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 V 
 
SHAKSPEARE PAPERS. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM MAGINN, L.L.D. 
 
 LONDON; 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 1860. 
 
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 35 
 
 Id M Z- 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 POINTED BY GEOEGE PHIPPS, 13 & 14, TOTHILL STEEET, 
 WESTMINSTEE. 
 
 1 
 
 ] 
 
SECOND ED] 
 
 ADVERTISEM 
 
 TO THE 
 
 The Shakspeare Papers ” were originally 
 published in Benth'ifs Miscellany^ with the exception 
 of the paper on Hamlet, which appeared in 
 Fraser^s Magazine^ and which was not included 
 in the First Edition of this work published in 
 September of last year. By the courtesy of 
 Messrs. J. W. Parker & Son, the proprietors 
 ^ of Fraserh Magazine^ the publisher of the Shak- 
 speare Papers’’ is now enabled to give the public 
 a complete Edition. 
 
 London, 
 
 January 1860. 
 
 1 
 
I. SiE John Falstaff. 
 
 II. Jaques. 
 
 III. Eomeo. 
 
 IV. Midsummee Night’s Deeam — Bottom the 
 
 Weavee. 
 
 V. His Ladies — Lady Macbeth, p. \ A 2 . 
 
 VI. Timon of Athens. 
 
 VII. POLONIUS. 
 
 VIII. Iago. 
 
 IX. Hamlet. 
 
• • :5 
 
 /I 
 
SKETCH OF DE. MAGINN. 
 
 William Maginn was the son of a schoolmaster 
 in Cork, and was born in that city on the 11th of 
 November, 1794. At the early age of ten years he 
 was sent to Trinity College, Dublin, where his pre- 
 cocious talents gave early presage of his future emi- 
 nence, and he obtained his degree when he was only 
 fourteen years old. From college he returned to Cork, 
 where he assisted his father as a teacher of the classics 
 in the Cork Academy, and at twenty, his father dying, 
 the care of the Academy devolved upon him. He 
 continued to maintain its celebrity for some years, 
 only quitting it for the strong temptation of a literary 
 career. His first writings made their appearance in the 
 Literary 0-azette, to which he for some time contri- 
 buted anonymously, at a time when that paper, under 
 the management of William Jordan, was the leading 
 literary organ of the day. Maginn was accustomed, 
 says Mr. Jordan, to send me a perfect shower of 
 varieties; classic paraphrases, anecdotes, illustrations 
 
10 
 
 SKETCH OF DB. MAGINN. 
 
 of famous ancient authors, displaying a vast ac- 
 quaintance with, and fine appreciation of, them.’’ 
 
 He soon became connected with Blackwood^s Maga- 
 zine^ just then rising into eminence, with the assistance 
 of Lockhart, Wilson, Hogg, and Hamilton. Maginn 
 was a Tory of the old school, one who believed that 
 no good could come from Holland House, and he threw 
 his heart and soul into the pages of the Magazine. 
 
 The peculiar quality of his genius, the broad scope 
 of his wit, his practical knowledge of life and human 
 nature, and his thorough insight into political trickery, 
 were indeed brilliantly displayed in the whole series of 
 papers contributed to Blackwood^ under the sobriquet 
 of Ensign Major O’Doherty. They were sufficient 
 of themselves to make the reputation of the writer, 
 and to establish the popularity of the magazine in 
 which they appeared. Amongst these the ‘‘ Maxims” 
 attracted the most attention at the time, and have 
 since, we believe, been reprinted in a collected form. 
 Compare these with those of La Rochefoucauld, for 
 genuine humour and pungent ridicule, and Maginn’s 
 Maxims” will assuredly stand the test of com- 
 parison. Who has not read, and revelled in, these 
 rich lucubrations, enjoying their fun if not always 
 convinced by their logic ? 
 
SKETCH OE DR. MAOINN. 
 
 11 
 
 The rapidity with which Maginn composed in any 
 of the various languages of which he was master, was 
 as miraculous as the memory of Magliabechi. It is 
 a welhknown fact, that his paraphrase of Chevy Chase^ 
 in Latin verse, nearly a literal rendering in the same 
 number of lines, was dashed off currente calamo after 
 supper, almost as quickly as an ordinary pen could 
 transcribe the original. 
 
 To Blackwood^ also, he contributed some of those 
 exquisite songs which for facility of rhyme and rol- 
 licking drollery have never been surpassed,*^ 
 
 Coming to London — to which Maginn was ever after 
 as much attached as Dr. Johnson— he assisted, for a 
 brief season, Theodore Hook on the John BulL 
 In 1826, Mr. Murray started the Representative ^ 
 and by Lockhart’s influence Maginn was appointed 
 Paris correspondent, the present Benjamin Disraeli, 
 then almost a boy, having been appointed editor. In 
 
 * In the American reprint of Maginn’s works, there is an 
 error which may be noted here:— “ Charming Judy Callaghan” is 
 there printed as the production of Dr. Maginn, whilst, in fact, 
 it proceeded from the pen of Father Front, and was written for 
 Bentley's Miscellany. Father Front was Maginn’s only rival in 
 these masterly songs, and they both seemed to wield the Latin 
 and Greek languages with as much facility and felicity as their 
 own. 
 
 b3 
 
12 
 
 SKETCH OF DK. MAGINN. 
 
 spite of lavish expenditure, this paper did not succeed, 
 and Maginn returned to England, having, whilst in 
 Paris, written a novel, still unpublished, which has 
 for some years been in the possession of Mr. Bentley, 
 and in which some of the most stirring scenes of that 
 great modern convulsion, the French Revolution, are 
 vividly depicted. His next work of any moment was 
 The Days of Gieorge the Fourth^ in which, by the way, 
 the King was never once introduced. 
 
 After some other comparatively trifling productions, 
 we find him one of the writers of the Nodes Amhro- 
 siance^ in Blackwood^ to which he contributed for some 
 time, his last appearance at the Noctes being in July 
 1829. 
 
 When the Tories had resolved to organize an oppo- 
 sition to Mr. Canning, they cast about for an organ of 
 sufficient weight to effect their purpose, and finally 
 fixed upon the Standard^ of which Dr. Gifiard was then 
 editor, and which Dr. Maginn powerfully assisted by' 
 his keen wit and biting sarcasm. 
 
 In 1829, in consequence of a rupture with Mr. 
 Blackwood, he projected, in concert with Mr. Hugh 
 Fraser, Fraser^s Magazine. The first number ap- 
 peared in February 1830, and was distinguished by 
 a trenchant sarcasm, which immediately enabled that 
 
SKETCH OF DK. MAGINN. 
 
 13 
 
 periodical to cut its way to success. One of the most 
 humorous papers written by Maginn appeared in this 
 periodical under the title of The Election of Editor.” 
 The election was supposed to take place in Lincoln’s 
 Inn Fields, the chairman having the use of the 
 incomparable balcony of Mr. Soane.” Various writers 
 of eminence put in their claim to be editors, and 
 this afforded Maginn an opportunity to imitate their 
 style of speaking with a happiness and humour inde- 
 scribable. Coleridge commences with a long poem, 
 which produces such a sensation, that in order to 
 quiet the disturbance martial law is proclaimed. Dr. 
 Croly next delivers himself of a long, turgid speech, 
 and is succeeded by Coleridge, who informs the pub- 
 lic that when he was editor of the Morning JPost^ 
 the Emperor Napoleon said that he declared war solely 
 on his account!” Gillies’ manner is admirably imi- 
 tated, although of late years he finished his sen- 
 tences, even in the most ordinary conversation, so 
 elaborately, that Maginn’s picture is rather within the 
 fact than overcharged. Poor Gillies has gone from 
 among us unpensioned, though so many with less desert 
 and far less need, but with friends at court, had 
 their claims attended to. He was a sort of Dominie 
 Sampson, and had no idea whatever of the value of 
 
14 
 
 SKETCH OF DB. MAGINN. 
 
 money. Numberless amusing anecdotes bave been 
 related of him, and of his similarity to Goldsmith in 
 this respect. On one occasion he took a cab from 
 Kensington to the West End, to borrow five shillings, 
 and returned home in the same conveyance. This 
 must have been one of the most expensive loans on 
 record, and must have cost at least three-fifths of the 
 borrowed money. He died in great poverty, in Holland 
 Street, Kensington, in November 1858, and no news- 
 paper recorded his death. 
 
 It was in the pages of Fraser^ or Regina as was 
 then the fashion to call it, that Maginn wrote the 
 criticism on Berheley Gastle^ certainly after the third 
 bowl. The reviewer exceeded all the license of criti- 
 cism, and provoked a cruel retaliation, which fell upon 
 the unfortunate publisher. Maginn and poor Fraser 
 are both gone, and Mr. Grantley Berkeley alone re- 
 mains to regret to the close of life an act no man 
 living can defend. 
 
 In the autumn of 1836, Mr. Bentley projected his 
 Miscellany, and gathered together a host of celebrities, 
 amongst whom were found Father Prout, Theodore 
 Hook, Charles Dickens, Maxwell, Peacock, Morier, 
 Dr. Maginn, and the immortal Ingoldsby. With such 
 a phalanx of talent success was certain under the 
 
SKETCH OF DB. MXOINN. 
 
 15 
 
 editorship of Charles Dickens, and Dr. Maginn con- 
 tributed some of his happiest papers to the earlier 
 numbers. Chief amongst these are The Shakspeare 
 Papers,” here reproduced, and the two following poems. 
 
 ^‘OUR OPENING CHAUNT. 
 
 I. 
 
 Come round and hear, my public dear, 
 
 Come hear, and judge it gently,— 
 
 The prose so terse, and flowing verse. 
 
 Of us, the wits of Bentley. 
 
 H. 
 
 We offer not intricate plot 
 To muse upon intently ; 
 
 No tragic word, no bloody sword, 
 
 Shall stain the page of Bentley. 
 
 III. 
 
 The tender song which all day long 
 Resounds so sentim6nt’ly, 
 
 Through wood and grove all full of love. 
 
 Will find no place in Bentley. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Nor yet the speech which fain would teach 
 All nations eloquently ;« — 
 
 ’Tis quite too grand for us, the bland 
 And modest men of Bentley. 
 
16 
 
 SKETCH OF DE. MAGINN. 
 
 V. 
 
 “ For science deep no line we keep, 
 
 We speak it reverently; — 
 
 From sign to sign the sun may skine. 
 Untelescoped by Bentley. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Tory and Whig, in accents big, 
 
 May wrangle violently ; 
 
 Their party rage shan’t stain the page — 
 The neutral page of Bentley. 
 
 VII. 
 
 “ The scribe whose pen is mangling men 
 And women pestiiently, 
 
 May take elsewhere his wicked ware, — 
 He finds no mart in Bentley. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 “ It pains us not to mark the spot 
 Where Dan may find his r6nt lie ; 
 
 The Glasgow chiel may shout for Peel, 
 We know them not in Bentley. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Those who admire a merry lyre, — 
 Those who would hear attently 
 
 A tale of wit, or flashing hit, — 
 
 Are ask’d to come to Bentley. 
 
SKETCH OF DR. MAGINN. 
 
 17 
 
 X. 
 
 Our hunt will be for grace and glee, 
 
 Where thickest may the scent lie ; 
 
 At slashing pace begins the chase — 
 
 Now for the burst of Bentley.’’ 
 
 In quite a different vein, though written for the 
 same periodical, are the following noble stanzas, which 
 are certainly worthy of being reprinted here. 
 
 THE HOOKINGS OF THE SOLDIERS. 
 
 FROM ST. MATTHEW. 
 
 Plant a crown upon his head, 
 
 Royal robe around him spread ; 
 
 See that his imperial hand 
 Grasps as fit the sceptral wand : 
 
 Then before him bending low, 
 
 As becomes his subjects, bow ; 
 
 Fenced within our armed ring, 
 
 Hail him, hail him, as our King ! 
 
 Platted was of thorns the crown, 
 
 Trooper’s cloak was royal gown ; 
 
 If his passive hand, indeed, 
 
 Grasp’d a sceptre, ’twas a reed. 
 
 He was bound to feel and hear 
 Deeds of shame, and words of jeer ; 
 
 For he whom king in jest they call 
 Was a doom,ed captive scoff’d by all. 
 
18 
 
 SKETCH OF DK. MAOINN. 
 
 But the brightest crown of gold, 
 
 Or the robe of rarest fold, 
 
 Or the sceptre which the mine 
 Of Golconda makes to shine, 
 
 Or the lowliest homage given 
 By all mankind under heaven. 
 
 Were prized by him no more than scorn. 
 Sceptre of reed or crown of thorn. 
 
 Of the stars his crown is made. 
 
 In the sun he is array’d, 
 
 He the lightning of the spheres 
 As a flaming sceptre bears : 
 
 Bend in rapture before him 
 Banks of glowing seraphim ; 
 
 And we, who spurn’d him, trembling stay 
 The Judgment of his coming day.” 
 
 Dr. Maginn contributed to Fraser for some time 
 after the publication of Bentleifs Miscellany^ and his 
 Homeric Ballads/’ which have earned for him so 
 great a reputation for scholarship, first appeared in 
 1838 in that Magazine. His health, however, failing 
 fast, chiefly in consequence it is to be feared of the 
 mode of life he led in the metropolis, he withdrew into 
 the country, and became fo>r a short time editor of 
 the Lancashire Herald. In 1842 he was for a short 
 
SKETCH OF DB. MAGINN. 
 
 19 
 
 time imprisoned in the Fleet, but was soon set at 
 liberty. Some of his last contributions were made 
 to Punchy in the course of the same year, but it 
 was evident to all that his health was fatally un- 
 dermined, and he died in August 1842, in his forty- 
 ninth year, and was buried in the picturesque little 
 village of Walton-on-Thames, leaving behind him a 
 wife, one son, and two daughters. 
 
 It may appear contradictory to those who are ac- 
 quainted with the stinging sarcasm of Dr. Maginn, but 
 it is not the less true, that he never wrote maliciously. 
 Master as he was of sarcasm and irony, he delighted 
 in the use of his weapons, and took a pride in keeping 
 them bright at the expense of the first comer who 
 laid himself open to criticism. Beyond this, he rarely 
 mixed feeling up with any of his attacks, and in a 
 paper in Fraser^ called The Philosophy of Laughter,” 
 he thus hopes to end life : — 
 
 ‘‘ May we die the death of old Democritus, cheerful, 
 hopeful, and contented ; surrounded by many a friend, 
 but without an enemy; and remembered principally, 
 because we have never, either in life or death, given 
 pain for a moment to any one that lived.” 
 
 Maginn’s spirits in early life 'were unbounded, and 
 discover themselves in all his earlier productions. In 
 
so 
 
 ^ SKETCH OF DE. MAGINN. 
 
 society he was as agreeable and genial as he was bril- 
 liant and witty. In his own words he was a whiskey- 
 devouring Irishman,” a rollicking jig of an Irish- 
 man.” In literature, with the single exception of 
 Father Prout, the twinkle of whose eye still gladdens 
 our hearts, (long may it do so !) William Maginn has 
 left no successor. 
 
 His knowledge of languages almost transcends belief. 
 Mr. Shelton Mackenzie, in his able Memoir, pre- 
 fixed to an American Edition of Maginn’s Works, tells 
 us that he could speak and write German, Italian, 
 French, Spanish, Portuguese, and modern Greek with 
 as much ease as if each had been his mother tongue ; 
 and he subsequently mastered Swedish, Russian, and 
 the Basque dialect, besides having some acquaintance 
 with the Turkish and Magyar tongues.” He was 
 so absolutely master of Greek and Latin, that he 
 rhymed in them with the same facility as he did 
 in English. 
 
 Indeed he had many fine genial qualities which, 
 added to his wit, caused his society to be eagerly 
 sought for. To this circumstance may be fairly im- 
 puted the indulgence of habits, which eventually 
 brought his brilliant career to a premature end. Dr. 
 Macnish, the modern Pythagorean, dined with him on 
 
SKETCH OF DR. MAGINN. 
 
 21 
 
 one occasion at the Salopian, and recorded the dinner 
 in the following sketch : — 
 
 ‘‘ He is a most remarkable fellow. His flow of ideas 
 is incredibly quick, and his articulation so rapid, that 
 it is difiicult to follow him. He is altogether a person 
 of vast acuteness, celerity of apprehension, and inde- 
 fatigable activity both of body and mind. His fore- 
 head is very finely developed, his organ of language 
 and ideality large, and his reasoning faculties excellent. 
 His hair is quite grey, although he does not look more 
 than forty. I imagined he was much older-looking, 
 and that he wore a wig. While conversing, his eye 
 is never a moment at rest; in fact his whole body is 
 in motion, and he keeps scrawling grotesque figures 
 upon the paper before him, and rubbing them out 
 again as fast as he draws them.” 
 
 The following brief sketch of Dr. Maginn by Mr. 
 Edward Kenealy, one of his latest and best friends, 
 afibrds a sad and touching picture of Maginn’ s last 
 Sunday : — 
 
 “ On the Sunday before he died, Maginn had been 
 remarkably cheerful, eloquent, and witty. These quali- 
 ties, indeed, he possessed to the last ; but I had often 
 seen him in health when he was r ' " 
 
 in his setting, and within a brief 
 
92 
 
 SKETCH OP DR. MAGIKN. 
 
 of death. During the day he had related innumerable 
 stories of all the great writers with whom he had lived 
 in intimacy ; had talked about books and men with 
 that mingled vein of humour and philosophy which 
 was the great ornament of his conversation ; and had 
 amused himself in detailing one of those literary pro- 
 jects on which his mind was always running, but which, 
 alas ! were never fated to be fulfilled. Death had not 
 at any time entered into his discourse ; apparently he 
 sought to keep it altogether out of his thoughts. 
 Though so weak as to require to be lifted in my arms 
 across the room, he seemed to think dissolution by no 
 means near ; or if he knew that ^he was dying, he 
 certainly bore it with a philosophy that would have 
 immortalized his name in the days of Socrates and 
 Cato. About four o’clock I left him for an hour or two, 
 when he slept, and I returned to him in the evening. 
 He was then up, propped by pillows in an arm chair, 
 and as gay and intelligent as if he had never been ill. 
 After we had talked a short while, ‘ Kenealy,’ said he, 
 
 ‘ shall I take some work out of you V I, of course, 
 assented ; and having got some paper and ink, I sat 
 down opposite to him. He then took Homer in his 
 hand ; and, after a brief interval of thought, dictated 
 the latter part of the ballad bearing the name of 
 
SKETCH OF DK. MAGINN. 
 
 S3 
 
 Nestor^s First Essay in Arms^ evidently with no 
 mental labour, but with an ease that could have 
 resulted only from his intimacy with the Greek, and 
 his extraordinary power of versification.” 
 
 Dr. Maginn was always original, and like all men 
 whose intellect is subtle and acute, he was some- 
 times paradoxical. By some writers, indeed, he has 
 been compared to Elia, and has been said to share 
 with him a great dislike to walk in traditionary paths. 
 Like the Laras he had a strong relish for rebellion. 
 
 The great characteristics of his genius are perhaps 
 more favorably discovered in The Shakspeare Papers” 
 than in any other of his productions. Before writing 
 these Essays, Dr. Maginn would appear to have sat 
 at the feet of Shakspeare, as at the feet of a Ga- 
 maliel, and in a loving reverent spirit has vindicated 
 some of Shakspeare’ s Characters from those decisions 
 of criticism which age had almost converted into 
 dogmas. His defence of Falstafi* against Dr. Johnson 
 is in some respects singularly happy; though it is 
 precisely in this Essay that Maginn’s daring genius 
 sallying forth to scatter the arguments of Johnson, 
 is most liable to adverse criticism. 
 
 Both Hazlitt and Maginn seem to have been desirous 
 of wiping away the reproach, that it was reserved for 
 
u 
 
 SKETCH OF DE. MAGINN. 
 
 a foreign critic to give reasons for the faith which we 
 English have in Shakspeare.” Schlegel’s admirable 
 criticism was for some time the only reply of any note 
 to Dr. Johnson’s remarks ; 'Hazlitt certainly did away 
 with that reproach, but the readers of the following 
 Essays on some of Shakspeare’s Characters, will 
 doubtless be of opinion that Dr. Maginn’s views are 
 entirely original, and bring to light, or, at least, give 
 a brighter hue to many of those beauties in our great 
 Dramatist and Poet which have escaped previous com- 
 mentators. 
 
 London, 
 
 January 1860. 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 31 
 
 behind the arras is the enforced confession of being a 
 pickpocket. Before the austere king his father, John 
 his sober-blooded brother, and other persons of gravity 
 or consideration, if Falstaflf be in presence, the prince 
 is constrained by his star to act in defence and pro- 
 tection of the knight. Conscious of the carelessness 
 and corruption which mark all the acts of his guide, 
 philosopher, and friend, it is yet impossible that he 
 should not recommend him to a command in a civil 
 war which jeopardied the very existence of his dynasty. 
 In the heat of the battle and the exultation of victory 
 he is obliged to yield to the fraud that represents 
 Falstaff as the actual slayer of Hotspur. Prince 
 John quietly remarks, that the tale of Falstaff is the 
 strangest that he ever heard: his brother, who has 
 won the victory, is content with saying that he who 
 has told it is the strangest of fellows. Does he betray 
 the cheat? Certainly not, — it would have been an 
 act of disobedience ; but in privy council he suggests 
 to his prince in a whisper, 
 
 “ Come, bring your luggage [the body of Hotspur] noUy-^'* 
 
 nobly — as becomes your rank in our court, so as to do 
 the whole of your followers, myself included, honour 
 by the apnearance of their master — 
 
32 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS I 
 
 “ Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back : 
 
 For my part, if a lie may do thee grace, 
 ril gild it with the happiest terms I have.” 
 
 Tribute, this, from the future Henry V. ! Deeper 
 tribute, however, is paid in the scepe in which state 
 necessity induces the renunciation of the fellow with 
 the great belly who had misled him. Poins had pre- 
 pared us for the issue. The prince had been grossly 
 abused in the reputable hostelrie of the Boar’s Head 
 while he was thought to be out of hearing. When he 
 comes forward with the intention of rebuking the 
 impertinence, Poins, well knowing the command to 
 which he was destined to submit, exclaims, ‘‘ My lord, 
 he will drive you out of your revenge, and turn all to 
 merriment, if you take not the heat.’’ Vain caution ! 
 The scene, again, ends by the total forgetfulness of 
 Falstafif’s offence, and his being sent for to court. 
 When, therefore, the time had come that considera- 
 tions of the highest importance required that Henry 
 should assume a more dignified character, and shake 
 off his dissolute companions, his own experience and 
 the caution of Poins instruct him that if the thing 
 be not done on the heat — if the old master-spirit 
 be allowed one moment’s ground of vantage — the game 
 is up, the good resolutions dissipated into thin air. 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 33 
 
 the grave rebuke turned all into laughter, and thoughts 
 of anger or prudence put to flight by the restored 
 supremacy of Falstaff*. Unabashed and unterrified he 
 has heard the severe rebuke of the king — know 
 thee not, old man,” &c., until an opport 
 
 figure was twinkling in Falstaflf’s eye. 
 leap from his tongue. The king saw his danger : had 
 he allowed a word, he was undone. Hastily, therefore, 
 does he check that word ; 
 
 forbidding, by an act of eager authority, — what he 
 must also have felt to be an act of self-control, — the out- 
 pouring of those magic sounds which, if uttered, would, 
 instead of a prison becoming the lot of Falstaff, have 
 conducted him to the coronation dinner, and established 
 him as chief depository of what in after-days was known 
 by the name of backstairs influence. 
 
 In this we find the real justification of what has 
 generally been stigmatized as the harshness of Henry. 
 
 a repartee : 
 
 Some joke on the oft-repeated theme o 
 
 “ Know, the grave doth 
 For thee thrice wider than for othei 
 
 Eeply not to me with a foohhom jest 
 
 
34 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPERS! 
 
 Dr. Johnson, with some indignation, asks why should 
 Falstaff he sent to the Fleet? — he had done nothing 
 since the king’s accession to deserve it. I answer, he 
 was sent to the Fleet for the same reason that he was 
 banished ten . miles from court, on pain of death. 
 Henry thought it necessary that the walls of a prison 
 should separate him from the seducing influence of one 
 than whom he knew many abetter man, but none whom 
 it was so hard to miss. He felt that he could not, in 
 his speech of predetermined severity, pursue to the end 
 the tone of harshness towards his old companion. He 
 had the nerve to begin by rebuking him in angry terms 
 as a surfeit-swelled, profane old man, — as one who, 
 instead of employing in prayer the time which his 
 hoary head indicated was not to be of long duration in 
 this world, disgraced his declining years by assuming the 
 unseemly occupations of fool and jester, — as one whom 
 he had known in a dream, but had awakened to despise, — 
 as one who, on the verge of the gaping grave, occupied 
 himself in the pursuits of such low debauchery as ex- 
 cluded him from the society of those who had respect for 
 themselves or their character. But he cannot so con- 
 tinue ; and the last words he addresses to him whom 
 he had intended to have cursed altogether, hold forth a 
 promise of advancement, with an affectionate assurance 
 
PICTUKES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 35 
 
 that it will be such as is suitable to his strength and 
 qualities.’’ If in public he could scarce master his 
 speech, how could he hope in private to master his 
 feelings? No. His only safety was in utter separa- 
 tion : it should be done, and he did it. He was eman- 
 cipated by violent effort ; did he never regret the 
 ancient thraldom ? Shakspeare is silent ; but may we 
 not imagine that he who sate crowned with the golden 
 rigol of England, cast, amid all his splendours, many a 
 sorrowful thought upon that old familiar face which he 
 had sent to gaze upon the iron bars of the Fleet ? 
 
 As for the chief justice, he never appears in Falstaff’s 
 presence, save as a butt. His grave lordship has many 
 solemn admonitions, nay, serious threats to deliver ; 
 but he departs laughed at and baffled. Coming to 
 demand explanation of the affair at Gadshill, the con- 
 versation ends with his being asked for the loan of 
 a thousand pounds. Interposing to procure payment 
 of the debt to Dame Quickly, he is told that she goes 
 about the town saying that her eldest son resembles 
 him. Fang and Snare, his lordship’s officers, are not 
 treated with less respect, or shaken off with less cere- 
 mony. As for the other followers of the knight, — 
 Pistol, Nym, Bardolph, — they are, by office, his obse- 
 quious dependents. But it is impossible that they could 
 
 D 3 
 
86 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 long hang about him without contracting, unknown 
 even to themselves, other feelings than those arising 
 from the mere advantages they derived from his service. 
 Death is the test of all ; and when that of Falstaff 
 approaches, the dogged Nym reproaches the king for 
 having run bad humours on the knight ; and Pistol in 
 swelling tone, breathing a sigh over his heart fracted 
 and corroborate,” hastens to condole with him. Bardolph 
 wishes that he was with him wheresoever he has gone, 
 whether to heaven or hell : he has followed him all his 
 life, — why not follow him in death ? The last jest has 
 been at his own expense ; but what matters it now ? 
 In other times Bardolph could resent the everlasting 
 merriment at the expense of his nose — he might wish 
 it in the belly of the jester; but that’s past. The 
 dying knight compares a flea upon his follower’s nose 
 to a black soul burning in hell-fire; and no remon- 
 strance is now made. ‘^Let him joke as he likes,” 
 says and thinks Bardolph with a sigh, ‘^the fuel is 
 gone that maintained that fire. He never will supply 
 it more ; nor will it, in return, supply fuel for his wit. 
 I wish that it could.” And Quickly, whom he had for 
 nine and twenty years robbed and cheated, — pardon 
 me, I must retract the words, — from whom he had, for 
 the space of a generation, levied tax and tribute as 
 
PICTUBES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 37 
 
 matter of right and due, — she hovers anxiously over his 
 dying bed, and, with a pathos and a piety well befitting 
 her calling, soothes his departing moments by the con- 
 solatory assurance, when she hears him uttering the 
 unaccustomed appeal to God, that he had no necessity 
 for yet troubling himself with thoughts to which he had 
 been unused during the whole length of their acquaint- 
 ance. Blame her not for leaving unperformed the duty 
 of a chaplain : it was not her vocation. She consoled 
 him as she could, — and the kindest of us can do no 
 more. 
 
 Of himself, the centre of the circle, I have, perhaps, 
 delayed too long to speak ; but the effect which he im- 
 presses upon all the visionary characters around, marks 
 Shakspeare’s idea that he was to make a similar impres- 
 sion on the real men to whom he was transmitting him. 
 The temptation to represent the gross fat man upon the 
 stage as a mere buffoon, and to turn the attention of 
 the spectators to the corporal qualities and the prac- 
 tical jests of which he is the object, could hardly be 
 resisted by the players ; and the popular notion of the 
 Falstaff of the stage is, that he is no better than an 
 upper-class Scapin. A proper consideration, not merely 
 of the character of his mind as displayed in the lavish 
 abundance of ever ready wit, and the sound good sense 
 
38 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPERS: 
 
 of his searching observation, but of the position which 
 he always held in society, should have freed the Falstaff 
 of the cabinet from such an imputation. It has not 
 generally done so. Nothing can be more false, nor, 
 face tanti viri^ more unphilosophical, than Dr. John- 
 son’s critique upon his character. According to himy^ 
 Falstaff is a character loaded with faults, and with 
 those faults which naturally produce contempt. He is 
 a thief and a glutton, a coward and a boaster, always 
 ready to cheat the weak, and prey upon the poor; to 
 terrify the timorous, and insult the defenceless. At 
 once obsequious and malignant, he satirizes in their 
 absence those whom he lives by flattering. He is 
 familiar with the prince only as an agent of vice, but of 
 this familiarity he is so proud, as not only to be super- 
 cilious and haughty with common men, but to think his 
 interest of importance to the Duke of Lancaster. Yet 
 the man thus corrupt, thus despicable, makes himself 
 necessary to the prince that despises him, by the most 
 pleasing of all qualities, perpetual gaiety ; by an un- 
 failing power of exciting laughter, which is the more 
 freely indulged, as his wit is not of the splendid or 
 ambitious kind, but consists in easy scapes and sallies 
 of levity, which make sport, but raise no envy. It 
 must be observed, that he is stained with no enormous 
 
PICTUBES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 39 
 
 or sanguinary crimes, so that his licentiousness is not 
 so ofTensive but that it may be borne for his mirth. 
 
 The moral to be drawn from this representation is, 
 that no man is more dangerous than he that, with a 
 will to corrupt, hath the power to please ; and that 
 neither wit nor honesty ought to think themselves 
 safe with such a companion, when they see Henry 
 seduced by Falstaff.” 
 
 What can be cheaper than the venting of moral 
 apophthegms such as that which concludes the cri- 
 tique ? Shakspeare, who had no notion of copybook 
 ethics, well knew that FalstafFs are not as plenty as 
 blackberries, and that the moral to be drawn from 
 the representation is no more than that great powers 
 of wit will fascinate, whether they be joined or not 
 to qualities commanding grave esteem. In the com- 
 mentary I have just quoted, the Doctor was thinking of 
 such companions as Savage ; but the interval is wide 
 and deep. 
 
 How idle is the question as to the cowardice of 
 FalstaflF. Maurice Morgann wrote an essay to free 
 his character from the allegation; and it became the 
 subject of keen controversy. Deeply would the knight 
 have derided the discussion. His retreat from before 
 Prince Henry and Poins, and his imitating death when 
 
40 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPERS : 
 
 attacked by Douglas, are the points mainly dwelt 
 upon by those who make him a coward. I shall not 
 minutely go over what I conceive to be a silly dispute 
 on both sides : but in the former case Shakspeare saves 
 his honour by making him offer at least some resistance 
 to two bold and vigorous men when abandoned by his 
 companions ; and, in the latter, what fitting antagonist 
 was the fat and blown soldier of three-score for 
 
 “ That furious Scot, 
 
 The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword 
 Had three times slain the appearance of the King ? ” 
 
 He did no more than what Douglas himself did in the 
 conclusion of the fight : overmatched, the renowned 
 warrior 
 
 “ Han vail his stomach, and did grace the shame 
 Of those that turned their backs ; and, in his flight, 
 StumbHng in fear, was took.” 
 
 Why press cowardice on Falstaff more than upon 
 Douglas ? In an age when men of all ranks engaged 
 in personal conflict, we find him chosen to a command 
 in a slaughterous battle ; he leads his men to posts of 
 imminent peril ; it is his sword which Henry wishes to 
 borrow when about to engage Percy, and he refuses to 
 lend it from its necessity to himself ; he can jest coolly 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 41 
 
 in the midst of danger ; he is deemed worthy of em- 
 ploying the arm of Douglas at the time that Hotspur 
 engages the prince ; Sir John Coleville yields himself 
 his prisoner ; and, except in the jocular conversations 
 among his own circle, no word is breathed that he has 
 not performed, and is not ready to perform, the duties 
 of a soldier. Even the attendant of the chief justice, 
 with the assent of his hostile lordship, admits that he 
 has done good service at Shrewsbury, All this, and 
 much more, is urged in his behalf by Maurice Mor- 
 gann ; but it is far indeed from the root of the matter. 
 Of his being a thief and a glutton I shall say a few 
 words anon ; but where does he cheat the weak or prey 
 upon the poor, — where terrify the timorous or insult 
 the defenceless, — where is he obsequious, where malig- 
 nant, — where is he supercilious and haughty with 
 common men, — where does he think his interest of 
 importance to the Duke of Lancaster? Of this last 
 charge I see nothing whatever in the play. The 
 Duke ” of Lancaster‘S is a slip of the Doctor’s pen. 
 
 * He is once called so by Westmoreland, Second Part of 
 Henry IV, Act iv. Sc. 1. 
 
 “ Health and fair greeting from our general, 
 
 The prince Lord John and Duke of Lancaster ; ” 
 
 but it occurs nowhere else, and we must not place much reliance 
 
42 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS! 
 
 But Falstaff nowhere extends his patronage to Prince 
 John ; on the contrary, he asks from the prince the 
 favour of his good report to the king, adding, when he 
 is alone, that the sober-blooded boy did not love him. 
 He’ is courteous of manner; but, so far from being 
 obsequious, he assumes the command wherever he goes. 
 He is jocularly satirical of speech : but he who has 
 attached to him so many jesting companions for such a 
 series of years, never could have been open to the re- 
 proach of malignity. If the sayings of Johnson 
 himself about Goldsmith and Garrick, for example, 
 were gathered, must he not have allowed them to be 
 far more calculated to hurt their feelings than any- 
 thing FalstaflF ever said of Poiiis or Hal? and yet 
 would he not recoil from the accusation of being 
 actuated by malignant feelings towards men whom, in 
 spite of wayward conversations, he honoured, admired, 
 and loved? 
 
 Let us consider for a moment who and what Falstaff 
 was. If you put him back to the actual era in which 
 his date is fixed, and judge him by the manners of that 
 
 on the authenticity or the verbal accuracy of such verses. He was 
 Prince John of Lancaster, and afterwards Duke of Bedford. The 
 king was then, as the king is now, Duke of Lancaster. 
 
PICTUEES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 43 
 
 time ; a knight of the days perhaps of Edward III. — 
 at all events of Henry IV. — was a man not to be con- 
 founded with the knights spawned in our times. A 
 knight then was not far from the rank of peer ; and 
 with peers, merely by the virtue of his knighthood, he 
 'habitually associated as their equal. Even if we judge 
 of him by the repute of knights in the days when his 
 character was written, — and in dealing with Shak- 
 speare it is always safe to consider him as giving 
 himself small trouble to depart from the manners 
 which he saw around him, — the knights of Elizabeth 
 were men of the highest class. The queen conferred 
 the honour with much difficulty, and insisted that it 
 should not be disgraced. Sir John Falstaff, if his 
 mirth and wit inclined him to lead a reckless life, held 
 no less rank in the society of the day than the Earl 
 of Kochester in the time of Charles II. Henry IV. 
 disapproves of his son’s mixing with the loose revellers 
 of the town; but admits Falstaff unreproved to his 
 presence. When he is anxious to break the acquaint- 
 ance, he makes no objection to the station of Sir John, 
 but sends him with Prince John of Lancaster against 
 the archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland. His 
 objection is not that the knight, by his rank, is no 
 
44 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS I 
 
 fitting companion for a son of his own, but that he can 
 better trust him with the steadier than the more mer- 
 curial of the brothers. 
 
 We find by incidental notices that he was reared, 
 when a boy, page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Nor- 
 folk, head of one of the greatest houses that ever was 
 in England, and the personal antagonist of him who 
 was afterwards Henry IV. that he was in his youth 
 on familiar terms with John of Gaunt, the first man of 
 the land after the death of his father and brother ; 
 and that, through all his life, he had been familiar 
 with the lofty and distinguished. We can, therefore, 
 conjecture what had been his youth and his manhood ; 
 we see what he actually is in declining age. In this, 
 if I mistake not, will be found the true solution of 
 the character; here is what the French call the mot 
 d^enigme. Conscious of powers and talents far sur- 
 passing those of the ordinary run of men, he finds 
 himself outstripped in the race. He must have seen 
 many a man whom he utterly despised rising over his 
 head to honours and emoluments. The very persons 
 upon whom, it would appear to Dr. Johnson, he was 
 intruding, were many of them his early companions, — 
 many more his juniors at court. He might have at- 
 tended his old patron, the duke, at Coventry, upon St. 
 
PICTITEES, GKAVE AND GAY. 
 
 45 
 
 Lambert’s day, when Richard II. flung down the warder 
 amidst the greatest men of England. If he jested in 
 the tilt-yard with John of Gaunt, could he feel that 
 any material obstacle prevented him from mixing with 
 those who composed the court of John of Gaunt’s son? 
 
 In fact, he is a dissipated man of rank, with a 
 thousand times more wit than ever fell to the lot of all 
 the men of rank in the world. But he has ill played 
 his cards in life. He grumbles not at the advancement 
 of men of his own order ; but the bitter drop of his 
 soul overflows when he remembers how he and that 
 cheeseparing Shallow began the world, and reflects that 
 y:; the starveling ^stice has land and beeves, while he, 
 the wit and the gentleman, is penniless, and living from 
 hand to mouth by the casual shifts of the day. He 
 looks at the goodly dwelling and the riches of him 
 whom he had once so thoroughly contemned, with an 
 inward pang that he has scarcely a roof under which 
 he can lay his head. The tragic Macbeth, in the agony 
 of his last struggle, acknowledges with a deep despair 
 that the things which should accompany old age, — as 
 honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, — he must 
 not look to have. The comic Falstaff says nothing on 
 the subject ; but, by the choice of such associates as 
 Bardolph, Pistol, and the rest of that following, he 
 
46 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 tacitly declares that he too has lost the advantages 
 which should he attendant on years. No curses loud 
 or deep have accompanied his festive career, — its con- 
 clusion is not the less sad on that account : neglect, 
 forgotten friendships, services overlooked, shared plea- 
 sures unrememhered, and fair occasions gone for ever 
 by, haunt him, no doubt, as sharply as the conscious- 
 ness of deserving universal hatred galls the soul of 
 Macbeth. 
 
 And we may pursue the analogy farther without any 
 undue straining. All other hope lost, the confident 
 tyrant shuts himself up in what he deems an im- 
 pregnable fortress, and relies for very safety upon his 
 interpretation of the dark sayings of riddling witches. 
 Divested of the picturesque and supernatural horror of 
 the tragedy, Macbeth is here represented as driven to 
 his last resource, and dependent for life only upon 
 chances, the dubiousness of which he can hardly con- 
 ceal from himself. The Boar’s Head in Eastcheap is 
 not the castle of Dunsinane, any more than the con- 
 versation of Dame Quickly and Doll Tearsheet is that 
 of the Weird Sisters ; but in the comedy, too, we have 
 the man, powerful in his own way, driven to his last 
 frank,” and looking to the chance of the hour for the 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAT. 
 
 47 
 
 living of the hour. Hope after hope has broken down, 
 as prophecy after prophecy has been discovered to be 
 juggling and fallacious. He has trusted that his Bir- 
 nam Wood would not come to Dunsinane, and yet it 
 comes ; — that no man not of woman born is to cross 
 his path, and lo ! the man is here. What then remains 
 for wit or warrior when all is lost — when the last stake 
 is gone — when no chance of another can be dreamt 
 of — when the gleaming visions that danced before 
 their eyes are found to be nothing but mist and 
 mirage? What remains for them but to die? — And 
 so they do. 
 
 With such feelings, what can Falstaff, after having 
 gone through a life of adventure, care about the repute 
 of courage or cowardice? To divert the prince, he 
 engages in a wild enterprise, — nothing more than what 
 would be called a ‘Mark” now. When deer-stealing 
 ranked as no higher offence than robbing orchards, — > 
 not indeed so high as the taking a slice off a loaf by a 
 wandering beggar, which some weeks ago has sent the 
 vagrant who committed the “ crime ” to seven years’ 
 transportation, — such robberies as those at Gadshill, 
 especially as all parties well knew that the money taken 
 there was surely to be repaid, as we find it is in the 
 
48 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPERS! 
 
 end,^ were of a comparatively venial nature. Old 
 father antic, the Law, had not yet established his un- 
 doubted supremacy; and taking purses, even in the 
 
 * Henrg IV, Part 1. Act iii. Sc. 3. 
 
 “ Fal. Now Hal, to the news at court: for the robbery, lad? 
 
 How is that answered ? 
 
 P. Hen, My sweet beef, I must 
 
 Still be good angel to thee. 
 
 The money is paid back. 
 
 Fal, I do not like 
 
 That paying back ; it is a double labour. 
 
 P. Hen, I am good friends with my father, and may do anything. 
 
 Fal, Rob me the exchequer, the first thing thou dost ; 
 
 And do ’t with unwashed hands too. 
 
 Bard, Do, my lord.” 
 
 The quiet and business^hke manner in which Bardolph enforces 
 on the heir-apparent his master’s reasonable proposition of robbing 
 the exchequer, is worthy of that plain and straightforward cha- 
 racter. I have always considered it a greater hardship that 
 Bardolph should be hanged “ for pix of little price ” by an old 
 companion at Gadshill, than that Falstalf should have been ban- 
 ished. But Shakspeare wanted to get rid of the pariy ; and as, in 
 fact, a soldier was hanged in the army of Henry V. for such a 
 theft, the opportunity was afibrded. The king is not concerned in 
 the order for his execution however, which is left with the Duke of 
 Exeter. 
 
 I have omitted a word or two from the ordinary editions in the 
 above quotation, which are useless to the sense and spoil the 
 metre. A careful consideration of Falstaff’s speeches will show, 
 that though they are sometimes printed as prose, they are in 
 almost all cases metrical. Indeed, I do not think that there is 
 much prose in any of Shakspeare’s plays. 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAT. 
 
 49 
 
 days of Queen Elizabeth^ was not absolutely incom- 
 patible with gentility. The breaking up of the great 
 households and families by the wars of the Roses, the 
 suppression of the monasteries and the confiscation 
 of church property by Henry VIII. , added to the 
 adventurous spirit generated throughout all Europe 
 by the discovery of America, had thrown upon the 
 world men of action,” as they called themselves, 
 without any resources but what lay in their right 
 hands. Younger members of broken houses, or as- 
 pirants for the newly lost honours or the ease of the 
 cloister, did not well know what to do with themselves. 
 They were too idle to dig ; they were ashamed to 
 beg; — and why not apply at home the admirable 
 maxim, 
 
 “ That they should take who have the power, 
 
 And they should keep who can,” 
 
 which was acted upon with so much success beyond 
 the sea. The same causes which broke down the 
 nobility, and crippled the resources of the church, 
 deprived the retainers of the great baron, and the 
 sharers of the dole of the monastery, of their ac- 
 customed mode of living ; and robbery in these classes 
 was considered the most venial of offences. To the 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 system of poor laws, — a system worthy of being pro- 
 jected in great Eliza’s golden time ” by the greatest 
 philosopher of that day, or, with one exception, of 
 any other day, — are we indebted for that general 
 respect for property which renders the profession of 
 a thief infamous, and consigns him to the hulks, or 
 the tread-mill, without compassion. But I must not 
 wander into historical disquisitions; though no subject 
 would, in its proper place, be more interesting than 
 a minute speculation upon the gradual working of the 
 poor-law system on English society. It would form 
 one of the most remarkable chapters in that great 
 work yet to be written^ The History of the Lowest 
 Order from the earliest times,’’ — a work of far more 
 importance, of deeper philosophy, and more picturesque 
 romance, than all the chronicles of what are called 
 the great events of the earth. Elsewhere let me talk 
 of this. I must now get back again to Falstaff. 
 
 His Gadshill adventure was a jest, — a jest, perhaps, 
 repeated after too many precedents ; but still, accord- 
 ing to the fashion and the humour of the time, 
 nothing more than a jest. His own view of such 
 transactions is recorded ; he considers Shallow as a 
 fund of jesting to amuse the prince, remarking that 
 it is easy to amuse ‘‘ with a sad brow ” (with a 
 
PICTtJEES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 51 
 
 solemnity of appearance) a fellow that never had 
 the ache in his shoulders.” What was to he accom- 
 plished by turning the foolish justice into ridicule, 
 was also to be done by inducing the true prince to 
 become for a moment a false thief. The serious face 
 of robbery was assumed to keep Prince Harry in 
 perpetual laughter.” That, in Falstaff’s circumstances, 
 the money obtained by the night’s exploit would be 
 highly acceptable, cannot be doubled; but the real 
 object was to amuse the prince. He had no idea of 
 making an exhibition of bravery on such an occasion ; 
 Poins well knew his man when he said beforehand, 
 ‘‘ As for the third, if he fight longer than he see 
 reason, I’ll forswear arms : ” his end was as much 
 obtained by the prince’s jokes upon his cowardice. 
 It was no matter whether he invented what tended 
 to laughter, or whether it was invented upon him. 
 The object was won so the laughter was in any manner 
 excited. The exaggerated tale of the misbegotten 
 knaves in Kendal-green, and his other lies, gross and 
 mountainous, are told with no other purpose; and 
 one is almost tempted to believe him when he says 
 that he knew who were his assailants, and ran for 
 their greater amusement. At all events, it is evident 
 that he cares nothing on the subject. He ofiers a 
 
 E 3 
 
62 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPERS : 
 
 jocular defence ; but immediately passes to matter of 
 more importance than the question of his standing or 
 running : 
 
 “ But, lads, I’m glad you have the money. Hostess ! 
 
 Clap to the doors ; watch to-night, pray to-morrow. 
 
 Gallants, lads, boys, hearts-o’-gold ! All the titles of 
 Good fellowship come to you ! ” 
 
 The money is had ; the means of enjoying it are 
 at hand. Why waste our time in inquiring how it 
 has been brought here, or permit nonsensical discus- 
 sions on my valour or cowardice to delay for a 
 moment the jovial appearance of the bottle? 
 
 I see no traces of his being a glutton. His round- 
 ness of paunch is no proof of gormandizing pro- 
 pensities ; in fact, the greatest eaters are generally 
 thin and spare. When Henry is running over the 
 bead-roll of his vices, we meet no charge of gluttony 
 urged against him. 
 
 “ There is a devil 
 
 Haunts thee i’ the hkeness of a fat old man ; 
 
 A ton of man is thy companion. 
 
 IVhy dost thou cdnverse with that trunk of humours. 
 
 That bolting-hutch of heasthness, that swoln parcel of 
 Dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed 
 Cloakbag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox 
 With the pudding in his belly, that reverend vice, 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 53 
 
 That grey iniquity, that father ruffian, 
 
 That vanity in years ? Wherein is he good 
 But to taste sack, and drink it ? Wherein neat 
 And cleanly, hut to carve a capon, and eat it ?”* 
 
 The sack and sugar Falstaff admits readily ; of ad- 
 diction to the grosser pleasure of the table neither 
 he nor his accuser says a word* Capon is light 
 eating; and his neatness in carving gives an im- 
 pression of delicacy in the observances of the board. 
 He appears to have been fond of capon ; for it figures 
 in the tavern-bill found in his pockets as the only 
 eatable beside the stimulant anchovy for supper, and 
 the halfpenny-worth of bread. Nor does his conver- 
 sation ever turn upon gastronomical topics. The bot- 
 tle supplies an endless succession of jests ; the dish 
 scarcely contributes one. 
 
 We must observe that Falstafi* is never represented 
 as drunk, or even affected by wine. The copious 
 potations of sack do not cloud his intellect, or em- 
 barrass his tongue. He is always self-possessed, and 
 ready to pour forth his floods of acute wit. In this 
 
 * This and the foregoing passage also are printed as prose : I have 
 not altered a single letter, and the reader will see not only that they are 
 dramatical blank-verse, hut dramatical blank- verse of a very ex- 
 cellent kind. After all the editions of Shakspeare, another is sadly 
 wanted. The text throughout requires a searching critical revision. 
 
54 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPERS I 
 
 he forms a contrast to Sir Toby Belch. The dis- 
 crimination between these two characters is very mas- 
 terly. Both are knights, both convivial, both fond of 
 loose or jocular society^ both somewhat in advance of 
 their youth — there are many outward points of simili- 
 tude, and yet they are as distinct as Prospero and 
 Polonius. The Illyrian knight is of a lower class of 
 mind. His jests are mischievous ; Falstaff never 
 commits a practical joke. Sir Toby delights in brawl- 
 ing and tumult ; Sir John prefers the ease of his own 
 inn. Sir Toby sings songs, joins in catches, and 
 rejoices in making a noise; Sir John knows too well 
 his powers of wit and conversation to think it neces- 
 sary to make any display, and he hates disturbance. 
 Sir Toby is easily affected by liquor and roystering ; 
 Sir John rises from the board as cool as when he sate 
 down. The knight of Illyria had nothing to cloud his 
 mind ; he never aspired to higher things than he has 
 attained ; he lives a jolly life in the household of his 
 niece, feasting, drinking, singing, rioting, playing tricks 
 from one end of the year to the other : his wishes are 
 gratified, his hopes unblighted. I have endeavoured to 
 show that Falstaff was the contrary of all this. And 
 we must remark that the tumultuous Toby has some 
 dash of romance in him, of which no trace can be 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 55 
 
 found in the English knight. The wit and grace, the 
 good-humour and good looks of Maria, conquer Toby’s 
 heart, and he is in love with her — love expressed in 
 rough fashion, but love sincere. Could we see him 
 some dozen years after his marriage, we should find 
 him sobered down into a respectable, hospitable, and 
 domestic country gentleman, surrounded by a happy 
 family of curly-headed Illyrians, and much fonder 
 of his wife than of his bottle. We can never so 
 consider of Falstaff; he must always be a dweller 
 in clubs and taverns, a perpetual diner-out at gen- 
 tlemen’s parties, or a frequenter of haunts where he 
 will not be disturbed by the presence of ladies of 
 condition or character. In the Merry Wives of 
 Windsor ^ — I may remark, in passing, that the Fal- 
 stafi* of that play is a different conception from the 
 Falstaff of Henry IV, ^ and an inferior one — his love is 
 of a very practical and unromantic nature. The 
 ladies whom he addresses are beyond a certain age ; 
 and his passion is inspired by his hopes of making 
 them his East and West Indies, — by their tables and 
 their purses. No ; Falstaff never could have married, 
 — he was better ^^accommodated than with a wife.” 
 He might have paid his court to old Mistress Ursula, 
 and sworn to marry her weekly from the time when 
 
56 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 he perceived the first white hair on his chin; hut 
 the oath was never kept, and we see what was the 
 motive of his love, when we find him sending her 
 a letter by his page after he has been refused credit 
 by Master Dombledon, unless he can offer something 
 better than the rather unmarketable security of him- 
 self and Bardolph. 
 
