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diff --git a/old/50724-0.txt b/old/50724-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6588ada..0000000 --- a/old/50724-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,34216 +0,0 @@ -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 50724 *** - -WILLIAM - -SHAKESPEARE - -A CRITICAL STUDY - -BY - -GEORGE BRANDES - - - -LONDON - -WILLIAM HEINEMANN - -1905 - - - - - This Work is published in Copenhagen in Three - Volumes, represented by the Three Books of this translation. - The First Book and half of the Second are translated by Mr. - WILLIAM ARCHER; the last half of the Second Book by Mr. - ARCHER, assisted by Miss MARY MORISON; the Third Book by - Miss DIANA WHITE, also with the assistance of Miss MORISON. - The proofs of the whole Work have been revised by Dr. - BRANDES himself. - - - - -CONTENTS - -BOOK FIRST - - I. A BIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE DIFFICULT BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE - - II. STRATFORD--PARENTAGE--BOYHOOD - - III. MARRIAGE--SIR THOMAS LUCY--DEPARTURE FROM STRATFORD - - IV. LONDON--BUILDINGS, COSTUMES, MANNERS - - V. POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITIONS--ENGLAND'S GROWING - GREATNESS - - VI. SHAKESPEARE AS ACTOR AND RETOUCHER OF OLD PLAYS--GREENE'S - ATTACK - - VII. THE "HENRY VI." TRILOGY - - VIII. CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE AND HIS LIFE-WORK--TITUS ANDRONICUS - - IX. SHAKESPEARE'S CONCEPTION OF THE RELATIONS OF THE - SEXES--HIS MARRIAGE VIEWED IN THIS LIGHT--LOVE'S LABOUR'S - LOST--ITS MATTER AND STYLE--JOHN LYLY AND EUPHUISM--THE - PERSONAL ELEMENT - - X. LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON: THE FIRST SKETCH OF ALL'S WELL THAT - ENDS--THE COMEDY OF ERRORS--THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA - - XI. VENUS AND ADONIS: DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE--THE RAPE OF - LUCRECE: RELATION TO PAINTING - - XII. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM--ITS HISTORICAL - CIRCUMSTANCES--ITS ARISTOCRATIC, POPULAR, COMIC, AND - SUPERNATURAL ELEMENTS - - XIII. ROMEO AND JULIET--THE TWO QUARTOS--ITS ROMANESQUE - STRUCTURE--THE USE OF OLD MOTIVES--THE CONCEPTION OF LOVE - - XIV. LATTER-DAY ATTACKS UPON SHAKESPEARE--THE BACONIAN - THEORY--SHAKESPEARE'S KNOWLEDGE, PHYSICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL - - XV. THE THEATRES--THEIR SITUATION AND ARRANGEMENTS--THE - PLAYERS--THE POETS--POPULAR AUDIENCES--THE ARISTOCRATIC - PUBLIC--SHAKESPEARE'S ARISTOCRATIC PRINCIPLES - - XVI. THE THEATRES CLOSED ON ACCOUNT OF THE PLAGUE--DID - SHAKESPEARE VISIT ITALY?--PASSAGES WHICH FAVOUR THIS - CONJECTURE - - XVII. SHAKESPEARE TURNS TO HISTORIC DRAMA--HIS RICHARD II. - AND MARLOWE'S EDWARD II.--LACK OF HUMOUR AND OF CONSISTENCY - OF STYLE--ENGLISH NATIONAL PRIDE - - XVIII. RICHARD III.--PSYCHOLOGY AND MONOLOGUES--SHAKESPEARE'S - POWER OF SELF-TRANSFORMATION--CONTEMPT FOR WOMEN--THE - PRINCIPAL SCENES--THE CLASSIC TENDENCY OF THE TRAGEDY - - XIX. SHAKESPEARE LOSES HIS SON--TRACES OF HIS GRIEF IN - KING JOHN--THE OLD PLAY OF THE SAME NAME--DISPLACEMENT - OF ITS CENTRE OF GRAVITY--ELIMINATION OF RELIGIOUS - POLEMICS--RETENTION OF THE NATIONAL BASIS--PATRIOTIC - SPIRIT--SHAKESPEARE KNOWS NOTHING OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN - NORMANS AND ANGLO-SAXONS, AND IGNORES THE MAGNA CHARTA - - XX. "THE TAMING OF THE SHREW" AND "THE MERCHANT OF - VENICE"--SHAKESPEARE'S PREOCCUPATION WITH THOUGHTS OF - PROPERTY AND GAIN--HIS GROWING PROSPERITY--HIS ADMISSION - TO THE RANKS OF THE "GENTRY"--HIS PURCHASE OF HOUSES AND - LAND--MONEY TRANSACTIONS AND LAWSUITS - - XXI. THE MERCHANT OF VENICE--ITS SOURCES--ITS CHARACTERS, - ANTONIO, PORTIA, SHYLOCK--MOONLIGHT AND MUSIC--SHAKESPEARE'S - RELATION TO MUSIC - - XXII. "EDWARD III." AND "ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM"--SHAKESPEARE'S - DICTION--THE FIRST PART OF "HENRY IV."--FIRST INTRODUCTION - OF HIS OWN EXPERIENCES OF LIFE IN THE HISTORIC DRAMA--WHY - THE SUBJECT APPEALED TO HIM--TAVERN LIFE--SHAKESPEARE'S - CIRCLE--SIR JOHN FALSTAFF--FALSTAFF AND THE GRACIOSO OF THE - SPANISH DRAMA--RABELAIS AND SHAKESPEARE--PANURGE AND FALSTAFF - - XXIII. HENRY PERCY--THE MASTERY OF THE CHARACTER - DRAWING--HOTSPUR AND ACHILLES - - XXIV. PRINCE HENRY--THE POINT OF DEPARTURE FOR SHAKESPEARE'S - IMAGINATION--A TYPICAL ENGLISH NATIONAL HERO--THE FRESHNESS - AND PERFECTION OF THE PLAY - - XXV. "KING HENRY IV.," SECOND PART--OLD AND NEW CHARACTERS - IN IT--DETAILS--"HENRY V.," A NATIONAL DRAMA--PATRIOTISM AND - CHAUVINISM--THE VISION OF A GREATER ENGLAND - - XXVI. ELIZABETH AND FALSTAFF--"THE MERRY WIVES OF - WINDSOR"--THE PROSAIC AND BOURGEOIS TONE OF THE PIECE--THE - FAIRY SCENES - - XXVII. SHAKESPEARE'S MOST BRILLIANT PERIOD--THE FEMININE - TYPES BELONGING TO IT--WITTY AND HIGHBORN YOUNG - WOMEN--MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING--SLAVISH FAITHFULNESS TO HIS - SOURCES--BENEDICK AND BEATRICE--SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT--THE - LOW-COMEDY FIGURES - - XXVIII. THE INTERVAL OF SERENITY--AS YOU LIKE IT--THE ROVING - SPIRIT--THE LONGING FOR NATURE--JAQUES AND SHAKESPEARE--THE - PLAY A FEAST OF WIT - - XXIX. CONSUMMATE SPIRITUAL HARMONY--TWELFTH NIGHT--JIBES AT - PURITANISM--THE LANGUISHING CHARACTERS--VIOLA'S INSINUATING - GRACE--FAREWELL TO MIRTH. - - XXX. THE REVOLUTION IN SHAKESPEARE'S SOUL--THE GROWING - MELANCHOLY OF THE FOLLOWING PERIOD--PESSIMISM, MISANTHROPY - - -BOOK SECOND - - I. INTRODUCTION--THE ENGLAND OF ELIZABETH IN SHAKESPEARE'S - YOUTH - - II. ELIZABETH'S OLD AGE - - III. ELIZABETH, ESSEX, AND BACON - - IV. THE FATE OF ESSEX AND SOUTHAMPTON - - V. THE DEDICATION OF THE SONNETS--THE FRIEND TO WHOM THEY ARE - ADDRESSED - - VI. THE "DARK LADY" OF THE SONNETS - - VII. PLATONISM, SHAKESPEARE'S AND MICHAEL ANGELO'S SONNETS - --THE TECHNIQUE - - VIII. _JULIUS CÆSAR_--THE FUNDAMENTAL DEFECT OF THE DRAMA - - IX. THE MERITS OF THE DRAMA--BRUTUS - - X. BEN JONSON AND HIS ROMAN PLAYS - - XI. _HAMLET_: ITS ANTECEDENTS IN FICTION, HISTORY, AND DRAMA - - XII. _HAMLET_--MONTAIGNE AND GIORDANO BRUNO--ANTECEDENTS - IN ETHNOGRAPHY - - XIII. THE PERSONAL ELEMENT IN HAMLET - - XIV. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HAMLET - - XV. _HAMLET_ AS A DRAMA - - XVI. HAMLET AND OPHELIA - - XVII. _HAMLET'S_ INFLUENCE ON LATER TIMES - - XVIII. HAMLET AS A CRITIC - - XIX. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL--ATTACKS ON PURITANISM - - XX. _MEASURE FOR MEASURE_--ANGELO AND TARTUFFE - - XXI. ACCESSION OF JAMES AND ANNE--RALEIGH'S FATE--SHAKESPEARE'S - COMPANY BECOME HIS MAJESTY'S SERVANTS--SCOTCH INFLUENCE - - XXII. _MACBETH--MACBETH AND HAMLET_--DIFFICULTIES ARISING FROM THE - STATE OF THE TEXT - - XXIII. _OTHELLO_--THE CHARACTER AND SIGNIFICANCE OF IAGO - - XXIV. OTHELLO--THE THEME AND ITS TREATMENT--A MONOGRAPH IN THE GREAT - STYLE - - XXV. _KING LEAR_--THE FEELING UNDERLYING IT--THE CHRONICLE - --SIDNEY'S _ARCADIA_ AND THE OLD PLAY - - XXVI. _KING LEAR_--THE TRAGEDY OF A WORLD-CATASTROPHE - - XXVII. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA--WHAT ATTRACTED SHAKESPEARE TO THE SUBJECT - - XXVIII. THE DARK LADY AS A MODEL--THE FALL OF THE REPUBLIC A - WORLD-CATASTROPHE - - -BOOK THIRD - - - I. DISCORD AND SCORN - - II. THE COURT--THE KING'S FAVOURITES AND RALEIGH - - III. THE KING'S THEOLOGY AND IMPECUNIOSITY--HIS DISPUTES WITH THE - HOUSE OF COMMONS - - IV. THE CUSTOMS OF THE COURT - - V. ARABELLA STUART AND WILLIAM SEYMOUR - - VI. ROCHESTER AND LADY ESSEX - - VII. CONTEMPT OF WOMEN--TROILUS AND CRESSIDA - - VIII. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA--THE HISTORICAL MATERIAL - - IX. SHAKESPEARE AND CHAPMAN--SHAKESPEARE AND HOMER. - - X. SCORN OF WOMAN'S GUILE AND PUBLIC STUPIDITY - - XI. DEATH OF SHAKESPEARE'S MOTHER--CORIOLANUS--HATRED OF THE - MASSES - - XII. CORIOLANUS AS A DRAMA - - XIII. TIMON OF ATHENS--HATRED OF MANKIND - - XIV. CONVALESCENCE--TRANSFORMATION--THE NEW TYPE - - XV. PERICLES--COLLABORATION WITH WILKINS AND ROWLEY--SHAKESPEARE - AND CORNEILLE - - XVI. FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER - - XVII. SHAKESPEARE AND FLETCHER--THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN AND HENRY VIII. - - XVIII. CYMBELINE--THE THEME--THE POINT OF DEPARTURE--THE MORAL--THE - IDYLL--IMOGEN--SHAKESPEARE AND GOETHE--SHAKESPEARE AND CALDERON - - XIX. WINTER'S TALE--AN EPIC TURN--CHILDLIKE FORMS--THE PLAY AS A - MUSICAL STUDY--SHAKESPEARE'S ÆSTHETIC CONFESSION OF FAITH - - XX. THE TEMPEST--WRITTEN FOR THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH'S WEDDING - - XXI. SOURCES OF THE TEMPEST - - XXII. THE TEMPEST AS A PLAY--SHAKESPEARE AND PROSPERO--FAREWELL - TO ART - - XXIII. THE RIDE TO STRATFORD - - XXIV. STRATFORD-UPON-AVON - - XXV. THE LAST YEARS OF SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE - - XXVI. SHAKESPEARE'S DEATH - - XXVII. CONCLUSION - - INDEX - - - - - -WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE - - - - -BOOK FIRST - - -The same year which saw the death of Michael Angelo in Rome, saw the -birth of William Shakespeare at Stratford-on-Avon. The great artist of -the Italian Renaissance, the man who painted the ceiling of the Sistine -Chapel, was replaced, as it were, by the great artist of the English -Renaissance, the man who wrote _King Lear._ - -Death overtook Shakespeare in his native place on the same date on -which Cervantes died in Madrid. The two great creative artists of the -Spanish and the English Renaissance, the men to whom we owe Don Quixote -and Hamlet, Sancho Panza and Falstaff, were simultaneously snatched -away. - -Michael Angelo has depicted mighty and suffering demigods in solitary -grandeur. No Italian has rivalled him in sombre lyrism or tragic -sublimity. - -The finest creations of Cervantes stand as monuments of a humour so -exalted that it marks an epoch in the literature of the world. No -Spaniard has rivalled him in type-creating comic force. - -Shakespeare stands co-equal with Michael Angelo in pathos and with -Cervantes in humour. This of itself gives us a certain standard for -measuring the height and range of his powers. - -It is three hundred years since his genius attained its full -development, yet Europe is still busied with him as though with a -contemporary. His dramas are acted and read wherever civilisation -extends. Perhaps, however, he exercises the strongest fascination upon -the reader whose natural bent of mind leads him to delight in searching -out the human spirit concealed and revealed in a great artist's work. -"I will not let you go until you have confessed to me the secret of -your being"--these are the words that rise to the lips of such a -reader of Shakespeare. Ranging the plays in their probable order of -production, and reviewing the poet's life-work as a whole, he feels -constrained to form for himself some image of the spiritual experience -of which it is the expression. - - - -I - -_A BIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE DIFFICULT BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE_ - -When we pass from the notabilities of the nineteenth century to -Shakespeare, all our ordinary critical methods leave us in the lurch. -We have, as a rule, no lack of trustworthy information as to the -productive spirits of our own day and of the past two centuries. We -know the lives of authors and poets from their own accounts or those -of their contemporaries; in many cases we have their letters; and -we possess not only works attributed to them, but works which they -themselves gave to the press. We not only know with certainty their -authentic writings, but are assured that we possess them in authentic -form. If disconcerting errors occur in their works, they are only -misprints, which they themselves or others happen to have overlooked. -Insidious though they may be, there is no particular difficulty in -correcting them. Bernays, for example, has weeded out not a few from -the text of Goethe. - -It is otherwise with Shakespeare and his fellow-dramatists of -Elizabethan England. He died in 1616, and the first biography of him, -a few pages in length, dates from 1709. This is as though the first -sketch of Goethe's life were not to be written till the year 1925. We -possess no letters of Shakespeare's, and only one (a business letter) -addressed to him. Of the manuscripts of his works not a single line -is extant. Our sole specimens of his handwriting consist of five or -six signatures, three appended to his will, two to contracts, and one, -of very doubtful authenticity, on the copy of Florio's translation of -Montaigne, which is shown at the British Museum. We do not know exactly -how far several of the works attributed to Shakespeare are really his. -In the case of such plays as _Titus Andronicus_, the trilogy of _Henry -VI, Pericles_, and _Henry VIII_, the question of authorship presents -great and manifold difficulties. In his youth Shakespeare had to adapt -or retouch the plays of others; in later life he sometimes collaborated -with younger men. And worse than this, with the exception of two short -narrative poems, which Shakespeare himself gave to the press, not one -of his works is known to have been published under his own supervision. -He seems never to have sanctioned any publication, or to have read a -single proof-sheet. The 1623 folio of his plays, issued after his death -by two of his actor-friends, purports to be printed "according to the -True Originall Copies;" but this assertion is demonstrably false in -numerous instances in which we can test it--where the folio, that is -to say, presents a simple reprint, often with additional blunders, -of the old pirated quartos, which must have been based either on the -surreptitious notes of stenographers or on "prompt copies" dishonestly -acquired. - -It has become the fashion to say, not without some show of justice, -that we know next to nothing of Shakespeare's life. We do not know for -certain either when he left Stratford or when he returned to Stratford -from London. We do not know for certain whether he ever went abroad, -ever visited Italy. We do not know the name of a single woman whom he -loved during all his years in London. We do not know for certain to -whom his Sonnets are addressed. We can see that as he advanced in life -his prevailing mood became gloomier, but we do not know the reason. -Later on, his temper seems to grow more serene, but we cannot tell -why. We can form but tentative conjectures as to the order in which -his works were produced, and can only with the greatest difficulty -determine their approximate dates. We do not know what made him so -careless of his fame as he seems to have been. We only know that he -himself did not publish his dramatic works, and that he does not even -mention them in his will. - -On the other hand, enthusiastic and indefatigable research has -gradually brought to light a great number of indubitable facts, which -furnish us with points of departure and of guidance for an outline of -the poet's life. We possess documents, contracts, legal records; we can -cite utterances of contemporaries, allusions to works of Shakespeare's -and to passages in them, quotations, fierce attacks, outbursts of -spite and hatred, touching testimonies to his worth as a man and to -the lovableness of his nature, evidence of the early recognition of -his talent as an actor, of his repute as a narrative poet, and of -his popularity as a dramatist. We have, moreover, one or two diaries -kept by contemporaries, and among others the account-book of an old -theatrical manager and pawnbroker, who supplied the players with money -and dresses, and who has carefully dated the production of many plays. - -To these contemporary evidences we must add that of tradition. In -1662 a clergyman named John Ward, Vicar of Stratford, took some notes -of information gathered from the inhabitants of the district; and in -1693 a Mr. Dowdall recorded some details which he had learnt from the -octogenarian sexton and verger of Stratford Church. But tradition is -mainly represented by Rowe, Shakespeare's first tardy biographer. He -refers in particular to three sources of information. The earliest is -Sir William Davenant, Poet Laureate, who did nothing to discountenance -the rumour which gave him out to be an illegitimate son of Shakespeare. -His contributions, however, can have reached Rowe only at second hand, -since he died before Rowe was born. Naturally enough, then, the greater -part of what is related on his authority proves to be questionable. -Rowe's second source of information was Aubrey, an antiquary after the -fashion of his day, who, half a century after Shakespeare's death, -visited Stratford on one of his riding-tours. He wrote numerous short -biographies, all of which contain gross and demonstrable errors, so -that we can scarcely put implicit faith in the insignificant anecdotes -about Shakespeare preserved in his manuscript of 1680. Rowe's most -important source of information, however, is Betterton the actor, who, -about 1690, made a journey to Warwickshire for the express purpose of -collecting whatever oral traditions with regard to Shakespeare might -linger in the district. His gleanings form the most valuable part of -Rowe's biography; contemporary documents subsequently discovered have -in several instances lent them curious confirmation. - -We owe it, then, to a little group of worthy but by no means brilliant -men that we are able to sketch the outline of Shakespeare's career. -They have preserved for us anecdotes of little worth, even if they are -true, while leaving us entirely in the dark as to important points in -his outward history, and throwing little or no light upon the course of -his inner life. - -It is true that we possess in Shakespeare's Sonnets a group of poems -which bring us more directly into touch with his personality than -any of his other works. But to determine the value of the Sonnets as -autobiographical documents requires not only historical knowledge but, -critical instinct and tact, since it is by no means self-evident that -the poet is, in a literal sense, speaking in his own name. - - - - -II - -_STRATFORD--PARENTAGE--BOYHOOD_ - -William Shakespeare was a child of the country. He was born in -Stratford-on-Avon, a little town of fourteen or fifteen hundred -inhabitants, lying in a pleasant and undulating tract of country, rich -in green meadows and trees and leafy hedges, the natural features of -which Shakespeare seems to have had in his mind's eye when he wrote -the descriptions of scenery in _A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You -Like It_, and _A Winter's Tale._ His first and deepest impressions of -nature he received from this scenery; and he associated with it his -earliest poetical impressions, gathered from the folk-songs of the -peasantry, so often alluded to and reproduced in his plays. The town of -Stratford lies upon the ancient high-road from London to Ireland, which -here crosses the river Avon. To this circumstance it owes its name -(Street-ford). A handsome bridge spanned the river. The picturesque -houses, with their gable-roofs, were either wooden or frame-built. -There were two handsome public buildings, which still remain: the fine -old church close to the river, and the Guildhall, with its chapel and -Grammar School. In the chapel, which possessed a pleasant peal of -bells, there was a set of frescoes--probably the first and for long the -only paintings known to Shakespeare. - -For the rest, Stratford-on-Avon was an insanitary place of residence. -There was no sort of underground drainage, and street-sweepers and -scavengers were unknown. The waste water from the houses flowed out -into badly kept gutters; the streets were full of evil-smelling pools, -in which pigs and geese freely disported themselves; and dunghills -skirted the highway. The first thing we learn about Shakespeare's -father is that, in April 1552, he was fined twelvepence for having -formed a great midden outside his house in Henley Street--a -circumstance which on the one hand proves that he kept sheep and -cattle, and on the other indicates his scant care for cleanliness, -since the common dunghill lay only a stone's-throw from his house. At -the time of his highest prosperity, in 1558, he, along with some other -citizens, is again fined fourpence for the same misdemeanour. - -The matter is not without interest, since it is in all probability to -these defects of sanitation that Shakespeare's early death is to be -ascribed. - -Both on his father's and his mother's side, the poet was descended from -yeoman families of Warwickshire. His grandfather, Richard Shakespeare, -lived at Snitterfield, where he rented a small property. Richard's -second son, John Shakespeare, removed to Stratford about 1551, and went -into business in Henley Street as a tanner and glover. In the year -1557 his circumstances were considerably improved by his marriage with -Mary Arden, the youngest daughter of Robert Arden, a well-to-do yeoman -in the neighbourhood, who had died a few months before. On his death -she had inherited his property of Asbies at Wilmecote; and she had, -besides, a reversionary interest in a larger property at Snitterfield. -Asbies was valued at £224, and brought in a rental of £28, or about -£140 of our modern money. The inventory appended to her father's will -gives us a good insight into the domestic economy of a rich yeoman's -family of those days: a single bed with two mattresses, five sheets, -three towels, &c. Garments of linen they do not seem to have -possessed. The eating utensils were of no value: wooden spoons and -wooden platters. Yet the home of Shakespeare's mother was, according to -the standard of that day, distinctly well-to-do. - -His marriage enabled John Shakespeare to extend his business. He had -large transactions in wool, and also dealt, as occasion offered, in -corn and other commodities. Aubrey's statement that he was a butcher -seems to mean no more than that he himself fattened and killed the -animals whose skins he used in his trade. But in those days the -different occupations in a small English country town were not at all -strictly discriminated; the man who produced the raw material would -generally work it up as well. - -John Shakespeare gradually rose to an influential position the little -town in which he had settled. He first (in 1557) became one of the -ale-tasters, sworn to look to the quality of bread and beer; in the -following year he was one of the four "petty constables" of the town. -In 1561 he was Chamberlain, in 1565 Alderman, and finally, in 1568, -High Bailiff. - -William Shakespeare was his parents' third child. Two sisters, who died -in infancy, preceded him. He was baptized on the 26th of April 1564; we -do not know his birthday precisely. Tradition gives it as the 23rd of -April; more probably it was the 22nd (in the new style the 4th of May), -since, if Shakespeare had died upon his birthday, his epitaph would -doubtless have mentioned the circumstance, and would not have stated -that he died in his fifty-third year [_Ætatis_ 53]. - -Neither of Shakespeare's parents possessed any school education; -neither of them seems to have been able to write his or her own name. -They desired, however, that their eldest son should not lack the -education they themselves had been denied, and therefore sent the boy -to the Free School or Grammar School of Stratford, where children -from the age of seven upwards were grounded in Latin grammar, learned -to construe out of a schoolbook called _Sententice Pueriles_, and -afterwards read Ovid, Virgil, and Cicero. The school-hours, both in -summer and winter, occupied the whole day, with the necessary intervals -for meals and recreation. An obvious reminiscence of Shakespeare's -schooldays is preserved for us in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ (iv. I), -where the schoolmaster, Sir Hugh Evans, hears little William his _Hic, -Hæc, Hoc_, and assures himself of his knowledge that _pulcher_ means -fair, and _lapis_ a stone. It even appears that his teacher was in fact -a Welshman. - -The district in which the child grew up was rich in historical memories -and monuments. Warwick, with its castle, renowned since the Wars of the -Roses, was in the immediate neighbourhood. It had been the residence, -in his day, of the Earl of Warwick who distinguished himself at the -battle of Shrewsbury and negotiated the marriage of Henry V. The -district was, however, divided during the Wars of the Roses. Warwick -for some time sided with York, Coventry with Lancaster. With Coventry, -too, a town rich in memories of the period which he was afterwards to -summon to life on the stage Shakespeare must have been acquainted in -his boyhood. It was in Coventry that the two adversaries who appear in -his _Richard II.,_ Henry Bolingbroke and the Duke of Norfolk, had their -famous encounter. But in another respect as well Coventry must have had -great attractions for the boy. It was the scene of regular theatrical -representations, which, at first organised by the Church, afterwards -passed into the hands of the guilds. Shakespeare must doubtless have -seen the half-mediæval religious dramas sometimes alluded to in his -works--plays which placed before the eyes of the audience Herod and the -Massacre of the Innocents, souls burning in hell, and other startling -scenes of a like nature[1] (_Henry V_., ii. 3 and iii. 3). - -Of royal and princely splendour Shakespeare had probably certain -glimpses even in his childhood. When he was eight years old Elizabeth -paid a visit to Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, in the immediate -neighbourhood of Stratford--the Sir Thomas Lucy who was to have such -a determining influence upon Shakespeare's career. In any case, he -must doubtless have visited the neighbouring castle of Kenilworth, -and seen something of the great festivities organised by Leicester in -Elizabeth's honour, during her visit to the castle in 1575. We know -that the Shakespeare family possessed a near and influential kinsman -in Leicester's trusted attendant, Edward Arden, who soon afterwards, -apparently on account of the strained relations which arose between -the Queen and Leicester after the fêtes, incurred the suspicion or -displeasure of his master, and was ultimately executed. - -Nor was it only mediæval mysteries that the future poet, during his -boyhood, had opportunities of seeing. The town of Stratford showed a -marked taste for secular theatricals. The first travelling company -of players came to Stratford in the year when Shakespeare's father -was High Bailiff, and between 1569 and 1587 no fewer than twenty-four -strolling troupes visited the town. The companies who came most -frequently were the Queen's Men and the servants of Lord Worcester, -Lord Leicester, and Lord Warwick. Custom directed that they should -first wait upon the High Bailiff to inform him in what nobleman's -service they were enrolled; and their first performance took place -before the Town Council alone. A writer named Willis, born in the -same year as Shakespeare, has described how he was present at such a -representation in the neighbouring town of Gloucester, standing between -his father's knees; and we can thus picture to ourselves the way in -which the glories of the theatre were for the first time revealed to -the future poet. - -As a boy and youth, then, he no doubt had opportunities of making -himself familiar with the bulk of the old English repertory, partly -composed of such pieces as he afterwards ridicules--for instance, -the _Cambyses_, whose rant Falstaff parodies--partly of pieces -which subsequently became the foundation of his own plays, such as -_The Supposes_, which he used in _The Taming of the Shrew_, or _The -Troublesome Raigne of King John_, or the _Famous Victories of Henry the -Fifth_, which supplied some of the material for his _Henry IV._ - -Probably Shakespeare, as a boy and youth, was not content with seeing -the performances, but sought out the players in the different taverns -where they took up their quarters, the "Swan," the "Crown," or the -"Bear." - -The school course was generally over when a boy reached his fourteenth -year. It appears that when Shakespeare was at this age his father -removed him from the school, having need of him in his business. His -father's prosperity was by this time on the wane. - -In the year 1578 John Shakespeare mortgaged his wife's property, -Asbies, for a sum of £40, which he seems to have engaged to repay -within two years, though this he himself denied. In the same year the -Town Council agrees that he shall be required to pay only one-half of -a tax (6s. 8d. in all) for the equipment of soldiers, and absolves him -altogether from payment of a poor-rate levied on the other Aldermen. -In the following year he cannot pay even his half of the pikemen-tax. -In 1579 he sold the reversion of a piece of land falling to him on -his mother-in-law's death. In the following year he wanted to pay off -the mortgage on Asbies; but the mortgagee, a certain Edmund Lambert, -declined to receive the money, for the reason, or under the pretext, -that it had not been tendered within the stipulated time, and that -Shakespeare had, moreover, borrowed other sums of him. In the course of -the consequent lawsuit, John Shakespeare described himself as a person -of "small wealthe, and verey fewe frends and alyance in the countie." -The result of this lawsuit is unknown, but it seems as though the -father, and the son after him, took it much to heart, and felt that a -great injustice had been done them. In the Induction to _The Taming -of the Shrew_, Christopher Sly calls himself "Old Sly's son of Burton -Heath." But Barton-on-the-Heath was precisely the place where lived -Edmund Lambert and his son John, who, after his death in 1587, carried -on the litigation. And this utterance of the chief character in the -Induction is, significantly enough, one of the few which Shakespeare -added to the Induction to the old play he was here adapting. - -From this time forward John Shakespeare's position goes from bad to -worse. In the year 1586, when his son was probably already in London, -his goods are distrained upon, and no fewer than three warrants are -issued for his arrest; he seems for a time to have been imprisoned -for debt. He is removed from his position as Alderman because he -has not for a long time attended the meetings at the Guildhall. He -probably dared not put in an appearance for fear of being arrested -by his creditors. He seems to have lost a considerable sum of money -by standing surety for his brother Henry. There was, moreover, a -commercial crisis in Stratford. The cloth and yarn trade, in which most -of the citizens were engaged, had become much less remunerative than -before. - -We find evidence of the painful position in which John Shakespeare -remained so late as the year 1592, in Sir Thomas Lucy's report with -reference to the inhabitants of Stratford who did not obey her -Majesty's order that they should attend church once a month. He is -mentioned as one of those who "coom not to Churche for fear of processe -for debtte." - -It is probable that the young William when his father removed him from -the Grammar School, assisted him in his trade; and it is not impossible -that, as a somewhat dubious allusion in a contemporary seems to imply, -he was for some time a clerk in an attorney's office. His great powers, -at any rate, doubtless revealed themselves very early; he must have -taken early to writing verses, and, like most men of genius, must have -ripened early in every respect. - - -[1] We find reminiscences of these scenes in Hamlet's expression, "He -out-herods Herod," and in the comparison of a flea on Bardolph's nose -to a black soul burning in hell-fire. - - - - -III - -_MARRIAGE--SIR THOMAS LUCY--DEPARTURE FROM STRATFORD_ - -In December 1582, being then only eighteen, William Shakespeare married -Anne Hathaway, daughter of a well-to-do yeoman, recently deceased, in -a neighbouring hamlet of the same parish. The marriage of a boy not -yet out of his teens, whose father was in embarrassed circumstances, -while he himself had probably nothing to live on but such scanty -wages as he could earn in his father's service, seems on the face of -it somewhat precipitate; and the arrangements for it, moreover, were -unusually hurried. In a document dated November 28, 1582, two friends -of the Hathaway family give a bond to the Bishop of Worcester's Court, -declaring, under relatively heavy penalties, that there is no legal -impediment to the solemnisation of the marriage after one publication -of the banns, instead of the statutory three. So far as we can gather, -it was the bride's family that hurried on the marriage, while the -bridegroom's held back, and perhaps even opposed it. This haste is the -less surprising when we find that the first child, a daughter named -Susanna, was born in May 1583, only five months and three weeks after -the wedding. It is probable, however, that a formal betrothal, which -at that time was regarded as the essential part of the contract, had -preceded the marriage. - -In 1585 twins were born, a girl, Judith, and a boy, Hamnet (the name -is also written Hamlet), no doubt called after a friend of the family, -Hamnet Sadler, a baker in Stratford, who is mentioned in Shakespeare's -will. This son died at the age of eleven. - -It was probably soon after the birth of the twins that Shakespeare -was forced to quit Stratford. According to Rowe he had "fallen into -ill company," and taken part in more than one deer-stealing raid upon -Sir Thomas Lucy's park at Charlecote. "For this he was prosecuted by -that gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too severely, and in order to -revenge that ill-usage he made a ballad upon him.... It is said to -have been so very bitter that it redoubled the prosecution against him -to that degree that he was obliged to leave his business and family -in Warwickshire for some time and shelter himself in London." Rowe -believed this ballad to be lost, but what purports to be the first -verse of it has been preserved by Oldys, on the authority of a very old -man who lived in the neighbourhood of Stratford. It may possibly be -genuine. The coincidence between it and an unquestionable gibe at Sir -Thomas Lucy in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ renders it probable that -it has been more or less correctly remembered.[1] Although poaching -was at that time regarded as a comparatively innocent and pardonable -misdemeanour of youth, to which the Oxford students, for example, -were for many generations greatly addicted, yet Sir Thomas Lucy, who -seems to have newly and not over-plentifully stocked his park, deeply -resented the depredations of young Stratford. He was, it would appear, -no favourite in the town. He never, like the other landowners of the -district, requited with a present of game the offerings of salt and -sugar which, as we learn from the town accounts, the burgesses were -in the habit of sending him. Shakespeare's misdeeds were not at that -time punishable by law; but, as a great landowner and justice of the -peace, Sir Thomas had the young fellow in his power, and there is every -probability in favour of the tradition, preserved by the Rev. Richard -Davies, who died in 1708, that he "had him oft whipt and sometimes -imprisoned." It is confirmed by the substantial correctness of Davies' -further statement: "His revenge was so great, that he is his Justice -Clodpate [Shallow],... that in allusion to his name bore three louses -rampant for his arms." We find, in fact, that in the opening scene of -_The Merry Wives,_ Justice Shallow, who accuses Falstaff of having shot -his deer, has, according to Slender's account, a dozen white luces -(pikes) in his coat-of-arms, which, in the mouth of the Welshman, Sir -Hugh Evans, become a dozen white louses--the word-play being exactly -the same as that in the ballad. Three luces argent were the cognisance -of the Lucy family. - -The attempt to cast doubt upon this old tradition of Shakespeare's -poaching exploits becomes doubly unreasonable in face of the fact that -precisely in 1585 Sir Thomas Lucy spoke in Parliament in favour of more -stringent game-laws. - -The essential point, however, is simply this, that at about the age of -twenty-one Shakespeare leaves his native, town, not to return to it -permanently until his life's course is nearly run. Even if he had not -been forced to bid it farewell, the impulse to develop his talents and -energies must ere long have driven him forth. Young and inexperienced -as he was, at all events, he had now to betake himself to the capital -to seek his fortune. - -Whether he left any great happiness behind him we cannot tell; but it -is scarcely probable. There is nothing to show that in the peasant -girl, almost eight years older than himself, whom he married at the -age of eighteen, Shakespeare found the woman who, even for a few -years, could fill his life. Everything, indeed, points in the opposite -direction. She and the children remained behind in Stratford, and he -saw her only when he revisited his native place, as he did at long -intervals, probably, at first, but afterwards annually. Tradition and -the internal evidence of his writings prove that he lived, in London, -the free Bohemian life of an actor and playwright. We know, too, that -he was soon plunged in the business cares of a theatrical manager and -part-proprietor. The woman's part in this life was not played by Anne -Hathaway. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that Shakespeare -never for a moment lost sight of Stratford, and that he had no sooner -made a footing for himself in London than he set to work with the -definite aim of acquiring land and property in the town from which he -had gone forth penniless and humiliated. His father should hold up his -head again, and the family honour be re-established. - - -[1] It runs:-- - -"A parliament member, a justice of peace, - At home a poor scare-crow, at London an asse; - If lowsie is Lucy, as some volke miscalle it, - Then Lucy is lowsie, whatever befall it; - He thinkes himself greate - Yet an asse in his state - We allowe by his eares but with asses to mate. - If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it, - Sing lowsie Lucy, whatever befalle it." - - - -IV - -_LONDON--BUILDINGS, COSTUMES, MANNERS_ - -So the young man rode from Stratford to London. He probably, according -to the custom of the poorer travellers of that time, sold his horse -on his arrival at Smithfield; and, as Halliwell-Phillips ingeniously -suggests, he may have sold it to James Burbage, who kept a livery -stable in the neighbourhood. It may have been this man, the father of -Richard Burbage, afterwards Shakespeare's most famous fellow-actor, who -employed Shakespeare to take charge of the horses which his customers -of the Smithfield district hired to ride to the play. James Burbage had -built, and now owned, the first playhouse erected in London (1576), -known as _The Theatre_; and a well-known tradition, which can be -traced to Sir William Davenant, relates that Shakespeare was driven -by dire necessity to hang about the doors of the theatre and hold the -horses of those who had ridden to the play. The district was a remote -and disreputable one, and swarmed with horse-thieves. Shakespeare -won such favour as a horse-holder, and was in such general demand, -that he had to engage boys as assistants, who announced themselves -as "Shakespeare's boys," a style and title, it is said, which long -clung to them. A fact which speaks in favour of this much-ridiculed -legend is that, at the time to which it can be traced back, well on in -the seventeenth century, the practice of riding to the theatres had -entirely fallen into disuse. People then went to the play by water. - -A Stratford tradition represents that Shakespeare first entered the -theatre in the character of "servitor" to the actors, and Malone -reports "a stage tradition that his first office in the theatre was -that of prompter's attendant," whose business was to give the players -notice of the time for their entrance. It is evident, however, that he -soon rose above these menial stations. - -The London to which Shakespeare came was a town of about 300,000 -inhabitants. Its main streets had quite recently been paved, but were -not yet lighted; it was surrounded with trenches, walls, and gates; it -had high-gabled, red-roofed, two-story wooden houses, distinguished by -means of projecting signs, from which they took their names--houses in -which benches did duty for chairs, and the floors were carpeted with -rushes. The streets were usually thronged, not with wheel-traffic, for -the first carriage was imported into England in this very reign, but -with people on foot, on horseback, or in litters; while the Thames, -still blue and clear, in spite of the already large consumption of -coal, was alive with thousands of boats threading their way, amid the -watermen's shrill cries of "Eastward hoe!" or "Westward hoe!" through -bevies of swans which put forth from, and returned to, the green -meadows and beautiful gardens bordering the stream. - -There was as yet only one bridge over the Thames, the mighty London -Bridge, situated not far from that which now bears the name. It was -broad, and lined with buildings; while on the tall gate-towers heads -which had fallen on the block were almost always displayed. In its -neighbourhood lay Eastcheap, the street in which stood Falstaffs tavern. - -The central points of London were at that time the newly erected -Exchange and St. Paul's Church, which was regarded not only as the -Cathedral of the city, but as a meeting-place and promenade for -idlers, a sort of club where the news of the day was to be heard, a -hiring-fair for servants, and a sanctuary for debtors, who were there -secure from arrest. The streets, still full of the many-coloured life -of the Renaissance, rang with the cries of 'prentices inviting custom -and hawkers proclaiming their wares; while through them passed many -a procession, civil, ecclesiastical, or military, bridal companies, -pageants, and troops of crossbow-men and men-at-arms. - -Elizabeth might be met in the streets, driving in her huge State -carriage, when she did not prefer to sail on the Thames in her -magnificent gondola, followed by a crowd of gaily decorated boats. - -In the City itself no theatres were tolerated. The civic authorities -regarded them with an unfriendly eye, and had banished them to the -outskirts and across the Thames, together with the rough amusements -with which they had to compete: cock-fighting and bear-baiting with -dogs. - -The handsome, parti-coloured, extravagant costumes of the period are -well known. The puffed sleeves of the men, the women's stiff ruffs, -and the fantastic shapes of their hooped skirts, are still to be seen -in stage presentations of plays of the time. The Queen and her Court -set the example of great and unreasonable luxury with respect to the -number and material of costumes. The ladies rouged their faces, and -often dyed their hair. Auburn, as the Queen's colour, was the most -fashionable. The conveniences of daily life were very meagre. Only of -late had fireplaces begun to be substituted for the open hearths. Only -of late had proper bedsteads come into general use; when Shakespeare's -well-to-do grandfather, Richard Arden, made his will, in the year 1556, -there was only one bedstead in the house where he lived with his seven -daughters. People slept on straw mattresses, with a billet of wood -under their heads and a fur rug over them. The only decoration of the -rooms of the wealthier classes was the tapestry on the walls, behind -which people so often conceal themselves in Shakespeare's plays. - -The dinner-hour was at that time eleven in the morning, and it was -reckoned fashionable to dine early. Those who could afford it ate rich -and heavy dishes; the repasts would often last an inordinate time, and -no regard whatever was paid to the minor decencies of life. Domestic -utensils were very mean. So late as 1592, wooden trenchers, wooden -platters, and wooden spoons were in common use. It was just about this -time that tin and silver began to supplant wood. Table-knives had -been in general use since about 1563; but forks were still unknown in -Shakespeare's time--fingers supplied their place. In a description of -five months' travels on the Continent, published by Coryat in 1611, he -tells how surprised he was to find the use of forks quite common in -Italy:-- - - "I obserued a custome in all those Italian Cities and - Townes through which I passed, that is not vsed in any - other country that I saw in my trauels, neither doe I - thinke that any other nation of Christendome doth vse it, - but only Italy. The Italian and also most strangers that - are commorant in Italy doe alwaies at their meales vse a - little forke when they cut their meate. For while with their - knife which they hold in one hand they cut the meate out of - the dish, they fasten their forke which they hold in their - other hand vpon the same dish, so that whatsoeuer he be - that sitting in the company of any others at meale, should - vnaduisedly touch the dish of meate with his fingers from - which all at the table doe cut, he will giue occasion of - offence vnto the company, as hauing transgressed the lawes - of good manners, in so much that for his error he shall be - at the least brow-beaten, if not reprehended in wordes.... - The reason of this their curiosity is, because the Italian - cannot by any means indure to haue his dish touched with - fingers, seing all men's fingers are not alike cleane."[1] - -We see, too, that Coryat was the first to introduce the new appliance -into his native land. He tells us that he thought it best to imitate -the Italian fashion not only in Italy and Germany, but "often in -England" after his return; and he relates how a learned and jocular -gentleman of his acquaintance rallied him on that account and called -him "Furcifer." In one of Ben Jonson's plays, _The Devil is an Ass_, -dating from 1614, the use of forks is mentioned as lately imported -from Italy, in order to save napkins. We must conceive, then, that -Shakespeare was as unfamiliar with the use of the fork as a Bedouin -Arab of to-day. - -He does not seem to have smoked. Tobacco is never mentioned in his -works, although the people of his day gathered in tobacco-shops where -instruction was given in the new art of smoking, and although the -gallants actually smoked as they sat on the stage of the theatre. - - -[1] _Coryat's Crudities_, ed. 1776, vol. i. p. 106. - - - - -V - -_POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITIONS--ENGLAND'S GROWING GREATNESS_ - -The period of Shakespeare's arrival in London was momentous both in -politics and religion. It is the period of England's development into -a great Protestant power. Under Bloody Mary, the wife of Philip II. -of Spain, the government had been Spanish-Catholic; the persecutions -directed against heresy brought many victims, and among them some of -the most distinguished men in England, to the scaffold, and even to the -stake. Spain made a cat's-paw of England in her contest with France, -and reaped all the benefit of the alliance, while England paid the -penalty. Calais, her last foothold on the Continent, was lost. - -With Elizabeth, Protestantism ascended the throne and became a power -in the world. She rejected Philip's courtship; she knew how unpopular -the Spanish marriage had made her sister. In the struggle with the -Papal power she had the Parliament on her side. Parliament had at once -recognised her as Queen by the law of God and the country, whilst -the Pope, on her accession, denied her right to the throne. The -Catholic world took his part against her; first France, then Spain. -England supported Protestant Scotland against its Catholic Queen and -her Scottish-French army, and the Reformation triumphed in Scotland. -Afterwards, when Mary Stuart had ceased to rule over Scotland and taken -refuge in England, in the hope of there finding help, it was no longer -France but Philip of Spain who stood by her. He saw his despotism in -the Netherlands threatened by the victory of Protestantism in England. - -Political interest led Elizabeth's Government to throw Mary into -prison. The Pope excommunicated Elizabeth, absolved her subjects -from their oath of allegiance, and declared her a usurper in her own -kingdom. Whoever should obey her commands was excommunicated along -with her, and for twenty years on end one Catholic conspiracy against -Elizabeth treads on another's heels, Mary Stuart being involved in -almost all of them. - -In 1585 Elizabeth opened the war with Spain by sending her fleet to the -Netherlands, with her favourite, Leicester, in command of the troops. -In the beginning of the following year, Francis Drake, who in 1577-80 -had for the first time circumnavigated the world, surprised and took -San Domingo and Carthagena. The ship in which he had achieved his great -voyage lay at anchor in the Thames as a memorial of the feat; it was -often visited by Londoners, and no doubt by Shakespeare among them. - -In the years immediately following, the springtide of the national -spirit burst into full bloom. Let us try to picture to ourselves the -impression it must have made upon Shakespeare in the year 1587. On -the 8th of February 1587 Mary Stuart was executed at Fotheringay, -and the breach between England and the Catholic world was thus made -irreparable. On the 16th of February, England's noblest knight and -the flower of her chivalry, Sir Philip Sidney, the hero of Zutphen, -and the chief of the Anglo-Italian school of poets, was buried in St. -Paul's Cathedral, with a pomp which gave to the event the character -of a national solemnity. Sidney was an ideal representative of the -aristocracy of the day. He possessed the widest humanistic culture, had -studied Aristotle and Plato no less than geometry and astronomy, had -travelled and seen the world, had read and thought and written, and was -not only a scholar but a soldier to boot. As a cavalry officer he had -saved the English army at Gravelines, and he had been the friend and -patron of Giordano Bruno, the freest thinker of his time. The Queen -herself was present at his funeral, and so, no doubt, was Shakespeare. - -In the following year Spain fitted out her great Armada and despatched -it against England. As regards the size of the ships and the number -of the troops they carried, it was the largest fleet that had ever -been seen in European waters. And in the Netherlands, at Antwerp and -Dunkerque, transports were in readiness for the conveyance of a second -vast army to complete the destruction of England. But England was equal -to the occasion. Elizabeth's Government demanded fifteen ships of the -city of London; it fitted out thirty, besides raising a land force of -30,000 men and lending the Government £52,000 in ready money. - -The Spanish fleet numbered one hundred and thirty huge galleons, the -English only sixty sail, of lighter and less cumbrous build. The young -English noblemen competed for the privilege of serving in it. The great -Armada was ill designed for defying wind and weather in the English -Channel. It manœuvred awkwardly, and, in the first encounters, proved -itself powerless against the lighter ships of the English. A couple -of fire-ships were sufficient to throw it into disorder; a season of -storms set in, and the greater number of its galleons were swept to -destruction. - -The greatest Power in the world of that day had broken down in its -attempt to crush the growing might of England, and the whole nation -revelled in the exultant sense of victory. - - - - -VI - -_SHAKESPEARE AS ACTOR AND RETOUCHER OF OLD PLAYS--GREENE'S ATTACK_ - -Between 1586 and 1592 we lose all trace of Shakespeare. We know only -that he must have been an active member of a company of players. It is -not proved that he ever belonged to any other company than the Earl of -Leicester's, which owned the Blackfriars, and afterwards the Globe, -theatre. It is proved by several passages in contemporary writings -that, partly as actor, partly as adapter of older plays for the use of -the theatre, he had, at the age of twenty-eight, made a certain name -for himself, and had therefore become the object of envy and hatred. - -A passage in Spenser's _Colin Clouts Come Home Again_, referring to a -poet whose Muse "doth like himself heroically sound," may with some -probability, though not with certainty, be applied to Shakespeare. The -theory is supported by the fact that the word "gentle" is here, as so -often in after-life, attached to his personality. Against it we must -place the circumstance that the poem, although not published till 1594, -seems to have been composed as early as 1591, when Shakespeare's muse -was as yet scarcely heroic, and that Drayton, who had written under the -pseudonym of Rowland, may have been the poet alluded to. - -The first indubitable allusion to Shakespeare is of a quite different -nature. It occurs in a pamphlet written on his deathbed by the -dramatist Robert Greene, entitled _A Groat's Worth of Wit bought with -a Million of Repentance_ (August 1592). In it the utterly degraded -and penniless poet calls upon his friends, Marlowe, Lodge or Nash, -and Peele (without mentioning their names), to give up their vicious -life, their blasphemy, and their "getting many enemies by bitter -words," holding himself up as a deterrent example; for he died, after -a reckless life, of an illness said to have been induced by immoderate -eating, and in such misery that he had to borrow money of his landlord, -a poor shoemaker, while his landlord's wife was the sole attendant of -his dying hours. He was so poor that his clothes had to be sold to -procure him food. He sent his wife these lines:-- - - "Doll, I charge thee, by the loue of our youth and by my - soules rest, that thou wilte see this man paide; for if - hee and his wife had not succoured me, I had died in the - streetes. - - "ROBERT GREENE." - -The passage in which he warns his friends and fellow-poets against the -ingratitude of the players runs as follows:-- - - "Yes, trust them not: for there is an upstart crow, - beautified with our feathers, that with his _Tygers heart - wrapt in a Players hide_, supposes he is as well able to - bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and being an - absolute _Johannes fac totum_, is in his owne conceit the - only Shake-scene in a countrie." - -The allusion to Shakespeare's name is unequivocal, and the words about -the tiger's heart point to the outburst, "Oh Tyger's hart wrapt in a -serpents hide!" which is found in two places: first in the play called -_The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the Death of the -good King Henrie the Sixt_, and then (with "womans" substituted for -"serpents"), in the third part of _King Henry VI_., founded on the -_True Tragedie_, and attributed to Shakespeare. It is preposterous to -interpret this passage as an attack upon Shakespeare in his quality as -an actor; Greene's words, beyond all doubt, convey an accusation of -literary dishonesty. Everything points to the belief that Greene and -Marlowe had collaborated in the older play, and that the former saw -with disgust the success achieved by Shakespeare's adaptation of their -text. - -But that Shakespeare was already highly respected, and that the attack -aroused general indignation, is proved by the apology put forth in -December 1592 by Henry Chettle, who had published Greene's pamphlet. -In the preface to his _Kind-harts Dreame_ he expressly deplores his -indiscretion with regard to Shakespeare:-- - - "I am as sory as if the originall fault had beene my fault, - because my selfe haue seene his demeanor no lesse ciuill - than he exelent in the qualitie he professes. Besides, - diuers of worship haue reported his vprightnes of dealing, - which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in - writing, that aprooues his Art." - -We see, then, that the company to which Shakespeare had attached -himself, and in which he had already attracted notice as a promising -poet, employed him to revise and furbish up the older pieces of their -repertory. The theatrical announcements of the period would show us, -even if we had no other evidence, that it was a constant practice to -recast old plays, in order to heighten their powers of attraction. It -is announced, for instance, that such-and-such a play will be acted -as it was last presented before her Majesty, or before this or that -nobleman. Poets sold their works outright to the theatre for such sums -as five or ten pounds, or for a share in the receipts. As the interests -of the theatre demanded that plays should not be printed, in order that -rival companies might not obtain possession of them, they remained in -manuscript (unless pirated), and the players could accordingly do what -they pleased with the text. - -None the less, of course, was the older poet apt to resent the -re-touches made by the younger, as we see from this outburst of -Greene's, and probably, too, from Ben Jonson's epigram, _On Poet-Ape_, -even though this cannot, with any show of reason, be applied to -Shakespeare. - -In the view of the time, theatrical productions as a whole were not -classed as literature. It was regarded as dishonourable for a man to -sell his work first to a theatre and then to a book-seller, and Thomas -Hey wood declares, as late as 1630 (in the preface to his _Lucretia_), -that he has never been guilty of this misdemeanour. We know, too, how -much ridicule Ben Jonson incurred when, first among English poets, he -in 1616 published his plays in a folio volume. - -On the other hand, we see that not only Shakespeare's genius, but his -personal amiability, the loftiness and charm of his nature, disarmed -even those who, for one reason or another, had spoken disparagingly -of his activity. As Chettle, after printing Greene's attack, hastened -to make public apology, so also Ben Jonson, to whose ill-will and -cutting allusions Shakespeare made no retort,[1] became, in spite of -an unconquerable jealousy, his true friend and admirer, and after his -death spoke of him warmly in prose, and with enthusiasm in verse, in -the noble eulogy prefixed to the First Folio. His prose remarks upon -Shakespeare's character are introduced by a critical observation:-- - - "I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honour - to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) - he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, Would he - had blotted a thousand. Which they thought a malevolent - speech. I had not told posterity this but for their - ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their - friend by, wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own - candour: for I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on - this side idolatry, as much as any. He was (indeed) honest, - and of an open and full nature; had an excellent phantasy, - brave notions, and gentle expressions; wherein he flowed - with that facility, that sometimes it was necessary he - should be stopped: _Sufflaminandus erat,_ as Augustus said - of Haterius." - - -[1] He is said to have procured the production of Jonson's -first play. - - - - -VII - -_THE "HENRY VI." TRILOGY_ - -One might expect that it would be with the early plays in which -Shakespeare only collaborated as with those Italian pictures of the -best period of the Renaissance, in which the connoisseur identifies -(for example) an angel's head by Leonardo in a Crucifixion of Andrea -del Verrocchio's. The work of the pupil stands out sharp and clear, -with pure contours, a picture within the picture, quite at odds with -its style and spirit, but impressing us as a promise for the future. As -a matter of fact, however, there is no analogy between the two cases. - -A mystery hangs over the _Henry VI_. trilogy which neither Greene's -venomous attack nor Chettle's apology enables us to clear up. - -Of all the works attributed to Shakespeare, this is certainly the one -whose origin affords most food for speculation. The inclusion of the -three plays in the First Folio shows clearly that his comrades, who had -full knowledge of the facts, regarded them as his literary property. -That the two earlier plays which are preserved, the _First Part of -the Contention_ and the _True Tragedie_ (answering to the second -and third parts of _Henry VI_.), cannot be entirely Shakespeare's -work is evidenced both by the imprint of the anonymous quartos and -by the company which is stated to have produced them; for none of -Shakespeare's genuine plays was published by this publisher or played -by this company. It is proved quite clearly, too, by internal evidence, -by the free and unrhymed versification of these plays. At the period -from which they date, Shakespeare was still extremely addicted to the -use of rhyme in his dramatic writing. - -Nevertheless, the great majority of German Shakespeare students, -and some English as well, are of opinion that the older plays are -entirely Shakespeare's, either his first drafts or, as is more commonly -maintained, stolen texts carelessly noted down. - -Some English scholars, such as Malone and Dyce, go to the opposite -extreme, and regard the second and third parts of _Henry VI_. as the -work of another poet. The majority of English students look upon these -plays as the result of Shakespeare's retouching of another man's, or -rather other men's, work. - -The affair is so complicated that none of these hypotheses is quite -satisfactory. - -Though there are doubtless in the older plays portions unworthy of -Shakespeare, and more like the handiwork of Greene, while others -strongly suggest Marlowe, both in matter, style, and versification, -there are also passages in them which cannot be by any one else than -Shakespeare. And while most of the alterations and additions which are -found in the second and third parts of _Henry VI_. bear the mark of -unmistakable superiority, and are Shakespearian in spirit no less than -in style and versification, there are at the same time others which -are decidedly un-Shakespearian and can almost certainly be attributed -to Marlowe. He must, then, have collaborated with Shakespeare in the -adaptation, unless we suppose that his original text was carelessly -printed in the earlier quartos, and that it here reappears, in the -Shakespearian _Henry VI_, corrected and completed in accordance with -his manuscript. - -I agree with Miss Lee, the writer of the leading treatise[1] on these -plays, and with the commentator in the Irving Edition, in holding -that Shakespeare was not responsible for all the alterations in the -definitive text. There are several which I cannot possibly believe to -be his. - -In the old quartos there appears not a line in any foreign language. -But in the Shakespearian plays we find lines and exclamations in -Latin scattered here and there, along with one in French.[2] If the -early quartos are founded on a text taken down by ear, we can readily -understand that the foreign expressions, not being understood, should -be omitted. Such foreign sentences are extremely frequent in Marlowe, -as in Kyd and the other older dramatists; they appear in season and out -of season, but always in irreconcilable conflict with the sounder taste -of our time. Marlowe would even suffer a dying man to break out in a -French or Latin phrase as he gave up the ghost, and this occurs here in -two places (at Clifford's death and Rutland's). Shakespeare, who never -bedizens his work with un-English phrases, would certainly not place -them in the mouths of dying men, and least of all foist them upon an -earlier purely English text. - -Other additions also seem only to have restored the older form of the -plays--those, to wit, which really add nothing new, but only elaborate, -sometimes more copiously than is necessary or tasteful, a thought -already clearly indicated. The original omission in such instances -appears almost certainly to have been dictated by considerations of -convenience in acting. One example is Queen Margaret's long speech in -Part II., Act iii. 2, which is new with the exception of the first -fourteen lines. - -But there is another class of additions and alterations which surprises -us by being unmistakably in Marlowe's style. If these additions are -really by Shakespeare, he must have been under the influence of Marlowe -to a quite extraordinary degree. Swinburne has pointed out how entirely -the verses which open the fourth act of the Second Part are Marlowesque -in rhythm, imagination, and choice of words; but characteristic as are -these lines-- - - "And now loud howling wolves arouse the jades - That drag the tragic melancholy night," - -they are by no means the only additions which seem to point to Marlowe. -We feel his presence particularly in the additions to Iden's speeches -at the end of the fourth act, in such lines as-- - - "Set limb to limb, and thou art far the lesser; - Thy hand is but a finger to my fist; - Thy leg a stick, compared with this truncheon;" - -and especially in the concluding speech:-- - - "Die, damned wretch, the curse of her that bare thee! - And as I thrust thy body in with my sword, - So wish I, I might thrust thy soul to hell. - Hence will I drag thee headlong by the heels - Unto a dunghill, which shall be thy grave, - And there cut off thy most ungracious head." - -There is Marlowesque emphasis in this wildness and ferocity, which -reappears, in conjunction with Marlowesque learning, in Young -Clifford's lines in the last act:-- - - "Meet I an infant of the house of York,. - Into as many gobbets will I cut it, - As wild Medea young Absyrtus did: - In cruelty will I seek out my fame"-- - -and in those which, in Part III., Act iv. 2, are placed in the mouth of -Warwick:-- - - "Our scouts have found the adventure very easy: - That as Ulysses, and stout Diomede, - With sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus' tents, - And brought from thence the Thracian fatal steeds; - So we, well cover'd with the night's black mantle, - At unawares may beat down Edward's guard, - And seize himself." - -And as in the additions there are passages the whole style of which -belongs to Marlowe, or bears the strongest traces of his influence, -so also there are passages in the earlier text which in every respect -recall the manner of Shakespeare. For example, in Part II., Act iii. 2, -Warwick's speech:-- - - "Who finds the heifer dead, and bleeding fresh, - And sees fast by a butcher with an axe, - But will suspect 'twas he that made the slaughter?" - -or Suffolk's to Margaret:-- - - "If I depart from thee, I cannot live; - And in thy sight to die, what were it else, - But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap? - Here could I breathe my soul into the air, - As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe, - Dying with mother's dug between its lips." - -Most Shakespearian, too, is the manner in which, in Part III., Act ii. -I, York's two sons are made to draw their characters, each in a single -line, when they receive the tidings of their father's death:-- - - "_Edward_. O, speak no more! for I have heard too much. - _Richard_. Say, how he died, for I will hear it all." - -Again, we seem to hear the voice of Shakespeare when Margaret, after -they have murdered her son before her eyes, bursts forth (Part III., -Act v. 5):-- - - "You have no children, butchers! if you had - The thought of them would have stirred up remorse." - -This passage anticipates, as it were, a celebrated speech in _Macbeth_. -Most remarkable of all, however, are the Cade scenes in the Second -Part. I cannot persuade myself that these were not from the very -first the work of Shakespeare. It is evident that they cannot proceed -from the pen of Marlowe. An attempt has been made to attribute them -to Greene, on the ground that there are other folk-scenes in his -works which display a similar strain of humour. But the difference -is enormous. It is true that the text here follows the chronicle -with extraordinary fidelity; but it was precisely in this ingenious -adaptation of material that Shakespeare always showed his strength. -And these scenes answer so completely to all the other folk-scenes in -Shakespeare, and are so obviously the outcome of the habit of political -thought which runs through his whole life, becoming ever more and more -pronounced, that we cannot possibly accept them as showing only the -trivial alterations and retouches which elsewhere distinguish his text -from the older version. - -These admissions made, however, there is on the whole no difficulty in -distinguishing the work of other hands in the old texts. We can enjoy, -point by point, not only Shakespeare's superiority, but his peculiar -style, as we here find it in the very process of development; and we -can study his whole method of work in the text which he ultimately -produces. - -We have here an almost unique opportunity of observing him in the -character of a critical artist. We see what improvements he makes -by a trivial retouch, or a mere rearrangement of words. Thus, when -Gloucester says of his wife (Part. II., Act ii. 4)-- - - "Uneath may she endure the flinty streets, - To tread them with her tender-feeling feet," - -all his sympathy speaks in these words. In the old text it is she -who says this of herself. In York's great soliloquy in the first -act, beginning "Anjou and Maine are given to the French," the first -twenty-four lines are Shakespeare's; the rest belong to the old text. -From the second "Anjou and Maine" onwards, the verse is conventional -and monotonous; the meaning ends with the end of each line, and a -pause, as it were, ensues; whereas the verse of the opening passage is -full of dramatic movement, life, and fire. - -Again, if we turn to York's soliloquy in the third act (sc. I)-- - - "Now, York, or never, steel thy fearful thoughts," - -and compare it in the two texts, we find their metrical differences -so marked that, as Miss Lee has happily put it, the critic can no -more doubt that the first version belongs to an earlier stage in the -development of dramatic poetry, than the geologist can doubt that a -stratum which contains simpler organisms indicates an earlier stage of -the earth's development than one containing higher forms of organic -life. There are portions of the Second Part which no one can believe -that Shakespeare wrote, such as the old-fashioned fooling with Simpcox, -which is quite in the manner of Greene. There are others which, without -being unworthy of Shakespeare, not only indicate Marlowe in their -general style, but are now and then mere variations of verses known to -be his. Such, for example, is Margaret's line in Part III., Act i.:-- - - "Stern Faulconbridge commands the narrow seas," - -which clearly echoes the line in Marlowe's _Edward II._:-- - - "The haughty Dane commands the narrow street." - -What interests us most, perhaps, is the relation between Shakespeare -and his predecessor with respect to the character of Gloucester. It -cannot be denied or doubted that this character, the Richard III. of -after-days, is completely outlined in the earlier text; so that in -reality Shakespeare's own tragedy of _Richard III.,_ written so much -later, is still quite Marlowesque in the fundamental conception of its -protagonist. Gloucester's two great soliloquies in the third part of -_Henry VI_. are especially instructive to study. In the first (iii. 2) -the keynote of the passion is indeed struck by Marlowe, but all the -finest passages are Shakespeare's. Take, for example, the following:-- - - "Why then, I do but dream on sovereignty; - Like one that stands upon a promontory, - And spies a far-off shore where he would tread, - Wishing his foot were equal with his eye; - And chides the sea that sunders him from thence, - Saying--he'll lade it dry to have his way: - So do I wish the crown, being so far off, - And so I chide the means that keep me from it; - And so I say--I'll cut the causes off, - Flattering me with impossibilities." - -The last soliloquy (v. 6), on the other hand, belongs entirely to the -old play. A thoroughly Marlowesque turn of phrase meets us at the very -beginning:-- - - "See, how my sword weeps for the poor king's death." - -Shakespeare has here left the powerful and admirable text untouched, -except for the deletion of a single superfluous and weakening verse, -"I had no father, I am like no father," which is followed by the -profoundest and most remarkable lines in the play:-- - - "I have no brother, I am like no brother; - And this word love, which greybeards call divine, - Be resident in men like one another, - And not in me: I am myself alone." - - -[1] _New Shakspere Society's Transactions_, 1875-76, pp. 219-303. - -[2] "Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ!--Medice, te ipsum!--Gelidus -timor occupat artus--La fin couronne les œuvres--Di faciant! laudis -summa sit ista tuæ." - - - - -VIII - -_CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE AND HIS LIFE-WORK--TITUS ANDRONICUS_ - -The man who was to be Shakespeare's first master in the drama--a master -whose genius he did not at the outset fully understand--was born two -months before him. Christopher (Kit) Marlowe, the son of a shoemaker -at Canterbury, was a foundation scholar at the King's School of his -native town; matriculated at Cambridge in 1580; took the degree of -B.A. in 1583, and of M.A. at the age of twenty-three, after he had -left the University; appeared in London (so we gather from an old -ballad) as an actor at the Curtain Theatre; had the misfortune to -break his leg upon the stage; was no doubt on that account compelled -to give up acting; and seems to have written his first dramatic work, -_Tamburlaine the Great_, at latest in 1587. His development was much -quicker than Shakespeare's, he attained to comparative maturity much -earlier, and his culture was more systematic. Not for nothing had he -gone through the classical curriculum; the influence of Seneca, the -poet and rhetorician through whom English tragedy comes into relation -with the antique, is clearly recognisable in him, no less than in his -predecessors, the authors of _Gorboduc_ and _Tancred and Gismunda_ (the -former composed by two, the latter by five poets in collaboration); -only that the construction of these plays, with their monologues -and their chorus, is directly imitated from Seneca, while the more -independent Marlowe is influenced only in his diction and choice of -material. - -In him the two streams begin to unite which have their sources in -the Biblical dramas of the Middle Ages and the later allegorical -folk-plays on the one hand, and, on the other hand, in the Latin plays -of antiquity. But he entirely lacks the comic vein which we find in -the first English imitations of Plautus and Terence--in _Ralph Roister -Doister_ and in _Gammer Gurtoris Needle_, acted, respectively, in -the middle of the century and in the middle of the sixties, by Eton -schoolboys and Cambridge students. - -Kit Marlowe is the creator of English tragedy. He it was who -established on the public stage the use of the unrhymed iambic -pentameter as the medium of English drama. He did not invent English -blank verse--the Earl of Surrey (who died in 1547) had used it in his -translation of the _Æneid_, and it had been employed in the old play of -_Gorboduc_ and others which had been performed at court. But Marlowe -was the first to address the great public in this measure, and he did -so, as appears from the prologue to _Tamburlaine_, in express contempt -for "the jigging veins of rhyming mother-wits" and "such conceits as -clownage keeps in pay," seeking deliberately for tragic emphasis and -"high astounding terms" in which to express the rage of Tamburlaine. - -Before his day, rhymed couplets of long-drawn fourteen-syllable verse -had been common in drama, and the monotony of these rhymes naturally -hampered the dramatic life of the plays. Shakespeare does not seem at -first to have appreciated Marlowe's reform, or quite to have understood -the importance of this rejection of rhyme in dramatic writing. Little -by little he came fully to realise it. In one of his first plays, -_Love's Labour's Lost,_ there are nearly twice as many rhymed as -unrhymed verses, more than a thousand in all; in his latest works rhyme -has disappeared. There are only two rhymes in _The Tempest_, and in _A -Winters Tale_ none at all. - -Similarly, in his first plays (like Victor Hugo in his first Odes), -Shakespeare feels himself bound to make the sense end with the end of -the verse; as time goes on, he gradually learns an ever freer movement. -In _Love's Labour's Lost_ there are eighteen end-stopped verses (in -which the meaning ends with the line) for every one in which the sense -runs on; in _Cymbeline_ and _A Winter's Tale_ they are only about two -to one. This gradual development affords one method of determining the -date of production of otherwise undated plays. - -Marlowe seems to have led a wild life in London, and to have been -entirely lacking in the commonplace virtues. He is said to have -indulged in a perpetual round of dissipations, to have been dressed -to-day in silk, to-morrow in rags, and to have lived in audacious -defiance of society and the Church. Certain it is that he was killed -in a brawl when only twenty-nine years old. He is said to have found -a rival in company with his mistress, and to have drawn his dagger to -stab him; but the other, a certain Francis Archer, wrested the dagger -from his grasp, and thrust it through his eye into his brain. It is -further related of him that he was an ardent and aggressive atheist, -who called Moses a juggler and said that Christ deserved death more -than Barabbas. These reports are probable enough. On the other hand, -the assertion that he wrote books against the Trinity and uttered -blasphemies with his latest breath, is evidently inspired by Puritan -hatred for the theatre and everything concerned with it. The sole -authority for these fables is Beard's _Theatre of God's Judgments_ -(1597), the work of a clergyman, a fanatical Puritan, which appeared -six years after Marlowe's death. - -There is no doubt that Marlowe led an extremely irregular life, but -the legend of his debaucheries must be much exaggerated, if only from -the fact that, though he was cut off before his thirtieth year, he has -yet left behind him so large and puissant a body of work. The legend -that he passed his last hours in blaspheming God is rendered doubly -improbable by Chapman's express statement that it was in compliance -with Marlowe's dying request that he continued his friend's paraphrase -of _Hero and Leander_. The passionate, defiant youth, surcharged with -genius, was fair game for the bigots and Pharisees, who found it only -too easy to besmirch his memory. - -It is evident that Marlowe's gorgeous and violent style, especially as -it bursts forth in his earlier plays, made a profound impression upon -the youthful Shakespeare. After Marlowe's death, Shakespeare made a -kindly and mournful allusion to him in _As You Like It_ (iii. 5), where -Phebe quotes a line from his _Hero and Leander_:-- - - "Dead shepherd! now I find thy saw of might: - 'Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight?'" - -Marlowe's influence is unmistakable not only in the style and -versification but in the sanguinary action of _Titus Andronicus;_ -clearly the oldest of the tragedies attributed to Shakespeare. - -The evidence for the Shakespearian authorship of this drama of horrors, -though mainly external, is weighty and, it would seem, decisive. Meres, -in 1598, names it among the poet's works, and his friends included it -in the First Folio. We know from a gibe in Ben Jonson's Induction to -his _Bartholomew Fair_ that it was exceedingly popular. It is one of -the plays most frequently alluded to in contemporary writings, being -mentioned twice as often as _Twelfth Night_, and four or five times as -often as _Measure for Measure_ or _Timon_. It depicts savage deeds, -executed with the suddenness with which people of the sixteenth century -were wont to obey their impulses, cruelties as heartless and systematic -as those which characterised the age of Machiavelli. In short, it -abounds in such callous atrocities as could not fail to make a deep -impression on iron nerves and hardened natures. - -These horrors are not, for the most part, of Shakespeare's invention. - -An entry in Henslowe's diary of April 11, 1592, mentions for the first -time a play named _Titus and Vespasian_ ("tittus and vespacia"), which -was played very frequently between that date and January 1593, and was -evidently a prime favourite. In its English form this play is lost; -no Vespasian appears in our _Titus Andronicus_. But about 1600 a play -was performed in Germany, by English actors, which has been preserved -under the title, _Eine sehr klägliche Tragœdia von Tito Andronico und -der hoffertigen Kayserin, darinnen denckwürdige actiones zubefinden_, -and in this play a Vespasian duly appears, as well as the Moor Aaron, -under the name of Morian; so that, clearly enough, we have here a -translation, or rather a free adaptation, of the old play which formed -the basis of Shakespeare's. - -We see, then, that Shakespeare himself invented only a few of the -horrors which form the substance of the play. The action, as he -presents it, is briefly this:-- - -Titus Andronicus, returning to Rome after a victory over the Goths, is -hailed as Emperor by the populace, but magnanimously hands over the -crown to the rightful heir, Saturninus. Titus even wants to give him -his daughter Lavinia in marriage, although she is already betrothed to -the Emperor's younger brother Bassianus, whom she loves. When one of -Titus's sons opposes this scheme, his father kills him on the spot. - -In the meantime, Tamora, the captive Queen of the Goths, is brought -before the young Emperor. In spite of her prayers, Titus has ordered -the execution of her eldest son, as a sacrifice to the manes of his -own sons who have fallen in the war; but as Tamora is more attractive -to the Emperor than his destined bride, the young Lavinia, Titus makes -no attempt to enforce the promise he has just made, and actually -imagines that Tamora is sincere when she pretends to have forgotten all -the injuries he has done her. Tamora, moreover, has been and is the -mistress of the cruel and crafty monster Aaron, the Moor. - -At the Moor's instigation, she induces her two sons to take advantage -of a hunting party to murder Bassianus; whereupon they ravish Lavinia, -and tear out her tongue and cut off her hands, so that she cannot -denounce them either in speech or writing. They remain undetected, -until at last Lavinia unmasks them by writing in the sand with a stick -which she holds in her mouth. Two of Titus's sons are thrown into -prison, falsely accused of the murder of their brother-in-law; and -Aaron gives Titus to understand that their death is certain unless he -ransoms them by cutting off his own right hand and sending it to the -Emperor. Titus cuts off his hand, only to be informed by Aaron, with -mocking laughter, that his sons are already beheaded--he can have their -heads, but not themselves. - -He now devotes himself entirely to revenge. Pretending madness, after -the manner of Brutus, he lures Tamora's sons to his house, ties their -hands behind their backs, and stabs them like pigs, while Lavinia, with -the stumps of her arms, holds a basin to catch their blood. He bakes -their heads in a pie, and serves it up to Tamora at a feast given in -her honour, at which he appears disguised as a cook. - -In the slaughter which now sets in, Tamora, Titus, and the Emperor are -killed. Ultimately Aaron, who has tried to save the bastard Tamora has -secretly borne him, is condemned to be buried alive up to the waist, -and thus to starve to death. Titus's son Lucius is proclaimed Emperor. - -It will be seen that not only are we here wading ankle-deep in blood, -but that we are quite outside all historical reality. Among the many -changes which Shakespeare has made in the old play is the dissociation -of this motley tissue of horrors from the name of the Emperor -Vespasian. The part which he plays in the older drama is here shared -between Titus's brother Marcus and his son Lucius, who succeeds to the -throne. The woman who answers to Tamora is of similar character in the -old play, but is Queen of Ethiopia. Among the horrors which Shakespeare -found ready made are the rape and mutilation of Lavinia and the way in -which the criminals are discovered, the hewing off of Titus's hand, -and the scenes in which he takes his revenge in the dual character of -butcher and cook. - -The old English poet evidently knew his Ovid and his Seneca. The -mutilation of Lavinia comes from the _Metamorphoses_ (the story of -Procne), and the cannibal banquet from the same source, as well as from -Seneca's _Thyestis_. The German version of the tragedy, however, is -written in a wretchedly flat and antiquated prose, while Shakespeare's -is couched in Marlowesque pentameters. - -The example set by Marlowe in _Tamburlaine_ was no doubt in some -measure to blame for the lavish effusion of blood in the play adapted -by Shakespeare, which may in this respect be bracketed with two other -contemporary dramas conceived under the influence of _Tamburlaine_, -Robert Greene's _Alphonsus King of Arragon_ and George Peele's _Battle -of Alcazar_. Peele's tragedy has also its barbarous Moor, Muley Hamet, -who, like Aaron, is probably the offspring of Marlowe's malignant Jew -of Malta and his henchman, the sensual Ithamore. - -Among the horrors added by Shakespeare, there are two which deserve a -moment's notice. The first is Titus's sudden and unpremeditated murder -of his son, who ventures to oppose his will. Shocking as it seems to -us to-day, such an incident did not surprise the sixteenth century -public, but rather appealed to them as a touch of nature. Such lives -as Benvenuto Cellini's show that even in highly cultivated natures, -anger, passion, and revenge were apt to take instantaneous effect in -sanguinary deeds. Men of action were in those days as ungovernable as -they were barbarously cruel when a sudden fury possessed them. - -The other added trait is the murder of Tamora's son. We are reminded of -the scene in _Henry VI_, in which the young Prince Edward is murdered -in the presence of Queen Margaret; and Tamora's entreaties for her son -are among those verses in the play which possess the true Shakespearian -ring. - -Certain peculiar turns of phrase in _Titus Andronicus_ remind us of -Peele and Marlowe.[1] But whole lines occur which Shakespeare repeats -almost word for word. Thus the verses-- - - "She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd; - She is a woman, therefore may be won," - -reappear very slightly altered in _Henry VI_., Part I.:-- - - "She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd; - She is a woman, and therefore to be won;" - -while a similar turn of phrase is found in Sonnet XLI.:-- - - "Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won; - Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed;" - -and, finally, a closely related distich occurs in Richard the Third's -famous soliloquy: - - "Was ever woman in this humour woo'd? - Was ever woman in this humour won?" - -It is true that the phrase "She is a woman, therefore may be won," -occurs several times in Greene's romances, of earlier date than _Titus -Andronicus_, and this seems to have been a sort of catchword of the -period. - -Although, on the whole, one may certainly say that this rough-hewn -drama, with its piling-up of external effects, has very little in -common with the tone or spirit of Shakespeare's mature tragedies, yet -we find scattered through it lines in which the most diverse critics -have professed to recognise Shakespeare's revising touch, and to catch -the ring of his voice. - -Few will question that such a line as this, in the first scene of the -play-- - - "Romans--friends, followers, favourers of my right!" - -comes from the pen which afterwards wrote _Julius Cæsar_. I may -mention, for my own part, that lines which, as I read the play through -before acquainting myself in detail with English criticism, had struck -me as patently Shakespearian, proved to be precisely the lines which -the best English critics attribute to Shakespeare. To one's own mind -such coincidences of feeling naturally carry conviction. I may cite as -an example Tamora's speech (iv. 4):-- - - "King, be thy thoughts imperious, like thy name. - Is the sun dimm'd, that gnats do fly in it? - The eagle suffers little birds to sing, - And is not careful what they mean thereby; - Knowing that with the shadow of his wings - He can at pleasure stint their melody. - Even so may'st thou the giddy men of Rome." - -Unmistakably Shakespearian, too, are Titus's moving lament (iii. -I) when he learns of Lavinia's mutilation, and his half-distraught -outbursts in the following scene foreshadow even in detail a situation -belonging to the poet's culminating period, the scene between Lear -and Cordelia when they are both prisoners. Titus says to his hapless -daughter: - - "Lavinia, go with me: - I'll to thy closet; and go read with thee - Sad stories chanced in the times of old." - -In just the same spirit Lear exclaims: - - "Come, let's away to prison ... - . . . . . so we'll live, - And pray, and sing, and tell old tales." - -It is quite unnecessary for any opponent of blind or exaggerated -Shakespeare-worship to demonstrate to us the impossibility of bringing -_Titus Andronicus_ into harmony with any other than a barbarous -conception of tragic poetry. But although the play is simply omitted -without apology from the Danish translation of Shakespeare's works, it -must by no means be overlooked by the student, whose chief interest -lies in observing the genesis and development of the poet's genius. The -lower its point of departure, the more marvellous its soaring flight. - - -[1] "Gallops the zodiac" (ii. I, line 7) occurs twice in -Peele. The phrase "A thousand deaths" (same scene, line 79) appears in -Marlowe's _Tamburlaine_. - - - - -IX - -_SHAKESPEARE'S CONCEPTION OF THE RELATIONS OF THE SEXES--HIS MARRIAGE -VIEWED IN THIS LIGHT--LOVES LABOUR'S LOST--ITS MATTER AND STYLE--JOHN -LYLY AND EUPHUISM--THE PERSONAL ELEMENT_ - -During these early years in London, Shakespeare must have been -conscious of spiritual growth with every day that passed. With his -inordinate appetite for learning, he must every day have gathered new -impressions in his many-sided activity as a hard-working actor, a -furbisher-up of old plays in accordance with the taste of the day for -scenic effects, and finally as a budding poet, in whose heart every -mood thrilled into melody, and every conception clothed itself in -dramatic form. He must have felt his spirit light and free, not least, -perhaps, because he had escaped from his home in Stratford. - -Ordinary knowledge of the world is sufficient to suggest that his -association with a village girl eight years older than himself could -not satisfy him or fill his life. The study of his works confirms -this conjecture. It would, of course, be unreasonable to attribute -conscious and deliberate autobiographical import to speeches torn from -their context in different plays; but there are none the less several -passages in his dramas which may fairly be taken as indicating that -he regarded his marriage in the light of a youthful folly. Take, for -example, this passage in _Twelfth Night_ (ii. 4):-- - - "_Duke_. What kind of woman is't? - _Vio_. - Of your complexion. - _Duke_. She is not worth thee then. What years, i' faith? - _Vio_. About your years, my lord. - _Duke_. Too old, by Heaven. Let still the woman take - An elder than herself; so wears she to him, - So sways she level in her husband's heart: - For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, - Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, - More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn, - Than women's are. - _Vio_. - think it well, my lord. - _Duke_. Then, let thy love be younger than thyself, - Or thy affection cannot hold the bent; - For women are as roses, whose fair flower, - Being once display'd, doth fall that very hour." - -And this is in the introduction to the Fool's exquisite song about the -power of love, that song which "The spinsters and the knitters in the -sun And the free maids, that weave their thread with bones, Do use to -chant"--Shakespeare's loveliest lyric. - -There are passages in other plays which seem to show traces of personal -regret at the memory of this early marriage and the circumstances under -which it came about. In the _Tempest_, for instance, we have Prospero's -warning to Ferdinand (iv. I):-- - - "If thou dost break her virgin-knot before - All sanctimonious ceremonies may, - With full and holy rite, be minister'd, - No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall - To make this contract grow, but barren hate, - Sour-ey'd disdain, and discord, shall bestrew - The union of your bed with weeds so loathly, - That you shall hate it both." - -Two of the comedies of Shakespeare's first period are, as we might -expect, imitations, and even in part adaptations, of older plays. By -comparing them, where it is possible, with these earlier works, we -can discover, among other things, the thoughts to which Shakespeare, -in these first years in London, was most intent on giving utterance. -It thus appears that he held strong views as to the necessary -subordination of the female to the male, and as to the trouble caused -by headstrong, foolish, or jealous women. - -His _Comedy of Errors_ is modelled upon the _Menœchmi_ of Plautus, or -rather on an English play of the same title dating from 1580, which -was not itself taken direct from Plautus, but from Italian adaptations -of the old Latin farce. Following the example of Plautus in the -_Amphitruo_, Shakespeare has supplemented the confusion between the -two Antipholuses by a parallel and wildly improbable confusion between -their serving-men, who both go by the same name and are likewise twins. -But it is in the contrast between the two female figures, the married -sister Adriana and the unmarried Luciana, that we catch the personal -note in the play. On account of the confusion of persons, Adriana rages -against her husband, and is at last on the point of plunging him into -lifelong misery. To her complaint that he has not come home at the -appointed time, Luciana answers:-- - - "A man is master of his liberty: - Time is their master; and, when they see time, - They'll go, or come: if so, be patient, sister. - _Adriana_. Why should their liberty than ours be more? - _Luciana_. Because their business still lies out o' door. - _Adr_. Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill. - _Luc_. O! know he is the bridle of your will. - _Adr_. There's none but asses will be bridled so. - _Luc_. Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe. - There's nothing situate under heaven's eye - But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky: - The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls. - Are their males' subjects, and at their controls. - Men, more divine, the masters of all these, - Lords of the wide world, and wild wat'ry seas, - . . . . . . . . . - Are masters to their females, and their lords: - Then, let your will attend on their accords." - -In the last act of the comedy, Adriana, speaking to the Abbess accuses -her husband of running after other women:-- - - "_Abbess_. You should for that have reprehended him. - _Adriana_. Why, so I did. - _Abb_. Ay, but not rough enough. - _Adr_. As roughly as my modesty would let me. - _Abb_. Haply, in private. - _Adr_. And in assemblies too. - _Abb_. Ay, but not enough. - _Adr_. It was the copy of our conference. - In bed, he slept not for my urging it: - At board, he fed not for my urging it; - Alone, it was the subject of my theme; - In company, I often glanced it: - Still did I tell him it was vile and bad. - _Abb_. And therefore came it that the man was mad: - The venom clamours of a jealous woman - Poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth. - It seems, his sleeps were hinder'd by thy railing, - And thereof comes it that his head is light. - Thou say'st, his meat was sauc'd with thy upbraidings: - Unquiet meals make ill digestions; - Thereof the raging fire of fever bred: - And what's a fever but a fit of madness?" - -At least as striking is the culminating point of Shakespeare's -adaptation of the old play called _The Taming of a Shrew_. He took very -lightly this piece of task-work, executed, it would seem, to the order -of his fellow-players. In point of diction and metre it is much less -highly finished than others of his youthful comedies; but if we compare -the Shakespearian play (in whose title the Shrew receives the definite -instead of the indefinite article) point by point with the original, we -obtain an invaluable glimpse into Shakespeare's comic, as formerly into -his tragic, workshop. Few examples are so instructive as this. - -Many readers have no doubt wondered what was Shakespeare's design in -presenting this piece, of all others, in the framework which we Danes -know in Holberg's[1] _Jeppe paa Bjerget._ The answer is, that he had -no particular design in the matter. He took the framework ready-made -from the earlier play, which, however, he throughout remodelled and -improved, not to say recreated. It is not only far ruder and coarser -than Shakespeare's, but does not redeem its crude puerility by any -raciness or power. - -Nowhere does the difference appear more decisively than in the great -speech in which Katharine, cured of her own shrewishness, closes the -play by bringing the other rebellious women to reason. In the old play -she begins with a whole cosmogony: "The first world was a form without -a form," until God, the King of kings, "in six days did frame his -heavenly work":-- - - "Then to his image he did make a man, - Olde Adam, and from his side asleepe - A rib was taken, of which the Lord did make - The woe of man, so termd by Adam then, - Woman for that by her came sinne to vs, - And for her sin was Adam doomd to die. - As Sara to her husband, so should we - Obey them, loue them, keepe and nourish them - If they by any meanes doo want our helpes, - Laying our handes vnder theire feete to tread, - If that by that we might procure there ease." - -And she herself sets the example by placing her hand under her -husband's foot. - -Shakespeare omits all this theology and skips the Scriptural -authorities, but only to arrive at the self-same result:-- - - "Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow, - And dart not scornful glances from those eyes, - To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor. - . . . . . . . . . - A woman mov'd is like a fountain troubled, - Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty; - And, while it is so, none so dry or thirsty - Will deign to sip, or touch one drop of it. - Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, - Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee, - And for thy maintenance; commits his body - To painful labour, both by sea and land, - To watch the night in storms, the day in cold, - Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe; - - And craves no other tribute at thy hands, - But love, fair looks, and true obedience, - Too little payment for so great a debt. - Such duty as the subject owes the prince, - Even such a woman oweth to her husband; - And when she's froward, peevish, sullen, sour, - And not obedient to his honest will, - What is she but a foul contending rebel, - And graceless traitor to her loving lord?" - -In these adapted plays, then, partly from the nature of their subjects -and partly because his thoughts ran in that direction, we find -Shakespeare chiefly occupied with the relation between man and woman, -and specially between husband and wife. They are not, however, his -first works. At the age of five-and-twenty or thereabouts Shakespeare -began his independent dramatic production, and, following the natural -bent of youth and youthful vivacity, he began it with a light and -joyous comedy. - -We have several reasons, partly metrical (the frequency of rhymes), -partly technical (the dramatic weakness of the play), for supposing -_Love's Labour's Lost_ to be his earliest comedy. Many allusions point -to 1589 as the date of this play in its original form. For instance, -the dancing horse mentioned in i. 2 was first exhibited in 1589; the -names of the characters, Biron, Longaville, Dumain (Duc du Maine), -suggest those of men who were prominent in French politics between 1581 -and 1590; and, finally, when we remember that the King of Navarre, as -the Princess's betrothed, becomes heir to the throne of France, we -cannot but conjecture a reference to Henry of Navarre, who mounted -that throne precisely in 1589. The play has not, however, reached us -in its earliest form; for the title-page of the quarto edition shows -that it was revised and enlarged on the occasion of its performance -before Elizabeth at Christmas 1597. There are not a few places in which -we can trace the revision, the original form having been inadvertently -retained along with the revised text. This is apparent in Biron's long -speech in the fourth act, sc. 3:-- - - "For when would you, my lord, or you, or you, - Have found the ground of study's excellence, - Without the beauty of a woman's face? - From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: - They are the ground, the books, the academes, - From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire." - -This belongs to the older text. Farther on in the speech, where we find -the same ideas repeated in another and better form, we have evidently -the revised version before us:-- - - "For when would you, my liege, or you, or you, - In leaden contemplation have found out - - Such fiery numbers, as the prompting eyes - Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with? - . . . . . . . . - From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: - They sparkle still the right Promethean fire, - They are the books, the arts, the academes, - That show, contain, and nourish all the world; - Else none at all in aught proves excellent." - -The last two acts, which far surpass the earlier ones, have evidently -been revised with special care, and some details, especially in -the parts assigned to the Princess and Biron, now and then reveal -Shakespeare's maturer style and tone of feeling. - -No original source has been found for this first attempt of the young -Stratfordian in the direction of comedy. For the first, and perhaps -for the last time, he seems to have sought for no external stimulus, -but set himself to evolve everything from within. The result is that, -dramatically, the play is the slightest he ever wrote. It has scarcely -ever been performed even in England, and may, indeed, be described as -unactable. - -It is a play of two motives. The first, of course, is love--what else -should be the theme of a youthful poet's first comedy?--but love -without a trace of passion, almost without deep personal feeling, a -love which is half make-believe, tricked out in word-plays. For the -second theme of the comedy is language itself, poetic expression--for -its own sake--a subject round which all the meditations of the young -poet must necessarily have centred, as, in the midst of a cross-fire of -new impressions, he set about the formation of a vocabulary and a style. - -The moment the reader opens this first play of Shakespeare's, he -cannot fail to observe that in several of his characters the poet is -ridiculing absurdities and artificialities in the manner of speech -of the day, and, moreover, that his personages, as a whole, display -a certain half-sportive luxuriance in their rhetoric as well as in -their wit and banter. They seem to be speaking, not in order to -inform, persuade, or convince, but simply to relieve the pressure of -their imagination, to play with words, to worry at them, split them -up and recombine them, arrange them in alliterative sequences, or -group them in almost identical antithetic clauses; at the same time -making sport no less fantastical with the ideas the words represent, -and illustrating them by new and far-fetched comparisons; until the -dialogue appears not so much a part of the action or an introduction -to it, as a tournament of words, clashing and swaying to and fro, -while the rhythmic music of the verse and prose in turns expresses -exhilaration, tenderness, affectation, the joy of life, gaiety or -scorn. Although there is a certain superficiality about it all, we -can recognise in it that exuberance of all the vital spirits which -characterises the Renaissance. To the appeal-- - - "White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee," - -comes the answer-- - - "Honey, and milk, and sugar: there are three." - -And well may Boyet say (v. 2):-- - - "The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen - As is the razor's edge invisible, - Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen; - Above the sense of sense, so sensible - Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings - Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things." - -Boyet's words, however, refer merely to the youthful gaiety and -quickness of wit which may be found in all periods. We have here -something more than that: the diction of the leading characters, and -the various extravagances of expression cultivated by the subordinate -personages, bring us face to face with a linguistic phenomenon which -can be understood only in the light of history. - -The word Euphuism is employed as a common designation for these -eccentricities of style--a word which owes its origin to John Lyly's -romance, _Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit_, published in 1578. Lyly was -also the author of nine plays, all written before 1589, and there is no -doubt that he exercised a very important influence upon Shakespeare's -dramatic style. - -But it is a very narrow view of the matter which finds in him the sole -originator of the wave of mannerism which swept over the English poetry -of the Renaissance. - -The movement was general throughout Europe. It took its rise in the -new-born enthusiasm for the antique literatures, in comparison with -whose dignity of utterance the vernacular seemed low and vulgar. In -order to approximate to the Latin models, men devised an exaggerated -and dilated phraseology, heavy with images, and even sought to attain -amplitude of style by placing side by side the vernacular word and the -more exquisite foreign expression for the same object. Thus arose the -_alto estilo_, the _estilo culto_. In Italy, the disciples of Petrarch, -with their _concetti_, were dominant in poetry; in Shakespeare's own -time, Marini came to the front with his antitheses and word-plays. In -France, Ronsard and his school obeyed the general tendency. In Spain, -the new style was represented by Guevara, who directly influenced Lyly. - -John Lyly was about ten years older than Shakespeare. He was born in -Kent in 1553 or 1554, of humble parentage. Nevertheless he obtained -a full share of the literary culture of his time, studied at Oxford, -probably by the assistance of Lord Burleigh, took his Master's degree -in 1575, afterwards went to Cambridge, and eventually, no doubt on -account of the success of his _Euphues_, found a position at the -court of Elizabeth. For a period of ten years he was Court Poet, what -in our days would be called Poet Laureate. But his position was without -emolument. He was always hoping in vain for the post of Master of the -Revels, and two touching letters to Elizabeth, the one dated 1590, -the other 1593, in which he petitions for this appointment, show that -after ten years' labour at court he felt himself a ship-wrecked man, -and after thirteen years gave himself up to despair. All the duties and -responsibilities of the office he coveted were heaped upon him, but he -was denied the appointment itself. Like Greene and Marlowe, he lived a -miserable life, and died in 1606, poor and indebted, leaving his family -in destitution. - -His book, _Euphues_, is written for the court of Elizabeth. The -Queen herself studied and translated the ancient authors, and it -was the fashion of her court to deal incessantly in mythological -comparisons and allusions to antiquity. Lyly shows this tendency in -all his writings. He quotes Cicero, imitates Plautus, cites numberless -verses from Virgil and Ovid, reproduces almost word for word in his -_Euphues_ Plutarch's _Treatise on Education,_ and borrows from Ovid's -_Metamorphoses_ the themes of several of his plays. In _A Midsummer -Night's Dream_, when Bottom appears with an ass's head and exclaims, -"I have a reasonable good ear for music; let's have the tongs and the -bones," we may doubtless trace the incident back to the metamorphosis -of Midas in Ovid, but through the medium of Lyly's _Mydas_. - -It was not merely the relation of the age to antiquity that produced -the fashionable style. The new intercourse between country and country -had quite as much to do with it. Before the invention of printing, each -country had been spiritually isolated; but the international exchange -of ideas had by this time become very much easier. Every European -nation begins in the sixteenth century to provide itself with a library -of translations. Foreign manners and fashions, in language as well as -in costume, came into vogue, and helped to produce a heterogeneous and -motley style. - -In England, moreover, we have to note the very important fact that, -precisely at the time when the Renaissance began to bear literary -fruit, the throne was occupied by a woman, and one who, without -possessing any delicate literary sense or refined artistic taste, was -interested in the intellectual movement. Vain, and inclined to secret -gallantries, she demanded, and received, incessant homage, for the -most part in extravagant mythological terms, from the ablest of her -subjects--from Sidney, from Spenser, from Raleigh--and was determined, -in short, that the whole literature of the time should turn towards her -as its central point. Shakespeare was the only great poet of the period -who absolutely declined to comply with this demand. - -It followed from the relation in which literature stood to Elizabeth -that it addressed itself as a whole to women, and especially to -ladies of position. _Euphues_ is a ladies' book. The new style may be -described, not inaptly, as the development of a more refined method of -address to the fair sex. - -Sir Philip Sidney, in a masque, had done homage to Elizabeth, then -forty-five years old, as "the Lady of the May." A letter which Sir -Walter Raleigh, after his disgrace, addressed from his prison to Sir -Robert Cecil on the subject of Elizabeth, affords a particularly -striking example of the Euphuistic style; admirably fitted as it -certainly was to express the passion affected by a soldier of forty for -the maiden of sixty who held his fate in her hands:-- - - "While she was yet nigher at hand, that I might hear of her - once in two or three days, my sorrows were the less; but - even now my heart is cast into the depth of all misery. I - that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting - like Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing - her fair hair about her pure cheeks like a nymph; sometime - sitting in the shade like a goddess; sometime singing like - an angel; sometime playing like Orpheus. Behold the sorrow - of this world! Once amiss, hath bereaved me of all."[2] - -The German scholar Landmann, who has devoted special study to -Euphuism,[3] has justly pointed out that the greatest extravagances of -style, and the worst sins against taste, of that period are always to -be found in books written for ladies, celebrating the charms of the -fair sex, and seeking to please by means of highly elaborated wit. - -This may have been the point of departure of the new style; but it soon -ceased to address itself specially to feminine readers, and became a -means of gratifying the propensity of the men of the Renaissance to -mirror their whole nature in their speech, making it peculiar to the -point of affectation, and affected to the point of the most daring -mannerism. Euphuism ministered to their passion for throwing all they -said into high and highly coloured relief, for polishing it till it -shone and sparkled like real or paste diamonds in the sunshine, for -making it ring, and sing, and chime, and rhyme, without caring whether -reason took any share in the sport. - -As a slight but characteristic illustration of this tendency, note the -reply of the page, Moth, to Armado (iii. I):-- - - "_Moth_. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl? - - "_Arm_. How meanest thou? brawling in French? - - "_Moth_. No, my complete master; but to jig off a tune at - the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet, humour it - with turning up your eyelids, sigh a note, and sing a note; - sometime through the throat, as if you swallowed love with - singing love; sometime through the nose, as if you snuffed - up love by smelling love; with your hat, penthouse-like, - o'er the shop of your eyes; with your arms crossed on your - thin belly-doublet, like a rabbit on a spit; or your hands - in your pocket, like a man after the old painting; and keep - not too long in one tune, but a snip and away. These are - complements, these are humours, these betray nice wenches, - that would be betrayed without these, and make them men of - note (do you note me?), that most are affected to these." - -Landmann has conclusively proved that John Lyly's _Euphues_ is only an -imitation, and at many points a very close imitation, of the Spaniard -Guevara's book, an imaginary biography of Marcus Aurelius, which, in -the fifty years since its publication, had been six times translated -into English. It was so popular that one of these translations passed -through no fewer than twelve editions. Both in style and matter -_Euphues_ follows Guevara's book, which, in Sir Thomas North's -adaptation, bears the title of _The Dial of Princes_. - -The chief characteristics of Euphuism were parallel and assonant -antitheses, long strings of comparisons with real or imaginary natural -phenomena (borrowed for the most part from Pliny's _Natural History_), -a partiality for images from antique history and mythology, and a love -of alliteration. - -Not till a later date did Shakespeare ridicule Euphuism properly so -called--to wit, in that well-known passage in _Henry IV.,_ Part I., -where Falstaff plays the king. In his speech beginning "Peace, good -pint-pot! peace, good tickle-brain!" Shakespeare deliberately parodies -Lyly's similes from natural history. Falstaff says:-- - - "Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, - but also how thou art accompanied: for though the camomile, - the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, - the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears." - -Compare with this the following passage from Lyly (cited by Landmann):-- - - "Too much studie doth intoxicate their braines, for (say - they) although yron, the more it is used, the brighter it - is, yet silver with much wearing doth wast to nothing ... - though the Camomill, the more it is troden and pressed - downe, the more it spreadeth, yet the Violet, the oftner - it is handeled and touched, the sooner it withereth and - decayeth." - -Falstaff continues in the same exquisite strain:-- - - "There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of, - and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch: - this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so - doth the company thou keepest." - -This citation of "ancient writers" in proof of so recondite a -phenomenon as the stickiness of pitch is again pure Lyly. Yet again, -the adjuration, "Now I do not speak to thee in drink, but in tears; not -in pleasure, but in passion; not in words only, but in woes also," is -an obvious travesty of the Euphuistic style. - -Strictly speaking, it is not against Euphuism itself that Shakespeare's -youthful satire is directed in _Love's Labour's Lost_. It is certain -collateral forms of artificiality in style and utterance that are -aimed at. In the first place, bombast, represented by the ridiculous -Spaniard, Armado (the suggestion of the Invincible Armada in the name -cannot be unintentional); in the next place, pedantry, embodied in the -schoolmaster Holofernes, for whom tradition states that Florio, the -teacher of languages and translator of Montaigne, served as a model--a -supposition, however, which seems scarcely probable when we remember -Florio's close connection with Shakespeare's patron, Southampton. -Further, we find throughout the play the over-luxuriant and far-fetched -method of expression, universally characteristic of the age, which -Shakespeare himself had as yet by no means succeeded in shaking off. -Only towards the close does he rise above it and satirise it. That is -the intent of Biron's famous speech (v. 2):-- - - "Taffata phrases, silken terms precise, - Three-pil'd hyperboles, spruce affectation, - Figures pedantical: these summer-flies - Have blown me full of maggot ostentation. - I do forswear them; and I here protest, - By this white glove, (how white the hand, God knows) - Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd - In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes." - -In the very first scene of the play, the King describes Armado, in too -indulgent terms, as-- - - "A refined traveller of Spain; - A man in all the world's new fashion planted, - That hath a mint of phrases in his brain; - One, whom the music of his own vain tongue - Doth ravish like enchanting harmony." - -Holofernes the pedant, nearly a century and a half before Holberg's -Else Skolemesters,[4] expresses himself very much as she does:-- - - "_Holofernes_. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, - is liable, congruent, and measurable for the afternoon: the - word is well cull'd, chose; sweet and apt, I do assure you, - sir; I do assure." - -Armado's bombast may probably be accepted as a not too extravagant -caricature of the bombast of the period. Certain it is that the -schoolmaster Rombus, in Sir Philip Sidney's _Lady of the May_, -addresses the Queen in a strain no whit less ridiculous than that of -Holofernes. But what avails the justice of a parody if, in spite of the -art and care lavished upon it, it remains as tedious as the mannerism -it ridicules! And this is unfortunately the case in the present -instance. Shakespeare had not yet attained the maturity and detachment -of mind which could enable him to rise high above the follies he -attacks, and to sweep them aside with full authority. He buries himself -in them, circumstantially demonstrates their absurdities, and is -still too inexperienced to realise how he thereby inflicts upon the -spectator and the reader the full burden of their tediousness. It is -very characteristic of Elizabeth's taste that, even in 1598, she could -still take pleasure in the play. All this fencing with words appealed -to her quick intelligence; while, with the unabashed sensuousness -characteristic of the daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, she -found entertainment in the playwright's freedom of speech, even, no -doubt, in the equivocal badinage between Boyet and Maria (iv. I). - -As was to be expected, Shakespeare is here more dependent on models -than in his later works. From Lyly, the most popular comedy-writer -of the day, he probably borrowed the idea of his Armado, who answers -pretty closely to Sir Tophas in Lyly's _Endymion_, copied, in his turn, -from Pyrgopolinices, the boastful soldier of the old Latin comedy. -It is to be noted, also, that the braggart and pedant, the two comic -figures of this play, are permanent types on the Italian stage, which -in so many ways influenced the development of English comedy. - -The personal element in this first sportive production is, however, -not difficult to recognise: it is the young poet's mirthful protest -against a life immured within the hard-and-fast rules of an artificial -asceticism, such as the King of Navarre wishes to impose upon his -little court, with its perpetual study, its vigils, its fasts, and its -exclusion of womankind. Against this life of unnatural constraint the -comedy pleads with the voice of Nature, especially through the mouth of -Biron, in whose speeches, as Dowden has rightly remarked, we can not -infrequently catch the accent of Shakespeare himself. In Biron and his -Rosaline we have the first hesitating sketch of the masterly Benedick -and Beatrice of _Much Ado About Nothing_. The best of Biron's speeches, -those which are in unrhymed verse, we evidently owe to the revision of -1598; but they are conceived in the spirit of the original play, and -merely express Shakespeare's design in stronger and clearer terms than -he was at first able to compass. Even at the end of the third act Biron -is still combating as well as he can the power of love:-- - - "What! I love! I sue! I seek a wife! - A woman, that is like a German clock, - Still a repairing, ever out of frame, - And never going aright, being a watch, - But being watch'd that it may still go right!" - -But his great and splendid speech in the fourth act is like a hymn to -that God of Battles who is named in the title of the play, and whose -outpost skirmishes form its matter:-- - - "Other slow arts entirely keep the brain, - And therefore, finding barren practisers, - Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil; - But love, first learned in a lady's eyes, - Lives not alone immured in the brain, - But, with the motion of all elements, - Courses as swift as thought in every power, - And gives to every power a double power, - Above their functions and their offices. - It adds a precious seeing to the eye; - A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind; - A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound, - When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd: - Love's feeling is more soft, and sensible, - Than are the tender horns of cockled snails. - . . . . . . . . - Never durst poet touch a pen to write, - Until his ink were temper'd with Love's sighs; - O! then his lines would ravish savage ears, - And plant in tyrants mild humility." - -We must take Biron-Shakespeare at his word, and believe that in these -vivid and tender emotions he found, during his early years in London, -the stimulus which taught him to open his lips in song. - - -[1] Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754), the great comedy-writer of -Denmark, and founder of the Danish stage.--(TRANS.) - -[2] _Raleigh_, by Edmund Gosse (English Worthies Series), p. 57. - -[3] _New Shakspere Society's Transactions_,1880-86, Pt. ii. p. 241. - -[4] The schoolmaster's wife in Ludvig Holberg's inimitable -comedy, _Barselstuen._--(TRANS.) - - - - -X - -_LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON: THE FIRST SKETCH OF ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS -WELL--THE COMEDY OF ERRORS--THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA_ - -As a counterpart to the comedy of _Love's Labour's Lost_, Shakespeare -soon after composed another, entitled _Love's Labour's Won_. This we -learn from the celebrated passage in Francis Meres' _Palladis Tamia_, -where he enumerates the plays which Shakespeare had written up to that -date, 1598. We know, however, that no play of that name is now included -among the poet's works. Since it is scarcely conceivable that a play -of Shakespeare's, once acted, should have been entirely lost, the only -question is, which of the extant comedies originally bore that title. -But in reality there is no question at all: the play is _All's Well -that Ends Well_--not, of course, as we now possess it, in a form and -style belonging to a quite mature period of the poet's life, but as it -stood before the searching revision, of which it shows evident traces. - -We cannot, indeed, restore the play as it originally issued from -Shakespeare's youthful imagination. But there are passages in it which -evidently belong to the older version, rhymed conversations, or at any -rate fragments of dialogue, rhymed letters in sonnet form, and numerous -details which entirely correspond with the style of _Love's Labour's -Lost_. - -The piece is a dramatisation of Boccaccio's story of Gillette of -Narbonne. Only the comic parts are of Shakespeare's invention; he has -added the characters of Parolles, Lafeu, the Clown, and the Countess. -Even in the original sketch he no doubt gave new depth and vitality -to the leading characters, who are mere outlines in the story. The -comedy, as we know, has for its heroine a young woman who loves the -haughty Bertram with an unrequited and despised passion, cures the -King of France of a dangerous sickness, claims as her reward the right -to choose a husband from among the courtiers, chooses Bertram, is -repudiated by him, and, after a nocturnal meeting at which she takes -the place of another woman whom he believes himself to have seduced, at -last overcomes his resistance and is acknowledged as his wife. - -Shakespeare has here not only shown the unquestioning acceptance -of his original, which was usual even in his riper years, but has -transferred to his play all its peculiarities and improbabilities. Even -the psychological crudities he has swallowed as they stand--such, for -instance, as the fact of a delicate woman forcing herself under cover -of night upon the man who has left his home and country for the express -purpose of escaping from her. - -Shakespeare has drawn in Helena a patient Griselda, that type of loving -and cruelly maltreated womanhood which reappears in German poetry in -Kleist's _Käthchen von Heilbronn_--the woman who suffers everything in -inexhaustible tenderness and humility, and never falters in her love -until in the end she wins the rebellious heart. - -The pity is that the unaccommodating theme compelled Shakespeare to -make this pearl among women in the end enforce her rights, after the -man she adores has not only treated her with contemptuous brutality, -but has, moreover, shown himself a liar and hound in his attempt to -blacken the character of the Italian girl whose lover he believes -himself to have been. - -It is very characteristic of the English renaissance, and of the public -which Shakespeare had in view in his early plays, that he should make -this noble heroine take part with Parolles in the long and jocular -conversation (i. I) on the nature of virginity, which is one of the -most indecorous passages in his works. This dialogue must certainly -belong to the original version of the play. - -We must remember that Helena, in that version, was in all probability -very different from the high-souled woman she became in the process -of revision. She no doubt expressed herself freely, according to -Shakespeare's youthful manner, in rhyming reveries on love and fate, -such as the following (i. I):-- - - "Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie - Which we ascribe to Heaven: the fated sky - Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull - Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull. - What power is it which mounts my love so high; - That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye? - The mightiest space in fortune Nature brings - To join like likes, and kiss like native things. - Impossible be strange attempts to those - That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose, - What hath been cannot be. Who ever strove - To show her merit, that did miss her love?" - -Or else he made her pour forth multitudinous swarms of images, each -treading on the other's heels, like those in which she forecasts -Bertram's love-adventures at the court of France (i. I):-- - - "There shall your master have a thousand loves, - A mother, and a mistress, and a friend, - A phœnix, captain, and an enemy, - A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign, - A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear; - His humble ambition, proud humility, - His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet, - His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world - Of pretty, fond, adoptious Christendoms, - That blinking Cupid gossips." - -_Loves's Labour's Won_ was probably conceived throughout in this -lighter tone. - -There can be little doubt that the figure of Parolles was also sketched -in the earlier play. It forms an excellent counterpart to Armado in -_Love's Labour's Lost_. And in it we have undoubtedly the first faint -outline of the figure which, seven or eight years later, becomes -the immortal Falstaff. Parolles is a humorous liar, braggart, and -"misleader of youth," like Prince Henry's fat friend. He is put to -shame, just like Falstaff, in an ambuscade devised by his own comrades; -and being, as he thinks, taken prisoner, he deserts and betrays his -master. Falstaff hacks the edge of his sword in order to appear -valiant; and Parolles says (iv. I), "I would the cutting of my garments -would serve the turn, or the breaking of my Spanish sword." - -In comparison with Falstaff the character is, of course, meagre and -faint. But if we compare it with such a figure as Armado in _Love's -Labour's Lost_, we find it sparkling with gaiety. It was, in all -probability, touched up and endowed with new wit during the revision. - -On the other hand, there is a good deal of quite youthful whimsicality -in the speeches of the Clown, especially in the first act, which there -is no difficulty in attributing to Shakespeare's twenty-fifth year. The -song which the Fool sings at this point (i. 3) seems to belong to the -earlier form, and with it the speeches to which it gives rise:-- - - "_Countess_. What! one good in ten? you corrupt the song, - sirrah. - - "_Clown_. One good woman in ten, madam, which is a purifying - o' the song. Would God would serve the world so all the - year! we'd find no fault with the tithe-woman, if I were the - parson. One in ten, quoth 'a! an we might have a good woman - born but for every blazing star, or at an earthquake, 't - would mend the lottery well." - -In treating of _Love's Labour's Won_, we must necessarily fall back -upon more or less plausible conjecture. But we possess other comedies -dating from this early period of Shakespeare's career in which the -improvement of his technique and his steady advance towards artistic -maturity can be clearly traced. - -First and foremost we have his _Comedy of Errors_, which must belong -to this earliest period, even if it comes after the two Love's Labour -comedies. It is written in a highly polished, poetical style; it -contains fewer lines of prose than any other of Shakespeare's - comedies; but its -diction is full of dramatic movement, the rhymes do not impede the -lively flow of the dialogue, and it has three times as many unrhymed as -rhymed verses. - -Yet it must follow pretty close upon the plays we have just reviewed. -Certain phrases in the burlesque portrait of the fat cook drawn by -Dromio of Syracuse (iii. 2) help to put us on the track of its date. -His remark, that Spain sent whole "armadoes of caracks" to ballast -themselves with the rubies and carbuncles on her nose, indicates a time -not far remote from the Armada troubles. A more exact indication may be -found in the answer which the servant gives to his master's question -as to where France is situated upon the globe suggested by the cook's -spherical figure. "Where France?" asks Antipholus; and Dromio replies, -"In her forehead; arm'd and reverted, making war against her heir." -Now, in 1589, Henry of Navarre really ceased to be the heir to the -French throne, although his struggle for the possession of it lasted -until his acceptance of Catholicism in 1593. Thus we may place the date -of the play somewhere between the years 1589 and 1591. - -This comedy on the frontier-line of farce shows with what giant strides -Shakespeare progresses in the technique of his art. It has the blood of -the theatre in its veins; we can already discern the experienced actor -in the dexterity with which the threads of the intrigue are involved, -and woven into an ever more intricate tangle, until the simple solution -is arrived at. While _Love's Labour's Lost_ still dragged itself -laboriously over the boards, here we have an impetus and a _brio_ in -all the dramatic passages which reveal an artist and foretell a master. -Only the rough outlines of the play are taken from Plautus; and the -motive, the possibility of incessant confusion between two masters and -two servants, is manipulated with a skill and certainty which astound -us in a beginner, and sometimes with quite irresistible whimsicality. -No doubt the merry play is founded upon an extreme improbability. So -exact is the mutual resemblance of each pair of twins, no less in -clothing than in feature, that not a single person for a moment doubts -their identity. Astonishing resemblances between twins do, however, -occur in real life; and when once we have accepted the premises, the -consequences develop naturally, or at any rate plausibly. We may even -say that in the art of intrigue-spinning, which was afterwards somewhat -foreign and unattractive to him, the poet here shows himself scarcely -inferior to the Spaniards of his own or of a later day, remarkable as -was their dexterity. - -Now and then the movement is suspended for the sake of an exchange of -word-plays between master and servant; but it is generally short and -entertaining. Now and then the action pauses to let Dromio of Syracuse -work off one of his extravagant witticisms, as for example (iii. 2):-- - - "_Dromio S_. And yet she is a wondrous fat marriage. - - "_Antipholus S_. How dost thou mean a fat marriage? - - "_Dro. S_. Marry, sir, she's the kitchen-wench, and all - grease; and I know not what use to put her to, but to make a - lamp of her, and run from her by her own light. I warrant, - her rags, and the tallow in them, will burn a Poland winter: - if she lives till doomsday, she'll burn a week longer than - the whole world." - -As a rule, however, the interest is so evenly sustained that the -spectator is held in constant curiosity and suspense as to the upshot -of the adventure. - -At one single point the style rises to a beauty and intensity which -show that, though Shakespeare here abandons himself to the light play -of intrigue, it is a diversion to which he only condescends for the -moment. The passage is that between Luciana and Antipholus of Syracuse -(iii. 2), with its tender erotic cadences. Listen to such verses as -these:-- - - "_Ant. S_. Sweet mistress (what your name is else, I know not, - Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine), - Less in your knowledge, and your grace, you show not, - Than our earth's wonder; more than earth divine. - Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak: - Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit, - Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak, - The folded meaning of your words' deceit. - Against my soul's pure truth, why labour you - To make it wander in an unknown field? - Are you a god? would you create me new? - Transform me then, and to your power I'll yield." - -Since the play was first published in the Folio of 1623, it is of -course, not impossible that Shakespeare may have worked over this -lovely passage at a later period. But the whole structure of the -verses, with their interwoven rhymes, points in the opposite direction. -We here catch the first notes of that music which is soon to fill -_Romeo and Juliet_ with its harmonies. - -The play which in all probability stands next on the chronological list -of Shakespeare's works, _The Two Gentlemen of Verona,_ is also one in -which we catch several anticipatory glimpses of later productions, -and is in itself a promising piece of work. It surpasses the earlier -comedies in two respects: first, in the beauty and clearness with which -the two young women are outlined, and then in the careless gaiety which -makes its first triumphant appearance in the parts of the servants. -Only now and then, in one or two detached scenes, do Speed and Launce -bore us with euphuistic word-torturings; as a rule they are quite -entertaining fellows, who seem to announce, as with a flourish of -trumpets, that, unlike either Lyly or Marlowe, Shakespeare possesses -the inborn gaiety, the keen sense of humour, the sparkling playfulness, -which are to enable him, without any strain on his invention, to -kindle the laughter of his audiences, and send it flashing round the -theatre from the groundlings to the gods. He does not as yet display -any particular talent for individualising his clowns. Nevertheless -we notice that, while Speed impresses us chiefly by his astonishing -volubility, the true English humour makes its entrance upon the -Shakespearian stage when Launce appears, dragging his dog by a string. - -Note the torrent of eloquence in this speech of Speed's, enumerating -the symptoms from which he concludes that his master is in love:-- - - "First, you have learn'd, like Sir Proteus, to wreath - your arms, like a malcontent; to relish a love-song, - like a robin-redbreast; to walk alone, like one that had - the pestilence; to sigh, like a school-boy that had lost - his ABC; to weep, like a young wench that had buried her - grandam; to fast, like one that takes diet; to watch, like - one that fears robbing; to speak puling, like a beggar at - Hallowmas. You were wont, when you laugh'd, to crow like - a cock; when you walk'd, to walk like one of the lions; - when you fasted, it was presently after dinner; when you - look'd sadly, it was for want of money; and now you are - metamorphosed with a mistress, that, when I look on you, I - can hardly think you my master." - -All these similes of Speed's are apt and accurate; it is only the way -in which he piles them up that makes us laugh. But when Launce opens -his mouth, unbridled whimsicality at once takes the upper hand. He -comes upon the scene with his dog:-- - - "Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the - kind of the Launces have this very fault.... I think Crab, - my dog, be the sourest-natured dog that lives: my mother - weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid - howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a - great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed - one tear. He is a stone, a very pebble-stone, and has no - more pity in him than a dog; a Jew would have wept to have - seen our parting: why, my grandam, having no eyes, look you, - wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I'll show you the - manner of it. This shoe is my father:--no, this left shoe - is my father;--no, no, this left shoe is my mother;--nay, - that cannot be so, neither:--yes, it is so, it is so; it - hath the worser sole. This shoe, with the hole in it, is my - mother, and this my father. A vengeance on't! there't is: - now, sir, this staff is my sister; for, look you, she is as - white as a lily, and as small as a wand: this hat is Nan, - our maid: I am the dog;--no, the dog is himself, and I am - the dog,--O! the dog is me, and I am myself: ay, so, so." - -Here we have nothing but joyous nonsense, and yet nonsense of a -highly dramatic nature. That is to say, here reigns that youthful -exuberance of spirit which laughs with a childlike grace, even where -it condescends to the petty and low; exuberance as of one who glories -in the very fact of existence, and rejoices to feel life pulsing and -seething in his veins; exuberance such as belongs of right, in some -degree, to every well-constituted man in the light-hearted days of his -youth--how much more, then, to one who possesses the double youth of -years and genius among a people which is itself young, and more than -young: liberated, emancipated, enfranchised, like a colt which has -broken its tether and scampers at large through the luxuriant pastures. - -_The Two Gentlemen of Verona_--which, by the way, is Shakespeare's -first declaration of love to Italy--is a graceful, entertaining, weakly -constructed comedy, dealing with faithful and faithless love, with -the treachery of man and the devotion of woman. Its hero, a noble and -wrongfully-banished youth, comes to live the life of a robber captain, -like Schiller's Karl von Moor two centuries later, but without a spark -of his spirit of rebellion. The solution of the imbroglio, by means of -the instant and unconditional forgiveness of the villain, is so naïve, -so senselessly conciliatory, that we feel it to be the outcome of a -joyous, untried, and unwounded spirit. - -Shakespeare has borrowed part of his matter from a novel entitled -_Diana_, by the Portuguese Montemayor (1520-1562). The translation, by -Bartholomew Yong, was not printed until 1598, but the preface states -that it had then been completed for fully sixteen years, and manuscript -copies of it had no doubt passed from hand to hand, according to -the fashion of the time. On comparing the essential portion of the -romance[1] with _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_, we find that Proteus's -infidelity and Julia's idea of following her lover in male attire, with -all that comes of it, belong to Montemayor. Moreover, in the novel, -Julia, disguised as a page, is present when Proteus serenades Sylvia -(Celia in the original). She also goes to Sylvia at Proteus's orders -to plead his cause with her; but in the novel the fair lady falls in -love with the messenger in male attire--an incident which Shakespeare -reserved for _Twelfth Night_. We even find in _Diana_ a sketch of the -second scene of the first act, between Julia and Lucetta, in which the -mistress, for appearance' sake, repudiates the letter which she is -burning to read. - -One or two points in the play remind us of _Lovers Labour's Won_, which -Shakespeare had just completed in its original form; for example, -the journey in male attire in pursuit of the scornful loved one. -Many things, on the other hand, point forward to Shakespeare's later -work. The inconstancy of the two men in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ -is a variation and parody of Proteus's fickleness in this play. The -beginning of the second scene of the first act, where Julia makes -Lucetta pass judgment on her different suitors, is the first faint -outline of the masterly scene to the same effect between Portia and -Nerissa in _The Merchant of Venice_. The conversation between Sylvia -and Julia, which brings the fourth act to a close, answers exactly to -that between Olivia and Viola in the first act of _Twelfth Night._ -Finally, the fact that Valentine, after learning the full extent of -his false friend's treachery, offers to resign to him his beautiful -betrothed, Sylvia, in order to prove by this sacrifice the strength of -his friendship, however foolish and meaningless it may appear in the -play, is yet an anticipation of the humble renunciation of the beloved -for the sake of the friend and of friendship, which impresses us so -painfully in Shakespeare's Sonnets. - -In almost every utterance of the young women in this comedy we see -nobility of soul, and in the lyric passages a certain pre-Raphaelite -grace. Take, for example, what Julia says of her love in the last scene -of the second act:-- - - "The current, that with gentle murmur glides, - Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage; - But, when his fair course is not hindered, - He makes sweet music with the enamell'd stones, - Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge - He overtaketh in his pilgrimage. - . . . . . . . . - I'll be as patient as a gentle stream, - And make a pastime of each weary step, - Till the last step have brought me to my love; - And there I'll rest, as, after much turmoil, - A blessed soul doth in Elysium." - -And although the men are here of inferior interest to the women, we yet -find in the mouth of Valentine outbursts of great lyric beauty. For -example (iii. I):-- - - "Except I be by Silvia in the night, - There is no music in the nightingale; - Unless I look on Silvia in the day, - There is no day for me to look upon. - She is my essence; and I leave to be, - If I be not by her fair influence - Foster'd, illumin'd, cherish'd, kept alive." - -Besides the strains of passion and of gaiety in this light acting play, -a third note is clearly struck, the note of nature. There is fresh air -in it, a first breath of those fragrant midland memories which prove -that this child of the country must many a time have said to himself -with Valentine (v. 4):-- - - "How use doth breed a habit in a man! - This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods, - I better brook than nourishing peopled towns." - -In many passages of this play we are conscious for the first time of -that keen love of nature which never afterwards deserts Shakespeare, -and which gives to some of the most mannered of his early efforts, as, -for example, to his short narrative poems, their chief interest and -value. - - -[1] _The Shepherdess Felismena_ in Hazlitt's _Shakespeare's -Library_, Pt. I. vol. i. ed. 1875. - - - - - -XI - -_VENUS AND ADONIS: DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE--THE RAPE OF LUCRECE: -RELATION TO PAINTING_ - -Although Shakespeare did not publish _Venus and Adonis_ until the -spring of 1593, when he was twenty-nine years old, the poem must -certainly have been conceived, and probably written, several years -earlier. In dedicating it to the Earl of Southampton, then a youth -of twenty, he calls it "the first heire of my invention;" but it by -no means follows that it is literally the first thing he ever wrote. -The expression may merely imply that his work for the theatre was -not regarded as an independent exercise of his poetic talent. But -the over-luxuriant style betrays the youthful hand, and we place it, -therefore, among Shakespeare's writings of about 1590-91. - -He had at this period, as we have seen, won a firm footing as an actor, -and had made himself not only useful but popular as an adapter of old -plays and an independent dramatist. But the drama of that time was -not reckoned as literature. There was all the difference in the world -between a "playwright" and a real poet. When Sir Thomas Bodley, about -the year 1600, extended and remodelled the old University Library, and -gave it his name, he decreed that no such "riffe-raffes" as playbooks -should ever find admittance to it. - -Without being actually ambitious, Shakespeare felt the highly natural -wish to make a name for himself in literature. He wanted to take his -place among the poets, and to win the approval of the young noblemen -whose acquaintance he had made in the theatre. He also wanted to show -that he was familiar with the spirit of antiquity. - -Spenser (born 1553) had just attracted general attention by publishing -the first books of his great narrative poem. What more natural than -that Shakespeare should be tempted to measure his strength against -Spenser, as he already had against Marlowe, his first master in the -drama? - -The little poem of _Venus and Adonis_, and its companionpiece, _The -Rape of Lucrece_, which appeared in the following year, have this great -value for us, that here, and here only, are we certain of possessing a -text exactly as Shakespeare wrote it, since he himself superintended -its publication. - -Italy was at this time the centre of all culture. The lyric and minor -epic poetry of England were entirely under the influence of the Italian -style and taste. Shakespeare, in _Venus and Adonis_, aims at the -insinuating sensuousness of the Italians. He tries to strike the tender -and languorous notes of his Southern forerunners. Among the poets of -antiquity, Ovid is naturally his model. He takes two lines from Ovid's -_Amores_ as the motto of his poem, which is indeed, nothing but an -expanded version of a scene in the _Metamorphoses_. - -The name of Shakespeare, like the names of Æschylus, Michael Angelo, -and Beethoven, is apt to ring tragically in our ears. We have almost -forgotten that he had a Mozartean vein in his nature, and that his -contemporaries not only praised his personal gentleness and "honesty," -but also the "sweetness" of his singing. - -In _Venus and Adonis_ glows the whole fresh sensuousness of the -Renaissance and of Shakespeare's youth. It is an entirely erotic poem, -and contemporaries aver that it lay on the table of every light woman -in London. - -The conduct of the poem presents a series of opportunities and -pretexts for voluptuous situations and descriptions. The ineffectual -blandishments lavished by Venus on the chaste and frigid youth, who, -in his sheer boyishness, is as irresponsive as a bashful woman--her -kisses, caresses, and embraces, are depicted in detail. It is as -though a Titian or Rubens had painted a model in a whole series of -tender situations, now in one attitude, now in another. Then comes the -suggestive scene in which Adonis's horse breaks away in order to meet -the challenge of a mare which happens to wander by, together with the -goddess's comments thereupon. Then new advances and solicitations, -almost inadmissibly daring, according to the taste of our day. - -An element of feeling is introduced in the portrayal of Venus's anguish -when Adonis expresses his intention of hunting the boar. But it is to -sheer description that the poet chiefly devotes himself--description of -the charging boar, description of the fair young body bathed in blood, -and so forth. There is a fire and rapture of colour in it all, as in a -picture by some Italian master of a hundred years before. - -Quite unmistakable is the insinuating, luscious, almost saccharine -quality of the writing, which accounts for the fact that, when his -immediate contemporaries speak of Shakespeare's diction, honey is the -similitude that first suggests itself to them. John Weever, in 1595, -calls him "honey-tongued," and in 1598 Francis Meres uses the same -term, with the addition of "mellifluous." - -There is, indeed, an extraordinary sweetness in these strophes. -Tenderness, every -here and there, finds really entrancing utterance. When Adonis has for -the first time harshly repulsed Venus, in a speech of some length:-- - - "'What! canst thou talk?' quoth she, 'hast thou a tongue? - O, would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing! - Thy mermaid's voice hath done me double wrong; - I had my load before, now press'd with bearing: - Melodious discord, heavenly tune harsh-sounding, - Ear's deep-sweet music, and heart's deep-sore wounding,'" - -But the style also exhibits numberless instances of tasteless Italian -artificiality. Breathing the "heavenly moisture" of Adonis's breath, she - - "Wishes her cheeks were gardens full of flowers, - So they were dew'd with such distilling showers." - -Of Adonis's dimples it is said:-- - - "These lovely caves, these round enchanting pits, - Open'd their mouths to swallow Venus' liking." - -"My love to love," says Adonis, "is love but to disgrace it." Venus -enumerates the delights he would afford to each of her senses -separately, supposing her deprived of all the rest, and concludes -thus:-- - - "'But, O, what banquet wert thou to the taste, - Being nurse and feeder of the other four - Would they not wish the feast might ever last, - And bid Suspicion double-lock the door, - Lest Jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest, - Should, by his stealing in, disturb the feast?'" - -Such lapses of taste are not infrequent in Shakespeare's early comedies -as well. They answer, in their way, to the riot of horrors in _Titus -Andronicus_--analogous mannerisms of an as yet undeveloped art. - -At the same time, the puissant sensuousness of this poem is as a -prelude to the large utterance of passion in _Romeo and Juliet_, and -towards its close Shakespeare soars, so to speak, symbolically, from a -delineation of the mere fever of the senses to a forecast of that love -in which it is only one element, when he makes Adonis say:-- - - "I Love comforteth like sunshine after rain, - But Lust's effect is tempest after sun; - Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain, - Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done: - Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies; - Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.'" - -It would, of course, be absurd to lay too much stress on these edifying -antitheses in this unedifying poem. It is more important to note that -the descriptions of animal life--for example, that of the hare's -flight--are unrivalled for truth and delicacy of observation, and to -mark how, even in this early work, Shakespeare's style now and then -rises to positive greatness. - -This is especially the case in the descriptions of the boar and of the -horse. The boar--his back "set with a battle of bristly pikes," his -eyes like glow-worms, his snout "digging sepulchres where'er he goes," -his neck short and thick, and his onset so fierce that - - "The thorny brambles and embracing bushes, - As fearful of him, part; through which he rushes" - ---this boar seems to have been painted by Snyders in a huntingpiece, in -which the human figures came from the brush of Rubens. - -Shakespeare himself seems to have realised with what mastery he had -depicted the stallion; for he says:-- - - "Look, when a painter would surpass the life,? - In limning out a well-proportion'd steed, - His art with nature's workmanship at strife, - As if the dead the living should exceed; - So did this horse excel a common one, - In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone." - -We can feel Shakespeare's love of nature in such a stanza as this:-- - - "Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, - Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide, - High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong, - Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide: - Look, what a horse should have, he did not lack, - Save a proud rider on so proud a back." - -How consummate, too, is the description of all his movements:-- - - "Sometime he scuds far off, and there he stares; - Anon he starts at stirring of a feather." - -We hear "the high wind singing through his mane and tail." We are -almost reminded of the magnificent picture of the horse at the end of -the Book of Job: "He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage.... -He smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and -the shouting." So great is the compass of style in this little poem -of Shakespeare's youth: from Ovid to the Old Testament, from modish -artificiality to grandiose simplicity. - -_Lucrece_, which appeared in the following year, was, like _Venus and -Adonis_; dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, in distinctly more -familiar, though still deferential terms. The poem is designed as a -counterpart to its predecessor. The one treats of male, the other of -female, chastity. The one portrays ungovernable passion in a woman; -the other, criminal passion in a man. But in _Lucrece_ the theme is -seriously and morally handled. It is almost a didactic poem, dealing -with the havoc wrought by unbridled and brutish desire. - -It was not so popular in its own day as its predecessor, and it does -not afford the modern reader any very lively satisfaction. It shows an -advance in metrical accomplishment. To the six-line stanza of _Venus -and Adonis_ a seventh line is added, which heightens its beauty and its -dignity. The strength of _Lucrece_ lies in its graphic and gorgeous -descriptions, and in its sometimes microscopic psychological analysis. -For the rest, its pathos consists of elaborate and far-fetched rhetoric. - -The lament of the heroine after the crime has been committed is pure -declamation, extremely eloquent no doubt, but copious and artificial -as an oration of Cicero's, rich in apostrophes and antitheses. The -sorrow of "Collatine and his consorted lords" is portrayed in laboured -and quibbling speeches. Shakespeare's knowledge and mastery are most -clearly seen in the reflections scattered through the narrative--such, -for instance, as the following profound and exquisitely written stanza -on the softness of the feminine nature:-- - - "For men have marble, women waxen minds, - And therefore are they form'd as marble will; - The weak oppress'd, the impression of strange kinds - Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill: - Then call them not the authors of their ill, - No more than wax shall be accounted evil, - Wherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil." - -In point of mere technique the most remarkable passage in the poem is -the long series of stanzas (lines 1366 to 1568) describing a painting -of the destruction of Troy, which Lucrece contemplates in her despair. -The description is marked by such force, freshness, and naïvete as -might suggest that the writer had never seen a picture before:-- - - "Here one man's hand leaned on another's head, - His nose being shadowed by his neighbour's ear." - -So dense is the throng of figures in the picture, so deceptive the -presentation, - - "That for Achilles' image stood his spear, - Grip'd in an armed hand: himself behind - Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind, - A hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head, - Stood for the whole to be imagined." - -Here, as in all other places in which Shakespeare mentions pictorial -or plastic art, it is realism carried to the point of illusion that he -admires and praises. The paintings in the Guild Chapel at Stratford -were, doubtless, as before mentioned, the first he ever saw. He may -also, during his Stratford period, have seen works of art at Kenilworth -Castle or at St. Mary's Church in Coventry. In London, in the Hall -belonging to the Merchants of the Steel-Yard, he had no doubt seen -two greatly admired pictures by Holbein which hung there. Moreover, -there were in London at that time not only numerous portraits by Dutch -masters, but also a few Italian pictures. It appears, for example, -from a list of "Pictures and other Works of Art" drawn up in 1613 -by John Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, that there hung at Whitehall a -painting of Julius Cæsar, and another of Lucretia, said to have been -"very artistically executed." This picture may possibly have suggested -to Shakespeare the theme of his poem. Larger compositions were no -doubt familiar to him in the tapestries of the period (the hangings at -Theobald's presented scenes from Roman history); and he may very likely -have seen the excellent Dutch and Italian pictures at Nonsuch Palace, -then in the height of its glory. - -His reflections upon art led him, as aforesaid, to the conclusion that -it was the artist's business to keep a close watch upon nature, to -master or transcend her. Again and again he ranks truth to nature as -the highest quality in art. He evidently cared nothing for allegorical -or religious painting; he never so much as mentions it. Nor, with all -his love for "the concord of sweet sounds," does he ever allude to -church music. - -The description of the great painting of the fall of Troy is no mere -irrelevant decoration to the poem; for the fall of Troy symbolises -the fall of the royal house of Tarquin as a consequence of Sextus's -crime. Shakespeare did not look at the event from the point of view -of individual morality alone; he makes us feel that the honour of a -royal family, and even its dynastic existence, are hazarded by criminal -aggression upon a noble house. All the conceptions of honour belonging -to mediæval chivalry are transferred to ancient Rome. "Knights, by -their oaths, should right poor ladies' harms," says Lucrece, in calling -upon her kinsmen to avenge her. - -In his picture of the sack of Troy, Shakespeare has followed the second -book of Virgil's _Æneid_; for the groundwork of his poem as a whole he -has gone to the short but graceful and sympathetic rendering of the -story of Lucretia in Ovid's _Fasti_ (ii. 685-852). - -A comparison between Ovid's style and that of Shakespeare certainly -does not redound to the advantage of the modern poet. In opposition -to this semi-barbarian, Ovid seems the embodiment of classic -severity. Shakespeare's antithetical conceits and other lapses of -taste are painfully obtrusive. Every here and there we come upon such -stumbling-blocks as these:-- - - "Some of her blood still pure and red remain'd, - And some look'd black, and that false Tarquin stain'd;" - -or, - - "If children pre-decease progenitors, - We are their offspring, and they none of ours." - -This lack of nature and of taste is not only characteristic of the -age in general, but is bound up with the great excellences and rare -capacities which Shakespeare was now developing with such amazing -rapidity. His momentary leaning towards this style was due, in part at -least, to the influence of his fellow-poets, his friends, his rivals in -public favour--the influence, in short, of that artistic microcosm in -whose atmosphere his genius shot up to sudden maturity. - -We talk of "schools" in literature, and it is no exaggeration to say -that every period of rich productivity presupposes a school or schools. -But the word "school," beautiful in its original Greek signification, -has been narrowed and specialised by modern usage. We ought to say -"forcing-house" instead of "school"--to talk of the classic and the -romantic forcing-house, the Renaissance forcing-house,[1] and so forth. -In very small communities, where there is none of that emulation which -alone can call forth all an artist's energies, absolute mastery is as -a rule unattainable. Under such conditions, a man will often make a -certain mark early in life, and find his success his ruin. Others seek -a forcing-house outside their native land--Holberg in Holland, England, -and France; Thorvaldsen in Rome; Heine in Paris. The moment he set foot -in London, Shakespeare was in such a forcing-house. Hence the luxuriant -burgeoning of his genius. - -He lived in constant intercourse and rivalry with vivid and daringly -productive spirits. The diamond was polished in diamond dust. - -The competitive instinct (as Rümelin has rightly pointed out) was -strong in the English poets of that period. Shakespeare could not but -strive from the first to outdo his fellows in strength and skill. At -last he comes to think, like Hamlet: however deep they dig-- - - "it shall go hard - But I will delve one yard below their mines" - ---one of the most characteristic utterances of Hamlet and of -Shakespeare. - -This sense of rivalry contributed to the formation of Shakespeare's -early manner, both in his narrative poems and in his plays. Hence -arose that straining after subtleties, that absorption in quibbles, -that wantoning in word-plays, that bandying to and fro of shuttlecocks -of speech. Hence, too, that state of over-heated passion and -over-stimulated fancy, in which image begets image with a headlong -fecundity, - like that of the low organisms which pullulate by mere -scission. - -This man of all the talents had the talent for word-plays and -thought-quibbles among the rest; he was too richly endowed to be -behind-hand even here. But there was in all this something, foreign -to his true self. When he reaches the point at which his inmost -personality begins to reveal itself in his writings, we are at once -conscious of a far deeper and more emotional nature than that which -finds expression in the teeming conceits of the narrative poems and the -incessant scintillations of the early comedies. - - -[1] The author's idea is, I think, best rendered by this literal -translation; but the Danish word _Drivhus_ is much less cumbrous than -its English equivalent.