Jameson says of 
 this remarkable scene, " A few words of sub- 
 missive reply to his questions, and an entreaty 
 to seek repose, are all she permits herself to 
 utter. There is a touch of pathos and ten- 
 derness in this silence which has always 
 affected me beyond expression." Is it sub- 
 mission 1 Is it tenderness 1 Is it not rather 
 the lower energy in subjection to the higher ? 
 Her intellect has lost its anchorage ; but his 
 imagination is about to receive a new stimu- 
 lant : 
 
 " I will to-morrow 
 
 (And betimes I will) unto the weird sisters : 
 More shall they speak; for now I am bent to 
 
 know, 
 By the worst means, the worst." 
 
 " He has by guilt torn himself live-asunder 
 from nature, and is therefore himself in a 
 preternatural state: no wonder, then, that j 
 he is inclined to superstition, and faith in j 
 the unknown of signs and tokens, and super- j 
 human agencies." Coleridge thus notices the ! 
 point of action of which we are speaking. 
 But it must not be forgotten that Macbeth 
 was inclined to superstition before the guilt. 
 and that his faith in superhuman agencies 
 went far to produce the guilt. From this 
 moment, however, his guilt is bolder, and his 
 will more obdurate ; his supernatural know- 
 ledge stands in the place of reflection and 
 caution. He believes in it, and yet he will do 
 something beyond the belief. He is told to 
 "beware Macduff;" but he is also told that 
 " none of woman born shall harm Macbeth." 
 How does he reconcile this contrary belief? 
 
 " Then live, Macduff: What need I fear of thee*? 
 But yet I '11 make assurance double sure, 
 And take a bond of fate : thou shalt not live ; 
 That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies, 
 And sleep in spite of thunder." 
 
 And then comes the other prophecy of 
 safety : 
 
 " Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be, until 
 Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill 
 Shall come airnnst him." 
 
362 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPE11E. 
 
 [BOOK vn. 
 
 Does it produce tranquillity ? All beyond is 
 desperation : 
 
 " Mad). Saw you the weird sisters 1 
 Len. No, my lord. 
 
 Mod). Came they not by you 1 ? 
 Len. No, indeed, my lord. 
 
 Madt. Infected be the air whereon they 
 
 ride; 
 And damn'd all those that trust them ! I did 
 
 hear 
 
 The galloping of horse : Who was 't came by? 
 Len. 'T is two or three, my lord, that bring 
 
 you word, 
 
 Macduff is fled to England. 
 Mad). Fled to England] 
 
 Len. Ay, my good lord. 
 Mad). Time, thou anticipat'st my dread 
 
 exploits: 
 
 The flighty purpose never is o'ertook, 
 Unless the deed go with it: From this mo- 
 ment, 
 
 The very firstlings of my heart shall be 
 The firstlings of my hand. And even now, 
 To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought 
 
 and done : 
 
 The castle of Macduff I will surprise; 
 Seize upon Fife; give to the edge o' the 
 
 sword 
 
 His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls 
 That trace him in his line." 
 
 The retribution which falls upon Lady 
 Macbeth is precisely that which is fitted to 
 her guilt. The powerful will is subjected to 
 the domination of her own imperfect senses. 
 We cannot dwell upon her terrible punish- 
 ment. There can be nothing beyond the 
 agony of 
 
 " Here 's the smell of the blood still : all the 
 perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little 
 hand." 
 
 The vengeance falls more gently on Macbeth ; 
 for he is in activity ; he is still confident in 
 prophetic securities. The contemplative 
 melancholy which, however, occasionally 
 comes over him in the last struggle is still 
 true to the poetry of his character : 
 
 " Seyton ! I am sick at heart. 
 When I behold Seyton, I say ! This push 
 Will cheer me ever, or dis-seat me now. 
 1 have liv'd long enough : my way of life 
 Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf: 
 
 And that which should accompany old age, 
 As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, 
 I must not look to have; but, in their stead, 
 Curses not loud, but deep, mouth-honour, 
 
 breath, 
 Which the poor heart would fain deny, and 
 
 dare not." 
 
 This passage, and the subsequent one of 
 " To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
 Creeps in this petty space from day to day, 
 To the last syllable of recorded time ; 
 And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
 The way to dusty death," 
 tell us of something higher and better in his 
 character than the assassin and the usurper. 
 He was the victim of " the equivocation of 
 the fiend ;" and he has paid a fearful penalty 
 for his belief. The final avenging is a com- 
 passionate one, for he dies a warrior's 
 death : 
 
 I will not yield, 
 To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's 
 
 feet, 
 
 And to be baited with the rabble's curse. 
 Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane, 
 And thou oppos'd, being of no woman born, 
 Yet I will try the last: Before my body 
 I throw my warlike shield." 
 
 The principle which we have thus so im- 
 perfectly attempted to exhibit, as the leading 
 characteristic of this glorious tragedy, is, 
 without doubt, that which constitutes the 
 essential difference between a work of the 
 highest genius and a work of mediocrity. 
 Without power by which we here especially 
 mean the ability to produce strong excite- 
 ment by the display of scenes of horror no 
 poet of the highest order was ever made ; 
 but this alone does not make such a poet. 
 If he is called upon to present such scenes, 
 they must, even in their most striking forms, 
 be associated with the beautiful. The pre- 
 eminence of his art in this particular can 
 alone prevent them affecting the imagination 
 beyond the limits of pleasurable emotion. 
 To keep within these limits, and yet to 
 preserve all the energy which results from 
 the power of dealing with the terrible apart 
 from the beautiful, belongs to few that the 
 world has seen : to Shakspere it belongs 
 surpassingly. 
 
BOOK Vlll. Cll. I.] 
 
 A WINTER 3 TALE. 
 
 363 
 
 BOOK VIII. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 A WINTER'S TALE. 
 
 WE have no edition of the 'Winter's Tale' 
 prior to that of the folio of 1623; nor was it 
 entered upon the registers of the Stationers' 
 Company previous to the entry by the pro- 
 prietors of the folio. The original text, 
 which is divided into acts and scenes, is 
 remarkably correct. 
 
 Chalmers has assigned the ' Winter's Tale' 
 to 1601. The play contains this passage: 
 
 " If I could find example 
 Of thousands that had struck anointed kings 
 And flourish'd after, I 'd not do 't : but since 
 Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears 
 
 not one, 
 
 Let villainy itself forswear 't." 
 " These lines," says Chalmers, " were called 
 forth by the occasion of the conspiracy of 
 Essex." "No," says Malone, "these lines 
 could never have been intended for the ear 
 of her who had deprived the Queen of Scots 
 of her life. To the son of Mary they could not 
 but have been agreeable." Upon this ground 
 he assigned the comedy to 1604. There is a 
 third critic, of much higher acuteness than 
 the greater number of those who have given 
 us speculations on the chronology of Shak- 
 spere's plays, we mean Horace Walpole, 
 whose conjecture is so ingenious and amusing 
 that we copy it without abridgment : 
 
 " The ' Winter's Tale ' may be ranked among 
 the historic plays of Shakspere, though not one 
 of his numerous critics and commentators have 
 discovered the drift of it. It was certainly 
 intended (in compliment to Queen Elizabeth) 
 as an indirect apology for her mother, Anne 
 Boleyn. The address of the poet appears no- 
 where to more advantage. The subject was too 
 delicate to be exhibited on the stage without a 
 | veil; and it was too recent, and touched the 
 I queen too nearly, for the bard to have ventured 
 
 so home an allusion on any other ground than 
 compliment. The unreasonable jealousy of 
 Leontes, and his violent conduct in consequence, 
 form a true portrait of Henry VIII., who gene- 
 rally made the law the engine of his boisterous 
 passions. Not only the general plan of the 
 story is most applicable, but several passages 
 are so marked that they touch the real history- 
 nearer than the fable. Hermione on her trial, 
 says, 
 
 ' For honour, 
 
 'T is a derivative from me to mine, 
 
 And only that I stand for.' 
 
 This seems to be taken from the very letter of 
 Anne Boleyn to the king before her execution, 
 where she pleads for the infant princess his 
 daughter. Mamillius, the young prince, an 
 unnecessary character, dies in his infancy; but 
 it confirms the allusion, as Queen Anne, before 
 Elizabeth, bore a still-born son. But the most 
 striking passage, and which had nothing to do 
 in the tragedy but as it pictured Elizabeth, is 
 where Paulina, describing the new-born princess, 
 and her likeness to her father, says, ' She has the 
 very trick of his frown' There is one sentence, 
 indeed, so applicable both to Elizabeth and her 
 father, that I should suspect the poet inserted it 
 after her death. Paulina, speaking of the child, 
 tells the king 
 
 "T is yours : 
 And might we lay the old proverb to your 
 
 charge, 
 So like you, 't is the worse.' 
 
 The 'Winter's Tale' was therefore in reality a 
 Second Part of 'Henry VIII.'" 
 
 Plausible as this may appear, the conjecture 
 falls to the ground when we consider that 
 Shakspere adopted all that part of the plot 
 of this comedy which relates to the "un- 
 reasonable jealousy of Leontes" from a novel 
 
364 
 
 STUDIES OF SlIAKSPEllK 
 
 [jJOOK VIII. 
 
 of which we have an edition as early as 1588. 
 Robert Greene, the auther of ' Pandosto,' 
 could scarcely have intended his story as 
 " a compliment to Queen Elizabeth" and a 
 " true portrait of Henry VIII.," for he makes 
 the jealous king of his novel terminate his 
 career with suicide. In truth, as we have 
 sometimes inferred, questions such as this 
 are very pretty conundrums, and worthy to 
 be cherished as the amusement of elderly 
 gentlemen who have outlived their relish for 
 early sports, and leave to others who are less 
 careful of their dignity to 
 
 " Play at push-pin with the boys." 
 
 Beyond this they are for the most part 
 worthless. 
 
 In the absence of any satisfactory internal 
 evidence of the date of this comedy, beyond 
 that furnished by the general character of 
 the language and versification, it was at 
 length pointed out by Malone that an entry 
 in the office-book of Sir Henry Herbert, 
 Master of the Revels in 1623, mentions " an 
 old play called 'Winter's Tale,' formerly 
 allowed of by Sir George Bucke and likewise 
 by me." Sir George Bucke first exercised 
 the office of Master of the Revels in 1610. 
 The play, therefore, could not have been 
 earlier than this year; and Mr. Collier has 
 produced conclusive evidence that it was 
 acted in 1611. We have again to refer to 
 " a book of plays, and notes thereof, for 
 common policy " kept by Dr. Symon Forman, 
 and discovered some few years ago in the 
 Bodleian Library. Forman saw the ' Winter's 
 Tale' acted on the 15th of May, 1611, at 
 Shakspere's theatre, the Globe. It was most 
 probably then a new play ; for he is very 
 minute in his description of the plot. 
 
 " Observe there how Leontes, King of Sicilia, 
 was overcome with jealousy of his wife with the 
 King of Bohemia, his friend, that came to see 
 him; and how he contrived his death, and would 
 have had his cupbearer to have poisoned him, 
 who gave the King of Bohemia warning thereof, 
 and fled with him to Bohemia. 
 
 " Iveniember, also, how he sent to the oracle of 
 Apollo, and the answer of Apollo that she was 
 guiltless, and that the king was jealous, &c., and 
 how, except the child was found aerain that was 
 
 lost, the king should die without issue; for the 
 child was carried into Bohemia, and there laid 
 in a forest, and brought up by a shepherd. And 
 the King of Bohemia's son married that wench, 
 and how they fled into Sicilia to Leontes; and 
 the shepherd having showed the letter to the 
 nobleman whom Leontes sent, it was that child, 
 and by the jewels found about her she was 
 known to be Leontes' daughter, and was then 
 sixteen years old. 
 
 " Remember, also, the rogue that came in all 
 tattered, like Coll Pipin, and how he feigned 
 him sick and to have been robbed of all he had, 
 and how he cozened the poor man of all his 
 money, and after came to the sheep-shear with a 
 pedlar's pack, and there cozened them again of 
 all their money. And how he changed apparel 
 with the King of Bohemia's son, and then how 
 he turned courtier, &c. 
 
 " Beware of trusting feigned beggars or 
 fawning fellows."* 
 
 The novel of Robert Greene, called ' Pan- 
 dosto,' and 'The History of Dorastus and 
 Fawnia,' which Shakspere undoubtedly fol- 
 lowed, with very few important deviations, 
 in the construction of the plot of his '.Winter's 
 Tale,' is a small book, occupying fifty-nine 
 pages in the reprint, with an Introductory 
 Notice by Mr. Collierf. It was a work of 
 extraordinary popularity, there beingfourteen 
 editions known to exist. Of the nature of 
 Shakspere's obligations to this work, Mr. 
 Collier thus justly speaks : 
 
 " Robert Greene was a man who possessed all 
 the advantages of education : he was a graduate 
 of both Universities he was skilled in ancient 
 learning and in modern languages he had, 
 besides, a prolific imagination, a lively and 
 elegant fancy, and a grace of expression rarely 
 exceeded; yet, let any person well acquainted 
 with the ' Winter's Tale ' read the novel of 
 ' Pandosto/ upon which it was founded, and he 
 will be struck at once with the vast pre-eminence 
 of Shakespeare, and with the admirable manner 
 in which he has converted materials supplied by 
 another to his own use. The bare outline of 
 the story (with the exception of Shakespeare's 
 miraculous conclusion) is nearly the same in 
 both ; but this is all they have in common, and 
 Shakespeare may be said to have scarcely 
 
 * ' New Particulars,' p. 20. 
 
 f ' Shakespeare's Library, Part I. 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 A WINTER S TALE. 
 
 365 
 
 adopted a single hint for his descriptions, or 
 a line for his dialogue ; while in point of passion 
 and sentiment Greene is cold, formal, and 
 artificial the very opposite of everything in 
 Skakespeare." 
 
 Without wearying the reader with any 
 very extensive comparisons of the novel and 
 the drama, we shall run through the pro- 
 duction of Greene, to which our great poet 
 has incidentally imparted a real interest. 
 
 " In the country of Bohemia," says the 
 novel, "there reigned a king called Pandosto." 
 The ' Leontes' of Shakspere is the 'Pandosto' 
 of Greene. The Polixenes of the play is 
 Egistus in the novel : 
 
 " It so happened that Egistus, King of Sicilia, 
 who in his youth had been brought up with 
 Pandosto, desirous to show that neither tract of 
 time nor distance of place could diminish their 
 former friendship, provided a navy of ships, and 
 sailed into Bohemia to visit his old friend and 
 ; companion." 
 
 : Here, then, we have the scene of the action 
 
 reversed. The jealous king is of Bohemi s, 
 
 his injured friend of Sicilia. But the 
 
 I visitor sails into Bohemia. The wife of Pan- 
 
 I dosto is Bellaria ; and they have a young son 
 
 called Garinter. Pandosto becomes jealous, 
 
 slowly, and by degrees ; and there is at least 
 
 some want of caution in the queen to justify 
 
 it: 
 
 " Bellaria noting in Egistus a princely and 
 bountiful mind, adorned with sundry and ex- 
 cellent qualities, and Egistus finding in her a 
 virtuous and courteous disposition, there grew 
 such a secret uniting of their affections, that the 
 
 \ one could not well be without the company of 
 
 ! the other." 
 
 The great author of 'Othello' would not 
 leal with jealousy after this fashion. He 
 ':;ui already produced that immortal portrait 
 
 " Of one, not easily jealous, but, being wrought, 
 Perplex'd in the extreme." 
 
 He had now to exhibit the distractions of a 
 mind to which jealousy was native; to depict 
 the terrible access of passion, uprooting in 
 a moment all deliberation, all reason, all 
 
 gentleness. The instant the idea enters the 
 mind of Leontes the passion is at its height : 
 
 "I have tremor cordis on me: my heart 
 dances." 
 
 Very different is the jealous king of Greene : 
 
 "These and such-like doubtful thoughts, a 
 long time smothering in his stomach, began at 
 last to kindle in his mind a secret mistrust, 
 which, increased by suspicion, grew at last to a 
 flaming jealousy that so tormented him as he 
 could take no rest." 
 
 Coleridge has described the jealousy of Le- 
 ontes with incomparable truth of analysis : 
 
 " The idea of this delightful drama is a genuine 
 jealousy of disposition, and it should be imme- 
 diately followed by the perusal of 'Othello,' 
 which is the direct contrast of it in every 
 particular. For jealousy is a vice of the mind, 
 a culpable tendency of the temper, having 
 certain well-known and well-defined effects and 
 concomitants, all of which are visible in Leontes, 
 and, I boldly say, not one of which marks its 
 presence in Othello; such as, first, an excit- 
 ability by the most inadequate causes, and an 
 eagerness to snatch at proofs; secondly, a gross- 
 ness of conception, and a disposition to degrade 
 the object of the passion by sensual fancies and 
 images; thirdly, a sense of shame of his own 
 feelings exhibited in a solitary moodiness of 
 humour, and yet, from the violence of the passion, 
 forced to utter itself, and therefore catching 
 occasions to ease the mind by ambiguities, 
 equivoques, by talking to those who cannot, and 
 who are known not to be able to, understand 
 what is said to them, in short, by soliloquy in 
 the form of dialogue, and hence a confused, 
 broken, and fragmentary manner; fourthly, a 
 dread of vulgar ridicule, as distinct from a high 
 sense of honour, or a mistaken sense of duty; 
 and lastly, and immediately consequent on this, 
 a spirit of selfish vindictiveness."* 
 
 The action of the novel and that of the 
 drama continue in a pretty equal course. 
 Pandosto tampers with his cupbearer, Franion, 
 to poison Egistus ; and the cupbearer, terri- 
 fied at the fearful commission, reveals the 
 design to the object of his master's hatred. 
 Eventually they escape together : 
 
 "Egistus, fearing that delay might breed 
 
 * ' Literary Remains,' vol. ii. 
 
366 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vin. 
 
 danger, and willing that the grass should not be 
 cut from under his feet, taking bag and baggage, 
 by the help of Franion conveyed himself and 
 his men out at a postern gate of the city, so 
 secretly and speedily, that without any suspicion 
 they got to the sea-shore; where, with many a 
 bitter curse taking their leave of Bohemia, they 
 went aboard." 
 
 Bellaria is committed to prison where she 
 gives birth to a daughter. The guard 
 
 " carried the child to the king, who, quite devoid 
 of pity, commanded that without delay it should 
 be put in the boat, having neither sail nor 
 rudder to guide it, and so to be carried into the 
 midst of the sea, and there left to the wind and 
 wave as the destinies please to appoint." 
 
 The queen appeals to the oracle of Apollo ; 
 and certain lords are sent to Delphos, where 
 they receive this decree : 
 
 "SUSPICION is NO PROOF: JEALOUSY is AN UN- 
 EQUAL JUDGE: BELLARIA is CHASTE; EGISTUS 
 BLAMELESS: FRANION A TRUE SUBJECT; PANDOSTO 
 TREACHEROUS: HIS BABE INNOCENT; AND THE 
 KING SHALL LIVE WITHOUT AN HEIR, IF THAT 
 WHICH IS LOST BE NOT FOUND." 
 
 On their return, upon an appointed day, the 
 queen was " brought in before the judgment- 
 seat." Shakspere has followed a part of the 
 tragical ending of this scene; but he pre- 
 serves his injured Hermione, to be reunited 
 to her daughter after years of solitude and 
 suffering. 
 
 " Bellaria had no sooner said but the king 
 commanded that one of his dukes should read 
 the contents of the scroll, which, after the 
 commons had heard, they gave a great shout, 
 rejoicing and clapping their hands that the 
 queen was clear of that false accusation. But 
 the king, whose conscience was a witness against 
 him of his witless fury and false suspected 
 jealousy, was so ashamed of his rash folly that 
 he entreated his nobles to persuade Bellaria to 
 forgive and forget these injuries; promising not 
 only to show himself a loyal and loving husband, 
 but also to reconcile himself to Egistus and 
 Franion; revealing then before them all the 
 cause of their secret flight, and how treacherously 
 he thought to have practised his death, if the 
 good mind of his cupbearer had not prevented 
 his purpose. As thus he was relating the whole 
 
 matter, there was word brought him that his 
 young son Garinter was suddenly dead, which 
 news so soon as Bellaria heard, surcharged before 
 with extreme joy and now suppressed with heavy 
 sorrow, her vital spirits were so stopped that 
 she fell down presently dead, and could never 
 be revived." 
 
 Greene mentions only the existence and 
 the death of the king's son. The dramatic 
 exhibition of Mamillius by Shakspere is 
 amongst the most charming of his sketches. 
 The affection of the father for his boy in the 
 midst of his distraction, and the tenderness 
 of the poor child, to whom his father's 
 ravings are unintelligible 
 
 " I am like you, they say," 
 
 are touches of nature such as only one man 
 has produced. How must he have studied 
 the inmost character of childhood to have 
 given us the delicious little scene of the 
 second act ! 
 
 " Her. "What wisdom stirs amongst you ? 
 
 Come, sir, now, 
 
 I am for you again : Pray you, sit by us, 
 And tell 's a tale. 
 
 Mam. Merry, or sad, shall 't be ] 
 
 Her. As merry as you will. 
 
 Mam. A sad tale 's best 
 
 for winter : 
 
 I have one of sprites and goblins. 
 Her. Let 's have that, good sir. 
 Come on, sit down : Come on, and do your 
 
 best 
 To fright me with your sprites: you're 
 
 powerful at it. 
 Mam. There was a man, 
 Her. Nay, come, sit down : then on. 
 Mam. Dwelt by a churchyard ; I will tell 
 
 it softly ; 
 Yon crickets shall not hear it. 
 
 Her. Come on then, 
 
 And give 't me in mine ear." 
 
 It requires the subsequent charm of a Perdita 
 to put that poor boy out of our thoughts. 
 
 The story of the preservation of the deserted 
 infant is prettily told in the novel : 
 
 " It fortuned a poor mercenary shepherd that 
 dwelt in Sicilia, who got his living by other 
 men's flocks, missed one of his sheep, and, 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 A WINTER S TALE. 
 
 36- 
 
 thinking it had strayed into the covert that was 
 hard by, sought very diligently to find that 
 which he could not see, fearing either that the 
 wolves or eagles had undone him (for he was so 
 poor as a sheep was half his substance), wandered 
 down towards the sea-cliffs to see if perchance 
 the sheep was browsing on the sea-ivy, whereon 
 they greatly do feed ; but not finding her there, 
 as he was ready to return to his flock he heard 
 a child cry, but, knowing there was no house 
 near, he thought he had mistaken the sound, 
 and that it was the bleating of his sheep. 
 Wherefore looking more narrowly, as he cast his 
 eye to the sea he spied a little boat, from whence, 
 as he attentively listened, he might hear the cry 
 to come. Standing a good while in amaze, at 
 last he went to the shore, and, wading to the 
 boat, as he looked in he saw the little babe lying 
 all alone ready to die for hunger and cold, 
 wrapped in a mantle of scarlet richly em- 
 broidered with gold, and having a chain about 
 the neck." 
 
 Although the circumstances of the child's 
 exposure are different, Shakspere adopts the 
 shepherd's discovery pretty literally. He 
 even makes him about to seek his sheep by 
 the sea-side, " browsing on the sea-ivy." The 
 infant in the novel is taken to the shepherd's 
 home, and is brought up by his wife and 
 himself under the name of Fawnia. In a 
 narrative the lapse of sixteen years may 
 occur without any violation of propriety. 
 The shepherd of Greene, every night at his 
 coming home, would sing to the child and 
 dance it on his knee : then, a few lines 
 onward, the little Fawnia is seven years old ; 
 and very shortly, 
 
 " when she came to the age of sixteen years 
 she so increased with exquisite perfection both 
 of body and mind, as her natural disposition 
 did bewray that she was born of some high 
 parentage." 
 
 These changes, we see, are gradual. But in 
 a drama, whose action depends upon a 
 manifest lapse of time, there must be a 
 sudden transition. Shakspere is perfectly 
 aware of the difficulty ; and he diminishes 
 it by the introduction of Time as a Chorus : 
 
 " Impute it not a crime 
 To me, or my swift passage, that I slide 
 
 O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth 
 
 untried 
 
 Of that wide gap ; since it is in my power 
 To o'erthrow law, and in one self born hour 
 To plant and o'erwhelm custom." 
 
 Lyly, without such an apology, gives us a 
 lapse of forty years in his 'Endymion.' 
 Dry den and Pope depreciated the ' Winter's 
 Tale ! ' and no doubt this violation of the 
 unity of time was one of the causes which 
 blinded them to its exquisite beauties. But 
 Dr. Johnson, without any special notice of 
 the case before us, has made a triumphant 
 defence against the French critics of Shak- 
 spere's general disregard of the unities of 
 time and place : 
 
 " By supposition, as place is introduced, time 
 may be extended; the time required by the 
 fable elapses for the most part between the 
 acts ; for, of so much of the action as is repre- 
 sented, the real and poetical duration is the 
 same. If, in the first act, preparations for war 
 against Mithridates are represented to be made 
 in Eome, the event of the war may, without 
 absurdity, be represented in the catastrophe as 
 happening in Pontus. "We know that there is 
 neither war nor preparation for war ; we know 
 that we are neither in Eome nor Pontus that 
 neither Mithridates nor Lucullus are before us. 
 The drama exhibits successive imitations of 
 successive actions, and why may not the second 
 imitation represent an action that happened 
 years after the first, if it be so connected with it 
 that nothing but time can be supposed to 
 intervene ] Time is, of all modes of existence, 
 most obsequious to the imagination ; a lapse of 
 years is as easily conceived as a passage of hours. 
 In contemplation we easily contract the time of 
 real actions, and therefore willingly permit it 
 to be contracted when we only see their imi- 
 tation."* 
 
 Shakspere has exhibited his consummate 
 art in opening the fourth act with Polixenes 
 and Camillo, of whom we have lost sight 
 since the end of the first. Had it been 
 otherwise, had he brought Autolycus, and 
 Florizel, and Perdita, at once upon the scene, 
 the continuity of action would have been 
 destroyed ; and the commencement of the 
 fourth act would have appeared as the 
 
 * Preface to his edition of 1765. 
 
368 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK YIII. 
 
 j commencement of a new play. Shakspere 
 made the difficulties of his plot bend to his 
 art ; instead of wanting art, as Ben Jonson 
 says. Autolycus and the Clown prepare us 
 for Perdita ; and when the third scene opens, 
 what a beautiful vision lights upon this 
 irth ! There perhaps never was such a 
 union of perfect simplicity and perfect grace 
 as in the character of . Perdita. What an 
 exquisite idea of her mere personal appear- 
 ance is presented in Florizel's rapturous 
 exclamation, 
 
 " When you do dance, I wish you 
 
 A wave o' tlie sea, that you might ever do 
 
 Nothing but that ! " 
 
 Greene, in describing the beauties of his 
 shepherdess, deals only in generalities : 
 
 " It happened not long after this that there 
 was a meeting of all the farmers' daughters in 
 Sicilia, whither Fawnia was also bidden as the 
 mistress of the feast, who, having attired herself 
 in her best garments, went among the rest of 
 her companions to the merry meeting, there 
 spending the day in such homely pastimes as 
 shepherds use. As the evening grew on and 
 their sports ceased, each taking their leave 
 at other, Fawnia, desiring one of her companions 
 to bear her company, went home by the flock to 
 see if they were well folded ; and, as they re- 
 turned, it fortuned that Dorastus (who all that 
 day had been hawking, and killed store of game) 
 encountered by the way these two maids, and, 
 casting his eye suddenly on Fawnia, he was half 
 afraid, fearing that with Acteon he had seen 
 Diana, for he thought such exquisite perfection 
 could not be found in any mortal creature. As 
 thus he stood in amaze, one of his pages told 
 him that the maid with the garland on her head 
 was Fawnia, the fair shepherd whose beauty was 
 so much talked- of in the court. Dorastus, de- 
 sirous to see if nature had adorned her mind 
 with any inward qualities, as she had decked 
 her body with outward shape, began to question 
 with her whose daughter she was, of what age, 
 and how she had been trained up ] who answered 
 him with such modest reverence and sharpness 
 of wit, that Dorastus thought her outward beauty 
 was but a counterfeit to darken her inward 
 qualities, wondering how so courtly behaviour 
 could be found in so simple a cottage, and 
 cursing fortune that had shadowed wit and 
 beauty with such hard fortune." 
 
 But Greene was unequal to conceive the 
 grace of mind which distinguishes Perdita : 
 
 " Sir, my gracious lord, 
 
 To chide at your extremes it not becomes me ; 
 0, pardon, that I name them : your high self, 
 The gracious mark o' the land, you have 
 
 obscur'd 
 With a swain's wearing; and me, poor lowly 
 
 maid, 
 Most goddess-like prank'd up." 
 
 Contrast this with Greene : 
 
 " Fawnia, poor soul, was no less joyful that, 
 being a shepherd, fortune had favoured her so 
 as to reward her with the love of a prince, 
 hoping in time to be advanced from the daughter 
 of a poor farmer to be the wife of a rich king." 
 
 Here we see a vulgar ambition, rather than 
 a deep affection. Fawnia, in the hour of 
 discovery and danger, was quite incapable 
 of exhibiting the feminine dignity of Per- 
 dita : 
 
 " I was not much afeard : for once, or twice, 
 I was about to speak ; and tell him plainly, 
 The selfsame sun that shines upon his court 
 Hides not his visage from our cottage, but 
 Looks on alike. Will 't please you, sir, be 
 gone 1 ? [to FLORIZEL. 
 
 I told you what would come of this : 'Beseech 
 
 you, 
 Of your own state take care : this dream of 
 
 mine, 
 Being now awake, I '11 queen it no inch 
 
 farther, 
 But milk my ewes, and weep." 
 
 This is something higher than the sentiment 
 of a " queen of curds and cream." 
 
 In the novel we have no trace of the 
 interruption by the father of the princely 
 lover in the disguise of a guest at the 
 shepherd's cottage. Dorastus and Fawnia 
 flee from the country without the knowledge 
 of the king. The ship in which they embark 
 is thrown by a storin upon the coast of 
 Bohemia. Messengers are despatched in 
 search of the lovers ; and they arrive in 
 Bohemia with the request of Egistus that 
 the companions in the flight of Dorastus 
 shall be put to death. The secret of Fawnia's 
 birth is discovered by the shepherd ; and her 
 father recognises her. But the previous 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 A WINTER S TALE. 
 
 369 
 
 circumstances exhibit as much grossness of 
 conception on the part of the novelist, as the 
 different management of the catastrophe 
 shows the matchless skill and taste of the 
 dramatist. We forgive Leontes for his early 
 folly and wickedness ; for during sixteen 
 years has his remorse been bitter and his 
 affection constant. The pathos of the fol- 
 lowing passage is truly Shaksperean : 
 
 " Leon. Whilst I remember 
 
 Her, and her virtues, I cannot forget 
 My blemishes in them; and so still think of 
 The wrong I did myself : which was so much, 
 That heirless it hath made my kingdom; and 
 Destroy'd the sweet' st companion that e'er man 
 Bred his hopes out of. 
 
 Paid. True, too true, my lord : 
 
 If, one by one, you wedded all the world, 
 Or, from the all that are took something 
 
 good, 
 
 To make a perfect woman, she, you kill'd, 
 Would be unparallel'd. 
 
 Leon. I think so. Kill'd ! 
 
 She I kill'd ! I did so : but thou strik'st me 
 Sorely, to say I did; it is as bitter 
 Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, 
 
 good now, 
 Say so but seldom." 
 
 The appropriateness of the title of the 
 1 Winter's Tale ' has been prettily illustrated 
 by Ulrici : 
 
 " From the point of view taken in this drama, 
 life appears like a singular and serene, even 
 while terrifying, winter's tale, related by the 
 flickering light of the fire in a rough boisterous 
 night, in still and homelike trustiness, by an 
 old grandmother to a listening circle of children 
 and grandchildren, while the warm, secure, and 
 happy feeling of the assembly mixes itself with 
 a sense of the fear and the dread of the related 
 adventures and the cold wretched night without. 
 But this arises only through the secret veil 
 which lies over the power of chance, and which 
 is here spread over the whole. It appears 
 serene, because everywhere glimmers through 
 this veil the bright joyful light of a futurity 
 leading all to good ; because we continually feel 
 that the unhealthy darkness of the present will 
 be again thrown off even through an equally 
 obscure inward necessity." 
 
 This comedy is so thoroughly taken out of 
 
 the region of the literal that it would be 
 worse than idle to talk of its costume. When 
 the stage-manager shall be able to reconcile 
 the contradictions, chronological and geo- 
 graphical, with which it abounds, he may 
 decide whether the characters should wear 
 the dress of the ancient or the modern world, 
 and whether the architectural scenes should 
 partake most of the Grecian style of the 
 times of the Delphic oracle, or of the Italian 
 in the more familiar days of Julio Romano. 
 We cannot assist him in this difficulty. It 
 may be sufficient for the reader of this de- 
 licious play to know that he is purposely 
 taken out of the empire of the real ; to 
 wander in some poetical sphere where Bo- 
 hemia is but a name for a wild country upon 
 the sea, and the oracular voices of the pagan 
 world are heard amidst the merriment of 
 " Whitsun pastorals " and the solemnities of 
 " Christian burial ; " where the " Emperor of 
 Russia" represents some dim conception of a 
 mighty monarch of far-off lands ; and " that 
 rare Italian master, Julio Romano," stands 
 as the abstract personification of excellence 
 in art. It is quite impossible to imagine 
 that he who, when it was necessary to be 
 precise, as in the Roman plays, has painted 
 manners with a truth and exactness which 
 have left at an inmeasurable distance such 
 imitations of ancient manners as the learned 
 Ben Jonson has produced, that he should 
 have perplexed this play with such anomalies 
 through ignorance or even carelessness. There 
 can be no doubt that the most accomplished 
 scholars amongst our early dramatists, when 
 dealing with the legendary and the romantic, 
 purposely committed these anachronisms. 
 Greene, as we have shown, of whose scholar- 
 ship his friends boasted, makes a ship sail 
 from Bohemia in the way that Shakspere 
 makes a ship wrecked upon a Bohemian 
 coast. Yet, when we consider how differently 
 Jonson and Shakspere worked, in their re- 
 spective schools, it is not to be wondered at 
 that Jonson, in his free conversations with 
 Drummond of Hawthornden, in January, 
 1619, should say that "Shakspere wanted 
 art." When Jonson said this, he was in 
 no laudatory mood. Drummond heads his 
 record of the conversation thus : " His 
 
370 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEEE. 
 
 [BOOK viii. 
 
 censure of the English poets was this." 
 Censure is here, of course, put for opinion ; 
 although Jonson's opinions are by no means 
 favourable to any one of whom he speaks. 
 Spenser's stanzas pleased him not, or his 
 matter ; Sir John Harrington's ' Ariosto,' 
 under all translations, was the worst ; 
 Abraham France was a fool ; Sidney did not 
 keep a decorum in making every one speak 
 as well as himself; Shakspere wanted art. 
 And so, during two centuries, a mob of 
 critics have caught up the word, and with 
 the most knowing winks, and the most 
 profound courtesies to each other's sagacity, 
 have they echoed "Shakspere wanted art." 
 But a cunning interpolator, who knew the 
 temper 'of the critics, the anonymous editor 
 of Gibber's 'Lives of the Poets,' took the 
 " heads of a conversation " between Jonson 
 and Drummond, prefixed to Drummond's 
 works in 1711, and bestowed a few finishing 
 touches upon them, after his own fashion; 
 And thus, to the great joy of the denouncers 
 of anachronisms, and other Shaksperean 
 absurdities, as they are pleased to call them, 
 we have read as follows for a hundred 
 years: "He said, Shakspere wanted Art, 
 and sometimes Sense ; for, in one of his plays, 
 he brought in a number of men, saying they 
 had suffered shipwrack in Bohemia, where is 
 no sea near by 100 miles." Jonson, indeed, 
 makes the observation upon the shipwreck 
 in Bohemia, but without any comment upon 
 it. It is found in another part of Drum- 
 mond's record, quite separate from "Shak- 
 spere wanted art ; " a casual remark, side by 
 side with Jonson's gossip about Sidney's 
 pimpled face and Raleigh's plagiaries. It 
 was probably mentioned b^ Jonson as an 
 illustration of some principle upon which 
 Shakspere worked and in the same way 
 " Shakspere wanted *r t " was in all likelihood 
 explained by^nim, in producing instances of 
 the mode in which Shakspere's art differed 
 from his (Jonson's) art. It is impossible to 
 receive Jonson's words as any support of the 
 
 absurd opinion so long propagated that 
 Shakspere worked without labour and with- 
 out method. Jonson's own testimony, de- 
 livered five years after the conversation with 
 Drummond, offers the most direct evidence 
 against such a construction of his expres- 
 sion : 
 
 " Yet must I not give Mature all : thy art, 
 My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part. 
 For though the poet's matter Nature be, 
 His art doth give the fashion: and that he 
 Who casts to write a living line must sweat 
 (Such as thine are), and strike the second 
 
 heat 
 
 Upon the Muses' anvil : turn the same 
 (And himself with it) that he thinks to frame; 
 Or, for the laurel, he may gain a scorn, 
 For a good poet 's made as well as born : 
 And such wert thou." 
 
 There can be no difficulty in understanding 
 Jonson's dispraise of Shakspere, small as it 
 was, when we look at the different characters 
 of the two men. Jonson, in all likelihood, 
 did not intend to impute an ignorant blunder 
 to Shakspere, but a wilful inconsistency., 
 Mr. Collier has quoted a passage from Taylor, 
 the water-poet, who published his ( Journey 
 to Prague,' in which the honest waterman 
 laughs at an alderman who " catches me by 
 the goll, demanding if Bohemia be a great 
 town, whether there be any meat in it, and 
 whether the last fleet of ships be arrived 
 there." Mr. Collier infers that Taylor "ridi- 
 cules a vulgar error of the kind" committed 
 by Shakspere. We rather think that he 
 meant to ridicule very gross ignorance 
 generally ; and we leave our readers to take 
 their choice of placing Green and Shakspere 
 in the same class with Taylor's " Gregory 
 Gandergoose, an Alderman of Gotham," or 
 of believing that a confusion of time and 
 place was considered (whether justly is not 
 here the question) a proper characteristic of 
 the legendary drama such as ' A Winter's 
 Tale: 
 
CHAP. II.J 
 
 CYMJBELINE. 
 
 371 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 CYMBELINE. 
 
 * THE Tragedie of Cymbeline ' was first 
 printed in the folio collection of 1623. The 
 play is very carefully divided into acts and 
 scenes an arrangement which is sometimes 
 wanting in other plays of the folio edition. 
 
 We have in previous chapters given ex- 
 tracts from " a book of plays and notes 
 thereof, for common policy," kept by Dr. 
 Symon Forman, in 1610 and 1611. These 
 notes, which were discovered and first printed 
 by Mr. Collier, contain not only an account 
 of some play of Richard II., at which the 
 writer was present, but distinctly give the 
 plots of Shakspere's 'Winter's Tale,' 'Mac- 
 beth,' and ' Cymbeline.' We shall take the 
 liberty of reprinting from Mr. Collier's ' New 
 Particulars' Forman's account of the plot of 
 
 * Cymbeline : ' 
 
 "Remember, also, the story of Cymbeline, 
 King of England, in Lucius' time : how Lucius 
 came from Octavius Caesar for tribute, and, 
 being denied, after sent Lucius with a great 
 army of soldiers, who landed at Milford Haven, 
 and after were vanquished by Cymbeline, and 
 Lucius taken prisoner, and all by means of three 
 outlaws, of the which two of them were the 
 sons of Cymbeline, stolen from him when they 
 were but two years old, by an old man whom 
 Cymbeline had banished ; and he kept them as 
 his own sons twenty years with him in a cave. 
 And how one of them slew Cloten, that was the 
 Queen's son, going to Milford Haven to seek the 
 love of Imogen the King's daughter, whom he 
 had banished also for loving his daughter. 
 
 "And how the Italian that came from her 
 love conveyed himself in a chest, and said it was 
 a chest of plate sent from her love and others to 
 be presented to the King. And in the deepest 
 of the night, she being asleep, he opened the 
 chest and came forth of it, and viewed her in 
 her bed, and the marks of her body, and took 
 away her bracelet, and after accused her of 
 adultery to her love, &c. And, in the end, 
 how he came with the Romans into England, 
 and was taken prisoner, and after revealed to 
 Imogen, who had turned herself into man's 
 
 apparel, and fled to meet her love at Milford 
 Haven ; and chanced to fall on the cave in the 
 woods where her two brothers were : and how 
 by eating a sleeping dram they thought she had 
 been dead, and laid her in the woods, and the 
 body of Cloten by her, in her love's apparel that 
 he left behind him, and how she was found by 
 Lucius," &c. 
 
 "This," Mr. Collier adds, "is curious; 
 principally because it gives the impression 
 of the plot upon the mind of the spectator, 
 at about the time when the play was first 
 produced"' We can scarcely yield our 
 implicit assent to this. Fonnan's note-book 
 is evidence that the play existed in 1610 
 or 1611 ; but it is not evidence that it was 
 first produced in 1610 or 1611. Mr. Collier, 
 in his 'Annals of the Stage,' gives us the 
 following entry from the books of Sir Henry 
 Herbert, Master of the Revels : " On Wed- 
 nesday night the first of January, 1633, 
 'Cymbeline' was acted at Court by the King's 
 players. Well liked by the King." Here is 
 a proof that for more than twenty years 
 after Forman saw it ' Cymbeline ' was still 
 acted, and still popular. By parity of rea- 
 soning it might have been acted, and might 
 have been popular, before Forman saw it. 
 
 Coleridge, in his classification of 1819, 
 places ' Cymbeline,' as he supposes it to have 
 been originally produced, in the first epoch, 
 to which he assigns 'Pericles:' "In the same 
 epoch I place 'The Winter's Tale' and 'Cym- 
 beline,' differing from the Pericles by the 
 entire rifaccimento of it, when Shakspere's 
 celebrity as poet, and his interest no less 
 than his influence as manager, enabled him 
 to bring forward the laid-by labours of his 
 youth." Tieck, whilst he considers it "the 
 last work of the great poet, which may have 
 been written about 1614 or 1615," adds, " it 
 is also not impossible that this varied-woven 
 romantic history had inspired the poet in his 
 youth to attempt it for the stage." Tieck 
 assigns no reason for believing that the play 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 
 
 STUDIES OF SIIAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vin. 
 
 as we have received it is of so late a date 
 as 1614 or 1615. Malone has observed, and 
 we think very justly (for in matters in which 
 he was not tainted by the influences of his 
 age his opinions are to be respected), that its 
 versification resembles that of ' The Winter's 
 Tale ' and ' The Tempest.' To whatever age 
 these romantic dramas shall be ultimately 
 assigned we have no doubt that on every 
 account from the nature of the fable, as 
 well as the cast of thought, and the con- 
 struction of the language ' Cymbeline ' will 
 go with them. But, however this may be, 
 we heartily join in the belief, so distinctly 
 expressed by two such master-minds as 
 Coleridge and Tieck, that the sketch of 'Cym- 
 beline ' belongs to the youthful Shakspere. 
 We have fancied that it is almost possible 
 to trace in some instances the dove-tailing 
 of the original with the improved drama. 
 The principal incidents of the story of Imogen 
 are in Boccaccio. Of course, with reference 
 to the knowledge of Shakspere, we do not 
 hold with Steevens that they, "in their 
 original Italian, to him at least, were in- 
 accessible." Such a fable was exactly one 
 which would have been seized upon by him 
 who, from the very earliest period of his 
 career, saw, in those reflections of life which 
 the Italian novelists present, the materials 
 of bringing out the manifold aspects of 
 human nature in the most striking forms of 
 truth and beauty. As far as the main action 
 of the drama was concerned, therefore, we 
 hold that it was as accessible to the Shak- 
 spere of five-and-twenty as it was to the 
 Shakspere of five-and-forty ; and that he had 
 not to wait for the publication in 1603 of a 
 story-book in which the tales which were 
 the common property of Europe were re- 
 modelled with English scenes and characters, 
 to have produced ' Cymbeline.' All the 
 historical accessories too of the story were 
 familiar to him in his early career. Assum- 
 ing, then, that ' Cymbeline' might have been 
 sketched at an early period, and comparing 
 it more especially with { Pericles,' which as- 
 suredly has not been re-written, we venture 
 to express a belief that the scenes have, in 
 some parts, been greatly elaborated ; and 
 that this elaboration has had the effect of 
 
 thrusting forward such a quantity of inci- 
 dents into the fifth act as to have rendered 
 it absolutely necessary to resort to panto- 
 mimic action or dumb show, an example of 
 which occurs in no other of Shakspere's 
 works. This might have been remedied by 
 omitting the "apparition" in the fifth act, 
 which either belongs not to Shakspere at 
 all, or belongs to the period when he had 
 not clearly seen his way to shake off the 
 trammels of the old stage. But would an 
 audience familiar with that scene have parted 
 with it ? We believe not. The fifth act, as 
 we think, presents to us very strikingly the 
 differences between the young and the mature 
 Shakspere, always bearing in mind that the 
 skill of such a master of his art has rendered 
 it very difficult to conjecture what were the 
 differences between his sketch and his finished 
 picture. The soliloquy of Posthumus in 
 that Act, in its fulness of thought, belongs 
 to the finished performance, the minute 
 stage directions which follow to the un- 
 finished. Nothing can be more certain than 
 that the dialogue between Posthumus and 
 the gaoler is of the period of deep philo- 
 sophical speculation ; while the tablet left by 
 Jupiter has a wondrous resemblance to the 
 odd things of the early stage. The greater 
 part of the play is certainly such as no one 
 but Shakspere could have written, and not 
 only so, but Shakspere in the full possession 
 and habitual exercise of his powers. The 
 mountain scenes with Imogen and her 
 brothers are perhaps unequalled, even in the 
 whole compass of the Shaksperean drama. 
 They are of the very highest order of poetical 
 beauty, not such an outpouring of beauty 
 as in the ' Romeo and Juliet' and 'The Mid- 
 summer's Night's Dream,' where the master 
 of harmonious verse revels in all the graces 
 of his art but of beauty entirely subservient 
 to the peculiarities of the characters, the 
 progress of the action, the scenery, ay, and 
 the very period of the drama, whatever Dr. 
 Johnson may say of "incongruity." There 
 is nothing to us more striking than the 
 contrast which is presented between the free 
 natural lyrics sung by the brothers over the 
 grave of Fidele, and the elegant poem which 
 some have thought so much more beautiful. 
 
CYMBELIXE. 
 
 373 
 
 The one is perfectly in keeping with all that j 
 precedes and all that follows ; the other is 
 entirely out of harmony with its associations. 
 "To fair Fidele's grassy tomb" is the dirge 
 of Collins over Fidele ; " Fear no more the 
 heat o' the sun" is Fidele's proper funeral 
 song by her bold brothers. It is this mar- 
 vellous power of going out of himself that 
 renders it so difficult to say that Shakspere 
 is at any time inferior to himself. If it 
 were not for this exercise of power, even in 
 the smallest characters, we might think that 
 Cloten was of the immature Shakspere. But 
 then he has made Cloten his own, by one or 
 two magical touches, so as to leave no doubt 
 that, if he was at first a somewhat hasty 
 sketch, he is now a finished portrait. " The 
 snatches in his voice and burst of speaking" 
 identify him as the "very Cloten" that none 
 other but Shakspere could have painted. 
 
 "Mr. Pope," says Steev'ens, "supposed the 
 story of this play to have been borrowed 
 from a novel of Boccace ; but he was mis- 
 taken, as an imitation of it is found in 
 an old story-book entitled 'Westward for 
 Smelts.' " This is unquestionably one of 
 i^teevens' random assertions. Malone has 
 printed the tale, and has expressed his 
 opinion, in opposition to that of Steevens, 
 that the general scheme of Cymbeline is 
 founded on Boccaccio's novel (9th story of 
 the second day of the Decameron). Mrs. 
 Lennox has given, in her ' Shakspear Illus- 
 trated,' a paraphrase of Boccaccio's story ; 
 which she has mixed up with more irreverent 
 impertinence towards Shakspere than can be 
 perhaps found elsewhere in the English 
 language, except in Dr. Johnson's judgment 
 upon this play, which sounds very like 
 "prisoner at the bar." It might have been 
 supposed that the odour of Mrs. Lennox's 
 criticisms upon Shakspere had been dissipated 
 long before the close of the last century ; 
 but, nevertheless,- Mr. Dunlop, in his ' History 
 of Fiction,' published in 1816, makes the 
 opinions of Mrs. Lennox his own : " The 
 incidents of the novel have been very closely 
 adhered to by Shakspere, but, as has been 
 remarked by an acute and elegant critic 
 (Mrs. Lennox), the scenes and characters have 
 been most injudiciously altered, and the 
 
 manners of a tradesman's wife, and two 
 intoxicated Italian merchants, have been 
 bestowed on a great princess, a British hero, 
 and a noble Roman." Mr. Dunlop, however, 
 has given a neat abridgment of the tale; 
 and in this matter it will be sufficient to 
 refer the general reader to his work, and the 
 Italian student to Boccaccio. 
 
 Shakspere found his historical materials 
 inHolinshed; and he has adhered to them 
 as far as is consistent with the progress of a 
 romantic story. 
 
 Criticism, even of that school to which we 
 now yield our obedience the school which 
 has cast off the shackles of the unities, and 
 judges of the romantic drama by its own 
 laws has not looked very enthusiastically 
 upon ' Cymbeline ' as a dramatic whole. To 
 the exquisite character of Imogen, taken 
 apart, full justice has been done. Richardson, 
 not often a very profound critic, has seized 
 upon the leading points with great correct- 
 ness, and has carried them out with elegance, 
 if not with force. Nothing can be more just, 
 for example, than this observation : " The 
 sense of misfortune, rather than the sense of 
 injury, rules the disposition of Imogen."* 
 Mrs. Jameson, again, has analysed the cha- 
 racter with her usual acuteness and delicacy 
 of perception : " Others of Shakspere's cha- 
 racters are, as dramatic and poetic con- 
 ceptions, more striking, more brilliant, more 
 powerful ; but of all his women, considered 
 as individuals rather than as heroines, Imogen 
 is the most perfect." t But the relation of 
 Imogen, as the centre of a dramatic circle, 
 has scarcely, we think, been adequately 
 pointed out. We pass over what Dr. Johnson 
 says, in a tone of criticism which belongs as 
 much to the age as to the man, about " the 
 folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the 
 conduct, the confusion of the names and 
 manners of different times, and the impos- 
 sibility of the events in any system of life." 
 When Johnson wrote this, he reposed upon an 
 implicit belief in his own canons of criticism 
 the opinions upon which Thomas Warton has 
 explained his own depreciation of Ariosto 
 and Spenser : " We, who live in the days of 
 
 * ' Essays on Shakspeare's Dramatic Characters.' 
 t ' Characteristics of Women,' vol. ii. p. 50. 
 
374 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vin. 
 
 writing by rule, are apt to try every com- 
 position by those laws which we have been 
 taught to think the sole criterion of ex- 
 cellence. Critical taste is universally diffused, 
 and we require the same order and design 
 which every modern performance is expected 
 to have, in poems where they never were 
 regarded or intended." Warton was a man 
 of too high taste not in some degree to 
 despise this "criterion of excellence;" but 
 he did not dare to avow the heresy in his 
 own day. We have outlived all this. The 
 "critical taste" to which Warton alludes 
 belongs only to the history of criticism. 
 But, even amongst those upon whom we have 
 been accustomed to rely as infallible guides, 
 it does appear to us that ' Cymbeline ' has 
 been, in some degree, considered a departure 
 from the great law of unity not of time, 
 nor of place, but of feeling which Shakspere 
 j has unquestionably prescribed to himself. 
 Neither Tieck nor Schlegel, according to 
 their usual custom, attempt to show that any 
 predominant idea runs through 'Cymbeline.' 
 They each speak of it as a succession of 
 splendid scenes, and high poetry; and, in- 
 deed, it cannot be denied that these attri- 
 butes of this drama most forcibly seize upon 
 the mind, somewhat, perhaps, to the ex- 
 clusion of its real action. We venture to 
 express our opinion that one predominant 
 idea does exist ; although Coleridge, even 
 more distinctly than the German critics, if 
 we apprehend him rightly, inferred the con- 
 trary: "In the 'Twelfth Night,' 'Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream,' ' As You Like It,' 
 and ' Winter's Tale,' the total effect is pro- 
 duced by a co-ordination of the characters 
 as in a wreath of flowers. But in ' Coriolanus,' 
 Lear,' 'Romeo and Juliet,' 'Hamlet,' 
 ' Othello,' &c., the effect arises from the 
 subordination of all to one, either as the 
 prominent person, or the principal object." 
 Coleridge is speaking of the great significancy 
 of the names of Shakspere's plays. The 
 consonancy of the names with the leading 
 ideas of each drama is exemplified in this 
 passage. He then adds " ' Cymbeline' is the 
 only exception ; " that is, the name of ' Cym- 
 beline' neither expresses the co-ordination 
 of the characters, nor the principal object. 
 
 He goes on to say, " Even that (the name 
 of ' Cymbeline ') has its advantages in pre- 
 paring the audience for the chaos of time, 
 place, and costume, by throwing the date 
 back into a fabulous king's reign." We do 
 not understand that Coleridge meant to say 
 that the play of ' Cymbeline ' had neither 
 co-ordination of characters nor a prominent 
 object ; but we do apprehend that the name 
 was symbolical, in his belief, of the main 
 features of the play the chaos of time, 
 place, and costume. For he proceeds, im- 
 mediately, to remark, in reference to the 
 judgment displayed by our truly dramatic 
 poet in the management of his first scenes, 
 " With the single exception of ' Cymheline] 
 they place before us at one glance both the 
 past and the future in some effect, which 
 implies the continuance and full agency of 
 its cause."* We venture to believe that 
 'Cymbeline' does not form an exception to 
 the usual course pursued by Shakspere in 
 the management of his first scenes ; and 
 that the first scenes of 'Cymbeline' do place 
 before us the past and the future in a way 
 which we think very strikingly discloses what 
 he intended to be the leading idea of his 
 drama. 
 
 The dialogue of the "two Gentlemen" in 
 the opening scene makes us perfectly ac- 
 quainted with the relations in which Posthu- 
 mus and Imogen stand to each other, and to 
 those around them. " She 's wedded, her 
 husband banish'd." We have next the cha- 
 racter of the banished husband, and of the 
 unworthy suitor who is the cause of his 
 banishment ; as well as the story of the 
 king's two lost sons. This is essentially the 
 foundation of the past and future of the 
 action. Brief indeed is this scene, but it 
 well prepares us for the parting of Posthumus 
 and Imogen. The course of their affections 
 is turned awry by the wills of others. The 
 angry king at once proclaims himself to us 
 as one not cruel, but weak ; he has before 
 been described as " touch'd at very heart." 
 It is only in the intensity of her affection 
 for Posthumus that Imogen opposes her own 
 will to the impatient violence of her father, 
 and the more crafty decision of her step- 
 
 * ' Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 207- 
 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 CYMBELINB. 
 
 375 
 
 mother. But she is surrounded with a 
 third evil, 
 
 " A father cruel, and a step-dame false, 
 A foolish suitor to a wedded lady." 
 
 Worse, however, even than these, her honour 
 is to be assailed, her character vilified, by a 
 subtle stranger ; who, perhaps more in sport 
 than in malice, has resolved to win a paltry 
 wager by the sacrifice of her happiness and 
 that of her husband. What has she to 
 oppose to all this complication of violence 
 and cunning ? Her perfect purity her 
 entire simplicity her freedom from every- 
 thing that is selfish the strength only of 
 her affections. The scene between lachimo 
 and Imogen is a contest of innocence with 
 guile, most profoundly affecting, in spite of 
 the few coarsenesses that were perhaps un- 
 avoidable, and which were not considered 
 offensive in Shakspere's day. The supreme 
 beauty of Imogen's character soars triumph- 
 antly out of the impure mist which is around 
 her ; and not the least part of that beauty is 
 her ready forgiveness of her assailant, briefly 
 and fiutteringly expressed, however, when he 
 relies upon the possibility of deceiving her 
 through her affections : 
 
 " happy Leonatus>! I may say : 
 The credit that thy lady hath of thee 
 Deserves thy trust; and thy most perfect 
 
 goodness 
 Her assured credit ! " 
 
 This is the First Act ; and, if we mistake 
 not the object of Shakspere, these opening 
 scenes exhibit one of the most confiding and 
 gentle of human beings, assailed on every 
 side by a determination of purpose, whether 
 in the shape of violence, wickedness, or folly, 
 against which, under ordinary circumstances, 
 innocence may be supposed to be an insuf- 
 ficient shield. But the very helplessness of 
 Imogen is her protection. In the exquisite 
 Second Scene of the Second Act, the perfect 
 purity of Imogen, as interpreted by Shak- 
 spere, has converted what would have been 
 a most dangerous situation in the hands of 
 another poet Fletcher, foi example into 
 one of the most refined delicacy : 
 
 " 'T is her breathing that 
 Perfumes the chamber thus." 
 
 The immediate danger is passed ; but there 
 is a new danger approaching. The will of 
 her unhappy husband, deceived into madness, 
 is to be added to the evils which she has 
 already received from violence and selfish- 
 ness. Posthumus, intending to destroy her, 
 writes, " Take notice that I am in Cambria, 
 at Milford-Haven ; what your own love will 
 out of this advise you, follow." She does 
 follow her own love; she has no other 
 guide but the strength of her affections ; 
 that strength makes her hardy and fearless 
 of consequences. It is the one duty, as well 
 as the one pleasure, of her existence. How 
 is that affection requited ? Pisanio places in 
 her hand, when they have reached the deepest 
 solitude of the mountains, that letter by 
 which he is commanded to take away her 
 life. One passing thought of herself one 
 faint reproach of her husband, and she 
 submits to the fate which is prepared for 
 her: 
 
 " Come, fellow, be thou honest : 
 Do thou thy master's bidding: When thou 
 
 see'st him, 
 
 A little witness my obedience : Look ! 
 I draw the sword myself : take it ; and hit 
 The innocent mansion of my love, my heart." 
 
 But her truth and innocence have already 
 subdued the will of the sworn servant of her 
 husband. He comforts her, but he neces- 
 sarily leaves her in the wilderness. The 
 spells of evil wills are still around her : 
 
 " My noble mistress, 
 Here is a box : I had it from the queen." 
 
 Perhaps there is nothing in Shakspere more 
 beautifully managed, more touching in its 
 romance, more essentially true to nature, 
 than the scene between Imogen and her 
 unknown brothers. The gentleness, the grace, 
 the "gr ?f and patience," of the helpless 
 Fidele, pi, ducing at once the deepest reve- 
 rence and affection in the bold and daring 
 mountaineers, still carry forward the cha- 
 racter of Imogen under the same aspects. 
 Belarius has beautifully described the bro- 
 thers : 
 
 " They are as gentle 
 As zephyrs, blowing below the violet, 
 
STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vin. 
 
 Not wagging his sweet head: and yet, as 
 
 rough, 
 
 Their royal blood enchafed, as the rud'st wind, 
 That by the top doth take the mountain pine, 
 And make him stoop to the vale." 
 
 It was in their gentleness that Imogen found 
 a support for her gentleness ; it was in their 
 roughness that the roughness of Cloten met 
 its punishment. Imogen is still saved from 
 the dangers with which craft and violence 
 have surrounded her. When she swallows 
 the supposed medicine of the queen, we know 
 beforehand that the evil intentions of her 
 step-mother have been counteracted by the 
 benevolent intentions of the physician : 
 
 " I do know her spirit, 
 And will not trust one of her malice with 
 A drug of such damn'd nature." 
 
 "The bird is dead;" she was sick, and we 
 almost fear that the words of the dirge are 
 true : 
 
 " Fear no more the frown o' the great, 
 Thou art pass'd the tyrant's stroke, 
 
 But she awakes, and she has still to endure 
 the last and the worst evil her husband, in 
 her apprehension, lies dead before her. She 
 has no wrongs to think of " my lord, my 
 lord," is all, in connexion with Posthumus, 
 that escapes amidst her tears. The beauty 
 and innocence which saved her from lachimo, 
 which conquered Pisanio, which won the 
 wild hunters, commend her to the Roman 
 general she is at once protected. But she 
 has holy duties still to perform : 
 
 " I '11 follow, sir. But, first, an 't please the 
 
 gods, 
 
 I '11 hide my master from the flies, as deep 
 As these poor pickaxes can dig: and when 
 With wild wood-leaves and weeds I have 
 
 streVd his grave, 
 
 And on it said a century of prayers, 
 Such as I can, twice o'er, I '11 weep and sigh; 
 And, leaving so his service, follow you, 
 So please you entertain me." 
 
 It is the unconquerable affection of Imogen 
 which makes us pity Posthumus even while 
 we blame him for the rash exercise of his 
 revengeful will. But in his deep repentance 
 we more than pity him. We see only 
 
 another victim of worldly craft and selfish- ' 
 ness : 
 
 "Gods! if you 
 
 Should have ta'en vengeance on my faults, I | 
 never 
 
 Had lived to put on this; so had you saved 
 
 The noble Imogen to repent; and struck 
 
 Me, wretch, more worth your vengeance." 
 In the prison scene his spirit is again united 
 with hers : 
 
 " Imogen, 
 
 I '11 speak to thee in silence. 
 The contest we now feel is over between the 
 selfish and the unselfish, the crafty and the 
 simple, the proud and the meek, the violent 
 and the gentle. 
 
 It is scarcely within our purpose to follow 
 the unravelling of the incidents in the con- 
 cluding scene. Steevens has worthily en- 
 deavoured to make amends for the injustice 
 of the criticism which ' Cymbeline ' has re- 
 ceived from his associate commentator: 
 "Let those who talk so confidently about 
 the skill of Shakspeare's contemporary, 
 Jonson, point out the conclusion of any one 
 of his plays which is wrought with more 
 artifice, and yet a less degree of dramatic 
 violence, than this. In the scene before us, 
 all the surviving characters are assembled ; 
 and at the expense of whatever incongruity 
 the former events may have been produced, 
 perhaps little can be discovered on this 
 occasion to offend the most scrupulous ad- 
 vocate for regularity : and, I think, as little 
 is found wanting to satisfy the spectator by 
 a catastrophe which is intricate without 
 confusion, and not more rich in ornament 
 than in nature." 
 
 The conclusion of ' Cymbeline' has been 
 lauded because it is consistent with poetical 
 justice. Those who adopt this species of 
 reasoning look very imperfectly upon the 
 course of real events in the moral world. It 
 is permitted, for inscrutable purposes, that 
 the innocent should sometimes fall befo: 
 the wicked, and the noble be subjected 
 the base. In the same way, it is sometim 
 in the course of events that the pure and the 
 gentle should triumph over deceit and out- j 
 rage. The perishing of Desdemona is as true \ 
 as the safety of Imogen ; and the poetical 1 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 THE TEMPEST. 
 
 truth involves as high a moral in the oue 
 case as in the other. That Shakspere's 
 notion of poetical justice was not the hack- 
 neyed notion of an intolerant age, reflected 
 even by a Boccaccio, is shown by the dif- 
 ference in the lot of the offender in the 
 Italian tale and the lot of lachimo. The 
 Ambrogiolo of the novelist, who slanders a 
 virtuous lady for the gain of a wager, is 
 fastened to a stake, smeared with honey, and 
 left to be devoured by flies and locusts. The 
 close of our dramatist's story is perfect Shak- 
 spere : 
 
 " Post. Speak, lachimo; I had you down, 
 and might 
 
 Have made ^ou finish. 
 
 lack. I am down again : 
 
 But now my heavy conscience sinks my knee, 
 As then your force did. Take that life, 
 
 'beseech you, 
 
 Which I so often owe : but, your ring first ; 
 And here the bracelet of the truest princess, 
 That ever swore her faith. 
 
 Post. Kneel not to me ; 
 
 The power that I have on you is to spare you ; 
 The malice towards you to forgive you : Live, 
 And deal with others better. 
 
 Cym. Nobly doom'd : 
 
 We 11 learn our freeness of a son-in-law; 
 Pardon 's the word to all." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE TEMPEST. 
 
 THIS comedy stands the first in the folio 
 collection of 1623, in which edition it was 
 originally printed. In the entry upon the 
 Stationers' registers of November the Sth, 
 1623, claiming for the booksellers Blount 
 and Jaggard such plays of Shakspere "as 
 were not formerly entered to other men," it 
 also is the first in order. The original text 
 is printed with singular correctness. 
 
 A very general belief has always prevailed 
 that 'The Tempest' was the last of Shakspere's 
 works. We are inclined to think that this 
 belief was rather a matter of feeling than of 
 judgment. Mr. Campbell has put the feeling 
 very elegantly : "'The Tempest' has a sort 
 of sacredness as the last work of a mighty 
 workman. Shakspere, as if conscious that 
 it would be his last, and as if inspired to 
 typify himself, Iras made his hero a natural, 
 a dignified, and benevolent magician, who 
 could conjure up spirits from the vasty deep, 
 and command supernatural agency by the 
 most seemingly natural and simple means. 
 And this final play of our poet has magic 
 indeed ;. for, what can be simpler in language 
 than the courtship of Ferdinand and Miranda, 
 and yet what can be more magical than the 
 sympathy with which it subdues us ? Here 
 
 Shakspere himself is Prospero, or rather the 
 superior genius who commands both Prospero 
 and Ariel. But the time was approaching 
 when the potent sorcerer was to break his 
 staff", and to bury it fathoms in the ocean, 
 
 
 e Deeper than did ever plummet sound.' 
 
 That staff" has never been, and never will be, 
 recovered." But this feeling, pretty and 
 fanciful as it is, is certainly somewhat 
 deceptive. It is not borne out by the internal 
 evidence of the play itself. Shakspere never 
 could have contemplated, in health and 
 intellectual vigour, any abandonment of that 
 occupation which constituted his happiness 
 and glory. Wehave no doubt that he wrote 
 on till the bour^cf his last illness! His later 
 plays are~unquestionably thosTTrTwhich the 
 mighty intellect is more tasked than the 
 unbounded fancy. His later plays, as we 
 believe, present the philosophical and his- 
 torical aspect of human affairs rather than 
 the passionate and the imaginative. The 
 Roman historical plays are, as it appears to 
 us, at the end of his career, as the English 
 historical plays are at the beginning. No- 
 thing can be more different than the principle 
 of art upon which the ' Henry VI.' and the 
 
378 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPEHE. 
 
 [BOOK vin. 
 
 'Antony and Cleopatra' are constructed. 
 The Roman plays denote, we think, the 
 growth of an intellect during five-and-twenty 
 years. ' The Tempest ' does not present the 
 characteristics of the latest plays. ^ It has 
 the playfulness and beauty of the comedies, 
 mingled with the higher notes of passionate 
 and solemn thought which distinguished the 
 great tragedies. It is essentially, too, written 
 wholly with reference to the stage, at a 
 period when an Ariel could be presented to 
 an imaginative audience without the prosaic 
 encumbrance of wings. ** The later plays, 
 such as ' Troilus and Cressida,' and the three 
 Roman subjects, are certainly written without 
 any very strong regard to dramatic effect. 
 They are noble acting plays, especially 'Julius 
 Caesar' and 'Coriolanus;' but even in these 
 the poet appears to have poured himself forth 
 with a philosophical mastery of the great 
 principles by which men are held in the 
 social state, without being very solicitous as 
 to the favourable reception of his opinions 
 by the mixed audiences of the days of 
 James I. The 'Antony and Cleopatra' is 
 still more remarkable for its surpassing 
 historical truth not the mere truth of 
 chronological exactness, but that truth which 
 is evolved out -of the power of making the 
 past present and real, through the marvellous 
 felicity of knowing and representing how 
 individuals and masses of men must have 
 acted under circumstances which are only 
 assimilated to the circumstances of modern 
 times by the fact that all the great principles 
 and motives of human action are essentially 
 the same in every age and in every condition 
 of civilization. The plays that we have 
 mentioned must have been the result of 
 very, profound thought and very accurate 
 investigation. The characters of the ' Troilus 
 and Cressida' are purposely Gothicised. An 
 episode of " the tale of Troy divine" is 
 seized upon, to be divested of its romantic 
 attributes, and to be presented with all the 
 bold colouring of a master regardless of 
 minute proprieties of costume, but producing 
 the most powerful and harmonious effect 
 through the universal truth of his delinea- 
 tions. On the contrary, the Roman plays 
 are perfect in costume. We do not believe 
 
 that there are any productions of the human 
 mind in existence, ancient or modern, which 
 can give us so complete a notion of what 
 Roman life was under its great general 
 aspects. This was the effect, not only oi 
 his instinctive wisdom, but of that leisure 
 for profound inquiry and extensive investiga- 
 tion which Shakspere possessed in the lattei 
 years of his life. We cannot bring ourselves 
 to believe that 'The Tempest' belonged to 
 the latest period. Ulrici has said " ' The 
 Tempest ' is the completing companion-piece 
 of the ' Winter's Tale ' and ' A Midsummer- 
 Night's Dream.' " The ' Midsummer-Night's 
 Dream' was printed in 1600 ; it was probably 
 written some five or six years previous. The 
 'Winter's Tale' was acted in 1611. From 
 the 'Extracts from the Accounts of the 
 Revels at Court,' edited by Mr. Peter Cun- 
 ningham, we learn that on Hallowmas Night 
 (November 1), 1611, "was presented at 
 Whitehall, before the King's Majesty, a play 
 called ' The Tempest.' " Four nights after- 
 wards the ' Winter's Tale' was also presented. 
 The 'Winter's Tale' appears to us to bear 
 marks of a later composition than 'The 
 Tempest.' But we are not disposed to 
 separate them by any very wide interval : 
 more especially we cannot agree with Mr. 
 Hunter, who has brought great learning to 
 an investigation of all the points connected 
 with ' The Tempest,' that this play, " instead 
 of being the latest work of this great master, 
 is in reality one of the earliest, nearly the 
 first in time, as the first in place, of the 
 dramas which are wholly his." The diffi- 
 culty of settling the chronology of some of 
 Shakspere's plays by internal evidence is 
 very much increased by the circumstance 
 that some of them must be regarded as early 
 performances that have come down to us 
 with the large additions and corrections of 
 maturer years. For example: 'Pericles' 
 was, it is probable, produced as a novelty in 
 1608, or not long before. There are portions 
 of that play which we think no one could 
 have written but the mature Shakspere; 
 mixed up with other portions which indicate, 
 not so much immature powers as the treat- 
 ment of a story in the spirit of the oldest 
 dramas. So it is with 'Cymbeline;' and, to 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 THE TEMPEST. 
 
 379 
 
 a certain extent, with the ' Winter's Tale.' 
 The probability is, that these plays were 
 produced in their present form soon after 
 the period of Shakspere's quitting the stage 
 about 1603; and perhaps before the pro- 
 duction of ' Macbeth,' ' Troilus and Cressida,' 
 ' Henry VIII.,' and the Roman plays. * The 
 Tempest' appears to us to belong to the 
 same cycle. The opinion which we here 
 express is not inconsistent with a belief that 
 Mr. Hunter has brought forward several 
 curious facts to render it highly probable 
 that it was produced in 1596. But the 
 aggregate evidence, as we think, outweighs 
 these curious facts. 
 
 * The Tempest ' is not included by name in 
 the list of plays ascribed to Shakspere by 
 Francis Meres in 1599. Mr. Hunter says 
 that it was included, under the name of 
 ' Love's Labour Won." 1 We have endeavoured 
 to show, in the Chapter on ' All 's Well that 
 Ends Well,' not only that the comedy bearing 
 that name had the highest pretension to the 
 title of ' Love's Labour Won,' but that ' The 
 Tempest' had no such pretension. We do 
 not agree that the comedy called 'The 
 Tempest,' when it was first printed, bore the 
 title, either as a leading or secondary title, 
 when Meres published his list in 1599, of 
 ' Love's Labour Won.' We believe that it 
 was always called f The Tempest;' and that, 
 looking at its striking fable, and its beauty 
 of characterization and language, it would 
 undoubtedly have been mentioned by Meres 
 if it had existed in 1599. 
 
 The 'Bartholomew Fair' of Ben Jonson 
 was produced at the Hope Theatre in 1614 ; 
 and it was performed by " the Lady Eliza- 
 beth's servants." It is stated by Malone 
 that "it appears from MSS. of Mr. Vertue 
 that ' The Tempest ' was acted by John 
 Heminge and the rest of the King's company, 
 before Prince Charles, the Lady Elizabeth, 
 and the Prince Palatine Elector, in the 
 beginning of the year 1613." This circum- 
 stance gives some warrant to the belief of 
 the commentators that a passage in the 
 Induction to ' Bartholomew Fair' is a sarcasm 
 upon Shakspere : " If there be never a 
 servant-monster in the fair, who can help it, 
 he says, nor a nest of antiques ? He is loth to 
 
 make nature afraid in his plays, like those 
 that beget tales, tempests, _ and such-like 
 drolleries." GifFord has contended, arguing 
 against the disposition of the commentators 
 to charge Jonson with malignity, that the 
 expressions servant-monster, and tales, tem- 
 pests, and such-like drolleries, had reference 
 to the popular puppet-shows which were 
 especially called drolleries. The passage, 
 however, still looks to us like a sly, though 
 not ill-natured, allusion to Shakspere's Cali- 
 ban, and his ' Winter's Tale,' and ' Tempest,' 
 which were then popular acting plays. Mr. 
 Hunter believes that in this passage Jonson 
 does pointedly direct his satire against ' The 
 Tempest ; ' but he also maintains that Jonson 
 does, in the same way, satirize ' The Tempest' 
 in 1596, in the Prologue to 'Every Man in 
 his Humour : ' 
 
 " He rather prays you will be pleased to see 
 One such to-day, as other plays should be; 
 Where neither chorus wafts you o'er the seas, 
 Nor creaking throne comes down the boys to 
 
 please : 
 
 Nor nimble squib is seen to make afeard 
 The gentlewomen; nor roll'd bullet heard, 
 To say, it thunders : nor tempestuous drum 
 Humbles, to tell you when the storm doth 
 
 come." 
 
 It is scarcely probable, if Jonson had meant 
 to allude to 'The Tempest,' either in the 
 Prologue or the Induction, that he would 
 have been so wanting in materials for his 
 dislike of the romantic drama in general as 
 to select the same play for attack in works 
 separated by an interval of eighteen years. 
 The "creaking throne" is, according to Mr. 
 Hunter, the throne of Juno as she descends, 
 in the mask; the "nimble squib" is the 
 lightning, and the "tempestuous drum" the 
 thunder, of the first scene. Mr. Hunter adds 
 that the last line of the Prologue, 
 
 ' You that have so graced monsters may like 
 men," 
 
 must allude to Caliban. Surely the term 
 monsters, as opposed to men, must be a general 
 designation of what Jonson believed to be 
 unnatural in the romantic drama, as con- 
 trasted with the "image of the times" in 
 comedy. But, if we must have real monster? . 
 
380 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPEKE. 
 
 [BOOK viii. 
 
 there were plenty to be found in the older 
 plays. Gosson, in 1581, thus writes : 
 "Sometimes you shall see nothing but the 
 adventures of an amorous knight, passing 
 from country to country for the love of his 
 lady, encountering many a terrible monster, 
 made of brown paper, and at his return is 
 ibo wonderfully changed that he cannot be 
 known but by some posy in his tablet, or by 
 a broken ring, or a handkerchief, or a piece 
 of a cockle-shell." Sir Philip Sidney ridi- 
 cules the appearance of "-a hideous monster, 
 with fire and smoke." Much older theatres 
 than the Globe were furnished with their 
 thunder and lightning. In 1572 John Izarde, 
 according to an entry in the accounts of the 
 revels at court, was paid for a device for 
 "counterfeiting thunder and lightning."* 
 It is as likely that thrones descended in 
 other plays besides 'The Tempest,' as it is 
 certain that in 'The Tempest ' Juno descended 
 with a classical fitness of which Jonson has 
 given us many similar examples in his own 
 masks. We can see nothing in these cir- 
 cumstances to connect the date of ' The 
 Tempest' with that of Ben Jonson's 'Every 
 Man in his Humour.' 
 
 The third point upon which Mr. Hunter 
 relies for fixing the date of ' The Tempest,' 
 as of 1596, is deduced from the passage in 
 the third act where Gonzalo laughs at the 
 stories of " men whose heads stood in their 
 breasts." Raleigh told this story, in his 
 account of his voyage to Guiana, in 1595. 
 Shakspere makes Othello, not in a boasting 
 or lying spirit, but with the confiding belief 
 that belonged to his own' high nature, tell 
 Desdemona of 
 " The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads 
 
 Do grow beneath their shoulders." 
 
 Would Mr. Hunter contend that this second 
 notice of " men whose heads do grow beneath 
 their shoulders" fixes the date of ' OtheUo? 
 as well as that of ' The Tempest,' in 1596 ? 
 Such circumstances are, as we believe, of the 
 very slightest value. The argument may be 
 put ingeniously and learnedly, as Mr. Hunter 
 puts it ; or it may be rendered ludicrous, as 
 Chalmers renders it. What, for example, 
 
 * Collier, ' Annals of the Stage,' vol. iii. p. 3?0. 
 
 can be more absurd than Chalmers!^ attempt 
 to make us believe that, because the King of 
 Naples is inconsolable for the supposed loss 
 of Ferdinand, there is an allusion to the death 
 of Prince Henry in 1612 : that the line 
 " Like poison given to work a great time after " 
 plainly refers to the murder of Sir Thomas 
 Ovcrbury in the same year; and that a great 
 storm which happened in January, 1613, 
 " gave the appropriate name to this ad- 
 mirable drama!" 
 
 In the ' Essays ' of Montaigne, as trans- 
 lated by Florio, there is the following 
 passage : 
 
 " Me seemeth that what in those nations we 
 see by experience doth not only exceed all the 
 pictures wherewith licentious poesy hath proudly 
 embellished the golden age, and all her quaint 
 inventions to feign a happy condition of man, 
 but also the conception and desire of philosophy. 
 They could not imagine a genuitie so pure and 
 simple as we see it by experience ; nor ever be- 
 lieve our society might be maintained with so 
 little art and human combination. It is a nation, 
 would I answer Plato, that hath no kind of traffic, 
 no knowledge of letters, no intelligence of num- 
 bers, no name of magistrates, nor of politic 
 superiority; no use of service, of riches, or of 
 poverty: no contracts, no successions, no di- 
 vidences ; no occupation, but idle ; no respect of 
 kindred, but common ; no apparel, but natural ; 
 no manuring of lands ; no use of wine, corn, or 
 metal. The very words that import lying, false- 
 hood, treason, dissimulation, covetousness, envy, 
 detraction, and pardon, were never heard amongst 
 them. How dissonant would he find his ima- 
 ginary commonwealth from this perfection ! " 
 
 This extract establishes beyond all possible 
 doubt that the lines of Gonzalo, 
 " I' the commonwealth I would by contraries 
 
 Execute all things," &c. 
 were founded upon Montaigne, and upon 
 Florio's translation. That translation was 
 riot publisher) bfiforq lf?03. But portions of 
 
 it had been seen in manuscript, says Mr. 
 Hunter. Sir William Cornwallis mentions 
 in his 'Essays' that "divers of his pieces I 
 have seen translated," and he describes 
 Florio as the translator. The 'Essays' of 
 Cornwallis were not printed till 1600; but 
 they, also, had been seen in manuscript 
 
III.] 
 
 THE TEMPEST. 
 
 381 
 
 and so Cornwallis might have written about 
 "divers parts " of Florio's 'Montaigne' before 
 1596; and Shakspere might have read this 
 identical part of Florio's ' Montaigne ' before 
 1596 ; and thus the dates both of Cornwallis's 
 and Florio's books go for nothing in this 
 inquiry. Is this evidence? 
 
 The date of Shakspere's ' Tempest ' has 
 
 been a fertile subject for the exercise of 
 critical conjecture. iVlalone writes a pam- 
 ghletof sixty pages upon it; Chalmers 
 anotEer pamphlet somewhat longer? Tfig- 
 first has been reprinted in Boswell's edition ; 
 the other costs as much as a manuscript in 
 the days before printing. It is worth the 
 money, however, for a quiet laugh. The two 
 critics differ very slightly in their opinions 
 as to the date of the comedy ; but their 
 proofs are essentially different. Malone 
 contends for 1611, holding that "the 'storm 
 by""whlcK Sir George Sommers was ship- 
 wrecked on the island of Bermuda, in 1609, 
 unquestionably gave rise to Shakspeare's 
 ' Tempest,' and suggested to him the title, as 
 well as some incidents." The whole rela- 
 tion is contained in the additions to Stow's 
 'Annals' by Howes: 
 
 "In the year 1609 the Adventurers and 
 Company of Virginia sent from London a fleet 
 of eight ships, with people to supply and make 
 strong the colony in Virginia; Sir Thomas 
 Gates being general, in a ship of 300 tons : in 
 this ship was also Sir George Sommers, who was 
 admiral, and Captain Newport, vice-admiral, 
 and with them about 160 persons. This ship 
 was ' Admiral,' and kept company with the rest 
 of the fleet to the height of 30 degrees; and, 
 being then assembled to consult touching divers 
 matters, they were surprised with a most extreme 
 violent storm, which scattered the whole fleet, 
 yet all the rest of the fleet bent their course for 
 Virginia, where, by God's special favour, they 
 arrived safely; but this great ship, though new, 
 and far stronger than any of the rest, fell into a 
 great leak, so as mariners and passengers were 
 forced, for three days' space, to do their utmost 
 to save themselves from sudden sinking : but 
 notwithstanding their incessant pumping, and 
 casting out of water by buckets and all other 
 means, yet the water covered all the goods 
 within the hold, and all men were utterly tired, 
 and spent in strength, and overcome with labour; 
 
 and hopeless of any succour, most of them were 
 gone to sleep, yielding themselves to the mercy 
 of the sea, being all very desirous to die upon 
 any shore wheresoever. Sir George Sommers, 
 sitting at the stern, seeing the ship desperate of 
 relief, looking every minute when the ship 
 would sink, he espied land, which, according to 
 his and Captain Newport's opinion, they judged 
 it should be that dreadful coast of the Bermudas, 
 which islands were, of all nations, said and sup- 
 posed to be enchanted, and inhabited with 
 witches and devils, which grew by reason of 
 accustomed monstrous thunder-storm and tem- 
 pest near unto those islands; also for that the 
 whole coast is so wonderous dangerous of rocks 
 that few can approach them but with unspeak- 
 able hazard of shipwreck. Sir George Sommers, 
 Sir Thomas Gates, Captain Newport, and the 
 rest, suddenly agreed of two evils to choose the 
 least, and so, in a kind of desperate resolution, 
 directed the ship mainly for these islands, which, 
 by God's divine providence, at a high water ran 
 right between two strong rocks, where it stuck 
 fast without breaking, which gave leisure and 
 good opportunity for them to hoist out their 
 boat, and to land all their people, as well sailors 
 as soldiers and others, in good safety; and being 
 come ashore they were soon refreshed and 
 cheered, the soil and air being most sweet and 
 delicate." 
 
 Here we have a storm, a wreck, the Ber- 
 mudas, and an enchanted island ; and, in 
 other descriptions of the same event, we have 
 mention of a sea-monster. " Nothing can be 
 more conclusive, then," says Malone, "that 
 the date of the play is fixed, with uncommon 
 precision, between the end of the year 1610 
 and the autumn of 1611." No, says Chalmers, 
 the shipwreck of Sir George Sommers did 
 suggest the incidents ; but Malone himself 
 had admitted that there was a great tempest 
 at home in 1612 ; " the author availed 
 himself of a circumstance then fresh in the 
 minds of his audience, by affixing a title to 
 it which was more likely to excite curiosity 
 than any other that he could have chosen, 
 while, at the same time, it was sufficiently 
 justified by the subject of the drama." 
 "Now this tempest," says Chalmers, "hap- 
 pened at Christmas 1612; and so the play 
 could not have been written in the summer 
 of 1612." Surely all this is admirable fooling. 
 
382 
 
 STUDIES OF SUAKSPEKE. 
 
 [BOOK viii. 
 
 which is scarcely necessary to say is put an 
 end to by the certainty that the play existed 
 in 1611. In such minute inquiries, all as- 
 suming that poetry is to be dealt with by the 
 same laws as chronology, or geography, or 
 any other exact branch of knowledge, there 
 can be nothing but perpetual mistake, and 
 contradiction, and false inference. Chalmers, 
 in some respects acute enough, has, through 
 the indulgence of these propensities for 
 making poetry literal, fallen into the mistake 
 of imagining that Bermuda was the scene of 
 ' The Tempest.' Mr. Hunter says, " No 
 editor of Shakspeare has ever gone so far as 
 to represent the island of Bermuda as actually 
 the scene of this play ;" but he adds, " Chal-| 
 mers has given some encouragement to this 
 very prevalent mistake." Encouragement? 
 He says, in his 'Apology,' and repeats the 
 passage in his rare tract *, " Our maker 
 showed great judgment in causing, by en- 
 chantment, the king's ship to be wrecked on the 
 still-vex'd Bermoothes" Again, " Stephano 
 became king of the still-vex'd Bermoothes." 
 Lastly, in the ( Another Account,' " If it 
 be asked what circumstance it was which 
 induced our dramatist to think of Bermudas, 
 in 1613, as the scene of his comedy, the answer 
 must be that the Bermudas, which had been 
 considered, ever since the publication, in 
 1596, of Sir Walter Raleigh's description of 
 Guiana, as a ' hellish sea for thunder, light- 
 ning, and storms,' was first planted, in 1612, 
 by a ship called the Plough, from the 
 Thames, which carried out a colony of a 
 hundred and sixty persons." The nonsense 
 of this notion is self-evident. If the Ber- 
 mudas were the scene, Ariel must have out- 
 done himself to convey "the rest of the 
 fleet" over the Atlantic, to place them 
 "upon the Mediterranean flote ;" and, on the 
 contrary, he would have been a mere human 
 carrier if he had been called up from one 
 " deep nook " of the island " to fetch dew " 
 from some other part. This will not quite 
 fit. And so we must resort to another geo- 
 graphical system. Mr. Hunter has discovered 
 another island," which he thus intro- 
 duces : "I must do the old critics the 
 justice to say that, till this discovery (such I 
 
 * ' Another Account of the Incidents,' &c., 1815. 
 
 may call it), no island, as far as I know, had 
 a better claim to be regarded as the island 
 of Prospero than Bermuda." That island is 
 Damped 11 qfl,. " Did we not know," he con- 
 tinues, " how much still remains to be done 
 in the criticism of these plays, it would be 
 scarcely credible that no one seems to have 
 thought of tracing the line of Alonso's track, 
 or of speculating, with the map before him*on 
 the island on which Prospero and Miranda 
 may be supposed to have been cast." Lam- 
 pedusa is the island : " It. lies midway 
 between Malta and the African coast ; " 
 " in its dimensions Lampedusa is what we 
 may imagine Prospero's island to have been ; 
 in circuit thirteen miles and a half;" it is 
 "situated in a stormy sea;" it is "a 
 deserted island;" it has the reputation of 
 " being enchanted." Can anything be more 
 decisive 1 " What I contend for is the ab- 
 solute claim of Lampedusa to have been the 
 island in the poet's mind when he drew the 
 scenes of this drama." The matter, according 
 to Mr. Hunter, is beyond all doubt. " In the 
 rocks of Lampedusa there are hollo ws;"- 
 Caliban is stied in the "hard rock:" in 
 Lampedusa there was a hermit's cell " this 
 cell is surely the origin of the cell of 
 Prospero :" Caliban's employment was col- 
 lecting firewood ; " Malta is supplied with 
 firewood from Lampedusa." Mr. Hunter asks 
 his friend "whether you would think me pre- 
 sumptuous in requiring ih&t in future editio: 
 of these plays there should be, in the ace 
 tomed place, at the foot of the dramatis 
 persons, the words 
 
 ' SCENE, LAMPEDUSA.' " 
 We have not so determined the scene. We 
 believe that the poet had no locality what- 
 ever in his mind, just as he had no notion of 
 any particular storm. Tempests and en- 
 chanted islands are of the oldest materials 
 of poetry. Mr. Hunter says Shakspere had 
 Ariosto's description of a storm in his mind. 
 Who, we may ask, suggested to Ariosto his 
 description 1 Has any one fixed the date of 
 Ariosto's storm 1 Has not the poet described 
 the poet's office 1 
 " The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 
 Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth 
 to heaven, 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 THE TEMPEST. 
 
 383 
 
 And, as imagination bodies forth 
 Theforins of things unknown, the poet's pen 
 Turns them to shapes, and gives to aiiy no- 
 thing 
 A local habitation and a name.' 
 
 Franz Horn asks whether Prospers left Cali- 
 ban to govern the island 1 We believe the 
 island sunk into the sea, and was no more 
 seen, after Prospero broke his staff" and 
 drowned his book. 
 
 There is a very curious story told by War- 
 ton, of poor Collins informing him, during 
 his mental aberration, that he had seen a 
 romance which contained the story of ' The 
 Tempest.' 
 
 " I was informed by the late Mr. Collins, of 
 Chichester, that Shakspeare's 'Tempest/ for 
 which no origin is yet assigned, was founded on 
 a romance called 'Amelia and Isabella,' printed 
 in Italian, Spanish, French, and English, in 
 1588. But, though this information has not 
 proved true on examination, a useful conclusion 
 may be drawn from it, that Shakspeare's story 
 is somewhere to be found in an Italian novel ; 
 afc least, that the s^ory preceded Shakspeare. 
 Mr. Collins had searched this subject with no 
 less fidelity than judgment and industry; but, 
 his memory failing in his last calamitous indis- 
 position, he probably gave me the name of one 
 novel for another. I remember he added a cir- 
 ciynstance which may lead to a discovery, that 
 the principal character of the romance answer- 
 ing" to Shakspere's ' Prospero' was a chemical 
 necromancer, who had bound a spirit like Ariel 
 to obey his call and perform his services." 
 
 Mi*. Thorns, in a very interesting paper on 
 the 'Early English and German Dramas,'* 
 has given, from Tieck, an account of certain 
 early productions of English dramatists which 
 were translated into German about the year 
 1600. We cannot here enter into the very 
 curious question whether an English com- 
 pany performed English plays in Germany 
 at that period ; but it is quite certain that 
 some of our earliest dramas were either 
 translated or adapted for the German stage 
 at this early period. Jacob Ayrer, a notary 
 of Niirnburg, was th$ author of thirty 
 
 * ' New Monthly Magazine,' January 1 , 1841. 
 
 dramas, in the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century. Some are clearly derived from 
 English models ; and Mr. Thorns thinks that 
 an old play, on which Shakspere founded 
 * The Tempest,' is translated in Ayrer's 
 works, published in 1618. 
 
 " ' The origin of the plot of "The Tempest" 
 is for the present a Shakspearean mystery,' are 
 the words of our friend Mr. Hunter, in his 
 learned and interesting dissertation upon that 
 play. That mystery, however, I consider as 
 solved, Tieck appears to entertain no doubt 
 upon the subject, and I hope to bring the 
 matter before you in such a manner as will 
 satisfy you of the correctness of Tieck's views in 
 this respect. But to the point. Shakspeare 
 unquestionably derived his idea of ' The Tem- 
 pest' from an earlier drama, now not known to 
 exist, but of which a German version is preserved 
 in Ayrer's play, entitled 'Die Schone Sidea' 
 (The Beautiful Sidea); and the proof of this fact 
 is to be found in the points of resemblance 
 between the two plays, which are far too striking 
 and peculiar to be the result of accident. 
 
 " It is true that the scene in which Ayrer's 
 play is laid, and the names of the personages, 
 differ from those of 'The Tempest;' but the 
 main incidents of the two plays are all but 
 identically the same. For instance, in the 
 German drama, Prince Ludolph and Prince 
 Leudegast supply the places of Prospero and 
 Alonso. Ludolph, like Prospero, is a magician, 
 and like him has an only daughter, Sidea the 
 Miranda of ' The Tempest ' and an attendant 
 spirit, Euncifal, who, though not strictly re- 
 sembling either Ariel or Caliban, may well be 
 considered as the primary type which suggested 
 to the nimble fancy of our great dramatist those 
 strongly yet admirably contrasted beings. 
 Shortly after the commencement of the play, 
 Ludolph, having been vanquished by his rival, 
 and with his daughter Sidea driven into a 
 forest, rebukes her for complaining of their 
 change of fortune, and then summons his spirit 
 Runcifal to learn from him their future destiny, 
 and prospects of revenge. Runcifal, who is, like 
 Ariel, somewhat 'moody,' announces to Ludolph 
 that the son of his enemy will shortly become 
 his prisoner. After a comic episode, most pro- 
 bably introduced by the German, we see Prince 
 Leudegast, with his son Engelbrecht the Fer- 
 dinand of ' The Tempest ' and the councillors, 
 hunting in the same forest; when Engelbrecht 
 
384 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vni. i 
 
 and his companion Famulus, having separated 
 from their associates, are suddenly encountered 
 by Ludolph and his daughter. He commands 
 them to yield themselves prisoners they refuse, 
 and try to draw their swords, when, as Prospero 
 tells Ferdinand, 
 
 ' I can here disarm thee with this stick, 
 And make thy weapon drop,' 
 so Ludolph, with his wand, keeps their swords 
 in their scabbards, paralyses Engelbrecht, and 
 makes him confess his 
 
 ' Nerves are in their infancy again, 
 And have no vigour in them,' 
 and, when he has done so, gives him over as a 
 slave to Sidea, to carry logs for her. 
 
 '' The resemblance between this scene and the 
 parallel scene in ' The Tempest' is rendered 
 still more striking in a late part of the play, 
 when Sidea, moved by pity for the labours of 
 Engelbrecht, in carrying logs,.declares to him, 
 ' I am your wife, if you will marry me,' 
 
 an event which, in the end, is happily brought 
 about, and leads to the reconciliation of their 
 parents, the rival princes." 
 
 It appears not the least extraordinary 
 circumstance in this extraordinary question 
 of literary history, that Ayrer did not trans- 
 late some of Shakspere's own works, par- 
 ticularly those which existed in printed 
 copies. Shakspere, according to Eschenburg, 
 was not known in Germany, as far as can be 
 collected from any mention in books, till 
 nearly the close of the 17th century. 
 
 " The first German author who has given a 
 thought to Shakspere is perhaps Morhof, whose 
 ' Instructions in the German Language' was first 
 printed in 1682. Towards the end of the fourth 
 chapter, ' On the Poetry of the English,' he is 
 merely named, and Morhof acknowledges that 
 he had himself seen nothing of his, or of Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher's. Not very long afterwards, 
 Benthem, our poet, mentions him in his ' State 
 of the English Schools and Churches,' in chap, 
 xix., among the leading literary characters of 
 England. But all he says of him, and that 
 perhaps only for the first time in the second 
 edition, is the following, which is droll enough : 
 ' William Shakspeare was born at Stratford in 
 Warwickshire ; his learning was very little, and 
 therefore it is the more a matter of wonder that 
 he should be a very excellent poet. He had an 
 
 ingenious and witty mind, full of fun, and was 
 so successful both in tragedy and comedy, that 
 he could move an Heraclitus to laughter, and a 
 Democritus to tears.' " * 
 
 So much has been written on ' The Tem- 
 pest,' and so unnecessary is it for us lo 
 analyse the plot or dwell on the charms of 
 the poetry, that we shall here content our- 
 selves with presenting our readers with some 
 brief extracts, having reference to the prin- 
 cipal characters, translated from the ' Shak- 
 speres Schauspiele erlautert ' of Franz Horn. 
 
 " In Prospero we have a delineation of 
 peculiar profundity. He was, once, not alto- 
 gether a just prince, not thoroughly a just 
 man ; but he had the disposition to be both. 
 His soul thirsted after knowledge ; his mind, 
 sincere in itself, after love; and his fancy, 
 after the secrets of nature : but he forgot, 
 what a prince should least of all forget, that, 
 upon this moving earth, superior acquire- 
 ments, in order to stand firmly, must be 
 exercised carefully ; that the world is full of 
 enemies who can only be subdued by a 
 watchful power and prudence, and that in 
 certain situations the armour ought never to 
 be put off. Thus it became easy for his 
 nearest relation, his brother, with the help 
 of a powerful neighbouring king who could 
 not resist the offered but unjustifiable ad- 
 vantage, to depose him from his dukedom. 
 But as the pure morals of the prince, al- 
 though they werTfperhaps but lazily exercised 
 in behalf of his subjects, had nevertheless 
 acquired their love, and the usurper not 
 daring to make an attack on the lives of the 
 fallen, Prospero saved himself, his daughter, 
 and a part of his magical books, upon a 
 desert island. Here he becomes, what, in its 
 highest sense, he had not yet been, a father 
 and prince. His knowledge extends. Nature 
 listens to him, perhaps because he learned to 
 know and love her more inwardly. Zephyr- 
 like spirits, full of a tender frolicsome 
 humour, and rude earth-born gnomes, are 
 compelled to serve him. The whole island 
 is full of wonders, but only such as the fancy 
 willingly receives, of sounds and songs, of 
 merry helpers and comical tormentors ; and 
 
 * Johan Joachim Eschenburg, iiber W. Shakspearo,' 
 new edit., Zurich, 1H06, p. 407- 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 THE TEMPEST. 
 