 We must also observe that he never laughs. Others 
 laugh mth him, or at him ; but no laughter from 
 him who occasions or permits it. He jests with a 
 sad brow. The wit which he profusely scatters 
 about is from the head, not the heart. Its satire 
 is slight, and never malignant or affronting ; but 
 still it is satirical, and seldom joyous. It is any- 
 thing but fun. Original ‘ genius and long practice 
 have rendered it easy and familiar to him, and he 
 uses it as a matter of business. He has too much 
 philosophy to show that he feels himself misplaced; 
 we discover his feelings by slight indications, which 
 are, however, quite sufScient. I fear that this con- 
 ception of the character could never be rendered 
 popular on the stage ; but I have heard in private 
 the part of Falstaff read with a perfectly grave, 
 solemn, slow, deep, and sonorous voice, touched oc- 
 casionally somewhat with the broken tone of age, from 
 
PICTUBES, GKAVE AND GAY. 
 
 57 
 
 beginning to end^ with admirable efiect. But I can 
 imagine him painted according to my idea. He is 
 always caricatured. Not to refer to ordinary draw- 
 ings, I remember one executed by the reverend and 
 very clever author of the Miseries of Suman Life^ 
 (an engraving of which, if I do not mistake, used to 
 hang in Ambrose’s parlour in Edinburgh, in the ac- 
 tual room which was the primary seat of the Nodes 
 Amhrosianoe^) and the painter had exerted all his 
 art in making the face seamed with the deep-drawn 
 wrinkles and lines of a hard drinker and a constant 
 laugher. Now, had jolly Bacchus 
 
 “ Set the trace in his face that a toper will tell,” 
 
 should we not have it carefully noted by those who 
 everlastingly joked upon his appearance ? should we 
 not have found his Malmsey nose, his whelks and 
 bubukles, his exhalations and meteors, as duly de- 
 scribed as those of Bardolph ? A laughing counte- 
 nance he certainly had not. Jests such as his are not, 
 like Kalph’s, lost, unless you print the face.” The 
 leering wink in the eye introduced into this portraiture 
 is also wrong, if intended to represent the habitual 
 look of the man. The chief justice assures us that his 
 eyes were moist like those of other men of his time of 
 
58 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS: 
 
 life ; and^ without his lordship’s assurance, we may be 
 certain that Falstaff seldom played tricks with them. 
 He rises before me as an elderly and very corpulent 
 gentleman, dressed like other military men of the 
 time, [of Elizabeth, observe, not Henry,] yellow- 
 cheeked, white-bearded, double chinned, with a good- 
 humoured but grave expression of countenance, sen- 
 suality in the lower features of his face, high intellect 
 in the upper. 
 
 Such is the idea I have formed of Falstaff, and per- 
 haps some may think I am right. It required no 
 ordinary genius to carry such a character through so 
 great a variety of incidents with so perfect a con- 
 sistency. It is not a difficult thing to depict a man 
 corroded by care within, yet appearing gay and at 
 ease without, if you every moment pull the machinery 
 to pieces, as children do their toys, to show what is 
 inside. But the true art is to let the attendant 
 circumstances bespeak the character, without being 
 obliged to label him : Here you may see the tyrant ; ” 
 
 or, “ Here is the man heavy of hearty light of man- 
 ner^ Y our ever-melancholy and ostentatiously broken- 
 hearted heroes are felt to be bores, endurable oiily on 
 account of the occasional beauty of the poetry in which 
 they figure. We grow tired of the gloom the fabled 
 
PICTUEES, GKAVE AND GAY. 
 
 59 
 
 Hebrew wanderer wore/’ &c., and sympathize as little 
 with perpetual lamentations over mental suflferings en- 
 dured, or said to be endured, by active youth and 
 manhood, as we should be with its ceaseless complaints 
 of the physical pain of corns or toothache. The 
 death-bed of FalstaflF, told in the jpatois of Dame 
 Quickly to her debauched and profligate auditory, is 
 a thousand times more pathetic to those who have 
 looked upon the world with reflective eye, than all the 
 morbid mournings of Childe Harold and his poetical 
 progeny. 
 
 At the table of Shallow, laid in his arbour, Falstaff 
 is compelled by the eager hospitality of his host to sit, 
 much against his will. The wit of the court endures 
 the tipsy garrulity of the prattling justice, the drunken 
 harmonies of Silence, whose tongue is loosed by the 
 sack to chaunt butt-ends of old-fashioned ballads, the 
 bustling awkwardness of Davy, and the long-known 
 ale-house style of conversation of Bardolph, without 
 uttering a word except some few phrases of common- 
 place courtesy. He feels that he is in mind and thought 
 far above his company. Was that the only company 
 in which the same accident had befallen him ? Cer- 
 tainly not; it had befallen him in many a mansion 
 more honoured than that of Shallow, and amid society 
 
60 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 loftier in name and prouder in place. His talent and 
 the use to which he had turned it, had as completely 
 disjoined him in heart from those among whom he 
 mixed, or might have mixed, as it did from the pippin- 
 and-caraway-eating party in Gloucestershire. The 
 members of his court are about him, but not of him ; 
 jthey are all intended for use. From Shallow he bor- 
 j rows a thousand pounds ; and, as the justice cannot 
 appreciate his wit, he wastes it not upon him, but uses 
 other methods of ingratiating himself. Henry delights 
 in his conversation and manner, and therefore all his 
 fascinations are exerted to win the favour of one from 
 whom so many advantages might be expected. He 
 lives in the world alone and apart, so far as true com- 
 munity of thought with others is concerned; and his 
 main business in^life is to get through the day. That 
 — the day — is his real enemy ; he rises to fight it in 
 the morning ; he gets through its various dangers as 
 well as he can; some difficulties he meets, some he 
 avoids ; he shuns those who ask him for money, seeks 
 those from whom he may obtain it ; lounges here, bus- 
 i ties there ; talks, drinks, jokes, schemes ; and at last 
 his foe is slain, when light and his troubles depart. 
 
 The day is gone — the night’s our own.” Cou- 
 rageously has he put an end to one of the three 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 61 
 
 hundred and sixty-five tormentors which he has yearly 
 to endure; and to-morrow — why — as was to-day, so 
 to-morrow shall be. At all events I shall not leave 
 the sweet of the night un-picked, to think anything 
 more about it. Bring me a cup of sack ! Let us be 
 merry ! Does he ever think of what were his hopes 
 and prospects at the time, when was 
 
 “Jack FalstafF, now Sir John, a boy, 
 
 And page to Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk? ” 
 
 Perhaps ! but he chases away the intrusive re- 
 
 flection by another cup of sack and a fresh sally of 
 humour. 
 
 Dryden maintained that Shakspeare killed Mercutio, 
 because, if he had not, Mercutio would have killed 
 him. In spite of the authority of 
 
 “ All those prefaces of Dryden, 
 
 For these our critics much confide in,” 
 
 Glorious John is here mistaken. Mercutio is killed 
 precisely in the part of the drama where his death is 
 requisite. Not an incident, scarcely a sentence, in 
 this most skilfully managed play of Romeo and Juliet^ 
 can be omitted or misplaced. But I do think that 
 Shakspeare was unwilling to hazard the reputation of 
 
62 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 Falstaflf by producing him again in connexion with his 
 old companion, Hal, on the stage. The dancer in the 
 epilogue of the Second part of Henry IV. promises 
 the audience, that “if you be not too much cloyed 
 with fat meat, our humble author will continue the 
 story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with 
 fair Katherine of France : where for anything I know, 
 Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be 
 killed with your hard opinions.”"^ The audience was 
 not cloyed with fat meat. Sir John was not killed with 
 their hard opinions; he was popular from the first 
 hour of his appearance: but Shakspeare never kept 
 his word. It was the dramatist, not the public, who 
 
 * I consider this Epilogue to be in blank-verse, — 
 
 “ First my fear, tben my courtesy, then my speech,” &c. 
 but some sbgbt alterations should be made : the transposition of a 
 couple of words willPmake the passage here quoted metrical. 
 
 “ One word more I beseech you. If you he not 
 Too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author 
 The story will continue with Sir John in ’t. 
 
 And make you merry with fair Kate of France. Where 
 (For any thing I know) Falstaff shall die of 
 A sweat, unless already he he killed with 
 Your hard opinions ; Oldcastle died a martyr, 
 
 And this is not the man. 
 
 My tongue is weary, when my legs are too. 
 
 I’ll bid you good-night ; and kneel down before you. 
 
 But indeed to pray for the*queen.” 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAT. 
 
 63 
 
 killed his hero in the opening scenes of Henry V . ; for 
 he knew not how to interlace him with the story of 
 Agin court. There Henry was to be lord of all ; and 
 it was matter of necessity that his old master should 
 disappear from the scene. He parted therefore even 
 just between twelve and one, e’en at turning of the 
 tide, and we shall never see him again until the waters 
 of some Avon, here or elsewhere, — it is a good Celtic 
 name for rivers in general, — shall once more bathe the 
 limbs of the like of him who was laid for his last 
 earthly sleep under a grave-stone bearing a disregarded 
 inscription, on the north side of the chancel in the 
 great church at Stratford. 
 
 W. M. 
 
64 
 
 SHAKSPEABE PAPEKS : 
 
 JAQUES. 
 
 “As lie passed through the fields, and saw the animals around 
 him, — ‘ Ye,’ said he, ‘ are happy, and need not envy me that walk 
 thus among you burthened with myself; nor do I, ye gentle beings, 
 envy your fehcity, for it is not the fehcity of man. I have many 
 distresses from which ye are free ; I fear pain when I do not feel 
 it ; I sometimes shrink at evils recollected, and sometimes start at 
 evils anticipated. Surely the equity of Providence has balanced 
 pecuhar sufferings with peculiar enjoyments.’ 
 
 “ With observations like these the prince amused himself as he 
 returned, uttering them with a plaintive voice, yet with a look that 
 discovered him to feel some complacence in his own perspicacity, 
 and to receive some solace of the miseries of hfe from conscious- 
 ness of the delicacy with which he felt, and the eloquence with 
 which he bewailed them.” — Easselas, chap. ii. 
 
 This remark of Dr. Johnson on the consolation 
 derived by his hero from the eloquence with which he 
 gave vent to his complaints is perfectly just^ but just 
 only in such cases as those of Easselas. The misery 
 that can be expressed in flowing periods cannot be of 
 more importance than that experienced by the Abys- 
 sinian prince enclosed in the Happy Valley. His 
 greatest calamity was no more than that he could not 
 leave a place in which all the luxuries of life were at 
 his command. But, as old Chremes says in the Jleau- 
 tontimorumenos. 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAT. 
 
 65 
 
 “ Miserum ? quern minus credere ’st ? 
 
 Quid reliqui ’st, quin habeat, quae quidem in homine dicuntur bona ? 
 Parentes, patriam incolumem, amicos, genu’, cognatos, divitias : 
 Atque baec perinde sunt ut illius animus qui ea possidet ; 
 
 Qui uti scit, ei bona ; iUi, qui non utitur recte, mala.”* 
 
 On whiclij as 
 
 “ Plain truth, dear Bentley, needs no parts of speech,” 
 
 I cannot do better than transcribe the commentary of 
 Hickie, or some other grave expositor from whose 
 pages he has transferred it to his own. ’Tis certain 
 that the real enjoyment arising from external advan- 
 tages depends wholly upon the situation of the mind of 
 him who possesses them ; for if he chance to labour 
 under any secret anguish, this destroys all relish ; or, 
 
 * It may be thus attempted in something like the metre of the 
 original, which the learned know by the sounding name of Tetra- 
 meter lambic Acatalectic : 
 
 “Does Chnia talk of misery ? Believe his idle tale who can ? 
 What hinders it that he should have whate’er is counted good for 
 man,— 
 
 His father’s home, his native land, with wealth, and friends, and 
 kith and kin ? 
 
 But all these blessings will be prize 
 Well used, the owner finds them 
 them ill. 
 
 Cl. Nay, but his sire was always 
 still,” &c. 
 
66 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 if he know not how to use them for valuable purposes, 
 they are so far from being of any service to him, that 
 they often turn to real misfortunes.” It is of no con- 
 sequence that this profound reflection is nothing to the 
 purpose in the place where it appears, because Chremes 
 is not talking of any secret anguish, but of the use or 
 abuse made of advantages according to the disposition 
 of the individual to whom they have been accorded; 
 and the anguish of Clinia was by no means secret. He 
 feared the perpetual displeasure of his father, and 
 knew not whether absence might not have diminished or 
 alienated the affections of the lady on whose account he 
 had abandoned home and country ; but the general pro- 
 position of the sentence cannot be denied. A fatal 
 remembrance” — to borrow a phrase from one of the 
 most beautiful of Moore’s melodies — may render a life, 
 apparently abounding in prosperity, wretched and un- 
 happy, as the vitiation of a single humour of the eye 
 casts a sickly and unnatural hue over the gladsome 
 meadow, or turns to a lurid light the brilliancy of the 
 sunniest skies. 
 
 Rasselas and Jaques have no secret anguish to tor- 
 ment them, no real cares to disturb the even current 
 of their tempers. To get rid of the prince first : — 
 His sorrow is no more than that of the starling in the 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAT. 
 
 67 
 
 Sentimental Journey. He cannot get out. He is dis- 
 contented, because lie has not the patience of Words- 
 worth’s nuns, who fret not in their narrow cells ; or of 
 Wordsworth’s muse, which murmurs not at being 
 cribbed and confined to a sonnet. He wants the 
 philosophy of that most admirable of all jail-ditties, 
 — and will not reflect that 
 
 “ Every island is a prison, 
 
 Close surrounded by the sea; 
 
 Kings and princes, for that reason. 
 
 Prisoners are as well as we.” 
 
 And as his calamity is, after all, very tolerable, — as 
 many a sore heart or a wearied mind, buffeting about 
 amid the billows and breakers of the external world, 
 would feel but too happy to exchange conditions with 
 him in his safe haven of rest, — it is no wonder that 
 the weaving of sonorous sentences of easily soothed 
 sorrow should be the extent of the mental afflictions of 
 Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. 
 
 Who or what Jaques was before he makes his ap- 
 pearance in the forest, Shakspeare does not inform 
 us, — any farther than that he had been a roue of 
 considerable note, as the Duke tells him, when he 
 proposes to 
 
 e3 
 
68 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS *. 
 
 “ Cleanse the foul body of the infected world, 
 
 If they will patiently receive my medicine. 
 
 Duke. Fie on thee ! I can tell what thou wouldst do. 
 Jaques. What, for a counter, would I do hut good? 
 Duke. Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin ; 
 For thou thyself hast been a hbertine 
 As sensual as the brutish sting itself ; 
 
 And all the embossed sores and headed evils 
 That thou with hcence of free foot hast caught, 
 Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world.” 
 
 This, and that he was one of the three or four loving 
 lords who put themselves into voluntary exile with the 
 old Duke, leaving their lands and revenues to enrich 
 the new one, who therefore gave them good leave to 
 wander, is all we know about him, until he is formally 
 announced to us as the melancholy Jaques. The very 
 announcement is a tolerable proof that he is not soul- 
 stricken in any material. degree. When Rosalind tells 
 him that he is considered to be a melancholy fellow, he 
 is hard put to it to describe in what his melancholy 
 consists. I have,” he says, 
 
 “ Neither the scholar’s melancholy, which 
 Is emulation ; nor the musician’s, which is 
 Fantastical ; nor the courtier’s, which is proud ; 
 
 Nor the soldier’s, 
 
 Which is ambitious ; nor the lawyer’s, which 
 Is politic ; nor the lady’s, which is nice ; 
 
 Nor the lover’s, which is all these : but it is 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 69 
 
 A melancholy of mine own, compounded 
 Of many simples, extracted from many objects. 
 And indeed 
 
 The sundry contemplation of my travels. 
 
 In which my often rumination wraps me 
 In a most humorous sadness.”'*' 
 
 He is nothing more than an idle gentleman given to 
 musing, and making invectives against the affairs of 
 the world, which are more remarkable for the poetry of 
 their style and expression than the pungency of their 
 satire. His famous description of the seven ages of 
 man is that of a man who has seen but little to com- 
 plain of in his career through life. The sorrows of his 
 infant are of the slightest kind, and he notes that it is 
 taken care of in a nurse’s lap. The griefs of his 
 schoolboy are confined to the necessity of going to 
 school ; and he, too, has had an anxious hand to attend 
 to him. His shining morning face refiects the superin- 
 tendence of one — probably a mother — interested in his 
 
 * This is printed as prose, but assuredly it is blank verse. The 
 alteration of a syllable or two, which in the corrupt state of the 
 text of these plays is the slightest of all possible critical licences, 
 would make it run perfectly smooth. At all events, in the second 
 line, “ emulation ” should be “ emulative,” to make it agree with 
 the other clauses of the sentence. The courtier’s melancholy is 
 not pride, nor the soldier’s ambition, &c. The adjective is used 
 throughout, — fantastical, proud, ambitious, politic, nice. 
 
70 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 welfare. The lover is tortured by no piercing pangs of 
 love^ his woes evaporating themselves musically in a 
 ballad of his own composition, written not to his mis- 
 tress, but fantastically addressed to her eyebrow. The 
 soldier appears in all the pride and the swelling hopes 
 of his spirit-stirring trade, 
 
 “ Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, 
 
 Seeking the bubble reputation 
 Even in the cannon’s mouth.” 
 
 The fair round belly of the justice lined with good 
 capon lets us know how he has passed his life. He 
 is full of ease, magisterial authority, and squirely 
 dignity. The lean and slippered pantaloon, and the 
 dotard sunk into second childishness, have suffered 
 only the common lot of humanity, without any of 
 the calamities that embitter the unavoidable malady 
 of old age."^ All the characters in Jaques’s sketch are 
 well taken care of. The infant is nursed; the boy 
 educated ; the youth tormented with no greater cares 
 than the necessity of hunting after rhymes to please 
 the ear of a lady, whose love sits so lightly upon him 
 as to set him upon nothing more serious than such 
 
 * “ Senectus ipsa est morbus.” — Ter, Pliorm, iv. i. 9. 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 71 
 
 a self-amusing task ; the man in prime of life is 
 engaged in gallant deeds, brave in action, anxious 
 for character, and ambitious of fame ; the man in de- 
 clining years has won the due honours of his rank, 
 he enjoys the luxuries of the table and dispenses the 
 terrors of the bench ; the man of age still more ad- 
 vanced is well to do in the world. If his shank 
 be shrunk, it is not without hose and slipper, — if 
 his eyes be dim, they are spectacled, — if his years 
 have made him lean, they have gathered for him 
 wherewithal to fatten the pouch by his side. And when 
 this strange eventful history is closed by the penalties 
 paid by men who live too long, Jaques does not tell us 
 that the helpless being, 
 
 “ Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything,” 
 
 is left unprotected in his helplessness. 
 
 Such pictures of life do not proceed from a man 
 very heavy at heart. Nor can it be without design 
 that they are introduced into this especial place. The 
 moment before, the famished Orlando has burst in 
 upon the sylvan meal of the Duke, brandishing a 
 naked sword, demanding with furious threat food for 
 himself and his helpless companion, 
 
 “ Oppressed with two weak evils, age and hunger.” 
 
73 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 The Duke, struck with his earnest appeal, cannot 
 refrain from comparing the real suffering which he 
 witnesses in Orlando with that which is endured by 
 himself and his co-mates, and partners in exile.’’ 
 Addressing Jaques, he says, 
 
 “ Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy. 
 
 This wide and universal theatre 
 
 Presents more woeful pageants than the scene 
 
 Wherein we play in.”* 
 
 But the spectacle and the comment upon it lightly 
 touch Jaques, and he starts off at once into a witty 
 and poetic comparison of the real drama of the world 
 with the mimic drama of the stage, in which, with 
 the sight of well-nurtured youth driven to the savage 
 desperation of periling his own life, and assailing that 
 of others, — and of weakly old age lying down in the 
 feeble but equally resolved desperation of dying by 
 the wayside, driven to this extremity by sore fatigue 
 and hunger, — he diverts himself and his audience, 
 whether in the forest or theatre, on the stage or in 
 the closet, with graphic descriptions of humg^n life; 
 not one of them, proceeding as they do from the lips 
 of the melancholy Jaques, presenting a single point 
 
 * Queiyon.^ “Wherem we playm” is tautological. “Wherein 
 we play on,” z. e. “ continue to play.” 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 73 
 
 on which true melancholy can dwell. Mourning over 
 what cannot he avoided must be in its essence common- 
 place : and nothing has been added to the lamentations 
 over the ills brought by the flight of years since 
 Moses, the man of God,^ declared the concluding 
 period of protracted life to be a period of labour 
 and sorrow; — since Solomon, or whoever else writes 
 under the name of the Preacher, in a passage which, 
 whether it is inspired or not, is a passage of exquisite 
 beauty, warned us to provide in youth, while the evil 
 days come not, nor the years draw nigh when thou 
 shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; while the 
 sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars be not 
 darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: in 
 the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, 
 and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the 
 grinders cease because they are few, and those that 
 look out of the windows be darkened, and the doors 
 shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the 
 grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice 
 of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall 
 be brought low ; also when they shall be afraid of 
 that which is high, and fears shall be in the way. 
 
 * Psalm xc. “ A prayer of Moses, the man of God,” v. 10. 
 
74 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS! 
 
 and the almond-tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper 
 shall be a burthen, and desire shall fail : because 
 man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go 
 about the streets: or ever the silver cord be loosed, 
 or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken 
 at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern;’’ 
 — or, to make a shorter quotation, since Homer 
 summed up all these ills by applying to old age the 
 epithet of Xvypos , — a word which cannot be trans- 
 lated, but the force of which must be felt. Abate 
 these unavoidable misfortunes, and the catalogue of 
 Jaques is that of happy conditions. In his visions 
 there is no trace of the child doomed to wretchedness 
 before its very birth ; no hint that such a thing could 
 occur as its being made an object of calculation, 
 one part medical, three parts financial, to the starvel- 
 ing surgeon, whether by the floating of the lungs, 
 or other test equally fallacious and fee-producing, 
 the miserable mother may be convicted of doing that 
 which, before she had attempted, all that is her 
 soul of woman must have been torn from its utter- 
 most roots, when in an agony of shame and dread 
 the child that was to have made her forget her labour 
 was committed to the cesspool. No hint that the 
 days of infancy should be devoted to .the damnation 
 
PICTUKES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 75 
 
 of a factory, or to the tender mercies of a parish 
 beadle. No hint that philosophy should come forward 
 armed with the panoply offensive and defensive of 
 logic and eloquence, to prove that the inversion of 
 all natural relations was just and wise, — that the 
 toil of childhood was due to the support of manhood, 
 — that those hours, the very labours of which even 
 the etymologists give to recreation, should be devoted 
 to those wretched drudgeries which seem to split the 
 hearts of all but those who derive from them blood- 
 stained money, or blood-bedabbled applause. Jaques 
 sees not Greensmith squeezing his children by the 
 throat until they die. He hears not the supplication 
 of the hapless boy begging his still more hapless 
 father for a moment’s respite, ere the fatal hand- 
 kerchief is twisted round his throat by the hand of 
 him to whom he owed his being. Jaques thinks not 
 of the baby deserted on the step of the inhospitable 
 door, of the shame of the mother, of the disgrace 
 of the parents, of the misery of the forsaken infant. 
 His boy is at school, his soldier in the breach, his 
 elder on the justice-seat. Are these the woes of 
 life? Is there no neglected creature left to himself 
 or to the worse nurture of others, whose trade it is 
 to corrupt, — who will teach him what w^as taught to 
 
76 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS : 
 
 swaggering Jack Chance, found on Newgate steps, 
 and educated at the venerable seminary of St. Giles’s 
 Pound, where 
 
 “ They taught him to drink, and to thieve, and fight, 
 
 And eveiything else but to read and write.” 
 
 Is there no stripling short of commons, but abundant 
 in the supply of the strap or the cudgel ? — no man 
 fighting through the world in fortuneless struggles, 
 and occupied by cares or oppressed by wants more 
 stringent than those of love ? — or in love itself does 
 the current of that bitter passion never run less 
 smooth than when sonnets to a lady’s eyebrow are the 
 prime objects of solicitude ? — or may not even he who 
 began with such sonneteering have found something 
 more serious and sad, something more heart-throbbing 
 and soul-rending, in the progress of his passion ? Is 
 the soldier melancholy in the storm and whirlwind 
 of war? Is the gallant confronting of the cannon 
 a matter to be complained of ? The dolorous flight, 
 the trampled battalion, the broken squadron, the lost 
 battle, the lingering wound, the ill-furnished hospital, 
 the unfed blockade, hunger and thirst, and pain, and 
 fatigue, and mutilation, and cold, and rout, and scorn, 
 and slight, — services neglected, unworthy claims pre- 
 ferred, life wasted, or honour tarnished, — are all passed 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 77 
 
 by ! In peaceful life we have no deeper misfortune 
 placed before us than that it is not unusual that a 
 justice of peace may be prosy in remark and trite 
 in illustration. Are there no other evils to assail 
 
 us through the agony of life? And when the con- 
 clusion comes, how far less tragic is the portraiture 
 
 of mental imbecility, if considered as a state of 
 
 misery than as one of comparative happiness, as es- 
 caping a still worse lot! Crabbe is sadder far than 
 Jaques, when, after his appalling description of the 
 inmates of a workhouse, — (what would Crabbe have 
 written now — he winds up by showing to us amid 
 its victims two persons as being 
 
 “ happier far than they, 
 
 The moping idiot, and the madman gay.” 
 
 If what he here sums up as the reswilt of his life’s 
 observations on mankind be all that calls forth the 
 melancholy of the witty and eloquent speaker, he had 
 not much to complain of. Mr. Shandy lamenting in 
 sweetly modulated periods, because his son has been 
 christened Tristram instead of Trismegistus, is as 
 much an object of condolence. Jaques has just seen 
 the aspect of famine, and heard the words of despair ; 
 the Duke has pointed out to him the consideration 
 that more woful and practical calamities exist than 
 
78 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPEE8 ! 
 
 even the exile of princes and the downfall of lords ; and 
 he breaks off into a light strain of satire, fit only for 
 jesting comedy. Trim might have rebuked him as he 
 rebuked the prostrate Mr. Shandy, by reminding him 
 that there are other things to make us melancholy in 
 the world : and nobody knew it better, or could say it 
 better, than he in whose brain was minted the hysteric 
 passion of Lear choked by his button, — the farewell of 
 victorious Othello to all the pomp, pride, and circum- 
 stance of glorious war, — the tears of Richard over the 
 submission of roan Barbary to Bolingbroke, — the de- 
 mand of Romeo that the Mantuan druggist should 
 supply him with such soon-speeding gear that will rid 
 him of hated life 
 
 “As violently as hasty powder fired 
 Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb,” — 
 
 the desolation of Antony, — the mourning of Henry 
 over sire slain by son, and son by sire, — or the despair 
 of Macbeth. I say nothing of the griefs of Constance, 
 or Isabel, or Desdemona, or Juliet, or Ophelia, because 
 in the sketches of Jaques he passes by all allusion to 
 women: a fact which of itself is suflScient to prove 
 that his melancholy was but in play, — was nothing 
 more than what Arthur remembered when he was 
 in France, where 
 
PICTUKES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 79 
 
 “ Young gentlemen would be as sad as night, 
 Only for wantonness.” 
 
 Shakspeare well knew that there is no true pathetic, 
 nothing that can permanently lacerate the heart, and 
 embitter the speech, unless a woman be concerned. It 
 is the legacy left us by Eve. The tenor of man’s 
 woe, says Milton, with a most ungallant and grisly 
 pun, is still from ^^;d-man to begin ; and he who will 
 give himself a few moments to reflect will find that the 
 stern trigamist is right. On this, however, I shall not 
 dilate. I may perhaps have something to say as we go 
 on, of the ladies of Shakspeare. For the present 
 purpose, it is enough to remark with Trim, that there 
 are many real griefs to make a man lie down and cry, 
 without troubling ourselves with those which are put 
 forward by the poetic mourner in the forest of Arden. 
 
 Different indeed is the sight set before the eyes of 
 Adam in the great poem just referred to, when he is 
 told to look upon the miseries which the fall of man 
 has entailed upon his descendants. Far other than 
 the scenes that flit across this melancholy man by pro- 
 fession are those evoked by Michael in the visionary 
 lazar-house. It would be ill-befitting, indeed, that 
 the merry note of the sweet bird warbling freely in 
 
80 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPEKS : 
 
 the glade should be marred by discordant sounds of 
 woOj cataloguing the dreary list of disease, 
 
 “ AU maladies 
 
 Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms 
 Of heartsick agony, all feverous kinds. 
 
 Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs. 
 
 Intestine stone and ulcer, cohc pangs. 
 
 Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy. 
 
 Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence. 
 
 Dropsies, and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums;” 
 
 while, amid the dire tossing and deep groans of the 
 sufferers, 
 
 “ Despair 
 
 Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch : 
 
 * And over them triumphant Death his dart 
 Shook, hut delayed to strike.” 
 
 And equally ilhbefitting would he any serious allusion 
 to those passions and feelings which in their violence 
 or their anguish render the human bosom a lazar-house 
 filled with maladies of the min(^ as racking and as 
 wasting as those of the body, and call forth a suppli- 
 cation for the releasing blow of Death as the final 
 hope, with an earnestness as desperate, and cry as loud 
 as ever arose from the tenement, sad, noisome, and 
 dark, which holds the joint-racked victims of physical 
 disease. Such themes should not sadden the festive 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 81 
 
 banquet in the forest. The Duke and his co-mates 
 and partners in exile, reconciled to their present mode 
 of life, I would not change it,’’ says Amiens, 
 speaking, we may suppose, the sentiments of all,] and 
 successful in having plucked the precious jewel, con. 
 tent, from the head of ugly and venomous Adversity, 
 are ready to bestow their woodland fare upon real 
 suffering, but in no mood to listen to the heart-rending 
 descriptions of sorrows graver than those which form 
 a theme for the discourses which Jaques in mimic 
 melancholy contributes to their amusement. 
 
 Shakspeare designed him to be a maker of fine sen- 
 tences, — a dresser forth in sweet language of the 
 ordinary common-places or the common-place mishaps 
 of mankind, and he takes care to show us that he did 
 not intend him for anything beside. With what ad- 
 mirable art he is confronted with Touchstone. He 
 enters merrily laughing at the pointless philosophising 
 of the fool in the forest. His lungs crow like chanti- 
 cleer when he hears him moralizing over his dial, and 
 making the deep discovery that ten o’clock has succeeded 
 nine, and will be followed by eleven. When Touchstone 
 himself appears, we do not find in his own discourse any 
 touches of such deep contemplation. He is shrewd, 
 sharp, worldly, witty, keen, gibing, observant. It is 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 plain that he has been mocking Jaques; and, as is 
 usual, the mocked thinks himself the mocker. If one 
 has moralized the spectacle of a wounded deer into 
 a thousand similes, comparing his weeping into the 
 stream to the conduct of worldlings in giving in their 
 testaments the sum of more to that which had too 
 much, — his abandonment, to the parting of the flux 
 of companions from misery, — the sweeping by of the 
 careless herd full of the pasture, to the desertion of the 
 poor and broken bankrupt by the fat and greasy citizens, 
 — and so forth ; if such have been the common-places 
 of Jaques, are they not fitly matched by the common- 
 places of Touchstone upon his watch ? It is as high a 
 stretch of fancy that brings the reflection how 
 
 “ from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, 
 
 • And then from hour to hour we rot and rot, 
 
 And thereby hangs a tale,” 
 
 which is scoffed at by Jaques, as that which dictates 
 his own moralizings on the death of the deer. The 
 motley fool is as wise as the melancholy lord whom he 
 is parodying. The shepherd Corin, who replies to 
 the courtly quizzing of Touchstone by such apoph- 
 thegms as that it is the property of rain to wet, 
 and of fire to burn,’’ is unconsciously performing the 
 same part to the clown, as he had been designedly 
 
PICTUKES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 83 
 
 performing to Jaques. Witty nonsense is answered 
 by dull nonsense, as the emptiness of poetry had been 
 answered by the emptiness of prose. There was 
 nothing sincere in the lamentation over the wounded 
 stag. It was only used as a peg on which to hang 
 fine conceits. Had Falstaff seen the deer, his ima- 
 gination would have called up visions of haunches and 
 pasties, preluding an everlasting series of cups of sack 
 among the revel riot of boon companions, and he would 
 have instantly ordered its throat to be cut. If it had 
 fallen in the way of Friar Lawrence, the mild-hearted 
 man of herbs would have endeavoured to extract the 
 arrow, heal the wound, and let the hart ungalled go 
 free. Neither would have thought the hairy fool a 
 subject for reflections, which neither relieved the wants 
 of man nor the pains of beast. Jaques complains of 
 the injustice and cruelty of killing deer, but unscrupu- 
 lously sits down to dine upon venison, and sorrows over 
 the suflFerings of the native burghers of the forest city, 
 without doing anything farther than amusing himself 
 with rhetorical flourishes drawn from the contemplation 
 of the pain which he witnesses with professional cool- 
 ness and unconcern. 
 
 It is evident, in short, that the happiest days of his 
 life are those which he is spending in the forest. His 
 
 G 3 
 
84 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPEES ! 
 
 raking days are over, and he is tired of city dissi- 
 pation. He has shaken hands with the world, finding, 
 with Cowley, that he and it would never agree.’’ To 
 use an expression somewhat vulgar, he has had his fun 
 for his money ; and he thinks the bargain so fair and 
 conclusive on both sides, that he has no notion of 
 opening another. His mind is relieved of a thousand 
 anxieties which beset him in the court, and he breathes 
 freely in the forest. The iron has not entered into his 
 soul; nothing has occurred to chase sleep from his 
 eyelids ; and his fantastic reflections are, as he himself 
 takes care to tell us, but general observations on the 
 ordinary and outward manners and feelings of man- 
 kind, — a species of taxing which 
 
 “ like a wild-goose flies, 
 
 Unclaim’d of any man.” 
 
 Above all, in having abandoned station, and wealth, 
 and country, to join the faithful few who have in evil 
 report clung manfully to their prince, he knows that he 
 has played a noble and an honourable part ; and they 
 to whose lot it may have fallen to experience the hap- 
 piness of having done a generous, disinterested, or self- 
 denying action, — or sacrificed temporary interests to 
 undying principle, — or shown to the world without. 
 
PICTUKES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 85 
 
 that what are thought to be its great advantages can 
 be flung aside, or laid aside, when they come in colli- 
 sion with the feelings and passions of the world 
 within, — will be perfectly sure that Jaques, reft of 
 land, and banished from court, felt himself exalted 
 in his own eyes, and therefore easy of mind, whether 
 he was mourning in melodious blank verse, or weaving 
 jocular parodies on the canzonets of the good-humoured 
 Amiens. 
 
 He was happy under the greenwood tree.’’ Addi- 
 son I believe it is who says, that all mankind have an 
 instinctive love of country and woodland scenery, and 
 he traces it to a sort of dim recollection imprinted 
 upon us of our original haunt, the garden of Eden. 
 It is at all events certain, that, from the days when 
 the cedars of Lebanon supplied images to the great 
 poets of Jerusalem, to that in which the tall tree 
 haunted Wordsworth as a passion,” the forest has 
 caught a strong hold of the poetic mind. It is with 
 reluctance that I refrain from quoting ; but the pas- 
 sages of surpassing beauty which crowd upon me from 
 all times and languages are too numerous. I know not 
 which to exclude, and I have not room for all ; let me 
 then take a bit of prose from one who never indulged 
 in poetry, and I think I shall make it a case in point. 
 
86 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPEES : 
 
 In a little book called Statistical Sketches of Upper 
 Canada j for the use of Emigrants^ by a Backwoodsman^ 
 now lying before me, the author, after describing the 
 field-sports in Canada with a precision and a gout to 
 be derived only from practice and zeal, concludes a 
 chapter, most appropriately introduced by a motto from 
 The Lady of the Lake^ 
 
 “ ’Tis merry, ’tis merry in good greenwood, 
 
 When the mavis and merle are singing. 
 
 When the deer sweep by, and. the hounds are in cry. 
 
 And the hunter’s horn is ringing,” 
 
 by saying, 
 
 ‘‘It is only since writing the above that I fell in 
 with the first volume of Moores Life of Lord Edward 
 Fitzgerald ; and I cannot describe the pleasure I re- 
 ceived from reading his vivid, spirited, and accurate 
 description of the feelings he experienced on first 
 taking on him the life of a hunter. At an earlier 
 period of life than Lord Edward had then attained, 
 I made my debut in the forest, and first assumed the 
 blanket-cloak and the rifle, the moccasin and the snow- 
 shoe; and the ecstatic feeling of Arab- like indepen- 
 dence, and the utter contempt for the advantage and 
 restrictions of civilization, which he describes, I then 
 felt in its fullest power. And even now, when my way 
 
PICTUKES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 87 
 
 of life, like Macbeth’s, is falling ^ into the sere, the 
 yellow leaf,’ and when a tropical climate, privation, 
 disease, and thankless toil are combining with advanc- 
 ing years to unstring a frame the strength of which 
 once set hunger, cold, and fatigue at defiance, and to 
 undermine a constitution that once appeared iron- 
 bound, still I cannot lie down by a fire in the woods 
 without the elevating feeling which I experienced 
 formerly returning, though in a diminished degree. 
 This must be human nature ; — for it is an undoubted 
 fact, that no man who associates with and follows the 
 pursuits of the Indian, for any length of time, ever 
 voluntarily returns to civilized society. 
 
 What a companion in the woods Lord Edward 
 must have been ! and how shocking to think that, 
 with talents which would have made him at once 
 the idol and the ornament of his profession, and af- 
 fections which must have rendered him an object 
 of adoration in all the relations of private life — with 
 honour, with courage, with generosity, with every trait 
 that can at once ennoble and endear, — he should 
 never have been taught that there is a higher prin- 
 ciple of action than the mere impulse of the passions, 
 — that he should never have learned, before plunging 
 his country into blood and disorder, to have weighed 
 
88 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPEKS : 
 
 the means he possessed with the end he proposed, 
 or the problematical good with the certain evil ! — that 
 he should have had Tom Paine for a tutor in religion 
 and politics, and Tom Moore for a biographer, to hold 
 up as a pattern, instead of warning, the errors and 
 misfortunes of a being so noble, — to subserve the re- 
 volutionary purposes of a faction, who, like Samson, 
 are pulling down a fabric which will bury both them 
 and their enemies under it.” 
 
 Never mind the aberrations of Lord Edward Fitz- 
 gerald, the religion or the politics of Tom Paine, or 
 the biography of Tom Moore. On all these matters 
 I may hold my own opinions, but they are not wanted 
 now ; but have we not here the feelings of J aques ? 
 Here are the gloomy expressions of general sorrow over 
 climate, privation, disease, thankless toil, advancing 
 years, unstrung frame. But here also we have ecstatic 
 emotions of Arab-like independence, generous reflections 
 upon political adversaries, and high-minded adherence 
 to the views and principles which in his honour and 
 conscience he believed to be in all circumstances in- 
 flexibly right, coming from the heart of a forest. The 
 Backwoodsman is Dunlop ; and is he, in spite of this 
 sad-sounding passage, melancholy ? Not he, in good 
 sooth. The very next page to that which I have 
 
PICTUKES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 89 
 
 quoted is a description of the pleasant mode of tra- 
 velling in Canada, before the march of improvement 
 had made it comfortable and convenient."^ 
 
 Jaques was just as woe-begone as the Tyger, and 
 no more. I remember when he— Dunlop I mean, not 
 Jaques — used to laugh at the phrenologists of Edin- 
 
 * “ Formerly, that is to say, previous to the peace of 1815, a 
 journey between Quebec and Sandwich was an undertaking con- 
 siderably more tedious and troublesome than the voyage from 
 London to Quebec. In the first place, the commissariat of the 
 expedition bad to be cared for ; and to that end eveiy gentleman 
 who was liable to travel bad, as a part of bis appointments, a pro- 
 vision basket, which held generally a cold round of beef, tin plates 
 and drinking cups, tea, sugar, biscuits, and about a gallon of 
 brandy. These, with your wardrobe and a camp-bed, were stowed 
 away in a batteau, or fiat-bottomed boat; and ofi* you set with a 
 crew of seven stout, light-hearted, jolly, lively Canadians, who sung 
 their boat songs all the time they could spare from smoking their 
 pipes. You were accompanied by a fleet of similar boats, called a 
 brigade, the crews of which assisted each other up the rapids, and 
 at night put into some creek, hay, or uninhabited island, where 
 fires were lighted, tents made of the sails, and the song, the laugh, 
 and the shout were heard, with little intermission, all the night 
 through ; and if you had the felicity to have among the party 
 a fifer or a fiddler, the dance was sometimes kept up all night, — for, 
 if a Frenchman has a fiddle, sleep ceases to be a necessary of life 
 with him. This mode of travelling was far from being unpleasant, 
 for there was something of romance and adventure in it; and the 
 scenes you witnessed, both by night and day, were picturesque in 
 the highest degree. But it was tedious : for you were in great luck 
 if you arrived at your journey’s end in a month ; and if the 
 
90 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS : 
 
 burgh for saying, after a careful admeasurement, that 
 his skull in all points was exactly that of Shakspeare, — 
 I suppose he will be equally inclined to laugh when he 
 finds who is the double an old companion has selected 
 for him. But no matter. His melancholy passes 
 away not more rapidly than that of Jaques ; and I 
 venture to say that the latter, if he were existing in 
 flesh and blood, would have no scruple in joining the 
 doctor this moment over the bowl of punch which I am 
 sure he is brewing, has brewed, or is about to brew, on 
 the banks of Huron or Ontario. 
 
 Whether he would or not, he departs from the sfage 
 with the grace and easy elegance of a gentleman in 
 heart and manners. He joins his old antagonist the 
 usurping Duke in his fallen fortunes ; he had spurned 
 him in his prosperity : his restored friend he be- 
 queaths to his former honour, deserved by his pa- 
 
 weather were boisterous, or the wind a-head, you might be an in- 
 definite time longer. 
 
 “ But your march of improvement is a sore destroyer of the 
 romantic and picturesque. A gentleman about to take such a 
 journey now-a-days, orders his servant to pack his portmanteau, 
 and put it on hoard the John Molson, or any of his family; 
 and at the stated hour he marches on hoard, the hell rings, the 
 engine is put in motion, and away you go smoking, and splashing, 
 and walloping along, at the rate of ten knots an hour, in the 
 ugliest species of craft that ever disfigured a marine landscape.” 
 
PICTUKES, GEAVE AND GAT. 
 
 91 
 
 tience and his virtue, — he compliments Oliver on his 
 restoration to his land, and love, and great allies, — 
 wishes Silvius joy of his long-sought and well-earned 
 marriage, — cracks upon Touchstone one of those good- 
 humoured jests to which men of the world on the eve 
 of marriage must laughingly submit, — and makes his 
 bow. Some sage critics have discovered as a great 
 geographical fault in Shakspeare, that he introduces 
 the tropical lion and serpent into Arden, which, it 
 appears, they have ascertained to lie in some temperate 
 zone. I wish them joy of their sagacity. Monsters 
 more wonderful are to be found in that forest ; for 
 never yet, since water ran and tall tree bloomed, were 
 there gathered together such a company as those 
 who compose the dramatis 'personm of As You Lihe 
 it. All the prodigies spawned by Africa, “ leonum 
 arida nutrix^ might well have teemed in a forest, 
 wherever situate, that was inhabited by such creatures 
 as Rosalind, Touchstone, and J aques. 
 
 As to the question which opened these Papers, 
 — why, I must leave it to the jury. Is the jesting, 
 revelling, rioting Falstaff, broken of fortunes, luckless 
 in life, sunk in habits, buffeting with the discreditable 
 part of the world, or the melancholy, mourning, com- 
 
99 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS ; 
 
 plaining Jaques, honourable of conduct, high in moral 
 position, fearless of the future, and lying in the forest 
 away from trouble, — which of them, I say, feels more 
 the load of care? I think Shakspeare well knew, and 
 depicted them accordingly. But I must leave it to 
 my readers, si qui sunt. W. M. 
 
 ROMEO. 
 
 Of this unlucky sort our Komeus is one, 
 
 For all his hap turns to mishap, and all his mirth to mone.” 
 
 The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, 
 
 “ Never,” says Prince Escalus, in the concluding 
 distich of Romso and Juliet, 
 
 “ — was there story of more woe 
 Than this of Juhet and her Komeo.” 
 
 It is a story which, in the inartificial shape of a black- 
 letter ballad, powerfully affected the imagination, and 
 awakened the sensibilities of our ancestors, and in the 
 hands of Shakspeare has become the love-story of the 
 whole world. Who cares for the loves of Petrarch and 
 Laura, or of Eloisa and Abelard, compared with those 
 of Romeo and Juliet? The gallantries of Petrarch are 
 conveyed in models of polished and ornate verse ; but, 
 
PICTUKES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 93 
 
 in spite of their elegance, we feel that they are frosty 
 as the Alps beneath which they were written. They 
 are only the exercises of genius, not the ebullitions of 
 feeling ; and we can easily credit the story that 
 Petrarch refused a dispensation to marry Laura, lest 
 marriage might spoil his poetry. The muse, and not 
 the lady, was his mistress. In the case of Abelard 
 there are many associations which are not agreeable ; 
 and, after all, we can hardly help looking upon him as 
 a fitter hero for Bayleh Dictionary than a romance. 
 In Romeo and Juliet we have the poetry of Petrarch 
 without its iciness, and the passion of Eloisa free from 
 its coarse exhibition. We have, too, philosophy far 
 more profound than ever was scattered over the syllo- 
 gistic pages of Abelard, full of knowledge and acute- 
 ness as they undoubtedly are. 
 
 But I am not about to consider Romeo merely as a 
 lover, or to use him as an illustration of Lysander’s 
 often-quoted line, 
 
 “ The course of true love never did run smooth.” 
 
 In that course the current has been as rough to others 
 as to Romeo ; who, in spite of all his misfortunes, has 
 wooed and won the lady of his affections. That Lysan- 
 der’s line is often true, cannot he questioned ; though 
 
94 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS I 
 
 it is no more than the exaggeration of an annoyed 
 suitor to say that love has never run smoothly. The 
 reason why it should be so generally true, is given in 
 Peveril of the Peah^ by Sir Walter Scott ; a man 
 who closely approached to the genius of Shakspeare in 
 depicting character, and who, above all writers of 
 imagination, most nearly resembled him in the posses- 
 sion of keen, shrewd, every-day common sense, rendered 
 more remarkable by the contrast of the romantic, 
 pathetic, and picturesque by which it is in all directions 
 surrounded. 
 
 This celebrated passage 
 
 [‘ Ah me I for aught that ever I could read,’ &c.] 
 
 which we have prefixed to this chapter, [chap. xii. 
 vol. i. Peveril of the Peah^ has, like most observations 
 of the same author, its foundation in real experience. 
 The period at which love is felt most strongly is seldom 
 that at which there is much prospect of its being 
 brought to a happy issue. In fine, there are few men 
 who do not look back in secret to some period of their 
 youth at which a sincere and early affection was re- 
 pulsed or betrayed, or became abortive under opposing 
 circumstances. It is these little passages of secret 
 history, which leave a tinge of romance in every bosom, 
 
PICTUKES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 95 
 
 scarce permitting us, even in the most busy or the most 
 advanced period of life, to listen with total indifference 
 to a tale of true love.’’^ 
 
 These remarks, the justice of which cannot be ques- 
 tioned, scarcely apply to the case of Romeo. In no 
 respect save that the families were at variance, was the 
 match between him and Juliet such as not to afford a 
 prospect of happy issue ; and everything indicated the 
 possibility of making their marriage a ground of recon- 
 ciliation between .their respective houses. Both are 
 tired of the quarrel. Lady Capulet and Lady Montague 
 are introduced in the very first scene of the play, 
 endeavouring to pacify their husbands ; and when the 
 brawl is over, Paris laments to Juliet’s father that it is 
 a pity persons of such honourable reckoning should have 
 lived so long at variance. For Romeo himself old 
 Capulet expresses the highest respect, as being one of 
 the ornaments of the city; and, after the death of 
 Juliet, old Montague, touched by her truth and con- 
 stancy, proposes to raise to her a statue of gold. With 
 such sentiments and predispositions, the early passion 
 
 * Was Sir Walter thinking of his own case when he wrote this 
 passage ? See his Life by Lockhart, vol. i. p. 242. His family 
 used to call Sir Walter Old Feveril, from some fancied resem- 
 blance of the character. 
 
96 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPERS: 
 
 of the Veronese lovers does not come within the canon of 
 Sir Walter Scott; and, as I have said, I do not think 
 that Komeo is designed merely as an exhibition of a 
 man unfortunate in love. 
 
 I consider him to be meant as the character of an 
 unlucky man, — a man who, with the best views and 
 fairest intentions, is perpetually so unfortunate as to fail 
 in every aspiration, and, while exerting himself to the 
 utmost in their behalf, to involve all whom he holds 
 dearest in misery and ruin. At the, commencement of 
 the play an idle quarrel among some low retainers of the 
 rival families produces a general riot, with which he 
 has nothing to do. He is not present from beginning to 
 end ; the tumult has been so sudden and unexpected, 
 that his father is obliged to ask 
 
 “What set this ancient quarrel new abroach?” 
 
 And yet it is this very quarrel which lays, him prostrate 
 in death by his own hand, outside Capulet’s monument, 
 before the tragedy concludes. While the fray was 
 going on, he was nursing love-fancies, and endeavouring 
 to .persuade himself that his heart was breaking for 
 Kosaline. How afflicting his passion must have been, 
 we see by the conundrums he makes upon it : 
 
25 
 
 SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. 
 
 “ For those who read aright are well aware 
 That Jaques, sighing in the forest green, 
 
 Oft on his heart felt less the load of care 
 Than Falstaff, revelling his rough mates between.” 
 
 MS, penes me, 
 
 “Jack Falstaff to my familiars!” — By that 
 name, therefore, must he he known by all persons, 
 for all are now the familiars of Falstaff. The title of 
 “ Sir John Falstaff to all Europe ” is but secondary 
 and parochial. He has long since far exceeded the 
 limit by which he bounded the knowledge of his 
 knighthood; and in wide -spreading territories, which 
 in the day of his creation were untrodden by human 
 foot, and in teeming realms where the very name 
 of England was then unheard of. Jack Falstaff is 
 known as familiarly as he was to the wonderful court 
 of princes, beggars, judges, swindlers, heroes, bullies, 
 gentlemen, scoundrels, justices, thieves, knights, tap- 
 sters, and the rest whom he drew about him. 
 
