ESSAYS 
 
 ON 
 
 SHAKE SPEAEE AND HIS WOEKS 
 
ESSAYS _ 
 
 ON 
 
 SHAKESPEARE AND HIS WORKS 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 SIK SPENSEK ST. JOHN, G.C.M.G. 
 
 OF H.M.'S DIPLOMATIC SEBVICE (EETIRED) 
 
 FROM THE MSS. AND NOTES OF 
 A DECEASED RELATIVE 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SMITH, ELDEE, & CO., 15 WATEELOO PLACE 
 
 1908 
 
 [All rights reserved] 
 
• i.**» » 
 

 PEEFACE 
 
 The Essays contained in this volume I am editing are 
 almost entirely founded on the MSS. and notes of a 
 deceased relative. They are the work of an author of 
 culture, of high classical attainments, a traveller and 
 a man of the world. They do not profess to be more 
 than their name implies : a criticism of Shakespeare 
 and his works, and not of the drama of the Elizabethan 
 era; nor do they endeavour to compete with the 
 writings of the learned and able men who in these 
 days have devoted themselves to the study of our 
 greatest poet. Before the Public Service took me 
 away to the wildest of foreign lands, I was myself an 
 ardent student of Shakespeare, and therefore I was 
 indeed deeply interested when I read these Essays, 
 which in general accorded so completely with my 
 views, though in minor points I occasionally hesitated 
 to accept them. They came into my hands in a very 
 disordered state, and I fear that although I have taken 
 great pains in arranging them they are still not as 
 presentable as I had hoped. 
 
 Perhaps the general reader may think as I do that 
 he would rather be aided by the opinions and criticisms 
 
 532:iS8 
 
VI ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 of one really capable man, than be puzzled by the 
 opinions of half a dozen critics however able. Taken 
 as a whole these Essays may, I believe, be looked upon 
 as a true and faithful analysis of the plays of our 
 greatest dramatist : they are not eulogies, but they 
 endeavour to present to the reader the faults as well as 
 the beauties of these noble plays. 
 
 A few of the Essays are not quite complete, as, for 
 instance, the one entitled * Plot and Story,' but I have 
 not liked to omit it. There are also occasionally slight 
 repetitions, but as they appeared necessary to the full 
 understanding of the argument I have not suppressed 
 them. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 BS8AT PAGE 
 
 I. Introductory 1 
 
 II. Art 13 
 
 «/lII. Art in Tragedy 87 
 
 ^IV. Tragedy ^■ 
 
 V. Treatment of the Comic Element . . . 7i 
 
 VI. Licence in the Use of Language . . . . 92 
 
 VII. Conception of the Female Character . 104 
 
 -J VIII. Conception of the Male Character . . . 122 
 
 IX. Love . .13^ 
 
 X. Philosophy of Shakespeare : Eeligion — Fate . 165. 
 XL Philosophy: Character — Physical Science — 
 
 Sleep and Dreams 182 
 
 XII. Philosophy: Communism — Rights of Women- 
 Ethnology 199 
 
 XIII. Philosophy : Country Life — Old Age — Distri- 
 
 bution OF Happiness 214 
 
 XIV. Shakespeare's Employment of the Supernatural 221 
 XV. Esoteric Opinions of Shakespeare . . . 244 
 
 XVI. Political and Miscellaneous Opinions . . . 260 
 
 XVII. Language 
 
 XVIII. Plot and Story 300^ 
 
ESSAYS ON 
 
 ESSAY I 
 
 INTBODUCTOEY 
 
 In expressing our opinions of a great author we are 
 beset by some difficulties not necessarily inherent in 
 the subject itself. A theory of the man and of his 
 writings having been framed by criticism, and adopted 
 by the public, every new speculation is expected to fall 
 within the limits of that theory and to be throughout 
 in harmony with it. The newness consequently must 
 consist rather in fresh discoveries of excellences, in 
 forms of praise, in outbursts of admiration, in idolatry, 
 more or less mitigated, than in an impartial investi- 
 gation into the genuine nature of his productions. 
 
 Though Shakespeare is not and cannot be to us, 
 what Homer was to the Greeks, the source of religion, 
 philosophy, and politics, he embodies so large a portion 
 of the national consciousness that he will probably 
 be our most cherished intellectual companion as long 
 as we continue to form a nation. Yet he must be 
 differently estimated by each succeeding age accord- 
 ing to the measure of its culture and intelligence. 
 He is not to us what he was to the contemporaries 
 of Ealeigh and Bacon, of Addison and Pope, of 
 
 B 
 
2 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Gibbon and Johnson; all these had their pedantries 
 and their prejudices, in literature, in theology, and in 
 ethics, which modified their admiration and gave a 
 colour to their criticism. We also have our prejudices 
 and our pedantries, which we can no more shake off 
 than we can think in Chinese. 
 
 Of certain books which were once to be found on 
 the shelves of every library Johnson observes that it is 
 easier to praise than to read them. Many critics find 
 dispraise no less easy, especially when engaged in 
 heaping up adulation on some favourite author, whom 
 they seek to elevate, at the expense of every other 
 individual who can by any contrivance be forced into 
 comparison with him. 
 
 Shakespeare, who has excellences lying in the 
 foreground as well as in the obscure distance, 
 has seldom, as it appears to me, been subjected to 
 useful criticism. Was he lawyer's clerk, was he 
 schoolmaster, was he a woolstapler, was he a butcher, 
 was he poor, did he hold gentlemen's horses at the 
 door of the theatre, was he rich — either through the 
 results of his own industry or by the generosity of 
 certain noblemen? Inquiries without end have been 
 entered into on these comparatively trivial questions. 
 But did he write the plays attributed to him, and, 
 if so, what is the value of those plays to us of the 
 present generation and to posterity ? If he wrote all 
 or most of the dramas usually found in the collected 
 editions of his works, together with certain poems and 
 sonnets, it may be worth while to examine once more 
 such of them as appear to be his, and to ascertain if 
 possible the amount of merit to be found in them, 
 or, if there be demerit, to point it out and justify the 
 decision. More good may be effected in this way than 
 
INTRODUCTORY 3 
 
 by piling up eulogies which often prove nothing more 
 than that their authors wanted discrimination, and 
 were determined that the world should know it. 
 
 It was no fault of Shakespeare's certainly, but he 
 has been the occasion of more nonsense than almost 
 any other writer, either ancient or modern. Aristotle 
 indeed had ten thousand commentators, who, as Swift 
 suggests, knew as little of him as he did of them. 
 
 From the date of Kowe's edition, 1709, down to 
 the publication of Malone's ' Shakespeare ' by Boswell 
 in 1821 there appeared numerous elaborate editions, 
 accompanied by a formidable array of notes and 
 prefaced for the most part with extravagant eulogies. 
 The eighteenth century may in fact be regarded as a 
 Shakespeare era, the very perihelion of the poet's 
 fame, during which many able critics sought to 
 outdo each other in the servility of their admiration. 
 Kowe, indeed, confines his praise within modest limits ; 
 sometimes underrating the merits of Shakespeare, as 
 where he tells us that the parasite and the vain- 
 glorious in ParoUes is as good as anything of that 
 kind in Plautus or Terence. What he says of 
 Shakespeare's treatment of the supernatural is well 
 expressed : * The greatness of this author's genius 
 does nowhere so much appear as where he gives his 
 imagination an entire loose, and raises his fancy to 
 a flight above mankind and the limits of the visible 
 world.' 
 
 When Pope nineteen years later undertook to 
 point out Shakespeare's great qualities he exhibited 
 as little regard for truth as he did for his own reputa- 
 tion. His knowledge of antiquity, notwithstanding his 
 Homeric studies, was very limited, though he desired 
 to be thought a great proficient in that kind of learning. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 *If ever any author,' he says, 'deserved the name 
 of an original, it was Shakespeare. Homer himself 
 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 learning or some cast of the models of those 
 before him.' 
 
 Mr. Gladstone in his learned and admirable picture 
 of the Homeric age, and of the ages immediately pre- 
 ceding it, is at some pains to show that the belief in 
 the Unity of God reached Hellas from the East ; but 
 he knows nothing of those * strainers and channels' 
 through which Pope imagines Homer to have derived 
 his knowledge of the poetical art. The Arabs of Tyre 
 and Sidon no doubt imported some knowledge with 
 their merchandise into Greece and other European 
 countries, but the Greeks knew too little of Arabic, 
 and the Arabs of Greek, to render the transmission of 
 poetic ideas and refinement possible. Pope proceeds : 
 * The poetry of Shakespeare 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.' As Pope 
 has made himself an object of admiration to us by 
 many of his own writings, and still more by his trans- 
 lation of Homer, it is a matter of regret that he 
 should have put forward so many erroneous opinions 
 respecting Shakespeare, whom he really understood 
 less than many writers inferior in other respects to 
 him. Possessed by a sort of mania for saying striking 
 things, he lost sight of truth, and, as his authority in 
 literature was very great, may be said to have set the 
 fashion of elevating Shakespeare into an object of 
 idolatry. His aim was, however, much less to eulogise 
 
 I 
 
INTRODUCTORY 5 
 
 Shakespeare than to shine himself, which may be 
 affirmed with equal truth of his friend Warburton, 
 one of the ablest and most unamiable men who have 
 written on Shakespeare. Each succeeding editor, with 
 the exception of Steevens, seems to have looked upon 
 it as a religious duty to exceed all his predecessors in 
 the force and fervour of devotion, which may be said 
 to have culminated in the phrase : * He came out of 
 Nature's hand, like Pallas out of Jove's head, at full 
 growth and mature.' In this style critics went on to 
 the time of Coleridge, who closed the list of able 
 writers of the apotheotic class. Exaggeration could be 
 carried no further ; the public grew weary of idolising 
 Shakespeare, though writers of mean intellect, urged 
 by some instinct, in spite of Nature and their stars, 
 to write, go on still harping on the same string. It 
 is time, however, to have done with adulation and 
 yield to the influence of truth. But whither will this 
 lead us? Not certainly to disparage Shakespeare, but 
 to hold up, if possible, such a mirror as shall reflect 
 faithfully both the man and his writings. There is 
 nothing to be gained by considering him worse or 
 better than he is, truer or less true to nature, com- 
 pleter or less complete in his art, wiser or less wise 
 in his philosophy. If I often differ from other critics, 
 it is through no desire to confute them, but only 
 because my studies have forced me to different con- 
 clusions. Thought is free, and if in the hurry of its 
 movements it sometimes falls in and incorporates 
 itself with error, the remedy is at hand in a new and 
 more diligent consideration of the subject. 
 
 At first sight it would be no disparagement to 
 Shakespeare to place * Philaster ' side by side with his 
 best tragedy. Throughout the works, indeed, of these 
 
6 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 celestial twins ^ there is so much beauty, so rich a 
 store of imagery, so many touching passages and 
 incidents, so constant a recurrence of exquisite de- 
 scriptions, that to a real lover of sweet imaginative 
 literature they would supply reading for a whole life. 
 
 Hazlitt says of Coleridge that he had a knack of 
 preferring the unknown to the known, which, though 
 the habit deserted him in the case of Shakespeare, 
 may account for the preference he accords to the 
 Gothic rather than to the Greek literature. Shake- 
 speare entertained no such preference. Nothing but 
 the scantiness of his knowledge prevented him from 
 diving more deeply into antiquity, and bringing forth 
 from its depths a still larger array of exquisite 
 imageries than those which adorn his plays. His 
 finest thoughts are cast in the very mould of antiquity, 
 he invents as Hellas invented, his imagination sat 
 with Sophocles all night on the banks of the Ilissus 
 and heard the gurgling of the stream mingle with 
 the song of the nightingale. This to me, at least, is 
 one of his greatest charms, because he is never fuller 
 of fancy, never more happy in his conceptions, never 
 sways more resistlessly the powers of our inner nature, 
 than when he invokes the hidden soul of some Greek 
 mythus, or presents us with dewy flowers from the 
 gardens of the Hesperides : 
 
 Violets dim, 
 But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes 
 Or Cytherea's breath.^ 
 
 If there be nothing of this in the mythology, there 
 ought to have been, since it contains no thought or 
 image more beautiful. 
 
 • Beaumont and Fletcher. 
 
 ^ The Winter's Tale, act iv. sc. 3. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 7 
 
 If it does not fall to the lot of anyone who speaks 
 truth to judge in the same spirit of all Shakespeare's 
 dealings with antique themes, this is the poet's own 
 fault, or rather misfortune. He should have studied 
 more carefully the topography of his inventions. If 
 he has not done this we may lament the fact, but are 
 under no necessity of denying it. Shakespeare had a 
 genius which would have enabled him under proper 
 conditions to invest with all the colours of life and 
 truth an additional episode of the Trojan War ; it was 
 within his competence to revivify the great misanthrope 
 of Athens, and to surround him with circumstances in 
 strict accordance with history, which in this case is 
 only another word for nature ; he might have done the 
 same thing for the war of Coriolanus, for the extinc- 
 tion of the republic, for the dalliance and death of the 
 grossest of the Triumvirs, with his shameless partner in 
 licentiousness. But no one who respects himself and 
 cherishes a stern reverence for truth will venture to 
 af&rm that Shakespeare fulfilled the conditions which 
 he imposed upon himself when he undertook to write 
 his Greek and Eoman plays. 
 
 While following the current of Shakespeare's 
 thoughts, through the whole extent of his genuine 
 works, all readers probably experience a desire to 
 ascertain what on many great questions his real 
 opinions were : for example, on religion, on spirit, on 
 matter, on politics, on women, on ethics, and generally 
 on the relations of social life. By a prolonged and 
 careful study, I have sought to arrive at something like 
 a probable conclusion on those subjects, though I by 
 no means flatter myself that I have succeeded in all, 
 or even in most cases. 
 
 If language, as has been said, was given to man to 
 
8 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 conceal his thoughts, Shakespeare may often be com- 
 phmented on having skilfully made use of it for that 
 purpose, since there are points on which it seems all 
 but impossible to discern the drift of his reasoning. 
 As a rule it may be affirmed, that when a man aims 
 at veiling his opinions from his contemporaries, and 
 even from posterity, he is impelled into this course by 
 the consciousness that he cherishes notions deemed 
 heterodox by the multitude, and likely therefore to 
 alienate their affections from him. The working of 
 Shakespeare's mind, which appears sometimes to 
 bring forth its conceptions with great throes, convinces 
 me that he is at such times engaged in suggesting 
 ideas which it might be dangerous to express. 
 
 No writer of deep and earnest thought has perhaps 
 been able to square all his theories in strict conformity 
 with popular views, though he may desire to keep on 
 good terms with the majority whose favour or disfavour 
 might affect his social well-being ; yet the wish to be 
 understood by minds of an elevation like his ov^n 
 must lead him to the employment of symbolical or 
 enigmatical language, intelligible only to the initiated. 
 From time immemorial this practice has been in vogue, 
 since very early reference is made to the words of the 
 wise, and their dark sayings, which however were 
 only dark to the unwise. When Alexander reproached 
 Aristotle for publishing his * Metaphysics,' since his 
 esoteric doctrines would now, he said, be revealed to 
 everyone, the philosopher replied that none would 
 penetrate their significance but such as deserved to 
 understand them. It is the same with Shakespeare : 
 few with him are admitted behind the veil, perhaps no 
 one completely, so that nothing can be more rash than 
 to predicate of this or that belief that it is Shake- 
 
INTRODUCTORY 9 
 
 speare's. Horace, a much more superficial writer, when 
 asking himself how many would comprehend and 
 correctly estimate the whole extent of his conceptions, 
 replies : * Aut duo, aut nemo.' 
 
 Some things whispered at Eleusis have left no 
 echo audible to us ; and Shakespeare at the Black- 
 friars and the Globe gave utterance to many a 
 phrase on which the seal of unintelligibility is still 
 stamped. This to writers like Charles Lamb has 
 suggested the persuasion that Shakespeare's plays 
 ought not to be acted, it being impossible that motley 
 audiences, such as usually fill a theatre, should divine 
 all their meaning. But it is by no means necessary 
 that they should. The language of the passions 
 addresses itself to all grades, and all grades understand 
 it, which is the fact that qualifies Shakespeare to speak 
 to us in our collective capacity. It needs no subtle 
 philosophical apprehension to sympathise with the 
 sorrows of Hamlet, with the jealousy of Othello, with 
 the madness of Lear, with the torturing avarice and 
 the baffled pride of Shylock, or with the devouring 
 love of Juliet. This at least is a language which all 
 who run may read, while they who are gifted with 
 acute powers of observation cannot fail to perceive 
 that behind these obvious phenomena there lies a 
 stratum of subtle thoughts to penetrate which must 
 be a work of time. 
 
 Ariel in ' The Tempest ' and Puck in * A Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream ' are spirits, we are told. 
 Did Shakespeare, then, believe in the existence of such 
 spirits ? To help ourselves to an answer we must 
 examine the speech of Theseus, the. soliloquy of 
 Hamlet, and many other portions of the plays. 
 
 Was the conclusion at which Shakespeare had 
 
10 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 arrived respecting women favourable or unfavour- 
 able? To be able to reply to this question may 
 appear easy ; for who has drawn more lovely female 
 characters, who has uttered more gentle or flattering 
 things of women? On the other hand, who has 
 drawn female characters more hideous or revolting, or 
 who has suggested more depreciatory opinions of the 
 sex in general? Yet, balancing the good with the 
 bad, he must have cherished some general conviction, 
 which, carefully considered, will be found to be for 
 or against women. The corner-stone of the female 
 character is chastity, and did Shakespeare upon the 
 whole think them chaste, or did he agree with 
 Aristophanes that when you have named one cele- 
 brated example of female virtue you will be constrained 
 to stop because neither history nor tradition records a 
 second? To pursue this inquiry through all Shake- 
 speare's plays proves pleasant or unpleasant according 
 to the decision at which you arrive, or according to 
 your own leanings. Women are dear to men on 
 different grounds, and Shakespeare therefore may be 
 tolerant of them in one sense though adverse in 
 another. At all events, no one who delights in 
 poetical imagery, in pictures of tenderness, in delicious 
 displays of fancy, in the revelations of sweet com- 
 munion of soul with soul, will grudge the hours he 
 may devote to this fascinating investigation. 
 
 Again in what regards religion, ascending from 
 what is sweetest to what is most awful, it is of 
 momentous import to learn what a poet no less 
 philosophical than .^schylus, no less bold than 
 Lucretius, thought of the Divine Nature. The diffi- 
 culty of the inquiry may appear from this, that some 
 have regarded him as the most religious of poets. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 11 
 
 while he has been looked upon by others as totally 
 without religion. When a man ranges freely through 
 the whole world of speculation, he must at times 
 traverse expanses where thought finds little footing, 
 where there is at best but a dim light, where the 
 reason at every glance runs the risk of mistaking 
 shadows for substances, where no guide that can be 
 trusted offers himself, and where the prevalent feeling 
 must be the desire to escape and reach firm land. 
 When Shakespeare found himself so circumstanced 
 his intellect must have been swayed Hke that of other 
 men by cheerful or depressing influences, springing 
 from the contiguous sources of faith and doubt. 
 What was the course which his understanding at such 
 times traced out for itself ? Was it analogous to that 
 which the majority of men select, or did it diverge and 
 plunge far away into dark and unfrequented tracks of 
 speculation ? 
 
 The greatness of his Atlantean intellect is made 
 evident by the prodigious scope of thought necessi- 
 tated by his varied and profound investigations, which, 
 however carried on, led in his mind, we cannot doubt, 
 to settled results, and the business is now to ascertain 
 what these were. 
 
 Men are intolerant in religion, intolerant in love, 
 but still more intolerant in politics. This convic- 
 tion apparently renders Shakespeare's enigmas doubly 
 enigmatical, when he speaks of the relations of rulers 
 to society. For this reason he has been suspected by 
 some of believing in divine right, by others of leaning 
 towards aristocracy, while it would not be difficult to 
 discover in his works grounds for charging him with 
 democratic propensities. If we consider it of no 
 importance to come to a decision on this point, it is 
 
12 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 professing indifference respecting the conclusions of 
 one of our deepest thinkers. That Shakespeare held 
 political principles cannot be doubted : he had observed 
 the working of various forms of government and 
 watched their effects upon the conditions of social 
 life ; he could not refuse therefore to recognise the 
 truths which experience and reason laid before 
 him. It seems worth some pains to make ourselves 
 acquainted with what he thought on this most 
 momentous of the sciences, which takes upon itself 
 in this world to perform the part of Providence by 
 distributing happiness or misery to its inhabitants. 
 I have consequently weighed with the utmost caution 
 and solicitude every expression in Shakespeare which 
 seemed to throw light on his political theory, so that 
 if I have failed to make out to what party he belonged, 
 it is neither through inattention nor through super- 
 cilious indifference. 
 
ESSAY II 
 
 AET 
 
 What is the proper object of art, dramatic or other- 
 wise? Is it not to produce in the mind the same 
 processes of thought and feeHng which would be 
 produced by analogous existences in nature ? ^ 
 
 All the arts are called mimetic or imitative which 
 attempt to produce such effects ; but it is by a figure 
 of speech that the poetry of the drama is called imita- 
 tive, since it only acquires this character when it is 
 spoken by an actor on the stage, where, according as 
 he performs his part well or ill, it becomes a reflex of 
 Nature's doings. The dramatic artist undertakes to 
 exhibit before the public the passions and manners of 
 men and women engaged in developing some particular 
 action, calamitous, humorous, amusing, or involving 
 in its working out all these elements ; and, according 
 to the greater or lesser amount of impassioned and 
 disastrous feeling involved in the circumstance of the 
 action, the drama ranges with tragedy or comedy : the 
 latter being understood by Shakespeare to mean a play 
 of which the incidents lead to a. happy result, though 
 very little vivacity or merriment may accompany their 
 progress towards the denouement. 
 
 ' Though Hume praises Shakespeare's art, Coleridge will not allow 
 that he understood it. He wrote and spoke on the principle that if you 
 strike hard you must produce an effect, so he introduced the figure of 
 an apothecary's phial striving to contain the waters of Niagara. 
 
14 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 It is not my intention, however, to investigate the 
 principles of art in general, except in so far as may be 
 necessary for the purpose of showing how often and 
 to what degree Shakespeare's art, and art as it exists 
 in the highest theory, move side by side or become 
 identical. More than can be read has already been 
 written on this subject ; I shall spare myself therefore 
 the labour of seeking to condense what others have 
 said, or indeed to notice it at all, unless where it seems 
 to have misled the public respecting the qualities of 
 Shakespeare as a dramatic writer, and to have sug- 
 gested at the same time false ideas of other writers 
 who have been brought forward for the purpose of 
 exalting or depreciating the English poet. In the 
 drama there are two kinds of art : first, that which 
 provides a fitting and adequate substratum or field 
 whereon the action about to be represented may take 
 place ; and, second, that which organises and arranges 
 the action, and develops it through the instrumentality 
 of suitable characters, that the whole may appear at 
 once natural and probable.^ 
 
 A play may therefore be regarded as an exempli- 
 fication of the logic of circumstances. The nature of 
 the premises being established, the conclusion must 
 necessarily arise out of them, and be the only result 
 to which they could possibly lead. In the Greek 
 drama everything is generally assumed to be brought 
 about by fate, which, if absolute, eliminates from the 
 circle of existence not only the responsibility of man, 
 
 * An instance of improbability closely approximating to impossibility 
 occurs in The Tempest, where the distance from Tunis to Prospero's 
 island appears almost as great as to one of the fixed stars, though a ship 
 traverses it in a brief space of time. But the island, it may be said, is 
 imaginary and may be located anywhere. But the ship is not imaginary 
 nor the sea. 
 
ART 15 
 
 but the very essence of art itself, since under that 
 supposition everything that is thought must be as 
 completely regulated independently of our will as 
 everything that is done. Jocasta in Euripides supplies 
 us with a key to the Greek theory : Laius consults the 
 oracle, and the response is that he may remain child- 
 less or have a son. In the former case his family will 
 become extinct in his own person, but without crime ; 
 in the second the son he begets will slay him, and 
 initiate a long series of crimes and horrors. Good and 
 evil being placed before him, he chooses the evil and 
 the consequences of the choice follow. Such, for the 
 ancients, was the decision of heaven ; there could be 
 no quibbling, no secret interpretation of the response, 
 different from the plain meaning of the words delivered 
 distinctly by perfect truth and unerring wisdom. 
 Shakespeare speaks much of fate and destiny; but 
 what did he understand by the words? Into the 
 mouth of Helena he puts this strange language : 
 
 The fated sky 
 Gives us free scope. 
 
 And Horatio, adjuring the ghost : 
 
 If thou art privy to thy country's fate, 
 Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, 
 0, speak ! 
 
 Apart from the system of fatality, of which I shall 
 have more to say hereafter, Shakespeare's dramas gene- 
 rally proceed upon the assumption that the persons 
 represented are free agents ; and the goal they reach, 
 whether happy or unhappy, is the result of their own 
 wisdom or folly, virtue or crime. In some cases the 
 denouement seems to be brought about by fortune, in 
 
16 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 which no moral is evolved from the action, though 
 the interest excited may be very great. As a rule, 
 Shakespeare deals in loose and ill- compacted plots, 
 and his plays are therefore so far inartistic. Strictly 
 speaking, perhaps, no drama, ancient or modern, is in 
 all respects conformable to nature ; that is, the actions 
 performed, and the individuals who perform them, 
 are not entirely such as they would be were the affair 
 transacted in real life. The most accomplished artist 
 when happiest in his inventions only approaches so 
 near to Nature that the difference existing between 
 his work and hers shall not be so palpable as to 
 force itself easily on our notice. Supernatural dramas 
 are regulated by laws of their own, and if these be not 
 violated the piece may be looked upon as in harmony 
 with the principles of art. It is as necessary that the 
 * Prometheus ' or * The Tempest ' should be in harmony 
 with itself as that the ' (Edipus at Colonos ' or ' Komeo 
 and Juliet ' should be so. Assuming the possibility of 
 the action, no inconsistency is discoverable in the ' Pro- 
 metheus,' who, together with all the agents by whom 
 he is surrounded, exhibits but one disposition, one 
 purpose, and one character throughout. But not so 
 with Prospero in *The Tempest.' Possessing super- 
 natural power and knowledge, Prospero often acts as 
 if destitute of both, and expresses apprehensions of 
 influences which, according to the poet's theory of his 
 character, he had ample power to control.* 
 
 * It is to be understood likewise that he is a Christian. This is 
 proved by his reference to the curfew bell. What, therefore, had he to 
 do with the heathen goddesses ? To make their appearance in the 
 mask afford pleasure, some belief in their existence must be created ; 
 this is not done, they are only regarded as names, not even shadows, 
 so that nothing is gained by the introduction of them. But masks, it 
 may be said, were then in fashion. Yet Shakespeare should have had 
 
ART 17 
 
 Yet the plot of this play considered merely as a 
 plot, and as we see it developed in action, is one of the 
 completest in Shakespeare. The object to be attained 
 is the punishment of the usurping Duke of Milan with 
 his associate the King of Naples, as well as certain 
 subordinate villains who had co-operated in their crime 
 and looked forward to profit by it. Discovering through 
 his magic art that all his enemies were collected in one 
 ship at sea, he causes it be wrecked in appearance on 
 the shores of his island, and while the sailors are locked 
 safe under the hatches the foes of the magician are all 
 landed, though in separate groups. The heir to the 
 Neapolitan crown, wandering about singly, is brought 
 to the magician's cave, where he falls in love with his 
 daughter ; the king and the duke, with their evil com- 
 panions, roam about together, but even there plot against 
 each other's lives ; while two serving-men, one of whom 
 is drunk, fall in with Prospero's slave Caliban and enact 
 what there is of comedy in the play. The combina- 
 tions are few and simple, but the good duke is restored 
 to his throne, raises his daughter to be Queen of 
 Naples, and, beholding his enemies at his feet, ulti- 
 mately triumphs by forgiving them all.^ 
 
 sufficient judgment not to follow the fashion. The same objection lies 
 against the play in A Midsummer Night's Dream, though not against that 
 in Hamlet. 
 
 ' Charles Lamb, as I have elsewhere said, thought Shakespeare's 
 plays too good to be put on the stage, and when we consider the actors 
 by whom his great thoughts are to be uttered one may be almost tempted 
 to agree with him ; but, on the other hand, when a spacious theatre is 
 properly fitted up, properly lighted, and filled with thousands of specta- 
 tors, all eagerly listening to the language of the poet as it is delivered 
 by artistic speakers, the play approaches nearer to reality than when read 
 by the fireside. This suggests a question whether our modern theatres, 
 in which the action always takes place by artificial light, produce a more 
 complete illusion than those of antiquity, in which plays were acted by 
 
 
 
18 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 If there be art here, it is of the homeliest kind, 
 and considered separately from the development and 
 the adjuncts would excite little admiration. In truth, 
 however, Shakespeare depends so little on his plots 
 that he sometimes appears to forget that he had 
 framed one at all, and drifts forward on the surge of 
 his genius, as if sure to produce a grand effect on 
 whatever catastrophe or denouement accident might 
 land him. This recklessness of the means by which 
 results are to be brought about often interferes signally 
 with the economy and beauty of his plays. Both in 
 * Hamlet ' and * Macbeth ' nearly all the displays of 
 power and grandeur are lavished on the first half of 
 the dramas, which fall off in force and beauty as 
 the action proceeds, and terminate in flatness and 
 insipidity. The conviction, or rather feeling, that this 
 is the case has led, especially with regard to * Hamlet,' 
 to numerous attempts at giving to the play a con- 
 clusion more in harmony with the splendour of its 
 commencement ; and if the same false policy has not 
 been pursued in regard to * Macbeth,' it is not because 
 the latter part of the tragedy lies open to less objection 
 than that of * Hamlet,' but because fewer persons 
 have imagined themselves equal to grappling with the 
 subject. 
 
 daylight. Wordsworth gives a fine description of the prospect com- 
 manded from the benches of the Dionysiac Theatre at Athens — the 
 Saronic Gulf, the islands of JEgina and Salamis, the shore on the left 
 hand stretching away towards Sunium, and on the right the rugged 
 coast of Peloponnesus with its blue mountains overhung by a blue sky. 
 The near prospect, however, the place of the chorus, the thymele, 
 the hyposcenion, the stage itself, the three great portals in the back- 
 ground, and the theologeion above, together with the side scenes 
 artistically painted, all these, though very large, were still too diminutiv 
 to harmonise completely with the mBgnificent scenery in the back- 
 ground. 
 
AET 19 
 
 As a work of art * Lear ' is still more defective than 
 * Hamlet ' or * Macbeth,' while nearly all the characters 
 are farther removed from nature. The story is, in 
 substance, that of OEdipus modified to bring it more 
 into harmony with modern ideas. Lear is the old 
 King of Thebes driven forth from his palace by two 
 of his children, masculine in the Hellenic original, 
 feminine in Shakespeare — for Regan and Goneril, 
 though different in sex, are obviously Eteocles and 
 Poljmices, though the latter at their worst are less 
 hateful than Shakespeare's two princesses. Cordelia 
 is a poor pale copy of Antigone, who overtops all 
 other female characters of the drama in filial tender- 
 ness and devotion as much as Juliet does in love. 
 Coleridge, in his peculiar way of reasoning, maintains 
 that Shakespeare's judgment is at least equal to his 
 genius. Genius, however, is made up of several 
 elements, of which judgment is one, and it is the one 
 in which Shakespeare is most deficient. Throughout 
 the tragedy now in question, the absence of judgment 
 must often be felt by all who think for themselves. 
 Lear is made to exclaim more than once in the course 
 of the play that he fears he shall lose his wits, though 
 from the first scene in which he makes his appear- 
 ance it is evident that he has lost them already. The 
 overwhelming tempest of horror in which CEdipus 
 blinds himself is still attributable to an adequate 
 cause, since man never found himself borne down by 
 circumstances more calamitous. 
 
 Lear's abdication of power is intelligible, the weak- 
 ness of age having disqualified him for the exercise 
 of it ; but the conditions of his resignation are so 
 irrational that the conviction of his insanity is 
 irresistibly forced upon us. It would be rash to 
 
 c2 
 
20 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 attempt to sound the depths of wickedness of which 
 women may be capable, but it may be safely affirmed 
 that Began and Goneril do not belong to the female 
 sex any otherwise than children with two heads 
 belong to our species — that is, as dreadful irregularities 
 of nature. The scene in which Kegan incites her 
 husband to tear out old Gloucester's eyes, cast them on 
 the floor, and put his heel upon them while she stands 
 by applauding the deed, is scarcely in harmony with 
 even a bad woman's nature. Indeed, the whole tenor 
 of her character, as well as that of her sister, is 
 monstrous, and therefore oversteps the limits of art. 
 Edmund, too, the most influential male villain of the 
 piece, cherishes an almost motiveless hatred of his 
 father, whose ribald speech when he introduced him 
 as his bastard to Kent, though it might have justified 
 a sudden flash of anger, could not generate a rancour 
 so remorseless as that which actuates his parricidal 
 conduct. In fact, however, the whole economy of the 
 play is so little in harmony with nature, or with the 
 manners of any age or country, that it is impossible to 
 uphold its author's claim to judgment in its invention 
 or treatment. How then, it may be asked, are we so 
 profoundly affected by reading it or witnessing its 
 performance ? I will examine this question in another 
 place. 
 
 In considering subjects of this kind we are thrown 
 back sometimes on the general laws of human nature, 
 sometimes upon the mere instincts of our species. 
 Why is it that nearly all Teutonic nations are not 
 only ready to confess the power of Shakespeare's 
 genius, but eager to enjoy the pleasure which his 
 poetical creations afford, while nations of Latin origin 
 can scarcely be brought to recognise his merits at all ? 
 
AUT 21 
 
 Coleridge persuaded himself that it is because whole 
 nations, like separate individuals, may by habit and 
 training have their minds swayed by a perverted taste. 
 The sting of this observation is meant for the French, 
 whose theory of intellectual pleasure differs, more 
 especially in what relates to the drama, from that 
 which prevails in England and Germany. But the 
 causes of the difference may lie much deeper. As 
 between us and the Semitic peoples there appears to 
 exist in the mind a difference of essence, so that the 
 very sources of thought and original forms of ideas 
 in each race belong to a separate category ; in like 
 manner, though less strikingly, the sense of beauty 
 in the Teuton contrasts with that of the Italian, the 
 Spaniard, and the Komanised Gaul. 
 
 It were consequently unphilosophical for an 
 individual, immersed in the intellectual influences 
 predominant in either of these divisions of mankind, 
 to af&rm his own mode of thinking and judging to 
 be better than that of his neighbours. It is more 
 intimately united with a man even than the object 
 of his love, since in the selection of this he may 
 have exercised choice, while the former is anterior 
 to every act of the will, and has formed, coloured, 
 given a direction to the very power of choice. Study, 
 no doubt, if conducted on true principles, may elevate 
 a man above all predilections of race or country, and 
 qualify him to judge impartially of all creations of art, 
 and it is only an individual so disciplined who can 
 decide between conflicting theories of the becoming, 
 the beautiful, the probable, and the natural. 
 
 Up to this time there has nowhere existed a perfect 
 dramatic art. That of the Greeks possesses great 
 beauty, and attains the aim it proposes to itself more 
 
22 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 completely than any other. But its field of action is 
 circumscribed, and so are the means and instruments 
 at its command. While dwelling upon its most 
 finished productions we feel impatient at what 
 appears to be the timidity of the poet, who, we 
 fancy, should have emancipated himself from those 
 rules by which his genius appears to be * cabined, 
 cribbed, confined,* and have taken a vaster range 
 through the resources and regions of possibility. 
 
 But the Greek drama was the natural and matured 
 fruit of the Greek mind, and satisfied the Greek craving 
 after the pleasure derivable from mimetic art. The 
 modern drama — at the head of which, in our estimation, 
 Shakespeare stands — assigns to itself a much wider 
 field; but, misled apparently by the vastness of its 
 possessions, has neglected, or found it impracticable, 
 to model even the most felicitous of its productions 
 in strict conformity with any theory of art. Nothing 
 V in poetical literature, whether ancient or modern, 
 ^-^^ rises in the highest excellences of poetry above 
 ^ "^ * Komeo and Juliet,' and yet in this most consummate 
 ^ of Shakespeare's masterpieces there is a defect in 
 
 constructive art, which is generally, however, thrown 
 out of sight by the magic splendours of passion 
 and poetry which it underlies. Is the young and 
 beautiful Capulet, the very model of love and truth, 
 whose tender utterances know no parallel in the 
 records of historical or poetical women — is Juliet, I 
 say, constrained by the inevitable necessity of the 
 circumstances by which she is surrounded to take the 
 sleeping potion given her by the friar, out of which act 
 spring misery, desolation, and death to her family, her 
 lover, and herself ? Unfortunately there exists no such 
 necessity ; since by the confession of the friar himself 
 
ART 23 
 
 she might have lain concealed in his cell till she could 
 effect her escape from Verona to her lover at Mantua. 
 
 Friar Laurence, we are told, had secret apartments 
 constructed beneath his cell, with a bed * soft and trimly 
 drest,' 
 
 Where he was wont in youth his fair friends to bestow, 
 There now he hideth Komeo — 
 
 and might unquestionably have hidden Juliet, so that 
 the taking of the sleeping potion was unnecessary. 
 When Komeo visits Juliet after their marriage, Shake- 
 speare describes them as passing the night in her 
 chamber, but Bandello says that it was on a bank 
 in the corner of the garden. When Komeo and Juliet 
 were together the last night, she offers to leave Verona 
 with him; says she will cut off her long hair, and 
 escape with him in the disguise of a youth. Besides, 
 the plays abound with ladies who, disguised as youths, 
 elude the strictest watchfulness and go whithersoever 
 their fancy prompts. But Juliet is not watched at all ; 
 she leaves and returns to her father's house in perfect 
 freedom ; and it is therefore by no fatal coercion, 
 but by a mere oversight of genius, that she is 
 induced to counterfeit death, and so bring about the 
 catastrophe. 
 
 In mere construction ' Othello ' is less imperfect, 
 though it lacks many of the excellences which abound 
 in * Komeo and Juliet.' It is less poetical, less im- 
 passioned, less impetuous in the flow of action, and 
 in every respect less pleasing. There is no character 
 we can love, or in any high degree respect. Othello, 
 as far as we know, is an upright and honourable man, 
 loving after his fashion, true likewise to the object of 
 his love, but weak and credulous to folly. Cassio is 
 
24 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 a handsome simpleton, framed, as lago says, to * make 
 women false ' — but only such women as possess no 
 brains themselves, and require none in their lovers. 
 Emilia, whatever her practice may be, is by nature 
 and in theory a courtesan ; and Desdemona, though 
 with limitations, distinctions, and differences, belongs 
 to the same category.^ She is by no means wanting 
 in understanding, can reason logically on occasion, and 
 sincerely believes herself in love with her husband ; but 
 with that subtle art which is nowhere so clearly shown 
 as in the delineation of character we have revealed to 
 us the most secret springs and recesses of her idiosyn- 
 crasy, so that we know her better than she knows 
 herself, and can foresee what her future course, if she 
 has a future, is almost sure to be. 
 
 In many parts of his works Shakespeare places 
 before us contrivances which are not only inconsistent 
 with true art, but so little rational as to be actually 
 puerile. Among these must be reckoned wooing by 
 proxy, the mistaking of women for men through the 
 mere effect of a masculine habit, and that too under 
 circumstances in which such an error would be impos- 
 sible. Could Orlando fail to discover Kosalind, while 
 gazing at her whole face, kissing her, inhaling her 
 breath, looking into her eyes, when love had previously 
 
 ' Schlegel, however, regards her as a sacrifice without blemish, 
 a creature of 'angelic purity,' whose only fault is having married without 
 her father's consent. 
 
 When Coleridge wrote his criticism on Othello he must have taken 
 an extra dose of opium ; he exhibits the extravagance of the schoolboy, 
 the pedantry of the critic, and the affected solemnity of the would-be 
 philosopher. He has Schlegel in his eye, and directs a large portion of 
 his sarcasm against him. The Germans took Othello to be a negro, 
 and so did Shakespeare ; but Coleridge contradicts the poet as to his 
 own meaning, and assures him he had no such intention, and did not 
 at all mean what he says. 
 
ART 25 
 
 rendered him familiar with every feature of her coun- 
 tenance ? Could this go on for days and weeks when 
 the pressure of her hand, the music of her voice, aided 
 in establishing her identity? Such stage tricks are 
 actually intolerable, and should have been eschewed 
 like poison by a genius so great as that of Shake- 
 speare. The want of art is so apparent in some plays 
 that the whole may almost be regarded as an abortion, 
 which is the case more especially with * Cymbeline ' 
 and * Troilus and Cressida,' though there are found in 
 both, but especially in the latter, scenes and passages of 
 the rarest beauty. I speak, however, of their general 
 construction as works of art. Can anything be more 
 remote from nature and probability than the ground- 
 work of * Cymbehne ' ? To say nothing of the jumbHng 
 up of manners, the locating of modern Frenchmen 
 and Italians in ancient Bome, with the gross ana- 
 chronism of throwing back many centuries the follies 
 of the chivalrous era, the leading incidents are so 
 preposterous as to defy even that kind of belief which 
 we accord to what takes place on the stage. ^ 
 
 It would not do to take exception at the difference 
 between Imogen's character and her conduct, since 
 every day's experience proves to us that virtuous and 
 delicate women often link themselves in love to worth- 
 less men. As a rule, however, time removes the scales 
 
 ' Yet Schlegel says that this is * one of Shakespeare's most wonder- 
 ful compositions,' ' he has contrived by the most gentle transitions to 
 blend together into one harmonious whole the social manners of the 
 newest times with olden heroic deeds, and even with appearances of the 
 gods.' 
 
 * In the character of Imogen, no one feature of female excellence is 
 omitted : her chaste tenderness, her softness and her virgin pride, her 
 boundless resignation, and her magnanimity towards her mistaken 
 husband.' 
 
26 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 from the eyes of the most infatuated, so that their 
 idols either become their abhorrence, or at least lose 
 the hold which they once possessed upon their minds ; 
 but in Imogen the illusion is proof against all dis- 
 coveries, so that, as the action of the play proceeds, she 
 sinks instead of rising in our estimation. At the Court 
 of Cymbeline we start from these premises : a king 
 infatuated by a female poisoner, somewhat declined, 
 like Othello, into the vale of years, since she has a son 
 of mature age who is one of the fools and villains of 
 the play; next we have the princess Imogen, her 
 husband Posthumus, his faithful servant Pisanio, and 
 an honest doctor, who appears but is not in league 
 with the malignant old lady who governs the whole 
 Court. Far away in a cavern among the mountains in 
 Wales lives a worthy nobleman, who, through fear of 
 the Queen's medical skill or to revenge his own exile, 
 stole away in childhood the King's two sons, whom, 
 however, he treated as his own and brought up with 
 the greatest care. Such are the materials of the play, 
 with the addition of an Italian miscreant and a host of 
 Komans who throng the scene in Shakespeare's worst 
 manner.^ 
 
 To complete the confusion of ideas with Italians, 
 Frenchmen, and German Emperors, evidently of 
 Christian growth, Jupiter is brought in, together with 
 a number of ghosts who conduct themselves in a most 
 irreverent manner towards the god. 
 
 It would, in my opinion, be impossible to crowd 
 together, in so short a space, a greater amount of 
 
 * The discovery of Cloten's body, the rhapsodies of Imogen, the 
 coming in of Lucius, with all the incidents attending, are perfectly 
 monstrous in one who has been called the poet of nature. Nothing 
 imaginable can be more unnatural. 
 
ART 27 
 
 nonsense than we find in the scene between Jupiter 
 and the ghosts. If there be impiety anywhere in 
 Shakespeare it is here, where, by alluding to his 
 sulphureous breath, he suggests the idea of a devil 
 rather than a god. On such a foundation even Shake- 
 speare's genius failed to build up a tolerable super- 
 structure. The play, in fact, is heavy and disjointed, 
 equally at strife with nature and probability, lumbering 
 in its progress, disagreeable in its incidents, and, in 
 short, possessing nothing to recommend it but the 
 fidelity of Pisanio and the beauty, tenderness, and love 
 of Imogen, which shed a glory on improbability and 
 soften, so as to render bearable, the worthlessness of 
 Posthumus. The wager, for example, of Posthumus 
 and lachimo, which could only have been made by 
 men at once forgetful of themselves and of their 
 relations to society. Had Posthumus possessed the 
 slightest feeling of a gentleman, he could not have 
 exposed his wife's purity and delicacy to the polluting 
 attempts of so odious an individual as lachimo. To 
 what extent folly may proceed it would be difficult to 
 determine, and therefore if we assume at once that 
 Posthumus was a fool we may credit the incident 
 of the wager, which we must otherwise reject as 
 unnatural. As a complement to this wager his letter 
 to Imogen is to be examined. In this he is guilty of 
 more than one falsehood : first, he says lachimo is a 
 man of the noblest note ; second, he says, lachimo is 
 one to whose kindnesses he is infinitely tied — the 
 gross falsehood of this assertion is evident; he then 
 goes on to impress on Imogen's mind the propriety 
 of receiving a man whom he knew to be a miscreant 
 with the favour and kindness due to a highminded 
 friend. If there be such a thing as baseness, this is 
 
28 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 base, it being nothing less than a trap for the unwary 
 virtue of his wife. The incident of the coffer is 
 absurd, but leads to the beautiful scene in Imogen's 
 bedchamber. 
 
 No one can read ^Troilus and Cressida' without 
 regretting that want of art or judgment in the writer 
 should have spoiled so splendid a theme. Had the 
 range of the action been kept within legitimate limits — 
 that is, had the attempt not been made to compress 
 a vast war into a story of two lovers — we might have 
 had a drama rivalling even * Eomeo and Juliet ' in 
 beauty and interest, though of a different character 
 and catastrophe ; the heroes and chiefs, though many 
 of them magnificent in themselves, are much too big 
 for the piece, and move about as if conscious of being 
 out of place.^ 
 
 The scenes in Troy with Paris, Helen, Hector, 
 Andromache, Cressida, and others are not merely 
 unclassical, but out of keeping with all poetical 
 tradition and immersed in a depth of grossness which 
 defies all sympathy. Among the Greeks outside much 
 the same thing is observable. By undertaking to deal 
 with such characters as Achilles, Patroclus, Ulysses, 
 and their companions, the poet tacitly professed to be 
 engaged with personages already known through the 
 teaching of antiquity, so that we could not be prepared 
 to find so strange a burlesque of the Trojan War as 
 the play presents us with. No one doubts that, 
 whether for good or evil, Shakespeare, with the 
 intellectual power he possessed, could effect much ; 
 but when he attempted to reverse the whole Homeric 
 system failure was the almost necessary result, indeed 
 
 ' -^neas, after having known Agamemnon for nine years, is intro- 
 duced speaking as if he were ignorant of his person. 
 
ART 29 
 
 I might say necessary, since nearly the whole poetical 
 literature of the world, existing before his time, was 
 in harmony with the belief and convictions which he 
 sought to set aside. As a play, consequently, ' Troilus 
 and Cressida ' must be looked upon as an enterprise 
 which no amount of genius could have crowned with 
 success. Ulysses says the state is acquainted with 
 our thoughts even in their dumb cradles ; but Homer 
 represents even the gods as ignorant of our thoughts 
 till they are uttered in words. In Shakespeare's 
 particular case various causes concurred to render 
 failure unavoidable. 
 
 In the first place, Shakespeare's knowledge, not 
 only of that but of every other portion of antiquity, 
 was too limited to enable him to represent, with 
 verisimilitude, the characters, manners, and mental 
 influences which distinguished the period. There is a 
 book, familiar to most of the writers on Shakespeare, 
 on the three destructions of Troy, by which he 
 suffered himself to be misled. The writer, a slovenly 
 and ignorant compiler from the forgeries of Dictys 
 the Cretan, Dares the Phrygian, and other writers 
 equally worthless, was swayed by Trojan leanings, 
 and such fancies as those which peopled this island 
 with fugitives from Ilion, and believed, or at least 
 thought, that the original name of London was Troy 
 Novant, or Troy. No man can transport his imagina- 
 tion back to a remote period so thoroughly as to be 
 able to paint a correct picture of things as they really 
 existed. Even Virgil, learned as he was, found it 
 impracticable to revive the feelings, habits of mind, 
 system of thought, and pecuharities of belief, by which 
 the nations he undertook to describe were differenced 
 from the generations before and after them. Every 
 
30 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 period has its peculiar physiognomy, and to attribute 
 to it any other is to be wanting in one of the highest 
 requisites of art. It needs no long array of reasons 
 to prove that Shakespeare did not possess that first 
 requisite, because it is only necessary to read the play 
 to be convinced of it. He does not represent the 
 heroic age, neither does he represent any other age.^ 
 
 His men and women, taken altogether, are such 
 as never lived, or could have lived, being piecemeal 
 productions made up out of the peculiarities of different 
 times and countries, so that the whole is a medley, 
 developing false ideas, both of persons and things. 
 Hector quoting Aristotle, and Pandarus talking of 
 Winchester geese, are symbols of the confusion of 
 ideas existing in Shakespeare's mind when he set 
 himself up as a competitor of Homer as poet of the 
 Trojan War. Among the sons of Priam there was no 
 Troilus ; among the lewd women of the time there 
 was no Cressida ; but in fact there is not an individual 
 character in the play which, with the idiosyncrasies 
 attributed to it by Shakespeare, could have existed in 
 the heroic age. AH are of modern growth — that is, in 
 their elements — for in their entirety they are impossible 
 entities. 
 
 * They who fancy that Shakespeare could not be wrong will 
 probably defend him for mixing up the manners of different ages, 
 making Greeks and Trojans speak the fantastic language of chivalry, 
 and dispute and fight to establish the superior beauty of their respective 
 mistresses. Both Greeks and Trojans had doubtless wives and other 
 women, but were not so stupid as to quarrel in the field or in the camp 
 about their comparative charms. Helen may have been the pretext of 
 the war, but it was to avenge a crime that it was undertaken, and 
 would have been undertaken whether she had been fair or not. The 
 object was to punish wrong, not to regain possession of an abandon 
 woman. 
 
ART 31 
 
 To the same class of drama belongs ' Timon of 
 Athens,' which, though terminating with the hero's 
 death, is rather a comedy than a tragedy. That there 
 lived at Athens such a man as Timon is true ; the 
 period, however, in which he flourished was looked 
 upon as remote, even in the age of the Peloponnesian 
 War. His story is not in many respects ill-told by 
 Shakespeare, though here again he jumbles different 
 ages together, since, following the later writers, he 
 makes his misanthrope contemporary with Alcibiades, 
 as well as with certain noblemen who, though located 
 at Athens, are unquestionably Komans of the time of 
 Julius Caesar. 
 
 According to tradition, Timon was a person who, 
 having lavished his riches upon worthless men, retired 
 from society in disgust; wandering about recklessly, 
 he fell down a precipice, broke his leg, and, there being 
 no physician within reach, died of the accident. His 
 friends — for he appears to have had friends — gave him 
 sepulchre and a tomb in a wild spot near the sea on 
 the road from Athens to Sunium. The defects in the 
 play are obvious : Timon is not so much generous as 
 madly prodigal, possessing no discrimination, no regard 
 for virtue or abiHties of any kind, but mistaking 
 waste for munificence, lavishing his substance on fools, 
 flatterers, and miscreants. The return he met with 
 was that which his folly deserved. Had he known 
 how to give he would have made friends instead of 
 traitors. As it was, all those around him were neither 
 base nor ungrateful, since he possessed a faithful 
 steward and a host of servants who, though in a 
 humble situation, displayed all the virtues which were 
 so strikingly wanting in their social superiors. In this 
 circumstance Timon should have found something to 
 
32 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 console him for the want of gratitude he had dis- 
 covered in his gay and licentious associates. And here 
 I may notice that Shakespeare, as a rule, attributes 
 gratitude and kindness of heart to domestic servants, 
 who, from Adam to Grifi&th, display attachment and 
 a grateful remembrance of benefit received. 
 
 Coleridge when settling Shakespeare's politics, 
 which he assumes to have been aristocratic, says he 
 does not make every magistrate a fool, nor every poor 
 man virtuous. True, but his magistrates are generally 
 fools, while his servants, both male and female, are 
 upon the whole distinguished for their affection and 
 fidelity. With respect to Timon, he is to be regarded 
 rather as a myth than a man ; his generosity is mad- 
 ness and his resentment is the same ; it degenerates, in 
 fact, into comedy, since he raves, as Juliet says Komeo 
 kissed, by the book, and when he meant to make his 
 final retreat from the world dug his own grave, built 
 his own monument, cut his own epitaph, and then, it 
 is to be presumed, crept into his tomb, covered himself 
 up comfortably, and expired, as a misanthrope should, 
 with railing and hatred on his lips. Is this being true 
 to nature and probability? Is it not rather farce of 
 the most extravagant kind? I am aware that there 
 are those who will say that the form of the play is 
 of no moment, provided we have a number of wise 
 sayings and fine keen satire on the vices and follies 
 of mankind. Be it so, but then let us hear no more 
 of Shakespeare's matchless truth to nature in the 
 delineation of character and in the expression of 
 passion. Timon is unnatural in both, and must be 
 regarded as a mere vehicle of contempt and disdain for 
 the weaknesses, follies, imperfections, and vices of the 
 world. 
 
ART 33 
 
 Shakespeare no doubt presents us with some 
 characters that are natural, and with many that are 
 nearly so — of which I shall speak more hereafter ; but, 
 as we have seen, he has drawn others without skill, 
 placed them in impossible situations, and if he has, in 
 passing, awakened onr sympathy it is rather by subtle 
 suggestion than by artistic handling of character. But 
 experience, it may be said, has proved that although 
 Shakespeare may have been deficient in art, as art is 
 generally understood, and as it is found to exist in 
 some other dramatic poets, he yet possessed an art of 
 his own, which enabled him to take and keep possession 
 of public admiration from his own age to ours. What 
 this art is may possibly appear during the present 
 inquiry; that it is not that of adhering closely to 
 nature may be affirmed at once, because his characters 
 taken as a whole, and whether differing from or re- 
 sembling each other, are yet generally different from 
 the types in nature which they are intended to repre- 
 sent. Yet when he puts forward a character he 
 believes in it himself, assumes it to be natural, argues 
 from its peculiarities to consequences arising certainly 
 out of them, and by this intrepid dependence on the 
 correctness of his own views prevails upon his auditor 
 or reader to share in his faith. 
 
 Whatever Shakespeare as a man may not have 
 been, he unquestionably was gentle, loving, humane, 
 merciful, and all the virtues corresponding to these 
 qualities spring up in his plays as luxuriantly as plants 
 in an Eastern garden. Above all, his mind had that 
 quality which we call sweetness, than which nothing 
 in human nature is more attractive. When we say 
 a sweet woman, a sweet child, we mean to indicate 
 an individual the nature of whose fascination we are 
 
34 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 unable to explain. We say also sometimes a sweet 
 poem, which may have many faults, may be written 
 contrary to rule, may even be absurd in parts, but if 
 it lays hold of the mind, if it gives birth to delicious 
 thoughts, if it leaves behind it in the memory some- 
 thing redolent of joy and gladness, we often delight to 
 recollect it, and this constitutes its immortality. 
 
 What I have just been saying is pre-eminently true 
 of Shakespeare. He is prolific of passages which 
 everybody loves to remember, which pass from mouth 
 to mouth, which gradually nestle in and take their 
 place in the innermost recesses of the language, and 
 invariably reckon for much in the expression of the 
 national mind. This implies in the poet the possession 
 of an art so transcendent as to defy analysis or defini- 
 tion, and we seek to get rid of the difficulty by calling 
 it genius. But genius itself is art, though of a nature 
 so refined and subtle that it can only be discerned in 
 its effects. We scarcely approximate to a solution of 
 the problem by describing it as a form of power which, 
 moving over a stratum of deep and varied knowledge 
 of human nature, touches and moves it in so many 
 parts as at least to seem coextensive with the field 
 of action. Herein lies the source of Shakespeare's 
 influence over men. There are few situations in the 
 conditions of the passions, feelings, hopes, fears, mis- 
 fortunes, or happiness of human beings in which some 
 expression cannot be found in Shakespeare to suit the 
 peculiar state of the mind at the moment. Some of 
 these results of thought, or ebullitions of fancy, may 
 be altogether different from other thoughts and fancies 
 to be elsewhere found in the poet's sayings, so as to 
 often make him seem in contradiction with himself ; 
 but all men, if strictly examined, will be found in 
 
ART 35 
 
 contradiction with themselves. The mind and intellect 
 are all but infinite, and every fresh combination of 
 thought gives birth to a fresh expression which 
 accounts for the endless variety in the language of 
 productive minds. As we gaze over it we observe 
 here a blossom, and there a blossom, the stem and root 
 of which lie hidden far down in the depths of the 
 metaphysical world — and these blossoms, rare and 
 beautiful as they may be, like the glitter of some 
 twinkling leaf in a forest, can never be beheld but 
 once, as in the hurry and infinite procession of ideas 
 there is no time for looking back, for the surge of 
 existence bears you forward, so that every successive 
 moment must present new phases and shows of 
 things. 
 
 In these considerations we discover the source of 
 Shakespeare's multitudinous imagery, which is so rich 
 and copious that it suggests the idea of infinity. In 
 the minds of all men there lie hidden the germs of all 
 feelings, passions, virtues and vices, which, according 
 to the age and country in which they live, exchange 
 denominations, and are held to be blamable or blame- 
 less ; in Sybaris one form of thought, in Sparta 
 another. Now in Shakespeare both the Sybarite and 
 the Spartan may find what will suit his idiosyncrasy — 
 in fact, he may be read in a club, a church, or a 
 charnel-house with equal influence and propriety. 
 This gives his writings the character of a wilderness 
 of vast extent, in which weeds and flowers, plants 
 balsamic and plants venomous, with trees of all f oh age 
 grow side by side, not arranged orderly as in a trim 
 garden, but flung promiscuously together as in a 
 tropical jungle. This pecuharity of Shakespeare's 
 works creates the difficulty of searching out his 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 philosophy, the presence of which is everywhere felt, 
 and often in proportion to the absence of art. What 
 he has to say he will and does say, whether in 
 season or out of season, though some action of the 
 piece, as he himself expresses it, be slackened by the 
 proceeding. 
 
ESSAY III 
 
 AET IN TEAGEDY 
 
 One of Shakespeare's departures from the old laws of 
 the drama, whether defensible or not, necessarily gave 
 rise to another, for when a play was converted into a 
 biography or into a history it was no longer desirable, 
 or even possible, to preserve that unbroken flow of 
 sympathy withjmjsfortune^v^^^ constitutes one of the 
 greatest beauties of Greek tragedy. In this we discern 
 numerous tracks of action and interest converging 
 upon one point, and producing the catastrophe by their 
 union. There is little opportunity for change of place, 
 for the lengthening out of time, for the co-operation 
 of numerous characters ; the shock of antagonistic 
 emotions absorbs the sympathy of the spectators, 
 which goes on augmenting till it reaches that point 
 at which the action of the piece terminates in calamity 
 or success. Into so limited a field of emotion it would 
 be obviously impossible to introduce that variety of 
 situations, that change of scene, that opposition of 
 feelings, that contrast of the grave and gay, which are 
 the characteristics of modern tragedy, especially as it 
 exists in Shakespeare. Length of time is obviously 
 indispensable to bring about all the results upon which 
 this form of the drama is built up. But what length 
 of time ? A few hours, or even a day or days, will 
 seldom suffice to develop the whole of the action 
 
38 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEAEE 
 
 involved in the poet's plan ; but as the interest he 
 aims at, depending chiefly on accumulation of cir- 
 cumstances, cannot in general be created without 
 assuming a succession of events, each of which must 
 be the growth of time, the modern drama is necessarily 
 to some extent historical. It is common to maintain 
 that it therefore more nearly resembles life. But as an 
 hour of life is as much a section of eternity as a year, 
 a picture of what takes place in that hour may be as 
 complete as a picture of what takes place in a year. 
 Now, if by art and skill the poet, without outraging 
 probability, can crowd into the period of time consumed 
 in enacting the drama upon the stage incidents and 
 events sufficient to form a grand and absorbing repre- 
 sentation, it seems to me a proof of greater genius than 
 gleaning from the multiplied incidents of months and 
 years materials of a striking drama. Yet the Greeks 
 themselves felt the want of something to soften the 
 effect of continuous gloom upon the mind ; and, there- 
 fore, when a trilogy had been performed, sought the 
 delight of contrast by the introduction of a satiric 
 drama, of which one specimen only remains to us ; 
 therefore, though they generally avoid mixing up the 
 tragic and comic elements in one piece, they included 
 both in one day's enjoyment. 
 
