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diff --git a/35631.txt b/35631.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..264bfb4 --- /dev/null +++ b/35631.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7201 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Letter on Shakspere's Authorship of The +Two Noble Kinsmen, by William Spalding + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Letter on Shakspere's Authorship of The Two Noble Kinsmen + and on the characteristics of Shakspere's style and the + secret of his supremacy + +Author: William Spalding + +Other: John Hill Burton + +Release Date: March 19, 2011 [EBook #35631] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHAKSPERE'S AUTHORSHIP--TWO NOBLE KINSMEN *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Mike Zeug, Lisa Reigel, and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + + + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been +left as in the original. Words in italics in the original are surrounded +by _underscores_. Words in bold in the original are surrounded by =equal +signs=. Words in a Gothic font in the original are surrounded by +plus +signs+. A row of asterisks represents a thought break. In poetry +quotations, a row of periods indicates an ellipsis. Words in Greek are +transliterated and placed between {curly braces}. A few typographical +errors have been corrected. A complete list follows the text. + + + + + A LETTER + + ON + + SHAKSPERE'S AUTHORSHIP + + OF + + +The Two Noble Kinsmen;+ + + AND ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF SHAKSPERE'S STYLE + AND THE SECRET OF HIS SUPREMACY. + + + BY THE LATE + + WILLIAM SPALDING, M.A., + + FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH AND + AFTERWARDS PROFESSOR OF LOGIC, RHETORIC, AND METAPHYSICS IN THE + UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREW'S; AUTHOR OF 'A HISTORY OF ENGLISH + LITERATURE,' ETC., ETC. + + + + + +New Edition, with a Life of the Author,+ + + BY + + JOHN HILL BURTON, LL.D., + + AUTHOR OF + 'THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND,' ETC., ETC. + + + PUBLISHT FOR + + +The New Shakspere Society+ + + BY N. TRUBNER & CO., 57, 59, LUDGATE HILL, + LONDON, E.C., 1876. + + + + + +Series+ VIII. +No.+ 1 + + + JOHN CHILDS AND SON, PRINTERS. + + + + +FOREWORDS + + +This _Letter_ by Prof. Spalding has always seemd to me one of the ablest +(if not the ablest) and most stimulating pieces of Shakspere criticism I +ever read. And even if you differ from the writer's conclusion as to +Shakspere's part, or even hold that Shakspere took no part at all, in +the Play, you still get almost as much good from the essay as if you +accept its conclusions as to the authorship of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_. +It is for its general, more than for its special, discussions, that I +value this _Letter_. The close reasoning, the spirited language, the +perception and distinction of the special qualities of Shakspere's work, +the investigation into the nature of dramatic art, the grasp of subject, +and the mixt logic and enthusiasm of the whole _Letter_, are worthy of a +true critic of our great poet, and of the distinguisht Professor of +Logic, Rhetoric, and Metaphysics, who wrote this treatise, that at once +delights and informs every one who reads it. No wonder it carrid away +and convinct even the calm judicial mind of Hallam. + +Indeed, while reading the _Letter_, one can hardly resist the power of +Prof. Spalding's argument, backt as it is by his well-chosen passages +from the Play. But when one turns to the play itself, when one reads it +aloud with a party of friends, then come doubt and hesitation. One +begins to ask, 'Is this indeed Shakspere, Shakspere at the end of his +glorious career, Shakspere who has just given us Perdita, Hermione and +Autolycus'? + +Full of the heavenly beauty of Perdita's flowers, one reads over _The +Two Noble Kinsmen_ flower-song, and asks, pretty as the fancy of a few +of the epithets is, whether all that Shakspere, with the spring-flowers +of Stratford about him, and the love of nature deeper than ever in his +soul--whether all he has to say of the daisy--Chaucer's 'Quene of +floures alle'--is, that it is "smelless but most quaint"; and of +marigolds, that they blow on death-beds[v:1], when one recollects his +twenty-years' earlier use of them in _Lucrece_ (A.D. 1594):-- + + Without the bed her other fair hand was, + On the green coverlet; whose perfect white + Show'd like an April _daisy_ on the grass, + With pearly sweat, resembling dew of night. + Her eyes, like _marigolds_, had sheath'd their light, + And canopied in darkness sweetly lay, + Till they might open to adorn the day. + +Full of the ineffable charm and consistency of Miranda and Perdita, one +asks of Emilia--Chaucer's daring huntress, virgin free, seeking no +marriage-bed--whether Shakspere, at the crisis of her life, degraded her +to a silly lady's-maid or shop-girl, not knowing her own mind, up and +down like a bucket in a well, balancing her lovers' qualities against +one another, saying she'd worn the losing Palamon's portrait on her +right side, not the heart one, her left, &c.; and then (oh dear!) that +Palamon might wound Arcite and _spoil his figure_! What a pity it would +be! + + Arcite may win me, + And yet may Palamon wound Arcite to + The spoyling of his figure. O what pitty + Enough for such a chance! + + V. iii. 68-71, p. 81, ed. Littledale. + +I say, is it possible to believe that Shakspere turnd a noble lady, a +frank gallant nature, whose character he had rightly seizd at first, +into a goose of this kind, whom one would like to shake, or box her ears +well? The thing is surely impossible. Again, is it likely--and again, I +say, at the end of his career, with all his experience behind him, that +Shakspere would make his hero Palamon publicly urge on Venus in his +prayer to her, that she was bound to protect him because he'd believd a +wanton young wife's word that her old incapable husband was the father +of her child? Is this the kind of thing that the Shakspere of Imogen, +of Desdemona, of Queen Catherine, would put forward as the crown of his +life and work? Again I say, it can hardly be. + +Further, when at one's reading-party one turns to the cleverest and most +poetic-natured girl-friend, and says, 'This is assignd to Shakspere. Do +you feel it's his?' She answers, 'Not a bit. And no one else does +either. Look how people's eyes are all off their books. They don't +care for it: you never see that when we're reading one of Shakspere's +genuine plays.' Then when you note Prof. Spalding's own admission +in his _Letter_, p. 81, that in Shakspere's special excellence, +characterization, the play is--as of course it is--weak, and that it is +to be compard on the one hand with his weaker early work, and on the +other with his latest _Henry VIII_, more than half of which Fletcher +wrote, you are not surpris'd to find that in 1840,[vii:1] seven years +after the date of his _Letter_, Professor Spalding had concluded, that +on Shakspere's having taken part in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, his +"opinion is not now so decided as it once was," and that by 1847 he was +still less decided, and declared the question "really insoluble." Here +is the full passage from his article on Dyce's "Beaumont and Fletcher," +in the _Edinb. Review_, July 1847, p. 57:-- + + "In measuring the height of Beaumont and Fletcher, we cannot + take a better scale than to put them alongside Shakespeare, + and compare them with him. In this manner, an imaginary + supposition may assist us in determining the nature of their + excellence, and almost enable us to fix its degree. Suppose + there were to be discovered, in the library of the Earl of + Ellesmere, or in that of the Duke of Devonshire, two dramas + not known before, and of doubtful authorship, the one being + 'Hamlet,' and the other 'The Winter's Tale.' We should be at + no loss, we think, to assign the former to Shakespeare: the + judgment would be warranted alike by the consideration of the + whole, and by a scrutiny of particular parts. But with + regard to the other play, hesitation would not be at all + unreasonable. Beaumont and Fletcher (as an eminent living + critic has remarked to us) might be believed to have written + all its serious parts, more especially the scenes of the + jealousy of Leontes, and those beautiful ones which describe + the rustic festival[vii:2]. Strange to say, a case of this + kind has actually arisen. And the uncertainty which still + hangs over it, agrees entirely with the hesitation which we + have ventured to imagine as arising in the case we have + supposed. + + "In 1634, eighteen years after Beaumont's death, and nine + after Fletcher's, there was printed, for the first time, the + play called 'The Two Noble Kinsmen.' The bookseller in + his title-page declared it to have been 'written by the + memorable worthies of their time, Mr John Fletcher and Mr + William Shakespeare, gentlemen.' On the faith of this + assertion, and on the evidence afforded by the character of + the work, it has been assumed universally, that Fletcher had + a share in the authorship. Shakespeare's part in it has + been denied; though there is, perhaps, a preponderance + of authority for the affirmative. Those who maintain the + joint authorship, commonly suppose the two poets to have + written together: but Mr Dyce questions this, and gives us an + ingenious theory of his own, which assumes Fletcher to have + taken up and altered the work long after Shakespeare's labour + on it had been closed. + + "_The question of Shakespeare's share in this play is really + insoluble._ On the one hand, there are reasons making it very + difficult to believe that he can have had any concern in it; + _particularly the heavy and undramatic construction of the + piece, and the want of individuality in the characters_. + Besides, we encounter in it direct and palpable imitations of + Shakespeare himself; among which the most prominent is the + wretchedly drawn character of the jailor's daughter. On the + other hand, there are, in many passages, resemblances of + expression (in the very particulars in which our two poets + are most unlike Shakespeare) so close, that we must either + admit Shakespeare's authorship of these parts, or suppose + Fletcher or some one else to have imitated him designedly, + and with very marvellous success. Among these passages, + too, there are not a few which display a brilliancy of + imagination, and a grasp of thought, much beyond Fletcher's + ordinary pitch. Readers who lean to Mr Dyce's theory, will + desire to learn his grounds for believing that Fletcher's + labour in the play was performed in the latter part of his + life. It appears to us that the piece bears a close likeness + to those more elevated works which are known to have been + among the earliest of our series: and if it were not an + unbrotherly act to throw a new bone of contention among the + critics, we would hint that there is no evidence entitling us + peremptorily to assert that Fletcher was concerned in the + work to the exclusion of Beaumont. + + "Be the authorship whose it may, 'The Two Noble Kinsmen' is + undoubtedly one of the finest dramas in the volumes before + us. It contains passages which, in dramatic vigour and + passion, yield hardly to anything--perhaps to nothing--in the + whole collection; while for gorgeousness of imagery, for + delicacy of poetic feeling, and for grace, animation, and + strength of language, we doubt whether there exists, under + the names of our authors, any drama that comes near to + it.[viii:1] Never has any theme enjoyed the honours which + have befallen the semi-classical legend of Palamon and + Arcite. Chosen as the foundation of chivalrous narrative by + Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Dryden, it has furnished one of the + fairest of the flowers that compose the dramatic crown of + Fletcher, while from that flower, perhaps, leaves might be + plucked to decorate another brow which needs them not. + + "If the admirers of Fletcher could vindicate for him the + fifth act of this play, they would entitle him to a still + higher claim upon our gratitude, as the author of a series of + scenes, as picturesquely conceived, and as poetically set + forth, as any that our literature can boast. Dramatically + considered, these scenes are very faulty: perhaps there + are but two of them that have high dramatic merits--the + interrupted execution of Palamon, and the preceding scene in + which Emilia, left in the forest, hears the tumult of the + battle, and receives successive reports of its changes and + issue. But as a gallery of poetical pictures, as a cluster of + images suggestive alike to the imagination and the feelings, + as a cabinet of jewels whose lustre dazzles the eye and + blinds it to the unskilful setting,--in this light there are + few pieces comparable to the magnificent scene before the + temples, where the lady and her lovers pray to the gods: and + the pathetically solemn close of the drama, admirable in + itself, loses only when we compare it with the death of + Arcite in Chaucer's masterpiece, 'the Iliad of the middle + ages.'" + +All this does but show how well-founded was the judgment which that +sound scholar and able Shaksperian critic, Prof. Ingram,[ix:1] expresst +in our _Transactions_ for 1874, p. 454. My own words on pages 73, +64*,--written after short acquaintance with the play, and under stress +of Prof. Spalding's and Mr Hickson's able Papers, and the metrical +evidence--were incautiously strong. In modifying them now, I do but +follow the example of Prof. Spalding himself. Little as my opinion may +be worth, I wish to say that I think the metrical and aesthetic evidence +are conclusive as to there being two hands in the play. I do not think +the evidence that Shakspere wrote all the parts that either Prof. +Spalding or Mr Hickson assigns to him, at all conclusive. If it could be +shown that Beaumont[ix:2] or any other author wrote the suppos'd +Shakspere parts, and that Shakspere toucht them up, that theory would +suit me best. It failing, I accept, for the time, Shakspere as the +second author, subject to Fletcher having spoilt parts of his conception +and work. + +The following scheme shows where Prof. Spalding and Mr Hickson agree, +and where they differ:-- + + Prologue | FLETCHER (Littledale). + | + Act I. sc. i. SHAKSPERE. Spalding, Hickson | + (Bridal Song not Sh.'s: | + Dowden, Nicholson, Littledale, | + Furnivall[x:1]). | + | + Act I. sc. ii. SHAKSPERE. Spalding (Sh. | SHAKSPERE and FLETCHER, or + revis'd by Fletcher, Dyce, | Fletcher revis'd by Shakspere. + Skeat, Swinburne, Littledale). | Hickson. + | + Act I. sc. iii, SHAKSPERE. Spalding, | + iv. Hickson, Littledale. | + | + Act I. sc. v. SHAKSPERE. Spalding, ? Sh. | ? FLETCHER. Littledale. + Hickson. | + | + Act II. sc. i *SHAKSPERE. Hickson, | *FLETCHER. Spalding, Dyce. + (prose). Coleridge, Littledale. | + | + Act II. sc. ii, | FLETCHER. Spalding, Hickson, + iii, iv, v, | Littledale. + vi. | + | + Act III. sc. i. SHAKSPERE. Spalding, | + Hickson. | + | + Act III. sc. *SHAKSPERE. Hickson (not | *FLETCHER. Spalding, Dyce. + ii. Fletcher, Furnivall). | + | + Act III. sc. iii, | FLETCHER. Spalding, Hickson, + iv, v, vi. | Littledale. + | + Act IV. sc. i, ii. | FLETCHER. Spalding, Hickson. + | + Act IV. sc. *SHAKSPERE. Hickson. | *FLETCHER. Spalding, Dyce. + iii. | + | + Act V. sc. i SHAKSPERE. Spalding, | ? lines 1-17 by FLETCHER. + (includes Hickson, &c. | Skeat, Littledale. + Weber's sc. | + i, ii, iii). | + | + Act V. sc. ii. | FLETCHER. Spalding, Hickson, + | &c. + | + Act V. sc. iii, SHAKSPERE. Spalding, | + iv. Hickson, &c., with a few lines | + FLETCHER. Sc. iv. (with | + FLETCHER interpolations. | + Swinburne, Littledale). | + | + Epilogue | FLETCHER. Littledale. + + * Here Prof. Spalding and Mr Hickson differ. + +Mr Swinburne, when duly clothed and in his right mind, and not exposing +himself in his April-Fool's cap and bells, will have something to say on +the subject; and it will no doubt be matter of controversy to the end of +time. Let every one study, and be fully convinct in his own mind. + +To Mrs Spalding and her family I am greatly obligd for their willing +consent to the present reprint. To Dr John Hill Burton, the Historian of +Scotland, we are all grateful for his interesting Life of his old +schoolfellow and friend, which comes before the author's _Letter_. Miss +Spalding too I have to thank for help. And our Members, Mrs Bidder--the +friend of our lost sweet-natured helper and friend, Richard Simpson--and +Mr *****, for their gifts of 10l. each, and the Rev. Stopford Brooke for +his gift of four guineas, towards the cost of the present volume. + +To my friend Miss Constance O'Brien I am indebted for the annext Scheme +of Prof. Spalding's argument, and the Notes and Index. The side-notes, +head-lines, and the additions to the original title-page[xi:1] are mine. +I only regret that the very large amount of his time--so much wanted for +other pressing duties,--which Mr Harold Littledale has given to his +extremely careful edition of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ for us, has thrown +on me, who know the Play so much less intimately than he does, the duty +of writing these _Forewords_. But we shall get his mature opinion in his +Introduction to the Play in a year or two[xi:2]. + + F. J. FURNIVALL. + + _3, St George's Square, Primrose Hill, + London, N.W., Sept. 27-Oct. 13, 1876._ + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[v:1] Unsure myself as to the form of oxlip root-leaves, and knowing +nothing of the use of marigolds alluded to in the lines + + "Oxlips in their cradles growing, + Marigolds on death-beds blowing," + +also seeing no fancy even if there were fact in 'em, I applied to the +best judge in England known to me, Dr R. C. A. Prior, author of the +_Popular Names of British Plants_; and he says "I am quite at a loss for +the meaning of _cradles_ and _death-beds_ in the second stanza. + +"The writer did not know much about plants, or he would not have +combined summer flowers, like the marigold and larkspur, with the +primrose. + +"I prefer the reading 'With hair-bells dimme'; for nobody would call the +upright salver-shaped flower of the primrose a 'bell.' The poet probably +means the blue-bell." + +On the other hand, Mr Wm Whale of our Egham Nurseries writes: "The +root-leaves of the Oxlip are cradle-shaped, but circular instead of +long. The growth of the leaves would certainly give one an idea of the +stem and Oxlip flowers being lodged in a cradle [? saucer]. + +"I have seen the marygold[v:A] in my boyish days frequently placed on +coffins; and in a warm death-room they would certainly flower. The +flowers named may be all called Spring-flowers, but of course some +blowing rather later than others." + + [v:A] This is called the _Calendula officinalis_, or + _Medicinal Marygold_, not the African or French sorts which + are now so improved and cultivated in gardens. + +[vii:1] _Edinb. Review_, July 1840, no. 144, p. 468. + +[vii:2] Surely the 'eminent living critic' made an awful mistake about +this. Beaumont and Fletcher write Perdita's flowers, Florizel's +description of her, Autolycus! + +[viii:1] In the _Edinburgh Review_ for April 1841, p. 237-8. Prof. +Spalding says that in Fletcher's _Spanish Curate_, "The scene of +defiance and threatening between Jamie and Henrique is in one of +Fletcher's best keys;--not unlike a similar scene in 'The Two Noble +Kinsmen.'" Act III. sc. i. + +[ix:1] His Dublin 'Afternoon Lecture' of 1863, shows that he then knew +all that I in 1873 was trying in vain to find a known Shaksperian editor +or critic to tell me. + +[ix:2] I name Beaumont because of his run-on lines, &c., and the power I +find in some of the parts of his and Fletcher's joint dramas that I +attribute to him. + +[x:1] I cannot get over Chaucer's daisies being calld "smelless but most +quaint." The epithets seem to me not only poor, but pauper: implying +entire absence of fancy and imagination.--F. "Chough hoar" is as bad +though.--H. L. + +[xi:1] This was "A Letter / on / Shakspeare's Authorship / of / +The Two +Noble Kinsmen+; / a Drama commonly ascribed / to John Fletcher. / +Edinburgh: / Adam and Charles Black; / and Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, +Green, and Longman. / London. / M.DCCC.XXXIII." + +[xi:2] See the opinion of Mr J. Herbert Stack, an old +_Fortnightly-Reviewer_, in the _Notes_ at the end of this volume. + + + + +SKELETON OF PROF. SPALDING'S _LETTER_. + + +Introduction. Name of the play (p. 2). Historical evidence in favour +of Shakspere's share in the play (6). Incorrectness of the first +and second folios of his works (7). Internal evidence (10). Marked +differences between Fletcher's and Shakspere's styles (11). Shakspere's +versification (11); abruptness (11); mannerisms and repetitions (12); +conciseness tending to obscurity (13); and rapid conception, opposed to +Fletcher's deliberation and diffuseness (14); his distinct, if crowded, +imagery, to Fletcher's vague indefiniteness (15). Shakspere's metaphors +(16), classical allusions (18), reflective turn of mind (20), conceits +(22), personification (25), all differ from Fletcher's manner (26). + +Origin of the story of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ (26). Sketch of First +Act, and reasons for assigning it to Shakspere (27). Outline of Second +Act, assigned to Fletcher (35). First Scene of Third Act, Shakspere's +(40); Plot of the rest (41). Fourth Act, Fletcher's (44). Description of +Fifth Act, given to Shakspere, omitting one scene (45). + +Points of likeness between Shakspere and contemporary dramatists (56). +Impossibility of imitating him (58). Inferiority of the underplot (60). +Reasons for supposing Shakspere chose the subject (62). His studies +(67). Resemblance between classical and romantic poetry (69). +Shakspere's plots contrasted with those of his contemporaries (73); his +treatment of passion (74); unity of conception (78). + +Poetical art compared with plastic (83). Greek plastic art aimed at +expressing Beauty and affecting the senses (84); poetry, at expressing +and affecting the mind (86); therefore poetry appeals to wider +sympathies (88). Dramatic poetry the highest form of poetry (92). + +Why Shakspere excelled (93). His representations of human nature both +_true_ and _impressive_ (94); he delineated both its intellect and +passion (99). His morality (101); his representations of evil (104). + +Conclusion. Summary of the argument as to plot, scenic arrangements, and +execution (105). + + + + +LIFE OF PROFESSOR W. SPALDING, + +BY HIS SCHOOL-FELLOW AND FRIEND, + +JOHN HILL BURTON, LL.D., + +AUTHOR OF 'THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND,' ETC., ETC. + + +William Spalding was born on the 22nd of May in the year 1809, at +Aberdeen. His father was a practising lawyer as a member of the Society +of Advocates in that town, and held office as Procurator Fiscal of the +district, or local representative of the law officers of the crown, in +the investigation of crimes and the prosecution of criminals. Spalding's +mother, Frances Read, was well connected among the old and influential +families of the city. When he went to school, Spalding was known to be +the only son of a widow. He had one sister who died in early life. +Whatever delicacy of constitution he inherited seems to have come from +his father's side, for his mother lived to the year 1874, and died in +the house of her son's widow among her grown-up grandchildren. + +Spalding had the usual school and college education of the district. He +attended the elementary burgh schools for English reading, writing, and +arithmetic, and passed on to Latin in the grammar school. In his day the +fees for attendance in that school, whence many pupils have passed into +eminence, were raised from 7_s._ 6_d._ to 10_s._ for each quarter of the +year. Those who knew Spalding in later life, would not readily +understand that as a school-boy he was noticeable for his personal +beauty. His features were small and symmetrical, and his cheeks had a +brilliant colour. This faded as he approached middle age, and the +features lost in some measure their proportions. He had ever a grave, +thoughtful, and acute face, and one of his favourite pupils records the +quick glance of his keen grey eye in the active duties of his class. He +was noticed in his latter years to have a resemblance to Francis and +Leonard Horner, and what Sydney Smith said of the older and more +distinguished of these brethren might have been said of Spalding's +earnest honest face, that "the commandments were written on his +forehead." When he had exhausted his five years' curriculum at the +grammar school, Spalding stepped on a November morning, with some of +his school-fellows, and a band of still more primitive youth, from the +Aberdeenshire moorlands, and the distant highlands, to enter the open +door of Marishal College, and compete for a bursary or endowment. This +arena of mental gladiatorship was open to all comers, without question +of age, country, or creed. The arrangement then followed--and no doubt +still in use, for it has every quality of fairness and effectiveness to +commend it, was this--An exercise was given out. It then consisted +solely of a passage in English of considerable length, dictated to and +written out by the competitors, who had to convert it into Latin. The +name of each competitor was removed from his exercise, and kept by a +municipal officer. A committee of sages, very unlikely to recognise any +known handwriting among the multitude of papers subjected to their +critical examination, sorted the exercises in the order of their merits, +and then the names of the successful competitors were found. My present +impression is that Spalding took the first bursary. It may have been the +second or the third, for occasionally a careless inaccuracy might trip +up the best scholar, but by acclamation the first place was assigned to +Spalding. Indeed, in a general way, through the whole course of his +education he swept the first prizes before him. When he finished the +four years' curriculum of Marishal College, he attended a few classes in +the college of Edinburgh, where the instruction was of another +kind--less absolute teaching, but perhaps opportunities for ascending +into higher spheres of knowledge. It was a little to the surprise of his +companions that he was next found undergoing those "Divinity Hall" +exercises, which predicate ambition to be ordained for the Church of +Scotland, with the prospect, to begin with, of some moorland parish with +a manse on a windy hill and a sterile but extensive glebe, a vista lying +beyond of possible promotion to the ministry of some wealthy and +hospitable civic community. Spalding said little about his views while +he studied for the Church, and nothing about his reasons for changing +his course, as he did, after a few months of study in his usual +energetic fashion. He had apparently no quarrel either with institutions +or persons, stimulating him to change his design, and he ever spoke +respectfully of the established Church of Scotland. + +From this episodical course of study he brought with him some valuable +additions to the large stores of secular learning at his command. He had +a powerful memory, and great facilities for mastering and simplifying +sciences as well as languages. He seemed to say to himself, like Bacon, +"I have taken all knowledge to be my province." With any of his friends +who strayed into eccentric by-paths of inquiry he was sarcastic--almost +intolerant, in denouncing their selection. Why abandon the great +literature--the great sciences and the great arts--which the noblest and +strongest intellects in all ages have combined to enrich and bring to +perfection? Master all that has been done in these, in the first place, +and then you may be permitted to take your devious course. In all the +departments of study he seemed to pass over the intermediate agencies, +to contemplate with something like worship the great leading spirits +whose intellectual stature raised them far above the mob. So in +literature, it was in Homer and Shakspeare that he delighted. In the +sciences connected with the analysis and the uses of intellect, he +looked to Aristotle, Hume, and Kant. In the exact sciences, to Galileo, +Tycho Brache and Newton, and so on. In art, he could admit the merits of +a Teniers, an Ostade, or a Morland, in accurately rendering nature, as +he would admit the merit of an ingenious toy. He could not but wonder at +the turbulent power of Rubens, but he was bitter on the purpose these +gifts were put to, in developing unsightly masses of flesh, and motions +and attitudes wanting alike in beauty and dignity. It was in Michel +Angelo, Raphael, and Thorwaldsen, with a select group from those +approaching near to these in their characteristic qualities, that the +young student selected the gods of his idolatry. + +This love of art was something new in Spalding's native district. There +all forms of learning were revered, and many a striving rustic devoted +the whole energies of his life to acquire the means of teaching his +fellow-men from the pulpit or the printing press. But art was nought +among them. Spalding was thoroughly attached to his native district, and +could well have said, "I love my fathers' northern land, where the dark +pine trees grow;" but when his thoughts ran on art, he would sometimes +bitterly call the north of Scotland a modern Boeotia. This is not the +place for inquiring how it came to pass, that neglect of art could keep +company with an ardent love of letters, but it is remarkable that the +district so destitute of the aesthetic, gave to the world some +considerable artists. In the old days there was George Jameson; and in +Spalding's own generation, Boeotia produced Dyce, Giles, Philips, and +Cassy as painters, with Brodie as a sculptor. Spalding could not but see +merit in these, for none of them gave themselves to vulgar or purely +popular art. Still he panted after the higher altitudes, and it appeared +to him at one time that in his friend David Scot he had found the +practical master of his ideal field. Scot had, to be sure, grand +conceptions, but he did not possess the gift that enabled the great +masters to abstract them from the clay of the common world. He had the +defect--and his friend seeing it, felt it almost as a personal +calamity--of lapsing into the ungainly, and even the grotesque, in his +most aspiring efforts. + +In approaching the time when the book to which this notice is prefixed +was published, one is tempted to offer a word or two of explanation on +its writer not appearing before the world earlier; and when he did +appear choosing so unobtrusive a fashion for his entry. About the time +when his college education ended, there was something like a revival of +literary ambition in Aberdeen, limited to young men who were Spalding's +contemporaries. A few of them appealed for the loudest blasts of the +trumpet of fame, in grand efforts in heroic and satirical poetry, and +their works may be found in the libraries of collectors curious in +specimens of forgotten provincial literature. These authors were +generally clever young men; and like others of their kind, they found in +after life that verse was not the only path to fame or fortune. One of +them became a distinguished pulpit orator. If Paley noticed, as an "only +defect" in a brother clergyman, that he was a popular preacher, Spalding +was apt to take a harsher view of such a failing; nor would he palliate +it on the representation of one who was the friend and admirer of both, +who pleaded the trials that a person so gifted is subjected to, noting +that there were certain eminences that the human head could not reach +without becoming dizzy--as, for instance, being Emperor of Russia, +Ambassador at an oriental court, Provost of a Scotch "Burgh toon"--or a +popular preacher. Another contemporary who courted and obtained +popularity, and still, to the joy of his friends, lives to enjoy it, was +less distasteful to Spalding, though trespassing on his own field of +ambition as a Greek scholar and Homeric critic. But he made the +distinction, that in this instance he thought the homage to popularity +was natural to the man, moving in irresistible impulses unregulated by a +system for bringing popularity in aid of success. + +The lookers-on, knowing that Spalding was ambitious, expected to hear +him in the tuneful choir, but he was dumb. He was once or twice, by +those nearest to him, heard in song, and literally heard only, for it is +believed that he never allowed any manuscript testimony of such a +weakness to leave his custody. One satirical performance got popularity +by being committed to memory. It was called "The fire-balloon." In the +year 1828 there was an arousing of public sympathy with the sufferers by +a great conflagration at Merimachi in North America. A body of the +students who had imbibed from the Professor of Natural Philosophy an +enthusiasm about aerostation, proposed to raise money for the sufferers +by making and exhibiting a huge fire balloon. The effort was embarrassed +by many difficulties and adventures affording opportunity for the +satirist. For instance, a trial trip was attempted, and one of "the +committee," who was the son of a clergyman, got hold of the key of his +father's church, and put its interior at the disposal of his colleagues. +The balloon inflated and ascended. The problem of getting it down again, +however, had not been solved. It got itself comfortably at rest in the +roof of a cupola, and the young philosophers then had to wait until it +became exhausted enough to descend. + +The literary ambition of young Aberdeen found for itself a very sedate +and respectable looking organ in "_The Aberdeen Magazine_," published +monthly during the years 1831 and 1832, and still visible in two thick +octavo volumes. Spalding was not to be tempted into this project, though +there was a slight touch in it supposed, solely from internal evidence, +to have come from him. A heavy controversy was begun by one calling +himself "a classical reformer," who brought up foemen worthy of his +steel. At the end of the whole was a sting in a postscript, more +effective than anything in the unwieldy body it was attached to. P. S. +As I am no great scholar, perhaps your classical Reformer will have the +goodness to tell me where I can see _The Works of Socrates_. He seems to +allude to them twice [reference to pages]. As he modestly tells us that +he is a much better translator of Homer than Pope was, perhaps he will +be kind enough to favour the world with a translation, to use his own +words, of "those works which have immortalized the name of +Socrates."[xvii-1] + +The papers in the Aberdeen Magazine were not all of the sombre cumbrous +kind. There was an infusion of fresh young blood, fired perhaps by the +influence of Wilson and Lockhart in Blackwood's Magazine, but seeking +original forms of its own. For the leader of this school, Spalding had +both esteem and admiration, but it was for far other merits than those +of the brisk unrestrained writer of fugitive literature. This was Joseph +Robertson, afterwards distinguished as an archaeologist. He survived +Spalding eight years. No lines of study could well be in more opposite +directions than those of the two men who respected each other. While +Spalding revelled in all that was brightest and best in literature and +art, Robertson devoted himself to the development of our knowledge about +the period when the higher arts--those of the painter and the +sculptor--had been buried with the higher literature, and the classic +languages had degenerated, in the hands of those who, as Du Cange, whose +ample pages were often turned by Robertson, called them, were +"Scriptores mediae et infimae Latinitatis." The source of Spalding's +admiration was that Robertson's writing was perfect of its kind, and led +to important and conclusive results. It was in this spirit that he +wrote his own "Letter." It did not fulfil a high aspiration, but it must +be perfect; and it was surely a moment of supreme happiness to him, when +he found the unknown author sought for and praised by so cautious and +reserved a critic as Hallam. + +The "Letter" was published in 1833. It is characteristic of its author's +distaste of loud applause, that whenever this, his first achievement in +letters, saw the light, he fled, as it were, from the knowledge of what +was said of it, and wandered for several months in Italy and Germany. +This was an era in his life, for it gave him the opportunity of seeing +face to face, and profoundly studying, the great works of art that had +hitherto only been imaged in his dreams from copies and engravings. He +at the same time studied--or rather enjoyed--nature. In his native north +he had been accustomed to ramble among the Grampians at the head of the +Dee, where the precipices are from 1500 to 2000 feet high, and snow lies +all the year round. In these rambles he encountered hardships such as +one would hardly have thought within the capacity of his delicate frame. +He took the same method of enjoyable travelling in the Apennines--that +of the Pedestrian. + +He gave to the world a slight morsel descriptive of his experiences and +enjoyments, in the Blackwood's Magazine of November, 1835. They were +told in so fine a spirit, so free both from ungraceful levity and solemn +pedantry, that the reader only regretted that they were too sparingly +imparted. He thus announced his own enjoyment in his pilgrimage: "Among +the ruined palaces and temples of Rome, and in the vineyards and +orange-groves beside the blue sea of Naples, I had warmed my imagination +with that inspiration which, once breathed upon the heart, never again +grows cold. It did not desert me now as I entered this upper valley of +the Apennines to seek a new colour and form of Italian landscape. Happy +and elevating recollections thronged in upon me, and blended with the +clear sunshine which slept on the green undulating hills." This fragment +is the only morsel of autobiographic information left by its author, and +therefore perhaps the following, taken from among many expressions of a +genial spirit enjoying itself in freedom, may not be unacceptable. He +has crossed the high-lying, bare plain of Rosetto, and reaches the +village of Val san Giovanni, where "shelter was heartily welcome, the +sun was set, snow-flakes were beginning to whirl in the air, and before +we reached the village, a sharp snow-storm had set in." Here he is +taking comfort to himself before a huge wood fire, when "a man entered +of superior dress and appearance to the rest, and behind him bustled up +a little wretch in the government indirect-tax livery, who, never saying +by your leave, pushed a chair to the fire for his master. The gentleman +popped down, and turning to me, 'I am the Podesta,' said he. I made my +bow to the chief magistrate of the place. 'I am the Potesta,' said he +again, and our little squinting spy repeated reproachfully, 'His +excellency is the Podesta.' + +"I was resolved not to understand what they would be at, and the +dignitary explained it to me with a copious use of circumlocution. He +said he had no salary from the government--this did not concern +me;--that he had it in charge to apprehend all vagabonds; this he seemed +to think might concern me. He asked for my passport, which was exhibited +and found right; and the Podesta proved the finest fellow possible. +These villagers then became curious to know what object I had in +travelling about among their mountains. My reader will by this time +believe me when I say that the question puzzled me. My Atanasio felt +that it touched his honour to be suspected of guiding a traveller who +could not tell what he travelled for. He took on him the task of reply. +Premising that I was a foreigner, and perhaps did not know how to +express myself, he explained that I was one of those meritorious +individuals who travel about discovering all the countries and the +unknown mountains, and putting all down on paper; and these individuals +always ask likewise why there are no mendicant friars in the country, +and which the peasants eat oftenest, mutton or macaroni? He added, with +his characteristic determined solemnity, that he had known several such +inquisitive travellers. This clear definition gave universal +satisfaction."[xix-1] + +Soon after Spalding's return to Scotland, the late George Boyd, the +sagacious chief of the Firm of Oliver and Boyd, thought he might serve +him in a considerable literary project. It was the age of small books +published in groups--of "Constable's Miscellany," "Lardner's +Cyclopedia," "Murray's Family Library," and the like. With these Mr Boyd +thought he would compete, in the shape of the "Edinburgh Cabinet +Library," and Spalding was prevailed on to write for it three volumes, +with the title, "Italy and the Italian Islands." The bulk of the +contributions to such collections are mere compilations. But Scott, +Southey, Macintosh, and Moore had enlivened them with gifts from a +higher literature, and Spalding's contribution was well fitted to match +with the best of these, though he had to content himself in the ranks of +the compilers, until the discerning found a higher place for his book. + +The same acute observer who had set him to this task found another for +him in "The History of English Literature." The _Encyclopedia +Britannica_ in the same manner drew him into contributions which +developed themselves into two works of great value, on "Logic," and on +"Rhetoric." That one of so original and self-relying a nature should +have thus been led by the influence of others into the chief labours of +his life, is explained by the intensity of his desire for perfection in +all he did. Once induced to lift his pen in any particular cause, he +could not lay it down again while there remained an incompleteness +unfilled, or an imperfection unremedied. + +In a review on his book on Logic, having detected, from "various +internal symptoms of origin," the style and manner of a personal friend +of his own, he wrote to the culprit in this characteristic form, "very +many thanks for the notice. It may do good with some readers who don't +know the corrupt motives by which it was prompted: and it strikes me as +being exceedingly well and dexterously executed. I am quite sorry to +think how much trouble it must have cost you to pierce into the bowels +of the dry and dark territory, so far as the points you have been able +to reach. I am afraid also that you had to gutta-percha your conscience +a little, before it would stretch to some of your allegations, both +about the work and about the science. I see already so much that I could +myself amend--not in respect of doctrine, but in the manner of +exposition--as to make me regret that I am not in a place where the +classes of students are large enough to take off an edition, and so to +give me by and by the chance of re-writing the book. Yet it is +satisfactory to me to have got clearly the start of the publication of +Hamilton's Lectures, and so to anticipate--for some of the points on +which it will certainly be found that I have taken up ground of my +own--the attention of _some_ of the few men who have written on the +science. Any of them who, having already looked into my book, shall +attempt to master Hamilton's system when it appears in his own statement +of it, are sure to find, if I do not greatly mistake, that I have raised +several problems, the discussion of which will require that my +suggestions be considered independently of Hamilton's, and my little +bits of theory either accepted or refuted. I dare say I told you that +early in the winter I had very satisfactory letters from Germany, and +you heard that the book was kindly taken by some of the Englishmen it +was sent to, and set on tooth and nail, though very amicably, by," &c. + +Let us go back to the chronology of his personal history, after his one +opportunity of seeing the world outside of Britain. He had joined the +Bar of Scotland before this episode in his life, and on his return he +took up the position of an advocate prepared for practice. This was no +idle ambitious attempt, for he had endured the drudgery of a solicitor's +office for the mastery of details, and had thoroughly studied the +substance of the law. His career now promised a great future. He was +affluent enough to spurn what Pope called "low gains;" he had good +connections, and became speedily a rising counsel. His career seemed to +be in the line of his friend Jeffrey's, taking all the honours and +emoluments of the profession, and occasionally relaxing from it in a +brilliant paper in the _Edinburgh Review_.