 It is indeed his court. He is lord paramount, the 
 suzerain to whom all pay homage. PririK^ Hal may 
 delude himself into the notion that he, the heir of 
 

 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEES : 
 
 England, with all the swelling emotions of soul that 
 rendered him afterwards thq conqueror of France, 
 makes a butt of the ton of man that is his compa- 
 nion. The parts are exactly reversed. In the pecu- 
 liar circle in which they live, the prince is the butt 
 of the knight. He knows it not, — he would repel 
 it with scorn if it were asserted ; but it is never- 
 theless the fact that he is subdued. He calls the 
 course of life which he leads, the unyoked humour 
 of his idleness ; but he mistakes. In all the paths 
 where his journey lies with Falstaff, it is the hard- 
 yoked servitude of his obedience. In the soliloquies 
 put into his mouth he continually pleads that his 
 present conduct is but that of the moment, that he 
 is ashamed of his daily career, and that the time 
 is ere long to come which will show him different 
 from what he seems. As the dramatic character of 
 Henry V. was conceived and executed by a man who 
 knew how genius in any department of human in- 
 tellect would work, — to say nothing of the fact that 
 Shakspeare wrote with the whole of the prince’s career 
 before him, — we may consider this subjugation to 
 Falstaff as intended to represent the transition state 
 from spoiled youth to energetic manhood. It is useless 
 to look for minute traces of the historical Henry 
 
PICTUBES, GKAVE AND GAY. 
 
 27 
 
 in these dramas. Tradition and the chronicles had 
 handed him down to Shakspeare’s time as a prince 
 dissipated in youth, and freely sharing in the rough 
 debaucheries of the metropolis. The same vigour 
 
 that did affright the air at Agincourt,” must have 
 marked his conduct and bearing in any tumult in 
 which he happened to be engaged. I do not know 
 on what credible authority the story of his having 
 given Gascoigne a box on the ear for committing 
 one of his friends to prison may rest, and shall not 
 at present take the trouble of inquiring. It is highly 
 probable that the chief justice amply deserved the cuf- 
 fing, and I shall always assume the liberty of doubting 
 that he committed the prince. That, like a “ sensible 
 lord,” he should have hastened to accept any apology 
 which should have relieved him from a collision with 
 the ruling powers at court, I have no doubt at all, from 
 a long consideration of the conduct and history of 
 chief justices in general. 
 
 More diligent searchers into the facts of that ob- 
 scure time have seen reason to disbelieve the stories 
 of any serious dissipations of Henry. Engaged as 
 he was from his earliest youth in affairs of great 
 importance, and with a mind trained to the prospect 
 of powerfully acting in the most serious questions 
 

 SHAKSPEAKE PAPEBS : 
 
 that could agitate his time, — a disputed succession, 
 a rising hostility to the church, divided nobility, tur- 
 bulent commons, an internecine war with France im- 
 possible of avoidance, a web of European diplomacy 
 just then beginning to develope itself, in consequence 
 of the spreading use of the pen and inkhorn so 
 pathetically deplored by Jack Cade, and forerunning 
 the felonious invention, contrary to the king’s crown 
 and dignity,” of the printing-press, denounced with 
 no regard to chronology by that illustrious agitator : 
 — in these circumstances, the heir of the house of 
 Lancaster, the antagonist of the Lollards, — a matter 
 of accident in his case, though contrary to the general 
 principles of his family, — and at the same time 
 suspected by the churchmen of dangerous designs 
 against their property, — the pretender on dubious 
 title, but not at the period appearing so decidedly 
 defective as it seems in ours, to the throne of France, 
 — the aspirant to be arbiter or master of all that 
 he knew of Europe, — could not have wasted all his 
 youth in riotous living. In fact, his historical cha- 
 racter is stern and severe ; but with that we have 
 here nothing to do. It is not the Henry of battles, 
 and treaties, and charters, and commissions, and par- 
 
PIOTUKES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 29 
 
 liaments, we are now dealing with ; — we look to the 
 Henry of Shakspeare. 
 
 That Henry, I repeat, is subject and vassal of 
 FalstaflF. He is bound by the necromancy of genius 
 to the white-bearded Satan,” who he feels is leading 
 him to perdition. It is in vain that he thinks it 
 utterly unfitting that he should engage in such an 
 enterprise as the robbery at Gadshill ; for, in spite 
 of all protestations to the contrary, he joins the ex- 
 pedition merely to see how his master will get through 
 his difficulty. He struggles hard, but to no purpose. 
 Go he must, and he goes accordingly. A sense of 
 decorum keeps him from participating in the actual 
 robbery; but he stands close by, that his resistless 
 sword may aid the dubious valour of his master’s 
 associates. Joining with Poins in the jest of scat- 
 tering them and seizing their booty, not only is no 
 harm done to FalstaflF, but a sense of remorse seizes on 
 the prince for the almost treasonable deed — 
 
 “ Falstaff sweats to death, 
 
 And lards the lean earth as he walks along ; 
 
 Wer’t not for laughing, I should pity Mm.” 
 
 At their next meeting, after detecting and exposing 
 
30 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 the stories related by the knight, how different is the 
 result from what had been predicted by Poins when 
 laying the plot ! The virtue of this jest .will be, 
 the incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue 
 will tell us when we meet at supper : how thirty, at 
 least, he fought with ; what wards, what blows, what 
 extremities he endured ; and in the reproof of this 
 lies the jest.’’ Reproof indeed ! All is detected and 
 confessed. Does Poins reprove him, interpret the 
 word as we will? Poins indeed! That were lese- 
 majeste. Does the prince? Why, he tries a jest, 
 but it breaks down; and Falstafif victoriously orders 
 sack and merriment with an accent of command not 
 to be disputed. In a moment after he is selected 
 to meet Sir John Bracy, sent special with the vil- 
 lainous news of the insurrection of the Percies ; and 
 in another moment he is seated on his joint-stool, the 
 mimic King of England, lecturing with a mixture of 
 jest and earnest the real Prince of Wales. 
 
 Equally inevitable is the necessity of screening the 
 master from the consequences of his delinquencies, 
 even at the expense of a very close approximation to 
 saying the thing that is not ; and impossible does Hal 
 find it not to stand rebuked when the conclusion of 
 his joke of taking the tavern- bills from the sleeper 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 97 
 
 “ 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.” — 
 
 And so forth. The sorrows which we can balance in 
 such trim antitheses do not lie very deep. The time is 
 rapidly advancing when his sentences will be less 
 sounding. 
 
 “ It is my lady; oh, it is my love ! 
 
 0 that she knew she were ! ” 
 
 speaks more touchingly the state of his engrossed soul 
 than all the fine metaphors ever vented. The super- 
 cilious Spartans in the days of their success prided 
 themselves upon the laconic brevity of their despatches 
 to states in hostility or alliance with them. When they 
 were sinking before the Macedonians, another style was 
 adopted ; and Philip observed that he had taught them 
 to lengthen their monosyllables. Real love has had a 
 contrary effect upon Romeo. It has abridged his 
 swelling passages, and brought him to the language of 
 prose. The reason of the alteration is the same in both 
 cases. The brevity of the Spartans was the result of 
 studied affectation. They sought, by the insolence of 
 
 * Is there not a line missing ? 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS I 
 
 threats obscurely insinuated in- a sort of demi-oracular 
 language, to impose upon others, — perhaps they imposed 
 upon themselves, — an extravagant opinion of their mys- 
 terious power. The secret was found out at last, and 
 their anger bubbled over in big words and lengthened 
 sentences. The love of Rosaline is as much affected on 
 the part of Romeo, and it explodes in wire-drawn 
 conceits. 
 
 “ V^hen the devout religion of mine eye 
 
 Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires ; 
 
 And those who often drown’d could never die, 
 
 Transparent heretics, he burnt for liars. 
 
 One fairer than my love ! — the all-seeing sun 
 
 Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.” 
 
 It is no wonder that a gentleman who is so clever as to 
 be able to say such extremely fine things, forgets, in the 
 next scene, the devout religion of his eye, without any 
 apprehension of the transparent heretic being burnt for 
 a liar by the transmutation of tears into the fiames of 
 an auto da fe. He is doomed to discover that love in 
 his case is not a madness most discreet when he defies 
 the stars ; there are then no lines of magnificent 
 declamation. 
 
 “ Is it even so ? then 1 defy you, stars ! 
 
 Thou knowest my lodging : get me ink and paper. 
 
 And hire post-horses ; I will hence to-night." 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 99 
 
 Nothing can be plainer prose than these verses. But 
 how were they delivered ? Balthazar will tell us. 
 
 “ Pardon me, sir; I dare not leave you thus : 
 
 Your looks are pale and wild, and do import 
 Some misadventure.” 
 
 Again, nothing can be more quiet than his final 
 determination : 
 
 “ Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.” 
 
 It is plain Juliet, — unattended by any romantic 
 epithet of love. There is nothing about Cupid’s 
 arrow,” or ‘^Dian’s wit;” no honeyed word escapes 
 his lips, — nor again does any accent of despair. His 
 mind is so made up, — the whole course of the short 
 remainder of his life so unalterably fixed, that it is 
 perfectly useless to think more about it. He has full 
 leisure to refiect without disturbance upon the details of 
 the squalid penury which made him set down the poor 
 apothecary as a fit instrument for what now had become 
 his ‘‘ need ; ” and he offers his proposition of purchasing 
 that soon-speeding gear which is to hurry him out of 
 life, with the same business-like tone as if he were pur- 
 chasing a pennyworth of sugar-candy. When the 
 apothecary suggests the danger of selling such drugs, 
 Romeo can reflect on the folly of scrupling to sacrifice 
 
 H 3 
 
100 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 life when the holder of it is so poor and unfortunate. 
 Gallant and gay of appearance himself, he tells his new- 
 found acquaintance that bareness, famine, oppression, 
 ragged misery, the hollow cheek and the hungry eye, 
 are fitting reasons why death should be desired, not 
 avoided ; and with a cool philosophy assures him that 
 gold is worse poison than the compound which hurries 
 the life- weary taker out of the world. The language of 
 desperation cannot be more dismally determined. What 
 did the apothecary think of his customer as he pocketed 
 the forty ducats ? There you go, lad, — there you go, he 
 might have said, — there you go with that in your 
 girdle that, if you had the strength of twenty men, 
 would straight despatch you. Well do I know the use 
 for which you intend it. To-morrow’s sun sees not you 
 alive. And you philosophise to me on the necessity of 
 buying food and getting into flesh. You taunt my 
 poverty, — you laugh at my rags, — you bid me defy the 
 law, — you tell me the world is my enemy. It may be 
 so, lad, — it may be so ; but less tattered is my garment 
 than your heart, — less harassed by law of one kind or 
 another my pursuit than yours. What ails that lad ? 
 I know not, neither do I care. But that he should 
 moralize to me on the hard lot which I experience, — 
 that he, with those looks and those accents, should 
 
PICTUKES, GKAVE AND GAY. 
 
 101 
 
 fancy that I, amid my beggarly account of empty boxes, 
 am less happy than he, — ha ! ha ! ha ! — it is something 
 to make one laugh. Ride your way, boy : I have your 
 forty ducats in my purse, and you my drug in your 
 pocket. And the law ! Well ! What can the execu- 
 tioner do worse to me in my penury and my age than 
 you have doomed for yourself in your youth and splen- 
 dour. I carry not my hangman in my saddle as I ride 
 along. And the curses which the rabble may pour upon 
 my dying moments, — what are they to the howling 
 gurgle which, now rising from your heart, is deafening 
 your ears ? Adieu, boy, — adieu ! — and keep your 
 philosophy for yourself. Ho ! ho ! ho ! 
 
 But had any other passion or pursuit occupied 
 Romeo, he would have been equally unlucky as in 
 his love. Ill fortune has marked him for her own. 
 From beginning to end he intends the best ; but his 
 interfering is ever for the worst. It is evident that 
 he has not taken any part in the family feud which 
 divides Verona, and his first attachment is to a lady 
 of the antagonist house. ^ To see that lady, — perhaps 
 
 * Rosaline was niece of Capulet. The list of persons invited to 
 the hall is 
 
 “ Signior Martino, and his vife and daughters ; 
 
 County Anselm[o], and his beauteous sisters; 
 
102 
 
 SHAKSPEABE PAPEBS . 
 
 to mark that he has had no share in the tumult of 
 the morning, — he goes to a ball given by Capulet, 
 at which the suitor accepted by the family is to be 
 introduced to Juliet as her intended husband. Paris 
 is in every way an eligible match. 
 
 “Verona’s summer hath not such a flower.” 
 
 He who has slain him addresses his corse as that 
 of the noble County Paris,” with a kindly re- 
 membrance that he was kinsman of a friend slain 
 in Eomeo’s own cause. Nothing can be more fervent, 
 more honourable, or more delicate than his devoted 
 and considerate wooing. His grief at the loss of 
 Juliet is expressed in few words; but its sincerity 
 is told by his midnight and secret visit to the tomb 
 of her whom living he had honoured, and on whom, 
 when dead, he could not restrain himself from lavish- 
 
 The lady widow of Vetruvio ; 
 
 Signior Placentio, and his lovely nieces ; 
 
 Mercutio, and his brother Valentine; 
 
 Mine uncle Capulet, his wife and daughters ; 
 
 My fair niece Rosaline; [and] Livia; 
 
 Signior Valentio, and his cousin Tybalt; 
 
 Lucio, and the lively Helena.” 
 
 I have altered Anselme to the Italian form Anselmo, and in the 
 seventh line inserted and. I think I may fairly claim this list as 
 being in verse. It is always printed as prose. 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 103 
 
 ing funereal homage. Secure of the favour of her 
 father, no serious objection could be anticipated from 
 herself. When questioned by her mother, she readily 
 promises obedience to parental wishes, and goes to 
 the ball determined to look to like, if looking liking 
 move.” Everything glides on in smooth current till 
 the appearance of him whose presence is deadly. 
 Eomeo himself is a most reluctant visitor. He ap- 
 prehends that the consequences of the night’s revels 
 will be the vile forfeit of a despised life by an un- 
 timely death, but submits to his destiny. He foresees 
 that it is no wit to go, but consoles himself with the 
 reflection that he means well in going to this 
 mask.” His intentions, as usual, are good; and, as 
 usual, their consequences are ruinous. 
 
 He yields to his passion, and marries Juliet. For 
 this hasty act he has the excuse that the match 
 may put an end to the discord between the families. 
 Friar Lawrence hopes that 
 
 ‘‘ this alliance may so happy prove 
 To turn your households’ rancour into love.” 
 
 It certainly has that effect in the end of the play, 
 but it is by the suicidal deaths of the flower and 
 hope of both families. Capulet and Montague tender. 
 
104 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEES : 
 
 in a gloomy peace, the hands of friendship, over the 
 untimely grave of the poor sacrifices to their enmity. 
 Had he met her elsewhere than in her father’s house, 
 he might have succeeded in a more prosperous love. 
 But there his visit is looked upon by the professed 
 duellist Tybalt, hot from the encounter of the morn- 
 ing, and enraged that he was baulked of a victim, 
 as an intrusion and an insult. The fiery partisan 
 is curbed with much diflSculty by his uncle; and 
 withdraws, his fiesh trembling with wilful choler, de- 
 termined to wreak vengeance at the first opportunity 
 on the intruder. It is not long before the opportunity 
 offers. Vainly does Romeo endeavour to pacify the 
 bullying swordsman, — vainly does he protest that he 
 loves the name of Capulet, — vainly does he decline 
 the proffered duel. His good intentions are again 
 doomed to be frustrated. There stands by his side 
 as mad-blooded a spirit as Tybalt himself, and Mer- 
 cutio, all unconscious of the reasons why Romeo 
 refuses to fight, takes up the abandoned quarrel. The 
 star of the unlucky man is ever in the ascendant. 
 His ill-omened interference slays his friend. Had he 
 kept quiet, the issue might have been different ; but 
 the power that had the steerage of his course had 
 destined that the uplifting of his sword was to be 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 105 
 
 the signal of death to his very friend. And when 
 the dying Mercntio says, Why the devil came you 
 between us ? I was hurt under your arm ; ” he can 
 only offer the excuse, which is always true, and always 
 unavailing, I thought all for the best.” All his 
 visions of reconciliation between the houses are dis- 
 sipated. How can he now avoid fighting with Tybalt ? 
 His best friend lies dead, slain in his own quarrel, 
 through his own accursed intermeddling; and the 
 swaggering victor, still hot from the slaughter, comes 
 back to triumph over the dead. Who with the heart 
 and spirit of a man could under such circumstances 
 refrain from exclaiming, 
 
 “ Away to heaven, respective lenity ! 
 
 And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now.” 
 
 Vanish gentle breath, calm words, knees humbiy bowed ! 
 — his weapon in an instant glitters in the blazing sun ; 
 and as with a lightning flash,— as rapidly and resist- 
 lessly, — before Benvolio can pull his sword from the 
 scabbard, Tybalt, whom his kindred deemed a match 
 for twenty men, is laid by the side of him who but a 
 moment before had been the victim of his blade. What 
 avails the practised science of the duellist, the gentle- 
 man of the very first house, of the first and second 
 
106 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS : 
 
 cause! — how weak is the immortal passado, or the 
 punto reverse, the hay, or all the other learned devices 
 of Vincent Saviola, against the whirlwind rage of a 
 man driven to desperation by all that can rouse fury or 
 stimulate hatred I He sees the blood of his friend red 
 upon the ground ; the accents of gross and unprovoked 
 outrage ring in his ears ; the perverse and obstinate in- 
 solence of a bravo confident in his skill, and depending 
 upon it to insure him impunity, has marred his hopes ; 
 and the butcher of the silk button has no chance against 
 the demon which he has evoked. A la stoccata ” carries 
 it not away in this encounter : but Romeo exults not 
 in his death. He stands amazed, and is with diflSculty 
 hurried off, exclaiming against the constant fate which 
 \ perpetually throws him in the way of misfortune. 
 W'^ll, indeed, may Friar Lawrence address him by the 
 title of "-hou ‘‘ fearful man 1 ’’ — as a man whose career 
 through life is calculated to inspire terror. Well may 
 he say to him that 
 
 ‘‘ Affliction is enamour’d of tliy parts, 
 
 And thou art wedded to calamity.” 
 
 And slight is the attention which Romeo pays to the 
 elo(j[uent arguments hy which it is proved that he had 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 107 
 
 every reason to consider himself happy. When the 
 friar assures him that 
 
 “ A pack of blessings lights upon thy back, 
 
 Happiness courts thee in her best array,” 
 
 the nurse may think it a discourse of learning and 
 good counsel, fit to detain an enraptured auditor all 
 the night. Romeo feels it in his case to be an idle 
 declamation, unworthy of an answer. 
 
 The events which occur during his enforced absence, 
 the haste of Paris to be wedded, the zeal of old Capulet 
 in promoting the wishes of his expected son-in-law, the 
 desperate expedient of the sleeping-draught,"^ the ac- 
 
 * Is there not some mistake in the length of time that this 
 sleeping-draught is to occupy, if we consider the text as it now 
 stands to be correct? Friar Lawrence says to JuUet, when he is 
 recommending the expedient, 
 
 “ Take thou this phial, being then in bed, 
 
 And this distilled liquor drink thou off : 
 
 When presently through aU thy veins shall run 
 A cold and drowsy humour, which shall seize 
 Each vital spirit, &c. 
 
 And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death 
 Thou shalt remain full two and forty hours, 
 
 And then awake as from a pleasant sleep,” 
 
 Juliet retires to bed on Tuesday night, at a somewhat early hour. 
 Her mother says after she departs, “ ’Tis now near night.” Say it 
 is eleven o’clock : forty-two hours from that hour bring us to five 
 
108 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS : 
 
 cident which prevented the delivery of the friar’s 
 letter, the officious haste of Balthazar to communicate 
 
 o’clock in the evening of Thursday ; and yet we find the time of 
 her awakening fixed in profound darkness, and not long before the 
 dawn. We should allow at least ten hours more, and read, 
 
 “ Thou shalt remain full twp and fifty hours,” — 
 
 which would fix her awakening at three o’clock in the morning, a 
 time which has been marked in a former scene as the approach 
 of day. 
 
 “ Cap. Come, stir, stir, stir! The second cock has crow’d, — 
 
 The curfew hell hath rung, — ’tis three o’clock.” 
 
 Immediately after he says, “ Good faith, ’tis day.” This observa- 
 tion may appear superfluously minute; hut those who take the 
 pains of reading the play critically will find that it is dated through- 
 out with a most exact attention to hours. We can time almost 
 every event. Ex. gr. Juliet dismisses the nurse on her errand to 
 Eomeo when the clock struck nine, and complains that she has not 
 returned at twelve. At twelve she does return, and Juliet immedi- 
 ately proceeds to Friar Lawrence’s cell, where she is married 
 without delay. Borneo parts with his bride at once, and meets his 
 friends while “ the day is hot.” Juliet at the same hour addresses 
 her prayer to the fiery- footed steeds of Phoebus, too slowly for her 
 feelings progressing towards the west. The same exactness is 
 observed in every part of the play. 
 
 I may remark, as another instance of Borneo’s ill luck, the change 
 of the original wedding day. When pressed by Paris, old Capulet 
 says that “Wednesday is too soon, — on Thursday let it he;” hut 
 afterwards, when he imagines that his daughter is inclined to 
 consult his wishes, he fixes it for Wednesday, even though his wife 
 observes that Thursday is time enough. Had this day not been 
 lost, the letter of Friar Lawrence might still have been forwarded 
 to Mantua to explain what had occurred. 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 109 
 
 the tidings of Juliet’s burial, are all matters out of his 
 control. But the mode of his death is chosen by him- 
 self; and in that he is as unlucky as in everything 
 else. Utterly loathing life, the manner of his leaving 
 it must be instantaneous. He stipulates that the poison 
 by which he is to die shall not be slow of effect. He 
 calls for 
 
 “ such soon- speeding gear 
 As will disperse itself through all the veins, 
 
 That the Hfe-weary taker may fall dead.” 
 
 He leaves himself no chance of escape. Instant death 
 is in his hand ; and thanking the true apothecary for 
 the quickness of his drugs, he scarcely leaves himself 
 a moment with a kiss to die. If he had been less in 
 a hurry, — if he had not felt it impossible to delay 
 posting off to Verona for a single night, — if his riding 
 had been less rapid, or his medicine less sudden in its 
 effect, he might have lived. The friar was at hand to 
 release Juliet from her tomb the very instant after the 
 fatal phial had been emptied. That instant was 
 enough: the unlucky man had effected his purpose 
 just when there was still a chance that things might be 
 amended. Those who wrote the scene between Borneo 
 and Juliet which is intended to be pathetic, after her 
 awakening and before his death, quite mistake the 
 
110 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS: 
 
 character of the hero of the play. I do not blame 
 them for their poetry, which is as good as that of 
 second-rate writers of tragedy in general ; and think 
 them, on the whole, deserving of our commendation 
 for giving us an additional proof how unable clever 
 men upon town are to follow the conceptions of genius. 
 Shakspeare, if he thought it consistent with the cha- 
 racter which he had with so much deliberation framed, 
 could have written a parting scene at least as good as 
 that with which his tragedy has been supplied; but 
 he saw the inconsistency, though his unasked assistants 
 did not. They tell us they did it to consult popular 
 taste. I do not believe them. I am sure that popular 
 taste would approve of a recurrence to the old play in 
 all its parts ; but a harlotry play-actor might think it 
 hard upon him to be deprived of a point,’’ pointless 
 as that point may be. 
 
 Haste is made a remarkable characteristic of Romeo, 
 — because it is at once the parent and the child of 
 uniform misfortune. As from the acorn springs the 
 oak, and from the oak the acorn, so does the tempera- 
 ment that inclines to haste predispose to misadventure, 
 and a continuance of misadventure confirms the habit 
 of haste. A man whom his rashness has made con- 
 tinually unlucky, is strengthened in the determination 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAT. 
 
 Ill 
 
 to persevere in liis rapid movements by the very feeling 
 that the ‘‘ run ’’ is against him, and that it is of no use 
 to think. In the caise of Romeo, he leaves it all to 
 the steerage of Heaven, i, e, to the heady current of 
 his own passions ; and he succeeds accordingly. All 
 through the play care is taken to show his impatience. 
 The very first word he speaks indicates that he is 
 anxious for the quick passage of time. 
 
 “ Ben, Good morrow, cousin. 
 
 Rom, Is the day so young ? 
 
 Ben. But new struck nine. 
 
 Rom, Ay me, sad hours seem long.’^ 
 
 The same impatience marks his speech in the moment 
 of death : 
 
 0 true apothecary, 
 
 Thy drugs are quick !” 
 
 From his first words to his last the feeling is the same. 
 The lady of his love, even in the full swell of her 
 awakened aflections, cannot avoid remarking that his 
 contract is 
 
 “ Too rash, too unadvised, too sudden, 
 
 Too like the hghtning, which does cease to he 
 Ere one can say. It lightens.” 
 
 When he urges his marriage on the friar, 
 
 “ Rom. 0 let us home : I stand on sudden haste. 
 
 Friar. Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.” 
 
112 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS: 
 
 The metaphors put into his mouth are remarkable for 
 their allusions to abrupt and violent haste. He wishes 
 that he may die 
 
 “ As violently as hasty powder fired 
 Doth huriy from the fatal cannon’s womb.” 
 
 When he thinks that Juliet mentions his name in 
 anger, it is 
 
 “ as if that name, 
 
 Shot from the deadly level of a gun, 
 
 Did murder her.” 
 
 When Lawrence remonstrates with him on his vio- 
 lence, he compares the use to which he puts his wit to 
 
 “ Powder in a skilless soldier’s flask f 
 
 and tells him that 
 
 “ Violent delights have violent ends, 
 
 And in their triumph die ; like Are and powder. 
 
 Which, as they kiss, consume.” 
 
 Lightning, flame, shot, explosion, are the favourite 
 parallels to the conduct and career of Romeo. Swift 
 are his loves ; as swift to enter his thought, the mis- 
 chief which ends them for ever. Rapid have been all 
 the pulsations of his life; as rapid the determination 
 which decides that they shall beat no more. 
 
 A gentleman he was in heart and soul. All his 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 113 
 
 habitual companions love him : Benvolio and Mercutio, 
 who represent the young gentlemen of his house, are 
 ready to peril their lives, and to strain all their ener- 
 gies, serious or gay, in his service. His father is filled 
 with an anxiety on his account so delicate, that he 
 will not venture to interfere with his son’s private 
 sorrows, while he desires to discover their source, and 
 if possible to relieve them. The heart of his mother 
 bursts in his calamity; the head of the rival house 
 bestows upon him the warmest panegyrics ; the tutor 
 of his youth sacrifices everything to gratify his wishes ; 
 his servant, though no man is a hero to his valet de 
 chambre^ dares not remonstrate with him on his inten- 
 tions, even when they are avowed to be savage-wild, 
 
 “ More fierce and more inexorable far, 
 
 Than empty tigers or the roaring sea,” — 
 
 but with an eager solicitude he breaks his commands 
 by remaining as close as he can venture, to watch over 
 his safety. Kind is he to all. He wins the heart of 
 the romantic Juliet by his tender gallantry : the worldly- 
 minded nurse praises him for being as gentle as a lamb. 
 When it is necessary or natural that the Prince or 
 Lady Montague should speak harshly of him, it is done 
 in his absence. No words of anger or reproach are 
 
 I 
 
114 
 
 SHAKSPEABE PAPEES : 
 
 addressed to his ears save by Tybalt ; and from him 
 they are in some sort a compliment, as signifying that 
 the self- chosen prize-fighter of the opposing party 
 deems Romeo the worthiest antagonist of his blade. 
 We find that he fights two blood-stained duels, but 
 both are forced upon him ; the first under circum- 
 stances impossible of avoidance, the last after the 
 humblest supplications to be excused. 
 
 “ 0 begone ! 
 
 By Heaven, I love thee better than myself, 
 
 For I came hither armed against myself. 
 
 Stay not ; hegone ! — live, and hereafter say 
 A madman’s mercy hade thee run away.” 
 
 With all the qualities and emotions which can inspire 
 affection and esteem, — with all the advantages that 
 birth, heaven, and earth could at once confer, — with 
 the most honourable feelings and the kindliest inten- 
 tions, — he is eminently an unlucky man. The record 
 of his actions in the play before us does not extend to 
 the period of a week; but we feel that there is no 
 dramatic straining to shorten their course. Everything 
 occurs naturally and probably. It was his concluding 
 week ; but it tells us all his life. Fortune was against 
 him ; and would have been against him, no matter 
 that might have been his pursuit. He was born to 
 
PICTUKES, GKAVE AND GAY. 
 
 115 
 
 win battles, but to lose campaigns. If we desired 
 to moralize with the harsh-minded satirist, who never 
 can be suspected of romance, we should join with him 
 in extracting as a moral from the play 
 
 “ Nullum habes numen, si sit prudentia; sed te 
 Nos facimus, Fortuna, deam, coeloque locamus;” 
 
 and attribute the mishaps of Komeo, not to want of 
 fortune, but of prudence. Philosophy and poetry 
 differ not in essentials, and the stern censure of 
 Juvenal is just. But still, when looking on the time- 
 less tomb of Borneo, and contemplating the short and 
 sad career through which he ran, we cannot help re- 
 collecting his mourning words over his dying friend, 
 and suggest as an inscription over the monument of 
 the luckless gentleman, 
 
 I THOUGHT ALL FOR THE BEST.” 
 
 l3 
 
116 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM. 
 
 BOTTOM, THE WEAVER. 
 
 “ Some men are born with a silver spoon in their mouths, and 
 others with a wooden ladle .” — Ancient Proverb. 
 
 “ Then did the sun on dunghill shine .” — Ancient Pistol. 
 
 It has often been remarked that it is impossible to 
 play the enchanted scenes of Bottom with any effect, 
 in reading the poem we idealize the ass-head ; we can 
 conceive that it represents in some grotesque sort the 
 various passions and emotions of its wearer; that it 
 assumes a character of dull jocosity, or duller sapience, 
 in his conversations with Titania and the fairies ; and 
 when calling for the assistance of Messrs. Peas-blossom 
 and Mustard-seed to scratch his head, or of the Queen 
 to procure him a peck of provender or a bottle of hay, 
 it expresses some puzzled wonder of the new sensations 
 its wearer must experience in tinglings never felt be- 
 fore, and cravings for food until then unsuited to his 
 appetite. But on the stage this is impossible. As the 
 manager cannot procure for his fairies representatives 
 of such tiny dimensions as to be in danger of being 
 overflown by the bursting of the honey-bag of an 
 humble-bee, so it is impossible that the art of the 
 
PICTUKES, GEAVE AND GAT. 
 
 117 
 
 property-man can furnish Bottom with an ass-head- 
 capable of expressing the mixed feelings of humanity 
 and asinity which actuate the metamorphosed weaver. 
 
 It is but a pasteboard head, and that is all. The jest 
 is over the first moment after his appearance; and^ 
 having laughed at it once, we cannot laugh at it any 
 more. As m the case of a man who, at a masquerade, ^ 
 has chosen a character depending for its attraction 
 merely on costume, — we may admire a Don Quixote, if 
 properly bedecked in Mambrino’s helmet and the other 
 habiliments of the Knight of La Mancha, at a first 
 glance, but we think him scarcely worthy of a second. 
 
 So it is with the Bottom of the stage ; the Bottom 
 of the poem is a different person. Shakspeare in 
 many parts of his plays drops hints, ^Wocal to the 
 intelligent,” that he feels the difficulty of bringing his 
 ideas adequately before the minds of theatrical spec- 
 tators. In the opening address of the Chorus of 
 Henry V. he asks pardon for having dared 
 
 “ On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth 
 So great an object. Can this cockpit hold 
 The vasty fields of France ? or, may we cram 
 Within this wooden 0, the very casques 
 That did afiiight the air at Agincourt ? ” 
 
 and requests his audience to piece out the imperfec- 
 
118 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPEES I 
 
 tions of the theatre with their thoughts. This is an 
 apology for the ordinary and physical defects of any 
 stage, — especially an ill-furnished one ; and it requires 
 no great straining of our imaginary forces to submit to 
 them. Even Ducrow himself, with appliances and 
 means to boot a hundredfold more magnificent and 
 copious than any that were at the command of Shaks- 
 peare, does not deceive us into the belief that his 
 fifty horses, trained and managed with surpassing skill, 
 and mounted by agile and practised riders, dressed in 
 splendid and carefully-considered costumes, are ac- 
 tually fighting the battle of Waterloo, but we willingly 
 lend ourselves to the delusion. In like manner, we 
 may be sure that in the days of Queen Elizabeth the 
 audience of the Globe complied with the advice of 
 Chorus, and, 
 
 “ Minding true things by what their mockeries he,” 
 
 were contented that 
 
 “ Four or five most vile and ragged foils 
 Eight ill-disposed, in brawl ridiculous,” 
 
 should serve to represent to their imagination the 
 name of Agincourt. 
 
 We consent to this just as we do to Greeks and 
 Romans speaking English on the stage of London, or 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 119 
 
 French on that of Paris; or to men of any country 
 speaking in verse at all ; or to all the other demands 
 made upon our belief in playing. We can dispense 
 with the assistance of such downright matter-of-fact 
 interpreters as those who volunteer their services to 
 assure us that the lion in Pyramus and Thisbe is not a 
 lion in good earnest, but merely Snug the joiner. But 
 there are difficulties of a more subtle and metaphysical 
 kind to be got over, and to these, too, Shakspeare not 
 unfrequently alludes. In the play before us, — Mid- 
 summer Nighfs Dream ^ — for example, when Hippolita 
 speaks scornfully of the tragedy in which Bottom holds 
 so conspicuous a part, Theseus answers, that the best 
 of this kind (scenic performances) are but shadows, and 
 the worst no worse if imagination amend them. She 
 answers that it must be your imagination then, not 
 theirs. He retorts with a joke on the vanity of actors, 
 and the conversation is immediately changed. The 
 meaning of the Duke is, that however we may laugh at 
 the silliness of Bottom and his companions in their 
 ridiculous play, the author labours under no more than 
 the common calamity of dramatists. They are all but 
 dealers in shadowy representations of life ; and if the 
 worst among them can set the mind of the spectator at 
 work, he is equal to the best. The answer to Theseus 
 
120 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS t 
 
 is, that none but the best, or, at all events, those who 
 approach to excellence, can call with success upon ima- 
 gination to invest their shadows with substance. Such 
 playwrights as Quince the carpenter, — and they abound 
 in every literature and every theatre, — draw our atten- 
 tion so much to the absurdity of the performance actu- 
 ally going on before us, that we have no inclination to 
 trouble ourselves with considering what substance in the 
 background 'their shadows should have represented. 
 Shakspeare intended the remark as a compliment or a 
 consolation to less successful wooers of the comic or the 
 tragic Muse, and touches briefly on the matter ; but it 
 was also intended as an excuse for the want of effect 
 upon the stage of some of the finer touches of such dra- 
 matists as himself, and an appeal to all true judges of 
 poetry to bring it before the tribunal of their own ima- 
 gination ; making but a matter of secondary inquiry how 
 it appears in a theatre, as delivered by those who, what- 
 ever others may think of them, would, if taken at their 
 own estimation, pass for excellent men.” His own 
 magnificent creation of fairy land in the Athenian wood 
 must have been in his mind, and he asks an indulgent 
 play of fancy not more for Oberon and Titania, the glit- 
 tering rulers of the elements, who meet 
 
PICTUKES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 121 
 
 “ on hill, in dale, forest, or mead. 
 
 By paved fountain, or by rushy brook, 
 
 Or on the beached margent of the sea, 
 
 To dance their ringlets to the whistling wind,” 
 
 than for the shrewd and knavish Robin Goodfellow, the 
 lord of practical jokes, or the dull and conceited Bottom, 
 
 the shallowest thickskin of the barren sort,” rapt so 
 wondrously from his loom and shuttle, his threads and 
 thrums, to be the favoured lover of the Queen of Faery, 
 fresh from the spiced Indian air, and lulled with dances 
 and delight amid the fragrance of the sweetest flowers, 
 filling with their luscious perfume a moonlighted forest. 
 
 One part of Bottom’s character is easily understood, 
 and is often well acted. Amid his own companions he 
 is the cock of the walk. His genius is admitted without 
 hesitation. When he is lost in the wood, Quince gives 
 up the play as marred. There is no man in Athens able 
 to take the first part in tragedy but himself. Flute 
 declares that he has the best wit of any handicraftman 
 in the city. This does not satisfy the still warmer 
 admirer,"^ who insists on the goodliness of his person, 
 
 * Act iv. sc. 2. Athens. — Quince’s House. — Enter Quince, Flute, 
 Snout, and Starveling. 
 
 “ QuL Have you sent to Bottom’s house yet, &c. ? 
 
122 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 and the fineness of his voice. When it seems hopeless 
 that he should appear, the cause of the stage is given up 
 as utterly lost. When he returns, it is hailed as the 
 courageous day,” and the “ happy hour,” which is to- 
 restore the legitimate drama. It is no wonder that this 
 perpetual flattery fills him with a most inordinate opinion 
 of his own powers. There is not a part in the play 
 
 Flu. He hath simply the best wit of any man in Athens. 
 
 Qui. Yea, and the best person too ; and he is a very paramour for 
 a sweet voice. 
 
 Flu. You must say paragon ; a paramour is, God bless us ! a 
 thing of naught.” 
 
 I propose that the second admirer’s speech he given to Snout, who 
 else has not anything to say, and is introduced on the stage to no 
 purpose. The few words he says elsewhere in the play are aU ridi- 
 culous; and the mistake of “paramour” for “paragon” is more 
 appropriate to him than to Quince, who corrects the cacology of 
 Bottom himself. [Act. iii. sc. 1. 
 
 “ Pyr. Thishy, the flower of odious savours sweet. 
 
 Qui. Odours — odours.”] 
 
 And, besides. Quince, the playwright, manager, and ballad-monger, 
 
 [“I’ll get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream,” says 
 Bottom,] 
 
 is of too much importance in the company to he rebuked by so infe- 
 rior a personage as Flute. In the original draft of their play Snout 
 was to perform Pyramus’s father, and Quince, Thisbe’s father, hut 
 those parts are omitted; Snout is the representative of Wall, and 
 Quince has no part assigned him. Perhaps this was intentional, as 
 another proof of hunghng. 
 
PICTUEES, GKAVE AND GAY. 
 
 123 
 
 which he cannot perform. As a lover he promises to 
 make the audience weep ; but his talent is still more 
 shining in the Herculean vein of a tyrant. The man- 
 liness of his countenance, he admits, incapacitates him 
 from acting the part of a heroine ; but, give him a mask, 
 and he is sure to captivate by the soft melody of his 
 voice. But, lest it should be thought this melodious 
 softness was alone his characteristic, he claims the part 
 of the lion, which he is to discharge with so terrific a 
 roar as to call forth the marked approbation of the war- 
 like Duke ; and yet, when the danger is suggested of 
 frightening the ladies, who all, Amazons as they were, 
 must be daunted by sounds so fear-inspiring, he pro- 
 fesses himself gifted with a power of compass capable of 
 imitating, even in the character of a roaring lion, the 
 gentleness of the sucking dove, or the sweetness of the 
 nightingale. He is equally fit for all parts, and in all 
 parts calculated to outshine the rest. This is al- 
 lowed ; but, as it is impossible that he can perform them 
 all, he is restricted to the principal. It is with the 
 softest compliments that he is induced to abandon the 
 parts of Thisbe and the lion for that of Pyramus. 
 Quince assures him that he can play none other, because 
 Pyramus is a sweet-faced man ; a proper man as one 
 shall see in a summer’s day; a most lovely, gentleman- 
 
124 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 like man; therefore YOU must undertake it.” What 
 man of woman born could resist flattery so unsparingly 
 administered? the well-pufled performer consents, and 
 though he knows nothing of the play, and is unable to 
 tell whether the part for which he is cast is that of a 
 lover or a tyrant, undertakes to discharge it with a calm 
 and heroic indifference as to the colour of the beard he 
 is to wear, being confident, under any circumstances, of 
 success, whether that most important part of the cos- 
 tume be straw-coloured or orange-tawny, French crown 
 or purple in grain. With equal confidence he gets 
 through his performance. The wit of the courtiers, or 
 the presence of the Duke, have no effect upon his nerves. 
 He alone speaks to the audience in his own character, 
 not for a moment sinking the personal consequence 
 of Bottom in the assumed port of Pyramus. He sets 
 Theseus right on a point of the play with cool import- 
 ance ; and replies to the jest of Demetrius (which he does 
 not understand) with the self-command of ignorant in- 
 difference. We may be sure that he was abundantly con- 
 tented with his appearance, and retired to drink in, with 
 ear well deserving of the promotion it had attained under 
 the patronage of Robin Goodfellow, the applause of his 
 companions. It is true that Oberon designates him as 
 a hateful fool ; ” that Puck stigmatizes him as the 
 
ir'lCTUKES, GKAVE AND GAY. 
 
 125 
 
 greatest blockhead of the set ; that the audience of wits 
 and courtiers before whom he has performed vote him 
 to be an ass : but what matter is that ? He mixes not 
 with them ; he hears not their sarcasms ; he could not 
 understand their criticisms ; and, in the congenial com- 
 pany of the crew of patches and base mechanicals w^ho 
 admire him, lives happy in the fame of being the Nicho- 
 las Bottom, who, by consent, to him universal and 
 world-encompassing, is voted to be the Pyramus , — the 
 prop of the stage, — ^Ae'sole support of the drama. 
 
 Self-conceit, as great and undisguised as that of 
 poor Bottom, is to be found in all classes and in 
 all circles, and is especially pardonable in what it is 
 considered genteel or learned to call ‘‘ the histrionic 
 profession.” The triumphs of the player are evanescent. 
 In no other department of intellect, real or simulated, 
 does the applause bestowed upon the living artist bear 
 so melancholy a disproportion to the repute awaiting 
 him after the generation passes which has witnessed his 
 exertions. According to the poet himself, the poor 
 player 
 
 “ Stmts and frets Ms hour upon the stage, 
 
 And then is heard no more.” 
 
 Shakspeare’s owm rank as a performer was not high, 
 and his reflections on the business of an actor are 
 
126 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 in general splenetic and discontented. He might have 
 said, — though indeed it would not have fitted with the 
 mood of mind of the despairing tyrant into whose 
 mouth the reflection is put, — that the well-graced 
 actor, who leaves the scene not merely after strutting 
 and fretting, but after exhibiting power and genius 
 to the utmost degree at which his art can aim, amid 
 the thundering applause^ — or, what is a deeper tribute, 
 the breathless silence of excited and agitated thousands, 
 — is destined ere long to an oblivion as undisturbed as 
 that of his humbler fellow-artist, whose prattle is 
 without contradiction voted to be tedious. Kemble 
 is fading fast from our view. The gossip connected 
 with everything about Johnson keeps Garrick before 
 us, but the interest concerning him daily becomes less 
 and less. Of Betterton, Booth, Quin, we remember 
 little more than the names. The Lowins and Burbages 
 of the days of Shakspeare are known only to the dra- 
 matic antiquary, or the poring commentator, anxious to 
 preserve every scrap of information that may bear upon 
 the elucidation of a text, or aid towards the history of 
 the author. With the sense of this transitory fame 
 before them, it is only natural that players should 
 grasp at as much as comes within their reach while 
 they have power of doing so. It would be a curious 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 127 
 
 speculation to inquire which personally has the greater 
 enjoyment, — the author, neglected in life, and working 
 for immortal renown, or the actor living among huzzas, 
 and consigned to forgetfulness the moment that his 
 hour is past. I suppose, on the usual principle of 
 compensation, each finds in himself springs of hap- 
 piness and self-comfort. The dim distance, in its 
 shadowy and limitless grandeur, fills with solemn 
 musings the soul of the one ; the gorgeous gilding 
 of the sunny scenery in the foreground kindles with 
 rapturous joy the heart of the other. Shenstone lays 
 it down as a principle, that, if it were left to our choice 
 whether all persons should speak ill of us to our faces, 
 and with applause behind our backs, or, vice versd^ that 
 the applause should be lavished upon ourselves, and the 
 ill-speaking kept for our absence, we should choose the 
 latter ; because, if we never heard the evil report, 
 we should know nothing about our bad reputation, 
 while, on the contrary, the good opinion others enter- 
 tained of us would be of no avail if nothing reached 
 our ears but words of anger or reproach. Since, after 
 all, it is from within, and not from without, the 
 sources of joy or sorrow bubble up, it does not matter 
 so very much as the sensitive Lord of Leasowes ima- 
 gines what the opinions of others concerning us may 
 

 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 be, — at least as compared with those which, right or 
 wrong, we form of ourselves. The question is of no 
 great practical importance ; and yet it would be some- 
 what curious to speculate in the manner of Hamlet, if 
 we could do so, on the feelings of Kean and Words- 
 worth in the zenith of the popularity of the former, 
 when he was worshipped as a demi-god by the un- 
 questionable, or, at least, the scarce-questioned dis- 
 pensers of daily renown; while the other by the 
 recognised oracles of critical sagacity was set down as 
 a jackass more obtuse than that belaboured by his own 
 Peter Bell. 
 
 Pardon, therefore, the wearers of the sock and 
 buskin for being obnoxious to such criticism as that 
 lavished by Quince upon Bottom. We have no traces 
 left us of what constituted the ordinary puffery of the 
 Elizabethan days ; but, as human nature is the same in 
 all ages, we must suppose the trade to have been in its 
 own way as vigorously carried on then as now. And, 
 without hinting at anything personal, do we not week 
 after week find attached to every performer making 
 (whether with justice or not is no part of the con- 
 sideration) pretensions to the omnifarious abilities 
 of Bottom, some Peter Quince, who sticks to that 
 Bottom with the tenacity of a leech, and is ready to 
 
PICTUKES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 129 
 
 swear that he^ the Bottom, is the only man in Athens ; 
 that his appearance spreads an universal joy ; his 
 occupation involves the world in dramatical eclipse; 
 that his performance of the lover can only be surpassed 
 by his performance of the tyrant; and that it must 
 puzzle an impartial public to decide whether nature and 
 art, genius and study, designed him for a heroine 
 couchant, or a rampant lion. To this it is little 
 wonder that the object of applause lets down his ears 
 too often donkey-like, and permits himself to be 
 scratched by a Master Cobweb, spun though he be 
 by a bottle-bellied spider, or a Master Peas -blossom, 
 who can only claim Mistress Squash for his mother 
 and Master Peascod for his father. In Peter Quince, 
 Shakspeare shadowed forth, by anticipation, Sheridan’s 
 Puff. Quince is a fool, and Puff a rogue ; and yet I 
 think the criticism of the elder reviewer just as valu- 
 able. It is in the end as useful to the object of 
 applause to be told, in plain terms, that he alone can 
 act Pyramus because he is a sweet-faced man, a proper 
 man, a most lovely, gentlemanlike man, as to have the 
 same flummery administered under the guise of mock 
 philosophy, with gabbling intonations about breadth, 
 profoundness, depth, length, thickness, and so forth ; 
 which, being interpreted, signify, in many cases, ‘‘I 
 
130 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 know nothing about acting or writing, but I do know 
 that you can give me a box or a dinner, and therefore 
 let me play to your Bottom, Quince the carpenter, in 
 an ass’s head, intended as a representation of Aristotle 
 the Stagirite.” 
 
 Alas ! I am wandering far away from the forest. I 
 can only plead that my guide has led me into my own 
 congenial land of newspaper from his native soil of 
 poetry. But he never long remains out of his own 
 domain, and the jokes and jests upon the unlucky com- 
 pany who undertook to perform 
 
 “ A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus 
 And his love Thisbe, very tragical mirth,” 
 
 are but intrusive matter amid the romantic loves, all 
 chivalrous and a little classical, of Theseus and Hippo- 
 lita, and the jealousies unearthly, and yet so earthly, of 
 Fairy Land. The romance of early Greece was some* 
 times strangely confused by the romance of the middle 
 ages. It would take a long essay on the mixture of 
 legends derived from all ages and countries to account 
 for the production of such a personage as the Duke 
 ycleped Theseus” and his following; and the fairy 
 mythology of the most authentic superstitions would be 
 ransacked in vain to discover exact authorities for the 
 
PICTUEES, GKAVE AND GAY. 
 
 131 
 
 Shakspearian Oberon and Titania. But, no matter 
 whence derived, the author knew well that in his hands 
 the chivalrous and classical, the airy and the imagina- 
 tive, were safe. It was necessary for his drama to 
 introduce among his fairy party a creature of earth’s 
 mould, and he has so done it as in the midst of his 
 mirth to convey a picturesque satire on the fortune 
 which governs the world, and upon those passions which 
 elsewhere he had with agitating pathos to depict. As 
 Borneo, the gentleman, is the unlucky man of Shaks- 
 peare so here does he exhibit Bottom, the blockhead, 
 as the lucky man, as him on whom Fortune showers 
 her favours beyond measure. 
 
 This is the part of the character which cannot be per- 
 formed. It is here that the greatest talent of the actor 
 must fail in answering the demand made by the author 
 upon our imagination. The utmost lavish of poetry, 
 not only of high conception, but of the most elaborate 
 working in the musical construction of the verse, and a 
 somewhat recondite searching after all the topics favour- 
 able to the display of poetic eloquence in the ornamental 
 style, is employed in the description of the fairy scenes 
 and those who dwell therein. Language more brilliantly 
 bejewelled with whatever tropes and figures rhetoricians 
 catalogue in their books is not to be found than what is 
 
 k3 
 
132 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEKS : 
 
 scattered forthwith copious hand^n Midsummer Nighfs 
 Dream. The compliment to Queen Elizabeth, 
 
 “In maiden meditation fancy-free,” 
 
 was of necessity sugared with all the sweets that the 
 lon-hon box of the poet could supply ; hut it is not more 
 ornamented than the passages all around. The pastoral 
 images of Gorin 
 
 “ Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love 
 To amorous PhilHda;” 
 
 the homely consequences resulting from the fairy 
 quarrel, 
 
 “ The ox hath therefore stretch’d his yoke in vain, 
 
 The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green com 
 Hath rotted ere his youth attain’d a beard ; 
 
 The fold stands empty in the drowned field. 
 
 And crows are fatted with the murrain flock 
 
 and so on, are ostentatiously contrasted with misfor- 
 tunes more metaphorically related : 
 
 “We see 
 
 The seasons alter ; hoary-headed frosts 
 Fall on the fresh lap of the crimson rose ; 
 
 And on old Hyems’ chin and icy crown 
 An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds 
 Is, as in mockery, set.” 
 
t>ICTUEES, GKAVE AND GAT. 
 
 133 
 
 The mermaid chau^iting on the back of her dolphin ; 
 the fair vestal throned in the west ; the bank blowing 
 with wild thyme, and decked with oxlip and nodding 
 violet ; the roundelay of the fairies singing their queen to 
 sleep ; and a hundred images beside of aerial grace and 
 mythic beauty, are showered upon us ; and in the midst 
 of these splendours is tumbled in Bottom the weaver, 
 blockhead by original formation, and rendered doubly 
 ridiculous by his partial change into a literal jackass. 
 
 He, the most unfitted for the scene of all conceivable 
 personages, makes his appearance, not as one to be 
 expelled with loathing and derision, but to be 
 instantly accepted as the chosen lover of the Queen of 
 the Fairies. The gallant train of Theseus traverse the 
 forest, but they are not the objects of such fortune. The 
 lady, under the oppression of the glamour cast upon her 
 eyes by the juice of love-in-idleness, reserves her rap- 
 tures for an absurd clown. Such are the tricks of 
 Fortune. 
 