 385 
 
 Prospero shows his great human wisdom 
 particularly in the manner with which he, as 
 the spiritual centre, knows how to conduct 
 his intercourse with friends and foes. First, 
 with his daughter. Miranda is his highest, 
 his one, his all ; nevertheless there is visible 
 a certain elevation, a solemnity, in his be- 
 haviour towards her, peculiarities which, 
 even with the deepest love, the severely tried 
 and aged man easily assumes. Indeed, much 
 as the pure sense of his daughter must have 
 long cheered him, he deems it good to relate 
 to her now for the first time the history of 
 his earlier sufferings, when he has mastery 
 over, and the power to punish, his adver- 
 saries. That his narration should have the 
 effect of sending Miranda to sleep (at least 
 his repeated inquiries as to whether she 
 attends show that he fears it) has given 
 occasion to many explanations, into the worth 
 or worthlessness of which we shall not here 
 inquire. Perhaps the following idea may 
 give some light : The wonderful acts occa- 
 sionally like the music upon Jessica in the fifth 
 act of ' The Merchant of Venice : ' the ex- 
 ternal miracles of Nature scarcely affect 
 Miranda upon an island where Nature herself 
 has become a wonder, and the wonders be- 
 come Nature. But for her, even on that 
 account, there are only so many greater 
 wonders in the heart and life of man. She 
 has certainly seen untamed wildness and 
 perverseness in Caliban ; but he appears to 
 her not as a man, but only as a foolish 
 swearing monster, whom she does not fear, 
 because he is the bond-slave of her powerful 
 father, in whose quiet wisdom she continually 
 confides. But the checkered course of the 
 world, its wild passions, are to her wholly 
 strange ; and the relation of such wonders 
 might well affect her in the manner her 
 father fears." 
 
 " Calibajij who, in spite of his imperfect, 
 brutish, and half-human nature, as the son 
 of a witch, is something marvellously ex- 
 citing, and as pretender to the sovereignty 
 of the island something ridicjilpjjsly-^uhlime, 
 has been considered by every one as an 
 inimitable character of the most powerful 
 poetic fancy ; and, the more the character is 
 investigated, the more is our attention re- 
 
 warded. He is the son of a witch, Sycorax, 
 who, though long since dead, continues to 
 work even from the grave. * * * * In 
 Caliban there is a curious mixture of devil, 
 man, and beast, descending even to the fish 
 species. He desires evil, not for the sake of 
 evil or from mere wickedness, but because it 
 is piquant, and because he feels himself 
 oppressed. He is convinced that gross in- 
 justice has been done him, and thus he does 
 not rightly feel that what he desires may be 
 wicked. He knows perfectly well how 
 powerful Prospero is, whose art may perhaps- 
 even subdue his maternal god Setebos, and 
 that he himself is unfortunately nothing but 
 a slave. Nevertheless, he cannot cease to 
 curse, and certainly with the gusto of a 
 virtuoso in this more than liberal art. What- 
 ever he can find most base and disgusting he 
 surrounds almost artistically with the most 
 inharmonious murmuring and hissing words, 
 and then wishes them to fall upon Prospero 
 and his lovely daughter. He knows very 
 well that all this will help him nothing, but 
 that at night he will have 'cramps,' and 
 ' side-stitches,' and be ' pinched by urchins,' 
 but still he continues to pour out new curses. 
 He has acquired one fixed idea that the 
 island belonged to his mother, and, con- 
 sequently, now to himself, the crown prince. 
 The greatest horrors are pleasant to him, for 
 he feels them only as jests which break the 
 monotony of his slavery. He laments that 
 he had been prevented from completing a 
 frightful sin, ' would it had been done,' &c. ; 
 and the thought of a murder gives him a 
 real enjoyment, perhaps chiefly on account 
 of the noise and confusion that it would 
 produce. 
 
 " Recognising all this, yet our feelings 
 towards him never rise to a thorough hatred. 
 We find him only laughably horrible, and as 
 a marvellous though at bottom a feeble 
 monster highly interesting, for we foresee 
 from the first that none of his threats will 
 be fulfilled. Caliban could scarcely at any 
 time have been made out more in detail, but 
 we are well enabled to seize upon the idea 
 of his inner physiognomy from the naked 
 sketch of his external form. He is, with all 
 his foolish rage and wickedness, not entirely 
 
 c c 
 
STUDIES OF BHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK viii. 
 
 vulgar ; and though he allows himself to be 
 imposed upon, even by his miserable com- 
 rades, (perhaps only because they are men, 
 and, if ugly, yet handsomer than himself,) 
 he everywhere shows more prudence, which 
 is only checked because he considers himself 
 more powerful than he really is. Indeed, he 
 stands far higher than Trinculo and Ste- 
 phano." 
 
 ' ^Opposed to him stands Ariel, by no 
 means an ethereal, featureless angel, but as 
 a real airy and frolicsome spirit, agreeable 
 and open, but also capricious, roguish, and, 
 with his other qualities, somewhat mis- 
 chievous. He is thankful to Prospero for his 
 release from the most confined of all confined 
 situations, but his gratitude is not a natural 
 virtue (we might almost add not an airy 
 virtue); therefore he must (like man) be 
 sometimes reminded of his debt, and held in 
 check. Only the promise of his freedom in 
 two days restores him again to his amiability, 
 and he then finds pleasure in executing the 
 plans of his master with a delightful activity. 
 u We noticed in passing ' the featureless 
 angel,' and it requires no further indication 
 where to find such beings ; for no one will 
 deny that these immortal winged children 
 (so charming in many old German pictures), 
 with their somewhat dull immortal harps, 
 and, if possible, their still more dull and 
 immortal anthems, cause a not less immortal 
 tediousness in the works of many poets. 
 Shakspere did not fall into this error, and it 
 is in the highest degree attractive to observe 
 the various and safe modes in which he 
 manages the marvellous. In the storm he 
 achieves his object by the simplest means, 
 while, as has been already indicated, he 
 represents Nature herself, and certainly 
 justly, as the greatest miracle. When he 
 
 iias once in his own gentle way led us to 
 believe that Prospero, through his high art, 
 is able to overrule Nature and how wil- 
 lingly do we believe in these higher powers 
 of man ! how completely natural and, to a 
 certain degree, what merely pleasant trifles, 
 are all the wonders which we see playing 
 around us ! These higher powers, also, are not 
 confined to Prospero alone ; Ferdinand and 
 Miranda have, without any enchanted wand 
 or any prolix instruction, full superiority 
 over the wonders of Nature, and they allow 
 them to pass around them merely as a de- 
 lightful drama ; for the highest wonder is in 
 their own breasts love, the pure human, 
 and even on that account holy, love. 
 
 " Even the pure mind and the firm heart, 
 as they are shown in old Gojizalo, are armed 
 with an almost similar power. With our 
 poet, a truly moral man is always amiable, 
 powerful, agreeable, and quietly wards off 
 the snares laid for him. This old Gonzalo is 
 so entirely occupied with his duty, in which 
 alone he finds his pleasure, that he scarcely 
 notices the gnat-stings of wit with which 
 his opponents persecute him ; or, if he 
 observes, easily and firmly repels them. What 
 wit indeed has he to fear, who, in a sinking 
 ship, has power remaining to sustain himself 
 and others with genuine humour 1 Shakspere 
 seems scarcely to recognise a powerless 
 virtue, and he depicts it only in cases of 
 need ; so everything closes satisfactorily. 
 The pure poetry of nature and genius 
 inspires us ; and when we hear Prospero 
 recite his far too modest epilogue, after 
 laying down his enchanted wand, we have 
 no wish to turn our minds to any frivolous 
 thoughts, for the magic we have experienced 
 was too charming and too mighty not to be 
 enduring." 
 
C1IAP. IV.] 
 
 TROILUS AND CB.ESSIDA. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 
 
 THE original quarto edition of ' Troilus and 
 Cressida,' printed in 1609, bears the following 
 title : ' The famous Historic of Troylus and 
 Cresseid. Excellently expressing the Begin- 
 ning of their Loues, with the Conceited 
 Wooing of Pandarus Prince of Licia. Written 
 by William Shakespeare. London, Imprinted 
 by G. Eld, for R. Bonian and H. Walley, and 
 are to be sold at the Spred Eagle in Paules 
 Churchyeard, ouer against the great North 
 Doore, 1609.' In the same year a second 
 edition was put forth by the same publishers, 
 in the title-page of which appears, "As it 
 was acted by the King's Majesty's Servants 
 at the Globe." No other edition of the play 
 was published until it appeared in the folio 
 collection of 1623. 
 
 The first quarto edition of 1609 contains 
 the following very extraordinary preface : 
 "A never writer to an ever reader. 
 " News. 
 
 " Eternal reader, you have here a new play, 
 never staled with the stage, never clapper-clawed 
 with the palms of the vulgar, and yet passing 
 full of the palm comical ; for it is a birth of your 
 brain, that never undertook anything comical 
 vainly; and were but the vain names of comedies 
 ihanged for the titles of commodities, or of 
 plays for pleas, you should see all those grand 
 censors, that now style them such vanities, flock 
 to them for the main grace of their gravities; 
 especially this author's comedies, that are so 
 framed to the life, that they serve for the most 
 common commentaries of all the actions of our 
 lives, showing such a dexterity and power of 
 wit, that the most displeased with plays are 
 pleased with his comedies. And all such dull 
 and heavy-witted worldlings as were never 
 capable of the wit of a comedy, coming hy re- 
 port of them to his representations, have found 
 that wit there that they never found in them- 
 selves, and have parted better witted than they 
 came; feeling an edge of wit set upon them 
 more than ever they dreamed they had brain to 
 grind it on. So much and such favoured salt 
 of wit is in his comedies, that they seem (for 
 
 their height of pleasure) to be born in that sea 
 that brought forth Venus. Amongst all there 
 is none more witty than this : and had I time I 
 would comment upon it, though I know it needs 
 not (for so much as will make you think your 
 testern well bestowed), but for so much worth 
 as even poor I know to be stuffed in it. It 
 deserves such a labour, as well as the best 
 comedy in Terence or Plautus. And believe 
 this, that when he is gone, and his comedies 
 out of sale, you will scramble for them, and set 
 
 up a new English Inquisition. * Take this for a 
 
 warning, and at the peril of your pleasures' loss | 
 and judgments, refuse not, nor like this the less ! 
 for not being sullied with the smoky breath of | 
 the multitude; but thank fortune for the scape 
 it hath made amongst you, since by the grand 
 possessors' wills I believe you should have 
 prayed for them rather than been prayed. And 
 so I leave all such to be prayed for (for the states 
 of their wit's healths) that will not praise it. 
 Vale." 
 
 In 1609, then, the reader is told, " You have 
 here a new play, never staled with the stage, 
 never clapper-clawed with the palms of the 
 vulgar ; " and he is further exhorted "refuse 
 not, nor like this the less for not being sullied 
 with the smoky breath of the multitude."' 
 The reader is also invited to spend a sixpence 
 upon this playr "Had I time I would I 
 comment upon it, though I know it needs ' 
 not, fur so much as will make you think your 
 testern well bestowed." Never was one of 
 Shakspere's plays set forth during his life 
 with such commendation as here abounds. 
 His Comedies "are so framed to the life, 
 that they serve for the most common com- 
 mentaries of all the actions of our lives." 
 The passage towards the conclusion is the 
 most remarkable : " Thank Fortune for the 
 scape it hath made amongst you, since by 
 the grand possessors' wills I believe you 
 should have prayed for them rather than 
 been prayed." We have here, then, first, a 
 most distinct assertion that, in 1609, 'Troilus 
 and Cressida' was a new play, never staled 
 
 c c 2 
 
388 
 
 STUDIES OP 8HAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vui. 
 
 with the stage. This, one might think, 
 would be decisive as to the chronology of 
 this play ; but in the Stationers' books is 
 the following entry : " Feb. 7, 1602. Mr. 
 Roberts. The booke of Troilus and Cresseda, 
 as yt is acted by my Lo. Chamberlen's men." 
 Maloue assumes that the l Troilus and 
 Cressida' thus acted by the Lord Chamber- 
 lain's men (the players at the Globe during 
 the reign of Elizabeth) was the same as that 
 published in 1609. Yet there were other 
 authors at work upon the subject besides 
 Shakspere. In Henslowe's manuscripts there 
 are several entries of monies lent, in 1599, 
 to Dekker and Chettle, in earnest of a book 
 called 'Troilus and Cressida.' This play, 
 thus bargained for by Henslowe, appears 
 to have been subsequently called 'Aga- 
 memnon.' The probability is, that the rival 
 company at the Globe had, about the same 
 period, brought out their own ' Troilus and 
 Cressida ;' and that this is the play referred 
 to in the entry by Roberts in 1602 ; for if 
 that entry had applied to the f Troilus and 
 Cressida' of Shakspere, first published in 
 1609, how are we to account for the sub- 
 sequent entry in the same registers made 
 previously to the publication of that edition ? 
 Altogether the evidence of the date of the 
 play, derived from the entry of 1602, appears 
 to us worth very little. 
 
 And here arises the question, whether the 
 expressions in the preface " never staled with 
 the stage " " never clapper-clawed with the 
 palms of the vulgar," "not sullied with 
 the smoky breath of the multitude," mean 
 that the play had not been acted at all, or 
 that it had not been acted on the public 
 stage. There is a good deal of probability 
 in the conjecture of Tieck upon this subject : 
 " In the palace of some great personage, 
 for whom it was probably expressly written, 
 it was first represented ; according to my 
 belief for the King himself, who, weak as he 
 was, contemptible as he sometimes showed 
 himself, and pedantic as his wisdom and 
 short-sighted as his politics were, yet must 
 have had a certain fine sense of poetry, wit, 
 and talent, beyond what his historians have 
 ascribed to him. But whether the King, or 
 some one else of whom we have not received 
 
 the name, it is sufficient to know that for 
 this person, and not for the public, Shakspere 
 wrote this wonderful comedy." The pro- 
 prietors of the Globe Theatre were clearly 
 hostile to the publication of Shakspere's 
 later plays ; and, in fact, with the exception 
 of ' Lear,' and ' Troilus and Cressida,' no play 
 was published between 1603 and Shakspere's 
 death. Now, in the title-page of the original 
 'Lear,' published in 1608, there is the 
 following minute particularity : " As it was 
 played before the King's Majesty at White- 
 hall upon St. Stephen's night in Christmas 
 holidays, by his Majesty's Servants playing 
 usually at the Globe, on the Bank's side." 
 From this statement it appears to us highly 
 probable that, in the instances both of ' Lear ' 
 and 'Troilus and Cressida,' the plays were 
 performed, for the first time, before the King ; 
 that the copies so used were out of the 
 control of the players who represented these 
 dramas ; and that some one, authorized or 
 not, printed each play from the copy used 
 on these occasions. Let us look again at 
 the passage in the preface to 'Troilus and 
 Cressida ' under this impression : " Thank 
 Fortune for the scape it hath made amongst 
 you, since by the grand possessors' wills I 
 believe you should have prayed for them 
 rather than been prayed." There is an 
 obscurity in this passage. "I believe you 
 should have prayed for them rather than 
 been prayed" is quite unintelligible, if "the 
 grand possessors" had been the proprietors 
 of the Globe Theatre. But suppose the grand 
 possessors to be, as Tieck has conjectured, 
 some great personage, probably the King 
 himself, for whom the play was expressly 
 written, and a great deal of the obscurity of 
 the preface vanishes. By the grand pos- 
 sessors' wills you should have prayed for 
 them (as subjects publicly pray for their 
 rulers) rather than been prayed (as you are 
 by players who solicit your indulgence in 
 prologues and epilogues). 
 
 " The original story," says Dryden, " was 
 written by one Lollius, a Lombard, in Latin 
 verse, and translated by Chaucer into 
 English ; intended, I suppose, as a satire on 
 the inconstancy of women. I find nothing 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 TEOILUS AND CRESSIDA. 
 
 389 
 
 of it among the ancients, not so much as the 
 name Cressida once mentioned. Shakspeare 
 (as I hinted), in the apprenticeship of his 
 writing, modelled it into that play which is 
 now called by the name of ' Troilus and 
 Cres sida.' ' ' Chaucer him self speaks of " My ne 
 Auctor Lollius ; " and in his address to the 
 Muse, in the beginning of the second book, 
 he says, 
 
 " To every lover I me excuse 
 That of no sentiment I this endite, 
 But out of Latin in my tongue it write." 
 Without entering into the question who 
 Lollius was, or believing more than that 
 " Lollius, if a writer of that name existed at 
 all, was a somewhat somewhere,"* we at 
 once receive the 'Troilus and Creseide' of 
 Chaucer as the foundation of Shakspere's 
 play. Of his perfect acquaintance with that 
 poem there can be no doubt. Chaucer, of all 
 English writers, was the one who would have 
 the greatest charm for Shakspere. ' The 
 Rape of Lucrece ' is written precisely in the 
 same versification as Chaucer's ' Troilus and 
 Creseide.' When Lorenzo, in ' The Merchant 
 of Venice,' exclaims, 
 
 " In such a night, 
 
 Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls, 
 And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents, 
 Where Cressid lay that night," 
 we may be sure that Shakspere had in his 
 mind the following passages of Chaucer : 
 
 " Upon the walles fast eke would he walk, 
 And on the Greekgs host he would ysee, 
 And to himself right thus he would ytalk : 
 ' Lo ! yonder is mine own6 lady free, 
 Or die's yonder there the tenths be, 
 And thence cometh this air that is so sote, 
 That in my soul I feel it doth me bote.' 
 
 The day go'th fast, and after that came eve, 
 And yet came not to Troilus Creseid : 
 He looketh forth by hedge, by tree, by grove, 
 And far his head over the wall he laid." 
 Mr. Godwin has justly observed that the 
 Shaksperean commentators have done in- 
 justice to Chaucer in not more distinctly 
 associating his poem with this remarkable 
 play : 
 
 " It would be extremely unjust to quit the 
 
 * Coleridge's ' Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 130. 
 
 consideration of Chaucer's poem of ' Troilus 
 and Creseide' without noticing the high 
 honour it has received in having been made 
 the foundation of one of the plays of Shake- 
 spear. There seems to have been in this 
 respect a sort of conspiracy in the commen- 
 tators upon Shakespear against the glory of 
 our old English bard. In what they have 
 written concerning this play, they make a 
 very slight mention of Chaucer ; they have 
 not consulted his poem for the purpose of 
 illustrating this admirable drama ; and they 
 have agreed, as far as possible, to transfer to 
 another author the honour of having supplied 
 materials to the tragic artist. Dr. Johnson 
 says, ' Shakspeare has in his story followed, 
 for the greater part, the old book of Caxton, 
 which was then very popular ; but the cha- 
 racter of Thersites, of which it makes no 
 mention, is a proof that this play was written 
 after Chapman had published his version of 
 Homer.' Mr. Steevens asserts that ' Shak- 
 speare received the greatest part of his 
 materials for the structure of this play from 
 the Troye Boke of Lydgate.' And Mr. Malone 
 repeatedly treats the ' History of the De- 
 struction of Troy, translated by Caxton,' as 
 ' Shakspeare's authority ' in the composition 
 
 of this drama The fact is, that 
 
 the play of Shakespear we are here con- 
 sidering has for its main foundation the 
 poem of Chaucer, and is indebted for many 
 accessory helps to the books mentioned by 
 
 the commentators 
 
 " We are not, however, left to probability 
 and conjecture as to the use made by Shake- 
 spear of the poem of Chaucer. His other 
 sources were Chapman's translation of Homer, 
 the ' Troye Boke ' of Lydgate, and Caxton's 
 ' History of the Destruction of Troy.' It is 
 well known that there is no trace of the 
 particular story of 'Troilus and Creseide' 
 among the ancients. It occurs, indeed, in 
 Lydgate and Caxton; but the name and 
 actions of Pandarus, a very essential per- 
 sonage in the tale as related by Shakespear 
 and Chaucer, are entirely wanting, except 
 a single mention of him by Lydgate, and 
 that with an express reference to Chaucer as 
 his authority. Shakespear has taken the 
 story of Chaucer with all its imperfections 
 
390 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE 
 
 [BOOK vin. 
 
 ! and defects, and has copied the series of its 
 incidents with his customary fidelity ; an 
 exactness seldom to be found in any other 
 dramatic writer."* 
 
 Although the main incidents in the ad- 
 ventures of the Greek lover and his faithless 
 mistress are followed with little deviation, 
 yet, independent of the wonderful difference 
 in the characterization, the whole story 
 under the treatment of Shakspere becomes 
 thoroughly original. In no play does he 
 appear to us to have a more complete mastery 
 over his materials, or to mould them into 
 more plastic shapes by the force of his most 
 surpassing imagination. The great Homeric 
 poem, the rude romance of the destruction 
 of Troy, the beautiful elaboration of that 
 romance by Chaucer, are all subjected to his 
 wondrous alchemy; and new forms and 
 combinations are called forth so lifelike, that 
 all the representations which have preceded 
 them look cold and rigid statues, not warm 
 and breathing men and women. Coleridge's 
 theory of the principle upon which this was 
 effected is, we have no doubt, essentially 
 true : 
 
 " I am half inclined to believe that Shake- 
 spear's main object (or shall I rather say his 
 ruling impulse ?) was to translate the poetic 
 heroes of Paganism into the not less rude, but 
 more intellectually vigorous, and more fea- 
 turely, warriors of Christian chivalry, and to 
 substantiate the distinct and graceful profiles 
 or outlines of the Homeric epic into the 
 flesh and blood of the romantic drama, in 
 short, to give a grand history-piece in the 
 robust style of Albert Durer." t 
 
 To Dryden's alteration of 'Troilus and 
 Cressida' was prefixed a prologue, "spoken 
 by Mr. Betterton, representing the Ghost of 
 Shakspere." The Ghost appears to have en- 
 tirely forgotten what he was on earth, and to 
 present a marvellous resemblance, in his 
 mind at least, to Mr. John Dryden. He 
 
 " In this my rough-drawn play you shall behold 
 
 Some master-strokes." 
 
 Dryden, in his elaborate * Preface to Troilus 
 and Cressida, containing the grounds of 
 
 * ' Life of Chaucer.' vol. i. (4to) p. 315. 
 f ' Literary Remains,' vol ii. p. 1H3. 
 
 Criticism in Tragedy,' thus speaks of Shak- 
 spere's performance : 
 
 " For the play itself, the author seems to 
 have begun it with some fire ; the characters 
 of Pandarus and Thersites are promising 
 enough ; but, as if he grew weary of his 
 task, after an entrance or two he lets them 
 fall ; and the latter part of the tragedy is 
 nothing but a confusion of drums and trum- 
 pets, excursions and alarms. The chief per- 
 sons who give name to the tragedy are left 
 alive : Cressida is false, and is not punished. 
 Yet, after all, because the play was Shak- 
 speare's, and that there appeared in some 
 places of it the admirable genius of the 
 author, / undertook to remove that heap of 
 rubbish under which many excellent thoughts 
 lay wholly buried" The mode in which 
 Dryden got rid of the rubbish, and built up 
 his own edifice, is very characteristic of the 
 age and of the man : 
 
 " I new modelled the plot ; threw out 
 many unnecessary persons ; improved those 
 characters which were begun and left un- 
 finished, -as Hector, Troilus, Pandarus, and 
 Thersites ; and added that of Andromache. 
 After this I made, with no small trouble, an 
 order and connection of all the scenes, re- 
 moving them from the places where they 
 were inartificially set." 
 
 The result of all this is, that the Ghost of 
 Shakspere, in the concluding lines of the 
 Prologue, thus enlightens the audience as 
 to the dominant idea of the ' Troilus and 
 Cressida :' 
 " My faithful scene from true records shall tell 
 
 How Trojan valour did the Greek excel ; 
 
 Your great forefathers shall their fame regain, 
 
 And Homer's angry ghost repine in vain." 
 Coleridge says, "there is no one of Shak- 
 spere's plays harder to characterize." He 
 has overlooked the circumstance that, when 
 the "rubbish" was removed, it became a 
 true record, a faithful chronicle, of the 
 heroic actions of the Trojans, our "great 
 forefathers." With every admiration for 
 "glorious John" in his own proper line, we 
 must endeavour to understand what Shak- 
 spere's 'Troilus and Cressida' ?'s, by coin- 
 paring it with what it is not in the alteration 
 before us. 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 
 
 391 
 
 The notion of Dryden was to convert the 
 * Troilus and Cressida' into a regular tragedy. 
 He complains, we have seen, that " the chief 
 persons who give name to the tragedy are 
 left alive : Cressida is false and is not 
 punished." The excitement of pity and terror, 
 we are told, is the only ground of tragedy. 
 Tragedy, too, must have " a moral that di- 
 rects the whole action of the play to one 
 centre." To this standard, then, is Shak- 
 spere's ' Troilus and Cressida' to be reduced. 
 The chief persons who give name to the 
 tragedy are not to be left alive. Cressida is 
 not to be false ; but she is to die : and so 
 terror and pity are to be produced. And 
 now comes the moral : 
 " Then, since from home-bred factions ruin 
 springs, 
 
 Let subjects learn obedience to their kings." 
 The management by which Dryden has ac- 
 complished this metamorphosis is one of the 
 most remarkable examples of perverted in- 
 genuity. He had a licentious age to please. 
 He could not spare a line, or a word, of 
 what may be considered the objectionable 
 scenes between Pandarus, Troilus, and Cres- 
 sida. They formed no part of the "rubbish" 
 he desired to remove. He has heightened 
 them wherever possible ; and what in Shak- 
 spere was a sly allusion becomes with him a 
 positive grossness. Now let us consider 
 for a moment what Shakspere intended by 
 these scenes. Cressida is the exception to 
 Shakspere's general idea of the female cha- 
 racter. She is beautiful, witty, accomplished, 
 but she is impure. In her, love is not a 
 sentiment, or a passion, it is an impulse. 
 Temperament is stronger than will. Her 
 love has nothing ideal, spiritual, in its 
 composition. It is not constant, because it 
 is not discriminate. Setting apart her in- 
 constancy, how altogether different is Cres- 
 sida from Juliet, or Viola, or Helena, or 
 Perdita ! There is nothing in her which 
 could be called love ; no depth, no concen- 
 tration of feeling, nothing that can bear 
 the name of devotion. Shakspere would not 
 permit a mistake to be made on the subject ; 
 and he has therefore given to Ulysses to 
 describe her, as he conceived her. Consider- 
 ing what his intentions were, and what really 
 
 is the high morality of the characterization, 
 we can scarcely say that he has made the 
 representation too prominent. When he 
 drew Cressida, we think he had the feeling 
 strong on his mind which gave birth to the 
 129th Sonnet. A French writer, in a notice 
 of this play, says, "Les deux amants se 
 voient, s'entendent, et sont heureux" Shak- 
 spere has described such happiness : 
 " A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe ; 
 
 Before, a joy proposed ; behind, a dream : 
 
 All this the world well knows ; yet none 
 knows well 
 
 To shun the heaven that leads men to this 
 
 hell." 
 
 It was this morality that Shakspere meant 
 to teach when he painted this one exception 
 to the general purity of his female charac- 
 ters. He did not, like the dramatists of the 
 age of the Restoration, make purity the 
 exception : his estimate of women was 
 formed upon a truer standard. But when 
 Dryden undertook to remodel Shakspere, 
 female morality, like every other morality, 
 was merely conventional : virtue was an 
 affair of expediency, and not of principle. 
 With an entire submission, then, to the 
 genius of his age, does Dryden retain and 
 heighten the scenes between Troilus and 
 Cressida until she quits the Trojan camp. 
 But in all this, as we are to see in the 
 sequel, Cressida is a perfectly correct and 
 amiable personage. We are told, indeed, of 
 her frank reception of the welcome of the 
 Grecian chiefs ; but there is no Ulysses to 
 pronounce a judgment upon her character. 
 She admits, indeed, the suit of Diomedes, 
 and she gives him pledges of her affection ; 
 but this is all a make-believe, for, like a 
 dutiful child, she is following the advice of 
 her father : 
 " You must dissemble love to Diomede still : 
 
 False Diomede, bred in Ulysses' school, 
 
 Can never be deceived 
 
 But by strong arts and blandishments of love. 
 
 Put 'em in practice all ; seem lost and won, 
 
 And draw him on, and give him line again." 
 
 Upon this very solid foundation, then, are 
 built up the terror and pity of Dryden's 
 t- agedy : and so Troilus, who has witnessed 
 Cressida's endearments to Diomede, refuses I 
 
392 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPEBE. 
 
 [BOOK viii. 
 
 to believe that she is faithful ; and then 
 Cressida kills herself ; and Troilus kills 
 Diomede ; and Achilles kills Troilus ; and 
 all the Trojans are killed : and the Greeks 
 who remain upon the field are very happy ; 
 and Ulysses tells us, 
 
 " Now peaceful Order has resumed the reins, 
 Old Time looks young, and Nature seems 
 reneVd." 
 
 Here is a tragedy for you, which " is an 
 imitation of one entire, great, and probable 
 action, not told, but represented ; which, by 
 moving us to fear and pity, is conducive to 
 the purging of those two passions in our 
 minds." So Dryden quotes Aristotle ; and 
 so, not understanding Aristotle, he takes 
 upon himself to mend Shakspere, (" incom- 
 parable," as he calls him,) according to the 
 notions of " my friend Mr. Rymer," and of 
 " Bossu, the best of modern critics." 
 
 The feeling which the study of Shakspere's 
 * Troilus and Cressida' slowly but certainly 
 calls forth is that of almost prostration be- 
 fore the marvellous intellect which has pro- 
 duced it. But this is the result of study, 
 as we have said. The play cannot be under- 
 stood upon a superficial reading : it is full 
 of the most subtle art. We may set aside 
 particular passages, and admire their sur- 
 passing eloquence, their profound wisdom ; 
 but it is long before the play, as a whole, 
 obtains its proper mastery over the under- 
 standing. It is very difficult to define what 
 is the great charm and wonder of its en- 
 tirety. To us it appears as if the poet, 
 without the slightest particle of presump- 
 tion, had proposed to himself to look down 
 upon the Homeric heroes from an Olympus 
 of his own. He opens the ' Iliad,' and there 
 he reads of "Achilles' baneful wrath." A 
 little onward he is told of the " high threat- 
 ening" of " the great cloud-gatherer." The 
 gods of Homer are made up of human pas- 
 sions. But he appears throned upon an 
 eminence, from which he can not only com- 
 mand a perfect view of the game which men 
 play, but, seeing all, become a partisan of 
 none, perfectly cognizant of all motives, 
 but himself motiveless. And yet the whole 
 representation is true, and it iy therefore 
 
 genial. He does not stand above men by 
 lowering men. Social life is not made worse 
 than it is, that he who describes it may 
 appear above its ordinary standard. It is 
 not a travestie of Homer or of Nature. The 
 heroic is not lowered by association with the 
 ridiculous. Shakspere's heroes of the ' Iliad ' 
 show us very little of the vulgar side of human 
 life, not much even of the familiar ; but 
 the result is, that they cease to be heroic. 
 How this is attained is the wonder. It is 
 something to have got rid of the machinery 
 of the gods, something to have a Thersites 
 eternally despising and despised. But this 
 is not all. The whole tendency of the play, 
 its incidents, its characterization, is to 
 lower what the Germans call herodom. Ul- 
 rici maintains that "the far-sighted Shak- 
 spere most certainly did not mistake as to 
 the beneficial effect which a nearer intimacy 
 with the high culture of antiquity had pro- 
 duced, and would produce, upon the Chris- 
 tian European mind. But he saw the danger 
 of an indiscriminate admiration of this 
 classical antiquity ; for he who thus accepted 
 it must necessarily fall to the very lowest 
 station in religion and morality : as, in- 
 deed, if we closely observe the character of 
 the eighteenth century, we see has hap- 
 pened. Out of this prophetic spirit, which 
 penetrated with equal clearness through the 
 darkness of coming centuries and the clouds 
 of a far-distant past, Shakspere wrote this 
 deeply significant satire upon the Homeric 
 herodom. He had no desire to debase the 
 elevated, to deteriorate or make little the 
 great, and still less to attack the poetical 
 worth of Homer, or of heroic poetry in 
 general. But he wished to warn thoroughly 
 against the over-valuation and idolatry of 
 them, to which man so willingly abandons 
 himself. He endeavoured, at the same time, 
 to bring strikingly to view the universal 
 truth, that everything that is merely human, 
 even when it is glorified with the nimbus of 
 a poetic ideality and a mythical past, yet, 
 seen in the bird's-eye perspective of a pure 
 moral ideality, appears very small." All 
 this may seem as super-refinement, in which 
 the critic pretends to see farther than the 
 poet ever saw. But to such an objection 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 
 
 393 
 
 there is a very plain answer. A certain 
 result is produced : is the result correctly 
 described ? If it be so, is that result an 
 effect of principle or an effect of chance ? 
 As a proof that it was the effect of principle, 
 we may say that Dryden did not see the 
 principle ; and that, not seeing it, he en- 
 tirely changed the character of the play as 
 a work of art. For example, there is no 
 scene in the drama so entirely in accordance 
 with the principle as that in which Ulysses 
 stirs up the slothful and dogged Achilles 
 into a rivalry with Ajax. It is altogether 
 so Shaksperean in its profundity, it pre- 
 sents such a key to the whole Shaksperean 
 conduct of this wonderful drama, that we 
 cannot be content merely to refer to it. 
 
 " Ulyss. Now, great Thetis' son ! 
 
 Achil. "What are you reading? 
 
 Ulyss. A strange fellow here 
 
 Writes me, That man, how dearly ever parted, 
 How much in having, or without, or in, 
 Cannot make boast to have that which he 
 
 hath, 
 
 Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection ; 
 As when his virtues shining upon others 
 Heat them, and they retort that heat again 
 To the first giver. 
 
 Achil. This is not strange, Ulysses. 
 
 The beauty that is born here in the face 
 The bearer knows not, but commends itself 
 To others' eyes : nor doth the eye itself 
 (That most pure spirit of sense) behold itself, 
 Not going from itself; but eye to eye op- 
 
 Salutes each other with each other's form. 
 For speculation turns not to itself, 
 Till it hath traveled, and is married there 
 W here it may see itself : this is not strange 
 
 at all. 
 
 Ulyss. I do not strain at the position, 
 It is familiar ; but at the author's drift : 
 Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves, 
 That no man is the lord of anything 
 (Though in and of him there is much con- 
 sisting), 
 
 Till he communicate his parts to others : 
 Nor doth he of himself know them for aught 
 Till he behold them form'd in the applause 
 Where they are extended; which, like an arch, 
 
 reverberates 
 The voice again ; or like a gate of steel, 
 
 Fronting the sun, receives and renders back 
 His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in 
 
 this, 
 
 And apprehended here immediately 
 The unknown Ajax. 
 
 Heavens, what a man is there ! a very horse; 
 That has he knows not what. Nature, what 
 
 things there are, 
 
 Most abject in regard, and dear in use ! 
 What things again most dear in the esteem, 
 And poor in worth ! Now shall we see to- 
 morrow 
 
 An act that very chance doth throw upon him, 
 Ajax renown'd. heavens, what some men do, 
 While some men leave to do ! 
 How some men creep in skittish fortune's 
 
 hall, 
 
 Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes ! 
 How one man eats into another's pride, 
 While pride is feasting in his wantonness ! 
 To see these Grecian lords! why, even al- 
 ready 
 
 They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder, 
 As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast, 
 And great Troy shrinking. 
 
 Achil. I do believe it; for they pass'd by me 
 As misers do by beggars ; neither gave to me 
 Good word, nor look : What, are my deeds 
 
 forgot] 
 Ulyss. Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his 
 
 back, 
 
 Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, 
 A great-sized monster of ingratitudes : 
 Those scraps are good deeds past; which are 
 
 devour'd 
 
 As fast as they are made, forgot as soon 
 As done : Perseverance, 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 
 
 For emulation hath a thousand sons, 
 That one by one pursue : If you give way, 
 Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, 
 Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by, 
 And leave you hindmost; 
 Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank, 
 Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, 
 O'errun and trampled on : Then what they do 
 in present, 
 
J94 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK viu. 
 
 Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop 
 
 yours: 
 
 For time is like a fashionable host, 
 That slightly shakes his parting guest by the 
 
 hand; 
 And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would 
 
 fly, 
 
 Grasps-in the comer : Welcome ever smiles, 
 And farewell goes out sighing. Oh, 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 
 
 gawds, 
 Though they are made and moulded of things 
 
 past; 
 
 And give to dust, that is a little gilt, 
 More laud than gilt o'er-dusted. 
 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 once on 
 
 thee, 
 
 And still it might; and yet it may again, 
 If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive, 
 And case thy reputation in thy tent; 
 Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of 
 
 late, 
 Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods 
 
 themselves, 
 And drave great Mars to faction. 
 
 Now, of this scene Dryden has not a word. 
 This was a part of the "rubbish" which he 
 discarded. But in the place of it he gives 
 us an entirely new scene between Hector and 
 Troilus "almost half the act." He says, 
 " the occasion of raising it was hinted to me 
 by Mr. Betterton ; the contrivance and 
 working of it was my own." The scene, he 
 admits, was an imitation of the famous scene 
 in ' Julius Caesar' between Brutus and 
 Cassius. And so Dryden transposes the 
 principle of one play into another ; destroys 
 the grave irony of ' Troilus and Cressida' by 
 the introduction of the heroic seriousness 
 
 which was in its place in 'Julius Caesar ;' 
 and gives us, altogether, a set of mongrel 
 characters, compounded of the common-place 
 leroic and Shakspere's reduction of the false 
 tieroic to truth and reason. And yet, with 
 all his labour, Dryden could not make the 
 thing consistent. He is compelled to take 
 Shakspere's representation of Ajax, for ex- 
 ample. One parallel passage will be suffi- 
 cient to show how Dryden and Shakspere 
 managed these things : 
 
 DRYDEN. 
 " Thank Heav'n, my lord, you 're of a gentle 
 
 nature, 
 Praise him that got you, her that brought you 
 
 forth; 
 
 But he who taught you first the use of arms, 
 Let Mars divide eternity in two, 
 And give him half. I will not praise your 
 
 wisdom, 
 
 Nestor shall do 't ; but pardon, father Nestor, 
 Were you as green as Ajax, and your brain 
 Temper'd like his, you never should excel him, 
 But be as Ajax is." 
 
 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 " Ulyss. Thank the heavens, lord, thou art 
 
 of sweet composure ; 
 Praise him that got thee, she that gave thee 
 
 suck: 
 
 Famed be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature 
 Thrice-famed, beyond all erudition : 
 But he that disciplined thy arms to fight, 
 Let Mars divide eternity in twain, 
 And give him half : and, for thy vigour, 
 Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield 
 To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom 
 Which, like a bourn, a pale, a shore, confines 
 Thy spacious and dilated parts : Here 's Nes- 
 tor- 
 Instructed by the antiquary times, 
 He must, he is, he cannot but be wise; 
 But pardon, father Nestor, were your days 
 As green as Ajax, and your brain so temper'd 
 You should not have the eminence of him, 
 But be as Ajax." 
 
 One of the most extraordinary subtleties 
 of Shakspere's ' Troilus and Cressida ' arises 
 out of the circumstance that the real heroic 
 tragedy is found side by side with the 
 ironical heroic. Cassandra, short as th< 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 KING HENRY VIII. 
 
 395 
 
 character is, may be classed among the finest 
 creations of art. Dryden omits Cassandra 
 altogether. Was this a want of a real 
 perception of "the grounds" of tragedy; or 
 an instinct which avoided the higher heroic, 
 when it would come into contrast with his 
 
 own feebler conceptions 1 The Cassandra of 
 Shakspere is introduced to heighten the 
 effect of the petty passions, the worldliness, 
 which are everywhere around her. The 
 solemn and the earnest are in alliance with 
 madness. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 KING HENRY VIII. 
 
 'THE famous History of the Life of King 
 Henry the Eighth' was first published in 
 the folio collection of Shakspere's works in 
 1623. The date of the original production 
 of this drama has been a subject of much 
 discussion. The opinions in favour of its 
 having been produced in the reign of 
 Elizabeth are far more numerous than 
 those which hold it to be a later production. 
 As the question is one of more than usual 
 interest, we shall examine it somewhat in 
 detail. 
 
 And first, of the external evidence. The 
 Globe, Shakspere's theatre, was burnt down 
 in June, 1613. The cause of this accident, 
 and the circumstances attending it, are 
 minutely related by several witnesses. In 
 Winwood's ' Memorials ' there is a letter 
 from John Chamberlain to Sir Ralph 
 Winwood, dated from London the 12th of 
 July, 1613, which describes the burning, 
 " which fell out by a peal of chambers." 
 This conflagration took place on the previous 
 29th of June. The play acted on this occa- 
 sion was one on the story of ' Henry VIII.' 
 Were the "chambers" (small cannon) which 
 produced the misfortune those fired according 
 to the original stage-direction in the fourth 
 scene of the first act of Shakspere's ' King 
 Henry VIIL,' " Drum and trumpet, chambers 
 discharged?" In the Harleian Manuscripts 
 there is a letter from Thomas Lorkin to Sir 
 Thomas Puckering, dated " this last of June, 
 1613," in which the writer says, " No longer 
 since than yesterday, while Bourbage his 
 company were acting at the Globe the play 
 of l Hent't/ VII I." and there shooting of cer- 
 
 tain chambers in way of triumph, the fire 
 catch'd." But this does not establish that 
 it was Shakspere's play. The accomplished 
 Sir Henry Wotton, writing to his nephew on 
 the 6th of July, 1613, gives a minute and 
 graphic account of the accident at the Globe: 
 " Now to let matters of state sleep, I will 
 entertain you at the present with what hap- 
 pened this week at the Bankside. The king's 
 players had a new play, called ' All is True,' 
 representing some principal pieces of the reign 
 of Henry the Eighth, which was set forth with 
 many extraordinary circumstances of pomp 
 and majesty, even to the matting of the stage; 
 the knights of the order, with their Georges 
 and Garter, the guards with their embroidered 
 coats, and the like; sufficient, in truth, within 
 a while to make greatness very familiar, if 
 not ridiculous. Now King Henry, making a 
 mask at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, and 
 certain cannons being shot off at his entry ? 
 some of the paper, or other stuff, wherewith 
 one of them was stopped, did light on the 
 thatch, where, being thought at first but an 
 idle smoke, and their eyes being more at- 
 tentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and 
 run round like a train, consuming, within 
 less than an hour, the whole house to the 
 very ground. This was the fatal period of 
 that virtuous fabric, wherein yet nothing did 
 perish but wood and straw, and a few for- 
 saken cloaks : only one man had his breeches 
 set on fire, that would perhaps have broiled 
 him, if he had not, by the benefit of a pro- 
 vident wit, put it out with bottle ale."* 
 Here, then, is a new play described " repre- 
 
 * Reli([ui;r Wottonianse.' 
 
396 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK VIIT. 
 
 senting some principal pieces of the reign of 
 Henry VIII.;" and further, the passage of 
 Shakspere's play in which the "chambers" 
 are discharged, being the " entry " of the 
 king to the " mask at the cardinal's house," 
 is the same to the letter. But the title 
 which Sir Henry "VVotton gives the new play 
 is *AU is True' Gifford thinks this suf- 
 ficient to show that the play represented at 
 the Globe in June, 1613, was not Shakspere's. 
 But other persons call the play so represented 
 ' Henry VIII.' Howes, in his continuation 
 of Stow's ' Chronicle,' so calls it. He writes 
 some time after the destruction of the Globe, 
 for he adds to his account of the fire, " And 
 the next spring it was new builded in far 
 fairer manner than before." He speaks of 
 the title of the play as a familiar thing : 
 " the house being filled with people to be- 
 hold the play, viz. of ' Henry the Eighth.' " 
 When Howes wrote, was the title 'All is True' 
 merged in the more obvious title derived from 
 the subject of the play, and following the 
 character of the titles of Shakspere's other 
 historical plays 1 There can be no difficulty 
 in showing that the Prologue to 'Henry VIII.' 
 especially keeps in view such a title as Sir 
 Henry Wotton has mentioned : 
 
 " Such as give 
 
 Their money out of hope they may believe, 
 May here find truth too." 
 
 " Gentle hearers, know, 
 To rank our chosen truth with such a show 
 As foot and fight is," &c. 
 " To make that only true we now intend." 
 
 Boswell has a very ingenious theory that 
 this Prologue had especial reference to 
 another play on the same historical subject, 
 ' When You See Me You Know Me, or the 
 Famous Chronicle History of King Henry 
 the Eighth, &c., by Samuel Rowley,' in which 
 " the incidents in Henry's reign are thrown 
 together in the most confused manner." 
 But, upon the whole, the probability is that 
 the ' Henry VIII.' of Shakspere, and the 
 ' All is True ' described by Wotton, are one 
 and the same play. The next question is, 
 then, whether Wotton was correct in de- 
 scribing the ' Henry VIII.' as a new pit 
 Chalmers, who almost stands alone in his 
 
 opinion, maintains that the fact of a play 
 on the subject of Henry VIII. being termed 
 new in 1613 is decisive as to the date of its 
 original production at that time. Malone, on 
 the contrary, conjectures that the ' Henry 
 VIII.' was written in 1601, and revived in 
 1613, with a new title and prologue, "having 
 lain by some years unacted." This conjecture 
 rests upon no external evidence. We proceed, 
 therefore, to the other division of the subject 
 the evidence of its date which is furnished 
 by the play itself. 
 
 In the prophecy of Cranmer in the last 
 scene, the glories of the reign of Elizabeth 
 are carried on to that of her successor, in th* 
 following lines : 
 
 " Nor shall this peace sleep with her : But as 
 
 when 
 
 The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, 
 Her ashes new create another heir, 
 As great in admiration as herself; 
 So shall she leave her blessedness to one, 
 (When Heaven shall call her from this cloud 
 
 of darkness,) 
 
 Who, from the sacred ashes of her honour, 
 Shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was, 
 And so stand fix'd : Peace, plenty, love, truth, 
 
 terror, 
 
 That were the servants to this chosen infant, 
 Shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him; 
 Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine, 
 His honour, and the greatness of his name, 
 Shall be, and make new nations : He shall 
 
 flourish, 
 
 And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches 
 To all the plains about him : Our children's 
 
 children 
 Shall see this, and bless Heaven." 
 
 This passage would appear to be decisive as 
 to the date of the play, by the introduction 
 of these lines : 
 
 " Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine, 
 His honour, and the greatness of his name, 
 Shall be, and make new nations." 
 
 That the colonization of Virginia is here 
 distinctly alluded to is without doubt. The 
 first charter was granted in 1606; the 
 colony was planted in 1607, in which year 
 James Town was built ; another charter was 
 given to the colonists in 1612, and a lottery 
 
03A.P. V.] 
 
 KING HENRY VIII. 
 
 397 
 
 was also then granted for the encourage- 
 ment of the colony, which was struggling 
 with great difficulties. That James took an 
 especial interest in this important settle- 
 ment, and naturally enough was recognised 
 as the founder of " new nations," may be 
 readily imagined. In the inscription upon 
 a portrait of the king, which belonged to 
 Lord Bacon, he is styled "Imperil Atlantici 
 conditor" This part of Cranmer's prophecy, 
 therefore, would fix the date of the play after 
 the settlement of Virginia. But a new dif- 
 ficulty arises : All that part of the prophecy 
 relating to James, which we have quoted, is 
 held to be an addition, made upon a revival 
 of the play in 1613. 
 
 " These lines," says Dr. Johnson, " to the 
 interruption by the king, seem to have been 
 inserted at some revisal of the play, after the 
 accession of King James. If the passage be 
 left out, the speech of Cranmer proceeds in a 
 regular tenor of prediction and continuity of 
 sentiments ; but, by the interpolation of the 
 new lines, he first celebrates Elizabeth's suc- 
 cessor, and then wishes he did not know she 
 was to die ; first rejoices at the consequence, 
 and then laments the cause." Is it so ? 
 The presumed interpolation immediately 
 follows these lines : 
 
 " In her days, every man shall eat in safety, 
 Under his own vine, what he plants; and 
 
 sing 
 
 The merry songs of peace to all his neigh- 
 bours," &c. 
 
 The poet then adds 
 
 " Nor shall this peace sleep with her : But as 
 
 when 
 
 The bird of wonder dies. * * * * 
 So shall she leave her blessedness to one, 
 ( When Heaven shall call her from this cloud 
 
 of darkness,) 
 
 "Who, from the sacred aslies of her honour, 
 Shall star-like rise." 
 
 Is it true, then, that he "first celebrates 
 Elizabeth's successor, and then wishes he 
 did not know she was to die"? Of the 
 seventeen lines which relate to James, the 
 first eleven never lose sight of Elizabeth. 
 Her "blessedness," her "honour," her "fame," 
 were to descend to her " heir." The exten- 
 
 sion of the dominion of England, under 
 James, the only passage in which "the 
 greatness of his name" is separated from 
 that of Elizabeth, occupies the remaining 
 part of the prophecy; and that the thread 
 which connects the whole with Elizabeth 
 may not be dropped, even while those six 
 lines are uttered, Cranmer returns to the 
 close of her life, which in two-thirds of the 
 previous seventeen lines he had constantly 
 inferred : 
 
 " She shall be, to the happiness of England, 
 An aged princess," &c. 
 
 It might as well be assumed, we venture to 
 think, that the Tu Marcellus eris" of Virgil 
 is an interpolation. That famous passage is 
 most skilfully connected with all that ac- 
 companies it ; but it might nevertheless be 
 as easily severed as the lines which are here 
 maintained to be an unskilful addition. 
 
 But it is held, further, that Shakspere did 
 not wnte these lines ; that Ben Jonson 
 wrote them ; that Shakspere might properly 
 compliment Elizabeth in her lifetime, but 
 that he would not descend to natter James, 
 who was " a contemptible king." Shakspere, 
 it is well known, had reason to be grateful 
 to James for personal kindnesses ; but there 
 is not a word here of James's personal quali- 
 ties. The lines apply to the character of 
 his government its "peace, plenty, love, 
 truth, terror" the extension of its growth 
 to "make new nations." Would Jonson, 
 had he written this passage, have forgotten 
 that James was somewhat prouder of his 
 reputation as a scholar than as a king ; and 
 that one who knew him well had not hesi- 
 tated to say to kiin, and perhaps, indeed, in 
 sincerity, " There has not been since Christ's 
 time any king or temporal monarch which 
 has been so learned in all literature and 
 erudition, divine and human "?* We have 
 no hesitation in accepting the passage as one 
 that Shakspere might not have blushed to 
 have written, and which derogates nothing 
 from the manly independence of his cha- 
 racter. 
 
 The later editors consider that the inter- 
 polation rested at the interruption of the 
 * Bacon ' Advancement of Learning.' 
 
398 
 
 STUDIES OF SIIAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vin. 
 
 king. Theobald would carry it further, 
 ; through the remainder of Cranmer's speech : 
 ' " If this play was wrote, as in my opinion it 
 i was, in the reign of Elizabeth, we may easily 
 ! determine where Cranmer's eulogium of 
 i that princess concluded. I make no ques- 
 ! tion but the poet rested here : 
 
 " And by those claim their greatness, not by 
 blood." 
 
 Theobald omits to state the most obvious 
 reason for his opinion. We hold that Shak- 
 spere, in the age of Elizabeth, would never 
 have written 
 
 " She shall be, to the happiness of England, 
 An aged princess." 
 
 That passage is also, to our minds, clearly 
 an interpolation, assuming that the play u'as 
 produced during ElizabeiKs reign. She, of 
 all sovereigns, would least have endured to 
 be called aged ; she, of whom, in her seven- 
 tieth year, the French Ambassador writes, 
 " Her eye is still lively, she has good spirits, 
 and is fond of life, for which reason she 
 takes great care of herself ; to which may 
 be added an inclination for the Earl of 
 Clancarty, a brave, handsome Irish noble- 
 man. This makes her cheerful, full of hope 
 and confidence respecting her age" About a 
 year before this time it is held that the 
 ' Henry VIII.' was written, and that it 
 originally included the close of Cranmer's 
 prophecy. " An aged princess ! " " But she 
 must die ! " Shakspere must indeed have 
 been a bold man to have ventured upon 
 such truths. 
 
 But let us yield the whole question of in- 
 terpolation to those who assert that the 
 'Henry VIII.' was written in the time of 
 Elizabeth, and give up even the passage of 
 the " aged princess." It is held that the 
 play was written to please Elizabeth. The 
 memory of Henry VIII., perhaps, was not 
 cherished by her with any deep affection ; 
 but would she, who in her dying hour is 
 reported to have said, "My seat has been 
 the seat of kings," allow the frailties, and 
 even the peculiarities, of her father to be 
 made a public spectacle ? Would she have 
 borne that his passion for her mother should 
 have been put forward in the strongest way 
 
 by the poet that is, in the sequence of the 
 dramatic action as the impelling motive 
 for his divorce from Katharine ? Would she 
 have tolerated the masque-scene immediately 
 succeeding that in which Katharine is told 
 by her husband, " You have half our power" ? 
 Would she have endured that her father, 
 upon his next appearance after the meeting 
 with Anne Bullen, when he exclaims, 
 
 " The fairest hand I ever touch'd ! beauty, 
 
 Till now I never knew thee ! " 
 and 
 " By Heaven, she is a dainty one ! Sweetheart, 
 
 I were unmannerly to take you out, 
 
 And not to kiss you " 
 
 that he should be represented in the depth 
 of his hypocrisy gloating over his projected 
 divorce, with 
 
 " But, conscience, conscience, 
 Oh, 't is a tender place, and I must leave her"? 
 
 Would she have been pleased with the jests 
 of the old lady to Anne upon her approach- 
 ing elevation her title her " thousand 
 pound a-year " and all to be instantly fol- 
 lowed by the trial-scene, that magnificent 
 exhibition of the purity, the constancy, the 
 fortitude, the grandeur of soul, the self- 
 possession, of the " most poor woman and a 
 stranger" that her mother had supplanted ; 
 contrasted with the heartless coldness, salved 
 over with a more heartless commendation of 
 his injured wife, from the hypocritical tyrant, 
 who ends the defence of his conduct ex- 
 pressed in 
 
 " the sharp thorny points 
 Of my alleged reasons drive this forward," 
 
 with the real truth, spoken aside, 
 
 " I may perceive, 
 These cardinals trifle with me * * * 
 
 Cranmer, 
 
 Pr'ythee, return ! with thy approach, I know, 
 My comfort comes "? 
 
 Finally, would she have licensed the stage 
 | exhibition of her father's traditionary pecu- 
 liarities, in addition to the portraiture, 
 i which cannot be mistaken, of his sensual, 
 arrogant, impatient, and crafty character ? 
 j Would she have laughed at his perpetual 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 KING HENRY VIII. 
 
 399 
 
 "ha!"; or taken away Burbage's licence? 
 Would she have wept over the most touching 
 sorrow of the dying Katharine ; or sent 
 Shakspere to join the company of his friend 
 Southampton in the Tower? Those who 
 have written on the subject say she would 
 have borne all this ; and that the pageant 
 of her mother's coronation, with the suc- 
 ceeding representation of her own christen- 
 ing, capped with the prophecy of her future 
 greatness, were to ensure the harmlessness 
 of all these S9mewhat explosive materials, 
 and to carry forward the five acts to a most 
 felicitous conclusion 
 
 " This little one shall make it holiday." 
 
 Malone, as it appears to us, says all that 
 can be said, in the literal way, to prove that 
 such a drama as this would be acceptable to 
 Elizabeth : " It is more likely that Shak- 
 speare should have written a play the chief 
 subject of which is the disgraces of Queen 
 Katharine, the aggrandizement of Anne 
 Boleyn, and the birth of her daughter, in 
 the lifetime of Elizabeth, than after her 
 death ; at a time when the subject must 
 have been highly pleasing at court, rather 
 than at a period when it must have been 
 less interesting. Queen Katharine, it is 
 true, is represented as an amiable character, 
 but still she is eclipsed; and, the greater her 
 merit, the higher was the compliment to the 
 mother of Elizabeth, to whose superior beauty 
 she was obliged to give way"* This is the 
 prosaic, we may say the essentially grovel- 
 ling, mode of viewing the object of Shak- 
 spere, an object pre-supposing equal vul- 
 garity of mind in the dramatist and his 
 court audience. Our readers will be sure 
 that we appreciate far more highly Mr. 
 Campbell's poetical creed in this matter : 
 
 " Shakspeare contrives, though at the 
 sacrifice of some historical truth, to raise 
 the matron Katharine to our highest ad- 
 miration, whilst at the same time he keeps 
 us in love with Anne Boleyn, and on tole- 
 rable terms with Henry VIII. But who 
 does not see, under all this wise manage- 
 ment, the drift of his design, namely, to 
 compliment Elizabeth as a virgin queen ; to 
 
 * ' Chronological Order,' p. 390. 
 
 interest us in the memory of her mother 
 Anne Boleyn ; and to impress us with a 
 belief of her innocence, though she suffered 
 as an alleged traitress to the bed of Henry 1 
 The private death of Katharine of Arragon 
 might have been still remembered by many 
 living persons, but the death of Anne Boleyn 
 was still more fresh in public recollection ; 
 and a wiser expedient could not have been 
 devised for asserting the innocence of Eliza- 
 beth's mother than by portraying Henry's 
 injustice towards Queen Katharine. For we 
 are obliged to infer that, if the tyrant could 
 thus misuse the noble Katharine, the purest 
 innocence in her lovely successor could be 
 no shield against his cruelty."t 
 
 There is one slight objection to this theory. 
 Shakspere wrote for an audience ; and an 
 audience is a thing of impulses ; it sympa- 
 thizes with the oppressed, and hates the 
 oppressor. An audience does not "infer.' 1 ' 1 
 The poet who trusts to an audience perceiving 
 "the drift of his design" through the veil 
 of a dramatic action which moves their 
 feelings entirely in an opposite direction to 
 that in which he intends them to be moved, 
 has, to our minds at least, a different theory 
 of his art from that of Shakspere. 
 
 We hold that the Prologue which we shall 
 presently examine is a complete exposition 
 of the idea of this drama. The Prologue is 
 fastened upon Jonson, upon the theory that 
 he wrote it after Shakspere's retirement from 
 the stage, when the old play was revived in 
 his absence. We believe in the one piece of 
 external evidence, that a ' Henry VIII.' was 
 produced in 1613, when the Globe was burned ; 
 that it was a new play ; that it was then 
 called 'All is True;' and that this title 
 agrees with the idea upon which Shakspere 
 wrote the ' Henry VIII.' Those who believe 
 that it was written in the time of Elizabeth 
 have to reject this one piece of external 
 evidence. We further believe, from the 
 internal evidence, that the play, as it stands, 
 was written in the time of James I., and that 
 we have received it in its original form. 
 Those who assert the contrary have to resort 
 to the hypothesis of interpolation, and, 
 further, have to explain how many things 
 
 t Life. Moxon's edition of Shakspere. 
 
400 
 
 STUDIES OP SUAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK viii. 
 
 which are, to a plain understanding, incon- 
 sistent with their theory, may be interpreted, 
 by great ingenuity, to be consistent. We 
 believe that Shakspere, amongst his latest 
 dramas, constructed an historical drama to 
 complete his great series, one that was 
 agreeable to the tone of his mind after his 
 fiftieth year : 
 
 " Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe." 
 
 Those who take the opposite view hold that 
 the chief object of the poet was to produce 
 something which might be acceptable to 
 Queen Elizabeth. Our belief is the obvious 
 one ; the contrary belief may be the more 
 ingenious. 
 
 We now proceed to the most remarkable 
 Prologue of the few which are attached to 
 Shakspere's plays. It thus commences : 
 
 " I come no more to make you laugh ; things 
 
 now, 
 
 That bear a weighty and a serious brow, 
 Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe, 
 Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow, 
 We now present." 
 
 It is, to our minds, a perfect exposition of 
 the principle upon which the poet worked in 
 the construction of this drama. Believing, 
 whatever weight of authority there may be 
 for the contrary opinion, that the 'Henry 
 VIII.' was a new play in 1613, there had 
 been a considerable interval between its 
 production and that of the ' Henry V.,' the 
 last in the order of representation of his 
 previous Histories. During that interval 
 several of the poet's most admirable comedies 
 had been unquestionably produced ; and the 
 audience of 1613 was perhaps still revelling 
 in the recollections of the wit of Touchstone, 
 or the more recent whimsies of Autolycus. 
 But the poet, who was equally master of the 
 tears and the smiles of his audience, prepares 
 them for a serious view of the aspects of 
 real life : " I come no more to make you 
 laugh." He thought, too, that the popular 
 desire for noisy combats, and the unavoidable 
 deficiencies of the stage in the representation 
 of battle-scenes he had before described it 
 as an "unworthy scaffold" for "vasty fields" 
 might be passingly adverted to ; and that 
 
 the Clowns of the same stage, whom he had 
 indeed reformed, but who still delighted 
 the "ears of the groundlings" with their 
 extemporal rudeness, might be slightly 
 renounced. He disclaimed, then, " both fool 
 and fight:" these were not amongst the 
 attractions of this work of his maturer age. 
 He had to offer weighty and serious things, 
 sad and high things, noble scenes that 
 commanded tears ; state and woe were to be 
 exhibited together : there was to be pageantry, 
 but it was to be full of pity ; and the woe 
 was to be the more- intense from its truth. 
 And how did this master of his art profess 
 to be able to produce such deep emotion 
 from the exhibition of scenes that almost 
 came down to his own times; that the 
 fathers and grandfathers of his audience had 
 witnessed in their unpoetical reality; that 
 belonged not to the period when the sword 
 was the sole arbiter of the destinies of 
 princes and favourites, but when men fell 
 by intrigue and not by battle, and even the 
 axe of the capricious despot struck in the 
 name of the law ? There was another great 
 poet of this age of high poetry, who had 
 indicated the general theme which Shakspere 
 proposed to illustrate in this drama : 
 " What man that sees the ever-whirling wheel 
 Of change, the which all mortal things doth 
 
 sway, 
 
 But that thereby doth find, and plainly feel, 
 How Mutability in them doth play 
 The cruel sports to many men's decay 1 ?"* 
 
 From the first scene to the last, the dramatic 
 action seems to point to the abiding presence 
 of that power which works 
 
 " Her cruel sports to many men's decay." 
 We see the "ever-whirling wheel," in a 
 succession of contrasts of grandeur and 
 debasement ; and, even when the action is 
 closed, we are carried forward into the depths 
 of the future, to have the same triumph of 
 "Mutability" suggested to our contempla- 
 tion. This is the theme which the poet 
 emphatically presents to us under its aspect 
 of sadness : 
 
 " Be sad, as we would make you : Think, ye see 
 The very persons of our noble story, 
 * The Faerie Qurene.' Two c'.ntos of Mutabilitie 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 KING HENRY VIII. 
 
 40 
 
 As they were living- think, you see them great 
 And follow' d with the general throng and swea 
 Of thousand friends ; then, in a moment, see 
 How soon this mightiness meets misery." 
 
 Bearing in mind the great principle of the 
 play, it appears to us to open with singular 
 art. The Field of the Cloth of Gold is 
 presented to our view, not as a mere piece 
 of ordinary description, but as having a 
 dramatic connexion with the principal action 
 By this description we are at once, and most 
 naturally, introduced to the characters of 
 the proud nobles whose hatred Wolsey has 
 provoked. The sarcastic Norfolk may pro- 
 I bably abide the frown of the great cardinal ; 
 | but in the temperament of the impetuous 
 I Buckingham there is inevitable danger. What 
 i a portrait of self-willed pride has the poet 
 ; drawn of Buckingham in all that scene ! How 
 I the haughty peer first displays his rough 
 | contempt of " such a keech" as Wolsey ; then 
 j throws out his random allegations against 
 his honesty ; next encounters him with an 
 eye "full of disdain," and is scarcely kept 
 from following him to the king to " outstare 
 him;" and, finally, lashes himself to the 
 utterance of a torrent of words, while his 
 friends evidently tremble more for him in 
 the consequences of his blind hatred than 
 they look with hope to its power to injure 
 the man whom they equally hate. And how 
 does all this close 1 In 
 
 " my life is spann'd already : 
 I am the shadow of poor Buckingham," 
 
 we see the coming end of the rash and 
 haughty man ; his " noble blood " will be 
 reckoned as nothing in the " beggar's book ; " 
 the " butcher's cur" will tear him. 
 
 If the arrest of Buckingham had been 
 followed by his "coming from his arraign- 
 ment," we should have seen indeed the 
 "misery" following upon the "mightiness;" 
 but we should not have seen the moving; 
 
 o t 
 
 cause of this rapid transition of fortune. 
 There sits the absolute king, prejudging his 
 victim before examination : 
 
 " I stood i' the level 
 Of a full-charged confederacy." 
 
 But an interruption takes place. The queen 
 
 comes, in the spirit of honesty and justice 
 to represent to the king that his subject. 
 " are in great grievance." Upon his ministe 
 does the king lay the blame, and desires the 
 grievance to be redressed. This looks like 
 equity and moderation : 
 
 " We must not rend our subjects from our laws 
 And stick them in our will." 
 
 The queen, who has obtained the redress of 
 the subjects' wrong, is to " sit by," and hear 
 the charges against Buckingham. To her 
 upright and sagacious mind it is evidenl 
 that the charges are the exaggerations oJ 
 revenge, stimulated by corruption. The king 
 will see only the one side of the evidence 
 When Katharine exhorts Wolsey to " deliver 
 all with charity," Henry desires the witness 
 to " speak on ; " when Katharine lays bare 
 the "spleen" of the Surveyor, with Henry 
 it is still "Let him on." The allegation 
 rests only upon the testimony of a discarded 
 servant as to words spoken ; but upon these 
 is the duke condemned ; for, after the 
 decision of the king, a trial is but a form : 
 
 " He is attach'd ; 
 
 Call him to present trial : if he may 
 Find mercy in the law, 't is his; if none, 
 Let him not seek 't of us." 
 
 It is evident that the hatred of Wolsey 
 produces the fall of Buckingham ; but the 
 ambitious minister wields a power which 
 may turn and rend him. All with him, 
 however, is apparent security : his greatness 
 is at its height. The king visits his might} 1 
 subject as a familiar friend; there is 
 masquing and banqueting; and the gay 
 monarch chooses the "fairest hand," and 
 hovers round the one " sweet partner." This 
 is the "state" which is the prelude to 
 the "woe." Between the prejudgment of 
 Buckingham by the king, and his formal 
 condemnation, the cardinal's masque is 
 interposed. It is the wonderful art of 
 Shakspere in this play to command our 
 entire sympathies for the unfortunate. He 
 las taken no care to render Buckingham an 
 bject of our love, or even respect, till he 
 perishes. We think him a wilful man ; we 
 see that there is a struggle for power between 
 him and Wolsey: it is his "misery" alone 
 
 B D 
 
402 
 
 SH.VKSI-I:UI:. 
 
 [HOOK viu. 
 
 that makes us "let tall a tour." Amongst 
 the "noble scenes" 1 of this drama, that in 
 which Buckingham addresses " all good 
 people "is very noble. Tho deepest pathos 
 is in 
 
 " When I eame hither 1 was lord high constable. 
 And duke of Buckingham : now. poor Kdward 
 Kohun." 
 
 But there is a deeper pathos that will 
 " draw the eye to flow." It is foreshadowed 
 to us oven while the eye is still wet for 
 Buckingham : 
 
 " Did you not of late days hear 
 A buzzing, of a separation 
 Between the King and Katharine?" 
 
 The courtiers speak of this freely : 
 
 "Chain. It seems the marriage with his 
 brother's wife 
 
 Has erept too near his conscience. 
 
 $u/. No, his conscience 
 
 Has erept too near another lady." 
 
 And shall we " let fall a tear" because a just 
 and spotless wife is about to be parted from 
 a self-willed, capricious, tyrannical husband ? 
 If we read her character aright, we shall 
 understand where lies the depth of her 
 " misery." It is not in Anne Bullen's de- 
 script ion alone that we can estimate "the 
 pang that pinches," It 'is not alone that 
 she has " lived long" with "his highness" 
 
 " Still growing in a majesty and pomp, the which 
 To leave a thousand-fold more bitter than 
 T is sweet at first to acquire." 
 
 This is the interpretation of a young woman. 
 to whom "majesty and pomp" look dazzling. 
 In her notion the "divorce" from " temporal" 
 glory is 
 
 " a sufferance, panging 
 As soul and body severing." 
 
 It is held that this pity of Anne for her 
 
 mistress is a stroke of dramatic art to render 
 her amiable under her equivocal situation. 
 Is it not rather the poet's profound display 
 of the w eakness of Anne's own character / 
 The sufferings of Katharine lie deeper than 
 this. She is one who feels that she is about 
 to be surrounded with the snares of injustice, 
 defenceless "a most poor woman, av.d 
 
 a stranger." She has beer. " a true and 
 humble wife." Km she is proud nobly 
 proud: 
 
 "Sit. 
 
 I am about to weep : but. thinking that 
 Wo are a queen, ^or long have dream'd so. 1 * 
 
 certain 
 
 The daughter of a king, my drops of tears 
 I '11 turn to sparks of tire." 
 
 The eloquence of that " simple woman "- 
 
 her lofty bearing, her bold resolve is not 
 born of the clinging to temporal pomp: it 
 i.-sues out of the bruised spirit, whose affee- 
 tions are outraged, whoso honour is insulted, 
 whose dignity is trodden upon. She is all in 
 all in this great scene. Before the grandeur 
 of her earnest and impassioned pleading the 
 intellect of \Volsey quails, and the self-will 
 of Henry resorts to a justification of his 
 motives. What a picture next is opened of 
 the "poor weak woman, fallen from favour:" 
 The poetry of the situation is unequalled : 
 the queen, sitting amongst her women at 
 work and listening to that delicious song 
 of " Orpheus with his lute made trees.' 
 Then is revealed the innermost grief of that 
 wounded heart : 
 
 "Would ye have me 
 
 Put my sick cause into his hands that hates 
 me? 
 
 Alas ! he has banish'd me his bed already; 
 
 His love, too long ago : I am old. my lords. 
 
 And all the fellowship I hold now with him 
 
 Is only my obedience. What can happen 
 
 To me above this wretchedness 1" 
 
 But the pride still remains the daughter of 
 Ferdinand and Isabella speaks in the fallen 
 woman's 
 
 " nothing but death 
 
 Shall e'er divorce my dignities," 
 She has lost even the power of making her 
 dependants happy: 
 
 " Alas ! poor wenches, whore are now your for- 
 tunes?" 
 
 and then comes, out of this tenderness, the 
 revulsion from that lofty passion to the 
 humility of an absorbing despair: 
 IV what ye will, my lords : And. pray, for- 
 . me. 
 
 If 1 have used myself unmannerly." 
 
OH A P. V.] 
 
 KING HENRY VIII. 
 
 403 
 
 There is nothing in the compass of poetry 
 more touching than this exhibition of the 
 gradual subjection of a high spirit to the 
 force of circumstances. 
 
 Another turn of " the ever-whirling wheel !" 
 Wolsey next falls. He had none of our sympa- 
 thies. We gaze upon his commanding intel- 
 lect ; we marvel at "his unbounded stomach ;" 
 but we fear the crafty and daring politician. 
 Up to the moment when the treacherous 
 Henry gathers up his power to hurl the bolt 
 at him 
 
 " and then to breakfast, with 
 What appetite you have " 
 
 we rejoice at "the instant cloud." But by 
 the exercise of his marvellous art the poet 
 throws the fallen man upon our pity. He 
 restores him to his fellowship with humanity 
 by his temporal abasement. The trappings 
 of his ambition are stripped off, and we see 
 him in his natural dignity. He puts on the 
 armour of fortitude, and we reverence him. 
 
 The scene is changed. The stage is crowded 
 with processional displays. There has been a 
 coronation. We see it not ; but its description 
 is worth more than the sight : 
 
 " The rich stream 
 
 Of lords, and ladies, having brought the queen 
 To a prepared place in the choir, fell off 
 A distance from her: while her grace sat down 
 To rest a while, some half an hour, or so, 
 In a rich chair of state, opposing freely 
 The beauty of her person to the people." 
 
 Anne passes from the stage ; Katharine is 
 led in sick. Her great enemy is dead. She 
 cannot but number up his faults ; but she 
 listens to "his good." They have a fellowship 
 in misfortune ; and she honours his ashes. 
 She is passing from the world. The grave 
 hides that pure, and gentle, and noble sufferer. 
 Anne is crowned. Her example of 
 
 " How soon this mightiness meets misery " 
 
 was not to be shown. But who can forget it? 
 Then comes the shadowing out of new in- 
 trigues and new hatreds ; and the despot 
 puts on an attitude of justice. Elizabeth is 
 born. The link is completed between the 
 generation which is past and the generation 
 which looks upon 
 
 " The very persons of our noble story, 
 As they were living." 
 
 Shakspere has closed his great series of 
 ' Chronicle Histories.' This last of them was 
 to be " sad, high, and working." It has laid 
 bare the hollowness of worldly glory ; it 
 has shown the heavy " load " of " too much 
 honour." It has given us a picture of the 
 times which succeeded the feudal strifes of 
 the other ' Histories.' Were they better times? 
 To the mind of the poet the age of corruption 
 was as "sad" as the age of force. The one 
 tyrant rides over the obligations of justice, 
 wielding a power more terrible than that of 
 the sword. The poet's consolation is to be 
 found in the prophetic views of the future. 
 The prophecy of Cranmer upon the reigns of 
 Elizabeth and James is the eulogy of just 
 government partially realized in the age of 
 Shakspere, but not the less a high conception, 
 (however beyond the reality,) of 
 
 " What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so." 
 
 We have a few words to add on the style 
 of this drama. It is remarkable for the 
 elliptical construction of many of the sen- 
 tences and for an occasional peculiarity in 
 the versification, which is not found in any 
 other of Shakspere's works. The Roman 
 plays, decidedly amongst the latest of his 
 productions, possess a colloquial freedom of 
 versification which in some cases approaches 
 almost to ruggedness. But in the ' Henry 
 VIII.' this freedom is carried much farther. 
 We have repeated instances in which the 
 lines are so constructed that it is impossible 
 to read them with the slightest pause at the 
 end of each line : the sentence must be run 
 together, so as to produce more the effect of 
 measured prose than of blank-verse. As an 
 example of what we mean, we will write a 
 sentence of fourteen lines as if it had been 
 printed as prose : 
 
 " Hence I took a thought this was a judgment 
 on me ; that my kingdom, well worthy the best j 
 heir of the world, should not be gladded in 't 
 by me : Then follows, that I weigh'd the danger 
 which my realms stood in by this my issue's fail: 
 and that gave to me many a groaning throe. 
 Thus hulling in the wild sea of my conscience, 
 I did steer towards this remedy, whereupon we 
 
 i> D 2 
 
404 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK viii. 
 
 are now present here together ; that 's to say, I 
 meant to rectify my conscience, which I then 
 did feel full sick, and yet not well, by all the 
 reverend fathers of the land, and doctors learn' d." 
 If the reader will turn to the passage 
 (Act II. Scene 4) he will see that many of 
 the lines end with particles, and that scarcely 
 one of the lines is marked by a pause at the 
 termination. Many other passages could be 
 pointed out with this peculiarity. A theory 
 has been set up that Jonson " tampered " 
 with the versification. We hold this notion 
 to be utterly untenable ; for there is no play 
 of Shakspere's which has a more decided 
 j character of unity no one from which any 
 I passage could be less easily struck out. We 
 
 believe that Shakspere worked in this par- 
 ticular upon a principle of art which he had 
 proposed to himself to adhere to wherever 
 the nature of the scene would allow. The 
 elliptical construction, and the licence of 
 versification, brought the dialogue, whenever 
 the speaker was not necessarily rhetorical, 
 closer to the language of common life. Of 
 all his historical plays, the ' Henry VIII.' is 
 the nearest in its story to his own times. It 
 professed to be a " truth." It belongs to his 
 own country. It has no poetical indistinct- 
 ness about it, either of time or place : all is 
 defined. If the diction and the versification 
 had been more artificial, it would have been 
 less a reality. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE ROMAN PLAYS. 
 
 THE three plays of ' Coriolanus,' ' Julius 
 Csesar,' and 'Antony and Cleopatra,' were 
 first printed in the folio collection of 1623. 
 The German critic, Horn, concludes some 
 remarks upon Shakspere's 'King John' with 
 a passage that may startle those who believe 
 that the truth of history, and the truth of 
 our great dramatic teacher of history, are 
 altogether different things : 
 
 " The hero of this piece stands not in the 
 list of personages, and could not stand with 
 them ; for the idea should be clear without 
 personification. The hero is England. 
 
 " What the poet chose to express of his 
 view of the dignity and worth of his native 
 land he has confided to the Bastard to end- 
 body in words : 
 
 ' This England never did, nor never shall, 
 Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, 
 But when it first did help to wound itself.' 
 
 But Shakspere is immeasurably more than 
 Faulconbridge, and he would have the reader 
 and the spectator more also. These lines 
 are not intended to be fixed upon England 
 at the beginning of the fourteenth century 
 alone ; they are not even confined to Eng- 
 
 land generally. They are for the elevation 
 of the views of a state of a people. Happy 
 for England that she possesses a poet who 
 so many years since has spoken to her 
 people as the highest and most splendid 
 teacher ! The full consequences of his 
 teaching have not yet been sufficiently re- 
 vealed ; they may perhaps never wholly be 
 exhibited. We, however, know that in Eng- 
 land a praiseworthy zeal for their country's 
 history prevails amongst the people. But 
 who first gave true life to that history ?" 
 
 In the three great Roman dramas, the 
 idea, not personified, but full of a life that 
 animates and informs every scene, is ROME. 
 Some one said that Chantrey's bust of a 
 great living poet was more like than the 
 poet himself. Shakspere's Rome, we ven- 
 ture to think, is more like than the Rome of 
 the Romans. It is the idealized Rome, true 
 indeed to her every-day features, but em- 
 bodying that expression of character which 
 belongs to the universal rather than the 
 accidental. And yet how varied is the idea 
 of Rome which the poet presents to us in 
 these three great mirrors of her history ! 
 In the young Rome of Coriolanus we see 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 THE ROMAN PLAYS. 
 
 405 
 
 the terrible energy of her rising ambition 
 checked and overpowered by the factious 
 violence of her contending classes. We know 
 that the prayer of Coriolanus is a vain 
 prayer : 
 
 " The honour'd gods 
 
 Keep Eome in safety, and the chairs of justice 
 Supplied with worthy men ! plant love among 
 
 us ! 
 Throng our large temples with the shows of 
 
 peace, 
 And not our streets with war ! " 
 
 In the matured Rome of Julius Caesar we 
 see her riches and her glories about to be 
 swallowed up in a domestic conflict of prin- 
 ciples : 
 "Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble 
 
 bloods ! 
 When went there by an age, since the great 
 
 flood, 
 But it was famed with more than with one 
 
 man] 
 When could they say, till now, that talk'd of 
 
 Rome, 
 
 That her wide walks encompass'd but one 
 man 1 ?" 
 
 In the slightly older Rome of Antony, her 
 power, her magnificence, are ready to perish 
 in the selfishness of individuals : 
 
 " Let Rome in Tiber melt ! and the wide arch 
 Of the ranged empire fall ! " 
 
 Rome was saved from anarchy by the su- 
 premacy of one. Shakspere did not live to 
 make the Caesars more immortal. 
 
 Schlegel has observed that " these plays 
 are the very thing itself ; and, under the 
 apparent artlessness of adhering closely to 
 history as he [Shakspere] found it, an un- 
 common degree of art is concealed." The 
 poet almost invariably follows Plutarch, as 
 translated by North, sometimes even to the 
 literal adoption of the biographer's words. 
 This is the "apparent artlessness." But 
 Schlegel has also shown us the principles of 
 the " uncommon art :" " Of every historical 
 transaction Shakspere knows how to seize 
 the true poetical point of view, and to give 
 unity and rounding to a series of events 
 detached from the immeasurable extent cf 
 
 history, without in any degree changing 
 them." But he adopts the literal only when 
 it enters into " the true poetical point of 
 view," and is therefore in harmony with 
 the general poetical truth, which in many 
 subordinate particulars necessarily discards 
 all pretension of " adhering closely to his- 
 tory." Jonson has left us two Roman plays 
 produced essentially upon a different prin- 
 ciple. In his 'Sejanus' there is scarcely a 
 speech or an incident that is not derived 
 from the ancient authorities ; and Jonson's 
 own edition of the play is crowded with 
 references as minute as would have been 
 required from any modern annalist. In his 
 Address to the Readers, he says " Lest in 
 some nice nostril the quotations might 
 savour affected, I do let you know that I 
 abhor nothing more ; and I have only done 
 it to show my integrity in the story." The 
 character of the dramatist's mind, as well 
 as the abundance of his learning, determined 
 this mode of proceeding : but it is evident 
 that he worked upon a false principle of 
 art. His characters are, therefore, puppets 
 carved and stuffed according to the descrip- 
 tions, and made to speak according to the 
 very words of Tacitus and Suetonius ; but 
 they are not living men. It is the same in 
 his ' Catiline.' Cicero is the great actor in 
 that play ; and he moves as Sallust, cor- 
 rected by other authorities, made him move ; 
 and speaks as he spoke himself in his own 
 orations. Jonson gives the whole of Cicero's 
 first oration against Catiline, in a transla- 
 tion amounting to some three hundred lines. 
 It may be asked, what can we have that 
 may better present Cicero to us than the 
 descriptions of the Roman historians, and 
 Cicero's own words ? We answer, six lines 
 of Shakspere, not found in the books : 
 
 " The angry spot doth glow on Csesar's brow, 
 And all the rest look like a chidden train : 
 Calphurnia's cheek is pale ; and Cicero 
 Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes, 
 As we have seen him in the Capitol, 
 Being cross'd in conference by some se- 
 nators." 
 
 Gifford, speaking of Jonson's two Roman 
 tragedies, says " He has apparently suf- 
 
400 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEKE. 
 
 [BOOK VIH, 
 
 ceeded in his principal object, which was to 
 exhibit the characters of the drama to the 
 spectators of his days precisely as they 
 appeared to those of their own.' The plan 
 was scholastic, but it was not judicious. 
 The difference between the dramatis personce j 
 and the spectators was too wide ; and the 
 very accuracy to which he aspired would 
 seem to take away much of the power of 
 pleasing. Had he drawn men instead of 
 Romans, his success might have been more 
 assured."* We presume to think that there 
 is here a slight confusion of terms. If Jon- 
 son had succeeded in his principal object, 
 and had exhibited his characters precisely 
 as they appeared in their own days, his re- 
 presentation would have been the truth. 
 But he has drawn, according to this intel- 
 ligent critic, Romans instead of men, and 
 therefore his success was not perfectly as- 
 sured. Not drawing men, he did not draw 
 his characters as they appeared in their own 
 days : but as he pieced out their supposed 
 appearance from incidental descriptions or 
 formal characterizations from party his- 
 torians or prejudiced rhetoricians. If he 
 had drawn Romans as they were, he would 
 have drawn men as they were. They were 
 not the less men because they were Romans. 
 He failed to draw the men, principally on 
 account of the limited range of his imagina- 
 tive power ; he copied instead of created. 
 He repeated, says Gifford, "the ideas, the 
 language, the allusions," which " could only 
 be readily caught by the contemporaries of 
 Augustus and Tiberius." He gave us, partly 
 on this account also, shadows of life, instead 
 of the " living features of an age so distant 
 from our own," as his biographer yet thinks 
 he gave. Shakspere worked upon different 
 principles, and certainly with a different 
 success. 
 
 The leading idea of ' Cc-riolanus ' the 
 pivot upon which all the action turns the 
 key to the bitterness of factious hatred 
 which runs through the whole drama is 
 the contest for power between the patricians 
 and plebeians. THs is a broad principle, 
 assuming various modifications in various 
 states of society, but very slightly varied in 
 
 * ' Memoirs of Jonson,' p. ccxx. Works, 9 vols. 
 
 its foundations and its results. He that 
 truly works out the exhibition of this prin- 
 ciple must paint men, let the scene be the 
 Rome of the first Tribunes, or the Venice of 
 the last Doges. With the very slightest 
 changes of accessaries, the principle stands 
 for the contests between aristocracy and 
 democracy, in any country or in any age 
 under a republic or a monarchy. The his- 
 torical truth, and the philosophical principle, 
 which bhakspere has embodied in ' Corio- 
 lanus' are universal. But suppose he had 
 possessed the means of treating the subject 
 with what some would call historical ac- 
 curacy ; had learnt that Plutarch, in the 
 story of ( Coriolanus,' was probably dealing 
 only with a legend ; that, if the story is to 
 be received as true, it belongs to a later 
 period ; that in this later period there were 
 very nice shades of difference between the 
 classes composing the population of Rome ; 
 that the balance of power was a much more 
 complex thing than he found in the narra- 
 tive of Plutarch : further suppose that, 
 proud of this learning, he had made the 
 universal principle of the plebeian and 
 patrician hostility subsidiary to an exact 
 display of it, according to the conjectures 
 which modern industry and acuteness have 
 brought to bear on the subject. It is evident, 
 we think, that he would have been betrayed 
 into a false principle of art, and would 
 necessarily have drawn Roman shadows in- 
 stead of vital and enduring men. As it is, 
 he has drawn men so vividly under such 
 permanent relations to each other with 
 such universal manifestations of character, 
 that some persons of strong political feel- 
 ings have been ready to complain, according 
 to their several creeds, either that his ple- 
 beians are too brutal, or his patricians too 
 haughty. A polite democracy, a humane 
 oligarchy, would be better. Jonson some- 
 what rejoices in the amusing exhibition of 
 "plebeian malignity and tribunitian inso- 
 lence." Hazlitt, who is more than half 
 angry on the other side of the question, says 
 " The ivhole dramatic moral of f Coriolanus ' 
 is that those who have little shall have less, 
 and that those who have much shall take 
 all that others have left." Let us see. 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 THE ROMAN PLAYS. 
 
 407 
 
 With his accustomed consummate judg- 
 ment in his opening scenes, Shakspere throws 
 us at once into the centre of the contending 
 classes of early Rome. We have no de- 
 scription of the nature of the factions ; we 
 behold them : 
 
 " 1 Cit. You are all resolved rather to die 
 than to famish. 
 
 Cit. Resolved, resolved ! 
 
 1 Cit. First, you know, Caius Marcius is chief 
 enemy to the people. 
 
 Cit. We know 't, we know 't. 
 
 1 Cit. Let us kill him, and we 11 have corn at 
 oar own price. 
 
 Cit. No more talking on 't : let it be done." 
 
 The foundation of the violence is misery ; 
 its great stimulant is ignorance. The people 
 are famishing for want of corn ; they will 
 kill one man, and that will give them corn 
 at their own price : the murder will turn 
 scarcity into plenty. Hazlitt says that 
 Shakspere " spared no occasion of baiting the 
 rabble." If to show that misery acting upon 
 ignorance produces the same effects in all 
 ages be " baiting the rabble," he has baited 
 them. But he has not painted the " mutinous 
 citizens" with an undiscriminating contempt. 
 One that displays a higher power than his 
 fellows of reasoning or remonstrance, and yet 
 is zealous enough to resist what he thinks 
 injustice, says of Caius Marcius, 
 
 " Consider you what services he has done for 
 his country." 
 
 The people are sometimes ungrateful ; but 
 Shakspere chose to show that some amongst 
 them could be just. The people have their 
 favourites. " Worthy Menenius Agrippa" 
 has the good word of the mutinous citizens. 
 Shakspere gave them no unworthy favourite. 
 His rough humour, his true kindliness, his 
 noble constancy, form a character that the 
 people have always loved, even whilst they 
 are rebuked and chastened. But, if the poet 
 has exhibited the democratic ignorance in 
 pretty strong colours, has he shrunk from 
 presenting us a full-length portrait of pa- 
 trician haughtiness 1 Caius Marcius in the 
 j first scene claims no sympathies : 
 
 I " Would the nobility lay aside their ruth, 
 
 And let me use my sword, I 'd make a quarry 
 
 With thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as 
 
 high 
 As I could pick my lance." 
 
 Till Caius Marcius has become Coriolanus, 
 and we see that the popular violence is under 
 the direction of demagogues the same 
 never-varying result of the same circum- 
 stances we feel no love for him. It is 
 under oppression and ingratitude that his 
 pride becomes sublime. But he has pre- 
 viously deserved our homage, and in some 
 sort our affection. The poet gradually wins 
 us to an admiration of the hero, by the most 
 skilful management. First, through his 
 mother. What a glorious picture of an 
 antique matron, from whom her son equally 
 derived his pride and his heroism, is presented 
 in the exquisite scene where Volumnia and 
 Valeria talk of him they loved, according to 
 their several natures ! Who but Shakspere 
 could have seized upon the spirit of a Roman 
 woman of the highest courage and mental 
 power bursting out in words such as these ? 
 
 " Vol. 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. 
 
 Vir. His bloody brow! Oh, Jupiter, no 
 
 blood ! 
 Vol. Away, you fool ! it more becomes a 
 
 man 
 
 Than gilt his trophy : The breasts of Hecuba, 
 When she did suckle Hector, look'd not 
 
 lovelier 
 Than Hector's forehead, when it spit forth 
 
 blood 
 At Grecian swords' contending. 
 
 This is a noble preparation for the scenic 
 exhibition of the deeds of Caius Marcius. 
 Amidst the physical strength, and the mental 
 energy, that make the triumphant warrior, 
 the poet, by a few of his magical touches, 
 has shown us the ever-present loftiness of 
 mind that denotes qualities far beyond those 
 which belong to mere animal courage. His 
 contempt of the Romans who are " beaten 
 back," and the " Romans with spoils," is 
 equally withering. It is not sufficient for 
 him to win one battle. The force of cha- 
 racter through which he thinks that nothing 
 
408 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vin. 
 
 is done whilst anything remains to do, shows 
 that Shakspere understood the stuff of which 
 a great .general is made. His remonstrance 
 to Cominius 
 
 " Where is the enemy ? Are you lords o' the 
 
 field] 
 If not, why cease you till you are so ? " 
 
 is not in Plutarch. It is supplied to us by a 
 higher authority, by the instinct by which 
 Shakspere knew the great secret of success 
 in every enterprise the determination to be 
 successful. One example more of the skill 
 with which Shakspere makes Caius Marcius 
 gradually obtain the uncontrolled homage 
 of our hearts. The proud conqueror who 
 rejects all gifts and honours, who has said, 
 
 " I have some wounds upon me, and they smart 
 To hear themselves remember'd," 
 
 asks a gift of his superior officer : 
 
 " Cor. I sometime lay, here in Corioli, 
 At a poor man's house; he used me kindly: 
 He cried to me ; I saw him prisoner ; 
 But then Aufidius was within my view, 
 And wrath o'erwhelm'd my pity : I request 
 
 you 
 To give my poor host freedom." 
 
 We now see only the true hero. He realizes 
 the noble description of the "Happy Warrior" 
 which the great poet of our own days has 
 drawn with so masterly a hand : 
 
 " Who, doom'd to go in company with Pain, 
 And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train ! 
 Turns his necessity to glorious gain ; 
 In face of these doth exercise a power 
 Which is our human nature's highest dower; 
 Controls them and subdues, transmutes, be- 
 reaves 
 
 Of their bad influence, and their good receives, 
 By objects, which might force the soul to abate 
 Her feeling, render'd more compassionate." 
 
 I We have forgotten the fierce patrician who 
 would make a quarry of the Roman populace. 
 And this, we suppose, is what Hazlitt 
 objects to in Shakspere's conduct of this 
 play. The character of Coriolanus rises upon 
 us. The sufferings and complaints of his 
 enemies are merged in their factious hatred. 
 "Poetry," says the critic, "is right royal." 
 
 It puts the individual for the species, the 
 one above the infinite many, might before 
 right." Now we apprehend that Shakspere 
 has not treated the subject of Coriolanus 
 after this right royal fashion of poetry. He 
 has dealt fairly with the vices as well as the 
 virtues of his hero. The scene in the second 
 act, in which Coriolanus stands for the 
 consulship, is amongst the most remarkable 
 examples of Shakspere's insight into cha- 
 racter. In Plutarch he f#und a simple fact 
 related without any comment : " Now, 
 Marcius, following this custom, showed many 
 wounds and cuts upon his body, which he 
 had received in seventeen years' service at 
 the wars, and in many sundry battles, being 
 ever the foremost man that did set out- feet 
 to fight ; so that there was not a man among 
 the people but was ashamed of himself to 
 refuse so valiant a man ; and one of them 
 said to another, We must needs choose him 
 consul, there is no remedy." But in his 
 representation of this fact Shakspere ha'd to 
 create a character, and to make that cha- 
 racter act and re-act upon the character of 
 the people. Coriolanus was essentially and 
 necessarily proud. His education, his social 
 position, his individual supremacy made him 
 so. He lives in a city of factions, and ho 
 dislikes, of course, the faction opposed to his 
 order. The people represent the opinions 
 that he dislikes, and he therefore dislikes the 
 people. That he has pity and love for 
 humanity, however humble, we have already 
 seen. Coming into contact with the Roman 
 populace for their suffrages, his uppermost 
 thought is " bid them wash their faces and 
 keep their teeth clean." He outwardly 
 despises that vanity of the people which will 
 not reward desert unless it go hand in hand 
 with solicitation. He betrays his contempt 
 for the canvassed, even whilst he is can- 
 vassing : 
 
 " I will, sir, flatter my sworn brother the 
 people, to earn a dearer estimation of them; 
 't is a condition they account gentle : and, since 
 the wisdom of their choice is rather to have my 
 hat than my heart, I will practise the insinuating 
 nod, and be off to them most counterfeitly : 
 that is, sir, I will counterfeit the bewitchment 
 of some popular man, and give it bountifully 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 THE ROMAN PLAYS. 
 
 409 
 
 to the desirers. Therefore, beseech you, I may 
 be consul." 
 
 The satire is not obsolete. The desperation 
 with which he at last roars out his demand 
 for their voices, as if he were a chorus 
 mocking himself and the people with the 
 most bitter irony, is the climax of this 
 wonderful exhibition : 
 
 " Your voices : for your voices I have fought ; 
 Watch'd for your voices; for your voices, bear 
 Of wounds two dozen odd; battles thrice six 
 I have seen and heard of; for your voices 
 Have done many things, some less, some 
 
 more : your voices : 
 Indeed, I would be consul." 
 
 The people have justice enough to elect the 
 man for his deeds : but they have not strength 
 enough to abide by their own election. When 
 they are told by the Tribunes that they have 
 i been treated scornfully, they can bear to be 
 j rebuked by their demagogues to have their 
 "ignorant election" revoked to suffer false- 
 hoods to be put in their mouth, to be the 
 mere tools of their weak though crafty leaders. 
 It is Shakspere's praise, in his representation 
 of this plebeian and patrician conflict, that 
 he, for the most part, shows the people as 
 they always are, just, generous, up to a 
 certain point. But put that thing called 
 a demagogue amongst them, that cold, 
 grovelling, selfish thing, without sympathies 
 for the people, the real despiser of the people, 
 because he uses them as tools, and then 
 there is no limit to their unjust violence. 
 In the subsequent scenes we see not the 
 people at all in the exercise of their own 
 wills. We see only Brutus and Sicinius 
 speaking the voice, not of the people, but 
 of their individual selfishness. In the first 
 scene of the third act the Tribunes insult 
 Coriolanus ; and from that moment the lion 
 lashes himself up into a fury which will be 
 deadly. The catastrophe is only deferred 
 when the popular clamour for the Tarpeian 
 Rock subsides into the demand that he 
 should answer to them once again in the 
 market-place. The mother of Coriolanus 
 abates something of her high nature when 
 she counsels her son to a- ^tssefi^^lin sub- 
 mission : 
 
 " Vol. Because that now it lies you on to 
 
 To the people ; not by your own instruction, 
 Nor by the matter which your heart prompts 
 
 you, 
 
 But with such words that are but roted in 
 Your tongue, though but bastards, and syl- 
 lables 
 Of no allowance, to your bosom's truth." 
 
 This is the prudence even of an heroic woman; 
 but she fears for her son. She is somewhat 
 lowered by the instruction. But the poet 
 knew that a real contempt for the people, 
 allied to a strong desire for the honours 
 which the people have to bestow, must pro- 
 duce this lip-service. Coriolanus does not 
 heed the instructions of his mother. He 
 approaches temperately to his questioners ; 
 he puts up vows for the safety of Rome from 
 the depths of his full heart ; he is in earnest 
 to smother his pride and his resentment, 
 but the coarse Tribune calls iim "traitor." 
 There can be but one issue: .e is banished. 
 
 Some of the historians \ / that, although 
 Coriolanus joined the enen es of his country, 
 he provoked no jealousies amongst the native 
 leaders of those enemies ; that he died ho- 
 noured and rewarded ; that his memory was 
 even reverenced at Rome. Shakspere pro- 
 bably knew not this version of the legend of 
 Coriolanus. If he had known it, he would 
 not have adopted it. He had to show the 
 false step which Coriolanus took. He had 
 to teach that his proud resentment hurried 
 him upon a course which brought evils worse 
 than the Tarpeian Rock. And yet we are 
 compelled to admire him ; we can scarcely 
 blame him. It has not been our good fortune 
 to see John Kemble in this his greatest cha- 
 racter: if we had, we probably should have 
 received into our minds an embodied image 
 of the moral grandeur of that scene when 
 Coriolanus stands upon the hearth of Tullus 
 Aufidius, and says 
 
 " My name is Caius Marcius, who hath done 
 To thee particularly, and to all the Volsces, 
 Great hurt and mischief." 
 