 Unfortunately for man, the elements of tragedy are 
 far more widely scattered than those of comedy ; yet 
 though in this point of view they are more common, 
 their effect upon the mind is not in the ratio of 
 their commonness. Shakespeare, who had assiduously 
 studied the philosophy of life, together with the rela- 
 tions of the eternal world to man, clearly perceived that 
 his happiness or misery depends less on things lying 
 outside of himself than on the ideas and passions of 
 
ART IN TRAGEDY 39 
 
 his own mind; and, accordingly, though he had an 
 eye for whatever is beautiful in the physical universe, 
 his greatest efforts were directed towards mastering the 
 art of putting in play the forces of our inner nature, 
 and exhibiting the ethical result. The sources of pam 
 and pleasure lying close to each other in the human 
 heart, the complete dramatic writer must be able to 
 draw^with equal facility from each_, so as to present to 
 man a picture of his whole nature. The greatest law 
 of existence appears to be vicissitude. Storms and sun- 
 shine, heat and cold, conflict with and chase each other 
 in the material world, and an exactly similar process 
 takes places within us, since neither joy nor sorrow 
 long maintains the mastery over our feelings, though, 
 however we may account for it, such is our nature that 
 our souls are rendered purer and more beautiful by 
 affliction than by prosperity. Yet in the darkest hours 
 of iif e the mind will strive to escape even but for a 
 moment from the sorrow that oppresses it, and catch a 
 glimpse of joy. In obedience to this law of contrast 
 Shakespeare mingles in his tragedies laughter and merri- 
 ment with sorrow and death, and has put a sort of apology 
 for his theory into the mouth of Hamlet's uncle : 
 Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death 
 The memory be green, and that it us befitted 
 To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom 
 To be contracted in one brow of woe, 
 Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature 
 That we with wisest sorrow think on him, 
 Together with remembrance of ourselves. 
 Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, 
 The imperial jointress of this war-like state, 
 Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy, 
 With one auspicious and one dropping eye, 
 With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, 
 In equal scale weighing delight and dole, 
 Taken to wife. 
 
40 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ^\^ Having adopted this canon of art, Shakespeare has 
 
 ;■.■ introduced into all his tragedies more or less of the 
 
 r^ ,- comic element. * Komeo and Juliet,' based upon the 
 
 ^ ^; passions of wild youth', naturally exhibits the most 
 
 ^' sudden vicissitudes and the most violent contrasts. 
 
 While contemplating the progress of the action, we 
 
 seem to be gazing on the flash of sunshine and the 
 
 shadow over the fields in spring. The mirth is as 
 
 licentious as the gloom is deep, and death springs forth 
 
 at last from the womb, as it were, of voluptuousness 
 
 and joy. In * Othello,' the tragedy of middle life and 
 
 mature passions, the comedy is ghastly, arising chiefly 
 
 from the proceedings of a murderer and fool. The 
 
 lively scenes in 'Hamlet,' in which the principal 
 
 character invariably figures, are least in harmony with 
 
 the design of tragedy, since while they detract from 
 
 the dignity of the speaker they are equally at variance 
 
 with the moral character of the play. From ' Lear ' 
 
 ■^/ the author almost excludes comedy, and still more 
 
 "^N^NX^ completely from * Macbeth,' which consequently more 
 
 ^\ ' nearly approaches in spirit the tragedies of ^schylus 
 
 and Sophocles. 
 
 In all these cases, save one, it may be questioned 
 whether anything is gained by the occasional inter- 
 ruption of the tragic feeling. An ingenious critic may 
 perceive beauty and fitness in the ribaldry of the fool 
 in ' Lear,' and the obscenity of the witches and the 
 porter in ' Macbeth ' ; but though there is nature in 
 the speech of the drunken ruffian at the thane's castle, 
 it might perhaps have been dispensed with as almost 
 the only interruption of the tragic current surging 
 forward throughout the play. It is common among 
 critics, when balancing the merits of ancient and 
 modern tragedy, to decide without hesitation in favour 
 
AKT IN TRAGEDY 41 
 
 of the latter, because of some superior conformity to 
 nature which they discover in it. This decision seems, 
 in some cases at least, to be founded upon a sort of 
 patriotic partiality, because the greatest of modern 
 dramatists was our countryman. ' Amicus Plato, 
 amicus Socrates, sed magis arnica Veritas.' If we 
 carefully inquire to what cause in ancient tragedy the 
 catastrophe is to be traced, we shall find that, although 
 human agency is discoverable in the foreground, we 
 are always conscious of the presence of that awful and 
 unknown power on which man has bestowed the name 
 of Fate. 
 
 Prometheus on the cliff owes his sufferings to 
 nothing rdortal, but to the anger of the supreme ruler 
 of the world, whose vengeance he defies ; hence the 
 shaking of the earth, the disparting of the crags and 
 rocks, the toppling over of the precipices, the light- 
 nings, the thunders, and the thick darkness which 
 sweep over him in one commingled tempest as he 
 disappears from our sight ; hence also the blinding 
 and the torturing anguish which terminate the pro- ^ 
 
 sperity of CEdipus, and the strange sublimity of his 
 descent through the rifted earth. In Shakespeare the , 
 
 catastrophe is brought about by murder, suicide, or 
 chance medley, though this naked statement of fact by 
 no means impugns the dramatic power of the author. 
 In some moods of mind we prefer one course of 
 action, in other moods a different one ; and it is there- 
 fore very intelligible that in ages so remote from each 
 other as the twentieth century and the fifth before the 
 Christian era there should be difference in the senti- 
 ments of spectators regarding the denouement of a play. 
 
 But after all it is not in structure that the chief 
 merit of a drama is to be looked for. A landscape 
 
42 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 as we find it in Poussin or Claude Lorraine, has, like 
 
 an epic poem, a beginning, a middle, and an end, 
 
 because painting, like every other form of art, aims 
 
 at completeness; whereas, if you regard the finest 
 
 scenes in nature, they are all with rare exceptions only 
 
 • parts of some vast whole, which the eye never and the 
 
 ^ ( mind but seldom can take in at once. In this respect 
 
 sJ^■ Shakespeare's greatness resembles that of nature. You 
 
 \j^ come abruptly on a vast course of action, of which, 
 
 \" ,' as in 'Lear,* 'Othello,' and * Macbeth,' you never see 
 
 the commencement. The actors, without reference to 
 
 your ignorance, proceed with their own concerns, out 
 
 of which events naturally spring up, challenge your 
 
 notice, rivet your interest. You are swept into the 
 
 current, form part of the moving, thrilling scene, 
 
 and only awake to consciousness when the potent 
 
 illusion is dispelled by the catastrophe. 
 
 But the connection of what goes before with what 
 follows is seldom so close that the series of events 
 might not be easily shortened or protracted. Numerous 
 scenes occur which are not necessary to the develop- 
 ment of the action, and to these several others might 
 be added without interrupting the progress of the 
 drama. In life it is exactly the same. Everything 
 a man does is not necessary to the setting forth of his 
 visible conduct, though the hidden chain of motives 
 and actions may, for aught we know, be one indis- 
 soluble whole. 
 
 From what I have said above, it follows that in 
 plays like those of Shakespeare we may always expect 
 to find more or less surplusage, and our expectation is 
 never disappointed. It may doubtless be said that this 
 very surplusage, the redundant growth of a prolific 
 imagination, is itself too full of beauty and value to be 
 
ART IN TRAGEDY 43 
 
 voluntarily dispensed with. But this is not the question. 
 Would not the play be better without it, more sym- 
 metrical, less disturbed in action, more entirely one, if 
 these superfluous excellences were sacrificed '? 
 
 What are the plays on which Shakespeare's fame as 
 a tragic poet most securely rests ? Five in all — * Eomeo- 
 and Juliet,' ' Macbeth,' ' Hamlet,' * Othello,' and * Lear.' 
 Payne Knight, with several other critics, regards 
 * Macbeth' as Shakespeare's greatest work, and there 
 are certainly passages in that play which rise to a 
 greater elevation than anything to be found in any 
 other play. There are in it also three characters of 
 immense distinctness and originality — Lady Macbeth, 
 Macbeth himself, and Banquo — around whose fates 
 an interest of the deepest kind is thrown. Yet this 
 interest — stormy, dark, and absorbing as it is --is less 
 absorbing than that which envelops the young, beauti- \y 
 
 ful, and innocent Capulet to the latest moment of her 
 existence. Macbeth's Queen is indisputably a magni- 
 ficent woman, endowed with beauty, love, ambition, 
 and resistless courage. But even Shakespeare's genius 
 found it a task beyond his resources to keep her long 
 upon the stage. She comes in like a whirlwind, exerts 
 her baleful influence, burns herself a way into the 
 inmost soul of spectator or reader, never again to be 
 dislodged from thence, and then disappears as some 
 bright and destructive meteor vanishes from the firma- 
 ment. Still more than her husband she is the soul of 
 the tragedy, which languishes in her absence, and as to 
 interest, dies with her, since all that follows is * stale, 
 ,; flat, and unprofitable.' Juliet's career doubtless con- 
 ^{ j trasts with hers ; she steals upon us peacefully and 
 sweetly as some lovely star glides up into the blue; 
 she appears at first as the incarnation of gentle love ; 
 
44 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 her passions, however, rapidly acquire force and vehe- 
 mence, her soul expands, fills the theatre, excites deep 
 emotion in a thousand hearts, flashes beauty about her 
 like some god, fascinates her lover to madness, and 
 then in a blaze of passion, tenderness, and magnanimity 
 descends into the tomb. Juliet, in fact, in my opinion, 
 is the greatest of Shakespeare's creations, and I envy 
 few more than those who saw her impersonated as 
 she ought to be with congenial beauty and intellect by 
 Miss O'Neill.^ 
 
 Nowhere has Shakespeare given proof of his subtle 
 perception of the true nature of love more than in the 
 parting scene between Juliet and Eomeo A cluster of 
 the grandest and most beautiful ideas throws splen- 
 
 ' Miss O'Neill, the famous actress, who married Mr., afterwards 
 Sir H., Wrixon Becher, preserved her faculties and dramatic power to 
 the last. The following anecdote was told me by the late Baroness 
 Burdett-Coutts : At one time a friend who read well used to call at 
 Stratton Street about tea time, and read to those assembled different 
 scenes from Shakespeare's plays. One afternoon Lady Becher happened 
 to be present, and inquired from what play the gentleman proposed to 
 select passages that day. ' From " Komeo and Juliet," ' he replied. 
 ' Then,' said she, ' let us have the balcony scene ; I will take the part of 
 Juliet to your Romeo.' All the ladies present tried to persuade her not 
 to attempt it, but she only remarked : ' I can understand what is your 
 object ; you think I shall make myself ridiculous, but I shall not.' 
 She left the room, and when she returned she had skilfully wrapped a 
 lace shawl round her head, through which you could only partially 
 distinguish her features. She stepped on to a slightly raised dais 
 which was then in the drawing-room, and the scene began. All were 
 astonished ; her genius had not abandoned her, and she acted the part 
 with striking effect ; her voice was beautifully modulated, and it retained 
 much of its former sweetness. The part of Juliet had evidently been a 
 favourite one of hers, and she appeared to remember every line of it. 
 
 I used to associate this anecdote with the late Henry Irving, but the 
 dates will not allow it, as the Baitoness's intimate friendship with 
 that distinguished man did not commence until after the death of 
 Lady Becher. 1 now feel assured that it was Mr. Young, the son of 
 the famous actor of Miss O'Neill's day, that read the words of Romeo. 
 I may add that the part of Romeo was totally unsuited to Irving. 
 Between the years 1860 and 1872, at which latter date Lady Becher 
 died, I used to meet her at Stratton Street, and although in the former 
 year Lady Becher was already seventy, she retained so much vivacity 
 as to surprise all who heard her converse. 
 
ART IN TRAGEDY 45 
 
 dour over its despair : the lark, the nightingale, the 
 pomegranate tree, the misty mountain tops, the vaulty 
 heavens encircle the pale beauty of the girl, as from 
 her lattice she looks down for the last time upon her 
 lover in the garden. The livery of past delight had 
 settled on them both — she fancies she beholds him 
 dead at the bottom of a tomb : he is no less struck by 
 her colourless cheeks ; and then the bright curtain of 
 life descends, never for them to be again drawn up. 
 But they have lived, they have loved. 
 
 The tree of knowledge has been plucked, 
 All's known. 
 
 Some German critics, holding a strange theory of 
 ethics, regard the love which Shakespeare has developed 
 in this character, as well as in that of Komeo, as cor- 
 rupting and debased; but what man deserving the 
 name would not desire to be so debased and corrupted ? 
 All that is sweet and delicate in life, all that translates 
 it out of the region of brute matter into that of spirit, 
 all that sheds a lustre and perfume on existence, is 
 infused and concentrated by Shakespeare in this most 
 perfect embodiment of the female character. If earth 
 were peopled by Juliets, * life would not yield to age.' 
 Hallam, no mean name in literature, refuses to reckon 
 Juliet among Shakespeare's great women. Perhaps, 
 indeed, she ought not to be reckoned among any 
 women, great or little, but to form a class apart, above 
 and superior to them all. To prove her close relation- 
 ship to us, however, she has her weaknesses, her fail- 
 ings, her little vices : she equivocates with her mother, 
 is imperious with her nurse, froward with her father, 
 and too submissive to the friar. 
 
 How far Shakespeare was acquainted with antiquity 
 and through what channels he studied it, is of no 
 
46 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEAKE 
 
 moment, but that after a fashion he did study it, and 
 derive much benefit from the study, may be regarded 
 as past doubt. 
 
 The calamities and sorrows of the house of Atreus 
 appear to have made a powerful impression on his 
 mind and to have inspired him with a wish to reproduce, 
 through some analogous circumstances in modern 
 times, a tragic story involving the same elements, and 
 resulting in a similar catastrophe. In the trilogy of 
 ^schylus we have a wife who, in conjunction with her 
 paramour, murders her husband. The son of the 
 adulteress, returning home from a foreign country, 
 determines at the instigation of the gods to avenge 
 his father's murder, and with the aid of a friend 
 accomplishes his purpose by killing both the guilty 
 individuals. 
 
 This subject struck Shakespeare as pre-eminently 
 susceptible of tragic development, and out of this con- 
 viction arose the tragedy of 'Hamlet.' Claudius is 
 ^gistheus, Gertrude is Clytemnestra, Hamlet just 
 returned from abroad is Orestes, and Horatio is 
 Pylades. In the Greek poet there is no love save of 
 that dignified and exalted kind which subsists between 
 brother and sister, for Electra stands in the place of 
 Ophelia, except that her consuming energy transcends 
 the utmost conception of the Danish maiden. When 
 Shakespeare had shadowed forth this plan in his mind, 
 he was too full of genius and original resources to sink 
 into the character of an imitator; but he could only 
 escape this by making some of his principal personages 
 tame and insipid, while the chief actor, like Aaron's 
 serpent, swallows up the rest. 
 
 The warlike majesty of Denmark has just returned, 
 like Agamemnon, from foreign wars, when his brother 
 
ART IN TRAGEDY 47 
 
 and Queen compass his destruction ; but instead of 
 making Gertrude a high-souled, fierce, impassioned, 
 reckless assassin, like Clytemnestra, Shakespeare repre- 
 sents her as a puny, mawkish adulteress, who, through 
 her own base passions, becomes subservient to the lust 
 of a man still baser and more worthless, since, while 
 he exhibits not even the semblance of any virtue, she, 
 in the depths of the Circean sty, preserves the love 
 of a mother for her son. This modification in her 
 character necessitated a modification in that of Hamlet. 
 Clytemnestra has quenched in her heart a mother's 
 love, otherwise Orestes, in spite of every other motive, 
 could not have slain her ; and the modern Orestes, who 
 by all forms of intelligence, both natural and super- 
 natural, might have been expected to become a matri- 
 cide upon learning the real circumstances of his 
 father's murder, is withheld from the fulfilment of 
 that part of his design by the peremptory injunctions 
 of his father's spirit : 
 
 Let not thy soul contrive 
 Against thy mother aught ; leave her to heaven 
 And to the thorns that in her bosom lodge 
 To prick and sting her. 
 
 From this it is clear that Hamlet's father discerned 
 in his son's mind ideas which might have resulted in 
 the death of both the guilty individuals. Assuming 
 the truth of the historical event commemorated, 
 ^schylus has no choice, but must make Orestes kill 
 his mother ; but Shakespeare, finding the whole field 
 of tradition left open to him, exhibits superior art in 
 making accident, not her son, the instrument of Ger- 
 trude's punishment. He kills the Danish ^gistheus, 
 as was right, but only in that disastrous melee the 
 production of which Shakespeare thought necessary 
 
48 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 to rouse the sluggish sympathies of northern audiences. 
 In tragic pomp and grandeur of sentiment ^schylus 
 is not merely superior to Shakespeare, but may be said 
 to stand on an unapproachable elevation, though events 
 and circumstances in his dramas are too hurried and 
 abrupt to afford any but the most subtle minds 
 leisure to take in and reflect all their sublimity. 
 Shakespeare, with the calmness of immense power, 
 contemplates the elements before him, and educes out 
 of the mass an intelligible, if not a perfect, whole, 
 invested with broken fragments of grandeur, but 
 interspersed with far too much of what is mean and 
 poor. 
 
 The plan of 'Hamlet' is confused and inartistic. 
 Commencing with the utmost splendour, but diminish- 
 ing in brilliance as it proceeds, growing by degrees flat 
 and tame, and terminating miserably, I cannot there- 
 fore fall into the received opinion that Shakespeare 
 carefully revised the play when his mind was at its 
 maturity. He altered it, no doubt, and made several 
 additions, but never gave it his full consideration ; 
 otherwise we should not now find in it those blemishes 
 and imperfections which mar its beauty. Few, I fancy, 
 have heard or read the play without being struck by 
 the fact that Shakespeare, when he sketched the 
 character of Polonius, meant to make it one thing, 
 which for awhile he does make it, but, gradually losing 
 sight of his original design, he takes up with another 
 theory, and ends by making it something totally 
 different. 
 
 If we accept the poet's views we must assume the 
 elder Hamlet to have been that rare being, a prudent 
 king, of which he would naturally give proof by 
 choosing an able man for his minister. Now he chose 
 
ART IN TRAGEDY 49 
 
 Polonius, who managed through a long series of years 
 the pubhc affairs of Denmark, in peace and war. He 
 could not during that period have been a fool, or the 
 king must have been a fool to employ him. But we 
 have the testimony of the younger Hamlet to prove 
 that the elder was a man of judgment, virtue, and large 
 policy, who could not have entrusted the administration 
 of his kingdom to a shallow babbler, such as Polonius 
 soon after the opening of the play appears to be. 
 Into this inconsistency Shakespeare was betrayed by 
 the rage for mixing up comedy with tragedy which 
 possessed him when he wrote * Hamlet.' 
 
 Upon the vexed question of Hamlet's madness I 
 shall only say that, as Shakespeare himself has not 
 made up his mind on the point, but fluctuates through- 
 out between two opinions, we may fairly leave the 
 matter undecided. At the outset Hamlet undoubtedly 
 declares — assuming himself then to be of sound mind — 
 that he means to simulate madness, in order to fulfil 
 some design which he does not explain. It may be 
 suspected, however, that by persistently throwing his 
 mind into a doubtful and unhinged state he destroyed 
 its poise, and became what he pretended. Certainly we 
 are constrained to come to some such decision, or we 
 must accuse Shakespeare's philosophic hero of mean 
 and deliberate falsehood. Being about to engage with 
 Laertes in a conflict of doubtful character and issue, 
 Hamlet, troubled by the bitter memory of Polonius' s 
 death, endeavours thus to explain away the guilt of the 
 deed : 
 
 Give me your pardon, sir ; I've done you wrong ; 
 But pardon 't, as you are a gentleman. 
 This presence knows, 
 
 And you must needs have heard, how I am punished 
 
 £ 
 
50 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 With sore distraction. What I have done, 
 That might your nature, honour, and exception 
 Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness. 
 Was 't Hamlet wrong' d Laertes ? Never Hamlet : 
 If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away, 
 And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes, 
 Then Hamlet does it not ; Hamlet denies it. 
 Who does it, then ? His madness. If 't be so, 
 Hamlet is of the faction that is wronged ; 
 His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy. 
 
 Here the prince certainly alludes to the death of 
 Laertes' father as one of the sinister actions by which 
 he had done signal injustice to the young nobleman, 
 his other principal offence consisting in having by his 
 policy and behaviour driven his sister Ophelia to 
 insanity and death. From the guilt of these deeds he 
 would now escape by shifting it to the disorder which 
 privately to his friend Horatio he admitted to be a mere 
 sham. So likewise to his mother, whom he has been 
 reproaching with her crimes, he affirms himself to be 
 in perfect health. Speaking aloud to the ghost, which 
 remains invisible to her, she exclaims : 
 
 Alas, he's mad I 
 
 As he is not aware that she does not discern the 
 spectre or hear its voice, he asks : 
 
 Do you see nothing there ? 
 
 And she replies : 
 
 Nothing at all, yet all that is I see. 
 
 He goes on : 
 
 Nor did you nothing hear ? 
 Queen. No, nothing but ourselves. 
 Ham. Why, look you there, look how it steals away I 
 My father in his habit as he lived 1 
 Look where he goes even now at the portal ! 
 
ART IN TRAGEDY 61 
 
 As Hamlet's mother had her senses sealed up, so 
 that she remained unconscious of the presence in spirit 
 of her former husband, she jumps naturally to the 
 conclusion that her son is mad, and exclaims : 
 
 This is the very coinage of your brain, 
 This bodiless creation ecstasy 
 Is very cunning in. 
 
 The answer made by Hamlet to this speech is so 
 earnest and solemn a disclaimer of the pretext of 
 insanity that Shakespeare must have forgotten when 
 he came to write the fifth act what he had said in the 
 third : 
 
 Ham. Ecstasy ! 
 
 My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time, 
 And makes as healthful music : it is not madness 
 That I have uttered: bring me to the test, 
 And I the matter will reword, which madness 
 Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace, 
 Lay not that flattering unction to your soul, 
 That not your trespass but my madness speaks. 
 
 With some few awakenings of the spirit in which 
 it begins, the latter portion of this tragedy is so inferior 
 to the commencement that it seems, in the phrase once 
 current, to be by another hand ; the colloquies with 
 Kosencrantz and Guildenstern, the adventures with 
 the pirates, the incidents connected with the return of 
 Laertes, above all the catastrophe, are unworthy of 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 It appears to me all but certain that * Hamlet ' in the 
 way I have described springs out of the cycle of ancient 
 art. The principles of art are nothing if they do not 
 harmonise with the corresponding principles in nature 
 — that is, if Nature makes men and women in one way 
 
 e2 
 
52 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 and you represent them in another, your pictures are 
 necessarily false. Now no truth can be more thoroughly 
 established than this : that all sane men are guided in 
 what they do by some theory or other of self-interest. 
 In following this guidance they also think that they 
 are performing a duty, since by entrusting to a man 
 not only the care of his being, but of his well-being. 
 Nature obviously demands of him the fulfilment of this 
 duty to the uttermost. When, therefore, in the recesses 
 of his own heart a man forms for himself a plan of life, 
 he cannot consistently with sanity form other than 
 what appears to him a rational plan, and, if rational, 
 then just and therefore defensible in all its parts, accord- 
 to the view which in his inner consciousness he takes 
 of it. 
 
 Compare this theory of human action with the 
 character of lago in the tragedy of * Othello.' He is 
 the corner-stone of the play, which, without him, would 
 have no colour or interest. He plans it, gives impulse 
 to its action, settles the part to be played by every 
 individual in it, and provides for the form of the cata- 
 strophe to all but himself. He is, indeed, so intent 
 throughout on compassing the destruction of others 
 that he loses sight of his own safety, and, like Samson 
 in the temple of Dagon, is crushed by the fabric which 
 he has shattered and overthrown. To the proceedings 
 of such a man a motive that shall appear adequate to 
 his keen-sightedness is unquestionably necessary. But 
 has Shakespeare provided lago with such a motive? 
 In my opinion he has, though it is not that which the 
 Ancient puts forward in his colloquy with Koderigo. 
 Instead of being the able, thoughtful, calculating 
 individual which he is generally supposed to be, he 
 would deserve to be regarded as a shallow and reckless 
 
ART IN TRAGEDY 53 
 
 villain if the mere temporary defeat of his hopes of 
 preferment were the sole incentive to his deadly scheme 
 of revenge. But he knows that this shallow pretence 
 will suffice for the * poor trash of Venice,' with whom 
 he has to deal; and in any circumstances he could 
 not have brought himself to bare the secret source 
 of torture, which really urged him into action. The 
 pollution of his wife is the last thing a man will reveal 
 to another man, especially such a one as Eoderigo 
 appears to lago. Yet it is this injury, coupled with 
 other slights and disparagements, that constitutes lago's 
 motive for what he projects ; and, while acting under 
 its impulse, he cannot regard the steps he takes as 
 otherwise than justifiable. Shakespeare is not true to 
 nature, therefore, in making lago condemn his own 
 conduct, while still persisting in it, and exclaim : 
 
 Knavery's plain face is never seen till used. 
 
 There is nothing unreasonable in assuming that 
 lago loved Emilia when he chose her to be his wife, 
 and, if so, he could have suffered no greater injury from 
 Othello than his seduction of the woman he loved. If 
 we treat the incidents of the play as facts, it signifies 
 nothing whether Othello had been guilty of Emilia's 
 debasement or not. If circumstances on which his 
 acute mind could rely justified lago in his conclu- 
 sions, 
 
 Trifles light as air 
 
 Are to the jealous confirmation strong 
 
 As proofs from holy writ. 
 
 lago, with some reservation perhaps, believes the 
 damning fact, and resolves to risk his all in taking 
 revenge for it. While he is pondering on the position 
 in which he stands — on his degradation, real or 
 
54 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 imaginary, on the means at his command of inflicting 
 punishment on his foes — the thought strikes him that 
 he may best effect his purpose through Desdemona ; 
 and his mind, reasoning with itself, proceeds thus. 
 Having come to the conclusion that Cassio loves 
 Desdemona, he says : 
 
 I do love her too. 
 
 Not out of absolute lust, though peradventure 
 
 I stand accountant for as great a sin, 
 
 But partly led to diet my revenge, 
 
 For that I do suspect the lusty Moor 
 
 Hath leaped into my seat : the thought whereof 
 
 Doth like a poisonous mineral gnaw my inwards ; 
 
 And nothing can or shall content my soul 
 
 Till I am even with him, wife for wife. 
 
 To a mind brought by circumstances into this state 
 everything which promises to further its designs must 
 appear justifiable. Others may condemn him, but in 
 the court of his own conscience he stands absolved, 
 since, writhing under a wrong the greatest that a man 
 can suffer, he necessarily looks upon his wronger as a 
 detestable object of vengeance. It is not natural, there- 
 fore, to make lago speak of the Moor as of a free and 
 open nature, which if he stooped to stain the bed of 
 his dependant he could not be. But the hearer or 
 reader, it may be said, does not believe in Othello's 
 transgression, and looks upon lago as a remorseless 
 miscreant. Be it so. Neither the reader nor the 
 hearer is lago, who, in his turn, cannot be expected to 
 judge of his own actions and intentions as others do. 
 He does and must think himself right for the reasons 
 already stated, and therefore the following language in 
 his mouth is unnatural : — 
 
 The Moor is of a free and open nature, 
 
 That thinks men honest that but seem to be so ; 
 
 I 
 
ART IN TRAGEDY 55 
 
 And will as tenderly be led by th' nose, 
 As asses are. 
 ;,■ I have 't — it is engendered : Hell and night 
 
 (' // Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light. 
 
 ■J/ 
 
 W / In drawing another of his villains Shakespeare over- 
 Wy / steps the modesty of nature, and produces a monster, 
 ^ / which, unless among lunatics, knows no parallel in 
 nature — I mean Kichard III. The play opens with a 
 very striking speech, in which Kichard dissects himself 
 internally and externally, in a style of fiendish humour, 
 which, though out of keeping with nature, tells upon 
 the stage. Compared with lago, Kichard appears 
 somewhat of a clumsy villain, partly perhaps because 
 he wields greater social power, and is therefore more 
 reckless in the exercise of his malignity, but chiefly 
 because, instead of devising one subtle scheme of 
 atrocity and developing it completely, he surrounds 
 himself like a human spider with a widespreading web 
 of destructiveness, in which he skilfully entangles one 
 victim after another. But his contrivances smell too 
 much of the playhouse. He breaks upon us at first 
 as one who is meant to fret and strut his hour upon 
 the stage, not as a prince with statesmanlike views 
 overthrowing those who stand in his way, because they 
 do so stand, but for the mere caitiff pleasure of killing. 
 The scene with Lady Anne, suggested by the story of 
 the Ephesian Matron, is a mere stage exhibition, tragi- 
 comic in its conception, and calculated to suggest a 
 hateful opinion of women, but so overdrawn as to be 
 counteracted by its own extravagance. The men whom 
 Kichard cuts off fall into his nets with provoking 
 facility, while the women, both old and young, assail 
 each other with a coarse bitterness which borders on 
 the ludicrous. So much space, however, is wasted by 
 
56 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 these uncongenial displays that the catastrophe, with 
 its immediate preliminaries, is almost necessarily hurried, 
 and therefore less effective than it might otherwise have 
 been. The play exhibits no characters of any mark 
 except Kichard himself, who removes every obstacle in 
 his way so easily that we are never led to admire either 
 his policy or his power. Some romance is sought to be 
 thrown about Richmond, and there is excitement and 
 poetry in the night scenes on Bosworth field ; but the 
 play, upon the whole, is a tedious catalogue of painful 
 incidents, not in many cases necessary for the success 
 of the arch-villain, and only introduced for the purpose 
 of heightening the tragic effect, which they on the 
 contrary diminish. One calamitous story invented 
 with judgment, skilfully protracted, and terminating 
 in a striking manner, as in ' Eomeo and Juliet ' and 
 * Othello,' fulfils the design of tragedy ; but when we 
 are marched through a whole gallery of horrors, we 
 become gradually accustomed to the scenes, our feel- 
 ings are paralysed, and we witness the termination with 
 apathy — it is the difference between a terrible murder 
 and a battle. 
 
ESSAY IV 
 
 TEAGEDT 
 
 Some writers are of opinion that Shakespeare's genius 
 culminated in the tragedy of * Lear,' the foundation of 
 which, as I have already remarked, he borrowed from 
 antiquity. The play certainly abounds with passages 
 of surpassing beauty, while some of the characters are 
 drawn with a masterly hand, and finely discriminated ; 
 but, upon the whole, probability is lost sight of so 
 entirely, and the manners are so little in harmony with 
 nature, that we appear almost throughout to be trans- 
 ported into a world wholly different from our own — 
 a sort of Utopia of horror, where it would be vain to 
 look for anything co-ordinated according to the nature 
 with which we are acquainted. Prospero, and the son 
 of Sycorax, and the three bearded old ladies who meet 
 us on the Scottish heath, are scarcely more out of 
 harmony with the existing system of things. Lear, 
 whom we soon learn to encircle with our compassion, 
 traverses, from the outset, the region of madness, though 
 he becomes more and more engulfed as he proceeds, 
 till his understanding suffers a complete collapse, and 
 he is left helpless and desolate, like a helmless bark 
 upon the ocean. 
 
 While this process is accomplishing, his resemblance 
 to (Edipus becomes at every advance more obvious. 
 The Theban king has been expelled from his dominions 
 
58 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 by his unnatural sons, whom he from time to time 
 bans with terrific curses ; and Lear, suffering the same 
 indignity and ingratitude, bursts forth into maledictions 
 no less fearful and hideous, though in language more 
 awful and heartsearching than that which the Greek 
 poet has put into the mouth of the regal exile. 
 
 Sophocles himself, it will scarcely be denied, has 
 overstepped the modesty of nature in the character of 
 Eteocles and Polynices, as well as in that of Creon ; 
 but Edmund, Goneril and Regan are so far from the 
 human type that they move in an orbit apart, which 
 nowhere touches on our sympathy. Two courses of 
 action run parallel throughout the play, and really 
 constitute two tragedies which challenge your attention 
 simultaneously. Immense power is no doubt displayed 
 in the development of each, but the division of interest 
 interferes with the current of our emotion, and con- 
 strains us to slight the sufferings of Gloucester, which, 
 taken separately, would be more than enough to make 
 up a heartrending tragedy. 
 
 From time to time throughout the play revolting 
 cruelty and disgust are substituted for terror, which is 
 the proper element of tragedy: the tearing out of 
 Gloucester's eyes, the hanging of Cordelia and the fool, 
 the old king rushing upon the stage with the dead 
 body of his daughter in his arms — these exceed the 
 limits of pathos, and are too painful to be consistent 
 with art. On the other hand, the characters of Lear, 
 Edgar, Gloucester, Kent, and the fool are generally made 
 to develop themselves in a way to command our belief 
 in their humanity. No doubt the old king begins his 
 course by an exhibition of the despotism of dotage, 
 which would excite not our pity, but our scorn, did not 
 a retribution disproportioned to his folly and tyranny 
 
TRAGEDY 59 
 
 follow closely upon the heels of his offence. That he 
 ought not to escape chastisement we feel. His exercise 
 of his pampered authority, his fantastic selfishness 
 which blinds him to the true character of those around 
 him, his proneness to furious anger, his capricious 
 extravagance, his insatiable vanity, must necessarily 
 bear fruit ; but when his violent passions collapse and 
 he stands before us invested with nothing but the help- 
 lessness of age, goaded and oppressed by the savage 
 barbarity of ingratitude, all we have of tenderness and 
 compassion in our nature is instantly awakened and 
 accorded to the sufferer. Shakespeare himself expe- 
 rienced from circumstances the wrongs inflicted upon 
 Lear by his daughters. For intellectual power, rich- 
 ness of thought, exuberant fancy, prolific imagination, 
 and that keensightedness which enabled him to pene- 
 trate into the qualities of mankind, he saw no peer 
 among his contemporaries, whom yet he found himself 
 condemned to amuse by tricks and arts which he 
 despised. Thrust away from the high places of human 
 action to wander over the wild heaths of poverty and 
 social degradation, his soul took up arms against the 
 injustice of fortune, which he assailed with all the 
 bitterness of revenge through the mouth of Lear. 
 Hence the splendour of the old king's madness. The 
 writer's soul was in his words, and under cover of 
 acted aberration of intellect he hurls the bolts of his 
 wrath against those institutions, manners, prejudices, 
 which combined to abase him. 
 
 In other moods of mind Shakespeare fixed almost 
 at haphazard upon a different class of subjects through 
 which to express his fluctuating views of life. No one 
 can fail to perceive that wherever he may lay the scene 
 of his dramas, the sentiments, feelings, and manners 
 
60 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 are substantially English when they are not the off- 
 spring of his own fancy. Nothing is really Greek, 
 Eoman, Italian, or French, save that a few names and 
 associations are here and there thrown in, with the 
 design of imparting a foreign aspect to the composition. 
 Nor is this characteristic at all peculiar to Shakespeare ; 
 the Greek tragedians, when they endeavoured to draw 
 pictures of the heroic age, failed to escape from the 
 system of thought and feeling predominant in their 
 own time, and in point of fact made Teucer, Ajax, and 
 Philoctetes contemporaries with Pericles and Cleon. 
 Plautus and Terence were still less able to revivify 
 Greek characters among the foldings of the Seven 
 Hills, so that Chremes and Glycera are wholly indebted 
 for their idiosyncrasies to the mental atmosphere 
 breathed by their poetical creators. On this ground, 
 therefore, we need not quarrel with Shakespeare, who, 
 of whatever else he may have been ignorant, thoroughly 
 understood the aim and object of all art — namely, to 
 fill the mind with pleasurable sentiments and emotions. 
 Aristotle and other philosophers desirous of attri- 
 buting an ethical purpose to the drama, which it may 
 have had in the hands of some poets, maintain that 
 its object is to elevate and purify the minds of men by 
 providing an innoxious outlet for their passions. 
 Without controverting this theory, we may affirm that 
 the principal object of all art is pleasure, first to the 
 artist himself, and next to those who contemplate his 
 performances. In tragedy, pleasure is obtained through 
 pain ; that is through a series of emotions which wring 
 the heart, but terminate ultimately by exciting pro- 
 found admiration and delight at the skill by which 
 all the powers of our mind have been called into 
 action. 
 
TRAGEDY 61 
 
 vX Weak and common natures are excited and agitated 
 
 by trifles, which satisfy their craving after pleasure, 
 and, where the perceptive power is imperfect, works 
 analogous in character will obtain as much, or perhaps 
 more, approbation than such as approach much nearer 
 to perfection. For this reason many audiences derive 
 as much satisfaction from the representation of ' Corio- 
 lanus ' or * Eichard the Third ' as from that of * Komeo 
 and Juliet ' or ' Macbeth.' In Caius Marcius, the con- 
 queror of Corioli, Shakespeare, exaggerating Plutarch, 
 has presented us with a picture of pride and savage 
 insolence calculated to inspire none but the vulgar 
 with sympathy; and, were we not otherwise made 
 familiar with the tender and refined qualities of the 
 poet's mind, we should be tempted to imagine that he 
 cherished some partiality for this patrician gladiator. 
 In ' The Kape of Lucrece ' Shakespeare throws the 
 whole force of his intellect into a pleading for the 
 popular cause, but in * Coriolanus ' he appears to side 
 with the cause of power against right, and to throw 
 scorn and contempt on the efforts of the people's 
 advocates to establish liberty in Kome. 
 
 The scenes, however, in which he pursues this 
 design are as flat and ineffective as the warlike scenes 
 are extravagant. Scarcely anything in the play is 
 natural, except those passages in which the affections 
 of the mother and son, of the wife and husband, trans- 
 port us from the dull politics of caste into the domains 
 of pure nature. 
 
 Shakespeare knew little of the Eoman polity, and 
 had not reflected that it was at least as much the 
 commonalty as the patricians of the Eternal City 
 that by its virtue conquered the world. It is painful, 
 therefore, in a high degree to observe a mind such as 
 
62 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Shakespeare's labouring to represent the greatest people 
 known to history in war and policy as a mutinous and 
 senseless rabble, spurned by a military Bobadil and 
 schooled by an antiquated buffoon. Nothing heavier 
 or more lugubrious than the greater part of this play 
 can easily be conceived, especially as the true spirit of 
 poetry is almost as completely absent as sympathy with 
 Eoman greatness or knowledge of Koman character. 
 
 * Julius Caesar,' though deformed by many similar 
 defects, rises, it is well known, far above * Coriolanus.' 
 There, however, as in many modern novels, the hero is 
 the least heroic of the personages represented. Caesar, 
 indeed, is made to rant intolerably, but neither does 
 nor says anything great throughout the play. He 
 busies himself with Calpurnia's dreams, struts about 
 in his nightgown, at one moment expresses contempt 
 for the senate, at another is wheedled by one of the 
 conspirators into a change of resolution ; now he talks 
 childishly with Antony about the means of curing his 
 wife's barrenness, then he boasts of his own fixedness of 
 purpose, though he had immediately before been giving 
 proofs of the utmost possible instability and caprice. 
 At a moment of supreme danger he prates of loving 
 to have fat and long-haired men about him, and then, 
 thrown off his guard by a mistaken blast of popular 
 applause, invites his idolaters, in the style of a gladia- 
 tor, to cut his throat, which he furiously bares for the 
 purpose ; presently his rage throws him into a fit, 
 which, had fortune been propitious, might have fore- 
 stalled the swords of Brutus and Cassius. 
 
 Shakespeare, in short, misunderstood the character 
 of Caesar, and therefore failed to put him on the stage. 
 He was possessed by the instinctive persuasion that the 
 man was great, and makes those about him talk of his 
 
TRAGEDY 63 
 
 greatness, but had not formed a true conception of it 
 himself. The play would have been a better play had 
 Caesar been invested with all his real virtues and vices, 
 his affected clemency and real ferocity, his admiration 
 for virtue and his passion for vice, his love of country 
 and his resolution to enslave that country. Among 
 recent writers, Mommsen and Louis Napoleon attempted 
 the same deification with still less success than Shake- 
 speare, and in proportion as history is studied will this 
 accomplished despot be less and less esteemed. 
 
 However, the interest of Shakespeare's play attaches 
 less to Caesar than to Brutus, though in the exhibition of 
 his character also Shakespeare gives proof of an inclina- 
 tion to interpret Plutarch's narrative to his dispar- 
 agement. The biographer tells us that inflammatory 
 placards were pasted on the statue of Junius Brutus and 
 otherwise brought to the notice of Marcus ; but Shake- 
 speare represents Cassius, his brother-in-law, playing 
 upon Brutus 's vanity, and stimulating him to assassinate 
 Caesar, by papers thrown in at his window. In this way 
 he is lowered in the estimation of the audience as one 
 who is actuated, in some degree at least, by meaner 
 motives than love of country and hatred of despotism. 
 But Cassius, who had married Brutus's sister Julia, 
 had ample opportunities of exerting otherwise than 
 by such means whatever influence he possessed over 
 Brutus. In truth, however, the way in which their 
 names are coupled by history expresses their places in 
 the conspiracy. We nowhere read of Cassius and 
 Brutus, but of Brutus and Cassius — that is, the leader 
 and the follower, the greater and the lesser man. 
 Afterwards Shakespeare recovers himself, and restores 
 Brutus to his true place in the tempestuous events of 
 the times. Even his worst enemy, Antony, is con- 
 
64 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 strained by conscience to give him the first place 
 among the conspirators : — 
 
 This was the noblest Roman of them all. 
 
 His life was gentle ; and the elements 
 
 So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up 
 
 And say to all the world, This was a man ! 
 
 Unlike ' Coriolanus,' this play is full of exquisite 
 poetry, of delicate sentiments, and of the highest kind 
 of eloquence. Among women there are few on record 
 who for beauty of soul and all-absorbing love can be 
 compared with the wife of Brutus, all whose sweetness, 
 tenderness, and truth are brought forth in compara- 
 tively few lines by Shakespeare. 
 
 History embalms the memory of Brutus and Cassius 
 together, and Tacitus, the greatest of Kome's historians, 
 relates a circumstance belonging to the period of the 
 Empire which shows with what love and reverence the 
 people looked back to these two names long after 
 the republic had perished. When on a festival day the 
 images of illustrious statesmen and warriors were borne 
 in procession through the streets of the city, the 
 Eomans, says the historian, gazed far more at the gap 
 where the statues of Brutus and Cassius should have 
 been than at all the rest of the procession put together. 
 \" The tragedy of ' Antony and Cleopatra,' which 
 
 Coleridge thought a formidable rival to * Macbeth,' 
 enables Shakespeare to excite sympathy for the worst 
 of the Triumvirs. The character of Antony, with its 
 dash and energy, its recklessness, its licentiousness, 
 its unprincipled extravagance, its puerile servility to a 
 courtesan, was well enough calculated to shine on an 
 unscrupulous stage. He had been made to figure 
 
 Vt 
 
TRAGEDY 65 
 
 successfully in * Julius Caesar,' he had neutralised the 
 harangue of Brutus in the forum, and had, indeed, in 
 conjunction with Octavius and Lepidus, blighted the 
 fair fruit of the conspiracy. The friends of freedom, 
 however, being dead, its enemies soon began to put 
 forth their stings against one another ; having deluged 
 the streets of Kome with the blood of its noblest 
 citizens, Octavius and Antony gave vent to their 
 mutual jealousy and hatred, which form the subject of 
 this play. In the ancient tragedies, where fate puts 
 forth its hand most visibly, the wicked are not at once 
 checked in their wickedness, but, while chastisement is 
 preparing, run gaily through their allotted cycle. So 
 in Shakespeare, the sanguinary libertine who devoted his 
 hours, as an angry Koman expresses it, * to cool a 
 gypsy's lust,' revels on the banks of the Nile as if no 
 sleepless and inexorable antagonist watched his move- 
 ments from the vantage ground of the Capitol. 
 
 Octavius, however, though successful, and contrast- 
 ing favourably in many respects with Antony, excites 
 in Shakespeare's play as little admiration as in history. 
 The spirit and life of the play are involved in Cleopatra. 
 Pope's fancy about Shakespeare's correct painting of 
 ancient character and manners nowhere meets with a 
 more complete refutation than in this play, for nothing 
 is Koman or Egyptian but the names. Catherine the 
 Second, and Messalina, might as well as any other 
 courtesan have supplied the original of the heroine of 
 this play, who bears but a slight resemblance to the 
 historical Cleopatra. In the amount of ethical delin- 
 quency Shakespeare's Egyptian queen may not be more 
 than a match for the real widow of Ptolemy, but in 
 manners there is as little resemblance as between the 
 queen and her cook. The interest of the play consists 
 
66 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 more in the assemblage of ideas, in the strange sugges- 
 tiveness, in the metaphysical problems, in the subtle 
 superstitions inherent in the human mind, which are 
 inwrought with the adventures of Antony and Cleo- 
 patra. In spite of their antecedents, however, they 
 awaken interest and sympathy when, stripped of pomp 
 and station, they draw, as two mere human beings, 
 towards their end. Their vices, and even their crimes, 
 are forgotten ; and the shadow of death as it falls over 
 them conceals the sources of our indignation, while it 
 augments the force of our pity. 
 
 Another class of Shakespeare's tragedies consists 
 of plays founded on the history of England. Properly 
 speaking, ' Lear,' * Cymbeline,' ' Hamlet,' and * Mac- 
 beth ' belong to this series, though, like the Greek 
 dramas, they are based on the mythical portion of 
 history. When we pass from ' Macbeth ' to * King 
 John,' we feel that we have emerged from the poet's 
 own domain, the world of myth and fiction, to a region 
 in which historical truth, if it can be so called, is just 
 sufficient to cramp the genius of the poet without 
 offering any equivalent in a strict adherence to facts. 
 There is no student of Shakespeare, I believe, who 
 does not regret that he should have devoted so much 
 time and pains to these dreary compositions, which, 
 in spite of many brilliant and exciting scenes, defy 
 the patience of all but professional readers ; I say 
 professional, because they who undertake to write of 
 Shakespeare must of necessity peruse all he has 
 written — good, bad, or indifferent. 
 
 If Shakespeare had any other design in this series 
 than to make money, it must surely have been to 
 show the English people to what worthless individuals 
 the public affairs had been entrusted, from the murderer 
 
TRAGEDY 67 
 
 of young Arthur of Bretagne down to the assassin of 
 Anne Boleyn. John everybody hates and despises ; 
 much the same thing may be said of Kichard the 
 Second. Henry the Fourth is an able but un- 
 principled tyrant ; Henry the Fifth, the best man in 
 this regal procession, gives his name to the worst 
 play ; Henry the Sixth, of whom we hear a great deal 
 too much, escapes the fangs of the French she-wolf 
 only to be gored by the boar of York ; having from 
 birth till death awakened alternately our contempt 
 and pity, he is murdered by Eichard, who 'bustles' 
 through his career of crime with jovial recklessness, 
 to make way for the last malefactor in Shakespeare's 
 list, Elizabeth's tyrannical father and Mr. Froude's 
 hero. 
 
 How much or how little of these plays Shake- 
 speare himself wrote is matter of no great moment, 
 since they are less to be regarded as poetical works 
 than, to borrow Coleridge's happy phrase, ' bread and 
 cheese ' productions. Yet throughout these historical 
 plays we find a multitude of lines and passages equally 
 remarkable for their imaginative beauty and the 
 wisdom they contain, and it is these incidental 
 portions of the dramas that render the reading of 
 them tolerable, and ensure them a reception by 
 posterity. In ' Kichard the Second,' which opens with 
 the mouthing extravagance of Norfolk and Hereford, 
 we meet with a poHtical passage which, in the minds 
 of Milton and the younger Vane, must have taken 
 rank with Samuel's repubhcan discourse to the 
 Israelites. It is Kichard himself who thus speaks : 
 
 For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground 
 
 And tell sad stories of the death of kings : 
 
 How some have been deposed ; some slain in war ; 
 
 f2 
 
68 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed ; 
 
 Some poison'd by their wives ; some sleeping kill'd : 
 
 All murder' d : for within the hollow crown 
 
 That rounds the mortal temples of a king 
 
 Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits, 
 
 Scofi&ng his state and grinning at his pomp, 
 
 Allowing him a breath, a little scene, 
 
 To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks. 
 
 Infusing him with self and vain conceit, 
 
 As if this flesh which walls about our life 
 
 Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus 
 
 Comes at the last and with a little pin 
 
 Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king I 
 
 Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood 
 
 With solemn reverence : throw away respect, 
 
 Tradition, form and ceremonious duty. 
 
 For you have but mistook me all this while : 
 
 I live with bread like you, feel want, 
 
 Taste grief, need friends : subjected thus, 
 
 How can you say to me, I am a king ? 
 
 The tragedy of * Eichard the Third ' held possession 
 of the stage long after the other plays of this class 
 had been expelled from it by the improved taste and 
 diminished patience of the public. It is certainly 
 tragic enough to satisfy the most voracious appetite 
 for horrors : murder follows murder with breathless 
 rapidity ; the jocose royal assassin, who in a former 
 play had dismissed Henry the Sixth and the Prince of 
 Wales to their account, begins this tragedy by the 
 slaughter of his brother Clarence, and then goes on 
 with the coolness of a butcher, killing one inconvenient 
 friend or relative after another, till our memory becomes 
 perplexed by the attempt to recall the names of his 
 victims. An interest kept up by such means can 
 hardly be thought very artistic, but this interest is 
 kept up from the opening of the play till its close, 
 
TRAGEDY 69 
 
 when the scoffing regal criminal makes his exit in a 
 blaze of intrepidity. 
 
 The merit of the play consists almost entirely in its 
 ceaseless action ; there is no room for plot properly 
 so called ; there is no opposition of characters, no 
 doubtful contest between man and man, no balancing 
 of probabilities, no predominance of great qualities. 
 Kichard is a ruthless destroyer who tells us in his first 
 speech what he means to do, and does it with as much 
 celerity as the necessity of having so many acts and 
 scenes to make up a play will permit. The hero 
 divulges the secret of his own character with still less 
 reserve than lago, and is to that extent more irre- 
 concilable with nature. If, as he boasts, he had a 
 tongue which could wheedle the devil, he must have 
 possessed an art of sophistry which would have 
 sufficed to wheedle his own conscience. 
 
 In the soliloquy, however, he makes disclosures 
 which no man in communion with himself could make. 
 If the Lancastrian hatred of Hall and other chroniclers 
 might indulge in base caricatures of this fierce king, the 
 taste and judgment of Shakespeare should have pre- 
 served him from becoming the dupe of their prejudices 
 or venal indignation. If we are to accept the account 
 which Shakespeare himself gives of Kichard's energy, 
 daring, and prowess in the field, we must reject as a 
 mere libel the picture which he is made to draw of 
 himself, especially the fable about his withered arm : 
 
 I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, 
 
 Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass ; 
 
 I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty 
 
 To strut before a wanton ambling nymph ; 
 
 I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, 
 
 Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, 
 
70 ' ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Deform 'd, unJBnish'd, sent before my time 
 Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, 
 And that so lamely ^and unfashionable 
 That dogs bark at me as I halt by them. 
 
 Here Eichard must be supposed to say what he 
 thinks, but in the following speech delivered in the 
 Council he makes full use of the rhetorician's privi- 
 lege : 
 
 Behold mine arm 
 Is, like a blasted sapling, wither' d up : 
 And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch, 
 Consorted with that harlot strumpet Shore, 
 That by their witchcraft thus have marked me. 
 
 This, however, is what the poet says of the cripple, 
 made such by the witchery of the Queen and Shore. 
 Eichard is at Bosworth, his last field, where the 
 withered arm is forgotten, while its owner scarcely 
 encounters a warrior among the Lancastrians equal to 
 cope with his strength and valour. An eye-witness 
 thus describes his achievements : 
 
 The king enacts more wonders than a man, 
 Daring an opposite to every danger : 
 His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights, 
 Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death, 
 
 Eichard himself closes the recital of his warlike 
 acts: 
 
 I think there be six Richmonds in the field ; 
 Five have I slain to-day instead of him. 
 
 Whately and John Kemble once discussed solemnly, 
 as a subject of much importance, the question whether 
 Eichard or Macbeth were the braver man. It would 
 have been less difficult to decide which of them, as 
 exhibited by Shakespeare, is the better man, for while 
 
TRAGEDY 71 
 
 the Crookback commands not a particle of sympathy 
 except on Bos worth Field, the assassin of Duncan, in 
 spite of his ferocity, is regarded with a certain amount 
 of kindly feeling. The reasons perhaps may be that, 
 
 Sas he is the object of a woman's love, we necessarily 
 give him credit for all such qualities as beget love in a 
 "vyoman ; while he is contemplated also as being in a 
 great degree made what he is by spherical predominance, 
 or what Edmund's audacious language denominates 
 * a divine thrusting on.' 
 
72 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ESSAY V 
 
 TREATMENT OF THE COMIC ELEMENT 
 
 Though none of the historical plays can be regarded 
 simply as a comedy, it is nevertheless in them that 
 Shakespeare displays his comic power with most bril- 
 liance and success. When his object was to produce a 
 mere comedy, the prospect of having to strain his genius 
 up to a theoretical point of humour or drollery through- 
 out the whole piece damped his inventive powers, or 
 drove him to the adoption of semi-tragic contrivances 
 for the production of contrast and variety. The con- 
 currence of many able critics produced a conviction in 
 the eighteenth century that Shakespeare's genius was 
 essentially comic, so that he wrote against the grain 
 when tragic elements were his theme. Johnson 
 especially argued after this fashion : 
 
 In tragedy Shakespeare often writes with great appearance ox 
 toil and study what is written at last with little felicity, but in his 
 comic scenes he seems to produce without labour what no labour 
 can improve. 
 
 His tragedy seems to be skill, his comedy to be instinct. 
 
 The exact contrary of this appears to be the fact. 
 His genius in comedy takes, like the flying fish, short 
 flights, whereas when tragedy is his theme his ideas 
 mould themselves naturally into forms of terror or 
 absorbing woe, though at times rents in the pall of 
 
TREATMENT OF THE COMIC ELEMENT 73 
 
 gloom reveal the presence of the spirit of comedy in 
 the background. Shakespeare has written no comedy 
 that can rank as a play with * Komeo and Juliet ' or 
 * Macbeth.' The reason is, or may be, that Shake- 
 speare's life was rather a tragedy than a comedy, a Hfe 
 of struggle, of anxiety, of apprehension, and, though 
 success came at last to crown his toils, it crowned 
 them but for a moment as— 
 
 The world's comforter, with weary gait. 
 His day's hot task had ended in the west. 
 
 We are as a nation serious, earnest, gloomy as our 
 own Novembers, and by the bent of our nature dis- 
 posed to sympathise with fierceness rather than with 
 gaiety. It is in the endeavour to temper our disposi- 
 tions that we have recourse to manufactured vivacity, 
 for this is what our lively productions always are. The 
 French, until tyranny and the Kevolution sobered 
 them, were gay and lively by nature. Moliere was 
 France just as Heraclitas and Democritus were Hellas 
 by turns. In the same sense Shakespeare is England, 
 profoundly tragic with flashes of comedy on the surface. 
 Hence our over-boiling energy as a people, now hovering 
 around the ice of the Polar Circle, now ploughing the 
 Equatorial Ocean ; now supplying cottons and opium 
 to the luxurious Asiatic ; now, in the vile pursuit of 
 gain, maddening the savage with fire-water. 
 
 What a vein of mirth and laughter did not Shake- 
 speare open when the plough of his invention turned 
 up Falstaff from the deep soil of his intellect ! Some 
 shadowy resemblance of this fat impersonation of 
 licentious wit had flitted athwart the stage before 
 Shakespeare's time ; but the real man only came forth 
 in Eastcheap when Hal, Nym, Bardolph, and Poins 
 
74 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 were attracted at Mrs. Quickly 's to revolve about 
 Falstaff's bulk as planets about the sun. 
 
 No doubt the serious portions of ' Henry the Fourth ' 
 are finely written, and as a whole instinct with poetry, 
 but they would fail to link us to the play without the 
 comic adjunct. This is the part of Shakespeare which 
 Johnson had in his mind when he talks of his comedies 
 being instinct, whereas, splendid as it is, full of original 
 imagery and strange combinations of ideas, it is more 
 certainly the result of thought and labour than Juliet's 
 soliloquy when, at sight of the friar's potion, she is 
 screwing her courage to the sticking-place. No one 
 can define wit or say what it is, but it breaks on most 
 minds like a glimpse of sunshine, at once warming 
 and refreshing. The Prince is witty now and then, and 
 even the heavy Bardolph, goaded by his master's 
 assaults, gives utterance at times to smart sayings ; 
 but whoever may be the speakers, and whatever may 
 be the topic, it is Falstaff who sheds splendour on the 
 dialogue. He keeps strictly within bounds when he 
 says he is ' not only witty in himself, but the cause that 
 wit is in other men.' Yet his wit is less his attraction 
 than his good nature. You cannot put him out ; he 
 bears girdings and rebuffs with the equanimity which 
 Horace attributes to Aristippus. 
 
 Volney remarks that travellers are often betrayed 
 into lying by their kindly dispositions, a little stimu- 
 lated perhaps by vanity ; when they perceive that their 
 recitals beget pleasurable emotions in the listeners, 
 their desire to give them still greater pleasure betrays 
 them into exaggeration, through which they easily 
 glide into extravagant fiction. The same process goes 
 on in Falstaff's mind. When he describes, for example, 
 his imaginary combat on Gad's Hill, the number 
 
TREATMENT OF THE COMIC ELEMENT 75 
 
 of his antagonists is at first moderate ; but, fancying 
 he discovers tokens of surprise in his auditors, he 
 rapidly multiplies his foes from three rogues in buckram 
 suits to sixteen. But the mere narration is nothing ; 
 it is in the garnishing, the splendid lies, the outrageous 
 figures of speech, the impudent coolness, the easy 
 audacity with which, when detected, he outfaces his 
 detectors that the delightful humour of the scene 
 consists. 
 
 But the difficulty Shakespeare experienced in the 
 attempt to keep up Falstaff to this pitch of comic 
 extravagance is shown by the introduction of Doll 
 Tearsheet, Pistol, and Mrs. Quickly, where mere 
 ribaldry is substituted for wit. So, again, when the 
 Prince and Poins disguise themselves as waiters, the 
 invention falls flat upon the reader or spectator, which 
 Shakespeare himself feels, and therefore hurries as 
 speedily as possible to a conclusion. The scene with 
 Falstaff and the Lord Chief Justice is clever enough, 
 and presents us with some fine conceptions and turns 
 of thought, but it sinks below the level of the Boar's 
 Head dialogues. Falstaff recovers himself a little on 
 Shrewsbury Plain, and gives us here and there through- 
 out the play other fine tastes of his quality ; but his 
 wit seems most at home in Eastcheap. 
 