--TRANS. - - - - -XII - -_A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM--ITS HISTORICAL CIRCUMSTANCES--ITS -ARISTOCRATIC, POPULAR, COMIC, AND SUPERNATURAL ELEMENTS_ - -In spite of the fame and popularity which _Venus and Adonis_ and -_Lucrece_ won for Shakespeare, he quickly understood, with his -instinctive self-knowledge, that it was not narrative but dramatic -poetry which offered the fullest scope for his powers. - -And now it is that we find him for the first time rising to the full -height of his genius. This he does in a work of dramatic form; but, -significantly enough, it is not as yet in its dramatic elements that -we recognise the master-hand, but rather in the rich and incomparable -lyric poetry with which he embroiders a thin dramatic canvas. - -His first masterpiece is a masterpiece of grace, both lyrical -and comic. _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ was no doubt written as a -festival-play or masque, before the masque became an established -art-form, to celebrate the marriage of a noble patron; probably for the -May festival after the private marriage of Essex with the widow of Sir -Philip Sidney in the year 1590. In Oberon's great speech to Puck (ii. -2) there is a significant passage about a throned vestal, invulnerable -to Cupid's darts, which is obviously a flattering reference to -Elizabeth in relation to Leicester; while the lines about a little -flower wounded by the fiery shaft of love mournfully allude, in the -like allegorical fashion, to Essex's mother and her marriage with -Leicester, after his courtship had been rejected by the Queen. Other -details also point to Essex as the bridegroom typified in the person of -Theseus. - -How is one to speak adequately of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_? It is -idle to dwell upon the slightness of the character-drawing, for the -poet's effort is not after characterisation; and, whatever its weak -points, the poem as a whole is one of the tenderest, most original, and -most perfect Shakespeare ever produced. - -It is Spenser's fairy-poetry developed and condensed; it is Shelley's -spirit-poetry anticipated by more than two centuries. And the airy -dream is shot with whimsical parody. The frontiers of Elf-land and -Clown-land meet and mingle. - -We have here an element of aristocratic distinction in the princely -couple, Theseus and Hippolyta, and their court. We have here an element -of sprightly burlesque in the artisans' performance of Pyramus and -Thisbe, treated with genial irony and divinely felicitous humour. -And here, finally, we have the element of supernatural poetry, which -soon after flashes forth again in _Romeo and Juliet_, where Mercutio -describes the doings of Queen Mab. Puck and Pease-blossom, Cobweb and -Mustardseed--pigmies who hunt the worms in a rosebud, tease bats, chase -spiders, and lord it over nightingales--are the leading actors in an -elfin play, a fairy carnival of inimitable mirth and melody, steeped -in a midsummer atmosphere of mist-wreaths and flower-scents, under the -afterglow that lingers through the sultry night. This miracle of happy -inspiration contains the germs of innumerable romantic achievements in -England, Germany, and Denmark, more than two centuries later. - -There is in French literature a graceful mythological play of somewhat -later date--Molière's _Psyché_--in which the exquisite love-verses -which stream from the heroine's lips were written by the sexagenarian -Corneille. It is, in its way, an admirable piece of work. But read it -and compare it with the nature-poetry of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, -and you will feel how far the great Englishman surpasses the greatest -Frenchmen in pure unrhetorical lyrism and irrepressibly playful, -absolutely poetical poetry, with its scent of clover, its taste of wild -honey, and its airy and shifting dream-pageantry. - -We have here no pathos. The hurricane of passion does not as yet -sweep through Shakespeare's work. No; it is only the romantic and -imaginative side of love that is here displayed, the magic whereby -longing transmutes and idealises its object, the element of folly, -infatuation, and illusion in desire, with its consequent variability -and transitoriness. Man is by nature a being with no inward compass, -led astray by his instincts and dreams, and for ever deceived either -by himself or by others. This Shakespeare realises, but does not, as -yet, take the matter very tragically. Thus the characters whom he here -presents, even, or rather especially, in their love-affairs, appear as -anything but reasonable beings. The lovers seek and avoid each other -by turns, they love and are not loved again; the couples attract each -other at cross-purposes; the youth runs after the maiden who shrinks -from him, the maiden flees from the man who adores her; and the poet's -delicate irony makes the confusion reach its height and find its -symbolic expression when the Queen of the Fairies, in the intoxication -of a love-dream, recognises her ideal in a journeyman weaver with an -ass's head. - -It is the love begotten of imagination that here bears sway. Hence -these words of Theseus (v. I):-- - - "Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, - Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend - More than cool reason ever comprehends. - The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, - Are of imagination all compact." - -And then follows Shakespeare's first deliberate utterance as to the -nature and art of the poet. He is not, as a rule, greatly concerned -with the dignity of the poet as such. Quite foreign to him is the -self-idolatry of the later romantic poets, posing as the spiritual -pastors and masters of the world. Where he introduces poets in his -plays (as in _Julius Cæsar_ and _Timon_), it is generally to assign -them a pitiful part. But here he places in the mouth of Theseus the -famous and exquisite words:-- - - "The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, - Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; - And, as imagination bodies forth - The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen - Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing - A local habitation and a name. - Such tricks hath strong imagination." - -When he wrote this he felt that his wings had grown. - -As _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ was not published until 1600, it is -impossible to assign an exact date to the text we possess. In all -probability the piece was altered and amplified before it was printed. - -Attention was long ago drawn to the following lines in Theseus's speech -at the beginning of the fifth act:-- - - "_The thrice three Muses mourning for the death_ - _Of Learning, late deceas'd in beggary._ - This is some satire, keen and critical." - -Several commentators have seen in these lines an allusion to the death -of Spenser, which, however, did not occur until 1599, so late that -it can scarcely be the event alluded to. Others have conjectured a -reference to the death of Robert Greene in 1592. The probability is -that the words refer to Spenser's poem, _The Tears of the Muses_, -published in 1591, which was a complaint of the indifference of the -nobility towards the fine arts. If the play, as we have so many reasons -for supposing, was written for the marriage of Essex, these lines -must have been inserted later, as they might easily be in a passage -like this, where a whole series of different subjects for masques is -enumerated. - -The important passage (ii. 2) where Oberon recounts his vision has -already been mentioned. It follows Oberon's description of the mermaid -seated on a dolphin's back-- - - "Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath - That certain stars shot madly from their spheres," - ---an allusion, not, as some have supposed, to Mary Stuart, who was -married to the Dauphin of France, but to the festivities and fire-work -displays which celebrated Elizabeth's visit to Kenilworth in 1575. -The passage is interesting, among other reasons, because we have here -one of the few allegories to be found in Shakespeare--an allegory -which has taken that form because the matters to which it alludes -could not be directly handled. Shakespeare is here referring back, -as English criticism has long ago pointed out,[1] to the allegory -in Lyly's mythological play, _Endymion_. There can be no doubt -that Cynthia (the moon-goddess) in Lyly's play stands for Queen -Elizabeth, while Leicester figures as Endymion, who is represented -as hopelessly enamoured of Cynthia. Tellus and Floscula, of whom the -one loves Endymion's "person," the other his "virtues," represent the -Countesses of Sheffield and Essex, who stood in amatory relations to -Leicester. The play is one tissue of adulation for Elizabeth, but is -so constructed as at the same time to flatter and defend Leicester. -In defiance of the actual fact, it exhibits the Queen as entirely -inaccessible to her adorer's homage, and Leicester's intrigue with the -Countess of Sheffield as a mere mask for his passion for the Queen; -in other words, it represents these relations as the Queen would wish -to have them understood by the people, and Leicester by the Queen. -The Countess of Essex, who was afterwards to play so large a part in -Leicester's life, plays a very small part in the drama. Her love finds -expression only in one or two unobtrusive phrases, such as her cry of -joy on seeing Endymion, after the forty years' sleep in which he has -grown an old man, rejuvenated by a single kiss from Cynthia's lips. - -The relation between Leicester and Lettice, Countess of Essex, must -certainly have made a deep impression upon Shakespeare. By Leicester's -contrivance, her husband had been for a long time banished to -Ireland, first as commander of the troops in Ulster, and afterwards -as Earl-Marshal; and when he died, in 1576--commonly thought, though -without proof, to have been poisoned--his widow, after a lapse of only -a few days, went through a secret marriage with his supposed murderer. -When Leicester, twelve years later, met with a sudden death, also, -according to popular belief, by poison, the event was regarded as a -judgment on a great criminal. In all probability, Shakespeare found in -these events one of the motives of his _Hamlet_. Whether the Countess -Lettice was actually Leicester's mistress during her husband's lifetime -is, of course, uncertain; in any case, the Countess's relation to -Robert, Earl of Essex, her son by her first marriage, was always of the -best. She was, however, punished by the Queen's displeasure, which was -so vehement that she was forbidden to show herself at court. - -Shakespeare has retained Lyly's names, merely translating them into -English. Cynthia has become the moon, Tellus the earth, Floscula the -little flower; and with this commentary, we are in a position to admire -the delicate and poetical way in which he has touched upon the family -circumstances of the supposed bridegroom, the Earl of Essex:-- - - "_Oberon_. That very time I saw (but thou couldst not), - Flying between the cold moon and the earth, - Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took - At a fair vestal throned by the west, - And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, - As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts. - But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft - Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon, - And the imperial votaress passed on, - In maiden meditation, fancy-free. - Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: - It fell upon a little western flower, - Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, - And maidens call it Love-in-idleness." - -It is with the juice of this flower that Oberon makes every one upon -whose eyes it falls dote upon the first living creature they happen to -see. - -The poet's design in the flattery addressed to Elizabeth--one of the -very few instances of the kind in his works--was no doubt to dispose -her favourably towards his patron's marriage, or, in other words, to -deprecate the anger with which she was in the habit of regarding any -attempt on the part of her favourites, or even of ordinary courtiers, -to marry according to their own inclinations. Essex in particular had -stood very close to her, since, in 1587, he had supplanted Sir Walter -Raleigh in her favour; and although the Queen, now in her fifty-seventh -year, was fully thirty-four years older than her late adorer, -Shakespeare did not succeed in averting her anger from the young -couple. The bride was commanded "to live very retired in her mother's -house." - -_Midsummer Night's Dream_ is the first consummate and immortal -masterpiece which Shakespeare produced. - -The fact that the pairs of lovers are very slightly individualised, and -do not in themselves awaken any particular sympathy, is a fault that we -easily overlook, amid the countless beauties of the play. The fact that -the changes in the lovers' feelings are entirely unmotived is no fault -at all, for Oberon's magic is simply a great symbol, typifying the -sorcery of the erotic imagination. There is deep significance as well -as drollery in the presentation of Titania as desperately enamoured of -Bottom with his ass's head. Nay, more; in the lovers' ever-changing -attractions and repulsions we may find a whole sportive love-philosophy. - -The rustic and popular element in Shakespeare's genius here appears -more prominently than ever before. The country-bred youth's whole -feeling for and knowledge of nature comes to the surface, permeated -with the spirit of poetry. The play swarms with allusions to plants -and insects, and all that is said of them is closely observed and -intimately felt. In none of Shakespeare's plays are so many species -of flowers, fruits, and trees mentioned and characterised. H. N. -Ellacombe, in his essay on _The Seasons of Shakspere's Plays_,[2] -reckons no fewer than forty-two species. Images borrowed from nature -meet us on every hand. For example, in Helena's beautiful description -of her school friendship with Hermia (iii. 2), she says:-- - - "So we grew together, - Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, - But yet an union in partition; - Two lovely berries moulded on one stem." - -When Titania exhorts her elves to minister to every desire of her -asinine idol, she says (iii. I):-- - - "Be kind and courteous to this gentleman: - Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes; - Feed him with apricocks, and dewberries, - With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries. - The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees, - And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs, - And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes, - To have my love to bed, and to arise; - And pluck the wings from painted butterflies, - To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes. - Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies." - -The popular element in Shakespeare is closely interwoven with his love -of nature. He has here plunged deep into folk-lore, seized upon the -figments of peasant superstition as they survive in the old ballads, -and mingled brownies and pixies with the delicate creations of -artificial poetry, with Oberon, who is of French descent ("Auberon," -from _l'aube du Jour_), and Titania, a name which Ovid gives in his -_Metamorphoses_ (iii. 173) to Diana as the sister of the Titan Sol. -_The Maydes Metamorphosis,_ a play attributed to Lyly, although not -printed till 1600, may be older than _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. In -that case Shakespeare may have found the germ of some of his fairy -dialogue in the pretty fairy song which occurs in it. There is a marked -similarity even in details of dialogue. For example, this conversation -between Bottom and the fairies (iii. I) reminds us of Lyly[3]:-- - - "_Bot_. I cry your worship's mercy, heartily.--I beseech - your worship's name. - - "_Cob_. Cobweb. - - "_Bot_. I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master - Cobweb. If I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you. Your - name, honest gentleman? - - "_Peas_. Pease-blossom. - - "_Bot_. I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash, your - mother, and to Master Peascod, your father. Good Master - Pease-blossom, I shall desire you of more acquaintance - too.--Your name, I beseech you, sir. - - "_Mus_. Mustard-seed. - - "_Bot_. Good Master Mustard-seed, I know your patience - well: that same cowardly, giant-like oxbeef hath devoured - many a gentleman of your house. I promise you, your kindred - hath made my eyes water ere now. I desire you of more - acquaintance, good Master Mustard-seed." - -The contrast between the rude artisans' prose and the poetry of the -fairy world is exquisitely humorous, and has been frequently imitated -in the nineteenth century: in Germany by Tieck; in Denmark by J. L. -Heiberg, who has written no fewer than three imitations of _A Midsummer -Night's Dream--The Elves, The Day of the Seven Sleepers_, and _The -Nutcrackers_. - -The fairy element introduced into the comedy brings in its train -not only the many love-illusions, but other and external forms of -thaumaturgy as well. People are beguiled by wandering voices, led -astray in the midnight wood, and victimised in many innocent ways. The -fairies retain from first to last their grace and sportiveness, but the -individual physiognomies, in this stage of Shakespeare's development, -are as yet somewhat lacking in expression. Puck, for instance, is a -mere shadow in comparison with a creation of twenty years later, the -immortal Ariel of _The Tempest_. - -Brilliant as is the picture of the fairy world in _A Midsummer Night's -Dream_, the mastery to which Shakespeare had attained is most clearly -displayed in the burlesque scenes, dealing with the little band of -worthy artisans who are moved to represent the history of Pyramus and -Thisbe at the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. Never before has -Shakespeare risen to the sparkling and genial humour with which these -excellent simpletons are portrayed. He doubtless drew upon childish -memories of the plays he had seen performed in the market-place at -Coventry and elsewhere. He also introduced some whimsical strokes of -satire upon the older English drama. For instance, when Quince says (i. -2), "Marry, our play is--The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel -death of Pyramus and Thisby," there is an obvious reference to the long -and quaint title of the old play of _Cambyses_: "A lamentable tragedy -mixed full of pleasant mirth,"[4] &c. - -Shakespeare's elevation of mind, however, is most clearly apparent in -the playful irony with which he treats his own art, the art of acting, -and the theatre of the day, with its scanty and imperfect appliances -for the production of illusion. The artisan who plays Wall, his fellow -who enacts Moonshine, and the excellent amateur who represents the Lion -are deliciously whimsical types. - -It was at all times a favourite device with Shakespeare, as with his -imitators, the German romanticists of two centuries later, to introduce -a play within a play. The device is not of his own invention. We find -it already in Kyd's _Spanish Tragedie_ (perhaps as early as 1584), -a play whose fustian Shakespeare often ridicules, but in which he -nevertheless found the germ of his own _Hamlet_. But from the very -first the idea of giving an air of greater solidity to the principal -play by introducing into it a company of actors had a great attraction -for him. We may compare with the Pyramus and Thisbe scenes in this -play the appearance of Costard and his comrades as Pompey, Hector, -Alexander, Hercules, and Judas Maccabæus in the fifth act of _Love's -Labour's Lost_. Even there the Princess speaks with a kindly tolerance -of the poor amateur actors:-- - - "That sport best pleases, that doth least know how: - Where zeal strives to content, and the contents - Die in the zeal of them which it presents, - Their form confounded makes most form in mirth; - When great things labouring perish in their birth." - -Nevertheless, there is here a certain youthful cruelty in the -courtiers' ridicule of the actors, whereas in _A Midsummer Night's -Dream_ everything passes off in the purest, airiest humour. What can be -more perfect, for example, than the Lion's reassuring address to the -ladies?-- - - "'You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear - The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor - - May now, perchance, both quake and tremble here, - When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar. - Then know, that I, one Snug the joiner, am - No lion fell, nor else no lion's dam; - For, if I should as lion come in strife - Into this place, 't were pity on my life.'" - -And how pleasant, when he at last comes in with his roar, is Demetrius' -comment, of proverbial fame, "Well roared, lion!" - -It is true that _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ is rather to be described -as a dramatic lyric than a drama in the strict sense of the word. It -is a lightly-flowing, sportive, lyrical fantasy, dealing with love -as a dream, a fever, an illusion, an infatuation, and making merry, -in especial, with the irrational nature of the instinct. That is why -Lysander, turning, under the influence of the magic flower, from -Hermia, whom he loves, to Helena, who is nothing to him, but whom he -now imagines that he adores, is made to exclaim (ii. 3):-- - - "The will of man is by his reason sway'd, - And reason says you are the worthier maid." - -Here, more than anywhere else, he is the mouthpiece of the poet's -irony. Shakespeare is far from regarding love as an expression of human -reason; throughout his works, indeed, it is only by way of exception -that he makes reason the determining factor in human conduct. He early -felt and divined how much wider is the domain of the unconscious than -of the conscious life, and saw that our moods and passions have their -root in the unconscious. The germs of a whole philosophy of life are -latent in the wayward love-scenes of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. - -And it is now that Shakespeare, on the farther limit of early youth, -and immediately after writing _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, for the -second time takes the most potent of youthful emotions as his theme, -and treats it no longer as a thing of fantasy, but as a matter of the -deadliest moment, as a glowing, entrancing, and annihilating passion, -the source of bliss and agony, of life and death. It is now that he -writes his first independent tragedy, _Romeo and Juliet_, that unique, -imperishable love-poem, which remains to this day one of the loftiest -summits of the world's literature. As _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ is -the triumph of grace, so _Romeo and Juliet_ is the apotheosis of pure -passion. - - -[1] N. J. Halpin: _Oberon's Vision in the Midsummer Night's Dream, -illustrated by a Comparison with Lylie's Endymion_, 1842. - -[2] _New Shakspere Society's Transactions_, 1880-86, p. 67. - -[3] The passage in _The Maydes Metamorphosis_ runs as follows:-- - - "_Mopso_. I pray you, what might I call you? - _1st Fairy_. My name is Penny. - _Mopso_. I am sorry I cannot purse you. - _Frisco_. I pray you, sir, what might I call you? - _2nd Fairy_. My name is Cricket. - _Frisco_. I would I were a chimney for your sake." - -[4] The passion for alliteration in his contemporaries is satirised in -these lines of the prologue to _Pyramus and Thisbe_:-- - - "Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade, - He bravely broach'd his boiling bloody breast." - - - - -XIII - -_ROMEO AND JULIET--THE TWO QUARTOS--ITS ROMANESQUE STRUCTURE--THE USE -OF OLD MOTIVES--THE CONCEPTION OF LOVE_ - -_Romeo and Juliet_, in its original form, must be presumed to date from -1591, or, in other words, from Shakespeare's twenty-seventh year. - -The matter was old; it is to be found in a novel by Masuccio of -Salerno, published in 1476, which was probably made use of by Luigi -da Porta when, in 1530, he wrote his _Hystoria novellamente ritrovata -di dui nobili Amanti_. After him came Bandello, with his tale, _La -sfortunata morte di due infelicissimi amanti;_ and upon it an English -writer founded a play of _Romeo and Juliet_, which seems to have been -popular in its day (before 1562), but is now lost. - -An English poet, Arthur Brooke, found in Bandello's _Novella_ the -matter for a poem: _The tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, -written first in Italian by Bandell and now in Englishe by Ar. Br_. -This poem is composed in rhymed iambic verses of twelve and fourteen -syllables alternately, whose rhythm indeed jogs somewhat heavily along, -but is not unpleasant and not too monotonous. The method of narration -is very artless, loquacious, and diffuse; it resembles the narrative -style of a clever child, who describes with minute exactitude and -circumstantiality, going into every detail, and placing them all upon -the same plane.[1]. - -Shakespeare founded his play upon this poem, in which the two leading -characters, Friar Laurence, Mercutio, Tybalt, the Nurse, and the -Apothecary, were ready to his hand, in faint outlines. Romeo's fancy -for another woman immediately before he meets Juliet is also here, set -forth at length; and the action as a whole follows the same course as -in the tragedy. - -The First Quarto of _Romeo and Juliet_ was published in 1597, - with the following -title: _An excellent conceited Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet. As it -hath been often (with great applause) plaid publiquely, by the right -Honourable the L. of Hunsdon his Seruants._ Lord Hunsdon died in July -1596, during his tenure of office as Lord Chamberlain; his successor in -the title was appointed to the office in April 1597; in the interim his -company of actors was not called the Lord Chamberlain's, but only Lord -Hunsdon's servants, and it must, therefore, have been at this time that -the play was first acted. - -Many things, however, suggest a much earlier origin for it, and the -Nurse's allusion to the earthquake (i. 3) is of especial importance in -determining its date. She says-- - - "'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;" - -and a little later-- - - "And since that time it is eleven years." - -There had been an earthquake in England in the year 1580. But we must -not, of course, take too literally the babble of a garrulous old -servant. - -But even if Shakespeare began to work upon the theme in 1591, there is -no doubt that, according to his frequent practice, he went through the -play again, revised and remoulded it, somewhere between that date and -1599, when it appeared in the Second Quarto almost in the form in which -we now possess it. This Second Quarto has on its title-page the words, -"newly corrected, augmented and amended." Not until the fourth edition -does the author's name appear. - -No one can doubt that Tycho Mommsen and that excellent Shakespeare -scholar Halliwell-Phillips are right in declaring the 1597 Quarto to be -a pirated edition. But it by no means follows that the complete text of -1599 already existed in 1597, and was merely carelessly abridged. In -view of those passages (such as the seventh scene of the second act) -where a whole long sequence of dialogue is omitted as superfluous, and -where the old text is replaced by one totally new and very much better, -this impression will not hold ground. - -We have here, then, as elsewhere--but seldom so indubitably and -obviously as here--a play of Shakespeare's at two different stages of -its development. - -In the first place, all that is merely sketched in the earlier edition -is elaborated in the later. Descriptive scenes and speeches, which -afford a background and foil to the action, are added. The street -skirmish in the beginning is much developed; the scene between the -servants and the scene with the musicians are added. The Nurse, too, -has become more loquacious and much more comic; Mercutio's wit has been -enriched by some of its most characteristic touches; old Capulet has -acquired a more lifelike physiognomy; the part of Friar Laurence, in -particular, has grown to almost twice its original dimensions; and we -feel in these amplifications that care on Shakespeare's part, which -appears in other places as well, to prepare, in the course of revision, -for what is to come, to lay its foundations and foreshadow it. The -Friar's reply, for example, to Romeo's vehement outburst of joy (ii. 6) -is an added touch:-- - - "These violent delights have violent ends, - And in their triumphs die: like fire and powder, - Which, as they kiss, consume." - -New, too, is his reflection on Juliet's lightness of foot:-- - - "A lover may bestride the gossamer - That idles in the wanton summer air, - And yet not fall; so light is vanity." - -With the exception of the first dozen lines, the Friar's splendidly -eloquent speech to Romeo (iii. 3) when, in his despair, he has drawn -his sword to kill himself, is almost entirely new. The added passage -begins thus:-- - - "Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth? - Since birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet - In thee at once, which thou at once wouldst lose. - Fie, fie! thou sham'st thy shape, thy love, thy wit; - Which, like an usurer, abound'st in all, - And usest none in that true use indeed - Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit." - -New, too, is the Friar's minute description to Juliet (iv. I) of the -action of the sleeping-draught, and his account of how she will be -borne to the tomb, which paves the way for the masterly passage (iv. -3), also added, where Juliet, with the potion in her hand, conquers her -terror of awakening in the grisly underground vault. - -But the essential change lies in the additional earnestness, and -consequent beauty, with which the characters of the two lovers have -been endowed in the course of the revision. For example, Juliet's -speech to Romeo (ii. 2) is inserted:-- - - "And yet I wish but for the thing I have. - My bounty is as boundless as the sea, - My love as deep; the more I give to thee, - The more I have, for both are infinite." - -In the passage (ii. 5) where Juliet is awaiting the return of the -Nurse with a message from Romeo, almost the whole expression of her -impatience is new; for example, the lines:-- - - "Had she affections, and warm youthful blood, - She'd be as swift in motion as a ball; - My words would bandy her to my sweet love, - And his to me: - But old folks, many feign as they were dead; - Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead." - -In Juliet's celebrated soliloquy (iii. 2), where, with that mixture of -innocence and passion which forms the groundwork of her character, she -awaits Romeo's first evening visit, only the four opening lines, with -their mythological imagery, are found in the earlier text:-- - - "_Jul_. Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, - Towards Phœbus' lodging: such a waggoner - As Phæthon would whip you to the west, - And bring in cloudy night immediately." - -Not till he put his final touches to the work did Shakespeare find for -the young girl's love-longing that marvellous utterance which we all -know:-- - - "Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night! - That runaways' eyes may wink, and Romeo - Leap to these arms, untalk'd-of, and unseen! - . . . . . . . . . - Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks, - With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold, - Think true love acted simple modesty. - Come, night! come, Romeo! come, thou day in night!" - -Almost the whole of the following scene between the Nurse and Juliet, -in which she learns of Tybalt's death and Romeo's banishment, is -likewise new. Here occur some of the most daring and passionate -expressions which Shakespeare has placed in Juliet's mouth:-- - - "Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death, - That murder'd me. I would forget it fain. - . . . . . . . . . - That 'banished,' that one word 'banished,' - Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death - Was woe enough, if it had ended there: - Or,--if sour woe delights in fellowship, - And needly will be rank'd with other griefs,--Why - follow'd not, when she said--Tybalt's dead, - Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both, - Which modern lamentation might have mov'd? - But, with a rearward following Tybalt's death, - 'Romeo is banished!'--to speak that word, - Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, - All slain, all dead." - -To the original version, on the other hand, belong not only the highly -indecorous witticisms and allusions with which Mercutio garnishes the -first scene of the second act, but also the majority of the speeches in -which the conceit-virus rages. The uncertainty of Shakespeare's taste, -even at the date of the revision, is apparent in the fact that he has -not only let all these speeches stand, but has interpolated not a few -of equal extravagance. - -So little did it jar upon him that Romeo, in the original text, should -thus apostrophise love (i. I)-- - - "O heavy lightness! serious vanity! - Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! - Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health! - Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!" - -that in the course of revision he must needs place in Juliet's mouth -these quite analogous ejaculations (iii. 2):-- - - "Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! - Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb! - Despised substance of divinest show!" - -Romeo in the old text indulges in this deplorably affected outburst (i. -2):-- - - "When the devout religion of mine eye - Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires; - And these, who, often drown'd, could never die, - Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars." - -In the old text, too, we find the barbarously tasteless speech in which -Romeo, in his despair, envies the fly which is free to kiss Juliet's -hand (iii. 2):-- - - "More validity, - More honourable state, more courtship lives - In carrion flies, than Romeo: they may seize - On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand, - And steal immortal blessing from her lips; - Who, even in pure and vestal modesty, - Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin; - But Romeo may not; he is banished. - Flies may do this, but I from this must fly: - They are free men, but I am banished." - -It is astonishing to come upon these lapses of taste, which are not -surpassed by any of the absurdities in which the French _Précieuses -Ridicules_ of the next century delighted, side by side with outbursts -of the most exquisite lyric poetry, the most brilliant wit, and the -purest pathos to be found in the literature of any country or of any -age. - -_Romeo and Juliet_ is perhaps not such a flawless work of art as _A -Midsummer Night's Dream_. It is not so delicately, so absolutely -harmonious. But it is an achievement of much greater significance and -moment; it is the great and typical love-tragedy of the world. - -It soars immeasurably above all later attempts to approach it. The -Danish critic who should mention such a tragedy as _Axel and Valborg_ -in the same breath with this play would show more patriotism than -artistic sense. Beautiful as Oehlenschläger's drama is, the very nature -of its theme forbids us to compare it with Shakespeare's. It celebrates -constancy rather than love; it is a poem of tender emotions, of womanly -magnanimity and chivalrous virtue, at war with passion and malignity. -It is not, like _Romeo and Juliet_, at once the pæan and the dirge of -passion. - -_Romeo and Juliet_ is the drama of youthful and impulsive -love-at-first-sight, so passionate that it bursts every barrier in its -path, so determined that it knows no middle way between happiness and -death, so strong that it throws the lovers into each other's arms with -scarcely a moment's pause, and, lastly, so ill-fated that death follows -straightway upon the ecstasy of union. - -Here, more than anywhere else, has Shakespeare shown in all its -intensity the dual action of an absorbing love in filling the soul with -gladness to the point of intoxication, and, at the same time, with -despair at the very idea of parting. - -While in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ he dealt with the imaginative side -of love, its fantastic and illusive phases, he here regards it in its -more passionate aspect, as the source of rapture and of doom. - -His material enabled Shakespeare to place his love-story in the setting -best fitted to throw into relief the beauty of the emotion, using as -his background a vendetta between two noble families, which has grown -from generation to generation through one sanguinary reprisal after -another, until it has gradually infected the whole town around them. -According to the traditions of their race, the lovers ought to hate -each other. The fact that, on the contrary, they are so passionately -drawn together in mutual ecstasy, bears witness from the outset to -the strength of an emotion which not only neutralises prejudice in -their own minds, but continues to assert itself in opposition to the -prejudices of their surroundings. This is no peaceful tenderness. It -flashes forth like lightning at their first meeting, and its violence, -under the hapless circumstances, hurries these young souls straight to -their tragic end. - -Between the lovers and the haters Shakespeare has placed Friar -Laurence, one of his most delightful embodiments of reason. Such -figures are rare in his plays, as they are in life, but ought not to be -overlooked, as they have been, for example, by Taine in his somewhat -one-sided estimate of Shakespeare's greatness. Shakespeare knows and -understands passionlessness; but he always places it on the second -plane. It comes in very naturally here, in the person of one who is -obliged by his age and his calling to act as an onlooker in the drama -of life. Friar Laurence is full of goodness and natural piety, a monk -such as Spinoza or Goethe would have loved, an undogmatic sage, with -the astuteness and benevolent Jesuitism of an old confessor--brought -up on the milk and bread of philosophy, not on the fiery liquors of -religious fanaticism. - -It is very characteristic of the freedom of spirit which Shakespeare -early acquired, in the sphere in which freedom was then hardest of -attainment, that this monk is drawn with so delicate a touch, without -the smallest ill-will towards conquered Catholicism, yet without the -smallest leaning towards Catholic doctrine--the emancipated creation -of an emancipated poet. The poet here rises immeasurably above his -original, Arthur Brooke, who, in his naïvely moralising "Address to -the Reader," makes the Catholic religion mainly responsible for the -impatient passion of Romeo and Juliet and the disasters which result -from it.[2] - -It would be to misunderstand the whole spirit of the play if we were -to reproach Friar Laurence with the not only romantic but preposterous -nature of the means he adopts to help the lovers--the sleeping-potion -administered to Juliet. This Shakespeare simply accepted from his -original, with his usual indifference to external detail. - -The poet has placed in the mouth of Friar Laurence a tranquil -life-philosophy, which he first expresses in general terms, and then -applies to the case of the lovers. He enters his cell with a basket -full of herbs from the garden. Some of them have curative properties, -others contain death-dealing juices; a plant which has a sweet and -salutary smell may be poisonous to the taste; for good and evil are but -two sides to the same thing (ii. 3):-- - - "Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, - And vice sometimes's by action dignified. - Within the infant rind of this sweet flower - Poison hath residence, and medicine power: - For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part; - Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. - Two such opposed kings encamp them still - In man as well as herbs,--grace, and rude will; - And where the worser is predominant, - Full soon the canker death eats up that plant." - -When Romeo, immediately before the marriage, defies sorrow and death in -the speech beginning (ii. 6)-- - - "Amen, Amen! but come what sorrow can, - It cannot countervail the exchange of joy - That one short minute gives me in her sight," - -Laurence seizes the opportunity to apply his view of life. He fears -this overflowing flood-tide of happiness, and expounds his philosophy -of the golden mean--that wisdom of old age which is summed up in the -cautious maxim, "Love me little, love me long." Here it is that he -utters the above-quoted words as to the violent ends ensuing on violent -delights, like the mutual destruction wrought by the kiss of fire and -gunpowder. It is remarkable how the idea of gunpowder and of explosions -seems to have haunted Shakespeare's mind while he was busied with the -fate of Romeo and Juliet. In the original sketch of Juliet's soliloquy -in the fifth scene of the second act we read:-- - - "Loue's heralds should be thoughts, - And runne more swift, than hastie powder fierd, - Doth hurrie from the fearfull cannons mouth." - -When Romeo draws his sword to kill himself, the Friar says (iii. 3): - - "Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love, - Misshapen in the conduct of them both, - Like powder in a skilless soldier's flask, - Is set a-fire by thine own ignorance, - And thou dismember'd with thine own defence." - -Romeo himself, finally, in his despair over the false news of Juliet's -death, demands of the apothecary a poison so strong that - - "the trunk may be discharg'd of breath - As violently, as the hasty powder fir'd, - Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb." - -In other words, these young creatures have gunpowder in their veins, -undamped as yet by the mists of life, and love is the fire which -kindles it. Their catastrophe is inevitable, and it was Shakespeare's -deliberate purpose so to represent it; but it is not deserved, in the -moral sense of the word: it is not a punishment for guilt. The tragedy -does not afford the smallest warranty for the pedantically moralising -interpretation devised for it by Gervinus and others. - -_Romeo and Juliet_, as a drama, still represents in many ways the -Italianising tendency in Shakespeare's art. Not only the rhymed -couplets and stanzas and the abounding _concetti_ betray Italian -influence: the whole structure of the tragedy is very Romanesque. All -Romanesque, like all Greek art, produces its effect by dint of order, -which sometimes goes the length of actual symmetry. Purely English art -has more of the freedom of life itself; it breaks up symmetry in order -to attain a more delicate and unobtrusive harmony, much as an excellent -prose style shuns the symmetrical regularity of verse, and aims at a -subtler music of its own. - -The Romanesque type is apparent in all Shakespeare's earlier plays. He -sometimes even goes beyond his Romanesque models. In _Love's Labour's -Lost_ the King with his three courtiers is opposed to the Princess -and her three ladies. In _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_ the faithful -Valentine has his counterpart in the faithless Proteus, and each of -them has his comic servant. In the _Menachmi_ of Plautus there is -only one slave; in _The Comedy of Errors_ the twin masters have twin -servants. In _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ the heroic couple (Theseus and -Hippolyta) have as a counterpart the fairy couple (Oberon and Titania); -and, further, there is a complex symmetry in the fortunes of the -Athenian lovers, Hermia being at first wooed by two men, while Helena -stands alone and deserted, whereas afterwards it is Hermia who is left -without a lover, while the two men centre their suit upon Helena. -Finally, there is a fifth couple in Pyramus and Thisbe, represented -by the artisans, who in burlesque and sportive fashion complete the -symmetrical design. - -The French critics who have seen in Shakespeare the antithesis to the -Romanesque principle in art have overlooked these his beginnings. -Voltaire, after more careful study, need not have expressed himself -horrified; and if Taine, in his able essay, had gone somewhat less -summarily to work, he would not have found everywhere in Shakespeare -a fantasy and a technique entirely foreign to the genius of the Latin -races. - -The composition of _Romeo and Juliet_ is quite as symmetrical as that -of the comedies, indeed almost architectural in its equipoise. First, -two of Capulet's servants enter, then two of Montague's; then Benvolio, -of the Montague party; then Tybalt, of the Capulets; then citizens of -both parties; then old Capulet and his wife; then old Montague and his; -and finally, as the "keystone of the arch," the Prince, the central -figure around whom all the characters range themselves, and by whom the -fate of the lovers is to be determined.[3] - -But it is not as a drama that _Romeo and Juliet_ has won all hearts. -Although, from a dramatic point of view, it stands high above _A -Midsummer Night's Dream_, yet it is in virtue of its exquisite lyrism -that this erotic masterpiece of Shakespeare's youth, like its fantastic -predecessor, has bewitched the world. It is from the lyrical portions -of the tragedy that the magic of romance proceeds, which sheds its -glamour and its glory over the whole. - -The finest lyrical passages are these: Romeo's declaration of love -at the ball, Juliet's soliloquy before their bridal night, and their -parting at the dawn. - -Gervinus, a conscientious and learned student, in spite of his -tendency to see in Shakespeare the moralist specially demanded by -the Germany of his own day, has followed Halpin in pointing out that -in all these three passages Shakespeare has adopted age-old lyric -forms. In the first he almost reproduces the Italian sonnet; in the -second he approaches, both in matter and form, to the bridal song, -the Epithalamium; in the third he takes as his model the mediæval -Dawn-Song, the _Tagelied_. But we may be sure that Shakespeare did not, -as the commentators think, deliberately choose these forms in order to -give perspective to the situation, but instinctively gave it a deep -and distant background in his effort to find the truest and largest -utterance for the emotion he was portraying. - -The first colloquy between Romeo and Juliet (i. 5), being merely the -artistic idealisation of an ordinary passage of ballroom gallantry, -turns upon the prayer for a kiss, which the English fashion of the -day authorised each cavalier to demand of his lady, and is cast in a -sonnet form more or less directly derived from Petrarch. But whereas -Petrarch's style is simple and pure, here we have far-fetched turns -of speech, quibbling appeals, and expressions of admiration suggested -by the intellect rather than the feelings. The passage opens with a -quatrain of unspeakable tenderness:-- - - "_Romeo_. If I profane with my unworthiest hand - This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this; - My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand - To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss." - -And though the scene proceeds in the somewhat artificial style of the -later Italians-- - - "_Romeo_. Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purg'd. - _[Kissing her_.] - _Juliet_. Then have my lips the sin that they have took. - _Rom_. Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg'd! - Give me my sin again. - _Jul_. You kiss by the book" - ---yet so much soul is breathed into the Italian love-fencing that under -its somewhat affected grace we can distinguish the pulse-throbs of -awakening desire. - -Juliet's soliloquy before the bridal night (iii. 2) lacks only rhyme to -be, in good set form, an epithalamium of the period. These compositions -spoke of Hymen and Cupid, and told how Hymen at first appears alone, -while Cupid lurks concealed, until, at the door of the bridal chamber, -the elder brother gives place to the younger. - -It is noteworthy that the mythological opening lines, which belong to -the earlier form of the play, contain a clear reminiscence of a passage -in Marlowe's _King Edward II_. Marlowe's - - "Gallop apace, bright Phœbus, through the sky!" - -reappears in Shakespeare in the form of - - "Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, - Towards Phœbus' lodging!" - -The rest of the soliloquy, as we have seen above, ranks among the -loveliest things Shakespeare ever wrote. One of its most delicately -daring expressions is imitated in Milton's _Comus_; and the difference -between the original and the imitation is curiously typical of the -difference between the poet of the Renaissance and the poet of -Puritanism. Juliet implores love-performing night to spread its close -curtain, that Romeo may leap unseen to her arms; for-- - - "Lovers can see to do their amorous rites - By their own beauties; or, if love be blind, - It best agrees with night." - -Milton annexes the thought and the turn of phrase; but the part played -by beauty in Shakespeare, Milton assigns to virtue:-- - - "Virtue could see to do what virtue would - By her own radiant light." - -There is in Juliet's utterance of passion a healthful delicacy that -ennobles it; and it need not be said that the presence of this very -passion in Juliet's monologue renders it infinitely more chaste than -the old epithalamiums. - -The exquisite dialogue in Juliet's chamber at daybreak (iii. 5) is a -variation on the motive of all the old Dawn-Songs. They always turn -upon the struggle in the breasts of two lovers who have secretly passed -the night together, between their reluctance to part and their dread of -discovery--a struggle which sets them debating whether the light they -see comes from the sun or the moon, and whether it is the nightingale -or the lark whose song they hear. - -How gracefully is this motive here employed, and what added depth is -given to the situation by our knowledge that the banished Romeo's life -is forfeit if he lingers until day!-- - - "_Juliet_. Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day: - It was the nightingale, and not the lark, - That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear; - Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree: - Believe me, love, it was the nightingale. - - _Romeo_. It was the lark, the herald of the morn, - No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks - Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east." - -Romeo is a well-born youth, richly endowed by nature, enthusiastic and -reserved. At the beginning of the play we find him indifferent as to -the family feud, and absorbed in his hopeless fancy for a lady of the -hostile house, Capulet's fair niece, Rosaline, whom Mercutio describes -as a pale wench with black eyes. The Rosaline of _Love's Labour's Lost_ -is also described by Biron, at the end of the third act, as - - "A whitely wanton with a velvet brow, - With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes," - -so that the two namesakes may not improbably have had a common model. - -Shakespeare has retained this first passing fancy of Romeo's, which -he found in his sources, because he knew that the heart is never more -disposed to yield to a new love than when it is bleeding from an old -wound, and because this early feeling already shows Romeo as inclined -to idolatry and self-absorption. The young Italian, even before he -has seen the woman who is to be his fate, is reticent and melancholy, -full of tender longings and forebodings of evil. Then he is seized as -though with an overwhelming ecstasy at the first glimpse of Rosaline's -girl-kinswoman. - -Romeo's character is less resolute than Juliet's; passion ravages it -more fiercely; he, as a youth, has less control over himself than -she as a maiden. But none the less is his whole nature elevated and -beautified by his relation to her. He finds expressions for his -love for Juliet quite different from those he had used in the case -of Rosaline. There occur, indeed, in the balcony scene, one or two -outbursts of the extravagance so natural to the rhetoric of young love. -The envious moon is sick and pale with grief because Juliet is so much -more fair than she; two of the fairest stars, having some business, do -entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return. But side -by side with these conceits we find immortal lines, the most exquisite -words of love that ever were penned:-- - - "With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls; - For stony limits cannot hold love out ..." - -or-- - - "It is my soul that calls upon my name: - How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, - Like softest music to attending ears!" - -His every word is steeped in a sensuous-spiritual ecstasy. - -Juliet has grown up in an unquiet and not too agreeable home. Her -testy, unreasonable father, though not devoid of kindliness, is yet -so brutal that he threatens to beat her and turn her out of doors if -she does not comply with his wishes; and her mother is a cold-hearted -woman, whose first thought, in her rage against Romeo, is to have him -put out of the way by means of poison. She has thus been left for the -most part to the care of the humorous and plain-spoken Nurse, one of -Shakespeare's most masterly figures (foretelling the Falstaff of a few -years later), whose babble has tended to prepare her mind for love in -its frankest manifestations. - -Although a child in years, Juliet has the young Italian's mastery in -dissimulation. When her mother proposes to have Romeo poisoned, she -agrees without moving a muscle, and thus secures the promise that no -one but she shall be allowed to mix the potion. Her beauty must be -conceived as dazzling. I saw her one day in the streets of Rome, in all -the freshness of her fourteen years. My companion and I looked at each -other, and exclaimed with one consent, "Juliet!" Romeo's exclamation on -first beholding her-- - - "Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear," - -conveys an instant impression of nobility, high mental gifts, and -unsullied purity, combined with the utmost ardour of temperament. In a -few days the child ripens into a heroine. - -We make acquaintance with her at the ball in the palace of the -Capulets, and in the moonlit garden where the nightingale sings in -the pomegranate-tree--surroundings which harmonise as completely with -the whole spirit and tone of the play as the biting wintry air on -the terrace at Kronborg, filled with echoes of the King's carouse, -harmonises with the spirit and tone of _Hamlet._ But Juliet is no -mere creature of moonshine. She is practical. While Romeo wanders off -into high-strung raptures of vague enthusiasm, she, on the contrary, -promptly suggests a secret marriage, and promises on the instant to -send the Nurse to him to make a more definite arrangement. After the -killing of her kinsman, it is Romeo who despairs and she who takes up -the battle, daring all to escape the marriage with Paris. With a firm -hand and a steadfast heart she drains the sleeping-potion, and arms -herself with her dagger, so that, if all else fails, she may still be -mistress of her own person. - -How shall we describe the love that indues her with all this strength? - -Modern critics in Germany and Sweden are agreed in regarding it as -a purely sensual passion, by no means admirable--nay, essentially -reprehensible. They insist that there is a total absence of maidenly -modesty in Juliet's manner of feeling, thinking, speaking, and acting. -She does not really know Romeo, they say; is there anything more, then, -in this unbashful love than the attraction of mere bodily beauty?[4] - -As if it were possible thus to analyse and discriminate! As if, in -such a case, body and soul were twain! As if a love which, from the -first moment, both lovers feel to be, for them, the arbiter of life and -death, were to be decried in favour of an affection founded on mutual -esteem--the variety which, it appears, "our age demands." - -Ah no! these virtuous philosophers and worthy professors have no -feeling for the spirit of the Renaissance: they are altogether too -remote from it. The Renaissance means, among many other things, a new -birth of warm-blooded humanity and pagan innocence of imagination. - -It is no love of the head that Juliet feels for Romeo, no admiring -affection that she reasons herself into; nor is it a sentimental -love, a riot of idealism apart from nature. But still less is it a -mere ferment of the senses. It is based upon instinct, the infallible -instinct of the child of nature, and it is in her, as in him, a -vibration of the whole being in longing and desire, a quivering of all -its chords, from the highest to the lowest, so intense that neither he -nor she can tell where body ends and soul begins. - -Romeo and Juliet dominate the whole tragedy; but the two minor -creations of Mercutio and the Nurse are in no way inferior to them -in artistic value. In this play Shakespeare manifests for the first -time not only the full majesty but the many-sidedness of his genius, -the suppleness of style which is equal at once to the wit of Mercutio -and to the racy garrulity of the Nurse. _Titus Andronicus_ was as -monotonously sombre as a tragedy of Marlowe's. _Romeo and Juliet_ is -a perfect orb, embracing the twin hemispheres of the tragic and the -comic. It is a symphony so rich that the strain from fairyland in the -Queen Mab speech harmonises with the note of high comedy in Mercutio's -sparkling, cynical, and audacious sallies, with the wanton flutings -of farce in the Nurse's anecdotes, with the most rapturous descants -of passion in the antiphonies of Romeo and Juliet, and with the deep -organ-tones in the soliloquies and speeches of Friar Laurence. - -How intense is the life of Romeo and Juliet in their environment! Hark -to the gay and yet warlike hubbub around them, the sport and merriment, -the high words and the ring of steel in the streets of Verona! Hark -to the Nurse's strident laughter, old Capulet's jesting and chiding, -the low tones of the Friar, and the irrepressible rattle of Mercutio's -wit! Feel the magic of the whole atmosphere in which they are plunged, -these embodiments of tumultuous youth, living and dying in love, in -magnanimity, in passion, in despair, under a glowing Southern sky, -softening into moonlight nights of sultry fragrance--and realise -that Shakespeare had at this point completed the first stage of his -triumphal progress! - -[1] Here is a specimen. Romeo says to Juliet-- - - "Since, lady, that you like to honor me so much - As to accept me for your spouse, I yeld my selfe for such. - In true witness whereof, because I must depart, - Till that my deed do prove my woord, I leave in pawne my hart. - Tomorrow eke bestimes, before the sunne arise, - To Fryer Lawrence will I wende, to learne his sage advise." - -[2] "A coople of vnfortunate louers, thralling themselves to -vnhonest desire, neglecting the anthoritie and aduise of parents and -frendes, conferring their principall counsels with dronken gossyppes -and superstitious friers (the naturally fitte instrumentes of -unchastitie), attemptyng all aduentures of peryll for thattaynyng of -their wished lust, vsyng auriculer confession (the key of whoredom and -treason)...." - -[3] See Dowden: _Shakspere: His Mind and Art_, p. 60. - -[4] Edward von Hartmann, from the lofty standpoint of German -morality, has launched a diatribe against Juliet. He asserts her -immeasurable moral inferiority to the typical German maiden, both of -poetry and of real life. Schiller's Thekla has undeniably less warm -blood in her veins. - -A Swedish professor, Henrik Schück, in an able work on Shakespeare, -says of Juliet: "On examining into the nature of the love to which she -owes all this strength, the unprejudiced reader cannot but recognise -in it a purely sensual passion.... A few words from the lips of this -well-favoured youth are sufficient to awaken in its fullest strength -the slumbering desire in her breast. But this love possesses no -psychical basis; it is not founded on any harmony of souls. They -scarcely know each other.... Can their love, then, be anything more -than the merely sensual passion aroused by the contemplation of a -beautiful body? ... So much I say with confidence, that the woman who, -inaccessible to the spiritual element in love, lets herself be carried -away on this first meeting by the joy of the senses ... that woman is -ignorant of the love which our age demands." - - - - - -XIV - -_LATTER-DAY ATTACKS UPON SHAKESPEARE--THE BACONIAN -THEORY--SHAKESPEARE'S KNOWLEDGE, PHYSICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL_ - -In one of his sonnets Robert Browning says that Shakespeare's name, -like the Hebrew name of God, ought never to be taken in vain. A timely -monition to an age which has seen this great name besmirched by -American and European imbecility! - -It is well known that in recent days a troop of less than halfeducated -people have put forth the doctrine that Shakespeare lent his name to a -body of poetry with which he had really nothing to do--which he could -not have understood, much less have written. Literary criticism is an -instrument which, like all delicate tools, must be handled carefully, -and only by those who have a vocation for it. Here it has fallen into -the hands of raw Americans and fanatical women. Feminine criticism on -the one hand, with its lack of artistic nerve, and Americanism on the -other hand, with its lack of spiritual delicacy, have declared war -to the knife against Shakespeare's personality, and have within the -last few years found a considerable number of adherents. We have here -another proof, if any were needed, that the judgment of the multitude, -in questions of art, is a negligible quantity.[1] - -Before the middle of this century, it had occurred to no human being -to doubt that--trifling exceptions apart--the works attributed to -Shakespeare were actually written by him. It has been reserved for -the last forty years to see an ever-increasing stream of obloquy and -contempt directed against what had hitherto been the most honoured name -in modern literature. - -At first the attack upon Shakespeare's memory was not so dogmatic as -it has since become. In 1848 an American, Hart by name, gave utterance -to some general doubts as to the origin of the plays. Then, in August -1852, there appeared in _Chambers's Edinburgh Journal_ an anonymous -article, the author of which declared his conviction that William -Shakespeare, uneducated as he was, must have hired a poet, some -penniless famished Chatterton, who was willing to sell him his genius, -and let him take to himself the credit for its creations. We see, he -says, that his plays steadily improve as the series proceeds, until -suddenly Shakespeare leaves London with a fortune, and the series comes -to an abrupt end. In the case of so strenuously progressive a genius, -can we account for this otherwise than by supposing that the poet had -died, while his employer survived him? - -This is the first definite expression of the fancy that Shakespeare -was only a man of straw who had arrogated to himself the renown of an -unknown immortal. - -In 1856 a Mr. William Smith issued a privately-printed letter to Lord -Ellesmere, in which he puts forth the opinion that William Shakespeare -was, by reason of his birth, his upbringing, and his lack of culture, -incapable of writing the plays attributed to him. They must have been -the work of a man educated to the highest point by study, travel, -knowledge of books and men--a man like Francis Bacon, the greatest -Englishman of his time. Bacon had kept his authorship secret, because -to have avowed it would have been to sacrifice his position both in -his profession and in Parliament; but he saw in these plays a means of -strengthening his economic position, and he used the actor Shakespeare -as a man of straw. Smith maintains that it was Bacon who, after having -fallen into disgrace in 1621, published the First Folio edition of the -plays in 1623. - -If there were no other objection to this far-fetched theory, we cannot -but remark that Bacon was scrupulously careful as to the form in which -his works appeared, rewrote them over and over again, and corrected -them so carefully that scarcely a single error of the press is to be -found in his books. Can he have been responsible for the publication of -these thirty-six plays, which swarm with misreadings and contain about -twenty thousand errors of the press! - -The delusion did not take serious shape until, in the same year, a Miss -Delia Bacon put forward the same theory in American magazines: her -namesake Bacon, and not Shakespeare, was the author of the renowned -dramas. In the following year she published a quite unreadable book on -the subject, of nearly 600 pages. And close upon her heels followed -her disciple, Judge Nathaniel Holmes, also an American, with a book -of no fewer than 696 pages, full of denunciations of the ignorant -vagabond William Shakespeare, who, though he could scarcely write his -own name and knew no other ambition than that of money-grubbing, had -appropriated half the renown of the great Bacon. - -The assumption is always the same: Shakespeare, born in a provincial -town, of illiterate parents, his father being, among other things, a -butcher, was an ignorant boor, a low fellow, a "butcher-boy," as his -assailants currently call him. In Holmes, as in later writers, the -main method of proving Bacon's authorship of the Shakespearian plays -is to bring together passages of somewhat similar import in Bacon and -Shakespeare, in total disregard of context, form, or spirit. - -Miss Delia Bacon literally dedicated her life to her attack -upon Shakespeare. She saw in his works, not poetry, but a great -philosophico-political system, and maintained that the proof of her -doctrine would be found deposited in Shakespeare's grave. She had -discovered in Bacon's letters the key to a cipher which would clear up -everything; but unfortunately she became insane before she had imparted -this key to the world.[2] She went to Stratford, obtained permission to -have the grave opened, hovered about it day and night, but at last left -it undisturbed, as it did not appear to her large enough to contain the -posthumous papers of the Elizabeth Club. She did not, however, expect -to find in the grave the original manuscripts of Shakespeare's plays. -No! she exclaims in her article on "William Shakespeare and his Plays" -_(Putnam's Magazine_, January 1856), Lord Leicester's groom, of course, -cared nothing for them, but only for the profit to be made out of them. -What was to prevent him from lighting the fire with them? "He had those -manuscripts!... He had the original _Hamlet_ with its last finish; he -had the original _Lear_ with his own final readings; he had them all, -as they came from the gods.... And he left us to wear out our youth and -squander our lifetime in poring over and setting right the old garbled -copies of the playhouse!... Traitor and miscreant! what did you do with -them? You have skulked this question long enough. You will have to -account for them.... The awakening ages will put you on the stand, and -you will not leave it until you answer the question, 'What did you do -with them?'" - -It is hard to be the greatest dramatic genius in the world's history, -and then, two centuries and a half after your death, to be called to -account in such a tone as this for the fact that your manuscripts -have disappeared. As regards purely external evidence, it is worth -mentioning that the greatest student of Bacon's works, his editor and -biographer, James Spedding, being challenged by Holmes to give his -opinion, made a statement which begins thus:--"I have read your book -on the authorship of Shakespeare faithfully to the end, and ... I -must declare myself not only unconvinced but undisturbed. To ask me -to believe that 'Bacon was the author of these dramas' is like asking -me to believe that Lord Brougham was the author not only of Dickens' -novels, but of Thackeray's also, and of Tennyson's poems besides. -I deny," he concludes, "that a _primâ facie_ case is made out for -questioning Shakespeare's title. But if there were any reason for -supposing that somebody else was the real author, I think I am in a -condition to say that, whoever it was, it was not Bacon" (_Reviews and -Discussions_, 1879, pp. 369-374). - -What most amazes a critical reader of the Baconian impertinences -is the fact that all the different arguments for the impossibility -of attributing these plays to Shakespeare are founded upon the -universality of knowledge and insight displayed in them, which must -have been unattainable, it is urged, to a man of Shakespeare's -imperfect scholastic training. Thus all that these detractors bring -forward to Shakespeare's dishonour serves, rightly considered, to show -in a clearer light the wealth of his genius. - -On the other hand, the arguments adduced in support of Bacon's -authorship are so ridiculous as almost to elude criticism. Opponents -of the doctrine have dwelt upon such details as the philistinism of -Bacon's essays "Of Love," "Of Marriage and Single Life," contrasted -with the depth and the wit of Shakesperian utterances on these -subjects; or they have cited certain lines from the miserable -translations of seven Hebrew psalms which Bacon produced in the last -years of his life, contrasting them with passages from _Rickard III_. -and _Hamlet_, in which Shakespeare has dealt with exactly similar -ideas--the harvest that follows from a seed-time of tears, and the -leaping to light of secret crimes. But it is a waste of time to go into -details. Any one who has read even a few of Bacon's essays or a stanza -or two of his verse translations, and who can discover in them any -trace of Shakespeare's style in prose or verse, is no more fitted to -have a voice on such questions than an inland bumpkin is fitted to lay -down the law upon navigation. - -Even putting aside the conjecture with regard to Bacon, and looking -merely at the theory that Shakespeare did not write the plays, we -cannot but find it unrivalled in its ineptitude. How can we conceive -that not only contemporaries in general, but those with whom -Shakespeare was in daily intercourse--the players to whom he gave these -dramas for production, who received his instructions about them, who -saw his manuscripts and have described them to us (in the foreword to -the First Folio); the dramatists who were constantly with him, his -rivals and afterwards his comrades, like Drayton and Ben Jonson; the -people who discussed his works with him in the theatre, or, over the -evening glass, debated with him concerning his art; and, finally, the -young noblemen whom his genius attracted and who became his patrons -and afterwards his friends--how can we conceive that none of these, -no single one, should ever have observed that he was not the man he -pretended to be, and that he did not even understand the works he -fraudulently declared to be his! How can we conceive that none of all -this intelligent and critical circle should ever have discovered the -yawning gulf which separated his ordinary thought and speech from the -thought and style of his alleged works! - -In sum, then, the only evidence against Shakespeare lies in the fact -that his works give proof of a too many-sided knowledge and insight! - -The knowledge of English law which Shakespeare displays is so -surprising as to have led to the belief that he must for some time in -his youth have been a clerk in an attorney's office--a theory which was -thought to be supported by the belief, now discredited, that an attack -by the satirist Thomas Nash upon lawyers who had deserted the law for -poetry was directed against him.[3] - -Shakespeare shows a quite unusual fondness for the use of legal -expressions. He knows to a nicety the technicalities of the bar, the -formulas of the bench. While most English writers of his period are -guilty of frequent blunders as to the laws of marriage and inheritance, -lawyers of a later date have not succeeded in finding in Shakespeare's -references to the law a single error or deficiency. Lord Campbell, -an eminent lawyer, has written a book on _Shakespeare's Legal -Acquirements_. And it was not through the lawsuits of Shakespeare's -riper years that he attained this knowledge. It is to be found even in -his earliest works. It appears, quaintly enough, in the mouth of the -goddess in _Venus and Adonis_ (verse 86, etc.), and it obtrudes itself -in Sonnet xlvi., with its somewhat tasteless and wire-drawn description -of a formal lawsuit between the eye and the heart. It is characteristic -that his knowledge does not extend to the laws of foreign countries; -otherwise we should scarcely find _Measure for Measure_ founded upon -such an impossible state of the law as that which is described as -obtaining in Vienna. Shakespeare's accurate knowledge begins and ends -with what comes within the sphere of his personal observation. - -He seems equally at home in all departments of human life. If we might -conclude from his knowledge of law that he had been a lawyer, we might -no less confidently infer from his knowledge of typography that he had -been a printer's devil. An English printer named Blades has written -an instructive book, _Shakespeare and Typography_, to show that if -the poet had passed his whole life in a printing-office he could not -have been more familiar with the many peculiarities of nomenclature -belonging to the handicraft. Bishop Charles Wordsworth has written a -highly esteemed, very pious, but, I regret to say, quite unreadable -work, _Shakespeare's Knowledge and Use of the Bible_, in which he -makes out that the poet was impregnated with the Biblical spirit, and -possessed a unique acquaintance with Biblical forms of expression. - -Shakespeare's knowledge of nature is not simply such as can be -acquired by any one who passes his childhood and youth in the open -air and in the country. But even of this sort of knowledge he has an -astonishing store. Whole books have been written as to his familiarity -with insect life alone (R. Patterson: _The Natural History of the -Insects mentioned by Shakespeare_; London, 1841), and his knowledge -of the characteristics of the larger animals and birds seems to be -inexhaustible. Appleton Morgan, one of the commentators of the Baconian -theory, adduces in _The Shakespearean Myth_ a whole series of examples. - -In _Much Ado_ (v. 2) Benedick says to Margaret-- - - "Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth; it catches." - -The greyhound alone among dogs can seize its prey while in full career. - -In _As You Like It_ (i. 2) Celia says-- - - "Here comes Monsieur Le Beau. - _Rosalind_. With his mouth full of news. - _Celia_. Which he will put on us as pigeons feed their young." - -Pigeons have a way, peculiar to themselves, of passing food down the -throats of their young. - -In _Twelfth Night_ (iii. I) the Clown says to Viola-- - - "Fools are as like husbands, as pilchards are to - herrings,--the husband's the bigger." - -The pilchard is a fish of the herring family, which is caught in the -Channel; it is longer and has larger scales. - -In the same play (ii. 5) Maria says of Malvolio-- - - "Here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling." - -When a trout is tickled on the sides or the belly it becomes so -stupefied that it lets itself be caught in the hand. - -In _Much Ado_ (iii. I) Hero says-- - - "For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs - Close by the ground, to hear our conference." - -The lapwing, which runs very swiftly, bends its neck towards the ground -in running, in order to escape observation. - -In _King Lear_ (i. 4) the Fool says-- - - "The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long. - That it had its head bit off by its young." - -In England, it is in the hedge-sparrow's nest that the cuckoo lays its -eggs. - -In _All's Well that Ends Well_ (ii. 5) Lafeu says-- - - "I took this lark for a bunting." - -The English bunting is a bird of the same colour and appearance as the -lark, but it does not sing so well. - -It would be easy to show that Shakespeare was as familiar with the -characteristics of plants as with those of animals. Strangely enough, -people have thought this knowledge of nature so improbable in a great -poet, that in order to explain it they have jumped at the conclusion -that the author must have been a man of science as well. - -More comprehensible is the astonishment which has been awakened by -Shakespeare's insight in other domains of nature not lying so open to -immediate observation. His medical knowledge early attracted attention. -In 1860 a Doctor Bucknill devoted a whole book to the subject, in which -he goes so far as to attribute to the poet the most advanced knowledge -of our own time, or, at any rate, of the 'sixties, in this department. -Shakespeare's representations of madness surpass all those of other -poets. Alienists are full of admiration for the accuracy of the -symptoms in Lear and Ophelia. Nay, more, Shakespeare appears to have -divined the more intelligent modern treatment of the insane, as opposed -to the cruelty prevalent in his own time and long after. He even had -some notions of what we in our days call medical jurisprudence; he was -familiar with the symptoms of violent death in contradistinction to -death from natural causes. Warwick says in the second part of _Henry -VI_. (iii. 2):-- - - "See, how the blood is settled in his face. - Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost, - Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless, - Being all descended to the labouring heart." - -These lines occur in the oldest text. In the later text, undoubtedly -the result of Shakespeare's revision, we read:-- - - "But see, his face is black, and full of blood; - His eye-balls further out than when he liv'd, - Staring full ghastly like a strangled man: - His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with struggling; - His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd - And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdued. - Look, on the sheets, his hair, you see, is sticking; - His well-proportion'd beard made rough and rugged, - Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodg'd. - It cannot be but he was murder'd here; - The least of all these signs were probable." - -Shakespeare seems, in certain instances, to be not only abreast of the -natural science of his time, but in advance of it. People have had -recourse to the Baconian theory in order to explain the surprising fact -that although Harvey, who is commonly represented as the discoverer -of the circulation of the blood, did not announce his discovery until -1619, and published his book upon it so late as 1628, yet Shakespeare, -who, as we know, died in 1616, in many passages of his plays alludes -to the blood as circulating through the body. Thus, for example, in -_Julius Cæsar_ (ii. I), Brutus says to Portia-- - - "You are my true and honourable wife; - As dear to me as are the ruddy drops - That visit my sad heart." - -Again, in _Coriolanus_ (i. I) Menenius makes the belly say of its food-- - - "I send it through the rivers of your blood, - Even to the court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain; - And, through the cranks and offices of man, - The strongest nerves, and small inferior veins, - From me receive that natural competency - Whereby they live." - - -But apart from the fact that the highly gifted and unhappy Servetus, -whom Calvin burned, had, between 1530 and 1540, made the discovery and -lectured upon it, all men of culture in England knew very well before -Harvey's time that the blood flowed, even that it circulated, and, -more particularly, that it was driven from the heart to the different -limbs and organs; only, it was generally conceived that the blood -passed from the heart through the veins, and not, as is actually the -case, through the arteries. And there is nothing in the seventy-odd -places in Shakespeare where the circulation of the blood is mentioned -to show that he possessed this ultimate insight, although his general -understanding of these questions bears witness to his high culture. - -Another point which some people have held inexplicable, except by the -Baconian theory, may be stated thus: Although the law of gravitation -was first discovered by Newton, who was born in 1642, or fully -twenty-six years after Shakespeare's death, and although the general -conception of gravitation towards the centre of the earth had been -unknown before Kepler, who discovered his third law of the mechanism of -the heavenly bodies two years after Shakespeare's death, nevertheless -in _Troilus and Cressida_ (iv. 2) the heroine thus expresses herself:-- - - "Time, force, and death, - Do to this body what extremes you can, - But the strong base and building of my love - Is as the very centre of the earth, - Drawing all things to it." - -So carelessly does Shakespeare throw out such an extraordinary -divination. His achievement in thus, as it were, rivalling Newton -may seem in a certain sense even more extraordinary than Goethe's -botanical and osteological discoveries; for Goethe had enjoyed a very -different education from his, and had, moreover, all desirable leisure -for scientific research. But Newton cannot rightly be said to have -discovered the law of gravitation; he only applied it to the movements -of the heavenly bodies. Even Aristotle had defined weight as "the -striving of heavy bodies towards the centre of the earth." Among men -of classical culture in England in Shakespeare's time, the knowledge -that the centre point of the earth attracts everything to it was -quite common. The passage cited only affords an additional proof that -several of the men whose society Shakespeare frequented were among the -most highly-developed intellects of the period. That his astronomical -knowledge was not, on the whole, in advance of his time is proved by -the expression, "the glorious planet Sol" in _Troilus and Cressida_ (i. -3). He never got beyond the Ptolemaic system. - -Another confirmation of the theory that Bacon must have written -Shakespeare's plays has been found in the fact that the poet clearly -had some conception of geology; whereas geology, as a science, owes its -origin to Niels Steno, who was born in 1638, twenty-two years after -Shakespeare's death. In the second part of _Henry IV_. (iii. I), King -Henry says:-- - - "O God! that one might read the book of fate, - And see the revolution of the times - Make mountains level, and the continent, - Weary of solid firmness, melt itself - Into the sea! and, other times, to see - The beachy girdle of the ocean - Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock, - And changes fill the cup of alteration - With divers liquors!" - -The purport of this passage is simply to show that in nature, as in -human life, the law of transformation reigns; but no doubt it is -implied that the history of the earth can be read in the earth itself, -and that changes occur through upheavals and depressions. It looks like -a forecast of the doctrine of Neptunism. - -Here, again, people have gone to extremities in order artificially to -enhance the impression made by the poet's brilliant divination. It -was Steno who first systematised geological conceptions; but he was -by no means the first to hold that the earth had been formed little -by little, and that it was therefore possible to trace in the record -of the rocks the course of the earth's development. His chief service -lay in directing attention to stratification, as affording the best -evidence of the processes which have fashioned the crust of the globe. - -It is, no doubt, a sign of Shakespeare's many-sided genius that here, -too, he anticipates the scientific vision of later times; but there -is nothing in these lines that presupposes any special or technical -knowledge. Here is an analogous case: In Michael Angelo's picture -of the creation of Adam, where God wakens the first man to life by -touching the figure's outstretched finger-tip with his own, we seem -to see a clear divination of the electric spark. Yet the induction of -electricity was not known until the eighteenth century, and Michael -Angelo could not possibly have any scientific understanding of its -nature. - -Shakespeare's knowledge was not of a scientific cast. He learned from -men and from books with the rapidity of genius. Not, we may be sure, -without energetic effort, for nothing can be had for nothing; but the -effort of acquisition must have come easy to him, and must have escaped -the observation of all around him. There was no time in his life for -patient research; he had to devote the best part of his days to the -theatre, to uneducated and unconsidered players, to entertainments, to -the tavern. We may fancy that he must have had himself in mind when, -in the introductory scene to _Henry V_., he makes the Archbishop of -Canterbury thus describe his hero, the young king:-- - - "Hear him but reason in divinity, - And, all-admiring, with an inward wish - You would desire the king were made a prelate: - Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs, - - You would say, it hath been all-in-all his study: - List his discourse of war, and you shall hear - A fearful battle render'd you in music: - Turn him to any cause of policy, - The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, - Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks, - The air, a charter'd libertine, is still, - And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears, - To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences; - So that the art and practic part of life - Must be the mistress to this theoric: - Which is a wonder, how his grace should glean it, - Since his addiction was to courses vain; - His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow; - His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports; - And never noted in him any study, - Any retirement, any sequestration - From open haunts and popularity." - -To this the Bishop of Ely answers very sagely, "The strawberry grows -underneath the nettle." We cannot but conceive, however, that, by a -beneficent provision of destiny, Shakespeare's genius found in the -highest culture of his day precisely the nourishment it required. - - -[1] According to W. H. Wyman's _Bibliography of the -Bacon-Shakespeare Controversy_ (Cincinnati, 1884), there had been -published up to that date 255 books, pamphlets, and essays as to -the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. In America 161 treatises of -considerable bulk had been devoted to the question, and in England 69. -Of these, 73 were decidedly opposed to Shakespeare's authorship, while -65 left the question undetermined. In other words, out of 161 books, -only 23 were in favour of Shakespeare. And since then the proportion -has no doubt remained much the same. - -[2] One of her many followers, an American lawyer, Ignatius -Donelly formerly Member of Congress and Senator from Minnesota, claims -to have found the key. His crazy book is called _The Great Cryptogram: -Francis Bacon's Cipher in the so-called Shakespeare Plays_. Donelly -claims that among Bacon's papers he has discovered a cipher which -enables him to extract here and there from the First Folio letters -which form words and phrases distinctly stating that Bacon is the -author of the dramas, and how Bacon embodied in the First Folio a -cipher-confession of his authorship. It sets forth how Bacon embodied -in the First Folio a cipher-confession of his authorship. Apart from -the general madness of such a proceeding, Bacon must thus have made -the editors, Heminge and Condell, his accomplices in his meaningless -deception, and must even have induced Ben Jonson to confirm it by his -enthusiastic introductory poem. - -[3] The passage runs thus: "It is a common practice now a -days among a sort of shifting companions that run through every art -and thrive by none, to leave the trade of _noverint_, whereto they -were born, and busy themselves with the endeavours of art, that could -scarcely latinize their neck-verse if they should have need; yet -English Seneca, read by candlelight, yields many good sentences, as -_Blood is a beggar_, and so forth; and if you entreat him fair in -a frosty morning, he will afford you whole _Hamlets_, I should say -handfuls, of tragical speeches." Although this passage seems at first -sight an evident gibe at Shakespeare, it has in reality no reference to -him, since _An Epistle to the Gentlemen Students of both Universities_, -by Thomas Nash, although not printed till 1589, can be proved to have -been written as early as 1587, many years before Shakespeare so much as -thought of _Hamlet_. - - - - -XV - -_THE THEATRES--THEIR SITUATION AND ARRANGEMENTS--THE PLAYERS--THE -POETS--POPULAR AUDIENCES--THE ARISTOCRATIC PUBLIC--SHAKESPEARE'S -ARISTOCRATIC PRINCIPLES_ - -On swampy ground beside the Thames lay the theatres, of which the -largest were wooden sheds, only half thatched with rushes, with a -trench around them and a flagstaff on the roof. After the middle of -the fifteen-seventies, when the first was built, they shot up rapidly, -and in the early years of the new century theatre-building took such -a start that, as we learn from Prynne's _Histriomastix_, there were -in 1633 no fewer than nineteen permanent theatres in London, a number -which no modern town of 300,000 inhabitants can equal. These figures -show how keen and how widespread was the interest in the drama. - -More than a hundred years before the first theatre was built there -had been professional actors in England. Their calling had developed -from that of the travelling jugglers, who varied their acrobatic -performances with "plays." The earliest scenic representations had -been given by the Church, and the Guilds had inherited the tradition. -Priests and choir-boys were the first actors of the Middle Ages, and -after them came the mummers of the Guilds. But none of these performers -acted except at periodical festivals; none of them were professional -actors. From the days of Henry the Sixth onwards, however, members of -the nobility began to entertain companies of actors, and Henry VII. and -Henry VIII. had their own private comedians. A "Master of the Revels" -was appointed to superintend the musical and dramatic entertainments at -court. About the middle of the sixteenth century, Parliament begins to -keep an eye upon theatrical representations. It forbids the performance -of anything conflicting with the doctrines of the Church, and prohibits -miracle-plays, but does not object to songs or plays designed to -attack vice and represent virtue. In other words, dramatic art escapes -condemnation when it is emphatically moral, and thrives best when it -keeps to purely secular matters. - -Under Mary, religious plays once more came into honour. Elizabeth began -by strictly prohibiting all dramatic representations, but sanctioned -them again in 1560, subjecting them, however, to a censorship. This -measure was dictated at least as much by political as by religious -motives. The censorship must, however, have been exercised somewhat -loosely, since a statute of 1572 declared that all actors who were not -attached to the service of a nobleman should be treated as "rogues -and vagabonds," or, in other words, might be whipped out of any -town in which they appeared. This decree, of course, compelled all -actors to enter the service of one or other great man, and we see -that the aristocracy felt bound to protect their art. A large number -of the first men in the kingdom, during Elizabeth's reign, had each -his company of actors. The player received from the nobleman whose -"servant" he was a cloak bearing the arms of the family. On the other -hand, he received no salary, but was simply paid for each performance -given before his patron. We must thus conceive Shakespeare as bearing -on his cloak the arms of Leicester, and afterwards of the Lord -Chamberlain, until about his fortieth year. From 1604 onwards, when the -company was promoted by James I. to be "His Majesty's Servants," it was -the Royal arms that he wore. One is tempted to say that he exchanged a -livery for a uniform. - -In 1574 Elizabeth had given permission to Lord Leicester's Servants -to give scenic representations of all sorts for the delectation of -herself and her lieges, both in London and anywhere else in England. -But neither in London nor in other towns did the local authorities -recognise this patent, and the hostile attitude of the Corporation -of London forced the players to erect their theatres outside its -jurisdiction. For if they played in the City itself, as had been -the custom, either in the great halls of the Guilds or in the open -inn-yards, they had to obtain the Lord Mayor's sanction for each -individual performance, and to hand over half their receipts to the -City treasury. - -It was with anything but satisfaction that the peaceable burgesses of -London saw a playhouse rise in the neighbourhood of their homes. The -theatre brought in its train a loose, frivolous, and rowdy population. -Around the playhouses, at the hours of performance, the narrow streets -of that period became so crowded that business suffered in the shops, -processions and funerals were obstructed, and perpetual causes of -complaint arose. Houses of ill-fame, moreover, always clustered round -a theatre; and, although the performances took place by day, there was -always the danger of fire inseparable from theatres, and especially -from wooden erections with thatched roofs. - -But the chief opposition to the theatres did not come from the mere -Philistinism of the industrious middle-class, but from the fanatical -Puritanism which was now rearing its head. It is the Puritans who -have killed the old Merry England, abolishing its May-games, its -popular dances, its numerous rustic sports. They could not look on -with equanimity, and see the drama, which had once been a spiritual -institution, become a platform for mere worldliness. - -Their chief accusation against the dramatic poets was that they lied. -For intelligences of this order, there was no difference between a -fiction and a falsehood. The players they attacked on the ground that -when they played female parts they appeared in women's attire, which -was expressly forbidden in the Bible (Deut. xxii. 5) as an abomination -to the Lord. They saw in this masquerading in the guise of the other -sex a symptom of unnatural and degrading vices. They not only despised -the actors as jugglers and loathed them as persons living beyond the -pale of respectability, but they further accused them of cultivating in -private all the vices which they were in the habit of portraying on the -stage. - -There can be no doubt that from a very early period the influence of -Puritanism made itself felt in the attitude of the City authorities. - -It can easily be understood, then, that the leaders of the new -theatrical industry tried to escape from their jurisdiction; and -this they did by choosing sites outside the City, and yet as near -its boundaries as possible. To the south of the Thames lay a stretch -of land not belonging to the City but to the Bishop of Winchester, a -spiritual magnate who tried to make his territory as profitable as he -could without inquiring too closely as to the uses to which it was put. -Here lay the Bear Garden; here were numerous houses of ill-fame; and -here arose the different theatres, the "Hope," the "Swan," the "Rose," -&c. When James Burbage's successors, in the year 1598, found themselves -compelled, after a lawsuit, to pull down the building known as the -Theatre (in Bishopsgate Street), they employed the material to erect -on this artistic no-man's-land the celebrated Globe Theatre, which was -opened in 1599. - -The theatres were of two classes, one known as private, the other as -public, a distinction which was at one time rather obscure, since the -difference was clearly not that admission to the private theatres took -place by invitation, and to the public ones by payment. A nobleman -could hire any theatre, whether private or public, and engage the -company to give a performance for him and his invited guests. The real -distinction was, that the private theatres were designed on the model -of the Guildhalls or Town Halls, in which, before the period of special -buildings, representations had been given; while the public theatres -were constructed on the lines of the inn-yard. The private theatres, -then, were fully roofed, and, being the more fashionable, had seats -in every part of the house, including the parterre, here known as the -pit. Being roofed, they could be used not only in the daytime, but by -artificial light. In the public theatres, on the other hand, as in -ancient Greece and to this day in the Tyrol, only the stage was roofed, -the auditorium being open to the sky, so that performances could be -given only by daylight. But in Greece the air is pure, the climate -mild; in the Tyrol performances take place only on a few summer days. -Here plays were acted while rain and snow fell upon the spectators, -fogs enwrapped them, and the wind plucked at their garments. As the -prototype of these theatres was the old inn-yard, in which some of -the spectators stood, while others were seated in the open galleries -running all round it, the parterre, which retained the name of _yard_, -was here devoted to the poorest and roughest of the public, who stood -throughout the performance, while the galleries (_scaffolds_), running -along the walls in two or three tiers, offered seats to wealthier -playgoers of both sexes. - -The days of performance at these theatres were announced by the -hoisting of a flag on the roof. The time of beginning was three o'clock -punctually, and the performance went straight on, uninterrupted by -entr'actes. It lasted, as a rule, for only two hours or two hours and a -half. - -Close to the Globe Theatre lay the Bear Garden, the rank smell from -which greeted the nostrils, even before it came in sight. The famous -bear Sackerson, who is mentioned in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, now -and then broke his chain and put female theatre-goers shrieking to -flight. - -Tickets there were none. A penny was the price of admission to -standing-room in the yard; and those who wanted better places put their -money in a box held out to them for that purpose, the amount varying -from a penny to half-a-crown, in accordance with the places required. -When we remember that one shilling of Queen Elizabeth's was equivalent -to five of Queen Victoria's, the price of the dearer places seems very -considerable in comparison with those current to-day. The wealthiest -spectators gave more than twelve shillings (in modern money) for their -places in the proscenium-boxes on each side of the stage. At the Globe -Theatre the orchestra was placed in the upper proscenium-box on the -right; it was the largest in London, consisting of ten performers, all -distinguished in their several lines, playing lutes, oboes, trumpets, -and drums. - -The most fashionable seats were on the stage itself, approached, not -by the ordinary entrances, but through the players' tiring-room. -There sat the amateurs, the noble patrons of the theatre, Essex, -Southampton, Pembroke, Rutland; there snobs, upstarts, and fops took -their places on chairs or stools; if there were not seats enough, they -spread their cloaks upon the pine-sprigs that strewed the boards, and -(like Bracchiano in Webster's _Vittoria Corombona)_ lay upon them. -There, too, sat the author's rivals, the dramatic poets, who had free -admissions; and there, lastly, sat the shorthand writers, commissioned -by piratical booksellers, who, under pretence of making critical notes, -secretly took down the dialogue--men who were a nuisance to the -players and, as a rule, a thorn in the side to the poets, but to whom -posterity no doubt owes the preservation of many plays which would -otherwise have been lost. - -All these notabilities on the stage carry on half-audible -conversations, and make the servitors of the theatre bring them drinks -and light their pipes, while the actors can with difficulty thread -their way among them--arrangements which cannot have heightened the -illusion, but perhaps did less to mar it than we might imagine. - -For the audience is not easily disturbed, and does not demand any of -the illusion which is supplied by modern mechanism. Movable scenery -was unknown before 1660. The walls of the stage were either hung with -loose tapestries or quite uncovered, so that the wooden doors which -led to the players' tiring-rooms at the back were clearly visible. In -battle-scenes, whole armies entered triumphant, or were driven off in -confusion and defeat, through a single door. When a tragedy was acted -the stage was usually hung with black; for a comedy the hangings were -blue. - -As in the theatre of antiquity, rude machines were employed to raise or -lower actors through the stage; trap-doors were certainly in use, and -probably "bridges," or small platforms, which could be elevated into -the upper regions. In somewhat earlier times still ruder appliances -had been in vogue. For example, in the religious and allegorical -plays, Hell-mouth was represented by a huge face of painted canvas -with shining eyes, a large red nose, and movable jaws set with tusks. -When the jaws opened, they seemed to shoot out flames, torches being -no doubt waved behind them. The theatrical property-room of that time -was incomplete without a "rybbe colleryd red" for the mystery of the -Creation. But in Shakespeare's day scarcely anything of this sort was -required. It was Inigo Jones who first introduced movable scenery and -decorations at the court entertainments. They were certainly not in use -at the popular playhouses at any time during Shakespeare's connection -with the stage. - -Audiences felt no need for such aids to illusion; their imagination -instantly supplied the want. They saw whatever the poet required them -to see--as a child sees whatever is suggested to its fancy, as little -girls see real-life dramas in their games with their dolls. For the -spectators were children alike in the freshness and in the force of -their imagination. If only a placard were hung on one of the doors of -the stage bearing in large letters the name of Paris or of Venice, the -spectators were at once transported to France or Italy. Sometimes the -Prologue informed them where the scene was placed. Men of classical -culture, who insisted on unity of place in the drama, were offended by -the continual changes of scene and the pitiful appliances by which they -were indicated. Sir Philip Sidney, in his _Defense of Poesy,_ published -in 1583, ridicules the plays in which "You shall have Asia of the one -side, and Afric of the other, and so many other under-kingdoms, that -the player, when he cometh in, must ever begin with telling where he -is, or else the tale will not be conceived." - -This alacrity of imagination on the part of popular audiences was -unquestionably an advantage to the English stage in its youth. If an -actor made a movement as though he were plucking a flower, the scene -was at once understood to be a garden; as in _Henry VI_., where the -adoption of the red rose and white rose as party badges is represented. -If an actor spoke as though he were standing on a ship's deck in a -heavy sea, the convention was at once accepted; as in the famous scene -in _Pericles_ (iii. 2). Shakespeare, though he did not hesitate to take -advantage of this accommodating humour on the part of his public, and -made no attempt at illusive decoration, nevertheless ridiculed, as we -have seen, in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, the meagre scenic apparatus -of his time (especially, we may suppose, on the provincial stage); -while in the Prologue to his _Henry V_. he deplores and apologises for -the narrowness of his stage and the poverty of his resources:-- - - "Pardon, gentles all, - The flat unraised spirits that have dar'd - On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth - So great an object: can this cockpit hold - The vasty fields of France? or may we cram - Within this wooden O the very casques, - That did affright the air at Agincourt? - O, pardon! since a crooked figure may - Attest in little place a million; - And let us, ciphers to this great accompt, - On your imaginary forces work. - Suppose, within the girdle of these walls - Are now confin'd two mighty monarchies." - -These monarchies, then, were mounted in a frame formed of young -noblemen, critics and stage-struck gallants, who bantered the -boy-heroines, fingered the embroideries on the costumes, smoked their -clay pipes, and otherwise made themselves entirely at their ease. - -A curtain, which did not rise, but parted in the middle, separated the -stage from the auditorium. - -The only extant drawing of the interior of an Elizabethan theatre was -recently discovered by Karl Gaedertz in the University Library at -Utrecht. It is a sketch of the Swan Theatre, executed in 1596 by the -Dutch scholar, Jan de Witt. The stage, resting upon strong posts, has -no other furniture than a single bench, on which one of the performers -is seated. The background is formed by the tiring-house, into which two -doors lead. Over it is a roofed balcony, which could be used, no doubt, -both by the players and by the audience. Above the roof of the tiring-house -rises a second story, crowned by a sort of hutch, over which waves -a flag bearing the image of a swan. At an open door of the hutch is -seen a trumpeter giving a signal of some sort. The theatre is oval in -shape, and has three tiers of seats, while the pit is left open for the -standing "groundlings." - -The balcony over the tiring-house answers in this case to the inner -stage of other and better-equipped theatres. - -This smaller raised platform at the back of the principal stage was -exceedingly useful, and, in a certain measure, supplied the place of -the scenic apparatus of later times. Tieck, who probably went further -than any other critic in his dislike for modern mechanism and his -enthusiasm for the primitive arrangements of Shakespeare's day, has -elaborately reconstructed it in his novel, _Der junge Tischlermeister_. - -In the middle of the deep stage, according to him, rose two wooden -pillars, eight or ten feet high, which supported a sort of balcony. -Three broad steps led from the front stage to the inner alcove -under the balcony, which was sometimes open, sometimes curtained -off. It represented, according to circumstances, a cave, a room, a -summer-house, a family vault, and so forth. It was here that, in -_Macbeth_, the ghost of Banquo appeared seated at the table. Here stood -the bed on which Desdemona was smothered. Here, in _Hamlet_, the play -within a play was acted. Here Gloucester's eyes were put out. On the -balcony above, Juliet waited for her Romeo, and Sly took his place -to see _The Taming of the Shrew_. When the siege of a town had to be -represented, the defenders of the walls stood and parleyed on this -balcony, while the assailants were grouped in the foreground. - -It is probable that at each side a pretty broad flight of steps led -up to this balcony. Here sat senates, councils, and princes with -their courts. It needed but few figures to fill the inner stage, so -narrow were its dimensions. Macbeth mounted these stairs, and so did -Falstaff in the _Merry Wives_. Melancholy or contemplative personages -leaned against the pillars. The structure offered a certain facility -for effective groupings, somewhat like that in Raffaelle's "School of -Athens." Figures in front did not obstruct the view of those behind, -and groups gathered to the right and left of the main stage could, -without an overstrain of make-believe, be supposed not to see each -other. - -The only department of decoration which involved any considerable -expense was the costumes of the actors. On these such large sums were -lavished that the Puritans made this extravagance one of their chief -points of attack upon theatres. In Henslowe's Diary we find such -entries as £4, 14s. for a pair of breeches, and £16 for a velvet cloak. -It is even on record that a famous actor once gave £20, 10s. for a -mantle. In an inventory of the property belonging to the Lord Admiral's -Company in the year 1598, we find many splendid dresses enumerated: for -example, "I payr of carnatyon satten Venesyons [breeches] layd with -gold lace," and "I orenge taney [tawny] satten dublet, layd thycke with -gowld lace."[1] The sums paid for these costumes are glaringly out of -keeping with the paltry fees allotted to the author. Up to the year -1600 the ordinary price of a play was from five to six pounds--scarcely -more than the cost of a pair of breeches to be worn by the actor who -played the Prince or King. - -In the boxes ("rooms") sat the better sort of spectators, officers, -City merchants, sometimes with their wives; but ladies always wore a -mask of silk or velvet, partly for protection against sun and air, -partly in order to blush (or not to blush) unseen, at the frivolous -and often licentious things that were said upon the stage. The mask -was then as common an article of female attire as is the veil in -our days. But the front rows of what we should now call the first -tier were occupied by beauties who had no desire whatever to conceal -their countenances, though they might use the mask (as in later times -the fan) for purposes of coquetry. These were the kept mistresses -of men of quality, and other gorgeously decked ladies, who resorted -to the playhouse in order to make acquaintances. Behind them sat -the respectable citizens. But in the gallery above a rougher public -assembled--sailors, artisans, soldiers, and loose women of the lowest -class. - -No women ever appeared upon the stage. - -The frequenters of the pit, with their coarse boisterousness, were -the terror of the actors. They all had to stand--coal-heavers -and bricklayers, dock-labourers, serving-men, and idlers. -Refreshment-sellers moved about among them, supplying them with -sausages and ale, with apples and nuts. They ate and drank, drew corks, -smoked tobacco, fought with each other, and often, when they were out -of humour, threw fragments of food, and even stones, at the actors. -Now and then they would come to loggerheads with the fine gentlemen -on the stage, so that the performance had to be interrupted and the -theatre closed. The sanitary arrangements were of the most primitive -description, and the groundlings resisted all attempts at reform on -the part of the management. When the evil smells became intolerable, -juniper-berries were burnt by way of freshening the atmosphere. - -The theatrical public made and executed its own laws. There was no -police in the theatre. Now and then a pickpocket would be caught in the -act, and tied to a post at the corner of the stage beside the railing -which divided it from the auditorium. - -The beginning of the performance was announced by three trumpet-blasts. -The actor who spoke the Prologue appeared in a long cloak, with a -laurel-wreath on his head, probably because this duty was originally -performed by the poet himself. After the play, the Clown danced a jig, -at the same time singing some comic jingle and accompanying himself -on a small drum and flute. The Epilogue consisted of, or ended in, a -prayer for the Queen, in which all the actors took part, kneeling. - -Elizabeth herself and her court did not visit these theatres. There -was no Royal box, and the public was too mixed. On the other hand, the -Queen could, without derogating from her state, summon the players -to court, and the Lord Chamberlain's Company, to which Shakespeare -belonged, was very often commanded to perform before her, especially -upon festivals such as Christmas Day, Twelfth Night, and so forth. Thus -Shakespeare is known to have acted before the Queen in two comedies -presented at Greenwich Palace at Christmas 1594. He is mentioned along -with the leading actors, Burbage and Kemp. - -Elizabeth paid for such performances a fee of twenty nobles, and a -further gratuity of ten nobles--in all, £10. - -As the Queen, however, was not content with thus witnessing plays -at rare intervals, she formed companies of her own, the so-called -Children's Companies, recruited from the choir-boys of the -Chapels-Royal, whose music-schools thus developed, as it were, into -nurseries for the stage. These half-grown boys, who were, of course, -specially fitted to represent female characters, won no small favour, -both at court and with the public; and we see that one such troupe, -consisting of the choir-boys of St. Paul's, for some time competed, -at the Blackfriars Theatre, with Shakespeare's company. We may gather -from the bitter complaint in _Hamlet_ (ii. 2) how serious was this -competition:-- - - "_Hamlet_. Do they [the players] hold the same estimation - they did when I was in the city? Are they so followed? - - "_Rosencrantz_. No, indeed, they are not. - - "_Ham_. How comes it? Do they grow rusty? - - "_Ros_. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: but - there is, sir, an aery of children, little eyases, that - cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically - clapped for't: these are now the fashion; and so berattle - the common stages (so they call them), that many wearing - rapiers are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come - thither - . . . . . . . . . . . - "_Ham_. Do the boys carry it away? - - "_Ros_. Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load - too."[2] - - -The number of players in a company was not great--not more, as a rule, -than eight or ten; never, probably, above twelve. The players were of -different grades. The lowest were the so-called hirelings, who received -wages from the others and were in some sense their servants. They -appeared as supernumeraries or in small speaking parts, and had nothing -to do with the management of the theatre. The actors, properly so called, -differed in standing according as they shared in the receipts only as -actors, or were entitled to a further share as part-proprietors of the -theatre. There was no manager. The actors themselves decided what plays -should be performed, distributed the parts, and divided the receipts -according to an established scale. The most advantageous position, of -course, was that of a shareholder in the theatre; for half of the gross -receipts went to the shareholders, who provided the costumes and paid -the wages of the hirelings. - -Shakespeare's comparatively early rise to affluence can be accounted -for only by assuming that, in his dual capacity as poet and player, he -must quickly have become a shareholder in the theatre. - -As an actor he does not seem to have attained the highest -eminence--fortunately, for if he had, he would probably have found -very little time for writing. The parts he played appear to have been -dignified characters of the second order; for there is no evidence -that he was anything of a comedian. We know that he played the Ghost -in _Hamlet_--a part of no great length, it is true, but of the first -importance. It is probable, too, that he played old Adam in _As You -Like It_, and pretty certain that he played old Knowell in Ben Jonson's -_Every Man in His Humour_. It may possibly be in the costume of Knowell -that he is represented in the well-known Droeshout portrait at the -beginning of the First Folio. Tradition relates that he once played his -own Henry IV. at court, and that the Queen, in passing over the stage, -dropped her glove as a token of her favour, whereupon Shakespeare -handed it back to her with the words:-- - - "And though now bent on this high embassy, - Yet stoop we to take up our cousin's glove." - -In all lists of the players belonging to his company he is named among -the first and most important. - -Not least among the marvels connected with his genius is the fact -that, with all his other occupations, he found time to write so much. -His mornings would be given to rehearsals, his afternoons to the -performances; he would have to read, revise, accept or reject a great -number of plays; and he often passed his evenings either at the Mermaid -Club or at some tavern; yet for eighteen years on end he managed to -write, on an average, two plays a year--and such plays! - -In order to understand this we have to recollect that although -between 1557 and 1616 there were forty noteworthy and two hundred -and thirty-three inferior English poets, who issued works in epic or -lyric form, yet the characteristic of the period was the immense rush -of productivity in the direction of dramatic art. Every Englishman of -talent in Elizabeth's time could write a tolerable play, just as every -second Greek in the age of Pericles could model a tolerable statue, or -as every European of to-day can write a passable newspaper article. -The Englishmen of that time were born dramatists, as the Greeks were -born sculptors, and as we hapless moderns are born journalists. The -Greek, with an inborn sense of form, had constant opportunities for -observing the nude human body and admiring its beauty. If he saw a man -ploughing a field, he received a hundred impressions and ideas as to -the play of the muscles in the naked leg. The modern European possesses -a certain command of language, is practised in argument, has a knack of -putting thoughts and events into words, and is, finally, a confirmed -newspaper-reader--all characteristics which make for the multiplication -of newspaper articles. The Englishman of that day was keenly observant -of human destinies, and of the passions which, after the fall of -Catholicism and before the triumph of Puritanism, revelled in the brief -freedom of the Renaissance. He was accustomed to see men following -their instincts to the last extremity--which was not infrequently -the block. The high culture of the age did not exclude violence, and -this violence led to dramatic vicissitudes of fortune. It was but a -short way from the palace to the scaffold--witness the fate of Henry -VIII.'s wives, of Mary Stuart, of Elizabeth's great lovers, Essex and -Raleigh. The Englishman of that age had always before his eyes pictures -of extreme prosperity followed by sudden ruin and violent death. Life -itself was dramatic, as in Greece it was plastic, as in our days it is -journalistic, photographic--that is to say, striving in vain to give -permanence to formless and everyday events and thoughts. - -A dramatic poet in those days, no less than a journalist in ours, had -to study his public closely. All the intellectual conflicts of the -period were for sixty years fought out in the theatre, as they are -nowadays in the press. Passionate controversies between one poet and -another were cast in dramatic form. Rosencrantz says to Hamlet, "There -was, for a while, no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the -player went to cuffs in the question." The efflorescence of the drama -on British soil was of short duration--as short as that of painting in -Holland. But while it lasted the drama was the dominant art-form and -medium of intellectual expression, and it was consequently supported by -a large public. - -Shakespeare never wrote a play "for the study," nor could he have -imagined himself doing anything of the sort. As playwright and player -in one, he had the stage always in his eye, and what he wrote had -never long to wait for performance, but took scenic shape forthwith. -Although, like all productive spirits, he thought first of satisfying -himself in what he wrote, yet he must necessarily have borne in mind -the public to whom the play appealed. He could by no means avoid -considering the tastes of the average playgoer. The average playgoer, -indeed, made no bad audience, but an audience which had to be amused, -and which could not, for too long a stretch, endure unrelieved -seriousness or lofty flights of thought. For the sake of the common -people, then, scenes of grandeur and refinement were interspersed -with passages of burlesque. To please the many-headed, the Clown was -brought on at every pause in the action, much as he is in the circus -of to-day. The points of rest which are now marked by the fall of the -curtain between the acts were then indicated by conversations such as -that between Peter and the musicians in _Romeo and Juliet_ (iv. 5); it -merely implies that the act is over. - -For the rest, Shakespeare did not write for the average spectator. He -did not value his judgment. Hamlet says to the First Player (ii. 2):-- - - "I heard thee speak me a speech once,--but it was never - acted; or, if it was, not above once; for the play, I - remember, pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the - general: but it was (as I received it, and others, whose - judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine) an - excellent play." - -All Shakespeare lies in the words, "It pleased not the million." - -The English drama as it took shape under Shakespeare's hand addressed -itself primarily to the best elements in the public. But "the best" -were the noble young patrons of the theatre, to whom he personally owed -a great deal of his culture, almost all his repute, and, moreover, the -insight he had attained into the aristocratic habit of mind. - -A young English nobleman of that period must have been one of the -finest products of humanity, a combination of the Belvedere Apollo with -a prize racehorse; he must have felt himself at once a man of action -and an artist. - -We have seen how early Shakespeare must have made the acquaintance -of Essex, before his fall the mightiest of the mighty. He wrote -_A Midsummer Night's Dream_ for his marriage, and he introduced a -compliment to him into the Prologue to the fifth act of _Henry V_. -England received her victorious King, he says-- - - "As, by a lower but loving likelihood. - Were now the general of our gracious empress - (As, in good time, he may) from Ireland coming, - Bringing rebellion broached on his sword, - How many would the peaceful city quit, - To welcome him!" - -We have seen, moreover, how early and how intimate was his connection -with the young Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated the only two -books which he himself gave to the press. - -It must have been from young aristocrats such as these that Shakespeare -acquired his aristocratic method of regarding the course of history. -How else could he regard it? A large part of the middle class was -hostile to him, despised his calling, and treated him as one outside -the pale; the clergy condemned and persecuted him; the common people -were in his eyes devoid of judgment. The ordinary life of his day did -not, on the whole, appeal to him. We find him totally opposed to the -realistic dramatisation of everyday scenes and characters, to which -many contemporary poets devoted themselves. This sort of truth to -nature was foreign to him, so foreign that he suffered for lack of -it. Towards the close of his artistic career he was outstripped in -popularity by the realists of the day. - -His heroes are princes and noblemen, the kings and barons of England. -It is always they, in his eyes, who make history, of which he shows -throughout a naïvely heroic conception. In the wars which he presents, -it is always an individual leader and hero on whom everything depends. -It is Henry V. who wins the day at Agincourt, just as in Homer it is -Achilles who conquers before Troy. Yet the whole issue of these wars -depended upon the foot-soldiers. It was the English archers, 14,000 in -number, who at Agincourt defeated the French army of 50,000 men, with -a loss of only 1600, as against 10,000 on the other side. Shakespeare -certainly did not divine that it was the rise of the middle classes and -their spirit of enterprise that constituted the strength of England -under Elizabeth. He regarded his age from the point of view of the man -who was accustomed to see in richly endowed and princely young noblemen -the very crown of humanity, the patrons of all lofty effort, and the -originators of all great achievements. And, with his necessarily scanty -historic culture, he saw bygone periods, of Roman as well as of English -history, in the same light as his own times. - -This tendency appears already in the second part of _Henry VI._ Note -the picture of Jack Cade's rebellion (iv. 2), which contains some -inimitable touches:-- - - "_Cade_. Be brave then; for your captain is brave, and vows - reformation. There shall be in England seven halfpenny - loaves sold for a penny; the three-hooped pot shall have - ten hoops; and I will make it felony to drink small beer. - All the realm shall be in common, and in Cheapside shall my - palfrey go to grass. And, when I am king (as king I will - be),-- - - "_All_. God save your majesty! - - "_Cade_. I thank you, good people:--there shall be no money; - all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them - all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and - worship me their lord. - - "_Dick_. The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. - - "_Cade_. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable - thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made - parchment? that parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo - a man? - . . . . . . . . . . . . - - "_Enter some, bringing in the Clerk of Chatham_. - - "_Smith_. The clerk of Chatham: he can write and read, and - cast accompt. - - "_Cade_. O monstrous! - - "_Smith_. We took him setting of boys' copies. - - "_Cade_. Here's a villain! - - "_Smith_. Has a book in his pocket, with red letters in't. - . . . . . . . . . . . - - "_Cade_. Let me alone.--Dost thou use to write thy name, or - hast thou a mark to thyself, like an honest plain-dealing - man? - - "_Clerk_. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up, - that I can write my name. - - "_All_. He hath confessed: away with him! he's a villain and - a traitor. - - "_Cade_. Away with him, I say: hang him with his pen and - ink-horn about his neck." - -What is so remarkable and instructive in these brilliant scenes is that -Shakespeare here, quite against his custom, departs from his authority. -In Holinshed, Jack Cade and his followers do not appear at all as the -crazy Calibans whom Shakespeare depicts. The chief of their grievances, -in fact, was that the King alienated the crown revenues and lived on -the taxes; and, moreover, they complained of abuses of all sorts in the -execution of the laws and the raising of revenue. The third article -of their memorial stands in striking contrast to their action in the -play; for it points out that nobles of royal blood (probably meaning -York) are excluded from the King's "dailie presence," while he gives -advancement to "other meane persons of lower nature," who close the -King's ears to the complaints of the country, and distribute favours, -not according to law, but for gifts and bribes. Moreover, they complain -of interferences with freedom of election, and, in short, express -themselves quite temperately and constitutionally. Finally, in more -than one passage of the complaint, they give utterance to a thoroughly -English and patriotic resentment of the loss of Normandy, Gascony, -Aquitaine, Anjou, and Maine. - -But it did not at all suit Shakespeare to show a Jack Cade at the head -of a popular movement of this sort. He took no interest in anything -constitutional or parliamentary. In order to find the colours he wanted -for the rebellion, he hunts up in Stow's _Summarie of the Chronicles -of England_ the picture of Wat Tyler's and Jack Straw's risings under -Richard II., two outbursts of wild communistic enthusiasm, reinforced -by religious fanaticism. From this source he borrows, almost word for -word, some of the rebels' speeches. In these risings, as a matter of -fact, all "men of law, justices, and jurors" who fell into the hands of -the leaders were beheaded, and all records and muniments burnt, so that -owners of property might not in future have the means of establishing -their rights. - -This contempt for the judgment of the masses, this anti-democratic -conviction, having early taken possession of Shakespeare's mind, he -keeps on instinctively seeking out new evidences an its favour, new -testimonies to its truth; and therefore he transforms facts, where they -do not suit his view, on the model of other facts which do. - - -[1] See Appendix to _Diary of Philip Henslowe_ (Shakspere -Society's Publications). - -[2] A figure of Hercules with the globe on his shoulders served -as sign to the Globe Theatre. - - - - - -XVI - -_THE THEATRES CLOSED ON ACCOUNT OF THE PLAGUE--DID SHAKESPEARE VISIT -ITALY?--PASSAGES WHICH FAVOUR THIS CONJECTURE_ - -From the autumn of 1592 until the summer of 1593 all the London -theatres were closed. That frightful scourge, the plague, from which -England had so long been free, was raging in the capital. Even the -sittings of the Law Courts had to be suspended. At Christmas 1592 the -Queen refrained from ordering any plays at court, and the Privy Council -had at an earlier date issued a proclamation forbidding all public -theatrical performances, on the reasonable ground that convalescents, -weary of their long confinement, made haste to resort to such -entertainments before they were properly out of quarantine, and thus -spread the contagion. - -The matter has a particular bearing upon the biography of Shakespeare, -since, if he ever travelled on the continent of Europe, it was probably -at this period, while the theatres were closed. - -That it must have been now, if ever, there can be no great doubt. But -it remains exceedingly difficult to determine whether Shakespeare ever -crossed the Channel. - -We have noticed what an attraction Italy possessed for him, even from -the beginning of his career. To this _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_ and -_Romeo and Juliet_ bear witness. But in these plays we as yet find -nothing which points definitely to the conclusion that the poet had -seen with his own eyes the country in which his action is placed. It is -different with the dramas of Italian scene which Shakespeare produces -about the year 1596--the adaptation of the old _Taming of a Shrew_ -and _The Merchant of Venice_; it is different, too, with _Othello_, -which comes much later. Here we find definite local colour, with such -an abundance of details pointing to actual vision that it is hard to -account for them otherwise than by assuming a visit on the poet's part -to such cities as Verona, Venice, and Pisa. - -It is on the face of it highly probable that Shakespeare should wish to -see Italy as soon as he could find an opportunity. To the Englishman -of that day Italy was the goal of every longing. It was the great home -of culture. Men studied its literature and imitated its poetry. It was -the beautiful land where dwelt the joy of life. Venice in especial -exercised a fascination stronger than that of Paris. It needed no great -wealth to make a pilgrimage to Italy. One could travel inexpensively, -perhaps on foot, like that Coryat who discovered the use of the fork; -one could pass the night at cheap hostelries. Many of the distinguished -men of the time are known to have visited Italy--men of science, like -Bacon, and afterwards Harvey; authors and poets like Lyly, Munday, -Nash, Greene, and Daniel, the form of whose sonnets determined that -of Shakespeare's. Among the artists of Shakespeare's time, the -widely-travelled Inigo Jones had made a stay in Italy. Most of these -men have themselves given us some account of their travels; but as -Shakespeare has left us no biographical records whatever, the absence -of any direct mention of such a journey on his part is of little -moment, if other significant facts can be adduced in its favour. - -And such facts are not wanting. - -There were in Shakespeare's time no guide-books for the use of -travellers. What he knows, then, of foreign lands and their customs he -cannot have gathered from such sources. Of Venice, which Shakespeare -has so livingly depicted, no description was published in England until -after he had written his _Merchant of Venice_. Lewkenor's description -of the city (itself a mere compilation at second hand) dates from 1598, -Coryat's from 1611, Moryson's from 1617. - -In Shakespeare's _Taming of the Shrew_, we notice with surprise not -only the correctness of the Italian names, but the remarkable way -in which, at the very beginning of the play, several Italian cities -and districts are characterised in a single phrase. Lombardy is "the -pleasant garden of great Italy;" Pisa is "renowned for grave citizens;" -and here the epithet "grave" is especially noteworthy, since many -testimonies concur to show that it was particularly characteristic -of the inhabitants of Pisa. C. A. Brown, in _Shakespeare's -Autobiographical Poems,_ has pointed out the remarkable form of the -betrothal of Petruchio and Katherine (namely, that her father joins -their hands in the presence of two witnesses), and observes that this -form was not English, but peculiarly Italian. It is not to be found in -the older play, the scene of which, however, is laid in Athens. - -Special attention was long ago directed to the following speech at the -end of the second act, where Gremio reckons up all the goods and gear -with which his house is stocked:-- - - "First, as you know, my house within the city - Is richly furnished with plate and gold: - Basins, and ewers, to lave her dainty hands; - My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry; - In ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns; - In cypress chests my arras, counterpoints, - Costly apparel, tents, and canopies, - Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl, - Valance of Venice gold in needlework, - Pewter and Iprass, and all things that belong - To house, or housekeeping." - -Lady Morgan long ago remarked that she had seen literally all of these -articles of luxury in the palaces of Venice, Genoa, and Florence. Miss -Martineau, in ignorance alike of Brown's theory and Lady Morgan's -observation, expressed to Shakespeare's biographer, Charles Knight, her -feeling that the local colour of _The Taming of the Shrew_ and _The -Merchant of Venice_ displays such an intimate acquaintance, not only -with the manners and customs of Italy, but with the minutest details -of domestic life, that it cannot possibly have been gleaned from books -or from mere conversations with this man or that who happened to have -floated in a gondola. - -On such a question as this, the decided impressions of feminine readers -are not without a certain weight. - -Brown has pointed out as specifically Italian such small traits as -Iago's scoffing at the Florentine Cassio as "a great arithmetician," "a -counter-caster," the Florentines being noted as masters of arithmetic -and bookkeeping. Another such trait is the present of a dish of pigeons -which Gobbo, in _The Merchant of Venice,_ brings to his son's master. - -Karl Elze, who has strongly insisted upon the probability of -Shakespeare's having travelled Italy in the year 1593, dwells -particularly upon his apparent familiarity with Venice. The name of -Gobbo is a genuine Venetian name, and suggests, moreover, the kneeling -stone figure, "Il Gobbo di Rialto," that forms the base of the -granite pillar to which, in former days, the decrees of the Republic -were affixed. Shakespeare knew that the Exchange was held on the -Rialto island. An especially weighty argument lies in the fact that -the study of the Jewish nature, to which his Shylock bears witness, -would have been impossible in England, where no Jews were permitted -by law to reside since their expulsion, begun in the time of Richard -Cœur-de-Lion, and completed in 1290. Not until Cromwell's time was the -embargo removed in a few cases. On the other hand, there were in Venice -more than eleven hundred Jews (according to Coryat, as many as from -five to six thousand).[1] - -One of the most striking details as regards _The Merchant of Venice_ -is this: Portia sends her servant Balthasar with an important message -to Padua, and orders him to ride quickly and meet her at "the common -ferry which trades to Venice." Now Portia's palace at Belmont may be -conceived as one of the summer residences, rich in art treasures, which the -merchant princes of Venice at that time possessed on the banks of the -Brenta. From Dolo, on the Brenta, it is twenty miles to Venice--just -the distance which Portia says that she must "measure" in order to -reach the city. If we conceive Belmont as situated at Dolo, it would be -just possible for the servant to ride rapidly to Padua, and on the way -back to overtake Portia, who would travel more slowly, at the ferry, -which was then at Fusina, at the mouth of the Brenta. How exactly -Shakespeare knew this, and how uncommon the knowledge was in his day, -is shown in the expressions he uses, and in the misunderstanding of -these expressions on the part of his printers and editors. The lines in -the fourth scene of the third act, as they appear in all the Quartos -and Folios, are these:-- - - "Bring them, I pray thee, with imagined speed - Unto the tranect, to the common ferry, - Which trades to Venice." - -"Tranect," which means nothing, is, of course, a misprint for -"traject," an uncommon expression which the printers clearly did not -understand. This, as Elze has pointed out, is simply the Venetian word -_traghetto_ (Italian _tragitto_). How should Shakespeare have known -either of the word or the thing if he had not been on the spot? - -Other details in the second of these plays, written immediately after -his conjectured return, strengthen this impression. In the Induction to -_The Taming of the Shrew_, where the nobleman proposes to show Sly his -pictures, there occur the lines:-- - - "We'll show thee Io as she was a maid, - And how she was beguiled and surpris'd, - As lively painted as the deed was done." - -These lines, as Elze has justly urged, convey the impression that -Shakespeare had seen Correggio's famous picture of Jupiter and Io. This -is quite possible if he travelled in North Italy at the time suggested, -for from 1585 to 1600 the picture was in the palace of the sculptor -Leoni at Milan, and was constantly visited by travellers. If we add -that Shakespeare's numerous references to sea-voyages, storms at sea, -the agonies of sea-sickness, &c., together with his illustrations and -metaphors borrowed from provisions and dress at sea,[2] point to his -having made a sea-passage of some length,[3] we cannot but regard it -as highly probable that he possessed a closer knowledge of Italy than -could be gained from oral descriptions and from books. - -It is impossible, however, to arrive at any certainty on the point. -His pictures of Italy are sometimes notably lacking in traits which -could scarcely have been overlooked by one who knew the places. And -the reader cannot but feel a certain scepticism when he observes -how scholars have converted every seeming piece of ignorance on -Shakespeare's part into a proof of his miraculous knowledge. - -In virtue of this determination to make every apparent blot in -Shakespeare redound to his advantage, it could be shown that he had -been in Italy before he began to write plays at all. In _The Two -Gentlemen of Verona_ it is said that Valentine takes ship at Verona to -go to Milan. This seems to betray a gross ignorance of the geography -of Italy. Karl Elze, however, has discovered that in the sixteenth -century Verona and Milan were actually connected by a canal. In _Romeo -and Juliet_ the heroine says to Friar Laurence, "Shall I come again -at evening mass?" This sounds strange, as the Catholic Church knows -nothing of evening masses; but R. Simpson has discovered that they were -actually in use at that time, and especially in Verona. Shakespeare -probably knew no more of these details than he did of the fact that, -about 1270, Bohemia possessed provinces on the Adriatic, so that he -could with an easy conscience accept from Greene the voyage to the -coast of Bohemia in _The Winter's Tale_. - -On the whole, scholars have been far too eager to find confirmation -of every trivial detail in Shakespeare's allusions to Italian -localities. Knight, for instance, declared that "the Sagittary," -mentioned in _Othello_," was the residence at the arsenal of the -commanding officers of the navy and army of the Republic," and that -Shakespeare had "probably looked upon" the figure of an archer over -the gates; whereas it now appears that the commanding officer never -had any residence in the arsenal, and that no figure of an archer ever -existed there. Elze, again, has gone into most uncritical raptures over -Shakespeare's marvellously exact characterisation of Giulio Romano -_The Winter's Tale_, (v. 2) as that "rare Italian master who, had he -himself eternity, and could put breath into his works, would beguile -Nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape." As a matter of -fact, Shakespeare has simply attributed to an artist whose fame had -reached his ears that characteristic which, as we have seen above, -he regarded as the highest in pictorial art. Giulio Romano, with his -crude superficiality, could not possibly have aroused his admiration -had he known his work. That he did not know it is sufficiently evident -from the fact that he has made him a sculptor, and praised him in that -capacity, and not as a painter. - -Elze, confronted with this fact, takes refuge in a Latin epitaph on -Romano, quoted by Vasari, which speaks of "Corpora sculpta pictaque" -by him, and here again finds a testimony to Shakespeare's omniscience, -since he knew of works of sculpture by Romano which no one else has -seen or heard of. We can only see in this a new proof of the fact that -critical idolatry of departed greatness can now and then lead the -student as far astray as uncritical prejudice. - - -[1] A very few Jews were, indeed, tolerated in England in -spite of the prohibition, but it is not probable that Shakespeare knew -any of them. - -[2] See _Pericles, The Tempest, Cymbeline_ (i. 7), _As You -Like It_ (ii. 7), _Hamlet_ (v. 2). - -[3] It must be remembered that the sea route to Italy was -practically closed by Spanish cruisers. - - - - -XVII - -_SHAKESPEARE TURNS TO HISTORIC DRAMA--HIS RICHARD II. AND MARLOWE'S -EDWARD II.