 The words are almost literally copied from 
 Plutarch ; but the wondrous art of the poet 
 is shown in the perfect agreement of these 
 
410 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK viu. 
 
 words with the minutest traits of the man's 
 character which had preceded them. The 
 answer of Aufidius is not in Plutarch ; and 
 here Shakspere invests the rival of Coriolanus 
 with a majesty of language which has for its 
 main object to call us back to the real great- 
 ness of the banished man : 
 
 " Know thou first, 
 
 I loved the maid I married ; never man 
 Sigh'd truer breath ; but that I see thee here, 
 Thou noble thing ! more dances my rapt heart 
 Than when I first my wedded mistress saw 
 Bestride my threshold." 
 
 Brief and rapid is their agreement to make 
 
 war upon Rome. In the great city herself 
 
 I "Coriolanus is not much missed but with his 
 
 j friends," according to the Tribune ; no harm 
 
 can come to Rome ; the popular authority 
 
 will whip the slave that speaks of evil news. 
 
 Shakspere again "baits the rabble," according 
 
 to Hazlitt ; though he reluctantly adds, "what 
 
 ! he says of them is very true :" 
 
 " Cit. 'Faith, we hear fearful news. 
 
 1 Cit. For mine own part, 
 When I said banish him, I said 't was pity. 
 
 2 Oit. And so did I. 
 
 3 Cit. And so did I ; and, to say the truth, so 
 I did very many of us : That we did we did for 
 ! the best ; and though we willingly consented to 
 ! his banishment, yet it was against our will." 
 
 j When Shakspere made Coriolanus ask the 
 1 freedom of the poor man that had used him 
 kindly, he showed the tenderness that was 
 at the bottom of that proud heart. When 
 Rome is beleaguered, Cominius reports thus 
 of his unsuccessful mission to her banished 
 son: 
 
 " Com. I offer'd to awaken his regard 
 For his private friends : His answer to me was, 
 He could not stay to pick them in a pile 
 Of noisome musty chaff: He said, 't was folly 
 For one poor grain or two to leave unburnt, 
 And still to nose the offence." 
 
 j His old general and companion in arms 
 I touched nothing but his pride. Menenius, 
 his " beloved in Rome," undertakes a similar 
 mission. The answer of Coriolanus is 
 
 " Wife, mother, child, I know not. My affairs 
 Are servanted to others." 
 
 At the moment that Coriolanus has declared 
 to Aufidius 
 
 " Fresh embassies, and suits, 
 Nor from the state, nor private friends, here- 
 after 
 Will I lend ear to," 
 
 his mother, his wife, his child appear. But 
 he will stand 
 
 " As if a man were author of himself, 
 And knew no other kin." 
 
 What a scene follows ! The warrior is ex- 
 ternally calm, as if he were a god, above 
 all passions and affections. The wondrous 
 poetry in which he speaks seems in its full 
 harmony as if it held the man's inmost soul 
 in a profound consistency. But the passion 
 is coming. " I have sat too long " is the 
 prelude to 
 
 " mother, mother ! 
 What have you done? Behold, the heavens do 
 
 ope, 
 
 The gods look down, and this unnatural scene 
 They laugh at. my mother, mother ! Oh ! 
 You have won a happy victory to Rome : 
 But, for your son, believe it, oh, believe it, 
 Most dangerously you have with Mm prevail'd, 
 If not most mortal to him." 
 
 Volumnia speaks no other word. The mother 
 and the son, the wife and the husband, the 
 child and the father, have parted for ever. 
 The death of Coriolanus in the "goodly city" 
 of Antium is inevitable : 
 
 " Cor. Cut me to pieces, Volsces ; men and 
 
 lads, 
 Stain all your edges on me. Boy ! False 
 
 hound ! 
 
 If you have writ your annals true, 't is there, 
 That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I 
 Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioli : 
 Alone I did it. Boy ! 
 
 Auf. Why, noble lords, 
 
 Will you be put in mind of his blind fortune, 
 Which was your shame, by this unholy brag- 
 gart, 
 
 'Fore your own eyes and ears ? 
 Con. Let him die for 't." 
 
 The struggle for power amongst the CLASSES 
 of young Rome ends in the death of the proud 
 ;>atrician by the swords of those whom he had 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 THE ROMAN PLAYS. 
 
 411 
 
 conquered. He had presented his throat to 
 Tullus Aufidius, 
 " Which not to cut would show thee but a fool." 
 
 But Aufidius would first use him who said he 
 would fight 
 
 " Against my cankerM country with the spleen 
 Of all the under fiends." 
 
 The retribution is a fearful one. Hazlitt ob- 
 serves, " What Shakspere says of them [the 
 rabble] is very true ; what he says of their 
 betters is also very true, though he dwells less 
 upon it." Shakspere teaches by action as 
 well as by words. The silly rabble escape 
 with a terrible fright : Coriolanus loses his 
 home, his glory, his life, for his pride and his 
 revenge. 
 
 Years, perhaps centuries, had rolled on. 
 Rome had seen a constitution which had 
 reconciled the differences of the patricians 
 and the plebeians. The two orders had built 
 a temple to Concord. Her power had in- 
 creased ; her territory had extended. In 
 compounding their differences the patricians 
 and the plebeians had appropriated to them- 
 selves all the wealth and honours of the 
 state. There was a neglected class that the 
 social system appeared to reject as well as 
 to despise. The aristocratic party was again 
 brought into a more terrible conflict with the 
 impoverished and the destitute. Civil war 
 was the natural result. Sulla established a 
 short-lived constitution. The dissolution of 
 the Republic was at hand : the struggle was 
 henceforth to be, not between classes, but in- 
 dividuals. The death of Julius Caesar was 
 soon followed by the final termination of 
 the contest between the republican and the 
 monarchical principle. Shakspere saw the 
 grandeur of the crisis ; and he seized upon 
 it for one of his lofty expositions of political 
 philosophy. He has treated it as no other 
 poet would have treated it, because he saw 
 the exact relations of the contending prin- 
 ciple to the future great history of mankind. 
 The death of Caesar was not his catastrophe : 
 it was the death of the Roman Republic at 
 Philippi. 
 
 Shakspere, in the opening scene of his 
 
 ' Julius Caesar,' has marked very distinctly 
 the difference between the citizens of this 
 period and the former period of ' Coriolanus.' 
 In the first play they are a turbulent body, 
 without regular occupation. They are in 
 some respects a military body. They would 
 revenge with their pikes : the wars would 
 eat them up. In ' Julius Caesar,' on the con- 
 trary, they are " mechanical" the carpenter 
 or the cobbler. They "make holiday to see 
 Caesar, and to rejoice in his triumph." The 
 speech of Marullus, the Tribune, brings the 
 Rome of the hour vividly before us. It is 
 the Rome of mighty conquests and terrible 
 factions. Pompey has had his triumphs, and 
 now the men of Rome 
 
 " Strew flowers in his way, 
 That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood." 
 
 But the triumphant man himself appears. 
 When he speaks, the music and the shouts 
 are silent. When he speaks not, the air is 
 again filled with sounds of greeting. There 
 is a voice in the crowd, " shriller than the 
 music." The Soothsayer cries, " Beware the 
 Ides of March;" but "he is a dreamer." 
 The procession passes on ; two men remain 
 who are to make the dream a reality. Of all 
 Shakespere's characters none require to be 
 studied with more patient attention than 
 those of Brutus and Cassius, that we may 
 understand the resemblances and the dif- 
 ferences of each. The leading distinctions 
 between these two remarkable men, as drawn 
 by Shakspere, appear to us to be these : 
 Brutus acts wholly upon principle ; Cassius 
 partly upon impulse. Brutus acts only when 
 he has reconciled the contemplation of action 
 with his speculative opinions ; Cassius allows 
 the necessity of some action to run before 
 and govern his opinions. Brutus is a 
 philosopher ; Cassius is a partisan. Brutus 
 therefore deliberates and spares ; Cassius 
 precipitates and denounces. Brutus is the 
 nobler instructor ; Cassius the better politi- 
 cian. Shakspere, in the first great scene be- 
 tween them, brings out these distinctions of 
 character upon which future events so 
 mainly depend. Cassius does not, like a 
 merely crafty man, use only the arguments 
 to conspiracy' which will most touch Brutus; 
 
412 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vin. 
 
 but he mixes with them, in his zeal and 
 vehemence, those which have presented 
 themselves most strongly to his own mind. 
 He had a personal dislike of Caesar, as Caesar 
 had of him. Cassius begins artfully : he 
 would first move Brutus through his affec- 
 tion, and next through his self-love. He is 
 opening a set discourse on his own sincerity, 
 when the shouting of the people makes 
 Brutus express his fear that they "choose 
 Caesar for their king." Cassius at once leaves 
 his prepared speeches, and assumes that be- 
 cause Brutus fears it he would not have it 
 so : 
 " I would not, Cassius; yet I love him well." 
 
 Cassius sees that the love which Brutus 
 bears to Caesar will be an obstacle ; and he 
 goes on to disparage Caesar. He could not 
 buffet the waves with Cassius : when he had 
 a fever in Spain, 
 
 " Alas ! it cried, ' Give me some drink, 
 Titinius.' " 
 
 Brutus answers not, but marks " another 
 general shout." Cassius then strikes a dif- 
 ferent note : 
 
 " Brutus and Caesar : What should be in that 
 Caesar ] 
 
 Why should that name be sounded more than 
 
 yours ]" 
 
 At last Cassius hits upon a principle : 
 " Oh ! you and I have heard our fathers say, 
 
 There was a Brutus once that would have 
 brook'd 
 
 The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome, 
 
 As easily as a king." 
 The Stoic is at last moved : 
 " Brutus had rather be a villager, 
 
 Than to repute himself a son of Rome 
 
 Under these hard conditions as this time 
 
 Is like to lay upon us." 
 
 In the next scene, when Caesar is return- 
 ing from the games, the dictator describes 
 Cassius the Cassius with " a lean and hun- 
 gry look," the "great observer," as one 
 whom he could fear if he could fear any- 
 thing. In the subsequent dialogue with 
 Casca, where the narrative of what passed at 
 the games is conducted with a truth that 
 puts the very scene before us, Cassius again 
 
 strikes in with the thought that is upper- 
 most in his mind. Brutus says that Csesar 
 " hath the falling sickness :" the reply of 
 Cassius is most characteristic : 
 
 " No, Caesar hath it not ; but you, and I, 
 And honest Casca, we have the falling sick- 
 ness." 
 
 Brutus goes home to meditate. The energy 
 of Cassius is never weary. In the storm he 
 is still the conspirator. The " impatience of 
 the heavens" furnishes him an argument 
 against the man 
 
 " Prodigious grown, 
 And fearful, as these strange eruptions are." 
 
 The plot is maturing. Brutus especially is 
 to be won. 
 
 Coleridge, who, when he doubts of a mean- 
 ing in Shakspere or, what is rarer, suggests 
 that there is some inconsistency in the con- 
 duct of the scene, or the development of 
 character has the highest claim upon our 
 deferential regard, gives the soliloquy of 
 Brutus in the beginning of the second act 
 with the following observations : " This 
 speech is singular ; at least I do not at pre- 
 sent see into Shakspere's motive, his rationale, 
 or in what point of view he meant Brutus' 
 character to appear. For surely (this I 
 mean is what I say to myself, with my pre- 
 sent quantum of insight, only modified by 
 my experience in how many instances I had 
 ripened into a perception of beauties, where 
 I had before descried faults) surely, nothing 
 can seem more discordant with our historical 
 preconceptions of Brutus, or more lowering 
 the intellect of the Stoico-Platonic tyranni- 
 cide, than the tenets here attributed to him 
 to him, the stern Roman republican ; namely, 
 that he would have no objection to a king, 
 or to Caesar, a monarch in Rome, would Caesar 
 but be as good a monarch as he now seems 
 disposed to be ! How, too, could Brutus say 
 that he found no personal cause none in 
 Caesar's past conduct as a man ? Had he 
 not passed the Rubicon? Had he not 
 entered Rome as a conqueror ? Had he not 
 placed his Gauls in the Senate ? Shakspeare, 
 it may be said, has not brought these things 
 forward. True ; and this is just the ground 
 
CHAP. VI. J 
 
 THE ROMAN PLAYS. 
 
 413 
 
 of my perplexity. What character did 
 Shakspeare mean his Brutus to be ? " * To 
 this question we venture to reply, according 
 to our imperfect conception of the character 
 of Brutus. Shakspere meant him not for a 
 conspirator. He has a terror of conspiracy : 
 
 " Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough 
 To mask thy monstrous visage]" 
 
 He has been " with himself at war," specu- 
 lating, we doubt not, upon the strides of 
 Caesar towards absolute power, but unpre- 
 pared to resist them. Of Caesar he has said, 
 " I love him well ;" he now says 
 
 " I know no personal cause to spurn at him." 
 
 We are by no means sure of the correct 
 punctuation of this passage as it is usually 
 given. Brutus has come to a conclusion in 
 the watches of the night : 
 
 " It must be by his death." 
 
 He disavows, however, any personal hatred 
 to Caesar : 
 
 " And for my part, 
 I know no personal cause to spurn at him." 
 
 He then adds 
 
 " But for the general he would be crown'd ; 
 How that might change his nature, there 's 
 the question." 
 
 He goes from the personal cause to the 
 general cause : " He would be crown'd." As 
 a triumvir, a dictator, Brutus had no per- 
 sonal cause against Caesar ; but the n.ame of 
 king, which Cassius poured into his ear, 
 rouses all his speculative republicanism. 
 His experience of Caesar calls from him the 
 acknowledgment that Caesar's affections sway 
 not more than his reason ; but crown him, 
 and his nature might be changed. We must 
 bear in mind that Brutus is not yet com- 
 mitted to the conspiracy. The character that 
 Shakspere meant his Brutus to be is not yet 
 fully developed. He is yet irresolute ; and 
 his reasonings are therefore, to a certain 
 extent, inconsequential : 
 
 " Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar 
 I have not slept. 
 
 * ' Literary Remains,' voL ii. p. 139. 
 
 Between the acting of a dreadful thing 
 And the first motion, all the interim is 
 Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream." 
 
 He is instigated from without ; the princi- 
 ples associated with the name of Brutus stir 
 him from within : 
 
 " My ancestors did from the streets of Home 
 The Tarquin drive, when he was call'd a 
 king." 
 
 The " faction " come. Cassius and Brutus 
 speak together apart. Let us turn aside for 
 a moment to see how Shakspere fills up this 
 terrible pause. Other poets would have 
 made the inferior men exchange oaths, and 
 cross swords, and whisper, and ejaculate. He 
 makes everything depend upon the deter- 
 mination of Brutus and Cassius ; and the 
 others, knowing it so depends, speak thus : 
 
 " Dec. Here lies the east : Doth not the day 
 
 break here ] 
 Casca. No. 
 Cin. Oh, pardon, sir, it doth; and yon gray 
 
 lines 
 
 That fret the clouds are messengers of day. 
 Casca. You shall confess that you are both 
 
 deceived. 
 
 Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises ; 
 Which is a great way growing on the south, 
 Weighing the youthful season of the year. 
 Some two- months hence, up higher toward 
 
 the north 
 
 He first presents his fire ; and the high east 
 Stands, as the Capitol, directly here." 
 
 Is this nature? The truest and most pro- 
 found nature. The minds of all men thus 
 disencumber themselves, in the moments of 
 the most anxious suspense, from the pressure 
 of an overwhelming thought. There is a 
 real relief, if some accidental circumstance, 
 like 
 
 " The gray lines that fret the clouds," 
 
 can produce this disposition of the mind to 
 go out of itself for an instant or two of 
 forgetfulness. 
 
 But Brutus is changed. We have no doubt 
 now of his character. He is the leader, 
 Cassius the subordinate. He is decided in 
 his course : he will not " break with" Cicero ; 
 he will not destroy Antony. We recognise 
 
414 
 
 STUDIES OF SIIAKHI'KIIK. 
 
 [BOOK vii r. 
 
 the gentleness of his nature even while he 
 is preparing for assassination : 
 
 " Oh, that we then could come by Caesar's spirit, 
 And not dismember Caasar ! " 
 
 In the exquisite scene with Portia which 
 follows, our love for the man is completed ; 
 we learn what he has suffered before he has 
 taken his resolution. There is something 
 more than commonly touching in these 
 words : 
 
 " You are my true and honourable wife ; 
 
 As deal- to me as are the ruddy drops 
 
 That visit my sad heart." 
 The pathos in some degree depends upon 
 our knowledge of the situation of the 
 speaker, which Portia does not know. 
 
 The scenes which we have now run over 
 bring us to the end of the second act. No- 
 thing can be more interesting, we think, 
 than to follow Shakspere with Plutarch in 
 hand. The poet adheres to the facts of 
 history with a remarkable fidelity. A few 
 hard figures are painted upon a canvas ; the 
 outlines are distinct, the colours are strong ; 
 but there is no art in the composition, no 
 grouping, no light and shadow. This is the 
 historian's picture. We turn to the poet. 
 We recognise the same figures, but they 
 appear to live ; they are in harmony with 
 the entire scene in which they move ; we 
 have at once the reality of nature, and the 
 ideal of art, which is a higher nature. Com- 
 pare the dialogue in the first act between 
 Cassius and Brutus, and the same dialogue 
 as reported by Plutarch, for an example of 
 the power by which the poet elevates all he 
 touches, without destroying its identity. 
 When we arrive at the stirring scenes of the 
 third act this power is still more manifest. 
 The assassination scene is as literal as may 
 be ; but it offers an example apt enough of 
 Shakspere's mode of dramatizing a fact. 
 When Metellus Cimber makes suit for his 
 brother, and the conspirators appear as in- 
 tercessors, the historian says "Caesar at 
 the first simply refused their kindness and 
 entreaties ; but afterwards, perceiving they 
 still pressed on him, he violently thrust 
 them from him." The poet enters into the 
 mind of Caesar, and clothes this rejection of 
 
 the buit in characteristic words. Hazlitt, 
 after noticing the profounl knowledge of 
 character displayed by Shakspere in this 
 play, says " If there is any exception to 
 this remark, it is in the hero of the piece 
 himself. We do not much admire the repre- 
 sentation here given of Julius Caesar, nor 
 do we think it answers the portrait given of 
 him in his ' Commentaries.' He makes 
 several vapouring and rather pedantic 
 speeches, and does nothing. Indeed, he has 
 nothing to do. So far, the fault of the cha- 
 racter is the fault of the plot." The echoes 
 of this opinion are many ; and smaller critics 
 wax bold upon the occasion. Boswell says 
 " There cannot be a stronger proof of 
 Shakspere's deficiency in classical knowledge 
 than the boastful language he has put in 
 the mouth of the most accomplished man of 
 all antiquity, who was not more admirable 
 for his achievements than for the dignified 
 simplicity with which he has recorded them." 
 Courtenay had hazarded, in his notice of 
 ' Henry VIII.,' the somewhat bold assertion 
 " that Shakspeare used very little artifice, 
 and, in truth, had very little design, in the 
 construction of the greater number of his 
 historical characters." Upon the character 
 of Julius Caesar he says that Plutarch having 
 been supposed to pass over this character 
 somewhat slightly is " a corroboration of my 
 remark upon the slight attention which 
 Shakspere paid to his historical characters. 
 The conversation with Antony about fat 
 men, and with Calphurnia about her dreams, 
 came conveniently into his plan ; and some 
 lofty expressions could hardly be avoided in 
 portraying one who was known to the whole 
 world as a great conqueror. Beyond this 
 our poet gave himself no trouble." This is 
 certainly an easy way of disposing of a 
 complicated question. Did Shakspere give 
 himself no trouble about the characteriza- 
 tion of Brutus and Cassius ? In them did 
 he indicate no points of character but what 
 he found in Plutarch ? Is not his charac- 
 terization of Caesar himself a considerable 
 expansion of what he found set down by the 
 historian ? At the exact period of the action 
 of this drama, Caesar, possessing the reality 
 of power, was haunted by the weakness of 
 
CHAP, vi.] 
 
 THE KOMAN I'LAVS. 
 
 415 
 
 passionately desiring the title of king. Piu- 
 tarch says " The chiefest cause that made 
 him mortally hated was the covetous desire 
 he had to be called king." This is the pivot 
 upon which the whole action of Shakspere's 
 tragedy turns. There might have been 
 another mode of treating the subject. The 
 death of Julius Caesar might have been the 
 catastrophe. The republican and the mon- 
 archical principles might have been ex- 
 hibited in conflict. The republican prin- 
 ciple would have triumphed in the fall of 
 Caesar ; and the poet would have previously 
 held the balance between the two principles, 
 or have claimed, indeed, our largest sympa- 
 thies for the principles of Csesar and his 
 friends, by a true exhibition of Caesar's 
 greatness and Caesar's virtues. The poet 
 chose another course. And are we, then, to 
 talk, with ready flippancy, of ignorance and 
 carelessness that he wanted classical know- 
 ledge that he gave himself no trouble ? 
 " The fault of the character is the fault of 
 the plot," says Hazlitt. It would have been 
 nearer the truth had he said the character 
 is determined by the plot. While Caesar is 
 upon the scene, it was for the poet, largely 
 interpreting the historian, to show the in- 
 ward workings of " the covetous desire he 
 had to be called king:"" and most admirably, 
 according to our notions of characterization, 
 has he shown them. Caesar is " in all but 
 name a king." He is surrounded by all the 
 external attributes of power ; yet he is not 
 satisfied : 
 
 " The angry spot doth glow on Caesar's brow." 
 
 He is suspicious he fears. But he has 
 acquired the policy of greatness to seem 
 what it is not. To his intimate friend he is 
 an actor : 
 
 " I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd 
 Than what I fear ; for always I am Caesar." 
 
 When Calphurnia has recounted the terrible 
 portents of the night when the augurers 
 would not that Caesar should stir forth he 
 exclaims : 
 
 " The gods do this in shame of cowardice : 
 Csesar should be a beast without a heart, 
 If he should stay at home to-day for fear. 
 
 No, Caesar shall not : Danger knows full well 
 That Cassar is more dangerous than he. 
 We were two lions litter'd in one day, 
 And I the elder and more terrible; 
 And Csesar shall go forth." 
 
 But to whom does he utter this, the " boast- 
 ful language," which so offends Boswell ? 
 To the servant who has brought the message 
 from the augurers ; before him he could 
 show no fear. But the very inflation of his 
 language shows that he did fear ; and an 
 instant after, when the servant no doubt is 
 intended to have left the scene, he says to 
 his wife 
 
 " Mark Antony shall say I am not well, 
 And, for thy humour, I will stay at home." 
 
 Read Pluturch's account of the scene be- 
 tween Decius and Caesar, when Decius pre- 
 vails against Calphurnia, and Caesar decides 
 to go. In the historian we have not a hint 
 of the splendid characterization of Caesar 
 struggling between his fear and his pride. 
 Wherever Shakspere found a minute touch 
 in the historian that could harmonise with 
 his general plan, he embodied it in his cha- 
 racter of Caesar. Who does not remember 
 the magnificent lines which the poet puts 
 into the mouth of Caesar 1 
 
 " Cowards die many times before their deaths ; 
 , The valiant never taste of death but once. 
 Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, 
 It seems to me most strange that men should 
 
 fear; 
 
 Seeing that death, a necessary end, 
 Will come when it will come." 
 
 A very slight passage in Plutarch, with 
 reference to other circumstances of Caesar's 
 life, suggested this : " When some of his 
 friends did counsel him to have a guard for 
 the safety of his person, and some also did 
 offer themselves to serve him, he would never 
 consent to it, but said it was better to die 
 once than always to be afraid of death." 
 We have already noticed the skill with which 
 Shakspere, upon a very bald narrative, has 
 dramatised the last sad scene in which Csesar 
 was an actor. The tone of his last speech 
 is indeed boastful : 
 
 " I do know but one 
 Tha.t unassailable holds on his rank, 
 
41-; 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAK3PERE. 
 
 [BOOK viii. 
 
 4 0* : b, 
 
 j" 
 
 That Cbesar knew his power, and made otburs 
 know it, who can doubt ! He was not one 
 who, in his desire to be king, would put on 
 the robe of humility. Altogether, then, we 
 profess to receive Shakspere's characteriza- 
 tion of Cbesar with a perfect confidence that 
 he produced that character upon fixed prin- 
 ciples of art. It is not the prominent cha- 
 racter of the play ; and it was not meant to 
 be so. It is true to the narrative upon 
 which Shakspere founded it ; bat, what is of 
 more importance, it is true to every natural 
 conception of what Cbesar must have been 
 at the exact moment of his falL 
 
 We hare seen the stoic Brutus in reality 
 a man of strong passions and deep feelings 
 gradually warm up to the great enterprise 
 of ami I ing his principles by one terrible 
 blow, for triumph or for extinction. The 
 blow is given. The excitement which 
 succeeds is wondrously painted by the poet, 
 without a hint from the historian. The 
 
 of the gentle Brutus is lifted up, for 
 the moment, into an attitude of terrible 
 sublimity. It is he who says 
 
 "Stoop, Romans, stoop, 
 Aad let as bathe otr hands in Caesar's Mood 
 Up to the elbows, and besmear our swords : 
 Then walk we forth, eren to the market-pbee; 
 And, waving our red weapons o'er our heads, 
 Let's all err, Peace, Freedom, and Liberty!" 
 
 From that moment the character flags ; the 
 calmness- returns; something also of the 
 irresolution comes back. Bnttus is too 
 high-minded for his position. Another comes 
 upon the scene ; another of different tem- 
 perament, of different powers. He is not 
 one that, like Brutus, will change "offence" 
 to "Tirtue and to worthiness" by th 
 of character. He is one that "revels long 
 o* nights." Bat he possesses courage, elo- 
 quence, high talent, and, what renders him 
 most dangerous, he is sufficiently un- 
 principled: Cassias knew him, and would 
 hare killed him. Brutus does not know him, 
 and be suftVrs him "to bury Caesar." The 
 conditions upon which Brutus permits Antony 
 to speak are Shakspere's own; and they 
 
 show his wonderful penetration into the 
 depths of character : 
 
 "You shall not in your funeral speech blame us, 
 Bat speak all good you can derise of Caesar; 
 And say you do't by oar permission; 
 Ebe shall you not hare any hand at all 
 About his funeral: And yon shall speak, 
 In the same pulpit whereto I am going, 
 
 After 7 -;.;.;;;. 
 
 The opportunity is not lost by Antony. 
 Hazlitt, acute enough in general, appears to 
 us singularly superficial in his remarks on 
 this play ; a Mark Antony's speech over the 
 dead body of Caesar has been justly admired 
 for the mixture of pathos and art in it : that 
 of Brutus certainly is not so good/" In what 
 way is it not so good? As a specimen of 
 eloquence put by the side of Antony's, who 
 can doubt that it is tame, passionless, severe, 
 and therefore ineffective ? But, as an example 
 of Shakspere's wonderful power of cha- 
 racterization, it is beyond all praise. It was 
 the consummate artifice of Antony that made 
 him say 
 
 " I am no orator, as Brntns is," 
 
 Bnttus was not an orator. Under great 
 excitement be is twice betrayed into oratory : 
 when he addresses the conspirators " No, 
 not an oath ;' and after the assassins 
 "Stoop, Romans, stoop." He is a i. 
 just intentions, of calm under 
 
 
 I will 
 
 U fir-% 
 
 y death." 
 
 And he does show the rzm. 
 hare made amusing work with this speech. 
 Warburton says, " This speech of Brutus is 
 wrote in imitation of his famed laconic 
 brevity, and is very fine in its kind ; but no 
 more like that brevity than his times were 
 like Brutus'." To this Mr, Monk Mason 
 rejoin*, <; I cannot agree with 
 that this speech is very fine in its I 
 can see no degree of excellent 
 
 n a very paltry speech, for so ? 
 
 ;.. ::. ',;. , .'-.**. ;,:. '/: :;. ; ion." 
 : ..*..:. . .. .'. ;, ..;',; 
 
TI.] 
 
 THE BOJLUT PLAY?, 
 
 for the spec oh of Antony to counterbalance 
 this. There was a man, however, of their 
 times, Martin Sherlock, who wrote <A Frag- 
 ment on Shakspere,' in a style sufficiently 
 
 olical, but who nevertheless was 
 amongst the lew who then ventured to think 
 that "the barbarian," Shakspere, possessed 
 art and judgment. Of Antony's speech he 
 
 \presses bis opinion : a Every line of 
 
 . ech deserves an eulogium ; and, when 
 you have examined it attentively, you will 
 allow it, and will say with me that neither 
 Demosthenes, nor Cicero, nor their glorious 
 rival, the immortal Chatham, CTCT made a 
 better." There may be exaggerations in 
 both styles of criticism : the speech of Antony 
 may not be equal to Demosthenes, and the 
 speech of Brutus may not be a Tery paltry 
 speech. But, each being written by the 
 same man, we have a right to accept each 
 with a conviction that the writer was capaKe 
 of making a good speech for Brutus as well 
 
 Antony; and that, if he did not do so, 
 be had Tery abundant reasons. It requires 
 no great refinement to understand his 
 reasons. The excitement of the great 
 assertion of republican principles, which was 
 to be acted over. 
 
 " In states unborn, and accents yet unknown." 
 
 bad been succeeded by a momentary calm. 
 In the very hour of the IWMBatitmBNtai 
 had become its apologist to Antony : 
 
 Thai were vou. Antony, the son of C.-v^r. 
 should be satisfied.- 
 
 already preparing in mind for *the 
 
 pulpit." He will present, calmly and dis- 
 
 .ately, the "reason of our Ctosar's 
 
 death." He expects that Antony will speak 
 
 with equal moderation all good of Gnsar, 
 
 no blame of Gnsar's murderers; and be 
 
 t an advantage to speak tyfc* Antony. 
 
 He knew not what oratory really is. But 
 
 ore knew, and he painted Antony. 
 
 Another great poet made the portrait a 
 
 I : 
 
 * He Mon'd 
 For dignity composed and high exploit: 
 
 ill was KM and hollow; though bis 
 
 DM*!*! r-a^ Ml ovu:i ~^; tie 
 
 
 :o patpln &r..i .ii*:: 
 for his tkwgkts were few; 
 To vioe iMtataBM* Vu: to Mfcfet in* 
 
 IbMNH Ml AsttN ft* hi alWBi :r.: 
 Tlie end of Antony') oratory is perfect 
 
 ktitwork! Misehkt thoa art afoot, 
 Take tke wkat cvnae tsm wflt ! " 
 
 The rhetoric has done its work 
 coaiiciof iadrfidiuJscaomt to 
 
 no longer a 
 
 or monarchical 
 
 The questkn is 
 
 But even he is rarity to do bis work. He 
 
 can pivscribe : ho c^ui cvou cc::se.v.t :o tie 
 3o;ith of hi> brother. " ? coi;ii:iou>," He 
 requires that "Pubtius shall not 
 A-to-y ha* no KnnlH to >^ve his " 
 
 * He shall met lire : look, with a spet I damn 
 
 oose to this 
 
 him wbo 
 * CVtndemn'd and noted 
 
 For taking bribes fere of ** SardiaMx 
 Of him who 
 * Had rather be* dog, and bay the 
 
 * Contaminate his 
 
 Of him who says 
 
 And drop my blood for 
 wrg 
 
 the hanl 
 
 than 
 
 their v 
 
 By Ain indiiwuon." 
 No ; the 
 
418 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPEKE. 
 
 [BOOK YIII. 
 
 Cassius by his high-mindedness ; for Cassius, 
 though somewhat politic, has nobility enough 
 in him to bow before the majesty of virtue. 
 Coleridge says "I know no part of Shak- 
 spere that more impresses on me the belief 
 of his genius being superhuman than this 
 scene between Brutus and Cassius." This 
 language has been called idolatry : some 
 critic, we believe, says "blasphemous;" yet 
 let any one with common human powers try 
 to produce such a scene. The wonderful 
 thing in it, and that which in a subsequent 
 sentence, which we scarcely dare quote 
 Coleridge points out, is the complete preserv- 
 ation of character. All dramatic poets have 
 tried to imitate this scene. Dryden preferred 
 his imitation, in the famous dialogue between 
 Antony and Ventidius, to anything which 
 he had written " in this kind." It is full of 
 high rhetoric, no doubt ; but its rhetoric is 
 that of generalizations. The plain rough 
 soldier, the luxurious chief, reproach and 
 weep, are angry and cool again, shake hands, 
 and end in " hugging," as the stage direction 
 has it. They say all that people would say 
 under such circumstances, and they say it 
 well. But the matchless art of Shakspere 
 consists as much in what he holds back as 
 in what he puts forward. Brutus subdues 
 Cassius by the force of his moral strength, 
 without the slightest attempt to command 
 the feelings of a sensitive man. When 
 Cassius is subdued, he owns that he has been 
 hasty. They are friends again, hand and 
 heart. Is not the knowledge of character 
 something above the ordinary reach of 
 human sagacity when the following words 
 come in as if by accident 1 
 
 " Bru. Lucius, a bowl of wine. 
 
 Cass. I did not think you could have been 
 so angry. 
 
 Bru. Cassius, I am sick of many griefs. 
 
 Cass. Of your philosophy you make no use, 
 If you give place to accidental evils. 
 
 Bru. No man bears sorrow better : Portia 
 is dead. 
 
 Cass. Ha! Portia? 
 
 Bru. She is dead. 
 
 Cass. How 'scaped I killing when I cross'd 
 you so 1 " 
 
 This is not in Plutarch. 
 
 | The shade of Caesar has summoned Brutus 
 I to meet him at Philippi. The conversation 
 
 of the republican chiefs before the battle is 
 
 well to be noted : 
 
 " Cass. Now, most noble Brutus, 
 
 The gods to-day stand friendly; that we may, 
 Lovers in peace, lead on our days to age ! 
 But, since the affairs of men rest still uncer- 
 tain, 
 
 Let 's reason with the worst that may befall. 
 If we do lose this battle, then is this 
 The very last time we shall speak together : 
 What are you then determined to do 1 
 
 Bru. Even by the rule of that philosophy 
 By which I did blame Cato for the death 
 Which he did give himself: I know not how, 
 But I do find it cowardly and vile, 
 For fear of what might fall, so to prevent 
 The time of life : arming myself with pa- 
 tience, 
 
 To stay the providence of some high powers, 
 That govern us below. 
 Cass. Then, if we lose this battle, 
 
 You are contented to be led in triumph 
 Thorough the streets of Rome 1 
 
 Bru. No, Cassius, no : think not, thou noble 
 
 Roman, 
 
 That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome ; 
 He bears too great a mind." 
 
 The parallel passage in Plutarch is as 
 follows : 
 
 " Then Cassius began to speak first, and said 
 The gods grant us, Brutus, that this day 
 we may win the field, and ever after to live all 
 the rest of our life quietly, one with another. ^ 
 But sith the gods have so ordained it that the 
 greatest and chiefest things amongst men are 
 most uncertain, and that, if the battle fall out 
 otherwise to-day than we wish or look for, we 
 shall hardly meet again, what art thou then de- 
 termined to do to fly, or die? Brutus answered 
 him, Being yet but a young man, and not over- 
 greatly experienced in the world, I trust (I know 
 not how) a certain rule of philosophy, by the 
 which I did greatly blame and reprove Cato for 
 killing of himself, as being no lawful nor godly 
 act touching the gods, nor concerning men va- 
 liant, not to give place and yield to Divine 
 Providence, and not constantly and patiently 
 to take whatsoever it pleaseth him to send us ; 
 but to draw back and fly : but, being now in the 
 midst of the danger, I am of a contrary mind ; j 
 
VI.] 
 
 THE HUMAN PLAYS. 
 
 419 
 
 for, if it be not the will of God that this battle 
 fall out fortunate for us, I will look no more 
 for hope, neither seek to make any new supply 
 of war again, but will rid me of this miserable 
 world, and content me with my fortune." 
 
 The critics say that Shakspere makes Brutus 
 express himself inconsistently. He will await 
 the determination of Providence, but he will 
 not go bound to Rome. Mr. Courtenay ex- 
 plains how " the inconsistency arises from 
 Shakspere's misreading of the first speech; 
 f.r Brutus, according to North, referred to 
 his opinion against suicide as one that he 
 had entertained in his youth, but had now 
 abandoned." This writer in a note also ex- 
 plains that the perplexity consists in North 
 saying I trust, instead of using the past tense. 
 He then adds, " Shakspere's adoption of a 
 version contradicted not only by a passage 
 immediately following, but by the event 
 which he presently portrays, is a striking in- 
 stance of his careless use of his authorities."* 
 Very triumphant, no doubt. Most literal 
 critics, why have you not rather confided in 
 Shakspere than in yourselves ? When he 
 deserts Plutarch, he is true to something 
 higher than Plutarch. In Brutus he has 
 drawn a man of speculation ; one who is 
 moved to kill the man he loves upon, no 
 personal motive, but upon a theory; one 
 who fights his last battle upon somewhat 
 speculative principles ; one, however, who, 
 from his gentleness, his constancy, his for- 
 titude, has subdued men of more active 
 minds to the admiration of his temper and 
 to the adoption of his opinions. Cassius 
 never reasons about suicide : it is his instant 
 remedy ; a remedy which he rashly adopts, 
 and ruins therefore his own cause. Brutus 
 reasons against it; and he does not revoke 
 his speculative opinions even when the con- 
 sequences to which they lead are pointed out 
 to him. Is not this nature? and must we 
 be told that this nicety of characterization 
 resulted from Shakspere carelessly using his 
 authorities ; trusting to the false tense of a 
 verb, regardless of the context ? " But he 
 contradicts himself," says the critic, "by the 
 event which he presently portrays." Most 
 wonderfully has Shakspere redeemed his own 
 
 * ' Commentaries on the Historical Plays,' vol. ii. p. 256. 
 
 consistency. It is when the mind of the 
 speculative man is not only utterly subdued 
 by adverse circumstances, but bowed down 
 before the pressure of supernatural warnings, 
 that he deliberately approaches his last fatal 
 resolve. What is the work of an instant with 
 Cassius is with Brutus a tentative process. 
 Clitus, Dardanius, Volumnius, Strato, are 
 each tried. The irresistible pressure upon 
 his mind, which leads him not to fly with 
 his friends, is the destiny which hovers over 
 him : 
 
 " Bra. Come hither, good Volumnius : list a 
 
 word. 
 
 Vol. What says my lord ? 
 Bru. Why, this, Volumnius : 
 
 The ghost of Caesar hath appear'd to me 
 Two several times by night : at Sardis, once ; 
 And, this last night, here in Philippi fields. 
 / know my hour is come." 
 
 The exclamation of Brutus over the body of 
 
 Cassius is 
 
 " The last of all the Eomans, fare thee well ! " 
 
 Brutus himself is the last assertor of the old 
 
 Roman principles : 
 
 " This was the noblest Roman of them all : 
 All the conspirators, save only he, 
 Did that they did in envy of great Caesar ; 
 He only, in a general honest thought, 
 And common good to all, made one of them." 
 
 The scene is changed. The boldest, per- 
 haps the noblest, of the Roman triumvirs 
 has almost forgotten Rome, and governs the 
 Asiatic world with a magnificence equalled 
 only by the voluptuousness into which he is 
 plunged. In Rome, Octavius Csesar is almost 
 supreme. It is upon the cards which shall 
 govern the entire world. The history of in- 
 dividuals is henceforth the history of Rome. 
 
 " Of all Shakspere's historical plays," says 
 Coleridge, "'Antony and Cleopatra' is by 
 far the most wonderful." He again says, 
 assigning it a place even higher than that 
 of being the most wonderful of the historical 
 plays, " The highest praise, or rather form of 
 praise, of this play, which I can offer in my 
 own mind, is the doubt which the perusal 
 always occasions in me, whether the 'Antony 
 and Cleopatra' is not, in all exhibitions of 
 
 E E 2 
 
420 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK vin. 
 
 a giant power in its strength and vigour of 
 maturity, a formidable rival of ' Macbeth,' 
 'Lear,' 'Hamlet,' and 'Othello.'"* The 
 epithet "wonderful" is unquestionably the 
 right one to apply to this drama. It is too 
 vast, too gorgeous, to be approached with- 
 out some prostration of the understanding. 
 It pours such a flood of noonday splendour 
 upon our senses, that we cannot gaze upon it 
 steadily. We have read it again and again ; 
 and the impression which it leaves again and 
 again is that of wonder. We can comprehend 
 it, reduce its power to some standard, only 
 by the analysis of a part. Mrs. Jameson has 
 adopted this course in one of her most brilliant 
 'Characteristics of Women.' Treading in her 
 steps timidly, we may venture to attempt a 
 companion sketch to her portrait of Cleopatra. 
 It is in the spirit of the play itself, as the last 
 of the Roman series, that we shall endeavour 
 to follow it, by confining ourselves as much as 
 may be to an individual. We use the word 
 in the sense in which Mr. Hare uses it, after 
 some good-natured ridicule of the newspaper 
 "individuals:" a man "is an individual, so 
 far as he is an integral whole, different and 
 distinct from other men ; and that which 
 makes him what he is, that in which he 
 differs and is distinguished from other men, 
 is his individuality, and individualizes him."t 
 The ANTONY of this play is of course the 
 Antony of 'Julius Caesar;' not merely the 
 historical Antony, but the dramatic Antony 
 drawn by the same hand. He is the orator 
 that showed dead Caesar's mantle to the 
 Roman people; he is the soldier that after 
 his triumph over Brutus said, " This was 
 a man." We have seen something of his 
 character ; we have learnt a little of his vo- 
 luptuousness ; we have heard of the "masker 
 and the reveller;" we have beheld the un- 
 scrupulous politician. But we cannot think 
 meanly of him. He is one great either for 
 good or for evil. Since he fought at Philippi 
 he has passed through various fortunes : 
 Caesar thus apostrophizes him : 
 
 " When thou once 
 
 Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st 
 Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel 
 
 * ' Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 142. 
 t Guesses at Truth.' 
 
 Did Famine follow; whom thou fought' st 
 
 against, 
 Though daintily brought up, with patience 
 
 more 
 Than savages could suffer." 
 
 There came an after-time when, at Alexandria, 
 
 " Our courteous Antony, 
 Whom ne'er the word of ' No ' woman heard 
 
 speak, 
 
 Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast, 
 And, for his ordinary, pays his heart." 
 
 This is the Antony that Shakspere, in the 
 
 play before us, brings upon the scene. 
 
 Rome is to him nothing. He will not hear 
 its ambassadors : 
 
 " There 's not a minute of our lives should 
 
 stretch 
 Without some pleasure now." 
 
 But "a Roman thought hath struck him." 
 He does hear the messenger. Labienus has 
 overrun Asia. He winces at the thought 
 of his own inertness, but he will know the 
 truth : 
 
 " Speak to me home : mince not the general 
 tongue." 
 
 Another messenger comes. Brief is his 
 news : 
 
 " Fulvia thy wife is dead ;" 
 and brief is the question which follows : 
 
 " Where died she 1 ?" 
 The comment shows the man : 
 
 " There 's a great spirit gone : Thus did I desire 
 
 it" 
 
 We learn why he did desire it, in the scene 
 with Cleopatra, in which he announces his 
 departure. Often has he heard, from the 
 same lips, the bitter irony of 
 
 "What says the married woman?" 
 
 He has been bound to Cleopatra not only by 
 her "infinite variety," but by her caprice 
 and her force of ridicule. His moral power 
 is as weak as his physical courage is strong. 
 Cleopatra paints the magnificent soldier and 
 the infatuated lover in a few words : 
 
 " The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm 
 And burgonet of men. He 's speaking now, 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 THE ROMAN PLAYS. 
 
 421 
 
 Or murmuring ' Where 's my serpent of old 
 
 Nile!' 
 For so he calls me" 
 
 He has fled from Cleopatra, but he sends her 
 his messenger : 
 
 " All the east, 
 Say thou, shall call her mistress." 
 
 In this temper he meets Caesar, and he 
 marries Octavia. 
 
 The interview between Antony and Caesar 
 is most masterly. The constrained courtesy 
 on each side the coldness of Cassar the 
 frank apologies of Antony the suggestion 
 of Agrippa, so opportune, and yet apparently 
 so unpremeditated the ready assent of 
 Antony all this matter for rhetorical 
 flourishes of at least five hundred lines in 
 the hands of an ordinary dramatist may be 
 read without a start or an elevation of the 
 voice. It is solid business throughout. 
 Antony, we might think, was a changed 
 man. Enobarbus, who knows him, is of a 
 different opinion. Wonderfully has he de- 
 scribed Cleopatra ; and when Meceenas says, 
 
 " Now Antony must leave her utterly," 
 the answer is prophetic : 
 
 "Never; he will not: 
 Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale 
 Her infinite variety " 
 
 Against this power Enobarbus knows that 
 the "beauty, wisdom, modesty," of Octavia 
 will be a fragile bond. And Antony knows 
 this himself. He knows this while he pro- 
 tests, 
 
 " I have not kept my square; but that to come 
 Shall all be done by the rule." 
 
 And yet he is not wholly a dissembler. 
 Shakspere has most skilfully introduced the 
 soothsayer, at the moment when Antony's 
 moral weakness appears to have put on some 
 show of strength. He found the incident in 
 Plutarch ; but he has made his own applica- 
 tion of it : 
 
 " Be it art, or hap, 
 He hath spoken true : The very dice obey 
 
 him; 
 
 And in our sports my better cunning faints 
 Under his chance : if we draw lots, he speeds : 
 
 His cocks do win the battle still of mine, 
 When it is all to nought ; and his quails ever 
 Beat mine, inhoop'd, at odds." 
 
 Therefore, 
 
 " I will to Egypt." 
 
 To establish an independent throne ? to 
 intrench himself against the power of Au- 
 gustus in an Asiatic empire 1 No. 
 
 "And though I make this marriage for my 
 
 peace, 
 I' the east my pleasure lies." 
 
 The reckless short-sighted voluptuary was 
 never drawn more truly. His entire policy 
 is shaped by his passion. The wonderful 
 scene in which his marriage with Octavia is 
 made known to Cleopatra assures us that in 
 the extremest intemperance of self-will he 
 will have his equal. Cleopatra would have 
 Antony unmarried, 
 
 " So half my Egypt were submerged, and made 
 A cistern for scaled snakes." 
 
 According to Enobarbus, the unmarrying 
 will scarcely be necessary for her gratifica- 
 tion : 
 
 " Eno. Octavia is of a holy, cold, and still 
 
 conversation. 
 
 Men. Who would not have his wife so ] 
 Eno. Not he, that himself is not so ; which is 
 
 Mark Antony." 
 
 The drinking scene between the Triumvirs 
 and Pompey is one of those creations which 
 render Shakspere so entirely above, and so 
 utterly unlike, other poets. Every line is a 
 trait of character. We here see the solemn 
 " unmeritable" Lepidus ; the cautious Caesar ; 
 the dashing, clever, genial Antony. His eye 
 dances ; his whole visage " doth cream and 
 mantle ;" the corners of his mouth are drawn 
 down, as he hoaxes Lepidus with the most 
 admirable fooling : 
 
 " Lep. What manner o' thing is your croco- 
 dile? 
 
 Ant. It is shaped, sir, like itself; and it is as 
 broad as it hath breadth : it is just so high as it 
 is, and moves with its own organs," &c. 
 
 " Lep. 'T is a strange serpent." 
 
 The revelry grows louder and louder, till 
 "the Egyptian bacchanals" close the scene. 
 
422 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK viii. 
 
 Who can doubt that Antony bears "the 
 holding" the loudest of all? 
 
 " As loud 
 As his strong sides can volley." 
 
 These are not the lords of the world of the 
 French tragedy. Grimm, who, upon the 
 whole, has a leaning to Shakspere, says " 11 
 est assez ridicule sans doute de faire parler 
 les valets comme les heros ; mais il est beau- 
 coup plus ridicule encore de faire parler aux 
 heros le langage du peuple."* To make 
 them drunk is worse even than the worst of 
 the ridiculous. It is impossible to define 
 such a sin. We think, with Dogberry, it is 
 " flat burglary as ever was committed." 
 Upton has a curious theory, which would 
 partly make Shakspere belong to the French 
 school. The hero of this play, according to 
 this theory, does not speak " the language of 
 the people." Upton says "Mark Antony, 
 as Plutarch informs us, aflected the Asiatic 
 manner of speaking, which much resembled 
 his own temper, being ambitious, unequal, 
 and very rhodomontade. ****** 
 This style our poet has very artfully and 
 learnedly interspersed in Antony's speeches." t 
 Unquestionably the language of Antony is 
 more elevated than that of Enobarbus, for 
 example. Antony was of the poetical tem- 
 perament a man of high genius an orator, 
 who could move the passions dramatically 
 a lover, that knew no limits to his devotion, 
 because he loved imaginatively. When 
 sorrow falls upon him, the poetical parts of 
 his character are more and more developed ; 
 we forget the sensualist. But, even before 
 the touch of grief has somewhat exalted his 
 nature, he takes the poetical view of poetical 
 things. What can be more exquisite than 
 his mention of Octavia's weeping at the 
 parting with her brother 1 
 " The April 's in her eyes : it is love's spring, 
 And these the showers to bring it on." 
 
 And, higher still : 
 
 " Her tongue will not obey her heart, nor can 
 Her heart inform her tongue : the swan's down 
 feather, 
 
 * ' Correspondance Littraire, TroisifemePartie,' tomei. 
 p 129. 
 
 t ' Critical Observations,' p. 100. 
 
 That stands upon the swell at the full of tide, 
 
 And neither way inclines." 
 This, we think, is not "the Asiatic manner 
 of speaking." 
 
 Cold is Antony's parting with Octavia : 
 
 " Choose your own company, and command 
 what cost 
 
 Your heart has mind to." 
 Rapid is his meeting with Cleopatra. She 
 " hath nodded him to her." The voluptuary 
 has put on his Eastern magnificence : 
 " I' the market-place, on a tribunal silver'd, 
 
 Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold 
 
 Were publicly enthroned." 
 
 He rejects all counsel : " I '11 fight at sea/ ? 
 And so 
 
 " The greater cantle of the world is lost 
 With very ignorance." 
 
 Now comes the generosity of his character 
 of the same growth as his magnificence and 
 recklessness. He exhorts his friends to take 
 his treasure and fly to Caesar. His self-abase- 
 ment is most profound : 
 
 " I have oifended reputation." 
 
 But he has not yet learnt wisdom. Cleopatra 
 is present, and then 
 
 " Fall not a tear, I say ; one of them rates 
 All that is won and lost : Give me a kiss ; 
 Even this repays me." 
 
 He then becomes a braggart ; he will chal- 
 lenge Csesar, " sword against sword." Pro- 
 found is the comment of Enobarbus : 
 
 " 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." 
 
 Caesar's ambassador comes to Cleopatra. He 
 tempts her ; and it almost looks as if she 
 yielded to the temptation. He kisses her 
 hand, at the instant Antony enters : 
 " Moon and stars ! 
 Whip him." 
 
 This is partly jealousy ; partly the assertion 
 of small power by one accustomed to un- 
 limited command. Truly Enobarbus says 
 
 " 'T is better playing with a lion's whelp, 
 Than with an old one dying." 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 THE ROMAN PLAYS. 
 
 423 
 
 Shakspere makes this man the interpreter of 
 his own wisdom : 
 
 " I see still, 
 
 A diminution in our captain's brain 
 Restores his heart: When valour preys on 
 
 reason, 
 
 It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek 
 Some way to leave him." 
 
 Enobarbus does leave him. But he first wit- 
 nesses 
 
 " One of those odd tricks which sorrow shoots 
 Out of the mind." 
 
 Antony puts forth the poetry of his nature 
 in his touching words to his followers, ending 
 in 
 
 " Let 's to supper; come, 
 And drown consideration." 
 
 When he hears of the treachery of Enobarbus, 
 he again tasks the generosity of his spirit to 
 the utmost : 
 
 " Go, Eros, send his treasure after ; do it ; 
 Detain no jot, I charge thee." 
 
 He has driven Caesar "to his camp." All 
 Cleopatra's tresspass is forgotten in one burst 
 of enthusiasm : 
 
 " My nightingale, 
 We have beat them to their beds. What, girl] 
 
 though gray 
 
 Do something mingle with our younger brown; 
 Yet ha' we a brain that nourishes our nerves, 
 And can get goal for goal of youth." 
 
 Another day comes, and it brings another 
 note : 
 
 "All is lost; 
 This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me." 
 
 Cleopatra says truly 
 
 " He is more mad 
 Than Telamon for his shield." 
 
 The scene which terminates with Antony 
 falling on his sword is in the highest style of 
 the great dramatist, and that is to give the 
 highest praise. Hazlitt has eloquently said 
 of its magnificent opening " This is, without 
 doubt, one of the finest pieces of poetry in 
 Shakspere. The splendour of the imagery, 
 the semblance of reality, the lofty range of 
 picturesque objects hanging over the world, 
 their evanescent nature, the total uncer- 
 
 tainty of what is left behind, are just like 
 the mouldering schemes of human great- 
 ness." But, be it observed, the poetry is all 
 in keeping with the character of the man. 
 Let us once more repeat it : 
 
 " Ant. Eros, thou yet behold'st me. 
 Eros. Ay, noble lord. 
 
 Ant. Sometime we see a cloud that 's 
 
 dragonish : 
 
 A vapour, sometime, like a bear, or lion, 
 A tower'd citadel, a pendant rock, 
 A forked mountain, or blue promontory 
 With trees upon 't, that nod unto the world, 
 And mock our eyes with air : thou hast seen 
 
 these signs ; 
 They are black vesper's pageants. 
 
 Eros. Ay, my lord. 
 
 Ant. That which is now a horse, even with 
 
 a thought 
 
 The rack dislimbs ; and makes it indistinct, 
 As water is in water. 
 Eros. It does, my lord. 
 
 Ant. My good knave, Eros, now thy cap- 
 tain is 
 
 Even such a body ; here I am Antony ; 
 Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave." 
 
 The images describe the Antony melting 
 
 into nothingness ; but the splendour of the 
 
 imagery is the reflection of Antony's mind. 
 
 which, thus enshrined in poetry, can never 
 
 become " indistinct," will always " hold this 
 
 i visible shape." Dryden has also tried to 
 
 | produce a poetical Antony, precisely under 
 
 the same circumstances. We transcribe a 
 
 passage : 
 
 " Ant. My eyes 
 
 Are open to her falsehood : my whole life 
 Has been a golden dream of Love and Friend- 
 ship. 
 
 But, now I wake, I 'm like a merchant, roused 
 From soft repose, to see his vessel sinking, 
 And all his wealth cast o'er. Ingrateful 
 
 woman ! 
 
 Who follow'd me, but as the swallow summer, j 
 Hatching her young ones in my kindly beams, 
 Singing her flatteries to my morning wake; 
 But, now my winter comes, she spreads her 
 
 wings, 
 And seeks the spring of Caesar." 
 
 All for Love, Act V. 
 
 We hasten to the end. The magnificence 
 
424 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ix. 
 
 of Antony's character breathes out of his 
 parting spirit : 
 
 " The miserable change now at my end, 
 Lament nor sorrow at : but please your 
 
 thoughts, 
 In feeding them with those my former fortunes 
 
 Wherein I liv'd, the greatest prince o' the 
 
 world, 
 
 The noblest : and do now not basely die, 
 Nor cowardly put off my helmet to 
 My countryman, A ROMAN, BY A ROMAN 
 VALIANTLY VANQUISHED." 
 
 BOOK IX. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE DRAMATISTS OF SHAKSPERE'S THIRD PERIOD. 
 
 IN the Address to the Reader prefixed to 
 the first edition, published in 1612, of ' The 
 White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona,' of 
 JOHN WEBSTER, is the following passage : 
 " Detraction is the sworn friend to ignorance : 
 for mine own part, I have ever truly cherished 
 my good opinions of other men's worthy 
 labours, especially of that full and heightened 
 style of Master Chapman ; the laboured and 
 understanding works of Master Jonson ; the 
 no less worthy composures of the both 
 worthily excellent Master Beaumont and 
 Master Fletcher ; and lastly (without wrong 
 last to be named), the right happy and 
 copious industry of Master Shakespeare, 
 Master Dekker, and Master Hey wood, wishing 
 what I write may be read by their light ; 
 protesting that, in the strength of mine own 
 judgment, I know them so worthy, that 
 though I rest silent in my own work, yet to 
 most of theirs I dare (without flattery) fix 
 that of Martial : 
 
 ' Non norunt hsec monumenta mori.' " 
 
 Webster was formed upon Shakspere. He 
 had no pretensions to the inexhaustible wit, 
 the all-penetrating humour of his master ; but 
 he had the power of approaching the terrible 
 energy of his passion, and the profoundness 
 of his pathos, in characters which he took 
 out of the great muster-roll of humanity, 
 
 and placed in fearful situations, and some- 
 times with revolting imaginings almost 
 beyond humanity. Those who talk of the 
 carelessness of Shakspere may be surprised 
 to find that his praise is that of a " right 
 happy and copious industry." It is clear 
 what dramatic writers were the objects of 
 Webster's love. He did not aspire to the 
 " full and heightened style of Master Chap- 
 man," nor would his genius be shackled by 
 the examples of " the laboured and under- 
 standing works of Master Jonson." He 
 belonged to the school of the romantic 
 dramatists. Master Beaumont and Master 
 Fletcher are " worthily excellent ; " but his 
 aspiration was to imitate " the right happy 
 and copious industry of Master Shakespeare, 
 Master Dekker, and Master Hey wood, wishing 
 what I write may be read by their light." 
 There were critics at that time who regarded 
 the romantic drama as a diversion for the 
 multitude only ; and Webster thinks it 
 necessary to apologize for this deliberate 
 choice " Willingly, and not ignorantly, in 
 this kind have I faulted." He says " If it 
 be objected this is no true dramatic poem, I 
 shall easily confess it, non potes in nugas 
 dicere plura meas, ipse ego quam dixi ; 
 willingly, and not ignorantly, in this kind 
 have I faulted : for should a man present, 
 to such an auditory, the most sententious 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 THE DRAMATISTS OF SHAKSPERE S THIRD PERIOD. 
 
 425 
 
 tragedy that was ever written, observing all 
 the critical laws, as height of style, and 
 gravity of person, enrich it with the senten- 
 tious Chorus, and, as it were, 'liven death, 
 in the passionate and weighty Nuntias ; yet, 
 after all this divine rapture, dura messorum 
 ilia, the breath that comes from the un- 
 capable multitude is able to poison it ; and, 
 ere it be acted, let the author resolve to fix 
 to every scene this of Horace 
 
 ' Hsec porcis hodie comedenda relinques.' " 
 
 As early as 1602, Webster was a writer for 
 Eenslow's theatre, in conjunction with 
 Dekker, Drayton, Middleton, Chettle, Hey- 
 wood, and Wentworth Smith. At a later 
 period he was more directly associated with 
 Dekker alone. His great tragedies of ' The 
 White Devil' and 'The Duchess of Malfi' 
 were produced at the period when Shakspere 
 had almost ceased to write ; and it is 
 probably to this circumstance we owe these 
 original and unaided efforts of Webster's 
 genius. There was a void to be filled up, 
 and it was filled up worthily. 
 
 Webster has placed his coadjutor DEKKER 
 next to Shakspere. He looked upon the 
 world with an observant eye ; and of him it 
 has been said, that his " pamphlets and plays 
 alone would furnish a more complete view 
 of the habits and customs of his contempo- 
 raries in vulgar and middle life than could 
 easily be collected from all the grave annals 
 of the times."* He was confident in his 
 powers ; and claimed to be a satirist by as 
 indefeasible a title as that of his greater rival 
 Jonson : "I am snake-proof; and though, 
 with Hannibal, you bring whole hogsheads 
 of vinegar-railings, it is impossible for you 
 to quench or come over my Alpine resolution. 
 I will sail boldly and desperately alongst 
 the shores of the isle of Gulls ; and in 
 defiance of those terrible block-houses, their 
 loggerheads, make a true discovery of their 
 wild yet habitable country." t Thomas 
 Dekker is certainly one of those who gather 
 humours from all men ; but his wit is not of 
 the highest or the most delicate character. He 
 knows the town, and he makes the most of 
 
 * ' Quarterly Review.' 
 t ' Gull's Hornbook.' 
 
 his knowledge. Though he is a " high flyer 
 in wit," as Edward Phillips calls him, yet is 
 he a poet. As he advanced in years, he was 
 wielding greater powers, and dealing with 
 nobler things, than belonged to the satirist. 
 In his higher walk he is of the school of 
 nature and simplicity. Hazlitt speaks of 
 one of his plays, perhaps the best, with true 
 artistical feeling : " The rest of the cha- 
 racter is answerable to the beginning. The 
 execution is, throughout, as exact as the 
 conception is new and masterly. There is 
 the least colour possible used ; the pencil 
 drags ; the canvas is almost seen through : 
 but then, what precision of outline, what 
 truth and purity of tone, what firmness of 
 
 hand, what marking of character ! 
 
 It is as if there were some fine art to chisel 
 thought, and to embody the inmost move- 
 ments of the mind in every-day actions and 
 familiar speech."* Dekker acquired some 
 of his satirical propensities, but the tender- 
 ness of his heart was also called forth, in the 
 crooked ways and dark places of misfortune. 
 Almost the first record of his life is a 
 memorandum by Henslow of the loan of 
 forty shillings, " to discharge Mr. Dicker out 
 of the Counter in the Poultry." Oldys, in 
 his manuscript notes upon Langbaine, aifinns 
 that he was in the King's Bench Prison from 
 1613 to 1616. His own calamities furnish a 
 commentary to the tenderness of many such 
 passages as the following, in which a 
 father is told of the miseries of his erring 
 daughter : 
 
 "I'm glad you are wax, not marble; you are 
 
 made 
 Of man's best temper; there are now good 
 
 That all these heaps of ice about your heart, 
 
 By which a father's love was frozen up, 
 
 Are thaw'd in these sweet show'rs fetch'd 
 
 from your eyes : 
 
 We are ne'er like angels till our passion dies. 
 She is not dead, but lives under worse fate ; 
 I think she 's poor." 
 
 The praise of industry belongs to Dekker, 
 though its fruits were poverty. He lived to 
 a considerable age, and he laboured to the 
 last at play or pamphlet. But the amount 
 
 * ' Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth.' 
 
426 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ix. 
 
 of his productions becomes almost insig- 
 nificant when compared with the more than 
 "copious industry" of THOMAS HEYWOOD. 
 He was a scholar, having been educated at 
 Cambridge at Peterhouse, it is said ; but 
 he became an actor as early as 1598, being 
 then a sharer in Henslow's company. In 
 1633 he claimed for himself the authorship, 
 entirely or in part, of two hundred and 
 twenty dramas. Many of his two hundred 
 and twenty dramas were probably such short 
 pieces as ' The Yorkshire Tragedy.' Hey- 
 wood had the power of stirring the affections, 
 of moving pity and terror by true representa- 
 tions of the course of crime and misery in 
 real life. Charles Lamb has summed up the 
 character of his writings in three lines : 
 " Heywood is a sort of prose Shakspeare. 
 His scenes are to the full as natural and 
 affecting. But we miss the poet, that which 
 in Shakspeare always appears out and above 
 the surface of the nature." Winstanley, not 
 a very trustworthy authority, speaking of 
 Heywood's wonderful fertility, says " He 
 not only acted himself almost every day, but 
 also wrote each day a sheet ; and that he 
 might lose no time, many of his plays were 
 composed in the tavern, on the back side of 
 tavern bills ; which may be an occasion that 
 so many of them are lost." 
 
 FRANCIS BEAUMONT was a boy at the 
 period to which our slight notice of his great 
 coadjutor Fletcher belongs*. The poetical 
 union of Beaumont and Fletcher has given 
 birth to stories, such as Aubrey delights in 
 telling, that their friendship extended even 
 to a community of lodging and clothes, with 
 others matters in common that are held to 
 belong to the perfection of the social system. 
 We neither believe these things entirely, 
 nor do we quite receive the assertion of 
 Dr. Earle, that Beaumont's "main business 
 was to correct the overflowings of Mr. 
 Fletcher's wit." Edward Phillips repeats 
 this assertion. They first came before the 
 world in the association of a title-page in 
 1607. The junior always preceded the elder 
 poet in such announcements of their works ; 
 and this was probably determined by the 
 alphabetical arrangement. We have many 
 
 * Book vi. chap. i. page 264. 
 
 indications that Beaumont was regarded by 
 his contemporaries as a man of great and 
 original power. It was not with the ex- 
 aggeration of a brother's love that Sir John 
 Beaumont wrote his affecting epitaph upon 
 the death of Francis : 
 
 "Thou shouldst have follow'd me, but death 
 
 to blame 
 
 Miscounted years, and measur'd age by fame." 
 He was buried by the side of Chaucer and | 
 Spenser, in the hallowed earth where it was 
 wished that Shakspere should have been 
 laid : 
 
 " Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh 
 To learned Chaucer ; and, rare Beaumont, lie 
 A little nearer Spenser, to make room 
 For Shakespear in your threefold, fourfold 
 
 tomb. 
 
 To lodge all four in one bed make a shift, 
 For until doomsday hardly will a fifth, 
 Betwixt this day and that, by fates be slain, 
 For whom your curtains need be drawn 
 again," * 
 
 When Shakspere's company performed at 
 Wilton, in December, 1603, it is more than 
 probable that there was a young man present 
 at those performances, whose course of life 
 might have been determined by the impulses 
 of those festive hours. PHILIP MASSINGER, 
 who in 1603 was nineteen years of age, was 
 the son of a gentleman filling a service of 
 trust in the household of the Earls of 
 Pembroke. At this period Philip was a 
 commoner of St. Alban Hall, Oxford. " Being 
 sufficiently famed for several specimens of 
 wit, he betook himself to making plays." 
 This is Anthony Wood's account of the 
 dedication of Massinger to a pursuit which 
 brought him little but hopeless poverty. 
 Amongst Henslow's papers was found an 
 undated letter, addressed to him by Nathaniel 
 Field, with postscripts signed by Robert 
 Daborne and Philip Massinger. Malone 
 conjectures that the letter was written 
 between 1612 and 1615, Henslow having 
 died in January, 1616. The letter, which is 
 a melancholy illustration of the oft-told tale 
 of the misfortunes of genius, was first given 
 in the additions to Malone's ' Historical 
 Account of the English Stage : ' 
 
 * Elegy on Shakespear, by W. Basse. 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 THE DRAMATISTS OP SHAKSPERE'S THIRD PERIOD. 
 
 427 
 
 " To our most loving friend, Mr. Philip Hinchlow, 
 
 Esquire, These. 
 " Mr. Hinchlow, 
 
 " You understand our unfortunate extremity, 
 and I do not think you so void of Christianity 
 but that you would throw so much money into 
 the Thames as we request now of you, rather 
 than endanger so many innocent lives. You 
 know there is xZ. more at least to be received of 
 you for the play. We desire you to lend us \l. 
 of that; which shall be allowed to you; without 
 which we cannot be bailed, nor I play any more 
 till this be dispatched. It will lose you xxZ. ere 
 the end of the next week, besides the hinderance 
 of the next new play. Pray, Sir, consider our 
 cases with humanity, and now give us cause to 
 acknowledge you our true friend in time of 
 need. We have entreated Mr. Davison to deliver 
 this note, as well to witness your love as our 
 promises, and always acknowledgment to be 
 ever 
 
 " Your most thankful and loving friends, 
 " NAT. FIELD. 
 
 " The money shall be abated out of the money 
 remains for the play of Mr. Fletcher and ours. 
 " ROBERT DABORNE. 
 
 " I have ever found you a true loving friend 
 to me, and in so small a suit, it being honest, I 
 hope you will not fail us. 
 
 " PHILIP MASSINGER." 
 
 By an indorsement on the letter it is 
 shown that Henslow made the advance which 
 these unfortunate men required. But how 
 was it that Massinger, who was brought up 
 under the patronage of a family distinguished 
 for their encouragement of genius, was 
 doomed to struggle with abject penury?* 
 Gifford conjectures that he became a Roman 
 Catholic early in life, and thus gave offence 
 to the noble family with whom his father 
 had been so intimately connected. In 1623 
 Massinger published his 'Bondman,' dedi- 
 cating it to the second of the Herberts, 
 Philip, Earl of Montgomery. The dedication 
 shows that he had been an alien from the 
 house in the service of which his father lived 
 
 * In Mr. Collier's ' Memoirs of Actors' the fact of Mas- 
 singer's burial at St. Saviour's church, in 1639, being re- 
 corded as that of ' Philip Masenger, stranger,' is not 
 regarded as any indication of his poverty and loneliness : 
 " Every person, there interred, who did not belong to the 
 parish, was called a stranger." The payment of 21. for 
 expenses would show " that Massinger was interred with 
 peculiar cost and ceremony." 
 
 and died : " However I could never arrive 
 at the happiness to be made known to your 
 Lordship, yet a desire, born with me, to 
 make a tender of all duties and service to 
 the noble family of tbe Herberts descended 
 to me as an inheritance from my dead father, 
 Arthur Massinger. Many years he happily 
 spent in the service of your honourable 
 house, and died a servant to it." There is 
 something unintelligible in all this ; though 
 we may well believe with Gifford that, "what- 
 ever might be the unfortunate circumstance 
 which deprived the author of the patronage 
 and protection of the elder branch of the 
 Herberts, he did not imagine it to be of a 
 disgraceful nature ; or he would not, in the 
 face of the public, have appealed to his 
 connexions with the family." * It is difficult 
 to trace the course of Massinger's poetical 
 life. ' The Virgin Martyr,' in which he was 
 assisted by Dekker, was the first printed of 
 his plays ; and that did not appear till 1622. 
 But there can be little doubt that it belongs 
 to an earlier period ; for in 1620 a fee was 
 paid to the Master of the Revels on the 
 occasion of " New reforming The Virgin 
 Martyr." The 'Bondman' was printed within 
 a year after it was produced upon the stage ; 
 and from that period till the time of his 
 death several of his plays were published, 
 but at very irregular intervals. It would 
 appear that during the early portion of his 
 career Massinger was chiefly associated with 
 other writers. To the later period belong 
 his great works, such as ' The Duke of Milan,' 
 The City Madam,' and the ' New Way to 
 pay Old Debts.' Taken altogether, Massinger 
 was perhaps the worthiest successor of Shak- 
 spere ; and this indeed is praise enough. 
 
 NAT. FIELD, the writer of the letter to 
 Henslow, was a player, as we learn by that 
 letter. The same document shows that he 
 was a player in the service of Henslow. But 
 he is mentioned in the first folio edition of 
 Shakspere's plays, as one of the principal 
 actors in them. The best evidence of the 
 genius of Field is his association with 
 Massinger in the noble play of * The Fatal 
 Dowry.' He probably was not connected 
 with Shakspere's company during Shakspere's 
 * Introduction to the Works of Massinger. 
 
428 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEBE. 
 
 [BOOK ix. 
 
 life ; but he is named in a patent to the 
 actors at the Blackfriars and Globe in 1620. 
 Robert Daborne, who was associated with 
 Field and Massinger in their " extremity," 
 was either at this period, or subsequently, 
 in holy orders. 
 
 THOMAS MIDDLETON was a contemporary 
 of Shakspere. We find him early associated 
 with other writers, and in 1602 was published 
 his comedy of ' Blurt Master-Constable.' 
 Edward Phillips describes him as " a copious 
 writer for the English stage, contemporary 
 with Jon son and Fletcher, though not of 
 equal repute, and yet on the other side not 
 altogether contemptible." He continued to 
 write on till the suppression of the theatres, 
 
 and the opinion of Phillips was the impression 
 as to his powers at the period of the Restora- 
 tion. Ford, who has truly been called " of 
 the first order of poets" Rowley, Wilson, 
 Hathway, Porter, Houghton, Day, Tourneur, 
 Taylor, arose as the day-star of Shakspere 
 was setting. Each might have been remark- 
 able in an age of mediocrity, some are still 
 illustrious. The great dramatic literature 
 of England was the creation of half a century 
 only ; and in that short space was heaped up 
 such a prodigality of riches that we regard 
 this wondrous accumulation with something 
 too much of indifference to the lesser gems, 
 dazzled by the lustre of the 
 
 " One entire and perfect chrysolite." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 
 
 THE title-page of the original edition of 'The 
 Two Noble Kinsmen ' sets forth that it was 
 " written by the memorable worthies of their 
 time, Mr. John Fletcher and Mr. William 
 Shakspeare." This was printed in 1634, 
 nine years after the death of Fletcher, and 
 eighteen years after the death of Shakspere. 
 The play was not printed in the first col- 
 lected edition of Beaumont and Fletcher's 
 works, in 1647, for the reason assigned in the 
 ' Stationers' Address.' " Some plays, you 
 know, written by these authors, were hereto- 
 fore printed : I thought not convenient to 
 mix them with this volume, which of itself is 
 entirely new." The title-page of the quarto 
 of 1634 is, therefore, the only direct external 
 evidence we possess as to Shakspere's par- 
 ticipation in this play. Nor have we to 
 offer any contemporary notice of ' The Two 
 Noble Kinsmen ' which refers to this ques- 
 tion of the co-authorship. The very pro- 
 logue and epilogue of the play itself are 
 silent upon this point. They are, except in 
 a passage or two, unimportant in themselves ; 
 have no poetical merit ; and present some of 
 those loose allusions which, as we approach 
 the days when principles of morality came 
 
 into violent conflict, rendered the stage so 
 justly obnoxious to the Puritans. The pro- 
 logue, speaking of the play, says 
 
 " It has a noble breeder, and a pure, 
 A learned, and a poet never went 
 More famous yet 'twixt Po and silver Trent : 
 Chaucer (of all admired) the story gives ; 
 There constant to eternity it lives ! " 
 
 And it then adds : 
 
 " If we let fall the nobleness of this, 
 And the first sound this child hear be a hiss, 
 How will it shake the bones of that good 
 
 man, 
 And make him cry from under-ground, ' Oh, 
 
 fan 
 
 From me the witless chaff of such a writer 
 That blasts my bays, and my famed works 
 
 makes lighter 
 Than Robin Hoodf " 
 
 The expression " such a writer " is almost 
 evidence against the double authorship. It 
 implies, too, that, if Fletcher were the author, 
 the play was presented before his death ; for 
 if the players had produced the drama after 
 his death, they would have probably spoken 
 of him (he being its sole author) in the terms 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 
 
 429 
 
 of eulogy with which they accompanied the 
 performance of ' The Loyal Subject :' 
 
 " We need not, noble gentlemen, to invite 
 Attention, pre-instruct you who did write 
 This worthy story, being confident 
 The mirth join'd with grave matter and 
 
 intent 
 
 To yield the hearers profit with delight, 
 Will speak the maker : And to do him right 
 Would ask a genius like to his ; the age 
 Mourning his loss, and our now-widow'd stage 
 In vain lamenting." 
 
 The inferences, therefore, to be deduced 
 from the prologue to * The Two Noble Kins- 
 men ' (supposing Fletcher to be concerned in 
 this drama), that it was acted during his 
 life-time, and that he either claimed the 
 sole authorship, or suppressed all mention of 
 the joint-authorship, are to be weighed 
 against the assertion of the title-page, that it 
 was " written by the two memorable worthies 
 of their time." We are thrown upon the 
 examination of the internal evidence, then, 
 without any material bias from the publica- 
 tion of the play, or its stage representation. 
 
 Before the first builders-up of that won- 
 drous edifice, the English drama, lay the 
 whole world of classical and romantic fable, 
 " where to choose." One of the earliest, and 
 consequently' least skilful, of those work- 
 men, Richard Edwards, went to the ancient 
 stores for his ' Damon and Pythias,' and to 
 Chaucer for his ' Palamon and Arcyte.' We 
 learn from Wood's MSS. that when Elizabeth 
 visited Oxford, in 1566, " at night the Queen 
 heard the first part of an English play, 
 named ' Palaemon, or Palamon Arcyte,' made 
 by Mr. Richard Edwards, a gentleman of her 
 chapel, acted with very great applause in 
 Christ Church Hall." An accident hap- 
 pened at the beginning of the play by the 
 falling of a stage, through which three per- 
 sons were killed a scholar of St. Mary's 
 Hall, and two who were probably more 
 missed, a college brewer and a cook. The 
 mirth, however, went on, and " afterwards 
 the actors performed their parts so well, that 
 the Queen laughed heartily thereat, and 
 gave the author of the play great thanks for 
 
 his pains."* It is clear that the fable of 
 Chaucer must have been treated in a dif- 
 ferent manner by Edwards than we find it 
 treated in ' The Two Noble Kinsmen.' We 
 have another record of a play on a similar 
 subject. In Henslow's 'Diary' we have an 
 entry, under the date of September 1594, of 
 ' Palamon and Arsett ' being acted four 
 times. It is impossible to imagine that ' The 
 Two Noble Kinsmen' is the same play. 
 Here, then, was a subject adapted to a writer 
 who worked in the spirit in which Shakspere 
 almost uniformly worked. It was familiar 
 to the people in their popular poetry ; it was 
 familiar to the stage. To arrive at a right 
 judgment regarding the authorship of ' The 
 Two Noble Kinsmen,' we must examine the 
 play line by line in its relation to 'The 
 Knight's Tale ' of Chaucer. 
 
 * The Knight's Tale ' opens with the re- 
 turn to Athens of the "duke that highte 
 Theseus" after he had 
 
 " conquer'd all the regne of Feminie, 
 That whilom was ycleped Scythia, 
 And wedded the freshe queen Hypolita, 
 And brought her home with him to his coun- 
 
 trey 
 
 With muchel glory and great solempnitie, 
 And eke her younge sister Emelie." 
 
 'The Two Noble Kinsmen' opens with 
 Theseus at Athens, in the company of Hip- 
 polyta and her sister, proceeding to the cele- 
 bration of his marriage with the "dreaded 
 Amazonian." Their bridal procession is in- 
 terrupted by the 
 
 " three queens whose sovereigns fell before 
 The wrath of cruel Creon." 
 
 In Chaucer the suppliants are a more 
 numerous company. As Theseus was ap- 
 proaching Athens, 
 
 " He was 'ware, as he cast his eye aside, 
 Where that there kneeled in the highe way 
 A company of ladies tway and tway, 
 Each after other, clad in clothes black ; 
 But such a cry and such a woe they make, 
 That in this world n'is creature living 
 That ever heard such another waimenting." 
 
 Briefly they tell their tale of woe, and as 
 
 * Nichols's 'Progresses of Queen Elizabeth,' vol. i. pp. 
 210,211. 
 
430 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ix. 
 
 rapidly does the chivalrous duke resolve to 
 avenge their wrongs : 
 
 " And right anon, withouten more abode, 
 His banner he display'd, and forth he rode 
 To Thebes ward, and all his host beside." 
 
 The Queen and her sister remained at 
 Athens. Out of this rapid narration, which 
 occupies little more than a hundred lines in 
 Chaucer, has the first scene of ' The Two 
 Noble Kinsmen' been constructed. As- 
 suredly, the reader who opens that scene for 
 the first time will feel that he has lighted 
 upon a work of no ordinary power. The 
 mere interruption of the bridal procession by 
 the widowed queens the' contrast of their 
 black garments and their stained veils with 
 the white robes and wheaten chaplets and 
 hymeneal songs with which the play opens 
 is a noble dramatic conception ; but the 
 poet, whoever he be, possesses that command 
 of appropriate language which realizes all 
 that the imagination can paint of a dramatic 
 situation and movement ; there is nothing 
 shadowy or indistinct, no vague explanations, 
 no trivial epithets. When the First Queen 
 says 
 
 " Oh, pity, duke ! 
 
 Thou purger of the earth, draw thy fear'd 
 sword 
 
 That does good turns to the world ; give us 
 the bones 
 
 Of our dead kings, that we may chapel them ! " 
 
 we know that the thoughts which belong to 
 her condition are embodied in words of no 
 common significancy. When the Second 
 Queen, addressing Hippolyta, " the sol- 
 dieress," says, 
 " Speak 't in a woman's key, like such a woman 
 
 As any of us three ; weep ere you fail ; 
 
 Lend us a knee ; 
 
 But touch the ground for us no longer time 
 
 Than a dove's motion, when the head 's plucttd 
 off!" 
 
 we feel that the poet not only wields his 
 harmonious language with the decision of a 
 practised artist, but exhibits the nicer 
 touches which attest his knowledge of natural 
 feelings, and employs images which, how- 
 ever strange and unfamiliar, are so true that 
 we wonder they never occurred to us before, 
 
 but at the same time so original that they 
 appear to defy copying or imitation. The 
 whole scene is full of the same remarkable 
 word-painting. There is another quality 
 which it exhibits, which is also peculiar to 
 the highest order of minds the ability to 
 set us thinking to excite that just and ap- 
 propriate reflection which might arise of 
 itself out of the exhibition of deep passions 
 and painful struggles and resolute self- 
 denials, but which the true poet breathes 
 into us without an effort, so as to give the 
 key to our thoughts, but utterly avoiding 
 those sententious moralizings which are 
 sometimes deemed to be the province of 
 tragedy. When the Queens commend the 
 surrender which Theseus makes of his affec- 
 tions to a sense of duty, the poet gives us 
 the philosophy of such heroism in a dozen 
 words spoken by Theseus : 
 
 "As we are men, 
 
 Thus should we do ; being sensually subdued, 
 We lose our humane title" 
 
 The first appearance, in Chaucer, of Pala- 
 mon and Arcite is when they lie wounded 
 on the battle-field of Thebes. In The Two 
 Noble Kinsmen' the necessary conduct of 
 the story, as a drama, requires that the prin- 
 cipal personages should be exhibited to us 
 before they become absorbed in the main 
 action. It is on such occasions as these that 
 a dramatist of the highest order makes his 
 characters reveal themselves, naturally and 
 without an effort ; and yet so distinctly that 
 their individual identity is impressed upon 
 the mind, so as to combine with the subse- 
 quent movement of the plot. The second 
 scene of ' The Two Noble Kinsmen ' appears 
 to us somewhat deficient in this power. It 
 is written with great energy ; but the two 
 friends are energetic alike : we do not pre- 
 cisely see which is the more excitable, the 
 more daring, the more resolved, the more 
 generous. We could change the names of 
 the speakers without any material injury to 
 the propriety of what they speak. Take, as 
 an opposite example, Hermia and Helena, in 
 ' A Midsummer Night's Dream,' where the 
 differences of character scarcely required to 
 be so nicely defined. And yet in description 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 
 
 431 
 
 the author of ' The Two Noble Kinsmen ' 
 makes Palamon and Arcite essentially dif- 
 ferent : 
 
 " Arcite is gently visaged : yet his eye 
 Is like an engine bent, or a sharp weapon 
 In a soft sheath ; mercy and manly courage 
 Are bedfellows in his visage. Palamon 
 Has a most menacing aspect ; his brow 
 Is graved, and seems to bury what it frowns 
 
 on; 
 
 Yet sometimes 't is not so, but alters to 
 The quality of his thoughts ; long time his 
 
 eye 
 
 Will dwell upon his object ; melancholy 
 Becomes him nobly ; so does Arcite's mirth ; 
 But Palamon's sadness is a kind of mirth, 
 So mingled, as if mirth did make him sad, 
 And sadness, merry ; those darker humours, 
 
 that 
 
 Stick misbecomingly on others, on him 
 Live in fair dwelling." 
 
 This is noble writing ; and it is quite suffi- 
 cient to enable the stage representation of 
 the two characters to be well defined. Omit 
 it, and omit the recollections of it in the 
 reading, and we doubt greatly whether the 
 characters themselves realize this descrip- 
 tion : they are not self-evolved and mani- 
 fested. The third scene, also, is a dramatic 
 addition to the tale of Chaucer. It keeps 
 the interest concentrated upon Hippolyta, 
 and, especially, Emilia ; it is not essential to 
 the action, but it is a graceful addition to it. 
 It has the merit, too, of developing the cha- 
 racter of Emilia, and so to reconcile us to 
 the apparent coldness with which she is 
 subsequently content to receive the triumph- 
 ant rival, whichever he be, as her husband. 
 The Queen and her sister talk of the friend- 
 ship of Theseus and Perithous. Emilia tells 
 the story of her own friendship, to prove 
 "That the true love 'tween maid and maid 
 
 may be 
 More than in sex dividual." 
 
 This, in some sort, modifies the subsequent 
 position of Emilia, " bride-habited, but 
 maiden-hearted." Her description of her 
 early friendship has been compared to the 
 celebrated passage in ' A Midsummer Night's 
 Dream :' 
 " Is all the counsel that we two have shared,"&c. 
 
 Seward, the editor of Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 makes this comparison, and prefers the de- 
 scription in 'The Two Noble Kinsmen.' 
 Weber assents to this preference. We have 
 no hesitation in believing the passage in the 
 play before us to be an imitation of the pas- 
 sage in ' A Midsummer Night's Dream,' and 
 therefore inferior in quality ; we do not 
 think that Shakspere would thus have re- 
 peated himself. Our readers shall judge : 
 
 " End. I was acquainted 
 
 Once with a time, when I enjoy 'd a play- 
 fellow; 
 You were at wars when she the grave en- 
 
 rich'd, 
 Who made too proud the bed, took leave o' 
 
 th' moon, 
 (Which then look'd pale at parting), when our 
 
 count 
 
 Was each eleven. 
 Hip. 'Twas Flavina. 
 
 Emi. Yes. 
 
 You talk of Perithous' and Theseus' love ; 
 Theirs has more ground, is more maturely 
 
 More buckled with strong judgment, and 
 
 their needs 
 
 The one of th' other may be said to water 
 Their intertangled roots of love ; but I 
 And she (I sigh and spoke of) were things 
 
 innocent, 
 
 Loved for we did, and like the elements 
 That know not what, nor why, yet do effect 
 Eare issues by their operance ; our souls 
 Did so to one another : what she liked 
 Was then of me approved; what not, con- 
 
 demn'd, 
 No more arraignment; the flower that I 
 
 would pluck 
 And put between my breasts (oh, then but 
 
 beginning 
 
 To swell about the blossom), she would long 
 Till she had such another, and commit it 
 To the like innocent cradle, where phoenix- 
 like 
 
 They died in perfume : on my head no toy 
 But was her pattern ; her affections (pretty, 
 Though happily her careless wear) I follow'd 
 For my most serious decking ; had mine ear 
 Stol'n some new air, or at adventure humm'd 
 
 one 
 From musical coinage, why, it was a note 
 
432 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ix. 
 
 Whereon her spirits would sojourn (rather 
 
 dwell on), 
 
 And sing it in her slumbers : this rehearsal, 
 Which, every innocent wots well, comes in 
 Like old importment's bastard, has this end, 
 That the true love 'tween maid and maid 
 
 may be 
 More than in sex dividual. 
 
 Hip. You're out of breath; 
 
 And this high speeded pace is but to say, 
 That you shall never, like the maid Flavina, 
 Love any that's call'd man. 
 
 Emi. I am sure I shall not." 
 
 In Chaucer, Theseus makes swift work 
 with Creon and with Thebes : 
 
 " With Creon, which that was of Thebes king, 
 He fought, and slew him manly as a knight 
 In plain bataille, and put his folk to flight ; 
 And by assault he won the city after, 
 And rent adown both wall, and spar, and 
 
 rafter ; 
 
 And to the ladies he restored again 
 The bodies of their husbands that were slain, 
 To do th' obsequies, as was then the guise." 
 
 It is in the battle-field that Palamon and 
 Arcite are discovered wounded : 
 
 " Not fully quick ne fully dead they were, 
 But by their cote-armure and by their gear 
 The heralds knew them well in special." 
 
 The incident is literally followed in the 
 play, where the herald says, in answer to 
 the question of Theseus, "They are not 
 dead : " 
 
 " Nor in a state of life : had they been taken 
 When their last hurts were given, 't was pos- 
 sible 
 They might have been recover'd; yet they 
 
 breathe, 
 And have the name of men." 
 
 In Chaucer, Theseus is to the heroic friends 
 a merciless conqueror : 
 
 " He full soon them sent 
 To Athenes, for to dwellen in prison 
 Perpetual, he n'olde" no ranson." 
 
 But in 'The Two Noble Kinsmen' he would 
 appear to exhibit himself as a generous foe, 
 who, having accomplished the purposes of 
 his expedition, has no enmity with the 
 honest defenders of their country : 
 
 " The very lees of such, millions of rates 
 Exceed the wine of others ; all our surgeons 
 Convent in their behoof ; our richest balms, 
 Rather than niggard, waste ! their lives con- 
 cern us 
 Much more than Thebes is worth." 
 
 The fifth scene of The Two Noble Kins- 
 men' is a scenic expansion of a short pas- 
 sage in Chaucer : 
 
 " But it were all too long for to devise 
 The greate" clamour and the waimenting, 
 Which that the ladies made at the brenning 
 Of the bodies." 
 
 The epigrammatic ending of the scene is 
 perhaps familiar to many : 
 
 " The world 's a city full of straying streets ; 
 And death's the market-place, where each 
 one meets." 
 
 Pursuing the plan with which we set out, 
 of following the course of Chaucer's story, 
 we pass over all those scenes and parts of 
 scenes which may be called the underplot. 
 Such in the second act is the beginning of 
 Scene I. In Chaucer we learn that 
 
 " In a tow'r, in anguish and in woe, 
 Dwellen this Palamon and eke Arcite 
 For evermore, there may no gold them quite." 
 
 The old romantic poet reserves his dialogue 
 for the real business of the story, when the 
 two friends, each seeing Emilia from the 
 prison-window, become upon the instant 
 defying rivals for her love. This incident is 
 not managed with more preparation by the 
 dramatist ; but the prelude to it exhibits 
 the two young men consoling each other 
 under their adverse fortune, and making 
 resolutions of eternal friendship. It is in 
 an attentive perusal of this dialogue that 
 we begin to discover that portions even of 
 the great incidents of the drama have been 
 written by different persons ; or that, if 
 written by one and the same person, they 
 have been composed upon different prin- 
 ciples of art. In 1833 appeared a little work 
 of great ability, entitled, ' A Letter on Shak- 
 speare's Authorship of The Two Noble Kins- 
 men.' The writer of that letter is understood 
 to be the accomplished professor of logic and 
 rhetoric in the University of St. Andrews, 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 
 
 433 
 
 William Spalding, Esq.; and, although we 
 have reason to believe that his opinions on 
 this particular question have undergone 
 some change or modification, it would be 
 unjust, not only to the author, but to our 
 readers, not to notice with more than com- 
 mon respect the opinions of a writer who, 
 although then a very young man, displayed 
 a power of analysis and discrimination which 
 marked him as belonging to a high school of 
 criticism. Mr. Spalding assumes that a con- 
 siderable portion of this drama was unques- 
 tionably the production of Shakspere ; that 
 the under-plot was entirely by a different 
 hand ; but that the same hand, which was 
 that of Fletcher, was also engaged in pro- 
 ducing some of the higher scenes of the 
 main action. The whole of the first act, 
 according to the traditional opinion, he holds 
 to have been written by Shakspere. The 
 dialogue before us in the first scene of the 
 second act, and the subsequent contest for 
 the love of Emilia, he assigns to Fletcher. 
 Our readers will not regret the length of 
 our extract : 
 
 " Pal. How do you, noble cousin 1 
 
 Arc. How do you, sir 1 ? 
 
 Pal. Why, strong enough to laugh at 
 
 misery, 
 And bear the chance of war yet. We are 
 
 prisoners 
 I fear for ever, cousin. 
 
 Arc. I believe it; 
 
 And to that destiny have patiently 
 Laid up my hour to come. 
 
 Pal. Oh, cousin Arcite, 
 
 Where is Thebes now? where is our noble 
 
 country 1 
 Where are our friends, and kindreds ? Never 
 
 more 
 
 Must we behold those comforts ; never see 
 The hardy youths strive for the games of 
 
 honour, 
 
 Hung with the painted favours of their ladies, 
 Like tall ships under sail ; then start amongst 
 
 'em, 
 
 And, as an east wind, leave 'em all behind us 
 Like lazy clouds, whilst Palamon and Arcite, 
 Even in the wagging of a wanton leg, 
 Outstripp'd the people's praises, won the gar- 
 lands, 
 Ere they have time to wish 'em ours. Oh, never 
 
 Shall we two exercise, like twins of honour, 
 Our arms again, and feel our fiery horses 
 Like proud seas under us ! Our good swords 
 
 now, 
 
 (Better the red-eyed god of war ne'er wore,) 
 Ravish'd our sides, like age, must run to rust, 
 And deck the temples of those gods that hate 
 
 us ; 
 These hands shall never draw them out like 
 
 lightning, 
 To blast whole armies more ! 
 
 Arc. No, Palamon, 
 
 Those hopes ar^ prisoners with us : here we 
 
 are, 
 And here the graces of our youths must 
 
 wither, 
 Like a too-timely spring ; he 3 age must find 
 
 us, 
 
 And, which is heaviest, Palamon, unmarried ; 
 The sweet embraces of a loving wife, 
 Loader, with kisses, arm'd with thousand 
 
 G .s, 
 
 Shall never clasp our necks ! no issue know us ; 
 No figures of ourselves u,il we e'er see, 
 To glad our age, and llA.e young eagles teach 
 
 them 
 
 Boldly to gaze against bright arms, and say, 
 Remember what your fathers were, and con- 
 quer ! 
 
 The fair-eyed maids shall weep our banish- 
 ments, 
 
 And in their songa curse ever blinded For- 
 tune, 
 Till she for shame see what a wrong she has 
 
 done 
 
 To youth and nature : this is all our world ; 
 We shall know no thing here, but one another; 
 Hear nothing, but the clock that tells our 
 
 woes; 
 
 The vine shall grow, but we shall never see it ; 
 
 Summer shall come, and with her all delights, 
 
 But dead cold ^nter must inhabit here still ! 
 
 Pal. 'Tis too true, Arcite ! To our Theban 
 
 hounds, 
 
 That shook the aged forest with their echoes, 
 No more now must we halloo; no more shake 
 Our pointed javelins, whilst the angry swine 
 Flies like a Parthian quiver from our rages, 
 Struck with our well-steel'd darts ! All va- 
 liant uses 
 
 (The food and nourishment of noble minds) 
 In us two here shall perish ; we shall die, 
 (Which is the curse of honour !) lastly, 
 Children of grief and ignorance. 
 
 F r 
 
434 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ix. 
 
 Arc. Yet, cousin, 
 
 Even from the bottom of these miseries, 
 From all that fortune can inflict upon us, 
 I see two comforts rising, two mere blessings, 
 If the gods please to hold here, a brave 
 
 patience, 
 
 And the enjoying of our griefs together. 
 Whilst Palamon is with me, let me perish 
 If I think this our prison ! 
 
 Pal. Certainly, 
 
 'Tis a main goodness, cousin, that our fortunes 
 Were twinn'd together : 'tis most true, two 
 
 souls 
 
 Put in two noble bodies, let them suffer 
 The gall of hazard, so they grow together, 
 Will never sink ; they must not ; say they 
 
 could, 
 A willing man dies sleeping, and all 's done. 
 
 A re. Shall we make worthy uses of this place, 
 That all men hate so much 1 
 
 Pal. How, gentle cousin 1 
 
 Arc. Let's think this prison holy sanc- 
 tuary, 
 
 To keep us from corruption of worse men ! 
 We are young, and yet desire the ways of 
 
 honour ; 
 
 That liberty and common conversation, 
 The poison of pure spirits, might, like women, 
 Woo us to wander from. What worthy blessing 
 Can be, but our imaginations 
 May make it ours? and here being thus 
 
 together, 
 
 We are an endless mine to one another ; 
 We are one another's wife, ever begetting 
 New births of love ; we are father, friends, 
 
 acquaintance, 
 
 We are, in one another, families ; 
 I am your heir, and you are mine ; this place 
 Is our inheritance ; no hard oppressor 
 Dare take this from us : here, with a little 
 
 patience, 
 We shall live long, and loving ; no surfeits 
 
 seek us ; 
 
 The hand of war hurts none here, nor the seas 
 Swallow their youth ; were we at liberty, 
 A wife might part us lawfully, or business ; 
 Quarrels consume us ; envy of ill men 
 Crave our acquaintance ; I might sicken, 
 
 cousin, 
 Where you should never know it, and so 
 
 perish 
 
 Without your noble hand to close mine eyes, 
 Or prayers to the gods : a thousand chances, 
 Were we from hence, would sever us. 
 
 Pal. You have made me 
 
 (I thank you, cousin Arcite !) almost wanton 
 With my captivity : what a misery 
 It is to live abroad, and everywhere ! 
 'Tis like a beast, methinks ! I find the court 
 
 here, 
 I'm sure a more content; and all those 
 
 pleasures, 
 
 That woo the wills of men to vanity, 
 I see through now ; and am sufficient 
 To tell the world, 'tis but a gaudy shadow, 
 That old Time, as he passes by, takes with him. 
 What had we been, old in the court of Creon, 
 Where sin is justice, lust and ignorance 
 The virtues of the great ones ! Cousin Arcite, 
 Had not the loving gods found this place for 
 
 us, 
 
 We had died as they do, ill old men unwept, 
 And had their epitaphs, the people's curses ! 
 Shall I say more ] 
 
 Arc. I would hear you still. 
 