[xxi-1] To complete the vista +of good fortune he took to be the domestic sharer of his fortunes a wife +worthy of himself--Miss Agnes Frier, born of a family long known and +respected on the Border. They were married on the 22nd of March in the +year 1838. + +Perhaps some inward monitor told him that the fortunes before him were +too heavy to be borne by the elements of health and strength allotted to +him. It was to the surprise of his friends that in 1838 he abandoned the +bar, and accepted the chair of Rhetoric in Edinburgh. In 1845 he +exchanged it for the chair of Rhetoric and Logic at St Andrews. The +emoluments there were an inducement to him, since part of the property +of his family had been lost through commercial reverses over which he +had no control; and he was not one to leave anything connected with the +future of his family to chance. It was a sacrifice, for he left behind +him dear friends of an older generation, such as Jeffrey, Cockburn, +Hamilton, Wilson, and Pillans. Then there were half way between that +generation and his own, Douglas Cheape, Charles Neaves, and George Moir; +while a small body of his contemporaries sorely missed him, for he was a +staunch friend ever to be depended on. He was a great teacher, and left +a well-trained generation of scholars behind him. The work of the +instructor, abhorred by most men, and especially by sensitive men, was +to him literally the "delightful task" of the poet who has endured many +a jibe for so monstrous a euphuism. Even while yet he was himself a +student, if he saw that a companion was wasting good abilities in +idleness or vapid reading, he would burden his own laborious hours with +attempts to stimulate his lazy friend. Just after he had passed through +the Greek class of Marishal College, a temporary teacher for that class +was required. Some one made the bold suggestion of trying the most +distinguished of the students fresh from the workshop, and Spalding +taught the class with high approval. As years passed on, the spirit of +the teacher strengthened within him. The traditions of the older +university were more encouraging to the drilling process than Edinburgh, +where the tendency was towards attractive lecturing. So entirely did the +teacher's duty at last absorb his faculties, that the phenomenon was +compared to the provisions in nature for compensating the loss by +special weaknesses or deficiencies, and that the scholar, conscious that +his own days of working were limited, instinctively felt that in +imparting his stores to others who would distribute them after he was +gone, he was making the most valuable use of his acquirements. + +It was a mighty satisfaction to old friends in Edinburgh to hear that +Spalding had condescended to seek, and that he had found, that blessed +refuge of the overworked and the infirm, called a hobby. He was no +sportsman. The illustrious Golfing links of St Andrews were spread +before him in vain, though their attractions induced many a man to pitch +his tabernacle on their border, and it was sometimes consolatorily said +of Professors relegated to this arid social region, that they were +reconciling themselves to Golf. The days were long past for mounting the +knapsack and striding over the Apennines or even the Grampians. +Spalding's hobby was a simple one, but akin to the instincts of his +cultivated taste; it was exercised in his flower-garden. We may be sure +that he did not debase himself to the example of the stupid +floriculturist, the grand ambition of whose life is successfully to +nourish some prize monster in the shape of tulip or pansy. He allied his +gentle task of a cultivator of beautiful flowers, with high science, in +botany and vegetable physiology. + +Besides such lighter alleviations, he had all the consolations that the +most satisfactory domestic conditions can administer to the sufferer. In +his later days he became afflicted with painful rheumatic attacks, and +the terrible symptoms of confirmed heart-disease. He died on the 16th of +November, 1859. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[xvii-1] Aberdeen Magazine, II., 350. + +[xix-1] Blackwood's Mag., Nov. 1835, p. 669. + +[xxi-1] The following list of her father's contributions, drawn up by +Miss Mary Spalding, is believed to be complete. + +No. 144. July 1840. Recent Shaksperian literature. (Books by Collier, +Brown, De Quincey, Dyce, Courtenay, C. Knight, Mrs Jameson, Coleridge, +Hallam, &c.) + +No. 145. October 1840. Introduction to the Literature of Europe, by +Henry Hallam. + +No. 147. April 1841. The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher. With an +Introduction. By George Darley. + +No. 164. April 1845. 1. The Pictorial Edition of the Works of +Shakespeare. Edited by Charles Knight.--2. The Comedies, Histories, +Tragedies, and Poems of William Shakespeare. Edited by Charles +Knight.--3. The Works of William Shakespeare. The text formed from an +entirely new collation of the old editions; with the various Readings, +Notes, a Life of the Poet, and a History of the English Stage. By J. +Payne Collier, Esquire, F.S.A. + +No. 173. July 1847. The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher. By the Rev. +Alexander Dyce. + +No. 181. July 1849. 1. Lectures on Shakespeare. By H. N. Hudson.--2. +Macbeth de Shakespeare, en 5 Actes et en vers. Par M. Emile Deschemps. + +_ib._ King Arthur. By Sir E. Bulwer Lytton. 2nd edition, London, 1849, +8vo. + + + + +A LETTER + +ON + +SHAKSPEARE'S AUTHORSHIP + +OF THE DRAMA ENTITLED + +_THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN_. + + +My dear L----, We have met again, after an interval long enough to have +made both of us graver than we were wont to be. A few of my rarely +granted hours of leisure have lately been occupied in examining a +question on which your taste and knowledge equally incline and qualify +you to enter. Allow me to address to you the result of my inquiry, as a +pledge of the gratification which has been afforded me by the renewal of +our early intercourse. + +Proud as SHAKSPEARE'S countrymen are of his name, it is singular, though +not unaccountable, that at this day our common list of his works should +remain open to correction. [Sidenote: The list of SHAKSPERE'S works is +not yet settled.] [Sidenote: Are all his in his publisht "_Works_"?] +Every one knows that some plays printed in his volumes have weak claims +to that distinction; but, while the exclusion even of works certainly +not his would now be a rash exercise of prerogative in any editor, it is +a question of more interest, whether there may not be dramas not yet +admitted among his collected works, which have a right to be there, and +might be inserted without the danger attending the dismissal of any +already put upon the list. [Sidenote: Six "Doubtful Plays:" none by +Shakspere.] A claim for admission has been set up in favour of Malone's +six plays,[1:1] without any ground as to five of them, and [1:2]with +very little to support it even for the sixth. [Sidenote: Ireland's +forgery, _Vortigern_.] [Sidenote: The folly of supposing _Vortigern_ +genuine.] Ireland's impostures are an anomaly in literary history: even +the spell and sway of temporary fashion and universal opinion are causes +scarcely adequate to account for the blindness of the eminent men who +fell into the snare. The want of any external evidence in favour of the +first fabrication, the Shakspeare papers, was overlooked; and the +internal evidence, which was wholly against the genuineness, was +unhesitatingly admitted as establishing it. The play of 'Vortigern' had +little more to support it than the previous imposition. + +There are two cases, however, in which we have external presumptions to +proceed from; for there are traditions traceable to Shakspeare's own +time, or nearly so, of his having assisted in two plays, still known to +us, but never placed among his works. [Sidenote: Shakspere said +(absurdly) to have helpt in Ben Jonson's _Sejanus_.] The one, the +'Sejanus', in which Shakspeare is said to have assisted Jonson, was +re-written by the latter himself, and published as it now stands among +his writings, the part of the assistant poet having been entirely +omitted; so that the question as to that play, a very doubtful question, +is not important, and hardly even curious. But the other drama is in our +hands as it came from the closets of the poets, and, if Shakspeare's +partial authorship were established, ought to have a place among his +works. [Sidenote: _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ attributed to Shakspere and +Fletcher; and rightly so.] It is, as you know, THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN, +printed among the works of Beaumont and Fletcher, and sometimes +attributed to SHAKSPEARE and FLETCHER jointly. I have been able to +satisfy myself that it is rightly so attributed, and hope to be able to +prove to you, who are intimately conversant with Shakspeare, and +familiar also with the writings of his supposed co-adjutor, that there +are good grounds for the opinion. [Sidenote: It is unjustly excluded +from _Shakspere's Works_.] The same conclusion has already been reached +by others; but the discussion of the question cannot be needless, so +long as this fine drama continues excluded from the received list of +Shakspeare's works; and while there is reason to believe that there are +many discerning students and zealous admirers of the poet, to whom it is +known only by name. The beauty of the work itself will make much of the +investigation delightful to you, even though my argument on it may seem +feeble and stale. + +[Sidenote: I. Historical or External Evidence.] + +[Sidenote: II. External Evidence, p. 10.] + +The proof is, of course, two-fold; the first branch emerging [2:1]from +any records or memorials which throw light on the subject from without; +the second, from a consideration of the work itself, and a comparison of +its qualities with those of Shakspeare or Fletcher. You will keep in +mind, that it has not been doubted, and may be assumed, that Fletcher +had a share in the work; the only question is,--Whether Shakspeare +wrote any part of it, and what parts, if any? + +The Historical Evidence claims our attention in the first instance; but +in no question of literary genuineness is this the sort of proof which +yields the surest grounds of conviction. [Sidenote: I. External +Evidence.] Such questions arise only under circumstances in which the +external proof on either side is very weak, and the internal evidence +has therefore to be continually resorted to for supplying the defects of +the external. It is true that a complete proof of a work having been +actually written by a particular person, destroys any contrary +presumption from intrinsic marks; and, in like manner, when a train of +evidence is deduced, showing it to be impossible that a work could have +been written by a certain author, no internal likeness to other works of +his can in the least weaken the negative conclusion. [Sidenote: +Historical evidence cannot exclude internal, unless the former is +complete.] In either case, however, the historical evidence must be +incontrovertible, before it can exclude examination of the internal; and +the two cases are by no means equally frequent. It scarcely ever happens +that there is external evidence weighty enough to establish certainly, +of itself, an individual's authorship of a particular work; but the +external proof that his authorship was impossible, may often be +convincing and perfect, from an examination of dates, or the like. +Since, therefore, external evidence against authorship admits of +completeness, we are entitled, when such evidence exclusively is founded +on, to demand that it shall be complete. Where by the very narrowest +step it falls short of a demonstration of absolute impossibility, the +internal evidence cannot be refused admittance in contravention of it, +and comes in with far greater force than that of the other. There may be +cases where authorship can be made out to the highest degree, at least, +of probability, by strong internal evidence coming in aid of an external +proof equally balanced for and against; and even where the extrinsic +proof is of itself sufficient [3:1]to infer improbability, internal +marks may be so decided the opposite way, as to render the question +absolutely doubtful, or to occasion a leaning towards the affirmative +side. [Sidenote: Internal evidence the true test for _The Two N. K._] +These principles point out the internal evidence as the true ground on +which my cause must be contested; but it was not necessary to follow +them out to their full extent; for I can show you, that the external +facts which we have here, few as they are, raise a presumption in favour +of Shakspeare's authorship, as strong as exists in cases of more +practical importance, where its effect has never been questioned. + +[Sidenote: _The Two N. K._ printed in 1634 as by Fletcher and +Shakspere.] + +The fact from which the maintainers of Shakspeare's share in this drama +have to set out, is the first printing of it, which took place in 1634. +In the title-page of this first edition,[4:1] the play is stated to be +the joint work of Shakspeare and Fletcher. [Sidenote: Steevens's +doubts.] It is needless to enumerate categorically the doubts which have +been thrown, chiefly by the acute and perverse Steevens, on the credit +due to this assertion; for a few observations will show that they have +by no means an overwhelming force, while there are contrary presumptions +far more than sufficient to weigh them down. [Sidenote: A.D. 1634 was 18 +years after Shakspere's death, 9 after Fletcher's.] The edition was not +published till eighteen years after Shakspeare's death, and nine years +after Fletcher's; but any suspicion which might arise from the length of +this interval, as giving an opportunity for imposture, is at once +removed by one consideration, which is almost an unanswerable argument +in favour of the assertion on the title-page, and in contravention of +this or any other doubts. [Sidenote: No motive to forge Shakspere's +name, as he (Sh.) had then fallen into neglect.] There was no motive for +falsely stating Shakspeare's authorship, because no end would have been +gained by it; for it is a fact admitting of the fullest proof, that, +even so recently after Shakspeare's death as 1634, he had fallen much +into neglect. Fletcher had become far more popular, and his name in the +title-page would have been a surer passport to public favour than +Shakspeare's. If either of the names was to be [4:2]fabricated, +Fletcher's (which stands foremost in the title-page as printed) was the +more likely of the two to have been preferred. It appears then that the +time when the publisher's assertion of Shakspeare's authorship was made, +gives it a right to more confidence than it could have deserved if it +had been advanced earlier. If the work had been printed during the +poet's life, and the height of his popularity, its title-page would have +been no evidence at all. And when the assertion is freed from the +suspicion of designed imposture, the truth of it is confirmed by its +stating the play to have been acted by the king's servants, and at the +Blackfriars. [Sidenote: _2 N. K._ acted at the Blackfriars (in whose +profits Shakspere had once a share).] It was that company which had been +Shakspeare's; the Globe and Blackfriars were the two theatres at which +they played; and at one or the other of these houses all his +acknowledged works seem to have been brought out. The fact of the play +not having been printed sooner, is accounted for by the dramatic +arrangements and practice of the time: the first collected edition of +Shakspeare's works, only eleven years earlier than the printing of this +play, contained about twenty plays of his not printed during his life; +and the long interval is a reason also why the printer and publisher are +different persons from any who were concerned in Shakspeare's other +works. The hyperbolical phraseology of the title-page is quite in the +taste of the day, and is exceeded by the quarto editions of some of +Shakspeare's admitted works. + +[Sidenote: Custom of authors writing plays together.] + +Was the alleged co-operation then in itself likely to have taken place? +It was. Such partnerships were very generally formed by the dramatists +of that time; both the poets were likely enough to have projected some +union of the kind, and to have chosen each other as the parties to it. +[Sidenote: Shakspere followed this custom, though rarely.] Although +Shakspeare seems to have followed this custom less frequently than most +of his contemporaries, we have reason to think that he did not wholly +refrain from it; and his favourite plan of altering plays previously +written by others, is a near approach to it. [Sidenote: Fletcher very +often.] As to Fletcher, his name is connected in every mind with that of +Beaumont; and the memorable and melancholy letter of the three +players,[5:1] proves him to have coalesced with other writers even +during that poet's short [5:2]life. This is of some consequence, +because, if the two poets wrote at the same time, it would seem that +they must have done so previously to Beaumont's death; for Shakspeare +lived only one year longer than Beaumont, and is believed to have spent +that year in the country. There is no proof that the drama before us was +not written before Beaumont's death (1615), and it is only certain that +its era was later than 1594. [Sidenote: Fletcher's co-authors.] After +the loss of his friend, Fletcher is said to have been repeatedly +assisted by Massinger: he joined in one play with Jonson and Middleton, +and in another with Rowley. [Sidenote: His sonship to a bishop, no +hindrance.] His superior rank (he was the son of a bishop) has been +gravely mentioned as discrediting his connection with Shakspeare; but +the same objection applies with infinitely greater force to his known +co-operation with Field, Daborne, and the others just named; and the +idea is founded on radically wrong notions of the temper of that age. +[Sidenote: Fletcher's burlesquing Shakspere is no argument against their +having written together.] There is scarcely more substance in a doubt +raised from the frequency with which Shakspeare is burlesqued by +Beaumont and Fletcher. Those satirical flings could have been no reason +why Fletcher should be unwilling to coalesce with Shakspeare, because +they indicate no ill feeling towards him. [Sidenote: Shakspere pokes fun +at Kyd, Peele, Marlowe.] They were practised by all the dramatic writers +at the expense of each other; Shakspeare himself is a parodist, and +indulges in those quips frequently, not against such writers only as the +author of the Spanish Tragedy, but against Peele and even Marlowe, his +own fathers in the drama, and both dead before he vented the jests, +which he never would have uttered had he attached to them any degree of +malice. And therefore also Fletcher's sarcasms cannot have disinclined +Shakspeare to the coalition, especially as his personal character made +it very unlikely that he should have taken up any such grudge as a testy +person might have conceived from some of the more severe. + +But the circumstance on which most stress has been laid as disproving +Shakspeare's share in the drama in question, is this. [Sidenote: The _2 +N. K._ not in the First Folio of Shakspere's Works, 1623, put forth by +Shakspere's fellows.] While the first edition of it was not printed till +1634, two editions of Shakspeare's collected works had been published +between the time of his death (1616) and that year, in neither of which +this play appears; and it is said that its omission in the first folio +(1623), in particular, is fatal to its claim, since Heminge and +[6:1]Condell, who edited that collection, were Shakspeare's +fellow-actors and the executors of his will, and must be presumed to +have known perfectly what works were and what were not his. I have put +this objection as strongly as it can be put; and at first sight it is +startling; but those who have most bibliographical knowledge of +Shakspeare's works, are best aware that much of its force is only +apparent. The omission in the second folio (1632) should not have been +founded on; for that edition is nothing but a reprint of the contents of +the first; and it is only the want of the play in this latter that we +have to consider. [Sidenote: But the First Folio is not of much +authority.] Now, you know well, that in taking some objections to the +authority of the First Folio, I shall only echo the opinions of +Shakspeare's most judicious critics. It was a speculation on the part of +the editors for their own advantage, either solely or in conjunction +with any others, who, as holders of shares in the Globe Theatre, had an +interest in the plays: for it was to the theatre, you will remark, +and not to Shakspeare or his heirs personally, that the manuscripts +belonged. [Sidenote: It was just a speculation for profit;] The edition +shews distinctly, that profit was its aim more than faithfulness to the +memory of the poet, in the correctness either of his text or of the list +of his works. Even the style of the preface excites suspicions which the +work itself verifies. [Sidenote: designd to put down the Quartos, which +yet it copies.] One object of it was to put down editions of about +fifteen separate plays of Shakspeare's, previously printed in quarto, +which, though in most respects more accurate than their successors, had +evidently been taken from stolen copies: the preface of the folio, +accordingly, strives to throw discredit on these quartos, while the +text, usually close in its adherence to them, falls into errors where it +quits them, and omits many very fine passages which they give, and which +the modern editors have been enabled by their assistance to restore. + +[Sidenote: The Table of Contents of the First Folio of Shakspere's Works +is of less worth.] + +Here it is, however, of more consequence to notice, that the authority +of the Table of Contents of the Folio is worse than weak. The editors +profess to give all Shakspeare's works, and none which are not his: we +know that they have fulfilled neither the one pledge nor the other. +There is no doubt but they could at least have enumerated Shakspeare's +works correctly: but their knowledge and their design of profit did +[7:1]not suit each other. [Sidenote: It lets in two Plays that are not +Shakspere's.] They have admitted, for plain reasons, two plays which are +not Shakspeare's. Their edition contains about twenty plays never before +printed; it was evidently their interest to enlarge this part of their +list as far as they safely could. [Sidenote: _1 Henry VI_,] The +pretended First Part of Henry VI., in which Shakspeare may perhaps have +written a single scene,[8:1] but certainly not twenty lines besides, had +not been printed, and could be plausibly inserted; it does not seem that +they could have had any other reasons for giving it a place. [Sidenote: +and _Titus Andronicus_.] The Tragedy of the Shambles, which we call +'Titus Andronicus,' if it had been printed at all, had been so only +once, and that thirty years before; therefore it likewise was a novelty; +and a pretext was easily found for its admission. The editors then were +unscrupulous and unfair as to the works which they inserted: professing +to give a full collection, they were no less so as to those which they +did not insert. [Sidenote: _Troilus and Cressida_] 'Troilus and +Cressida,' an unpleasing drama, contains many passages of the highest +spirit and poetical richness, and the bad in it, as well as the good, is +perfectly characteristic of Shakspeare; it is unquestionably his. +[Sidenote: is not in the Table of Contents.] It does not appear in +Heminge and Condell's table of contents, and is only found appended, +like a separate work, to some copies of their edition. Its pages are not +even numbered along with the rest of the volume; and if the first +editors were the persons who printed it, it was clearly after the +remainder of the work. If they did print it, their manner of doing so +shews their carelessness of truth more strongly than if they had omitted +it altogether. They first make up their list, and state it as a full one +without that play, which they apparently had been unable to obtain; they +then procure access to the manuscript, print the play, and insert it in +the awkward way in which it stands, and thus virtually confess that the +assertion in their preface, made in reference to their table of +contents, was untrue. At any rate, a part of their impression was +circulated without this play. [Sidenote: _Pericles_ is not in the +volume, and yet is in part Shakspere's.] 'Pericles' also is wholly +omitted by those editors; it appears for the first time in the third +folio (1666), an edition of no value, and its genuineness rests much on +the internal proofs, which [8:2]are quite sufficient to establish it. It +is an irregular and imperfect play, older in form than any of +Shakspeare's; but it has clearly been augmented by many passages written +by him, and therefore had a right to be inserted by the first editors, +upon their own principles. [Sidenote: The editors of the First Folio put +forth an incomplete book.] These two plays then being certainly +Shakspeare's, no matter whether his best or his worst, and his editors +being so situated that they must have known the fact, their edition is +allowed to appear as a complete collection of Shakspeare's works, +although its contents include neither of the two. They probably were +unable to procure copies; but they were not the less bound to have +acknowledged in their preface, that these, or any other plays which they +knew to be Shakspeare's, were necessary for making up a complete +collection. It in no view suited their purposes to make such a +statement; and it was not made. [Sidenote: We cannot trust the Editors +of the First Folio.] In short, the whole conduct of these editors +inspires distrust, but their unacknowledged omission of those two plays +deprives them of all claim to our confidence. The effect of that +omission, in reference to any play which can be brought forward as +Shakspeare's, is just this, that the want of the drama in their edition, +is of itself no proof whatever that Shakspeare was not the author of it, +and leaves the question, whether he was or was not, perfectly open for +decision on other evidence. It leaves the inquiry before us precisely in +that situation. Why Heminge and Condell could not procure the +manuscripts of 'Troilus,' 'Pericles,' or the 'Two Noble Kinsmen,' I am +not bound to shew. As to the last, Fletcher may have retained a partial +or entire right of property in it, and was alive at the publication of +their edition. Difficulties at least as great attach to the question as +to the other two rejected plays, in which the strength of the other +proofs has long been admitted as counterbalancing them. But the argument +serves my purpose without any theory on the subject. [Sidenote: The +First Folio no evidence against _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.] The state of +it entitles me, as I conceive, to throw the First Folio entirely out of +view, as being no evidence one way or the other. + +Laying the folio aside then, I think I have shewn that, in the most +unfavourable view, no doubts which other circumstances can throw on the +assertion made in the title-page of the first edition of the 'Two Noble +Kinsmen,' are of such strength as to ren[9:1]der the truth of it +improbable. [Sidenote: Strong internal evidence will prove it in part +Shakspere's.] Strong internal evidence therefore will, in any view, +establish Shakspeare's claim. But, if the consideration first suggested +be well-founded, (as I have no doubt it is,) namely, that the statement +of the publisher was disinterested, there arises a very strong external +presumption of the truth of his assertion, which will enable us to +proceed to the examination of the internal marks with a prepossession in +favour of Shakspeare's authorship. + +As I wish to make you a convert to the affirmative opinion, it may be +wise to acquaint you that you will not be alone in it, if you shall +finally see reason to embrace it. [Sidenote: Early annotators on +Shakspere narrow-minded.] Shakspeare, you know, suffered a long eclipse, +which left him in obscurity till the beginning of last century, when he +reappeared surrounded by his annotators, a class of men who have +followed a narrow track, but yet are greater benefactors to us than we +are ready to acknowledge. The commentators have given little attention +to the question before us; but some of the best of them have declared +incidentally for Shakspeare's claim; and though even the editors who +have professed this belief have not inserted the work as his, this is +only one among many evil results of the slavish system to which they all +adhere. [Sidenote: Yet Pope, Warburton, Farmer, believe _The Two Noble +Kinsmen_ genuine: so does Schlegel.] We have with us Pope, Warburton, +and above all, Farmer, a man of fine discernment, and a most cautious +sifter of evidence. The subject has more recently been treated shortly +by a celebrated foreign critic, the enthusiastic and eloquent +Schlegel,[10:1] who comes to a conclusion decidedly favourable to +Shakspeare. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: II. Internal evidence.] + +There still lies before us the principal part of our task, that of +applying to the presumption resulting from the external proof, (whatever +the amount of that may be,) the decisive test of the [10:2]Internal +Evidence. Do you doubt the efficacy of this supposed crucial experiment? +It is true that internal similarities form almost a valueless test when +applied to inferior writers; because in them the distinctive marks are +too weak to be easily traced. [Sidenote: Shakspere's work specially fit +for the Internal Evidence test.] But, in the first place, great authors +have in their very greatness the pledge of something peculiar which +shall identify their works, and consequently the test is usually +satisfactory in its application to them; and, secondly and particularly, +Shakspeare is, of all writers that have existed, that one to whose +alleged works such a test can be most confidently administered; because +he is not only strikingly peculiar in those qualities which +discriminate him from other poets, but his writings also possess +singularities, different from, and opposite to, the usual character of +poetry itself. + +I cannot proceed with you to the work itself, till I have reminded you +of some distinctive differences between the two writers whose claims we +are to adjust, the recollection of which will be indispensable to us in +considering the details of the drama. [Sidenote: Differences between +Shakspere and Fletcher to be discusst.] We shall then enter on that +detailed examination, keeping those distinctions in mind, and attempting +to apply them to individual passages; and, when all the scenes of the +play have thus passed successively before us, we shall be able to look +back on it as a whole, and investigate its general qualities. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Shakspere's and Fletcher's versification contrasted.] + +The first difference which may be pointed out between Shakspeare and +Fletcher, is that of their versification. You have learned from a study +of the poets themselves, in what that difference consists. [Sidenote: +Shakspere's.] Shakspeare's versification is broken and full of pauses, +he is sparing of double terminations to his verses, and has a marked +fondness for ending speeches or scenes with hemi-stitches. [Sidenote: +Fletcher's.] Fletcher's rhythm is of a newer and smoother cast, often +keeping the lines distinct and without breaks through whole speeches, +abounding in double endings, and very seldom leaving a line incomplete +at the end of a sentence or scene.[11:1] And the opposite taste of the +two poets in their choice and arrangement [11:2]of words, gives an +opposite character to the whole modulation of their verses. [Sidenote: +Modulation of Fletcher's verse: of Shakspere's.] Fletcher's is sweet and +flowing, and peculiarly fitted either for declamation or the softness of +sorrow: Shakspeare's ear is tuned to the stateliest solemnity of +thought, or the abruptness and vehemence of passion. The present drama +exhibits in whole scenes the qualities of Shakspeare's versification; +and there are other scenes which are marked by those of Fletcher's; the +difference is one reason for separating the authorship. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere's images and words in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.] + +You will notice in this play many instances of Shakspeare's favourite +images, and of his very words. Is this a proof of the play having been +his work, or does it only indicate imitation? In Shakspeare's case, +such resemblance, taken by itself, can operate neither way. [Sidenote: +Shakspere a mannerist in style, and] Shakspeare is a mannerist in style. +He knew this himself, and what he says of his minor poems, is equally +true of his dramatic language; he "keeps invention in a noted +weed[12:1];" and almost every word or combination of words is so marked +in its character that its author is known at a glance. [Sidenote: +wanting in variety. Shakspere repeats himself.] But not only is his +style so peculiar in its general qualities, as scarcely to admit of +being mistaken; not only is it deficient in variety of structure, but it +is in a particular degree characterised by a frequent recurrence of the +same images, often clothed in identically the same words. You are quite +aware of this, and those who are not, may be convinced of it by opening +any page of the annotated editions. So far, then, this play is only like +Shakspeare's acknowledged works. It is true, that one who wished to +write a play in Shakspeare's manner, would probably have repeated his +images and words as they are repeated here; but Shakspeare would +certainly have imitated himself quite as often. [Sidenote: The likeness +to Shakspere in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, and the repetitions of him, are +likely to be by him.] The resemblance could be founded on, as indicating +imitation, only in conjunction with other circumstances of dissimilarity +or inferiority to his genuine writings; and where, as in the present +case, there seems to be reason for asserting that the accompanying +circumstances point the work out as an original composition of his, this +very likeness and repetition become a strong argument in support of +those concomitant indications. [12:2]Such repetition is more or less +common in all the play-writers of that age. The number of their works, +the quickness with which they were written, and the carelessness which +circumstances induced as to their elaboration or final correction, all +aided in giving rise to this. [Sidenote: Massinger also repeats himself +much. Fletcher but little.] But all are not equally chargeable with it; +Beaumont and Fletcher less than most, Massinger to an extent far beyond +Shakspeare, and vying with the common-places of Euripides. May not the +professional habits of Shakspeare and Massinger as actors, have had some +effect in producing this, by imprinting their own works in their +memories with unusual strength? Fletcher and his associate were free +from that risk. + +[Sidenote: Singularity of Shakspere's style.] + +It would not be easy to give a systematic account of those qualities +which combine to constitute Shakspeare's singularity of style. Some of +them lie at the very surface, others are found only on a deeper search, +and a few there are which depend on evanescent relations, instinctively +perceptible to the congenial poetical sense, but extremely difficult of +abstract prose definition. Several qualities also, which we are apt to +think exclusively his, (such, for instance, as his looseness of +construction,) are discovered on examination to be common to him with +the other dramatic writers of his age. Such qualities can give no +assistance in an inquiry like ours, and may be left wholly out of view. +But I think the distinctions which I can specify between him and +Fletcher are quite enough, and applicable with sufficient closeness to +this drama, for making out the point which I wish to prove. + +[Sidenote: Qualities of Shakspere's style: energy, obscurity, +abruptness, brevity (in late plays).] + +No one is ignorant that Shakspeare is concise, that this quality makes +him always energetic and often most impressive, but that it also gives +birth to much obscurity. He shows a constant wish to deliver thought, +fancy, and feeling, in the fewest words possible. Even his images are +brief; they are continual, and they crowd and confuse one another; the +well-springs of his imagination boil up every moment, and the readiness +with which they throw up their golden sands, makes him careless of fitly +using the wealth thus profusely rendered. He abounds in hinted +descriptions, in sketches of imagery, in glimpses of illustration, in +abrupt and vanishing snatches of fancy. [Sidenote: Shakspere never +vague.] But the merest hint that he gives is of force [13:1]enough to +shew that the image was fully present with him; if he fails to bring it +as distinctly before us, it is either from the haste with which he +passes to another, or from the eagerness induced by the very force and +quickness with which he has conceived the former. [Sidenote: Milton and +language.] It has been said of Milton that language sunk under him; and +it is true of him in one sense, but of Shakspeare in two. [Sidenote: +Shakspere's new meanings and new words.] Shakspeare's strength of +conception, to which, not less than to Milton's, existing language was +inadequate, compelled him either to use old words in unusual meanings, +or to coin new words for himself.[13:2] But his mind had another quality +powerful over his style, which Milton's wanted. [Sidenote: Milton slow, +Shakspere rapid,] Milton's conception was comparatively slow, and +allowed him time for deliberate expression: Shakspeare's was rapid to +excess, and hurried his words after it. When a truth presented itself to +his mind, all its qualities burst in upon him at once, and his +instantaneousness of conception could be represented only by words as +brief and quick as thought itself. [Sidenote: specially in reflective +passages.] This cause operates with the greatest force on his passages +of reflection; for if his images are often brief, his apophthegms are +brief a thousand times oftener: his quickness of ideas seems to have +been stimulated to an extraordinary degree by the contemplation of +general truths. [Sidenote: He forces speech to bear a burden beyond its +strength.] And everywhere his incessant activity and quickness, both of +intellect and fancy, engaged him in a continual struggle with speech; it +is a sluggish slave which he would force to bear a burden beyond its +strength, a weary courser which he would urge at a speed to which it is +unequal. He fails only from insufficiency in his puny instrument; not +because his conception is indistinct, but because it is too full, +energetic, and rapid, to receive adequate expression. It is excess of +strength which hurts, not weakness which incapacitates; he is injured by +the undue prevalence of the good principle, not by its defect. +[Sidenote: Shakspere's obscurity.] The obscurity of other writers is +often the mistiness of the evening twilight sinking into night; his is +the fitful dimness of the dawn, contending with the retiring darkness, +and striving to break out [14:1]into open day. [Sidenote: Fletcher most +unlike Shakspere.] Scarcely any writer of Shakspeare's class, or of any +other, comes near him either in the faults or the grandeur which are the +alternate results of this tendency of mind; but none is more utterly +unlike him than the poet to whom, some would say, we must attribute +passages in this play so singularly like Shakspeare. [Sidenote: Fletcher +diffuse.] Fletcher is diffuse both in his leading thoughts and in his +illustrations. [Sidenote: He amplifies, is elaborate, not vigorous.] His +intellect did not present truth to him with the instant conviction which +it poured on Shakspeare, and his fancy did not force imagery on him with +a profusion which might have tempted him to weave its different +suggestions into inconsistent forms; he expresses thought deliberately +and with amplification; he paints his illustrative pictures with a +careful hand and by repeated touches; his style has a pleasing and +delicate air which is any thing but vigorous, and often reaches the +verge of feebleness. Take a passage or two from the work before us, and +do you say, who know Fletcher, whether they be his, or the work of a +stronger hand. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere. Fletcher could not have written these passages,] + + He only attributes + The faculties of other instruments + To his own nerves and act; commands men's ser|vice, + And what they gain in't, boot and glory too. + ... What man + _Thirds_ his own worth, (the case is each of ours,) + When that his action's dregged with mind assured + 'Tis bad he goes about?--Act I. scene ii. + + Dowagers, take hands: + [15:1]_Let us be widows to our woes_: Delay + Commends us to a famishing hope.--Act I. scene i. + +I do not quote these lines for praise. The meaning of the last quotation +in particular is obscure when it stands alone, and not too clear even +when it is read in the scene. But I ask you, whether the oracular +brevity of each of the sentences is not perfectly in the manner of +Shakspeare. A fragment from another beautiful address in the first scene +is equally characteristic and less faulty:-- + +[Sidenote: Shakspere, not Fletcher.] + + [15:2]Honoured Hippolita, + Most dreaded Amazonian, that hast slain + The scythe-tusked boar; that, with thy arm as strong + As it is white, wast near to make the male + To thy sex captive, but that this thy lord + (_Born to uphold creation in that hon|our + First Nature styled it in_) shrunk thee in|to + The bound thou wast o'erflow|ing, | at once subdu|ing | + Thy force and thy affection;--Soldieress! + That equally canst poise sternness with pit|y;-- + Who now, I know, hast much more power o'er | him + Than e'er he had on thee;--_who owest[15:3] his strength + And his love too, who is a servant to + The tenor of thy speech_! + +Is this like Fletcher? I think not. It is unlike him in versification +and in the tone of thought; and you will here particularly notice that +it is unlike him in abruptness and brevity. It is like Shakspeare in all +these particulars. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere hardly ever vague,] + +I have said that Shakspeare, often obscure, is scarcely ever vague; that +he may fail to express all he wishes, but almost always gives distinctly +the part which he is able to convey. [Sidenote: Fletcher unable to grasp +images distinctly.] Fletcher is not only slow in his ideas, but often +vague and deficient in precision. The following lines are taken from a +scene in the play under our notice, which clearly is not Shakspeare's. I +would direct your attention, not to the remoteness of the last conceit, +but to the want of distinctness in grasping images, and the inability to +see fully either their picturesque or their poetical relations. + +[Sidenote: Fletcher, not Shakspere.] + + _Arcite._ We were not bred to talk, man: when we are armed, + And both upon our guards, then _let our fur|y, + Like meeting of two tides, fly strongly from | us_. + + . . . . . + + _Palamon._ Methinks this armour's very like that, Ar|cite, + Thou worest that day the three kings fell, but light|er. + + _Arc._ That was a very good one; and that day, + I well remember, you out-did me, cous|in: + ... When I saw you charge first, + _Methought I heard a dreadful clap of thund|er + Break from the troop_. + + _Pal._ _But still before that flew + The lightning of your valour._--Act III. scene vi. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere metaphorical, but seldom has long description.] + +[16:1]Shakspeare's style, as every one knows, is metaphorical to excess. +[Sidenote: His thought and imagination work together.] His imagination +is always active, but he seldom pauses to indulge it by lengthened +description. I shall hereafter have occasion to direct your observation +to the sobriety with which he preserves imagination in its proper +station, as only the minister and interpreter of thought; but what I +wish now to say is, that in him the two powers operate simultaneously. +He goes on thinking vigorously, while his imagination scatters her +inexhaustible treasures like flowers on the current of his meditations. +His constant aim is the expression of facts, passions, or opinions; and +his intellect is constantly occupied in the investigation of such; but +the mind acts with ease in its lofty vocation, and the beautiful and the +grand rise up voluntarily to do him homage. He never indeed consents to +express those poetical ideas by themselves; but he shows that he felt +their import and their legitimate use, by wedding them to the thoughts +in which they originated. [Sidenote: Shakspere's truths and their +imagery glorify one another.] The truths which he taught, received +magnificence and amenity from the illustrative forms; and the poetical +images were elevated into a higher sphere of associations by the dignity +of the principles which they were applied to adorn. [Sidenote: Metaphor +the strength of poetry; simile its weakness.] Something like this is +always the true function of the imagination in poetry, and dramatic +poetry in particular; and it is also the test which tries the presence +of the faculty; metaphor indicates its strength, and simile its +weakness. [Sidenote: Fletcher is diffuse in description and simile, +loses the original thought in it,] Nothing can be more different from +this, or farther inferior to it, than the style of a poet who turns +aside in search of description, and indulges in simile preferably to the +brevity of metaphor, to whom perhaps a poetical picture originally +suggested itself as the decoration of a striking thought, but who +allowed himself to be captivated by the beauty of the suggested image, +till he forgot the thought which had given it birth, and on its +connexion with which its highest excellence depended. [Sidenote: is poor +in metaphor, and picturesque.] Such was Fletcher, whose style is poor in +metaphor. His descriptions are sometimes beautifully romantic; but even +then the effect of the whole is often picturesque rather than poetically +touching; and it is evident that lengthened description can still less +frequently be dramatic. In his descriptions, it is observable that the +poetical relations introduced in illustration [17:1]are usually few, the +character of the leading subject being relied on for producing the +poetical effect. [Sidenote: Fletcher's and Shakspere's descriptions +contrasted.] Fletcher's longest descriptions are but elegant outlines; +Shakspeare's briefest metaphors are often finished paintings. Where +Shakspeare is guilty of detailed description, he is very often laboured, +cold, and involved; but his illustrative ideas are invariably copious, +and it is often their superfluity which chiefly tends to mar the general +effect. [Sidenote: Metaphor in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ is Shakspere's.] +In the play that you are to examine, you will find a profusion of +metaphor, which is undoubtedly the offspring of a different mind from +Fletcher's; and both its excellence and its peculiarity of character +seem to me to stamp it as Shakspeare's. I think the following passage +cannot be mistaken, though the beginning is difficult, and the text +perhaps incorrect. + +[Sidenote: Instances of Shakspere's metaphors.] + + They two have _cab|ined_ + In many as dangerous, as poor a corn|er-- + Peril and want contending, they have _skiffed_ + Torrents, whose raging _tyranny_ and _pow|er_ + I' the least of these was dreadful; and they have + Fought out together where _Death's self_ was _lodged_, + Yet FATE hath BROUGHT THEM OFF. Their _knot_ of love, + Tied, _weaved_, ENTANGLED, with so true, so long, + And with a _finger_ of so deep a cun|ning, + May be _outworn_, never _undone_. I think + Theseus cannot be _umpire_ to himself, + _Cleaving his conscience into twain_, and do|ing + Each side like justice, which he loves best.--Act I. scene iii. + +The play throughout will give you metaphors, like Shakspeare's in their +frequency, like his in their tone and character, and like his in their +occasional obscurity and blending together. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere's classical images.] + +We have been looking to Shakspeare's imagery. You will meet with +classical images in the 'The Two Noble Kinsmen.' Do not allow any +ill-applied notion of his want of learning to convert this into an +argument against his authorship. You will recollect, that an attachment +of this sort is very perceptible in Shakspeare's dramas, and pervades +the whole thread of his youthful poems. It is indeed a prominent quality +in the school of poetry, which prevailed during the earlier part of his +life, perhaps during the whole of it. In his early days, the study of +[18:1]Grecian and Latin literature in England may be said to have only +commenced, and the scenery and figures of the classical mythology broke +on the view of the student with all the force of novelty. [Sidenote: +Elizabethan literature tinged with classicism.] All the literature of +that period is tinged with classicism to a degree which in our satiated +times is apt to seem pedantic. It infected writers of all kinds and +classes: translations were multiplied, and a familiarity with classical +tales and history was sought after or affected even by those who had no +access to the original language. Shakspeare clearly stood in this latter +predicament, his knowledge of Latin certainly not exceeding that of a +schoolboy: but the translated classics enabled him to acquire the facts, +and he shared the taste of the age to its full extent. [Sidenote: +Shakspere's classical allusions.] His admiration of the classical +writers is vouched by the subjects and execution of his early poems, by +numerous allusions in his dramas, particularly his histories, by the +subjects chosen for some of his plays, by one or two imitations of the +translated Latin poets,[19:1] and by many exotic forms in his language, +derived from the same secondary source. Correct tameness is the usual +character of classical allusion in authors well versed in classical +studies. [Sidenote: Milton's classical allusions.] [Sidenote: +Fletcher's.] Even Milton, who has drawn the most exquisite images of +this kind, has sometimes remembered only, where he should have invented: +and Fletcher, whom we have especially to consider, is no exception to +the rule; his many classical illustrations are invariably cold and poor. +[Sidenote: Shakspere's treatment of mythology.] Shakspeare's +mythological images have something singular in them. They are incorrect +as transcripts of the originals, but admirable if examined without such +reference; they are highly-coloured paintings whose subjects are taken +from the simplicity of some antique statue. [Sidenote: His _Venus and +Adonis_.] The 'Venus and Adonis' has some fine and some overcharged +pictures thus formed from the hints which he derived from his +books.[19:2] He received the mythological images but imperfectly, and +his fancy was stimulated without being [19:3]clogged. [Sidenote: +Shakspere's treatment of classical mythology;] He stood but at the +entrance of those visionary forests, within whose glades the heroes and +divinities of ancient faith reposed; he looked through a glimmering and +uncertain light, and caught only glimpses of the sanctity of that world +of wonders: and it was with an imagination heated by the flame of +mystery and partial ignorance that he turned away from the scene so +imperfectly revealed, to brood on the beauty of its broken contours, and +allow fancy to create magnificence richer than memory ever saw. The +occurrence of classical allusions here, therefore, affords no reason for +doubting his authorship even of those passages in which they are found: +and if we could trace any of his singularities in the images which we +have, the argument in his favour would be strengthened by these. Most of +the allusions are too slightly sketched to permit this; but one or two +are like him in their unfaithfulness. We have "Mars' drum" in the 'Venus +and Adonis'; and here beauty is described as able to make him spurn it: +the altar of the same deity is alluded to as the scene of a Grecian +marriage. The "Nemean lion's hide" is here, as his nerve in 'Hamlet.' +[Sidenote: specially in Arcite's prayer in Act V. scene i.] But the most +characteristic use of this sort of imagery is in the prayer in the first +scene of the Fifth Act. [Sidenote: This scene is certainly Shakspere's.] +The whole tenor of the language, the solemnity and majesty of the tone +of thought, the piling up of the heap of metaphors and images, and the +boldness and admirable originality of their conception, all these are +Shakspeare's; and the fact of this accumulation of feeling, thought, and +imagination, being employed to create, out of a fragmentary classical +outline, a picture both new in its features and gorgeously magnificent +in its filling up, is strongly indicative of his hand, and strikingly +resembles his mode of dealing with such subjects elsewhere. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere's tendency to reflection.] + +You will be furnished with a rule to guide your decision on many +passages of the drama otherwise doubtful, by having your notice slightly +directed to what will fall more properly under our consideration when we +look back on the general scope of the play,--I mean Shakspeare's +prevailing tendency to reflection. The presence of a spirit of active +and inquiring thought through every page of his writings is too evident +to require any proof. It is exerted on every object which comes under +his notice: it is serious when its theme is lofty; and when the subject +is familiar, [20:1]it is contented to be shrewd. [Sidenote: His own +active and inquiring thought, is the only quality of his own that he's +given _all_ his characters.] He has impressed no other of his own mental +qualities on all his characters: this quality colours every one of them. +It is one to which poetry is apt to give a very subordinate place: and, +in most poets, fancy is the predominating power; because, immeasurably +as that faculty in them is beneath its unequalled warmth in Shakspeare, +yet intellect in them is comparatively even weaker. With inferior poets, +particularly the dramatic, inflation of feeling and profusion of imagery +are the alternate disguises which conceal poverty of thought. [Sidenote: +Fletcher's thought, small beside Shakspere's.] Fletcher is a poet of +much and sterling merit; but his fund of thought is small indeed when +placed beside Shakspeare's. [Sidenote: Shakspere's worldly wisdom, and +solemn thought.] He has, indeed, very little of Shakspeare's practical, +searching, worldly wisdom, and none of that solemnity of thought with +which he penetrates into his loftier themes of reflection. [Sidenote: +Shakspere's Imagination the handmaid of his Understanding.] This quality +in Shakspeare is usually relieved by poetical decoration: Imagination is +active powerfully and unceasingly, but she is rebuked by the presence +of a mightier influence; she is but the handmaid of the active and +piercing Understanding; and the images which are her offspring serve but +as the breeze to the river, which stirs and ripples its surface, but is +not the power which impels its waters to the sea. As you go through this +drama, you will not only find a sobriety of tone pervading the more +important parts of it, but activity of intellect constantly exerted. +[Sidenote: Note the mass of general truths and maxims in this part of +_The Two Noble Kinsmen_.] But what demands particular notice is, the +mass of general truths, of practical, moral, or philosophical maxims, +which, issuing from this reflective turn of mind, are scattered through +Shakspeare's writings as thick as the stars in heaven. The occurrence of +them is characteristic of his temper of mind; and there is something +marked in the manner of the adages themselves. They are often solemn, +usually grave, but always pointed, compressed, and energetic;--they vary +in subject, from familiar facts and rules for social life to the +enunciation of philosophical truths and the exposition of moral duty. +You will meet with them in this drama in all their shapes and in every +page [of Shakspere's part of it]. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere's reach of thought.] + +Shakspeare's reach and comprehension of thought is as remarkable as its +activity, while Fletcher's is by no means great, and in this respect +Massinger comes much nearer to him. The simplest fact has many dependent +qualities, and may be related by [21:1]men of different degrees of +intellect with circumstances differing infinitely, a confined mind +seeing only its plainest qualities, while a stronger one grasps and +combines many distant relations. Shakspeare's love of brevity would not +have produced obscurity nearly so often, had it not been aided by his +width of mental vision. [Sidenote: Passages in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ +too comprehensive for Fletcher.] There are many passages in the play +before us which seem to emanate from a mind of more comprehension than +Fletcher's. Look at the following lines. The idea to be expressed was a +very simple one. Hippolita is entreating her husband to leave her, and +depart to succour the distressed ladies who kneel at her feet and his; +and she wishes to say, that though, as a bride, she was loth to lose her +husband's presence, yet she felt that she should act blameably if she +detained him. Fletcher would have expressed no idea beyond that; but on +it alone he would have employed six lines and two or three comparisons. +Hear how many cognate ideas present themselves to Shakspeare's mind in +expressing the thought. The passage is obscure, but not the less like +Shakspeare on that account. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere's pregnancy and obscurity.] + + Though much unlike|ly + I should be so transported, _as much sor|ry + I should be such a suitor_; yet I think, + Did I not, by the abstaining of my joy, + _Which breeds a deeper longing_, cure the sur|feit + _That craves a present medicine_, I should pluck + All ladies' scandal on me--Act I. scene i. + +It would be well if Shakspeare's continual inclination to thought gave +rise to no worse faults than occasional obscurity. It was not to be +hoped that it should not produce others. His tone of thinking could +not be always high and serious; and even when it flowed in a lofty +channel, its uninterrupted stream could not always be pure. [Sidenote: +Shakspere's conceits and quibbles.] His judgment often fails to perform +its part, and he is guilty of conceit and quibble, not merely in his +comic vein, but in his most deeply tragical situations. He has indeed +one powerful excuse; he had universal example in both respects to +justify or betray him. But he has likewise another plea, that his +constant activity of mind, and the wideness of its province, exposed him +to pe[22:1]culiar risks. A mind always in action must sometimes act +wrongly; and the constant exercise of the creative powers of the mind +dulls the edge of the corrective. It was not strange that he who was +unwearied in tracing the manifestations of that spirit of likeness which +pervades nature, should often mistake a resemblance in name for a +community of essence,--that he whose mind was sensible to the most +delicate differences, should sometimes fancy he saw distinction where +there was none;--it was not strange, however much to be regretted, that +he who left the smooth green slopes of fancy to clamber among the craggy +steeps of thought, should often stumble in his dizzy track, either in +looking up to the perilous heights above, or downwards on the morning +landscape beneath him. [Sidenote: Shakspere's faults.] While the most +glaring errors of the tropical Euphues are strained allegorical +conceits, Shakspeare's fault is oftener the devising of subtle and +unreal distinctions, or the ringing of fantastical changes upon words. +[Sidenote: Lyly's faults.] Lily's error was one merely of taste; +Shakspeare's was one of the judgment, and the heavier of the two, but +still the error of a stronger mind than the other; for the judgment +cannot act till the understanding has given it materials to work upon, +and those fanciful writers who do not reflect at all, are in no danger +of reflecting wrongly. [Sidenote: Shakspere's evil genius triumphs in +his puns.] Shakspeare's evil genius triumphs when it tempts him to a +pun--it enjoys a less complete but more frequent victory in suggesting +an antithesis; but it often happens that this dangerous turn of mind +does not carry him so far as to be of evil consequence. It aids its +quickness and directness of mental view, in giving to his style a +pointed epigrammatic terseness which is quite its own, and a frequent +weight and effect which no other equals. Where, however, this antithetic +tendency is allowed to approach the serious scenes, it throws over them +an icy air which is very injurious, while it often gives the comic ones +a ponderousness which is altogether singular, and but imperfectly +accordant with the nature of comic dialogue. [Sidenote: Characteristics +of his wit.] The arrows of Shakspeare's wit are not the lightly +feathered shafts which Fletcher discharges, and as little are they the +iron-headed bolts which fill the quiver of Jonson; but they are weapons +forged from materials unknown to the others, and in an armoury to which +they had no access; their execution is [23:1]resistless when they reach +their aim, but they are covered with a golden massiveness of decoration +which sometimes impedes the swiftness of their flight. But whether the +effect of these peculiarities of Shakspeare be good or evil, their use +in helping an identification of his manner is very great. [Sidenote: +Contrast with Fletcher's.] Nothing can be more directly opposite to them +than the slow elegance and want of pointedness which we find in +Fletcher, who is not free from conceits, but does not express them with +Shakspeare's hard quaintness, while he is comparatively quite guiltless +of plays on words. The following instances are only a few among many in +the present drama, which seem to be perfectly in Shakspeare's manner, +and to most of which Fletcher's works could certainly furnish no +parallel, either in subject or in expression. + +[Sidenote: Passages by Shakspere, not Fletcher.] + + Oh, my petition was + Set down in ice, which, by hot grief uncan|died, + Melts into tears; so sorrow, wanting form, + Is pressed with deeper matter.--Act I. scene i. + +Theseus speaks thus of the Kinsmen lying before him in the field of +battle desperately wounded:-- + +[Sidenote: Shakspere metaphors.] + + Rather than have them + Freed of this plight, and in their morning state, + Sound and at liberty, I would them dead: + But forty thousand fold we had rather have | them[24:1] + _Prisoners to us than Death_. Bear them speedi|ly + From _our kind air, to them unkind_, and min|ister + What man to man may do.--Act I. scene iv. + +A lady hunting is addressed in this strain: + + Oh jewel + O' the wood, O' the world!--Act III. scene i. + +In the same scene one knight says to another,-- + +[Sidenote: Shakspere metaphor.] + + This question sick between us, + By bleeding must be cured. + +[24:2]And the one, left in the wood, says to the other, who goes to the +presence of the lady whom both love-- + + You talk of feeding me, to breed me strength; + You are going now to look upon a sun, + That strengthens what _it_ looks on.--Act III. scene i. + +The two knights, about to meet in battle, address each other in these +words:-- + + _Pal._ Think you but thus; + That there were aught in me which strove to shew + Mine enemy in this business,--were't one eye + Against another, arm opposed by arm, + I would destroy the offender;--coz, I would, + Though parcel of myself: then from this, gath|er + How I should tender you! + + _Arc._ I am in la|bour + To push your name, your ancient love, our kin|dred, + Out of my memory, and i' the self-same place + To seat something I would confound.--Act V. scene i. + +And afterwards their lady-love, listening to the noise of the fight, +speaks thus:-- + +[Sidenote: Shakspere metaphor.] + + Each stroke laments + The place whereon it falls, and sounds more like + A bell than blade.--Act V. scene v. + +Shakspeare's fondness for thought, the tendency of that train of +thought to run into the abstract, and his burning imagination, have +united in producing another quality which strongly marks his style, and +is more pleasing than those last noticed. [Sidenote: Shakspere's +personification of mental powers, passions.] He abounds in +Personification, and delights particularly in personifications of mental +powers, passions, and relations. [Sidenote: In _Venus and Adonis_.] This +metaphysico-poetical mood of musing tinges his miscellaneous poems +deeply, especially the Venus and Adonis, which is almost lyrical +throughout; and even in his dramas the style is often like one of +Collins's exquisite odes. [Sidenote: Fletcher uses it but little.] This +quality is common to him with the narrative poets of his age, from whom +[25:1]he received it; but it is adopted to no material extent by any of +his dramatic contemporaries, and by Fletcher less than any. [Sidenote: +Shakspere's distinctive use of Personification.] The other dramatists, +indeed, are full of metaphysical expressions, of the names of affections +and faculties of the soul; but they do not go on as Shakspeare's +kindling fancy impelled him to do, to look on them as independent and +energetic existences. This figure is one of the most common means by +which he elevates himself into the tragic and poetic sphere, the +compromise between his reason and his imagination, the felicitous mode +by which he reconciles his fondness for abstract thought, with his +allegiance to the genius of poetry. [Sidenote: The _Two Noble Kinsmen_ +is rich in personifications which must be Shakspere's.] 'The Two Noble +Kinsmen' is rich in personifications both of mental qualities and +others, which have all Shakspeare's tokens about them, and vary +infinitely, from the uncompleted hint to the perfected portrait. + +[Sidenote: Instances of these.] + + Oh Grief and Time, + Fearful consumers, you will all devour!--Act I. scene i. + + Peace might purge + For her repletion, and retain anew + Her charitable heart, now hard, and harsh|er + Than Strife or War could be.--Act I. scene ii. + + A most unbounded tyrant, whose success + Makes heaven unfeared, and villainy assured + Beyond its power there's nothing,--almost puts + Faith in a fev|er,| and deifies alone + Voluble Chance.--Act I. scene ii. + + This funeral path brings to your household graves; + Joy seize on you again--Peace sleep with him! + + Act I. scene v. + + Content and Ang|er + In me have but one face.--Act III. scene i. + + Force and great Feat + Must put my garland on, where she will stick + The queen of flowers.--Act V. scene i. + +[Sidenote: Instances of Shakspere's Personification in _The Two Noble +Kinsmen_.] + + Thou (_Love_) mayst force the king + To be his subject's vassal, and _induce + Stale Gravity to dance_;--the polled bachelor, + _Whose youth_, (like wanton boys through bon|fires,) + [26:1]_Has skipt thy flame_, at seventy thou canst catch, + And make him, to the scorn of his hoarse throat, + Abuse young lays of love.--Act V. scene ii. + + Mercy and manly Cour|age + Are bed fellows in his visage.--Act V. scene v. + + _Our Reasons are not proph|ets, + When oft our Fancies are._--Act V. scene v. + +The hints which you have now perused, are not, I repeat, offered to you +as by any means exhausting the elements of Shakspeare's manner of +writing. They are meant only to bring to your memory such of his +qualities of style as chiefly distinguish him from Fletcher, and are +most prominently present in the play we are examining. [Sidenote: In +bits of the _Two Noble Kinsmen_ several of Shakspere's distinctive +qualities are often combin'd.] When we shall see those qualities +instanced singly, they will afford a proof of Shakspeare's authorship: +but that proof will receive an incalculable accession of strength when, +as will more frequently happen, we shall have several of them displayed +at once in the same passages. Your recollection of them will serve us as +the lines of a map would in a journey on foot through a wild forest +country: the beauty of the landscape will tempt us not seldom to diverge +and lose sight of our path, and we shall need their guidance for +enabling us to regain it. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: The story of _Palamon and Arcite_.] + +The story of PALAMON AND ARCITE is a celebrated one, and, besides its +appearance here, has been taken up by other two of our greatest English +poets. Chaucer borrowed the tale from the _Teseide_ of Boccaccio: it +then received a dramatic form in this play; and from Chaucer's antique +sketch it was afterwards decorated with the trappings of heroic rhyme, +by one who fell on evil days, the lofty and unfortunate Dryden. +[Sidenote: Character of the story of Palamon and Arcite.] It treats of a +period of ancient and almost fabulous history, which originally belonged +to the classical writers, but had become familiar in the chivalrous +poetry of the middle ages; and retaining the old historical characters, +it intersperses with them new ones wholly imaginary, and, both in the +Knightes Tale and in the play, preserves the rich and anomalous +magnificence of the Gothic cos[27:1]tume. [Sidenote: Theseus the centre +of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.] The character round which the others are +grouped, one which Shakspeare has introduced in another of his works, is +the heroic Theseus, whom the romances and chronicles dignify with the +modern title of Duke of Athens; and in this story he is connected with +the tragical war of the Seven against Thebes, one of the grandest +subjects of the ancient Grecian poetry. + +[Sidenote: First Act of _Two Noble Kinsmen_ Shakspere's.] + +The whole of the First Act may be safely pronounced to be Shakspeare's. +The play opens with the bridal procession of Theseus and the fair Amazon +Hippolita, whose young sister EMILIA is the lady of the tale. While the +marriage-song is singing, the train are met by three queens in mourning +attire, who fall down at the feet of Theseus, Hippolita, and Emilia. +They are the widows of three of the princes slain in battle before +Thebes, and the conqueror Creon has refused the remains of the dead +soldiers the last honour of a grave. The prayer of the unfortunate +ladies to Theseus is, that he would raise his powerful arm to force from +the tyrant the unburied corpses, that the ghosts of the dead may be +appeased by the performance of fitting rites of sepulture. The duty +which knighthood imposed on the Prince of Athens, is combated by his +unwillingness to quit his bridal happiness; but generosity and +self-denial at length obtain the victory, and he marches, with banners +displayed, to attack the Thebans. + +This scene bears decided marks of Shakspeare.--The lyrical pieces +scattered through his plays are, whether successful or not, endowed with +a stateliness of rhythm, an originality and clearness of imagery, and a +nervous quaintness and pomp of language, which can scarcely be mistaken. +[Sidenote: The Bridal Song can't be Fletcher's.] The Bridal Song which +ushers in this play, has several of the marks of distinction, and is +very unlike the more formal and polished rhymes of Fletcher. + +[Sidenote: Act I. sc. i. + +The Bridal Song is Shakspere's.] + + . . . . . + + Primrose, first-born child of Ver, + Merry springtime's harbinger, + _With her bells dim_: + Oxlips in their cradles growing, + _Marigolds on death-beds blowing_, + Lark-heels trim: + All, dear Nature's children sweet, + Lie 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet, + [28:1]_Blessing their sense_: + Not an _angel of the air_, + Bird melodious or bird fair, + Be absent hence! + + . . . . . + +[Sidenote: Dialogue in I. i. has the characteristics of Shakspere's +style: is crowded, obscure, alliterative, clear and yet confus'd, has +fulness and variety, originality and true poetry.] + +But the dialogue which follows is strikingly characteristic. It has +sometimes Shakspeare's identical images and words: it has his quaint +force and sententious brevity, crowding thoughts and fancies into the +narrowest space, and submitting to obscurity in preference to feeble +dilation: it has sentiments enunciated with reference to subordinate +relations, which other writers would have expressed with less grasp of +thought: it has even Shakspeare's alliteration, and one or two of his +singularities in conceit: it has clearness in the images taken +separately, and confusion from the prodigality with which one is poured +out after another, in the heat and hurry of imagination: it has both +fulness of illustration, and a variety which is drawn from the most +distant sources; and it has, thrown over all, that air of originality +and that character of poetry, the principle of which is often hid when +their presence and effect are most quickly and instinctively +perceptible. + + _1 Queen._ (_To Theseus._) For pity's sake, and true gentility's, + Hear and respect me! + + _2 Queen._ (_To Hippolita._) For your mother's sake, + And as you wish your womb may thrive with fair | ones, + Hear and respect me! + + _3 Queen._ (_To Emilia._) Now for the love of him whom Jove hath + marked + The honour of your bed, and for the sake + Of clear virginity, be advocate + For us and our distresses! This good deed + Shall rase you, out of the Book of Trespasses, + All you are set down there. + +These latter lines are of a character which is perfectly and singularly +Shakspeare's. [Sidenote: Shakspere's gravity and seriousness.] The shade +of gravity which so usually darkens his poetry, is often heightened to +the most solemn seriousness. The religious thought presented here is +most alien from Fletcher's turn of thought.--The ensuing speech offers +much of Shakspeare. [Sidenote: Shakspere sometimes harsh and coarse.] +His energy, sometimes confined within [29:1]due limits, often betrays +him into harshness; and his liking for familiarity of imagery and +expression sometimes makes him careless though both should be coarse, a +fault which we find here, and of which Fletcher is not guilty. +[Sidenote: His bold coinages of words:] Here also are more than one of +those bold coinages of words, forced on a mind for whose force of +conception common terms were too weak. + +[Sidenote: to _urn_ ashes;] + +[Sidenote: to _chapel_ bones.] + + _1 Queen._ We are three queens, whose sovrans fell before + The wrath of cruel Creon; who endured + The beaks of ravens, talons of the kites, + And pecks of crows, in the foul fields of Thebes. + He will not suffer us to burn their bones, + To _urn_ their ashes, nor to take the offence + Of mortal loathesomeness from the blest eye + Of holy Phoebus, but infects the air + With stench of our slain lords. Oh, pity, Duke! + Thou purger[29:2] of the earth! draw thy fear'd sword, + That does good turns i' the world: give us the bones + Of our dead kings, that we may _chapel_ them! + And, of thy boundless goodness, take some note, + That for our crowned heads we have no roof + Save this, which is the lion's and the bear's, + And vault to every thing. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere reflective.] + +We now begin to trace more and more that reflecting tendency which is so +deeply imprinted on Shakspeare's writings:-- + + _Theseus._ . . . . . + King Capaneus[29:3] was your lord: the day + That he should marry you, at such a seas|on + As it is now with me, I met your groom + By Mars's altar. You were that time fair; + Not Juno's mantle fairer than your tress|es, + Nor in more bounty spread: your wheaten wreath + Was then nor threshed nor blast|ed |: Fortune, at you, + Dimpled her cheek with smiles: Hercules our kins|man + (Then weaker than your eyes) laid by his club,-- + He tumbled down upon his Nemean hide, + [30:1]And swore his sinews thawed. O, Grief and Time, + Fearful consumers, you will all devour! + + _1 Queen._ Oh, I hope some god, + Some god hath put his mercy in your man|hood, + Whereto he'll infuse power, and press you forth, + Our undertaker! + + _Theseus._ Oh, no knees; none, wid|ow! + Unto the helmeted Bellona use | them, + And pray for me, your sol|dier.|--Troubled I am. + (_Turns away._) + +[Sidenote: A Shakspere fancy.] + +[Sidenote: A Shakspere simile.] + + _2 Queen._ Honoured Hippolita, ... + ... dear _glass of la|dies_! + Bid him, that we, whom flaming war hath scorch'd, + Under the shadow of his sword may cool us. + Require him, he advance it o'er our heads; + Speak it in a woman's key[30:2], like such a wom|an + As any of us three: weep ere you fail; + Lend us a knee;-- + But touch the ground for us no longer time + _Than a dove's motion when the head's pluckt off_: + Tell him, if he i' the blood-siz'd field lay swol|len, + Shewing the sun his teeth, grinning at the moon, + What you would do! + + . . . . . + + _Emilia._ Pray stand up; + Your grief is written on your cheek. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere.] + + _3 Queen._ Oh, woe! + You cannot read it there: there,[30:3] through my tears, + Like wrinkled pebbles in a glassy stream, + You may behold it. Lady, lady, alack! + He that will all the treasure know o' the earth, + Must know the centre too: he that will fish + For my least minnow, let him lead his line + To catch one at my heart. Oh, pardon me! + Extremity, that sharpens sundry wits, + Makes me a fool. + + _Emilia._ Pray you, say nothing; pray | you! + Who cannot feel nor see the rain, being in't, + Knows neither wet nor dry. If that you were + The ground-piece of some painter, I would buy | you, + To instruct me 'gainst a capital grief indeed; + (Such heart-pierced demonstration;) but, alas! + Being a natural sister of our sex, + Your sorrow beats so ardently upon | me, + That it shall make a counter-reflect against + My brother's heart, and warm it to some pit|y, + Though it were made of stone: Pray have good com|fort! + +[Sidenote: Shakspere simile,] + + . . . . . + + [31:1]_1 Queen._ (_To Theseus._) ... Remember that your fame + Knolls in the ear o' the world: what you do quickl|y, + Is not done rashly; your first thought, is more + Than others' labour'd meditance; your premed|itating, + More than their actions: but, (oh, Jove!) your ac|tions, + Soon as they move, _as ospreys do the fish_, + Subdue before they touch. Think, dear duke, think + What beds our slain kings have! + +[Sidenote: metaphor.] + + _2 Queen._ What griefs, our beds, + That our slain kings have none. + +Theseus is moved by their prayers, but, loth to leave the side of his +newly wedded spouse, contents himself with directing his chief captain +to lead the Athenian army against the tyrant. The queens redouble their +entreaties for his personal aid. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere personification.] + + _2 Queen._ We come unseasonably; but when could Grief + Cull out, as _unpang'd Judgment_ can, fitt'st time + For best solicitation! + + _Theseus._ Why, good la|dies, + This is a service whereto I am go|ing, + Greater than any war: it more imports | me + Than all the actions that I have foregone, + Or futurely can cope. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere metaphor, force.] + + _1 Queen._ The more proclaim|ing + Our suit shall be neglected. When her arms, + Able to lock Jove from a synod, shall + By warranting moonlight _corslet_ thee,--oh, when + Her twinning cherries shall their sweetness fall + Upon thy tasteful lips,--what wilt thou think + Of rotten kings or blubberd queens? what care, + For what thou feel'st not; what thou feel'st, being a|ble + To make Mars spurn his drum?--Oh, if thou couch + But one night with her, every hour in't will + Take hostage of thee for a hundred, and + Thou shall remember nothing more than what + That banquet bids thee to. + + . . . . . + + _Theseus._ Pray stand up: + I am entreating of myself to do + That which you kneel to have me. Perithous! + Lead on the bride! Get you, and pray the gods + For success and return; omit not any thing + In the pretended celebration. Queens! + Follow your soldier.... + ... [32:1](_To Hippolita._) Since that our theme is haste, + I stamp this kiss upon thy currant lip: + Sweet, keep it as my token!... + +[Sidenote: Shakspere metaphor.] + + _1 Queen._ Thus dost thou still make good the tongue o' the world. + + _2 Queen._ And earn'st a deity equal with Mars. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere.] + + _3 Queen._ If not above him; for + Thou, being but mortal, mak'st affections bend + To godlike honours; _they themselves, some say, + Groan under such a mas|tery_.| + + _Theseus._ As we are men, + Thus should we do: being sensually subdued, + We lose our human title. Good cheer, la|dies! + Now turn we towards your comforts. (_Exeunt._) + +[Sidenote: Act I. scene ii.] + +The second scene introduces the heroes of the piece, Palamon and Arcite. +They are two youths of the blood-royal of Thebes, who follow the banners +of their sovereign with a sense that obedience is their duty, but under +a sorrowful conviction that his cause is unjust, and their country +rotten at the core. The scene is a dialogue between them, occupied in +lamentations and repinings over the dissolute manners of their native +Thebes. [Sidenote: has the characteristics of Shakspere.] Its broken +versification points out Shakspeare; the quaintness of some conceits is +his; and several of the phrases and images have much of his pointedness, +brevity, or obscurity. The scene, though not lofty in tone, does not +want interest, and contains some extremely original illustrations. But +quotations will be multiplied abundantly before we have done; and their +number must not be increased by the admission of any which are not +either unusually good or very distinctly characteristic of their author. +Some lines of the scene have been already given. + +[Sidenote: Act I. scene iii.] + +The third scene has the farewell commendations of the young Emilia and +her sister to Perithous, when he sets out to join Theseus, then before +the Theban walls, and a subsequent conversation of the two ladies. +[Sidenote: is probably all Shakspere's.] Much of this scene has +Shakspeare's stamp deeply cut upon it: it is probably all his. [Sidenote: +Act I. scene iii. has the characteristics of Shakspere.] It is +identified, not only by several others of the qualities marking the +first scene, but more particularly by the wealth of its allusion, and +by a closeness, directness, and pertinency of reply which Fletcher's +most spirited dialogues do not reach. It presents more than one +exceed[33:1]ingly beautiful climax; a figure which repeatedly occurs in +the play, and is always used with peculiar energy. + + +SCENE--_Before the Gates of Athens.--Enter Perithous, Hippolita, and +Emilia._ + + _Perithous._ No further. + + _Hippolita._ Sir, farewell. Repeat my wish|es + To our great lord, of whose success I dare | not + Make any timorous question; yet I wish | him + Excess and overflow of power, an't might | be, + To dure ill-dealing Fortune. Speed to him! + Store never hurts good governors. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere metaphor,] + + _Perithous._ Though I know + His ocean needs not my poor drops, yet they + Must yield their tribute there. (_To Emilia._) My precious maid, + Those best affections that the heavens infuse + In their _best-tempered pieces_, keep _enthroned_ + In your dear heart! + + _Emilia._ Thanks, sir! Remember me + To our all royal brother, for whose speed + The great Bellona I'll solicit; and, + Since in our terrene state, petitions are | not, + Without gifts, understood, I'll offer to | her + What I shall be advised she likes. Our hearts + Are in his army, in his tent. + +[Sidenote: phrase.] + + _Hippolita._ In's bos|om! + We have been soldiers, and we cannot weep + When our friends don their helms or put to sea, + Or tell of babes broacht on the lance, or wom|en + That have sod their infants in (and after eat | them) + The brine they wept at killing them; then if + You stay to see of us such spinsters, we + Should hold you here for ever. + + . . . . . + + _Emilia._ How his long|ing + Follows his friend!... + Have you observed him + Since our great lord departed? + + _Hippolita._ With much la|bour, + And I did love him for't.[33:2]... + +[Sidenote: Female friendship: the description has Shakspere's +characteristics.] + +[34:1]The description of female friendship which follows is familiar to +all lovers of poetry. It is disfigured by one or two strained conceits, +and some obscurities arising partly from errors in the text: but the +beauty of the sketch in many parts is extreme, and its character +distinctly that of Shakspeare, vigorous and even quaint, thoughtful and +sometimes almost metaphysical, instinct with animation, and pregnant +with fancy; offering, in short, little resemblance to the manner of any +poet but Shakspeare, and the most unequivocal opposition to Fletcher's. + + _Emilia._ Doubtless + There is a best, and reason has no man|ners + To say, it is not you. I was acquaint|ed + Once with a time when I enjoy'd a play|fellow---- + You were at wars when she the grave enrich'd, + (Who made too proud the bed,) took leave o' the moon, + Which then look'd pale at parting, when our count + Was each eleven. + + _Hippolita._ 'Twas Flavina. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere fancy.] + + _Emilia._ Yes. + You talk of Perithous' and Theseus' love: + Theirs has more ground, is more maturely seas|oned, + More buckled with strong judgment; and their needs, + The one of the other, may be said to wat|er + Their intertangled roots of love.--But I + And she I sigh and spoke of, were things in|nocent,-- + Loved for we did, and,--like the elements, + That know not what nor why, yet do effect + Rare issues by their operance,--our souls + Did so to one another. What she liked, + Was then of me approved; what not, condemned. + No more arraign|ment.| The flower that I would pluck, + And put between my breasts, (then but begin|ning + To swell about the blossom,) she would long + Till she had such another, and commit | it + To the like innocent cradle, where, phoenix-like, + They died in perfume; on my head, no toy + But was her pattern; her affections, (pret|ty, + Though happily her careless wear,) I fol|low'd + For my most serious decking.--Had mine ear + Stolen some new air, or at adventure humm'd + From musical coinage,--why, it was a note + Whereon her spirits would sojourn, rather dwell | on, + And sing it in her slumbers.