 Afterwards in * The Merry Wives of Windsor ' 
 Falstaff comes forth again in the full blaze of his 
 wit and comic extravagance. This is Shakespeare's 
 best comedy, the most purely English in its character, 
 the best sustained, the most remarkable for that sort 
 of interest which comedy requires, though towards the 
 end it degenerates too palpably into farce. In compo- 
 sitions of this class deep passion of any kind, especially 
 love, would be out of place. Love, in fact, always 
 
76 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEAEE 
 
 stands on the verge of tragedy, always ready, and some- 
 times even eager, to cope with misfortune to show its 
 power. Still the passion of Fenton and sweet Anne 
 Page is rather too mawkish even for comedy. In other 
 respects the personages of the drama are original and 
 full of interest. Ford, indeed, is too much of a fool, 
 but his folly is perhaps a necessity, and we pardon it 
 accordingly. 
 
 Moliere is essentially what Johnson imagines Shake- 
 speare to be, a comic writer by nature as well as by 
 taste ; but no one save Aristophanes ranges along the 
 high level of Shakespeare's genius, covering grotesque 
 themes with veils of splendour, and really astonishing 
 all who read or listen by the prolific boldness with 
 which he originates startling ideas and wild combina- 
 tions. Yet there is one characteristic of ' The Merry 
 Wives of Windsor ' which detracts considerably from 
 its merit : it is, like ' Don Quixote,' too much indebted 
 for the effect it produces to the heartless infliction of 
 bodily suffering. The Knight of the Eueful Counte- 
 nance is made rueful by unmerciful buffets and blows ; 
 and Falstaff is ducked and cudgelled to excite the 
 merriment of spectators. It may be that he deserves 
 it, but the comedy would have been more delicate and 
 refined had it been evolved from mental inflictions. As 
 it is, he resembles too closely the clown in the panto- 
 mime to furnish unqualified enjoyment to a highly 
 civilised age. 
 
 Sterne, and perhaps some other writers, look upon 
 *Much Ado about Nothing' as the finest comedy in 
 our language. It is unquestionably a fine play, but in 
 spite of several laughable scenes it is scarcely, in my 
 opinion, a comedy at all ; indeed, it narrowly escapes 
 being a tragedy, and as it is, in spite of all the poet's 
 
TREATMENT OF THE COMIC ELEMENT 77 
 
 efforts, the catastrophe is reached through a series of 
 incidents so pathetic in their nature that we find it 
 impossible to shake off the cluster of tragic emotions 
 by which we have been agitated. I do not mention it 
 as a reproach to Shakespeare, that he borrowed from 
 Ariosto the poor contrivance of Don John for the 
 purpose of blighting Hero's felicity ; but it is certainly 
 true that the incident makes a much worse figure in 
 his play than in Ariosto' s poem. However brought 
 about, Hero's suffering and humiliation are too real 
 and deep for comedy, and leave in the heart of all the 
 better characters wounds which in actual life would 
 admit of no cure. Hero, after the insults she receives, 
 could not forgive Claudio, still less could she love him, 
 and if a marriage were patched up it would be only one 
 of those contrivances which are so often had recourse 
 to in the vain hope of screening damaged reputations. 
 Claudio's character from beginning to end is poor, and 
 in developing it Shakespeare falls into some of those 
 oversights which may so often be objected to. 
 
 Fortune-hunting is no unpardonable offence in a 
 comic hero, but while allowing his paltry motives to 
 peep forth Claudio falls into contradictions for which 
 the poet, not the hero, must be answerable. To free 
 himself from all suspicion of being a romantic lover he 
 inquires of the Prince whether Leonato had a son or 
 not, meaning that if he had he might not consider 
 Hero, in spite of her beauty or virtue, a desirable 
 partner. In another passage, to ward off from his 
 passion the charge which he thinks might be made 
 against it of being too sudden, he says he had knovTn 
 and loved Hero before he went to the wars. But this 
 could not be the case, since had he known the lady he 
 must have known something also of her family, and 
 
78 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 would not therefore have needed to inquire whether or 
 not she had a brother. No one can doubt that the 
 scene of this play is laid in Christian times, yet we find 
 the lover, when he thinks he has lost his mistress and 
 her fortune, singing hymns to Diana in a church. 
 
 But the tragic heroine is not the real one ; Beatrice, 
 whom we could fancy playing the part of Myrrhina in 
 the grotto of Pan, is the real life of the play ; it is she 
 who with her vivacity and wit makes it a comedy, who 
 tilts with every gentleman she meets, who is outdone 
 by no one in audacious jesting, whose tongue, in fact, 
 recognises no law of decorum or scarcely of modesty, 
 but who, when the time comes for facing the hard 
 trials of life, throws off the mask of merriment, and 
 proves herself to be a right noble lady, with a soul as 
 much alive to truth and honour as if she had never 
 perpetrated a wild jest. It is she and her lover Bene- 
 dick who give a character to ' Much Ado about 
 Nothing,' though the stratagem by which they are 
 assumed to be brought together be somewhat too 
 transparent and farcical. Bishop Wordsworth, in the 
 book he has written * On Shakespeare's Use of the 
 Bible,' makes no mention, I believe, of Claudio's quota- 
 tion from Genesis, which he would probably have felt 
 himself constrained to call profane — * Moreover God 
 saw him when he was hid in the garden.' If there be 
 wit in this, I confess myself unable to discover it, 
 though the incident to which the speaker makes refer- 
 ence be obvious enough. 
 
 Dogberry and his companions who figure in this 
 play are no doubt amusing, but it is in the style of 
 broad farce, not of comedy. Again, though Don John 
 be a shiftless villain, he might be expected to employ 
 a less idiotic agent than Borachio, who babbles hke a 
 
TREATMENT OF THE COMIC ELEMENT 79 
 
 drunken cobbler about the stratagem by which Hero's 
 fortunes are blighted for a time, as we are expected to 
 interpret events, but for ever if we allow nature and 
 experience to decide. 
 
 * Twelfth Night ' is more thoroughly a comedy than 
 * Much Ado about Nothing.' It has several original 
 characters : Viola, Maria, Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew 
 Aguecheek, the Duke, Orsino, and even Olivia, whose 
 extreme wantonness distinguishes her from the most 
 forward of Shakespeare's heroines. 
 
 Malvolio also is an original character, though in 
 the development of his peculiarities Shakespeare is 
 scarcely consistent. He is called a Puritan, but has 
 none of those qualities by which Puritans differenced 
 themselves from their neighbours. He is not a stern 
 enthusiast, but a piece of starched propriety, who 
 imagines himself attractive, and believes his mistress 
 to be in love with him, while he secretly despises her 
 for deriving amusement from the babble of a barren 
 fool. The tricks played on this man at the instigation 
 of Maria have no doubt some ingenuity in them, though 
 they can hardly be said to have much merit. One 
 scene in the garden, where he picks up a letter so 
 worded as to create in him the belief that the Countess 
 is in love with him, enables Shakespeare to indulge in 
 that licence which characterises the comedy of the 
 period. A clever actor often makes a hit by working 
 out the intention of the poet in this incident, where, 
 dwelling on the style of her handwriting, he calls up 
 by his solemn trifling a swarm of indecent ideas with- 
 out being at all conscious of the result. 
 
 I have said that the Duke is an original character, 
 which he is rendered by the mixture of simplicity, 
 innocence, gentleness, and fondness with which he seeks 
 
80 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 the love of Olivia, which he fortunately loses, while he 
 gains that of Viola. It would seem as if the amuse- 
 ment of comedy could seldom be ensured without 
 absurdity. The way in which the Duke obtains a wife 
 and Olivia a husband is so improbable that it almost 
 neutralises the poet's abilities. Viola disguised, and 
 playing the part of the Duke's eunuch, makes love for 
 him to Olivia, who despises the sender, but conceives a 
 passion for the messenger, herself enamoured of the 
 Duke. 
 
 While this ridiculous amour is in progress, Sebastian, 
 brother to Viola, and who has been shipwrecked with 
 her, appears upon the scene, is mistaken for his 
 sister by Olivia, and through this error becomes her 
 husband. But was Sebastian of the same stature with 
 his sister ? Was he, like her, habited as the Duke's 
 eunuch ? Was he so girlish, or she so masculine, that 
 they could not be distinguished one from the other ? 
 By overlooking these considerations Shakespeare evi- 
 dently counts too much on the inattention or indulgence 
 of audiences, which could not be so void of observation 
 as to accept so lame a contrivance for a true picture of 
 Hfe. 
 
 One of the calmest and sweetest among Shake- 
 speare's plays is the pastoral of *As You Like It.' 
 Here, indeed, as elsewhere, we meet with contradictions 
 and oversights, as the education of Orlando by instinct, 
 the lion and the palm tree in a French forest, the 
 wooing of Kosalind as a youth, the moral transforma- 
 tion of Oliver ; but these are of so little moment that 
 they scarcely ruffle the current of our poetical emotions. 
 No large picture of life which aims at being a resem- 
 blance to the truth of nature can, by whatever hand, 
 be drawn without some admixture of evil elements. 
 
TEEATMENT OF THE COMIC ELEMENT 81 
 
 If, however, the evil predominates the result is a 
 tragedy ; but where it is only just sufficient to produce 
 contrast, and is ultimately vanquished by good, we may 
 call the composition by what name we please, but it is 
 what Shakespeare understands by a comedy, meaning 
 by the name a play in which the agreeable predomi- 
 nates over its opposite. 
 
 In ' As You Like It ' the elder Duke's exile and 
 Oliver's persecution of his younger brother produce 
 the complications necessary to the structure of a 
 dramatic plot. The stream of events enveloping the 
 principal characters hurries them towards one point, 
 where, assembHng outside the circle of everyday life, 
 they enjoy the pleasures of a mode of existence 
 analogous to the characteristics of the Golden Age : 
 they hunt, they feast under spreading trees, they lie 
 about and meditate, or make love in the sun on the 
 mossy banks of streams, or house in rustic cottages 
 just roomy enough to accommodate two or three 
 shepherds. 
 
 The fool is here of essential service, and, sooth to 
 say, is more at home, seeing that folly more or less 
 modified prevails largely on all sides. Shakespeare, 
 though somewhat too much given to vaunt the force 
 of instinct, is almost sure at the same time to supply a 
 corrective for his philosophical heresy ; if, for example, 
 the strongest of all instincts, that of sex, were unerring 
 in its operations it could not be counteracted by the 
 obstacle of a suit of clothes, which is all that stands 
 between Orlando and Kosalind. So, again, in the case 
 of Phoebe, a suit of clothes kindles her amorous 
 instinct, and makes her prefer a girl disguised before a 
 real masculine lover. But in a composition of this 
 kind we must not look too narrowly into the causes of 
 
 G 
 
82 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 our pleasure ; being under the influence of an illusion, 
 which the cold voice of reason would dispel, we had 
 better not invoke its influence, but give up the reins to 
 fancy and dream out our dream to the end. 
 
 Shakespeare's Forest of Arden is enchanted ground, 
 where the sunshine of genius streams between the trunks 
 of trees, over the quivering face of brooks, down green 
 glades and hollows, where herds of wild deer frisk and 
 gambol among the thickets. Here, if anywhere, love may 
 be the ruling power ; it was meant, perhaps, to rival 
 Sidney's 'Arcadia,' which, by its exquisite pictures of 
 nature, it eclipses altogether. Touchstone gives us the 
 keynote to the performance. In the ordering of his 
 mode of life he is wilhng to submit to Civilisation if 
 she will come promptly to his aid; if not, he will 
 abjure her, and recognise the authority of free nature. 
 His perplexity is about taking a wife, and his logic 
 runs thus : if there be a priest forthcoming he will 
 marry; if not, he will dispense with the ceremony, 
 and live with Audrey like the other denizens of the 
 wilderness. All the inhabitants of the forest, from the 
 Duke downwards, conform more or less strictly to this 
 system, and hence the indefinable charm which rests 
 upon the whole play. When the repentance of the 
 younger Duke brings in the influence of law and 
 order, the gardens of Irem disappear, and are replaced 
 by the hard realities of a French dukedom. 
 
 Hunter is right in tracing the origin of ' The 
 Tempest ' to the * Orlando Furioso,' which has a 
 history and geography of its own. Astolfo's kingdom 
 and Prospero's island are situated in the same quarter 
 of the world, and have nothing to do with Hakluyt 
 or Malte-Brun. Sir John Mandeville himself never 
 visited them, not even when he beheld torrents of 
 
TREATMENT OF THE COMIC ELEMENT 83 
 
 stones rolling down marvellous inclined planes instead 
 of water. ^ One remark may suffice to preface what- 
 ever I may have to say of this comedy. It is a creation, 
 not of imagination, but of fancy, where there is much 
 to interest and little to excite ; where wonder and 
 curiosity supply the places of manners, passions, and 
 intrigues, for of these there is nothing that deserves 
 the name. How, then, does it happen that ' The 
 Tempest ' is both delightful to witness on the stage 
 and interesting to read? Simply because, though it 
 be an extravagance it is the extravagance of genius^ 
 invested with a mantle of subtle inventions, of aerial 
 fancies, of a sense of the remote and dreamlike, which, 
 skilfully blended together, transports the mind beyond 
 the precincts of ordinary life and sets it down in a 
 nook of fairyland, not, however, completely removed 
 from the influence of ordinary associations. In accom- 
 plishing a feat of this kind art ceases to be the mimic 
 of nature, and, allying itself with fancy, performs its 
 gambols outside the sphere of her domain. 
 
 Prospero is not a man but a power, originating no 
 one knows where or how, exerting itself by means of 
 material implements, coercing nature, governing the 
 elements, passing within the sphere of the spiritual 
 world, and regulating there the movements of beings 
 
 ' Sir John Mandeville has been unmercifully criticised on account 
 of the many improbable stories which he introduced into the relation of 
 his travels. The account mentioned in the text, of rivers of stones 
 flowing down an inclined plane, may be explained. Many years ago I 
 visited Bolivia, and there, while standing on an eminence, I saw below 
 me an inclined plane, down which appeared to be gliding a broad river 
 of stones. On approaching nearer and crossing it, I found it was the 
 bed of a mountain torrent, almost level with the surrounding land, 
 dry while we were there, but no doubt a flood when the snows melt, as 
 in the widest parts it must have measured over a quarter of a mile. If 
 Sir John only saw such a scene at a distance, I can account for his 
 mistake. 
 
 ^2 
 
84 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEAEE 
 
 whose forces transcend ours in variety and subtlety, 
 but are yet made subject to us through the influence 
 of that mysterious art called magic. Among the 
 offspring of fancy Ariel is one of the loveliest. Mascu- 
 line in sex, it is wedged in a riven oak because it 
 refuses to soil the delicacy of its nature by mingling 
 in love with the witch Sycorax. Shakespeare was 
 familiar with incubi and succubi, with the rest of 
 the unclean brood generated by the superstition of the 
 Middle Ages ; but his invention when he required a 
 spiritual agent imaged forth to him a being which, 
 though akin to them by nature, rose altogether above 
 their sphere in character, and displayed a purity like 
 that of the aerial element in which it moved. In this 
 spiritual creature consists the highest beauty and 
 charm of ' The Tempest.' For awhile we consent to 
 forget the laws of nature, and suffer our imagination 
 to be borne into realms over which she holds no sway 
 by the fantastic achievements of this tricksy spirit. 
 Through the medium of translations Shakespeare had 
 certainly obtained a glimpse of the aerial superstitions 
 of the Greeks, which peopled the sea, rivers, moun- 
 tains, meadows, and forests with existences like Ariel, 
 only clothed with superior beauty and made more 
 akin to humanity. 
 
 Youths, enslaved by the element of passion in their 
 nature, settled often, we are told, on some nymph or 
 hamadryad which had become visible to the mind 
 rather than to the eye in twilight forests, or amid 
 clouds of foam flakes on the margin of the sea. This 
 passion the Greeks called nympholepsy, and they who 
 were involved in its toils often pined themselves to death. 
 Ariel feels no passion and inspires none, but a soft and 
 exquisite wonder which intoxicates and hurries about 
 
TREATMENT OF THE COMIC ELEMENT 85 
 
 the fancy with beauty and music through the wilds of 
 Shakespeare's Utopia. 
 
 "We may discover in ' The Tempest,' however inter- 
 esting and beautiful it may be as a creation of fancy, 
 the danger which men incur when they rove beyond 
 the boundaries of nature. Prospero's magical attri- 
 butes enable him, we see, to accomplish almost any- 
 thing ; he can pounce upon a ship, hundreds of miles 
 off on the ocean, cause it to pursue what track he 
 pleases, and hurl it in what appears to be irremediable 
 wreck on the rocks of his island. But where were his 
 magical powers while at Milan, and what compelled 
 him to wait so many years for the accomplishment of 
 his vengeance against his enemies? Obviously that 
 Miranda might grow up to be a woman, and engage in 
 the most insipid of love-making with the most insipid 
 of lovers. 
 
 To some extent, * A Midsummer Night's Dream ' 
 belongs to the same class of plays as * The Tempest,' 
 though not altogether a fairy tale, because it deals in 
 part with human beings as Shakespeare's youth 
 imagined them. It is built upon the extravagant and 
 the supernatural, so that the action of the play depends 
 much less on the human agents than upon beings 
 existing altogether outside the sphere of humanity. 
 The name describes very correctly the nature of the 
 comedy ; it is a dream, a wild sweet dream, and as by 
 the poet's art we are hurried through it we forget 
 that we are not dealing with natural things, but the 
 creations of lawless fancy assumed to belong to the 
 domain of nature. 
 
 It would be useless to insist on the fact that 
 Shakespeare does not even attempt to describe the 
 manners prevalent throughout Greece in the heroic 
 
86 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ages ; he lays his scene indeed in Attica, and in the 
 poetical part of the comedy makes use of ancient 
 names ; but, the world he was best acquainted with 
 being that of his own imagination, he boldly assumes 
 the existence of whatever he requires : Draconian laws, 
 free and easy manners, an improvised theatre, fairies, 
 Amazons, with stage-stricken artisans who supply 
 broad farce for the gallery. The women, Helena and 
 Hermia, are such as may be found everywhere or 
 nowhere ; they do not belong to any age or country, 
 but, if they exist, exist exceptionally under exceptional 
 influences. Their feelings are natural, though their 
 manners are the reverse. Assuming them to be ladies, 
 high-born, refined, suitable companions for the Queen 
 of Theseus, they nevertheless act like runaway farm 
 girls, and give way to their primitive instincts as 
 unhesitatingly as if they had lived before Deucalion 
 and Pyrrha. Young women may doubtless feel and 
 think as the heroines of Shakespeare's play do, but, 
 unless among the fair ones of the South Sea Islands, 
 it may be doubted whether their sentiments and 
 passions are ever exhibited so transparently by their 
 language. 
 
 The introduction of the fairies, albeit unhellenic, is 
 marvellously beautiful, and diffuses a singular charm 
 over the greater part of this play. Puck is a wonderful 
 creature ; inferior to Ariel in delicacy and freedom from 
 earthly tendencies, he is more comic through his fond- 
 ness for mischief and drollery ; he was the precursor 
 of the electric telegraph, boasting that he could put 
 a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes — a 
 poetical fancy which science has realised. Nowhere, 
 perhaps, in his plays does Shakespeare crowd in so few 
 lines so great a variety of strange conceptions. To 
 
TREATMENT OF THE COMIC ELEMENT 87 
 
 express extreme rapidity Ariel promises to effect some- 
 thing 
 
 Or ere your pulse twice beat. 
 
 No words can convey the idea of greater swiftness, 
 yet it is not so picturesque or striking as Oberon's 
 command : 
 
 Fetch me this herb ; and be thou here again 
 
 Ere the leviathan can swim a league. 
 
 Shakespeare had possibly read the story that a 
 whale wounded in the morning on the verge of the 
 Polar Circle was harpooned before nightfall under the 
 Equator. Into the midst of this prehistoric colloquy 
 Shakespeare introduces his famous compliment to 
 Elizabeth : 
 
 Oheron. I saw, but thou couldst not, 
 
 Flying between the cold moon and the earth, 
 Cupid all arm'd : a certain aim he took 
 At a fair vestal throned by the west, 
 And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow, 
 As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts ; 
 But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft 
 Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon, 
 And the imperial votaress passed on, 
 In maiden meditation, fancy-free. 
 Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid feU : 
 It fell upon a little western flower, 
 Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound. 
 And maidens call it love-in-idleness. 
 
 Upon this passage critics have indulged in pro- 
 tracted speculations which have left the mystery, if 
 there be one, exactly where it was. Halpin contends 
 that by the ' little western flower ' Shakespeare means 
 Lettice KnoUys, but the lines appear to suggest an 
 innocent though unfortunate passion, whereas, if his 
 opinion be correct, Shakespeare demands our sympathy 
 
88 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 and pity for a woman steeped in guilt. When he 
 approached the end of his play Shakespeare began to 
 be uneasy lest the world should imagine that he really 
 believed in fairies ; so, when he had made such use of 
 them as he thought proper, he chose Theseus for his 
 delegate to express his real opinion : 
 
 I never may beUeve 
 These antique fables, nor these fairy toys. 
 Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, 
 Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend 
 More than cool reason ever comprehends. 
 
 Shakespeare was full of animal spirits before they 
 had been deadened by the consciousness of those 
 harmful deeds lamented in a sonnet when he wrote 
 * Love's Labour's Lost ' — a comedy brimming over with 
 wit and humour, often, however, neutralised by conceits 
 and outrageous improbabilities. Not an antagonistic 
 idea presents itself throughout the play to disturb the 
 full current of vivacity. All is drollery, mirth, laughter, 
 and sportive trifling, from the pedantic vanity of the 
 King and his nobles down to the ludicrous vaunting 
 of the Spanish cavalier, who is gored by the horns of 
 Moth's wit. 
 
 There are here no marked characters, but the 
 rudiments of many that make their appearance after- 
 wards in more highly finished plays : Eosaline is 
 Beatrice, as yet in fancy's cradle, and Biron under 
 the same conditions is Benedick. The four lovers, 
 however, and the four ladies are all cast pretty nearly 
 in the same mould, and may be looked upon rather as 
 materials for future use than as perfectly wrought out 
 figures ; the lower personages supply most amusement, 
 as Costard, Holofernes, Armado, Moth and Jaquenetta. 
 Shakespeare was busily engaged in his studies when 
 
' 
 
 TKEATMENT OF THE COMIC ELEMENT 89 
 
 he wrote this play, and it may be inferred from many 
 parts of it that he had shadowed forth in his mind a 
 vast scheme of study, into which, as into a grand 
 mould, his multitudinous and exuberant thoughts 
 afterwards ran. It may be well for his ethical fame 
 that he kept no diary and wrote no confessions, but in 
 many ways it is an incalculable loss to us, since had 
 he been frank we should then have been led into the 
 workshop of the most original and prolific intellect of 
 modern times. 
 
 In the early part of his life he found it impossible 
 to restrain his fiery imagination within almost any 
 limits. His greatest tragedy is thickly sown with 
 comic scenes — so thickly indeed that we may be at 
 times in doubt whether we are engaged with a tragedy 
 or a comedy — but when, through the bright sky of wit, 
 humour, and gaiety overhung with the gorgeous clouds 
 and filled with the incense of beauty, the dark vapours 
 of tragedy break in upon the scene, our emotions are 
 rendered only the deeper and more sombre for the 
 brilliance out of which we pass into the gloom. Up 
 to the death of Mercutio the mind scarcely catches a 
 glimpse of a single image akin to suffering or terror ; 
 everything is covered with an atmosphere of sunshine 
 and splendour, perfumed with the voluptuous breath of 
 love, intermingled with ideas in swarms and flashes, 
 which sometimes hurry the mind beyond its legitimate 
 limits. Mercutio is incomparably the most comic^ 
 character in Shakespeare ; the fire of youth constantly 
 keeping up his blood at boiling heat, he is unable to 
 restrain himself within the bounds of decency, so that 
 his imagination is constantly giving birth to wild 
 combinations of ideas and sexual imagery. He may 
 be regarded as the incarnation of comedy in its 
 
90 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Aristophanic form, and the all but impossibility of 
 supplying him with a constant succession of jests, 
 pleasantries, ideas, and images suited to his antecedents 
 makes Shakespeare kill him, as Dryden expresses it, 
 since he would otherwise have killed Shakespeare. 
 
 Crabb Eobinson relates an anecdote apropos of 
 another character in ' Eomeo and Juliet ' : Coleridge, 
 he says, delivering a lecture on the character of the 
 Nurse, became so discursive and garrulous that Lamb 
 y whispered sarcastically ' It is after the manner of the 
 ^ Nurse.' Several critics, German and English, take in 
 my opinion a strange view of this character, which 
 seems to me rather a blot than a beauty in the play. 
 No great sagacity is needed to perceive that it is un- 
 natural : only eleven years have elapsed since she 
 weaned Juliet ; by her own account of her infirmities 
 she must be hard upon seventy, so that she must have 
 suckled her foster child till near threescore, which is 
 palpably absurd. It may be funny to represent on the 
 stage the weaknesses and follies of age, but then the 
 poet should select conditions in which his picture would 
 be reconcilable with nature, which it obviously is not 
 in the present case. Juliet's mother is quite a young 
 woman, and would doubtless choose for her first-born 
 a nurse not older, but rather younger, than herself, by 
 which reckoning the comic old lady with four teeth, 
 and hobbling about as if on the brink of the grave, 
 would not be above five or six and twenty. 
 
 At any rate, the nurse as she is found in the play 
 is simply an impossibility, and cannot therefore be 
 referred to as a proof of Shakespeare's judgment. She 
 is certainly made to say droll things and to elicit still 
 droller things from the unbridled tongue of Mercutio ; 
 but she should have been introduced as nurse to Juliet's 
 
TREATMENT OF THE COMIC ELEMENT 91 
 
 mother, at least, if not to her father. I may here 
 notice another shp of the poet. Having been at the 
 pains to inform us that Juliet's mother is only twenty- 
 eight, he loses sight of his own chronology and makes 
 her exclaim : 
 
 O me ! this sight of death is as a bell, 
 That warns my old age to a sepulchre. 
 
 If a jury of ladies under thirty were asked to give their 
 verdict on such a representation of woman's life, I think 
 Shakespeare's truth to nature, in this instance at least, 
 would scarcely be allowed. As to Capulet himself, there 
 is no reason to doubt that he is old, though not so 
 decrepit as to require a crutch, which when he calls for 
 his sword his wife recommends to him. However, 
 there is one trait in his character which certainly 
 smacks of dotage : that is his failing to remember 
 whether he has had but one child or many children, for 
 in one place he tells us that God has sent him Juliet 
 only, while in another place he speaks of her as the 
 only one left to him out of several : 
 
 Wife, we scarce thought us blest 
 
 That God had lent us but this only child. 
 
 Act iii. sc. V. 
 
 But in Act i. sc. ii. he clearly alludes to his having 
 had other children : 
 
 The earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she. 
 
 At any rate, whatever may have been the number of 
 his children, Juliet must be assumed to have been the 
 first, since he married Lady Capulet when she was 
 thirteen, who became Juliet's mother at fourteen. 
 These, it may be said, are trifles, but life is made up in 
 a measure of trifles, which therefore ought not to be 
 overlooked in a picture of life. 
 
92 ESSAYS ON SHA.KESPEAKE 
 
 ESSAY VI 
 
 LICENCE IN THE USB OF LANGUAGE 
 
 Shakespeaee has often been thought to aim at giving 
 a complete picture of human hfe, of birth and death, 
 of conception and dissolution, and of all the circum- 
 stances and incidents which connect themselves with 
 the vital principle in its progress from the beginning 
 to the end. The ethical theories prevalent in his time, 
 though less cramped than those to which we pay 
 allegiance, obstructed his design, though not so com- 
 pletely but that he has, with more or less clearness, 
 suggested, if he has not described, most of the pro- 
 cesses from the consideration of which prejudice and 
 ignorance recoil. 
 
 No one as yet knows what man is, how he begins 
 to be or how he ends, what is the object of his exist- 
 ence — that is, what purpose he serves in the creation, 
 what relations he bears to other finite existences, and 
 what to the cause of all existence. What may perhaps 
 be called the poles of speculation, the infinitely great 
 and the infinitely minute, overawe the mind almost 
 equally, for thought is startled and retreats when it 
 attempts to penetrate the fathomless abysses of space, 
 and scarcely if at all less so when it throws its glances 
 on the internal mechanism of man's nature, on the 
 involution of mind in matter, on the germs of being. 
 
LICENCE IN THE USE OF LANGUAGE 93 
 
 on the procession of ideas, on the substance, place, and 
 destiny of the soul, on consciousness and the extent to 
 which the finite is acted on by the infinite. 
 
 Proofs are scattered throughout the plays that 
 none of these problems had escaped the investigation 
 of Shakespeare, though he may, nay must, have dwelt 
 less on some than on others. His business lay more 
 with the passions, manners, virtues, and excesses of 
 men than with the inner regions of the intellect; 
 and he sought to ingraft his name on their love by 
 calling up impassioned and endearing pictures in their 
 imaginations, and imprinting glowing trains of thought 
 upon their memories. He cared little for the censure 
 of vulgar minds, and addressed himself through daring 
 symbolisms to the source of all interest in human 
 compositions — the yearning of the soul, strongest in 
 the strongest, after the exercise of all kinds of power — 
 the power of sensual passion no less than that of 
 ambition, or the thirst of dominion over the minds and 
 bodies of men. 
 
 Crime, with whatever horrors attended, has in all 
 ages been conceded to the poet as a permissible topic, 
 whereas the sportive sallies, the arts, the stratagems, 
 the reserves and excesses of wantonness, though equally 
 involved in a complete theory of human nature, have 
 been in most ages eliminated from the domain of 
 poetry. Shakespeare rebelled against this decision, 
 and began his career as an author by developing with 
 little or no reserve the wild irregularities of passion. 
 No story of ancient or modern times, at least 
 within the compass of his knowledge, could have 
 supplied him with a more ample field for setting forth 
 his ideas of female passion than that of Venus and 
 Adonis, in relating which, accordingly, he has exhausted 
 
94 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 the range of imagery, the pictures of desire, and the 
 fantastic waywardness of sensuality at his command. 
 
 Venus in his poem is not so much the seaborn 
 goddess of the mythology, lavishing upon her sex the 
 infinite resources of beauty and incentives to love, as 
 wantonness personified, not malignant and vindictive 
 as in the * Hippolytus,' but thrust on to the borders of 
 madness, though all the while submissive and entreat- 
 ing by the ungovernable ardour of her own desire. To 
 obtain scope for the fulfilment of his design, Shake- 
 speare could do no other than invert the order of 
 nature, making the weaker woo and the stronger resist. 
 Euripides had already done the same thing in the 
 'Hippolytus,' but spoiled his picture by making the 
 vindictiveness of the woman terminate in unmitigable 
 baseness. Shakespeare's Venus is free from this stain. 
 Having chosen a cold and coy youth for the object 
 of her love, and experienced from him nothing but 
 neglect and disdain, she yet does not permit her love 
 to change into hatred, but, so far true to the woman in 
 her soul, loves on to the end, even after death has put 
 an impassable gulf between her and the one whose 
 love she coveted. 
 
 Marlowe had selected in the loves of Hero and 
 Leander a more beautiful, if not a more prolific, theme, 
 and his treatment of the subject is more delicate, 
 tender, and impassioned. Desire in this case originates, 
 as it should, in the masculine nature, and kindles a 
 corresponding feeling in the female. To outdo this, 
 Shakespeare clearly perceived, would be beyond his 
 power, and he therefore chose a kindred theme, in 
 developing which he might, by transposing the 
 elements, produce a series of exciting situations and 
 glowing pictures. This, it will not be denied, he has 
 
LICENCE IN THE USE OF LANGUAGE 95 
 
 done, though with less consideration for the female 
 character than might have been wished. Taking 
 woman at her warmest, with her passions in a state 
 of effervescence, her blood impetuous, her heart pre- 
 dominant over her brain, he boldly interprets her long- 
 ings, which, as they augment in force, obliterate all 
 shame, and reveal their existence in language which 
 scarcely knows in literature any parallel. Marlowe 
 conducts passion to its goal with less sacrifice of 
 modesty than Shakespeare suggests by the tortur- 
 ing and reiterated failures of the wanton goddess, 
 who, throwing aside all reserve, seeks to subdue her 
 bashful lover by wild reminiscences of celestial pleasure 
 and alluring pictures of her own charms. Against 
 every art, every temptation, every incentive of nature, 
 every suggestion of opportunity, Adonis shows himself 
 proof, and, to subdue the audacious fair one into 
 modesty, draws two masterly representations of love 
 and licentiousness, and exhorts her by looking on this 
 picture and on this to eschew the worse and choose 
 the better passion : — 
 
 Love comforteth like sunshine after rain, 
 But Lust's effect is tempest after sun ; 
 Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain, 
 Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done ; 
 
 Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies ; 
 
 Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies. 
 
 Numerous passages, situations, incidents in the 
 plays belong to the same category with * Venus and 
 Adonis,' calling up before the mind similar ideas, 
 desires, blandishments, and expressing them with still 
 less reserve. By this he has exposed himself to the 
 charge of being indelicate, impure, obscene, and 
 immoral. Against such charges there is and can be 
 
96 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 but one line of defence, which must lie in the reasons 
 that determined the poet's proceedings. By the 
 exigencies of his art he was required to hold the 
 mirror up to nature — that is, to reflect with more or 
 less exactitude the character and manners of all classes 
 of men, not as they ought to be, but as they are, with 
 all their imperfections on their heads. But he enters, 
 it may be said, with glee and satisfaction into the 
 outbursts of grossness and sensuality, giving them a 
 glib as well as a lawless tongue, as if governed by the 
 persuasion that what they uttered was as much entitled 
 to a hearing as the sweet interpretations of gentle and 
 loving natures. 
 
 But is he less earnest, less eloquent, less given up 
 heart and soul to the purpose in hand when the 
 business is to give expression to what is holy, august, 
 and true? When he deals with the outgushings of 
 sorrow, when he paints the pangs of despised love, 
 when he puts before us the mother weeping for her 
 children, the lover joyously inhaling death from the 
 lips of her he loved, old age involved in limitless 
 misery, yet touched with compassion for the naked 
 wretches whom its fancy conjures up ; if he is less 
 impressive when dealing with these sanctified trains of 
 thought than when clothing in language the lawless 
 ideas of Mercutio or lago, let him be condemned 
 without mercy ; but if the contrary be the case, let us 
 persuade ourselves that he had a heart large enough 
 to take into itself our entire humanity, with all its 
 frailties, and could sympathise with it as well 
 when it is joyous and lawless, as when it is serious or 
 sad. 
 
 By this I do not mean to defend every form of ex- 
 pression employed by Shakespeare, who has, I confess, 
 
LICENCE IN THE USE OF LANGUAGE 97 
 
 sometimes overstepped the modesty of nature and 
 revelled in the use of phrases and figures of speech 
 scarcely justified by the position or idiosyncrasy of the 
 speakers. I allude especially to the unsavoury style of 
 Thersites, who grovels somewhat needlessly and with 
 inveterate preference in the filthiest of sties. The poet 
 himself, too, if the Sonnets be his, approaches much 
 too nearly the same unclean subject, no matter what 
 may have been his motive or the end he had in view. 
 The field of licit delight is large enough for the 
 most grasping imagination, and the experience of all 
 ages shows that to transgress its limits is not only 
 objectionable in an ethical point of view, but irre- 
 mediably blighting to the fancy, which recoils with 
 cool abhorrence from everything not commended to 
 our acceptance by the kindest mother of us all. 
 
 Shakespeare could not in all cases have had living 
 antitypes for the wits and reprobates, the hoydens, 
 scolds and viragoes who figure among his dealers in 
 lawless licence. To the utmost extent of his experience 
 he drew from what he saw and heard, but for many 
 varieties of character he must have sought the originals 
 in books or in the teeming womb of his invention. 
 The sprightly ladies and their antagonists in ' Love's 
 Labour's Lost ' may have been suggested to him by 
 fragments of Elizabeth's Court, of which he may have 
 caught casual glimpses through the friendship of 
 Southampton, or other accidental means ; or he may 
 have beheld the originals of the saucy and intrepid 
 fair ones upon a scene more on a level with his own, 
 which, knowing that human nature is the same every- 
 where, making allowance for a few external differences, 
 he may have elevated a little on the stilts of fashion 
 and made to figure in a Court. 
 
 H 
 
98 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Where the sexes meet and engage in the war of 
 raillery, the subject tossed to and fro between them 
 and manipulated into all sorts of shapes is sure to be 
 love, which, according to the temperaments and 
 ethical idiosyncrasies of the combatants, will touch 
 upon every interval lying between grossness and 
 refinement. "What the ladies and their lovers would 
 like to say, did custom accord to language the freedom 
 of thought, we discover clearly enough from what 
 they actually do say ; the ladies are all Calypsos, 
 although the gentlemen scarcely belong to the Odyssean 
 type. 
 
 Ask any female reader of Shakespeare whether he 
 understood nature or not, and she will certainly answer 
 in the affirmative. He therefore understood female 
 nature, of which women are the best judges, and so 
 we may assume his representations to be correct. His 
 women say and do what living women do and say — that 
 is, as far as it is permitted to make words correspond 
 with thoughts, and actions with both. Charmian is 
 the symbol of her sex when she inquires of the sooth- 
 sayer whether she is to be married, and, if so, how 
 many children she is to have, to which the reader of 
 futurity replies : ' If every one of thy wishes had a 
 womb, a million ! ' To dive into the depths of a 
 woman's thoughts might well have been one of the 
 dozen labours of the son of Alcmena, and would have 
 been the most difficult of the whole. The Hghts and 
 shadows that glance over the surface, the dew of tears 
 or the ripple of smiles, the frown of anger or the tone 
 of endearment, are often only so many hieroglyphics 
 which Tiresias himself would fail to interpret — that is, 
 as to the particular direction in which their sense 
 points, though their general significance be far from 
 
o 
 
 ^^ 
 
 LICENCE IN THE USE OF LANGUAGE 99 
 
 unintelligible. Take the language of Beatrice, of 
 Cressida, of Katharina or Bianca, or even of Desdemona, 
 and infer from it the very core of the speaker's thoughts, 
 and you will be nearer the mark than if you tried the 
 same experiment on a living woman, because Shake- 
 speare links the idea and the expression more closely 
 than we usually find them in real life. 
 
 Women often say exactly the reverse of what they 
 mean, and would therefore be understood by the rule 
 of contraries. They expect their lovers to be adepts in 
 the diviner's art, and prize them in proportion to their 
 proficiency. Beatrice is not meant to be a sphinx in 
 the expression of her predominant desires ; she exhibits 
 the colour of her wishes without reserve by the aid of 
 a phraseology overlying ideas and emotions which 
 women usually keep veiled. As I have said elsewhere, 
 she is the female counterpart of Mercutio, in this only 
 differing from him — that she lavishes her irony, her 
 satire, and her wit on the man whom she secretly 
 loves, and pushes her hostilities to such extremities 
 that her lover at certain moments dreads her like the 
 plague. 
 
 ' She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath 
 were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living nea 
 her ; she would infect to the north star. I would not marry her, 
 though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before 
 he transgressed.' 
 
 N^ / In * Komeo and Juliet,' which may be termed par 
 
 _- ' excellence the tragedy of love, whatever is loftiest and 
 / saddest in passion, most prolific of painful sympathy, 
 and most suggestive of sorrow, is ushered in by a 
 proem teeming with sensual ideas and images. Every- 
 body you meet seems to have no thought for anything 
 
 h2 
 
100 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 but enjoyment. Serving-men, nurse, mother, father, 
 culminating of course in the professed suitor, dwell 
 incessantly on the idea which forms the kernel of an 
 epithalamium. The youthful Capulet is put forward 
 wreathed and garlanded like a lovely victim about to 
 be offered on the altar of Aphrodite. Her nurse revels 
 in all sorts of hymeneal anticipations, and her mother, 
 with a warmth and freedom scarcely in harmony with 
 her relationship, involves her rhetoric in a crowd of 
 imagery which few mothers of her rank would have 
 the hardihood to employ. A lady of twenty-eight, 
 however, seeing her daughter about to become a wife, 
 might naturally enough have all her emotions 
 awakened and carried back fourteen or fifteen years, 
 when she herself flaunted through the streets of 
 Verona as a bride. Young mothers have been known 
 to regard their marriageable daughters as rivals, and 
 to be jealous of their standing on the same level with 
 themselves ; but Lady Capulet, though in the ripest 
 age of womanhood and probably invested with that 
 beauty which even in Italy would be allowed to 
 characterise her age, betrays nothing of this feeling ; 
 on the contrary, she is content with being made happy 
 by proxy, though a little too cynical in probing the 
 sources of her daughter's happiness, so that if Juliet 
 understood her, and was at all given to blushing, her 
 face must have resembled that of the sun in the old 
 tapestry. 
 
 Nowhere, however, has Shakespeare rendered more 
 apparent the difference with which different minds 
 invest what belongs to love. The gross and rude 
 degrade it to their own level, the ordinary make it 
 commonplace, the thoughtlessly gay taint it in their 
 apprehension with vice, while they to whom it comes 
 
LICENCE IN THE USE OF LANGUAGE 101' 
 
 as a revelation from the skies are impassioned, elevated, 
 pure, and worthy to receive into their souls all that 
 is sweetest in the fragrance and perfume of life. 
 
 It must be evident to observers of human nature 
 that earnest and impassioned characters are often but 
 indifferent companions, because unless in cynical moods, 
 which with them are of rare occurrence, they eschew 
 those pleasantries and light skirmishes of wit which 
 make up so large a part of common conversation. The 
 nearer people are to the ordinary level the more they 
 are liked, since they do not annoy those with whom 
 they converse by diving under their feet or soaring 
 over their heads. The richest and most powerful 
 minds may, of course, if they choose, put off their 
 superiority, and deal in familiar dialectics, so as to 
 charm even the rank and file of mankind. But this 
 does not take place as a rule. It was only when he de- 
 sired to be thought mad that Hamlet threw aside his 
 retired, abstracted, and melancholy mood, to indulge 
 in unchastened licence of speech with the two courtiers 
 who were sent to reconnoitre his mental position. 
 Other than astonished they could not be to find the 
 prince, whose habitual gravity would have become his 
 grandsire, dealing in coarse jests entirely out of keep- 
 ing with everything they had observed in him before. 
 No doubt they may say within themselves : ' If this be 
 madness, yet there's method in't ; though little short 
 of a sudden craze in the brain can account for the 
 change in him who has been hitherto regarded as the 
 glass of fashion and the mould of form.' The same 
 secret purpose explains, if it does not justify, the un- 
 licensed tone of Hamlet's talk with Ophelia in the 
 play-scene and in the corridor. To her, whom he had 
 been accustomed to reverence as something sacred, he 
 
102 ESSAYS^ ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 uses language so unmeasured that she concludes him 
 at once to be insane : 
 
 O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown ! 
 
 From the surprise of Ophelia we must infer the 
 extreme tenderness and delicacy of Hamlet's previous 
 manner ; but, as afterwards in her own case, what she 
 regards as the jangling of the mind gives scope to the 
 grosser elements of thought, and enables them to take 
 precedence of taste and reason. So again in Lear, the 
 ungoverned fancy riots in licentious pictures, linking 
 together ideas and images unobjectionable apart and 
 in themselves, but assuming a different character and 
 colour when distorted by a mind diseased. 
 
 No explanation of this kind will ward off censure 
 from some scenes in ' Pericles,' in ' Measure for Measure,' 
 ' The Comedy of Errors,' * All's Well that Ends Well,' 
 and several other plays. Even in * As You Like It ' 
 there are some things contrary to good taste, though 
 scarcely anything perhaps which does not throw a light 
 on the manners and tone of thinking prevalent in the 
 poet's time. It would be beside my purpose to enter 
 into a comparison of Shakespeare in the matter of 
 licence with Beaumont and Fletcher, Ben Jonson, 
 Webster, Massinger, Ford, and other old Enghsh 
 dramatists ; but there is one Greek writer whom he 
 too much resembles in genius to allow the characters 
 of their minds to pass without remark. 
 
 Aristophanes was in many respects a Greek Shake- 
 speare, as Shakespeare is an English Aristophanes. 
 Without the aid of the Athenian dramatist, some 
 traits in the national character of his countrymen 
 and countrywomen would have remained unknown or 
 uninteUigible to us. The language in which the 
 
LICENCE IN THE USE OF LANGUAGE 103 
 
 disclosures are made may often be chargeable with 
 effrontery as well as with wanton exaggeration, but 
 contemplated from a philosophical point of view it is 
 lifted out of the domain of taste into that of ethnology, 
 and serves many scientific purposes. The same will 
 doubtless be said of Shakespeare's language many 
 thousands of years hence by students on the banks of 
 the Oregon, the Eed Eiver, or the Parana. 
 
104 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEAHE 
 
 ESSAY VII 
 
 CONCEPTION OF THE FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 It is no matter of surprise that Shakespeare, considering 
 the character of the age in which he lived, should have 
 formed a low estimate of women ; but that Aristotle 
 should have done the same, with so many superior 
 advantages at his command, is scarcely intelligible. 
 He says that, upon the whole, women are rather bad 
 than good; but are not men also upon the whole 
 rather bad than good? There has always, it seems, 
 been a sort of warfare going on between the sexes, 
 as well as between those who take one side or the 
 other, and this state of hostility leads to the adoption 
 of partial views ; so that women and the advocates of 
 women misrepresent those whom they choose to regard 
 as their enemies, while men and their advocates do the 
 same. This is not unnatural among wits, or sportive 
 writers who feel no regard for truth. But Aristotle 
 was not a wit, or one who wrote for effect. He studied 
 human nature in order, if possible, to understand it 
 thoroughly, especially in the sexual relations, and yet 
 we find that of half the human race he arrived at the 
 conclusion that evil elements predominate in its 
 constitution. It is rare to find any writer, great or 
 little, who does not on this subject agree with Aristotle ; 
 women themselves, when not engaged in controversy. 
 

 CONCEPTION OF THE FEMALE CHARACTER 105 
 
 fall into the same vein of thinking, even while intent, 
 as they suppose, on lauding their own sex. 
 
 A dispute which has been carried on ever since the 
 creation of mankind can hardly be expected to be settled 
 now. 
 
 There are certainly great differences between the 
 sexes, mental as well as physical, and it seems doubtful 
 whether they who attempt to remove the differences 
 are not mischievously occupied. In Shakespeare these 
 differences are brought out in the most marked 
 manner. The contrast between the hunter and his 
 game is not more striking than that presented in these 
 dramas between the wooer and the wooed. Sometimes, 
 as in the case of Beatrice, hostilities are commenced 
 
 the weaker party, who exhibits in the conduct of 
 them too much of the rough energy and reckless 
 intrepidity of the stronger ; sometimes, as in the case 
 of Lady Macbeth, the woman appears for a while 
 the superior in intellectual force as well as in the 
 fervour of passion ; but the excitement which buoys 
 her up is unnatural, and speedily leads to a collapse 
 which terminates her being. 
 
 In real life women beheld in contrast with certain 
 men are superior, not only in mental but sometimes in 
 bodily power ; but, as a rule, power is the appanage 
 of the male, while grace and subtlety are those of the 
 female. This leads to many of the moral phenomena 
 we witness in the world, where women in order to 
 defend themselves against brute force put in practice 
 all the arts and cunning and deception in the hope of 
 thereby escaping from oppression and barbarity. But in 
 such cases neither sex is fulfilling the designs of nature, 
 which means that they should co-operate, and oppose 
 their united faculties to external circumstances, in which 
 
106 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEAEE 
 
 case the woman's finer organs would form the com- 
 plement to those of the man, which are more enduring 
 as well as powerful. But when circumstances place 
 man and woman in the relation of contending parties 
 fear often strips woman of all her finer qualities, and 
 clothes her with craft and falsehood. She ought 
 never to be engaged in conflict with man, but when 
 thrust, whether with or against her will, into such 
 a conflict she has no choice but to lie and over- 
 reach. 
 
 Among savages women submit to perform all the 
 drudgery of life, not voluntarily, but because they 
 must, and in several stages of what we call civiHsation 
 they continue to perform much the same part. It is 
 not of such women that effeminate"^ poets like Byron 
 can affirm, that while love is only part of man's life 
 it is woman's whole existence ; for in such a life there 
 is little to do with love, and much with hate. 
 
 In all stages of society, however, women, being the 
 weaker sex, are necessarily governed by men, a state- 
 ment which may not be considered chivalrous or polite, 
 though its truth be undeniable. All the great business 
 of the world is carried on by men — its laws, its wars, 
 its commerce, its trade, its industry — sometimes with, 
 but generally without, the co-operation of women. 
 Hitherto we have beheld no female senators, and, 
 though barbarians have sometimes forced the women 
 into the battlefield, their presence, I believe, has seldom 
 been found serviceable ; neither have ships-of-war, or 
 even merchantships, been anywhere entrusted to 
 the management of women. To the masculine brain 
 we owe nearly all inventions and discoveries, the 
 development of principles, the application of processes, 
 the dynamics of manufactures, the direction of 
 education, the discovery of philosophy, the framing 
 
CONCEPTION OF THE FEMALE CHARACTER 107 
 
 and regulation of civil society. We may then inquire 
 with Anacreon, is there nothing left in this world's 
 work for women ? This is left for them : to be the 
 sharers with man in whatever is good, and to be them- 
 selves the spolia opima of his most glorious victories ; < 
 for even where they neither toil nor fight, women come ^^.^"'^ 
 in for the best share of whatever is toiled or fought for. ^ ijJ^ 
 
 It did not fall much within the scope of Shake-- ^ 
 speare's plan to consider women in any other light than ZT^ 
 as the object of man's passion, the chief incentive to his 
 actions, good or evil, and the victim too frequently of 
 her own or his vices. To develop his views of woman 
 he put upon the stage numerous examples of female 
 character, each belonging to a separate type and 
 exhibiting the qualities which, according to his theory, 
 belong to that type. The historian of ancient art 
 had come after long study to the conclusion that the 
 perfection of female beauty was not made the supreme 
 object of art, because it was so easy of attainment. 
 The reverse, I believe, was the case ; and our dramatic 
 poets have found the difficulty of representing female 
 character to be as great as the ancient artists found 
 it to represent the female countenance, for the beauty 
 of form is less difficult. 
 
 It is in this part of his art that Shakespeare excels 
 all other modern dramatic poets. He alone has put 
 women of a high order and at the same time natural 
 upon the stage. The shades, however, of difference 
 between woman and woman when approximating at all 
 to excellence are so fine and subtle, though in fact as real 
 as those which distinguish man from man, that even 
 he in the plenitude of his powers never sought to exhibit 
 many female characters in one play ; and in the entire 
 body of his works, while the men may be reckoned by 
 hundreds, the women are comparatively few. 
 
108 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 To show the difficulty of exhibiting the differences 
 by which one woman, good or bad, is distinguished from 
 another, I may instance Rosalind and Celia, Regan 
 and Goneril. The two cousins in the former case, 
 though swayed by much the same sentiments, pursuing 
 the same objects, and impelled by the same motives, are 
 yet dissimilar in some respects, but the dissimilarity is 
 so slight that it needs a microscopic eye to discern it. 
 So again in the wolfish daughters of Lear, cold-blooded 
 cruelty, thirst of power, sensuality, ingratitude, together 
 with their other characteristics, are cast so exactly 
 in the same mould that we are often constrained to 
 depend upon the name in order to determine which 
 of the two does or says this or that. 
 
 When we come to the women who represent types 
 the case is different : Juliet and Imogen act under the 
 sway of pure love, but in Juliet's character this love 
 shows itself in one way, in that of Imogen in another, 
 so that no speech of Juliet would suit Imogen, while 
 no proceeding of Imogen would suit Juliet. Desde- 
 mona is in love, but her love is as different from that 
 of Juliet as Othello is different from Romeo. In the 
 supersubtle Venetian the elements of love are curiosity, 
 vanity, admiration of adventure, giddy changeableness, 
 sexual passion, strange and wayward fancy ; while in 
 the young Capulet love resolves itself into simple 
 elements : admiration of manly beauty, appreciation 
 of the lover's passion by which her own is kindled, 
 ardent desire, leading to a preference pure as. the 
 heavens, and to be extinguished only by death. In 
 Beatrice an honest heart and upright principles are 
 disguised and distorted by wanton manners, and a 
 language bordering upon the utmost verge of licence ; 
 yet whoever should take Beatrice for an unchaste 
 
CQNCEPTION OF THE FEMALE CHARACTER 109 
 
 woman would misinterpret her entire nature. Virtue 
 in her wears a rough disguise, but by putting on a 
 mask loses not a particle of its nature. No character 
 in dramatic poetry displays more completely the 
 essential difference between chastity and modesty. 
 Juliet herself is not more chaste, while even Mercutio 
 is scarcely more immodest. 
 
 To her, Cressida forms the most complete contrast. 
 This female character, which, as everybody knows, is 
 a modern invention foisted upon antiquity, constitutes 
 the beau-ideal of a courtesan, not in Shakespeare's 
 mind only, but, as it were, in the very nature of 
 things ; she was born for the part, and the part seems 
 to have been created for her. Nowhere, perhaps, is 
 Shakespeare's creative power more daringly exercised 
 than in the origination and development of this 
 character, in which we find united the efflorescence 
 and poetry of lewdness, the incapacity of self-govern- 
 ment, the outbursts of sexual passion, the force of 
 temperament, the ready and subtle sophistry, by 
 which the individual seeks to escape from self-con- 
 demnation by expanding her own vices so as to make 
 them encompass her whole sex; she sins with in- 
 trepidity, gives way at once to the gusts of desire, 
 passes without hesitation or a blush from one lover's 
 arms to another's, behaves with equal wantonness to 
 each, and then calmly bases her self-defence on the 
 conviction that all women do the same : 
 
 Ah, poor our sex ! this fault in us I find, 
 The error of our eye directs our mind : 
 What error leads must err ; 0, then conclude 
 Minds sway'd by eyes are full of turpitude. 
 
 When she first appears in Troy, in a scene which 
 for depth of insight and delicacy of touch knows few 
 
110 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 equals, we are to suppose she is a maid ; yet such is 
 the ardour of her temperament that, with all the art 
 of which she is mistress, she is scarcely able to conceal 
 the impatience with which she listens to Troilus' love- 
 speeches. Her behaviour says plainly. Act, but don't 
 talk. * Will you walk in, my lord ? ' An interruption 
 which Troilus, thrown by his poetical imagination 
 into the very heaven of rapture, does not notice. The 
 bliss of the moment, her presence, her words, her rare 
 beauty, the inward expectation of joy, overmaster his 
 emotions, while her coarse nature yearns for immediate 
 physical delight. Yet, though she betrays herself 
 twice, her bearing upon the whole is that of a maid, 
 modest yet longing, a sort of improvised Juliet, but 
 vdthout a particle of her devotion or tenderness. 
 Whoever desires to dwell on one of Shakespeare's 
 masterpieces will study the character of Cressida, 
 more especially as it displays itself in this scene, 
 which exhibits all the inspiration of lascivious passion 
 labouring to put on the mask of love, and in fact 
 putting it on so skilfully that to the high-souled 
 and virtuous Troilus the completest incarnation of 
 a courtesan on record appears to be the model of a 
 bashful virgin. 
 
 Be-enter Pandarus. 
 
 Pan. What, blushing still ? have you not done talking yet ? 
 
 Cres. Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart. 
 
 Prince Troilus, I have loved you night and day 
 
 For many weary months. 
 Tro. Why was my Cressid then so hard to win ? 
 Cres. Hard to seem won : but I was won, my lord, 
 
 With the first glance that ever — Pardon me — 
 
 If I confess much, you will play the tyrant. 
 
 I love you now ; but not, till now, so much 
 
CONCEPTION OF THE FEMALE CHARACTER 111 
 
 But I might master it : in faith, I lie ; 
 
 My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown 
 
 Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools ! 
 
 Why have I blabb'd ? who shall be true to us, 
 
 "When we are so unsecret to ourselves ? 
 
 But, though I loved you well, I woo'd you not ; 
 
 And yet, good faith, I wish'd myself a man, 
 
 Or that we women had men's privilege 
 
 Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue. 
 
 For in this rapture I shall surely speak 
 
 The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence, 
 
 Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws 
 
 My very soul of counsel ! stop my mouth. 
 
 Tro. And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence. 
 
 Crea. My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me ; 
 
 'Twas not my purpose, thus to beg a kiss : 
 
 I am ashamed. heavens ! what have I done ? 
 
 For this time will I take my leave, my lord. 
 
 Tro. Your leave, sweet Cressid ! 
 
 Cres. Pray you, content you. 
 
 Tro. "What offends you, lady ? 
 
 Cres. Sir, mine own company. 
 
 Tro. You cannot shun 
 
 Yourself. 
 
 Cres. Let me go and try : 
 
 I have a kind of self resides with you ; 
 But an unkind self, that itself will leave. 
 To be another's fool. I would be gone : 
 Where is my wit ? I know not what I speak. 
 
 Tro. Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely. 
 
 Cres. Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love ; 
 And fell so roundly to a large confession 
 To angle for your thoughts : but you are wise, 
 Or else you love not, for to be wise and love 
 Exceeds man's might ; that dwells with gods above. 
 
 Tro. O that I thought it could be in a woman — 
 As, if it can, I will presume in you — 
 To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love ; 
 To keep her constancy in plight and youth. 
 Outliving beauty's outward, with a mind 
 That doth renew swifter than blood decays ! 
 
112 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Or that persuasion could but thus convince me, 
 
 That my integrity and truth to you 
 
 Might be affronted with the match and weight 
 
 Of such a winnow'd purity in love ; 
 
 How were I then uplifted ! but, alas ! 
 
 I am as true as truth's simplicity 
 
 And simpler than the infancy of truth. 
 Cres. In that I'll war with you. 
 Tro. virtuous fight, 
 
 When right with right wars who shall be most right ! 
 
 True swains in love shall in the world to come 
 
 Approve their truths by Troilus : when their rhymes, 
 
 Full of protest, of oath and big compare. 
 
 Want similes, truth tired with iteration, 
 
 As true as steel, as plantage to the moon, 
 
 As sun to day, as turtle to her mate. 
 
 As iron to adamant, as earth to the centre, 
 
 Yet, after all comparisons of truth, 
 
 As truth's authentic author to be cited, 
 
 * As true as Troilus ' shall crown up the verse. 
 And sanctify the numbers. 
 Cres. Prophet may you be I 
 
 If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth, 
 When time is old and hath forgot itself. 
 When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy, 
 And blind oblivion swallow'd cities up, 
 And mighty states characterless are grated 
 To dusty nothing, yet let memory. 
 From false to false, among false maids in love, 
 Upbraid my falsehood ! when they've said ' as false, 
 As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth, 
 As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf, 
 Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son,' 
 
 ' Yea,' let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood, 
 
 ' As false as Cressid.' 
 
 When from Cressida we come to Cleopatra, another 
 member of the frail sisterhood, though passing from 
 a priest's daughter to a queen, we become sensible of 
 a great descent. Cressida is a sovereign of her art, 
 
CONCEPTION OF THE FEMALE CHARACTER 113 
 
 which in her, after all, is less art than nature, so that 
 ' her embodied frailty is so truly herself that she seems 
 incapable of being anything but what she is. 
 