 Pal. You shall. 
 
 Is there record of any two that loved 
 Better than we do, Arcite 1 
 
 Arc. Sure there cannot. 
 
 Pal. I do not think it possible our friend- 
 ship 
 Should ever leave us. 
 
 Arc. Till our deaths it cannot; 
 
 And after death our spirits shall be led 
 To those that love eternally." 
 
 The following is Mr. Spalding's criticism 
 with reference to this scene : " The dialogue 
 is in many respects admirable. It possesses 
 much eloquence of description, and the cha- 
 racter of the language is smooth and flowing; 
 the versification is good and accurate, frequent 
 in double endings, and usually finishing the 
 sense with the line ; and one or two allusions 
 occur, which, being favourites of Fletcher's, 
 may be in themselves a strong presumption 
 of his authorship; the images too have in 
 some instances a want of distinctness in ap- 
 plication, or a vagueness of outline, which 
 could be easily paralleled from Fletcher's ac- 
 knowledged writings. The style is fuller of 
 allusions than his usually is, but the images 
 are more correct and better kept from con- 
 fusion than Shakspere's ; some of them in- 
 deed are exquisite, but rather in the ro- 
 mantic and exclusively poetical tone of 
 Fletcher than in the natural and universal 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 
 
 435 
 
 mode of feeling which animates Shakspere. 
 The dialogue too proceeds less energetically 
 than Shakspere' s, falling occasionally into 
 a style of long-drawn disquisition which 
 Fletcher often substitutes for the quick and 
 dramatic conversations of the great poet. 
 On the whole, however, this scene, if it be 
 Fletcher's (of which I have no doubt), is 
 among the very finest he ever wrote; and 
 there are many passages in which, while he 
 preserves his own distinctive marks, he has 
 gathered no small portion of the flame and 
 inspiration of his immortal friend and as- 
 sistant." He adds " In this scene there is 
 one train of metaphors which is perhaps as 
 characteristic of Fletcher as anything that 
 could be produced. It is marked by a slow- 
 ness of association which he often shows. 
 Several allusions are successively introduced; 
 but by each, as it appears, we are prepared 
 for, and can anticipate, the next : we see 
 the connection of ideas in the poet's mind 
 through which the one has sprung out of 
 the other, and that all are but branches, of 
 which one original thought is the root. All 
 this is the work of a less fertile fancy and a 
 more tardy understanding than Shakspere's : 
 he would have leaped over many of the in- 
 tervening steps, and, reaching at once the 
 most remote particular of the series, would 
 have immediately turned away to weave 
 some new chain of thought." The close of 
 the prison-scene, in which the two young 
 men become bitter enemies, will furnish us 
 another extract, which abundantly shows 
 the accuracy of Mr. Spalding's conception of 
 the peculiarities of Fletcher. 
 
 " Pal. You shall not love at all. 
 
 Arc. Not love at all 1 ? who shall deny me] 
 Pal. I that first saw her; I that took pos- 
 
 First with mine eyes of all those beauties in 
 
 her 
 
 Reveal'd to mankind ! If thou lovest her, 
 Or entertain'st a hope to blast my wishes, 
 Thou art a traitor, Arcite, and a fellow 
 False as thy title to her : friendship, blood, 
 And all the ties between us, I disclaim, 
 If thou once think upon her ! 
 
 Arc. Yes, I love her; 
 
 And if the lives of all my name lay on it, 
 
 I must do so; I love her with my soul. 
 If that will lose you, farewell, Palamon ! 
 I say again, I love ; and, in loving her, main- 
 tain 
 
 I am as worthy and as free a lover, 
 And have as just a title to her beauty, 
 As any Palamon, or any living, 
 That is a man's son. 
 
 Pal. Have I call'd thee friend ] 
 
 Arc. Yes, and have found me so. Why are 
 
 you moved thus ] 
 
 Let me deal coldly with you ! am not I 
 Part of your blood, part of your soul 1 ? you 
 
 have told me 
 That I was Palamon, and you were Arcite. 
 
 Pal. Yes. 
 
 Arc. Am not I liable to those affections, 
 Those joys, griefs, angers, fears, my friend 
 shall suffer] 
 
 Pal. You may be. 
 
 Arc. Why then would you deal so cun- 
 ningly, 
 
 So strangely, so unlike a Noble Kinsman, 
 To love alone 1 ? Speak truly; do you think me 
 Unworthy of her sight 1 
 
 Pal. No ; but unjust 
 
 If thou pursue that sight. 
 
 Arc. Because another 
 
 First sees the enemy, shall I stand still, 
 And let mine honour down, and never charge] 
 
 Pal. Yes, if he be but one. 
 
 Arc. But say that one 
 
 Had rather combat me ] 
 
 Pal. Let that one say so, 
 
 And use thy freedom ! else, if thou pursuest 
 
 her, 
 
 Be as that cursed man that hates his country, 
 A branded villain ! 
 
 Arc. You are mad. 
 
 Pal. I must be, 
 
 Till thou art worthy : Arcite, it concerns me; 
 And, in this madness, if I hazard thee 
 And take thy life, I deal but truly. 
 
 Arc. Fie, sir ! 
 
 You play the child extremely : I will love 
 
 her, 
 
 I must, I ought to do so, and I dare ; 
 And all this justly. 
 
 Pal. Oh, that now, that now, 
 
 Thy false self, and thy friend, had but this 
 
 fortune, 
 
 To be one hour at liberty, and grasp 
 Our good swords in our hands, I 'd quickly 
 teach thee 
 
 P F 2 
 
436 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ix. 
 
 What 'twere to filch affection from another ! 
 Thou 'rt baser in it than a cutpurse ! 
 Put but thy head out of this window more, 
 And, as I have a soul, I '11 nail thy life to 't ! 
 
 A re. Thou dars't not, fool; thou canst not; 
 
 thou art feeble ! 
 
 Put my head out 1 I '11 throw my body out, 
 And leap the garden, when I see her next, 
 And pitch between her arms, to anger thee. 
 
 Pal. No more; the keeper 's coming : I shall 
 
 live 
 To knock thy brains out with my shackles." 
 
 We are now arrived at a part of the tale 
 where the poetry of Chaucer assumes the 
 dramatic form. The description of Emilia 
 walking in the garden, and the first sight of 
 her by Palamon ; with the imaginative love, 
 and the subsequent prostration of his heart 
 before the same vision by Arcite, are all 
 told with wonderful spirit by the old poet. 
 The entire passage is too long for extract, 
 but we give some lines which will show that 
 the energy of Chaucer imposed no common 
 task of rivalry upon him who undertook to 
 dramatize this scene of passion : 
 
 " This Palamon 'gan knit his browes tway. 
 ' It were,' quod he, 'to thee no great honour 
 For to be false, ne for to be traytour 
 To me, that am thy cousin and thy brother 
 Ysworn full deep, and each of us to other, 
 That never for to dien in the pain, 
 Till that the death departen shall us twain, 
 Neither of us in love to hinder other, 
 Ne in none other case, my leve brother ; 
 But that thou shouldest truly further me 
 In every case as I should further thee. 
 This was thine oath, and mine also, certain ; 
 I wot it well, thou dar'st it not withsain : 
 Thus art thou of my counsel out of doubt, 
 And now thou wouldest falsely been about 
 To love my lady, whom I love and serve, 
 And ever shall till that mine hearth starve. 
 
 " ' Now certe"s, false Arcite, thou shalt not so: 
 I lov'd her first, and tolde thee my woe 
 As to my counsel, and my brother sworn 
 To further me as I have told beforn. 
 For which thou art ybounden as a knight 
 To helpen me, if it lie in thy might, 
 Or die's art thou false I dare well say'n.' 
 This Arcite full proudly spake again. 
 
 "'Thou shalt,' quod he, 'be rather false 
 than I, 
 
 And thou art false, I tell thee utterly ; 
 ~For par amour I lov'd her first ere thou.' " 
 
 It is a remarkable circumstance that one of 
 the conditions of the friendship of the young 
 men the chivalric bond, 
 
 " Neither of us in love to hinder other," 
 
 so capable of dramatic expansion, has been 
 passed over by the writer of this scene in 
 ' The Two Noble Kinsmen.' The story is 
 followed by the dramatist in Arcite being 
 freed ; but in Chaucer he returns to Thebes, 
 and after a long absence comes to the court 
 of Theseus in disguise. The unity of time 
 is preserved in the drama, by making him a 
 victor in athletic sports, and thus introduced 
 to the favour of Theseus and the service of 
 Emilia. In Chaucer, Palamon, after seven 
 years' durance, 
 
 " By helping of a friend brake his prison." 
 
 The gaoler's daughter is a parasitical growth 
 around the old vigorous tree. 
 
 Palamon is fled to the woods. Arcite has 
 ridden to the fields to make his May-garland; 
 and his unhappy friend, fearful of pursuit, 
 hears him, unknown, sing 
 
 " Maye", with all thy flowres and thy green, 
 Eight welcome be thou faire" freshe" May, 
 I hope that I some green here getten may." 
 
 The old poet continues, with his inimitable 
 humour: 
 
 " When that Arcite had roamed all his fill, 
 And sungen all the roundel lustily, 
 Into a study he fell suddenly, 
 As do these lovers in their quainte" gears, 
 Now in the crop, and now down in the breres, 
 Now up, now down, as bucket in a well." 
 
 The lover gives utterance to his lamentations; 
 his rival hears him, and starts out of the 
 bushes with, "False Arcite, false traitor!" 
 Arcite proposes that they should determine 
 their contention by mortal combat on the 
 following day : 
 
 " Here I will be founden as a knight, 
 And bringen harness right enough for thee, 
 And choose the best, and leave the worst for 
 
 me : 
 And meat and drink 6" this night will I bring." 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 THE TWO NuBLE KJLN'SMUJS'. 
 
 437 
 
 The corresponding scene in ' The Two Noble 
 Kinsmen ' is finely written. There is a quiet 
 strength about it which exhibits very high 
 art. The structure of the verse, too, is some- 
 what different from that of the prison scene 
 between the friends. But still we have no 
 difficulty in believing that it might be written 
 by the author of that previous scene. The 
 third scene, where Arcite comes to Palamon 
 " with meat, wine, and files," is merely the 
 carrying out of the action promised in the 
 previous interview. It is unnecessary for the 
 dramatic movement. We quite agree with 
 Mr. Spalding in his estimate of this scene 
 that it is not very characteristic of either 
 Shakspere or Fletcher, but that it " leans 
 towards Fletcher ; and one argument for 
 him might be drawn from an interchange 
 of sarcasms between the kinsmen, in which 
 they retort on each other former amorous 
 adventures : such a dialogue is quite like 
 Fletcher's men of gaiety." The combat 
 itself takes place in the sixth scene. The 
 passage in Chaucer upon which this scene 
 is founded possesses all his characteristic 
 energy. The hard outline which it presents 
 is in some degree a natural consequence of 
 its force and clearness : 
 
 " And in the grove, at time and place yset, 
 This Arcite and this Palamon been met. 
 Tho changen 'gan the colour in their face ; 
 Right as the hunter in the regne of Thrace 
 That standeth at a gappg with a spear, 
 When hunted is the lion or the bear, 
 And heareth him come rushing in the greves, 
 And breaking both the bough6s and the leaves, 
 And think'th, 'Here com'th my mortal enemy, 
 Withouten fail he must be dead or I ; 
 For either I must slay him at the gap, 
 Or he must slay me, if that me mishap.' 
 So fareden they in changing of their hue, 
 As far as either of them other knew. 
 There n'as no good day, ne no saluing, 
 But straight withouten wordes rehearsing, 
 Everich of them help to armen other 
 As friendly as he were his owen brother ; 
 And after that with sharp6 spear6s strong 
 They foinden each at other wonder long." 
 
 It is upon the " everich of them help to 
 armen other" that the dramatist has founded 
 the interchange of courtesies between the 
 
 two kinsmen. The conception and execution 
 of this scene are certainly very graceful ; 
 but the grace is carried somewhat too far 
 to be natural. The dramatic situation is 
 finely imagined ; but in the hands of a 
 writer of the highest power it might, we 
 think, have been carried beyond the point of 
 elegance, or even of beauty ; it might have 
 been rendered deeply pathetic, upon the 
 principle that at the moment of mortal con- 
 flict the deep-seated affection of the two 
 young men would have grappled with the 
 chimerical passion which each had taken to 
 his heart, and would have displayed itself in 
 something more eminently tragic than the 
 constrained courtesy of the scene before us. 
 It is this power of dealing with high passions 
 which appears to us to be most wanting in 
 the scenes where passion is required. It is 
 answered, that those scenes are written by 
 Fletcher, and not by Shakspere. Of this 
 presently. The interruption to the combat 
 by Theseus and his train ; the condemnation 
 of the rivals by the duke; the intercession 
 of Hippoly ta and Emilia ; and the final de- 
 termination that the knights should depart, 
 and within a month return accompanied by 
 other knights to contend in bodily strength 
 for the fair prize these incidents are founded 
 pretty closely upon Chaucer, with the ex- 
 ception that the elder poet does not make 
 Theseus decree that the vanquished should 
 die upon the block. The scene has no 
 marked deviation in style from that which 
 precedes it. 
 
 The supposed interval of time during the 
 absence of the knights is filled up by Chaucer 
 with some of the finest descriptions which 
 can be found amongst the numberless vivid 
 pictures which his writings exhibit. In ' The 
 Two Noble Kinsmen' the whole of the fourth 
 act is occupied with the progress of the under- 
 plot ; with the exception of the second scene, 
 which commences with the long and not 
 very dramatic soliloquy of Emilia upon the 
 pictures of her two lovers, and is followed 
 by an equally undramatic description by a 
 messenger of the arrival of the princes and 
 of the qualities of their companions. This 
 description is founded upon Chaucer. We 
 pass on to the fifth act. 
 
438 
 
 STUDIES OF 8HAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ix. 
 
 Chaucer has wonderfully described the 
 temples of Venus, of Mars, and of Diana. 
 The dramatist has followed him in making 
 Arcite address himself to Mars, Palamon 
 to Venus, and Emilia to Diana. Parts of 
 these scenes are without all doubt the finest 
 passages of the play, surpassed by very 
 few things indeed within their own poetical 
 range. The addresses of Arcite to Mars, and 
 of Emilia to Diana, possess a condensation 
 of. thought, a strength of imagery, and a 
 majesty of language, almost unequalled by 
 the very highest masters of the art ; but 
 they as properly belong to the epic as to 
 the dramatic division of poetry. The invo- 
 cation of Palamon to Venus, although less 
 sustained and less pleasing, is to our minds 
 more dramatic : it belongs more to romantic 
 poetry. The nobler invocations are cast in 
 a classical mould. As this play is not well 
 known to all readers of Shakspere, we give 
 these very remarkable passages : 
 
 Arc. Thou mighty one, that with thy power 
 
 hast turn'd 
 
 Green Neptune into purple ; whose approach 
 Comets prewarn ; whose havoc in vast field 
 Unearthed skulls proclaim; whose breath 
 
 blows down 
 
 The teeming Ceres' foison ; who dost pluck 
 With hand armipotent from forth blue clouds 
 The mason'd turrets; that both mak'st and 
 
 break'st 
 
 The stony girths of cities ; me, thy pupil, 
 Young'st follower of thy drum, instruct this 
 
 day 
 
 With military skill, that to thy laud 
 I may advance my streamer, and by thee 
 Be styled the lord o' the day ! Give me, great 
 
 Mars, 
 Some token of thy pleasure ! 
 
 [Here tJtey (ARCTTE and his KNIGHTS) fall 
 on their faces as formerly, and there is 
 heard clanging of armour, with a short 
 thunder, as the burst of a battle, where- 
 upon they all rise, and bow to the Altar. 
 
 Oh, great corrector of enormous times, 
 Shaker of o'er-rank states, thou grand decider 
 Of dusty and old titles, that heal'st with blood 
 The earth when it is sick, and cur'st the world 
 Of the plurisy of people ; I do take 
 
 Thy signs auspiciously, and in thy name 
 To my design march boldly. Let us go ! 
 
 Emi. Oh, sacred, shadowy, cold, and con- 
 stant queen, 
 
 Abandoner of revels, mute, contemplative, 
 
 Sweet, solitary, white as chaste, and pure 
 
 As wind-fann'd snow, who to thy female 
 knights 
 
 Allow'st no more blood than will make a 
 blush, 
 
 Which is their order's robe; I here, thy 
 priest, 
 
 Am humbled 'fore thine altar. Oh, vouch- 
 safe, 
 
 With that thy rare green eye, which never 
 
 yet 
 
 Beheld thing maculate, look on thy virgin ! 
 And, sacred silver mistress, lend thine ear 
 (Which ne'er heard scurril term, into whose 
 
 port 
 
 Ne'er enter'd wanton sound) to my petition, 
 Season'd with holy fear ! This is my last 
 Of vestal office ; I am bride-habited, 
 But maiden-hearted; a husband I have ap- 
 pointed, 
 
 But do not know him ; out of two I should 
 Choose one, and pray for his success, but I 
 Am guiltless of election of mine eyes ; 
 Were I to lose one, (they are equal precious,) 
 I could doom neither; that which perish'd 
 
 should 
 Go to 't unsentenced : therefore, most modest 
 
 queen, 
 
 He, of the two pretenders, that best loves me, 
 And has the truest title in 't, let him 
 Take off my wheaten garland, or else grant 
 The file and quality I hold, I may 
 Continue in thy band. 
 
 The combat scene is not presented on the 
 stage. The absence of it is certainly managed 
 with very great skill. Emilia refuses to be 
 present ; she is alone ; the tumult is around 
 her ; rumour upon rumour is brought to her ; 
 she attempts to analyse her own feelings; 
 and we must say that she appears to be 
 thinking more of herself than is consistent 
 with a very high conception of female ex- 
 cellence. Arcite is eventually the victor. 
 Palamon and his friends appear on the scaf- 
 fold, prepared for death. Then comes the 
 catastrophe of Arcite's sudden calamity in 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 
 
 439 
 
 the hour of triumph ; and this again is de- 
 scription. The death of Arcite is told by- 
 Chaucer with great pathos ; and the address 
 of the dying man to Emilia is marked by a 
 truth and syinplicity infinitely touching : 
 
 " What is this world? what asken men to have 1 ? 
 Now with his love, now in his colde grave 
 Alone withouten any company. 
 Farewell, my sweet, Farewell, mine Emily ! 
 And soft6 take me in your armes tway 
 For love of God, and hearkeneth what I say. 
 
 I have here with my cousin Palamon 
 Had strife and rancour many a day agone 
 For love of you, and for my jealousy ; 
 And Jupiter to wis my sou!6 gie, 
 To speaken of a servant properly, 
 With alle circumstances truely, 
 That is to say, truth, honour, and knighthead, 
 Wisdom, humbless, estate, and high kindred, 
 Freedom, and all that 'longeth to that art, 
 So Jupiter have of my soule part, 
 As in this world right now ne know I none 
 So worthy to be loved as Palamon, 
 That serveth you, and will do all his life ; 
 And if that ever ye shall be a wife, 
 Forget not Palamon, the gentle man" 
 
 The dramatic poet falls short of this : 
 
 " Take Emilia, 
 And with her all the world's joy. Reach thy 
 
 hand; 
 Farewell ! I have told my last hour. I was 
 
 false, 
 
 Yet never treacherous : Forgive me, cousin ! 
 One kiss from fair Emilia ! 'T is done : 
 Take her. I die ! " 
 
 In this imperfect analysis of ' The Two 
 Noble Kinsmen,' as compared with the 
 ' Palamon and Arcite ' of Chaucer, we have 
 necessarily laid aside all those scenes which 
 belong to the under-plot, namely, the love of 
 the gaoler's daughter for Palamon, her 
 agency in his escape from prison, her sub- 
 sequent madness, and her unnatural and re- 
 volting union with one who is her lover 
 under these circumstances. The question 
 which we have here to examine is, whether 
 Shakspere had any concern with the author- 
 ship of this play ; and it is perfectly evident 
 that this under-plot was of a nature not to be 
 conceived by him, and further not to be 
 tolerated in any work with which he was 
 
 concerned. Had he made " the friend" who 
 delivered Chaucer's Palamon from prison to 
 appear on the stage as a woman, she would 
 have been a timid, confiding, self-denying, 
 spirit-bound woman, which character he of 
 all men could represent best ; and not a 
 creature of mere sexual affection. Assuming 
 that he wrote any part of the play, we may 
 safely lay aside this part as having his par- 
 ticipation or concurrence. Our inquiry is 
 then reduced to narrower limits. We have 
 to ask what portion of the original poem of 
 Chaucer Shakspere is supposed to have dra- 
 matised, and what portion was the work of a 
 coadjutor. The stage tradition was, that he 
 wrote the first act. The searching analysis 
 of Mr. Spalding leads to the conclusion that 
 he wrote all that relates to the main story in 
 the first and fifth acts, and a scene of the 
 third act ; amounting to little short of half 
 the play. To Fletcher is assigned the re- 
 mainder. Mr. Spalding says that an atten- 
 tive study of this drama from beginning to 
 end " would convince the most sceptical 
 mind that two authors were concerned in 
 the work ; it would be perceived that cer- 
 tain scenes are distinguished by certain 
 prominent characters, while others present 
 different and dissimilar features." These 
 differences, Mr. Spalding has justly shown 
 in the case of Fletcher as compared with 
 Shakspere, are so striking, that "we are not 
 compelled to reason from difference in degree, 
 because we are sensible of a striking dis- 
 similarity in kind. We observe ease and 
 elegance of expression opposed to energy and 
 quaintness ; brevity is met by dilation, and 
 the obscurity which results from hurry of 
 conception has to be compared with the 
 vagueness proceeding from indistinctness of 
 ideas ; lowness, narrowness, and poverty of 
 thought are contrasted with elevation, rich- 
 ness, and comprehension : on the one hand 
 is an intellect barely active enough to seek 
 the true elements of the poetical, and on the 
 other a mind which, seeing those finer rela- 
 tions at a glance, darts off in the wantonness 
 of its luxuriant strength to discover qualities 
 with which poetry is but ill fitted to deal." 
 This is strikingly and truly put. Yet, be it 
 observed, it has reference only to the drapery 
 
440 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAK8PERE. 
 
 [BOOK ix. 
 
 of the dramatic action and characterization 
 the condensation or expansion of the 
 thought the tameness or luxuriance of the 
 imagery the equable flow or the involved 
 harmony of the versification. The real body 
 of a drama is its action and characterization. 
 It is the constant subordination of all the 
 ordinary poetical excellences to the main 
 design, to be carried on through the agency 
 of different passions, temperaments, and hu- 
 mours, that constitutes the dramatic art. 
 To judge of a question of authorship, and 
 especially of such a question with reference 
 to Shakspere, we must not only take into 
 consideration the resemblances in what we 
 call style (we use this for the want of a more 
 comprehensive word), but in the manage- 
 ment of the action and the development of 
 the characters. Such inquiries as these are 
 not without their instruction, if they lead us 
 by analysis and comparison to a better ap- 
 preciation of what constitutes the highest 
 qualities of art. The best copy of a picture 
 is necessarily inferior to the original ; but 
 we may better learn the value of the original 
 by a close examination of the copy ; and 
 this is the position which we are about to 
 take up in the question of the authorship of 
 ' The Two Noble Kinsmen.' We hold that 
 in parts it bears a most remarkable resem- 
 blance to Shakspere in the qualities of de- 
 tached thought, of expression, of versifica- 
 tion ; and not so with reference to Shakspere's 
 early and unformed style, but to the pecu- 
 liarities of his later period. But we hold, at 
 the same time, that the management of the 
 subject is equally unlike Shakspere ; that the 
 poetical form of what is attributed to him is 
 for the most part epic, and not dramatic ; 
 that the action does not disclose itself, nor 
 the characters exhibit their own qualities. 
 
 The fact that, amongst the extraordinary 
 multitude of plays produced in the palmy 
 half-century of the stage, a very great many 
 were composed upon the principle of a 
 division of labour between two, and some- 
 times three and even four writers, is too 
 satisfactorily established for us to consider 
 that the difficulties attending upon such a 
 partnership would produce imperfect and 
 fragmentary performances where there was 
 
 not the closest friendship. It is probable, 
 however, that the intimate social life of the 
 poets of that day, many of whom were also 
 actors, led to such a joint invention of plot 
 and character as would enable two or more 
 to work readily upon a defined plan, each 
 bringing to the whole a contribution from 
 his own peculiar stores. The ordinary mix- 
 ture too of the serious and comic portions of 
 a drama facilitated such an arrangement ; 
 and the general introduction of an under- 
 plot, sometimes very slightly hung upon the 
 main action, would still further render the 
 union even of more than two writers not a 
 very difficult thing to manage. It must be 
 considered also that the dramatists of that 
 age were all, or very nearly all, thoroughly 
 familiar with stage business. As we have 
 said, many of them were actors ; and the 
 literary employment of those who were not 
 so was, if we may use the term, so profes- 
 sional, that it was as necessary for them to 
 be familiar with the practice of the theatre 
 as for a lawyer to know by daily habit the 
 rules of court. All these circumstances 
 made such dramatic partnerships compara- 
 tively easy to manage. But we must not 
 cease to bear in mind that these arrange- 
 ments must always have had especial re- 
 ference to the particular capacities and 
 excellences of the persons so united, as 
 known by experience, or suggested by their 
 own promptings of what they were most 
 fitted to accomplish. Let us apply these 
 considerations to the case before us. 
 
 Shakspere and Fletcher, we will assume, 
 agree to write a play on the subject of 
 Chaucer's tale of ' Palamon and Arcite.' It 
 is a subject which Shakspere in some re- 
 spects would have rejoiced in. It was 
 familiar to many of his audience in the 
 writings of England's finest old poet. It 
 was known to the early stage. It was sur- 
 rounded with those romantic attributes of 
 the old legendary tale which appear to have 
 seized upon his imagination at a particular 
 period of his life, and that not an early one. 
 But, above all, it was a subject full of deep 
 feeling, where overwhelming passions were 
 to be brought into contact with habitual 
 affections ; a subject, too, not the less in- I 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 
 
 441 
 
 teresting because it required to be treated 
 with great nicety of handling. It may be 
 presumed that, if such a partnership had 
 been proposed by Fletcher to Shakspere 
 (the belief that Shakspere would have 
 | solicited Fletcher's assistance is not very 
 probable), the younger poet would have 
 offered to the great master of dramatic ac- 
 tion, to the profound anatomist of character, 
 to him who knew best how to give to the 
 deepest and most complicated emotions their 
 full and appropriate language his own 
 proper task of exhibiting the deep friend- 
 ship, the impassioned rivalry, the terrible 
 hatred, and the final reconciliation of the 
 two heroes of the tale. The less practised 
 poet might have contented himself with the 
 accessory scenes, those of the introduction 
 and of the under-plot. Now, according to the 
 just belief which has been raised upon the 
 dissimilarities of style, Fletcher has not only 
 taken the under-plot, but all, or nearly all, 
 the scenes that demanded the greatest 
 amount of dramatic power, the exhibition of 
 profound emotion in connection with nice 
 distinction of character. It was not the 
 poetical faculty alone that was here wanting, 
 that power which Fletcher possessed of 
 expressing somewhat ordinary thoughts in 
 equable and well-rounded verse, producing 
 agreeable sensations, but rarely rising into 
 the sublime or the pathetic, and never laying 
 bare those hidden things in the nature of 
 man which lie too deep for every-day philo- 
 sophy, but when revealed become truths that 
 require no demonstration. Shakspere, on 
 the contrary, according to the same just 
 belief as to the internal evidence of style, 
 takes those parts which require the least 
 dramatic power, the descriptive and di- 
 dactic parts ; those which, to a great extent, 
 are of an epic character, containing, like a 
 poem properly epic, set and solemn speeches, 
 elaborate narration, majestic invocations to 
 the presiding deities. There can be no 
 doubt as to the high excellence of these por- 
 tions of the work. But is such a division of 
 labour the natural one between Shakspere 
 and Fletcher 1 If it be said that Shakspere 
 left portions of a posthumous play which 
 Fletcher finished, we have the same objec- 
 
 tion differently applied. The internal evi- 
 dence of style would lead us to assign the 
 first and last acts to Shakspere. The course 
 of the action would of necessity adhere pretty 
 closely to the tale of Chaucer ; and thus the 
 beginning and the end might have been 
 written without any very strict reference to 
 what was to come between, provided the 
 subject were in the hands of an author who 
 would look at the completeness of the nar- 
 rative as the main thing to be worked out. 
 Shakspere might have made the preliminary 
 scenes as full as we find them in ( The Two 
 Noble Kinsmen ;' but when we look at the 
 conciseness with which Chaucer gives the 
 same scenes, and hurries on to the more 
 dramatic parts of the subject, we do 
 not very readily believe that Shakspere 
 would have taken the opposite course. Skil- 
 ful as he is in the introduction of his subjects, 
 in the preparation with which he brings the 
 mind into the proper state for comprehending 
 and feeling the higher interests which are to 
 be developed, he comes, in almost every case, 
 with that decision which is a quality of the 
 highest genius, to grapple with the passions 
 and characters of the agents who are to work 
 out the events ; and when he has done this, 
 and has our imaginations completely sub- 
 dued to his power, he delays or precipitates 
 the catastrophe, sometimes lingering in 
 some scene of gentleness or repose to restore 
 the balance of feeling, and to keep the tragic 
 within the limits of pleasurable emotion, 
 and sometimes clearing away by a sudden 
 movement all the involutions of the plot, 
 shedding his sunlight on all the darknesses 
 of character, and yet making this unexpected 
 denouement the only one compatible with 
 truth and nature. It was out of Shakspere's 
 own power, we believe, because incompatible 
 with those principles of art which were to 
 him as an unerring instinct, to produce the 
 last scenes of a play before he had worked 
 out the characterization which would essen- 
 tially determine the details of the event. 
 The theory that Shakspere left a portion of 
 ' The Two Noble Kinsmen,' which, after his 
 death, was completed by Fletcher, is one 
 which, upon a mature consideration of the 
 subject, we are constrained to reject, 
 
442 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPEEE. 
 
 [BOOK ix. 
 
 although it has often presented itself to us 
 as the most plausible of the theories which 
 would necessarily associate themselves with 
 the belief that Shakspere had written a con- 
 siderable portion of this play. 
 
 In his * Specimens of English Dramatic 
 Poets,' Charles Lamb selects from ' The Two 
 Noble Kinsmen ' nearly all the first scene of 
 the first act, part of the scene between Emilia 
 and Hippolyta in the same act, and the dia- 
 logue between Palamon and Arcite, before 
 Emilia comes into the garden, in Act II. 
 The latter scene he says " bears indubitable 
 marks of Fletcher : the two which precede 
 it give strong countenance to the tradition 
 that Shakspere had a hand in this play." 
 These and other passages, he adds, " have a 
 luxuriance in them which strongly resembles 
 Shakspere's manner in those parts of his plays 
 where, the progress of the interest being sub- 
 ordinate, the poet was at leisure for descrip- 
 tion." Upon a principle, then, of arranged 
 co-operation with Fletcher, Shakspere had 
 produced only those parts of 'The Two 
 Noble Kinsmen ' in which the interest is 
 subordinate, and which should resemble his 
 manner when he was at leisure for descrip- 
 tion. This is the main point which, with 
 every deference for the opinion, founded 
 upon a comparison of style, that Shakspere 
 was associated in this play with Fletcher, 
 we venture to urge as evidence that ought 
 to be impartially taken in support of the 
 opinion that Shakspere was not concerned in 
 it at all. Our own judgment, as far as the 
 question of style is concerned, very nearly 
 coincides with that of the author of the in- 
 genious ' Letter ' to which we have several 
 times referred ; but, on a careful examina- 
 tion of the whole question, we are inclined 
 to a belief that Shakspere did not participate 
 in the authorship. We do not, on the other 
 hand, go along with Tieck, who, with some- 
 what of an excess of that boldness with 
 which his countrymen pronounce opinions 
 upon the niceties of style in a foreign lan- 
 guage, says of this play, " I have never been 
 able to convince myself that a single verse 
 has been written by Shakspere. The man- 
 ner, the language, the versification is as 
 thoroughly Fletcher as any other of his 
 
 pieces. If Shakspere had the capability of 
 altering his language so variously as we 
 here see, yet he nowhere presents exaggera- 
 tions of thought and feeling in soft and flow- 
 ing speeches, which is the characteristic of 
 Fletcher." * This is to mistake the question 
 at issue. Nobody has ever supposed that 
 Shakspere wrote the parts that are commonly 
 assigned to Fletcher ; and therefore nobody 
 accused him of putting exaggerated thoughts 
 in soft and flowing speeches. If Tieck, how- 
 ever, considers the scenes of the first act, to 
 which he distinctly alludes, to be in Fletcher's 
 natural and habitual manner, he maintains a 
 theory which in our opinion is more un- 
 tenable than any which has been proposed 
 upon the question. Steevens holds that the 
 play is for the most part a studied imi- 
 tation of Shakspere by Fletcher. But, if he 
 has imitated style, he has also imitated 
 character ; and that most weakly. The 
 gaoler's daughter is a most diluted copy of 
 Ophelia ; the Schoolmaster, of Holofernes ; 
 the clowns, with their mummery, of the 
 " rude mechanicals " of 'A Midsummer- 
 Night's Dream.' This very circumstance, by 
 the way, is evidence that there was no dis- 
 tinct concert between Shakspere and Fletcher 
 as to the mode in which the subject should 
 be treated. We agree with Lamb, that 
 Fletcher, with all his facility, could not have 
 so readily gone out of his habitual manner 
 to produce an imitation of Shakspere's con- 
 densed and involved style. He frequently 
 copies Shakspere in slight resemblances of 
 thought, but the manner is always essentially 
 different. These scenes in ' The Two Noble 
 Kinsmen ' are not in Fletcher's manner ; it 
 was not very probable, even if he had the 
 power, that he would write them in imita- 
 tion of Shakspere. We believe that Shak- 
 spere did not write them himself. We are 
 bound, therefore, to produce a theory which 
 may attempt, however imperfectly, to re- 
 concile these difficulties ; and we do so with 
 a due sense of the doubts which must always 
 surround such questions, and which in this 
 case are not likely to be obviated by any 
 suggestion of our own, which can pretend to 
 
 * ' Alt-Englisches Theater, oder Supplements zum 
 Shakspere.' 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 
 
 443 
 
 little beyond the character of a mere con- 
 jecture, not hurriedly adopted, but certainly 
 propounded without any great confidence in 
 its validity. 
 
 i We hold, then, that Fletcher, for the most 
 part, wrote the scenes which the best critical 
 opinions concur in attributing to him : we 
 hold, also, that he had a coadjutor who pro- 
 duced for the most part the scenes attributed 
 by the same authorities to Shakspere : but 
 we hold, further, that this coadjutor was not 
 Shakspere himself. 
 
 Coleridge has thrown out a suggestion 
 that parts of ' The Two Noble Kinsmen ' 
 might have been written by Jonson. He 
 was probably led into this opinion by the 
 classical tone which occasionally prevails, 
 especially in the first scene, and in the in- 
 vocations of the fifth act. The address to 
 Diana, 
 
 "Oh, sacred, shadowy, cold, and constant 
 
 queen, 
 
 Abandoner of revels, mute, contemplative, 
 Sweet, solitary, white as chaste, and pure 
 As wind-fann'd snow," 
 
 at once reminds us of 
 
 " Queen and huntress, chaste and fair :" 
 
 more perhaps from the associations of the 
 subject than from Jonson's manner of treat- 
 ing it. But Coleridge goes on to state that 
 the main presumption for Shakspere's share 
 in this play rests upon the construction of 
 the blank verse. He holds that construction 
 to be evidence either of an intentional imi- 
 tation of Shakspere, or of his own proper 
 hand. He then argues, from the assump- 
 tion that Fletcher was the imitator, that 
 there was an improbability that he would 
 have been conscious of the inferiority of his 
 own versification, which Coleridge calls " too 
 poematic minus-dramatic." The improba- 
 bility, then, that Fletcher imitated Shak- 
 spere in portions of the play, writing other 
 portions in his own proper language and 
 versification, throws the critic back upon 
 the other conjecture, that Shakspere's own 
 hand is to be found in it. But then again 
 he says, " The harshness of many of these 
 very passages, a harshness unrelieved by 
 any lyrical inter-breathings, and still more 
 
 the want of profundity in the thoughts, 
 keep me from an absolute decision." We 
 state these opinions of Coleridge with refer- 
 ence to what we must briefly call the style 
 of the different parts, to show that any 
 decision of the question founded mainly 
 upon the style is not to be considered cer- 
 tain even within its own proper limits. We 
 have rested our doubts principally upon 
 another foundation ; but, taken together, 
 the two modes of viewing the question, 
 whether as to style or dramatic structure, 
 require that we should look out for another 
 partner than Shakspere in producing this 
 work in alliance with Fletcher. Coleridge 
 appears to have thought the same when he 
 threw out the name of Jonson ; but we can- 
 not conceive that, if he had pursued this 
 inquiry analytically, he would have abided 
 by this conjecture. Jonson's proper versifi- 
 cation is more different from Shakspere's 
 than perhaps that of any other of his con- 
 temporaries ; and we doubt if his mind was 
 plastic enough, or his temper humble enough, 
 to allow him to become the imitator of any 
 man. We request our readers to compare 
 the following invocation by Jonson, from 
 ' Cynthia's Revels,' with the invocation to 
 Mars in the fifth act of ' The Two Noble 
 Kinsmen ;' and we think they will agree 
 that the versification of Jonson, in a form 
 in which both the specimens are undramatic, 
 is essentially different : 
 
 " Phoebus Apollo, if, with ancient rites, 
 And due devotions, I have ever hung 
 Elaborate paeans on thy golden shrine, 
 Or sung thy triumphs in a lofty strain, 
 Fit for a theatre of gods to hear ; 
 And thou, the other son of mighty Jove, 
 Cyllenian Mercury, sweet Maia's joy, 
 If in the busy tumults of the mind 
 My path thou ever hast illumined, 
 For which thine altars I have oft perfum'd, 
 And deck'd thy statues with discoloured 
 
 flowers : 
 
 Now thrive invention in this glorious court, 
 That not of bounty only, but of right, 
 Cynthia may grace, and give it life by sight." 
 
 Here is no variety of pause ; the couplet 
 with which the speech concludes is not dif- 
 ferent from the pairs of blank-verse which 
 
444 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEEE. 
 
 [BOOK ix. 
 
 have gone before, except in the rhyming of 
 the tenth syllables. But there is another 
 writer of that period who might have been 
 associated -with Fletcher in the production 
 of a drama, and did participate in such stage 
 partnerships : who, from some limited re- 
 semblances to Shakspere that we shall pre- 
 sently notice, might without any improba- 
 bility be supposed to have written those 
 portions of ' The Two Noble Kinsmen' which 
 are decidedly and essentially different from 
 the style of Fletcher. We select, though 
 probably not the best selection we could 
 make, a passage of the same general cha- 
 racter as the invocations so often mentioned, 
 and which may be compared also with Jon- 
 son's address to Apollo. It is an invocation 
 to Behemoth : 
 
 " Terror of darkness ! oh thou king of flames ! 
 That with thy music-footed horse dost strike 
 The clear light out of crystal, on dark earth, 
 And hurl'st instructive fire about the world, 
 Wake, wake, the drowsy and enchanted 
 
 night, 
 That sleeps with dead eyes in this heavy 
 
 riddle : 
 Oh, thou great prince of shades, where never 
 
 sun 
 Sticks his far-darted beams, whose eyes are 
 
 made 
 
 To shine in darkness, and see ever best 
 Where men are blindest ! open now the heart 
 Of thy abashed oracle, that for fear 
 Of some ill it includes would fain lie hid, 
 And rise thou with it in thy greater light." 
 
 The writer of this invocation, which we 
 select from the tragedy of f Bussy D'Ambois,' 
 is George Chapman. 
 
 Webster, in his. dedication to 'Vittoria 
 Corombona,' speaks of " that full and height- 
 ened style of Master Chapman," in the same 
 sentence with " the laboured and under- 
 standing works of Master Jonson." It is 
 in the "full and heightened style" that we 
 shall seek resemblances to parts of ' The 
 Two Noble Kinsmen,' rather than in the 
 " laboured and understanding works." We 
 are supported in this inquiry by the opinion 
 of one of the most subtle and yet most sen- 
 sible of modern critics, Charles Lamb : 
 " Of all the English play-writers, Chapman 
 
 perhaps approaches nearest to Shakspeare 
 in the descriptive and didactic, in passages 
 which are less purely dramatic. Dramatic 
 imitation was not his talent. He could not 
 go out of himself, as Shakspeare could shift 
 at pleasure, to inform and animate other 
 existences, but in himself he had an eye to 
 perceive and a soul to embrace all forms. 
 He would have made a great epic poet, if, 
 indeed, he has not abundantly shown him- 
 self to be one ; for his 'Homer' is not so 
 properly a translation as the stories of 
 Achilles and Ulysses re-written." Our 
 theory is, that the passages which have been 
 ascribed to Shakspere as a partner in the 
 work of 'The Two Noble Kinsmen' are 
 essentially " descriptive and didactic ;" that 
 to write these passages it was not necessary 
 that the poet should be able to " go out of 
 himself ;" that they, for the most part, might 
 enter into the composition of a great epic 
 poem ; that the writer of these passages was 
 master, to a considerable extent, of Shak- 
 spere's style, especially in its conciseness 
 and its solemnity, although he was ill fitted 
 to grapple with its more dramatic qualities 
 of rapidity or abruptness ; that also, unlike 
 most of the writers of his day, who sought 
 only to please, he indulged in the same dis- 
 position as Shakspere, to yield to the pre- 
 vailing reflection which the circumstances 
 of the scene were calculated to elicit ; and, 
 lastly, that his intimate acquaintance with 
 the Greek poets fitted him to deal more 
 especially with those parts of the tale of 
 ' Palamon and Arcite ' in which Chaucer, in 
 common with all the middle-age poets, built 
 a tale of chivalry upon a classical founda- 
 tion. We can understand such a division of 
 labour between Fletcher and Chapman, as 
 that Fletcher should take the romantic parts 
 of the story, as the knight-errantry, the 
 love, the rivalry, the decision by bodily 
 prowess, and that Chapman should deal 
 with Theseus and the Amazons, the lament 
 of the three Queens, (which subject was 
 familiar to him in ' The Seven against 
 Thebes' of the Greek drama,) and the my- 
 thology which Chaucer had so elaborately 
 sketched as the machinery of his great 
 story. 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 
 
 445 
 
 Lord Byron somewhere says, speaking of 
 his own play of ' Sardanapalus,' " I look 
 upon Shakspere to be the worst of models, 
 though the most extraordinary of writers." 
 We think, if Shakspere be the worst of 
 models, it is because he is the most extraor- 
 dinary of writers. His prodigious depth of 
 thought, his unbounded range of imagery, 
 his intense truth of characterization, are not 
 to be imitated. The other qualities which 
 remain as a model lie beneath the surface. 
 Imitate, if it be possible, the structure of 
 his verse ; the thought and the imagery are 
 wanting, and the mere versification is a life- 
 less mass. Dryden says, in his preface to 
 ( All for Love,' " In my style I have pro- 
 fessed to imitate the divine Shakspeare." 
 Open the play at any part, and see if the 
 imitation has produced a resemblance. Rowe 
 tells us that ' Jane Shore ' is an imitation of 
 Shakspere. It is a painted daub of the 
 print-shops imitating the colouring of Titian. 
 Otway pieced 'Romeo and Juliet' into his 
 1 Caius Marius,' where the necessity for imi- 
 tation was actually forced upon him, in 
 making a cento of Shakspere's lines and his 
 own ; and yet the last speech of the Romeo 
 of Otway's tragedy substitutes these three 
 lines in the place of "Thus with a kiss I 
 die :" 
 
 " This world's gross air grows burthensome 
 
 already. 
 I am all a god ; such heavenly joys transport 
 
 me, 
 That mortal sense grows sick, and faints with 
 
 lasting." 
 
 We mention these things to show that men 
 of very high talent have not been able to 
 grapple with Shakspere's style in the way 
 of imitation. A poet, and especially a con- 
 temporary poet, might have formed his own 
 style, in some degree, upon Shakspere ; not 
 only by the constant contemplation of his 
 peculiar excellences, but through the general 
 character that a man of the very highest 
 genius impresses unconsciously upon the 
 aggregate poetry of his age. This we be- 
 lieve to have been the case with Chapman. 
 He was not an imitator of Shakspere in the 
 ordinary sense of the word ; he could not 
 
 imitate him in his scenes of passion, because 
 he could not " shift at pleasure, to inform 
 and animate other existences." But, in a 
 limited range, he approached Shakspere, 
 because he had the same earnestness, the 
 same command of striking combinations of 
 language, a rhythm in which harmony is 
 blended with strength, a power of painting 
 scenes by vivid description, a tendency to 
 reflect and philosophize. All this Shakspere 
 had, but he had a great deal more. Is that 
 more displayed in the scenes of 'The Two 
 Noble Kinsmen' which have been attributed 
 to him ? or, not being present, had Chapman 
 the power of producing these scenes out of 
 his own resources ? This is a question which 
 we certainly cannot pretend to answer satis- 
 factorily : all that we can do is to compare 
 a few peculiarities in the first and last acts 
 of ' The Two Noble Kinsmen' with passages 
 that ofier themselves in those of Chapman'^ 
 works with which we have an acquaintance. 
 We will begin with a quality which is 
 remarkable enough in passages of ' The Two 
 Noble Kinsmen' to distinguish them from 
 those written by Fletcher we mean the 
 presence of general truths and reflections, 
 propounded always with energy, sometimes 
 with solemnity, not dragged in as a moral 
 at the end of a fable, but arising spon- 
 taneously out of the habit of the author's 
 mind. Coleridge doubts the profundity of 
 these thoughts and we think he is right. 
 We will select a few of such passages from 
 ' The Two Noble Kinsmen ;' and pas- 
 sages of a similar nature, taken somewhat 
 hastily from three or four of Chapman's 
 
 Two NOBLE KINSMEN. 
 
 We come unseasonably ; but when could 
 
 Grief 
 Cull forth, as unpang'd Judgment can, fitt'st 
 
 time 
 For best solicitation?" 
 
 " Oh, you heaVnly charmers, 
 What things you make of us ! For what we 
 
 lack 
 
 We laugh, for what we have are sorry ; still 
 Are children in some kind." 
 
446 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ix. 
 
 " Let th' event, 
 
 That never-erring arbitrator, tell us 
 When we know all ourselves; and let us 
 
 follow 
 The becking of our chance ! " 
 
 CHAPMAN. 
 
 " Sin is a coward, madam, and insults 
 But on our weakness, in his truest valour ; 
 And so our ignorance tames us, that we let 
 His shadows fright us." Bussy D'Ambois. 
 
 " the good God of Gods, 
 How blind is pride ! what eagles we are still 
 In matters that belong to other men ! 
 What beetles in our own !" All Fools. 
 
 " ! the strange difference 'twixt us and the 
 
 stars ! 
 
 They work with inclinations strong and fatal, 
 And nothing know : and we know all their 
 
 working, 
 
 And nought can do or nothing can prevent." 
 Byron's Tragedy. 
 
 It would be easy to multiply examples of 
 this kind ; and it would not be necessary 
 for our purpose to select passages that are 
 very closely parallel. We only desire to 
 show that Chapman is a reflective poet ; and 
 that in this respect the tone of thought that 
 may be found in the first and last acts of 
 ' The Two Noble Kinsmen ' is not incom- 
 patible with his habits of composition. 
 
 We have already selected an invocation 
 by Chapman, with the intent of showing 
 that his style in this detached and complete 
 form of poetry approaches much more closely 
 to the invocations in ' The Two Noble Kins- 
 men' than the style of Jonson. Chapman 
 appears to us to delight in this species of 
 oratorical verse, requiring great condensation 
 and majesty of expression, and demanding 
 the nicest adjustment of a calm and stately 
 rhythm. He derived, perhaps, this love of 
 invocation, as well as the power of intro- 
 ducing such passages successfully in his 
 dramas, from his familiarity with Homer ; 
 and thus for the same reason his plays have 
 more of the stately form of the epic dialogue 
 than the passionate rapidity of the true 
 drama. We will select one invocation from 
 Chapman's translation of the * Iliad,' that of 
 
 Agamemnon's prayer in the third book, to 
 show the sources at least which were open 
 to the writer of the invocations in the fifth 
 act of 'The Two Noble Kinsmen,' for ex- 
 amples of condensation of thought, majesty 
 of diction, and felicity of epithet : 
 
 " Jove, that Ida doth protect, and hast the 
 titles won, 
 
 Most glorious, most invincible ; and thou all- 
 seeing sun ; 
 
 All-hearing, all-recomforting ; floods, earth, 
 and powers beneath ! 
 
 That all the perjuries of men chastise even 
 after death ; 
 
 Be witnesses, and see performed, the hearty 
 vows we make." 
 
 These invocations in his ' Homer ' have the 
 necessary condensation of the original. In 
 his own inventions in the same kind he is 
 naturally more diffuse ; but his diffuseness 
 is not the diffuseness of Fletcher. Take one 
 example : 
 
 " Now all ye peaceful regents of the night, 
 Silently-gliding exhalations, 
 Languishing winds, and murmuring fall of 
 
 waters, 
 
 Sadness of heart, and ominous secureness, 
 Enchantments, dead sleeps, all the friends of 
 
 rest, 
 
 That ever wrought upon the life of man, 
 Extend your utmost strengths; and this 
 
 charm'd hour 
 
 Fix like the centre; make the violent wheels 
 Of Time and Fortune stand; and great 
 
 existence, 
 The maker's treasury, now not seem to be." 
 
 The time is past when it may be necessary 
 to prove that Chapman was a real poet. 
 There are passages in his plays which show 
 that he was capable not only of giving 
 interest to forced situations and extravagant 
 characters by his all-informing energy, but 
 of pouring out the sweetest spirit of beauty 
 in the most unexpected places. Take the 
 following four lines as an example : 
 
 " Here 's nought but whispering with us : like 
 
 a calm 
 
 Before a tempest, when the silent air 
 Lays her soft ear close to the earth to hearken 
 For that she fears steals on to ravish her." 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 THE BIRTH OF MERLIN. 
 
 447 
 
 Was ever personification more exquisitely 
 beautiful ? The writer of these lines, with 
 his wondrous facility, was equal to anything 
 that did not demand the very highest 
 qualities for the drama ; and those qualities 
 we do not think are manifest in the first and 
 
 last acts of ' The Two Noble Kinsmen,' rich 
 as these are in excellences within the range 
 of such a writer as Chapman, especially when 
 his exuberant genius was under the necessary 
 restraint of co-operation with another writer. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE BIRTH OF MERLIN. 
 
 THE first known edition of this play was 
 published in 1662, under the following title: 
 'The Birth of Merlin : or, the Childe hath 
 found his Father: as it hath been several 
 times Acted with great Applause. Written 
 by William Shakespear and William Rowley.' 
 Of this very doubtful external evidence two 
 of the modern German critics have applied 
 themselves to prove the correctness. Horn 
 has written a criticism of fourteen pages 
 upon 'The Birth of Merlin,' which he de- 
 cides to be chiefly Shakspere's, possessing a 
 high degree of poetical merit with much 
 deep-thoughted characterization. Tieck has 
 no doubt of the extent of the assistance that 
 Shakspere gave in producing this play : 
 "This piece is a new proof of the extra- 
 ordinary riches of the period, in which such 
 a work was unnoticed among the mass of 
 intellectual and characteristic dramas. The 
 modern English, whose weak side is poetical 
 criticism, have left it almost to accident 
 what shall be again revived ; and we seldom 
 see, since Dodsley, who proceeded somewhat 
 more carefully, any reason why one piece is 
 selected and others rejected." He adds, 
 " None of Rowley's other works are equal to 
 this. What part has Shakspere in it ? has 
 he taken a part ? what induced him to do 
 so ? can only be imperfectly answered, and 
 by supposition. Why should not Shakspere 
 for once have written for another theatre 
 than his own? Why should he not, when 
 the custom was so common, have written in 
 companionship with another though less 
 powerful poet?" Ulrici takes a different, 
 
 and, we think, a much juster view. The 
 play, he holds, must have been produced late 
 in Shakspere's life. If he had written in it 
 at all, he would have put out his matured 
 strength. All the essentials, plan, compo- 
 sition, and character, belong to Rowley. 
 Peculiarities of style and remarkable turns 
 of thought are not sufficient to furnish 
 evidence of authorship, for they are common 
 to other contemporary poets. It is not very 
 easy to trace the exact progress of William 
 Rowley. He was an actor in the company 
 of which Shakspere was a proprietor. We 
 find his name in a document of 1616, and 
 again in 1625. The same bookseller that 
 published 'The Birth of Merlin' associated 
 his name with other writers of eminence 
 besides Shakspere. He is spoken of by 
 Langbaine as " an author that flourished in 
 the reign of King Charles I.;" but there is 
 no doubt that he may be considered as a 
 successful writer in the middle period of 
 James I. It is impossible to think that he 
 could have been associated with Shakspere 
 in writing a play until after Shakspere had 
 quitted the stage ; and we must therefore 
 bear in mind that Rowley's supposed associate 
 was at that period the author of ' Othello ' 
 and ' Lear,' of ' Twelfth Night' and c As You 
 Like It.' 
 
 A few years after the accession of James I. 
 the fondness of the court for theatrical 
 entertainments, and the sumptuousness of 
 the masks that were got up for its special 
 delight, appear to have produced a natural 
 influence upon the public stage in rendering 
 
448 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEBE. 
 
 [BOOK ix. 
 
 some of the pieces performed more dependent 
 upon scenery and dresses and processions 
 than in the later years of Elizabeth. The 
 'Birth of Merlin' belongs to the class of 
 show-plays ; and the elaboration of that 
 portion which is addressed merely to the eye 
 has imparted a character to those scenes in 
 which the imagination is addressed through 
 the dialogue. There is an essential want of 
 refinement as well as of intellectual power, 
 partly arising from this false principle of 
 art, which addresses itself mainly to the 
 senses. We have a succession of incidents 
 without any unity of action. The human 
 interest and the supernatural are jumbled 
 together, so as to render each equally unreal. 
 Extravagance is taken for force, and what is 
 merely hideous is offered to us as sublime. 
 The story, of course, belongs to the fabulous 
 history of Britain. Its movements are so 
 complicated that we should despair of tracing 
 it through its scenes of war and love, of 
 devilry and witchcraft. The Britons are 
 invaded by the Saxons, but the British army 
 is miraculously preserved by the power of 
 Anselm, a hermit. The Saxons sue for peace 
 to Aurelius, the King of Britain, but the 
 monarch suddenly falls in love with Artesia, 
 the daughter of the Saxon general, and 
 marries her, against the wishes of all his 
 court. Uter Pendragon, the brother of 
 Aurelius, has been unaccountably missing, 
 and he, it seems, had fallen in love with the 
 same lady during his rambles. Upon the 
 return of Prince Uter to his brother's court, 
 the queen endeavours to obtain from him a 
 declaration of unlawful attachment. Her 
 object is to sow disunion amongst the Britons, 
 to promote the ascendancy of the Saxons. 
 She is successful, and the weak Aurelius 
 joins his invaders. During the progress of 
 these events we have love-episodes with the 
 daughters of Donobert, a British nobleman. 
 The character of Modestia, one of the 
 daughters, who is resolved to dedicate her- 
 self to a religious life, is drawn with 
 considerable skill, and she expresses herself 
 with a quiet strength which contrasts ad- 
 vantageously with the turmoil around her : 
 " Noble and virtuous ! could I dream of 
 marriage, 
 
 I should affect thee, Edwin. Oh my soul, 
 Here 's something tells me that the best of 
 
 creatures, 
 These models of the world, weak man and 
 
 woman, 
 Should have their souls, their making, life, 
 
 and being, 
 
 To some more excellent use : if what the sense 
 Calls pleasure were our ends, we might justly 
 
 blame 
 
 Great Nature's wisdom, who rear'd a building 
 Of so much art and beauty, to entertain 
 A guest so far incertain, so imperfect : 
 If only speech distinguish us from beasts, 
 Who know no inequality of birth and place, 
 But still to fly from goodness ; oh ! how base 
 Were life at such a rate ! No, no ! that 
 
 Power 
 That gave to man his being, speech, and 
 
 wisdom, 
 
 Gave it for thankfulness. To Him alone 
 That made me thus, may I thence truly 
 
 know, 
 I '11 pay to Him, not man, the love I owe." 
 
 The supernatural part of this play is 
 altogether overdone, exhibiting far less skill 
 in the management than a modern fairy 
 spectacle for the Easter holidays. Before 
 Merlin appears we have a Saxon magician 
 produced who can raise the dead, and he 
 makes Hector and Achilles come into the 
 Saxon court very much after the fashion of 
 the apparition of Marshal Saxe in the great 
 gallery at Dresden (see Wraxall's ' Memoirs'). 
 The stage-direction for this extraordinary 
 exhibition is as follows : 
 
 " Enter PROXIMUS, bringing in HECTOR, attired 
 and armed after the Trojan manner, with target, 
 sword, and battle-axe ; a trumpet before him, and 
 a Spirit in flame-colours with a torch: at the 
 other door, ACHILLES, with his spear and falchion, 
 a trumpet, and a Spirit in black before him: 
 trumpets sound alarm, and they manage their 
 weapons to begin thefight f and after some cJiarges 
 the Hermit steps between them, at which, seeming 
 amazed, the Spirits tremble." 
 
 That the poet who produced the cauldron 
 of the weird sisters should be supposed to 
 have a hand in this child's play is little less 
 than miraculous itself. But we soon cease 
 to take an interest in mere Britons and 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 THE BIRTH OF MERLIN. 
 
 449 
 
 Saxons, for a clown and his sister arrive at 
 court, seeking a father for a child which the 
 lady is about to present to the world. After 
 some mummery which is meant for comedy, 
 we have the following stage-direction : 
 "Enter the Devil in man's habit richly 
 attired, his feet and his head horrid ; " and 
 the young lady from the country immediately 
 recognises the treacherous father. After 
 another episode with Modestia and Edwin, 
 thunder and lightning announce something 
 terrible ; the birth of Merlin has taken place, 
 and his father the Devil properly introduces 
 him reading a book and foretelling his own 
 future celebrity. We have now prophecy 
 upon prophecy and fight upon fight, blazing 
 stars, dragons, and Merlin expounding all 
 amidst the din. We learn that Artesia has 
 poisoned her husband, and that Uter has 
 become King Pendragon. The Saxons are 
 defeated by the new king, by whom Artesia, 
 as a murderess, is buried alive. In the mean 
 time the Devil has again been making some 
 proposals to Merlin's mother, which end 
 greatly to his discomfiture, for his powerful 
 son shuts him up in a rock. Merlin then, 
 addressing his mother, proposes to her to 
 retire to a solitude he has prepared for her, 
 " to weep away the flesh you have offended 
 with;" "and when you die," he proceeds, 
 
 " I will erect a monument 
 Upon the verdant plains of Salisbury, 
 No king shall have so high a sepulchre, 
 With pendulous stones, that I will hang by 
 
 art, 
 
 Where neither lime nor mortar shall be used 
 A dark enigma to the memory, 
 For none shall have the power to number 
 
 them ; 
 
 A place that I will hallow for your rest , 
 Where no night-hag shall walk, nor were-wolf 
 
 tread, 
 Where Merlin's mother shall be sepulchred." 
 
 As this is a satisfactory account of the 
 origin of Stonehenge, we might here con- 
 clude; but there is a little more to tell of 
 this marvellous play. Uter, the triumphant 
 king, desires Merlin to 
 
 " show the full event 
 That shall both end our reign and chronicle." 
 
 Merlin thus consents : 
 
 " What Heaven decrees, fate hath no power to 
 
 alter : 
 The Saxons, sir, will keep the ground they 
 
 have, 
 
 And by supplying numbers still increase, 
 Till Britain be no more : So please your 
 
 grace, 
 
 I will, in visible apparitions,' 
 Present you prophecies, which shall concern 
 Succeeding princes, which my art shall raise, 
 Till men shall call these times the latter 
 
 days. 
 
 [MERLIN strikes. 
 
 Hautboys. Enter a King in armour, his shield 
 quartered with thirteen crowns. At the other end 
 enter divers Princes, wJio present their crowns to 
 him at his feet, and do him homage; then enters 
 Death, and strikes him; he, growing sick, crowns 
 
 CONSTANTINE." 
 
 This Merlin explains to represent Uter's son, 
 Arthur, and his successor; at which the 
 prince, much gratified, asserts, 
 
 " All future times shall still record this story, 
 Of Merlin's learned worth, and Arthur's 
 glory." 
 
 G G 
 
450 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE, 
 
 [BOOK ix 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 ESTIMATE OF SHAKSPERE BY HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 THE rank as a writer which Shakspere took 
 in his own time is determined by a few 
 decided notices of him. These notices are 
 as ample and as frequent as can be looked 
 for in an age which had no critical records, 
 and when writers, therefore, almost went 
 out of their way to refer to their literary 
 contemporaries, except for the purposes of 
 set compliment. We believe that, as early 
 as 1591, Spenser called attention to Shak- 
 spere, as 
 
 " the man whom Nature self had made 
 To mock herself, and truth to imitate ;" 
 
 describing him also as 
 
 " that same gentle spirit, from whose pen 
 Large streams of honey and sweet nectar 
 flow." 
 
 We know that the envy of Greene, in 1592, 
 pointed at him as "an absolute Johannes 
 factotum, in his own conceit the only 
 Shake-scene in a country;" and we receive 
 this bitterness of the unfortunate dramatist 
 against his more successful rival as a tribute 
 to his power and his popularity. We con- 
 sider that the apology of Chettle, who had 
 edited the posthumous work of Greene con- 
 taining this effusion of spite, was an ac- 
 knowledgment of the established opinion 
 of Shakspere's excellence as an author: 
 "Divers of worship have reported his up- 
 rightness of dealing, which argues his 
 honesty, and his facetious grace in writing, 
 that approves his art." This was printed 
 in 1592, and yet the man who had won 
 this reluctant testimony to his art, by 
 " his facetious grace in writing," is held 
 by modern authorities to have then been 
 only a botcher of other men's works, as if 
 " facetious grace " were an expression that 
 did not most happily mark the quality by 
 which Shakspere was then most eminently 
 distinguished above all his contemporaries, 
 
 his comic power, his ability above all others 
 to produce 
 
 " Fine counterfesance, and unhurtful sport, 
 Delight, and laughter, deck'd in seemly sort." 
 
 But passages such as these, which it is almost 
 impossible to apply to any other man than 
 
 Shakspere, are still only indirect evidence of 
 the opinion which was formed of him when 
 he was yet a very young writer. But a few 
 years later we encounter the most direct tes- 
 timony to his pre-eminence. He it was that, 
 in 1598, was assigned his rank, not by any 
 vague and doubtful compliment, not with 
 any ignorance of what had been achieved 
 by other men ancient and modern, but by 
 the learned discrimination of a scholar ; 
 and that rank was with Homer, Hesiod, 
 Euripides, JSschylus, Sophocles, Pindar, 
 Phocylides, and Aristophanes amongst the 
 Greeks ; Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Silius Italicus, 
 Lucan, Lucretius, Ausonius, and Claudian 
 amongst the Latins; and Sidney, Spenser, 
 Daniel, Drayton, Warner, Marlowe, and 
 Chapman amongst the English. According 
 to the same authority, it was " in mellifluous 
 and honey-tongued Shakspere " that " the 
 sweet witty soul of Ovid lives." This praise 
 was applied to his ' Venus and Adonis,' and 
 other poems. But, for his dramas, he is 
 raised above every native contemporary and 
 predecessor : " As Plautus and Seneca are 
 accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy 
 among the Latins ; so Shakspere among the 
 English is the most excellent in both kinds 
 for the stage." These are extracts with 
 which many of our readers must be familiar. 
 They are from ' The Wits' Commonwealth ' 
 of Francis Meres, " Master of Arts of both 
 Universities ;" a book largely circulated, and 
 mentioned with applause by contemporary 
 writers. The author delivers not these sen- 
 tences as his own peculiar opinion ; he 
 speaks unhesitatingly, as of a fact ad- 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 ESTIMATE OF SHAKSPERE BY HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 451 
 
 mitting no doubt, that Shakspere, among 
 the English, is the most excellent for Comedy 
 and Tragedy. Does any one of the other 
 " excellent " dramatic writers of that day 
 rise up to dispute the assertion, galling, per- 
 haps, to the self-love of some amongst them? 
 Not a voice is heard to tell Francis Meres 
 that he has overstated the public opinion of 
 the supremacy of Shakspere. Thomas Hey- 
 wood, one of this illustrious band, speaks of 
 Meres as an approved good scholar, and 
 says that his account of authors is learnedly 
 done*. Hey wood himself, indeed, in lines 
 wiitten long after Shakspere's death, men- 
 tions him in stronger terms of praise than 
 he applies to any of his contemporaries f. 
 Lastly, Meres, after other comparisons of 
 Shakspere with the great writers of an- 
 tiquity and of his own time, has these words, 
 which nothing but a complete reliance upon 
 the received opinion of his day could have 
 warranted him in applying to any living 
 man : " As Epius Stolo said that the Muses 
 would speak with Plautus' tongue, if they 
 would speak Latin ; so I say that the Muses 
 would speak with Shakspere's fine filed phrase, 
 if they would speak English." 
 
 Of the popularity of Shakspere in his own 
 day, the external evidence, such as it is, is 
 more decisive than the testimony of any 
 contemporary writer. He was at one and 
 the same time the favourite of the people 
 and of the Court. There is no record 
 whatever known to exist of the public 
 performances of Shakspere's plays at his 
 own theatres. Had such an account existed 
 of the receipts at the Blackfriars and the 
 Globe as Henslowe kept for his company, 
 we should have known something precise of 
 that popularity which was so extensive as to 
 make the innkeeper of Bos worth, "full of ale 
 and history," derive his knowledge from the 
 stage of Shakspere: 
 
 * " Here I might take fit opportunity to reckon up all 
 our English writers, and compare them with the Greek, 
 French, Italian, and Latin poets, not only in their pastoral, 
 historical, elegiacal, and heroical poems, but in their 
 tragical and comical subjects, but it was my chance to 
 happen on the like, learnedly done by an approved good 
 scholar, in a book called ' Wits' Commonwealth,' to which 
 treatise I wholly refer you, returning to our present sub- 
 ject." 'Apology for Actors,' 1612. 
 
 t * Hierarchy of Blessed Angels,' 1635. 
 
 " For when he would have said. King Richard 
 
 died, 
 
 And call'd, A horse, a horse ! he Burbage 
 cried."* 
 
 But the facts connected with the original 
 publication of Shakspere's plays sufficiently 
 prove how eagerly they were for the most 
 part received by the readers of the drama. 
 From 1597 to 1600, ten of these plays were 
 published from authentic copies, undoubtedly 
 with the consent of the author. The system 
 of publication did not commence before 1597; 
 and, with four exceptions, it was not con- 
 tinued beyond 1600. Of these plays there 
 were published, before the appearance of 
 the collected edition of 1623, four editions 
 of Richard II., six of The First Part of 
 Henry IV., six of Richard III., four of 
 Romeo and Juliet, six of Hamlet, besides 
 repeated editions of the plays which were 
 surreptitiously published the maimed and 
 imperfect copies described by the editors of 
 the first folio. Of the thirty-six plays con- 
 tained in the folio of 1623, only one-half 
 were published, whether genuine or piratical, 
 in the author's lifetime ; and it is by no 
 means improbable that many of those which 
 were originally published with his concur- 
 rence were not permitted to be reprinted, be- 
 cause such publication might be considered 
 injurious to the great theatrical property 
 with which he was connected. But the con- 
 stant demand for some of the plays is an 
 evidence of their popularity which cannot be 
 mistaken, and is decisive as to the people's 
 admiration of Shakspere. As for that of the 
 Court, the testimony, imperfect as it is, is 
 entirely conclusive. 
 
 " Sweet Swan of Avon ! what a sight it were 
 To see thee in our waters yet appear, 
 And make those flights upon the banks of 
 
 Thames 
 That so did take Eliza and our James," 
 
 is no vague homage from Jonson to the 
 memory of his " beloved friend ;" but the 
 record of a fact. The accounts of the revels 
 at Court, between the years 1588 and 1604, 
 the most interesting period in the career of 
 Shakspere, have not been discovered in the 
 
 Bishop Corbet, who died in 1635. 
 
 G a 2 
 
452 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ix. 
 
 depositories for such papers. We have, 
 indeed, memoranda of payments to her Ma- 
 jesty's players during this period, but nothing 
 definite as to the plays represented. We 
 know not what " so did take Eliza ;" but we 
 are left in no doubt as to the attractions for 
 " our James." It appears from the Revels 
 Book that, from Hallowmas-day, 1604, to the 
 following Shrove Tuesday, there were thirteen 
 plays performed before the King, eight of 
 which were Shakspere's, namely ' Othello,' 
 'The Merry Wives of Windsor,' 'Measure 
 for Measure,' 'The Comedy of Errors,' ' Love's 
 Labour 's Lost,' Henry V.,' and ' The Mer- 
 chant of Venice ' twice, that being " again 
 commanded by the King's Majesty." Not 
 one of these, with the possible exception of 
 ' Measure for Measure,' was recommended by 
 its novelty. The series of the same accounts 
 is broken from 1605 to 1611 ; and then from 
 Hallowmas-night to Shrove Tuesday, which 
 appears to have been the theatrical season 
 of the Court, six different companies of 
 players contribute to the amusements of 
 Whitehall and Greenwich by the perform- 
 ance of twelve plays. Of five which are per- 
 formed by the King's players, two are by 
 Shakspere: ' The Tempest,' and 'The Winter's 
 Tale.' If the records were more perfect, this 
 proof of the admiration of Shakspere in the 
 highest circle would, no doubt, be more con- 
 clusive. As it is, it is sufficient to support 
 this general argument.* 
 
 During the life of Shakspere, his surpass- 
 ing popularity appears to have provoked no 
 expression of envy from his contemporaries, 
 no attempt to show that his reputation was 
 built upon an unsolid foundation. Some of 
 the later commentators upon Shakspere, 
 however, took infinite pains to prove that 
 Jonson had ridiculed him during his life, 
 and disparaged him after his death. Every 
 one knows Fuller's delightful picture of the 
 convivial exercises in mental strength be- 
 tween Jonson and Shakspere : " Many were 
 the wit-combats between Shakspere and Ben 
 Jonson. I behold them like a Spanish great 
 galleon and an English man-of-war. Master 
 Jonson, like the former, was built far higher 
 
 * 'Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court,' 
 by Peter Cunningham. 
 
 in learning, solid but slow in his perform- 
 ances ; Shakspere, like the latter, less in 
 bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with 
 all tides, tack about, and take advantage of 
 all winds by the quickness of his wit and in- 
 vention." Few would imagine that a passage 
 such as this should have been produced to 
 prove that there was a quarrel between Jon- 
 son and Shakspere ; that the wit-combats of 
 these intellectual gladiators were the con- 
 sequence of their habitual enmity. By the 
 same perverse misinterpretation have the 
 commentators sought to prove that, when 
 Jonson, in his prologues, put forth his own 
 theory of dramatic art, he meant to satirize 
 the principles upon which Shakspere worked. 
 It is held that in the prologue to 'Every 
 Man in his Humour,' acted in 1598 at Shak- 
 spere's own theatre, Jonson especially ridi- 
 cules the historical plays of 'Henry VI.' and 
 'Richard III.': 
 
 " With three rusty swords, 
 And help of some few foot and half-foot words, 
 Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars, 
 And in the tiring-house bring wounds to scars." 
 
 There is in another author a similar ridicule, 
 and stronger, of the inadequacy of the stage 
 to present a battle to the senses : 
 
 " We shall much disgrace 
 With four or five most vile and ragged foils, 
 Right ill-disposed in brawl ridiculous 
 The name of Agincourt." 
 
 But Shakspere himself was the author of 
 this passage ; and he was thus the satirist of 
 himself, as much as Jonson was his satirist, 
 when he compared, in his prologue, the 
 comedy of manners with the historical and 
 romantic drama which had then such attrac- 
 tions for the people. Shakspere's Chorus to 
 ' Henry V.,' from which we have made the 
 last extract, was written the year after the 
 performance of Jonson's play. We recognise 
 in it a candid admission of the good sense of 
 Jonson, which at once shows that Shakspere 
 was the last to feel the criticism as a per- 
 sonal attack. Nothing, in truth, can be 
 more absurd than the attempts to show, 
 from supposed allusions in Jonson, that he 
 was an habitual detractor of Shakspere. The 
 reader will find these "proofs of Jonson's 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 ESTIMATE OF SHAKSPERE BY HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 453 
 
 malignity" brought forward, and dismissed 
 with the contempt that they deserve, in a 
 paper appended to Gifford's 'Memoir of 
 Jonson.' The same acute critic had the 
 merit of pointing out a passage in Jonson's 
 1 Poetaster/ which, he says, "is as un- 
 doubtedly true of Shakspere as if it were 
 pointedly written to describe him." He 
 further says, " It is evident that throughout 
 the whole of this drama Jonson maintains a 
 constant allusion to himself and his con- 
 temporaries," and that, consequently, the 
 lines in question were intended for Shak- 
 spere : 
 
 " That which he hath writ 
 Is with such judgment labour'd and distill'd 
 Through all the needful uses of our lives, 
 That, could a man remember but his lines, 
 He should not touch at any serious point, 
 But he might breathe his spirit out of him. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 His learning savours not tlit- school-like gloss 
 That most consists in echoing words and 
 
 terms, 
 
 And soonest wins a man an empty name ; 
 Nor any long or far-fetch'd circumstance 
 Wrapp'd in the curious general'ties of art ; 
 But a direct and analytic sum 
 Of all the worth and first effects of art. 
 And, for his poesy, 't is so ramm'd with life, 
 That it shall gather strength of life, with 
 
 being, 
 
 And live hereafter more admired than now."* 
 We have already noticed the expression of 
 Jonson to Drummond, that " Shakspere 
 wanted art." t It is impossible to receive 
 Jonson's words as any support of the absurd 
 opinion, so long propagated, that Shakspere 
 worked without labour and without method. 
 Jonson's own testimony, delivered five years 
 after the conversation with Drummond, 
 offers the most direct evidence against such 
 a construction of his expression : 
 
 " Yet must I not give Nature all : thy art, 
 My gentle Shakspere, must enjoy a part. 
 For though the poet's matter Nature be, 
 His art doth give the fashion : and that he 
 "Who casts to write a living line must sweat 
 (Such as thine are), and strike the second heat 
 
 * ' The Poetaster,' Act v. Sc. r. 
 t Book viii. ch. i. p. 369. 
 
 Upon the Muses' anvil : turn the same 
 (And himself with it) that he thinks to frame ; 
 Or, for the laurel, he may gain a scorn, 
 For a good poet 's made as well as born : 
 And such wert thou." 
 
 There can be no difficulty in understanding 
 Jonson's dispraise of Shakspere, small as it 
 was, when we look at the different characters 
 of the two men. In his ' Discoveries,' written 
 in his last years, there is the following 
 passage : " I remember, the players have 
 often mentioned it as an honour to Shak- 
 spere, that in his writing, whatsoever he 
 penned, he never blotted out a line. My 
 answer had been, Would he had blotted a 
 thousand. Which they thought a malevolent 
 speech. I had not told posterity this, but 
 for their ignorance who chose that circum- 
 stance to commend their friend by wherein 
 he most faulted ; and to justify mine own 
 candour : for I loved the man, and do honour 
 his memory, on this side idolatry, as much 
 as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an 
 open and free nature ; had an excellent 
 phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expres- 
 sions ; wherein he flowed with that facility, 
 that sometimes it was necessary he should 
 be stopped : Sufflaminandus erat,as Augustus 
 said of Haterius. His wit was in his own 
 power ; would the rule of it had been so too." 
 The players had said, in their preface to the 
 first folio "His mind and hand went to- 
 gether ; and what he thought he uttered 
 with that easiness that we have scarce re- 
 ceived from him a blot in his papers." 
 Jonson, no doubt, alludes to this assertion. 
 But we are not, therefore, to understand that 
 Shakspere took no pains in perfecting what, 
 according to the notions of his editors, he 
 delivered with such easiness. The differences 
 between the earlier and the later copies of 
 some of his plays show the unremitting care 
 and the exquisite judgment with which he 
 revised his productions. The expression 
 "without a blot" might, nevertheless, be 
 perfectly true ; and the fact, no doubt, im- 
 pressed upon the minds of Hemings and 
 Condell what they were desirous to im- 
 press upon others, that Shakspere was a 
 writer of unequalled facility " as he was a 
 happy imitator of nature, he was a most 
 
454 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK ix. 
 
 gentle expresser of it." Jonson received 
 this evidence of facility as a reproof to his 
 own laborious mode of composition. He felt 
 proud, and wisely so, of the commendations 
 of his admirers, that his works cost him much 
 sweat and much oil ; and when the players 
 told him that Shakspere never blotted out a 
 line, he had his self-satisfied retort, " Would 
 he had blotted a thousand." But this care- 
 lessness, as it appeared to Jonson, this 
 exuberant facility, as the players thought, 
 was in itself no proof that Shakspere did not 
 elaborate his works with the nicest care. 
 The same thing was said of Fletcher as of 
 him. Humphrey Moseley, the publisher of 
 Beaumont and Fletcher's works in 1647, says 
 " Whatever I have seen of Mr. Fletcher's 
 own hand is free from interlining, and his 
 friends affirm he never writ any one thing 
 twice." But the stationer does not put this 
 forth as any proof of carelessness; for he most 
 judiciously adds, " It seems he had that rare 
 felicity to prepare and perfect all first in his 
 own brain, to shape and attire his notions, 
 to add or lop off before he committed one 
 word to writing, and never touched pen till 
 all was to stand as firm and immutable as if 
 engraven in brass or marble." This is the 
 way, we believe, in which all works of great 
 originality are built up. If Shakspere blotted 
 not a line, it was because he wrote not till 
 he had laid the foundations, and formed the 
 plan, and conceived the ornaments, of his 
 wondrous edifices. The execution of the 
 work was then an easy thing ; and the 
 facility was the beautiful result of the pre- 
 vious labour. 
 
 But if Jonson expressed himself a little 
 petulantly, and perhaps inconsiderately, 
 about the boast of the players, surely nothing 
 can be nobler than the hearty tribute which 
 he pays to the memory of Shakspere : " I 
 loved the man, and do honour his memory, 
 on this side idolatry, as much as any." Un- 
 questionably this is language which shows 
 that the memory of Shakspere was cherished 
 by others even to idolatry ; so that Jonson 
 absolutely adopts an apologetical tone in 
 venturing an observation which can scarcely 
 be considered disparaging "he flowed with 
 that facility, that sometimes it was neces- 
 
 sary he should be stopped." It was the 
 facility that excited Jonson's critical com- 
 parison of Shakspere with himself ; and it 
 was in the same way that, when he wrote 
 his noble verses " To the Memory of my 
 Beloved Mr. William Shakespeare and what 
 he hath left us," he could not avoid drawing 
 a comparison between his own profound 
 scholarship and Shakspere's practical learn- 
 ing : 
 
 " If I thought my judgment were of years, 
 I should commit thee surely with thy peers, 
 And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine, 
 Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line. 
 And though thou hadst small Latin and less 
 
 Greek, 
 
 From thence to honour thee I will not seek 
 For names : but call forth thund'ring Eschylus, 
 Euripides, and Sophocles to us, 
 Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead, 
 To live again, to hear thy buskin tread 
 And shake a stage : or, when thy socks were 
 
 on, 
 
 Leave thee alone for the comparison 
 Of. all that insolent Greece or haughty Koine 
 Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come. 
 
 Nature herself was proud of his designs, 
 And joy'd to wear the dressing of his lines ! 
 Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit, 
 As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit. 
 The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes, 
 Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please, 
 But antiquated and deserted lie, 
 As they were not of Nature's family." 
 
 The interpretation of this passage is certainly 
 not difficult. Its general sense is expressed 
 by Gifford : " Jonson not only sets Shak- 
 speare above his contemporaries, but above 
 the ancients, whose works himself idolized, 
 and of whose genuine merits he was perhaps 
 a more competent judge than any scholar of 
 his age."* The entire passage was un- 
 questionably meant for praise, whatever 
 opinion might be implied in it as to Shak- 
 spere's learning. Looking to the whole con- 
 struction and tendency of the passage, it may 
 even be doubted whether Jonson intended 
 to express a direct opinion as to Shakspere's 
 philological attainments. If we paraphrase 
 
 * 'Jonson's Works,' vol. viii. p. 333. 
 
CHAP. IV.J 
 
 ESTIMATE OF SHAKSPERE BY HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 455 
 
 the passage according to the common notion, 
 it reads thus: And although you knew 
 little Latin and less Greek, to honour thee 
 out of Latin and Greek I will not seek for 
 names. According to this construction, the 
 poet ought to have written, because "thou 
 hadst small Latin," &c. But without any 
 violence the passage may be read thus : And 
 although thou hadst in thy writings few 
 images derived from Latin, and fewer from 
 Greek authors, I will not thence (on that 
 account) seek for names to honour thee, but 
 call forth thundering JBschylus, &c. It is 
 perfectly clear that Jonson meant to say, 
 and not disparagingly, that Shakspere was 
 not an imitator. Immediately after the 
 mention of Aristophanes, Terence, and Plau- 
 tus, he adds, 
 
 " Yet must I not give Nature all." 
 
 The same tone of commendation was taken 
 in Shakspere's time by other writers. Digges 
 says that he neither borrows from the Greeks, 
 imitates the Latins, nor translates from vulgar 
 languages. Drayton has these lines : 
 
 " Shakespeare, thou hadst as smooth a comic 
 
 vein, 
 
 Fitting the sock, and in thy natural brain 
 As strong conception, and as clear a rage, 
 As any one that traffick'd with the stage." * 
 
 To argue from such passages that the writers 
 meant to reproach Shakspere as an ignorant 
 or even as an unlearned man, in the common 
 sense of the word, was an absurdity that was 
 not fully propounded to the world till the 
 discovery of Dr. Farmer, that, because trans- 
 lations existed from Latin, Italian, and 
 French authors in the time of Shakspere, he 
 was incapable of consulting the originals. 
 This profound logician closes his judicial 
 sentence with the following memorable 
 words, which have become the true faith of 
 some antiquarian critics up to this hour : 
 "He remembered perhaps enough of his 
 schoolboy learning to put the Hig, hag, hog, 
 into the mouth of Sir Hugh Evans, and 
 
 * Farmer, the most insolent of the race of piddling 
 black-letter bibliographers, has the profligacy not to quote 
 these lines, but to say, " Drayton, the countryman and 
 acquaintance of Shakspeare, determines his excellence to 
 the natural brain only" 
 
 might pick up in the writers of the time, or 
 the course of his conversation, a familiar 
 phrase or two of French or Italian." There 
 is, however, a contemporary testimony to the 
 acquirements of Shakspere which is of some- 
 what higher value than the assertions of 
 any master " of all such reading as was never 
 read " of one, himself a true poet, who holds 
 that all Shakspere's excellences were his 
 freehold, but that his cunning brain unproved 
 his natural gifts : 
 
 "This and much more which cannot be ex- 
 
 press'd 
 
 But by himself, his tongue and his own breast, 
 Was Shakespeare's freehold, which his cunning 
 
 brain 
 
 Improved by favour of the ninefold train. 
 The buskin'd Muse, the Comic Queen, the 
 
 grand 
 
 And louder tone of Clio ; nimble hand, 
 And nimbler foot of the melodious pair ; 
 The silver- voiced Lady ; the most fair 
 Calliope, whose speaking silence daunts, 
 And she whose praise the heavenly body 
 
 chants ; 
 
 These jointly woo'd him, envying one another, 
 (Obey'd by all as spouse, but loved as brother, 
 And wrought a curious robe of sable grave, 
 Fresh green, and pleasant yellow, red most 
 
 brave, 
 And constant blue, rich purple, guiltless 
 
 white, 
 
 The lowly russet, and the scarlet bright ; 
 Branch'd and embroider'd like the painted 
 
 spring, 
 Each leaf match'd with a flower, and each 
 
 string 
 
 Of golden wire, each line of silk; there run 
 Italian works whose thread the sisters spun ; 
 And there did sing, or seem to sing, the 
 
 choice 
 
 Birds of a foreign note and various voice. 
 Here hangs a mossy rock ; there plays a fair 
 But chiding fountain purled : not the air, 
 Nor clouds, nor thunder, but were living 
 
 drawn, 
 
 Not out of common tiffany or lawn, 
 But fine materials, which the Muses know, 
 And only know the countries where they 
 
 grow."f 
 
 t Commendatory Verses, ' On Worthy Master Shak- 
 speare and his Poems,' by I. M. S. 
 
456 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEEE. 
 
 [BOOK ix. 
 
 But if the passage which we have pre- 
 viously quoted from ' The Poetaster ' be, as 
 Clifford so plausibly imagined, intended for 
 jhakspere, it is decisive as to Jonson's own 
 opinion of his great friend's acquirements: 
 it is the opinion of every man, now, who is 
 not a slave to the authority of the smallest 
 minds that ever undertook to measure the 
 vast poetical region of Shakspere with their 
 little tape, inch by inch : 
 
 His learning savours not the school-like gloss 
 That most consists in echoing words and 
 
 terms, 
 And soonest wins a man an empty name." 
 
 The verses of Jonson, prefixed to the folio 
 of 1623, conclude with these remarkable 
 lines : 
 
 Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage, 
 Or influence, chide, or cheer, the drooping 
 
 Which, since thy flight from hence, hath 
 
 mourn'd like night, 
 And despairs day, but for thy volume's light." 
 
 From 1616, the year of Shakspere's death, to 
 1623, the date of the first edition of his 
 collected works, Jonson himself had written 
 nothing for the stage. Beaumont had died 
 the year before Shakspere ; but Fletcher 
 alone was sustaining the high reputation 
 which he had won with his accomplished 
 associate. Massinger had been in London 
 from 1606, known certainly to have written 
 in conjunction with other dramatists before 
 the period of Shakspere's death, and, without 
 doubt, assisting to fill the void which he had 
 left ; for ' The Bondman' appears in the list 
 of the Master of the Revels in 1623. The 
 indefatigable Thomas Heywood was a writer 
 for the stage from the commencement of the 
 seventeenth century to the suppression of the 
 theatres. Webster was a poet of Shakspere's 
 own theatre, immediately after his death, 
 and a leading character in ' The Duchess of 
 Main' was played by Burbage. Rowley 
 produced some of his best works at the same 
 period. Chapman had not ceased to write. 
 Ford was known as a rising poet. Many 
 others were there of genius and learning who 
 at this particular time were struggling for 
 the honours of the drama, and some with 
 
 s^reat success. And yet Jonson does not 
 hesitate to say, that since the death of 
 Shakspere the stage mourns like night. 
 Leonard Digges, writing at the date of the 
 publication of the folio, says of Shakspere's 
 dramas, 
 
 " Happy verse, thou shalt be sung and heard, 
 When hungry quills shall be such honour 
 
 barr'd. 
 
 Then vanish, upstart writers to each stage, 
 You needy poetasters of this age ! " 
 
 This man speaks authoritatively, because 
 he speaks the public voice. But it is not 
 with the poetasters only that he compares 
 the popularity of Shakspere ; he tells us that 
 the players of the Globe live by him dead ; 
 and that prime judgments, rich veins, 
 
 " have fared 
 The worst with this deceased man compared;" 
 
 and he then proceeds to exhibit the precise 
 character of the popular admiration of 
 Shakspere : 
 
 " So have I seen, when Ceesar would appear, 
 And on the stage at half-sword parley were 
 Brutus and Cassius, 0, how the audience 
 Were ravish'd ! with what wonder they went 
 
 thence ! 
 When, some new day, they would not brook a 
 
 line 
 
 Of tedious, though well-labour'd, Catiline ; 
 Sejanus too was irksome : they prized more 
 ' Honest' lago, or the jealous Moor. 
 And though the Fox and subtle Alchymist, 
 Long intermitted, could not long be miss'd, 
 Though these have shamed all th' ancients, 
 
 and might raise 
 
 Their author's merit with a crown of bays, 
 Yet these sometimes, even at a friend's desire 
 Acted, have scarce defray'd the sea-coal fire 
 And door-keepers : when, let but Falstaff 
 
 come, 
 Hal, Poins, the rest, you scarce shall have a 
 
 room, 
 
 All is so pester'd : Let but Beatrice 
 And Benedict be seen, lo ! in a trice 
 The cockpit, galleries, boxes, all are full, 
 To hear Malvolio, that cross-garter'd gull. 
 Brief, there is nothing in his wit-fraught 
 
 book, 
 Whose sound we would not hear, on whose 
 
 worth look : 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 457 
 
 Like old-coin'd gold, whose lines in every 
 
 page 
 Shall pass true current to succeding age." 
 
 We have said enough, we think, to show 
 how inconsiderate is the assertion, that 
 Shakspere's " pre-eminence was not acknow- 
 ledged by his contemporaries." Should this 
 fact, however, be still thought to be a matter 
 of opinion, we will place the opinion of a 
 real critic, not the less sound for being an 
 enthusiastic admirer, against this echo of 
 
 the babble of the cold and arrogant school 
 of criticism that has still some small dis- 
 ciples and imitators : " Clothed in radiant 
 armour, and authorised by titles sure and 
 manifold as a poet, Shakspere came forward 
 to demand the throne of fame, as the dramatic 
 poet of England. His excellences compelled 
 even his contemporaries to seat him on that 
 throne, although there were giants in those days 
 contending for the same honour.' 1 ''* 
 
 * Coleridge's' Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 53. 
 
 BOOK X. 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 THE original edition of this collection of 
 poems bore the following title : ' Shake- 
 speare's Sonnets. Never before imprinted. 
 At London, by G. Eld, for T. T., and are to 
 be sold by John Wright, dwelling at Christ 
 Church-gate. 1609.' The volume is a small 
 quarto. In addition to the Sonnets it con- 
 tains, at the end, 'A Lover's Complaint. By 
 William Shake-speare.' In this collection 
 the Sonnets are numbered from 1 to 154. 
 Although the arrangement of the Sonnets in 
 this first edition is now the only one adopted 
 in editions of Shakspere's Poems, another 
 order occasionally prevailed up to the time 
 of the publication of Steevens's fac-simile re- 
 print of the Sonnets in 1766. An interval 
 of thirty-one years elapsed between the 
 publication of the volume by T. T. (Thomas 
 Thorpe) in 1609, and the demand for a re- 
 print of these remarkable poems. In 1640 
 appeared 'Poems, written by Wil.' Shake- 
 speare, Gent. Printed at London by Tho. 
 Cotes, and are to be sold by John Benson.' 
 This volume, in duodecimo, contains the 
 Sonnets, but in a totally different order, the 
 original arrangement not only being de- 
 
 parted from, but the lyrical poems of ' The 
 Passionate Pilgrim' scattered here and 
 there, and sometimes a single Sonnet, some- 
 times two or three, and more rarely four or 
 five, distinguished by some quaint title. No 
 title includes more than five. In the edi- 
 tions of the Poems -which appeared during a 
 century afterwards, the original order of the 
 Sonnets was adopted in some that of the 
 edition of 1640 in others. Lintot's, in 1709, 
 for example, adheres to the original ; Curll's, 
 in 1710, follows the second edition. Cotes, 
 the printer of the second edition, was also 
 the printer of the second edition of the plays. 
 That the principle of arrangement adopted 
 in Cotes' edition was altogether arbitrary, 
 and proceeded upon a false conception of 
 many of these poems, we can have no hesita- 
 tion in believing ; but it is remarkable that 
 within twenty-four years of Shakspere's 
 death an opinion should have existed that 
 the original arrangement was also arbitrary, 
 and that the Sonnets were essentially that 
 collection of fragments which Meres described 
 in 1598, when he wrote, "As the soul of 
 Euphorbus was thought to live in Pytha- 
 
458 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x. 
 
 goras, so the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives 
 in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shake- 
 speare : witness his ' Venus and Adonis,' his 
 'Lucrece,' his sugared Sonnets among his 
 private friends" Upon the question of the 
 continuity of the Sonnets depend many im- 
 portant considerations with reference to the 
 life and personal character of the poet ; and 
 it is necessary, therefore, to examine that 
 question with proportionate care. 
 
 The Sonnets of Shakspere are distinguished 
 from the general character of that class of 
 poems by the continuity manifestly existing 
 in many successive stanzas, which form, as it 
 were, a group of flowers of the same hue and 
 fragrance. Mr. Hallam has justly explained 
 this peculiarity : 
 
 "No one ever entered more fully than 
 Shakspeare into the character of this species 
 of poetry, which admits of no expletive 
 imagery, no merely ornamental line. But 
 though each Sonnet has generally its proper 
 unity, the sense I do not mean the gram- 
 matical construction will sometimes be 
 found to spread from one to another, inde- 
 pendently of that repetition of the leading 
 idea, like variations of an air, which a series 
 of them frequently exhibits, and on account 
 of which they have latterly been reckoned by 
 some rather an integral poem than a collec- 
 tion of Sonnets. But this ie not uncommon 
 among the Italians, and belongs, in fact, to 
 those of Petrarch himself." 
 
 But, although a series may frequently ex- 
 hibit a "repetition of the leading idea, like 
 variations of an air," it by no means follows 
 that they are to be therefore considered 
 "rather an integral poem than a collection of 
 Sonnets." In the edition of 1640 the "va- 
 riations " were arbitrarily separated, in many 
 cases, from the " air ;" but, on the other 
 hand, it is scarcely conceivable that in the 
 earlier edition of 1609 these verses were 
 intended to be presented as "an integral 
 poem." Before we examine this matter, let 
 us inquire into some of the circumstances 
 connected with the original publication. 
 