 Oberon, himself, angry as he is with the caprices of ^ 
 his queen, does not anticipate any such object for her 
 charmed afiections. He is determined that she is to be 
 captivated by some vile thing,’’ but he thinks only of 
 
 “ Ounce, or cat or bear, 
 
 Pard, or boar with bristled hair,” 
 
134 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 animals suggesting ideas of spite^or terror ; but he does 
 not dream that, under the superintendence of Puck, 
 spirit of mischief, she is to be enamoured of the head of 
 an ass surmounting the body of a weaver. It is so 
 nevertheless ; and the love of the lady is as desperate 
 as the deformity of her choice. He is an angel that 
 wakes her from her flowery bed ; a gentle mortal, whose 
 enchanting note wins her ear, while his beauteous shape 
 enthralls her eye ; one who is as wise as he is beautiful ; 
 one for whom all the magic treasures of the fairy king- 
 dom are to be with surpassing profusion dispensed. For 
 him she gathers whatever wealth and delicacies the Land 
 of Faery can boast. Her most airy spirits are ordered 
 to be kind and courteous to this gentleman ^ — for into 
 that impossible character has the blindness of her love 
 transmuted the clumsy and conceited clown. Apricocks 
 and dewberries, purple grapes, green figs, and mul- 
 berries, are to feed his coarse palate ; the thighs of 
 bees, kindled at the eyes of fiery glow-worms, are to 
 light him to his flower-decked bed ; wings plucked from 
 painted butterflies are to fan the moonbeams from him 
 as he sleeps ; and in the very desperation of her intoxi- 
 cating passion she feels that there is nothing which 
 should not be yielded to the strange idol of her soul. 
 She mourns over the restraints which separate her from 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 135 
 
 the object of her burning affection, and thinks that the 
 moon and the flowers participate in her sorrow. 
 
 “ The moon, methinks, looks with a watery eye, 
 
 And when she weeps, weeps every little flower," 
 Lamenting some enforced chastity 
 
 Abstracting the poetry, we see the same thing every 
 day in the plain prose of the world. Many is the 
 Titania driven by some unintelligible magic so to waste 
 her love. Some juice, potent as that of Puck, — the 
 true Cupid of such errant passions, — often converts in 
 the eyes of woman the grossest defects into resistless 
 charms. The lady of youth and beauty will pass by 
 the attractions best calculated to captivate the opposite 
 sex, to fling herself at the feet of age or ugliness. 
 Another, decked with graces, accomplishments, and the 
 gifts of genius, and full of all the sensibilities of refine- 
 ment, will squander her affections on some good-for- 
 nothing roue^ whose degraded habits and pursuits banish 
 him far away from the polished scenes which she adorns. 
 The lady of sixteen quarters will languish for him who 
 has no arms but those which nature has bestowed ; from 
 the midst of the gilded salon a soft sigh may be directed 
 towards the thin-clad tenant of a garret ; and the heiress 
 of millions may vush them sunken in the sea if they 
 
136 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 form a barrier between her and the penniless lad toiling 
 for his livelihood, 
 
 “ Lord of his presence, and no land beside.” 
 
 Fielding has told us all this in his own way, in a distich, 
 (put, I believe, into the mouth of Lord Grizzle ; but, 
 as I have not the illustrious tragedy in which it appears, 
 before me, I am not certain, and must therefore leave it 
 to my readers to verify this important point.) Love 
 
 “ Lords into cellars hears, 
 
 And bids the brawny porter walk up -stairs.” 
 
 Tom Thumb and Midsummer JSfight^s Dream preach 
 the one doctrine. It would be amusing to trace the 
 courses of thought by which the heterogeneous minds of 
 Fielding and Shakspeare came to the same conclusion. 
 
 Ill-mated loves are generally but of short duration 
 on the side of the nobler party, and she awakes to 
 lament her folly. The fate of those who suffer like 
 Titania is the hardest. The man who is deprived of 
 external graces of appearance may have the power of 
 captivating by those of the mind : wit, polish, fame, 
 may compensate for the w^ant of youth or personal 
 attractions. In poverty or lowly birth may be found 
 all that may worthily inspire devoted affection — 
 
PICTUKES, GKAVE AND GAY. 
 
 13T 
 
 “ The rank is hut the guinea’s stamp, 
 
 The man ’s the gowd for a’ that.” 
 
 In the very dunghill of dissipation and disgrace will 
 he raked up occasionally a lurking pearl or two of 
 honourable feeling, or kind emotion, or irregular talent, 
 which may be dwelt upon by the fond eye, wilfully 
 averting its gaze from the miserable mass in which they 
 are buried. But woe unto the unhappy lady who, like 
 Titania, is obliged to confess, when the enchantment 
 has passed by, that she was “enamoured of an assP^ 
 She must indeed “ loathe his visage,’’ and the memory 
 of all connected with him is destined ever to be at- 
 tended by a strong sensation of disgust. 
 
 But the ass himself of whom she was enamoured V 
 has not been the less a favourite of Fortune, less happy 
 and self-complacent, because of her late repentance. 
 
 He proceeds onward as luckily as ever. Bottom, during 
 the time that he attracts the attentions of Titania, 
 never for a moment thinks there is anything extraor- 
 dinary in the matter. He takes the love of the Queen 
 of the Fairies as a thing of course, orders about her 
 tiny attendants as if they were so many apprentices at 
 his loom, and dwells in Fairy Land unobservant of its 
 wonders, as quietly as if he were still in his workshop. 
 Great is the courage and self-possession of an ass-head. ^ 
 
138 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS : 
 
 Theseus would have bent in reverent awe before Titania. 
 Bottom treats her as carelessly as if she were the wench 
 of the next-door tapster. Even Christopher Sly,"^ whe^ 
 
 * In comparing the characters of Sly and Bottom, we must he 
 struck with the remarkable profusion of picturesque and classical 
 allusions with which both these buffoons are surrounded. I have 
 quoted some of the passages from Midsummer Night's Dream 
 above. The Induction to the Taming of the Shrew is equaUy rich. 
 There, too, we have the sylvan scenery and the cheerful sport of 
 the huntsman, and there we also have references to Apollo and 
 Semiramis ; to Cytherea all in sedges hid ; to lo as she was a maid ; 
 to Daphne roaming through a thorny wood. The coincidence is 
 not casual. Shakspeare desired to elevate the scenes in which such 
 grovelhng characters played the principal part by all the artificial 
 graces of poetry, and to prevent them from degenerating into mere 
 farce. As I am on the subject, I cannot refrain from observing 
 that the remarks of Bishop Hurd on the character of the Lord in 
 the Induction to the Taming of the Shrew are marked by a ridi- 
 culous impertinence, and an ignorance of criticism truly astonishing. 
 They are made to swell, however, the strange farrago of notes 
 gathered by the variorum editors. The next editor may safely spare 
 them. 
 
 I have not troubled my readers with verbal criticism in this 
 paper, but I shall here venture on one conjectural emendation. 
 Hermia, chiding Demetrius, says. Act iii. sc. 2, 
 
 If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep. 
 
 Being o’er shoes in blood, wade in the deep. 
 
 And kill me too.” 
 
 Should we not read “ knee deep ?” As you are already over your 
 shoes, wade on until the bloody tide reaches your knees. In Shak- 
 speare’s time knee was generally spelt kne ; and between the and kne 
 there is not much difference in writing. 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 139 
 
 he finds himself transmuted into a lord, shows some 
 signs of astonishment. He does not accommodate him- 
 self to surrounding circumstances. The first order he 
 gives is for a pot of small ale ; and after all the elegant 
 luxuries of his new situation have been placed ostenta- 
 tiously before him — after he has smelt sweet savours, 
 and felt soft things — after he begins to think he is 
 
 “ A lord, indeed, 
 
 And not a tinker nor Christopher [o] Sly;” 
 
 even then nature — or habit, which stands in the place 
 of nature, — recurs invincible, and once more he calls 
 for a pot of the smallest ale. (I may again cite 
 Fielding in illustration of Shakspeare; for do we not 
 read, in the Covent Garden tragedy, of the consolation 
 that 
 
 “ Cold small beer is to the waking drunkard; ” 
 
 and do we not hear the voice of Christopher Sly pray- 
 ing, for God’s sake, in the midst of his lordly honours, 
 for a draught of that unlordly but long-accustomed 
 beverage?) In the Aralian NighVs Entertainments a 
 similar trick is played by the Caliph Haroun Al- 
 raschid upon Abou Hassan, and he submits, with much 
 reluctance, to believe himself the Commander of the 
 Faithful. But having in vain sought how to explain 
 
140 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 the enigma, he yields to the belief, and then performs 
 all the parts assigned to him, whether of business 
 or pleasure, of counsel or gallantry, with the easy 
 self-possession of a practised gentleman. Bottom has 
 none of the scruples of the tinker of Burton-heath, 
 or the hon vivoMt of Bagdad. He sits down amid 
 the fairies as one of themselves without any astonish'^ 
 ment ; but so far from assuming, like Abou Hassan, 
 the manners of the court where he has been so 
 strangely intruded, he brings the language and bear- 
 ing of the booth into the glittering circle of Queen 
 Titania. He would have behaved in the same man- 
 ner on the throne of the caliph, or in the bedizened 
 chamber of the lord; and the ass -head would have 
 victoriously carried him through. 
 
 Shakspeare has not taken the trouble of working 
 out the conclusion of the adventure of Sly; and the 
 manner in which it is finished in the old play where 
 he found him, is trifling and common-place. The 
 Arabian novelist repeats the jest upon his hero, and 
 concludes by placing him as a favourite in the court 
 of the amused caliph. This is the natural ending 
 of such an adventure; but, as Bottom’s was super- 
 natural, it was to conclude differently. He is there- 
 fore dismissed to his ordinary course of life, unaffected 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 141 
 
 by what has passed. He admits at first that it is 
 wonderful, but soon thinks it is nothing more than 
 a fit subject for a ballad in honour of his own name. 
 He falls at once to his old habit of dictating, boasting, 
 and swaggering, and makes no reference to what has 
 happened to him in the forest. It was no more than an 
 ordinary passage in his daily life. Fortune knew 
 where to bestow her favours. 
 
 Adieu then. Bottom the weaver ! and long may you 
 go onward prospering in your course ! But the prayer 
 is needless, for you carry about you the infallible 
 talisman of the ass -head. You will be always sure 
 of finding a Queen of the Fairies to heap her favours 
 upon you, while to brighter eyes and nobler natures 
 she remains invisible or averse. Be you ever the 
 chosen representative of the romantic and the tender 
 before dukes and princesses; and if the judicious 
 laugh at your efforts, despise them in return, setting 
 down their criticism to envy. This you have a right 
 to do. Have they, with all their wisdom and wit, 
 captivated the heart of a Titania as you have done? 
 Not they — nor will they ever. Prosper therefore, 
 with undoubting heart despising the rabble of the 
 wise. Go on your path rejoicing ; assert loudly your 
 claim to fill every character in life ; and may you 
 
142 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPERS : 
 
 be quite sure that as long as the noble race of the 
 Bottoms continues to exist, the chances of extraordi- 
 nary good luck will fall to their lot, while in the 
 ordinary course of life they will never be unattended 
 by the plausive criticism of a Peter Quince. 
 
 HIS LADIES.— LADY MACBETH. 
 
 “ Then gently scan your brother man, 
 
 More gently sister woman.” Burns. 
 
 “ Je donne mon avis, non comme bon, mais comme mien.” 
 
 Montaigne. 
 
 The ladies of Shakspeare have of course riveted the 
 attention, and drawn to them the sympathies, of all who 
 have read or seen his plays. The book-trained critic, 
 weighing words and sentences in his closet ; the romantic 
 poet, weaving his verses by grove or stream ; the polished 
 occupant of the private box ; the unwashed brawler of 
 the gallery ; the sedate visitant of the pit, are touched 
 each in his several way by the conjugal devotion and 
 melancholy fate of Desdemona, the high-souled principle 
 of Isabella, the enthusiastic love and tragic end of Juliet, 
 the maternal agonies of Constance, the stern energies of 
 Margaret of Anjou, the lofty resignation of Katharine, 
 the wit and romance of Rosalind, frolic of tongue, but 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY.' 
 
 143 
 
 deeply feeling at heart ; the accomplished coquetries 
 of Cleopatra, redeemed and almost sanctified by her 
 obedient rushing to welcome death at the call ringing in 
 her ears from the grave of her self- slain husband ; the 
 untiring affection of Imogen, Ophelia’s stricken heart 
 and maddened brain, or the filial constancy of Cordelia. 
 Less deeply marked, but all in their kind beautiful, are 
 the innocence of Miranda, the sweetness of Anne Page, 
 the meek bearing — beneath the obtrusion of undesired 
 honours — of Anne Boleyn, the playful fondness of 
 Jessica; — but I should run through all the catalogue of 
 Shakspeare’s plays were I to continue the enumeration. 
 The task is unnecessary, for they dwell in the hearts of 
 all, of every age, and sex, and condition. They nestle 
 in the bosoms of the wise and the simple, the sedentary 
 and the active, the moody and the merry, the learned 
 and the illiterate, the wit of the club, the rustic of the 
 farm, the soldier in camp, the scholar in college ; and it 
 afibrds a remarkable criterion of their general effect, 
 that, even in those foreign countries which, either from 
 imperfect knowledge, defective taste, or national pre- 
 judice, set little value on the plays of Shakspeare, — 
 while Hamlet, Richard, Macbeth, King John, Lear, and 
 Falstaflf, are unknown or rejected, the names of Des- 
 demona and Juliet are as familiar as household words. 
 
144 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 No writer ever created so many female characters, 
 or placed them in situations of such extreme diversity ; 
 and in none do we find so lofty an appreciation of 
 female excellence. The stories from which the great 
 dramatists of Athens drew their plots were, in most of 
 their striking incidents, derogatory to woman. The 
 tale of Troy divine, the war of Thebes, the heroic 
 legends, were their favourite, almost their exclusive 
 sources ; and the crimes, passions, and misfortunes of 
 Clytemnestra and Medea, Phmdra and Jocasta, could 
 only darken the scene. An adulterous spouse aiding in 
 the murder of her long-absent lord, the King of men, 
 returning crowned with conquest ; a daughter partici- 
 pating in the ruthless avenging by death inflicted on a 
 mother by a son ; an unpitying sorceress killing her 
 children to satiate rage against her husband ; a faith- 
 less wife endeavouring to force her shameless love on 
 her step-son, and by false accusation consigning him 
 for his refusal to destruction beneath his father’s curse ; 
 a melancholy queen linked in incestuous nuptials to her 
 own offspring ; — these ladies are the heroines of the 
 most renowned of the Greek tragedies ! and the conse- 
 quences of their guilt or misfortune compose the fable 
 of many more. In some of the Greek plays, as the 
 Eumenides, we have no female characters except the 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 145 
 
 unearthly habitants of heaven or hell ; in the most 
 wondrous of them all, Prometheus Fettered, appears 
 only the mythic lo ; in the Persians, only the ghost of 
 Atossa, who scarcely appertains to womankind : in 
 some, as Philoctetes, women form no part of the 
 dramatis personce ; in others, as the Seven against 
 Thebes, they are of no importance to the action of the 
 piece ; or, as in the Suppliants, serve but as the Chorus ; 
 and, in many more, are of less than secondary import- 
 ance. Euripides often makes them the objects of those 
 ungallant reflections which consign the misogynic dra- 
 matist to such summary punishment from the irritated 
 sex in the comedies of Aristophanes ; and in the whole 
 number, in the thirty-three plays extant, there are but 
 two women who can affect our nobler or softer emotions. 
 The tender and unremitting care of Antigone for her 
 blind, forlorn, and aged father, her unbending determi- 
 nation to sacriflce her lover and her life sooner than 
 fail in paying funeral honours to her fallen brother ; 
 and, in Alcestis, her resolute urging that her own life 
 should be taken to preserve that of a beloved husband, — 
 invest them with a pathetic and heroic beauty. But, 
 in the one, we are haunted by the horrid recollections 
 of incest and fratricide ; and in the other we are some- 
 what indignant that we should be forced to sympathize 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 with an affection squandered upon so heartless a fellow 
 as Admetus, who suffers his wife to perish in his stead 
 with the most undisturbed conviction of the superior 
 value of his own existence, pouring forth all the while 
 the most melodious lamentations over her death, but 
 never for a moment thinking of coming forward to pre- 
 vent it. They are beautiful creations, nevertheless. 
 
 The Greek dramatists were in a great measure bound 
 to a particular class of subjects ; but, in general, the 
 manner in which an author treats the female character, 
 affords one of the main criteria by which the various 
 gradations of genius may be estimated. By the 
 highest genius woman is always spoken of with a deep 
 feeling of the most reverential delicacy. Helen is the 
 cause of the war immortalized by the Iliad ; but no 
 allusion to her lapse is made throughout the poem save 
 by herself, deploring in bitter accents what she has 
 done. She wishes that she had died an evil death 
 before she followed Paris ; she acknowledges herself to 
 be unworthy of the kindred of those whom she describes 
 as deserving of honour ; her conscience suggests that 
 her far-famed brothers, ‘‘ whom one mother bore,” are 
 in the field when the warring chieftains meet in truce, 
 but dare not show themselves among their peers through 
 shame of the disgrace she has entailed upon them ; and, 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 147 
 
 at the last, she lays bare her internal feeling that insult 
 is the lot she deserves by the warm gratitude with 
 which she acknowledges, in her bitter lament over the 
 corse of Hector, that he had the generosity never to 
 address her with upbraiding. The wrath of Achilles is 
 roused for the injury inflicted upon him by carrying off 
 Briseis, dear to his heart, spear-captured as she was.’’ 
 She is restored by the penitent Agamemnon, with 
 solemn vows that she returns pure and uninsulted. Of 
 Andromache I think it unnecessary to speak. In the 
 Odyssey, it is true, we have Circe and Calypso ; but 
 they are goddesses couching with a mortal, and excite 
 no human passion. We meet them in the region of 
 speciosa miracula^^ where Cyclops, and Sirius, and 
 Lotus-eaters dwell ; where the King of the winds holds 
 his court, and whence is the passage to Erebus. In 
 that glorious mixture of adventure and allegory, — the 
 Voyage of Ulysses, — we may take those island beauties 
 to be the wives and sweethearts whom sailors meet in 
 every port ; or, following the stream of moralists and 
 commentators, look upon the fable to be no more than 
 
 “ Truth severe in fairy fiction dressed.” 
 
 In other parts of the poem we might wish for more 
 warm-heartedness in Penelope ; but under her circum- 
 
 L 3 
 
148 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 stances caution is excusable, and she must be admitted 
 to be a pattern of constancy and devotion. The Helen 
 of the Odyssey is a fine continuation of the Helen of 
 the Iliad. Still full of kindly feminine impulses, still 
 sorrowing when she thinks of the misfortunes she has 
 occasioned, her griefs have lost the intense poignancy 
 with which they afflicted her while leading a life degrad- 
 ing her in her own eyes, and exposing her to affronts 
 of which she could not complain. Restored to the 
 husband of her early affections, consoled by his pardon, 
 and dwelling once more amid the scenes of her youth, 
 — absence from which, and absence so occasioned, she 
 had never ceased to regret in wasting floods of tears, — 
 the Helen of the Odyssey comes before us no longer 
 uttering the accents of ceaseless self-reproach, but 
 soothed, if not pacified, in soul. We have the lull 
 after the tempest, — the calm following the whirlwind. 
 
 Virgil is a great poet indeed, though few will now 
 agree with Scaliger that he is equal, far less superior, 
 to Homer. Dido is the blot upon the -®neid. The 
 loves of the Carthaginian queen might have made, and 
 in the hands of Virgil would have made, a charming 
 poem, treated separately,—a poem far superior in exe- 
 cution to the Hero and Leander of Musaeus, but a 
 work of the same order. As it stands, the episode, if 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 149 
 
 it can be so called, utterly ruins the epic character of 
 the hero. St. Evremond has said that -®neas had all 
 the qualities of a monk ; it is plain that he had not the 
 feelings of a gentleman ; and we cannot wonder that 
 his first wife wandered from his side, and that he met 
 with so violent an opposition when he sought another. 
 Virgil, after his conduct to Dido, had not the courage 
 to introduce him to Lavinia in person, and leaves him 
 undefended to the angry tongue of her mother. The 
 poet was justly punished for his fourth book ; for, in all 
 those which follow, *he has not ventured to introduce 
 any female characters but incendiaries, sibyls, shrews, 
 and furies. 
 
 When Dante took Virgil as his guide in the infernal 
 regions, he did not follow his master in dwelling on 
 the pleasures or the gentler sorrows of illicit love. 
 His ghostly women appear stern, or subdued of port. 
 The lady who is best known to the English reader, 
 Francesca di Rimini, forms no exception. Nothing 
 can be more grave and solemn than the tale of her 
 hapless passion, as told in the Inferno. It is pervaded 
 throughout by such sorrow and remorse as we might 
 expect to find in a region whence hope is excluded. 
 Accordingly how far different is its impression from 
 that left on the mind by the same story when told 
 
150 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPEES : 
 
 merely as a love-tale by Mr. Leigh Hunt. I do not 
 say this in disparagement of that picturesque and 
 graphic poem, the Story of Rintini^ which has been 
 exposed to the most unjustifiable criticism; but to 
 mark the manner in which men of talent and men of 
 genius handle the same subject. The ladies of Tasso, 
 though not vigorously sketched, and in general imitated 
 from the Latin poets, — I speak of his Jerusalem, — are 
 conceived in a spirit of romantic chivalry ; and, even 
 when the witching Armida leads Rinaldo astray, the 
 poet diverts our attention from the blandishments of 
 the enchantress to dazzle us by the wonders of magic 
 groves and gardens. Poor Tasso, besides, wishes to 
 persuade us — perhaps in some moody hours he had 
 persuaded himself — that he intended the whole poem 
 for an allegory, in which Armida was to play some 
 edifying part, — I forget what. In the poets of ro- 
 mance we do not look for the severer style of the epic ; 
 but the forest-ranging heroines of Ariosto and Spenser, 
 roaming the woodland, frank and free,” have an air 
 of self-confiding independence and maiden freshness, 
 worthy of the leafy scenes through which they move, 
 that renders it impossible to approach them with other 
 thoughts than those of chivalrous deference. If Spen- 
 ser, in his canto of Jealousy, makes the lady of the 
 
PICTUEES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 151 
 
 victim of that weak passion treat her husband as he 
 had anticipated, why, she errs with no man of mortal 
 mould, but chooses as her mates the jolly satyrs won- 
 ning in the wood ; and Spenser has his allegory too. 
 Ariosto took no trouble to make explanations, being 
 satisfied, I suppose, wkh the character given of his 
 poetry by Cardinal Hippolyto; and even he has the 
 grace to beg the ladies, to whose service he had from 
 the beginning dedicated his lays, to avert their eyes 
 when he is about to sing the strange adventures of 
 Giocondo.^ 
 
 ^ Orlando Furioso, canto xxii. st. 1, 2, 3. 
 
 1 . 
 
 Donne, e voi die le donne avete in pregio, 
 
 Per Dio, non date a questa istoria orecchia, 
 A questa che 1 ostier dire in dispregio, 
 
 E in vostra infamia e biasmo s’appareecbia ; 
 Benche ne macchia vi puo dar ne fregio 
 Lingua si vile ; e sia I’usanza veccMa, 
 
 Che 1 volgare ignorante ognun riprenda, 
 
 E parle piu de quel meno intenda. 
 
 II. 
 
 ^ Lasciate questo canto, che senz* esso 
 
 Puo star I’istoria, e non sara men chiara ; 
 Mettendolo Turpino, anch’ io V 6 messo. 
 
 Non per malevolenzia, ne per gara; 
 
 Ch’ io v’ ami oltre mia lingua che V a expresso, 
 Che mai non fu di eelehrarvi avara, 
 
153 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEES : 
 
 The theme of Milton in Paradise Lost^ hardly ad- 
 mits of the development of ordinary human feelings ; 
 but his sole Eve has grace in all her steps, and all her 
 actions too. In Paradise Regained his subject was 
 
 N’ 0 falto mille prove, e v’ o dimostro 
 Ch’ io son ne potrei esser se non vostro. 
 
 III. 
 
 “Passi chi vuol tre carte, o quattro, senza 
 Leggeme verso, e chi pur legge vuole 
 Gli dia quella medesima credenza, 
 
 Che si vuol dare a finzion, e a foie,” (fee. 
 
 which thus may he rollingly Englished, 
 
 Ladies, and you to whom ladies are dear, 
 
 For God’s sake don’t lend to this story an ear. 
 
 Care not for fables of slander or blame 
 W^hich this scandalous chronicler flings on your name. 
 Spots that can stain you vith slight or with wrong 
 Cannot he cast by so worthless a tongue. 
 
 Well is it known, as an usage of old. 
 
 That the ignorant vulgar will ever he hold, 
 
 Satire and censure stiU scattering, and 
 Talking the most where they least understand. 
 
 Passed over unread let this canto remain, 
 
 Without it the story will be just as plain. 
 
 As Turpin has put it, so I put it too ; 
 
 But not from iU-feeling, dear ladies, to you. 
 
 My love to your sex has been shown in my lays ; 
 
 To you I have never been niggard of praise; 
 
 And many a proof I have given which secures 
 That I am, and can never be other than yours. 
 
PICTUEES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 153 
 
 badly chosen ; and he feared, from religious motives, 
 to introduce the Virgin. In Comus his Lady is a 
 model of icy chastity, worthy of the classic verse in 
 which she is embalmed ; but Dalilah in Samson Ago- 
 nistes is the more dramatic conception. Ornate and 
 gay, she makes urgent court to her angry husband, 
 with no better fate than to be by him inexorably repelled. 
 She presses upon him all the topics that could lead to 
 reconciliation, but the sense of his wrongs is too acute 
 to allow of pardon ; and at last she bursts away with 
 the consoling reflection that, though spurned by him, 
 and made the object of reproach in Israelitish songs. 
 
 Skip three or four pages, and read not a word ; 
 
 Or, if you will read it, pray deem it absurd. 
 
 As a story in credit not better or worse 
 
 Than the foobsh old tales you were told by the nurse. 
 
 I do not mean to defend my doggrel ; but I think xAriosto has 
 not yet bad an adequate translator in Engbsb, or indeed in any 
 language ; nor, in my opinion, will be easily find one. The poem 
 is too long, and requires the aid of the music of the original lan- 
 guage to carry the reader through. I do not know what metre in 
 Engbsb could contend against the probxity ; but I do know that 
 Ariosto sadly wants— as what classic in the vernacular languages 
 does not? — a better critic of bis text than be has yet found, in 
 Itaban. 
 
 In the above passage it is somewhat amusing to find Ariosto 
 assuring bis readers that they might pass this particular canto, 
 because without it “pwo star Vistoria;** as if there were a csmto in 
 the whole poem of which the same might not be said. 
 
154 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS I 
 
 she shall be hymned and honoured in those of her own 
 country as a deliverer. Milton w^as unhappy in his 
 wives and daughters; and his domestic manners ap- 
 pear to have been harsh and unamiable. In his prose 
 works, his Tetrachordon for example, he does not 
 display any kindly feeling for the sex ; but when he 
 clothed himself in his singing robes, and soared above 
 the cares of every-day life, to expatiate in the purer 
 regions of poetry, the soul of the poet softened and 
 sublimed; like his own Adam, his sterner nature 
 relented ; and, though he could not make Samson par- 
 don Dalilah, he will not let her depart unhonoured. In 
 Paradise Lost ^ he had spoken of her disparagingly, — 
 
 “ So rose the Danite strong, 
 
 Herculean Samson, from the harlot lap 
 Of Philistsean Dahlah;” 
 
 but when she comes before him, as it were, in bodily 
 presence, he leaves all the words of reproach to her 
 irritated lord, and suggests to her, topics of self-justi- 
 fication, dismissing her from the stage, not as a faithless 
 wife, but as a heroic woman, who had sacrificed her 
 affections to her country, and who retires after humili- 
 ating herself in vain to reap the reward of her patriotic 
 conduct among her people and her kindred. 
 
 If we turn from the epic and tragic to the other de- 
 
PICTUEES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 155 
 
 partments of literature in which genius can he exercised, 
 we shall find the feeling much the same. Those who 
 write from observation of what is going on in the world, 
 — the novelist, the comic writer, the satirist, — must 
 take the world as it is, and lay it before us in its 
 mixture of good and evil. There is no need, however, 
 that the latter should be forcibly thrust upon us. The 
 task of the satirists appears to me the lowest in which 
 talent can be employed. The most famous among them, 
 Juvenal, tells us truly that the rigidi censura cachinni 
 — the part chosen by Democritus — is easy to any one. 
 We must rise above it, as he has done in some of his 
 satires, — as in that sublime poem in which the passage 
 occurs, the tenth, or the thirteenth and fourteenth, — 
 and forget the wit or the censor to assume the loftier 
 bearing of the moralist. I should have wondered that 
 the same mind which produced these noble eflusions 
 could have perpetrated the enormities of the sixth satire 
 and some others, if I did not reflect that Rome, originally 
 an asylum for robbers, was nothing more than a stand- 
 ing camp, with the virtues and vices, the manners and 
 the feelings of a camp, to the day of its downfall. Rape 
 and violence procured its first women, and it would seem 
 as if the original act had influenced their feelings to the 
 sex throughout. It is certain that theirs is the only 
 
156 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS I 
 
 literature in the world in which no female character is 
 delineated worthy of the slightest recollection — a strik- 
 ing circumstance, and well deserving critical investiga- 
 tion ; but it would now lead us too far from our subject, 
 from which indeed I have delayed too long already. 
 We must get back to Shakspeare, staying only to re- 
 mark that if Boccacio and his imitator, Chaucer, have 
 intermingled licentious tales in their miscellaneous col- 
 lection, they have done so, only in compliance with the 
 supposed necessity of delineating every species of life, 
 and that they hasten to show that they could be of 
 finer spirit when emancipated from the thraldom of 
 custom ; that Cervantes chequers the comic of Don 
 Quixote with visions of graceful and romantic beauty ; 
 and that such will be found to be the case more or less 
 in every composition that takes firm hold of the human 
 mind. I except, of course, works of morals, science, 
 and philosophy : and under those heads must come the 
 unromantic and unpoetic books of wit, and even buf- 
 foonery, if they be doomed to last. Rabelais will live 
 for ever to speak vocally to the intelligent ; but mere 
 licentiousness must perish. Indulgence in woman- 
 scorning ribaldry inflicts due punishment upon talent 
 itself, if it be prostituted to such miserable work. The 
 melancholy ability which has been so successful in La 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 157 
 
 Piicelle affords a sufficient reason why its author failed 
 when he attempted a Henriade, 
 
 Supereminent over all the great geniuses of the world 
 and with no others have I compared him — is Shakspeare 
 in his women. Homer was not called upon to intro- 
 duce them in such number or variety, nor could they 
 enter so intimately into the action of his poems. Still 
 less was there opportunity for their delineation in Milton. 
 But Shakspeare’ s is the unique merit that, being a 
 dramatist wielding equally the highest tragic and the 
 lowest comic, and therefore compelled to bring females 
 prominently forward in every variety of circumstance^ 
 he has carefully avoided themes and situations which 
 might either inspire horror or disgust, or excite licen- 
 tious feeling. We have in him no Phsedra, Clytem- 
 nestra or Medea; no story like those of Jocasta, or 
 Monimia, or the Mysterious Mother. He would have 
 recoiled from what is hinted at in Manfred. Even the 
 Myrrha of Sardanapalus could not have found a place 
 among his heroines. In none of his plots, comic or 
 tragic, does female frailty form an ingredient. The 
 only play in which ladies have been betrayed is Measure 
 for Measure ; and there he takes care that their mis- 
 fortune shall be amended, by marrying Mariana to 
 Angelo, and ordering Claudio to restore honour to 
 
158 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 Julietta, whom he had wronged. Nowhere else does a 
 similar example occur, and there it is set in strong 
 contrast with the high-toned purity of Isabella. In 
 the instances of slandered women, it seems to delight 
 him to place them triumphant over their slanderers ; 
 as Hero in Much Ado about Nothing^ Hermione in the 
 Winter^ s Tale^ Imogen in Oymheline. All his heroes 
 woo with the most honourable views ; there is no in- 
 trigue in any of his plays, no falsehood to the married 
 bed. Those who offer illicit proposals are exposed to 
 ruin and disgrace. Angelo falls from his lofty station. 
 Prince John is driven from his brother’s court. Falstaff, 
 the wit and courtier, becomes a butt, when his evil star 
 leads him to make lawless courtship to the Wives of 
 Windsor. The innocent and natural love of Miranda 
 in the Tempest affords a striking contrast to the coarse 
 and disgusting passion of Dorinda : a character thrust 
 into the play as an improvement by no less a man than 
 Dryden. Here again we may remark how great is the 
 distance which separates genius of the first order even 
 from that which comes nearest to it. The two most 
 detestable women ever drawn by Shakspeare — ^Regan 
 and Goneril — are both in love with Edmund ; but we 
 have no notice of their passion until the moment of 
 their death, and then we find that, wicked as were the 
 
PICTUKES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 159 
 
 thoughts which rankled in their bosoms, no infringement 
 of the laws of chastity was contemplated ; marriage 
 was their intention : I was contracted to them both,’^ 
 
 says Edmund ; “ all three now marry in an instant.” 
 With his dying breath he bears testimony that in the 
 midst of their crimes they were actuated by the domi- 
 nant feeling of woman : 
 
 “ Yet Edmund was beloved ; 
 
 The one the other poisoned for his sake, 
 
 And after slew herself,” 
 
 Emilia is accused by lago in soliloquy as being sus- 
 pected of faithlessness to his bed, but he obviously does 
 not believe the charge : — 
 
 “ I hate the Moor j 
 
 And it is thought abroad that ’twi^t my sheets 
 He has done my office; I know not if he true. 
 
 But I, for mere suspicion in that kind, 
 
 Will do as if for surety.” 
 
 He uses it merely as an additional excuse for hating 
 the Moor ; a palliation to his conscience in the career 
 which he is about to pursue. Queen Gertrude’s mar- 
 riage with her brother-in-law is made the subject of 
 severe aniinadv<^rsion ; but it does not appear that she 
 had dishonoured herself in the life of her first husband, 
 or was in any manner participant in the crime of 
 Claudius. Hamlet, in the vehemence of his anger. 
 
160 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 never insinuates sucli a charge ; and the Ghost, rising 
 to moderate his violence, acquits her by his very ap- 
 pearance at such a time, of any heinous degree of 
 guilt. As for the gross theory of Tieck respecting 
 Ophelia, it is almost a national insult. He maintains 
 that she had yielded to Hamlet’s passion, and that its 
 natural consequences had driven her to suicide. Such 
 a theory is in direct opposition to the retiring and 
 obedient purity of her character, the tenour of her 
 conversations and soliloquies, the general management 
 of the play, and what I have endeavoured to show 
 is the undeviating current of Shakspeare’s ideas. If 
 the German critic propounded this heresy to insult 
 English readers through one of their greatest favourites 
 in revenge for the ungallant reason which the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury,*^ in Henry F., assigns as the 
 origin of the Salique law, he might be pardoned ; but, 
 as it is plainly dictated by a spirit of critical wicked- 
 
 * Henry V. act i. sc. 2. Archbishop Chicheley’s argument is 
 “ The land Salique lies in Germany, 
 
 Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe, 
 
 Where Charles the Great, having subdued the Saxons, 
 
 There left behind and settled certain French, 
 
 Who, holding in disdain the German women 
 For some dishonest manners of their lifey 
 Established there this law, to wit, no female 
 Should be inheritrix in Salique land.” 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 161 
 
 ness and blasphemy, I should consign him, in spite 
 of learning, acuteness, and Shakspearian knowledge, 
 without compassion, to the avenging hands of Lysis- 
 trata."^ 
 
 Such, in the plays where he had to create the 
 characters, was the course of Shakspeare. In the 
 historical plays, where he had to write by the book, 
 it is not at all different. Scandal is carefully avoided. 
 Many spots lie on the fame of Queen Elinor, but no 
 reference is made to them by the hostile tongue which 
 describes the mother-queen as a second Ate, stirring 
 her son. King John, to blood and strife. Jane Shore, 
 of whom Kowe, a commentator on Shakspeare too, 
 made a heroine, is not introduced on the stage in 
 Richard III. Poor Joan of Arc is used brutally, 
 it, must be owned; but it is not till she is driven to 
 the stake that she confesses to an infirmity which not 
 even her barbarous judges can seriously believe. We 
 must observe, besides, that the first part of Henry VI. 
 can scarcely be considered a play of Shakspeare, for 
 he did little more than revise the old play of that 
 name. To the charge of the older dramatist, too, 
 must be set the strange exhibition of Margaret of 
 Anjou mourning over the head of the Duke of Suffolk 
 
 * Aristoph. Lysistr, 
 
 M 
 
163 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEES : 
 
 in the second part. When Shakspeare has that vigor- 
 ous woman to himself, as in Richard IIL^ she shows 
 no traces of such weakness : she is the heroic asserter 
 of her husband’s rights, the unsubdued but not-to-be- 
 comforted mourner over her foully slaughtered son. 
 He makes the scenes of the civil wars sad enough ; the 
 father kills the son, the son the father, under the eyes 
 of the pitying king ; but there is no hint of outrage 
 on women. He contrives to interest us equally in 
 Katharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. Everything 
 that poetry can do, is done, to make us forget the 
 faults of Cleopatra, and to incline us to thiuk that a 
 world was well lost for that petit nez retrousse. We 
 should in vain search the writings of the Romans 
 themselves for such Roman ladies as those of Ooriolanus 
 and Julius Ocesar. In his camps and armies we have 
 much military tumult and railing, but nowhere the 
 introduction of licentious scenes. If Alcibiades be 
 attended by his Phrynia and Timandra, and Fal- 
 stalF have his poll clawed like a parrot by Doll Tear- 
 sheet, the Athenian ladies are introduced as a vehicle 
 for the fierce misanthropy of Timon, and the fair one of 
 Eastcheap acts as a satire upon the impotent desires of 
 the withered elder, the dead elm, whom she clasps in her 
 venal embraces. They are drawn in their true colours: 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 163 
 
 no attempt is made to bedeck them with sentimental 
 graces — to hold them up to sympathetic admiration 
 with the maudlin novelist, or to exhibit them as in- 
 teresting young females’’ with the police reporter. 
 They lift not their brazen fronts in courts and palaces ; 
 in obscure corners they ply their obscene trade. We 
 know that it is their vocation, and dismiss them from 
 our minds. There is no corruption to be feared from 
 the example of the inmates of Mr. Overdone’s establish- 
 ment or Mrs. Quickly’s tavern. Shakspeare exhibits 
 only one fallen lady in all his plays — and she is 
 Cressida. But Troilus and Oressida deserves a separate 
 paper, if for no other reason, yet because it is a play 
 in which Shakspeare has handled the same characters 
 as Homer. It is worth while to consider in what 
 points these greatest of poets agree, and in what they 
 differ/ 
 
 Such, then, is the female character as drawn in 
 Shakspeare. It is pure, honourable, spotless, — ever 
 ready to perform a kind action, — never shrinking from 
 a heroic one. Gentle and submissive where duty or 
 affection bids, — firm and undaunted in resisting the 
 approaches of sin, or shame, or disgrace. Constant in 
 love through every trial, — faithful and fond in all the 
 great relations of life, as wife, as daughter, as sister, as 
 
 M 3 
 
164 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEKS ! 
 
 mother, as friend, — witty or refined, tender or romantic, 
 lofty or gay, — her failings shrouded, her good and 
 lovely qualities brought into the brightest light, she 
 appears in the pages of the mighty dramatist as if she 
 were the cherished daughter of a fond father, the 
 idolized mistress of an adoring lover, the very goddess 
 of a kneeling worshipper. I have catalogued most of 
 the female names which adorn the plays. One is 
 absent from the list. She is absent ; the dark lady of 
 that stupendous work which, since the Eumenides, 
 bursting upon the stage with appalling howl in quest of 
 the fugitive Orestes, electrified with terror the Athenian 
 audience, has met no equal. I intend to maintain that 
 Lady Macbeth, too, is human in heart and impulse, — 
 that she is not meant to be an embodiment of the 
 Furies. 
 
 Macbeth is the gloomiest of the plays. Well may 
 its hero say that he has supped full of horrors. It 
 opens with the incantations of spiteful witches, and 
 concludes with a series of savage combats, stimulated 
 by quenchless hate on one side, and by the desperation 
 inspired by the consciousness of unpardonable crime on 
 the other. In every act we have blood in torrents. 
 The first man who appears on the stage is the bleeding 
 captain. The first word uttered by earthly lips is, 
 
PICTUKES, GKAVE AND GAY. 
 
 165 
 
 What bloody man is that ? ” The tale which the 
 captain relates is full of fearful gashes, reeking wounds, 
 and bloody execution . The murder of Duncan in the 
 second act stains the hands of Macbeth so deeply as to 
 render them fit to incarnadine the multitudinous seas, 
 and make the green — one red. His lady imbrues her- 
 self in the crimson stream, and gilds the faces of the 
 sleeping grooms with gore. She thus afibrds a pretence 
 to the thane for slaughtering them in an access of 
 simulated fury. 
 
 “ Their hands and faces were all hadged with blood, 
 
 So were their daggers, which unwiped we found 
 Upon their pillows.” 
 
 Macbeth carefully impresses the sanguinary scene upon 
 his hearers : 
 
 “ Here lay Duncan, 
 
 His silver skin laced with his golden blood, 
 
 And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature 
 For ruin’s wasteful entrance ; there the murderers. 
 
 Steeped in the colours of their trade, their daggers 
 Unmannerly breeched in gore.'* 
 
 Direful thoughts immediately follow, and the sky itself 
 participates in the horror. The old man who can well 
 remember threescore and ten, during which time he 
 had witnessed dreadful hours and strange things, con- 
 
166 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEES ! 
 
 siders all as mere trifles, compared with the sore night 
 of Duncan’s murder. 
 
 “ The heavens, 
 
 Thou seest, as troubled with man’s act, 
 
 Threaten his bloody stage ; by the clock ’tis day. 
 
 And yet dark night strangles the travelhng lamp.” 
 
 The horses of Duncan forget their careful training, and 
 their natural instincts, to break their stalls and eat 
 each other. Gloom, ruin, murder, horrible doubts, 
 unnatural suspicions, portents of dread in earth and 
 heaven, surround us on all sides. In the third act, 
 desperate assassins, incensed by the blows and buffets 
 of the world, weary with disasters, tugged with for- 
 tune, willing to wreak their hatred on all mankind, and 
 persuaded that Banquo has been their enemy, set upon 
 and slay him, without remorse and without a word. 
 The prayer of their master to Night, that she would, 
 with 
 
 Bloody and invisible hand. 
 
 Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond ” 
 
 which kept him in perpetual terror, is in part accom- 
 plished ; and he who was his enemy in, as he says, 
 
 “Such bloody distance, 
 
 That every minute of his being thrusts 
 Against my life,” 
 
/ / l/l\- 
 "''(W-Urw- ' 
 
 PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. ' 'H}? / M 1 / 
 
 C'' /, 1,7, 
 
 lies breathless in the dust. The murderers bring the 
 witness of their deed to the very banquet-chamber 
 of the expecting king. They come with hlood upon the 
 face. The hardened stabber does not communicate the 
 tidings of his exploit in set phrase. He minces not 
 the matter, — his language is not culled from any trim 
 and weeded vocabulary; and the king compliments 
 him in return, in language equally vernacular and 
 unrefined. 
 
 “ Mur. My lord, his throat is cut ; that I did for him. 
 Mac. Thou art the best o’ the cut-throats.” 
 
 Cheered by this flattering tribute to his merits, the 
 accomplished artist goes on, in all the pride of his 
 profession, to show that he had left no rubs or botches 
 in his work. Macbeth, after a burst of indignation at 
 the escape of Fleance, recurs to the comfortable assur- 
 ance of Banquo’s death, and asks, in the full certainty 
 of an answer in the affirmative, 
 
 “ But Banquo’s safe ? 
 
 Mur. Ay, my good lord : safe in a ditch he bides. 
 
 With twenty trenched gashes on his head ; 
 
 The least a death to nature. 
 
 Mac. Thanks for that.” 
 
 Presently the gory locks of Banquo’s spectre attest 
 
168 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEKS : 
 
 I ' ■ 
 
 the truth of what the murderer has told^ and the 
 banquet breaks up by the flight, rather than the 
 retirement, of the astonished guests ; leaving Macbeth 
 dismally, but fiercely, pondering over thoughts steeped 
 in slaughter. The very language of the scene is redo- 
 lent of blood. The word itself occurs in almost 
 every speech. At the conclusion of the act, come 
 the outspeaking of suspicions hitherto only muttered, 
 and the determination of the Scottish nobles to make 
 an efibrt ^which may give to their tables meat, sleep 
 to their eyes, and free their feasts and banquets from 
 those bloody knives, the fatal hue of which haunted 
 them in their very hours of retirement, relaxation, or 
 festival. 
 
 The sanguine stain dyes the fourth act as deeply. A 
 head severed from the body, and a bloody child, are 
 the first apparitions that rise before the king at the 
 bidding of the weird sisters. The blood-boltered 
 Banquo is the last to linger upon the stage, and sear 
 the eyes of the amazed tyrant. The sword of the 
 assassin is soon at work in the castle of Macduff; 
 and his wife and children fly from the deadly blow, 
 shrieking murder ’’ — in vain. And the fifth act, — 
 from its appalling commencement, when the sleeping 
 lady plies her hopeless task of nightly washing the 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 169 
 
 blood-stained hand, through the continual clangour 
 of trumpets calling, as clamorous harbingers, to blood 
 and death, to its conclusion, when MacduflF, with drip- 
 ping sword, brings in the freshly hewn-off head of the 
 dead butcher,’’ to lay it at the feet of the victo- 
 rious Malcolm, — exhibits a sequence of scenes in 
 which deeds and thoughts of horror and violence are 
 perpetually, and almost physically, forced upon the 
 attention of the spectator. In short, the play is 
 one clot of blood from beginning to end. It was 
 objected to Alfieri, (by Grimm, I believe,) that he 
 wrote his tragedies not in tears, but blood. Shak- 
 speare could write in tears when he pleased. In 
 Macbeth he chose to dip his pen in a darker current. 
 
 Nowhere in the course of the play does he seek 
 to beguile us of our tears. We feel no more interest 
 in the gracious Duncan, in Banquo, in Lady MacduflF, 
 than we do in the slp^ughtered grooms. We feel that 
 they have been brutally murdered; and, if similar 
 occurrences were to take place in Wapping or Rother- 
 hithe, London would be in commotion. All the police 
 from A to Z would be set on the alert, the newspapers 
 crammed with paragraphs, and a hot search instigated 
 after the murderer. If taken, he would be duly tried, 
 wondered at, gazed after, convicted, hanged and for- 
 
170 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS*. 
 
 gotten. We should think no more of his victim than 
 we now think of Hannah Browne. The other cha- 
 racters of the play, with the exception of the two 
 principal, are nonentities. We care nothing for Mal- 
 colm or Donalbain, or Lenox or Rosse, or the rest of 
 the Scottish nobles. Pathetic, indeed, are the words 
 which burst from Macduff when he hears the astound- 
 ing tidings that all his pretty chickens and their dam 
 have been carried off at one fell swoop ; but he soon 
 shakes the woman out of his eyes, and dreams only of 
 revenge. His companions are slightly affected by the 
 bloody deed, and grief is in a moment converted into 
 rage. It is but a short passage of sorrow, and the 
 only ono of the kind. What is equally remarkable 
 is, that we have but one slight piece of comic in the 
 play, — the few sentences given to the porter;"^ and 
 
 The speech of this porter is in blank verse. 
 
 Here is a knocking ^indeed ! If a man 
 
 IVere porter of heU-gate, he should have old 
 
 Turning the key. Knock — knock — knock ! Who is there, 
 
 In the name of Beelzebub ? Here is a farmer 
 
 That hanged himself [up] on the expectation 
 
 Of plenty : come in time. Have napkins enough 
 
 About you. Here you 11 sweat for it. Knock — knock ! 
 
 Who ’s there, in the other devil’s name ? [!’] faith 
 
 Here ’s an equivocator, that could swear 
 
 In both the scales ’gainst either scale ; [one] who 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 171 
 
 their humour turns upon a gloomy subject for jest, — 
 the occupation of the keeper of the gates of hell. With 
 these two exceptions, — the brief pathos of Macduff, and 
 the equally brief comedy of the porter, — all the rest is 
 blood. Tears and laughter have no place in this cavern 
 of death. 
 
 Of such a gory poem, Macbeth is the centre, the 
 moving spirit. From the beginning, before treason 
 has entered his mind, he appears as a man delight- 
 ing in blood. The captain announcing his deeds against 
 Macdonwald, introduces him bedabbled in slaughter. 
 
 Committed treason enough for Cod’s sake, yet 
 Cannot equivocate to heaven. Oh ! come in, 
 
 Equivocator. Knock — knock — knock ! Who’s there ? 
 
 ’Eaith, here ’s an English tailor come hither 
 
 Eor steahng out of a French hose. Come in, tailor. 
 
 Here you may roast your goose. 
 
 Knock — knock — 
 
 Never in quiet. 
 
 Who are you ? hut this place is too Cold for hell. 
 
 I ’ll devil-porter it no longer. I had thought 
 T’ have let in some of all professions. 
 
 That go the primrose-path to th’ everlasting darkness. 
 
 The alterations I propose are very shght. U]pon for on, V faith 
 for faith^ and the introduction of the word one in a place where it 
 is required. The succeeding dialogue is also in blank verse. So is 
 the sleeping scene of Lady Macbeth ; and that so palpably, that I 
 wonder it could ever pass for prose. 
 
172 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS ! 
 
 “For brave Macbeth, — well he deserves that name, — 
 Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel, 
 
 Which smoked with bloody execution. 
 
 Like valour’s minion carved out his passage 
 Until he faced the slave ; 
 
 And ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him. 
 
 Till he unseamed him from the nave to the chops,* 
 
 And fixed his head upon our battlements.” 
 
 After this desperate backstroke, as Warburton justly 
 calls it,"^ Macbeth engages in another combat equally 
 sanguinary. He and Banquo 
 
 “ Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe ; 
 
 Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds. 
 
 Or memorize another Golgotha, 
 
 I cannot tell.” 
 
 Hot from such scenes, he is met by the witches. They 
 promise him the kingdom of Scotland. The glittering 
 prize instantly affects his imagination ; he is so wrapt 
 in thought at the very moment of its announcement that 
 he cannot speak. He soon informs us what is the hue 
 of the visions passing through his mind. The witches 
 
 Warburton proposes that we should read “ from the nape to the 
 chops,” as a more probable wound. But this could hardly be called 
 unseaming ; and the wound is intentionally horrid to suit the cha- 
 racter of the play. So, for the same reason, when Duncan is mur- 
 dered, we are made to remark that the old man had much blood 
 in him. 
 
PIGTUKES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 173 
 
 had told him he was to be king : they had not said a 
 word about the means. He instantly supplies them : 
 
 “ Why do I yield to that suggestion 
 Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair, 
 
 And make my seated heart knock at my ribs 
 Against the use of nature.” 
 