--LACK OF HUMOUR AND OF CONSISTENCY OF STYLE--ENGLISH -NATIONAL PRIDE_ - -About the age of thirty, even men of an introspective disposition -are apt to turn their gaze outwards. When Shakespeare approaches his -thirtieth year, he begins to occupy himself in earnest with history, -to read the chronicles, to project and work out a whole series of -historical plays. Several years had now passed since he had revised -and furbished up the old dramas on the subject of Henry VI. This task -had whetted his appetite, and had cultivated his sense for historic -character and historic nemesis. Having now given expression to the high -spirits, the lyrism, and the passion of youth, in lyrical and dramatic -productions of scintillant diversity, he once more turned his attention -to the history of England. In so doing he obeyed a dual vocation, both -as a poet and as a patriot. - -Shakespeare's plays founded on English history number ten in all, four -dealing with the House of Lancaster (_Richard II._, the two parts of -_Henry IV._ and _Henry V._) four devoted to the House of York (the -three parts of _Henry VI._ and _Richard III._), and two which stand -apart from the main series, _King John,_ of an earlier historic period, -and _Henry VIII._, of a later. - -The order of production of these plays is, however, totally unconnected -with their historical order, which does not, therefore, concern us. At -the same time it is worthy of remark that all these plays (with the -single exception of _Henry VIII._) were produced in the course of one -decade, the decade in which England's national sentiment burst into -flower and her pride was at its highest. These English "histories" -are, however, of very unequal value, and can by no means be treated as -standing on one plane. - -_Henry VI._ was a first attempt and a mere adaptation. Now, in the year -1594, Shakespeare attacks the theme of _Richard II.;_ and in this, -his first independent historical drama, we see his originality still -struggling with the tendency to imitation. - -There were older plays on the subject of _Richard II._, but Shakespeare -does not seem to have made any use of them. The model he had in his -mind's eye was Marlowe's finest tragedy, his _Edward II._ Shakespeare's -play is, however, much more than a clever imitation of Marlowe's; it is -not only better composed, with a more concentrated action, but has also -a great advantage in the full-blooded vitality of its style. Marlowe's -style is here monotonously dry and sombre. Swinburne, moreover, has -done Shakespeare an injustice in preferring Marlowe's character-drawing -to that of _Richard II_. - -The first half of Marlowe's drama is entirely taken up with the King's -morbid and unnatural passion for his favourite Gaveston; Edward's -every speech either expresses his grief at Gaveston's banishment and -his longing for his return, or consists of glowing outbursts of joy -on seeing him again. This passion makes Edward dislike his Queen and -loathe the Barons, who, in their aristocratic pride, contemn the -low-born favourite. He will risk everything rather than part from one -who is so dear to himself and so obnoxious to his surroundings. The -half-erotic fervour of his partiality renders the King's character -distasteful, and deprives him of the sympathy which the poet demands -for him at the end of the play. - -For in the fourth and fifth acts, weak and unstable though he be, -Edward has all Marlowe's sympathies. There is, indeed, something moving -in his loneliness, his grief, and his brooding self-reproach. "The -griefs," he says, - - "of private men are soon allay'd; - But not of kings. The forest deer, being struck, - Runs to an herb that closeth up the wounds: - But when the imperial lion's flesh is gor'd, - He rends and tears it with his wrathful paw." - -The simile is not true to nature, like Shakespeare's, but it forcibly -expresses the meaning of Marlowe's personage. Now and then he -reminds us of Henry VI. The Queen's relation to Mortimer recalls -that of Margaret to Suffolk. The abdication-scene, in which the King -first vehemently refuses to lay down the crown, and is then forced -to consent, gave Shakespeare the model for Richard the Second's -abdication. In the murder-scene, on the other hand, Marlowe displays -a reckless naturalism in the description and representation of the -torture inflicted on the King, an unabasheéd effect-hunting in the -contrast between the King's magnanimity, dread, and gratitude on the -one side, and the murderers' hypocritical cruelty on the other, which -Shakespeare, with his gentler nature and his almost modern tact, has -rejected. It is true that we find in Shakespeare several cases in -which the severed head of a person whom we have seen alive a moment -before is brought upon the stage. But he would never place before the -eyes of the public such a murder-scene as this, in which the King is -thrown down upon a feather-bed, a table is overturned upon him, and the -murderers trample upon it until he is crushed. - -Marlowe's more callous nature betrays itself in such details, while -something of his own wild and passionate temperament has passed into -the minor characters of the play--the violent Barons, with the younger -Mortimer at their head--who are drawn with a firm hand. The time had -scarcely passed when a murder was reckoned an absolute necessity in a -drama. In 1581, Wilson, one of Lord Leicester's men, received an order -for a play which should not only be original and entertaining, but -should also include "all sorts of murders, immorality, and robberies." - -_Richard II._ is one of those plays of Shakespeare's which have never -taken firm hold of the stage. Its exclusively political action and -its lack of female characters are mainly to blame for this. But it is -exceedingly interesting as his first attempt at independent treatment -of a historical theme, and it rises far above the play which served as -its model. - -The action follows pretty faithfully the course of history as the poet -found it in Holinshed's Chronicle. The character of the Queen, however, -is quite unhistorical, being evidently invented by Shakespeare for the -sake of having a woman in his play. He wanted to gain sympathy for -Richard through his wife's devotion to him, and saw an opportunity for -pathos in her parting from him when he is thrown into prison. In 1398, -when the play opens, Isabella of France was not yet ten years old, -though she had nominally been married to Richard in 1396. Finally, the -King's end, fighting bravely, sword in hand, is not historical: he was -starved to death in prison, in order that his body might be exhibited -without any wound. - -Shakespeare has vouchsafed no indication to facilitate the spectators' -understanding of the characters in this play. Their action often takes -us by surprise. But Swinburne has done Shakespeare a great wrong in -making this a reason for praising Marlowe at his expense, and exalting -the subordinate characters in _Edward II._ as consistent pieces of -character-drawing, while he represents as inconsistent and obscure such -a personage as Shakespeare's York. We may admit that in the opening -scene Norfolk's figure is not quite clear, but here all obscurity ends. -York is self-contradictory, unprincipled, vacillating, composite, and -incoherent, but in no sense obscure. He in the first place upbraids -the King with his faults, then accepts at his hands an office of the -highest confidence, then betrays the King's trust, while he at the same -time overwhelms the rebel Bolingbroke with reproaches, then admires -the King's greatness in his fall, then hastens his dethronement, and -finally, in virtuous indignation over Aumerle's plots against the new -King, rushes to him to assure him of his fidelity and to clamour for -the blood of his own son. There lies at the root of this conception -a profound political bitterness and an early-acquired experience. -Shakespeare must have studied attentively that portion of English -history which lay nearest to him, the shufflings and vacillations that -went on under Mary and Elizabeth, in order to have received so deep an -impression of the pitifulness of political instability. - -The character of old John of Gaunt, loyal to his King, but still -more to his country, gives Shakespeare his first opportunity for -expressing his exultation over England's greatness and his pride in -being an Englishman. He places in the mouth of the dying Gaunt a -superbly lyrical outburst of patriotism, deploring Richard's reckless -and tyrannical policy. All comparison with Marlowe is here at an end. -Shakespeare's own voice makes itself clearly heard in the rhetoric of -this speech, which, with its self-controlled vehemence, its equipoise -in unrest, soars high above Marlowe's wild magniloquence. In the -thunderous tones of old Gaunt's invective against the King who has -mortgaged his English realm, we can hear all the patriotic enthusiasm -of young England in the days of Elizabeth:-- - - "This royal throne of kings, this sceptr'd isle, - This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, - This other Eden, demi-paradise, - This fortress, built by Nature for herself, - Against infection, and the hand of war; - This happy breed of men, this little world, - This precious stone set in the silver sea, - Which serves it in the office of a wall, - Or as a moat defensive to a house, - Against the envy of less happier lands; - This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, - This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, - Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth, - . . . . . . . . . . - This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land, - Dear for her reputation through the world, - Is now leas'd out, I die pronouncing it, - Like to a tenement, or pelting farm. - England, bound in with the triumphant sea, - Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege - Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, - With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds: - That England, that was wont to conquer others, - Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. - Ah! would the scandal vanish with my life, - How happy then were my ensuing death!" (ii. I). - -Here we have indeed the roar of the young lion, the vibration of -Shakespeare's own voice. - -But it is upon the leading character of the play that the poet has -centred all his strength; and he has succeeded in giving a vivid and -many-sided picture of the Black Prince's degenerate but interesting -son. As the protagonist of a tragedy, however, Richard has exactly -the same defects as Marlowe's Edward. In the first half of the play -he so repels the spectator' that nothing he can do in the second -half suffices to obliterate the unfavourable impression. Not only -has he, before the opening of the piece, committed such thoughtless -and politically indefensible acts as have proved him unworthy of the -great position he holds, but he behaves with such insolence to the -dying Gaunt, and, after his uncle's death, displays such a low and -despicable rapacity, that he can no longer appeal, as he does, to his -personal right. It is true that the right of which he holds himself -an embodiment is very different from the common earthly rights which -he has overridden. He is religiously, dogmatically convinced of his -inviolability as a king by the grace of God. But since this conviction, -in his days of prosperity, has brought with it no sense of correlative -duties to the crown he wears, it cannot touch the reader's sympathies -as it ought to for the sake of the general effect. - -We see the hand of the beginner in the way in which the poet here -leaves characters and events to speak for themselves without any -attempt to range them in a general scheme of perspective. He conceals -himself too entirely behind his work. As there is no gleam of humour in -the play, so, too, there is no guiding and harmonising sense of style. - -It is from the moment that the tide begins to turn against Richard -that he becomes interesting as a psychological study. After the manner -of weak characters, he is alternately downcast and overweening. Very -characteristically, he at one place answers Bolingbroke's question -whether he is content to resign the crown: "Ay, no;--no, ay." In -these syllables we see the whole man. But his temperament was highly -poetical, and misfortune reveals in him a vein of reverie. He is -sometimes profound to the point of paradox, sometimes fantastically -overwrought to the verge of superstitious insanity (see, for instance, -Act iii. 3). His brooding melancholy sometimes reminds us of Hamlet's-- - - "Of comfort no man speak: - Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; - Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes - Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. - Let's choose executors, and talk of wills: - . . . . . . . . - For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground, - And tell sad stories of the death of kings:--How - some have been depos'd, some slain in war, - Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd. - Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd, - All murder'd:--for within the hollow crown, - That rounds the mortal temples of a king, - Keeps Death his court, and there the antick sits, - Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp; - Allowing him a breath, a little scene, - To monarchise, be fear'd, and kill with looks" (iii. 2). - -In these moods of depression, in which Richard gives his wit and -intellect free play, he knows very well that a king is only a human -being like any one else:-- - - "For you have but mistook me all this while: - I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief, - Need friends. Subjected thus, - How can you say to me, I am a king?" (iii. 2). - -But at other times, when his sense of majesty and his monarchical -fanaticism master him, he speaks in a quite different tone:-- - - "Not all the water in the rough rude sea - Can wash the balm from an anointed king; - The breath of worldly men cannot depose - The deputy elected by the Lord. - For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd, - To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown, - God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay - A glorious angel" (iii. 2). - -Thus, too, at their first meeting (iii. 3) he addresses the victorious -Henry of Hereford, to whom he immediately after "debases himself":-- - - "My master, God omnipotent. - Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf - Armies of pestilence; and they shall strike - Your children yet unborn, and unbegot, - That lift your vassal hands against my head, - And threat the glory of my precious crown." - -Many centuries after Richard, King Frederick William IV. of Prussia -displayed just the same mingling of intellectuality, superstition, -despondency, monarchical arrogance, and fondness for declamation. - -In the fourth and fifth acts, the character of Richard and the poet's -art rise to their highest point. The scene in which the groom, who -alone has remained faithful to the fallen King, visits him in his -dungeon, is one of penetrating beauty. What can be more touching than -his description of how the "roan Barbary," which had been Richard's -favourite horse, carried Henry of Lancaster on his entry into London, -"so proudly as if he had disdained the ground." The Arab steed here -symbolises with fine simplicity the attitude of all those who had -sunned themselves in the prosperity of the now fallen King. - -The scene of the abdication (iv. I) is admirable by reason of the -delicacy of feeling and imagination which Richard displays. His speech -when he and Henry have each one hand upon the crown is one of the most -beautiful Shakespeare has ever written:-- - - "Now is this golden crown like a deep well, - That owes two buckets filling one another; - The emptier ever dancing in the air, - The other down, unseen, and full of water: - That bucket down, and full of tears, am I, - Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high." - -This scene is, however, a downright imitation of the abdication-scene -in Marlowe. When Northumberland in Shakespeare addresses the dethroned -King with the word "lord," the King answers, "No lord of thine." In -Marlowe the speech is almost identical: "Call me not lord!" - -The Shakespearian scene, it should be mentioned, has its history. The -censorship under Elizabeth would not suffer it to be printed, and it -first appears in the Fourth Quarto, of 1608.[1] The reason of this -veto was that Elizabeth, strange as it may appear, was often compared -with Richard II. The action of the censorship renders it probable that -it was Shakespeare's _Richard II._ (and not one of the earlier plays -on the same theme) which, as appears in the trial of Essex, was acted -by the Lord Chamberlain's Company before the conspirators, at their -leaders' command, on the evening before the outbreak of the rebellion -(February 7, 1601). There is nothing inconsistent with this theory in -the fact that the players then called it an old play, which was already -"out of use;" for the interval between 1593-94 and 1601 was sufficient, -according to the ideas of that time, to render a play antiquated. Nor -does it conflict with this view that in the last scenes of the play -the King is sympathetically treated. On the very points on which he -was comparable with Elizabeth there could be no doubt that he was in -the wrong; while Henry of Hereford figures in the end as the bearer of -England's future, and, for the not over-sensitive nerves of the period, -that was sufficient. He, who was soon to play a leading part in two -other Shakespearian dramas, is here endowed with all the qualities -of the successful usurper and ruler: cunning and insight, power of -dissimulation, ingratiating manners, and promptitude in action. - -In a single speech (v. 3) the new-made Henry IV. sketches the character -of his "unthrifty son," Shakespeare's hero: he passes his time in -the taverns of London with riotous boon-companions, who now and then -even rob travellers on the highway; but, being no less daring than -dissolute, he gives certain "sparks of hope" for a nobler future. - - -[1] Its title runs, "The Tragedie of King Richard the Second: -with new additions of the Parliament Sceane, and the deposing of -King Richard, As it hath been lately acted by the Kinges Maiesties -Seruantes, at the Globe. By William Shake-speare. At London. Printed -by W. W. For Mathew Law, and are to be sold at his shop in Paules -Church-yard, at the Signe of the Foxe. 1608." - - - - -XVIII - -_RICHARD III. PSYCHOLOGY AND MONOLOGUES--SHAKESPEARE'S POWER OF -SELF-TRANSFORMATION--CONTEMPT FOR WOMEN--THE PRINCIPAL SCENES--THE -CLASSIC TENDENCY OF THE TRAGEDY_ - -In the year 1594-95 Shakespeare returns to the material which passed -through his hands during his revision of the Second and Third Parts of -_Henry VI_. He once more takes up the character of Richard of York, -there so firmly outlined; and, as in _Richard II._ he had followed in -Marlowe's footsteps, so he now sets to work with all his might upon -a Marlowesque figure, but only to execute it with his own vigour, -and around it to construct his first historic tragedy with well-knit -dramatic action. The earlier "histories" were still half epical; this -is a true drama. It quickly became one of the most effective and -popular pieces on the stage, and has imprinted itself on the memory of -all the world in virtue of the monumental character of its protagonist. - -The immediate occasion of Shakespeare's taking up this theme was -probably the fact that in the year 1594 an old and worthless play on -the subject was published under the title of _The True Tragedy of -Richard III_. The publication of this play may have been clue to the -renewed interest in its hero awakened by the performances of _Henry VI._ - -It is impossible to assign a precise date to Shakespeare's play. The -first Quarto of _Richard II._ was entered in the Stationers' Register -oh the 29th August 1597, and the first edition of _Richard III_. was -entered on the 20th October of the same year. But there is no doubt -that its earliest form is of much older date. The diversities in its -style indicate that Shakespeare worked over the text even before it was -first printed; and the difference between the text of the first Quarto -and that of the first Folio bears witness to a radical revision having -taken place in the interval between the two editions. It is certainly -to this play that John Weever alludes when, in his poem, _Ad Gulielmum -Shakespeare,_ written as early as 1595, he mentions Richard among the -poet's creations. - -From the old play of _Richard III_. Shakespeare took nothing at all, -or, to be precise, possibly one or two lines in the first scene of the -second act. He throughout followed Holinshed, whose Chronicle is here -copied word for word from Hall, who, in his turn, merely translated Sir -Thomas More's history of Richard III. We can even tell what edition -of Holinshed Shakespeare used, for he has copied a slip of the pen or -error of the press which appears in that edition alone. In Act v. scene -3, line 324, he writes:-- - - "Long kept in Bretagne at our _mother's_ cost," - -instead of _brother's_. - -The text of _Richard III_. presents no slight difficulties to the -editors of Shakespeare. Neither the first Quarto nor the greatly -amended Folio is free from gross and baffling errors. The editors -of the Cambridge Edition have attempted to show that both the texts -are taken from bad copies of the original manuscripts. It would not -surprise us, indeed, that the poet's own manuscript, being perpetually -handled by the prompter and stage-manager, should quickly become so -ragged that now one page and now another would have to be replaced -by a copy. But the Cambridge editors have certainly undervalued the -augmented and amended text of the First Folio. James Spedding has shown -in an excellent essay _(The New Shakspere Society's Transactions_, -1875-76, pp. 1-119) that the changes which some have thought accidental -and arbitrary, and therefore not the work of the poet himself, are due -to his desire, sometimes to improve the form of the verse, sometimes -to avoid the repetition of a word, sometimes to get rid of antiquated -words and turns of phrase. - -Every one who has been nurtured upon Shakespeare has from his youth -dwelt wonderingly upon the figure of Richard, that fiend in human -shape, striding, with savage impetuosity, from murder to murder, wading -through falsehood and hypocrisy to ever-new atrocities, becoming in -turn regicide, fratricide, tyrant, murderer of his wife and of his -comrades, until, besmirched with treachery and slaughter, he faces his -foes with invincible greatness. - -When J. L. Heiberg refused to produce _Richard III_. at the Royal -Theatre in Copenhagen, he expressed a doubt whether "we could ever -accustom ourselves to seeing Melpomene's dagger converted into a -butcher's knife." Like many other critics before and after him, -he took exception to the line in Richard's opening soliloquy, "I -am determined to prove a villain." He doubted, justly enough, the -psychological possibility of this phrase; but the monologue, as a -whole, is a non-realistic unfolding of secret thoughts in words, and, -with a very slight change in the form of expression, the idea is by no -means indefensible. Richard does not mean that he is determined to be -what he himself regards as criminal, but merely declares with bitter -irony that, since he cannot "prove a lover To entertain these fair -well-spoken days," he will play the part of a villain, and give the -rein to his hatred for the "idle pleasures" of the time. - -There is in the whole utterance a straightforwardness, as of a -programme, that takes us aback. Richard comes forward naïvely in the -character of Prologue, and foreshadows the matter of the tragedy. It -seems almost as though Shakespeare had determined to guard himself at -the outset against the accusation of obscurity which had possibly been -brought against his _Richard II_. But we must remember that ambitious -men in his day were less composite than in our times, and, moreover, -that he was not here depicting even one of his own contemporaries, -but a character which appeared to his imagination in the light of a -historical monster, from whom his own age was separated by more than a -century. His Richard is like an old portrait, dating from the time when -the physiognomy of dangerous, no less than of noble, characters was -simpler, and when even intellectual eminence was still accompanied by a -bull-necked vigour of physique such as in later times we find only in -the savage chieftains of distant corners of the world. - -It is against such figures as this of Richard that the critics who -contest Shakespeare's rank as a psychologist are fondest of directing -their attacks. But Shakespeare was no miniature-painter. Minutely -detailed psychological painting, such as in our days Dostoyevsky has -given us, was not his affair; though, as he proved in _Hamlet_, he -could on occasion grapple with complex characters. Even here, however, -he gets his effect of complexity, not by unravelling a tangle of -motives, but by producing the impression of an inward infinity in the -character. It is clear that, in his age, he had not often the chance of -observing how circumstances, experience, and changing conditions cut -and polish a personality into shimmering facets. With the exception of -Hamlet, who in some respects stands alone, his characters have sides -indeed, but not facets. - -Take, for instance, this Richard. Shakespeare builds him up from a -few simple characteristics: deformity, the potent consciousness of -intellectual superiority, and the lust for power. His whole personality -can be traced back to these simple elements. - -He is courageous out of self-esteem; he plays the lover out of -ambition; he is cunning and false, a comedian and a blood-hound, -as cruel as he is hypocritical--and all in order to attain to that -despotism on which he has set his heart. - -Shakespeare found in Holinshed's Chronicle certain fundamental traits: -Richard was born with teeth, and could bite before he could smile; he -was ugly; he had one shoulder higher than another; he was malicious and -witty; he was a daring and open-handed general; he loved secrecy; he -was false and hypocritical out of ambition, cruel out of policy. - -All this Shakespeare simplifies and exaggerates, as every artist must. -Delacroix has finely said, "_L'art, c'est l'exagération à propos."_ - -The Richard of the tragedy is deformed; he is undersized and crooked, -has a hump on his back and a withered arm. - -He is not, like so many other hunchbacks, under any illusion as to his -appearance. He does not think himself handsome, nor is he loved by the -daughters of Eve, in whom deformity is so apt to awaken that instinct -of pity which is akin to love. - -No, Richard feels himself maltreated by Nature; from his birth upwards -he has suffered wrong at her hands, and in spite of his high and -strenuous spirit, he has grown up an outcast. He has from the first -had to do without his mother's love, and to listen to the gibes of -his enemies. Men have pointed at his shadow and laughed. The dogs -have barked at him as he halted by. But in this luckless frame dwells -an ambitious soul. Other people's paths to happiness and enjoyment -are closed to him. But he will rule; for that he was born. Power is -everything to him, his fixed idea. Power alone can give him his revenge -upon the people around him, whom he hates, or despises, or both. The -glory of the diadem shall rest upon the head that crowns this misshapen -body. He sees its golden splendour afar off. Many lives stand between -him and his goal; but he will shrink from no falsehood, no treachery, -no bloodshed, if only he can reach it. - -Into this character Shakespeare transforms himself in imagination. It -is the mark of the dramatic poet to be always able to get out of his -own skin and into another's. But in later times some of the greatest -dramatists have shrunk shuddering from the out-and-out criminal, as -being too remote from them. For example, Goethe. His wrong-doers are -only weaklings, like Weislingen or Clavigo; even his Mephistopheles -is not really evil. Shakespeare, on the other hand, made the effort -to feel like Richard. How did he set about it? Exactly as we do when -we strive to understand another personality; for example, Shakespeare -himself. He imagines himself into him; that is to say, he projects his -mind into the other's body and lives in it for the time being. The -question the poet has to answer is always this: How should I feel and -act if I were a prince, a woman, a conqueror, an outcast, and so forth? - -Shakespeare takes, as his point of departure, the ignominy inflicted by -Nature; Richard is one of Nature's victims. How can Shakespeare feel -with him here--Shakespeare, to whom deformity of body was unknown, -and who had been immoderately favoured by Nature? But he, too, had -long endured humiliation, and had lived under mean conditions which -afforded no scope either to his will or to his talents. Poverty is -itself a deformity; and the condition of an actor was a blemish like a -hump on his back. Thus he is in a position to enter with ease into the -feelings of one of Nature's victims. He has simply to give free course -to all the moods in his own mind which have been evoked by personal -humiliation, and to let them ferment and run riot. - -Next comes the consciousness of superiority in Richard, and the lust -of power which springs from it. Shakespeare cannot have lacked the -consciousness of his personal superiority, and, like every man of -genius, he must have had the lust of power in his soul, at least as -a rudimentary organ. Ambitious he must assuredly have been, though -not after the fashion of the actors and dramatists of our day. Their -mere jugglery passes for art, while his art was regarded by the great -majority as mere jugglery. His artistic self-esteem received a check in -its growth; but none the less there was ambition behind the tenacity -of purpose which in a few years raised him from a servitor in the -theatre to a shareholder and director, and which led him to develop -the greatest productive talent of his country, till he outshone all -rivals in his calling, and won the appreciation of the leaders of -fashion and taste. He now transposed into another sphere of life, that -of temporal rule, a habit of mind which was his own. The instinct -of his soul, which never suffered him to stop or pause, but forced -him from one great intellectual achievement to another, restlessly -onward from masterpiece to masterpiece--the fierce instinct, with its -inevitable egoism, which led him in his youth to desert his family, in -his maturity to amass property without any tenderness for his debtors, -and _(per fas et nefas_) to attain his modest patent of gentility--this -instinct enables him to understand and feel that passion for power -which defies and tramples upon every scruple. And all the other -characteristics (for example, the hypocrisy, which in the Chronicle -holds the foremost place) he uses as mere instruments in the service of -ambition. - -Note how he has succeeded in individualising this passion. It is -hereditary. In the Second Part of _Henry VI_. (iii. I) Richard's -father, the Duke of York, says-- - - "Let pale-fac'd fear keep with the mean-born man, - And find no harbour in a royal heart. - Faster than spring-time showers comes thought on thought, - And not a thought but thinks on dignity. - . . . . . . . . - Well, nobles, well; 't is politicly done, - To send me packing with an host of men: - I fear me, you but warm the starved snake, - Who, cherish'd in your breasts, will sting your hearts." - -In the Third Part of _Henry VI_., Richard shows himself the true son of -his father. His brother runs after the smiles of women; he dreams only -of might and sovereignty. If there was no crown to be attained, the -world would have no joy to offer him. He says himself (iii. 2)-- - - "Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb: - And, for I should not deal in her soft laws, - She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe, - To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub; - To make an envious mountain on my back. - . . . . . . . . - To disproportion me in every part; - Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp, - That carries no impression like the dam. - And am I then a man to be belov'd? - O monstrous fault, to harbour such a thought! - Then, since this earth affords no joy to me - But to command, to check, to o'erbear such - As are of better person than myself, - I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown." - -The lust of power is an inward agony to him. He compares himself to a -man "lost in a thorny wood, That rends the thorns and is rent by the -thorns;" and he sees no way of deliverance except to "hew his way out -with a bloody axe." Thus is he tormented by his desire for the crown of -England; and to achieve it he will "drown more sailors than the mermaid -shall;... Deceive more slyly than Ulysses could;... add colours to -the chameleon;... And send the murd'rous Machiavel to school." (The -last touch is an anachronism, for Richard died fifty years before _The -Prince_ was published.) - -If this is to be a villain, then a villain he is. And for the sake -of the artistic effect, Shakespeare has piled upon Richard's head -far more crimes than the real Richard can be historically proved to -have committed. This he did, because he had no doubt of the existence -of such characters as rose before his imagination while he read in -Holinshed of Richard's misdeeds. He believed in the existence of -villains--a belief largely undermined in our days by a scepticism -which greatly facilitates the villains' operations. He has drawn -more villains than one: Edmund in _Lear_, who is influenced by his -illegitimacy as Richard is by his deformity, and the grand master of -all evil, Iago in _Othello_. - -But let us get rid of the empty by-word villain, which Richard applies -to himself. Shakespeare no doubt believed theoretically in the -free-will which can choose any course it pleases, and villainy among -the rest; but none the less does he in practice assign a cause to every -effect. - -On three scenes in this play Shakespeare evidently expended particular -care--the three which imprint themselves on the memory after even a -single attentive reading. - -The first of these scenes is that in which Richard wins over the Lady -Anne, widow of one of his victims, Prince Edward, and daughter-in-law -of another, Henry VI. Shakespeare has here carried the situation to its -utmost extremity. It is while Anne is accompanying the bier of the -murdered Henry VI. that the murderer confronts her, stops the funeral -procession with drawn sword, calmly endures all the outbursts of -hatred, loathing, and contempt with which Anne overwhelms him, and, -having shaken off her invectives like water from a duck's back, -advances his suit, plays his comedy of love, and there and then so -turns the current of her will that she allows him to hope, and even -accepts his ring. - -The scene is historically impossible, since Queen Margaret took Anne -with her in her flight after the battle of Tewkesbury, and Clarence -kept her in concealment until two years after the death of Henry VI., -when Richard discovered her in London. It has, moreover, something -astonishing, or rather bewildering, about it at the first reading, -appearing as though written for a wager or to outdo some predecessor. -Nevertheless it is by no means unnatural. What may with justice be -objected to it is that it is unprepared. The mistake is, that we are -first introduced to Anne in the scene itself, and can consequently -form no judgment as to whether her action does or does not accord with -her character. The art of dramatic writing consists almost entirely in -preparing for what is to come, and then, in spite of, nay, in virtue -of the preparation, taking the audience by surprise. Surprise without -preparation loses half its effect. - -But this is only a technical flaw which so great a master would in -riper years have remedied with ease. The essential feature of the -scene is its tremendous daring and strength, or, psychologically -speaking, the depth of early-developed contempt for womankind into -which it affords us a glimpse. For the very reason that the poet has -not given any individual characteristics to this woman, it seems as -though he would say: Such is feminine human nature. It is quite evident -that in his younger years he, was not so much alive to the beauties -of the womanly character as he became at a later period of his life. -He is fond of drawing unamiable women like Adriana in _The Comedy of -Errors,_ violent and corrupt women like Tamora in _Titus Andronicus_, -and Margaret in _Henry VI_., or scolding women like Katherine in _The -Taming of the Shrew_. Here he gives us a picture of peculiarly feminine -weakness, and personifies in Richard his own contempt for it. - -Exasperate a woman against you (he seems to say), do her all the -evil you can think of, kill her husband, deprive her thereby of -the succession to a crown, fill her to overflowing with hatred and -execration--then if you can only cajole her into believing that in all -you have done, crimes and everything, you have been actuated simply -and solely by burning passion for her, by the hope of approaching her -and winning her hand--why, then the game is yours, and sooner or later -she will give in. Her vanity cannot hold out. If it is proof against -ten measures of flattery, it will succumb to a hundred; and if even -that is not enough, then pile on more. Every woman has a price at -which her vanity is for sale; you have only to dare greatly and bid -high enough. So Shakespeare makes this crook-backed assassin accept -Anne's insults without winking and retort upon them his declaration of -love--he at once seems less hideous in her eyes from the fact that his -crimes were committed for her sake. Shakespeare makes him hand her his -drawn sword, to pierce him to the heart if she will; he is sure enough -that she will do nothing of the sort. She cannot withstand the intense -volition in his glance; he hypnotises her hatred; the exaltation with -which his lust of power inspires him bewilders and overpowers her, and -he becomes almost beautiful in her eyes when he bares his breast to -her revenge. She yields to him under the influence of an attraction in -which are mingled dizziness, terror, and perverted sensuality. His very -hideousness becomes a stimulus the more. There is a sort of fearful -billing-and-cooing in the stichomythy in the style of the antique -tragedy, which begins:-- - - "_Anne_. I would I knew thy heart. - _Gloucester_. 'Tis figured in my tongue. - _Anne_. I fear me both are false. - _Gloucester_. Then never man was true." - -But triumph seethes in his veins-- - - "Was ever woman in this humour wooed? - Was ever woman in this humour won?" - ---triumph that he, the hunchback, the monster, has needed but to -show himself and use his polished tongue in order to stay the curses -on her lips, dry the tears in her eyes, and awaken desire in her -soul. This courtship has procured him the intoxicating sensation of -irresistibility. - -The fact of the marriage Shakespeare found in the Chronicle; and he led -up to it in this brilliant fashion because his poetic instinct told -him to make Richard great, and thereby possible as a tragic hero. In -reality, he was by no means so dæmonic. His motive for paying court to -Anne was sheer cupidity. Both Clarence and Gloucester had schemed to -possess themselves of the vast fortune left by the Earl of Warwick, -although the Countess was still alive and legally entitled to the -greater part of it. Clarence, who had married the elder daughter, was -certain of his part in the inheritance, but Richard thought that by -marrying the younger daughter, Prince Edward's widow, he would secure -the right to go halves. By aid of an Act of Parliament, the matter -was arranged so that each of the brothers received his share in the -booty. For this low rapacity in Richard, Shakespeare has substituted the -hunchback's personal exultation on finding himself a successful wooer. - -Nevertheless, it was not his intention to represent Richard as superior -to all feminine wiles. This opening scene has its counterpart in the -passage (iv. 4) where the King, after having rid himself by poison of -the wife he has thus won, proposes to Elizabeth, the widow of Edward -IV., for the hand of her daughter. - -The scene has the air of a repetition. Richard has made away with -Edward's two sons in order to clear his path to the throne. Here again, -then, the murderer woos the nearest kinswoman of his victims, and, in -this case, through the intermediary of their mother. Shakespeare has -lavished his whole art on this passage. Elizabeth, too, expresses the -deepest loathing for him. Richard answers that, if he has deprived her -sons of the throne, he will now make amends by raising her daughter -to it. Here also the dialogue takes the form of a stichomythy, which -clearly enough indicates that these passages belong to the earliest -form of the play:-- - - "_King Richard_. Infer fair England's peace by this alliance. - - _Queen Elizabeth_. Which she shall purchase with still - lasting war. - - _K. Rich_. Tell her, the king, that may command, entreats. - - _Q. Eliz_. That at her hands, which the kings' King forbids." - -Richard not only asserts the purity and strength of his feelings, but -insists that by this marriage alone can he be prevented from bringing -misery and destruction upon thousands in the kingdom. Elizabeth -pretends to yield, and Richard bursts forth, just as in the first act-- - - "Relenting fool, and shallow changing woman!" - -But it is he himself who is overreached. Elizabeth has only made a show -of acquiescence in order immediately after to offer her daughter to his -mortal foe. - -The second unforgetable passage is the Baynard's Castle scene in the -third act. Richard has cleared away all obstacles on his path to the -throne. His elder brother Clarence is murdered--drowned in a butt of -wine. Edward's young sons are presently to be strangled in prison. -Hastings has just been hurried to the scaffold without trial or form of -law. The thing is now to avoid all appearance of complicity in these -crimes, and to seem austerely disinterested with regard to the crown. -To this end he makes his rascally henchman, Buckingham, persuade the -simple-minded and panic-stricken Lord Mayor of London, with other -citizens of repute, to implore him, in spite of his seeming reluctance, -to mount the throne. Buckingham prepares Richard for their approach -(iii. 7):-- - - "Intend some fear; - Be not you spoke with but by mighty suit: - And look you get a prayer-book in your hand, - And stand between two churchmen, good my lord: - For on that ground I'll make a holy descant: - And be not easily won to our requests; - Play the maid's part, still answer nay, and take it." - -Then come the citizens. Catesby bids them return another time. His -grace is closeted with two right reverend fathers; he is "divinely -bent to meditation," and must not be disturbed in his devotions by any -"worldly suits." They renew their entreaties to his messenger, and -implore the favour of an audience with his grace "in matter of great -moment." - -Not till then does Gloucester show himself upon the balcony between two -bishops. - -When, at the election of 1868, which turned upon the Irish Church -question, Disraeli, a very different man from Richard, was relying on -the co-operation of both English and Irish prelates, _Punch_ depicted -him in fifteenth-century attire, standing on a balcony, prayer-book -in hand, with an indescribable expression of sly humility, while two -bishops, representing the English and the Irish Church, supported him -on either hand. The legend ran, in the words of the Lord Mayor: "See -where his grace stands 'tween two clergymen!"--whereupon Buckingham -remarks-- - - "Two props of virtue for a Christian prince, - To stay him from the fall of vanity; - And, see, a book of prayer in his hand, - True ornament to know a holy man." - -The deputation is sternly repulsed, until Richard at last lets mercy -stand for justice, and recalling the envoys of the City, yields to -their insistence. - -The third master-scene is that in Richard's tent on Bosworth Field (v. -3). It seems as though his hitherto immovable self-confidence had been -shaken; he feels himself weak; he will not sup. "Is my beaver easier -than it was? ... Fill me a bowl of wine.... Look that my staves be -sound and not too heavy." Again: "Give me a bowl of wine." - - "I have not that alacrity of spirit, - Nor cheer of mind, that I was wont to have." - -Then, in a vision, as he lies sleeping on his couch, with his armour -on and his sword-hilt grasped in his hand, he sees, one by one, the -spectres of all those he has done to death. He wakens in terror. His -conscience has a thousand tongues, and every tongue condemns him as a -perjurer and assassin:-- - - "I shall despair.--There is no creature loves me; - And if I die no soul shall pity me." - -These are such pangs of conscience as would sometimes beset even the -strongest and most resolute in those days when faith and superstition -were still powerful, and when even one who scoffed at religion and -made a tool of it had no assurance in his heart of hearts. There is in -these words, too, a purely human sense of loneliness and of craving for -affection, which is valid for all time. - -Most admirable is the way in which Richard summons up his manhood and -restores the courage of those around him. These are the accents of one -who will give despair no footing in his soul:-- - - "Conscience is but a word that cowards use, - Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe;" - -and there is in his harangue to the soldiers an irresistible roll -of fierce and spirit-stirring martial music; it is constructed like -strophes of the _Marseillaise_:-- - - "Remember whom you are to cope withal;-- - A sort of vagabonds, rascals, runaways. - _(Que veut cette horde d'esclaves?)_ - You having lands, and bless'd with beauteous wives, - They would restrain the one, distain the other. - _(Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes.)_ - Let's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again." - -But there is a ferocity, a scorn, a popular eloquence in Richard's -words, in comparison with which the rhetoric of the _Marseillaise_ -seems declamatory, even academic. His last speeches are nothing less -than superb:-- - - "Shall these enjoy our lands? lie with our wives? - Ravish our daughters?--_[Drum afar off_.] Hark; I hear their - drum. - Fight, gentlemen of England! fight, bold yeomen! - Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head! - Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood: - Amaze the welkin with your broken staves! - _Enter a Messenger_. - What says Lord Stanley? will he bring his power? - _Mess_. My lord, he doth deny to come. - _K. Rich_. Off with his son George's head! - _Norfolk_. My lord, the enemy is pass'd the marsh: - After the battle let George Stanley die. - _K. Rich_. A thousand hearts are great within my bosom. - Advance our standards! set upon our foes! - Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George, - Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons! - Upon them! Victory sits on our helms. - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - _K. Rich_. A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse! - _Catesby_. Withdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a horse. - _K. Rich_. Slave! I have set my life upon a cast, - And I will stand the hazard of the die. - I think there be six Richmonds in the field; - Five have I slain to-day, instead of him.-- - A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!" - -In no other play of Shakespeare's, we may surely say, is the leading -character so absolutely predominant as here. He absorbs almost the -whole of the interest, and it is a triumph of Shakespeare's art that -he makes us, in spite of everything, follow him with sympathy. This -is partly because several of his victims are so worthless that their -fate seems well deserved. Anne's weakness deprives her of our sympathy, -and Richard's crime loses something of its horror when we see how -lightly it is forgiven by the one who ought to take it most to heart. -In spite of all his iniquities, he has wit and courage on his side--a -wit which sometimes rises to Mephistophelean humour, a courage which -does not fail him even in the moment of disaster, but sheds a glory -over his fall which is lacking to the triumph of his coldly correct -opponent. However false and hypocritical he may be towards others, he -is no hypocrite to himself. He is chemically free from self-delusion, -even applying to himself the most derogatory terms; and this candour -in the depths of his nature appeals to us. It must be said for him, -too, that threats and curses recoil from him innocuous, that neither -hatred nor violence nor superior force can dash his courage. Strength -of character is such a rare quality that it arouses sympathy even in a -criminal. If Richard's reign had lasted longer, he would perhaps have -figured in history as a ruler of the type of Louis XI.: crafty, always -wearing his religion on his sleeve, but far-seeing and resolute. As a -matter of fact, in history as in the drama, his whole time was occupied -in defending himself in the position to which he had fought his way, -like a bloodthirsty beast of prey. His figure stands before us as his -contemporaries have drawn it: small and wiry, the right shoulder higher -than the left, wearing his rich brown hair long in order to conceal -this malformation, biting his under-lip, always restless, always with -his hand on his dagger-hilt, sliding it up and down in its sheath, -without entirely drawing it. Shakespeare has succeeded in throwing a -halo of poetry around this tiger in human shape. - -The figures of the two boy princes, Edward's sons, stand in the -strongest contrast to Richard. The eldest child already shows greatness -of soul, a kingly spirit, with a deep feeling for the import of -historic achievement. The fact that Julius Cæsar built the Tower, he -says, even were it not registered, ought to live from age to age. He -is full of the thought that while Cæsar's "valour did enrich his wit," -yet it was his wit "that made his valour live," and he exclaims with -enthusiasm, "Death makes no conquest of this conqueror." The younger -brother is childishly witty, imaginative, full of boyish mockery for -his uncle's grimness, and eager to play with his dagger and sword. In -a very few touches Shakespeare has endowed these young brothers with -the most exquisite grace. The murderers "weep like to children in their -death's sad story":-- - - "Their lips were four red roses on a stalk, - And, in their summer beauty, kiss'd each other." - -Finally, the whole tragedy of Richard's life and death is enveloped, as -it were, in the mourning of women, permeated with their lamentations. -In its internal structure, it bears no slight resemblance to a Greek -tragedy, being indeed the concluding portion of a tetralogy. - -Nowhere else does Shakespeare approach so nearly to the classicism on -the model of Seneca which had found some adherents in England. - -The whole tragedy springs from the curse which York, in the Third Part -of _Henry VI_. (i. 4), hurls at Margaret of Anjou. She has insulted her -captive enemy, and given him in mockery a napkin soaked in the blood of -his son, the young Rutland, stabbed to the heart by Clifford. - -Therefore she loses her crown and her son, the Prince of Wales. Her -lover, Suffolk, she has already lost. Nothing remains to attach her to -life. - -But now it is her turn to be revenged. - -The poet has sought to incarnate in her the antique Nemesis, has given -her supernatural proportions and set her free from the conditions of -real life. Though exiled, she has returned unquestioned to England, -haunts the palace of Edward IV., and gives free vent to her rage and -hatred in his presence and that of his kinsfolk and his courtiers. -So, too, she wanders around under Richard's rule, simply and solely -to curse her enemies--and even Richard himself is seized with a -superstitious shudder at these anathemas. - -Never again did Shakespeare so depart from the possible in order to -attain a scenic effect. And yet it is doubtful whether the effect is -really attained. In reading, it is true, these curses strike us with -extraordinary force; but on the stage, where she only disturbs and -retards the action, and takes no effective part in it, Margaret cannot -but prove wearisome. - -Yet, though she herself remains inactive, her curses are effectual -enough. Death overtakes all those on whom they fall--the King and his -children, Rivers and Dorset, Lord Hastings and the rest. - -She encounters the Duchess of York, the mother of Edward IV., Queen -Elizabeth, his widow, and finally Anne, Richard's daringly-won and -quickly-repudiated wife. And all these women, like a Greek chorus, give -utterance in rhymed verse to imprecations and lamentations of high -lyric fervour. In two passages in particular (ii. 2 and iv. I) they -chant positive choral odes in dialogue form. Take as an example of the -lyric tone of the diction these lines (iv. I):--. - - "_Duchess of York [To Dorset_.] Go thou to Richmond, and - good fortune guide thee!-- - - [_To Anne_.] Go thou to Richard, and good angels tend thee! - - [_To Q. Elizabeth_.] Go thou to sanctuary, and good thoughts - possess thee!-- - - I to my grave, where peace and rest lie with me! - Eighty odd years of sorrow have I seen, - And each hour's joy wrack'd with a week of teen." - -Such is this work of Shakespeare's youth, firm, massive, and masterful -throughout, even though of very unequal merit. Everything is here -worked out upon the surface; the characters themselves tell us what -sort of people they are, and proclaim themselves evil or good, as the -case may be. They are all transparent, all self-conscious to excess. -They expound themselves in soliloquies, and each of them is judged in a -sort of choral ode. The time is yet to come when Shakespeare no longer -dreams of making his characters formally hand over to the spectators -the key to their mystery--when, on the contrary, with his sense of the -secrets and inward contradictions of the spiritual life, he sedulously -hides that key in the depths of personality. - - - - -XIX - -_SHAKESPEARE LOSES HIS SON--TRACES OF HIS GRIEF IN KING JOHN--THE -OLD PLAY OF THE SAME NAME--DISPLACEMENT OF ITS CENTRE OF -GRAVITY--ELIMINATION OF RELIGIOUS POLEMICS--RETENTION OF THE NATIONAL -BASIS--PATRIOTIC SPIRIT--SHAKESPEARE KNOWS NOTHING OF THE DISTINCTION -BETWEEN NORMANS AND ANGLO-SAXONS, AND IGNORES THE MAGNA CHARTA_ - -In the Parish Register of Stratford-on-Avon for 1596, under the heading -of burials, we find this entry, in a clear and elegant handwriting:-- - - "_August_ 11, _Hamnet filius William Shakespeare._" - -Shakespeare's only son was born on the 2nd of February 1585; he was -thus only eleven and a half when he died. - -We cannot doubt that this loss was a grievous one to a man of -Shakespeare's deep feeling; doubly grievous, it would seem, because it -was his constant ambition to restore the fallen fortunes of his family, -and he was now left without an heir to his name. - -Traces of what his heart must have suffered appear in the work he now -undertakes, _King John_, which seems to date from 1596-97. - -One of the main themes of this play is the relation between John -Lackland, who has usurped the English crown, and the rightful heir, -Arthur, son of John's elder brother, in reality a boy of about fourteen -at the date of the action, but whom Shakespeare, for the sake of poetic -effect, and influenced, perhaps, by his private preoccupations of the -moment, has made considerably younger, and consequently more childlike -and touching. - -The King has got Arthur into his power. The most famous scene in the -play is that (iv. I) in which Hubert de Burgh, the King's chamberlain, -who has received orders to sear out the eyes of the little captive, -enters Arthur's prison with the irons, and accompanied by the two -servants who are to bind the child to a chair and hold him fast while -the atrocity is being committed. The little prince, who has no mistrust -of Hubert, but only a general dread of his uncle's malice, as yet -divines no danger, and is full of sympathy and childlike tenderness. -The passage is one of extraordinary grace:-- - - "_Arthur_ You are sad. - _Hubert_. Indeed, I have been merrier. - _Arth_. Mercy on me - Methinks, nobody should be sad but I: - . . . . . . . . - I would to Heaven, - I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert. - _Hub. [Aside_.] If I talk to him, with his innocent prate - He will awake my mercy, which lies dead: - Therefore I will be sudden, and despatch. - _Arth_. Are you sick, Hubert? you look pale to-day. - In sooth, I would you were a little sick, - That I might sit all night, and watch with you: - I warrant, I love you more than you do me." - -Hubert gives him the royal mandate to read:-- - - "_Hubert_. Can you not read it? is it not fair writ? - _Arthur_. Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect. - Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes? - _Hub_. Young boy, I must. - _Arth_ . And will you? - _Hub_ . And I will. - _Arth_. Have you the heart? When your head did but ache, - I knit my handkerchief about your brows, - (The best I had, a princess wrought it me,) - And I did never ask it you again; - And with my hand at midnight held your head." - -Hubert summons the executioners, and the child promises to sit still -and offer no resistance if only he will send these "bloody men" away. -One of the servants as he goes out speaks a word of pity, and Arthur is -in despair at having "chid away his friend." In heart-breaking accents -he begs mercy of Hubert until the iron has grown cold, and Hubert has -not the heart to heat it afresh. - -Arthur's entreaties to the rugged Hubert to spare his eyes, must have -represented in Shakespeare's thought the prayers of his little Hamnet -to be suffered still to see the light of day, or rather Shakespeare's -own appeal to Death to spare the child--prayers and appeals which were -all in vain. - -It is, however, in the lamentations of Arthur's mother, Constance, when -the child is carried away to prison (iii. 4), that we most clearly -recognise the accents of Shakespeare's sorrow:-- - - "_Pandulph_. Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow. - _Constance_. I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine. - If I were mad, I should forget my son, - Or madly think, a babe of clouts were he. - I am not mad: too well, too well I feel - The different plague of each calamity." - -She pours forth her anguish at the thought of his sufferings in -prison:-- - - "Now will canker sorrow eat my bud, - And chase the native beauty from his cheek, - And he will look as hollow as a ghost, - As dim and meagre as an ague's fit, - And so he'll die. - . . . . . . . . . - _Pandulph_. You hold too heinous a respect of grief. - _Constance_. He talks to me, that never had a son. - _K. Philip_. You are as fond of grief as of your child." - _Const_. Grief fills the room up of my absent child, - Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, - Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, - Remembers me of all his gracious parts, - Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form." - -It seems as though Shakespeare's great heart had found an outlet for -its own sorrows in transfusing them into the heart of Constance. - -Shakespeare used as the basis of his _King John_ an old play on the -same subject published in 1591.[1] This play is quite artless and -spiritless, but contains the whole action, outlines all the characters, -and suggests almost all the principal scenes. The poet did not -require to trouble himself with the invention of external traits. He -could concentrate his whole effort upon vitalising, spiritualising, -and deepening everything. Thus it happens that this play, though -never one of his most popular (it seems to have been but seldom -performed during his lifetime, and remained in manuscript until the -appearance of the First Folio), nevertheless contains some of his -finest character-studies and a multitude of pregnant, imaginative, and -exquisitely worded speeches. - -The old play was a mere Protestant tendency-drama directed against -Catholic aggression, and full of the crude hatred and coarse -ridicule of monks and nuns characteristic of the Reformation period. -Shakespeare, with his usual tact, has suppressed the religious -element, and retained only the national and political attack upon -Roman Catholicism, so that the play had no slight actuality for the -Elizabethan public. But he has also displaced the centre of gravity of -the old play. Everything in Shakespeare turns upon John's defective -right to the throne: therein lies the motive for the atrocity he plans, -which leads (although it is not carried out as he intended) to the -barons' desertion of his cause. - -Despite its great dramatic advantages over _Richard II_., the play -surfers from the same radical weakness, and in an even greater -degree: the figure of the King is too unsympathetic to serve as the -centre-point of a drama. His despicable infirmity of purpose, which -makes him kneel to receive his crown at the hands of the same Papal -legate whom he has shortly before defied in blusterous terms; his -infamous scheme to assassinate an innocent child, and his repentance -when he sees that its supposed execution has alienated the chief -supporters of his throne--all this hideous baseness, unredeemed by -any higher characteristics, leads the spectator rather to attach -his interest to the subordinate characters, and thus the action is -frittered away before his eyes. It lacks unity, because the King is -powerless to hold it together. - -He himself is depicted for all time in the masterly scene (iii. 3) -where he seeks, without putting his thought into plain words, to make -Hubert understand that he would fain have Arthur murdered:-- - - "Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes, - Hear me without thine ears, and make reply - Without a tongue, using conceit alone, - Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words: - Then, in despite of brooded-watchful day,-- - I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts. - But, ah! I will not:--yet I love thee well." - -Hubert protests his fidelity and devotion. Even if he were to die for -the deed, he would execute it for the King's sake. Then John's manner -becomes hearty, almost affectionate. "Good Hubert, Hubert!" he says -caressingly. He points to Arthur, bidding Hubert "throw his eye on yon -young boy;" and then follows this masterly dialogue:-- - - "I'll tell thee what, my friend, - He is a very serpent in my way; - And wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread, - He lies before me. Dost thou understand me? - Thou art his keeper. - _Hub_. And I'll keep him so, - That he shall not offend your majesty. - _K. John_. Death. - _Hub_. My Lord. - _K. John_. A grave. - _Hub_. He shall not live. - _K. John_. Enough - _I could be merry now_. Hubert, I love thee; - Well, I'll not say what I intend for thee: - Remember.--Madam, fare you well: - I'll send those powers o'er to your majesty. - _Elinor_. My blessing go with thee!" - -The character that bears the weight of the piece, as an acting play, is -the illegitimate son of Richard Cœur-de-Lion, Philip Faulconbridge. He -is John Bull himself in the guise of a mediæval knight, equipped with -great strength and a racy English humour, not the wit of a Mercutio, a -gay Italianising cavalier, but the irrepressible ebullitions of rude -health and blunt gaiety befitting an English Hercules. The scene in -the first act, in which he appears along with his brother, who seeks -to deprive him of his inheritance as a Faulconbridge on the ground of -his alleged illegitimacy, and the subsequent scene with his mother, -from whom he tries to wring the secret of his paternity, both appear -in the old play; but in it everything that the Bastard says is in grim -earnest--the embroidery of wit belongs to Shakespeare alone. It is he -who has placed in Faulconbridge's mouth such sayings as this:-- - - "Madam, I was not old Sir Robert's son: - Sir Robert might have eat his part in me - Upon Good Friday, and ne'er broke his fast." - -And it is quite in Shakespeare's spirit when the son, after her -confession, thus consoles his mother:-- - - "Madam, I would not wish a better father. - Some sins do bear their privilege on earth, - And so doth yours." - -In later years, at a time when his outlook upon life was darkened, -Shakespeare accounted for the villainy of Edmund, in _King Lear_ and -for his aloofness from anything like normal humanity, on the ground -of his irregular birth; in the Bastard of this play, on the contrary, -his aim was to present a picture of all that health, vigour, and -full-blooded vitality which popular belief attributes to a "Love-child." - -The antithesis to this national hero is Limoges, Archduke of Austria, -in whom Shakespeare, following the old play, has mixed up two entirely -distinct personalities: Vidomar, Viscount of Limoges, at the siege of -one of whose castles Richard Cœur-de-Lion was killed, in 1199, and -Leopold V., Archduke of Austria, who had kept Cœur-de-Lion in prison. -Though the latter, in fact, died five years before Richard, we here -find him figuring as the dastardly murderer of the heroic monarch. -In memory of this deed he wears a lion's skin on his shoulders, and -thus brings down upon himself the indignant scorn of Constance and -Faulconbridge's taunting insults:-- - - "_Constance_. Thou wear a lion's hide! doff it for shame, - And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs. - _Austria_. O, that a man should speak those words to me! - _Bastard_. And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs. - _Aust_. Thou dar'st not say so, villain, for thy life. - _Bast_. And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs." - -Every time the Archduke tries to get in a word of warning or counsel, -Faulconbridge silences him with this coarse sarcasm. - -Faulconbridge is at first full of youthful insolence, the true mediæval -nobleman, who despises the burgess class simply as such. When the -inhabitants of Angiers refuse to open their gates either to King John -or to King Philip of France, who has espoused the cause of Arthur, the -Bastard is so indignant at this peace-loving circumspection that he -urges the kings to join their forces against the unlucky town, and cry -truce to their feud until the ramparts are levelled to the earth. But -in the course of the action he ripens more and more, and displays ever -greater and more estimable qualities--humanity, right-mindedness, and a -fidelity to the King which does not interfere with generous freedom of -speech towards him. - -His method of expression is always highly imaginative, more so than -that of the other male characters in the play. Even the most abstract -ideas he personifies. Thus he talks (iii. I) of-- - - "Old Time, the clock-setter, that bald sexton Time." - -In the old play whole scenes are devoted to his execution of the -task here allotted him of visiting the monasteries of England and -lightening the abbots' bursting money-bags. Shakespeare has suppressed -these ebullitions of an anti-Catholic fervour, which he did not share. -On the other hand, he has endowed Faulconbridge with genuine moral -superiority. At first he is only a cheery, fresh-natured, robust -personality, who tramples upon all social conventions, phrases, and -affectations; and indeed he preserves to the last something of that -contempt for "cockered silken wantons" which Shakespeare afterwards -elaborates so magnificently in Henry Percy. But there is real greatness -in his attitude when, at the close of the play, he addresses the -vacillating John in this manly strain (v. I):-- - - "Let not the world see fear, and sad distrust, - Govern the motion of a kingly eye: - Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire; - Threaten the threatener, and outface the brow - Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes, - That borrow their behaviours from the great, - Grow great by your example, and put on - The dauntless spirit of resolution." - -Faulconbridge is in this play the spokesman of the patriotic spirit. -But we realise how strong was Shakespeare's determination to make this -string sound at all hazards, when we find that the first eulogy of -England is placed in the mouth of England's enemy, Limoges, the slayer -of Cœur-de-Lion, who speaks (ii. I) of-- - - "that pale, that white'-fac'd shore, - Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides, - And coops from other lands her islanders, - ... that England, hedg'd in with the main, - That water-walled bulwark, still secure - And confident from foreign purposes." - -How slight is the difference between the eulogistic style of the two -mortal enemies, when Faulconbridge, who has in the meantime killed -Limoges, ends the play with a speech, which is, however, only slightly -adapted from the older text:-- - - "This England never did, nor never shall, - Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror. - . . . . . . . . - Come the three corners of the world in arms, - And we shall shock them. Naught shall make us rue, - If England to itself do rest but true." - -Next to Faulconbridge, Constance is the character who bears the weight -of the play; and its weakness arises in great part from the fact that -Shakespeare has killed her at the end of the third act. So lightly is -her death treated, that it is merely announced in passing by the mouth -of a messenger. She does not appear at all after her son Arthur is put -out of the way, possibly because Shakespeare feared to lengthen the -list of sorrowing and vengeful mothers already presented in his earlier -histories. - -He has treated this figure with a marked predilection, such as he -usually manifests for those characters which, in one way or another, -forcibly oppose every compromise with lax worldliness and euphemistic -conventionality. He has not only endowed her with the most passionate -and enthusiastic motherly love, but with a wealth of feeling and of -imagination which gives her words a certain poetic magnificence. She -wishes that "her tongue were in the thunder's mouth, Then with a -passion would she shake the world" (iii. 4). She is sublime in her -grief for the loss of her son:-- - - "I will instruct my sorrows to be proud, - For grief is proud, and makes his owner stoop. - To me, and to the state of my great grief, - Let kings assemble; - . . . . . . - Here I and sorrows sit; - Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it. - _Seats herself on the ground."_ - -Yet Shakespeare is already preparing us, in the overstrained violence -of these expressions, for her madness and death. - -The third figure which fascinates the reader of _King John_ is that of -Arthur. All the scenes in which the child appears are contained in the -old play of the same name, and, among the rest, the first scene of the -second act, which seems to dispose of Fleay's conjecture that the first -two hundred lines of the act were hastily inserted after Shakespeare -had lost his son. Nevertheless almost all that is gracious and touching -in the figure is due to the great reviser. The old text is at its best -in the scene where Arthur meets his death by jumping from the walls of -the castle. Shakespeare has here confined himself for the most part -to free curtailment; in the old _King John_, his fatal fall does not -prevent Arthur from pouring forth copious lamentations to his absent -mother and prayers to "sweete Iesu." Shakespeare gives him only two -lines to speak after his fall. - -In this play, as in almost all the works of Shakespeare's younger -years, the reader is perpetually amazed to find the finest poetical and -rhetorical passages side by side with the most intolerable euphuistic -affectations. And we cannot allege the excuse that these are legacies -from the older play. On the contrary, there is nothing of the kind -to be found in it; they are added by Shakespeare, evidently with the -express purpose of displaying delicacy and profundity of thought. In -the scenes before the walls of Angiers, he has on the whole kept close -to the old drama, and has even followed faithfully the sense of all the -more important speeches. For example, it is a citizen on the ramparts, -who, in the old play, suggests the marriage between Blanch and the -Dauphin; Shakespeare merely re-writes his speech, introducing into it -these beautiful lines (ii. 2):-- - - "If lusty love should go in quest of beauty, - Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch? - If zealous love should go in search of virtue, - Where should he find it purer than in Blanch? - If love ambitious sought a match of birth, - Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanch?" - -The surprising thing is that the same hand which has just written -these verses should forthwith lose itself in a tasteless tangle of -affectations like this:-- - - "Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth, - Is the young Dauphin every way complete: - If not complete of, say, he is not she; - And she again wants nothing, to name want, - If want it be not, that she is not he:" - -and this profound thought is further spun out with a profusion of -images. Can we wonder that Voltaire and the French critics of the -eighteenth century were offended by a style like this, even to the -point of letting it blind them to the wealth of genius elsewhere -manifested? - -Even the touching scene between Arthur and Hubert is disfigured by -false cleverness of this sort. The little boy, kneeling to the man who -threatens to sear out his eyes, introduces, in the midst of the most -moving appeals, such far-fetched and contorted phrases as this (iv. -I):-- - - "The iron of itself, though heat red-hot, - Approaching near these eyes, would drink my tears, - And quench this fiery indignation - Even in the matter of mine innocence; - Nay, after that, consume away in rust, - But for containing fire to harm mine eye." - -And again, when Hubert proposes to reheat the iron:-- - - "An if you do, you will but make it blush, - And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert." - -The taste of the age must indeed have pressed strongly upon -Shakespeare's spirit to prevent him from feeling the impossibility of -these quibbles upon the lips of a child imploring in deadly fear that -his eyes may be spared to him. - -As regards their ethical point of view, there is no essential -difference between the old play and Shakespeare's. The King's defeat -and painful death is in both a punishment for his wrongdoing. There has -only been, as already mentioned, a certain displacement of the centre -of gravity. In the old play, the dying John stammers out an explicit -confession that from the moment he surrendered to the Roman priest he -has had no more happiness on earth; for the Pope's curse is a blessing, -and his blessing a curse. In Shakespeare the emphasis is laid, not upon -the King's weakness in the religio-political struggle, but upon the -wrong to Arthur. Faulconbridge gives utterance to the fundamental idea -of the play when he says (iv. 3):-- - - "From forth this morsel of dead royalty, - The life, the right, and truth of all this realm - Is fled to heaven." - -Shakespeare's political standpoint is precisely that of the earlier -writer, and indeed, we may add, of his whole age. - -The most important contrasts and events of the period he seeks to -represent do not exist for him. He naïvely accepts the first kings of -the House of Plantagenet, and the Norman princes in general, as English -national heroes, and has evidently no suspicion of the deep gulf that -separated the Normans from the Anglo-Saxons down to this very reign, -when the two hostile races, equally oppressed by the King's tyranny, -began to fuse into one people. What would Shakespeare have thought had -he known that Richard Cœur-de-Lion's favourite formula of denial was -"Do you take me for an Englishman?" while his pet oath, and that of his -Norman followers, was "May I become an Englishman if--," &c.? - -Nor does a single phrase, a single syllable, in the whole play, refer -to the event which, for all after-times, is inseparably associated with -the memory of King John--the signing of the Magna Charta. The reason of -this is evidently, in the first place, that Shakespeare kept close to -the earlier drama, and, in the second place, that he did not attribute -to the event the importance it really possessed, did not understand -that the Magna Charta laid the foundation of popular liberty, by -calling into existence a middle class which supported even the House -of Tudor in its struggle with an overweening oligarchy. But the chief -reason why the Magna Charta is not mentioned was, no doubt, that -Elizabeth did not care to be reminded of it. She was not fond of any -limitations of her royal prerogative, and did not care to recall the -defeats suffered by her predecessors in their struggles with warlike -and independent vassals. And the nation was willing enough to humour -her in this respect. People felt that they had to thank her government -for a great national revival, and therefore showed no eagerness either -to vindicate popular rights against her, or to see them vindicated -in stage-history. It was not until long after, under the Stuarts, -that the English people began to cultivate its constitution. The -chronicle-writers of the period touch very lightly upon the barons' -victory over King John in the struggle for the Great Charter; and -Shakespeare thus followed at once his own personal bias with regard to -history, and the current of his age. - - -[1] The full title runs thus: "The Troublesome Raigne of -_John_, King of _England,_ with the discouerie of King Richard -Cordelions Base sonne (vulgarly named The Bastard Fawconbridge): also -the death of King John at Swinstead Abbey. As it was (sundry times) -publikely acted by the Queenes Maiesties Players, in the honorable -Citie of London." - - - - -XX - -"_THE TAMING OF THE SHREW" AND "THE MERCHANT OF VENICE"--SHAKESPEARE'S -PREOCCUPATION WITH THOUGHTS OF PROPERTY AND GAIN--HIS GROWING -PROSPERITY--HIS ADMISSION TO THE RANKS OF THE "GENTRY"--HIS PURCHASE OF -HOUSES AND LAND--MONEY TRANSACTIONS AND LAWSUITS_ - -The first plays in which we seem to find traces of Italian travel are -_The Taming of the Shrew_ and _The Merchant of Venice_, the former -written at latest in 1596, the latter almost certainly in that or the -following year. - -Enough has already been said of _The Taming of the Shrew._ It is -only a free and spirited reconstruction of an old piece of scenic -architecture, which Shakespeare demolished in order to erect from its -materials a spacious and airy hall. The old play itself had been highly -popular on the stage; it took new life under Shakespeare's hands. His -play is not much more than a farce, but it possesses movement and -fire, and the leading male character, the somewhat coarsely masculine -Petruchio, stands in amusing and typical contrast to the spoilt, -headstrong, and passionate little woman whom he masters. - -_The Merchant of Venice_, Shakespeare's first important comedy, is a -piece of work of a very different order, and is elaborated to a very -different degree. There is far more of his own inmost nature in it than -in the light and facile farce. - -No doubt he found in Marlowe's _Jew of Malta_ the first, purely -literary, impulse towards _The Merchant of Venice_. In Marlowe's play -the curtain rises upon the chief character, Barabas, sitting in his -counting-house, with piles of gold before him, and revelling in the -thought of the treasures which it takes a soliloquy of nearly fifty -lines to enumerate--pearls like pebble-stones, opals, sapphires, -amethysts, jacinths, topazes, grass-green emeralds, beauteous rubies -and sparkling diamonds. At the beginning of the play, he is possessed -of all the riches wherewith the Genie of the Lamp endowed Aladdin, -which have at one time or another sparkled in the dreams of all poor -poets. - -Barabas is a Jew and usurer, like Shylock. Like Shylock, he has a -daughter who is in love with a poor Christian; and, like him, he -thirsts for revenge. But he is a monster, not a man. When he has been -misused by the Christians, and robbed of his whole fortune, he becomes -a criminal fit only for a fairy-tale or for a madhouse: he uses his own -daughter as an instrument for his revenge, and then poisons her along -with all the nuns in whose cloister she has taken refuge. Shakespeare -was attracted by the idea of making a real man and a real Jew out of -this intolerable demon in a Jew's skin. - -But this slight impulse would scarcely have set Shakespeare's genius -in motion had it found him engrossed in thoughts and images of an -incongruous nature. It took effect upon his mind because it was at -that moment preoccupied with the ideas of acquisition, property, -money-making, wealth. He did not, like the Jew, who was in all -countries legally incapable of acquiring real estate, dream of gold and -jewels; but, like the genuine country-born Englishman he was, he longed -for land and houses, meadows and gardens, money that yielded sound -yearly interest, and, finally, a corresponding advancement in rank and -position. - -We have seen with what indifference he treated his plays, how little he -thought of winning fame by their publication. All the editions of them -which appeared in his lifetime were issued without his co-operation, -and no doubt against his will, since the sale of the books did not -bring him in a farthing, but, on the contrary, diminished his profits -by diminishing the attendance at the theatre on which his livelihood -depended. Furthermore, when we see in his Sonnets how discontented he -was with his position as an actor, and how humiliated he felt at the -contempt in which the stage was held, we cannot doubt that the calling -into which he had drifted in his needy youth was in his eyes simply and -solely a means of making money. It is true that actors like himself -and Burbage were, in certain circles, welcomed and respected as men -who rose above their calling; but they were admitted on sufferance, -they had not full rights of citizenship, they were not "gentlemen." -There is extant a copy of verses by John Davies of Hereford, beginning, -"_Players_, I love yee, and your _Qualitie_" with a marginal note -citing as examples "W. S., R. B." [William Shakespeare, Richard -Burbage]; but they are clearly looked upon as exceptions:-- - - "And though the _stage_ doth staine pure gentle _bloud,_ - Yet generous yee are in _minde_ and _moode"._ - -The calling of an actor, however, was a lucrative one. Most of the -leading players became well-to-do, and it seems clear that this was -one of the reasons why they were evilly regarded. In _The Return from -Parnassus_ (1606), Kemp assures two Cambridge students who apply to him -and Burbage for instruction in acting, that there is no better calling -in the world, from a financial point of view, than that of the player. -In a pamphlet of the same year, _Ratsey's Ghost_, the executed thief, -with a satirical allusion to Shakespeare, advises a strolling player -to buy property in the country when he is tired of play-acting, and by -that means attain honour and dignity. In an epigram entitled _Theatrum -Licentia_ (in _Laquei Ridiculosi_, 1616), we read of the actor's -calling:-- - - "For here's the spring (saith he) whence pleasures flow - And brings them damnable excessive gains." - -The primary object of Shakespeare's aspirations was neither renown -as a poet nor popularity as an actor, but worldly prosperity, and -prosperity regarded specially as a means of social advancement. He -had taken greatly to heart his father's decline in property and civic -esteem; from youth upwards he had been passionately bent on restoring -the sunken name and fame of his family. He had now, at the age of only -thirty-two, amassed a small capital, which he began to invest in the -most advantageous way for the end he had in view--that of elevating -himself above his calling. - -His father had been afraid to cross the street lest he should be -arrested for debt. He himself, as a youth, had been whipped and -consigned to the lock-up at the command of the lord of the manor. The -little town which had witnessed this disgrace should also witness -the rehabilitation. The townspeople, who had heard of his equivocal -fame as an actor and playwright, should see him in the character of -a respected householder and landowner. At Stratford and elsewhere, -those who had classed him with the proletariat should recognise in -him a _gentleman._ According to a tradition which Rowe reports on the -authority of Sir William Davenant, Lord Southampton is said to have -laid the foundation of Shakespeare's prosperity by a gift of £1.000. -Though Bacon received more than this from Essex, the magnitude of the -sum discredits the tradition--it is equivalent to something like £5000 -in modern money. No doubt the young Earl gave the poet a present in -acknowledgment of the dedication of his two poems; for the poets of -that time did not live on royalties, but on their dedications. But as -the ordinary acknowledgment of a dedication was only £5, a gift of even -£50 would have been reckoned princely. What is practically certain is, -that Shakespeare was early in a position to become a shareholder in the -theatre; and he evidently had a special talent for putting the money -he earned to profitable use. His firm determination to work his way up -in the world, combined with the Englishman's inborn practicality, made -him an excellent man of business; and he soon develops such a decided -talent for finance as only two other great national writers, probably, -have ever possessed--to wit, Holberg and Voltaire. - -It is from the year 1596 onwards that we find evidences of his -growing prosperity. In this year his father, no doubt prompted and -supplied with means by Shakespeare himself, makes application to the -Heralds' College for a coat-of-arms, the sketch of which is preserved, -dated October 1596. The conferring of a coat-of-arms implied formal -admittance into the ranks of "the gentry." It was necessary before -either father or son could append the word "gentleman" _(armiger_) to -his name, as we find Shakespeare doing in legal documents after this -date, and in his will. But Shakespeare himself was not in a position to -apply for a coat-of-arms. That was out of the question--a player was -far too mean a person to come within the cognisance of heraldry. He -therefore adopted the shrewd device of furnishing his father with means -for making the application on his own behalf. - -According to the ideas and regulations of the time, indeed, not even -Shakespeare senior had any real right to a coat-of-arms. But the -Garter-King-at-Arms for the time being, Sir William Dethick, was an -exceedingly compliant personage, probably not inaccessible to pecuniary -arguments. He was sharply criticised in his own day, and indeed at -last superseded, on account of the facility with which he provided -applicants with armorial bearings, and we possess his defence in -this very matter of the Shakespeare coat-of-arms. All sorts of small -falsehoods were alleged; for instance, that John Shakespeare had, -twenty years before, had "his auncient cote of arms assigned to him," -and that he was then "Her Majestie's officer and baylefe," whereas his -office had in fact been merely municipal. Nevertheless, there must -have been some hitch in the negotiations, for in 1597 John Shakespeare -is still described as _yeoman_, and not until 1599 did the definite -assignment of the coat-of-arms take place, along with the permission -(of which the son, however, did not avail himself) to impale the -Shakespeare arms with those of the Arden family. The coat-of-arms -is thus described:--"Gould on a bend sable a speare of the first, -the poynt steeled, proper, and for creast or cognizance, a faulcon, -his wings displayed, argent, standing on a wreathe of his coullors, -supporting a speare gould steled as aforesaid." The motto runs (with a -suspicion of irony), _Non sans droict_. Yet to what insignia had not -_he_ the right! - -In the spring of 1597, William Shakespeare bought the mansion of New -Place, the largest, and at one time the handsomest, house in Stratford, -which had now fallen somewhat out of repair, and was therefore sold -at the comparatively low price of £60. He thoroughly restored the -house, attached two gardens to it, and soon extended his domain by -new purchases of land, some of it arable; for we see that during the -corn-famine of 1598 (February), he appears on the register as owner of -ten quarters of corn and malt--that is to say, the third largest stock -in the town. The house stood opposite the Guild Chapel, the sound of -whose bells must have been among his earliest memories. - -At the same time he gives his father money to revive the lawsuit -against John Lambert concerning the property of Asbies, mortgaged -nineteen years before--that lawsuit whose unfavourable issue young -Shakespeare had taken so much to heart, as we have seen, that he -introduced a gibe at the Lambert family into the Induction to _The -Taming of the Shrew_, now just completed. - -A letter of January 24, 1597-8, written by a certain Abraham Sturley in -Stratford to his brother-in-law, Richard Quiney, whose son afterwards -married Shakespeare's youngest daughter, shows that the poet already -passed for a man of substance, since one of his fellow-townsmen sends -him a message recommending him, instead of buying land at Shottery, to -lease part of the Stratford tithes. This would be advantageous both to -him and to the town, for the purchase of tithes was generally a good -investment, and the character of the purchaser was of importance to -the town, since a portion of the sum raised went into the municipal -treasury.[1] - -It appears, however, that the purchase-money required was still beyond -Shakespeare's means, for not until seven years later, in 1605, does he -buy, for the considerable sum of £440, a moiety of the lease of the -tithes of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe. These -tithes originally belonged to the Church, but passed to the town in -1554, and from 1580 onwards were farmed by private persons. As might -have been expected, the purchase of them involved Shakespeare in -several lawsuits. - -In a letter of 1598 or 1599, Adrian Quiney, of Stratford, writes to -his son Richard, who looked after the interests of his fellow-townsmen -in the capital: "Yff yow bargen with Wm. Sha. or receve money therfor, -brynge youre money homme that yow maye." This Richard Quiney is the -writer of the only extant letter addressed to Shakespeare (probably -never despatched), in which he begs his "loveinge contreyman," in -moving and pious terms, for a loan of £30, promising security and -interest. Another letter from Sturley, dated November 4, 1598, mentions -the news "that our countriman Mr. Wm. Shak. would procure us monei, -which I will like of as I shall heare when, and wheare, and howe." - -All these documents render it sufficiently apparent that Shakespeare -did not share the loathing of interest which it was the fashion of -his day to affect, and which Antonio, in _The Merchant of Venice_, -flaunts in the face of Shylock. The taking of interest was at that time -regarded as forbidden to a Christian, but was usual nevertheless; and -Shakespeare seems to have charged the current rate, namely, ten per -cent. - -During the following, years he continued to acquire still more land. -In 1602 he buys, at Stratford, arable land of the value of no less -than £320, and pays £60 for a house and a piece of ground. In 1610 he -adds twenty acres to his property. In 1612, in partnership with three -others, he buys a house and garden in London for £140. - -And Shakespeare was a strict man of business. We find him proceeding -by attorney against a poor devil named Philip Rogers of Stratford, -who in the years 1603-4 had bought small quantities of malt from him -to the total value of £1, 19s. 10d., and who had besides borrowed two -shillings of him. Six shillings he had repaid; and Shakespeare now sets -the law in motion to recover the balance of £1, 15s. 10d. In 1608-9 he -again brings an action against a Stratford debtor. This time he gets a -verdict for £6, with £1, 4s. of costs; and as the debtor has absconded, -Shakespeare proceeds against his security. - -All these details show, in the first place, how closely Shakespeare -kept up his connection with Stratford during his residence in London. -By the year 1599 he has succeeded in restoring the credit of his -family. He has made his poor, debt-burdened father a gentleman with a -coat-of-arms, and has himself become one of the largest and richest -landowners in his native place. He continues steadily to increase his -capital and his property at Stratford; and it is obviously a mere -corollary to this whole course of action that he should, while still in -the full vigour of manhood, leave London, the theatre, and literature -behind him, to return to Stratford and pass his last years as a -prosperous landowner. - -We next observe Shakespeare's eagerness to rise above his calling -as a player. From 1599 onwards, he had the satisfaction of being -able to write himself down: _Wm. Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon -in the County of Warwick, gentleman_. But it must not, of course, -be understood that he was now in a position of equality with men -of genuinely noble birth. So little was this the case, that even -in the "Epistle Dedicatorie" to the Folio of 1623, the two actors, -his comrades, who issue the book, describe him as the "servant" of -the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, whose "dignity" they know to -be "greater than to descend to the reading of these trifles." They -nevertheless inscribe the "trifles" to the "incomparable paire of -brethren" out of gratitude for the great "indulgence" and "favour" -which they had "used" to the deceased poet. - -The chief interest, however, of these old contracts and business -letters lies in the insight they give us into a region of Shakespeare's -soul, the existence of which, in their absence, we should never have -divined. We see that he may very well have been thinking of himself -when he makes Hamlet (v. I) say beside Ophelia's open grave: "This -fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his -recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: is this -the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his -fine pate full of fine dirt?" - -And--to return to our point of departure--we see that when Shakespeare, -in _The Merchant of Venice_, makes the whole play turn upon the -different relations of different men to property, position, and -wealth, the problem was one with which he was at the moment personally -preoccupied. - - -[1] Sturley writes:--"This is one speciall remembrance from ur -fathers motion. Itt semeth bi him that our countriman, Mr. Shaksper, -is willinge to disburse some monei upon some od yarde land or other -att Shotterie or neare about us; he thinketh it a veri fitt patterne -to move him to deale in the matter of our tithes. Bi the instruccions -u can geve him theareof, and bi the frendes he can make therefore, we -thinke it a faire marke for him to shoote att, and not unpossible to -hitt. It obtained would advance him in deede, and would do us muche -good." - - - - -XXI - -_THE MERCHANT OF VENICE--ITS SOURCES--ITS CHARACTERS, ANTONIO, PORTIA, -SHYLOCK--MOONLIGHT AND MUSIC--SHAKESPEARE'S RELATION TO MUSIC_ - -We learn from Ben Jonson's _Volpone_ (iv. I) that the traveller who -arrived in Venice first rented apartments, and then applied to a Jew -dealer for the furniture. If the traveller happened to be a poet, he -would thus have an opportunity, which he lacked in England, of studying -the Jewish character and manner of expression. Shakespeare seems to -have availed himself of it. The names of the Jews and Jewesses who -appear in _The Merchant of Venice_ he has taken from the Old Testament. -We find in Genesis (x. 24) the name Salah (Hebrew Schelach; at that -time appearing as the name of a Maronite from Lebanon: Scialac) out -of which Shakespeare has made Shylock; and in Genesis (xi. 29) there -occurs the name Iscah (she who looks out, who spies), spelt "Jeska" in -the English translations of 1549 and 1551, out of which he made his -Jessica, the girl whom Shylock accuses of a fondness for "clambering up -to casements" and "thrusting her head into the public street" to see -the masquers pass. - -Shakespeare's audiences were familiar with several versions of the -story of the Jew who relentlessly demanded the pound of flesh pledged -to him by his Christian debtor, and was at last sent empty and baffled -away, and even forced to become a Christian. The story has been found -in Buddhist legends (along with the adventure of the Three Caskets, -here interwoven with it), and many believe that it came to Europe from -India. It may, however, have migrated in just the opposite direction. -Certain it is, as one of Shakespeare's authorities points out, that the -right to take payment in the flesh of the insolvent debtor was admitted -in the Twelve Tables of ancient Rome. As a matter of fact, this antique -trait was quite international, and Shakespeare has only transferred it -from old and semi-barbarous times to the Venice of his own day. - -The story illustrates the transition from the unconditional enforcement -of strict law to the more modern principle of equity. Thus it afforded -an opening for Portia's eloquent contrast between justice and mercy, -which the public understood as an assertion of the superiority of -Christian ethics to the Jewish insistence on the letter of the law. - -One of the sources on which Shakespeare drew for the figure of Shylock, -and especially for his speeches in the trial scene, is _The Orator_ -of Alexander Silvayn. The 95th Declamation of this work bears the -title: "Of a Jew who would for his debt have a pound of the flesh of a -Christian." Since an English translation of Silvayn's book by Anthony -Munday appeared in 1596, and _The Merchant of Venice_ is mentioned by -Meres in 1598 as one of Shakespeare's works, there can scarcely be any -doubt that the play was produced between these dates. - -In _The Orator_ both the Merchant and the Jew make speeches, and the -invective against the Jew is interesting in so far as it gives a -lively impression of the current accusations of the period against the -Israelitish race:-- - - "But it is no marvaile if this race be so obstinat and - cruell against us, for they doe it of set purpose to offend - our God whom they have crucified: and wherefore? Because he - was holie, as he is yet so reputed of this worthy Turkish - nation: but what shall I say? Their own bible is full of - their rebellion against God, against their Priests, Judges, - and leaders. What did not the verie Patriarks themselves, - from, whom they have their beginning? They sold their - brother...." &c. - -Shakespeare's chief authority, however, for the whole play was -obviously the story of Gianetto, which occurs in the collection -entitled _Il Pecorone_, by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, published in Milan -in 1558. - -A young merchant named Gianetto comes with a richly laden ship to a -harbour near the castle of Belmonte, where dwells a lovely young widow. -She has many suitors, and is, indeed, prepared to surrender her hand -and her fortune, but only on one condition, which no one has hitherto -succeeded in fulfilling, and which is stated with mediæval simplicity -and directness. She challenges the aspirant, at nightfall, to share -her bed and make her his own; but at the same time she gives him a -sleeping-draught which plunges him in profound unconsciousness from -the moment his head touches the pillow, so that at daybreak he has -forfeited his ship and its cargo to the fair lady, and is sent on his -way, despoiled and put to shame. - -This misfortune happens to Gianetto; but he is so deeply in love that -he returns to Venice and induces his kind foster-father, Ansaldo, to -fit out another ship for him. But his second visit to Belmonte ends -no less disastrously, and in order to enable him to make a third -attempt his foster-father is forced to borrow 10,000 ducats from a -Jew, upon the conditions which we know. By following the advice of -a kindly-disposed waiting-woman, the young man this time escapes -the danger, becomes a happy bridegroom, and in his rapture forgets -Ansaldo's obligation to the Jew. He is not reminded of it until the -very day when it falls due, and then his wife insists that he shall -instantly start for Venice, taking with him a sum of 100,000 ducats. -She herself presently follows, dressed as an advocate, and appears in -Venice as a young lawyer of great reputation, from Bologna. The Jew -rejects every proposition for the deliverance of Ansaldo, even the -100,000 ducats. Then the trial-scene proceeds, just as in Shakespeare; -Gianetto's young wife delivers judgment, like Portia; the Jew receives -not a stiver, and dares not shed a drop of Ansaldo's blood. When -Gianetto, in his gratitude, offers the young advocate the whole 100,000 -ducats, she, as in the play, demands nothing but the ring which -Gianetto has received from his wife; and the tale ends with the same -gay unravelling of the sportive complication, which gives Shakespeare -the matter for his fifth act. - -Being unable to make use of the condition imposed by the fair lady of -Belmonte in _Il Pecorone_, Shakespeare cast about for another, and -found it in the _Gesta Romanorum_, in the tale of the three caskets, of -gold, silver, and lead. Here it is a young girl who makes the choice -in order to win the Emperor's son. The inscription on the golden -casket promises that whoever chooses that shall find what he deserves. -The girl rejects this out of humility, and rightly, since it proves -to contain dead men's bones. The inscription on the silver casket -promises to whoever chooses it what his nature craves. The girl rejects -that also; for, as she says naïvely, "My nature craves for fleshly -delights." Finally, the leaden casket promises that whoever chooses it -shall find what God has decreed for him; and it proves to be full of -jewels. - -In Shakespeare, Portia, in accordance with her father's will, makes her -suitors choose between the three caskets (here furnished with other -legends), of which the humblest contains her portrait. - -It is not probable that Shakespeare made any use of an older play, now -lost, of which Stephen Gosson, in his _School of Abuse_ (1579), says -that it represented "the greedinesse of worldly chusers, and the bloody -mindes of usurers." - -The great value of _The Merchant of Venice_ lies in the depth and -seriousness which Shakespeare has imparted to the vague outlines of -character presented by the old stories, and in the ravishing moonlight -melodies which bring the drama to a close. - -In Antonio, the royal merchant, who, amid all his fortune and -splendour, is a victim to melancholy and spleen induced by forebodings -of coming disaster, Shakespeare has certainly expressed something of -his own nature. Antonio's melancholy is closely related to that which, -in the years immediately following, we shall find in Jaques in _As You -Like It_, in the Duke in _Twelfth Night_, and in Hamlet. It forms a -sort of mournful undercurrent to the joy of life which at this period -is still dominant in Shakespeare's soul.--It leads, after a certain -time, to the substitution of dreaming and brooding heroes for those -men of action and resolution who, in the poet's brighter youth, had -played the leading parts in his dramas. For the rest, despite the -princely elevation of his nature, Antonio is by no means faultless. He -has insulted and baited Shylock in the most brutal fashion on account -of his faith and his blood. We realise the ferocity and violence -of the mediæval prejudice against the Jews when we find a man of -Antonio's magnanimity so entirely a slave to it. And when, with a -little more show of justice, he parades his loathing and contempt for -Shylock's money-dealings, he strangely (as it seems to us) overlooks -the fact that the Jews have been carefully excluded from all other -means of livelihood, and have been systematically allowed to scrape -together gold in order that their hoards may always be at hand when -circumstances render it convenient to plunder them. Antonio's attitude -towards Shylock cannot possibly be Shakespeare's own. Shylock cannot -understand Antonio, and characterises him (iii. 3) in the words-- - - "This is the fool that lent out money gratis." - -But Shakespeare himself did not belong to this class of fools. He has -endowed Antonio with an ideality which he had neither the resolution -nor the desire to emulate. Such a man's conduct towards Shylock -explains the outcast's hatred and thirst for revenge. - -Shakespeare has lavished peculiar and loving care upon the figure of -Portia. Both in the circumstances in which she is placed at the outset, -and in the conjuncture to which Shylock's bond gives rise, there is -a touch of the fairy tale. In so far, the two sides of the action -harmonise well with each other. Now-a-days, indeed, we are apt to -find rather too much of the nursery story in the preposterous will by -which Portia is bound to marry whoever divines the very simple answer -to a riddle--to the effect that a showy outside is not always to be -trusted. The fable of the three caskets pleased Shakespeare so much as -a means of expressing and enforcing his hatred of all empty show that -he ignored the grotesque improbability of the method of selecting a -bridegroom. - -His thought seems to have been: Portia is not only nobly born; she -is thoroughly genuine, and can therefore be won only by a suitor who -rejects the show for the substance. This is suggested in Bassanio's -long speech before making his choice (iii. 2). If there is anything -that Shakespeare hated with a hatred somewhat disproportionate to the -triviality of the matter, a hatred which finds expression in every -stage of his career, it is the use of rouge and false hair. Therefore -he insists upon the fact that Portia's beauty owes nothing to art; with -others the case is different:-- - - "Look on beauty, - And you shall see 'tis purchas'd by the weight; - . . . . . . . . - So are those crisped snaky golden locks, - Which make such wanton gambols with the wind, - Upon supposed fairness, often known - To be the dowry of a second head, - The skull that bred them, in the sepulchre." - -And he deduces the moral:-- - - "Thus ornament is but the guiled shore - To a most dangerous sea." - -Before the choice, Portia dares not openly avow her feelings towards -Bassanio, but does so nevertheless by means of a graceful and sportive -slip of the tongue:-- - - "Beshrew your eyes, - They have o'erlook'd me, and divided me: - One half of me is yours, the other half yours,-- - Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours, - And so all yours!" - -Bassanio answers by begging permission to make instant choice between -the caskets, since he lives upon the rack until his fate is sealed; -whereupon Portia makes some remarks as to confessions on the rack, -which seem to allude to an occurrence of a few years earlier, the -barbarous execution of Elizabeth's Spanish doctor, Don Roderigo Lopez, -in 1594, after two ruffians had been racked into making confessions -which, no doubt falsely, incriminated him. Portia says jestingly-- - - "Ay, but I fear, you speak upon the rack, - Where men, enforced, do speak anything;" - -and Bassanio answers-- - - "Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth." - -When the choice has been made and has fallen as she hoped and desired, -her attitude clearly expresses Shakespeare's ideal of womanhood at this -period of his life. It is not Juliet's passionate self-abandonment, but -the perfect surrender in tenderness of the wise and delicate woman. For -her own sake she does not wish herself better than she is, but for him -"she would be trebled twenty times herself." She knows that she-- - -"Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd: -Happy in this, she is not yet so old -But she may learn; happier than this, -She is not bred so dull but she can learn; -Happiest of all is, that her gentle spirit -Commits itself to yours to be directed, -As from her lord, her governor, her king." - -In such humility does she love this weak spendthrift; whose sole motive -in seeking her out was originally that of clearing off the debts in -which his frivolity had involved him. It thus happens, quaintly enough, -that what her father thought to prevent by his strange device, namely, -that Portia should be won by a mercenary suitor, is the very thing that -happens--though it is true that her personal charms throw his original -motive into the background. - -In spite of Portia's womanly self-surrender in love, there is something -independent, almost masculine, in her character. She has the orphan -heiress's habit and power of looking after herself, directing others, -and acting on her own responsibility without seeking advice or taking -account of convention. The poet has borrowed traits from the Italian -novel in order to make her as prompt in counsel as she is magnanimous. -How much money does Antonio owe? she asks. Three thousand ducats? Give -the Jew six thousand, and tear up the bond. - -Shakespeare has equipped her with the bright and victorious temperament -with which he henceforth, for a certain time, endows nearly all the -heroines of his comedies. To another of these ladies it is said, -"Without question, you were born in a merry hour." She answers, "No, -sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and -under that I was born." All these young women were born under a star -that danced. Even the most subdued of them overflows with the rapture -of existence. - -Portia's nature is health, its utterance joy. Radiant happiness is -her element. She is descended from happiness, she has grown up in -happiness, she is surrounded with all the means and conditions of -happiness, and she distributes happiness with both hands. She is noble -to the heart's core. She is no swan born in the duck-yard, but is in -complete harmony with her surroundings and with herself. - -Shylock's riches consist of gold and jewels, easy to conceal or to -transport at a moment's notice, but also inviting to robbery and -rapine. Antonio's riches consist in cargoes tossed on many seas, and -exposed to danger from storms and from pirates. What Portia owns she -owns in security: estates and palaces inherited from her fathers. There -has needed, perhaps, as much as a century of direct preparation for -the birth of such a creature. Her noble forefathers for generations -back must have led free and stainless lives, favoured by destiny, -prosperous and happy, in order to amass the riches which are her -pedestal, to gain the respect which is her throne, to gather the -household which forms her retinue, to decorate the palace in which she -rules as a princess, and to endow her mind with the high faculty and -culture befitting a reigning sovereign. She is healthy, though she is -delicate; she is gay, although she is mentally a head taller than any -of those around her; and she is young, although she is wise. She is of -a fresher stock than the nervous women of to-day. She is borne aloft -by an unfailing serenity of nature, which has never suffered any rude -disturbance. It manifests itself in her gaiety under circumstances of -painful uncertainty, in her self-control in overwhelming joy, and in -her promptitude of action in an unforeseen and threatening conjuncture. -She has inexhaustible resources in her soul, a profusion of ideas -and inspirations, as great a super-abundance of wit as of wealth. In -contradistinction to her lover, she never makes a display of what is -not her own to command. Hence her equilibrium and queenly repose. If -we do not realise this radiant joy of life in the inmost chambers of -her soul, we are apt, even from her first scene with Nerissa, to think -her jesting forced and her wit far-fetched, and are almost ready to -make the criticism that only a poor intelligence plays tricks with -speech and fantasticates in words. But when we have looked into the -depths of this well-spring of health, we understand how her thoughts -gush forth, flashing and plashing, as freely and inevitably as the jets -of a fountain rise into the air. She evokes and discards image after -image, as one plucks and throws away flowers in a luxuriant garden. She -delights to wreath and plait her words, as she wreaths and plaits her -hair. - -It harmonises with her whole nature when she says (i. 2): "The brain -may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold -decree: such a hare is madness, the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of -good counsel, the cripple." Such phrases must be conceived as springing -from a delight in laughter and sport for the sport's sake; otherwise -they would be stiff and cumbrous. In the same way, such a sally as this -(iv. I)-- - - "Your wife would give you little thanks for that, - If she were by to hear you make the offer," - -must be taken as springing from a gleeful assurance of victory, else -it might seem to show callous indifference to Antonio's apparently -hopeless plight. There is an innate harmony in Portia's soul; but it is -full-toned, complex, and woven of strongly contrasted elements, so that -it requires some imagination to represent it to ourselves. There is -something in the harmonious subtlety of her physiognomy which reminds -us of Leonardo's female heads. Dignity and tenderness, the power to -command and to obey, acuteness such as thrives in courts, and simple -womanliness, an almost inflexible seriousness and an almost mischievous -gaiety, are here cunningly commingled and combined. - -How Shakespeare himself would have us regard her may be gathered from -the enthusiasm with which he makes Jessica describe her to her lover -(iii. 5). When one young woman so warmly eulogises another, we may -safely assume that her merits are unimpeachable. "It is very meet," she -says, - - "The Lord Bassanio live an upright life, - For, having such a blessing in his lady, - He finds the joys of heaven here on earth; - And, if on earth he do not mean it, then - In reason he should never come to heaven. - Why, if two gods should play some heavenly match, - And on the wager lay two earthly women, - And Portia one, there must be something else - Pawn'd with the other, for the poor rude world - Hath not her fellow." - -The central figure of the play, however, in the eyes of modern readers -and spectators, is of course Shylock, though there can be no doubt -that he appeared to Shakespeare's contemporaries a comic personage, -and, since he makes his final exit before the last act, by no means -the protagonist. In the humaner view of a later age, Shylock appears -as a half-pathetic creation, a scapegoat, a victim; to the Elizabethan -public, with his rapacity and his miserliness, his usury and his -eagerness to dig for another the pit into which he himself falls, -he seemed, not terrible, but ludicrous. They did not even take him -seriously enough to feel any real uneasiness as to Antonio's fate, -since they all knew beforehand the issue of the adventure. They -laughed when he went to Bassanio's feast "in hate, to feed upon the -prodigal Christian;" they laughed when, in the scene with Tubal, he -suffered himself to be bandied about between exultation over Antonio's -misfortunes and rage over the prodigality of his runaway daughter; and -they found him odious when he exclaimed, "I would my daughter were -dead at my foot and the jewels in her ear!" He was, simply as a Jew, -a despised creature; he belonged to the race which had crucified God -himself; and he was doubly despised as an extortionate usurer. For the -rest, the English public--like the Norwegian public so lately as the -first half of this century--had no acquaintance with Jews except in -books and on the stage. From 1290 until the middle of the seventeenth -century the Jews were entirely excluded from England. Every prejudice -against them was free to flourish unchecked. - -Did Shakespeare in a certain measure share these religious prejudices, -as he seems to have shared the patriotic prejudices against the Maid -of Orleans, if, indeed, he is responsible for the part she plays in -_Henry VI._? We may be sure that he was very slightly affected by them, -if at all. Had he made a more undisguised effort to place himself at -Shylock's standpoint, the censorship, on the one hand, would have -intervened, while, on the other hand, the public would have been -bewildered and alienated. It is quite in the spirit of the age that -Shylock should suffer the punishment which befalls him. To pay him out -for his stiff-necked vengefulness, he is mulcted not only of the sum he -lent Antonio, but of half his fortune, and is finally, like Marlowe's -_Jew of Malta_, compelled to change his religion. The latter detail -gives something of a shock to the modern reader. But the respect for -personal conviction, when it conflicted with orthodoxy, did not exist -in Shakespeare's time. It was not very long since Jews had been forced -to choose between kissing the crucifix and mounting the faggots; and -in Strasburg, in 1349, nine hundred of them had in one day chosen the -latter alternative. It is strange to reflect, too, that just at the -time when, on the English stage, one Mediterranean Jew was poisoning -his daughter, and another whetting his knife to cut his debtor's -flesh, thousands of heroic and enthusiastic Hebrews in Spain and -Portugal, who, after the expulsion of the 300,000 at the beginning of -the century, had secretly remained faithful to Judaism, were suffering -themselves to be tortured, flayed, and burnt alive by the Inquisition, -rather than forswear the religion of their race. - -It is the high-minded Antonio himself who proposes that Shylock shall -be forced to become a Christian. This is done for his good; for -baptism opens to him the possibility of salvation after death; and his -Christian antagonists, who, by dint of the most childish sophisms, -have despoiled him of his goods and forced him to forswear his God, -can still pose as representing the Christian principle of mercy, in -opposition to one who has taken his stand upon the Jewish basis of -formal law. - -That Shakespeare himself, however, in nowise shared the fanatical -belief that a Jew was of necessity damned, or could be saved by -compulsory conversion, is rendered clear enough for the modern reader -in the scene between Launcelot and Jessica (iii. 5), where Launcelot -jestingly avers that Jessica is damned. There is only one hope for her, -and that is, that her father may not be her father:-- - - "_Jessica_. That were a kind of bastard hope, indeed: so the - sins of my mother should be visited upon me. - - "_Launcelot_. Truly then I fear you are damned both by - father and mother: thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I - fall into Charybdis, your mother. Well, you are gone both - ways. - - "_Jes_. I shall be saved by my husband; he hath made me a - Christian. - - "_Laun_. Truly, the more to blame he: we were Christians - enow before; e'en as many as could well live one by another. - This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs: if - we grow all to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a - rasher on the coals for money." - -And Jessica repeats Launcelot's saying to Lorenzo:-- - - "He tells me flatly, there is no mercy for me in heaven, - because I am a Jew's daughter: and he says, you are no good - member of the commonwealth, for, in converting Jews to - Christians, you raise the price of pork." - -No believer would ever speak in this jesting tone of matters that must -seem to him so momentous. - -It is none the less astounding how much right in wrong, how much -humanity in inhumanity, Shakespeare has succeeded in imparting to -Shylock. The spectator sees clearly that, with the treatment he has -suffered, he could not but become what he is. Shakespeare has rejected -the notion of the atheistically-minded Marlowe, that the Jew hates -Christianity and despises Christians as fiercer money-grubbers than -himself. With his calm humanity, Shakespeare makes Shylock's hardness -and cruelty result at once from his passionate nature and his abnormal -position; so that, in spite of everything, he has come to appear in the -eyes of later times as a sort of tragic symbol of the degradation and -vengefulness of an oppressed race. - -There is not in all Shakespeare a greater example of trenchant and -incontrovertible eloquence than Shylock's famous speech (iii. I):-- - - "I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, - organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with - the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the - same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled - by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you - prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not - laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, - shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we - will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what - is his humility? revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what - should his sufferance be by Christian example? why, revenge. - The villany you teach me, I will execute; and it shall go - hard but I will better the instruction." - -But what is most surprising, doubtless, is the instinct of genius -with which Shakespeare has seized upon and reproduced racial -characteristics, and emphasised what is peculiarly Jewish in Shylock's -culture. While Marlowe, according to his custom, made his Barabas -revel in mythological similes, Shakespeare indicates that Shylock's -culture is founded entirely upon the Old Testament, and makes commerce -his only point of contact with the civilisation of later times. All -his parallels are drawn from the Patriarchs and the Prophets. With -what unction he speaks when he justifies himself by the example of -Jacob! His own race is always "our sacred nation," and he feels that -"the curse has never fallen upon it" until his daughter fled with -his treasures. Jewish, too, is Shylock's respect for, and obstinate -insistence on, the letter of the law, his reliance upon statutory -rights, which are, indeed, the only rights society allows him, and the -partly instinctive, partly defiant restriction of his moral ideas to -the principle of retribution. He is no wild animal; he is no heathen -who simply gives the rein to his natural instincts; his hatred is not -ungoverned; he restrains it within its legal rights, like a tiger in -its cage. He is entirely lacking, indeed, in the freedom and serenity, -the easy-going, light-hearted carelessness which characterises a -ruling caste in its virtues and its vices, in its charities as in its -prodigalities; but he has not a single twinge of conscience about -anything that he does; his actions are in perfect harmony with his -ideals. - -Sundered from the regions, the social forms, the language, in which his -spirit is at home, he has yet retained his Oriental character. Passion -is the kernel of his nature. It is his passion that has enriched him; -he is passionate in action, in calculation, in sensation, in hatred, -in revenge, in everything. His vengefulness is many times greater -than his rapacity. Avaricious though he be, money is nothing to him -in comparison with revenge. It is not until he is exasperated by his -daughter's robbery and flight that he takes such hard measures against -Antonio, and refuses to accept three times the amount of the loan. His -conception of honour may be unchivalrous enough, but, such as it is, -his honour is not to be bought for money. His hatred of Antonio is far -more intense than his love for his jewels; and it is this passionate -hatred, not avarice, that makes him the monster he becomes. - -From this Hebrew passionateness, which can be traced even in details -of diction, arises, among other things, his loathing of sloth and -idleness. To realise how essentially Jewish is this trait we need -only refer to the so-called Proverbs of Solomon. Shylock dismisses -Launcelot with the words, "Drones hive not with me." Oriental, rather -than specially Jewish, are the images in which he gives his passion -utterance, approaching, as they so often do, to the parable form. -(See, for example, his appeal to Jacob's cunning, or the speech in -vindication of his claim, which begins, "You have among you many a -purchased slave.") Specially Jewish, on the other hand, is the way in -which this ardent passion throughout employs its images and parables -in the service of a curiously sober rationalism, so that a sharp and -biting logic, which retorts every accusation with interest, is always -the controlling force. This sober logic, moreover, never lacks dramatic -impetus. Shylock's course of thought perpetually takes the form of -question and answer, a subordinate but characteristic trait which -appears in the style of the Old Testament, and reappears to this day in -representations of primitive Jews. One can feel through his words that -there is a chanting quality in his voice; his movements are rapid, his -gestures large. Externally and internally, to the inmost fibre of his -being, he is a type of his race in its degradation. - -Shylock disappears with the end of the fourth act in order that no -discord may mar the harmony of the concluding scenes. By means of his -fifth act, Shakespeare dissipates any preponderance of pain and gloom -in the general impression of the play. - -This act is a moonlit landscape thrilled with music. It is altogether -given over to music and moonshine. It is an image of Shakespeare's -soul at that point of time. Everything is here reconciled, assuaged, -silvered over, and borne aloft upon the wings of music. - -The speeches melt into each other like voices in part-singing:-- - - "_Lorenzo_. The moon shines bright.--In such a night as this, - When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, - And they did make no noise, in such a night, - Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls, - And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents, - Where Cressid lay that night. - _Jessica_. In such a night - Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew; - . . . . . . . . - _Lor_. - In such a night - Stood Dido with a willow in her hand;" - -and so on for four more speeches--the very poetry of moonlight arranged -in antiphonies. - -The conclusion of _The Merchant of Venice_ brings us to the threshold -of a term in Shakespeare's life instinct with high-pitched gaiety -and gladness. In this, his brightest period, he fervently celebrates -strength and wisdom in man, intellect and wit in woman; and these most -brilliant years of his life are also the most musical. His poetry, his -whole existence, seem now to be given over to music, to harmony. - -He had been early familiar with the art of music, and must have heard -much music in his youth.[1] Even in his earliest plays, such as _The -Two Gentlemen of Verona_, we find a considerable insight into musical -technique, as in the conversation between Julia and Lucetta (i. 2). He -must often have heard the Queen's choir, and the choirs maintained by -noble lords and ladies, like that which Portia has in her palace. And -he no doubt heard much music performed in private. The English were -in his day, what they have never been since, a musical people. It was -the Puritans who cast out music from the daily life of England. The -spinet was the favourite instrument of the time. Spinets stood in the -barbers' shops, for the use of customers waiting their turn. Elizabeth -herself played on the spinet and the lute. In his Sonnet cxxviii., -addressed to the lady whom he caressingly calls "my music," Shakespeare -has described himself as standing beside his mistress's spinet and -envying the keys which could kiss her fingers. In all probability -he was personally acquainted with John Dowland, the chief English -musician of the time, although the poem in which he is named, published -as Shakespeare's in _The Passionate Pilgrim_, is not by him, but by -Richard Barnfield. - -In _The Taming of the Shrew_ (iii. I); written just before _The -Merchant of Venice_, he had utilised his knowledge of singing and -lute-playing in a scene of gay comedy. "The cause why music was -ordained," says Lucentio-- - - "Was it not to refresh the mind of man, - After his studies, or his usual pain?" - -Its influence upon mental disease was also known to Shakespeare, and -noted both in _King Lear_ and in _The Tempest_. But here, in _The -Merchant of Venice_, where music is wedded to moonlight, his praise of -it takes a higher flight:-- - - "How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! - Here we will sit, and let the sounds of music - Creep in our ears: soft stillness, and the night, - Become the touches of sweet harmony." - -And Shakespeare, who never mentions church music, which seems to have -had no message for his soul, here makes the usually unimpassioned -Lorenzo launch out into genuine Renaissance rhapsodies upon the music -of the spheres:-- - - "Sit, Jessica: look, how the floor of heaven - Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. - There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st, - But in his motion like an angel sings, - Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubins; - Such harmony is in immortal souls; - But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay - Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it." - -Sphere-harmony and soul-harmony, not bell-ringing or psalm-singing, are -for him the highest music. - -Shakespeare's love of music, so incomparably expressed in the last -scenes of _The Merchant of Venice_, appears at other points in the -play. Thus Portia says, when Bassanio is about to make his choice -between the caskets (iii. 2):-- - - "Let music sound, while he doth make his choice; - Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end, - Fading in music. - . . . . . . . . - - He may win; - And what is music then? then music is - Even as the flourish when true subjects bow - To a new-crowned monarch." - -It seems as though Shakespeare, in this play, had set himself to reveal -for the first time how deeply his whole nature was penetrated with -musical feeling. He places in the mouth of the frivolous Jessica these -profound words, "I am never merry when I hear sweet music." And he -makes Lorenzo answer, "The reason is, your spirits are attentive." The -note of the trumpet, he says, will calm a wanton herd of "unhandled -colts;" and Orpheus, as poets feign, drew trees and stones and floods -to follow him:-- - - "Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage, - But music for the time doth change his nature. - The man that hath no music in himself, - Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, - Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; - The motions of his spirit are dull as night, - And his affections dark as Erebus. - Let no such man be trusted.--Mark the music." - -This must not, of course, be taken too literally. But note the -characters whom Shakespeare makes specially unmusical: in this play, -Shylock, who loathes "the vile squeaking of the wry-necked fife;" -then Hotspur, the hero-barbarian; Benedick, the would-be woman-hater; -Cassius, the fanatic politician; Othello, the half-civilised African; -and finally creatures like Caliban, who are nevertheless enthralled by -music as though by a wizard's spell. - -On the other hand, all his more delicate creations are musical. In the -First Part of _Henry IV_. (iii. I) we have Mortimer and his Welsh wife, -who do not understand each other's speech:-- - - "But I will never be a truant, love, - Till I have learn'd thy language; for thy tongue - Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn'd, - Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bower, - With ravishing division, to her lute." - -Musical, too, are the pathetic heroines, such as Ophelia and Desdemona, -and characters like Jaques in _As You Like It_, and the Duke and -Viola in _Twelfth Night_. The last-named comedy, indeed, is entirely -interpenetrated with music. The keynote of musical passion is struck in -the opening speech:-- - - "If music be the food of love, play on; - Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, - The appetite may sicken, and so die.-- - That strain again! it had a dying fall: - O! it came o'er my ear like the sweet south - That breathes upon a bank of violets, - Stealing and giving odour." - -Here, too, Shakespeare's love of the folk-song finds expression, when -he makes the Duke say (ii. 4):-- - - "Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song, - That old and antique song, we heard last night; - Methought, it did relieve my passion much, - More than light airs, and recollected terms, - Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times: - Come; but one verse." - -No less sensitive and devoted to music than the Duke in _Twelfth Night_ -or Lorenzo in _The Merchant of Venice_ must their creator himself have -been in the short and happy interval in which, as yet unmastered by the -melancholy latent in his as in all deep natures, he felt his talents -strengthening and unfolding, his life every day growing fuller and -more significant, his inmost soul quickening with creative impulse and -instinct with harmony. The rich concords which bring _The Merchant of -Venice_ to a close symbolise, as it were, the feeling of inward wealth -and equipoise to which he had now attained. - - -[1] Förster: _Shakespeare und die Tonkunst, Shakespeare-Jahrbuch_, ii. -155; Karl Elze: _William Shakespeare_, p. 474; Henrik Schück: _William -Shakespere_ p. 313. - - - - - -XXII - -"_EDWARD III." AND "ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM"--SHAKESPEARE'S DICTION--THE -FIRST PART OF "HENRY IV."--FIRST INTRODUCTION OF HIS OWN EXPERIENCES -OF LIFE IN THE HISTORIC DRAMA--WHY THE SUBJECT APPEALED TO HIM--TAVERN -LIFE--SHAKESPEARE'S CIRCLE--SIR JOHN FALSTAFF--FALSTAFF AND THE -GRACIOSO OF THE SPANISH DRAMA--RABELAIS AND SHAKESPEARE--PANURGE AND -FALSTAFF_ - -There is extant a historical play, dating from 1596, entitled _The -Raigne of King Edward third. As it hath bin sundrie times plaied about -the Citie of London_, which several English students and critics, -among them Halliwell-Phillips, have attributed in part to Shakespeare, -arguing that the better scenes, at least, must have been carefully -retouched by him. Although the drama, as a whole, is not much more -Shakespearean in style than many other Elizabethan plays, and although -Swinburne, the highest of all English authorities, has declared the -piece to be the work of an imitator of Marlowe, yet there is a good -deal to be said in favour of the hypothesis that Shakespeare had some -hand in _Edward III_. His touch may be recognised in several passages; -and especially noteworthy are the following lines from a speech of -Warwick's:-- - - "A spacious field of reasons could I urge - Between his glory, daughter, and thy shame: - That poison shows worst in a golden cup; - Dark night seems darker by the lightning flash; - _Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds,_ - And every glory that inclines to sin, - The shame is treble by the opposite." - -The italicised verse reappears as the last line of Shakespeare's Sonnet -xciv.; and as this Sonnet seems to refer (as we shall afterwards see) -to circumstances in Shakespeare's life which did not arise until 1600, -we cannot suppose that it was one of those written at an earlier date -and circulated in manuscript. The probability is that Shakespeare -simply reclaimed this line from a speech contributed by him to another -man's play. - -It is natural that a foreign student should shrink from opposing his -judgment to that of English critics, where English diction and style -are in question. Nevertheless he is sometimes driven into dissent with -regard to the many Elizabethan plays which now one critic, and now -another, has attributed wholly or in part to Shakespeare. Take, for -instance, _Arden of Feversham,_ certainly one of the most admirable -plays of that rich period, whose merit impresses one even when one -reads it for the first time in uncritical youth. Swinburne writes of it -(_Study of Shakespeare_, p. 141):-- - - "I cannot but finally take heart to say, even in the absence - of all external or traditional testimony, that it seems to - me not pardonable merely nor permissible, but simply logical - and reasonable, to set down this poem, a young man's work on - the face of it, as the possible work of no man's youthful - hand but Shakespeare's." - -However small my authority in comparison with Swinburne's upon such a -question as this, I find it impossible to share his view. Highly as I -esteem _Arden of Feversham_, I cannot believe that Shakespeare wrote -a single line of it. It was not like him to choose such a subject, -and still less to treat it in such a fashion. The play is a domestic -tragedy, in which a wife, after repeated attempts, murders her kind -and forbearing husband, in order freely to indulge her passion for -a worthless paramour. It is a dramatisation of an actual case, the -facts of which are closely followed, but at the same time animated -with great psychological insight. That Shakespeare had a distaste for -such subjects is proved by his consistent avoidance of them, except in -this problematical instance; whereas if he had once succeeded so well -with such a theme, he would surely have repeated the experiment. The -chief point is, however, that only in a few places, in the soliloquies, -do we find the peculiar note of Shakespeare's style--that wealth of -imagination, that luxuriant lyrism, which plays like sunlight over his -speeches. In _Arden of Feversham_ the style is a uniform drab. - -Shakespeare's great characteristic is precisely the resilience which -he gives to every word and to every speech. We take one step on earth, -and at the next we are soaring in air. His verse always tends towards a -rich and stately melody, is never flat or commonplace. In the English -historical plays, his diction sometimes verges upon the style of the -ballad or romance. There is a continual undercurrent of emotion, of -enthusiasm, or of pure fantasy, which carries us away with it. We are -always far remote from the humdrum monotony of everyday speech. For -everyday speech is devoid of fantasy, and all Shakespeare's characters, -with the exception of those whose humour lies in their stupidity, have -a highly-coloured imagination. - -We could find no better proof of this than the diction of the -great work which he undertakes immediately after _The Merchant of -Venice_--the First Part of _Henry IV._ - -Harry Percy in this play is placed in opposition to the magniloquent, -visionary, thaumaturgic Glendower, as the man of sober intelligence, -who keeps to the common earth, and believes only in what his senses -aver and his reason accepts. But there is nevertheless a spring within -him which need only be touched in order to send him soaring into almost -dithyrambic poetry. The King (i. 3) has called Mortimer a traitor; -whereupon Percy protests that it was no sham warfare that Mortimer -waged against Glendower:-- - - "To prove that true, - Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds, - Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took, - When on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank, - In single opposition, hand to hand, - He did confound the best part of an hour - In changing hardiment with great Glendower. - Three times they breath'd, and three times did they drink, - Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood, - Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks, - Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds, - And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank - Blood-stained with these valiant combatants." - -Thus Homer sings of the Scamander. - -Worcester broaches to Percy an enterprise - - "As full of peril and adventurous spirit, - As to o'er-walk a current, roaring loud, - On the unsteadfast footing of a spear;" - -whereon Percy bursts forth:-- - - "Send danger from the east unto the west, - So honour cross it from the north to south, - And let them grapple:--O! the blood more stirs - To rouse a lion than to start a hare." - -Northumberland then says of him that "Imagination of some great exploit -Drives him beyond the bounds of patience," and Percy answers:-- - - "By Heaven, methinks, it were an easy leap - To pluck bright honour from the pale-fac'd moon, - Or dive into the bottom of the deep, - Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, - And pluck up drowned honour by the locks." - -What a profusion of imagery is placed in the mouth of this despiser -of rhetoric and music! From the comparatively weak metaphor of the -speaking wounds up to actual myth-making! The river, affrighted by the -bloody looks of the combatants, hides its crisp head in the reeds--a -naiad fantasy in classic style. Danger, rushing from east to west, -hurtles against Honour, crossing it from north to south--two northern -Valkyries in full career. The wreath of honour is hung on the crescent -moon--a metaphor from the tilting-yard, expressed in terms of fairy -romance. Drowned Honour is to be plucked up by the locks from the -bottom of the deep--having now become, by a daring personification, a -damsel who has fallen into the sea and must be rescued. And all this in -three short speeches! - -Where this irrepressible vivacity of fancy is lacking, as in _Arden of -Feversham_, Shakespeare's sign-manual is lacking along with it. Even -when his style appears sober and measured, it is saturated with what -may be called latent fantasy (as we speak of latent electricity), which -at the smallest opportunity bursts its bounds, explodes, flashes forth -before our eyes like the figures in a pyrotechnic set-piece, and fills -our ears as with the music of a rushing, leaping waterfall.[1] - -In 1598 appeared a Quarto with the following title: _The History of -Henrie the Fovrth; With the battell at Shrewsburie, betweene the King -and Lord Henry Percy, surnamed Henrie Hotspur of the North. With the -humorous conceits of Sir John Falstaffe. At London. Printed by P. S. -for Andrew Wise, dwelling in Paules Churchyard, at the signe of the -Angell_. 1598. This was the First Part of Shakespeare's _Henry IV_., -which must have been written in 1597--the play in which Shakespeare -first attains his great and overwhelming individuality. At the age -of thirty-three, he stands for the first time at the summit of his -artistic greatness. In wealth of character, of wit, of genius, this -play has never been surpassed. Its dramatic structure is somewhat -loose, though closer knit and technically stronger than that of the -Second Part. But, as a poetical creation, it is one of the great -masterpieces of the world's literature, at once heroic and burlesque, -thrilling and side-splitting. And these contrasted elements are not, -as in Victor Hugo's dramas, brought into hard-and-fast rhetorical -antithesis, but move and mingle with all the freedom of life. - -When it was written, the sixteenth century, that great period in the -history of the human spirit, was drawing to its close; but no one had -then conceived the cowardly idea of making the end of a century a sort -of symbol of decadence in energy and vitality. Never had the waves of -healthy self-confidence and productive power run higher in the English -people or in Shakespeare's own mind. _Henry IV._, and its sequel _Henry -V._, are written throughout in a major key which we have not hitherto -heard in Shakespeare, and which we shall not hear again. - -Shakespeare finds the matter for these plays in Holinshed's Chronicle, -and in an old, quite puerile play, _The Famous Victories of Henry the -fifth, conteining the Honorable Battell of Agin-court,_ in which the -young Prince is represented as frequenting the company of roisterers -and highway robbers. It was this, no doubt, that suggested to him -the novel and daring idea of transferring direct to the stage, in -historical guise, a series of scenes from the everyday life of the -streets and taverns around him, and blending them with the dramatised -chronicle of the Prince whom he regarded as the national hero of -England. To this blending we owe the matchless freshness of the whole -picture. - -For the rest, Shakespeare found scarcely anything in the foolish old -play, acted between 1580 and 1588, which could in any way serve his -purpose. He took from it only the anecdote of the box on the ear given -by the Prince of Wales to the Lord Chief-Justice, and a few names--the -tavern in Eastcheap, Gadshill, Ned, and the name, not the character, of -Sir John Oldcastle, as Falstaff was originally called. - -Shakespeare felt himself attracted to the hero, the young Prince, by -some of the most deep-rooted sympathies of his nature. We have seen -how vividly and persistently the contrast between appearance and -reality preoccupied him; we saw it last in _The Merchant of Venice_. -In proportion as he was irritated and repelled by people who try to -pass for more than they are, by creatures of affectation and show, -even by women who resort to artificial colours and false hair in quest -of a beauty not their own, so his heart beat warmly for any one who -had appearances against him, and concealed great qualities behind an -unassuming and misinterpreted exterior. His whole life, indeed, was -just such a paradox--his soul was replete with the greatest treasures, -with rich humanity and inexhaustible genius, while externally he was -little better than a light-minded mountebank, touting, with quips and -quiddities, for the ha'pence of the mob. Now and then, as his Sonnets -show, the pressure of this outward prejudice so weighed upon him that -he came near to being ashamed of his position in life, and of the -tinsel world in which his days were passed; and then he felt with -double force the inward need to assure himself how great may be the -gulf between the apparent and the real worth of human character. - -Moreover, this view of his material gave him an occasion, before -tuning the heroic string of his lyre, to put in a word for the right -of high-spirited youth to have its fling, and indirectly to protest -against the hasty judgments of narrow-minded moralists and Puritans. -He would here show that great ambitions and heroic energy could -pass unscathed through the dangers even of exceedingly questionable -diversions. This Prince of Wales was "merry England" and "martial -England" in one and the same person. - -For the young noblemen among the audience, again, nothing could be more -attractive than to see this great King, in his youth, haunting such -resorts as they themselves frequented, and yet, as the best of them -also tried to do, preserving the consciousness of his high dignity, the -hope of a great future, and the determination to achieve renown, even -while associating with Falstaff and Bardolph, Dame Quickly and Doll -Tearsheet. - -These young English aristocrats, who in Shakespeare appear under the -names of Mercutio and Benedick, Gratiano and Lorenzo, made pleasure -their pursuit through the whole of the London day. Dressed in silk or -ash-coloured velvet, and with gold lace on his cloak, the young man -of fashion began by riding to St. Paul's and promenading half-a-dozen -times up and down its middle aisle. He then "repaired to the Exchange, -and talked pretty Euphuisms to the citizens' daughters," or looked in -at the bookseller's to inspect the latest play-book or pamphlet against -tobacco. Next he rode to the ordinary where he had appointed to meet -his friends and dine. At dinner he discussed Drake's expedition to -Portugal, or Essex's exploits at Cadiz, or told how he had yesterday -broken a lance with Raleigh himself at the Tilt-yard. He would mingle -snatches of Italian and Spanish with his talk, and let himself be -persuaded after dinner, to recite a sonnet of his own composition. At -three he betook himself to the theatre, saw Burbage as Richard III., -and applauded Kemp in his new jig; after which he would spend an hour -at the bear-garden. Then to the barber's, to have his hair and beard -trimmed, in preparation for the carouse of the evening at whichever -tavern he and his friends had selected--the "Mitre," the "Falcon," the -"Apollo," the "Boar's Head," the "Devil," or (most famous of all) the -"Mermaid," where the literary club, the Syren, founded by none other -than Sir Walter Raleigh himself, held its meetings.