 The first seventeen Sonnets contain a 
 " leading idea " under every form of " va- 
 riation." They are an exhortation to a 
 friend, a male friend, to marry. Who this 
 
 friend was has been the subject of infinite 
 discussion. Chalmers maintains that it was 
 Queen Elizabeth, and that there was no im- 
 propriety in Shakspere addressing the queen 
 by the masculine pronoun, because a queen 
 is a prince ; as we still say in the Liturgy, 
 " our queen and governor" The reasoning 
 of Chalmers on this subject, which may be 
 found in his ' Supplementary Apology,' is 
 one of the most amusing pieces of learned 
 and ingenious nonsense that ever met our 
 view. We believe that we must very sum- 
 marily dismiss Queen Elizabeth. But Chal- 
 mers with more reason threw over the idea 
 that the dedication of the bookseller to the 
 edition of 1609 implied the person to whom 
 the Sonnets were addressed. T. T., who 
 dedicates, is, as we have mentioned, Thomas 
 Thorpe, the publisher. W. H., to whom the 
 dedication is addressed, was, according to the 
 earlier critics, an humble person. He was 
 either William Harte, the poet's nephew, or 
 William Hews, some unknown individual ; 
 but Drake said, and said truly, that the per- 
 son addressed in some of the Sonnets them- 
 selves was one of rank ; and he maintained 
 that it was Lord Southampton. " W. H.," 
 he said, ought to have been H. W. Henry 
 Wriothesley. But Mr. Boaden and Mr. Brown 
 have subsequently aflirmed that " W. H." is 
 William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, who, 
 in his youth and his rank, exactly corre- 
 sponded with the person addressed by the 
 poet. The words " begetter of these Sonnets," 
 in the dedication, must mean, it is main- 
 tained, the person who was the immediate 
 cause of their being written to whom they 
 were addressed. But he was "the only be- 
 getter of these Sonnets." The latter por- 
 tion of the Sonnets are unquestionably 
 addressed to a female, which at once disposes 
 of the assertion that he was the only begetter, 
 assuming the "begetter" to be used in the 
 sense of inspirer. Chalmers disposes of this 
 meaning of the word very cleverly : "W.H. 
 was the bringer forth of the Sonnets. Beget 
 is derived by Skinner from the Anglo-Saxon 
 begettan, obtinere. Johnson adopts this de- 
 rivation and sense : so that begetter, in the 
 quaint language of Thorpe the bookseller, 
 Pistol the ancient, and such affected persons, 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 459 
 
 signified the oUainer : as to get and getter, in 
 the present day, mean obtain and obtainer, or 
 to procure and the procurer." But then, on 
 the other hand, it is held that, when the 
 bookseller wishes Mr. W. H. " that eternity 
 promised by our ever-living poet," he means 
 promised him. This inference we must 
 think is somewhat strained. Be this as it 
 may, the material question to examine is 
 this are the greater portion of the Sonnets, 
 putting aside those which manifestly apply 
 to a female, or females, addressed to one 
 male friend ? Or are these the " sugared 
 Sonnets" scattered among many "private 
 friends ? " When Meres printed his l Pal- 
 ladis Tamia,' in 1598, there can be no doubt 
 that Shakspere's Sonnets, then existing only 
 in manuscript, had obtained a reputation in 
 the literary and courtly circles of that time. 
 Probably the notoriety which Meres had 
 given to the " sugared Sonnets " excited a 
 publisher, in 1599, to produce something 
 which should gratify the general curiosity. 
 In that year appeared a collection of poems 
 bearing the name of Shakspere, and published 
 by W. Jaggard, entitled 'The Passionate 
 Pilgrim.' This little collection contains two 
 Sonnets which are also given in the larger 
 collection of 1609. They are those num- 
 bered 138 and 144 in that collection. In the 
 modern reprints of ' The Passionate Pilgrim ' 
 it is usual to omit these two Sonnets without 
 explanation, because they have been pre- 
 viously given in the larger collection of 
 Sonnets. But it is essential to bear in mind 
 the fact that in 1599 two of the Sonnets of 
 the hundred and fifty-four published in 1609 
 were printed ; and that one of them espe- 
 cially, the one numbered 144, has been held 
 to form an important part of the supposed 
 "integral poem." We may therefore con- 
 clude that the other Sonnets which appear 
 to relate to the same persons as are referred 
 to in the 144th Sonnet were also in existence. 
 Further, the publication of these Sonnets in 
 1599 tends to remove the impression that 
 might be derived from the tone of some of 
 those in the larger collection of 1609, that 
 they were written when Shakspere had 
 passed the middle period of life. For ex- 
 ample, in the 73rd Sonnet the poet refers to 
 
 the autumn of his years, the twilight of his 
 day, the ashes of his youth. In the 138th, 
 printed in 1599, he describes himself as 
 "past the best" as "old." He was then 
 thirty-five. Dante was exactly this age when 
 he described himself in " the midway of this 
 our mortal life." In these remarkable par- 
 ticulars, therefore, the mention of two per- 
 sons real or fictitious, who occupy an im- 
 portant position in the larger collection, and 
 in the notice of the poet's age, the two 
 Sonnets of 'The Passionate Pilgrim' are 
 strictly connected with those published in 
 1609, of which they also form a part ; and 
 they lead to the conclusion that they were 
 obtained for publication out of the scattered 
 leaves floating about amongst "private 
 friends." The publication of ' The Passionate 
 Pilgrim' was unquestionably unauthorised 
 and piratical. The publisher got all he 
 could which existed in manuscript ; and he 
 took two poems out of ' Love's Labour's Lost,' 
 which was printed only the year before. In 
 1609, we have no hesitation in believing 
 that the same process was repeated ; that 
 without the consent of the writer the hun- 
 dred and fifty-four Sonnets some forming a 
 continuous poem, or poems ; others isolated, 
 in the subjects to which they relate, and the 
 persons to whom they were addressed were 
 collected together without any key to their 
 arrangement, and given to the public. Be- 
 lieving as we do that " W. H.," be he who 
 he may, who put these poems in the hands 
 of " T. T.," the publisher, arranged them in 
 the most arbitrary manner (of which there 
 are many proofs), we believe that the as- 
 sumption of continuity, however ingeniously 
 it may be maintained, is altogether fallacious. 
 Where is the difficulty of imagining, -with 
 regard to poems of which each separate 
 poem, sonnet, or stanza, is either a " leading 
 idea," or its " variation," that, picked up as 
 we think they were from many quarters, the 
 supposed connexion must be in many re- 
 spects fanciful, in some a result of chance, 
 mixing what the poet wrote in his own per- 
 son, either in moments of elation or de- 
 pression, with other apparently continuous 
 stanzas that painted an imaginary character, 
 indulging in all the warmth of an ex- 
 
460 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x 
 
 ggerated friendship, in the complaints of 
 an abused confidence, in the pictures of an 
 unhallowed and unhappy love ; sometimes 
 speaking with the real earnestness of true 
 riendship and a modest estimation of his 
 own merits ; sometimes employing the lan- 
 guage of an extravagant eulogy, and a more 
 extravagant estimation of the powers of the 
 man who was writing that eulogy 1 Suppose, 
 for example, that in the leisure hours, we 
 will say, of William Herbert, Earl of Pem- 
 broke, and William Shakspere, the poet 
 should have undertaken to address to the 
 youth an argument why he should marry. 
 Without believing the Earl to be the W. H. 
 of the Dedication, we know that he was a 
 friend of Shakspere. There is nothing in 
 the first seventeen Sonnets which might not 
 have been written in the artificial tone of 
 the Italian poetry, in the working out of this 
 scheme. Suppose, again, that in other Son- 
 nets the poet, in the same artificial spirit, 
 complains that the friend has robbed him of 
 his mistress, and avows that he forgives the 
 falsehood. There is nothing in all this 
 which might not have been written essen- 
 tially as a work of fiction, received as a 
 work of fiction, handed about amongst 
 "private friends" without the slightest ap- 
 prehension that it would be regarded as an 
 exposition of the private relations of two 
 persons separated in rank as they probably 
 were in their habitual intimacies, of very 
 different ages, the one an avowedly pro- 
 fligate boy, the other a matured man. But 
 this supposition does not exclude the idea 
 that the poet had also, at various times, com- 
 posed, in the same measure, other poems, 
 truly expressing his personal feelings, with 
 nothing inflated in their tone, perfectly 
 simple and natural, offering praise, express- 
 ing love to his actual friends (in the language 
 of the time "lovers"), showing regret in 
 separation, dreading unkindness, hopeful of 
 continued affection. These are also cir- 
 culated amongst "private friends." Some 
 "W. H." collects them together, ten, or 
 twelve, or fifteen years after they have been 
 written ; and a publisher, of course, is found 
 to give to the world any productions of a 
 man so eminent as Shakspere. But who 
 
 arranged them ? Certainly not the poet him- 
 self : for those who believe in their con- 
 dnuity must admit that there are portions 
 which it is impossible to regard as con- 
 inuous. In the same volume with these 
 Sonnets was published a most exquisite nar- 
 rative poem, 'A Lover's Complaint.' The 
 form of it entirely prevents any attempts to 
 consider it autobiographical. The Sonnets, 
 on the contrary, are personal in their form ; 
 but it is not therefore to be assumed that 
 they are all personal in their relation to the 
 author. It is impossible to be assumed that 
 they could have been printed with the con- 
 sent of the author as they now stand. If he 
 had meant in all of them to express his 
 actual feelings and position, the very 
 slightest labour on his part a few words of 
 introduction either in prose or verse would 
 have taken those parts which he would have 
 naturally desired to appear like fiction, and 
 which to us even now look like fiction, out 
 of the possible range of reality. The same 
 slight labour would, on the other hand, have 
 classed amongst the real, apart from the 
 artificial, those Sonnets which he would have 
 desired to stand apart, and which appear to 
 us to stand apart, as the result of genuine 
 moods of the poet's own mind. 
 
 It is our intention, without at all presum- 
 ing to think that we have discovered any 
 real order in which these extraordinary pro- 
 ductions may be arranged, to offer them to 
 the reader upon a principle of classification, 
 which, on the one hand, does not attempt to 
 reject the idea that a continuous poem, or 
 rather several continuous poems, may be 
 traced throughout the series, nor adopt the 
 belief that the whole can be broken up into 
 fragments ; but which, on the other hand, 
 does no violence to the meaning of the 
 author by a pertinacious adherence to a, 
 principle of continuity, sometimes obvious 
 enough, but at other times maintained by 
 links as fragile as the harness of Queen 
 Mab's chariot : 
 
 " Her traces of the smallest spider's web, 
 Her collars of the moonshine's watery beams.' 
 
 The reader will have the ordinary text 
 before him in every modern edition of Shak- 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 461 
 
 spere containing 'The Poems;' and he will 
 be enabled at every step to judge whether 
 the original arrangement, to which we must 
 constantly refer, was a systematic or an 
 arbitrary one. 
 
 I. 
 
 The earliest productions of a youthful 
 poet are commonly Love-Sonnets, or Elegies 
 as they were termed in Shakspere's time. 
 The next age to that of the school-boy is 
 that of 
 
 " the lover, 
 
 Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad 
 
 Made to his mistress' eyebrow." 
 
 We commence our series with three Sonnets 
 which certainly bear the marks of juvenility, 
 when compared with others in this collec- 
 tion, as distinctly impressed upon them as 
 the character of the poet's mind at different 
 periods of his life is impressed upon 'Love's 
 Labour 's Lost ' and ' Macbeth : ' 
 
 Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will, 
 And will to boot, and will in over-plus ; 
 More than enough am I that vex thee still, 
 To thy sweet will making addition thus. 
 Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious, 
 Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine ? 
 Shall will in others seem right gracious, 
 And in my will no fair acceptance shine ?- 
 The sea, all water, yet receives rain still, 
 And in abundance addeth to his store ; 
 So thou, being rich in will, add to thy will 
 One will of mine, to make thy large will more. 
 
 Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill ; 
 
 Think all but one, and me in that one Will. 
 135. 
 
 If thy soul check thee that I come so near, 
 Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will, 
 And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there ; 
 Thus far for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil. 
 Will will fulfil the treasure of thy love, 
 Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one, 
 In things of great receipt with ease we prove; 
 Among a number one is reckoned none. 
 Then in the number let me pass untold, 
 Though in thy stores' account I one must be ; 
 For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold 
 That nothing me, a something sweet to thee : 
 
 Make but my name thy love, and love that 
 
 still, 
 And then thou lov'st me, for my name is 
 
 Will 136. 
 
 Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch 
 One of her feather'd creatures broke away, 
 Sets down her babe, and makes all swift 
 
 despatch 
 
 In pursuit of the thing she would have stay ; 
 Whilst her neglected child holds her in chace, 
 Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent 
 To follow that which flies before her face, 
 Not prizing her poor infant's discontent ; 
 So runn'st thou after that which flies from 
 
 thee, 
 
 Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind ; 
 But, if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me, 
 And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind: 
 So will I pray that thou .mayst have thy 
 
 Will, 
 If thou turn back, and my loud crying still. 
 
 143. 
 
 The figures which we subjoin to each 
 Sonnet show the place which it occupies in 
 the collection of 1609. If the reader will 
 turn to the reprints of that text, he will see 
 where these Sonnets, through each of which 
 the same play upon the poet's name is kept 
 up with a boyish vivacity, are found. The 
 first two follow one of those from which 
 Mr. Brown derives the title of what he calls 
 'The Sixth Poem,' being 'To his Mistress, 
 on her Infidelity.' * Mr. Brown, however, 
 qualifies the dissimilarity of tone by the fol- 
 lowing admission : " All the stanzas in the 
 preceding poems (to Stanza 126) are retained 
 in their original order ; the printers, without 
 disturbing the links, having done no worse 
 than the joining together of five chains into 
 one. But I suspect the same attention has 
 not been paid to this address to his mistress. 
 Indeed, I farther suspect that some stanzas, 
 irrelevant to the subject, have been intro- 
 duced into the body of it." The stanzas 
 to which Mr. Brown objects are the 135th 
 and 136th, just given. But let us proceed. 
 The poet now sings the praise of those eyes 
 which so took his brother-poet, Phineas 
 Fletcher: 
 
 * ' Shakspeare's Autobiographical Poems,' p. 96. 
 
STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x. 
 
 " But most I wonder how thai jetty ray, 
 Which those two blackest suns do fair display, 
 Should shine so bright, and night should make 
 so sweet a day." 
 
 We know not the colour of Anne Hathaway's 
 eyes; but how can we affirm that the fol- 
 lowing three Sonnets were not addressed to 
 her? 
 
 In the old age black was not counted fair, 
 Or, if it were, it bore not beauty's name ; 
 But now is black beauty's successive heir, 
 And beauty slander 5 d with a bastard shame : 
 For since each hand hath put on nature's 
 
 power, 
 Fairing the foul with art's false borrow'd 
 
 face, 
 
 Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy hour, 
 But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace. 
 Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black, 
 Her eyes so suited ; and they mourners seem 
 At such, who, not born fair, no beauty lack, 
 Slandering creation with a false esteem : 
 Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe, 
 That every tongue says beauty should look 
 so. 127. 
 
 Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art, 
 
 As those whose beauties proudly make them 
 
 cruel : 
 For well thou know*st to my dear doting 
 
 heart 
 
 Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel. 
 Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold, 
 Thy face hath not the power to make love 
 
 groan : 
 
 To say they en*, I dare not be so bold, 
 Although I swear it to myself alone. 
 And, to be sure that is not false I swear, 
 A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face, 
 One on another's neck, do witness bear 
 Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place. 
 In nothing art thou black, save in thy 
 
 deeds, 
 
 And thence this slander, as I think, pro- 
 ceeds. 131. 
 
 Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, 
 Knowing thy heart, torment me with dis- 
 dain; 
 
 Have put on black, and loving mourners be, 
 Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. 
 And truly not the morning sun of heaven 
 Better becomes the gray cheeks of the east, 
 
 Nor that full star that ushers in the even, 
 
 Doth half that glory to the sober west, 
 
 As those two mourning eyes become thy face: 
 
 0, let it then as well beseem thy heart 
 
 To mourn for me, since mourning doth thee 
 
 grace, 
 And suit thy pity like in every part. 
 
 Then will I swear beauty herself is black, 
 And all they foul that thy complexion lack. 
 
 132. 
 
 But the last two immediately precede the 
 Sonnet beginning 
 
 "Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to 
 
 groan, 
 
 For that deep wound it gives my friend and 
 me :" 
 
 and so the lady of the "mourning eyes" is 
 associated with a tale of treachery and sin. 
 The line of the 131st Sonnet, 
 
 " In nothing art thou black, save in thy deeds" 
 may be held to imply something atrocious. 
 The first two lines, however, show of what 
 the poet-lover complains : 
 
 " Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art, 
 As those whose beauties proudly make them 
 cruel." 
 
 The 128th Sonnet has never been exceeded 
 in airy elegance, even by the professed writers 
 of amatory poems : 
 
 How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st, 
 Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds 
 With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently 
 
 sway'st 
 
 The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, 
 Do I envy those jacks, that nimble leap 
 To kiss the tender inward of thy hand, 
 Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest 
 
 reap, 
 
 At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand! 
 To be so tickled, they would change their state 
 And situation with those dancing chips, 
 O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait, 
 Making dead wood more bless'd than living 
 
 lips. 
 
 Since saucy jacks so happy are in this, 
 Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss. 
 
 128. 
 
 The 130th, too, is one of the prettiest vers 
 de societe that a Suckling, or a Moore, could 
 have produced : 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 463 
 
 My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun ; 
 
 Coral is far more red than her lips' red ; 
 
 If snow be white, why then her breasts are 
 
 dun ; 
 If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her 
 
 head. 
 
 I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, 
 But no such roses see I in her cheeks ; 
 And in some perfumes is there more delight 
 Than in the breath that from my mistress 
 
 reeks. 
 
 I love to hear her speak, yet well I know 
 That music hath a far more pleasing sound ; 
 I grant I never saw a goddess go, 
 My mistress, when she walks, treads on the 
 
 ground : 
 And yet, by heaven, I think my love as 
 
 rare 
 As any she belied with false compare. 
 
 130. 
 
 And of what character is the 129th Sonnet, 
 which separates these two playful composi- 
 tions? It is a solemn denunciation against 
 unlicensed gratifications a warning 
 
 "To shun the heaven that leads men to this 
 hell." 
 
 If we are to bring those Sonnets in apposi- 
 tion where the " leading idea " is repeated, 
 we shall have to go far back to find one that 
 will accord with the 130th : 
 
 So is it not with me as with that muse, 
 Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse ; 
 Who heaven itself for ornament doth use, 
 And every fair with his fair doth rehearse ; 
 Making a couplement of proud compare, 
 With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich 
 
 gems, 
 With April's first-born flowers, and all things 
 
 rare 
 
 That heaven's air in his huge rondure hems. 
 let me, true in love, but truly write, 
 And then believe me, my love is as fair 
 As any mother's child, though not so bright 
 As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air : 
 Let them say more that like of hearsay 
 
 well; 
 I will not praise, that purpose not to sell. 
 
 21. 
 
 This is the 21st Sonnet ; and it has as much 
 the character of a love-sonnet as any we 
 have just given. 
 
 The tyranny of which the poet complains 
 in the 131st Sonnet forms the subject of the 
 three following : 
 
 0, call not me to justify the wrong 
 
 That my unkindness lays upon my heart ; 
 
 Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy 
 
 tongue ; 
 Use power with power, and slay me not by 
 
 art. 
 Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but, in my 
 
 sight, 
 
 Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside. 
 What need'st thou wound with cunning, when 
 
 thy might 
 
 Is more than my o'erpress'd defence can 'bide '} 
 Let me excuse thee : ah ! my love well knows 
 Her pretty looks have been my enemies ; 
 And therefore from my face she turns my 
 
 foes, 
 
 That they elsewhere might dart their injuries : 
 Yet do not so ; but, since I am near slain, 
 Kill me outright with looks, and rid my 
 pain. 139. 
 
 Be wise as thou art cruel : do not press 
 My tongue-tied patience with too much dis- 
 dain; 
 
 Lest sorrow lend me words, and words ex- 
 press 
 
 The manner of my pity-wanting pain. 
 If I might teach thee wit, better it were, 
 Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so ; 
 (As testy sick men, when their deaths be 
 
 near, 
 No news but health from their physicians 
 
 know ;) 
 
 For, if I should despair, I should grow mad, 
 And in my madness might speak ill of thee : 
 Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad, 
 Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be. 
 That I may not be so, nor thou belied, 
 Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud 
 heart go wide. 140. 
 
 Canst thou, cruel ! say I love thee not, 
 When I, against myself, with thee partake ? 
 Do I not think on thee, when I forgot 
 Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake 1 
 Who hateth thee that I do call my friend ? 
 On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon 1 
 Nay, if thou low'rst on me, do I not spend 
 Eevenge upon myself with present moan ? 
 What merit do I in myself respect, 
 That is so proud thy service to despise, 
 
464 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK 
 
 When all my best doth worship thy defect, 
 Commanded by the motion of thine eyes ? 
 But, love, hate on, for now I know thy 
 
 mind ; 
 
 Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am 
 blind. 149. 
 
 And yet the tyranny is meekly borne by the 
 lover : 
 
 Being your slave, what should I do but tend 
 Upon the hours and times of your desire 1 
 I have no precious time at all to spend, 
 Nor services to do, till you require. 
 Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour, 
 Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for 
 
 you, 
 
 Nor think the bitterness of absence sour, 
 W^hen you have bid your servant once adieu ; 
 Nor dare 1 question with my jealous thought 
 Where you may be, or your affairs suppose, 
 But, like a sad slave, stay and think of 
 
 nought, 
 Save, where you are how happy you make 
 
 those : 
 
 So true a fool is love, that in your will 
 (Though you do anything) he thinks no 
 ill. 57. 
 
 That God forbid, that made me first your 
 
 slave, 
 I should in thought control your times of 
 
 pleasure, 
 Or at your hand the account of hours to 
 
 crave, 
 
 Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure ! 
 0, let me suffer (being at your beck) 
 The imprison'd absence of your liberty, 
 And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each 
 
 check 
 
 Without accusing you of injury. 
 Be where you list ; your charter is so strong, 
 That you yourself may privilege your time : 
 Do what you will, to you it doth belong 
 Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime. 
 I am to wait, though waiting so be hell ; 
 Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well. 
 58. 
 
 The Sonnets last given are the 57th and 
 58th. These are especially noticed by Mr. 
 Brown as evidence that the person to whom 
 he considers the Sonnets are addressed "VV. 
 H. was " a man of rank." He adds, " Re- 
 proach is conveyed more forcibly, and, at 
 
 the same time, with more kindness, in their 
 strained humility, than it would have been 
 by direct expostulation." The reproach, 
 according to Mr. Brown, is for the " cold- 
 ness" which the noble youth had evinced 
 towards his friend. The "coldness "is im- 
 plied in these stanzas, and in that which 
 precedes them : 
 
 " Sweet love, renew thy force ; be it not said 
 Thy edge should blunter be than appetite, 
 Which but to-day by feeding is allay' d, 
 To-morrow sharpen'd in his former might : 
 So, love, be thou : although to-day thou fill 
 The hungry eyes, even till they wiuk with 
 
 fulness, 
 
 To-morrow see again, and do not kill 
 The spirit of love with a perpetual dulness. 
 Let this sad interim like the ocean be 
 Which parts the shore, where two contracted- 
 new 
 
 Come daily to the banks, that, when they see 
 Return of love, more bless'd may be the view ; 
 Or call it winter, which, being full of care, 
 Makes summer's welcome thrice more 
 wish'd, more rare. 56. 
 
 We believe, on the contrary, that the three 
 Sonnets are addressed to a female. It ap- 
 pears to us that a line in the 57th is deci- 
 sive upon this : 
 
 " When you have bid your servant once adieu." 
 The lady was the mistress, the lover the 
 servant, in the gallantry of Shakspere's time. 
 In Beaumont and Fletcher's ' Scornful Lady' 
 we have, " Was I not once your mistress, 
 and you my servant ?" The three stanzas, 
 56, 57, 58, are completely isolated from what 
 precedes and what follows them ; and there- 
 fore we have no hesitation in transposing 
 them to this class. 
 
 We are about to give a Sonnet which Mr. 
 Brown thinks "should be expunged from 
 the poem." We should regret to lose so 
 pretty and playful a love-verse : 
 
 Those lips that Love's own hand did make 
 Breathed forth the sound that said / hate, 
 To me that languish'd for her sake : 
 But, when she saw my woeful state, 
 Straight in her heart did mercy come, 
 Chiding that tongue, that ever sweet 
 Was used in giving gentle doom ; 
 And taught it thus anew to greet .- 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 465 
 
 / hate she altered with an end, 
 That followed it as gentle day 
 Doth follow night, who like a fiend 
 From heaven to hell is flown away. 
 / hate from hate away she threw, 
 And saved my life, saying not you. 145. 
 
 It is, however, strangely opposed to the 
 theory of continuity ; for it occurs between 
 the Sonnet which first appeared in 'The 
 Passionate Pilgrim' 
 
 " Two loves I have, of comfort and despair" 
 and the magnificent lines beginning 
 
 " Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth." 
 This sublime Sonnet Mr. Brown would also 
 expunge. This is a hard sentence against 
 it for being out of place. We shall en- 
 deavour to remove it to fitter company. 
 
 We have now very much reduced the 
 number of stanzas which Mr. Brown assigns 
 to the Sixth Poem, entitled by him, ' To his 
 Mistress, on her Infidelity.' There are only 
 twenty-six stanzas in this division of Mr. 
 Brown's Six Poems ; for he rejects the Son- 
 nets numbered 153 and 154, as belonging 
 " to nothing but themselves." They belong, 
 indeed, to the same class of poems as con- 
 stitute the bulk of those printed in 'The 
 Passionate Pilgrim.' But, being printed in 
 the collection of 1609, they offer very satis- 
 factory evidence that "the begetter" of the 
 Sonnets had no distinct principle of connec- 
 tion to work upon. He has printed, as al- 
 ready mentioned, two Sonnets which had 
 previously appeared in ' The Passionate Pil- 
 grim.' But, if they were taken out from the 
 larger collection, no one could say that its 
 continuity would be deranged. There are 
 other Sonnets, properly so called, in 'The 
 Passionate Pilgrim,' which, if they were to 
 be added to the larger collection, there would 
 be no difficulty in inserting them, so as to be 
 as continuous as the two which are common 
 to both works. We have no objection to 
 proceed with our analytical classification 
 without including the two Sonnets on " the 
 little love-god j" because, if we were attempt- 
 ing here to present all Shakspere's love- 
 verses which exist in print, not being in the 
 plays, we should have to insert six other 
 poems which are in ' The Passionate Pilgrim.' 
 
 What, then, have we left of the Sonnets 
 from the 127th to the 152nd which may 
 warrant those twenty-six stanzas being 
 regarded (with two exceptions pointed out 
 by Mr. Brown himself) as a continuous poem, 
 to be entitled, 'To his Mistress, on her 
 Infidelity ? ' We have, indeed, a " leading 
 idea," and a very distinct one, of some de- 
 lusion, once cherished by the poet, against 
 the power of which he struggles, and which 
 his better reason finally rejects. But the 
 complaint is not wholly that of the infidelity 
 of a mistress ; it is that the love which he 
 bears towards her is incompatible with his 
 sense of duty, and with that tranquillity of 
 mind which belongs to a pure and lawful 
 affection. This "leading idea" is expressed 
 in ten stanzas, which we print in the order 
 in which they occur. They are more or less 
 strong and direct in their allusions : but, 
 whether the situation which the poet de- 
 scribes be real or imaginary whether he 
 speak from the depth of his own feelings, or 
 with his wonderful dramatic power there 
 are no verses in our language more expressive 
 of the torments of a passion based upon 
 unlawfulness. Throes such as these were 
 somewhat uncommon amongst the gallants 
 of the days of Elizabeth : 
 
 The expense of spirit in a waste of shame 
 Is lust in action ; and till action, lust 
 Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame; 
 Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust ; 
 Enjoy'd no sooner, but despised straight; 
 Past reason hunted; and no sooner had, 
 Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait, 
 On purpose laid to make the taker mad : 
 Mad in pursuit, and in possession so ; 
 Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; 
 A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe; 
 Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream; 
 
 All this the world well knows; yet none 
 knows well 
 
 To shun the heaven that leads men to this 
 hell. 129 
 
 Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine 
 
 eyes, 
 
 That they behold, and see not what they see] 
 They know what beauty is, see where it lies, 
 Yet, what the best is, take the worst to be. 
 
 ii H 
 
466 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x. 
 
 If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks, 
 Be anchor'd in the bay where all men ride, 
 Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks, 
 Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied ? 
 Why should my heart think that a several 
 
 plot, 
 Which my heart knows the wide world's 
 
 common place? 
 
 Or mine eyes, seeing this, say this is not, 
 To put fair truth upon so foul a face 1 ? 
 In things right true my heart and eyes have 
 
 err'd, 
 And to this false plague are they now 
 
 transferr'd. 137. 
 
 When my love swears that she is made of 
 
 truth, 
 
 I do believe her, though I know she lies; 
 That she might think me some untutor'd 
 
 youth, 
 
 Unlearned in the world's false subtleties. 
 Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me 
 
 young, 
 Although she knows my days are past the 
 
 best, 
 
 Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue; 
 On both sides thus is simple truth suppress'd. 
 But wherefore says she not she is unjust? 
 And wherefore say not I that I am old ? 
 0, love's best habit is in seeming trust, 
 And age in love loves not to have years 
 
 told: 
 
 Therefore I lie with her, and she with me, 
 And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be. 
 
 138. 
 
 In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes, 
 For they in thee a thousand errors note; 
 But 't is my heart that loves what they de- 
 spise, 
 
 Who in despite of view is pleased to dote. 
 ISTor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune 
 
 delighted ; 
 
 Nor tender feeling to base touches prone, 
 Nor taste nor smell, desire to be invited 
 To any sensual feast with thee alone : 
 But my five wits, nor my five senses can 
 Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee, 
 Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man, 
 Thy proud heart's slave -and vassal wretch 
 
 to be: 
 
 Only my plague thus far I count my gain, 
 That she that makes me sin awards me 
 pain. 141. 
 
 Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate, 
 Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving : 
 0, but with mine compare thou thine own 
 
 state, 
 
 And thou shalt find it merits not reproving ; 
 Or if it do, not from those lips of thine, 
 That have profaned. their scarlet ornaments, 
 And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine ; 
 Bobb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents. 
 Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those 
 Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune 
 
 thee : 
 
 Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows, 
 Thy pity may deserve to pitied be. 
 
 If thou dost seek to have what thou dost 
 
 hide, 
 By self-example mayst thou be denied ! 142. 
 
 My love is as a fever, longing still 
 For that which longer nurseth the disease ; 
 Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, 
 The uncertain sickly appetite to please. 
 My reason, the physician to my love, 
 Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, 
 Hath left me, and I desperate now approve, 
 Desire is death, which physic did except. 
 Past cure I am, now reason is past care, 
 And frantic mad with evermore unrest; 
 My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's 
 
 are, 
 
 At random from the truth vainly express'd ; 
 For I have sworn thee fair, and thought 
 
 thee bright, 
 
 Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. 
 
 147. 
 
 me ! what eyes hath love put in my head, 
 Which have no correspondence with true sight? 
 Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled, 
 That censures falsely what they see aright? 
 If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote, 
 What means the world to say it is not so ? 
 If it be not, then love doth well denote 
 Love's eye is not so true as ail men's : no, 
 How can it] how can Love's eye be true, 
 That is so vex'd with watching and with tears ; 
 No marvel then though I mistake my view; 
 The sun itself sees not till heaven clears. 
 cunning Love ! with tears thou keep'st 
 
 me blind, 
 Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should 
 
 find. 148. 
 0, from what power hast thou this powerful 
 
 might, 
 With insufficiency my heart to sway? 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 467 
 
 To make me give the lie to my true sight, 
 And swear that brightness doth not grace the 
 
 day? 
 
 Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill, 
 That in the very refuse of thy deeds 
 There is such strength and warrantise of skill, 
 That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds? 
 "Who taught thee how to make me love thee 
 
 more, 
 
 The more I hear and see just cause of hate 1 
 0, though I love what others do abhor, 
 With others thou shouldst not abhor my state ; 
 If thy unworthiness raised love in me, 
 More worthy I to be beloved of thee. 150. 
 
 Love is too young to know what conscience is; 
 Yet who knows not conscience is born of love? 
 Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss, 
 Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove. 
 For thou betraying me, I do betray 
 My nobler part to my gross body's treason; 
 My soul doth tell my body that he may 
 Triumph in love ; flesh stays no farther reason, 
 But, rising at thy name, doth point out thee 
 As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride, 
 He is contented thy poor drudge to be, 
 To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side. 
 No want of conscience hold it that I call 
 Her love, for whose dear love I rise and 
 fall. 151. 
 
 In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn, 
 But thou art twice forsworn, to me love 
 
 swearing; 
 
 In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn, 
 In vowing new hate after new love bearing. 
 But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee, 
 When I break twenty? I am perjured most; 
 For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee, 
 And all my honest faith in thee is lost : 
 For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kind- 
 ness, 
 
 Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy; 
 And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness, 
 Or made them swear against the thing they 
 
 see; 
 
 For I have sworn thee fair : more perjured I, 
 To swear, against the truth, so foul a 
 lie ! 152. 
 
 We have only three Sonnets left, out of the 
 twenty-six stanzas, in which we may find any 
 allusion to the "infidelity" of the poet's 
 " mistress." They are these : 
 
 Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to 
 
 groan 
 For that deep wound it gives my friend and 
 
 me ! 
 
 Is 't not enough to torture me alone, 
 But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must 
 
 be? 
 
 Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken, 
 And my next self thou harder hast engross'dj 
 Of him, myself, and thee, I am forsaken ; 
 A torment thrice three-fold thus to be cross'd. 
 Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward, 
 But then my friend's heart let my poor heart 
 
 bail; 
 
 Who e'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard; 
 Thou canst not then use rigour in my jail : 
 
 And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee, 
 
 Perforce am thine, and all that is in me. 
 
 133. 
 
 So now I have confess'd that he is thine, 
 And I myself am mortgaged to thy will ; 
 Myself 1 11 forfeit, so that other mine 
 Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still : 
 But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free, 
 For thou art covetous, and he is kind; 
 He learn'd but, surety-like, to write for me, 
 Under that bond that him as fast doth bind. 
 The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take, 
 Thou usurer, that putt'st forth all to use, 
 And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake ; 
 So him I lose through my unkind abuse. 
 
 Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me; 
 
 He pays the whole, and yet am I not free. 
 
 134. 
 
 Two loves I have of comfort and despair, 
 Which like two spirits do suggest me still; 
 The better angel is a man right fair, 
 The worser spirit a woman, coloured ill. 
 To win me soon to hell, my female evil 
 Tempteth my better angel from my side, 
 And would corrupt my saint to be a devil, 
 Wooing his purity with her foul pride. 
 And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend, 
 Suspect I may, but not directly tell; 
 But being both from me, both to each friend* 
 I guess one angel in another's hell. 
 
 Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in 
 doubt, 
 
 Till my bad angel fire my good one out. 
 
 144. 
 
 The 144th, we must again point out, was 
 printed in 'The Passionate Pilgrim' in 1599. 
 This Sonnet, then, referring, as it appears to 
 
 H H 2 
 
468 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x. 
 
 do, to private circumstances of considerable 
 delicacy, was public enough to fall into the 
 hands of a piratical bookseller, ten years 
 before the larger collection in which it a 
 second time appears was printed. But in 
 that larger collection the poet accuses the 
 friend as well as the mistress. We have no 
 means of knowing whether the six Sonnets, 
 in which this accusation appears, existed in 
 1599, or what was the extent of their pub- 
 licity ; but by their publication in 1609 we 
 are enabled to compare "the better angel" 
 with " the worser spirit :" 
 
 Full many a glorious morning have I seen 
 Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, 
 Kissing with golden face the meadows green, 
 Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchymy; 
 Anon permit the basest clouds to ride 
 With ugly rack on his celestial face, 
 And from the forlorn world his visage hide, 
 Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace : 
 Even so my sun one early morn did shine, 
 With all triumphant splendour on my brow; 
 But out ! alack ! he was but one hour mine, 
 The region cloud hath mask'd him from me 
 
 now. 
 
 Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; 
 Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's 
 
 sun staineth. 33. 
 
 Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day, 
 And make me travel forth without my cloak, 
 To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way, 
 Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke 1 ? 
 'T is not enough that through the cloud thou 
 
 break, 
 
 To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face, 
 For no man well of such a salve can speak, 
 That heals the wound, and cures not the dis- 
 grace : 
 
 Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief; 
 Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss : 
 The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief 
 To him that bears the strong offence's cross. 
 Ah ! but those tears are pearl which thy love 
 
 sheds, 
 
 And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds. 
 
 34. 
 No more be grieved at that which thou hast 
 
 done : 
 
 Eoses have thorns, and silver fountains mud; 
 Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, 
 And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud. 
 
 All men make faults, and even I in this, 
 Authorizing thy trespass with compare, 
 Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss, 
 Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are : 
 For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense, 
 (Thy adverse party is thy advocate,) 
 And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence : 
 Such civil war is in my love and hate, 
 That I an accessory needs must be 
 To that sweet thief which sourly robs from 
 me. 35. 
 
 Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all ; 
 What hast thou then more than thou hadst 
 
 before] 
 No love, my love, that thou mayst true love 
 
 call; 
 All mine was thine before thou hadst this 
 
 more. 
 
 Then if for my love thou my love receivest, 
 I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest; 
 But yet be blamed, if thou thyself deceivest 
 By wilful taste of what thyself refnsest. 
 I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief, 
 Although thou steal thee all my poverty ; 
 And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief 
 To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury. 
 Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows, 
 Kill me with spites; yet we must not be 
 
 foes. 40. 
 
 Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits, 
 When I am sometime absent from thy heart, 
 Thy beauty and thy years full well befits, 
 For still temptation follows where thou art. 
 Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won ; 
 Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd; 
 And, when a woman woos, what woman's son 
 Will sourly leave her till she have prevail'd] 
 Ah me ! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear, 
 And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth, 
 Who lead thee in their riot even there 
 Where thou art forced to break a twofold 
 
 truth ; 
 
 Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee, 
 Thine, by thy beauty being false to me. 41. 
 
 That thou hast her, it is not all my grief, 
 And yet it may be said I loved her dearly; 
 That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief, 
 A loss in love that touches me more nearly. 
 Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye : 
 Thou dost love her, because thou knew'st I 
 love her : 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 469 
 
 And for my sake even so doth she abuse me, 
 Suffering my friend for my sake to approve 
 
 her. 
 
 If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain, 
 And losing her, my friend hath found that 
 
 loss ; 
 
 Both find each other, and I lose both twain, 
 And both for my sake lay on me this cross : 
 But here 's the joy ; my friend and I are 
 
 one; 
 Sweet flattery ! then she loves but me 
 
 alone. 42. 
 
 It is probably to the same friend that the 
 following mild reflections upon the general 
 faults of his character are addressed : 
 
 They that have power to hurt and will do none, 
 That do not do the thing they most do show, 
 Who, moving others, are themselves as stone, 
 Unmoved, cold and to temptation slow ; 
 They rightly do inherit heaven's graces, 
 And husband nature's riches from expense ; 
 They are the lords and owners of their faces, 
 Others but stewards of their excellence. 
 The summer's flower is to the summer sweet, 
 Though to itself it only live and die ; 
 But, if that flower with base infection meet, 
 The basest weed outbraves his dignity : 
 
 For sweetest things turn sourest by their 
 deeds ; 
 
 Lilies that fester smell far worse than 
 weeds. 94. 
 
 How sweet and lovely dost thou" make the 
 
 shame, 
 
 Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose, 
 Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name ! 
 0, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose ! 
 That tongue that tells the story of thy days, 
 Making lascivious comments on thy sport, 
 Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise; 
 Naming thy name blesses an ill report. 
 what a mansion have those vices got, 
 Which for their habitation chose out thee ! 
 Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot, 
 And all things turn to fair that eyes can see ! 
 
 Take heed, dear heart, of this large privi- 
 lege; 
 
 The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his 
 edge. 95. 
 
 Some say, thy fault is youth, some wanton- 
 ness; 
 
 Some say, thy grace is youth and gentle 
 sport ; 
 
 Both grace and faults are loved of more and 
 
 less: 
 
 Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort. 
 As on the finger of a throned queen 
 The basest jewel will be well esteem'd; 
 So are those errors that in thee are seen 
 To truths translated, and for true things 
 
 deem'd. 
 
 How many lambs might the stern wolf betray, 
 If like a lamb he could his looks translate ! 
 How many gazers mightst thou lead away, 
 If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy 
 
 state ! 
 
 But do not so ; I love thee in such sort, 
 As, thou being mine, mine is thy good 
 
 report. 96. 
 
 But the poet, true to his general principle of 
 morals, holds that forgiveness should follow 
 upon repented transgressions : 
 
 Like as, to make our appetites more keen, 
 With eager compounds we our palate urge : 
 As, to prevent our maladies unseen, 
 We sicken to shun sickness, when we purge; 
 Even so, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweet- 
 ness, 
 
 To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding, 
 And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meet- 
 ness 
 
 To be diseased ere that there was true needing. 
 Thus policy in love, to anticipate 
 The ills that were not, grew to faults assured, 
 And brought to medicine a healthful state, 
 Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be 
 
 cured. 
 
 But thence I learn, and find the lesson true, 
 Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you. 
 
 118. 
 
 What potions have I drunk of Siren tears, 
 Distill'd from limbecs foul as hell within, 
 Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears, 
 Still losing when I saw myself to win ! 
 What wretched errors hath my heart com- 
 mitted, 
 
 Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never ! 
 How have mine eyes out of their spheres been 
 
 fitted, 
 
 In the distraction of this madding fever ! 
 benefit of ill ! now I find true 
 That better is by evil still made better ; 
 And ruin'd love, when it is built anew, 
 Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far 
 greater. 
 
470 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x. 
 
 So I return rebuked to my content, 
 And gain by ill thrice more than I have 
 spent. 119. 
 
 That you were once unkind, befriends me now, 
 And for that sorrow, which I then did feel, 
 Needs must I under my transgression bow, 
 Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd 
 
 For if you were by my unkindness shaken, 
 As I by yours, you have pass'd a hell of time : 
 And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken 
 To weigh how once I suffer'd in your crime. 
 that our night of woe might have re- 
 
 member'd 
 
 My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits, 
 And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd 
 The humble salve which wounded bosoms fits ! 
 
 But that your trespass now becomes a fee; 
 
 Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom 
 me. 120. 
 
 II. 
 
 We have thus selected all the Sonnets, or 
 stanzas, that appear to have reference to 
 the subject of love, whether those which 
 express the light playfulness of affection, the 
 abiding confidence, the distracting doubts, 
 the reproaches for pride or neglect, the fierce 
 jealousies, the complaints that another is 
 preferred. Much of this may be real, much 
 merely dramatic. But it appears to us that 
 it would have been quite impossible to have 
 maintained that these fragments relate to a 
 particular incident of the poet's life the 
 indulgence of an illicit love, with which the 
 equally illicit attachment of a youthful 
 friend interfered unless there had been a 
 forced association of the whole series of 
 Sonnets with that youthful friend to whom 
 the first seventeen Sonnets are clearly ad- 
 dressed. Mr. Brown groups the Sonnets from 
 the 27th to the 55th as the " Second Poem," 
 which he entitles, ' To his Friend who had 
 robbed him of his mistress, forgiving him.' 
 Now, literally, the Sonnets we have already 
 given, the 33rd, 34th, 35th, 40th, 41st, and 
 42nd, are all that within these limits can be 
 held to have reference to such a subject. 
 The 27th and 28th Sonnets have not the 
 
 slightest allusion to this supposed injury ; 
 and we shall presently endeavour to show 
 that they have been wrested from their 
 proper place. The 29th, 30th, 31st, and 
 32nd are Sonnets of the most confiding 
 friendship, full of the simplest, and therefore 
 the deepest pathos, and which we have no 
 hesitation in classing amongst those which 
 are strictly personal those to which the 
 lines of Wordsworth apply : 
 " Scorn not the Sonnet : Critic, you have 
 
 frown'd 
 
 Mindless of its just honours. With this key 
 Shakspere unlock'd his heart." 
 The following exquisite lines are familiar 
 to most poetical students : 
 
 When in disgrace with fortune and men's 
 
 eyes, 
 
 I all alone beweep my outcast 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, 
 Featured like him, like him with friends 
 
 Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, 
 With what I most enjoy contented least; 
 Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, 
 Haply I think on thee, and then my state 
 (Like to the lark at break of day arising 
 From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's 
 
 gate; 
 For thy sweet love remember'd, such 
 
 wealth brings, 
 That then I scorn to change my state with 
 
 kings. 29. 
 
 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 
 I summon up remembrance of things past, 
 I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 
 And with old woes new wail my dear times' 
 
 waste : 
 
 Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, 
 For precious friends hid in death's dateless 
 
 night, 
 And weep afresh love's long since cancel! i 
 
 woe, 
 And moan the expense of many a vanish'd 
 
 sight. 
 
 Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, 
 And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er 
 The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, 
 Which I new pay as if not paid before. 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 471 
 
 But if the while I think on thee, dear 
 
 friend, 
 
 All losses are restored, and sorrows end. 30. 
 Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts, 
 Which I by lacking have supposed dead ; 
 And there reigns love and all love's loving 
 
 parts, 
 
 And all those friends which I thought buried. 
 How many a holy and obsequious tear 
 Hath dear religious love stolen from mine eye, 
 As interest of the dead, which now appear 
 But things removed, that hidden in thee lie ? 
 Thou art the grave where buried love doth 
 
 live, 
 
 Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone, 
 Who all their parts of me to thee did give ; 
 That due of many now is thine alone : 
 Their images I loved I view in thee, 
 And thou (all they) hast all the all of 
 
 me. 31. 
 
 If thou survive my well-contented day, 
 When that churl Death my bones with dust 
 
 shall cover, 
 
 And shalt by fortune once more re-survey 
 These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover, 
 Compare them with the bettering of the time ; 
 And, though they be outstripp'd by every pen, 
 Eeserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, 
 Exceeded by the height of happier men. 
 then vouchsafe me but this loving thought ! 
 Had my friend's muse grown with this 
 
 growing age, 
 
 A dearer birth than this his love had brought, 
 To march in ranks of better equipage : 
 But since he died, and poets better prove, 
 Theirs for their style I '11 read, his for his 
 
 love. 32. 
 
 Immediately succeeding these are the three 
 stanzas we have already quoted, in which the 
 poet is held to accuse his friend of having 
 robbed aim of his mistress. In these stanzas 
 the friend is spoken of in connexion with a 
 "sensual fault," a "trespass," &c. But, in 
 those which follow, the " bewailed guilt " 
 belongs to the poet the "worth and truth" 
 to his friend. Surely these are not con- 
 tinuous. In the 36th, 37fch, 38th, and 39th 
 Sonnets, we have the expression of that deep 
 humility which may be traced through many 
 of these remarkable compositions, and of 
 which we find the first sound in the 29th 
 Sonnet : 
 
 Let me confess that we two must be twain, 
 Although our undivided loves are one : 
 So shall those blots that do with me remain, 
 Without thy help, by me be borne alone. 
 In our two loves there is but one respect, ' 
 Though in our lives a separable spite, 
 Which, though it alter not love's sole effect, 
 Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's 
 
 delight. 
 
 I may not evermore acknowledge thee, 
 Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame; 
 Nor thou with public kindness honour me, 
 Unless thou take that honour from thy name : 
 But do not so; I love thee in such sort, 
 As, thou being mine, mine is thy good 
 report. 36. 
 
 As a decrepit father takes delight 
 To see his active child do deeds of youth, 
 So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite, 
 Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth; 
 For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit, 
 Or any of these all, or all, or more, 
 Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit, 
 I make my love engrafted to this store : 
 So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised, 
 Whilst that this shadow doth such substance 
 
 give, 
 
 That I in thy abundance am sufficed, 
 And by a part of all thy glory live. 
 
 Look what is best, that best I wish in thee; 
 
 This wish I have; then ten times happy 
 me ! 37. 
 
 How can my muse want subject to invent, 
 While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into 
 
 my verse 
 
 Thine own sweet argument, too excellent 
 For every vulgar paper to rehearse ] 
 0, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me 
 Worthy perusal stand against thy sight ; 
 For who 's so dumb that cannot write to thee, 
 When thou thyself dost give invention light 1 
 Be thou the tenth muse, ten times more in 
 
 worth 
 
 Than those old nine which rhymers invocate; 
 And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth 
 Eternal numbers to outlive long date. 
 If my slight muse do please these curious 
 
 days, 
 The pain be mine, but thine shall be the 
 
 praise. 38. 
 
 0, how thy worth with manners may I sing, 
 When thou art all the better part of me 1 
 
472 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x 
 
 What can mine own praise to mine own self 
 
 bring 1 
 And what is 't but mine own, when I praise 
 
 thee 1 ? 
 
 Even for this let us divided live, 
 And our dear love lose name of single one, 
 That by this separation I may give 
 That due to thee which thou deservest alone. 
 0, absence, what a torment wouldst thou 
 
 prove, 
 
 "Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave 
 To entertain the time with thoughts of love, 
 (Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth 
 
 deceive,) 
 And that thou teachest how to make one 
 
 twain, 
 By praising him here, who doth hence 
 
 remain ! 39. 
 
 The 40th, 41st, and 42nd Sonnets return 
 to the complaint of his friend's faithlessness. 
 Surely, then, the Sonnets we have just 
 quoted must be interpolated. The 43rd is 
 entirely isolated from what precedes and 
 what follows. But in the 39th we have 
 allusions to "separation" and "absence;" 
 and in the 44th we return to the subject of 
 " injurious distance." "With some alterations 
 of arrangement we can group nine Sonnets 
 together, which form a connected epistle to 
 an absent friend, and which convey those 
 sentiments of real affection which can only 
 be adequately transmitted in language and 
 imagery possessing, as these portions do, the 
 charm of nature and simplicity. The tone 
 of truth and reality is remarkably contrasted 
 with those artificial passages which have 
 imparted their character to the whole series 
 in the estimation of many : 
 
 How heavy do I journey on the way, 
 When what I seek, my weary travel's end, 
 Doth teach that ease and that repose to say, 
 "Thus far the miles are measured from thy 
 
 friend ! " 
 
 The beast that bears me, tired with my woe, 
 Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me, 
 As if by some instinct the wretch did know 
 His rider loved not speed, being made from 
 
 thee: 
 
 The bloody spur cannot provoke him on 
 That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide, 
 Which heavily he answers with a groan, 
 More sharp to me than spurring to his side ; 
 
 For that same groan doth put this in my 
 
 mind, 
 My grief lies onward, and my joy behind. 
 
 50. 
 
 Thus can my love excuse the slow offence 
 Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed : 
 From where thou art why should I haste me 
 
 thence 1 
 
 Till I return, of posting is no need. 
 0, what excuse will my poor beast then find, 
 When swift extremity can seem but slow ] 
 Then should I spur, though mounted on the 
 
 wind ; 
 
 In winged speed no motion shall I know : 
 Then can no horse with my desire keep pace ; 
 Therefore desire, of perfect love being made, 
 Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race; 
 But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade ; 
 Since from thee going he went wilful slow, 
 Towards thee I '11 run, and give him leave 
 
 to go. 51. 
 
 So am I as the rich, whose blessed key 
 Can bring him to his sweet up-locked trea- 
 sure, 
 
 The which he will not every hour survey, 
 For blunting the fine point of seldom plea- 
 sure. 
 
 Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare, 
 Since seldom coming, in the long year set, 
 Like stones of worth they thinly placed are, 
 Or captain jewels in the carcanet. 
 So is the time that keeps you as my chest, 
 Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth 
 
 hide, 
 
 To make some special instant special-bless'd, 
 By new unfolding his imprison'd pride. 
 Blessed are you, whose worthiness gives 
 
 scope, 
 
 Being had, to triumph, being lack'd, to 
 hope. 52. 
 
 Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, 
 The dear repose for limbs with travel tired ; 
 But then begins a journey in my head, 
 To work my mind, when body's work 's ex- 
 pired : 
 
 For then my thoughts (from far where I abide) 
 Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee, 
 And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, 
 Looking on darkness which the blind do see : 
 Save that my soul's imaginary sight 
 Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 473 
 
 Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night, 
 Makes black nigbt beauteous, and her old face 
 
 new. 
 Lo, thus, by day my limbs, by night my 
 
 mind, 
 
 For thee, and for myself, no quiet find. 
 
 27. 
 
 How can I then return in happy plight, 
 That am debarr'd the benefit of rest ] 
 When day's oppression is not eased by night, 
 But day by night and night by day oppress'd ? 
 And each, though enemies to cither's reign, 
 Do in consent shake hands to torture me, 
 The one by toil, the other to complain 
 How far I toil, still farther off from thee. 
 I tell the day, to please him, thou art bright, 
 And dost him grace when clouds do blot the 
 
 heaven : 
 
 So flatter I the swart-complexion' d night ; 
 When sparkling stars twire not, thou gild'st 
 
 the even. 
 
 But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer, 
 And night doth nightly make grief's length 
 seem stronger. 28. 
 
 I 
 
 Is it thy will thy image should keep open 
 
 My heavy eyelids to the weary night ] 
 
 Dost thou desire my slumbers should "be 
 
 broken, 
 While shadows, like to thee, do mock my 
 
 sight ] 
 
 Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee 
 So far from home, into my deeds to pry ; 
 To find out shames and idle hours in me, 
 The scope and tenor of thy jealousy 1 
 no ! thy love, though much, is not so great; 
 It is my love that keeps mine eye awake ; 
 Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat, 
 To play the watchman ever for thy sake : 
 For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake 
 
 elsewhere 
 
 From me far off, with others all too near. 
 
 61. 
 
 When most I wink, then do mine eyes best 
 see, 
 
 For all the day they view things unrespected: 
 
 But when I sleep, in dreams they look on 
 thee, 
 
 And, darkly bright, arc bright in dark di- 
 rected ; 
 
 Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make 
 bright, 
 
 How would thy shadow's form form happy 
 show 
 
 To the clear day with thy much clearer light, 
 When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so ? 
 How would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made 
 By looking on thee in the living day, 
 When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade 
 Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth 
 
 stay 1 
 
 All days are nights to see, till I see thee, 
 And nights, bright days, when dreams do 
 
 show thee me. 43. 
 
 If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, 
 Injurious distance should not stop my way; 
 For then, despite of space, I would be brought 
 From limits far remote, where thou dost stay. 
 No matter then, although my foot did stand 
 Upon the farthest earth removed from thee, 
 For nimble thought can jump both sea and 
 
 land, 
 As soon as think the place where he would 
 
 be. 
 But ah ! thought kills me, that I am not 
 
 thought, 
 To leap large lengths of miles when thou art 
 
 gone, 
 
 But that, so much of earth and water wrought, 
 I must attend time's leisure with my moan ; 
 Eeceiving nought by elements so slow 
 But heavy tears, badges of cither's woe : 
 
 44. 
 
 The other two, slight air and purging fire, 
 Are both with thee, wherever I abide ; 
 The first my thought, the other my desire, 
 These present-absent with swift motion slide. 
 For when these quicker elements are gone 
 In tender embassy of love to thee, 
 My life, being made of four, with two alone, 
 Sinks down to death, oppress'd with melan- 
 choly ; 
 
 Until life's composition be recured 
 By those swift messengers return'd from thee, 
 Who even but now come back again, assured 
 Of thy fair health, recounting it to me : 
 This told, I joy ; but then no longer glad, 
 I send them back again, and straight grow 
 sad. 45. 
 
 The transpositions we have made in the 
 arrangement are justified by the considera- 
 tion that in the original text the 50th, 51st, 
 and 52nd Sonnets are entirely isolated ; that 
 the 27th and 28th are also perfectly uncon- 
 nected with what precedes and what follows; 
 that the 61st stands equally alone ; and that 
 
474 
 
 STUDIES OF SIIAKSPEKE. 
 
 [BOOK 
 
 the 43rd, 44th, and 45th are in a similar po- 
 sition. We have now a perfect little poem 
 describing the journey the restless pilgrim- 
 age of thought the desire for return. 
 
 The thoughts of a temporary separation 
 lead to the fear that absence may produce 
 estrangement : 
 
 How careful was I, when I took my way, 
 Each trifle under truest bars to thrust, 
 That, to my use, it might unused stay 
 From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of 
 
 trust! 
 
 But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are, 
 Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief, 
 Thou, best of dearest, and mine only care, 
 Art left the prey of every vulgar thief. 
 Thee have I not lock'd up in any chest, 
 Save where thou art not, though I feel thou 
 
 art, 
 
 Within the gentle closure of my breast, 
 From whence at pleasure thou mayst come 
 
 and part ; 
 
 And even thence thou wilt be stolen I fear, 
 For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear. 
 
 48. 
 
 The sentiment is somewhat differently re- 
 peated in a Sonnet which is entirely isolated 
 in the place where it stands in the original : 
 So are you to my thoughts, as food to life, 
 Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground; 
 And for the peace of you I hold such strife 
 As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found : 
 Now proud as an enjoy er, and anon 
 Doubting the filching age will steal his trea- 
 sure ; 
 
 Now counting best to be with you alone, 
 Then better'd that the world may see my 
 
 pleasure : 
 
 Sometime, all full with feasting on your sight, 
 And by and by clean starved for a look ; 
 Possessing or pursuing no delight, 
 Save what is had or must from you be took 
 Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day, 
 Or gluttoning on all, or all away. 75. 
 
 But the 49th Sonnet carries forward the 
 dread expressed in the 48th that his friend 
 will " be stolen," into the apprehension that 
 coldness, and neglect, and desertion may one 
 day ensue : 
 
 Against that time, if ever that time come, 
 When I shall see thee frown on my defects, 
 
 When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum, 
 Call'd to that audit by advised respects ; 
 Against that time when thou shalt strangely 
 
 And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine 
 
 eye, 
 
 When love, converted from the thing it was, 
 Shall reasons find of settled gravity ; 
 Against that time do I ensconce me here 
 Within the knowledge of mine own desert, 
 And this my hand against myself uprear, 
 To guard the lawful reasons on thy part : 
 To leave poor me thou hast the strength 
 
 of laws, 
 
 Since, why to love, I can allege no cause. 
 
 49. 
 
 This Sonnet is also completely isolated; 
 but much further on, according to the 
 original arrangement, we find the idea here 
 conveyed of that self-sacrificing humility 
 which will endure unkindness without com- 
 plaint, worked out with exquisite tender- 
 ness : 
 
 When thou shalt be disposed to set me light, 
 And place my merit in the eye of Scorn, 
 Upon thy side against myself I '11 fight, 
 And prove thee virtuous, though thou art 
 
 forsworn. 
 
 With mine own weakness being best ac- 
 quainted, 
 
 Upon thy part I can set down a story 
 Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted ; 
 That thou, in losing me, shalt win much glory : 
 And I by this will be a gainer too ; 
 For bending all my loving thoughts on thee, 
 The injuries that to myself I do, 
 Doing thee vantage, double- vantage me. 
 Such is my love, to thee I so belong, 
 That for thy right myself will bear all 
 wrong. 88. 
 
 Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault, 
 And I will comment upon that offence : 
 Speak of my lameness, and I straight will 
 
 halt; 
 
 Against thy reasons making no defence. 
 Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill, 
 To set a form upon desired change, 
 As 1 11 myself disgrace : knowing thy will, 
 I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange; 
 Be absent from thy walks ; and in my tongue 
 Thy sweet-beloved name no more shall dwell ; 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 475 
 
 Lest I (too much profane) should do it wrong, 
 And haply of our old acquaintance tell. 
 For thee, against myself I '11 vow debate, 
 For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost 
 hate. 89. 
 
 Then hate me when thou wilt ; if ever, now ; 
 Now, while the world is bent my deeds to 
 
 cross, 
 
 Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow, 
 And do not drop in for an after loss : 
 Ah ! do not, when my heart hath scaped this 
 
 sorrow, 
 
 Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe ; 
 Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, 
 To linger out a purposed overthrow. 
 If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, 
 When other petty griefs have done their spite. 
 But in the onset come ; so shall I taste 
 At first the very worst of fortune's might ; 
 And other strains of woe, which now seem 
 
 woe, 
 Compared with loss of thee will not seem 
 
 so. 90. 
 
 Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, 
 Some in their wealth, some in their body's 
 
 force ; 
 Some in their garments, though new-fangled 
 
 ill; 
 Some in their hawks and hounds, some in 
 
 their horse ; 
 
 And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure, 
 'Wherein it finds a joy above the rest; 
 But these particulars are not my measure, 
 All these I better in one general best. 
 Thy love is better than high birth to me, 
 Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' 
 
 cost, 
 
 Of more delight than hawks or horses be ; 
 And having thee, of all men's pride I boast. 
 Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst 
 
 take 
 All this away, and me most wretched 
 
 make. 91. 
 
 But do thy worst to steal thyself away, 
 For term of life thou art assured mine; 
 And life no longer than thy love will stay, 
 For it depends upon that love of thine. 
 Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs, 
 When in the least of them my life hath end. 
 I see a better state to me belongs 
 Than that which on thy humour doth depend. 
 
 Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind, 
 Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie. 
 what a happy title do I find, 
 Happy to have thy love, happy to die ! 
 But what's so blessed-fair that fears no 
 
 blot? 
 
 Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it 
 not : 92. 
 
 So shall I live, supposing thou art true, 
 Like a deceived husband ; so love's face 
 May still seem love to me, though alter'd-new; 
 Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place : 
 For there can live no hatred in thine eye, 
 Therefore in that I cannot know thy change. 
 In many's looks the false heart's history 
 Is writ, in moods and frowns and wrinkles 
 
 strange ; 
 
 But Heaven in thy creation did decree 
 That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell; 
 Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's work- 
 ings be, 
 
 Thy looks should nothing thence but sweet- 
 ness tell. 
 
 How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow, 
 If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show ! 
 
 93. 
 
 Separated from the preceding stanzas by 
 three Sonnets, the 94th, 95th, and 96th, which 
 we have already given (they are those in 
 which a friend is mildly upbraided for the 
 defects in his character) we have a second 
 little poem on Absence. It would be difficult 
 to find anything more perfect in our own or 
 any other language : 
 
 How like a winter hath my absence been 
 From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year ! 
 What freezings have I felt, what dark days 
 
 seen ! 
 
 What old December's bareness everywhere ! 
 And yet this time removed was summer's 
 
 time ; 
 
 The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, 
 Bearing the wanton burden of the prime, 
 Like widow'd wombs after their lord's 
 
 decease : 
 
 Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me 
 But hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit ; 
 For summer and his pleasures wait on thee, 
 And, thou away, the very birds are mute ; 
 Or, if they sing, 't is with so dull a cheer, 
 That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's 
 
 near. 97. 
 
476 
 
 STUDIES OP SIIAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK 
 
 From you have I been absent in the spring, 
 When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim, 
 Hath put a spirit of youth in everything, 
 That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with 
 
 him. 
 
 Yet not the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell 
 Of different flowers in odour and in hue, 
 Could make me any summer's story tell, 
 Or from their proud lap pluck tliem where 
 
 they grew : 
 
 Nor did I wonder at the lilies white, 
 Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose ; 
 They were but sweet, but figures of delight, 
 Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. 
 Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away, 
 As with your shadow I with these did 
 
 play. 98. 
 
 The forward violet thus did I chide : 
 Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet 
 
 that smells, 
 If not from my love's breath] The purple 
 
 pride 
 Which on thy soft cheek for complexion 
 
 dwells, 
 
 In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed. 
 The lily I condemned for thy hand, 
 And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair : 
 The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, 
 One blushing shame, another white despair ; 
 A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both, 
 And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath ; 
 But for his theft, in pride of all his growth 
 A vengeful canker eat him up to death. 
 More flowers I noted, yet I none could see, 
 But sweet or colour it had stolen from 
 thee. 99. 
 
 But this poem is quite unconnected with 
 what precedes it. It is placed where it is, 
 upon no principle of continuity. Are we, 
 then, to infer that the friend whose " shame" 
 is "like a canker in the budding rose" is 
 the person who is immediately afterwards 
 addressed as one from, whom every flower 
 hath stolen " sweet or colour ? " If we read 
 these three stanzas without any impression of 
 their connexion with something that has 
 gone before, we shall irresistibly feel that 
 they are addressed to a female. They point 
 at repeated absences ; and why may they 
 not then be addressed to the poet's first love ? 
 The Earl of Southampton, or the Earl of 
 Pembroke, to whom the series of Sonnets are 
 
 held all to refer, except when they specially 
 address a dark-haired lady of questionable 
 character, would not have been greatly 
 pleased to have been complimented on the 
 sweetness of his breath, or the whiteness of 
 his hand. The Sonnets which are un- 
 questionably addressed to a male, although 
 they employ the term "beauty" in a way 
 which we cannot easily comprehend in our 
 own days, have always reference to manly 
 beauty. The comparisons in the above Sonnets 
 as clearly relate to female beauty. They 
 are precisely the same as Spenser uses in 
 one of his Amoretti, the 64th ; which thus 
 concludes : 
 
 " Such fragrant flowers do give most odorous 
 
 smell, 
 But her sweet odour did them all excel." 
 
 It appears to us that in both the poems on 
 Absence, in the stanzas which anticipate 
 neglect and coldness, and in others which 
 we have given and are about to give, we 
 must not be too ready to connect their images 
 with the person who is addressed in the first 
 seventeen Sonnets ; or be always prepared to 
 "seize a clue which innumerable passages 
 give us," according to Mr. Hallam, " and 
 suppose that they allude to a youth of 
 high rank as well as personal beauty and 
 accomplishment."* The chief characteristic 
 of those passages which clearly apply to that 
 "unknown youth" is, as it appears to us, 
 extravagance of admiration conveyed in very 
 hyperbolical language. Much that we have 
 quoted offers no example of the justness of 
 Mr. Hallam's complaint against these pro- 
 ductions : " There is a weakness aud folly 
 in all excessive and misplaced affection, 
 which is not redeemed by the touches of 
 nobler sentiments that abound in this long 
 series of Sonnets." It would be diflicult, we 
 think, to find more forcible thoughts expressed 
 in more simple, and therefore touching lan- 
 guage, than in the following continuous 
 verses. They comprise all the Sonnets 
 numbered from 109 to 125, with the exception 
 of 118, 119, 120, 121, three of which we have 
 already printed as belonging to another 
 subject than the poet's constancy of affection ; 
 
 * ' Literature of Europe,' vol. iii. p. 503. 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 477 
 
 and one of which we shall give as an isolated 
 fragment : 
 
 0, never say that I was false of heart, 
 Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify ! 
 As easy might I from myself depart, 
 As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie : 
 That is my home of love : if I have ranged, 
 Like him that travels, I return again ; 
 Just to the time, not with the time ex- 
 changed, 
 
 So that myself bring water for my stain. 
 Never believe, though in my nature reign'd 
 All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, 
 That it could so preposterously be stain'd, 
 To leave for nothing all thy sum of good ; 
 For nothing this wide universe I call, 
 Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my 
 all. 109. 
 
 Alas, 't is true, I have gone here and there, 
 And made myself a motley to the view, 
 Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is 
 
 most dear, 
 
 Made old offences of affections new. 
 Most true it is that I have look'd on truth 
 Askance and strangely; but, by all above, 
 These blenches gave my heart another youth, 
 And worse essays proved thee my best of love. 
 Now all is done, save what shall have no end : 
 Mine appetite I never more will grind 
 On newer proof, to try an older friend, 
 A God in love, to whom I am confined. 
 Then give me welcome, next my heaven the 
 
 best, 
 Even to thy pure and most most loving 
 
 breast. 110. 
 
 0, for my sake do you with fortune chide, 
 The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, 
 That did not better for my life provide, 
 Than public means, which public manners 
 
 breeds. 
 Thence comes it that my name receives a 
 
 brand, 
 
 And almost thence my nature is subdued 
 To what it works in, like the dyer's hand : 
 Pity me then, and wish I were renew'd ; 
 Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink 
 Potions of eysell, 'gainst my strong infection; 
 No bitterness that I will bitter think, 
 Nor double penance, to correct correction. 
 Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye, 
 Even that your pity is enough to cure me. 
 
 111. 
 
 
 
 Your love and pity doth the impression fill 
 Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow; 
 For what care I who calls me well or ill, 
 So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow] 
 You are my all-the-world, and I must strive 
 To know my shames and praises from your 
 
 tongue ; 
 
 None else to me, nor I to none alive, 
 That my steel'd sense or changes, right or 
 
 wrong. 
 
 In so profound abysm I throw all care 
 Of other's voices, that my adder's sense 
 To critic and to flatterer stopped are. 
 Mark how with my neglect I do dispense : 
 You are so strongly in my purpose bred, 
 That all the world besides methinks are 
 
 dead. 112. 
 
 Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind ; 
 
 And that which governs me to go about 
 
 Doth part his function, and is partly blind, 
 
 Seems seeing, but effectually is out ; 
 
 For it no form delivers to the heart 
 
 Of bird, of flower, or shape, which it doth 
 
 latch ; 
 
 Of his quick objects hath the mind ho part, 
 Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch; 
 For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight, 
 The most sweet favour, or deformed'st crea- 
 ture, 
 
 The mountain or the sea, the day or night, 
 The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your 
 
 feature. 
 
 Incapable of more, replete with you, 
 My most true mind thus maketh mine 
 untrue. 113. 
 
 Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd 
 
 with you, 
 
 Drink up the monarch's plague, this flatter}', 
 Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true, 
 And that your love taught it this alchymy, 
 To make of monsters and things indigest 
 Such cherubims as your sweet self resemble, 
 Creating every bad a perfect best, 
 As fast as objects to his beams assemble 1 ? 
 0, 't is the first; 't is flattery in my seeing, 
 And my great mind most kingly drinks it up : 
 Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 
 
 'greeing, 
 
 And to his palate doth prepare the cup : 
 If it be poison'd, 'tis the lesser sin 
 That mine eye loves it, and doth first 
 
 begin. 114. 
 
 ::TY 
 
478 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x. 
 
 Those lines that I before have writ, do lie, 
 Even those that said I could not love you 
 
 dearer ; 
 
 Yet then my judgment knew no reason why 
 My most full flame should afterwards burn 
 
 clearer. 
 
 But reckoning time, whose million'd accidents 
 Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of 
 
 kings, 
 
 Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents, 
 Divert strong minds to the course of altering 
 
 things ; 
 
 Alas ! why, fearing of time's tyranny, 
 Might I not then say, " Now I love you best," 
 "When I was certain o'er incertainty, 
 Crowning the present, doubting of the rest? 
 Love is a babe ; then might I not say so, 
 To give full growth to that which still doth 
 
 growl 115. 
 
 Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
 Admit impediments. Love is not love 
 Which alters when it alteration finds, 
 Or bends with the remover to remove : 
 no ; it is an ever-fixed mark, 
 That looks on tempests, and is never shaken; 
 It is the star to every wandering bark, 
 Whose worth 's unknown, although his height 
 
 be taken. 
 Love 's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and 
 
 cheeks 
 
 Within his bending sickle's compass come ; 
 Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
 But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 
 If this be error, and upon me proved, 
 I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 116. 
 
 Accuse me thus ; that I have scanted all 
 Wherein I should your great deserts repay; 
 Forget upon your dearest love to call, 
 Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day; 
 That I have frequent been with unknown 
 
 minds, 
 And given to time your own dear-purchased 
 
 right ; 
 
 That I have hoisted sail to all the winds 
 Which should transport me farthest from your 
 
 sight. 
 
 Book both my wilfulness and errors down, 
 And, on just proof, surmise accumulate, 
 Bring me within the level of your frown, 
 But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate : 
 Since my appeal says, I did strive to prove 
 The constancy and virtue of your love. 117. 
 
 Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain 
 Full character'd with lasting memory, 
 Which shall above that idle rank remain, 
 Beyond all date, even to eternity : 
 Or at the least so long as brain and heart 
 Have faculty by nature to subsist ; 
 Till each to raz'd oblivion yield his part 
 Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd. 
 That poor retention could not so much hold, 
 Nor need I tallies, thy dear love to score ; 
 Therefore to give them from me was I bold, 
 To trust those tables that receive thee more; 
 To keep an adjunct to remember thee, 
 Were to import forgetfulness in me. 122. 
 
 No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do 
 
 change : 
 
 Thy pyramids built up with newer might 
 Tome are nothing novel, nothing strange; 
 They are but dressings of a former sight. 
 Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire 
 What thou dost foist upon us that is old; 
 And rather make them born to our desire, 
 Than think that we before have heard them 
 
 told. 
 
 Thy registers and thee I both defy, 
 Not wondering at the present nor the past; 
 For thy records and what we see do lie, 
 Made more or less by thy continual haste : 
 This I do vow, and this shall ever be, 
 I will be true, despite thy scythe and 
 
 thee : 123. 
 
 If my dear love were but the child of state, 
 It might for fortune's bastard be unfather'd, 
 As subject to time's love, or to time's hate, 
 Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers 
 
 gather'd. 
 
 No, it was builded far from accident ; 
 It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls 
 Under the blow of thralled discontent, 
 Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls : 
 It fears not policy, that heretic, 
 Which works on leases of short-number'd 
 
 hours, 
 
 But all alone stands hugely politic, 
 That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with 
 
 showers. 
 
 To this I witness call the fools of time, 
 Which die for goodness, who have lived for 
 crime. 124. 
 
 Were 't aught to me I bore the canopy, 
 With my extern the outward honouring. 
 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 479 
 
 Or laid great bases for eternity, 
 Which prove more short than waste or ruining ] 
 Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour 
 Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent, 
 For compound sweet foregoing simple savour, 
 Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent ? 
 No ; let me be obsequious in thy heart, 
 And take thou my oblation, poor but free, 
 Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no 
 
 art, 
 But mutual render, only me for thee. 
 
 Hence, thou suborn'd informer ! a true 
 
 soul, 
 When most impeach'd, stands least in thy 
 
 control. 125. 
 
 Dr. Drake, in maintaining that the Son- 
 nets, from the 1st to the 126th, were ad- 
 dressed to Lord Southampton, has alleged, 
 as " one of the most striking proofs of this 
 position," the fact " that the language of the 
 Dedication to the 'Rape of Lucrece,' and 
 that of the 26th Sonnet, are almost precisely 
 the same." If the reader will turn to this 
 Dedication, he will at once see the resem- 
 blance. " The love I dedicate to your lord- 
 ship is without end," shows that, in the 
 Sonnets as in the works of contemporary 
 writers, the perpetually recurring terms of 
 love and lover were meant to convey the 
 most profound respect as well as the 
 strongest affection. In that age friendship 
 was not considered as a mere conventional 
 intercourse for social gratification. There 
 was depth and strength in it. It partook of 
 the spiritual energy which belonged to a 
 higher philosophy of the affections than now 
 presides over clubs and dinner-parties. "My 
 friend," or "my lover," meant something 
 more than one who is ordinarily civil, re- 
 turns our calls, and shakes hands upon great 
 occasions. Lord Southampton, in a letter of 
 introduction to a grave Lord Chancellor, 
 calls Shakspere "my especial friend." To 
 Lord Southampton Shakspere dedicates 
 " love without end." This 26th Sonnet, we 
 have little doubt, is also a dedication, ac- 
 companying some new production of the 
 mighty dramatist, in accordance with his 
 declaration, "What I have done is yours, 
 what I have to do is yours, being part in all 
 I have devoted yours :" 
 
 Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage 
 Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, 
 To thee I send this written embassage, 
 To witness duty, not to show my wit. 
 Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine 
 May make seem bare, in wanting words to 
 
 show it ; 
 
 But that I hope some good conceit of thine 
 In thy soul's thought, all naked, will be- 
 stow it : 
 
 Till whatsoever star that guides by moving, 
 Points on me graciously with fair aspect, 
 And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving, 
 To show me worthy of thy sweet respect : 
 Then may I dare to boast how I do love 
 
 thee, 
 
 Till then, not show my head where thou 
 mayst prove me. 26. 
 
 The Sonnet which precedes this has also the 
 marked character of the same respectful 
 affection ; and, like the 26th, in all pro- 
 bability accompanied some offering of friend- 
 ship : 
 
 Let those who are in favour with their stars 
 Of public honour and proud titles boast, 
 Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars, 
 Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most. 
 Great princes' favourites their fair leaves 
 
 spread, 
 
 But as the marigold at the sun's eye ; 
 And in themselves their pride lies buried, 
 For at a frown they in their glory die. 
 The painful warrior famoused 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 beloved, 
 Where I may not remove, nor be removed. 
 
 25. 
 
 Again, the 23rd Sonnet is precisely of the 
 same character. All these appear to us 
 wholly unconnected with the poems which 
 surround them little gems, perfect in them- 
 selves, and wanting no [setting to add to 
 their beauty : 
 
 As an unperfect actor on the stage, 
 Who with his fear is put besides his part, 
 Or some fierce thing replete with too much 
 
 rage, 
 Whose strength's abundance weakens his own 
 
 heart; 
 
480 
 
 STUDIES OF SUAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x. 
 
 So I, for fear of trust, forget to say 
 The perfect ceremony of love's rite, 
 And in mine own love's strength seem to 
 
 decay, 
 O'ercharged with burthen of mine own love's 
 
 might. 
 
 let my books be then the eloquence 
 And dumb presagers of my speaking breast ; 
 Who plead for love, and look for recompence, 
 More than that tongue that more hath more 
 
 express'd. 
 
 learn to read what silent love hath writ : 
 To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine 
 
 wit. 23. 
 
 Between the 23rd and 25th Sonnets, which 
 we have just given remarkable as they are 
 for the most exquisite simplicity of thought 
 and diction occurs the following conceit : 
 
 Mine eye hath play'd the painter, and hath 
 
 stell'd 
 
 Thy beauty's form in table of my heart ; 
 My body is the frame wherein 't is held, 
 And perspective it is best painter's art. 
 For through the painter must you see his 
 
 skill, 
 
 To find where your true image pictured lies, 
 Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still, 
 That hath his windows glazed with thine 
 
 eyes. 
 Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have 
 
 done; 
 Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine 
 
 for me 
 Are windows to my breast, where through the 
 
 sun 
 
 Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee ; 
 Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their 
 
 art, 
 They draw but what they see, know not 
 
 the heart. 24. 
 
 But, separated by a long interval, we find 
 two variations of the air, entirely out of 
 place where they occur. Can we doubt that 
 these three form one little poem of them- 
 selves ? 
 
 Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war, 
 How to divide the conquest of thy sight ; 
 Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would 
 
 bar, 
 My heart mine eye the freedom of that right. 
 
 My heart doth plead, that thou in him dost 
 
 lie, 
 
 (A closet never pierced with crystal eyes,) 
 But the defendant doth that plea deny, 
 And says in him thy fair appearance lies. 
 To 'cide this title is impannelled 
 A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart ; 
 And by their verdict is determined 
 The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's 
 
 part : 
 As thus : mine eye's due is thine outward 
 
 part, 
 And my heart's right thine inward love of 
 
 heart. 46. 
 
 Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, 
 And each doth good turns now unto the 
 
 other : 
 
 When that mine eye is famish'd for a look, 
 Or heart in love with sighs himself doth 
 
 smother, 
 With my love's picture then my eye doth 
 
 feast, 
 
 And to the painted banquet bids my heart : 
 Another time mine eye is my heart's guest, 
 And in his thoughts of love doth share a 
 
 part : 
 
 So, either by thy picture or my love, 
 Thyself away art present still with me ; 
 For thou not farther than my thoughts canst 
 
 move, 
 And I am still with them, and they with 
 
 thee ; 
 
 Or if they sleep, thy picture in my sight 
 Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's 
 
 delight. 47. 
 
 The 77th Sonnet interrupts the continuity 
 of a poem which we shall presently give, in 
 which the writer refers, with some appear- 
 ance of jealousy, to an "alien pen." There 
 can be no doubt that this Sonnet is com- 
 pletely isolated. It is clearly intended to 
 accompany the present of a note-book : 
 
 Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties 
 
 wear, 
 
 Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste ; 
 The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will | 
 
 bear, 
 And of this book this learning mayst thou 
 
 taste. ' 
 
 The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show, 
 Of mouthed graves will give thee memory; 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 481 
 
 Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know 
 
 Time's thievish progress to eternity. 
 
 Look, what thy memory cannot contain, 
 
 Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt 
 find 
 
 Those children nurs'd, deliver'd from thy 
 brain, 
 
 To take a new acquaintance of thy mind. 
 These offices, so oft as thou wilt look, 
 Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy 
 book. 77. 
 
 The 76th to the 87th Sonnets (omitting 
 the 77th and 81st) have been held to refer 
 to a particular event in the poetical career 
 of Shakspere. He expresses something like 
 jealousy of a rival poet a " better spirit." 
 By some, Spenser is supposed to be alluded 
 to ; by others, Daniel. But we do not accept 
 these stanzas as a proof that William Herbert 
 is the person always addressed in these Son- 
 nets, for the alleged reason that Daniel was 
 patronised by the Pembroke family, and 
 that, in 1601, he dedicated a book to William 
 Herbert, to which Shakspere is held to allude 
 in the 82nd Sonnet, by the expression 
 "dedicated words." This is Mr. Boaden's 
 theory. One of the Sonnets, supposed also 
 to refer to William Herbert as " a man right 
 fair," was published in 1599, when the young 
 nobleman was only nineteen years of age. 
 But in the stanzas which relate to some 
 poetical rivalry, real or imaginary, the per- 
 son addressed has 
 
 " added feathers to the learned's wing, 
 And given grace a double majesty." 
 
 He is 
 
 " as fair in knowledge as in hue." 
 
 The praises of the " lovely boy," be he Wil- 
 liam Herbert or not, are always confined to 
 his personal appearance and his good nature. 
 There is a quiet tone about the following 
 which separates them from the Sonnets ad- 
 dressed to that " unknown youth ;" and yet 
 they may be as unreal as we believe most of 
 those to be : 
 
 Why is my verse so barren of new pride 1 
 So far from variation or quick change ? 
 Why, with the time, do I not glance aside 
 To new-found methods and to compounds 
 strange ? 
 
 Why write I still all one, ever the same, 
 And keep invention in a noted weed, 
 That every word doth almost tell my name, 
 Showing their birth, and where they did 
 proceed ? 
 
 know, sweet love, I always write of you, 
 And you and love are still my argument ; 
 So all my best is dressing old words new, 
 Spending again what is already spent : 
 
 For, as the sun is daily new and old, 
 
 So is my love still telling what is told. 76. 
 
 So oft have I invok'd thee for my muse, 
 And found such fair assistance in my verse, 
 As every alien pen hath got my use, 
 And under thee their poesy disperse. 
 Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to 
 
 sing, 
 
 And heavy ignorance aloft to fly, 
 Have added feathers to the learned's wing, 
 And given grace a double majesty. 
 Yet be most proud of that which I compile, 
 Whose influence is thine, and born of thee : 
 In others' works thou dost but mend the 
 
 style, 
 
 And arts with thy sweet graces graced be ; 
 But thou art all my art, and dost advance 
 As high as learning my rude ignorance. 
 
 78. 
 
 Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid, 
 My verse alone had all thy gentle grace ; 
 But now my gracious numbers are decay'd, 
 And my sick muse doth give another place. 
 
 1 grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument 
 Deserves the travail of a worthier pen ; 
 Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent, 
 He robs thee of, and pays it thee again. 
 
 He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word 
 From thy behaviour ; beauty doth he give, 
 And found it in thy cheek ; he can afford 
 No praise to thee but what in thee doth Ifrve. 
 Then thank him not for that which he doth 
 
 say, 
 Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost 
 
 pay. 79. 
 
 0, how I faint when I of you do write, 
 Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, 
 And in the praise thereof spends all his might, 
 To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your 
 
 fame ! 
 
 But since your worth (wide, as the ocean is,) 
 The humble as the proudest sail doth bear, 
 
 i i 
 
482 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x. 
 
 My saucy bark, inferior far to his, 
 On your broad main doth wilfully appear. 
 Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat, 
 Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth 
 
 ride; 
 
 Or, being wreck' d, I am a worthless boat, 
 He of tall building, and of goodly pride : 
 Then if he thrive, and I be cast away, 
 The worst was this; my love was my 
 decay. 80. 
 
 I grant thou wert not married to my muse, 
 And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook 
 The dedicated words which writers use 
 Of their fair subject, blessing every book. 
 Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue, 
 Finding thy worth a limit past my praise ; 
 And therefore art enforced to seek anew 
 Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days. 
 And do so, love ; yet when they have devis'd 
 What strained touches rhetoric can lend, 
 Thou truly fair wert truly sympathiz'd 
 In true plain words, by thy true-telling 
 
 friend ; 
 And their gross painting might be better 
 
 us'd 
 Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is 
 
 abus'd. 82. 
 
 I never saw that you did painting need, 
 And therefore to your fair no painting set. 
 I found, or thought I found, you did exceed 
 The barren tender of a poet's debt : 
 And therefore have I slept in your report, 
 That you yourself, being extant, well might 
 
 show 
 
 How far a modern quill doth come too short, 
 Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth 
 
 grow. 
 
 This silence for my sin you did impute, 
 Which shall be most my glory, being dumb ; 
 For I impair not beauty being mute, 
 When others would give life, and bring a 
 
 tomb. 
 There lives more life in one of your fair 
 
 eyes 
 
 Than both your poets can in praise devise. 
 
 83. 
 
 Who is it that says most ] which can say more 
 Than this rich praise, that you alone are 
 
 you] 
 
 In whose confine immured is the store 
 Which should example where your equal grew. 
 
 Lean penury within that pen doth dwell, 
 That to his subject lends not some small glory; 
 But he that writes of you, if he can tell 
 That you are you, so dignifies his story, 
 Let him but copy what in you is writ, 
 Not making worse what nature made so clear, 
 And such a counterpart shall fame his wit, 
 Making his style admired everywhere. 
 
 You to your beauteous blessings add a curse, 
 Being fond on praise, which makes your 
 praises worse. 84. 
 
 My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her 
 
 still, 
 While comments of -your praise, richly com- 
 
 pil'd, 
 
 Reserve their character with golden quill, 
 And precious phrase by all the muses fil'd. 
 I think good thoughts, while others write good 
 
 words, 
 
 And, like unletter'd clerk, still cry " Amen" 
 To every hymn that able spirit affords, 
 In polish'd form of well-refined pen. 
 Hearing you prais'd, I say, " 'T is so, 't is 
 
 true," 
 And to the most of praise add something 
 
 more ; 
 
 But that is in my thought, whose love to you, 
 Though words come hindmost, holds his rank 
 
 before. 
 
 Then others for the breath of words respect, 
 Me for my dumb thoughts speaking in 
 
 effect. 85. 
 
 Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, 
 Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you, 
 That did my ripe thoughts in my brain in- 
 
 hearse, 
 Making their tomb the womb wherein they 
 
 grew? 
 
 Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write 
 Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead ] 
 No, neither he, nor his compeers by night 
 Giving him aid, my verse astonished. 
 He, nor that affable familiar ghost 
 Which nightly gulls him with intelligence, 
 As victors, of my silence cannot boast ; 
 I was not sick of any fear from thence. 
 
 But, when your countenance fil'd up his line, 
 Then lack'd I matter : that enfeebled mine. 
 
 86. 
 
 Farewell ! thou art too dear for my possess- 
 ing, 
 And like enough thou know'st thy estimate : 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE BONNETS. 
 
 483 
 
 The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing; 
 My bonds in thee are all determinate. 
 For how do I hold thee but by thy granting 1 
 And for that riches where is my deserving ? 
 The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting, 
 And so my patent back again is swerving. 
 Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not 
 
 knowing, 
 
 Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking ; 
 So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, 
 Comes home again, on better judgment mak- 
 ing. 
 Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth 
 
 flatter, 
 
 In sleep a king, but waking no such matter. 
 
 87. 
 
 We cannot trace the connexion of the 
 121st Sonnet with what precedes and what 
 follows it. It may stand alone a somewhat 
 impatient expression of contempt for the 
 opinion of the world, which too often galls 
 those most who, in the consciousness of right, 
 ought to be best prepared to be indifferent 
 to it : 
 
 'T is better to be vile, than vile esteem'd, 
 When not to be receives reproach of being, 
 And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd 
 Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing. 
 For why should others' false adulterate eyes 
 Give salutation to my sportive blood ] 
 Or on my frailties why are frailer spies, 
 Which in their wills count bad what I think 
 
 good] 
 
 No. I am that I am ; and they that level 
 At my abuses, reckon up their own : 
 I may be straight though they themselves be 
 
 bevel ; 
 By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be 
 
 shown, 
 
 Unless this general evil they maintain, 
 All men are bad, and in their badness 
 
 reign. 121. 
 
 Lastly, of the Sonnets entirely independent 
 of the other portions of the series, the fol- 
 lowing, already mentioned, furnishes one of 
 the many proofs which we have endeavoured 
 to produce that the original arrangement 
 was in many respects an arbitrary one : 
 
 Poor soul, the centre of 'my sinful earth, 
 Fool'd by those rebel powers that thee array, 
 
 Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth, 
 Painting thy outward walls so costly gay 1 
 Why so large cost, having so short a lease, 
 Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend ] 
 Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, 
 Eat up thy charge ? Is this thy body's end ] 
 Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss, 
 And let that pine to aggravate thy store ; 
 Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross ; 
 Within be fed, without be rich no more ; 
 
 So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on 
 men, 
 
 And, death once dead, there's no more 
 dying then. 146. 
 
 III. 
 
 WE have thus, with a labour which we fear 
 may be disproportionate to the results, se- 
 parated those parts of this series of poems 
 which appeared to be manifestly complete in 
 themselves, or not essentially connected with 
 what has been" supposed to be the " leading 
 idea " which prevails throughout the collec- 
 tion. It has been said, with great eloquence, 
 " It is true that, in the poetry as well as in 
 the fictions of early ages, we find a more 
 ardent tone of affection in the language of 
 friendship than has since been usual ; and 
 yet no instance has been adduced of such 
 rapturous devotedness, such an idolatry of 
 admiring love, as the greatest being whom 
 nature ever produced in the human form 
 pours forth to some unknown youth in the 
 majority of these Sonnets."* The same 
 accomplished critic further speaks of the 
 strangeness of " Shakspere's humiliation in 
 addressing him (the youth) as a being be- 
 fore whose feet he crouched, whose frown he 
 feared, whose injuries, and those of the most 
 insulting kind the seduction of the mistress 
 to whom we have alluded he felt and be- 
 wailed without resenting." We should agree 
 with Mr. Hallam, if these circumstances were 
 manifest, that, notwithstanding the frequent 
 beauties of these Sonnets, the pleasure of 
 their perusal would be much diminished. 
 But we believe that these impressions have 
 been, in a great degree, produced by regard- 
 
 * Hallam, ' Literature of Europe,' vol. iii. p. 502. 
 
 I I 2 
 
484 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK 
 
 ing the original arrangement as the natural 
 and proper one as one suggested by the 
 dependence of one part upon another, in a 
 poem essentially continuous. Mr. Hallam, 
 with these impressions, adds, somewhat 
 strongly, " it is impossible not to wish 
 that Shakspere had never written them." 
 Let us, however, analyze what we have 
 presented to the reader in a different order 
 than that of the original edition : 
 
 Sonnets. 
 
 Will 3 
 
 Black eyes 3 
 
 The virginal 1 
 
 False compare . , . . . 2 
 
 Tyranny 3 
 
 Slavery 2 
 
 Coldness 1 
 
 I hate not you . . ^ . . .1 
 The little love-god (not reprinted) . 2 
 Love and hatred . . . .10 
 
 Infidelity 3 
 
 Injury 6 
 
 A friend's faults .... 3 
 
 3 
 
 43 
 
 n. 
 
 Sonnets. 
 
 Confiding friendship ... 4 
 
 Humility 4 
 
 Absence 9 
 
 Estrangement ..... 9 
 A second absence .... 3 
 
 Fidelity 13 
 
 Dedications 3 
 
 The picture 3 
 
 The note-book 1 
 
 Rivalry 10 
 
 Reputation 1 
 
 The soul . 1 
 
 61 
 
 We have thus as many as 104 Sonnets which, 
 if they had been differently arranged upon 
 their original publication, might have been 
 read with undiminished pleasure, as far as 
 regards the strangeness of their author's 
 humiliation before one unknown youth ; and 
 
 have therefore left us no regret that he had 
 written them. If we are to regard a few of 
 these as real disclosures, with reference to a 
 " dark-haired lady whom the poet loved, but 
 over whose relations to him there is thrown 
 a veil of mystery, allowing us to see little 
 except the feeling of the parties that their 
 love was guilt," we are to consider, what is 
 so justly added by the writer from whom we 
 quote, that " much that is most unpleasing 
 in the circumstances connected with those 
 magnificent lyrics is removed by the air of 
 despondency and remorse which breathes 
 through those which come most closely on 
 the facts."* But it must not be forgotten 
 that, in an age when the Italian models 
 of poetry were so diligently cultivated, 
 imaginary loves and imaginary jealousies 
 were freely admitted into verses which ap- 
 peared to address themselves to the reader 
 in the personal character of the poet. 
 Regarding a poem, whether a sonnet or an 
 epic, essentially as a work of art, the artist 
 was not careful to separate his own identity 
 from the sentiments and situations which 
 he delineated any more than the pastoral 
 poets of the next century were solicitous to 
 tell their readers that their Corydons and 
 Phyllises were not absolutely themselves 
 and their mistresses. The ' Amoretti ' of 
 Spenser, for example, consisting of eighty- 
 eight Sonnets, is also a puzzle to all those 
 who regard such productions as necessarily 
 autobiographical. These poems were pub- 
 lished in 1596 ; in several passages a date 
 is somewhat distinctly marked, for there are 
 lines which refer to the completion of the 
 first six Books of the 'Fairy Queen/ and to 
 Spenser's appointment to the laureatship 
 " the badge which I do bear." And yet they 
 are full of the complaints of an unrequited 
 love, and of a disdainful mistress, at a period 
 when Spenser was married, and settled with 
 his family in Ireland. Chalmers is here again 
 ready with his solution of the difficulty. 
 They were addressed, as well as Shakspere's 
 Sonnets, to Queen Elizabeth. "We believe 
 that, taken as works of art, having a certain 
 degree of continuity, the Sonnets of Spenser, 
 of Daniel, of Drayton, of Shakspere, although 
 
 * ( Edinburgh Review,' vol. Ixxi. p. 466. 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 485 
 
 in many instances they might shadow forth 
 real feelings, and be outpourings of the in- 
 most heart, were presented to the world as 
 exercises of fancy, and were received by the 
 world as such. The most usual form which 
 such compositions assumed was that of love- 
 verses. Spenser's ' Amoretti ' are entirely 
 of this character, as their name implies ; 
 Daniel's, which are fifty-seven in number, 
 are all addressed "To Delia;" Drayton's, 
 which he calls " Ideas," are somewhat more 
 miscellaneous in their character. These were 
 the three great poets of Shakspere's days. 
 Spenser's 'Amoretti' was first printed in 1595; 
 Daniel's < Delia ' in 1592 ; Drayton's ' Ideas ' 
 in 1594. In 1593 was also published ' Licia, 
 or Poems of Love, in honour of the admirable 
 and singular virtues of his Lady.' This book 
 contains fifty-two Sonnets, all conceived in 
 the language of passionate affection and 
 extravagant praise. And yet the author, 
 in his Address to the Reader, says " If 
 thou muse what my Licia is, take her to 
 be some Diana, at the least chaste, or some 
 Minerva, no Venus, fairer far. It may be 
 she is Learning's image, or some heavenly 
 wonder, which the precisest may not mislike: 
 perhaps under that name I have shadowed 
 Discipline." This fashion of Sonnet- writing 
 upon a continuous subject prevailed, thus, 
 about the period of the publication of the 
 1 Venus and Adonis ' and the ' Lucrece,' 
 when Shakspere had taken his rank amongst 
 the poets of his time independent of his 
 dramatic rank. He chose a new subject for 
 a series of Sonnets ; he addressed them to 
 some youth, some imaginary person, as we 
 conceive ; he made this fiction the vehicle 
 for stringing together a succession of brilliant 
 images, exhausting every artifice of language 
 to present one idea under a thousand different 
 forms 
 
 " varying to other words ; 
 And in this change is my invention spent." 
 
 Coleridge, with his usual critical discri- 
 mination, speaking of the Italian poets of 
 the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and 
 glancing also at our own of the same period, 
 says, " In opposition to the present age, and 
 perhaps in as faulty an extreme, they placed 
 the essence of poetry in the art. The ex- 
 
 cellence at which they aimed consisted in 
 the exquisite polish of the diction, com- 
 bined with perfect simplicity."* This, we 
 apprehend, is the characteristic excellence of 
 Shakspere's Sonnets ; displaying, to the care- 
 ful reader " the studied position of words 
 and phrases, so that not only each part 
 should be melodious in itself, but contribute 
 to the harmony of the whole." He sought 
 for a canvas in which this elaborate colour- 
 ing, this skilful management of light and 
 shade, might be attempted, in an address to 
 a young man, instead of a scornful Delia or 
 a proud Daphne; and he commenced with 
 an exhortation to that young man to marry. 
 To allow of that energy of language which 
 would result from the assumption of strong 
 feeling, THE POET links himself with the 
 young man's happiness by the strongest 
 expressions of friendship in the common 
 language of that day, love. We say, ad- 
 visedly, the poet; for it is in this character 
 that the connexion between the two friends 
 is preserved throughout ; and it is in this 
 character that the personal beauty of the 
 young man is made a constantly recurring 
 theme. With these imperfect observations, 
 we present the continuous poem which ap- 
 pears in the first nineteen Sonnets : 
 
 From fairest creatures we desire increase, 
 That thereby beauty's rose might never die, 
 But as the riper should by time decease, 
 His tender heir might bear his memory : 
 But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, 
 Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial 
 
 fuel, 
 
 Making a famine where abundance lies, 
 Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel. 
 Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament, 
 And only herald to the gaudy spring, 
 Within thine own bud buriest thy content, 
 And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding. 
 Pity the world, or else this glutton be, 
 To eat the world's due, by the grave and 
 thee 1. 
 
 When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, 
 And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, 
 Thy youth's proud livery, so gaz'd on now, 
 Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held : 
 
 * ' Biographia Literaria,' vol. ii. p. 27. 
 
486 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x. 
 
 Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies, 
 
 Where all the treasure of thy lusty days ; 
 
 To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes, 
 
 Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise. 
 
 How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's 
 use, 
 
 If thou couldst answer " This fair child of 
 mine 
 
 Shall sum my count, and make my old ex- 
 cuse " 
 
 Proving his beauty by succession thine ! 
 This were to be new-made when thou art 
 
 old, 
 
 And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st 
 it cold. 2. 
 
 Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou 
 
 viewest, 
 
 Now is the time that face should form another; 
 Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, 
 Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some 
 
 mother. 
 
 For where is she so fair, whose unear'd womb 
 Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? 
 Or who is he so fond will be the tomb 
 Of his self-love, to stop posterity ? 
 Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee 
 Calls back the lovely April of her prime : 
 So thou through windows of thine age shalt 
 
 see, 
 
 Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time. 
 But, if thou live remember'd not to be, 
 Die single, and thine image dies with thee. 
 
 3. 
 
 Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend 
 Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy? 
 Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend, 
 And, being frank, she lends to those are free. 
 Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse 
 The bounteous largess given thee to give 1 
 Profitless usurer, why dost thou use 
 So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live ? 
 For having traffic with thyself alone, 
 Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive. 
 Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone, 
 What acceptable audit canst thou leave ? 
 Thy unus'd beauty must be tomb'd with 
 
 thee, 
 Which, used, lives thy executor to be. 4. 
 
 Those hours, that with gentle work did frame 
 The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, 
 Will play the tyrants to the very same, 
 And that unfair which fairly doth excel ; 
 
 For never-resting time leads summer on 
 
 To hideous winter, and confounds him there : 
 
 Sap check'd with frost, and lusty leaves quite 
 
 gone, 
 
 Beauty o'ersnow'd, and bareness everywhere : 
 Then, were not summer's distillation left, 
 A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass, 
 Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft, 
 Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was. 
 But flowers distill'd, though they with 
 
 winter meet, 
 Leese but their show ; their substance still 
 
 lives sweet. 5. 
 