--This rehears|al + [34:2](Which, every innocent wots well, comes in + Like old importment's bastard) has this end, + That the true love 'tween maid and maid may be + More than in sex dividual.... + +[Sidenote: Act I. scene iv. Shakspere's.] + +The fourth scene is laid in a battle-field near Thebes, and Theseus +enters victorious. The three queens fall down with thanks before him; +and a herald announces the capture of the Two Noble Kinsmen, wounded and +senseless, and scarcely retaining the semblance of life. [Sidenote: Has +Shakspere's words and quibbles.] The phraseology of this short scene is +like Shakspeare's, being brief and energetic, and in one or two +instances passing into quibbles. + +[Sidenote: Act I. scene v. is Shakspere's.] + +The last scene of this act is of a lyrical cast, and comprised in a few +lamentations spoken by the widowed queens over the corpses of their dead +lords. It ends with this couplet: + + The world's a city full of straying streets, + And death's the market-place, where each one meets. + +[Sidenote: Act II. not Shakspere's.] + +In the Second Act no part seems to have been taken by Shakspeare. +[Sidenote: The prose of II. i. is not from Chaucer,] It commences with +one of those scenes which are introduced into the play in departure from +the narrative of Chaucer, forming an underplot which is clearly the work +of a different artist from many of the leading parts of the drama. The +Noble Kinsmen, cured of their wounds, have been committed to strait and +perpetual prison in Athens, and the first part of this scene is a prose +dialogue between their jailor and a suitor of his daughter. The maiden's +admiration of the prisoners is then exhibited. [Sidenote: and is very +dull: it is not Shakspere's.] You will see afterwards, that there are +several circumstances besides the essential dulness of this prose part, +which fully absolve Shakspeare from the charge of having written it. + +[Sidenote: The verse of Act II. scene i.] + +The versified portion of this scene, which follows the prose dialogue +among the inferior characters, presents the incident on which the +interest of the story hinges, the commencement of the fatal and +chimerical passion, which, inspiring both the knights towards the young +Emilia, severs the bonds of friendship which had so long held them +together. The noble prisoners are discovered in their turret-chamber, +looking out on the palace-garden, which the lady afterwards enters. They +speak [35:1]in a highly animated strain of that world from which they +are secluded, and find themes of consolation for the hard lot which had +overtaken them. The dialogue is in many respects admirable. [Sidenote: +The verse of Act II. scene i. has the characteristics of Fletcher: +double endings, end-stopt lines, vague images,] It possesses much +eloquence of description, and the character of the language is smooth +and flowing; the versification is good and accurate, frequent in double +endings, and usually finishing the sense with the line; and one or two +allusions occur, which, being favourites of Fletcher's, may be in +themselves a strong presumption of his authorship; the images too have +in some instances a want of distinctness in application or a vagueness +of outline, which could be easily paralleled from Fletcher's +acknowledged writings. [Sidenote: but romantic;] The style is fuller of +allusions than his usually is, but the images are more correct and +better kept from confusion than Shakspeare's; some of them indeed are +exquisite, but rather in the romantic and exclusively poetical tone of +Fletcher, than in the natural and universal mode of feeling which +animates Shakspeare. [Sidenote: slack dialogue.] The dialogue too +proceeds less energetically than Shakspeare's, falling occasionally into +a style of long-drawn disquisition which Fletcher often substitutes for +the quick and dramatic conversations of the great poet. [Sidenote: II. +i. one of the finest scenes that Fletcher ever wrote.] On the whole, +however, this scene, if it be Fletcher's, (of which I have no doubt,) is +among the very finest he ever wrote; and there are many passages in +which, while he preserves his own distinctive marks, he has gathered no +small portion of the flame and inspiration of his immortal friend and +assistant. In the following speeches there are images and phrases, which +are either identically Fletcher's, or closely resemble his, and the +whole cast both of versification and idiom is strictly his:-- + +[Sidenote: Act II. scene i. Fletcher's.] + + _Palamon._ Oh, cousin Ar|cite! + Where is Thebes now? where is our noble coun|try? + Where are our friends and kindreds? Never more + Must we behold those comforts; never see + The hardy youths strive in the games of hon|our, + Hung with the painted favours of their la|dies, + Like tall ships under sail; then start among | them, + And as an east wind leave them all behind | us + Like lazy clouds, while Palamon and Ar|cite, + Even in the wagging of a wanton leg, + Outstript the people's praises, won the gar|lands, + [37:1]Ere they have time to wish them ours. Oh, nev|er + Shall we two exercise, like twins of hon|our, + Our arms again, and feel our fiery hors|es + Like proud seas under us! our good swords now, + (Better the red-eyed god of war ne'er wore,) + Ravish'd our sides, like age must run to rust, + And deck the temples of the gods that hate | us: + These hands shall never draw them out like light|ning + To blast whole armies more. + +[Sidenote: Picture fully wrought out.] + +[Sidenote: Romantic, pathetic sketch.] + + _Arcite._ ... + The sweet embraces of a loving wife, + Loaden with kisses, arm'd with thousand cu|pids, + Shall never clasp our necks: no issue know | us; + No figures of ourselves shall we e'er see, + To glad our age, and like young eagles teach | them + Boldly to gaze against bright arms, and say, + "Remember what your fathers were, and con|quer." + --The fair-eyed maids shall weep our banishments, + And in their songs curse ever-blinded For|tune, + Till she for shame see what a wrong she has done + To youth and Nature.--This is all our world: + We shall know nothing here but one anoth|er,-- + Hear nothing but the clock that tells our woes; + The vine shall grow, but we shall never see | it: + Summer shall come, and with her all delights, + But dead-cold winter must inhabit here | still! + + _Palamon._ 'Tis too true, Arcite! To our Theban hounds, + That shook the aged forest with their ech|oes, + No more now must we halloo; no more shake + Our pointed javelins, whilst the angry swine + Flies like a Parthian[37:2] quiver from our rag|es, + Struck with our well-steel'd darts.... + +In this scene there is one train of metaphors which is perhaps as +characteristic of Fletcher as any thing that could be produced. +[Sidenote: Lines from II. i. on page 38, of slow orderly development of +ideas, markt by Fletcher's characteristics.] It is marked by a slowness +of association which he often shews. Several allusions are successively +introduced; but by each, as it appears, we are prepared for and can +anticipate the next; we see the connection of ideas in the poet's mind +through which the one has sprung out of the other, and that all are but +branches, of which one original thought is the root. [Sidenote: No leap +to the end, and off with a fresh bound, like Shakspere.] All this is the +work of [37:3]a less fertile fancy and a more tardy understanding than +Shakspeare's: he would have leaped over many of the intervening steps, +and, reaching at once the most remote particular of the series, would +have immediately turned away to weave some new chain of thought:-- + +[Sidenote: All workt out thro' every step.] + + _Arcite._ ... What worthy bless|ing + Can be, but our imaginations + May make it ours? and here, being thus togeth|er, + We are an endless mine to one anoth|er: + We are one another's wife, ever beget|ting + New births of love; we are fathers, friends, acquaint|ance; + We are, in one another, families; + I am your heir and you are mine; this place + Is our inheritance; no hard oppress|or + Dare take this from us.... + +But the contentment of the prison is to be interrupted. The fair Emilia +appears beneath, walking in the garden "full of branches green," +skirting the wall of the tower in which the princes are confined. She +converses with her attendant, and Palamon from the dungeon-grating +beholds her as she gathers the flowers of spring. He ceases to reply to +Arcite, and stands absorbed in silent ecstasy. + + _Arcite._ Cousin! How do you, sir? Why, Palamon! + + _Palamon._ Never till now I was in prison, Ar|cite. + + _Arcite._ Why, what's the matter, man? + + _Palamon._ Behold and won|der: + By heaven, she is a goddess; + + _Arcite._ Ha! + + _Palamon._ Do rev|erence; + She is a goddess, Arcite! + +The beauty of the maiden impresses Arcite no less violently than it +previously had his kinsman; and he challenges with great heat a right to +love her. [Sidenote: The sharp and spirited quarrel between the Kinsmen, +not Shakspere's.] An animated and acrimonious dialogue ensues, in which +Palamon reproachfully pleads his prior admiration of the lady, and +insists on his cousin's obligation to become his abettor instead of his +rival. It is spirited even to excess; and probably Shakspeare would have +tempered, or abstained from treating so sudden and perhaps unnatural an +access of anger and jealousy, and so utter an abandonment to [38:1]its +vehemence, as that under which the fiery Palamon is here represented as +labouring. + +[Sidenote: Act II. scene i. Fletcher's.] + + _Palamon._ If thou lovest her, + Or entertain'st a hope to blast my wish|es, + Thou art a traitor, Arcite, and a fel|low + False as thy title to her. Friendship, blood, + And all the ties between us, I disclaim, + If thou once think upon her! + + _Arcite._ Yes, I love | her! + And, if the lives of all my name lay on | it, + I must do so. I love her with my soul; + If that will lose thee, Palamon, farewell! + I say again I love, and, loving her + I am as worthy and as free a lov|er, + And have as just a title to her beau|ty, + As any Palamon, or any liv|ing + That is a man's son! + + _Palamon._ Have I call'd thee friend! + + . . . . . + + _Palamon._ Put but thy head out of this window more, + And, as I have a soul, I'll nail thy life to't! + + _Arcite._ Thou dar'st not, fool: thou canst not: thou art fee|ble: + Put my head out? I'll throw my body out, + And leap the garden, when I see her next, + And pitch between her arms to anger thee. + +[Sidenote: Fletcher has left out Chaucer's making the Knights 'sworn +brethren.'] + +In transferring his story from Chaucer, the poet has here been guilty of +an oversight. The old poet fixes a character of positive guilt on +Arcite's prosecution of his passion, by relating a previous agreement +between the two cousins, by which either, engaging in any adventure +whether of love or war, had an express right to the co-operation of the +other. Hence Arcite's interference with his cousin's claim becomes, with +Chaucer, a direct infringement of a knightly compact; while in the +drama, no deeper blame attaches to it, than as a violation of the more +fragile rules imposed by the generous spirit of friendship. + +In the midst of the angry conference, Arcite is called to the Duke to +receive his freedom; and Palamon is placed in stricter confinement, and +removed from the quarter of the tower overlooking the garden. + +[Sidenote: Act II. scene ii. (Weber, sc. iii. Littledale) is +Fletcher's.] + +In the second scene of this act, Arcite, wandering in the +[39:1]neighbourhood of Athens, soliloquizes on the decree which had +banished him from the Athenian territory; and, falling in with a band of +country people on their way to games in the city, conceives the notion +of joining in the celebration under some poor disguise, in the hope of +finding means to remain within sight of his fancifully beloved mistress. +[Sidenote: Act II. scene ii. iii. (Weber, sc. iii. iv. Littledale),] +Neither this scene, nor the following, in which the jailor's daughter +meditates on the perfections of Palamon, and intimates an intention of +assisting him to escape, have any thing in them worthy of particular +notice. + +[Sidenote: Act II. scene iv. (Weber, sc. v. Littledale),] + +In the fourth scene, Arcite, victorious in the athletic games, is +crowned by the Duke, and preferred to the service of Emilia. + +[Sidenote: Act II. scene v. (Weber, sc. vi. Littledale), are all +Fletcher's.] + +In the last scene of the second act, the jailor's daughter announces +that she has effected Palamon's deliverance from prison, and that he +lies hidden in a wood near the city, the scenery of which is prettily +described. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Act III. scene i. is Shakspere's.] + +Nothing in the Third Act can with confidence be attributed to +Shakspeare, except the first scene. This opening scene is laid in the +wood where Palamon has his hiding-place. Arcite enters; and a monologue, +describing his situation and feelings, is, as in Chaucer, overheard by +Palamon, who starts out of the bush in which he had crouched, and shakes +his fettered hands at his false kinsman. [Sidenote: Arcite's first +speech has Shakspere's clear images, and familiar dress, nervous +expression, &c.] A dialogue of mutual reproach ensues; and Arcite +departs with a promise to return, bringing food for the outcast, and +armour to fit him for maintaining, like a knight, his right to the +lady's love. The commencing speech of Arcite has much of Shakspeare's +clearness of imagery, and of the familiarity of dress which he often +loves to bestow upon allusion; it has also great nerve of expression and +calmness of tone, with at least one play on words which is quite in his +manner, and one (perhaps more) of his identical phrases. The text seems +faulty in one part. + +[Sidenote: Act III. sc. i. is Shakspere's.] + +[Sidenote: Shaksperean phrases.] + +[Sidenote: Shakspere phrase.] + + _Arcite._ The Duke has lost Hippolita: each took + A several laund. This is a solemn rite + They owe bloom'd May, and the Athenians pay|it + _To the heart of ceremony_. Oh, queen Emil|ia! + Fresher than May, sweeter + Than her _gold buttons_ on the boughs, or all + [40:1]The enamell'd knacks o' the mead or garden! Yea, + We challenge too the bank of any nymph, + That makes the stream seem flowers!--Thou,--oh jew|el + _O' the wood, o' the world_,--hast likewise blest a place + With thy sole presence. In thy rumina|tion + That I, poor man, might eftsoons come between, + And chop on some cold thought!--Thrice blessed chance, + To drop on such a mistress! Expecta|tion + Most guiltless of | it.| Tell me, oh lady For|tune, + (Next after Emily my sovran,) how far + I may be proud. She takes strong note of me, + Hath made me near her, and this beauteous morn, + (The primest of all the year,) presents me with + A brace of horses; two such steeds might well + Be by a pair of kings back'd, in a field + That their crowns' titles tried. Alas, alas! + Poor cousin Palamon, poor prisoner!... + ... If + Thou knew'st my mistress breathed on me, and that + I _cared_ her language, lived in her eye, oh coz, + What passion would enclose thee! + +There is great spirit, also, in what follows. Some phrases, here again, +are precisely Shakspeare's; and several parts of the dialogue have much +of his pointed epigrammatic style. The massive accumulation of +reproaches which Palamon hurls on Arcite is, in its energy, more like +him than his assistant; and the opposition of character between Palamon +and his calmer kinsman, is well kept up; but the dialogue cannot be +accounted one of the best in the play. + +[Sidenote: Shaksperean string of epithets.] + + _Palamon._ ... Oh, thou most perfid|ious + That ever gently look'd! The void'st of hon|our + That e'er bore gentle token! Falsest cous|in + That ever blood made kin! call'st thou her thine? + I'll prove it in my shackles, in these hands + Void of appointment, that thou liest, and art + A very thief in love, a chaffy lord, + Not worth the name of villain!--Had I a sword, + And these house-clogs away! + +[Sidenote: Shaksperean word-play.] + + _Arcite._ _Dear cousin Pal|amon!_ + + _Palamon._ _Cozener Arcite!_ give me language such + As thou hast shewed me feat. + + _Arcite._ Not finding in + [41:1]The circuit of my breast, any gross stuff + To form me like your _blazon_, holds me to + This gentleness of answer. 'Tis your pas|sion + That thus mistakes; the which, to you being en|emy, + Cannot to me be kind.... + +[Sidenote: Act III. scene ii.] + +In the second scene, the only speaker is the jailor's daughter, who, +having lost Palamon in the wood, begins to shew symptoms of unsettled +reason. There is some pathos in several parts of her soliloquy, but +little vigour in the expression, or novelty in the thoughts. + +[Sidenote: Act III. scene iii.] + +The third scene is an exchange of brief speeches between the two +knights. Arcite brings provisions for his kinsman, and the means of +removing his fetters, and departs to fetch the armour. [Sidenote: is +probably Fletcher's, and not Shakspere's.] In most respects the scene is +not very characteristic of either writer, but leans towards Fletcher; +and one argument for him might be drawn from an interchange of sarcasms +between the kinsmen, in which they retort on each other, former amorous +adventures: such a dialogue is quite like Fletcher's men of gaiety; and +needless degradation of his principal characters, is a fault of which +Shakspeare is not guilty. You may be able, hereafter, to see more +distinctly the force of this reason. The scene contains one strikingly +animated burst of jealous suspicion and impatience. + + _Arcite._ Pray you sit down then; and let me entreat | you, + By all the honesty and honour in | you, + No mention of this woman; 'twill disturb | us; + We shall have time enough. + + _Palamon._ Well, sir, I'll pledge | you. + + . . . . . + + _Arcite._ Heigh-ho! + + _Palamon._ For Emily, upon my life!--Fool, + Away with this strained mirth!--I say again, + That sigh was breathed for Emily. Base cous|in, + Darest thou break first? + + _Arcite._ You are wide. + + _Palamon._ By heaven and earth, + There's nothing in thee honest!... + +[Sidenote: Act III. scenes iv. v.] + +In the next two scenes, placed in the forest, the jailor's daughter has +reached the height of frenzy. [Sidenote: Gerrold has no spark of +humour.] She meets the country[42:1]men who had encountered Arcite, and +who are now headed by the learned and high-fantastical schoolmaster +Gerrold, a personage who has the pedantry of Shakspeare's Holofernes, +without one solitary spark of his humour. They are preparing a dance for +the presence of the duke, and the maniac is adopted into their number, +to fill up a vacancy. The duke and his train appear,--the pedagogue +prologuizes,--the clowns dance,--and their self-satisfied Coryphaeus +apologizes and epiloguizes. [Sidenote: Act III. scene iv. v. +Fletcher's.] Some of Fletcher's very phrases and forms of expression +have been traced in these two scenes. + +[Sidenote: Act III. scene vi.] + +We have then, in the sixth and last scene of this act, the interrupted +combat of the two princes. [Sidenote: Fletcher's, not Shakspere's.] The +scene is a spirited and excellent one; but its tone is Fletcher's, not +Shakspeare's. [Sidenote: Has not Shakspere's grasp of imagery.] The +raillery and retort of the dialogue is more lightly playful than his, +and less antithetical and sententious; and though there are fine images, +they are not seized with the grasp which Shakspeare would have given, +sometimes harsh, but always at least decided. Some of the illustrations +have been quoted (page 17). The knightly courtesy with which the princes +arm each other is well supported; and their dignity of greeting before +they cross their swords, is fine, exceedingly fine. Nothing can be more +beautifully conceived than the change which comes over the temper of the +generous Palamon, when he stands on the verge of mortal battle with his +enemy. [Sidenote: Fletcher's sweet versification and romantic +phraseology.] His usual heat and impatience give place to the most +becoming calmness. The versification is very sweet, and the romantic air +of the phraseology is very much Fletcher's, especially towards the end +of the following quotation. + + _Palamon._ My cause and honour guard | me. + +(_They bow several ways, then advance and stand._) + + _Arcite._ And me my love; Is there aught else to say? + + _Palamon._ This only, and no more: Thou art mine aunt's | son, + And that blood we desire to shed is mu|tual; + In me, thine; and in thee, mine. My sword + Is in my hand, and, if thou killest me, + The gods and I forgive thee! If there be + A place prepared for those that sleep in hon|our, + I wish his weary soul that falls may win | it! + Fight bravely, cous|in;| give me thy noble hand! + + _Arcite._ Here, Palamon; this hand shall never more + [43:1]Come near thee with such friendship. + + _Palamon._ I commend | thee. + + _Arcite._ If I fall, curse me, and say I was a cow|ard; + For none but such dare die in these just tri|als. + Once more farewell, my cousin. + + _Palamon._ Farewell, Ar|cite. + (_They fight._) + +[Sidenote: Act III. scene vi.] + +The combat is interrupted by the approach of the Duke and his court; +and Palamon, refusing to give back or conceal himself, appears before +Theseus, and declares his own name and situation, and the presumptuous +secret of Arcite. [Sidenote: is in Fletcher's style.] The scene is good, +but in the flowing style of Fletcher, not the more manly one of +Shakspeare. [Sidenote: Death-penalty for the losing knight, a good +addition to Chaucer.] The sentence of death, which the duke, in the +first moments of his anger, pronounces on the two princes, is recalled +on the petition of Hippolita and her sister, on condition that the +rivals shall meantime depart, and return within a month, each +accompanied by three knights, to determine in combat the possession of +Emilia; and death by the block is denounced against the knights who +shall be vanquished. Some of these circumstances are slight deviations +from Chaucer; and the laying down of the severe penalty is well +imagined, as an addition to the tragic interest, giving occasion to a +very impressive scene in the last act. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Act IV. all Fletcher's.] + +The Fourth Act may safely be pronounced wholly Fletcher's. [Sidenote: +Wants all the leading features of Shakspere's style.] All of it, except +one scene, is taken up by the episodical adventures of the jailor's +daughter; and, while much of it is poetical, it wants the force and +originality, and, indeed, all the prominent features of Shakspeare's +manner, either of thought, illustration, or expression. There are +conversations in which are described, pleasingly enough, the madness of +the unfortunate girl, and the finding of her in a sylvan spot, by her +former wooer; but when the maniac herself appears, the tone and subjects +of the dialogue become more objectionable. + +[Sidenote: Act IV. scene ii.] + +In the second scene of this act, the only one which bears reference to +the main business of the piece, Emilia first muses over the pictures of +her two suitors, and then hears from a messenger, in presence of Theseus +and his attendants, a description, (taken in [44:1]its elements from the +Knightes Tale,) of the warriors who were preparing for the field along +with the champion lovers. [Sidenote: Emilia's soliloquy on the pictures, +not Shakspere's.] In the soliloquy of the lady, while the poetical +spirit is well preserved, the alternations of feeling are given with an +abruptness and a want of insight into the nicer shades of association, +which resemble the extravagant stage effects of the 'King and No King,' +infinitely more than the delicate yet piercing glance with which +Shakspeare looks into the human breast in the 'Othello'; the language, +too, is smoother and less powerful than Shakspeare's, and one or two +classical allusions are a little too correct and studied for him. +[Sidenote: Act IV. scene ii. Fletcher's.] One image occurs, not the +clearest or most chastened, in which Fletcher closely repeats himself:-- + +[Sidenote: His description of Arcite, paralleld in his _Philaster_.] + + What a brow, + Of what a spacious majesty, he car|ries! + Arched like the great-eyed Juno's, but far sweet|er,-- + Smoother than Pelop's shoulder. Fame and Hon|our, + Methinks, from hence, as from a promontor|y + Pointed in Heaven, should clap their wings, and sing + To all the under-world, the loves and fights + Of gods and such men near them.[45:1] + +[Sidenote: Act V. is Shakspere's,] + +In the Fifth Act we again feel the presence of the Master of the Spell. +Several passages in this portion are marked by as striking tokens of his +art as anything which we read in 'Macbeth' or 'Coriolanus.' The whole +act, a very long one, may be boldly attributed to him, with the +exception of one episodical scene. + +[Sidenote: except scene iv. (Weber: sc. ii. Littledale).] + +The time has arrived for the combat. Three temples are exhibited, as in +Chaucer, in which the rival Knights, and the [45:2]Lady of their Vows, +respectively pay their adorations. One principal aim of their +supplications is to learn the result of the coming contest; but the +suspense is kept up by each of the Knights receiving a favourable +response, and Emilia a doubtful one. [Sidenote: Act V. sc. ii.[45:3] (i. +L.) is lower in key.] [Sidenote: Act V. sc. i. iii. (Weber: both i. +Littledale) are Shakspere's all through.] Three scenes are thus +occupied, the second of which is in somewhat a lower key than the other +two; but even in it there is much beauty; and in the first and third the +tense dignity and pointedness of the language, the gorgeousness and +overflow of illustration, and the reach, the mingled familiarity and +elevation of thought, are admirable, inimitable, and decisive. From +these exquisite scenes there is a temptation to quote too largely. + +[Sidenote: Act V. scene i.] + +In the first scene, Theseus ushers the Kinsmen and their Knights into +the Temple of Mars, and leaves them there. After a short and solemn +greeting, the Kinsmen embrace for the last time, Palamon and his friends +retire, and Arcite and his remain and offer up their devotions to the +deity of the place. [Sidenote: Spirit and Language Shakspere's.] A fine +seriousness of spirit breathes through the whole scene, and the language +is alive with the most magnificent and delicate allusion. In Arcite's +prayer the tone cannot be mistaken. [Sidenote: His reflection on Fortune +and strife.] The enumeration of the god's attributes is coloured by all +that energetic depth of feeling with which Shakspeare in his historical +dramas so often turns aside to meditate on the changes of human fortune +and the horrors of human enmity.[46:1] + + . . . . . + + _Theseus._ You valiant and strong-hearted enemies, + You royal germane foes, that this day come + To blow the nearness out that flames between | ye,-- + Lay by your anger for an hour, and dove|-like, + Before the holy altars of your Help|ers + (The all-feard Gods) bow down your stubborn bod|ies! + Your ire is more than mortal: so your help | be! + + . . . . . + +[Sidenote: Shakspere phrases.] + + _Arcite._ ... Hoist | we + Those sails that must these vessels port even where + The Heavenly Limiter pleases! + + . . . . . + + [46:2]Knights, kinsmen, lovers, yea, my sacrifi|ces! + True worshippers of Mars, whose spirit in you + Expels the seeds of fear, and the apprehen|sion + Which still is father of it,--go with me + Before the god of our profession. There + Require of him the hearts of lions, and + _The breath of tigers, yea the fierceness too, + Yea the speed also!_ to go on I mean, + Else wish we to be snails. You know my prize + Must be draggd out of blood: Force and great Feat + Must put my garland on, where she will stick + The queen of flowers; our intercession then + Must be to him that makes the camp _a ces|tron + Brimmd with the blood of men_: give me your aid, + And bend your spirits towards him! + +(_They fall prostrate before the statue._) + +[Sidenote: Shakspere's own work,] + + Thou mighty one! that with thy power has turn'd + Green Neptune into purple,--whose approach + Comets prewarn,--_whose havock in vast field + Unearthed skulls proclaim_,--whose breath blows down + The teeming Ceres' foyson,--who dost pluck + _With hand armipotent from forth blue clouds_ + The masoned turrets,--that both mak'st and break'st + The stony girths of cities;--me, thy pup|il, + Young'st follower of thy drum, instruct this day + With military skill, that to thy laud + I may advance my streamer, and by thee + Be styled the lord o' the day: Give me, great Mars, + Some token of thy pleasure! + +(_Here there is heard clanging of armour, with a short thunder, as the + burst of a battle; whereupon they all rise and bow to the altar._) + +[Sidenote: Shakspere again.] + + Oh, great Corrector of enormous times! + _Shaker of o'er rank states!_ Thou grand Decid|er + Of dusty and old ti|tles;|--_that heal'st with blood + The earth when it is sick_, and cur'st the world + O' the pleurisy of people! I do take + Thy signs auspiciously, and in thy name + To my design march boldly. Let us go! (_Exeunt._) + +[Sidenote: Palamon's prayer in V. ii (i. L.) not equal to V. i. or iii. +(i. L.), but is yet clearly Shakspere's.] + +The passionate and sensitive Palamon has chosen the Queen of Love as his +Patroness, and it is in her Temple that, in the [47:1]second scene, he +puts up his prayers. This scene is not equal to the first or third, +having the poetical features less prominently brought out, while the +tone of thought is less highly pitched, and also less consistently +sustained. But it is distinctly Shakspeare's. The rugged versification +is his, and the force of language. [Sidenote: Even the incompetent old +husband bit is his.] One unpleasing sketch of the deformity of decrepit +old age, which need not be quoted, is largely impressed with his air of +truth, and some personifications already noticed are also in his manner. + +[Sidenote: Act V. scene ii. (Weber; i. Littledale) is Shakspere's.] + +[Sidenote: A Shakspere touch.] + + _Palamon._ Our stars must glister with new fire, or be + To-day extinct: our argument is love! + + . . . . . (_They kneel._) + + Hail, sovereign Queen of Secrets! who hast pow|er + To call the fiercest tyrant from his rage + To weep unto a girl!--that hast the might + Even with an eye-glance to choke Mars's drum, + And turn the alarm to whis|pers!|... + What gold-like pow|er + Hast thou not power upon? To Phoebus thou + Add'st flames hotter than his: the heavenly fires + Did scorch his mortal son, thou him: The Hunt|ress + All moist and cold, some say, began to throw + Her bow away and sigh. Take to thy grace + Me thy vowd soldier,--who do bear thy yoke + As 'twere a wreath of roses, yet is heav|ier + Than lead itself, stings more than net|tles:-- + I have never been foul-mouthed against thy law; + ... I have been harsh + To large confessors, and have hotly askt | them + If they had mothers: _I_ had one,--a wom|an, + And women 'twere they wronged.... + Brief,--I am + To those that prate and have done,--no compan|ion; + To those that boast and have not,--a defi|er; + To those that would and cannot,--a rejoi|cer! + Yea, him I do not love, that tells close offices + The foulest way, nor names concealments in + The boldest language: Such a one I am, + And vow that _lover never yet made sigh + Truer than I_.... + +(_Music is heard, and doves are seen to flutter: they fall upon their + faces._) + + [48:1]I give thee thanks + For this fair token!... + +[Sidenote: Emilia's Prayer is surely Shakspere's.] + +Emilia's Prayer in the Sanctuary of the pure Diana, forming the third +scene, is in some parts most nervous, and the opening is inexpressibly +beautiful in language and rhythm. Several ideas and idioms are +identically Shakspeare's. + +[Sidenote: Act V. scene iii. (Weber; i. Littledale) Shakspere's] + + _Emilia._ (_Kneeling before the altar._) Oh, sacred, shadowy, cold, + and constant Queen! + _Abandoner of revels!_ mute, contemplative, + Sweet, solitary, white as chaste, and pure + As wind-fanned snow!--who to thy _female knights_ + Allow'st no more blood than will make a blush, + Which is there order's robe!--I here, thy priest, + Am humbled 'fore thine altar. Oh, vouchsafe, + With that thy rare _green eye_,[49:1] which never yet + Beheld thing maculate, look on thy virg|in! + And,--sacred silver Mistress!--lend thine ear, + (Which ne'er heard scurril term, into whose port + Ne'er entered wanton sound,) to my petit|ion + Seasoned with holy fear!--This is my last + Of vestal office: [49:2]I'm bride-habited, + But maiden-heart|ed.| A husband I have, appoint|ed, + But do not know him; out of two I should + Chuse one, and pray for his success, but I + Am guiltless of election of mine eyes.[49:2] + + . . . . . + +(_A rose-tree ascends from under the altar, having one rose upon it._) + + See what our general of ebbs and flows + Out from the bowels of her holy al|tar + With sacred act advances! But one rose? + If well inspired, this battle shall confound + Both these brave knights, and I a virgin flow|er + Must grow alone unplucked. + +(_Here is heard a sudden twang of instruments, and the rose falls from + the tree._) + + [49:3]The flower is fallen, the tree descends!--oh, mis|tress, + Thou here dischargest me: I shall be gath|ered, + I think so; but I know not thine own will; + Unclasp thy mystery!--I hope she's pleased; + Her signs were gracious. (_Exeunt._) + +[Sidenote: Act V. scene iv. (Weber; ii. Littledale) is stuff.] + +The fourth scene, in which the characters are the jailor's daughter, her +father and lover, and a physician, is disgusting and imbecile in the +extreme. It may be dismissed with a single quotation: + + _Doctor._ What stuff she utters! + +[Sidenote: Act V. scene v. (Weber; iii. Littledale). Its strangeness.] + +The fifth scene is the Combat, the arrangement of which is unusual. +Perhaps there is nothing in every respect resembling it in the circle of +the English drama. Theseus and his court cross the stage as proceeding +to the lists; Emilia pauses and refuses to be present; the rest depart, +and she is left. She then, the prize of the struggle, the presiding +influence of the day, alone occupies the stage: within, the trumpets are +heard sounding the charge, and the cries of the spectators and tumult of +the encounter reach her ears; one or two messengers recount to her the +various changes of the field, till Arcite's victory ends the fight. The +manner is admirable in which the caution, which rendered it advisable to +avoid introducing the combat on the stage, is reconciled with the pomp +of scenic effect and bustle. [Sidenote: Shakspere's hand is in it.] The +details of the scene, with which alone we have here to do, make it clear +that Shakspeare's hand was in it. The greater part, it is true, is not +of the highest excellence; but the vacillations of Emilia's feelings are +well and delicately given, some individual thoughts and words mark +Shakspeare, there is a little of his obscure brevity, much of his +thoughtfulness legitimately applied, and an instance or two of its +abuse. The strong likeness to him will justify some quotations. + +In the following lines Theseus is pleading with Emilia for her presence +in the lists:-- + +[Sidenote: Shakspere.] + + _Theseus._ You must be there: + This trial is as 'twere in the night, and you + The only star to shine. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere.] + + [50:1]_Emilia._ I am extinct. + There is but envy in that light, which shews + The one the other. Darkness, which ever was + The dam of Horror, who does stand accursed + Of many mortal millions, may even now, + By casting her black mantle over both + That neither could find other, get herself + Some part of a good name, and many a mur|der + Set off whereto she's guilty.[50:2] + + . . . . . + +One good description is put into the mouth of Emilia after she is left +alone:-- + +[Sidenote: Act V. scene v. (Weber; or sc. iii. Littledale). Shakspere's +hand in it.] + +[Sidenote: Shakspere.] + + _Emilia._ Arcite is gently visaged; yet his eye + Is like an engine bent, or a sharp weap|on + In a soft sheath: Mercy and manly Cour|age + Are bedfellows in his visage. Palamon + Has a most menacing aspect: his brow + Is graved, and seems to bury what it frowns | on; + Yet sometimes 'tis not so, but alters to + The quality of his thoughts: long time his eye + Will dwell upon his object: melanchol|y + Becomes him nobly; so does Arcite's mirth: + But Palamon's sadness is a kind of mirth, + So mingled, as if mirth did make him sad, + And sadness mer|ry:| those darker humours that + Stick unbecomingly on oth|ers,| on him + Live in fair dwelling. + +After several alternations of fortune in the fight, she again speaks +thus of the two: + + ... [51:1]Were they metamor|phosed + Both into one--oh why? there were no wom|an + Worth so composed a man! their single share, + Their nobleness peculiar to them, gives + The prejudice of dispar|ity,| value's shortness, + To any lady breathing.... + +(_Cornets: a great shout, and cry_, Arcite, victory!) + + [51:2]_Servant._ The cry is + Arcite and victory! Hark, Arcite, vic|tory! + The combat's consummation is proclaimed + By the wind instruments. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere touch.] + +[Sidenote: Shakspere reflection.] + + _Emilia._ Half-sights saw + That Arcite was no babe: god's-lid! _his rich|ness_ + _And costliness of spirit looked through |him_: | it could + No more be hid in him than fire in flax, + Than humble banks can go to law with wa|ters + That drift winds force to raging. I did think + Good Palamon would miscarry; yet I knew | not + Why I did think | so.| _Our Reasons are net proph|ets + When oft our Fancies are._ They're coming off: + Alas, poor Palamon! + +Theseus enters with his attendants, conducting Arcite, as conqueror, and +presents him to Emilia as her husband. Arcite's situation is a painful +one, and is well discriminated: he utters but a single grave sentence. + + _Theseus._ (_To Arcite and Emilia._) Give me your hands: + Receive you her, you him: be plighted with + A love that grows as you decay! + + _Arcite._ Emily! + To buy you I have lost what's dearest to | me, + Save what is bought; and yet I purchase cheap|ly, + As I do rate your value. + + . . . . . + +[Sidenote: Shakspere touch.] + + _Theseus._ (_To Arcite._) Wear the gar|land + With joy that you have won. For the subdued,-- + Give them our present justice, _since I know + Their lives but pinch them_. Let it here be done. + The sight's not for our seeing: go we hence + Right joyful, with some sorrow!--Arm your prize: + I know you will not lose | her.| Hippolita, + I see one eye of yours conceives a tear, + The which it will deliv|er.| + + _Emilia._ Is this, winning? + Oh, all you heavenly powers! where is your mer|cy? + But that your wills have said it must be so, + And charge me live to comfort this unfriend|ed, + This miserable prince, that cuts away + A life more worthy from him than all wom|en, + I should and would die too. + + [52:1]_Hippolita._ Infinite pity, + That four such eyes should be so fixed on one, + That two must needs be blind for't. (_Exeunt._) + +[Sidenote: Act V. scene vi. (Weber; sc. iv. Littledale) is clearly +Shakspere's.] + +The authorship of the last scene admits of no doubt. The manner is +Shakspeare's, and some parts are little inferior to his very finest +passages. Palamon has been vanquished, and he and his friends are to +undergo execution of the sentence to which the laws of the combat +subjected them. The depth of the interest is now fixed on these +unfortunate knights, and a fine spirit of resigned melancholy inspires +the scene in which they pass to their deaths.[52:2] + +(_Enter Palamon and his knights, pinioned; jailor, executioner, and + guard._) + + _Palamon._ There's many a man alive that hath outlived + The love of the people; yea, in the self-same state + [53:1]Stands many a father with his child; some com|fort + We have by so considering. We expire,-- + And not without men's pity;--to live still, + Have their good wishes. We prevent + [53:2]The loathsome misery of age, beguile + The gout and rheum, that in lag hours attend + For grey approachers. We come towards the gods + Young and unwarped, not halting under crimes + Many and stale; that sure shall please the gods + [53:3]Sooner than such, to give us nectar with | them,-- + For we are more clear spir|its!|... + + _2 Knight._ Let us bid farewell; + And with our patience anger tottering for|tune, + Who at her certain'st reels. + + _3 Knight._ Come, who begins? + + _Palamon._ Even he that led you to this banquet shall + Taste to you all.... + + . . . . . + + Adieu, and let my life be now as short + As my leave-taking. (_Lies on the block._) + +If we were in a situation to give due effect to the supernatural part of +the story, the miserable end of Palamon would affect us with a mingled +sense of pity and indignation. He has been promised success by the +divinity whom he adored, and yet he lies vanquished with the uplifted +axe glittering above his head. Both the drama and Chaucer's poem assume +the existence of such feelings on our part, and hasten to remove the +cause of them. [Sidenote: Chaucer's celestial agency to work out the +plot.] A way is devised for reconciling the contending oracles; and the +catastrophe which effects that end, is, in the old poet, anxiously +prepared by celestial agency.[53:4] Arcite has got the victory in the +field, as his warlike divinity had promised him; and an evil spirit is +raised for the purpose of bringing about his death, that the votary of +the Queen of Love may be allowed to enjoy the gentler meed which his +protectress had pledged herself to bestow. These supernal intrigues are, +in the play, no more than hinted at in the way of metaphor. + +A cry is heard for delay of the execution; Perithous rushes in, ascends +the scaffold, and, raising Palamon from the block, announces the +approaching death of Arcite, with nearly the same circumstances as in +the poem. While he rode townwards from the lists, on a black steed which +had been the gift of Emily, he had been thrown with violence, and now +lies on the brink of dissolution. [Sidenote: Description of Arcite's +mishap is bad, but Shakspere's.] The speech which describes Arcite's +misadven[54:1]ture has been much noticed by the critics, and by some +lavishly praised. With deference, I think it decidedly bad, but +undeniably the work of Shakspeare. [Sidenote: Over-labourd, involvd, +hard, yet Shakspere's, with his words and thoughts.] The whole manner of +it is that of some of his long and over-laboured descriptions. It is +full of illustration, infelicitous but not weak; in involvement of +sentence and hardness of phrase no passage in the play comes so close to +him; and there are traceable in one or two instances, not only his +words, but the trains of thought in which he indulges elsewhere, +especially the description of the horse, which closely resembles some +spirited passages in the Venus and Adonis. It is needless to quote any +part of this speech. + +[Sidenote: End of the _Two Noble Kinsmen_.] + +The after-part of this scene, which ends the play, contains some +forcible and lofty reflection, and the language is exceedingly vigorous +and weighty. In Chaucer, the feelings of the dying Arcite are expressed +at much length, and very touchingly; in the play, they are dispatched +shortly, and the attention continued on Palamon, who had been its +previous object:-- + +(_Enter Theseus, Hippolita, Emilia, Arcite in a chair._) + + _Palamon._ Oh, miserable end of our alli|ance! + The gods are mighty!--Arcite, if thy heart, + Thy worthy, manly heart, be yet unbro|ken, + Give me thy last words. I am Palamon, + One that yet loves thee dying. + + _Arcite._ Take Emil|ia, + And with her all the world's joy. Reach thy hand: + Farewell! I've told my last hour. I was false, + But never treacherous: Forgive me, cous|in! + One kiss from fair Emilia!--'Tis done: + Take her.--I die! + + _Palamon._ Thy brave soul seek Elys|ium! + + . . . . . + +[Sidenote: Shakspere.] + + _Theseus._ _His part is played; and, though it were too short, + He did it well._ Your day is lengthened, and + The blissful dew of heaven does arrose | you: + The powerful Venus well hath graced her al|tar, + And given you your love; our master Mars + Hath vouched his oracle, and to Arcite gave + The grace of the contention: So the de|ities + Have shewed due justice.--Bear this hence. + + _Palamon._ Oh, cous|in! + That we should things desire, which do cost | us + [55:1]The loss of our desire! that nought could buy + Dear love, but loss of dear love! + +[Sidenote: Shakspere.] + + _Theseus._ ... Palamon! + Your kinsman hath confessed, the right o' the la|dy + Did lie in you: for you first saw her, and + Even then proclaimed your fancy. He restord | her + As your stolen jewel, and desired your spir|it + To send him hence forgiven! The gods my jus|tice + Take from my hand, and they themselves become + The executioners. Lead your lady off: + And call your lovers from the stage of death, + Whom I adopt my friends.--A day or two + Let us look sadly, and give grace unto + The funeral of Arcite; in whose end, + The visages of bridegrooms we'll put on, + And smile with Palamon; for whom, an hour, + But one hour since, I was as dearly sor|ry, + As glad of Arcite; and am now as glad, + As for him sorry.--Oh, you _heavenly charm|ers_! + What things you make of us! For what we lack, + We laugh; for what we have, are sorry still; + Are children in some kind.--Let us be thank|ful + For that which is, and with you leave disputes + That are above our question.--Let us go off, + And bear us like the time! (_Exeunt omnes._) + +You have now before you an outline of the subject of this highly +poetical drama, with specimens which may convey some notion of the +manner in which the plan is executed. But detached extracts cannot +furnish materials for a just decision as to the part which Shakspeare +may have taken even in writing the scenes from which the quotations are +given. If I addressed myself to one previously unacquainted with this +drama, I should be compelled to request an attentive study of it from +beginning to end. [Sidenote: Two authors wrote _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.] +Such a perusal would convince the most sceptical mind that two authors +were concerned in the work; it would be perceived that certain scenes +are distinguished by certain prominent characters, while others present +different and dissimilar features. [Sidenote: Fletcher was one.] If we +are to assume that Fletcher wrote parts of the play, we must admit that +many parts of it were written by another person, and we have only to +inquire who that other was. [Sidenote: The other was Shakspere.] Without +recurring to any external presump[56:1]tions whatever, I think there is +enough in most or all of the parts which are evidently not Fletcher's, +to appropriate them to the great poet whose name, in this instance, +tradition has associated with his. Even in the passages which have been +here selected, you cannot but have traced Shakspeare's hand frequently +and unequivocally. The introductory views which I slightly suggested to +your recollection, may have furnished some rules of judgment, and +cleared away some obstacles from the path; and where I have failed in +bringing out distinctly the real points of difference, your own acute +judgment and delicate taste must have enabled you to draw instinctively +those inferences which I have attempted to reach by systematic +deduction. + +[Sidenote: Fletcher easily distinguisht from Shakspere.] + +In truth, a question of this sort is infinitely more easy of decision +where Fletcher is the author against whose claims Shakspeare's are to be +balanced, than it could be if the poet's supposed assistant were any +other ancient English dramatist. If a drama were presented to us, where, +as in some of Shakspeare's received works, he had taken up the ruder +sketch of an older poet, and exerted his skill in altering and enlarging +it, it would be very difficult indeed to discriminate between the +original and his additions. [Sidenote: Shakspere's Histories: their +fault.] He has often, especially in his earlier works, and in his +histories more particularly, much of that exaggeration of ideas, and +that strained and labouring force of expression, which marked the +Hercules-like infancy of the English Drama. [Sidenote: Marlowe.] +[Sidenote: Marlowe's magnificence like Shakspere sometimes.] The +stateliness with which Marlowe paces the tragic stage, and the +magnificence of the train of solemn shews which attend him like the +captives in a Roman procession of triumph, bear no distant likeness to +the shape which Shakspeare's genius assumes in its most lofty moods. And +with those also who followed the latter, or trode side by side with him, +he has many points of resemblance or identity. [Sidenote: Jonson.] +[Sidenote: Massinger.] [Sidenote: Middleton.] Jonson has his seriousness +of views, his singleness of purpose, his weight of style, and his +"fulness and frequency of sentence;" Massinger has his comprehension of +thought, giving birth to an involved and parenthetical mode of +construction; and Middleton, if he possesses few of his other qualities, +has much of his precision and straightforward earnestness of +expression.