 Hallam is right where he says that, instead of 
 painting in Cleopatra a lascivious queen, Shakespeare 
 draws in coarse lines a common courtesan. She has 
 none of the graces of Cressida, though in point of 
 fascination she may exceed even her ; but fascination 
 assumes many forms, according as it addresses itself 
 to higher or lower natures. Diomed, though no longer 
 the Homeric Tydides, could not have accorded even a 
 passing devotion to a woman who discussed the theory 
 of physical pleasure with an eunuch; still less could 
 Prince Troilus, the very pattern of impassioned and 
 chivalrous devotion, though coarse and sensual indi- 
 viduals like Csesar and Antony might derive gratifica- 
 tion from her charms. Caesar, indeed, toyed with her 
 in passing as with a courtesan, but Antony, though 
 he too knew her to be nothing more, was yet so 
 thoroughly subdued by her voluptuous allurements 
 that he lost all self-command in her presence. While 
 the marriage with Octavia is in progress, Mecaenas 
 observes to Enobarbus : 
 
 Now Antony must leave her utterly. 
 Eno. Never ; he will not : 
 
 Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale 
 
 Her infinite variety : other women cloy 
 
 The appetites they feed : but she makes hungry 
 
 Where most she satisfies : for vilest things 
 
 Become themselves in her ; that the holy priests 
 
 Bless her when she is riggish. 
 
 Juliet's character may perhaps justify a great diver- 
 gence of opinion respecting her modesty or immodesty ; 
 but while considering this point w^e are necessarily 
 
 I 
 
114 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEAKE 
 
 thrown back upon the fundamental laws of human 
 nature. Coleridge, with his Gothic fancy, excludes lust 
 from the elements of which love is compounded, and 
 must therefore, to be consistent, have regarded Juliet 
 as a young constitutional courtesan, supplied by Shake- 
 speare with language suited to her character. Love 
 he believed to be something like oxygen, a simple 
 element not resolvable into anything else. But to 
 state this notion is to confute it. Love is the most 
 complex of human passions as well as the most 
 Proteus-like, since everything in our nature goes to the 
 making of it up, while it has varied in constitution 
 with every character in which it has existed since the 
 creation. In no human being, however, could it exist 
 without sexual passion, which, being an essential 
 element of human nature, belongs obviously as much 
 to women as to men, though infinitely varied and 
 modified by the influence of other ingredients in the 
 amalgam. 
 
 In judging of Juliet the character of the critic 
 must be taken into account ; the impassioned and 
 poetical will see nothing wrong in her desires, or in the 
 expression of them, while the cold and phlegmatic will 
 be offended by the vehemence of her passion. Girl as 
 she is, she understands with what view she has become 
 a wife, and, simply because she is more a girl than a 
 woman, she yearns for the unknown happiness to 
 which her new position entitles her. 
 
 The conception of this character is so extra- 
 ordinary, uniting the fiery passions of womanhood 
 with the innocence and simplicity of girlhood, that it 
 has never perhaps been properly represented on the 
 stage, because young actresses cannot attain to the 
 intellectual elevation and rich exuberance of thought 
 
CONCEPTION OF THE FEMALE CHARACTER 115 
 
 which Juliet throws into the paroxysms of her love, 
 while older actresses find it all but impossible to realise 
 the dewy freshness in which her fervent desires are 
 cradled. The most enviable portion of Shakespeare's 
 life must surely have been that in which he produced 
 this beautiful creation, the equal of which is not to be 
 found in modern poetry. 
 
 When a man has done his best it would be wise in 
 him not to seek to better it, or even to produce parallel 
 characters ; yet Shakespeare had evidently Juliet in 
 his mind's eye, and sought to rival her, when he pro- 
 duced Imogen, Portia, Helena, Desdemona, Ophelia; 
 but they all range far below her level, and suggest the 
 idea that in the conception of love and beauty 
 Shakespeare's imagination was prolific but once. 
 • \\v While indulging in his profligate jests against 
 
 \^ / women, suggesting that they are all frail and only 
 waiting for an opportunity to prove it, he must 
 lose sight of his own elaborate representations of 
 female excellence ; he means Isabella in * Measure for 
 Measure ' to be a perfect woman, whose affections, 
 powerful in themselves, are held in subjection to stern 
 principles. She is, as far as a human being may be, 
 without passion, and therefore, in theory, detaches 
 herself from the world and intends to devote her life to 
 the chill penances and useless devotions of a cloister — a 
 design which provokes no regret in spectator or reader. 
 But she is a real type of a certain class of women, 
 who, proud of their own coldness, or rather of their 
 power to keep in check the promptings of desire, 
 imagine their conduct meritorious in refusing to fulfil 
 the design of nature; yet perhaps, like Bellerophon, 
 they devour their own hearts, and struggle vainly to 
 extirpate those longings which torture them while 
 
116 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 kneeling on the cold marble at the foot of the crucifix. 
 Through her brother's illicit amour with Juliet, 
 Isabella's mind is familiarised with all the phases of 
 earthly passion, and is driven to invent pleas for 
 incontinence and apologies for a transgression which 
 has no allurements for her. This brings out all the 
 beauty of her character ; averse from sin herself, she is 
 tolerant of it in others, or rather, making allowance for 
 their weaknesses, she seeks to interpose the aegis of 
 mercy between them and punishment. She thus 
 becomes an apostle of humanity, a teacher of gentle 
 forbearance, a sweet interpreter of the lapses and 
 frailties of mankind. By pursuing this course Isabella 
 makes a deep impression on the imagination, but is so 
 far from entering within the sphere of our sympathies 
 that we experience some disappointment at the con- 
 clusion to behold her in prospect of that domestic 
 happiness which her taste or temperament had 
 originally led her to despise. 
 
 Portia, in * The Merchant of Venice,' plays a part 
 as far removed from nature as her father's will is 
 from common sense. She has passions and desires 
 like other women, and is not chary in the expression 
 of them ; but as Lady Macbeth in her own imagina- 
 tion is unsexed by the ' spirits that tend on mortal 
 thoughts,' so Portia is unsexed by the dry and dusty 
 spirit of law. The idea of employing her as a great 
 and experienced juris-consult to baffle the Jew and 
 astonish the courts of Venice is a pretty fancy, 
 productive of amusement on the stage, but lying as 
 far out of the regions of probability as would have 
 been her transformation into a salamander. In other 
 respects she is unobjectionable enough, though, but 
 for a few displays of reckless generosity, she may be 
 
CONCEPTION OF THE FEMALE CHARACTER 117 
 
 regarded as chiefly remarkable for her sweet disposition, 
 her beauty, and her golden hair. Her language of 
 course, like that of nearly all Shakespeare's women, is 
 wanton and immodest, though it reflects no corre- 
 sponding deflection from the right line in her conduct. 
 Like Beatrice, she may af&rm with the Koman poet — 
 though in his case the truth of the affirmation is 
 doubtful — * My language is indeed reprehensible, but 
 my life is pure.' 
 
 The young female apostate Jessica is generally 
 regarded with more leniency than she deserves. In 
 temperament wanton as a weasel, she makes her 
 approaches to Christianity through lewdness, theft, 
 and fihal ingratitude, which, because her father is a 
 miser and a Jew, audiences and readers often fail 
 to condemn; indeed Shakespeare himself, though 
 apparently desirous of softening the vulgar prejudice 
 against the Hebrew people, in reality strengthens 
 and stimulates this very prejudice by his delineation 
 of Shylock and the cruelty of his enforced apostasy 
 from his religion. 
 
 Ophelia, though in a great measure undeveloped, 
 comes to us in a cloud, so to speak, of touching and 
 gentle images, innocent as childhood and sweet as 
 the breath of spring. Antigone is not more pure, nor 
 is her fate more lamentable. Had Hamlet behaved 
 less cruelly to Ophelia, her memory might have been 
 less firmly ingrafted in the sympathies of all students 
 of Shakespeare; as it is, her name is like a flower 
 surcharged with dew, redolent of disappointment and 
 sorrow, loving timidly as a child, admitting but one 
 image into her heart, which, as that faded and passed 
 away, broke and passed away with it. The gigantic 
 elevation to which Hamlet is thrown up in the play. 
 
118 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 his griefs, his melancholy, impart to him a sort of 
 ubiquity which so thoroughly fills the mind that it 
 scarcely leaves room for anything else ; otherwise the 
 character of Ophelia would shed its perfume over a 
 much larger tract of our imagination than in existing 
 circumstances it does. To form a conception of her 
 loveliness we must glide from page to page, where she 
 is introduced, until we come to the words : 
 
 Lay her i' the earth ; 
 And from her fair and unpolluted flesh 
 May violets spring I 
 
 When the mind of this darling object of Shake- 
 speare's fancy has been unhinged by Hamlet's cruelty 
 and the accident of her father's death, it lets fall a 
 bunch of harmless indecencies, as the hand of a 
 fainting girl drops flowers from its grasp. Where 
 she had culled them she did not herself know. 
 They had probably found their way into her memory 
 in the nursery, from the lips of some thoughtless 
 Danish girl murmuring them in an undertone to 
 herself without precisely apprehending their import 
 or giving herself any trouble about it.^ 
 
 Gervinus persuades himself that her imagination 
 had been * infected with sensual images ' by Hamlet's 
 conversation, and other German critics to whom 
 Gervinus alludes are of opinion that Hamlet had 
 
 * When I was in Hayti, a gentleman told me that he had heard his 
 nieces — who had received their first education in Paris, but had been 
 sent to a superior school at Port-au-Prince, kept by the French Sisters, 
 to complete their studies — singing the most libidinous songs in Creole ; 
 as they knew but little of that language, they did not understand the 
 meaning of the verses. On inquiry he found that they had learned 
 those songs from the Haytian servants, who are in the habit of singing 
 them while at work. 
 
CONCEPTION OF THE FEMALE CHARACTER 119 
 
 seduced her. The play suppHes us with no ground 
 for either of these notions. Hamlet's language when 
 he is affecting madness is obviously so unlike what it 
 had been in his better days that Ophelia infers from 
 that fact alone the subversion of his intellect. 
 
 The women who make their appearance in the 
 historical plays — Constance, Queen Elinor, Margaret, 
 Lady Anne, Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn — are 
 less creations of art than misrepresentations of history, 
 but nevertheless deserve a certain amount of attention 
 from the student of Shakespeare. The ladies who 
 figure in the Eoman plays are upon the whole slight 
 sketches, with the exception of Volumnia, the mother 
 of Coriolanus, who, though performing a slight part 
 in the action, holds a prominent place among the poet's 
 female characters. What little is said of Portia, the 
 wife of Brutus, is striking, but scarcely does justice 
 to the memory of that noble lady, of whom nothing 
 higher can be said than that she was worthy to be the 
 wife of Marcus Brutus. 
 
 After this protracted survey can we flatter ourselves 
 that we have ascertained Shakespeare's real opinion of 
 women? I fear not. The seeds of this opinion are 
 scattered far and wide over the whole surface of his 
 dramas, here peeping forth in hints and sarcasms, 
 there making their appearance in studied and lengthy 
 declamations. Was Shakespeare the victim of domestic 
 incontinence, or by the torture of suspicion was he the 
 man who 
 
 Dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves ? 
 
 While engaged in drawing a female portrait he 
 may — nay, must — have felt that his expressions would 
 be keenly scanned, and, success being a bread-and- 
 
vV 
 
 120 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 cheese question, he endeavoured to give as Httle oifence 
 as possible. 
 
 His philosophy of the female character is not, 
 therefore, to be sought for in his elaborate pictures, 
 but in incidental expressions, hints, aphorisms, brief 
 reflections, shot like chance arrows into the business 
 of the plays. But in drawing inferences from these, 
 care must be taken to weigh the characters of those 
 in whose mouths they are found. A jilted lover, 
 a husband who imagines his wife to be an adulteress, 
 a man maddened, like Lear, by the vices of particular 
 women, a worn-out libertine like Jaques, a professed 
 satirist on mankind in general, may be fairly expected 
 to rail at the gentler sex. 
 
 The testimony of all these must therefore be set 
 aside; only that of those who speak more in sorrow 
 than in anger, or of women revealing unconsciously 
 their own vices, can be regarded as of much account. 
 It would be puerile to derive offence from passages in 
 which the poet dwells upon the desires natural to the 
 whole species, and therefore to women. For example, 
 where Julia represents herself and her lover by two 
 bits of paper with their names written on them, 
 and in her fond imagination supposes them to be em- 
 bracing, no idea of wrong on her part is suggested. 
 In the verses already cited from Cressida's speech 
 there is an admission unfavourable to her sex, but 
 then it is made by a courtesan, consequently without 
 value. 
 
 Shakespeare makes the Duke in * Twelfth Night ' 
 praise and dispraise women. He first affirms : 
 
 Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, 
 More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn, 
 Than women's are. 
 
CONCEPTION OF THE FEMALE CHARACTER 121 
 
 Upon further reflection, however, he changes his tone 
 and maintains : 
 
 They lack retention. 
 Alas, their love may be call'd appetite, 
 No motion of the liver, but the palate. 
 That sufifer surfeit, cloyment and revolt. 
 
122 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ESSAY VIII 
 
 CONCEPTION OF THE MALE CHAEACTEE 
 
 In drawing the characters of men, Shakespeare proves 
 himself to have been of the opinion that men as well 
 as women were rather bad than good, since a majority 
 of his male personages are either bad or foolish, and 
 _ y in individuals of this second class the tendencies are 
 \^ usually towards mischief. Among his men, the first 
 Ik J for virtue and innocence of life is Komeo, who, though 
 \ I passionate and rash, has no gall in his composition, 
 ^ / but, on the contrary, displays an extraordinary degree 
 of forbearance, gentleness, beneficence, high honour, 
 and placability of temper. Hamlet, more remarkable 
 in many respects than Eomeo, is less lovable, less 
 gentle, though as distinguished for weakness of cha- 
 racter as Eomeo is for strength. With the latter 
 to resolve is to act, while the former is always re- 
 solving and never acting, till betrayed into it by 
 accidental impulse. Komeo, it may be said, is the 
 slave of one passion, and views everything through 
 the discoloured atmosphere thrown around it by that 
 passion ; while Hamlet, substituting in his preference 
 thought for passion, deludes himself into the belief 
 that to be calm and meditative is better than to be 
 swayed by feeling and inclination. But passion is 
 strength, the element which predominates in the 
 idiosyncrasy of Eomeo, overborne, however, by other 
 
^ 
 
 CONCEPTION OF THE MALE CHARACTER 123 
 
 elements in that of Hamlet. Eichard the Third — a 
 favourite with actors, as well as with a large portion 
 of the public — is scarcely^ man at all ; not that his 
 wickedness exceeds what may be found in man, but 
 that the motives which urge to its commission are 
 inadequate, while the fiendish glee that invests each 
 successive act of villainy is scarcely compatible with 
 any modification of humanity. Assuming the possi- 
 bility of the existence of such a character, it is still 
 . objectionable because inconsistent with probability. 
 s) Macbeth also is a villain, and one moreover who 
 
 .\V'/ is deeply dyed in guilt, so deeply indeed as to know 
 few parallels except among tyrants ; yet in this class 
 history supplies parallels — that is men who, to gratify 
 ambition, would trample at once upon the ties of 
 kindred and the most sacred laws of nature. Yet 
 Macbeth is not a monster like Eichard, not because 
 his actions are in themselves better, but because in his 
 career of guilt he exhibits occasional flashes of human 
 feeling, of reverence for goodness, of aversion from the 
 very crime he commits, which extort from us a certain 
 amount of pity and sympathy, while, except by the 
 mere display of courage at Bosworth, Eichard never 
 once touches the heart. 
 
 Edmund, in 'Lear,' is a remorseless caitiff whose 
 wickedness puts on shapes so entirely out of the course 
 of nature that, though his career sets out from an 
 intelligible starting-point, he outrages so thoroughly 
 as he proceeds our theory of humanity that we refuse 
 him a place in it, and set him down as an impossible 
 miscreant. I have frequently remarked in other places 
 on the character of lago, who, but for some few 
 inadvertencies of the poet, would be one of the most 
 masterly of his creations. Shakespeare is constantly 
 
124 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 praised for his knowledge of human nature, and of 
 that knowledge he doubtless possessed a large share ; 
 but we here and there find him straying beyond its 
 limits, and attributing to his characters thoughts, 
 sentiments, and actions which it is impossible they 
 should have possessed or performed. 
 
 It is impossible to have studied the nature of 
 the human mmd without discovering that, whatever 
 scheme of conduct a man traces out for himself, and 
 is urged into by what he deems adequate motives, 
 he invariably considers it lawful. Otherwise, however 
 bad he might be, he would abhor himself and thus 
 paralyse his own energy. Hamlet describes man as a 
 creature of large discourse, looking before and after; 
 but when an individual is bent on crime, he looks 
 only in one direction — that is, forward. This is what 
 lago does, and while so doing it is impossible that 
 he should condemn his own actions. We have good 
 authority, in addition to our experience, for affirming 
 that the heart of man is desperately wicked ; that it 
 may be, but we must not conceal from ourselves the 
 fact that it is at the same time deceitful above all 
 things, and this deceitfulness chiefly displays itself 
 by throwing a delusive gloss over any villainy which a 
 man may be engaged in accomplishing. Shakespeare 
 has supplied excellent phrases for his own errors as 
 well as other people's : for example, we may say in 
 his very words that in describing the conduct of lago 
 he forgets to make the end agree with the beginning. 
 The honest Ancient, as he is termed, has clearly 
 satisfied himself that the injuries he has received, or 
 believes himself to have received, justify the revenge 
 he means to take for them: he has been set aside 
 and despised, he has been employed by Othello in 
 
CONCEPTION OF THE MALE CHARACTER 125 
 
 running to and fro, almost as a menial, while Michael 
 Cassio, who never set a division in battle array, is put 
 over his head. Nay, far worse than all this, his bed 
 has been dishonoured by those to whom malignant for- 
 tune compels him to truckle. This maddens him, and, 
 while it whets the edge of his vindictiveness, imparts 
 the colour of justice to the course which the weakness 
 of his social position alone constrains him to pursue. 
 
 Cassio, a handsome simpleton, * a fellow almost 
 damned in a fair life,' ^ whatever the amount of his good 
 qualities may be, exhibits no indication of possessing 
 a corresponding intelligence. He fawns like a spaniel 
 on his General's wife, and is apparently quite ready 
 to take advantage of her weakness, while he lives with 
 a poor fond courtesan in whom he has encouraged^ 
 the belief that he will marry her. A greater contrast 
 could hardly be presented to the Ancient or to the 
 General. What manner of man Shakespeare meant 
 Othello to be — in character, manners, condition, and 
 race — is tolerably clear from the whole tenor of the 
 play; and the flaws apparent in his conception of 
 the character are scarcely less obvious. He certainly 
 intends us to understand that he is a negro ^ with a 
 
 ' The author here follows Mr. Tyrwhitt's suggested reading. 
 
 ^ Schlegel says that the Moor has been made in every respect a 
 negro — by mistake indeed, but he thinks the mistake fortunate. Few, 
 however, in England at least, will be found to agree with him. We 
 need not go to the negroes for passion, which exists in greater strength 
 among the Moors. Lloyd thinks Othello a negro, and discovers all 
 sorts of reasons for his opinion. Coleridge, however, is persuaded that 
 Shakespeare did not mean Othello to be a negro, though he allows he 
 meant him to be black, because he was a Moor. We cannot wonder 
 that Shakespeare was ignorant of the complexion of a Moor when 
 we find a man almost our contemporary imagining him to be black. 
 Shakespeare talked of thick lips and sooty skin simply because he 
 knew no better. He fancied all the time he was describing a Moor, and 
 had no intention whatever of making Othello a negro. 
 
126 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 black skin, thick lips, and that hasty and ferocious 
 temper which distinguishes the indigenous Africans 
 from the rest of mankind. He calls him, indeed, the 
 Moor, but erroneously ; a Moor he cannot be, for the 
 Moors are Arabs who have lips as symmetrical and 
 beautiful as Shakespeare's own. lago calls him a 
 Barbary horse ; and he is invariably spoken of, not as 
 a slave from the interior, but as belonging to that 
 race which inhabits the north of the Atlas, and in one 
 instance as a person of royal blood. lago himself, 
 whose name is Spanish, is sometimes a Venetian and 
 sometimes a Florentine — but these things are scarcely 
 worth notice. He says nothing of his costume, 
 and needs to say nothing, for, being an officer in 
 the Venetian army, he must be clad as a Venetian, 
 though some modern actors have fancied they were 
 displaying their knowledge and judgment by repre- 
 senting him in the garments of an Oriental. Shake- 
 speare contrasts with singular skill the character 
 of lago with that of Othello. The latter is brave, 
 confiding, intemperate, credulous, licentious withal 
 if we may believe his Ancient, but possessing an 
 understanding so limited that he suffers himself to 
 be played upon like a creature without perception or 
 volition by one whom he nevertheless wrongs and 
 insults. Position and superior military qualities impart 
 to him a certain dignity which enables him to look 
 down upon lago, whose superior intellect is marred 
 by union with meanness, baseness, hypocrisy, craft, 
 and treachery. What Shakespeare means by the vale 
 of years is not clear. Othello is not amorous. His 
 love is rather a delusion than a passion ; he is jealous 
 because, reasoning on his own physical and moral 
 qualities, he comes to the conclusion that in reality 
 
CONCEPTION OF THE MALE CHARACTER 127 
 
 Desdemona cannot love him. Discerning his temper 
 and limited understanding, lago is encouraged to make 
 of him egregiously an ass, though, while chuckling 
 over this achievement, the Ancient fails to perceive 
 that instead of one ass he is making two. The other 
 characters in this play — Brabantio, Koderigo, and 
 Montano — are commonplace persons, demanding no 
 observation save that the second serves no other 
 purpose in the drama than to illustrate the rascality 
 of lago. 
 
 While treating of the plot of ' Much Ado about 
 Nothing,' I could not avoid making some observations 
 on the characters, male and female. With the ex- 
 ception of Benedick, however, those of the men are 
 slight and trivial; the Prince and Claudio, who, like 
 two coach horses, are always found running abreast, 
 scarcely differ at all from each other except in name ; 
 their views of life are, for aught that appears, identical, 
 so are their likings and dislikings, their hasty judge- 
 ments, poor revenges, insolence towards age, credulity, 
 weakness, and foppish affectation of courage. Such 
 individuals might figure well enough in a comedy, but, 
 though it is so called and by many so considered, 
 ' Much Ado about Nothing ' is not a comedy, and very 
 narrowly escapes being a tragedy with comic scenes 
 in it, as in ' Komeo and Juliet.' 
 
 Don John, by whose shallow artifice the Prince and 
 Claudio are deceived, is a poor helpless villain who in 
 carrying out his designs places his entire dependence 
 on Borachio, a blabbing rogue through whose folly his 
 lame policy is counteracted. To be over-reached by 
 two caitiffs so wanting in craft implies little under- 
 standing in the lover or his friend. Even as a lover 
 Claudio makes but a poor show, for though he lays 
 
128 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 claim in the church scene to the credit of a poetical 
 attachment, we are not inclined by his previous con- 
 duct to accord it to him. Shakespeare had not made 
 up his mind at the outset whether Claudio should 
 make love to Hero for her beauty or for her fortune ; 
 to have represented such a piece of unbaked dough 
 loving at first sight would, he felt, be unnatural, so he 
 puts into his mouth the intimation that he had seen 
 and liked Hero before he went to the wars ; and this 
 statement would have done very well but for an un- 
 lucky question which he puts to Don Pedro implying 
 complete ignorance of Hero's family. Had he, before 
 leaving Messina, known enough of the lady to conceive 
 a liking for her, he must also have known Leonato 
 her father, in which case he would surely have dis- 
 covered whether he had a son or not ; yet we find him, 
 like a calculating fortune-hunter, making himself sure 
 on this point before he proclaims what he means to 
 be taken for love. 
 
 When Petruchio avows his intention of wooing 
 Katharina's father's money-bags, we understand and 
 estimate the fellow at once ; but in the case of Claudio 
 it appears to be expected of us that we should, in spite 
 of his fortune-hunting, regard him as a noble gentle- 
 man perched on the very pinnacle of honour. To 
 judge of any incident in a drama we must imagine it 
 to be taking place in real life, and, tried by this test, 
 Claudio 's conduct towards Hero is paltry and offensive. 
 His language to her when he supposes her to be false 
 is so brutal that no change of circumstances ought 
 afterwards to have induced her to become his wife. 
 The stain he had cast upon her good name in calcula- 
 tion and cold blood ought to, and would in a delicate- 
 minded woman, have raised up an eternal bar between 
 
// 
 
 CONCEPTION OF THE MALE CHARACTER 129 
 
 her and him, and the effect of the contrary behaviour 
 in Hero freezes the Httle interest we before took in 
 her, and would kill the play were it not for the 
 presence of her cousin Beatrice. 
 
 Benedick is upon the whole a fine character ; his 
 determination to chastise Claudio, which we believe to 
 be formed in downright earnest, raises him above what 
 is meant to be the principal character, and the 
 imagination follows him into a happier future with 
 his termagant wife than the most credulous hope can 
 assign to such iuckless nuptials as those of Claudio and 
 Hero. 
 Y/ Another cluster of characters is that which we 
 
 find in * As You Like It,' but, excepting Jaques and 
 Orlando, they are little developed; the mind dwells 
 upon them rather as a group than as so many separate 
 individuals. Orlando himself is an amorous youth, 
 good-looking and powerful as a wrestler, but as silly as 
 one of Kosalind's sheep ; and it is this silliness that 
 protects him from disgust. If he were in fact less of 
 a fool, his kissing and toying with a supposed youth 
 and all the other evidences of mock love would excite 
 loathing. Jaques is the philosopher of the piece, and 
 illustrated the common belief expressed by Byron that 
 the tree of knowledge is not that of life. The Duke, 
 indeed, insinuates that he is a worn-out libertine, and 
 that his disrelish of pleasure is less the effect of a 
 philosophical disdain than of surfeit. As the philo- 
 sophy of courtiers generally springs from some such 
 source, we should think no better of Jaques himself 
 were it not for his humanity, a quality which Shake- 
 speare bestows on all those personages whom he 
 wishes us to love. 
 
 There is one character in Shakespeare in which 
 
130 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 I can discover neither flaw nor stain. I mean that of 
 Horatio, who, though he says little and does less, sug- 
 gests the persuasion notwithstanding that there are 
 few acts of greatness or of goodness that he could not 
 have performed. Though occupying an inferior 
 position, he contrasts favourably with Hamlet, than 
 whom he is more disinterested, more regardless of 
 danger, more ready to make sacrifices of fame or even 
 of life, and his attachment, more than any other 
 circumstance, tends to raise Hamlet in our esteem, 
 since to be loved by such a man implies the possession 
 of qualities of the highest order. 
 
 There are few passages in poetry more touching, 
 better calculated to beget love or deep affection, than 
 that in which Hamlet addresses Horatio before the 
 play — the speaker and the man spoken to appear in 
 the loftiest and the most enviable light in which men 
 can stand, and recall to our remembrance the Pylades 
 and Orestes of Greek tragedy spoken of as having but 
 one soul in two bodies. And such are Hamlet and 
 Horatio, to have given being to whom is next in 
 felicity of creation to that of having produced Eomeo 
 and Juliet. Pylades is a secondary character, but 
 invested with qualities so rare and lovable that even 
 when he plays the part of a mute personage they 
 pierce through his very silence and endear him to your 
 feelings. Horatio is encircled by a scarcely less 
 beautiful halo in Shakespeare. More heroic than the 
 hero, sweet, modest, retiring, brave as bravery itself, 
 and faithful unto death, he may be regarded as the 
 noblest man save Eomeo that Shakespeare has placed 
 before us. In forming our opinion of Hamlet himself 
 we look upon the friendship of Horatio as his best title 
 to our esteem. Shakespeare suggests the idea that 
 
CONCEPTION OF THE MALE CHARACTER 131 
 
 these two Danish friends have, like Helena and Hermia, 
 grown up, played, and studied together in an intimacy 
 stricter than that of brothers. Just before the 
 exhibition which is to decide his conduct and his fate, 
 Hamlet says to this modern Py Jades : 
 
 Since my dear soul was mistress of her 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 
 
 Hast ta'en with equal thanks : and blest are those 
 
 Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled. 
 
 That they are not a pipe for fortime's finger 
 
 To sound what stop she pleases. Give me that man 
 
 That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him 
 
 In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart, 
 
 As I do thee. 
 
 But, who or what is Horatio — is he a foreigner or 
 a Dane? Shakespeare does not himself know what 
 to think : he makes him occasionally one thing, 
 occasionally another, though in the end he is admitted 
 to be native and to the manner born. Yet it is not a 
 little strange that this extraordinary character should 
 be beheld through an atmosphere of indecision. Bent 
 upon the production of certain effects which he regards 
 as paramount, Shakespeare is doubtful whether he 
 shall make Horatio a Dane or a foreigner, and in this 
 uncertainty represents Hamlet regarding him now in 
 one light, now in another. This, so far as it goes, is a 
 defect in the play, since it suggests the idea of a work 
 of art not thoroughly moulded into shape, and which 
 has not received those final touches that impart the 
 appearance of consistency to a piece by giving it a 
 close resemblance to nature. In real life Hamlet 
 would have no hesitation in recognising Horatio on 
 
 K 2 
 
132 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 first seeing him, nor, considering that he had been at 
 Elsinore for two months and had been present at his 
 father's funeral, if not at his mother's wedding, could 
 they have possibly met for the first time in the ghost 
 scene. Before Hamlet appears at all upon the stage 
 Horatio undeniably proves himself to have been a 
 Dane, and one, moreover, who had accompanied the 
 dead king upon two expeditions, was familiar with the 
 armour that he wore, and stood so near his person 
 when * he smote the sledded Polacks on the ice ' that he 
 marked the frown upon his countenance. Afterwards 
 Horatio forgets all this, and says, while talking with 
 Hamlet, 
 
 I saw him once, he was a goodly king. 
 
 But the confusion of Shakespeare's ideas on this 
 point is most apparent in that conversation with 
 Horatio in which Hamlet unmistakably addresses 
 him as a foreigner just arrived at Elsinore. Why, 
 in fact, does Horatio ask Hamlet, when a cannon is 
 fired off to notify that the King is drinking, *Is this 
 a custom, my lord ? ' to which the prince replies : 
 * Ay, marry is 't, but to my mind ... it is a custom 
 more honoured in the breach than the observance.' 
 But why should Horatio ask the question at all ? The 
 King has been on the throne for two months, during 
 which time he has been as well able to notice what 
 was going on as Hamlet himself. Here, then, Horatio 
 suggests the idea, either that he is a foreigner, or that 
 he has been so long absent from the country as to have 
 forgotten the ways of the people. But this argument 
 is refuted by what he says to Marcellus and Bernardo, 
 which shows him to be intimately acquainted, not only 
 with outward circumstances, but with the most hidden 
 
CONCEPTION OF THE MALE CHARACTER 133 
 
 secrets of state. Hamlet, however, is determined for 
 the nonce to treat him as a foreigner just arrived in 
 Denmark, and speedily to leave it again in order to 
 resume his studies at Wittenberg, a design which is 
 immediately lost sight of and never referred to again 
 throughout the play. That Horatio is contemplated 
 by the prince as a stranger at this juncture is clear : 
 'We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart,' a 
 speech which could not be addressed to a native Dane. 
 Having served its purpose — namely, to describe the 
 drunken habits of the people — the fancy is dismissed, 
 and Horatio is thenceforward viewed in his proper 
 light as an indigenous Dane, to whom from earliest 
 youth Hamlet has been a devoted friend, of which 
 we are assured by himself where he says * Ever since 
 my soul could distinguish between man and man I 
 have selected thee,' etc. Wherever Horatio appears 
 throughout the drama, he shows like some bright 
 particular star, and throws a blaze of light and glory 
 over the scene. At the close, when he is about to 
 drink the poison that he may accompany his friend 
 in death, he exclaims * I am more an antique Koman 
 than a Dane,' and only consents to live at Hamlet's 
 earnest entreaty that he may protect his name from 
 obloquy. Had the piece terminated by his elevation 
 to the throne, it would surely have been a better 
 ending than that which places young Fortinbras in 
 that position. 
 
 I have said that Horatio contrasts favourably 
 with Hamlet, yet this is the character through which 
 Shakespeare has chosen to express his most subtle, 
 refined, and elevated thoughts. No individual repre- 
 sented on the modern stage pervades it so completely 
 with his presence as Hamlet does, so that he suggests 
 
134 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 the idea of ubiquity ; yet, grand and eloquent as he 
 is, he exhibits unintellectual vices, coarseness, selfish- 
 ness, cruelty, with some degree of self-conceit, and, if 
 it be not an oversight on the part of the poet, gross 
 and solemn falsehood. For this reason Hamlet inspires 
 less love than admiration ; that Ophelia should have 
 loved him as she did excites our surprise, and to 
 account for it we are constrained to go backward 
 and assume that, before his mother's fatal marriage 
 with his father's murderer, he had shown himself 
 in a different light. 
 
 As he exhibits himself in the play, he is cranky, 
 crotchety, sometimes pert and saucy to his friends, 
 sometimes moping or dull or gloomy, sometimes 
 treacherous, sometimes gratuitously indecent. As in 
 a fine April day, however, though dusky clouds and 
 rain-showers sweep over the sky, sunshine predomi- 
 nates, and gives its character to the day; so in 
 Hamlet virtuous qualities predominate, and throw 
 their contraries into the shade. The power lodged 
 in this character by Shakespeare is proved by its 
 effects upon our literature, which is full of his sayings 
 and of references to them. 
 
 In mere ethical development, Hamlet is as inferior 
 as a man as Juliet is superior as a woman, though she 
 also, in order to be true to nature, has her defects : that 
 is, a strange combination of timidity and courage, of 
 equivocation and frankness, of maiden modesty and 
 overwhelming desire. Hamlet, when it suits him, lies 
 like a Trojan, rails, boasts, swaggers in King Cambyses' 
 vein, but his fury collapses abruptly, and leaves him 
 stranded on the shore of irresolution. By his expressed 
 preferences we discover the radical imperfection of his 
 character : the man dearest to his heart is he who is 
 
CONCEPTION OF THE MALE CHARACTER 135 
 
 not passion's slave, that is, one in whom moody medita- 
 tion excludes the fierce thirst of enjoyment. 
 
 It demanded a woman of sweet, gentle, unim- 
 passioned nature like Ophelia to love him at all : 
 Juliet would have scorned him, Lady Macbeth would 
 have put her foot on his breast, Desdemona would 
 have laughed and turned away in search of someone 
 more adventurous. His mother, as far as passion is 
 concerned, discloses the secret : he was fat and scant 
 of breath, the very antipodes of passion. Shakespeare 
 knew that love and fat seldom go together ; for which 
 reason, pushing things to an extreme, he exhibits 
 Falstaff making love for money. 
 
 It is true that, in an outburst of irritation and 
 natural excitement, Hamlet affirms that he loved 
 Ophelia more than forty thousand brothers ; but his 
 words prove nothing in opposition to a long series of 
 unloving acts. In life it would have been impossible 
 for one who loved to behold the woman whom he did 
 love perishing and fading away through his neglect 
 and perfidy. We must eliminate, therefore, from our 
 theory of Hamlet's character the notion that he was 
 ever a lover, and accept his declaration that he loved 
 her not, though at the moment he believed that he 
 did, and perhaps felt all that one so constituted could 
 feel. 
 
 I have remarked elsewhere that it was his con- 
 stitutional timidity that withheld him from asserting 
 his right to the crown to which his father's brother 
 could have made no claim, especially as the people 
 loved Hamlet, and had he shown himself worthy 
 could have placed him by force on the throne in the 
 natural course of succession. It is to his want of 
 courage, therefore, that we owe the play. Taking 
 
]36 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 advantage of this vice of character, his uncle not only 
 perpetrates murder, pollutes his mother, and plots his 
 perpetual exclusion from the throne, but meditates 
 sending him to England, then tributary to Denmark, 
 and to have him there cut off. 
 
 When actually embarked on this fatal voyage, 
 Hamlet picks the pockets of the ambassadors, forges a 
 commission ordering them to be put to death, returns 
 it to their pockets, and is then opportunely taken by 
 pirates, who, in the hope of a reward, set him on shore 
 in Denmark. Eegard this act how we may, it lowers 
 the character of Hamlet, proves him to be a bloody- 
 minded trickster, and consequently diminishes the 
 interest we thenceforward feel in his fate. Bosen- 
 crantz and Guildenstern were the King's involuntary 
 agents and could hardly deserve such a cruel end. 
 Hamlet is therefore capable of putting two men to 
 death without much scrutiny into their deserving it, 
 though he shrinks from the bloody duty of killing the 
 arch-criminal. Destitute of deliberate courage, he lies 
 in wait for accidental impulses, influenced by one of 
 which he kills Polonius behind the arras, in the hope 
 that it might be the King, whom he had just before 
 passed by and timidly spared. 
 
 When we come to the fencing scene with Laertes, 
 a more ranting fire-eater than Tybalt, Hamlet exhibits 
 a trait of disingenuity which almost extinguishes the 
 nobility of his character. According to the whole 
 course of his conduct from first to last, it is evident 
 that he is not intended to be a madman, but is merely 
 acting insanity for a purpose ; yet, to calm the resent- 
 ment of Laertes and stand well in his estimation, he 
 affirms that he has been mad and that it was his mad- 
 
CONCEPTION OF THE MALE CHARACTER 137 
 
 ness, not he, that had slain Polonius and driven 
 Ophelia to despair. All these considerations make of 
 Hamlet's character an enigma, but lower it at the 
 same time, while they prove that the poet had 
 exhausted his genius, which collapsed under the 
 weight of his own design. 
 
138 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ESSAY IX 
 
 LOVE 
 
 Without forming and fixing in our minds, at what- 
 ever expense of thought, a true conception of Shake- 
 speare's theory of love, we shall fail to comprehend 
 many parts of his writings. Yet he had himself, per- 
 haps, no very definite idea of his own views, which 
 sprang at first from his physical idiosyncrasies, 
 and were afterwards corrected and modified by re- 
 flection. A man's ideas about love depend greatly 
 on his estimate of women, which with Shakespeare 
 in the early part of his life was a very low one. 
 Nothing can be more derogatory to the sex than the 
 sentiments which pervade * Venus and Adonis,' the 
 Sonnets, and most of his shorter pieces. The whole 
 poem of * Lucrece ' is only an expansion of Ovid's idea 
 that Lucretia consented to her own undoing and yet 
 killed herself afterwards ; though, whether this was 
 his opinion or not, the poem is so frigid, so quibbling, 
 so remote from nature, so tedious, that scarcely 
 anything of value is to be extracted from it. Venus 
 is a personification of female passion, who, having 
 to deal with a statue rather than a man, exhausts all 
 the arts of wantonness to animate this beautiful form 
 of clay. The boy, indeed, as Shakespeare calls him, 
 makes a good figure as a preacher, and lectures the 
 
LOVE 139 
 
 goddess with an eloquence as little suited to his age 
 as to the situation in which he finds himself. 
 
 As time came to the aid of Shakespeare's genius, 
 he retreated from some of the false positions he had 
 taken up at the outset, his theory expanded, rose 
 higher, invested itself with greater delicacy, became 
 subtle, refined, purified, so that woman, instead of 
 being a rampant wanton, came forth in Juliet as 
 passion incarnate, full of all the turbulent elements 
 of love, but co-ordinated into one beautiful whole, 
 instinct with all the fire of its original elements, but 
 elevated by rapturous preference into the highest form 
 which love can assume. Some philosophers have 
 argued that love is a passion not made up of several 
 ingredients but simple and sui generis in its nature ; 
 but this hypothesis soon proves on examination to 
 be untenable, since there is nothing so composite as 
 love as it exists in intellects of a high order, though 
 as we descend from that elevation to the lowest type 
 of humanity we find it putting off some quality at 
 every step in the descent, till we arrive at last at 
 simple animal instinct. Poetical reasoners often aim 
 at a refinement which nature repudiates. Say what 
 we will, passion is love in the ore — that is, before it has 
 been purified and stamped with the image and super- 
 scription of some individual; in fact, it is the mere 
 sexual instinct which lies undeveloped in the mind, 
 as gold in the earth, before it is dug forth and given 
 a shape and destination. It may with truth be said 
 that love is not exactly the same in any two minds, 
 male or female, but differs quite as much as, perhaps 
 more than, their features. It differs essentially, also, 
 in men and women, since it bears as much the stamp 
 of sex as they who feel it. 
 
^^ 
 
 140 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Shakespeare has exhibited it co-existing in the 
 mind with many other passions, and receiving certain 
 modifications from each of them : in some it is deHcate, 
 innocent, and childlike, as in Julia, Mariana, and 
 Ophelia ; in some it is playful, sportive, and partaking 
 of the warmer instincts, as in Viola and Eosahnd; 
 in some it is a compound of desire and vanity, as in 
 Helena ; in Beatrice it is mischievous, saucy, imperious, 
 but withal noble and disinterested : in Desdemona it 
 is ignorant of itself, evidently transitory because built 
 on imaginary qualities, and allied too closely with the 
 sway of temperament ; in Imogen it is the idolatry 
 of a wife, fond and affectionate, but silly; in Lady 
 ^'' Macbeth it is the inborn preference of a fierce and 
 tempestuous woman for one who could at the same 
 time rule her and a kingdom. 
 
 There are other characters, both male and female, 
 in Shakespeare in which he has developed his idea 
 of the principle of love. What a man is under the 
 influence of this principle is so difficult to be under- 
 stood, and still more to explain, that Shakespeare, with 
 all his genius and insight into human nature, has 
 scarcely succeeded, or succeeded at best but once, 
 in presenting us with a vivid and true picture. In 
 drawing a parallel between the sexes, love has been 
 affirmed to take a deeper root in woman than in 
 man. No idea can be more unfounded. Women, 
 it is true, are more easily blighted where the passions 
 are concerned by disappointment, because the structure 
 of their minds, like that of their bodies, is more frail ; 
 but when man loves, his love is stronger, fiercer, and 
 yet more enduring than that of woman. 
 
 I say when man loves, for in general he only obeys 
 his instincts, and devotes his. energies to the ordinary 
 
LOVE 141 
 
 and inferior concerns of life, business, public or private, 
 or at the highest to mental culture and philosophical 
 studies. Love, however, when it takes possession of 
 a man's soul, when all the passions and faculties are 
 in effervescence, transforms and impresses itself on 
 his whole nature ; and though, when the first fever is 
 over, his pride restrains it from blazing forth externally 
 it only burns the more fervently within, till death 
 puts an end to his passion and his life together. This 
 is the love that Shakespeare exhibits in Komeo, 
 though in his character he has connected it with 
 a certain effeminacy, in order perhaps to qualify him 
 to figure with more effect upon the stage. Eomantic 
 youths and girls have in all ages been in the habit of 
 declaiming about first love, seeking to persuade them- 
 selves and others that their deep natures could take 
 but one impression. Shakespeare shows the ground- 
 lessness of this notion in the experience of Eomeo. 
 While he is an idle youth, who, having finished his 
 studies and not engaged in politics, finds nothing else 
 to think of but love, he chooses for himself a mistress 
 that his fancy may have something to dwell on. 
 Curiously enough, he lights upon a Capulet — for 
 Kosaline belongs to the house of his enemy — and 
 compels himself to dote on this unsusceptible beauty. 
 To his youthful and ignorant mind, this dreamy pre- 
 ference appeared to be love. But no sooner has he 
 seen Juliet than he feels the difference between an 
 imaginary and a real passion : the scales drop at once 
 from his eyes, the kernel of life has been discovered, 
 the essence of another's being has penetrated his, 
 and the world is henceforward to be dark or bright 
 according to the chances of his love for her. 
 
 Throughout his plays Shakespeare has no other 
 
142 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 lover of any mark or likelihood. Hamlet fancied he 
 loved Ophelia, and may have felt for her that sort of 
 preference to which the name of love is commonly 
 applied; but it was a very subordinate feeling, a 
 feeling that could be overridden by a weak thirst of 
 revenge. Hamlet's nature is, in fact, too flaccid to 
 grasp any feeling with firmness, or, if any, it is that 
 of friendship for Horatio, and even with that he plays 
 and toys with the indecision of a Sybarite. Hamlet 
 is incapable of any strong passion, and least of all 
 of love. He mopes, he ruminates, he decides, he 
 undecides, he will and he will not, and is ultimately 
 drifted into action by mere chance. 
 
 Where else in Shakespeare shall we look for a 
 lover ? Not in Othello, who only exhibits the jealousy 
 of a middle-aged gentleman lest his female play- 
 thing should be taken from him ; not in Claudio or 
 Bassanio, who, though in the latter case with a tinge of 
 romance, are both fortune-hunters ; not in Ferdinand 
 or Orlando ; not, surely, in Posthumus, who deserves 
 rather a halter than a mistress : but we are forgetting 
 Troilus, who, though somewhat of the craziest, dis- 
 plays the excess of passionate love for a wanton. 
 Through a great rent, however, in a tragic life we 
 obtain one glimpse of a love as noble as what we may 
 imagine to exist in heaven — the love of Brutus for his 
 wife, expressed in language as tender as any that ever 
 flowed from human lip or pen : 
 
 Portia, Dwell I but in the suburbs 
 
 Of your good pleasure ? If it be no more, 
 Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife. 
 Brutus. You are my true and honourable wife, 
 As dear to me as are the ruddy drops 
 That visit my sad heart. 
 
OskT 
 
 V / LOVE 143 
 
 I have said that love varies according to the 
 idiosyncrasies of those who feel it. The Duke in 
 ' Twelfth Night,' a feeble character, has formed a 
 conception of love such as he imagines might have 
 prevailed in the Golden Age — calm, sweet, innocent, 
 and best suited to his dreamy disposition. Through 
 that perversity of taste which often determines people's 
 preferences, he first conceives a passion for the half- 
 witted and wanton Olivia, but by the influence of his 
 stars, rather than by his own judgment, he obtains a 
 wife more worthy of his gentle nature. While he is 
 in his preliminary state of dotage, he calls on his 
 attendants for music and the repetition of a song he 
 had heard on the previous night : 
 
 O fellow, come, the song we had last night. 
 
 Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain ; 
 
 The spinsters and the knitters in the sun 
 
 And the free maids that weave their thread with bones 
 
 Do use to chant it : it is silly sooth, 
 
 And dallies with the innocence of love, 
 
 Like the gold age. 
 
 The song itself is so dehciously sad, so redolent 
 of broken hearts, so tender, delicate, and melancholy, 
 that, though familiar to every reader of Shakespeare, 
 my present purpose cannot dispense with it : 
 
 Come away, come away, death. 
 
 And in sad cypress let me be laid ; 
 Fly away, fly away, breath ; 
 
 I am slain by a fair cruel maid. 
 My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, 
 
 O, prepare it I 
 My part of death, no one so true 
 Did share it, 
 
144 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Not a flower, not a flower sweet, 
 
 On my black coffin let there be strown ; 
 Not a friend, not a friend greet 
 
 My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown : 
 A thousand thousand sighs to save. 
 
 Lay me, O, where 
 Sad true lover never find my grave, 
 To weep there ! 
 
 In one form of love Shakespeare deals very 
 sparingly — I mean that for married women. The 
 treatment of this subject is attended with great diffi- 
 culties, because it is seldom that they who cherish 
 such love, or they who are the objects of it, reveal 
 the nature of their feelings. To the preference and 
 attentions of her husband a wife is in most cases 
 accustomed, or at least assumes herself to have a right 
 to them; but when a man who is not her husband 
 exhibits for her a peculiar preference, follows her foot- 
 steps, is infatuated by her beauty, and is willing to 
 run all risks to obtain from her the recognition of 
 his love, she feels intensely flattered, thinking it can 
 proceed from nothing but the supreme fascination of 
 her charms. Even the smallest gifts and slightest 
 attentions are sometimes sufficient to tempt a woman 
 from her allegiance, and what dangers will she not 
 run to meet by stealth the man who pursues her with 
 unlawful love. Night, the proximity of her husband, 
 or of others interested in detecting her, the prospect 
 of shame, or even of ruin, instead of restraining her, 
 appear to be only so many incentives to brave the 
 peril ; modesty, pride, self-respect, the love of children — 
 all are trampled under foot to gratify what appears 
 to her unsophisticated passion. The atmosphere of 
 dread in which she moves, and the breathing of which 
 
LOVE 145 
 
 makes her heart palpitate and * knock at her ribs 
 against the use of nature/ imparts a sense of heroism 
 to her guilt and causes her to imagine she will be a 
 sort of martyr if discovered — a martyr to love. This 
 delusion has betrayed many young wives into the 
 perpetration of the last sin a married woman can be 
 guilty of, together with the consequences which, even 
 when undiscovered, are sure to attend it. She lies by 
 her husband's side, conscious that if he knew her guilt 
 he would spurn her from his presence, yet thinking 
 of another, sometimes with pleasure but oftener with 
 repugnance, as the author of her mental suffering — for 
 the heart has a sophistry by which it spares itself. 
 
 Shakespeare, in the heyday of his animal spirits, 
 has given us a droll parody on unlawful love-making. 
 Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, living in affluent cir- 
 cumstances at Windsor, become, exclusively through 
 those circumstances, the objects of a mock passion to 
 Falstaff. That they have passed the meridian of their 
 beauty is considered by the fat lover an advantage, since 
 they will therefore, he thinks, be flattered by his devo- 
 tion. But in this case it cost the ladies little trouble 
 to be virtuous. There was something so comic in the 
 situation that they could not resist the pleasure of 
 acting their part in it, running no risk of being 
 touched by slander, as they might had they sported 
 with a younger lover. Elsewhere, however, Shake- 
 speare presents us with two sisters in whom illicit 
 passion is no sham, who bestow their love — such as 
 it is — on the same consummate miscreant, who halt 
 at no stage in the career of guilt, and who, having 
 sacrificed their modesty, which obviously cost them 
 little effort, advanced far beyond that goal, adding to 
 adultery murder and suicide. 
 
146 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 But in this picture there is not even the interest 
 which crime sometimes excites. We witness their 
 deaths with as little emotion as we do those of two 
 she-wolves. In this instance, therefore, Shakespeare 
 has thrown away an opportunity of investing with 
 suitable terror the wildest excesses of criminal passion ; 
 women are made to act their worst, to set at nought 
 the dearest ties, to dare the most frightful trans- 
 gressions, without causing even a shudder by their 
 enormities. This is converting the stage into a sort 
 of human shambles, where blood is shed as a matter of 
 course, rather, as it were, in the way of business than 
 in order to throw the chill shadow of horror over 
 woeful deeds. 
 
 There is, indeed, one example more in Shakespeare 
 of illicit love, surrounded with shame and guilt of the 
 deepest dye, but, together with its attendant horrors, 
 it is suggested rather than described. Gertrude, 
 Queen of Denmark, mother to one Hamlet and wife 
 to another, is presented to us by the infinite art of 
 the poet with her evil qualities thrown so skilfully 
 into the background, and sheltered in so great a degree 
 from censure by the arrangement of circumstances, 
 that she is seldom contemplated as a harlot and a 
 murderess. It heightens our commiseration for her 
 unhappy lord that he had bestowed delicate and 
 conscientious love on this profligate woman — love 
 
 Of that dignity 
 That it went hand in hand even with the vow 
 I made to her in marriage. 
 
 It needs to be experienced in life to comprehend 
 the subtle metaphysics of guilt, to estimate its power 
 of feigning, the art with which it shifts off the coals 
 
LOVE 147 
 
 of fire which the receiving of unmerited love casts 
 hourly upon its head : 
 
 So loving to my mother 
 That he might not beteem the winds of heaven 
 Visit her face too roughly. 
 
 But could son or father sound the depths of that 
 mother's heart ? — 
 
 Why, she would hang on him, 
 As if increase of appetite had grown 
 By what it fed on. 
 
 And is not the face of society in all ages studded 
 with Hamlets and Gertrudes? The ghost suppHes 
 the explanation : 
 
 Lust, though to a radiant angel liiik'd, 
 Will sate itself in a celestial bed, 
 And prey on garbage. 
 
 What sexual passion is, most people believe they 
 know; but what is love? This is a question as 
 difficult to answer as that other question, What is 
 life? which has perplexed the human mind since 
 the beginning of the world. Shakespeare either never 
 attempted to answer it, or, if he did, soon found 
 it beyond his power. He contents himself with 
 describing its ejQfects, the circumstances which attend 
 it, its mode of working, but eschews the attempt to 
 explain its essence. In Shakespeare, as in nature, we 
 find the principle evolving itself ignorantly, blindly, 
 and often wasting its perfume and beauty on the 
 worthless. Troilus's feeling for Cressida is real love, 
 but, her nature being incapable of the passion, she 
 repays it with lust. The same thing is true in the 
 case of Imogen and Posthumus, only here it is the 
 
 I. 2 
 
148 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 woman that loves and the man that falls short. 
 But no picture of the way in which love and lust are 
 contrasted in operation is so complete as that which 
 we find in ' Troilus and Cressida.' In singleness of 
 purpose, in truth, sincerity, and disinterested devotion, 
 Troilus resembles Komeo, and deserves, therefore, a 
 mistress no less fond and true than Juliet; but fate 
 presents him with a counterfeit, who acts her part, 
 however, so well that her lover detects in her no sign 
 that the metal he takes for gold is not real and pure. 
 The scene between these two in the orchard is one 
 of the most subtle and profound in Shakespeare. 
 Nothing can exceed the fervour of Troilus's passion, 
 but it is delicate, imaginative, soaring ; he is rapt 
 out of himself by the prospect, which he scarcely 
 dares to think real, of gaining immediate possession 
 of his mistress ; he dallies with the idea, which is 
 almost too vast to obtain entrance into his belief; 
 he strives to bring it down to the level of credibility ; 
 in the first shock of its approach to realisation he fears 
 lest life itself should escape in the process. All this 
 > is an enigma to Cressida, who, though she is eager to 
 repay his love with such love as she has to give, 
 contrasts with him as a gnome with a seraph. She 
 regards his rapturous exclamations, his imaginative 
 anticipations of joy, his felicitations to himself on his 
 own happiness, as so much lost time. 
 
 There is no shrinking delicacy, no modesty in 
 Cressida, she proclaims her love without circumlocu- 
 tion, and regrets that it is not the woman's part to 
 woo, since men, judging by Troilus, are too slow in 
 making known their feelings. She hints also, as if 
 speaking from experience, that men at best are mere 
 braggarts in love, whose performance always falls short 
 
LOVE 149 
 
 of their promises. Nothing but the bewilderment of 
 passion can conceal from Troilus that he is holding 
 colloquy with a courtesan, who is as enlightened as if 
 she had had half a dozen husbands. In the extreme 
 imperception of Troilus, Shakespeare is perfectly true 
 to nature, for Cressida by her subtle arts persuades 
 him that she only trangresses the bounds of modesty 
 through resistless love for him. He cannot con- 
 sequently dream of imputing that to her as a fault 
 which springs entirely from his own influence. 
 
 It is an admitted truth that, as in the history of 
 nations the periods of peace and happiness supply the 
 historian with but few materials, so in the experience 
 of the individual love, pure and fortunate in its cir- 
 cumstances, is productive of no events. They who 
 feel it are happy, but to describe the nature of their 
 happiness transcends the power of language. It is 
 otherwise when love is guilty, stormy, doubtful in its 
 nature, stimulated by danger, and terminated by death. 
 Shakespeare is himself doubtful whether he will apply 
 to the passion of Antony and Cleopatra the name of 
 y / love or lust, and he may well be doubtful, since there 
 
 were circumstances in the story of these persons which 
 are difficult to be classified. In the true story we find 
 much to perplex our judgment, and still more in 
 Shakespeare's version of it. It seems, however, to 
 result from a careful study of history and the play 
 that Cleopatra is an accomplished courtesan, wholly 
 incapable of love, but skilled in the highest degree in 
 putting on its semblance. The subject suited Shake- 
 speare's genius, which sports about the hidden problem 
 with consummate skill, though here and there verging 
 towards the too palpable absorption of love in lust. 
 Cleopatra had been frequently kindled before she saw 
 
150 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Antony, though her experience brought her in contact 
 with none whose profligacy harmonised so thoroughly 
 with her own. Caesar regarded her as a harlot, to 
 whose charms he would, to suit his own purposes, 
 make a show of subservience. 
 
 But Antony yielded himself up body and soul to 
 her guidance, and she seemed to be content to sway 
 his inclinations as best suited her passions or her 
 interest, for Cleopatra was one of those harlots who 
 never lose sight of the main chance. As Death drew 
 near, his shadow fell between these two lovers, as they 
 would fain be thought, and then the dissembling of 
 the woman began to fail. She had acted her part so 
 successfully that she had probably deceived herself 
 into the belief that her feeling for Antony was love ; 
 but when, through the gloom which surrounded her, 
 she discerned by submission to Octavius one bright 
 glimpse of hope, she sought to detach herself from 
 Antony, and suffered a delegate from the victor to kiss 
 her hand. This indication of treachery being per- 
 ceived by Antony stung him to madness. In his fury 
 he scourged the representative of Caesar, and, being as 
 reckless of other men's feelings as he was chary of his 
 own, he sent word to his foe that he might treat his 
 representative with similar brutality. Whatever may 
 have been the nature of the passion between this 
 Koman general and the Egyptian Queen, it exhibited 
 towards its close those fluctuations which distinguish 
 the counterfeit from the true. 
 
 Portia and Brutus, being joined in perfect love, 
 found nothing come between them up to the last 
 moment ; they were devoted to each other in their 
 souls, everything in their love was real ; instead of 
 desiring to survive each other, each desired that their 
 
LOVE 151 
 
 lives should be extinguished together, being thoroughly 
 persuaded that nothing within the vast limits of 
 possibility could make up to one for the loss of the 
 other. One of the finest things in Shakespeare is the 
 hush of suppressed passion with which Brutus an- 
 nounces to Cassius, when their quarrel is over, that 
 Portia is dead. Whatever vices there may have been 
 in Cassius's character, he was able to estimate at its 
 true value the love of Brutus for his noble wife : 
 
 Cas. I did not think you could have been so angry. 
 Bru. O Cassius, I am sick of many griefs. 
 Cas. Of your philosophy you make no use, 
 
 If you give place to accidental evils. 
 Bru. No man bears sorrow better. Portia is dead. 
 Cas. Hal Portia 1 
 Bru. She is dead. 
 Cas. How 'scaped I killing when I cross'd you so ? 
 
 insupportable and touching loss I 
 
 Here we have the requiem of pure love, which in 
 its infinite simplicity offers so touching a contrast 
 to the troubled and guilty termination of Antony 
 and Cleopatra's intercourse. The grandest and most 
 beautiful mythus in the symbolical religion of Hellas 
 is that which represents love as preceding the creation 
 of the universe. This idea lies in the heart, as it were, 
 of the most sacred of sacred things. To originate life 
 in all its infinite forms the intellect truly regards as 
 the highest effort of love, since, if we can imagine a 
 chronology in such things, love must have preceded 
 in the Divine mind the beginning of all existences, 
 organic or inorganic, intellectual or material. Through- 
 out nature love, when unobstructed, produces beauty 
 and harmony, which united constitute perfect happi- 
 ness. The teeming imagination of the Greeks con- 
 
152 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ceived all nature as instinct with music, an idea too 
 analogous to the grandeur of Shakespeare's mind to 
 escape its grasp : 
 
 Look how the floor of heaven 
 Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold : 
 There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st 
 But in his motion like an angel sings, 
 Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins : 
 Such harmony is in immortal souls ; 
 But whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
 Doih grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. 
 
 Conformably to the taste of his age, Shakespeare, 
 when he talks of love, generally interweaves with his 
 language quite as much conceit as poetry. This 
 implies, however, no lack of passion or earnestness, 
 but submission merely to the prevalent fashion, which, 
 as Eowe observes, displayed itself still more obtrusively 
 in the pulpit than on the stage. From the lips of 
 Eomeo, if from those of any lover, we might expect a 
 true description of love freed from anything extrinsic, 
 and laying itself bare to the intellect in all its purity. 
 This is what he says of it : 
 
 Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs ; 
 Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes ; 
 Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears : 
 What is it else ? a madness most discreet, 
 A choking gall, and a preserving sweet. 
 