 Then let not winter's ragged hand deface 
 In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd : 
 Make sweet some phial ; treasure thou some 
 
 place 
 
 With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd. 
 That use is not forbidden usury, 
 Which happies those that pay the willing loan ; 
 That 's for thyself to breed another thee, 
 Or ten times happier, be it ten for one ; 
 Ten times thyself were happier than thou art, 
 If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee : 
 Then, what could Death do if thou shouldst 
 
 depart, 
 Leaving the living in posterity? 
 
 Be not self-will'd for thou art much too fair 
 To be Death's conquest, and make worms 
 
 thine heir. 6. 
 
 Lo, in the orient when the gracious light 
 Lifts up his burning head, each under eye 
 Doth homage to his new-appearing sight, 
 Serving with looks his sacred majesty: 
 And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly 
 
 hill, 
 
 Resembling strong youth in his middle age, 
 Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still, 
 Attending on his golden pilgrimage ; 
 But when from high-most pitch, with weary 
 
 car, 
 
 Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day, 
 The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are 
 From his low tract, and look another way : 
 So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon, 
 Unlook'd on diest, unless thou get a son. 7. 
 
 Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? 
 Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy, 
 Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not 
 
 gladly? 
 Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy? 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 487 
 
 If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, 
 By unions married, do offend thine ear, 
 They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds 
 In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear. 
 Mark how one string, sweet husband to 
 
 another, 
 
 Strikes each in each by mutual ordering ; 
 Eesembling sire and child and happy mother, 
 Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing : 
 "Whose speechless song, being many, seem- 
 ing one, 
 
 Sings this to thee, " Thou single wilt prove 
 none." 8. 
 
 Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye, 
 That thou consum'st thyself in single life ? 
 Ah ! if thou issueless shalt hap to die, 
 The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife : 
 The world will be thy widow, and still weep, 
 That thou no form of thee hast left behind, 
 When every private widow well may keep, 
 By children's eyes, her husband's shape in 
 
 mind. 
 Look, what an unthrift in the world doth 
 
 spend, 
 Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys 
 
 it: 
 
 But beauty's waste hath in the world an end, 
 And kept unus'd, the user so destroys it. 
 No love toward others in that bosom sits, 
 That on himself such murderous shame 
 
 commits. 9. 
 
 For shame ! deny that thou bear'st love to any 
 Who for thyself art so unprovident. 
 Orant, if thou wilt, thou art belov'd of many, 
 But that thou none lov'st is most evident; 
 For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate, 
 That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to con- 
 spire ; 
 
 Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate, 
 Which to repair should be thy chief desire. 
 change thy thought, that I may change my 
 
 mind! 
 
 Shall hate be fairer lodg'd than gentle love? 
 Be as thy presence is, gracious and kind, 
 Or to thyself, at least, kind-hearted prove ; 
 Make thee another self, for love of me, 
 That beauty still may live in thine or 
 thee. 10. 
 
 As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'st 
 In one of thine, from that which thou de- 
 partest ; 
 
 And that fresh blood which youngly thou 
 
 bestow'st, 
 Thou mayst call thine, when thou from youth 
 
 convertest. 
 
 Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase ; 
 Without this, folly, age, and cold decay: 
 If all were minded so, the times should cease, 
 And threescore years would make the world 
 
 away. 
 Let those whom Nature hath not made for 
 
 store, 
 
 Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish : 
 Look, whom she best endow'd, she gave thee 
 
 more; 
 Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty 
 
 cherish : 
 She carv'd thee for her seal, and meant 
 
 thereby 
 Thou shouldst print more, nor let that copy 
 
 die. 11. 
 
 When I do count the clock that tells the time, 
 And see the brave day sunk in hideous night ; 
 When I behold the violet past prime, 
 And sable curls, all silver'd o'er with white ; 
 When lofty trees I see barren of leaves, 
 Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, 
 And summer's green all girded up in sheaves, 
 Borne on the bier with white and bristly 
 
 beard; 
 
 Then of thy beauty do I question make, 
 That thou among the wastes of time must go, 
 Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake, 
 And die as fast as they see others grow; 
 And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make 
 
 defence, 
 Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee 
 
 hence. 12. 
 
 that you were yourself ! but, love, you are 
 No longer yours than you yourself here live : 
 Against this coming end you should prepare, 
 And your sweet semblance to some other give. 
 So should that beauty which you hold in lease 
 Find no determination : then you were 
 Yourself again, after yourself 's decease, 
 When your sweet issue your sweet form should 
 
 bear. 
 
 Who lets so fair a house fall to decay, 
 Which husbandry in honour might uphold 
 Against the stormy gusts of winter's day, 
 And barren rage of death's eternal cold 1 
 ! none but unthrifts : Dear my love, you 
 
 know 
 You had a father; let your son say so. 13. 
 
488 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x. 
 
 Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck ; 
 And yet me thinks I have astronomy, 
 But not to tell of good or evil luck, 
 Of plagues, of dearths, or season's quality : 
 Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell, 
 Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind, 
 Or say, with princes if it shall go well, 
 By oft predict that I in heaven find : 
 But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive, 
 And (constant stars) in them I read such art, 
 As truth and beauty shall together thrive, 
 If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert : 
 Or else of thee this I prognosticate, 
 Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and 
 date. 14. 
 
 When I consider everything that grows 
 Holds in perfection but a little moment, 
 That this huge state presenteth nought but 
 
 shows 
 
 Whereon the stars in secret influence com- 
 ment; 
 
 When I perceive that men as plants increase, 
 Cheer'd and check'd ever by the selfsame sky; 
 Yaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, 
 And wear their brave state out of memory; 
 Then the conceit of this inconstant stay 
 Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, 
 Where wasteful time debateth with decay, 
 To change your day of youth to sullied night; 
 And all in war with time, for love of you, 
 As he takes from you, I engraft you new. 
 
 15. 
 
 But wherefore do not you a mightier way 
 Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time? 
 And fortify yourself in your decay 
 With means more blessed than my barren 
 
 rhyme? 
 
 Now stand you on the top of happy hours ; 
 And many maiden gardens, yet unset, 
 With virtuous wish would bear you living 
 
 flowers, 
 
 Much liker than your painted counterfeit : 
 So should the lines of life that life repair, 
 Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen, 
 Neither in inward worth, nor outward fair, 
 Can make you live yourself in eyes of men. 
 To give away yourself, keeps yourself still ; 
 And you must live, drawn by your own 
 
 sweet skill. 16. 
 
 Who will believe my verse in time to come, 
 If it were fill'd with your most high deserts 1 
 
 Though yet Heaven knows it is but as a tomb 
 Which hides your life, and shows not half 
 
 your parts. 
 
 If I could write the beauty of your eyes, 
 And in fresh numbers number all your graces, 
 The age to come would say, This poet lies, 
 Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly 
 
 faces. 
 
 So should my papers, yellow'd with their age, 
 Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than 
 
 tongue ; 
 
 And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage, 
 And stretched metre of an antique song : 
 But were some child of yours alive that 
 
 time, 
 You should live twice; in it, and in my 
 
 rhyme. 17. 
 
 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day 1 
 Thou art more lovely and more temperate : 
 Rough winds do bhake the darling buds of 
 
 May, 
 
 And summer's lease hath all too short a date : 
 Sometime too hot the eye of -heaven shines, 
 And often is his gold complexion dimm'd ; 
 And every fair from fair sometime declines, 
 By chance, or nature's changing course, un- 
 
 trimm'd ; 
 
 But thy eternal summer shall not fade, 
 Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest : 
 Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his 
 
 shade, 
 
 When in eternal lines to time thou growest : 
 So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, 
 So long lives this, and this gives life to 
 
 thee. 18. 
 
 Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws, 
 And make the earth devour her own sweet 
 
 brood ; 
 Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's 
 
 jaws, 
 
 And burn the long-liv'd phoenix in her blood; 
 Make glad and sorry seasons, as thou fleets, 
 And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time, 
 To the wide world, and all her fading sweets ; 
 But I forbid thee one most heinous crime : 
 carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow, 
 Nor draw no lines therewith thine antique pen; 
 Him in thy course untainted do allow, 
 For beauty's pattern to succeeding men. 
 Yet, do thy worst, old Time : despite thy 
 
 wrong, 
 
 My love shall in my verse ever live young. 
 
 19. 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 489 
 
 That this series of Sonnets, powerful as 
 they are, displaying not only the most 
 abundant variety of imagery, but the greatest 
 felicity in making the whole harmonious, 
 constitutes a poem ambitious only of the 
 honours of a work of Art, is, we think, 
 manifest. If it had been addressed to a real 
 person, no other object could have been pro- 
 posed than a display of the most brilliant 
 ingenuity. In the next age it would have 
 been called an exquisite " copy of verses." 
 But in the next age, probably certainly in 
 our own the author would have been pro- 
 nounced arrogant beyond measure in the an- 
 ticipation of the immortality of his rhymes. 
 There is a show of modesty, indeed, in the 
 expressions "barren rhyme" and "pupil 
 pen;" but that is speedily cast off, and 
 "eternal summer" is promised through 
 " eternal lines ;" and 
 
 " So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, 
 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." 
 
 Regarding these nineteen Sonnets as a con- 
 tinuous poem, wound up to the climax of a 
 hyperbolical promise of immortality to the 
 object whom it addresses, we receive the 20th 
 Sonnet as the commencement of another 
 poem in which the same idea is retained. 
 The poet is bound to the youth by ties of 
 strong affection ; but nature has called upon 
 the possessor of that beauty 
 
 " Which steals men's eyes, and women's souls 
 amazeth," 
 
 to cultivate closer ties. This Sonnet, through 
 an utter misconception of the language of 
 Shakspere's time, has produced a comment 
 sufficiently odious to throw an unpleasant 
 shade over much which follows. The idea 
 which it contains is continued in the 53rd 
 Sonnet ; and we give the two in connexion : 
 
 A woman's face, with nature's own hand 
 
 painted, 
 
 Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion ; 
 A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted 
 With shifting change, as is false women's 
 
 fashion ; 
 An eye more bright than theirs, less false in 
 
 rolling, 
 Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth ; 
 
 A man in hue, all hues in his controlling, 
 Which steals men's eyes, and women's souls 
 
 amazeth. 
 
 And for a woman wert thou first created ; 
 Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a 
 
 doting, 
 
 And by addition me of thee defeated, 
 By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. 
 But since she prick'd thee out for women's 
 
 pleasure, 
 Mine be thy love, and thy love's use their 
 
 treasure. 20. 
 
 What is ^our substance, whereof are you 
 
 made, 
 That millions of strange shadows on you 
 
 tend? 
 
 Since every one hath, every one, one's shade, 
 And you, but one, can every shadow lend. 
 Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit 
 Is poorly imitated after you ; 
 On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set, 
 And you in Grecian tires are painted new : 
 Speak of the spring and foizon of the year ; 
 The one doth shadow of your beauty show, 
 The other as your bounty doth appear, 
 And you in every blessed shape we know. 
 In all external grace you have some part, 
 But you like none, none you, for constant 
 
 heart. 53. 
 
 Between the 20th Sonnet and the 53rd oc- 
 cur, as it appears to us, a number of frag- 
 ments which we have variously classified, 
 and which seem to have no relation to the 
 praises of that "unknown youth" who has 
 been supposed to preside over five-sixths of 
 the entire series of verses. We have little 
 doubt that the " begetter " of the Sonnets 
 was not able to beget, or obtain, all ; and 
 that there is a considerable hiatus between 
 the 20th Sonnet and the second hyperbolical 
 close, which he filled up as well as he could, 
 from other " sugared sonnets amongst pri- 
 vate friends :" 
 
 how much more doth beauty beauteous 
 
 seem, 
 By that sweet ornament which truth doth 
 
 give ! 
 
 The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem 
 For that sweet odour which doth in it live. 
 The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye 
 As the perfumed tincture of the roses, 
 
490 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x. 
 
 Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly 
 When summer's breath their masked buds 
 
 discloses : 
 
 But, for their virtue only is their show, 
 They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade ; 
 Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so ; 
 Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours 
 
 made: 
 
 And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, 
 When that shall fade, by verse distils your 
 
 truth. 54. 
 
 Not marble, not the gilded monuments 
 Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; 
 But you shall shine more bright in these con- 
 tents 
 Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish 
 
 time. 
 
 W T hen wasteful war shall statues overturn, 
 And broils root out the work of masonry, 
 Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall 
 
 burn 
 
 The living record of your memory. 
 'Gainst death and all oblivious enmity 
 Shall you pace forth ; your praise shall still 
 
 find room, 
 
 Even in the eyes of all posterity 
 That wear this world out to the ending doom. 
 So till the judgment that yourself arise, 
 You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes. 
 
 55. 
 
 Wherever we meet with these magnificent 
 promises of the immortality which the poet's 
 verses are to bestow, we find them associated 
 with that personage, the representative at 
 once of "Adonis" and of "Helen," who pre- 
 sents himself to us as the unreal coinage of 
 the fancy. In many of the lines which we 
 have given in the second division of this 
 inquiry, the reader will have noticed the 
 affecting modesty, the humility without 
 abasement, of the great poet comparing him- 
 self with others. Here Shakspere indeed 
 speaks. For example, take the whole of the 
 32nd Sonnet. We should scarcely imagine, 
 if the poem were continuous, as Mr. Brown 
 believes, that the last stanza of the second 
 portion of it in his classification would con- 
 clude with these lines : 
 
 " Not marble, not the gilded monuments 
 Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme." 
 
 They contrast remarkably with the tone of 
 the 32nd Sonnet, 
 
 " These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover." 
 
 Meres has a passage : " As Ovid saith of his 
 works 
 ' Jamque opus exegi quod nee Jovis ira, nee 
 
 ignis, 
 Nee poterit ferrum, nee edax abolere vetus- 
 
 tas;' 
 and as Horace saith of his, 
 
 ' Exegi monumentum aere perenniu &c. ; 
 
 so say / severally of Sir Philip Sidney's, 
 Spenser's, Daniel's, Drayton's, Shakespeare's, 
 and Warner's works." What Ovid and 
 Horace said is imitated in the 55th Sonnet. 
 But we greatly doubt if what Meres would 
 have said of Shakspere he would have said 
 of himself, except in some assumed character, 
 to which we have not the key. Ben Jonson, 
 to whom a boastful spirit has with some 
 justice been objected, never said anything 
 so strong of his own writings ; and he wrote 
 with too much reliance, in this and other 
 particulars, upon classical examples. But 
 Jonson was not a writer of Sonnets, which, 
 pitched in an artificial key, made this boast- 
 ful tone a constituent part of the whole per- 
 formance. The man, who never once speaks 
 of his own merits in his dramas, the greatest 
 productions of the human intellect, when he 
 put on the imaginary character in which a 
 poet is weaving a fiction out of his supposed 
 personal relations, did not hesitate to con- 
 form himself to the practice of other masters 
 of the art. Shakspere here adopted the tone 
 which Spenser, Daniel, and Drayton had 
 adopted. The parallel appears to us very 
 remarkable ; and we must beg the indulgence 
 of our readers while we present them a few 
 passages from each of these writers. 
 
 And first of Spenser. His 27th Sonnet 
 will furnish an adequate notion of the 
 general tone of his ' Amoretti,' and of the 
 self-exaltation which appears to belong to 
 this species of poem : 
 
 " Fair Proud ! now tell me, why should fair be 
 
 proud, 
 
 Sith all world's glory is but dross unclean, 
 And in the shade of death itself shall shroud, 
 However now thereof ye little ween ! 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONKETS. 
 
 491 
 
 That goodly idol, now so gay beseen, 
 Shall doff her flesh's borrow'd fair attire ; 
 And be forgot as it had never been ; 
 That many now much worship and admire ! 
 We any then shall after it inquire, 
 ]STe any mention shall thereof remain, 
 But what this verse, that never shall expire, 
 Shall to you purchase with her thankless pain! 
 Fair ! be no longer proud of that shall perish, 
 But that, which shall you make immortal, 
 cherish." 
 
 And the 69th Sonnet is still more like the 
 model upon which Shakspere formed his 
 55th : 
 
 " The famous warriors of the antique world 
 Us'd trophies to erect in stately wise, 
 In which they would the records have enroll'd 
 Of their great deeds and valorous emprise. 
 What trophy then shall I most fit devise, 
 In which I may record the memory 
 Of my love's conquest, peerless beauty's prize, 
 Adorn'd with honour, love, and chastity ? 
 Even this verse, vow'd to eternity, 
 Shall be thereof immortal monument ; 
 And tell her praise to all posterity, 
 That may admire such world's rare wonder- 
 ment ; 
 
 The happy purchase of my glorious spoil, 
 Gotten at last with labour and long toil." 
 
 Spenser's 75th Sonnet also thus closes : 
 
 " My verse your virtues rare shall eternize, 
 And in the heavens write your glorious name. 
 Where, when as Death shall all the world 
 
 subdue, 
 Our love shall live, and later life renew." 
 
 Of Daniel's Sonnets, the 41st and 42nd 
 furnish examples of the same tone, though 
 somewhat more subdued than in Shakspere 
 or Spenser : 
 
 " Be not displeas'd that these my papers should 
 Bewray unto the world how fair thou art ; 
 Or that my wits have show'd the best they 
 
 could. 
 
 (The chastest flame that ever warmed heart !) 
 Think not, sweet Delia, this shall be thy shame, 
 My muse should sound thy praise with mourn- 
 ful warble ; 
 
 How many live, the glory of whose name 
 Shall rest in ice, when thine is grav'd in 
 
 marble ! 
 
 Thou mayst in after ages live esteem'd, 
 Unburied in these lines, reserv'd in pureness; 
 These shall entomb those eyes, that have re- 
 
 deem'd 
 
 Me from the vulgar, thee from all obscureness. 
 Although my careful accents never mov'd 
 
 thee, 
 
 Yet count it no disgrace that I have lov'd 
 thee." 
 
 " Delia, these eyes, that so admire thine, 
 Have seen those walls which proud ambition 
 
 rear'd 
 To check the world; how they entomb'd have 
 
 lien 
 Within themselves, and on them ploughs have 
 
 ear'd. 
 
 Yet never found that barbarous hand attain'd 
 The spoil of fame deserv'd by virtuous men ; 
 Whose glorious actions luckily had gain'd 
 The eternal annals of a happy pen. 
 And therefore grieve not if thy beauties die; 
 Though time do spoil thee of the fairest veil 
 That ever yet cover'd mortality; 
 And must enstar the needle and the rail. 
 That grace which doth more than en woman 
 
 thee, 
 Lives in my lines, and must eternal be." 
 
 But Drayton, if he display not the energy 
 of Shakspere, the fancy of Spenser, or the 
 sweetness of Daniel, is not behind either in 
 the extravagance of his admiration or his 
 confidence in his own power. The 6th and 
 the 44th 'Ideas' are sufficient examples: 
 
 " How many paltry, foolish, painted things, 
 That now in coaches trouble every street, 
 Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings, 
 Ere they be well wrapp'd in their winding- 
 sheet ! 
 
 When I to thee eternity shall give, 
 When nothing else remaineth of these days, 
 And queens hereafter shall be glad to live 
 Upon the alms of thy superfluous praise ; 
 Virgins and matrons, reading these my rhymes, 
 Shall be so much delighted with thy story, 
 That they shall grieve they liv'd not in these 
 
 times, 
 
 To have seen thee, their sex's only glory : 
 So thou shalt fly above the vulgar throng, 
 Still to survive in my immortal song." 
 
 " Whilst thus my pen strives to eternize thee, 
 Age rules my lines with wrinkles in my face, 
 Where, in the map of all my misery, 
 Is modell'd out the world of my disgrace : 
 Whilst, in despite of tyrannizing rhymes, 
 Medea-like, I make thee young again, 
 Proudly thou scorn'st my world out-wearing 
 
 rhymes, 
 
 And murther'st virtue with thy coy disdain ; 
 And though in youth my youth untimely 
 
 perish, 
 
 To keep thee from oblivion and the grave, 
 Ensuing ages yet my rhymes shall cherish, 
 Where I entomb'd my better part shall save ; 
 And though this earthly body fade and die, 
 My name shall mount upon eternity." 
 
 We now proceed to what appears another 
 continuous poem amongst Shakspere's Son- 
 nets, addressed to the same object as the 
 
492 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x. 
 
 first nineteen stanzas were addressed to, and 
 devoted to the same admiration of his per- 
 sonal beauty. The leading idea is now that 
 of the spoils of Time, to be repaired only by 
 the immortality of verse : 
 
 Where art thou, Muse, that thou forgett'st so 
 long 
 
 To speak of that which gives thee all thy 
 might ] 
 
 Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song, 
 
 Darkening thy power, to lend base subjects 
 light? 
 
 Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem 
 
 In gentle numbers time so idly spent ; 
 
 Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem, 
 
 And gives thy pen both skill and argument. 
 
 Rise, restive Muse, my love's sweet face sur- 
 vey, 
 
 If Time have any wrinkle graven there ; 
 
 If any, be a satire to decay, 
 
 And make Time's spoils despised everywhere. 
 Give my love fame, faster than Time wastes 
 
 life ; 
 
 So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked 
 knife. 100. 
 
 truant Muse, what shall be thy amends, 
 For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd 1 
 Both truth and beauty on my love depends ; 
 So dost thou too, and therein dignified. 
 Make answer, Muse : wilt thou not haply say, 
 " Truth needs no colour with his colour fix'd, 
 Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay ; 
 
 But best is best, if never intermix'd'?" 
 Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be 
 
 dumb 1 ? 
 
 Excuse not silence so ; for it lies in thee 
 To make him much outlive a gilded tomb, 
 And to be prais'd of ages yet to be. 
 
 Then do thy office, Muse ; I teach thee how 
 To make him seem long hence as he shows 
 now. 101. 
 
 My love is strengthen'd, though more weak 
 in seeming ; 
 
 1 love not less, though less the show appear ; 
 That love is merchandis'd whose rich esteem- 
 ing 
 
 The owner's tongue doth publish everywhere. 
 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 music burthens 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. 
 
 102. 
 
 Alack ! what poverty my Muse brings forth, 
 That having such a scope to show her pride, 
 The argument, all bare, is of more worth, 
 Than when it hath my added praise beside. 
 blame me not if I no more can write ! 
 Look in your glass, and there appears a face 
 That overgoes my blunt invention quite, 
 Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace. 
 Were it not sinful then, striving to mend, 
 To mar the subject that before was well 1 
 For to no other pass my verses tend, 
 Than of your graces and your gifts to tell ; 
 And more, much more, than in my verse 
 
 can sit, 
 Your own glass shows you when you look 
 
 in it. 103. 
 
 To me, fair friend, you never can be old, 
 For as you were when first your eye I eyed, 
 Such seems your beauty still. Three winters' 
 
 cold 
 Have from the forest shook three summers' 
 
 pride ; 
 Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn 
 
 turn'd, 
 
 In process of the seasons have I seen, 
 Three April perfumes in three hot Junes 
 
 burn'd, 
 
 Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green. 
 Ah ! yet doth beauty, like a dial hand, 
 Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd ; 
 So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth 
 
 stand, 
 
 Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd. 
 For fear of which, hear this, thou age un- 
 bred, 
 Ere you were born, was beauty's summer 
 
 dead. 104. 
 
 Let not my love be call'd idolatry, 
 Nor my beloved as an idol show, 
 Since all alike my songs and praises be, 
 To one, of one, still such, and ever so. 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 493 
 
 Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind, 
 Still constant in a wondrous excellence ; 
 Therefore my verse, to constancy confin'd, 
 One thing expressing, leaves out difference. 
 Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument, 
 Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words ; 
 And in this change is my invention spent, 
 Three themes in one, which wondrous scope 
 
 affords. 
 
 Fair, kind, and true, have often liv'd alone, 
 Which three, till now, never kept seat in 
 one. 105. 
 
 When in the chronicle of wasted time 
 I see descriptions of the fairest wights, 
 And beauty making beautiful old rhyme, 
 In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights, 
 Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, 
 Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, 
 I see their antique pen would have express'd 
 Even such a beauty as you master now. 
 So all their praises are but prophecies 
 Of this our time, all you prefiguring ; 
 And, for they look'd but with divining eyes, 
 They had not skill enough your worth to 
 sing; 
 
 For we, which now behold these present 
 days, 
 
 Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to 
 praise. 106. 
 
 Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul 
 Of the wide world dreaming on things to 
 
 come, 
 
 Can yet the lease of my trae love control, 
 Suppos'd as forfeit to a confin'd doom. 
 The mortal moon hath her eclipse endued, 
 And the sad augurs mock their own presage ; 
 Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd, 
 And peace proclaims olives of endless age. 
 Now with the drops of this most balmy time 
 My love looks fresh, and Death to me sub- 
 scribes, 
 
 Since spite of him I '11 live in this poor rhyme, 
 While he insults o'er dull and speechless 
 
 tribes. 
 
 And thou in this shalt find thy monument, 
 When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass 
 are spent. 107. 
 
 What 's in the brain that ink may character, 
 Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit ] 
 What 's new to speak, what now to register, 
 That may express my love, or thy dear merit ? 
 
 Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers 
 
 divine, 
 
 I must each day say o'er the very same ; 
 Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine, 
 Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name. 
 So that eternal love in love's fresh case 
 Weighs not the dust and injury of age, 
 Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place, 
 But makes antiquity for aye his page ; 
 
 Finding the first conceit of love there bred, 
 Where time and outward form would show 
 it dead. 108. 
 
 If there be nothing new, but that which is 
 Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd, 
 Which labouring for invention bear amiss 
 The second burthen of a former child ! 
 0, that record could, with a backward look, 
 E'en of five hundred courses of the sun, 
 Show me your image in some antique book, 
 Since mind at first in character was done ! 
 That I might see what the old world could 
 
 say 
 
 To this composed wonder of vour frame ; 
 Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they, 
 Or whether revolution be the same. 
 ! sure I am, the wits of former days 
 To subjects worse have given admiring 
 praise. 59. 
 
 Like as the waves make towards the pebbled 
 
 shore, 
 
 So do our minutes hasten to their end ; 
 Each changing place with that which goes 
 
 before, 
 
 In sequent toil all forwards do contend. 
 Nativity, once in the main of light, 
 Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown' d, 
 Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight, 
 And Time, that gave, doth now his gift con- 
 found. 
 
 Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth, 
 And delves the parallels in beauty's brow ; 
 Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth, 
 And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow. 
 And yet, to times in hope, my verse shall 
 
 stand, 
 
 Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand. 
 
 60. 
 
 Of these eleven stanzas nine are consecutive 
 in the original, being numbered 100 to 108. 
 The other two, the 59th and 60th, are 
 certainly isolated in the first arrangement ; 
 but the idea of the 108th glides into the 
 
494 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x. 
 
 59th, and closes appropriately with the 60th. 
 But there is a short poem which stands 
 completely alone in the original edition, the 
 126th ; and it is remarkable for being of a 
 different metrical character, wanting the 
 distinguishing feature of the Sonnet in its 
 number of lines. Its general tendency, 
 bowever, connects it with those which we 
 have just given : 
 
 thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power 
 Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour; 
 "Who hast by waning grown, and therein 
 
 show'st 
 Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self 
 
 grow'st ! 
 
 If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack, 
 As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee 
 
 back, 
 
 She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill 
 May Time disgrace, and wretched minutes 
 
 kill. 
 
 Yet fear her, thou minion of her pleasure ; 
 She may detain, but not still keep, her 
 
 treasure : 
 
 Her audit, though delay'd, answer'd must be, 
 And her quietus is to render thee. 126. 
 
 There is an enemy as potent as Time, who 
 cuts down the pride of youth as the flower 
 of the field. That enemy is Death ; and the 
 poet most skilfully presents the images of 
 mortality to his " lovely boy " in connexion 
 with the decay of the elder friend. In this 
 portion of the poem there is a touching 
 simplicity, which, however, is intermingled 
 with passages which, denoting that the Poet 
 is still speaking in character, take the stanzas, 
 in some degree, out of the range of the 
 real : 
 
 Mj glass shall not persuade me I am old, 
 So long as youth and thou are of one date ; 
 But when in thee time's furrows I behold, 
 Then look I death my days should expiate. 
 For all that beauty that doth cover thee 
 Is but the seemly raiment of my heart, 
 Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me ; 
 How can I then be elder than thou art ? 
 therefore, love, be of thyself so wary, 
 As I not for myself but for thee will ; 
 Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary, 
 As tender nurse her babe from faring ill. 
 
 Presume not on thy heart when mine is 
 
 slain ; 
 Thou gav 'st me thine, not to give back 
 
 again. 22. 
 
 Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye, 
 And all my soul, and all my every part; 
 And for this sin there is no remedy, 
 It is so grounded inward in my heart. 
 Methinks no face so gracious is as mine, 
 No shape so true, no truth of such account, 
 And for myself mine own worth do define, 
 As I all other in all worths surmount. 
 But when my glass shows me myself indeed, 
 Beated and chopp'd with tann'd antiquity, 
 Mine own self-love quite contrary I read, 
 Self so self-loving were iniquity. 
 'T is thee (myself) that for myself I praise, 
 Faulting my age with beauty of thy days. 
 
 62. 
 
 Against my love shall be, as I am now, 
 With Time's injurious hand crush'd and 
 
 o'erworn ; 
 When hours have drain'd his blood, and fill'd 
 
 his brow 
 With lines and wrinkles ; when his youthful 
 
 morn 
 
 Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night ; 
 And all those beauties, whereof now he 's king, 
 Are vanishing or vanish'd out of sight, 
 Stealing away the treasure of his spring ; 
 For such a time do I now fortify 
 Against confounding age's cruel knife, 
 That he shall never cut from memory 
 My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's 
 
 life. 
 His beauty shall in these black lines be 
 
 seen, 
 And they shall live, and he in them, still 
 
 green. 63. 
 
 When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd, 
 The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age ; 
 When sometime lofty towers I see down-ras'd, 
 And brass eternal, slave to mortal rage ; 
 When I have seen the hungry ocean gain 
 Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, 
 And the firm soil win of the wat'ry main, 
 Increasing store with loss, and loss with store; 
 When I have seen such interchange of state, 
 Or state itself confounded to decay ; 
 Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate 
 That Time will come and take my love away. 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 495 
 
 This thought is as a death, which cannot 
 
 choose 
 But weep to have that which it fears to 
 
 lose. 64. 
 
 Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor bound- 
 
 But sad mortality o'ersways their power, 
 How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, 
 Whose action is no stronger than a flower ? 
 O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out 
 Against the wreckful siege of battering days, 
 When rocks impregnable are not so stout, 
 Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays ] 
 fearful meditation ! where, alack ! 
 Shall Time's best jewelfrom Time's chestliehid 1 ? 
 Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot 
 
 back] 
 
 Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid ? 
 none, unless this miracle have might, 
 That in black ink my love may still shine 
 bright. 65. 
 
 Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, 
 As, to behold desert a beggar born, 
 And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity 
 And purest faith unhappily forsworn, 
 And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd, 
 And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, 
 And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd, 
 And strength by limping sway disabled, 
 And art made tongue-tied by authority, 
 And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill, 
 And simple truth miscalled simplicity, 
 And captive good attending captain ill : 
 
 Tir*d with all these, from these would I be 
 gone, 
 
 Save that, to die, I leave my love alone. 66. 
 
 Ah ! wherefore with infection should he live, 
 And with his presence grace impiety, 
 That sin by him advantage should achieve, 
 And lace itself with his society ] 
 Why should false painting imitate his cheek, 
 And steal dead seeing of his living hue ] 
 Why should poor beauty indirectly seek 
 Koses of shadow, since his rose is true ? 
 Why should he live now Nature bankrupt is, 
 Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively veins'? 
 For she hath no exchequer now but his, 
 And, proud of many, lives upon his gains. 
 
 0, him she stores, to show what wealth 
 she had, 
 
 In days long since, before these last so 
 bad. 67. 
 
 Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn, 
 When beauty liVd and died as flowers do now, 
 Before these bastard signs of fair were borne, 
 Or durst inhabit on a living brow : 
 Before the golden tresses of the dead, 
 The right of sepulchres, were shorn away, 
 To live a second life on second head, 
 Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay : 
 In him those holy antique hours are seen, 
 Without all ornament, itself, and true, 
 Making no summer of another's green, 
 Eobbing no old to dress his beauty new ; 
 And him as for a map doth Nature store, 
 To show false Art what beauty was of yore. 
 
 Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth 
 
 view 
 Want nothing that the thought of hearts can 
 
 mend : 
 All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee 
 
 that due, 
 
 Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend, 
 Thine outward thua with outward praise is 
 
 crown'd ; 
 But those same tongues that give thee so 
 
 thine own, 
 
 In other accents do this praise confound, 
 By seeing farther than the eye hath shown. 
 They look into the beauty of thy mind, 
 And that, in guess, they measure by thy deeds; 
 Then (churls) their thoughts, although their 
 
 eyes were kind, 
 To thy fair flower add the rank smell of 
 
 weeds : 
 
 But why thy odour matcheth not thy show, 
 The solve is this, that thou dost common 
 
 grow. 69. 
 
 That thou art blam'd shall not be thy defect, 
 For slander's mark was ever yet the fair ; 
 The ornament of beauty is suspect, 
 A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air. 
 So thou be good, slander doth but approve 
 Thy worth the greater, being woo'd of time : 
 For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love, 
 And thou present'st a pure unstained prime. 
 Thou hast pass'd by the ambush of young days, 
 Either not assail'd, or victor being charg'd ; 
 Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise, 
 To tie up envy, evermore enlarg'd : 
 
 If some suspect of ill mask'd not thy show, 
 Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts 
 shouldst owe. 70. 
 
496 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x. 
 
 No longer mourn for me when I am dead 
 Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell 
 Give warning to the world that I am fled 
 From this vile world, with vilest worms to 
 
 dwell : 
 
 Nay, if you read this line, remember not 
 The hand that writ it ; for I love you so, 
 That I in your sweet thoughts would be for- 
 got, 
 If thinking on me then should make you 
 
 woe, 
 
 0, if (I say) you look upon this verse, 
 When I perhaps compounded am with clay, 
 Do not so much as my poor name rehearse ; 
 But let your love even with my life decay : 
 Lest the wise world should look into your 
 
 moan, 
 
 And mock you with me after I am gone. 
 
 71. 
 
 0, lest the world should task you to recite 
 What merit liv'd in me, that you should love 
 After my death, dear love, forget me quite, 
 For you in me can nothing worthy prove ; 
 Unless you would devise some virtuous lie, 
 To do more for me than mine own desert, 
 And hang more praise upon deceased I 
 Than niggard truth would willingly impart : 
 0, lest your true love may seem false in this, 
 That you for love speak well of me untrue, 
 My name be buried where my body is, 
 And live no more to shame nor me nor you. 
 
 For I am sham'd by that which I bring 
 forth, 
 
 And so should you, to love things nothing 
 worth. 72. 
 
 That time of year thou mayst 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 
 
 In me thou seest the twilight of such day 
 As after sunset fadeth in the west, 
 Which by and by black night doth take away, 
 Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. 
 In me thou seest 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. 73. 
 
 But be contented : when that fell arrest 
 Without all bail shall carry me away, 
 My life hath in this line some interest, 
 Which for memorial still with thee shall stay. 
 When thou reviewest this, thou dost review 
 The very part was consecrate to thee. 
 The earth can have but earth, which is his due; 
 My spirit is thine, the better part of me : 
 So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life, 
 The prey of worms, my body being dead ; 
 The coward conquest of a wretch's knife, 
 Too base of thee to be remembered. 
 
 The worth of that, is that which it contains, 
 And that is this^ and this with thee re- 
 mains. 74. 
 
 Or I shall live your epitaph to make, 
 Or you survive when I in earth am rotten ; 
 From hence your memory death cannot take, 
 Although in me each part will be forgotten. 
 Your name from hence immortal life shall have, 
 Though I, once gone, to all the world must die : 
 The earth can yield me but a common grave, 
 When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie. 
 Your monument shall be my gentle verse, 
 Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read ; 
 And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse, 
 When all the breathers of this world are dead; 
 You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen) 
 Where breath most breathes, even in the 
 mouths of men. 81. 
 
 Thirteen of these stanzas, the 62nd to the 
 74th, follow in their original order. The 
 first of the fifteen, the 22nd Sonnet, stands 
 quite alone, although its idea is continued 
 in the 62nd. The last of the series, the 81st, 
 not only stands alone, but actually cuts off 
 the undoubted connexion between the 80th 
 and the 82nd Sonnets. The 71st to the 74th 
 Sonnets seem bursting from a heart oppressed 
 with a sense of its own unworthiness, and 
 surrendered to some overwhelming misery. 
 There is a line in the 74th which points at 
 suicide. We cling to the belief that the 
 sentiments here expressed are essentially 
 dramatic. In the 32nd Sonnet, where we 
 recognise the man Shakspere speaking in his 
 own modest and cheerful spirit, death is to 
 come across his "well-contented day." 
 
 The opinion which we have endeavoured 
 to sustain of the probable admixture of the 
 artificial and the real in the Sonnets, arising 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 497 
 
 from their supposed original fragmentary 
 state, necessarily leads to the belief that 
 some are accurate illustrations of the poet's 
 situation and feelings. It is collected from 
 these Sonnets, for example, that his pro- 
 fession as a player was disagreeable to him ; 
 and this complaint is found amongst those 
 portions which we have separated from the 
 series of verses which appear to us to be 
 written in an artificial character ; it might 
 be addressed to any one of his family, or 
 some honoured friend, such as Lord South- 
 ampton : 
 
 " 0, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, 
 The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, 
 That did not better for my life provide 
 Than public means, which public manners 
 
 breeds. 
 Thence comes it that my name receives a 
 
 brand, 
 
 And almost thence my nature is subdued 
 To what it works in, like the dyer's hand." 
 
 But if from his professional occupation his 
 nature was felt by him to be subdued to. 
 what it worked in, if thence his name re- 
 ceived a brand, if vulgar scandal sometimes 
 assailed him, he had high thoughts to con- 
 sole him, such as were never before imparted 
 to mortal. This was probably written in some 
 period of dejection, when his heart was ill at 
 ease, and he looked upon the world with a 
 slight tinge of indifference, if not of dislike. 
 Every man of high genius has felt something 
 of this. It was reserved for the highest to 
 throw it off, " like dewdrops from the lion's 
 mane." But the profound self-abasement 
 and despondency of the 74th Sonnet, ex- 
 quisite as the diction is, appear to us unreal, 
 as a representation of the mental state of 
 William Shakspere ; written, as it most pro- 
 bably was, at a period of his life when he 
 revels and luxuriates (in the comedies which 
 belong to the close of the sixteenth century) 
 in the spirit of enjoyment, gushing from a 
 heart full of love for his species, at peace 
 with itself and with all the world. 
 
 We have thus, if we have not been led 
 away by imaginary associations, connected 
 the verses addressed to 
 
 " the world's fresh ornament, 
 And only herald to the gaudy spring/' 
 
 in a poem, or poems, of fifty stanzas, written 
 upon a plan by which it is obviously pre- 
 sented as a work of fiction, in which the poet 
 displays his art in a style accordant with the 
 existing fashion and the example of other 
 poets. The theme is the personal beauty of 
 a wonderful youth, and the strong affection 
 of a poet. Beauty is to be perpetuated 
 by marriage, and to be immortalized in the 
 poet's verses. Beauty is gradually to fade 
 before Time, but is to be still immortalized. 
 Beauty is to yield to Death, as the poet him- 
 self yields, but its memory is to endure in 
 " eternal lines." Separating from this some- 
 what monotonous theme those portions of a 
 hundred and fifty-four Sonnets which do not 
 appear essentially to belong to it, we separate, 
 as we believe, more or less, what has a per- 
 sonal interest in these compositions from 
 what is meant to be dramatic the real from 
 the fictitious. Our theory, we well know, 
 is liable to many objections ; but it is based 
 upon the unquestionable fact that these one 
 hundred and fifty-four Sonnets cannot be re- 
 ceived as a continuous poem upon any other 
 principle than that the author had written 
 them continuously. If there are some parts 
 which are acknowledged interpolations, may 
 there not be other parts that are open to the 
 same belief? If there are parts entirely dif- 
 ferent in their tone from the bulk of these 
 Sonnets, may we not consider that one por- 
 tion was meant to be artificial and another 
 real, that the poet sometimes spoke in an 
 assumed character, sometimes in a natural 
 one ? This theory we know could not hold if 
 the poet had himself arranged the sequence 
 of these verses; but as it is manifest that two 
 stanzas have been introduced from a poem 
 printed ten years earlier, that others are 
 acknowledged to be out of order, and others 
 positively dragged in without the slightest 
 connexion, may we not carry the separa- 
 tion still further, and, believing that the 
 " begetter " the getter-up of these Sonnets 
 had levied contributions upon all Shakspere's 
 " private friends," assume that he was in- 
 different to any arrangement which might 
 make each portion of the poem tell its own 
 history ? There is one decided advantage in 
 the separation which we have proposed the 
 
 K K 
 
498 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x 
 
 idea with which the series opens/ and which 
 is carried, here and there, in the original, 
 through the first hundred and twenty-six 
 Sonnets, does not now over-ride the whole of 
 the series. The separate parts may be read 
 with more pleasure when they are relieved 
 from this strained and exaggerated associa- 
 tion. 
 
 There are three points connected with 
 the opinion we have formed with regard to 
 the entire series of Sonnets, which we must 
 briefly notice before we leave the subject. 
 
 The first is, the inconsistencies which ob- 
 viously present themselves in adopting the 
 theory that the series of Sonnets or at least 
 the first hundred and twenty-six Sonnets 
 are addressed to one person. It is not our 
 intention to discuss the question to whom 
 they were addressed, which question depends 
 upon the adoption of the theory that they 
 are addressed to one. Drake's opinion that 
 they were addressed to Lord Southampton 
 rests upon the belief that Shakspere looked 
 up to some friend to whom they point, "with 
 reverence and homage." The later theory, 
 that William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, 
 was their object, is supported by the facts, 
 derived from Clarendon and others, that he 
 was " a man of noble and gallant character, 
 though always of a licentious life." W. H. is 
 held to be William Herbert; and Mr. Hallam 
 says, " Proofs of the low moral character of 
 ' W. H.' are continual." We venture to think 
 that the term "continual" is somewhat loosely 
 applied. The one " sensual fault," of which 
 the poet complains, is obscurely hinted at in 
 the 33rd, 34th, 35th, 40th, 41st, and 42nd 
 stanzas; and the general faults of his friend's 
 character, from which the injury proceeded, 
 are summed up in the 94th, 95th, and 96th. 
 We shall search in vain throughout the hun- 
 dred and fifty-four Sonnets for any similar 
 indications of the " low moral character " 
 of the person addressed. But the supposed 
 continuity of the poem implies arrangement, 
 and therefore consistency, in the author. 
 In the 41st stanza the one friend, ac- 
 cording to this theory, is reproached for 
 the treachery which is involved in the in- 
 
 dulgence of his passions. The poet says, 
 " thou might'st 
 
 " chide thy beauty and thy straying youth, 
 "Who lead thee in their riot even there 
 Where thou art forc'd to break a two-fold 
 truth." 
 
 Again, in the 95th stanza we have these 
 lines : 
 
 "How sweet and lovely dost thou make the 
 
 shame, 
 
 Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose, 
 Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name ! " 
 
 And, 
 
 " 0, what a mansion have those vices got, 
 Which for their habitation chose out thee ! " 
 
 Here are not only secret "vices," but "shame," 
 defacing the character. " Tongues " make 
 " lascivious comments " on the story of his 
 days. Is it to this person that in the 69th 
 Sonnet we have these lines addressed ? 
 
 " Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth 
 
 view 
 
 Want nothing that the thought of hearts can 
 mend." 
 
 Is it to this person that the 70th Sonnet 
 is devoted, in which are these remarkable 
 words ? 
 
 " Thou present'st a pure unstained prime, 
 Thou hast pass'd by the ambush of young 
 
 days, 
 Either not assail'd, or victor being charg'd." 
 
 These lines, be it remembered, occur between 
 the first reproof for licentiousness in the 41st 
 stanza, and the repetition of the blame in 
 the 95th. Surely, if the poem is to be taken 
 as continuous, and as addressed to one per- 
 son, such contradictions would make us be- 
 lieve that the whole is based on unreality, 
 and that the poet was satisfied to utter the 
 wildest inconsistencies, merely to produce 
 verses of exquisite beauty, but of " true 
 no-meaning." 
 
 The second point to which we would briefly 
 request attention is the supposed date of the 
 series of Sonnets. The date must, it is evi- 
 dent, be settled in some measure according to 
 the presiding belief in the person to whom 
 they are held to be addressed. Mr. Hallam, 
 who thinks the hypothesis of William Her- 
 bert sufficiently proved to demand our assent, 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 499 
 
 says, "Pembroke succeeded to his father in 
 1601 : I incline to think that the Sonnets 
 were written about that time, some probably 
 earlier, some later." Pembroke was born in 
 1580. Now, in the earlier Sonnets, according 
 to the hypothesis, he might be called " beau- 
 teous and lovely youth," or " sweet boy ; " 
 but Southampton could not be so addressed 
 unless the earlier Sonnets were written even 
 before the dedication of the ' Venus and 
 Adonis' to him, in 1593, for Southampton 
 was born in 1573. Further, it is said that, 
 whilst the person addressed was one who 
 stood " on the top of happy hours/' the poet 
 who addressed him was 
 
 " Beated and chopp'd with tann'd antiquity," 
 as in the 62nd Sonnet ; 
 
 " With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'er- 
 worn," 
 
 as in the 63rd; and approaching the termina- 
 tion of his career, as so exquisitely described 
 in the 73rd : 
 
 " That time of year thou mayst in me behold 
 When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 
 Upon those boughs which shake against the 
 
 cold, 
 Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds 
 
 sang. 
 
 In me thou seest the twilight of such day 
 As after sunset fadeth in the west, 
 Which by and by black night doth take away, 
 Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. 
 In me thou seest 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." 
 
 Most distinctly in this particular portion 
 of the Sonnets the extreme youth of the per- 
 son addressed is steadily kept in view. But 
 some are written earlier, some later ; time is 
 going on. In the 104th Sonnet the poet says 
 that three winters, three springs, and three 
 summers have passed 
 " Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green." 
 
 But, carrying on the principle of continuity, 
 we find that in the 138th Sonnet the poet's 
 " days are past the best ; " and he adds 
 "And wherefore say not I that I am old? " 
 
 That Sonnet, we have here to repeat, was 
 published in ' The Passionate Pilgrim ' when 
 the poet was thirty-five. But let us endeavour 
 to find one more gleam of light amidst this 
 obscurity. In one of the Sonnets in which the 
 poet upbraids his friend with his licentious- 
 ness, the 94th, we have these lines : 
 
 " The summer's flower is to the summer sweet, 
 Though to itself it only live and die ; 
 But if that flower with base infection meet, 
 The basest weed outbraves his dignity : 
 For sweetest things turn sourest by their 
 
 deeds ; 
 
 Lilies that fester smell far worse than 
 weeds." 
 
 The thought is here quite perfect, and the 
 image of the last line is continued from the 
 llth and 12th, ending in a natural climax. 
 But we have precisely the same line as the 
 last in a play of Shakspere's age one, in- 
 deed, which has been attributed to himself, 
 ' The Reign of King Edward III.' Let us 
 transcribe the passage where it occurs, in 
 the scene where Warwick exhorts his daugh- 
 ter to resist the dangerous addresses of the 
 King : 
 
 " That sin doth ten times aggravate itself 
 That is committed in a holy place : 
 An evil deed done by authority 
 Is sin and subornation : Deck an ape 
 In tissue, and the beauty of the robe 
 Adds but the greater scorn unto the beast. 
 A spacious field of reasons could I urge 
 Between his glory, daughter, and thy shame ; 
 That, poison shows worst in a golden cup ; 
 Dark night seems darker by the lightning 
 
 flash; 
 
 Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds; 
 And every glory that inclines to sin, 
 The shame is treble by the opposite." 
 
 We doubt, exceedingly, whether the author 
 of the 94th Sonnet, where the image of the 
 festering lilies is a portion of the thought 
 which has preceded it, would have trans- 
 planted it from the play, where it stands 
 alone as an apophthegm. It seems more 
 probable that the author of the play would 
 have borrowed a line from one of the " sugared 
 sonnets amongst private friends." The ex- 
 treme fastidiousness required in the composi- 
 tion of the Sonnet, according to the poetical 
 notions of that day, would not have warranted 
 the adaptation of a line from a drama "sundry 
 
 K K 2 
 
500 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x. 
 
 times played about the city of London," as 
 the title-page tells us this was ; but the play, 
 without any injury to its poetical reputation 
 (to which, indeed, in the matter of plays, 
 little respect was paid), might take a line 
 from the Sonnet. Our reasoning may be de- 
 fective, but our impression of the matter is 
 very strong. The play was published in 1596, 
 after being " sundry times played " in dif- 
 ferent theatres. William Herbert must have 
 begun his career of licentiousness unusually 
 early, and have had time to make a friend 
 and abuse his confidence before he was fifteen 
 if the line is original in the Sonnet. 
 
 The last point to which we shall very 
 briefly draw the reader's attention, is the 
 doubt which has been stated whether the 
 hundred and fifty-four Sonnets published in 
 1609 were the same as Meres mentioned, in 
 1598, as amongst the compositions of Shak- 
 spere, and familiar to his "private friends." 
 Mr. Hallam thinks they are not the same, 
 "both on account of the date, and from the 
 peculiarly personal allusions they contain." 
 One of the strongest of the personal allusions 
 is contained in the 144th, originally printed 
 in 'The Passionate Pilgrim.' Where could 
 the printer of 'The Passionate Pilgrim' have 
 obtained that Sonnet except from some one 
 of Shakspere's "private friends?" If he so 
 obtained it, why might not the collector of 
 the volume of 1609 have obtained others of 
 a similar character from a similar source? 
 Would such productions have been circulated 
 at all if they had been held to contain " pe- 
 culiarly personal allusions?" If these are 
 not the Sonnets which circulated amongst 
 Shakspere's "private friends," where are those 
 Sonnets ? Would Meres have spoken of them 
 as calling to mind the sweetness of Ovid 
 if only those published in ' The Passionate 
 Pilgrim ' had existed, many of which were 
 " Verses to Music," afterwards printed as 
 such ? Why should those Sonnets only have 
 been printed which contain, or are supposed 
 to contain, " peculiar personal allusions ? " 
 The title-page of the collection of 1609 is 
 ' Shake-speare's Sonnets.' We can only re- 
 concile these matters with our belief that in 
 1609 were printed, without the cognizance 
 of the author, all the Sonnets which could be 
 
 found attributed to Shakspere ; that some of 
 these formed a group of continuous poems ; 
 that some were detached ; that no exact 
 order could be preserved ; and that accident 
 has arranged them in the form in which 
 they first were handed down to us. 
 
 If we have succeeded in producing satis- 
 factory evidence that many of the Sonnets 
 are not presented in a natural and proper 
 order in the original edition, if we have 
 shown that there is occasionally not only a 
 digression from the prevailing train of 
 thought, by the introduction of an isolated 
 Sonnet amongst a group, but a jarring and 
 unmeaning interruption to that train of 
 thought, we have established a case that 
 the original arrangement is no part of the 
 poet's work, because that arrangement 
 violates the principles of art, which Shak- 
 spere clings to with such marvellous judg- 
 ment in all his other productions. The 
 inference, therefore, is that the author of 
 the Sonnets did not sanction their publica- 
 tion certainly did not superintend it. This, 
 we think, may be proved by another course 
 of argument. The edition of 1609, although, 
 taken as a whole, not very inaccurate, is full 
 of those typographical errors which in- 
 variably occur when a manuscript is put 
 into the hands of a printer to deal with it 
 as he pleases, without reference to the 
 author, or to any competent editor, upon 
 any doubtful points. Malone, in a note 
 upon the 77th Sonnet, very truly says, 
 " This, their, and thy are so often confounded 
 in these Sonnets, that it is only by attending 
 to the context that we can discover which 
 was the author's word." He is speaking of 
 the original edition. It is evident, there- 
 fore, that in the progress of the book through 
 the press there was no one capable of de- 
 ciphering the obscurity of the manuscript 
 by a regard to the context. The manuscript, 
 in all probability, was made up of a copy of 
 copies; so that the printer even was not 
 responsible for those errors which so clearly 
 show the absence of a presiding mind in the 
 conduct of the printing. Malone has sug- 
 gested that these constantly recurring mis- 
 takes in the use of this, their, thy, and thine, 
 probably originated in the words being 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 501 
 
 abbreviated in the manuscript, according to 
 the custom of the time. But this species of 
 mistake is by no means uniform. For ex- 
 ample : from the 43rd to the 48th Sonnet 
 these errors occur with remarkable frequency ; 
 in one Sonnet, the 46th, this species of mis- 
 take happens four times. But we read on, 
 and presently find that we may trust to the 
 printed copy, which does not now violate 
 the context. What can we infer from this, 
 but that the separate poems were printed 
 from different manuscripts in which various 
 systems of writing were employed, some 
 using abbreviations, some rejecting them ? 
 If the one poem, as the first hundred and 
 twenty-six Sonnets are called, had been 
 printed either from the author's manuscript, 
 or from a uniform copy of the author's 
 manuscript, such differences of systematic 
 error in some places, and of systematic cor- 
 rectness in others, would have been very un- 
 likely to have occurred. If the poem had 
 been printed under the author's eye, their 
 existence would have been impossible. 
 
 The theory that the first hundred and 
 twenty-six Sonnets were a continuous poem, 
 or poems, addressed to one person, and that 
 a very young man and that the greater 
 portion of the remaining twenty-eight Son- 
 nets had reference to a female, with whom 
 there was an illicit attachment on the part 
 of the poet and the young man involves 
 some higher difficulties, if it is assumed 
 that the publication was authorized by the 
 author, or by the person to whom they are 
 held to be addressed. Could Shakspere, in 
 1609, authorize or sanction their publica- 
 tion ? He was then living at Stratford, in 
 the enjoyment of wealth ; he was forty-five 
 years of age : he was naturally desirous to 
 associate with himself all those circum- 
 stances which constitute respectability of 
 character. If the Sonnets had regard to 
 actual circumstances connected with his 
 previous career, would he, a husband, a 
 father of two daughters, have authorized a 
 publication so calculated to degrade him in 
 the eyes of his family and his associates, if 
 the verses could bear the construction now 
 put upon them 1 We think not. On the 
 other hand, did the one person to whom they 
 
 are held to be addressed sanction their pub- 
 lication 1 Would Lord Pembroke have suf- 
 fered himself to be styled " W. H., the only 
 begetter of these ensuing Sonnets " plain 
 Mr. W. H. he, a nobleman, with all the 
 pride of birth and rank about him and 
 represented in these poems as a man of 
 licentious habits, and treacherous in his 
 licentiousness ? The Earl of Pembroke, in 
 1609, had attained great honours in his 
 political and learned relations. In the first 
 year of James I. he was made a Knight of 
 the Garter ; in 1605, upon a visit of James 
 to Oxford, he received the degree of Master 
 of Arts ; in 1607 he was appointed Governor 
 of Portsmouth ; and, more than all these 
 honours, he was placed in the highest station 
 by public opinion ; he was, as Clarendon 
 describes, " the most universally beloved and 
 esteemed of any man of that age." Was 
 this the man, in his mature years, distinctly 
 to sanction a publication which it was un- 
 derstood recorded his profligacy ? He was 
 of " excellent parts, and a graceful speaker 
 upon any subject, having a good proportion 
 of learning, and a ready wit to apply to it," 
 says Clarendon. Is there in the Sonnets the 
 slightest allusion to the talents of the one 
 person to whom they are held to be ad- 
 dressed ? If, then, the publication was not 
 authorized, in either of the modes assumed, 
 we have no warrant whatever for having 
 regard to the original order of the Sonnets, 
 and in assuming a continuity because of that 
 order. What then is the alternative ? That 
 the Sonnets were a collection of " Sibylline 
 leaves" rescued from the perishableness of 
 their written state by some person who had 
 access to the high and brilliant circle in 
 which Shakspere was esteemed ; and that 
 this person's scrap-book, necessarily imper- 
 fect, and pretending to no order, found its 
 way to the hands of a bookseller, who was 
 too happy to give to that age what its most 
 distinguished man had written at various 
 periods, for his own amusement, and for the 
 gratification of his " private friends." 
 
 We subjoin, for the more ready informa- 
 tion of those who may be disposed to ex- 
 
502 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x. 
 
 amine for themselves the question of the 
 order of Shakspere's Sonnets (and it really 
 is a question of great interest and rational 
 curiosity), the results of the two opposite 
 theories of their exhibiting almost perfect 
 continuity, on the one hand ; and of their 
 being a mere collection of fragments, on the 
 other. The one theory is illustrated with 
 much ingenuity by Mr. Brown ; the other 
 was capriciously adopted by the editor of 
 the collection of 1640. 
 
 MR. BROWN'S DIVISION INTO Six POEMS. 
 
 First Poem. Stanzas i. to xxvi. To his 
 Friend, persuading him to marry. 
 
 Second Poem. Stanzas xxvii. to Iv. To his 
 Friend, who had robbed him of his 
 Mistress forgiving him. 
 
 Third Poem. Stanzas Ivi. to Ixxvii. To his 
 Friend, complaining of his Coldness, 
 and warning him of Life's Decay. 
 
 Fourth Poem. Stanzas Ixxviii. to ci. To 
 his Friend, complaining that he prefers 
 another Poet's Praises, and reproving 
 him for faults that may injure his cha- 
 racter. 
 
 Fifth Poem. Stanzas cii. to cxxvi. To his 
 Friend, excusing himself for having 
 been sometimes silent, and disclaiming 
 the charge of Inconstancy. 
 
 Sixth Poem. Stanzas cxxvii. to clii. To his 
 Mistress, on her Infidelity. 
 
 ARRANGEMENT OP THE EDITION OF 1640. 
 
 * % * In this arrangement the greater part 
 of the Poems of 'The Passionate 
 Pilgrim' are blended, and are here 
 marked P. P. In this collection the 
 following Sonnets are not found : 
 18, 19, 43, 56, 75, 76, 96, 126. 
 
 The Glory of Beauty. [67, 68, 69.] 
 Injurious Time. [60, 63, 64, 65, 66.] 
 True Admiration. [53, 54.] 
 The Force of Love. [57, 58.] 
 The Beauty of Nature. [59.] 
 Love's Cruelty. [1, 2, 3.] 
 Youthful Glory. [13, 14, 15.] 
 Good Admonition. [16, 17.] 
 Quick Prevention. [7.] 
 Magazine of Beauty. [4, 5, 6.] 
 
 An Invitation to Marriage. [8, 9, 10, 
 
 11, 12.] 
 
 False Belief. [138.] 
 A Temptation. [144.] 
 Fast and Loose. [P. P. 1.] 
 True Content. [21.] 
 A bashful Lover. [23.] 
 Strong Conceit. [22.] 
 A sweet Provocation. [P. P. 11.] 
 A constant Vow. [P. P. 3.] 
 The Exchange. [20.] 
 A Disconsolation. [27, 28, 29.] 
 Cruel Deceit. [P. P. 4.] 
 The Unconstant Lover. [P. P. 5.] 
 The Benefit of Friendship. [30, 31, 32.] 
 Friendly Concord. [P. P. 6.] 
 Inhumanity. [P. P. 7.] 
 A Congratulation. [38, 39, 40.] 
 Loss and Gain. [41, 42.] 
 Foolish Disdain. [P. P. 9.] 
 Ancient Antipathy. [P. P. 10.] 
 Beauty's Valuation. [P. P. 11.] 
 Melancholy Thoughts. [44, 45.] 
 Love's Loss. [P. P. 8.] 
 Love's Relief. [33, 34, 35.] 
 Unanimity. [36, 37.] 
 Loth to Depart. [P. P. 12, 13.] 
 A Masterpiece. [24.] 
 Happiness in Content. [25.] 
 A Dutiful Message. [26.] 
 Go and come quickly. [50, 51.] 
 Two Faithful Friends. [46, 47.] 
 Careless Neglect. [48.] 
 Stout Resolution. [49.] 
 A Duel. [P. P. 14.] 
 Love-sick. [P. P. 15.] 
 Love's Labour Lost. [P. P. 16.] 
 Wholesome Counsel. [P. P. 17.] 
 Sat fuisse. [62.] 
 A living Monument. [55.] 
 Familiarity breeds Contempt. [52.] 
 Patiens Armatus. [61.] 
 A Valediction. [71, 72, 74.] 
 Nil magnis Invidia. [70.] 
 Love-sick. [80, 81.] 
 The Picture of true Love. [116.] 
 In Praise of his Love. [82, 83, 84, 85.] 
 A Resignation. [86, 87.] 
 Sympathizing Love. [P. P. 18.] 
 A Request to his Scornful Love. [88, 
 
 89, 90, 91.] 
 
BOOK X.] 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 503 
 
 A Lover's Affection, though his Love 
 
 prove Unconstant. [92, 93, 94, 95.] 
 Complaint for his Lover's Absence. [97, 
 
 98, 99.] 
 
 An Invocation to his Muse. [100, 101.] 
 Constant Affection. [104, 105, 106.] 
 Amazement. [102, 103.] 
 A Lover's Excuse for his long Absence. 
 
 [109, 110.] 
 
 A Complaint. [Ill, 112.] 
 Self-flattery of her Beauty. [113, 114, 
 
 115.] 
 A Trial of Love's Constancy. [117, 118, 
 
 119.] 
 A good Construction of his Love's Un- 
 
 kindness. [120.] 
 Error in Opinion. [121.] 
 Upon the Receipt of a Table-Book from 
 
 his Mistress. [122.] 
 A Vow. [123.] 
 Love's Safety. [124.] 
 An Entreaty for her Acceptance. [125.] 
 Upon her playing upon the Virginals. 
 
 [128.] 
 
 Immoderate Lust. [129.] 
 In praise of her Beauty, though Black. 
 
 [127, 130, 131, 132.] 
 Unkind Abuse. [133, 134.] 
 Love-suit. [135, 136.] 
 His Heart wounded by her Eye. [137, 
 
 139, 140.] 
 
 A Protestation. [141, 142.] 
 An Allusion. [143.] 
 Life and Death. [145.] 
 A Consideration of Death. [146.] 
 Immoderate Passion. [147.] 
 Love's powerful Subtilty [148, 149, 150.] 
 Retaliation. [78, 79.] 
 Sunset. [73, 77.] 
 
 A Monument to Fame. [107, 108.] 
 Perjury. [151,152.] 
 Cupid's Treachery. [153, 154.] 
 
 Of the estimation in which Shakspere's 
 'Sonnets' were held some half century ago, 
 the greatest of our Sonnet writers, Words- 
 worth, thus speaks : 
 
 " There is extant a small volume of mis- 
 cellaneous poems in which Shakspere ex- 
 presses his feelings in his own person. It is 
 not difficult to conceive that the editor, 
 George Steevens, should have been insensible 
 to the beauties of one portion of that volume, 
 the Sonnets ; though there is not a part 
 of the writings of this poet where is found, 
 in an equal compass, a greater number of 
 exquisite feelings felicitously expressed. 
 But, from regard to the critic's own credit, 
 he would not have ventured to talk of an 
 act of parliament not being strong enough 
 to compel the perusal of these, or any pro- 
 duction of Shakspere, if he had not known 
 that 'the people of England were ignorant 
 of the treasures contained in those little 
 pieces." 
 
 That ignorance has been removed ; and 
 no one has contributed more to its removal, 
 by creating a school of poetry founded upon 
 Truth and Nature, than Wordsworth him- 
 self. The critics of the last century have 
 passed away : 
 
 " Peor and Baalim 
 Forsake their temples dim." 
 
 By the operation of what great sustaining 
 principle is it that we have come back to 
 the just appreciation of "the treasures con- 
 tained in those little pieces"? The poet 
 critic will answer : 
 
 " There never has been a period, and per- 
 haps never will be, in which vicious poetry, 
 of some kind or other, has not excited more 
 zealous admiration, and been far more 
 generally read, than good ; but this advan- 
 tage attends the good, that the individual, 
 as well as the species, survives from age to 
 age : whereas, of the depraved, though the 
 species be immortal, the individual quickly 
 perishes; the object of present admiration 
 vanishes, being supplanted by some other as 
 easily produced, which, though no better, 
 brings with it at least the irritation of 
 novelty, with adaptation, more or less 
 skilful, to the changing humours of the 
 majority of those who are most at leisure to 
 regard poetical works when they first solicit 
 their attention. Is it the result of the whole, 
 that, in the opinion of the writer, the judg- 
 
504 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK x. 
 
 ment of the people is not to be respected ? 
 The thought is most injurious ; and, could 
 the charge be brought against him, he would 
 repel it with indignation. The people have 
 already been justified, and their eulogium 
 pronounced by implication, when it is said 
 above that, of good poetry, the individual, 
 as well as the species, survives. And how 
 does it survive but through the people 1 
 what preserves it but their intellect and 
 their wisdom 1 
 
 ' Past and future are the wings 
 On whose support, harmoniously conjoin'd, 
 Moves the great spirit of human knowledge.' 
 
 MS. 
 
 The voice that issues from this spirit is that 
 vox populi which the Deity inspires. Foolish 
 must he be who can mistake for this a local 
 acclamation, or a transitory outcry transi- 
 tory, though it be for years; local, though 
 from a nation ! Still more lamentable is 
 his error who can believe that there is any- 
 thing of divine infallibility in the clamour 
 of that small though loud portion of the 
 community, ever governed by factitious in- 
 fluence, which, under the name of the PUBLIC, 
 passes itself, upon the unthinking, for the 
 PEOPLE." 
 
 It is the perpetual mistake of the public 
 for the people that has led to the belief that 
 there was a period when Shakspere was 
 neglected. He was always in the heart of 
 the people. There, in that deep rich soil, 
 have the Sonnets rested during two cen- 
 turies ; and here and there in remote places 
 have the seeds put forth leaves and flowers. 
 All young imaginative minds now rejoice in 
 their hues and their fragrance. But this 
 preference of the fresh and beautiful of 
 poetical life to the pot-pourri of the last age 
 must be a regulated love. Those who, seeing 
 the admiration which now prevails for these 
 outpourings of "exquisite feelings feli- 
 citously expressed," talk of the 'Sonnets' 
 as equal, if not superior, to the greatest of 
 the poet's mighty dramas, compare things 
 that admit of no comparison. Who would 
 speak in the same breath of the gem of 
 Cupid and Psyche, and of the Parthenon ? 
 In the ' Sonnets,' exquisite as they are, the 
 poet goes not out of himself (at least in the 
 form of the composition), and he walks, 
 therefore, in a narrow circle of art. In the 
 ' Venus and Adonis,' and the ' Lucrece,' the 
 circle widens. But in the Dramas, the centre 
 is the Human Soul, the circumference the 
 Universe. 
 
bOOK XI.] 
 
 MILTON. EDWARD PHILLIPS. 
 
 505 
 
 BOOK XL 
 
 SHAKSPERE'S CRITICS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MILTOK EDWAKD PHILLIPS. 
 
 " SHAKSPERE was not so much esteemed, even 
 during his life, as we commonly suppose ; 
 and after his retirement from the stage he was 
 all but forgotten."* So we read in an 
 authority too mighty to enter upon evidence. 
 The oblivion after his retirement and death 
 is the true pendant to the alleged neglect 
 during his lifef. When did the oblivion 
 begin 1 It could scarcely have existed when, 
 in 1623, an expensive folio volume of many 
 hundred pages was published, without regard 
 to the risk of such an undertaking and it 
 was a risk, indeed, if the author had been 
 neglected and was forgotten. But the editors 
 of the volume do not ask timidly for support 
 of these neglected and forgotten works. 
 They say to the reader, " Though you be a 
 magistrate of wit, and sit on the stage at 
 Blackfriars or the Cockpit, to arraign plays 
 daily, know these plays have had their trial 
 already, and stood out all appeals." Did 
 the oblivion continue when, in 1632, a second 
 edition of this large work was brought out ? 
 There was one man, certainly a young and 
 ardent scholar who was not amongst the 
 oblivious. JOHN MILTON was twenty-four 
 years of age when these verses were pub- 
 lished : 
 
 "AN EPITAPH ON THE ADMIRABLE DRAMATIC 
 POET, W. SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 " What need my Shakespeare for his honour'd 
 
 bones 
 The labour of an age in piled stones, 
 
 * Life of Shakspere, in ' Lardner's Cyclopaedia/ 
 f See Book ix. chap. iv. 
 
 Or that his hallow'd relics should be hid 
 Under a star-ypointing pyramid 1 
 Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, 
 What need'st thou such dull witness of thy 
 
 name? 
 
 Thou in our wonder and astonishment 
 Hast built thyself a lasting monument. 
 For whilst to th' shame of slow endeavouring 
 
 art 
 
 Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart 
 Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book 
 Those Delphic lines with deep impression 
 
 took, 
 
 Then thou, our fancy of herself bereaving, 
 Dost make us marble with too much con- 
 ceiving, 
 
 And so sepulchred in such pomp doth lie, 
 That kings for such a tomb would wish to die." 
 The author of these lines could not have 
 known the works of the " admirable dramatic 
 poet," while that poet was in life ; but 
 sixteen years after his death he was the dear 
 son of memory, the great heir of fame ; his 
 bones were honoured, his relics were hal- 
 lowed, his works were a lasting monument, 
 his book was priceless, his lines were oracular, 
 Delphic. Is this oblivion 1 But it may be 
 said that Milton was a young enthusiast, 
 one who saw farther than the million ; that 
 the public opinion of a writer (and we are 
 not talking of his positive excellence, apart 
 from opinion) must be sought for in the 
 voice of the people, or at any rate in that of 
 the leaders of the people. How are we to 
 arrive at the knowledge of this expression ? 
 We can only know, incidentally, that an 
 
506 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 author was a favourite, either of a king or 
 of a cobbler. We know that Shakspere was 
 the favourite of a king, in these times of his 
 oblivion. A distinguished writer says, " The 
 Prince of Wales had learned to appreciate 
 Shakspere, not originally from reading him, 
 but from witnessing the court representations 
 of his plays at Whitehall. Afterwards we 
 know that he made Shakspere his closet 
 companion, for he was reproached with doing 
 so by Milton."* The concluding words are 
 founded upon a mistake of the passage in 
 Milton. Charles is not reproached with 
 reading Shakspere. The great republican 
 does not condemn the king for having made 
 the dramatic poet the closet companion of 
 his solitudes ; but, speaking of the dramatic 
 poet as a well-known author with whom the 
 king was familiar, he cites out of him a 
 passage to show that pious words might be 
 found in the mouth of a tyrant. The 
 passage not only proves the familiarity of 
 Charles with Shakspere, but evidences also 
 Milton's familiarity ; and, what is of more 
 importance, the familiarity even of those 
 stern and ascetic men to whom Milton was 
 peculiarly addressing his opinions. The 
 passage of the ' Iconoclastes ' is as follows : 
 "Andronicus Comnenus, the Byzantine em- 
 peror, though a most cruel tyrant, is reported 
 by Mcetas to have been a constant reader 
 of Saint Paul's epistles ; and by continual 
 study had so incorporated the phrase and 
 style of that transcendant apostle into all 
 his familiar letters, that the imitation seemed 
 to vie with the original. Yet this availed 
 not to deceive the people of that empire, 
 who, notwithstanding his saint's vizard, tore 
 him to pieces for his tyranny. From stories 
 of this nature, both ancient and modern, 
 which abound, the poets also, and some 
 English, have been in this point so mindful 
 of decorum as to put never more pious words 
 in the mouth of any person than of a tyrant. 
 I shall not instance an abstruse author, 
 wherein the king might be less conversant, 
 but one whom we well know was the closet 
 companion of these his solitudes, William 
 Shakespeare, who introduces the person of 
 
 * Mr. De Quincey's ' Life of Shakespeare' in the ' Ency- 
 clopedia Britannica.' 
 
 Richard the Third, speaking in as high a 
 strain of piety and mortification as is uttered 
 in any passage of this book*, and sometimes 
 to the same sense and purpose with some 
 words in this place : ' I intended,' saith he, 
 'not only to oblige my friends, but my 
 enemies. ' The like saith Richard, Act n., 
 Scene i. 
 
 ' I do not know that Englishman alive 
 With whom my soul is any jot at odds, 
 More than the infant that is born to-night ; 
 I thank my God for my humility.' 
 
 Other stuff of this sort may be read through- 
 out the whole tragedy, wherein the poet 
 used not much licence in departing from the 
 truth of history, which delivers him a deep 
 dissembler, not of his affections only but of 
 religion." It was a traditionary blunder, 
 which Warton received and transmitted to 
 his successors, that Milton reproached Charles 
 with reading Shakspere, and thus inferred 
 that Shakspere was no proper closet com- 
 panion. The passage has wholly the contrary 
 tendency ; and he who thinks otherwise may 
 just as well think that the phrase " other 
 stuff of this sort" is also used disparagingly. 
 A few years before that is in 1645 
 Milton had offered another testimony to 
 Shakspere in his "L'Allegro," then pub- 
 lished : 
 
 " Then to the well-trod stage anon, 
 If Jonson's learned sock be on, 
 Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, 
 Warble his native wood-notes wild." 
 
 Milton was not afraid to publish these lines, 
 even after the suppression of the theatres by 
 his own political party. That he went along 
 with them in their extreme polemical opinions 
 it is impossible to believe ; but he would 
 nevertheless be careful not to mention, in 
 connexion with the stage, names of any 
 doubtful eminence. He was not ashamed to 
 say that the learning of Jonson, the nature 
 of Shakspere, had for him attractions, though 
 the stage was proscribed. This contrast of 
 the distinguishing qualities of the two men 
 is held to be one amongst the many proofs 
 of Shakspere's want of learning ; as if it was 
 
 * Milton here refers to the first section of the ' Eikon 
 Basilike. 
 

 CHAP. I.] 
 
 MILTON. EDWARD PHILLIPS. 
 
 507 
 
 not absolutely essential to the whole spirit 
 and conception of the passage that the 
 learning of Jonson, thus pointed out as his 
 leading quality, should be contrasted with 
 the higher quality of Shakspere that quality 
 which was assigned him as the greatest 
 praise by his immediate contemporaries his 
 nature. No one can doubt of Milton's affec- 
 tion for Shakspere, and of his courage in 
 avowing that affection, living as he was in 
 the heat of party opinion which was hostile 
 to all such excellence. We have simply 
 " Jonson's learned sock ; " but the " native 
 wood-notes wild" of Shakspere are associated 
 with the most endearing expressions. He is 
 "sweetest Shakespear," he is "Fancy'schild." 
 In his later years, after a life of contention 
 and heavy responsibility, Milton still clung 
 to his early delights. The ' Theatrum Poe- 
 tarum,' which bears the name of his nephew 
 Edward Phillips, is held to have received 
 many touches from Milton's pen*. At any 
 rate it is natural that it should represent 
 Milton's opinions. It is not alone what is 
 here said of Shakspere, but of Shakspere in 
 comparison with the other great dramatic 
 poets of his age, that is important. Take a 
 few examples : 
 
 "Benjamin Jonson, the most learned, 
 judicious, and correct, generally so accounted, 
 of our English comedians, and the more to 
 be admired for being so, for that neither the 
 height of natural parts, for he was no Shak- 
 spere, nor the cost of extraordinary education, 
 for he is reported but a bricklayer's son, but 
 his own proper industry and addiction to 
 books, advanced him to this perfection: in 
 three of his comedies, namely, 'The Fox,' 
 ' Alchymist,' and f Silent Woman,' he may 
 be compared, in the judgment of learned 
 men, for decorum, language, and well 
 humouring of the parts, as well with the 
 chief of the ancient Greek and Latin 
 comedians as the prime of modern Italians, 
 who have been judged the best of Europe 
 for a happy vein in comedies ; nor is his 
 ' Bartholomew Fair ' much short of them ; 
 as for his other comedies, 'Cynthia's Revels,' 
 ' Poetaster,' and the rest, let the name of 
 
 * The Theatrum Poetarum' was published in 1675, the 
 year after Milton's death. 
 
 Ben Jonson protect them against whoever 
 shall think fit to be severe in censure against 
 them : the truth is, his tragedies ' Sejanus ' 
 and ' Catiline ' seem to have in them more of 
 an artificial and inflate than of a pathetical 
 and naturally tragic height." 
 
 " Christopher Marlowe, a kind of second 
 Shakespeare (whose contemporary he was), 
 not only because like him he rose from an 
 actor to be a maker of plays, though inferior 
 both in fame and merit ; but also because, 
 in his begun poem of 'Hero and Leander,' 
 he seems to have a resemblance of that clean 
 and unsophisticated wit which is natural to 
 that incomparable poet." 
 
 " George Chapman, a poetical writer, flou- 
 rishing in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and 
 King James, in that repute both for his 
 translations of 'Homer' and 'Hesiod,' and 
 what he wrote of his own proper genius, that 
 he is thought not the meanest of English 
 poets of that time, and particularly for his 
 dramatic writings." 
 
 " John Fletcher, one of the happy trium- 
 virate (the other two being Jonson and 
 Shakespear) of the chief dramatic poets of 
 our nation in the last foregoing age, among 
 whom there might be said to be a symmetry 
 of perfection, while each excelled in his* 
 peculiar way : Ben Jonson, in his elaborate 
 pains and knowledge of authors ; Shakespear, 
 in his pure vein of wit, and natural poesy 
 height ; Fletcher, in a courtly elegance and 
 genteel familiarity of style, and withal a wit 
 and invention so overflowing, that the 
 luxuriant branches thereof were frequently 
 thought convenient to be lopped off by 
 his almost incomparable companion Francis 
 Beaumont." 
 
 " William Shakespear, the glory of the 
 English stage ; whose nativity at Stratford- 
 upon-Avon is the highest honour that town 
 can boast of : from an actor of tragedies and 
 comedies, he became a maker ; and such a 
 maker, that, though some others may perhaps 
 pretend to a more exact decorum and 
 economy, especially in tragedy, never any 
 expressed a more lofty and tragic height, 
 never any represented nature more purely to 
 the life ; and where the polishments of art 
 are most wanting, as probably his learning 
 
508 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 was not extraordinary, he pleaseth with a 
 certain wild and native elegance ; and in all 
 his writings hath an unvulgar style, as well 
 in his 'Venus and Adonis/ his 'Rape of 
 Lucrece,' and other various poems, as in his 
 dramatics." 
 
 Half a century had elapsed, when these 
 critical opinions were published, from the 
 time when Ben Jonson had apostrophized 
 Shakspere as " soul of the age." Whatever 
 qualification we may here find in the praise 
 of Shakspere, it is unquestionable that the 
 critic sets him above all his contemporaries. 
 Benjamin Jonson was "learned, judicious, 
 and correct," but " he was no Shakspear." 
 Marlowe was "a kind ol a second Shak- 
 spear ;" and his greatest praise is, that " he 
 seems to have a resemblance of that clean 
 and unsophisticated wit which is natural to 
 that incomparable poet." Chapman is "not 
 the meanest" of his time. Fletcher is "one 
 of the happy triumvirate, the other two 
 being Jonson and Shakespear;" but the pe- 
 culiar excellence of each is discriminated in 
 a way which leaves no doubt as to which 
 the critic meant to hold superior. But there 
 are no measured words applied to the cha- 
 racter of Shakspere. He is "the glory of 
 the English stage" "never any expressed a 
 more lofty and tragic height, never any re- 
 presented nature more purely to the life." 
 We can understand what a pupil of Milton, 
 bred up in his school of severe study and 
 imitation of the ancients, meant, when he 
 says, "Where the polishments of art are 
 most wanting, as probably his learning was 
 not extraordinary, he pleases with a certain 
 wild and native elegance." Here is no ac- 
 cusation that the learning was wholly 
 absent : and that this absence produced the 
 common effects of want of cultivation. Shak- 
 spere, " in all his writings, hath an unvulgar 
 style." In the preface to this valuable little 
 book which preface is a composition elo- 
 quent enough to have been written by Milton 
 himself there is a passage which is worthy 
 of special observation in connection with 
 what we have already quoted : " If it were 
 once brought to a strict scrutiny, who are 
 the right, genuine, and true-born poets, I 
 fear me our number would fall short, and 
 
 there are many that have a fame deservedly 
 for what they have writ, even in poetry 
 itself, who, if they came to the test, I ques- 
 tion how well they would endure to hold 
 open their eagle eyes against the sun : wit, 
 ingenuity, and learning in verse, even ele- 
 gancy itself, though that comes nearest, are 
 one thing, true native poetry is another ; in 
 which there is a certain air and spirit, which 
 perhaps the most learned and judicious in 
 other arts do not perfectly apprehend, much 
 less is it attainable by any study or industry ; 
 nay, though all the laws of heroic poem, 
 all the laws of tragedy were exactly ob- 
 served, yet still this tour entregent, this poetic 
 energy, if I may so call it, would be required 
 to give life to all the rest, which shines 
 through the roughest, most unpolished and 
 antiquated language, and may haply be 
 wanting in the most polite and reformed. 
 Let us observe Spenser, with all his rusty 
 obsolete words, with all his rough-hewn 
 clouterly verses ; yet take him throughout, 
 and we shall find in him a graceful and 
 poetic majesty : in like manner, Shakespear, 
 in spite of all his unfiled expressions, his 
 rambling and indigested fancies, the laughter 
 of the critical, yet must be confessed a poet 
 above many that go beyond him in literature 
 some degrees." Taking the whole passage 
 in connection, and looking also at the school 
 of art in which the critic was bred, it is 
 impossible to receive this opinion as regards 
 Shakspere in any other light than as one of 
 enthusiastic admiration. It is important to 
 note the period in which this admiration was 
 publicly expressed. It was fifteen years 
 after the Restoration of Charles II., when 
 we had a new school of poetry and criticism 
 in England ; when the theatres were in a 
 palmy state as far as regarded courtly and 
 public encouragement. The natural asso- 
 ciation of these opinions with those of Mil- 
 ton's youth, has led us to leap over the 
 interval which elapsed between the close of 
 the Shaksperean drama and the rise of the 
 French school. We desired to show the 
 continuity of opinion in Milton, and in Mil- 
 ton's disciples', that had prevailed for forty 
 years ; during a large portion of which civil 
 war and polemical strife had well nigh 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 MILTON. EDWARD PHILLIPS. 
 
 509 
 
 banished poetry and the sister arts from 
 England ; and dramatic poetry, especially, 
 was proscribed by a blind fanaticism, wholly 
 and irredeemably, without discrimination 
 between its elevating and its debasing in- 
 fluence upon the public morals. Milton 
 himself had left " a calm and pleasing soli- 
 tariness, fed with cheerful and confident 
 thoughts, to embark in a troubled sea of 
 noises and hoarse disputes." Let us retrace 
 our steps, and glance a little at the prelude 
 to this period. 
 
 In 1633 was published the celebrated 
 ' Histrio-Mastix, the Player's Scourge,' of 
 William Prynne. In the epistle dedicatory 
 to the benchers of Lincoln's Inn, he says, 
 that about seven years before he had set 
 down all the play-condemning passages 
 which he recollected in the Fathers and 
 other authors, and that he had since enlarged 
 the intended bulk of this discourse, "because 
 I saw the numbers of players, play-books, 
 play-haunters, and play-houses still increas- 
 ing, there being above forty thousand play- 
 books printed within these two years, as 
 stationers inform me." In his address to 
 the Christian reader he has a distinct allu- 
 sion to the popularity of Shakspere's col- 
 lected works : " Some play-books since I first 
 undertook this subject are grown from quarto 
 into folio, which yet bear so good a price 
 and sale, that I cannot but with grief relate 
 it, they are now new printed in far better 
 paper than most octavo or quarto bibles, 
 which hardly find such vent as they." The 
 two folio editions of Shakspere are the only 
 play-books grown from quarto to folio to 
 which the zealous puritan can allude, with 
 the exception of Jonson's own edition of his 
 plays, completed in 1631 ; those of Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher were not collected till 
 1647. The very fact of the publication of 
 the first two folios of Shakspere is a proof of 
 his popularity with general readers. They 
 were not exclusively the studies of the 
 scholar, such as Milton, or of the play- 
 haunters whom Prynne denounces. A letter 
 in the Bodleian Library, written by a Dr. 
 James, about this period, testifies how gene- 
 rally they were read : " A young gentle 
 lady of your acquaintance, having read the 
 
 works of Shakspere, made me this question," 
 &c.* When the London theatres were pro- 
 vided with novelties in such abundance that, 
 according to Prynne, " one study was scarce 
 able to hold the new play-books," the plays 
 of Shakspere were still in such demand for 
 the purposes of the stage, that his successors 
 in the theatrical property of the Globe and 
 Blackfriars found it their interest to pre- 
 serve the monopoly of their performance 
 (which they had so long enjoyed), by a 
 handsome gratuity to the Master of the 
 Revels. There is this entry in the office- 
 book of Sir Henry Herbert, in 1627 : " Re- 
 ceived from Mr. Heming, in their company's 
 name, to forbid the playing of Shakespeare's 
 plays to the Red Bull Company, five pounds." 
 The people clearly had not yet forgotten the 
 " delight and wonder of the stage." Fletcher, 
 Massinger, Shirley, were newer favourites ; 
 but the people could not forget Shakspere. 
 Neither was he forgotten by the great. In 
 the very year of the publication of Prynne's 
 book when St. James's and Whitehall were 
 brilliant with the splendid revelries of an 
 elegant court, and the queen herself took 
 part in the masques and pageantries, the 
 indecent allusion to which cost Prynne his 
 ears the name of Shakspere was as familiar 
 to the royal circle as in the days of James. 
 From the seventeenth of November to the 
 sixth of January, there were eight per- 
 formances at St. James's and Whitehall, 
 three of which were plays of Shakspere : 
 namely, Richard III., Taming of the Shrew, 
 and Cymbeline ; and Sir Henry Herbert 
 records of the last, " well liked by the 
 king."f These office accounts have great 
 lacunae; but, wherever we find them during 
 the reign of Charles, there we find a record 
 of the admiration of Shakspere. 
 
 Dryden lived near enough to the times of 
 Charles I. to be good evidence as to the 
 judgment which the higher circles formed of 
 Shakspere ; after the Restoration he was 
 intimate with men who had moved in those 
 circles. His 'Essay on Dramatic Poesy,' 
 which was first printed in 1668, contains the 
 
 * See Mr. Harwell's Character of Falstaff," p. 19. 
 t See Malone's Historical Account of the English 
 Stage. 
 
510 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 following passage, which has been often 
 cited. Dryden is speaking in his own per- 
 son, in an imaginary conversation in which 
 the Earl of Dorset bears a part : " To begin, 
 then, with Shakspeare. He was the man 
 who of all modern, and perhaps ancient 
 poets, had the largest and most compre- 
 hensive soul. All the images of nature were 
 still present to him, and he drew them not 
 laboriously, but luckily : when he describes 
 anything, you more than see it, you feel it 
 too. Those who accuse him to have wanted 
 learning give him the greater commenda- 
 tion : he was naturally learned ; he needed 
 not the spectacles of books to read nature ; 
 he looked inwards, and found her there. I 
 cannot say he is everywhere alike ; were he 
 so, I should do him injury to compare him 
 with the greatest of mankind. He is many 
 times flat, insipid, his comic wit degenerating 
 into clenches, his serious swelling into bom- 
 bast. But he is always great when some 
 great occasion is presented to him ; no man 
 can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, 
 and did not then raise himself as high above 
 the rest of the poets, 
 
 ' Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi.' 
 
 The consideration of this made Mr. Hales of 
 Eton say, that there was 'no subject of 
 which any poet ever writ, but he would pro- 
 duce it much better done in Shakspeare ;' 
 and, however others are now generally pre- 
 ferred before him, yet the age wherein he 
 lived, which had contemporaries with him, 
 Fletcher and Jonson, never equalled them 
 to him in their esteem : and in the last 
 king's court, when Ben's reputation was at 
 highest, Sir John Suckling, and with him 
 the greater part of the courtiers, set our 
 Shakspeare far above him." No testimony 
 can be more positive than this, that the two 
 greatest contemporaries of Shakspere never 
 equalled him in the public estimation during 
 his own time ; and that in the succeeding 
 period of Charles I., when the reputation of 
 Jonson was at the highest, Suckling, one of 
 the wittiest and sprightliest of men, and the 
 greater part of the courtiers, set Shakspere 
 far above him. But it was not the gay 
 alone, according to Dryden, who thus re- 
 
 verenced Shakspere. He tells us what was 
 the opinion of " Mr. Hales of Eton." John 
 Hales, a Fellow of Eton, is known as the 
 " learned" Hales, and the " ever-memorable" 
 Hales ; and of him, Aubrey says, " When 
 the court was at Windsor the learned cour- 
 tiers much delighted in his company." His 
 opinion of Shakspere is given with more 
 particularity by Gildon, in an Essay ad- 
 dressed to Dryden in 1694, in which he 
 appeals to Dryden himself as the relator of 
 the anecdote. It is not because Gildon is 
 satirized in ' The Dunciad ' that his veracity 
 is to be questioned * : " But to give the 
 world some satisfaction that Shakspeare has 
 had as great veneration paid his excellence 
 by men of unquestioned parts as this I 
 now express for him, I shall give some ac- 
 count of what I have heard from your mouth, 
 Sir, about the noble triumph he gained over 
 all the ancients, by the judgment of the 
 ablest critics of that time. The matter of 
 fact, if my memory fail me not, was this. 
 Mr. Hales of Eton affirmed, that he would 
 show all the poets of antiquity outdone by 
 Shakspeare, in all the topics and common 
 places made use of in poetry. The enemies 
 of Shakspeare would by no means yield him 
 so much excellence ; so that it came to a 
 resolution of a trial of skill upon that sub- 
 ject. The place agreed on for the dispute 
 was Mr. Hales's chamber at Eton. A great 
 many books were sent down by the enemies 
 of this poet ; and on the appointed day my 
 Lord Falkland, Sir John Suckling, and all 
 the persons of quality that had wit and 
 learning, and interested themselves in the 
 quarrel, met there ; and upon a thorough 
 disquisition of the point, the judges chosen 
 by agreement out of this learned and in- 
 genious assembly, unanimously gave the 
 preference to Shakspeare, and the Greek and 
 Roman poets were adjudged to veil at least 
 their glory in that to the English hero." 
 
 From the death of Shakspere to the shut- 
 ting up of the theatres in 1642, a period is 
 embraced of twenty-six years. We have seen 
 the prodigious activity in the production 
 of novelties which existed ten years before 
 the suppression of the theatres. There is 
 
 * See Gilford's 'Memoirs of Jonson,' p. cclx. 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 MILTON. EDWARD PHILLIPS. 
 
 511 
 
 too much reason to know that the stage 
 had acquired a more licentious tone after 
 Shakspere's time ; and although the puritans 
 were over-zealous in their indiscriminating 
 violence against all theatrical performances, 
 there is just cause to believe that the senses 
 of the people were stimulated by excitements 
 of plot and character, mingled with profane 
 and licentious language, much more than 
 in the days when Shakspere rested for his 
 attractions on a large exhibition of natural 
 passion and true wit ; and when he produced 
 play after play, history, comedy, tragedy 
 " works truly excellent and capable of en- 
 larging the understanding, warming and pu- 
 rifying the heart, and placing in the centre 
 of the whole being the germs of noble and 
 manlike actions."* The nation was much 
 divided then, as it was long afterwards, 
 between the followers of extreme opinions 
 in morals the over-strict on one hand, the 
 wholly careless on the other. Prynne tells 
 us that, upon his first arrival in London, he 
 had " heard and seen in four several plays, 
 to which the pressing importunity of some 
 ill acquaintance drew me whiles I was yet 
 a novice, such wickedness, such lewdness, 
 as then made my penitent heart to loathe, 
 my conscience to abhor, all stage-plays ever 
 since." Prynne left Oxford and came to 
 London after 1620. Fletcher was then the 
 living idol of the theatre ; and any one who 
 is acquainted with his plays, full of genius 
 as they are, must admit that Prynne had too 
 much cause for his disgust. In the office- 
 book of Sir Henry Herbert, in 1633, we find 
 the following curious entry: "The comedy 
 called ' The Young Admiral,' being free from 
 oaths, profaneness, or obsceneness, hath given 
 me much delight and satisfaction in the 
 reading, and may serve for a pattern to 
 other poets." The play was Shirley's. But 
 six months after there is a still more curious 
 entry in the same book : " This morning, 
 being the 9th of January, 1633 [1634], the 
 king was pleased to call me into his with- 
 drawing chamber to the window, where he 
 went over all that I had crossed in Davenant's 
 play-book, and, allowing of faith and slight to 
 be asseverations only and no oaths, marked 
 
 * Coleridge. 
 
 them to stand, and some other few things, 
 but in the greater part allowed of my re- 
 formations. This was done upon a complaint 
 of Mr. Endymion Porter's, in December. The 
 king is pleased to take faith, death, slight, for 
 asseverations, and no oaths, to which I do 
 humbly submit as my master's judgment ; 
 but under favour conceive them to be oaths, 
 and enter them here, to declare my opinion 
 and submission." But it was not the striking 
 out of the asseveration, or even of the oaths, 
 which could purify the plays of that period. 
 Their principal demoralizing power consisted 
 in their false representations of human cha- 
 racter and actions. Take for example " the 
 frightful contrasts," as they have justly been 
 called, between the women of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher and those of Shakspere. He kept 
 at all times in the high road of life. He 
 "has no innocent adulteries, no interesting 
 incests, no virtuous vice; he never renders 
 that amiable which religion and reason alike 
 teach us to detest, or clothes impurity in the 
 garb of virtue, like Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 the Kotzebues of the day."* But this very 
 truth and purity of Shakspere must have 
 greatly diminished his attractions, amidst a 
 crowd who wrote upon opposite principles. 
 Nothing but the unequalled strength of his 
 artistical power could have preserved the 
 unbroken continuance of his supremacy. 
 
 And this leads us to the consideration of 
 another cause why the popular admiration 
 of him would have been diminished and in- 
 terrupted within a very few years after his 
 death, and certainly long before the suppres- 
 sion of the theatres, if his excellences had 
 not so completely triumphed over every 
 impediment to his enduring popular fame. 
 His plays were to a certain extent mixed up 
 with the reputation of the actors by whom 
 they were originally represented. In that 
 curious play ' The Return from Parnassus,' 
 which was acted by the students in St. John's 
 College, Cambridge, in 1606, and which was 
 clearly written by an academical person 
 inclined to satirize the popular poets and 
 players of his day, Kempe is thus made to 
 address two scholars who want lessons in 
 the histrionic art : " Be merry, my lads ; 
 
 * Coleridge's ' Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 79. 
 
512 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK. xi. 
 
 you have happened upon the most excellent 
 vocation in the world for money ; they come 
 north and south to bring it to our playhouse; 
 and for honours, who of more report than 
 Dick Burbage and Will Kempe ? He is not 
 counted a gentleman that knows not Dick 
 Burbage and Will Kempe : there 's not a 
 country wench that can dance Sellenger's 
 Round, but can talk of Dick Burbage and 
 Will Kempe." Here we have a testimony 
 to the wide-spread popularity of two of the 
 original representatives of Shakspere's clowns 
 and heroes. Kempe died before Shakspere ; 
 Burbage within three years after him. 
 Burbage is almost identified with some of 
 Shakspere's greatest characters, and espe- 
 cially with Richard III.; and yet the at- 
 traction of the great tragic plays died not 
 with Burbage. Before the suppression of 
 the theatres this actor had his immediate 
 successors ; and during the eighteen years in 
 which the theatres were closed, the original 
 hits and points of the Richards, and Hamlets, 
 and Macbeths, and Lears, were diligently re- 
 corded ; and immediately after the Restora- 
 tion actors again arose, ambitious to realize 
 the mighty conceptions of the great master 
 of the dramatic art. During the period when 
 the theatres were shut, the readers of plays 
 would still be numerous, and they probably 
 would be most found among the younger 
 men who had a vivid recollection of the re- 
 presentations of the successors of Shakspere. 
 We can understand what the later taste was, 
 by the mode in which Shirley, in his pre- 
 face to the collated edition of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, in 1647, speaks of these writers : 
 " Whom but to mention is to throw a cloud 
 upon all former names, and benight posterity; 
 this book being, without flattery, the greatest 
 monument of the scene that time and hu- 
 manity have produced, and must live, not 
 only the crown and sole reputation of our 
 
 own, but the stain of all other nations and 
 languages ; for it may be boldly averred, not 
 one indiscretion hath branded this paper in 
 all the lines, this being the authentic wit 
 that made Blackfriars an academy, where the 
 three hours' spectacle, while Beaumont and 
 Fletcher were presented, was usually of more 
 advantage to the hopeful young heir, than 
 a costly, dangerous, foreign travel, with the 
 assistance of a governing monsieur or signor 
 to boot; and it cannot be denied but that the 
 young spirits of the time, whose birth and 
 quality made them impatient of the sourer 
 ways of education, have, from the attentive 
 hearing these pieces, got ground in point of 
 wit and carriage of the most severely em- 
 ployed students, while these recreations were 
 digested into rules, and the very pleasure 
 did edify. How many passable discoursing 
 dining wits stand yet in good credit, upon 
 the bare stock of two or. three of these single 
 scenes !" This is a low estimate of the power 
 and capacity of the drama; and one which 
 is a sufficient evidence of a declining taste 
 amongst those who were perforce contented 
 with reading plays during the silence of 
 the stage. From " the greatest monument 
 of the scene that time and humanity have 
 produced," was to be learned what was of 
 more advantage "than a costly, dangerous, 
 foreign travel." Hence were to be acquired 
 " wit and carriage," and " dining wits stand 
 yet in good credit" by passing off the re- 
 partees of these dramatists as their own. 
 Shirley knew the character of those whom 
 he addressed in this preface. In the con- 
 tentions of that tragical age few of the se- 
 rious thinkers would open a play-book at all. 
 To the gay cavaliers, Beaumont and Fletcher 
 would perhaps be more welcome than Shak- 
 spere ; and Shirley tells us the grounds upon 
 which they were to be admired. But as- 
 suredly this is not oblivion of Shakspere. 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 GIBBER. 
 