 The dreaded word itself soon comes : 
 
 “ My thought, whose mueder yetis hut fantastical, 
 
 Shakes so my single state of man, that function 
 Is smothered in surmise.” 
 
 To a mind so disposed, temptation is unnecessary. The 
 thing was done. Duncan was marked out for murder 
 before the letter was written to Lady Macbeth, and she 
 only followed the thought of her husband. 
 
 Love for him is in fact her guiding passion. She sees 
 that he covets the throne,— that his happiness is wrapt 
 up in the hope of being a king, — and her part is 
 accordingly taken without hesitation. With the blind- 
 ness of affection, she persuades herself that he is full of 
 the milk of human kindness, and that he would reject 
 false and unholy ways of attaining the object of his 
 desire. She deems it, therefore, her duty to spirit him 
 to the task. Fate and metaphysical aid, she argues, 
 have destined him for the golden round of Scotland. 
 
174 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 Shall she not lend her assistance ? She does not ask 
 the question twice. She will. Her sex, her woman’s 
 breasts, her very nature, oppose the task she has pre- 
 scribed to herself ; but she prays to the ministers of 
 murder, to the spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, to 
 make thick her blood, and stop up the access and pas- 
 sage of remorse ; and she succeeds in mustering the 
 desperate courage which bears her through. Her insti- 
 gation was not in reality wanted. Not merely the 
 murder of Duncan, but of Malcolm, was already resolved 
 on by Macbeth. 
 
 “ The Prince of Cumberland ! That is a step 
 On which I must faU down, or else o’erleap, 
 
 For in my way it lies. Stars ! hide your fires, 
 
 Let not light see my black and dark desires ! ” 
 
 As the time for the performance of the deed ap- 
 proaches, he is harassed by doubts ; but he scarcely 
 shows any traces of compunction or remorse. He pauses 
 before the crime, — not from any hesitation at its enor- 
 mity, but for fear of its results, — for fear of the poisoned 
 chalice being returned to his own lips, — for fear of the 
 trumpet-tongued indignation which must attend the 
 discovery of the murder of so popular a prince as 
 Duncan, — one who has borne his faculties so meekly. 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 175 
 
 and loaded Macbeth himself with honours. He is not 
 haunted by any feeling for the sin, any compassion for 
 his victim ; — the dread of losing the golden opinions he 
 has so lately won, the consequences of failure, alone 
 torment him. His wife has not to suggest murder, for 
 that has been already resolved upon ; but to represent 
 the weakness of drawing back, after a resolution has 
 once been formed. She well knows that the momentary 
 qualm will pass off, — that Duncan is to be slain, perhaps 
 when time and place will not so well adhere. Now, she 
 argues, — now it can be done with safety. Macbeth is 
 determined to wade through slaughter to a throne. If 
 he passes this moment he loses the eagerly desired prize, 
 and lives for ever after a coward in his own esteem ; or 
 he may make the attempt at a moment when detection 
 is so near at hand, that the stroke which sends Duncan 
 to his fate will be but the prelude of the destruction of 
 my husband. She therefore rouses him to do at once 
 that from which she knows nothing but fear of detection 
 deters him ; and, feeling that there are no conscientious 
 scruples to overcome, applies herself to show that the 
 present is the most favourable instant. It is for him she 
 thinks — for him she is unsexed — for his ambition she 
 works — for his safety she provides. 
 
 
176 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS ! 
 
 Up to the very murder, Macbeth displays no pity — 
 no feeling for anybody but himself. Fear of detection 
 still haunts him, and no other fear. 
 
 “ Thou sure and steadfast earth, 
 
 Hear not my steps which way they walk, for fear 
 The very stones prate of my whereabout.” 
 
 As Lady Macbeth says, it is the frustrated attempt, 
 not the crime, that can confound him. When it has 
 been accomplished, he is for a while visited by brain-sick 
 fancies ; and to her, who sees the necessity of prompt 
 action, is left the care of providing the measures best 
 calculated to avert the dreaded detection. She makes 
 light of facing the dead, and assures her husband that 
 
 “ A httle water clears us of this deed. 
 
 How easy it is then ! 
 
 Does she indeed feel this ? Are these the real emo- 
 tions of her mind ? Does she think that a little water 
 will wash out what has been done, and that it is as easy 
 to make all trace of it vanish from the heart as from the 
 hand ? She shall answer us from her sleep, in the lone- 
 liness of midnight, in the secrecy of her chamber. Bold 
 was her bearing, reckless and defying her tongue, when 
 her husband was to be served or saved; but the sigh 
 bursting from her heavily-charged breast, and her deep 
 
PICTUEES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 177 
 
 agony when she feels that, so far from its being easy to 
 get rid of the witness of murder, no washing can ob- 
 literate the damned spot, no perfume sweeten the hand 
 once redolent of blood, prove that the recklessness and 
 defiance were only assumed. We find at last what she 
 had sacrificed, how dreadful was the struggle she had 
 to subdue. Her nerve, her courage, mental and physi- 
 cal, was unbroken during the night of murder ; but 
 horror was already seated in h^r heart. Even then a 
 touch of what was going on in her bosom breaks forth. 
 When urging Macbeth to act, she speaks as if she held 
 the strongest ties of human nature in contempt. 
 
 “ I have given suck, and know 
 How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me : 
 
 I would, when it was smihng in my face, 
 
 Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums, 
 
 And dashed the brains out, had I but so sworn 
 As you have done to this.” 
 
 Is she indeed so unnatural — so destitute of maternal, of 
 womanly feeling ? No. In the next scene we find her 
 deterred from actual participation in killing Duncan, 
 because he resembled her father in his sleep. This is 
 not the lady to pluck the nipple from the boneless gums 
 of her infant, and dash out its brains. Her language 
 is exaggerated in mere bravado, to taunt Macbeth’s hr 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEES : 
 
 firmity of purpose by a comparison with her own boasted 
 firmness ; but if the case had arisen, she who had re- 
 coiled from injuring one whose life stood in the way of 
 her husband’s hopes from a fancied resemblance to her 
 father, would have seen in the smile of her child a talis- 
 man of resistless protection. 
 
 The murder done, and her husband on the throne, 
 she is no longer implicated in guilt. She is unhappy 
 in her elevation, and writhes under a troubled spirit in 
 the midst of assumed gaiety. She reflects with a settled 
 melancholy that 
 
 “ Nought’s had, aU’s spent, 
 
 When our desire is got without content, 
 
 ’Tis safer to he that which we destroy, 
 
 Than by destruction dweU in doubtful joy." 
 
 This to herself. To cheer her lord, she speaks a different 
 language in the very next line. 
 
 “ How now, my lord 1 why do you keep alone, 
 
 Of sorriest fancies your companions making ; 
 
 Using those thoughts which should indeed have died 
 With those they think on?” 
 
 Her own thoughts, we have just seen, were full as sorry 
 as those of her husband ; hut she can wear a mask. 
 Twice only does she appear after her accession to the 
 throne ; once masked, once unmasked. Once seated at 
 
PICTUEES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 179 
 
 high festival, entertaining the nobles 'of her realm, full 
 of grace and courtesy, performing her stately hospitali- 
 ties with cheerful countenance, and devising with rare 
 presence of mind excuses for the distracted conduct of 
 her husband. Once again, when all guard is removed, 
 groaning in despair. 
 
 The few words she says to Macbeth after the guests 
 have departed, almost driven out by herself, mark that 
 her mind is completely subdued. She remonstrates 'with 
 him at first for having broken up the feast ; but she 
 cannot continue the tone of reproof, when she finds 
 that his thoughts are bent on gloomier objects. Blood 
 is for ever on his tongue. She had ventured to tell 
 him that the visions which startle him, were but the 
 painting of his brain, and that he was unmanned in 
 folly. He takes no heed of what she says, and con- 
 tinues to speculate, at first in distraction, then in dread, 
 and lastly in savage cruelty, upon blood. The apparition 
 of Banquo almost deprives him of his senses. He marvels 
 that such things could be, and complains that a cruel 
 exception to the ordinary laws of nature is permitted in 
 his case. Blood, he says, 
 
 “ has been shed ere now in the olden time, 
 
 Ere human statute purged the gentle weal,*’ — 
 
180 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 and in more civilized times also ; but, when death came, 
 no further consequences followed. Now not even twenty 
 mortal murders [he remembered the number of deadly 
 gashes reported by the assassin] will keep the victim in 
 his grave. As long as Banquo’s ghost remains before 
 him, he speaks in the same distracted strain. When 
 the object of his special wonder, by its vanishing, gives 
 him time to reflect, fear of detection, as usual, is his 
 first feeling. 
 
 “ It will have blood, they say ; blood will have blood ! ” 
 
 The most improbable witnesses have detected murder. 
 Stones, trees, magotpies, choughs, have disclosed the 
 secretest man of blood. Then come cruel resolves, 
 to rid himself of his fears. Mercy or remorse is to be 
 henceforward unknown ; the firstlings of his heart are 
 to be the firstlings of his hand, — the bloody thought is 
 to be followed instantly by the bloody deed. The tiger 
 is now fully aroused in his soul. 
 
 “ I am in blood 
 
 Stept in so far, that, should I wade no more, 
 
 Eetuming were as tedious as go o’er.” 
 
 He sees an enemy in every castle ; everywhere he 
 plants his spies ; from every hand he dreads an at- 
 tempt upon his life. Nearly two centuries after the 
 play was written, the world beheld one of its fairest 
 
PICTUKES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 181 
 
 portions delivered to a rule as bloody as that of the 
 Scottish tyrant; and so true to nature are the con- 
 ceptions of ShakspearOj that the speeches of mixed 
 terror and cruelty, which he has given to Macbeth, 
 might have been uttered by Robespierre. The atro- 
 cities of the Jacobin, after he had stept so far in blood, 
 were dictated by fear. Robespierre,’’ says a quondam 
 satellite,"^ devenait plus sombre ; son air renfrogne 
 repoussait tout le monde ; il ne parlait que d’assassinat, 
 encore d’assassinat, toujours d’assassinat. II avait peur 
 que son ombre ne Tassassinat.” 
 
 Lady Macbeth sees this grisly resolution, and ceases 
 to remonstrate or interfere. Her soul is bowed down 
 before his, and he communicates with her no longer. 
 He tells her to be ignorant of what he plans, until she 
 can applaud him for what he has done. When he 
 abruptly asks her, 
 
 “ How say’st thou, — that Macduff denies his person 
 At our great bidding ?” 
 
 she, well knowing that she has not said anything about 
 it, and that the question is suggested by his own fear 
 and suspicion, timidly inquires, 
 
 “ Have you sent to him, sir ? ” 
 
 * Causes secretes de la Revolution de 9 au 10 Thermidor ; by 
 Vilate, ex-jure revolutionnaire de Paris. 
 
182 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 The last word is an emphatic proof that she is wholly 
 subjugated. Too well is she aware of the cause, and 
 the consequence, of Macbeth’s sending after Macduff ; 
 but she ventures not to hint. She is no longer the 
 stern-tongued lady urging on the work of death, and 
 taunting her husband for his hesitation. She now 
 addresses him in the humbled tone of an inferior; 
 we now see fright and astonishment seated on her face. 
 He tells her that she marvels at his words, and she 
 would fain persuade herself that they are but the 
 feverish effusions of an over-wrought mind. Sadly she 
 says, 
 
 “ You lack the season of all nature, — sleep.” 
 
 Those are the last words we hear from her waking lips; 
 and with a hope that repose may banish those murky 
 thoughts from her husband’s mind, she takes, hand 
 in hand with him, her tearful departure from the 
 stage ; and seeks her remorse-haunted chamber, there 
 to indulge in useless reveries of deep-rooted sorrow, 
 and to perish by her own hand amid the crashing ruin 
 of her fortunes, and the fall of that throne which she 
 had so fatally contributed to win. 
 
 He now consigns himself wholly to the guidance of the 
 weird sisters ; and she takes no part in the horrors 
 which desolate Scotland, and rouse against him the 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 183 
 
 insurrection of the enraged thanes. (^But she clings to 
 him faithfully in his downfall.) All others except the 
 agents of his crimes, and his personal dependents, have 
 abandoned him; but she, with mind diseased, and a 
 heart weighed down by the perilous stuff of recollec- 
 tions that defy the operation of oblivious antidote, 
 follows him to the doomed castle of Dunsinane. It is 
 evident that he returns her affection, by his anxious 
 solicitude about her health, and his melancholy recital 
 of her mental sufferings. He shows it still more 
 clearly by his despairing words when the tidings of 
 her death are announced. Seyton delays to com- 
 municate it ; but at last the truth must come,— that 
 the queen is dead. It is the over-flowing drop in his 
 cup of misfortune. 
 
 “ She should have died hereafter ; — 
 
 There would have heen a time for such a word.” 
 
 I might have borne it at some other time ; but now — 
 now — now that I am deserted by all — penned in my 
 last fortress — feeling that the safeguards in which I 
 trusted are fallacious, — now it is indeed the clima^-^^ 
 my calamity, that she, who helped me to riso^Hi what 
 she thought was prosperity and honou^y^who ckm^ to 
 me through a career that inspi^'^all else ^vith horror 
 and hate, — and who, in sh^irtiess of body, and agony of 
 
/ 
 
 184 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEKS : 
 
 mind, follows me in the very desperation of my fate, 
 should at such an hour be taken from me, — I am now 
 undone indeed. He then, for the first time, reflects on 
 the brief and uncertain tenure of life. He has long 
 dabbled in death, but it never before touched him 
 so closely. He is now aweary of the sun — now finds 
 the deep curses which follow him sufficiently loud to 
 pierce his ear, — now discovers that he has already 
 lived long enough, — and plunges into the combat, 
 determined, if he has lived the life of a tyrant, to die 
 the death of a soldier, with harness on his back. 
 Surrender or suicide does not enter his mind ; with his 
 habitual love of bloodshed, he feels a savage pleasure 
 in dealing gashes all around; and at last, when he 
 finds the charms on which he depended, of no avail, 
 flings* himself, after a slight hesitation, into headlong 
 conflict with the man by whose sword he knows he is 
 destined to fall, with all the reckless fury of despair. 
 What has he now to care for? The last tie that 
 bound him to human kind was broken by the death of 
 his wife, and it was time that his tale of sound and 
 fury should come to its appropriate close. 
 
 Thus fell he whom Malcolm in the last speech of the 
 play calls ^\the dead butcher.’’ By the same tongue 
 Lady Macbeth is stigmatized as the fiend-like queen. 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 185 
 
 Except her share in the murder of Duncan, — which is, 
 however, quite sufficient to justify the epithet in the 
 mouth of his son, — she does nothing in the play to 
 deserve the title ; and for her crime she has been suffi- 
 ciently punished by a life of disaster and remorse. She 
 is not the tempter of Macbeth. It does not require 
 much philosophy to pronounce that there were no such 
 beings as the weird sisters; or that the voice that told 
 the Thane of Glamis that he ^was to be King of Scot- 
 land, was that of his own ambition. In his own bosom 
 was brewed the hell-broth, potent to call up visions 
 counselling tyranny and blood; and its ingredients 
 were bis own evil passions and criminal hopes. Mac- 
 beth himself only believes as .much of the predictions 
 of the witches as, he desires. The same prophets, who 
 foretold his elevation to the throne, foretold also that 
 the progeny of Banquo would reign; and yet, after 
 the completion of the prophecy so far as he is himself 
 concerned, he endeavours to mar the other part by the 
 murder of Fleance. The weird sisters are to him, no 
 more than the Evil Spirit which, in Faust, tortures . 
 Margaret at her prayers. ..They are hut the' personi-^A^j^*^ 
 fied suggestions of his mind. She, the wife of hiS/^' 
 bosom, knows the direction of his thoughts; and, 
 bound to him in love, exerts every energy, and sacri- 
 
186 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS I 
 
 fices every feeling, to minister to his hopes and aspira- 
 tions. This is her sin, and no more. He retains, in 
 all his guilt and crime, a fond feeling for his wife. 
 Even when meditating slaughter, and dreaming of 
 blood, he addresses soft words of conjugal endearment ; 
 he calls her dearest chuck,” while devising assassi- 
 nations, with the fore -knowledge of which he is unwilling 
 to sully her mind. Selfish in ambition, selfish in fear, 
 his character presents no point of attraction but this 
 one meritr Shakspeare gives us no hint as to her 
 personal charms, except when he makes her describe 
 her hand as little.” We may be sure that there were 
 few more thoroughbred or fairer fingers,” in the land 
 of Scotland than those of its queen, whose bearing in 
 public towards Duncan, Banquo, and the nobles, is 
 marked by elegance and majesty ; and, in private, by 
 afiectionate anxiety for her sanguinary lord. He duly 
 appreciated her feelings, but it is pity that such a 
 woman should have been united to such a man. If she 
 had been less strong of purpose, less worthy of con- 
 fidence, he would not have disclosed to her his ambitious 
 designs, less resolute and prompt of thought and action, 
 she would not have been called on to share his guilt ; 
 less sensitive or more hardened she would not have suf- 
 fered it to prey for ever like a vulture upon her heart. 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAT. 
 
 187 
 
 She affords, as I consider it, only another instance of 
 what women will be brought to, by a love which listens to 
 no considerations, which disregards all else beside, when 
 the interests, the wishes, the happiness, the honour, or 
 even the passions, caprices, and failings of the beloved 
 object are concerned; and if the world, in a com- 
 passionate mood, will gently scan the softer errors of 
 sister- woman, may we not claim a kindly construing for 
 the motives which plunged into the Aceldama of this 
 blood-washed tragedy the sorely urged and broken- 
 hearted Lady Macbeth ? 
 
 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 The story of Timon the Misanthrope was popular 
 not only in his native land of Greece, but in the 
 English literature Of the Middle Ages. Classical 
 
 i 
 
 readers, who are of course acquainted with the lively 
 dialogue of Lucian, were once apt to look upon the 
 philosopher of Samosata as affording the original of 
 the play of Shakspeare ; but I doubt if Lucian, though 
 familiar to the learned, was popularly known even at 
 the end of the sixteenth century in England. Shak- 
 speare was indebted for the hint, and the principal 
 
188 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPERS I 
 
 incidents of his drama, to Plutarch, translated from 
 the French of Amyot by Sir Thomas North, and to 
 Painter^ s Palace of Pleasure. Dr. Farmer, in his 
 very shallow and pretending Essay on the Learning of 
 Shahspeare^ announces this important fact among others 
 equally important, with much flourish ; and those who 
 feel inclined for such inquiries, will find sufficient to 
 satisfy their curiosity in the voluminous notes gathered 
 by the industry of Malone, Steevens, and Boswell. 
 
 9 
 
 To use the phrase of Dr. Farmer, which immediately 
 succeeds his notice of Timon, were this a j)roper place 
 for such a disquisition,’’ I should have something to 
 say, not merely on the learning of Shakspeare, — a 
 point on which ;I difier exceedingly f with the Master 
 of Emanuel, — but on the utility of learning to a 
 dramatist. I should be prepared to contend, that 
 though the greater the store of knowledge, no matter 
 whence derived, — from books, from observation, from 
 reflection, — possessed by a writer on any subject, and 
 the larger the field whence an author of works of 
 imagination can cull or compare, so much more copious 
 will be his sources of thought, illustration, ornament, 
 and allusions; yet that the dramatist, and indeed the 
 poet in general, (the exceptions are few, and easily 
 accounted for,) should not travel far out of the ordi- 
 
PICTUEES, GKAVE AND GAY. 
 
 189 
 
 nary and beaten path for the main staple and material 
 of his poem. Without immediately referring to the 
 question of classical learning, many reasons exist for 
 thinking that Richard the Third was not so deformed 
 either in mind or body as he is represented in the 
 two plays in which he appears in Shakspeare, or in 
 the single one into which they are both clumsily rolled 
 for the stage ; but popular opinion, and the ordinary 
 chronicles of the times, so represented him. Northern 
 antiquaries are generally of opinion that Macbeth was 
 the true king, and that the blood-stained mantle of 
 cruelty and oppression ought to be shifted to the 
 shoulders of the gracious Duncan,” who was in 
 reality the usurper. In like manner w^e can conceive 
 that if the authorities of Saxo-Grammaticus or Geoffry 
 of Monmouth could be hunted up, a different colouring 
 might be given to the tales of Hamlet or Lear. But 
 what is all this to the purpose? It is no part of 
 the duty of the dramatist to invade the province of 
 the antiquary or the critic; and yet, for confining 
 himself to his proper department, he incurs the censure 
 of Farmer, and other persons of the same calibre of 
 intellect. If Shakspeare had had all the concentrated 
 knowledge of all the antiquarian societies of Denmark, 
 Scotland, Norway, or Wales, he would have completely 
 
190 
 
 SHAKSpEAEE PAPEKS ! 
 
 forgotten, what it was utterly impossible he should 
 forget, — the first principles of dramatic art, if he 
 depicted Macbeth, Lear, or Hamlet in any other man- 
 ner than that which he has chosen. He would not have 
 taken the trouble, even if editions of Saxo-Gramma- 
 ticus or Hector Boethius were as plenty as blackberries, 
 to turn over a single page of their folios. He found 
 all that his art wanted in the historians or romance- 
 writers of the day, — in Hall or Holinshed, or the 
 Tragical History of Hamblet^ and that, too, translated, 
 not from the Latin of the Danish annalist, but from 
 the French of the story-teller Belleforest. Common 
 sense would dictate this course; but if the learned 
 languages be wanted to support it, I may quote 
 Horace, who, being eminently the poet of common 
 sense, speaks for all times and countries. 
 
 “ Rectius Iliacmn carmen deducis in actus, 
 
 Quto si proferres ignota indictaque primus/* 
 
 Take the tale or the legend as it is popularly believed 
 for the foundation of your drama, and leave to others 
 the obscure glory of hunting after new lights, or 
 unheard-of adventures. 
 
 In his classical plots the same principle holds. In 
 his Antony and Cleopatra^ Julius Qcesar^ CoriolanuSy 
 
PICTUKES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 191 
 
 and Timon of Athens^ “it is notorious,’’ to use the 
 words of Dr. Farmer, “ that much of his matter-off act 
 knowledge is deduced from Plutarch; but in what 
 language he read him, hath yet been the question.” 
 A more idle question could not have been asked. He 
 might, for anything we know to the contrary, have 
 read him in Greek ; but for dramatic purposes he used 
 him in English. Sir Thomas North’s translation of 
 Plutarch was a remarkably popular book ; and Shak- 
 speare, writing not for verbal critics, anxiously collating 
 the version with the original, and on the look-out to 
 catch slips of the pen or mistakes of the press,^ but 
 
 * Such as Lydia for Libyan in Antony and Cleopatra, Act iii. 
 Sc. 6. 
 
 <« made her 
 
 Of Lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia^ 
 
 Absolute queen.* ** 
 
 Upton, correcting it from the text of Plutarch, substituted Libya / 
 and Dr. Johnson and other commentators adopted the correction. 
 Farmer had the great merit of discovering that the word is Lydia 
 in North, whom Shakspeare followed. It was a great shame indeed 
 that he had not noticed the error, and collated the Enghsh with 
 the Greek ! In the same spirit of sagacious criticism it is re- 
 marked, that Csesar is made to leave to the Eoman people his 
 gardens, &c. “ on this side Tiber,” whereas it should be on that 
 side Tiber,” — ^the original being iak^av tov Trorapov, North trans- 
 lates it, however, “ on this side,” and Shakspeare again follows him 
 without turning to the Greek. Farmer, with an old rhetorical 
 
192 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEES : 
 
 for tlie ordinary frequenters of the theatre, consulted 
 the volume of the English knight, not that of the 
 Boeotian biographer. If he had been as learned as 
 Isaac Casaubon, he would have acted precisely in the 
 same manner. The minute and unceasing study of 
 
 artifice, says, “ I could furnish you with many more instances, but 
 these are as good as a thousand.” He had given three — and I ex- 
 tremely doubt if he could have given three more. He bids us 
 ** turn to the translation from the French of Amyot, by Thomas 
 North, in folio, 1579, and you will at once see the origin of the 
 mistake.” It is hard to say in what sense Farmer uses the word 
 origin ; ” but the mistakes originate in Amyot, who translates the 
 former passage “Eoyne d'Egypte, de Cypre, de Lydie^' and the 
 latter “et qu’il laissoit au peuple des jardins et vergers de^a la 
 ri\iere du Tybre.” I agree with Farmer, however, in thinking that, 
 if he could adduce the thousand instances of which he speaks, his 
 argument would be nothing the better. It would only prove that 
 Shakspeare, for the purposes of his plays, consulted North in 
 Enghsh, and not Plutarch in Greek ; a fact which may be readily 
 conceded, and, as I have said in the text, completely justified on 
 the true principles of the drama. 
 
 I do not agree with Upton and others in their proposed altera- 
 tion of these two passages, which, however they may differ from 
 the text of Plutarch, I would suffer to remain as they appear in the 
 foho, because I am sure that Shakspeare so wrote them. Of the 
 third, referred to by Dr. Farmer, I am not so clear. In Antony and 
 Cleopatra, Act iv. Sc. 1. Augustus, in reply to Antony’s challenge, 
 says : 
 
 “ Let the old rufiian know 
 I have many other ways to die — meantime, 
 
 Laugh at his challenge.” 
 
PICTUEES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 193 
 
 classical literature since the days of Shakspeare has 
 banished blunders from our editions and translations, 
 and not even the most carelessly educated would deem 
 
 “ What a reply is this !” says Upton : “ it is acknowledging he 
 should fall under the unequal combat. But if we read, 
 
 Let the old ruffian know 
 He hath many other ways to die : meantime, 
 
 I laugh at his challenge. 
 
 we have the poignancy and the very repartee of Caesar in Plutarch.’' 
 To this reading, which has been generally adopted. Dr. Farmer 
 objects that, though it is certainly so in the Greek and the modern 
 translation, “ Shakspeare was misled by the ambiguity of the old 
 one.” Antonins sent again to challenge Caesar to fight him, to 
 which Caesar answered, “That he had many other ways to die.” 
 The doctor ought to have told us that the ambiguity here proceeded 
 from Amyot ; “ Cesar luy fit reponse, qu’iZ avoit heaucoup d’autres 
 moyens de mouiir que celuy-la;” hut it is not an ambiguity of a 
 very puzzling kind. It appears to me that Shakspeare would have 
 followed his text literally as usual, and borrowed the word “ he” 
 I am, therefore, in favour of Upton’s reading; especially as it 
 mends the metre, which in the present text is somewhat out of 
 joint. 
 
 “ Csesar to Antony. Let the old ruffian know 
 I have many other ways to die — meantime. 
 
 Laugh at his challenge. 
 
 Mcec, Caesar must think,” &c. 
 
 The proposed reading would make it much smoother. 
 
 “ Caesar to Antony. Let the old ruffian 
 Know he hath many other ways to die : 
 
 Meantime, I laugh at ’s challenge. 
 
 Mcec, ^ Caesar must think,” &c. 
 
 0 
 
194 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 it pedantic or misplaced in a dramatist to write with a 
 constant reference to the original, no matter in what 
 language, from which he drew his story ; hut, on the 
 other hand, we should deem him a very dull critic 
 indeed who would insist upon it that in a play 
 avowedly written after Hooke, or Gibbon, or Mitford, 
 its author should verify every quotation, and take 
 care that their authorities were given with all the 
 perfections of the last “ editio aliis longe locupletior.” 
 Ben Jonson took another course, and his success was 
 as indifferent as that of Shakspeare was overwhelming. 
 His Sejanus and Catiline are treasures of learning. 
 Gifford truly says of the latter, that ‘Hhe number of 
 writers whom Jonson has consulted, and the industry 
 and care with which he has extracted from them every 
 circumstance conducive to the elucidation of his plot, 
 can only be conceived by those who have occasion to 
 search after his authorities. He has availed himself of 
 almost every scattered hint from the age of Sallust to 
 that of Elizabeth for the correct formation of his cha- 
 racters, and placed them before our eyes as they appear 
 in the writings of those who lived and acted with them.’’ 
 The consequence is, that Catiline is absolutely unbear- 
 able on the stage, and fails to please in the closet, 
 because the knowledge with which, it abounds is con- 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 195 
 
 veyed in an inappropriate form. ' If Jonson had bestowed 
 the same pains, and expended the same learning, upon a 
 history of the Catilinarian conspiracy, he might have 
 produced a historical treatise to be applauded, instead 
 of a tragedy to be at most but tolerated. His learning 
 oppressed him. He was too full of knowledge to borrow 
 his plots, not to say from North, but from Plutarch 
 himself. The inaccuracies of the old story-teller would 
 have constantly shocked his scholar-like mind ; and, 
 instead of drawing characters or inventing situations, 
 he would have been in perpetual quest of authorities to 
 corroborate or contradict his principal text. Had there 
 been any such thing as a Plutarchian life of Catiline, or 
 ‘‘ a Tragical History of the bloody conspiracy of Rome, 
 showing how they swore upon a bowl of blood to burn 
 the town, and murder the senators ; with the particulars 
 of the execution of some of the conspirators, and the 
 killing of the rest in a bloody battle near unto the 
 Italian mountains called the Alpes,’’ the subject might 
 have attracted the attention of Shakspeare, who would 
 have assuredly looked no farther. The gossiping bio- 
 grapher or the prating ballad-monger would suffice for 
 his purpose; and all other authors, from the age of 
 Sallust to that of Elizabeth, might rest unconsulted in 
 peace. We should, however, have had characters which, 
 
 o3 
 
196 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 if they were not as correctly formed, and placed 
 before our eyes as they appear in the writings of those 
 who lived and acted with them,” would have been placed 
 before us as they appeared in the eyes of men them- 
 selves who saw them live and act. He would not have 
 dressed up the dry-bones of history, skeleton-fashion ; 
 but clothed them with flesh, and sent upon the stage, 
 not critical abstractions, but actual men. It is usual 
 to talk of the art of Jonson as something opposed to the 
 genius of Shakspeare. With deference to those who 
 employ this language, it is not over-wise. In every- 
 thing material the possession of genius includes the 
 possession of art ; and in their common pursuit it would 
 be easy to prove that Jonson was as much inferior in 
 dramatic art, as it is admitted he was in dramatic genius, 
 to his illustrious contemporary. I am much mistaken 
 if I could not support my opinion by the authority of 
 no less a person than Aristotle himself, of whom Jonson 
 thought so highly as to write a commentary on his 
 Poetics. I do not say this out of any disparagement of 
 that great writer, whose name, on many accounts, stands 
 eminently high for erudition and genius in our own, as 
 it would in any other literature, and whose memory was 
 shamefully used by some of the Shakspearian commenta- 
 tors of the last century ; but I refer to him because the 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAT. 
 
 197 
 
 acknowledged failure of his learned dramas affords, in 
 my mind, a full justification of the course pursued by 
 Shakspeare, and ought to put an end to the idle gabble 
 as to the learning of him whom Dr. Farmer so compla- 
 cently calls the old bard.’’ But the full discussion of 
 this question, with the numberless incidental disquisi- 
 tions to which it must give rise, would occupy too large 
 a space to be ventured upon in these fleeting essays ; 
 and might make the readers of Bentley^s Miscellany set 
 me down, if its editor were rash enough to inflict such 
 toil upon them, as a bore of the first magnitude for 
 intruding my dry criticisms upon his pleasant and 
 festive pages. I am rather afraid that they are some- 
 thing inclined to think me so already, and am unwilling 
 farther to jeopardy my reputation on that score. I 
 must confine myself to Timon. 
 
 Lucian introduces Timon after his fall from riches, 
 besieging Jupiter with a storm of epithets, and railing 
 at the dotage into which the god has fallen, and his im- 
 becility in permitting so much evil in the world. He 
 reminds him of the former times, in which his lightning 
 and thunder were in constant occupation ; when his aegis 
 was perpetually shaken, his bolts darted like clouds of 
 arrows, his hail rattled down as through a sieve ; and 
 how once on a great occasion he drowned the world in 
 
198 
 
 SHAKSPEAER PAPERS! 
 
 an universal deluge, leaving but a spark of life behind 
 in a cock-boat stranded upon Lycorea for the propaga- 
 tion of greater wickedness. After some general reflec- 
 tions, he comes to his own particular case, and upbraids 
 the god for allowing him to be treated with so much in- 
 gratitude, especially as he had so often sacriflced at the 
 jovial festivals with so much liberality. His clamours 
 succeed in arresting the attention of Jupiter, who had 
 been scared away for some time from looking into Athens 
 by the noisy disputes of the philosophers ; and, recog- 
 nizing his claims on divine attention, he despatches 
 Mercury to And Plutus, and bring him to Timon in the 
 desert. The messenger of the gods willingly undertakes 
 the commission ; and a pleasant dialogue between him 
 and Plutus, on the difficulty of keeping or retaining 
 wealth, the diflerence its possession and its want makes 
 in the human character, and other similar topics, ensues. 
 Plutus is soon introduced to Timon, drives away Poverty, 
 and defends himself against the accusations of the 
 misanthrope, by referring to his own reckless extrava- 
 gance, and want of discrimination in the choice of asso- 
 ciates. Recommending Timon to dig vigorously, he 
 departs. The digging is abundantly successful. It 
 turns up gold in countless quantities, and presently 
 arrive troops of flatterers, allured by the mere smell of 
 
PICTUKES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 199 
 
 the metal. Some who had treated him with remarkable 
 ingratitude are among the number, and Timon resolves 
 on vengeance. As one by one they approach, — some 
 under pretence that their visits were paid for the sake of 
 doing him service, others promising him public honours 
 and dignities, — he assaults them with his spade, and 
 sends them home battered and broken-headed. At last 
 the visitors become too numerous for this close combat ; 
 and determined, like the old man in the story, to try 
 what virtue is in stones, he commences a battery upon 
 them, which soon compels them to retreat, but ‘‘ not,” 
 as Timon says in the concluding sentence of the dia- 
 logue, bloodless or unwounded.” 
 
 Such is a hasty sketch of what is generally looked 
 upon to be one of the most finished compositions of Lu- 
 cian, The style throughout is gay and airy, (though 
 somewhat hampered by its mythology, for Plutus is 
 made to bear the incompatible characters of the God of 
 Gold, and of gold itself, which every now and then comes 
 in awkwardly,) and the characters are pleasantly 
 sketched. But Lucian nowhere reaches the height of 
 the comic ; and over tragic or pathetic, or satire, in its 
 loftier range, he has scarcely any power. The objects 
 of his ridicule are comprised within a small compass. 
 His readers may well exclaim with Lord Byron, Oh! 
 
QOO 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 thou eternal Homer ! ” for he can scarcely write two 
 pages without some jeering reference to the Iliad or 
 Odyssey, the spirit of which divine poems he did not in 
 the slightest degree comprehend. The wranglings of 
 the sophists among whom he lived, and to which he at- 
 tached a wonderful importance, form another topic of 
 which he is never tired. Sketches of Athenian manners 
 and society abound, often graphic, but perpetually filled 
 with complaints of the insolence and upstart pride of the 
 rich. He is always on the watch to remind them of the 
 transitory nature of their possessions ; and to condemn 
 them to insult and disgrace at the hands of the poorer 
 classes, whom they had treated with hauteur during life, 
 when they descend to another world. He repeats in 
 several places the comparison of life to a theatrical pro- 
 cession, in which magnificent parts are assigned to some, 
 who pass before the eyes of the spectators clothed in 
 costly garments, and bedecked with glittering jewels; 
 but, the moment the show is over, are reduced to their 
 original nothingness, no longer kings and heroes, but 
 poor players whose hour has been strutted out. It gives 
 him wonderful pleasure to call Croesus, and Midas, and 
 the other generous princes of old times on the Asiatic 
 coast, whose names are everlastingly hacked to pieces 
 in the common-place satires, or squibs, or homilies of 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 SOI 
 
 the Greeks, wretches and offscourings ; and to exhibit 
 Cyrus, Darius, or Xerxes, occupied in degrading tasks 
 in the infernal regions. These topics, with perpetual 
 sneers at the then tumbling mythology of Paganism, 
 almost exclusively occupy the pages of Lucian. 
 
 His vein of satire was small, and its direction not 
 elevated. It is easy to see that petty feelings of per- 
 sonal spite or envy are at the bottom of all he writes. 
 He was jealous of the attention paid to wealth, and 
 anxious to show the world its mistake in not bestowing 
 exclusive homage on those far superior persons who 
 could write witty dialogue, sparkling persiflage^ or smart 
 reviews. In the sketch which is called his Life, he lets 
 us into the secret. His father was anxious to make 
 him a sculptor, and apprenticed him to an uncle, who 
 had obtained some reputation as an artist. His uncle 
 treated him harshly, and he took a dislike to the 
 business. He then tells us of his dream, in which the 
 Goddesses of Art and Eloquence contended for him; 
 and, after hearing the pleadings of both, he decided for 
 the latter. The argument which weighed most with 
 him, was, the power conferred by a, successful career on 
 a public orator of assuming the port and insolence of 
 the great. I doubt not that Lucian in his prosperous 
 circumstances — it is said that he died Procurator. 
 
S02 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS ! 
 
 Lord Lieutenant, of Egypt— was fully as arrogant, and 
 as sensible of all the privileges of his position, as the 
 most swelling and presumptuous of those whom he be- 
 labours in his Dialogues. Swift said that he wrote for 
 no other reason than that he might be treated as if he 
 were a lord ; Lucian’s ambition for literary renown was 
 stimulated by the hope that he might treat others in 
 what he conceived to be lordly fashion. In other 
 respects the game he pursues is, in general, small. 
 Living in the pestilential atmosphere of a literary town, 
 he thought the squabbling and quibbling of the pacda- 
 gogiies by whom he was surrounded things of vital 
 moment. It was, in his eyes, matter well worthy of 
 all the satirical powers he possessed, to quiz the slo- 
 venly dress, or the quack pretensions, of a set of poor 
 devils whose very names must have been unknown be- 
 yond the narrow precincts in which they bustled. 
 Greece, in his days, could not boa^t of any productions 
 of genius; the commentating and criticising age had 
 come ; and the classics of bygone times were the subject 
 of everlasting chatter among sects of reviewers anxious 
 to show off their own wit and cleverness. The country 
 had for ages ceased to take any interest in politics ; and 
 nothing remained to console national vanity but per- 
 petual declamations on Marathon and Salamis, and 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 203 
 
 vapourings about their skirmishing and buccaneering 
 wars against the Persians. Philip, and his god-like 
 son,” were, for many reasons which I need not stop to 
 recapitulate, no favourites with the scribbling tribes of 
 fallen Greece, and in general they make their appear- 
 ance only for some such silly purpose as 
 
 “ To point a moral, and adorn a tale.” 
 
 Of the events which occurred in the four or five cen- 
 turies which elapsed from the death of Alexander to the 
 days of Lucian, no notice is taken. We have scarcely 
 a hint, except in one or two essays of dubious authen- 
 ticity, of the existence and progress of Christianity, 
 which was with relentless hand knocking to pieces those 
 gods who were so often made the butts of Lucian’s in- 
 effective jesting. If there remained to us nothing but his 
 writings, we should be ignorant almost of the existence of 
 the great Roman empire under which he lived. His vision 
 is confined to the gossip of Athens ; what he sees there, 
 he depicts with a pleasant and faithful hand ; his world 
 is that of sophists and reviewers, and on their concerns 
 he is shrewd, witty, and instructive. Nothing in its 
 style can be better, for example, than the Cobbler and 
 the Cock ; but the manners there depicted, and the 
 foibles satirized, are trifling. The Art of writing 
 
204 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS : 
 
 History is a perfect model of a review ; but then it is 
 no more than a review. The Auction of Slaves is a 
 capital squib ; but nothing more than a squib. He has 
 often been compared to Rabelais, who has sometimes 
 borrowed largely from him ; (Epistemon’s account of 
 what he saw in the other world, for example, is taken 
 not only in conception, but in many of its details, from 
 the Necyomantia of Lucian ;) but those who know how 
 to read the Gar^antua and PantaOTuel in the manner 
 recommended by Rabelais himself in his address to the 
 heuveurs trez illustres^^ and the others to whom he 
 dedicates his writings, will appreciate the deep difference 
 between a light and sparkling wit, amusing himself with 
 offhand pleasantries on literary folly or provincial ab- 
 surdity, and the long-pondering old man filled with 
 omnigenous knowledge, rioting in bitter-souled buffoonery 
 over all that can affect the interests or agitate the pas- 
 sions of mankind. Compare Lucian’s True History, 
 with the Voyage of Panurge in quest of the Holy Bottle. 
 The Greek has the merit of the original idea, which has 
 since suggested all other imaginary voyages, and sup- 
 plied no few materials to Gulliver himself, and a pleasant 
 history it must indeed be allowed to be ; but what is it 
 after all, but a quiz or parody (often an unfair one) on 
 Herodotus and Homer ? In the other, literature and 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 205 
 
 its concerns hold but a trifling place ; but as the vessel 
 steered by Xenomanes, glides onward through allegoric 
 lands, and prodigious adventures, to its final destination, 
 it leaves untouched no coast where matter is to be found 
 for reflections on law, religion, medicine, science, poli- 
 tics, philosophy, in all their ramifications, poured forth 
 from a bosom filled with unbounded erudition, and a 
 heart perfectly fearless of those to whom it could trace 
 superstition, imposture, quackery, or corruption. 
 
 I have dwelt perhaps too long — certainly longer than 
 I had intended — on Lucian ; but I wish to point out 
 the inutility of looking to him, even if he had been at 
 Shakspeare’s elbow, as supplying in any degree elements 
 for the character of the dramatic Timon of Athens. He 
 is the more energetic misanthrope. He indeed hates 
 mankind. The Greek is not in earnest. In the depth 
 of his indignation he turns away to jest upon some 
 trifie of manners. He can recollect the ill-breeding 
 and gluttony of the philosopher who licks up the rich 
 sauce oflf the plate with his fingers ; and he can stop to 
 bandy jests with the hungry parasite, or the venal 
 orator. His opening address to Jupiter, commences 
 with a frolic recapitulation of the epithets addressed to 
 the Olympian ruler by the poets ; and the misanthrope 
 is so far forgotten in the litterateur, that he pauses 
 
206 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 before entering on his own calamities and wrongs, to 
 laugh at the brain-stricken poets who are obliged to stop 
 the gap of a yawning rhythm, or to prop up a halting 
 metre, by an epithet. This misanthropy did not very 
 seriously affect the patient ; nor are the evils of which 
 he complains, amounting as they do to little more than 
 his being cut by his old acquaintances now that he is 
 poor, so dreadful or extraordinary as to make him 
 
 ‘‘ bid the thuilder-bearer shoot, 
 
 Or tell tales of them to high-judging Jove.” 
 
 The wrath of the Timon of Shakspeare is conceived in 
 a different spirit. No jesting escapes his lips while he 
 hurls his hatred on Athens. His withering malediction 
 touches all the points on which we are most sensitive ; 
 many, from the mere consideration of which we in- 
 stinctively turn away. He prays for the incontinence 
 of matrons, the disobedience of children, the degradation 
 of nobles before slaves and fools, the foul desecration of 
 virgins beneath the eyes of their parents, the bursting 
 of all social bonds, the preternatural cruelty of boyhood 
 to age:- 
 
 “ Son of sixteen, 
 
 Pluck the lined crutch from thy old limping sire, 
 
 And beat his brains out ! ” 
 
PICTUEES, GKAVE AND GAY. 
 
 M7 
 
 The utter uprooting of all the civilized institutionSj all 
 the charitable feelings, all the honourable or holy 
 thoughts that link mankind together : 
 
 “ Piety and fear, 
 
 Eeligion to the gods, peace, justice, truth, 
 
 Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood, 
 Instruction, manners, mysteries and trades. 
 
 Degrees, observances, customs and laws. 
 
 Decline to your confounding contraries. 
 
 And yet confusion live.” 
 
 This is no mock hatred; it is the harrowing lan- 
 guage of a man thoroughly aroused to indignation, and 
 desperate against his kind. Compare it with the 
 parallel passage of Lucian, and we shall see, without 
 recurring to any such foolish inquiry as to what was 
 the precise quantity of the less Greek ’’ allowed to 
 Shakspeare by Ben Jonson, that to no other source 
 than that which supplied the maledictions of Lear, or 
 Constance, or Margaret, need we look for the bursting 
 imprecations of Timon. 
 
 He is introduced, at the commencement of the play, 
 surrounded with all the pomp and circumstance of pro- 
 fuse wealth. The poet, the painter, the jeweller, await 
 his appearance with the tributes of the pen, the pencil, 
 and the mine. The noblest men of his city bow before 
 
208 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 him, cap in hand ; the humble look up to him as their 
 surest stay in distress, and none depart disappointed. 
 All conditions and all minds, the poet says in the florid 
 style. 
 
 “As well of glib and slippery creatures* as 
 Of grave and austere quality, tender down 
 Their service to Lord Timon. His large fortune, 
 
 Upon his good and gracious nature hanging, 
 
 Subdues and properties to his love and tendance 
 All sorts of hearts ; yea, from the glass-faced flatterer, 
 
 To Apemantus, that few things loves better 
 Than to abhor himself.” 
 
 His first appearance on the stage is to release a 
 prisoner by paying the debt; to give the dowry re- 
 quired to make two lovers happy in their union ; to 
 bestow lavish recompense, and, what is fully as dear to 
 the ear of painter or poet, commendations equally 
 lavish on the productions ofiered to his patronage ; to 
 receive with abounding hospitality Alcibiades and his 
 train ; to preside at a magnificent banquet, heaping his 
 guests with gifts, and entertaining them with all the 
 splendour that taste and prodigal expense can command. 
 His own heart, proud and gratified, swells with a strong 
 desire to do still more : 
 
 * Should not this be “ creature,” i, e. creation ? 
 
PICTUKES, GKAVE AND GAY. 
 
 209 
 
 “ Methinks I could deal kingdoms to my friends, 
 
 And ne’er be weary.” 
 
 He is happy in being the instrument of contributing to 
 the happiness of others. It is his delight — his pleasure 
 — his hobby. Not to be generous^ is not to be himself. 
 His profuse and liberal habit blinds him to all sus- 
 picions that the rest of the world is not of the same 
 temper. The time comes when he is to be cruelly 
 undeceived, and when his sincerity in these professions 
 of universal love and benevolence is to be severely 
 tested. His wealth, which he thought inexhaustible, 
 has taken to itself wings and fled. But even this does 
 not make any very deep impression upon him. He 
 listens with characteristic impatience to the tale of his 
 ruin told by the disconsolate Flavius. He answers in 
 brief and hasty sentences, and soon bids him “ sermon 
 no further.’’ He has his own resources left, his own 
 plans to fall back upon. He remembers his wish when 
 in the height of imagined prosperity ; he had often 
 desired to be poorer, in order that he might come 
 nearer his friends. He had been affected even to tears 
 when, with overflowing heart, he thought of the 
 precious comfort of having so many persons knit 
 together so closely, that, like brothers, they com- 
 manded each other’s fortunes. He reflects with a 
 
 p 
 
SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS : 
 
 SIO 
 
 justifiable pride, that his generosity was not directed 
 to unworthy purposes, or called forth by unworthy 
 feelings : 
 
 “No villanous bounty yet hath past my heart ; 
 
 Unwisely, not ignobly have I given.” 
 
 He will not listen to the suggestions of his steward 
 that he can find any difiiculty in borrowing. Even 
 when he learns that the senators, on whom he had 
 public claims, and from whom he expected a large sum 
 of money for the mere asking, have turned a deaf ear 
 to applications made in his name, he is not dis- 
 couraged. He utters a slight expression of spleen. 
 You gods reward them ! ” and at once bidding 
 Flavius look cheerly, proceeds to account for their 
 ingratitude as an exception to the general rule, arising 
 from the lack of kindly warmth in cold-blooded age. 
 Elsewhere he is secure of success : 
 
 “ Ne’er speak or think 
 
 That Timon’s fortunes ’mong his friends can sink.” 
 
 All these hopes are dashed to the ground in a moment. 
 His attempts at borrowing are worse than unsuccessful ; 
 they make his diflSculties notorious, and, instead of 
 assisting his wants, cause his house to be besieged 
 with clamorous creditors. Shakspeare has not written 
 
PICTUKES, GKAVE AND GAT. 
 
 211 
 
 the scene in which the ungrateful refusals of his 
 friends are communicated to him ; but he shows us 
 the effect of the communication on Timon’s mind. It 
 strikes him with instant sickness, Take it on my 
 soul,” says his servant Servilius, 
 
 “ My lord leans wondrously to discontent. 
 
 His comfortable temper has forsook him ; 
 
 He is much out of health, and keeps his chamber.” 
 
 This is the cold fit of the ague by which he is smitten. 
 The hot fit of fever is soon at hand. He bursts in 
 controlless rage through the files of opposing duns ; 
 plans a whimsical, but a decisive revenge ; and 
 having executed it, parts from the crowd of 
 
 “ Smiling, smooth, detested parasites. 
 
 Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears, 
 
 The fools of fortune, trencher-friends, time-flies, 
 Cap-and-knee slaves, vapours, and minute-jacks,” 
 
 whose prodigious ingratitude had driven him almost 
 mad, with a stern resolution never more to expose 
 himself to similar causes of grief and indignation, by 
 herding again with mankind. 
 
 It is useless to say that such a determination was 
 unjust. He who affects to be a misanthrope, is a 
 pitiful and troublesome coxcomb ; real misanthropy 
 is madness, and in the concluding acts of the play, 
 
 p3 
 
212 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPERS ! 
 
 Timon is actually insane. He had no friends. His 
 money and his dinners attracted dependents and guests 
 in abundance ; but he ought to have known that they 
 went for the money and the dinner, and nothing else. 
 The entertainer and the entertained were on a level. 
 If they had the pleasure of receiving, he had the 
 glory of giving, and neither party had a right to 
 complain. The course of life he led, was calculated 
 expressly to drive from him all who were possessed 
 of qualities capable of inspiring respect and friendship. 
 No honourable or high-minded man would frequent the 
 house of Timon, to be exposed to the suspicion of 
 going there with sordid or selfish views. He gathered 
 around him throngs of people whom he corrupted into 
 sycophancy, and he is unreasonable enough to complain 
 of the very meanness which was chiefiy of his own 
 creation or encouragement. He set no value on what 
 he fiung away with lavish hand, and in reality cared 
 as little for those to whom he flung it. While dis- 
 pensing his boundless hospitalities, or scattering his 
 magnificent gifts, he had in him, though undeveloped, 
 and even by himself unsuspected, the seeds of mis- 
 anthropy as deeply set as when he was howling 
 against 
 
 “ All feasts, societies, and throngs of men,” 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAT. 
 
 213 
 
 in the desert. He consulted merely his own whim 
 in giving. He thought that no profusion could exhaust 
 his wealth ; and he therefore was profuse, as he ima- 
 gined, in, security. If we held the purse of For- 
 tunatus, or could chain 
 
 Volatile Hermes, and call up unbound, 
 
 In various forms, old Proteus from the sea. 
 