 Is our conception of love much refined or enlarged 
 by this account ? or by this other : 
 
 Love, first learned in a lady's eyes, 
 Lives not alone immured in the brain ; 
 But, with the motion of all elements, 
 Courses as swift as thought in every power. 
 And gives to every power a double power, 
 Above their functions ancl their offices, 
 
LOVE 153 
 
 It adds a precious seeing to the eye ; 
 
 A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind ; 
 
 A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound, 
 
 When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd : 
 
 Love's feeling is more soft and sensible 
 
 Than are the tender horns of cockled snails ; 
 
 Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste : 
 
 For valour, is not Love a Hercules, 
 
 Still climbing trees in the Hesperides ? 
 
 Subtle as Sphinx ; as sweet and musical 
 
 As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair ; 
 
 And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods 
 
 Make heaven drowsy with the harmony. 
 
 Instead of an explanation we have here a torrent 
 
 of metaphors and similes which excites our fancy, 
 
 but without greatly enlightening our understanding, 
 
 though we may gather from it that Shakespeare's 
 
 theory of love was, when he wrote it, profoundly 
 
 sensual. It is all built on sex, and if the pleasures of 
 
 the mind and soul be alluded to, it is only that by 
 
 their aid the raptures of sense may be exalted. From 
 
 the beginning of the world this theory of Shakespeare 
 
 has commanded the belief of the human race; 
 
 Antigone, Jephthah's daughter, as well as Andromache 
 
 and the wife of Odysseus, accepted it, and if we 
 
 discover in Haemon something beyond and above it, 
 
 the inference to be thence drawn is only an additional 
 
 proof of the correctness of my view respecting the 
 
 superior force of man's love. The noblest woman 
 
 imagined by Greek poetry believed, like the author of 
 
 the Book of Job, that the loss of husband and children 
 
 might be compensated for by having others ; but the 
 
 man having lost the woman he loved could discover in 
 
 the whole universe no compensation for his loss, and 
 
 therefore voluntarily breathed forth his soul at her feet. 
 
154 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEAEE 
 
 Did we possess a biography of Shakespeare as 
 complete as the confessions of Jean-Jacques or of 
 St. Augustine, several incidents in the plays would 
 probably be found to have grown out of his personal 
 experience. No one can have read * King John ' 
 without having been struck, or I should rather perhaps 
 say shocked, by the language of Faulconbridge in 
 the dialogue with his mother. Having been knighted 
 by the king, and scorning to trace his origin to 
 his supposed parent, he extorts by * rumbustious ' 
 pleading from his mother the secret of his birth : 
 
 Lady F. Hast thou conspired with thy brother too, 
 
 That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honour ? 
 What means this scorn, thou most untoward knave ? 
 Bast. Knight, knight, good mother, Basihsco-like. 
 
 What I I am dubb'd ! I have it on my shoulder. 
 
 But, mother, I am not sir Eobert's son ; 
 
 I have disclaim' d sir Eobert and my land ; 
 
 Legitimation, name and all is gone : 
 
 Then, good my mother, let me know my father ; 
 
 Some proper man, I hope : who was it, mother ? 
 
 Lady F. Hast thou denied thyself a Faulconbridge ? 
 Bast. As faithfully as I deny the devil. 
 
 Lady F. King Richard Coeur-de-lion was thy father : 
 By long and vehement suit I was seduced 
 To make room for him in my husband's bed : 
 Heaven lay not my transgression to my charge ! 
 Thou art the issue of my dear offence, 
 Which was so strongly urged past my defence. 
 
 Is the Eichard spoken of in this scene the repre- 
 sentative of Shakespeare himself, and is Lady Faulcon- 
 bridge Mrs. d'Avenant ? Aubrey tells us that the poet 
 on his way to and from Stratford used to pass through 
 Oxford, put up at a certain inn, and make love to the 
 landlady, who is said to have been very beautiful. 
 Among her children there was one boy thought to 
 
 J 
 
LOVE 155 
 
 resemble the poet, who had consented to be bis god- 
 father. Once when the poet had just alighted at the 
 house, the boy was sent for from school, and a neigh- 
 bour, seeing him hastening home, inquired what made 
 him in such a hurry. * I am going to see my god- 
 father,' he replied. * Don't take God's name in vain,' 
 said the neighbour, with a smile. This lad, afterwards 
 Sir William d'Avenant, is said to have been as proud 
 of his parentage as Faulconbridge of having been 
 descended from Coeur-de-Hon. There is much in 
 the tone of Shakespeare's sentiments as they display 
 themselves in his works to give countenance to this 
 story, which, whether true or false, is unquestionably 
 quite in keeping with the manners of the age, and 
 more especially with those of the theatre. It could 
 hardly be of lapses like this, in which even Kaleigh, 
 the English Bayard, had set the stage-players an 
 example, that Shakespeare says : 
 
 Thence is it that my name receives a brand, 
 
 since neither Sidney, Leicester, nor Essex took any 
 pains to ward off from himself suspicion of a guilt 
 which he regarded rather as a triumph than as an 
 offence. Sidney, no doubt, in his poetical rhapsodies 
 invests love with qualities found not in nature but in 
 the dreams of Plato ; though, in truth, the blaze of 
 poetry only flashed like a bog-fire over the slough of 
 sense. 
 
 Several poets of more fancy than feeling have 
 sought to strip love of its impassioned character, and 
 to invest it with attributes belonging rather to a 
 spiritual nature than to a human being. But this is 
 to confound two existences. Shakespeare intended in 
 * The Two Gentlemen of Verona ' to show forth the 
 
156 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 distinctive beauties of love and friendship ; but when 
 love comes in, friendship soon makes way for him. 
 Both love, however, and friendship are ill conceived 
 and worse carried out, though it may be he intended 
 by the very name of Proteus to signify the changeable- 
 ness of the man's nature. When the friends are 
 talking before parting, we see the hold Marlowe's story 
 had taken of the public mind : speaking of a book on 
 which Proteus might make oath, Valentine says : 
 
 That's on some shallow story of deep love : 
 How young Leander crossed the Hellespont. 
 Pro. That's a deep story of a deeper love. 
 
 Pro. Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud 
 The eating canker dwells, so eating love 
 Inhabits in the finest wits of aU. 
 
 Vol, And writers say, as the most forward bud 
 Is eaten by the canker ere it blow. 
 Even so by love the young and tender wit 
 Is turn'd to folly. 
 
 Since maids, in modesty, say ' no ' to that 
 
 Which they would have the profferer construe • ay.* 
 
 Shakespeare was a young man when he wrote this 
 scene, and was trying his hand at comedy. There is 
 too much affectation in Julia when with her maid, 
 and perhaps rather too much plain speaking when 
 alone, save that what she says to herself is merely 
 what she thinks : 
 
 Poor wounded name I my bosom as a bed 
 
 Shall lodge thee till thy wound be throughly heal'd. 
 
 Then, improving on this idea, she takes the fragments 
 of the letters, one containing her name, the other that 
 of Proteus, and says : 
 
LOVE 157 
 
 Thus will I fold them upon one another : 
 Now kiss, embrace, contend, do what you will. 
 
 Having thus carried her ideas to the goal of love, 
 Julia soon afterwards disguises herself and elopes after 
 her lover. She is a sweet, true character, but the play 
 in which she acts displays little passion : 
 
 0, how this spring of love resembleth 
 
 The uncertain glory of an April day, 
 Which now shows all the beauty of the sun. 
 
 And by and by a cloud takes all away I 
 
 Love is like a child. 
 That longs for every thing that he can come by. 
 
 'Tis pity love should be so contrary ; 
 And thinking on it make me cry • alas ! ' 
 
 In the attempt to paint heroic friendship Shake- 
 speare makes Valentine give up Silvia to Proteus, 
 which is unnatural ; besides, Silvia herself would have 
 to be consulted. Julia excites more interest than 
 Silvia, perhaps because the one is triumphant, the 
 other unfortunate almost to the end. 
 
 In * A Midsummer Night's Dream ' Shakespeare has 
 some sweet passages on Love. But none so sweet as 
 that which is familiar to every reader : 
 
 The course of true love, etc. 
 
 To one enduring the misery of being crossed in love, 
 the thought comes naturally that what happens to 
 him happens universally. In his own unhappiness 
 he dares not believe that any lover was ever happy ; 
 indeed, happiness is in all cases so fleeting that they 
 who are blest have scarcely time to feel they are so 
 before the surge of fortune bears both them and their 
 bHss into obHvion. The sources of disappointment in 
 
158 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 love are still more numerous than Shakespeare makes 
 them. No doubt difference in rank blights many a 
 passion, but in most cases the blight is a cause of less 
 unhappiness than success would be ; for ill-assorted 
 matches may almost be said never to lead to happiness, 
 since difference in mental culture, in degrees of refine- 
 ment, and the general conception of life disqualify the 
 members of different classes for living together. The 
 unsuitableness of age and youth is no less obvious. 
 The interference of relatives, which may be well or 
 ill founded, is a thing of doubtful character, being as 
 often good as bad. As to the ordinary misfortunes of 
 life — war, sickness, death, they as often ward off misery 
 as happiness. The accumulation, however, of common- 
 places on the liability of love to disappointment has 
 given rise to a passage of the greatest beauty. 
 
 A great portion of the connexion between Helena 
 and Hermia is highly poetical, but is scarcely natural, 
 because when one woman takes away a lover from 
 another, whether with or against her will, the jealousy 
 arising out of the mere fact destroys at once all friend- 
 ship and admiration. Where Helena, therefore, is 
 eloquent on Hermia' s fascinations she is at variance 
 with nature, and could not have inquired of her by 
 what means she inspired Demetrius with love. There 
 is much fancy in this part of the play, but no philo- 
 sophy except by accident. Up to a certain point, 
 Helena expresses great love for Hermia, but afterwards, 
 when the force of jealousy has unlocked her heart, she 
 brings forth bitter reminiscences, saying that Hermia 
 had always been a shrew even when she had been a 
 schoolgirl, so that the figure of the double cherry was 
 after all only a pretty conceit. Among men it was 
 a saying of old, amicus usque ad aras, and it is an 
 
 I 
 
LOVE 159 
 
 eternal truth among women, arnica usque ad amorem. 
 This is the Kubicon, which a woman only passes when 
 in her heart she has declared internecine war against 
 her female rivals. Helena came slowly to this decision, 
 but was saved the consequences by fairy influence. 
 
 Even in this part of the dialogue the shrew peeps 
 out : speaking of Demetrius she says ' I give him curses, 
 yet he gives me love.' The Athenian ladies, it is 
 known, did swear, though it was only by the goddesses, 
 while the Laconian dames swore like troopers by 
 Castor and Pollux. But the curse is something more 
 than swearing, and was seldom had recourse to except 
 by the worshippers of Hecate. 
 
 When Hermia had departed Helena let out the 
 truth which had been pent up before. Few women 
 sincerely praise other women's beauty, even when it 
 does not stand in the way of their love, but Helena's 
 praise was hypocritical. She could see nothing in 
 Hermia's face which could justify Demetrius' desertion 
 of herself for Hermia, though when talking with 
 Hermia she affected to think so. She now comforts 
 herself with the reflection that everybody in Athens, 
 except Demetrius, knew that she was quite as beautiful 
 as her friend. Her spaniel-like devotion to a man who 
 preferred another is quite in nature. I have seen 
 many women do the same, and, what is more surprising, 
 I have seen some men do so. In this case, however, 
 love is often turned to revenge, but conceals its change 
 till it has subdued the reluctance of the woman, and 
 then, when she is in its power, devotes the remainder of 
 its life to torturing her. It is a proverb, * Hell has no 
 fury like a woman scorned,' but a man scorned proves 
 quite as great a fury, I mean in many cases. Shake- 
 speare was still thinking of the story of Venus and 
 
160 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Adonis when he wrote the dialogue between Helena 
 and Demetrius in the wood. Though she strives to 
 put on a show of modesty, her whole conduct is itself 
 immodesty, since she is not restrained even by the 
 threat of violation, and that delivered in language 
 which would have cooled the ardour of a less infatu- 
 ated woman. She seems, in fact, to be suffering from 
 an access of nymphomania which excites the disgust 
 of Demetrius. Demetrius might have been less cross 
 without any detriment to his character. Afterwards 
 Lysander acts much the same part, only his language 
 is far less gross and abusive ; he applies to Hermia all 
 the offensive epithets which could with respectful 
 decency be applied to a woman. True he was alienated 
 from her by magic, but magic could not supply him 
 with a vocabulary unknown to his memory. He used 
 * only the terms which he would at any time have 
 \^ applied to a woman he disliked. 
 
 In * Twelfth Night ' the Duke in his first speech 
 addresses Love in verses full of meaning : 
 
 spirit of love ! how quick and fresh art thou, 
 That, notwithstanding thy capacity 
 Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there. 
 Of what validity and pitch soe'er, 
 But falls into abatement and low price, 
 Even in a minute. 
 
 This Duke is one of Shakespeare's most maundering 
 characters, totally deficient in logic, but rich in fancy, 
 with which he plays as a child does with a rattle. 
 He may be supposed to have a meaning in what he 
 says, but, if so, he expresses it so mystically that it is 
 highly difficult to discover what it is. He is as far 
 to seek in guessing his own meaning as in judging of 
 Olivia, whom he supposes to be refined and spiritual, 
 
LOVE 161 
 
 whereas she is in a remarkable degree gross and 
 material. Her contempt for him is based on the false 
 estimate which she knows he has formed of her. Had 
 he wooed her like a sensible gallant she would have 
 capitulated at once. 
 
 It is true that love is often conceived at first sight, 
 and Viola may be supposed to have loved the Duke as 
 soon as she saw him; his person may have pleased 
 her, though his sentiments and language belong to a 
 man effeminate and silly, not knowing his own mind, 
 or even his own meaning when he talks. As Proteus 
 employs Julia disguised as a youth to make love to 
 Silvia, so this silly Duke employs Viola as his repre- 
 sentative to Olivia. It is a pity that the structure of 
 the play renders this fooling necessary, for nothing 
 can be more absurd. 
 
 Shakespeare was unmindful of nature when he had 
 recourse to such a device. Viola must be supposed 
 to be small, for the Duke, addressing her as Cesario, 
 calls her a lad, and says that everything was womanly 
 in her appearance. Yet the circumstances of the play 
 are scarcely reconcilable with this view, since she is 
 confounded with her brother, who must either be a 
 diminutive man and extremely effeminate in appearance, 
 or she must be a tall, masculine woman, and so not 
 answer the description of the Duke. While suggesting, 
 therefore, the delicacy of her aspect, Shakespeare dis- 
 parages her brother. That which rather favours the 
 idea of her masculine figure is that she is challenged 
 to fight a duel, which could not be if she was like a 
 lad, for men do not fight with boys. 
 
 When Olivia asks Viola how the Duke loves her, 
 she replies, with tears, groans, and sighs, which were 
 not what Olivia wanted. The simulated manhood and 
 
162 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 contempt of Viola awakened her desires, and so would 
 the Duke had he understood her character. 
 
 Viola is to be supposed to understand herself at 
 least, and to be able to give a shrewd guess at the 
 feelings of other women. What these really are 
 I pretend not to set down here, but this is what 
 Shakespeare thought : 
 
 How easy is it for the proper-false 
 In women's waxen hearts to set their forms ! 
 Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we ! 
 For such as we are made of, such we be. 
 
 Women are frail enough, but with all their frailty 
 they are clever enough to deceive and overreach men. 
 In truth, therefore, the more we disparage women the 
 sillier we make ourselves appear, just as soldiers do 
 when they say their enemies are weak and cowardly, 
 which takes away the merit of conquering them ; even 
 the worst men take no credit to themselves for seducing 
 a prostitute. 
 
 The Duke in his melancholy moralising way utters 
 many truths, which, being addressed to a supposed 
 youth, hit nevertheless the passion of Viola. He 
 thinks she has loved, which she confesses, and says it 
 was a person about his age ; on which he exclaims 
 * Too old, by heaven ! ' Shakespeare then appears to 
 speak from his own experience : he had matched with 
 a woman eight years older than himself, and, if what 
 is here said may be regarded as a confession, soon 
 repented of his choice : 
 
 Let still the woman take 
 An elder than herself : so wears she to him, 
 So sways she level in her husband's heart : 
 For, boy, however we do praise ourselves. 
 Our fancies are more giddy and imfirm, 
 
LOVE 163 
 
 More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn, 
 
 Than women's are 
 
 Then let thy love be younger than thyself, 
 Or thy affection cannot hold the bent ; 
 For women are as roses, whose fair flower 
 Being once display'd, doth fall that very hour. 
 
 When the Duke dispraises men and praises women 
 he is in one fit, out of which he jumps into another 
 and says that women cannot feel so strong a passion 
 as men, and goes on thus : 
 
 They lack retention. 
 Alas, their love may be call'd appetite — 
 
 which does not even rise to the level of passion. This 
 idea is as absurd as the other, to which it is meant to 
 be a parallel. 
 
 Viola suggests even in her male habit that she 
 loves the Duke, who naturally misunderstands her. 
 She then feigns the story of a sister, 
 
 She never told her love, etc. 
 
 After which she tells the Duke that women vow 
 less, but love more than men. 
 
 Eosalind loves Orlando for his strength in wrest- 
 ling. Celia says if he keeps his promises in love as he 
 had exceeded them in wrestling, his mistress would be 
 happy. Eosalind thinks so too, and calls him her 
 child's father. The love throughout this play is 
 peculiarly material, more so perhaps than in any other. 
 Eosalind is thoroughly wanton, and yet chaste, though 
 she scarcely knows how to keep her desires within 
 bounds. Her disguise enables her to enjoy kissing 
 and toying without stint, and she gives full rein to her 
 inclinations. 
 
 h2 
 
164 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Though the play is one of the most interesting in 
 Shakespeare, it is one of the least modest, for every 
 woman speak^ out in the plainest language what she 
 thinks, and Kosalind has accustomed the clown to use 
 with her such unmeasured language that he is not to 
 be restrained within the bounds of decency. Here 
 Adonis should have been called in, and made to teach 
 the poet the difference between love and gross passion, 
 which is lost sight of throughout the play. 
 
 I 
 
ESSAY X 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEAEE : RELIGION — FATE 
 
 Though Shakespeare be a philosophical poet, it is 
 difficult to bring together such of his ideas and opinions 
 as belong to philosophy, or indeed to ascertain what 
 his philosophy is. One thing is clear enough — namely, 
 that it is unsystematic — which is not so much owing 
 to any obstacles presented by the nature of dramatic 
 composition as to the character of his mind, impatient 
 of all shackles, but, above all perhaps, of the shackles 
 of system. That there exists a deep basis of thought 
 extending beneath the vast and varied surface of his 
 writings, invisible generally, but in some parts rising, 
 as it were, and exposing itself to view, is what no one 
 will probably doubt ; but I by no means entertain the 
 belief that I have discovered all the elements of which 
 that basis consists, or even that they are discoverable 
 by any amount of investigation. Strictly speaking, 
 there exists and can exist but one science — the science 
 of nature — though for convenience we apply the term 
 to many distinct and often very small sections of this 
 all-grasping science, which must still in Shakespeare be 
 regarded as one, for poetry, like the sun's light, considers 
 itself privileged to flash at will round the whole of this 
 pendent globe, to illuminate and reveal by its brilliancy 
 everything it contains — good or beautiful. 
 
166 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Lucretius undertakes to write of all nature, both 
 material and intellectual, and throws his glance with 
 equal fearlessness over gods and men. Shakespeare, 
 without professing to do so, yet does the same, though 
 in a different way and perhaps in a different spirit, for 
 so far as I can discern he is never impious nor pre- 
 sumptuous enough to judge dogmatically of what lies 
 beyond the reach of his understanding. He has indeed 
 been accused of atheism by a writer who derives his 
 arguments rather from what he does not find in the 
 plays than from what he does. Had Shakespeare put 
 forward any theory on this subject, it would probably 
 have been that there is and can be no science of the 
 unknown or theology, since all who have a due sense 
 of our ignorance reverently abstain from professing 
 any farther knowledge of God than that He exists. 
 We may and do say * God is Love,' but make by this 
 no advance towards comprehending the divine nature, 
 since we know as little what love thus contemplated is 
 as what God is. Yet it is by its participation in this 
 unsearchable principle that Shakespeare's intellect is 
 chiefly distinguished ; he loves everything, from the 
 inconceivable Author of his own being to the wild 
 flower on the waste, the pebbly beds of streams, nay 
 the very bog-fires that sport with the traveller by 
 night. For the individuals of his own species, he has 
 an inextinguishable tenderness, which, gushing forth 
 everywhere in his works, constitutes their resistless 
 charm. One of the Hebrew writers, attributing his 
 own kindly nature to the Deity, says *Whom he 
 loveth, them he chasteneth ' ; and all pre-eminently 
 great minds are often betrayed into the expression of 
 anger against their species, by the weakness and ignor- 
 ance through which it brings so much misery on itself. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 167 
 
 Yet our ignorance of many things is no reproach to 
 us, our minds being by their nature incapable of com- 
 prehending what existence, for example, is, what sub- 
 stance, what intellect, or how two beings can exist at 
 the same time in one place, which is yet an indis- 
 putable truth, since wherever matter is, God is. The 
 highest conception of the human mind appears to be, 
 that God is a universal conscious intelligence, conse- 
 quently that He is more profoundly conscious of our 
 thoughts than we are ourselves. They spring indeed, 
 so to speak, through His being into ours, and, though 
 eternal in their essence, become phenomenal and 
 fleeting in their forms by passing through our in- 
 tellects. Shakespeare's mind was thickly peopled with 
 these and such-like ideas ; sometimes circumfused with 
 doubt, sometimes flashing forth with innate splendour, 
 as if fresh from the fountain of truth. He had im- 
 bibed, no one knows how or where, strange opinions 
 respecting the visible universe, which had been put 
 forward long before his time by some Eastern philo- 
 sophers, and which, travelling with the sun, had taken 
 up their residence in the mind of Paul of Tarsus; 
 namely, that matter itself, together with everything' 
 finite, possesses but a show of being, and will ultimately 
 be absorbed and lost in the Divine Nature, that God 
 may be all in all : 
 
 The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
 Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve 
 And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,^ 
 Leave not a rack behind. 
 
 * This line occurs before the beginning of the passage, but for the 
 sake of completeness I have introduced it here, instead of another, 
 which every reader of Shakespeare will remember. 
 
168 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 As concerns the inheritors of this globe, Shake- 
 speare's Protean philosophy presents itself under so 
 many varying forms that we know not to which we 
 ought to attribute stability, or if to any. Now, the 
 soul is immortal : 
 
 Such harmony is in immortal souls ; 
 
 and now it springs to light out of sleep, glitters on the 
 vast plain of existence for a while, and then is lost 
 again in the sleep out of which it emerged : 
 
 We are such stuff 
 As dreams are made on, and our little life 
 Is rounded with a sleep. 
 
 No mind is, perhaps, unvisited by such misgivings, 
 which in some are only so many April clouds that 
 melt and dissolve into brightness as the intellect pours 
 its warmth and light upon them, while in others they 
 seem to thicken as time moves on : 
 
 To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
 Creeps in this petty pace from day to day 
 To the last syllable of recorded time, 
 And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
 The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle ! 
 Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player 
 That struts and frets his hour upon the stage 
 And then is heard no more : it is a tale 
 Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. 
 Signifying nothing. 
 
 Our conceptions of life depend necessarily on the 
 amount of our intellect ; the small-minded and super- 
 ficial content themselves with those common notions 
 which, with the stamp of orthodoxy upon them, pass 
 current in the everyday world, while they who own 
 depths of thought which plummet never sounded 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 169 
 
 form for themselves theories approximating perhaps 
 to the truth. Whence we obtain our idiosyncrasies, 
 our souls' features, our characters, is as little known as 
 whence we derive our colour, symmetry, and stature. 
 Principles appear to run down, like hues of light, from 
 generation to generation in certain families and tribes, 
 perhaps more or less in all, and these constituting an 
 influence favourable to the reception of certain opinions 
 and beliefs, have often been confounded with ideas 
 supposed therefore to be innate. Philosophy is no 
 stranger to the opinion that human souls are eternal 
 a parte ante, as well as a parte post, and bear there- 
 fore along with them, from generation to generation, 
 traces of the experience they have accumulated during 
 their previous stages of being. The more boldly we 
 penetrate into the recesses of our own minds, the more 
 indications we appear to discover that we are inti- 
 mately connected with a past consciousness, which, 
 however, becomes indistinct or vanishes as the clear 
 light of the understanding is brought to bear upon it. 
 If consciousness be inherent in our material nature, 
 we might impart to the above theory some show of 
 probability by maintaining that, the vehicle of con- 
 sciousness being made up of a certain number of 
 particles, some portion of the thing conveyed must 
 belong to each, and therefore, come whence they may, 
 they must carry along with them for ever traces of all 
 the modifications of consciousness with which they 
 are successively brought into contact. In this fanciful 
 way, some philosophers have endeavoured to account 
 for various phenomena observable among mankind : 
 thus some races are incurably superstitious, others 
 are prolific in ideas of beauty, others are distinguished 
 for their powers of dry reasoning, others for courage 
 
170 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 and unflinching cruelty, and these qualities of race are 
 believed by many never to lose their force till they are 
 neutralised by mixture with other races. 
 
 When research shall teach us what the soul is, 
 we may be able to explain why no two souls are 
 alike: why Hamlet differs from Othello, and Eomeo 
 from both; why Kichard is a human wolf, Macbeth 
 a logical tiger, and lago an incarnation of jocund 
 fiendishness. 
 
 We find in Shakespeare results of investigation, 
 though the process be nowhere carried on in our 
 presence. As we stand amid the ocean of life, which 
 in his plays surges about us, we perceive nearly all 
 the phases of being with which the actual world 
 makes us acquainted in the course of tedious years. 
 Life begins and ends in our sight ; we behold the 
 images of the visible universe rushing in upon the 
 soul, taking shape there, and then issuing forth 
 arrayed in all the beauty with which matter can 
 be clothed. Here guilt runs along in dark currents, 
 to be swallowed up and lost in the formless ruins 
 of oblivion ; there goodness, like a beneficent flood, 
 reflects all the beauty of the noontide hour; while 
 at times we are admitted into the pavilion of 
 sleep, and witness all the shows and changes which 
 it unfolds before the imagination. Shakespeare's 
 philosophy, it may be said, assumes as we consider 
 it an extremely fanciful character, now basing its 
 conclusions on the most airy subtleties, on careless 
 speculations, or inferences drawn from unstable phe- 
 nomena; but to think thus would be to do him 
 injustice. He embodies his philosophy chiefly in 
 action, or in those natural reflections by which the 
 pauses in the surge of action are necessarily separated. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 171 
 
 It is indeed uncertain, as I have elsewhere shown, 
 what opinions he put forward as his own and what 
 as those which he desired to decry and overthrow. 
 Like Plato, he is often at a loss what to think on the 
 subject of justice, or affects to be at a loss in order 
 that he may provide himself with an occasion to 
 extirpate some opinion which he observed to be in 
 vogue. On the subject of continence and incontinence 
 the world has always professed one opinion and held 
 to another, putting on the show of severity in the 
 hope of concealing the laxity of its conduct. Shake- 
 speare has doubts whether society possesses the right 
 to interfere at all in this matter, and, having made 
 in *Lear' an allusion to its cruelty, undertakes in 
 ' Measure for Measure ' to exhibit it in all its 
 hideousness. The design of this play may no doubt 
 be regarded from different points of view, and as 
 it is considered in this or that light be thought 
 to point at this or that conclusion. Many problems 
 are attempted to be solved in it, though the most 
 important, if not the most prominent, be the nature 
 of justice as it is contemplated, and has nearly 
 always been contemplated, in the fluctuating forms 
 of civil polity successively prevalent among man- 
 kind. No matter how, when, or with whom the 
 story originated, the play opens with an exhibition 
 of the alliance of authority with injustice which 
 has few parallels in the authentic history of our 
 species. The reader no doubt remembers it well : 
 Claudio, the passive hero of the drama, having 
 anticipated the rights of marriage with his affianced 
 bride, is, for that assumed offence, condemned to 
 death ; the spectator has no time, though the reader 
 has, to consider how irreconcilable with probability 
 
172 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 SO insolent a trampling on the laws of justice is 
 in a Christian country and in modern times. Shake- 
 speare saw the greatest among his contemporaries 
 condemned to death for listening to a fool, and, not 
 being able to make use in his play of that political 
 incident, chose in its stead another, no less monstrous. 
 Kaleigh, in the hope of mitigating the King's ferocity, 
 admits the injustice of his sentence to be just, an 
 act of weakness which Claudio in part imitates, 
 though he soon discovers the folly of his admission 
 and timidly hints at the truth. 
 
 Lucio. Why, how now, Claudio 1 Whence comes this restraint ? 
 
 Claud. From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty : 
 As surfeit is the father of much fast. 
 So every scope by the immoderate use 
 Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue, 
 Like rats that ravin down their proper bane, 
 A thirsty evil ; and when we drink we die. 
 
 The new deputy now for the duke — 
 Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness. 
 Or whether that the body public be 
 A horse whereon the governor doth ride. 
 Who, newly in the seat, that it may know 
 He can command, lets it straight feel the spur ; 
 Whether the tyranny be in his place, 
 Or in his eminence that fills it up, 
 I stagger in : — but this new governor 
 Awakes me all the enrolled penalties 
 Which have, like unscour'd armour, hung by the wall 
 So long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round 
 And none of them been worn ; and, for a name, 
 Now puts the drowsy and neglected act 
 Freslily on me : 'tis surely for a name. 
 
 While * Measure for Measure' was taking shape 
 in Shakespeare's mind, alive to all the influences 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 173 
 
 of the time, authority was making preparations for 
 perpetrating one of the greatest acts of injustice which 
 have left their stain on EngHsh history. How near 
 the real circumstances the poet might have ventured 
 to approach we are unable to decide ; perhaps he 
 spoke out as plainly as regard for his own head would 
 permit, for certainly the EngHsh people of 1604 must 
 have been strangely blunt in their understandings if 
 they did not perceive that Kaleigh was Claudio, and 
 that by the sanguinary Lord Deputy no other than 
 Kobert Cecil could be meant. From the days of 
 Pontius Pilate downwards, in every channel through 
 which supreme power had forced its way, justice had 
 had so little to do with the relations between the 
 governors and the governed that Shakespeare thought 
 no fiction too extravagant to indicate the actual state 
 of things. Every honest heart in England was throb- 
 bing with apprehension for the fate of Claudio; the 
 hunch-back Angelo, as he passed to and fro between 
 Windsor and Whitehall, inspired in all who beheld 
 him a mixed feeling of aversion and terror, and when 
 EUzabeth Throgmorton and Mary Sidney had played 
 unsuccessfully the part of Isabella, the Metropolis 
 looked daily for the erection of that scaffold in Palace 
 Yard which a few years later was polluted with the 
 victim's innocent blood. 
 
 I have said that several problems are attempted to 
 be solved in this play ; but more than once the poet's 
 philosophy breaks down, proves unequal to the task 
 it has undertaken, and leaves the subject involved, 
 if possible, in thicker darkness than before. Shake- 
 speare was least of all men quaHfied to disparage the 
 value of life, with whose endless sources of joy and 
 happiness his mind had famiharised itself. Doubtless 
 
174 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 it is easier to draw startling pictures of calamity and 
 suffering, to suggest ideas of sublimity by arraying 
 the destructive forces of nature against man, than to 
 evolve out of circumstances a brilliant conception of 
 human happiness. But v^hen many topics lie before 
 him, Shakespeare is seldom inclined to select the 
 easiest ; he has not done so in this instance, but under- 
 takes by an aggregate of rhetoric, argument, and 
 sophistry to convince a man in youth and health, 
 loving and being beloved, with most of fortune's 
 highest gifts at his command, that it is really better 
 to turn his back on all these things and become, as 
 he expresses it, a kneaded clod, than to revel in the 
 enjoyment of Nature's bounty, rendered doubly 
 brilliant by hope and invested with stability by virtue. 
 The speaker in this case is immediately felt not to be 
 in earnest, but only to be spinning sophisms to display 
 his ingenuity. In Hamlet it is otherwise. His dis- 
 content is genuine, his morbid constitution, both of 
 mind and body, inclines him to look upon the wrong 
 side of things, to regard this brave o'erhanging firma- 
 ment fretted with golden fires as a mere pestilent 
 congregation of vapours, to be delighted neither with 
 man nor woman, to envy in theory the Hindoo yoghi 
 who burnt himself alive before the Hellenic conqueror 
 while he is withheld from following his example by 
 fear of the evils he may have to cope with when he 
 shall have shuffled off this mortal coil. Here there is 
 no shamming, no heaping of words together for effect, 
 no shallow playing with figures of speech ; it is con- 
 stitutional gloom allied closely with weakness and 
 effeminacy that speaks, while to strike one fatal blow 
 is less within the compass of possibility than to heap 
 Pelion upon Ossa. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 175 
 
 tMan's apprehensions, however, of punishments 
 after death are rather proportioned to his constitu- 
 tional timidity than to the transgressions of which he 
 may have been guilty. Hamlet's course of life had, so 
 far as we know, been marked by few deviations from 
 the path of rectitude ; Claudio's by still fewer ; so that 
 had Eacus been the judge, he would at worst have 
 been sentenced to accompany Thersites and other 
 moderate offenders in Hades. /Yet the agonies con- 
 jured up in his imagination by the prospect of 
 immediate death have no recorded parallel : 
 
 Ay, but to die, and go we know not where ; 
 
 To lie in cold obstruction and to rot ; 
 
 This sensible warm motion to become 
 
 A kneaded clod ; and the delighted spirit 
 
 To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside 
 
 In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice ; 
 
 To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, 
 
 And blown with restless violence round about 
 
 The pendent world ; or to be worse than worst 
 
 Of those that lawless and incertain thought 
 
 Imagine howling : 'tis too horrible ! 
 
 The weariest and most loathed worldly life 
 
 That age, ache, penury and imprisonment 
 
 Can lay on nature is a paradise 
 
 To what we fear of death. 
 
 In Hamlet the doctrine of Purgatory is substituted 
 for that of Hell, to which however Shakespeare often 
 alludes satirically as ' the everlasting bonfire.' If what 
 is supposed to take place in our globe be thought to 
 take place likewise in every other, we behold when we 
 look forth into the firmament by night nothing but an 
 infinite multitude of shining hells, where the souls 
 peculiar to each star or planet are shut up in some 
 cavern near its centre to be burned and otherwise 
 
176 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 tortured to all eternity. To believe this is to have 
 formed a hideous theory of the creation of God, which 
 as far as our intellects will carry us is invariably dis- 
 covered to be instinct with goodness and happiness. 
 The exceptions we seem to perceive, while sufficient 
 to perplex our understandings, may all be completely 
 reconcilable with the vast plan of the universe which 
 we must suppose to exist in the mind of God. Our 
 most philosophical and practical conceptions, viewed 
 in contrast with the beauty and sublimity of the 
 universe, are only so many pretty fancies gliding like 
 bog-fires over the infinite abyss of existence. 
 
 Sickly fancies like these, no less prevalent in 
 ancient than in modern times, awoke the scorn of 
 Lucretius, who exclaims 
 
 What has this bugbear death to frighten man, 
 If souls can die as well as bodies can ? 
 
 But his contemporaries were as little soothed by 
 his fierce declamation as was Claudio's mind by the 
 sophistical rant of the ducal friar, which occasionally 
 becomes comic through its extravagance. Through 
 the whole mental element of Shakespeare's age the 
 doctrine had penetrated, that guilt contracted by one 
 person may be justly expiated by the sufferings of 
 another, which rendered the task of the confessor in 
 dealing with the fear of death all but impracticable. 
 To plead innocence or even virtue proves of no avail ; 
 someone else has perpetrated crime, and fate deter- 
 mines that we are therefore to be subjected to punish- 
 ment. In this tenet originated the mental tortures 
 of Claudio, countenanced by the theology of the seven- 
 teenth century and linked inextricably with the belief 
 in fate. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 177 
 
 However great or clear may have been his intellect, 
 Shakespeare found all his logic at fault when the 
 course of his reasoning brought him face to face with 
 this dark problem. No metaphysical spectre conjured 
 forth from the depths of speculation has ever haunted 
 the human mind like this. Everything in nature 
 appears to be appointed, regulated, fixed, by laws 
 coeval and co-extensive with nature ; but man's mind 
 claims exemption from allegiance to the power that 
 governs everything else. The divine influence stops 
 and ceases to act when it approaches this hallowed 
 circle, in which a power distinct from that of God 
 reigns paramount, rejecting all idea of control, but 
 recognising, in consequence of its absolute freedom, the 
 existence of its responsibility. In considering this 
 question we can only defend ourselves against the 
 force of destiny by insisting on a liberty as complete 
 as I have just described. Nothing must determine our 
 will but the will itself ; no influence, good or evil, must 
 reach the soul from without ; it must be free to act, 
 to think, to reason, to judge, and must Hkewise be able 
 to comprehend the nature and quality of all actions 
 before it acts, to estimate all motives, to search into 
 the hidden springs of all beings by which it is sur- 
 rounded, that it may neither be betrayed into evil 
 by perversity nor into error by ignorance. Is this 
 state of things within us reconcilable with our intel- 
 lectual experience? Can any man claim for himself 
 so absolute a dominion over his own internal forces ? 
 
 Throughout Shakespeare's works, or nearly through- 
 out, we detect traces of a faith in the subjugation of 
 the human mind by that unknown something which 
 the Greeks denominated Moira or Pepromene, and 
 believed to be superior even to Zeus himself. 
 
 N 
 
178 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 To show how congenial this belief is to the human 
 mind, we need only remember that it constituted the 
 pivot on which speculation turned, as well in Ancient 
 India as in Egypt, where Brahm and Phtha, con- 
 stituting the basis of being, determined the nature 
 of all forms of existence emanating from them. In 
 modern language the word Divinity has by a gentle 
 euphemism been substituted for Destiny : 
 
 There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Rongh-hew them how we will. 
 
 Here the direction of human action is taken out 
 of the hands of men by an overruling power, which 
 must, at the same time, take upon itself the responsi- 
 bility, as well as the irresistible influence. But this 
 sort of pious impiety springs obviously in Shakespeare 
 from a reverential feeling and earnest solicitude to 
 avoid even the appearance of withdrawing in theory 
 human nature from subjection to God. Still, strictly 
 interpreted, it is as complete a profession of fatalism 
 as that of Hobbes, who declares unscrupulously that 
 if the thief be destined to steal, the executioner is 
 destined to hang him. 
 
 Hobbes may have been sincere in his sophistical 
 reasoning, but Shakespeare, if pressed on the subject, 
 will not, though he also may be sincere, hold to the 
 conclusions suggested by his premises, and maintain 
 that man is an irresponsible creature; he will rather 
 fall back on the doctrine of original sin, or any other 
 contradiction, than teach that man is not answerable 
 for his conduct and suffers chastisement when he has 
 done amiss, even in this world : 
 
 We still have judgment here ; that we but teach 
 Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return 
 To plague the inventor. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 179 
 
 No act of wickedness or folly, or even of impru- 
 dence, escapes in Shakespeare punishment of some 
 kind, often, however, wholly disproportioned to the 
 offence ; for Juliet and Eomeo encounter the same fate 
 as Macbeth, lago, and Kichard : I mean as far as 
 their bodies are concerned ; for these criminals, whom 
 antiquity would have classed with Tityus, Sisyphus, 
 and Tantalus, are thrust forth from life in remorse and 
 agony, while death closes the eyes of the lovers in a 
 paroxysm of rapture. 
 
 If we embody fate in the shape of death, it 
 obviously comes to all, though its form and significance 
 vary with everyone that dies, because the life that it 
 closes has inevitably varied. Almost every prevalent 
 belief in the seventeenth century implied more or less 
 distinctly the subjection of man to invincible necessity. 
 If some great criminal who would have derived 
 pleasure from repeating the banquet of Thyestes was 
 to be visited by Nemesis, a bright and menacing star 
 issued from the depths of space to give intimation to 
 * the world's poor people ' that the act of justice was at 
 hand. Again, the raging of pestilences, the occurrence 
 of seditions, the breaking forth of terrible wars, the 
 existence of unnatural enmities between brother and 
 brother, or between father and son, were sure to be 
 preceded by portents and prodigies in the heavens. 
 
 Gloucester. These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no 
 good to us : though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and 
 thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects : love 
 cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide : in cities, mutinies ; in 
 countries, discord ; in palaces, treason ; and the bond cracked 
 'twixt son and father. 
 
 Long before he wrote this passage Shakespeare had 
 given expression to the pity, closely akin to scorn, 
 
180 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 with which he beheld the grovelling superstition of his 
 
 time: 
 
 Look, how the world's poor people are amazed 
 At apparitions, signs and prodigies, 
 "Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gazed, 
 Infusing them with dreadful prophecies. 
 
 Later in life, when his philosophy had gained more 
 consistency, and his contempt become more robust, he 
 ventured on a plainer style of speaking, though he still 
 considered it politic to put forth his opinion through a 
 character whose teaching he might disclaim : 
 
 This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are 
 sick in fortune, — often the surfeit of our own behaviour, — we make 
 guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars : as if we 
 were villains by necessity ; fools by heavenly compulsion ; knaves, 
 thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance ; drunkards, 
 liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary in- 
 fluence ; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. 
 
 Shakespeare clearly means us to accept this as 
 implying a refutation of all he may ever have said in 
 favour of fatality. The speaker, conscious that he 
 must take the responsibility of his deeds, so that he 
 can triumph on * this bank and shoal of time,' resolves, 
 hke Macbeth, to jump the life to come. The course 
 of action he has traced out for himself appears so 
 brilliant, as seen through the eyes of ambition, that 
 he burns to obliterate from his mind all distinction 
 between good and evil, though he scoffs at the popular 
 persuasion that man is what he is by a divine 
 thrusting on. * Tut ! ' he exclaims scornfully, * I should 
 have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the 
 firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.' 
 
 Euripides intimates by the lips of Jocasta his 
 (Jissent from the form which belief in fate had assumed 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 181 
 
 among the tragic poets his predecessors. He had 
 probably discussed this question with Socrates, who is 
 thought to have aided him in the composition of his 
 plays, and if so his influence may be surely supposed to 
 have chiefly exerted itself in giving a loftier character 
 to his philosophy. In his scheme of thought, Pepro- 
 mene holds back her iron hand, till man invites her 
 to begin the process which Shakespeare denominates 
 a divine thrusting on. 
 
 Laius consulting the oracle at Delphi respecting 
 his childless state is warned by the god not to desire 
 children, since, if he should have a son, that son would 
 be his murderer. Having set the oracle at nought, 
 a son is born to him, and all the crimes and sorrows 
 of the house of Labdacus ensue. Here man is made 
 the arbiter of his own destiny ; the turning-point in 
 the stream of events is placed before him ; everything 
 is left to depend on an act of his will ; he may be 
 happy with one drawback ; but, if not content to abide 
 by the award of heaven, the consequences of his self- 
 indulgence will be strictly visited on him and his 
 offspring. 
 
 Some faint shadow of the same theory is discover- 
 able in Shakespeare, where, as in Euripides, the 
 doctrine is put forward by a woman. Her language, 
 however, is not a little enigmatical : 
 
 Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, 
 Which we ascribe to heaven : the fated sky- 
 Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull 
 Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull. 
 
182 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ESSAY XI 
 
 PHILOSOPHY : CHARACTER — PHYSICAL SCIENCE — 
 SLEEP AND DREAMS 
 
 Though Shakespeare, however, like Euripides, may 
 suggest a seeming solution of the great problem, he 
 cannot escape from the subtle entanglements of 
 Pepromene. In his plays, as in the world, men act in 
 obedience to the promptings of their inclinations, their 
 dispositions, their characters, and the decisions of their 
 intellect. But a man's disposition, for example, is not 
 of his own making. It is transmitted to him, partly 
 through the same process as his life, partly through 
 the air he breathes, the climate he inhabits, the water 
 he drinks, the food he eats, and the human beings by 
 whom his opening mind is enlightened or obscured. 
 The mingling of the elements in us, which the Greeks 
 expressed by the word ' crasis,' can obviously in no way 
 be influenced by our own will, and yet out of this 
 spring our passions, our desires, our particular hopes 
 and fears, and that modification of our nature which 
 I have spoken of above as our disposition. Shake- 
 speare when considering these things, sometimes by 
 themselves, sometimes in connexion with the physical 
 laws of external nature, is so deeply perplexed that he 
 falls into a wilderness of paradoxes, if not of contra- 
 dictions. Hamlet is the exponent of one class of his 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 183 
 
 speculations : lago, Edmund, Eichard, Macbeth, inter- 
 pret other parts of his philosophy ; while the Duke in 
 * Measure for Measure,' and the friar in ' Komeo and 
 Juliet,' give expression to thoughts or fancies which 
 would hardly have suited the utterance of speakers so 
 iniquitous and turbulent. Kaleigh and Bacon, with 
 many of their contemporaries, looked with a kind of 
 mystical awe on the surface of our planet, in which 
 they rightly judged effects and resources lie concealed 
 which may exercise and perhaps elude the sagacity of 
 
 man 
 
 To the last syllable of recorded time. 
 
 Shakespeare's friar is a devout adept in this depart- 
 ment of philosophy. We make his acquaintance under 
 pleasant auspices. He is faring forth from his cell, 
 basket in hand, at the earliest break of dawn to cull 
 herbs and flowers while all their virtues were supposed 
 to be enhanced by being steeped in dew : 
 
 The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night, 
 Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light, 
 And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels 
 From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels. 
 
 The fresh morning air seems to breathe about us as 
 we read, and the speaker is thenceforward invested 
 with our sympathies for ever ; we feel that he is to 
 play an important part in the strange drama, by the 
 influence of which he is absorbed. He talks as if he 
 held himself aloof from secular pursuits and passionate 
 interests, but is immediately swept into the current, 
 and borne along by it irresistibly, till it is swallowed 
 up by death. Meanwhile almost every word he utters is 
 suggestive of strange positions and conclusions, many 
 of them of high import in Shakespeare's philosophy. 
 
184 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Let us listen to his own poetical exegesis of his 
 system, many parts of which challenge objection, 
 though at every step awakening thought : 
 
 Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye, 
 
 The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry, 
 
 I must up-fiU this osier cage of ours 
 
 With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers. 
 
 The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb ; 
 
 "What is her burying grave that is her womb, 
 
 And from her womb children of divers kind 
 
 We sucking on her natural bosom find, 
 
 Many for many virtues excellent, 
 
 None but for some and yet all different. 
 
 O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies 
 
 In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities : 
 
 For nought so vile that on the earth doth live 
 
 But to the earth some special good doth give, 
 
 Nor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use 
 
 Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse : 
 
 Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied ; 
 
 And vice sometimes by action dignified. 
 
 Within the infant rind of this small flower 
 
 Poison hath residence and medicine power : 
 
 For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part ; 
 
 Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. 
 
 Two such opposed kings encamp them still 
 
 In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will ; 
 
 And where the worser is predominant, 
 
 Full soon the canker death eats up that plant. 
 
 In the early mythology of Hellas the earth, 
 identified with nature and impregnated by the divine 
 intellect, is represented as the mother of all things. 
 Her image in the Ephesian temple was that of a 
 woman with numerous breasts, which suggested to 
 Shakespeare his beautiful description of the universal 
 mother. He understood the mythology, however, in 
 a too restricted sense, since even assuming the earth 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 185 
 
 to be synonymous with nature, chaos was the womb 
 out of which it sprang, as Milton expresses it : 
 
 The womb of Nature 
 -And perhaps her grave. 
 
 From this idea has sprung the modern theory of 
 evolution, which owes its reception to the restlessness 
 of the human mind, greedy of novelty, in form if not 
 in substance, and always ready to sacrifice truth to 
 vanity. But if God be essentially a creative being, 
 and by His nature perfect. He must obviously be un- 
 changeable, since the contrary condition of existence 
 implies a being imperfect in itself but perpetually 
 aiming at perfection.^ Man is never content with his 
 actual state, and reasoning from himself to everything 
 else, he is incapable of conceiving perfect contentment, 
 unchangeableness, and eternal repose. To be weak is 
 to be restless, and craving for that excitement which 
 change gives ; power is concentrated, undisturbed, 
 uniform in action, exactly in proportion to its magni- 
 tude, and therefore we can conceive of supreme power 
 as throwing forth from itself whatever exists in the 
 state in which it is to exist for ever. We cannot 
 conceive of the Deity as engaged in making perpetual 
 experiments in order to discover ultimately what in 
 all cases may be best. Shakespeare, however, here, 
 
 • The author of these Essays evidently did not accept the theories 
 of Darwin with regard to evolution, nor those of Mr. Alfred Wallace on 
 natural selection. It requires a thoroughly scientific mind to appreciate 
 the arguments which trace us back to our true ancestor, the jellyfish. 
 Our pride even makes us hesitate to accept the orang-utangs as our 
 forefathers, though after studying their habits for many years whilst in 
 modified captivity they did appear to us to have something very human 
 about them. It is, on the other hand, more difficult to believe that man 
 appeared on the earth fully equipped, as Pallas from the head of Jove. 
 
186 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 as in ' The Tempest,' suggests the doctrine that nature 
 is endued with a mere fleeting phenomenal existence, 
 tending neither to better nor worse, but absolute 
 extinction. 
 
 It does not, indeed, necessarily follow that the 
 friar's notions are to be taken for Shakespeare's, which 
 they may or may not be. Still, many of them at least 
 recur so frequently in the plays that they certainly 
 appear to be the natural products of his mind. The 
 things which we find sucking, according to Laurence, 
 the natural bosom of the earth are at the same time 
 supposed to give to the earth some special good : which 
 implies no slight confusion of ideas, since, as every- 
 thing comes out of the earth, it can obviously give 
 nothing to the earth. Animals, plants, and stones 
 may be indeed employed as so many alembics to 
 inhale and distil certain fluids or juices, which, being 
 infused into barren soil, may render them fertile, or, 
 considered in reference to man, may produce on his 
 frame baneful or beneficial effects. 
 
 This double edge discoverable in terrestrial things 
 suggests to the friar a notion analogous to what he 
 finds in his theology. He has picked up a flower, and 
 is gazing on it. His philosophising habit comes upon 
 him ; he is perplexed with the dissimilarity of its 
 qualities : it contains poison, and it contains balm ; 
 its odour refreshes and invigorates the sense, its taste 
 is death. What then ? Are we to stop here ? No ! 
 He goes on to maintain that, as in herbs, so in man, 
 there exist two hostile principles, which, in the quaint 
 language of the time, he calls grace and rude will, and 
 closes his soliloquy by saying that where the latte;c is 
 predominant 
 
 Full soon the canker death eats up that plant. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 187 
 
 Here, then, is the philosophy of * Komeo and JuHet.' 
 Love, no matter how divine its origin, exists in various 
 forms, and may be alHed with various principles, with 
 the sweet, calm, soothing, gentle influence of innocent 
 preference, or with fiery tempestuous passion which 
 sweeps everything before it, and exerts supreme power 
 over the soul or perishes. Some German critics con- 
 template the love portrayed in ' Eomeo and Juliet ' as 
 a moral delinquency and justify the catastrophe, instead 
 of calling in the aid of misfortune, or referring to the 
 suggestion that 
 
 Time and chance happen to us all. 
 
 Philosophy is so calm, sweet, and unassuming that, 
 like a child in its mother's arms, it looks up at nature 
 and the Author of nature with loving trust, believing 
 that all the knowledge which is good for it, it shall 
 have. It does not even desire to obtain everything at 
 once, but, finding its happiness in the process of ac- 
 quisition, grows as the child grows, larger and stronger 
 imperceptibly. Theology, on the contrary, is harsh 
 and peremptory, and sure to be most positive about 
 what it knows least. Shakespeare is the Plato of 
 modern times, only upon the whole with less obscurity ; 
 his thirst for knowledge and his humanity are equal. 
 Out of the womb of his imagination, therefore, he sends 
 forth Juliet and her lover, equally pure and faithful, 
 and though the complications in which they are 
 involved, and which lead them speedily to death, 
 appear sometimes to be of a doubtful character, they 
 leave no soil upon their memories when they finally 
 disappear from us in the monument. This, however, 
 is not the decision of Ulrici, who maintains that 
 Juliet's love betrays her into sin, corruption, and evil, 
 
188 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEAKE 
 
 to which he afterwards adds that Eomeo's love is 
 associated by an intrinsic necessity with a hate as 
 vehement, as passionate, and as fatal. It is no doubt 
 true that the bright sphere of love is in this case 
 involved in another and larger sphere of hate, but it is 
 not easy to comprehend how this involution is brought 
 about by intrinsic necessity. 
 
 To pursue the topic, however, would be merely 
 to open up again the avenue leading to the abyss of 
 fatalism from which we have only just escaped. 
 Johnson censures the ethical teaching of ' Komeo and 
 Juliet ' as at variance with poetical justice, since the 
 lovers have done nothing that ought to have been 
 visited by the fate which overtakes them. But here, 
 on * this bank and shoal of time,* do not virtue and 
 innocence often become a prey to misfortune, while 
 guilt of the deepest dye pursues till death a triumphant 
 career ? 
 
 It is because Shakespeare does not pretend to take 
 upon himself the character of a providence, and deal 
 forth awards and punishments according to some 
 delusive ethical theory, that he awakens so profound 
 an interest in our souls by making his great dramatic 
 representations resemble upon the whole what takes 
 place in the world whence Ehadamanthus and Eacus 
 have long been banished, to give sentence elsewhere. 
 Many have persuaded themselves that we find in that 
 other life which here on earth we live in a course 
 running parallel with our ordinary existence the world 
 in which the strict law of justice prevails — I mean the 
 realms of sleep. At the entrance to this world philo- 
 sophy lays aside her sceptre and delivers us over to 
 another power, which, whether equitable or otherwise, 
 exerts over our souls irresistible authority. What 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEAKE 189 
 
 Virgil was to Dante, Shakespeare is to us, in this 
 boundless abode, alternately dreadful and beautiful, 
 where the wicked suffer punishment, while the innocent 
 and the virtuous are regaled 
 
 With a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, 
 Where no crude surfeit reigns. 
 
 No one perhaps is perfectly ingenuous in describing 
 his sleeping experience, partly because the fancy is so 
 lawless a thing that it tramples recklessly on all that 
 our laws and institutions seek to make us reverence. 
 There is nothing moral or immoral in dreams, which 
 possibly represent the original condition of the human 
 race. From the epithets which Homer bestows on sleep 
 we infer that he was a healthy and a good man whom 
 the gods visited nightly, as the celestial Muse did 
 Milton ; and if we may draw the same inference from 
 Shakespeare's language, he also enjoyed, whether at 
 Stratford or in London, pleasures analogous to those 
 which refreshed Homer on the shores of Asia Minor : 
 
 The innocent sleep, 
 Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, 
 The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, 
 Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course. 
 Chief nourisher in life's feast. 
 
 Yet, among all the subjects of thought respecting 
 which philosophy has enlightened us, this 'chief 
 nourisher in life's feast ' is one of the least explored. 
 Everyone knows how delightful it is, yet it is its very 
 delight that withholds us from understanding it. It 
 comes to us preceded or ushered in by a pageant of 
 physical images which, if the lulling of our senses 
 be suddenly interrupted, it draws up, if I may so speak, 
 like a curtain, which soon begins to descend again 
 
190 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 with renewed brilliance. The man whom Charlotte 
 Corday stabbed in a bath has admirably described 
 the series of phenomena by which we lose ourselves 
 in happy dreams ; but even his description stops short 
 where we most strongly desire it to proceed. * Blessed 
 be the man that invented sleep/ exclaims Sancho, 
 * it wrappeth one about like a garment ' ; and this 
 garment lost none of its warmth or comfort in the 
 prison of Seville, where it invested in its folds some 
 of the liveliest dreams that ever flashed over the 
 human imagination. 
 
 Superstition has induced mankind to make a 
 fantastical use of dreams, maintaining that they are 
 intended by nature to reveal the future, whereas they 
 only reveal the characters and inclinations of the 
 sleeper. Mercutio, where he sportively describes the 
 offices and frolics of the dream-queen Mab, suggests a 
 world of speculation respecting the sleeping fancies of 
 mankind. We need not agree with him that dreams 
 are nothing, since, as I have suggested, they have a 
 subtle and profound meaning, though, as commonly 
 viewed, they are worse than nothing. It is not his 
 business to deal with sober reflections, but to play 
 with wild phantasms for mere pastime. Romeo has 
 dreamed a dream, and means to relate it, especially 
 as it has suggested to him a reason for not going 
 to the Capulets' banquet ; from which the disciples 
 of Artemidorus will infer that Shakespeare is to be 
 reckoned among their number, because had Romeo 
 listened to the prophetic warning he would have 
 eluded the fate that overtook him. Mercutio, however, 
 by his Epicurean banter, brings about his own death 
 and his friend's. Meanwhile he is all mirth and 
 vivacity : 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 191 
 
 0, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. 
 She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes 
 In shape no bigger than an agate -stone 
 On the fore-finger of an alderman, 
 Drawn with a team of little atomies 
 Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep : 
 Her waggon- spokes made of long spinners' legs, 
 The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, 
 The traces of the smallest spider's web, 
 The collars of the moonshine's watery beams, 
 Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film. 
 Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat, 
 Not half so big as a round little worm 
 Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid ; 
 Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut 
 Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub. 
 Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers. 
 
 Perhaps no passage in the plays is so likely as this 
 to have suggested Milton's beautiful line 
 
 Sweetest Shakespeare, fancy's child. 
 
 Everything in this speech is the offspring of fancy 
 freed from all laws, and gambolling wildly through its 
 own realm. From this point Mercutio becomes a 
 satirist, and applies the sting of his wit to one class 
 of persons after another, playfully, however, and with- 
 out malice : 
 
 In this state she gallops night by night 
 Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love ; 
 O'er coartiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight. 
 O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees. 
 O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream. 
 Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, 
 Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are : 
 Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, 
 And then dreams he of smelling out a suit ; 
 And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail 
 Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep, 
 
192 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Then dreams he of another benefice : 
 Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, 
 And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, 
 Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, 
 Of healths five-fathom deep ; and then anon 
 Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, 
 And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two, 
 And sleeps again. This is that very Mab 
 That plats the manes of horses in the night, 
 And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs. 
 Which once untangled much misfortune bodes : 
 This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs. 
 That presses them and learns them first to bear, 
 Making them women of good carriage : 
 This is she 
 
 Bom. Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace 1 
 
 Thou talk'st of nothing. 
 
 Mer. True, I talk of dreams. 
 
 Which are the children of an idle brain. 
 Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, 
 Which is as thin of substance as the air 
 And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes 
 Even now the frozen bosom of the north. 
 And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence. 
 Turning his face to the dew-dropping south. 
 