 513 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 CIBBER. DRYDEK RYMER. GILDOK DENNIS. ADDISON. 
 
 THE theatres were thrown open at the 
 Restoration. Malone, in his 'Historical 
 Account of the English Stage,' informs us, 
 that, "in the latter end of the year 1659, 
 some months before the restoration of King 
 Charles II., the theatres, which had been 
 suppressed during the usurpation, began to 
 revive, and several plays were performed at 
 the Red Bull in St. John's Street, in that 
 and the following years, before the return of 
 the King." He then adds, that in June, 
 1660, three companies seem to have been 
 formed, including that of the Red Bull ; and 
 he enters into a history of the contests 
 between the Master of the Revels, and 
 Killigrew and Davenant, who had received 
 a patent from the king for the exclusive 
 performance of dramatic entertainments. It 
 is scarcely necessary for us to pursue the 
 details of this contest, which, as is well 
 known, terminated in the permanent esta- 
 blishment of two theatres only in London. 
 Malone has ransacked the very irregular 
 series of papers connected with the office of 
 Sir Henry Herbert, who appears to have kept 
 an eye upon theatrical performances with a 
 view to demanding his fees if he should be 
 supported by the higher powers. From 
 these, and other sources, such as the List of 
 Downes, the prompter of the principal plays 
 acted by Killigrew's company, Malone infers, 
 that " such was the lamentable taste of 
 those times that the plays "of Fletcher, 
 Jonson, and Shirley were much oftener ex- 
 hibited than those of Shakspere." The plays 
 acted by this company, as he collects from 
 these documents, were ' Henry IV.,' ' Merry 
 Wives of Windsor,' 'Othello,' and 'Julius 
 Caesar.' At Davenant's theatre, which boasted 
 of the great actor Betterton, we learn, from 
 Malone, that the plays performed were ' Pe- 
 ricles,' 'Macbeth,' 'The Tempest,' 'Lear,' 
 'Hamlet,' 'Romeo and Juliet,' 'Henry VIII.,' 
 'TwelfthNight,' ' Taming of the Shrew,' ' Henry 
 V.' Malone does not do justice to the value 
 
 of his own documents, for, when he gives us one 
 list, he points out that there are only three 
 plays of Shakspere " a melancholy proof" of 
 his decline ; and at another list he shakes his 
 head, reciting " the following plays of Shak- 
 speare, and these only" Now it appears to us 
 that, if any proof were wanting of the won- 
 derful hold which Shakspere had taken of the 
 English mind, under circumstances the most 
 adverse to his continued popularity, it would 
 be found in these imperfect lists, which do 
 not extend over more than eight or nine 
 years. Here are absolutely fourteen plays of 
 Shakspere revived for that is the phrase 
 in an age which was prolific of its own 
 authors, adapting themselves to a new school 
 of courtly taste. All the indirect testimony, 
 however meagre, exhibits the enduring popu- 
 larity of Shakspere. Killigrew's new theatre 
 in Drury Lane is opened with Henry IV. 
 Within a few months after the Restoration, 
 when heading and hanging are going forward, 
 Pepys relates that he went to see 'Othello.' 
 In 1661, he is attracted by 'Romeo and Juliet;' 
 and, in 1662, we have an entry in his diary, 
 with his famous criticism : " To the King's 
 Theatre, where we saw ' Midsummer's Night's 
 Dream,' which I had never seen before, nor 
 shall ever again, for it is the most insipid 
 ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life." 
 Here, upon unquestionable authority, we 
 have a fifteenth play added to the fourteen 
 previously cited. But why need we search 
 amongst such chance entries for evidence of 
 the reputation of Shakspere immediately 
 after the Restoration? Those who talk of 
 Shakspere as emerging some century ago into 
 celebrity after having fallen into neglect for 
 a lengthened period ; those who flippantly 
 affirm, that "the preface of Pope was the 
 first thing that procured general admiration 
 for his works," are singularly ignorant of 
 the commonest passages of literary history. 
 To the vague and random assertions and 
 assumptions, whether old or new, about the 
 
 L L 
 
514 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK XL 
 
 neglect into which Shakspere had fallen as 
 a popular dramatist, may be opposed the 
 most distinct testimony of one, especially, 
 who was a most accurate and minute 
 chronicler of the public taste. COLLKY GIBBER, 
 who himself became an actor, in 1690, in the 
 one privileged company of London, of which 
 Betterton was the head a company formed 
 out of the united strength of the two 
 companies which had been established at the 
 Restoration describes the state of the stage 
 at the Deriod of the first revival of dramatic 
 performances : " Besides their being thorough 
 masters of their art, these actors set forward 
 with two critical advantages, which perhaps 
 may never happen again in many ages." 
 One of the advantages he mentions, but a 
 secondary one, was, "that before the Restora- 
 tion no actresses had ever been seen upon the 
 English stage." But the chief advantage 
 was, "their immediate opening after the so 
 long interdiction of plays during the civil 
 war and the anarchy that followed it." He 
 then goes on to say, " What eager appetites 
 from so long a fast must the guests of those 
 times have had to that high and fresh variety 
 of entertainments ! " Provided by whom ? 
 By the combined variety of Jonson, and 
 Fletcher, and Massinger, and Ford, and 
 Shirley, and a host of other writers, whose 
 attactive fare was to be presented to the 
 eager guests after so long a fast ? No. The 
 high entertainment and the fresh variety 
 was to be provided by one man alone, the 
 man who we are told was neglected in his 
 own age, and forgotten in that which came 
 after him. "What eager appetites from so 
 long a fast must the guests of those times 
 have had to that high and fresh variety of 
 entertainments which Shakespeare had left 
 prepared for them ! Never was a stage so 
 provided. A hundred years are wasted, and 
 another silent century well advanced*, and 
 yet what unborn age shall say Shakespeare 
 has his equal ! How many shining actors 
 have the warm scenes of his genius given to 
 posterity ! " Betterton is idolized as an 
 actor, as much as the old man venerates 
 Shakspere: "Betterton was an actor, as 
 Shakespeare was an author, both without 
 
 * Gibber is writing as late as 1740. 
 
 competitors ; formed for the mutual assistance 
 and illustration of each other's genius. How 
 Shakespeare wrote, all men who have a taste 
 for nature may read, and know ; but with 
 what higher rapture would he still be read, 
 could they conceive how Betterton played 
 him ! " Whenever Gibber speaks of Better- 
 ton's wondrous excellence, it is always in 
 connection with Shakspere : " Should I tell 
 you that all the Othellos, Hamlets, Hotspurs, 
 Macbeths, and Brutuses whom you may have 
 seen since his time, have fallen far short of 
 him, this still should give you no idea of his 
 particular excellence." For some years after 
 the Restoration it seems to have been difficult 
 to satiate the people with the repetition of 
 Shakspere's great characters and leading 
 plays, in company with some of the plays of 
 Jonson and Fletcher. The two companies 
 had an agreement as to their performances : 
 "All the capital plays of Shakespeare, 
 Fletcher, and Ben Jonson were divided be- 
 tween them by the approbation of the court, 
 and their own alternate choice. 80 that, 
 when Hart was famous for Othello, Betterton 
 had no less a reputation for Hamlet." Still, 
 the test of histrionic excellence was Shak- 
 spere. So far from Shakspere being neglected 
 at this period, it is almost evident that the 
 performance of him was overdone ; for every 
 one knows that a theatrical audience, even 
 in the largest city, is, in a considerable 
 degree, composed of regular frequenters of 
 the theatre, and that novelty is therefore an 
 indispensable requisite to continued success. 
 The plays of Shakspere were better acted by 
 the company of which Betterton was the 
 head, than by the rival company ; and this, 
 according to Gibber, led to the introduction 
 of a new taste: "These two excellent 
 companies were both prosperous for some few 
 years, till their variety of plays began to be 
 exhausted. Then, of course, the better actors 
 (which the King's seem to have been allowed) 
 could not fail of drawing the greater audi- 
 ences. Sir William Davenant, therefore, 
 master of the Duke's company, to make head 
 against their success, was forced to add 
 spectacle and music to action, and to intro- 
 duce a new species of plays, since called 
 dramatic operas, of which kind were 'The 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 DRYDEN. 
 
 515 
 
 Tempest,' 'Psyche,' 'Circe,' and others, all 
 set off with the most expensive decorations 
 of scenes and habits, with the best voices 
 and dancers. 
 
 " This sensual supply of sight and sound 
 coming into the assistance of the weaker 
 party, it was no wonder they should grow too 
 hard for sense and simple nature, when it is 
 considered how many more people there are 
 that can see and hear than think and judge. 
 So wanton a change of the public taste, 
 therefore, began to fall as heavy upon the 
 King's company as their greater excellence in 
 action had before fallen upon their competitors. 
 Of which encroachment upon wit several 
 good prologues in those days frequently 
 complained." 
 
 There can be no doubt that most of the 
 original performances of Shakspere, imme- 
 diately after the Restoration, were given 
 from his unsophisticated text. The first 
 improvements that were perpetrated upon 
 this text resulted from the cause which 
 Gibber has so accurately described. Davenant, 
 to make head against the success of the 
 King's company "was forced to add spectacle 
 and music to action." What importance 
 Davenant attached to these novelties, we may 
 learn from the description of the opening 
 scene of ' The Enchanted Island ; ' that 
 alteration of ' The Tempest,' by himself and 
 Dryden, to which Gibber refers : " The front 
 of the stage is opened, and the band of 
 twenty-four violins, with the harpsicals and 
 theorbos which accompany the voices, are 
 placed between the pit and the stage. While 
 the overture is playing, the curtain rises, 
 and discovers a new frontispiece joined to 
 the great pilasters on each side of the stage. 
 This frontispiece is a noble arch, supported 
 by large wreathed columns of the Corinthian 
 order ; the wreathings of the columns are 
 beautified with roses wound round them, and 
 several Cupids flying about them. On the 
 cornice, just over the capitals, sits on either 
 side a figure, with a trumpel in one hand 
 and a palm in the other, representing Fame. 
 A little farther on the same cornice, on each 
 side of a compass pediment, lie a lion and a 
 unicorn, the supporters of the royal arms of 
 England. In the middle of the arch are 
 
 several angels holding the King's arms, as if 
 they were placing them in the midst of that 
 compass-pediment. Behind this is the scene, 
 which represents a thick cloudy sky, a very 
 rocky coast, and a tempestuous sea in per- 
 petual agitation. This tempest (supposed to 
 be raised by magic) has many dreadful 
 objects in it, as several spirits in horrid 
 shapes flying down amongst the sailors, then 
 rising in the air. And, when the ship is 
 sinking, the whole house is darkened, and a 
 shower of fire falls upon 'em. This is 
 accompanied with lightning, and several 
 claps of thunder, to the end of the storm." 
 
 In the alterations of this play, which were 
 made in 1669, and which continued to possess 
 the English stage for nearly a century and a 
 half, it is impossible now not to feel how 
 false was the taste upon which they were 
 built. Dryden says of this play, that Dave- 
 nant, to put the last hand to it, " designed 
 the counterpart to Shakespeare's plot, namely, 
 that of a man who had never seen a woman ; 
 that by this means those two characters of 
 innocence and love might the more illustrate 
 and commend each other." Nothing can be 
 weaker and falser in art than this mere 
 duplication of an idea. But still it was not 
 done irreverently. The prologue to this 
 altered Tempest (of his own part of which 
 Dryden says, "I never writ anything with 
 more delight"), is of itself an answer to the 
 asinine assertion that Dryden, in common 
 with the public of his day, was indifferent to 
 the memory of Shakspere : 
 
 "As, when a tree's cut down, the secret root 
 Lives underground, and thence new branches 
 
 shoot ; 
 So, from old Shakespear's honour'd dust, this 
 
 day 
 
 Springs up and buds a new reviving play. 
 Shakespear, who (taught by none) did first 
 
 impart 
 
 To Fletcher wit, to labouring Jonson art. 
 He, monarch like, gave those his subjects 
 
 law, 
 And is that nature which they paint and 
 
 draw. 
 Fletcher reached that which on his heights 
 
 did grow, 
 Whilst Jonson crept and gather'd all below. 
 
 L L 2 
 
516 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 This did his love, and this his mirth digest : 
 One imitates him most, the other best. 
 If they have since out-writ all other men, 
 "Tis with the drops which fell from Shake- 
 speare's pen. 
 The storm which vanish'd on the neighb'ring 
 
 shore 
 Was taught by Shakespear's Tempest first to 
 
 roar. 
 
 That innocence and beauty which did smile 
 In Fletcher, grew on this Enchanted Isle. 
 But Shakespear's magic could not copied be, 
 Within that circle none durst walk but he. 
 I must confess 'twas bold, nor would you 
 
 now 
 
 That liberty to vulgar wits allow, 
 Which works by magic supernatural things : 
 But Shakespear's power is sacred as a king's. 
 Those legends from old priesthood were re- 
 
 ceiv'd, 
 And he then writ, as people then believ'd. 
 
 Of DRYDEN'S personal admiration of Shak- 
 spere, of his profound veneration for Shak- 
 spere, there is abundant proof. He belonged 
 to the transition period of English poetry. 
 His better judgment was sometimes held in 
 subjection to the false taste that prevailed 
 around him. He attempted to found a school 
 of criticism, which should establish rules of 
 art differing from those which produced the 
 drama of Shakspere, and yet not acknow- 
 ledging the supremacy of the tame and 
 formal school of the French tragedians. He 
 did not perfectly understand the real nature 
 of the romantic drama. He did not see 
 that, as in all other high poetry, simplicity 
 was one of its great elements. He was of 
 those who would "gild refined gold." But 
 for genial hearty admiration of the great 
 master of the romantic drama no one ever 
 went beyond him. Take, for example, the 
 conclusion of his preface to ' All for Love :' 
 " In my style I have professed to imitate 
 the divine Shakespear ; which that I might 
 perform more freely, I have disencumbered 
 myself from rhyme. Not that I condemn 
 my former way, but that this is more proper 
 to my present purpose. I hope I need not 
 to explain myself that I have not copied my 
 author servilely. Words and phrases must 
 of necessity receive a change in succeeding 
 
 But 'tis almost a miracle that much 
 of his language remains so pure ; and that 
 he who began dramatic poetry amongst us, 
 untaught by any, and, as Ben Jonson tells 
 us, without learning, should, by the force of 
 his own genius, perform so much, that in a 
 manner he has left no praise for any who 
 came after Mm." 
 
 Dryden had the notion, in which Shaftes- 
 bury followed him, that the style of Shak- 
 spere was obsolete, although we have just 
 seen that he says, " 'Tis almost a miracle 
 that much of his language remains so pure." 
 Yet with this notion, which he puts forward 
 as an apology for tampering with Shakspere, 
 he never ceases to express his admiration of 
 him ; and, what is of more importance, to 
 show how general was the same feeling. 
 The preface to 'Troilus and Cressida' thus 
 begins : " The poet jEschylus was held in 
 the same veneration by the Athenians of 
 after-ages as Shakspeare is by us." In this 
 preface is introduced the ' Grounds of Criti- 
 cism in Tragedy,' in which the critic applies 
 a variety of tests to the art of Shakspere, 
 which only show that he did not understand 
 the principles upon which Shakspere worked : 
 but still there is everywhere the most un- 
 qualified admiration ; and in the prologue 
 to the altered play, which, being addressed 
 to the people, could scarcely deal with such 
 rules and exceptions for the formation of a 
 judgment, we have again the most positive 
 testimony to the public sense of Shakspere. 
 This prologue is " spoken by Mr. Betterton, 
 representing the ghost of Shakspeare." 
 
 "See, my lov'd Britons, see your Shakespear 
 
 rise, 
 
 An awful ghost confess'd to human eyes ! 
 Unnam'd, methinks, distinguish'd I had been 
 From other shades, by this eternal green, 
 Above whose wreaths the vulgar poets strive, 
 And with a touch their wither'd bays re- 
 vive. 
 
 Untaught, unjpractis'd, in a barbarous age, 
 I found not, but created first, the stage. 
 And, if I drain'd no Greek or Latin store, 
 'Twas, that my own abundance gave me 
 
 more. 
 
 On foreign trade I needed not rely, 
 Like fruitful Britain, rich without supply. 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 DRYDEN. 
 
 517 
 
 In this my rough-drawn play you shall be- 
 hold 
 
 Some master-strokes, so manly and so bold, 
 That he, who meant to alter, found 'em such, 
 He shook ; and thought it sacrilege to 
 
 touch. 
 
 Now, where are the successors to my name 1 
 What bring they to fill out a poet's fame ? 
 Weak, short-liv'd issues of a feeble age ; 
 Scarce living to be christen'd on the stage ! " 
 
 With these repeated acknowledgments of 
 Shakspere's supremacy, it is at first difficult 
 to understand how, in 1665, Dry den should 
 have written, " others are now generally pre- 
 ferred before him." The age, as he himself 
 tells us, differed in this respect from that of 
 Shakspere's own age, and also from that of 
 Charles I. He says, in the same ' Essay on 
 Dramatic Poesy,' speaking of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, "Their plays are now the most 
 pleasant and frequent entertainments of the 
 stage, two of theirs being acted through the 
 year for one of Shakespear's or Jonson's." 
 But this is not neglect or oblivion of Shak- 
 spere. We learn pretty clearly from Dryden, 
 though he does not care to say so, for that 
 would have been self-condemnation, that a 
 licentiousness which was not found in Shak- 
 spere was an agreeable thing to a licentious 
 audience : "They" (Beaumont and Fletcher) 
 "understood and imitated the conversation 
 of gentlemen much, better, whose wild de- 
 baucheries, and quickness of wit in repar- 
 tees, no poet before them could paint as 
 they have done. . . * They represented all 
 the passions very lively, but, above all, love." 
 The highest things in Shakspere can only be 
 fitly appreciated by a people amongst whom 
 there is a high moral tone, capable of under- 
 standing and of originating the highest 
 poetical things. With all their faults, the 
 ages of Elizabeth and James possessed this 
 tone ; and it is impossible now to estimate 
 how greatly Shakspere contributed to its 
 preservation. But nine years after the Re- 
 storation there was no public principle in 
 England, and little private honour. The 
 keenest relish for Shakspere most probably 
 existed out of the Court ; and Betterton, in 
 all likelihood, felt the applause of the pit 
 more truly valuable than that of the king's 
 
 box. One thing is perfectly clear : that, 
 when Dryden is addressing the people, he 
 speaks of Shakspere as their especial fa- 
 vourite. He is then "your Shakspere." The 
 crafty and prosaic Pepys, on the contrary, no 
 doubt expressed many a courtier's sentiment 
 about Shakspere. In the entry of his Diary 
 of August 20th, 1666, we have, " To Dept- 
 ford by water, reading ' Othello, Moor of 
 Venice,' which I ever heretofore esteemed a 
 mighty good play ; but, having so lately read 
 ' The Adventures of Five Hours,' it seems a 
 mean thing." 'The Adventures of Five 
 Hours,' a tragi-comedy, by Sir Samuel Tuke, 
 was a translation from the Spanish, which 
 Echard commends for its variety of plots 
 and intrigues. We can easily understand 
 how Pepys, and " my wife's maid," counted 
 'Othello' a mean thing in comparison with 
 it. Pepys shows us pretty clearly the sort of 
 audience that in that day was called fashion- 
 able, and the mode in which they displayed 
 their interest in a theatrical entertainment : 
 " My wife and I to the King's playhouse, 
 and there saw 'The Island Princess,' the 
 first time I ever saw it ; and it is a pretty 
 good play, many good things being in it, and 
 a good scene of a town on fire. We sat in 
 an upper box, and the jade Nell came and 
 sat in the next box ; a bold, merry slut, who 
 lay laughing there upon people." Again : 
 " To the King's house to ' The Maid's Tra- 
 gedy ;' but vexed all the while with two 
 talking ladies and Sir Charles Sedley ; yet 
 pleased to hear their discourse, he being a 
 stranger." We can easily imagine that the 
 ''jade Nell," and the "talking ladies," were 
 the representatives of a very large class, 
 who preferred "other plays" to those of 
 Shakspere. 
 
 We select a few passages from 'The 
 Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy,' which 
 contains a more condensed view of Dryden's 
 opinions of Shakspere than any other of his 
 prefaces. It is the summary of the judg- 
 ment of the highest critical authority of 
 this period^ when the public taste had been 
 corrupted with music and spectacle, and 
 comedies of licentious intrigue abounded, in 
 company with the rhyming tragedies of 
 Dryden himself, and the ranting bombast of 
 
518 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 his inferior rivals. This essay first appeared 
 in 1679 : 
 
 " How defective Shakespear and Fletcher 
 have been in all their plots, Mr. Rymer has 
 discovered in his ' Criticisms :' neither can 
 we, who follow them, be excused from the 
 same or greater errors ; which are the more 
 unpardonable in us, because we want their 
 beauty to countervail our faults 
 
 " The difference between Shakespear and 
 Fletcher, in their plotting, seems to be this 
 that Shakespear generally moves more terror, 
 and Fletcher more compassion. For the 
 first had a more masculine, a bolder, and 
 more fiery genius ; the second, a more soft 
 and womanish. In the mechanic beauties of 
 the plot, which are the observation of the 
 three unities time, place, and action they 
 are both deficient ; but Shakespear most. 
 Ben Jonson reformed those errors in his 
 comedies, yet one of Shakespear' s was regular 
 before him ; which is, ' The Merry Wives of 
 Windsor.' 
 
 " After the plot, which is the foundation 
 of the play, the next thing to which we 
 ought to apply our judgment is the manners ; 
 for now the poet comes to work above ground. 
 The groundwork indeed is that which is 
 most necessary, as that upon which depends 
 the firmness of the whole fabric ; yet it 
 strikes not the eye so much as the beauties 
 or imperfections of the manners, the thoughts, 
 and the expressions 
 
 "From the manners the characters of 
 persons are derived ; for indeed the charac- 
 ters are no other than the inclinations, as 
 they appear in the several persons of the 
 poem. A character, or that which distin- 
 guishes one man from all others, cannot be 
 supposed to consist of one particular virtue, 
 or vice, or passion only; but it is a com- 
 position of qualities which are not contrary 
 to one another in the same person. Thus, 
 the same man may be liberal and valiant, 
 but not liberal and covetous ; so in a comical 
 character, or humour, (which is an inclina- 
 tion to this or that particular folly,) Falstaff 
 is a liar and a coward, a glutton and a buf- 
 foon, because all these qualities may agree 
 in the same man ; yet it is still to be ob- 
 served that one virtue, vice, and passion, 
 
 ought to be shown in every man, as pre- 
 dominant over all the rest ; as covetousness 
 in Crassus, love of his country in Brutus ; 
 and the same in characters which are 
 
 feigned 
 
 " The present French poets are generally 
 accused, that, wheresoever they lay the scene, 
 or in whatsoever age, the manners of their 
 heroes are wholly French. Racine's Bajazet 
 is bred at Constantinople, but his civilities 
 are conveyed to him by some secret passage 
 from Versailles into the Seraglio. But our 
 Shakespear, having ascribed to Henry the 
 Fourth the character of a king and of a 
 father, gives him the perfect manners of 
 each relation, when either he transacts with 
 his son or with his subjects. Fletcher, on the 
 other side, gives neither to Arbaces, nor to 
 his king in ' The Maid's Tragedy,' the qua- 
 lities which are suitable to a monarch 
 
 To return once more to Shakespear : no 
 man ever drew so many characters, or gene- 
 rally distinguished them better from one 
 another, excepting only Jonson. I will in- 
 stance but in one, to show the copiousness of 
 his invention ; it is that of Caliban, or the 
 monster, in * The Tempest.' He seems there 
 to have created a person which was not in 
 nature a boldness which at first sight would 
 appear intolerable ; for he makes him a 
 species of himself, begotten by an incubus 
 on a witch ; but this, as I have elsewhere 
 proved, is not wholly beyond the bounds of 
 credibility, at least the vulgar still believe 
 it. We have the separated notions of a 
 spirit and of a witch (and spirits, accord- 
 ing to Plato, are vested with a subtle body ; 
 according to some of his followers, have dif- 
 ferent sexes) ; therefore, as from the dis- 
 tinct apprehensions of a horse and of a man, 
 imagination has formed a Centaur, so from 
 those of an incubus and a sorceress Shake- 
 spear has produced his monster. Whether 
 or no his generation can be defended I leave 
 to philosophy ; but of this I am certain, 
 that the poet has most judiciously furnished 
 him with a person, a language, and a cha- 
 racter which will suit him, both by father's 
 and mother's side : he has all the discon- 
 tents and malice of a witch and of a devil, 
 besides a convenient proportion of the deadly 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 DRYDEN. 
 
 519 
 
 sins gluttony, sloth, and lust are manifest ; 
 the dejectedness of a slave is likewise given 
 him, and the ignorance of one bred up in a 
 desert island. His person is monstrous, as 
 he is the product of unnatural lust : and 
 his language is as hobgoblin as his person: 
 in all things he is distinguished from other 
 mortals. The characters of Fletcher are 
 poor and narrow in comparison of Shake- 
 spear's : I remember not one which is not 
 borrowed from him, unless you will except 
 that strange mixture of a man in the ' King 
 and no King.' So that in this part Shake- 
 spear is generally worth our imitation ; and 
 to imitate Fletcher is but to copy after him 
 who was a copier 
 
 " If Shakespear be allowed, as I think he 
 must, to have made his characters distinct, 
 it will easily be inferred that he understood 
 the nature of the passions ; because it has 
 been proved already that confused passions 
 make undistinguishable characters. Yet I 
 cannot deny that he has his failings; but 
 they are not so much in the passions them- 
 selves as in his manner of expression: he 
 often obscures his meaning by his words, and 
 sometimes makes it unintelligible. I will not 
 say of so great a poet, that he distinguished 
 not the blown puffy style from true sublimity, 
 but I may venture to maintain that the fury 
 of his fancy often transported him beyond 
 the bounds of judgment, either in coining 
 of new words and phrases, or racking words 
 which were in use into the violence of a 
 catachresis 
 
 "To speak justly of this whole matter, it 
 is neither height of thought that is discom- 
 mended, nor pathetic vehemence, nor any 
 nobleness of expression in its proper place; 
 but it is a false measure of all these, some- 
 thing which is like them and is not them : 
 it is the Bristol stone which appears like a 
 diamond; it is an extravagant thought in- 
 stead of a sublime one ; it is roaring mad- 
 ness instead of vehemence ; and a sound of 
 words instead of sense. If Shakespear were 
 stripped of all the bombast in his passions, 
 and drest in the most vulgar words, we should 
 find the beauties of his thoughts remaining; 
 if his embroideries were burnt down, there 
 would still be silver at the bottom of the 
 
 melting-pot. But I fear (at least let me fear 
 it for myself) that we who ape his sounding 
 words have nothing of his thought, but are 
 all outside ; there is not so much as a dwarf 
 within our giant's clothes. Therefore let not 
 Shakespear suffer for our sakes; it is our fault, 
 who succeed him in an age which is more 
 refined, if we imitate him so ill that we copy 
 his failings only, and make a virtue of that 
 in our writings which in his was an imper- 
 fection. 
 
 " For what remains, the excellency of that 
 poet was, as I have said, in the more manly 
 passions ; Fletcher's in the softer : Shakespear 
 writ better betwixt man and man, Fletcher 
 betwixt man and woman; consequently the 
 one described friendship better, the other love; 
 yet Shakespear taught Fletcher to write love; 
 and Juliet and Desdemona are originals. It 
 is true the scholar had the softer soul, but 
 the master had the kinder. Friendship is 
 both a virtue and a passion essentially : love 
 is a passion only in its nature, and is not a 
 virtue but by accident. Good nature makes 
 friendship, but effeminacy love. Shakespear 
 had an universal mind, which comprehended 
 all characters and passions ; Fletcher a more 
 confined and limited : for, though he treated 
 love in perfection, yet honour, ambition, re- 
 venge, and generally all the stronger pas- 
 sions, he either touched not, or not masterly. 
 To conclude all, he was a limb of Shake- 
 spear." 
 
 ' The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy ' is 
 held by Dr. Johnson to be an answer to * The 
 Tragedies of the last Age considered and ex- 
 amined,' by the celebrated THOMAS RYMER. 
 Rymer's book was originally published in 
 1678 ; and Dryden's Preface to ' Troilus and 
 Cressida,' in which the supposed answer is 
 contained, appeared in the following year. 
 Rymer is generally known as the learned 
 editor of the vast collection of national do- 
 cuments, arranged and published by him in 
 his official capacity of Historiographer Royal, 
 under the name of ' Foedera. ' But this 
 publication was not commenced till 1703, 
 and for many years previous he had been 
 a miscellaneous writer in polite literature. 
 In 1678, he produced a tragedy entitled 
 ' Edgar. ' It is almost painful to consider 
 
620 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi 
 
 that an author to whose gigantic labours 
 all students of English history are so deeply 
 indebted should have put forth the most lu- 
 dicrous criticisms upon Shakspere that exist 
 in the English language. In ' The Tragedies 
 considered,' he proposes to examine " the 
 choicest and most applauded English trage- 
 dies of this last age ; as ' Rollo,' ' A King and 
 no King.' 'The Maid's Tragedy,' by Beaumont 
 and Fletcher ; Othello,' and < Julius Csesar,' 
 by Shakespear; and * Catiline,' by worthy Ben." 
 But at this period he did not carry through 
 his design. The whole of this book is devoted 
 to the three plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. 
 It would be beside our purpose to show how 
 he disposes of them; but the following passage 
 will exhibit the nature of his judgment : "I 
 have thought our poetry of the last age as 
 rude as our architecture. One cause thereof 
 might be, that Aristotle's 'Treatise of Poetry' 
 has been so little studied amongst us." The 
 completion of Rymer's plan was deferred for 
 fifteen years. In 1693, appeared ' A Short 
 View of Tragedy ; its original Excellency 
 and Corruption. With some Reflections on 
 Shakespear, and other Practitioners for the 
 Stage.' This second treatise thus begins : 
 " What reformation may not we expect now 
 that in France they see the necessity for 
 
 a chorus to their tragedies ! 
 
 The chorus was the root and original, and is 
 certainly almost the most necessary part, of 
 tragedy." It would be exceedingly unjust to 
 Rymer to collect the disjecta meinbra of his 
 criticism upon, or rather abuse of, Shakspere, 
 without exhibiting what were his own no- 
 tions of dramatic excellence; and certainly 
 in the whole range of the ludicrous there 
 are few things more amusing than his so- 
 lemn scheme for a tragedy on the subject 
 of the Spanish Armada, in imitation of 
 'The Persians,' of ^Eschylus. We cannot re- 
 sist the temptation of presenting it to our 
 readers : 
 
 "The place, then, for the action may be 
 at Madrid, by some tomb, or solemn place 
 of resort ; or, if we prefer a turn in it from 
 good to bad fortune, then some drawing- 
 room in the palace near the king's bed- 
 chamber. 
 
 " The time to begin, twelve at night. 
 
 " The scene opening presents fifteen 
 grandees of Spain, with their most solemn 
 beards and accoutrements, met there (sup- 
 pose) after some ball, or other public oc- 
 casion. They talk of the state of affair s, 
 the greatness of their power, the vastness 
 of their dominions, and prospect to be in- 
 fallibly, ere long, lords of all. With this 
 prosperity and goodly thoughts transported, 
 they at last form themselves into the chorus, 
 and walk such measures, with music, as may 
 become the gravity of such a chorus. 
 
 " Then enter two or three of the cabinet 
 council, who now have leave to tell the se- 
 cret that the preparations and the invincible 
 Armada was to conquer England. These, 
 with part of the chorus, may communicate 
 all the particulars the provisions, and the 
 strength by sea and land ; the certainty of 
 success, the advantages by that accession ; 
 and the many tun of tar-barrels for the 
 heretics. These topics may afford matter 
 enough, with the chorus, for the second act. 
 
 " In the third act, these gentlemen of the 
 cabinet cannot agree about sharing the pre- 
 ferments of England, and a mighty broil 
 there is amongst them. One will not be 
 content unless he is King of Man ; another 
 will be Duke of Lancaster. One, that had 
 seen a coronation in England, will by all 
 means be Duke of Aquitaine, or else Duke 
 of Normandy. And on this occasion two 
 competitors have a juster occasion to work 
 up and show the muscles of their passion 
 than Shakespear's Cassius and Brutus. 
 After, the chorus. 
 
 " The fourth act may, instead of Atossa, 
 present some old dames of the court, used to 
 dream dreams, and to see sprites, in their 
 night-rails and forehead-cloths, to alarm our 
 gentlemen with new apprehensions, which 
 make distraction and disorders sufficient to 
 furnish out this act. 
 
 " In the last act the king enters, and wisely 
 discourses against dreams and hobgoblins, to 
 quiet their minds : and, the more to satisfy 
 them, and take off their fright, he lets them 
 to know that St. Loyola had appeared to him, 
 and assured him that all is well. This said, 
 comes a messenger of the ill news; his ac- 
 count is lame, suspected, he sent to prison. 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 RYMER. 
 
 521 
 
 A second messenger, that came away long 
 after, but had a speedier passage : his ac- 
 count is distinct, and all their loss credited. 
 So, in fine, one of the chorus concludes with 
 that of Euripides, Thus you see the gods 
 bring things to pass often otherwise than 
 was by man proposed." 
 
 After this, can we wonder that the art 
 of Thomas Rymer is opposed to the art of 
 William Shakspere? Let us hear what he 
 says of Othello " of all the tragedies acted 
 on our English stage, that which is said to 
 bear the bell away." He first gives the fable, 
 of which the points are, the marriage of 
 Othello, the jealousy from the incident of the 
 handkerchief, and the murder of Desdemona. 
 The facetious critic then proceeds : 
 
 " Whatever rubs or difficulty may stick on 
 the bark, the moral, sure, of this fable is very 
 instructive. 
 
 " First, This may be a caution to all maidens 
 of quality how, without their parents' consent, 
 they run away with blackamoors. 
 
 "Secondly, This may be a warning to all 
 good wives, that they look well to their 
 linen. 
 
 "Thirdly, This may be a lesson to hus- 
 bands, that, before their jealousy be tragical, 
 the proofs may be mathematical." 
 
 The whole story of Othello, we learn, is 
 founded upon "an improbable lie:" 
 
 "The character of that state (Venice) is 
 to employ strangers in their wars ; but shall 
 a poet thence fancy that they will set a 
 negro to be their general, or trust a Moor 
 to defend them against the Turk 1 With us, 
 a blackamoor might rise to be a trumpeter ; 
 but Shakespear would not have him less than 
 a lieutenant-general. With us, a Moor might 
 marry some little drab, or small-coal wench : 
 Shakespear would provide him the daughter 
 and heir of some great lord or privy-coun- 
 cillor; and all the town should reckon it a 
 very suitable match: yet the English are not 
 bred up with that hatred and aversion to the 
 Moors as are the Venetians, who suffer by a 
 perpetual hostility from them,- 
 
 Littora littoribus contraria .... 
 
 Nothing is more odious in nature than an 
 improbable lie ; and, certainly, never was 
 
 any play fraught, like this of Othello, with 
 improbabili ties. ' ' 
 
 We next are told, that "the characters 
 of manners, which are the second part in a 
 tragedy, are not less unnatural and improper 
 than the fable was improbable and absurd." 
 From such characters we are not to expect 
 thoughts "that are either true, or fine, or 
 noble;" and further, "in the neighing of a 
 horse, or in the growling of a mastiff, there 
 is a meaning, there is as lively expression, 
 and, may I say, more humanity, than many 
 times in the tragical nights of Shakespear." 
 The crowning glory of the treatise is the 
 mode in which the critic disposes of the 
 scene between Othello and lago in the third 
 act: 
 
 " Then comes the wonderful scene where 
 lago, by shrugs, half-words, and ambiguous 
 reflections, works Othello up to be jealous. 
 One might think, after what we have seen, 
 that there needs no great cunning, no great 
 poetry and address, to make the Moor jealous. 
 Such impatience, such a rout for a hand- 
 some young fellow, the very morning after 
 her marriage, must make him either to be 
 jealous, or to take her for a changeling be- 
 low his jealousy. After this scene it might 
 strain the poet's skill to reconcile the couple, 
 and allay the jealousy. lago now can only 
 actum agere, and vex the audience with a 
 nauseous repetition. Whence comes it, then, 
 that this is the top scene the scene that 
 raises Othello above all other tragedies in 
 our theatres ? It is purely from the action, 
 from the mops and the mows, the grimace, 
 the grins and gesticulation. Such scenes 
 as this have made all the world run after 
 Harlequin and Scaramuccio." 
 
 The conclusion of this prodigious piece of 
 criticism must conclude our extracts from 
 Thomas Rymer: 
 
 " What can remain with the audience to 
 carry home with them from this sort of 
 poetry, for their use and edification 1 How 
 can it work unless (instead of settling the 
 mind, and purging our passions) to delude 
 our senses, disorder our thoughts, addle our 
 brain, pervert our affections, hair our imagina- 
 tions, corrupt our appetite, and fill our head 
 with vanity, confusion, tintamarre, and jingle- 
 
522 
 
 .STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK XT. 
 
 jangle beyond what all the parish-clerks of 
 London, with their Old Testament farces and 
 interludes, in Richard the Second's time, 
 could ever pretend to ] Our only hopes, for 
 the good of their souls, can be, that these 
 people go to the playhouse as they do to 
 church, to sit still, look on one another, make 
 no reflection, nor mind the play more than 
 they would a sermon. There is in this play 
 some burlesque, some humour and ramble of 
 comical wit, some show, and some mimicry 
 to divert the spectators : but the tragical 
 part is plainly none other than a bloody 
 farce, without salt or savour." 
 
 We cannot agree with the author of an 
 able article in ' The Retrospective Review,' 
 that " these attacks on Shakespear are very 
 curious, as evincing how gradual has been 
 the increase of his fame ; " that " their whole 
 tone shows that the author was not advancing 
 what he thought the world would regard as 
 paradoxical or strange ;" that "he speaks as 
 one with authority to decide." So far from 
 receiving Rymer's frenzied denunciations as 
 an expression of public opinion, we regard 
 them as the idiosyncrasies of a very singular 
 individual, who is furious in the exact pro- 
 portion that the public opinion differs from 
 his own. He attacks ' Othello ' and ' Julius 
 Caesar,' especially, because Betterton had for 
 years been drawing crowds to his performance 
 in those tragedies. He is one of those who 
 glory in opposing the general opinion. In 
 his first book, he says, " With the remaining 
 tragedies I shall also send you some reflec- 
 tions on that ' Paradise Lost ' of Milton's, 
 which some are pleased to call a poem." 
 Dryden, the great critical authority of his 
 day, before whose opinions all other men 
 bowed, had in 1679 thus spoken of the origin 
 of his great scene between Troilus and 
 Hector : " The occasion of raising it was 
 hinted to me by Mr. Betterton ; the con- 
 trivance and working of it was my own. 
 They who think to do me an injury by saying 
 that it is an imitation of the scene betwixt 
 Brutus and Cassius, do me an honour by 
 supposing I could imitate the incomparable 
 Shakespear." Dryden then goes on to con- 
 trast the modes in which Euripides, Fletcher, 
 and Shakspere have managed the quarrel of 
 
 two virtuous men, raised to the extremity of 
 passion, and ending in the renewal of their 
 friendship ; and he says, " The particular 
 groundwork which Shakespear has taken is 
 incomparably the best." This decision of 
 Dryden would in those days dispose of the 
 matter as a question of criticism. But out 
 comes Rymer, who, in opposition to Dry den's 
 judgment, and Betterton's applause, tells us, 
 that Brutus and Cassius here act the part of 
 mimics ; are bullies and buffoons ; are to 
 exhibit "a trial of skill in huffing and 
 swaggering, like two drunken Hectors for a 
 twopenny reckoning." It may be true that 
 " the author was not advancing what he 
 thought the world would regard as paradoxical 
 and strange;" for it is the commonest of 
 self-delusions, even to the delusions of in- 
 sanity, to believe that the whole world agrees 
 with the most extravagant mistakes and the 
 strangest paradoxes ; and when Rymer, upon 
 his critical throne, " speaks as one with 
 authority to decide," his authority is as 
 powerless as that of the madmar. in Hogarth, 
 who sits in solitary nakedness upon his straw, 
 with crown on head and sceptre in hand. 
 Rymer is a remarkable example of an able 
 man, in his own province, meddling with that 
 of which he has not the slightest true con- 
 ception. He is, perhaps, more denuded of 
 the poetical sense than any man who ever 
 attempted to be a critic in poetry : but he 
 had real learning. Shakspere fell into worse 
 hands after Rymer. The " Man Mountain " 
 was fastened to the earth by the Lilli- 
 putians, and the strings are only just now 
 broken by which he was bound. 
 
 In the quotations which we have given 
 from Dryden, it may be seen how reverently 
 criticism was based upon certain laws which, 
 however false might be their application, 
 were nevertheless held to be tests of the 
 merit of the highest poetical productions. 
 Dryden was always balancing between the 
 rigid application of these laws, and his own 
 hearty admiration of those whose art had 
 rejected them. If he had been less of a real 
 poet himself, he might have become as furious 
 a stickler for the canons of the ancients as 
 Rymer was. With all his occasional ex- 
 pressions of hatred towards the French school 
 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 GILDON. 
 
 523 
 
 of tragedy, he was unconsciously walking in 
 the circle which the fashion of his age had 
 drawn around all poetical invention. It was 
 assuredly not yet the fashion of the people 
 for they clung to the school of poetry and 
 passion with a love which no critical opinions 
 could wholly subdue. It was not the fashion 
 of those who had drunk their inspiration 
 from the Elizabethan poets. It was not the 
 fashion of Milton and his disciples. Hear 
 how Edward Phillips speaks of Corneille in 
 1675 : " Corneille, the great dramatic writer 
 of France, wonderfully applauded by the 
 prerent age, both among his own countrymen 
 and our Frenchly-affected English, for the 
 amorous intrigues which, if not there before, 
 he commonly thrusts into his tragedies and 
 acted histories ; the imitation whereof among 
 us, and of the perpetual colloquy in rhyme, 
 hath of late very much corrupted our English 
 stage." It was the spread of this fashion 
 amongst the courtly litterateurs of the day 
 that gave some encouragement to the ex- 
 travagance of Rymer. The solemn harangues 
 about decorum in tragedy, the unities, moral 
 fitness, did not always present the ludicrous 
 side, as it did in this learned madman, who 
 sublimated the whole affair into the most 
 delicious absurdity. We love him for it. His 
 application of a "rule" to Fletcher's 'Maid's 
 Tragedy' is altogether such a beautiful 
 exemplification of his mode of applying his 
 critical knowledge, that we cannot forbear 
 one more quotation from him : "If I 
 mistake not, in poetry, no woman is to kill a 
 man, except her quality gives her the ad- 
 vantage above him ; nor is a servant to kill 
 the master, nor a private man, much less 
 a subject, to kill a king ; nor on the contrary. 
 Poetical decency will not suffer death to be 
 dealt to each other by such persons whom 
 the laws of duel allow not to enter the lists 
 ;ogether." Rymer never changes his opinions. 
 The principles upon which he founded his 
 first book were carried to a greater height of 
 extravagance in his second. Dryden, on 
 the contrary, depreciates Shakspere, though 
 ;imidly and doubtfully, in his early criti- 
 cisms, but warms into higher and higher 
 admiration as he grows older. The ' Defence 
 f the Epilogue to the Conquest of Grenada,' 
 
 written in 1672, presents a curious contrast 
 to 'The Grounds of Criticism.' He was 
 then a young poet, and wanted to thrust 
 aside those who stood in the way of his stage 
 popularity : " Let any man who understands 
 English, read diligently the works of Shake- 
 spear and Fletcher ; and I dare undertake 
 that he will find in every page some solecism 
 of speech, or some notorious flaw in sense : 
 and yet these men are reverenced when we 
 
 are not forgiven But the 
 
 times were ignorant in which they lived. 
 Poetry was then, if not in its infancy among 
 us, at least not arrived to its vigour and 
 maturity ; witness the lameness of their 
 plots." This was the self-complacency which 
 the maturer thoughts of a vigorous mind 
 corrected. But nothing could correct the 
 critical obstinacy of Rymer. Dryden's 
 poetical soul mounted above the growing 
 feebleness of his age's criticism, till at last, 
 when he attempted to deal with Shakspere 
 in the spirit of his age, he became a wor- 
 shipper instead of a mocker : 
 
 " Shakespeare, thy gift I place before my sight : 
 With awe, I ask his blessing ere I write. 
 With reverence look on his majestic face, 
 Proud to be less, but of his godlike race."* 
 
 The age laid its leaden sceptre upon the 
 smaller minds, and especially upon those who 
 approached Shakspere with a cold and 
 creeping admiration. Of such was CHARLES 
 GILDON. In 1694 he appeared in the world 
 with * Some Reflections on Mr. Rymer's Short 
 View of Tragedy, and an Attempt at a 
 Vindication of Shakespear.' It would be a 
 waste of time to produce the antagonist of 
 Rymer armed cap-d-pie, and set these two 
 doughty combatants in mortal fight with their 
 sacks of sand. It will be sufficient for us to 
 quote a few passages from Gildon's ' Essay 
 on the Art, Rise, and Progress of the Stage,' 
 1710, by way of showing, what indeed may 
 be inferred from Rymer's own book, that the 
 people were against the critics : " 'Tis my 
 pinion that, if Shakespear had had those 
 advantages of learning which the perfect 
 knowledge of the ancients would have given 
 lim, so great a genius as his would have 
 
 * ' Epistle to Knellcr. 
 
524 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi 
 
 made him a very dangerous rival in fame to 
 the greatest poets of antiquity ; so far am I 
 from seeing how this knowledge could either 
 have curbed, confined, or spoiled the natural 
 excellence of his writings. For, though I 
 must always think our author a miracle for 
 the age he lived in, yet I am obliged, in 
 justice to reason and art, to confess that he 
 does not come up to the ancients in all the 
 beauties of the drama. But it is no small 
 honour to him, that he has surpassed them in 
 the topics or commonplaces. And to confirm 
 the victory he obtained on that head at Mr. 
 Hales's chamber, at Eton, I shall, in this 
 present undertaking, not only transcribe the 
 most shining, but refer the reader to the 
 same subjects in the Latin authors. This I 
 do that I might omit nothing that could do 
 his memory that justice which he really 
 deserves ; but to put his errors and his ex- 
 cellences on the same bottom is to injure the 
 latter, and give the enemies of our poet an ad- 
 vantage against him, of doing the same ; that 
 is, of rejecting his beauties, as all of a piece 
 with his faults. This unaccountable bigotry 
 of the town to the very errors of Shakespear 
 was the occasion of Mr. Rymer's criticisms, 
 and drove him as far into the contrary 
 extreme. I am far from approving his 
 manner of treating our poet ; though Mr. 
 Dryden owns, that all, or most, of the faults 
 he has found are just ; but adds this odd 
 reflection : And yet, says he, who minds the 
 critic, and who admires Shakespear less ? 
 That was as much as to say, Mr. Rymer has 
 indeed made good his charge, and yet the 
 town admired his errors still : which I take 
 to be a greater proof of the folly and aban- 
 doned taste of the town than of any imper- 
 fections in the critic ; which in my opinion, 
 exposed the ignorance of the age he lived in ; 
 to which Mr. Rowe very justly ascribes most 
 of his faults. It must be owned that Mr. 
 Rymer carried the matter too far, since no 
 man that has the least relish of poetry can 
 question his genius ; for, in spite of his 
 known and visible errors, when I read Shake- 
 spear, even in some of his most irregular 
 plays, I am surprised into a pleasure so great, 
 that my judgment is no longer free to see 
 the faults, though they are never so gross and 
 
 evident. There is such a witchery in him 
 that all the rules of art which he does not 
 observe, though built on an equally solid and 
 infallible reason, vanish away in the trans- 
 ports of those that he does observe, so 
 entirely as if I had never known anything 
 of the matter." The rules of art ! It was 
 the extraordinary folly of the age which 
 produced these observations to believe that 
 Shakspere realized his great endeavours 
 without any rule at all, that is, without any 
 method. Rymer was such a thorough be- 
 liever in the infallibility of these rules of 
 art, that he shut his eyes to the very highest 
 power of Shakspere, because it did not agree 
 with these rules. Gildon believed in the 
 power, and believed in the rules at the same 
 time: hence his contradictions. "The un- 
 accountable bigotry of the town to the very 
 errors of Shakespear 1 ' was the best proof of 
 the triumphant privilege of genius to abide- 
 in full power and tranquillity amidst its own 
 rules. The small poets, and the smaller 
 critics, were working upon mechanic rules. 
 When they saw in Shakspere something like 
 an adherence to ancient rules of art, they 
 cried out, Wonderful power of nature ! When 
 they detected a deviation, they exclaimed, 
 Pitiable calamity of ignorance ! It is evident 
 that these critics could not subject the people 
 to their laws ; and they despise the ignorant 
 people, therefore, as they pity the ignorant 
 Shakspere. Hear Gildon again : " A judi- 
 cious reader of our author will easily discover 
 those defects that his beauties would make 
 him wish had been corrected by a knowledge 
 of the whole art of the drama. For it is 
 evident that, by the force of his own judg- 
 ment, or the strength of his imagination, he 
 has followed the rules of art in all those 
 particulars in which he pleases. I know 
 that the rules of art have been sufficiently 
 clamoured against by an ignorant and 
 thoughtless sort of men of our age ; but it 
 was because they knew nothing of them, and 
 never considered that without some standard 
 of excellence there could be no justice done 
 to merit, to which poetasters and poets must 
 else have an equal claim, which is the 
 highest degree of barbarism. Nay, without 
 an appeal to these very rules, Shakespear 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 DENNIS. 
 
 525 
 
 himself is not to be distinguished from the 
 most worthless pretenders, who have often 
 met with an undeserved applause, and chal- 
 lenge the title of great poets from their 
 success." We will only anticipate for a 
 moment the philosophical wisdom of a later 
 school of criticism, to supply an .answer to 
 Gildon : " The spirit of poetry, like all other 
 living powers, must of necessity circumscribe 
 itself by rules, were it only to unite power 
 with beauty. It must embody in order to 
 reveal itself ; but a living body is of necessity 
 an organized one ; and what is organization 
 but the connection of parts in and for a 
 whole, so that each part is at once end and 
 means ? " * 
 
 The redoubted John DENNIS was another 
 of the antagonists of Rymer. He carried 
 heavier metal than Gildon ; but he never- 
 theless belonged to the cuckoo school of 
 " rules of art." He had a just appreciation 
 of Shakspere as far as he went ; and a few 
 of his judgments certainly here deserve a 
 place : " Shakespear was one of the greatest 
 geniuses that the world ever saw for the 
 tragic stage. Though he lay under greater 
 disadvantages than any of his successors, 
 yet had he greater and more genuine 
 beauties than the best and greatest of them. 
 And what makes the brightest glory of his 
 character, those beauties were entirely his 
 own, and owing to the force of his own 
 nature ; whereas his faults were owing to 
 his education, and to the age that he lived 
 in. One may say of him as they did of 
 Homer that he had none to imitate, and is 
 himself inimitable. His imaginations were 
 often as just as they were bold and strong. 
 He had a natural discretion which never 
 could have been taught him, and his judg- 
 ment was strong and penetrating. He seems 
 to have wanted nothing but time and leisure 
 for thought, to have found out those rules of 
 which he appears so ignorant. His charac- 
 ters are always drawn justly, exactly, graphi- 
 cally, except where he failed by not know- 
 ing history or the poetical art. He has for 
 the most part more fairly distinguished them 
 than any of his successors have done, who 
 have falsified them, or confounded them, by 
 
 * Coleridge. 
 
 making love the predominant quality in all. 
 He had so fine a talent for touching the 
 passions, they are so lively in him, and so 
 truly in nature, that they often touch us 
 more without their due preparations than 
 those of other tragic poets who have all the 
 beauty of design and all the advantage of 
 incidents. His master-passion was terror, 
 which he has often moved so powerfully and 
 so. wonderfully, that we may justly conclude 
 that, if he had had the advantage of art 
 and learning, he would have surpassed the 
 very best and strongest of the ancients. His 
 paintings are often so beautiful and so lively, 
 so graceful and so powerful, especially where 
 he uses them in order to move terror, that 
 there is nothing perhaps more accomplished 
 in our English poetry. His sentiments, for 
 the most part, in his best tragedies, are 
 noble, generous, easy and natural, and 
 adapted to the persons who use them. His 
 expression is in many places good and pure 
 after a hundred years ; simple, though 
 elevated graceful, though bold and easy, 
 though strong. He seems to have been the 
 very original of our English tragical har- 
 mony; that is, the harmony of blank verse, 
 diversified often by dissyllable and trisyl- 
 lable terminations. For that diversity dis- 
 tinguishes it from heroic harmony, and, 
 bringing it nearer to common use, makes it 
 more proper to gain attention, and more fit 
 for action and dialogue. Such verse we 
 make when we are writing prose ; we make 
 such verse in common conversation. If 
 Shakespear had these great qualities by 
 nature, what would he not have been if he 
 had joined to so happy a genius learning 
 and the poetical art ! " 
 
 It was this eternal gabble about rules of 
 art, this blindness to the truth that the 
 living power of Shakspere had its own or- 
 ganization, that set the metre-mongers of 
 that day upon the task of improving Shak- 
 spere. Dennis was himself one of the great 
 improvers. Poetical justice was one of the 
 rules for which they clamoured. Duncan and 
 Banquo ought not to perish in 'Macbeth,' 
 nor Desdemona in ' Othello,' nor Cordelia and 
 her father in 'Lear,' nor Brutus in 'Julius 
 Caesar,' nor young Hamlet in * Hamlet.' So 
 
526 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 Dennis argues : " The good and the bad 
 perishing promiscuously in the best of Shake- 
 spear's tragedies, there can be either none 
 or very weak instruction in them." In this 
 spirit Dennis himself sets to work to remodel 
 ' Coriolanus :' " Not only Aufidius, but the 
 Roman tribunes Sicinius and Brutus, appear 
 to me to cry aloud for poetic vengeance ; for 
 they are guilty of two faults, neither of 
 which ought to go unpunished." Dennis is 
 not only a mender of Shakspere's cata- 
 strophes, but he applies himself to make 
 Shakspere's verses all smooth and proper, 
 according to the rules of art. One example 
 will be sufficient. He was no common man 
 who attempted to reduce the following lines 
 to classical regularity : 
 
 " Boy ! False hound ! 
 
 If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there, 
 That, like an eagle in a dovecote, I 
 Flutter'd your Volsces in Corioli. 
 Alone I did it Boy ! " 
 
 John Dennis has accomplished the feat : 
 
 " This boy, that, like an eagle in a dovecote, 
 Flutter'd a thousand Volsces in Corioli, 
 And did it without second or acquittance, 
 Thus sends their mighty chief to mourn in 
 hell." 
 
 The alteration of 'The Tempest' by 
 Davenant and Dryden was, as we have men- 
 tioned, an attempt to meet the taste of the 
 town by music and spectacle. Shadwell 
 went farther, and turned it into a regular 
 opera ; and an opera it remained even in 
 Garrick's time, who tried his hand upon the 
 same experiment. Dennis was a reformer 
 both in comedy and tragedy. He metamor- 
 phosed 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' into 
 'The Comical Gallant,' and prefixed an 
 essay to it on the degeneracy of the taste 
 for poetry. Davenant changed 'Measure for 
 Measure ' into ' The Law against Lovers.' It 
 is difficult to understand how a clever man 
 and something of a poet should have set 
 about his work after this fashion. This is 
 Shakspere's Isabella : 
 
 " Could great men thunder 
 As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be 
 quiet, 
 
 For every pelting, petty officer 
 
 Would use his heaven for thunder : nothing 
 
 but thunder. 
 Merciful heaven ! 
 Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous 
 
 bolt, 
 
 Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, 
 Than the soft myrtle." 
 
 This is Davenant's : 
 
 " If men could thunder 
 As great Jove does, Jove ne'er would quiet 
 
 be; 
 
 For every choleric petty officer, 
 Would use his magazine in heaven for 
 
 thunder : 
 We nothing should but thunder hear. Sweet 
 
 Heaven ! 
 Thou rather with thy stiff and sulph'rous 
 
 bolt 
 
 Dost split the knotty and obdurate oak, 
 Than the soft myrtle." 
 
 'The Law against Lovers' was in prin- 
 ciple one of the worst of these alterations ; 
 for it was a hash of two plays of ' Measure 
 for Measure,' and of 'Much Ado about No- 
 thing.' This was indeed to destroy the or- 
 ganic life of the author. But it is one of 
 the manifestations of the vitality of Shak- 
 spere that, going about their alterations in 
 the regular way, according to the rules of 
 art, the most stupid and prosaic of his im- 
 provers have been unable to deprive the 
 natural man of his vigour, even by their 
 most violent depletions. His robustness was 
 too great even for the poetical doctors to 
 destroy it. Lord Lansdowne actually stripped 
 the flesh off Shy lock, but the anatomy 
 walked about vigorously for sixty years, till 
 Macklin put the muscles on again. Colley 
 Cibber turned 'King John' into 'Papal Ty- 
 ranny,' and the stage ' King John ' was made 
 to denounce the Pope and Guy Faux for a 
 century, till Mr. Macready gave us back 
 again the weak and crafty king in his ori- 
 ginal truth of character. Nahum Tate de- 
 posed the 'Richard II.' of Shakspere wholly 
 and irredeemably, turning him into 'The 
 Sicilian Usurper.' How Cibber manufac- 
 tured 'Richard III.' is known to all men. 
 Durfey melted down 'Cymbeline' with no 
 
CHAP. II.] ADD 
 
 slight portion of alloy. Tate remodelled 
 'Lear,' and such a 'Lear!' Davenant man- 
 gled 'Macbeth;' but we can hardly quarrel 
 with him for it, for he gave us the music of 
 Locke in company with his own verses. It 
 has been said, as a proof how little Shak- 
 spere was once read, that Davenant's altera- 
 tion is quoted in ' The Tatler ' instead of 
 the original. This is the reasoning of Stee- 
 vens ; but he has not the candour to tell us, 
 that in 'The Tatler,' No. Ill, there is a 
 quotation from ' Hamlet,' with the following 
 remarks : " This admirable author, as well 
 as the best and greatest men of all ages and 
 of all nations, seems to have had his mind 
 thoroughly seasoned with religion, as is 
 evident by many passages in his plays, that 
 would not be suffered by a modern audience." 
 Steevens infers, that Steele, or ADDISON, was 
 not a reader of Shakspere, because 'Macbeth' 
 is quoted from an acted edition ; and that, 
 therefore, Shakspere was not read generally. 
 If a hurried writer in a daily paper (as ' The 
 Tatler' was) were to quote from some acted 
 editions at the present day, he might fall 
 into the same error ; and yet he might be 
 an ardent student of Shakspere, in a nation 
 of enthusiastic admirers. The early Essayists 
 offer abundant iestimonies, indeed, of their 
 general admiration of the poet. In No. 68 
 of ' The Tatler,' he is " the great master 
 who ever commands our tears." In No. 160 
 of ' The Spectator ' Shakspere is put amongst 
 the first class of great geniuses, in company 
 with Homer ; and this paper contains a 
 remarkable instance of a juster taste than 
 one might expect from the author of ' Cato :' 
 " We are to consider that the rule of ob- 
 serving what the French call the bienseance 
 in an allusion has been found out of later 
 years, and in the colder regions of the world ; 
 where we could make some amends for our 
 want of force and spirit, by a scrupulous 
 nicety and exactness in our compositions."* 
 
 * Mr. De Quincey is certainly mistaken when he says, 
 that " Addison has never in one instance quoted or made 
 
 527 
 
 In 'The Spectator,' 419, amongst the pa- 
 pers on ' The Pleasures of the Imagination,' 
 Shakspere's delineations of supernatural 
 beings are thus mentioned : " Among the 
 English, Shakspeare has incomparably ex- 
 celled all others. That noble extravagance 
 of fancy, which he had in so great perfection, 
 thoroughly qualified him to touch this weak 
 superstitious part of his reader's imagina- 
 tion ; and made him capable of succeeding 
 where he had nothing to support him besides 
 the strength of his own genius. There is 
 something so wild, and yet so solemn, in the 
 speeches of his ghosts, fairies, witches, and 
 the like imaginary persons, that we cannot 
 forbear thinking them natural, though we 
 have no rule by which to judge of them ; 
 and must confess, if there are such beings 
 in the world, it looks highly probable they 
 should talk and act as he has represented 
 them." 
 
 We have again an instance of Addison's 
 good taste in his remarks upon the critical 
 notions of poetical justice, which he calls 
 " a ridiculous doctrine in modern criticism." 
 Of the best plays which end unhappily he 
 mentions 'Othello,' with others, and adds, 
 " 'King Lear' is an admirable tragedy of the 
 same kind, as Shakspeare wrote it ; but as 
 it is reformed, according to the chimerical 
 notion of poetical justice, in my humble 
 opinion it has lost half its beauty." All 
 this exhibits a better taste than we find in 
 Gildon and Dennis ; and it certainly is very 
 remarkable that Addison, who in his own 
 tragedy was laboriously correct, as it was 
 called, should have taken no occasion to 
 comment upon the irregularities of Shak- 
 spere. Mr. De Quincey says of Addison, 
 " The feeble constitution of the poetic faculty 
 as existing in himself forbad him sympa- 
 thising with Shakespear." The feebleness 
 of the poetic faculty makes the soundness of 
 the judgment more conspicuous. 
 
 any reference to Shakspear." No. 160 bears the signature 
 of C., and immediately follows 'The Vision of Mirza,' 
 bearing the same signature. 
 
528 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEBE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 EOWE. POPE. THEOBALD. HANMER. WARBURTOK 
 
 THE commencement of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury produced the first of the critical 
 editions of Shakspere. In 1709 appeared 
 ' Shakespeare's Plays Revised and Corrected, 
 with an Account of his Life and Writings, 
 by N. ROWE.' We should mention that the 
 third edition of Shakspere's Comedies, His- 
 tories, and Tragedies, in folio, appeared in 
 1664. It has been said that the greater 
 number of the copies of this edition were 
 destroyed in the fire of London ; and a 
 writer whom we must once more quote says, 
 " During a whole century, only four editions 
 of his complete works, and these small, were 
 published ; and there would only have been 
 three, but for the destructive Fire of London 
 in 1666."* The destruction by the fire is 
 just as much proved as the smallness of the 
 edition. One of our best bibliographers, Mr. 
 Lowndes, whose ' Bibliographer's Manual ' is 
 a model of accuracy, doubts the statement 
 of the destruction by the fire, "though it has 
 been frequently repeated." Upon the face of 
 it the statement is improbable. If it were a 
 good speculation to print the book two years 
 before the fire, and the stock so printed had 
 been destroyed in the fire, it would have 
 been an equally good speculation to have re- 
 printed it immediately after the fire; and yet 
 the fourth edition did not appear till 1685. 
 Some of the copies of the third edition bear 
 the date of 1663 ; and we have no doubt 
 that the book was then generally published ; 
 for Pepys, under the date of December 10th, 
 1663, has a curious bibliographical entry: 
 "To St. Paul's Churchyard, to my bookseller's, 
 and could not tell whether to lay out my 
 money for books of pleasure, as plays, which 
 my nature was most earnest in ; but at last, 
 after seeing Chaucer, Dugdale's ' History of 
 Paul's,' Stow's ' London,' Gesner, ' History 
 of Trent,' besides Shakespeare, Jonson, and 
 Beaumont's plays, I at last chose Dr. Fuller's 
 
 * Life of Shakespear in ' Lardner's Cyclopaedia.' 
 
 'Worthies,' 'The Cabbala, or Collections of 
 Letters of State,' and a little book, ' Delices 
 de Hollande,' with another little book or 
 two, all of good use or serious pleasure ; 
 and ' Hudibras,' both parts, the book now 
 in greatest fashion for drollery, though I 
 cannot, I confess, see enough where the wit 
 lies." These two folio editions supplied the 
 readers of Shakspere for more than forty 
 years, but we are not hence to conclude that 
 he was neglected. Of Ben Jonson during 
 the same period there was only one edi- 
 tion ; ,of Beaumont and Fletcher only one ; 
 of Spenser only one. Rowe's edition of 
 Shakspere, we doubt not, supplied a general 
 want. Its critical merits were but small. 
 The facts of the ' Life ' which he prefixes 
 have been sufficiently noticed by us in 
 another place. The opinions expressed in 
 that ' Life ' are few, and are put forth with 
 little pretension. As might be expected, they 
 fully admit the excellence of Shakspere, but 
 they somewhat fall into the besetting sin 
 of attempting to elevate his genius by de- 
 preciating his knowledge : " It is without 
 controversy that in his works we scarce find 
 any traces of anything that looks like an 
 imitation of the ancients. The delicacy of 
 his taste, and the natural bent of his own 
 great genius (equal, if not superior, to some 
 of the best of theirs), would certainly have 
 led him to read and study them with so 
 much pleasure that some of their fine images 
 would naturally have insinuated themselves 
 into, and been mixed with, his own writings; 
 so that his not copying at least something 
 from them may be an argument of his never 
 having read them. Whether his ignorance 
 of the ancients were a disadvantage to him 
 or no, may admit of a dispute : for, though 
 the knowledge of them might have made 
 him more correct, yet it is not improbable 
 but that the regularity and deference for 
 them, which would have attended that cor- 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 HOWE. POPE. 
 
 529 
 
 rectness, might have restrained some of that 
 fire, impetuosity, and even beautiful ex- 
 travagance, which we admire in Shakspere: 
 and I believe we are better pleased with 
 those thoughts, altogether new and uncom- 
 mon, which his own imagination supplied 
 him so abundantly with, than if he had 
 given us the most beautiful passages out of 
 the Greek and Latin poets, and that in the 
 most agreeable manner that it was possible 
 for a master of the English language to 
 deliver them." Rowe also falls into the 
 notion that Shakspere did not arrive at his 
 perfection by repeated experiment and as- 
 siduous labour, a theory which still has its 
 believers : " It would be without doubt a 
 pleasure to any man, curious in things of 
 this kind, to see and know what was the 
 first essay of a fancy like Shakspeare's. 
 Perhaps we are not to look for his be- 
 ginnings, like those of other authors, among 
 their least perfect writings ; art had so little 
 and nature so large a share in what he did, 
 that, for aught I know, the performances of 
 his youth, as they were the most vigorous, 
 and had the most fire and strength of ima- 
 gination in them, were the best. I would 
 not be thought by this to mean that his 
 fancy was so loose and extravagant as to 
 be independent on the rule and government 
 of judgment; but that what he thought was 
 commonly so great, so justly and rightly 
 conceived in itself, that it wanted little or 
 no correction, and was immediately approved 
 by an impartial judgment at the first sight." 
 He then enters into a brief criticism of some 
 of the leading plays. In speaking of ' The 
 Tempest,' he mentions the observation upon 
 the character of Caliban " which three very 
 great men concurred in making" telling us 
 in a note that these were Lord Falkland, 
 Lord Chief Justice Vaughan, and Mr. Selden 
 " That Shakspeare had not only found out 
 a new character in his Caliban, but had 
 also devised and adapted a new manner of 
 language for that character." Of Shakspere's 
 plays, with reference to their art, he thus 
 speaks : " If one undertook to examine the 
 greatest part of these by those rules which 
 are established by Aristotle and taken from 
 the model of the Grecian stage, it would 
 
 be no very hard task to find a great many 
 faults ; but, as Shakspeare lived under a 
 kind of mere light of nature, and had never 
 been made acquainted with the regularity of 
 those written precepts, so it would be hard 
 to judge him by a law he knew nothing of. 
 We are to consider him as a man that lived 
 in a state of almost universal licence and 
 ignorance : there was no established judge, 
 but every one took the liberty to write ac- 
 cording to the dictates of his own fancy. 
 When one considers that there is not one 
 play before him of a reputation good enough 
 to entitle it to an appearance on the pre- 
 sent stage, it cannot but be a matter of 
 great wonder that he should advance dra- 
 matic poetry so far as he did." A second 
 edition of Howe's ' Shakespeare ' appeared 
 in 1714. 
 
 In 1725 POPE produced his edition, magni- 
 ficent as far as printing went, in six volumes 
 quarto. Of its editorial merits we may say a 
 few words when we have to speak of Theobald. 
 His Preface is a masterly composition, con- 
 taining many just views elegantly expressed. 
 The criticism is neither profound nor original; 
 but there is a tone of quiet sense about it 
 which shows that Pope properly appreciated 
 Shakspere's general excellence. He believes, 
 in common with most of his time, that this ex- 
 cellence was attained by intuition, and that 
 the finest results were produced by felicitous 
 accidents : 
 
 " If ever any author deserved the name of 
 an original, it was Shakspeare. Homer him- 
 self drew not his art so immediately from 
 the fountains of nature; it proceeded through 
 Egyptian strainers and channels, and came to 
 him not without some tincture of the learn- 
 ing, 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 her- 
 self, that it is a sort of injury to call them 
 by so distant a name as copies of her. Those 
 of other poets have a constant resemblance, 
 which shows that they received them from 
 one another, and were but multipliers of 
 
 M ir 
 
630 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 the same image : each picture, like a mock- 
 rainbow, is but the reflection 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 affinity in any 
 respect appear most to be twins, will, upon 
 comparison, be found remarkably distinct. 
 To this life and variety of character we must 
 add the wonderful preservation of it ; which 
 is such throughout his plays, that, had all 
 the speeches been printed without the very 
 names of the persons, I believe one might 
 have applied them with certainty to every 
 speaker. 
 
 " The power over our passions was never 
 possessed in a more eminent degree, or dis- 
 played in so different instances. Yet all 
 along there is seen no labour, no pains to 
 raise them ; no preparation to guide or guess 
 to the effect, or be perceived to lead toward 
 it ; but the heart swells, and the tears burst 
 out, just at the proper places: we are sur- 
 prised the moment we weep ; and yet upon 
 reflection find the passion so just, that we 
 should be surprised if we had not wept, and 
 wept at that very moment. 
 
 " How astonishing it is again that the pas- 
 sions directly opposite to these, laughter and 
 spleen, are no less at his command ! That he 
 is not more a master of the great than of the 
 ridiculous in human nature; of our noblest 
 tendernesses, than of our vainest foibles ; of 
 our strongest emotions, than of our idlest 
 sensations ! 
 
 " Nor does he only excel in the passions ; 
 in the coolness of reflection and reasoning he 
 is full as admirable. His sentiments are not 
 only in general the most pertinent and ju- 
 dicious upon every subject; but, by a talent 
 very peculiar, something between penetration 
 and felicity, he hits upon that particular 
 point on which the bent of each argument 
 turns, or the force of each motive depends. 
 This is perfectly amazing from a man of no 
 education or experience in those great and 
 public scenes of life which are usually the 
 subject of his thoughts ; so that he seems to 
 have known the world by intuition, to have 
 looked through human nature at one glance, 
 and to be the only author that gives ground 
 
 for a very new opinion that the philosopher, 
 and even the man of the world, may be born 
 as well as the poet." 
 
 These are the excellences of Shakspere ; 
 but Pope holds that he has as great defects, 
 and he sets himself to excuse these by arguing 
 that it was necessary to please the populace. 
 He then proceeds : 
 
 " To judge, therefore, of Shakspeare by 
 Aristotle's rules, is like trying a man by the 
 laws of one country who acted under those of 
 another. He wrote to the people, and wrote at 
 first without patronage from the better sort, 
 and therefore without aims of pleasing them; 
 without assistance or advice from the learned, 
 as without the advantage of education or ac- 
 quaintance among them ; without that know- 
 ledge of the best models, the ancients, to in- 
 spire him with an emulation of them ; in a 
 word, without any views of reputation, and 
 of what poets are pleased to call immortality; 
 some or all of which have encouraged the 
 vanity, or animated the ambition, of other 
 writers. 
 
 " Yet it must be observed, that, when his 
 performances had merited the protection of 
 his prince, and when the encouragement of 
 the court had succeeded to that of the town, 
 the works of his riper years are manifestly 
 raised above those of his former. The dates 
 of his plays sufficiently evidence that his 
 productions improved in proportion to the 
 respect he had for his auditors. And I 
 make no doubt this observation would be 
 found true in every instance, were but edi- 
 tions extant from which we might learn the 
 exact time when every piece was composed, 
 and whether wrote for the town or the court. 
 
 " Another cause (and no less strong than 
 the former) may be deduced from our poet's 
 being a player, and forming himself first upon 
 the judgments of that body of men whereof 
 he was a member. They have ever had a 
 standard to themselves, upon other prin- 
 ciples than those of Aristotle. As they live 
 by the majority, they know no rule but that 
 of pleasing the present humour, and comply- 
 ing with the wit in fashion a consideration 
 which brings all their judgment to a short 
 point. Players are just such judges of what 
 is right as tailors are of what is graceful. 
 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 And in this view it will be but fair to allow 
 that most of our author's faults are less to 
 be ascribed to his wrong judgment as a poet 
 than to his right judgment as a player." 
 
 Of Shakspere's learning his editor thus 
 speaks : 
 
 "As to his want of learning it may be 
 necessary to say something more : there is 
 certainly a vast difference between learning 
 and languages. How far he was ignorant of 
 the latter I cannot determine ; but it is plain 
 he had much reading at least, if they will 
 not call it learning. Nor is it any great 
 matter, if a man has knowledge, whether he 
 has it from one language or from another. 
 Nothing is more evident than that he had a 
 taste of natural philosophy, mechanics, 
 ancient and modern history, poetical learning, 
 and mythology : we find him very knowing 
 in the customs, rites, and manners of an- 
 tiquity The manners of other 
 
 nations in general, the Egyptians, Venetians, 
 French, &c., are drawn with equal propriety. 
 Whatever object of nature or branch of 
 science he either speaks of or describes, it is 
 always with competent if not extensive 
 knowledge ; his descriptions are still exact ; 
 all his metaphors appropriated, and remark- 
 ably drawn from the true nature and inherent 
 qualities of each subject. When he treats 
 of ethic or politic, we may constantly observe 
 a wonderful justness of distinction as well as 
 extent of comprehension. No one is more a 
 master of the poetical story, or has more 
 frequent allusions to the various parts of it. 
 Mr. Waller (who has been celebrated for this 
 last particular) has not shown more learning 
 this way than Shakspeare 
 
 " I am inclined to think this opinion pro- 
 ceeded originally from the zeal of the parti- 
 zans of our author and Ben Jonson, as they 
 endeavoured to exalt the one at the expense 
 of the other. It is ever the nature of parties 
 to be in extremes ; and nothing is so probable 
 as that, because Ben Jonson had much the 
 more learning, it was said on the one hand 
 that Shakspeare had none at all ; and, because 
 Shakspeare had much the most wit and 
 fancy, it was retorted on the other that 
 Jonson wanted both. Because Shakspeare 
 borrowed nothing, it was said that Ben 
 
 POPE. 
 
 631 
 
 Jonson borrowed everything. Because Jonson 
 did not write extempore, he was reproached 
 with being a year about every piece ; and, 
 because Shakspeare wrote with ease and 
 rapidity, they cried, he never once made a 
 blot. Nay, the spirit of opposition ran so 
 high, that whatever those of the one side 
 objected to the other was taken at the 
 rebound, and turned into praises, as inju- 
 diciously as their antagonists before had 
 made them objections." 
 
 Much of Pope's Preface is then occupied 
 with illustrations of his opinion that Shak- 
 spere's works have come down to us defaced 
 with innumerable blunders and absurdities 
 which are not to be attributed to the author. 
 We cannot at all yield our consent' to this 
 opinion, which goes upon the assumption 
 that, whenever there is an obscure passage ; 
 whenever "mean conceits and ribaldries" 
 are found ; whenever " low scenes of mobs, 
 plebeians, and clowns " are very prominent ; 
 there the players have been at work ; and he 
 thus argues upon the assumption : " If we 
 give in to this opinion, how many low and 
 vicious parts and passages might no longer 
 reflect upon this great genius, but appear 
 unworthily charged upon him ! And, even 
 in those which are really his, how many 
 faults may have been unjustly laid to his 
 account from arbitrary additions, expunc- 
 tions, transpositions of scenes and lines, 
 confusion of characters and persons, wrong 
 application of speeches, corruptions of in- 
 numerable passages by the ignorance, and 
 wrong corrections of them again by the 
 impertinence, of his first editors ! From one 
 or other of these considerations I am verily 
 persuaded that the greatest and the grossest 
 part of what are thought his errors would 
 vanish, and leave his character in a light 
 very different from that disadvantageous one 
 in which it now appears to us." There is a 
 larger question even than this that Pope 
 propounds. Are these parts and passages 
 low and vicious 1 Have we these corruptions 
 and imperfections ? We believe not. Pope 
 accepted Shakspere in the spirit of his time, 
 and that was not favourable to the proper 
 understanding of him. His concluding ob- 
 servations are characteristic of his critical 
 
 M M 2 
 
532 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 power : "I will conclude by saying of 
 Shakspeare, that, with all his faults, and with 
 all the irregularity of his drama, one may 
 look upon his works, in comparison of those 
 that are more finished and regular, as upon 
 an ancient majestic piece of Gothic archi- 
 tecture compared with a neat modern build- 
 ing ; the latter is more elegant and glaring, 
 but the former is more strong and more 
 solemn. It must be allowed that in one of 
 these there are materials enough to make 
 many of the other. It has much the greater 
 variety, and much the nobler apartments ; 
 though we are often conducted to them by 
 dark, odd, and uncouth passages. Nor does 
 the whole fail to strike us with greater 
 reverence, though many of the parts are 
 childish, ill-placed, and unequal to its 
 grandeur." 
 
 In 1726 LEWIS THEOBALD published a tract 
 entitled ( Shakespear Restored, or Specimens 
 of Blunders Committed and Unamended in 
 Pope's Edition of this Poet.' In Pope's second 
 edition of Shakspere, which appeared in 
 1728, was inserted this contemptuous notice: 
 " Since the publication of our first edition, 
 there having been some attempts upon 
 Shakspeare published by Lewis Theobald 
 (which he would not communicate during 
 the time wherein that edition was preparing 
 for the press, when we, by public advertise- 
 ments, did request the assistance of all lovers 
 of this author), we have inserted, in this 
 impression, as many of 'em as are judged of 
 any the least advantage to the poet ; the 
 whole amounting to about twenty-five words." 
 In the same year came out ' The Dunciad,' 
 of which Theobald was the hero : 
 
 " High on a gorgeous seat that far outshone 
 Henley's gilt tub, or Flecknoe's Irish throne, 
 Great Tibbald nods." 
 
 In a few years Theobald was deposed from 
 this throne, and there, then, " Great Gibber 
 sate." The facility with which Theobald 
 was transformed to Gibber is one of the many 
 proofs that Pope threw his darts and dirt 
 about him at random. But Theobald took a 
 just revenge. In 1733 he produced an 
 edition of Shakspere, in seven volumes octavo, 
 which annihilated Pope's quartos and duo- 
 
 decimos. The title-page of Theobald's Shak- 
 spere bore that it was 'collated with the 
 oldest copies, and corrected, with Notes.' 
 Pope's edition was not again reprinted in 
 London ; but of Theobald's there have been 
 many subsequent editions, and Steevens as- 
 serts that of his first edition thirteen thousand 
 copies were sold. Looking at the advantage 
 which Pope possessed in the pre-eminence of 
 his literary reputation, the preference which 
 was so decidedly given to Theobald's editions 
 is a proof that the public thought for them- 
 selves in the matter of Shakspere. Pope was 
 not fitted for the more laborious duties of an 
 editor. He collated, indeed, the early copies, 
 but he set about the emendation of the text 
 in a manner so entirely arbitrary, suppressing 
 passage after passage upon the principle that 
 the players had been at work here, and 
 a blundering transcriber there, that no reader 
 of Shakspere could rely upon the integrity 
 of Pope's version. Theobald states the con- 
 trary mode in which he proceeded : 
 
 " Wherever the author's sense is clear 
 and discoverable (though, perchance, low 
 and trivial), I have not by any innovation 
 tampered with his text, out of an ostentation 
 of endeavouring to make him speak better 
 than the old copies have done. 
 
 " Where, through all the former editions, 
 a passage has laboured under flat nonsense 
 and invincible darkness, if, by the addition 
 or alteration of a letter or two, or a trans- 
 position in the pointing, I have restored to 
 him both sense and sentiment, such cor- 
 rections, I am persuaded, will need no 
 indulgence. 
 
 "And whenever I have taken a greater 
 latitude and liberty in amending, I have 
 constantly endeavoured to support my cor- 
 rections and conjectures by parallel passages 
 and authorities from himself, the surest means 
 of expounding any author whatsoever." 
 
 Dr. Johnson accurately enougn describes 
 the causes and consequences of Pope's 
 failure : " Confidence is the common con- 
 sequence of success. They whose excellence 
 of any kind has been loudly celebrated are 
 ready to conclude that their powers are 
 universal. Pope's edition fell below his own 
 expectations, and he was so much offended, 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 THEOBALD. HANMER. 
 
 533 
 
 when he was found to have left anything for 
 others to do, that he passed the latter part 
 of his life in a state of hostility with verbal 
 criticism." But Johnson does not exhibit 
 his usual good sense and knowledge of man- 
 kind when he attributes Theobald's success 
 to the world's compassion. He calls him 
 weak and ignorant, mean and faithless, 
 petulant and ostentatious ; but he affirms 
 that this editor, " by the good luck of having 
 Pope for his enemy, has escaped, and escaped 
 alone, with reputation, from this undertaking. 
 So willingly does the world support those 
 who solicit favour against those who command 
 reverence ; and so easily is he praised whom 
 no man can envy." This is mere fine 
 writing. The real secret of Theobald's 
 success is stated by Johnson himself: 
 " Pope was succeeded by Theobald, a man of 
 narrow comprehension and small acquisitions, 
 with no native and intrinsic splendour of 
 genius, with little of the artificial light of 
 learning, but zealous for minute accuracy, 
 and not negligent in pursuing it. He collated 
 the ancient copies, and rectified many errors. 
 A man so anxiously scrupulous might have 
 been expected to do more, but what little he 
 did was commonly right." It was because 
 Theobald was "anxiously scrupulous," be- 
 cause he did not attempt "to do more" than 
 an editor ought to do, that he had the public 
 support. Nearly every succeeding editor, in 
 his scorn of Theobald, his confidence in 
 himself, and, what was the most influential, 
 his want of reverence for his author, en- 
 deavoured to make Shakspere " speak better 
 than the old copies have done." Each for 
 a while had his applause, but it was not a 
 lasting fame. 
 
 There is little in Theobald's Preface to 
 mark the progress of opinion on the writings 
 of Shakspere. Some parts of this Preface 
 are held to. have been written by Warburton ; 
 but, if so, his arrogance must have been greatly 
 modified by Theobald's judgment. There is 
 not much general remark upon the character 
 of the poet's writings ; but what we find is 
 sensibly conceived and not inelegantly ex- 
 pressed. We shall content ourselves with 
 extracting one passage: "In how many 
 points of sight must we be obliged to gaze at 
 
 this great poet ! In how many branches of 
 excellence to consider and admire him ! 
 Whether we view him on the side of art or 
 nature, he ought equally to engage our 
 attention : whether we respect the force and 
 greatness of his genius, the extent of his 
 knowledge and reading, the power and 
 address with which he throws out and applies 
 either nature or learning, there is ample 
 scope both for our wonder and pleasure. If 
 his diction and the clothing of his thoughts 
 attract us, how much more must we be 
 charmed with the richness and variety of his 
 images and ideas ! If his images and ideas 
 steal into our souls and strike upon our 
 fancy, how much are they improved. in price 
 when we come to reflect with what propriety 
 and justness they are applied to character ! 
 If we look into his characters, and how they 
 are furnished and proportioned to the em- 
 ployment he cuts out for them, how are we 
 taken up with the mastery of his portraits ! 
 What draughts of nature ! What variety 
 of originals, and how differing each from the 
 other ! " 
 
 Undeterred by the failure of Pope in his 
 slashing amputations, Sir THOMAS HANMER 
 appeared, in 1744, with a splendid edition in 
 six volumes quarto, printed at the Oxford 
 University Press. Nothing can be more 
 satisfactory than the paper and the type. 
 The work was intended as a monument to 
 the memory of Shakspere ; one of the modes 
 in which the national homage was to be 
 expressed: "As a fresh acknowledgment 
 hath lately been paid to his merit, and a 
 high regard to his name and memory, by 
 erecting his statue at a public expense ; so 
 it is desired that this new edition of his 
 works, which hath cost some attention and 
 care, may be looked upon as another small 
 monument designed and dedicated to his 
 honour." Capell, who came next as an 
 editor, says truly of Hanmer that he " pur- 
 sues a track in which it is greatly to be 
 hoped he. will never be followed in the 
 publication of any authors whatsoever, for 
 this were in effect to annihilate them if 
 carried a little further." Collins's < Epistle 
 to Sir Thomas Hanmer on his Edition of 
 Shakspeare's Works' is an elegant though 
 
534 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 not very vigorous attempt to express the 
 universal admiration that the people of 
 England felt for the great national poet. 
 The verse-homage to Shakspere after the 
 days of Milton had no very original character. 
 The cuckoo-note with which these warblers 
 generally interspersed their varied lays was 
 the echo of Milton's "wood-notes wild," 
 which they did not perceive had a limited 
 application to some particular play As You 
 Like It, for instance. In Howe's prologue to 
 ' Jane Shore' we have, 
 
 " In such an age immortal Shakspeare wrote, 
 By no quaint rules nor hamp'ring critics 
 
 taught; 
 
 With rough majestic force he mov'd the heart, 
 And strength and nature made amends for 
 
 art." 
 
 Thomson asks 
 
 " For lofty sense, 
 
 Creative fancy, and inspection keen 
 Through the deep windings of the human 
 
 heart, 
 
 Is not wild Shakspeare thine and nature's 
 boast?" 
 
 T. Seward, addressing Stratford, says, 
 " Thy bard was thine unschool'd." 
 
 Collins's Epistle begins thus, speaking of the 
 works of Shakspere : 
 
 " Hard was the lot those injur'd strains endur'd, 
 Unown'd by science." 
 
 But Collins, in many respects a true poet, 
 has a higher inspiration in his invocations of 
 the great master of the drama than most of 
 his fellows : 
 
 " more than all in powerful genius bless'd, 
 Come, take thine empire o'er the willing 
 
 breast ! 
 Whate'er the wounds this youthful heart shall 
 
 feel, 
 
 Thy songs support me, and thy morals heal. 
 There every thought the poet's warmth may 
 
 There native music dwells in all the lays." 
 
 To Hanmer succeeded WARBURTON, with a 
 new edition of Pope, enriched with his own 
 most original notes. If it were not painful to 
 associate Shakspere, the great master of 
 
 practical wisdom, with a critic who delights 
 in the most extravagant paradoxes, we might 
 prefer the amusement of Warburton's edition 
 to toiling through the heaps of verbal 
 criticism which later years saw heaped up. 
 Warburton, of course, belonged to the school 
 of slashing emendators. The opening of his 
 preface tells us what we are to expect from 
 him : 
 
 "It hath been no unusual thing for 
 writers, when dissatisfied with the patronage 
 or judgment of their own times, to appeal to 
 posterity for a fair hearing. Some have even 
 thought fit to apply to it in the first instance, 
 and to decline acquaintance with the public 
 till envy and prejudice had quite subsided. 
 But, of all the trusters to futurity, commend 
 me to the author of the following poems, who 
 not only left it to time to do him justice as 
 it would, but to find him out as it could : 
 for, what between too great attention to his 
 profit as a player, and too little to his repu- 
 tation as a poet, his works, left to the care of 
 door-keepers and prompters, hardly escaped 
 the common fate of those writings, how good 
 soever, which are abandoned to their own 
 fortune, and unprotected by party or cabal. 
 At length, indeed, they struggled into light ; 
 but so disguised and travestied, that no 
 classic author, after having run ten secular 
 stages through the blind cloisters of monks 
 and canons, ever came out in half so maimed 
 and mangled a condition." 
 
 There is little in Warburton's preface 
 which possesses any lasting interest, perhaps 
 with the exception of his defence against the 
 charge that editing Shakspere was unsuitable 
 to his clerical profession : 
 
 "The great Saint Chrysostom, a name 
 consecrated to immortality by his virtue and 
 eloquence, is known to have been so fond of 
 Aristophanes as to wake with him at his 
 studies, and to sleep with him under his 
 pillow ; and I never heard that this was 
 objected either to his piety or his preaching, 
 not even in those times of pure zeal and 
 primitive religion. Yet, in respect of Shak- 
 speare's great sense, Aristophanes's best wit 
 is but buffoonery ; and, in comparison of Aris- 
 tophanes's freedoms, Shakspeare writes with 
 the purity of a vestal. ... Of all the literary 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 535 
 
 exercitations of speculative men, whether 
 designed for the use or entertainment of 
 the world, there are none of so much im- 
 portance, or what are more our immediate 
 concern, than those which let us into the 
 knowledge of our nature. Others may ex- 
 ercise the reason, or amuse the imagination ; 
 but these only can improve the heart, and 
 form the human mind to wisdom. Now, in 
 this science our Shakspeare is confessed to 
 occupy the foremost place, whether we con- 
 sider the amazing sagacity with which he 
 investigates every hidden spring and wheel 
 of human action, or his happy manner of 
 communicating this knowledge, in the just 
 and living paintings which he has given us 
 
 of all our passions, appetites, and pursuits. 
 These afford a lesson which can never be too 
 often repeated, or too constantly inculcated ; 
 and to engage the reader's due attention to 
 it hath been one of the principal objects of 
 this edition. 
 
 "As this science (whatever profound phi- 
 losophers may think) is, to the rest, in things, 
 so, in words (whatever supercilious pedants 
 may talk), every one's mother-tongue is to 
 all other languages. This hath still been the 
 sentiment of nature and true wisdom. Hence, 
 the greatest men of antiquity never thought 
 themselves better employed than in cul- 
 tivating their own country idiom." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 JOHNSON. YOLTAIRE. MRS. MONTAGU. MARTIN SHERLOCK. HUME. 
 
 IT was in the year 1741 that David Garrick 
 at once leaped into eminence as an actor, 
 such as had not been won by any man for 
 half a century. He was the true successor 
 of Burbage, Betterton, and Harris. His 
 principal fame was, however, like theirs, 
 founded upon Shakspere. But it is a mistake 
 to imagine that there had not been a constant 
 succession of actors of Shakspere's great 
 characters, from the death of Betterton to 
 Garrick's appearance. His first character in 
 London was Richard III. He made all the 
 great parts of Shakspere familiar to the play- 
 going public for fi ve-and-thirty years. ' The 
 Alchymist' and the ' Volpone' of Ben Jonson 
 were sometimes played ; ' The Chances,' and 
 * Rule a Wife and Have a Wife,' of Beaumont 
 and Fletcher; but we are told by Davies, in 
 his l Dramatic Miscellanies,' that, of their 
 fifty-four plays, only these two preserved 
 their rank on the stage. This is a pretty 
 convincing proof of what the public opinion 
 of Shakspere was in the middle of the last 
 century. The Prologue of Samuel Johnson, 
 spoken by Garrick at the opening of Drury- 
 lane Theatre in 1747, is an eloquent expres- 
 sion of the same opinion : 
 
 '' When Learning's triumph o'er her barbarous 
 
 foes 
 First rear'd the stage, immortal Shakspeare 
 
 .rose ; 
 
 Each change of many-colour'd life he drew, 
 Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new : 
 Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, 
 And panting Time toil'd after him in vain. 
 His powerful strokes presiding truth im- 
 
 press'd, 
 And unresisted passion storm'd the breast. 
 
 "'Then Jonson came, instructed from the 
 
 school 
 
 To please in method, and invent by rule ; 
 His studious patience and laborious art 
 By regular approach essay'd the heart ; 
 Cold approbation gave the lingering bays ; 
 For those who durst not censure scarce could 
 
 praise. 
 
 A mortal born, he met the gen'ral doom, 
 But left, like Egypt's kings, a lasting tomb. 
 
 " The wits of Charles found easier ways to 
 
 fame, 
 Nor wish'd for Jonson's art, or Shakspeare's 
 
 fame. 
 Themselves they studied; as they felt, they 
 
 writ : 
 Intrigue was plot, obscenity was wit. 
 
536 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPEEE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 Vice always found a sympathetic friend ; 
 
 They pleas'd their age, and did not aim to 
 mend. 
 
 Yet bards like these aspir'd to lasting praise, 
 
 And proudly hop'd to pimp in future days. 
 
 Their cause was gen'ral, their supports were 
 strong ; 
 
 Their slaves were willing, and their reign was 
 long: 
 
 Till Shame regain'd the post that Sense be- 
 tray'd, 
 
 And Virtue call'd Oblivion to her aid. 
 "Then, crush'd by rules, and weaken'd as 
 refin'd, 
 
 For years the pow*r of Tragedy declin'd ; 
 
 From bard to bard the frigid caution crept, 
 
 Till declamation roar'd whilst passion slept ; 
 
 Yet still did Virtue deign the stage to tread, 
 
 Philosophy remain'd though Nature fled. 
 
 But forc'd, at length, her ancient reign to quit, 
 
 She saw great Faustus lay the ghost of "Wit ; 
 
 Exulting Folly hail'd the joyous day, 
 
 And pantomime and song confirm'd her sway." 
 It is tolerably evident, from the whole tenour 
 of this celebrated prologue, that of the early 
 dramatists Shakspere reigned upon the stage 
 supreme, if not almost alone. It has been 
 the fault of actors, and the flatterers of 
 actors, to believe that a dramatic poet is 
 only known to the world through their lips. 
 Garrick was held to have given life to Shak- 
 spere. The following inscription on Garrick's 
 tomb in Westminster Abbey has been truly 
 held by Charles Lamb to be " a farrago of 
 false thoughts and nonsense : " 
 
 ** To paint fair Nature, by divine command, 
 Her magic pencil in her glowing hand, 
 A Shakspeare rose ; then, to expand his fame 
 Wide o'er this breathing world, a Garrick 
 
 came. 
 Though sunk to death the forms the Poet 
 
 drew, 
 
 The Actor's genius bade them breathe anew ; 
 Though, like the bard himself, in night they 
 
 lay, 
 
 Immortal Garrick call'd them back to day : 
 And till Eternity with power sublime 
 Shall mark the mortal hour of hoary Time, 
 Shakspeare and Garrick like twin stars shall 
 
 shine, 
 And earth irradiate with a beam divine." 
 
 Up to the end of the first half of the 
 
 eighteenth century, when, according to the 
 epitaph, the poet's forms were sunk in death 
 and lay in night, there had been thirteen 
 editions of Shakspere's collected works, nine 
 of which had appeared during the preceding 
 forty years. Of Ben Jonson there had been 
 three editions in the seventeenth century, 
 and one in the eighteenth ; of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher two in the seventeenth century, and 
 one in the eighteenth. Yet, absurd and 
 impertinent as it may be to talk of immortal 
 Garrick calling the plays of Shakspere back 
 to day, it cannot be denied that the very 
 power of those plays to create a school of 
 great actors was in itself a cause of their 
 extension amongst readers. The most mon- 
 strous alterations, perpetrated with the worst 
 taste, and with the most essential ignorance 
 of Shakspere's art, were still in some sort 
 tributes to his power. The actors sent many 
 to read Shakspere with a true delight ; and 
 then it was felt how little he needed the 
 aid of acting, and how much indeed of his 
 highest excellence could only be received 
 into the mind by reverent meditation. 
 