[2] In these places -the young aristocrat rubbed shoulders with the leading players, such as -Burbage and Kemp, and with the best-known men of letters, such as John -Lyly, George Chapman, John Florio, Michael Drayton, Samuel Daniel, John -Marston, Thomas Nash, Ben Jonson, William Shakespeare. - -Thornbury has aptly remarked that the characteristic of the Elizabethan -age was its sociability. People were always meeting at St. Paul's, -the theatre, or the tavern. Family intercourse, on the other hand, -was almost unknown; women, as in ancient Greece, played no prominent -part in society. The men gathered at the tavern club to drink, talk, -and enjoy themselves. The festive bowl circulated freely, even more so -than in Denmark, which nevertheless passed for the toper's paradise. -(Compare the utterances on this subject in _Hamlet_, i. 4, and -_Othello_, ii. 3.) The taverns were, moreover, favourite places for the -rendezvous of court gallants with citizens' wives; fast young men would -bring their mistresses with them, and here, after supper, gambling went -on merrily. - -At the taverns, writers and poets met in good fellowship, and carried -on wordy wars, battles of wit, sparkling with mirth and fantasy. They -were like tennis-rallies of words, in which the great thing was to tire -out your adversary; they were skirmishes in which the combatants poured -into each other whole volleys of conceits. Beaumont has celebrated them -in some verses to Ben Jonson, who, both as a great drinker and as an -entertaining _magister bibendi_, was much admired and fêted:-- - - "What things have we seen - Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been - So nimble, and so full of subtile flame, - As if that every one from whence they came - Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest - And had resolv'd to live a fool the rest - Of his dull life." - -In his comedy _Every Man out of His Humour_ (v. 4), Ben Jonson has -introduced either himself or Marston, under the name of Carlo Buffone, -waiting alone for his friends at the "Mitre," and has placed these -words in Carlo's mouth when the waiter, George, has brought him the -wine he had ordered:-- - - "_Carlo (drinks)_. Ay, marry, sir, here's purity; O - George--I could bite off his nose for this now, sweet rogue, - he has drawn nectar, the very soul of the grape! I'll - wash my temples with some on't presently, and drink some - half a score draughts; 'twill heat the brain, kindle my - imagination, I shall talk nothing but crackers and fireworks - to-night. So, sir! please you to be here, sir, and I here: - so. (_Sets the two cups asunder, drinks with the one, and - pledges with the other, speaking for each of the cups, and - drinking alternately._)" - -Well known and often quoted is the passage in Fuller's _Worthies_ as to -the many wit-combats between Shakespeare and the learned Ben:-- - - "Which two I behold like a _Spanish great Gallion_ and an - _English man of War_: Master _Johnson_ (like the former) was - built far higher in Learning; _Solid_, but _Slow_ in his - performances. _Shake-spear_, with the _English man of War_, - lesser in _bulk_, but lighter in _sailing_, could turn with - all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by - the quickness of his Wit and Invention." - -Although Fuller was not himself present at these symposia, yet his -account of them bears the stamp of complete authenticity. - -Among the members of the circle which Shakespeare in his youth -frequented, there must, of course, have been types of every kind, from -the genius down to the grotesque; and there were some, no doubt, in -whom the genius and the grotesque, the wit and the butt, must have -quaintly intermingled. As every great household had at that time its -_jester_, so every convivial circle had its clown or buffoon. The -jester was the terror of the kitchen--for he would steal a pudding the -moment the cook's back was turned--and the delight of the dinner-table, -where he would mimic voices, crack jokes, play pranks, and dissipate -the spleen of the noble company. The comic man of the tavern circle -was both witty himself and the cause of wit in others. He was always -the butt of the others' merriment, yet he always held his own in the -contest, and ended by getting the best of his tormentors. - -To Shakespeare's circle Chettle must doubtless have belonged, that -Chettle who in bygone days had published Greene's _Groats-worth of -Wit_, and afterwards made amends to Shakespeare for Greene's coarse -attack upon him. In Dekker's tract, _A Knights Conjuring_, dating from -1607, he figures among the poets in Elysium, where he is introduced in -the following terms:--"In comes Chettle sweating and blowing, by reason -of his fatnes; to welcome whom, because hee was of olde acquaintance, -all rose vp, and fell presentlie on their knees, to drinck a health -to all the louers of Hellicon." Elze has conjectured, possibly with -justice, that in this puffing and sweating old tun of flesh, who is -so whimsically greeted with mock reverence by the whole gay company, -we have the very model from whom Shakespeare drew his demigod, the -immortal Sir John Falstaff, beyond comparison the gayest, most -concrete, and most entertaining figure in European comedy. - -In his close-woven and unflagging mirthfulness, in the inexhaustible -wealth of drollery concentrated in his person, Falstaff surpasses all -that antiquity and the Middle Ages have produced in the way of comic -character, and all that the stage of later times can show. - -There is in him something of the old Greek Silenus, swag-bellied and -infinitely jovial, and something of the _Vidushakas_ of the old Indian -drama, half court-fool, half friend and comrade to the hero. He unites -in himself the two comic types of the old Roman comedy, Artotrogus and -Pyrgopolinices, the parasite and the boastful soldier. Like the Roman -_scurra_, he leaves his patron to pay the reckoning, and in return -entertains him with his jests, and, like the _Miles Gloriosus_, he is -a braggart above all braggarts, a liar above all liars. Yet he is in -his single person richer and more entertaining than all the ancient -Silenuses and court-fools and braggarts and parasites put together. - -In the century after he came into existence, Spain and France each -developed its own theatre. In France there is only one quaint and -amusing person, Moron in Molière's _La Princesse d'Élide_, who bears -some faint resemblance to Falstaff. In Spain, where the great and -delightful character of Sancho Panza affords the starting-point for the -whole series of comic figures in the works of Calderon, the _Gracioso_ -stands in perpetual contrast to the hero, and here and there reminds -us for a moment of Falstaff, but always only as an abstraction of one -side or another of his nature, or because of some external similarity -of situation. In _La Dama Duende_ he is a drunkard and coward; in _La -Gran Cenobia_ he boasts fantastically, and, like Falstaff, becomes -entangled in his lies. In _La Puente de Mantible_ he actually becomes -(as it appears from the scenes with the Chief Justice and Colevile that -Falstaff also was) renowned and dreaded for his military valour; yet -he is, like Falstaff, extremely ill at ease when there is any fighting -to be done, often creeping into cover, hiding himself behind a bush, -or climbing a tree. In _La Hija del Ayre_ and _El Principe Constante_ -he uses precisely the device adopted by Falstaff and certain lower -animals, of lying down and shamming death. Hernando in _Los Empeῆos de -un Acaso_ (like Molière's Moron) expresses sentiments very similar to -those of Falstaff in his celebrated discourse upon honour. Falstaff's -airs of protection, his bland fatherliness, we find in Fabio in _El -Secreto a Voces._ Thus single characteristics, detached sides of -Falstaff's character, have to do duty as complete personages. Calderon -as a rule looks with fatherly benevolence upon his Gracioso. Yet he -sometimes loses patience, as it were, with his buffoon's epicurean, -unchristian, and unchivalrous view of life. In _La Vida es Sueño_, for -instance, a cannon-ball kills poor Clarin, who has crept behind a bush -during the battle; the moral being that the coward does not escape -danger any more than the brave man. Calderon bestows on him a very -solemn funeral speech, almost as moral as King Henry's parting words to -Falstaff. - -It is certain, of course, that neither Calderon nor Molière knew -anything of Shakespeare or of Falstaff; and Shakespeare, for his part, -was equally uninfluenced by any of his predecessors on the comic stage, -when he conceived his fat knight. - -Nevertheless there is among Shakespeare's predecessors a great writer, -one of the greatest, with whom we cannot but compare him; to wit, -Rabelais, the masterspirit of the early Renaissance in France. He is, -moreover, one of the few great writers with whom Shakespeare is known -to have been acquainted. He alludes to him in _As You Like It_ (iii. -2), where Celia says, when Rosalind asks her a dozen questions and bids -her answer in one word: "You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth first: -'tis a word too great for any mouth of this age's size." - -If we compare Falstaff with Panurge, we see that Rabelais stands to -Shakespeare in the relation of a Titan to an Olympian god. Rabelais is -gigantic, disproportioned, potent, but formless. Shakespeare is smaller -and less excessive, poorer in ideas, though richer in fancies, and -moulded with the utmost firmness of outline. - -Rabelais died at the age of seventy, ten years before Shakespeare was -born; there is between them all the difference between the morning and -the noon of the Renaissance. Rabelais is a poet, philosopher, polemist, -reformer, "even to the very fire exclusively," but always threatened -with the stake. Shakespeare's coarseness compared with Rabelais's is as -a manure-bed compared with the _Cloaca Maxima_. Burlesque uncleanness -pours in floods from the Frenchman's pen. - -His Panurge is larger than Falstaff, as Utgard-Loki is larger than -Asa-Loki. Panurge, like Falstaff, is loquacious, witty, crafty, and -utterly unscrupulous, a humorist who stops the mouths of all around him -by unblushing effrontery. In war, Panurge is no more of a hero than -Falstaff, but, like Falstaff, he stabs the foemen who have already -fallen. He is superstitious, yet his buffoonery holds nothing sacred, -and he steals from the church-plate. He is thoroughly selfish, sensual, -and slothful, shameless, revengeful, and light-fingered, and as time -goes on becomes ever a greater poltroon and braggart. - -Pantagruel is the noble knight, a king's son, like Prince Henry. Like -the Prince, he has one foible: he cannot resist the attractions of low -company. When Panurge is witty, Pantagruel cannot deny himself the -pleasure of laughing at his side-splitting drolleries. - -But Panurge, unlike Falstaff, is a satire on the largest scale. In -representing him as a notable economist or master of finance, who -calls borrowing credit-creating, and has 63 methods of raising money -and 214 methods of spending it, Rabelais made him an abstract and -brief chronicle of the French court of his day. In giving him a -yearly revenue from his barony of "6,789,106,789 royaulx en deniers -certain," to say nothing of the fluctuating revenue of the locusts and -periwinkles, "montant bon an mal an de 2,435,768 a 2,435,769 moutons -à la grande laine," Rabelais was aiming his satire direct at the -unblushing extortion which was at that time the glory and delight of -the French feudal nobility. - -Shakespeare does not venture so far in the direction of satire. He is -only a poet, and as a poet stands simply on the defensive. The only -power he can be said to attack is Puritanism (_Twelfth Night, Measure -for Measure_, etc.), and that only in self-defence. His attacks, too, are -exceedingly mild in comparison with those of the cavalier poets before -the victory of Puritanism and after the reopening of the theatres. But -Shakespeare was what Rabelais was not, an artist; and as an artist he -was a very Prometheus in his power of creating human beings. - -As an artist he has also the exuberant fertility which we find in -Rabelais, even surpassing him in some respects. Max Müller has long -ago remarked upon the wealth of his vocabulary. In this he seems to -surpass all other writers. An Italian opera-libretto seldom contains -more than 600 or 700 words. A well-educated modern Englishman, in -social intercourse, will rarely use more than 3000 or 4000. It has been -calculated that acute thinkers and great orators in England are masters -of as many as 10,000 words. The Old Testament contains only 5642 words. -Shakespeare has employed more than 15,000 words in his poems and -plays; and in few of the latter do we find such overflowing fulness of -expression as in _Henry IV._ - -In the original form of the play, Falstaff's name, as already -mentioned, was Sir John Oldcastle. A trace of this remains in the -second scene of the first act (Part I.), where the Prince calls the fat -knight "my old lad of the castle." In the second scene of the second -act the line, "Away, good Ned, Falstaff sweats to death," is short of a -syllable, because the dissyllable Falstaff has been substituted for the -trisyllable Oldcastle. In the earliest Quarto of the Second Part, the -contraction _Old_. has been left before one of Falstaff's speeches; and -in Act ii. Sc. 2 of the same play, it is said of Falstaff that he was -page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, a position which the historic -Oldcastle actually held. Oldcastle, however, was so far from being the -boon companion depicted by Shakespeare that he was, at the instance -of Henry V. himself, handed over to the Ecclesiastical Courts as an -adherent of Wicklif's heresies, and roasted over a slow fire outside -the walls of London on Christmas morning 1417. His descendants having -protested against the degradation to which the name of their ancestor -was subjected in the play, the fat knight was rechristened. Therefore, -too, it is stated in the Epilogue to the Second Part that the author -intends to produce a further continuation of the story, "where, for -anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat ... _for Oldcastle died -a martyr, and this is not the man_." - -Under the name of Falstaff he became, after the lapse of half a -century, the most popular of Shakespeare's creations. Between 1642 and -1694 he is more frequently mentioned than any other of Shakespeare's -characters. But it is noteworthy that in his own time, although -popular enough, he was not alluded to nearly so often as Hamlet, who, -up to 1642, is mentioned forty-five times to Falstaff's twenty; even -_Venus and Adonis_ and _Romeo and Juliet_ are mentioned oftener than -he, and _Lucrece_ quite as often.[3] The element of low comedy in his -figure made it, according to the notions of the day, obviously less -distinguished, and people stood too near to Falstaff to appreciate him -fully. - -He was, as it were, the wine-god of merry England at the meeting of the -centuries. Never before or since has England enjoyed so many sorts of -beverages. There was ale, and all other kinds of strong and small beer, -and apple-drink, and honey-drink, and strawberry-drink, and three sorts -of mead (meath, metheglin, hydromel), and every drink was fragrant of -flowers and spiced with herbs. In white meath alone there was infused -rosemary and thyme, sweet-briar, pennyroyal, bays, water-cresses, -agrimony, marsh-mallow, liverwort, maiden-hair, betony, eye-bright, -scabious, ash-leaves, eringo roots, wild angelica, rib-wort, sennicle, -Roman wormwood, tamarisk, mother thyme, saxifrage, philipendula; and -strawberries and violet-leaves were often added. Cherry-wine and sack -were mixed with gillyflower syrup.[4] - -There were fifty-six varieties of French wine in use, and thirty-six -of Spanish and Italian, to say nothing of the many home-made kinds. -But among the foreign wines none was so famous as Falstaff's favourite -sherris-sack. It took its name from Xeres in Spain, but differed from -the modern sherry in being a sweet wine. It was the best of its kind, -possessing a much finer bouquet than sack from Malaga or the Canary -Islands (Jeppe paa Bjerget's, "Canari-Sæk")[5] although these were -stronger and sweeter. Sweet as it was too, people were in the habit of -putting sugar into it. The English taste has never been very delicate. -Falstaff always put sugar into his wine. Hence his words when he is -playing the Prince while the Prince impersonates the king (Pt. First, -ii. 4):--"If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked." He puts -not only sugar but toast in his wine: "Go fetch me a quart of sack, put -a toast in it" _(Merry Wives_, iii. 5). On the other hand, he does not -like (as others did) to have it mulled with eggs: "Brew me a pottle of -sack ... simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage" _(Merry -Wives_, iii. 5). And no less did he resent its sophistication with -lime, an ingredient which the vintners used to increase its strength -and make it keep: "You rogue, here's lime in this sack, too.... A -coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it" (I. _Henry IV_., -ii. 4). Falstaff is as great a wine-knower and wine-lover as Silenus -himself. But he is infinitely more than that. - -He is one of the brightest and wittiest spirits England has ever -produced. He is one of the most glorious creations that ever sprang -from a poet's brain. There is much rascality and much genius in him, -but there is no trace of mediocrity. He is always superior to his -surroundings, always resourceful, always witty, always at his ease, -often put to shame, but, thanks to his inventive effrontery, never put -out of countenance. He has fallen below his social position; he lives -in the worst (though also in the best) society; he has neither soul, -nor honour, nor moral sense; but he sins, robs, lies, and boasts, with -such splendid exuberance, and is so far above any serious attempt at -hypocrisy, that he seems unfailingly amiable whatever he may choose to -do. Therefore he charms every one, although he is a butt for the wit -of all. He perpetually surprises us by the wealth of his nature. He is -old and youthful, corrupt and harmless, cowardly and daring, "a knave -without malice, a liar without deceit; and a knight, a gentleman, and -a soldier, without either dignity, decency, or honour."[6] The young -Prince shows good taste in always and in spite of everything seeking -out his company. - -How witty he is in the brilliant scene where Shakespeare is daring -enough to let him parody in advance the meeting between Prince Henry -and his offended father! And with what sly humour does Shakespeare, -through his mouth, poke fun at Lyly and Greene and the old play of King -Cambyses! How delightful is Falstaff's unabashed self-mockery when he -thus apostrophises the hapless merchants whom he is plundering:-- - -"Ah! whoreson caterpillars! bacon-fed knaves! they hate us youth: down -with them; fleece them.... Hang ye, gorbellied knaves. Are ye undone? -No, ye fat chuffs; I would your store were here! On, bacons, on! What! -ye knaves, young men must live." - -And what humour there is in his habit of self-pitying regret that his -youth and inexperience should have been led astray:-- - -"I'll be damned for never a king's son in Christendom.... I have -forsworn his company hourly any time this two-and-twenty years, and -yet I am bewitched with the rogue's company.... Company, villainous -company, hath been the spoil of me." - -But if he has not been led astray, neither is he the "abominable -misleader of youth" whom Prince Henry, impersonating the King, makes -him out to be. For to this character there belongs malicious intent, of -which Falstaff is innocent enough. It is unmistakable, however, that -while in the First Part of _Henry IV._ Shakespeare keeps Falstaff a -purely comic figure, and dissipates in the ether of laughter whatever -is base and unclean in his nature, the longer he works upon the -character, and the more he feels the necessity of contrasting the moral -strength of the Prince's nature with the worthlessness of his early -surroundings, the more is he tempted to let Falstaff deteriorate. In -the Second Part his wit becomes coarser, his conduct more indefensible, -his cynicism less genial; while his relation to the hostess, whom he -cozens and plunders, is wholly base. In the First Part of the play he -takes a whole-hearted delight in himself, in his jollifications, his -drolleries, his exploits on the highway, and his almost purposeless -mendacity; in the Second Part he falls more and more under the -suspicion of making capital out of the Prince, while he is found in -ever worse and worse company. The scheme of the whole, indeed, demands -that there shall come a moment when the Prince, who has succeeded to -the throne and its attendant responsibilities, shall put on a serious -countenance and brandish the thunderbolts of retribution. - -But here, in the First Part, Falstaff is still a demi-god, supreme -alike in intellect and in wit. With this figure the popular drama which -Shakespeare represented won its first decisive battle over the literary -drama which followed in the footsteps of Seneca. We can actually hear -the laughter of the "yard" and the gallery surging around his speeches -like waves around a boat at sea. It was the old sketch of Parolles -in _Love's Labour's Won_ (see above, p. 49), which had here taken on -a new amplitude of flesh and blood. There was much to delight the -groundlings--Falstaff is so fat and yet so mercurial, so old and yet so -youthful in all his tastes and vices. But there was far more to delight -the spectators of higher culture, in his marvellous quickness of fence, -which can parry every thrust, and in the readiness which never leaves -him tongue-tied, or allows him to confess himself beaten. Yes, there -was something for every class of spectators in this mountain of flesh, -exuding wit at every pore, in this hero without shame or conscience, -in this robber, poltroon, and liar, whose mendacity is quite poetic, -Münchausenesque, in this cynic with the brazen forehead and a tongue as -supple as a Toledo blade. His talk is like Bellman's[7] after him:-- - - "A dance of all the gods upon Olympus, - With fauns and graces and the muses twined." - -The men of the Renaissance revelled in his wit, much as the men of the -Middle Ages had enjoyed the popular legends of Reinecke Fuchs and his -rogueries. - -Falstaff reaches his highest point of wit and drollery in that -typical soliloquy on honour, in which he indulges on the battlefield -of Shrewsbury (I. _Henry IV_., v. I), a soliloquy which almost -categorically sums him up, in contradistinction to the other leading -personages. For all the characters here stand in a certain relation to -the idea of honour--the King, to whom honour means dignity; Hotspur, -to whom it means the halo of renown; the Prince, who loves it as the -opposite of outward show; and Falstaff, who, in his passionate appetite -for the material good things of life, rises entirely superior to it and -shows its nothingness:-- - -"Honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come -on? how then? Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take -away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? -No. What is honour? A word. What is that word honour? Air. A trim -reckoning!--Who hath it? He that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? -No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But -will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer -it.--Therefore, I'll none of it: honour is a mere scutcheon; and so -ends my catechism." - -Falstaff will be no slave to honour; he will rather do without it -altogether. He demonstrates in practice how a man can live without it, -and we do not miss it in him, so perfect is he in his way. - - -[1] It was this characteristic of Shakespeare's style, at the -period we are now considering, that so deeply influenced Goethe and the -contemporaries of his youth, Lenz and Klinger (and, in Denmark, Hauch -and Bredahl), determining the diction of their tragic dramas. Björnson -shows traces of the same influence in his _Maria Stuart_ and _Sigurd -Slembe._ - -[2] Thornbury: _Shakspere's England_, i. 104, _et seq_. - -[3] _Fresh Allusions to Shakespeare_, p. 372. - -[4] Thornbury: _Shakspere's England_, i. 227; Nathan Drake, -_Shakespeare and His Times_, ii. 131. - -[5] Jeppe paa Bjerget, a Danish Abou Hassan or Christopher -Sly, is the hero of one of Holberg's most admirable comedies. - -[6] Maurice Morgann: _An Essay on the Dramatic Character of -Sir John Falstaff,_ p. 150. - -[7] From a poem by Tegnér on Bellman, the Swedish convivial -lyrist. - - - - - -XXIII - -_HENRY PERCY--THE MASTERY OF THE CHARACTER-DRAWING--HOTSPUR AND -ACHILLES_ - -In contrast to Falstaff, Shakespeare has placed the man whom his ally -Douglas expressly calls "the king of honour"--a figure as firmly -moulded and as great as the Achilles of the Greeks or Donatello's -Italian St. George--"the Hotspur of the North," an English national -hero quite as much as the young Prince. - -The chronicle and the ballad of Douglas and Percy gave Shakespeare no -more than the name and the dates of a couple of battles. He seized upon -the name Harry Percy, and although its bearer was not historically of -the same age as Prince Henry, but as old as his father, the King, he -docked him of a score of years, with the poetical design of opposing -to the hero of the play a rival who should be his peer, and should at -first seem to outshine him. - -Percy is above everything and every one avid of honour. It is he who -would have found it easy to pluck down honour from the moon or drag it -up from the depths of the sea. But he is of an open, confiding, simple -nature, with nothing of the diplomatist about him. He is hasty and -impetuous; his spur is never cold until he is dead. Under the mistaken -impression that women cannot keep their counsel, he is reticent towards -his wife, in whom he might quite well confide, since she adores him, -and calls him "the miracle of men." On the other hand, he suffers -himself to be driven by the King's sour suspiciousness into foolhardy -rebellion, and he is so simple-minded as to trust to his father and his -uncle Worcester, one of whom deserts him in the hour of need, while the -other plays a double game with him. - -Shakespeare has thrown himself so passionately into the creation of -this character that he has actually painted for us Hotspur's exterior, -giving him a peculiar walk and manner of speech. The warmth of the -poet's sympathy has rendered his hero irresistibly attractive, and made -him, in his manliness, a pattern for the youth of the whole country. - -Henry Percy enters (ii. 3) with a letter in his hand, and reads:-- - - "--'But, for mine own part, my lord, I could be well - contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your - house.'--He could be contented,--why is he not then? - In respect of the love he bears our house:--he shows in - this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our - house. Let me see some more. 'The purpose you undertake is - dangerous;'--why, that's certain: 'tis dangerous to take - a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, - out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. - 'The purpose you undertake, is dangerous; the friends you - have named, uncertain; the time itself unsorted, and your - whole plot too light for the counterpoise of so great an - opposition.'--Say you so, say you so? _I say unto you again, - you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and you lie_. What a - lack-brain is this! By the Lord, our plot is as good a plot - as ever was laid; our friends true and constant: a good - plot, good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent - plot, very good friends....O! I could divide myself and go - to buffets, for moving such a dish of skimmed milk with so - honourable an action. Hang him! let him tell the King; we - are prepared. I will set forward to-night." - -We can see him before our eyes, and hear his voice. He strides up and -down the room as he reads, and we can hear in the rhythm of his speech -that he has a peculiar gait of his own. Not for nothing is Henry Percy -called Hotspur; whether on foot or on horseback, his movements are -equally impetuous. Therefore his wife says of him after his death (II. -_Henry IV_., ii. 3):-- - - "He was, indeed, the glass - Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves. - _He had no legs, that practised not his gait."_ - -Everything is here consistent, the bodily movements and the tone of -speech. We can hear in Hotspur's soliloquy how his sentences stumble -over each other; how, without giving himself time to articulate his -words, he stammers from sheer impatience, and utters no phrase that -does not bear the stamp of his choleric temperament:-- - - "And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish, - Became the accents of the valiant; - For those that could speak low, and tardily, - Would turn their own perfection to abuse, - To seem like him: so that, in speech, in gait, - In diet, in affections of delight, - In military rules, humours of blood, - He was the mark and glass, copy and book, - That fashion'd others." - -Shakespeare found no hint of these external traits in the chronicle. He -bodied forth Hotspur's idiosyncrasy with such ardour that everything, -down to his outward habit, shaped itself accordantly. Hotspur speaks -in impatient ejaculations; he is absent and forgetful out of sheer -passionateness. His characteristic impetuousness shows itself in such -little traits as his inability to remember the names he wants to cite. -When the rebels are portioning out the country between them, he starts -up with an oath because he has forgotten his map. When he has something -to relate, he is so absorbed in the gist of his matter, and so -impatient to get at it, that the intermediate steps escape his memory -(i. 3):-- - - "Why, look you, I am whipp'd and scourg'd with rods, - Nettled, and stung with pismires, when I hear - Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke. - _In Richard's time,--what do ye call the place?--_ - _A plague upon--it is in Glostershire:--_ - _'T was where the madcap Duke his uncle kept,_ - _His uncle York_,--where I first bow'd my knee - Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke." - -When another person speaks to him, he listens for a moment, but -presently his thoughts are away on their own affairs; he forgets where -he is and what is said to him; and when Lady Percy has finished her -long and moving appeal (ii. 3) with the words-- - - "Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, - And I must know it, else he loves me not," - -all the reply vouchsafed her is:-- - - "_Hotspur_. What, ho! - _Enter Servant._ - Is Gilliams with the packet gone? - _Serv_. He is, my lord, an hour ago. - _Hot_. Hath Butler brought those horses from the sheriff?" &c. - -Perpetually baulked of an answer, she at last cannot help coming out -with this caressing menace, which gives us in one touch the whole -relation between the pair of married lovers:-- - - "In faith, I'll break thy little finger, Harry, - An if thou wilt not tell me all things true." - -And this absence of mind of Percy's is so far from being accidental or -momentary that it is the very trait which Prince Henry seizes upon to -characterise him (ii. 4):-- - - "I am not yet of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the North; - he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a - breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife,--'Fie - upon this quiet life! I want work.' 'O my sweet Harry,' says - she, 'how many hast thou killed to-day?' 'Give my roan horse - a drench,' says he, and answers, 'Some fourteen,' an hour - after; 'a trifle, a trifle.'" - -Shakespeare has put forth all his poetic strength in giving to -Percy's speeches, and especially to his descriptions, the most -graphic definiteness of detail, and a naturalness which raises into -a higher sphere the racy audacity of Faulconbridge. Hotspur sets -about explaining (i. 3) how it happened that he refused to hand over -his prisoners to the King, and begins his defence by describing the -courtier who demanded them of him:-- - - "When I was dry with rage and extreme toil, - Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword, - Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress'd, - Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new reap'd, - Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home. - He was perfumed like a milliner." - -But he is not content with a general outline, or with relating what -this personage said with regard to the prisoners; he gives an example -even of his talk:-- - - "He made me mad, - To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, - And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman - Of guns, and drums, and wounds, God save the mark! - And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth - Was parmacity for an inward bruise; - And that it was great pity, so it was, - That villainous saltpetre should be digg'd - Out of the bowels of the harmless earth." - -Why this spermaceti? Why this dwelling upon so trivial and ludicrous a -detail? Because it is a touch of reality and begets illusion. Precisely -because we cannot at first see the reason why Percy should recall so -trilling a circumstance, it seems impossible that the thing should be -a mere invention. And from this insignificant word all the rest of the -speech hangs as by a chain. If this be real, then all the rest is real, -and Henry Percy stands before our eyes, covered with dust and blood, as -on the field of Holmedon. We see the courtier at his side holding his -nose as the bodies are carried past, and we hear him giving the young -commander his medical advice and irritating him to the verge of frenzy. - -With such solicitude, with such minute attention to tricks, flaws, -whims, humours, and habits, all deduced from his temperament, from the -rapid flow of his blood, from his build of body, and from his life -on horseback and in the field, has Shakespeare executed this heroic -character. Restless gait, stammering speech, forgetfulness, absence -of mind, he overlooks nothing as being too trivial. Hotspur portrays -himself in every phrase he utters, without ever saying a word directly -about himself; and behind his outward, superficial peculiarities, we -see into the deeper and more significant characteristics from which they -spring. These, too, are closely interwoven; these, too, reveal -themselves in his lightest words. We hear this same hero whom pride, -sense of honour, spirit of independence, and intrepidity inspire with -the sublimest utterances, at other times chatting, jesting, and even -talking nonsense. The jests and nonsense are an integral part of the -real human being; in them, too, one side of his nature reveals itself -(iii. I):-- - - "_Hotspur_. Come, Kate, I'll have your song too. - - _Lady Percy_. Not mine, in good sooth. - - _Hot_. Not yours, in good sooth! 'Heart! you swear like a - comfit-maker's wife. 'Not you, in good sooth;' and, 'As true - as I live;' and, 'As God shall mend me;' and, 'As sure as - day:' - . . . . . . . . . . - - Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art, - A good mouth-filling oath; and leave 'in sooth,' - And such protest of pepper-gingerbread, - To velvet-guards, and Sunday-citizens." - -In a classical tragedy, French, German, or Danish, the hero is too -solemn to talk nonsense and too lifeless to jest. - -In spite of his soaring energy and ambition, Hotspur is sober, -rationalistic, sceptical. He scoffs at Glendower's belief in spirits -and pretended power of conjuring them up (iii. I). His is to the inmost -fibre a truth-loving nature:-- - - "_Glend_. I can call spirits from the vasty deep. - _Hot_. Why, so can I, or so can any man; - But will they come, when you do call for them? - _Glend_. Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the devil. - _Hot_. And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil, - By telling truth: tell truth, and shame the devil." - -There is a militant rationalism in these words which was rare, very -rare, in Shakespeare's time, to say nothing of Hotspur's own. - -He has also, no doubt, the defects of his qualities. He is contentious, -quarrels the moment he is thwarted over the division of booty that has -yet to be won, and then, having gained his point, gives up his share -in the spoils. He is jealous in his ambition, cannot bear to hear any -one else praised, and would like to see Harry of Monmouth poisoned -with a pot of ale, so tired is he of hearing him spoken of. He judges -hastily, according to appearances; he has the profoundest contempt for -the Prince of Wales on account of the levity of his life, and does not -divine what lies behind it. He of course lacks all æsthetic faculty. -He is a bad speaker, and sentiment is as foreign to him as eloquence. -He prefers his dog's howling to music, and declares that the turning -of brass candlesticks does not set his teeth on edge so much as the -rhyming of balladmongers. - -Yet, with all his faults, he is the greatest figure of his time. Even -the King, his enemy, becomes a poet when he speaks of him (iii. 2):-- - - "Thrice hath this Hotspur, Mars in swathing-clothes, - This infant warrior, in his enterprises - Discomfited great Douglas: ta'en him once, - Enlarged him, and made a friend of him." - -The King longs daily that he could exchange his son for -Northumberland's; Hotspur is worthier than Prince Henry to be heir to -the throne of England. - -From first to last, from top to toe, Hotspur is the hero of the -feudal ages, indifferent to culture and polish, faithful to his -brother-in-arms to the point of risking everything for his sake, caring -neither for state, king, nor commons; a rebel, not for the sake of any -political idea, but because independence is all in all to him; a proud, -self-reliant, unscrupulous vassal, who, himself a sort of sub-king, -has deposed one king, and wants to depose the usurper he has exalted, -because he has not kept his promises. Clothed in renown, and ever more -insatiate of military honour, he is proud from independence of spirit -and truthful out of pride. He is a marvellous figure as Shakespeare has -projected him, stammering, absent, turbulent, witty, now simple, now -magniloquent. His hauberk clatters on his breast, his spurs jingle at -his heel, wit flashes from his lips, while he moves and has his being -in a golden nimbus of renown. - -Individual as he is, Shakespeare has embodied in him the national type. -From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, Hotspur is an -Englishman. He unites the national impetuosity and bravery with sound -understanding; he is English in his ungallant but cordial relation -to his wife; in the form, of his chivalry, which is Northern, not -Romanesque; in his Viking-like love of battle for battle's and honour's -sake, apart from any sentimental desire for a fair lady's applause. - -But Shakespeare's especial design was to present in him a master-type -of manliness. He is so profoundly, so thoroughly a man that he forms -the one counterpart in modern poetry to the Achilles of the Greeks. -Achilles is the hero of antiquity, Henry Percy of the Middle Ages. The -ambition of both is entirely personal and regardless of the common -weal. For the rest, they are equally noble and high-spirited. The one -point on which Hotspur is inferior to the Greek demigod is that of free -naturalness. His soul has been cramped and hardened by being strapped -into the harness of the feudal ages. Hero as he is, he is at the same -time a soldier, obliged and accustomed to be over-bold, forced to -restrict his whole activity to feuds and fights. He cannot weep like -Achilles, and he would be ashamed of himself if he could. He cannot -play the lyre like Achilles, and he would think himself bewitched if -he could be brought to admit that music sounded sweeter in his ears -than the baying of a dog or the mewing of a cat.[1] He compensates for -these deficiencies by the unyielding, restless, untiring energy of his -character, by the spirit of enterprise in his manly soul, and by his -healthy and amply justified pride. It is in virtue of these qualities -that he can, without shrinking, sustain comparison with a demigod. - -So deep are the roots of Hotspur's character. Eccentric in externals, -he is at bottom typical. The untamed and violent spirit of feudal -nobility, the reckless and adventurous activity of the English race, -the masculine nature itself in its uncompromising genuineness, all -those vast and infinite forces which lie deep under the surface and -determine the life of a whole period, a whole people, and one half of -humanity, are at work in this character. Elaborated to infinitesimal -detail, it yet includes the immensities into which thought must plunge -if it would seek for the conditions and ideals of a historic epoch. - -But in spite of all this, Henry Percy is by no means the hero of the -play. He is only the foil to the hero, throwing into relief the young -Prince's unpretentious nature, his careless sporting with rank and -dignity, his light-hearted contempt for all conventional honour, all -show and appearance. Every garland with which Hotspur wreathes his -helm is destined in the end to deck the brows of Henry of Wales. The -answer to Hotspur's question as to what has become of the madcap Prince -of Wales and his comrades, shows what colours Shakespeare has held in -reserve for the portraiture of his true hero. Even Vernon, an enemy of -the Prince, thus depicts his setting forth on the campaign (iv. I):-- - - "All furnished, all in arms, - All plum'd like estridges that wing the wind; - Bated like eagles having lately bath'd; - Glittering in golden coats, like images; - As full of spirit as the month of May, - And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer; - Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls. - I saw young Harry, with his beaver on, - His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd, - Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury, - And vaulted with such ease into his seat, - As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds, - To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, - And witch the world with noble horsemanship." - - -[1] - - "And Achilles at last _Brake suddenly forth into weeping_, - and turned from his comrades aside, And sat by the cold grey - sea, looking forth o'er the harvestless tide." _Iliad_, i. - 348. - - "So when to the tents and the ships of the Myrmidon host they had won, - They found him delighting his soul as rang to the sweep of his hand - His beautiful rich-wrought lyre with a silver cross-bar spanned, - Which he chose from the spoils of the war when he smote Eëtion's town. - Sweetly it rang as he sang old deeds of hero-renown." - _Iliad_, ix. 185. - - -So Greek and so musical is he who can yet give this answer to the dying -Hector's appeal:-- - - "'Knee me no knees, thou dog, neither prate of my parents to - me! Would God my spirit within me would leave my fury free - To carve the flesh of thee raw, and devour, for the deeds - thou hast done.'" _Iliad_, xxii. 345. - - -(Translated by Arthur S. Way.) - - - - -XXIV - -_PRINCE HENRY--THE POINT OF DEPARTURE FOR SHAKESPEARE'S IMAGINATION--A -TYPICAL ENGLISH NATIONAL HERO--THE FRESHNESS AND PERFECTION OF THE PLAY_ - -Henry V. was, in the popular conception, the national hero of England. -He was the man whose glorious victories had brought France under -English rule. His name had a ring like that of Valdemar in Denmark, -bringing with it memories of a time of widespread dominion, which -the weakness of his successors had suffered to shrink again. As a -matter of history, Henry had been a soldier almost from his boyhood, -had been stationed on the Welsh borders from his sixteenth to his -one-and-twentieth year, and had afterwards, in London, enjoyed the full -confidence of his father and of the Parliament. But there was some -hint in the old chronicles of his having, in his youth, frequented -bad company and led a wild life which gave no foretaste of his coming -greatness. This hint had been elaborated in the old and worthless play, -_The Famous Victories_; and no more was needed to set Shakespeare's -imagination to work, and render it productive. He revelled in the idea -of representing the young Prince of Wales roistering among drunkards -and demireps, only to rise all the more brilliantly and superbly into -the irreproachable sovereign, the greatest soldier among England's -kings, the humiliator of France, the victor of Agincourt. - -No doubt Shakespeare's imagination here started from a basis of -personal experience. As a young player and poet, he in all probability -lived a Bohemian life in London, not, indeed, of debauchery, but full -of such passions and dissipations as his vigorous temperament, his -overflowing vitality, and his position beyond the pale of staid and -respectable citizenship, would tend to throw in his way. The Sonnets, -which speak so plainly of vehement and fateful emotions on his part, -also hint at temptations which he did not resist. We read, for -instance, in Sonnet cxix.:-- - - "What potions have I drunk of Siren tears, - Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within, - Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears, - Still losing when I saw myself to win! - What wretched errors hath my heart committed, - Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never! - How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted, - In the distraction of this madding fever!" - -And again in Sonnet cxxix.:-- - - "The expense of spirit in a waste of shame - Is lust in action; and till action, lust - Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame, - Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust; - Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight; - Past reason hunted; and no sooner had, - Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait, - On purpose laid to make the taker mad: - . . . . . . . . - All this the world well knows; yet none knows well - To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell." - -This is the philosophy of the morrow, of the reaction. But Shakespeare -had also, no doubt, his hours of light-hearted enjoyment, when such -moralising reflections were far enough from his mind. We have evidence -of this in more than one anecdote. In the diary of John Manningham, of -the Middle Temple, the following entry occurs, under the date March 13, -1602:-- - - "Upon a tyme when Burbidge played Rich. 3, there was a - Citizen grone soe farr in liking with him, that before shee - went from the play shee appointed him to come that night - vnto hir by the name of Ri: the 3. Shakespeare ouerhearing - their conclusion went before, [and] was intertained .. ere - Burbidge came. Then message being brought that Rich, the 3d - was at the dore, Shakespeare caused returne to be made that - William the Conquerour was before Rich. the 3. Shakespere's - name was William." - -Aubrey, who, however, did not write until 1680, is the authority, -supported by several others (Pope, Oldys, etc.), for the legend that -Shakespeare, on his yearly journeys from London to Stratford-on-Avon -and back, by way of Oxford and Woodstock, used to alight at the "Crown" -tavern, kept by one Davenant in Oxford, and there won the heart of his -hostess, the buxom and merry Mrs. Davenant, who "used much to delight -in his pleasant company." According to this tradition, the young -William Davenant, afterwards a poet of note, commonly passed in Oxford -for Shakespeare's son, and was said to bear some resemblance to him. -Sir William himself was not unwilling to have it believed that he was -"more than a poetic child only" of Shakespeare's.[1] - -Be this as it may, Shakespeare had certainly sufficient personal -experience to enable him to sympathise with this princely youth, who, -despite the consciousness of his high aims, revels in his freedom, -shuns the court life and ceremonial which await him, throws his dignity -to the winds, riots in reckless high spirits, boxes the ears of the -Lord Chief-Justice, and has yet self-command enough to suffer arrest -without resistance, takes part in a tourney with a common wench's glove -in his helm--in short, does everything that most conflicts with his -people's sense of propriety and his father's doctrines of prudence, but -does it without coarseness, with a certain innocence, and without ever -having to reproach himself with any actual self-degradation. Henry IV. -misunderstands his son as completely as Frederick William of Prussia -misunderstood the young Frederick the Great. - -We see him, indeed, plunging into the most boyish and thoughtless -diversions, in company with topers, tavern-wenches, and pot-boys; but -we see, also, that he is magnanimous, and full of profound admiration -for Harry Percy, that admiration for a rival of which Percy himself was -incapable. And he rises, ere long, above this world of triviality and -make-believe to the true height of his nature. His alert self-esteem, -his immovable self-confidence, can early be traced in minor touches. -When Falstaff asks him if "his blood does not thrill" to think of the -alliance between three such formidable foes as Percy, Douglas, and -Glendower, he dismisses with a smile all idea of fear. A little later, -he plays upon his truncheon of command as upon a fife. He has the great -carelessness of the great natures; he does not even lose it when he -feels himself unjustly suspected. At bottom he is a good brother, a -good son, a great patriot; and he has the makings of a great ruler. -He lacks Hotspur's optimism (which sees some advantage even in his -father's desertion), nor has he his impetuous pugnacity; yet we see -outlined in him the daring, typically English conqueror, adventurer, -and politician, unscrupulous, and, on occasion, cruel, undismayed -though the enemy outnumber him tenfold--the prototype of the men who, a -century and a half after Shakespeare's death, achieved the conquest of -India. - -It is a pity that Shakespeare could find no other way of displaying -his military superiority to Percy than simply to make him a better -swordsman and let him kill his rival in single combat. This is a return -to the Homeric conception of martial prowess. It was by such traits as -this that Shakespeare repelled Napoleon. These things appeared to him -childish. He found more "politics" in Corneille. - -With complete magnanimity, Prince Henry leaves to Falstaff the -honour of having slain Hotspur, that honour whose true nature forms -the central theme of the whole play, although the idea is nowhere -formulated in any individual speech. But after Henry Percy's death, -Shakespeare, strangely enough, sometimes actually transfers to Henry -Plantagenet his fallen rival's characteristics. He says, for example -(_Henry V_., iv. 3), "If it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most -offending soul alive." He declares that he understands neither rhyme -nor metre. He woos his bride as ungallantly as Hotspur talks to his -Kate, and he answers the challenges of the French with a boastfulness -that throws Hotspur's into the shade. In _Henry V_. Shakespeare strikes -the key of pure panegyric. The play is a National Anthem in five acts. - -We must remember that Shakespeare from the first could not treat this -character with perfect freedom. There is a touch of reverence, of -patriotic religion in his tone, even where he shows the Prince given -over to wild and wanton frolics. At the close of the Second Part of -_Henry IV_. he is already transformed by his sense of responsibility; -and he develops, as Henry V., a sincerely religious frame of mind, -based on personal humility and on the consciousness of his father's -defective right to the throne, which no one could ever have divined in -the light-hearted Prince Hal. - -These later plays, however, are not to be compared with this First Part -of _Henry IV_., which in its day made so great and well-deserved a -success. It presented life itself in all its fulness and variety, great -typical creations and figures of racy reality, which, without standing -in symmetrical antithesis or parallelism to each other, moved freely -over the boards where a never-to-be-forgotten history was enacted. Here -no fundamental idea held tyrannical, sway, forcing every word that was -spoken into formal relation to the whole; here nothing was abstract. -No sooner has the rebellion been hatched in the royal palace than the -second act opens with a scene in an inn-yard on the Dover road. It is -just daybreak; some carriers cross the yard with their lanterns, going -to the stable to saddle their horses; they hail each other, gossip, and -tell each other how they have passed the night. Not a word do they say -about Prince Henry or Falstaff; they talk of the price of oats, and of -how "this house is turned upside down since Robin ostler died." Their -speeches have nothing to do with the action; they merely sketch its -locality and put the audience in tune for it; but seldom in poetry has -so much been effected in so few words. The night sky, with Charles's -Wain "over the new chimney," the flickering gleam of the lanterns in -the dirty yard, the fresh air of the early dawn, the misty atmosphere, -the mingled odour of damp peas and beans, of bacon and ginger, all -comes straight home to our senses. The situation takes hold of us with -all the irresistible force of reality. - -Shakespeare must have written this drama with a feeling of almost -infallible inspiration and triumphant ease. We understand in reading -it what his contemporaries say of his manuscripts: he did not blot a -single line. - -The political developments arising from Henry IV.'s wrongful seizure of -the throne of Richard II. afford the groundwork of the play. - -The King, situated partly like Louis Philippe, partly like Napoleon -III., does all he can to obliterate the memory of his usurpation. But -he does not succeed. Why not? Shakespeare gives a twofold answer. First -there is the natural, human reason: the relation of characters and -circumstances. The King has risen by the "fell working" of his friends; -he is afraid of falling again before their power. His position forces -him to be mistrustful, and his mistrust repels every one from him, -first Mortimer, then Percy, then, as nearly as possible, his own son. -Secondly, we have the prescribed religious reason: that wrong avenges -itself, that punishment follows upon the heels of guilt--in a word, -the so-called principle of "poetic justice." If only to propitiate -the censorship and the police, Shakespeare could not but do homage to -this principle. It was bad enough that the theatres should be suffered -to exist at all; if they so far forgot themselves as to show vice -unpunished and virtue unrewarded, the playwright would have to be -sternly brought to his senses. - -The character of the King is a masterpiece. He is the shrewd, -mistrustful, circumspect ruler, who has made his way to the throne by -dint of smiles and pressures of the hand, has employed every artifice -for making an impression, has first ingratiated himself with the -populace by his affability and has then been sparing of his personal -presence. Hence those words of his which so deeply impressed Sören -Kierkegaard,[2] who despised and acted in direct opposition to the -principle they formulated (Pt. i. iii. 2):-- - - "Had I so lavish of my presence been, - So common-hackney'd in the eyes of men, - So stale and cheap to vulgar company, - Opinion, that did help me to the crown, - Had still kept loyal to possession, - And left me in reputeless banishment, - A fellow of no mark, nor likelihood. - By being seldom seen, I could not stir, - But like a comet I was wonder'd at." - -He thus illustrates, from the point of view of an old diplomatist, the -injury his son does himself by flaunting it among his disreputable -associates. - -Yet the son is not so unlike the father as the father believes. -Shakespeare has made him, in his own way, adopt a scarcely less -diplomatic policy: that of establishing a false opinion about himself, -letting himself pass for a frivolous debauchee, in order to make -all the deeper impression by his firmness and energy as soon as an -opportunity offers of showing what is in him. Even in his first -soliloquy (i. 2) he lays down this line of policy with a definiteness -which is psychologically feeble:-- - - "I know you all, and will awhile uphold - The unyok'd humour of your idleness. - Yet herein will I imitate the sun, - Who doth permit the base contagious clouds - To smother up his beauty from the world, - That when he please again to be himself, - Being wanted, he may be more wondered at." - -This self-consciousness on Henry's part was to some extent imposed -upon Shakespeare. Without it, he could scarcely have brought upon the -stage, in such questionable company, a prince who had become a national -hero. Yet if the Prince had acted with the cut-and-dried deliberation -of purpose which he here attributes to himself, we should have to write -him down an unmitigated charlatan. - -Here, as in a former instance of psychological crudity--Richard III.'s -description of himself as a villain--we must allow for Shakespeare's -use of the soliloquy. He frequently regards it as an indispensable -stage-convention, which does not really reveal the inmost thoughts of -the speaker, but only serves to place the hearer at a certain point -of view, and to give him information which he needs. Furthermore, -such a soliloquy as this ought to be spoken with a good deal of -sophistical self-justification on the Prince's part, or else, as the -German actor, Josef Kainz, treats it, in a tone of gay raillery. -Finally, it is to be regarded as a first hint--rather a broad one, -it must be admitted--which Shakespeare gives us thus early in order -to get rid of the improbability he found in the Chronicle, where the -Prince is instantaneously and miraculously transformed through a -single resolve. The soliloquy is introduced at this point to ensure -the coherence of his character, lest the spectator should feel that -the Prince's conversion to a totally different manner of life was -mechanically tacked on and had no root in his inner nature. And it must -have been one of the chief attractions of the theme for Shakespeare -to show precisely this conversion. No doubt he enjoyed depicting his -hero's gay and thoughtless life, at war with all the morality which -is founded on mere social convention; but at least as great must have -been the pleasure he took, as a man of ripe experience, in vindicating -that morality which he now felt to be the determining factor in human -life--the morality of voluntary self-reform and self-control, without -which there can be no concentration of purpose or systematic activity. -When the new-crowned king will no longer recognise Falstaff, when he -repulses him with the words:-- - - "How ill white hairs become a fool and jester.... - Reply not to me with a fool-born jest; - Presume not that I am the thing I was," - -he speaks out of Shakespeare's own soul. Behind the words there glows -a new-born warmth of feeling. The calm sense of justice of the island -king makes haste to express itself, and to refuse all further dallying -with evil. He grants Falstaff a maintenance and banishes him from his -presence. Shakespeare's hero is at this point a living embodiment of -that earnestness and sense of responsibility which the poet, whom one -of his greatest and ablest admirers (Taine) has represented as being -devoid of moral feeling, held to be the indispensable condition of all -high endeavour. - - -[1] This tradition seems in no way improbable, and its -probability is not diminished by the fact that an anecdote connected -with it has been shown by Halliwell-Phillips to be an old Joe Miller, -merely adapted to the case in point. "One day an old townsman, -observing the boy running homeward almost out of breath, asked him -whither he was posting in that heat and hurry. He answered to see his -_god_father Shakespeare. 'There is a good boy,' said the other; 'but -have a care that you don't take _God's_ name in vain'" (_Oldys_). - -[2] A Danish ethical and theological thinker, a Northern -Pascal, said to have in some measure suggested to Ibsen the character -of Brand. - - - - -XXV - -"_KING HENRY IV.," SECOND PART--OLD AND NEW CHARACTERS IN -IT--DETAILS--"HENRY V.," A NATIONAL DRAMA--PATRIOTISM AND -CHAUVINISM--THE VISION OF A GREATER ENGLAND_ - -The Second Part of _Henry IV_., which must have been written in 1598, -since Justice Silence is mentioned in Ben Jonson's _Every Man out of -his Humour_, acted in 1599, abounds, no less than the First Part, in -poetic power, but is only a dramatised chronicle, not a drama. In its -serious scenes, the play is more faithful to history than the First -Part, and it is not Shakespeare's fault that the historical characters -are here of less interest. In the comic scenes, which are very amply -developed, Shakespeare has achieved the feat of bringing Falstaff -a second time upon the stage without giving us the least sense of -anticlimax. He is incomparable as ever in his scenes with the Lord -Chief-Justice and with the women of the tavern; and when he goes down -into Gloucestershire in his character of recruiting-officer, he is -still at the height of his genius. As new comrades and foils to him, -Shakespeare has here created the two contemptible country Justices, -Shallow and Silence. Shallow is a masterpiece, a compact of mere -stupidity, foolishness, boastfulness, rascality, and senility; yet he -appears a genius in comparison with the ineffable Silence. Here, as -in the First Part, the poet evidently drew his comic types from the -life of his own day. Another very amusing new personage, who, like -Falstaff, was much imitated by the minor dramatists of the time, is -Falstaff's Ancient, the braggart Pistol, whose talk is an anthology of -playhouse bombast. This inept affectation not only makes him a highly -comic personage, but gives Shakespeare an opportunity of girding at -the robustious style of the earlier tragic poets, which had become -repulsive to him. He parodies Marlowe's _Tamburlaine_ in Pistol's -outburst (ii. 4):-- - - "Shall packhorses, - And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia, - Which cannot go but thirty miles a-day, - Compare with Cæsars and with Cannibals, - And Trojan Greeks?" - -The passage in _Tamburlaine_ (Second Part, ii. 4) runs thus:-- - - "Holla, ye pamper'd jades of Asia, - What? can ye draw but twenty miles a day?" - -He makes fun of Peele's _Turkish Mahomet and Hyren the fair Greek_, -when Pistol, alluding to his sword, exclaims, "Have we not Hiren here?" -And again it is George Peele who is aimed at when Pistol says to the -hostess:-- - - "Then feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis; - Come, give's some sack." - -In _The Battle of Alcazar_ (see above, p. 31), Muley Mahomet brings his -wife some flesh on the point of his sword and says-- - - "Hold thee, Calipolis, feed and faint no more!" - -But Falstaff himself is, and must ever remain, the chief attraction of -the comic scenes. Never was the Fat Knight wittier than when he answers -the Lord Chief-Justice, who has told him that his figure bears "all the -characters of age" (i. 2):-- - - "My Lord, I was born about three of the clock in the - afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly. - For my voice, I have lost it with hollaing and singing of - anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth - is, I am only old in judgment and understanding; and he that - will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the - money, and have at him." - -The play is a mere bundle of individual passages, but each of these -passages is admirable. A great example is King Henry's soliloquy which -opens the third act, the profoundly imaginative apostrophe to sleep:-- - - "O thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile, - In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch, - A watch-case, or a common 'larum bell? - Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast - Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains - In cradle of the rude imperious surge, - And in the visitation of the winds, - Who take the ruffian billows by the top, - Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them - With deaf'ning clamours in the slippery clouds, - That with the hurly death itself awakes? - Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose - To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude; - And in the calmest and most stillest night, - With all appliances and means to boot, - Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down! - Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." - -Throughout this Second Part, the King, besieged by cares and living in -the shadow of death, is richer in thought and wisdom than ever before. -What he says, and what is said to him, seems drawn by the poet from the -very depths of his own experience, and addressed to men of the like -experience and thought. Every word of that first scene of the third act -is in the highest degree significant and admirable. It is here that -the King turns to what we now call geology (see above, p. 95) for an -image of the historical mutability of all things. When he mournfully -reminds his attendants that Richard II., whom he displaced, prophesied -a Nemesis to come from those who had helped him to the throne, and that -this Nemesis has now over-taken him, Warwick answers with the profound -and astonishingly modern reflection that history is apparently governed -by laws, and that each man's life-- - - "Figures the nature of the times deceas'd; - The which observ'd, a man may prophesy, - With a near aim, of the main chance of things - As yet not come to life." - -To this the King returns the no less philosophical answer:-- - - "Are these things, then, necessities? - Then let us meet them like necessities." - -But it is at the close of the fourth act, where news of the total -defeat of the rebels is brought to the dying King, that he utters what -is perhaps his most profoundly pessimistic speech, complaining that -Fortune never comes with both hands full, but "writes her fair words -still in foulest letters," so that life is like a feast at which either -the food or the appetite [or the guests] are always lacking. - -From the moment of King Henry's death, Shakespeare concentrates all -his poetical strength upon the task of presenting in his great son the -pattern and ideal of English kingship. In all the earlier Histories the -King had grave defects; Shakespeare now applies himself, with warm and -undisguised enthusiasm, to the portrayal of a king without a flaw. - -His _Henry V_. is a glorification of this national ideal. The five -choruses which introduce the acts are patriotic pæans, Shakespeare's -finest heroic lyrics; and the play itself is an epic in dialogue, -without any sort of dramatic structure, development, or conflict. It -is an English _ἐγκώμιον_, a dramatic monument, as was the _Persæ_ of -Æschylus for ancient Athens. As a work of creative art, it cannot -be compared with the two preceding Histories, to which it forms a -supplement. Its theme is English patriotism, and its appeal is to -England rather than to the world. - -The allusion to Essex's command in Ireland in the prologue to the fifth act -gives us beyond a doubt the date of its first performance. Essex was -in Ireland from the 15th of April 1599 to the 28th of September in the -following year. As we find the play alluded to by other poets in 1600, -it must in all probability have been produced in 1599. - -How strongly Shakespeare was impressed by the greatness of his theme -appears in his reiterated expressions of humility in approaching it. -He begins, like the epic poets of antiquity, with an invocation of -the Muse; he implores forgiveness, not only for the imperfection of -his scenic apparatus, but for the "flat unraised spirits" in which he -treats so mighty a theme. And in the prologue to the fourth act he -returns to the subject of his unworthiness and the pitiful limitations -of the stage. Throughout the choruses, he has done his utmost, by -dint of vivid imagery and lyric impetus and splendour, to make up for -the sacrifice of unity and cohesion involved in his faithfulness to -history. Shakespeare was evidently unconscious of the naïveté of the -lecture on the Salic law, establishing Henry's claim to the crown of -France, with which the Archbishop opens the play; no doubt he thought -it absolutely imposed upon him. - -For he here strives to make Henry an epitome of all the virtues he -himself most highly values. Even in the last act of the Second Part -of _Henry IV._ he had endowed him with traits of irreproachable -kingly magnanimity. Henry confirms in his office the Chief-Justice, -who, in the execution of his duty, had arrested the Prince of Wales, -addresses him with the deepest respect, and even calls him "father." -In reality this Chief-Justice was dismissed at the King's accession. -_Henry V._ completes the evolution of the royal butterfly from -the larva and chrysalis stages of the earlier plays. Henry is at -once the monarch who always thinks royally, and never forgets his -pride as the representative of the English people; the man with no -pose or arrogance, who bears himself simply, talks modestly, acts -energetically, and thinks piously; the soldier who endures privations -like the meanest of his followers, is downright in his jesting and -his wooing, and enforces discipline with uncompromising strictness, -even as against his own old comrades; and finally, the citizen who -is accessible alike to small and great, and in whom the youthful -frolicsomeness of earlier days has become the humourist's relish for -a practical joke, like that which he plays off upon Williams and -Fluellen. Shakespeare shows him, like a military Haroun Al Raschid, -seeking personally to insinuate himself into the thoughts and feelings -of his followers; and--what is very unlike him--he manifests no -disapproval where the King sinks far below the ideal, as when he orders -the frightful massacre of all the French prisoners taken at Agincourt. -Shakespeare tries to pass the deed off as a measure of necessity. - -The reason of this is that the spirit which here prevails is not pure -patriotism, but in many points a narrow Chauvinism. King Henry's two -speeches before Harfleur (iii. I and iii. 3) are bombastic, savage, -and threatening to the point of frothy bluster; and wherever Frenchmen -and Englishmen are brought into contrast, the French, even if they -at that time showed themselves inferior soldiers, are treated with -obvious injustice. With his sharp eye for national, as for personal -peculiarities, Shakespeare has of course seized upon certain weaknesses -of the French character; but for the most part his Frenchmen are mere -caricatures for the diversion of the gallery. Quite childish is the -way in which he makes the Frenchmen mix fragments of French in their -speeches. But it is consistent enough with the national and popular -design of the play that not a little of it should seem to be addressed -to the common, uneducated public--for instance, the scene in which the -miserable blusterer Pistol makes prisoner a French nobleman whom he has -succeeded in overawing, and that in which the young Princess Katherine -of France takes lessons in English from one of her ladies-in-waiting. -This passage (iii. 4) and the wooing scene between King Henry and the -Princess (v. 2) are incidentally interesting as giving us a good idea -of Shakespeare's acquaintance with French. No doubt he could read -French, but he must have spoken it very imperfectly. He is perhaps not -to blame for such blunders as _le possession_ and _à les anges._ On the -other hand, it was doubtless he who placed in the mouth of the Princess -such comically impossible expressions as these when Henry has kissed -her hand:-- - - _"Je ne veux point que vous abbaissez vostre grandeur, en - baisant le main d'une vostre indigne serviteur"._ - -And this:-- - - _"Les dames, et damoiselles, pour estre baisées devant leur - nopces, il n'est pas le costume de France."_ - -According to his custom, and in order to preserve continuity of style -with the foregoing plays, Shakespeare has interspersed _Henry V_. -with comic figures and scenes. Falstaff himself does not appear, his -death being announced at the beginning of the play; but the members -of his gang wander around, as living and ludicrous mementos of him, -until they disappear one by one by way of the gallows, so that nothing -may survive to recall the great king's frivolous youth. To console -us for their loss, we are here introduced to a new circle of comic -figures--soldiers from the different English-speaking countries which -make up what we now call the United Kingdom. Each of them speaks his -own dialect, in which resides much of the comic effect for English -ears. We have a Welshman, a Scot, and an Irishman. The Welshman is -intrepid, phlegmatic, somewhat pedantic, but all fire and flame for -discipline and righteousness; the Scot is immovable in his equilibrium, -even-tempered, sturdy, and trustworthy; the Irishman is a true Celt, -fiery, passionate, quarrelsome and apt at misunderstanding. Fluellen, -the Welshman, with his comic phlegm and manly severity, is the most -elaborate of these figures. - -But in placing on the stage these representatives of the different -English-speaking peoples, Shakespeare had another and deeper purpose -than that of merely amusing his public with a medley of dialects. At -that time the Scots were still the hereditary enemies of England, who -always attacked her in the rear whenever she went to war, and the Irish -were actually in open rebellion. Shakespeare evidently dreamed of a -Greater England, as we nowadays speak of a Greater Britain. When he -wrote this play, King James of Scotland was busily courting the favour -of the English, and the question of the succession to the throne, when -the old Queen should die, was not definitely settled. Shakespeare -clearly desired that, with the coming of James, the old national hatred -between the Scotch and the English should cease. Essex, in Ireland, -was at this very time carrying out the policy which was to lead to -his destruction--that, namely, of smoothing away hatred by means of -leniency, and trying to come to an arrangement with the leader of the -Catholic rebellion. Southampton was with him in Ireland as his Master -of the Horse, and we cannot doubt that Shakespeare's heart was in the -campaign. Bates in this play (iv. I) probably expresses Shakespeare's -own political ideas when he says-- - - "Be friends, you English fools, be friends: we have French - [Spanish] quarrels enow, if you could tell how to reckon." - -_Henry V_. is not one of Shakespeare's best plays, but it is one of -his most amiable. He here shows himself not as the almost superhuman -genius, but as the English patriot, whose enthusiasm is as beautiful -as it is simple, and whose prejudices, even, are not unbecoming. The -play not only points backward to the greatest period of England's past, -but forward to King James, who, as the Protestant son of the Catholic -Mary Stuart, was to put an end to religious persecutions, and who, as -a Scotchman and a supporter of the Irish policy of Essex, was for the -first time to show the world not only a sturdy England, but a powerful -Great Britain. - - - - -XXVI - -_ELIZABETH AND FALSTAFF--THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR--THE PROSAIC AND -BOURGEOIS TONE OF THE PIECE--THE FAIRY SCENES_ - -Shakespeare must have written _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ immediately -after _Henry V_., probably about Christmas 1599; for Sir Thomas Lucy, -on whom the poet here takes his revenge, died in 1600, and it is -improbable that Shakespeare would have cared to gird at him after his -death. He almost certainly did not write the piece of his own motive, -but at the suggestion of one whose wish was a command. There is the -strongest internal evidence for the truth of the tradition which states -that the play was written at the request of Queen Elizabeth. The first -Quarto of 1602 has on its title-page the words, "As it hath been divers -times acted by the right honourable my Lord Chamberlain's servants. -Both before Her Majesty, and elsewhere." A century later (1702), John -Dennis, who published an adaptation of the play, writes, "I know very -well that it had pleased one of the greatest queens that ever was -in the world.... This comedy was written at her command and by her -direction, and she was so eager to see it acted, that she commanded it -to be finished in fourteen days." A few years later (1709) Rowe writes, -"She was so well pleased with that admirable character of Falstaff in -the two parts of _Henry IV_., that she commanded him to continue it for -one play more and show him in love. This is said to be the occasion of -his writing _The Merry Wives_. How well she was obeyed, the play itself -is an admirable proof." - -Old Queen Bess can scarcely have been a great judge of art, or she -would not have conceived the extravagant notion of wanting to see -Falstaff in love; she would have understood that if there was anything -impossible to him it was this. She would also have realised that -his figure was already a rounded whole and could not be reproduced. -It is true that in the Epilogue to _Henry IV_. (which, however, -is probably not by Shakespeare) a continuation of the history is -promised, in which, "for anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a -sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions;" (but no -such continuation is to be found in _Henry V_.) evidently because -Shakespeare felt that Falstaff had played out his part. Neither is _The -Merry Wives_ the promised continuation, for Falstaff does not die, and -the action is conceived as an earlier episode in his life, though it is -entirely removed from its historical setting and brought forward into -the poet's own time, so unequivocally that there is even in the fifth -act a direct mention of "our radiant queen" in Windsor Castle. - -The poet must have set himself unwillingly to the fulfilment of the -"radiant queen's" barbarous wish, and tried to make the best of -a bad business. He was compelled entirely to ruin his inimitable -Falstaff, and degrade the fat knight into an ordinary avaricious, -wine-bibbing, amatory old fool. Along with him, he resuscitated the -whole merry company from _Henry V_., who had all come to an unpleasant -end--Bardolph, Pistol, Nym, and Dame Quickly--making the men repeat -themselves with a difference, endowing Pistol with the splendid phrase, -"The world's mine oyster, which I with sword will open," and giving to -Dame Quickly softened and more commonplace lineaments. From the Second -Part of _Henry IV._ too, he introduces Justice Shallow, placing him in -a less friendly relation to Falstaff, and giving him a highly comic -nephew, Slender, who, in his vanity and pitifulness, is like a first -sketch for Sir Andrew Aguecheek in _Twelft Night_. - -His task was now to entertain a queen and a court "with their hatred of -ideas, their insensibility to beauty, their hard, efficient manners, -and their demand for impropriety."[1] As it amused the London populace -to see kings and princes upon the stage, so it entertained the Queen -and her court to have a glimpse into the daily life of the middle -classes, so remote from their own, to look into their rooms, and hear -their chat with the doctor and the parson, to see a picture of the -prosperity and contentment which flourished at Windsor right under the -windows of the Queen's summer residence, and to witness the downright -virtue and merry humour of the red-cheeked, buxom townswomen. Thus -was the keynote of the piece determined. Thus it became more prosaic -and bourgeois than any other play of Shakespeare's. _The Merry Wives_ -is indeed the only one of his works which is almost entirely written -in prose, and the only one of his comedies in which, the scene being -laid in England, he has taken as his subject the contemporary life of -the English middle classes. It is not quite unlike the more farcical -of Molière's comedies, which also were often written with an eye to -royal and courtly audiences. All the more significant is the fact -that Shakespeare has found it impossible to content himself with -thus dwelling on the common earth, and has introduced at the close -a fairy-dance and fairy-song, as though from the _Midsummer Night's -Dream_ itself, executed, it is true, by children and young girls -dressed up as elves, but preserving throughout the air and style of -genuine fairy scenes. - -Shakespeare had just been trying his hand in _Henry V._ at writing the -broken English spoken by a Welshman and by a Frenchman. He knew that -at court, where people prided themselves on the purest pronunciation -of their mother-tongue, he would find an audience exceedingly alive -to the comic effects thus obtained, and he therefore, while he was in -the vein, introduced into this hasty and occasional production two -not unkindly caricatures--the Welsh priest, Sir Hugh Evans, in whom -he perhaps immortalised one of his Stratford schoolmasters, and the -French Doctor Caius, a thoroughly farcical eccentric, who pronounces -everything awry. - -The hurry with which Shakespeare wrote this comedy has led him into -some confusion as to the process of time. In Act iii. 4, when Dame -Quickly is sent to Falstaff to make a second appointment with him, it -is the afternoon of the second day; in the following scene, when she -comes to him, it is the morning of the third day. But this haste has -also given the play an unusually dramatic swing and impetus; it is -quite free from the episodes in which the poet is at other times apt to -loiter. - -Nevertheless Shakespeare has here woven together no fewer than three -different actions--Falstaff's advances to the two Merry Wives, -Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page, and all the consequences of his ill-timed -rendezvous; the rivalry between the foolish doctor, the imbecile -Slender, and young Fenton for the hand of fair Anne Page; and finally, -the burlesque duel between the Welsh priest and the French doctor, -which is devised and set afoot by the jovial Windsor innkeeper. - -Shakespeare has himself invented much more than usual of the -complicated intrigue. But Falstaff's concealment in the buck-basket was -suggested by a similar incident in Fiorentino's _Il Pecorone_, from -which Shakespeare had already borrowed in the _Merchant of Venice_; and -the idea of making Falstaff incessantly confide his designs and his -rendezvous to the husband of the lady in question came from another -Italian story by Straparola, which had been published some ten years -earlier, under the title of _Two Lovers of Pisa_, in Tarlton's _News of -Purgatory_. - -The invention is not always very happy. For instance, it is a highly -unpleasing and improbable touch that Ford, as Master Brook, should -bribe Falstaff to procure him possession of the woman (his own wife) -whom he affects to desire, and whom Falstaff also is pursuing. -Ford's jealousy, moreover, is altogether too stupid and crude in its -manifestations. But we have especially to deplore that the nature of -the intrigue and the moral tendency to be impressed on the play should -have made Falstaff, who used to be quickness and ingenuity personified, -so preternaturally dense that his incessant defeats afford his -opponents a very poor triumph. - -He is ignorant of everything it would have been his interest to -know, and he is perpetually committing afresh the same inconceivable -blunders. It is foolish enough, in the first place, to write two -identical love-letters to two women in the same little town, who, as -he ought to know, are bosom friends. It is incredibly stupid of him -to walk three times in succession straight into the coarse trap which -they set for him; in doing so he betrays such a monstrous vanity that -we find it impossible to recognise in him the ironical Falstaff of the -Histories. It is inexpressibly guileless of him never to conceive the -slightest suspicion of "Master Brook," who, being his only confidant, -is therefore the only man who can have betrayed him to the husband. -And finally, it is not only childish, but utterly inconsistent with -the keen understanding of the earlier Falstaff, that he should believe -in the supernatural nature of the beings who pinch him and burn him by -night in the park. - -On the other hand, the old high spirits and the old wit now and again -flame forth in him, and a few of his speeches to Shallow, to Pistol, to -Bardolph and others are exceedingly amusing. He shows a touch of his -old self when, after having been soused in the water along with the -foul linen, he protests that drowning is "a death that I abhor, for the -water swells a man, and what a thing should I have been when I had been -swelled!" And he has a highly humorous outburst in the last act (v. 5) -when he declares, "I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the -oil that is in me should set hell on fire." But what are these little -flashes in comparison with the inexhaustible whimsicality of the true -Falstaff! - -The play is more consistently farcical than any earlier comedy of -Shakespeare's, _The Taming of the Shrew_ not excepted. The graceful -and poetical passages are few. We have in Mr. and Mrs. Page a pleasant -English middle-class couple; and though the young lovers, Fenton and -Anne Page, have only one short scene together, they display in it -some attractive qualities. Anne Page is an amiable middle-class girl -of Shakespeare's day, one of the healthy and natural young women whom -Wordsworth has celebrated in the nineteenth century. Fenton, who is -said (though, we cannot believe it) to have been at one time a comrade -of Prince Hal and Poins, is certainly attached to her; but it is very -characteristic that Shakespeare, with his keen sense for the value of -money, sees nothing to object to in the fact that Fenton, as he frankly -confesses, was first attracted to Anne by her wealth. This is the same -trait which we found in another wooer, Bassanio, of a few years earlier. - -Finally, there is real poetry in the short fairy scene of the last act. -The poet here takes his revenge for the prose to which he has so long -been condemned. It is full of the aromatic wood-scents of Windsor Park -by night. What is altogether most valuable in _The Merry Wives_ is its -strong smack of the English soil. The play appeals to us, in spite of -the drawbacks inseparable from a work hastily written to order, because -the poet has here for once remained faithful to his own age and his own -country, and has given us a picture of the contemporary middle-class; -in its sturdy and honest worth, which even the atmosphere of farce -cannot quite obscure. - - -[1] Dowden: _Shakspere--his Mind and Art_, p. 370. - - - - -XXVII - -_SHAKESPEARE'S MOST BRILLIANT PERIOD--THE FEMININE TYPES BELONGING TO -IT--WITTY AND HIGHBORN YOUNG WOMEN--MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING--SLAVISH -FAITHFULNESS TO HIS SOURCES--BENEDICK AND BEATRICE--SPIRITUAL -DEVELOPMENT--THE LOW-COMEDY FIGURES_ - -Shakespeare now enters upon the stage in his career in which his wit -and brilliancy of spirit reach a perfection hitherto unattained. It -seems as though these years of his life had been bathed in sunshine. -They certainly cannot have been years of struggle, and still less -of sorrow; there must have been a sort of lull in his existence--a -tranquil zone, as it were, in the troubled waters of life. He seems for -a short time to have revelled in his own genius with a sort of pensive -happiness, to have drunk exhilarating draughts of his own inspiration. -He heard the nightingales warbling in the sacred grove of his spirit. -His whole nature burst into flower. - -In the Republican Calendar one of the months was named Floreal. -There is such a flower-month in almost every human life; and this is -Shakespeare's. - -He was doubtless in love at this time--as he had probably been all -his life through--but his love was not an overmastering passion like -Romeo's, nor did it depress him with that half-despairing feeling of -the unworthiness of its object which he betrays in his Sonnets; nor, -again, was it the airy ecstasy of youthful imagination that ran riot -in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. No, it was a happy love, which filled -his head as well as his heart, accompanied with joyous admiration for -the wit and vivacity of the beloved one, for her graciousness and -distinction. Her coquetry is gay, her heart is excellent, and her -intelligence so quick that she seems to be wit incarnate in the form of -a woman. - -In his early years he had presented not a few unamiable, mannish -women in his comedies, and not a few ambitious, bloodthirsty, or -corrupt women in his serious plays--figures such as Adriana and the -shrewish Katharine on the one hand, Tamora and Margaret of Anjou on the -other hand, who have all a stiff-necked will, and a certain violence -of manners. In the later years of his ripe manhood he displays a -preference for young women who are nothing but soul and tenderness, -silent natures without wit or sparkle, figures such as Ophelia, -Desdemona, and Cordelia. - -Between these two strongly-marked groups we come upon a bevy of -beautiful young women, who all have their heart in the right place, but -whose chief attraction lies in their sparkling quickness of wit. They -are often as lovable as the most faithful friend can be, and witty as -Heinrich Heine himself, though with another sort of wit. We feel that -Shakespeare must have admired with all his heart the models from whom -he drew these women, and must have rejoiced in them as one brilliant -mind rejoices in another. These types of delicate and aristocratic -womanhood cannot possibly have had plebeian models. - -In his first years in London, Shakespeare, as an underling in a company -of players, can have had no opportunity of associating with other -women than, firstly, those who sat for his Mistress Quickly and Doll -Tearsheet; secondly, those passionate and daring women who make the -first advances to actors and poets; and, thirdly, those who served as -models for his "Merry Wives," with their sound bourgeois sense and not -over delicate gaiety. But the ordinary citizen's wife or daughter of -that day offered the poet no sort of spiritual sustenance. They were, -as a rule, quite illiterate. Shakespeare's younger daughter could not -even write her own name. - -But he was presently discovered by men like Southampton and Pembroke, -cordially received into their refined and thoroughly cultivated -circle, and in all probability presented to the ladies of these noble -families. Can we doubt that the tone of conversation among these -aristocratic ladies must have enchanted him, that he must have rejoiced -in the nobility and elegance of their manners, and that their playful -freedom of speech must have afforded him an object for imitation and -idealisation? - -The great ladies of that date were exceedingly accomplished. They had -been educated as highly as the men, spoke Italian, French, and Spanish -fluently, and were not infrequently acquainted with Latin and Greek. -Lady Pembroke, Sidney's sister, the mother of Shakespeare's patron, was -regarded as the most intellectual woman of her time, and was equally -celebrated as an author and as a patroness of authors. And these ladies -were not oppressed by their knowledge or affected in their speech, -but natural, rich in ideas as in acquirements, free in their wit, and -sometimes in their morals; so that we can easily understand how a -daring, high-bred, womanly intelligence should have been, for a series -of years, the object which it most delighted Shakespeare to portray. He -supplements this intellectual superiority, in varying measures, with -independence, goodness of heart, pride, humility, tenderness, the joy -of life; so that from the central conception there radiates a fan-like -semicircle of different personalities. It was of such women that he had -dreamt when he sketched his Rosaline in _Loves Labour's Lost_. Now he -knew them, as he had already shown in Portia, the first of the group. - -In spite of his latent melancholy, he is now highly-favoured and happy, -this young man of thirty-five; the sun of his career is in the sign -of the Lion,; he feels himself strong enough to sport with the powers -of life, and he now writes nothing but comedies. He does not take the -trouble to invent them; he employs his old method of carving a play -out of this or that mediocre romantic novel, or he revises inferior -old pieces. As a rule, he goes thus to work: he retains without a -qualm those traits in his fable which are fantastic, improbable, -even repulsive to a more delicate taste--such points are always -astonishingly unimportant in his eyes; he sometimes transfers to his -play undigested masses of the material before him, with no care for -psychological plausibility; but he seizes upon some leading situation -in the novel, or upon some single character in the earlier play, and -he animates this situation or this character, or (it may be) added -characters of his own invention, with the whole fervour of his soul, -until the speeches shine forth as in letters of fire, and sparkle with -wit or glow with passion. - -Thus, in _Much Ado about Nothing_, he retains a fable which offers -almost insuperable difficulties to satisfactory poetical treatment, and -nevertheless produces, partly outside of its framework, poetical values -of the first order. - -The play was entered in the Stationers' Register on the 4th of August -1600, and appeared in the same year under the title: _Much Adoe about -Nothing. As it hath been sundrie times publikely acted by the Right -Honourable the Lord Chamberlaine his Servants. Written by William -Shakespeare_. It must thus have been written in 1599 or 1600; and we -find, too, in its opening scene, certain allusions that accord with -this date. Thus Leonato's speech, "A victory is twice itself when the -achiever brings home full numbers," and Beatrice's "You had musty -victual," are both thought to point to Essex's campaign in Ireland. - -Shakespeare has taken the details of his plot from several Italian -sources. From the first book of Ariosto's _Orlando Furioso_ (the story -of Ariodante and Genevra), which was translated in 1591, and had -already provided the material for a play performed before the Queen -in 1582, he borrowed the idea of a malevolent nobleman persuading -a youthful lover that his lady is untrue to him, and suborning a -waiting-woman to dress like her mistress, and receive a nocturnal -visit by means of a ladder placed against her lady's window, so that -the bridegroom, watching the scene from a distance, may accept it as -proof of the calumny, and so break off the match. All the other details -he took from a novel of Bandello's, the story of Timbreo of Cardona. -Timbreo is represented by Claudio; through the medium of a friend, he -woos the daughter of Leonato, a nobleman of Messina. The intrigue which -separates the young pair is woven by Girondo (in Shakespeare, Don John) -just as in the play, but with a more adequate motive, since Girondo -himself is in love with the lady. She faints when she is accused, is -given out to be dead, and there is a sham funeral, as in the play. But -in the story it is represented that the whole of Messina espouses her -cause and believes in her innocence, while in the play Beatrice alone -remains true to her young kinswoman. The truth is discovered and the -engagement renewed, just as in Shakespeare. - -Only for a much cruder habit of mind than that which prevails among -people of culture in our days can this story provide the motive for a -comedy. The very title indicates a point of view quite foreign to us. -The implication is that since Hero was innocent, and the accusation a -mere slander; since she was not really dead, and the sorrow for her -loss was therefore groundless; and since she and Claudio are at last -married, as they might have been at first--therefore the whole thing -has been much ado about nothing, and resolves itself in a harmony which -leaves no discord behind. - -The ear of the modern reader is otherwise attuned. He recognises, -indeed, that Shakespeare has taken no small pains to make this fable -dramatically acceptable. He appreciates the fact that here again, in -the person of Don John, the poet has depicted mere unmixed evil, and -has disdained to supply a motive for his vile action in any single -injury received, or desire unsatisfied. Don John is one of the sour, -envious natures which suck poison from all sources, because they suffer -from the perpetual sense of being unvalued and despised. He is, for -the moment, constrained by the forbearance with which his victorious -brother has treated him, but "if he had his mouth he would bite." And -he does bite, like the cur and coward he is, and makes himself scarce -when his villainy is about to be discovered. He is an ill-conditioned, -base, and tiresome scoundrel; and, although he conscientiously does -evil for evil's sake, we miss in him all the defiant and brilliantly -sinister qualities which appear later on in Iago and in Edmund. There -is little to object to in Don John's repulsive scoundrelism; at most we -may say that it is a strange motive-power for a comedy. But to Claudio -we cannot reconcile ourselves. He allows himself to be convinced, by -the clumsiest stratagem, that his young bride, in reality as pure -and tender as a flower, is a faithless creature, who deceives him -the very day before her marriage. Instead of withdrawing in silence, -he prefers, like the blockhead he is, to confront her in the church, -before the altar, and in the hearing of every one overwhelm her with -coarse speeches and low accusations; and he induces his patron, the -Prince Don Pedro, and, even the lady's own father, Leonato, to join -him in heaping upon the unhappy bride their idiotic accusations. -When, by the advice of the priest, her relatives have given her out -as dead, and the worthy old Leonato has lied up hill and down dale -about her hapless end, Claudio, who now learns too late that he has -been duped, is at once taken into favour again. Leonato only demands -of him--in, accordance with the mediæval fable--that he shall declare -himself willing to marry whatever woman he (Leonato) shall assign to -him. This he promises, without a word or thought about Hero; whereupon -she is placed in his arms. The original spectators, no doubt, found -this solution satisfactory; a modern audience is exasperated by it, -very much as Nora, in _A Doll's House_, is exasperated on finding that -Helmer, after the danger has passed away, regards all that has happened -in their souls as though it had never been, merely because the sky -is clear again. If ever man was unworthy a woman's love, that man is -Claudio. If ever marriage was odious and ill-omened, this is it. The -old taleteller's invention has been too much even for Shakespeare's art. - -When we moderns, however, think of _Much Ado about Nothing,_ it is not -this distasteful story that rises before our mind's eye. It is Benedick -and Beatrice, and the intrigue in which they are involved. The light -from these figures, and especially from that of Beatrice, irradiates -the play, and we understand that Shakespeare was forced to make Claudio -so contemptible, because by that means alone could the enchanting -personality of Beatrice shine forth in its fullest splendour. - -Beatrice is a great lady of the Renaissance in her early youth, -overflowing with spirits and energy, brightly, defiantly virginal, -inclined, in the wealth of her daring wit, to a somewhat aggressive -raillery, and capable of unabashed freedom of speech, astounding to our -modern taste, but permitted by their education to the foremost women of -that age. Her behaviour to Benedick, whom she cannot help perpetually -twitting and teasing, is as headstrong and refractory as Katharine's -treatment of Petruchio. - -Her diction is marvellous, glittering with unrestrained fantasy. For -instance, after she has assured her uncle (ii. I) that she "is on -her knees every morning and evening" to be spared the infliction of -a husband, since a man with a beard and a man without one would be -equally intolerable to her, she proceeds-- - - "_Beatrice_. ... Therefore I will even take sixpence in - earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his apes into hell. - - "_Leonato_. Well, then, go you into hell? - - "_Beat_. No; but to the gate; and there will the devil meet - me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say, - 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no - place for you maids:' so deliver I up my apes, and away to - Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors - sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long." - -She holds that-- - - "Wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a - measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, - like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, - mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; - and then comes repentance, and with his bad legs falls into - the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his - grave." - -Therefore she exclaims with roguish irony-- - - "Good Lord, for alliance!--Thus goes every one to the world - but I, and I am sun-burnt. I may sit in a corner, and cry - heigh-ho for a husband!" - -In her battles with Benedick she outdoes him in fantasy, both congruous -and incongruous, or burlesque. Here, again, Shakespeare has evidently -taken Lyly as his model, and has tried to reproduce the polished facets -of his dialogue, while at the same time correcting its unnaturalness, -and giving it fresh life. And Beatrice follows up her victory over -Benedick, even when he is no longer her interlocutor, with a freedom -which is now-a-days unthinkable in a young girl:-- - - "_D. Pedro_. You have put him down, lady; you have put him - down. - - "_Beat_. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I - should prove the mother of fools." - -But this unbridled whimsicality conceals the energetic virtues of a -firm and noble character. When her poor cousin is falsely accused and -cruelly put to shame; when those who should have been her natural -protectors fall away from her, and even outside spectators like -Benedick waver and lean to the accuser's side; then it is Beatrice -alone who, unaffected even for an instant by the slander, indignantly -and passionately takes up her cause, and shows herself faithful, -high-minded, right-thinking, far-seeing, superior to them all--a pearl -of a woman. - -By her side Shakespeare has placed Benedick, a Mercutio redivivus; a -youth who is the reverse of amatory, opposed to a maiden who is the -reverse of tender. He abhors betrothal and marriage quite as vehemently -as she, and is, from the man's point of view, no less scornful of all -sentimentality than she, from the woman's; so that he and she, from -the first, stand on a warlike footing with each other. In virtue of a -profound and masterly psychological observation, Shakespeare presently -makes these two fall suddenly in love with each other, over head and -ears, for no better reason than that their friends persuade Benedick -that Beatrice is secretly pining for love of him, and Beatrice that -Benedick is mortally enamoured of her, accompanying this information -with high-flown eulogies of both. Their thoughts were already occupied -with each other; and now the amatory fancy flames forth in both of -them all the more strongly, because it has so long been banked down. -And here, where everything was of his own invention and he could move -quite freely, Shakespeare has with delicate ingenuity brought the -pair together, not by means of empty words, but in a common cause, -Beatrice's first advance to Benedick taking place in the form of an -appeal to him for chivalrous intervention in behalf of her innocent -cousin. - -The reversal in the mutual relations of Benedick and Beatrice is, -moreover, highly interesting in so far as it is probably the first -instance of anything like careful character-development which we -have as yet encountered in any single play of Shakespeare's. In the -earlier comedies there was nothing of the kind, and the chronicle-plays -afforded no opportunity for it. The characters had simply to be -brought into harmony with the given historical events, and in every -case Shakespeare held firmly to the character-scheme once laid down. -Neither _Richard III_. nor _Henry V_. presents any spiritual history; -both kings, in the plays which take their names from them, are one and -the same from first to last. Enough has already been said of Henry's -change of front with respect to Falstaff in _Henry IV_.; we need only -remark further that here the old play of _The Famous Victories_[1] -unmistakably pointed the way to Shakespeare. But this melting of all -that is hard and frozen in the natures of Benedick and Beatrice is -without a parallel in any earlier work, and is quite plainly executed -_con amore_. And the real substance of the play lies not in the plot -from which it takes its name, but in the relation between these two -characters, freely invented by Shakespeare, - -Some other characters Shakespeare has added, and they are among the -most admirable of his comic creations: the peace-officer Dogberry, -and his subordinate Verges. Dogberry is a country constable, simple -as a child, and vain as a peacock--a well-meaning, timid, honest, -good-natured blockhead. To show that, in those days, such functionaries -were almost as helpless in real life as they are here represented, -Henrik Schück has cited a letter from Elizabeth's Prime Minister, Lord -Burghley, in which he relates how, in 1586, on a journey from London -into the county, he found at the gate of every town ten or twelve -persons armed with long poles. On inquiring, he learned that they -were stationed there to seize three young men, unknown. Asked what -description they had received of the malefactors, they replied that one -of them was said to have a crooked nose. "And have you no other mark to -recognise them by?" "No," was the answer. Moreover, they always stood -so openly in a body, that no criminal could fail to give them a wide -berth. - -Dogberry is still less formidable than this detective force. Here are -the wise and wary instructions which he gives to his watchmen:-- - - "_Dogberry_. If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by - virtue of your office, to be no true man; and, for such kind - of men, the less you meddle or make with them, why, the more - is for your honesty. - - "2 _Watch_. If we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay - hands on him? - - "_Dogb_. Truly, by your office you may; but, I think, they - that touch pitch will be defiled. The most peaceable way for - you, if you do take a thief, is, to let him show himself - what he is, and steal out of your company." - - -[1] In this play the king says:-- - - "Ah, Tom, your former life greeves me, - And makes me to abandon and abolish your company for ever, - And therefore not upon pain of death to approach my presence - By ten miles' space, then if I heare well of you, - It may be I will do somewhat for you." - -In Shakespeare:-- - - "Till then I banish thee on pain of death - As I have done the rest of my misleaders, - Not to come near our person by ten mile. - For competence of life I will allow you." - - - - -XXVIII - -_THE INTERVAL OF SERENITY--AS YOU LIKE IT--THE ROVING SPIRIT--THE -LONGING FOR NATURE--JAQUES AND SHAKESPEARE--THE PLAY A FEAST OF WIT_ - -Never had Shakespeare produced with such rapidity and ease as in this -bright and happy interval of two or three years. It is positively -astounding to note all that he accomplished in the year 1600, when -he stood, not exactly at the height of his poetical power, for that -steadily increased, but at the height of his poetical serenity. Among -the exquisite comedies he now writes, _As You Like It_ is one of the -most exquisite. - -The play was entered in the Stationers' Register, along with _Much Ado -About Nothing_, on the 4th of August 1600, and must in all probability -have been written in that year. Meres does not mention it, in 1598, in -his list of Shakespeare's plays; it contains (as already noted, page -36) a quotation from Marlowe's _Hero and Leander_, published in 1598-- - - "Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight?" - -a quotation, by the way, which sums up the matter of the comedy; and we -find in Celia's words (i. 2), "Since the little wit that fools have was -silenced," an allusion to the public and judicial burning of satirical -publications which took place on the 1st of June 1599. As there does -not seem to be room in the year 1599 for more works than we have -already assigned to it, _As You Like It_ must be taken as dating from -the first half of the following year. - -As usual, Shakespeare took from another poet the whole material of this -enchanting comedy. His contemporary, Thomas Lodge (who, after leaving -Oxford, became first a player and playwright in London, then a lawyer, -then a doctor and writer on medical subjects, until he died of the -plague in the year 1625), had in 1590 published a pastoral romance, -with many poems interspersed, entitled _Euphues golden Legacie, found -after his death in his Cell at Silexedra_,[1] which he had written, -as he sets forth in his Dedication to Lord Hunsdon, "to beguile the -time" on a voyage to the Canary Islands. The style is laboured and -exceedingly diffuse, a true pastoral style; but Lodge had that gift of mere -external invention in which Shakespeare, with all his powers, was so -deficient. All the different stories which the play contains or touches -upon are found in Lodge, and likewise all the characters, with the -exception of Jaques, Touchstone, and Audrey. Very remarkable to the -attentive reader is Shakespeare's uniform passivity with regard to -what he found in his sources, and his unwillingness to reject or alter -anything, combined as it is with the most intense intellectual activity -at the points upon which he concentrates his strength. - -We find in _As You Like It_, as in Lodge, a wicked Duke who has -expelled his virtuous brother, the lawful ruler, from his domains. -The banished Duke, with his adherents, has taken refuge in the Forest -of Arden, where they live as free a life as Robin Hood and his merry -men, and where they are presently sought out by the Duke's daughter -Rosalind and her cousin Celia, the daughter of the usurper, who will -not let her banished friend wander forth alone. In the circle of -nobility subordinate to the princes, there is also a wicked brother, -Oliver, who seeks the life of his virtuous younger brother, Orlando, -a hero as modest and amiable as he is brave. He and Rosalind fall in -love with each other the moment they meet, and she makes sport with him -throughout the play, disguised as a boy. These scenes should probably -be acted as though he half recognised her. At last all ends happily. -The wicked Duke most conveniently repents; the wicked brother is all -of a sudden converted (quite without rhyme or reason) when Orlando, -whom he has persecuted, kills a lioness--a lioness in the Forest of -Arden!--which is about to spring upon him as he lies asleep. And the -caitiff is rewarded (no less unreasonably), either for his villainy or -for his conversion, with the hand of the lovely Celia. - -This whole story is perfectly unimportant; Shakespeare, that is to -say, evidently cared very little about it. We have here no attempt at -a reproduction of reality, but one long festival of gaiety and wit, a -soulful wit that vibrates into feeling. - -First and foremost, the play typifies Shakespeare's longing, the -longing of this great spirit, to get away from the unnatural city -life, away from the false and ungrateful city folk, intent on business -and on gain, away from flattery and falsehood and deceit, out into -the country, where simple manners still endure, where it is easier to -realise the dream of full freedom, and where the scent of the woods -is so sweet. There the babble of the brooks has a subtler eloquence -than any that is heard in cities; there the trees and even the stones -say more to the wanderer's heart than the houses and streets of the -capital; there he finds "good in everything." - -The roving spirit has reawakened in his breast--the spirit which in -bygone days sent him wandering with his gun through Charlcote Park--and -out yonder in the lap of Nature, but in a remoter, richer Nature than that -which he has known, he dreams of a communion between the best and -ablest men, the fairest and most delicate women, in ideal fantastic -surroundings, far from the ugly clamours of a public career, and the -oppression of everyday cares. A life of hunting and song, and simple -repasts in the open air, accompanied with witty talk; and at the same -time a life full to the brim with the dreamy happiness of love. And -with this life, the creation of his roving spirit, his gaiety and his -longing for Nature, he animates a fantastic Forest of Arden. - -But with this he is not content. He dreams out the dream, and feels -that even such an ideal and untrammelled life could not satisfy that -strange and unaccountable spirit lurking in the inmost depths of his -nature, which turns everything into food for melancholy and satire. -From this rib, then, taken from his own side, he creates the figure -of Jaques, unknown to the romance, and sets him wandering through his -pastoral comedy, lonely, retiring, self-absorbed, a misanthrope from -excess of tenderness, sensitiveness, and imagination. - -Jaques is like the first light and brilliant pencil-sketch for Hamlet. -Taine, and others after him, have tried to draw a parallel between -Jaques and Alceste--of all Molière's creations, no doubt, the one who -contains most of his own nature. But there is no real analogy between -them. In Jaques everything wears the shimmering hues of wit and -fantasy, in Alceste everything is bitter earnest. Indignation is the -mainspring of Alceste's misanthropy. He is disgusted at the falsehood -around him, and outraged to see that the scoundrel with whom he is -at law, although despised by every one, is nevertheless everywhere -received with open arms. He declines to remain in bad company, even in -the hearts of his friends; therefore he withdraws from them. He loathes -two classes of people: - - "Les uns parcequ'ils sont méchants et malfaisants, - Et les autres pour être aux méchants complaisants." - -These are the accents of Timon of Athens, who hated the wicked for -their wickedness, and other men for not hating the wicked. - -It is, then, in Shakespeare's Timon, of many years later, that we can -alone find an instructive parallel to Alceste. Alceste's nature is -keenly logical, classically French; it consists of sheer uncompromising -sincerity and pride, without sensibility and without melancholy. - -The melancholy of Jaques is a poetic dreaminess. He is described to us -(ii. I) before we see him. The banished Duke has just been blessing -the adversity which drove him out into the forest, where he is exempt -from the dangers of the envious court. He is on the point of setting -forth to hunt, when he learns that the melancholy Jaques repines at the -cruelty of the chase, and calls him in that respect as great a usurper -as the brother who drove him from his dukedom. The courtiers have found -him stretched beneath an oak, and dissolved in pity for a poor wounded -stag which stood beside the brook, and "heaved forth such groans That -their discharge did stretch his leathern coat Almost to bursting." -Jaques, they continue, "moralised this spectacle into a thousand -similes:"-- - - "Then, being there alone, - Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends; - "'Tis right,' quoth he; 'thus misery doth part - The flux of company.' Anon, a careless herd, - Full of the pasture, jumps along by him, - And never stays to greet him. 'Ay,' quoth Jaques, - 'Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens; - 'Tis just the fashion: wherefore do you look - Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?" - -His bitterness springs from a too tender sensibility, a sensibility -like that of Sakya Mouni before him, who made tenderness to animals -part of his religion, and like that of Shelley after him, who, in his -pantheism, realised the kinship between his own soul and that of the -brute creation. - -Thus we are prepared for his entrance. He introduces himself into the -Duke's circle (ii. 7) with a glorification of the fool's motley. He has -encountered Touchstone in the forest, and is enraptured with him. The -motley fool lay basking in the sun, and when Jaques said to him, "Good -morrow, fool!" he answered, "Call me not fool till heaven have sent me -fortune." Then this sapient fool drew a dial from his pocket, and said -very wisely-- - - "'It is ten o'clock: - Thus may we see,' quoth he, I how the world wags: - 'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, - And after one hour more 'twill be eleven; - And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, - And then from hour to hour we rot and rot, - And thereby hangs a tale.'" - -"O noble fool!" Jaques exclaims with enthusiasm. "A worthy fool! -Motley's the only wear." - -In moods of humorous melancholy, it must have seemed to Shakespeare as -though he himself were one of these jesters, who had the privilege of -uttering truths to great people and on the stage, if only they did not -blurt them out directly, but disguised them under a mask of folly. It -was in a similar mood that Heinrich Heine, centuries later, addressed -to the German people these words: "Ich bin dein Kunz von der Rosen, -dein Narr." - -Therefore it is that Shakespeare makes Jaques exclaim-- - - "O, that I were a fool! - I am ambitious for a motley coat." - -When the Duke answers, "Thou shalt have one," he declares that it is -the one thing he wants, and that the others must "weed their judgments" -of the opinion that he is wise:-- - - "I must have liberty - Withal, as large a charter as the wind, - To blow on whom I please; for so fools have: - And they that are most galled with my folly, - They most must laugh. - . . . . . . . . - Invest me in my motley: give me leave - To speak my mind, and I will through and through - Cleanse the foul body of the infected world, - If they will patiently receive my medicine." - -It is Shakespeare's own mood that we hear in these words. The voice is -his. The utterance is far too large for Jaques: he is only a mouthpiece -for the poet. Or let us say that his figure dilates in such passages as -this, and we see in him a Hamlet _avant la lettre_. - -When the Duke, in answer to this outburst, denies Jaques' right to -chide and satirise others, since he has himself been "a libertine, -As sensual as the brutish sting itself," the poet evidently defends -himself in the reply which he places in the mouth of the melancholy -philosopher:-- - - "Why, who cries out on pride, - That can therein tax any private party? - Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea, - Till that the weary very means do ebb? - What woman in the city do I name, - When that I say, the city-woman bears - The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders? - Who can come in, and say that I mean her, - When such a one as she, such is her neighbour?" - -This exactly anticipates Holberg's self-defence in the character of -Philemon in _The Fortunate Shipwreck_. The poet is evidently rebutting -a common prejudice against his art. And as he makes Jaques an advocate -for the freedom which poetry must claim, so also, he employs him as a -champion of the actor's misjudged calling, in placing in his mouth the -magnificent speech on the Seven Ages of Man. Alluding, no doubt, to the -motto of _Totus Mundus Agit Histrionem_, inscribed under the Hercules -as Atlas, which was the sign of the Globe Theatre, this speech opens -with the words:-- - - "All the world's a stage, - And all the men and women merely players; - They have their exits and their entrances; - And one man in his time plays many parts." - -Ben Jonson is said to have inquired, in an epigram against the motto of -the Globe Theatre, where the spectators were to be found if all the men -and women were players? And an epigram attributed to Shakespeare gives -the simple answer that all are players and audience at one and the -same time. Jaques' survey of the life of man is admirably concise and -impressive. The last line-- - - "Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything "-- - -with its half French equivalent for "without," is imitated from the -_Henriade_ of the French poet Gamier, which was not translated, and -which Shakespeare must consequently have read in the original. - -This same Jaques, who gives evidence of so wide an outlook over human -life, is in daily intercourse, as we have said, nervously misanthropic -and formidably witty. He is sick of polite society, pines for solitude, -takes leave of a pleasant companion with the words: "I thank you for -your company; but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone." -Yet we must not take his melancholy and his misanthropy too seriously. -His melancholy is a comedy-melancholy, his misanthropy is only the -humourist's craving to give free vent to his satirical inspirations. - -And there is, as aforesaid, only a certain part of Shakespeare's inmost -nature in this Jaques, a Shakespeare of the future, a Hamlet in germ, -but not that Shakespeare who now bathes in the sunlight and lives in -uninterrupted prosperity, in growing favour with the many, and borne -aloft by the admiration and goodwill of the few. We must seek for this -Shakespeare in the interspersed songs, in the drollery of the fool, in -the lovers' rhapsodies, in the enchanting babble of the ladies. He is, -like Providence, everywhere and nowhere. - -When Celia says (i. 2), "Let us sit and mock the good house-wife, -Fortune, from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed -equally," she strikes, as though with a tuning-fork, the keynote of the -comedy. The sluice is opened for that torrent of jocund wit, shimmering -with all the rainbows of fancy, which is now to rush seething and -swirling along. - -The Fool is essential to the scheme: for the Fool's stupidity is the -grindstone of wit, and the Fool's wit is the touchstone of character. -Hence his name. - -The ways of the real world, however, are not forgotten. The good make -enemies by their very goodness, and the words of the old servant Adam -(Shakespeare's own part) to his young master Orlando (ii. 3), sound -sadly enough:-- - - "Your praise is come too swiftly home before you. - Know you not, master, to some kind of men - Their graces serve them but as enemies? - No more do yours: your virtues, gentle master, - Are sanctified, and holy traitors to you. - O, what a world is this, when what is comely - Envenoms him that bears it!" - -But soon the poet's eye is opened to a more consolatory -life-philosophy, combined with an unequivocal contempt for -school-philosophy. There seems to be a scoffing allusion to a book of -the time, which was full of the platitudes of celebrated philosophers, -in Touchstone's speech to William (v. I), "The heathen philosopher, -when he had desire to eat a grape, would open his lips when he put -it into his mouth, meaning thereby that grapes were made to eat and -lips to open;" but no doubt there also lurks in this speech a certain -lack of respect for even the much-belauded wisdom of tradition. The -relativity of all things, at that time a new idea, is expounded with -lofty humour by the Fool in his answer to the question what he thinks -of this pastoral life (iii. 2):-- - - "Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself it is a good life, - but in respect that it is a shepherd's life, it is naught. - In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in - respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now, in - respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in - respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As it is a - spare life, look you, it fits my humour well; but as there - is no more plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach. - Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?" - -The shepherd's answer makes direct sport of philosophy, in the style of -Molière's gibe, when he accounts for the narcotic effect of opium by -explaining that the drug possesses a certain _facultas dormitativa:--_ - - "_Corin_. No more, but that I know, the more one sickens, - the worse at ease he is; and that he that wants money, - means, and content, is without three good friends; that the - property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn; that good - pasture makes fat sheep, and that a great cause of the night - is lack of the sun.... - - "_Touchstone_. Such a one is a natural philosopher." - -This sort of philosophy leads up, as it were, to Rosalind's sweet -gaiety and heavenly kindness. - -The two cousins, Rosalind and Celia, seem at first glance like -variations of the two cousins, Beatrice and Hero, in the play -Shakespeare has just finished. Rosalind and Beatrice in particular -are akin in their victorious wit. Yet the difference between them is -very great; Shakespeare never repeats himself. The wit of Beatrice is -aggressive and challenging; we see, as it were, the gleam of a rapier -in it. Rosalind's wit is gaiety without a sting; the gleam in it is of -"that sweet radiance" which Oehlenschläger attributed to Freia; her -sportive nature masks the depth of her love. Beatrice can be brought -to love because she is a woman, and stands in no respect apart from -her sex; but she is not of an amatory nature. Rosalind is seized with -a passion for Orlando the instant she sets eyes on him. From the -moment of Beatrice's first appearance she is defiant and combative, in -the highest of spirits. We are introduced to Rosalind as a poor bird -with a drooping wing; her father is banished, she is bereft of her -birth-right, and is living on sufferance as companion to the usurper's -daughter, being, indeed, half a prisoner in the palace, where till -lately she reigned as princess. It is not until she has donned the -doublet and hose, appears in the likeness of a page, and wanders at her -own sweet will in the open air and the greenwood, that she recovers -her radiant humour, and roguish merriment flows from her lips like the -trilling of a bird. - -Nor is the man she loves, like Benedick, an overweening gallant with -a sharp tongue and an unabashed bearing. This youth, though brave as -a hero and strong as an athlete, is a child in inexperience, and so -bashful in the presence of the woman who instantly captivates him, that -it is she who is the first to betray her sympathy for him, and has -even to take the chain from her own neck and hang it around his before -he can so much as muster up courage to hope for her love. So, too, we -find him passing his time in hanging poems to her upon the trees, and -carving the name of Rosalind in their bark. She amuses herself, in her -page's attire, by making herself his confidant, and pretending, as it -were in jest, to be his Rosalind. She cannot bring herself to confess -her passion, although she can think and talk (to Celia) of no one but -him, and although his delay of a few minutes in keeping tryst with -her sets her beside herself with impatience. She is as sensitive as -she is intelligent, in this differing from Portia, to whom, in other -respects, she bears some resemblance, though she lacks her persuasive -eloquence, and is, on the whole, more tender, more virginal. She faints -when Oliver, to excuse Orlando's delay, brings her a handkerchief -stained with his blood; yet has sufficient self-mastery to say with a -smile the moment she recovers, "I pray you tell your brother how well I -counterfeited." She is quite at her ease in her male attire, like Viola -and Imogen after her. The fact that female parts were played by youths -had, of course, something to do with the frequency of these disguises. - -Here is a specimen of her wit (iii. 2). Orlando has evaded the page's -question what o'clock it is, alleging that there are no clocks in the -forest. - - "_Rosalind_. Then, there is no true lover in the forest; - else sighing every minute, and groaning every hour, would - detect the lazy foot of Time as well as a clock. - - "_Orlando_. And why not the swift foot of - Time? had not that been as proper? - - "_Ros_. By no means, sir. Time travels in divers paces with - divers persons. I'll tell you, who Time ambles withal, who - Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he - stands still withal. - - "_Orl_. I pr'ythee, who doth he trot withal? - - "_Ros_. Marry, he trots hard with a young maid, between the - contract of her marriage, and the day it is solemnised: if - the interim be but a se'nnight, Time's pace is so hard that - it seems the length of seven years. - - "_Orl_. Who ambles Time withal? - - "_Ros_. With a priest that lacks Latin, and a rich man that - hath not the gout; for the one sleeps easily, because he - cannot study; and the other lives merrily, because he feels - no pain.... - - "_Orl_. Who doth he gallop withal? - - "_Ros_. With a thief to the gallows; for though he go as - softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there. - - "_Orl_. Who stays it still withal? - - "_Ros_. With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between - term and term, and then they perceive not how Time moves." - -She is unrivalled in vivacity and inventiveness. In every answer she -discovers gunpowder anew, and she knows how to use it to boot. She -explains that she had an old uncle who warned her against love and -women, and, from the vantage-ground of her doublet and hose, she -declares-- - - "I thank God, I am not a woman, to be touched with so many - giddy offences, as he hath generally taxed their whole sex - withal. - - "_Orl_. Can you remember any of the principal evils that he - laid to the charge of women? - - "_Ros_. There were none principal: they were all like - one another, as half-pence are; every one fault seeming - monstrous, till its fellow fault came to match it. - - "_Orl_. I pr'ythee, recount some of them. - - "_Ros_. No; I will not cast away my physic but on those that - are sick. There is a man haunts the forest, that abuses - our young plants with carving Rosalind on their barks; - hangs odes upon hawthorns, and elegies on brambles; all, - forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind: if I could meet - that fancy-monger, I would give him some good counsel, for - he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him." - -Orlando admits that he is the culprit, and they are to meet daily that -she may exorcise his passion. She bids him woo her in jest, as though -she were indeed Rosalind, and answers (iv. I): - - "_Ros_. Well, in her person, I say--I will not have you. - - "_Orl_. Then, in mine own person, I die. - - "_Ros_. No, 'faith, die by attorney. The poor world is - almost six thousand years old, and in all this time there - was not any man died in his own person, _videlicet_, in a - love-cause. Troilus had his brains dashed out with a Grecian - club; yet he did what he could to die before, and he is one - of the patterns of love. Leander, he would have lived many - a fair year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been - for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went but - forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and, being taken with - the cramp, was drowned, and the foolish chroniclers of that - age found it was--Hero of Sestos. But these are all lies: - men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, - but not for love." - -What Rosalind says of women in general applies to herself in -particular: you will never find her without an answer until you find -her without a tongue. And there is always a bright and merry fantasy in -her answers. She is literally radiant with youth, imagination, and the -joy of loving so passionately and being so passionately beloved. And it -is marvellous how thoroughly feminine is her wit. Too many of the witty -women in books written by men have a man's intelligence. Rosalind's wit -is tempered by feeling. - -She has no monopoly of wit in this Arcadia of Arden. Every one in the -play is witty, even the so-called simpletons. It is a festival of wit. -At some points Shakespeare seems to have followed no stricter principle -than the simple one of making each interlocutor outbid the other in wit -(see, for example, the conversation between Touchstone and the country -wench whom he befools). The result is that the piece is bathed in a -sunshiny humour. And amid all the gay and airy wit-skirmishes, amid -the cooing love-duets of all the happy youths and maidens, the poet -intersperses the melancholy solos of his Jaques:-- - -"I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation; nor the -musician's, which is fantastical; nor the courtier's, which is proud; -nor the soldier's, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is -politic; nor the lady's, which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all -these; but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, -extracted from many objects." - -This is the melancholy which haunts the thinker and the great creative -artist; but in Shakespeare it as yet modulated with ease into the most -engaging and delightful merriment. - - -[1] Reprinted in Hazlitt's Shakespeare's Library, ed. 1875, part i. -vol. ii. - - - - -XXIX - -_CONSUMMATE SPIRITUAL HARMONY--TWELFTH NIGHT--JIBES AT PURITANISM--THE -LANGUISHING CHARACTERS--VIOLA'S INSINUATING GRACE--FAREWELL TO MIRTH_ - -If the reader would picture to himself Shakespeare's mood during this -short space of time at the end of the old century and beginning of -the new, let him recall some morning when he has awakened with the -sensation of complete physical well-being, not only feeling no definite -or indefinite pain or uneasiness, but with a positive consciousness -of happy activity in all his organs: when he drew his breath lightly, -his head was clear and free, his heart beat peacefully: when the mere -act of living was a delight: when the soul dwelt on happy moments -in the past and dreamed of joys to come. Recall such a moment, and -then conceive it intensified an hundredfold--conceive your memory, -imagination, observation, acuteness, and power of expression a hundred -times multiplied--and you may divine Shakespeare's prevailing mood in -those days, when the brighter and happier sides of his nature were -turned to the sun. - -There are days when the sun seems to have put on a new and festal -splendour, when the air is like a caress to the cheek, and when the -glamour of the moonlight seems doubly sweet; days when men appear -manlier and wittier, women fairer and more delicate than usual, and -when those who are disagreeable and even odious to us appear, not -formidable, but ludicrous--so that we feel ourselves exalted above the -level of our daily life, emancipated and happy. Such days Shakespeare -was now passing through. - -It is at this period, too, that he makes sport of his adversaries the -Puritans without bitterness, with exquisite humour. Even in _As You -Like It_ (iii. 2), we find a little allusion to them, where Rosalind -says, "O most gentle Jupiter!--what tedious homily of love have you -wearied your parishioners withal, and never cried, 'Have patience, good -people!'" In his next play, the typical, solemn, and self-righteous -Puritan is held up to ridicule in the Don Quixote-like personage of the -moralising and pompous Malvolio, who is launched upon a billowy sea of -burlesque situations. Of course the poet goes to work with the greatest -circumspection. Sir Toby has made some inquiry about Malvolio, to which -Maria answers (ii. 3):-- - - "_Maria_. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan. - - "_Sir Andrew_. O! if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog. - - "_Sir Toby_. What, for being a Puritan? thy exquisite - reason, dear knight? - - "_Sir And_. I have no exquisite reason for't, but I have - reason good enough. - - "_Mar_. The devil a Puritan that he is, or anything - constantly but a time-pleaser; an affectioned ass, that cons - state without book, and utters it by great swarths." - -Not otherwise does Molière expressly insist that Tartuffe is not a -clergyman, and Holberg that Jacob von Tyboe is not an officer. - -A forged letter, purporting to be written by his noble mistress, is -made to fall into Malvolio's hands, in which she begs for his love, and -instructs him, as a sign of his affection towards her, always to smile, -and to wear cross-gartered yellow stockings. He "smiles his face into -more lines than are in the new map [of 1598] with the augmentation of -the Indies;" he wears his preposterous garters in the most preposterous -fashion. The conspirators pretend to think him mad, and treat him -accordingly. The Clown comes to visit him disguised in the cassock -of Sir Topas the curate. "Well," says the mock priest (not without -intention on the poet's part), when Maria gives him the gown, "I'll put -it on, and I will dissemble myself in't; and I would I were the first -that ever dissembled in such a gown." - -It is to Malvolio, too, that the merry and mellow Sir Toby, amid the -applause of the Clown, addresses the taunt:-- - - "_Sir Toby_. Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, - there shall be no more cakes and ale? - - "_Clown_. Yes, by Saint Anne; and ginger shall be hot i' the - mouth too." - -In these words, which were one day to serve as a motto to Byron's _Don -Juan_, there lies a gay and daring declaration of rights. - -_Twelfth Night, or What you Will_, must have been written in 1601, -for in the above-mentioned diary kept by John Manningham, of the -Middle Temple, we find this entry, under the date February 2, 1602: -"At our feast wee had a play called Twelve Night, or what you will, -much like the commedy of errores, or Menechmi in Plautus, but most -like and neere to that in Italian called _Inganni_. A good practise -in it to make the steward beleeve his lady widdowe was in love with -him," &c. That the play cannot have been written much earlier is -proved by the fact that the song, "Farewell, dear heart, since I must -needs be gone," which is sung by Sir Toby and the Clown (ii. 3), first -appeared in a song-book (_The Booke of Ayres_) published by Robert -Jones, London, 1601. Shakespeare has altered its wording very slightly. -In all probability _Twelfth Night_ was one of the four plays which -were performed before the court at Whitehall by the Lord Chamberlain's -company at Christmastide, 1601-2, and no doubt it was acted for the -first time on the evening from which it takes its name. - -Among several Italian plays which bore the name of _Gl'Inganni_ there -is one by Curzio Gonzaga, published in Venice in 1592, in which a -sister dresses herself as her brother and takes the name of Cesare--in -Shakespeare, Cesario--and another, published in Venice in 1537, the -action of which bears a general resemblance to that of _Twelfth Night_. -In this play, too, passing mention is made of one "Malevolti," who may -have suggested to Shakespeare the name Malvolio. - -The matter of the play is found in a novel of Bandello's, translated -in Belleforest's _Histoires Tragiques_; and also in Barnabe Rich's -translation of Cinthio's _Hecatomithi_, published in 1581, which -Shakespeare appears to have used. The whole comic part of the action, -and the characters of Malvolio, Sir Toby, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and the -Clown, are of Shakespeare's own invention. - -There occurs in Ben Jonson's _Every Man out of his Humour_ a speech -which seems very like an allusion to _Twelfth Night;_ but as Jonson's -play is of earlier date, the speech, if the allusion be not fanciful, -must have been inserted later.[1] - -As was to be expected, _Twelfth Night_ became exceedingly popular. The -learned Leonard Digges, the translator of Claudian, enumerating in -his verses, "Upon Master William Shakespeare" (1640), the poet's most -popular characters, mentions only three from the comedies, and these -from _Much Ado_ and _Twelfth Night_. He says:-- - - "Let but _Beatrice_ - And _Benedicke_ be seene, loe in a trice - The Cockpit, Galleries, Boxes, all are full - To hear _Malvoglio_, that crosse garter'd Gull." - -_Twelfth Night_ is perhaps the most graceful and harmonious comedy -Shakespeare ever wrote. It is certainly that in which all the notes the -poet strikes, the note of seriousness and of raillery, of passion, of -tenderness, and of laughter, blend in the richest and fullest concord. -It is like a symphony in which no strain can be dispensed with, or like -a picture veiled in a golden haze, into which all the colours resolve -themselves. The play does not overflow with wit and gaiety like its -predecessor; we feel that Shakespeare's joy of life has culminated and -is about to pass over into melancholy; but there is far more unity in -it than in _As You Like It_, and it is a great deal more dramatic. - -A. W. Schlegel long ago made the penetrating observation that, in the -opening speech of the comedy, Shakespeare reminds us how the same word, -"fancy," was applied in his day both to love and to fancy in the modern -sense of the term; whence the critic argued, not without ingenuity, -that love, regarded as an affair of the imagination rather than of the -heart, is the fundamental theme running through all the variations of -the play. Others have since sought to prove that capricious fantasy is -the fundamental trait in the physiognomy of all the characters. Tieck -has compared the play to a great iridescent butterfly, fluttering -through pure blue air, and soaring in its golden glory from the -many-coloured flowers into the sunshine. - -Twelfth Night, in Shakespeare's time, brought the Christmas festivities -of the upper classes to an end; among the common people they usually -lasted until Candlemas. On Twelfth Night all sorts of sports took -place. The one who chanced to find a bean baked into a cake was hailed -as the Bean King, chose himself a Bean Queen, introduced a reign of -unbridled frivolity, and issued whimsical commands, which had to be -punctually obeyed. Ulrici has sought to discover in this an indication -that the play represents a sort of lottery, in which Sebastian, the -Duke, and Maria chance to win the great prize. The bibulous Sir Toby, -however, can scarcely be regarded as a particularly desirable prize for -Maria; and the second title of the play, _What you Will_, indicates -that Shakespeare did not lay any stress upon the _Twelfth Night_. - -This comedy is connected by certain filaments with its predecessor, -_As You Like It_. The passion which Viola, in her male attire, awakens -in Olivia, reminds us of that with which Rosalind inspires Phebe. -But the motive is quite differently handled. While Rosalind gaily -and unfeelingly repudiates Phebe's burning love, Viola is full of -tender compassion for the lady whom her disguise has led astray. In -the admirably worked-up confusion between Viola and her twin brother -Sebastian, an effect from the _Comedy of Errors_ is repeated; but the -different circumstances and method of treatment make this motive also -practically new. - -With a careful and even affectionate hand, Shakespeare has elaborated -each one of the many characters in the play. - -The amiable and gentle Duke languishes, sentimental and fancy-sick, -in hopeless enamourment. He is devoted to the fair Countess Olivia, -who will have nothing to say to him, and whom he none the less -besieges with his suit. An ardent lover of music, he turns to it for -consolation; and among the songs sung to him by the Clown and others, -there occurs the delicate little poem, of wonderful rhythmic beauty, -"Come away, come away, death." It exactly expresses the soft and -melting mood in which his days pass, lapped in a nerveless melancholy. -To the melody abiding in it we may apply the lovely words spoken by -Viola of the melody which preludes it:-- - - "It gives a very echo to the seat - Where love is throned." - -In his fruitless passion, the Duke has become nervous and excitable, -inclined to violent self-contradictions. In one and the same scene (ii. -4) he first says that man's love is - - "More giddy and unfirm, - More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn" - -than woman's; and then, a little further on, he says of his own love-- - - "There is no woman's sides - Can bide the beating of so strong a passion - As love doth give my heart; no woman's heart - So big to hold so much: they lack retention." - -The Countess Olivia forms a pendant to the Duke; she, like him, is -full of yearning melancholy. With an ostentatious exaggeration of -sisterly love, she has vowed to pass seven whole years veiled like a -nun, consecrating her whole life to sorrow for her dead brother. Yet we -find in her speeches no trace of this devouring sorrow; she jests with -her household, and rules it ably and well, until, at the first sight of -the disguised Viola, she flames out into passion, and, careless of the -traditional reserve of her sex, takes the most daring steps to win the -supposed youth. She is conceived as an unbalanced character, who passes -at a bound from exaggerated hatred for all worldly things to total -forgetfulness of her never-to-be-forgotten sorrow. Yet she is not comic -like Phebe; for Shakespeare has indicated that it is the Sebastian -type, foreshadowed in the disguised Viola, which is irresistible to -her; and Sebastian, we see, at once requites the love which his sister -had to reject. Her utterance of her passion, moreover, is always -poetically beautiful. - -Yet while she is sighing in vain for Viola, she necessarily appears as -though seized with a mild erotic madness, similar to that of the Duke: -and the folly of each is parodied in a witty and delightful fashion -by Malvolio's entirely ludicrous love for his mistress, and vain -confidence that she returns it. Olivia feels and says this herself, -where she exclaims (iii. 4)-- - - "Go call him hither.--I am as mad as he - If sad and merry madness equal be." - -Malvolio's figure is drawn in very few strokes, but with incomparable -certainty of touch. He is unforgetable in his turkey-like pomposity, -and the heartless practical joke which is played off upon him is -developed with the richest comic effect. The inimitable love-letter, -which Maria indites to him in a handwriting like that of the Countess, -brings to light all the lurking vanity in his nature, and makes -his self-esteem, which was patent enough before, assume the most -extravagant forms. The scene in which he approaches Olivia, and -triumphantly quotes the expressions in the letter, "yellow stockings," -and "cross-gartered," while every word confirms her in the belief that -he is mad, is one of the most effective on the comic stage. Still more -irresistible is the scene (iv. 2) in which Malvolio is imprisoned as a -madman in a dark room, while the Clown outside now assumes the voice -of the Curate, and seeks to exorcise the devil in him, and again, in -his own voice, converses with the supposed Curate, sings songs, and -promises Malvolio to carry messages for him. We have here a comic _jeu -de théâtre_ of the first order. - -In harmony with the general tone of the play, the Clown is less witty -and more musical than Touchstone in _As You Like It._ He is keenly -alive to the dignity of his calling: "Foolery, sir, does walk about -the orb like the sun: it shines everywhere." He has many delightful -sayings, as for example, "Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage," -or the following demonstration (v. I) that one is the better for one's -foes, and the worse for one's friends:-- - -"Marry, sir, my friends praise me, and make an ass of me; now, my -foes tell me plainly I am an ass: so that by my foes, sir, I profit -in the knowledge of myself, and by my friends I am abused: so that, -conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make your two -affirmatives, why then, the worse for my friends, and the better for my -foes." - -Shakespeare even departs from his usual practice, and, as though to -guard against any misunderstanding on the part of his public, makes -Viola expound quite dogmatically that it "craves a kind of wit" to play -the fool (iii. I):-- - - "He must observe their mood on whom he jests, - The quality of persons, and the time, - And, like the haggard, check at every feather - That comes before his eye. This is a practice - As full of labour as a wise man's art." - -The Clown forms a sort of connecting-link between the serious -characters and the exclusively comic figures of the play--the pair of -knights, Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who are entirely -of Shakespeare's own invention. They are sharply contrasted. Sir -Toby, sanguine, red-nosed, burly, a practical joker, always ready -for "a hair of the dog that bit him," a figure after the style of -Bellman;[2] Sir Andrew, pale as though with the ague, with thin, smooth, -straw-coloured hair, a wretched little nincompoop, who values himself -on his dancing and fencing, quarrelsome and chicken-hearted, boastful -and timid in the same breath, and grotesque in his every movement. He -is a mere echo and shadow of the heroes of his admiration, born to be -the sport of his associates, their puppet, and their butt; and while -he is so brainless as to think it possible he may win the love of the -beautiful Olivia, he has at the same time an inward suspicion of his -own stupidity which now and then comes in refreshingly: "Methinks -sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man has; -but I am a great eater of beef, and, I believe, that does harm to my -wit" (i. 3). He does not understand the simplest phrase he hears, and -is such a mere reflex and parrot that "I too" is, as it were, the -watchword of his existence. Shakespeare has immortalised him once for -all in his reply when Sir Toby boasts that Maria adores him (ii. 3), "I -was adored once too." Sir Toby sums him up in the phrase: - -"For Andrew, if he were opened, and you find so much blood in his liver -as will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the rest of the anatomy." - -The central character in _Twelfth Night_ is Viola, of whom her brother -does not say a word too much when, thinking that she has been drowned, -he exclaims, "She bore a mind that envy could not but call fair." - -Shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria, her first wish is to enter -the service of the young Countess; but learning that Olivia is -inaccessible, she determines to dress as a page (a eunuch) and approach -the young unmarried Duke, of whom she has heard her father speak with -warmth. He at once makes the deepest impression upon her heart, but -being ignorant of her sex, does not dream of what is passing within -her; so that she is perpetually placed in the painful position of being -employed as a messenger from the man she loves to another woman. She -gives utterance to her love in carefully disguised and touching words -(ii. 4):-- - - "My father had a daughter lov'd a man, - As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, - I should your lordship. - _Duke_. And what's her history? - _Vio_. A blank, my lord. She never told her love,-- - But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, - Feed on her damask cheek: she pin'd in thought: - And, with a green and yellow melancholy, - She sat like Patience on a monument, - Smiling at grief." - -But the passion which possesses her makes her a more eloquent messenger -of love than she designs to be. To Olivia's question as to what she -would do if she loved her as her master does, she answers (i. 5):-- - - "Make me a willow cabin at your gate, - And call upon my soul within the house; - Write loyal cantons of contemned love, - And sing them loud even in the dead of night; - Holla your name to the reverberate hills, - And make the babbling gossip of the air - Cry out, Olivia! O! you should not rest - Between the elements of air and earth, - But you should pity me." - -In short, if she were a man, she would display all the energy which the -Duke lacks. No wonder that, against her own will, she awakens Olivia's -love. She herself, as a woman, is condemned to passivity; her love -is wordless, deep, and patient. In spite of her sound understanding, -she is a creature of emotion. It is a very characteristic touch -when, in the scene (iii. 5) where Antonio, taking her for Sebastian, -recalls the services he has rendered, and begs for assistance in his -need, she exclaims that there is nothing, not even "lying vainness, -babbling drunkenness, or any taint of vice," that she hates so much -as ingratitude. However bright her intelligence, her soul from first -to last outshines it. Her incognito, which does not bring her joy as -it does to Rosalind, but only trouble and sorrow, conceals the most -delicate womanliness. She never, like Rosalind or Beatrice, utters an -audacious or wanton word. Her heart-winning charm more than makes up -for the high spirits and sparkling humour of the earlier heroines. She -is healthful and beautiful, like these her somewhat elder sisters; -and she has also their humorous eloquence, as she proves in her first -scene with Olivia. Yet there rests upon her lovely figure a tinge of -melancholy. She is an impersonation of that "farewell to mirth" which -an able English critic discerns in this last comedy of Shakespeare's -brightest years.[3] - - -[1] There is some (ironic) discussion of a possible criticism -that might be brought against a playwright: "That the argument of his -comedy might have been of some other nature, as of a duke to be in love -with a countess, and that countess to be in love with the duke's son, -and the son to love the lady's waiting-maid; some such cross wooing, -with a clown to their serving-man...." - -[2] See the footnote 7 in chapter XXII: - - "A dance of all the gods upon Olympus, - With fauns and graces and the muses twined." - -From a poem by Tegnér on Bellman, the Swedish convivial lyrist. - -[3] "It is in some sort a farewell to mirth, and the mirth -is of the finest quality, an incomparable ending. Shakespeare -has done greater things, but he has never done anything more -delightful."