 The office ascribed by Mercutio to Queen Mab may 
 be performed by anyone who has free access to a man 
 or woman in deep sleep. If you pass a bunch of 
 violets or a moss rose, or anything else impregnated 
 with powerful odour, before the face, the sleeper will 
 soon begin to dream of delightful gardens ; and if, after 
 a while, offensive and pungent smells be substituted, 
 dark and hideous dreams will speedily chase away the 
 bright ones. By the same contrivance a succession of 
 ugly or beautiful fancies may be called up before the 
 sleeper's mind, which may sometimes be exalted to 
 rapture or melted to tears before it recovers by waking 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 193 
 
 its mastery over itself. Yet the success of such an 
 experiment will depend on the age and amount of 
 sensibility possessed by those on whom it is made. 
 Sometimes the consciousness of extreme guilt will give 
 to waking nearly all the characteristics of sleep : the 
 man is no longer master of his own thoughts. He is 
 the passive victim of phantasms and forebodings, 
 dread of he knows not what comes upon him, the 
 objects which surround him are not what he sees, but 
 a chaos of ghastly images which goad and torture him 
 to the verge of madness. Such was the state of 
 Caligula as he ran to and fro and howled at night 
 through the vast arcades and apartments of the 
 imperial palace at Kome, and of Charles the Ninth in 
 Paris after the massacre. Sometimes the half-formed 
 resolution to perpetrate some dreadful thing haunts 
 the brain like the remembrance of crime. Banquo's 
 thoughts on the very night of the murder were busied 
 with some design analogous to that of Macbeth ; what 
 it was Shakespeare has not explained, though he 
 clearly suggests its bloody nature. 
 
 Groping with his son through the darkness of the 
 castle courts, he says 
 
 How goes the night, boy ? 
 
 Fie. The moon is down ; I have not heard the clock. 
 
 Ban. And she goes down at twelve. 
 
 Fie. I take 't, 'tis later, sir. 
 
 Ba/n. Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry in heaven ; 
 Their candles are all out. Take thee that too. 
 A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, 
 And yet I would not sleep : merciful powers, 
 Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature 
 Gives way to in repose ! Give me my sword. 
 
 He demands back his weapon because he thinks 
 that the moment for the carrying out of the design 
 
 o 
 
194 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 suggested to him in sleep has arrived. His better angel, 
 however, or his reluctance to obey the promptings of 
 nature, prevails as the probable object of his perplexity 
 appears suddenly before him. 
 
 Ent&r Macbeth, and a Servant tuith a torch. 
 
 I have said * probable ' because the subject is left by 
 Shakespeare involved in uncertainty, though we dis- 
 cern clearly that the words of the weird sisters on the 
 blasted heath wrought like venom in the minds of both 
 generals till effaced by death. Banquo's crime medi- 
 tated, though not perpetrated, was stifled in the womb 
 by the ruthless celerity of Macbeth, who had won the 
 crown, but read in the moody bearing of his partner in 
 ambition that which made him feel on what a giddy 
 and slippery steep he stood. The Erinnyes were busy 
 with his slumbers, and even the realities of the waking 
 world failed to blunt their stings. 
 
 Lady M. How now, my lord I why do you keep alone, 
 Of sorriest fancies your companions making, 
 Using those thoughts which should indeed have died 
 With them they think on ? Things without all remedy 
 Should be without regard : what's done is done. 
 Mac, We have scotch'd the snake, not killed it : 
 
 She'll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice 
 
 Remains in danger of her former tooth. 
 
 But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds 
 
 suffer, 
 Ere we will eat our meal in fear and sleep 
 In the afiSiction of these terrible dreams 
 That shake us nightly : better be with the dead, 
 Whom we, to gain our place, have sent to peace, 
 Than on the torture of the mind to lie 
 In restless ecstasy. 
 
 Could Macbeth, however, when thus arraigned nightly 
 in the court of his own conscience by Nemesis, have 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 195 
 
 pleaded truly that in all he did he had only yielded 
 obedience to what Ulrici calls 'intrinsic necessity/ 
 he must have silenced the accusing goddess. It was 
 because, in the language of law, he felt conscious that 
 the crime he had perpetrated was his own act and deed 
 that he could put forward nothing to bar judgment, 
 but * on the torture of the mind to lie in restless ecstasy.' 
 No babbling of weird sisters, no sophistry about 
 jumping the life to come, no satisfaction derived from 
 having placed on his brow the golden round of sove- 
 reignty, no brilliant memories of the past, no gratifi- 
 cations springing from the present exercise of power, 
 no soothing influence of hope in the time to come, 
 could scare away from his couch or from his brain 
 those resistless ministers of vengeance that spring to 
 life simultaneously with guilt. The tyrant was now 
 able to appreciate the meed he had earned by his deeds : 
 
 I have lived long enough : my way of life 
 
 Is fall'n into the sere and 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. 
 
 If language could suffice to direct the current of 
 human action, Shakespeare's would ; it is more potent 
 and persuasive than a thousand homilies. He had 
 weighed in the balance all places, positions, and 
 honours, and found them, apart from personal worth, 
 to be mere dross and chaff. It was said by a successful 
 theologian that Shakespeare and the Bible had made 
 him Archbishop of York ; it were better still could 
 students affirm the same influences had made them 
 honest men. 
 
 02 
 
196 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEAEE 
 
 We have already seen that nature effects different 
 purposes through the agency of sleep : sometimes, as 
 in the case of Banquo, stimulating to evil; more 
 frequently, as in the case of Macbeth, inflicting 
 chastisement for evil committed. But in Shakespeare, 
 as in life, both ill-doers aud well-doers seek this balm 
 of hurt minds as an asylum where, as in death, the 
 wicked cease from troubhng and the weary are at rest. 
 When, however, it is sought with this view by those 
 who are stained with blood, it stands perseveringly 
 aloof and will not be wooed to associate with them 
 till it has been purchased by protracted agony. Henry 
 the Fourth affects to be in doubt why this half-brother 
 of death will not answer his prayers ; whereas it was, 
 in truth, a sceptred shadow whom he, to gain his 
 place had sent to peace, that stood between him and 
 the gate of sleep. When he put, therefore, the ensuing 
 question his conscience muttered the proper answer : 
 
 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 forgetfulness ? 
 
 Had anyone whispered in his ears the name of 
 Eichard the Second, he would have understood the 
 real state of the case. He is not, however, in search 
 of truth, but, with the habitual sophistry of a guilty 
 mind, tries to shift off to the circumstances of his 
 condition what in truth belongs to his own doings. 
 Follow him in the review of those whom sleep visits, 
 and note with what acuteness he points out the 
 difference between them and himself : 
 
 Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, 
 Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAItESPEAIlE 197 
 
 And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, 
 
 Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, 
 
 Under the canopies of costly state, 
 
 And luU'd with sound of sweetest melody ? 
 
 thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile 
 
 In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch 
 
 A watch-case or a common larum-bell ? 
 
 "Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast 
 
 Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains 
 
 In cradle of the rude imperious surge 
 
 And in the visitation of the winds, 
 
 Who take the ruffian billows by the top, 
 
 Cin-ling their monstrous heads and hanging them 
 
 With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds, 
 
 That, with the hurly, death itself awakes ? 
 
 Canst thou, partial sleep, give thy repose 
 
 To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude, 
 
 And in the calmest and most stillest night. 
 
 With all appliances and means to boot, 
 
 Deny it to a king ? 
 
 Could Henry have communed with himself in 
 language such as this, it might have reconciled him to 
 sleeplessness or to anything but the consciousness of 
 guilt. But this idea he strives to keep far from him ; 
 it is the responsibility of his position that keeps him 
 awake : 
 
 Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. 
 
 No ! Henry, the fault is not in the crown, but in the 
 remembrance of the murder that placed it on your 
 head. An innocent king may sleep as well as any 
 peasant in his dominions. Titus pillowed his head on 
 the blessings of millions, which sent up at the same 
 time a sweet-smelling savour to his soul, and made 
 his dreams Elysium. Everyone spoke of him as the 
 delight of mankind, and when he died there was not 
 a dry eye in the empire. If you have bedabbled your 
 
198 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 couch with blood, you cannot expect to taste sweet 
 sleep upon it, nor would you be the nearer enjoying 
 it if you stretched your limbs on an uneasy pallet in 
 some smoky crib : 
 
 The mind is its own place, and in itself 
 Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. 
 
ESSAY XII 
 
 PHILOSOPHY : COMMUNISM— EIGHTS OF WOMEN — 
 ETHNOLOGY 
 
 Civilisation, it is admitted, moves in cycles, and as it 
 touches in its progress certain points of its orbit, 
 similar phenomena present themselves, and are deno- 
 minated the characteristics of the age. When history 
 comes to deal with us, it will probably enumerate 
 among the most marked features of the period our 
 communistic dreams, and wild agitations about women's 
 rights. Ask Time to turn back his glass, and set us 
 down in the Athenian agora four hundred years before 
 Christ, and we shall find Lysistrata contending vic- 
 toriously with the statesmen and orators, and Praxagora 
 projecting a division of property and a community of 
 women. Nay, if we take a turn in the Acropolis, we 
 may contemplate the Graces sculptured by a philo- 
 sopher who put on motley with the same Praxagora, 
 and, like many great ^female thinkers of the present 
 day, pronounced marriage to be a mistake. But how 
 do we find Shakespeare involved in these discussions ? 
 By his practice, if not by his teaching — I mean his 
 practice in the plays. He employs women in important 
 negotiations of State, pits them against kings and ly' 
 princes, and shows how, in the management of public 
 affairs, their subtle and delicate wits often prove more 
 than a match for the cumbersome machinery of the 
 
200 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 masculine brain. In * Love's Labour's Lost ' a French 
 princess is sent by her father, as his diplomatic repre- 
 sentative, to negotiate with the King of Navarre affairs 
 of the highest political importance. It is true the poet 
 represents to us the whole in a comic aspect, to suggest 
 perhaps the idea that such is the character which 
 matters of the highest moment would be sure to , 
 assume in the hands of women. Love is their world, 
 and they always are or would be queens in it. After a 
 few technical phrases, and barren references to public 
 business, the princess and her ladies betake them- 
 selves with unmistakable delight to the established 
 and immemorial poHcy of their sex, which is to secure 
 to each of them a husband. 
 
 But, descending a little in the social scale, Shake- 
 speare, it may be thought, would not attribute to 
 women the skill to distinguish themselves in the more 
 difficult walk of the professions. Instead of this we 
 find that the most advanced Praxagoras of our day 
 may appeal to Shakespeare as an advocate of their 
 wildest claims. No abstruse or intricate problems of 
 law, no recondite mystery in the science of medicine, 
 lies beyond the reach of the female mind. Portia, in 
 learning, acuteness, eloquence of pleading, and affluence 
 of intellectual resources, surpasses all the jurisconsults 
 in the Venetian courts ; while in medicine, Helena 
 undertakes a cure which all the physicians in France 
 have declared to be impossible, and her mode of treat- ^ 
 ment is crowned with success. Well, then, has Shake- v /^ 
 speare a mean opinion of women? Not at least in 
 the department of mind, whether as to the ability to 
 acquire knowledge, or in the far more difficult acquisi- 
 tion to know how to use it. 
 
 Aristophanes held with respect to women pretty 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 201 
 
 nearly the same opinions as Shakespeare. He concedes 
 to them all manner of intellectual endowments, but 
 insinuates that, in proportion to the strength of their 
 faculties, they rise above the sphere of morals, and 
 decide as loosely as the worst of their male neighbours 
 on chastity and modesty. Yet it is not a little curious 
 that not one of his women is practically incorrect in 
 her conduct. Like Beatrice, the worst of them con- 
 tents herself with talking immodestly ; and, indeed, it 
 has often been suggested by philosophical writers that 
 the language of women is no key whatever to their 
 ethical principles. Other dramatists of Shakespeare's 
 time lay the scenes of their plays at home, but, except- 
 ing * The Merry Wives of Windsor ' and the historical 
 plays, Shakespeare prefers dealing with the warmer 
 women of the South, who are generally believed to be 
 more daring in their amours than our countrywomen. 
 Not that his studies had suggested to him any ethno- 
 logical system, or that he knew much, except in the 
 most superficial manner, of any nation except our own. 
 It may be surmised that the women he loved, whoever 
 they may have been, had light hair, generally golden, 
 since he attributes this element of beauty to nearly all 
 his heroines, wherever they may be found. Indeed, I 
 remember no female character in the plays of any mark, 
 except Mistress Ford and Eosahne in * Komeo and Juliet,' 
 who has black hair, and she is remarkable only for her 
 coldness and insipidity. It is doubtless easy in these 
 matters tp build up conclusions on too slight a founda- 
 tion, but it seems to me that Shakespeare associated in 
 his mind moping and melancholy, or at least a ten- 
 dency to airy speculations, with black hair, which is 
 more consonant with experience than the theory of 
 Goethe. This writer, whose notion is irreconcilable 
 
202 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 with the teaching of history as well as with daily 
 experience, maintains that, while dark men are full of 
 vigour and energy, light hair and blue eyes are sugges- 
 tive of a frail and flaccid constitution. He therefore 
 imagines that Hamlet was fat and fair, since he was 
 a Dane and descended from the Northmen. But were 
 the Northmen, whatever may have been the colour of 
 their eyes or hair, a flaccid and inactive race ? "Were 
 they not, on the contrary, overboiling with energy, 
 which precipitated 'them, like a lava torrent, upon 
 the southern nations, and for ages made them the 
 terror of the world ? 
 
 But, whatever may be our determination on this 
 point, there is no ground in Shakespeare for Goethe's 
 fancy. In the first place, Hamlet is not a youth at all, 
 but a fully developed man thirty years of age, and is 
 only called young to distinguish him from his father, 
 who is the older Hamlet. It does not, of course, 
 necessarily follow that a dark-haired father must have 
 a dark-haired son, but it is more probable than other- 
 wise, and we certainly know that Hamlet's father had 
 black hair. Actors would do well, therefore, to slight 
 the suggestion of Goethe and adhere to dramatic tradi- 
 tion, which, in conformity with the teaching of physio- 
 logy, makes dark hair the external indication of a 
 meditative and melancholy mind. The most ancient 
 of poets, either through philosophy or instinct, attri- 
 butes to the fiercest, the bravest, and most energetic of 
 his heroes grey eyes and yellow hair, together with 
 all other elements of surpassing beauty, which it is 
 surprising that Goethe should have forgotten. 
 
 I may allude here to another question connected 
 with the idiosyncrasy of races: Does Shakespeare 
 mean that we should take Othello for a negro? 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 203 
 
 Schlegel and Ulrici reply in the affirmative, apparently 
 because they were unwilling to attribute to the poet 
 what they regard as discreditable ignorance. 
 
 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the 
 people of England had acquired but a scanty knowledge 
 of geography, and in this science Shakespeare was 
 perhaps rather behind than before his age. He makes 
 Bohemia a maritime country, speaks of Aleppo as a 
 seaport, and might therefore, without much scruple, 
 have peopled in his imagination the southern shore of 
 the Mediterranean with negroes, whom he might easily 
 have confounded with the Moors. At any rate, this 
 is what he does. It is not by any means his intention 
 to bring Othello from the interior of Africa, peopled 
 from time immemorial with servile races as deficient in 
 intelligence as in beauty of form, seldom remarkable 
 for courage, still less for generalship. We must lay no 
 stress, therefore, on thick lips or sooty bosom, and 
 assume Othello to be what he is called, Moor, instinct 
 with the fiery valour and deep-rooted passions of the 
 Arab race, easily betrayed where their preferences were 
 concerned into the excesses of jealousy and rage. 
 
 In Christian realms attention was bestowed on the 
 Hebrew people, partly because of the connexion of 
 their history with that of the prevalent religion, but 
 chiefly because of their universal presence throughout 
 Christendom. Yet it was the attention of hatred to 
 the thing hated. Familiarity produced no kindly feel- 
 ings, no proclivity towards pleasant intercourse, no 
 mutual respect or even tolerance ; but, instead, practice 
 of persecution on one side, and the feeling of deadly 
 hatred and revenge on the other. It is sometimes 
 suggested that Shakespeare in * The Merchant of 
 Venice' endeavours, in conformity with the natural 
 
204 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 humanity of his disposition, to mitigate this state of 
 things. But I think otherwise. Here and there in 
 the play some touches of pity are experienced for the 
 bated miser whose confidence in the wise laws of the 
 State abates in no degree his hostility to all around 
 him ; but that the poet has no wish to soften the 
 reciprocal animosity which Hebrew and Christian 
 cherish towards each other is all along evident, and 
 rendered indisputable by the catastrophe. I have said 
 that Shakespeare loves everything in the creation, but 
 I must make one exception — he does not like a Jew ; 
 and if a majority of mankind, whether Mohammedans, 
 Pagans, or Christians, were in their secret conscience 
 to put the question to themselves, they would probably 
 find their feelings more akin to those of Shakespeare 
 than they might think it philosophical to acknowledge. 
 An explanation of this fact is often supposed to be 
 discoverable in the history of the last eighteen hundred 
 years, which represents the ancient race clutching 
 desperately at their dying religion, while the younger 
 nations, in the midst of whom they live, despise their 
 creed and smile at their tenacity. But we must look 
 deeper if we would solve the problem. The Japhetic 
 mind differs so essentially from the Semitic that it 
 seems almost impossible to transplant the characteristic 
 ideas of the one into the other. Seated beside a Western 
 Asiatic on some moonlit crag or sandhill in the desert, 
 you may soon convince yourself of this if you touch 
 on the fundamental beliefs of humanity. His ideas of 
 God will immediately appear to be different from your 
 ideas ; he may denominate Him * the compassionate, 
 the merciful,' but he understands by these terms the 
 compassion and mercy of a despot, who will have 
 mercy on those on whom He will have mercy, while 
 
PHILOSOPHy OF SHAKESPEAEE 205 
 
 those whom He will, He hardeneth. No arguments 
 will in all likelihood convince your companion that we 
 ought to believe, with the Greek poet, that we are all 
 His offspring, and that His care and goodness extend 
 to all alike ; the Semitic man will contend that the 
 Deity exhibits favouritism in His dealings with man- 
 kind, that He chooses this or that people on whom in 
 preference to shower His blessings, to endue with 
 the faculty to comprehend His nature, and to be the 
 exponents of truth to the rest of mankind. 
 
 Shakespeare brings Shy lock before us so palpably 
 enveloped with Hebrew associations and traditions 
 that we almost fancy we behold the Old Testament 
 on the stage : Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, Laban, and 
 their progeny, emerge from between the sand mounds 
 and palm trees, and seem to be engaged in their 
 primitive avocations before us. But are their sym- 
 pathies ours? Are their feelings ours? Shylock 
 speedily supplies us with an answer. Shakespeare 
 heaps up in this man all the hateful qualities which, 
 in the opinion of his contemporaries, characterised the 
 Jew, and the whole tendency of the play is to expose 
 him to derision and dislike. ^Christian audiences, 
 whether Catholic or Protestant, would have been dis- 
 pleased had the case been otherwise ; but this is not 
 the reason of the poet's proceedings. He is evidently 
 dealing with his own feelings and prejudices, and brings 
 to bear all the resources of language and all the 
 venom of poetry against the unhappy Jew. To defraud 
 him of his money, his only safeguard against oppres- 
 sion, is not enough ; he is a father, and, like David's 
 victim, he has but one little ewe lamb, that he cherishes 
 in his bosom. By the merciless dramatist this, the 
 only object of his affections, is torn from him, not by 
 
206 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 external violence, which would have been more toler- 
 able, but by her own heartless wantonness. While 
 he is writhing under this wound, which gives tenfold 
 sharpness to his revenge, the hope of gratifying which 
 is now the only pleasure left him, the lady of Belmont, 
 travestied into a lawyer, annihilates his last hope in 
 life, and exhibits him to himself and the world as a 
 hopeless and forlorn hypocrite. 
 
 Among the many lapses in Shakespeare's philo- 
 sophy this is perhaps the most remarkable, since it is 
 at variance with the general spirit of his teaching, as 
 well as with his personal character. He is not here, 
 what he is sometimes fondly called, the poet of all time, 
 but a man of the seventeenth, or rather of the six- 
 teenth, century, swayed by one of its worst prejudices 
 — employing his art, not in the interest of humanity, 
 but in that of ruthless oppression. 
 
 In one respect Shakespeare's teaching differs essen- 
 tially from that which iSnds favour with many sophists 
 of the present day : he does not believe that one thing 
 can be transmuted into another, or that any influence 
 will suffice to impregnate certain natures with wisdom 
 or goodness. The mould and the material being such 
 or such, the result will inevitably correspond with the 
 sources in which it originates. There are natures 
 teachable and natures unteachable. Whatever the 
 product of natural forces is, that it must essentially 
 remain for ever, any variation in form or aspect not- 
 withstanding. No art known to man could transform 
 lago into Komeo, Edmund into Hamlet, or Lady 
 Macbeth into Ophelia. The types of being are un- 
 changeable, so that the utmost that can be done is to 
 conceal by education the nature of the internal forces 
 and to guard throughout life against those occasions 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEAKE 207 
 
 which, when they are evil, might make them blossom 
 into action. Fancy and imagination have always 
 played a great part in philosophy, but I know of no 
 instance in which they have gone so far as in the doc- 
 trine of sexual selection, which teaches that the fancy 
 of the peahen has produced the peacock's tail. It is 
 no doubt probable that in great length of time, as an 
 old Greek poet remarks, very improbable things should 
 happen ; but it demands an amount of faith scarcely 
 reconcilable with reason to believe that length of time 
 has changed a jellyfish into the Venus de' Medici or the 
 Belvedere Apollo. Shakespeare certainly had no inkling 
 of such a theory. He has presented us with the spawn 
 of a devil and a witch, and shown the impracticability 
 of implanting goodness in it : 
 
 Enter Caliban. 
 
 Cal. As wicked dew as e'er my mother bmsh'd 
 With raven's feather from unwholesome fen 
 Drop on you both ! a south-west blow on ye 
 And blister you all o'er. 
 
 Pros. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps, 
 Side -stitches that shall pen thy breath up ; urchins 
 Shall, for that vast of night that they may work, 
 All exercise on thee ; thou shalt be pinch' d 
 As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging 
 Than bees that made 'em. 
 
 Cal. I must eat my dinner. 
 
 This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother. 
 Which thou takest from me. When thou camest first, 
 Thou strokedst me and madest much of me ; wouldst give me 
 Water with berries in't, and teach me how 
 To name the bigger light, and how the less. 
 That burn by day and night : and then I loved thee 
 And show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle. 
 The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile : 
 Cursed be I that did so ! All the charms 
 Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, Hght on you I 
 
208 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 For I am all the subjects that you have, 
 Which first was mine own king : and here you sty me 
 In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me 
 The rest o' the island. 
 
 Pro8. Thou most lying slave, 
 
 "Whom stripes may move, not kindness ! I have used thee, 
 Filth as thou art, with human care, and lodged thee 
 In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate 
 The honour of my child. 
 
 Cal. O ho, ho ! would't had been done ! 
 Thou didst prevent me ; I had peopled else 
 This isle with Calibans. 
 
 Pros. Abhorred slave. 
 
 Which any print of goodness wilt not take. 
 Being capable of all ill ! I pitied thee, 
 Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour 
 One thing or other : when thou didst not, savage, 
 Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like 
 A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes 
 [ With words that made them known. But thy vile race, 
 Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures 
 Could not abide to be with ; therefore wast thou 
 Deservedly confined into this rock. 
 Who hadst deserved more than a prison. 
 
 Cal. You taught me language ; and my profit on't 
 Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you 
 For leamuig me your language ! 
 
 Pros. Hag-seed, hence I 
 
 Fetch us in fuel ; and be quick, thou 'rt best. 
 To answer other business. Shrug'st thou, malice ? 
 If thou neglect'st or dost unwillingly 
 What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps, 
 Fill all thy bones with aches, make thee roar 
 That beasts shall tremble at thy din. 
 
 Cal. No, pray thee. 
 
 I must obey. 
 
 Out of this passage numerous conclusions may be 
 drawn, to harmonise which would perplex their author. 
 Does he mean to teach the doctrine, widely, I had 
 almost said universally, accepted, although but seldom 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 209 
 
 avowed, that might makes right, and that we owe no 
 justice to the weak or wicked? Prospero was the 
 prototype of modern colonising nations, who, when 
 they land in new countries, first enslave and then anni- 
 hilate the aborigines. Where are the natives of Van 
 Diemen's Land ? Where are the Caribs ? And where 
 in a short time will be the entire race of Ked Men ? 
 In those happy hunting grounds 
 
 Where slaves once more their native land behold, 
 No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. 
 
 Audiences almost always, and readers generally, 
 give their sympathy to Prospero and abhor Caliban, 
 not only because he is ugly and uncouth, but because 
 he is weak and driven by that weakness to employ the 
 only means left him for recovering his liberty. He 
 may be taken to represent the enslaved races in 
 despotisms, trampled upon and thrust down into the 
 mire, made to toil without hope, to be punished for 
 their inferiority with stripes, to be denounced as 
 grovelling, brutish, wicked, and, when they are thus 
 driven to have recourse to violence, fiercely scourged 
 into submission. By the law of nature the island was 
 Caliban's, he was the original possessor and proprietor, 
 and, as he himself expresses it, was his own king; 
 Prospero was an intruder upon his domains, and had 
 no right but that of the stronger. What was Caliban's 
 ignorance to him ? If he gabbled, it was in his own 
 territories, the extent and qualities of which he under- 
 stood and foolishly taught the invader. * Cursed be I 
 that did so,' he exclaims. His fondness for Miranda 
 was a natural instinct. He knew nothing of the 
 uncomeliness of his person, but in his quahty of king of 
 the isle thought himself good enough to possess any 
 
210 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 female ; he was certainly far in advance of Darwin's 
 ape, since, though new to Italian, he could make use of 
 his own dialect, which the insolent stranger called 
 gabbling. 
 
 Hunter has already pointed out the fact that 
 Shakespeare was indebted for the original conception 
 of ' The Tempest ' to Ariosto ; but Caliban is the crea- 
 tion of his own genius, even though he may have had 
 Middleton's * Firestone ' in his mind's eye. 
 
 In no part of his writings does Shakespeare throw 
 aside so completely his allegiance to nature as in the 
 play of * Cymbeline.' By so doing he likewise falls into 
 contradiction with himself, not only if we take into 
 consideration the entire body of his writings, but in the 
 selfsame play. The king, father to Imogen and her 
 brothers, is throughout exhibited to us as a mean, weak, 
 poor-spirited person, subjected through his sensuality to 
 a flagitious woman, ready to sacrifice at her behest his 
 daughter's person and reputation to a licentious fool, 
 and in all respects a slave to irrational passion. Yet 
 when Belarius comes to pronounce the eulogium of his 
 two nurslings, Guiderius and Arviragus, he reasons 
 after the following fashion : 
 
 thou goddess, 
 Thou divine Nature, how thyself thou blazon'st 
 In these two princely boys I They are as gentle 
 As zephyrs blowing below the violet, 
 Not wagging his sweet head ; and yet as rough, 
 Their royal blood enchafed, as the rudest wind, 
 That by the top doth take the mountain pine, 
 And make him stoop to the vale. 'Tis wonder 
 That an invisible instinct should frame them 
 To royalty unlearn' d, honour untaught, 
 Civility not seen from other, valour 
 That wildly grows in them, but yields a crop 
 As if it had been sow'd. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 211 
 
 Shakespeare forgets that the speaker who delivers 
 this rhapsody is himself, according to the teaching of 
 the whole play, a nobleman endowed with great virtue, 
 distinguished by the refinement of his manners, who 
 consequently need not wonder that they who have been 
 brought up with his example always before them, 
 familiar with his courtly language, inspired by his lofty 
 sentiments, and sedulously withheld from everything 
 base and mean, should when occasion calls display 
 some proofs of their education. He wonders, however, 
 without much cause. The first of virtues, whether in 
 prince or peasant, is reverence to parents, the absence 
 of which excites his doting eloquence ; the instinct, too, 
 which is the cause of so much surprise to Belarius, is 
 blinder than that of Caliban, since even with the aid 
 of Imogen's feminine beauty it fails to discern the sex 
 of their new idol. Thus, however, they express their 
 instinct : 
 
 Oui» I love thee ; I have spoke it : 
 
 How much the quantity, the weight as much, 
 As I do love my father. 
 
 Bel What ! how I how ! 
 
 Arv. If it be sin to say so, sir, I yoke me 
 
 In my good brother's fault : I know not why 
 I love this youth ; and I have heard you say, 
 Love's reason's without reason : the bier at door, 
 And a demand who is't shall die, I'ld say 
 ' My father, not this youth.' 
 
 Instead of the disgust which sentiments so un- 
 natural ought to beget, Belarius feels nothing but 
 admiration : ' noble strain ! breed of greatness ! ' 
 he exclaims, in a fit of loyalty worthy of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher. Afterwards instinct breaks down when the 
 youths are brought into the presence of their real father, 
 
 p 2 
 
212 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 and the mole, a sanguine star, is alone relied upon to 
 establish their identity. 
 
 The fancy about instinct breaks forth once more in 
 ' As You Like It,' where it is again interwoven with 
 the hereditary transmission of knowledge and polished 
 manners. Orlando, in spite of the gross rusticity in 
 which he has been brought up, feels by instinct the 
 nobility of his birth, and his caitiff brother Oliver, who 
 meditates his taking off, thus sets forth his qualifi- 
 cations : 
 
 He's gentle, never schooled and yet learned, full of noble 
 device, of all sorts enchantingly beloved, and indeed so much in 
 the heart of the world, and especially of my own people, who best 
 know him, that I am altogether misprised. 
 
 In the development of this story Shakespeare 
 abandons his theory of instinct, and regard for proba- 
 bility along with it, for Kosalind, by the aid of a little 
 male attire, so completely defeats the observation and 
 common sense of her lover that he toys with her, kisses 
 and embraces her, not once but habitually day by day 
 for weeks, not only without suspecting her identity, 
 but without even suspecting her sex. Phoebe, too, mis- 
 takes this slender girl for a man, just as Olivia does 
 Viola. Julia, in * The Two Gentlemen of Verona,' 
 manages by the help of a suit of clothes to deceive the 
 princess Silvia, together with her own lover Proteus. 
 
 The Greek dramatists had formed a much truer 
 theory of the nature of instinct. The strongest of all 
 the ties of blood, that which unites mother and son, 
 is not discovered by (Edipus or Jocasta, who become 
 husband and wife, live together, and have many 
 children, without the least interference from instinct. 
 It is through knowledge derived from an external 
 source that their relationship is made apparent. When 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 213 
 
 the terrible truth breaks upon them, the force of what 
 we call instinct exerts itself, but at the same time 
 reveals the truth that it is not nature but custom that 
 directs the currents of human thought, as well on this 
 as on every other subject. No mind acts and thinks 
 independently, but is swayed by antecedent thought, 
 which invests itself with the sacred character of nature, 
 and its voice when it speaks is constantly mistaken for 
 the voice of God. Shakespeare suffered his ideas to 
 be bewildered for awhile by the subtle intricacies of 
 this question, but at length escaped from them and 
 co-ordinated his speculations more in harmony with 
 truth. 
 
214 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ESSAY XIII 
 
 PHILOSOPHY : COUNTEY LIFE— OLD AGE— DISTRIBUTION 
 OF HAPPINESS 
 
 In physical philosophy Shakespeare might perhaps 
 have held a high place had he chosen to withdraw his 
 observation from the moving and living world to fix it 
 on unsentient nature. But his mission was to deal 
 with man, his actions, his passions, and that ocean of 
 thought through which he has to make his way 
 towards the objects of his aim in life. He seems, like 
 the great sophist of antiquity, to have represented to 
 himself man as the measure of all things, which, what- 
 ever may be urged to the contrary, he is to himself, 
 since everything lying beyond the range of his thought 
 and experience has no existence for him. 
 
 Our relations to the outward world — that is, to all 
 things external to ourselves — are so completely involved 
 in mystery as to have led in some minds to the belief 
 that they have no real being, but exist exclusively in 
 the sphere of our ideas. This notion, however, was 
 altogether foreign to Shakespeare, though, as I have 
 already observed, he contrived to unite with belief in 
 the ultimate evanescence of matter the persuasion that 
 whatever we feel and see is real. Hence the singular 
 charm of his poetry. The agents about us are all flesh 
 and blood, the scene on which they live and move is 
 substantial, solid, unequivocal matter ; as you hear and 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 215 
 
 see them, so you perceive distinctly the theatre in 
 which they act and suffer. 
 
 Many look upon Shakespeare as a lively, jovial 
 Epicurean who, though he could occasionally close his 
 eyes upon the sunshine and cultivate a famiharity with 
 the night side of nature, held generally with Democritus 
 that the world is rather a comedy than a tragedy, a 
 thing to be laughed at, not mourned over. This view, 
 however, is scarcely borne out by experience. The 
 more familiar you become with his thoughts, the 
 stronger will be your conviction that the life he lived 
 had not proved satisfactory to himself, and that 
 although he purchased houses and lands at Stratford, 
 and rose from the rank of yeoman to that of gentle- 
 man, he still felt himself altogether out of place in 
 the social system then existing in England. Among 
 the considerations which should reconcile a man of 
 humble rank to death is that he need 
 
 Fear no more the frown of the great, 
 
 which, with slander and rash censure, he classes with 
 'the lightning's flash and the all-dreaded thunder- 
 stone.' The aim of his moral philosophy is to blunt 
 the edge of disappointment, to show us where the 
 sources of anguish and sorrow lie, and where, if we will 
 take counsel of him, we may escape some at least of 
 the sharp evils that wound us in the world : 
 
 Are not these woods 
 More free from peril than the envious court ? 
 Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, 
 The seasons' difference, as the icy fang 
 And churlish chiding of the winter's wind. 
 
 He has elsewhere shown what delight is to be 
 extracted from action, from the emulation of soul with 
 
216 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 soul, from the struggles of ambition, guiltless or guilty, 
 from the worship of beauty, from the enjoyment of 
 fame; but in the 'life removed' there is, he insists, 
 a greater sweetness, a more luxurious calm, something 
 more analogous to the deepest and most recondite 
 recesses of our being : 
 
 This our life exempt from public haunt 
 Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones and good in every thing. 
 
 There is pleasure while it lasts in gambling, brawl- 
 ing, intriguing, fighting, which both Ealeigh and 
 Southampton would have acknowledged, though on 
 one occasion the gratification may have cost the latter 
 half his beard. Faulconbridge derived pleasure from 
 goading his father's enemy with insults, Constance 
 derived enjoyment from taunting Elinor with the 
 vices of her offspring, while Eichard experienced excess 
 of glee as he pushed one of his relatives after another 
 from the stage of life. 
 
 But if with the dethroned Duke you stroll leisurely 
 through the Forest of Arden, enjoying the commingled 
 odours of the fresh grass, the mosses, the wild flowers, 
 the falling leaves as they are shaken down by chance, 
 and listen while the nightingale, * in shadiest covert 
 hid,' pours forth her rapturous notes, you would scarcely 
 envy those who, under canopies of costly state, enjoy 
 the tattle of fashionable society : 
 
 World, world, world ! 
 But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee, 
 Life would not yield to age. 
 
 It is age, however, and age warped and soured by 
 the direst afflictions, that judges thus of life. It is not 
 the thing contemplated, but the thing contemplating, 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 217 
 
 that is subject to those strange mutations which made 
 Lear, in the sickness of his heart, hate the world. 
 The same individual in health and prosperity might 
 have sat at dawn among sand-hills on the sedgy shore 
 and gazed with inexpressible delight on the very type 
 and embodiment of mutation as beneath the creeping 
 hght it throws its waves hither and thither in splash 
 and foam. 
 
 In England always, and in Shakespeare's time 
 especially, there has been and is a certain amount of 
 irreverence felt for old age, because it is weak, depen- 
 dent, used up, incapable of giving or receiving pleasure, 
 suspended, as it were, against the wall of life, 
 
 Like rusty arms in monumental mockery. 
 
 It was not thus in Hellas, especially in the greater 
 states, nor is it thus among the Arabs, where a sheikh 
 with wrinkled forehead and beard of snow is regarded 
 with as much love and awe by his tribe as a sceptred 
 king. 
 
 * The heavens themselves are old,' exclaims Lear, 
 writhing under the consciousness, not merely that he 
 is old, but that he wants the wisdom which should 
 accompany age. When Shakespeare desires to make 
 youth, with little else to recommend it, enter at once 
 within the sphere of our sympathies, he sets it before 
 us showing respect for old age. Oliver, invested in 
 nearly all the qualities calculated to inspire disgust, 
 crowns them all by speaking thus ; having dismissed 
 his younger brother, he says to Adam : 
 
 Get you with him, you old dog. 
 
 Adam. Is * old dog ' my reward ? Most true, I have lost my 
 teeth in your service. God be with my old master! he would 
 not have spoke such a word. 
 
218 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 When Adam has joined Orlando in his pilgrimage 
 to the forest and is faint for want of sustenance, he 
 says : 
 
 Dear master, I can go no further : 0, 1 die for food ! Here lie 
 I down, and measure out my grave. Farewell, kind master. 
 
 To which Orlando replies : 
 
 Why, how now, Adam ! no greater heart in thee ? Live a 
 little ; comfort a little ; cheer thyself a little. If this imcouth 
 forest yield any thing savage, I will either be food for it or bring 
 it for food to thee. Thy conceit is nearer death than thy powers. 
 For my sake be comfortable ; hold death awhile at the arm's end : 
 I will here be with thee presently ; and if I bring thee not some- 
 thing to eat, I will give thee leave to die : but if thou diest before 
 I come, thou art a mocker of my labour. Well said ! thou lookest 
 cheerly, and I'll be with thee quickly. Yet thou liest in the bleak 
 air : come, I will bear thee to some shelter ; and thou shalt not 
 die for lack of a dinner, if there live any thing in this desert. 
 Cheerly, good Adam I 
 
 We are immediately convinced that he who can 
 speak thus is wanting in the rudiments of no virtue, 
 and we love him because he loves his servant, bears 
 him out of the bleak wind like a child, and would 
 rather die than fail in the performance of his sweet 
 duty. Eomeo has few occasions to give proof of this 
 virtue of noble minds, but we infer from his inter- 
 course with the friar that no beauty of reverence lies 
 beyond his reach. Not so with Hamlet ; though 
 loving the daughter with such love as he has to give, 
 he treats the father with an irreverence bordering 
 upon scorn, not merely, indeed, because he is old, but, 
 basing a large portion of his contempt on that fact, 
 he adds to the sum of it all that foolishness in age 
 inspires. Opheha, on the other hand, from the most 
 hidden depth of her affection loves the old man with 
 a love which, supplemented by strength, might have 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEAKE 219 
 
 transformed her under suitable circumstances into an 
 Antigone. No one, perhaps, has ever admired Claudio 
 in * Much Ado about Nothing ' ; but even the poor figure 
 he makes as a lover, the readiness with which he gives 
 credit to the supposed baseness of Hero, the needless 
 cruelty with which he treats her, and the heartless 
 mode in which this cruelty is exhibited, hardly shock 
 us so much as the brutal levity with which he treats 
 and speaks of her aged father. Meeting Benedick, as 
 he and Pedro have just parted from Leonato and his 
 brother, he observes sarcastically : 
 
 We had like to have had our two noses snapped off with two 
 old men without teeth. 
 
 Does this grossness pass for wit, and excite a laugh 
 upon the stage ? 
 
 I have observed elsewhere that goodness nowhere 
 provokes ridicule in Shakespeare, but is environed 
 always with a circle of respect or love, which awakens 
 corresponding feelings in the reader or hearer. To 
 give, it is said, is more blessed than to receive; but, 
 however noble this act may be, Shakespeare has 
 shown in *Timon' that giving is not generosity, 
 and that unless regulated by wisdom it is more 
 likely to prove a curse than a blessing. It is obvi- 
 ously the poet's intention to suggest that whatever 
 a man does he should at least aim by his actions at 
 doing good. If the object of your generosity is good 
 already, you must sedulously guard against rendering 
 him bad by your proceedings, for an overweight of 
 benefits is apt to beget ingratitude by rendering the 
 feehng of gratitude painful through its constant presence 
 in the mind. It necessarily implies inferiority of one 
 kind or ^ other, and if the obliged person is neither 
 able nor has any hope to make some adequate return, 
 
220 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 the consciousness of weakness is generated, and this 
 consciousness often leads the mind to confound obliga- 
 tions with injuries. By this process a good disposition 
 may be tainted with evil. On the other side, if gene- 
 rosity be blind it ends by corrupting the giver, since 
 when he perceives that, instead of kindling affection or 
 gratitude in those to whom he has been lavish of his 
 bounty, he has only engendered thanklessness, his heart 
 becomes steeled against compassion, and for the love 
 of mankind he substitutes hatred. This is the philo- 
 sophy of * Timon,' which, occupying a middle space 
 between tragedy and comedy, escapes being either, and 
 can merely be regarded as a satire. The only class of 
 men who come out unscathed from the fiery furnace 
 of profusion are the servants of the wild spendthrift, 
 who, profiting in their degree by his wastefulness and 
 freed by their position from the duty of making a 
 return in kind, have their hearts softened by the bene- 
 fits they have received, and cling with noble fidelity 
 to the man whom all other classes desert. 
 
 If we merely regard what may be called the surface 
 teaching of the world, we may often be betrayed into 
 impiety by imagining we discover partiality or flat 
 injustice in the distribution of happiness among men. 
 But who can say what happiness is, or decide who 
 possesses it and who does not? The discrowned 
 philosopher in * As You Like It,' who makes a virtue 
 of necessity, and tries to persuade himself that he is 
 content with his lot, exclaims, on witnessing the suf- 
 fering of Adam and Orlando, 
 
 Thon seest we are not all alone unhappy; 
 This wide and universal theatre 
 Presents more woeful pageants than the scene 
 Wherein we play in. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 221 
 
 The display of Stoicism he had previously made, then, 
 was no better than a sham : he was still secretly 
 longing for his dukedom, and insinuating that place is 
 to be taken for something in the estimate we are to 
 make of happiness. Our Duke's philosophy was dehors 
 les dents, as our neighbours express it ; in his heart there 
 was another system of feelings and opinions. Shake- 
 speare had considered the story of Charles the Fifth, 
 of which he has made more uses than one ; and his 
 teaching is, that the ruler who abdicates is bound to 
 make sure of two things before he takes that step — 
 first, that he makes way for a better man than him- 
 self ; second, that he is not about to condemn himself 
 to lifelong regret or remorse. No truth is more obvious 
 than that men move most easily in the groove with 
 which they have been made familiar by custom. Com- 
 pelled by necessity to share with rustics and inferior 
 animals the sustenance and shelter which the forest 
 could afford, the Duke puts the best face he can on his 
 exile, compares life in the envious Court with life in 
 the woods, to the disparagement of the former, and 
 exclaims with a sort of enthusiasm. 
 
 Sweet are the uses of adversity, 
 
 "Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous. 
 
 Wears yet a precious jewel in his head. 
 
 But when circumstances lead him to a reconsidera- 
 tion of his statement, the original form into which his 
 thoughts and feelings had been thrown by place and 
 education presents itself, and he vaults back to it at a 
 bound. Addressing the whole body of his followers, 
 he says : 
 
 Every of this happy number 
 That have endured shrewd days and nights with us 
 Shall share the good of our returned fortime, 
 According to the measure of their states. 
 
222 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 The turnings and shiftings of events in the drama 
 have necessarily been suggested by what takes place 
 
 in life : 
 
 All the world's a stage 
 And all the men and women merely players : 
 They have their exits and their entrances. 
 
 But these exits, have they not filled mankind with 
 fear and wonder since the beginning of time ? When 
 placed by we know not what power on this mysterious 
 stage, must we through whole wildernesses of calamity 
 continue to tread it still, or may we, if so minded, 
 make our own exit? Some incidents in the life of 
 Kaleigh suggest the probability that he had discussed 
 with Shakespeare the subject of suicide, and that the 
 poet has put into the mouth of Hamlet his answer to 
 Ealeigh's sceptical conclusions ; for this great man 
 held suicide to be lawful, though, like his unhappy 
 Queen, for unexpressed reasons he abstained from 
 putting the theory in practice. 
 
 Whatever may have been his doubts, Ealeigh had 
 not extirpated from his mind the belief in immortality, 
 neither had Shakespeare, though his speculations were 
 involved in quite as much uncertainty as Ealeigh's. 
 In the fervour of his reasoning upon life and death, in 
 his agonising regret that the Everlasting had fixed 
 His canon against self-slaughter, the Danish prince in- 
 volves his reasoning powers in the inextricable meshes 
 of scepticism, and regarding the world itself as a huge 
 cage, beats the wings of his spirit against it in the 
 vain attempt to flee away and be at rest : 
 
 To die : to sleep ; 
 To sleep : perchance to dream : ay, there's the rub ; 
 For in that sleep of death what dreams may come 
 When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 
 Must give us pause : there's the respect 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE 223 
 
 That makes calamity of so long life ; 
 
 For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, 
 
 The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 
 
 The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, 
 
 The insolence of office and the spurns 
 
 That patient merit of the unworthy takes. 
 
 When he himself might his quietus make 
 
 With a bare bodkin ? Who would fardels bear, 
 
 To grunt and sweat under a weary life, 
 
 But that the dread of something after death, 
 
 The undiscover'd country from whose bourn 
 
 No traveller returns, puzzles the will 
 
 And makes us rather bear those ills we have 
 
 Than fly to others that we know not of? 
 
 Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ; 
 
 And thus the native hue of resolution 
 
 Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, 
 
 And enterprises of great pith and moment. 
 
 With this regard their currents turn awry, 
 
 And lose the name of action. 
 
 In this passage, so rich in thought, so prolific of 
 reflection, the philosophy may be right ; but, if so, 
 it exposes a flaw in Shakespeare's art, which if he 
 perceived he would not remove. Here he afi&rms, what 
 all thinking men will affirm with him, that from the 
 dreary regions of death, which he truly describes as 
 undiscovered, no traveller returns ; and yet the very 
 foundation of the play in which this truth is uttered 
 rests upon the supposed return of a traveller from that 
 undiscovered country : so perilous is the attempt to 
 reconcile superstition and philosophy. 
 
 Some portion, if not a large portion, of Shake- 
 speare's mind was made up out of materials borrowed 
 from Christianity, where the canon against self-slaughter 
 is found by inference, though not by express declara- 
 tion. In reality, however, suicide is forbidden by the 
 laws of nature, though the Eomans, a pre-eminently 
 
224 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 religious people, contrived to elude the force of primi- 
 tive instincts, and to reconcile the practice of self- 
 destruction with piety. One of the cardinal incidents 
 in their early history is the suicide of Lucretia, whose 
 soul, set free by the dagger, Shakespeare describes as 
 mounting directly to Heaven : 
 
 She sheathed in her harmless breast 
 A harmful knife, that thence her soul unsheathed : 
 That blow did bail it from the deep unrest 
 Of that polluted prison where it breathed : 
 Her contrite sighs unto the clouds bequeath'd 
 
 Her winged sprite, and through her wounds doth fly 
 Life's lasting date from cancell'd destiny. 
 
 From that time downwards, till * the noblest Eoman 
 of them all ' breathed forth his soul on the field of 
 Philippi, frequent suicides characterised the story of 
 the masters of the world. In Shakespeare's plays, the 
 Eoman mode of unsheathing the soul is of frequent 
 occurrence ; good and bad, noble and ignoble, from 
 Juliet and Portia to Goneril, seek death by their own 
 hands. 
 
ESSAY XIV 
 shakespeaee's employment of the supeenatueal 
 
 In the oldest religions of mankind, which grew up out 
 of a very limited study of nature, we find, in the midst 
 of piety, beliefs scarcely reconcilable with it. In their 
 search into the origin of things, they discovered forces 
 in operation, which, according to the point of view 
 whence they were regarded, suggested ideas of good 
 or evil. In these forces they thought they discerned 
 intelligence, and an aptitude to enter into relations 
 with human beings through the performance by the 
 latter of certain ceremonies and rites which exerted 
 a mystic efficacy. In their conception this globe of 
 earth, of which they knew not the extent, was synony- 
 mous with Nature : the source of all being, whether 
 human or divine, throwing forth continually, from her 
 prolific womb, existences of all kinds instinct with 
 spirit or intelligence. Human beings, according to this 
 theory, are only so many external embodiments of 
 internal forces, which, in proportion to those forces or 
 to their nature, are linked and hold communion with 
 the spiritual root from which they spring. 
 
 This idea was firmly fixed in the Hellenic mind, 
 and has probably held possession more or less of all 
 minds from the very beginning of things. To extirpate 
 it, therefore, is impossible. Throughout all latitudes 
 it springs up, as it were, under the feet of humanity^ 
 
 Q 
 
226 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 and, diffusing itself like an atmosphere, involves every- 
 thing that lives and reasons in its folds. The difference 
 between the wisest and the least wise is only one of 
 degree, the constitution of all minds being essentially 
 the same. Hence, at different periods of the world's 
 ^'Sto^y, ^^^ rg-piri gprpa./l nf epidemic beliefs, which, 
 through some inextricable affinity, pass from mind to 
 mind, till whole quarters of the world are overshadowed 
 by some new form of superstition ; just as, beneath 
 the surface of the earth, there runs round the globe a 
 belt of earthquakes, always more or less in activity, 
 but sometimes so violent as to make us distrust ther 
 J5tability of what we stand Qp. 
 
 Events taking place among men were, in conformity 
 with the above theory, traced to springs lying outside 
 of the human mind, but darting their influence into it 
 in obedience to hidden laws of which it were vain to 
 seek the nature. 
 
 The Greek dramatists subordinated the action of 
 all their pieces to an influence originating beyond the 
 sphere of humanity, but invested with that grandeur 
 and majesty which in human apprehension belong to 
 the unknown. 
 
 , The Northern nations, deriving their religion from 
 the East, drew likewise from the same source that 
 superstition, which after the introduction of Chris- 
 tianity they shaped into the belief in witchcraft. It 
 would be wronging Shakespeare to suspect him of 
 sharing in such a belief, but perceiving how widely it 
 prevailed, and in what revered department of super- 
 stition it took its rise J hfi r esoJvedJOL ^lQplQy ^t for 
 jdramatic purpose s. In his mind, the process appears 
 to have been this : a council of intelligences, in their 
 nature evil, being held, it is in it determined to 
 
EMPLOYMENT OF THE SUPERNATURAL 227 
 
 ori^nate a series of disastrous events in the kingdom 
 of Scotland. The plan of action is laid down the 
 instruments are chosen, the delusions are conceived 
 and organised by which the calamitous process is 
 
 !^ti'/«r^''"^- ^' *^'' ^""'°S ^^«° antecedently 
 settled, Shakespeare's genius, accepting the decision of 
 destmy, brangs together the agents natural and super- 
 natural, and begins his drama. ^ 
 
 ^v f/'^y./t^"^"' P^'""'^^' ^^^^ Macbeth is accosted 
 by the witches on the • blasted heath.' in conformity 
 with a scheme of action laid down elsewhere, without 
 
 now of the e hical question, but look upon things simpl? 
 as they are found in Shakespeare, though not withoS 
 reference to something not found in him, but ye 
 necessary to the completeness and comprehension o 
 what IS there found. It might be mere pedantrv 
 to attnbute to the poet the design of lecturfng m n- 
 kmd on the absurdity of their superstitions ; we m^v 
 suppose him mtent only on producing a wo^k of Tf 
 m which sublime conceptions, and teLble d spW of 
 
 Ie"lr If r ' T' °' ^^^^°"^ meannSfLd 
 deformity. If he could not look into the seeds of 
 
 time he could certainly discern distinctly the'a Le 
 
 of the Ideas prevalent among his contemporaries 
 
 more particularly in the brain of thHovere S 
 
 ttrgrlSqfeS"^' ''-''' '^' ^'-^^ ^ =S 
 When the supernatural is brought into collision 
 with the natural, it does not follow that the latter SS 
 yield to the shock; the human mind though™ 
 If compared with the united forces of the invisible 
 world, IS not constrained of necessity to sue am b 
 to them, although the danger of such a'resultTay t 
 
 Q 2 
 
J 
 
 J 
 
 228 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 imminent. Thp. finnfl int is nnw about to take pl ace ; 
 t he powers of evil are represented by three be arded 
 
 women, right and ]ustice"^'B5r'two soldiers m liie 
 plenitude of manhood, but intoxicated with ambition 
 b^ success. The witches behold their prey, and the 
 p;rt of Shakespeare begins at once to give evidence 
 of its potency. On perceiving the strange objects 
 before them, Banquo exclaims : 
 
 What are these 
 So wither'd and so wild in their attire, 
 That look not like the inhabitants of the earth, 
 And yet are on't ? Live you ? or are you aught 
 That man may question ? You seem to understand me, 
 By each at once her chappy finger laying 
 Upon her skinny lips : you should be women. 
 And yet your beards forbid me to interpret 
 That you are so. 
 
 I n_ order to take a firm hold on the mind of 
 Macbeth, the witefees Jfazzle him with a sampIe"of their 
 prophetic skill ; whence this knowledge of the future 
 came to tEem is another question, but they possessed 
 it, and, like the seers of old, subdued the existing by 
 the unborn : 
 
 Mac. Speak, if you can : what are you ? 
 
 First Witch. All hail, Macbeth ! hail to thee, thane of Glamis I 
 
 Second Witch. All hail, Macbeth 1 hail to thee, thane of Cawdor I 
 
 Third Witch. All hail, Macbeth ! thou shalt be king hereafter. 
 
 In some old book of emblems the idea of Destiny is 
 suggested by part of a. chain, composed of bright and 
 huge links, which issues from a black cloud, and after 
 throwing a long sweep towards the earth, rises at the 
 other end to the same cloud and is lost in it again. 
 Within the embrace of this chain, Macbeth now 
 chose to place himself, so that henceforward he can 
 
EMPLOYMENT OF THE SUPERNATURAL 229 
 
 hardly be regarded as a voluntary agent. Once indeed, 
 at a future point in his career, it seems as if he might 
 have slipped out of its grasp; but here at least he 
 yields up. unresistingly, his whole soul to the fas cination 
 qI a sceptre, and while he i^ nndftr t.hp. intinen ciTof hi s 
 ■waking f]rp.fl.m. p^ nauG cxtorts from the weird sisters 
 whfi.t. f.hp.y havft ^(} gav of his fortunes : 
 
 Bern. T the name of truth, 
 
 Are ye fantastical, or that indeed 
 Which outwardly ye show ? My noble partner 
 You greet with present grace and great prediction 
 Of noble having and of royal hope, 
 That he seems rapt withal : to me you speak not. 
 If you can look into the seeds of time 
 And say which grain will grow and which will not, 
 Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear 
 Your favours nor your hate. 
 First Witch. Hail ! 
 Second Witch. Hail ! 
 Third Witch. Haill 
 
 First Witch. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. 
 Second Witch. Not so happy, yet much happier. 
 Third Witch. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none : 
 
 So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo I 
 First Witch. Banquo and Macbeth, all hail I 
 
 Mac. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more : 
 
 By Sinel's death I know I am thane of Glamis ; 
 But how of Cawdor ? 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. Say from whence 
 You owe this strange intelligence ? or why 
 Upon this blasted heath you stop our way 
 With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge 
 you. [Witches vanish. 
 
 Ban. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, 
 
 And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd ? 
 Mac. Into the air ; and what seem'd corporal melted 
 
 As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd ! 
 
230 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Ban. Were such things here as we do speak about ? 
 Or have we eaten on the insane root, 
 That takes the reason prisoner ? 
 
 If intelligence be a necessary part of human nature, 
 the passions which inhere in it, and the ideas and 
 beliefs which it grasps, form also part of it, and must 
 obviously be co-lasting with it. When congregated 
 together in huge cities, men appear to have passed out 
 of the domain of Nature, and, living in close proximity to 
 each other, may almost be said to think in masses, and 
 in this state encourage each other in the notion that 
 they are stronger than their forefathers were of old, 
 and can dispense with those secret helps to the under- 
 standing which communion with Nature in solitary 
 places, in caves, in the recesses of mountains, or on the 
 wild beach seemed to engender. Hence faith in several 
 things, formerly believed in, appears to die out ; but 
 only appears, since a sudden change of circumstances, 
 war, pestilence, eclipses, earthquakes, sAlying them- 
 selves with the shadow of death, bring back into most 
 souls the beliefs of primitive humanity; and these 
 beliefs united and formed into a system have subdued 
 and kept in subjection the intelligence of the whole 
 world, assuming different names in different ages, but 
 in their essence and real character remaining always 
 the same. 
 
 If we push back our researches to the farthest 
 horizon, as it were, of thought, we shall perceive 
 through the dimmest twihght figures of magicians, 
 necromancers, enchanters, the seers of visions, the 
 dreamers of dreams, who, through various processes, 
 engaged to unveil the future, and reveal to their 
 contemporaries the events that should come after 
 them. In some parts of the East these pretensions 
 
EMPLOYMENT OF THE SUPERNATURAL 231 
 
 were regarded as so nearly bordering on criminality 
 as, in certain contingencies, to be punishable with 
 death. In old Hellas thought vindicated to itself a 
 freer range, and there accordingly the offspring of 
 superstition acquired its natural development. Man 
 could not pretend to have the surface of the earth all 
 to himself; beings of less tangible forms, but still 
 material, and at times visible, inhabited this world 
 with him, sometimes emerging from the infernal 
 regions, from the seas, from rivers, or fountains, or 
 trees, or even, apparently, from the air itself. All 
 these beings had their duties and appointed places in 
 the realm of Nature, and were employed to direct, 
 stimulate, enlighten, or sometimes to terrify, chastise, 
 or punish human beings for their misdeeds. 
 
 In all this vast system of existences we discover 
 nothing exactly analogous to a witch. Alastor, Lamia, 
 Empusa, the Destinies, the Erinnyes had all more or 
 less reference to the chastisement of guilt, and had 
 never, at least in remoter ages, the least power to 
 injure the innocent. It was only after that period in 
 the world's history, in which superstition invented the 
 devil, that a witch became possible, though for several 
 ages after, indeed almost up to our own day, multi- 
 tudes of harmless women, more especially if poor and 
 old, were burnt alive or otherwise destroyed to gratify 
 the malignant stupidity of their fellow-creatures. 
 
 Ignorant persons formerly imagined they dis- 
 covered traces of witchcraft in the Hebrew scriptures ; 
 but though we find there reference to superstitions 
 analogous to those of other countries, we discover not 
 one word indicating a belief in witchcraft. 
 
 The Greek tragedians brought supernatural beings 
 on the stage, but under different conditions from those 
 
232 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 in which Shakespeare's witches present themselves. 
 The Furies in ^schylus are females — old, hideous, 
 repulsive — yet with an inherent sublimity, not merely 
 because they are supposed to be instinct with deity, 
 but because the mission assigned to them by fate 
 is to punish the most awful aberrations from the 
 laws of justice. Though terrible, therefore, in their 
 nature, and no less terrible in their appearance, they 
 irresistibly command reverence by the sacred duty 
 with which they are invested. They first appear to 
 the spectator asleep on benches in the dim interior 
 of the great temple at Delphi, while Orestes, the 
 victim they are commanded to pursue, clasps, in the 
 habit of a suppliant, the image of the god — a situation 
 from which he could not be dragged without impiety. 
 To the Greek mind contemporary with -^schylus, 
 the Fury suggested ideas and associations so deeply 
 inwrought with terror and dread that audiences ex- 
 perienced some difficulty in resisting the effects of the 
 representation. The powers then supreme in heaven 
 were believed to owe their supremacy to usurpation, 
 while the gods from whom they had wrested power 
 were driven from the realms of light down to that 
 nether world where the spirits of men after death 
 were supposed to dwell for ever in various states of 
 happiness or pain. 
 
 The exhibition on the stage of these subterranean 
 goddesses, clothed with right and justice and com- 
 missioned to punish blood-guiltiness, necessarily in- 
 spired feelings far more powerful than the appearance 
 of a few witches grotesque in their aspect, and 
 associated in the imagination with loathsome rites 
 and murderous purposes. Shakespeare has, never- 
 theless, contrived to connect them in the tragedy of 
 
EMPLOYMENT OF THE SUPERNATUEAL 233 
 
 * Macbeth ' with a strange interest, prevented from 
 becoming absorbing by their ludicrous incantations, 
 their obscene fancies, and grotesque wickedness. 
 