 Drawn through a limbeck to his native form,” 
 
 and achieve the discovery of the philosopher’s stone, 
 where would be our merit in dispensing gold all around ? 
 We give nothing when we give that which costs us 
 nothing. We do not see that Timon makes any sacri- 
 fice, or puts himself to any inconvenience ; and we must 
 esteem but lightly that liberality which looks forward 
 to recompense or return. In his prosperity he cherished 
 chance companions without consideration; and with 
 equal want of consideration, he curses all mankind in 
 his adversity. The difference between his feelings in 
 the two cases amounts to no more than this, that Timon, 
 rich, quietly showed his contempt of the ill-chosen circle 
 of parasites with which he had surrounded himself, by 
 a careless bounty showered without distinction on the 
 base as on the worthy ; and Timon, poor, clamorously 
 exhibited his hatred of all mankind, hastily judging 
 
914 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 them by the wretched sample with which he had asso- 
 ciated, in a strain of general imprecation as reckless and 
 undiscriminating. 
 
 A servile or sensual mind would have adopted the 
 plan of Gnatho in the Eunuchus, who, after he had 
 wasted in riotous living ” whatever property he pos- 
 sessed, — after patria ahligurierat hona ^ — seized on such 
 a gull as Thraso, and have endeavoured to live upon 
 others, as others had lived upon him. A good-natured 
 or thoughtless fellow would have tried to mend his luck, 
 called for fresh cards, and begun again. He, no doubt, 
 would be at first especially annoyed by the loss of his 
 money, and still more by the reflection that he had 
 been choused and ill-treated by those whom he took to 
 be his friends, and who, at all events, were the partners 
 of his gayer hours. But the fit would soon pass, the 
 bile would be got rid of, and (if of English tongue) 
 after a few of those national prayers which have ob- 
 tained us a celebrated sobriquet among all the other 
 people of the earth, liberally distributed to all and 
 sundry, he would regain his temper, and philosophically 
 sing 
 
 Why should we quarrel for riches, 
 
 Or other such glittering toys ? 
 
 A light heart and a thin pair of breeches 
 Will go through the world, my brave boys ! 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 S15 
 
 He would struggle on, and puzzle it out in one way 
 or another ; and, if Fortune smiled once more, be as 
 ready as ever to commence the old game, forgetting and 
 forgiving everything and everybody, and as open as 
 before to be imposed upon by those who gave them- 
 selves the trouble to do so. 
 
 But Timon could not adopt either of these courses. 
 Too high-bred, too haughty of thought, he could never 
 have descended to be a trencher-slave: too selfishly 
 awake to his own importance, he could never have par- 
 doned those who had hurt his pride, or mortified his 
 vanity. 
 
 Such contrasts as these, Shakspeare had no notion of 
 opposing to him. But he has chosen the appropriate 
 contrast in Apemantus, the snarling philosopher,*^ who 
 is modelled after the cynics, particularly after Diogenes. 
 In Timon’ s prosperity, he haunts his entertainments 
 for the purpose of indulging his impertinent humour of 
 carping at the company he meets there. Like Diogenes 
 himself, he is no more than an ill-mannered hound, who 
 
 * He is thus introduced at Timon’s banquet. “ Then comes, 
 dropping after aU, Apemantus discontentedly, like himself'' There 
 has been some deep criticism on these words ; but, as they do not 
 convey any very brilliant meaning, I incline to think the direction 
 was, “ Then comes, dropping after all, Apemantus discontentedly, 
 by himself.” 
 
S16 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS: 
 
 deserves perpetual kickings, and is tolerated only for his 
 wit. It is a character easy to assume and to support, 
 requiring nothing more than a suflScienf stock of cool 
 impudence and effrontery. Vanity is at the bottom. 
 A desire to brazen out the inconveniences of low breed- 
 ing and awkward manners, and a love of notoriety, no 
 matter how obtained, are enough to make a cynic. The 
 well-known repartees of Plato and Aristippus set the 
 character of Diogenes in its true light: we may be 
 certain that Alexander, in their celebrated dialogue, 
 looked upon him merely as a buffoon, tumbling about 
 for his diversion in a peculiar fashion; but he was 
 undoubtedly possessed of much wit and humour. The 
 jesting of Apemantus, is as plain-spoken and ill-natured, 
 if not as good, as that of the famed tenant of the tub ; 
 and Timon keeps him at his table as an original — a 
 sort of lion, who is as much a part of the diversion of 
 the evening, as the masque of the Amazons, or the 
 lofty strain of the hautboys. There are some touches 
 of nature in the fellow, however; for he sees with 
 regret the approaching downfall of his liberal host, and 
 warns him against the consequences of the course he is 
 pursuing, with a grumbling kindness. 
 
 His cynicism is not misanthropy ; it is of the same 
 stamp as that of the hero of a celebrated play, which 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAT. 
 
 217 
 
 its celebrated author intended as an exhibition of the 
 feelings and propensities of a man-hater, and gave it 
 accordingly the name of Le Misantro'pe, It would be 
 absurd to offer eulogies to Moliere, but it is undeniable 
 that he has made a mistake in the title of his play. 
 Alceste is a testy and fretful man ; nothing more. 
 There is none of the insane rage, and consequently 
 none of the poetry, of the misanthrope about him. It 
 is hard to say what puts him out of humour ; and, 
 indeed, he can hardly tell the reason, except that 
 
 “ Moi, je veux me facher, et ne veux point entendre.” 
 
 When he comes to matters more specific, we find him 
 repeating the complaints, almost the phrases, of Ape- 
 mantus : 
 
 “ Non : je ne puis souffrir cette lache m^thode 
 Qu’affectent la plupart de vos gens a-la-mode ; 
 
 Et je ne hay rien tant que les contorsions 
 De tons ces grands faiseurs de protestations : ” 
 
 or again, 
 
 “ Mes yeux sont trop blesses ; et la cour et la ville 
 Ne m’ofifrant rien qu’objets a m’echauffer la bile, 
 
 J’entre en une bumeur noire, en un chagrin profond, 
 
 Quand je vois vivre entre eux les hommes comme ils font. 
 
 Je ne trouve par- tout que lache flaterie, 
 
 Qu’injustice, interdt, trabison, fourberie j 
 
S18 
 
 SHAKSPEABE PAPEBS : 
 
 Je ne puis plus tenir, j ’enrage, et mon dessein 
 Est de rompre en visiere a tout le genre humain^” 
 
 It was hardly worth while to come to so desperate a 
 determination for so small a cause. His friend Philinte 
 may well say 
 
 Je ne vois pas, moi, que le cas soit pendable.” 
 
 Even Apemantus is of higher strain on the same sub- 
 ject of insincere politeness : 
 
 “ Aches contract and starve your supple joints ! 
 
 That there should he small love ’mongst these sweet knaves, 
 And all this courtesy ! The strain of man ’s bred out 
 Into baboon and monkey. 
 
 Who lives that ’s not 
 
 Depraved, and depraves ? who dies, that bears 
 Not one spurn to their graves of their friends’ gift? 
 
 I should fear, those that dance before me now 
 Would one day stamp upon me. It has been done; 
 
 Men shut their doors against a setting sun. 
 
 What a coil ’s here ! 
 
 Serving of becks, and jutting out of bums! 
 
 I doubt whether their legs be worth the sums 
 That are given for them. Friendship ’s full of dregs; 
 Methinks, false hearts should never have sound legs. 
 
 Thus honest fools lay out their wealth on courtesies.” 
 
 In this strain Apemantus is consistent throughout. 
 Alceste is not. Oronte reads to him a silly sonnet, and 
 le Misantrope is as careful of the usages of society in 
 
PICTUEES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 919 
 
 conveying his censure, as any of the flatterers he 
 condemns. His disapproval is conveyed indirectly; 
 instead of saying at once that the verses are sad trash, 
 he veils his criticistn under the pretence of its having 
 been addressed to another : 
 
 “ Mais, un jour, a quelqu’un dont je tairai le nom, 
 
 Je disois,” &c. 
 
 The treatment which the poet experiences from Ape- 
 mantus is of a more decisive character. Alceste, 
 besides, so far from having determined to break en 
 visiere a tout le genre humain,’’ is in love, and in love 
 with a flirt of the first magnitude. He is desperately 
 jealous of his rivals ; and instead of supporting his 
 misanthropical character is ready to defy them a 
 Voutrance for laughing at him. A duellist, not a 
 misanthrope, would have said, 
 
 “ Par le sangbleu ! messieurs, je ne croyois pas etre 
 Si plaisant que je suis.” 
 
 He experiences all the usual vicissitudes of love, — 
 jealousy, anger, quarrels, reconciliations, and so forth. 
 If we did not find it in the Misantrope^ we should be 
 inclined to ascribe the following tender morgeau — and 
 there are more beside — to as love-smitten a swain as 
 ever talked softely to his ladye love.’’ 
 
220 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPERS! 
 
 Alceste says to Celimone ; 
 
 “ Ah ! que vous sqavez bien ici centre moi-meme, 
 
 Perfide ! vous servir de ma foiblesse extreme, 
 
 Et manager pour vous I’exces prodigieux 
 De ce fatal amour, ne de vos traitres yeux ! ” 
 
 We find nothing like this, in the misanthrope drawn 
 by a more vigorous hand. Moliere himself seems to 
 have a sharp misgiving as to the consistency of his 
 character, for he makes Philinte say with astonishment 
 
 “ De rbumeur dont le Ciel a voulu le former, 
 
 Je ne sqai pas comment il s’avise d’aimer.” 
 
 He may indeed be well amazed ; but it is also not a 
 little to be wondered that the same consideration did 
 not induce the author to choose a different title for his 
 comedy. 
 
 The snarler living in society, and the furious man 
 who has fied from it, meet in the wood. The scene 
 which ensues is the master-piece of the play. The 
 contrast between the hardened practitioner in railing at 
 mankind, the long-trained compound of impudent hu- 
 morist and sturdy beggar, who never had felt an 
 honourable or generous emotion, and whose career 
 had been devoted to procure under the cover of 
 philosophy and independence, an inglorious living in 
 lazy idleness, by amusing those whose taste lay that 
 
PICTUKES, GKAVE AND GAY. 
 
 221 
 
 way with scurril ribaldry ; and the man who, born in 
 lofty rank, had enjoyed all the luxuries and the splen- 
 dours of life, who had the mouths, the tongues, the 
 eyes, and hearts of men paying homage to him, who 
 had never bent for favour, save when he thought that 
 he did honour to those of whom he asked it ; and now 
 deprived of all that had been his glory and happiness, 
 the gods of his idolatry shattered at one blow, his 
 brilliant sky suddenly overcast, and the rich and bright- 
 coloured rainbow reduced to its original mist and 
 vapour ; — the contrast between these, — one content 
 with his lot, and even vain of the position into which 
 he has thrust himself ; the other, torn by all the 
 passions of anger and mortification, — is finely con- 
 ceived and admirably executed. Apemantus tells 
 Timon that his present character springs only from 
 change of fortune ; that he is a fool to expose himself 
 to the rigour of woods which have outlived the eagle, 
 while his flatterers wear silk, drink wine, lie soft, and 
 have forgotten his existence ; that his sour cold habit 
 has been put on enforcedly ; that he would again be a 
 courtier, if he were not a beggar ; and, as a moral of 
 his discourse, recommends him to imitate the practices 
 of those who ruined him, — to hinge his knee, crouch, 
 flatter, and betray in turn ; 
 

 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 “ ’Tis most just 
 
 That thou turn rascal ; hadst thou wealth again, 
 
 Eascals should have it.” 
 
 Timon scarcely replies to tbe railing of the cynic, 
 and utterly disdains to notice the scoundrel advice 
 with which he concludes : but he retorts on his unwel- 
 come visitor, that his character also was framed by his 
 circumstances ; that he was born a beggar, and bred a 
 dog ; that his nature commenced in sufferance, and that 
 time made him hard in it; and that, if he had not 
 been from the earliest moment of his life the most 
 degraded of mankind, he would be a knave and flat- 
 terer. In these mutual censures there is a mixture 
 of truth and injustice. That Timon’s misanthropy 
 was forced upon him by the downfall of his fortunes, 
 and the faithlessness of his friends, is true ; but Ape- 
 mantus does not do him justice when he says, that he 
 would return to his old mode of life, if he were to 
 regain his former wealth. The iron has entered too 
 deeply into his soul. Nor has the cynic properly 
 appreciated the character of Timon, when he recom- 
 mends him to turn rascal. Here he speaks from him- 
 self, and is laid defencelessly open to the powerful 
 retort of the fallen gentleman. “ Hadst thou,” says 
 Timon, 
 
PICTUKES, GKAVE AND GAY. 
 
 223 
 
 “ Like us, from our first swath, proceeded 
 The sweet degrees that this brief world afibrds 
 To such as may the passive drugs of it 
 Freely command, thou wouldst have plunged thyself 
 In general riot ; melted down thy youth 
 In different beds of lust, and never learned 
 The icy precepts of respect ; but followed 
 The sugared game before thee.” 
 
 The same selfish mood of temper that rendered the 
 beggar Apemantus insolent, and desirous of vexing 
 whomsoever he met, always a villain’s office, or a 
 fool’s,” would have made the high-born Apemantus 
 pursue such a course as is here described by Timon ; 
 and, if he had broken down in his career, there can 
 scarcely be a doubt that he would have followed the 
 servile advice he tenders. The beggared prodigal 
 would have become a sycophant. But Timon, too, is 
 unjust towards Apemantus when he says, 
 
 “ All villains that do stand by thee are pure ; ” 
 
 for the cynic had no other villany than impudence and 
 idleness. The fact is, that neither can defend his own 
 conduct, and each is driven to take the ground of im- 
 pugning that of his accuser. Such a conversation can 
 have but the one end. It must conclude, as it does 
 here in a torrent of mutual abuse ; and they depart 
 with increased scorn and contempt of each other. 
 
224 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 With the fourth act, the Shakspearian Timon may 
 be said to begin and end. The first act, exhibiting his 
 prodigal extravagance ; the second his tottering estate; 
 and the third, his mortification and revenge, are taken 
 from Plutarch ; or, if we must speak by the card, from 
 North. There is nothing remarkable in the characters 
 of a prodigal host, a confiding friend, or an irritated 
 benefactor soured by unlooked-for ingratitude. The 
 fourth act is Shakspeare’s own. Alarm had made way 
 for rage; rage now bursts into madness uncontrolled. 
 In the other sketches of Timon, he is shown as a sple- 
 netic wit ; and those who visit him in the hour of his 
 returning wealth are no more than ordinary parasites, 
 plying their well-understood vocation. In the fifth act 
 Shakspeare dramatizes some of the old traditionary 
 stories of the man-hater, and the force and energy 
 which he had imparted to the character are immediately 
 weakened. The invitation of all Athenians in the 
 sequence of degree ” to hang themselves, is a touch of 
 mere comedy;"^ and even his answers to the senators, 
 
 * Shakspeare, in introducing this story of the tree, did not take 
 the trouble of recollecting that it is a town story, and not suited for 
 the desert. 
 
 “ I have a tree, which grows here in my close 
 That mine own use invites me to cut down, 
 
 And I must fell it." 
 
PICTUEES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 225 
 
 though savage enough, are far removed from the in- 
 tensity of frenzied hatred exhibited in the fourth act. 
 There he is indeed the misanthropos who hates mankind. 
 The poetry of the misanthropic feeling is there fully 
 developed. In Apemantus, his hatred of mankind is a 
 tolerated impertinence, which obtains admission to 
 lordly tables, and affords an opportunity of railing and 
 carping without being exposed to their proper conse- 
 quences. In Alceste, there is in reality no misanthropy 
 at all ; Philinte may well call it a folly : 
 
 “ C’est une folie, a nuUe autre seconde, 
 
 De vouloir se meler de corriger le monde.” 
 
 In Timon it is absolute madness. He goes not about 
 displaying his wit or his ill -nature at the expense of 
 those whom he meets. He flies from all society, and 
 confounds the universal race of man in one common 
 curse. As for correcting the world, he dreams not of 
 such folly. It suits him better to pray for its universal 
 ruin and damnation. 
 
 This is the only light in which misanthropy can be 
 
 He hardly had a close of his own, or indeed a tree of his own, in 
 the desert, where he dwelt in a cave ; besides, he had no necessity 
 for felling any particular tree, or, if he had, there remained enough 
 for the purposes he recommended. 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEES : 
 
 considered for the purposes of poetry. If we do not look 
 upon it as madness, it becomes contemptible. Timon, 
 born to great estate, wastes it in riotous living ; and, 
 when his money is gone, he finds it not quite so easy to 
 borrow as it had been with him to lend. The case is 
 far from being uncommon ; and it is borne in different 
 ways, according to the different temperaments of men. 
 It drives Timon out of his senses. Gold, and the pomps 
 and vanities which it procures, had been to him every- 
 thing. Nature had not supplied him with domestic 
 attachments ; he is without wife or children, kindred or 
 relations, and he has made no friend. All that he re- 
 garded, vanished with his wealth. His soul, like that 
 of the licentiate, Perez Garcia, lay in his purse ; when 
 the purse was lost, he lost his senses too. In his pros- 
 perity we do not find any traces of affection, honourable 
 or otherwise, for women. In his curses, disrespect for 
 the female sex is remarkably conspicuous. The matron 
 is a counterfeit, her smiling babe is spurious ; the virgin 
 is a traitor, there is no chastity which is not to be sacri- 
 ficed for Gold, that 
 
 “ Ever young, fresh, loved, and delicate wooer, 
 
 Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow 
 That lies on Dian’s cheek ; ’* 
 
 and those who do make the sacrifice are instantly con- 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAT. 
 
 m 
 
 verted into the plagues and torments of mankind. 
 
 There’s more gold,” he says4o Phryne andTimandra, 
 after a speech of frenzied raving ; 
 
 “ Do you damn others, and let this damn you, — 
 
 And ditches grace you all ! ” 
 
 These philosophical ladies assure him that they will do 
 anything for goldj and thank him for his compliments : 
 
 “ More counsel with more money, bounteous Timon ! ” 
 
 He readily believes them to be no worse than the rest of 
 their sex ; and, as gold had been his all-in-all, feels no 
 scruple in thinking that its operation ought to be resist- 
 less in subverting the honour of women, as well as the faith 
 of men. Nothing, I repeat, except insanity, could raise 
 such a character from contempt ; but invest him with 
 madness, and poetry will always be able to rivet our 
 attention, and excite our sympathies for the moody 
 passions of the man hated of the gods, wandering alone 
 over the limitless plain of life without end or object, 
 devouring his own heart, and shunning the paths of 
 men. 
 
 No women appear in this play except Phryne and 
 Timandra, and they but in one short scene, when they 
 do not speak, between them, fifty words. This, of itself, 
 is sufficient to keep the play off the stage, for few 
 
 q3 
 
228 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS I 
 
 actresses will be desirous of appearing in such cha- 
 racters. They are precisely the description of women 
 suited to confirm Timon in his hatred of the human 
 race, and his conviction of the power of money over all. 
 It is unnecessary to say that ladies of a different class 
 of soul are to be found in Shakspeare, but their place is 
 not here. Isabels and Imogens, Juliets and Desdemonas, 
 would have scorned the riot and sycophancy of his 
 prosperous hours, and would have scared away by their 
 unpurchaseable purity the degrading visions of his mis- 
 anthropical fancies in the wood. The mistresses of 
 Alcibiades [the real Alcibiades, I should imagine, was 
 much better accommodated’’ than he appears to be in 
 this play] are Timon’s patterns of womankind ; as the 
 parasite train, who infested his house, are his patterns 
 of mankind. Yet even he might have seen that his 
 estimate was unjust. The churlish Apemantus, who 
 ate roots while others revelled at his overloaded board, 
 seeks him in the forest to offer something better than 
 roots to mend his feast. His steward, Flavius, ap- 
 proaches him in his calamity with a tender of his 
 duteous service. Alcibiades, the most honoured of his 
 guests, and who never had received any favours at his 
 hands, offers him assistance unasked. These touches of 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 929 
 
 kindness might have abated his censure, and made him 
 waver in his opinion that he should find in the woods 
 
 ** The unkindest beast more kinder than mankind.” 
 
 But no. The feeling which was at the root of his mad- 
 ness is as conspicuous in his reception of these oflers, 
 as in all other parts of his conduct. He patronizes to 
 the end. He is touched by the devotion of Flavius, 
 because he recognises Timon in the light of a master ; 
 he declines the gold of Alcibiades, because he wishes to 
 show that he has more gold, and can still lavish it ; but 
 Apemantus he spurns. He will not accept assistance 
 from a beggar, and a beggar upon whom it would be no 
 matter of pride to waste his bounty, even if the perverse 
 snarler would receive it. 
 
 Insanity, arising from pride, is the key of the whole 
 character ; pride indulged, manifesting itself indirectly 
 in insane prodigality, — pride mortified, directly in in- 
 sane hatred. Apemantus was wrong when he told him 
 that he was long a madman, and then a fool. He should 
 have reversed it. Timon was first a fool, and then a 
 madman, Alcibiades sees at a glance that 
 
 “ his wits 
 
 Are drowned and lost in his calamities ; ” 
 
230 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEBS : 
 
 and for sucli a catastrophe nothing can be a more un- 
 erring preparation than the stubborn will of pride. 
 “ Assuredly/’ says the Laureate, “ in most cases, 
 madness is more frequently a disease of the will than 
 of the intellect. When Diabolus appeared before the 
 town of Mansoul, and made his oration to the citizens 
 at Eargate, Lord Will-be-will was one of the first that 
 was for consenting to his words, and letting him into 
 the town.” Well may Dr. Southey conclude his specu- 
 lations on this subject by saying, ‘‘ In the humorist’s 
 course of life, there is a sort of defiance of the world and 
 the world’s law ; indeed, any man who departs widely 
 from its usages, avows this ; and it is, as it ought to 
 be, an uneasy and uncomfortable feeling wherever it is 
 not sustained by a high state of excitement, and that 
 state, if it be lasting, becomes madness.”"^ The Lau- 
 reate in this sentence has written an unconscious com- 
 mentary on the Timon of Shakspeare. The soul-stung 
 Athenian, when he 
 
 ** made his everlasting mansion 
 Upon the beached verge of the salt flood/' 
 
 called himself a misanthrope : — ^he was a madman ! 
 
 W. M. 
 
 ♦ The Doctor f &c. vol. iii. pp. 272 and 281. I believe no secret 
 is violated in attributing this work to Dr. Southey. 
 
PTCTUEES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 231 
 
 The text of Timon of Athens is about the most corrupt of the 
 plays. I suggest a few alterations. 
 
 Act iii. Scene 1. LucuUus, wishing to bribe Flavius, says, 
 “ Here’s three solidores for thee.” Steevens declares this coin to be 
 from the mint of the poet. It is saludores^ i. e. saluts-d'or, — apiece 
 coined in France by our Henry V. See HoHnshed, Ruding, Du- 
 cange, &c. It is mentioned by Rabelais more than once. 
 
 Act iv. Scene 3. “ Baise me this beggar, and denude the lord. 
 The senator shall bear contempt hereditary, 
 The beggar native honour.” 
 
 Read — “ Bote me this beggar,” u e. array the beggar in the robes 
 of the senator, and reduce the senator to the nakedness of the 
 beggar, and contempt and honour will be awarded according to their 
 appearance. 
 
 Act iv. Scene 3. Timon, addressing gold, says, 
 
 “ 0 thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce 
 ’Twixt natural son and sire ! ” 
 
 Read kin-killer,'' i.e, destroyer of aU kindred affection. King- 
 killing was no crime in Athens, where, as Shakspeare knew, there 
 was no king ; and all Timon’s apostrophes to the wicked, power of 
 gold relate not to the artificial laws of society, but to the violation of 
 natural ties, as between son and sire, husband and vife. 
 
 Same scene. 
 
 “ Thou bright defiler 
 
 Of Hymen’s purest bed ! thou valiant Mars ! 
 
 Thou ever young, /res /i, loved, and delicate wooer,” &c. 
 
 Perhaps, fresh-lived. 
 
232 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 POLONIUS. 
 
 This is a character which few actors like to perform. 
 Custom exacts that it must be represented as a comic 
 part, and yet it wants the stimulants which cheer a 
 comedian. There are no situations or reflections to 
 call forth peals of laughter, or even fill the audience 
 with ordinary merriment. He is played as a huflbon ; 
 but the text does not afibrd the adjuncts of bufibonery ; 
 and, in order to supply their place, antic gesture and 
 grimace are resorted to by the puzzled performer. It 
 is indeed no wonder that he should be puzzled, for he 
 is endeavouring to do what the author never intended. 
 It would not be more impossible — if we be allowed 
 to fancy degrees of impossibility — to perform the pan- 
 tomimic Pantaloon seriously in the manner of King 
 Lear, than to make the impression which Shakspeare 
 desired that Polonius should make, if he be exhibited 
 in the style of the dotard of Spanish or Italian 
 comedy, or the Sganarelle whom Moliere has bor- 
 rowed from them. There is some resemblance in Lord 
 Ogleby; but we cannot persuade ourselves to think 
 that George Colman, .elder or younger, could have 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 233 
 
 written any part in Hamlet, I doubt not that both 
 thought their own comedies far superior. 
 
 Polonius is a ceremonious courtier; and no more 
 ridicule attaches to him than what attaches to lords 
 of the bedchamberj or chamberlainSj or other such 
 furniture of a court in general. It is deemed neces- 
 sary that kings should be hedged not only by the 
 divinity of their regal honours, but by the more 
 corporal entrenchments of ofiScers of state. In fact 
 it must be so ; and in every history of the world we 
 find these functionaries, differing only in name. We 
 know not the internal arrangements of the palaces of 
 the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before there 
 reigned any king over the children of Israel;”^ but 
 we may be sure that Bela the son of Beor, and Hadad 
 the son of Bedad, who smote .Midian in the field of 
 Moab, and Saul of Rehoboth by the river, and Hadar, 
 whose city was Pau, and whose wife was Hatred, the 
 daughter of Mezahab, and the other princes of the 
 house of Esau, who a;ppear for a brief moment in the 
 earliest record of human affairs in the book of the 
 world’s generation, but to die and make way for others 
 to reign in their stead, had courtiers around them, to 
 whom were allotted duties in fashion different, in spirit 
 * Gen. xxxvi. 31 — 39. 
 
234 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS *. 
 
 the same as those which were performed by the courtly 
 oflScials of the Byzantium emperors, the togaed comites 
 of the Cmsars, the ruffled and periwigged gens de la 
 cour of the Grand Monarque, or the gold sticks and 
 silver sticks of Queen Victoria ; — and performed, no 
 doubt, for the same reason — for that con-si-de-ra-ti-on, 
 which, whether in the shape of flocks and herds, or 
 land and beeves, or the more easily managed commodity 
 of shekels and sovereigns, when the secret of a 
 circulating medium” was discovered, has ever been 
 the stimulants of the general herd attracted to a 
 court. It would be indeed travelling far from the 
 purpose of these papers to talk morals or politics on 
 such a subject ; but there can be no harm in saying 
 that, in times of difflculty or danger, when uneasy is 
 the head that wears a crown,” it is not to them its 
 wearer must look for zeal or assistance. The dog loves 
 the master — the cat loves the house. The nobler 
 animal who couches not in the drawing-room, and is 
 not caressed and pampered with soothing and offlcious 
 hand, but who guards the dwelling, and follows to 
 the field, may, if treated with kindness, be depended 
 upon to the last. He will die at the feet of a 
 master returning in the twentieth year — will couch 
 upon his grave — will seize his murderer by the throat. 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 335 
 
 The mere domestic creature, following her instinct, 
 will cling to the house through every change of dy- 
 nasty, ready to welcome with gratulatory purr what- 
 ever hand may rub down her glossy coat, and supply 
 her with customary food, even if that hand should 
 be reeking with the blood of the fallen owner of the 
 mansion in which she had been reared. But the cat 
 is not to be blamed. She acts as nature meant her 
 to act; and what nature is to a cat, habit is to a 
 courtier. Nothing can be more improbable than that 
 the Queen should bother herself — I talk Hibernically — 
 with reading these papers; — nothing is more certain 
 than that, if she does, she will not believe a word 
 of what I am saying. Yet if she lives to the age of 
 the great lady in whose days the creator of Polonius 
 flourished, — and may she so live, equally glorious in 
 her character of Queen, and far happier in her cha- 
 racter of woman! — she may be inclined to think that 
 I am right, and that the profession of etiquette, well 
 calculated as it may be to dignify the ceremonial of 
 state, is not to be confounded with the loyalty which 
 inspires 
 
 “ The manly hearts to guard a throne.” 
 
 But it is perfectly natural that the professors of the 
 
S36 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS I 
 
 science should set a high value upon it. The cham- 
 berlain who gave up the monarchy as lost when he 
 saw M. Eoland enter the presence of the king with 
 ribbons in his shoes^ was perfectly sincere. It was 
 no part of his business to inquire farther than what 
 he saw before him ; he had not to ask into the remoter 
 causes which gave M. Eoland the courage or the pre- 
 sumption to violate the laws of court decorum, which 
 the staff-bearer had throughout his life considered to 
 be as steadfast as the laws that regulated the motions 
 of the earth, if indeed he ever condescended to think 
 on such uncourtly trifles. It is easy to laugh at this 
 chamberlain ; but he was substantially right. The 
 kingdom of the doomed Louis did not depend upon 
 stockings or buckles ; but it depended upon the belief 
 that the person of the king was inviolate, and the 
 breach of decorum was but the first step leading to 
 the scaffold. The clown, who troubles not himself 
 
 with astronomical, meteorological, or chemical studies, 
 knows well that harvest is to follow seed-time, and 
 prognosticates with unerring certainty that the grain 
 which he is scattering in the ground is to ripen into 
 a golden ear ; so our court functionary, who had never 
 dreamt of political speculations, never consulted any 
 * ‘‘Eoland the Just with ribbons in his shoes.” — Anti- Jacobin. 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAT. 
 
 237 
 
 philosophical observers — looked not beyond the circle 
 of the Tuilleries, and would not have understood a 
 single word of Mr. Carlyle’s eloquent theories — saw 
 in this one grain of disrespect the coming crop of de- 
 struction. I know nothing of his after history — perhaps 
 he emigrated with others of his order; but if he did 
 not originally commit that false step, — and I hope 
 for the honour of so shrewd an observer that he did 
 not — [for what had he to do with chivalry ?] — have 
 little doubt that he found his fitting place among the 
 gold-laced suite of the Emperor, — welcomed with well- 
 trained bows the return of Louis the Eighteenth, — 
 served Charles the Tenth with appropriate ceremony, — 
 and is, I trust, now in his old age discussing the glories 
 of the powdered and rapiered circle of Louis Quinze, 
 beneath the approving smile of Louis Philippe. 
 
 Of this race was Polonius. Let not the abstracted 
 sage or the smug sneerer imagine that it was a race 
 of fools. In such courts as those which Shakspeare 
 contemplated they were far from it indeed. They had 
 been bred in camps and colleges — [Polonius had been 
 at the university, where in the dramatic entertainments, 
 usual in the seats of learning in Shakspeare’s time, 
 he was selected to perform no less a part than that 
 of Julius Csesar] — had acquired the polish of courts. 
 
238 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 ifj indeed, we should not rather say they created it— 
 mingled habitually among the great and the witty, the 
 graceful and the wise; — but, from perpetually con- 
 fining themselves to one class of society, and that 
 the most artificial of all classes, and deeming all other 
 interests depending upon that of their masters, as they 
 saw all other persons bowing in subservience before 
 them, it is no wonder that their world was bounded 
 by the precincts of a palace, and their wisdom or 
 ability exerted, as everybody’s ability or wisdom is ex- 
 erted, to shine or thrive by the arts which contributed 
 to make way in the world wherein their lot was cast- 
 Their sphere of courtly duty made them appear to 
 be frivolous; — it does not follow that they were so 
 in life elsewhere. 
 
 This distinction is 'admirably kept up in Polonius. 
 In the presence he is all ceremony and etiquette. He 
 will not open the business of Hamlet’s addresses to his 
 daughter, while the ambassadors from Norway are 
 waiting an audience. 
 
 “ Give first admittance to the ambassadours, 
 
 Thy news shaU he the fruit of that great feast.” 
 
 Who could be better qualified to introduce them with 
 due honours ? The king appoints him to the duty at 
 
 once : — 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 239 
 
 ** Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.” 
 
 He performs his courtly mission, and waits its con- 
 clusion before he commences to speak on what concerns 
 his daughter. 
 
 “ This business is well ended 
 
 and now for a speech. 
 
 “ My liege, and madam, to expostulate 
 What majesty should be, what duty is, 
 
 Why day is day, night night, and time is time, 
 
 Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.” 
 
 This is the exordium. We now proceed to the pro- 
 positio. 
 
 “ Therefore, since brevity is^ the soul of wit, , 
 
 And tediousness the limbs^^nd outward flourishes, 
 
 I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.” 
 
 The narratio should follow ; but a parenthetical remark 
 cannot be resisted. 
 
 “MadcaUIit.” 
 
 You must take it on my assertion— 
 
 “ For to define true madness, 
 
 What is ’t but to be nothing else but mad ? 
 
 But let that go.” 
 
 The queen agrees with the orator that it might as well 
 be let go, — for she desires more matter,” with less 
 art. Her chamberlain, of course, like all rhetori- 
 cians, disclaims the employment of rhetorical artifice, — 
 
240 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 “ Madam, I swear, I use no art at all,’* 
 
 and proceeds to the narratio, which is again stopped for 
 a moment by a trick of the art which he denies that 
 he is using. 
 
 “ That he is mad, *tis true ; *tis true, *tis pity ; 
 
 And pity *tis, ’tis true : a foolish figure ; 
 
 But farewell it, for I will use no art. 
 
 Mad let us grant him then : and now remains 
 That we find out the cause of this effect ; 
 
 Or, rather say, the cause of this defect ; 
 
 For this effect, defective, comes of cause.” 
 
 [The argument is strictly logical. It being granted 
 that he is mad, we must find the cause of what 
 logicians call effect — which in common parlance, as 
 applied to the madness of Hamlet, would be called 
 a defect, — ^we must find it, I say ; because whatever 
 an effect may be, defective or not, it must arise from a 
 cause.] 
 
 “ Thus it remains, and the remainder thus perpend.* 
 
 I have a daughter,” &c. 
 
 In due course of reasoning he exhibits his proofs — 
 Hamlet’s verses and letter, and Ophelia’s confessions. 
 
 ♦ This line is unnatural. The metre would he right, and the 
 technical arrangement of the style more in character if we read, 
 Thus it remains : remainder thus perpend. 
 
PICTUEES, GKAVE AND GAY. 
 
 241 
 
 In equally strict order follows the argument, consisting 
 of an elaborately arranged enumeration of the circum- 
 stances attendant on Hamlet’s madness : 
 
 And he, repulsed, (a short tale to make) 
 
 Fell into a sadness ; thence into a fast ; 
 
 Thence to a watch ; [and] thence into a weakness ; 
 Thence to a hghtness ; and, by this declension. 
 Into the madness wherein now he raves. 
 
 And all we mourn for.” 
 
 At this period of the speech, if it were delivered in 
 the House of Commons, there would be loud cries of 
 Hear, hear,” and the right honourable gentleman 
 would be obliged to pause for several minutes. If he 
 were a rising member, all his friends would come up to 
 congratulate him on his success, and the impression 
 he had obviously made ; if an established speaker, the 
 friends of his party would exclaim, How admirable !” 
 — Polonius surpasses himself to-night,” — Hid you 
 ever hear anything so fine, so close, so logical,” &c., 
 &c. The opposite side would oe obliged to look candid, 
 and say that it certainly was clever. 
 
 All that remains is the peroratio. Cheered by the 
 success of his arguments, he proceeds triumphantly in 
 gratulation of his own sagacity. 
 
 B 
 
242 
 
 SHAKSPEABE PAPEES : 
 
 “Hath there been such a time (I ’d fain know that) 
 
 That I have positively said, ’Tis so, 
 
 When it proved otherwise ? ” 
 
 [The king says, that I know’’ — which is 
 
 equivalent to cheers from the ministerial benches.”] 
 
 “ Take this from this, if this be otherwise.” 
 
 [This is a sample of gestus. He points to his head 
 and shoulder.] 
 
 “ If circumstances lead me, I will find 
 Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed 
 Within the centre.” 
 
 The speech is over, complete in all its parts. There . 
 /is scarcely an oratorical figure which is omitted, and it 
 I might serve as an unequalled model for many a crack 
 ‘ speech elsewhere.” Who is there that has not heard 
 promises of brevity made preludes to tediousness, 
 and disclaimers of art vehicles of rhetorical flourish? 
 What figure more used than amplification such as that, 
 — prefaced, as usual in such cases, by a declaration 
 that the tale will be short, — in which Polonius employs 
 half a dozen lines to detail the degrees of the madness 
 of Hamlet ? — and what practice more common than 
 passionate appeals to the past conduct of the speaker 
 as guarantees for the wisdom and uprightness of the 
 course which on the present occasion he is about to 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 243 
 
 pursue ? The speech of Polonius translated into Cice- 
 ronian Latin would be worthy of Cicero himself; — 
 expanded into three columns of a newspaper report, 
 would be the topic of conversation the day after its 
 delivery in all the clubs, and the welcome theme of 
 applause or confutation by the leading-article-manufac- 
 turers of both sides of the question. 
 
 Here Polonius was in his character of courtier and 
 privy councillor. He had the ear of the King, and he 
 held it fast. His Majesty and his royal consort duly 
 appreciated the merits of the old orator ; but as usual 
 in courts, he does not win the same favour in the eyes 
 of Hamlet. The ministers of the existing prince are 
 seldom favourites with his heir-apparent — his imme- 
 diate Camarilla never. Youth also generally thinks 
 itself wiser than age ; and we wonder not to find in the 
 next scene that Hamlet treats Polonius as a driveller. 
 The old gentleman bears courteously with the incivil- 
 ities of one whom he considers to be either a mere 
 madman or a prankish jester, and, recurring to the 
 days of his youth, excuses the prince for indulging in 
 feelings which lead to derangement of ideas. Even the 
 recollections, however, of the days when, like his 
 contemporary the gravedigger, he did love, did love,” 
 cannot overcome him to the degree of confessing that 
 
 E 3 
 
244 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPERS I 
 
 he was actually mad. He suffered much extremity ; 
 hutj after all, he was only very near madness.’’"^ 
 When the players are introduced, it is only be- 
 
 * Is not this dialogue in blank verse ? The speech of Polonius 
 certainly is, 
 
 “ Still harping on 
 
 My daughter ! Yet he knew me not at first. 
 
 He said, I was a fishmonger. He is 
 Far gone, far gone ; and truly, in my youth 
 I suffered extremity for love : 
 
 Very near this. I ’LL speak to him again.” 
 
 I recommend all future editors of Hamlet to restore the original 
 reading of the passage immediately preceding, — 
 
 “ For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog. 
 
 Being a ^ood-kissing carrion. Have you a daughter?” 
 
 in spite of Warhurton’s magnificent comment, which, according to 
 Johnson, sets the critic on a level with the author. “The illa- 
 tive particle [for],” says the bishop, “shows the speaker to be 
 reasoning from something he had said before : what that was we 
 learn in these words, ‘ To be honest, as this world goes, is to be 
 one picked out of ten thousand.' Having said this, the chain of 
 ideas led him to reflect upon the argument which libertines bring 
 against Providence from the circumstance of abounding evil. In 
 the next speech, therefore, he endeavours to answer that objection, 
 and ^dndicate Providence even on a supposition of the fact that 
 ahnost all men were wicked. His argument in the two hnes in 
 question is to this purpose. But why need we wonder at this 
 abounding of evil? For, if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, 
 lohich though a god, yet shedding its heat and influence upon car- 
 rion. Here he stops short, lest, talking too consequentially, the 
 hearer might suspect his madness to be feigned, — and so turns 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAT. 
 
 245 
 
 coming that he who had so long known what was 
 the mode should be their principal critic,- — and his 
 criticisms are in the most approved style of politesse, 
 
 him off from the subject by inqumng of his daughter. But the 
 inference which he intended to make was a very noble one, and 
 to this purpose: If this (says he) be the case, that the effect 
 follows the thing operated upon \_carrio7i], and not the thing 
 operating [a god~\ , why need we wonder that the Supreme Cause 
 of all things diffusing its blessings on mankind, who is as it 
 were a dead carrion, dead in original sin, — man, instead of a 
 proper return of duty, should breed only corruption and vices ? 
 This is the argument at length, and is as noble a one in behalf 
 of ]pro^ddence as could come from the schools of divinity. But 
 this wonderful man had an art not only of acquainting the audience 
 with what his actors say, but with what they think. The senti- 
 ment-, too, is altogether in character: for Hamlet is perpetually 
 moralizing, and his circumstances make this reflection very 
 natural.” 
 
 Surely never before nor since was any poor illative particle, 
 for, pressed to perform such hard duty. If Hamlet had said all 
 that his theological commentator makes him think, Polonius 
 would have set him down as mad, beyond all hope of recovery. 
 I have often thought, while reading this note, that it was a pity 
 Warburton had not written a commentary on the pleadings of 
 the Lord of Baisecul and his antagonist before Pantagruel, and 
 on the judgment delivered in the case by that renowned giant. If 
 he discovered an essay on original sin in this illative particle for, 
 he would assuredly have dug up a whole Corpus Theologicum 
 in the law- arguments in Eabelais. The etc. of Lyttleton which 
 conveyed so much meaning to the mind of Coke, is not to be 
 compared with the /or of V^arburton. He changed the old reading, 
 ‘‘ a ^ood-kissing carrion,” into “ a god kissing carrion.” 
 
246 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 When Hamlet speaks his part of the tragedy, of 
 course Polonius compliments him for the good accent 
 and good discretion with which he has spoken it. 
 
 The meaning of the passage is this. Hamlet suspects that 
 Polonius knows of his love for Ophelia, and that he intends to 
 “ loose his daughter to him.” He therefore calls him a fish- 
 monger, i, e, a purveyor of loose fish. It would not he agreeable 
 in pages which must fall into the hands of the young and fair to 
 follow up the allusion. Polonius interprets the word literally, 
 and is instantly assured that the chances are ten thousand to one 
 if he is as honest as the mere tradesman who sells actual fish. 
 The prince, in his affectation of craziness, proceeds to hint that 
 the consequences of exposing a young lady to the temptations of 
 persons in high rank or of warm blood may he dangerous, and 
 couples the outrS assertion that the sun can breed maggots with a 
 reference to Polonius’s daughter. Let her not walk m the sun. 
 Let her not put herself in the peculiar danger to which I aUude, 
 and to which her father’s performing the part of fishmonger may 
 lead. The sun is a good-kissing carrion — [carogne — it is a word 
 which elsewhere occurs in Shakspeare. Quickly, in the Merry 
 Wives of Windsor, is called a carrion, &c.] — a baggage fond of 
 kissing. In Henry IV, Prince Hal compares the sun to a fair 
 hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta; and if the sun can breed 
 maggots in a dead dog, who knows what may happen elsewhere ? 
 
 There is a troublesome word in King Lear, of which I have 
 never seen a satisfactory interpretation. In the storm of abusive 
 epithets which Kent pours upon the steward, he calls him “ a 
 barber-monger.” The guesses at the meaning are all insufficient. 
 Perhaps it should read “ barbeZ-monger,” — that is, fishmonger in a 
 peculiar sense. I throw out my conjecture to he rejected at 
 pleasure. I must remark, however, that those who are puzzled 
 by the meaning of a “ hundred-pound knave ” may find it in 
 
PICTUBES, GBAVE AND GAY. 
 
 247 
 
 When the player delivers the remainder of the speech, 
 the critic finds it too long. Rebuked by the prince 
 for his censure, he takes the earliest opportunity of 
 declaring that an affected phrase, which startles Hamlet 
 somewhat, to declare that it is good. In the end, 
 when the player displays an emotion roused by his 
 art, Polonius, according to the rules of gout^ desires 
 that an end should be put to the performance. When 
 the play is actually performed before the king, eti- 
 quette keeps him silent until he sees that there is 
 something in it displeasing in a high quarter,’’ and 
 then the shrewd courtier stops it at once. It is his 
 voice which directs that they should give o’er the 
 play.” He is throughout the ceremonious but saga- 
 cious attache of a palace ; and the king and queen 
 accordingly treat him with the utmost deference, and 
 
 Eabelais or Sir Thomas Urquhart. It is a word of reproach 
 addressed to the heavy pondres-pondres Germans. It occurs in 
 Bridlegoose’s famous story of the pugnacious Gascon in the camp 
 at Stockholm. Sir John Hawkins, in his absurd life of Dr. 
 Johnson, imagines that it is a word invented by Urquhart, with no 
 more meaning than the ordinary slang words of the day. 
 
 In the conclusion of the scene between Hamlet and Polonius, 
 the former exclaims, “ These tedious old fools ! ” Would it not 
 be better, “ Thou tedious old fool ! ” — for it is plain that Hamlet 
 is thinking only of the troublesome old man who has been pester- 
 ing him. 
 
US 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEES : 
 
 consult him in their most critical emergencies. He 
 dies in their service, fitly practising a stratagem in 
 perfect accordance with the morale of the circle in 
 which he has always moved, and in which he has 
 engaged to show his wisdom, devotion, and address."^ 
 Hamlet well characterizes the class of men to which 
 the slain courtier belonged in his farewell to the body. 
 
 “ Thou busy, rash, intruding fool, farewell; 
 
 I took thee for thy better, — take thy fortune. 
 
 Thou findest to he too busy is some danger.” 
 
 But Polonius is no fool, though he is so called here. 
 Hamlet is annoyed by his meddling and officiousness, 
 and therefore applies the epithet. He marks his sense 
 of his general respect for the old man, even when 
 he is most pestered by his interference. In a peevish 
 exclamation he styles him a tedious old fool ; ” but 
 when he sees that the players are inclined to follow 
 
 * “ Behind the arras I ’ll convey myself. 
 
 To hear the process ; I ’ll warrant she ’ll tax him home. 
 And, as you said, and wisely was it said, 
 
 ’Tis meet that some more audience than a mother. 
 
 Since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear 
 The speech of vantage. Fare you well, my liege. 
 
 I ’ll call upon you ere you go to bed, 
 
 And tell you what I know.’* 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AKD GAT. 
 
 949 
 
 his own example, he checks them by an authoritative 
 command, 
 
 “ Follow that lord, and look you mock him not.” 
 
 If he calls him to Kosencrantz and Guildenstern ‘‘ a 
 great baby, not yet out of his swaddling clouts,” and 
 jeers him in their presence, it is partly to show that 
 he is but mad north-north-west, and can know a hawk 
 from a hand-saw when the wind is southerly, and 
 partly to mark that he has discovered the conspiracy 
 against him, and to display his contempt for all en- 
 gaged in it. 
 
 '^Abstracted from his courtier-character, Polonius is 
 a man of profound sense, and of strict and affectionate 
 attention to his duties. A man whom his children love 
 can never be contemptible. No one, it is said, can be 
 a hero to valet de chamhre^ because he sees all the 
 petty physical wants and moral defects of his master. 
 How much more diflScult to be the object of esteem and 
 devotion in the eyes of those who have turned their 
 eyes upon us from childhood. Natural affection will, 
 of course, do much ; but the buffoon of the stage never 
 could have inspired the feelings exhibited by his chil- 
 dren, who must have been perpetually grieved and 
 disgraced by antic buffoonery, of which they, from their 
 
260 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPEES : 
 
 connexion with the court, must have been constant 
 witnesses. Laertes, a fine high-spirited young gentle- 
 man, and Ophelia, the Rose of May, the grace and 
 ornament of the circle in which she moved, could not 
 have so deeply reverenced and so bitterly deplored their 
 father, if he had been indeed a great baby still in his 
 swaddling clouts. The double of Pantaloon, whom we 
 see tumbling about in Drury Lane or Covent Garden, 
 would not have roused the blood of Laertes to fury, 
 still less led him to justify assassination in avenging 
 his fall ; nor would his death have driven Ophelia to 
 madness. Such a father might be dead and gone, 
 
 “ And at his head a grass-green turf, 
 
 And at his heels a stone,” 
 
 according to the inflexible laws of mortality ; but his 
 son would soon wipe the natural tears he might drop, 
 and let him lie in his grave without any complaint of 
 
 “His obscure funeral; 
 
 No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o’er his hones ; 
 
 No noble rite, nor formal ostentation.” 
 
 Nor would his daughter, in her broken-hearted insanity, 
 have imagined that at his death violets, the sweetest 
 flowers of the spring, had universally withered. Let 
 me observe, that by this remark I mean no disrespect 
 
PICTUEES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 251 
 
 to our actors, many of the most eminent of whom have 
 performed the part. They yield to long-established 
 custom, and, as the part is not of the same importance 
 in the play as Shylock in the Merchant of Venice^ it is 
 not probable that any Macklin will arise to rescue him 
 from buffoonery. Besides, as it is necessary that he 
 should in one part of the play designedly act up to the 
 follies of Hamlet, it would be difficult to make the dis- 
 tinction between the assumed and the natural character ; 
 and yet perhaps it ought to be attempted, for, as it is 
 played at present, it is perhaps the least attractive of 
 the prominent dramatis 'personae of Shakspeare. 
 
 Even in the very part to which I have just alluded, 
 wffiere he is fooling Hamlet to the top of his bent, he 
 cannot avoid displaying glances of his habitual shrewd- 
 ness. He suspects the reality of the madness from the 
 beginning. The insulting taunts addressed to him at 
 second hand from Juvenal only call forth the reflection 
 that there is method in the madness. In the end he 
 plainly considers it as nothing more than a prank. He 
 bids the Queen 
 
 ‘‘ TeU him his pranks have been too broad to bear with, 
 
 And that your grace hath screened and stood between 
 Much heat and him.” 
 
 Neither Laertes nor Ophelia are present while he is 
 
252 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 engaged in bandying folly against folly, and lie there- 
 fore does not such before those by whom he most desires 
 to be respected. When alone with them, his true cha- 
 racter appears ; — and what can be more sensible ? His 
 counsels to his son have never been for worldly wisdom 
 surpassed. The ten precepts of Lord Burleigh, ad- 
 dressed to his son Robert, on which it is generally 
 supposed the apophthegms of Polonius are based, are 
 perhaps equal in shrewdness, but they want the pithi- 
 ness and condensation of verse. Neither are they as 
 philosophical, being drawn, to talk logically, a posteriori^ 
 while those of Shakspeare are deduced a priori. Take, 
 for example. Lord Burleigh’s fifth maxim on borrowing 
 and lending money : — 
 
 Beware of suretyship for thy best friends. He that 
 payeth another man’s debts seeketh his own decay. 
 But if thou canst not otherwise choose, rather lend thy 
 money thyself upon good bonds, although thou borrow 
 it ; so shalt thou secure thyself, and pleasure a friend. 
 Neither borrow money of a neighbour or a friend, but 
 of a stranger, where, paying for it, thou shalt hear no 
 more of it, otherwise thou shalt eclipse thy credit, loose 
 thy freedom, and pay as dear as to another. But in 
 borrowing of money be precious of thy word, for he that 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 253 
 
 takes care of keeping payment is lord of another man’s 
 purse.” 
 
 Full of practical good sense, no doubt, as indeed is 
 everything that wise Burleigh spoke but it might 
 occur to minds of smaller calibre than that of the Lord 
 High Treasurer. Polonius takes higher ground. 
 
 “ Neither a borrower nor a lender be; 
 
 For loan oft loses both itself and friend; 
 
 And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.” 
 