[57:1] In examining isolated passages with the view of +ascertaining whether they were written by Shakspeare or by any of those +other [57:2]poets, we should frequently have no ground of decision but +the insecure and narrow one of comparative excellence. [Sidenote: +Fletcher and Shakspere contrasted.] [Sidenote: They differ in _kind_.] +When Fletcher is Shakspeare's only competitor, we are very seldom driven +to adopt so doubtful a footing; we are not compelled to reason from +difference in _degree_, because we are sensible of a striking +dissimilarity in _kind_. [Sidenote: Fletcher.] [Sidenote: Shakspere.] +[Sidenote: Fletcher.] [Sidenote: Shakspere.] [Sidenote: Fletcher.] +[Sidenote: Shakspere.] [Sidenote: Fletcher.] [Sidenote: Shakspere.] We +observe ease and elegance of expression opposed to energy and +quaintness; brevity is met by dilation, and the obscurity which results +from hurry of conception has to be compared with the vagueness +proceeding from indistinctness of ideas; lowness, narrowness, and +poverty of thought, are contrasted with elevation, richness, and +comprehension: on the one hand is an intellect barely active enough to +seek the true elements of the poetical, and on the other a mind which, +seeing those finer relations at a glance, darts off in the wantonness of +its luxuriant strength to discover qualities with which poetry is but +ill fitted to deal; in the one poet we behold that comparative +feebleness of fancy which willingly stoops to the correction of taste, +and in the other, that warmth, splendour, and quickness of imagination, +which flows on like the burning rivers from a volcano, quenching all +paler lights in its spreading radiance, and destroying every barrier +which would impede or direct its devouring course. You will remark that +certain passages or scenes in this play are attributed to Shakspeare, +not because they are superior to Fletcher's tone or manner, but because +they are unlike it. [Sidenote: Shakspere's work unlike Fletcher's.] It +may be true that most of these possess higher excellence than Fletcher +could have easily reached; but this is merely an extrinsic circumstance, +and it is not upon it that the judgment is founded. [Sidenote: Test +between Shakspere and Fletcher.] These passages are recognized as +Shakspeare's, not from possessing in a higher degree those qualities in +which Fletcher's merit lies, but from exhibiting other qualities in +which he is partially or wholly wanting, and which even singly, and +still more when combined, constitute a style and manner opposite to his. + +Indeed, since Fletcher is acknowledged to stand immeasurably lower than +Shakspeare, the excellence of some passages might perhaps in itself be +no unfair reason for refusing to the inferior poet the credit of their +execution. But an analysis of the means by which the excellence is +produced places us beyond [58:1]the necessity of resorting, in the first +instance at least, to this general ground of decision, which must, +however, be taken into view, when we have been able to assume a position +which entitles us to take advantage of it. [Sidenote: Shakspere's +external qualities in the _Two Noble Kinsmen_.] [Sidenote: Are they +imitations?] In many parts of this play we find those external qualities +which form Shakspeare's distinguishing characteristics, not separately +and singly present, but combined most fully and most intimately; and it +is consequently indisputable that we have, either Shakspeare's own +writing, or a faithful and successful imitation of it. [Sidenote: +Imitation of Shakspere difficult.] It is not easy to perceive with +perfect clearness why it is that imitation of Shakspeare is peculiarly +difficult; but every one is convinced that it is far more so than in the +case of any other poet whatever. [Sidenote: Why it is so.] The range and +opposition of his qualities, the rarity and loftiness of the most +remarkable of these, and still more, the coincident operation of his +most dissimilar powers, make it next to impossible, even in short and +isolated passages, to produce an imitation which shall be mistaken for +his original composition: but there is not even a possibility of success +in an attempt to carry on such an imitation of him throughout many +entire scenes. [Sidenote: Given, his outside dress, ask whether his +spirit is inside it.] Where the external qualities of a work resemble +his, the question of his authorship can be determined in no other way +than by inquiring whether the essential elements, and the spirit which +animates the whole, are his also; and that inquiry is not one for +logical argument; it can be answered only by reflection on the effect +which the work produces on our own minds. [Sidenote: The poetic sense +alone can judge.] The dullest eye can discriminate the free motions of +the living frame from the convulsed writhings which art may excite in +the senseless corpse; the nightly traveller easily distinguishes between +the red and earthy twinkling of the distant cottage-lamp, and the cold +white gleam of the star which rises beyond it;--and with equal quickness +and equal certainty the poetical sense can decide whether the living and +ethereal principle of poetry is present, or only its corporeal clothing, +its dead and inert resemblance. [Sidenote: By the emotion it creates, +must Shakspere's work be judgd.] The emotion which poetry necessarily +awakens in minds qualified as the subjects of its working, is the only +evidence of its presence, and the measure and index of its strength. If +we can read with coldness and indifference the drama which we are now +examining, we must pronounce it to [59:1]be no more than a skilful +imitation of Shakspeare; but we must acknowledge it as an original if +the heart burns and the fancy expands under its influence,--if we feel +that the poetical and dramatic spirit breathes through all,--and if the +mind bows down involuntarily before the powers of whose presence it is +secretly but convincingly sensible. [Sidenote: And his part of _The Two +Noble Kinsmen_ witnesses for itself.] I cannot have a doubt that the +parts of this work which I have pointed out as Shakspeare's will the +more firmly endure this trial, the more closely and seriously they are +revolved and studied. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere's share of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.] + +The portions of the drama which, on such principles as these, have been +set down as Shakspeare's, compose a large part of its bulk, and embrace +most of the material circumstances of the story. [Sidenote: Act I.] +[Sidenote: Act III. sc. i.] [Sidenote: Act V. except scene iv.] They +are,--the First Act wholly,--one scene out of six in the Third,--and the +whole of the Fifth Act, (a very long one,) except one unimportant scene. +These parts are not of equal excellence, but the grounds on which a +decision as to their authorship rests, seem to be almost equally strong +with regard to each. + +We have as yet been considering these scenes as so many separate pieces +of poetry; and they are valuable even in that light, not less from their +intrinsic merit than as being the work of our greatest poet. If it be +true merely that Shakspeare has here executed some portions of a plan +which another had previously fixed on and sketched, the drama demands +our zealous study, and is entitled to a place among Shakspeare's works. +An examination of separate details cannot enable us to form any more +specific opinion as to the part which he may have taken in its +composition. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Is the design of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ Shakspere's?] + +But there is a further inquiry on which we are bound to enter, whatever +its result may be,--whether it shall allow us to attribute to Shakspeare +a wider influence over the work, or compel us to limit his claim to the +subsidiary authorship, which only we have yet been able to establish for +him. We must now endeavour to trace the design of the work to its +origin; we must look on the parts in their relation to the whole, and +investigate the qualities and character of that whole which the parts +compose. Such an analysis is essential to an appreciation of the real +merit of the drama, and suggests views of far-greater inte[60:1]rest +than any which offer themselves in the examination of isolated passages. +And it is likewise necessary as a part of the inquiry which is our +object, not merely because it may tend to strengthen or modify the +decisions which we have already formed, but because it will allow us to +determine other important questions which we have had no opportunity of +treating. [Sidenote: Yes, it is.] It will justify us, if I mistake not, +in pronouncing with some confidence, that this drama owes to Shakspeare +much more than the composition of a few scenes,--that he was the poet +who chose the story, and arranged the leading particulars of the method +in which it is handled. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: The tragic-comic underplot not Shakspere's.] + +Before we enter the extensive and interesting field of inquiry thus +opened to us, it may be well that I explain the reasons which seem +distinctly to exclude from Shakspeare's part of the work one +considerable portion of it,--the whole of the tragi-comic under-plot. I +have as yet assigned no ground of rejection, but inferiority in the +execution; but there are other reasons, which, when combined with that, +remove all uncertainty. Slightly as this subordinate story has been +described, enough has been said to point out remarkable imitations of +Shakspeare, both in incident and character. [Sidenote: Fletcher's +borrowings in the underplot, from Shakspere.] The insane maiden is a +copy of Ophelia, with features from 'Lear'; the comments of the +physician on her sickness of the mind, are borrowed in conception from +'Macbeth'; the character of the fantastic schoolmaster is a repetition +of the pedagogue in 'Love's Labour Lost'; and the exhibition of the +clowns which he directs, resemble scenes both in that play and in the +'Midsummer Night's Dream.' All these circumstances together, or even one +of them by itself, are enough to destroy the notion of Shakspeare's +authorship. The likeness which is found elsewhere to Shakspeare's style, +(and which is far closer in those other parts of the play than it is +here,) is an argument, as I have shewn, in favour of his authorship; the +likeness here in character and incident is even a stronger one against +it. [Sidenote: Shakspere doesn't imitate himself in character as he does +in style.] In neither of these latter particulars does Shakspeare +imitate himself as he does in style. In some of his earlier plays indeed +we may trace the rude outlines of characters, chiefly comic, which he +was afterwards able to develope with [61:1]greater distinctness and more +striking features; but though the likeness, in those cases, were nearer +and more frequent than it is, the transition from the rude block to the +finished sculpture is the allowable and natural progress of genius. +[Sidenote: He doesn't reproduce a figure badly.] The bare reproduction +of a figure or a scene already drawn with clearness and success, stands +in a very different situation; and, even if it should be nearly equal to +the original in actual merit, it creates a strong presumption of its +being no more than the artifice of an imitator. Where the inferiority of +the execution is palpable, the doubt is raised into certainty. +[Sidenote: Shakspere could not have turned his Ophelia into the Jailer's +daughter of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.] In the case before us, it is +impossible to receive the idea of Shakspeare sitting down in cold blood +to imitate the Ophelia, and to transfer all the tenderness of her +situation to a new drama of a far lower tone, in which also it should +occupy only a subordinate station. He could not have been guilty of +this; he neither needed it, nor would have done it of free will; and, +therefore, I could not have believed it to be his, though the execution +had been far better than it is. [Sidenote: This Daughter is an utter +failure.] But the inferiority is decided; the imitation produces neither +vigour of style nor depth of feeling; in short, Shakspeare, if he had +made the attempt, could not have failed so utterly. [Sidenote: The +Schoolmaster is not Shakspere's.] The comic parts are only subservient +to the serious portion of this story; and if Shakspeare did not write +the leading part, he was still less likely to have written the +accessory; but, besides, the imitation is equally unsuccessful; and the +original of the schoolmaster is said to have been a personal portrait, +which was very unlikely to have been repeated by the first painter after +the freshness of the jest was gone. I have been the more anxious to +place in its true light the question as to this part of the drama, +because, on its seeming likeness to Shakspeare, Steevens founds an +ingenious hypothesis, by which he endeavours to account for the origin +of the tradition as to Shakspeare's concern in the play. That this is a +designed imitation of Shakspeare is abundantly clear; and it is not +difficult to see why it is an unsuccessful one. [Sidenote: Fletcher's +designd imitation of Shakspere.] Fletcher possesses much humour, but it +is of a cast very unlike Shakspeare's, and very unfit to harmonise with +it, or to qualify him for the imitation which he has here attempted. Why +he made the attempt, we shall be able to discover only when the freaks +of caprice, and of poetical caprice, [62:1]the wildest of all, shall be +fully analyzed and fully accounted for. [Sidenote: The underplot not +Shakspere's.] All that I have to prove is, that this portion of the work +is not, and could not have been, Shakspeare's. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Shakspere's choice of subjects for his Plays.] + +I have said that I consider as his, both the selection of the plot, and +much of its arrangement. [Sidenote: He differs from his chief +contemporaries and successors.] As to the Choice of the Subject, my +position is, that in this particular, Shakspeare stands in unequivocal +opposition to Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and those others, +contemporary with him, or a little his juniors, with whom his name is +generally associated. I can easily shew that this opposition to the +newer school in the choice of stories exists in Shakspeare individually; +and this would be enough for my purpose; but I will go a little farther +than I am called on, because I conceive him to share that opposition +with some other poets, and because views open to us from this +circumstance, which are of some value for the right understanding of his +characteristics. [Sidenote: He belongs to the old school.] I say then, +that in the choice of subjects particularly, as well as in other +features, Shakspeare belongs to a school older than that of Fletcher, +and radically different from it. [Sidenote: Shakspere took old stories; +new poets new ones.] The principle of the contrariety in the choice of +subjects between the older and newer schools, is this: the older poets +usually prefer stories with which their audience must have been +previously familiar; the newer poets avoid such known subjects, and +attempt to create an adventitious interest for their pieces, by +appealing to the passion of curiosity, and feeding it with novelty of +incident. [Sidenote: Early Plays founded on] The early writers may have +adopted their rule of choice from a distrust in their own skill: but +they are more likely to have been influenced by reflecting on the +inexperience of their audience in theatrical exhibitions. [Sidenote: +History and Tales of Chivalry.] By insisting on this quality in their +plots, they hampered themselves much in the choice of them; and the +subjects which offered themselves to the older among them, were mainly +confined to two classes, history and the chivalrous tales, being the +only two cycles of story with which, about the time of Shakspeare's +birth, any general familiarity could be presumed. That such were the +favourite themes of the infant English drama is abundantly clear, even +from the lists of old lost dramas which have been preserved to us. +[Sidenote: Classical fables and foreign novels.] By the time when +Shakspeare stepped into [63:1]the arena, the zeal for translation had +increased the stock of popular knowledge by the addition of the +classical fables and the foreign modern novels; and his immediate +precursors, some of whom were men of much learning, had especially +availed themselves of the former class of plots. [Sidenote: Plots of +Shakspere's successors.] If, passing over Shakspeare, we glance at the +plots of Fletcher, Jonson, or others of the same period, we find, among +a great diversity of means, a search for novelty universally set on +foot. Jonson is fond of inventing his plots; Beaumont and Fletcher +usually borrow theirs; but neither by the former nor the latter were +stories chosen which were familiar to the people, nor in any instance +perhaps do they condescend to use plots which had been previously +written on. [Sidenote: Beaumont and Fletcher's.] Where Beaumont and +Fletcher do avail themselves of common tales, they artfully combine them +with others, and receive assistance from complexity of adventure in +keeping their uniform purpose in view. [Sidenote: Historical Drama grew +obsolete.] The historical drama was regarded by the new school as a rude +and obsolete form; and there are scarcely half a dozen instances in +which any writer of that age, but Shakspeare, adopted it later than +1600. Historical subjects indeed wanted the coveted charm, as did also +the Romantic and the Classical Tales, both of which shared in the +neglect with which the Chronicles were treated. [Sidenote: Plots were +got from foreign novels and invention.] The Foreign Novels, and stories +partly borrowed from them, or wholly invented, were almost the sole +subjects of the newer drama, which has always the air of addressing +itself to hearers possessing greater dramatic experience and more +extended information than those who were in the view of the older +writers. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere belongs to the older class of dramatists.] + +Shakspeare, in point of time, stood between these two classes: does he +decidedly belong to either, or shew a leaning, and to which? He +unequivocally belongs to the older class; or rather, the opposition to +the newer writers assumes in him a far more decided shape than in any of +his immediate forerunners; for in them are found numerous exceptions to +the rule, in him scarcely one. He returns, in fact, to more than one of +the principles of the old school, which had begun in his time to fall +into disuse. [Sidenote: Compare his Histories, narrative chorus long +rymed passages,] The external form of some of his plays, particularly +his histories, is quite in the old taste. The narrative chorus is the +most observable remnant of antiquity; and the long rhymed pas[64:1]sages +frequent in his earlier works, are abundant in the older writers: Peele +uses them through whole scenes, and Marlowe likewise to excess. +[Sidenote: jesters, and choice of known stories.] His continual +introduction of those conventional characters, his favourite jesters, is +another point of resemblance to the ruder stage. [Sidenote: He's of the +school of Lodge and Greene.] And his choice of subjects, when combined +with the peculiarities of economy just noticed, as well as others, +clearly appropriates him to the school of Lodge, Greene, and those elder +writers who have left few works and fewer names. His Historical Plays +are the perfection of the old school, the only valuable specimens of +that class which it has produced, and the latest instance in which its +example was followed; and he has had recourse to the Classical story for +such subjects as approached most nearly to the nature of his English +Chronicles. [Sidenote: Of new novel stories,] And you must take especial +note, that, even in the class of subjects in which he seems to coincide +with the new school,--I mean his Plots borrowed from Foreign Novels,--he +assumes no more of conformity than its appearance, while the principle +of contrariety is still retained. [Sidenote: Shakspere chose the most +widely known.] The new writers preferred untranslated novels, and, where +they chose translated ones, disguised them till the features of the +original were lost: Shakspeare not only uses translated tales--(this +indeed from necessity)--and closely adheres to their minutest +circumstances, but in almost every instance he has made choice of those +among them which can be proved to have been most widely known and +esteemed at the time. Most of his plots founded on fanciful subjects, +whether derived from novels or other sources, can be shewn to have been +previously familiar to the people. [Sidenote: 6 Plays of Shakspere +founded on well-known stories.] The story of 'Measure for Measure' had +been previously told; that of 'As you Like It', he might have had from +either of two popular collections of tales; the fable of 'Much Ado about +Nothing' seems to have been widely spread, and those of 'All's Well that +Ends Well', and 'The Winter's Tale'; 'Romeo and Juliet' appears in at +least one collection of English novels, and in a poem which enjoyed much +popularity. These are sufficient as examples; but a still more +remarkable circumstance is this. [Sidenote: 12 on subjects of former +Plays.] In repeated instances, about twelve in all, Shakspeare has +chosen subjects on which plays had been previously written; nay more, on +the sub[65:1]jects which he has so re-written, he has produced some of +his best dramas, and one his very masterpiece. 'Julius Caesar' belongs to +this list; '_Lear_' does so likewise; and 'HAMLET.' Is not that a +singular fact? I can use it at present only as a most valuable proof +that the view which I take is an accurate one. But Shakspeare has also, +oftener than once, applied to the chivalrous class of subjects, which +was exclusively peculiar to the older school. Its tales indeed bore a +strong likeness to his own most esteemed subjects of study; for, amidst +all their extravagancies and inconsistencies, the Gothic romances and +poems, the older of them at all events, professed in form to be +chronicles of fact, and in principle to assume historical truth as their +groundwork. [Sidenote: 3 on Classical subjects turned into romances.] +'Pericles' is founded on one of the most popular romances of the middle +ages, which had been also versified by Gower, the second father of the +English poetical school. The characters in 'The Midsummer Night's Dream' +are classical, but the costume is strictly Gothic, and shews that it was +through the medium of romance that he drew the knowledge of them; and +the 'Troilus and Cressida' presents another classical and chivalrous +subject, which Chaucer had handled at great length, also invested with +the richness of the romantic garb and decoration. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere chose the story of the _Two Noble Kinsmen_.] + +Fletcher and Shakspeare being thus opposed to each other in their choice +of subjects, what qualities are there in the Plot of The Two Noble +Kinsmen, which may appropriate the choice of it to either? In the first +place, it is a chivalrous subject,--a classical story which had already +been told in the Gothic style. [Sidenote: Fletcher would neither have +chosen Chaucer's classical story for his plot,] The nature of the story +then could have been no recommendation of it to Fletcher. He has not a +single other subject of the sort; he has even written one play in +ridicule of chivalrous observances; and the sarcasm of that humorous +piece[66:1], both in the general design and the particular references, +is aimed solely at the prose romances of knight-errantry, a diseased and +posthumous off-shoot from the parent-root, whose legitimate and ancient +offspring, the metrical chronicles and tales, he seems neither to have +known nor cared for. [Sidenote: nor an old story,] Secondly, this story +must have been unacceptable to Fletcher, because it was a fa[66:2]miliar +one in England. This fact is perhaps sufficiently proved by its being +the subject of that animated and admirable poem of Chaucer, which Dryden +has pronounced little inferior to the Iliad or Aeneid; but it is still +more distinctly shewn by a third fact, which completely clenches the +argument against Fletcher's choice of it as a subject. [Sidenote: nor +one on which two 16th-century plays had been written.] No fewer than two +plays had been written on this story before the end of the sixteenth +century; the earlier of the two, the Palamon and Arcite of Edwards, +acted in 1566, and printed in 1585, and another play called by the same +name, brought on the stage in 1594.[66:3] + +[Sidenote: Fletcher didn't choose the subject of _The Two Noble +Kinsmen_.] + +It is thus, I think, proved almost to demonstration, that the person who +chose this subject was not Fletcher; and what has been already said, +even without the specific evidence of individual passages, creates a +strong probability that the choice was made by Shakspeare rather than by +any other dramatic poet of his time. If the question be merely one +between the two writers,--if, assuming it to be proved that Shakspeare +wrote parts of the play, we have only to ask which of the two it was +that chose the subject,--we can surely be at no loss to decide. +[Sidenote: Shakspere's study of chivalrous poetry.] But the presumption +in Shakspeare's favour may be elevated almost into absolute certainty, +while, at the same time, some important qualities of his will be +illustrated,--if we inquire what was the real extent to which he +attached himself to the study of the chivalrous poetry, from which this +subject is taken, and the influence which that study was likely to have +had, and did actually exercise on his writings. + +If, being told that a dramatic poet was born in England in the latter +half of the sixteenth century, whose studies, for all effectual benefit +which they could have afforded him, were limited to his own tongue, we +were asked to say what course his acquisitions were likely to have +taken, our reply would be ready and unhesitating. English literature was +of narrow extent before the time in question, and, according to the +invariable progress of mental culture, had been evolved first in those +finer branches which issue primarily from the ima[67:1]gination and +affections, and appeal for their effect to the principles in which they +have their source. [Sidenote: Shakspere certain to have first studi'd, +and been influenct by, our old narrative poets,] Poetry had reached a +vigorous youth, history was in its infancy, philosophy had not come into +being. Had the field of study been wider, it was to poetry in an +especial manner that a poet had to betake himself for an experience and +skill in his art, and in the language which was to be its instrument. +And it was almost solely to the narrative poets that Shakspeare had to +appeal for aid and guidance; for preceding writers in the dramatic walk +could teach him little. They could serve as beacons only, and not +examples, and he had to search in other mines for the materials to rear +his palace of thought. [Sidenote: who were of the Gothic school.] But +the English poetical writers who preceded him are all more or less +impressed with the seal of the Gothic school, and the most noted among +them belong to it essentially. Chaucer, Lydgate, and Gower, to more than +one of whom Shakspeare is materially indebted, were the heads of a sect +whose subjects and form of composition were varied only as the various +forms and subjects of the foreign romantic writers. [Sidenote: Britain +the mother of much fine chivalrous poetry.] The rhymed romance, the +metrical vision, the sustained allegorical narrative or dialogue, were +but differing results of the same principle, and forms too of its +original development; for Britain was the mother and nurse of much of +the finest chivalrous poetry, as well as the scene where some of its +most fascinating tales are laid. It is true that English poetry before +the time of Elizabeth presents but few distinguished names; but there is +a world of unappropriated treasures of the chivalrous class of poetry, +which are still the delight of those who possess the key to their secret +chambers, and were the archetypes of the earlier poets of that prolific +age. It is important to recollect, that among the poets who adorn that +epoch, the narrative preceded the dramatic. [Sidenote: Spenser belongs +to the Gothic school.] Spenser belongs, in every view, to the romantic +or Gothic school; the heroic Mort d'Arthur was the rule of his poetical +faith; and it was that school, headed by him, which Shakspeare, on +commencing his course and choosing his path, found in possession of all +the popularity of the day. [Sidenote: Shakspere too.] Every thing proves +that he allowed himself to be guided by the prevailing taste. His early +poems belong in design to Spenser's school, and their style is +[68:1]often imitative of his. In his dramas he has many points of +resemblance to the older chivalrous poets, besides his occasional +adoption of their subjects. His respect for Gower is shewn by the +repeated introduction of his shade as the speaker in his choruses[68:2]; +and particular allusions and images, borrowed from Gothic usages and +chivalrous facts, occur at the first blush to the recollection of every +one. But there is a more widely spread influence than all this. +[Sidenote: Shakspere's mistakes and] Many of his most faulty +peculiarities are directly drawn from this source, and his innumerable +misrepresentations or mistakes are not so truly the fruit of his own +ignorance, as the necessary qualities of the class of poets to which he +belonged, shared with him by some of the greatest poetical names which +modern Europe can cite. [Sidenote: anomalies, those of his Gothic +school.] In this situation are indeed almost all the irregularities and +anomalies which have furnished the unbelievers in the divinity of his +genius with objects of contemptuous abuse;--his creation of geographies +wholly fictitious,--his anachronisms in facts and customs,--his +misstatements of historical detail,--his dukes and kings in +republics,--his harbours in the heart of continents, and his journies +over land to remote islands,--his heathenism in Christian lands and +times, and his bishops, and priests, and masses, _in partibus +infidelium_. [Sidenote: Chaucer and Spenser had the like.] We may +censure him for these irregularities if we will; but it is incumbent on +us to recollect that Chaucer and Spenser must bear the same sentence: +and if the faults are considered so weighty as to shut out from our +notice the works in which they are found, the early literature, not of +our own country only, but of the whole of continental Europe, must be +thrown aside as one mass of unworthy fable. + +In truth, Shakspeare, in throwing himself on a style of thought and a +track of study which exposed him to such errors, did no more than retire +towards those principles which not only were the sources of poetry in +his own country, but are the fountains from which, in every nation, her +first draughts of inspiration are drunk. [Sidenote: Poetry is first a +falsifying of History,] Poetry in its earlier stages is universally +neither more nor less than a falsifying of history. The decoration of +the Real is an exertion of the fancy which marks an age elder than the +creation of the purely Ideal; it is an effort more successful than the +[69:1]attempt which follows it, and the wholly fictitious has always the +appearance of being resorted to from necessity rather than choice. +Cathay is an older and fitter seat of romance than Utopia; and the +historical paladins and soldans are characters more poetical than the +creatures of pure imagination who displaced them. [Sidenote: and has +Ignorance as her ally.] [Sidenote: Her errors depend on the kind of her +small knowledge.] But this walk of poetry is one in which she never can +permanently linger; her citadel indeed is real existence partially +comprehended, but she is unable to defend the fortress after knowledge +has begun to sap its outworks; she needs ignorance for her ally while +she occupies the domain of history, and when that companion deserts her, +she unwillingly retreats on the Possible and Invented[69:2], where she +has no enemy to contest her possession of the ground.--While however she +does continue in her older haunt, she must sometimes wander out of her +imperfectly defined path, and her errors will depend, both in kind and +in amount, on the amount and kind of her knowledge. That the qualities +of poetical literature, in every nation, are dependent on the number and +species of those experiences from which in each particular case the art +receives its materials, is indeed too evident to need illustration; but +some curious inferences are deducible from an application of this truth +to the contrast which is found between the poetical literature of modern +Europe, and that older school which has been called the classical. +[Sidenote: And hence come distinctive qualities of the Greek and Modern +school.] The inherent excellencies of the ancient Greek poetry may yet +remain to be accounted for from other causes; but this one principle was +adequate to produce the most distinguishing qualities of the pagan +literature, while it is distinctly the very same principle, acting in +different circumstances, which has given birth to the opposite character +of the modern school of invention. [Sidenote: Middle-Age knowledge of +vast extent, but never thorough.] During the period which witnessed the +gradual rise of that anomalous fabric of poetry, from whose prostrate +fragments the perfected literature of Christian Europe has been erected, +knowledge (I am uttering no paradox) was of vast extent; it embraced +many different ages and many distant regions: but it was also +universally imperfect; much was known in part, but nothing wholly. +[Sidenote: So it invested History with incongruous attributes.] Hence +proceeded the specific difference of that widely-spread form of poetical +invention, namely, the super-abundance and incongruity of attributes +with which [70:1]it invested historical truth; and it is not very +difficult to discover why many of those attributes have never thoroughly +amalgamated with the principal mass. The various sources from which the +materials of the romantic poetry were drawn, present themselves at once +to every mind. [Sidenote: Early modern poets invented a national and +original literature,] By the peculiar state of their knowledge, and the +rude activity of spirit which was its consequence, the early poets of +modern Europe were prepared to invent a species of literature which +should be strictly national in its subjects, and in its essential parts +wholly original. That new branch was exposed, however, to modifications +of various kinds. One temptation to introduce foreign elements, by which +its authors were assailed, was singularly strong, and can scarcely in +any other instance have operated on a literature arising in +circumstances otherwise so favourable to originality, as those in which +they were placed. [Sidenote: but, knowing classics badly,] That +temptation was offered by the imperfect acquaintance with the classical +authors which formed one part of their scattered and ill-reconciled +knowledge. [Sidenote: grafted on their own works excrescences from +classical literature,] They were influenced by this cause, as they could +not have failed to be; and the representations of feelings, habits, and +thought, which they borrowed from this source, being in their nature +dissimilar to the constituent parts of the system to which they were +adjected, never could have harmonised with these, and, under any +circumstances, must have always continued to be excrescences. Other +elements of the new system were naturally neither evil in themselves, +nor inconsistent with the principles with which it was attempted to +combine them, but have assumed the aspect of deformity and incongruity +solely from incidental and extraneous causes. [Sidenote: and on History, +fictions and mistakes.] The fictions and mistakes which the ignorance of +those fathers of our modern poetical learning superinduced on history +ancient and modern, and on every thing which related to the then +existing state either of the material world or of human society, were +allowable ornaments, so long as knowledge afterwards acquired did not +stamp on them the brand of falsehood; but the moment that the falsity +was exposed, and the charm of possible existence broken, those adjuncts +lost their empire over the imagination, and with it their appearance of +fitness as materials for mental activity. [Sidenote: Supernaturalism of +the Romantic Poets only believable by superstition.] In supernatural +invention, the early romantic poets [71:1]were still more unfortunate; +for when they endeavoured to colour with imaginary hues the awful +outlines of the true faith, they attempted a conjunction of holiness +with impurity, an identification of the spirit with the flesh, a +marriage between the living and the dead; the purer essence revolted +from the union, and the human mind could acquiesce in imagining it only +while it remained bound in the darkness and fetters of religious +corruption. [Sidenote: Characteristics of early Greek poetry.] Turn now +to the Grecian poetry, and mark how closely the same principles have +operated on it, although the difference of the circumstances has made +the result different. [Sidenote: its tendency to orientalism;] The first +Grecian inventors were, it is true, protected in a great measure from +the influence of any foreign literature, simply by the ignorant rudeness +of those ages of the world during which their task was performed; and +even here I have no doubt that an influence not very dissimilar did +actually operate; for there seems to be good reason for supposing that, +if we had before us the wild songs of such bards as the Thracian +Orpheus, or the old Musaeus, we should find them strongly marked by that +orientalism towards which the later Greek poetry which remains to us +betrays so continual a tendency. In other respects, the spirit in which +the Greeks formed their poetical system was identical with our own. +[Sidenote: its falsification of History,] Their elder poets falsified +historical facts, invented or disguised historical characters, and +framed erroneous representations of the past in time and the distant in +place, no otherwise than did the romantic fabulists; and the classical +inventors continued to have sufficient faith placed in their fictions, +merely because knowledge advanced too slowly to allow detection of their +falsity so long as the literature of the nation continued to exist for +it as a present possession. [Sidenote: its treatment of Religion.] With +their religious belief, again, every attractive invention harmonised, +and every splendid addition was readily incorporated as a consistent +part; where all was false, a falsity the more was unperceived or +uncensured, and where sublimity and beauty were almost the only objects +sought, they were gladly accepted from whatever quarter or in whatever +shape they came. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere, for his stories and form, left his own time, and +delighted in the past.] + +So far as these considerations seem to elucidate the principles on which +Shakspeare proceeded, they do so by exhibiting him as withdrawing from +his own times as to his subjects and the ex[72:1]ternal form of his +works, though not as to their animating spirit,--as placing himself +delightedly amidst the rude greatness of older poetry and past ages, and +viewing life and nature from their covert, as if he had sat within a +solitary and ruined aboriginal temple, and looked out upon the valley +and the mountains from among those broken and massive columns, whose +aspect gave majesty and solemnity to the landscape which was beheld +through their moss-grown vistas. [Sidenote: Thence his faults.] So far +as these views have any force as a defence of faults detected in the +great poet, that defence is founded on the consideration that the errors +were unavoidable consequences of the system which produced so much that +was admirable, and that they were shared with him by those whom he +followed in his selection of subjects and form of writing. So far as all +that has been said on this head has a close application to the main +subject of our inquiry, its sum is briefly this. [Sidenote: Summary of +reasons why Shakspere chose the plot of _Two Noble Kinsmen_.] [Sidenote: +He went back to the school of Chaucer and Spenser; which Milton, after, +sought.] [Sidenote: Shakspere's love of old poems.] An argument arises +in favour of Shakspeare's choice of the plot of this drama, from its +general qualities, as a familiar and favourite story, and one of a class +which had been frequently used by the older dramatists; that argument +receives additional strength from the fact of this individual subject +having been previously treated in a dramatic form; and it is rendered +almost impregnable when we consider the subject particularly as a +chivalrous story, and as belonging and leading us back to that native +school to which Shakspeare, though in certain respects infected by the +exotic taste of the age, yet in essentials belonged,--the wilderness in +which Chaucer had opened up the well-head of poetry, where Gower and +Lydgate had drunk freely, and Sackville had more sparingly dipped his +brow,--the paradise through which Spenser had joyfully wandered with the +heavenly Una,--the patriarchal forest into which afterwards Milton +loved to retire from his lamp-lighted chamber, to sleep at the foot +of some huge over-hanging oak, and dream of mailed knights riding by +his resting-place, or fairy choirs dancing on the green hillocks +around,--the enchanted rose garden where Shakspeare himself gathered +those garlands of beauty, which he has described as adding glory even to +his thoughts of love. + + [73:1]When in the chronicle of wasted time + I see description of the fairest wights, + _And beauty making beautiful old ryme_ + In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights; + Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, + Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, + I see this antique pen would have expresst + Even such a beauty as you master now. + + _Sonnet 106._ + +In the Arrangement of the Plot also there are circumstances which point +emphatically to Shakspeare's agency. [Sidenote: Shakspere seen in the +simplicity of the plot.] One strong argument is furnished by a very +prominent quality of the plot as it is managed,--its simplicity. +[Sidenote: He relied on the execution of the parts, not the complication +of the whole.] This quality is like him, as being in this case the +result of a close adherence to the original story; but it is also like +him in itself, since the arrangement of all his works indicates the +operation of a principle tending to produce it, namely, a reliance for +dramatic effect on the execution of the parts rather than on the +mechanical perfection or complication of the whole. His contemporaries, +in their own several ways, bestowed extreme care on their plots. +[Sidenote: Beaumont and Fletcher's plots depend more on surprise and +incident.] With Beaumont and Fletcher, hurry, surprise, and rapid and +romantic revolution of incident are the main object, rather than tragic +strength or even stage effect: their plays would furnish materials for +extended novels, and are often borrowed from such without concentration +or omission. Shakspeare's comparative poverty of plot is not approached +by them even in their serious plays, and the lively stir of their comic +adventures is the farthest from it imaginable. [Sidenote: B. Jonson's +plots admirably constructed.] Jonson's plots are constructed most +elaborately and admirably: one or two of them are without equal for +skill of conduct and pertinency and connection of parts. This cautious +and industrious poet never confided in his own capability of making up +for feebleness of plan by the force of individual passages; and his +distrust was well judged, for the abstract coldness of his mind betrays +itself in every page of his dialogue, and his scenes need all their +beauty of outline to conceal the frigidity of their filling up. Ford and +Massinger agree much in their choice of plots, both preferring incidents +of a powerfully tragic nature: but their modes of management are widely +different. [Sidenote: Ford's gloomy plots softened by tenderness and +regret.] Ford, on the gloom of whose stories glimpses [74:1]of pathos +fall like moonlight, delights, when he comes to work up the details of +his tragic plan, in softening it down into the most dissolving +tenderness; at his bidding tears flow in situations where we listen +rather to hear Agony shriek, or look to behold Terror freezing into +stone; his emotion is not the rising vehemence of present passion, but +the anguish, subsiding into regret, which lingers when suffering is +past, and suggests ideas of eventual resignation and repose;--his verse +is like the voice of a child weeping itself to sleep. [Sidenote: +Massinger's stage effect by situations, and tragic design.] [Sidenote: +His coldness of expression.] Massinger crowds adventure upon adventure, +and his situations are wound up to the height of unmixed horror; for +stage effect and tragic intensity, some of them, as for example the last +scene in 'The Unnatural Combat', and the celebrated one in 'The Duke of +Milan', are unequalled in the modern drama, and worthy of the sternness +of the antique; but it is in the design alone that the tragic spirit +works; the colouring of the details is cold as monumental marble; the +pomp of lofty eloquence apes the simplicity of grief, or silence is left +to interpret alike for sorrow or despair. To the carefulness in +outlining the plan and devising situations, thus shewn in different +ways, Shakspeare's manner is perfectly alien. [Sidenote: Shakspere's +great aim to bring out character and feeling.] He never exhausts himself +in framing his plots, but reserves his strength for the great aim which +he had before him, the evolution of human character and passion, a +result which he relied on his own power to produce from any plot however +naked. He does not want variety of adventure in many of his plays; but +he has it only where his novel or chronicle gave it to him: he does not +reject it when it is offered, but does not make the smallest exertion to +search for it. [Sidenote: Shakspere's plays with no plot:] Some of his +plays, especially his comedies, have actually no plot, and those, too, +the very dramas in which his genius has gained some of its most mighty +victories. [Sidenote: _The Tempest._] 'The Tempest' is an instance: what +is there in it? A ship's company are driven by wreck upon an island; +they find an old man there who had been injured by certain of them, and +a reconciliation takes place. [Sidenote: _As You Like It._] The only +action of 'As You Like It' is pedestrian; if the characters had been +placed in the forest in the first scene, the drama would have been then +as ripe for its catastrophe as it is in the last. [Sidenote: _Midsummer +Night's Dream_ has no plot.] 'The Midsummer Night's Dream' relates a +midnight stroll in a wood; and the unreal na[75:1]ture of the incidents +is playfully indicated in its name. It is from no stronger materials +than those three frail threads of narrative that our poet has spun +unrivalled tissues of novel thought and divine fancy. And, as in his +lighter works he is careless of variety of adventure, so in his tragic +plays he does not seek to heap horrors or griefs one upon another in +devising the arrangement of his plots. [Sidenote: In the plots of +Shakspere's Tragedies, details and character are the main things.] In +this latter class of his works, the skill and force with which the +interest is woven out of the details of story and elements of character, +make it difficult for us to see how far it is that we are indebted to +these for the power which the scene exerts over us. But with a little +reflection we are able to discover, that there is scarcely one drama of +his, in which, from the same materials, situations could not have been +formed, which should have possessed in their mere outline a tenfold +amount of interest and tragic effect to those which Shakspeare has +presented to us. [Sidenote: He could have made more striking effect out +of _Hamlet_, Acts IV. & V. 4.] 'Hamlet' offers, especially in the two +last acts, some remarkable proofs of his indifference to the means which +he held in his hands for increasing the tragic interest of his +situations, and of the boldness with which he threw himself on his own +resources for the creation of the most intense effect out of the +slenderest outline. [Sidenote: _Othello_, Act III.] But no example can +shew more strikingly his independence of tragic situation, and his power +of concocting dramatic power out of the most meagre elements of story, +than the third act of the Othello. It contains no more than the +development and triumph of the devilish design which was afterwards to +issue in murder and remorse; and other writers would have treated it in +no other style than as necessary to prepare the way for the harrowing +conclusion. In the Moor's dialogues with Iago, the act of vengeance, +ever and anon sternly contemplated, and darkening all with its horror, +is yet but one ingredient in the misery of the tale. [Sidenote: So in +the end of _Lear_,] These scenes are a tragedy in themselves, the story +of the most hideous revolution in a noble nature; and their catastrophe +of wretchedness is complete when the tumult of doubt sinks into +resolved and desolate conviction,--when the Moor dashes Desdemona from +him, and rushes out in uncontrollable agony.--Read also the conclusion +of Lear, and learn the same lesson from the economy of that most +touching scene. [Sidenote: all is left clear for the one group, the +father and his dead child.] The horrors which have gathered so thickly +[76:1]throughout the last act, are carefully removed to the background, +and free room is left for the sorrowful groupe on which every eye is +turned. The situation is simple in the extreme; but how tragically +moving are the internal convulsions for the representation of which the +poet has worthily husbanded his force! Lear enters with frantic cries, +bearing the body of his dead daughter in his arms; he alternates between +agitating doubts and wishing unbelief of her death, and piteously +experiments on the lifeless corpse; he bends over her with the dotage of +an old man's affection, and calls to mind the soft lowness of her voice, +till he fancies he can hear its murmurs. Then succeeds the dreadful +torpor of despairing insanity, during which he receives the most cruel +tidings with apathy, or replies to them with wild incoherence; and the +heart flows forth at the close with its last burst of love, only to +break in the vehemence of its emotion,--commencing with the tenderness +of regret, swelling into choking grief, and at last, when the eye +catches the tokens of mortality in the dead, snapping the chords of life +in a paroxysm of agonised horror. + + Oh, thou wilt come no more; + Never, never, never, never, never! + --Pray you, undo this button: Thank you, Sir.-- + Do you see this?--_Look on her--look_--HER LIPS! + _Look there! Look there!_ + +The application here of the differences thus pointed out is easy enough. +Fletcher either would not have chosen so bare a story, or he would have +treated it in another guise. [Sidenote: Incidents of _The Two Noble +Kinsmen_ story] The incidents which constitute the story are neither +many nor highly wrought: they are only the capture of the two +knights,--their becoming enamoured of the lady,--the combat which was to +decide their title to her,--and the death of Arcite after it. And no +complexity of minor adventures is inserted to disturb the simplicity so +presented. [Sidenote: wouldn't have suited Fletcher.] In all this there +is nothing which Fletcher could have found sufficient to maintain that +continuity and stretch of interest which he always thought necessary. +[Sidenote: He'd have added to 'em.] He would have invented accessory +circumstances, he would have produced new characters, or thrust the less +important person[77:1]ages who now fill the stage, further into the +foreground, and more constantly into action: the one simple and +inartificial story which we have, possessing none of his mercurial +activity of motion, and scarcely exciting a feeling of curiosity, would +have been transformed into a complication of intrigues, amidst which the +figures who occupy the centre of the piece as it stands, would have been +only individuals sharing their importance with others, and scarcely +allowed room enough to make their features at all distinguishable. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere's handling seen in certain scenes of _The Two Noble +Kinsmen_.] + +In the management of particular scenes of this play, likewise, certain +circumstances are observable, which, separately, seem to go a certain +length in establishing Shakspeare's claim to the arrangement, and have +considerable force when taken together. [Sidenote: Act I. scene ii. +design'd by Shakspere.] The second scene of the first act would appear +to have been sketched by him rather than Fletcher, from its containing +no activity of incident, and serving no obvious purpose but the +development of the character and situation of the two princes; a mode of +preparation not at all practised by Fletcher. [Sidenote: Act I. scene +iii. also. And] Neither does any consequence flow from the beautiful +scene immediately following; a circumstance which points out Shakspeare +as having arranged the scene, and would strengthen the evidence of his +having written the dialogue, if that required any corroboration. +[Sidenote: Act V. scenes i. ii. iii. [? Emilia with the pictures.]] The +bareness and undiversified iteration of situation in the first three +scenes of the last act form one presumption against the devising of +those scenes by Fletcher. [Sidenote: Act V. scene v. also designd by +Shakspere.] The economy of the fifth scene of that act, in which Emilia, +left alone on the stage, listens to the noise of the combat, is also, to +me, strongly indicative of Shakspeare. The contrivance is unusual, but +extremely well imagined. I do not recollect an instance in Fletcher +bearing the smallest likeness to it, or founded on any principles at all +analogous to that which is here called into operation. In Shakspeare, I +think we may, in more than one drama, discover something which might +have given the germ of it. [Sidenote: Shakspere's expedients for +avoiding spectacles; in] He has not only in his historical plays again +and again regretted the insufficiency of the means possessed by his +stage, or any other, for the representation of such spectacles; but in +several of those plays he has devised expedients for avoiding them. In +'Henry V.' we have the battle of Azincour; but the only encounter of +[78:1]the opposite parties is that of Pistol and the luckless Signor +Dew. [Sidenote: _1 Henry IV._,] In 'the first part of Henry IV.' he has +shewn an unwillingness to risk the effect even of a single combat; for +in the last scene of that play, where prince Henry engages Hotspur, the +spectator's attention is distracted from the fight between them, by the +entrance of Douglas, and his attack on the prudent Falstaff. [Sidenote: +_Richard II._,] In 'Richard II.' the lists are exhibited for the duel of +Bolingbroke and Norfolk, which is inartificially broken off at the very +last instant by the mandate of the king. [Sidenote: Emilia in _Two N. +K._ I. v., like Lady Macbeth in II. ii. of _Macbeth_.] But a more deeply +marked likeness to the spirit in which the scene in 'The Two Noble +Kinsmen' is arranged, meets us in Lady Macbeth watching and listening +while her husband perpetrates the murder, like a bad angel which delays +its flight only till it be assured that the whispered temptation has +done its work. And in this combat scene, even the ancient and artless +expedient used, of relating important events by messengers brought in +for that sole end, and having no part in the action, may be noticed as +belonging to an older form of the drama than Fletcher's, and as being +very frequently practised by Shakspeare himself. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: The motives of the play of _The Two N. K._] + +In quitting our cursory examination of the qualities which distinguish +the mechanical arrangement of the play, we may advert to the mode in +which those influences are conceived which give motion to the incidents +of the story, and regulate its progress. [Sidenote: Dramatic art +defin'd.] The dramatic art is a representation of human character in +action; and action in human life is prompted by passion, which the other +powers of the mind serve only to guide, to modify, or to quell. In the +conception of the passions which are chiefly operative in this drama, +there seems to be much that is characteristic of a greater poet than +Fletcher. [Sidenote: In _The Two N. K._ the moving passions are Love and +Jealousy.] In the first place, the passions which primarily originate +the action of the piece are simple; they are Love and Jealousy; the +purest and most disinterested form of the one, and the noblest and most +generous which could be chosen for the other. [Sidenote: This conception +is Shakspere's.] The conception is Shakspeare's in its loftiness and +magnanimity; and it is his also as being a direct appeal to common +sympathies, modified but slightly by partial or fugitive views of +nature. [Sidenote: The keeping close to the leading motives, is +Shakspere's doing.] But it also resembles him in the singleness and +coherence of design with [79:1]which the idea is seized and followed +out. It cannot be necessary that I should specifically exemplify the +closeness with which those ruling passions are brought to bear on the +leading circumstances of the story from first to last. And it is almost +equally superfluous to remind you, how far any such adherence to that +unity of impulse, operates as evidence in a question between the two +poets whom we have here to compare. [Sidenote: Fletcher's inability to +work a character out, to keep one passion always in the front.] +Fletcher, in common with other poets of all ranks inferior to the +highest, is unable to preserve any one form of passion or of character +skilfully in the foreground: he may seem occasionally to have proposed +to himself the prosecution of such an end, but he either degenerates +into the exhibition of a few over-wrought dramatic contrasts, or loses +his way altogether amidst the complicated adventures with which he +incumbers his stories. [Sidenote: Shakspere's definite purpose and +keeping to it.] This inability to keep sight of an uniform design, is in +truth one striking argument of inferiority; and the clearness with which +Shakspeare conceives a definite purpose, and the fixedness with which he +pursues it, go very far to unravel the great secret of his power. +[Sidenote: His relying on the emotion he puts into his characters.] I +have already pointed out to you, perhaps without necessity, wherein it +is that his strength of passion consists; that it is not in the +incidents of his fable, but in his mode of treating the incidents; that +he will not rely on mere vigour or skill of outline in his +stage-grouping, for that influence which he is conscious of being always +able to acquire more worthily, by the beauty and emotion which he +breathes into the organic formation of the living statuary of the scene; +that he refuses to sacrifice to the meretricious attraction of strained +situations or entangled incidents, the internal and self-supporting +strength of his historical pictures of the heart, or the unflinching +accuracy of his demonstrations of the intellectual anatomy. [Sidenote: +Shakspere's unity of purpose, seen in his conception, and his carrying +this out.] In a similar way you will look for his unity of purpose, not +in the mechanical economy of his plots, but in the elementary conception +of his characters, and in his developement of the principles of passion +under whose suggestions those characters act. [Sidenote: Shakspere's +conception of character, and method of developing it.] He chooses as the +subject of his delineation some mightily and truly conceived +impersonation of human attributes, inconsistent it may be in itself, +but faithful to its prototype as being inconsistent according to the +rules which guide inconsistency in our enigmati[80:1]cal mental +constitution; for the exhibition of the character so imagined he devises +some chain of events by which its internal springs of action may be +brought into play; and he traces the motion and results of those +spiritual impulses with an undeviating steadiness of design, which turns +aside neither to raise curiosity nor to gratify a craving for any other +mean excitement. Some singular instances of Shakspeare's fine judgment +in clinging to one great design, are furnished by the 'Othello.' +[Sidenote: Desdemona's murder compard with Annabella's (by Ford).] The +death of Desdemona has been compared with the murder of Annabella, a +scene (evidently drawn from it) in a drama of Ford's on a story which +makes the flesh creep. [Sidenote: Ford's above Shakspere's in pathos.] +Some have pronounced Ford's scene superior in pathos to Shakspeare's: I +think it is decidedly so. The tender mournfulness of the language and +few images is exquisite, and the sweet sad monotonous melody of the +versification is indescribably affecting. Is it from weakness that +Shakspeare has not given to the death of his gentle lady an equally +strong impress of pathos? No. He was not indeed susceptible of the +feminine abandonment of Ford; but he was equal to a manly tone of +feeling, fitted to excite a truer sympathy. [Sidenote: Why? Because of +Shakspere's self-restraint.] He has refused to stretch the chords of +feeling to the utmost in favour of Desdemona; and his refusal has a +design and meaning in it. [Sidenote: The mind of Othello is the centre +of Shakspere's play,] There is anguish in the scene, and the most utter +yielding to overpowering sorrow; but it is the Moor who feels those +emotions, and it is the exhibition of his mind which is the leading end +of this scene, as of the rest of the drama. [Sidenote: and the pathos of +Desdemona's death must be kept down.] The suffering lady is but an +inferior actor in the scene; her situation is brought out with perfect +skill and genuine tenderness, so far as it is consistent with the first +object and illustrative of it; but its expression is arrested at the +point where its further developement would have marred the effect of the +scene as a whole, and broken in on its pervading spirit. Ford had no +such aim in view; and the very scene of his which is so beautiful in +itself, loses almost all its force when regarded as a part of the play +in which it is inserted. + +These principles of Shakspeare's could be traced as influencing the +drama of the 'Two Noble Kinsmen,' even if there were nothing farther to +shew their effect than what has been already [81:1]noticed. But their +power is displayed still more admirably in a second quality in the mode +of conception, less open to notice, but breathing actively through all. +There is skill in the mental machinery which gives motion to the story; +but there is even greater art in the application of a hidden influence, +which controls the action of the moving power, and equalizes its +effects. [Sidenote: Shakspere's art in subduing all _The Two Noble +Kinsmen_ to one Friendship.] That secret principle is Friendship, the +operation of which is shewn most distinctly in the Kinsmen, guiding +every part of their behaviour except where their mutual claim to +Emilia's love comes into operation, never extinct even there, though its +effect be sometimes suspended, and awakening on the approach of Arcite's +death, with a warmth which is natural as well as touching. [Sidenote: +Love of Friends the leading idea of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.] But this +feeling has a farther working: Love of Friends is in truth the leading +idea of the piece: the whole drama is one sacrifice on the altar of one +of the holiest influences which affect the mind of man. Palamon and +Arcite are the first who bow down before the shrine, but Theseus and +Perithous follow, and Emilia and her sister do homage likewise. +[Sidenote: The harmony of its parts, an idea beyond Fletcher.] This +singular harmony of parts was an idea perfectly beyond Fletcher's reach; +and the execution of it was equally unfit for his attempting. The +discrimination, the delicate relief, with which the different shades of +the affection are elaborated, is inimitable. The love of the Princesses +does not issue in action; it is a placid feeling, which gladly +contemplates its own likeness in others, or turns back with memory to +the vanished hours of childhood: with Theseus and his friend, the +passion is exhibited dimly, as longing for exertion, but not gifted with +opportunity; and in the Kinsmen, it bursts out into full activity, +quelling all but the one omnipotent passion, and tempering and purifying +even it. With this exception, you will not look for much of Shakspeare's +skill in delineating character. [Sidenote: Not much of Shakspere's +characterization in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.] The features of the two +Princes are aptly enough distinguished; but neither in them, nor in any +of the others, is there an approach to his higher efforts. You will +recollect that in his acknowledged works those finer and deeper pryings +into character have place only in few instances; and that the greater +number of his dramas depend for their effect chiefly on other causes, +some of which are energetic in this very play. + +[82:1]While you successively inspected particular passages in this +play, your attention was necessarily called both to the character of its +imaginative portions, and to the tone of reflection which is so +frequently assumed in it. [Sidenote: Whose is the ruling temper of _The +Two Noble Kinsmen_?] The drama having been now put entirely before you, +I shall wish you to ponder its ruling temper as a whole, and to +determine whether that temper is Fletcher's, or belongs to a more +thoughtful, inquisitive, and solemn mind. [Sidenote: Seek in it the mind +of its author.] When you institute such a reconsideration, I shall be +desirous that you contemplate the internal spirit of the work from a +loftier and more commanding station than that which you formerly +occupied; and I shall crave you to view its elements of thought and +feeling less as the qualities of a literary work, than as the signs and +results of the mental constitution of its author. [Sidenote: The duty of +our reverence for Shakspere, the Star of Poets, being intelligent.] I +cannot regard as altogether foreign to our leading purpose any inquiry +which may hold out the promise of illustrating the characteristics of +Shakspeare even slightly, and of teaching us to mingle a more active +discernment in the reverence with which we look up to the Star of Poets +from the common level of our unendowed humanity. You will therefore have +the patience to accompany me in the suggestion of some queries as to the +character of his mode of thinking, and the way in which his reflective +spirit and his poetical qualities of mind are combined and influence +each other. We may be able to perceive the more distinctly the real +character both of his intellect and his poetical faculty, if you will +consent that our investigation shall set out from a point which you may +be inclined to consider somewhat more remote than is altogether +necessary. [Sidenote: We'll treat 1. the true functions of Poetry, 2. +its true province.] It is to be desired that we should have clearly in +our view, first, the true functions of the poetical faculty, and, +secondly, the province in poetical invention which legitimately belongs +to the imagination, properly so called. Sound conclusions on both these +points are indispensable to sound criticism on individual specimens of +the poetical art; and when we attempt to reason on particular cases, +without having those conclusions placed prominently in view at the +outset, the vagueness of ordinary language makes us constantly liable to +lose sight of their true grounds and distinctions. The laying down of +such principles at the institution of an inquiry into the poetical +character of a great [82:2]poet, is therefore in no degree less useful, +than the inculcating of familiar truths is in the instructions of +religious and moral teachers; the end in each of the cases being, not +the establishing of new principles, but the placing of known and +admitted ones in an aspect which shall render them influential; and the +necessity in each, arising from the danger which exists lest the +principles, acknowledged in the abstract, should in practice be wholly +disregarded. + +[Sidenote: Contrast of the Arts of Poetry and Design, in Lessing's +_Laocoon_.] + +We can in no way discover the real character and objects of the Poetical +Art so easily as by contrasting it with the Arts of Design; and the +materials for such a comparison are afforded by the Laocoon of Lessing. +[Sidenote: The Greeks subordinated Expression to Beauty.] The principles +established in that admirable essay will scarcely be now disputed, and +may be fairly enough summed up in the following manner.[83:1]--A study +of the Grecian works of art convinces us, that "among the ancients +Beauty was the presiding law of those arts which are occupied with +Form;" that, to that supreme object, the Greek artists sacrificed every +collateral end which might be inconsistent with it; and that, in +particular, they expressed the external signs of mental commotion and +bodily suffering, to no farther extent than that which allowed Beauty to +be completely preserved. [Sidenote: And all Design must do the same, +because] Now, that this subordination of Expression to Beauty is a +fundamental principle of art, and not a mere accidental quality of +Grecian art individually, is proved by considering the peculiar +constitution and mechanical necessities of art. Its representations are +confined to a single instant of time; and that one circumstance imposes +on it two limitations, which necessarily produce the characteristic +quality of the Grecian works. [Sidenote: 1. the expression must be +caught before the highest passion is attaind;] First, "the expression +must never be selected from what may be called the _acme_ or +transcendent point of the action;" and that because, the power of the +arts of design being confined to the arresting of a single point in the +developement of an action, it is indispensable that they should select a +point which is in the highest degree significant, and most fully excites +the imagination; a condition [83:2]which is fulfilled only by those +points in an action in which the action moves onward, and the passion +which prompts it increases; and which is not fulfilled in any degree by +the highest stage of the passion and the completion of the action. +[Sidenote: 2. because the expression must not be that of a momentary +feeling.] [Sidenote: But Poetry is not bound by the limits of the Fine +Arts.] [Sidenote: It can seize passion at its height.] Secondly, a +limitation is imposed as to the choice of the proper point in the onward +progress of the action: for art invests with a motionless and unchanging +permanence the point of action which it selects; and consequently any +appearance which essentially possesses the character of suddenness and +evanescence is unfit to be its subject, since the mind cannot readily +conceive such transitory appearances as stiffened into that monumental +stability.--Since it is by the limitation of the Fine Arts to the +representation of a single instant of time that the two limitations in +point of expression are imposed, and since Poetry is not subject to that +mechanical limitation, but can describe successively every stage of an +action, and every phasis of a passion, it follows that this latter art +is not fettered by the limitation in expression, which is consequent on +the physical limitation of the other; and hence the exhibition of +passion in its height is as allowable in poetry as it is inadmissible in +the arts of design. [Sidenote: Beauty is but one of its many resources.] +And since the whole range and the whole strength of human thought, +action, and passion, are thus left open to the poet as subjects of his +representation, it follows likewise, that Beauty "can never be more than +one amongst many resources, (and those the slightest,) by which he has +it in his power to engage our interest for his characters." + +It will be remarked, that the purport of Lessing's reasoning, so far as +he has in express terms carried it, is no more than to demonstrate the +important truth, that the Fine Arts are confined by certain limits to +which Poetry is not subject. His elucidation of the principles of poetry +is purely incidental and negative. His reasoning seems however +necessarily to infer certain further consequences, the examination of +which has a tendency to cast additional light on the true end and +character of the poetical art: and it is for this reason rather than +from any difficulty lying in the way of those implied results, that I +wish now to direct your notice to their nature, and the grounds on which +[84:1]their soundness rests. [Sidenote: Design must represent Form of +permanent feelings.] Lessing's second canon does not assume the arts of +design as pursuing any further end than their original and obvious one, +the Representation of Form: it simply directs that only those +appearances of form shall be represented which admit of being conceived +as permanent. [Sidenote: The object of Art, a true representation of the +Beautiful.] And as the feelings which art desires to awaken are +pleasurable, and as forms, considered merely _as_ forms, give pleasure +only when they are beautiful, art would thus be regarded as proposing +for its object nothing beyond a Representation of the Beautiful, and +Verisimilitude in that representation. The first rule of limitation +however implies a great deal more: it looks to forms, not as such, but +as tokens significant of certain qualities not inherent in their own +nature: for the quality which it requires to be possessed by works of +art, is a capability of exciting the imagination to frame for itself +representations of human action and passion; and in this view, those +feelings which the qualities of form considered as such are calculated +to arouse, are no more than an accidental part of the impression which +the representation makes. It appears, therefore, that art _may_ pursue +two different ends,--the excitement of the feeling which Beauty +inspires, and the excitement of the feeling which has its root in human +Sympathy; and the question at once occurs,--Is each of these purposes of +art equally a part of its original and proper province? [Sidenote: May +it also try to excite feelings inconsistent with the Beautiful, as +Poetry does?] Or, since it is sufficiently clear that the effects which +the last-mentioned canon contemplates as produced by the fine arts, are +effects which are also produced by poetry, (whether its sole effects or +not, it is immaterial to this question to settle,) the question may be +put in another form:--Is it to be believed, that the arts of design, +which have admittedly for one purpose the reproduction of the Beautiful +in form, have also as an equally proper and original purpose the framing +of representations of form calculated to affect the mind with feelings +different from the feeling of the Beautiful,--these feelings being +identically the same with those which are at least the most obvious +effects of poetry? [Sidenote: No.] Reasons crowd in upon the mind, +evincing that the question must be answered by an unqualified negative. +The production of poetical effects cannot have been an _original_ +purpose of the fine arts, which certainly were brought into existence +[85:1]by the love of Beauty; and the production of those effects is +plainly also an exertion in which the fine arts overstep their limits, +and wander into the region which belongs of right to the poetical art, +and to it alone. [Sidenote: Expression in Painting and Sculpture is a +borrowd quality.] That Expression in painting and sculpture is an +extraneous and borrowed quality, is made almost undeniably evident by +this one consideration, that it requires, as we have seen, to be always +kept subdued, and allowed to enter only partially into the composition +of the work. [Sidenote: That Fine Art is admired most when it has most +expression, only shows that] And, again, it is no argument against that +position, to say that the strongest and most general interest and +admiration are excited by those works of art in which expression is +permitted to go the utmost length which the physical limits of the art +permit. [Sidenote: Poetry stirs men more than pure Art does.] For the +universality of this preference only proves, that the feelings of our +common humanity influence more minds than does the pure love of the +beautiful; and the greater strength of the feeling produced by +expression, only evinces that poetry, which works its effect by means of +that quality, is a more powerful engine than the sister-art for stirring +up the depths of our nature. And it may be quite true that those works +of art which confine themselves to the attempt to move the calmer +feeling due to Beauty, are the truest to their own nature and proper +aim, although an endeavour to unite with that the attainment of higher +purposes may be admissible, and in some instances highly successful. I +apprehend that although an art should propose as its main end the +production of one particular effect, it does not follow that its effects +should be confined to the production of that alone, if its physical +conditions permit the partial pursuit of others. [Sidenote: Fine Art +_may_ borrow from its loftier sister, Poetry,] More especially, if an +art should admit of uniting, to a certain extent, with its own peculiar +and legitimate end, the prosecution of another loftier than the first, +surely we might expect to find such an art occasionally taking advantage +of the license; and yet its doing so would not compel us to say, that +both these are its proper and original purposes. [Sidenote: but Classic +Art very rarely does, and rightly.] And the fact is, that the attempt is +seldom made; for very few works of classical art exist in which the +union of the two principles is tried, the end sought being usually the +representation of beauty, and that alone. In no way, however, can the +radical difference and opposition between the two qualities be evinced +so satisfactorily as by a comparison [86:1]of the effects which they +severally produce on the mind. [Sidenote: Expression belongs to Poetry. +It excites.] [Sidenote: Poetry stirs men.] Expression, the poetical +element, gives rise to a peculiar activity of the soul, a certain +species of reflective emotion, which, it is true, is easily +distinguishable from underived passion, and does not necessarily produce +like it a tendency to action, but which yet essentially partakes of the +character of mental commotion, and is opposed to the idea of mental +inactivity. [Sidenote: Beauty soothes them.] The feeling which Beauty +awakens is of a character entirely opposite. The contemplation of the +Beautiful begets an inclination to repose, a stillness and luxurious +absorption of every mental faculty: thought is dormant, and even +sensation is scarcely followed by the perception which is its usual +consequence. [Sidenote: Look at the Venus de Medici.] It is with this +softness and relaxation of mind that we are inspired when we look on +such works as the Venus de Medici, in which beauty is sole and supreme, +and expression is permitted to be no farther present than as it is +necessary as an indication of the internal influence of soul, that so +those sympathies may be awakened, without whose partial action even +beauty itself possesses no power. [Sidenote: When ancient art stirs you, +as in the] If we turn to those few works of ancient art, in which the +opposite element is admitted, we are conscious that the soul is +differently acted upon, and we may be able by reflection to disentangle +the ravelled threads of feeling, and distinguish the mental changes +which flow upon and through each other like the successive waves on the +sea-beach. [Sidenote: Apollo and] In contemplating the Apollo, for +instance, a feeling akin to the poetical, or rather identical with it, +is awakened by the divine majesty of the statue; and upon the quiet and +self-brooding luxury with which the heart is filled by the perfect +beauty of the youthful outlines, there steals a more fervent emotion +which makes us proud to look on the proud figure, which makes us stand +more erect while we gaze, and imitate involuntarily that godlike +attitude and expression of calm and beautiful disdain. [Sidenote: +Laocoon,] [Sidenote: it is by their having left their own ground, and +taken that of Poetry, Expression.] Or look to the wonderful Laocoon, in +which the abstract feeling of beauty is even more deeply merged in the +human feeling of the pathetic,--that extraordinary groupe, in which +continued meditation arouses more and more actively the emotion of +sympathy, while we view the dark and swimming shadows of the eyes, the +absorbed and motionless agony of the mouth, and the tense torture of the +iron muscles of [87:1]the body. It is impossible to conceive that an art +can propose to itself, as originally and properly its own, two ends so +difficult of reconcilement and so different in the qualities by which +they are brought about. [Sidenote: Lastly, Fine Art appeals to sight.] +[Sidenote: Poetry never does.] Finally, the Plastic Arts offer form +directly to the sense of sight, whereas it is very doubtful whether +poetry can convey, even indirectly, any visual image. [Sidenote: If Fine +Art rightly includes Expression, then it has Beauty too; while Poetry, +which can't express Beauty directly, has to give up part of its +province, Expression, to Art, which can't use it fully.] Consequently, +the result of admitting Expression as a primary and legitimate end of +the arts of form, would be to ascribe to them an innate and underived +capability of presenting directly to the senses both beauty and the wide +circle of human action and feeling; while the genius of Poetry, by her +nature shut out from direct representation of the beautiful, whose +shadows she can evoke only through the agency of associated ideas, would +have even her own kingdom of thought and passion, her power as the great +interpreter of mind, shared with her by a rival, whom the decision would +acknowledge indeed as possessing a right to the divided empire, but who +is disqualified by the nature of her instruments from exercising that +sovereignty to the full. [Sidenote: Poetry rather lends its help to its +narrower ally, Art.] And, on the other hand, by the acknowledgment that +the arts of form are not properly a representation of human action or +human passion, and that when they aim at becoming so, they attempt a +task which is above and beyond their sphere, and in which their success +can never be more than partial, Poetry is exhibited in an august and +noble aspect, as stooping to lend a share in her broad and lofty +dominion to another art of narrower scope, which is so enabled to gain +over the mind an influence of transcending its own unassisted +capacities. + +[Sidenote: The aims of Poetry:] + +If you shall be able to think this excursive disquisition justifiable, +it will be because it insensibly leads us to perceive what truly is the +legitimate and sole end of the Poetical Art, and because it thus clears +the way for one or two elementary propositions regarding the functions +of the Poetical Faculty. [Sidenote: 1. not to represent Beauty to the +eye, but only to the mind.] First, we perceive that poetry does not aim +at the representation of visual beauty. I do not say that beauty may not +form the subject of poetry: my meaning is, that the poet can depict it +poetically in no way except by indicating its effects on the mind. When +poetry mistakingly attempts to represent beauty by its external form, +its failure to affect the mind is signal and complete, and must be +[88:1]so, even supposing it to be possible that the picture should be so +full and accurate that the painter might sketch from it. The reason of +this is perhaps discoverable. [Sidenote: Contrast of the effects of +Beauty and Expression, of Fine Art and Poetry, on the mind.] Such a +description cannot affect the mind with the poetical sentiment, because +it does not represent to the imagination those qualities by which it is +that the poetical effect is produced; and if it were to move the mind +at all, it must be with those feelings which beauty excites when it is +seen corporeally present. It fails to operate even this effect, and why? +Beauty of form affects the mind through the intervention of sense; and +the perception of the sensible qualities of form is followed +instantaneously and necessarily by the pleasurable emotion. [Sidenote: +Beauty gives pleasure, rest, absorption.] This mental process is +involuntary, and the nature of the sentiment excited implies inactivity +and absorption of the mind. [Sidenote: Poetry stirs the Imagination, the +Will, disturbs the passiveness that Beauty produces.] When however the +imagination is called on to combine into a connected whole the scattered +features which words successively present, an effort of the will is +necessary: and the failure in the pleasurable effect appears to be +adequately accounted for (independently of any imperfection in the +result of the combination) by the inconsistency of this degree of mental +activity with the inert frame of mind which is requisite for the actual +contemplation and enjoyment of the beautiful. [Sidenote: It can't +produce an image by sight, but only by association.] When, again, the +poet represents beauty in the method chalked out for him by the nature +of his art, it is quite impossible that he can convey any distinct +visual image; for he represents the poetical qualities by indicating +them as the causes which produce some particular temper or frame of +mind: and as every mind has its distinctive differences of association, +a truly poetical picture is not realised by any two minds with precisely +similar features. [Sidenote: Its effect is opposite to that of Beauty of +Form.] And the mood of mind to which this representation gives birth, is +radically opposite to the other; it is active, sympathetic, and even +reflective: we seem, as it were, to share the feeling with others, to +derive an added delight from witnessing the manner in which they are +affected, or even to have the original passive sentiment of pleasure +entirely swallowed up in that energetic emotion.