 Whatever men beHeve, exists in their imagination, 
 and in that sense, therefore, ghosts are real beings, 
 in whatever way the idea of them originated. In fact, 
 wherever there are men there are ghosts, though the 
 mode in which they associate themselves with the 
 living depends on numerous variations in the forms 
 of thought prevalent in different countries and stages 
 of civilisation. Shakespeare as a poet beheld every- 
 thing subjected to* his genius, whether in th e iiiner or 
 i|i the outer world, to be made use of iiThis artistic 
 ^,-Creations according to the suggestions of his fancy 
 or the. decisions of his will. But the supernatural, 
 wherever and by whomsoever employed, is difficult to 
 be dealt with, because we are unacquainted with the 
 laws which regulate its existence if it exists, though 
 we may and ought to know the nature of the laws 
 which govern it if it be the offspring of our 
 own invention. Yet no amount of intellect seems 
 adequate to impart, to that which is created by fancy, 
 the consistency which is the attribute of natural 
 existences. 
 
 The ghost of Darius in iEschylus, when forced 
 by magic to ascend from the nether world, falls into 
 inconsistencies which we should scarcely have expected 
 to find in the production of so great an intellect. No 
 nation has yet fabricated a settled and consistent 
 system of belief respecting the condition of departed 
 spirits, or the amount of their power and knowledge, 
 ^schylus's judgment was at fault on this subject. 
 The ghost of Darius when it emerges to light is 
 ignorant of the events which had taken place on 
 
234 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 earth since its descent into Hades, but its atmosphere 
 soon clears, and it then not only recollects the past 
 but looks unerringly into the future. The account of 
 a still older apparition is more distinct and vivid. 
 When the enchantress of Endor calls up the manes 
 of Samuel, the Hebrew king inquires in extreme terror 
 what she beholds. * I see,' replies the enchantress, * a 
 god coming up out of the earth ' ^ — and among these 
 was the figure of an old man covered with a mantle. 
 Angry at being disturbed, the spirit inquires: * Why 
 hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up ? ' and there- 
 upon proceeds to disclose in menacing language the fate 
 of the guilty monarch. In this brief narrative there 
 is no inconsistency, though there be one circumstance 
 respecting which our curiosity would gladly be 
 satisfied : Did the Hebrew people of that age believe 
 like the pagans in a nether world, and regard it as 
 the abode of certain gods, who emerged from their 
 dark Plutonian mansions to accompany the prophet ? 
 
 If Shakespeare had the apparition of Darius in his 
 mind's eye, as seems probable, he has in some respects 
 improved upon his original. Nothing can be grander 
 or more effective than the opening scenes in * Hamlet.' 
 There is in most minds — perhaps in all — something 
 of a belief in the doctrine that the material world is 
 belted round by another, peopled with spiritual, or, as 
 Shakespeare would perhaps have called them, meta- 
 physical, existences which press upon us ' fools of 
 nature ' and fill our minds with rapture or horror. 
 ^ight, solitude, silence, broken at intervals by moaning 
 ^ the..wmd.,or splash of the ocean surge, witk nothmg 
 .but the twinkle of stars to mitigate the d arknesSy'a rS" 
 able to throw lonely watchers into a frame ot tnougnir 
 ' Revised Version of the Holy Bible, 1885. 
 
EMPLOYMENT OF THE SUPERNATURAL 235 
 
 favourable to superstitious influenc es. Thus we find 
 Bernardo, Marcellus, and Horatio, in a bitterly cold 
 night on the platform before the castle at Elsinore, 
 discussing the apparition of the royal ghost, Horatio 
 doubting, and the other two avouching what they had 
 twice seen. To mark the time Bernardo says : 
 
 'When yond same star that's westward from the pole 
 
 Had made his course to illume that part of heaven 
 
 Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself, 
 
 The bell then beating one, — 
 Mar. Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again! 
 Ber. In the same figure, like the king that's dead. 
 
 y 
 
 Horatio's doubts being dispelled, he, as a scholar, is 
 desired by the two soldiers to speak to the ghost, 
 which in spite of his fear and wonder he does : 
 
 Hor. What art thou that usurp'st this time of night. 
 Together with that fair and warlike form 
 In which the majesty of buried Denmark 
 Did sometimes march ? By heaven I charge thee, speak ! 
 
 Mar. It is offended. 
 
 Ber. See I it stalks away. 
 
 Hor. Stay ; speak, speak 1 I charge thee, speak I [Exit Ghost. 
 
 From this and what follows, it is obvious that 
 Shakespeare here intends to vouch for the reality of 
 the ghost's appearance, though, as we shall elsewhere 
 discover, he afterwards peremptorily denies the reality 
 of such apparitions. Here, however, the narrative is 
 explicit, positive, and confirmed by the testimony ot 
 tliree witnesses. Horatio having been thus convinced, 
 the dialogue enters upon a speculation as to what such 
 an apparition boded to the State ; from which it is 
 made evident that they entertained no suspicion of 
 what had taken place in the palace, by which the 
 young lord Hamlet, for whom they all cherished an 
 
236 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 attachment, had been defrauded of his right, he being 
 the true heir to that crown which his uncle has usurped 
 and now possesses. While they are busied in this dis- 
 cussion, the spectre breaks in again upon their sight : 
 
 Hor. But soft, behold ! lo, where it comes again I 
 
 \Re-enter Ghost. 
 
 I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion I 
 
 If thou hast any sound, or use of voice, 
 
 Speak to me : 
 
 If there be any good thing to be done. 
 
 That may to thee do ease and grace to me, 
 
 Speak to me : [Coch crows. 
 
 If thou art privy to thy country's fate, 
 
 Which, happily foreknowing may avoid, 
 
 O, speak ; 
 
 Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life 
 
 Extorted treasure in the womb of earth, 
 
 For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death, 
 
 Speak of it : stay, and speak I Stop it, Marcellus. 
 Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partisan ? 
 Hor. Do, if it will not stand. 
 Ber. 'Tis here. 
 
 Hor. 'Tis here. 
 
 Mar. 'Tis gone I [Exit Ghost. 
 
 We do it wrong, being so majestical, 
 
 To offer it the show of violence ; 
 
 For it is, as the air, invulnerable, 
 
 And our vain blows malicious mockery. 
 
 _As the * Eumenides ' o f iEschylus has outlived belief 
 in the Erinnyes, so ' Macbeth'* wilt' pf obabiy "mtrme-- 
 Jbelief in witchcraft, though, so long as men have faith 
 in the existence of their own souls, the notion will be 
 more or less widely cherished, that what survives the 
 grave may, under certain conditions, and to answer 
 certain ends, become visible. The supernatural in 
 * Hamlet ' will consequently continue to find accept- 
 ance by mankind long after the superstition which 
 
EMPLOYMENT OF THE SUPERNATURAL 237 
 
 forms an integral part of the basis of * Macbeth * shall 
 have become effete. According to the direction in 
 which speculation is at present advancing, we are 
 likely soon to adopt the Indian notion, that by piety 
 and philosophy men have given themselves souls, 
 and may yet augment the power of those souls 
 indefinitely. 
 
 Meanwhile, are we also drifting towards that 
 Hellenic theory, which teaches that the disembodied 
 spirit passes necessarily into a form or vehicle which, 
 though subtle and shadowy, is still material, and may 
 therefore at times be visible ? Science does not even 
 pretend to understand all the conditions of our exist- 
 ence : how the principle of life, which is so subtle as 
 to defy even the perception of thought, clothes itself 
 with substance and form, evolves from its own nature 
 ideas reaching upwards to the Divine Author of all 
 things, diffusing themselves through all space, so as 
 to envelop the whole creation in their grasp, and at 
 the same time striving, though vainly, to penetrate the 
 secret of their own existence, whence they emerge, 
 on what they feed, and whether, after flashing for 
 a moment over the surface of being, they vanish 
 into nothing or merely surge forward out of sight, 
 as they are urged along by the succeeding waves of 
 other ideas. 
 
 On this track, science seldom finds itself, either 
 because it despairs of arriving at profitable results, or 
 because, beyond certain limits, the speculator will find 
 no followers. Whatever view Shakespeare may have 
 taken of the goal to which philosophy leads us, he 
 took the fancies, beliefs, and speculations of mankind 
 as he found them, as materials to build up his plays. 
 
 Hamlet is a man wh o has lost hi s way in a vast 
 
 x: —_..«....— -^ ^ 
 
238 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 wildfirpftRs of thought; everything in the horizon of 
 his observat ion perplexes him : his father's sMden 
 ^^atihi ^i« nnp.]p.'s marriage with his mother, his own 
 exclusion from the throne. Owing entirely to the 
 inactivity of his character, which amounts to stupor, 
 he looks around him in helpless indecision, persuaded 
 he ought to act, but altogether uncertain how or what 
 to do. 
 
 Assuming that the spirits of the dead are acquainted 
 by unknown means with what is going on in the 
 spirits of the living, Shakespeare represents the soul 
 of Hamlet's father, as still, even amid the flames of 
 Purgatory, yearning with affection for his unhappy 
 A son. The poet himself felt no little perplexity how to 
 bring about an interview between the living and the 
 dead : the obvious course would have been, to conduct 
 the ghost into Hamlet's chamber, or to the scene of 
 one of his solitary walks, where out of sight and 
 hearing of the world they could commune together. 
 But the exigencies of his art suggested a different 
 course. He desired to establish in the minds of the 
 audience a conviction of the ghost's reality, though at 
 the expense of its logical powers, and the supernatural 
 scenes as we find them in the play are the result. 
 While the prince is in his worst state of bewilderment, 
 the three ghost-seers present themselves before him. 
 
 In the colloquy that follows, Hamlet, having alluded 
 sarcastically to recent events, says ' I think I see my 
 father.' Upon which Horatio inquires : 
 
 "Where, my lord ? 
 Ha/m. In my mind's eye, Horatio. 
 
 Hor. I saw him once ; he was a goodly king. 
 Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all, 
 I shall not look upon his like again. 
 
, 
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF THE SUPERNATURAL 239 
 
 Hor. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight. 
 
 Ham. Saw ? who ? 
 
 Hor. My lord, the king your father. 
 Ham. The king my father ! 
 
 Horatio then recapitulates the circumstances attend- 
 ing the ghost's appearance to him, upon which Hamlet 
 expresses his resolution to join them in their watch 
 about midnight. The suspicions he had previously 
 entertained now crowd upon his mind in greater 
 strength, for, as his father's spirit is in arms, his belief 
 and expectation are, that the foul practices of his 
 mother and uncle are to be disclosed to him that 
 night by the ghost. 
 
 All playgoers as well as readers are familiar with 
 what immediately follows between the Danish prince 
 and his father's spirit, which, though upon the whole 
 a fine example of dramatic art, is disfigured by some 
 blemishes. The spirit having divulged to him the 
 true state of things, his mother's debasement, his 
 uncle's crimes, his own unjust exclusion from the 
 throne, he believed or did not believe the revelation. 
 If he extended to it his faith, he should at the same 
 time have cherished for the revealer both implicit 
 trust and reverence ; yet when he is seeking to exact 
 an oath of secrecy from his companions, and the ghost 
 from beneath the earth seconds his desire, he addresses 
 it in a jocular tone as 'Truepenny,' 'fellow in the 
 cellarage,' * old mole,' and after recovering a more 
 proper tone of mind exclaims ' Best, rest, perturbed 
 spirit ! ' 
 
 For what reason are we to suppose that Hamlet 
 shifted his ground, and addressed wild words to the 
 spirit beneath the earth? Was it lest his intentions 
 to keep secret what had ranspired should be frustrated 
 
240 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEAEE 
 
 by the ghost's imprudence? Unless this was his 
 apprehension, we must tax him with levity, and if it 
 were, he had already begun to be sceptical respecting 
 the nature of the apparition. He afterwards, in order 
 to justify his irresolution, sophisticates with himself, 
 and tries to believe that the ghost might have been a 
 devil, and now while it was boring through the ground 
 under his feet, to give proof of its anxiety for the 
 success of his designs, he fears it might be wanting in 
 policy — a weakness of thought marking the obliquity 
 of Hamlet's character. In his dialogue with the ghost, 
 when the impression made by its disclosure of the 
 murder was fresh upon him, he exclaims : 
 
 Haste me to know 't ; that I, with wings as swift 
 As meditation or the thoughts of love, 
 May sweep to my revenge. 
 
 When, however, the full revelation has been made, he 
 is stunned by the magnitude of the enterprise, and 
 immediately proceeds to invest his design with doubts 
 and misgivings, which betray him into his habitual 
 procrastination. 
 
 Shakespeare found the difficulty of allying the 
 natural with the supernatural all but insurmountable, 
 and, having made the ghost perform his part in a few 
 brilliant scenes, he calls upon it no more save once 
 during the remainder of the tragedy. We may 
 imagine indeed that, as often as it is permitted to 
 revisit earth, it hovers about the last object of its 
 solicitude; for in the scene between Hamlet and his 
 mother the ghost is present, and by an act of volition 
 renders itself visible at the critical moment, to with- 
 hold the prince from becoming the rival of Alcmaeon 
 and Orestes. Here the ministry of the ghost ends, he 
 
EMPLOYMENT OF THE SUPERNATURAL 241 
 
 has played out his part, and retires to sulphurous and 
 tormenting flames, respecting the duration of which 
 the son is doubtful : 
 
 And how his audit stands who knows save heaven ? 
 But in our circumstance and course of thought, 
 'Tis heavy with him. 
 
 I have elsewhere spoken of Ariel, and the fairies 
 which shed so much beauty on *The Tempest' and 
 *A Midsummer Night's Dream.' In * Antony and 
 Cleopatra,' as well as in ' Julius Caesar,' the super- 
 natural is had recourse to, though, instead of being 
 heightened by the poet's imagination, it is, especially 
 in the latter play, tamer and more flat than in history. 
 Brutus, sitting up late in his tent at Sardis, while every- 
 thing around in the camp was still, is reported by the 
 old priest of Chseronea to have beheld a spectre, which 
 entered the tent door and stood near him. Hearing 
 footsteps, Brutus, who had been reading, looked up, 
 and, beholding the strange figure, inquired whether it 
 were a god or a man. The phantom answered * I am 
 thy evil genius, Brutus, and will meet thee again at 
 Philippi.' * Then,' replied the general without being at 
 all disturbed, 'I shall see thee.' 
 
 Out of this anecdote, repeated with variations in 
 the life of Caesar, Shakespeare has fabricated what 
 follows : 
 
 Enter the Ghost of Caesar. 
 
 Bru. How ill this taper burns I Ha ! who comes here ? 
 I think it is the weakness of mine eyes 
 That shapes this monstrous apparition. 
 It comes upon me. Art thou any thing ? 
 Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil. 
 That makest my blood cold and my hair to stare ? 
 Speak to me what thou art. 
 
242 
 
 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Ghost. Thy evil spirit, Brutus. 
 
 Bru. Why comest thou ? 
 Ghost. To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi. 
 
 Bru. Well ; then I shall see thee again ? 
 Ghost. Ay, at Philippi. 
 Bru. Why, I will see thee at Philippi then. [Exit Ghost. 
 Now I have taken heart thou vanishest : 
 111 spirit, I would hold more talk with thee. 
 
 Here Shakespeare not only falsifies history, but 
 perverts the doctrine of antiquity that every man had 
 a good and an evil genius — an opinion wholly distinct 
 from anything connected with ghosts. 
 
 Just before the final overthrow of Antony, who 
 affected to believe he was descended from Hercules, 
 strange musical sounds were heard by night in the 
 streets of Alexandria, together with the hurried tread 
 of a multitude of persons making towards the gate 
 leading out of the city to the enemy's camp. Having 
 described two soldiers entering to their guard, two 
 other soldiers likewise come in, and the following 
 dialogue takes place : 
 
 [Music of the hautboy as under the stage. 
 Fourth Soldier. Peace ! what noise ? 
 
 First Soldier. List, list I 
 
 Second Soldier. Hark I 
 First Soldier. Music i' the air. 
 
 Third Soldier. Under the earth. 
 
 Fourth Soldier, It signs well, does it not? 
 Third Soldier. No. 
 
 First Soldier. Peace, I say 1 
 
 What should this mean ! 
 Second Soldier. 'Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony loved. 
 Now leaves him. 
 
 Plutarch's narrative, as Shakespeare read it in 
 North's translation, is to this effect : — * The selfsame 
 night, within a little of midnight, when all the city was 
 
EMPLOYMENT OF THE SUPERNATCJKAL 243 _ 
 
 quiet, full of fear and sorrow, thinking what would be 
 the issue and end of this war, it is said that suddenly they 
 heard a marvellous sweet harmony of sundry sorts of 
 instruments of music, with the cry of a multitude of 
 people as they had been dancing, and had sung as they 
 used in Bacchus' feasts, with movings and turnings 
 after the manner of the satyrs, and it seemed that this 
 dance went through the city unto the gate that opened 
 to the enemy's camp, and that all the troop that 
 made this noise they heard went out of the city there. 
 Now such as in reason sought the depth of the 
 interpretation of this wonder thought that it was the 
 god unto whom Antonius bare singular devotion to 
 counterfeit and resemble, that did forsake him.' 
 
 In two other well-known passages Shakespeare 
 again makes use of supernatural machinery — in the 
 death scene of Queen Katherine, and in Posthumus's 
 vision in prison ; but these two passages, especially the 
 latter, have so little merit that they need not be more 
 particularly referred to. 
 
 B 2 
 
244 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ESSAY XV 
 
 ESOTEEIC OPINIONS OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 I HAVE already observed that indications are discover- 
 able in the plays, of the existence in the writer's mind 
 of opinions and beliefs in some respects different from 
 those of his contemporaries. On many occasions he 
 says one thing but apparently means another, not 
 merely different, but subversive of it altogether ; so 
 that we appear, while reading, to be engaged in the 
 interpretation of hieroglyphics, scarcely less perplexing, 
 perhaps, than those which torture our curiosity on the 
 monuments of Thebes or Philse. In this respect, how- 
 ever, he differs from other men only in degree, since 
 every individual that lives, be his intellectual domain 
 great or small, contrives to keep some portions of it 
 involved in Eleusinian darkness, so as to be to that 
 extent an enigma to his friends. 
 
 In Shakespeare's case, owing to the greatness of his 
 mental powers, to the clearness and depth of his under- 
 standing, to the subtlety of his thoughts, to the bold- 
 ness of his philosophy, to the immense variety of his 
 acquisitions, to the beauty and soaring nature of his 
 genius, we are stimulated by a more than usually strong 
 desire to lift the thick drapery which he has let fall 
 between his spirit and ours, and extort from him a key 
 to his most hidden convictions. The inscription on 
 the statue of Neith at Sais : ' I am all that has been, is, 
 
ESOTERIC OPINIONS OF SHAKESPEARE 245 
 
 or shall be, and no mortal hath ever drawn aside my 
 veil,' scarcely awakened a more earnest search among 
 the philosophers of Egypt, than the desire to ascertain 
 the conclusions he had arrived at, among the students 
 of Shakespeare. 
 
 The investigation may be idle, since Truth is as 
 willing to be communicative to us as she was to him, 
 but as by his numerous artistic creations he has 
 enthroned himself in our love, our desire to be satisfied 
 as to what he thought on several momentous subjects 
 is necessarily commensurate with our partiality. 
 
 Shakespeare was too familiar with the history of 
 humanity not to be fully alive to the danger of dis- 
 closing his secret thoughts, if they happened to be at 
 variance with those which are commonly entertained. 
 John Huss, Jerome of Prague, Urbain Grandier, 
 Servetus, and many others who paid the penalty of 
 plain speaking, warned him to be on his guard, and 
 he was otherwise rather inclined to live on good terms 
 with his neighbours than to provoke them to make 
 a martyr of him. It could have done no one any good 
 to behold him on a pile of faggots in Smithfield, or 
 languishing like Ealeigh in the Bloody Tower ; so he 
 studied the art of reserve, of expressing himself by 
 equivocal symbols, of investing startling ideas with the 
 mantle of orthodoxy, of agreeing with his contem- 
 poraries in show, while in substance he and they may 
 have been wide as the poles asunder. 
 
 Seeing how easily he might be crushed by the 
 collision of the two Churches, he was careful not to 
 place himself between them, that no one among his 
 contemporaries could say towards which he leaned, or 
 whether or not he leaned to either. There existed at 
 that time in England a sect of thinkers, not perhaps so 
 
246 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 small as might appear at first sight, which included 
 Bacon, Ealeigh, Henry Percy, Harriot, Hues, Warner, 
 and others, and the question often suggests itself, Did 
 Shakespeare belong to the sect? A tolerably thick 
 volume has been written to prove that he went in many 
 respects beyond most of its members, though the 
 notions of the writer are so little exact that he con- 
 founds theism with its opposite. 
 
 If we carefully consider the ideas which meet us 
 constantly in the plays, we shall probably discover 
 reasons for thinking that Shakespeare did not secretly 
 pride himself on his strict orthodoxy, though such was 
 the refinement and subtlety of his policy that no class 
 of thinkers could positively claim or disclaim him. 
 From the * Shepherd of the Ocean * down to the 
 humblest sectary there were believers and unbelievers 
 of all shades among his audiences at the Blackfriars 
 and the Globe, and it was for his interest to dismiss 
 them all in good humour with themselves and with 
 him. 
 
 From the analogy between the ceremonies of the 
 Catholic Church and those of the drama, a marked 
 fondness for the stage has always been observable 
 among the professors of that form of Christianity, and 
 Shakespeare, consequently, was peculiarly solicitous to 
 avoid giving utterance to sentiments which might have 
 alienated from him so large a portion of his hearers. 
 Indeed the extreme tenderness noticeable in his treat- 
 ment of nuns, monks, and friars has led many to infer 
 that he was himself one of those recusants who, in 
 the times of Elizabeth and James, constituted so large 
 a portion of the population. The only case in which 
 his impartiality failed him was in the matter of the 
 Puritans, whom in obedience to the prejudices of the 
 
ESOTERIC OPINIONS OF SHAKESPEAEE 247 
 
 Court and the nobility he imprudently assailed, and 
 thus aided to some extent in estranging from the 
 theatre that great party of stern and haughty English- 
 men who were so soon to be in the ascendant in the 
 State. 
 
 Yet I would by no means be certain that Shake- 
 speare held opinions different from those of the Puritans. 
 His position as a stage player or a manager seems 
 to have justified in his eyes the habit, not unknown 
 in any rank or condition of men, of putting on for 
 convenience the thickest possible veil of hypocrisy. 
 Leicester, till he succumbed to what Fra Paolo calls 
 Italian physic at Cornbury, had been, notwithstanding 
 the incidents of his life, leader of the Puritan party ; 
 Essex was at the same time a Protestant and a Catholic, 
 which may have been the case also with Southampton ; 
 Elizabeth prayed with the Protestant doctors, but 
 hanged them when they went too far; and James, 
 born of a mother whom history alternately presents 
 as a martyr and a murderess, never throughout his 
 life discovered exactly what he was, but hung, like 
 Mohammed's coffin, between earth and heaven, so 
 thoroughly devoted to the one that he scarcely dared 
 look up at the other. Among such contemporaries 
 what could Shakespeare do? His secret feeling is 
 well expressed in the words of the old song, 
 
 My mind to me a kingdom is, 
 
 and this realm so far differs from other kingdoms that 
 it cannot be invaded without the consent of its 
 sovereign. 
 
 Though we know not what ideas are, whether they 
 be spiritual or material, eternal or fleeting, we do know 
 that they are often possessed of a ravishing and divine 
 
248 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 beauty, and that to move among them is to be, as it 
 were, rapt into the seventh heaven. That Shake- 
 speare was in the habit of enjoying this delight we 
 may infer from the words of Prospero, who bids Ariel — 
 that is, one of his ideas to which he had given a name — 
 appear before him invested with all the loveliness of a 
 nymph of the sea. It is within the competence of all 
 creative minds to ascend when they list to those celes- 
 tial regions where everything that is sweet and beautiful 
 resides, and to revel there amid divine forms and types 
 of splendour which know no reflections in the sphere 
 of the outer world. Here is Olympus, here are the 
 courts of Jove, here alone Apollo's lute, strung with 
 his hair, sounds for ever, and here Shakespeare found 
 those images and fancies which he spent his whole 
 life in endeavouring to shower forth through language 
 upon mankind. To enter here is to be in the private 
 apartments of Nature, where nothing unholy can ever 
 be found, but instead, Truth unveiled, ready to be 
 embraced by all who dare aspire to become her wor- 
 shippers. Shakespeare, it cannot be doubted, did so 
 aspire, and held converse with her out of hearing of 
 the world. 
 
 To emerge from these cycles of thought, and 
 accommodate itself to the coarse, rough business of 
 life, is regarded by the mind in certain moods almost as 
 a profanation. Yet Shakespeare often found himself 
 on the steep declivity, leading to still worse results. 
 He had to say what he did not believe, to do, perhaps, 
 many things which he condemned as evil, to stand 
 bareheaded before men whom Nature had formed to 
 be his servitors, to bend his will, originally it may be 
 stubborn in such matters, to the will of others, who 
 willed what no sophistry could reconcile with the 
 
ESOTERIC OPINIONS OF SHAKESPEARE 249 
 
 strict law of rectitude. His inborn idiosyncrasies were 
 cast in the fairest mould of refinement itself, yet the 
 necessities of his position may have constrained him 
 occasionally to tolerate ethical lapses which he despised ; 
 for misery, he tells us, acquaints us with strange bed- 
 fellows. 
 
 Stung by self-reproach, in this way, perhaps, 
 generated, he sadly exclaimed : 
 
 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. 
 
 And what did he work in? And what were his 
 harmful deeds? As he has supplied us with no 
 answers to these questions, they must remain un- 
 answered for ever. In the matter of opinion it is in 
 some degree at least different, since, if we cannot arrive 
 at absolute certainty, we may make some approaches 
 to it. In the turbulent society by which Shakespeare 
 was surrounded, there were two antagonistic principles 
 at work — the monarchical and the republican, and 
 while energy was secretly ebbing out of the one, it was 
 in the same degree flowing into the other. 
 
 To these momentous processes Shakespeare's atten- 
 tion could not be otherwise than directed, partly 
 because they bore upon the very existence of the theatre, 
 but chiefly because they deeply influenced the whole 
 political and social economy of the world. In practice, 
 though not perhaps in theory, Shakespeare was an 
 Epicurean, and, in spite of the grandeur of his genius, 
 
250 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEAKE 
 
 could not persuade himself that greater happiness may 
 be enjoyed with truth in a garret than with vice and 
 error in a palace. Like other sceptics of his time, he 
 had little faith in the professors of wisdom : 
 
 Was never yet philosopher 
 That could endure the toothache patiently, 
 However they have writ the style of gods 
 And made a push at chance and sufferance. 
 
 The purchase of houses and lands at Stratford 
 supplies the best commentary upon this passage ; he 
 had no taste for sitting with Diogenes in his tub, or 
 for wrapping himself with Epictetus in his servile 
 gaberdine : 
 
 Video meliora proboque, 
 Deteriora sequor. 
 
 Hence many of the apparent contradictions in the 
 plays. To thrive, the writer found it necessary to 
 restrain his sympathy for the system of things to 
 come, which could bring him no profit, and appear 
 to sympathise with the things that were, which could. 
 At the summit of human affairs, as they then existed, 
 sat Despotism enthroned ; Elizabeth herself was no 
 less jealous of her absolute authority than James ; and 
 therefore, when the poet ventured to 
 
 tell sad stories of the death of kings, 
 
 he found it incumbent on him to guard strictly against 
 the suspicion that in his secret soul he looked with 
 extreme indifference at their fate. Coleridge observes 
 that while the republican principle is predominant 
 in Massinger, and the doctrine of Divine right in 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, Shakespeare's leanings are 
 towards aristocracy. In this case, however, he makes 
 between him and Massinger a distinction without a 
 
ESOTERIC OPINIONS OF SHAKESPEARE 251 
 
 difference, since the aristocratic principle is as com- 
 pletely republican as the democratic. 
 
 Whatever form of civil polity may have appeared 
 best to Shakespeare, it certainly was not the monarchi- 
 cal, which, as often and as openly as he dared, he held 
 up to public scorn, not indeed where the question was 
 directly under consideration, but after the theatrical 
 manner by innuendoes and asides. Many of his kings 
 are usurpers, some of them murderers, nearly all of 
 them despots or knaves. If he was as great a pro- 
 ficient as I suppose, in the art of looking into the 
 seeds of time, and determining which of them should 
 grow and which should not, he must have foreseen 
 the utter blight and mildew of many which to the 
 common eye seemed likely to flourish. Without anti- 
 cipating the advent of a Utopia, Shakespeare's con- 
 victions were profoundly revolutionary, and, as far as 
 they exerted any influence on the minds of those who 
 studied him, paved the way to those great convulsions 
 that almost immediately followed. 
 
 A prince is seldom chosen for the speaker when 
 the object is to inculcate democratic principles ; yet 
 instead of selecting any inferior character, by whose 
 lips to express his own opinions, Shakespeare puts 
 forward as his representative in this matter one of the 
 haughtiest members of the regal caste in Europe. 
 Standing before the caskets at Belmont as a suitor for 
 Portia's hand, and reading in the inscription on that of 
 silver, 
 
 Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves, 
 
 the Prince of Arragon exclaims, 
 
 And well said too ; for who shall go about 
 To cozen fortune and be honourable 
 Without the stamp of merit ? 
 
252 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 that is, who shall presume to wear honours bestowed 
 by the ' fool multitude ' without deserving them ? Yet, 
 looking abroad in the world, in how few cases do we 
 observe the merit proportioned to the honour ! 
 
 O, that estates, degrees and offices 
 
 Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour 
 
 Were purchased by the merit of the wearer 1 
 
 How many then should cover that stand bare I 
 
 How many be commanded that command 1 
 
 How much low peasantry would then be glean'd 
 
 From the true seed of honour ! and how much honour 
 
 Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times 
 
 To be new-varnish'd ! 
 
 Harry Vane, or Pym, or HoUis, might for the 
 sentiments have written this passage, in which the 
 grandees of the seventeenth century might perceive in 
 what light they were regarded by one of the greatest 
 thinkers of the time. 
 
 Farther on in the same play, law, theology, and 
 beauty might learn what the * player man ' thought of 
 them : 
 
 The world is still deceived with ornament. 
 
 In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt 
 
 But, being season' d with a gracious voice, 
 
 Obscures the show of evil ? 
 
 Seasoned with the same gracious voice, evil was 
 perhaps quite as often made to assume the show of 
 good, as when, bribed by the present of an estate, a foul 
 murderer was pronounced innocent, while to please the 
 Court the noblest man then living was immured by 
 law during a large portion of his life in the Tower. 
 
 We discover by the mummies that long ere Memnon 
 fell before Troy, * beauty's dead fleece ' was employed 
 to make another gay ; so we can feel no surprise that 
 the ladies of Venice and London in Shakespeare's 
 
ESOTERIC OPINIONS OF SHAKESPEARE 253 
 
 time had recourse to the same artifice to conceal the 
 ravages of years or the parsimony of Nature. 
 
 When Burbage pronounced the following passage 
 at the Blackfriars many a fair occupant of the fore- 
 most benches must have winced secretly while her 
 female rivals tossed their own living fleece in triumph : 
 
 Look on beauty, 
 And you shall see 'tis purchased by the weight ; 
 Which therein works a miracle in nature, 
 Making them lightest that wear most of it : 
 So are those crisped snaky golden locks 
 Which make such wanton gambols with the wind, 
 Upon supposed fairness, often known 
 To be the dowry of a second head, 
 The skull that bred them in the sepulchre. 
 
 When Shakespeare wrote * Eomeo and Juliet,' the 
 world appeared to him in all the gloss and splendour 
 of beauty, as it is invariably painted by youth and 
 hope ; but care, study, and the drudgery of the stage 
 stripped it gradually of these brilliant colours and made 
 him long to escape from it that he might meditate on 
 its deceit and hollowness in the quiet seclusion of 
 Stratford : 
 
 God ! O God ! 
 
 How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. 
 
 Seem to me all the uses of this world ! 
 
 Fie on't ! ah fie I 'tis an unweeded garden. 
 
 That grows to seed ; things rank and gross in nature 
 
 Possess it merely. 
 
 Among the subjects on which men are most tolerant 
 is that of morals, which, though always fluctuating 
 and differing essentially in different countries, is yet 
 commonly assumed to be everywhere the same, and 
 to be placed under the guardianship of that internal 
 judge, conscience. Here, more than in any other 
 
254 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEAEE 
 
 department of philosophy, Shakespeare found it in- 
 cumbent on him to cultivate an esoteric system. He 
 did not and could not think as his neighbours thought 
 — I mean such of his neighbours as were engaged in 
 watching over other people's morals, however they 
 might neglect their own. If we accept the doctrine 
 that no two men either are or ever were exactly similar 
 in all respects, physical and intellectual, it follows 
 necessarily that their ethics, which are only the result 
 of their idiosyncrasy, must differ in the same degree 
 with the other attributes of their being. 
 
 Yet in all countries a pattern is set up by authority, 
 in strict conformity with which everybody is expected 
 to shape his conduct. 
 
 But when men agree to live together, whether in 
 larger or smaller numbers, do the majority possess by 
 nature the right to lay down absolute rules for coercing 
 individuals in the matter of ethics, so that each of 
 them shall only say and do what other persons find it 
 convenient to say and do ? What, in fact, are ethics ? 
 Are they not simply that aggregate of minor laws 
 which human intelligence has established for promoting 
 the happiness of individuals, both separately and collec- 
 tively? Everything which renders a man happy as 
 an individual and as a member of the community is 
 good, and everything which has a contrary tendency 
 is evil. If morals were placed on this basis, it would 
 be found necessary in most cases to revolutionise 
 society, since things indifferent in their nature are 
 often pronounced wrong ; while the name of virtue is 
 sometimes bestowed on actions the tendency of which 
 is to generate misery and suffering. 
 
 Society has in nothing exhibited so much caprice 
 and ignorance as in its attempts to regulate the inter- 
 
ESOTERIC OPINIONS OP SHAKESPEARE 255 
 
 course of the sexes, in which it has nearly always 
 substituted violence for gentleness and instruction. 
 Irregularities were punished in Shakespeare's time by 
 causing the erring individual, if married and a female, 
 to stand wrapped in a white sheet at a church door, 
 for the edification of those undetected sinners who went 
 in and out ; and in other cases by being stripped half 
 naked and scourged in the public streets. Harlots in 
 high places were not, it will readily be believed, visited 
 with this rough chastisement. Elizabeth multiplied 
 her lovers with impunity; James's mother and wife, 
 though equally lavish, were less fortunate in their 
 amours ; the great ladies of Elizabeth's and James's 
 Court, from the Countess of Northumberland and Lady 
 Eich down to the fair Bridges, practised the greatest 
 licence with impunity ; and it was only when they 
 added murder to their other peccadilloes, as in the case 
 of Lady Essex, that morahty thought it necessary to 
 avenge itself. Shakespeare, however, insinuates that 
 adulteresses were as plentiful as blackberries, and puts 
 into the mouth of Lear his reproof of those who 
 punished them with brutality : 
 
 Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand I 
 
 The mask of madness is here made to perform good 
 service : 
 
 Lear. Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar ? 
 
 Glo. Ay, sir. 
 Lear. And the creature run from the cur ? There thou might st 
 
 behold the great image of authority : a dog's obeyed in 
 
 office. 
 
 Some critics maintain that Shakespeare does not, 
 like Beaumont and Fletcher, treat magistrates with 
 contempt. I scarcely, however, know a passage in 
 any dramatist that bears upon them more roughly 
 
256 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEAKE 
 
 than the following, which may, moreover, be paralleled 
 with many others : 
 
 See how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in 
 thine ear : change places ; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, 
 which is the thief ? 
 
 The old king, however, does not stop here ; he looks 
 around him, and finds something to say of other classes 
 
 of men : 
 
 The usurer hangs the cozener. 
 Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear ; 
 Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, 
 And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks ; 
 Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it. 
 
 From the passages conceived in King Cambyses* 
 vein, found here and there in the plays, especially in 
 * Coriolanus,' it might be inferred that Shakespeare 
 imagined human society to be disposed like rocks on 
 the surface of the globe — in strata with the brightest 
 and most beautiful uppermost. Very different were 
 his real convictions. If he had his prejudices on this 
 subject, they were rather in favour of the lowly than 
 the high, since you often find in his serving women 
 and men, in his dependants and his fools, more real 
 faith and fidelity than in his princes and grandees. 
 In * As You Like It ' the very soul of gratitude and 
 affection is found in old Adam, and if the young 
 noble repays it, his virtue is only the reflection of his 
 servant's. In * Timon ' whatever beauty or moral 
 grace there is breaks forth through the awkwardness 
 and disadvantages of the humbler classes, while the 
 opulent and the great exhibit no qualities but those of 
 baseness and ingratitude. Not that Shakespeare had 
 deluded himself into the belief that pure and excellent 
 qualities flourish exclusively in any rank of society, or 
 
ESOTERIC OPINIONS OF SHAKESPEARE 257 
 
 that poverty is the only nurse of virtue ; but experience 
 had taught him that 
 
 Adversity, 
 [Though], like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
 Wears yet a precious jewel in his head. 
 
 In fact, one of the first among the lessons of philo- 
 sophy, to whatever source we may trace the instruction, 
 is that the human soul never acquires its greatest 
 strength and beauty till it has been chastened and 
 disciplined by suffering. Of this truth Greek tragedy 
 is full, and Shakespeare, who in this respect thought 
 as ^schylus thought, abounds with evidences of the 
 same conviction. In ' Kichard the Second ' and 
 * Henry the Fourth ' he concentrates in comparatively 
 few scenes the essence of all the teaching of history, 
 namely, that they who are elated and insolent in 
 prosperity are in the same proportion base and abject 
 when prostrated by sickness and calamity. 
 
 But the truth, which neither experience nor litera- 
 ture nor philosophy will ever cause to be generally 
 accepted, though in theory it was accepted by Shake- 
 speare, is that all the misery of civil society springs 
 from the worship of power and grandeur by the multi- 
 tude. In this consists the original sin of human 
 nature, compounded of meanness, weakness, and con- 
 scious baseness. Hence the predominance of rank 
 over worth, of authority over virtue. If Shakespeare's 
 opinions were universally prevalent, what havoc would 
 they not create in the world ! It may be all very well 
 to hear him lecture on set occasions by the mouth of 
 Ulysses or others on the benefits of order, when we 
 find from numerous incidental expressions with what 
 scorn he internally regarded it : 
 
 S 
 
258 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Great men may jest with saints ; 'tis wit in them, 
 But in the less foul profanation. 
 
 That in the captain's but a choleric word, 
 Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy. 
 
 . . . Authority, though it err like others, 
 Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself. 
 That skins the vice o' the top. 
 
 If it be not evident from what I have written that 
 Shakespeare's mind was filled with that assemblage of 
 qualities which we call wisdom, the reader has only to 
 study the plays to become possessed by the conviction. 
 Meanwhile, had Shakespeare yielded obedience to the 
 Delphic principle * Know thyself ' ? Throughout his 
 writings we seem, I think, to be communing with a 
 mind which shows no disposition to succumb to any 
 other, but puts forth its conclusions in the full per- 
 suasion that they can never be gainsaid. What his 
 faults were he knew better than anyone else, and could 
 have made out such a catalogue of them as might 
 have startled his innocent worshippers. Yet looking 
 upon his productions, one and all, he felt the unutter- 
 able delight of knowing that his mind had given birth 
 to offspring which would thenceforward be the com- 
 panions of the human race for ever. What was 
 murmured two thousand years ago at Eome — non 
 omnis moriar — he in the same spirit murmured to 
 himself in London : 
 
 Not marble, nor the gilded monuments 
 
 Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme. 
 
 But why should his rhyme last ? Is it not for the 
 same reason that the springs of the desert are kept 
 open by the Arabs? They drink of them, and are 
 
ESOTERIC OPINIOJSS OF SHAKESPEARE 259 
 
 refreshed, and are therefore careful not to blot out the 
 tracks leading to them. That which is always fresh 
 and pleasant cannot be suffered to die. If the reading 
 of Shakespeare were a task, if it led to nothing but 
 maxims and moralities, it would speedily be re- 
 linquished as a tedious occupation. Shakespeare had 
 learned how to play on that most beautiful of all 
 instruments — the human heart, and has brought forth 
 from it the sweetest of all melodies. He is justified, 
 therefore, in saying with the great historian, that he 
 bequeaths mankind his works : 
 
 '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. 
 
 But the ground on which he then built would have left 
 his name stranded amid the formless ruins of oblivion, 
 had not his genius piled upon those powerful rhymes 
 something incalculably more powerful. In the con- 
 fidence, however, of youthful genius, he deals in 
 gorgeous promises to his friends : 
 
 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. 
 
 If these lines were written before the completion of 
 ' Eomeo and Juliet,' he counted on what he hoped to 
 do, not on what he had done ; but when that play was 
 finished he felt that he stood on a level with the 
 greatest peers of intellect, and that the extinction of 
 his fame could only take place when, in a more com- 
 plete sense than that in which he used the phrase, 
 * All the breathers of this world are dead.' 
 
 S3 
 
260 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ESSAY XVI 
 
 POLITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS OPINIONS 
 
 When Shakespeare looked around him he could not 
 fail to observe what was the prevalent mode of 
 thought in political matters: in Elizabeth's reign 
 everybody worshipped, or professed to worship, the 
 Queen, not merely as sovereign, but as a woman. 
 Not to regard her as wisest, discreetest, best; not 
 to descant on her golden locks, her sweet voice, her 
 imperial walk; not to maintain that in the arts of 
 sway she was as just and as wise as Jove, and that 
 her moderation and gentleness were equal to her 
 wisdom, was almost to be guilty of treason. Hence 
 the happy phrase of 
 
 Vestal throned by the west, 
 
 and hence the prophetic outburst of Cranmer over 
 her cradle, foretelling that when the baby lying there 
 should be a woman the world would witness a return 
 of the Golden Age. Still more tyrannous was opinion 
 in James's reign. The King's political doctrines being 
 in the highest degree arbitrary, his manners offensive, 
 and his morals dissolute, it was almost understood 
 to be a necessity to uphold ' the right divine of kings 
 to govern wrong.' 
 
POLITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS OPINIONS 261 
 
 Bacon and even Kaleigh, whatever they may have 
 thought secretly, bowed the knee to despotism, not 
 awkwardly and grudgingly, but with apparent earnest- 
 ness and delight. What less therefore could be 
 expected of Shakespeare? They stood upon that 
 high and pleasant mount, where he imagines Fortune 
 to be throned, at the bottom of which, though as 
 yet they knew it not, their career was to terminate. 
 Shakespeare already stood on that low social level, 
 condemned to live more or less by flattery, by vailing 
 his lofty brow to every minion of fortune, by calling 
 black white and white black, by suppressing in his 
 soul every nobler sentiment, when he saw or suspected 
 it might interfere with his bread and cheese.^ 
 
 Never therefore did man with an intellect of vast 
 capacity labour under more powerful temptations 
 to fabricate an esoteric system of opinions, and to 
 preserve their incognito through life. He probably 
 prayed, in the words of Naaman the Syrian, ' When 
 thy servant goeth into the house of Eimmon ' etc., 
 for assuredly he could not bow the knee voluntarily 
 to the idols he pretended to admire and worship.^ 
 
 * After the death of Elizabeth, Shakespeare spoiled Cranmer's 
 prophetic speech by introducing a fulsome panegyric on this vilest 
 of kings, to whom, and not to Raleigh, he attributes the founding 
 of our colonial Empire : 
 
 Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine, 
 His honour and the greatness of his name 
 Shall be, and make new nations. 
 
 "^ Most persons have read or heard, whether they have profited 
 by it or not, the story of the woman taken in adultery. Shakespeare 
 had profited by it, and condemning the practice of his time, sought 
 to recommend a more merciful system of morality than that which 
 he saw in vogue. Unchastity is certainly an offence, but not in 
 any case punishable by law, though the brutal notions of our ancestors 
 
262 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 On questions of morals it was, in the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries, no less imperative to conceal 
 any tendency towards heterodoxy. Indeed, in all ages 
 and countries there is, and has been, a certain ethical 
 pattern set up after which everybody is expected to 
 fashion his proceedings, as well as his ideas, of what 
 is right or wrong ; but, considering the infinite varieties 
 of human character, the prevalence of understanding 
 in some, of imbecility in others, the existence in many 
 minds of what may be called a moral twist or con- 
 tortion which often proves incurable, a disinclination 
 to conform, in matters of passion and emotion, to 
 established types : in short, all forms of individualism 
 or idiosyncrasies combine to render it impossible that 
 all men should think or act alike, either in their 
 relations to one another or to society at large. But 
 there is a convenient vice which, when possessed in 
 its largest development, influences mankind like virtue 
 and creates at least a semblance of peace and goodwill 
 among them — I mean hjrpocrisy. It is this alone that 
 enables a man to go through the daily round of life 
 without at every step coming into collision with some 
 sharp angle of his neighbour's character, and thus 
 giving or receiving wounds that may rankle for ever. 
 
 led them to whip women at a cart's tail for a breach o chastity. 
 Seeing thoroughly the wickedness of such an act, Shakespeare yet 
 thought it only safe to condemn it through the mouth of a madman : 
 Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand ! etc. 
 
 In looking at the constitution of social life, and beholding dishonest 
 wealth fastening with the fangs of law upon dishonest poverty, he 
 exclaims : 
 
 Go make thyself like a nymph o' the sea. 
 
 For spirits . . . with ease 
 Assume what sexes and what shapes they please. 
 
 Pope, Bajoe of tM Loch, i. 69-70. 
 
POLITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS OPINIONS 263 
 
 You may know that man to be a knave, and that 
 woman to be a courtesan ; but if circumstances compel 
 you to associate with one or both of them, policy 
 closes your lips not only when they are present but 
 when they are absent also. *The world's a stage, 
 and all the men and women merely players ' ; which 
 shows that Shakespeare had made up his mind to 
 play his part so as to shock as little as possible the 
 susceptibilities of those about him. No man appears 
 to have derived more satisfaction than he from the 
 doctrine in the old song, 
 
 My mind to me a kingdom is. 
 
 If a man be determined to cage his thoughts, he is 
 their absolute master ; he can arrange them, discipline 
 them, throw them into innumerable combinations and 
 watch the results ; he can make them play tricks for 
 his amusement and lead them out into forbidden 
 grounds, can set them at entire difference from the 
 rest of the world, can condemn what he sees or hears, 
 can believe or disbelieve, can overthrow cities, dethrone 
 kings, extirpate rehgions, practise all kinds of virtues or 
 indulge in every conceivable modification of vice, and 
 yet walk with a smooth face among his neighbours. 
 * Fronti nulla fides,' observes the Eoman historian who 
 passed his life among deluding masks ; and Shake- 
 speare, surrounded by analogous circumstances, has 
 given us an admirable translation of the phrase : 
 
 There's no art 
 To find the mind's construction in the face. 
 
 No, there is no such art, which, like all other men, 
 he found highly advantageous to his fortunes. Bacon, 
 when he wrote his Essay on ' Wisdom for a Man's 
 Self,' regarded this closeness, as he terms it, as one of 
 
264 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 the most valuable attributes of man. If you have it, 
 you live in an' impregnable fortress with all your 
 intellectual wealth exclusively at your own disposal ; 
 neither cajolements nor menaces nor law nor despotism 
 can compel you to yield up one jot of what you have 
 within. The soul may safely take sanctuary there and 
 bid defiance to the arts and power of everything finite. 
 Our predecessors used to think, and Mr. Froude among 
 late writers agreed with them, that pain or torture 
 applied without mercy can wring truth from the 
 boldest nature. Experience and history prove the 
 contrary. Everybody remembers the Pythagorean 
 woman whom a tyrant desired to betray her friends ; 
 when the extremities of torture appeared to be on the 
 point of overcoming her firmness, she bit off her tongue 
 and spat it in the monster's face. Her mind was her 
 kingdom, and she defended it to death. Insanity 
 can only shatter the defences of this fortress, it cannot 
 destroy them : death only can achieve that work. 
 
 If, as I suppose, Shakespeare had in his mind 
 many things which he found it convenient to conceal, 
 he was wise enough to commune with his own heart 
 in his chamber, and to put a padlock on his tongue 
 when outside of it. With him, esoteric opinions were 
 a necessity. Orthodox opinions, while they occasion 
 no shock in society, are equally distant from affording 
 much pleasure ; they are regarded as matters of course, 
 and the men who profess them often pass among the 
 discerning for hypocrites, who, as a rule, are not worth 
 being unmasked. It is only erratic forms of thought, 
 which run counter to received doctrines, that excite 
 astonishment or hostility. In religion the case is 
 still worse than in morals or politics. Formerly any 
 deviation from the crooked line which people call 
 
POLITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS OPINIONS 265 
 
 straight put a man in danger of being grilled, fried, 
 or roasted alive, in the presence of priests and 
 potentates, to whom his groans sounded like music ; 
 and it can scarcely be doubted that, if this pleasure 
 still suited the taste of the majority, grilHng or roasting 
 a neighbour would afford supreme satisfaction to many 
 orthodox thinkers. No one can have observed much 
 of what passes around him without discerning in 
 mankind symptoms of a strong yearning in this 
 direction. The deity probably in whose honour the 
 torch would now be lighted is not God but gold; 
 yet the devotion, instead of being weaker than for 
 the object of solicitude in the Middle Ages, is much 
 stronger. The omnipotence of property, however, has 
 been so thoroughly established, and so widely accepted, 
 that nothing new can be said upon the subject. One 
 of our poets, who meant right though he expressed 
 himself wrongly, says : 
 
 Let honours and preferments go for gold, 
 But glorious beauty is not to be sold. 
 
 If we attach the ordinary signification to his words, 
 instead of subscribing to the truth of his dictum, we 
 should say there is not a greater drug in the market 
 than beauty, which, with however many reservations, 
 is always to be purchased. He meant, however, that 
 an ugly woman could not buy it, and might have 
 added that though she could not do that, she might 
 invest herself with a far superior beauty, though not 
 quite so visible to the eyes of fools. Fortunately for 
 Shakespeare — or rather, perhaps, for us — he had no 
 taste for being grilled, so he took refuge in the 
 enigmatical style of writing, and when he said what 
 he thought, was careful to put it in juxtaposition with 
 
266 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 something he did not think, and so provided himself 
 with a loophole to escape through in case of difficulty. 
 How far he agreed on certain matters with Essex or 
 Southampton, neither he nor either of those earls 
 could possibly know, because each had his esoteric 
 theory, to which none of them put the key out of 
 his own hands. Essex could pray with a Protestant 
 doctor openly in church or chapel, while he plotted 
 or equivocated with a Jesuit in a back parlour ; so 
 likewise could Southampton ; and if Shakespeare was 
 not called upon to perform a similar feat, it was 
 because he came less prominently forward in the 
 world's eye. His audiences were made up of pro- 
 fessors of the two rival religions, so he had devout and 
 holy men of either church, who might be appealed 
 to in proof of his secret orthodoxy as a Protestant 
 or as a Catholic. Nay, if he wished to stand well in 
 the estimation of philosophers, as Bacon, Ealeigh, 
 Northumberland, and his three magi, he could point 
 to passages in his plays quite as heterodox as any of 
 their positions. If he laughed and joked and talked 
 nonsense at the Mermaid, as is popularly believed, and 
 as, for aught I know, may be true, he doubtless took 
 care that his heterodoxy, if he had any such ingredient 
 in his composition, should not be made palpably evi- 
 dent to Master Benjamin Jonson, whose familiarity 
 with the backstairs of ministers could hardly be un- 
 suspected by him. It was probably as a hint to his 
 Mermaid friends, who may each have desired to inter- 
 pret him in his own way, that he wrote : 
 
 "When my outward action doth demonstrate 
 The native act and figure of my heart 
 In compliment extern, 'tis not long after 
 But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve 
 For daws to peck at. 
 
POLITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS OPINIONS 267 
 
 It is clear from this and many other passages that 
 Shakespeare prided himself on not being easily read by 
 those about him ; he had to buy bedsteads and hang- 
 ings and other household stuff for Anne Hathaway and 
 her children; he had to look forward likewise, and 
 take all the care he could, that when the winter of old 
 age came on, he should not be left bare to weather, 
 and therefore was not at all disposed to throw open 
 the avenue to his inner system of thought, if by so 
 doing he should run the risk of diminishing his 
 chances of fortune. Like many other writers, he may 
 meanwhile have desired to pass for a jovial companion, 
 with nothing secret or designing in his nature, and his 
 manners accordingly may have proclaimed as much. 
 Pope, whose very soul had been disciplined by 
 Jesuitism, had the effrontery to say 
 
 I love to pour out all my self as plain 
 
 As downright Shippen or as old Montaigne. 
 
 Whatever Shippen or Montaigne may have done. 
 Pope's esoteric opinions were so carefully guarded that 
 no one knew in his lifetime, or knows yet, what on 
 many subjects they were. Indeed, he cleverly suggests 
 that he did not know himself. Talking of controversial 
 divinity, he says * I am always of the opinion of the 
 last book I read.' He was therefore orthodox and 
 heterodox by turns, and so perhaps was Shakespeare, 
 which may account for the difficulty we experience in 
 trying to get at his secret opinions, which may on some 
 points have been fixed, on others fluctuating. The 
 world has seen a whole octavo volume written with 
 the design of proving him to have been an atheist. 
 Such demonstrations remind one of what Byron says : 
 
 When Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter 
 And proved it, 'twas no matter what he said. 
 
268 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEAKE 
 
 A book was once written in order to show that Nero 
 was a prodigy of virtue, and Aristophanes undertook to 
 demonstrate that Socrates was a thief and a rascal. 
 The attempt to estabhsh Shakespeare's atheism may- 
 range very properly with such undertakings. Many 
 writers have displayed their ingenuity in a contrary 
 direction, and maintained that Shakespeare's great 
 object in writing was to obliterate the heresy of the 
 Keformation, and reinstate in universal favour the 
 
 Milk-white hind unspotted and unchanged. 
 
 From what point of view Shakespeare regarded this 
 same hind it seems difficult to discover. It is no less 
 difficult to find proofs of his leaning to any sect in 
 religion, though possibly by a careful sifting of his 
 language we may find the direction in which his 
 preference is moved. He beheld on all sides proofs of 
 that liberty of interpretation to which I have alluded 
 already : 
 
 In religion, 
 What damned error, but some sober brow 
 Will bless it and approve it with a text ? 
 
 Here the only thing that suggests an objection is 
 * damned error ' ; for why should any error be damned or 
 damnable, which is what he means ? No man adopts 
 an error if he knows it to be an error; it is because 
 he does not know it to be an error, but mistakes it 
 for truth, that he adopts it, especially when he can 
 bless it and approve it with a text ; and it would be 
 hard indeed if in a whole body of literature — which 
 the Bible is — produced in different ages by different 
 men, we could not find something in support of 
 different opinions. But what were his own opinions ? 
 Were they consistent or inconsistent with those 
 
POLITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS OPINIONS 269 
 
 established at that period in England? We may 
 almost conjecture that he regarded some of his own 
 conclusions as heterodox from the vehemency with 
 which he pleads the cause of toleration. His manner 
 seems to imply that his refined and subtle intellect 
 had penetrated farther into the mystery of the universe 
 than most, perhaps than any, of his contemporaries 
 except that arch-heretic Ealeigh, who carried with 
 him over the ocean a mind as profound and un- 
 circumscribed in its dimensions. The human under- 
 standing was then engaged in fighting, sometimes 
 with good sometimes with bad weapons, the battle 
 of toleration; and the dominant doctrine, which of 
 course vindicated to itself the claim to orthodoxy, 
 provoked several bold and intemperate men into the 
 adoption of doctrines as wild and lawless as the one 
 they combated. Giordano Bruno, Vanini, Eabelais, 
 and Spinoza made in their day fierce protests against 
 that dogma which had for so long a time been disturb- 
 ing the peace of all Catholic countries- -I mean Papal 
 infallibility. There probably will come a time when the 
 fanatical style of thinking still so prevalent in Europe 
 will be regarded with as little reverence as we regard 
 the superstition of the sable fetish- worshipper. 
 
 But was Shakespeare a papist ? That remains to 
 be inquired into. Was he a partisan of monarchy 
 or democracy — that is, had he made a progress in 
 political science which would have enabled him to 
 run abreast with the most advanced thinkers of the 
 present age ? If not a Catholic, was he a Protestant ? 
 Or did he belong to that section of mankind which, 
 without lying in the slough of atheism, abjures 
 received opinions and fabricates a religion for itself ? 
 Did he, with Jeremy Taylor, discover anything sacred 
 
270 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 in the marriage-ring? Or did he with his acquaint 
 ance Henry Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland, 
 regard all women, married or single, as fair game, 
 to be pursued at pleasure through all the turnings 
 and windings of social life? Was he a respecter of 
 law ? Or did he regard it as a contrivance to quibble 
 men out of their natural rights? What were his 
 opinions of Jews and heretics, of pagans, and fetish- 
 worshippers ? Did he regard nuns as brides of heaven, 
 or as creatures without understanding? Why did 
 he not visit Ealeigh in the Tower ? Was it through 
 respect for Whitehall, or through aversion to the 
 character and principles of the man? Certain men 
 of subtle and profound thought, who through pro- 
 tracted meditation on human nature may be sup- 
 posed to have formed a wise and true theory of it, 
 have decided practically, that the best thing that can 
 be done for men is to deceive them. Did Shakespeare 
 accept or reject this opinion? If we examine the 
 intellectual condition of mankind, we shall probably 
 be led to the conclusion that imposture, variously 
 modified, governs them all, or that at least very 
 small sections escape from its tyranny. Map the 
 whole mental surface of the world, and ask yourself 
 how many of the great divisions into which human 
 beings may be cast can possibly be in possession of 
 truth. Some individual in remote times invented a 
 form of belief and organised a system of thought 
 which, by his superior energy and genius, he caused 
 to pass from his own mind into the minds of a large 
 portion of his contemporaries ; and the ideas he then 
 implanted in them, instead of withering and dying 
 out, have in many cases survived the shocks of time 
 and political revolutions, and kept possession of the 
 
POLITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS OPINIONS 271 
 
 minds of the descendants of the first converts up to 
 the present hour. 
 
 The reason is, that thinking boldly and inde- 
 pendently is attended with prodigious mental toil, and 
 at the same time impeded by fear. The notions a 
 man receives from his predecessors are held to be 
 something sacred, and this persuasion imparts to them 
 a tenacity which, in many cases, renders the adoption 
 of new opinions impossible. The mind appears to be 
 completely fashioned, coloured, and characterised by 
 the principle residing within, and could be more easily 
 shattered than remoulded. Indeed, few things would 
 seem more easy than the shattering of the mind, since 
 the world is filled with persons whose faculties have, 
 more or less, given way before very slight causes. 
 The incapacity to measure the finite against the 
 infinite, accompanied by the fear that for fleeting 
 and transient acts men may be condemned to unend- 
 ing misery, overthrows the understanding of myriads. 
 So, again, the belief that some individual for whom 
 a preference is entertained sets no value on that 
 preference, but on the contrary is devoted to another, 
 is cause sufficient to disorder the brains of men and 
 women, and reduce them for life to the condition of 
 a mental wreck. Why should these things happen ? 
 Could they be prevented by discipline and culture? 
 KeHgions in which imagination plays too great a part 
 can scarcely be said to be a blessing to mankind, who 
 are then most happy when their whole being is under 
 the guidance of reason, which is not a dry, insipid 
 principle, as many believe, but a sort of deity in the 
 soul, fashioning all its creations into forms of beauty, 
 and directing men towards the source of all beauty and 
 all love. 
 