--_Arthur Symons._ - - - - -XXX - -_THE REVOLUTION IN SHAKESPEARE'S SOUL--THE GROWING MELANCHOLY OF THE -FOLLOWING PERIOD--PESSIMISM, MISANTHROPY_ - -For the time is now approaching when mirth, and even the joy of life, -are extinguished in his soul. Heavy clouds have massed themselves -on his mental horizon--their nature we can only divine--and gnawing -sorrows and disappointments have beset him. We see his melancholy -growing and extending; we observe its changing expressions, without -knowing its causes. This only we know, that the stage which he -contemplates with his mind's eye, like the material stage on which he -works, is now hung with black. A veil of melancholy descends over both. - -He no longer writes comedies, but sends a train of gloomy tragedies -across the boards which so lately echoed to the laughter of Beatrice -and Rosalind. - -From this point, for a certain period, all his impressions of life and -humanity become ever more and more painful. We can see in his Sonnets -how even in earlier and happier years a restless passionateness had -been constantly at war with the serenity of his soul, and we can note -how, at this time also, he was subject to accesses of stormy and -vehement unrest. As time goes on, we can discern in the series of his -dramas how not only what he saw in public and political life, but also -his private experience, began to inspire him, partly with a burning -compassion for humanity, partly with a horror of mankind as a breed of -noxious wild animals, partly, too, with loathing for the stupidity, -falsity, and baseness of his fellow-creatures. These feelings gradually -crystallise into a large and lofty contempt for humanity, until, after -a space of eight years, another revolution occurs in his prevailing -mood. The extinguished sun glows forth afresh, the black heaven -has become blue again, and the kindly interest in everything human -has returned. He attains peace at last in a sublime and melancholy -clearness of vision. Bright moods, sunny dreams from the days of -his youth, return upon him, bringing with them, if not laughter, at -least smiles. High-spirited gaiety has for ever vanished; but his -imagination, feeling itself less constrained than of old by the laws -of reality, moves lightly and at ease, though a deep earnestness now -underlies it, and much experience of life. - -But this inward emancipation from the burthen of earthly life does not -occur, as we have said, until about eight years after the point which -we have now reached. - -For a little time longer the strong and genial joy of life is still -dominant in his mind. Then it begins to darken, and, after a short -tropical twilight, there is night in his soul and in all his works. - -In the tragedy of _Julius Cæsar_ there still reigns only a manly -seriousness. The theme seems to have attracted him on account -of the analogy between the conspiracy against Cæsar and the -conspiracy against Elizabeth. Despite the foolish precipitancy of -their action, the leaders of this conspiracy, men like Essex and -his comrade Southampton, had Shakespeare's full personal sympathy; -and he transferred some of that sympathy to Brutus and Cassius. He -created Brutus under the deeply-imprinted conviction that unpractical -magnanimity, like that of his noble friends, is unfitted to play an -effective part in the drama of history, and that errors of policy -revenge themselves at least as sternly as moral delinquencies. - -In _Hamlet_ Shakespeare's growing melancholy and bitterness take the -upper hand. For the hero, as for the poet, youth's bright outlook upon -life has been overclouded. Hamlet's belief and trust in mankind have -gone to wreck. Under the disguise of apparent madness, the melancholy -life-lore which Shakespeare, at his fortieth year, had stored up within -him, here finds expression in words of spiritual profundity such as had -not yet been thought or uttered in Northern Europe. - -We catch a glimpse at this point of one of the subsidiary causes of -Shakespeare's melancholy. As actor and playwright he stands in a more -and more strained relation to the continually growing Free Church -movement of the age, to Puritanism, which he comes to regard as -nothing but narrow-mindedness and hypocrisy. It was the deadly enemy -of his calling; it secured, even in his lifetime, the prohibition of -theatrical performances in the provinces, a prohibition which after his -death was extended to the capital. From _Twelfth Night_ onwards, an -unremitting war against Puritanism, conceived as hypocrisy, is carried -on through _Hamlet,_ through the revised version of _All's Well that -Ends Well_, and through _Measure for Measure_, in which his wrath -rises to a tempestuous pitch, and creates a figure to which Molière's -Tartuffe can alone supply a parallel. - -What struck him so forcibly in these years was the pitifulness of -earthly life, exposed as it is to disasters, not allotted by destiny, -but brought about by a conjunction of stupidity with malevolence. - -It is especially the power of malevolence that now looms large before -his eyes. We see this in Hamlet's astonishment that it is possible for a -man "to smile and smile and be a villain." Still more strongly is it -apparent in _Measure for Measure_ (v. I):-- - - "Make not impossible - That which but seems unlike. 'Tis not impossible, - But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground, - May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute, - As Angelo; even so may Angelo, - In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms, - Be an arch-villain." - -It is this line of thought that leads to the conception of Iago, -Goneril, and Regan, and to the wild outbursts of Timon of Athens. - -_Macbeth_ is Shakespeare's first attempt, after _Hamlet_, to explain -the tragedy of life as a product of brutality and wickedness in -conjunction--that is, of brutality multiplied and raised to the -highest power by wickedness. Lady Macbeth poisons her husband's mind. -Wickedness instils drops of venom into brutality, which, in its inward -essence, may be either weakness, or brave savagery, or stupidity -of manifold kinds. Whereupon brutality falls a-raving, and becomes -terrible to itself and others. - -The same formula expresses the relation between Othello and Iago. - -_Othello_ was a monograph. _Lear_ is a world-picture. Shakespeare turns -from _Othello_ to _Lear_ in virtue of the artist's need to supplement -himself, to follow up every creation with its counterpart or foil. - -_Lear_ is the greatest problem Shakespeare had yet proposed to himself, -all the agonies and horrors of the world compressed into five short -acts. The impression of _Lear_ may be summed up in the words: a -world-catastrophe. Shakespeare is no longer minded to depict anything -else. What is echoing in his ears, what is filling his mind, is the -crash of a ruining world. - -This becomes even clearer in his next play, _Antony and Cleopatra._ -This subject enabled him to set new words to the music within him. -In the history of Mark Antony he saw the deep downfall of the old -world-republic--the might of Rome, austere and rigorous, collapsing at -the touch of Eastern luxury. - -By the time Shakespeare had written _Antony and Cleopatra,_ his -melancholy had deepened into pessimism. Contempt becomes his abiding -mood, an all-embracing scorn for mankind, which impregnates every drop -of blood in his veins, but a potent and creative scorn, which hurls -forth thunderbolt after thunderbolt. _Troilus and Cressida_ strikes at -the relation of the sexes, _Coriolanus_ at political life; until all -that, in these years, Shakespeare has endured and experienced, thought -and suffered, is concentrated into the one great despairing figure of -Timon of Athens, "misanthropos," whose savage rhetoric is like a dark -secretion of clotted blood and gall, drawn off to assuage pain. - - - - - - -BOOK SECOND - - - - -I - -_INTRODUCTION--THE ENGLAND OF ELIZABETH IN SHAKESPEARE'S YOUTH_ - -Everything had flourished in the England of Elizabeth while Shakespeare -was young. The sense of belonging to a people which, with great -memories and achievements behind it, was now making a decisive and -irresistible new departure--the consciousness of living in an age when -the glorious culture of antiquity was being resuscitated, and when -great personalities were vindicating for England a lofty and assured -position, alike in the practical and in the intellectual departments -of life--these feelings mingled in his breast with the vernal glow of -youth itself. He saw the star of his fatherland ascending, with his own -star in its train. - -It seemed to him as though men and women had in that day richer -abilities, a more daring spirit, and fuller powers of enjoyment than -they had possessed in former times. They had more fire in their blood, -more insatiable longings, a keener appetite for adventure, than the -men and women of the past. They knew how to rule with courage and -wisdom, like the Queen and Lord Burghley; how to live nobly and fight -gloriously, to love with passion and sing with enthusiasm, like the -beautiful hero of the younger generation, Sir Philip Sidney, who found -an early Achilles-death. They were bent on enjoying existence with all -their senses, comprehending it with all their powers, revelling in -wealth and splendour, in beauty and wit; or they set forth to voyage -round the world, to see its marvels, conquer its treasures, give their -names to new countries, and display the flag of England on unknown seas. - -Statesmanship and generalship were represented among them by the men -who, in these years, had humbled Spain, rescued Holland, held Scotland -in awe. They were sound and vigorous natures. Although they all had the -literary proclivities of the Renaissance, they were before everything -practical men, keen observers of the signs of the times, firm and wary -in adversity, in prosperity prudent and temperate. - -Shakespeare had seen Spenser's faithful friend, Sir Walter Raleigh, -next to himself and Francis Bacon the most brilliant and interesting -Englishman of his day, after covering himself with renown as a soldier, -a viking, and a discoverer, win the favour of Elizabeth as a courtier, -and the admiration of the people as a hero and poet. Shakespeare no -doubt laid to heart these lines in his elegy on Sidney:-- - - "England doth hold thy limbs, that bred the same; - Flanders thy valour, where it last was tried; - The camp thy sorrow, where thy body died: - Thy friends thy want; the world thy virtues' fame." - -For Raleigh, too, was a poet, as well as an orator and historian. -"We picture him to ourselves," says Macaulay, "sometimes reviewing -the Queen's guard, sometimes giving chase to a Spanish galleon, then -answering the chiefs of the country party in the House of Commons, then -again murmuring one of his sweet lovesongs too near the ears of her -Highness's maids of honour, and soon after poring over the Talmud, or -collating Polybius with Livy."[1] - -And Shakespeare had seen the young Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, who -in 1577, when only ten years old, had made a sensation at court by -wearing his hat in the Queen's presence and denying her request for -a kiss; at the age of eighteen win renown for himself as a cavalry -general under Leicester in the Netherlands, and at the age of twenty -depose Raleigh from the highest place in Elizabeth's favour. He -played "cards or one game or another with her ... till birds' sing -in the morning." She shut herself up with him in the daytime, while -the Venetian and French ambassadors, who had already learnt to wait -at locked doors in the time of his step-father, Leicester, jested -with each other in the anteroom as to whether mounting guard in this -fashion ought to be called _tener la mula_ or _tenir la chandelle_. -And Essex demanded that Raleigh should be sacrificed to his youthful -devotion. As captain of the guard, Raleigh had to stand at the door -with a drawn sword, in his brown and orange uniform, while the handsome -youth whispered to the spinster Queen of fifty-four things which set -her heart beating. He made all the mischief he could between her and -Raleigh. She assured him that he had no reason to "disdain" a man like -that. But Essex asked her--so he himself writes--"Whether he could have -comfort to give himself over to the service of a mistress that was in -awe of such a man;" "and," he continues, "I think he, standing at the -door, might very well hear the worst I spoke of him." - -This impetuosity characterised Essex throughout his career; but he -soon developed great qualities, of which his first appearances gave no -promise; and when Shakespeare made his acquaintance, probably in the -year 1590, his personality must have been extremely winning. Himself a -poet, he no doubt knew how to value _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, and -its author. In all probability, Shakespeare even at this time found -a protector in the young nobleman, and afterwards made acquaintance -through him with his kinsman Southampton, six years younger than -himself. Essex had already distinguished himself as a soldier. In May -1589 he had been the first Englishman to wade ashore upon the coast -of Portugal, and in the lines before Lisbon he had challenged any -of the Spanish garrison to single combat in honour of his queen and -mistress. In July 1591 he joined the standard of Henry of Navarre with -an auxiliary force of 4000 men; he shared all the hardships of the -common soldiers; during the siege of Rouen he challenged the leader -of the enemy's forces to single combat; and then by his incapacity he -dissipated all the results of the campaign. His army melted away to -almost nothing. - -He was at home during the following years, when Shakespeare probably -came to know him well, and to appreciate his chivalrous nature, his -courage and talent, his love of poetry and science, and his helpfulness -towards men of ability, such as Francis Bacon and others. He therefore, -no doubt, followed with more than the ordinary patriotic interest the -expedition of the English fleet to Cadiz in 1596, in which the two old -antagonists, Raleigh and Essex, were to fight side by side. Raleigh -here won a brilliant victory over the great galleons of the Spanish -fleet, burning them all except two, which he captured; while on the -following day, when a severe wound in the leg prevented Raleigh from -taking part in the action, Essex, at the head of his troops, stormed -and sacked the town of Cadiz. In his despatches to Elizabeth, Raleigh -praised Essex for this exploit. He became the hero of the day; his name -was in every mouth, and he was even eulogised from the pulpit of St. -Paul's. - -It was indeed a great age. England's world-wide power was founded at -the expense of defeated and humiliated Spain; England's world-wide -commerce and industry came into existence. Before Elizabeth came to -the throne, Antwerp had been the metropolis of commerce; during her -reign, London took that position. The London Exchange was opened in -1571; and twenty years later, English merchants all the world over had -appropriated to themselves the commerce which had formerly been almost -entirely in the hands of the Hanseatic Towns. London urchins hung about -the wharves of the Thames, listening to the marvels related by seamen -who had made the voyage round the Cape of Good Hope to Hindostan. -Sunburnt, scarred, and bearded men haunted the taverns; they had -crossed the ocean, lived in the Bermuda Islands, and brought negroes -and Red Indians and great monkeys home with them. They told tales -of the golden Eldorado, and of real and imaginary perils in distant -quarters of the globe. - -This peaceful development of commerce and industry had taken place -simultaneously with the development of naval and military power. And -the scientific and poetical culture of England advanced with equal -strides. While mariners had brought home tidings of many an unknown -shore, scholars also had made voyages of discovery in Greek and Roman -letters; and while they praised and translated authors unheard of -before, dilettanti brought forward and interpreted Italian and Spanish -poets who served as models of invention and delicacy. The world, which -had hitherto been a little place, had suddenly grown vast; the horizon, -which had been narrow, widened out all of a sudden, and every mind was -filled with hopes for the days to come. - -It had been a vernal season, and it was a vernal mood that had uttered -itself in the songs of the many poets. In our days, when the English -language is read by hundreds of millions, the poets of England may be -quickly counted. In those days the country possessed something like -three hundred lyric and dramatic poets, who, with potent productivity, -wrote for a reading public no larger than that of Denmark to-day; -for of the six millions of the population, four millions could not -read. But the talent for writing verses was as widespread among the -Englishmen of that time as the talent for playing the piano among -German ladies of to-day. The power of action and the gift of song did -not exclude each other. - -But the blossoming springtide had been short, as springtide always is. - - -[1] Macaulay, _Essays_--"Burleigh and his Times." - - - - -II - -_ELIZABETH'S OLD AGE_ - -At the dawn of the new century the national mood had already altered. - -Elizabeth herself was no longer the same. There had always been a dark -side to her nature, but it had passed almost unnoticed in the splendour -which national prosperity, distinguished men, great achievements and -fortunate events had shed around her person. Now things were changed. - -She had always been excessively vain; but her coquettish pretences to -youth and beauty reached their height after her sixtieth year. We have -seen how, when she was sixty, Raleigh, from his prison, addressed a -letter to Sir Robert Cecil, intended for her eyes, in which he sought -to regain her favour by comparing her to Venus and Diana. When she was -sixty-seven, Essex's sister, in a supplication for her brother's life, -wrote of that brother's devotion to "her beauties," which did not merit -so hard a punishment, and of her "excellent beauties and perfections," -which "ought to feel more compassion." In the same year the Queen took -part, masked, in a dance at Lord Herbert's marriage; and she always -looked for expressions of flattering astonishment at the youthfulness -of her appearance. - -When she was sixty-eight, Lord Mountjoy wrote to her of her "faire -eyes," and begged permission to "fill his eyes with their onely deere -and desired object." This was the style which every one had to adopt -who should have the least prospect of gaining, preserving, or regaining -her favour. - -In 1601 Lord Pembroke, then twenty-one years old, writes to Cecil (or, -in other words, to Elizabeth, in her sixty-eighth year) imploring -permission once more to approach the Queen, "whose incomparable beauty -was the onely sonne of my little world." - -When Sir Roger Aston, about this time, was despatched with letters -from James of Scotland to the Queen, he was not allowed to deliver -them in person, but was introduced into an ante-chamber from which, -through open door-curtains, he could see Elizabeth dancing alone to -the music of a little violin,--the object being that he should tell -his master how youthful she still was, and how small the likelihood -of his succeeding to her crown for many a long day.[1] One can readily -understand, then, how she stormed with wrath when Bishop Rudd, so early -as 1596, quoted in a sermon Kohélet's verses as to the pains of age, -with unmistakable reference to her. - -She was bent on being flattered without ceasing and obeyed without -demur. In her lust of rule, she knew no greater pleasure than when one -of her favourites made a suggestion opposed to one of hers, and then -abandoned it. Leicester had employed this means of confirming himself -in her favour, and had bequeathed it to his successors. So strong was -her craving to enjoy incessantly the sensation of her autocracy, that -she would intrigue to set her courtiers up in arms against each other, -and would favour first one group and then the other, taking pleasure -in their feuds and cabals. In her later years her court was one of the -most corrupt in the world. The only means of prospering in it were -those set forth in Roger Ascham's distich: - - "Cog, lie, flatter and face - Four ways in court, to win men grace." - -The two main parties were those of Cecil and Essex. Whoever gained the -favour of one of these great lords, be his merits what they might, was -opposed by the other party with every weapon in their power. - -In some respects, however, Elizabeth in her later years had made -progress in the art of government. So weak had been her faith in the -warlike capabilities of her country, and so potent, on the other hand, -her avarice, that she had neglected to make preparation for the war -with Spain, and had left her gallant seamen inadequately equipped; but -after the victory over the Spanish Armada she ungrudgingly devoted -all the resources of her treasury to the war, which survived her and -extended well into the following century. This war had forced Elizabeth -to take a side in the internal religious dissensions of the country. -She was the head of the Church, regarded ecclesiastical affairs as -subject to her personal control, and, so far as she was able, would -suffer no discussion of religious questions in the House of Commons. -Like her contemporary Henri Quatre of France, she was in her heart -entirely indifferent to religion, had a certain general belief in God, -but thought all dogmas mere cobwebs of the brain, and held one rite -neither better nor worse than another. They both regarded religious -differences exclusively from the political point of view. Henry ended -by becoming a Catholic and assuring his former co-religionists freedom -of conscience. Elizabeth was of necessity a Protestant, but tolerance -was an unknown doctrine in England. It was an established principle that -every subject must accept the religion of the State. - -Authoritarian to her inmost fibre, Elizabeth had a strong bent -towards Catholicism. The circumstances of her life had placed her in -opposition to the Papal power, but she was fond of describing herself -to foreign ambassadors as a Catholic in all points except subjection -to the Pope. She did not even make any secret of her contempt for -Protestantism, whose head she was, and whose support she could not for -a moment dispense with. She felt it a humiliation to be regarded as a -co-religionist of the French, Scotch, or Dutch heretics. She looked -down upon the Anglican Bishops whom she had herself appointed, and -they, in their worldliness, deserved her scorn. But still deeper was -her detestation of all sectarianism within the limits of her Church, -and especially of Puritanism in all its forms. If she did not in the -first years of her reign indulge in open persecution of the Puritans, -it was only because she was as yet dependent on their support; but as -soon as she felt herself firmly seated on her throne, she established, -in spite of the stiff-necked opposition of Parliament, the jurisdiction -of the Bishops on all matters of ecclesiastical politics, and suffered -Puritan writers to be condemned to death or lifelong imprisonment for -free but quite innocent expressions of opinion regarding the relation -of the State to religion. - -Her greatness had mainly reposed upon the insight she had shown in the -choice of her counsellors and commanders. But the most distinguished -of those who had shed glory on her throne died one after the other in -the last decade of the century. The first to die was Walsingham, one -of her most disinterested servants, whom she had repaid with black -ingratitude. He had done her great and loyal services, and had saved -her life at the time of the last conspiracy, which led to the execution -of Mary Stuart. Then she lost such notable members of her Council as -Lord Hunsdon and Sir Francis Knowles; then Lord Burghley himself, the -true ruler of England during her reign; and finally, Sir Francis Drake, -the great naval hero of the war with Spain. She felt herself lonely and -deserted. She no longer took any pleasure in the position of power to -which England had attained under her rule. In spite of all she could -do to conceal it, she began to feel the oppression of age, and to -see how little real affection those men felt for her who were always -posing in the light of adorers. She was the last of her line, and the -thought of her successor was so intolerable to her, that she deferred -his final nomination until she lay on her death-bed. But it availed her -nothing; she knew very well that her ministers and courtiers, during -the last years of her life, were in constant and secret communication -with James of Scotland. They would kneel in the dust as she passed -with exclamations of enchantment at her youthful appearance, and then -rise, brush the dust from their knees, and write to James that the -Queen looked ghastly and could not possibly last long. They did all -they possibly could to conceal from her their Scotch intrigues; but she -divined what went on behind her back, even if she did not realise the -extent to which it was carried, or know definitely which of her most -trusted servants were shrinking from nothing that could assure them the -favour of James. For example, she did not suspect Robert Cecil of the -double game he was carrying on, at the very time when he was doing his -best to drive Essex to desperation and secure his punishment for an -act of disobedience scarcely more heinous in the Queen's eyes than his -own underhand dealings. But she felt herself isolated in the midst of -a crowd of courtiers impatiently awaiting the new era that was to dawn -after her death. She realised that the men who still flattered her had -never been attached to her for her own sake, and she specially resented -the fact that they no longer seemed even to fear her. - -One result of this deep dejection was that she gave her tyrannical -tendencies a freer course than before, and became less and less -inclined to forbearance or mercy towards those who had once been dear -to her but had fallen into disgrace. - -She had always taken it very ill when one of her favourites showed -any inclination towards matrimony, and they had therefore always been -forced to marry secretly, though that did not in the end save them from -her displeasure. Now her despotism rose to such a pitch that she wanted -to control the marriages even of those courtiers who had never enjoyed -her favour. - -One of the things which Shakespeare doubtless took most to heart at the -end of the old century and beginning of the new was the hard fate which -overtook his distinguished and highly valued patron Southampton. This -nobleman had fallen in love with Essex's cousin, the Lady Elizabeth -Vernon. The Queen forbade him to marry her, but he would not relinquish -his bride. He was hot-headed and high-spirited. Young as he was, he had -boarded and taken a Spanish ship of war in the course of the expedition -commanded by his friend Essex. Once, in the palace itself, when -Southampton, Raleigh, and another courtier had been laughing and making -a noise over a game of primero, the captain of the guard, Ambrose -Willoughby, called them to order because the Queen had gone early to -bed; whereupon Southampton struck this high official in the face and -actually had a bout of fisticuffs with him. Such being his character, -we cannot wonder that he contracted a private marriage in spite of the -prohibition (August 1598). Elizabeth sent him to pass his honeymoon in -the Tower, and thenceforth viewed him with high disfavour. - -His close relationship to Essex led to a new outburst of the Queen's -displeasure. When Essex took command of the army in Ireland in -1599, he appointed Southampton his General of Horse; but simply out -of resentment for Southampton's disobedience in the matter of his -marriage, the Queen forced Essex to rescind the appointment. - -One must bear in mind, among other things, this attitude of the Queen -towards Shakespeare's first patron in order to understand the evident -coolness of his feeling towards Elizabeth. He did not, for example, -join in the threnodies of the other English poets on her death, and -even after Chettle had expressly urged him,[2] refrained from writing -a single line in her praise. He probably read her character much as -Froude did in our own day. - -Froude admits that she was "supremely brave," and was turned aside from -her purposes by no care for her own life, though she was "perpetually a -mark for assassination." He admits, too, that she lived simply, worked -hard, and ruled her household with economy. "But her vanity was as -insatiable as it was commonplace.... Her entire nature was saturated -with artifice. Except when speaking some round untruths, Elizabeth -never could be simple. Her letters and her speeches were as fantastic -as her dress, and her meaning as involved as her policy. She was -unnatural even in her prayers, and she carried her affectations into -the presence of the Almighty.... Obligations of honour were not only -occasionally forgotten by her, but she did not seem to understand what -honour meant."[3] - -At the point we have now reached in Shakespeare's life, the event -occurred which, of all external circumstances of his time, seems -to have made the deepest impression upon his mind: the ill-starred -rebellion of Essex and Southampton, the execution of the former, and -the latter's condemnation to imprisonment for life. - - -[1] Arthur Weldon: _The Court and Character of King James_, -1650; quoted by Drake, ii. 149. - -[2] - - "Nor doth the silver-tongued _Melicert_ - Drop from his honied muse one sable teare - To mourne her death that graced his desert, - And to his laies opend her Royall eare. - Shepheard, remember our _Elizabeth_, - And sing her Rape, done by that _Tarquin_, Death." - -[3] Froude: _History of England_, vol. xii. Conclusion. - - - - -III - -_ELIZABETH, ESSEX, AND BACON_ - -In order rightly to understand these events a short retrospect is -necessary. - -We have seen how Essex in 1587 ousted Raleigh from the Queen's favour. -From the very first he united with the insinuating tone of the adorer -the domineering attitude of the established favourite. This was new -to her, and for a considerable time obviously impressed more than it -irritated her. - -Here is an instance, from the early days of their relationship. Essex's -sister, Penelope, had, against her will, been married to Lord Rich. -She was adored by Sir Philip Sidney, who sang of her as his Stella, -and their mutual passion was an open secret. The Maiden Queen, who was -always very strict as to the moral purity of those around her, during -a visit which she paid with Essex to the Earl of Warwick at North Hall -in 1587, took offence at the presence of Lady Rich, and insisted that -she should leave the house. Essex declared that the Queen subjected him -and his sister to this insult "only to please that knave Raleigh," and -left the house at midnight along with Lady Rich. He wanted to join the -army in the Netherlands, but the Queen, finding that she could not do -without him, had him brought back again. - -At the time of the Armada, therefore, the Queen kept him at court, -much against his own will. Nor would he have been allowed to take -part in the war of 1589 if he had not secretly made his escape from -England, leaving behind him a letter to the Queen and Council to the -effect that "he would return alive at no one's bidding." An angry -letter from Elizabeth forced him, however, to come back after he had -distinguished himself before Lisbon. They were then reconciled, but the -practical-minded Queen immediately demanded of him the repayment of a -sum of £3000 which she had lent him, so that he was forced to sell his -mansion of Keyston. He received in return "the farm of sweet wines," a -very lucrative monopoly, the withdrawal of which many years afterwards -led to the boiling over of his discontent. - -We have seen how his secret marriage in 1590 enraged the Queen, who -at once vented her wrath upon his bride. Presently, however, he was -once more in favour, and in the middle of the French campaign of 1591, -Elizabeth recalled him to England for a week, which was passed in all -sorts of festivities. She wept when he returned to the army, and laid -upon him an injunction, to which he paid very little heed, that he must -on no account incur any personal danger. - -During the subsequent four years which Essex passed in England, -occupied with his plans of ambition, it became clear to him that -Burghley's son, Sir Robert Cecil, was the chief obstacle to his -advancement. All of those, therefore, who for one reason or another -hated the house of Cecil, cast in their lot with Essex. Thus it -happened that Cecil's cousin, Francis Bacon, who had in vain besought -first the father and then the son for some profitable office, became -a close personal adherent of Essex. It was necessary to make choice -of one party or the other if you were to hope for any preferment. In -the years 1593 and 1594, accordingly, we find Essex again and again -importuning Elizabeth for offices for Bacon. She had no very great -confidence in Bacon, and bore him a grudge, moreover, because he had -incautiously spoken in Parliament against a Government measure; so -that Essex, to his great annoyance and disgust, met with a refusal to -all his applications. As a consolation to his client, he made him a -present of land to the value of not less than £1800. That was the price -for which Bacon sold the property; Essex had believed it to be worth -more.[1] This gift, we see, was nearly twice as large as that which -Southampton is reported to have made to Shakespeare (see above, p. 152). - -Henceforward Bacon is to be regarded as an attentive and officious -adherent of Essex, while Essex makes it a point of honour to obtain for -him every recognition, preferment, and advantage. Again and again Bacon -places his pen at the disposal of Essex. There are extant three long -letters from Essex to his young cousin Lord Rutland, dated 1596, giving -him excellent advice as to how to reap most profit from his first -Continental tour, on which he was then setting out. In many passages -of these letters we recognise Bacon's ideas, and in some his style, -his acknowledged writings containing almost identical parallels. The -probability is that in these, as in many subsequent instances, Bacon -supplied Essex with the ideas and the first draft of the letters. Well -knowing that the Queen's dissatisfaction with Essex arose chiefly from -his desire for military glory and the popularity which follows in its -train--well knowing, too, that Essex's enemies at court were always -representing this ambition to the Queen as a hindrance to the peace -with Spain, which nevertheless must one day be concluded--Bacon thought -it a good move for his protector to display unequivocally his care for -the occupations of peace, the acquisition of useful knowledge, and -other unmilitary advantages, in letters which, although private, were -likely enough to come into her Majesty's hands. - -Francis Bacon's brother, Anthony, about the same time attached -himself closely (and more faithfully) to Essex. Through him the Earl -established communications with all the foreign courts, so that for a -time his knowledge of European affairs rivalled that of the Foreign -Ministry itself. - -The zeal which Essex had displayed in unravelling Doctor Roderigo -Lopez's suspected plot against Elizabeth (see above, p. 191) had placed -him very high in her renewed favour. His heroic exploits at Cadiz ought -to have strengthened his position; but his adversary, Robert Cecil, -had during his absence acquired new power, and the rapacious Elizabeth -complained of the smallness of the booty (it amounted to £13,000). As -a matter of fact, Essex alone had wanted to follow up the advantage -gained, and to seize the Indian fleet, which was allowed to escape: he -had been out-voted in the council of war. - -In order to overcome this new resentment on the Queen's part, Bacon, -who regarded his fate as bound up in that of the Earl, wrote a letter -to Essex (dated October 4, 1596), full of good advice with respect -to the attitude he ought to adopt towards Elizabeth, especially -in order to disabuse her mind of the idea that his disposition -was ungovernable--advice which Bacon himself, with his courtier -temperament, might easily enough have followed, but which was too hard -for the downright Essex, who had no sooner made humble submission than -his pride again brought arrogant expressions to his lips. - -At the close of the year 1596 Bacon's protector was accused by his -client's mother, Lady Bacon, of misconduct with one of the ladies of -the court. He denied the charge, but confessed to "similar errors." - -In 1597 Essex, who had been longing for a new command, undertook an -expedition to the Azores with twenty ships and 6000 men--an enterprise -which, largely owing to his inexperience and unfortunate leadership, -was entirely unsuccessful. On his return he was very coldly received -by the Queen, especially on the ground that towards the end of the -expedition he had behaved ill to Raleigh, his colleague in command. -In order to make his peace with Elizabeth, he sent her insinuating -letters; but he was mortally offended when the eminent services of the -old Lord Howard were rewarded by the appointment of Lord High Admiral. -As the victor of Cadiz, he regarded himself as the one possible man -for this distinction, which gave Howard precedence over him. He -bemoaned his fate, however, to such purpose that he soon after secured -the appointment of Earl Marshal of England, which in turn gave him -precedence over Howard. He received a very valuable present--worth -£7000--and for the first and last time induced the Queen to grant an -audience to his mother, Lady Lettice, whose marriage with Leicester, -twenty-three years before, was not yet forgiven, although in 1589, at -the age of forty-nine, she had married a third husband, Sir Christopher -Blount. - -But Essex was not long at peace with the Queen and Court. In 1598 he -was accused of illicit relations with no fewer than four ladies of the -court (Elizabeth Southwell, Elizabeth Brydges, Mrs. Russell, and Lady -Mary Howard), and the charge seems to have been well founded. At the -same time violent dissensions broke out as to whether an attempt should -or should not be made to bring the war with Spain to a close. Essex -carried the day, and it was continued. It was at this time that he -wrote a pamphlet defending himself warmly from the charge of desiring -war at any price. It was not published until 1602, under the title: -_An apology of the Earle of Essex against those which jealously and -maliciously tax him to be the hinderer of the peace and quiet of his -country._ - -To the Queen's birthday of this year (November 17, 1598) belongs an -anecdote which shows what ingenuity Essex displayed in annoying his -rival. As was the custom of the day, the leading courtiers tilted at -the ring in honour of her Majesty, and each knight was required to -appear in some disguise. It was known, however, that Sir Walter Raleigh -would ride in his own uniform of orange-tawny medley, trimmed with -black budge of lamb's wool. Essex, to vex him, came to the lists with -a body-guard of two thousand retainers all dressed in orange-tawny, -so that Raleigh and his men seemed only an insignificant division of -Essex's splendid retinue.[2] - -No later than June or July 1598 there occurred a new scene between -Essex and the Queen in the Council, the most unpleasant and grotesque -passage which had yet taken place between them. The occasion was -trifling, being nothing more than the choice of an official to be -despatched to Ireland. Essex was in the habit of permitting himself -every liberty towards Elizabeth; and it was now, or soon after, that, -as Raleigh relates, he told her "that her conditions were as crooked as -her carcase." Certain it is that, on this occasion, he turned his back -to her with an expression of contempt. She retorted by giving him a box -on the ear and bidding him "Go and be hanged." He laid his hand upon -his sword-hilt, declared that he would not have suffered such an insult -from Henry the Eighth himself, and held aloof from the court for months. - -Not till October was Essex forgiven, and even then with no heartiness -or sincerity. The Irish rebellion, however, had to be put down, so -a truce was called to all trivial quarrels. O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone, -had got together an army, as he had often done before, and the whole -island was in revolt. Public opinion, for no sufficient reason, pointed -to Essex as the only man who could deal with the rebels. He, on his -part, was by no means eager to accept the mission. It was of the -utmost importance for every courtier, and especially for the head of a -party, not to be out of the Queen's sight more than was imperatively -necessary. There was every reason to fear that his enemies of the -opposite party would avail themselves of his absence in order so to -blacken him in the eyes of his omnipotent mistress that he would -never regain her favour. Elizabeth, at this juncture, like Louis XIV. -in the following century, was monarch and constitution in one. Her -displeasure meant ruin, her favour was the only source of prosperity. -Therefore Essex did all he could to secure permission to return from -the front whenever he pleased, in order to report personally to the -Queen; and it was therefore that, in the following year, when he was -forbidden to leave his post, he threw caution to the winds, and defied -the prohibition. He knew that he was lost unless he could speak to -Elizabeth face to face. - -In March 1599 Essex took the command of the English troops; he was to -suppress the rebellion and grant Tyrone his life only on condition -of his complete surrender. But instead of carrying out his orders, -which were to attack the rebels in their stronghold, Ulster, Essex -remained for long inactive, and at last marched into Munster. One of -his subordinate officers, Sir Henry Harington, suffered a disgraceful -defeat, partly through his own incompetence, partly through the -cowardice of his officers and men. He was tried by court-martial in -Dublin, and he himself, and every tenth man of his command, were shot. -The summer slipped away, and in its course the 16,000 men with whom -Essex had come to Ireland were reduced by sickness and desertion to -a quarter of their original number. Under these circumstances, Essex -again deferred his march upon Ulster, so that the Queen, who was -excessively displeased, expressly forbade him to return from Ireland -without her permission. - -When at last, in the beginning of September 1599, he confronted with -his shrunken forces Tyrone's unbreathed army, which had taken up a -strong position to await the coming of the English, he abandoned -his plan of attack, invited Tyrone to a parley, had half an hour's -conversation with him on the 6th of September, and concluded a fourteen -weeks' armistice, to be renewed every six weeks until the 1st of May. -According to his own account, he promised Tyrone that this treaty -should not be placed in writing, lest it should fall into the hands of -the Spaniards and be used against him. - -This was certainly not what Elizabeth had expected of the Irish -campaign, which had opened with such a flourish of trumpets, and we -cannot wonder that her anger was fierce and deep-seated. No sooner had -she received the intelligence, than she forbade the conclusion of any -treaty whatsoever. - -Convinced that his enemies now had the entire ear of the Queen, Essex -sought safety in once more disobeying Elizabeth's express command. With -a train of only six followers, which in the indictment against him -afterwards grew into a body of 200 picked men, he crossed to England -to attempt his own justification, rode direct to Nonsuch Palace, where -Elizabeth then was, forced all the doors, and, travel-stained as he -was, threw himself on his knees before the Queen, whom he surprised in -her bed-chamber, with her hair undressed, at ten o'clock in the morning -of the 28th of September. - -It is a strong proof of the power which his personality still retained -over Elizabeth, that at the first moment she felt nothing but pleasure -in seeing him. As soon as he had changed his clothes, he was admitted -to an audience, which lasted an hour and a half. As yet all seemed -well. He dined at the Queen's table and told her about Ireland and its -people. But in the evening he was "commanded to keep his chamber" until -the lords of the Council should have spoken with him; and a few days -later he was confined to York House, with his friend the Lord Keeper, -however, for his gaoler. - -He presently fell ill, when it appeared that the Queen had by no means -forgotten her former tenderness for him. In the middle of December she -sent eight physicians to consult as to his case. They despaired of his -life, but he recovered. - -While matters thus looked very black for Essex, his nearest friends -also were, of course, in disgrace. In a letter from Rowland Whyte to -Sir Robert Sidney (dated October 11, 1599), we find the following -significant statement: "My Lord _Southhampton_, and Lord _Rutland_ come -not to the court; the one doth but very seldome; they pass away the -Tyme in _London_ merely in going to Plaies euery day."[3] Southampton -had married a cousin of Essex, and Rutland a daughter of Lady Essex by -her first marriage with Sir Philip Sidney; so that both were in the -same boat with their more distinguished kinsman. - -On the 5th of June 1600, Essex was brought to trial--not before the -Star Chamber, but, by particular favour, before a special court, -consisting of four earls, two barons, and four judges, which assembled -at the Lord Keeper's residence, York House, the general public being -excluded. The procedure was mainly dictated by the Queen's wish to -justify the arrest of Essex in the face of public opinion, which -idolised him and regarded him as a martyr. - - -[1] James Spedding: _Letters and Life of Francis Bacon_, i. 371. - -[2] Gosse: _Raleigh_, p. 113. - -[3] A. Collins: _Letters and Memorials of State_, ii. 132. - - - - -IV - -_THE FATE OF ESSEX AND SOUTHAMPTON_ - -The indictment did not press too severely upon Essex, did not as yet -seek to discover treasonable motives for his inactivity in Ireland, but -simply dwelt upon his disobedience to the Queen's commands, and the -dangerous and dishonourable agreement with Tyrone. Francis Bacon had -not been allotted any part in the proceedings; but on his writing to -the Queen and expressing his desire to serve her in this conjuncture, -he was assigned the quite subordinate task of calling Essex to account -for his indiscretion in accepting the dedication, in unbefitting -terms, of a political pamphlet written by a certain Dr. Hayward. Bacon -exceeded his instructions by dwelling at length on certain passionate -expressions in a letter from Essex to the Lord Keeper, in which he had -spoken of the hardness of the Queen's heart and compared her princely -wrath to a tempest. A man who was less nervously anxious to retain the -Queen's favour would have declined this commission on the ground of his -close relations with Essex; Bacon begged for it, went farther than it -required him to go, and is scarcely to be believed when he afterwards, -in his _Apology_, represents himself as actuated by the wish ultimately -to be of service to Essex with the Queen. Still, he evidently had not -ceased to regard a reconciliation between Elizabeth and Essex as the -most probable result, and he may perhaps have done his best in private -conversations to soften the Queen's resentment. - -The sentence passed by the Lord Keeper was the not very severe one that -Essex should, in the meantime, be deprived of all his offices, and -remain a prisoner in Essex House "till it shall please her Majesty to -release both this and all the rest." - -Bacon, who still did not think Essex irretrievably lost, now tried, -in a carefully worded letter to him, to explain his attitude, and at -once received from his magnanimous friend a forgiveness which was -scarcely deserved. Bacon declared that, next to the interests of the -Queen and the country, those of Essex always lay nearest his heart; -and he now composed two documents: first, a very judicious letter, -which Essex was partly to re-write and then to send to the Queen, -and next a fictitious letter, a masterpiece of diplomacy, purporting -to have been written by his brother, Anthony Bacon, Essex's faithful -adherent, to Essex himself. This letter, and Essex's reply to it, which -prove to admiration Bacon's talent for reproducing the styles of two -such different men, were to be copied by them respectively, and to be -brought to the knowledge of the Queen, on whom they would no doubt -produce the desired impression. With Machiavellian subtlety, these -letters are carefully framed so as to place Francis Bacon himself in -the light which should most appeal to the Queen: Essex is represented -as regarding him as entirely won over to her side, and Anthony -expresses the hope that she will show him the favour he has deserved -"for that he hath done and suffered." - -Bacon did not succeed in inducing Elizabeth to restore Essex to his -former position in her favour. In August, a couple of months after the -date of the sentence, he was placed at full liberty; but access to -Elizabeth's person was denied him, and he was bidden to regard himself -as still in disgrace. The consequence was that few now came about him -except the members of his own family. Add to this, that he was over -head and ears in debt, and that his monopoly of sweet wines, which -had been his chief source of income, and on the renewal of which his -financial rescue depended, ran out in the following month. - -He wavered between fear and hope, and was forever "shifting from sorrow -and repentance to rage and rebellion so suddenly, as well proveth him -devoid of good reason as of right mind." At one moment he is appealing -to the Queen with the deepest humility in flattering letters, and -at the next he is speaking of her--so his friend Sir John Harington -reports--as "became no man who had _mens sana in corpore sano_." - -Then came the catastrophe. His sources of income were cut off, and his -hope of the Queen's relenting was broken. He was convinced--without -reason, as it appears--that his enemies at court, who had deprived him -of his wealth, had now laid a plot to deprive him of his life as well. -He imagined, too, that Sir Robert Cecil was weaving intrigues to bring -about the nomination of the Infanta of Spain as Elizabeth's successor; -and in his desperation he began to nurse the illusion that it was as -necessary for the welfare of the state as for his own that he should -gain forcible access to the Queen and secure the banishment from court -of her present advisers. In his dread of being once more placed under -arrest, and this time sent to the Tower, he determined, in February -1601, to carry out a plan he had been hatching, for taking the court by -storm. - -Southampton had at this time allowed the malcontents to make his -residence, Drury House, their meeting-place for discussing the -situation. Here the general plan was laid that they should seize -upon Whitehall and that Essex should force his way into the Queen's -presence; the time was to depend upon the arrival of the Scotch envoy. -On the 5th of February, four or five of the Earl's friends presented -themselves at the Globe Theatre, and promised the players eleven -shillings more than they usually received if, on the 7th, they would -perform the play of the deposition and death of King Richard II. -(see above, p. 148). In the meantime, Essex had, in the beginning of -February, assembled his adherents in his own residence, Essex House, -and this induced the Government, which had heard with uneasiness of so -large a concourse of people, to summon Essex before the Council. He -received the summons on the 7th of February 1601, excused himself on -the ground of indisposition, and at once called his friends together. -On the same evening three hundred men were gathered at his house, -although no real plan had as yet been determined upon. He informed them -that his life was threatened by Cobham and Raleigh. On the morning -of the 8th of February, the Lord Keeper with three other noblemen, -commissioned by the Queen to inquire into what was going on, appeared -at Essex House, and demanded to see the Earl. They told him that any -complaints he might have to make to the Queen should receive attention, -but that in the first place he must order his adherents to disperse. - -Essex made only confused replies: his life was threatened, he was to -be murdered in his bed, he had been treacherously dealt with, and so -forth. In the meantime shouts arose from the crowd of his retainers, -"Away, my lord; they abuse you, they betray you, they undo you; you -lose time!" Essex led the noblemen into his house amid cries from -his armed friends of "Kill them, kill them!" and "Shut them up! Keep -them as pledges, cast the great seal out at the window!" He had them -locked up in his library as prisoners or hostages. Then he came out -again, and, amid cries of "To Court! to Court!" his party rushed -through the gates. At the last moment, Essex learned that the Court -was prepared, the watch was doubled, and every access to Whitehall was -barred. They were therefore forced to attempt, in the first place, to -stir up an insurrection in the city. But in order to pass through the -streets horses were needed; they were sent for, but there was delay in -procuring them. So impatient was every one by this time, that instead -of awaiting their arrival, several hundred men, headed by Essex, -Southampton, Rutland, Blount, and other gentlemen, but without any -real leader or effective plan of action, set off for the city. Essex -nowhere made any speech to the populace, but merely shouted, as though -beside himself, that an attempt had been made to murder him. A good -many people, indeed, appeared to join him, but none of them were armed, -and they were in reality no more than onlookers. In the meantime, -the Government despatched high officials on horseback to different -quarters of the town to proclaim Essex a traitor; whereupon many of -his following deserted him. Troops, too, were despatched against him, -so that he, with the remainder of his band, with difficulty made their -way by water back to Essex House, which was immediately besieged and -fired upon. In the evening Essex and Southampton opened negotiations, -and about ten o'clock surrendered with their little force, on the -understanding that they should be courteously treated and accorded an -honourable trial. The prisoners were taken to the Tower. - -Francis Bacon now again plays a part, and this time a decisive one, -in Essex's history. There was no need for him to take any share in -the trial; and even if his office had imposed it upon him, he ought -in common decency to have refrained. He was neither Attorney-General -nor Solicitor, but only one of the "Learned Counsel." The very fact of -his close friendship with Essex, however, made the Government anxious -that he should appear in the case. He was at once advocate and witness, -and was not summoned as one of the learned counsel, but expressly as -"friend to the accused." - -On the 19th February, Essex and Southampton were brought before a court -consisting of twenty-five peers and nine judges. Already, on the 17th, -Thomas Leigh, a captain in Essex's Irish army, for trying to gain -access to the palace on the 8th February, had been beheaded in the -Tower. Now that Essex's cause was irreparably lost, Bacon had no other -thought than to make himself useful to the party in power and prove his -devotion to the Queen. The purport of his first speech against Essex -was to prove that the plan of exciting an insurrection in the city, -which was in reality an inspiration of the moment, had been the result -of three months' deliberation. He represented as false and hypocritical -Essex's assurance that he was driven to action by dread of the -machinations of powerful enemies. He compared Essex to Cain, the first -murderer, who also sought excuses for his deed, and to Pisistratus, -who wounded himself and ran through the streets of Athens, crying that -an attempt had been made upon his life. The Earl of Essex, he said, in -reality had no enemies. - -Essex rejoined that he could "call forth Mr. Bacon against Mr. Bacon." -Bacon, "being a daily courtier," had promised to plead his cause with -the Queen. He had with great address composed a letter to her, to be -signed by Essex. He had also written another letter in his brother -Anthony's name, and an answer to it from Essex, both of which he was -to show to the Queen; and in these "he laid down the grounds of my -discontent, and the reasons I pretend against mine enemies, pleading as -orderly for me as I could do myself." - -This rejoinder told sensibly against Bacon, and drove him in his reply -to launch against his benefactor a new and much more malignant and -dangerous comparison. He likened him to a renowned contemporary, also -a nobleman and a rebel, the Duke of Guise: "It was not the company you -carried with you, but the assistance you hoped for in the City which -you trusted unto. The Duke of Guise thrust himself into the streets of -Paris on the day of the Barricados in his doublet and hose, attended -only with eight gentlemen, and found that help in the city which -(thanks be to God) you failed of here. And what followed? The King was -forced to put himself into a pilgrim's weeds, and in that disguise to -steal away to scape their fury." - -In view of Essex's persistent denial that he had aspired to the throne -or sought to do the Queen any injury, this parallel was a terrible one -for him. - -Both he and Southampton were found guilty and condemned to death. - -The trial of Shakespeare's protector, Southampton, and his signed -confession, have a special interest for us. In a private letter -from John Chamberlain, dated the 24th February, we read: "The Earl -of Southampton spake very well (but methought somewhat too much, as -well, as the other), and as a man that would fain live, pleaded hard -to acquit himself; but all in vain, for it could not be: whereupon he -descended to entreaty and moved great commiseration, and though he -were generally well liked, yet methought he was somewhat too low and -submiss, and seemed too loath to die before a proud enemy." - -Southampton, in his own confession, admits that immediately after his -arrival in Ireland, he became aware of Essex's letter to King James of -Scotland, urging that, for his own sake, he ought not to permit the -government of England to remain in the hands of his and Essex's common -enemies, proposing that he should, at a fitting opportunity, assemble -an army, and promising that Essex, in so far as his duty to her Majesty -permitted, should support the King with his Irish troops. James replied -evasively, and nothing came of the plan, in which Southampton soon -regretted that he had taken share. After losing his post in Ireland, -he went to the Netherlands, and had no other desire than to regain -the favour of the Queen, when Essex, his kinsman and friend, summoned -him to London and requested his support in the plan he had formed for -seeking access to her Majesty. With a heavy heart, he had consented, -and engaged in the enterprise, not from any treachery or disrespect -towards her Majesty, but solely on account of his affection for -Essex. He repents and abhors his action, and promises on his knees to -consecrate to the Queen's service every day that remains to him, if she -will but spare his life. - -Southampton impresses us as a man of fiery but yielding character, -entirely under the influence of a stronger personality; but he is never -betrayed into a single unworthy word with respect to his kinsman and -friend, whose cause he of course knew to be hopeless. His sentence was -commuted to imprisonment for life. - -Essex himself, at the end, endured with less resolution the cruel -ordeal to which he was subjected. Finding himself condemned to death, -and knowing that many of his closest friends had confessed to the Drury -House discussions and designs, he lost all balance during the last -days of his life, entirely forgot his dignity, and overwhelmed those -around him, his sister, his friends, his secretary, and himself, with a -torrent of reproaches. - -In the meantime his enemies were not idle. Even Raleigh, on whose proud -nature one is sorry, to find such a stain, impelled, of course, not -only by their old enmity, but by Essex's recent assertions that he was -plotting against his life, wrote to Cecil, in his uneasiness lest Essex -should be pardoned, and urged him "not to relent," but to see that the -sentence was carried out. - -Elizabeth had first signed the death-warrant, and then recalled it. On -the 24th February she signed it a second time, and on the 25th February -1601, Essex's head was severed by three blows of the axe. - -The populace could not be persuaded of their favourite's guilt. They -loathed his executioner, and detested those men who, like Bacon and -Raleigh, had, by their malice, contributed to his downfall. - -In order to justify itself, the Government issued an official -_Declaration touching the Treasons of the late Earl of Essex and his -complices_, in the composition of which Bacon bore a large part. It -is very untrustworthy. James Spedding, indeed, one of Bacon's best -biographers, has tried to reconcile it with the facts; but he has -not succeeded in explaining away the damnatory circumstance that -everything is omitted which tended at the trial to establish Essex's -intention to use no violence, and to prove how entirely unpremeditated -was the attempt to raise an insurrection in the city. Where passages -of this nature occur in the records, all of which are preserved, we -find the letters _om_, (meaning, of course, "to be omitted") written -in the margin, sometimes in Bacon's hand, sometimes in that of the -Attorney-General, Coke.[1]. - -Bacon, with his brilliant intellectual equipment and his consciousness -of his great powers, is not to be set down as simply a bad man. But his -heart was cold, and he had no greatness of soul. He was absorbed, to -a quite unworthy degree, in the pursuit of worldly prosperity. Always -deeply in debt, he coveted above everything fine houses and gardens, -massive plate, great revenues, and, as essential preliminaries, high -offices and employments, titles and distinctions, which he might well -have left to men of meaner worth. He passed half his life in the -character of an office-seeker, met with one humiliating refusal after -another, and returned humble thanks for the gracious denial. Once -and once only, in his early days in Parliament, did he display some -independence and rectitude; but when he saw that it gave offence in the -highest places, he repented as bitterly as though he had been guilty -of a sin against all political morality, and besought her Majesty's -forgiveness in terms that might have befitted a detected thief. With -the like baseness and pusillanimity he now turned against Essex. He -had often cited the maxim, which even Cicero criticised in the _De -Amicitia_: "Love as if you should hereafter hate, and hate as if you -should hereafter love." He had never loved Essex otherwise. His excuse, -if there can be any, for seeking advancement at all costs, must be -found in the fact that he had the highest conception of his own value -to science, and thought that it would be to the honour and advantage of -learning that he, its high-priest, should be highly placed. - -If we examine Essex's portrait, with its regular beauty, its air of -distinction and gentleness, the high forehead, the curly hair, and -the carefully combed long light beard, we can readily understand that -such a man, surrounded by a halo of adventurous renown, must become -the idol of the populace, and that the military incompetence which he -had twice displayed should not greatly affect the high esteem in which -the people held him. He was in reality as little of a statesman as of -a general; he was simply a free-speaking, passionate man, innocent of -diplomacy, a brave soldier without an idea of tactics. He misunderstood -his influence over Elizabeth, and did not realise that the Queen, -while she felt the charm of his personality, contemned his political -counsels. There was a good deal of the poet in his composition; he -wrote pretty sonnets, was a patron of writers no less than of fighters, -showed himself generous to profusion towards his friends and clients, -and found, perhaps, his sincerest and most convinced admirers among -the authors and poets of the day. Innumerable are the books which are -dedicated to him. - -There is no doubt that after his melancholy death, a marked decline was -apparent in the Queen's courage and spirits. The legend, however, that -it was the fact of his execution which she took so much to heart, is -scarcely to be believed, and the story about Essex's ring, which was -conveyed to her too late, is unquestionably a fable. It is certain, -on the other hand--for the Duc de Biron, the envoy of Henri IV., had -no motive for telling a falsehood--that on the 12th September 1601, -after a conversation about Essex in which she jested over her departed -favourite, Elizabeth opened a box and took out of it Essex's skull, -which she showed to Biron. Ten months later, this favourite of the -French king--whose name Shakespeare had borrowed for the hero of his -first comedy--met with the very fate of Essex, and for a similar crime. - -Bacon, no doubt, mourned Essex's disappearance even less than did the -Queen. After Elizabeth's death, however, when the friends of Essex -stood in the highest favour with the new King, he was shameless enough -to send a letter to Southampton (who, though not yet released from the -Tower, was already regarded as a power in the land), in which, after -having expressed his fear of being met with distrust, he concludes -thus: "It is as true as a thing that God knoweth, that this great -change hath wrought in me no other change towards your Lordship than -this, that I may safely be now that which I was truly before." - -The circumstances of Essex's condemnation were of course not known in -the London of those days so minutely as we now know them. But we see, -as already indicated, that public opinion turned vehemently against -Bacon, regarding and despising him as the traitor to his lord who, -more than any one else, had brought about his unhappy end. We see -that Raleigh, in spite of his greatness, now became one of the most -unpopular men in England; and we observe that, notwithstanding all -that was done to disparage him in the general regard, Essex's memory -continued to be idolised by the great mass of the people. - -If we now inquire in what relation Shakespeare stood to these events -which so absorbed the English people, it seems more than probable that -he, who had so recently been so intimately associated with Southampton, -and cannot therefore have been very far from Essex, followed the -accused with his sympathy, felt a lively resentment towards their -enemies, and took their fate much to heart. And when we observe that -just at this juncture a revolution occurs in Shakespeare's hitherto -cheerful habit of mind, and that he begins to take ever gloomier views -of human nature and of life, we cannot but recognise the probability -that grief for the fate which had overtaken Essex, Southampton, and -their fellows, was one of the sources of his growing melancholy. - - -[1] Compare _Dictionary of National Biography_, Robert Devereux; -Spedding, _Letters and Life of Francis Bacon_, ii. 190-374; Edwin -Abbott, _Francis Bacon, an Account of his Life and Works_, pp. 53-82; -Macaulay, _Lord Bacon_; Gosse, _Raleigh_. - - - - -V - -_THE DEDICATION OF THE SONNETS_ - -We naturally looked for one source of his henceforth deepening -melancholy in outward events, in the political drama which reached its -crisis and catastrophe in 1601; but it is still more imperative that we -should look into his private and personal experiences for the ultimate -cause of the revolution in his soul. We must inquire what light his -works throw upon his private circumstances and state of mind at this -period. - -Now, we find among Shakespeare's works one which, more than any other, -enables us to look into his inmost soul--I mean his Sonnets. It is -to these remarkable poems that we must mainly address ourselves for -the information we require. Public events may, indeed, cast a certain -measure of light or shadow over a man's inward world of thought and -feeling; but they are never the efficient factors in determining the -happiness or melancholy of his fundamental mood. If he has personal -reasons for feeling that fate is against him, the utmost serenity in -the political atmosphere will not dissipate his gloom; and, conversely, -if a deep joy abides within him, and he has personal reasons for -feeling himself favoured by fortune, then public discontent will be -powerless to disturb the harmony in his soul. But his depression will, -of course, be doubly severe if public events and private experiences -combine to cast a gloom over his mind. - -Shakespeare's "sugred Sonnets" are first mentioned in the well-known -passage in Meres's _Palladis Tamia_ (1598), where they are spoken of as -passing from hand to hand "among his private friends." In the following -year the two important Sonnets now numbered cxxxviii. and cxliv. were -printed (with readings subsequently revised) in a collection of poems -named _The Passionate Pilgrim_, dishonestly published, and falsely -attributed to Shakespeare, by a bookseller named Jaggard. For the next -ten years we find no mention of Sonnets by Shakespeare, until, in -1609, a bookseller named Thomas Thorpe issued a quarto book entitled -_Shakespeares Sonnets. Neuer before Imprinted_--an edition which the -poet himself certainly cannot have revised for the press, but which may -possibly have been printed from an authentic manuscript. - -To this first edition is prefixed a dedication, written by the -bookseller in the most contorted style, which has given rise to -theories and conjectures without number. It runs as follows:-- - - - TO . THE . ONLIE . BEGETTER . OF - THESE . INSVING . SONNETS . - MR . W . H . ALL . HAPPINESSE . - AND . THAT . ETERNITIE . - PROMISED . - BY . - OVR . EVER-LIVING . POET . - WISHETH . - THE . WELL-WISHING . - ADVENTVRER . IN . - SETTING . - FORTH . - T . T . - - -The meaning of the signature is clear enough, since "A booke called -Shakespeare's Sonnets" was entered in the Stationers' Register on -May 20, 1609, under the name of Thomas Thorpe. On the other hand, -throughout this century and the last, there has been no end to the -discussion as to what is meant by "onlie begetter" (only producer, -or only procurer, or only inspirer?); and numberless have been the -attempts to identify the "Mr. W. H." who is so designated. While -the far-fetched expression "begetter" has been subjected to equally -far-fetched interpretations, the most impossible guesses have been -hazarded as to the initials W. H., and the most incredible conjectures -put forward as to the person to whom the Sonnets are addressed. - -Strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless the fact, that during -the first eighty years of the eighteenth century the Sonnets were -taken as being all addressed to one woman, all written in honour of -Shakespeare's mistress. It was not till 1780 that Malone and his -friends declared that more than one hundred of the poems were addressed -to a man. This view of the matter, however, did not even then command -general assent, and so late as 1797 Chalmers seriously maintained -that all the Sonnets were addressed to Queen Elizabeth, who was also, -he believed, the inspirer of Spenser's famous _Amoretti_, in reality -addressed to the lady who afterwards became his wife. Not until the -beginning of this century did people in general understand, what -Shakespeare's contemporaries can certainly never have doubted, that the -first hundred and twenty-six Sonnets are directed to a young man. - -It now followed almost of necessity that this young man should be -identified with the "Mr. W. H." who is described as the "onlie -begetter" of the poems. The second group, indeed, is addressed to a -woman; but the first group is much the larger, and follows immediately -upon the dedication. - -Some have taken the word "begetter" to signify the man who procured the -manuscript for the bookseller, and have conjectured that the initials -are those of William Hathaway, a brother-in-law of Shakespeare's -(Neil, Elze). Dr. Farmer last century advanced the claims of William -Hart, the poet's nephew, who, as was afterwards discovered, was not -born until 1600. The mere fact that, by a whim or oversight of which -there are many other examples in the first edition, the word "hues," -in Sonnet xx., is printed in italics with a capital and spelt _Hews_, -led Tyrwhitt to assume the existence of an otherwise unknown Mr. -William Hughes, to whom he supposed the Sonnets to have been addressed. -People have even been found to maintain that "Mr. W. H." referred to -Shakespeare himself, some taking the "H." to be a mere misprint for -"S.," others holding that the initials meant "Mr. William Himself" -(Barnstorff). - -Serious and competent critics for a long time inclined to the opinion -that the "W. H." was a transposition of "H. W.," and represented none -other than Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, whose close relation -to the poet had long been known, and to whom his two narrative poems -had been dedicated. This theory was held by Drake and Gervinus. But so -early as 1832, Boaden advanced some objections to this view. He urged -that Southampton never possessed the personal beauty incessantly dwelt -upon in these poems. Finally, the Sonnets fit neither his age, nor his -character, nor his history, full of movement, activity, and adverse -fortune, to which no smallest allusion appears. - -There is not the slightest doubt that these poems are addressed to a -patron of rank; but our knowledge of the history of Shakespeare is so -inconsiderable, that with regard to his patrons at the court, we have -nothing to judge from but the dedications of Venus and of Lucrece to -Southampton, and the dedication of the First Folio to Lords Pembroke -and Montgomery, in which reference is made to the favour they had -always shown these plays and their author, while he was alive. Bright -and Boaden had already, in 1819 and 1832 respectively, advanced the -opinion that Pembroke was the hero of the Sonnets. This view was shared -by almost every one (Charles Armitage, Brown Hallan, Massey, Henry -Brown, Minto, W. M. Rossetti), and towards the end of the nineteenth -century this opinion could be considered as having established itself, -since it was concurred in by the chief Shakespeare students (Dowden), -and seemed to have obtained its final confirmation in the penetrating -criticisms of Thomas Tyler (1890). All the above-mentioned authors -agree about the fact, that there is only one person whose age, history, -appearance, virtues, and vices accord in every respect with those of -the young man to whom the Sonnets are addressed, just as his initials -agree with those of the "Mr. W. H." to whom they are dedicated, -and that is the young William Herbert, who in 1601 became Earl of -Pembroke. Born on April 8, 1580, he came to London in the autumn of -1597 or spring of 1598, and very soon, in all probability, made the -acquaintance of Shakespeare, whose patron, as the first folio edition -of the dramas prove, he remained until the poet's death. - -The way by which we arrive at William Herbert is this: The Sonnets -cxxxv. and cxxxvi. as well as cxliii. contain plays on the word _will_, -and the name _Will_, obscure as they are, they show that the friend -whom the Sonnets glorify had the same Christian name as Shakespeare. -This was true of Pembroke, but not of Southampton, whose Christian name -was Henry. Shakespeare's Sonnets are not isolated poems. Though we are -not certain whether the order of the Sonnets in the original edition -is the sequence chosen by the poet himself, still it is evident that -they stand in an intimate relation to each other, a thought or motive -suggested in one being developed more at length in the next or one of -the subsequent Sonnets. The grouping does not seem to be arbitrary; -at any rate, it is so far careful that all attempts to alter it have -only rendered the poems more obscure. The first seventeen Sonnets, for -example, form a closely interwoven group; in all of them, the friend -is exhorted not to die unmarried, but to leave the world an heir to -his beauty, which must otherwise fade and perish with him. Sonnets -c.-cxxvi., which are inseparably connected, turn on the reunion of two -friends after a coldness or misunderstanding has for a time severed -them. Finally, Sonnets cxxvii.-clii. are all addressed, not to a -friend, but to a mistress, the Dark Lady whose relation to the two -friends has already formed the subject of earlier Sonnets. - -Sonnet cxliv.--one of the most interesting, inasmuch it depicts -in straightforward terms the poet's situation between friend and -mistress--had already appeared, as above mentioned, in _The Passionate -Pilgrim_ (1599). It characterises the friend as the poet's "better -angel," the mistress as his "worser spirit," and expresses the painful -suspicion that the friend is entangled in the Dark Lady's toils-- - - "I guess one angel in another's hell;" - -so that both at once are lost to him, he through her and she through -him. - -But precisely the same theme is treated in Sonnet xl., which turns on -the fact that the friend has robbed Shakespeare of his "love." These -two Sonnets must thus be of the same date; and from Sonnet xxxiii., -which relates to the same circumstances, we see that the friendship had -existed only a very short time when it was overshadowed by the intrigue -between the friend and the mistress:-- - - "But out, alack! he was but one hour mine." - -At what time, then, did the friendship begin? The date may be -determined with some confidence, even apart from the question as to -who the friend was. We know that Shakespeare must have written sonnets -before 1598, since Meres published in that year his often-quoted words -about the "sugred Sonnets"; but we cannot possibly determine which -Sonnets these were, or whether we possess them at all, since those -which passed from hand to hand "among his private friends" may very -possibly have disappeared. If they are included in our collection, we -may take them to be those in which we find frequent parallels to lines -in _Venus and Adonis_ and the early plays, though these coincidences -are by no means sufficient, as some of the German critics[1] would -have us believe, finally to establish the date of the Sonnets in which -they occur. However, they vary greatly in quality, and may have been -written at different periods. The first group, with its reiterated -appeal (seventeen times repeated) to the friend, to leave the world a -living copy of his beauty, is unquestionably the least valuable. The -personal feelings of the poet do not come much into play here, and -though these poems may have been addressed to William Herbert in 1598, -it is not impossible, taking into account the many analogies in thought -and mode of expression to be found in them and in _Venus and Adonis_ -and _Romeo and Juliet_, that they were produced several years before, -and in this case, addressed to Southampton. Thomas Tyler believed he -had satisfactorily established the date of one important group by -showing that a passage in Meres's book had influenced the conception -and expression of one of Shakespeare's Sonnets. It cannot reasonably be -doubted that Shakespeare saw _Palladis Tamia_; the author perhaps sent -him a copy; and in any case he could not but have read with interest -the warm and sincere commendation there bestowed upon himself. Now -there occurs in Meres's book a passage in which, after quoting Ovid's - - "Jamque opus exegi, quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignis, - Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas," - -and Horace's - - "Exegi momentum aere perennius," - -the critic goes on to apply these words to his contemporaries Sir -Philip Sidney, Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, Shakespeare, and Warner, -and then winds up with a Latin eulogy of the same writers, composed -by himself, partly in prose and partly in verse. But on reading -attentively Shakespeare's Sonnet lv., whose resemblance to the -well-known lines of Horace must have struck every reader, we find -several expressions from this passage in _Palladis Tamia_, and even -from the lines written by Meres himself, reappearing in it. The Sonnet -must thus have been written at earliest in the end of 1598--Meres's -book was entered in the Stationers' Register in September--and -possibly not till the beginning of 1599. Since, then, the following -Sonnet (lvi.), which must date from about the same time, speaks of the -friendship as newly formed-- - - "Let this sad interim like the ocean be - Which parts the shores, where _two contracted new_ - Come daily to the banks"-- - -we may confidently assign to the year 1598 the first contract of amity -between the poet and his friend. However, all this is by no means -conclusive. Shakespeare may have known Horace from other sources than -Meres, and the quotation from Ovid, together with the expressions used -by Meres, he certainly had encountered in Golding's translation of the -_Metamorphoses_, with which he was familiar. - -The historical allusions in Sonnets c.-cxxvi., which form a continuous -poem, are not, indeed, by any means clear or easy to interpret; but -Sonnet civ. dates the whole group definitely enough, in the statement -that three years have elapsed since the first meeting of the friends:-- - - "Three winters cold - Have from the forests shook three summers' pride; - Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd - In process of the seasons have I seen; - Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, - Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green." - -Thus we must assign this important group to the year 1601; and this -being so, it must also appear probable that the line-- - - "The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured "-- - -alludes to the fact that Elizabeth (for whom, in the mode of the day, -the moon was the accepted symbol) had come unharmed through the dangers -of Essex's rebellion--the more so as the beautiful lines-- - - "Now with the drops of this most balmy time - My love looks fresh "-- - -show that the poem was written in the spring. It would be unreasonable -to infer from this allusion any ill-will on the poet's part towards -Essex and his comrades. Still less can we follow Tyler, when, by -the aid of a complex scaffolding of hypotheses built up, in German -rather than in English fashion, around Sonnets cxxiv. and cxxv., he -laboriously works up to the air-drawn conjecture that Shakespeare -is here expressing himself offensively towards his former patron -Southampton, now a prisoner in the Tower, and even that Southampton is -aimed at in the line about those "who have lived for crime." Equally -baseless, of course, is the corollary which would find in Sonnet cxxv. -Shakespeare's defence against an accusation of faithlessness towards -the man to whom he had written, seven years earlier, in the dedication -of _Lucrece_, "The love I dedicate Your Lordship is without end." Nor -It is absurd to construct a whole repulsive and fantastic romance on -the basis of a single obscure phrase. - -Turning now from the poems to the person to whom they are believed to -have been addressed, this is what we learn of him:-- - -William Herbert, son of Henry Herbert and his third wife, the -celebrated Mary Sidney, had for his tutor as a boy the poet Samuel -Daniel; entered at Oxford in 1593, where he remained for two years; -received permission in April 1597, when he was seventeen years old, to -live in London, but, as we gather from letters of the period, does not -seem to have come up to town until the spring of 1598. - -In August 1597, negotiations were conducted by letter between his -parents and Lord Burghley with a view to his marriage with Burghley's -grand-daughter Bridget Vere, a daughter of the Earl of Oxford. It -is true that she was only thirteen, but William Herbert was quite -prepared to enter upon the engagement. He was to travel abroad before -the marriage. Although his mother, the Countess of Pembroke, perhaps -divining her son's too in flammable nature, and therefore wanting -to see him married betimes, was much in favour of this project, and -although the Earl of Oxford was pleased with the young man and praised -his "many good partes," difficulties arose of which we have no record, -and the plan came to nothing. - -In London, young Herbert lived at Baynard's Castle, close to the -Blackfriars Theatre, and may thus have been brought in contact with the -players. It is more probable, however, that so brilliant a woman as -"Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother," should have aroused his interest -in Shakespeare; and in that case the poet, in all probability, made the -acquaintance of this distinguished and discerning patroness of art and -artists as early as 1598. Herbert's father, who died soon afterwards, -was already an invalid. - -It appears that in August 1599 Herbert "followed the camp" at the -annual musters, attending her Majesty with two hundred horse, and -"swaggering it among the men of war." - -He is from the first described as a bad courtier. Rowland Whyte writes -of him at this time: "He was much blamed for his cold and weeke Maner -of pursuing her Majesties favour, having had soe good steps to lead -him unto it. There is want of Spirit and Courage laid to his charge, -and that he is a melancholy young man." We may gather from this what -fiery devotion every handsome and well-born young man was expected -to pay to the elderly Queen. Soon after, however, it appears from -a letter from his father to Elizabeth that she must have expressed -herself highly satisfied with the young man, and we also learn that he -was "exceedingly beloued at Court of all Men." He appears to have been -very handsome, and to have possessed all the fascination which so often -belongs to an amiable _mauvais sujet_. Clarendon says of him, in the -first book of his _History of the Rebellion_, that "he was immoderately -given up to women," and that "he indulged himself in pleasures of all -kind, almost in all excesses." Clarendon remarks, however, what is of -particular interest for us, that the young Pembroke possessed a good -deal of self-control: "He retained such a power and jurisdiction over -his very appetite, that he was not so much transported with beauty and -outward allurements as with those advantages of the mind as manifested -an extraordinary wit, and spirit, and knowledge, and administered great -pleasure in the conversation. To these he sacrificed himself, his -precious time, and much of his fortune." - -In November 1599, Herbert had an hour's private audience with -Elizabeth. Whyte, who relates this, remarks that he now stands high in -the Queen's favour, "but he greatly wants advise." He passed the rest -of the winter in the country, suffering from an illness which seems to -have taken the form of ague, with incessant headaches. - -Tyler is inclined, not without reason, to assign Sonnets xc.-xcvi. -to this period. Shakespeare's complaints of his friend's "desertion" -may refer to his life at Court; the expressions in Sonnet xci. as to -horses, hawks, and hounds, perhaps point to the young man's absorption -in sport. The following Sonnets dwell unequivocally upon discreditable -rumours as to the friend's life and conduct. Here appears the -above-quoted (p. 172) line:-- - - "Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds." - -Here occurs the couplet:-- - - "How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow, - If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!" - -And, in spite of all the loving forbearance which the poet manifests -towards his friend, he seems to imply that the ugly rumours were not -unfounded:-- - - "How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame, - Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose, - Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name! - O, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose! - That tongue that tells the story of thy days, - (Making lascivious comments on thy sport,) - Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise; - Naming thy name blesses an ill report. - -There was an improvement in the health of Herbert's father during -the year 1600, yet Lord and Lady Pembroke were absent from London -all summer, remaining at their country seat, Wilton. In the month of -May, Herbert, accompanied by Sir Charles Danvers, went to Gravesend -to pay his respects to Lady Rich and Lady Southampton. This visit -proves clearly that there was not, as Tyler's above-mentioned -interpretation of certain Sonnets would lead us to assume, any -coolness between Herbert and the houses of Essex and Southampton. -It is also worth noting that his companion on this excursion was so -intimately associated with the chiefs of the malcontent party, that in -the following year he had to pay with his life for his share in the -rebellion. - -In the accounts of a splendid and very much talked-of wedding, between -a Lord Herbert and one of the Queen's ladies, which took place at -Blackfriars in June 1600, we for the first time come upon William -Herbert's name in company with that of the lady who seems to be the -heroine of Shakespeare's Sonnets. The bride, Mrs. Ann Russell, was -conducted to church by William Herbert and Lord Cobham. After supper -there was a masque, in which eight splendidly dressed ladies executed a -new and unusual dance. Among these are mentioned Mrs. Fitton, and two -of the ladies-in-waiting whose names had shortly before been coupled -with that of Essex (Mrs. Southwell and Mrs. Bess Russell). Each had "a -skirt of Cloth of Siluer, a Mantell of Carnacion Taffete cast vnder the -Arme, and their Haire loose about their Shoulders, curiously knotted -and interlaced." The leader of this double quadrille was Mrs. Fitton. -She approached the Queen and "woed her to dawnce; her Majestie asked -what she was; '_Affection_,' she said. '_Affection!_' said the Queen, -'_affection_ is false.' Yet her Majestie rose and dawnced." - -Later in the year Whyte remarks in his letters that Herbert shows no -"disposition to marry"; and we find him in September and October 1600 -vigorously training at Greenwich for a Court tournament. - -On January 19, 1601, his father's death made William Herbert Earl -of Pembroke. Very soon afterwards (the matter is mentioned in a -letter from Robert Cecil so early as February 5) he got into deep -disgrace over a love affair--evidently that which forms the subject -of Shakespeare's Sonnets. He had for some time carried on a secret -intrigue with the aforesaid Mary Fitton, a maid-of-honour who stood -high in the Queen's good graces; and the secret now came to light. -"Mistress Fitton," writes Cecil, "is proved with child, and the Earl -of Pembroke, being examined, confesseth a fact, but utterly renounceth -all marriage. I fear they will both dwell in the Tower awhile, for the -Queen hath vowed to send them thither." In another contemporary letter -it is stated that "in that tyme when that Mres Fytton was in great -fauor ... and duringe the time yt the Earle of Pembrooke fauord her, -she would put off her head tire and tucke vp her clothes and take a -large white cloake, and march as though she had bene a man to meete the -said Earle out of the Courte." - -Mary Fitton gave birth to a still-born son; Pembroke lay for a month in -the Fleet Prison, and was banished from Court. He shortly afterwards -applied through Cecil for leave to travel abroad. The Queen's -displeasure, he says, is "a hell" to him; he hopes the Queen will not -carry her resentment so far as to bind him to the country which has -now become "hateful to him of all others." The permission to travel -seems to have been given and then revoked. In the middle of June he -writes that imploring letter to Cecil in which the reference to "her -whose Incomparable beauty was the onely sonne of my little world," was -designed to touch Elizabeth's hard heart; for Pembroke, it is plain, -had now realised that what had offended her Majesty was not so much his -intrigue with Mary Fitton as the fact of his having overlooked her own -much higher perfections. But the compliments came too late. Elizabeth, -as we have already seen in the case of Essex, knew how to make the -objects of her resentment suffer in that most sensitive point--the -pocket. The "patent of the Forest of Dean," which had been held by the -late Lord Pembroke, expired with him, and the son expected, according -to use and wont, to have it renewed in his favour; but it was assigned -to Pembroke's rival, Sir Edward Winter, and not until seven years -later, under James, did Pembroke recover it. - -Pembroke continued in disgrace, his renewed applications for permission -to travel were persistently refused, and he was ordered to regard -himself as banished from Court, and to "keep house in the country." It -is this overshadowing of Pembroke's fortunes in 1601 which explains the -temporary breaking-off of his relations with Shakespeare in London, -indicated by the "Envoy" with which Sonnet cxxvi. ends the series -addressed to the Friend. - -The close and affectionate relation between them was no doubt revived -under James. This appears clearly enough from the Dedication of the -First Folio. Let us now cast a rapid glance over the remainder of -Pembroke's career. - -His father's death placed him in possession of a large fortune, -but the irregularity of his life left him seldom free from money -embarrassments. In 1604 he married Lady Mary, the seventh daughter of -Lord Talbot, and the marriage was celebrated with a tournament. His -wife brought him a large property, but it was thought at the time that -he paid very dear for it in having to take her into the bargain. The -marriage was far from happy. - -Pembroke shared the love of literature which had distinguished his -mother and his uncle, Sir Philip Sidney. According to Aubrey, he -was "the greatest Mæcenas to learned men of any peer of his time or -since." Among his "learned" friends were the poets Donne, and Daniel, -and Massinger, who was the son of his father's steward. Ben Jonson -composed a eulogistic epigram in his honour, as well he might, for -every New Year Pembroke sent Ben £20 to buy books with. Inigo Jones is -said to have visited Italy at his expense, and was frequently employed -by him. Davison's _Poetical Rhapsody_ and numerous other books are -dedicated to him. Chapman, who was among his intimates, inscribed a -sonnet to him at the close of his translation of the _Iliad_. This fact -is of particular interest to us, because Chapman (as Professor Minto -succeeded in establishing) is clearly the rival poet who paid court to -Pembroke, won his goodwill and admiration, and thereby aroused jealousy -and melancholy self-criticism in Shakespeare's breast, as we read in -Sonnets lxxviii.-lxxxvi.[2]. - -It is especially on Sonnet lxxxvi. that Minto bases his identification -of the rival poet with Chapman. The very opening line, referring -to the "proud full sail of his great verse," suggests at once the -fourteen-syllable measure in which Chapman translated the _Iliad_. -Chapman was full of a passionate enthusiasm for the art of poetry, -which he lost no opportunity of glorifying; and he laid claim to -supernatural inspiration. In the Dedication to his poem _The Shadow of -the Night_ (1594), he speaks with severe contempt of the presumption of -those who "think Skill so mightily pierced with their loves that she -should prostitutely show them her secrets, when she will scarcely be -looked upon by others but with invocation, fasting, watching--yea, not -without having drops of their souls, _like a heavenly familiar. _Hence -Shakespeare's lines-- - - "Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to writ - Above a mortal pitch that struck me dead?" - -and the expression-- - - "He, nor that affable familiar ghost - Which nightly gulls him with intelligence." - -After the accession of James, Pembroke immediately took a high position -at the new Court. Before the year 1603 was out, he was a Knight of -the Garter, and had entertained the King at Wilton. He rose from one -high post to another, until in 1615 he became Lord Chamberlain; but -he continued to the last the dissipated life of his youth. He devoted -large sums of money to the exploration and colonisation of America. -Places were named after him in the Bermudas and Virginia. In 1614, -morever, he became a member of the East India Company. - -He opposed the Spanish Alliance, and was no friend to the King's -foreign policy. He is thought to have instigated in some measure the -attack on the Mexico fleet for which Raleigh paid so dear. He was an -opponent of Bacon as Lord Chancellor, and in 1621 advocated an inquiry -into the charges of corruption which were brought against him; but -afterwards, like Southampton, displayed great moderation, and spoke -strongly against the proposal to deprive Bacon of his peerage. - -He stood by the King's deathbed in March 1625, had a serious illness in -1626, and died in April 1630 "of an apoplexy after a full and cheerful -supper." Donne in 1660 published some poems. - - -[1] Hermann Conrad in _Preussische Jahrbücher_, February 1895. -Under the pseudonym of Hermann Isaac in _Jahrbuch der Deutschen -Shakespeare-Gesellschaft_, vol. xix. p. 176. - -[2] I do not find that Mr. G. A. Leigh has succeeded in identifying the -rival poet with Tasso (_Westminster Review_, February 1897). - - - - -VI - -_THE "DARK LADY" OF THE SONNETS--MARY FITTON_ - -In speaking of _Love's Labours Lost_, I remarked that it was not -difficult to distinguish the original text of the comedy from the -portions added and altered during the revision of 1598; and I cited -(p. 38) several instances in which the distinction was clear. Especial -emphasis was laid on the fact that Biron's (or, as the context shows, -Biron-Shakespeare's) rapturous panegyrics of love in the fourth act -belong to the later date. - -At another place (p. 83) it was pointed out that the two Rosalines of -_Love's Labour's Lost_ (end of the third act) and of _Romeo and Juliet_ -(ii. 4) were in all probability drawn from the same model, since she is -in both places described as a blonde with black eyes. In the original -text of _Love's Labour's Lost_ (Act iii.) she is expressly called-- - - "A whitely wanton with a velvet brow, - With two pitch balls stuck in her face for eyes." - -All the more surprising must it seem that during the revision the poet -quite obviously had before his eyes another model, repeatedly described -as "black," whose dark complexion indeed, so uncommon and un-English -that it was apt to be thought ugly, is insisted upon as strongly as -that of the "Dark Lady" in the Sonnets. Immediately before Biron bursts -forth into his great hymn to Eros, in which Shakespeare so clearly -makes him his mouthpiece, the King banters him as to the murky hue of -the object of his adoration:-- - - "_King_. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony. - _Biron_. Is ebony like her? O wood divine! - A wife of such wood were felicity. - O! who can give an oath? where is a book? - That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack, - If that she learn not of her eye to look: - No face is fair, that is not full so black. - _King_. O paradox! Black is the badge of hell, - The hue of dungeons, and the scowl of night; - And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well." - -Biron's answer to this is highly remarkable; for it is exactly what -Shakespeare himself says, in Sonnet cxxvii., to the advantage of his -dark beauty:-- - - "_Biron_. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light. - O! if in black my lady's brows be deck'd, - It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair, - Should ravish doters with a false aspect; - And therefore is she born to make black fair. - Her favour turns the fashion of the days; - For native blood is counted painting now, - And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise, - Paints itself black, to imitate her brow." - -The Sonnet runs thus:-- - - "In the old age black was not counted fair, - Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name; - But now is black beauty's successive heir, - And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame; - For since each hand hath put on nature's power, - Fairing the foul with art's false borrow'd face, - Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower, - But is profan'd, if not lives in disgrace. - Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black, - Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem - At such, who, not born fair, no beauty lack, - Slandering creation with a false esteem: - Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe, - That every tongue says, beauty should look so." - -It appears, then, that the dark beauty in _Love's Labour's Lost_ must -also have had a living model; and when we observe that the revision, as -the title-page tells us, took place when the comedy was to be presented -before her Highness at Christmas 1597, and further, that the dark -Rosaline in the play is maid-of-honour to a princess who is called, -in words strongly suggesting a passing compliment to the Queen, "a -gracious moon"--we can scarcely avoid the conclusion that the beautiful -brunette must have been one of the Queen's ladies, and that the whole -end of the fourth act was addressed to her over the heads of the -uninitiated spectators. Who she was, moreover, we can now conjecture -with tolerable security. We know quite well which of the Queen's -ladies brought Pembroke into disgrace, and we are no less certain that -the lady who enthralled Pembroke was the black-eyed brunette whom -Shakespeare, in his own words, loved to "distraction" and to "madding -fever." - -On the monument of Mary Fitton's mother in Gawsworth Church, in -Cheshire, a highly coloured bust of Mary Fitton herself[1] led Tyler to -assert that she must have been a marked brunette. It is true that the -bust cannot give us a very accurate idea of her appearance in the year -1600, since it was executed in 1626, when she was forty-eight; but the -complexion is dark, the high-piled hair and the large eyes black. That -it does not suggest a beautiful original is a point in favour of its -identity with the Dark Lady as described in Sonnet cxli.:-- - - "In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes, - For they in thee a thousand errors note; - But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise, - Who in despite of view is pleas'd to dote. - Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted; - Nor tender feeling to base touches prone, - Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited - To any sensual feast with thee alone: - But my five wits nor my five senses can - Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee, - Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man, - Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be: - Only my plague thus far I count my gain, - That she that makes me sin awards me pain." - -The Rev. W. A. Harrison has discovered a family tree from which it -appears that Mary Fitton, born June 24, 1578, became a maid-of-honour -to Elizabeth in 1595, at the age of seventeen. Thus she was nineteen -years old when, at the Court festivities of 1597, Shakespeare's company -acted _Love's Labour's Lost_, with the panegyric of the dark beauty, -Rosaline. She must have made the acquaintance of the poet and player, -then thirty-three years old, at earlier Court entertainments. Who can -doubt that it was she, with her high position and daring spirit, who -made the first advances? - -That the Dark Lady did not live with Shakespeare appears clearly -enough in the Sonnets--for instance, in Sonnet cxliv. ("but being both -from me"). It may be gathered from Sonnet cli., with the expressions -"triumphant prize," "proud of this pride," that she was greatly his -superior in rank and station, so that her conquest for some time filled -him with a sense of triumph. Tyler even believes that there is an -actual allusion to her name in Sonnet cli., which, as a whole, abounds -in such daring equivoques as would be impossible in modern poetry. - -It was thought surprising that in Sonnet clii., in which Shakespeare -calls himself forsworn because he loves his lady although married to -another, he also states expressly that she too is married, calling her -"twice forsworn," since she has not only broken her "bed-vow," but -broken her "new faith" to Shakespeare himself. It seemed difficult to -reconcile this with the fact that Mrs. Fitton ("Mistress" in those days -being applicable to unmarried no less than to married women) was always -called by her father's name. She was married in 1607 to a certain -William Polwheele, with whom she appears to have had a love-intrigue -before the wedding. After the death of her husband she was married a -second time to John Lougher. - -However, it must now be pointed out that a work, published in 1897, -which for the first time gave a trustworthy account of Mary Fitton's -life, has rendered it excessively improbable that she should be -identical with the Dark Lady of the Sonnets. The title of the work is: -_Gossip from a Muniment-Room, being Passages in the lives of Anne and -Mary Fitton_, 1574-1618; it is published by Lady Newdigate-Newdegate, -who is married to a descendant of the elder sister, Anne Fitton, -and it contains many interesting letters to this lady, with other -communications from the family-archives. Here it is proved--in spite of -Tyler's attempted contradiction--that the two well-preserved portraits -of Mary Fitton at Arbury show that she was not dark at all, but had a -light complexion, brown hair, and grey eyes. - -From Mary Fitton herself there is only a brief note contained in the -collection, but her name is often mentioned in the letters. They prove, -that at the beginning of her career as maid-of-honour to the Queen, she -had an admirer in the elderly court-functionary, Sir William Knollys, -inspector of the household, who later, under King James, became a very -potent personality as Lord Knollys; and it was evidently arranged -between them that they would marry as soon as Sir William should become -a widower. Their relations were not severed until the Pembroke scandal -came out. Sir William married another lady after the death of his -wife. This relation appeared to support the belief that Mary Fitton -was Shakespeare's lady, as far as it gave a clue to the expression -_thy bed vow broke_, and in so far as Knollys' Christian name William -seemed to explain the two first lines in Sonnet cxxxv.: You have your -will (or William) and William (or will) a second time and William (or -will) into the bargain. It had long been admitted that the two last -of these _Wills_ referred to Pembroke and Shakespeare. And it was -suggested that a third Will was hidden in the first. In 1881 Dowden -wrote: "As we know that the lady had a husband, it may be possible -that he too bore the name of William." As against the unmistakable -evidence of the portraits, however, it is impossible to attribute any -weight to this circumstance. Moreover, the name of Shakespeare is never -mentioned in the recently-published papers of the Fitton family. Of -course the silence in itself is not conclusive. Mary Fitton may have -known Shakespeare intimately without her relatives being aware of the -fact. Besides, we know, from the dedication, which the clown of the -Shakespearian troupe, the well known William Kemp, in 1600, addressed -to her in his little book "Nine Daies Wonder," that she had certain -relations with the company. This dedication runs as follows: _Mistress -Anne (supposed to be Mary) Fitton, Mayde of Honour of the most sacred -Mayde Royal Queene Elisabeth._ But I confess, that Mary's grey eyes -decide the matter for me. - -However, even if it be unreasonable to identify Mary Fitton with the -Dark Lady of the Sonnets, after the publication of the Fitton family -papers, this does not exclude the possibility that Pembroke may have -been Shakespeare's rival. If Essex, as above mentioned, was obliged to -acknowledge that he had had intrigues with four of the ladies of the -court at the same time, Pembroke may well have had intimate relations -with two of them at Once. - -The Dark Lady must have been a woman in the extremest sense of the -word, a daughter of Eve, alluring, ensnaring, greedy of conquest, -mendacious and faithless, born to deal out rapture and torment with -both hands, the very woman to set in vibration every chord in a poet's -soul. - -There can be no reasonable doubt that in the early days of his -relation with the well-born mistress, Shakespeare felt himself a -favourite of fortune, intoxicated with love and happiness, exalted -above his station, honoured and enriched. She must at first have been -to him what Maria Fiammetta, the natural daughter of a king, was to -Boccaccio. She must have brought a breath from a higher world, an -aroma of aristocratic womanhood, into his life. He must have admired -her wit, her presence of mind and her daring, her capricious fancy and -her quickness of retort. He must have studied, enjoyed, and adored in -her--and that in the closest intimacy--the well-bred ease, the sportive -coquetry, the security, elegance, and gaiety of the emancipated lady. -Who can tell how much of her personality has been transferred to his -brilliant young Beatrices and Rosalinds? - -First and foremost he must have owed to her the rapture of feeling -his vitality intensified--a main element in the happiness which, in -the first years of their communion, finds expression in the sparkling -love-comedies we have just reviewed. Let it not be objected that the -Sonnets do not dwell upon this happiness. The Sonnets date from the -period of storm and stress, when he had ascertained what at first, no -doubt, he had but vaguely suspected, that his mistress had ensnared -his friend; and in composing them he no doubt antedated many of the -passionate and distracted unoods which overwhelmed him at the crisis, -when he not only realised the fact of their intrigue, but saw it -dragged to the light of day. He then felt as though, doubly betrayed, -he had irrevocably lost them both. Thus the picture of his mistress -drawn in the Sonnets shows her, not as she appeared to him in earlier -years, but as he saw her during this later period. - -Yet he also depicts moments, and even hours, when his whole nature must -have been lapped in tenderness and harmony. The scene, for instance, so -melodiously portrayed in Sonnet cxxviii. is steeped in an atmosphere -of happy love--the scene in which, seated at the virginals, the lady, -whom the poet addresses as "my music," lets her delicate aristocratic -fingers wander over the keys, enchanting with their concord the -listener who longs to press her fingers and her lips to his. He envies -the keys that "kiss the tender inward of her hand," and concludes:-- - - "Since saucy jacks so happy are in this, - Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss." - -It is only natural, however, that the morbidly passionate, complaining, -and accusing Sonnets should be in the majority. - -Again and again he reverts to her faithlessness and laxity of conduct. -In Sonnet cxxxvii. he speaks of his love as "anchored in the bay where -all men ride." Sonnet cxxxviii. begins:-- - - "When my love swears that she is made of truth, - I do believe her, though I know she lies." - -And in Sonnet clii. he reproaches himself with having sworn a host of -false oaths in swearing to her good qualities:-- - - "But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee, - When I break twenty? I am perjur'd most; - For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee, - And all my honest faith in thee is lost: - For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness, - Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy; - And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness, - Or made them swear against the thing they see." - -In Sonnet cxxxix. he depicts her as carrying her thirst for admiration -to such a pitch of wantonness that even in his presence she could not -refrain from coquetting on every hand:-- - - "Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight, - Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside: - What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy might - Is more than my o'erpress'd defence can 'bide?" - -She cruelly abuses her witchery over him. She is as tyrannical, he says -in Sonnet cxxxi., "as those whose beauties proudly make them cruel," -well-knowing that to his "dear-doting heart" she is "the finest and -most precious jewel." There is actual magic in the power she exerts -over him. He does not understand it himself, and exclaims in Sonnet -cl.:-- - - "Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill, - That in the very refuse of thy deeds - There is such strength and warrantise of skill, - That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?" - -No French poet of the eighteen-thirties, not even Musset himself self, -has given more passionate utterance than Shakespeare to the fever and -agony and distraction of love. See, for instance, Sonnet cxlvii.:-- - - "My love is as a fever, longing still - For that which longer nurseth the disease: - Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, - The uncertain-sickly appetite to please. - My reason, the physician to my love, - Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, - Hath left me, and I desperate now approve - Desire is death, which physic did except. - Past cure I am, now reason is past care, - And frantic-mad with evermore unrest: - My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, - At random from the truth vainly express'd; - For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, - Who art as black as hell, as dark as night." - -He depicts himself as a lover frenzied with passion. His eyes are -dimmed with vigils and with tears. He no longer understands either -himself or the world: "If that is fair whereon his false eyes dote, -What means the world to say it is not so?" If it is not fair, then his -love proves that a lover's eye is less trustworthy than that of the -indifferent world (Sonnet cxlviii.). - -And yet he well knows the seat of the witchery by which she holds him -in thrall. It lies in the glow and expression of her exquisite "raven -black" eyes (Sonnets cxxvii. and cxxxix.). He loves her soulful eyes, -which, knowing the torments her disdain inflicts upon him-- - - "Have put on black, and loving mourners be, - Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain." - --Sonnet cxxxii. - -Young as she is, her nature is all compounded of passion and will; -she is ungovernable in her caprices, born for conquest and for -self-surrender. - -While we can guess that towards Shakespeare she made the first -advances, we know that she did so in the case of his friend. In more -than one sonnet she is expressly spoken of as "wooing him."[2] In -Sonnet cxliii. Shakespeare uses an image which, in all its homeliness, -is exceedingly graphic:-- - - "Lo! as a careful housewife runs to catch - One of her feather'd creatures broke away, - Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch - In pursuit of the thing she would have stay; - Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase, - Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent - To follow that which flies before her face, - Not prizing her poor infant's discontent: - So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee, - Whilst I, thy babe, chase thee afar behind; - But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me, - And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind: - So will I pray that thou may'st have thy _Will_, - If thou turn back, and my loud crying still." - -The tenderness of feeling here apparent is characteristic of the poet's -whole attitude of mind in this dual relation. Even when he cannot -acquit his friend of all guilt, even when he mournfully upbraids him -with having robbed the poor man of his one lamb, his chief concern -is always lest any estrangement should arise between his friend and -himself. See, for instance, the exquisitely melodious Sonnet xl.:-- - - "Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all: - What hast thou then more than thou hadst before? - No love, my love, that thou may'st true love call: - All mine was thine before thou had'st this more. - . . . . . . . . . - I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief, - Although thou steal thee all my poverty." - -The same tone of sentiment runs through the moving Sonnet xlii., which -begins:-- - - "That thou hast her, it is not all my grief, - And yet it may be said, I loved her dearly; - That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief, - A loss in love that touches me more nearly." - -It closes with this somewhat vapid conceit:-- - - "But here's the joy: my friend and I are one; - Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone." - -All these expressions, taken together, point not only to the enormous -value which Shakespeare attached to the young Pembroke's friendship, -but also to the sensual and spiritual attraction which, in spite of -everything, his fickle mistress continued to possess for him. - -It is not impossible that a passage in Ben Jonson's _Bartholomew Fair_ -(1614) may contain a satirical allusion to the relation portrayed in -the Sonnets (published in 1609). In act v. sc. 3 there is presented -a puppet-show setting forth "The ancient modern history of Hero and -Leander, otherwise called the Touchstone of true Love, with as true a -trial of Friendship between Damon and Pythias, two faithful friends o' -the Bankside." Hero is "a wench o' the Bankside," and Leander swims -across the Thames to her. Damon and Pythias meet at her lodging, and -abuse each other most violently when they find that they have but one -love, only to finish up as the best friends in the world.[2] - - -[1] Reproduced in Tyler's _Shakespeare's Sonnets._ - -[2] - - _"Damon_. Whore-master in thy face; - Thou hast lain with her thyself, I'll prove it in this place. - _"Leatherhead_. They are whore-masters both, sir, that's a plain - case. - _"Pythias_. Thou lie like a rogue. - _"Leatherhead_. Do I lie like a rogue? - _"Pythias_. A pimp and a scab. - _"Leatherhead_. A pimp and a scab! - I say, between you _you have both but one drab_. - _"Pythias and Damon_. Come, now we'll go together to breakfast - to Hero. - _"Leatherhead._ Thus, gentles, you perceive without any denial - 'Twixt Damon and Pythias here friendship's true trial." - - - - -VII - -_PLATONISM--SHAKESPEARE'S AND MICHAEL ANGELO'S SONNETS--THE TECHNIQUE -OF THE SONNETS_ - -The fact that the person to whom Shakespeare's Sonnets are dedicated -is simply entitled "Mr. W. H." long served to divert attention -from William Herbert, as it was thought that it would have been an -impossible impertinence thus to address, without his title, a nobleman -like the Earl of Pembroke. To us it is clear that this form of address -was adopted precisely in order that Pembroke might not be exhibited -to the great public as the hero of the conflict darkly adumbrated -in the Sonnets. They were not, indeed, written quite without an eye -to publication, as is proved by the poet's promises that they are -to immortalise the memory of his friend's beauty. But it was not -Shakespeare himself who gave them to the press, and bookseller Thorpe -must have known very well that Lord Pembroke would not care to see -himself unequivocally designated as the lover of the Dark Lady and the -poet's favoured rival, especially as that dramatic episode of his youth -ended in a manner which it can scarcely have been pleasant to recall. - -A weighty work, _A Life of Shakespeare_, published in the year 1898, by -Mr. Sidney Lee, has, however, thoroughly shaken the theories of those -who held Pembroke to be the person to whom the Sonnets were dedicated, -and the youth who inspired so many of them. Mr. Lee, who--rather -arbitrarily--declines to attach any importance to the mention of -Pembroke's name, and the appeal to his relations with Shakespeare -in the folio edition, takes it for granted that Southampton was the -one literary patron to whom Shakespeare expressed his gratitude, and -he concludes that he alone is the hero of the Sonnets. As Mr. Lee -supposes that most of them were written between the spring of 1593 and -the autumn of 1594, Southampton would have been young enough to be -mentioned as in the poems. As to the dedication of the Sonnets, Sidney -Lee declares that it would have been an impossible breach of decorum -to designate a man of such high rank and importance as Pembroke was in -the year 1609 as "Mr. W. H." In his youthful days, even before he had a -right to the title, he was always called Lord Herbert. In 1616 Thorpe -dedicated a book to him in these respectful, nay servile terms: To the -right honourable William, Earle of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlaine to his -Majestie, one of his most honorable Privie Counsell, and Knight of the -Garter, etc. - -Sidney Lee interprets the word _begetter_ as procurer merely, and -thinks that Thorpe, in the dedication, simply meant to express his -gratitude to a man who had procured one of the manuscripts of the -Sonnets, then circulating, and had given it to him. And as a dedication -of the poems of the Jesuit Robert Southwell (of 1606), was signed with -the letters W. H., indicating another pirate-editor, William Hall, -Sidney Lee concludes that it was the latter, who three years later had -laid hold of the manuscript of the Sonnets for Thorpe, and that Thorpe -had accordingly placed his enterprise under his patronage. In a domain -where all is obscure it is difficult to uphold a definite opinion in -the face of an opponent so much more learned than myself. Yet I cannot -but feel that there is in the wording of the dedication something quite -incompatible with the idea that Thorpe addresses himself to a friend -and colleague, and Sidney Lee meets this objection only with the remark -that Thorpe was notably careless in the use of language. Besides, it -is suggestive, that in the three existing dedications by Thorpe, other -than that to W. H., the first is addressed to Florio, the two others to -the Earl of Pembroke, consequently to real protectors of rank, while -the one, which he nine years before addressed to the editor, Edward -Blount, who published the manuscript of Marlowe's translation of Lucan -for him, is drawn up in a very different and much more intimate way. -It is addressed to his "kind and true friend," and gives the friend in -question a few hints "as to how to fit himself" for this unaccustomed -part of patron. The distance from this to the dedication of the Sonnets -is great. - -What Sidney Lee attempts to prove by his researches and conjectures -is, that the man, who figures in the Sonnets as the protector of the -poet, was Southampton, and not Pembroke. The name of the youth is not -of the first importance, nor does it signify greatly whether the woman -celebrated and attacked in the Sonnets bore the name of Mary Fitton -or another. However, the main point is, that in common with a number -of previous authors, who have thoroughly studied the contemporaneous -literature of Europe, and more especially the sonnet-poetry of Italy, -France and England, such as Delius and Elze in Germany, and Henrik -Schück in Sweden, Lee, relying on the numerous traits that these poems -share with other sonnet-cycles of their period, stamps the whole -argument of the text as fiction, and denies their autobiographical -character. Scarcely any writer before him has so boldly endeavoured to -limit Shakespeare's originality in the domain of sonnet-poetry. - -In the first place Lee points out, that the whole body of sixteenth-century -sonnets was so dependent firstly on Petrarch, then on such French -writers as Ronsard, du Bellay and Desportes, that even the finest of -them, the sonnets of Spenser, Sidney, Watson, Lodge, Drayton and Daniel -may be characterised as imitative studies, if not simply as a mosaic -of plagiarisms. Hereupon he tries to show Shakespeare's dependence on -his predecessors. Shakespeare picked up, without scruple, ideas and -expressions from the sonnets published by Daniel, Drayton, Watson, -Barnabe Barnes, Constable and Sidney; he did this as deliberately and -imperturbably as in his comedies he manipulated dramas and novels by -contemporary and older poets. To Drayton especially is Shakespeare -indebted. As all the Englishmen imitated the Frenchmen, Shakespeare has -a false air of having been directly influenced by Ronsard, de Baif and -Desportes, though he scarcely knew these poets in their own language. - -The Danish translator of the Sonnets, Adolf Hansen, had already pointed -out numerous impersonal traits. Some of the poorer Sonnets with their -forced and complicated metaphors so obviously bear the impress of -the spirit of the age, that it is quite impossible to regard them as -characteristic of Shakespeare, and some few Sonnets are such complete -imitations, that they cannot be accepted as confessions. Sonnets xviii. -and xix. work out the same idea as Daniel's Delia, and Sonnets lv. -and lxxxi. treat the very same subject as the sixty-ninth Sonnet in -Spenser's _Amoretti_. Finally the story of the friends, one of whom -deprives the other of his mistress, is to be found in Lyly's _Euphues_. - -Sidney Lee maintains that when in Sonnets xxiv. and cxxii. Shakespeare -propounds that the image of his friend is engraved in the depths of his -heart, or that his brain is a better memorandum-book, as to the friend, -than the book with which the latter has presented him, he is merely -struggling with conceits of Ronsard's. When in Sonnets xliv, and xlv. -he speaks about man as compounded of the elements, earth, air, fire and -water, he appropriates motives from Spenser and Barnes. Sonnets xlvi. -and xlvii., on the debate of the eye and the heart, are written in -terms borrowed from the twentieth Sonnet in Watson's _Tears of Fancy_. -Where he proclaims his assurance of the immortality of his verse, and -the consequent eternity of his friend's fame, he does not speak from -conviction, he only treats a motive, which, following the example of -Pindar, Horace and Ovid, the Frenchmen Desportes and Ronsard, and after -them such English sonneteers as Spenser, Drayton and Daniel had played -upon. Not even when he writes that his lady is beautiful, though dark, -and consequently unlovely, is he original; for Sidney had already used -a similar phrase. And when he changes his mind, and in the dark eyes -and dark complexion of his lady professes to read the blackness of -her soul, he is even less original, for at that period the sonnet of -invective was the standard variant of the sonnet of amorous eulogy. -Nothing is more common than to find the sonneteer grossly abusing his -mistress. Ronsard called his a tigress, a murderess, a Medusa; Barnabe -Barnes describes his as a tyrant, a Gorgon, a rock; the transition from -tenderness to reproach was so frequent, that it was even parodied by -Gabriel Harvey. Following many other critics Sidney Lee finally points -out that no weight can be attached to the fact, that in Sonnets xxii., -lxii., lxxiii., and cxxxviii., Shakespeare speaks of himself as old, -for this, too, was a standing conceit of the sonnet-poets of that time. -Daniel in _Delia_ (23) when he was only twenty-nine speaks as if his -life were finished. Richard Barnfield, only twenty years old, invites -the boy Ganymedes to contemplate his silver hair, his wrinkled skin, -the deep furrows of his face, all this in imitation of Petrarch. - -Lee admits, however, that the group of Sonnets, most interesting to the -reader, the most mature as to ideas and style, cannot be considered to -date from the poet's thirtieth year; he even thinks that Shakespeare -continued to write Sonnets until 1603, and propounds--regardless of the -wording of the poem--that Sonnet cvii. was written in that year, on the -occasion of the death of Queen Elizabeth. That the word "moon" here -means Elizabeth is obvious. But that the expression - - "The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured" - -can mean the final eclipse of the moon is incredible. That the moon -has passed through her eclipse, means, I take it, that she is shining -brightly again, and thus the interpretation put forth above, of a hint -at the frustrated conspiracy of Essex, is far more reasonable. But then -this Sonnet, as well as those kindred to it in spirit and tone, point, -not to the year 1603, but to 1601. - -Yet here details are of minor importance. We take our stand on a -fundamental conception of poetic production. All art, even that of the -greater artists, begins with imitation; no poet avoids influences, -and up to the present time no poet has hesitated to appropriate from -predecessors all that might be of use to him. Even nowadays, when the -appreciation of the duty of originality is so infinitely stronger than -in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, it is easy -to point out appropriations of foreign thoughts and turns of phrase -among excellent poets, and it would be possible to enumerate a great -variety of common traits among the lyrical poets of Europe. The range -of subjects fit for lyrical poetry is not so very great, to be sure. -As men, lyrists have after all many emotions and conditions in common. -In the mode of expression alone--especially when ideas have to be -expressed in an identical form of fourteen lines--is it possible for -the poet to manifest his true originality. - -No intelligent critic would think of looking to lyrical poems as to -biographical sources, in the rough meaning of the term. The poetical -is rarely identical with the personal ego. But on the other hand it -cannot be too strongly insisted upon that books (I mean great, inspired -books, such as are read for hundreds of years) are never engendered -by other books, but by life. Nobody, who has a drop of artist's blood -in his veins, can imagine that a poet of the rank of Shakespeare -can have written sonnets by the score only as exercises or metrical -experiments, without any bearing on his life, its passions and its -crises. The formula for good epic poetry is surely this: that it must -always be founded on real life, even if rarely or never an exact copy -of it. Lyrical poetry, in which the poet speaks in his own name, and -especially of himself, must necessarily, if first-rate, be rooted in -what the poet has felt so strongly that it has made him break into song. - -The learned critics of Shakespeare's Sonnets regard them merely as -metrical _tours de force_, penned in cold blood on subjects prescribed -by fashion and convention. They look upon fancy as upon a spider, which -spins chimera in all sorts of typical and artificial figures out of -itself. It seems more natural to look upon it as a plant, extracting -nourishment from the only soil in which it could thrive, namely, the -observations and experiences of the poet. - -The great modern poets, whose lives lie open before us, have betrayed -to us how fancy springs out of impressions of real life, transforming -them and making them unrecognisable by its mysterious workings. In -several cases we are able to discern the dispersed elements, which in -due time crystallise in the poem. Discerning criticism has opened our -eyes to the intermixture of these elements in the magic caldron of -fancy, while inferior criticism goes astray in a trivial search after -possible models. In spite of German scholars and their exertions, -we know nothing about whom Goethe had in his mind when he painted -Clärchen, nor is this fact of any importance; but this is certain, that -the whole poetical life-work of Goethe is founded upon experience. When -Max Klinger one evening returned home from having seen a performance of -Goethe's _Faust_, he said: What most impressed me was that it was the -life of Goethe. - -As, knowing the life and experiences of the great modern poet, we are -now generally able to trace how these are worked upon and transformed -in his works, it is reasonable to suppose that in olden times poets -were moved by the same causes, and acted in the same way, at least -those of them who have been efficient. When we know of the adventures -and emotions of the modern poet, and are able to trace them in the -production of his free fancy; when it is possible, where they are -unknown to us, to evolve the hidden personality of the poet, and--as -every capable critic has experienced--to have our conjectures finally -borne out by facts revealed by the contemporary author, then we cannot -feel it to be impossible, that in the case of an older poet, we might -also be successful in determining when he speaks earnestly from his -heart, and in tracing his feelings and experiences through his works, -especially when these are lyrical, and their mode of expression -passionate and emotional. - -Any one who holds fast to the by no means fantastic theory, that there -is a certain connection between the life and the works of Shakespeare, -will be but little moved by successive attempts to deny the Sonnets any -autobiographical value, because of the conventional traits and frequent -imitations to be pointed out in them. - -The modern reader who takes up the Sonnets with no special knowledge of -the Renaissance, its tone of feeling, its relation to Greek antiquity, -its conventions and its poetic style, finds nothing in them more -surprising than the language of love in which the poet addresses his -young friend, the positively erotic passion for a masculine personality -which here finds utterance. The friend is currently addressed as "my -love." Sometimes it is stated in so many words that in the eyes of his -admirer the friend combines the charms of man and woman; for instance, -in Sonnet xx.:-- - - "A woman's face, with Nature's own hand painted, - Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion." - -This Sonnet ends with a playful lament that the friend had not been -born of the opposite sex; yet such is the warmth of expression in other -Sonnets that one very well understands how the critics of last century -supposed them to be addressed to a woman.[1] - -This tone, however, is a characteristic fashion of the age. And here, -again, it has been insisted that love for a beautiful youth, which the -study of Plato had presented to the men of the Renaissance in its most -attractive light, was a standing theme among English poets of that -age, who, moreover, as in Shakespeare's case, were wont to praise the -beauty of their friend above that of their mistress. The woman, as in -this case, often enters as a disturbing element into the relation. It -was an accepted part of the convention that the poet as above noted -should represent himself as withered and wrinkled, whatever his real -age might be; Shakespeare does so again and again, though he was at -most thirty-seven. Finally, it was quite in accordance with use and -wont that the fair youth should be exhorted to marry, so that his -beauty might not die with him. Shakespeare had already placed such -exhortations in the mouth of the Goddess of Love in _Venus and Adonis_. - -All this is true, and yet there is no reasonable ground for doubting -that the Sonnets stand in pretty close relation to actual facts. - -The age, indeed, determines the tone, the colouring, of the expressions -in which friendship clothes itself. In Germany and Denmark, at the end -of the eighteenth century, friendship was a sentimental enthusiasm, -just as in England and Italy during the sixteenth century it took -the form of platonic love. We can clearly discern, however, that the -different methods of expression answered to corresponding shades of -difference in the emotion itself. The men of the Renaissance gave -themselves up to an adoration of friendship and of their friend which -is now unknown, except in circles where a perverted sexuality prevails. -Montaigne's friendship for Estienne de la Boétie, and Languet's -passionate tenderness for the youthful Philip Sidney, are cases in -point. The observations concerning friendship in Sir Thomas Browne's -_Religio Medici_, 1642 (pp. 98, 99), accord entirely with that of -Shakespeare: "I love my friend more than myself, and yet I think that -I do not love him enough. In a few months my manifold doubled passion -will make me believe that I have not at all loved him before. When I am -away from him, I am dead, until I meet him again. When I am together -with him, I am not content, but always long for a closer connection -with him. United souls are not contented, but wish for being truly -identical with each other; and this being impossible, their yearnings -are endless and must increase without any possibility of being -gratified." But the most remarkable example of a frenzied friendship in -Renaissance culture and poetry is undoubtedly to be found in Michael -Angelo's letters and sonnets. - -Michael Angelo's relation to Messer Tommaso de' Cavalieri presents the -most interesting parallel to the attitude which Shakespeare adopted -towards William Herbert. We find the same expressions of passionate -love from the older to the younger man; but here it is still more -unquestionably certain that we have not to do with mere poetical -figures of speech, since the letters are not a whit less ardent and -enthusiastic than the sonnets. The expressions in the sonnets are -sometimes so warm that Michael Angelo's nephew, in his edition of them, -altered the word _Signiore_ into _Signora_, and these poems, like -Shakespeare's, were for some time supposed to have been addressed to a -woman.[2] - -On January 1, 1533, Michael Angelo, then fifty-seven years old, writes -from Florence to Tommaso de' Cavalieri, a youth of noble Roman family, -who afterwards became his favourite pupil: "If I do not possess the -art of navigating the sea of your potent genius, that genius will -nevertheless excuse me, and neither despise my inequality, nor demand -of me that which I have it not in me to give; since that which stands -alone in everything can in nothing find its counterpart. Wherefore your -lordship, _the only light in our age vouchsafed to this worlds_ having -no equal or peer, cannot find satisfaction in the work of any other -hand. If, therefore, this or that in the works which I hope and promise -to execute should happen to please you, I should call that work, not -good, but fortunate. And if I should ever feel assured that--as has -been reported to me--I have given your lordship satisfaction in one -thing or another, I will make a gift to you of my present and of all -that the future may bring me; and it will be a great pain to me to be -unable to recall the past, in order to serve you so much the longer, -instead of having only the future, which cannot be long, since I am all -too old. There is nothing more left for me to say. Read my heart and -not my letter, for my pen cannot approach the expression of my good -will."[3] - -Cavalieri writes to Michael Angelo that he regards himself as born -anew since he has come to know the Master; who replies, "I for my part -should regard myself as not born, born dead, or deserted by heaven and -earth, if your letters had not brought me the persuasion that your -lordship accepts with favour certain of my works." And in a letter of -the following summer to Sebastian del Piombo, he sends a greeting to -Messer Tommaso, with the words: "I believe _I should instantly fall -down dead_ if he were no longer in my thoughts."[4] - -Michael Angelo plays upon his friend's surname as Shakespeare plays -upon his friend's Christian name. These are the last lines of the -thirty-first sonnet:-- - - "Se vint' e pres' i' debb' esser beato, - Meraviglia non è se, nud' e solo, - Resto prigion d'un _Cavalier_ armato." - - "If only chains and bands can make me blest, - No marvel if alone and bare I go - An armed knight's captive and slave confessed." - (_J. A. Symonds_.) - -In other sonnets the tone is no less passionate than Shakespeare's ---take, for example, the twenty-second:-- - - "More tenderly perchance than is my due, - Your spirit sees into my heart, where rise - The flames of holy worship, nor denies - The grace reserved for those who humbly sue. - Oh blessed day when you at last are mine! - Let time stand still, and let noon's chariot stay; - Fixed be that moment on the dial of heaven! - That I may clasp and keep, by grace divine-- - Clasp in these yearning arms and keep for aye - My heart's loved lord to me desertless given."[5] - (_J. A. Symonds_.) - -In comparison with Cavalieri, Michael Angelo could with justice call -himself old. Some critics, on the other hand, have seen in the fact -that Shakespeare was not really old at the time when the Sonnets were -written, a proof of their conventional and unreal character. But this -is to overlook the relativity of the term. As compared with a youth of -eighteen, Shakespeare was in effect old, with his sixteen additional -years and all his experience of life. And if we are right in assigning -Sonnets lxiii. and lxxiii. to the year 1600 or 1601, Shakespeare had -then reached the age of thirty-seven, an age at which (among his -contemporaries) Drayton in his _Idea_ dwells quite in the same spirit -upon the wrinkles of age in his face, and at which, as Tyler has very -aptly pointed out, Byron in his swan-song uses expressions about -himself which might have been copied from Shakespeare's seventy-third -Sonnet. Shakespeare says:-- - - "That time of year thou mayst in me behold - When _yellow leaves_, or none, or few, do hang - Upon those boughs which shake against the cold - Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang." - -Byron thus expresses himself:-- - - "My days are in _the yellow leaf_,[6] - The flowers and fruits of love are gone, - The worm, the canker and the grief - Are mine alone." - -In Shakespeare we read:-- - - "In me thou seest _the glowing of such fire_ - That on the ashes of his youth doth lie - As the _death-bed_ whereon it must expire, - Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by." - -Byron's words are:-- - - "_The fire that on my bosom preys_ - Is lone as some volcanic isle; - No torch is kindled at its blaze-- - _A funeral pile_" - -Thus both poets liken themselves, at this comparatively early age, to -the wintry woods with their yellowing leaves, and without blossom, -fruit, or the song of birds; and both compare the fire which still -glows in their soul to a solitary flame which finds no nourishment from -without. The ashes of my youth become its death-bed, says Shakespeare. -They are a funeral pile, says Byron. - -Nor is it possible to conclude, as Schück does, from the conventional -style of the first seventeen Sonnets--for instance, from their almost -verbal identity with a passage in Sidney's _Arcadia_--that they are -quite devoid of relation to the poet's own life. - -In short, the elements of temporary fashion and convention which appear -in the Sonnets in no way prove that they were not genuine expressions -of the poet's actual feelings. - -They lay bare to us a side of his character which does not appear in -the plays. We see in him an emotional nature with a passionate bent -towards self-surrender in love and idolatry, and with a corresponding, -though less excessive, yearning to be loved. - -We learn from the Sonnets to what a degree Shakespeare was oppressed -and tormented by his sense of the contempt in which the actor's calling -was held. The scorn of ancient Rome for the mountebank, the horror of -ancient Judea for whoever disguised himself in the garments of the -other sex, and finally the age-old hatred of Christianity for theatres -and all the temptations that follow in their train--all these habits -of thought had been handed down from generation to generation, and, as -Puritanism grew in strength and gained the upper hand, had begotten a -contemptuous tone of public opinion under which so sensitive a nature -as Shakespeare's could not but suffer keenly. He was not regarded as -a poet who now and then acted, but as an actor who now and then wrote -plays. It was a pain to him to feel that he belonged to a caste which -had no civic status. Hence his complaint, in Sonnet xxix., of being "in -disgrace with fortune and men's eyes." Hence, in Sonnet xxxvi., his -assurance to his friend that he will not obtrude on others the fact of -their friendship:-- - - "I may not evermore acknowledge thee, - Lest my bewailèd guilt should do thee shame: - Nor thou with public kindness honour me, - Unless thou take that honour from thy name: - But do not so; I love thee in such sort, - As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report." - -The bitter complaint in Sonnet lxxii. seems rather to refer to the -writer's situation as a dramatist:-- - - - "For I am shamed by that which I bring forth, - And so should you, to love things nothing worth." - -The melancholy which fills Sonnet cx. is occasioned by the writer's -profession and his nature as a poet and artist:-- - - "Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there, - And made myself a motley to the view; - Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, - Made old offences of affections new: - Most true it is, that I have look'd on truth - Askance and strangely; but, by all above, - These blenches gave my heart another youth, - And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love." - -Hence, finally, his reproach to Fortune, in Sonnet cxi., that she did -not "better for his life provide Than public means which public manners -breeds":-- - - "Thence comes it that my name receives a brand; - And almost thence my nature is subdu'd - To what it works in, like the dyer's hand." - -We must bear in mind this continual writhing under the prejudice -against his calling and his art, and this indignation at the injustice -of the attitude adopted towards them by a great part of the middle -classes, if we would understand the high pressure of Shakespeare's -feelings towards the noble youth who had approached him full of the -art-loving traditions of the aristocracy, and the burning enthusiasm -of the young for intellectual superiority. William Herbert, with his -beauty and his personal charm, must have come to him like a very angel -of light, a messenger from a higher world than that in which his lot -was cast. He was a living witness to the fact that Shakespeare was not -condemned to seek the applause of the multitude alone, but could win -the favour of the noblest in the land, and was not excluded from a deep -and almost passionate friendship which placed him on an equal footing -with the bearer of an ancient name. Pembroke's great beauty no doubt -made a deep impression upon the beauty-lover in Shakespeare's soul. -It is very probable, too, that the young aristocrat, according to the -fashion of the times, made the poet his debtor for solider benefactions -than mere friendship; and Shakespeare must thus have felt doubly -painful the situation in which he was placed by the intrigue between -his mistress and his friend.[7]. - -In any case, the affection with which Pembroke inspired -Shakespeare--the passionate attachment, leading even to jealousy of -other poets admired by the young nobleman--had not only a vividness, -but an erotic fervour such as we never find in our century manifested -between man and man. Note such an expression as this in Sonnet cx.:-- - - "Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, - Even to thy pure and most most loving breast." - -This exactly corresponds to Michael Angelo's recently-quoted desire to -"clasp in his yearning arms his heart's loved lord." Or observe such a -line as this in Sonnet lxxv.:-- - - "So are you to my thoughts as food to life." - -We have here an exact counterpart to the following expressions in a -letter from Michael Angelo to Cavalieri, dated July 1533: "I would far -rather forget the food on which I live, which wretchedly sustains the -body alone, than your name, which sustains both body and soul, filling -both with such happiness that I can feel neither care nor fear of death -while I have it in my memory."