 In 1765 appeared, in eight volumes octavo, 
 ' The Plays of William Shakspeare, with the 
 Corrections and Illustrations of various Com- 
 mentators : to which are added Notes by 
 Samuel JOHNSON.' This was the foundation 
 of the variorum editions, the principle of 
 which has been to select from all the com- 
 mentary, or nearly all, that has been pro- 
 duced, every opinion upon a passage, however 
 conflicting. The respective value of the 
 critics who had preceded him are fully 
 discussed by Johnson in the latter part of 
 his Preface : this branch of the subject 
 was only of temporary interest. But the 
 larger portion of Johnson's Preface not only 
 to a certain extent represented the tone of 
 opinion in Johnson's age, but was written with 
 so much pomp of diction, with such apparent 
 candour, and with such abundant manifesta- 
 tions of good sense, that, perhaps more than 
 any other production, it has influenced the 
 public opinion of Shakspere up to this day. 
 That the influence has been, for the most 
 part, evil, we have no hesitation in believing. 
 This celebrated Preface is accessible to most 
 readers of Shakspere. 
 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 537 
 
 It was observed by Warburton, in 1747, 
 that the fit criticism for Shakspere was not 
 such " as may be raised mechanically on the 
 rules which Dacier, Rapin, and Bossu have 
 collected from antiquity : and of which such 
 kind of writers as Rymer, Gildon, Dennis, 
 and Oldmixon, have only gathered and 
 chewed the husks." But he goes on to infer 
 that "crude and superficial judgments on 
 books and things" had taken the place of 
 the older mechanical criticism ; and that 
 there was "a deluge of the worst sort of 
 critical jargon that which looks most like 
 sense." The rules of art, as they were called, 
 having been rejected as inapplicable to 
 Shakspere, a swarm of writers arose who 
 considered that he was to be judged without 
 the application of any general principles at 
 all. They held that he wrote without a 
 system ; that the absence of this system 
 produced his excellences and his faults ; 
 that his absurdities were as striking as his 
 beauties ; that he was the most careless and 
 hasty of writers ; and that therefore it was 
 the business of all grave and discreet critics 
 to warn the unenlightened multitude against 
 his blunders, his contradictions, his viola- 
 tions of sense and decency. This was the 
 critical school of individual judgment, which 
 has lasted for more than a century amongst 
 us ; and which, to our minds, is a far more 
 corrupting thing than the pedantries of all 
 the Gildons and Dennises who have eat paper 
 and drunk ink. Before the publication of 
 Johnson's preface (which, being of a higher 
 order of composition than what had pre- 
 viously been produced upon Shakspere, 
 seemed to establish fixed rules for opinion), 
 the impertinences which were poured out 
 by the feeblest minds upon Shakspere's 
 merits and demerits surpass all ordinary 
 belief. Mrs. Charlotte Lennox, in whose 
 'Shakespear Illustrated' Johnson himself 
 is reputed to have had some hand, is an 
 average specimen of the insolence of that 
 critical jargon " which looks most like 
 sense." Mrs. Lennox was evidently a very 
 small-minded person attempting to form a 
 judgment upon a very high subject. But it 
 was not only the small minds which uttered 
 such babble in the last century. Samuel 
 
 Johnson himself, in some of his critical 
 opinions upon individual plays, is not very 
 far above the good lady whom he patronized. 
 What shall we think of the prosaic appro- 
 bation of 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream ?' 
 " Wild and fantastical as this play is, all the 
 parts in their various modes are well written." 
 What of his praise of 'Romeo and Juliet 
 " His comic scenes are happily wrought, but 
 his pathetic strains are always polluted with 
 some unexpected depravations." What of 
 the imputed omissions in 'As You Like It ?' 
 " By hastening to the end of this work Shak- 
 speare suppressed the dialogue between the 
 usurper and the hermit, and lost an oppor- 
 tunity of exhibiting a moral lesson in which 
 he might have found matter worthy of his 
 highest powers." What of the pompous see- 
 sawing about ' Macbeth ? ' " It has no nice 
 
 discriminations of character The 
 
 danger of ambition is well described 
 
 The passions are directed to the true end. 
 Lady Macbeth is merely detested ; and, 
 though the courage of Macbeth preserves 
 some esteem, yet every reader rejoices at his 
 fall." What, lastly, shall we say to the 
 bow-wow about ' Cymbeline 1 ' " To remark 
 the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the 
 conduct, the confusion of the names and 
 manners of different times, and the im- 
 possibility of the events in any system of 
 life, were to waste criticism upon unresisting 
 imbecility upon faults too evident for de- 
 tection, and too gross for aggravation." All 
 that we can in truth say of these startling 
 things is this that this learned, sensible, 
 sometimes profound, and really great man, 
 having trampled upon the unities and other 
 tests of poetical merit, the fashion of Dry- 
 den's age but not of his own, is perpetually 
 groping about in the mists of his private 
 judgment, now pursuing a glimmering of 
 light, now involved in outer darkness. This 
 system of criticism upon Shakspere was 
 rotten to the foundation. It was based upon 
 an extension and a misapplication of Ben 
 Jonson's dogmatic assertion "He wanted 
 art." The art of Shakspere was not revealed 
 to the critics of the last century. Let us 
 hear one to whom the principles of this art 
 were revealed : " It is a painful truth, that 
 
538 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 not only individuals, but even whole nations, 
 are ofttimes so enslaved to the habits of 
 their education and immediate circumstances, 
 as not to judge disinterestedly even on those 
 subjects the very pleasure arising from which 
 consists in its disinterestedness, namely, on 
 subjects of taste and polite literature. In- 
 stead of deciding concerning their own modes 
 and customs by any rule of reason, nothing 
 appears rational, becoming, or beautiful to 
 them but what coincides with the peculiari- 
 ties of their education. In this narrow 
 circle individuals may attain to exquisite 
 discrimination, as the French critics have 
 done in their own literature ; but a true 
 critic can no more be such, without placing 
 himself on some central point, from which 
 he may command the whole, that is, some 
 general rule, which, founded in reason, or 
 the faculties common to all men, must there- 
 fore apply to each, than an astronomer can 
 explain the movements of the solar system 
 without taking his stand in the sun."* 
 
 Samuel Johnson proposes to inquire, in 
 his preface, " by what peculiarities of ex- 
 cellence Shakspeare has gained and kept 
 the favour of his countrymen." He answers 
 the question at considerable length, by dis- 
 playing what he holds to be the great pecu- 
 liarity of his excellence : " Shakspeare is, 
 above all writers, at least above all modern 
 writers, the poet of nature ; the poet that 
 holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of 
 
 manners and of life This, therefore, 
 
 is the praise of Shakspeare that his drama 
 is the mirror of life." Such is the leading 
 idea of the critic. He sees nothing higher 
 in Shakspere than an exhibition of the real. 
 " He who has mazed his imagination in fol- 
 lowing the phantoms which other writers 
 raise up before him may here be cured of his 
 delirious ecstacies, by reading human senti- 
 ments in human language ; by scenes from 
 which a hermit may estimate the transac- 
 tions of the world, and a confessor predict 
 the progress of the passions." When John- 
 son is unable to trace this actual picture of 
 life in Shakspere, when he perceives any 
 deviations from the regular " transactions of 
 the world," or the due " progress of the pas- 
 
 * Coleridge's ' Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 63. 
 
 sions," then he is bewildered ; and he gene- 
 rally ends in blaming his author. The cha- 
 racteristic excellence, he says, of the tragedy 
 of 'Hamlet,' is " variety." According to his 
 notion that in all Shakspere's dramas we 
 find " an interchange of seriousness and 
 merriment, by which the mind is softened at 
 one time and exhilarated at another," he 
 holds, that " the pretended madness of Ham- 
 let causes much mirth." But, in the con- 
 duct of the plot, the business of life and 
 the course of the passions do not proceed 
 with the regularity which he desires : " Of 
 the feigned madness of Hamlet there appears 
 
 no adequate cause Hamlet is, through 
 
 the whole piece, rather an instrument than 
 an agent. After he has by the stratagem of 
 the play convicted the king, he makes no 
 attempt to punish him The cata- 
 strophe is not very happily produced." 
 Where is the mistake in all this ? It is in 
 taking a very limited view of the object and 
 scope of Art. " It is its object and aim to 
 bring within the circle of our senses, per- 
 ceptions, and emotions, everything which 
 has existence in the mind of man. Art 
 should realize in us the well-known saying, 
 Nihil humani a me alienum puto. Its ap- 
 pointed aim is to awake and give vitality to 
 all slumbering feelings, affections, and pas- 
 sions ; to fill and expand the heart ; and to 
 make man, whether developed or unde- 
 veloped, feel in every fibre of his being all 
 $hat human nature can endure, experience, 
 and bring forth in her innermost and most 
 secret recesses all that has power to move 
 and arouse the heart of man in its pro- 
 foundest depths, manifold capabilities, and 
 various phases ; to garner up for our enjoy- 
 ment whatever, in the exercise of thought 
 and imagination, the mind discovers of high 
 and intrinsic merit, the grandeur of the 
 lofty, the eternal, and the true, and present 
 it to our feeling and contemplation. In like 
 manner, to make pain and sorrow, and even 
 vice and wrong, become clear to us ; to bring 
 the heart into immediate acquaintance with 
 the awful and the terrible, as well as with 
 the joyous and pleasurable ; and, lastly, to 
 lead the fancy to hover gently, dreamily, on 
 the wing of imagination, and entice her to 
 
CHAP. IV.] JOI 
 
 revel in the seductive witchery of its volup- 
 tuous emotion and contemplation. Art 
 should employ this manifold richness of its 
 subject-matter to supply on the .one hand 
 the deficiencies of our actual experience of 
 external life, and on the other hand to excite 
 in us those passions which shall cause the 
 actual events of life to move us more deeply 
 and awaken our susceptibility for receiving 
 impressions of all kinds."* 
 
 This is something higher than Johnson's 
 notion of Shakspere's art higher as that 
 notion was than the mechanical criticism of 
 the age which preceded him. But the in- 
 consistencies into which the critic is betrayed 
 show the narrowness and weakness of his 
 foundations. The drama of Shakspere is 
 " a mirror of life ;" and yet, according to 
 the critic, it is the great sin of Shakspere 
 that he is perpetually violating "poetical 
 justice." Thus Johnson says in the preface. 
 " He makes no just distribution of good or 
 evil, nor is always careful to show in the 
 virtuous a disapprobation of the wicked ; he 
 carries his persons indifferently through right 
 and wrong, and at the close dismisses them 
 without further care, and leaves their ex- 
 amples to operate by chance." Johnson 
 could not have avoided seeing that, if Shak- 
 spere had not carried his persons "indiffer- 
 ently though right and wrong," he would 
 not have exhibited " the real state of sub- 
 lunary nature." But there was something 
 much higher that Shakspere would not then 
 have done. Had he gone upon the principle 
 of teaching an impracticable and therefore 
 an unnatural theory of rewards and punish- 
 ments in human affairs, if he had not in- 
 tended that " his precepts and axioms" should 
 " drop casually from him," he would have 
 lost his supereminent power of gradually 
 raising the mind into a comprehension of 
 what belongs to the spiritual part of our 
 nature ; of exciting a deep sympathy with 
 strong emotion and lofty passion ; of pro- 
 ducing an expansion of the heart, which 
 embraces all the manifestations of human 
 goodness and human sorrow ; and, what is 
 
 * We quote this from a very able article in the ' British 
 and Foreign Review,' on Hegel's ' JEsthetics. ' The passage 
 ii Hegel's. 
 
 539 
 
 more, which penetrates into the abysses of 
 guilt and degradation, and shows that there 
 is no true peace, and no real resting-place, 
 for what separates us from our fellow men 
 and from our God. This is not to be effected 
 by didactic precepts not dropped casually; 
 by false representations of the course of 
 worldly affairs and the workings of man's 
 secret heart. The mind comprehends the 
 whole truth, when it is elevated by the art 
 of the poet into a fit state for its compre- 
 hension. The whole moral purpose is then 
 evolved, through a series of deductions in 
 the mind of him who is thus moved. This 
 is the highest logic, because it is based upon 
 the broadest premises. Rymer sneers at 
 Shakspere when he says that the moral of 
 'Othello' is, that maidens of quality should 
 not run away with blackamoors. The sar- 
 casm only tells upon those who demand any 
 literal moral in a high work of art. 
 
 Because Johnson only saw in Shakspere's 
 dramas " a mirror of life," he prefers his 
 comedy to his tragedy. " His tragedy seems 
 to be skill, his comedy to be instinct." When 
 the poet is working with grander materials 
 than belong to the familiar scenes of life, 
 however natural and universal, the critic 
 does not see that the region of literal things 
 is necessarily abandoned that skill must 
 be more manifest in its effects. We are then 
 in a world of higher reality than every-day 
 reality. "In tragedy he often writes with 
 great appearance of toil and study what is 
 written at last with little felicity." This 
 now strikes the most superficial student of 
 Shakspere as monstrous. We open ' Irene,' 
 and we understand it. " He omits oppor- 
 tunities of instructing or delighting which 
 the train of his story seems to force upon 
 him, and apparently rejects those exhibitions 
 which would be more affecting for the sake 
 of those which are more easy." It is a great 
 privilege of the art of Shakspere, that in 
 his most tragical scenes he never takes us 
 out of the region of pleasurable emotions. 
 It was his higher art, as compared with the 
 lower art of Otway. He does reject " those 
 exhibitions which would be more affecting," 
 but not "for the sake of those which are 
 more easy." Let any one try which is the 
 
540 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 more easy, " to touch a soul to the quick, to 
 lay upon fear as much as it can bear, to 
 wean and weary a life till it is ready to 
 drop," as Charles Lamb describes the tragic 
 art of Webster ; or to make a Desdemona, 
 amidst the indignities which are heaped 
 upon her, and the fears which subdue her 
 soul, move tranquilly in an atmosphere of 
 poetical beauty, thinking of the maid that 
 
 " had a song of willow ; 
 An old thing 'twas, but it express'd her for- 
 tune, 
 And she died singing it." 
 
 It is a rude conception which Johnson has of 
 Shakspere's art, when he says of the play of 
 'Hamlet,' "The scenes are interchangeably di- 
 versified with merriment and solemnity 
 
 The pretended madness of Hamlet causes 
 much mirth; the mournful distraction of 
 Ophelia fills the heart with tenderness ; and 
 every personage produces the effect intended." 
 True. But it was no intended effect of the 
 madness of Hamlet to cause " much mirth." 
 Every word that Hamlet utters has some- 
 thing in it which sounds the depths of our 
 intellectual being, because every word is 
 consistent with his own character, which, 
 of all poetical creations, sends us most to 
 search into the mysteries of our own in- 
 dividual natures. This, if we understand 
 it aright, is poetry. But Johnson says, 
 " Voltaire expresses his wonder that our 
 author's extravagances are endured by a na- 
 tion which has seen the tragedy of 'Cato.' 
 Let him be answered, that Addison speaks the 
 language of poets, and Shakspeare of men. 
 We find in 'Cato ' innumerable beauties which 
 enamour us of its author, but we see nothing 
 that acquaints us with human sentiments or 
 human actions ; we place it with the fairest 
 and noblest progeny which judgment pro- 
 pagates by conjunction with learning ; but 
 'Othello' is the vigorous and vivacious off- 
 spring of observation, impregnated with ge- 
 nius." If Addison speaks " the language of 
 poets," properly so called, ' Cato ' is poetry. 
 If Shakspere speaks the language of men, as 
 distinct from the language of poets, 'Othello ' 
 is not poetry. It needs no further argument 
 to show that the critic has a false theory of 
 
 the poetical art. He has here narrowed the 
 question to an absurdity. 
 
 We may observe, from what Johnson says 
 of " the minute and slender criticism of 
 VOLTAIRE," that the English critics fancied 
 that, doing Shakspere ample justice them- 
 selves, they were called upon to defend him 
 from the mistaken criticisms of a foreign 
 school. Every Englishman, from the period 
 of Johnson, who has fancied himself absolved 
 from the guilt of not admiring and under- 
 standing Shakspere has taken up a stone to 
 cast at Voltaire. Those who speak of Voltaire 
 as an ignorant and tasteless calumniator of 
 Shakspere forget that his hostility was based 
 upon a system of art which he conceived, 
 and rightly so, was opposed to the system 
 of Shakspere. He had been bred up in the 
 school of Corneille and Racine, the glories of 
 his countrymen ; and it is really a remark- 
 able proof of the vigour of his mind that he 
 tolerated so much as he did in Shakspere, 
 and admired so much ; in this respect going 
 farther perhaps than many of our own 
 countrymen of no mean reputation, such 
 as Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke in 1730. 
 In his 'Discourse on Tragedy,' prefixed to 
 'Brutus,' and addressed to Bolingbroke in 
 that year, he says, " Not being able, my lord, 
 to risk upon the French stage verses without 
 rhyme, such as are the usage of Italy and of 
 England, I have at least desired to transport 
 to our scene certain beauties of yours. It is 
 true, and I avow it, that the English theatre 
 is very faulty. / have heard from your mouth 
 that you have not a good tragedy. But in com- 
 pensation you have some admirable scenes in 
 these very monstrous pieces. Until the pre- 
 sent time almost all the tragic authors of 
 your nation have wanted that purity, that 
 regular conduct, those lienseances of action 
 and style, that elegance, and all those re- 
 finements of art, which have established the 
 reputation of the French theatre since the 
 great Corneille. But the most irregular of 
 your pieces have one grand merit it is that 
 of action" In the same letter we have 
 his opinion of Shakspere, which is certainly 
 not that of a cold critic, but of one who 
 admired even where he could not approve, 
 and blamed as we had been accustomed to 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 541 
 
 blame: "With what pleasure have I seen 
 in London your tragedy of 'Julius Caesar,' 
 which for a hundred and fifty years has 
 been the delight of your nation ! I assuredly 
 do not pretend to approve the barbarous 
 irregularities with which it abounds. It is 
 only astonishing that one finds not more 
 of them in a work composed in an age of 
 ignorance, by a man who even knew not 
 Latin, and who had no master but his own 
 genius. But, in the midst of so many gross 
 faults, with what ravishment have I seen 
 Brutus," &c. All this is perfectly intel- 
 ligible, and demands no harsher censure 
 than we have a right to apply to Dryden, 
 who says nearly as strong things, and writes 
 most of his own tragedies in the spirit of 
 a devoted worshipper of the French school. 
 In 1761, some thirty years after his letter to 
 Bolingbroke, Voltaire writes ' An Essay on 
 the English Theatre,' in which he expresses 
 the wonder, which Johnson notices, that the 
 nation which has 'Cato' can endure Shak- 
 spere. In this essay he has a long analysis 
 of 'Hamlet,' in which, without attempting to 
 penetrate at all into the real idea of that 
 drama, he gives such an account of the 
 plot as may exaggerate what ne regards as 
 its absurdities. He then says, " We cannot 
 have a more forcible example of the differ- 
 ence of taste among nations. Let us, after 
 this, speak of the rules of Aristotle, and the 
 three unities, and the biensGances, and the 
 necessity of never leaving the scene empty, 
 and that no person should go out or come 
 in without a sensible reason. Let us talk, 
 after this, of the artful arrangement of the 
 plot and its natural development ; of the ex- 
 pressions being simple and noble ; of making 
 princes speak with the decency which they 
 always have, or ought to have ; of never 
 violating the rules of language. It is clear 
 that a whole nation may be enchanted with- 
 out giving oneself such trouble." No one 
 can be more consistent than Voltaire in the 
 expression of his opinions. It is not the 
 individual judgment of the man betraying 
 him into a doubtful and varying tone, but 
 his uniform theory of the poetical art, which 
 directs all his censure of Shakspere ; and 
 which therefore makes his admiration, such 
 
 as it is, of more value than the vague homage 
 of those who, despising, or affecting to despise, 
 Voltaire's system, have embraced no system 
 of their own, and thus infallibly come to be 
 more dogmatical, more supercilious, in their 
 abuse, and more creeping in their praise, 
 than the most slavish disciple of a school 
 wholly opposed to Shakspere, but consecrated 
 by time, by high example, and by national 
 opinion. The worst things which Voltaire 
 has said of Shakspere are conceived in this 
 spirit, and therefore ought not in truth to 
 offend Shakspere's warmest admirers. "He 
 had a genius full of power and fruitfulness, 
 of the natural and the sublime" this is 
 the praise. The dispraise is linked to it : 
 " Without the least spark of good taste, and 
 without the slightest knowledge of rules." 
 We may dissent from this, but it is not 
 fair to quarrel with it. He then goes on : 
 " I will say a hazardous thing, but true, 
 that the merit of this author has ruined the 
 English theatre. There are so many fine 
 scenes, so many grand and terrible passages 
 spread through his monstrous farces which 
 they call tragedies, that his pieces have 
 always been represented with extreme suc- 
 cess."* We smile at the man's power of 
 ridicule when he travesties a plot of Shak- 
 spere, as in the dissertation prefixed to 
 ' Semiramis.' But his object is so manifest 
 that of the elevation of his own theory of 
 art that he cannot outrage us. For what 
 is his conclusion 1 That Shakspere would 
 have been a perfect poet if he had lived in 
 the time of Addisont. 
 
 The famous 'Letter to the Academy,' in 
 1776, was the crowning effort of Voltaire's 
 hostility to Shakspere. In that year was 
 announced a complete translation of Shak- 
 spere ; and several of the plays were pub- 
 lished as a commencement of the under- 
 taking. France, according to Grimm, was 
 in a ferment t- The announcement of this 
 translation appears to have enraged Voltaire. 
 It said that Shakspere was the creator of the 
 sublime art of the theatre, which received 
 from his hands existence and perfection ; 
 
 * ' Lettres Philosophiques.' Lettre 18. 
 
 t ' Dictionnaire Philosophique." 
 
 $ ' Correspondance,' 3" partie, tome I". 
 
642 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 and, what was personally offensive, it added 
 that Shakspere was unknown in France, or, 
 rather, disfigured. Voltaire tells the Academy 
 that he was the first who made Shakspere 
 known in France, by the translation of some 
 of his passages ; that he had translated, too, 
 the 'Julius Caesar.' But he is indignant that 
 the new translators would sacrifice France to 
 England, in paying no homage to the great 
 French dramatists, whose pieces are acted 
 throughout Europe. He notices, then, the 
 four plays which they have translated, and 
 calls upon them, of course in his tone of ex- 
 aggeration and ridicule, to render faithfully 
 certain passages which they have slurred 
 over. But Voltaire avows the support which 
 he receives from the English themselves in 
 his condemnation of what he holds to be 
 the absurdities of Shakspere, quoting from 
 Marmontel in this matter : " The English 
 have learned to correct and abridge Shak- 
 spere. Garrickhas banished from his scene the 
 Grave-diggers in ' Hamlet,' and has omitted 
 nearly all the fifth act." Voltaire then adds, 
 "The translator agrees not with this truth; 
 he takes the part of the gravediggers ; he 
 would preserve them as a respectable monu- 
 ment of an unique genius." The critic then 
 gives a scene of ' Bajazet,' contrasting it 
 with the opening scene of 'Romeo and Juliet.' 
 " It is for you," he says to the Academicians, 
 " to decide which method we ought to follow 
 that of Shakspere, the god of tragedy, or 
 of Racine." In a similar way he contrasts 
 a passage in Corneille and 'Lear:' " Let the 
 Academicians judge if the nation which has 
 produced ' Iphigenie ' and ' Athalie ' ought to 
 abandon them, to behold men and women 
 strangled upon the stage, street-porters, 
 sorcerers, buffoons, and drunken priests if 
 our court, so long renowned for its politeness 
 and its taste, ought to be changed into an 
 alehouse and a wine-shop." In this letter to 
 the Academy Voltaire loses his temper and 
 his candour. He is afraid to risk any ad- 
 miration of Shakspere. But this intolerance 
 is more intelligible than the apologies of 
 Shakspere's defenders in England. We must 
 confess that we have more sympathy with 
 Voltaire's earnest attack upon Shakspere 
 than with Mrs. MONTAGU'S maudlin defence. 
 
 Take a specimen : " Our author, by follow- 
 ing minutely the chronicles of the times, 
 has embarrassed his dramas with too great 
 a number of persons and events. The hurly- 
 burly of these plays recommended them to 
 a rude, illiterate audience, who, as he says, 
 loved a noise of targets. His poverty, and 
 the low condition of the stage (which at that 
 time was not frequented by persons of rank), 
 obliged him to this complaisance ; and, un- 
 fortunately, he had not been tutored by any 
 rules of art, or informed by acquaintance 
 with just and regular dramas."* She gives 
 a speech of Lear, and says, " Thus it is 
 that Shakspeare redeems the nonsense, the 
 indecorums, the irregularities of his plays." 
 Again, in her criticism on 'Macbeth:' "Our 
 author is too much addicted to the obscure 
 bombast much affected by all sorts of writers 
 
 in that age There are many bombast 
 
 speeches in the tragedy of ' Macbeth,' and 
 these are the lawful prize of the critic." 
 The exhibition of the fickle humour of the 
 mob in Julius 'Caesar' is not to be "entirely 
 condemned." " The quarrel between Brutus 
 and Cassius does not, by any means, deserve 
 the ridicule thrown upon it by the French 
 
 critic: but it rather retards than 
 
 brings forward the catastrophe, and is use- 
 ful only in setting Brutus in a good light." 
 One more extract from Mrs. Montagu, and 
 we have done : " It has been demonstrated 
 with great ingenuity and candour that he 
 was destitute of learning : the age was rude 
 and void of taste ; but what had a still more 
 pernicious influence on his works was, that 
 the court and the universities, the states- 
 men and scholars, affected a scientific jargon. 
 An obscurity of expression was thought the 
 veil of wisdom and knowledge ; and that 
 mist, common to the morn and eve of 
 literature, which in fact proves it is not at 
 its high meridian, was affectedly thrown over 
 the writings, and even the conversation of 
 the learned, who often preferred images dis- 
 torted or magnified, to a simple exposition 
 of their thoughts. Shakspeare is never more 
 worthy of the true critic's censure than in 
 those instances in which he complies with 
 this false pomp of manner. It was par- 
 * ' Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakspeare.' 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 MRS. MONTAGU. MARTIN SHERLOCK. 
 
 543 
 
 donable in a man of his rank not to "be 
 more polite and delicate than his contem- 
 poraries ; but we cannot so easily excuse 
 such superiority of talents for stooping to 
 any affectation." This half-patronising, half- 
 vindicating tone is very well meant ; and we 
 respect Mrs. Montagu for coming forward 
 to break a lance with the great European 
 critic ; but the very celebrity of Shakspere's 
 "fair warrior" is one of the proofs that there 
 was no real school of criticism amongst us. 
 
 Apologies for Shakspere, lamentations over 
 his defects, explanations of the causes of 
 them, rude age, unlettered audience, the 
 poet himself working without knowledge, all 
 this, the invariable language of the English 
 critics, is eagerly laid hold of, not only to 
 justify the hostility of Voltaire, but to 
 perpetuate the reign of a system altogether 
 opposed to the system of Shakspere, up to the 
 present hour. M. Villemain, in the new 
 edition of his * Essay upon Shakspeare,' 
 published in 1839, gives us as much inter- 
 jectional eulogy of our national poet as might 
 satisfy the most eager appetite of those 
 admirers who think such praise worth any- 
 thing. The French critic, of nearly a century 
 later than Voltaire, holds that Shakspere has 
 no other system than his genius. It is in 
 this chaos that we must seek his splendour. 
 His absurdities, his buffooneries, belong to 
 the gross theatre of his period. In judging 
 Shakspere we must reject the mass of bar- 
 barism and false taste with which he is 
 surcharged. But then, apart from any 
 system, " quelle passion ! quelle poesie ! quelle 
 eloquence ! " " This rude and barbarous 
 genius discovers an unknown delicacy in the 
 development of his female characters." And 
 why ? " The taste which is so often missing 
 in him is here supplied by a delicate instinct, 
 which makes him even anticipate what was 
 wanting to the civilization of his time." The 
 critic reposes somewhat on English authority : 
 " Mrs. Montagu has repelled the contempt 
 of Voltaire by a judicious criticism of some 
 defects of the French theatre, but she cannot 
 palliate the enormous extravagancies of the 
 pieces of Shakspere. Let us not forget, she 
 says, that these pieces were played in a 
 miserable inn before an unlettered audience, 
 
 scarcely emerging out of barbarism."'* But 
 Mrs. Montagu is not alone in this. Others, 
 as angry with Voltaire as prodigal of their 
 admiration of Shakspere, quietly surrender 
 what Voltaire really attacks, forgetting that 
 his praises have been nearly as strong, and 
 sometimes a little more judicious than their 
 own. Hear MARTIN SHERLOCK apostrophizing 
 Shakspere : 
 
 "Always therefore study Nature. 
 
 " It is she who was thy book, Shak- 
 speare ; it is she who was thy study day and 
 night ; it is she from whom thou hast drawn 
 those beauties which are at once the glory 
 and delight of thy nation. Thou wert the 
 eldest son, the darling child, of nature ; and 
 like thy mother, enchanting, astonishing, 
 sublime, graceful, thy variety is inexhaustible. 
 Always original, always new, thou art the 
 only prodigy which nature has produced. 
 Homer was the first of men, but thou art 
 more than man. The reader who thinks this 
 eulogium extravagant is a stranger to my 
 subject. To say that Shakspeare had the 
 imagination of Dante, and the depth of 
 Machiavel, would be a weak encomium : he 
 had them and more. To say that he pos- 
 sessed the terrible graces of- Michael Angelo, 
 and the amiable graces of Correggio, would 
 be a weak encomium : he had them, and 
 more. To the brilliancy of Voltaire he added 
 the strength of Demosthenes ; and to the 
 simplicity of La Fontaine the majesty of 
 Virgil. But, say you, we have never seen 
 such ' a being.' You are in the right ; 
 Nature made it, and broke the mould." 
 
 This is the first page of 'A Fragment on 
 Shakspeare' (1786). The following is an 
 extract from the last page : " The only view 
 of Shakspeare was to make his fortune, and 
 for that it was necessary to fill the play- 
 house. At the same time that he caused a 
 duchess to enter the boxes, he would cause 
 her servants to enter the pit. The people 
 have always money ; to make them spend it, 
 they must be diverted; and Shakspeare 
 forced his sublime genius to stoop to the 
 gross taste of the populace, as Sylla jested 
 with his soldiers." 
 
 * ' Essai sur Shakspeare, Paris, 1839. 
 
544 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPEEE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 DAVID HUME, the most popular historian 
 of England, thus writes of Shakspere : 
 "Born in a rude age and educated in the 
 lowest manner, without any instruction either 
 from the world or from books." The con- 
 sequence of this national and individual 
 ignorance was a necessary one : " A reason- 
 able propriety of thought he cannot for any 
 time uphold." What right have we to abuse 
 Voltaire, when we hear this from an English 
 writer of the same period ? We fully agree 
 with Schlegel in this matter : " That 
 foreigners, and Frenchmen in particular, who 
 frequently speak in the most strange language 
 of antiquity and the middle ages, as if 
 cannibalism had been first put an end to in 
 Europe by Louis XIV., should entertain this 
 opinion of Shakspere, might be pardonable ; 
 but that Englishmen should adopt such a 
 calumniation of that glorious epoch of their 
 history, in which the foundation of their 
 greatness was laid, is to me incompre- 
 hensible."* But it is not wholly incom- 
 prehensible. Schlegel has in part explained 
 it : " I have elsewhere examined into the 
 pretensions of modern cultivation, as it is 
 called, which looks down with such contempt 
 on all preceding ages. I have shown that it 
 is all little, superficial, and unsubstantial at 
 bottom. The pride of what has been called 
 the present maturity of human reason has 
 come to a miserable end ; and the structures 
 erected by those pedagogues of the human 
 race have fallen to pieces like the baby- 
 houses of children." So far, of the critical 
 contempt of the age of Shakspere. Schlegel 
 again, with equal truth, lays bare the real 
 character of the same critical opinions of the 
 poet himself :" It was, generally speaking, 
 the prevailing tendency of the time which 
 preceded our own, a tendency displayed also 
 in physical science, to consider what is 
 possessed of life as a mere accumulation of 
 dead parts ; to separate what exists only in 
 connection and cannot otherwise be con- 
 ceived, instead of penetrating to the central 
 
 * ' Lectures on Dramatic Literature, 1 Black's translation. 
 
 point, and viewing all the parts as so many 
 irradiations from it. Hence, nothing is so 
 rare as a critic who can elevate himself to 
 the contemplation of an extensive work of 
 art. Shakspere's compositions, from the very 
 depth of purpose displayed in them, have 
 been exposed to the misfortune of being 
 misunderstood. Besides, this prosaical species 
 of criticism applies always the poetical form 
 to the details of execution ; but, in so far 
 as the plan of the piece is concerned, it 
 never looks for more than the logical con- 
 nection of causes and effects, or some partial 
 and trivial moral by way of application ; and 
 all that cannot be reconciled to this is 
 declared a superfluous, or even a detrimental, 
 addition. On these principles we must 
 equally strike out most of the choral songs 
 of the Greek tragedies, which also contribute 
 nothing to the development of the action, 
 but are merely an harmonious echo of the 
 impression aimed at by the poet. In this 
 they altogether mistake the rights of poetry 
 and the nature of the romantic drama, which, 
 for the very reason that it is and ought to be 
 picturesque, requires richer accompaniments 
 and contrasts for its main groups. In all 
 art and poetry, but more especially in the 
 romantic, the fancy lays claim to be con- 
 sidered as an independent mental power 
 governed according to its own laws." 
 
 The translation of Schlegel's work in 1815, 
 in conjunction with the admirable lectures 
 of Coleridge, gave a new direction amongst 
 the thinking few to our national opinion of 
 Shakspere. Other critics of a higher school 
 than our own race of commentators had 
 preceded Schlegel in Germany; and it would 
 be perhaps not too much to say that, as the 
 reverent study of Shakspere has principally 
 formed their aesthetic school, so that aesthetic 
 school has sent us back to the reverent study 
 of Shakspere. He lived in the hearts of the 
 people, who knew nothing of the English 
 critics. The learned, as they were called, 
 understood him least. Let the lovers of truth 
 rejoice that their despotism is over. 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 CAPELL. 
 
 545 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CAPELL. FARMER. STEEVENS. MALONE. GARRICK. RICHARDSON. MOR- 
 GANN. WHATELY. PERCY. WARTON. LAMB. HAZLITT. COLERIDGE. 
 
 OUR notice of Shakspere's critics has now 
 led us to what may be called the second race 
 of commentators. 
 
 The English editors of Shakspere have 
 certainly brought to their task a great variety 
 of qualities, from which combination we 
 might expect some very felicitous results. 
 They divide themselves into two schools, 
 which, like all schools, have their sub- 
 divisions. Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, 
 Johnson, belong to the school which did not 
 seek any very exact acquaintance with our 
 early literature ; and which probably would 
 have despised the exhibition, if not the 
 reality, of antiquarian and bibliographical 
 knowledge. A new school arose, whose 
 acquaintance with what has been called 
 black-letter literature was extensive enough 
 to produce a decided revolution in Shak- 
 sperean commentary. Capell, Steevens, Ma- 
 lone, Reed, Douce, are the representatives of 
 the later school. The first school contained 
 the most brilliant men ; the second, the most 
 painstaking commentators. The dullest of 
 the first school, a name hung up amongst 
 the dunces by his rival editor, poor, 
 " piddling Tibbald," was unquestionably the 
 best of the first raee of editors. Rowe was 
 indolent ; Pope, flashy ; Warburton, paradox- 
 ical ; Johnson, pedantic. Theobald brought 
 his common sense to the task, and has left 
 us, we cannot avoid thinking, the best of all 
 the conjectural emendations. Of the other 
 school, the real learning, and sometimes 
 sound judgment, of Capell, is buried in an 
 obscurity of thought and style, to say 
 nothing of his comment being printed 
 separately from his text, which puts all 
 ordinary reading for purposes of information 
 at complete defiance. Of Steevens and 
 Mai one, they have had, more or less, the 
 glory of having linked themselves to Shak- 
 spere during the last half century. Reed 
 
 and Chalmers were mere supervisors and 
 abridgers of -what they did. 
 
 The edition of CAPELL was published in 
 ten small octavo volumes, three years after 
 that of Johnson that is, in 1768. His 
 preface is printed in what we call the 
 variorum editions of Shakspere, but Steevens 
 has added to it this depreciating note : 
 " Dr. Johnson's opinion of this performance 
 may be known from the following passage in 
 Mr. Boswell's < Life of Dr. Johnson : ' If 
 the man would have come to me, I would 
 have endeavoured to endow his purpose 
 with words, for, as it is, he doth gabble 
 monstrously.' " Certainly " the man " does 
 write a most extraordinary style ; and it is 
 impossible to do full justice to his edition, 
 from the great bulk of the notes and various 
 readings " being published in a separate 
 form," with references to previous editors so 
 obscure and perplexed that few would take 
 the trouble to attempt to reach his meaning. 
 Capell was a man of fortune ; and he devoted 
 a life to this labour, dying in the midst of it. 
 Steevens never mentions him but to insult 
 him ; and amongst the heaps of the most 
 trashy notes that encumber the variorum 
 editions, raked together from the pamphlets 
 of every dabbler in commentary, there is 
 perhaps not one single-minded quotation 
 from Capell. John Collins, the publisher of 
 his posthumous Notes and Various Readings, 
 brings a charge against Steevens which may 
 account for this unrelenting hostility to a 
 learned and amiable man labouring in a 
 pursuit common to them both. He says that 
 Capell's edition " is made the groundwork of 
 what is to pass for the genuine production 
 of these combined editors " (Johnson and 
 Steevens). This, he says, may be proved by 
 a comparison of their first edition of 1773 
 with that of Johnson's of 1765, Capell's 
 having been published during the interval. 
 
 N M 
 
546 
 
 STUDIES OF SIIAKSFERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 He then proceeds further in the charge : 
 " But the re-publication of their work, as it 
 'is revised and augmented,' makes further 
 advances upon the same plan, abounding 
 with fresh matter and accumulated evidence 
 in proof of the industry with which the 
 purloining trade has been pursued, and of 
 the latitude to which it has been extended, 
 in each of the above-mentioned particulars. 
 For, differing as it does from its former self 
 in numberless instances, in all of them it is 
 still found to agree with that edition, which, 
 we are gravely told in so many words by the 
 apparent manager of the business, ' has not 
 been examined beyond one play.' " 
 
 But there was another cause of the hos- 
 tility of Steevens and his school of com- 
 mentators. FARMER was their Coriphseus. 
 Their souls were prostrate before the extent 
 of his researches in that species of litera- 
 ture which possesses this singular advantage 
 for the cultivator, that, if he studies it in 
 an original edition, of which only one or 
 two copies are known to exist (the merit is 
 gone if there is a baker's dozen known), he 
 is immediately pronounced learned, judicious, 
 laborious, acute. And this was Farmer's 
 praise. He wrote, ' An Essay on the Learn- 
 ing of Shakspeare,' which has not one pas- 
 sage of solid criticism from the first page 
 to the last, and from which, if the name 
 and the works of Shakspere were to perish, 
 and one copy an unique copy is the affec- 
 tionate name for these things could be 
 miraculously preserved, the only inference 
 from the book would be that William Shak- 
 spere was a very obscure and ignorant man, 
 whom some misjudging admirers had been 
 desirous to exalt into an ephemeral reputa- 
 tion, and that Richard Farmer was a very 
 distinguished and learned man, who had 
 stripped the mask off the pretender. The 
 first edition of Farmer's pamphlet appeared 
 in 1767. 
 
 Capell, who had studied Shakspere with 
 far more accuracy than this mere pedant, 
 who never produced any literary perform- 
 ance in his life except this arrogant pamph- 
 let, held a contrary opinion to Farmer : 
 " It is our firm belief that Shakspeare was 
 very well grounded, at least in Latin, at 
 
 school. It appears, from the clearest evidence 
 possible, that his father was a man of no 
 little substance, and very well able to give 
 him such education ; which, perhaps, he 
 might be inclined to carry further, by send- 
 ing him to a university ; but was prevented 
 in this design (if he had it) by his son's 
 early marriage, which, from monuments and 
 other like evidence, it appears with no less 
 certainty must have happened before he was 
 seventeen, or very soon after : the displeasure 
 of his father, which was the consequence of 
 this marriage, or else some excesses which 
 he is said to have been guilty of, it is pro- 
 bable drove him up to town ; where he en- 
 gaged early in some of the theatres, and was 
 honoured with the patronage of the earl of 
 Southampton: his 'Venus and Adonis' is ad- 
 dressed to that Earl in a very pretty and 
 modest dedication, in which he calls it ' the 
 first heire of his invention ;' and ushers it 
 to the world with this singular motto : 
 ' Villa miretur vulgus, mini flavus Apollo 
 Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua;' 
 and the whole poem, as well as his ' Lucrece,' 
 which followed it soon after, together with 
 his choice of those subjects, are plain marks 
 of his acquaintance with some of the Latin 
 classics, at least, at that time. The dissipa- 
 tion of youth, and, when that was over, the 
 busy scene in which he instantly plunged 
 himself, may very well be supposed to have 
 hindered his making any great progress in 
 them ; but that such a mind as his should 
 quite lose the tincture of any knowledge it 
 had once been imbued with cannot be ima- 
 gined : accordingly we see that this school- 
 learning (for it was no more) stuck with 
 him to the last ; and it was the recordations, 
 as we may call it, of that learning which 
 produced the Latin that is in many of his 
 plays, and most plentifully in those that are 
 the most early : every several piece of it is 
 aptly introduced, given to a proper charac- 
 ter, and uttered upon some proper occasion ; 
 and so well cemented, as it were, and joined 
 to the passage it stands in, as to deal con- 
 viction to the judicious, that the whole was 
 wrought up together, and fetched from his 
 own little store, upon the sudden, and with- 
 out study. 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 STEEVENS. 
 
 547 
 
 " The other languages which he has some- 
 times made use of that is, the Italian and 
 French are not of such difficult conquest 
 that we should think them beyond his reach. 
 An acquaintance with the first of them was 
 a sort of fashion in his time. Surrey and 
 the sonnet-writers set it on foot, and it was 
 continued by Sidney and Spenser : all our 
 poetry issued from that school ; and it 
 would be wonderful indeed if he, whom we 
 saw a little before putting himself with so 
 much zeal under the banner of the Muses, 
 should not have been tempted to taste at 
 least of that fountain to which of all his 
 other brethren there was such a continual 
 resort : let us conclude, then, that he did 
 taste of it ; but, happily for himself, and 
 more happy for the world that enjoys him 
 now, he did not find it to his relish, and 
 threw away the cup. Metaphor apart, it is 
 evident that he had some knowledge of the 
 Italian perhaps just as much as enabled 
 him to read a novel or a poem, and to put 
 some few fragments of it, with which his 
 memory furnished him, into the mouth of a 
 pedant or fine gentleman. 
 
 " How or when he acquired it we must be 
 content to be ignorant ; but of the French 
 language he was somewhat a greater master 
 than of the two that have gone before ; yet, 
 unless we except their novelists, he does not 
 appear to have had much acquaintance with 
 any of their writers ; what he has given us 
 of it is merely colloquial, flows with great 
 ease from him, and is reasonably pure. 
 Should it be said he had travelled for it, we 
 know not who can confute us." 
 
 The principle of CapelFs edition, as de- 
 scribed by himself in the title-page, was to 
 give the plays of Shakspere as " set out by 
 himself in quarto, or by the players, his 
 fellows, in folio." His introduction consists 
 of an aralysis of the value of these various 
 authorities ; and he discriminates very justly 
 between those plays in quarto which " have 
 much resemblance to those in the folio," and 
 those which were "first drafts or else im- 
 perfect and stolen copies." His text is 
 formed upon this discriminating principle, 
 not attaching an equal value to all the origi- 
 nal copies in quarto, or superseding the text 
 
 of the folio by thrusting in passages out of 
 the first drafts and imperfect copies. To say 
 that his text is the result invariably of a 
 sound judgment would be to say too much ; 
 and indeed some of his emendations approach 
 a little to the ridiculous. But we have no 
 hesitation in saying that it is a better text, 
 because approaching more nearly to the 
 originals, than that of many of those who 
 came after him, and went on mending and 
 mending for half a century till the world 
 was tired with the din of their tinkering. 
 The race which succeeded him was corrupted 
 by flattery. Take a specimen : " Shak- 
 speare's felicity has been rendered complete 
 in this age. His genius produced works 
 that time could not destroy : but some of 
 the lighter characters were become illegible ; 
 these have been restored by critics whose 
 learning and penetration have traced back 
 the vestiges of superannuated opinions and 
 customs. They are now no longer in danger 
 of being effaced."* These critics had an 
 accurate perception of part of their duty 
 when they set out upon their work. The 
 first labour of STEEVENS, which preceded the 
 edition of Capell by two years, was to reprint 
 in fac-simile " twenty of the plays of Shak- 
 speare,, being the whole number printed in 
 quarto during his lifetime, or before the 
 Restoration ; collated where there were dif- 
 ferent copies, and published from the ori- 
 ginals." Most accurately did he execute 
 this laborious duty. The two great public 
 libraries of England, the British Museum 
 and the Bodleian, possess all the originals. 
 The next progressive movement of Steevens 
 was still in the same safe path. He became 
 united with Johnson in the edition of 1773. 
 In his advertisement he says, " The labours 
 of preceding editors have not left room for 
 a boast that many valuable readings have 
 been retrieved ; though it may be fairly 
 asserted that the text of Shakspeare is re- 
 stored to the condition in which the author, 
 or rather his first publishers, appear to have 
 left it, such emendations as were absolutely 
 necessary alone admitted." He defines 
 what are absolutely necessary, such as a 
 supply of particles when indispensable to 
 
 * Mrs. Montagu : ' Introduction.' 
 
 N N ? 
 
,48 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPEBE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 the sense. He rejects with indignation all 
 attempts to tamper with the text by in- 
 troducing a syllable in aid of the metre. 
 He declines suggestions of correspondents 
 " that might have proved of great ad- 
 vantage to a more daring commentator." 
 Upon such safe foundations was the edi- 
 tion of 1773 reared. In 1778 it was "re- 
 vised and augmented," and in 1785 it 
 was reprinted with additions by Isaac Reed, 
 Steevens having declined the further care of 
 the work. Steevens also in 1779 rendered 
 an acceptable service to the students of our 
 dramatic history, by the publication of l Six 
 old plays, on which Shakspeare founded his 
 Measure for Measure, Comedy of Errors. 
 Taming the Shrew, King John, King Henry 
 IV., King Henry V., and King Lear.' In 
 1780 MALONE appeared as an editor of Shak- 
 spere. He came forward with 'A Supple- 
 ment' to the edition of 1778, in which he 
 republished the poems of Shakspere, and the 
 seven doubtful plays which had been printed 
 as his in the third and fourth folios. The 
 encouragement which he had received in- 
 duced him, in 1790, when Steevens had re- 
 tired from his editorial labours in connection 
 with the bookseller's edition, to publish a 
 complete edition of his own, but which was 
 still a variorum edition, " with the correc- 
 tions and illustrations of various commenta- 
 tors." In this first appeared his 'Disserta- 
 tion on the Three Parts of Henry VI.,' and 
 his 'Historical Account of the English 
 Stage.' Malone professes the same anxiety 
 to adhere to the genuine text of Shakspere 
 as Steevens had professed before him ; but 
 he opened a wide field for editorial licence, 
 in his principle of making up a text out of 
 the folio edition and the previous quartos ; 
 and, to add to the apparent value of his own 
 labours, he exaggerated, as others have since 
 done, the real value of these quartos : 
 " They in general are preferable to the ex- 
 hibition of the same plays in the folio ; for 
 this plain reason, because, instead of print- 
 ing these plays from a manuscript, the 
 editors of the folio, to save labour, or from 
 some other motive, printed the greater part 
 of them from the very copies which they re- 
 presented as maimed and imperfect, and fre- 
 
 quently from a late, instead of the earliest, 
 edition ; in some instances with additions 
 and alterations of their own." This is not 
 an accurate statement of the question ; for 
 the large additions to the folio copy when 
 compared with the quartos, the careful emen- 
 dations, and even the omissions, which are 
 seldom without some sound apparent reason, 
 could not have been the additions and alte- 
 rations of the editors of the folio, but must 
 have been the result of the author's labours, 
 perhaps during a series of years. 
 
 It appears from Malone's preface that a 
 feeling was gaining ground that the con- 
 stant accession of notes to Shakspere was 
 becoming an evil : " The admirers of this 
 poet will, I trust, not merely pardon the 
 great accession of new notes in the present 
 edition, but examine them with some degree 
 of pleasure. An idle notion has been pro- 
 pagated that Shakspeare has been buried 
 under his commentators; and it has again 
 and again been repeated by the tasteless and 
 the dull, ' that notes, though often necessary, 
 are necessary evils.'' .... During the era 
 of conjectural criticism and capricious in- 
 novation, notes were indeed evils : while one 
 page was covered with ingenious sophistry 
 in support of some idle conjecture, and 
 another was wasted in its overthrow, or in 
 erecting a new fabric equally unsubstantial 
 
 as the former While our object 
 
 is to support and establish what the poet 
 wrote, to illustrate his phraseology by com- 
 paring it with that of his contemporaries, 
 and to explain his fugitive allusions to cus- 
 toms long since disused and forgotten, 
 while this object is kept steadily in view, if 
 even every line of his plays were accom- 
 panied with a comment, every intelligent 
 reader would be indebted to the industry of 
 him who produced it. Such uniformly has 
 been the object of the notes now presented 
 to the public. Let us then hear no more of 
 this barbarous jargon concerning Shak- 
 speare's having been elucidated into obscurity, 
 and buried under the load of his commenta- 
 tors." There is a great deal of truth in this ; 
 but it is not all the truth. Malone disagrees 
 with the following observation of Johnson : 
 " It is not (he remarks) very grateful to 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 STEEVENS. 
 
 549 
 
 consider how little the succession of editors 
 has added to this author's power of pleasing. 
 He was read, admired, studied, and imitated, 
 while he was yet deformed with all the im- 
 proprieties which ignorance and neglect 
 could accumulate upon him." The new 
 editor, with a pardonable complacency to- 
 wards his calling, says, " He certainly was 
 read, admired, studied, and imitated at the 
 period mentioned ; but surely not in the 
 same degree as at present. The succession 
 of editors has effected this ; it has made 
 him understood ; it has made him popular ; it 
 has shown every one who is capable of read- 
 ing how much superior he is not only to 
 Jon son and Fletcher, whom the bad taste of 
 the last age from the time of the Restora- 
 tion to the end of the century set above 
 him, but to all the dramatic poets of an- 
 tiquity." Jonson and Fletcher were not set 
 above Shakspere, as we have demonstratively 
 shown, from the time of the Restoration to 
 the end of the century. But, even if they 
 were, it was not the succession of editors 
 that had made Shakspere popular. A plain 
 reprint of Shakspere without a single note, 
 but with the spelling modernized, would 
 have made him more popular than all the 
 critical editions which the eighteenth cen- 
 tury had produced. Malone says, that 
 during that century " thirty thousand copies 
 of Shakspeare have been dispersed through 
 England." The number would have been 
 quadrupled if Shakspere had been left to 
 his own unaided power. Much of what the 
 commentators did, especially in the illustra- 
 tion of Shakspere's phraseology and the ex- 
 planation of his fugitive allusions, they did 
 well. But they must needs be critics, with- 
 out having any system of criticism more 
 profound than the easy task of fault-finding ; 
 and thus they rendered Shakspere less popu- 
 lar than he would have been in an age when 
 criticism was little understood, and men's 
 eyes were dazzled by an array of names to 
 support some flippant remark upon Shak- 
 spere's want of art, some exhibition of his 
 ignorance, some detection of his anachron- 
 isms, some discovery of a quibble beyond 
 the plain meaning of the word. It is scarcely 
 possible to read a scene of the variorum 
 
 Shaksperes without feeling the utter want 
 of a reverent spirit towards the author. 
 These things sank more deeply into the 
 minds of the readers of Shakspere than the 
 general expressions of the commentators' 
 admiration ; which after all seemed little 
 more than compliments to themselves in 
 their association with the poet. Schlegel, 
 we cannot but acknowledge, has stated the 
 truth with tolerable exactness : " Like 
 Dante, Shakspere has received the indis- 
 pensable but cumbersome honour of being 
 treated like a classical author of antiquity. 
 The oldest editions have been carefully col- 
 lated, and where the readings seemed cor- 
 rupted many improvements have been at- 
 tempted ; and the whole literature of his 
 age has been drawn forth from the oblivion 
 to which it had been consigned, for the sake 
 of explaining the phrases, and illustrating 
 the allusions, of Shakspere. Commentators 
 have succeeded one another in such num- 
 bers, that their labours, with the critical 
 controversies to which they have given rise, 
 constitute of themselves a library of no in- 
 considerable magnitude. These labours arc 
 deserving of our praise and gratitude ; aixl 
 more especially the historical inquiries into 
 the sources from which Shakspere drew Ins 
 materials, and into the former state of the 
 English stage. But, with respect to the 
 criticisms which are merely of a philological 
 nature, I am frequently compelled to d.flvr 
 from the commentators ; and where they 
 consider him merely as a poet, endeavour to 
 pronounce upon his merits, and to enter into 
 his views, I must separate myself from them 
 entirely. I have hardly ever found either 
 truth or profundity in their observations ; 
 and these critics seems to me to be but stam- 
 mering interpreters of the general and al- 
 most idolatrous admiration of his country- 
 men."* 
 
 The editors of the first collection of the 
 works of Shakspere, in their ( Address to the 
 great Variety of Readers,' say " Read him 
 therefore ; and again, and again : and, if then 
 you do not like him, surely you are in some 
 manifest danger not to understand him." 
 
 * ' Lectures on Dramatic Literature,' Black's Transla- 
 tion, vol. ii. p. 103. 
 
550 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 This was advice that could not have pro- 
 ceeded from any common mind. The founda- 
 tion of a right understanding of Shakspere is 
 love. Steevens read again and again with- 
 out love, and therefore without understand- 
 ing. Boswell, the editor of Malone's post- 
 humous edition, speaking of a note on ( Ham- 
 let,' says, that Steevens has expressed him- 
 self "with as much asperity as if he had 
 had a personal quarrel with the author." 
 Steevens had a pettifogging mind, without a 
 particle of lofty feeling, without imagina- 
 tion, without even a logical apprehension of 
 the small questions to which he applied him- 
 self. But he was wonderfully laborious. 
 Knowing nothing of the principles of philo- 
 sophical criticism, he spared no pains in 
 hunting up illustrative facts ; he dabbled in 
 classical learning so as to be able to apply a 
 quotation with considerable neatness ; and 
 he laboured his style into epigrammatic 
 smartness which passed for wit. The vicious 
 style of the letters of Junius was evidently 
 his model ; and what that cowardly libeller 
 had been in the political world Steevens 
 was ambitious to be in the literary. He very 
 often attacked, under a mask, those with 
 whom he mixed in intimate companionship ; 
 till at last his name became a byword for 
 meanness and malignity. It was impossible 
 that such a man could have written about 
 Shakspere without displaying " as much 
 asperity as if he had had a personal quarrel 
 with him." And yet he was to be pitied. 
 Like Hamlet, he had a task laid upon him 
 above his powers. Early in life he attached 
 himself to literature and literary pursuits, 
 not from any necessity, for his fortune was 
 ample, but with a real and sincere devotion. 
 He attached himself to Shakspere. He be- 
 came an editor of Shakspere. He was asso- 
 ciated with Johnson in the preparation of an 
 edition, and what he did in his own way 
 was far superior to what his colleague had 
 effected without him. He gave a new tone 
 to the critical illustration of Shakspere, by 
 bringing not only the elegant literature of 
 Shakspere's own age to compare with him, 
 but by hunting over all the sweepings of the 
 book-stalls of the same age, to find the ap- 
 plication of a familiar allusion, or the mean- 
 
 ng of an uncommon word. But he became 
 ambitious to show his power of writing, as 
 well as his diligence. If we turn over the 
 variorum editions, and light upon a note 
 which contains something like a burst of 
 genial admiration for the author, we find the 
 name of Warburton affixed to it. Warbur- 
 ton's intellect was capacious enough for love 
 of Shakspere. But he delighted in decorating 
 his opinions with the tinsel of his own para- 
 doxes. Steevens was the man to pull off the 
 tinsel ; but he did it after the fashion in 
 which the lace was stripped from Brother 
 Jack's coat : " Courteous reader, you are 
 given to understand that zeal is never so 
 highly obliged as when you set it a-tearing ; 
 and Jack, who doted on that quality in him- 
 self, allowed it at this time its full swing. 
 Thus it happened that, stripping down a 
 parcel of gold lace a little too hastily, he 
 rent the main body of his coat from top to 
 bottom ; and, whereas his talent was not of 
 the happiest in taking up a stitch, he knew 
 no better way than to darn it again with 
 packthread and a skewer." * The zeal for 
 tearing increased with Steevens. He retired 
 for fifteen years from the editorship of Shak- 
 spere, to recreate himself in the usual way 
 in which such minds find diversion by 
 anonymous attacks upon his literary contem- 
 poraries. But in 1793 he returned with re- 
 newed vigour to his labour of love, the de- 
 facing of Shakspere. Malone, in the interval, 
 had been working hard, though perhaps with 
 no great talent, in the endeavour to preserve 
 every vestige of his author. He was suc- 
 cessful, and Steevens was thenceforward his 
 enemy. He would no longer walk in the 
 path that he had once trod. He rejected all 
 his old conservative opinions. In his edi- 
 tion of 1793, he sets out in his Advertisement 
 with the following well-known manifesto 
 against a portion of the works of Shakspere, 
 the supposed merit or demerit of which, it is 
 perfectly evident, must have been applied 
 as a standard for other portions of Shak- 
 spere's poetical excellence : " We have not 
 reprinted the Sonnets, &c., of Shakspeare, 
 because the strongest Act of Parliament that 
 could be framed would fail to compel readers 
 
 * 'Tale of a Tub.' 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 STEEVENS. 
 
 551 
 
 into their service ; notwithstanding these 
 miscellaneous poems have derived every pos- 
 sible advantage from the literature and 
 judgment of their only intelligent editor, 
 Mr. Malone, whose implements of criticism, 
 like the ivory rake and golden spade in 
 Prudentius, are on this occasion disgraced 
 by the objects of their culture. Had Shak- 
 speare produced no other works than these, 
 his name would have reached us with as 
 little celebrity as time has conferred on that 
 of Thomas Watson, an older and much more 
 elegant sonnetteer." Brother Jack is here 
 not only tearing the coat, but throwing the 
 waistcoat into the fire. Let us hear how he 
 means to deal with the coat itself: "But, 
 as we are often reminded by our ' brethren 
 of the craft ' that this or that emendation, 
 however apparently necessary, is not the 
 genuine text of ShaJcspeare, it might be 
 imagined that we had received this text 
 from its fountain-head, and were therefore 
 certain of its purity. Whereas few literary 
 occurrences are better understood than that 
 it came down to us discoloured by 'the 
 variation of every soil ' through which it 
 had flowed, and that it stagnated at last in 
 the muddy reservoir of the first folio : in 
 plainer terms, that the vitiations of a care- 
 less theatre were seconded by those of as 
 ignorant a press. The integrity of dramas 
 thus prepared for the world is just on a level 
 with the innocence of females nursed in a 
 camp and educated in a bagnio. As often, 
 therefore, as we are told that, by admitting 
 corrections warranted by common sense and 
 the laws of metre, we have not rigidly ad- 
 hered to the text of Shakspeare, we shall 
 entreat our opponents to exchange that 
 phrase for another ( more germane,' and say, 
 instead of it, that we have deviated from 
 the text of the publishers of single plays in 
 quarto, or their successors, the editors of the 
 first folio ; that we have sometimes followed 
 the suggestions of a Warburton, a Johnson, 
 a Farmer, or a Tyrwhitt, in preference to 
 the decisions of a Hemings or a Condell, not- 
 withstanding their choice of readings might 
 have been influenced by associates whose 
 high-sounding names cannot fail to enforce 
 respect, viz., William Ostler, John Shanke, 
 
 William Sly and Thomas Poope." Again : 
 " It is time, instead of a timid and servile 
 adherence to ancient copies, when (offending 
 against sense and metre) they furnish no 
 real help, that a future editor, well ac- 
 quainted with the phraseology of our author's 
 age, should be at liberty to restore some ap- 
 parent meaning to his corrupted lines, and a 
 decent flow to his obstructed versification. 
 The latter (as already has been observed) 
 may be frequently effected by the expulsion 
 of useless and supernumerary syllables, and 
 an occasional supply of such as might for- 
 tuitously have been omitted, notwithstand- 
 ing the declaration of Hemings and Condell, 
 whose fraudulent preface asserts that they 
 have published our author's plays ' as abso- 
 lute in their numbers as he conceived them.' 
 Till somewhat resembling the process above 
 suggested be authorized, the public will ask 
 in vain for a commodious and pleasant text 
 of Shakspeare. Nothing will be lost to the 
 world on account of the measure recom- 
 mended, there being folios and quartos 
 enough remaining for the use of antiquarian 
 or critical travellers, to whom a jolt over a 
 rugged pavement may be more delectable 
 than an easy passage over a smooth one, 
 though they both conduct to the same ob- 
 ject." 
 
 And this, then, is the text of Shakspere 
 that England has rejoiced in for half a cen- 
 tury ! These are the labours, whether of 
 correction or of critical opinion, that have 
 made Shakspere " popular." The critical 
 opinions have ceased, we believe, to have 
 any effect except amongst a few pedantic 
 persons, who fancy that it is cleverer to dis- 
 praise than to admire. But the text as cor- 
 rupted by Steevens is that which is generally 
 put into the hands of the readers of Shak- 
 spere. The number of editions of the text 
 alone of Shakspere printed during the pre- 
 sent century is by no means inconsiderable ; 
 and of these editions, which are constantly 
 multiplying, there are many thousand copies 
 year by year supplying the large and in- 
 creasing demand for a knowledge of our 
 greatest poet. With very few exceptions, 
 indeed, all these editions are copies of some 
 edition whose received text is considered as 
 
552 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPE11E. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 a standard even to the copying of typo- 
 graphical errors. That received text, to use 
 the words of the title-page of what is called 
 the trade edition, is " From the text of the 
 corrected copies left by the late George 
 Steevens, Esq., and Edmund Malone, Esq." 
 If we were to suppose, from this title, that 
 Steevens and Malone had agreed together to 
 leave a text for the benefit of posterity, we 
 should be signally deceived. The received 
 text is that produced by Steevens, when he 
 fancied himself " at liberty to restore some 
 apparent meaning to Shakspeare's corrupted 
 lines, and a decent flow to his obstructed 
 versification." Malone was walking in his 
 own track, that of extreme caution, and an 
 implicit reliance on the very earliest copies. 
 The text of his edition of 1821, though de- 
 formed with abundant marks of carelessness, 
 is an honest text, if we admit the principle 
 upon which it is founded. But the text of 
 Steevens, in which the peculiar versification 
 of Shakspere, especially its freedom, its 
 vigour, its variety of pause, its sweetness, 
 its majesty, are sacrificed to what he called 
 " polished versification," has been received 
 for nearly half a century as the standard 
 text. 
 
 Hay ley, the head of the school of English 
 poetry " in the most high and palmy state " 
 of Steevens, wrote his epitaph, which con- 
 cludes with these lines : 
 
 " This tomb may perish, but not so his name, 
 Who fied new lustre upon Shakspeare's 
 
 This may run by the side of Johnson's praise 
 of a sermonizing note of Warburton : " It 
 almost sets the critic on a level with the 
 author." Steevens, shedding new lustre upon 
 Shakspere ! Warburton, almost upon a level 
 with Shakspere ! Thus men talked in those 
 days, when their notion of poetry was simply 
 that it was not prose. Something in which 
 the mechanical form was to be obviously dis- 
 tinguished from other forms of composition 
 a sermon, an essay was poetry. They 
 looked for no inner life in poetry, no organi- 
 zation of its own, that should determine its 
 form. They looked for eight or ten syllable 
 verse, for blank verse or couplet. They 
 
 looked for syllabic regularity in Shakspere, 
 and a moral. When they found not the 
 moral, they shook their heads. When they 
 found what they called " superfluous sylla- 
 bles" in Shakspere's lines, out went the 
 syllables, by carrying over a word to the 
 next line, sometimes of two, sometimes of 
 three syllables. If there was a gap left, it 
 was filled up with rubbish. The excess of 
 the second line was carried over to the third, 
 till a halting-place was found or made. This 
 was mending the metre. Mending the 
 moral was not quite so easy to the editors ; 
 they left that task to the players, who, to do 
 them justice, were in no degree slow to set 
 about the work with the most laudable emu- 
 lation of the labours of the critics. They 
 cut out a scene here, and put in another 
 there. ' Lear' was to end with a jig, and ' Ham- 
 let' with a song. The manager-botchers, 
 however, in time grew timid. They wanted 
 new Tates to make new happy endings, but 
 the age of George III. was not luxuriant 
 enough to produce such daring geniuses. 
 The managers, therefore, were obliged to be 
 content with the glorious improvements of 
 the seventeenth century in all essentials. 
 But they did what they could. Shakspere's 
 songs were poor simple things ; they had 
 no point ; not much about love in them ; 
 nothing of loyalty; and so Shakspere's 
 comedies were always presented with new 
 songs by the salaried poet of " the house," 
 for " the house " kept a poet, as the maker of 
 razor-strops did in those days. But GARRICK, 
 the twin-star of Shakspere 
 
 " Shakspeare and Garrick like twin-stars shall 
 
 shine, 
 And earth irradiate with a beam divine "- 
 
 had many a twinkle of his own. In the 
 ' Biographia Dramatica' we have a list of 
 thirty-nine plays by Garrick : " He is well 
 known to have been the author of the 
 following, some of which are originals, and 
 the rest translations or alterations from other 
 authors, with a design to adapt them to the 
 present taste of the public." (A predecessor 
 printed upon the title of a tragedy of which 
 in a similar way he was " the author," 
 < King Lear, a Tragedy : by Nahum Tate.') 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 GARRICK. 
 
 553 
 
 Garrick's Shaksperean authorship was con- 
 fined to 'Romeo and Juliet,' 'The Fairies' 
 (' Midsummer Night's Dream'), ' The Tempest,' 
 ' Catherine and Petruchio ' (' Taming of the 
 Shrew'), 'Florizel and Perdita' ('Winter's 
 Tale'), 'Cymbeline', 'Hamlet.' This was pretty 
 well for a twin-star. Is it uncharitable to 
 infer that the Stratford Jubilee in 1769 was 
 something as much for the honour of David 
 Garrick as of William Shakspere ? On this 
 memorable occasion the corporation of Strat- 
 ford opened their proceedings by thus 
 addressing Garrick : " Sir, you who have 
 done the memory of Shakspere so much 
 honour are esteemed the fittest person to be 
 appointed the first steward of his jubilee." 
 The ode upon dedicating the town-hall, and 
 erecting a statue to Shakspere, was written 
 by Garrick, as well as spoken by him. It is 
 quite as good as birthday odes used to be. 
 It would be beyond our limits to describe 
 the effect which this ode produced ; how 
 rapturous was the public dinner; how 
 brilliant were the transparencies in the hall ; 
 and how appropriate were the characters of 
 the masquerade, at which a thousand persons 
 were present. Garrick spoke an oration in 
 honour of Shakspere, and thus he honours 
 him : " We get knowledge from Shakspeare, 
 not with painful labour, as we dig gold from 
 the mine, but at leisure, and with delight, 
 as we gain health and vigour from the sports 
 of the field. A picture frequently pleases 
 which represents an object that in itself is 
 disgustful. Teniers represents a number of 
 Dutch boors drunk and quarrelling in a 
 wretched hovel, and we admire the piece for 
 a kind of relative beauty, as a just imitation 
 of life and nature : with this beauty we are 
 struck in Shakspeare ; we know his originals, 
 and contemplate the truth of his copy with 
 delight." 
 
 This is the narrow view of the art of 
 Shakspere which Johnson impressed upon 
 his pupil. We read on, and we are be- 
 wildered. Slightingly have we spoken of 
 Garrick, because we felt that to do what he 
 has done with the masterpieces of Shakspere, 
 and especially with ' Hamlet,' was to show 
 that he did not understand them. But there 
 is something in this ' Oration in Honour of 
 
 Shakspere,' spoken by him at Stratford in 
 1769, and written by him, as it is said, which 
 shows to us that the author of that oration, 
 or parts of that oration, was far in advance 
 of the critical opinions of his day. Let us 
 present a consecutive passage which im- 
 mediately follows that already transcribed : 
 " It was happy for Shakspeare, and for us, 
 that in his time there was no example by 
 the imitation of which he might hope to be 
 approved. He painted nature as it appeared 
 to his own eye, and not from a transcript of 
 what was seen in nature by another. The 
 genius looks not upon nature, but through 
 it ; not at the outline only, but at the 
 differences, nice and innumerable, within it ; 
 at all that the variation of tints, and the 
 endless combinations of light and shade, can 
 express. As the power of perception is more, 
 more is still perceived in the inexhaustible 
 varieties of life ; but to copy only what 
 another has seen is to render superior 
 perspicacity vain ; and neither the painter 
 nor the poet can hope to excel who is content 
 to reflect a reflection, and to seek for nothing 
 in nature which others have not found. 
 
 " But there are beauties in Shakspeare not 
 relative powers that do not imitate, but 
 create. He was as another Nature : he 
 represents not only actions that were not 
 performed, but beings that do not exist ; yet 
 to these beings he assigns not only faculties, 
 but character ; he gives them not only pe- 
 culiar dispositions, but characteristic modes 
 of expressing them : they have character, 
 not merely from the passions and under- 
 standings, but from situation and habit ; 
 Caliban and Ariel, like Shallow and Falstaff, 
 are not more strongly distinguished in con- 
 sequence of different natures than of different 
 circumstances and employments. 
 
 " As there was no poet to seduce Shakspeare 
 into imitation, there was no critic to restrain 
 his extravagance ; yet we find the force of 
 his own judgment sufficient to rein his 
 imagination, and to reduce to system the new 
 world which he made. 
 
 " Does any one now inquire whether Shak- 
 speare was learned ? Do they mean whether 
 he knew how to call the same thing by 
 several names ? for learning, with respect to 
 
554 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPEKE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 languages, teaches no more ; learning, in its 
 best sense, is only nature at the rebound; 
 it is only the discovery of what is ; and he 
 who looks upon nature with a penetrating 
 eye derives learning from the source. Rules 
 of poetry have been deduced from examples, and 
 not examples from rules: as a poet, therefore, 
 Shakspeare did not need books ; and in no 
 instance in which he needed them as a 
 philosopher or historian does he appear 
 ignorant of what they teach. 
 
 "His language, like his conceptions, is 
 strongly marked with the characteristic of 
 nature ; it is bold, figurative, and significant ; 
 his terms, rather than his sentences, are 
 metaphorical ; he calls an endless multitude 
 a sea, by a happy allusion to the perpetual 
 succession of wave to wave; and he im- 
 mediately expresses opposition by taking up 
 arms, which, being fit in itself, he was not 
 solicitous to accommodate to his first image. 
 This is the language in which a figurative 
 and rapid conception will always be ex- 
 pressed : this is the language both of the 
 prophet and the poet, of native eloquence 
 and divine inspiration. 
 
 " It has been objected to Shakspeare that 
 he wrote without any moral purpose ; but I 
 boldly reply that he has effected a thousand. 
 He has not, indeed, always contrived a series 
 of events from the whole of which some moral 
 precept may be inferred ; but he has con- 
 veyed some rule of conduct, some principle 
 of knowledge, not only in almost every speech 
 of his dialogue, but in every incident, cha- 
 racter, and event." 
 
 We would attempt to deprive no man of 
 his fame ; but the passage which we have 
 just transcribed appears to us so contrary to 
 the habits of thought which Garrick must 
 have acquired from his theatrical practice, 
 so opposed to the recorded opinions to which 
 he was in the habit of looking up almost 
 with slavish reverence, that we cannot receive 
 the records of the Stratford Jubilee as 
 evidence that he wrote it. What was the 
 manufacturer of Shakspere's plays into farces, 
 and operas, and tragedies with moral endings, 
 to be the first man in England to discover 
 that Shakspere was a creator ; that he lived 
 in a world of his own creation; that the 
 
 practice of art went before the rules ; that 
 the question of his learning was to be settled 
 contrary to the way in which the pedants of 
 criticism had settled it, by the proof that 
 his knowledge was all-abundant ; that his 
 judgment was sufficient to rein his imagina- 
 tion; that he worked upon system, and 
 was therefore an artist in the highest sense 
 of the word ; that what has been called the 
 confusion of his metaphors was the language 
 both of the prophet and the poet ; that his 
 moral purpose was to be collected incident- 
 ally, not only through informal speeches, 
 but in every character and event ? The 
 beginning and the end of Garrick's oration 
 is commonplace. Here is a flood of light 
 shed upon the English opinion of Shakspere. 
 Was there any man in England, at that time, 
 whose philosophy was large enough, whose 
 knowledge was comprehensive enough, to 
 allow him to think thus? Was there any 
 man in England who dared so to express 
 himself, in the face of authorities who had 
 so recently propounded a totally different 
 system ? There was but one man that we 
 can dream of, and he was Edmund Burke. 
 We cannot think that Garrick wrote these 
 sentences. We can hardly think that he 
 knew the full force of what he was uttering. 
 It would be a dreary task to attempt to 
 trace all that was published about Shakspere 
 from the date of Johnson's first edition to 
 the close of the eighteenth century. A few 
 out of the heap of these forgotten emana- 
 tions of the critical mind, the multitude of 
 which proves the strong direction of the 
 national admiration, may not be unprofitably 
 noticed. Johnson, when he has dismissed 
 Shakspere from the shackles of the unities, 
 says, " I am almost frighted at my own 
 temerity." He dreaded the advocates of a 
 contrary opinion, " as .^Eneas withdrew from 
 the defence of Troy when he saw Neptune 
 shaking the wall." A Neptune arrived from 
 Scotland in the shape of ' Cursory Remarks 
 on Tragedy.' This work, though it dropped 
 into oblivion, was the performance of W. 
 RICHARDSON, " Professor of Humanity in the 
 University of Glasgow." A small specimen 
 will suffice : " with an impartiality which 
 becomes every man that dares to think for 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 MORGANN. 
 
 himself, let us allow him (Shakspere) great 
 merit as a comic writer, greater still as a 
 poet, but little, very little, as a tragedian. 
 
 And is, then, poor Shakespeare 
 
 to be excluded from the number of great 
 tragedians ? He is ; but let him be banished, 
 like Homer from the republic of Plato, with 
 marks of distinction and veneration ; and 
 may his forehead, like the Grecian bard's, be 
 bound with an honourable wreath of ever- 
 blooming flowers." There can be no doubt 
 of the paternity of this production. The 
 same Professor of Humanity in the Uni- 
 versity of Glasgow produced, in the same 
 year, ' A Philosophical Analysis and Illus- 
 tration of some of Shakespeare's Characters ;' 
 and this book has gone, with the appendage 
 of new characters, through many editions ; 
 and is allied, moreover, to Essays on this and 
 that Shaksperean thing, and a " perilous 
 shot " indeed in ' An Essay on the Faults of 
 Shakespeare.' We shall give no more than 
 a sentence : " I am inclined to believe, and 
 shall now endeavour to illustrate that the 
 greatest blemishes in Shakespeare have pro- 
 ceeded from his want of consummate taste. 
 Having no perfect discernment, proceeding 
 from rational investigation, of the true cause 
 of beauty in poetical composition, he had 
 never established in his mind any system of 
 regular process, or any standard of dramatic 
 excellence." Yet this solemn person, who 
 thinks that Shakspere had never established 
 in his mind any system of regular process, 
 bad no perfect discernment of the true cause 
 of beauty, has the temerity to write a book 
 of four hundred pages on his dramatic 
 characters. Something of a very different 
 description was produced three years after: 
 An Essay on the Dramatic Character of 
 Sir John Falstaff.' The author was MAURICE 
 MORGANN, once Under Secretary of State. 
 The book is far above the age. The author 
 s a thinker, and one who has been taught 
 ;o think by Shakspere. Take an example : 
 " In the groups of other poets, the parts 
 which are not seen do not, in fact, exist. 
 . . . Those characters in Shakespeare, 
 which are seen only in part, are yet capable 
 of being unfolded and understood in the 
 whole ; every part being, in fact, relative, 
 
 and inferring all the rest." The 
 on some of the Characters of Shakespeare,' 
 by Thomas Whately, published in 1785, is 
 something different from the performance of 
 the Scotch professor. What could induce 
 his eminent relation, who republished it in 
 1839, to write thus? "Mr. Whately, it 
 should be observed, is merely pointing out 
 that such and such speches do indicate cha- 
 racter ; not that they were, in each case, 
 written with that design. If, then, they 
 really are characteristic, the criticism is fully 
 borne out, whatever may have been the 
 design of Shakespeare. I doubt whether 
 Shakespeare ever had any thought at all of 
 making his personages speak character- 
 istically. In most instances, I conceive 
 probably in all he drew characters correctly, 
 becouse he could not avoid it, and would 
 never have attained, in that department, 
 such excellence as he has, if he had made 
 any studied efforts for it. And the same, 
 probably, may be said of Homer, and of those 
 other writers who have excelled the most in 
 delineating characters." Was the ' Paul 
 preaching at Athens,' with the Apostle cha- 
 racterised in his majesty, the sceptic in his 
 doubt, and the enthusiast in his veneration, 
 (characters marked as deeply as the Richard 
 and Macbeth upon which the relation of the 
 Archbishop of Dublin writes,) was this pro- 
 duced by Rafiaelle because he could not 
 avoid it ? We would willingly give an 
 extract or two from this clever book, but 
 its republication renders such unnecessary. 
 There is one more work, and one only, to 
 which we may point as being superior to the 
 ordinary criticism of that age " the butter- 
 woman's rank to market." It is Mr. Winter's 
 ' Specimen of a Commentary on Shakspeare,' 
 published in 1794. 
 
 Amidst the crowd of writers, from the 
 middle to the end of the eighteenth century, 
 who were adding to the mass of comment 
 upon Shakspere, whether in the shape of 
 essay, letter, poem, philosophical analysis, 
 illustration, there was one who, not especially 
 devoting himself to Shaksperean criticism, 
 had a considerable influence in the gradual 
 formation of a sound national taste. The 
 ' R cliques of Ancient English Poetry,' by 
 
556 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 THOMAS PERCY, originally published in 1765, 
 showed to the world that there was something 
 in the early writers beyond the use to which 
 they had been applied by Shakspere's com- 
 mentators. In these fragments it would be 
 seen that England, from the earliest times, 
 had possessed an inheritance of real poetry ; 
 and that he who had breathed a new life into 
 the forms of the past, and had known how to 
 call up the heroes of chivalry, to 
 
 " Enlive- their pale trunks, that the present age 
 Joys in their joy, and trembles at their rage," 
 
 was not without models of earnest passion 
 and noble simplicity in the ancient ballads. 
 The publication of these ' Reliques ' led the 
 way, though slowly, to the study of our 
 elder poets ; and every advance in this di- 
 rection was a step towards the more extended 
 knowledge, and the better understanding, of 
 Shakspere himself. Percy, in one part of 
 his first volume, collected "such ballads as 
 are quoted by Shakespeare, or contribute in 
 any degree to illustrate his writings." He 
 did this with his usual good taste ; and 
 every one knows with what skill he con- 
 nected in the tale of * The Friar of Orders 
 Grey' those "innumerable little fragments 
 of ancient ballads " which we find dispersed 
 through the plays of Shakspere. In his 
 introduction to this division of his work he 
 gives some very sensible observations upon 
 the origin of the English stage. In the 
 following remarks on the Histories of our 
 poet he takes a different, and we think a 
 juster, view of their origin and purpose than 
 Malone and the other commentators. Al- 
 though Percy puts his own opinions cau- 
 tiously, if not timidly, it is clear that he 
 had higher notions of Shakspere as an artist 
 than those who were arrogating to them- 
 selves the merit of having made him " po- 
 pular." He who holds that it is " the first 
 canon of sound criticism to examine any 
 work by whatever rule the author prescribed 
 for his own observance" is not far from a 
 right appreciation of Shakspere : " But, 
 while Shakespeare was the favourite dra- 
 matic poet, his Histories had such superior 
 merit, that he might well claim to be the 
 chief, if not the only, historic dramatist that 
 
 kept possession of the English stage ; which 
 gives a strong support to the tradition men- 
 tioned by Gildon, that, in a conversation 
 with Ben Jonson, our bard vindicated his 
 historical plays, by urging that, as he had 
 found ' the nation in general very ignorant 
 of history, he wrote them in order to instruct 
 the people in this particular.' This is as- 
 signing not only a good motive, but a very 
 probable reason, for his preference of this 
 species of composition, since we cannot 
 doubt but his illiterate countrymen would 
 not only want such instruction when he first 
 began to write, notwithstanding the obscure 
 dramatic chroniclers who preceded him, but 
 also that they would highly profit by his 
 admirable Lectures on English History so 
 long as he continued to deliver them to his 
 audience. And, as it implies no claim to 
 his being the first who introduced our chro- 
 nicles on the stage, I see not why the tradi- 
 tion should be rejected. 
 
 " Upon the whole, we have had abundant 
 proof that both Shakespeare and his con- 
 temporaries considered his Histories, or His- 
 torical Plays, as of a legitimate distinct spe- 
 cies, sufficiently separate from Tragedy and 
 Comedy ; a distinction which deserves the 
 particular attention of his critics and com- 
 mentators, who, by not adverting to it, 
 deprive him of his proper defence and best 
 vindication for his neglect of the unities 
 and departure from the classical dramatic 
 forms. For, if it be the first canon of sound 
 criticism to examine any work by whatever 
 rule the author prescribed for his own ob- 
 servance, then we ought not to try Shake- 
 speare's Histories by the general laws of 
 tragedy or comedy. Whether the rule itself 
 be vicious or not, is another inquiry: but, 
 certainly, we ought to examine a work only 
 by those principles according to which it 
 was composed. This would save a deal of 
 impertinent criticism." 
 
 'The History of English Poetry,' by 
 THOMAS WARTON, published in 1774, was 
 another of those works which advanced the 
 study of our early literature in the spirit of 
 elegant scholarship as opposed to biblio- 
 graphical pedantry. Warton was an ardent 
 lover of Shakspere, as we may collect from 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 WARTON. 
 
 557 
 
 several little poems ; but he was scarcely 
 out of the trammels of the classical school. 
 His education had taught him that Shak- 
 spere worked without art, and indeed he 
 held that most of the Elizabethan poets so 
 worked : " It may here be added that only 
 a few critical treatises, and but one * Art of 
 Poetry,' were now written. Sentiments and 
 images were not absolutely determined by 
 the canons of composition ; nor was genius 
 awed by the consciousness of a future and 
 final arraignment at the tribunal of taste. 
 A certain dignity of inattention to niceties 
 is now visible in our writers. Without too 
 closely consulting a criterion of correctness, 
 every man indulged his own capriciousness 
 of invention. The poet's appeal was chiefly 
 to his own voluntary feelings, his own im- 
 mediate and peculiar mode of conception. 
 And this freedom of thought was often ex- 
 pressed in an undisguised frankness of dic- 
 tion ; a circumstance, by the way, that 
 greatly contributed to give the flowing mo- 
 dulation which now marked the measures of 
 our poets, and which soon degenerated into 
 the opposite extreme of dissonance and 
 asperity. Selection and discrimination were 
 often overlooked. Shakespeare wandered in 
 pursuit of universal nature. The glancings 
 of his eye are from heaven to earth, from 
 earth to heaven. We behold him breaking 
 the barriers of imaginary method. In the 
 same scene he descends from his meridian of 
 the noblest tragic sublimity to puns and 
 quibbles, to the meanest merriment of a 
 plebeian farce. In the midst of his dignity 
 he resembles his own Richard II., the skip- 
 ping king, who sometimes, discarding the 
 state of a monarch, 
 
 ' Mingled his royalty with carping fools.' 
 He seems not to have seen any impropriety 
 in the most abrupt transitions, from dukes 
 to buffoons, from senators to sailors, from 
 counsellors to constables, and from kings to 
 clowns. Like Virgil's majestic oak 
 
 ' Quantum vertice ad auras 
 uEthereas, tantum radice in Tartara tendit.' " 
 
 All this is prettily said ; but it would not 
 have been said if Warton had lived half a 
 century later. Scattered about the periodi- 
 
 cal 'Essayists' are many papers on Shak- 
 spere, worth consulting by the student, which, 
 if not very valuable in themselves, indicate 
 at least the progress of opinion. Joseph 
 Warton, in ' The Adventurer,' where he 
 reviews 'The Tempest' and 'Lear,' is a great 
 stickler for the unities. Mackenzie, in ' The 
 Mirror,' has a higher reverence for Shak- 
 spere, and a more philosophical contempt for 
 the application of the ancient rules to works 
 having their own forms of vitality. Cum- 
 berland, in 'The Observer,' contrasts 'Mac- 
 beth' and 'Richard III.;' and he compares 
 Shakspere with .ZEschylus in a way which 
 exhibits the resources of his scholarship and 
 the elegance of his taste. All the fragmen- 
 tary critical opinions upon Shakspere, from 
 the time of Johnson's Preface to the end of 
 the century, exhibit some progress towards 
 the real faith ; some attempt to cast off not 
 only the authority of the ancient rules of 
 art, but the smaller authority of that lower 
 school of individual judgment, which the 
 Shaksperean commentators had been prop- 
 ping up, as well as they could, upon their 
 own weak shoulders. Coleridge has well 
 described their pretensions to authority : 
 " Every critic, who has or has not made a 
 collection of black-letter books, in itself a 
 useful and respectable amusement, puts on 
 the seven-league boots of self-opinion, and 
 strides at once from an illustrator into a 
 supreme judge, and, blind and deaf, fills his 
 three-ounce phial at the waters of Niagara ; 
 and determines positively the greatness of 
 the cataract to be neither more nor less than 
 his three-ounce phial has been able to re- 
 ceive." Such a critic was Mr. Francis Douce ; 
 who has been at the pains of making a 
 formal essay ' On the Anachronisms and 
 some other Incongruities of Shakspeare.' 
 The words by which Mr. Douce describes 
 these are, of course, " absurdities," " blun- 
 ders," " distortions of reality," " negligence," 
 "absurd violations of historical accuracy." 
 Some concessions are, however, made by the 
 critic : " His bestowing the epithet of gipsy 
 on Cleopatra is whimsical ; but may, per- 
 haps, admit of defence." It is perfectly 
 clear that a man who talks thus has not the 
 slightest philosophical comprehension of the 
 
558 
 
 STUDIES OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 objects of Art, and the mode in which Art 
 works. The domain of the literal and the 
 ideal is held to be one and the same. It is 
 truly said of the formative arts, by a living 
 painter who knows the philosophy of his 
 own art as much as he excels in its practice, 
 that " a servile attention to the letter of 
 description, as opposed to its translateable 
 spirit, accuracy of historic details, exactness 
 of costume, &c., are not essential in them- 
 selves, but are valuable only in proportion 
 as they assist the demands of the art, or 
 produce an effect on the imagination. This 
 may sufficiently explain why an inattention 
 to these points, on the part of great painters 
 (and poets, as compared with mere his- 
 torians), has interfered so little with their 
 reputation."* 
 
 One of the critics upon Shakspere has 
 sought to apologize for his anachronisms or 
 " absurdities " by showing the example of 
 the greatest of painters, that of Raffaelle, 
 in the ' Transfiguration : ' " The two Do- 
 minicans on their knees are as shocking a 
 violation of good sense, and of the unities 
 of place, of time, and of action, as it is pos- 
 sible to imagine." It is clear that Martin 
 Sherlock, who writes thus, did not under- 
 stand the art of Raffaelle. This was the 
 spirit of all criticism upon painting and 
 upon poetry. The critic never laboured to 
 conceive the great prevailing idea of " the 
 maker" in either art. He had no central 
 point from which to regard his work. The 
 great painters, especially in their treatment 
 of religious compositions, had their whole 
 soul permeated with the glory and beauty 
 of the subjects upon which they treated. 
 Their art was in itself a worship of the 
 Great Infinite Idea of beauty and truth. 
 The individual forms of humanity, the tem- 
 porary fashions of human things, were lifted 
 into the region of the universal and the per- 
 manent. The Dominicans on their knees in 
 the 'Transfiguration' were thus the repre- 
 sentatives of adoring mortality during the 
 unfolding to the bodily sense of heavenly 
 glory. Who can see the anachronism, as it 
 is called, till a small critic points it out ? 
 
 * Preface to Kugler's ' History of Painting,' bv C. L. 
 Eastlake.Esq., R. A. 
 
 Art changes the very nature of those ele- 
 ments by which the imagination is affected. 
 She touches them, and the things are pro- 
 pertied for her use. What is mean, sepa- 
 rately considered, is harmonised by her into 
 greatness; what is rude, into beauty; what 
 is low, into sublimity. We fear that it was 
 a want of comprehending the high powers 
 and privileges of Art, whether in poetry or 
 painting, that made the 'Shakspere Gallery,' 
 which, towards the end of the last century, 
 was to raise up an historic school of painting 
 amongst us, a lamentable failure. The art 
 of painting in England was to do homage 
 to Shakspere. The commercial boldness of 
 a tradesman built a gallery in which the 
 Reynoldses, and Wests, and Romneys, and 
 Fuselis, and Northcotes, and Opies, might 
 consecrate, by the highest efforts of painting, 
 the inspiration which was to be borrowed 
 from Shakspere. The gallery was opened ; 
 the works were munificently paid for ; they 
 were engraved ; the text of Shakspere was 
 printed in larger type than the world had ever 
 seen, to be a fit vehicle for the engravings. 
 People exclaimed that Italy was outdone. 
 With half a dozen exceptions, who can now 
 look upon those works and not feel that 
 the inspiration of Shakspere was altogether 
 wanting? It is not that they violate the pro 
 prieties of costume, which are now better un- 
 derstood ; it is not that we are often shocked 
 by the translation of a poetical image into 
 a palpable thing like the grinning fiend in 
 Reynolds's 'Death of Beaufort;' but it is 
 that the Shaksperean inspiration is not there. 
 Lord Thurlow is reported to have said, in 
 his coarse way, to one not wanting in talent, 
 "Romney, before you paint Shakspere, do, 
 for God's sake, read him." But the proper 
 reading of Shakspere was not the fragmentary 
 reading which Thurlow probably had in his 
 mind. The picturesque passages are to be 
 easily discovered by a painter's eye ; but 
 these are the things which most painters 
 will literally translate. Shakspere is always 
 injured by such a literal translation. Deeply 
 meditated upon, his scenes and characters 
 float before the mind's eye in forms which 
 no artifices of theatrical illusion, no embodi- 
 ments of painting and sculpture, have ever 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 IRELAND. 
 
 559 
 
 presented. If such visions are to be fixed 
 by the pencil, so as to elevate our delight 
 and add to our reverence of the great ori- 
 ginal, that result must be attained by such 
 a profound study of the master, as a whole, 
 as may place him in the light of the greatest 
 of suggestive poets, instead of one whose de- 
 tails are to be enfeebled by a literal tran- 
 script. 
 
 We have little of importance left to notice 
 before we reach the close of the eighteenth 
 century, about which period we ought to rest. 
 Opinions upon our contemporaries, except 
 very general ones, would be as imprudent 
 as misplaced. Perhaps we should notice in 
 a few words the extraordinary forgeries of 
 WILLIAM HENRY IRELAND. We consider them 
 as the result of the all-engrossing character 
 of Shaksperean opinion in the days of the 
 rivalries and controversies of Steevens and 
 Malone, of Ritson and Chalmers : 
 " Take Markham's Armoury, John Taylor's 
 Sculler, 
 
 Or Sir Giles Goosecap, or proverbial Fuller; 
 
 With Upton, Fabell, Dodypoll the nice, 
 
 Or Gibbe our cat, White Devils, or Old Vice ; 
 
 Then lead your readers many a precious 
 dance, 
 
 Capering with Banks's ' Bay Horse in a 
 Trance : ' 
 
 The ' Housewife's Jewel' read with care ex- 
 act, 
 
 Wit from old Books of Cookery extract ; 
 
 Thoughts to stew'd prunes and kissing com- 
 fits suit, 
 
 Or the potato, vigour-stirring root ; 
 
 And then, returning from that antique waste, 
 
 Be hail'd by Parr the Guide of Public 
 Taste."* 
 
 A clever boy, who had a foolish father 
 whose admiration of Shakspere took the 
 form of longing, with an intensity which 
 Mrs. Pickle could not have equalled, for 
 the smallest scraps of Shakspere's writing, 
 thought he would try his hand at the ma- 
 nufacture of a few such scraps a receipt ; 
 a mortgage-deed; a Protestant Confession of 
 Faith by William Shakspere, to be placed 
 in opposition to another forgery of a Roman 
 Catholic Confession of Faith. This precious 
 * ' Pursuits of Literature.' 
 
 production thus concludes : " cheryshe 
 usse like the sweete Chickenne thatte under 
 the covert offe herre spreadynge Winges Re- 
 ceyves herre lyttle Broode ande hoverynge 
 overre themme keepes themme harmlesse 
 ande in safetye." Learned men came to read 
 the confession of faith, and one affirmed that 
 it was finer than anything in the Church 
 Liturgy. Witty conundrums succeeded; 
 letters to Anne Hathaway ; memorandums 
 connected with the theatre; a new edition of 
 'King Lear,' with the author's last alterations; 
 and, to crown the whole, an original play, 
 ' Vortigern and Rowena.' The boy was evi- 
 dently imbued with the taste of his time, and 
 really fancied that he could mend Shakspere. 
 Hear one of his confessions: "In. King Lear 
 the following lines are spoken by Kent after 
 the King's death : 
 
 ' I have a journey, sir, shortly to go : 
 My master calls, and I must not say no.' 
 
 As I did not conceive 1 such a jingling and 
 unmeaning couplet very appropriate to the 
 occasion, I composed the following lines : 
 
 ' Thanks, sir ; but I go to that unknown land 
 That chains each pilgrim fast within its soil ; 
 By living men most shunn'd, most dreaded. 
 Still my good master this same journey took: 
 He calls me; I am content, and straight 
 
 obey: 
 Then, farewell, world ! the busy scene is 
 
 done : 
 Kent liv'd most true, Kent dies most like a 
 
 man.' " 
 
 The documents were published in the most 
 expensive form. All the critics in the land 
 came to look upon the originals. Some -went 
 upon their knees and kissed them. The 
 '' black-letter dogs" began to tear each other 
 in pieces about their authenticity. Hard 
 names were given and returned ; dunce and 
 blockhead were the gentlest vituperations. 
 The whole controversy turned upon the co- 
 lour of the ink, the water-mark of the paper, 
 the precise mode of superscription to a letter, 
 the contemporary use of a common word, the 
 date of the first use of promissory notes, the 
 form of a mortgage. Scarcely one of the 
 learned went boldly to the root of the im- 
 posture, and showed that Shakspere could 
 
560 
 
 STUDIES OP SHAKSPERE. 
 
 [BOOK xi. 
 
 not have written such utter trash. The case 
 of Chatterton was altogether a different one. 
 There, indeed, was high genius wrongfully 
 employed ; but the enthusiastic admiration 
 of the thing produced might well shut the 
 eyes of the most acute to the inconsistencies 
 which surrounded it. Not so with the new 
 treasures which William Henry Ireland dis- 
 covered from the pen of Shakspere. The 
 people, however, settled the question. The 
 play was brought out at Drury Lane: and 
 the prologue by Sir James Bland Burgess 
 is another instance of the mode in which 
 the poetasters and witlings venerated Shak- 
 spere : 
 
 " From deep oblivion snatch'd, this play ap- 
 pears: 
 
 It claims respect, since Shakspeare's name it 
 bears; 
 
 That name, the source of wonder and delight, 
 
 To a fair hearing has at least a right. 
 
 We ask no more. With you the judgment 
 lies: 
 
 No forgeries escape your piercing eyes ! 
 
 Unbiass'd, then, pronounce your dread de- 
 cree, 
 
 Alike from prejudice or favour free. 
 
 If, the fierce ordeal pass'd, you chance to 
 find 
 
 Rich sterling ore, though rude and unrefirid, 
 
 Stamp it your own, assert your poet's fame, 
 
 And add fresh wreaths to Shakspeare's ho- 
 nour'd name." 
 
 The people did pronounce their " dread 
 decree." When Mr. Kemble uttered the 
 line 
 " And when this solemn mockery is o'er " 
 
 "the most discordant howl echoed from the 
 pit that ever assailed the organs of hearing." 
 Shakspere was vindicated. 
 
 At the beginning of the nineteenth century 
 a new school of criticism began to establish it- 
 self amongst us. CHARLES LAMB and WILLIAM 
 HAZLITT led the way in approaching Shak- 
 spere, if not wholly in the spirit of ^Esthetics, 
 yet with love, with deep knowledge, with 
 surpassing acuteness, with unshackled minds. 
 But a greater arose. A new era of critical 
 opinion upon Shakspere, as propounded by 
 Englishmen, may be dated from the delivery 
 of the lectures of SAMUEL TAYLOR COLEKIDGE, 
 at the Surrey Institution, in 1814. What 
 that great man did for Shakspere during the 
 remainder of his valuable life can scarcely be 
 appreciated by the public. For his opinions 
 were not given to the world in formal trea- 
 tises and ponderous volumes. They were 
 fragmentary; they were scattered, as it were, 
 at random ; many of them were the oral 
 lessons of that wisdom and knowledge which 
 he poured out to a few admiring disciples. 
 But they have had their effect. For our- 
 selves, personally, we owe a debt of gratitude 
 to that illustrious man that can never be 
 repaid. If in any degree we have been en- 
 abled to present Shakspere to the popular 
 mind under new aspects, looking at him f om 
 a central point, which should permit us, 
 however imperfectly, to comprehend some- 
 thing of his wondrous SYSTEM, we owe the 
 desire so to understand him ourselves to 
 the germs of thought which are scattered 
 through the works of that philosopher ; to 
 whom the homage of future times will 
 abundantly compensate for the partial neg- 
 lect of his contemporaries. We desire to 
 conclude this outline of the opinions of 
 others upon the works of Shakspere, in con- 
 nection with the imperfect expression of our 
 own sense of those opinions, with the name of 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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