272 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 When reason therefore predominates in an age 
 and subordinates imagination to its rule, the nations 
 under the sway of this principle enjoy a considerable 
 amount of happiness, and continue to enjoy it till sloth 
 or negligence extinguishes their prudence. Did Shake- 
 speare by his writings encourage a tendency to retire- 
 ment and contemplation, or an active attention to the 
 duties of life ? He somewhere says ' the soul's joy lies 
 in doing ' ; was he constant and consistent in that 
 opinion? Some learned men in whom learning had 
 overlaid and stifled the natural faculties, so as to dis- 
 qualify them for determining the value of their own 
 possession, have put forward the theory that the free 
 play of Shakespeare's genius would have been ob- 
 structed by the possession of more extended knowledge. 
 Shakespeare himself seems not to have been infected 
 by this doctrine, since we appear to discover every- 
 where in his writings proofs that he grasped eagerly at 
 all kinds of knowledge and was proud of the variety of 
 his acquisitions. In whatever direction his thoughts 
 moved, he watched and noted down their discoveries, 
 and immediately gave them a place in his intellectual 
 domain. His busy life, the calls made incessantly 
 upon his time, the distance placed by circumstances 
 between him and certain kinds of knowledge, circum- 
 scribed the field of his acquisitions, but never deterred 
 him from seeking to augment his mental wealth. 
 We may therefore be almost certain that he thought 
 knowledge no encumbrance, and would have been glad 
 to cultivate a familiarity with the thoughts and ways 
 of all nations and all ages, had he possessed the neces- 
 sary leisure. In fact, he believed, or seems to have 
 believed, that a man fights the better for being pro- 
 vided with the necessary weapons, as well as with 
 
POLITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS OPINIONS 273 
 
 the skill to use them. When we find him venturing 
 beyond his depth and treating subjects with which he 
 had not familiarised his mind, we are made conscious 
 of the painful struggles he makes to conceal his want 
 of knowledge by a display of gorgeous rhetoric and of 
 that prolific invention with which nature had so 
 prodigally enriched him. He had no doubt adopted 
 the ancient opinion that, * Sapere est fons et norma 
 loquendi,' which means that nothing renders a man so 
 eloquent as a thorough comprehension of what he is 
 speaking about. In fact, let the instructed mind turn 
 where it will, it discovers springs of reflection, topics 
 of illustration grounds for argument, together with a 
 force that renders argument triumphant. 
 
 Among the commonplaces adopted by common- 
 place thinkers, not the least unphilosophical is the 
 common notion that men are the same in all ages. 
 The direct contrary is capable of demonstration if 
 by men we mean their mental idiosyncrasies and 
 course of thought. It is obvious, for example, that 
 when nearly all those who imagined themselves to be 
 thinking eagerly erased the ' Politics ' of Aristotle, 
 several plays of ^schylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, 
 the History of Theopompus, in order to write on the 
 parchment the stories of saints and fabulous martyrs, 
 they could by no means be the same as those who 
 lived when the works so erased were written. 
 
 It is reasonable to infer that Shakespeare gave his 
 preference rather to the wild and lawless in thought 
 than to those whose mental operations were regulated 
 by authority ; but owing to the system he adopted 
 we are left to draw inferences, and to base our judge- 
 ment upon them, instead of being able to affirm with 
 assurance that such or such were his opinions. 
 
 T 
 
274 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 No one can doubt that Shakespeare's views of the 
 social system then existing in England were in a high 
 degree unfavourable, since he has sketched it as it 
 appeared to him in * Timon of Athens,' whose character 
 may have been suggested to him by that of the Earl 
 of Essex. Timon's generosity, not being under the 
 guidance of wisdom or even of common sense, was 
 lavished on the unworthy, and accordingly when he 
 came to be overtaken by calamity his false friends 
 disappeared from about him. No picture of human 
 experience is more common than this. They have in 
 the East an agreeable story, not perhaps as old as that 
 of the real Timon, but older than Shakespeare's. 
 * There lived, we are told, in Bagdad a young man 
 who had inherited great wealth, and had surrounded 
 himself with a hundred friends, neither more nor less. 
 One day a dervish, returning from Central Asia, came 
 to partake of his hospitality, and, observing the 
 profusion in which he lived, called him aside and said 
 "Verily, if thou wilt permit me, I will show thee a 
 favour." "Father, say on," replied the young man, 
 "I am open to counsel." The dervish then said 
 " Conceal carefully what wealth is left, pretend to be 
 overtaken by calamity, apply to thy friends for aid, 
 and thou wilt make a discovery." So the young man 
 concealed his riches, put on the habit and manner of 
 one who is ruined, and went forth to taste the bounty 
 of his friends. Of these ninety and nine looked coldly 
 upon him, professed their inability to be of service to 
 him, and almost jostled him out of their houses. As 
 he was repairing to the dwelling of the hundredth, he 
 made reflections unfavourable to human nature, and 
 thought with what shame he should return to the 
 dervish, whom he had stunned with the praises of his 
 
POLITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS OPINIONS 275 
 
 friends. He scarcely thought it worth while to try 
 the character of the remaining friend, so grievous was 
 his disappointment ; but, to fulfil his promise to the 
 dervish, he persevered and knocked at the door. The 
 master, who had observed his approach, would not 
 allow the door to be opened for him by a slave, but 
 hastened to descend that he might open it himself. 
 Observing the sad appearance and demeanour of his 
 visitor he exclaimed "What has happened, and 
 wherefore art thou sad?" "I am a ruined man," 
 was the reply. " Nay ! not so," said the friend, " thou 
 hast yet an abundance of wealth " ; and without 
 pausing to hear any further words the master of the 
 house took his friend by the hand, which he pressed 
 tenderly, and led him into a large warehouse, where 
 he said to him " Look around thee, and behold the 
 wealth which thou hast laid up against evil days." 
 " I see the wealth," replied the man, " but it is not 
 mine." " Say not so," replied his friend, and, calling 
 to a number of his slaves, he ordered them to bear 
 forthwith the gold, jewels, and rich stuffs which were 
 piled up around to the house of the supposed ruined 
 man. " Stop, stop," cried he, " what I have said is 
 but a fiction ; by the advice of a dervish have I tried 
 my friends, and thou alone hast been found worthy of 
 the name." '* Let me prove that I am so," replied the 
 hundredth man, and peremptorily commanded his 
 servants to do as he had at first ordered them. He 
 then proceeded with his friend to the dervish, and they 
 sat down and rejoiced together that one man out of a 
 hundred was found in Bagdad who deserved the honour- 
 able appellation of friend.' 
 
 The belief is not uncommon that Shakespeare 
 thought humbly of himself, and scarcely expected his 
 
276 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 own works to survive, for which reason the people 
 who hold this belief think that after his plays had 
 been produced, and brought him what profit they could, 
 he troubled himself no more about them, but pro- 
 ceeded to write new ones. No one, however, who 
 carefully examines his writings can take such a view. 
 
 Among the poets most confident of fame Shake- 
 speare must be placed in the first rank. In Sonnet 
 xviii, addressing his dearest friend, he tells him that 
 he could not possibly be forgotten : 
 
 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 hfe to thee. 
 
 Again in Sonnet xix : 
 
 Yet, do thy worst, old Time : despite thy wrong. 
 My love shall in my verse ever live young. 
 
 And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth. 
 When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth. 
 
 Then do thy office, Muse ; I teach thee how 
 To make him seem long hence as he shows now. 
 
 Hv. 
 
 We find him, in fact, so thoroughly persuaded of 
 his own superiority that, alluding to a majority of the 
 poets of his own time, he says : 
 
 I had rather be a kitten and cry mew 
 
 Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers. 
 
 His contempt for cut-and- thrust soldiers was no 
 less ; for he makes one of the exponents of his private 
 thoughts exclaim : 
 
 I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, 
 Than such a Eomai^, 
 
POLITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS OPINIONS 277 
 
 Nay, through the mouth of another he expresses 
 the extremity of scorn for the slaughtering class : 
 
 I had rather be a tick in a sheep than such a valiant ignorance. 
 
 And again, passing from one great fighter to another, 
 he says : 
 
 A great deal of your wit, too, lies in your sinews, or else there be 
 liars. 
 
 Elsewhere, when reflecting on the power of his own 
 genius and measuring his creations against the force 
 of time, he affirms : 
 
 Not marble, nor the gilded monuments 
 
 Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme ; 
 
 '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. 
 
 The same confidence is elsewhere expressed in 
 more vivid language in a passage already quoted : 
 
 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. 
 
 It was through no peevish impiety, but through 
 the bewildering bitterness of a galled mind, that Shake- 
 speare almost accuses the heavens of injustice. It was 
 to give vent to this feeling, and yet to shield themselves 
 from the charge of impiety, that mankind invented a 
 deity and enthroned it, no one knows where, upon 
 whom they might bestow every injurious epithet, and 
 so exhaust the vindictive impatience with which they 
 
278 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 endure their calamities. This deity they called Fortune, 
 by which many of the children of genius besides 
 Shakespeare have thought themselves hardly used. 
 
 Into the mouth of Sextus Pompeius he puts what 
 was certainly his own sentiment : 
 
 Well, I know not 
 What counts harsh Fortune casts upon my face, 
 But in my bosom shall she never come 
 To make my heart her vassal. 
 
 A propos of Pompey, however, it may be said that 
 when Fortune came to him in all her gorgeous 
 garniture he repelled her, through a vain scruple, 
 and thereby lost the empire of the world, which the 
 counsel of Menas would have secured to him. 
 
 There is more or less of tragedy in every man's 
 life, though in most cases it is hidden tragedy — the 
 tragedy of the soul; born, perhaps, of the womb of 
 guilt, but only the more terrible on that account. 
 This tragedy is more or less intense in proportion 
 to the amount of the sufferer's sensibility. In some 
 this displays itself through a perpetual fretfulness, 
 which is the external indication of the goading 
 weariness existing within. But when the mind is 
 great, and yet subordinated by circumstances to the 
 sway of other minds, in their nature far inferior to 
 itself, the tragedy, however deep, is invisible, though 
 the action is perpetually going on and growing more 
 intense as the powers of life develop themselves. 
 The organisation of society, co-operating with natural 
 idiosyncrasies, condemns many to this species of 
 intellectual martyrdom. When men of extraordinary 
 powers are able to shake off entirely the shackles of 
 conscience, they study, from the moment they become 
 
POLITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS OPINIONS 279 
 
 conscious of their force, every means of traversing the 
 interval lying between them and success, and employ 
 it without regard to the misery or ruin they may 
 bring upon mankind. This mode of judging and 
 acting is what they who suffer by it regard as 
 supreme wickedness. There is much, however, in 
 the modes of thinking of men in general which goes 
 far towards explaining, though not justifying, the 
 daring course of superior intellects. If born by 
 chance beyond the verge of those tracts of life which 
 are illuminated by fortune, they are constrained hourly 
 to witness those acts of baseness and servility with 
 which a majority of mankind seek to flatter and 
 conciliate the possessors of power and opulence, 
 though gifted by nature, it may be, with no inherent 
 titles even to respect. That Shakespeare writhed 
 under the conviction of this truth is certain. Around 
 him, whether in high situations or low, he saw no 
 equal in those rare endowments which Nature bestows, 
 in genius, in opulence of ideas, in wisdom, equal to 
 the reconstruction and impressing of a new character 
 upon civil society. Yet, look in whatever direction he 
 might, he beheld a superior, patron, master, raised by 
 the idolatry of the vulgar almost beyond the reach 
 of his imagination. To these individuals the coarse 
 necessities of life compelled him to pay homage, to 
 burn incense, to recognisethe as them supreme arbiters 
 of his destiny. Were such circumstances reconcilable 
 with social contentment, with self-respect, with mental 
 serenity ? To feel thus would have been to jump, as 
 he himself expresses it, with the fool multitude. To 
 the fetishism of that multitude he traced the throes 
 and agonies of his great soul when, in compliment 
 extern, he appeared to fawn on those whom he 
 
280 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 despised. They, bedizened with opulence and gorged 
 with wealth, were born, he knew, ' to eat, to drink, 
 to propagate and rot ' ; while he, by the necessities 
 of his own nature, was engaged in generating thoughts 
 which would put — though not in forty minutes — a 
 girdle round about the earth to fade only with the 
 human race itself. 
 
 Everybody is familiar with the allegory of Prodicus 
 — the Choice of Hercules — in which the hero, in spite 
 of the most bewitching allurements, prefers virtue to 
 vice. But the picture is drawn after the manner of 
 moralists, not of philosophers ; for vice does not present 
 herself in the tawdry frippery which she wears in 
 the sophist's production, but too often steals in, in 
 the rear of some gigantic passion, which completely 
 obscures her approach, till her presence, felt rather 
 than seen, has softened the heart, and rendered it 
 tolerant of her familiarity. Shakespeare's life was 
 probably one long tragedy, interspersed with pleasant 
 episodes, but terminating in delirium. It is true he 
 laughs in his plays, but it is seldom with the laughter 
 of the heart : 
 
 Full in the fount of joy's delicious springs 
 
 Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings. 
 
 His melancholy is genuine ; no flush of good 
 fortune comes without some drawback of evil; even 
 his fools perish in their folly, while the greatest and 
 noblest natures he portrays are entangled in the net 
 of destiny and perish miserably. Nothing bright and 
 beautiful sets precisely as it rises, but the splendour 
 in which it comes forth soon suffers the eclipse 
 of affliction. Domestic felicity, nobility, riches, are 
 blighted by love, which should be their ornament and 
 
POLITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS OPINIONS 281 
 
 preserver ; power comes forth by the same throes 
 as guilt; philosophy itself screens not its owner 
 from blight and ruin ; and even the most harmless 
 innocence is brought to a premature grave by the 
 gloom and perversity of others. The world is : 
 
 An unweeded garden, 
 That grows to seed ; things rank and gross in nature 
 Possess it merely. 
 
 Looking keenly at the circumstances of society, 
 Shakespeare discerned and has described the fallacies 
 by which men are usually deluded. It is an old saying 
 that * Wisdom crieth in the street, and no man re- 
 gardeth ' ; but let the same Wisdom cry out in a palace, 
 and she will be sure to command attention. The reverse 
 also is true — that is, nonsense or folly uttered by men 
 in high places may either be made to pass for wisdom, 
 or if united with ever so much wickedness will be sure 
 to be excused. 
 
 Having materials of this kind of which he wished 
 to be delivered, Shakespeare cared much less than he 
 ought about framing his plots and laying a probable 
 foundation. He shirked the groundwork altogether 
 in the best way he could, and trusted to what he 
 meant to build on it for the effect he desired to 
 produce. 
 
282 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ESSAY XVII 
 
 LANGUAGE 
 
 Some years ago a theory was in vogue among us which 
 taught that the language of all our great writers, if not 
 pure Anglo-Saxon, approximated nearly to that dialect. 
 The language of Shakespeare, however, though it be 
 English, is not Anglo-Saxon, but a rich assemblage of 
 ornament, like a Corinthian capital, made up of all 
 known languages, and luxuriant even to redundance. 
 
 The Athenians when they planted their colonies in 
 Asia, and carried on commerce with the greater part 
 of the ancient world, gradually imported new words 
 with their merchandise, until the Attic came to be 
 distinguished from the other dialects of Greece by a 
 certain foreign aspect which some regarded as a 
 beauty, others as a defect. But, whether defect or 
 beauty, such is the aspect of the Enghsh language, 
 made up of spoils from all cultivated nations, trophies 
 of commerce or conquest. 
 
 In truth, the speech of a wide-ruling people, which 
 through some of its relations, pacific or warlike, 
 touches upon all parts of the world, must of necessity 
 exhibit a character expressive of its political position, 
 which in the case of England is that of the foremost 
 among nations, colonising, subduing, civilising, till it 
 can scarcely be doubted that as centuries roll on it will 
 exercise command over the greater part of the earth. 
 
LANGUAGE 283 
 
 The masters of English thought may look forward 
 therefore with pleasure to the vast field prepared for 
 their ideas by the arms, enterprise, and industry of 
 their countrymen ; and I have shown already that 
 among these masters Shakespeare ranks with the 
 highest, nor is his language less deserving of admira- 
 tion than his ideas, Spenser speaks of Chaucer as a 
 pure well of English undefiled, though in truth he is 
 almost as much Norman as English: that is, in his 
 vocabulary, for the structure of his style is in most 
 cases conformable to the type of our natural speech. 
 This is still more true of Shakespeare, who, though he 
 takes words from all sources within his reach, welds 
 them together after the English fashion, so as to make 
 them appear perfectly at home in his style ; sometimes, 
 when they will serve his purpose, he uses the simplest 
 words, like one who culls bouquets from the wild 
 flowers on a heath. Yet he is never sweeter than at 
 such times, never more musical, never nearer to the 
 inner emotions of the heart : 
 
 Blow, blow, thou winter wind, 
 Thou art not so unkind 
 
 As man's ingratitude ; 
 Thy tooth is not so keen, 
 Because thou art not seen, 
 
 Although thy breath be rude. 
 
 Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, 
 Thou dost not bite so nigh 
 
 As benefits forgot : 
 Though thou the waters warp 
 Thy sting is not so sharp 
 
 As friend remember'd not. 
 
 Above, in the fifth line, the poet suggests, though 
 in a way liable to be misunderstood, that when he who 
 is guilty of ingratitude is far away out of sight, the 
 
284 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 wound he has made in the heart is like one received 
 from external nature, whereas his presence must 
 augment and exasperate the pain. Contrast with these 
 elementary expressions, so to speak, the fiery eloquence 
 of Lady Macbeth : 
 
 Come, you spirits 
 That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, 
 And fill me fi-om the crown to the toe top-full 
 Of direst cruelty ! make thick my blood ; 
 Stop up the access and passage to remorse, 
 That no compunctious visitings of nature 
 Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between 
 The effect and it ! Come to my woman's breasts, 
 And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, 
 Wherever in your sightless substances 
 You wait on nature's mischief ! Come, thick night, 
 And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, 
 That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, 
 Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, 
 To cry, ' Hold 1 Hold I ' 
 
 This speech, in the gloomiest vein of tragedy, 
 exhibits the workings of a mind not naturally cruel, 
 but bent on perpetrating the worst of crimes at the 
 prompting of ambition. The speaker is a woman, 
 young, a mother with milk in her breasts, and there- 
 fore alive to all the tenderest sympathies of nature, 
 yet in grasping at the golden round of sovereignty, 
 ready to ally herself with hell. Words gush from 
 her heart like gouts of blood ; her imagination, though 
 on fire, is dark with guilt, so that, like her husband, 
 she is not only ready but eager to jump the life 
 to come. 
 
 This, the chief among what are generally reckoned 
 Shakespeare's great women, 3delds the first place, how- 
 ever, in my estimation to the young and beautiful 
 
epff 
 
 LANGUAGE 285 
 
 Capulet, possessed by a no less powerful passion, 
 and, while keeping in the strictest limits of purity, 
 displaying a strength of will, a fixedness of purpose, 
 and a fierce indifference to life and death which no 
 criminal heroine in Shakespeare or any other drama- 
 tist can outdo. Love, properly understood, fills more 
 completely than ambition or any other guilty or 
 equivocal passion the circle of existence, and creates 
 in the soul a world more grand and priceless than 
 the external universe. Juliet, inspired with all the 
 poetry of youth, invokes in the interest of her love 
 influences no less potent than those abjured by Lady 
 -Macbeth, and in the wild turbulence of her soul 
 invests her ideas with the brightness of the morn- 
 ing star : 
 
 Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, 
 
 Towards Phoebus' lodging : such a waggoner 
 
 As Phaethon would whip you to the west 
 
 And bring in cloudy night immediately. 
 
 Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night, 
 
 That runaways' eyes may wink, and Eomeo 
 
 Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen. 
 
 Lovers can see to do their amorous rites 
 
 By their own beauties ; or, if love be blind. 
 
 It best agrees with night. Come, civil night, 
 
 Thou sober-suited matron, all in black. 
 
 And learn me how to lose a winning match, 
 
 Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods : 
 
 Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks, 
 
 With thy black mantle ; till strange love, grown bold, 
 
 Think true love acted simple modesty. 
 
 Come, night ; come, Romeo ; come, thou day in night ; 
 
 For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night 
 
 Whiter than new snow on a raven's back. 
 
 Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night, 
 
 Give me my Romeo ; and, when he shall die, 
 
 Take him and cut him out in little stars, 
 
286 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 And he will make the face of heaven so fine 
 That all the world will be in love with night 
 And pay no worship to the garish sun. 
 
 Here, though the passion underlying the words be 
 almost breathless with eagerness, the thick-clustering 
 imagery, the numerous phrases suggesting widespread 
 associations, the lavishly piled up vestments of thought, 
 so veil the voluptuous longings of the speaker, that 
 though we discern the burning current of her imagina- 
 tion, we are less impressed by it than by the childlike 
 simplicity in which she clothes her desires. Shake- 
 speare, we are assured, was young when he wrote this 
 play; yet, whatever his age may have been, he had 
 certainly reached the acme of his intellectual power, 
 and acquired a mastery over language which at no 
 subsequent period of his Hfe did he augment. 
 
 No one comprehends exactly what imagination is, 
 or can explain whence it borrows its riches, any more 
 than we can tell from how many kinds of sweet flowers 
 the bee gathers its honey. One emotion only pervades 
 the whole of Juliet's speech — one instinctive outbreak 
 of love, one primary impulse of nature; yet words 
 which are among the most beautiful of beautiful 
 things are so profusely conjured up, and darted like 
 meteors over the substratum of passion, that our fancy 
 is dazzled almost to blindness by their united blaze. 
 
 When afterwards in her nuptial chamber Juliet, in 
 a state of terror and excitement approaching madness, 
 meditates on the doubtful effects of the potion given 
 her by the friar, the language of her soliloquy assumes 
 a character as dark, wild, and awful as that of her 
 former speech was resplendent with brightness and 
 beauty : 
 
LANGUAGE 287 
 
 How if, when I am laid into the tomb, 
 
 I wake before the time that Romeo 
 
 Come to redeem me ? there's a fearful point ! 
 
 Shall I not, then, be stifled in the vault. 
 
 To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in, 
 
 And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes ? 
 
 Or, if I live, is it not very like. 
 
 The horrible conceit of death and night. 
 
 Together with the terror of the place, — 
 
 As in a vault, an ancient receptacle. 
 
 Where, for these many hundred years, the bones 
 
 Of all my buried ancestors are pack'd : 
 
 Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth, 
 
 Lies festering in his shroud ; where, as they say, 
 
 At some hours in the night spirits resort ; — 
 
 Alack, alack, is it not like that I, 
 
 So early waking, what with loathsome smells. 
 
 And shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth. 
 
 That living mortals, hearing them, run mad : — 
 
 O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught. 
 
 Environed with all these hideous fears ? 
 
 And madly play with my forefathers' joints ? 
 
 And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud ? 
 
 And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone. 
 
 As with a club, dash out my desperate brains ? 
 
 The language of some writers, it is said, resembles 
 a statue — that of others a picture. But a statue read 
 by the imagination contains within itself innumerable 
 pictures and poems. Assume it to be of marble, 
 white, lustrous, with a surface almost transparent with 
 brilliancy, and reflect upon the swarms of ideas which 
 settle upon every part of it ; say it represents Artemis, 
 or Leda, or Aphrodite : and will not ' the bosky dells 
 of Arcady,' the dusky glimmer of the Alpheus, the 
 snowy plumage of the divine swan, the twinkling of 
 Idalian woods, and the coruscations of the sportive 
 and sunny waves out of which the goddess sprang in 
 
288 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 foam — will not these and a thousand images flash 
 athwart our fancy's horizon as we gaze ? 
 
 Shakespeare's language is an endless succession of 
 statues and pictures, hurrying the imagination over 
 land and sea, now throwing forth glimpses of the 
 constellations and all the glittering splendour of the 
 starry cope, and now settling in ecstasy on a woman's 
 eyes. He may not, perhaps, have been directed in this 
 process by principles of art, but by that divine frenzy 
 for which, knowing no name, we substitute the result 
 and call it inspiration. Words properly considered are 
 so many points of light, every one of them throwing 
 out a halo around it ; yet when they are employed 
 to body forth certain trains of thought, certain groups 
 of ideas, or certain portions of the outer world, they 
 sometimes acquire a power which acts on our soul 
 like magic. 
 
 Yet, though of all man's inventions language be 
 the most marvellous and sublime, its inadequacy to 
 express several objects, internal and external, must be 
 obvious to all who have sought to avail themselves of 
 its resources, to paint the ideal creations of the mind, 
 or the loveliness of external nature where nature is 
 loveliest — in a tropical landscape in spring. There is 
 a particular spot in the valley of the Nile, lying south 
 of a little rocky promontory jutting out from the 
 eastern mountains into the river, the beauties of which 
 I have never been able to paint in words, nor could 
 Shakespeare himself have succeeded perhaps, had he 
 tried. I came to it early in one of those mornings 
 in which for splendour, and its effects upon the soul, 
 earth may vie with heaven. The ground was carpeted 
 with a thick covering of matted grass, drenched with 
 dew and profusely studded with wild flowers, white 
 
LANGUAGE 289 
 
 crimson, and bright blue, into whose deep chalices 
 the wild bees descended with delicious murmurs, 
 while flights of butterflies of the most brilliant colours 
 alighted noiselessly on herb and shrub. The air was 
 so sweet that it was a happiness to breathe it, while 
 the sun, in its real vernal fervour, threw floods of 
 golden light over land and water, from a sky of 
 amethyst. But did the beauty of this landscape lie 
 all outside of me ? For the effect which it produced 
 on my mind, were there not many causes at work, 
 not material in their nature ? With the sense of 
 remoteness, with perfect solitude — for there was 
 nothing living in sight — did not there mingle a joy 
 springing from the realisation of a lifelong cherished 
 wish, together with the hope of affording pleasure 
 to those I loved, by dwelling on the beauty and 
 grandeur that surrounded me? Memory, however, 
 recalls the scene, though sculptured on it by my own 
 experience, less frequently than several passages of 
 Shakespeare — such as the night scene in the garden 
 at Belmont, the sunny seclusion and quietude of the 
 Forest of Arden, and that song in * Twelfth Night ' which 
 ' Dallies with the innocence of love, like the gold age.' 
 Sometimes scraps of verses will spring up without 
 any apparent cause in the mind, though doubtless 
 tracing their advent to some association too faint to be 
 discerned : for instance — 
 
 How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank, 
 
 Who loves to lie in the sun ! etc. 
 
 Though ignorant of what goes before and comes 
 after, these unconnected lines will call up in your 
 fancy lovely pictures of things external or internal, 
 upon which the imagination will delight to dwell. 
 
 u 
 
290 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Eousseau, in his dreamy moods, used to think with 
 delight on the ends of Hnes or fragments of verse, of 
 which he never could recall the remainder. One of 
 
 these : 
 
 Tircis, je n'ose 
 Ecouter ton chalumeau 
 Sous rormeau ; 
 Car on en cause 
 Deja dans notre hameau. 
 
 Un berger 
 
 S'engager 
 Sans danger ; 
 Et toujours I'epine est sous la rose. 
 
 suggests a moral sentiment not very recondite, but 
 sweet to remember. The memories of all men probably 
 contain similar fragments. It is only necessary to 
 set the memory in motion, to call up a number of 
 passages of the most delicate beauty : 
 
 Lacing the severing clouds with streaks of grey. 
 
 Come unto these yellow sands. 
 
 To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, 
 To throw a perfume on the violet. 
 
 He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines. 
 
 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. 
 
 Witness this primrose bank, whereon I lie. 
 These blue-veined violets, whereon we lean. 
 
 Like a red mom, that ever yet betokened 
 Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field. 
 
LANGUAGE 291 
 
 Venus's eyes 
 
 Shone like the moon in water seen by night. 
 
 Look, the world's comforter, with weary gait, 
 His day's hot task hath ended in the west ; 
 The owl, night's herald, shrieks, ' 'Tis very late ' ; 
 The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest. 
 And coal-black clouds that shadow heaven's light 
 Do summon us to part and bid good night. 
 
 Or stonished as night-wanderers often are. 
 Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood. 
 
 Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest. 
 
 From his moist cabinet mounts up on high, 
 
 And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast 
 
 The sun arises in his majesty ; 
 
 Who doth the world so gloriously behold 
 
 That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold. 
 
 My throbbing heart shall rock thee day and night. 
 
 An hour before the worshipp'd sun 
 Peer'd forth the golden window of the east. 
 
 All so soon as the all-cheering sun 
 Should in the furthest east begin to draw 
 The shady curtains from Aurora's bed. 
 
 From the above, and from a thousand other 
 passages that might be added to them, it will be 
 seen that Shakespeare was master of an almost limit- 
 less vocabulary; yet, when he comes to use it in 
 descriptions of the human form, he seldom succeeds 
 in presenting us with a complete picture. Passages 
 suggestive of particular beauties are innumerable, 
 and he has sometimes endeavoured, as in the case 
 of Lucrece, to melt all these together and produce 
 a whole; but he is elaborate, without being true to 
 
 u 2 
 
292 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEAEE 
 
 nature, and piles up quaint expressions with more 
 
 than Dutch industry, yet scarcely at last presents us 
 
 with the idea of a lovely woman. Indeed, poets have 
 
 seldom succeeded in drawing a true picture of female 
 
 beauty. The image nearest to completion is that of 
 
 Eve, by Milton ; and yet, to take in the whole of his 
 
 conception, we must put various parts of his poem 
 
 together, and so build up for ourselves an idea of 
 
 her matchless loveliness. When Shakespeare has to 
 
 delineate Venus herself he rather throws forth hints 
 
 than describes her form; and so in every other part 
 
 of his works, where he desires to place before us 
 
 a portrait of perfect loveliness, he affords us a glimpse 
 
 of some particular features and then glides off to some 
 
 other topic; even Juliet's beauty is suggested, not 
 
 described. Speaking of eyes, he calls some * lights 
 
 that do mislead the morn ' ; and of the bosom he 
 
 says : 
 
 Hide, O hide, those hills of snow, 
 
 That thy frozen bosom bears. 
 On whose tops, the pinks that grow 
 
 Are of those that April wears. 
 
 It has been objected that pinks do not flower in April, 
 but Shakespeare speaks of them as things cold and 
 premature. When an idea of beauty is sought to be 
 conveyed, it is generally by its effects rather than by 
 any reference to its real essence ; persons are smitten 
 by it with love, and, the effect being such, we might 
 infer the potency of the cause. 
 
 Dramatic poets, it may be said, do not deal in 
 descriptions; but Shakespeare is fond of them in all 
 other cases, and it is only when he comes to attempt 
 a portrait of female beauty that his language fails 
 him. Cleopatra on the Cydnus is represented in the 
 
LANGUAGE 293 
 
 midst of a laboured description, but is not herself 
 described, neither are the damsels who surround her. 
 Hero, Beatrice, Imogen, Desdemona, Ophelia, Lady 
 Macbeth, and Kosalind are invested by our imagina- 
 tion with particular forms and features by the time 
 we have familiarised ourselves with the plays in which 
 they appear ; and probably our ultimate conceptions 
 of them correspond with those of the poet himself, 
 though the reader feels the want of more complete 
 descriptions. 
 
 In 'Othello,' on the other hand, we regret that 
 some things which are introduced had not been left 
 out — as thick lips, sooty, and other epithets applied 
 to the Moor. 
 
 Gibbon remarks that style is the image of character, 
 and this mysterious principle, coming down to the 
 individual through thousands of generations, throwing 
 its force outwards through figure and lineaments, 
 renders the man what he is in mind and body. We 
 have no portrait of Shakespeare from which we can 
 argue anything respecting the harmony between the 
 intellect and the countenance; but I make no doubt 
 that were the living man before us we should be able 
 to trace the luminous beauty of the soul in its material 
 covering. What he himself says of Cressida is true of 
 all human beings : 
 
 There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, 
 Nay, her foot speaks ; her wanton spirits look out 
 At every joint and motive of her body. 
 
 Omitting the epithet, the description will hold 
 universally, for, whatever the individual is within. 
 Nature labels the truth on the exterior, so that whoever 
 understands the art of reading her superscriptions may 
 dive into the souls of all around him. 
 
294 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 With regard to Shakespeare we have no helps 
 towards understanding him but those words which 
 anyone, it has been said, may move about like men 
 upon a chessboard and put in any positions and 
 combinations he pleases. Many writers think so, but 
 Shakespeare could scarcely have been of their opinion ; 
 if he was, however, we are under no necessity of 
 adopting his faith, since what really belongs to a 
 man's character will pierce through ten thousand 
 disguises and reveal his idiosyncrasy in spite of all his 
 doubles. By this I am far from meaning that all the 
 crotchets a man cherishes may be certainly inferred 
 from his writings; but the make of his mind, his 
 habitual leanings, the uppermost among his passions, 
 his virtues, his vices, even to the minutest natural 
 foible, are indelibly impressed upon his language so 
 that not one of them can escape detection. 
 
 Many persons appear to confound thoughts and 
 opinions with sentiments and feelings ; Shakespeare 
 himself does : 
 
 There's no art 
 To find the mind's construction in the face ; 
 
 where, if his words express a meaning, he is altogether 
 wrong. What he desires to say, however, is that the 
 ideas hidden behind the countenance cannot be divined 
 by its expression, though no one knew better than he 
 that cruelty, sternness, gentleness, loving propensities, 
 and an amorous temperament inscribe themselves as 
 legibly upon the countenance as words on the pages 
 of a book. 
 
 If we apply these words to himself and his writings, 
 we shall find them far more blabbing than the veined 
 violets which Venus pressed ; for here the man comes 
 
LANGUAGE 295 
 
 forth dressed in all his idiosyncrasies, which were many 
 and various. This fact accounts for the immense 
 variety observable in his language. 
 
 When a man borrows another man's words, it is 
 as easy to perceive that they do not belong to him as 
 if he had borrowed another man's garments. Shake- 
 speare's language is pre-eminently his own, for it is 
 easy to discern that it fits the assemblage of his 
 ideas, which is vast and multitudinous. Sometimes, 
 however, he discovers in his mind a series of ideas 
 for which his language supplied him with no corre- 
 sponding words — that is, words qualified to express 
 the subtle variations of the ideas : 
 
 The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 
 
 Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ; 
 
 And as imagination bodies forth 
 
 The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
 
 Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing 
 
 A local habitation and a name. 
 
 This passage is rendered perfectly chaotic by a 
 defect either in the English language or in Shake- 
 speare's vocabulary. For, what is to body forth but 
 to invest with form ? and what is form but shape ? 
 Plainly stated, therefore, the meaning is that the 
 imagination shapes forth shapes which the poet's 
 pen again turns into shapes. Looking back, how- 
 ever, to the origin of this process, we may contem- 
 plate the mental faculty seizing upon the crude 
 materials of ideas and moulding them into forms, 
 which the poet's pen invests with words, and, thus 
 clothed, sends forth into the world suppHed with 
 meaning and a name. This is one example of 
 the difficulty which Shakespeare sometimes experi- 
 enced in ordering the tumultuous rush of his ideas, 
 
296 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEAKE 
 
 which came upon him like inspiration upon the 
 Pythoness. 
 
 Everyone knows that the action of the senses 
 constantly passes through states, which, though they 
 leave images impressed upon the mind, have never 
 yet found utterance in words. When we have made 
 use of the terms taste, feeling, hearing, smell, and 
 sight, if we desire to go farther and characterise any 
 of these acts of sense, or any change in their con- 
 dition, we immediately find ourselves at a loss, and 
 have to borrow from the experience of one sense, to 
 express the peculiarities of another : 
 
 The man who hath no music in himself, 
 
 Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 
 
 Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils. 
 
 Here, we are said, by implication, to taste a sound. 
 Again when we say * a soft air,' we are said to feel 
 a sound, which of course metaphysically we do, since 
 whatever makes any impression, no matter through 
 what channel, on the brain, we may be said to feel. 
 Hence comes the phrase a feeling mind, applied to 
 one who experiences sympathy for others, which is 
 a sort of permissible tautology, since to sympathise is 
 to feel with. Shakespeare, however, does not strain 
 at slight differences, but, taking words with a lavish 
 hand, scatters them profusely over his quick-coming 
 fancies, whether exactly adapted to them or not; 
 sometimes, reasoning from a defective analogy, he 
 attributes to one type of existence what belongs to 
 another, but, by this metathesis, produces an effect 
 more forcible than by a statement of simple truth : 
 
 The poor beetle, that we tread upon, 
 In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great 
 As when a giant dies. 
 
LANGUAGE 297 
 
 This according to circumstances may be true or 
 false, since a giant struck by lightning, or who had 
 his head shattered to atoms by a cannon ball, feels 
 no more than the beetle. The logical fallacy lies in the 
 words ' corporal sufferance,' since the body as body feels 
 nothing, but is indebted for its susceptibility entirely 
 to the mind ; and, the mind of the beetle being some- 
 what limited in its capacity, its sufferings must be 
 limited in proportion. But it is the effect of genius 
 to ennoble everything it touches, to find 
 
 Books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones and good in every thing. 
 
 What we see around us is thus made to reciprocate 
 our feelings, to hold intercourse with us, to know as it 
 is known, and thus to become our companion through 
 life. From this form of thought sprang the worship 
 of the sun and moon, which men informed with spirit 
 and understanding according to dimensions much 
 greater than their own, first loved or feared and then 
 worshipped; rivers, mountains, winds, had in this 
 system a soul and a will, with equal power to give 
 efficacy to it : 
 
 As the rudest wind, 
 
 That by the top doth take the mountain pine, 
 
 And make him stoop to the vale. 
 
 The power of painting in words possessed by all 
 forms of composition belongs more especially to 
 poetry, which not only places images before the mind, 
 but acts upon the imagination and fancy almost like 
 material beings : ' versus digitos habet.' No doubt 
 the effect of poetry depends in great measure on the 
 complexion of the reader's mind, since words which 
 fall flat on the fancy of one person will suggest images 
 
298 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 of beauty and splendour to another. Sometimes their 
 power depends on accidental associations ; thus the 
 adjective aydwccpos, * very snov^y,' which is applied 
 by Homer to Olympus, has always appeared to me 
 to be one of the most beautiful of words, though I 
 have never known anyone else who thought so. The 
 same fortune must attend Shakespeare's most poetical 
 expressions. One of the characteristics of his style is 
 heterogeneity ; yet, if carefully studied, all the forms of 
 his language will be found to have a family stamp 
 upon them, since, vast as is the range of his vocabulary, 
 scarcely any word he has used can be pronounced, at 
 least in company with another, without being known 
 to be his. 
 
 Possibly, his childhood and youth having been 
 passed in the country, his fancy may have derived 
 from that circumstance much of its rural character. 
 Things unnoticed by or unknown to other poets 
 spring up in him spontaneously, and in places where 
 they might be least expected, though their significance 
 can only be conjectured by those whose early lives 
 have been spent under similar conditions. The Danish 
 Queen, describing Ophelia's crown of weeds, speaks of 
 long purples, 
 
 That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, 
 
 But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them. 
 
 A town poet, let his observation have been ever so 
 extensive, could hardly have alluded thus to the 
 vocabulary of the shepherds. 
 Again, Mercutio says : 
 
 And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit 
 As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone— 
 
LANGUAGE 299 
 
 language which must be unintelligible to the dwellers 
 in great cities. Examples of similar enigmas are 
 numerous in Shakespeare, and there may probably be 
 many which escape the most observant of readers. 
 
 His descriptions of flowers are as fresh as the 
 flowers themselves : 
 
 The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun 
 And with him rises weeping. 
 
 Proserpina, 
 For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall 
 From Dis's waggon I daffodils, 
 That come before the swallow dares, and take 
 The winds of March with beauty ; 
 
 pale primroses, 
 
 That die unmarried, ere they can behold 
 Bright Phoebus in his strength — a malady 
 Most incident to maids. 
 
 Throughout the plays, wherever an opportunity 
 presents itself, his fancy teems with rustic images — 
 acorn-cups, cowslips, and lavender : 
 
 When daisies pied and violets blue 
 And lady-smocks all silver- white 
 Do paint the meadows with delight. 
 
 But, in truth, there is scarcely anything apt to occur 
 to a rustic fancy to which he has not alluded, nor are 
 the passions of the soul, the feelings of the heart, 
 nor the wildest extravagances of the imagination less 
 familiar to his mind. To read him, therefore, is to 
 glance over the greater part of the world, animate and 
 inanimate, and the pleasure he affords is co-extensive 
 with the range of his imagery. 
 
300 KSSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ESSAY XVIII 
 
 PLOT AND STOET 
 
 CoNSTEUCTiNG plots is not Shakespeare's /orie. There 
 is not, in fact, in all his plays a single plot well con- 
 structed. In * Lear ' there is, properly speaking, no 
 plot at all, but a number of distinct contrivances de- 
 veloping themselves in the most horrible manner, one 
 repulsive act following close upon the heels of another, 
 until ultimately the stage is left reeking with blood like 
 a slaughter-house. It is difficult to discover what he 
 really aims at in this tragedy, which is replete with 
 contradictions, with acts of hideous cruelty, contrasting 
 certainly with displays of fidelity, gratitude, affection, 
 loyalty, and devotion. Two series of tragic action run 
 through the piece — the tragedy of Gloucester and the 
 tragedy of Lear — and these, exhibiting themselves 
 alternately, dispute for pre-eminence in the interest 
 they excite ; as in ' Macbeth,' we must seek for the 
 germ of the drama in events antecedent to its com- 
 mencement. Through the effects of years, possibly, 
 and possibly through other causes, Lear, when he 
 comes before us in a scene which should really be 
 enacted nowhere out of Bethlehem Hospital, is un- 
 doubtedly in a state deserving of commiseration. He 
 talks several times in the course of the play of losing 
 his wits, but he had lost them before it began, though 
 it is doubtful whether Shakespeare did or did not 
 
PLOT AND STORY 301 
 
 intend him to be looked upon from the outset as a 
 madman. The act of abdicating sovereign power was 
 never yet, in the world's history, achieved with im- 
 punity, since men invested with supreme authority are 
 certain to do, or be suspected of doing, things for 
 which, when they have thrown off, like Prospero, their 
 magic robes, they are sure to be called to account in 
 some way or another. Even Lucius Sylla, the boldest 
 of usurpers and the most reckless of abdicators, might 
 have bewailed his generosity had not an early death 
 placed him beyond the reach of the dagger. 
 
 Shakespeare seems to have set about his plots in 
 haste and to have been impatient of the labour of in- 
 venting an artificial plan, and still more so of following 
 it strictly. As a rule he took the bases of his plays 
 from some other writer in verse or prose and steadily 
 adhered to them, narrating the events as they were re- 
 lated by his originals, bringing out the characters into 
 prominent relief, imagining a peculiar idiosyncrasy for 
 each, and putting into their mouths suitable speeches. 
 No doubt he took care to find good subjects — I mean 
 generally — for several of the subjects he chose are bad 
 and barren of incidents ; or if incidents abound, they 
 are so unnatural that, with the utmost force of his 
 genius, he can make nothing of them. This is the case 
 with * Cymbeline,' * Troilus and Cressida,' * Pericles, 
 Prince of Tyre,' ' Titus Andronicus,' * Love's Labour's 
 Lost,' ' Two Gentlemen of Verona,' ' Comedy of Errors,' 
 and some others. As to probability, he evidently cared 
 little or nothing about it, since he set it at naught 
 whenever it suited his purpose, instead of it sometimes 
 substituting splendid impossibilities — in this conforming 
 to the advice of Aristotle, who tells us that an impossi- 
 bility that is probable is better than a possible thing 
 
:/7 
 
 \^' 
 
 302 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 which is improbable. An old Greek poet being re- 
 proached with relating things which were not likely to 
 have occurred, replied * In great length of time it is 
 probable that very improbable things should happen/ 
 Shakespeare appears to have taken this for his creed, 
 and therefore set about his dramatic creations with 
 little respect for probability. In most of his plays there 
 is no plot at all, but instead a number of incidents and 
 events thrown arbitrarily together, arranged without 
 art, and resulting in a catastrophe which need not have 
 followed from anything that had taken place. Yet we 
 f Jy are in most cases interested by the story — that is, by 
 ' ^ -' the manner in which things often contrary to Nature 
 are told. Sometimes, as in ' The "Winter's Tale,' a series 
 of episodic scenes of rare beauty is introduced in the 
 midst of events and circumstances distinguished chiefly 
 for their absurdity. The events of this play, stripped 
 of their gorgeous clothing and exhibited naked to the 
 mind, are in fact so preposterous that they only excite 
 commiseration for the writer who could discredit his 
 genius by setting them forth. It may, however, be 
 inferred that in this play as in many others Shake- 
 speare designed to demonstrate the folly by which the 
 rulers of mankind are too often actuated, for Leontes 
 and Polixenes are so destitute of commonsense that 
 their equals could hardly be found out of Bedlam. Yet 
 in relating the actions of those individuals, so worthless 
 in themselves, Shakespeare often contrived to touch 
 the heart and throw open the sources of pity. Hermione, 
 whom Shakespeare brings from Eussia to Sicily, where 
 she appears native and to the manner born, manages 
 by her hoydenish behaviour to inspire her foolish 
 husband with jealousy, so that he regards her as an 
 adulteress and causes her to be tried for her life. 
 
PLOT AND STORY 303 
 
 Acquitted through the instrumentality of the oracle 
 at Delphi, which is made contemporaneous with 
 Julio Komano, she is nevertheless thrown into prison, 
 where she is delivered of a daughter, which Leontes 
 orders to be exposed. Strange events now spring up 
 thicker and faster : Leontes commands one of his 
 courtiers to sail to Bohemia, that is to the kingdom 
 of Polixenes — the fact that it was an inland country 
 not being thought of any consequence. To shield the 
 poet from the charge of not being correct in his 
 geography. Pope, in his edition, substitutes Bithynia 
 for Bohemia. But the thick and thin Shakespeareans 
 will have none of his Bithynia, and return indignantly 
 to the original Bohemia. On the coast of Bohemia, 
 therefore, the King's daughter is cast, and there a bear 
 devours the courtier who exposes her, but abstains 
 from making a mouthful of the child, upon the principle 
 advocated by Falstaff, that a lion will not touch the 
 true prince. Giving the infant time to grow up to be 
 a woman, we return to Sicily, where the Queen is 
 supposed to die, and to be shifted off with so little 
 ceremony that no one knows what becomes of her 
 body, royal funerals there being of so little account 
 that they were attended by no one, that no undertaker 
 was employed to make a coffin, and no mourning 
 establishment to supply a shroud. Leontes, being 
 delivered from his adulterous Queen, as he would have 
 it, concerns himself no more about the matter, and 
 refuses to see her put decently into the earth. This 
 behaviour the reader will, I think, allow to be impro- 
 bable, yet it is trifling compared with what follows. 
 Hermione's baby — having been picked up by a shep- 
 herd, who, while he gives it to his wife to nurse, 
 prudently preserves the rich garments in which it had 
 
304 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEAKE 
 
 been thrown into the jungle — receives the name 
 of Perdita, is brought up by the shepherdess, and 
 becomes the prettiest lass in all the countryside. But 
 princes and princesses are attracted to each other like 
 iron and the loadstone. The son of Polixenes, with 
 the romantic name of Florizel, finds out Perdita and 
 falls in love with her, while she, with all the beauties 
 and graces of a princess, casts a spell over her lover, 
 who resolves in spite of father and friends to make her 
 his queen. For the present, however, he considers it 
 judicious to escape from his father's anger, and now it 
 turns out that the poet has provided against this con- 
 tingency, for a Sicilian nobleman who had escaped 
 from Sicily with Polixenes, being in his old age desirous 
 of returning home, counsels Florizel to make for that 
 quarter, and to frame a story after the manner of 
 Odysseus to account for his appearance there with his 
 bride. While events are shaping themselves into some- 
 thing like order in the palace of Leontes, Polixenes 
 and the fugitive Sicilian nobleman rush in, and matters 
 are soon adjusted to the satisfaction of all parties. 
 But then comes the crowning event. Paulina, widow 
 of the courtier who had been eaten by the bear, in- 
 vites Leontes and his guests to view a splendid statue 
 which she had just received from Italy ; they accept the 
 invitation and repair to the house, enter the gallery, a 
 curtain is withdrawn, and Hermione as a marble statue 
 stands before them. Shakespeare's Julio Eomano had 
 anticipated Gibson, for, as Paulina assures us, he 
 had painted his statue and the colours were not even 
 then dry. However, Leontes, who no longer regarded 
 his helpmate as an adulteress, being strongly desirous 
 of touching her body, is withheld by Paulina till at 
 length the eyes move, the bosom heaves with breath, 
 
PLOT AND STORY 305 
 
 and the image of the dead queen descends from its 
 pedestal, to the no small surprise, as we may imagine, 
 of all present. Such is one of Shakespeare's stories 
 told plainly but faithfully. Hermione during sixteen 
 years' seclusion had grown wrinkled, though her age 
 need not have been above forty, but women did grow 
 old very soon in Shakespeare's time, and so we pass 
 over the wrinkles. 
 
 * As You Like It ' is, upon the whole, a very charm- 
 ing play, many of the incidents are pretty, while the 
 descriptions and reflections are often of the rarest 
 beauty; but neither Nature nor probability has the 
 least share in the construction of the plot, in the 
 development of the story, in the invention of the 
 characters, or in the denouement. A good father, we 
 know, has often bad sons as well as good ones ; but if 
 the good are supposed to be so because they are his 
 sons, what makes the bad ones bad? Shakespeare 
 entangles himself with this problem at the very outset 
 of * As You Like It.' Orlando, the youngest son, pos- 
 sesses all the graces of person, all the chivalrous 
 accomplishments, all the virtues of his dead father, 
 Sir Eowland de Boys, while his eldest brother Oliver is 
 cold-blooded, cruel, and fiendishly malignant. It is in 
 some part of France these individuals are found, and in 
 the dominions of a Duke who, having been expelled from 
 the dukedom by his brother, has taken to the bush, 
 and dwells with a number of virtuous courtiers in the 
 Forest of Arden. These Dukes, good and bad, have 
 a daughter apiece — one Kosalind, the other Celia, the 
 former belonging to the banished Duke, the latter to 
 the usurper. Why Kosalind did not accompany her 
 father is not explained ; though if she had the choice, 
 and preferred her cousin to her father, we are constrained 
 
306 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 to think somewhat meanly of her. Just as the play 
 opens she falls in love with Orlando for his strength 
 in wrestling, and loses her uncle's favour because the 
 people praise her more than Celia. She is therefore 
 ordered upon pain of death not to be found in the Duke's 
 dominions after the expiration of two days. Celia, 
 being fond of her, resolves to be her companion. In 
 the night they fly together, and by way of fitting them- 
 selves with a suitable companion, persuade her high- 
 ness's fool. Touchstone, to elope with them. Eosalind, 
 being the taller, disguises herself as a man, while Celia 
 preserves her petticoats. By good luck they find their 
 way to the Forest of Arden, whither Orlando and a faith- 
 ful servant also betake themselves. Here then in the 
 forest, Duke, ladies, gentlemen, live in masquerade ; 
 Bosalind and her cousin purchase a cottage, and dwell 
 among the rustics ; Orlando joins the Duke's followers, 
 and roams about the wood at his pleasure. Of course 
 he falls in with the disguised Eosalind, which leads to 
 a mock courtship between the two young men as they 
 appear to each other, which, to speak plainly, is dis- 
 gusting, for Orlando kisses the youth as if he were 
 a girl. While this fooling is in progress, the two bad 
 brothers come upon the scene ; Oliver by the machinery 
 of a dragon, a lion, and a palm-tree, is transformed into 
 a saint, while the usurping and cruel Duke, meeting 
 with a hermit, throws off his wickedness as easily as he 
 might his cloak, and betakes himself to a monastery. 
 Eosalind then doffs her male costume and is married to 
 Orlando ; and Celia, falling in love with * The Deformed 
 Transformed,' becomes the wife of Oliver. Such is the 
 story of ' As You Like It,' which will, I think, be con- 
 fessed to have as little resemblance to nature or pro- 
 bability as any tale in the * Arabian Nights ' ; and yet 
 
PLOT AND STORY 307 
 
 the magic of Shakespeare's hand has, out of these 
 unpromising materials, fabricated one of the most 
 charming of his plays. 
 
 The comedy, as it is called, of * Much Ado about 
 Nothing ' is made up of preposterous incidents, and 
 the lamest of all stories, and yet the result, according 
 to some critics, is the most splendid comedy in our 
 language. Let us examine the materials. The natural 
 brother of a prince, having risen in rebellion, is defeated, 
 taken prisoner, and brought to Messina by his captor 
 Pedro, who is accompanied by several officers, among 
 whom are Claudio and Benedick. They are welcomed 
 by the governor of the city, Leonato, and received into 
 his house as guests. Was Claudio a stranger to Leonato 
 or not ? Shakespeare has omitted to settle that point, 
 for now Claudio is not a stranger and now he is : at 
 one time saying that he had loved Leonato's daughter 
 Hero before going to the wars, at another time inquiring 
 of the prince whether Leonato, who must therefore 
 have been a complete stranger to him, had or had not 
 a son to inherit his wealth to the prejudice of Hero, 
 whom therefore he intends to woo for her possessions, 
 not for her beauty. Learning that Hero would be her 
 father's sole heir, it is arranged that the prince shall 
 woo her for the fortune-hunter, which he does success- 
 fully, so that marriage is determined on and the day 
 fixed. The prince's half-brother, a sort of would-be 
 lago, disliking this arrangement because he hated 
 Claudio, who had been one of his conquerors, resolves 
 to counteract his brother's design. The plot he puts 
 in play does as little credit to his invention as being 
 overreached by it does to the discernment of Claudio 
 and the prince. Don John hires one of his dependants, 
 Borachio, to allure Hero's maid, Margaret, without 
 
308 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 giving her any explanation, to appear by night at her 
 mistress's window, and there, dressed in the lady's 
 clothes, to hold converse with him. It is not said 
 that Borachio enters the chamber, or has any amorous 
 intrigue with Margaret. However, the Prince and 
 Claudio, who from a distance witness the interview, 
 jump at once to the conclusion that Hero is a 
 voluptuous harlot. They could not have been near 
 enough to discern the lady's countenance, or even 
 dress, in the dark ; neither, unless she shouted like 
 Stentor, could they hear what she said. All they 
 could surely know was that somebody spoke out of 
 Hero's bedroom to somebody in the garden below. 
 Thereupon the wise Claudio, with the wiser Prince, 
 determined to disgrace Hero publicly in the church, 
 whither she is to repair to be married to Claudio in 
 presence of her father and friend. This is accordingly 
 done, and Hero, broken-hearted, is supposed to die. 
 While she is supposed to be dead, the Prince and 
 Claudio meet Leonato and his brother, and on being 
 provoked by the old men insult them grossly, and 
 when immediately afterwards they meet Benedick 
 observe they were just about to have their noses 
 snapped off by two old men without teeth. At this 
 stage of the proceedings, Don John's device is dis- 
 covered by a foolish constable and his comrades, who 
 overhear the villain, Borachio, relating to another 
 rascal what he had done, upon which Claudio becomes 
 romantic, and repairs to Hero's supposed tomb in a 
 church, where he chants a hymn to Diana. This 
 done. Hero is brought forward as a cousin supposed to 
 to be very like her, and the penitent fortune-hunter 
 marries the heiress, while, by way of supplement. 
 Benedick also finds a wife in Beatrice, who, though 
 
PLOT AND STORY 309 
 
 not the heroine, figures most prominently throughout 
 the story. To what extent is probability consulted in 
 this strange narrative, and is nature treated with any 
 greater respect? The play, nevertheless, tells upon 
 the stage, chiefly through the vivacity of the dialogue 
 and the wit of Beatrice, who, for her own good, is 
 allured into a marriage with Benedick by an artifice 
 so poor that it would hardly be thought respectable in 
 a nursery tale. 
 
 Another comedy which in many respects is clever 
 and lively is ' Twelfth Night,' in which, however, there 
 is scarcely one natural character, or any event that 
 comes under the head of probable. Shakespeare loves 
 to play with two individuals cast in the same mould, 
 so that the one may often be mistaken for the other. 
 In * The Comedy of Errors,' if the play be his, he has 
 pushed this fancy to the utmost verge of absurdity, so 
 that when a number of barren spectators laugh, it is 
 doubtful whether they laugh with him or at him. 
 The story of * Twelfth Night ' is this : A brother and 
 sister wrecked on the coast of lUyria make for the 
 capital, not together, for each imagines the other to be 
 drowned, but with two captains, whose characters were 
 meant to figure in the Golden Age or in More's 
 * Utopia.' The girl, conscious of her beauty, and of 
 the dangers to which it might expose her, disguises 
 herself in the habit of a youth by the aid of her sea- 
 faring friend, and on reaching the capital finds imme- 
 diate service as a eunuch under the Duke. This 
 prince is desperately in love with a fantastic lady, who 
 has vowed to perform during seven years all sorts of 
 antics for the loss of a brother, and, as part of her 
 design, declines the Duke's love, and he sends his 
 eunuch page to plead his cause. Women usually look 
 
310 ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 small in men's clothes, and this one, Viola, is so under- 
 sized that she is called a boy ; still, when she is seen 
 by Olivia, the object of the Duke's passion, she inspires 
 her with a fondness so extravagant, that she forgets 
 her dead brother at once, and throws herself at the 
 head of the Duke's representative. Olivia has a 
 drunken uncle, as great a knave as he is a sot, who 
 fills his pockets by swindling one whom he calls his 
 friend. 
 
 Is it not a proof of our dullness, that we can witness 
 the same buffoonery and listen to the same jokes two 
 or three hundred times, without strangling ourselves 
 or cutting our throats through sheer ennui ? We laugh 
 to-day at what we laughed at yesterday. It becomes 
 indeed a habit of the mind, seeing we are as much in 
 want of amusement one day as another. Lamb thought, 
 not unnaturally, considering the materials of contem- 
 porary literature, that it was a sort of profanation to 
 put Shakespeare's dramas upon the stage — meaning, 
 I suppose, the best of them, for there are others which 
 would be kept off by their intrinsic dullness. Who in 
 fact could sit out the dreary platitudes of ' Cymbeline,' 
 of ' Troilus and Cressida,' or of any one of the historical 
 plays? And where are the actors and actresses who 
 could properly perform ' Eomeo and Juliet,' or ' Mac- 
 beth,' or 'Lear,' or ' Hamlet,' or ' Othello ' ? 
 
 It has been remarked by numerous writers that the 
 age of Shakespeare was the age of the drama, not that 
 he made it, but that he found it so. No other form of 
 composition was so popular as the drama, the theatres 
 were constantly crowded, and several companies of 
 actors traversed the country, playing in every con- 
 siderable town, where they appear to have almost 
 invariably found a welcome. In our own day, the 
 
PLOT AND STORY 311 
 
 drama may almost be said to be defunct — killed, as 
 some fancy, by the novel — though in point of fact, 
 every age has its favourite forms of composition, which 
 take their rise in peculiar modifications of manners, 
 which they help to confirm or alter, though in a 
 degree scarcely appreciable. The history of manners, 
 if it could be written, would be the most interesting 
 of all histories, because manners are the outward and 
 visible signs of the thoughts, opinions, feelings, and 
 character of the nation. No man who opposes himself 
 to the current of national prejudices can be popular ; he 
 must flatter, while he seems to censure them — which 
 Shakespeare did, conforming in appearance at least to all 
 the whims and extravagances of the hour. The ques- 
 tion, however, is, what causes the changes we observe 
 in the manners of nations, and why will they adore at 
 one time what they loathe at another ? It is easy to 
 say that it is in obedience to a law of human nature ; 
 but what is that law? Shakespeare alluded to the 
 fact, but without explaining the cause : 
 
 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. 
 
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