[89:1] [Sidenote: 2. +Poetry's true subject is Mind, and not external nature,] Secondly, the +true subject of poetry is [90:1]Mind. Its most strictly original purpose +is that of imaging mind _directly_, by the representation of humanity as +acting, thinking, or suffering; it presents images of external nature +only because the weakness of the mind compels it; and it is careful to +represent sensible images solely as they are acted on by mind. +[Sidenote: except as tinged with thought and feeling.] When it makes the +description of external nature its professed end, it in truth does not +represent the sensible objects themselves, but only exhibits certain +modes of thought and feeling, and characterises the sensible forms no +farther than as the causes which produce them. [Sidenote: 3. Poetry is +analytical; it perceives, discriminates.] Thirdly, The most +characteristic function of the poetical faculty is _analytical_; it is +essentially a _perception_, a power of discovery, analysis, and +discrimination. An object having been presented to it by the +imagination, it discovers, and separates from the mass of its qualities, +those of them which are calculated to affect the mind with that emotion +which is the instrumental end of poetry. [Sidenote: Its combinations +depend on its first analysis.] Coincidently with the perception and +discovery of the qualities, it perceives and experiences the peculiar +effect which each particular quality produces; and, lastly, it sets +forth and represents those resulting moods of mind, indicating at the +same time what those qualities of the object are through which they are +excited. Its task of combination is no more than consequent on this +process, and supposes each step of it to have been previously gone +through. [Sidenote: 4. Poetry depends on the power and accuracy of its +perception of the poetical qualities in its materials.] Fourthly, It +follows, (and this is the result which makes the inquiry important,) +that the poetical faculty is measured by the strength and accuracy with +which it perceives the poetical qualities of those objects which the +imagination suggests as its materials, and not by the number of the +ideas so presented. [Sidenote: Of imagination or Imagery.] A +forgetfulness of this truth has occasioned more misapprehension and +[90:2]false criticism than any other error whatever; and we are +continually in danger of the mistake, from the extension of meaning +which use has attached to the word imagination, that term being commonly +employed to designate the poetical faculty. This extended application is +perhaps unavoidable; but it is on that account the more necessary to +guard against the misconception always likely to arise from the original +signification of the word, which we can never discard entirely from the +mind in using it in a secondary sense.--You do not need to be reminded +how completely the history of the poetical art evinces, that these +positions, whether expressly acquiesced in or not, have been invariably +acted on in the judgments which the world has pronounced in particular +cases. [Sidenote: Describing forms by their outsides, is not Poetry.] +[Sidenote: They must be shown as exciting changes of Mind.] The +inadequacy of a representation of forms by their external attributes to +constitute poetical pictures, could be instanced from every bad poem +which has ever been written; and the great truth, that the external +world is exhibited poetically only by being represented as the exciting +cause of mental changes, has been illustrated in no age so singularly as +in our own. [Sidenote: Wordsworth declares that all outward objects can +do this, and become sentient existences.] The writings of Wordsworth in +particular have stretched the principle to the utmost extent which it +can possibly sustain; demanding a belief that all external objects are +poetical, because all can interest the human mind; establishing the +reasonableness of the assumption by the boldest confidence in the +strength and delicacy with which the poetical perception can trace the +qualities which awaken that interest, and the progress of the feeling +itself; and applying the poetical faculty to the transforming of every +object of sense into an energetic, and as it were sentient, existence. +[Sidenote: Mere wealth of imagery is of little worth.] And attention is +especially due to the decision which has always recognized, as the rule +of poetical excellence, the operation of some power independent of mere +wealth of imagination, ranking this latter quality as one of the lowest +merits of poetry. [Sidenote: The greatest poets use the fewest images,] +We are apt to forget that those minds whose conceptions have been the +most strongly and truly poetical, are by no means those whose poetical +ideas have been the most abundant; that an overflow of poetical images +has been coincident with an intense perception of their most efficient +poetical relations only in a few rare instances; and that it is +precisely where the highest elements of the poetical are most active +that [91:1]the imagination is usually found to offer the fewest images +as the materials on which the poetical faculty should work. [Sidenote: +witness Dante, Alfieri.] It is enough to name Dante, or, a still more +singular instance, Alfieri. [Sidenote: Their intensity is their secret.] +In both cases the poetical influence rests on the intensity of the one +simple aspect of grandeur or passion in which a character is presented, +and in both that simplicity is unrelieved and undecorated by any fulness +of imagery.[91:2] + +[Sidenote: Application of these principles to the Drama.] + +These fundamental principles of the poetical art possess a closer +application to Dramatic Poetry than to any other species. [Sidenote: The +Passions are the chief subjects of Poetry.] All poetry being directly or +indirectly a representation of human character; and human character +admitting of appreciation only by an exhibition of its results in +action; and action being prompted by the passionate impulses of the +mind, which its reflective faculties only modify or stay; it follows +that the Passions are the leading subjects of Poetry, which consequently +must be examined in the first instance with a view to its strength and +accuracy as a representation of the working and results of that +department of the mind. The nature of the dramatic art allows this rule +to be applied to it with the greatest strictness. [Sidenote: They work +more alone in the Drama than elsewhere.] The drama is the species which +presents the essential qualities of poetry less mingled with foreign +adjuncts than they are in any other species; and there seems to be a +cause, (independent of its mechanical necessities,) enabling it to +dispense with those decorations which abound in other kinds of poetry. +The acted drama presents its picture of life directly to the senses, and +permits the imagination, without any previous exertion, to proceed at +once to its proper task of forming its own combinations from the +sensible forms thus offered to it; and even when the drama is read, the +office of the imagination in representing to itself the action and the +characters of the piece, is an easy one, and performed without the +necessity of great activity of mind. [Sidenote: In Epic and other poetry +relying only on words, the effort to turn them into a picture hinders +their prompt action.] On the other hand, in the epic, or any other +species of poetry which represents action by [92:1]words, and not by an +imitation of the action itself, the imagination has at first to form, +from the successively presented features of the poetical description, a +picture which shall be the exciting cause of the poetical impression: +this supposes considerable energy of thought, and the necessity of +relief from that exertion seems to have suggested the introduction of +images of external nature and the like, on which the fancy may rest and +disport itself. [Sidenote: Didactic poetry is not true poetry, but +sermons in verse.] Those classes of poetry which are either partially or +wholly didactic, cannot receive a strict application of the principles +of the pure art; because they are not properly poetry, but attempts to +make poetical forms serve purposes which are not poetical. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere again.] + +Our journey has at length conducted us to Shakspeare, of many of whose +peculiar qualities we have been gaining scattered glimpses in our +progress. [Sidenote: He takes to Drama, because it's the noblest and +truest form of Poetry, the likest the mind of man.] We remark him +adopting that species of poetry which, necessarily confined by its +forms, is yet the noblest offspring of the poetical faculty, and the +truest to the purposes of the poetical art, because it is the most +faithful and impressive image of the mind and state of man. [Sidenote: +And there he sits enthrond.] We find him seated like an eastern +sovereign amidst those who have adopted this highest form of poetry; and +we cannot be contented that, in reverentially acknowledging his +worthiness to fill the throne, we should render him only a hasty and +undiscerning homage. [Sidenote: But why?] A discrimination of the +particular qualities by which his sway is mainly supported, is rendered +the more necessary by that extraordinary union of qualities, which has +made him what he is, the unapproached and the unapproachable.--We are +accustomed to lavish commendations on his vast Imagination. [Sidenote: +What does his _Imagination_ mean?] Before we can perceive what rank this +quality of his deserves to hold in an estimate of his character, we must +understand precisely what the quality is which we mean to praise. +[Sidenote: his wealth of imagery?] If the term used denotes merely the +abundance of his illustrative conceptions, it expresses what is a +singular quality, especially as co-existent with so many other +endowments, but useful only as furnishing materials for the use of the +poetical power. [Sidenote: of fancy, of conception?] If the word is +meant to call attention to the strength and delicacy with which his mind +grasps and embodies the poetical relations of those overflowing +conceptions, (still considered simply as illustrative or decorative,) +[93:1]the quality indicated is a rare and valuable gift, and is +especially to be noted in an attempt to trace a likeness to his manner. +[Sidenote: No.] Still however it is but a secondary ground of desert; it +is even imperfectly suited for developement in dramatic dialogue, and it +frequently tempts him to quit the genuine spirit and temper of his +scene. [Sidenote: Does Shakspere's imagination mean the grandeur or +loveliness he has given some of his characters?] If, again, in speaking +of the great poet's imagination, we have regard to the poetical +character of many of his leading conceptions, to the ideal grandeur or +terror of some of his preternatural characters, or even to the romantic +loveliness which he has thrown, like the golden curtains of the +morning, over the youth and love of woman,--we point out a quality which +is admirable in itself, and almost divine in its union with others so +opposite, a quality to which we are glad to turn for repose from the +more severe portions of his works,--but still an excellence which is not +the most marked feature of his character, and which he could want +without losing the essential portion of his identity. [Sidenote: No.] +[Sidenote: We could give up Miranda, Ariel, Juliet, Romeo, and yet leave +the true, the highest Shakspere behind, in Richard, Macbeth, Lear, +Hamlet.] We could conceive, (although the idea is sacrilege to the +genius and the altar of poetry,) we could conceive that 'The Tempest' +had remained unwritten, that Miranda had not made inexperience beautiful +by the spell of innocence and youth, that the hideous slave Caliban had +never scowled and cursed, nor Ariel alighted on the world like a +shooting-star,--we could dismiss alike from our memories the moon-light +forest in which the Fairy Court revel, and the lurid and spectre-peopled +ghastliness of the cave of Hecate,--we could in fancy remove from the +gallery of the poet's art the picture which exhibits the two +self-destroyed lovers lying side by side in the tomb of the +Capulets,--and we could discard from our minds, and hold as never having +been invented by the poet, all which we find in his works possessing a +character similar to these scenes and figures;--and yet we should leave +behind that which would support Shakspeare as having pursued the highest +ends of his art, and as having attained those ends more fully than any +other who ever followed them: Richard would still be his; Macbeth would +think and tremble, and Lear weep and be mad; and Hamlet would still pore +over the riddle of life, and find in death the solution of its mystery. +[Sidenote: These show his Imagination, the force with which he throws +himself into their characters.] If it is to such characters as these +last that we refer when we speak of the poet's power of +imagina[94:1]tion, and if we wish to designate by the word the force +with which he throws himself into the conception of those characters, +then we apprehend truly what the sphere is in which his greatness lies, +although we either describe the whole of a most complicated mental +process by naming a single step of it, or load the name of that one +mental act with a weight of meaning which it is unfit to bear. + +[Sidenote: Shakspere's supremacy lies in his characterization.] + +It is here, in his mode of dealing with human character, that +Shakspeare's supremacy confessedly lies; and the conclusions which we +have reached as to the great purpose of poetry, allow us easily to +perceive how excellence in this department justifies the universal +decision, which places at the summit of poetical art the poet who is +pre-eminently distinguished by it. [Sidenote: Why is his the best?] What +is there in Shakspeare's view of human character which entitles him to +this high praise? [Sidenote: How is he true to Nature and imagination?] +His truth of painting is usually specified as the source of his +strength; in what sense is he true to nature? Is that faithfulness to +nature consistent with any exercise of the imagination in the +representation of character? And how? And again, how does his reflective +temper of mind harmonize with or arise out of the view of human life +which he takes? + +[Sidenote: Poetry (or Drama) represent passions.] + +Poetry, as we have seen, and dramatic poetry more strictly than any +other species, must be judged primarily as a representation of passion +and feeling; and when it is defective as such, it has failed in its +proper end. Its prosecution of that end, however, is subject to two +important limitations. [Sidenote: But 1. it must show human nature +entirely, both its moving and hindering forces; man's mind as well as +his passions; 2. it must do this impressively, must have a high standard +of character.] First, if it is to be in any sense a _true_ +representation of human action, it must represent human nature not +partially, but entirely; it must exhibit not only the moving influences +which produce action, but also the counteracting forces which in real +life always control it. It must be a mirror of the intellectual part of +the human mind, as well as of the passionate. Secondly, if, possessing +the first requisite, truth, it is to be also an _impressive_ +representation, (that is, such a representation as shall effect the ends +of poetical art,) it must set up an ideal and elevated standard to +regulate its choice of the class of intellectual endowment which is to +form the foundation of the characters which it portrays. [Sidenote: Ben +Jonson faild in (2), the other Elizabethans in (1).] We discover the +cause of Jonson's inferiority in his failure in obedience to the latter +of these rules, though he scrupulously complied with [95:1]the first: we +discover the prevailing defect of all the other dramatic writers of that +period, to consist in their neglect even of the first and subsidiary +rule, which involved a complete disregard to the other.--These latter +have, as well as Shakspeare, been proposed as models, from their close +imitation of nature. [Sidenote: Shakspere's contemporaries don't imitate +Nature, they distort it, give Passion, and no Reason.] The merit of +truth to nature belongs to them only in a very confined sense. They +seize one oblique and partial aspect of human character, and represent +it as giving a true and direct view of the whole; they are the poets of +the passions, and no more; they have failed to shadow forth that +control which the calmer principles of our nature always exert over the +active propensities. Their excellence consequently is to be looked for +only in scenes which properly admit the force of unchecked passion, or +of passions conflicting with each other; and in those scenes where the +more thoughtful spirit ought to work, we must be prepared to meet either +exaggeration of feeling or feebleness of thought, either the operation +of an evil principle, or, at best, a defect of the good one. [Sidenote: +They like to show the mind in delirium.] Even in their passionate +scenes, the vigour of the drawing is the merit oftener than the +faithfulness of the portrait; they delight to figure the human mind as +in a state of delirium, with the restraining forces taken off, and the +passions and the imagination boiling, as if the brain were maddened by +opiates or fever. Fierce and exciting visions come across the soul in +such a paroxysm; and in the intensity of its stimulated perceptions, it +gazes down into the abysses of nature, with a profound though transitory +quickness of penetration. It is a high merit to have exhibited those +partial views of nature, or even this exaggerated phasis of the mind; +and the praise is shared by no dramatic school whatever; (for the +qualities of the ancient are different;) but it must not be assumed that +the drama fulfils its highest purposes, by representations so partial, +so distorted, or so disproportioned. [Sidenote: They are poets of +impulse.] As these poets of impulse bestowed no part of their attention +on the intellect in any view, they produced their peculiar effect, such +as it was, without any attempt at that higher task of selection and +elevation in intellectual character for which the universality of views +which they wanted must always serve as the foundation. [Sidenote: Ben +Jonson as broad in aim as Shakspere.] They had accordingly little scope +for the due introduction of reflection in their works; and their turn of +mind inclined them little to [96:1]search for it when it did not +naturally present itself.--Jonson resembled Shakspeare in wideness of +aim: he is most unlike him in the method which he adopted in the pursuit +of his end. [Sidenote: Ben Jonson tried at truth to nature,] The two +stood alone in their age and class, as alone aiming at truth to nature +in any sense; both wished to read each of the opposite sides of the +scroll of human character: but the one read correctly the difficult +writing in which intellectual character is traced, while the other +misapprehended and misinterpreted its meaning, and even allowed the +eagerness with which he perused this perplexing page, to withdraw his +attention from the more easy meaning of the other. [Sidenote: but drew +individuals only, portraits of reality, but no types,] The fault of his +characters as intellectual beings, is that they are individuals and no +more; faithful or grotesque portraits of reality, they are not touched +with that purple light which affords insight into universal relations +and hidden causes. [Sidenote: not poetic creations.] His failure is +shewn by its effect: his characters are not so conceived as to lead the +mind to the comprehension of anything beyond their own individual +peculiarities, or to elevate it into that region of active and +conceptive contemplation into which it is raised by the finest class of +poetry: he exhibited reality as reality, and not in its relation to +possibility; he even diverges into the investigation of causes, instead +of seeing them at a glance, and indicating them by effects; he +anatomised human life, and hung up its dry bones along the walls of his +study. + +In the close obedience which Shakspeare rendered to each of these two +canons, borne in upon his mind by the instantaneous suggestions of his +happy genius, we may discover the origin of his tremendous power. +[Sidenote: Shakspere's power lay in subordinating Fancy and Passion to +Intellect.] To commence at the point where his adherence to the first +and subsidiary rule is most slightly manifested, it is to be noticed, +that his works are marked throughout by a predominance of the qualities +of the understanding over the fancy and the passions. This is not true +of the fundamental conception of the work, nor of the relations by which +his characters are united into the dramatic groupes; in these +particulars the poetical faculty is allowed to work freely: but it is +after the initial steps have been taken under her guidance, that the +rule is committed to the sterner power of intellect. The stir of fancy +often breaks through the restraints which hold it in check; the warmth +of feeling effervesces very unfrequently. [Sidenote: All his characters +have quiet good sense.] [Sidenote: Shakspere's shrewdness in his minor +scenes.] The poet's personages [97:1]are all more or less marked by an +air of quiet sense, which is extremely unusual in poetry, and +incompatible with the unnecessary or frequent display of feeling; and +accordingly, his less important scenes, whether they be gay or serious, +occupied in the business of the drama, or devoted to an exchange of +witty sallies, possess, where they aim at nothing higher, at least a +degree of intellectual shrewdness, which very often savours of worldly +coldness. [Sidenote: His soberness gives force to his passion.] Viewed +merely as increasing the effect of his passionate scenes, this +prevailing sobriety of tone gives him an incalculable advantage: +passion in his works bursts out when it is let loose, like the spring of +a mastiff unchained. [Sidenote: Shakspere's sober rationality.] It is of +this quality, his sober rationality, that we are apt to think when we +acknowledge his truth of representation; and the excellence is +indispensable to truth in any sense, because the want of it gives birth +to imperfection and distortion of views; but I apprehend that it is to +his aiming at a higher purpose that we have to look for the genuine +source of his power. [Sidenote: But he didn't reproduce the bare +reality.] While we mark the gradual rise of the intellectual element of +poetical character upwards from its lowest stage, we are in truth +approximating to a rule which issues in something beyond a bare and +unselected reproduction of reality. [Sidenote: Poetry aims at general +truth, brings out the relation of one mind to universal nature; it +idealizes and ennobles realities.] Poetry aims at representing the whole +of man's nature; and yet a picture of human character, embracing all its +features, but neither skilfully selecting its aspect nor majestically +combining its component parts, would not effect the ends of poetry: for +that art contemplates not individual but general truth, not that which +is really produced, but that which may be conceived without doing +violence to acknowledged principles; instead of presenting a bare +portraiture of mental changes, it exhibits them in an aspect which +teaches their relation to the system of universal nature; it is +seemingly conversant with facts, but it imperceptibly hints at causes; +it aims at exciting the imagination to frame pictures for itself, and +for that reason, if for no other, it must be permitted to idealize and +ennoble the individual realities from which its materials are collected. +[Sidenote: A Painting pictured a soldier in the midst of foes, yet showd +him alone.] The mode in which poetry affects the mind is illustrated by +the description which we read of a certain ancient painting. That piece +represented a young soldier surrounded by several enemies and +desperately defending himself; but his own figure alone was +[98:1]admitted into the field of view, and the motions and place of his +unseen enemies were indicated solely by the life, energy, and +significance of the attitude in which he was drawn. Shakspeare's +attachment to truth of representation never tempted him to forget the +true purpose of his art. [Sidenote: Shakspere is true to nature in +Poetry's way.] [Sidenote: His characters are not monsters of evil,] +While he is true to nature by attempting the treatment of his whole +subject, he is true to it in the manner and with the restrictions which +the nature of poetry requires; he is true to principles which admit of +being conceived as producing effects, not to effects individually +observed as resulting; the creatures of his conception possess no +qualities which unfit them for exciting the mind as poetical character +should excite it; they are not repulsive by the unexampled and unatoned +for congregation of evil qualities, not mean by the absence of lofty +thought, not devoid of poetical significance by confining the +imagination to the qualities by which they are individually marked. +[Sidenote: nor are they above the influence of evil.] You will +particularly remark, that, while he had to bring out the features of his +characters by subjecting them to tragic and calamitous events, he was +careful not to figure them as unsusceptible of the influence of those +external evils. [Sidenote: Brutus is his one stoical character.] The +lofty view which he took of human nature did indeed admit the idea of a +resistance to calamity, and a triumph over it, based on internal and +conscious grandeur; but this is an aspect in which he does not present +the human mind; the stoical Brutus is the only character in which he has +attempted such a conception, which he has there developed but partially. +But while he was contented, even in his noblest characters, to represent +passion in all its strength and directed towards its usual objects, he +had open to him sources of tragic strength unknown to those poets who +describe passion only. Where passion alone is represented, no spectacle +is so agitating as the conflict of contending passions; and the +narrowness of such views of nature permits that tragic opposition to be +no further exhibited. [Sidenote: Shakspere dealt not with the conflict +of Passions only, but with the strife between the Passions and the +Reason,] Shakspeare had before him a wider field of contrast--the +conflict between the passions and the reason--a struggle between powers +inspired with deadly animosity, and each, as he conceived them, +possessed of gigantic strength. [Sidenote: convulsing the whole being of +man.] He has worthily represented that terrible encounter, engaging +every principle and faculty of the soul, and shaking the whole kingdom +of man's being with [99:1]internal convulsions. It is in such +representations that his power is mainly felt; and his pictures are at +the same time truest to nature and most faithful to the ends of tragic +art, by the subjugation of the intellectual principle which is the +catastrophe of the strife. The reason is assaulted by calamity from +without, and borne down by an host of rebellious feelings attacking it +internally. [Sidenote: Characters showing this mental strife, are +specially dear to Shakspere.] It is to the delineation of such +characters as afford scope for this exhibition of mental commotion that +Shakspeare has especially attached himself: the thoughtful and +reflective in character is at once his favourite resort, and the field +of his triumph. + +[Sidenote: He chose the intellectual and reflective in character.] + +The poet's selection of the intellectual and reflective in character, as +the subject of his art, is thus indicated as his guiding principle, to +whose operation all other principles and rules are but subservient. The +reflective element however is in excess with Shakspeare, and its undue +prevalence is not destitute of harmony with the principle which produces +its legitimately moderated effects. [Sidenote: He's a Gnomic Poet.] He +is a Gnomic Poet; and he is so, because he is emphatically the poet of +man. [Sidenote: The solemnity of meditation is thro' all his soul.] He +pauses, he reflects, he aphorizes; because, looking on life and death as +he looked on them, viewing the nature of man from so lofty a station, +and with a power of vision so far-reaching, so acute, and so delicate, +it was impossible but the deepest solemnity of meditation should diffuse +itself through all the chambers of his soul. [Sidenote: He makes his +people hint the principles beneath the shews.] His enunciations of +general truth are often serious and elevated even in his gayer works; +and where the scene denied him an opportunity of introducing these in +strict accordance with the business of the drama, he makes his +personages, as it were, step out of the groupe, to meditate on the +meanings of the scene, to hold a delicately implied communication with +the spectator, and to hint the general maxims and principles which lurk +beneath the tragic and passionate shews. He has gone beyond this: he has +brought on the stage characters whose sole task is meditation, whose +sole purpose in the drama is the suggesting of high and serious +reflection. [Sidenote: Jaques, in _As You Like It_, is like a Greek +chorus, which] Jaques is the perfection of such a character; and the +office which he discharges bears more than a fanciful likeness in +conception to the task of the ancient chorus. [Sidenote: gave the +key-note to the audience.] That forgotten appendage of the Grecian drama +originated indeed from incidental causes; but, being continued as a part +of the dramatic plan, [100:1]it had a momentous duty assigned to it: it +suggested, it interpreted, it sympathised, it gave the key-note to the +reflections of the audience. [Sidenote: The highest art made Shakspere +insert his reflective passages in his plays.] A profound sense of the +highest purposes and responsibilities of the art prompted this +employment of the choral songs; and no way dissimilar was the impression +which dictated to Shakspeare the introduction of the philosophically +cynical lover of nature in that one play, and the breaks of reflection +so frequent with him in many others.--It is worthy of remark, that this +spirit of penetrating thought, ranging from every-day wisdom to +philosophical abstraction, never becomes morose or discontented.[101:1] +Man is a selfish being, but not a malignant one; yet the acts resulting +from the two dispositions are often very similar, and it is the error of +the misanthrope to mistake the one for the other. [Sidenote: Shakspere +never made the misanthrope's mistake.] [Sidenote: His sarcasm did not +spring from envy.] Shakspeare's well-balanced mind was in no danger of +this mistake; his keen-sightedness often makes him sarcastic, but the +sarcasm forced on a mind which contrasts the poorness of reality with +the splendours of imagination, is of a different temper from that which +is bred from lowness of thought and fretful envy. [Sidenote: _Timon's_ +sternness is softened by tenderness.] Shakspeare has devoted one +admirable drama to the exhibition of the misanthrophic spirit, as +produced by wrongs in a noble heart; but the sternness which is the +master-note of that work is softened by the most beautiful intervals of +redeeming tenderness and good feeling. [Sidenote: _Troilus_ is +Shakspere's only bitter play.] The only work of his evidently written in +ill humour with mankind, is the Troilus, which, both in idea and +execution, is the most bitter of satires. + +The application of the distinctive qualities of Shakspeare's tone of +thought to the spirit of 'The Two Noble Kinsmen', is a task for your own +judgment and discrimination, and would not be aided by suggestions of +mine. I have stated the result to which I have been led by such an +application; and I am confident that you will be able to reach the same +conclusion by a path which may be shorter than any which I could clear +for you. In connection however with this inquiry, I would direct your +attention to one other truth possessing a clear application here. +[Sidenote: Shakspere's thoughtfulness a Moral distinction.] Shakspeare's +thoughtfulness goes the length of becoming a Moral distinction and +excellence. [Sidenote: His part of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ is of higher +tone, and purer, than Fletcher's.] That such a difference does exist +between Shakspeare and Fletcher, is denied by no one; and the moral tone +of this play, in those parts which I have [101:2]ventured to call +Shakspeare's, is distinctly a higher one than Fletcher's. It is uniform +and pure, though the moral inquisition is less severe than Shakspeare's +often is. [Sidenote: Massinger and Ben Jonson too more moral than +Fletcher.] If Massinger or Jonson had been the poet alleged to have +written part or the whole of the work, it would have been difficult to +draw any inference from this circumstance by itself; but when the +question is only between Shakspeare and Fletcher, even an abstinence +from gross violation or utter concealment of moral truth is an +important element in the decision; and the positively high strain here +maintained is a very strong argument in favour of the purer writer. + +[Sidenote: Are Johnson, &c. right in condemning Shakspere's morality.] + +I am tempted, however, to carry you somewhat further on this head, +because I must confess that I cannot see the grounds on which Johnson +and others have rested their sweeping condemnation of Shakspeare's +morality. There is, it must be admitted, much to blame, but there is +also something worthy of praise; and praise on this score is what +Shakspeare has scarcely ever received. [Sidenote: He admits +licentiousness] He has been charged with licentiousness, and justly; but +even in this particular there are some circumstances of palliation, +besides the equivocal plea of universal example, and the doubt which +exists whether most of his grosser dialogues are not interpolations. +[Sidenote: and coarse speech.] Mere coarseness of language may offend +the taste, and yet be so used as to give no foundation for any heavier +charge. [Sidenote: But who can be tainted by Othello's words?] There +surely never was a mind which could receive one evil suggestion from the +language wrung from the agonized Othello. Even where this excuse does +not hold, Shakspeare preserves one most important distinction quite +unknown to his contemporaries. [Sidenote: Shakspere's contemporaries +make their heroes loose livers.] By them, looseness of dialogue is +introduced indifferently anywhere in the play, licentiousness of +incident is admitted in any part of the plot, and debauchery of life is +attributed without scruple to those persons in whom interest is chiefly +meant to be excited. [Sidenote: He doesn't,] It may be safely stated +that Shakspeare almost invariably follows a rule exactly opposite. His +inferior characters may be sometimes gross and sensual; his principal +personages scarcely ever are so: these he refuses to degrade needlessly, +by attributing to them that carelessness of moral restraint of which +Fletcher's men of pleasure are so usually guilty. [Sidenote: except in +two plays.] There are only two plays[102:1] in which he [102:2]has +violated this rule, exclusively of some unguarded expressions elsewhere. + +But the language which has been held on this question would lead us to +believe that his guilt extends further,--that he is totally insensible +to any moral distinctions, and blind to moral aims and influences. +[Sidenote: Most of Shakspere's contemporaries made pleasure the law of +their heroes' lives.] Of most dramatic writers of his time this charge +is too true. Their characters act because they will, not because they +ought,--for happiness, and not from duty:--the lowness of their aim may +be disguised, but it is inherent, and cannot be eradicated. We might +read every work of Fletcher's without discovering (if we were ignorant +of the fact before) that there exists for man any principle of action +loftier in its origin than his earthly nature, or more extended in its +object than the life which that nature enjoys. But nothing of this is +true as to Shakspeare. [Sidenote: Shakspere's morality not of the +loftiest, not like Milton's and] That his morality is of the loftiest +sort cannot be asserted. [Sidenote: Michel Angelo's.] He does not, like +Milton, look out on life at intervals from the windows of his +sequestered hermitage, only to turn away from the sight and indulge in +the most fervent aspirations after immortal purity, and the deepest +adoration of uncreated power; nor does he grovel in the dust with that +ascetic humiliation and religious sense of guilt which overcame the +strong spirit of Michel Angelo. But he shares much of the solemnity of +moral feeling which possesses all great minds, though in him its +influence was restrained by external causes. [Sidenote: He was in the +world, and often of it,] He moves in the hurried pageant of the world, +and sometimes wants leisure to moralize the spectacle; and even when he +does pause to meditate, the world often hangs about his heart, and he +thinks of life as men in action are apt to think of it. [Sidenote: but +evil, to him, was evil, moral law was always shown supreme. Note the +general moral truth in his Tragedies.] But moral truth, seldom lost +sight of, is never misrepresented: evil is always described as being +evil: the great moral rule, though often stated as inoperative, is +always acknowledged as binding. Read carefully any of his more lofty +tragedies, and ponder the general truths there so lavishly scattered; +and you will find that an immense proportion of those apophthegms have a +moral bearing, often a most solemn and impressive one. [Sidenote: Even +in Comedy his reflections are moral.] Even in his lighter plays there is +much of the same spirit: in all he is often thoughtful, and he is never +long thoughtful without becoming morally didactic. This is much in any +poet, and especially in a drama[103:1]tist, who exhibits humanity +directly as active, and is under continual temptations to forget what +action tempts men to forget in real life. [Sidenote: Shakspere right in +letting evil prevail, so long as he shows it evil.] His neglect of duly +distributing punishment and reward is no moral fault, so long as moral +truth is kept sight of in characterizing actions, while that neglect is +borrowed closely from reality. And the same thing is true of his +craving wish for describing human guilt, and darkening even his fairest +characters with the shadows of weakness and sin. [Sidenote: Dramatic +poetry is truest when it shows man most the slave of evil.] The poetry +which depicts man in action is then unfortunately truest when it +represents him as most deeply enslaved by the evil powers which surround +him. [Sidenote: Shakspere bared man's soul,] Different poets have +proceeded to different lengths in the degree of influence which they +have assigned to the evil principle: most have feared to draw wholly +aside the veil which imagination always struggles to keep before the +nakedness of man's breast; and Shakspeare, by tearing away the curtain +with a harsher hand, has but enabled himself to add a tremendously +impressive element of truth to the likeness which his portrait otherwise +bears to the original. [Sidenote: and probed it to its depth.] +[Sidenote: This is why we hold to him.] His view of our state and nature +is often painful; but it is its reality that makes it so; and he would +have wanted one of his strongest holds on our hearts if he had probed +them less profoundly; it is by his unflinching scrutiny of mortal +infirmity that he has forged the very strongest chain which binds us to +his footstool. [Sidenote: He durst not paint good triumphant over evil, +because he knew in life it was not so.] He reverences human nature where +it deserves respect: he knows man's divinity of mind, and harbours and +expresses the loftiest of those hopes which haunt the heart like +recollections: he represents worthily and well the struggle between good +and evil, but he feared to represent the better principle as victorious: +he had looked on life till observation became prophetical, and he could +not fable that as existing which he sorrowfully saw could never be. +[Sidenote: Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, sink under their temptations.] The +milk of human kindness in the bosom of Macbeth is turned to venom by the +breath of an embodied fiend; the tempered nobility and gentleness of the +Moor are made the craters through which his evil passions blaze out like +central fires; and in the wonderful Hamlet, hate to the guilty pollutes +the abhorrence of the crime,--irresolution waits on consciousness,--and +the misery of doubt clings to the solemnity of meditation. [Sidenote: +And so do we.] This is an awful representation of the human soul; but is +it [104:1]not a true one? [Sidenote: Man's history is written in blood +and tears.] [Sidenote: Shakspere's view of life the fittest to give us +to the truth.] The sibylline volume of man's history is open before us, +and every page of it is written in blood or tears. And not only are such +views of human fate the truest, but they are those which are most fitted +to arouse the mind to serious, to lofty, even to religious +contemplation,--to guide it to the fountains of moral truth,--to lead it +to meditations on the dark foundations of our being,--to direct its +gaze forward on that great journey of the soul, in which mortal life is +but a single step. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Analogy of this inquiry.] + +Oftener than once in this inquiry, I have acted towards you like one +who, undertaking to guide a traveller through a beautiful valley, should +frequently lead him out of the beaten road to climb precipitous +eminences, promising that the delay in the accomplishment of the journey +should be compensated by the pleasure of extensive prospects over the +surrounding region. Conduct like this would be excusable in a guide, if +the person escorted had leisure for the divergence, and it would be +incumbent on him if the acquisition of a knowledge of the country were +one of the purposes of the journey; but in either case the labour of the +ascents would be recompensed to the traveller, only if the landscapes +presented were interesting and distinctly seen. [Sidenote: Aims of this +treatise;] For similar reasons, my endeavour to propose wider views than +the subject necessarily suggested, has, I conceive, been fully +justifiable; but it is for you to decide whether the attempt has been so +far successful as to repay your exertions in attending my excursive +steps. [Sidenote: 1. from Shakspere's studies, to distinguish between +him and his coevals.] The first of our lengthened digressions has +allowed us to combine the known facts as to the kind and amount of +Shakspeare's studies, and to draw from them certain conclusions, which I +cannot think altogether valueless, as to some distinctions between him +and his dramatic coevals, and as to the source of some peculiarities of +his which have been visited with heavy censure. [Sidenote: 2. to trace +the most characteristic qualities of his thought.] In the second +instance in which we have branched off from the main argument, we have +been led to reflect on the most characteristic qualities of the poet's +mode of thought. [Sidenote: Shakspere's variety of faculty.] If there be +any truth or distinctness in the hints which have been imperfectly and +hastily thrown out on this head, your own mind will classify, modify, or +extend them; and, never forgetting what is [105:1]the fundamental +principle of the great poet's strength, you will regard that essential +quality with the more lively admiration, when you discriminate the +operations of the power from the working of those other principles which +minister to it, and when you remark the number, the variety, the +opposition of the mental faculties, which are all thus enlisted under +the banners of the one intense and almost philosophical Perception of +Dramatic Truth. [Sidenote: He, the stern inquisitor into man's heart,] +That stern inquisition into the human heart, which the finest sense of +dramatic perfection elevates into the ideal, and the richest fancy +touches with poetical repose, will awaken in your mind a softened +solemnity of feeling, like that under whose sway we have both wandered +in the mountainous forests which skirt our native river; the continuous +and gloomy canopy of the gigantic pines hanging over-head like a dungeon +roof, while the green sward which was the pavement of the woodland +temple, and the lines of natural columns which bounded its retiring +avenues, were flooded with the glad illumination of the descending +sunset. [Sidenote: the anxious searcher into truth, is yet the happiest +creator of beauty: the 'maker' of Ric. III. and Iago as well as Juliet +and Titania; of Macbeth as well as Hamlet.] We reflect with wonder that +the most anxious of all poetical inquirers into truth, is also the most +powerful painter of unearthly horrors, and the most felicitous creator +of romantic or imaginary beauty; that the poet of Richard and Iago is +also the poet of Juliet, of Ariel, and of Titania; that the fearfully +real self-torture, the judicially inflicted remorse, of Macbeth, is set +in contrast with the wildest figures which superstitious imagination +ever conceived; that on the same canvas on which Hamlet stands as a +personification of the Reason of man shaken by the assaults of evil +within him and without, the gates of the grave are visibly opened, and +the dead ascend to utter strange secrets in the ear of night. [Sidenote: +His faculties early expanded consistently, and workt thro' all his life +actively.] But even this union is less extraordinary than the regular +and unparalleled consistency with which the poet's faculties early +expanded themselves, and the full activity with which through life all +continued to work. [Sidenote: Homer ebbd,] Even the dramatic soul of +Homer ebbed like the sea, sinking in old age into the substitution of +wild and minutely told adventure for the historical portraiture of +mental grandeur and passionate strength. [Sidenote: Milton sank poetry +in polemics.] The youth of Milton brooded over the love and loveliness +of external nature; it was not till his maturity of years that he soared +into the empyrean or descended sheer into the secrets of the abyss; and +[106:1]advancing age brought weakness with it, and quenched in the +morass of polemical disputation the torch which had flamed with sacred +light. [Sidenote: Shakspere alone flowd full tide on.] [Sidenote: +Experience came soon to him; Fancy abode with him to the end.] +Shakspeare alone was the same from youth to age; in youth no +imperfection, in age no mortality or decay; he performed in his early +years every department of the task which he had to perform, and he +laboured in it with unexhausted and uncrippled energies till the bowl +was broken at the fountain; experience visited him early, fancy lingered +with him to the last; the rapid developement of his powers was an +indication of the internal strength of his genius; their steady +continuance was a type and prognostic of the perpetual endurance of his +sway. [Sidenote: Gloster (Ric. III.) was early, Shylock and Hamlet of +middle time, Lear in ripe age, _The Tempest_, near his death.] The cold +and fiendish Gloster was an early conception; the eager Shylock and the +superhuman Hamlet were imagined simultaneously not long afterwards; the +tenderness of Lear was the fruit of the poet's ripest age; and one of +the closing years of his life gave birth to the savage wildness and the +youthful and aerial beauty of 'The Tempest.' + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Are you convinc't that Shakspere wrote much of _The Two Noble +Kinsmen_?] + +Our last words are claimed by the proper subject of our inquiry. Have I +convinced you that in the composition of 'The Two Noble Kinsmen', +Shakspeare had the extensive participation which I have ascribed to him? +It is very probable that my reasoning is in many parts defective; but I +place so much confidence in the goodness of the cause itself, that I +would unhesitatingly leave the question, without a word of argument, to +be determined by any one, possessing a familiar acquaintance with both +the poets whose claims are to be balanced, and an ordinarily acute +discernment of their distinguishing qualities. [Sidenote: I'm sure the +question needs only attention.] I am firmly persuaded that the subject +needs only to have attention directed to it; and my investigation of it +cannot have been a failure in every particular. [Sidenote: The external +evidence doesn't include the internal.] The circumstances attending the +first publication of the drama do not, in the most unfavourable view +which can with any fairness be taken of them, exclude us from deciding +the question of Shakspeare's authorship by an examination of the work +itself: and it is unnecessary that the effect of the external evidence +should be estimated one step higher. [Sidenote: Does that give all the +play to Fletcher?] Do the internal proofs allot all to Fletcher, or +assign any share to Shakspeare? [Sidenote: The Story is alien to +Fletcher] The Story is ill-suited for the dramatic purposes [107:1]of +the one poet, and belongs to a class of subjects at variance with his +style of thought, and not elsewhere chosen by him or any author of the +school to which he belonged; both the individual and the class accord +with the whole temper and all the purposes of the other poet, and the +class is one from which he has repeatedly selected themes. [Sidenote: +Fletcher can't have chosen the subject of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_; nor +was its plan his.] It is next to impossible that Fletcher can have +selected the subject; it is not unlikely that Shakspeare may have +suggested it; and if the execution of the plan shall be thought to +evince that he was in any degree connected with the work, we can hardly +avoid the conclusion that it was by him that the subject was chosen. The +proof here, (which I think has not been noticed by any one before me,) +seems to me to be stronger than in any other branch of the argument. +[Sidenote: Its Scenical Arrangement is like Shakspere's.] The Scenical +Arrangement of the drama offers points of resemblance to Shakspeare, +which, at the very least, have considerable strength when they are taken +together, and are corroborative of other circumstances. [Sidenote: Its +Execution is, in great part, so like his,] The Execution of that large +proportion of the drama which has been marked off as his, presents +circumstances of likeness to him, so numerous that they cannot possibly +have been accidental, and so strikingly characteristic that we cannot +conceive them to be the product of imitation. [Sidenote: that many +passages must be set down to him.] Even if it should be doubted whether +Shakspeare chose the subject, or arranged any part of the plot, it seems +to me that his claim to the authorship of these individual parts needs +only examination to be universally admitted; not that I consider the +proof here as stronger than that which establishes his choice of the +plot, but because it is of a nature to be more easily and intuitively +comprehended. + +[Sidenote: Look at all the circumstances together,] + +In forming your opinion, you will be careful to view the circumstances, +not singly, but together, and to give each point of resemblance the +support of the others. [Sidenote: and see whether the many probabilities +do not make a certainty.] It may be that every consideration suggested +may not affect your mind with equal strength of conviction; but numerous +probabilities all tending the same way are sufficient to generate +positive certainty: and it argues no imperfection in a result that it is +brought out only by combined efforts. In those climates of the New World +which you have visited, a spacious and lofty chamber receives a +diffusive shower of light through a single narrow aperture, while in our +cloudy region we can gather sufficient light for our apart[108:1]ments +only by opening large and numerous windows: the end is not gained in the +latter case without greater exertion than that which is required in the +former, but it is attained equally in both; for the aspect of our +habitations is not less cheerful than that of yours. + +On the absolute merit of the work, I do not wish to anticipate your +judgment. [Sidenote: Shakspere's part in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, is but +a sketch; yet it's better than some of his finisht works.] So far as +Shakspeare's share in it is concerned, it can be regarded as no more +than a sketch, which would be seen to great disadvantage beside finished +drawings of the same master. Imperfect as it is, however, it would, if +it were admitted among Shakspeare's acknowledged works, outshine many, +and do discredit to none. It would be no unfair trial to compare it with +those works of his in which he abstains from his more profound +investigations into human nature, permitting the poetical world actively +to mingle with the dramatic, and the radiant spirit of hope to embrace +the sterner genius of knowledge. [Sidenote: Compare it with the +_Midsummer Night's Dream_; the colouring and outline are from the same +hand. But best, set it beside _Henry VIII._] We may call up before us +the luxurious fancies of the 'Midsummer Night's Dream', or even the +sylvan landscapes of the Forest of Ardennes, and the pastoral groupes +which people it; and we shall gladly acknowledge a similar though +harsher style of colouring, and a strength of contour indicating the +same origin. But perhaps there is none of his works with which it could +be so fairly compared as 'Henry VIII'. [Sidenote: It's more like that, +and nearly as good.] In the tone of sentiment and imagination, as well +as in other particulars, I perceive many circumstances of likeness, +which it will gratify you to trace for yourself. The resemblance is more +than a fanciful one, and the neglected play does not materially suffer +by the comparison. + +[Sidenote: _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ ought to be in every '_Shakspere's +Works_.'] + +This drama will never receive the praise which it merits, till it shall +have been admitted among Shakspeare's undoubted works; and, I repeat, it +is entitled to insertion if any one of the conclusions to which I have +attempted to lead you be sound,--if it be true that he wrote all, or +most, or a few, of those portions of it, which more competent judges +than I have already confidently ascribed to him. Farewell. + + W. S. + +_Edinburgh, March 1833._ + +[In his article on 'Recent Shaksperian Literature' in No. 144 of the +_Edinburgh Review_, July, 1840, page 468, Prof. Spalding states that on +Shakspere's taking part in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, his "opinion is not +now so decided as it once was."--F.] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1:1] Locrine--Sir John Oldcastle--Lord Cromwell--The London +Prodigal--The Puritan--The Yorkshire Tragedy. + +[1:2] page 2 + +[2:1] page 3 + +[3:1] page 4 + +[4:1] "The Two Noble Kinsmen: presented at the Blackfriers, by the Kings +Majesties servants, with great Applause: written by the memorable +Worthies of their Time, Mr John Fletcher and Mr William Shakspeare, +Gent. Printed at London by Tho. Cotes, for John Watersone; and are to be +sold at the signe of the Crowne, in Pauls Church-yard: 1634." + +[4:2] page 5 + +[5:1] Gifford's Massinger, vol. i. p. xv. [Moxon's ed. p. xxxix, and _B. +and Fl._ i. xiii. The letter is from Nat. Field, Rob. Daborne, and +Philip Massinger, to Henslowe the manager: "You know there is x. _l._ +more at least to be receavd of you for the play. We desire you to lend +us v _l._ of that, which shall be allowd to you. Nat. Field." "The money +shall be abated out of the money remayns for _the play of Mr. Fletcher +and ours_. Rob. Daborne."--F.] + +[5:2] page 6 + +[6:1] page 7 + +[7:1] page 8 + +[8:1] Act II. Scene 4. The plucking of the roses. + +[8:2] page 9 + +[9:1] page 10 + +[10:1] Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature. It would ill become me +to carp at an author whom I have expressly to thank for much assistance +in this inquiry, and to whom I am perhaps indebted for more than my +recollection suggests. But it must be owned, that M. Schlegel's opinion +loses somewhat of its weight from the fact, that he also advocates +Shakspeare's authorship of some of Malone's plays, a decision in which +it is neither desirable nor likely that the poet's countrymen should +acquiesce. + +[10:2] page 11 + +[11:1] Weber's Beaumont and Fletcher, vol. xiii., and Lamb, as there +quoted. + +[11:2] page 12 + +[12:1] Sonnet 76. + +[12:2] page 13 + +[13:1] page 14 + +[13:2] There are numerous instances of both these effects in the play +before us. "_Counter-reflect_ (a noun); _meditance_; _couch_ and +_corslet_ (used as verbs); _operance_; _appointment_, for military +accoutrements; _globy eyes_; _scurril_; _disroot_; _dis-seat_," &c. +_Weber._ + +[14:1] page 15 + +[15:1] t. i. _mourn them ever_ + +[15:2] page 16 + +[15:3] _ownest_ + +[16:1] page 17 + +[17:1] page 18 + +[18:1] page 19 + +[19:1] Farmer's Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare. + +[19:2] A singularly rich and energetic piece of colouring in this sort +is near the beginning of the poem, commencing, + + I have been wooed, as I entreat thee now, + Even by the stern and direful God of War-- + +and extending through three stanzas. + +[19:3] page 20 + +[20:1] page 21 + +[21:1] page 22 + +[22:1] page 23 + +[23:1] page 24 + +[24:1] The | is to show the double endings. + +[24:2] page 25 + +[25:1] page 26 + +[26:1] page 27 + +[27:1] page 28 + +[28:1] page 29 + +[29:1] page 30 + +[29:2] Perhaps it is worth while to direct attention to this form of +speech. Verbal names expressing the agent occur, it is true, in Fletcher +and others, but they are in an especial manner frequent with Shakspeare, +who invents them to preserve his brevity, and always applies them with +great force and quaintness. + +[29:3] Probably Fletcher would not have committed this false quantity. + +[30:1] page 31 + +[30:2] 3 middle-rymes, _key_, _three_, _knee_. + +[30:3] _in her eyes_ + +[31:1] page 32 + +[32:1] page 33 + +[33:1] page 34 + +[33:2] The remainder of this speech, an extremely fine one, has been +quoted incidentally in page 26. Its richness of fancy is wonderful and +most characteristic. + +[34:1] page 35 + +[34:2] page 36 + +[35:1] page 37 + +[37:1] page 38 + +[37:2] This allusion is repeatedly found in Fletcher. Here the +expression of it is defective in precision. + +[37:3] page 39 + +[38:1] page 40 + +[39:1] page 41 + +[40:1] page 42 + +[41:1] page 43 + +[42:1] page 44 + +[43:1] page 45 + +[44:1] page 46 + +[45:1] In Philaster, Act IV. last scene. + + Place me, some god, upon a Piramis, + Higher than hill of earth, and lend a voice, + Loud as your thunder, to me, that from thence + I may discourse, to all the under world, + The worth that dwells in him. + +Shakspeare, too, was not the most likely person to have given the true +meaning of the {boopis potnia Here}. I am not aware that either +Hall or Chapman shewed him the way. Chapman in the First Book (v. 551) +has it; "She with the cowes fair eyes, Respected Juno." + +[45:2] page 47 + +[45:3] _2 N. K._, Act V. sc. i, ii, iii. Weber, are V. i. Littledale. + +[46:1] This beautiful address has been spoken of already. + +[46:2] page 48 + +[47:1] page 49 + +[48:1] page 50 + +[49:1] Romeo and Juliet:--Midsummer Night's Dream:--also in Don Quixote, +Parte II. capit. xi.: "Los ojos de Dulcinea deben ser de _verdes +esmeraldas_." + +[49:2-49:2] This is the character of Emilia, by Chaucer and Shakspere, +but not by Fletcher of IV. ii., and the author of V. v. (or iii. +Littledale)--if he is not Fletcher--with their inconsistencies of +Emilia's weak balancing of Palamon against Arcite, now liking one best, +then the other, and being afraid that Palamon may get his _figure +spoilt_! F. J. F. + +[49:3] page 51 + +[50:1] page 52 + +[50:2] The thought here is frequent in Shakspeare's dramas: and the +expression of it closely resembles some stanzas in the Lucrece, +especially those beginning, "Oh, comfort-killing night!" + +[51:1] Cp. Beatrice on Don John and Benedick, in _Much Ado_ II. i. + +[51:2] page 53 + +[52:1] page 54 + +[52:2] It may be well to mention, that this scene contains allusions, +extending through several lines, to the every-way luckless jailor's +daughter. If I conceal the fact from you, you will, on finding it out +for yourself, suspect that I consider it as making against my +hypothesis, which assigns those episodical adventures to a different +author from this scene. Be assured that I do not regard it in that +light. It is plain that the underplot, however bad, has been worked up +with much pains; and we can conceive that its author would have been +loth to abandon it finally in the incomplete posture in which the fourth +scene of this act left it. Ten lines in this scene sufficed to end the +story, by relating the cure of the insane girl; and there can have been +no difficulty in their introduction, even on my supposition of this +scene being the work of the other author. If the two wrote at the same +time, the poet who wrote the rest of the scene may have inserted them on +the suggestion of the other; or if the drama afterwards came into the +hands of that other, (which there seems some reason to believe,) he +could easily insert them for himself. In any view these lines are no +argument against my theory. + +[53:1] ? Shakspere and one daughter. + +[53:2] Cf. p. 54-5. + +[53:3] page 55 + +[53:4] The description which we have read of Mars's attributes reminds +one strongly and directly of the fine speech in the poem, where old +Saturn, the god of time, enumerates his own powers of destruction. It is +far from unlikely that the one passage suggested the other. The rich can +afford to borrow. + +[54:1] page 56 + +[55:1] page 57 + +[56:1] page 58 + +[57:1] Beaumont's style is unluckily not characterized. F. + +[57:2] page 59 + +[58:1] page 60 + +[59:1] page 61 + +[60:1] page 62 + +[61:1] page 63 + +[62:1] page 64 + +[63:1] page 65 + +[64:1] page 66 + +[65:1] page 67 + +[66:1] The Knight of the Burning Pestle. + +[66:2] page 68 + +[66:3] Weber's Beaumont and Fletcher. Henslowe MSS. published by +Malone:--Boswell's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 303. [See Appx. I. to my +Harrison _Forewords_.] + +[67:1] page 69 + +[68:1] page 70 + +[68:2] N.B. The Gower choruses in _Pericles_ are NOT Shakspere's.--F. + +[69:1] page 71 + +[69:2] With Knowledge comes the retreat to Invention. + +[70:1] page 72 + +[71:1] page 73 + +[72:1] page 74 + +[73:1] page 75 + +[74:1] page 76 + +[75:1] page 77 + +[76:1] page 78 + +[77:1] page 79 + +[78:1] page 80 + +[79:1] page 81 + +[80:1] page 82 + +[81:1] page 83 + +[82:1] page 84 + +[82:2] page 85 + +[83:1] It would be unfair not to state, that I quote and refer to the +translation of the Laocoon published by Mr. De Quincey, in Blackwood's +Magazine for November 1826; and that I am not otherwise acquainted with +that or any other work of Lessing. + +[83:2] page 86 + +[84:1] page 87 + +[85:1] page 88 + +[86:1] page 89 + +[87:1] page 90 + +[88:1] page 91 + +[89:1] The theory which, denying to the Beautiful any capacity of giving +pleasure through its innate qualities, ascribes its effects exclusively +to the associated ideas which the contemplation of it calls up, proceeds +wholly on the assumption, that the sentiment awakened by Beauty when it +is beheld bodily present, is the same with that which flows from a +poetical description of it. If it be true (as I must believe it is) that +the feelings in the two cases are essentially different, the hypothesis +falls to the ground. Its maintainers seem in truth to have drawn their +conclusions altogether from reflection on the effects produced by Beauty +when it is represented in poetry, where association is undoubtedly the +source of the enjoyment; and an attention to the working of the fine +arts would have taught other inferences. + +[90:1] page 92 + +[90:2] page 93 + +[91:1] page 94. + +[91:2] + +[Sidenote: Invention is making a _new_ thing out of a thing already +made.] + +Alfieri appears to have himself perceived accurately wherein it is that +his power lies, when he says, with his usual self-reliance: "Se la +parola 'invenzione' in tragedia si restringe al trattare soltanto +soggetti non prima trattati, nessuno autore ha inventato meno di me." +"Se poi la parola 'invenzione' si estende fino al _far cosa nuova di +cosa gia fatta_, io son costretto a credere che nessuno autore abba +inventato piu di me." + +[92:1] page 95 + +[93:1] page 96 + +[94:1] page 97 + +[95:1] page 98 + +[96:1] page 99 + +[97:1] page 100 + +[98:1] page 101 + +[99:1] page 102 + +[100:1] page 103 + +[101:1] ? in Jaques. + +[101:2] page 104 + +[102:1] ? _All's Well_, Bertram; _Othello_, Cassio; _Meas. for Meas._ +Claudio; _Ant. & Cleop._ Antony; _Timon_, Alcibiades.--F. + +[102:2] page 105 + +[103:1] page 106 + +[104:1] page 107 + +[105:1] page 108 + +[106:1] page 109 + +[107:1] page 110 + +[108:1] page 111 + + + + +A FEW INSTANCES OF SHAKSPERE'S PECULIARITIES AS NOTED BY SPALDING. + + +=Repetition=, p. 12. 1. Prologue to _Henry V._: + + 'And at his heels, + Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire, + Crouch for employment.' + +Compare _Antony and Cleopatra_, Act I. scene iv.: + + 'Where thou slew'st, Hirtus and Pausa, consuls, at thy heel + Did famine follow.' + +2. _Macbeth_, Act V. scene vii.: + + 'They have tied me to a stake: I cannot fly, + But, bear-like, I must fight the course'; + +and _Lear_, Act III. scene vii.: + + 'I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course.' + + +=Conciseness verging on obscurity=, p. 13. _Macbeth_, Act I. scene iii.: + + 'Present fears are less than horrible imaginings: + My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, + Shakes so my single state of man, that function + Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is + But what is not.' + +Act I. scene vii.: + + 'If it were done when 'tis done,' etc. + +Act V. scene vii.: + + 'Now does he feel + His secret murders sticking on his hands: + Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach; + Those he commands, move only in command, + Nothing in love.' + +_Coriolanus_, Act IV. scene vii.: + + 'Whether 'twas pride, + Which out of daily fortune ever taints + The happy man; whether defect of judgement, + To fail in the disposing of those chances + Which he was lord of; or whether nature, + Not to be other than one thing, not moving + From the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace, + Even with the same austerity and garb, + As he controlled the war; but one of these + As he hath spices of them all, not all, + For I dare so far free him,--made him feared, + So hated, and so banished.' + + +=Metaphors crowded with ideas=, p. 17. _Julius Caesar_, Act II. scene i. +l. 81-4. + + 'Seek none, conspiracy. + Hide it thy visage in smiles and affability; + For if thou _path_, thy native semblance on, + Not Erebus itself were dim enough to hide thee from _prevention_.' + +_Macbeth_, Act V. scene vii.: + + 'Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal, + And with him pour we in our country's purge, + Each drop of us. Or so much as it needs + To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds.' + +(rather strained figures). + +_Hamlet_, Act I. scene iv.: + + 'So, oft it chances in particular men, + That for some _vicious mole_ of nature in them, + As, in their birth,--wherein they are not guilty, + Since nature cannot choose his origin, + By the _o'ergrowth_ of some _complexion_, + Oft breaking down _pales_ and _forts_ of Reason, + Or by some habit that too much o'er _leavens_ + The form of plausive manners, that these men + Carrying, I say, the _stamp_ of one defect, + Being _nature's livery_, or _fortune's star_,-- + Their virtues else--be they as pure as grace, + As infinite as man may undergo,-- + Shall in the general censure take _corruption_ + From that particular fault.' + + +=Conceits and Wordplay=, p. 22. _Richard II_, Act II. scene i.: + + 'Old Gaunt indeed and gaunt in being old,' etc. + +_Love's Labour's Lost_, Act IV. scene iii.: + + 'They have pitched a toil, I am toiling in a pitch!' + + +=Personification=, p. 25. _Two Gentlemen_, Act I. scene i.: + + 'So _eating Love_ + Inhabits in the finest wits of all.' + +_Richard II_, Act III. scene ii.: + + 'Foul _Rebellion's_ arms.' + +_Midsummer Night's Dream_: + + 'The debt that _bankrupt Sleep_ doth Sorrow owe.' + +_Henry V_, Act II. scene ii.: + + '_Treason_ and _Murder_ ever kept together.' + +_Macbeth_, Act I. scene iii.: + + 'If _Chance_ will have me king, + Why _Chance_ may crown me.' + +Act II. scene i.: + + '_Witchcraft_ celebrates + Pale Hecate's offerings, and withered _Murder_, + Alarmed by his sentinel, the wolf.' + +_Troilus and Cressida_, Act III. scene iii.: + + '_Welcome_ ever smiles, + And _Farewell_ goes out sighing.' + + * * * * * + +p. v. _Marigolds._ Dr Prior, writing from his place, Halse, near +Taunton, 11 Oct., 1876, says, "I asked in a family here whether they had +ever heard of marigolds being strown on the beds of dying persons, and +they referred me to a book by Lady C. Davies, _Recollections of +Society_, 1873. At p. 129: + +"'Is Little Trianon ominous to crowned women?' + +"'Passing through the garden,' said the King, 'I perceived some _soucis_ +(marigolds, emblems of sorrow and care) growing near a tuft of lilies. +This coincidence struck me, and I murmured: + + "Dans les jardins de Trianon + Je cueillais des roses nouvelles. + Mais, helas! les fleurs les plus belles + Avaient peri sous les glacons. + J'eus beau chercher les dons de Flore, + Les hivers les avaient detruits; + Je ne trouvai que des _soucis_ + Qu'humectaient les pleurs de l'Aurore."' + +"I am inclined to hold my first opinion that _cradle_ and _death-bed_ +refer to the use of the flowers, and not to anything in their growth or +appearance." + +p. 1. _My dear L--._ Altho' Prof. Spalding says that L. was an early +and later friend of his, of great gifts and taste, and that he had +visited the New World (p. 108), yet Mrs Spalding and Dr Burton have +never been able to identify L., and they believe him to be a creation of +the author's.--F. + +p. 4. _Shakspere had fallen much into neglect by 1634._ "After the death +of Shakspeare, the plays of Fletcher appear for several years to have +been more admired, or at least to have been more frequently acted, than +those of our poet." Malone, _Hist. Account of the English Stage_, +Variorum Shakspere of 1821, vol. ii. p. 224. And see the lists +following, by which he proves his statement.--F. + + * * * * * + +From the Paper with which Mr J. Herbert Stack opend the discussion at +our Reading of the _Two Noble Kinsmen_, he has allowd me to make the +following extracts:-- + + To judge the question clearly, let us note how far the author + or authors of the _Two N. K._ followed what was the basis of + their drama--Chaucer's Knightes Tale. We have there the same + opening incident--the petitions of the Queens, then the + capture of the Two, then their sight of Emily from the prison + window, the release of Arcite, his entry into Emilia's + service, the escape of Palamon, the fight in the wood, the + decree of Theseus, the prayers to Diana, Venus, and Mars, the + combat, the victory in arms to Arcite, his death, and + Palamon's eventual victory in love. But Chaucer is far + superior to the dramatists. He has no Gaoler's Daughter to + distract our thoughts. The language of his Palamon is more + blunt, more soldierlike, more characteristic. His Emilia, + instead of being equally in love with two men at the same + time, prefers maidenhood to marriage, loves neither, but + pities both. At the end of the _play_ we have something coarse + and hurried: Emilia, during the Tournament, is ready to jump + into anybody's arms, so that he comes victorious; then she + accepts Arcite; and on his sudden death, she dries her tears + with more than the supposed celerity of a modern fashionable + widow; and, before she is the widow of Arcite, consents to + become the wife of Palamon. Contrast this with Chaucer, where + the poem dedicates some beautiful lines to the funeral of + Arcite and the grief of all, and only makes Emilia yield after + years to the silent pleading of the woful Palamon and the + urgency of her brother. Contrast the dying speeches in the two + works. In the play, Arcite transfers Emilia almost as if he + were making a will: "_Item_, I leave my bride to Palamon." In + Chaucer, he says to Emilia that he knows of no man + + 'So worthy to be loved as Palamon, + And if that you shal ever be a wyf + Forget not Palamon that gentil man.' + + Now here we have a play founded on a poem, the original + delicate and noble, where the other is coarse and trivial; and + we ask, 'Was this Shakspere's way of treating his originals?' + In his earlier years he based his _Romeo and Juliet_ on + Brooke's poem of the same name--a fine work, and little + disfigured by the coarseness of the time. Yet he pruned it of + all really offensive matter, and has given us a perfect + love-story, as ardent as it is pure. His skill in omission is + remarkably shown in one respect. In Brooke's poem, Juliet, + reflecting when alone on Romeo's sudden love, remembers that + he is an enemy to her house, and suspects that he may intend + dishonourable love as a base means of wreaking vengeance on + hereditary foes. It seems to me that a thought so cunning is + out of character with Juliet--certainly would have been felt + as a stain on Shakspere's Juliet. That Shakspere deliberately + omitted this, is known by one slight reference. Juliet says to + Romeo, + + 'If thy intent of love be honourable, + Thy purpose marriage.' + + That is all--no cunning caution, no base doubt. + + Now if in this original, and in this play, we trace the very + manner of Shakspere's working--taking up gold mixed with + dross, and purifying it in the furnace of his genius--are we + to suppose that later in life, with taste more fastidious, + even if his imagination were less strong, he carried out a + converse process; that he took Chaucer's gold, and mixed it + with alloy? That, I greatly doubt. Also, would he imitate + himself so closely as he is imitated in certain scenes of the + _Two N. K._? + + Another point. Love between persons of very different rank has + been held by many dramatists to be a fine subject for the + stage. Shakspere never introduces it. _Ophelia_ loves a + Prince, and _Violet_ a duke, and Rosalind a Squire's son; but + gentlehood unites all. Helena in _All's Well_ is a + gentlewoman. With anything like levelling aspirations + Shakspere had clearly no sympathy. In no undoubted play of his + have we, so far as I remember, any attempt to make the love of + the lowly born for the high a subject of sympathy: there is no + Beggar maid to any of his King Cophetuas. Goneril and Regan + stoop to Edmund through baseness; Malvolio's love for Olivia + is made ridiculous. The Gaoler's Daughter of the _Two N. K._ + stands alone: like the waiting-maid in the _Critic_, she goes + mad in white linen, and as painfully recalls Ophelia, as our + cousins the monkeys remind us of men. + + In some other respects the poem is far superior to the play. + Chaucer introduces the supernatural powers with excellent + effect and tact--so as to soften the rigour of the Duke's + decrees. In the Temple, Palamon, the more warlike in manners + of the two, is the more reckless and ardent in his love: of a + simpler nature, Venus entirely subdues and, at the same time, + effectually befriends him. He prays to her not for Victory: + for that he cares not: it matters not how events are brought + about 'so that I have my lady in mine arms.' Arcite, the + softer and more refined knight, prays simply for Victory. If + it be true that love changes the nature of men, here we have + the transformation. The prayer of each is granted, though they + seem opposed--thus Arcite experiences what many of those who + consulted old oracles found, 'the word of promise kept to the + ear, broken to the hope.' Then in the poem Theseus freely + forgives the two knights, but decides on the Tournament as a + means of seeing who shall have Emilia. In the play he decides + that one is to live and marry, the other to die. The absurdity + of this needless cruelty is evident: it was possibly + introduced to satisfy the coarse tastes of the audiences who + liked the sight of an executioner and a block. + + In fact I would say the play is not mainly Shakspere's because + of its un-Shaksperean depth. Who can sympathize with the cold, + coarse balancing of Emilia between the two men--eager to have + one, ready to take either; betrothed in haste to one, married + in haste to another--so far flying in the face of the pure + beauty of the original, where Emilia never loses maidenly + reserve. Then the final marriage of the Gaoler's Daughter is + as destructive of our sympathy as if Ophelia had been saved + from drowning by the grave-digger, and married to Horatio at + the end of the piece. The pedantry of Gerrold is poor, the fun + of the rustics forced and feeble, the sternness of Theseus + brutal and untouched by final gentleness as in Chaucer. + + Another argument against Shakspere's responsibility for the + whole play is the manner in which the minor characters are + introduced and the underplot managed. A secondary plot is a + characteristic of the Elizabethan drama, borrowed from that of + Spain. But Shakspere is peculiar in the skill with which he + interweaves the two plots and brings together the principal + and the inferior personages. In _Hamlet_ the soldiers on the + watch, the grave-diggers, the players, the two walking + gentlemen, even Osric, all help on the action of the drama and + come into relation with the hero himself. In _King Lear_, + Edmund and Gloster and Edgar, though engaged in a subsidiary + drama of their own, get mixed up with the fortunes of the King + and his daughters. In _Othello_, the foolish Venetian Roderigo + and Bianca the courtesan have some hand in the progress of the + play. In _Romeo and Juliet_, the Nurse and the Friar are + agents of the main plot, and the ball scene pushes on the + action. In _Shylock_, Lancelot Gobbo is servant to the Jew, + and helps Jessica to escape. I need not multiply instances, as + in _Much Ado about Nothing_, Dogberry, &c. As far as my own + recollection serves, I do not believe that in any play + undoubtedly Shakspere's we have a single instance of an + underplot like that of the Gaoler's Daughter. It might be + altogether omitted without affecting the story. Theseus, + Emilia, Hippolyta, Arcite, Palamon, never exchange a word with + the group of Gaoler's Daughter, Wooer, Brother, two Friends + and Doctor; and Palamon's only remembrance of her services is + that at his supposed moment of execution he generously leaves + her the money he had no further need of to help her to get + married to a remarkably tame young man who assumes the name of + his rival in order to bring his sweetheart to her senses. If + this underplot is due to Shakspere, why is there none like it + in all his works? If these exceedingly thin and very detached + minor characters are his, where in his undoubted plays are + others like them--thus hanging loosely on to the main + machinery of a play? Nor must we forget that if this underplot + is Shakspere's, it is his when he was an experienced + dramatist--so that after being a skilful constructor and + connecter of plot and underplot in his youth, 'his right hand + forgot its cunning' in his middle age. + + Two other arguments. In the Prologue of the play, written and + recited when it was acted, there are two passages expressing + great fears as to the result,--one that Chaucer might rise to + condemn the dramatist for spoiling his story,--another that + the play might be damned, and destroy the fortunes of the + Theatre[115:1]. Is this the way in which a play partly written + by Shakspere--then near the close of his successful stage + career--would be spoken of on its production? + + Another argument is, if Shakspere, using Chaucer's poem as a + model, spoiled it in dramatising it[115:2], then as a poet he + was inferior to Chaucer--which is absurd. + + Following high authorities, anybody may adopt any opinion on + this play and find backers--the extremes being the German + Tieck, who entirely rejects the idea of Shakspere's + authorship, and Mr Hickson, who throws on him the + responsibility for the whole framework of a play and the + groundwork of every character. I should incline to the middle + opinion[116:1], that Shakspere selected the subject, began the + play, wrote many passages; had no underplot, and generally + left it in a skeleton state; that Fletcher took it up, patched + it here and there, and added an underplot;--that Fletcher, not + Shakspere, is answerable for all the departures from Chaucer, + for all the underplot, and for the revised play as it stands. + There is nothing improbable in this. After Shakspere retired + to Stratford, Fletcher may have found the play amongst the + MSS. of the Theatre, and then produced it after due changes + made--not giving the author's name. At that time it was the + custom that a play remained the property of the company of + actors who produced it. That the Blackfriars Company did _not_ + regard the play as Shakspere's is pretty plain--for in the + edition of 1623, published by Heminge and Condell of that + company, Shakspere's own fellow-players, the play is not + included. Nor does the part authorship account for the + omission, as plays with less of Shakspere's undoubted + authorship are there included. But the omission is + intelligible if the play had been so Fletcherised that it was, + when acted, generally regarded as Fletcher's. Fletcher was + alive in 1623 to claim all as his property; but in 1634 he was + dead. Then the publisher, knowing or hearing that Shakspere + had a share, printed _his_ name, after _Fletcher's_, as part + dramatist. Thus I return to the older verdict of Coleridge and + Lamb, that Shakspere wrote passages of this play, perhaps also + the outlines, but that Fletcher filled up, added an underplot, + and finally revised. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[115:1] Does not this as much imply that Fletcher knew he had spoiled +what Shakspere would have done well?--H. L. + +[115:2] But this is confessedly the case with Chaucer's _Troilus_.--F. +[Not quite. In _Troilus_ the travestie is intentional: in the _Two N. +K._ Chaucer is solemnly Cibberised.--J. H. S.] + +[116:1] Also my view--though I hesitate to express a firm opinion on the +matter--PERHAPS Shakspere worked on the 1594 play as a basis?--H. L. + + + + +INDEX. + + + ALFIERI. His intensity, p. 91. + + Apollo, the statue, 87. + + _As you like it_, 75, 100. + + + BEAUMONT. Partnership with Fletcher, 2, 5, 6, 62, 63, 73. + + Beautiful, the, in Art, 85, 89. + + Bridal Song in _Two Noble Kinsmen_, 27. + + + Characterization, Shakspere's, 94. + + CHAUCER. Correspondences in the _Two Noble Kinsmen_ with the _Knight's + Tale_, 40, 45, 53; + differences from it, 35, 39, 44, 48, 54; + his classical subjects, 65, 66; + influence on Shakspere, 67, 68, 72; + school founded by him, 67; + version of the story, 26. + + Classical allusions in contemporary writers, 18, 19. + + Classical mythology in Shakspere, 19; + poetry, 71; + story, 64. + + Contemporary dramatists. Their licentiousness, 102; + points in common with Shakspere, 56, 57; + representations of passion, 95, 96; + stage effects, 74; + subjects, 63, 73. + + + DANTE, 91. + + Date of the _Two Noble Kinsmen_ 1634, 4. + + Didactic poetry, 92. + + + Editors, Shakspere's first, 6-8. + + Epic poetry, 92. + + Evidence as to authorship of the _Two N. K._, Historical, 3-5; + Internal, 10-25. + + + Fine art, 86. + + FLETCHER. His co-authors, 5, 6; + diffuseness and elaboration, 14; + differences between him and Shakspere, 57; + his 'men of pleasure,' 42, 102; + popularity, 4; + plots 63, 66; + poverty in metaphor, 17, + and in thought, compared with Shakspere, 20, 21. + His rhythm, 11; + his share in the _Two Noble Kinsmen_: all second act, five scenes in + third act, all fourth act, one scene in fifth act, 35-40, 42-45, + 59; + his slowness of association, 37; + vague, ill-graspt imagery, 16, 36; + want of personification, 25; + wit, 23. + + Folios, Shakspere's first and second, 6-9. + + FORD. Choice of plots, 74; + 'Death of Annabella,' 80. + + + Greek arts of design, poetry contrasted with modern, 71, 83. + + + Hamlet, 94, 104, 106. + + _Henry VIII_, 109. + + + Imagination, 90, 93. + + Invention defind by Alfieri, 92 _n._ + + + Jailer's daughter, 61. + + Jaques, 100, 101. + + JOHNSON, Dr Sam, 102. + + JONSON, BEN. Comparative failure in delineating passion, 95, 96; + his plots and Shakspere's, 36, 62, 73; + his humour, 23; + his likeness to Shakspere, 57; + partnership with Fletcher, 6; + 'Sejanus' untoucht by Shakspere, 2. + + + Laocoon, the sculpture, 87. + + _Lear_, the end of, 76, 94, 99. + + LESSING'S _Laocoon_, 83; + principles of plastic art, 83, 86. + + LODGE, 64. + + LYLY. His faults, 22. + + + _Macbeth_, 104. + + MARLOWE, 56, 64. + + MASSINGER. Reach of thought, 21, 57; + repetitions, 12; + sensational situations, 74. + + Metaphor. Shakspere's metaphorical style, 16; + examples, 24, 31-33; + simile and metaphor, 17. + + MIDDLETON, 57. + + _Midsummer Night's Dream_, 75, 109. + + MILTON. Inequality of early and late work, 106; + love of early legend, 72; + powerful conception, 13; + purity of mind, 103; + use of language, 13. + + + Origin of the story of _Two N. K._, 38. + + _Othello_, Act III, 75, 99, 104. + + + _Palamon and Arcite_ by Edwards, 66. + + Passions the chief subjects of poetry, 92. + + PEELE, 64. + + _Pericles_, 8, 65. + + Personification, 25, 26, 31. + + Plots of plays by Shakspere and others, contrasted, 63. + + Poetry. Characteristics, 90, 91; + contrast with plastic art, 84-86; + dramatic poetry the highest form, 92; + its true functions, 82; + its true subject, Mind, 90; + aims, 98; + and limitations, 95; + mental effect of poetry, 89. + + + SCHLEGEL on the _Two Noble Kinsmen_, 10. + + SHAKSPERE. Arrangement of plots, 73-78; + belongs to the old school, 62, 64; + characteristics of his style, 11, 28, 32, 34, 44, 46, 57-59; + choice of his subjects, well-known stories, 62-66; + conceits and word-play, 22, 23, 41; + conciseness, 13; + contrast to Fletcher, 57; + detaild description over-labourd, 17, 54; + difficulty of imitating Shakspere, 58, + distinctness of his images, 61. + His familiar images sometimes harsh and coarse, 29; + imagination, 93, 94; + mannerism, 12; + Metaphors, 16, 17, 24; + morality, 101-103; + obscurity, 14; + over-rapid conception, 13; + personification, 25, 26; + range of power, 105, 106; + repetition, 12; + representations of evil, 104; + share in the play: first act, one scene in second act, fifth act all + but one scene, 59; + sober rationality, 98; + stage spectacles avoided by him, 78; + studies, 67, 68; + tendency to reflection, 20, 21, 100, 101; + his thought, active, inquiring, put into all his characters, 20; + treatment of all human nature, 98, 99; + unity of conception, 79-81; + versification, 11; + wit, 23. + + Sketch of the _Two N. K._, 26-55. + + Spectacle. How Shakspere avoided stage spectacles, 78. + + SPENSER, 68, 72. + + + _Tempest_, 74, 94, 107. + + Theseus, the centre of the _Two N. K._, 27. + + _Timon_, 101. + + _Titus Andronicus_, 8. + + _Troilus and Cressida_, 8, 65; + Shakspere's only bitter play, 101. + + _Two Noble Kinsmen._ Date, 4; + origin of its story, 38; + plot chosen by Shakspere, 72; + sketch of it, 26, 55; + Shakspere's parts of it, 27-35, 40, 45-55, 59, 77; + Fletcher's parts, 35-40, 42-45, 59; + Summary of the argument for Shakspere's authorship, 105; + Table of the opinions on, p. vi., see too p. 10; + temper of the whole play, 82; + underplot not Shakspere's, 60, 62; + leading idea of the play, 81. + + + _Venus and Adonis_, 19, 25, 54. + + Venus de Medici, statue, 87. + + + WORDSWORTH. The poetical interest of all outward things to, 91. + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: + + +The following words use an oe ligature in the original: + + Boeotia + Phoebus + phoenix-like + +The following corrections have been made to the text: + + Page xvii: [original has extraneous quotation mark]P. S. As I + am no great scholar + + Page 36: [Sidenote: II.[period missing in original] i. one of + the finest scenes that Fletcher ever wrote.] + + Page 40: [Sidenote: Act II. scene v. (Weber, sc. vi. + [original has extra parenthesis]Littledale), are all + Fletcher's.] + + Page 43: [Sidenote: Act III. scene iv. v. Fletcher's.[period + missing in original]] + + Page 53: [Sidenote: Chaucer's[letter "s" missing in original] + celestial agency to work out the plot.] + + Page 63: [Sidenote: Beaumont and[word "and" missing in + original] Fletcher's.] + + Page 85: [Sidenote: Expression in Painting and Sculpture is a + borrowd quality.[period missing in original]] + + Page 113: [original has quotation mark]To judge the question + clearly + + Page 118, under "Shakspere": distinctness of his images, + 61[page number missing in original]. + + [104:1] page 107[original has 7] + + [115:1] he had spoiled what Shakspere[original has Shakpere] + would have done + +Some sidenotes are repeated on successive pages in the original. The +following sidenotes are in the original, but, because of duplication, +they have been omitted from this text. + + Page 8: [Sidenote: It contains two plays not Shakspere's:] + + Page 50: [Sidenote: Act V. scene v. (Weber, or sc. iii. + Littledale).] + + Page 52: [Sidenote: Act V. scene v. (Weber; or iii. + Littledale).] + + Page 53: [Sidenote: Act V. scene vi. (Weber; sc. iv. + Littledale) Shakspere's.] + + Page 54: [Sidenote: Act V. scene vi. (Weber; sc. iv. + Littledale).] + + Page 55: [Sidenote: Act V. scene vi. (Weber; sc. iv. + Littledale).] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Letter on Shakspere's Authorship of +The Two Noble Kinsmen, by William Spalding + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHAKSPERE'S AUTHORSHIP--TWO NOBLE KINSMEN *** + +***** This file should be named 35631.txt or 35631.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/6/3/35631/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Mike Zeug, Lisa Reigel, and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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