[8] - -The passionate fervour of this friendship on the Platonic model is -accompanied in Shakespeare, as in Michael Angelo, by a submissiveness -on the part of the elder friend towards the younger, which, in these -two supreme geniuses, affects the modern reader painfully. Each had put -off every shred of pride in relation to his idolised young friend. How -strange it seems to find Shakespeare calling himself young Herbert's -"slave," and assuring him that his time, more precious than that of -any other man then living, is of no value, so that his friend may let -him wait or summon him to his side as his caprice and fancy dictate. -In Sonnet lviii. he speaks of "that God who made me first your slave." -Sonnet lvii. runs thus:-- - - "Being _your slave_, what should I do but tend - Upon the hours and times of your desire? - I have no precious time at all to spend, - Nor services to do, till you require. - Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour, - Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you, - Nor think the bitterness of absence sour, - When you have bid your servant once adieu; - Nor dare I question with my jealous thought, - Where you may be, or your affairs suppose; - But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought, - Save, where you are how happy you make those." - -Just as Michael Angelo spoke to Cavalieri of his works as though -they were scarcely worth his friend's notice, so does Shakespeare -sometimes speak of his verses. In Sonnet xxxii. he begs his friends to -"re-survey" them when he is dead:-- - - "And though they be outstripp'd by every pen, - Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, - Exceeded by the height of happier men." - -This humility becomes quite despicable when a breach is threatened -between the friends. Shakespeare then repeatedly promises so to blacken -himself that his friend shall reap, not shame, but honour, from his -faithlessness. In Sonnet lxxxviii.:-- - - "With mine own weakness being best acquainted, - Upon thy part I can set down a story - Of faults concealed wherein I am attainted, - That thou, in losing me, shalt win much glory." - -Sonnet lxxxix. is still more strongly worded:-- - - "Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill, - To set a form upon desirèd change, - As I'll myself disgrace: knowing thy will, - I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange; - Be absent from thy walks; and in my tongue - Thy sweet-belovèd name no more shall dwell, - Lest I (too much profane) should do it wrong, - And haply of our old acquaintance tell. - For thee, against myself I'll vow debate, - For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate." - -We are positively surprised when, in a single passage, in Sonnet lxii., -we come upon a forcible expression of self-love; but it does not extend -beyond the first half of the Sonnet; in the second half this self-love -is already regarded as a sin, and Shakespeare humbly effaces himself -before his friend. All the more gladly does the reader welcome the few -Sonnets (lv. and lxxxi.) in which the poet confidently predicts the -immortality of these his utterances. It is true that Shakespeare is -here greatly influenced by antiquity and by the fashion of his age; -and it is simply as records of his friend's beauty and amiability that -his verses are to be preserved through all ages to come. But no poet -without a sound and vigorous self-confidence could have written either -these lines in Sonnet lv.:-- - - "Not marble, nor the gilded monuments - Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme"-- - -or these others in Sonnet lxxxi.:-- - - "Your monument shall be my gentle verse, - Which eyes not yet created shall o'erread; - And tongues to be your being shall rehearse, - When all the breathers of this world are dead." - -Yet, as we see, the first and last thought is always that of the -friend, his beauty, worth, and fame. And as he will live in the -future, so he has lived in the past. Shakespeare cannot conceive -existence without him. In Sonnets which have no direct connection with -each other (lix., cvi., cxxiii.) he returns again and again to that -strange thought of a perpetual cycle or recurrence of events, which -runs through the whole of the world's history, from the Pythagoreans -and Kohélet to Friedrich Nietzsche. In view of such high-pitched -idolatry, we can well understand that the friend's faithlessness, or, -if you will, the mistress's conquest of the friend, and the sudden -severance of the bond in 1601, must have made a deep impression upon -Shakespeare's sensitive soul. The catastrophe left its mark upon him -for many a long day. - -And at the same time another and purely personal mortification was -added to his troubles. Shakespeare's name was just then involved in -a degrading scandal of one sort or another. He says so expressly in -Sonnet cxii.:-- - - "Your love and pity doth the impression fill - Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow." - -He here avers that he cares very little "to know his shames or praises" -from the tongues of others, and that his friend's judgment is all in -all to him; but in Sonnet cxxi., where he goes more closely into the -matter, he confesses that some "frailty" in him has given rise to these -malignant rumours, and we see that for this frailty his "sportive -blood" was to blame. He does not deny the accusation, but asks-- - - "Why should others' false adulterate eyes - Give salutation to my sportive blood? - Or on my frailties why are frailer spies, - Which in their wills count bad what I think good?" - -The details of this scandal are unknown to us. We can only conclude -that it referred to Shakespeare's alleged relation to some woman, or -implication in some amorous adventure. In discussing this point, Tyler -has aptly cited two passages in contemporary writings, though of course -without absolutely proving that they have any bearing on the matter. -The first is the above-quoted anecdote in John Manningham's Diary for -March 13, 1601 (New Style, 1602), as to Shakespeare's forestalling -Burbadge in the graces of a citizen's wife, and announcing himself as -"William the Conqueror "--an anecdote which seems to have been widely -current at the time, and no doubt arose from more or less recent -events. The second passage occurs in _The Returne from Pernassus_, -dating from December 1601, in which (iv. 3) Burbadge and Kemp are -introduced, and these words are placed in the mouth of Kemp: "O that -_Ben Ionson_ is a pestilent fellow, he brought vp _Horace_ giuing the -Poets a pill, but our fellow _Shakespeare_ hath giuen him a purge -that made him beray his credit." The allusion is evidently to the -feud between Ben Jonson on the one hand and Marston and Dekker on the -other, which culminated in 1601 with the appearance of Ben Jonson's -_Poetaster_, in which Horace serves as the poet's mouthpiece. Dekker -and Marston retorted in the same year with _Satiromastix, or the -Untrussing of the Humorous Poet_. As Shakespeare took no direct part -in this quarrel, we can only conjecture what is meant by the above -allusion. Mr. Richard Simpson has suggested that King William Rufus, in -whose reign the action of _Satiromastix_ takes place, and who "presides -over the untrussing of the humorous poet," may be intended for William -Shakespeare. Rufus, in the play, is by no means a model of chastity, -and carries off Walter Terrill's bride very much as "William the -Conqueror" in Manningham's anecdote carries off "Richard the Third's" -mistress. Simpson thinks it probable that the spectators would have -little difficulty in recognising the William the Conqueror of the -anecdote in the William Rufus of the play, whose nickname, indeed, -might be taken as referring to Shakespeare's complexion. If we accept -this interpretation, we find in _Satiromastix_ a further proof of the -notoriety of the anecdote. Whether it be this scandal or another of the -same kind to which the Sonnets refer, Shakespeare seems to have taken -greatly to heart the besmirching of his name. - -It remains that we should glance at the form of the Sonnets and say a -word as to their poetic value. - -As regards the form, the first and most obvious remark is that, in -spite of their name, these poems are not in reality sonnets at all, and -have, indeed, nothing in common with the sonnet except their fourteen -lines. In the structure of his so-called Sonnets Shakespeare simply -followed the tradition and convention of his country. - -Sir Thomas Wyatt, the leading figure in the earlier English school of -lyrists, travelled in Italy in the year 1527, familiarised himself with -the forms and style of Italian poetry, and introduced the sonnet into -English literature. A somewhat younger poet, Henry, Earl of Surrey, -soon followed in his footsteps; he, too, travelled in Italy, and -cultivated the same poetic models. Not until after the death of both -poets were their sonnets published in the collection known as _Tottel's -Miscellany_ (1557). Neither of the poets succeeded in keeping to the -Petrarchan model--an octave and a sestett. Wyatt, it is true, usually -preserves the octave, but breaks up the sestett and finishes with a -couplet. Surrey departs still more widely from his model's strict and -difficult form: his "Sonnet" consists, like Shakespeare's after him, -of three quatrains and a couplet, the rhymes of which are in nowise -interwoven. Sidney, again, preserved the octave, but broke up the -sestett. Spenser attempted a new rhyme-scheme, interweaving the second -and third quatrain, but keeping to the final couplet. Daniel, who is -Shakespeare's immediate predecessor and master, returns to Surrey's -really formless form. The chief defect in Shakespeare's Sonnets as a -metrical whole consists in the appended couplet, which hardly ever -keeps up to the level of the beginning, hardly ever presents any -picture to the eye, but is, as a rule, merely reflective, and often -brings the burst of feeling which animates the poem to a feeble, or at -any rate more rhetorical than poetic, issue. - -In actual poetic value the Sonnets are extremely uneven. The first -group as we have already pointed out (p. 270) stands lowest in the -scale, necessarily expressing but little of the poet's personal feeling. - -The last two Sonnets in the collection (cliii. and cliv.), dealing -with a conventional theme borrowed from the antique, are likewise -entirely impersonal. W. Hertzberg, having been put on the track by -Herr von Friesen, in 1878 discovered the Greek original of these two -Sonnets in the ninth book of the Palatine Anthology.[9]. The poem -which Shakespeare has adapted, and in Sonnet cliv. almost translated, -was written by the Byzantine scholar Marianus, probably in the fifth -century after Christ; it was published in Latin, among other epigrams, -at Basle in 1529, was retranslated several times before the end of the -sixteenth century, and must have become known to Shakespeare in one or -other of these different forms. - -Next in order stand the Sonnets of merely conventional inspiration, -those in which the eye and heart go to law with each other, or in -which the poet plays upon his own name and his friend's. These cannot -possibly claim any high poetic value. - -But the poems thus set apart form but a small minority of the -collection. In all the others the waves of feeling run high, and it -may be said in general that the deeper the sentiment and the stronger -the emotion they express, the more admirable is their force of diction -and their marvellous melody. There are Sonnets whose musical quality -is unsurpassed by any of the songs introduced into the plays, or even -by the most famous and beautiful speeches in the plays themselves. -The free and lax form he had adopted was of evident advantage to -Shakespeare. The triple and quadruple rhymes, which in Italian involve -scarcely any difficulty or constraint, would have proved very hampering -in English. As a matter of fact, Shakespeare has been able to follow -out every inspiration unimpeded by the shackles of an elaborate -rhyme-scheme, and has achieved a rare combination of terseness -and harmony in the expression of sorrow, melancholy, anguish, and -resignation. Nothing can be more melodious than the opening of Sonnet -xl., quoted above, or these lines from Sonnet lxxxvi.:-- - - "Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, - Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you, - That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, - Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?" - -And how moving is the earnestness of Sonnet cxvi., on faith in love:-- - - "Let me not to the marriage of true minds - Admit impediments. Love is not love - Which alters when it alteration finds, - Or bends with the remover to remove: - O, no! it is an ever-fixèd mark, - That looks on tempests, and is never shaken; - It is the star to every wandering bark, - Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken." - -Shakespeare's Sonnets are for the general reader the most inaccessible -of his works, but they are also the most difficult to tear oneself away -from. "With this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart," says Wordsworth; -and some people are repelled from them by the _Menschliches_, or, as -they think, _Allzumenschliches_, which is there revealed. They at -any rate hold Shakespeare diminished by his openness. Browning, for -example, thus retorts upon Wordsworth:-- - - "'With this same key - Shakespeare unlocked his heart' once more! - Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he." - -The reader who can reconcile himself to the fact that great geniuses -are not necessarily models of correctness will pass a very different -judgment. He will follow with eager interest the experiences which -rent and harrowed Shakespeare's soul. He will rejoice in the insight -afforded by these poems, which the crowd ignores, into the tempestuous -emotional life of one of the greatest of men. Here, and here alone, -we see Shakespeare himself, as distinct from his poetical creations, -loving, admiring, longing, yearning, adoring, disappointed, humiliated, -tortured. Here alone does he enter the confessional. Here more than -anywhere else can we, who at a distance of three centuries do homage to -the poet's art, feel ourselves in intimate communion, not only with the -poet, but with the man. - - -[1] For instance, in Sonnet xxiii.:-- - - "O let my books be then the eloquence - And dumb presagers of my speaking breast, - Who plead for love, and look for recompense." - -And in Sonnet xxvi.:-- - - "Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage - Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit. - -[2] Ludwig von Scheffler: _Michel Angelo. Eine -Renaissancestudie_, 1892. - -[3] "E se io non àrò l'arte del navicare per l'onde del mare -del vostro valoroso ingegno, quello mi scuserà, nè si sdegnierà del -mio disaguagliarsigli, nè desiderrà da me quello che in me non è: -perchè chi è solo in ogni cosa, in cosa alcuna non può aver compagni. -Però la vostra Signoria, luce del secol nostro unica al mondo, non puo -sodisfarsi di opera d'alcuno altro, non avendo pari nè simile à sè," -&c. - -[4] "E io non nato, o vero nato morto mi reputerei, e direi in -disgrazia del cielo e della terra, se per la vostra non avessi visto e -creduto vostra Signoria accettare volentieri alcune delle opere mie." -"Avete data la copia de' sopradetti Madrigali a messer Tomaso ... che -se m'uscissi della mente, credo che súbito cascherei morto." - -[5] - - "Accio ch'i' abbi, e non già per mie merto, - desiato mio dolce signiore - Per sempre nell' indegnie e pronte braccia." - -[6] This line, however, is obviously suggested by the famous passage in -_Macbeth_ (Act v.)-- - - "My way of life - Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf." - -[7] Several passages in the Sonnets suggest that Pembroke must have -conferred substantial gifts upon Shakespeare--for example, that -expression "wealth" in Sonnet xxxvii., "your bounty" in Sonnet liii., -and "your own dear-purchased right" in Sonnet cxvii. - -[8] "Anzi posso prima dimenticare il cibo di ch'io vivo, che nutrisce -solo il corpo infelicemente, che il nome vostro, che nutrisce il corpo -e l'anima, riempiendo l'uno e l'altro di tanta dolcezza, che nè noia nè -timor di morte, mentre la memoria mi vi serba, posso sentire." - -[9] _Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft_, Band xiii. S. -158. - - - - -VIII - -_JULIUS CÆSAR--ITS FUNDAMENTAL DEFECT_ - -It is afternoon, a little before three o'clock. Whole fleets of -wherries are crossing the Thames, picking their way among the swans -and the other boats, to land their passengers on the south bank of -the river. Skiff after skiff puts forth from the Blackfriars stair, -full of theatre-goers who have delayed a little too long over their -dinner and are afraid of being too late; for the flag waving over the -Globe Theatre announces that there is a play to-day. The bills upon -the street-posts have informed the public that Shakespeare's _Julius -Cæsar_ is to be presented, and the play draws a full house. People -pay their sixpences and enter; the balconies and the pit are filled. -Distinguished and specially favoured spectators take their seats on the -stage behind the curtain. Then sound the first, the second, and the -third trumpet-blasts, the curtain parts in the middle, and reveals a -stage entirely hung with black. - -Enter the tribunes Flavius and Marullus; they scold the rabble and -drive them home because they are loafing about on a week-day without -their working-clothes and tools--in contravention of a London police -regulation which the public finds so natural that they (and the poet) -can conceive it as in force in ancient Rome. At first the audience is -somewhat restless. The groundlings talk in undertones as they light -their pipes. But the Second Citizen speaks the name of Cæsar. There are -cries of "Hush! hush!" and the progress of the play is followed with -eager attention. - -It was received with applause, and soon became very popular. Of this -we have contemporary evidence. Leonard Digges, in the poem quoted -above (p. 233), vaunts its scenic attractiveness at the expense of Ben -Jonson's Roman plays:-- - - "So have I seene, when Cesar would appeare, - And on the Stage at halfe-sword parley were - _Brutus and Cassius_: oh how the Audience - Were ravish'd, with what new wonder they went thence, - When some new day they would not brooke a line - Of tedious (though well laboured) _Catiline_." - -The learned rejoiced in the breath of air from ancient Rome which met -them in these scenes, and the populace was entertained and fascinated -by the striking events and heroic characters of the drama. A quatrain -in John Weever's _Mirror of Martyrs, or The Life and Death of Sir Iohn -Oldcastle Knight, Lord Cobham,_ tells how - - "The many-headed multitude were drawne - By _Brutus_ speech, that _Cæsar_ was ambitious, - When eloquent _Mark Antonie_ had showne - His vertues, who but _Brutus_ then was vicious?" - -There were, indeed, numerous plays on the subject of Julius Cæsar--they -are mentioned in Gosson's _Schoole of Abuse_, 1579, in _The Third Blast -of Retraite from Plaies_, 1580, in Henslowe's Diary, 1594 and 1602, in -_The Mirrour of Policie_, 1598, &c.--but Weever's words do not apply -to any of those which have come down to us. It can therefore scarcely -be doubted that they refer to Shakespeare's drama; and as the poem -appeared in 1601, it affords us almost decisive evidence as to the date -of _Julius Cæsar_. In all probability, it was in the same year that the -play was written and produced. Weever, indeed, says in his dedication -that his poem was "some two yeares agoe made fit for print;" but even -if this be true, the lines above quoted may quite well have been -inserted later. There are several reasons for believing that _Julius -Cæsar_ can scarcely have been produced earlier than 1601. The years -1599 and 1600 are already so full of work that we can scarcely assign -to them this great tragedy as well; and internal evidence indicates -that the play must have been written about the same time as _Hamlet,_ -to which its style offers so many striking resemblances. - -The immediate success of the play is proved by this fact, among -others, that it at once called forth a rival production on the same -theme. Henslow notes in his diary that in May 1602, on behalf of Lord -Nottingham's company, he paid five pounds for a drama called _Cæsar's -Fall_ to the poets Munday, Drayton, Webster, Middleton, and another. -It was evidently written to order. And as _Julius Cæsar_, in its -novelty, was unusually successful, so, too, we find it still reckoned -one of Shakespeare's greatest and profoundest plays, unlike the English -"Histories" in standing alone and self-sufficient, characteristically -composed, forming a rounded whole in spite of its apparent scission -at the death of Cæsar, and exhibiting a remarkable insight into Roman -character and the life of antiquity. - -What attracted Shakespeare to this theme? And, first and foremost, what -_is_ the theme? The play is called _Julius Cæsar_, but it was obviously -not Cæsar himself that attracted Shakespeare. The true hero of the -piece is Brutus; he it is who has aroused the poet's fullest interest. -We must explain to ourselves the why and wherefore. - -The answer is to be found in the point of time at which the play -was written. It was that eventful year when Shakespeare's earliest -friends among the great, Essex and Southampton, had set on foot their -foolhardy conspiracy against Elizabeth, and when their attempted -insurrection had ended in the death of the one, the imprisonment of -the other. He had seen how proud and nobly-disposed characters might -easily be seduced into political error, and tempted to rebellion, on -the plea of independence. It is true that there was little enough -resemblance of detail between the mere palace-revolution designed -by Essex, which should free him from his subjection to the Queen's -incalculable caprices, and the attempt of the Roman patricians to -liberate an aristocratic republic, by assassination, from the yoke of -a newly-founded despotism. The point of resemblance lay in the mere -fact of the imprudent and ill-starred attempt to effect a subversion of -public order. - -Add to this the fact that Shakespeare, in the present stage of his -career, displays a certain preference for characters who, in spite of -noble qualities, have fortune against them and are unable to bring -their projects to a successful issue. While he himself was still -fighting for his position, Henry V., the man of practical genius, -the born victor and conqueror, had been his ideal; now that he stood -on firm ground, and was soon to reach the height of his reputation, -he seems to have turned with a sort of melancholy predilection to -characters like Brutus and Hamlet, who, in spite of the highest -endowments, proved unequal to the tasks proposed to them.[1]. They -appealed to him as profound dreamers and high-minded idealists. He -found something of their nature, too, in his own. - -A good score of years earlier, in 1579, North's version of Plutarch's -parallel biographies had been published, not translated from the -original, but from the French translation of Amyot. In this book -Shakespeare found his material. - -His method of using this material differs considerably from his -treatment of his other authorities. From a chronicler like Holinshed -he, as a rule, takes nothing but the course of events, the outline -of the leading personages and such anecdotes as suit his purpose. -From novelists like Bandello or Cinthio he takes the main lines of -the action, but relies almost entirely on his own invention for the -characters and the dialogue. From the earlier plays, which he adapts -or re-casts, such as _The Taming of a Shrew, King John, The Famous -Victories_ of Henry V., and _King Leir_ (the original _Hamlet_ is -unfortunately not preserved), he transfers into his own work every -scene and speech that is worth anything; but in the cases in which -we can make the comparison, there is little enough that he finds -available. Here, on the other hand, we find a curious and instructive -example of his method of work when he most faithfully followed his -original. We realise that the more developed the art and the more -competent the psychology of the writer before him, the more closely did -Shakespeare tread in his footsteps. - -Here for the first time he found himself in touch with a wholly -civilised spirit--not seldom childlike in his antique simplicity, but -still no mean artist. Jean Paul, with some exaggeration, yet not quite -extravagantly, has called Plutarch the biographical Shakespeare of -world-history. - -The whole drama of _Julius Cæsar_ may be read in Plutarch. Shakespeare -had before him three Lives--those of Cæsar, Brutus, and Mark Antony. -Read them consecutively, and you find in them every detail of _Julius -Cæsar_. - -Let us take some examples from the first act of the play. It begins -with the tribunes' jealousy of the favour in which Cæsar stands with -the common people; and everything down to the minutest trait is taken -from Plutarch. The same with what follows: Mark Antony's repeated offer -of the crown to Cæsar at the feast of the Lupercal, and his unwilling -refusal of it. So too with Cæsar's suspicions of Cassius; Cæsar's -speech on his second entrance-- - - "Let me have men about me that are fat, - Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights: - Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; - He thinks too much; such men are dangerous,"-- - -occurs word for word in Plutarch; the anecdote, indeed, made such an -impression on him that he has repeated it three times in different -Lives. We find, furthermore, in the Greek historian, how Cassius -gradually involves Brutus in the conspiracy; how papers exhorting -Brutus to action are thrown into his house; the deliberations as to -whether Antony is to die along with Cæsar, and Brutus's mistaken -judgment of Antony's character; Portia's complaint at being excluded -from her husband's confidence; the proof of courage which she gives -by plunging a knife into her thigh; all the omens and prodigies that -precede the murder; the sacrificial ox without a heart; the fiery -warriors fighting in the clouds; Calphurnia's warning dream; Cæsar's -determination not to go to the Senate on the Ides of March; Decius -[Decimus] Brutus's endeavour to change his purpose; the fruitless -efforts of Artemidorus to restrain him from facing the danger, etc., -etc. It is all in Plutarch, point for point. - -Here and there we find small and subtle divergences from the original, -which may be traced now to Shakespeare's temperament, now to his -view of life, and again to his design in the play. Plutarch, for -example, has not Shakespeare's contempt for the populace, and does not -make them so senselessly fickle. Then, again, he gives no hint for -Brutus's soliloquy before taking the final resolution (II. I). For -the rest, wherever it is possible, Shakespeare employs the very words -of North's translation. Nay, more, he accepts the characters, such as -Brutus, Portia, Cassius, just as they stand in Plutarch. His Brutus is -absolutely the same as Plutarch's; his Cassius is a man of somewhat -deeper character. - -In dealing with the great figure of Cæsar, which gives the play -its name, Shakespeare follows faithfully the detached, anecdotic -indications of Plutarch; but he, strangely enough, seems altogether -to miss the remarkable impression we receive from Plutarch of Cæsar's -character, which, for the rest, the Greek historian himself was not -in a position fully to understand. We must not forget the fact, of -which Shakespeare of course knew nothing, that Plutarch, who was born -a century after Cæsar's death, at a time when the independence of -Greece was only a memory, and the once glorious Hellas was part of a -Roman province, wrote his comparative biographies to remind haughty -Rome that Greece had a great man to oppose to each of her greatest -sons. Plutarch was saturated with the thought that conquered Greece was -Rome's lord and master in every department of the intellectual life. -He delivered Greek lectures in Rome and could not speak Latin, while -every Roman spoke Greek to him and understood it as well as his native -tongue. Significantly enough, Roman literature and poetry do not exist -for Plutarch, though he incessantly cites Greek authors and poets. He -never mentions Virgil or Ovid. He wrote about his great Romans as an -enlightened and unprejudiced Pole might in our days write about great -Russians. He, in whose eyes the old republics shone transfigured, was -not specially fitted to appreciate Cæsar's greatness. - -Shakespeare, having so arranged his drama that Brutus should be -its tragic hero, had to concentrate his art on placing him in the -foreground, and making him fill the scene. The difficulty was not -to let his lack of political insight (in the case of Antony), or -of practical sense (in his quarrel with Cassius), detract from the -impression of his superiority. He had to be the centre and pivot -of everything, and therefore Cæsar was diminished and belittled to -such a degree, unfortunately, that this matchless genius in war and -statesmanship has become a miserable caricature. - -We find in other places clear indications that Shakespeare knew very -well what this man was and was worth. Edward's young son, in _Richard -III_., speaks with enthusiasm of Cæsar as that conqueror whom death has -not conquered; Horatio, in the almost contemporary _Hamlet_, speaks -of "mightiest Julius" and his death; and Cleopatra, in _Antony and -Cleopatra_, is proud of having been the mistress of Cæsar. It is true -that in _As You Like It_ the playful Rosalind uses the expression, -"Cæsar's thrasonical brag," with reference to the famous _Veni, vidi, -vici,_ but in an entirely jocose context and acceptation. - -But here! here Cæsar has become in effect no little of a braggart, -and is compounded, on the whole, of anything but attractive -characteristics. He produces the impression of an invalid. His -liability to the "falling sickness," is emphasised. He is deaf of one -ear. He has no longer his old strength. He faints when the crown is -offered to him. He envies Cassius because he is a stronger swimmer. -He is as superstitious as an old woman. He rejoices in flattery, -talks pompously and arrogantly, boasts of his firmness and is for -ever wavering. He acts incautiously and unintelligently, and does not -realise what threatens him, while every one else sees it clearly. - -Shakespeare dared not, says Gervinus, arouse too great interest in -Cæsar; he had to throw into relief everything about him that could -account for the conspiracy; and, moreover, he had Plutarch's distinct -statement that Cæsar's character had greatly deteriorated shortly -before his death. Hudson practically agrees with this, holding that -Shakespeare wished to present Cæsar as he appeared in the eyes of the -conspirators, so that "they too might have fair and equal judgment at -our hands;" admitting, for the rest, that "Cæsar was literally too -great to be seen by them," and that "Cæsar is far from being himself -in these scenes; hardly one of the speeches put in his mouth can be -regarded as historically characteristic." Thus Hudson arrives at the -astonishing result that "there is an undertone of irony at work in the -ordering and tempering of this composition," explaining that, "when -such a shallow idealist as Brutus is made to overtop and outshine the -greatest practical genius the world ever saw," we are bound to assume -that the intention is ironical. - -This is the emptiest cobweb-spinning. There is no trace of irony in -the representation of Brutus. Nor can we fall back upon the argument -that Cæsar, after his death, becomes the chief personage of the drama, -and as a corpse, as a memory, as a spirit, strikes down his murderers. -How can so small a man cast so great a shadow! Shakespeare, of course, -intended to show Cæsar as triumphing after his death. He has changed -Brutus's evil genius, which appears to him in the camp and at Philippi, -into Cæsar's ghost; but this ghost is not sufficient to rehabilitate -Cæsar in our estimation. - -Nor is it true that Cæsar's greatness would have impaired the unity -of the piece. Its poetic value, on the contrary, suffers from his -pettiness. The play might have been immeasurably richer and deeper than -it is, had Shakespeare been inspired by a feeling of Cæsar's greatness. - -Elsewhere in Shakespeare one marvels at what he has made out of poor -and meagre material. Here, history was so enormously rich, that his -poetry has become poor and meagre in comparison with it. - -Just as Shakespeare (if the portions of the first part of _Henry VI_. -which deal with La Pucelle are by him) represented Jeanne d'Arc with -no sense for the lofty and simple poetry that breathed around her -figure--national prejudice and old superstition blinding him--so he -approached the characterisation of Cæsar with far too light a heart, -and with imperfect knowledge and care. As he had made Jeanne d'Arc a -witch, so he makes Cæsar a braggart. Cæsar! - -If, like the schoolboys of later generations, he had been given Cæsar's -_Gallic War_ to read in his childhood, this would not have been -possible to him. Is it conceivable that, in what he had heard about -the Commentaries, he had naïvely seized upon and misinterpreted the -fact that Cæsar always speaks of himself in the third person, and calls -himself by his name? - -Let us compare for a moment this posing self-worshipper of -Shakespeare's with the picture of Cæsar which the poet might easily -have formed from his Plutarch alone, thus explaining Cæsar's rise to -the height of autocracy on which he stands at the beginning of the -play, and at the same time the gradual piling up of the hatred to which -he succumbed. On the very second page of the life of Cæsar he must have -read the anecdote of how Cæsar, when quite a young man, on his way back -from Bithynia, was taken prisoner by Cilician pirates. They demanded a -ransom of twenty talents (about £4000). He answered that they clearly -did not know who their prisoner was, promised them fifty talents, sent -his attendants to different towns to raise this sum, and remained with -only a friend and two servants among these notoriously bloodthirsty -bandits. He displayed the greatest contempt for them, and freely -ordered them about; he made them keep perfectly quiet when he wanted -to sleep; for the thirty-eight days he remained among them he treated -them as a prince might his bodyguard. He went through his gymnastic -exercises, and wrote poems and orations in the fullest security. He -often assured them that he would certainly have them hanged, or rather -crucified. When the ransom arrived from Miletus, the first use he made -of his liberty was to fit out some ships, attack the pirates, take them -all prisoners, and seize upon their booty. Then he carried them before -the Prætor of Asia, Junius, whose business it was to punish them. -Junius, out of avarice, replied that he would take time to reflect -what should be done with the prisoners; whereupon Cæsar returned to -Pergamos, where he had left them in prison, and kept his word by having -them all crucified. - -What has become of this masterfulness, this grace, and this iron will, -in Shakespeare's Cæsar? - - "I fear him not: - Yet if my name were liable to fear, - I do not know the man I should avoid - So soon as that spare Cassius. - . . . . . . - I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd - Than what I fear, for always I am Cæsar." - -It is well that he himself makes haste to say so, otherwise one would -scarcely believe it. And does one believe it, after all? - -As Shakespeare conceives the situation, the Republic which Cæsar -overthrew might have continued to exist but for him, and it was a -criminal act on his part to destroy it. - -But the old aristocratic Republic had already fallen to pieces when -Cæsar welded its fragments into a new monarchy. Sheer lawlessness -reigned in Rome. The populace was such as even the rabble of our -own great cities can give no conception of: not the brainless mob, -for the most part tame, only now and then going wild through mere -stupidity, which in Shakespeare listens to the orations over Cæsar's -body and tears Cinna to pieces; but a populace whose innumerable hordes -consisted mainly of slaves, together with the thousands of foreigners -from all the three continents, Phrygians from Asia, Negroes from -Africa, Iberians and Celts from Spain and France, who flocked together -in the capital of the world. To the immense bands of house-slaves -and field-slaves, there were added thousands of runaway slaves who -had committed theft or murder at home, lived by robbery on the way, -and now lay hid in the purlieus of the city. But besides foreigners -with no means of support and slaves without bread, there were swarms -of freedmen, entirely corrupted by their servile condition, for whom -freedom, whether combined with helpless poverty or with new-made -riches, meant only the freedom to do harm. Then there were troops of -gladiators, as indifferent to the lives of others as to their own, -and entirely at the beck and call of whoever would pay them. It was -from ruffians of this class that a man like Clodius had recruited -the armed gangs who surrounded him, divided like regular soldiers -into decuries and centuries under duly appointed commanders. These -bands fought battles in the Forum with other bands of gladiators or -of herdsmen from the wild regions of Picenum or Lombardy, whom the -Senate imported for its own protection. There was practically no -street police or fire-brigade. When public disasters happened, such -as floods or conflagrations, people regarded them as portents and -consulted the augurs. The magistrates were no longer obeyed; consuls -and tribunes were attacked, and sometimes even killed. In the Senate -the orators covered each other with abuse, in the Forum they spat in -each other's faces. Regular battles took place on the Campus Martius -at every election, and no man of position ever appeared in the streets -without a bodyguard of gladiators and slaves. "If we try to conceive -to ourselves," wrote Mommsen in 1857, "a London with the slave -population of New Orleans, with the police of Constantinople, with the -non-industrial character of the modern Rome, and agitated by politics -after the fashion of the Paris of 1848, we shall acquire an approximate -idea of the republican glory, the departure of which Cicero and his -associates in their sulky letters deplore."[2] - -Compare with this picture Shakespeare's conception of an ambitious -Cæsar striving to introduce monarchy into a well-ordered republican -state! - -What enchanted every one, even his enemies, who came in contact -with Cæsar, was his good-breeding, his politeness, the charm of his -personality. These characteristics made a doubly strong impression upon -those who, like Cicero, were accustomed to the arrogance and coarseness -of Pompey, so-called the Great. However busy he might be, Cæsar had -always time to think of his friends and to jest with them. His letters -are gay and amiable. In Shakespeare, when he is not familiar, he is -pompous. - -For the space of twenty-five years, Cæsar, as a politician, had by -every means in his power opposed the aristocratic party in Rome. He had -early resolved to make himself, without the employment of force, the -master of the then known world, assured as he was that the Republic -would fall to pieces of its own accord. Not until his prætorship in -Spain had he displayed ability as a soldier and administrator outside -the every-day round of political life. Then suddenly, when everything -seems to be prospering with him, he breaks away from it all, leaves -Rome, and passes into Gaul. At the age of forty-four, he enters upon -his military career, and becomes perhaps the greatest commander known -to history, an unrivalled conqueror and organiser, revealing, in middle -life, a whole host of unsuspected and admirable qualities. Shakespeare -conveys no idea of the wealth and many-sidedness of his gifts. He makes -him belaud himself with unceasing solemnity (II. 2):-- - - "Cæsar shall forth: the things that threaten'd me - Ne'er look'd but on my back; when they shall see - The face of Cæsar, they are vanishèd." - -Cæsar had nothing of the stolid pomposity and severity which -Shakespeare attributes to him. He united the rapid decision of the -general with the man of the world's elegance and lofty indifference to -trifles. He liked his soldiers to wear glittering weapons and to adorn -themselves. "What does it matter," he said, "though they use perfumes? -They fight none the worse for that." And soldiers who under other -leaders did not surpass the average became invincible under him. - -He, who in Rome had been the glass of fashion, was so careless of his -comfort in the field that he often slept under the open sky, and ate -rancid oil without so much as a grimace; but richly-decked tables -always stood in his tents, and all the golden youth, for whom Gaul was -at that time what America became in the days of the first discoverers, -made their way from Rome to his camp. It was the most wonderful camp -ever seen, crowded with men of elegance and learning, young writers and -poets, wits and thinkers, who, in the midst of the greatest and most -imminent dangers, busied themselves with literature, and sent regular -reports of their meetings and conversations to Cicero, the acknowledged -arbiter of the literary world of Rome. During the brief space of -Cæsar's expedition into Britain, he writes two letters to Cicero. -Their relation, in its different phases, in some ways reminds us of -the relation between Frederick the Great and Voltaire. What a paltry -picture does Shakespeare draw of Cicero as a mere pedant!-- - - "_Cassius_. Did Cicero say anything? - - "_Casca_. Ay, he spoke Greek. - - "_Cassius_. To what effect? - - "_Casca_. Nay, an I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you in - the face again: but those that understood him smiled at one - another, and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it - was Greek to me." - -Amid labours of every sort, his life always in danger, incessantly -fighting with warlike enemies, whom he beats in battle after battle, -Cæsar writes his grammatical works and his Commentaries. His dedication -to Cicero of his work _De Analogia_ is a homage to literature no less -than to him: "You have discovered all the treasures of eloquence and -been the first to employ them.... You have achieved the crown of all -honours, a triumph the greatest generals may envy; for it is a nobler -thing to remove the barriers of the intellectual life than to extend -the boundaries of the Empire." These are the words of the man who has -just beaten the Helvetii, conquered France and Belgium, made the first -expedition into Britain, and so effectually repelled the German hordes -that they were for long innocuous to the Rome which they had threatened -with destruction. - -How little does this Cæsar resemble the pompous and highflown puppet of -Shakespeare:-- - - "Danger knows full well - That Cæsar is more dangerous than he. - We are two lions litter'd in one day, - And I the elder and more terrible." - -Cæsar could be cruel at times. In his wars, he never shrank from taking -such revenges as should strike terror into his enemies. He had the -whole senate of the Veneti beheaded. He cut the right hand off every -one who had borne arms against him at Uxellodunum. He kept the gallant -Vercingetorix five years in prison, only to exhibit him in chains at -his triumph and then to have him executed. - -Yet, where severity was unnecessary, he was tolerance and mildness -itself. Cicero, during the civil war, went over to the camp of Pompey, -and after the defeat of that party sought and received forgiveness. -When he afterwards wrote a book in honour of Cæsar's mortal enemy Cato, -who killed himself so as not to have to obey the dictator, and thereby -became the hero of all the republicans, Cæsar wrote to Cicero: "In -reading your book, I feel as though I myself had become more eloquent." -And yet in his eyes Cato was only an uncultured personage and a fanatic -for an obsolete order of things. When a slave, out of tenderness for -his master, refused to hand Cato his sword wherewith to kill himself, -Cato gave him such a furious blow in the face that his hand was dyed -with blood. Such a trait must have spoiled for Cæsar the impressiveness -of this suicide. - -Cæsar was not content with forgiving almost all who had borne arms -against him at Pharsalia; he gave many of them, and among the rest -Brutus and Cassius, an ample share of his power. He tried to protect -Brutus before the battle and heaped honours upon him after it. Again -and again Brutus came forward in opposition to Cæsar, and even, in -his conscientious quixotism, took part against him with Pompey, -although Pompey had had his father assassinated. Cæsar forgave him -this and everything else; he was never tired of forgiving him. He -had, it appears, transferred to Brutus the love of his youth for -Brutus's mother Servilia, Cato's sister, who had been passionately and -faithfully devoted to Cæsar. Voltaire, in his _Mort de César_, makes -Cæsar hand to Brutus a letter just received from the dying Servilia, -in which she begs Cæsar to watch well over their son. Plutarch relates -that on one occasion, at the time of Catiline's conspiracy, a letter -was brought to Cæsar in the Senate. Cato, seeing him rise and go -apart to read it, gave open utterance to the suspicion that it was a -missive from the conspirators. Cæsar laughingly handed him the letter, -which contained declarations of love from his sister; whereupon Cato, -enraged, burst out with the epithet "Drunkard!"--the direst term of -abuse a Roman could employ. (Ben Jonson has introduced this anecdote in -his _Catiline_, v. 6.) - -Brutus inherited his uncle Cato's hatred for Cæsar. A certain brutality -was united with a noble stoicism in these two last Roman republicans -of the time of the Republic's downfall. The rawness of antique Rome -survived in Cato's nature, and Brutus, in his conduct towards the -towns of the Asiatic provinces, was nothing but a bloodthirsty usurer, -who, in the name of a man of straw (Scaptius) extorted from them his -exorbitant interests with threats of fire and sword. He had lent to -the inhabitants of the town of Salamis a sum of money at 48 per cent. -On their failure to pay, he kept their Senate so closely besieged by a -squadron of cavalry that five senators died of starvation. Shakespeare, -in his ignorance, attributes no such vices to Brutus, but makes him -simple and great, at Cæsar's expense. - -Cæsar as opposed to Cato--and afterwards as opposed to Brutus--is -the many-sided genius who loves life and action and power, in -contradistinction to the narrow Puritan who hates such emancipated -spirits, partly on principle, partly from instinct. - -What a strange misunderstanding that Shakespeare--himself a lover -of beauty, intent on a life of activity, enjoyment, and satisfied -ambition, who always stood to Puritanism in the same hostile relation -in which Cæsar stood--should out of ignorance take the side of -Puritanism in this case, and so disqualify himself from extracting from -the rich mine of Cæsar's character all the gold contained in it. In -Shakespeare's Cæsar we find nothing of the magnanimity and sincerity -of the real man. He never assumed a hypocritical reverence towards the -past, not even on questions of grammar. He grasped at power and seized -it, but did not, as in Shakespeare, pretend to reject it. Shakespeare -has let him keep the pride which he in fact displayed, but has made it -unbeautiful, and eked it out with hypocrisy. - -This further trait, too, in Cæsar's character Shakespeare has failed -to understand. When at last, after having conquered on every side, -in Africa as in Asia, in Spain as in Egypt, he held in his hands -the sovereign power which had been the object of his twenty years' -struggle, it had lost its attraction for him. Knowing that he was -misunderstood and hated by those whose respect he prized the most, -he found himself compelled to make use of men whom he despised, and -contempt for humanity took possession of his mind. He saw nothing -around him but greed and treachery. Power had lost all its sweetness -for him, life itself was no longer worth living, worth preserving. -Hence his answer when he was besought to take measures against his -would-be assassins: "Rather die once than tremble always!" and he went -to the Senate on the 15th of March without arms and without a guard. In -the tragedy, the motives which ultimately lure him thither are the hope -of a title and a crown, and the fear of being esteemed a coward. - -Those foolish persons who attribute Shakespeare's works to Francis -Bacon argue, amongst other things, that such an insight into Roman -antiquity as is manifested in _Julius Cæsar_ could be attained by no -one who did not possess Bacon's learning. On the contrary, this play -is obviously written by a man whose learning was in no sense on a -level with his genius, so that its faults, no less than its merits, -afford a proof, however superfluous, that Shakespeare himself was the -author of Shakespeare's works. Bunglers in criticism never realise to -what an extent genius can supply the place of book-learning, and how -vastly greater is its importance. But, on the other hand, one is bound -to declare unequivocally that there are certain domains in which no -amount of genius can compensate for reconstructive insight and study -of recorded fact, and where even the greatest genius falls short when -it tries to create out of its own head, or upon a scanty basis of -knowledge. - -Such a domain is that of historical drama, when it deals with periods -and personalities in regard to which recorded fact surpasses all -possible imagination. Where history is stranger and more poetic than -any poetry, more tragic than any antique tragedy, there the poet -requires many-sided insight in order to rise to the occasion. It was -because of Shakespeare's lack of historical and classical culture that -the incomparable grandeur of the figure of Cæsar left him unmoved. He -depressed and debased that figure to make room for the development -of the central character in his drama--to wit, Marcus Brutus, whom, -following Plutarch's idealising example, he depicted as a stoic of -almost flawless nobility. - - -[1] Compare Dowden, _Shakspere_, p. 280. - -[2] Mommsen, _History of Rome_, translated by W. P. Dickson, ed. 1894, -vol. v. p. 371. Gaston Boissier, _Cicéron et ses Amis_, p. 224 - - - - -IX - -_JULIUS CÆSAR--THE MERITS OF THE DRAMA--BRUTUS_ - -None but a naïve republican like Swinburne can believe that it was by -reason of any republican enthusiasm in Shakespeare's soul that Brutus -became the leading character. He had assuredly no systematic political -conviction, and manifests at other times the most loyal and monarchical -habit of mind. - -Brutus was already in Plutarch the protagonist of the Cæsar tragedy, -and Shakespeare followed the course of history as represented by -Plutarch, under the deep impression that an impolitic revolt, like -that of Essex and his companions, can by no means stem the current -of the time, and that practical errors revenge themselves quite as -severely as moral sins--nay, much more so. The psychologist was now -awakened in him, and he found it a fascinating task to analyse and -present a man who finds a mission imposed upon him for which he is by -nature unfitted. It is no longer outward conflicts like that in _Romeo -and Juliet_ between the lovers and their surroundings, or in _Richard -III._, between Richard and the world at large, that fascinate him in -this new stage of his development, but the inner processes and crises -of the spiritual life. - -Brutus has lived among his books and fed his mind upon Platonic -philosophy; therefore he is more occupied with the abstract political -idea of republican freedom, and the abstract moral conception of the -shame of enduring a despotism, than with the actual political facts -before his eyes, or the meaning of the changes which are going on -around him. This man is vehemently urged by Cassius to place himself at -the head of a conspiracy against his fatherly benefactor and friend. -The demand throws his whole nature into a ferment, disturbs its -harmony, and brings it for ever out of equilibrium. - -On Hamlet also, who is at the same time springing to life in -Shakespeare's mind, the spirit of his murdered father imposes the duty -of becoming an assassin, and the claim acts as a stimulus, a spur to -his intellectual faculties, but as a solvent to his character; so -close is the resemblance between the situation of Brutus, with his -conflicting duties, and the inward strife which we are soon to find in -Hamlet. - -Brutus is at war with himself, and therefore forgets to show others -attention and the outward signs of friendship. His comrades summon him -to action, but he hears no answering summons from within. As Hamlet -breaks out into the well known words:-- - - "The time is out of joint:--O, cursed spite - That ever I was born to set it right!" - -so also Brutus shrinks with horror from his task. He says (I. 2):-- - - "Brutus had rather be a villager - Than to repute himself a son of Rome - Under these hard conditions as this time - Is like to lay upon us." - -His noble nature is racked by these doubts and uncertainties. - -From the moment Cassius has spoken to him, he is sleepless. The rugged -Macbeth becomes sleepless after he has killed the King--"Macbeth has -murdered sleep." Brutus, with his delicate, reflective nature, bent -on obeying only the dictates of duty, is calm after the murder, but -sleepless before it. His preoccupation with the idea has altered -his whole manner of being; his wife does not know him again. She -tells how he can neither converse nor sleep, but strides up and down -with his arms folded, sighing and lost in thought, does not answer -her questions, and, when she repeats them, waves her off with rough -impatience. - -It is not only his gratitude to Cæsar that keeps Brutus in torment; -it is especially his uncertainty as to what Cæsar's intentions really -are. Brutus sees him, indeed, idolised by the people and endowed -with supreme power; but as yet Cæsar has never abused it. He concurs -with Cassius's view that when Cæsar declined the crown he in reality -hankered after it; but, after all, they have nothing to go upon but his -supposed desire:-- - - "To speak truth of Cæsar, - I have not known when his affections sway'd - More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof - That lowliness is young ambition's ladder." - -If Cæsar is to be slain, then, it is not for what he has done, but for -what he may do in the future. Is it permissible to commit a murder upon -such grounds? - -In Hamlet we find this variant of the difficulty: Is it certain that -the king murdered Hamlet's father? May not the ghost have been a -hallucination, or the devil himself? - -Brutus feels the weakness of his basis of action the more clearly -the more he leans towards the murder as a political duty. And -Shakespeare has not hesitated to attribute to him, high-minded as he -is, that doctrine of expediency, so questionable in the eyes of many, -which declares that a necessary end sanctifies impure means. Two -separate times, once when he is by himself, and once in addressing the -conspirators, he recommends political hypocrisy as judicious and -serviceable. In the soliloquy he says (II. I):-- - - "And, since the quarrel - Will bear no colour for the thing he is, - Fashion it thus: that what he is, augmented, - Would run to these and these extremities." - -To the conspirators his words are:-- - - "And let our hearts, as subtle masters do, - Stir up their servants to an act of rage, - And after seem to chide 'em." - -That is to say, the murder is to be carried out with as much decency as -possible, and the murderers are afterwards to pretend that they deplore -it. - -As soon as the murder is resolved upon, however, Brutus, assured of -the purity of his motives, stands proud and almost unconcerned in the -midst of the conspirators. Far too unconcerned, indeed; for though he -has not shrunk in principle from the doctrine that one cannot will the -end without willing the means, he yet shrinks, upright and unpractical -as he is, from employing means which seem to him either too base or too -unscrupulous. He will not even suffer the conspirators to be bound by -oath: "Swear priests and cowards and men cautelous." They are to trust -each other without the assurance of an oath, and to keep their secret -unsworn. And when it is proposed that Antony shall be killed along with -Cæsar, a necessary step, to which, as a politician, he was bound to -consent, he rejects it, in Shakespeare as in Plutarch, out of humanity: -"Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius." He feels that his -will is as clear as day, and suffers at the thought of employing the -methods of night and darkness: - - "O Conspiracy! - Sham'st thou to show thy dangerous brow by night, - When evils are most free? O, then, by day - Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough - To mask thy monstrous visage?" - -Brutus is anxious that a cause which is to be furthered by -assassination should achieve success without secrecy and without -violence. Goethe has said: "Only the man of reflection has a -conscience." The man of action cannot have one while he is acting. To -plunge into action is to place oneself at the mercy of one's nature -and of external powers. One acts rightly or wrongly, but always upon -instinct--often stupidly, sometimes, it may be, brilliantly, never with -full consciousness. Action implies the in considerateness of instinct, -or egoism, or genius; Brutus, on the other hand, is bent on acting with -every consideration. - -Kreyssig, and after him Dowden, have called Brutus a Girondin, in -opposition to his brother-in-law, Cassius, a sort of Jacobin in antique -dress. The comparison is just only in regard to the lesser or greater -inclination to the employment of violent means; it halts when we -reflect that Brutus lives in the rarefied air of abstractions, face to -face with ideas and principles, while Cassius lives in the world of -facts; for the Jacobins were quite as stiff-necked theorists as any -Girondin. Brutus, in Shakespeare, is a strict moralist, excessively -cautious lest any stain should mar the purity of his character, while -Cassius does not in the least aspire to moral flawlessness. He is -frankly envious of Cæsar, and openly avows that he hates him; yet -he is not base; for envy and hatred are in his case swallowed up by -political passion, strenuous and consistent. And, unlike Brutus, he -is a good observer, looking right through men's words and actions -into their souls. But as Brutus is the man whose name, birth, and -position as Cæsar's intimate friend, point him out to be the head -of the conspiracy, he is always able to enforce his impolitic and -short-sighted will. - -When we find that Hamlet, who is so full of doubts, never for a moment -doubts his right to kill the king, we must remember that Shakespeare -had just exhausted this theme in his characterisation of Brutus. - -Brutus is the ideal whom Shakespeare, like all men of the better sort, -cherished in his soul--the man whose pride it is before everything to -keep his hands clean and his mind high and free, even at the cost of -failure in his undertakings and the wreck of his tranquillity and of -his fortunes. - -He does not care to impose an oath upon the others; he is too proud. -If they want to betray him, let them! These others, it is true, may -be moved by their hatred of the great man, and eager to quench their -malice in his blood; he, for his part, admires him, and will sacrifice, -not butcher him. The others fear the consequences of suffering Antony -to address the people; but Brutus has explained to the people his -reasons for the murder, so Antony may now eulogise Cæsar as much as -he pleases. Did not Cæsar deserve eulogy? Does not he himself desire -that Cæsar shall lie honoured, though punished, in his grave? He is too -proud to keep a watch upon Antony, who has approached him in friendly -fashion, though at the same time in the character of Cæsar's friend; -therefore he leaves the Forum before Antony begins his speech. Such -moods are familiar to many. Many another has acted in this apparently -unwise way, proudly reckless of consequences, moved by the dislike -of the magnanimous man for all that savours of base cautiousness. -Many a one, for example, has told the truth where it was stupid to -do so, or has let slip an opportunity of revenge because he despised -his enemy too much to seek compensation for his injuries, though he -thereby neglected to render him innocuous for the future. An intense -realisation of the necessity for confidence, or, on the other hand, of -the untrustworthiness of friends and the contemptibleness of enemies, -may easily lead one to despise every measure of prudence. - -It was upon the basis of an intense feeling of this nature that -Shakespeare created Brutus. With the addition of humour and a touch of -genius he would be Hamlet, and he becomes Hamlet. With the addition of -despairing bitterness and misanthropy he would be Timon, and he becomes -Timon. Here he is the man of uncompromising character and principle, -who is too proud to be prudent and too bad an observer to be practical; -and this man is so situated that not only the life and death of another -and of himself, but the welfare of the State, and even, as it appears, -that of the whole civilised world, depend upon the resolution at which -he arrives. - -At Brutus's side Shakespeare places the figure which forms his female -counterpart, the kindred spirit who has become one with him, his cousin -and wife, Cato's daughter married to Cato's disciple. He has here, and -here alone, given us a picture of the ideal marriage as he conceived it. - -In the scene between Brutus and Portia the poet takes up afresh a -motive which he has handled once before--the anxious wife beseeching -her husband to initiate her into his great designs. It first appears -in _Henry IV_., Part I., where Lady Percy implores her Harry to let -her share his counsels. (See above, p. 189) The description which she -gives of Hotspur's manner and conduct exactly corresponds to Portia's -description of the transformation which has taken place in Brutus. Both -husbands, indeed, are nursing a similar project. But Lady Percy learns -nothing. Her Harry no doubt loves her, loves her now and then, between -two skirmishes, briskly and gaily; but there is no sentiment in his -love for her, and he never dreams of any spiritual communion between -them. - -When Portia, in this case, begs her husband to tell her what is -weighing on his mind, he at first, indeed, replies with evasions about -his health; but on her vehemently declaring that she feels herself -degraded by this lack of confidence (Shakespeare has but slightly -softened the antique frankness of the words which Plutarch places -in her mouth), Brutus answers her with warmth and beauty. And when -(again as in Plutarch) she tells of the proof she has given of her -steadfastness by thrusting a knife into her thigh and never complaining -of the "voluntary wound," he bursts forth with the words which Plutarch -places in his mouth:-- - - "O ye gods, - Render me worthy of this noble wife," - -and promises to tell her everything. - -Neither Shakespeare nor Plutarch, however, regards his facile -communicativeness as a mark of prudence. For it is not Portia's fault -that it does not betray everything. When it comes to the point, she can -neither hold her tongue nor control herself. She betrays her anxiety -and uneasiness to the boy Lucius, and herself exclaims:-- - - "I have a man's mind, but a woman's might. - How hard it is for women to keep counsel!" - -This reflection is obviously not Portia's, but an utterance of -Shakespeare's own philosophy of life, which he has not cared to keep to -himself. In Plutarch she even falls down as though dead, and the news -of her death surprises Brutus just before the time appointed for the -murder of Cæsar, so that he needs all his self-control to save himself -from breaking down. - -From the character with which Shakespeare has thus endowed Brutus -spring the two great scenes which carry the play. - -The first is the marvellously-constructed scene, the turning-point of -the tragedy, in which Antony, speaking with Brutus's consent over the -body of Cæsar, stirs up the Romans against the murderers of the great -imperator. - -Even Brutus's own speech Shakespeare has moulded with the rarest -art. Plutarch relates that when Brutus wrote Greek he cultivated a -"compendious" and laconic style, of which the historian adduces a -string of examples. He wrote to the Samians: "Your councels be long, -your doings be slow; consider the end." And in another epistle: "The -Xanthians, despising my good wil, haue made a graue of dispaire; and -the Patareians, that put themselves into my protection, have lost no -iot of their liberty: and therefore whilst you haue libertie, either -chuse the iudgement of the Patareians or the fortune of the Xanthians." -See now, what Shakespeare has made out of these indications:-- - - "Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause, and - be silent, that you may hear: believe me for mine honour, - and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe. - ... If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of - Cæsar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love to Cæsar was no - less than his. If, then, that friend demand, why Brutus rose - against Cæsar, this is my answer:--Not that I loved Cæsar - less, but that I loved Rome more." - -And so on, in this style of laconic antithesis. Shakespeare has made a -deliberate effort to assign to Brutus the diction he had cultivated, -and, with his inspired faculty of divination, has, as it were, -reanimated it:-- - - "As Cæsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I - rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him: but, as he - was ambitious, I slew him." - -With ingenious and yet noble art the speech culminates in the question, -"Who is here so vile that will not love his country! If any, speak; for -him have I offended." And when the crowd answers, "None, Brutus, none," -he chimes in with the serene assurance, "Then none have I offended." - -The still more admirable oration of Antony is in the first place -remarkable for the calculated difference of style which it displays. -Here we have no antitheses, no literary eloquence; but a vernacular -eloquence of the most powerful demagogic type. Antony takes up the -thread just where Brutus has dropped it, expressly assures his hearers -at the outset that this is to be a speech over Cæsar's bier, but -not to his glory, and emphasises to the point of monotony the fact -that Brutus and the other conspirators are all, all honourable men. -Then the eloquence gradually works up, subtle and potent, in its -adroit crescendo, and yet in truth exalted by something which is not -subtlety: glowing enthusiasm for Cæsar, scathing indignation against -his assassins. The contempt and anger are at first masked, out of -consideration for the mood of the populace, which has for the moment -been won over by Brutus; then the mask is raised a little, then a -little more and a little more, until, with a wild gesture, it is torn -off and thrown aside. - -Here again Shakespeare has utilised in a masterly fashion the hints he -found in Plutarch, scanty as they were:-- - - "Afterwards, when Cæsar's body was brought into the - market-place, Antonius, making his funeral oration in praise - of the dead, according to the auncient custome of Rome, - and perceiuing that his words moued the common people to - compassion: he framed his eloquence to make their harts - yerne the more." - -Mark what Shakespeare has made of this::-- - - "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears: - I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him. - The evil that men do lives after them, - The good is oft interred with their bones; - So let it be with Cæsar. The noble Brutus - Hath told you, Cæsar was ambitious: - If it were so, it was a grievous fault, - And grievously hath Cæsar answered it. - Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest, - (For Brutus is an honourable man, - So are they all, all honourable men), - Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral. - He was my friend, faithful and just to me: - But Brutus says he was ambitious; - And Brutus is an honourable man." - -Then Antony goes on to insinuate doubts as to Cæsar's ambition, and -tells how he rejected the kingly diadem, rejected it three times. Was -this ambition? Thereupon he suggests that Cæsar, after all, was once -beloved, and that there is no reason why he should not be mourned. Then -with a sudden outburst:-- - - "O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, - And men have lost their reason!--Bear with me; - My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar, - And I must pause till it come back to me." - -Next comes an appeal to their pity for this greatest of men, whose -word but yesterday might have stood against the world, and who now -lies so low that the poorest will not do him reverence. It would be -wrong to make his speech inflammatory, a wrong towards Brutus and -Cassius "who--as you know--are honourable men" (mark the jibe in the -parenthetic phrase); no, he will rather do wrong to the dead and to -himself. But here he holds a parchment--he assuredly will not read -it--but if the people came to know its contents they would kiss dead -Cæsar's wounds, and dip their handkerchiefs in his sacred blood. And -then, when cries for the reading of the will mingle with curses upon -the murderers, he stubbornly refuses to read it. Instead of doing so, -he displays to them Cæsar's cloak with all the rents in it. - -What Plutarch says here is:-- - - "To conclude his Oration, he unfolded before the whole - assembly the bloudy garments of the dead, thrust through in - many places with their swords, and called the malefactors - cruell and cursed murtherers." - -Out of these few words Shakespeare has made this miracle of invective:-- - - "You all do know this mantle! I remember - The first time ever Cæsar put it on: - 'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent, - That day he overcame the Nervii. - Look! in this place ran Cassius' dagger through: - See, what a rent the envious Casca made: - Through this, the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd; - And, as he pluck'd his cursed steel away, - Mark how the blood of Cæsar followed it, - As rushing out of doors, to be resolv'd - If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no; - For Brutus, as you know, was Cæsar's angel. - Judge, O you gods, how dearly Cæsar lov'd him! - This was the most unkindest cut of all; - For when the noble Cæsar saw him stab, - Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms, - Quite vanquish'd him: then burst his mighty heart; - And, in his mantle muffling up his face, - Even at the base of Pompey's statua, - Which all the while ran blood, great Cæsar fell. - O, what a fall was there, my countrymen! - Then I, and you, and all of us fell down, - Whilst bloody treason flourish'd over us. - O! now you weep; and, I perceive, you feel - The dint of pity: these are gracious drops. - Kind souls! what, weep you, when you but behold - Our Cæsar's vesture wounded? Look you here, - Here is himself, marr'd, as you see, with traitors." - -He uncovers Cæsar's body; and not till then does he read the will, -overwhelming the populace with gifts and benefactions. This climax is -of Shakespeare's own invention. - -No wonder that even Voltaire was so struck with the beauty of this -scene, that for its sake he translated the first three acts of the -play. At the end of his own _Mort de César_, too, he introduced a -feeble imitation of the scene; and he had it in his mind when, in his -_Discours sur la Tragédie_, dedicated to Bolingbroke, he expressed so -much enthusiasm and envy for the freedom of the English stage. - -In the last two acts, Brutus is overtaken by the recoil of his deed. -He consented to the murder out of noble, disinterested and patriotic -motives; nevertheless he is struck down by its consequences, and pays -for it with his happiness and his life. The declining action of the -last two acts is--as is usual with Shakespeare--less effective and -fascinating than the rising action which fills the first three; but it -has one significant, profound, and brilliantly constructed and executed -scene--the quarrel and reconciliation between Brutus and Cassius in the -fourth act, which leads up to the appearance of Cæsar's ghost. - -This scene is significant because it gives a many-sided picture of the -two leading characters--the sternly upright Brutus, who is shocked at -the means employed by Cassius to raise the money without which their -campaign cannot be carried on, and Cassius, a politician entirely -indifferent to moral scruples, but equally unconcerned as to his own -personal advantage. The scene is profound because it presents to us the -necessary consequences of the law-defying, rebellious act: cruelty, -unscrupulous policy, and lax tolerance of dishonourable conduct in -subordinates, when the bonds of authority and discipline have once been -burst. The scene is brilliantly constructed because, with its quick -play of passion and its rising discord, which at last passes over into -a cordial and even tender reconciliation, it is dramatic in the highest -sense of the word. - -The fact that Brutus was in Shakespeare's own mind the true hero of the -tragedy appears in the clearest light when we find him ending the play -with the eulogy which Plutarch, in his life of Brutus, places in the -mouth of Antony; I mean the famous words:-- - - "This was the noblest Roman of them all: - All the conspirators, save only he, - Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar; - He only, in a general honest thought - And common good to all, made one of them. - His life was gentle; and the elements - So mixed in him that Nature might stand up, - And say to all the world, 'This was a man!'" - -The resemblance between these words and a celebrated speech of Hamlet's -is unmistakable. Everywhere in _Julius Cæsar_ we feel the proximity of -_Hamlet_. The fact that Hamlet hesitates so long before attacking the -King, finds so many reasons to hold his hand, is torn with doubts as -to the act and its consequences, and insists on considering everything -even while he upbraids himself for considering so long--all this is -partly due, no doubt, to the circumstance that Shakespeare comes to -him directly from Brutus. His Hamlet has, so to speak, just seen what -happened to Brutus, and the example is not encouraging, either with -respect to action in general, or with respect to the murder of a -stepfather in particular. - -It is not difficult to conceive that Shakespeare may at this period -have been subject to moments of scepticism, in which he could scarcely -understand how any one could make up his mind to act, to assume -responsibility, to set in motion the rolling stone which is the type -of every action. If we once begin to brood over the incalculable -consequences of an action and all that circumstance may make of it, -all action on a great scale becomes impossible. Therefore it is that -very few old men understand their youth; they dare not and could not -act again as, in their recklessness of consequences, they acted then. -Brutus forms the transition to Hamlet, and Hamlet no doubt grew up in -Shakespeare's mind during the working out of _Julius Cæsar_. - -The stages of transition are perhaps these: the conspirators, in egging -Brutus on to the murder, are always reminding him of the elder Brutus, -who pretended madness and drove out the Tarquins. This may have led -Shakespeare to dwell upon his character as drawn by Livy, which had -always been exceedingly popular. But Brutus the elder is an antique -Hamlet; and the very name of Hamlet, as he found it in the older play -and in Saxo, seems always to have haunted Shakespeare. It was the name -he had given to the little boy whom he lost so early. - - - - -X - -_BEN JONSON AND HIS ROMAN PLAYS_ - -In precisely the same year as Shakespeare, his famous brother-poet, -Ben Jonson, made his first attempt at a dramatic presentation of Roman -antiquity. His play, _The Poetaster_, was written and acted in 1601. -Its purpose is the literary annihilation of two playwrights, Marston -and Dekker, with whom the author was at feud; but its action takes -place in the time of Augustus; and Jonson, in spite of his satire on -contemporaries, no doubt wanted to utilise his thorough knowledge -of ancient literature in giving a true picture of Roman manners. As -Shakespeare's _Julius Cæsar_ was followed by two other tragedies of -antique Rome, _Antony and Cleopatra_ and _Coriolanus_, so Ben Jonson -also wrote two other plays on Roman themes, the tragedies of _Sejanus_ -and _Catiline_. It is instructive to compare his method of treatment -with Shakespeare's; but a general comparison of the two creative -spirits must precede this comparison of artistic processes in a single -limited field. - -Ben Jonson was nine years younger than Shakespeare, born in 1573, a -month after the death of his father, the son of a clergyman whose -forefathers had belonged to "the gentry." He was a child of the town, -while Shakespeare was a child of the country; and the fact is not -without significance, though town and country were not then so clearly -opposed to each other as they are now. When Ben was two years old, -his mother married a worthy masterbricklayer, who did what he could -to procure his step-son a good education, so that, after passing some -years at a small private school, he was sent to Westminster. Here -the learned William Camden, his teacher, introduced him to the two -classical literatures, and seems, moreover, to have exercised a not -altogether fortunate influence upon his subsequent literary habits; for -it was Camden who taught him first to write out in prose whatever he -wanted to express in verse. Thus the foundation was laid at school, not -only of his double ambition to shine as a scholar and a poet, or rather -as a scholar-poet, but also of his heavy and rhetorically emphatic -verse. - -In spite of his worship of learning, his dislike to all handicraft, and -his unfitness for practical work, he was forced by poverty to break -off his studies in order to enter the employment of his bricklayer -stepfather--a fact which, in his subsequent literary feuds, always -procured him the nickname of "the bricklayer." He could not long endure -this occupation, went as a soldier to the Netherlands, killed one of -the enemy in single combat, under the eyes of both camps, returned to -London and married--almost as early as Shakespeare--at the age of only -nineteen. Twenty-six years later, in his conversations with Drummond, -he called his wife "a shrew, yet honest." He seems to have been an -affectionate father, but had the misfortune to survive his children. - -He was strong and massive in body, racy and coarse, full of self-esteem -and combative instincts, saturated with the conviction of the scholar's -high rank and the poet's exalted vocation, full of contempt for -ignorance, frivolity, and lowness, classic in his tastes, with a bent -towards careful structure and leisurely development of thought in -all that he wrote, and yet a true poet in so far as he was not only -irregular in his life and quite incapable of saving any of the money he -now and then earned, but was, moreover, subject to hallucinations: once -saw Carthaginians and Romans fighting on his great toe, and, on another -occasion, had a vision of his son with a bloody cross on his brow, -which was supposed to forbode his death. - -Like Shakespeare, he sought to make his bread by entering the theatre -and appearing as an actor. To him, as to Shakespeare, old pieces of the -repertory were entrusted to be rewritten, expanded, and furbished up. -Thus as late as 1601-2 he made a number of very able additions, in the -style of the old play, to that _Spanish Tragedy_ of Kyd's, which must -in many ways have been in Shakespeare's mind during the composition of -_Hamlet_. - -He did this work on the commission of Henslow, for whose company, which -competed with Shakespeare's, he worked regularly from 1597 onwards. He -collaborated with Dekker in a tragedy, and had a hand in other plays; -in short, he made himself useful to the theatre as best he could, but -did not, like Shakespeare, acquire a share in the enterprise, and thus -never became a man of substance. He was to the end of his life forced -to rely for his income upon the liberality of royal and noble patrons. - -The end of 1598 is doubly significant in Ben Jonson's life. In -September he killed in a duel another of Henslow's actors, a certain -Gabriel Spencer (who seems to have challenged him), and was therefore -branded on the thumb with the letter T (Tyburn). A couple of months -later, this occurrence having evidently led to a break in his -connection with Henslow's company, his first original play, _Every Man -in his Humour_, was acted by the Lord Chamberlain's men. According to a -tradition preserved by Rowe, and apparently trustworthy, the play had -already been refused, when Shakespeare happened to see it and procured -its acceptance. It met with the success it deserved, and henceforward -the author's name was famous. - -Even in the first edition of this play he makes Young Knowell speak -with warm enthusiasm of poetry, of the dignity of the sacred art of -invention, and express that hatred for every profanation of the Muses -which appears so frequently in later works, finding, perhaps, its most -vehement utterance in _The Poetaster_, where the young Ovid eulogises -his art in opposition to the scorn of his father and others. From the -first, too, he made no concealment of his strong sense of being at once -a high-priest of art, and, in virtue of his learning, an Aristarchus -of taste. He not only scorned all attempts to tickle the public ear, -but, with the firm and superior attitude of a teacher, he again and -again imprinted on spectators and readers what Goethe has expressed -in the well-known words: "Ich schreibe nicht, Euch zu gefallen; Ihr -sollt was lernen." Again and again he claimed for his own person the -sanctity and inviolability of art, and attacked his inferior rivals -unsparingly, with ferocious rather than witty satire. His prologues and -epilogues are devoted to a self-acclamation which was entirely foreign -to Shakespeare's nature. Asper in _Every Man out of his Humour_ (1599), -Crites in _Cynthia's Revels_ (1600), and Horace in _The Poetaster_ -(1601), are so many pieces of self-idolising self-portraiture. - -All who, in his judgment, degrade art are made to pay the penalty -in scathing caricatures. In _The Poetaster_, for example, his -taskmaster, Henslow, is presented under the name of Histrio as a -depraved slave-dealer, and his colleagues Marston and Dekker are -held up to ridicule under Roman names, as intrusive and despicable -scribblers. Their attacks upon the admirable poet Horace, whose name -and personality the extremely dissimilar Ben Jonson has arrogated to -himself, spring from contemptible motives, and receive a disgraceful -punishment. - -This whole warfare must not be taken too seriously. The worthy -Ben could be at the same time an indignant moralist and a genial -boon-companion. We presently find him taking service afresh with the -very Henslow whom he has just treated with such withering contempt; -and though his attack of 1601 had been met by a most malicious retort -in Marston and Dekker's _Satiromastix_, he, three years afterwards, -accepts the dedication of Marston's _Malcontent_, and in 1605 -collaborates with this lately-lampooned colleague and with Chapman in -the comedy of _Eastward Ho!_ One could not but think of the German -proverb, "Pack schlagt sich, Pack vertragt sich," were it not that -Jonson's action at this juncture reveals him in anything but a vulgar -light. Marston and Chapman having been thrown into prison for certain -gibes at the Scotch in this play, which had come to the notice of the -King, and being reported to be in danger of having their noses and -ears cut off, Ben Jonson, of his own free will, claimed his share -in the responsibility and joined them in prison. At a supper which, -after their liberation, he gave to all his friends, his mother clinked -glasses with him, and at the same time showed him a paper, the contents -of which she had intended to mix with his drink in prison if he had -been sentenced to mutilation. She added that she herself would not have -survived him, but would have taken her share of the poison. She must -have been a mother worthy of such a son. - -While Ben lay in durance on account of his duel, he had been converted -to Catholicism by a priest who attended him--a conversion at which his -adversaries did not fail to jeer. He does not seem, however, to have -embraced the Catholic dogma with any great fervour, for twelve years -later he once more changes his religion and returns to the Protestant -Church. Equally characteristic of Ben and of the Renaissance is his own -statement, preserved for us by Drummond, that at his first communion -after his reconciliation with Protestantism, in token of his sincere -return to the doctrine which gave laymen, as well as priests access to -the chalice, he drained at one draught the whole of the consecrated -wine. - -Not without humour, moreover--to use Jonson's own favourite word--is -his story of the way in which Raleigh's son, to whom he acted as -governor during a tour in France (while Raleigh himself was in -the Tower), took a malicious pleasure in making his mentor dead -drunk, having him wheeled in a wheelbarrow through the streets of -Paris, and showing him off to the mob at every street corner. Ben's -strong insistence on his spiritual dignity was not infrequently -counterbalanced by an extreme carelessness of his personal dignity. - -With all his weaknesses, however, he was a sturdy, energetic, and -high-minded man, a commanding, independent, and very comprehensive -intelligence; and from 1598, when he makes his first appearance on -Shakespeare's horizon, throughout the rest of his life, he was, so -far as we can see, the man of all his contemporaries whose name was -oftenest mentioned along with Shakespeare's. In after days, especially -outside England, the name of Ben Jonson has come to sound small enough -in comparison with the name of solitary greatness with which it was -once bracketed; but at that time, although Jonson was never so popular -as Shakespeare, they were commonly regarded in literary circles as the -dramatic twin-brethren of the age. For us it is still more interesting -to remember that Ben Jonson was one of the few with whom we know that -Shakespeare was on terms of constant familiarity, and, moreover, that -he brought to this intercourse a set of definite artistic principles, -widely different from Shakespeare's own. Though his society may -have been somewhat fatiguing, it must nevertheless have been both -instructive and stimulating to Shakespeare, since Ben was greatly his -superior in historical and linguistic knowledge, while as a poet he -pursued a totally different ideal. - -Ben Jonson was a great dramatic intelligence. He never, like the other -poets of his time, took this or that novel and dramatised it as it -stood, regardless of its more or less incoherent structure, its more or -less flagrant defiance of topographical, geographical, or historical -reality. With architectural solidity--was he not the step-son of a -master-builder?--he built up his dramatic plan out of his own head, -and, being a man of great learning, he did his best to avoid all -incongruities of local colour. If he is now and then negligent in this -respect--if the characters in _Volpone_ now and then talk as if they -were in London, not in Venice, and those in _The Poetaster_ as if they -were in England, not in Rome--it is because of his satiric purpose, and -not at all by reason of the indifference to such considerations which -characterises all other dramatists of the time, Shakespeare not the -least. - -The fundamental contrast between them can be most shortly expressed -in the statement that Ben Jonson accepted the view of human nature -set forth in the classic comedies and the Latin tragedies. He -does not represent it as many-sided, with inward developments and -inconsistencies, but fixes character in typical forms, with one -dominant trait thrown into high relief. He portrays, for example, the -crafty parasite, or the eccentric who cannot endure noise, or the -braggart captain, or the depraved anarchist (Catiline), or the stern -man of honour (Cato)--and all these personalities are neither more nor -less than the labels imply, and act up to their description always and -in all circumstances. The pencil with which he draws is hard, but he -wields it with such power that his best outlines subsist through the -centuries, unforgettable, despite their occasional oddity of design, -in virtue of the indignation with which wickedness and meanness -are branded, and the racy merriment with which the caricatures are -sketched, the farces worked out. - -Some of Molière's farces may now and then remind us of Jonson's, but, -as regards the pitiless intensity of the satire, we shall find no -counterpart to his _Volpone_ until we come in our own times to Gogol's -_Revisor_. - -The Graces stood by Shakespeare's cradle, not by Jonson's; and yet this -heavy-armed warrior has now and then attained to grace as well--has now -and then given a holiday to his sound systematic intelligence and his -solidly-constructed logic, and, like a true poet of the Renaissance, -soared into the rarer atmosphere of pure fantasy. - -He shows himself very much at home in the allegorical masques which -were performed at court festivals; and in the pastoral play _The -Sad Shepherd_ which seems to have been written upon his death-bed, -he proved that even in the purely romantic style he could challenge -comparison with the best writers of his day. Yet it is not in this -sphere that he displays his true originality. It is in his keen and -faithful observation of the conditions and manners of his time, which -Shakespeare left on one side, or depicted only incidentally and -indirectly. The London of Elizabeth lives again in Jonson's plays; both -the lower and higher circles, but especially the lower: the haunters of -taverns and theatres, the men of the riverside and the markets, rogues -and vagabonds, poets and players, watermen and jugglers, bear-leaders -and hucksters, rich city dames, Puritan fanatics and country squires, -English oddities of every class and kind, each speaking his own -language, dialect, or jargon. Shakespeare never kept so close to the -life of the day. - -It is especially Johnson's scholarship that must have made his -society full of instruction for Shakespeare. Ben's acquirements were -encyclopædic, and his acquaintance with the authors of antiquity was -singularly complete and accurate. It has often been remarked that he -was not content with an exhaustive knowledge of the leading writers -of Greece and Rome. He knows not only the great historians, poets, -and orators, such as Tacitus and Sallust, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, and -Cicero, but sophists, grammarians, and scholiasts, men like Athenæus, -Libanius, Philostratus, Strabo, Photius. He is familiar with fragments -of Æolic lyrists and Roman epic poets, of Greek tragedies and Roman -inscriptions; and, what is still more remarkable, he manages to make -use of all his knowledge. Whatever in the ancients he found beautiful -or profound or stimulating, that he wove into his work. Dryden says of -him in his "Essay of Dramatic Poesy":-- - - "The greatest man of the last age (Ben Jonson) was willing - to give place to the ancients in all things: he was not only - a professed imitator of Horace, but a learned plagiary of - all the others; you track him everywhere in their snow. If - Horace, Lucan, Petronius Arbiter, Seneca, and Juvenal had - their own from him, there are few serious thoughts which are - new in him.... But he has done his robberies so openly, that - one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades - authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other - poets is only victory in him." - -Certain it is that an uncommon learning and an extraordinary memory -supplied him with an immense store of small touches, poetical and -rhetorical details, which he could not refrain from incorporating in -his plays. - -Yet his mass of learning was not of a merely verbal or rhetorical -nature; he knew things as well as words. Whatever subject he treats of, -be it alchemy, or witchcraft, or cosmetics in the time of Tiberius, he -handles it with competence and has its whole literature at his fingers' -ends. He thus becomes universal like Shakespeare, but in a different -way. Shakespeare knows, firstly, all that cannot be learnt from books, -and in the second place, whatever can be gleaned by genius from a -casual utterance, an intelligent hint, a conversation with a man of -high acquirements. Besides this, he knows the literature which was at -that time within the reach of a quick-witted and studious man without -special scholarship. Ben Jonson, on the other hand, is a scholar by -profession. He has learnt from books all that the books of his day--for -the most part, of course, the not too numerous survivals of the classic -literatures--could teach a man who made scholarship his glory. He not -only possesses knowledge, but he knows whence he has acquired it; he -can cite his authorities by chapter and paragraph, and he sometimes -garnishes his plays with so many learned references that they bristle -with notes like an academic thesis. - -Colossal, coarse-grained, vigorous, and always ready for the fray, with -his gigantic burden of learning, he has been compared by Taine to one -of those war-elephants of antiquity which bore on their backs a whole -fortress, with garrison, armoury, and munitions, and under the weight -of this panoply could yet move as quickly as a fleet-footed horse. - -It must have been intensely interesting for their comrades at the -Mermaid to listen to the discussions between Jonson and Shakespeare, -to follow two such remarkable minds, so differently organised and -equipped, when they debated, in jest or earnest, this or that historic -problem, this or that moot point in æsthetics; and no less interesting -is it for us, in our days, to compare their almost contemporaneous -dramatic treatment of Roman antiquity. We might here expect Shakespeare -to have the worst of it, since he, according to Jonson's well-known -phrase, had "small Latine and less Greek;" while Ben was as much -at home in ancient Rome as in the London of his day, and, with his -altogether masculine talent, could claim a certain kinship with the -Roman spirit. - -And yet even here Shakespeare stands high above Jonson, who, with all -his learning and industry, lacks his great contemporary's sense for the -fundamental element in human nature, to which the terms good and bad do -not apply, and has, besides, very few of those unforeseen inspirations -of genius which constitute Shakespeare's strength, and make up for all -the gaps in his knowledge. Jonson, moreover, could not modulate into -the minor key, and is thus unable to depict the inmost subtleties of -feminine character. - -None the less would it be unjust to make Jonson, as the Germans are -apt to do, nothing but a foil to Shakespeare. We must, in mere equity, -bring out the points at which he attains to real greatness. - -Although the scene of _The Poetaster_ is laid in Rome in the days of -Augustus, the play eludes comparison with Shakespeare's Roman dramas in -so far as its costume is partly a mere travesty under which Ben Jonson -defends himself against his contemporaries Marston and Dekker, who also -figure, of course, in a Roman disguise. Even here, however, he has done -his best to give an accurate picture of antique Roman manners, and -has applied to the task all his learning, with rather too little aid, -perhaps, from his fancy. His comic figures, for instance, the intrusive -Crispinus and the foolish singer Hermogenes, are taken bodily from -Horace's Satires (Book i. Satires 3 and 9); but both these pleasant -caricatures are executed with vigour and life. - -Ben Jonson has in this play woven together three different actions, one -only of which has a symbolic meaning outside the frame of the picture. -In the first place, he presents Ovid's struggle for leave to follow his -poetic vocation, his suspected love-affair with Augustus's daughter, -Julia, and his banishment from the court when Augustus discovers the -intrigue between the young poet and his child. In the second place, he -introduces us into the house of the rich bourgeois Albius, who has been -ill-advised enough to marry one of the emancipated great ladies of the -period, Chloe by name, and who, by her help, obtains admission to court -society. Chloe's house is a meeting-place for all the love-poets of the -period, Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid, Cornelius Gallus, and the ladies -who favour them; and Jonson has succeeded very fairly in suggesting -the free tone of conversation prevalent in those circles, which -was doubtless reproduced in many circles of London life during the -Renaissance. Finally, we have a representation--Jonson's chief object -in writing the play--of the conspiracy of the bad and envious poets -against Horace, which culminates in a formal impeachment. The Emperor -himself, and the famous poets of his court, form a sort of tribunal -before which the case is tried. Horace is acquitted on every count, -and the accusers are sentenced to a punishment entirely in the spirit -of the Aristophanic comedy--so foreign to Shakespeare--Crispinus being -forced to take a pill of hellebore, which makes him vomit up all the -affected or merely novel words he has used, which appear to Ben Jonson -ridiculous. Some of them--for example the first two, "retrograde" and -"reciprocal"--have nevertheless survived in modern English. In spite of -its allegorical character, the episode is not deficient in an almost -too pungent realism. - -The most Roman of all these scenes are doubtless those in which the -gallantry between the young men and the ladies, and the snobbery which -forces its way into Augustus's court, are freely represented. Less -Roman, by reason of their too palpable tendency, are the scenes in -which Augustus appears in the circle of his court poets. No serious -attempt is made to portray the Emperor's character, and the speeches -placed in the mouths of the poets are very clearly designed simply for -the glorification of poetry in general, and Ben Jonson in particular. - -The sins of which his enemies were always accusing him were "self-love, -arrogancy, impudence, and railing," together with "filching by -translation." As he explains in the defensive dialogue which he -appended to his play, it was his purpose-- - - "To show that Virgil, Horace, and the rest - Of those great master-spirits, did not want - Detractors then, or practisers against them." - -He makes foolish persons find injurious allusions to themselves, and -even insults to the Emperor, in entirely innocent poems of Horace's, -and shows how the Emperor orders them to be whipped as backbiters. -Horace's literary relation to the Greeks, be it noted, was not unlike -that of Ben Jonson himself to the Latin writers. - -A special interest attaches for us to the passage in the fifth act, -where, immediately before Virgil's entrance, the different poets, at -the suggestion of the Emperor, express their judgment of his genius, -and where Horace, after warmly protesting against the common belief -that one poet is necessarily envious of another, joins in the general -eulogy of his great rival. There is this remarkable circumstance about -the encomiums on Virgil, here placed in the mouths of Gallus, Tibullus, -and Horace, that while some of them are appropriate enough to the real -Virgil (else all verisimilitude would have been sacrificed), others -seem unmistakably to point away from Virgil towards one or other famous -contemporary of Jonson's own. Look for a moment at these speeches (v. -I):-- - - "_Tibullus_. That which he hath writ - Is with such judgment labour'd, and distill'd - Through all the needful uses of our lives, - That could a man remember but his lines, - He should not touch at any serious point, - But he might breathe his spirit out of him. - _Augustus_. You mean, he might repeat part of his works - As fit for any conference he can use? - _Tibullus_. True, royal Cæsar. - _Horace_. His learning savours not the school-like gloss - That most consists in echoing words and terms, - And soonest wins a man an empty name; - Nor any long or far-fetch'd circumstance - Wrapp'd in the curious generalties of arts, - But a direct and analytic sum - Of all the worth and first effects of arts. - And for his poesy, 'tis so ramm'd with life, - That it shall gather strength of life, with being, - And live hereafter more admired than now." - -Can we conceive that Ben Jonson had not Shakespeare in his eye as he -wrote these speeches, which apply better to him than to any one else? -It is true that a Shakespeare scholar of such authority as the late C. -M. Ingleby, the compiler of _Shakespeare's Centurie of Prayse_, has -declared against this theory, together with Nicholson and Furnivall. -But none of them has brought forward any conclusive argument to -prevent us from following Ben Jonson's admirer, Gifford, and his -impartial critic, John Addington Symonds, in accepting these speeches -as allusions to Shakespeare. It is useless to be for ever citing the -passage in _The Return from Parnassus_, as to the "purge" Shakespeare -has given Ben Jonson, in proof that there was an open feud between -them, when, in fact, there is no evidence whatever of any hostility -on Shakespeare's part; and the very stress laid on the assertion that -Horace, as a poet, is innocent of envy towards a famous and popular -colleague, makes it unreasonable to take the eulogies as applying -solely to the real Virgil, whom they fit so imperfectly. Of course -it by no means follows that we are to conceive every word of these -eulogies as unreservedly applied to Shakespeare; the speeches seem to -have been purposely left somewhat vague, so that they might at once -point to the ancient poet and suggest the modern. But out of the mists -of the characterisation certain definite contours stand forth; and the -physiognomy which they form, the picture of the great teacher in all -earthly affairs, rich, not in book-learning, but in the wisdom of life, -whose poetry is so vital that it will live through the ages with an -ever-intenser life--this portrait we know and recognise as that of the -genius with the great, calm eyes under the lofty brow. - -Ben Jonson's _Sejanus_, which dates from 1603, only two years after -_The Poetaster_, is a historical tragedy of the time of Tiberius, in -which the poet, without any reference to contemporary personalities, -sets forth to depict the life and customs of the imperial court. It is -as an archæologist and moralist, however, that he depicts them, and his -method is thus very different from Shakespeare's. He not only displays -a close acquaintance with the life of the period, but penetrates -through the outward forms to its spirit. He is animated, indeed, by a -purely moral indignation against the turbulent and corrupt protagonist -of his tragedy, but his wrath does not prevent him from giving a -careful delineation of the figure of Sejanus in relation to its -surroundings, by means of thoughtfully-designed and even imaginative -individual scenes. Jonson does not, like Shakespeare, display from -within the character of this unscrupulous and audacious man, but he -shows the circumstances which have produced it, and its modes of action. - -The difference between Jonson's and Shakespeare's method is not that -Jonson pedantically avoids the anachronisms which swarm in _Julius -Cæsar_. In both plays, for instance, watches are spoken of.[1] But Ben, -on occasion, can paint a scene of Roman life with as much accuracy -as we find in a picture by Alma Tadema or a novel by Flaubert. For -example, when he depicts an act of worship and sacrifice in the -Sacellum or private chapel of Sejanus's house (v. 4), every detail of -the ceremonial is correct. After the Herald (Præco) has uttered the -formula, "Be all profane far hence," and horn and flute players have -performed their liturgical music, the priest (Flamen) exhorts all to -appear with "pure hands, pure vestments, and pure minds;" his acolytes -intone the complementary responses; and while the trumpets are again -sounded, he takes honey from the altar with his finger, tastes it, and -gives it to the others to taste; goes through the same process with -the milk in an earthen vessel; and then sprinkles milk over the altar, -"kindleth his gums," and goes with the censer round the altar, upon -which he ultimately places it, dropping "branches of poppy" upon the -smouldering incense. In justification of these traits, Jonson gives no -fewer than thirteen footnotes, in which passages are cited from a very -wide range of Latin authors. Kalisch has counted the notes appended to -this play, and finds 291 in all. The ceremonial is here employed to -introduce a scene in which "great Mother Fortune," to whom the libation -is made, averts her face from Sejanus, and thereby portends his fall; -whereupon, in an access of fury, he overturns her statue and altar. - -Another scene, constructed with quite as much learning, and far more -able and remarkable, is that which opens the second Act. Livia's -physician, Eudemus, has been suborned by Sejanus to procure him a -meeting with the princess, and, moreover, to concoct a potent poison -for her husband. In the act of assisting his mistress to rouge her -cheek, and recommending her an effective "dentrifice" and a "prepared -pomatum to smooth the skin," he answers her casual questions as to who -is to present the poisoned cup to Drusus and induce him to drink it. -Here, again, Ben Jonson's mastery of detail displays itself. Eudemus's -remark, for example, that the "ceruse" on Livia's cheeks has faded in -the sun, is supported by a reference to an epigram of Martial, from -which it appears that this cosmetic was injured by heat. But here all -these details are merged in the potent general impression produced by -the dispassionate and business-like calmness with which the impending -murder is arranged in the intervals of a disquisition upon those -devices of the toilet which are to enchain the contriver of the crime. - -Ben Jonson possesses the undaunted insight and the vigorous -pessimism which render it possible to represent Roman depravity and -wild-beast-like ferocity under the first Emperors without extenuation -and without declamation. He cannot, indeed, dispense with a sort of -chorus of honourable Romans, but they express themselves, as a rule, -pithily and without prolixity; and he has enough sense of art and of -history never to let his ruffians and courtesans repent. - -Now and then he even attains to a Shakespearian level. The scene in -which Sejanus approaches Eudemus first with jesting talk, and then, -with wily insinuations, worms himself into his acquaintance and makes -him his creature, while Eudemus, with crafty servility, shows that -he can take a half-spoken hint, and, without for a moment committing -himself, offers his services as pander and assassin--this passage is in -no way inferior to the scene in Shakespeare's _King John_ in which the -King suggests to Hubert the murder of Arthur. - -The most remarkable scene, however, is that (v. 10) in which the Senate -is assembled in the Temple of Apollo to hear messages from Tiberius -in his retreat at Capri. The first letter confers upon Sejanus "the -tribunitial dignity and power," with expressions of esteem, and the -Senate loudly acclaims the favourite. Then the second letter is read. -It is expressed in a strangely contorted style, begins with some -general remarks on public policy, hypocritical in tone, then turns, -like the first, to Sejanus, and, to the astonishment of all, dwells -with emphasis upon his low origin and the rare honours to which he has -been preferred. Already the hearers are alarmed; but the impression is -obliterated by new sentences of flattery. Then unfavourable opinions -and judgments regarding the favourite are cited and dwelt upon with -a certain complacency; then they are refuted with some vehemence; -finally, they are brought forward again, and this time in a manner -unmistakably hostile to Sejanus. Immediately the senators who have -swarmed around him withdraw from his neighbourhood, leaving him in the -centre of an empty space; and the reading continues until Laco enters -with the guards who are to arrest the hitherto all-powerful favourite -and lead him away. We can find no parallel to this reading of the -letter and the vacillations it produces among the cringing senators, -save in Antony's speech over the body of Cæsar and the consequent -revulsion in the attitude and temper of the Roman mob. Shakespeare's -scene is more vividly projected, and shines with the poet's humour; -Jonson's scene is elaborated with grim energy, and worked out with the -moralist's bitterness. But in the dramatic movement of the moralist's -scene, no less than of the poet's, antique Rome lives again. - -Jonson's _Catiline_, written some time later, appeared in 1611, and -was dedicated to Pembroke. Although executed on the same principles, -it is on the whole inferior to _Sejanus_; but it is better fitted for -comparison with _Julius Cæsar_ in so far as its action belongs to the -same period, and Cæsar himself appears in it. The second act of the -tragedy is in its way a masterpiece. As soon as Jonson enters upon -the political action proper, he transcribes endless speeches from -Cicero, and becomes intolerably tedious; but so long as he keeps to the -representation of manners, and seeks, as in his comedies, to paint a -quite unemotional picture of the period, he shows himself at his best. - -This second act takes place at the house of Fulvia, the lady who, -according to Sallust, betrayed to Cicero the conspirators' secret. The -whole picture produces an entirely convincing effect. She first repels -with unfeeling coldness an intrusive friend and protector, Catiline's -fellow-conspirator, Curius; but when he at last turns away in anger, -telling her that she will repent her conduct when she finds herself -excluded from participation in an immense booty which will fall to the -share of others, she calls him back, full of curiosity and interest, -becomes suddenly friendly, and even caressing, and wrings from him -his secret, instantly recognising, however, that Cicero will pay for -it without stint, and that this money is considerably safer than the -sum which might fall to her share in a general revolution. Her visit -to Cicero, with his craftily friendly interrogatory, first of her, -and then of her lover Curius, whom he summons and converts into one -of his spies, deserves the highest praise. These scenes contain the -concentrated essence of Sallust's _Catiline_ and of Cicero's Orations -and Letters. The Cicero of this play rises high above the Cicero to -whom Shakespeare has assigned a few speeches. Cæsar, on the other -hand, comes off no better at Ben Jonson's hands than at Shakespeare's. -The poet was obviously determined to show a certain independence of -judgment in the way in which he has treated Sallust's representation -both of Cæsar and of Cicero. Sallust, whom Jonson nevertheless follows -in the main, is hostile to Cicero and defends Cæsar. The worthy Ben, on -the other hand, was, as a man of letters, a sworn admirer of Cicero, -while in Cæsar he sees only a cold, crafty personage, who sought to -make use of Catiline for his own ends, and therefore joined forces with -him, but repudiated him when things went wrong, and was so influential -that Cicero dared not attack him when he rooted out the conspiracy. -Thus the great Caius Julius did not touch Jonson's manly heart any more -than Shakespeare's. He appears throughout in an extremely unsympathetic -light, and no speech, no word of his, portends his coming greatness. - -Of this greatness Jonson had probably no deep realisation. It -is surprising enough to note that the scholars and poets of the -Renaissance, in so far as they took sides in the old strife between -Cæsar and Pompey, were all on Pompey's side. Even in the seventeenth -century, in France, under a despotism more absolute than Cæsar's, the -men who were familiar with antique history, and who, for the rest, vied -with each other in loyalty and king-worship, were unanimously opposed -to Cæsar. Strange as it may seem, it is not until our century, with -its hostility to despotism and its continuous advance in the direction -of democracy, that Cæsar's genius has been fully appreciated, and the -benefits his life conferred on humanity have been thoroughly understood. - -The personal relation between Ben Jonson and Shakespeare is not to this -day quite clearly ascertained. It was for long regarded as distinctly -hostile, no one doubting that Jonson, during his great rival's -lifetime, cherished an obstinate jealousy towards him. More recently, -Jonson's admirers have argued with warmth that cruel injustice has been -done him in this respect. So far as we can now judge, it appears that -Jonson honestly recognised and admired Shakespeare's great qualities, -but at the same time felt a displeasure he never could quite conquer -at seeing him so much more popular as a dramatist, and--as was only -natural--regarded his own tendencies in art as truer and better -justified. - -In the preface to _Sejanus_ (edition of 1605) Jonson uses an expression -which, as the piece was acted by Shakespeare's company, and Shakespeare -himself appeared in it, was long interpreted as referring to him. -Jonson writes:-- - - "Lastly, I would inform you that this book, in all numbers, - is not the same with that which was acted on the public - stage, wherein a second pen had good share; in place of - which, I have rather chosen to put weaker, and, no doubt, - less pleasing, of mine own, than to defraud so happy a - genius of his right by my loathed usurpation." - -The words "so happy a genius," in particular, together with the -other circumstances, have directed the thoughts of commentators to -Shakespeare. Mr. Brinsley Nicholson, however (in the _Academy_, Nov. -14th, 1874), has shown it to be far more probable that the person -alluded to is not Shakespeare, but a very inferior poet, Samuel -Sheppard. The marked politeness of Jonson's expressions may be due to -his having inflicted on his collaborator a considerable disappointment, -almost an insult, by omitting his portion of the work, and at the same -time excluding his name from the title-page. It seems, at any rate, -that Samuel Sheppard felt wounded by this proceeding, since, more -than forty years later, he claimed for himself the honour of having -collaborated in _Sejanus_, in a verse which is ostensibly a panegyric -on Jonson.[2] Symonds, so late as 1888, nevertheless maintains in his -_Ben Jonson_ that the preface most probably refers to Shakespeare; but -he does not refute or even mention Nicholson's carefully-marshalled -argument. - -It is not, however, of great importance to decide whether a compliment -in one of Jonson's prefaces is or is not addressed to Shakespeare, -since we have ample evidence in the warm eulogy and mild criticism -in his _Discoveries_, and in the enthusiastic poem prefixed to the -First Folio, that the crusty Ben (who, moreover, is said to have been -Shakespeare's boon companion on his last convivial evening) regarded -him with the warmest feelings, at least towards the close of his life -and after his death. - -This does not exclude the probability that Jonson's radically different -literary ideals may have led him to make incidental and sometimes -rather tart allusions to what appeared to him weak or mistaken in -Shakespeare's work. - -There is no foundation for the theory which has sometimes been -advanced, that the passage in _The Poetaster_ ridiculing Crispinus's -coat of arms is an allusion to Shakespeare. It is beyond all doubt -that the figure of Crispinus was exclusively intended for Marston; he -himself, at any rate, did not for a moment doubt it. For the rest, -Jonson's ascertained or conjectured side-glances at Shakespeare are -these:-- - -In the prologue to _Every Man in his Humour_, which can scarcely have -been spoken when the play was performed by the Lord Chamberlain's -company, not only is realistic art proclaimed the true art, in -opposition to the romanticism which prevailed on the Shakespearian -stage, but a quite definite attack is made on those who - - "With three rusty swords, - And help of some few foot and half-foot words, - Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars." - -And this is followed by a really biting criticism of the works of other -playwrights, concluding-- - - "There's hope left then, - You, that have so graced monsters, may like men." - -The possible jibe at _Twelfth Night_ in _Every Man out of his Humour_ -(iii. I) has already been mentioned (_ante_, p. 272). That, too, must -be of late insertion, and is at worst extremely innocent. - -Much has been made of the passage in _Volpone_ (iii. 2) where Lady -Politick Would-be, speaking of Guarini's _Pastor Fido_, says:-- - - "All our English writers - Will deign to steal out of this author, mainly: - Almost as much as from Montagnié." - -This has been interpreted as an accusation of plagiarism, some pointing -it at the well-known passage in _The Tempest_, where Shakespeare has -annexed some lines, from Montaigne's Essays; others at _Hamlet_, which -has throughout many points of contact with the French philosopher. But -_The Tempest_ was undoubtedly written long after _Volpone_, and the -relation of _Hamlet_ to Montaigne is such as to render it scarcely -conceivable that an accusation of plagiarism could be founded upon it. -Here again Jonson seems to have been groundlessly suspected of malice. - -Jacob Feis (_Shakespeare and Montaigne_, p. 183) would fain see in -Nano's song about the hermaphrodite Androgyno a shameless attack upon -Shakespeare, simply because the names Pythagoras and Euphorbus appear -in it (_Volpone_, i. I), as they do in the well-known passage in Meres; -but this accusation is entirely fantastic. Equally unreasonable is it -of Feis to discover an obscene besmirching of the figure of Ophelia in -that passage of Jonson, Marston, and Chapman's _Eastward Ho!_ (iii. 2) -where there occur some passing allusions to _Hamlet_. - -There remain, then, in reality, only one or two passages in -_Bartholomew Fair_, dating from 1614. We have already seen (_ante_, p. -337) that there may possibly be a satirical allusion to the Sonnets -in the introduced puppet-play, _The Touchstone of True Love_. The -Induction contains an unquestionable jibe, both at _The Tempest_ and -_The Winter's Tale_, whose airy poetry the downright Ben was unable to -appreciate.[3] Neither Caliban nor the element of enchantment in _The -Tempest_ appealed to him, and in _The Winters Tale_, as in _Pericles_, -it offended his classic taste and his Aristotelian theories that the -action should extend over a score of years, so that we see infants in -one act reappear in the next as grown-up young women. - -But these trifling intolerances and impertinences must not tempt us to -forget that it was Ben Jonson who wrote of Shakespeare those great and -passionate lines:-- - - "Triumph, my Britain! thou hast one to show - To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe. - He was not of an age, but for all time!" - - -[1] "Observe him as his watch observes his clock."--_Sejanus_, i. I. - -[2] He says of Jonson in _The Times Displayed in Six Sesfyads_:-- - - "So His, that Divine Plautus equalled, - Whose Commick vain Menander nere could hit, - Whose tragic sceans shal be with wonder Read - By after ages, for unto his wit - My selfe gave personal ayd, _I_ dictated - To him when as _Sejanus_ fall he writ, - And yet on earth some foolish sots there bee - That dare make Randolph his Rival in degree." - -[3] "If there be never a servant-monster in the fair, who can help -it, he says, nor a nest of antiques? He is loth to make Nature afraid -in his plays, like those that beget tales, tempests, and such-like -drolleries." - - - - -XI - -_HAMLET: ITS ANTECEDENTS IN FICTION, HISTORY, AND DRAMA_ - -Many and various emotions crowded upon Shakespeare's mind in the year -1601. In its early months Essex and Southampton were condemned. At -exactly the same time there occurs the crisis in the relations of -Pembroke and Shakespeare with the Dark Lady. Finally, in the early -autumn, Shakespeare suffered a loss which he must have felt deeply. The -Stratford register of burials for 1601 contains this line-- - - _Septemb._ 8. Mr. _Johannes Shakespeare_. - -He lost his father, his earliest friend and guardian, whose honour and -reputation lay so near to his heart. The father probably lived with his -son's family in the handsome New Place, which Shakespeare had bought -four years before. He had doubtless brought up the two girls Susannah -and Judith; he had doubtless sat by the death-bed of the little Hamnet. -Now he was no more. All the years of his youth, spent at his father's -side, revived in Shakespeare's mind, memories flocked in upon him, the -fundamental relation between son and father preoccupied his thoughts, -and he fell to brooding over filial love and filial reverence. - -In the same year _Hamlet_ began to take shape in Shakespeare's -imagination. - -_Hamlet_ has given the name of Denmark a world-wide renown. Of all -Danish men, there is only one who can be called famous on the largest -scale; only one with whom the thoughts of men are for ever busied in -Europe, America, Australia, aye, even in Asia and Africa, wherever -European culture has made its way; and this one never existed, at any -rate in the form in which he has become known to the world. Denmark -has produced several men of note--Tycho Brahe, Thorvaldsen, and Hans -Christian Andersen--but none of them has attained a hundredth part of -Hamlet's fame. The _Hamlet_ literature is comparable in extent to the -literature of one of the smaller European peoples--the Slovaks, for -instance. - -As it is interesting to follow with the eye the process by which a -block of marble slowly assumes human form, so it is interesting to -observe how the _Hamlet_ theme gradually acquires its Shakespearian -character. - -The legend first appears in Saxo Grammaticus. Fengo murders his -brave brother Horvendil, and marries his widow Gerutha (Gertrude). -Horvendil's son, Amleth, determines to disarm Fengo's malevolence -by feigning madness. In order to test whether he is really mad, a -beautiful girl is thrown in his way, who is to note whether, in his -passion for her, he still maintains the appearance of madness. But a -foster-brother and friend of Amleth's reveals the plot to him; the -girl, too, has an old affection for him; and nothing is discovered. -Here lie the germs of Ophelia and Horatio. - -With regard to Amleth's mad talk, it is explained that, having a -conscientious objection to lying, he so contorted his sayings that, -though he always said what he meant, people could not discover -whether he meant what he said, or himself understood it--an account -of the matter which applies quite as well to the dark sayings of the -Shakespearian Hamlet as to the naïve riddling of the Jutish Amleth. - -Polonius, too, is here already indicated--especially the scene in which -he plays eavesdropper to Hamlet's conversation with his mother. One of -the King's friends (_præsumtione quam solertia abundantior_) proposes -that some one shall conceal himself in the Queen's chamber. Amleth runs -his sword through him and throws the dismembered body to the pigs, as -Hamlet in the play drags the body out with him. Then ensues Amleth's -speech of reproach to his mother, of which not a little is retained -even in Shakespeare:-- - - "Think'st thou, woman, that these hypocritical tears can - cleanse thee of shame, thee, who like a wanton hast cast - thyself into the arms of the vilest of nithings, hast - incestuously embraced thy husband's murderer, and basely - flatterest and fawnest upon the man who has made thy son - fatherless! What manner of creature doest thou resemble? Not - a woman, but a dumb beast who couples at random." - -Fengo resolves to send Amleth to meet his death in England, and -despatches him thither with two attendants, to whom Shakespeare, as -we know, has given the names of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern--the -names of two Danish noblemen whose signatures have been found in close -juxtaposition (with the date 1577) in an album which probably belonged -to a Duke of Würtemberg. They were colleagues in the Council of Regency -during the minority of Christian IV. These attendants (according to -Saxo) had rune-staves with them, on which Amleth altered the runes, as -in the play he re-writes the letters. - -One more little touch is, as it were, led up to in Saxo: the exchange -of the swords. Amleth, on his return, finds the King's men assembled -at his own funeral feast. He goes around with a drawn sword, and on -trying its edge against his nails he once or twice cuts himself with -it. Therefore they nail his sword fast into its sheath. When Amleth has -set fire to the hall and rushes into Fengo's chamber to murder him, -he takes the King's sword from its hook and replaces it with his own, -which the King in vain attempts to draw before he dies. - -Now that Hamlet, more than any other Dane, has made the name of his -fatherland world-famous, it impresses us strangely to read this -utterance of Saxo's: "Imperishable shall be the memory of the steadfast -youth who armed himself against falsehood with folly, and with it -marvellously cloaked the splendour of heaven-radiant wisdom.... He -left history in doubt as to whether his heroism or his wisdom was the -greater." - -The Hamlet of the tragedy, with reference to his mother's too hasty -marriage, says, "Frailty, thy name is woman!" Saxo remarked with -reference to Amleth's widow, who was in too great a hurry to marry -again: "Thus it is with all the promises of women: they are scattered -like chaff before the wind and pass away like waves of the sea. Who -then will trust to a woman's heart, which changes as flowers shed their -leaves, as seasons change, and as new events wipe out the traces of -those that went before?" - -In Saxo's eyes, Amleth represented not only wisdom, but bodily -strength. While the Hamlet of Shakespeare expressly emphasises the -fact that he is anything but Herculean ("My father's brother, but no -more like my father than I to Hercules"), Saxo expressly compares his -hero to the Club-Bearer whose name is a synonym for strength: "And the -fame of men shall tell of him that, if it had been given him to live -his life fortunately to the end, his excellent dispositions would have -displayed themselves in deeds greater than those of Hercules, and would -have adorned his brows with the demigod's wreath." It sounds almost as -though Shakespeare's Hamlet entered a protest against these words of -Saxo. - -In the year 1559 the legend was reproduced in French in Belleforest's -_Histoires Tragiques_, and seems in this form to have reached England, -where it furnished material for the older _Hamlet_ drama, now lost, -but to which we find frequent allusions. It cannot be proved that this -play was founded upon Pavier's English translation of Belleforest, or -even that Shakespeare had Pavier before him; for the oldest edition -of the translation which has come down to us (reprinted in Collier's -_Shakespeare's Library_, ed. 1875, pt. I. vol. ii. p. 224) dates -from 1608, and contains certain details (such as the eavesdropper's -concealment behind the arras, and Hamlet's exclamation of "A rat! -a rat!" before he kills Polonius) of which there is no trace in -Belleforest, and which may quite as well have been taken from Shakespeare's -tragedy, as borrowed by him from an unknown older edition of the novel. - -The earliest known allusion to the old _Hamlet_ drama is the phrase of -Thomas Nash, dating from 1589, quoted above (p. 91). In 1594 -the Lord Chamberlain's men (Shakespeare's company), acting together -with the Lord Admiral's men at the Newington Butts theatre under the -management of Henslow and others, performed a _Hamlet_ with reference -to which Henslow notes in his account-book for June 9th: "Rd. at hamlet -... viii s." This play must have been the old one, for Henslow would -otherwise have added the letters _ne_ (new), and the receipts would -have been much greater. His share, as we see, was only eight shillings, -whereas it was sometimes as much as nine pounds. - -The chief interest of this older play seems to have centred in a figure -added by the dramatist--the Ghost of the murdered King, which cried -"Hamlet, revenge!" This cry is frequently quoted. It first appears -in 1596 in Thomas Lodge's _Wits Miserie_, where it is said of the -author that he "looks as pale as the visard of ye ghost, which cried -so miserably at ye theator like an oister-wife, _Hamlet, revenge_" It -next occurs in Dekker's _Satiromastix_, 1602, where Tucca says, "My -name's _Hamlet, revenge!_" In 1605 we find it in Thomas Smith's _Voiage -and Entertainement in Rushia_; and it is last found in 1620 in Samuel -Rowland's _Night Raven_, where, however, it seems to be an inaccurate -quotation from the _Hamlet_ we know. - -Shakespeare's play was entered in the Stationers' Register on the -26th of July 1602, under the title "A booke called _'the Revenge of -Hamlett Prince_ [of] _Denmarke' as yt was latelie Acted by the Lord -Chamberleyne his servantes._" - -That it made an instant success on the stage is almost proved by the -fact that so early as the 7th of July the opposition manager Henslow -pays Chettle twenty shillings for "The Danish Tragedy," evidently a -furbishing up of the old play. - -The publication of Shakespeare's _Hamlet_, however, did not take -place till 1603. Then appeared the First Quarto, indubitably a -pirated edition, either founded entirely on shorthand notes, or on -shorthand notes eked out by aid of the actors' parts, and completed, -in certain passages, from memory. Although this edition certainly -contains a debased and corrupt text, it is impossible to attribute to -the misunderstandings or oversights of a copyist or stenographer all -its divergences from the carefully-printed quarto of the following -year, which is practically identical with the First Folio text. The -differences are so great as to exclude such a theory. We have evidently -before us Shakespeare's first sketch of the play, although in a very -defective form; and, as far as we can see, this first sketch keeps -considerably closer than the definitive text to the old _Hamlet_ drama, -on which Shakespeare based his play. Here and there, though with -considerable uncertainty, we can even trace scenes from the old play -among Shakespeare's, and touches of its style mingling with his. It is -very significant, also, that there are more rhymes in the First than in -the Second Quarto. - -The most remarkable feature in the 1603 edition is a scene between -Horatio and the Queen in which he tells her of the King's frustrated -scheme for having Hamlet murdered in England. The object of this -scene is to absolve the Queen from complicity in the King's crime; -a purpose which can also be traced in other passages of this first -edition, and which seems to be a survival from the older drama. So -far as we can gather, Horatio appears to have played an altogether -more prominent part in the old play; Hamlet's madness appears to have -been wilder; and Polonius probably bore the name of Corambis, which -is prefixed to his speeches in the edition of 1603. Finally, as we -have seen, Shakespeare took the important character of the Ghost, not -indicated in either the legend or the novel, from this earlier _Hamlet_ -tragedy. The theory that it is the original of the German tragedy, _Der -bestrafte Brudermord,_ published by Cohn, from a manuscript of 1710, is -unsupported by evidence. - -Looking backward through the dramatic literature of England, we find -that the author of the old _Hamlet_ drama in all probability sought -inspiration in his turn in Kyd's _Spanish Tragedy_. It appears from -allusions in Jonson's _Cynthia's Revels_ and _Bartholomew Fair_ that -this play must have been written about 1584. It was one of the most -popular plays of its day with the theatre-going public. So late as -1632, Prynne in his _Histriomastix_ speaks of a woman who, on her -death-bed, instead of seeking the consolations of religion, cried out: -"Hieronimo, Hieronimo! O let me see Hieronimo acted!" - -The tragedy opens, after the fashion of its models in Seneca, with the -apparition of the murdered man's ghost, and his demand for vengeance. -Thus the Ghost in Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ is lineally descended from -the spirit of Tantalus in Seneca's _Thyestes_, and from the spirit of -Thyestes in Seneca's _Agamemnon_. Hieronimo, who has been driven mad by -sorrow for the loss of his son, speaking to the villain of the piece, -gives half-ironical, half-crazy expression to the anguish that is -torturing him:-- - - "_Lorenzo_. Why so, Hieronimo? use me. - _Hieronimo_. Who? you my lord? - I reserve your favour for a greater honour: - This is a very toy, my lord, a toy. - _Lor_. All's one, Hieronimo, acquaint me with it. - _Hier_. I' faith, my lord, 'tis an idle thing ... - The murder of a son, or so-- - A thing of nothing, my lord!" - -These phrases foreshadow Hamlet's speeches to the King. But Hieronimo -is really mad, although he speaks of his madness much as Hamlet does, -or rather denies it point-blank-- - - "Villain, thou liest, and thou dost naught - But tell me I am mad: thou liest, I am not mad. - I know thee to be Pedro, and he Jaques; - I'll prove it to thee; and were I mad, how could I?" - -Here and there, especially in Ben Jonson's additions, we come across -speeches which lie very close to passages in Hamlet. A painter, who -also has lost his son, says to Hieronimo: "Ay, sir, no man did hold a -son so dear;" whereupon he answers-- - - "What, not as thine? That is a lie, - As massy as the earth: I had a son, - Whose least unvalued hair did weigh - A thousand of thy sons; and he was murdered." - -Thus Hamlet cries to Laertes:-- - - "I lov'd Ophelia: forty thousand brothers - Could not, with all their quantity of love, - Make up my sum." - -Hieronimo, like Hamlet, again and again postpones his vengeance:-- - - "All times fit not for revenge. - Thus, therefore, will I rest me in unrest, - Dissembling quiet in unquietness: - Not seeming that I know their villainies, - That my simplicity may make them think - That ignorantly I will let all slip." - -At last he determines to have a play acted, as a means to his revenge. -The play is Kyd's own _Solyman and Perseda_, and in the course of it -the guilty personages, who play the chief parts, are slaughtered, not -in make-believe, but in reality. - -Crude and naïve though everything still is in _The Spanish Tragedy_, -which resembles _Titus Andronicus_ in style rather than any other -of Shakespeare's works, it evidently, through the medium of the -earlier _Hamlet_ play, contributed a good deal to the foundations of -Shakespeare's _Hamlet_. - -Before going more deeply into the contents of this great work, and -especially before trying to bring it into relation to Shakespeare's -personality, we have yet to see what suggestions or impulses the poet -may have found in contemporary history. - -We have already remarked upon the impression which the Essex family -tragedy must have made upon Shakespeare in his early youth, before he -had even left Stratford. All England was talking of the scandal: how -the Earl of Leicester, who was commonly suspected of having had Lord -Essex poisoned, immediately after his death had married his widow, -Lady Lettice, whose lover no one doubted that he had been during her -husband's lifetime. There is much in the character of King Claudius to -suggest that Shakespeare has here taken Leicester as his model. The -two have in common ambition, sensuality, an ingratiating conciliatory -manner, astute dissimulation, and complete unscrupulousness. On -the other hand, it is quite unreasonable to suppose, with Hermann -Conrad,[1] that Shakespeare had Essex in his eye in drawing Hamlet -himself. - -Almost as near to Shakespeare's own day as the Essex-Leicester -catastrophe had been the similar events in the Royal Family of -Scotland. Mary Stuart's second husband, Lord Darnley, who bore the -title of King of Scotland, had been murdered in 1567 by her lover, the -daring and unscrupulous Bothwell, whom the Queen almost immediately -afterwards married. Her contemporaries had no doubt whatever of -Mary's complicity in the assassination, and her son James saw in his -mother and his stepfather his father's murderers. The leaders of the -Scottish rebellion displayed before the captive Queen a banner bearing -a representation of Darnley's corpse, with her son kneeling beside it -and calling to Heaven for vengeance. Darnley, like the murdered King in -_Hamlet_, was an unusually handsome, Bothwell an unusually repulsive -man. - -James was brought up by his mother's enemies, and during her lifetime, -and after her death, was perpetually wavering between her adherents, -who had defended her legal rights, and her adversaries, who had driven -her from the country and placed James himself upon the throne. He made -one or two efforts, indeed, to soften Elizabeth's feelings towards -his mother, but refrained from all attempt to avenge her death. His -character was irresolute. He was learned and--what Hamlet is very far -from being--a superstitious pedant; but, like Hamlet, he was a lover -of the arts and sciences, and was especially interested in the art of -acting. Between 1599 and 1601 he entertained in Scotland a portion of -the company to which Shakespeare belonged; but it is uncertain whether -Shakespeare himself ever visited Scotland. There is little doubt, on -the other hand, that when, after Elizabeth's death in 1603, James made -his entrance into London, Shakespeare, richly habited in a uniform of -red cloth, walked in his train along with Burbage and a few others -of the leading players. Their company was henceforth known as "His -Majesty's Servants." - -Although there is in all this no lack of parallels to Hamlet's -circumstances, it is, of course, as ridiculous to take James as to take -Essex for the actual model of Hamlet. Nothing could at that time have -been stupider or more tactless than to remind the heir-presumptive -to the throne, or the new King, of the deplorable circumstances of -his early history. This does not exclude the supposition, however, -that contemporary history supplied Shakespeare with certain outward -elements, which, in the moment of conception, contributed to the -picture bodied forth by the creative energy of his genius. - -From this point of view, too, we must regard the piles of material -which well-meaning students bring to light, in the artless belief that -they have discovered the very stones of which Shakespeare constructed -his dramatic edifice. People do not distinguish between the possibility -that the poet may have unconsciously received a suggestion here and -there for details of his work, and the theory that he deliberately -intended an imaginative reproduction of definite historic events. -No work of imagination assuredly, and least of all such a work as -_Hamlet_, comes into existence in the way these theorists assume. It -springs from within, has its origin in an overmastering sensation -in the poet's soul, and then, in the process of growth, assimilates -certain impressions from without. - - -[1] _Preuss. Jahrbücher_, February 1895. - - - - -XII - -_"HAMLET"--MONTAIGNE AND GIORDANO BRUNO--ANTECEDENTS IN ETHNOGRAPHY_ - -Along with motives from novel, drama, and history, impressions of -a philosophical and quasi-scientific order went to the making of -_Hamlet_: Of all Shakespeare's plays, this is the profoundest and most -contemplative; a philosophic atmosphere breathes around it. Naturally -enough, then, criticism has set about inquiring to what influences we -may ascribe these broodings over life and death and the mysteries of -existence. - -Several students, such as Tschischwitz and König, have tried to make -out that Giordano Bruno exercised a preponderating influence upon -Shakespeare.[1] Passages suggesting a cycle in nature, such as Hamlet's -satirical outburst to the King about the dead Polonius (iv. 3), have -directed their thoughts to the Italian philosopher. In some cases they -have found or imagined a definite identity between sayings of Hamlet's -and of Bruno's--for instance, on determinism. Bruno has a passage in -which he emphasises the necessity by which everything is brought about: -"Whatever may be my pre-ordained eventide, when the change shall take -place, I await the day, I, who dwell in the night; but they await the -night who dwell in the daylight. All that is, is either here or there, -near or far off, now or after, soon or late." In the same spirit Hamlet -says (v. 2): "There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. -If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; -if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all." Bruno says: -"Nothing is absolutely imperfect or evil; it only seems so in relation -to something else, and what is bad for one is good for another." In -_Hamlet_ (ii. 2), "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking -makes it so." - -When once attention had been directed to Giordano Bruno, not only -his philosophical and more popular writings, but even his plays were -ransacked in search of passages that might have influenced Shakespeare. -Certain parallels and points of resemblance were indeed discovered, -very slight and trivial in themselves, but which theorists would not -believe to be fortuitous, since it was known that Giordano Bruno had -passed some time in England in Shakespeare's day, and had frequented -the society of the most distinguished men. As soon as the matter was -closely investigated, however, the probability of any direct influence -vanished almost to nothing. - -Giordano Bruno remained on English ground from 1583 to 1585. Coming -from France, where he had instructed Henri III. in the Lullian art, -a mechanical, mnemotechnic method for the solution of all possible -scientific problems, he brought with him a letter of recommendation to -Mauvissière, the French Ambassador, in whose house he was received as -a friend of the family during the whole of his stay in London. He made -the acquaintance of many leading men of the time, such as Walsingham, -Leicester, Burghley, Sir Philip Sidney and his literary circle, but -soon went on to Oxford in order to lecture there and disseminate the -doctrines which lay nearest his heart. These were the Copernican -system in opposition to the Ptolemaic, which still held the field at -Oxford, and the theory that the same principle of life is diffused -through everything--atoms and organisms, plants, animals, human beings, -and the universe at large. He quarrelled with the Oxford scholars, -and held them up to ridicule and contempt in his dialogue _La Cena -de le Ceneri_, published soon after, in which he speaks in the most -disparaging terms of the coarseness of English manners. The dirtiness -of the London streets, for example, and the habit of letting one goblet -go round the table, from which every one drank, aroused his dislike and -scorn scarcely less than the rejection of Copernicus by the pedants of -the University. - -At the very earliest, Shakespeare cannot have come to London until the -year of Bruno's departure from England, and can therefore scarcely have -met him. The philosopher exercised no influence upon the spiritual -life of the day in England. Not even Sir Philip Sidney was attracted -by his doctrine, and his name does not once occur in Greville's Life -of Sidney, although Greville had seen much of Bruno. Brunnhofer, who -has studied the question, points out, as showing how little trace Bruno -left behind him in England, that there is not in the Bodleian a single -contemporary manuscript or document of any kind which throws the least -light upon Bruno's stay in London or Oxford.[2] It has been maintained, -nevertheless, that Shakespeare must have read his philosophic writings -in Italian. It is, of course, possible; but there is nothing in -_Hamlet_ to prove it--nothing that cannot be fully accounted for -without assuming that he had the slightest acquaintance with them. - -The only expression in Shakespeare which, probably by accident, has an -entirely pantheistic ring is "The prophetic soul of the wide world" -in Sonnet cvii.; the only passages containing an idea, not certainly -identical, but comparable with Bruno's doctrine of the metamorphosis of -natural forms are the cyclical Sonnets lix., cvi., cxxiii. If Giordano -Bruno really had anything to do with these passages, it must be because -Shakespeare had heard some talk about the great Italian's doctrine, -which may just at that time have been recalled to the recollection -of his English acquaintances by his death at the stake in Rome, on -February 17, 1600. If Shakespeare had studied his writings, he would, -among other things, have obtained some glimmering of the Copernican -system, of which he knows nothing. On the other hand, it is quite -conceivable that he may have picked up in conversation an approximate -and incomplete conception of Bruno's philosophy, and that this -conception may have given birth to the above-mentioned philosophical -reveries. All the passages in _Hamlet_ which have been attributed to -the influence of Bruno really stand in much closer relation to writers -under whose literary and philosophical influence we know beyond a doubt -that Shakespeare fell. - -There is preserved in the British Museum a copy of Florio's translation -of Montaigne's Essays, folio, London, 1603, with Shakespeare's name -written on the fly-leaf. The signature is, I believe, a forgery; but -that Shakespeare had read Montaigne is clear beyond all doubt. - -There are many evidences of the influence exerted by Montaigne's Essays -on English readers of that date. It was only natural that the book -should vividly impress the greatest men of the age; for there were not -at that time many such books as Montaigne's--none, perhaps, containing -so living a revelation, not merely of an author, but of a human being, -natural, many-sided, full of ability, rich in contradictions. - -Outside of _Hamlet_, we trace Montaigne quite clearly in one passage in -Shakespeare, who must have had the Essays lying on his table while he -was writing _The Tempest_. Gonzalo says (ii. I)-- - - "I' the commonwealth I would by contrarie - Execute all things, for no kind of traffic - Would I admit; no name of magistrate; - Letters should not be known; riches, poverty, - And use of service, none; contract, succession, - Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; - No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil: - No occupation, all men idle, all; - And women too." - -We find this speech almost word for word in Montaigne (Book i. chap. -30): "It is a nation that hath no kind of traffike, no knowledge of -letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of -politike superioritie; no vse of service, of riches or of povertie; no -contracts, no successions, no partitions, no occupation but idle ... no -manuring of lands, no vse of wine, corn or metal." - -Since it is thus proved beyond a doubt that Shakespeare was acquainted -with Montaigne's Essays, it is not improbable that the resemblance -between passages in that book and passages in _Hamlet_ are due to -something more than chance. When such passages occur in the First -Quarto (1603), we must assume either that Shakespeare knew the -French original, or that--as is likely enough--he may have had an -opportunity of reading Florio's translation before it was published. It -happened not infrequently in those days that a book was handed round -in manuscript among the author's private friends five or six years -before it was given to the public. Florio's close connection with the -household of Southampton renders it almost certain that Shakespeare -must have been acquainted with him; and his translation had been -entered in the Stationers' Register as ready for publication so early -as 1599. - -Florio was born in 1545, of Italian parents, who, as Waldenses, had -been forced to leave their country. He had become to all intents and -purposes an Englishman, had studied and given lessons in Italian at -Oxford, had been some years in the service of the Earl of Southampton, -and was married to a sister of the poet Samuel Daniel. He dedicated -each separate book of his translation of Montaigne to two noble ladies. -Among them we find Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland, Sidney's daughter; -Lady Penelope Rich, Essex's sister; and Lady Elizabeth Grey, renowned -for her beauty and learning. Each of these ladies was celebrated in a -sonnet. - -Every one remembers those incomparably-worded passages in _Hamlet_ -where the great brooder over life and death has expressed, in terms at -once harsh and moving, his sense of the ruthlessness of the destructive -forces of Nature, or what might be called the cynicism of the order of -things. Take for instance the following (v. I):-- - - "Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, - till he find it stopping a bung-hole?... As thus: Alexander - died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; - the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that - loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a - beer-barrel? - - Imperious Cæsar, dead, and turn'd to clay, - Might stop a hole to keep the wind away: - O that that earth which kept the world in awe - Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw!" - -Hamlet's grisly jest upon the worms who are eating Polonius is a -variation on the same theme (iv. 3):-- - - "_Ham._ A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a - king; and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. - - "_King._ What dost thou mean by this? - - "_Ham._ Nothing, but to show you how a king may go a - progress through the guts of a beggar." - -An attempt has been made to attribute these passages to the influence -of Giordano Bruno; but, as Robert Beyersdorff has strikingly -demonstrated,[3] this theory assumes that Bruno's doctrine was an -atomistic materialism, whereas it was, in fact, pantheism, a perpetual -insistence upon the unity of God and Nature. The very atoms, in Bruno, -partake of spirit and life; it is not their mechanical conjunction -that produces life; no, they are monads. While cynicism is the keynote -of these utterances of Hamlet, enthusiasm is the keynote of Bruno's. -Three passages from Bruno's writings (_De la Causa_ and _La Cena de -le Ceneri_) have been cited as coinciding with Hamlet's words as to -the transformations of matter. But in the first Bruno is speaking -of the transformation of natural forms, and of the emanation of all -forms from the universal soul; in the second, he is insisting that -in all compound bodies there live numerous individuals who remain -immortal after the dissolution of the bodies; in the third, he treats -of the globe as a vast organism, which, just like animals and men, is -renewed by the transformation of matter. The whole resemblance, then, -between these passages and Hamlet's bitter outburst is that they treat -of transformations of form and matter in Nature. In spirit they are -radically different. Bruno maintains that even what seems to belong -entirely to the world of matter is permeated with soul; Hamlet, on -the contrary, asserts the wretchedness and transitoriness of human -existence.[4] - -But precisely in these points Hamlet comes very near to Montaigne, who -has many expressions like those above quoted, and speaks of Sulla very -much as Hamlet speaks of Alexander and Cæsar. - -On a close comparison of Shakespeare's expressions with Montaigne's, -their similarity is very striking. Hamlet, for example, says that -Polonius is at supper, not where he eats but where he is eaten. "A -certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your -only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat -ourselves for maggots: your fat king, and your lean beggar, is but -variable service; two dishes, but to one table: that's the end." - -Compare Montaigne, Book ii. chap. 12:-- - - "He [man] need not a Whale, an Elephant, nor a Crocodile, - nor any such other wilde beast, of which one alone is of - power to defeat a great number of men: seely lice are able - to make Sulla give over his Dictatorship: The heart and life - of a mighty and triumphant Emperor, is but the break-fast of - a seely little Worm." - -We have seen that an attempt has been made to trace to Bruno Hamlet's -utterance as to the relativity of all concepts. In reality it may -rather be traced to Montaigne. Hamlet, having remarked (ii. 2) that -"Denmark is a prison," Rosencrantz replies, "We think not so, my lord;" -whereupon Hamlet rejoins, "Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is -nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."[5] The passage -in Montaigne is almost identical (Book i. chap. 40):-- - - "If that which we call evill and torment, be neither torment - nor evill, but that our fancie only gives it that qualitie, - it is in us to change it." - -We have seen that an attempt has been made to trace Hamlet's saying -about death, "If it be now, 'tis not to come," &c. to Bruno's words in -the dedication of his _Candelajo_: "Tutto quel ch'è o è qua o è là, -o vicino o lunghi, o adesso o poi, o presso o tardi." But the same -course of thought which leads Hamlet to the conclusion, "The readiness -is all," is found, with the same conclusion, in the nineteenth chapter -of Montaigne's first book: "That to Philosophie, is to learne how to -die"--a chapter which has inspired a great many of Hamlet's graveyard -cogitations.