 Lord Burleigh gives us but the petty details, — in 
 Shakspeare w^e find the principle. 
 
 Again, his Lordship’s ninth precept is : — 
 
 Trust not any man with thy life, credit, or estate ; 
 for it is mere folly for a man to enthrall himself to a 
 friend, as though, occasion being offered, he should not 
 care to become thine enemy.” 
 
 It is good advice; but how much better done by 
 Polonius ! 
 
 “ This above all. To thine own self be true, 
 
 And it must follow, as the night the day. 
 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man.” 
 
 A comparison of all the precepts of the poet and 
 the statesman would yield a similar result. And yet no- 
 body ever thought of exhibiting Burleigh, inferior as he is 
 
S54 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPEES I 
 
 in dramatical wisdom, as an object of merriment upon 
 the stage for many a year after he had been gathered 
 to his fathers, until it pleased the author of the Qritic 
 to put him forward to make his oracular nod. There 
 is no use in moralizing, but we cannot help reflecting 
 that Sheridan would have done better in life if he could 
 have followed the prudential advice of the great minister 
 whom he mocked. It is certain that if he had avoided 
 mimicking him at humble distance elsewhere^ and 
 never thought of playing at Parliament, — if, content 
 with winning dramatic honours only second to those of 
 Moliere, he had eschewed throwing himself into paths 
 where the half-nods of the less than ten th^ rate Bur- 
 leighs are of more weight than all the wit and genius 
 of the School for Scandal^ there would not have been 
 any necessity that his death should be neglected and 
 his funeral honoured, with a contempt and a sympathy 
 equally characteristic of those whom his Lordship calls 
 the glow-worms, I mean parasites and sycophants, 
 who wfll feed and fawn upon thee in the summer of 
 prosperity, but in adverse storms they will shelter thee 
 no more than an arbour in winter.’’ 
 
 That the austere Lord High Treasurer might have 
 been the mark for the covert wit of the dramatist, — 
 covert indeed, for in his time, or in that which imme- 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 955 
 
 diately succeeded it, there was no safety in making 
 unseemly jests too openly about him, —is highly pro- 
 bable ; and the enemy of Essex and Raleigh‘S could not 
 be an object of admiration in the eyes of Shakspeare. 
 Lord Burleigh, in his courtly demeanour, was as ob- 
 servant of etiquette as Polonius, and as ready in using 
 indirections to find thereby directions out. The Queen 
 was fond both of ceremony and statecraft : but I doubt 
 much that the old gentleman in Hamlet is intended for 
 anything more than a general personification of cere- 
 monious courtiers. If Lord Chesterfield had designed 
 to write a commentary upon Polonius, he could not 
 have more completely succeeded than by writing his 
 famous letters to his son. His Lordship, like every man 
 of taste and virtue, and what Pope has comprehended 
 in the expressive term of all that,’’ in his time utterly 
 
 * Even in these precepts his lordship cannot avoid a “ gird ” at 
 those remarkable men whose accomplishments were, however, much 
 more likely to please poets and adventurers than sober statesmen. 
 We know how Spenser immortalizes the Shepherd of the Ocean, 
 and with what pomp of verse “the general of our gracious em- 
 peress ” is introduced almost by name in the chorus of Henry V, 
 Shakspeare’s most national play, as a fit object of comparison with 
 the hero of Azincour himself. In Lord Burleigh they only appear 
 as suiteth examples to point the moral of a maxim. “ Yet I advise 
 thee not to afiect or neglect popularity too much. Seek not to he 
 Essex — shun to he Raleigh,'' 
 
256 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEKS : 
 
 despised Shakspeare. There is nothing to blame in 
 this. What can we talk on but of what we know? 
 One of the grandest of the herd, Horace Walpole, wrote 
 the Mysterious 3Iothery and therefore he had a right 
 (had he not?) to offer an opinion on Macbeth^ and 
 to pronounce Midsummer NigMs Dream a bundle of 
 rubbish, far more ridiculous than the most absurd 
 Italian opera. Lord Chesterfield wrote nothing, that 1 
 know of, to give him a name as an author, except his 
 letters. Of course he wrote despatches, protocols, and 
 other such ware, worthy, no doubt, of the Red Tapery 
 of which he was so eminent a member. 
 
 lAGO. 
 
 I HAVE been accused by some who have taken the 
 trouble of reading these papers, that I am fond of para- 
 doxes, and write not to comment upon Shakspeare, but 
 to display logical dexterity in maintaining the untenable 
 side of every question. To maintain that Falstaff was 
 in heart melancholy and Jaques gay, to contrast the 
 fortunes of Romeo and Bottom, or to plead the cause 
 of Lady Macbeth, is certainly not in accordance with 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 357 
 
 the ordinary course of criticism ; but I have given my 
 reasons, sound or unsound as they may be, for my 
 opinions, which I have said with old Montaigne, I do 
 not pretend to be good, but to be mine. What appears 
 to me to be the distinguishing feature of Shakspeare is, 
 that his characters are real men and women, not mere 
 abstractions. In the best of us all there are many 
 blots, in the worst there are many traces of goodness. 
 There is no such thing as angels or devils in the world. 
 We have passions and feelings, hopes and fears, joys and 
 sorrows, pretty equally distributed among us ; and that 
 which actuates the highest and the lowest, the most 
 virtuous and the most profligate, the bravest and 
 meanest, must, in its original elements, be the same. 
 People do not commit wicked actions from the mere 
 love of wickedness ; there must always be an incentive 
 of precisely the same kind as that which stimulates to 
 the noblest actions — ambition, love of adventure, pas- 
 sion, necessity. All our virtues closely border upon 
 vices, and are not unfrequently blended. The robber 
 may be generous — the miser, just — the cruel man, con- 
 scientious — the rake, honourable — the fop, brave. In 
 various relations of life, the same man may play many 
 characters as distinct from one another as day from 
 night. I venture to say that the creatures of Boz’s 
 
 s 
 
258 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPEES*. 
 
 fancy, Fagin or Sikes, did not appear in every circle as 
 the unmitigated scoundrels we see them in Oliver Twist. 
 It is, I suppose, necessary to the exigencies of the tale, 
 that no other part of their characters should be exhi- 
 bited; but, after all, the Jew only carries the commer- 
 cial, and the housebreaker the military principle, to an 
 extent which society cannot tolerate. In element, the 
 feeling is the same that covers the ocean with the 
 merchant-flags of England, and sends forth the hapless 
 boys to the trade of picking pockets — that inspires the 
 highwayman to stop a traveller on Hounslow, and spirits 
 the soldier to face a cannon at Waterloo. Eobber, 
 soldier, thief, merchant, are all equally men. It is ne- 
 cessary for a critical investigation of character, not to 
 be content with taking things merely as they seem. 
 We must endeavour to strip ofi* the covering with which 
 habit or necessity has enveloped the human mind, and 
 to inquire after motives as well as look to actions. It 
 would not be an unamusing task to analyze the career 
 of two persons starting under similar circumstances, 
 and placed in situations not in essence materially dif- 
 ferent, one ending at the debtors’ door of Newgate, 
 amid hootings and execrations, and the other borne to 
 his final resting-place in Westminster Abbey, graced by 
 all the pomps that heraldry can bestow. 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 259 
 
 As Shakspeare therefore draws men, and not one- 
 sided sketches of character, it is always possible to 
 treat his personages as if they were actually existing 
 people; and there is always some redeeming point. 
 The bloody Macbeth is kind and gentle to his wife ; 
 the gore-stained Richard, gallant and daring ; Shylock 
 is an affectionate father, and a good-natured master ; 
 Claudius, in Hamlet^ is fond of his foully-won queen, 
 and exhibits, at least, remorse for his deed in heart- 
 rending soliloquies ; Angelo is upright in public life, 
 though yielding to sore temptation in private ; Cloten 
 is brutal and insulting, but brave; the ladies are either 
 wholly without blemishes, or have merits to redeem 
 them : in some plays, as Julius Ocesar^ Ooriolanus^ An- 
 tony and Qleopatra^ Romeo and Juliet ^ and several others, 
 no decidedly vicious character is introduced at all. 
 The personages introduced are exposed to the frailties 
 of our nature, but escape from its grosser crimes and 
 vices. 
 
 But lago ! Ay ! there’s the rub. Well may poor 
 Othello look down to his feet, and not seeing them dif- 
 ferent from those of others, feel convinced that it is a 
 fable which attributes a cloven hoof to the devil. His 
 next test, 
 
 s 3 
 
260 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 If that thou he’st a devil, I cannot kill thee” * — 
 
 affords a proof that lago is not actually a fiend, for he 
 wounds him ; hut still he cannot think him anything 
 less than a demi-devil,” being bled, not killed. Nor 
 is it wonderful that the parting instruction of Lodo- 
 vico to Cassio, should be to enforce the most cunning 
 cruelty of torture on the hellish villain, or that all the 
 party should vie with each other in heaping upon him 
 words of contumely and execration. He richly de- 
 served them. He had ensnared the soul and body of 
 Othello to do the most damnable actions ; he had been 
 the cause of the cruel murder of Desdemona ; he had 
 killed his own wife, had plotted the assassination of 
 Cassio, had betrayed and murdered Roderigo. His 
 determination to keep silence when questioned, was at 
 least judicious : 
 
 “ Demand me nothing : what you know, you know; 
 
 From this time forth I never wiU speak word : ” 
 
 for with his utmost ingenuity he could hardly find any- 
 
 ♦ After this line he wounds lago. Then follows : 
 
 “ Lod, Wrench his sword from him. 
 lago. I bleed, sir, hut not killed.” 
 
 This is strange language. Should it not be ** I, [i. e. Ay, as usual in 
 Shakspeare,] Uedy sir, but not killed?” 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 261 
 
 thing to say for himself. Is there nothing, then, to he 
 said for him by anybody else ? 
 
 No more than this. He is the sole exemplar of stu- 
 died personal revenge in the plays. The philosophical 
 mind of Hamlet ponders too deeply, and sees both sides 
 of the question too clearly, to be able to carry any plan 
 of vengeance into execution. Borneo’s revenge on Tybalt 
 for the death of Mercutio is a sudden gust of ungovern- 
 able rage. The vengeances in the historical plays are 
 those of war or statecraft. In Shylock, the passion is 
 hardly personal against his intended victim. A swag- 
 gering Christian is at the mercy of a despised and 
 insulted Jew. The hatred is national and sectarian. 
 Had Bassanio or Gratiano, or any other of their creed, 
 been in his power, he would have been equally relentless. 
 He is only retorting the wrongs and insults of his tribe, 
 in demanding full satisfaction, and imitating the hated 
 Christians in their own practices. 
 
 And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge ? 
 
 If we are like you in the rest, we will 
 Eesemble you in that. If a Jew wrong 
 A Christian, what is Ms humility ? 
 
 Eevenge ! 
 
 [And] if a Christian wrong a Jew, what should 
 His sufferance be by Christian example ? 
 
 Why, [sir] revenge ! The villany you teach me 
 
262 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 I ’ll execute, and it shall go hard, hut 
 I ’ll better the instruction.”* 
 
 It is, on the whole, a passion remarkably seldom 
 exhibited in Shakspeare in any form. lago, as I have 
 said, is its only example, as directed against an indi- 
 vidual. 
 
 lago had been affronted in the tenderest point. He 
 felt that he had strong claims on the oflSce of lieutenant 
 to Othello^ who had witnessed his soldierly abilities 
 
 “ At Ehodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds, 
 
 Christian and heathen.” 
 
 The greatest exertion was made to procure it for him, 
 and yet he is refused. What is still worse, the grounds 
 
 * Printed as prose in the editions. The insertion of and before 
 ifj where it may serve as the ordinary copulative, — or as the com- 
 mon form, an if, perpetually recurring, as in Borneo, an if a 
 man did need a poison now,” [on which form I may remark in pass- 
 ing, Horne Tooke talks ignorantly enough in his Diversions of 
 Parley , ~] — and of a monosyllable between why and revenge, makes 
 the whole passage metrical. I am inclined to think that revenge 
 should he repeated in the concluding lines. “ If a Jew wrong a 
 Christian, what is his humility? Bevenge ! ” If, on the contrary, 
 a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance he ? 
 
 “ Bevenge ! eevenge ! The villany you teach me 
 I’ll execute.” 
 
 As an editor I might scruple to exhibit the text thus. I should re- 
 commend it to an actor in place of the prosaic and unmetrical — 
 Why, revenge. 
 
PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY. 
 
 263 
 
 of the refusal are military : Othello evades the request 
 of the bowing magnificoes 
 
 “ with a bombast circumstance, 
 
 Horribly stuffed with epithets of war.” 
 
 He assigns to the civilians reasons for passing over lago, 
 drawn from his own trade, of which they of course could 
 not pretend to be adequate judges. And worst of all, 
 when this practised military man is for military reasons 
 set aside, who is appointed ? Some man of greater re- 
 nown and skill in arms ? That might be borne ; but it 
 is no such thing. The choice of Othello lights upon 
 
 “ Forsooth, a great arithmetician. 
 
 One Michael Cassio, a Florentine, 
 
 A fellow almost damned in a fair wife,* 
 
 * This is one of the most puzzling lines in Shakspeare. All the 
 explanations are forced. Cassio had no wife, and his treatment of 
 Bianca, who stands in place of one, is contemptuous : nor does he 
 let her stand in the way of his duty. She tenderly reproaches him 
 for his long absence, and he hastily sends her home, harshly saying, 
 “ I do attend here on the general. 
 
 And think it no addition, nor my wish 
 To have him see me woman' d'' 
 
 Tyrwhitt reads damned in a fair life ; interpreting it as an allusion to 
 the judgment denounced in the gospel, against those of whom all 
 men speak well, which is very far-fetched indeed. If life were the 
 reading, it might signify that Cassio was damned for the rough hfe 
 of a soldier by the fair, e. the easy life he had hitherto led. John- 
 
264 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEES : 
 
 That never set a squadron in the field, 
 
 Nor the division of a battle knows, 
 
 More than a spinster ; unless the bookish theoric. 
 Wherein the toged consuls can propose 
 As masterly as he : mere prattle, without practice. 
 
 Is all his soldiership.” 
 
 It is an insult hard to be borne, as many an H. P. 
 will be ready to testify. We will find in many profes- 
 sional periodical works the complaint reiterated, that 
 
 son gives it up, as a passage “ which, for the present, must he re- , 
 signed to corruption and obscurity.” A writer in one of the early 
 volumes of Blackwood's Magazine^ proposed somewhat ingeniously 
 “ A great arithmetician, 
 
 A fellow almost damned : in a fair wise, 
 
 Who never set a squadron in the field.” 
 
 But this is not satisfactory. Why is Cassio a fellow almost damned ? 
 Like Dr. Johnson, “ I have nothing that I can, with any approach to 
 confidence, propose,” hut I think that the word “ damned” is a cor- 
 ruption of some word which signified delicate, soft, dainty, or some- 
 thing of the kind, and that for “ in ” we should read “ as.” “A fellow 
 almost as soft and deHcate as a fair wife,” as dainty as a woman. I 
 am not fortunate to supply it, hut I have somewhat thought it was 
 “ A fellow almost trimmed as a fair wife.” 
 
 Such a fellow as the “ neat and dressed” courtier, ‘‘perfumed 
 
 as a milliner,” who excited the impatience of Hotspur. As a fair 
 wife, corresponds to more than a spinster, in the conclusion of the 
 sentence. I throw out my hint for the leading or misleading of 
 future editors. 
 
 I cannot help remarking that Colonel Mitchell, in his noble life of 
 Wallenstein, seems to have no better opinion of the “ arithmeti- 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 265 
 
 “ there’s no remedy, ’tis the curse of service : 
 Preferment goes by letter and affection, 
 
 Not hy old gradation, where each second , 
 
 Stood heir to the first : ” 
 
 and many a curse, loud and deep, is inflicted on that 
 account upon the Horse Guards and Admiralty, who 
 fortunately have no individual responsibilities on which 
 the disappointed ancients can fasten. I am sure that 
 no British soldier or sailor would carry his anger far- 
 ther than a passing growl, but the example of Belling- 
 ham shows that even in our assassin-hating nation, a 
 feeling of injustice done by a superior, will drive a man 
 to satiate his vengeance even upon those who have not 
 done him wrong. 
 
 clans” of Shakspeare’s day than lago. George Basta, the celebrated 
 tactician, was contemporary with Shakspeare. 'Wallenstein served 
 undor him, and Colonel Mitchell makes somewhat the same com- 
 plaint of the want of preferment of his hero as the disappointed an- 
 cient. “ As to George Basta,” he says, “ if we may judge of him hy 
 his system of tactics, which was then exactly what Saldera'sis now, 
 and which, when the object of such a system is considered, must he 
 looked upon as second only, in feebleness and insufficiency, to the 
 one followed in our own time, he was not a likely person to appre- 
 ciate talent, or to encourage and call forth genius.” Nor, indeed, is 
 the Colonel veiy complimentary to the army to which lago belongs. 
 He calls them “ the worthless mercenaries of Venice, troops con- 
 stantly kept in a state of mutiny and insufficiency, hy the ignorant 
 fears of their despicable government,” 
 
366 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS I 
 
 In the country of lago, whether from his name we 
 conclude it to he Spain, or from his service, Italy, none 
 of the scruples, or rather principles, which actuate or 
 restrain English gentlemen, existed. Least of all were 
 they to be found in the motley armies of adventurers 
 gathered from all quarters, the outcasts 
 
 “ of all foreign lands, 
 
 Unclaimed by town or tribe, to whom belongs 
 Nothing, except the universal sun:”* 
 
 and lago could not be expected to be very scrupulous 
 as to his method of compassing his revenge. But how 
 effect it ? He is obliged to admit that Othello’s stand- 
 ing in the state is too important to render it possible 
 that public injury could be done to him. He is well 
 aware that 
 
 “ the state 
 
 ***** 
 
 Cannot with safety cast him ; he’s embarked 
 With such loud reasons to the Cyprus war. 
 
 Which e’en now stands in act, that for their souls 
 Another of his fathom they have not 
 To lead their business.” 
 
 In his unhoused condition no point of vantage presented 
 itself whence harm could be wrought. Just then, when 
 
 * Schiller. The Piccolominif Ac. iv. s. 5. 
 
PICTUKES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 267 
 
 lago’s heart was filled with rage, and his head busily 
 but vainly occupied in devising means for avenging 
 himself on the man by whom that rage was excited, 
 just then Ate^ the Goddess of Mischief, supplies him 
 with all that deepest malignity could desire, by the 
 hasty, ill-mated, and unlooked-for marriage of Othello. 
 It was a devil-send that the most sanguine spirit could 
 not have anticipated, and lago clutched it accordingly 
 with passionate eagerness. He was tempted and 
 he fell. 
 
 When he first conceived his hatred against Othello, 
 he had no notion that it would be pushed to such dire 
 extremity. Revenge is generally accompanied by 
 vanity, indeed there must be always a spice of vanity 
 in a revengeful disposition. He who so keenly feels 
 and deeply resents personal injury or affront, must set 
 no small value upon himself. The proud are seldom 
 revengeful — the great never. We accordingly find 
 that lago engages in his hostilities against Othello, 
 more to show his talents than for any other purpose. 
 He proudly lauds his own powers of dissimulation, which 
 are to be now displayed with so much ability. 
 
 “ When my outward action doth demonstrate 
 The native act and figure of my heart 
 In compliment extern, ’tis not long after 
 
S68 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS: 
 
 But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve 
 For daws to peck at. I am not what I am,”* 
 
 He fancies himself superior to all around in art and 
 knowledge of the world. Roderigo is a mere gull : — 
 
 “ Thus do I ever make my fool my purse ; 
 
 For I mine own gain’d knowledge should profane, 
 
 If I should time expend with such a snipe y 
 But for my sport and profit.” 
 
 Cassio lie considers to be not merely unskilled in war, 
 but a fool : — 
 
 ““ For while this honest fool 
 Plies Desdemona to repair his fortunes,” &c. 
 
 Othello is an ass in his estimation : — 
 
 “ The Moor is of a free and open nature, 
 
 That thinks men honest that hut seem to be so. 
 
 And will as tenderly be led by the nose 
 As asses are” 
 
 The inclining ’’ Desdemona he utterly despises, as 
 one who fell in love with the Moor merely for his brag- 
 ging, and telling fantastical lies. His wife he calls a 
 
 * Can these last words be intended as a somewhat profane allu- 
 sion to the title by which the Almighty reveals himself to Moses ? 
 Exod. iii. 14. I AM THAT I AM is the name of the God of 
 truth. I am not what I am is therefore a fitting description of a 
 premeditated liar. 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 269 
 
 fool ; and with these opinions of his great superiority 
 of wisdom and intellect, he commences operations to 
 enmesh them all, as if they were so many puppets. It 
 would be a strange thing, indeed, he reflects, if I were 
 to permit myself to be insulted, and my rights with- 
 held, by such a set of idiots, whom I can wind round 
 my finger as I please. 
 
 He seated him in the seat of the scorner, a character 
 which he who is accounted the wisest of men continually 
 opposes to that of true wisdom. ‘‘ Seest thou,’’ says 
 Solomon, in the Proverbs copied out by the men of 
 Hezekiah, King of Judah, which, whether they be 
 inspired or not, are aphorisms of profound and concen- 
 trated wisdom, — seest thou a man wise in his own 
 conceit ? there is more hope of a fool than of him.”*^ 
 And the career of lago ends with his own destruction, 
 amid the abomination set down in another chapter of 
 Proverbs as the lot of the scorner. The jealousy of 
 Othello is not more gradually and skilfully raised and 
 developed than the vengeance of lago. At first angry 
 enough, no doubt ; but he has no defined project. He 
 follows the Moor to take advantage of circumstances 
 to turn them to his own use. Nothing of peculiar 
 
 * Prov. xxvi. 12. “ The scorner is an abomination to men," 
 
 occurs in chap. xxiv. 9. 
 
270 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS: 
 
 malignity is thought upon : if he can get Cassio’s place, 
 he will he satisfied. 
 
 “ Cassio ’s a proper man : let me see now, 
 
 To get his place 
 
 The marriage and the sight of Desdemona point out 
 to him a ready way of accomplishing this object. The 
 thought occurs suddenly, and he is somewhat startled 
 at first. He asks himself with eager repetition, 
 
 ‘‘How? how?*' 
 
 and pauses to think — 
 
 “ Let me see .** 
 
 It is soon settled. 
 
 “ After some time, to abuse Othello's ear, 
 
 That he is too familiar with his wife." 
 
 But it still alarms him : 
 
 “ I have it-— It's engendered : Hell and night 
 Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light." 
 
 The plot is not matured even when they all arrive at 
 Cyprus. 
 
 “ ’Tis here, but yet confused — 
 
 Knavery’s plain face is never seen till used.” 
 
 When once fairly entered upon, however, it progresses 
 with unchecked rapidity. He is himself hurried resist- 
 lessly forward by the current of deceit and iniquity in 
 
PICTUEES, GEAVE AND GAY. 
 
 271 
 
 which he has embarked. He is as much a tool or pas- 
 sive instrument as those whom he is using as such. 
 
 Some critics pronounce his character unnatural, as 
 not having sufficient motive for the crimes he commits. 
 This is not wise. He could not help committing them. 
 Merely to put money in his purse, he gulled Roderigo 
 into a belief that he could assist the poor dupe in his 
 suit to Desdemona. There is no remarkable crime in 
 this. Nor can we blame him for being angry at being 
 somewhat scornfully passed over ; we can, at all events, 
 enter into his feelings when he wishes to undermine one 
 whom he considers to be unworthily preferred to him, 
 and to obtain a place which he thinks should be his 
 own, if patronage had been justly dispensed. It was a 
 base thing, indeed, to malign a lady, and possess her 
 husband with jealousy; but he could not have cal- 
 culated on the harvest of death and crime which the 
 seed of suspicion that he was sowing was destined to 
 bring up. When he makes Cassio drunk, he only an- 
 ticipates that he will put him in such action as may 
 offend the isle. When framing the device that is to 
 destroy the lieutenant, no thoughts of murder arise 
 before him. 
 
 He has no regard for the feelings of Othello, but 
 dreams not that he will kill Desdemona, whom he says 
 
272 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 he loves* As for the lady herself^ his low estimation 
 of woman would of course lead him to think but little 
 about her peace and quiet. He excuses himself, be- 
 sides, by referring to the rumour that Othello had 
 given him cause to be jealous. It is plain that he does 
 not pretend to lay any great stress upon this ; nor can we 
 suppose that, even if it were true, it would deeply affect 
 him ; but he thinks lightly of women in general,. and has 
 no respect whatever for his wife. Indeed, Othello does 
 not hold Emilia in much esteem ; and her own conver- 
 sation with Desdemona, as she is undressing her for bed 
 (act iv. scene 3), shows that her virtue was not impreg- 
 nable. The injury, therefore, lago was about to do 
 Desdemona, in lessening her in the respect of her hus- 
 band by accusing her of such an ordinary offence as a 
 deviation from chastity, and one which he did not visit 
 with any particular severity on his own wife, must have 
 seemed trivial. He could not have been prepared for 
 the dire tempest of fury which his first hint of her 
 unfaithfulness aroused in the bosom of Othello. Up to 
 that moment he had done nothing .more than gull a 
 blockhead, and endeavour by unworthy means to under- 
 mine a rival ; trickery and slander, though not very 
 honourable qualities, are not of such rare occurrence in 
 the world as to call for the expression of any peculiar 
 
I AGO. 
 
 273 
 
 indignation, when we find them displayed by a clever 
 and plotting Italian. 
 
 They have, however, led him to the plain and wide 
 path of damnation. He cannot retract his insinuations. 
 Even if he desired, Othello will not let him : 
 
 “ Villain, be sure you prove my love a whore.” 
 
 [We may observe that he still, though his suspicions 
 are so fiercely roused, calls her his love. It is for the 
 last time before her death. After her guilt is, as he 
 thinks, proved, he has no word of affection for her. 
 She is a convicted culprit, to be sacrificed to his sense 
 of justice.] 
 
 “ Be sure of it ; give me the ocular proof : 
 
 Or, by the worth of mine eternal soul, 
 
 Thou hadst been better have been born a dog 
 Than answer my waked wrath. 
 
 Make me to see ’t, or, at the least, so prove it, 
 
 That the probation bear no hinge, nor loop 
 To hang a doubt on’; or woe upon thy Life ! ” 
 
 lago, therefore, had no choice but to go forward. He 
 was evidently not prepared for this furious outburst; 
 and we may acquit him of hypocrisy when he prays 
 Othello to let her live. But Cassio must die : — 
 
SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS. 
 
 2 74 
 
 “ He hath a daily beauty in his life 
 That makes me ugly.” 
 
 A more urgent reason immediately suggests itself : — 
 
 “ And besides, the Moor 
 
 May unfold me to him : there stand I in much peril. 
 
 No — he must die,** 
 
 The death of Desdemona involves that of Roderigo : — 
 
 ** live Eoderigo ? 
 
 He calls me to a restitution large 
 
 Of gold and jewels, that I bohb’d from him 
 
 As gifts to Desdemona. 
 
 It must not he** 
 
 Here is the direct agency of necessity. He must re- 
 move these men. Shortly after, to silence the clamorous 
 testimony of his wife, he must kill her. He is doomed 
 to blood. 
 
275 
 
 CHAKACTEE OF HAMLET. 
 
 “ So Ecstacy, 
 
 Fantastic Dotage, Madness, Frenzy, Eapture 
 Of mere Imagination, differ partly 
 From Melancholy, which is briefly thus : 
 
 A mere commotion of the Mind — overcharged 
 With Fear and Sorrow, first began i’ th’ brain. 
 
 The seat of Keason ; and from thence derived 
 As suddenly into the heart, the seat 
 Of our affections.” — Foed’s Lovers, 
 
 Shakspeare has written plays, and these plays 
 were acted; and they succeeded; and by their popu- 
 larity the author achieved a competency, on which 
 he was enabled to retire from the turmoils of a thea- 
 trical life to the enjoyment of a friendly society and 
 his own thoughts. Yet am I well convinced, it is 
 impossible that any one of Shakspeare’s dramatic 
 works — and especially of his tragedies, touching one 
 of which I mean to speak — ever could be satisfactorily 
 represented upon the stage. Laying aside all other 
 reasons, it would be, in the first place, necessary to 
 have a company such as was never yet assembled 
 and no money could at any time have procured 
 — a company, namely, in which every actor should 
 be a man of mind and feeling: for in these dramas 
 
 T 
 
276 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPERS: 
 
 every part is a character, fashioned by the touch 
 of Genius ; and, therefore, every part is important. 
 But of no play is this more strictly true than it is 
 of that strange, and subtle, and weird work. Samlet. 
 
 “ The heartache, 
 
 And the thousand natural ills the flesh is heir to ; ” 
 
 human infirmities, human afflictions, and supernatural 
 agency, are so blended — questions and considerations 
 of Melancholy, of Pathology, Metaphysics, and De- 
 monology, are so intertangled — the powers of man’s 
 Will, which are well nigh almighty, and the dictates 
 of inexorable Fate, are brought into such an appalling 
 yet dim collision, that to wring a meaning from a 
 work else inscrutable requires the exercise of every 
 faculty, and renders it necessary that not an incident 
 should escape the observation, that not a word 
 should be passed over, without being scanned curiously. 
 
 Hamlet is, even more peculiarly than Lear^ or 
 Macleth^ or Othelloj a play for the study. And 
 not this alone; for it is, in good sooth, a work for 
 the high student, who, through the earnestness of his 
 Love, the intensity of his Thought, the pervading 
 purity of his Reason, and the sweep and grasp of 
 his Imagination, is, the while he reads, always thrilled 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 277 
 
 by kindred inspirations — sometimes visited by dreams, 
 and not left unblessed by visions. To speak in other 
 words, Hamlet is essentially a work for the student 
 of Genius. And Genius, I consider with Coleridge, 
 to be the action of Imagination and Reason — the 
 highest faculty of intellectual man, as contradistin- 
 guished from Understanding, that interprets for us 
 the various phenomena of the world in which we live, 
 giving to each its objectivity. But Coleridge does 
 not go far enough in this his description of Genius. 
 It is the action of Reason and Imagination, tempered, 
 and regulated, and controlled, and affected by the 
 Understanding : for the instinct of Reason is to con- 
 tradict the understanding, and to strip what we call 
 substances, and our sensations with respect to them, 
 of their fantasies ; and this action of Reason and 
 Imagination obviously must become, with reference 
 to the rest of mankind, madness — -if it be not cog- 
 nizant of conventional realisms — if it be not operated 
 upon by worldly circumstances, which exercise an 
 attractive power to prevent it from wandering from 
 the sphere in which we move, or are, haply, 
 crawling ’twixt earth and heaven.’’ This, I fancy, 
 will reconcile all the notions that have been wisely 
 uttered with respect to Genius — notions which are 
 
 T 3 
 
378 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 severally true — but none in themselves wholly true. 
 Coleridge declares, Genius must have Talent as its 
 complement and implement, just as in like manner 
 Imagination must have Fancy. In short, the higher 
 intellectual powers can act through a corresponding 
 energy of the lower.’’ 
 
 Now Talent, he himself tells us, lies in the Under- 
 standing, and, therefore, may be inherited ; by which 
 he must mean, an apt organic conformation, and a 
 happy mental disposition to a particular talent — such 
 as that for painting or singing, or play-acting, or any 
 fantastic mechanical art — may be inherited ; of the 
 which, the most extraordinary instances are recorded. 
 But this is beside the subject. To proceed; if 
 Talent, which lieth in the Understanding, be essential 
 to Genius, it follows that Experience and Time, and 
 the same use of the physical organs with respect 
 to the external world, are necessary to Genius ; and 
 thus it is we can concur with Johnson in the opinion, 
 not that Genius is a knowledge of the use of in- 
 struments,” but that this divine knowledge is one of 
 its noblest attributes ; and we can assent to the 
 proposition that, Genius is the philosophy of human 
 life.” So it is; but it is much more also. The 
 very first step of real philosophy is the passing from 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 279 
 
 without mere self — the annihilation, so to speak, of 
 the self-selfish. And thus can I, without going be- 
 yond the limits of my description, assent to these 
 downright practical views of it ; and yet, at the 
 same time, agree with Coleridge, that, all Genius 
 is metaphysical, because the ultimate end of Genius 
 is ideal, however it may be actualized by incidental 
 and accidental circumstances.” 
 
 After this explanation, I may go on to repeat that 
 Hamlet is essentially a work for the student of Genius, 
 who, as a necessary consequence of his diviner intellect, 
 is devoted to those sad and solemn themes of Research 
 and Labor that encumber and enwrap our mortal ex- 
 istence ; and whose mysteries (vain though it be !) 
 he must, with a fond despair, to the last struggle 
 to unveil. Such are the phenomena of our own 
 being, our ‘‘ fearful and wonderful” construction— 
 Birth, Life, Death — the secrets of the Grave — the 
 dread Hereafter, and the dreams that it may bring — 
 the powers of our own Will — “ are they not illimitable, 
 and ought they not to be omnipotent?” our own 
 minds and faculties viewed, dissected, pored over 
 pathologically, considered in every state, from health 
 to disease in its more dire form, God, Destiny, Free- 
 will, Duty — the obstinate questionings of the spirit. 
 
^^80 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS I 
 
 touching the realism and the phantasmal forms of 
 things — and all such other matters of fearful and 
 forlorn speculation; and together with these, more- 
 over, all arts and sciences that minister thereunto, 
 that flatter us with the possibility of elevating our- 
 selves above the conditions of our humanity, and 
 achieving a satisfactory solution of the doubts that 
 torture us, and that, by sublimating our thoughts, 
 by spiritualizing our minds, by accustoming them to 
 wander free from all corporeal considerations and 
 volitions, by drawing us so constantly into a world 
 of shadows, do actually make us sceptical of every 
 thing in this world wherein we have our being. These 
 are the studies that make bloodless the face, and 
 plough the deep wrinkles into the brow of youth; 
 these are the studies that make sad the heart of 
 man with the vanity of vast knowledge, with bootless 
 aspirations, with fond longings ; these are the studies 
 
 “ That cloud the mind, that fire the brain,” 
 
 that are withering to mortals — avova ppoToh, 
 
 Now this leads me to observe, that the student of 
 Genius flnds in Hamlet the man a kindred spirit — 
 in Hamlet the play, a subject for study, analogous to 
 those others whereof I have spoken, and with which 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 281 
 
 he is familiar; and when, with reverential Love, 
 which is the first faculty of men and angels (for the 
 seraphim, angels of Love, are declared to be the 
 highest in the Celestial Hierarchy — and here on Earth, 
 be it remembered, that for the Love which beat in 
 Mary Magdalene’s bosom all her sins were forgiven 
 her by the Saviour), and with earnest knowledge, that 
 student has studied that Hamlet, he will yet find him- 
 self at the end, as after those other labors, afflicted 
 with the sickness of Desire, ungratified — with the 
 hollow-heartedness of Doubt — with the sensation of 
 having been acted upon by an inscrutable power. 
 
 Consider Hamlet in whatsoever light you will, it 
 stands quite alone — most peculiarly apart, from every 
 other play of Shakspeare’s. A vast deal has been 
 written upon the subject, and by a great number of 
 commentators — by men born in different countries — 
 educated after different fashions — moving in different 
 grades of society — bred to the pursuit of different 
 professions, avocations, occupations, from necessity or 
 choice — gifted with different intellectual powers — pos- 
 sessing learning of different species, and in degrees — • 
 and, finally, born in different ages of the world ; yet it 
 requires no very earnest examination and refiection 
 to satisfy one’s mind that, up to the present moment. 
 
282 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPERS : 
 
 little indeed has been written to the purpose. At 
 first, this seemed strange. Contemplating the labors 
 of a miscellaneous multitude, I was surprised that 
 the several deficiencies of the one individual had not 
 been successively supplied by the others — that each 
 had not, after his lights and information, been enabled 
 to furnish some valuable contribution to the general 
 stock, which, by the agency of some plastic hand, 
 might have ere now been moulded into a mass, well 
 proportioned, clearly developed, available and satis- 
 factory to the ordinary student: and for this last 
 work the inspiration of Genius would not have been 
 required. But upon thinking more deeply, and in a 
 wiser spirit, because with a more reverential considera- 
 tion of the author, I became conscious that a true 
 comment on Hamlet could no more be the product 
 of labor by a number of minds, than could the as- 
 tounding drama itself be born as it is, a harmonious 
 and complete creation, otherwise than by the throes 
 of one all-sufiScing Intelligence. As a single soul 
 inspired the work, so should a single soul be breathed 
 through the comment; and it should be, moreover, 
 of a kindred order. The partial labors of a number 
 of commentators produce merely bundles of sentences 
 — sand without lime — things incongruous and worth- 
 
HAMLET, 
 
 283 
 
 less, because they are interpenetrated by no binding 
 and dominant spirit. When we perceive and acknow- 
 ledge this, as we needs must, the marvel ceases : 
 the failure of the multitude was inevitable. We 
 might hope to see a second Shakspeare, if the world 
 had ever produced a commentator worthy of Samlet, 
 The qualities and faculties such a man should possess 
 would be, indeed, ‘‘ rare in their separate excellence, 
 wonderful in their combination.’’ Such a man as 
 Shakspeare imagined in him to whom his hero be- 
 queathed the task of 
 
 “ Eeporting Mm and Ms cause aright 
 To the unsatisfied/’ — 
 
 such a man as Horatio, the profound scholar and the 
 perfect gentleman, might have done it ; but where 
 in the actual world, that holds nothing of unmixed 
 purity, can be found a man possessing the heart so 
 bold and gentle — the feelings so exquisitely refined 
 — the deep knowledge of man, and of all human 
 learning — the proud exemption from the weaknesses 
 and passions of frail mortals, that should qualify him 
 for such a task ? Alas ! nowhere. But although we 
 may not hope to see such a paragon upon earth, yet 
 is it a gracious and a pleasing labor to add to the 
 
284 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS I 
 
 heap of materials already piled for his use ; and, 
 therefore, even I, an humble worshipper of Shak^ 
 speare’s genius, now venture to put forth some remarks 
 upon this Hamlet^ his most subtle and diflScult work. 
 They are feeble indications of ideas that have flashed 
 across, or possessed my mind, the while I surrendered 
 myself to the melancholy delight of poring over the 
 play. All I can hope is, that peradventure they, in 
 some sort, may possibly serve as hints of theories, 
 capable of being wrought into things really and con- 
 vincingly true and good, by men of learning and 
 ability. 
 
 And now, without further preface, I address myself 
 to my task. 
 
 I have said, that amongst Shakspeare’s plays^ 
 Hamlet stands quite alone. True, there is a class 
 to which it may be appropriately referred ; but, even 
 here, I conceive it essentially and esoterically pre- 
 serves its separateness : in other words, it is of the 
 same order, but not of the same essence, with its 
 fellows. These are, Othello^ Romeo and Juliet^ Qym-- 
 heline^ King Lear^ Macbeth Were I to venture upon 
 designating them as a class, I would borrow an epithet 
 from Wordsworth, without applying it precisely in the 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 285 
 
 same manner, and style them Dramas of the Im- 
 agination.” 
 
 They are obviously distinct from all the other 
 plays ; they are of a higher and subtler quality, a 
 more sublime and universal character, than the clas- 
 sical or the historical plays (I, of course, make no 
 reference to the comedies); they are dramas that 
 relate to man^ and not to men — to the Lord of the 
 Creation, considered abstractedly from all accessories 
 and circumstances which would individualize him quite, 
 give him not alone a personal but a local idiosyncracy 
 — and not to the demigod or demon of one particular 
 
 r 
 
 age, or climate, or country, or caste of human beings. 
 They are psychological dramas; their theme is the 
 Mind of Man, his Eeason, Understanding, Will, 
 Powers, Passions. The operation of certain circum- 
 stances of the external world upon these serve to 
 actualize and display them, and so create the drama. 
 To effect this metaphysical exhibition, the agency of 
 some brief, dry, cold, and, in other hands, incapable 
 story of human life, or fragment of a story — some 
 
 ‘‘ Tale of Love and Sorrow, 
 
 Of faithful Love, enduring Truth,” 
 
 or the opposite, or some quaint legend of supernatural 
 
986 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS I 
 
 agency, or snatch of an old ballad on one driven dis- 
 traught by filial cruelty, is enough for Shakspeare. 
 Little cares he for the intrinsic value or congruity 
 of the scanty materials that he seizes: he has seen 
 that they be sufSciently vague to leave him unem- 
 barrassed by details of the earth earthy, and is sure 
 to make them potent for the one great object he has 
 in view, and to which everything else is but subsidiary. 
 The probability of the story is to him a matter of 
 no consideration ; nay, he seems rather to delight in 
 choosing subjects on which the improbable march of 
 the physical events shall contrast strangely with the 
 now exquisite, now appalling truth, of the mental 
 developments. In other tragedies, in which he as- 
 sumed the fetters of history, his fidelity to character 
 and costume, in its wisest sense, of men who flourished, 
 and the circumstances in which they lived, and moved, 
 and had their being, is right marvellous. But in these 
 dramas of the Imagination, the stories of the three — 
 Hamlet j Macbeth^ 2bndL Oymheline^ are impossible; the 
 stories of the remaining three improbable, to an extent, 
 which renders them all but impossible. And yet, why 
 attempt to draw distinctions amongst things wherein 
 there can be, in truth, no difference? — all are alike 
 physically and morally impossible. This must be 
 
* HAMLET. 
 
 QS7 
 
 obvious to every body wbo may contemplate them, 
 even invested as they are without all the witchery 
 of divinest poesy, and rendered earnest, and awful, 
 and soul-searching, by the interfusion of all of ap- 
 propriate passion and power which the world we live 
 in and the world of spirits could supply. It is rather 
 diiOScult, then, to conceive that the fact escaped the 
 observation of the Magician who picked up the dry, 
 bare materials, to work his spell withal, or that he 
 selected them such as they visibly, essentially, and 
 unalterably were, without some special object. Ay, 
 certainly it is difficult : but commentators delight in 
 difficulties; and infinitely more, I do believe, in dif- 
 ficulties they create, than in those they overcome. The 
 first flatter them with the show of originality! the 
 second could only confer on them the notoriety of 
 singularity. They have, accordingly, exhausted a vast 
 deal of research in accusing, and now convicting, and 
 again acquitting, Shakspeare, of misstating things 
 which he, in sooth, invented — of failing to work out 
 a moral which he never meant to draw, or intimate 
 an intention to convey — of committing (to borrow 
 the language of the old sentence-juggler, Johnson) 
 “ faults too evident for detection and too gross for 
 aggravation,” when these faults lay inherent in the 
 
S88 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS : 
 
 story, and were in no sort to be avoided — of being 
 guilty of inaccuracies, anachronisms, and blunders, 
 which could not be, since all such are relative ; and 
 here they had nothing accurate, or fixed, or deter- 
 mined, to which they could refer. The very selection 
 of the subject-matter of the Plots ought to have 
 guarded the Poet against such criticisms : they are 
 most disgustingly absurd — worse even than the com- 
 ments on the Institutes^ which Pantagruel charac- 
 terized with a coarse but quaint felicity, that would 
 make one stop the nostrils in deference to the learned 
 giant’s judgment could he do so the while he enjoyed a 
 hearty laugh. In four of the tragedies, Shakspeare 
 adopts antique and isolate fables, which bring him back 
 to a period so remote that every thing is phantasmal — » 
 even time is a shadow. In another, he takes some 
 snatches of a wild and barbaresque tale— that is 
 Othello ; and in Romeo and Juliet^ he founds his ex- 
 quisite drama of Love and Fate upon the catastrophe 
 of an old and fond tradition. From the very cir- 
 cumstances, then, of his choice, I maintain that he 
 set himself free from all the ordinary observances 
 with respect to climate, country, manners, costume; 
 and so forth — he passed into the land of Dream, 
 far beyond all standards for such matters — he dealt 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 S89 
 
 with the heart and brain of man, with ‘‘ the seat 
 of our reason and the seat of our affections.” The 
 only practical commentators, then, upon these, the 
 most august of his creations, should be the Meta- 
 physician and the Pathologist. 
 
 Flinging aside for the present your carping critics, 
 I would now proceed to call attention to consequences 
 that must necessarily follow from the choice of the 
 materials. First to the scholar’s eye that penetrates 
 the outward show of things, and can conceive and 
 comprehend the one idea which forms the initiative 
 of the method^ pursued with respect to them, there 
 must be a genial similarity between these plays and 
 the ancient Greek drama. In either case, the theme 
 
 * The word Method ([xkOoSog) being of Grecian origin, first 
 formed and applied by that acute, ingenious, and accurate people, 
 to the purposes of Scientific arrangement, it is in the Greek lan- 
 guage that we must seek for its primary and fundamental signifi- 
 cation. Now, in Greek, it literally means a vjay or path of transit. 
 Hence, the first idea of Method is a progressive transition from 
 one step, in any course, to another; and where the word Method 
 is applied with reference to many such transitions in continuity, it 
 necessarily impHes a Principle of Unity with Progression. But 
 that which unites and makes many things one in the mind of 
 man, must be an act of the mind itself— a manifestation of in- 
 tellect, and not a spontaneous and uncertain production of circum- 
 stances. This act of the Mind, then- — this leading thought — 
 this “ my note ” of the harmony — this “ subtle,” cementing, 
 subterraneous power (borrowing a phrase from the nomenclature 
 of legislation), we may not inaptly caU the Initiative of aU Method. 
 
990 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEKS : 
 
 of the story is purely mythic — a homeless fable, or 
 a legend haunting some spot like the spirit of its 
 dream; the subject of the poet is the soul and pas- 
 sions of man, stripped of the idiosyncracy they might 
 derive from the peculiar conformation of the mass of 
 clay which was their instrument or their victim. 
 Being both creations psychological, they treat of the 
 mind, healthy and diseased — of the passions, urgent 
 for good or evil — of the will, weakly, or potent to 
 a miracle amongst the children of earth — of faculties, 
 perverted, or devoted to the noblest uses. The Good 
 and Evil which concurrently exist in every thing, like 
 the phis and minus in a quadratic radical, are as 
 calmly and as irrefragably displayed as they severally 
 would be in an equation, after the manner in which 
 you worked it. Impulses and motives are exhibited, 
 as acting upon the mind according to their proper 
 powers; and there, consequently, cannot be, in any 
 case, what the commentators would regard as a moral. 
 For, if we consider of it, how could there? It would 
 go to prove there was no mixed nature, no freedom 
 of Will : some beings should be all perfect ; and Good 
 in the world 
 
 “ Should hold its icy current and compulsive course, 
 
 And keep due on.” 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 S91 
 
 There would then, too, he no Fate, no Fortune : yet 
 we ourselves sometimes make, sometimes mar both, 
 as they do us. They are, in sooth, with us, and in 
 us, and of us. Yet we fall by them ; not (to speak 
 in the tone of forlorn merriment, which, peradventure, 
 for the wise man best befits such subjects) by any 
 suicidal operation or spontaneous combustion, but by 
 the confiict with others, in which the weaker spirit 
 must always be quelled, or by the crash of circum- 
 stances, which physical in their origin, and partly 
 physical in their quality, do yet act like a moral 
 earthquake, laying all things prone — the auspices and 
 the intellect of an Alexander, and the congenital 
 baseness of a Thersites. In every great character, and 
 in every great event, there is a tinge of Fatalism; 
 and it is a dominant tinge, coloring all. This is most 
 especially to be observed in the stories of Alexander, 
 Ceesar, and Napoleon, the Earth’s true demigods — 
 in the men whom Nature, in the labor of centuries, 
 produced with its dearest throes, and could not suffer 
 to expire without a convulsion. And as in every 
 great character and in every great event, so is there 
 in every great work, a tinge of Fatalism. The plays 
 of Shakspeare, whereof I speak, are the greatest 
 works the world has yet known. 
 
 U 
 
292 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 We know the misty sketches of dreams upon which 
 the Englishman has written: they might be, in the 
 modern vulgar parlance, styled Gothic. The pirns 
 whereon the Greeks wind their weird-story are classic, 
 small in number, inflected after the fancy of the poet, 
 but that only — the glorious imagination of Prome- 
 theus, the first champion and martyr of liberty — the 
 tale of Troy divine’^ — the fated House of the Lab- 
 dacidae ; these are the themes of all the Greek Dra- 
 matists. I shall have little to do practically save with 
 the first of them, in every sense — ^schylus. 
 