[6] Montaigne says of death:-- - - "Let us not forget how many waies our joyes or our feastings - be subject unto death, and by how many hold-fasts shee - threatens us and them.... It is uncertaine where death - looks for us; let us expect her everie where.... I am ever - prepared about that which I may be.... A man should ever be - ready booted to take his journey.... What matter is it when - it commeth, since it is unavoidable?" - -Furthermore, we find striking points of resemblance between the -celebrated soliloquy, "To be or not to be," and the passage in -Montaigne (Book iii. chap. 12) where he reproduces the substance of -Socrates' Apology. Socrates, as we know, suggests several different -possibilities: death is either an "amendment" of our condition or -the annihilation of our being; but even in the latter case it is an -"amendment" to enter upon a long and peaceful night; for there is -nothing better in life than a deep, calm, dreamless sleep. Shakespeare -seems to have had no belief in an actual amelioration of our condition -at death; Hamlet does not even mention it as a possible contingency; -whereas the poet makes him dwell upon the thought of an endless sleep, -and on the possibility of horrible dreams. Now and then we seem to find -traces in _Hamlet_ of Plato's monologue, in the vesture given to it -by Montaigne. In the French text there is mention of the joy of being -free in another life from having to do with unjust and corrupt judges; -Hamlet speaks of freeing himself from "The oppressor's wrong, the -proud man's contumely." Some lines added in the edition of 1604 remind -us forcibly of a passage in Florio's translation. Florio reproduces -Montaigne's "Si c'est un anéantissement de notre être" by the phrase, -"If it be a consummation of one's being." Hamlet, using a word which -occurs in only two other places in Shakespeare, says, "A consummation -devoutly to be wished." - -Many other small coincidences can be pointed out in the use of names -and turns of phrase, which do not, however, actually prove anything. -Where Montaigne is describing the anarchic condition of public affairs, -his words are rendered in Florio by the curiously poetic expression, -"All is out of frame." This bears a certain resemblance to the phrase -which Hamlet, already in the 1603 edition, employs to describe the -disorganisation which has followed his father's death, "The time is -out of joint." The coincience may be fortuitous, but as one among many -other points of resemblance it supports the conjecture that Shakespeare -had read the translation before it was published.[7]. - -For the rest, Rushton, in _Shakespeare's Euphuism_ (1871), and after -him Beyersdorff, have pointed out not a few parallels to _Hamlet_ in -Lily's _Euphues_, precisely at the points where critics have sought -to trace the much more improbable influence of Bruno. Beyersdorff -sometimes goes too far in trying to find in _Euphues_ the origin of -ideas which it would be an insult to suppose that Shakespeare needed -to borrow from such a source. But sometimes there is a real analogy. -It has been alleged that the King must have borrowed from Bruno's -philosophy the topics of consolation whereby (i. 2) he seeks to -convince Hamlet of the unreasonableness of "obstinate condolement" -over his father's death. As a matter of fact, the letter of Euphues -to Ferardo on his daughter's death contains precisely the same -arguments:--"Knowest thou not, Ferardo, that lyfe is the gifte of God, -deathe the due of Nature, as we receive the one as a benefitte, so must -we abide the other of necessitie," &c. - -It has been suggested that where Hamlet (ii. 2) speaks of "the -satirical rogue" who, in the book he is reading, makes merry over -the decrepitude of old age, Shakespeare must have been alluding to a -passage in Bruno's _Spaccio_, where old men are described as those who -have "snow on their head and furrows in their brow." But if we insist -on identifying the "satirical rogue" with any actual author (a quite -unreasonable proceeding), Lily at once presents himself as answering to -the description. Again and again in _Euphues_, where old men give good -advice to the young, they appear with "hoary haire and watry eyes." And -Euphues repulses, quite in the manner of Hamlet, an old gentleman whose -moralising he regards as nothing more than the envy of decrepit age for -lusty youth, and whose intellect seems to him as tottering as his legs. - -Finally, an attempt has been made to refer Hamlet's harsh sayings -to Ophelia, and his contemptuous utterances about women in general -("Frailty, thy name is woman," &c.), to a dialogue of Bruno's (_De la -Causa IV_.) in which the pedant Pollinnio appears as a woman-hater. -But the resemblance seems trifling enough when we find that in this -case woman is attacked in sound theological fashion as the source -of original sin and the cause of all our woe. Many expressions -in _Euphues_ lie infinitely nearer to Hamlet's. "What means your -lordship?" Ophelia asks (iii. I), and Hamlet replies, "That if you -be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your -beauty." Compare in _Euphues_ Ferardo's words to Lucilla: "For -oftentimes thy mother woulde saye, that thou haddest more beautie -then was convenient for one that shoulde bee honeste," and his -exclamation, "O Lucilla, Lucilla, woulde thou wert lesse fayre!" -Again, Hamlet rails against women's weakness, crying, "Wise men know -well enough what monsters you make of them;" and we find in _Euphues_ -exactly similar outbursts: "I perceive they be rather woe vnto men, -by their falsehood, gelousie, inconstancie.... I see they will be -corasiues (corrosives)."[8] Beyersdorff, moreover, is no doubt right -in suggesting that the artificial style of _Euphues_ is apparent in -such speeches as this of Hamlet's: "For the power of beauty will sooner -transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty -can translate beauty into his likeness." - -In _Hamlet_ and elsewhere in Shakespeare we come across traces of -a sort of atomistic-materialistic philosophy. In the last scene of -_Julius Cæsar_, Antony actually employs with regard to Brutus the -expression, "The elements so _mixd_ in him." In _Measure for Measure_ -(iii. I) the Duke says to Claudio-- - - "Thou art not thyself; - For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains - That issue out of dust." - -Hamlet says (i. 2)-- - - "O that this too too solid flesh would melt, - Thaw, and dissolve itself into a dew;" - -and to Horatio (iii. 2)-- - - "Bless'd are those - Whose blood and judgment are so well _co-mingled._" - -It has already been pointed out how far this atomism, if we can so -regard it, differs from Bruno's idealistic monadism. But in all -probability we have here only the expressions of the dominant belief of -Shakespeare's time, that all differences of temperament depended upon -the mixture of the juices or "humours." Shakespeare is on this point, -as on many others, more popular and less book-learned, more naïve and -less metaphysical, than book-learned commentators are willing to allow. - -Writers like Montaigne and Lyly were no doubt constantly in -Shakespeare's hands while _Hamlet_ was taking shape within him. But -it would be absurd to suppose that he consulted them especially with -_Hamlet_ in view. He did consult authorities with regard to Hamlet, but -they were men, not books, and men, moreover, with whom he was in daily -intercourse. Hamlet being a Dane and his destiny being acted out in -distant Denmark--a name not yet so familiar in England as it was soon -to be, when, with the new King, a Danish princess came to the throne-- -Shakespeare would naturally seize whatever opportunities lay in his -way of gathering intelligence as to the manners and customs of this -little-known country. - -In the year 1585 a troupe of English players had appeared in the -courtyard of the Town-Hall of Elsinore. If we are justified in assuming -this troupe to have been the same which we find in the following year -established at the Danish Court, it numbered among its members three -persons who, at the time when Shakespeare was turning over in his -mind the idea of _Hamlet_, belonged to his company of actors, and -probably to his most intimate circle: namely, William Kemp, George -Bryan, and Thomas Pope. The first of these, the celebrated clown, -belonged to Shakespeare's company from 1594 till March 1602, when he -went over for six months to Henslow's company; the other two also -joined Shakespeare's company as early as 1594. It was evidently from -these comrades of his, and perhaps also from other English actors who, -under the management of Thomas Sackville, had performed at Copenhagen -in 1596 at the coronation of Christian IV., that Shakespeare gathered -information on several matters relating to Denmark. - -First and foremost, he picked up some Danish names, which we find, -indeed, mutilated by the printers in the different texts of _Hamlet_, -but which are easily recognisable. The _Rossencraft_ of the First -Quarto has become _Rosencraus_ in the second, and _Rosincrane_ in -the Folio; it is clearly enough the name of the ancient Danish -family of _Rosenkrans_. Thus, too, we find in the three editions the -name _Gilderstone, Guyldensterne_, and _Guildensterne_, in which -we recognise the Danish _Gyldenstierne_; while the names given to -the ambassador, _Voltemar, Voltemand, Valtemand, Voltumand_, are so -many corruptions of the Danish _Valdemar_. The name _Gertrude_, too, -Shakespeare must have learned from his comrades as a Danish name; he -has substituted it for the _Geruth_ of the novel. In the Second Quarto -it is misprinted _Gertrad_. - -It is evidently in consequence of what he had learnt from his comrades -that Shakespeare has transferred the action of _Hamlet_ from Jutland to -Elsinore, which they had visited and no doubt described to him. That is -how he comes to know of the Castle at Elsinore (finished about a score -of years earlier), though he does not mention the name of Kronborg. - -The scene in which Polonius listens behind the arras, and in which -Hamlet, in reproaching the Queen, points to the portraits of the -late and of the present King, has even been regarded as proving that -Shakespeare knew something of the interior of the Castle. On the -stage, Hamlet is often made to wear a miniature portrait of his father -round his neck, and to hold it up before his mother; but the words -of the play prove incontestably that Shakespeare imagined life-sized -pictures hanging on the wall. Now we find a contemporary description -of a "great chamber" at Kronborg, written by an English traveller, -in which occurs this passage: "It is hanged with Tapistary of fresh -coloured silke without gold, wherein all the Danish kings are exprest -in antique habits, according to their severall times, with their armes -and inscriptions, containing all their conquests and victories."[9] It -is possible, then, though not very probable, that Shakespeare may have -heard of the arrangement of this room. When Polonius wanted to play the -eavesdropper, it was a matter of course that he should get behind the -arras; and it was easy to imagine that portraits of the kings would -hang on the walls of a royal castle, without the least knowledge that -this was actually the case at Kronborg. - -It is probable, on the other hand, that Shakespeare made Hamlet study -at Wittenberg because he knew that many Danes went to this University, -which, being Lutheran, was not frequented by Englishmen. And it -is quite certain that when, in the first and fifth acts, he makes -trumpet-blasts and the firing of cannon accompany the healths which -are drunk, he must have known that this was a specially Danish custom, -and have tried to give his play local colour by introducing it. While -Hamlet and his friends (i. 4) are awaiting the appearance of the Ghost, -trumpets and cannon are heard "within." "What does this mean, my lord?" -Horatio asks; and Hamlet answers-- - - "The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse, - Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels; - And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, - The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out - The triumph of his pledge." - -Similarly, in the last scene of the play, the King says-- - - "Give me the cups; - And let the kettle to the trumpet speak, - The trumpet to the cannoneer without, - The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth, - 'Now the king drinks to Hamlet!" - -Shakespeare must even have been eager to display his knowledge of the -intemperate habits of the Danes, and the strange usages resulting -therefrom, for, as Schück has ingeniously remarked, in order to bring -in this piece of information, he has made Horatio, himself a Dane, ask -Hamlet whether it is the custom of the country to celebrate every toast -with this noise of trumpets and of ordnance. In answer to this question -Hamlet speaks of the custom as though he were addressing a foreigner, -and makes the profound remark that a single blemish will often mar -a nation's good report, no less than an individual's, and that its -character - - "Shall in the general censure take corruption - From that particular fault." - -It is evident that Denmark "took corruption" from its drinking usages -in the "censure" of the better sort of Englishmen. In a notebook kept -by "Maister William Segar, Garter King at Armes," we read under the -date July 14, 1603-- - - "That afternoone the King [of Denmark] went aboord the - English ship [which was lying off Elsinore], and had a - banket prepared for him vpon the vpper decks, which were - hung with an Awning of cloaths of Tissue; every health - reported sixe, eight, or ten shot of great Ordinance, so - that during the king's abode, the ship discharged 160 shot." - -Of the same king's "solemne feast to the [English] embassadour," Segar -writes:-- - -"It were superfluous to tell you of all superfluities that -were vsed; and it would make a man sick to heare of their -drunken healths: vse hath brought it into a fashion, and -fashion made it a habit, which ill beseemes our nation to -imitate."[10] - -The King here spoken of is Christian IV., then twenty-six years of age. -When he, three years afterwards, visited England, it seems as though -the Court, which had previously been very sober, justified the fears of -the worthy diarist by catching the infection of Danish intemperance. -Noble ladies as well as gentlemen took to over-indulgence in wine. The -Rev. H. Harington, in his _Nugæ Antiquæ_ (edit. 1779, ii. 126), prints -a letter from Sir John Harington to Mr. Secretary Barlow, giving a -very humorous description of the festivities in which the Danish King -took part. One day after dinner, he relates, "the representation of -Solomon his temple and the coming of the Queen of Sheba was made." But -alas! the lady who played the Queen, and who was to bring "precious -gifts to both their Majesties, forgetting the steppes arising to the -canopy, overset her caskets into his Danish Majesties lap, and fell -at his feet, though I rather think it was in his face. Much was the -hurry and confusion; cloths and napkins were at hand to make all clean. -His Majesty then got up, and would dance with the Queen of Sheba; -but he fell down and humbled himself before her, and was carried to -an inner chamber, and laid on a bed of state; which was not a little -defiled with the presents of the Queen which had been bestowed upon his -garments; such as wine, cream, jelly, beverage, cakes, spices and other -good matters." The entertainment proceeded, but most of the "presenters -fell down, wine did so occupy their upper chambers." Now there entered -in gorgeous array Faith, Hope, and Charity. Hope "did assay" to speak, -but could not manage it, and withdrew, stammering excuses to the King; -Faith staggered after her; Charity alone succeeded in kneeling at the -King's feet, and when she returned to her sisters, she found them -lying very sick in the lower hall. Then Victory made her entrance in -bright armour, but did not triumph long, having to be led away a "silly -captive" and left to sleep upon the ante-chamber stairs. Last of all -came Peace, who "much contrary to her semblance, most rudely made war -with her olive branch upon" those who tried, from motives of propriety, -to get her out of the way. - -Shakespeare, then, conceived intemperance in drinking, and -glorification of drunkenness as a polite and admirable accomplishment, -to be a Danish national vice. It is clear enough, however, that no -more here than elsewhere was it his main purpose to depict a foreign -people. It was not national peculiarities that interested him, but -the characteristics common to humanity; and he did not need to search -outside of England for the prototypes of his Polonius, his Horatio, his -Ophelia, and his Hamlet. - - -[1] Tschischwitz: _Shakespeare-Forschungen_; König: -_Shakespeare-Jahrbuch_, xi. - -[2] Brunnhofer: _Giordano Bruno's Weltanschauung und -Verhängniss._ - -[3] _Giordano Bruno und Shakespeare_, Oldenburg, 1889, p. 26. - -[4] A comic analogy to Bruno's doctrine may be found in the -following lines of Hotspur's (Henry IV., Pt. I. iii. l): - - "Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth - In strange eruptions: oft the teeming earth - Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd - By the imprisoning of unruly wind - Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving, - Shakes the old beldam Earth, and topples down - Steeples and moss-grown towers." - -But no one will seriously attribute this passage to the philosophical -influence of Giordano Bruno. Hotspur was quite capable of hitting upon -this image without any suggestion from Nola or Naples. - -[5] This speech first occurs in the First Folio. - -[6] This was first pointed out (about 1860) by Otto Ludwig. -See his _Shakespeare-Studien_, p. 373. The relation between Shakespeare -and Montaigne is dwelt upon in an ill-arranged book by G. F. Stedefeld: -_Hamlet, ein Tendenz-Drama_ (1871). - -[7] Compare Jacob Feis, _Shakespeare and Montaigne_, pp. -64-130. Beyersdorff, _Giordano Bruno und Shakespeare_, p. 27 _et seq_. - -[8] Beyersdorff, _op. cit._, p. 33. John Lyly, Evphves: _The -Anatomy of Wit_, ed. Landmann, pp. 72, 75. - -[9] _New Shakspere Society's Transactions_, 1874, p. -513. Compare Schück, "Englische Komödianten in Skandinavien," -_Skandinavisches Archiv_. - -[10] _New Shakspere Society's Transactions_, 1874, p. 512. - - - - -XIII - -_THE PERSONAL ELEMENT IN HAMLET_ - -In trying to bring together, as we have done, a mass of historical, -dramatic, and fictional material, fragments of philosophy, and -ethnographical details, which Shakespeare utilised during his work upon -_Hamlet_, or which may, without his knowing it, have hovered in his -memory, we do not, of course, mean to imply that the initial impulse -to the work came to him from without. The piecing together of external -impressions, as we have already remarked, has never produced a work -of immortal poetry. In approaching the theme, Shakespeare obeyed a -fundamental instinct in his nature; and as he worked it out, everything -that stood in relation to it rushed together in his mind. He might -have said with Goethe: "After long labour in piling up fuel and straw, -I have often tried in vain to warm myself ... until at last the spark -catches all of a sudden, and the whole is wrapped in flame." - -It is this flame which shines forth from _Hamlet_, shooting up so high -and glowing so red that to this day it fascinates all eyes. - -Hamlet assumes madness in order to lull the suspicions of the man -who has murdered his father and wrongfully usurped his throne; but -under this mask of madness he gives evidence of rare intelligence, -deep feeling, peculiar subtlety, mordant satire, exalted irony, and -penetrating knowledge of human nature. - -Here lay the point of attraction for Shakespeare. The indirect form of -expression had always allured him; it was the favourite method of his -clowns and humourists. Touchstone employs it, and it enters largely -into the immortal wit of Falstaff. We have seen how Jaques, in _As You -Like It_, envied those whose privilege it was to speak the truth under -the disguise of folly; we remember his sigh of longing for "as large a -charter as the wind to blow on whom he pleased." He it was who declared -motley the only wear; and in his melancholy and longing Shakespeare -disguised his own, exclaiming through his mouth-- - - "Invest me in my motley; give me leave - To speak my mind, and I will through and through - Cleanse the foul body of th' infected world." - -In _Hamlet_ Shakespeare put this motley coat on his own shoulders; -he seized the opportunity of making Hamlet, in the guise of apparent -madness, speak sharp and bitter truths in a way that would not soon -be forgotten. The task was a grateful one; for earnestness cuts the -deeper the more it sounds like jest or triviality; and wisdom appears -doubly wise when it is thrown out lightly under the mask of folly, -instead of pedantically asserting itself as the fruit of reflection and -experience. Difficult for any one else, to Shakespeare the enterprise -was merely alluring: it was, in fact, to do what no other poet had as -yet succeeded in doing--to draw a genius. Shakespeare had not far to -go for his model, and genius would seem doubly effective when it wore -the mask of madness, now speaking through that mouthpiece, and again -unmasking itself in impassioned monologues. - -It cost Shakespeare no effort to transform himself into Hamlet. On -the contrary, in giving expression to Hamlet's spiritual life he was -enabled quite naturally to pour forth all that during the recent years -had filled his heart and seethed in his brain. He could let this -creation drink his inmost heart's blood; he could transfer to it the -throbbing of his own pulses. Behind its forehead he could hide his -melancholy; on its tongue he could lay his wit; its eyes he could cause -to glow and lighten with flashes of his own spirit. - -It is true that Hamlet's outward fortunes were different enough from -his. He had not lost his father by assassination; his mother had not -degraded herself. But all these details were only outward signs and -symbols. He had lived through all of Hamlet's experience--all. Hamlet's -father had been murdered and his place usurped by his brother; that -is to say, the being whom he most reverenced and to whom he owed most -had been overpowered by malice and treachery, instantly forgotten and -shamelessly supplanted. How often had not Shakespeare himself seen -worthlessness strike greatness down and usurp its place! Hamlet's -mother had married her husband's murderer; in other words, that which -he had long honoured and loved and held sacred, sacred as is a mother -to her son, that on which he could not endure to see any stain, had -all of a sudden shown itself impure, besmirched, frivolous, perhaps -criminal. What a terrible impression must it have made upon Shakespeare -himself when he first discovered the unworthiness of that which he had -held in highest reverence, and when he first saw and realised that his -ideal had fallen from its pedestal into the mire. - -The experience which shook Hamlet's nature was no other than that -which every nobly-disposed youth, on first seeing the world as it is, -concentrates in the words: "Alas! life is not what I thought it was." -The father's murder, the mother's possible complicity, and her indecent -haste in entering upon a new wedlock, were only symptoms in the young -man's eyes of the worthlessness of human nature and the injustice -of life--only the individual instances from which, by instinctive -generalisation, he inferred the dire disillusions and terrible -possibilities of existence--only the chance occasion for the sudden -vanishing of that rosy light in which everything had hitherto been -steeped for him, and in the absence of which the earth seemed to him a -sterile promontory, and the heavens a pestilent congregation of vapours. - -Just such a crisis, bringing with it the "loss of all his mirth," -Shakespeare himself had recently undergone. He had lost in the previous -year the protectors of his youth. The woman he loved, and to whom he -had looked up as to a being of a rarer, loftier order, had all of a -sudden proved to be a heartless, faithless wanton. The friend he loved, -worshipped, and adored had conspired against him with this woman, -laughed at him in her arms, betrayed his confidence, and treated him -with coldness and distance. Even the prospect of winning the poet's -wreath had been overcast for him. Truly he too had seen his illusions -vanish and his vision of the world fall to ruins. - -In his first consternation he had been submissive, had stood -defenceless, had spoken words without a sting, had been all mildness -and melancholy. But this was not his whole, nor his inmost, nature. -In his heart of hearts he knew himself a power--a power! He was -incomparably armed, quick and keen of fence, full of wit and -indignation, the master of them all, and infinitely greater than his -fate. Burrow as they might, "it should go hard but he would delve one -yard below their mines." He had suffered many a humiliation; but the -revenge which was denied him in real life he could now take incognito -through Hamlet's bitter and scathing invectives. - -He had seen high-born gentlemen play a princely part in the society of -artists, players, men whom public opinion undervalued and contemned. -Now he himself would be the high-born gentleman, would show how the -truly princely spirit bore itself towards the poor artists, and give -utterance to his own thoughts about art, and his conception of its -value and significance. - -He merged himself in Hamlet; he felt as Hamlet did; he now and then so -mingled their identities that, in placing his own weightiest thoughts -in Hamlet's mouth, as in the famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy, -he made him think, not as a prince, but as a subject, with all the -passionate bitterness of one who sees brutality and stupidity lording -it in high places. Thus it was that he made Hamlet say-- - - "For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, - _The oppressors wrong, the proud man's contumely_, - The pangs of despis'd love, _the law's delay_, - _The insolence of office, and the spurns_ - _That patient merit of the unworthy takes_, - When he himself might his quietus make - With a bare bodkin?" - -Every one can see that this is felt and thought from below upwards, -not from above downwards, and that the words are improbable, almost -impossible, in the mouth of the Prince. But they embody feelings and -thoughts to which Shakespeare had recently given expression in his own -name in Sonnet lxvi.:-- - - "Tir'd with all these, for restful death I cry;-- - As, to behold desert a beggar born, - And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, - And purest faith unhappily forsworn, - And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd, - And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, - And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd, - And strength by limping sway disabled, - And art made tongue-tied by authority, - And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill, - And simple truth miscall'd simplicity, - And captive good attending captain ill: - Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone, - Save that, to die, I leave my love alone." - -The bright view of life which had prevailed in his youth was -overclouded; he saw the strength of malignity, the power of stupidity, -unworthiness exalted, true desert elbowed aside. Existence turned its -seamy side towards him. Through what experiences had he not come! How -often, in the year that had just passed, must he have exclaimed, like -Hamlet in his first soliloquy, "Frailty, thy name is woman!" and how -much cause had he had to say, "Let her not walk i' the sun: conception -is a blessing; but not as your daughter may conceive." So far had -it gone with him that, finding everything "weary, stale, flat, and -unprofitable," he thought it monstrous that such an existence should be -handed on from generation to generation, and that ever new hordes of -miserable creatures should come into existence: "Get thee to a nunnery! -Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?" - -The glimpse of high life which he had seen, his relations with the -Court, and the gossip from Whitehall and Greenwich which circulated -through the town, had proved to him the truth of the couplet-- - - "Cog, lie, flatter, and face - Four ways in Court to win men grace." - -Sheer criminals such as Leicester and Claudius flourished and waxed fat -at Court. - -What did men do at Court but truckle to the great? What throve except -wordy morality, mutual espionage, artificial wit, double-tongued -falsity, inveterate lack of principle, perpetual hypocrisy? What -were these great ones but flatterers and lipservers, always ready to -turn their coats according to the wind? And so Polonius and Osrick, -Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, took shape in his imagination. They knew -how to bow and cringe; they were masters of elegant phrases; they were -members of the great guild of time-servers. "To be honest as this world -goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand." - -And the Danish Court was only a picture in little of all Denmark--that -Denmark in whose state there was something rotten, and which was to -Hamlet a prison. "Then is the world one?" says Rosencrantz; and Hamlet -does not recoil from the conclusion: "A goodly one," he replies, "in -which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons." The Court-world of -_Hamlet_ was but an image of the world at large. - -But if this is how matters stand, if a pure and princely nature is thus -placed in the world and thus surrounded, we are necessarily confronted -with the great and unanswerable questions: "How comes it?" and "Why -is it?" The problem of the relation of good and evil in this world, -an unsolved riddle, involves further problems as to the government -of the world, as to a righteous Providence, as to the relation -between the world and a God. And thought--Shakespeare's no less than -Hamlet's--beats at the locked door of the mystery. - - - - -XIV - -_THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HAMLET_ - -Though there are in _Hamlet_ more direct utterances of the poet's -inmost spiritual life than in any of his earlier works, he has none -the less succeeded in thoroughly disengaging his hero's figure, and -making it an independent entity. What he gave him of his own nature was -its unfathomable depth; for the rest, he retained the situation and -the circumstances much as he found them in his authorities. It cannot -be denied that he thus involved himself in difficulties which he by -no means entirely overcame. The old legend, with its harsh outlines, -its mediæval order of ideas, its heathen groundwork under a varnish of -dogmatic Catholicism, its assumption of vengeance as the unquestionable -right, or rather duty, of the individual, did not very readily -harmonise with the rich life of thoughts, dreams, and feelings which -Shakespeare imparted to his hero. There arose a certain discrepancy -between the central figure and his surroundings. A Prince who is the -intellectual peer of Shakespeare himself, who knows and declares that -"no traveller returns" from beyond the grave, yet sees and holds -converse with a ghost. A royal youth of the Renaissance, who has gone -through a foreign university, whose chief bent is towards philosophic -brooding, who writes verses, who cultivates music, elocution, and -rapier-fencing, and proves himself an expert in dramatic criticism, -is at the same time pre-occupied with thoughts of personal and bloody -vengeance. Now and then, in the course of the drama, a rift seems to -open between the shell of the action and its kernel. - -But Shakespeare, with his consummate instinct, managed to find an -advantage precisely in this discrepancy, and to turn it to account. -His Hamlet believes in the ghost and--doubts. He accepts the summons -to the deed of vengeance and--delays. Much of the originality of the -figure, and of the drama as a whole, springs almost inevitably from -this discrepancy between the mediæval character of the fable and its -Renaissance hero, who is so deep and many-sided that he has almost a -modern air. - -The figure of Hamlet, as it at last shaped itself in Shakespeare's -imagination and came to life in his drama, is one of the very few -immortal figures of art and poetry, which, like Cervantes' Don Quixote, -exactly its contemporary, and Goethe's Faust of two centuries later, -present to generation after generation problems to brood over and -enigmas to solve. If we compare the two great figures of Hamlet (1604) -and Don Quixote (1605), we find Hamlet undoubtedly the more enigmatic -and absorbing of the two. Don Quixote belongs to the past. He embodies -the naïve spirit of chivalry which, having outlived its age, gives -offence on all hands in a time of prosaic rationalism, and makes itself -a laughing-stock through its importunate enthusiasms. He has the firm, -easily-comprehensible contours of a caricature. Hamlet belongs to -the future, to the modern age. He embodies the lofty and reflective -spirit, standing isolated, with its severely exalted ideals, in corrupt -or worthless surroundings, forced to conceal its inmost nature, -yet everywhere arousing hostility. He has the unfathomable spirit -and ever-changing physiognomy of genius. Goethe, in his celebrated -exposition of Hamlet (_Wilhelm Meister_, Book iv. chap. 13), maintains -that in this case a great deed is imposed upon a soul which is not -strong enough for it:-- - - "There is an oak-tree planted in a costly jar, which should - have borne only pleasant flowers in its bosom; the roots - expand, the jar is shivered. A lovely, pure, noble, and most - moral nature, without the strength of nerve which forms a - hero, sinks beneath a burden which it cannot bear and must - not cast away." - -This interpretation is brilliant and thoughtful, but not entirely just. -One can trace in it the spirit of the period of humanity, transforming -in its own image a figure belonging to the Renaissance. Hamlet cannot -really be called, without qualification, "lovely, pure, noble and most -moral"--he who says to Ophelia the penetratingly true, unforgettable -words, "I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of -such things, that it were better my mother had not borne me." The light -of such a saying as this takes the colour out of Goethe's adjectives. -It is true that Hamlet goes on to ascribe to himself evil qualities -of which he is quite innocent; but he was doubtless sincere in the -general tenor of his speech, to which all men of the better sort will -subscribe. Hamlet is no model of virtue. He is not simply pure, noble, -moral, &c., but is, or becomes, other things as well--wild, bitter, -harsh, now tender, now coarse, wrought up to the verge of madness, -callous, cruel. No doubt he is too weak for his task, or rather wholly -unsuited to it; but he is by no means devoid of physical strength or -power of action. He is no child of the period of humanity, moral and -pure, but a child of the Renaissance, with its impulsive energy, its -irrepressible fulness of life and its undaunted habit of looking death -in the eyes. - -Shakespeare at first conceived Hamlet as a youth. In the First Quarto -he is quite young, probably nineteen. It accords with this age that -he should be a student at Wittenberg; young men at that time began -and ended their university course much earlier than in our days. It -accords with this age that his mother should address him as "boy" ("How -now, boy!" iii. 4--a phrase which is deleted in the next edition), and -that the word "young" should be continually prefixed to his name, not -merely to distinguish him from his father. The King, too, in the early -edition (not in that of 1604) currently addresses him as "son Hamlet;" -and finally his mother is still young enough to arouse--or at least -to enable Claudius plausibly to pretend--the passion which has such -terrible results. Hamlet's speech to his mother-- - - "At your age - The hey-day of the blood is tame, it's humble, - And waits upon the judgment," - -does not occur in the 1603 edition. The decisive proof, however, of -the fact that Hamlet at first appeared in Shakespeare's eyes much -younger (eleven years, to be precise) than he afterwards made him, is -to be found in the graveyard scene (v. I). In the older edition, the -First Gravedigger says that the skull of the jester Yorick has lain -a dozen years in the earth; in the edition of 1604 this is changed -to twenty-three years. Here, too, it is explicitly indicated that -Hamlet, who as a child knew Yorick, is now thirty years old; for the -Gravedigger first states that he took to his trade on the very day on -which Prince Hamlet was born, and a little later adds: "I have been -sexton here, man and boy, thirty years." It accords with this that the -Player-King now mentions thirty years as the time that has elapsed -since his marriage with the Queen, and that Ophelia (iii. I) speaks of -Hamlet as the "unmatch'd form of blown [_i.e._ mature] youth." - -The process of thought in Shakespeare's mind is evident. At first it -seemed to him as if the circumstances of the case demanded that Hamlet -should be a youth; for thus the overwhelming effect produced upon him -by his mother's prompt forgetfulness of his father and hasty marriage -seemed most intelligible. He had been living far from the great world, -in quiet Wittenberg, never doubting that life was in fact as harmonious -as it is apt to appear in the eyes of a young prince. He believed in -the realisation of ideals here on earth, imagined that intellectual -nobility and fine feelings ruled the world, that justice reigned in -public, faith and honour in private, life. He admired his great father, -honoured his beautiful mother, passionately loved the charming Ophelia, -thought nobly of humankind, and especially of women. From the moment he -loses his father, and is forced to change his opinion of his mother, -this serene view of life is darkened. If his mother has been able to -forget his father and marry this man, what is woman worth? and what is -life worth? At the very outset, then, when he has not even heard of his -father's ghost, much less seen or held converse with it, sheer despair -speaks in his monologue: - - "O that this too too solid flesh would melt, - Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew: - Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd - His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!" - -Hence, also, his naïve surprise that one may smile and smile and yet -be a villain. He regards what has happened as a typical occurrence, a -specimen of what the world really is. Hence his words to Rosencrantz -and Guildenstern: "I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost -all my mirth." And those others: "What a piece of work is a man! how -noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! ... in action, how like an -angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world!" These -words express his first bright view of life. But that has vanished, -and the world is no longer anything to him but a "foul and pestilent -congregation of vapours." And man! What is this "quintessence of dust" -to him? He has no pleasure in man or woman. - -Hence arise his thoughts of suicide. The finer a young man's character, -the stronger is his desire, on entering life, to see his ideals -consummated in persons and circumstances. Hamlet suddenly realises that -everything is entirely different from what he had imagined, and feels -as if he must die because he cannot set it right. - -He finds it very difficult to believe that the world is so bad; -therefore he is always seeking for new proofs of it; therefore, for -instance, he plans the performance of the play. His joy whenever he -tears the mask from baseness is simply the joy of realisation, with -deep sorrow in the background--abstract satisfaction produced by the -feeling that at last he understands the worthlessness of the world. -His divination was just--events confirm it. There is no cold-hearted -pessimism here. Hamlet's fire is never quenched; his wound never heals. -Laertes' poisoned blade gives the quietus to a still tortured soul.[1]. - -All this, though we can quite well imagine it of a man of thirty, is -more natural, more what we should expect, in one of nineteen. But as -Shakespeare worked on at his drama, and came to deposit in Hamlet's -mind, as in a treasury, more and more of his own life-wisdom, of his -own experience, and of his own keen and virile wit, he saw that early -youth was too slight a framework to support this intellectual weight, -and gave Hamlet the age of ripening manhood.[2] - -Hamlet's faith and trust in humankind are shattered before the Ghost -appears to him. From the moment when his father's spirit communicates -to him a far more appalling insight into the facts of the situation, -his whole inner man is in wild revolt. - -This is the cause of the leave-taking, the silent leave-taking, from -Ophelia, whom in letters he had called his soul's idol. His ideal of -womanhood no longer exists. Ophelia now belongs to those "trivial fond -records" which the sense of his great mission impels him to efface from -the tablets of his memory. There is no room in his soul for his task -and for her, passive and obedient to her father as she is. Confide -in her he cannot; she has shown how unequal she is to the exigencies -of the situation by refusing to receive his letters and visits. She -actually hands over his last letter to her father, which means that it -will be shown and read at court. At last, she even consents to play the -spy upon him. He no longer believes or can believe in any woman. - -He intends to proceed at once to action, but too many thoughts crowd in -upon him. He broods over that horror which the Ghost has revealed to -him, and over the world in which such a thing could happen; he doubts -whether the apparition was really his father, or perhaps a deceptive, -malignant spirit; and, lastly, he has doubts of himself, of his ability -to upraise and restore what has been overthrown, of his fitness for the -vocation of avenger and judge. His doubt as to the trustworthiness of -the Ghost leads to the performance of the play within the play, which -proves the King's guilt. His feeling of his own unfitness for his task -leads to continued procrastination. - -During the course of the play it is sufficiently proved that he is -not, in the main, incapable of action. He does not hesitate to stab -the eavesdropper behind the arras; without wavering and without pity -he sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to certain death; he boards a -hostile ship; and, never having lost sight of his purpose, he takes -vengeance before he dies. But it is clear, none the less, that he has -a great inward obstacle to overcome before he proceeds to the decisive -act. Reflection hinders him; his "resolution is sicklied o'er with the -pale cast of thought," as he says in his soliloquy. - -He has become to the popular mind the great type of the procrastinator -and dreamer; and far on into this century, hundreds of individuals, and -even whole races, have seen themselves reflected in him as in a mirror. - -We must not forget, however, that this dramatic curiosity--a hero who -does not act--was, to a certain extent, demanded by the technique of -this particular drama. If Hamlet had killed the King directly after -receiving the Ghost's revelation, the play would have come to an end -with the first act. It was, therefore, absolutely necessary that delays -should arise. - -Shakespeare is misunderstood when Hamlet is taken for that entirely -modern product--a mind diseased by morbid reflection, without capacity -for action. It is nothing less than a freak of ironic fate that _he_ -should have become a sort of symbol of reflective sloth, this man who -has gunpowder in every nerve, and all the dynamite of genius in his -nature. - -It was undeniably and indubitably Shakespeare's intention to give -distinctness to Hamlet's character by contrasting it with youthful -energy of action, unhesitatingly pursuing its aim. - -While Hamlet is letting himself be shipped off to England, the young -Norwegian prince, Fortinbras, arrives with his soldiers, ready to risk -his life for a patch of ground that "hath in it no profit but the name. -To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it." Hamlet says to himself -(iv. 4): - - "How all occasions do inform against me, - And spur my dull revenge!... - ... I do not know - Why yet I live to say, 'This thing's to do.'" - -And he despairs when he contrasts himself with Fortinbras, the delicate -and tender prince, who, at the head of his brave troops, dares death -and danger "even for an egg-shell": - - "Rightly to be great - Is not to stir without great argument, - But greatly to find quarrel in a straw - When honour's at the stake." - -But with Hamlet it is a question of more than "honour," a conception -belonging to a sphere far below his. It is natural that he should feel -ashamed at the sight of Fortinbras marching off to the sound of drum -and trumpet at the head of his forces--he, who has not carried out, or -even laid, any plan; who, after having by means of the play satisfied -himself of the King's guilt, and at the same time betrayed his own -state of mind, is now writhing under the consciousness of impotence. -But the sole cause of this impotence is the paralysing grasp laid on -all his faculties by his new realisation of what life is, and the -broodings born of this realisation. Even his mission of vengeance -sinks into the background of his mind. Everything is at strife within -him--his duty to his father, his duty to his mother, reverence, horror -of crime, hatred, pity, fear of action, and fear of inaction. He feels, -even if he does not expressly say so, how little is gained by getting -rid of a single noxious animal. He himself is already so much more than -what he was at first--the youth chosen to execute a vendetta. He has -become the great sufferer, who jeers and mocks, and rebukes the world -that racks him. He is the cry of humanity, horror-struck at its own -visage. - -There is no "general meaning" on the surface of _Hamlet_. Lucidity was -not the ideal Shakespeare had before him while he was producing this -tragedy, as it had been when he was composing _Richard III_. Here there -are plenty of riddles and self-contradictions; but not a little of the -attraction of the play depends on this very obscurity. - -We all know that kind of well-written book which is blameless in form, -obvious in intention, and in which the characters stand out sharply -defined. We read it with pleasure; but when we have read it, we are -done with it. There is nothing to be read between the lines, no gulf -between this passage and that, no mystic twilight anywhere in it, -no shadows in which we can dream. And, again, there are other books -whose fundamental idea is capable of many interpretations, and affords -matter for much dispute, but whose significance lies less in what they -say to us than in what they lead us to imagine, to divine. They have -the peculiar faculty of setting thoughts and feelings in motion; more -thoughts than they themselves contain, and perhaps of a quite different -character. _Hamlet_ is such a book. As a piece of psychological -development, it lacks the lucidity of classical art; the hero's soul -has all the untranspicuousness and complexity of a real soul; but one -generation after another has thrown its imagination into the problem, -and has deposited in Hamlet's soul the sum of its experience. - -To Hamlet life is half reality, half a dream. He sometimes resembles a -somnambulist, though he is often as wakeful as a spy. He has so much -presence of mind that he is never at a loss for the aptest retort, -and, along with it, such absence of mind that he lets go his fixed -determination in order to follow up some train of thought or thread -some dream-labyrinth. He appals, amuses, captivates, perplexes, -disquiets us. Few characters in fiction have so disquieted the world. -Although he is incessantly talking, he is solitary by nature. He -typifies, indeed, that solitude of soul which cannot impart itself. - -"His name," says Victor Hugo, "is as the name on a woodcut cut of -Albert Dürer's: _Melancholia_. The bat flits over Hamlet's head; at -his feet sit Knowledge, with globe and compass, and Love, with an -hour-glass; while behind him, on the horizon, rests a giant sun, which -only serves to make the sky above him darker." But from another point -of view Hamlet's nature is that of the hurricane--a thing of wrath and -fury, and tempestuous scorn, strong enough to sweep the whole world -clean. - -There is in him no less indignation than melancholy; in fact, his -melancholy is a result of his indignation. Sufferers and thinkers have -found in him a brother. Hence the extraordinary popularity of the -character, in spite of its being the reverse of obvious. - -Audiences and readers feel with Hamlet and understand him; for all the -better-disposed among us make the discovery, when we go forth into -life as grown-up men and women, that it is not what we had imagined it -to be, but a thousandfold more terrible. Something is rotten in the -state of Denmark. Denmark is a prison, and the world is full of such -dungeons. A spectral voice says to us: "Horrible things have happened; -horrible things are happening every day. Be it your task to repair the -evil, to rearrange the course of things is for you to set it right." -But our arms fall powerless by our sides. Evil is too strong, too -cunning for us. - -In _Hamlet_, the first philosophical drama of the modern era, we meet -for the first time the typical modern character, with its intense -feeling of the strife between the ideal and the actual world, with its -keen sense of the chasm between power and aspiration, and with that -complexity of nature which shows itself in wit without mirth, cruelty -combined with sensitiveness, frenzied impatience at war with inveterate -procrastination. - - -[1] See Hermann Türck: _Das psychologische Problem in der -Hamlet-Tragödie_. 1890. - -[2] See E. Sullivan: "On Hamlet's Age." _New Shakspere Society's -Transactions_. 1880-86. - - - - -XV - -_HAMLET AS A DRAMA_ - -Let us now look at _Hamlet_ as a drama; and, to get the full impression -of Shakespeare's greatness, let us first recall its purely theatrical, -materially visible side, that which dwells in the memory simply as -pantomime.[1]. - -The night-watch on the platform before the Castle of Elsinore, and the -appearance of the Ghost to the soldiers and officers there. Then, in -contrast to the splendidly-attired courtiers, the blackrobed figure of -the Prince, standing apart, a living image of grief, his countenance -bespeaking both soul and intellect, but with an expression which seems -to say that henceforth joy and he are strangers. Next, his meeting with -his father's spirit; the oath upon the sword, with the constant change -of place. Then his wild behaviour when, to hide his excitement, he -feigns madness. Then the play within the play; the sword-thrust through -the arras; the beautiful Ophelia with flowers and straw in her hair; -Hamlet with Yorick's skull in his hand; the struggle with Laertes in -Ophelia's grave, that grotesque but most significant episode. According -to the custom of the time, a dumb show foretold the poisoning in the -play, and this fight in the grave is the dumb show which foretells -the mortal combat that is soon to take place: both are presently to -be swallowed up by the grave in which they stand. Then follows the -fencing-scene, during the course of which the Queen dies by the poison -which the King destined for Hamlet, and Laertes by the stroke of the -poisoned sword also prepared for the Prince, who, with a last great -effort, kills the King, and then sinks down poisoned. This wholesale -"havock" arranged by the poet, a fourfold lying-in-state, has its gloom -broken by the triumphal march of young Fortinbras, which, in its turn, -soon changes to a funeral measure. The whole is as effective to the eye -as it is great and beautiful. - -And now add to this ocular picturesqueness of the play the fascination -which it owes to the sympathy Shakespeare has made us feel for its -principal character, the impression he has given us of the agonies of -a strong and sensitive spirit surrounded by corruption and depravity. -Hamlet was by nature candid, enthusiastic, trustful, loving; the guile -of others forces him to take refuge in guile; the wickedness of others -drives him to distrust and hate; and the crime committed against his -murdered father calls upon him from the underworld for vengeance. - -His indignation at the infamy around him is heartrending, his contempt -for it is stimulating. - -By nature he is a thinker. He thinks not only when he is contemplating -and planning a course of action, but also from a passionate longing -for comprehension in the abstract. Though he is merely making use of -the players to unmask the murderer, he gives them apt and profound -advice with regard to the practice of their art. When Rosencrantz -and Guildenstern question him as to the reason of his melancholy, he -expounds to them in words of deep significance his rooted distaste for -life. - -The feeling produced in him by any strong impression never finds -vent in straightforward, laconic words. His speeches never take the -direct, the shortest way to express his thoughts. They consist of -ingenious, far-fetched similes and witty conceits, apparently remote -from the matter in hand. Sarcastic and enigmatical phrases conceal his -emotions. This dissimulation is forced upon him by the very strength of -his feelings: in order not to betray himself, not to give way to the -pain he is suffering, he must smother it in fantastic and boisterous -ejaculations. Thus he shouts after having seen the apparition: "Hillo, -ho, ho, boy! come, bird, come!" Thus he apostrophises the Ghost: "Well -said, old mole! canst work i' the earth so fast?" And therefore, after -the play has made the King betray himself, he cries: "Ah, ha! Come, -some music! come, the recorders!" His feigned madness is only an -intentional exaggeration of this tendency. - -The horrible secret that has been discovered to him has upset his -equilibrium. The show of madness enables him to find solace in -expressing indirectly what it tortures him to talk of directly, and -at the same time his seeming lunacy diverts attention from the real -reason of his deep melancholy. He does not altogether dissemble when -he talks so wildly; given his surroundings, these fantastic and daring -sarcasms are a natural enough mode of utterance for the wild agitation -produced by the horror that has entered into his life; "though this be -madness, yet there is method in't." But the almost frenzied excitement -into which he is so often thrown by the action of others subsides at -intervals, when he feels the need for mental concentration--a craving -which he satisfies in the solitary reflections forming his monologues. - -When his passions are roused, he has difficulty in controlling them. -It is nervous over-excitement that finds vent when he bids Ophelia get -her to a nunnery, and it is in a fit of nervous frenzy that he stabs -Polonius. But his passion generally strikes inwards. Constrained as he -is, or thinks himself, to employ dissimulation and cunning, he is in a -fever of impatience, and is for ever reviling and scoffing at himself -for his inaction, as though it were due to indifference or cowardice. - -Distrust, that new element in his character, makes him cautious; -he cannot act on impulse, nor even speak. "There's ne'er a villain -dwelling in all Denmark," he begins; "so great as the King" should be -the continuation; but fear of being betrayed by his comrades takes -possession of him, and he ends with, "but he's an arrant knave." - -He is by nature open-hearted and warm, as we see him with Horatio; he -speaks to the sentinel on the platform as to a comrade; he is cordial, -at first, to old acquaintances like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; and -he is frank, amiable, kind without condescension, to the troupe of -travelling players. But reticence has been suddenly forced upon him -by the bitterest, most agonising experiences; no sooner has he put -on a mask, so as not to be instantly found out, than he feels that -he is being spied upon; even his friends and the woman he loves are -on the side of his opponents; and though he believes his life to be -threatened, he feels that he must keep silent and wait. - -His mask is often enough only of gauze; if only for the sake of the -spectators, Shakespeare had to make the madness transparent, that it -might not pall. - -Read the witty repartees of Hamlet to Polonius (ii. 2), beginning with, -"What do you read, my lord?" "Words, words, words." In reality there -is no trace of madness in all these keenedged sayings, till Hamlet at -last, in order to annul their effect, concludes with the words, "For -yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go -backward." - -Or take the long conversation (iii. 2) between Hamlet and Rosencrantz -and Guildenstern about the pipe he has sent for, and asks them to play -on. The whole is a parable as simple and direct as any in the New -Testament. And he points the moral with triumphant logic in poetic -form-- - - "Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you would make of - me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; - you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound - me from my lowest notes to the top of my compass: and there - is much music, excellent music in this little organ; yet - cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier - to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you - will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me." - -It is in order to account for such contemptuous and witty outbursts -that Hamlet says: "I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is -southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw." - -To outward difficulties are added inward hindrances, which he cannot -overcome. He reproaches himself passionately for this, as we have seen. -But these self-reproaches of Hamlet's do not represent Shakespeare's -view of his character or judgment of his action. They express the -impatience of his nature, his longing for reparation, his eagerness for -the triumph of the right; they do not imply his guilt. - -The old doctrine of tragic guilt and punishment, which assumes that the -death at the end of a tragedy must always be in some way deserved, is -nothing but antiquated scholasticism, theology masking as æsthetics; -and it may be regarded as an instance of scientific progress that this -view of the matter, which was heretical only a generation since, is now -very generally accepted. Very different was the case when the author of -these lines, in his earliest published work, entered a protest against -such an intrusion of traditional morality into a sphere from which it -ought simply to be banished.[2] - -Some critics have summarily disposed of the question of Hamlet's -possible guilt by the assertion that his madness was not only assumed, -but real. Brinsley Nicholson, for instance, in his essay "Was Hamlet -Mad?" (_New Shakspere Society's Transactions_, 1880-86), insists on -his morbid melancholy; his strange and incoherent talk after the -apparition of the Ghost; his lack of any sense of responsibility for -the deaths of Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern, of which he was -either the direct or indirect cause; his fear of sending King Claudius -to heaven by killing him while he is praying; his brutality towards -Ophelia; his constant suspiciousness, &c., &c. But to see symptoms of -real insanity in all this is not only a crudity of interpretation, -but a misconception of Shakespeare's evident meaning. It is true that -Hamlet does not dissemble as systematically and coldly as Edgar in -the subsequent _King Lear_; but that is no reason why his state of -mental exaltation should be mistaken for derangement. He makes use of -insanity; he is not in its power. - -Not that it proves really serviceable to him or facilitates his task of -vengeance; on the contrary, it impedes his action by tempting him from -the straight path into witty digressions and deviations. It is meant to -hide his secret; but after the performance of the play the King knows -it, and, though he keeps it up, the feigned madness is useless. It is -because his secret is betrayed that Hamlet now, in obedience to the -Ghost's command, endeavours to awaken his mother's sense of shame and -to detach her from the King. But having run Polonius through the body, -in the belief that he is killing his stepfather, he is put under guards -and sent away, and has still farther to postpone his revenge. - -While many critics of this century, especially Germans, such as -Kreyssig, have contemned Hamlet as a "witty weakling", one German -writer has passionately denied that Shakespeare intended to represent -him as morbidly reflective. This critic, with much enthusiasm, with -fierce onslaughts upon many of his countrymen, but with a conception of -the play which debases its whole idea and belittles its significance, -has tried to prove that the hindrances Hamlet had to contend with were -purely external. I refer to the lectures on Hamlet delivered by the old -Hegelian, Karl Werder, in the University of Berlin between 1859 and -1872.[3] Their train of thought, in itself not unreasonable, may be -rendered thus:-- - -What is demanded of Hamlet? That he should kill the King immediately -after the Ghost has revealed his father's fate? Good. But how, after -this assassination, is he to justify his deed to the court and the -people, and ascend the throne? He can produce no proof whatever of -the truth of his accusation. A ghost has told him; that is all his -evidence. He himself is not the hereditary supreme judge of the land, -deprived of his throne by a usurper. The Queen is "jointress to this -warlike state." Denmark is an elective monarchy--and it is not till -the very end of the play that Hamlet speaks of the King as having -"popp'd in between the election and my hopes." In the eyes of all the -characters in the play, the existing state of the government is quite -normal. And is he to overturn it with a dagger-thrust? Will the Danish -people believe his tale of the apparition and the murder? And suppose -that, instead of having recourse to the dagger, he comes forward with a -public accusation, can there be any doubt that such a king and such a -court will speedily make away with him? For where in this court are the -elder Hamlet's adherents? We see none of them. It seems as though the -old hero-king had taken them all with him to the grave. What has become -of his generals and of his council? Did they die before him? Or was he -solitary in his greatness? Certain it is that Hamlet has no friend but -Horatio, and finds no supporters at the court. - -As matters stand, the truth can be brought to light only by the royal -criminal's betraying himself. Hence Hamlet's perfectly logical, most -ingenious device for forcing him to do so. Hamlet's object is not to -take a purely material revenge for the crime, but to reinstate right -and justice in Denmark, to be judge and avenger in one. And this he -cannot be if he simply kills the king off-hand. - -All this is acute, and in part correct; only it misstates the theme -of the play. Had Shakespeare had this outward difficulty in mind, he -would have made Hamlet expound, or at least allude to it. As a matter -of fact, Hamlet does nothing of the sort. On the contrary, he upbraids -himself for his inaction and sloth, thereby indicating clearly enough -that the great fundamental difficulty is an inward one, and that the -real scene of the tragedy lies in the hero's soul. - -Hamlet himself is comparatively planless, but, as Goethe has profoundly -remarked, the play is not therefore without a plan. And where Hamlet -is most hesitating, where he tries to palliate his planlessness, there -the plan speaks loudest and clearest. Where, for example, Hamlet comes -upon the King at his prayers, and will not kill him, because he is not -to die "in the purging of his soul" but revelling in sinful debauch, -we hear Shakespeare's general idea in the words which, in the mouth of -the hero, sound like an evasion. Shakespeare, not Hamlet, reserves the -King for the death which in fact overtakes him just as he has poisoned -Laertes's blade, seasoned "a chalice" for Hamlet, out of cowardice -allowed the Queen to drain it, and been the efficient cause of both -Laertes's and Hamlet's fatal wounds. Hamlet thus actually attains his -declared object in allowing the King to live. - - -[1] K. Werder: _Vorlesungen über Hamlet_, p. 3 _et seq._ - -[2] Georg Brandes: _Æsthetiske Studier_. Essay "On the Concept: Tragic -Fate." - -[3] Karl Werder: _Vorlesungen über Shakespeare's Hamlet_, 1875. - - - - -XVI - -_HAMLET AND OPHELIA_ - -There is nothing more profoundly conceived in this play than the -Prince's relation to Ophelia. Hamlet is genius in love--genius with its -great demands and its highly unconventional conduct. He does not love -like Romeo, with a love that takes entire possession of his mind. He -has felt himself drawn to Ophelia while his father was still in life, -has sent her letters and gifts, and thinks of her with an infinite -tenderness; but she has not it in her to be his friend and confidant. -"Her whole essence," we read in Goethe, "is ripe, sweet sensuousness." -This is saying too much; it is only the songs she sings in her madness, -"in the innocence of madness," as Goethe himself strikingly says, that -indicate an undercurrent of sensual desire or sensual reminiscence; -her attitude towards the Prince is decorous, almost to severity. Their -relations to each other have been close--how close the play does not -tell. - -There is nothing at all conclusive in the fact that Hamlet's manner to -Ophelia is extremely free, not only in the affecting scene in which -he orders her to a nunnery, but still more in their conversation -during the play, when his jesting speeches, as he asks to be allowed -to lay his head in her lap, are more than equivocal, and in one case -unequivocally loose. We have already seen (p. 48) that this is -no evidence against Ophelia's inexperience. Helena in _All's Well that -Ends Well_ is chastity itself, yet Parolles's conversation with her is -extremely--to our way of thinking impossibly--coarse. In the year 1602, -speeches like Hamlet's could be made without offence by a young prince -to a virtuous maid of honour. - -Whilst English Shakespearians have come forward as Ophelia's champions, -several German critics (among others Tieck, Von Friesen, and Flathe) -have had no doubt that her relations with Hamlet were of the most -intimate. Shakespeare has intentionally left this undecided, and it is -difficult to see why his readers should not do the same. - -Hamlet draws away from Ophelia from the moment when he feels himself -the appointed minister of a sacred revenge. In deep grief he bids her -farewell without a word, grasps her wrist, holds it at arm's length -from him, "peruses" her face as if he would draw it--then shakes her -arm gently, nods his head thrice, and departs with a "piteous" sigh. - -If after this he shows himself hard, almost cruel, to her, it is -because she was weak and tried to deceive him. She is a soft, yielding -creature, with no power of resistance; a loving soul, but without the -passion which gives strength. She resembles Desdemona in the unwisdom -with which she acts towards her lover, but falls far short of her -in warmth and resoluteness of affection. She does not in the least -understand Hamlet's grief over his mother's conduct. She observes his -depression without divining its cause. When, after seeing the Ghost, he -approaches her in speechless agitation, she never guesses that anything -terrible has happened to him; and, in spite of her compassion for his -morbid state, she consents without demur to decoy him into talking to -her, while her father and the King spy upon their meeting. It is then -that he breaks out into all those famous speeches: "Are you honest? -Are you fair?" &c.; the secret meaning of them being: You are like my -mother! You too could have acted as she did! - -Hamlet has not a thought for Ophelia in his excitement after the -killing of Polonius; but Shakespeare gives us indirectly to understand -that grief on her account overtook him afterwards--"he weeps for what -is done." Later he seems to forget her, and therefore his anger at -her brother's lamentations as she is placed in her grave, and his own -frenzied attempt to outdo the "emphasis" of Laertes's grief, seem -strange to us. But from his words we understand that she has been the -solace of his life, though she could not be its stay. She on her side -has been very fond of him, has loved him with unobtrusive tenderness. -It is with pain she has heard him speak of his love for her as a thing -of the past ("I did love you once"); with deep grief she has seen what -she takes to be the eclipse of his bright spirit in madness ("Oh, what -a noble mind is here o'erthrown!"); and at last the death of her father -by Hamlet's hand deprives her of her own reason. At one blow she has -lost both father and lover. In her madness she does not speak Hamlet's -name, nor show any trace of sorrow that it is he who has murdered her -father. Forgetfulness of this cruellest blow mitigates her calamity; -her hard fate condemns her to solitude; and this solitude is peopled -and alleviated by madness. - -In depicting the relation between Faust and Gretchen, Goethe -appropriated and reproduced many features of the relation between -Hamlet and Ophelia. In both cases we have the tragic love-tie between -genius and tender girlhood. Faust kills Gretchen's mother as Hamlet -kills Ophelia's father. In _Faust_ also there is a duel between the -hero and his mistress's brother, in which the brother is killed. And -in both cases the young girl in her misery goes mad. It is clear -that Goethe actually had Ophelia in his thoughts, for he makes his -Mephistopheles sing a song to Gretchen which is a direct imitation, -almost a translation, of Ophelia's song about Saint Valentine's Day.[1] -There is, however, a more delicate poetry in Ophelia's madness than in -Gretchen's. Gretchen's intensifies the tragic impression of the young -girl's ruin; Ophelia's alleviates both her own and the spectator's -suffering. - -Hamlet and Faust represent the genius of the Renaissance and the genius -of modern times; though Hamlet, in virtue of his creator's marvellous -power of rising above his time, covers the whole period between him and -us, and has a range of significance to which we, on the threshold of -the twentieth century, can foresee no limit. - -Faust is probably the highest poetic expression of modern -humanity--striving, investigating, enjoying, and mastering at last -both itself and the world. He changes gradually under his creator's -hands into a great symbol; but in the second half of his life a -superabundance of allegoric traits veils his individual humanity. It -did not lie in Shakespeare's way to embody a being whose efforts, like -Faust's, were directed towards experience, knowledge, perception of -truth in general. Even when Shakespeare rises highest, he keeps nearer -the earth. - -But none the less dear to us art thou, O Hamlet! and none the less -valued and understood by the men of to-day. We love thee like a -brother. Thy melancholy is ours, thy wrath is ours, thy contemptuous -wit avenges us on those who fill the earth with their empty noise -and are its masters. We know the depth of thy suffering when wrong -and hypocrisy triumph, and oh! thy still deeper suffering on feeling -that that nerve in thee is severed which should lead from thought to -victorious action. To us, too, the voices of the mighty dead have -spoken from the under-world. We, too, have seen our mother wrap the -purple robe of power round the murderer of "the majesty of buried -Denmark." We, too, have been betrayed by the friends of our youth; for -us, too, have swords been dipped in poison. How well do we know that -graveyard mood in which disgust and sorrow for all earthly things seize -upon the soul. The breath from open graves has set us, too, dreaming -with a skull in our hands! - - -[1] - - OPHELIA. - "To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day, - All in the morning betime, - And I a maid at your window, - To be your Valentine. - Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes - And dupp'd the chamber-door; - Let in the maid, that out a maid - Never departed more." - - - MEPHISTOFELES. - "Was machst Du mir - Vor Liebchens Thür - Kathrinchen, hier - Bei frühem Tagesblicke? - Lass, lass es sein! - Er lässt dich ein - Als Mädchen ein - Als Mädchen nicht zurücke." - - - - - -XVII - -_HAMLET'S INFLUENCE ON LATER TIMES_ - -If we to-day can feel with Hamlet, it is certainly no wonder that the -play was immensely popular in its own day. It is easy to understand -its charm for the cultivated youth of the period; but it would be -surprising, if we did not realise the alertness of the Renaissance -and its wonderful receptivity for the highest culture, to find that -_Hamlet_ was in as great favour with the lower ranks of society as with -the higher. A remarkable proof of this tragedy's and of Shakespeare's -popularity in the years immediately following its appearance, is -afforded by some memoranda in a log-book kept by a certain Captain -Keeling, of the ship _Dragon_, which, in September 1607, lay off Sierra -Leone in company with another English vessel, the _Hector_ (Captain -Hawkins), both bound for India. They run as follows:-- - - "September 5 [At "Serra Leona"]. I sent the interpreter, - according to his desier, abord the Hector, whear he brooke - fast, and after came abord mee, wher we gave the tragedie of - Hamlett. - - "[Sept.] 30. Captain Hawkins dined with me, wher my - companions acted Kinge Richard the Second. - - "31. I envited Captain Hawkins to a ffishe dinner, and had - Hamlet acted abord me: wch I permitt to keepe my - people from idlenes and unlawfull games, or sleepe." - -Who could have imagined that _Hamlet_, three years after its -publication, would be so well-known and so dear to English sailors -that they could act it for their own amusement at a moment's notice! -Could there be a stronger proof of its universal popularity? It is -a true picture of the culture of the Renaissance, this tragedy of -the Prince of Denmark acted by common English sailors off the west -coast of Africa. It is a pity that Shakespeare himself, in all human -probability, never knew of it. - -Hamlet's ever-increasing significance as time rolls on is proportionate -to his significance in his own day. A great deal in the poetry of -the nineteenth century owes its origin to him. Goethe interpreted -and remodelled him in _Wilhelm Meister_, and this remodelled Hamlet -resembles Faust. The trio, Faust, Gretchen, Valentin, in Goethe's drama -answers to the trio, Hamlet, Ophelia, Laertes. Faust transplanted into -English soil produced Byron's Manfred, a true though far-off descendant -of the Danish Prince. In Germany, again, the Byronic development -assumed a new and Hamlet-like (or rather Yorick-like) form in Heine's -bitter and fantastic wit, in his hatreds and caprices and intellectual -superiority. Borne is the first to interpret Hamlet as the German -of his day, always moving in a circle and never able to act. But he -feels the mystery of the play, and says aptly and beautifully, "Over -the picture hangs a veil of gauze. We want to lift it to examine the -painting more closely, but find that the veil itself is painted." - -In France, the men of Alfred de Musset's generation, whom he has -portrayed in his _Confessions d'un Enfant du Siècle_, remind us in -many ways of Hamlet--nervous, inflammable as gunpowder, broken-winged, -with no sphere of action commensurate with their desires, and with no -power Of action in the sphere which lay open to them. And Lorenzaccio, -perhaps Musset's finest male character, is the French Hamlet--practised -in dissimulation, procrastinating, witty, gentle to women yet wounding -them with cruel words, morbidly desirous to atone for the emptiness -of his evil life by one great deed, and acting too late, uselessly, -desperately. - -Hamlet, who centuries before had been young England, and was to -Musset, for a time, young France, became in the 'forties, as Borne -had foretold, the accepted type of Germany. "Hamlet is Germany," sang -Freiligrath.[1] - -Kindred political conditions determined that the figure of Hamlet -should at the same period, and twenty years later to a still greater -extent, dominate Russian literature. Its influence can be traced from -Pushkin and Gogol to Gontscharoff and Tolstoi, and it actually pervades -the whole life-work of Turgueneff. But in this case Hamlet's vocation -of vengeance is overlooked; the whole stress is laid on the general -discrepancy between reflection and power of action. - -In the development of Polish literature, too, during this century, -there came a time when the poets were inclined to say: "We are Hamlet; -Hamlet is Poland." We find marked traits of his character towards -the middle of the century in all the imaginative spirits of Poland: -in Mickiewicz, in Slowacki, in Krasinski. From their youth they had -stood in his position. Their world was out of joint, and was to be -set right by their weak arms. High-born and noble-minded, they feel, -like Hamlet, all the inward fire and outward impotence of their youth; -the conditions that surround them are to them one great horror; they -are disposed at one and the same time to dreaming and to action, to -over-much reflection and to recklessness. - -Like Hamlet, they have seen their mother, the land that gave them -birth, profaned by passing under the power of a royal robber and -murderer. The court to which at times they are offered access strikes -them with terror, as the court of Claudius struck terror to the -Danish Prince, as the court in Krasinski's _Temptation_ (a symbolic -representation of the court of St. Petersburg) strikes terror to the -young hero of the poem. These kinsmen of Hamlet are, like him, cruel -to their Ophelia, and forsake her when she loves them best; like him, -they allow themselves to be sent far away to foreign lands; and when -they speak they dissemble like him--clothe their meaning in similes and -allegories. What Hamlet says of himself applies to them: "Yet have I -something in me dangerous." Their peculiarly Polish characteristic is -that what enervates and impedes them is not their reflective but their -poetic bias. Reflection is what ruins the German of this type; wild -dissipation the Frenchman; indolence, self-mockery, and self-despair -the Russian; but it is imagination that leads the Pole astray and -tempts him to live apart from real life. - -The Hamlet character presents a multitude of different aspects. -Hamlet is the doubter; he is the man whom over-scrupulousness or -over-deliberation condemns to inactivity; he is the creature of pure -intelligence, who sometimes acts nervously, and is sometimes too -nervous to act at all; and, lastly, he is the avenger, the man who -dissembles that his revenge may be the more effectual. Each of these -aspects is developed by the poets of Poland. There is a touch of -Hamlet in several of Mickiewicz's creations--in Wallenrod, in Gustave, -in Conrad, in Robak. Gustave speaks the language of philosophic -aberration; Conrad is possessed by the spirit of philosophic brooding; -Wallenrod and Robak dissemble or disguise themselves for the sake of -revenge, and the latter, like Hamlet, kills the father of the woman he -loves. In Slowacki's work the Hamlet-type takes a much more prominent -place. His Kordjan is a Hamlet who follows his vocation of avenger, -but has not the strength for it. The Polish tendency to fantasticating -interposes between him and his projected tyrannicide. And while -Slowacki gives us the radical Hamlet type, so we find the corresponding -conservative Hamlet in Krasinski. The hero of Krasinski's _Undivine -Comedy_ has more than one trait in common with the Prince of Denmark. -He has Hamlet's sensitiveness and power of imagination. He is addicted -to monologues and cultivates the drama. He has an extremely tender -conscience, but can commit most cruel actions. He is punished for the -excessive irritability of his character by the insanity of his wife, -very much as Hamlet, by his feigned madness, leads to the real madness -of Ophelia. But this Hamlet is consumed by a more modern doubt than -that which besets his Renaissance prototype. Hamlet doubts whether the -spirit on whose behest he is acting is more than an empty phantasm. -When Count Henry shuts himself up in "the castle of the Holy Trinity," -he is not sure that the Holy Trinity itself is more than a figment of -the brain. - -In other words: nearly two centuries and a half after the figure of -Hamlet was conceived in Shakespeare's imagination, we find it living -in English and French literature, and reappearing as a dominant type -in German and two Slavonic languages. And now, three hundred years -after his creation, Hamlet is still the confidant and friend of sad -and thoughtful souls in every land. There is something unique in this. -With such piercing vision has Shakespeare searched out the depths of -his own, and at the same time of all human, nature, and so boldly and -surely has he depicted the outward semblance of what he saw, that, -centuries later, men of every country and of every race have felt their -own being moulded like wax in his hand, and have seen themselves in his -poetry as in a mirror. - - -[1] - - "Deutschland ist Hamlet! Ernst und stumm - In seinen Thoren jede Nacht - Geht die begrabne Freiheit um, - Und winkt den Männern auf der Wacht. - Da steht die Hohe, blank bewehrt, - Und sagt dem Zaudrer, der noch zweifelt: - 'Sei mir ein Rächer, zieh dein Schwert! - Man hat mir Gift in's Ohr geträufelt.'" - - - - -XVIII - -_HAMLET AS A CRITIC_ - -Along with so much else, _Hamlet_ gives us what we should scarcely have -expected--an insight into Shakespeare's own ideas of his art as poet -and actor, and into the condition and relations of his theatre in the -years 1602-3. - -If we read attentively the Prince's words to the players, we see -clearly why it is always the sweetness, the mellifluousness of -Shakespeare's art that his contemporaries emphasise. To us he may -seem audacious, harrowingly pathetic, a transgressor of all bounds; -in comparison with contemporary artists--not only with the specially -violent and bombastic writers, like the youthful Marlowe, but with all -of them--he is self-controlled, temperate, delicate, beauty-loving as -Raphael himself. Hamlet says to the players-- - - "Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, - trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of - your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my - lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; - but use all gently: for in the very torrent, tempest, and - (as I may say) the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire - and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O! it - offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated - fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the - ears of the groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable - of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows, and noise: I would - have such a fellow whipped for o'er-doing--Termagant; it - out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it. - - "I _Play_. I warrant your honour. - - "_Ham_. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion - be your tutor." - -Here ought logically to follow a warning against the dangers of -excessive softness and sweetness. But it does not come. He continues-- - - "Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with - this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty - of nature; _for anything so overdone is from the purpose - of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was, and - is, to hold, as't were, the mirror up to nature; to show - virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very - age and body of the time, his form and pressure._ Now, this - overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful - laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of - the which one must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole - theatre of others. O! there be players, that I have seen - play,--and heard others praise, and that highly,--not to - speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of - Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have - so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought that some of - nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, - they imitated humanity so abominably. - - "I _Play._ I hope we have reformed that indifferently with - us. - - "_Ham_. O! reform it altogether." - -Thus, although it appears to be Hamlet's wish to caution equally -against too much wildness and too much tameness, his warning against -tameness is of the briefest, and he almost immediately resumes his -homily against exaggeration, bellowing, what we should now call ranting -declamation. It is not the danger of tameness, but of violence, that is -uppermost in Shakespeare's mind. - -As already pointed out, it is not merely his own general effort as a -dramatist which Shakespeare here formulates; he lays down a regular -definition of dramatic art and its aim. It is noteworthy that this -definition is identical with that which Cervantes, almost at the same -time, places into the mouth of the priest in _Don Quixote_. "Comedy," -he says, "should be as Tullius enjoins, a mirror of human life, a -pattern of manners, a presentation of the truth." - -Shakespeare and Cervantes, who shed lustre on the same age and -died within a few days of each other, never heard of each other's -existence; but, led by the spirit of their time, both borrowed from -Cicero their fundamental conception of dramatic art. Cervantes says so -openly; Shakespeare, who did not wish his Hamlet to pose as a scholar, -indicates it in the words, "Whose end, both _at the first_ and now, -_was_, and is." - -And as Shakespeare here, by the mouth of Hamlet, has expressed his own -idea of his art's unalterable nature and aim, he has also for once -given vent to his passing artistic anxieties, his dissatisfaction -with the position of his theatre at the moment. We have already (p. -106) noticed the poet's complaint of the harm done to his company at -this time by the rivalry of the troupe of choir-boys from St. Paul's -Cathedral playing at the Blackfriars Theatre. It is in Hamlet's -dialogue with Rosencrantz that this complaint occurs. There is a -bitterness about the wording of it, as though the company had for -the time been totally worsted. This was no doubt largely due to the -circumstance that its most popular member, its clown, the famous -Kemp, had just left it (in 1602), and gone over to Henslow's troupe. -Kemp had from the beginning played all the chief low-comedy parts -in Shakespeare's dramas--Peter and Balthasar in _Romeo and Juliet_, -Shallow in _Henry IV.,_ Lancelot in _The Merchant of Venice_, Dogberry -in _Much Ado About Nothing_, Touchstone in _As You Like It_. Now that -he had gone over to the enemy, his loss was deeply felt. - -The above-mentioned little book, dedicated to Mary Fitton, gives us a -most interesting glimpse into the English life of that age. The most -important duty of the clown was not to appear in the play itself, but -to sing and dance his jig at the end of it, even after a tragedy, in -order to soften the painful impression. The common spectator never went -home without having seen this afterpiece, which must have resembled the -comic "turns" of our variety-shows. Kemp's jig of _The Kitchen-Stuff -Woman_, for instance, was a screaming farrago of rude verses, some -spoken, others sung, of good and bad witticisms, of extravagant acting -and dancing. It is of such a performance that Hamlet is thinking when -he says of Polonius: "He's for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or he -sleeps." - -As the acknowledged master of his time in the art of comic dancing, -Kemp was immoderately loved and admired. He paid professional visits to -all the German and Italian courts, and was even summoned to dance his -Morrice Dance before the Emperor Rudolf himself at Augsburg. It was in -his youth that he undertook the nine days' dance from London to Norwich -which he describes in his book. - -He started at seven o'clock in the morning from in front of the Lord -Mayor's house, and half London was astir to see the beginning of the -great exploit. His suite consisted of his "taberer," his servant, and -an "overseer" or umpire to see that everything was performed according -to promise. The journey was almost as trying to the "taberer" as to -Kemp, for he had his drum hanging over his left arm and held his -flageolet in his left hand while he beat the drum with his right. Kemp -himself, on this occasion, contributed nothing to the music except the -sound of the bells which were attached to his gaiters. - -He reached Romford on the first day, but was so exhausted that he had -to rest for two days. The people of Stratford-Langton, between London -and Romford, had got up a bear-baiting show in his honour, knowing "how -well he loved the sport"; but the crowd which had gathered to see him -was so great that he himself only succeeded in hearing the bear roar -and the dogs howl. On the second day he strained his hip, but cured -the strain by dancing. At Burntwood such a crowd had gathered to see -him that he could scarcely make his way to the tavern. There, as he -relates, two cut-purses were caught in the act, who had followed with -the crowd from London. They declared that they had laid a wager upon -the dance, but Kemp recognised one of them as a noted thief whom he had -seen tied to a post in the theatre. Next day he reached Chelmsford, but -here the crowd which had accompanied him from London had dwindled away -to a couple of hundred people. - -In Norwich the city waits received him in the open market-place with an -official concert in the presence of thousands. He was the guest of the -town and entertained at its expense, received handsome presents from -the mayor, and was admitted to the Guild of Merchant Venturers, being -thereby assured a share in their yearly income, to the amount of forty -shillings. The very buskins in which he had performed his dance were -nailed to the wall in the Norwich Guild Hall and preserved in perpetual -memory of the exploit. - -So popular an artist as this must of course have felt himself at least -Shakespeare's equal. He certainly assumed the right to address one of -her Majesty's Maids-of-Honour with no slight familiarity. The tone in -which he dedicates this catchpenny performance to Mrs. Fitton offers -a remarkable contrast to the profoundly respectful tone in which -professional authors couch their dedications to their noble patrons or -patronesses:-- - - "In the waine of my little wit I am forst to desire your - protection, else every Ballad-singer will proclaime me - bankrupt of honesty.... To shew my duety to your honourable - selfe, whose favours (among other bountifull friends) make - me (dispight this sad world) iudge my hert Corke and my - heeles feathers, so that me thinkes I could fly to Rome (at - least hop to Rome, as the old Prouerb is) with a Morter on - my head." - -His description of the _Nine Daies Wonder_, with its arrogant -dedication, has shown us how conceited he must have been. Hamlet -lets us see that he had frequently annoyed Shakespeare by the -irrepressible freedom of his "gags" and interpolations. From the text -of the plays of an earlier period which have come down to us, we can -understand that the clowns were in those days as free to do what -they pleased with their parts as the Italian actors in the _Commedia -dell' Arte_. Shakespeare's rich and perfect art left no room for such -improvisations. Now that Kemp was gone, the poet sent the following -shaft after him from the lips of Hamlet:-- - - "And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is - set down for them: for there be of them that will themselves - laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh - too: though, in the meantime, some necessary question of the - play be then to be considered: that's villainous, and shows - a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it." - -This reproof is, however, as the reader sees, couched in quite general -terms; wherefore it was allowed to stand when Kemp returned to the -company. But a far sharper and much more personal attack, which -appears in the edition of 1603, was expunged in the following editions -(and consequently from our text of the play), as being no longer in -place after the return of the wanderer. It speaks of a clown whose -witticisms are so popular that they are noted down by the gentlemen who -frequent the theatre. A whole series of extremely poor specimens of -his burlesque sallies is given--mere circus-clown drolleries--and then -Hamlet disposes of the wretched buffoon by remarking that he "cannot -make a jest unless by chance, as a blind man catcheth a hare." - -It is notorious that an artist will more easily forgive an attack on -himself than warm praise of a rival in the same line. There can be -very little doubt that Shakespeare, in making Hamlet praise the dead -Yorick, had in view the lamented Tarlton, Kemp's amiable and famous -predecessor. If there had been no purpose to serve by making the -skull that of a jester, it might quite as well have belonged to some -old servant of Hamlet's. But if Shakespeare, in his first years of -theatrical life, had known Tarlton personally, and Kemp's objectionable -behaviour vividly recalled by contrast his predecessor's charming -whimsicality, it was natural enough that he should combine with the -attack on Kemp a warm eulogy of the great jester.[1] - -Tarlton was buried on the 3rd of September 1588. This date accords with -the statement in the first quarto that Yorick has lain in the earth -for a dozen years. Not till we have these facts before us can we fully -understand the following strong outburst of feeling:-- - - "Alas, poor Yorick!--I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of - infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me - on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my - imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those - lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your - gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of - merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?" - -Alas, poor Yorick! Hamlet's heartfelt lament will keep his memory alive -when his Owlglass jests recorded in print are utterly forgotten.[2] -His fooling was equally admired by the populace, the court, and the -theatrical public. He is said to have told Elizabeth more truths -than all her chaplains, and cured her melancholy better than all her -physicians. - -Shakespeare, in _Hamlet_, has not only spoken his mind freely on -theatrical matters; he has also eulogised the distinguished actor after -his death, and given a great example of the courteous and becoming -treatment of able actors during their lives. His Prince of Denmark -stands far above the vulgar prejudice against them. And, lastly, -Shakespeare has glorified that dramatic art which was the business -and pleasure of his life, by making the play the effective means of -bringing the truth to light and furthering the ends of justice. The -acting of the drama of Gonzago's death is the hinge on which the tragedy -turns. From the moment when the King betrays himself by stopping the -performance, Hamlet knows all that he wants to know. - -When James ascended the throne, _Hamlet_ received, as it were, a new -actuality, from the fact that his queen, Anne, was a Danish princess. -At the splendid festival held on the occasion of the triumphal -procession of King James, Queen Anne, and Prince Henry Frederick, -from the Tower through the city, "the Danish March" was brilliantly -performed, out of compliment to the Queen, by a band consisting of nine -trumpeters and a kettle-drum, stationed on a scaffolding at the side -of St. Mildred's Church. How this march went we do not know; but there -can be little doubt that from that time it was played in the second -scene of the fifth act of _Hamlet_, where music of trumpets and drums -is prescribed, and where, in our days, at the Théâtre-Français, they -naïvely play, "Kong Christian stod ved höjen Mast."[3] - - -[1] Compare _New Shakspere Society's Transactions_, 1880-86, p. 60. - -[2] _Tarlton's Jests and News out of Purgatory._ Edited by J. O. -Halliwell. London, 1844. - -[3] The Danish national song of to-day, written by Ewald, and the music -composed by Hartmann, 1778. - - - - -XIX - -_ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL--ATTACKS ON PURITANISM_ - -The fortunes of the company having declined by reason of the -competition complained of in _Hamlet_, it became necessary to -intersperse a few comedies among the sombre tragedies on which alone -Shakespeare's mind was now bent. - -Comedies, therefore, had to be produced. But the disposition of mind -in which Shakespeare had created _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ had long -deserted him; and infinitely remote, though so near in point of time, -was the mood in which he had produced _As You Like It_. - -Still the thing had to be done. He took one of his old sketches in hand -again, the play called _Love's Labour's Won_, which has already been -noticed (p. 47). Its original form we do not exactly know; all -we can do is to pick out the rhymed and youthfully frivolous passages -as having doubtless belonged to the earlier play, to whose title there -is probably a reference in Helena's words in the concluding scene:-- - - "This is done. - Will you be mine, now you are doubly won?" - -It is clear that Shakespeare in his young days took hold of the subject -with the purpose of making a comedy out of it. But now it did not turn -out a comedy; the time was past when Shakespeare's chief strength lay -in his humour. We could quite well imagine his subsequent tragedies to -have been written by his Hamlet, if Hamlet had had life before him; and -in the same way we could imagine this and the following play, _Measure -for Measure_, to have been written by his Jaques. - -We find many indications in _All's Well that Ends Well_-- most, as was -natural, in the first two acts--of Shakespeare's having come straight -from _Hamlet_. In the very first scene, the Countess chides Helena for -the immoderate grief with which she mourns her father: it is wrong to -let oneself be so overwhelmed. Just so the King speaks to Hamlet of the -"obstinate condolement" to which he gives himself up. The Countess's -advice to her son, when he is setting off for France, reminds us -strongly of the advice Polonius gives to Laertes in exactly the same -situation. She says, for instance:-- - - "Thy blood and virtue - Contend for empire in thee; and thy goodness - Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few, - Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy - Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend - Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence, - But never tax'd for speech." - -Compare with these injunctions those of Polonius:-- - - "Give thy thoughts no tongue, - Nor any unproportion'd thought his act. - Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. - The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, - Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; - But do not dull thy palm with entertainment - Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware - Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, - Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee. - Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice." - -Notice also in this comedy the numerous sallies against court life -and courtiers, which are quite in the spirit of _Hamlet_. The scene -in which Polonius changes his opinion according as Hamlet thinks the -cloud like a camel, a weasel, or a whale, and that in which Osric, who -"did comply with his dug before he sucked it," reels off his elegant -speeches, seem actually to be commented on in general terms when the -Clown (ii. 2) thus discourses about the court:-- - - "Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may - easily put it off at court: he that cannot make a leg, put - off's cap, kiss his hand, and say nothing, has neither leg, - hands, lip, nor cap; and, indeed, such a fellow, to say - precisely, were not for the court." - -Now and again, too, we come upon expressions which recall well-known -speeches of Hamlet's. For instance, when Helena (ii. 3) says to the -First Lord: - - "Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute," - -we are reminded of Hamlet's ever-memorable last words: - - "The rest is silence." - -Among other more external touches, which likewise point clearly to the -period 1602-1603, may be mentioned the many subtle, cautious sallies -against Puritanism which are interwoven in the play. They express the -bitter contempt for demonstrative piety which filled Shakespeare's mind -just at that time. - -_Hamlet_ itself had treated of a hypocrite on the largest scale. -Notice, too, the stinging reference to existing conditions in Act iii. -Scene 2:-- - - "_Hamlet_. Look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my - father died within's two hours. - - "_Ophelia_. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord. - - "_Ham_. So long? Nay, then, let the devil wear black, for - I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, - and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's - memory may outlive his life half a year; _but by'r lady, - he must build churches then_, or else shall he suffer not - thinking on, with the hobby-horse; whose epitaph is, 'For O! - for, O! the hobby-horse is forgot.'" - -In _All's Well that Ends Well_ Shakespeare has his sanctimonious -enemies constantly in mind. He makes the Clown jeer at the fanatics in -both the Protestant and the Catholic camp. They may be of different -faiths, but they are alike in being unlucky husbands. The Clown says -(i. 3):-- - - "Young Charbon the Puritan, and old Poysam the Papist, how - soe'er their hearts are severed in religion, their heads are - both one; they may joll horns together, like any deer i' the - herd." - -A little farther on he continues:-- - - "Though honesty be no Puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it - will wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a - big heart." - -When Lafeu (ii. 3) is talking to Parolles of the marvellous cure of the -King of France which Helena has undertaken, he has a hit at those who -will find matter in it for a pious treatise:-- - - "_Lafeu_. I may truly say, it is a novelty to the world. - - "_Parolles_. It is, indeed: if you will have it in showing, - you shall read it in--what do you call there?-- - - "_Laf._ A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor." - -Shakespeare clearly took a mischievous pleasure in imitating the title -of a Puritanic work of edification. - -This polemical tendency, which extends from _Hamlet_ through _All's -Well that Ends Well_ to _Measure for Measure_, in the form of an -increasingly marked opposition to the growing religious strictness and -sectarianism of the day, with its accompaniment of hypocrisy, proves -plainly that Shakespeare at this time shared the animosity of the -Government towards both Puritanism and Catholicism. - -Though there is little true mirth to be found in _All's Well that Ends -Well_, the piece reminds us in various ways of some of Shakespeare's -real comedies. The story resembles in several details that of _The -Merchant of Venice_. Portia in disguise persuades the unwilling -Bassanio to give up his ring to her; and Helena, in the darkness of -night mistaken for another, coaxes Bertram out of the ring which he -had made up his mind she should never obtain from him. In the closing -scenes, both Bertram and Bassanio are minus their rings; both are -wretched because they have not got them; and in both cases the knot -is unravelled by their wives being found in possession of them. -There is a more essential relation--that of direct contrast--between -the story of _All's Well that Ends Well_ and that of _The Taming of -the Shrew_. The earlier comedy sets forth in playful fashion how a -man by means of the attributes of his sex--physical superiority, -boldness, and coolness--helped out by imperiousness, bluster, noise, -and violence, wins the devotion of a passionately recalcitrant young -woman. _All's Well that Ends Well_ shows us how a woman, by means of -the attributes of her sex--gentleness, goodness of heart, cunning, and -finesse--conquers a vehemently recalcitrant man. And in both cases the -pair are married before the action proper of the play begins. - -Seeing that Shakespeare in _The Taming of the Shrew_ followed the older -play on the same subject, and that he took the story of _All's Well -that Ends Well_ from Boccaccio's Gilette of Narbonne, a translation -of which appeared as early as 1566 in Paynter's _Palace of Pleasure_, -this contrast cannot be said to have been devised by the poet. But it -is evident that one of the chief attractions of the latter subject -for Shakespeare was the opportunity it offered him of delineating -that rare phenomenon: a woman wooing a man and yet possessing and -retaining all the charm of her sex. Shakespeare has worked out the -figure of Helena with the tenderest partiality. Pity and admiration in -concert seem to have guided his pen. We feel in his portraiture a deep -compassion for the pangs of despised love--the compassion of one who -himself has suffered--and over the whole figure of Helena he has shed a -Raphael-like beauty. She wins all, charms all, wherever she goes--old -and young, women and men--all except Bertram, the one in whom her life -is bound up. The King and the old Lafeu are equally captivated by her, -equally impressed by her excellences. Bertram's mother prizes her as -if she were her daughter; more highly, indeed, than she prizes her own -obstinate son. The Italian widow becomes so devoted to her that she -follows her to a foreign country in order to vouch for her statement -and win her back her husband. - -She ventures all that she may gain her well-beloved, and in the pursuit -of her aim shows an inventive capacity not common among women. For -the real object of her journey to cure the King is, as she frankly -confesses, to be near Bertram. As in the tale, she obtains the King's -promise that she may, if she is successful in curing him, choose -herself a husband among the lords of his court; but in Boccaccio it is -the King who, in answer to her question as to the reward, gives her -this promise of his own accord; in the play it is she who first states -her wish. So possessed is she by her passion for one who does not give -her a thought or a look. But when he rejects her (unlike Gilette in the -tale), she has no desire to attain her object by compulsion; she simply -says to the King with noble resignation-- - - "That you are well restored, my lord, - I'm glad; let the rest go." - -She offers no objection when Bertram, immediately after the wedding, -announces his departure, alleging pretexts which she does not choose -to see through; she suffers without a murmur when, at the moment -of parting, he refuses her a kiss. When she has learnt the whole -truth, she can at first utter nothing but short ejaculations (iii. -2): "My lord is gone, for ever gone." "This is a dreadful sentence!" -"Tis bitter!"--and presently she leaves her home, that she may be -no hindrance to his returning to it. Predisposed though she is to -self-confidence and pride, no one could possibly love more tenderly and -humbly. - -All the most beautiful passages of her part show by the structure of -the verse and the absence of rhyme that they belong to the poet's riper -period. Note, for example, the lines (i. I) in which Helena tells how -the remembrance of her dead father has been effaced in her mind by the -picture of Bertram:-- - - "My imagination - Carries no favour in't but Bertram's. - I am undone: there is no living, none, - If Bertram be away. It were all one - That I should love a bright particular star, - And think to wed it; he is so above me: - In his bright radiance and collateral light - Must I be comforted, not in his sphere. - The ambition in my love thus plagues itself: - The hind that would be mated by the lion - Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague, - To see him every hour: to sit and draw - His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls, - In our heart's table; heart too capable - Of every line and trick of his sweet favour: - But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy - Must sanctify his relics." - -If we compare the style of this passage with that which prevails -in Helena's rhymed speeches, with their euphuistic word-plays -and antitheses, the difference is very striking, and we feel -what a distance Shakespeare has traversed since the days of his -apprenticeship. Here we find no glitter of wit, but the utterance of a -heart that loves simply and deeply. - -Though the play as a whole was evidently not one of those which -Shakespeare cared most about, and though he has allowed things to stand -in it which preclude the possibility of a satisfactory and harmonious -end, yet he has evidently concentrated his whole poetic strength on the -development and perfection of Helena's most winning character. These -are the terms (i. 3) in which, speaking to Bertram's mother, she makes -confession of her love:-- - - "Be not offended, for it hurts not him, - That he is lov'd of me. I follow him not - By any token of presumptuous suit; - Nor would I have him till I do deserve him, - Yet never know how that desert should be. - I know I love in vain, strive against hope; - Yet, in this captious and intenible sieve - I still pour in the waters of my love, - And lack not to lose still. Thus, Indian-like, - Religious in mine error, I adore - The sun, that looks upon his worshipper, - But knows of him no more." - -There is something in her nature which anticipates the charm, -earnestness, and boundless devotion with which Shakespeare afterwards -endows Imogen. When Bertram goes off to the war, simply to escape -acknowledging her and living with her as his wife, she exclaims (iii. -2)-- - - "Poor lord! is't I - That chase thee from thy country, and expose - Those tender limbs of thine to the event - Of the none-sparing war? . . . - O you leaden messengers, - That ride upon the violent speed of fire, - Fly with false aim; move the still-'pearing air, - That sings with piercing, do not touch my lord! - Whoever shoots at him, I set him there; - Whoever charges on his forward breast, - I am the caitiff that do hold him to it." - -In this there is a fervour and a glow that we do not find in the -earlier comedies. When one reads these verses, one understands how it -is that Coleridge calls Helena, "Shakespeare's loveliest character." - -Pity that this deep passion should have been inspired by so unworthy -an object. It undoubtedly lessens the interest of the play that -Shakespeare should not have given Bertram some more estimable qualities -along with the all too youthful and unchivalrous ones which he -possesses. The poet has here been guilty of a certain negligence, which -shows that it was only to parts of the play that he gave his whole -mind. Bertram is right enough in refusing to have a wife thrust upon -him against his will, simply because the King has a debt of gratitude -to pay. But this first motive for refusing gives place to one with -which we have less sympathy: to wit, pride of rank, which makes him -look down on Helena as being of inferior birth, though king, courtiers, -and his own mother consider her fit to rank with the best. Even this, -however, need not lower Bertram irretrievably in our esteem; but he -adds to it traits of unmanliness, even of baseness. For instance, he -enjoins Helena, through Parolles, to invent some explanation of his -sudden departure which will make the King believe it to have been a -necessity; and then he leaves her, not, as he falsely declares, for -two days, but for ever. His readiness to marry a daughter of Lafeu -the moment the report of Helena's death has reached him is a very -extraordinary preparation for the reunion of the couple at the end of -the play, and reminds us unpleasantly of the exactly similar incident -in _Much Ado About Nothing_ (p. 217). But, worst of all, and an -indisputable dramatic mistake, is his entangling himself, just before -the final reconciliation, in a web of mean lies with reference to the -Italian girl to whom he had laid siege in Tuscany. - -It was to make Helena's position more secure, and to avoid any -suspicion of the adventuress about her, that Shakespeare invented the -character of the Countess, that motherly friend whose affection sets a -seal on all her merits. In the same way Parolles was invented with the -purpose of making Bertram less guilty. Bertram is to be considered as -ensnared by this old "fool, notorious liar, and coward" (as Helena at -once calls him), who figures in the play as his evil genius. - -Parolles in _Love's Labours Won_ was doubtless a gay and purely -farcical figure--the first slight sketch for Falstaff. Coming after -Falstaff, he necessarily seems a weak repetition; but this is no -fault of the poet's. Still, it is very plain that in the re-writing -Shakespeare's attempt at gaiety missed fire. His frame of mind was too -serious; the view of the subject from the moral standpoint displaces -and excludes pure pleasure in its comicality. Parolles, who has -Falstaff's vices without a gleam of his genius, brings anything but -unmixed merriment in his train. The poet is at pains to impress on us -the lesson we ought to learn from Parolles's self-stultification, and -the shame that attends on his misdeeds. Thus the Second Lord (iv. 3), -speaking of the rascality he displays in his outpourings when he is -blindfolded, says-- - -"I will never trust a man again for keeping his sword clean, nor -believe he can have everything in him by wearing his apparel neatly." - -And Parolles himself says when his effrontery is crushed (iv. 3)-- - - "If my heart were great, - 'Twould burst at this. Captain I'll be no more; - But I will eat and drink, and sleep as soft - As captain shall: simply the thing I am - Shall make me live. _Who knows himself a braggart,_ - _Let him fear this; for it will come to pass_ - _That every braggart shall be found an ass_" - -The other comic figure, the Clown, witty as he is, has not the serene -gaiety of the earlier comedies. He speaks here and there, as already -noted (p. 49), in the youthfully whimsical style of the -earliest comedies; but as a humoristic house-fool he does not rank with -such a sylvan fool as Touchstone, a creation of a few years earlier, -nor with the musical court-fool in _Twelfth Night_. - -A single passage in _All's Well that Ends Well_ has always struck me -as having a certain personal note. It is one of those which were quite -evidently added at the time of the re-writing. The King is speaking of -Bertram's deceased father, and quotes his words (i. 2)-- - - "'Let me not live,'-- - Thus his good melancholy oft began, - On the catastrophe and heel of pastime, - When it was out,--'Let me not live,' quoth he, - 'After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff - Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses - All but new things disdain.'... - This he wish'd: - I, after him, do after him wish too." - -A courtier objects to this despondent utterance-- - - "You are lov'd, sir; - They that least lend it you shall lack you first." - -Whereupon the King replies with proud humility-- - - "I fill a place, I know't." - -These words could not have been written save by a mature man, who has -seen impatient youth pressing forward to take his place, and who has -felt the sting of its criticism. The disposition of mind which here -betrays itself foretells that overpowering sense of the injustice of -men and of things which is soon to take possession of Shakespeare's -soul. - - - - -XX - -_MEASURE FOR MEASURE--ANGELO AND TARTUFFE_ - -A covert polemical intention could be vaguely divined here and there -in _All's Well that Ends Well_. It contained, as we have seen, some -incidental mockery of the increasing Puritanism of the time, with its -accompaniment of self-righteousness, moral intolerance, and unctuous -hypocrisy. The bent of thought which gave birth to these sallies -reappears still more clearly in the choice of the theme treated in -_Measure for Measure_. - -The plot of _All's Well that Ends Well_ turns on the incident, familiar -in every literature, of one woman passing herself off for another at a -nocturnal rendezvous, without the substitution being detected by the -man--an incident so fruitful in dramatic situations, that even its -gross improbability has never deterred poets from making use of it. - -A standing variation of this theme, also to be found in the most -diverse literatures, is as follows:--A man is condemned to death. His -mistress, his wife, or his sister implores the judge to pardon him. The -judge promises, on condition that she shall pass a night with him, to -let the prisoner go free, but afterwards has him executed all the same. - -This subject has been treated over and over again from mediæval times -down to our own days, its latest appearances, probably, being in Paul -Heyse's novel, _Der Kinder Sünde der Väter Fluch_, and in Victorien -Sardou's play _La Tosca_. In Shakespeare's time it appeared in the form -of an Italian novella in Giraldi Cinthio's _Hecatommithi_ (1565), on -which an English dramatist, George Whetstone, founded his play, _The -Right Excellent and Famous History of Promos and Cassandra_ (1578), and -also a prose story in his _Heptameron of Civil Discourses_, published -in 1582. Whetstone's utterly lifeless and characterless comedy is the -immediate source from which Shakespeare derived the outlines of the -story. He is indebted to Whetstone for nothing else. - -What attracted Shakespeare to this unpleasant subject was clearly his -indignation at the growing Pharisaism in matters of sexual morality -which was one outcome of the steady growth of Puritanism among the -middle classes. It was a consequence of his position as an actor and -theatrical manager that he saw only the ugliest side of Puritanism--the -one it turned towards him. - -Its estimable sides well deserved a poet's sympathy. Small wonder, -indeed, that independent and pious men should seek the salvation of -their souls without the bounds of the Anglican State Church, with its -Thirty-Nine Articles, to which all clergymen and state officials were -bound to swear, and to which all citizens must make submission. It was -a punishable offence to use any other ritual than the official one, or -even to refuse to go to church. The Puritans, who dreamed of leading -the Christian Church back to its original purity, and who had returned -home after their banishment during the reign of Mary with the ideal -of a democratic Church before their eyes, could not possibly approve -of a State Church subject to the crown, or of such an institution as -Episcopacy. Some of them looked to Scottish Presbyterianism as a worthy -model, and desired to see Church government by laymen, the elders of -the congregation, introduced into England, in place of the spiritual -aristocracy of the bishops. Others went still farther, denied the -necessity of one common form of worship for all, and desired to have -the Church broken up into independent congregations, in which any -believer might officiate as priest. We have here the germs of the great -party division in Cromwell's time into Presbyterians and Independents. - -So far as we can see, Shakespeare took no interest whatever in any of -these ecclesiastical or religious movements. He came into contact with -Puritanism only in its narrow and fanatical hatred of his art, and -in its severely intolerant condemnation and punishment of moral, and -especially of sexual, frailties. All he saw was its Pharisaic aspect, -and its often enough only simulated virtue. - -It was his indignation at this hypocritical virtue that led him to -write _Measure for Measure_. He treated the subject as he did, because -the interests of the theatre demanded that the woof of comedy should -be interwoven with the severe and sombre warp of tragedy. But what -a comedy! Dark, tragic, heavy as the poet's mood--a tragi-comedy, -in which the unusually broad and realistic comic scenes, with their -pictures of the dregs of society, cannot relieve the painfulness of -the theme, or disguise the positively criminal nature of the action. -One feels throughout, even in the comic episodes, that Shakespeare's -burning wrath at the moral hypocrisy of self-righteousness underlies -the whole structure like a volcano, which every moment shoots up its -flames through the superficial form of comedy and the interludes of -obligatory merriment. - -And yet it is not really against hypocrisy that his attack is aimed. -At this stage of his development he is far too great a psychologist to -depict a ready-made, finished hypocrite. No, he shows us how weak even -the strictest Pharisee will prove, if only he happens to come across -the temptation which really tempts him; and how such a man's desire, -if it meets with opposition, reveals in him quite another being--a -villain, a brute beast--who allows himself actions worse a hundredfold -than those which, in the calm superiority of a spotless conscience, he -has hitherto punished in others with the utmost severity. - -It is not a type of Shakespeare's opponents that he here unmasks and -brands--it is a man in many ways above the average type, as he saw -it. The chief character in _Measure for Measure_ is the judge of -public morality, the hard and stern _Censor morum_, who in his moral -fanaticism believes that he can root out vice by persecuting its tools, -and imagines that he can purify and reform society by punishing every -transgression, however natural and comparatively harmless, as a capital -crime. The play shows us how this man, as soon as a purely sensual -passion takes possession of him, does not hesitate to commit, under -the mask of piety, a crime against real morality so revolting and so -monstrous that no expression of loathing and contempt would be too -severe for it, and scarcely any punishment too rigorous. - -From its nature such a drama ought to end by appeasing in some -satisfactory manner the craving for justice awakened in the spectator. -But comedy was what Shakespeare's company wanted; and besides, it would -have been unwise, and perhaps even dangerous, to carry to extremities -this question of the punishment of moral hypocrisy. So the knot in the -play was summarily loosed, without any great expenditure of pathos, -by the provident care and timely intervention of a wise and invisibly -omnipresent prince, an occidental Haroun-al-Raschid. Fastidious in -his choice of means this prince was not. With an ingenuity which is -profoundly unsatisfactory to any one of the least delicacy of feeling, -he substitutes a lovable girl, whom the iniquitous judge had at one -time promised to marry, for the beautiful young woman who is the object -of his bestial desire. - -The Duke, wishing to test his servants, gives out that he is leaving -Vienna on a long journey. He intrusts the regency during his absence to -Angelo, an official of high standing and reputation. - -No sooner does Angelo come into power than he begins a regular crusade -against licentiousness and all laxity in the domain of morals. In the -first place, he decrees that all houses of ill-fame in the city of -Vienna are to be pulled down. In the older drama by Whetstone, which -Shakespeare used as a foundation for his play, there was a whole troop -of disreputable personages, procuresses, prostitutes, bullies, improper -characters of every description. Shakespeare retains part of this -company; he has a single procuress, Mistress Overdone, who reminds -us slightly of Doll Tearsheet, a single bully, that very amusing -personage, Pompey; and he adds to them an extremely entertaining -character, the utterly dissolute but witty tattler and liar, Lucio. - -But the chief alteration he makes in the subject-matter of the play is -that the Duke, disguised as a friar, is witness from the beginning of -Angelo's abuse of his power as ruler and judge. Among other advantages -resulting from this modification, we must reckon the fact that the -spectators are thus reassured in advance as to the final issue. On the -Duke's disguise, moreover, depends most of the comic effect arising -out of the character of Lucio, who is constantly repeating to him the -most absurd slanders about himself, as if he had them from the best -authority. Further, the Duke's concealed presence is essential to the -other great change made in the story, namely, that Isabella is not -really required to sacrifice herself for her brother, her place being -filled, as in _All's Well that Ends Well_, by a woman who has old -claims on the man concerned. In this manner the too revoltingly painful -part of the subject is avoided. - -Shakespeare has imagined one of the men who were the bitterest enemies -of his art and his calling invested with absolute power, and using -it to proceed against immorality with cruel rigour. The first step -is his attack on common prostitution, which he persuades himself he -can exterminate. This vain imagination is repeatedly ridiculed. "What -shall become of me?" says Mistress Overdone. "Come; fear not you: good -counsellors lack no clients." In the Act ii. sc. I we read:-- - - "_Escalus_. How would you live, Pompey? by being a bawd? - What do you think of the trade, Pompey? is it a lawful trade? - - "_Pompey_. If the law would allow it, sir. - - "_Escal_. But the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it - shall not be allowed in Vienna. - - "_Pomp_. Does your worship mean to geld and splay all the - youth of the city. - - "_Escal_. No, Pompey. - - "_Pomp_. Truly, sir, in my poor opinion, they will to't - then." - - And Lucio (iii. 2) also ridicules Angelo's severity as fruitless:-- - - "_Lucio_. A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm - in him: something too crabbed that way, friar. - - "_Duke_. It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it. - - "_Lucio_. Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great - kindred: it is well allied; but it is impossible to extirp - it quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put down. They - say, this Angelo was not made by man and woman, after this - downright way of creation: is it true, think you?" - -But besides taking strict proceedings against actual debauchery, Angelo -revives an old law which has long been in disuse--according to the Duke -for fourteen, according to Claudio for nineteen years--making death the -punishment of all sexual commerce without marriage; and by this law -young Claudio is condemned to death for his relation to Juliet. - -It was an innocent relation. He says (i. 3):-- - - "She is fast my wife - Save that we do the denunciation lack - Of outward order: this we came not to, - Only for propagation of a dower - Remaining in the coffer of her friends." - -But this avails nothing. An example is to be made. It is in vain that -even the highly respectable Provost feels compassion for him, and says -(ii. 2):-- - - "All sects, all ages smack of this vice, and he - To die for it!" - -The young men of the town cannot explain this insane severity in any -other way than by the supposition that Lord Angelo is a man with -"snow-broth" in his veins in place of blood. - -It soon appears, however, that he is not the man of ice he is taken to -be. - -Escalus, an old, honourable nobleman, bids him bear in mind that -though his own virtue be of the straitest, it has, perhaps, never been -tempted; had it been exposed to temptations, it might not have stood -the test better than that of others. Angelo answers haughtily that -to be tempted is one thing, to fall another. But now comes Claudio's -sister, Isabella, young, charming, and intelligent, and beseeches him -to spare her brother's life (ii. 2):-- - - "Good, good my lord, bethink you: - Who is it that hath died for this offence? - There's many have committed it." - -He is inexorable. She shows the unreason of punishing so stringently -the errors of love: - - "_Isab_. Could great men thunder - As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, - For every pelting, petty officer - Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder.-- - Merciful heaven! - Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt - Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, - Than the soft myrtle." - -And she continues in such a strain, that we cannot but hear the poet's -voice through hers:-- - - "But man, proud man! - Drest in a little brief authority, - Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd, - His glassy essence,--like an angry ape, - Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven - As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens, - Would all themselves laugh mortal." - -And she appeals to his own self-knowledge:-- - - "Go to your bosom; - Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know - That's like my brother's fault." - -He invites her to come again the next day; and hardly is she gone when, -in a monologue, he reveals his hateful passion, and even hints at his -still more hateful purpose of forcing her to gratify it in payment for -her brother's release. - -He makes her his proposal. She is appalled; she now sees, like Hamlet, -what life can be, what undreamt-of horrors can happen, to what a pitch -villainy can be carried, even on the judgment-seat:-- - - "O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell, - The damned'st body to invest and cover - In princely guards! Dost thou think, Claudio?-- - If I would yield him my virginity, - Thou mightst be freed." - -She cannot even denounce him, for, as he himself points out to her, -no one will believe her; his stainless name, his strict life and high -rank, will stifle the accusation if she dares to make it. Feeling -himself safe, he is doubly audacious. Thus, when, at the conclusion of -the play (v. 3), she lays her indictment before the reinstated Duke, -Angelo says brazenly, "My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm." -Then follows, as if in continuation of Isabella's just-quoted speech, -the fiery protest springing from the poet's intensest conviction:-- - - "Make not impossible - That which but seems unlike. 'Tis not impossible, - But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground, - May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute, - As Angelo." - -(See p. 241.) - -But the protest has no immediate result. Isabella is, for the time -being, sent to prison for slandering a man of unblemished honour. -And the irony is kept up to the last. The Duke, in his character as -a friar, has learnt bitter lessons; amongst others, that there is -hardly enough honesty in the world to hold society together. But when -he himself, in his disguise, relates what he has witnessed, his own -faithful servants are on the point of sending him also to prison. In -his rôle of Haroun-al-Raschid, he has seen and realised that law is -made to serve as a screen for might. Thus he says-- - - "My business in this state - Made me a looker-on here in Vienna, - Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble - Till it o'er-run the stew: laws for all faults, - But faults so countenanc'd, that the strong statutes - Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop, - As much in mock as mark. - _'Escal_. Slander to the state! Away with him to prison." - -As a play, _Measure for Measure_ rests entirely on three scenes: the -one in which Angelo is tempted by Isabella's beauty; that in which -he makes the shameless, proposal that she shall give her honour in -exchange for her brother's life; and, thirdly, that most dramatic one -in which Claudio, after first hearing with fortitude and indignation -what his sister has to tell him of Angelo's baseness, breaks down, and, -like Kleist's Prince of Homburg two centuries later, begins meanly -to beg for his life. Round these principal scenes are grouped the -many excellent and vigorously realistic comic passages, treated in a -spirit which afterwards revived in Hogarth and Thackeray; and other -scenes designed solely to retard the dramatic wheel a little, which, -therefore, jar upon us as conventional. It is, for example, an entirely -unjustifiable experiment which the Duke tries on Isabella in the fourth -act, when he falsely assures her that her brothers head has already -been cut off and sent to Angelo. This is introduced solely for the sake -of an effect at the end. - -In this very unequally elaborated play, it is evident that Shakespeare -cared only for the main point--the blow he was striking at hypocrisy. -And it is probable that he here ventured as far as he by any means -dared. It is a giant stride from the stingless satire on Puritanism -in the character of Malvolio to this representation of a Puritan -like Angelo. Probably for this very reason, Shakespeare has tried -in every way to shield himself. The subject is treated entirely as -a comedy. There is a threat of executing first Claudio, then the -humorous scoundrel Barnardine, whose head is to be delivered instead -of Claudio's; Barnardine is actually brought on the scene directly -before execution, and the spectators sit in suspense; but all ends -well at last, and the head of a man already dead is sent to Angelo. A -noble maiden is threatened with dishonour; but another woman, Mariana, -who was worthy of a better fate, keeps tryst with Angelo in her stead, -and this danger is over. Finally, threats of retribution close round -Angelo, the villain, himself; but after all he escapes unpunished, -being merely obliged to marry the amiable girl whom he had at an -earlier period deserted. In this way the play's terrible impeachment -of hypocrisy is most carefully glozed over, and along with it the -pessimism which animates the whole. - -For it is remarkable how deeply pessimistic is the spirit of this play. -When the Duke is exhorting Claudio (iii. I) not to fear his inevitable -fate, he goes farther in his depreciation of human life than Hamlet -himself when his mood is blackest:-- - - "Reason thus with life:-- - If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing - That none but fools would keep; a breath thou art, - Servile to all the skyey influences, - That do this habitation, where thou keep'st, - Hourly afflict. Merely, thou art death's fool; - For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun, - And yet runn'st toward him still. - . . . . . . . . . - Happy thou art not; - For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get, - And what thou hast, forgett'st. Thou art not certain; - For thy complexion shifts to strange effects, - After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor; - For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows, - Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, - And death unloads thee. Friends hast thou none; - For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire, - The mere effusion of thy proper loins, - Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum, - For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth, nor age, - But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, - Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth - Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms - Of palsied eld: and when thou art old and rich, - Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty - To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this, - That bears the name of life? Yet in this life - Lie hid more thousand deaths; yet death we fear, - That makes these odds all even." - -Note with what art and care everything is here assembled that can -confound and abash the normal instinct that makes for life. Here for -the first time Shakespeare anticipates Schopenhauer. - -It is clear that in this play the poet was earnestly bent on proving -his own standpoint to be the moral one. In hardly any other play do we -find such persistent emphasis laid, with small regard for consistency -of character, upon the general moral. - -For example, could there be a more direct utterance than the Duke's -monologue at the end of Act iii.:-- - - "He who the sword of heaven will bear - Should be as holy as severe; - Pattern in himself to know, - Grace to stand, and virtue go; - More nor less to others paying, - Than by self-offences weighing. - Shame to him whose cruel striking - Kills for faults of his own liking! - Twice treble shame on Angelo, - To weed my vice, and let his grow!" - -Similarly, and in a like spirit, the moral pointer comes into play -wherever there is an opportunity of showing how apt princes and rulers -are to be misjudged, and how recklessly they are disparaged and -slandered. - -Thus the Duke says towards the close of Act iii.:-- - - "No might nor greatness in mortality - Can censure scape: black-wounding calumny - The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong - Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?" - -And later (iv. I), again:-- - - "O place and greatness! millions of false eyes - Are stuck upon thee. Volumes of report - Run with these false and most contrarious quests - Upon thy doings." - -It is quite remarkable how this dwelling on baseless criticism by -subjects is accompanied by a constant tendency to invoke the protection -of the sovereign, or, in other words, of James I., who had just -ascended the throne, and who, with his long-accumulated bitterness -against Scottish Presbyterianism, was already showing himself hostile -to English Puritanism. Hence the politic insistence, at the close, -upon a point quite irrelevant to the matter of the play: all other -sins being declared pardonable, save only slander or criticism of -the sovereign. Lucio alone, who, to the great entertainment of the -spectators, has told lies about the Duke, and, though only in jest, has -spoken ill of him, is to be mercilessly punished. To the last moment -it seems as if he were to be first whipped, then hanged. And even -after this sentence is commuted in order that the tone of comedy may -be preserved, and he is commanded instead to marry a prostitute, it is -expressly insisted that whipping and hanging ought by rights to have -been his punishment. "Slandering a prince deserves it," says the Duke, -at the beginning of the final speech. - -This attitude of Shakespeare's presents an exact parallel to that of -Molière in the concluding scene of _Tartuffe_, sixty years later. The -prince, in accordance with James of Scotland's theories of princely -duty, appears as the universally vigilant guardian of his people; -he alone chastises the hypocrite, whose lust of power and audacity -distinguish him from the rest. The appeal to the prince in _Measure -for Measure_ answers exactly to the great Deus-ex-machinâ speech in -_Tartuffe_, which relieves the leading characters from the nightmare -that has oppressed them:-- - - "Nous vivons sous un prince, ennemi de la fraude, - Un prince dont les yeux se font jour dans les cœurs - Et que ne peut tromper tout l'art des imposteurs." - -In the seventeenth century kings were still the protectors of art and -artists against moral and religious fanaticism. - - - - -XXI - -_ACCESSION OF JAMES AND ANNE--RALEIGH'S FATE--SHAKESPEARE'S COMPANY -BECOME HIS MAJESTY'S SERVANTS--SCOTCH INFLUENCE_. - -In _Measure for Measure_ it is not only the monarchical tone of the -play, but some quite definite points, that mark it out as having been -produced at the time of James's accession to the throne in 1603. In the -very first scene there is an allusion to the new king's nervous dislike -of crowds. This peculiarity, which caused much surprise on the occasion -of his entrance into England, is here placed in a flattering light. The -Duke says:-- - - "I'll privily away: I love the people, - But do not like to stage me to their eyes. - Though it do well, I do not relish well - Their loud applause and Aves vehement, - Nor do I think the man of safe discretion - That does affect it." - -It is also with unmistakable reference to James's antipathy for a -throng that Angelo, in Act ii. sc. 4, describes the crowding of the -people round a beloved sovereign as an inadmissible intrusion:-- - - "So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons, - Come all to help him, and so stop the air - By which he should revive: and even so - The general, subject to a well-wish'd king, - Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness - Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love - Must needs appear offence." - -Elizabeth had breathed her last on the 24th of March 1603. On her -deathbed, when she could no longer speak, she had made the shape of a -crown above her head with her hands, to signify that she chose as her -successor one who was already a king. Her ministers had long been in -secret negotiation with James VI. of Scotland, and had promised him -the succession, in spite of a provision in Henry VIII.'s will which -excluded his elder sister's Scottish descendants from the throne. -This had to be set aside; for there was not in the younger line any -personage of sufficient distinction to be at all eligible. There was -obvious advantage, too, in uniting the crowns of England and Scotland -on one head; too long had the neighbour kingdoms wasted each other's -energies in mutual feuds. All parties in the nation agreed with the -ministers in looking to James as Elizabeth's natural successor. The -Protestants felt confidence in him as a Protestant; the Catholics -looked for better treatment from the son of the Catholic martyr-queen; -the Puritans hoped that he, as a new and peace-loving king, would -sanction such alterations in the statutory form of worship as should -enable them to take part in it without injury to their souls. Great -expectations greeted him. - -Hardly was the breath out of Queen Elizabeth's body when Sir Robert -Carey, a gentleman on whom she had conferred many benefits, but who, in -his anxiety to ensure the new King's favour, had post-horses standing -ready at every station, galloped off to be the first to bring the -news to James in Edinburgh. On the way he was thrown from his horse, -which kicked him on the head; but in spite of this he reached Holyrood -on the evening of the 26th of March, just after the King had gone to -bed. He was hurriedly conducted into the bed-chamber, where he knelt -and greeted James by the title of King of England, Scotland, France, -and Ireland. "Hee gave mee his hand to kisse," writes Carey, "and -bade me welcome." He also promised Carey a place as Gentleman of the -Bed-Chamber, and various other things, in reward for his zeal; but -forgot all these promises as soon as he stood on English ground. - -In London all preparations had been carefully made. A proclamation of -James as King had been drawn up by Cecil during Elizabeth's lifetime, -and sent to Scotland for James's sanction. This the Prime Minister -read, a few hours after the Queen's death, to an assembly of the -Privy Council and chief nobility, and a great crowd, of the people, -amidst universal approbation. Three heralds with a trumpeter repeated -the proclamation in the Tower, "whereof as well prysoners as others -rejoyced, namely, the Earle of Southampton, in whom all signes of -great gladnesse appeared." Not without reason; for almost the first -order James gave was that a courier should convey to Southampton the -King's desire that he should at once join him and accompany him on his -progress through England to London, where he was to receive the oath of -allegiance and to be crowned. - -On the 5th of April 1603, James I. of Great Britain left Edinburgh to -take possession of his new kingdom. His royal progress was a very slow -one, for every nobleman and gentleman whose house he passed invited -him to enter; he accepted all invitations, spent day after day in -festivities, and rewarded hospitality by distributing knighthoods in -unheard-of and excessive numbers. One of his actions was unequivocally -censured. At Newark "was taken a cutpurse doing the deed," and James -had him hanged without trial or judgment. The displeasure shown made -it plain to him that he could not thus assume superiority to the -laws of England. In Scotland there had been a general demand for a -strong monarchy, which could hold the nobles and the clergy in check; -in England the day for this was over, and the new King's successors -learned to their cost the futility of trying to carry on the traditions -of despotism on English soil. - -James himself was received with the naïve, disinterested joy with -which the mass of the people are apt to greet a new monarch, of whose -real qualities nothing is yet known, and with the less disinterested -flatteries by which every one who came into contact with the King -sought personal favour in his eyes. - -There was nothing kingly or even winning in King James's exterior. -Strange that the handsome Henry Darnley and the beautiful Mary Stuart -should have had such an insignificant and ungainly son! He was -something over middle height, indeed, but his figure was awkward, his -head lumpish, and his eyes projecting. His language was the broadest -Scotch, and when he opened his mouth it was rather to spit out the -words than to speak; he hustled them out so that they stumbled over -each other. He talked, ate, and dressed like a peasant, and, in -spite of his apparently decorous life, was addicted to the broadest -improprieties of talk, even in the presence of ladies. He walked -like one who has no command over his limbs, and he could never keep -still, even in a room, but was always pacing up and down with clumsy, -sprawling movements. His muscles were developed by riding and hunting, -but his whole appearance was wanting in dignity. - -The shock inflicted on his mother during her pregnancy, by Rizzio's -assassination, probably accounts for his dread of the sight of drawn -steel. The terrorism in which he was brought up had increased his -natural timidity. While he was yet but a youth, the French ambassador, -Fontenay, summed up his description of him thus: "In one word, he is an -old young man." - -Now, in the thirty-sixth year of his age, he was a learned personage, -full of prejudices, wanting neither in shrewdness nor in wit, but -with two absorbing passions--the one for conversation on theological -and ecclesiastical matters, and the other for hunting expeditions, to -which he sometimes gave up so much as six consecutive days. He had -not Elizabeth's political instinct; she had chosen her councillors -among men of the most different parties; he admitted to his council -none but those whose opinions agreed with his own. But his vanity was -quite equal to hers. He had the pedant's boastfulness; he was fond -of bragging, for instance, that he could do more work in one hour -than others in a day; and he was especially proud of his learning. -Some Shakespeare students have, as already observed, seen in him the -prototype of Hamlet. He was certainly no Hamlet, but rather what -Alfred Stern somewhere calls him--a Polonius on the throne. We have -a description by Sir John Harington of an audience James gave him -in 1604. The King "enquyrede muche of lernynge" in such a way as to -remind him of "his examiner at Cambridge aforetyme," quoted scraps of -Aristotle which he hardly understood himself, and made Harington read -aloud part of a canto of Ariosto. Then he asked him what he "thoughte -pure witte was made of," and whom it best became, and thereupon -inquired whether he did not think a king ought to be "the beste clerke" -in his country. Farther, "His Majestie did much presse for my opinion -touchinge the power of Satane in matter of witchcraft, and ... why the -Devil did worke more with anciente women than others." This question -Sir John boldly and wittily answered by reminding him of the preference -for "walking in dry places" ascribed in Scripture to the Devil. James -then told of the apparition of "a bloodie heade dancinge in the -aire," which had been seen in Scotland before his mother's death, and -concluded: "Now, sir, you have seen my wisdome in some sorte, and I -have pried into yours. I praye you, do me justice in your reporte, and, -in good season, I will not fail to add to your understandinge, in suche -pointes as I may find you lacke amendmente." Perhaps only one European -sovereign since James has so plumed himself on his own omniscience. - -James's relations with England during Elizabeth's reign had not been -invariably friendly. Nourishing a lively ill-will to the Presbyterian -clergy, who were always trying to interfere in matters of state, he had -in 1584, at the age of eighteen, appealed to the Pope for assistance -for himself and his imprisoned mother. But the very next year, in -consideration of the payment of a pension of £4000 a year, he concluded -a treaty with Elizabeth. When this was ratified in 1586, his mother -disinherited him and nominated Philip II. her successor. At the very -time when the trial of Mary Stuart was going on, James made application -to have his title as heir to the throne of England acknowledged. This -unworthy, unchivalrous proceeding made it impossible for him in any way -to interfere with the carrying out of whatever sentence the English -Government chose to pronounce in his mother's case. Nevertheless her -execution naturally affected him painfully, and it was his resentment -that made him hasten on his long-planned marriage with the Danish -princess Anne, daughter of Frederick II.