 We have a complete trilogy from ^schylus. Now, 
 it is a fancy of mine, that Shakspeare’s psycho- 
 logical dramas and the ancient Greek dramas do alike 
 severally resolve themselves into tableaux — (I regret 
 being obliged to use the spurious word, but I fear 
 there is none in our native English adequate to convey 
 the same meaning.) This tableau^ whether partaking 
 of the qualities of Painting or of severer Sculpture, 
 is, to my mind, a sort of embodiment of the moral 
 resolution of the Drama : it is, the be-all and the 
 end-all,’’ up from which and down to which every 
 thing can be traced. It is the result of the dominant 
 human passion, or mental aberration, or supernatural 
 agency, actualized by circumstances. It is the ex- 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 293 
 
 pressed result in a particular case of the idea (using 
 idea as the correlative law, and, therefore, as a rule 
 laid down) — of the idea upon which the drama was 
 constructed, which creates its unity, and regulates 
 its progression through the throng of circumstances 
 up to its fulfilment. It is the practical subject-matter 
 of the play, as it would meet the outward eye. 
 There is the murder, or the sacrifice, with its cha- 
 racter, actors, and victims displayed : that existed 
 in the physical world — it is a thing to be seen; the 
 poet saw it with the visionary eye, the whilst, most 
 probably in childhood, he heard the mythic legend 
 of the primal gods, or of the doomed demigods of 
 his race, or lay thrilled with a pleasurable awe as 
 his nurse whispered him the witch-story of Macbeth 
 with the bloody hand ; or he read of Lear or 
 
 Othello at his mother’s knee; or, probably enough, 
 a sculptured group may have furnished forth imme- 
 diately the theme of an ^schylean Drama. The 
 how, and why, and wherefore this so-depictured event 
 came to pass, it is the province of the play to detail 
 and explain. We have, as I observe, a complete 
 trilogy from .dSschylus ; and thence I take my illus- 
 tration. The Dramas, in their order, are the Aga- 
 memnon^ the Ohoephorce^ the Eumenides, The murder 
 
 V 3 
 
294 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS ! 
 
 of the triumphant King of Men ’’ under his own 
 roof-tree, the sacrifice of Clytemnestra, the purification 
 of the Avenger from blood-guiltiness in its most 
 appalling form, and the compact between the venerable 
 Goddesses and the tutelar Divinities of Athens, are 
 the themes of the trilogy; and each of these is 
 embodied in its own taUeau. At the close of the 
 first (v. 245), by means of the eccydema — e^cio-rpa or 
 iKKVKXrjfia — the interior of the fatal bathing apartment 
 was displayed ; and there lay Agamemnon a corpse, and 
 over him stood Clytemnestra the Murderess, and her 
 Paramour. In the Ohoephorce, Orestes is seen, in like 
 manner, standing over the corpses of his mother and 
 iEgisthus (v. 946). These are subjects purely for 
 sculptured groups; as, indeed, were always the tableaux 
 presented by means of the eccydema : as, for example 
 again, in the Antigone of Sophocles, wherein Creon 
 appears with dead Eurydice in his arms; and the 
 A-jax^ wherein the body of the distracted hero, sur- 
 rounded by slaughtered sheep, was exhibited. There 
 were never more than three or four figures. But 
 in the Eumenides we have an exception ; there is a 
 large group— too large for the eccydema a hundred 
 fold — and yet properly, were it at all embodied by art, a 
 sculptured group : Orestes, the blood-stained suppliant — 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 995 
 
 the Goddess of Wisdom presiding — the Eternal Furies 
 — and the God of Life, and Poesy, and Light,’’ 
 
 as advocate for the Avenger. Into these taUeaux 
 severally the plays of the trilogy (and into the last 
 the three plays — but that is beside my purpose) 
 resolve themselves. The psychological dramas of 
 Shakspeare invariably include, at the last, a tableau 
 terminating all ; ” and to which, and from which, 
 every thing can be traced. Fate, the Inexorable, has 
 been satisfied: the theorem has been worked out for 
 good or evil. The tableau is the expressed solution 
 of the theorem, and the Drama is its proof. In 
 Hamlet^ the quarry that cries on, havoc!” — in 
 Othello^ the tragic loading of the bed ” — in Romeo 
 and Juliet^ the bloody sepulchre gorged with the brave 
 and beautiful, the young and lovely — in Qymbeline^ 
 the gentle reunion, after many and sore trials, of 
 lovers and kinsfolk long parted — in Rear^ the ap- 
 parition of the father with his murdered darling — 
 in Macbeth^ the ghastly head, the grinning mockery of 
 fiend- fostered Ambition — these, with their accessories, 
 do severally form the tableaux; and they are to the 
 Greek tableaux as pictures would be to sculptured 
 groups : for there be not a few personages, all of 
 which are essentially important to express the story 
 
S96 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPERS : 
 
 of the eventj but there be many, and of these the 
 greater number are sketches. The Greek tableaux 
 have all the stern, cold realism, of chiselled marble 
 — the Shakspearean, much of the glow of painting, and 
 something of the phantasmal character of its groups ; 
 both, however, we apprehend, must have been objects 
 of great care and interest in the original represen- 
 tations. We know that this was the case on the 
 Athenian stage. I believe it must have been so upon 
 the early English, when Masques and Triumphs ” 
 were held in high repute by the wise and great, as 
 we have abundant reason to know they were in 
 ‘‘ Eliza’s golden reign.” Shakspeare’s plays, too, are 
 replete with tableaux^ which might be made highly 
 effective. Many of the very short dialogues, in scenes 
 that shift presently, were obviously introduced only 
 to explain — to serve as posies to tableaux. The reader 
 of Shakspeare will understand this, the mere play- 
 goer can know nothing about it ; he rarely sees more 
 than two thirds of the characters and of the scenes in a 
 drama : in fact, he enjoys little more than the mouthing 
 of certain extracts, selected by incompetent persons. 
 
 It is by embodying and expressing tableaux such 
 as these, or the incarnation of a Feeling, or a Passion, 
 or a legendary Spirit, from its attributes, that the 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 297 
 
 arts of Sculpture and Painting become united with 
 Poesy. Unless they can effect this^ and be capable, after 
 the manner Dick Tinto wished — or, I should say, ima- 
 gined — his sketch to be, they are nothing worth; 
 and those who made them, no better than fantastic 
 stone-cutters, or painters and glaziers, misemploying 
 their craft in making idle daubings upon canvass. 
 It is, of all affectation of useless knowledge, the most 
 paltry ; though, from its very paltriness, it be little, 
 if at all mischievous, to prate about difficulties over- 
 come, of handicraft achievements in these matters — 
 the delicate chiselling of the stone, the fine classic 
 flow of the drapery, the exquisite coloring, the masterly 
 handling, the grand drawing, the mighty genius dis- 
 played upon bits,’’ together with the rest of the 
 anthology of cant phrases in which your chimpanzee 
 critic puffs out his article, with ^^an empty ^noddle 
 and a brow severe.” Pah ! ‘‘ it smells in the nostrils.” 
 Unless a picture or a piece of sculpture be capable and 
 tell a story, and a heart-home story, it is but colored 
 canvass or a chiselled stone. 
 
 Next, I would draw attention to the fact, that in 
 dramas like unto these of which I have spoken, that 
 are founded upon a tableau^ there is (I care not 
 how wild may be the story) a realism, which the 
 
S98 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS I 
 
 physical nature of the tahleau^ whether expressed, 
 or capable of being embodied by any man at the 
 instant, might seem to lend to them. Moreover, they 
 are necessarily of a homogeneous character, and, there- 
 fore, are calculated to convey to the mind the im- 
 pression of a perfect work, and to leave it quite 
 satisfied with the conclusion, be it for the parties 
 wherein the tale in its progress has interested you 
 fortunate or miserable. 
 
 The mind of him who composed the work, and of 
 him who reads it, must be alike impressed with a 
 sense of fatalism; which, though it be awful, is yet 
 wholesome and pleasurable to the Imagination. In 
 illustration of these doctrines I have been propounding, 
 permit me to refer to single examples, taken from the 
 numerous works of writers who each enjoy a mighty 
 reputation, not alone in their own countries, but 
 throughout Europe — ^I mean. Sir Walter Scott and 
 Victor Hugo. The examples I take are not dramas 
 in form — they are not divided into acts and scenes — 
 but they are, nevertheless, in the essence, dramatic: 
 they are what dramas might be, if addressed to the 
 mind of a man struck blind. The physical show of 
 the several characters is described ; the scenery is 
 painted in words that have hues” — words rich in 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 299 
 
 the magic of associations and memories, instead of be- 
 ing shadowed forth by a cold art upon canvass; actions 
 and events, in like manner, are described with a poet’s 
 illimitable powers, and so conjured up before the 
 visionary eye, instead of being represented on a nar- 
 row stage by poor creatures with painted faces and 
 fantastic garments. And this is the difference : in 
 one case, the drama is addressed to the mind and 
 to the outward eye; in the other, it is addressed 
 to the mind alone. 
 
 The romances I speak of are the Bride of Lammer- 
 moor and Notre Dame de Paris. The first is, in my 
 judgment, pre-eminently the most Shakspearean of 
 Sir W. Scott’s works. I do not think I can give it 
 higher or more appropriate praise. And this, it will 
 be remembered, was constructed upon a talleau of four 
 figures — a tableau that might have been represented 
 by the eccyclema. There is the Master of Ravenswood, 
 the brave, the true, the noble-hearted, who loves with 
 all the overweening, the desperate, world-defying fond- 
 ness, of one who has chosen very waywardly, and 
 taken for his mate a gentle creature merely, whom 
 he may cherish, protect, and elevate — who loves with 
 all the fervor of the intellectual man, whose Will is 
 indomitable, whose spirit never knew the chilling touch 
 
300 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEES *. 
 
 of Fear. There is Lucy^ who has felt the glory of 
 that purest and most ennobling love, and returns it 
 with the intensest worship of the heart. You dote 
 upon her as you read her story, even as the Master 
 might; for the whole business of her existence, apart 
 from her persecutors, is grateful love ! There is the 
 representation of cold, blind, inapplicable Duty, in the 
 person of the Presbyterian Minister ; and in the Mother 
 there is an imbodiment of that spirit of Evil so con- 
 stantly to be encountered upon Earth, which cannot 
 endure the pure unconventional happiness of others, 
 and that is ever in its restless malignity, disposed to be 
 miserable itself, that it may make others miserable. 
 
 Now mark the effect produced upon this particular 
 work of Scott’s, by the origin and mode of its con- 
 struction. Is it not, as a whole, the most harmonious 
 in its parts, the most complete in its structure, of 
 any one of the novels? It is a most deep tragedy. 
 You have, however, from the first, been prepared 
 for a catastrophe of Death and Doom; and you rise 
 from its perusal with satisfaction, with a calmed mind, 
 because you feel that the worst is over, that the 
 Master and his spirit’s mate sleep well” — “ nothing 
 can touch them further ; ” and you know that your 
 soul has been chastened and purified by that heavenly 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 301 
 
 sorrow in which there is no selfishness. Of all the 
 other novels, I cannot remember one at the close 
 of which you are under the influence of the same 
 feelings. In many, abounding, too, with passages 
 of the intensest interest — such as Old Mortality — 
 you rise from the conclusion, which is slovenly^ and 
 abrupt, and unsatisfactory, like the breaking of a 
 dream, with a sensation of unrest, if not of positive 
 annoyance. Sir Walter Scott’s mind was essentially 
 illogical ; he could not reason. His attempt to write 
 Napoleon’s history, and his miserable book on De- 
 monology and Witchcfraft^ make this but too evident. 
 He had a rich but discursive imagination. He saw 
 every thing as he oftentimes might the beloved scenery 
 of his native land, through a mist which at one 
 time rendered the features indistinct, and at another 
 lent them a faery beauty. He was irregularly educated ; 
 he had little classical knowledge, and less of classic 
 taste or feeling : indeed, he had little accurate know- 
 ledge upon any subject. He never read upon a system; 
 his studies were never made to converge or concentrate 
 upon one great object. He loved reading, not for 
 the powers it confers upon man struggling to overtop 
 the fellow-men of his generation in this world, but 
 because it enabled him to conjure up a world of 
 
302 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS *. 
 
 his own : he was the minion of Romance, the ranger 
 of the mountain and the heather ; and they had from 
 his infancy for him the choicest impulses. He had 
 a fine and happy sense of the beauties and the gran- 
 deur of external nature, a noble feeling of chivalry, 
 and a power of pathos scarcely surpassed by that 
 of Shakspeare or of Homer. But all this was in 
 the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border ; and there never 
 was any thing more since, in any one of his works, 
 excepting only the Bride of Lammermoor. Scott had 
 talent in the highest degree, but not much of absolute 
 Genius ; whereof, as Coleridge observes, it is a good 
 gauge, or criterion, to observe whether it progresses 
 and evolves, or merely spins upon itself. 
 
 The germ of every thing Scott has invented may be 
 found in the Ballads. The sketches of all the cha- 
 racters he has created may be seen there ; and they 
 are few : he proceeded in an inverted order from that 
 of Shakspeare, The writer of Othello and namlet 
 went from causes to results : he took Passions, Facul- 
 ties, and Feelings, and from these he made his man 
 and fashioned his life; he worked from the abstract, 
 as the Creator of all might do ; he possessed the al- 
 mighty intelligence, and a portion of this, as he listed, 
 he inspired into the mass of clay he took, or declared 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 803 
 
 in liis imagination. Scott, on the other hand, worked 
 from the concrete ; he went back from results to 
 causes; he availed himself of an impersonation made 
 from an actual man and circumstances of his life, 
 with certain accessories furnished from the person- 
 alities, moral and physical, of other men and mark- 
 worthy events of their story ; and thence he came 
 to shadow forth original and dominant Passions, 
 Faculties, Feelings. It will be easily perceived, ac- 
 cordingly, why it was that Shakspeare excelled, even 
 in reference to his own works, in the characters which 
 he created purely ; and that Scott was most successful 
 in the characters he described. Let me be understood 
 to mean by the characters described, the characters he 
 has taken from history, dressed out in their attributes 
 and memories, and made movers in a scene ; or the cha- 
 racters he had himself received his instructions for (to 
 borrow a lawyer’s phrase), from personal observation in 
 the circle of his acquaintance and in humbler life. These 
 the romancer might easily form to the purposes of his 
 story. But Shakspeare drew his Othello and Hamlet 
 from no living model, from no traditional sketch; 
 he wrought them forth from his own brain. It may 
 be observed, too, that Scott’s works are severally in 
 the nature of collections of importraitures of passages 
 
304 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPERS : 
 
 in the external world, and in human life; they are 
 not interpenetrated by one great principle which con- 
 centrates them upon an object, the which being once 
 attained, the mind is satisfied with the whole. They 
 are like an opera, in which there are many exquisite 
 melodies and concerted pieces, but which has no per- 
 vading theme wherewith the senses and imagination 
 should be always possessed, and on the successive 
 development of which the interest should be con- 
 tinuously increasing (as in Fidelio), until it ends 
 with communicating that excitement which, for the 
 moment, has raised you above the ordinary conditions 
 of humanity ; and on which, therefore, your memory 
 loves to repose. Hence it is, I should presume, that 
 all the attempts to dramatize Scott’s novels have 
 proved such lamentable failures. The only one which 
 might have made a tragedy has, I believe, never been 
 profaned by the scissors of the playwright. Yet I am 
 not surprised at it : nobody but a man of high ability 
 and delicate feeling could have done it ; and with equal 
 facility, and more honor, might such a person write a 
 tragedy, which should be acknowledged all his own. 
 The Bride of Lammermoor is, I do say, a grand fusion 
 of a Shakspearean Tragedy. The dread spirit of the 
 tableau on which it is founded is interfused throughout ; 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 805 
 
 the Fatalism, the Supernatural Agency, the Mental 
 Aberration, which necessarily occur in all the psycho- 
 logical works of Shakspeare, are in it — the lore of 
 the heart as to mankind in all stations of life — the 
 sense and relish of fun, which is electrically potent 
 upon the reader — the wild admixture of humor and 
 the most afflicting tragedy, as at the grave of Ophelia, 
 are all there ! It is, if we will only consider it curi- 
 ously, a marvellous work for Scott ; and mind, it is the 
 only one made upon a tableau. 
 
 The author of the second romance to which I would 
 refer has, in a preface, well explained how and under 
 what state of feeling and inspiration a drama, or 
 romance, should be composed. The one which he so 
 introduces has been put forth in the right spirit ; 
 
 “ Un roman selon lui nait, d’une fa^on en quelque sorte 
 necessaire, avec tons ses chapitres ; un drame natt ,aveCj toutes ses 
 scenes. Ne croyez pas qu’il y ait rien d’arbitraire dans le nombre 
 de parties dont se compose ce tout, ce mysterieux microcosme que 
 vous appelez drame, ou roman. La greffe et la soudure prennent 
 mal sur des oeuvres de cette nature, qui doivent jaillir d’un seul jet 
 et rester teUes quelles. Une fois la chose faite, ne vous ravisez 
 pas, n’y retouchez plus. Une fois que le livre est public — une fois 
 que le sexe de Toeuvre, virile ou non, a tete reconnu et proclame — 
 une fois que Tenfant a pousse son premier cri, il est ne, la voila, il 
 est ainsi fait, pere ni mere n’y peuvent plus rien, il appartient a 
 I’air et au soleil laissez le vivre ou mouiir comme il est. Votre 
 livre, est-il manque ? Tant pis. N’ajoutez pas de chapitres a un 
 livre manque. Il est incomplet. Il fallait le completer en Ten- 
 
306 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPERS : 
 
 grendant. Votre arbre est none? Vous ne le redresserez pas. 
 Votre roman est phthisique, votre roman n’est pas viable? Vous 
 le nui rendrez pas le souffle qui lui manque. Votre drame est ne 
 boiteux? Croyez moi, ne lui mettez pas de jambes de bois.” 
 
 These are Victor Hugo’s opinions respecting the mode 
 after which a romance should be sent forth, and certainly 
 he has acted upon his own fair ideal with respect to 
 Notre Dame de Paris. And it is, in the essence, as 
 complete a dramatic work as any wrought forth by 
 a Greek Tragedian. He says himself, he made it 
 upon the word, ’ANArKH — Fate. Of course, every 
 
 great work of Fiction has been founded upon Fate : 
 but he also made it upon another word, from whence 
 it took its peculiar form and color ; and that word, 
 also inscribed upon the wall of the dark student’s 
 cell, is ’Avayr/6ta, whose causality upon the lives and 
 fortunes of all the leading characters is the minister 
 of Fate. I say, leading characters, to distinguish 
 them from characters which, in the Bride of Lommer- 
 moor and Notre Dame de Paris^ are rather ancillary 
 than belong to the dramatic working-out of the com- 
 position, and, in some sort, discharge the functions 
 of the Chorus in a Greek Play. The leading cha- 
 racters are few, and upon all these the stern decrees 
 of Fate are executed, through the agency and im- 
 pulses of ’Amyreta — of Uncleanness, Lust, or, let us 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 307 
 
 mitigate the expression, animal Passion. The Ro- 
 mance, too, is formed upon a tahleau ; and a most 
 fearful one. The dark towers of the mystic cathedral 
 frown upon the scene, which is inspired by its ter- 
 rible spirit, inscrutable, but everywhere felt. Its own 
 familiars, too, the familiars of that dread Gothic pile, 
 are the prominent figures. It is prefigured and ex- 
 plained in the following passages. It is fulfilled at the 
 last, when the poor little dancer of the Parvis is sus- 
 pended from the gallows, with the executioner on her 
 shoulders, and the devoted children of the cathedral — 
 all three the victims of animal Passion — are contem- 
 plating the fearful group, ce groiipe epouvantahle de 
 Vhomme et de la jeune jille — de Varaignee et de la 
 moueheP 
 
 “Dom Claude abim6 en lui-meme, ne Tecoutait plus. Charmolue, 
 en suivant la direction de son regard, vit qu’il s’etait fixe macM- 
 nalement a la grande toile d’araignee qui tapissait la lucarne. En 
 ce moment une mouche etourdie que cherchait le soleil de'Mars, 
 vint se jeter a travers ce filet et s’y englua. A I’ebranlement de sa 
 toile, I’enorme araignee fit un mouvement brusque bors de sa 
 cellule centrale, puis d’un bond elle se precipita sur la mouche, 
 qu’elle plia en deux avec ses antennes de devant, tandis que sa 
 trompe hideuse lui fouillait la tete. Pauvre mouche ! dit le 
 procureur du roi, en cour d’eghse; et il leva la main pour la 
 sauver. L’archidiacre, comme reveille en sursaut lui, retint le bras 
 avec une violence convulsive. 
 
 “ ‘ Maitre Jacques,* s*ecria-t-il, ‘ laissez faire la fatalite.’ 
 
 “ Le procureur se retouma efiare; il lui semblait qu’une pince 
 
 X 
 
308 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS : 
 
 de fer lui avait pris le bras. L’oeil du pretre etait fixe, bagard, 
 flamboyant, et restait attache au petit groupe horrible de la mouche 
 et de haraignee. 
 
 “ ‘ Oh ! oui,* continua la pretre, avec une voix qu*on efit dit 
 venir de ses entrailles, ‘ voila un symbole de to^t. Elle vole : 
 elle est joyeuse, elle vient de naitre, elle cherche le printemps, le' 
 grand air, la liberty ; oh, oui ! mais qu’elle se heurte a la rosace 
 fatale, I’araignee en sort, haraignee hidense. Pauvre danseuse ! 
 pauvre mouche pr^destinee ! Maitre Jacques, laissez faire ; c’est 
 la fatalite! Helas ! Claude, tu es Taraign^e! Tu es la mouche 
 aussi! Tu volais a la science, a la lumiere, au soleil, tu n’ avals 
 souci que d^arriver au grand air, au grand jour de la verite 4ter- 
 nelle; mais en te precipitant vers la lucarne 4blouissante, qui 
 donne sur T autre monde, sur le monde de la clarte, de I’intelligence, 
 et de la science, mouche aveugle ! docteur insense ! tu n'avais pas 
 vu cette subtile toile d’araignee tendue par le destin entre la 
 lumiere et toi I tu, t’y es jete a corps perdu, miserable fou ! et 
 maintenant tu le debats, la tete brisee, et les ailes arrachees, entre 
 les antennes de fer de la fatalite ! Maitre Jacques, maitre Jacques, 
 laissez faire d’araignee ! * ” 
 
 Victor Hugo has written several dramas, and other 
 novels, hut nothing like Notre Dame de Paris ; which 
 is decidedly a noble and an august composition. A 
 romance of the middle ages — it is in force, power, 
 variety — gracefulness in the multifarious outline — 
 grotesqueness occasionally wild yet harmonious — 
 beauty, quaint and delicate beauty, in the details — 
 and magnificence and massiveness . in the whole — like 
 unto one of those grand cathedrals in which these 
 ages expressed their intellect, imbodied their genius. 
 Formed upon the principle avayKr]^ the agent di/ayvcta, 
 and the tableau into which they resolve themselves to 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 309 
 
 conclude the tale, nothing can be more perfect, and, 
 consequently, more simple, than the structure of the 
 plot. Fancy and Imagination, and the powers of 
 gorgeous illustrations, which in his other works run 
 wild, are herein controlled to their appropriate pur- 
 poses, and rendered most efficient. All his knowledge, 
 all his personal experience, all his learning, have been 
 heaped upon the tableau of this romance ; and, strictly 
 guided by the Principle and the Agent I have men- 
 tioned, they have in no sort encumbered it. But 
 it is the one and only work of the man’s life : his 
 whole soul is there. Were we to estimate his capa- 
 bilities by the gauge of any other of his compositions, 
 we should say that for him, and for a man of his time 
 of life moreover, the work was miraculous. He is 
 yet young. In the filling up of Notre Dame de Paris 
 the faults are glaring, the plagiaries innumerous, and 
 annoying because useless, the author being always best 
 when he depends upon himself; yet the unity of the 
 design, and the circumstance of his quaint knowledge 
 — architectural, and antiquarian, and historical — his 
 magic powers of expression, and his powers of deli- 
 neating, in the spirit of a metaphysician and patho- 
 logist, the workings of the inward Mind, as well 
 as marshalling before the eye the features of external 
 
 x3 
 
310 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEES : 
 
 Nature, being all rendered ancillary to that design, 
 even the characters he takes (which are in no sort 
 original) compel you to forget every thing respecting 
 the materials and the mere process of construction, 
 and to regard only the whole structure and its result, 
 as you must do, with unmixed admiration. The 
 simple earnestness of the Design, the soul of his 
 talleau^ reconciles to probability, under the aspect 
 and by the medium through which you are compelled 
 to view them, the traditional exaggeration of Romance 
 — the magician, the monster, and the angel in wo- 
 man’s flesh. There be, moreover, in the formation 
 of Claude Frollo, Quasimodo, and La Esmeralda, 
 recollections of Faust, Manfred, Lewis’s monk, De 
 Bois Guilbert; of all the man-monsters of Hugo’s 
 own menagerie ; of La Preciosa, Rebecca, and a host 
 of other lovely and most exquisite damsels of despised 
 castes — -jews, gipsies, and the like — at whose birth, 
 there was a social miracle — Art, and Circumstance, 
 and Education, having been dispensed with in the 
 creation of a Charmer. All was left to Nature — 
 
 “ And Nature said, now will I make 
 A ladye of my own.*’ 
 
 But Notre Dame has made them, one and all, her 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 311 
 
 own. The archdeacon — the gentleman, the scholar, 
 the noble specimen in every respect, mental and phy- 
 sical, of the paragon of animals” — the beloved 
 child, into whom the mystic soul of the dread edifice 
 of gramarye has been inspired — and the brutal bell- 
 ringer — the Foundling — the creature whose very 
 humanity is doubtful from his savage appearance, 
 and whose intellect is smothered from the lack of 
 conduits, whose community is only with the rude 
 and grotesque materials of the structure, apart as 
 they (Claude and Quasimodo) would seem, are yet 
 together as familiars of the cathedral. They are 
 like the plus and minus in a quadratic radical. The 
 dvay/07 of Notre Dame de Paris is over both, as it 
 is over the poor little flutterer of the Parvis; the 
 instant avayvda is instilled into the soul and senses 
 of the three, it impels them to their fate : they 
 severally become each the other’s destiny, and the 
 dramatic Romance gushes forth to its fulfilment in 
 the tableau^ over which Fate hovers satisfied. Yon 
 feel that nothing touching the victims has been over- 
 strained — that all has terminated as it necessarily 
 should. 
 
 I shall make no apology for instituting a com- 
 parison between the Greek dramatic works and things 
 
312 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 SO different in outward form and show, because upon 
 reflection it must be evident, that true likeness de- 
 pends upon the intrinsic qualities, and not upon the 
 apparent qualities, of such matters. I have not 
 hesitated, then, to predicate, that there is an analogy 
 between the two Romances and the Greek Drama, 
 and an essential resemblance between the Greek 
 Drama and the psychological plays of Shakspeare. 
 The form of the structure was departed from, and, 
 doubtless, with advantage, considering the different 
 circumstances and climate under which the scenic 
 representation was to take place. But, to speak 
 figuratively, the spirit of the old Greek drama, when 
 its august fane was in all its exquisite and harmonized 
 proportions laid prostrate, came to furnish forth the 
 living soul of a Gothic temple, which, though irre- 
 gular on occasions even to grotesqueness, is never- 
 theless grand and enduring — better suited to the 
 climate in which it has been reared, and the genius 
 of the people who are to be its worshippers. Here 
 Shakspeare was the Hierophant, and in himself he 
 united the several excellences of the ancient Masters 
 — the lyric flow of Euripides, the wise tenderness 
 of Sophocles, together with all the vigor of -3]schylus, 
 and his power of dealing with the dim supernatural — 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 313 
 
 of intimating it darkly, and yet weaving it as the 
 fatal thread into the woof of his story. 
 
 Now, if we were to inquire why it was, and how 
 it was, that this intrinsic similarity was brought about, 
 I think it would appear to have resulted from the 
 circumstance of Madness and Supernatural Ageircy — 
 family legends and popular superstitions — together 
 with Fatalism, of course, being the dominant intrinsic 
 qualities, and being used as the most potent materials 
 in the construction of the Shakspearean as well as 
 the ancient Greek Dramas. 
 
 It has been long since, and very frequently ob- 
 served, that Madness, especially in the milder and 
 less declared forms (such as mania mitis monomania, 
 and every thing coming under the head Melancholy), 
 has been prevalent in England. Humorists have 
 always abounded in every walk of society, even in 
 the persons of those whose sanity was allowed. Pinel, 
 the greatest writer upon Insanity of the present day, 
 remarks the melancholy richness of the English 
 tongue in epithets to describe and characterize every 
 form and variety of Madness. And certainly we 
 bear, with good humor, allusion to the prevalence of 
 mental disorder amongst us. Nobody, however pa- 
 triotic, is offended when the Grave-digger tells the 
 
314 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 Prince of Denmark that young Hamlet, being mad, was 
 sent into England, or at the reasons he assigns for it. 
 
 “ Ham, Ay, marry, why was he sent into England ? 
 
 1st Clown, Why, because he was mad. He shall recover his 
 wits there ; or, if he do not, ’tis no great matter there. 
 
 Ham, Why ? 
 
 1st Clown, 'T will not he seen in him there ; there the men are 
 as mad as he.*^ 
 
 It has at all times, moreover, been the fashion 
 to introduce mad people in our Dramas. It was done 
 freely enough in the ancient drama, sometimes with 
 great effect, by learned men; and the practice has 
 been continued to the present time, though not with 
 the same good results. It is a dangerous matter for 
 mere playwrights to handle : the only genuine mania 
 you can perceive is in the overweening presumption of 
 the writer; there is none in his character. Yet, not- 
 withstanding the many notable instances of absurd 
 failure, and the pleasant objurgations of Sheridan’s 
 Puff, the heroine of our modern tragedies continues 
 to go punctually mad in white muslin, and the hero 
 to rant, and roar, and attitudinize, after a manner 
 not very common amongst Bedlamites. 
 
 The introduction, too, visibly as well as by dread 
 intimation of supernatural agency, is common in our 
 drama. The character of the people, so sombre and 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 315 
 
 so superstitious as it really is, and as Mirabeau 
 saw it was ; so intensely earnest, and, in the healthiest 
 of such morbid activity — the character of the con- 
 stitution — that free constitution, capable of elasticity, 
 and controllable by resistance, without absolute and 
 irreparable injury, have led in no small degree to 
 this. Our stage, I do believe, has, like our country, 
 enjoyed greater freedom than any other. Certainly, 
 even in the old monkish times at least, at high 
 solemnities, great latitude was allowed; and, since 
 the Reformation, there has been no vexatious med- 
 dling with the Drama here upon religious grounds. 
 Indeed, if there were, it would have been impossible 
 that matters of abstract and occult Philosophy could 
 have been so freely discussed, or the vagaries of the 
 mind diseased so faithfully depicted. But in England 
 there has well nigh, at all times, been the freedom 
 to represent the madman from actual observation: 
 and the existing superstitions of the country, and 
 its story, which had a vague and dim but yet thrilling 
 touch of reality about them for spectators of every 
 class, were interwoven with the play. In other coun- 
 tries it was different — whilst retaining the form, they 
 quite lost the spirit of the old Greek drama ; which, 
 be it remembered, was represented under free insti- 
 
316 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 tutions (that is, free for citizens, I think not of 
 slaves), and without a grinding censorship. In that 
 old Greek Drama, ^^the noble mind o’erthrown” was, 
 in tragedy, exhibited as a fitting subject for contem- 
 plation ; and the freaks and foibles of mania, in any 
 mitigated form, as a proper theme for laughter in 
 comedy. Personal peculiarities, moreover, were held 
 up to ridicule ; and the characters, even when not 
 portraits, were drawn from Nature. In Greece, 
 
 too, great latitude was allowed upon the stage, with 
 respect to the doctrines and dogmas of Religion. 
 The ‘‘ happy gods, living listlessly at their ease ” — 
 fjLaKapeq Oeol pua — Were treated with that in- 
 
 difference they were supposed to entertain. Prose- 
 cutions for blasphemy were always political, or deadly 
 personal. But in countries wherein, contrariwise 
 
 from its free condition in England, the drama was 
 subjected to the screw of censorship, religious and poli- 
 tical, it took the classic shape, which, in my opinion, 
 is fitting for no scenic representation except the lyric 
 drama ; and I have some degree of belief, that the 
 old Greek plays were performances in which music 
 and spectacle bore a large part, were in a word, what 
 operas at the Academie Royale ought to be, at the 
 best you could conceive them. The unities, be it 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 317 
 
 observed^ are embarrassing only when you come to 
 give a drama as a recited poem, and as the French 
 did in their tragedies, in one measure; without the 
 transition to the metre of the ode, without any relief 
 from variety. None of the intrinsic qualities, how- 
 ever, of the ancient Drama remained; and it is 
 curious to remember that disquisitions touching super- 
 natural agency and the art magical held by mimic 
 characters on the English stage, were actually, at 
 the same time debated solemnly in the Sorbonne and 
 the convents. Thus questions, which in the one 
 kingdom were matters of perilous doubt to learned 
 Doctors and Christian Prelates, were in the other, 
 at the Poet’s inspiration, bandied about upon a stage, 
 from mouth to mouth, by excommunicated persons 
 —the offscouring of society — with painted faces and 
 an antic dress. Ay, and after Macbeth and Hamlet, 
 with all their forlorn metaphysical reasoning and 
 supernatural terrors, had long been exhibited to the 
 gaping English million, the curate Grandier, under 
 the courtly reign of Louis XIV., and intellectual 
 rule of Cardinal Richelieu, by the immediate agency 
 of Dignitaries Ecclesiastical and Legal, was condemned 
 to death, and burnt at Loudon, for sorcery, upon 
 the testimony of some lewd nuns and perjured friars. 
 
318 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS : 
 
 But in Shakspeare’s time, peculiarly of all others 
 in England, there was a vast deal of profound learn- 
 ing upon almost all subjects, and men of the mightiest 
 intellect flourished. It was a great age. The Eng- 
 lish of that day possessed all the noble qualities of 
 their Norman forefathers, the unconquerable warriors 
 by sea and land — reflned by courtesy and sublimed 
 by learning — the same wild spirit of adventure — the 
 same enterprise — the same endurance ; and, with 
 these, the greatest genius which has ever yet been 
 displayed in any era of the world’s story. The 
 monuments of the famed Augustan age cannot, in 
 truth, compete with those of the Elizabethan ; it 
 can boast two minds that, in Lord Byron’s words, 
 might furnish forth the universe.” Bacon might 
 dispute the palm of Genius, and its particular im- 
 bodiment. Poesy, with Shakspeare himself ; Bacon 
 understood and exemplifled Philosophy ; Shakspeare 
 understood and illustrated it : Bacon, in his expla- 
 nations, delighted us with the qualities and graces 
 of Poesy; Shakspeare, in his poetry, gives us the 
 results and operations of all philosophy, as it bears 
 upon human life. Now, naturally enough, from the 
 deep and sterling learning which prevailed, the age 
 was addicted greatly to metaphysical disquisitions, 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 319 
 
 and therefore, to psychological inquiry, and to in- 
 vestigation and observation with respect to all mental 
 derangement. Likewise, all scholars were curious touch- 
 ing Demonology and Witchcraft — themes of study 
 always intensely interesting, but which James I., on 
 his accession, had, whilst Shakspeare was yet writing, 
 rendered fashionable. 
 
 In Shakspeare’s psychological works, we find the 
 consecrated essence of all the learning of the time 
 upon both these forlorn and fearful themes of study. 
 
 With regard to Madness — as, indeed, with regard 
 to all other subjects dilated on — Shakspeare appears 
 not alone to have exhausted for his results (and they 
 are invariably correct) all the learning of those who 
 went before him, but to have anticipated all that has 
 since been heaped together. All our subsequent dis- 
 coveries and conclusions wrung from study and ob- 
 servation, up to this moment — even to the remarks 
 which I am about to suggest, only tend to prove 
 the perfect accuracy of Shakspeare’ s delineations, 
 and to establish the existence of that degree of 
 knowledge in him which would seem properly to be 
 that of a creator. Sir Henry Halford, in an inge- 
 nious and highly interesting essay on the Homeric 
 wounds, showed how strangely accurate the old Greek 
 
320 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS : 
 
 was in this description of injuries to the human 
 frame, and the consequences that were the result, 
 physiologically and anatomically. The same might 
 be proved of Shakspeare, in reference to the human 
 body and its ills ; and we find the knowledge ex- 
 tended also to the mind diseased. He produces a mad 
 person before you, and without explaining why or where- 
 fore, or reasoning upon the course to be pursued, or 
 making the slightest discernible effort at effect, he just 
 makes that madman say and do precisely what he ought 
 to have said and done, laboring under a particular 
 species of Insanity, acted upon by particular feelings 
 and passions, and surrounded by particular circum- 
 stances. There is, meanwhile, an intuitive action 
 of the Understanding, which tells you that the thing 
 has been done, the individual man has been made, 
 and Reason sees that it is good.” In this there 
 is exhibited, at the same time, a consciousness of 
 power and a conviction of success. At all times, 
 too, we may remark in Shakspeare that abhorrence 
 of exaggeration, with the view to produce effect, 
 which is common to all gentlemanly natures. It has 
 been styled, happily enough, by painters, in reference 
 to the figures of Velasquez and Murillo, ‘‘ quiet 
 power.” It is pre-eminent in Shakspeare; and in 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 321 
 
 no respect is it more wonderfully exhibited to the 
 thoughtful eye, than in his delineation of madmen. 
 The best institutions for the cure of madness, the 
 best writers on the subject, the most successful prac- 
 titioners in cases of insanity (such as Pinel and 
 Esquirol), are now-a-days to be found in France; 
 knowledge has accumulated; the theme of mental 
 derangement, connecting itself with so many diseases, 
 has, of course, become common amongst French play- 
 wrights, who have set about dramatizing the Nosology; 
 and they have introduced mad people in abundance 
 in their plays, “ and yet never a good one,” though 
 they have striven hard for it. Shakspeare, on the 
 contrary, has never once swerved in the accuracy of 
 his delineations. He has, in his plays, introduced 
 persons suffering under insanity in various forms, and 
 so drawn the disease in various types. These, one 
 and all, may, with a single exception, be referred 
 forthwith to their proper head in the Nosology. 
 
 In several of his plays, too, Shakspeare has in- 
 troduced supernatural agency ; and a boding strain 
 may be observed to pervade all his tragic works of 
 the highest order. In these, the greatest monuments 
 of human genius illustrative of the puzzle called 
 human life, the indication of superhuman influence 
 
329 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS ! 
 
 is always to the student solemnly awful, if not ab- 
 solutely appalling. The actual production of visitants 
 from another world on the stage is made effective 
 (I speak not of the closet, or the visionary eye). 
 It is not in the power of mock realism — of the 
 paltry show of actors and of a stage, to mar the 
 power of the witches in Macbeth^ or the ghost of 
 Hamlet’s father. With the exception of Hamlet^ all 
 the plays of Shakspeare, whether supernatural agency 
 or insanity enter into their composition and the 
 current of events, are straightforward plays. The 
 heroes and heroines are men and women ; you may 
 like them or dislike them; and in doing either you 
 have, according to your own lights, intelligible grounds 
 whereon to proceed, because you can understand them: 
 you can perceive and appreciate^ to a sufficient extent, 
 their motives, and so satisfy yourself as to the rea- 
 sons and circumstances which conduced to the catas- 
 trophe of the play. A man, though scant well 
 learned in the Nosology, can refer the insanity of 
 each individual to its particular head, and each and 
 every of his actions and words to the peculiar form 
 of malady. The object, too, of the demoniac influ- 
 ence is apparent, and regularly worked out to its 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 323 
 
 natural and appointed conclusion; so is the operation 
 and resolution of the dominant passion — Love, Am- 
 bition, Jealousy — fully set forth, thoroughly explained. 
 Take Othello^ Lear^ Macbeth. In the first, there is 
 little more than an intimation of the oracles of Fate; 
 yet they are not, from the very commencement, in 
 the least doubtful. The ill-starred wench ” must 
 have been miserable in her unnatural match; the 
 noble Moor appears before us a predestined sacrifice. 
 The conclusion quite satisfies you. There should not, 
 and there could not, have been any other. ‘‘ King 
 Lear ’’ you can perfectly understand. It is a grand 
 pathological study for the medical reader, and would 
 seem to have been, in some sort, a pathological exer- 
 cise for the poet ; for almost every incident of terror 
 or pathos is made to bear directly upon some distinct, 
 point in the gradual and clearly-defined progress of 
 the malady. In Macbeth it is plain-sailing enough; 
 the demoniac agency only ministered to his cherished 
 wishes. The end may be divined, the conclusion was 
 inevitable. 
 
 Incidentally, too, I may remark, that, in the come- 
 dies, Mania is always brought in judiciously and 
 pleasantly, from its mildest form, in the outrageous 
 
 Y 
 
324 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEES : 
 
 lying of the starved Justice Shallow,” to the gentle 
 melancholy of Jaques, and the inordinate vanity of 
 Malvolio. 
 
 But nothing of all this can be predicated of Hamlet ; 
 and though, as I have already observed, standing in 
 the same class with the psychological dramas, it is 
 nevertheless apart from them one and all. Yet, per- 
 adventure, doth it more nearly in the spirit resemble 
 a play of -Sischylus than any of the others ; it might 
 have been represented on an Athenian stage with 
 as much facility as the Eumenides. Like the Eumen- 
 idesy moreover, it is a ghastly play ; and this without 
 its solemn and religious conclusion, heart-awing to 
 the people of Theseus, as a memory and an omen. 
 Oh ! Hamlet is a ghastly play — cold as a philosophical 
 experiment; cold, I should rather say, as a demon- 
 stration, the subject being the mind diseased. The 
 Spirit of Love is most potent throughout all the 
 other tragedies of the Passions and Imagination — 
 Love, which springs in its purity from the Reason, 
 and to which the Senses only minister — Love, which, 
 as the highest faculty of Reason, distinguishes Man 
 from Brute (for brutes have Understanding as well 
 as we, but they have not Reason, nor, therefore, 
 have they Love)— Love, which, I repeat, distinguishes 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 325 
 
 man from brute; and Angels, as we are taught, in 
 its degree from one another. 
 
 It is ‘‘ stronger than death ” in Juliet and her 
 Romeo, in Desdemona and the Moor, in the poor 
 mad father, Lear. It sheds a melancholy glory upon 
 the blood-polluted victims of Ambition: it assumes 
 an incarnation of Divinity, in the true wife, in sweetest 
 Imogene. At the end of these tragedies. Love, burst- 
 ing from the elements of destruction, hovers over all 
 invincible and triumphant; and this is balm to the 
 soul. It is better medicine than Hope, the false 
 stimulant which remained to console Pandora : for 
 what is Hope but anticipated Joy, the disturber of 
 the Present, the plunderer of the Future? This, 
 on the contrary, makes sorrow heavenly for that gone 
 by, and leaves no care for that which is to come. 
 Hereby the great end of Tragedy has been fulfilled, 
 which Aristotle, or some other ancient sage, did well 
 declare to be Ka^apo-ts rwv TradrjixaTiDv — a purification 
 of the passions. 
 
 And tragedy has been described to be an exhibi- 
 tion tending, by the operation of pity and fear, to 
 purify these and similar passions.” This is not done 
 by Hamlet ; and for this reason, also, Hamlet stands 
 quite alone amongst Shakspeare’s plays. The Spirit 
 
 y3 
 
326 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPEES : 
 
 of Love is weakest in Hamlet^ and, therefore, it com- 
 mands but little human sympathy. Ophelia does love, 
 and she dies. There is a majesty in her gentleness, 
 which you worship with a gush of feeling in her 
 earlier scenes of the play ; the painful nature of her 
 appearances, whilst mad, makes you feel that death 
 is a release ; and that release comes in an appropriate 
 form — the gentle, uncomplaining, sorrow-stricken lady, 
 dies gently, and without a murmur of bitterness or 
 reproach : 
 
 Queen, Your sister’s drowned, Laertes. 
 
 Laer. Drowned ! Oli ! where 7 
 Queen, There is a willow grows ascaunt the brook, 
 That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream ; 
 There with fantastic garlands did she come, 
 
 Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples. 
 That liberal shepherds give a grosser name. 
 
 But our cold maids do dead men’s Angers call them ; 
 There on the pendent houghs her coronet weeds 
 Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke, 
 
 "When down her weedy trophies and herself 
 Fell in the weeping brook : her clothes spread wide, 
 And mermaid-Hke, awhile they bore her up ; 
 
 Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes, 
 
 As one incapable of her own distress, 
 
 Or like a creature native and endued 
 
 Unto that element : but long it could not be 
 
 Till that her garments, heavy with their drink. 
 
 Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay 
 To muddy death.” 
 
 The meek lady is no more, but the tragedy proceeds, 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 327 
 
 As for all the other characters, they are of a very 
 mixed nature indeed, with two exceptions. Of Hamlet, 
 as a personage in the drama, I do not now speak (and 
 character, which, in its proper sense, is a completely 
 fashioned Will, he had none), and the exceptions I 
 make are Fortinbras and Horatio ; of whom, the first 
 is a magnificent sketch of a chivalrous prince — a 
 youthful Alexander; the second, the noblest gentle- 
 man ever drawn. As for the remaining characters, 
 you cannot esteem any, you cannot respect some; 
 some you must laugh at ; some you must despise ; 
 and even Horatio and Fortinbras have little sympathy 
 from us, albeit they have the while entire admiration 
 — they are so secure, so perfect in themselves, so 
 elevated by the force of their own Will above the 
 ordinary conditions of humanity. I may here, too, 
 avail myself of the opportunity to observe, that, for 
 a play so bloody for the English vulgar, and in itself 
 so morally tragic for the scholar and the gentleman, 
 Hamlet is for both, in its performance on the 
 stage, strangely beholden to spectacle, and to its 
 comic scenes, or snatches of scenes : the visible show 
 of the ghost — the processions — funeral — squabble at 
 Ophelia’s grave — ^fencing-match — and, at the last, the 
 quarry that cries, on, havoc!” have much power 
 
828 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS : 
 
 over the common spectator, I doubt if he could 
 abide it without these, and without having Polonius 
 buffooned for him, and, to no small extent, Hamlet 
 himself ; as he always was, whenever I saw the part 
 played, and as the great critic, Dr. Johnson, would 
 seem to think he ought to be. For he says, “the 
 pretended madness of Hamlet causes much mirth ! ! ! ” 
 And this he follows up by adding, in grandiloquent 
 maudlin, “ the mournful distraction of Ophelia fills 
 the heart with tenderness, and every personage pro- 
 duces the effect intended; from the apparition that, 
 in the first act, chills the blood with horror, to the 
 fop in the last, that exposes affectation to just con- 
 tempt.” So that in defiance of poor Ophelia’s 
 eloquent lamentation over 
 
 “ Th' expectancy and rose of the fair state, 
 
 we may, upon the authority of the doctor, conclude, 
 that to cause much mirth by pretended madness was 
 an effect intended to be produced by the personage, 
 Hamlet. But throwing aside this grave folly, let 
 me observe, that even the man who really can feel, 
 if not quite understand the play, which Johnson did 
 not understand and could not feel — the man who 
 can perceive if he cannot quite comprehend its idea, 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 329 
 
 must perceive how essential to the conduct of the 
 plot, and the development of character, is the forlorn 
 merriment which pervades the drama ; and how dif- 
 ferent this is from the comedy introduced in the other 
 psychological dramas, which to some may seem im- 
 pertinent and wearisome, and to none useful, save as 
 a strong contrast, like a coarse dash of paint in a 
 picture upon some one part, to bring out an effect 
 elsewhere upon the canvass. But in Hamlet the in- 
 termixture is a very marvel of art. In that astound- 
 ing scene at Ophelia’s grave, the coarse quips, and 
 cranks, and gibes ” of the grave-diggers, come in 
 like discords in one of the most sublime and weird of 
 Beethoven’s compositions. 
 
 The praise of variety has been challenged for 
 Hamlet^ and with great justice, both as respects the 
 incidents, the characters, and the nature of the 
 scenes. As a consequence of this. We find that all 
 those matters, severally difficult of treatment in other 
 plays — as insanity, supernatural agency, subtle pas- 
 sions — are introduced in a still more difficult form 
 in Hamlet. The cause and description of Ophelia’s 
 madness are plain enough. But Hamlet’s madness, 
 if he be mad, or his conduct, if not mad, as well 
 as the management of the ghost and his powers. 
 
330 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE PAPEES : 
 
 have as yet been riddles ; and neither is the progress 
 of events clear, nor do they indicate the catastrophe 
 to which they lead — nor, being thereat arrived, are 
 you content they should have done so under the cir- 
 cumstances — nor is the conclusion in any sort or 
 sense whatever satisfactory, but dreadly the reverse. 
 
 In a word, Hamlet^ to my mind, is essentially a 
 / psychological exercise and study. The hero, from 
 whose acts and feelings every thing in the drama 
 takes its color and pursues its course, is doubtless 
 insane, as I shall prove hereafter. But the species 
 of intellectual disturbance, the peculiar form of mental 
 malady, under which he suffers, is of the subtlest 
 character. The hero of another of these dramas, 
 /King Lear, is also mad; and his malady is traced 
 ifrom the outbreak, when it became visible to all, 
 
 , down to the agony of his death. But we were pre- 
 pared for this malady — the predisposing cause ex- 
 isted always; it only wanted circumstance to call 
 it forth. Shakspeare divined and wrote upon the 
 knowledge of the fact, which has since been proclaimed 
 formally by the physician, that it is with the mind 
 as with the body : there can be no local affection 
 without a constitutional disturbance — there can be 
 no constitutional disturbance without a local affection. 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 331 
 
 Thus, there can be no constitutional disturbance of 
 the mind, without that which is analogous to a local 
 affection of the body, namely, disease, or injury 
 affecting the nervous system and the mental organs 
 — some previous irregularity in their functions, or 
 intellectual faculties, or in the operation of their 
 affections and passions; and, again, general intellec- 
 tual disturbance will always be accompanied by some 
 particular affection. But I am using well nigh the 
 words of Esquirol. He says, Presque tous,’’ (and 
 by this qualification he only intends to exclude those 
 in whom he had not the means of ascertaining the 
 fact) — “ Presque tous les alienes confies k mes soins 
 avoient offert quelques irregularites dans leur fonc- 
 tions, dans leur facultes intellectuelles, dans leur 
 affections, avant d’etre malades, et souvent de la 
 premiere enfance. Les uns avoient ete d’un orgueil 
 excessif,des autres tres coleres; ceux-ci souvent tristes, 
 ceux-la d’une gaiete ridicule; quelques-uns d’une in- 
 stabilite desolante pour leur instruction, quelques 
 autres d’une application opiniatre a ce qu’ils entre- 
 prennoient, mais sans fixite ; plusieurs vetilleux minu- 
 tieux, craintifs, timides, irresolus; presque tous avoient 
 eu une grande activite de facultes intellectuelles et 
 morales qui avoient redoubles d’energie quelque temps 
 
332 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PAPERS I 
 
 avant Pacces ; la plupart avoient eu des maux des 
 nerfs ; les femmes avoient epreuves des convulsions 
 ou de spasmes hysteriques ; les hommes avoient ete 
 sujets a des crampes, des palpitations, des paralysies. 
 Avec ces dispositions primitives ou acquises, il ne 
 manque plus qu’une affection morale pour determiner 
 Pexplosion de la fureur ou I’accablement de la melan- 
 colie.” 
 
 Now, in all Shakspeare’s insane characters, however 
 slight may he the mental malady, with the exception 
 only of Hamlet, we have accurately described to us 
 the temperament on which madness is ingrafted. 
 Thus, of Malvolio, who on his introduction to us, 
 shows the intolerant vulgarity and impertinence of 
 the upstart, combined with the wisdom of the menial 
 — with cunning at least — and the chattering of pro- 
 verbs, gravely on occasion, we hear from Maria: 
 “ The devil a puritan that he is, or any thing con- 
 stantly, but a time-pleaser — an aiSfectioned ass, that 
 cons state without book, and utters it by great 
 swarths ; the best persuaded of himself — so crammed, 
 as he thinks, with excellences, that it is his ground 
 of faith that all that look on him love him : and 
 on that vice in him will my revenge find notable 
 cause to work.” And from this we can well see 
 
HAMLET. 
 
 333 
 
 how little provocation it required to drive him beside 
 himself, and into that most contemptible alienation 
 of mind which springs from inordinate vanity and 
 sordid selfishness. Of Jaques we learn that he 
 had been a debauchee, as sensual as the brutish 
 sting itself.” He is satiated quite — is now naturally 
 enough struck with a gentle melancholy — with a 
 most humorous sadness.” Goneril, too, prepares us 
 for Lear’s madness : “ The best and soundest of his 
 time has been but rash; then must we look to re- 
 ceive from his age, not alone the imperfections of 
 long-ingrafted condition, but therewithal the unruly 
 waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with 
 them.” But of Hamlet alone we have no account 
 of any positive predisposing cause to mania, or faulty 
 temperament ; nor can we catch from the lips of 
 any third person any thing which might lead us to 
 question his sanity before the commencement of the 
 play. All is to his praise. He is the esteemed of 
 Fortinbras, the friend of Horatio, the beloved of 
 Ophelia. ( We are abruptly brought to contemplate 
 the noble nature warped, the lofty mind o’erthrown, 
 the gentleman in his blown youth blasted with 
 ecstacy.” To comprehend and account for this, we 
 must study the drama with the same pervading sweep 
 
334 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE PAPERS. 
 
 of thought that we would passages in human life, 
 occurring within our observation, from which we 
 wished to wring a meaning, and by which we hoped 
 to solve a mystery. There is nothing beyond to look 
 to. We must judge Hamlet by what he said and 
 did : I open the volume in which this is recorded. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 FEINTED BY GEOKGE PHIPPS, 13 & 14 , TOTHILL STEEET^ 
 WESTMINSTEK,