--an alliance which he knew to -be disagreeable to Elizabeth. He gained a political advantage by it, -Denmark waiving her claim to the Orkney Islands. - -His bride, born at Skanderborg towards the close of 1574, was at the -time of her marriage not fifteen years old--a pretty, fair-skinned, -golden-haired girl. Daughter of a Lutheran father and the Lutheran -Sophia of Mecklenburg, she had been brought up in Lutheran orthodoxy. -She had received some instruction in chemistry from Tycho Brahe; but -her education, on the whole, had been rather that of a spoilt child. -Great ideas had been instilled into her of what it meant to belong to -the royal house of Denmark, so that she agreed with her future husband -in a conviction of the importance of kingly state. Other features of -her character were good-humour, inborn wit, and a superficial gaiety -which sometimes went to unguarded lengths. Her behaviour, only three -years after her marriage, gave rise to a scandal--public opinion -(doubtless unjustly) making James accessory to the assassination of -the Earl of Murray, whom it was supposed that he had good reasons for -wishing out of the way. - -The difficulties which beset Anne's voyage from Denmark to Scotland in -1589 are well known. A storm, for raising which many Danish "witches" -and no fewer than two hundred luckless Scottish crones had to suffer at -the stake, drove the bride to Oslo in Norway. The impatient bridegroom -then undertook the one romantic adventure of his life and set off in -search of her. He found her at Oslo, was married there, and spent the -winter in Denmark. - -As Queen of Scotland, Anne already showed herself possessed by the same -mania for building which characterised her brother, Christian IV. As -Queen of England she aroused dissatisfaction by her constant coquetting -with Roman Catholicism. By her own wish, the Pope sent her gifts of all -sorts of Catholic gimcracks; they were taken from her, and the bearer -was consigned to the Tower. She showed a certain amiable independence -in the sympathy and good-will which she displayed towards Sir Walter -Raleigh, whom her husband imprisoned in the Tower; but on the whole -she was an insignificant woman, pleasure-loving and pomp-loving -(consequently a patroness of those poets who, like Ben Jonson, wrote -masques for court festivals), and, in contrast to the economical -Elizabeth, so extravagant that she was always in debt. Very soon after -her arrival in England, she owed enormous sums to jewellers and other -merchants. - -The new King soon disappointed the hopes which Puritans and Catholics -had cherished as to his tolerance. Even during the course of his -journey from Edinburgh to London numerous petitions for the better -treatment of Dissenters had been handed to him, and he seemed to give -good promises to both parties. But as early as January 1604, on the -occasion of a conference he summoned at Hampton Court, there was a -rupture between him and the Puritans--the very mention of the word -"Presbyter" making him furious. The formula, "No bishop, no king," -though not invented by him, expressed his principles. And when the -House of Commons favoured measures of a Puritan tendency, he retaliated -by proroguing Parliament, after rebuking the House in undignified and -boastful terms. He complained in this speech that whereas in Scotland -he had been regarded "not only as a king but as a counsellor," in -England, on the contrary, there was "nothing but curiosity from morning -to evening to find fault with his propositions." "There all things -warranted that came from me. Here all things suspected," &c. -&c. The Puritan clergy, who refused to accept the Anglican ritual, -were driven from their livings. - -The Catholics fared still worse. James had at first intended to lighten -the heavy penalties to which they were subject, but the discovery of -Catholic conspiracies led him to change his mind. The Catholic priests -and the pupils of the Jesuit schools were banished. After the discovery -of Guy Fawkes's great Gunpowder Plot in 1605, the position of the -Catholics naturally became as bad as possible. - -One of the most marked traits in James's political character was his -eagerness to bring about and preserve peace with Spain. While yet on -the way to London, he ordered a cessation of all hostilities, and -by 1604 he had concluded peace. One of the reasons for his at once -assuming a hostile attitude towards Raleigh was that he was well -acquainted with Raleigh's hatred of Spain and disinclination to peace -with that country; and Raleigh increased the King's displeasure during -the following months by constantly urging upon him a war policy. But -there were other and less impersonal reasons for the King's hostility. -Raleigh had been Elizabeth's favourite, and had in 1601 presented to -her a state-paper drawn up by himself on "The Dangers of a Spanish -Faction in Scotland," the rumoured contents of which had so alarmed -James that he offered Elizabeth the assistance of three thousand -Scottish troops against Spain. Raleigh had been an opponent of Essex, -who had sought support from James and attached himself to his fortunes. -And what was worse, he had an enemy, though he scarcely knew it, in the -person of a man who had opposed Essex much more strongly than he, but -who had, even before the Queen's death, assured James of his absolute -devotion. This was Robert Cecil, who feared Raleigh's ambition and -ability. - -Raleigh was in the West of England when the Queen died, and could not -at once join in the great rush northwards to meet King James, which -emptied London of all its nobility. By the time he started, with a -large retinue, to wait on the King, he had already received a kind of -command not to do so, in the shape of one of the orders dispensing the -recipient from attendance on the King, which James had sent in blank to -Cecil, to be filled in with the names of those whom Cecil thought he -should keep at a distance. James received Raleigh ungraciously, and at -once told him, with a bad pun on his name, that he had been prejudiced -against him: "On my soul, man, I have heard but _rawly_ of thee." A -few weeks later he was deprived (though not without compensation) -of the office of Captain of the Guard, which was given to a Scotchman, Sir -Thomas Erskine; and within the same month he was ordered immediately to -give up to the Bishop of Durham the town palace of that See, which he -had occupied, and on which he had spent great sums of money. - -At last, one day in July 1603, as he was standing ready to ride out -with the King, he was arrested and imprisoned on a charge of high -treason. This was the beginning of a long series of base proceedings -against this eminent man, who had deserved so well of his country. He -was a prisoner in the Tower for thirteen years, and the persecution -ended only with the judicial murder which was committed when, in 1618, -after making the most beautiful speech ever heard from the scaffold, he -laid his head on the block with incomparable courage and calm dignity. - -It is difficult for us to-day to understand how a man of Raleigh's -worth could at that time be the best-hated man in England. For us he -is simply, as Gardiner has expressed it, "the man who had more genius -than all the Privy Council put together;" or, as Gosse has called him, -"the figure which takes the same place in the field of action which -Shakespeare takes in that of imagination and Bacon in that of thought." -But that he was generally hated at the time of his imprisonment is -certain. - -Many disliked him as the enemy of Essex. It was said that in Essex's -last hours Raleigh had jeered at him. Raleigh himself wrote in 1618:-- - - "It is said I was a persecutor of my Lord of Essex; that I - puffed out tobacco in disdain when he was on the scaffold. - But I take God to witness I shed tears for him when he died. - I confess I was of a contrary faction, but I knew he was a - noble gentleman. Those that set me up against him [evidently - Cecil] did afterwards set themselves against me." - -But what mattered the falseness of the accusation if it was believed? -And there were other, much less reasonable, grounds of hatred. From -one of Raleigh's letters, written in the last days of Queen Elizabeth, -we learn that the tavern-keepers throughout the country held him -responsible for a tax imposed on them, which was in fact due solely -to the Queen's rapacity. In this letter he prays Cecil to prevail on -Elizabeth to remit the tax, for, says he: "I cannot live, nor show my -face out of my doors, without it, nor dare ride through the towns where -these taverners dwell." It seems as if his very greatness had marked -him out for universal hatred; and, being conscious of his worth, he -would not stoop to a truckling policy. - -There was much that was popularly winning about the tall, vigorous, -rather large-boned Raleigh, with his bright complexion and his open -expression; but, like a true son of the Renaissance, he challenged -dislike by his pride and magnificence. His dress was always splendid, -and he loved, like a Persian Shah or Indian Rajah of our day, to cover -himself, down to his shoes, with the most precious jewels. When he was -arrested in 1603, he had gems to the value of £4000 (about £20,000 in -modern money) on his breast, and when he was thrown into prison for the -last time in 1618, his pockets were found full of jewels and golden -ornaments which he had hastily stripped off his dress. - -He was worshipped by those who had served under him; they valued his -qualities of heart as well as his energy and intellect. But the crowd, -whom he treated with disdain, and the courtiers and statesmen with -whom he had competed for Elizabeth's favour, saw nothing in him but -matchless effrontery and unscrupulousness. In spite of the favour he -enjoyed, his rivals prevented his ever attaining any of the highest -posts. On those naval expeditions in which he most distinguished -himself, his place was always second in command. He was baulked even -in the desire which he cherished during Elizabeth's later years for a -place in the Privy Council. - -He was now over fifty, and aged before his time. His untrustworthy -friend, Lord Cobham, was suspected of complicity in Watson's Catholic -plot; and this suspicion extended to Raleigh, who was thought to have -been a party to intrigues for the dethronement of James in favour of -his kinswoman, Arabella Stuart. He was tried for high treason; and as -the law then stood in England, any man accused of such a crime was as -good as lost, however innocent he might be. "A century later," says -Mr. Gardiner, "Raleigh might well have smiled at the evidence which -was brought against him." Then the law was as cruel as it was unjust. -The accused was considered guilty until he proved his innocence; no -advocate was allowed to plead his cause; unprepared, at a moment's -notice, he had to refute charges which had been carefully accumulated -and marshalled against him during a long period. That a man should be -suspected of such an enormity as desiring to bring Spanish armies on -to the free soil of England was enough to deprive him at once of all -sympathy. Little wonder that Raleigh, a few days after his indictment, -tried to commit suicide. His famous letter to his wife, written before -the attempt, gives consummate expression to a great man's despair in -face of a destiny which he does not fear, yet cannot master. - -While this tragedy was being enacted in the Tower, London was making -magnificent preparations for the state entrance of King James and Queen -Anne into their new capital. Seven beautiful triumphal arches were -erected; "England's Cæsar," as Henry Petowe in his coronation ode with -some little exaggeration entitled James, was exalted and glorified by -the poets of the day with as great enthusiasm as though his exploits -had already rivalled those of "mightiest Julius." - -Henry Chettle wrote _The Shepheard's Spring Song for the Entertainment -of King James, our most potent Sovereign_; Samuel Daniel, _A Panegyrike -Congratulatorie to the Kings Majestie_; Michael Drayton, _To the -Majestie of King James, a Gratulatorie Poem._ The actor Thomas Greene -composed _A Poet's Vision and a Prince's Glorie. Dedicated to the -high and mightie Prince James, King of England, Scotland, France and -Ireland_; and scores of other poets lifted up their voices in song. -Daniel wrote a masque which was acted at Hampton Court; Dekker, a -description of the King's "Triumphant Passage," with poetic dialogues; -Ben Jonson, a similar description; and Drayton, a _Pæan Triumphall_. -Ben Jonson also produced a masque called _Penates_, and another -entitled _The Masque of Blackness_; while a host of lesser lights -wrote poems in the same style. The unobtrusive, mildly flattering -allusions to James, which we have found and shall presently find in -Shakespeare's plays of this period, produce an exceedingly feeble, -almost imperceptible effect amid this storm of adulation. To have -omitted them altogether, or to have made them in the slightest degree -less deferential, would have been gratuitously and indefensibly -churlish, in view of the favour which James had made haste to extend to -Shakespeare's company. - -It is most interesting to-day to read the programme of the royal -procession from the Tower to Whitehall in 1604, in which all the -dignitaries of the realm took part, and all the privileged classes, -court, nobility, clergy, royal guard, were fully represented. - -In the middle of the enormous procession rides the King under a canopy. -Immediately before him, the dukes, marquises, eldest sons of dukes, -earls, &c. &c. Immediately behind him comes the Queen, and after -her all the first ladies of the kingdom--duchesses, marchionesses, -countesses, viscountesses, &c. Among the ladies mentioned by name -is Lady Rich, with the note, "by especiall comandement." At the -foot of the page, another note runs thus: "To go as a daughter to -Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex." James desired to honour in her the -memory of her ill-fated brother. Among the lawyers in the procession -Sir Francis Bacon has a place of honour; he is described as "the -King's Counsell at Lawe." Bacon's learning and obsequious pliancy, -James's pedantry and monarchical arrogance, quickly brought these two -together. But among "His Majesty's Servants," at the very head of the -procession, immediately after the heralds and the Prince's and Queen's -men-in-waiting, William Shakespeare was no doubt to be seen, dressed -in a suit of red cloth, which the court accounts show to have been -provided for him. - -James was a great lover of the play, but Scotland had neither -drama nor actors of her own. Not long before this, in 1599; he had -vigorously opposed the resolution of his Presbyterian Council to forbid -performances by English actors. - -As early as May 17, 1603, he had granted the patent _Pro Laurentio -Fletcher et Willielmo Shakespeare et aliis_, which promoted the Lord -Chamberlain's company to be the King's own actors. - -The fact that Lawrence Fletcher is named first gives us a clue to the -reasons for this proceeding on the part of the King. In the records of -the Town Council of Aberdeen for October 1601, there is an entry to the -effect that, by special recommendation of the King, a gratuity was paid -to a company of players for their performances in the town, and that -the freedom of the city was conferred on one of these actors, Lawrence -Fletcher. There can be hardly any doubt that Charles Knight, in spite -of Elze's objections in his _Essays on Shakespeare_, is correct in his -opinion that this Fletcher was an Englishman, and that he was closely -connected with Shakespeare; for the actor Augustine Philipps, who, -in 1605, bequeaths thirty shillings in gold to his "fellowe" William -Shakespeare, likewise bequeaths twenty shillings to his "fellowe" -Lawrence Fletcher. - -James arrived in London on the 7th of May 1603, removed to Greenwich -on account of the plague on the 13th, and, as already mentioned, dated -the patent from there on the 17th. It can scarcely be supposed that, in -so short a space of time, the Lord Chamberlain's men should not only -have played before James, but so powerfully impressed him that he at -once advanced them to be his own company. He must evidently have known -them before; perhaps he already, as King of Scotland, had some of them -in his service. This supposition is supported by the fact that, as -we have seen, some members of Shakespeare's company were in Aberdeen -in the autumn of 1601. It is even probable that Shakespeare himself -was in Scotland with his comrades. In _Macbeth_, he has altered the -meadow-land, which Holinshed represents as lying around Inverness, -into the heath which is really characteristic of the district; and -the whole play, with its numerous allusions to Scottish affairs, -bears the impress of having been conceived on Scottish soil. Possibly -Shakespeare's thoughts were hovering round the Scottish tragedy while -he passed along in the procession with the royal arms on his red -dress.[1] - - -[1] S. R. Gardiner: _History of England_, vol. i. Thomas -Milner: _The History of England_. Alfred Stern: _Geschichte der -Revolution in England_. Gosse: _Raleigh._ J. Nicols: _The Progresses, -Processions, and Magnificent Festivities of King James the First_, vol. -i. Disraeli: _An Inquiry into the Literary and Political Character of -James the First_. _Dictionary of National Biography: James, Anne_. -Nathan Drake: _Shakespeare and his Times_. - - - - -XXII - -_MACBETH--MACBETH AND HAMLET--DIFFICULTIES ARISING FROM THE STATE OF -THE TEXT_ - -Dowden somewhere remarks that if Shakespeare had died at the age of -forty, posterity would have said that this was certainly a great loss, -but would have found comfort in the thought that _Hamlet_ marked the -zenith of his productive power--he could hardly have written another -such masterpiece. - -And now follow in rapid succession _Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, Antony -and Cleopatra_, and the rest. _Hamlet_ was not the conclusion of a -career; _Hamlet_ was the spring-board from which Shakespeare leaped -forth into a whole new world of mystery and awe. Dowden has happily -compared the tragic figures that glide one after the other across his -field of vision between 1604 and 1610 with the bloody and threatening -apparitions that pass before Macbeth in the witches' cavern. - -The natural tendency of his youth had been to see good everywhere. -He had even felt, with his King Henry, that "there is some soul of -goodness in things evil." Now, when the misery of life, the problem of -evil, presented itself to his inward eye, it was especially the potency -of wickedness that impressed him as strange and terrible. We have seen -him brooding over it in _Hamlet_ and _Measure for Measure_. He had -of course recognized it before, and represented it on the grandest -scale; but in _Richard III_. the main emphasis is still laid on outward -history; Richard is the same man from his first appearance to his last. -What now fascinates Shakespeare is to show how the man into whose veins -evil has injected some drops of its poison, becomes bloated, gangrened, -foredoomed to self-destruction or annihilation, like Macbeth, -Othello, Lear. Lady Macbeth's ambition, Iago's malice, the daughters' -ingratitude, lead, step by step, to irresistible, ever-increasing -calamity. - -It is my conviction that _Macbeth_ was the first of these subjects -which Shakespeare took in hand. All we know with certainty, indeed, is -that the play was acted at the Globe Theatre in 1610. Dr. Simon Forman, -in his _Booke of Plaies and Notes thereon_, gave a detailed account of -a performance of it at which he was present on the 20th of April of -this year. But in the comedy of _The Puritan_, dating from 1607, we -find an unmistakable allusion to Banquo's ghost; and the lines in the -play itself (iv. I)-- - - "And some I see - That twofold balls and treble sceptres carry," - ---a reference to the union of England and Scotland, and their -conjunction with Ireland under James--would have had little effect -unless spoken from the stage shortly after the event. As James was -proclaimed King of Great Britain and Ireland on the 20th of October -1604, we may conclude that _Macbeth_ was not produced later than -1604-1605. - -At James's accession a breath of Scottish air blew over England; -we feel it in _Macbeth_. The scene of the tragedy is laid in the -country from which the new king came, and most true to nature is the -reproduction in this dark drama of Scotland's forests and heaths and -castles, her passions and her poetry. - -There is much to indicate that an unbroken train of thought led -Shakespeare from _Hamlet_ to _Macbeth_. The personality of Macbeth -is a sort of counterpart to that of Hamlet. The Danish prince's -nature is passionate, but refined and thoughtful. Before the deed of -vengeance which is imposed upon him he is restless, self-reproachful, -and self-tormenting; but he never betrays the slightest remorse for a -murder once committed, though he kills four persons before he stabs -the King. The Scottish thane is the rough, blunt soldier, the man of -action. He takes little time for deliberation before he strikes; but -immediately after the murder he is attacked by hallucinations both -of sight and hearing, and is hounded on, wild and vacillating and -frenzied, from crime to crime. He stifles his self-reproaches and falls -at last, after defending himself with the hopeless fury of the "bear -tied to the stake." - -Hamlet says:-- - - "And thus the native hue of resolution - Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." - -Macbeth, on the contrary, declares (iv. I)-- - - "From this moment - The very firstlings of my heart shall be - The firstlings of my hand." - -They stand at opposite poles--Hamlet, the dreamer; Macbeth, the -captain, "Bellona's bridegroom." Hamlet has a superabundance of -culture and of intellectual power. His strength is of the kind that -wears a mask; he is a master in the art of dissimulation. Macbeth is -unsophisticated to the point of clumsiness, betraying himself when -he tries to deceive. His wife has to beg him not to show a troubled -countenance, but to "sleek o'er his rugged looks." - -Hamlet is the born aristocrat: very proud, keenly alive to his worth, -very self-critical--too self-critical to be ambitious in the common -acceptation of the word. To Macbeth, on the contrary, a sounding title -is honour, and a wreath on the head, a crown on the brow, greatness. -When the Witches on the heath, and another witch, his wife in the -castle, have held up before his eyes the glory of the crown and the -power of the sceptre, he has found his great goal--a tangible prize in -this life, for which he is willing to risk his welfare in "the life to -come." Whilst Hamlet, with his hereditary right, hardly gives a thought -to the throne of which he has been robbed, Macbeth murders his king, -his benefactor, his guest, that he may plunder him and his sons of a -chair with a purple canopy. - -And yet there is a certain resemblance between Macbeth and Hamlet. One -feels that the two tragedies must have been written close upon each -other. In his first monologue (i. 7) Macbeth stands hesitating with -Hamlet-like misgivings:-- - - "If it were done, when't is done, then't were well - It were done quickly: if the assassination - Could trammel up the consequence, and catch - With his surcease success; that but this blow - Might be the be-all and the end-all here, - But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,-- - We'd jump the life to come.--But in these cases - We still have judgment here." - -Hamlet says: Were we sure that there is no future life, we should seek -death. Macbeth thinks: Did we not know that judgment would come upon us -here, we should care little about the life to come. There is a kinship -in these contradictory reflections. But Macbeth is not hindered by -his cogitations. He pricks the sides of his intent, as he says, with -the spur of ambition, well knowing that it will o'erleap itself and -fall. He cannot resist when he is goaded onward by a being superior to -himself, a woman. - -Like Hamlet, he has imagination, but of a more timorous and visionary -cast. It is through no peculiar faculty in Hamlet that he sees his -father's ghost; others had seen it before him and see it with him. -Macbeth constantly sees apparitions that no one else sees, and hears -voices that are inaudible to others. - -When he has resolved on the king's death he sees a dagger in the air:-- - - "Is this a dagger which I see before me, - The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:-- - I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. - Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible - To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but - A dagger of the mind, a false creation, - Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?" - -Directly after the murder he has an illusion of hearing:-- - - "Methought I heard a voice cry, 'Sleep no more! - Macbeth does murder sleep.'" - -And, very significantly, Macbeth hears this same voice give him the -different titles which are his pride:-- - - "Still it cried, 'Sleep no more!' to all the house: - 'Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor - Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more!'" - -Yet another parallel shows the kinship between the Danish and the -Scottish tragedy. It is in these dramas alone that the dead leave their -graves and reappear on the scene of life; in them alone a breath from -the spirit-world reaches the atmosphere of the living. There is no -trace of the supernatural either in _Othello_ or in _King Lear_. - -No more here than in _Hamlet_ are we to understand by the introduction -of supernatural elements that an independently working superhuman -power actively interferes in human life; these elements are -transparent symbols. Nevertheless the supernatural beings that make -their appearance are not to be taken as mere illusions; they are -distinctly conceived as having a real existence outside the sphere of -hallucination. As in _Hamlet_, the Ghost is not seen by the prince -alone, so in _Macbeth_ it is not only Macbeth himself who sees the -Witches; they even appear with their queen, Hecate, when there is no -one to see them except the spectators of the play. - -It must not be forgotten that this whole spirit--and witchworld meant -something quite different to Shakespeare's contemporaries from what -it means to us. We cannot even be absolutely certain that Shakespeare -himself did not believe in the possible existence of such beings. Great -poets have seldom been consistent in their incredulity--even Holberg -believed that he had seen a ghost. But Shakespeare's own attitude of -mind matters less than that of the public for whom he wrote. - -In the beginning of the seventeenth century the English people still -believed in a great variety of evil spirits, who disturbed the order -of nature, produced storms by land and sea, foreboded calamities and -death, disseminated plague and famine. They were for the most part -pictured as old, wrinkled women, who brewed all kinds of frightful -enormities in hellish cauldrons; and when such beldams were thought to -have been detected, the law took vengeance on them with fire and sword. -In a sermon preached in 1588, Bishop Jewel appealed to Elizabeth to -take strong measures against wizards and witches. Some years later, -one Mrs. Dyer was accused of witchcraft for no other reason than that -toothache had for some nights prevented the Queen from sleeping. In -the small town of St. Osees in Essex alone, seventy or eighty witches -were burnt. In a book called "The Discoverie of Witchcraft," published -in 1584, Reginald Scott refuted the doctrine of sorcery and magic with -wonderful clearness and liberal-mindedness; but his voice was lost in -the chorus of the superstitious. King James himself was one of the most -prominent champions of superstition. He was present in person at the -trial by torture of two hundred witches who were burnt for occasioning -the storm which prevented his bride's crossing to Scotland. Many of -them confessed to having ridden through the air on broomsticks or -invisible chariots drawn by snails, and admitted that they were able to -make themselves invisible--an art of which they, strangely enough, did -not avail themselves to escape the law. In 1597 James himself produced -in his _Dæmonologie_ a kind of handbook or textbook of witchcraft in -all its developments, and in 1598 he caused no fewer than 600 old women -to be burnt. In the Parliament of 1604 a bill against sorcery was -brought in by the Government and passed. - -Shakespeare produced wonderful effects in _Hamlet_ by drawing on this -faith in spirits; the apparition on the castle platform is sublime -in its way, though the speech of the Ghost is far too long. Now, in -_Macbeth_, with the Witches' meeting, he strikes the keynote of the -drama at the very outset, as surely as with a tuning-fork; and wherever -the Witches reappear the same note recurs. But still more admirable, -both psychologically and scenically, is the scene in which Macbeth sees -Banquo's ghost sitting in his own seat at the banquet-table. The words -run thus:-- - - "_Rosse_. Please it your highness - To grace us with your royal company? - _Macbeth_. The table's full. - _Lennox_. Here is a place reserv'd, sir. - _Macb_. Where? - _Len_. Here, my good lord. What is't that moves your highness? - _Macb_. Which of you have done this? - _Lords_. What, my good lord? - _Macb._ Thou canst not say I did it: never shake - Thy gory locks at me." - -The grandeur, depth, and extraordinary dramatic and theatrical effect -of this passage are almost unequalled in the history of the drama. - -The same may be said of well-nigh the whole outline of this -tragedy--from a dramatic and theatrical point of view it is beyond -all praise. The Witches on the heath, the scene before the murder of -Duncan, the sleep-walking of Lady Macbeth--so potent is the effect -of these and other episodes that they are burnt for ever on the -spectator's memory. - -No wonder that _Macbeth_ has become in later times Shakespeare's most -popular tragedy--his typical one, appreciated even by those who, except -in this instance, have not been able to value him as he deserves. -Not one of his other dramas is so simple in composition as this, no -other keeps like this to a single plane. There is no desultoriness or -halting in the action as in _Hamlet_, no double action as in _King -Lear_. All is quite simple and according to rule: the snowball is set -rolling and becomes the avalanche. And although there are gaps in it on -account of the defective text, and although there may here and there -be ambiguities--in the character of Lady Macbeth, for instance--yet -there is nothing enigmatic, there are no riddles to perplex us. Nothing -lies concealed between the lines; all is grand and clear--grandeur and -clearness itself. - -And yet I confess that this play seems to me one of Shakespeare's -less interesting efforts; not from the artistic, but from the purely -human point of view. It is a rich, highly moral melodrama; but only at -occasional points in it do I feel the beating of Shakespeare's heart. - -My comparative coolness of feeling towards _Macbeth_ may possibly be -due in a considerable degree to the shamefully mutilated form in which -this tragedy has been handed down to us. Who knows what it may have -been when it came from Shakespeare's own hand! The text we possess, -which was not printed till long after the poet's death, is clipped, -pruned, and compressed for acting purposes. We can feel distinctly -where the gaps occur, but that is of no avail. - -The abnormal shortness of the play is in itself an indication of what -has happened. In spite of its wealth of incident, it is distinctly -Shakespeare's shortest work. There are 3924 lines in _Hamlet_, 3599 in -_Richard III_., &c., &c., while in _Macbeth_ there are only 1993. - -It is plain, moreover, that the structure of the piece has been -tampered with. The dialogue between Malcolm and Macduff (iv. 3), -which, strictly speaking, must be called superfluous from the dramatic -point of view, is so long as to form about an eighth part of the whole -tragedy. It may be presumed that the other scenes originally stood in -some sort of proportion to this; for there is no other instance in -Shakespeare's work of a similar disproportion. - -In certain places omissions are distinctly felt. Lady Macbeth (i. -5) proposes to her husband that he shall murder Duncan. He gives no -answer to this. In the next scene the King arrives. In the next again, -Macbeth's deliberations as to whether or not he is to commit the murder -are all over, and he is only thinking how it can be done with impunity. -When he wavers, and says to his wife, "I dare do all that may become a -man; who dares do more is none," her answer shows how much is wanting -here:-- - - "When you durst do it, then you were a man; - And, to be more than what you were, you would - Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place - Did then adhere, and yet you would make both." - -We spectators or readers know nothing of all this. There has not even -been time for the shortest conversation between husband and wife. - -Shakespeare took the material for his tragedy from the same source on -which he drew for all his English histories--Holinshed's Chronicle -to wit. In this case Holinshed, at no time a trustworthy historian, -simply reproduced a passage of Hector Boece's _Scotorum Historiæ_. -Macdonwald's rebellion and Sweno's Viking invasion are fables; Banquo -and Fleance, as founders of the race of Stuart, are inventions of -the chroniclers. There was a blood-feud between the house of Duncan -and the house of Macbeth. Lady Macbeth, whose real name was Gruoch, -was the grand-daughter of a king who had been killed by Malcolm II., -Duncan's grandfather. Her first husband had been burnt in his castle -with fifty friends. Her only brother was killed by Malcolm's order. -Macbeth's father also, Finlegh or Finley, had been killed in a contest -with Malcolm. Therefore they both had the right to a blood-revenge on -Duncan. Nor did Macbeth sin against the laws of hospitality in taking -Duncan's life. He attacked and killed him in the open field. It is -further to be observed that by the Scottish laws of succession he had a -better right to the throne than Duncan. After having seized the throne -he ruled firmly and justly. There is a quite adequate psychological -basis for the real facts of the year 1040, though it is much simpler -than that underlying the imaginary events of Holinshed's Chronicle, -which form the subject of the tragedy. - -Shakespeare on the whole follows Holinshed with great exactitude, -but diverges from him in one or two particulars. According to the -Chronicle, Banquo was accessory to the murder of Duncan; Shakespeare -alters this in order to give King James a progenitor of unblemished -reputation. Instead of using the account of the murder which is -given in the Chronicle, Shakespeare takes and applies to Duncan's -case all the particulars of the murder of King Duffe, Lady Macbeth's -grandfather, as committed by the captain of the castle of Forres, who -"being the more kindled in wrath by the words of his wife, determined -to follow her advice in the execution of so heinous an act." It is -hardly necessary to remark that the finest parts of the drama, such -as the appearance of Banquo's ghost and Lady Macbeth's sleep-walking -scene, are due to Shakespeare alone. - -Some sensation was made in the year 1778 by the discovery of the -manuscript of _The Witch_, a play by Shakespeare's contemporary -Middleton, containing in their entirety two songs which are only -indicated in _Macbeth_ by the quotation of their first lines. These are -"Come away, come away" (iii. 5), and "Black spirits, &c." (iv. I). -A very idle dispute arose as to whether Shakespeare had here made use -of Middleton or Middleton of Shakespeare. The latter is certainly the -more probable assumption, if we must assume either to have borrowed -from the other. It is likely enough, however, that single lines of the -lesser poet have here and there been interpolated in the witch scenes -of Shakespeare's text as contained in the Folio edition. - -Shakespeare has employed in the treatment of this subject a style that -suits it--vehement to violence, compressed to congestion--figures -treading upon each other's heels, while general philosophic reflections -occur but rarely. It is a style eminently fitted to express and to -awaken terror; its tone is not altered, but only softened, even in the -painfully touching conversation between Lady Macduff and her little -son. It is sustained throughout with only one break--the excellent -burlesque monologue of the Porter. - -The play centres entirely round the two chief characters, Macbeth and -Lady Macbeth; in their minds the essential action takes place. The -other personages are only outlined. - -The Witches' song, with which the tragedy opens, ends with that -admirable line, in which ugliness and beauty are confounded:-- - - "Fair is foul, and foul is fair." - -And it is significant that Macbeth, who has not heard this refrain, -recalls it in his very first speech:-- - - "So foul and fair a day I have not seen." - -It seems as if these words were ringing in his ears; and this -foreshadows the mysterious bond between him and the Witches. Many of -these delicate consonances and contrasts may be noted in the speeches -of this tragedy. - -After Lady Macbeth, who is introduced to the spectator already -perfected in wickedness, has said to herself (i. 5)-- - - "The raven himself is hoarse, - That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan - Under my battlements," - -the next scene opens serenely with the charming pictures of the -following dialogue:-- - - "_Duncan_. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air - Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself - Unto our gentle senses. - _Banquo_. This guest of summer, - The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, - By his lov'd mansionry, that the heaven's breath - Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze, - Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird - Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle: - Where they most breed and haunt, I have observ'd - The air is delicate." - -Then the poet immediately plunges anew into the study of this lean, -slight, hard woman, consumed by lust of power and splendor. Though by -no means the impassive murderess she fain would be, she yet goads her -husband, by the force of her far stronger will, to commit the crime -which she declares he has promised her:-- - - "I have given suck, and know - How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: - I would, while it was smiling in my face, - Have pluck'd my nipple from its boneless gums. - And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you - Have done to this." - -So coarsely callous is she! And yet she is less hardened than she would -make herself out to be; for when, just after this, she has laid the -daggers ready for her husband, she says:-- - - "Had he not resembled - My father as he slept, I had done't." - -The absolutely masterly, thrilling scene between husband and wife after -the murder, is followed, in horrible, humoristic contrast, by the -fantastic interlude of the Porter. He conceives himself to be keeping -watch at hell-gate, and admitting, amongst others, an equivocating -Jesuit, with his casuistry and _reservatio mentalis_; and his soliloquy -is followed by a dialogue with Macduff on the influence of drink upon -erotic inclination and capacity. It is well known that Schiller, in -accordance with classical prejudices, omitted the monologue in his -translation, and replaced it by a pious morning-song. What seems more -remarkable is that an English poet like Coleridge should have found -its effect disturbing and considered it spurious. Without exactly -ranking with Shakespeare's best low-comedy interludes, it affords a -highly effective contrast to what goes before and what follows, and is -really an invaluable and indispensable ingredient in the tragedy. A -short break in the action was required at this point, to give Macbeth -and his wife time to dress themselves in their nightclothes; and what -interruption could be more effective than the knocking at the castle -gate, which makes them both thrill with terror, and gives occasion to -the Porter episode? - -Another of the gems of the play is the scene (iv. 2) between Lady -Macduff and her wise little son, before the murderers come and kill -them both. All the witty child's sayings are interesting, and the -mother's bitterly pessimistic speeches are not only wonderfully -characteristic of her, but also of the poet's own present frame of -mind:-- - - "Whither should I fly? - I have done no harm. But I remember now - I am in this earthly world, where, to do harm, - Is often laudable; to do good, sometime, - Accounted dangerous folly: why then, alas! - Do I put up that womanly defence, - To say I have done no harm?" - -Equally despairing is Macduff's ejaculation when he learns of the -slaughter in his home: "Did heaven look on, and would not take their -part?" The beginning of this lengthy scene (iv. 3), with its endless -dialogue between Malcolm and Macduff, which Shakespeare has transcribed -literally from his Holinshed, is weak and flagging. It presents hardly -any point of interest except the far-fetched account of King Edward the -Confessor's power of curing the king's evil, evidently dragged in for -the sake of paying King James a compliment which the poet knew he would -value, in the lines-- - - "'Tis spoken, - To the succeeding royalty he leaves - The healing benediction." - -But the close of the scene is admirable, when Rosse breaks the news to -Macduff of the attack on his castle and the massacre of his family:-- - - "_Macd_. My children too? - _Rosse_. Wife, children, servants, all - That could be found. - _Macd_. And I must be from thence! - My wife kill'd too? - _Rosse_ I have said. - _Mal_. Be comforted: - Let's make us medicines of our great revenge, - To cure this deadly grief. - _Macd_. He has no children.--All my pretty ones? - Did you say, all?--O hell-kite!--All? - What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam, - At one fell swoop? - _Mai_. Dispute it like a man. - _Macd_. I shall do so; - But I must also feel it as a man: - I cannot but remember such things were, - That were most precious to me.--_Did Heaven look on,_ - _And would not take their part?_" - -The voice of revolt makes itself heard in these words, the same -voice that sounds later through the despairing philosophy of _King -Lear_: "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods: They kill us for -their sport." But immediately afterwards Macduff falls back on the -traditional sentiment:-- - - "Sinful Macduff! - They are all struck for thee. Naught that I am, - Not for their own demerits, but for mine, - Fell slaughter on their souls." - -Among these horror-stricken speeches there is one in particular that -gives matter for reflection--Macduff's cry, "He has no children." -At the close of the third part of _Henry VI._ there is a similar -exclamation of quite different import. There, when King Edward, -Gloucester, and Clarence have stabbed Margaret of Anjou's son before -her eyes, she says:-- - - "You have no children, butchers! if you had, - The thought of them would have stirr'd up remorse." - -Many interpreters have attributed the same sense to Macduff's cry of -agony; but their mistake is plain; for the context undeniably shows -that the one thought of the now childless father is the impossibility -of an adequate revenge. - -But there is another noticeable point about this speech, "He has no -children," which is, that elsewhere we are led to believe that he has -children. Lady Macbeth says, "I have given suck, and know how tender -'tis to love the babe that milks me;" and we have neither learned that -these children are dead nor that they were born of an earlier marriage. -Shakespeare never mentions the former marriage of the historical Lady -Macbeth. Furthermore, not only does she talk of children, but Macbeth -himself seems to allude to sons. He says (iii. I):-- - - "Upon my head they plac'd a fruitless crown, - And put a barren sceptre in my gripe, - Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand, - No son of mine succeeding. If't be so, - For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind." - -If he had no children of his own, the last line is meaningless. Had -Shakespeare forgotten these earlier speeches when he wrote that -ejaculation of Macduff's? It is improbable; and, in any case, they -must have been constantly brought to his mind again at rehearsals and -performances of the play. We have here one of the difficulties which -would be solved if we were in possession of a complete and authentic -text. - -The crown which the Witches promised to Macbeth soon becomes his fixed -idea. He murders his king--and sleep. He slays, and sees the slain for -ever before him. All that stand between him and his ambition are cut -down, and afterwards raise their bloody heads as bodeful visions on -his path. He turns Scotland into one great charnel-house. His mind is -"full of scorpions;" he is sick with the smell of all the blood he has -shed. At last life and death become indifferent to him. When, on the -day of battle, the tidings of his wife's death are brought to him, he -speaks those profound words in which Shakespeare has embodied a whole -melancholy life-philosophy:-- - - "She should have died hereafter: - There would have been a time for such a word.-- - To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, - Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, - To the last syllable of recorded time; - And all our yesterdays have lighted fools - The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! - Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, - That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, - And then is heard no more: it is a tale - Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, - Signifying nothing." - -This is the final result arrived at by Macbeth, the man who staked all -to win power and glory. Without any underlining on the part of the -poet, a speech like this embodies an absolute moral lesson. We feel -its value all the more strongly, as Shakespeare's study of humanity in -other parts of this play does not seem to have been totally unbiassed, -but rather influenced by the moral impression which he desired to -produce on the audience. The drama is even a little marred by the -constant insistence on the _fabula docet_, the recurrent insinuation -that "such is the consequence of grasping at power by the aid of -crime." Macbeth, not by nature a bad man, might in the drama, as in -real life, have tried to reconcile the people to that crime, which, -after all, he had reluctantly committed, by making use of his power to -rule well. The moral purport of the play excludes this possibility. -The ice-cold, stony Lady Macbeth might be conceived as taking the -consequences of her counsel and action as calmly as the high-born -Locustas of the Renaissance, Catherine de' Medici, or the Countess -of Somerset. But in this case we should have missed the moral lesson -conveyed by her ruin, and, what would have been worse, the incomparable -sleep-walking scene, which--whether it be perfectly motived or -not--shows us in the most admirable manner how the sting of an evil -conscience, even though it may be blunted by day, is sharpened again at -night, and robs the guilty one of sleep and health. - -In dealing with the plays immediately preceding _Macbeth_, we observed -that Shakespeare at this period frequently gives a formal exposition -of the moral to be drawn from his scenes. Possibly there is some -connection between this tendency of his and the steadily-growing -animosity of public opinion to the stage. In the year 1606, an edict -was issued absolutely prohibiting the utterance of the name of God on -the profane boards of the theatre. Not even a harmless oath was to be -permitted. In view of the state of feeling which produced such an Act -of Parliament, it must have been of vital importance to the tragic poet -to prove as clearly as possible the strictly moral character of his -works. - - - - -XXIII - -_OTHELLO--THE CHARACTER AND SIGNIFICANCE OF IAGO_ - -When we consider how _Macbeth_ explains life's tragedy as the result of -a union of brutality and malignity, or rather of brutality envenomed by -malignity, we feel that the step from this to _Othello_ is not a long -one. But in _Macbeth_ the treatment of life's tragedy as a whole, of -wickedness as a factor in human affairs, lacks firmness, and is not in -the great style. - -In a very much grander and firmer style do we find the same subject -treated in _Othello_. - -_Othello_ is, in the popular conception, simply the tragedy of -jealousy, as _Macbeth_ is simply the tragedy of ambition. Naïve readers -and critics fancy in their innocence that Shakespeare, at a certain -period of his life, determined to study one or two interesting and -dangerous passions, and to put us on our guard against them. Following -out this intention, he wrote a play on ambition and its dangers, and -another of the same kind on jealousy and all the evils that attend -it. But that is not how things happen in the inner life of a creative -spirit. A poet does not write exercises on a given subject. His -activity is not the result of determination or choice. A nerve in him -is touched, vibrates, and reacts. - -What Shakespeare here attempts to realise is neither jealousy nor -credulity, but simply and solely the tragedy of life; whence does it -arise? what are its causes? what its laws? - -He was deeply impressed with the power and significance of evil. -_Othello_ is much less a study of jealousy than a new and more powerful -study of wickedness in its might. The umbilical cord that connects the -master with his work leads, not to the character of Othello, but to -that of Iago. - -Simple-minded critics have been of opinion that Shakespeare constructed -Iago on the lines of the historic Richard III.--that is to say, found -him in literature, in the pages of a chronicler. - -Believe me, Shakespeare met Iago in his own life, saw portions and -aspects of him on every hand throughout his manhood, encountered him -piecemeal, as it were, on his daily path, till one fine day, when he -thoroughly felt and understood what malignant cleverness and baseness -can effect, he melted down all these fragments, and out of them cast -this figure. - -Iago--there is more of the grand manner in this figure than in the -whole of _Macbeth_. Iago--there is more depth, more penetrating -knowledge of human nature in this one character than in the whole of -_Macbeth_. Iago is the very embodiment of the grand manner. - -He is not the principle of evil, not an old-fashioned, stupid devil; -nor a Miltonic devil, who loves independence and has invented firearms; -nor a Goethe's Mephistopheles, who talks cynicism, makes himself -indispensable, and is generally in the right. Neither has he the -magnificently foolhardy wickedness of a Cæsar Borgia, who lives his -life in open defiance and reckless atrocity. - -Iago has no other aim than his own advantage. It is the circumstance -that not he, but Cassio, has been appointed second in command to -Othello, which first sets his craft to work on subtle combinations. He -coveted this post, and he will stick at nothing in order to win it. In -the meantime, he takes advantage of every opportunity of profit that -offers itself; he does not hesitate to fool Roderigo out of his money -and his jewels. He is always masked in falsehood and hypocrisy; and -the mask he has chosen is the most impenetrable one, that of rough -outspokenness, the straightforward, honest bluntness of the soldier -who does not care what others think or say of him. He never flatters -Othello or Desdemona, or even Roderigo. He is the free-spoken, honest -friend. - -He does not seek his own advantage without side-glances at others. -He is mischievousness personified. He does evil for the pleasure of -hurting, and takes active delight in the adversity and anguish of -others. He is that eternal envy which merit or success in others never -fails to irritate--not the petty envy which is content with coveting -another's honours or possessions, or with holding itself more deserving -of another's good fortune. No; he is an ideal personification. He is -blear-eyed rancour itself, figuring as a great power--nay, as _the_ -motive force--in human life. He embodies the detestation for others' -excellences which shows itself in obstinate disbelief, suspicion, or -contempt; the instinct of hatred for all that is open, beautiful, -bright, good, and great. - -Shakespeare not only knew that such wickedness exists; he seized it and -set his stamp on it, to his eternal honour as a psychologist. - -Every one has heard it said that this tragedy is magnificent in so -far as the true and beautiful characters of Othello and Desdemona -are concerned; but Iago--who knows him?--what motive underlies his -conduct?--what can explain such wickedness? If only he had even been -frankly in love with Desdemona and therefore hated Othello, or had had -some other incentive of a like nature! - -Yes, if he had been the ordinary amorous villain and slanderer, -everything would undoubtedly have been much simpler; but, at the same -time, everything would have sunk into banality, and Shakespeare would -here have been unequal to himself. - -No, no! precisely in this lack of apparent motive lies the profundity -and greatness of the thing. Shakespeare understood this. Iago in his -monologues is incessantly giving himself reasons for his hatred. -Elsewhere, in reading Shakespeare's monologues, we learn what the -person really is; he reveals himself directly to us; even a villain -like Richard III. is quite honest in his monologues. Not so Iago. This -demi-devil is always trying to give himself reason for his malignity, -is always half fooling himself by dwelling on half motives, in which -he partly believes, but disbelieves in the main. Coleridge has aptly -designated this action of his mind: "The motive-hunting of a motiveless -malignity." Again and again he expounds to himself that he believes -Othello has been too familiar with his wife, and that he will avenge -the dishonour. He now and then adds, to account for his hatred of -Cassio, that he suspects him too of tampering with Emilia.[1] He even -thinks it worth while to allege, as a secondary motive, that he himself -is enamoured of Desdemona. His words are (ii. I):-- - - "Now, I do love her too; - Not out of absolute lust, (though, peradventure, - I stand accountant for as great a sin,) - But partly led to diet my revenge, - For that I do suspect the lusty Moor - Hath leap'd into my seat." - -These are half-sincere attempts at self-understanding, sophistical -self-justifications. Yellow-green, venomous envy has always a motive in -its own eyes, and tries to make its malignity towards the better man -pass muster as a desire for righteous vengeance. But Iago, who, a few -lines before, has himself said of Othello that he is "of a constant, -loving, noble nature," is a thousand times too clever to believe that -he has been wronged by him. The Moor is, to his eyes, transparent as -glass. - -An ordinary human capacity for love or hatred springing from a definite -cause would degrade and detract from Iago's supremacy in evil. In the -end, he is sentenced to torture, because he will not vouchsafe a word -of explanation or enlightenment. Hard and, in his way, proud as he -is, he will certainly keep his lips tightly closed under the torture; -but even if he wanted to speak, it would not be in his power to give -any real explanation. He has slowly, steadily poisoned Othello's -nature. We watch the working of the venom on the simple-hearted man, -and we see how the very success of the poisoning process brutalises -and intoxicates Iago more and more. But to ask whence the poison came -into Iago's soul would be a foolish question, and one to which he -himself could give no answer. The serpent is poisonous by nature; it -gives forth poison as the silkworm does its thread and the violet its -fragrance. - -Towards the close of the tragedy (iv. 2) there occurs one of its -profoundest passages, which shows us how Shakespeare must have dwelt -upon and studied the potency of evil during these years. After Emilia -has witnessed the breaking out of Othello's mad rage against Desdemona, -she says-- - - "_Emil_. I will be hang'd, if some eternal villain, - Some busy and insinuating rogue, - Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office, - Have not devis'd this slander; I'll be hang'd else. - _Iago_. Fie! there is no such man: it is impossible. - _Des_. If any such there be, Heaven pardon him! - _Emil_. A halter pardon him, and hell gnaw his bones!" - -All three characters stand out in clear relief in these short speeches. -But Iago's is the most significant. His "Fie! there is no such man; it -is impossible," expresses the thought under shelter of which he has -lived and is living: other people do not believe that such a being -exists. - -Here we meet once more in Shakespeare the astonishment of Hamlet at -the paradox of evil, and once more, too, the indirect appeal to the -reader which formed the burden, as it were, of _Hamlet_ and _Measure -for Measure_, the now thrice-repeated, "Say not, think not, that this -is impossible!" The belief in the impossibility of utter turpitude -is the very condition of existence of such a king as Claudius, such -a magistrate as Angelo, such an officer as Iago. Hence Shakespeare's -"Verily I say unto you, this highest degree of wickedness is possible -in the world." - -It is one of the two factors in life's tragedy. Stupidity is the other. -On these two foundations rests the great mass of all this world's -misery. - - -[1] He says (i. 3):-- - - "I hate the Moor, - And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets - 'Has done my office. I know not if 't be true; - But I for mere suspicion in that kind - Will do as if for surety." - -He adds (ii. 7):-- - - "I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip, - Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb, - For fear Cassio with my night-cap too. - - - - -XXIV - -_OTHELLO--THE THEME AND ITS TREATMENT--A MONOGRAPH IN THE GREAT STYLE_ - -A manuscript preserved in the Record Office, of doubtful date, but -probably copied from an authentic document, contains the following -entry:-- - - The plaiers 1605 The Poets wch - By the Kings Hallamas Day being the mayd the plaies - Maties plaiers First of November A play - in the Banketing house Shaxberd. - Att withal called the - Moore of Venis - -Thus _Othello_ was probably produced in the autumn of 1605. After this -we have no proof of its performance till four and a half years later, -when we hear of it again in the journal of Prince Ludwig Friedrich of -Würtemberg, written by his secretary, Hans Wurmsser. The entry for the -30th of April 1610 runs thus:-- - - "Lundi, 30. S. E[minence] alla au Globe, lieu ordinaire ou l'on Joue - les Commedies, y fut representé l'histoire du More de Venise." - -In face of these data it matters nothing that there should appear in -_Othello_, as we have it, a line that must have been written in or -after 1611. The tragedy was printed for the first time in a quarto -edition in 1622, for the second time in the Folio of 1623. The Folio -text contains an additional 160 lines (proving that another manuscript -has been made use of), and all oaths and mentions of the name of God -are omitted. It is not only possible, but certain, that this line -must have been a late interpolation. Its entire discordance with its -position in the play shows this clearly enough, and seems to me to -render it doubtful whether it is by Shakespeare at all. - -In the scene where Othello bids Desdemona give him her hand, and loses -himself in reflections upon it (iii. 4), he makes this speech:-- - - "A liberal hand: the hearts of old gave hands; - But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts." - -Here there is an allusion, which could only be understood by -contemporaries, to the title of Baronet, created and sold by James, -which gave its possessors the right of bearing in their coat-of-arms a -bloody hand on a field argent. Most naturally Desdemona replies to this -irrelevant remark: "I cannot speak of this." - -In Cinthio's Italian collection of tales, where he had found the plot -of _Measure for Measure_, Shakespeare at the same time (in Decade 3, -Novella 7) came upon the material for _Othello_. The story in the -_Hecatommithi_ runs as follows: A young Venetian lady named Disdemona -falls in love with a Moor, a military commander--"not from feminine -desire," but because of his great qualities--and marries him in spite -of the opposition of her relatives. They live in Venice in complete -happiness; "no word ever passed between them that was not loving." When -the Moor is ordered to Cyprus to take command there, his one anxiety is -about his wife; he is equally unwilling to expose her to the dangers -of the sea voyage and to leave her alone. She settles the question by -declaring that she will rather follow him anywhere, into any danger, -than live in safety apart from him; whereupon he rapturously kisses -her, with the ejaculation: "May God long preserve you so loving, my -dearest wife!" Thus the perfect initial harmony between the pair which -Shakespeare depicts is suggested by his original. - -The Ensign undermines their happiness. He is described as remarkably -handsome, but "as wicked by nature as any man that ever lived in the -world." He was dear to the Moor, "who had no idea of his baseness." -For although he was an arrant coward, he managed by means of proud -and blusterous talk, aided by his fine appearance, so to conceal his -cowardice that he passed for a Hector or Achilles. His wife, whom he -had taken with him to Cyprus, was a fair and virtuous young woman, much -beloved by Disdemona, who spent the greater part of the day in her -company. The Lieutenant (_il capo di squadra_) came much to the Moor's -house, and often supped with him and his wife. - -The wicked Ensign is passionately in love with Disdemona, but all his -attempts to win her love are entirely unsuccessful, as she has not a -thought for any one but the Moor. The Ensign, however, imagines that -the reason for her rejection of him must be that she is in love with -the Lieutenant, and therefore determines to rid himself of this rival, -while his love for Disdemona is changed into the bitterest hatred. From -this time forward, his object is not only to bring about the death of -the Lieutenant, but to prevent the Moor from finding the pleasure in -Disdemona's love which is denied to himself. He goes to work as in the -drama, though of course with some differences of detail. In the novel, -for example, the Ensign steals Disdemona's handkerchief whilst she is -visiting his wife, and playing with their little girl. Disdemona's -death-scene is more horrible in the tale than in the tragedy. By -command of the Moor, the Ensign hides himself in a room adjoining -Othello's and Disdemona's bed-chamber. He makes a noise, and Disdemona -rises to see what it is; whereupon the Ensign gives her a violent blow -on the head with a stocking filled with sand. She calls to her husband -for help, but he answers by accusing her of infidelity; she in vain -protests her innocence, and dies at the third blow of the stocking. The -murder is concealed, but the Moor now begins to hate his Ensign, and -dismisses him. The Ensign is so exasperated by this, that he lets the -Lieutenant know who is responsible for the night assault that has just -been made upon him. The Lieutenant accuses the Moor before the council, -and Othello is put to torture. He refuses to confess, and is sent into -banishment. The wicked Ensign, who has brought a false accusation of -murder against one of his comrades, is himself in turn accused by the -innocent man, and subjected to torture until he dies. - -To the characters in the novel, Shakespeare has added two, Brabantio -and Roderigo. Only one of the names he uses is found in the original. -Disdemona, which seems made to designate the victim of an evil destiny, -Shakespeare has changed into the sweeter-sounding Desdemona. The other -names are of Shakespeare's own choosing. Most of them are Italian -(Othello itself is a Venetian noble name of the sixteenth century); -others, such as Iago and Roderigo, are Spanish. - -With his customary adherence to his original, Shakespeare, like -Cinthio, calls his protagonist a Moor; but it is quite unreasonable -to suppose from this that he thought of him as a negro. It was, of -course, inconceivable that a negro should attain the rank of general -and admiral in the service of the Venetian Republic; and Iago's mention -of Mauritania as the country to which Othello intends to retire, shows -plainly enough that the "Moor" ought to be represented as an Arab. It -is no argument against this that men who hate and envy him apply to him -epithets that would befit a negro. Thus Roderigo in the first scene -of the play calls him "thick-lips," and Iago, speaking to Brabantio, -calls him "an old black ram." But a little later Iago compares him with -"a Barbary horse "--that is to say, an Arab from North Africa. It is -always animosity and hate that exaggerate the darkness of his hue, as -when Brabantio talks of his "sooty bosom". That Othello calls himself -_black_ only means that he is dark. In this very play Iago says of dark -women: - - "If she be _black_, and thereto have a wit, - She'll find a white that shall her _blackness_ fit." - -And we have seen how, in the Sonnets and in _Love's Labours Lost_, -"black" is constantly employed in the sense of dark-complexioned. As -a Moor, Othello has a complexion sufficiently swarthy to form a striking -contrast to the white and even blonde Desdemona, and there is also a -sufficiently marked race-contrast between him, as a Semite, and the -Aryan girl. It is quite conceivable, too, that a Christianised Moor -should reach a high position in the army and fleet of the Republic. - -It ought further to be noted that the whole tradition of the Venetian -"Moor" has possibly arisen from a confusion of words. Rawdon Browne, -in 1875, suggested the theory that Giraldi had founded his tale on the -simple misunderstanding of a name. In the history of Venice we read of -an eminent patrician, Christoforo Moro byname, who in 1498 was Podesta -of Ravenna, and afterwards held similar office in Faenza, Ferrara, and -the Romagna; then became Governor of Cyprus; in 1508 commanded fourteen -ships; and later still was Proveditore of the army. When this man was -returning from Cyprus to Venice in 1508, his wife (the third), who is -said to have belonged to the family of Barbarigo (note the resemblance -to Brabantio), died on the voyage, and there seems to have been some -mystery connected with her death. In 1515 he took as his fourth wife a -young girl, who is said to have been nicknamed _Demonio bianco_--the -white demon. From this the name Desdemona may have been derived, in the -same way as Moor from Moro. - -The additions which Shakespeare made to the story as he found it in -Cinthio--Desdemona's abduction, the hurried and secret marriage, the -accusation, to us so strange, but in those days so natural and common, -of the girl's heart having been won by witchcraft--these all occur in -the history of Venetian families of the period. - -Be this as it may, when Shakespeare proceeds to the treatment of the -subject, he arranges all the conditions and circumstances, so that they -present the most favourable field for Iago's operations, and he so -fashions Othello as to render him more susceptible than any other man -would be to the poison which Iago (like Lucianus in the play-scene in -_Hamlet_) drops into his ear. Then he lets us trace the growth of the -passion from its first germ, through every stage of its development, -until it blasts and shatters the victim's whole character. - -Othello's is an inartificial soul, a simple, straightforward, soldier -nature. He has no worldly wisdom, for he has lived his whole life in -camps: - - "And little of this great world can I speak, - More than pertains to feats of broil and battle." - -A good and true man himself, he believes in goodness in others, -especially in those who make a show of outspokenness, bluffness, -undaunted determination to blame where blame is due--like Iago, who -characteristically says of himself to Desdemona: - - "For I am nothing if not critical." - -And Othello not only believes in Iago's honesty, but is inclined to -take him for his guide, as being far superior to himself in knowledge -of men and of the world. - -Again, Othello belongs to the noble natures that are never preoccupied -with the thought of their own worth. He is devoid of vanity. He has -never said to himself that such exploits, such heroic deeds, as have -won him his renown, must make a far deeper impression on the fancy of a -young girl of Desdemona's disposition than the smooth face and pleasant -manners of a Cassio. He is so little impressed with the idea of his -greatness that it almost at once appears quite natural to him that he -should be scorned. - -Othello is the man of despised race, with the fiery African -temperament. In comparison with Desdemona he is old--more of an age -with her father than with herself. He tells himself that he has neither -youth nor good looks to keep her love with, not even affinity of race -to build upon. Iago exasperates Brabantio by crying: - - "Even now, now, very now, an old black ram - Is tupping your white ewe." - -Othello's race has a reputation for low sensuality, therefore Roderigo -can inflame the rage of Desdemona's father by such expressions as -"gross clasps of a lascivious Moor." - -That she should feel attracted by him must have seemed to outsiders -like madness or the effect of sorcery. For, far from being of an -inviting, forward, or coquettish nature Desdemona is represented as -more than ordinarily reserved and modest. Her father calls her (i. 3): - - "A maiden never bold; - Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion - Blush'd at herself." - -She has been brought up as a tenderly-nurtured patrician child in rich, -happy Venice. The gilded youth of the city have fluttered around her -daily, but she has shown favour to none of them, Therefore, her father -says (i. 2): - - "For I'll refer me to all things of sense, - If she in chains of magic were not bound, - Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy, - So opposite to marriage, that she shunn'd - The wealthy curled darlings of our nation, - Would ever have, to incur a general mock, - Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom - Of such a thing as thou." - -Shakespeare, who knew everything about Italy, knew that the Venetian -youth of that period had their hair curled, and wore a lock down on the -forehead. - -Othello, on his part, at once feels himself strongly drawn to -Desdemona. And it is not merely the fair, delicate girl in her that -allures him. Had he not loved her, her only, with burning passion, he -would never have married her; for he has the fear of marriage that -belongs to his wild, freedom-loving nature, and he in no wise considers -himself honoured and exalted by this connection with a patrician -family. He is descended from the princes of his country (i. 2): - - "I fetch my life and being - From men of royal siege;" - -And he has shrunk from binding himself: - - "But that I love the gentle Desdemona, - I would not my unhoused free condition - Put into circumscription and confine - For the sea's worth." - -Truly there is magic in it--not the gross and common sorcery which the -others believe in and suppose to have been employed--not the "foul -charms" and "drugs or minerals that weaken motion," to which her father -alludes--but the sweet, alluring magic by which a man and a woman are -mysteriously enchained. - -Othello's speech of self-vindication in the council chamber, in which -he explains to the Duke how he came to win Desdemona's sympathy and -tenderness, has been universally admired. - -Having gained her father's favour, he was often asked by him to -tell the story of his life, of its dangers and adventures. He told -of sufferings and hardships, of hairbreadth 'scapes from death, of -imprisonment by cruel enemies, of far-off strange countries he had -journeyed through. (The fantastic catalogue, it may be noted, is taken -from the fabulous books of travel of the day.) Desdemona loved to -listen, but was often called away by household cares, always returning -when these were despatched to follow his story with a greedy ear. He -"found means" to draw from her a request to tell her his history, not -in fragments, but entire. He consented, and often her eyes were filled -with tears when she heard of the distresses of his youth. With innocent -candour she bade him at last, if ever he had a friend that loved her, -to teach him how to tell her Othello's story--"and that would woo her." - -In other words, she is not won through the eye, though we must take -Othello to have been a stately figure, but through the ear--"I saw -Othello's visage in his mind." She becomes his through her sympathy -with him in all he has suffered and achieved:-- - - "She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd, - And I lov'd her that she did pity them. - This only is the witchcraft I have us'd. - _Duke_. I think, this tale would win my daughter too." - -Such, then, is the relation in which the poet has decreed that these -two shall stand to each other. This is no love between two of the same -age and the same race, whom only family enmity keeps apart, as in -_Romeo and Juliet_. Still less is it a union of hearts like that of -Brutus and Portia, where the perfect harmony is the result of tenderest -friendship in combination with closest kinship, added to the fact -that the wife's father is her husband's hero and ideal. No, in direct -contrast to this last, it is a union which rests on the attraction of -opposites, and which has everything against it--difference of race, -difference of age, and the strange, exotic aspect of the man, with the -lack of self-confidence which it awakens in him. - -Iago expounds to Roderigo how impossible it is that this alliance -should last. Desdemona fell in love with the Moor because he bragged -to her and told her fantastical lies; does any one believe that love -can be kept alive by prating? To inflame the blood anew, "sympathy -in years, manners, and beauties" is required, "all which the Moor is -defective in." - -The Moor himself is at first troubled by none of these reflections. And -why not? Because Othello is not jealous. - -This sounds paradoxical, yet it is the plain truth. Othello not -jealous! It is as though one were to say water is not wet or fire does -not burn. But Othello's is no jealous nature; jealous men and women -think very differently and act very differently. He is unsuspicious, -confiding, and in so far stupid--there lies the misfortune; but -jealous, in the proper sense of the word, he is not. When Iago -is preparing to insinuate his calumnies of Desdemona, he begins -hypocritically (iii. 3): - - "O beware, my lord, of jealousy; - It is the green-eyed monster...." - -Othello answers: - - "'Tis not to make me jealous, - To say--my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company, - Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well; - Where virtue is, these are more virtuous: - Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw - The smallest fear, or doubt of her revolt; - For she had eyes, and chose me." - -Thus not even his exceptional position causes him any uneasiness, so -long as things take their natural course. But there is no escaping the -steady pursuit of which he, all unwitting, is the object. He becomes as -suspicious towards Desdemona as he is credulous towards Iago--"Brave -Iago!" "Honest Iago!" Brabantio's malison recurs to his mind--"She -has deceived her father, and may thee;" and close on it crowd Iago's -reasons: - - "Haply, for I am black, - And have not those soft parts of conversation - That chamberers have; or, for I am declin'd - Into the vale of years;--yet that's not much." - -And the torment seizes him of feeling that one human being is a -sealed book to the other--that it is impossible to control passion -and appetite in a woman, though the law may have given her into one's -hand--until at last he feels as if he were stretched on the rack, and -Iago can exult in the thought that not all the drowsy syrups of the -world can procure him the untroubled sleep of yesterday. Then follows -the mournful farewell to all his previous life, and on this sadness -once more follows doubt, and despair at the doubt:-- - - "I think my wife be honest and think she is not; - I think that thou art just and think thou art not," - ---until all his thoughts are centred in the craving for revenge and -blood. - -Not naturally jealous, he has become so through the working of the base -but devilishly subtle slander which he is too simple to penetrate and -spurn. - -In these masterly scenes (the third and fourth of the third act) -there are more reminiscences of other poets than we find elsewhere in -Shakespeare within such narrow compass; and they are of interest as -showing us what he knew, and what his mind was dwelling upon in those -days. - -In Berni's _Orlando Innamorato_ (Canto 51, Stanza I), we come upon -Iago's declaration:-- - - "Who steals my purse, steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; - 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; - But he that filches from me my good name, - Robs me of that which not enriches him, - And makes me poor indeed." - -The passage in Berni runs thus:-- - - "Chi ruba un corno, un cavallo, un anello, - E simil cose, ha qualche discrezione, - E potrebbe chiamarsi ladroncello; - Ma quel che ruba la riputazione - E de Paltrui fatiche si fa bello - Si può chiamare assassino e ladrone." - -A reminiscence also lies hidden in Othello's exquisite farewell to a -soldier's life:-- - - "O now for ever - Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content! - Farewell the plumed troops, and the big wars, - That make ambition virtue! O, farewell! - Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump, - The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, - The royal banner, and all quality, - Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!" - -It is clear that there must have lurked in Shakespeare's mind a -reminiscence of an apostrophe contained in the old play, _A Pleasant -Comedie called Common Conditions_, which he must, doubtless, have seen -as a youth in Stratford. In it the hero says:-- - - "But farewell now, my coursers brave, attrapped to the ground. - Farewell, adieu, all pleasures eke, with comely hawk and hound! - Farewell, ye nobles all! Farewell, each martial knight! - Farewell, ye famous ladies all, in whom I did delight!" - -The study of Ariosto in Italian has also left its trace. It is where -Othello, talking of the handkerchief, says:-- - - "A sibyl, that had number'd in the world - The sun to course two hundred compasses, - _In her prophetic fury_ sew'd the work." - -In _Orlando Furioso_ (Canto 46, Stanza 80) we read:-- - - "Una donzella della terra d'Ilia, - Ch'avea _il furor profetico_ congiunto - Con studio di gran tempo, e con vigilia - Lo fece di sua man di tutto punto." - -The agreement here cannot possibly be accidental. And what makes it -still more certain that Shakespeare had the Italian text before him is -that the words _prophetic fury_, which are the same in _Othello_ as in -the Italian, are not to be found in Harington's English translation, -the only one then in existence. He must thus, whilst writing _Othello_, -have been interested in Orlando, and had Berni's and Ariosto's poems -lying on his table. - -Desdemona's innocent simplicity in these scenes rivals the boundless -and actually tragic simplicity of Othello. In the first place, she -is convinced that the Moor, whom she sees wrought up to the verge of -madness, cannot possibly suspect her, and is unassailable by jealousy. - - "_Emilia_. Is he not jealous? - _Desdemona_. Who? he! I think the sun where he was born - Drew all such humours from him." - -So she acts with foolish indiscretion, continuing to tease Othello -about Cassio's reinstatement, although she ought to feel that it is her -harping on this topic that enrages him. - -Then follow Iago's still more monstrous lies: the confession he -pretends to have heard Cassio make in his sleep; the story that she -has presented the precious handkerchief to Cassio; and the pretence -that Desdemona is the subject of the words which Othello, from his -hiding-place, hears Cassio let fall as to his relations with the -courtesan, Bianca. To hear his wife, his beloved, thus derided, stings -the Moor to frenzy. - -It is such a consistently sustained imposture that there is, perhaps, -only one at all comparable to it in history--the intrigue of the -diamond necklace, in which Cardinal de Rohan was as utterly duped and -ruined as Othello is here. - -And now Othello has reached the stage at which he can no longer think -coherently, or speak except in ejaculations (iv. I):-- - - "_Iago_. Lie with her. - - "_Othello_. With her? - - "_Iago_. With her, on her, what you will. - - "_Othello_. Lie with her! lie on her!--We say, lie - on her when they belie her. Lie with her! that's - fulsome.--Handkerchief,--confessions,--handkerchief.--To - confess, and be hanged for his labour.--First, to be - hanged, and then to confess. ... It is not words, that - shakes me thus.--Pish!--Noses, ears, and lips.--Is it - possible?--Confess!--Handkerchief!--O devil!" - -With the mind's eye he sees them in each other's arms.[1] He is seized -with an epileptic fit and falls. - -This is not a representation of spontaneous but of artificially induced -jealousy; in other words, of credulity poisoned by malignity. Hence the -moral which Shakespeare, through the mouth of Iago, bids the audience -take home with them: - - "Thus credulous fools are caught; - And many worthy and chaste dames even thus, - All guiltless, meet reproach." - -It is not Othello's jealousy, but his credulity that is the prime cause -of the disaster; and even so must Desdemona's noble simplicity bear -its share in the blame. Between them they render possible the complete -success of a man like Iago. - -When Othello bursts into tears before Desdemona's eyes, without her -suspecting the reason (iv. 2), he says most touchingly that he could -have borne affliction and shame, poverty and captivity--could even have -endured to be made the butt of mockery and scorn--but that he cannot -bear to see her whom he worshipped the object of his own contempt. -He does not suffer most from jealousy, but from seeing "the fountain -from the which his current runs" a dried-up swamp, or "a cistern for -foul toads to knot and gender in." This is pure, deep sorrow at seeing -his idol sullied, not mean frenzy at the idol's preferring another -worshipper. - -And with that grace which is an attribute of perfect strength, -Shakespeare has introduced as a contrast, directly before the terrible -catastrophe, Desdemona's delicate little ditty of the willowtree--of -the maiden who weeps because her lover is untrue to her, but who loves -him none the less. Desdemona is deeply touching when she pleads with -her cruel lord for but a few moments' respite, but she is great in the -instant of death, when she expires with the sublime lie, the one lie -of her life, upon her lips, designed to shield her murderer from his -punishment. - -Ophelia, Desdemona, Cordelia--what a trefoil! Each has her -characteristic features, but they resemble one another like sisters -they all present the type which Shakespeare at this point loves -and most affects. Had they a model? Had they perhaps one and the -same model? Had he about this time encountered a young and charming -woman, living, as it were, under a cloud of sorrow, injustice, -misunderstanding, who was all heart and tenderness, without any claims -to intellect or wit? We may suspect this, but we know nothing of it. - -The figure of Desdemona is one of the most charming Shakespeare has -drawn. She is more womanly than other women, as the noble Othello is -more manly than other men. So that after all there is a very good -reason for the attraction between them; the most womanly of women feels -herself drawn to the manliest of men. - -The subordinate figures are worked out with hardly less skill than -the principal characters of the tragedy. Emilia especially is -inimitable--good-hearted, honest, and not exactly light, but still -sufficiently the daughter of Eve to be unable to understand Desdemona's -naïve and innocent chastity. - -At the end of Act iv. (in the bedroom scene) Desdemona asks Emilia if -she believes that there really are women who do what Othello accuses -her of. Emilia answers in the affirmative. Then her mistress asks -again: "Would'st thou do such a deed for all the world?" and receives -the jesting answer, "The world is a huge thing; 'tis a great price for -a small vice: - - "Marry, I would not do such a thing for a joint-ring, nor - for measures of lawn, nor for gowns, petticoats, nor caps, - nor any petty exhibition; but, for the whole world! ... Why, - the wrong is but a wrong i' the world; and, having the world - for your labour, 'tis a wrong in your own world, and you - might quickly make it right." - -In passages like this a mildly playful note is struck in the very -midst of the horror. And according to his habit and the custom of the -times, Shakespeare also introduces, by means of the Clown, one or two -deliberately comic passages; but the Clown's merriment is subdued, as -Shakespeare's merriment at this period always is. - -The composition of _Othello_ is closely akin to that of _Macbeth_. -In these two tragedies alone there are no episodes; the action moves -onward uninterrupted and undissipated. But the beautiful proportion -of all its parts and articulations gives _Othello_ the advantage over -the mutilated _Macbeth_ which we possess. Here the crescendo of the -tragedy is executed with absolute _maestria_; the passion rises with -a positively musical effect; Iago's devilish plan is realised step by -step with consummate certainty; all details are knit together into -one firm and well-nigh inextricable knot; and the carelessness with -which Shakespeare has treated the necessary lapse of time between the -different stages of the action, has, by compressing the events of -months and years into a few days, heightened the effect of strict and -firm cohesion which the play produces. - -There are some inaccuracies in the text as we have it. At the close of -the play there is a passage, to account for which we must almost assume -that part of a vitiated text, adapted to some special performance, -has been interpolated. In the full rush of the catastrophe, when -only Othello's last speeches are wanting, Lodovico volunteers some -information as to what has happened, which is not only superfluous for -the spectator, but quite out of the general style and tone of the play: - - "_Lodovico_. Sir, you shall understand what hath befall'n, - Which, as I think, you know not. Here is a letter, - Found in the pocket of the slain Roderigo; - And here another: the one of them imports - The death of Cassio to be undertook - By Roderigo. - _Othello_. O villain! - _Cassio_. Most heathenish and most gross! - _Lod_. Now, here's another discontented paper, - Found in his pocket too," &c., &c. - -These speeches, and yet a third, are all aimed at making Othello -understand how shamefully he has been deceived; but they are nerveless -and feeble and detract from the effect of the scene. This passage ought -to be expunged; it is not Shakespeare's, and it forms a little stain on -his flawless work of art. - -For flawless it is. I not only find several of Shakespeare's greatest -qualities united in this work, but I see hardly a fault in it. - -It is the only one of Shakespeare's tragedies which does not treat of -national events, but is a family tragedy,--what was later known as -_tragédie domestique or bourgeoise_. But the treatment is anything but -bourgeois; the style is of the very grandest. One gets the best idea of -the distance between it and the _tragédie bourgeoise_ of later times on -comparing with it Schiller's _Kabale und Liebe_, which is in many ways -an imitation of _Othello_. - -We see here a great man who is at the same time a great child; a noble -though impetuous nature, as unsuspicious as it is unworldly. We see a -young woman, all gentleness and nobility of heart, who lives only for -him she has chosen, and who dies with solicitude for her murderer on -her lips. And we see these two elect natures ruined by the simplicity -which makes them an easy prey to wickedness. - -A great work _Othello_ undoubtedly is, but it is a monograph. It -lacks the breadth which Shakespeare's plays as a rule possess. It is -a sharply limited study of a single and very special form of passion, -the growth of suspicion in the mind of a lover with African blood -and temperament--a great example of the power of wickedness over -unsuspecting nobility. Taken all in all, this is a restricted subject, -which becomes monumental only by the grandeur of its treatment. - -No other drama of Shakespeare's had been so much of a monograph. He -assuredly felt this, and with the impulse of the great artist to make -his new work a complement and contrast to the immediately preceding -one, he now sought and found the subject for that one of his tragedies -which is least of all a monograph, which grew into nothing less than -the universal tragedy--all the great woes of human life concentrated in -one mighty symbol. - -He turned from _Othello_ to _Lear_. - - -[1] The development of this passage exactly corresponds to -Spinoza's classic definition of jealousy, written seventy years later. -See _Ethices, Pars III., Propositio XXXV., Scholium_: "Præterea hoc -odium erga rem amatam majus erit pro ratione Lætitiæ, qua Zelotypus -ex reciproco rei amatæ. Amore solebat affici, et etiam pro ratione -affectus, quo erga illum, quem sibi rem amatam jungere imaginatur, -affectus erat. Nam si eum oderat, eo ipso rem amatam odio habebit, -quia ipsam id, quod ipse odio habet, Lætitia afficere imaginatur; et -etiam ex eo, quod rei amatæ imaginem imagini ejus, quem odit, jungere -cogitur, quæ ratio plerumque locum habet in Amore erga fœminam; qui -enim imaginatur mulierem, quam amat, alteri sese prostituere, non solum -ex eo, quod ipsius appetitus coercetur, contristabitur, sed etiam quia -rei amatæ maginem pudendis et excrementis alterius jungere cogitur, -eandem aversatur." - - - - -XXV - -_KING LEAR--THE FEELING UNDERLYING IT--THE CHRONICLE--SIDNEY'S ARCADIA -AND THE OLD PLAY_ - -In _King Lear_, Shakespeare's vision sounded the abyss of horror to its -very depths, and his spirit showed neither fear, nor giddiness, nor -faintness at the sight. - -On the threshold of this work, a feeling of awe comes over one, as -on the threshold of the Sistine Chapel, with its ceiling-frescoes by -Michael Angelo--only that the suffering here is far more intense, the -wail wilder, the harmonies of beauty more definitely shattered by the -discords of despair. - -_Othello_ was a noble piece of chamber-music--simple and easily -apprehended, powerfully affecting though it be. This work, on the other -hand, is the symphony of an enormous orchestra--all earth's instruments -sound in it, and every instrument has many stops. - -_King Lear_ is the greatest task Shakespeare ever set himself, the most -extensive and the most imposing;--all the suffering and horror that can -arise from the relation between a father and his children expressed in -five acts of moderate length. - -No modern mind has dared to face such a subject; nor could any one have -grappled with it. Shakespeare did so without even a trace of effort, by -virtue of the overpowering mastery which he now, in the meridian of his -genius, had attained over the whole of human life. He handles his theme -with the easy vigour that belongs to spiritual health, though we have -here scene upon scene of such intense pathos that we seem to hear the -sobs of suffering humanity accompanying the action, much as one hears -by the sea-shore the steady plash and sob of the waves. - -Under what conditions did Shakespeare take hold of this subject? The -drama tells plainly enough. He stood at the turning-point of human -life; he had lived about forty-two years; ten years of life still -lay before him, but of these certainly not more than seven were -intellectually productive. He now brought that which makes life worse -than death face to face with that which makes life worth living--the -very breath of our lungs and Cordelia-like solace of our suffering--and -swept them both forward to a catastrophe that appals us like the ruin -of a world. - -In what frame of mind did Shakespeare set himself to this work? What -was seething in his brain, what was moaning in his breast, at the time -he chanced upon this subject? The drama tells plainly enough. Of all -the different forms of cruelty, coarseness, and baseness with which -life had brought him into contact, of all the vices and infamies that -embitter the existence of the nobler sort of men, one vice now seemed -to him the worst--stood out before him as the most abominable and -revolting of all--one of which he himself, no doubt, had again and -again been the victim--to wit, ingratitude. He saw no baseness more -widespread or more indulgently regarded. - -Who can doubt that he, immoderately enriched by nature, he whose very -existence was, like that of Shelley's cloud, a constant giving, an -eternal beneficence, a perpetual bringing of "fresh showers to the -thirsting flowers"--who can doubt that such a giver on the grandest -scale must again and again have been rewarded with the blackest -ingratitude? We see, for instance, how _Hamlet_, so far his greatest -work, was received with instant attack, with what Swinburne has aptly -called "the jeers, howls, hoots and hisses of which a careful ear may -catch some far, faint echo even yet--the fearful and furtive yelp from -beneath of the masked and writhing poeticule."[1] His life passed in -the theatre. We can very well guess, where we do not know, how comrades -to whom he gave example and assistance; stage poets, who envied while -they admired him; actors whom he trained and who found in him a -spiritual father; the older men whom he aided, the young men whom he -befriended--how all these would now fall away from him, now fall upon -him; and each new instance of ingratitude was a shock to his spiritual -life. For years he kept silence, suppressed his indignation, locked it -up in his own breast. But he hated and despised ingratitude above all -vices, because it at once impoverished and belittled his soul. - -His was certainly not one of those artist natures that are free-handed -with money when they have it, and confer benefits with good-natured -carelessness. He was a competent, energetic business man, who spared -and saved in order to gain an independence and restore the fallen -fortunes of his family. But none the less he was evidently a good -comrade in practical, a benefactor in intellectual, life. And he felt -that ingratitude impoverished and degraded him, by making it hard for -him to be helpful again, and to give forth with both hands out of -the royal treasure of his nature, when he had been disappointed and -deceived so often, even by those for whom he had done most and in whom -he believed most. He felt that if there were any baseness which could -drive its victim to despair, to madness, it was the vice of black -ingratitude. - -In such a frame of mind he finds, one day, when he is as usual turning -over the leaves of his Holinshed, the story of King Lear, the great -giver. In the same temper he reads the old play on the subject, dating -from 1593-4, and entitled _Chronicle History of King Leir_. Here he -found what he needed, the half-worked clay out of which he could model -figures and groups. Here, in this superficially dramatised chronicle -of appalling ingratitude, was the very theme for him to develop. So he -took it to his heart and brooded over it till it quickened and came to -life. - -We can determine without difficulty the period during which Shakespeare -was working at _King Lear_. Were it not clear from other reasons that -the play cannot have been written before 1603, we should know it from -the fact that in this year was published Harsnet's _Declaration of -Popish Impostures_, from which he took the names of some of the fiends -mentioned by Edgar (iii. 4). And it cannot have been produced later -than 1606, for on the 26th December of that year it was acted before -King James. This we know from its being entered in the Stationers' -Register on the 26th of November 1607, with the addition "as yt was -played before the kinges maiestie at Whitehall vppon Sainct Stephens -night at Christmas last." But we can get still nearer than this -to the time of its composition. When Gloucester (i. 2) speaks of -"these late eclipses," he is doubtless alluding to the eclipse of -the sun in October 1605. And the immediately following remarks about -"machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders" -prevailing at the time, refer in all probability to the great Gunpowder -Plot of November 1605. - -Thus it was towards the end of 1605 that Shakespeare began to work at -_King Lear_. - -The story was old and well known. It was told for the first time in -Latin by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his _Historia Britonum,_ for the first -time in English by Layamon in his _Brut_ about 1205. It came originally -from Wales and bears a distinctly Celtic impress, which Shakespeare, -with his fine feeling for all national peculiarities, has succeeded in -retaining and intensifying. - -He found all the main features of the story in Holinshed. According to -this authority, Leir, son of Baldud, rules in Britain "at what time -Joash reigned as yet in Juda." His three daughters are named Gonorilla, -Regan, and Cordeilla. He asks them how great is their love for him, and -they answer as in the tragedy. Cordeilla, repudiated and disinherited, -marries one of the princes of Gaul. When the two elder daughters have -shamefully ill-treated Leir, he flees to Cordeilla. She and her husband -raise an army, sail to England, defeat the armies of the two sisters, -and reinstate Leir on his throne. He reigns for two more years; then -Cordeilla succeeds to the throne--and this happens "in the yeere of -the world 3155, before the bylding of Rome 54, Uzia then reigning in -Juda and Jeroboam over Israell." She rules the kingdom for five years. -Then her husband dies, and her sisters' sons rise in rebellion against -her, lay waste a great part of the country, take her prisoner, and keep -her strictly guarded. This so enrages Cordeilla, who is of a masculine -spirit, that she takes her own life. - -The material Shakespeare found in this tradition did not suffice him. -The thoughts and imaginings which the story set astir within him led -him to seek for a supplement to the action in the tale of Gloucester -and his sons, which he took from Sir Philip Sidney's _Arcadia_, a -book not yet twenty years old. With the story of the great giver, who -is recompensed with ingratitude by his wicked daughters after he has -banished his good daughter, he entwined the story of the righteous -duke, who, deceived by slander, repudiates his good son, and is hurled -by the bad one into the depths of misery, until at last his eyes are -torn out of his head. - -According to Sidney, some princes are overtaken by a storm in the -kingdom of Galacia. They take refuge in a cave, where they find an -old blind man and a youth, whom the old man in vain entreats to lead -him to the top of a rock, from which he may throw himself down, and -thus put an end to his life. The old man had formerly been Prince of -Paphlagonia, but the "hard-hearted ungratefulness" of his illegitimate -son had deprived him not only of his kingdom but of his eyesight. -This bastard had previously had a fatal influence over his father. By -his permission the Prince had given orders to his servants to take -his legitimate son out into a wood and there kill him. The young man, -however, escaped, went into foreign military service, and distinguished -himself; but when he heard of the evils that had befallen his father, -he hastened back to be a support to his hapless age, and is now heaping -coals of fire upon his head. The old man begs the foreign princes to -make his story known, that it may bring honour to the pious son,--the -only reward he can expect. - -The old drama of _King Leir_ had kept strictly to Holinshed's -chronicle. It is instructive reading for any one who is trying to -mete out the compass of Shakespeare's genius. A childish work, in -which the rough outlines of the principal action, as we know them -from Shakespeare, are superficially reproduced, it compares with -Shakespeare's tragedy as the melody of Schiller's "An die Freude," -played with one finger, compares with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. And -even this comparison does rather too much honour to the old drama, in -which the melody is barely suggested. - - -[1] Swinburne: _A Study of Shakespeare_, p. 164. - - - - -XXVI - -_KING LEAR--THE TRAGEDY OF A WORLD-CATASTROPHE_ - -I imagine that Shakespeare must, as a rule, have worked early in the -morning. The division of the day at that time would necessitate this. -But it can scarcely have been in bright morning hours, scarcely in the -daytime, that he conceived _King Lear_. No; it must have been on a -night of storm and terror, one of those nights when a man, sitting at -his desk at home, thinks of the wretches who are wandering in houseless -poverty through the darkness, the blustering wind, and the soaking -rain--when the rushing of the storm over the house-tops and its howling -in the chimneys sound in his ears like shrieks of agony, the wail of -all the misery of earth. - -For in _King Lear,_ and _King Lear_ alone, we feel that what we in our -day know by the awkward name of the social problem, in other words, -the problem of extreme wretchedness and want, existed already for -Shakespeare. On such a night he says with Lear (iii. 4):-- - - "Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, - That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, - How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, - Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you - From seasons such as these?" - -And he makes the King add:-- - - "O! I have ta'en - Too little care of this. Take physic, pomp; - Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, - That thou may'st shake the superflux to them, - And show the heavens more just." - -On such a night was _Lear_ conceived. Shakespeare, sitting at his -writing-table, heard the voices of the King, the Fool, Edgar, and Kent -on the heath, interwoven with each other, contrapuntally answering -each to each, as in a fugue; and it was for the sake of the general -effect, in all its sublimity, that he wrote large portions of the -tragedy which, in themselves, cannot have interested him. The whole -introduction, for instance, deficient as it is in any reasonable -motive for the King's behaviour, he took, with his usual sovereign -indifference in unessential matters, from the old play. - -With Shakespeare we always find that each work is connected with the -preceding one, as ring is linked with ring in a chain. In the story -of Gloucester the theme of _Othello_ is taken up again and varied. -The trusting Gloucester is spiritually poisoned by Edmund, exactly -as Othello's mind is poisoned by Iago's lies. Edmund calumniates his -brother Edgar, shows forged letters from him, wounds himself in a -make-believe defence of his father's life against him--in short, upsets -Gloucester's balance just as Iago did Othello's. And he employs the -very same means as Schiller's Franz Moor employs, two centuries later, -to blacken his brother Karl in their old father's estimation. _Die -Räuber_ is a sort of imitation of this part of _King Lear_; even the -father's final blindness is copied. - -Shakespeare moves all this away back into primeval times, into the -grey days of heathendom; and he welds the two originally independent -stories together with such incomparable artistic dexterity that their -interaction serves to bring out more forcibly the fundamental idea -and feeling of the play. He skilfully contrives that Gloucester's -compassion for Lear shall provide Edmund with means to bring about his -father's utter ruin, and he ingeninously invents the double passion of -Regan and Goneril for Edmund, which leads the two sisters to destroy -each other. He fills the tame little play of the earlier writer with -horrors such as he had not presented since his youthful days in _Titus -Andronicus_, not even shrinking from the tearing out of Gloster's eyes -on the stage. He means to show pitilessly what life is. "You see how -this world goes," says Lear in the play. - -Shakespeare has nowhere else shown evil and good in such immediate -opposition--bad and good human beings in such direct conflict with each -other; and nowhere else has he so deliberately shunned the customary -and conventional issue of the struggle--the triumph of the good. In -the catastrophe, blind and callous Fate blots out the good and the bad -together. - -Everything centres in the protagonist, poor old, stupid, great Lear, -King every inch of him, and every inch human. Lear's is a passionate -nature, irritably nervous, all too ready to act on the first impulse. -At heart he is so lovable that he arouses the unalterable devotion of -the best among those who surround him; and he is so framed to command -and so accustomed to rule, that he misses every moment that power -which, in an access of caprice, he has renounced. For a brief space -at the beginning of the play the old man stands erect; then he begins -to bend. And the weaker he grows the heavier load is heaped upon him, -till at last, overburdened, he sinks. He wanders off, groping his way, -with his crushing fate upon his back. Then the light of his mind is -extinguished; madness seizes him. - -And Shakespeare takes this theme of madness and sets it for three -voices--divides it between Edgar, who is mad to serve a purpose, -but speaks the language of real insanity; the Fool, who is mad -by profession, and masks the soundest practical wisdom under the -appearance of insanity; and the King, who is bewildered and infected by -Edgar's insane talk--the King, who is mad with misery and suffering. - -As already remarked, it is evident from the indifference with which -Shakespeare takes up the old material to make a beginning and set the -play going, that all he really cared about was the essential pathos of -the theme, the deep seriousness of the fundamental emotion. The opening -scenes are of course incredible. It is only in fairy-tales that a -king divides the provinces of his kingdom among his daughters, on the -principle that she gets the largest share who can assure him that she -loves him most; and only a childish audience could find it conceivable -that old Gloucester should instantly believe the most improbable -calumnies against a son whose fine character he knew. Shakespeare's -individuality does not make itself felt in such parts as these; but it -certainly does in the view of life, its course and character, which -bursts upon Lear when he goes mad, and which manifests itself here -and there all through the play. And Shakespeare's intellect has now -attained such mastery, every passion is rendered with such irresistible -power, that the play, in spite of its fantastic, unreal basis, produces -an effect of absolute _truth_. - - "_Lear_. A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. - Look with thine ears: see how yond justice rails upon yond - simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, - handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?--Thou - hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar? - - "_Gloster_. Ay, sir. - - "_Lear_. And the creature run from the cur? There thou - might'st behold the great image of authority: a dog's obey'd - in office." - -And then follow outbursts to the effect that the punisher is generally -worse than the punished; the beadle flogs the loose woman, but the -rascally beadle is as lustful as she. The idea here answers to that in -_Measure for Measure_: the beadle should flog himself, not the woman. -And then come complaints that the rich are exempt from punishment: -dress Sin in armour of goldplate, and the lance of Justice will shiver -against it. Finally, he concentrates his indictment of life in the -words:-- - - "When we are born, we cry that we are come - To this great stage of fools." - -We hear a refrain from _Hamlet_ running through all this. But Hamlet's -criticism of life is here taken up by many voices; it sounds louder, -and awakens echo upon echo. - -The Fool, the best of Shakespeare's Fools, made more conspicuous -by coming after the insignificant Clown in _Othello_, is such an -echo--mordantly witty, marvellously ingenious. He is the protest of -sound common-sense against the foolishness of which Lear has been -guilty, but a protest that is pure humour; he never complains, least of -all on his own account. Yet all his foolery produces a tragic effect. -And the words spoken by one of the knights, "Since my young lady's -going into France, sir, the fool hath much pined away," atone for all -his sharp speeches to Lear. Amongst Shakespeare's other master-strokes -in this play must be reckoned that of exalting the traditional clown, -the buffoon, into so high a sphere that he becomes a tragic element of -the first order. - -In no other play of Shakespeare's has the Fool so many proverbial words -of wisdom. Indeed, the whole piece teems with such words: Lear's "'Ay' -and 'no,' too, was no good divinity;" Edgar's "Ripeness is all;" Kent's -"To be acknowledged, madam, is o'erpaid." - -Whilst the elder daughters have inherited and over-developed Lear's -bad qualities, Cordelia has fallen heir to his goodness of heart; but -he has also transmitted to her a certain obstinacy and pride, but for -which the conflict would not have arisen. His first question to her, -and her answer to it, are equally wanting in tact. But as the action -proceeds, we find that her obstinacy has melted away; her whole being -is goodness and charm. - -How touching is the passage where Cordelia finds her brainsick sire, -and tends him until, by aid of the healing art, and sleep, and music, -he slowly regains his health. Everything is beautiful here, from the -first kiss to the last word. Lear is borne sleeping on to the stage. -The doctor orders music to sound, and Cordelia says (iv. 7):-- - - "_Cor_. O my dear father! Restoration hang - Thy medicine on my lips, and let this kiss - Repair those violent harms, that my two sisters - Have in thy reverence made! - _Kent_. Kind and dear princess! - _Cor_. Had you not been their father, these white flakes - Had challeng'd pity of them. Was this a face - To be oppos'd against the warring winds? - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - Mine enemy's dog, - Though he had bit me, should have stood that night - Against my fire." - -He awakes, and Cordelia says to him:-- - - _Cor_. How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty? - _Lear_. You do me wrong to take me out o' the grave. - Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound - Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears - Do scald like molten lead." - -Then he comes to himself, asks where he has been, and where he is; is -surprised that it is "fair daylight;" remembers what he has suffered:-- - - "_Cor_. O look upon me, sir, - And hold your hands in benediction o'er me.-- - No, sir, you must not kneel." - -Notice this last line. It has its history. In the old drama of _King -Leir_ this kneeling was made a more prominent feature. There the King -and his faithful Perillus (so Kent was called in the old play) are -wandering about, perishing with hunger and thirst, when they fall -in with the King of Gaul and Cordelia, who are spying out the land -disguised as peasants. The daughter recognises her father, and gives -the starving man food and drink; then, when he is satisfied, he tells -her his story in deep anguish of spirit:-- - - "_Leir_. O no men's children are vnkind but mine. - _Cordelia_. Condemne not all, because of others crime, - But looke, deare father, looke, behold and see - Thy louing daughter speaketh vnto thee. - (_She kneeles_). - _Leir_. O, stand thou vp, it is my part to kneele, - And aske forgiueness for my former faults. - (_He kneeles_)." - -The scene is beautiful, and there is true filial feeling in it, but it -would be impossible on the stage, where two persons kneeling to each -other cannot but produce a comic effect. The incident, indeed, actually -occurs in some of Molière's and Holberg's comedies. Shakespeare -understood how to preserve and utilise this (with all other traits of -any value in his predecessor's work) in such a manner that only its -delicacy remains, while its external awkwardness disappears. Lear says -to Cordelia, when they have fallen into the hands of their enemies:-- - - "Come, let's away to prison: - We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage: - _When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down - And ask of thee forgiveness._ So we'll live, - And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh - At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues - Talk of court news." - -The old play ends naïvely and innocently with the triumph of the good. -The King of Gaul and Cordelia conduct Leir home again, tell the wicked -daughters sharp truths to their faces, and thereupon totally rout their -armies. Leir thanks and rewards all who have been faithful to him, and -passes the remainder of his days in agreeable leisure under the care of -his daughter and son-in-law. - -Shakespeare does not take such a bright view of life. According to -him, Cordelia's army is defeated, and the old King and his daughter -are thrown into prison. But no past and no present adversity can crush -Lear's spirit now. In spite of everything, in spite of the loss of -power, of self-reliance, and for a time of reason, in spite of defeat -in the decisive battle, he is as happy as an old man can be. He has his -lost daughter again. Age had already isolated him. In the peace that a -prison affords he will live not much more lonely than great age is of -necessity, shut in with the object, now the sole object, of his love. -It seems for a moment as though Shakespeare would say: "Happy is that -man, even though he may be in prison, who in the last years of his life -has the darling of his heart beside him." - -But this is not the conclusion to which Shakespeare leads us. Edmund -commands that Cordelia shall be hanged in prison, and the murderer -executes his order. - -The tragedy does not culminate till Lear enters with Cordelia dead in -his arms. After a wild outburst of grief, he asks for a looking-glass -to see if she still breathes, and in the pause that ensues Kent says:-- - - "Is this the promised end?" - -And Edgar:-- - - "Or image of that horror?" - -Lear is given a feather. He utters a cry of joy--it moves--she is -alive! Then he sees that he has been mistaken. Curses follow, and after -them this exquisite touch of characterisation:-- - - "Her voice was ever soft, - Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman." - -Then the disguised Kent makes himself known, and Lear learns that the -two criminal daughters are dead. But his capacity for receiving new -impressions is almost gone. He can feel nothing but Cordelia's death: -"And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life!" He faints and dies. - - "_Kent_ Vex not his ghost: O let him pass! He hates him - That would upon the rack of this tough world - Stretch him out longer." - -That this old man should lose his youngest daughter--this is the -catastrophe which Shakespeare has made so great that it is with reason -Kent asks: "Is this the promised end? Is this the end of the world?" In -the loss of this daughter he loses all; and the abyss that opens seems -wide enough and deep enough to engulph a world. - -The loss of a Cordelia--that is the great catastrophe. We all lose, or -live under the dread of losing, our Cordelia. The loss of the dearest -and the best, of that which alone makes life worth living--that is the -tragedy of life. Hence the question: Is this the end of the world? Yes -it is. Each of us has only his world and lives with the threat of its -destruction hanging over him. And in the year 1606 Shakespeare was in -no mood to write other than dramas on the doom of worlds. - -For the end of all things seems to have come when we see the ruin -of the moral world--when he who is noble and trustful like Lear is -rewarded with ingratitude and hate; when he who is honest and brave -like Kent is punished with dishonour; when he who is merciful like -Gloucester, taking the suffering and injured under his roof, has the -loss of his eyes for his reward; when he who is noble and faithful -like Edgar must wander about in the semblance of a maniac, with a -rag round his loins; when, finally, she who is the living emblem of -womanly dignity and of filial tenderness towards an old father who -has become as it were her child--when she meets her death before -his eyes at the hands of assassins! What avails it that the guilty -slaughter and poison, each other afterwards? None the less is this the -titanic tragedy of human life; there rings forth from it a chorus of -passionate, jeering, wildly yearning, and desperately wailing voices. - -Sitting by his fire at night, Shakespeare heard them in the roar of -the storm against the window-pane, in the howling of the wind in the -chimneys--heard all these terrible voices contrapunctually inwoven one -with another as in a fugue, and heard in them the torture-shriek of -suffering humanity. - - - - -XXVII - -_ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA--WHAT ATTRACTED SHAKESPEARE TO THE SUBJECT_ - -If it is the last titanic tragedy of human life that has now been -written, what is there more to add? There is nothing left to write. -Shakespeare may lay down his pen. - -So it would seem to us. But what is the actual course of events? what -do we see? That for years to come, work follows work in uninterrupted -succession. It is with Shakespeare as with all other great, prolific -geniuses; time and again we think, "Now he has done his best, now -he has reached his zenith, now he has touched the limit of his -power, exhausted his treasury, made his crowning effort, his highest -bid,"--when behold! he takes up a new work the day after he has let go -the old; takes it up as if nothing had happened, unexhausted, unwearied -by the tremendous task he has accomplished, fresh as if he had just -arisen from repose, indefatigable as though he were only now setting -forth with his name and fame yet to be won. - -_King Lear_ makes a sensation among Shakespeare's impressionable -audience; crowds flock to the theatre to see it; the book is quickly -sold out--two quarto editions in 1608; all minds are occupied with it; -they have not nearly exhausted its treasures of profundity, of wit, -of practical wisdom, of poetry--Shakespeare alone no longer gives a -moment's thought to it; he has left it behind and is deep in his next -work. - -A world-catastrophe! He has no mind now to write of anything else. What -is sounding in his ears, what is filling his thoughts, is the crash of -a world falling to ruin. - -For this music he seeks out a new text. He has not far to seek; he has -found it already. Since the time when he wrote _Julius Cæsar_, Plutarch -has never been out of his hands. In his first Roman drama he depicted -the fall of the world-republic; but in that world, as a whole, fresh, -strong forces were still at work. Cæsar's spirit dominated it. We heard -more of his greatness than we saw of it; but we could infer his true -significance from the effects of his disappearance from the scene. And -the republic still lived in spirits proud like Brutus, or strong like -Cassius, and did not expire with them. By Brutus's side stood Cato's -daughter, delicate but steadfast, the tenderest and bravest of wives. -In short, there were still many sound elements in the body politic. The -republic fell by historical necessity, but there was no decadence of -mind, no degeneracy, no ruin. - -But Shakespeare read on in his Plutarch and came to the life of Marcus -Antonius. This he read first out of curiosity, then with attention, -then with eager emotion. For here, here was the real downfall of -the Roman world. Not till now did he hear the final, fatal crash -of the old world-republic. The might of Rome, stern and austere, -shivered at the touch of Eastern voluptuousness. Everything sank, -everything fell--character and will, dominions and principalities, -men and women. Everything was worm-eaten, serpent-bitten, poisoned -by sensuality--everything tottered and collapsed. Defeat in Asia, -defeat in Europe, defeat in Africa, on the Egyptian coast; then -self-abandonment and suicide. - -Again a poisoning-story like that of _Macbeth_. In Macbeth's case -the virus was ambition, in Antony's it was sensuality. But the story -of Antony, with its far-reaching effects, was a very much weightier -and more interesting subject than the story of the little barbarian -Scottish king. Macbeth was spiritually poisoned by his wife, a woman -ambitious to bloodthirstiness, an abnormal woman, more masculine than -her husband, almost a virago. She speaks of dashing out the brains of -babes as of one of those venial offences which one may commit on an -emergency rather than break one's word, and she undertakes without a -tremor to smear the faces of the murdered King's servants with his -blood. What is Lady Macbeth to us? What's Hecuba to us? And what was -this Hecuba now to Shakespeare! - -In a very different and more personal way did he feel himself attracted -by Cleopatra. She poisons slowly, half-involuntarily, and in wholly -feminine fashion, the faculty of rule, the generalship, the courage, -the greatness of Antony, ruler of half the world--and her, Cleopatra, -he, Shakespeare, knew. He knew her as we all know her, the woman of -women, quintessentiated Eve, or rather Eve and the serpent in one--"My -serpent of old Nile," as Antony calls her. Cleopatra--the name meant -beauty and fascination--it meant alluring sensuality combined with -finished culture--it meant ruthless squandering of human life and -happiness and the noblest powers. Here, indeed, was the woman who -could intoxicate and undo a man, even the greatest; uplift him to -such happiness as he had never known before, and then plunge him into -perdition, and along with him that half of the world which it was his -to rule. - -Who knows! If he himself, William Shakespeare, had met her, who knows -if he would have escaped with his life? And had he not met her? Was -it not she whom in bygone days he had met and loved, and by whom he -had been beloved and betrayed? It moved him strongly to find Cleopatra -described as so dark, so tawny. His thoughts dwelt upon this. He too -had stood in close relation to a dark, ensnaring woman--one whom in -bitter moments he had been tempted to call a gipsy; "a right gipsy," -as Cleopatra is called in this play, by those who are afraid of her or -angry with her. She of whom he never thought without emotion, his black -enchantress, his life's angel and fiend, whom he had hated and adored -at the same time, whom he had despised even while he sued for her -favour--what was she but a new incarnation of that dangerous, ensnaring -serpent of the Nile! And how nearly had his whole inner world collapsed -like a soap-bubble in his association with, and separation from, her! -That would indeed have been the ruin of a world! How he had revelled -and writhed, exulted and complained in those days! played ducks and -drakes with his life, squandered his days and nights! Now he was a -maturer man, a gentleman, a landed proprietor and tithe-farmer; but -in him still lived the artist-Bohemian, fitted to mate with the gipsy -queen. - -Three times in Shakespeare (_Romeo and Juliet_, ii. 4, and _Antony and -Cleopatra_, i. 1, and iv. 12) Cleopatra is slightingly called _gipsy_, -probably from the word's resemblance in sound to _Egyptian_. But there -was a certain significance in this word-play; for the high-mindedness -of the princess and the fickleness of the gipsy were mysteriously -combined in her nature. And how well he knew this combination! The -model for the great Egyptian queen stood living before his eyes. With -the same palette which he had used not many years before to sketch -the "dark lady" of the Sonnets, he could now paint this monumental -historical portrait. - -This figure charmed him, attracted him strongly. He came fresh from -Cordelia. He had built up that whole titanic tragedy of _King Lear_ -as a pedestal for her. And what is Cordelia? The ideal which one's -imagination reads on a young girl's white brow, and which the young -girl herself hardly understands, much less realises. She was the ray -of white light--the great, clear symbol of the purity and nobility of -heart which were expressed in her very name. He believed in her; he -had looked into her innocent eyes, whose expression inspired him with -the idea of her character; he had chanced upon that obstinate, almost -ungracious truthfulness in young women, which seems to augur a treasure -of real feeling behind it; but he had not known or associated with -Cordelia in daily life. - -Cleopatra, on the contrary, O Cleopatra! He passed in succession before -his eyes the most feminine, and therefore the most dangerous, women -he had known since he gained a footing in London, and he gave her the -grace of the one, the caprices of the other, the teasing humour of a -third, a fourth's instability; but deep in his heart he was thinking of -one only, who had been to him all women in one, a mistress in the art -of love and of awakening love, inciting to it as no other incited, and -faithlessly betraying as no other betrayed--true and false, daring and -frail, actress and lover without peer! - -There were several earlier English dramas on the subject of Antony and -Cleopatra, but only one or two of them are worth mentioning. There was -Daniel's _Cleopatra_ of 1594 founded partly on Plutarch's Lives of -Antonius and Pompeius, partly on a French book called the "History of -the Three Triumvirates." Then there was a play entitled _The Tragedie -of Antonie_, translated from the French by the Countess of Pembroke, -the mother of Shakespeare's friend, in the year 1595. Shakespeare -does not seem to have been indebted to either of these works, nor to -any of the numerous Italian plays on the subject. He had none of them -before him when he sat down to write his drama, which appears to have -been acted for the first time shortly before the 20th of May 1608, on -which day it is entered in the Stationers' Register as "a booke called -_Anthony and Cleopatra_" by Edward Blount, one of the publishers who -afterwards brought out the First Folio. It is probable, therefore, that -the play was written during the course of the year 1607. - -The only source, probably, from which Shakespeare drew, and from -which he drew largely, was the Life of Marcus Antonius, in North's -translation of Plutarch. It was on the basis of what he read there that -he planned and executed his work, even where, as in the first act, he -writes without in every point adhering to Plutarch. The farther the -drama progresses the more closely does he keep to Plutarch's narrative, -ingeniously and carefully making use of every touch, great or small, -that appears to him characteristic. It is evident, indeed, that -several traits are included merely because they are true, or rather -because Shakespeare thinks they are true. At times he introduces quite -unnecessary personages, like Dolabella, simply because he will not put -into the mouth of another the message which Plutarch assigns to him; -and it is very seldom that he permits himself even the most trifling -alteration. - -Shakespeare ennobled the character of Antony to a certain extent. -Plutarch depicts him as a Hercules in stature, and inclined to ape the -demigod by certain affectations of dress; a hearty, rough soldier, -given to praising himself and making game of others, but capable, too, -of enduring banter as well as praise. His inclination to prodigality -and luxurious living made him rapacious, but he was ignorant of most -of the infamies that were committed in his name. There was no craft in -his nature, but he was brutal, recklessly profligate, and devoid of all -sense of decency. A popular, light-hearted, free-handed general, who -sat far too many hours at table--indifferent whether it were with his -own soldiers or with princes--who showed himself drunken on the public -street, and would "sleepe out his drunkennesse" in the light of day, -degraded himself by the lowest debauchery, exhausted whole treasuries -on his journeys, travelled with priceless gold and silver plate for -his table, had chariots drawn by lions, gave away tens of thousands of -pounds in a single gift; but in defeat and misfortune rose to his full -height as the inspiriting leader who uncomplainingly renounced all his -own comforts and kept up the courage of his men. Calamity always raised -him above himself--a sufficient proof that, in spite of everything, -he was not without a strain of greatness. There was something of the -stage-king in him, something of the Murat, a touch of Skobeloff, and -a suggestion of the mediæval knight. What could be less antique than -his twice challenging Octavius to single combat? And in the end, when -misfortune overwhelmed him, and those on whom he had showered benefits -ungratefully forsook him, there was something in him that recalled -Timon of Athens nursing his melancholy and his bitterness. He himself -recognised the affinity. - -Women, according to Plutarch, were Antony's bane. After a youth in -which many women had had a share, he married Fulvia, the widow of -the notorious tribune, Clodius. She acquired the mastery over him, -and bent him to all her wishes, so that from her hand he passed into -Cleopatra's, ready broken-in to feminine dominion. - -According to Plutarch, moreover, Antony was endowed with a considerable -flexibility of character. He was fond of disguising himself, of playing -practical jokes. Once, for instance, on returning from a campaign, -he, dressed as a slave, delivered to his wife, Fulvia, a letter -telling of his own death, and then suddenly embraced her as she stood -terror-struck. This was only one of many manifestations of his power -of self-metamorphosis. Sometimes he would seem nerveless, sometimes -iron-nerved; sometimes effeminate, sometimes brave to foolhardiness; -now avid of honour, now devoid of honour; now revengeful, now -magnanimous. This undulant diversity and changeableness in Antony -fascinated Shakespeare. Yet he did not accept the character exactly -as he found it in Plutarch. He threw into relief the brighter sides -of it, building upon the foundation of Antony's inborn magnificence, -the superb prodigality of his nature, his kingly generosity, and that -reckless determination to enjoy the passing moment, which is a not -uncommon attribute both of great rulers and great artists. - -There was a crevice in this antique figure through which Shakespeare's -soul could creep in. He had no difficulty in imagining himself into -Antony's moods; he was able to play him just as, in his capacity -of actor, he could play a part that was quite in his line. Antony -possessed that power of metamorphosis which is the essence of the -artist nature. He was at one and the same time a master in the art of -dissimulation--see his funeral oration in _Julius Cæsar_, and in this -play the manner in which he takes Octavia to wife--and an open, honest -character; he was in a way faithful, felt closely bound to his mistress -and to his comrades-in-arms, and was yet alarmingly unstable. In other -words, his was an artist-nature. - -Among his many contradictory qualities two stood out preeminent: the -bent towards action and the bent towards enjoyment. Octavius says in -the play that these two propensities are equally strong in him, and -this is perhaps just about the truth. If, with his immense bodily -strength, he had been still more voluptuously inclined, he would have -become what in later history Augustus the Strong became, and Cleopatra -would have been his Aurora von Königsmarck. If energy had been more -strongly developed in him, then generalship and love of drink and -dissipation would have combined in him much as they did in Alexander -the Great, and Antony in Alexandria would have presented a parallel to -Alexander in Babylon. The scales hung evenly balanced for a long time, -until Antony met his fate in Cleopatra. - -Shakespeare has endowed them both with extreme personal beauty, though -neither of them is young. Antony's followers see in him a Mars, in her -a Venus. Even the gruff Enobarbus (ii. 2) declares that when he saw her -for the first time, she "o'erpictured that Venus where we see the fancy -outwork nature." She is the enchantress whom, according to Antony, -"everything becomes"--chiding, laughing, weeping, as well as repose. -She is "a wonderful piece of work." Antony can never leave her, for, as -Enobarbus says (ii. 2; compare Sonnet lvi.):-- - - "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale - Her infinite variety. Other women cloy - The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry - Where most she satisfies; for vilest things - Become themselves in her." - -What matters it that Shakespeare pictures her to himself dark as an -African (she was in reality of the purest Greek blood), or that she, -with some exaggeration, calls herself old? She can afford to jest on -the subject of her complexion as on that of her age:-- - - "Think on me - That am with Phœbus amorous pinches black, - And wrinkled deep in time." - -She is what Antony calls her when he (viii. 2) exclaims in ecstasy, "O -thou day o' the world!" - -In person and carriage Antony is as if created for her. It is not only -Cleopatra's passion that speaks when she says of Antony (v. 2) - - "I dream'd there was an Emperor Antony ... - His face was as the heavens ..." - -And to the beauty of his face answers that of his voice:-- - - "Propertied - As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends; - But when he meant to quail and shake the orb, - He was as rattling thunder." - -She prizes his rich, generous nature:-- - - "For his bounty, - There was no winter in't; and autumn 'twas, - That grew the more by reaping: - . . . . . . . - In his livery - Walk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands were - As plates dropped from his pocket." - -And just as Enobarbus maintained that Cleopatra was more beautiful -than that pictured Venus in which imagination had surpassed nature, -Cleopatra, in her exaltation after Antony's death, maintains that his -glorious humanity surpassed what fancy can invent:-- - - "_Cleopatra_. Think you there was or might be such a man - As this I dreamt of? - _Dolabella._ Gentle madam, no. - _Cleopatra_. You lie, up to the hearing of the gods. - But, if there be, or ever were, one such, - It's past the size of dreaming: nature wants stuff - To vie strange forms with fancy; yet, to imagine - An Antony, were nature's piece 'gainst fancy, - Condemning shadows quite." - -Not of an Antony should we speak thus now-a-days, but of a Napoleon in -the world of action, of a Michael Angelo, a Beethoven, or a Shakespeare -in the world of art. - -But the figure of Antony had to be one which made such a -transfiguration possible in order that it might be worthy to stand by -the side of hers who is the queen of beauty, the very genius of love. - -Pascal says in his _Pensées_: "Si le nez de Cléopâtre eût été plus -court, toute la face de la terre aurait changé." But her nose was, -as the old coins show us, exactly what it ought to have been; and in -Shakespeare we feel that she is not only beauty itself, but charm, -except in one single scene, where the news of Antony's marriage -throws her into a paroxysm of unbeautiful rage. Her charm is of the -sense-intoxicating kind, and she has, by study and art, developed those -powers of attraction which she possessed from the outset, till she has -become inexhaustible in inventiveness and variety. She is the woman who -has passed from hand to hand, from her husband and brother to Pompey, -from Pompey to the great Cæsar, from Cæsar to countless others. She is -the courtesan by temperament, but none the less does she possess the -genius for a single, undivided love. She, like Antony, is complex, and -being a woman, she is more so than he. _Vir duplex, femina triplex._ - -From the beginning and almost to the end of the tragedy she plays the -part of the great coquette. What she says and does is for long only the -outcome of the coquette's desire and power to captivate by incalculable -caprices. She asks where Antony is, and sends for him (i. 2). He comes. -She exclaims: "We will not look upon him," and goes. Presently his -absence irks her, and again she sends a messenger to remind him of her -and keep him in play (i. 3)-- - - "If you find him sad, - Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report - That I am sudden sick ..." - -He learns of his wife's death. She would have been beside herself if -he had shown grief, but he speaks with coldness of the loss, and she -attacks him because of this:-- - - "Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill - With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see - In Fulvia's death how mine received shall be." - -This incalculability, this capriciousness of hers extends to the -smallest matters. She invites Mardian to play a game of billiards with -her (an amusing anachronism), and, finding him ready, she turns him off -with: "I'll none now." - -But all this mutability does not exclude in her the most real, most -passionate love for Antony. The best proof of its strength is the way -in which she speaks of him when he is absent (i. 5):-- - - "O Charmian! - Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he? - Or does he walk? or is he on his horse? - O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony! - Do bravely, horse, for wott'st thou whom thou mov'st? - The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm - And burgonet of men." - -So it is but the truth she is speaking when she tells with what -immovable certainty and trust, with what absolute assurance for the -future, love filled both her and Antony when they saw each other for -the first time (i. 3):-- - - "No going then; - Eternity was in our lips and eyes, - Bliss in our brows' bent; none our parts so poor, - But was a race of heaven." - -Nor is it irony when Enobarbus, in reply to Antony's complaint (i. 2), -"She is cunning past man's thought," makes answer, "Alack, sir, no; her -passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love." This is -literally true--only that the love is not pure in the sense of being -sublimated or unegoistic, but in the sense of being quintessential -erotic emotion, chemically free from all the other elements usually -combined with it. - -And outward circumstances harmonise with the character and vehemence -of this passion. He lays the kingdoms of the East at her feet; with -reckless prodigality, she lavishes the wealth of Africa on the -festivals she holds in his honour. - - - - -XXVIII - -_THE DARK LADY AS A MODEL--THE FALL OF THE REPUBLIC A WORLD-CATASTROPHE_ - -Assuming that it was Shakespeare's design in _Antony and Cleopatra_, as -in _King Lear_, to evoke the conception of a world-catastrophe, we see -that he could not in this play, as in _Macbeth_ or _Othello_, focus the -entire action around the leading characters alone. He could not even -make the other characters completely subordinate to them; that would -have rendered it impossible for him to give the impression of majestic -breadth, of an action embracing half of the then known world, which he -wanted for the sake of the concluding effect. - -He required in the group of figures surrounding Octavius Cæsar, -and in the groups round Lepidus, Ventidius, and Sextus Pompeius, a -counterpoise to Antony's group. He required the placid beauty and -Roman rectitude of Octavia as a contrast to the volatile, intoxicating -Egyptian. He required Enobarbus to serve as a sort of chorus and -introduce an occasional touch of irony amid the highflown passion of -the play. In short, he required a throng of personages, and (in order -to make us feel that the action was not taking place in some narrow -precinct in a corner of Europe, but upon the stage of the world) -he required a constant coming and going, sending and receiving of -messengers, whose communications are awaited with anxiety, heard with -bated breath, and not infrequently alter at one blow the situation of -the chief characters. - -The ambition which characterised Antony's past is what determines his -relation to this great world; the love which has now taken such entire -possession of him determines his relation to the Egyptian queen, and -the consequent loss of all that his ambition had won for him. Whilst -in a tragedy like Goethe's _Clavigo_, ambition plays the part of the -tempter, and love is conceived as the good, the legitimate power, here -it is love that is reprehensible, ambition that is proclaimed to be the -great man's vocation and duty. - -Thus Antony says (i. 2): - - "These strong Egyptian fetters I must break, - Or lose myself in dotage." - -We saw that one element of Shakespeare's artist-nature was of use to -him in his modelling of the figure of Antony. He himself had ultimately -broken his fetters, or rather life had broken them for him; but as he -wrote this great drama, he lived through again those years in which he -himself had felt and spoken as he now made Antony feel and speak: - - "A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face, - One on another's neck, do witness bear, - Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place." - --(_Sonnet_ cxxxi.) - -Day after day that woman now stood before him as his model who had been -his life's Cleopatra--she to whom he had written of "lust in action": - - "Mad in pursuit, and in possession so; - Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; - A bliss in proof,--and prov'd, a very woe." - --(_Sonnet_ cxxix.) - -He had seen in her an irresistible and degrading Delilah, the Delilah -whom De Vigny centuries later anathematised in a famous couplet.[1] He -had bewailed, as Antony does now, that his beloved had belonged to many: - - "If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks, - Be anchor'd in the bay where all men ride, - . . . . . . - Why should my heart think that a several plot - Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?'' - --(_Sonnet_ cxxxvii.) - -He had, like Antony, suffered agonies from the coquetry she would -lavish on any one she wanted to win. He had then burst forth in -complaint, as Antony in the drama breaks out into frenzy: - - "Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight, - Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside: - What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy might - Is more than my o'er-pressed defence can 'bide?" - --(_Sonnet_ cxxxix.) - -Now he no longer upbraided her; now he crowned her with a queenly -diadem, and placed her, living, breathing, and in the largest sense -true to nature, on that stage which was his world. - -As in _Othello_ he had made the lover-hero about as old as he was -himself at the time he wrote the play, so now it interested him to -represent this stately and splendid lover who was nolonger young. In -the Sonnets he had already dwelt upon his age. He says, for instance, -in Sonnet cxxxviii.: - - "When my love swears that she is made of truth, - I do believe her, though I know she lies, - That she might think me some untutor'd youth, - Unlearned in the world's false subtleties. - Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, - Although she knows my days are past the best, - Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue." - -When Antony and Cleopatra perished with each other, she was in her -thirty-ninth, he in his fifty-fourth year. She was thus almost three -times as old as Juliet, he more than double the age of Romeo. This -correspondence with his own age pleases Shakespeare's fancy, and the -fact that time has had no power to sear or wither this pair seems to -hold them still farther aloof from the ordinary lot of humanity. The -traces years have left upon the two have only given them a deeper -beauty. All that they themselves in sadness, or others in spite, say -to the contrary, signifies nothing. The contrast between their age in -years and that which their beauty and passion make for them merely -enhances and adds piquancy to the situation. It is in sheer malice that -Pompey exclaims (ii. I): - - "But all the charms of love, - Salt Cleopatra, soften thy _waned_ lip!" - -This means no more than her own description of herself as "wrinkled." -And it is on purpose to give the idea of Antony's age, of which in -Plutarch there is no indication, that Shakespeare makes him dwell on -the mixed colour of his own hair. He says (iii. 9): - - "My very hairs do mutiny; for the white - Reprove the brown for rashness, and they them - For fear and doting." - -In the moment of despair he uses the expression (iii. II): "To the boy -Cæsar send this grizzled head." And again, after the last victory, -he recurs to the idea in a tone of triumph. Exultingly he addresses -Cleopatra (iv. 8): - - "What, girl! though grey - Do something mingle with our younger brown, yet ha' we - A brain that nourishes our nerves, and can - Get goal for goal of youth." - -With a sure hand Shakespeare has depicted in Antony the mature man's -fear of letting a moment pass unutilised: the vehement desire to enjoy -before the hour strikes when all enjoyment must cease. Thus Antony says -in one of his first speeches (i. I): - - "Now, for the love of Love and her soft hours.... - There's not a minute of our lives should stretch - Without some pleasure now." - -Then he feels the necessity of breaking his bonds. He makes Fulvia's -death serve his purpose of gaining Cleopatra's consent to his -departure; but even then he is not free. In order to bring out -the contrast between Octavius the statesman and Antony the lover, -Shakespeare emphasises the fact that Octavius has reports of the -political situation brought to him every hour, whilst Antony receives -no other daily communication than the regularly arriving letters from -Cleopatra which foment the longing that draws him back to Egypt. - -As a means of allaying the storm and gaining peace to love his queen -at leisure, he agrees to marry his opponent's sister, knowing that, -when it suits him, he will neglect and repudiate her. Then vengeance -overtakes him for having so contemptuously thrown away the empire over -more than a third of the civilised world--vengeance for having said as -he embraced Cleopatra (i. I): - - "Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch - Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space." - -Rome melts through his fingers. Rome proclaims him a foe to her empire, -and declares war against him. And he loses his power, his renown, his -whole position, in the defeat which he so contemptibly brings upon -himself at Actium. In Cleopatra flight was excusable. Her flight in the -drama (which follows Plutarch and tradition) is due to cowardice; in -reality it was prompted by tactical, judicious motives. But Antony was -in honour bound to stay. He follows her in the tragedy (as in reality) -from brainless, contemptible incapacity to remain when she has gone; -leaving an army of 112,000 men and a fleet of 450 ships in the lurch, -without leader or commander. Nine days did his troops await his return, -rejecting every proposal of the enemy, incapable of believing in the -desertion and flight of the general they admired and trusted. When at -last they could no longer resist the conviction that he had sunk his -soldier's honour in shame, they went over to Octavius. - -After this everything turns on the mutual relation of Antony and -Cleopatra, and Shakespeare has admirably depicted its ecstasies and its -revulsions. Never before had they loved each other so wildly and so -rapturously. Now it is not only he who openly calls her "Thou day o' -the world!" She answers him with the cry, "Lord of lords! O infinite -virtue!" (iv. 8). - -Yet never before has their mutual distrust been so deep. She, who was -at no time really great except in the arts of love and coquetry, has -always felt distrustful of him, and yet never distrustful enough; for -though she was prepared for a great deal, his marriage with Octavia -overwhelmed her. He, knowing her past, knowing how often she has thrown -herself away, and understanding her temperament, believes her false -to him even when she is innocent, even when, as with Desdemona, only -the vaguest of appearances are against her. In the end we sea Antony -develop into an Othello. - -Here and there we come upon something in his character which seems -to indicate that Shakespeare had been lately occupied with Macbeth. -Cleopatra stimulates Antony's voluptuousness, his sensuality, as Lady -Macbeth spurred on her husband's ambition; and Antony fights his last -battle with Macbeth's Berserk fury, facing with savage bravery what he -knows to be invincibly superior force. But in his emotional life after -the disaster of Actium it is Othello whom he more nearly resembles. He -causes Octavius's messenger, Thyreus, to be whipped, simply because -Cleopatra at parting has allowed him to kiss her hand. When some of her -ships take to flight, he immediately believes in an alliance between -her and the enemy, and heaps the coarsest invectives upon her, almost -worse than those with which Othello overwhelms Desdemona. And in his -monologue (iv. 10) he raves groundlessly like Othello: - - "Betray'd I am. - O this false soul of Egypt! this grave charm,-- - Whose eye beck'd forth my wars, and call'd them home, - Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end,-- - Like a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose, - Beguil'd me to the very heart of loss." - -They both, though faithless to the rest of the world, meant to be -true to each other, but in the hour of trial they place no trust in -each other's faithfulness. And all these strong emotions have shaken -Antony's judgment. The braver he becomes in his misfortune, the more -incapable is he of seeing things as they really are. Enobarbus closes -the third act most felicitously with the words: - - "I see still - A diminution in our captain's brain - Restores his heart: when valour preys on reason - It eats the sword it fights with." - -To tranquillise Antony's jealous frenzy, Cleopatra, who always finds -readiest aid in a lie, sends him the false tidings of her death. In -grief over her loss, he falls on his sword and mortally wounds himself. -He is carried to her, and dies. She bursts forth: - - "Noblest of men, woo't die? - Hast thou no care of me? shall I abide - In this dull world, which in thy absence is - No better than a sty?--O! see, my women, - The crown o' the earth doth melt." - -In Shakespeare, however, her first thought is not of dying herself. -She endeavours to come to a compromise with Octavius, hands over to -him an inventory of her treasures, and tries to trick him out of the -larger half. It is only when she has ascertained that nothing, neither -admiration for her beauty nor pity for her misfortunes, moves his cold -sagacity, and that he is determined to exhibit her humiliation to the -populace of Rome as one of the spectacles of his triumph, that she lets -the worm of Nilus give her her death. - -In these passages the poet has placed Cleopatra's behaviour in a much -more unfavourable light than the Greek historian, whom he follows as -far as details are concerned; and he has evidently done so wittingly -and purposely, in order to complete his home-thrust at the type of -woman whose dangerousness he has embodied in her. In Plutarch all -these negotiations with Octavius were a feint to deceive the vigilance -with which he thought to prevent her from killing herself. Suicide -is her one thought, and he has baulked her in her first attempt. She -pretends to cling to her treasures only to delude him into the belief -that she still clings to life, and her heroic imposture is successful. -Shakespeare, for whom she is ever the quintessence of the she-animal -in woman, disparages her intentionally by suppressing the historical -explanation of her behavior.[2]. - -The English critic, Arthur Symons, writes: "_Antony and Cleopatra_ is -the most wonderful, I think, of all Shakespeare's plays, and it is -so mainly because the figure of Cleopatra is the most wonderful of -Shakespeare's women. And not of Shakespeare's women only, but perhaps -the most wonderful of women." - -This is carrying enthusiasm almost too far. But thus much is true: -the great attraction of this masterpiece lies in the unique figure of -Cleopatra, elaborated as it is with all Shakespeare's human experience -and artistic enthusiasm. But the greatness of the world-historic -drama proceeds from the genius with which he has entwined the private -relations of the two lovers with the course of history and the fate -of empires. Just as Antony's ruin results from his connection with -Cleopatra, so does the fall of the Roman Republic result from the -contact of the simple hardihood of the West with the luxury of the -East. Antony is Rome, Cleopatra is the Orient. When he perishes, a prey -to the voluptuousness of the East, it seems as though Roman greatness -and the Roman Republic expired with him. - -Not Cæsar's ambition, not Cæsar's assassination, but this crumbling -to pieces of Roman greatness fourteen years later brings home to us -the ultimate fall of the old world-republic, and impresses us with -that sense of _universal annihilation_ which in this play, as in _King -Lear_, Shakespeare aims at begetting. - -This is no tragedy of a domestic, limited nature like the conclusion -of _Othello_; there is no young Fortinbras here, as in _Hamlet_, -giving the promise of brighter and better times to come; the victory -of Octavius brings glory to no one and promises nothing. No; the -final picture is that which Shakespeare was bent on painting from the -moment he felt himself attracted by this great theme--the picture of a -world-catastrophe. - - -[1] - - "Toujours ce compagnon dont le cœur n'est pas sûr, - La Femme--enfant malade et douze fois impur." - -[2] Goethe has a marked imitation of Shakespeare's Cleopatra -in the Adelheid of Götz von Berlichingen. And he has placed Weislingen -between Adelheid and Maria as Antony stands between Cleopatra and -Octavia bound to the former and marrying the latter. - - - - -BOOK THIRD - - -I - -_DISCORD AND SCORN_ - -Out of tune--out of tune! - -Out of tune the instrument whereon so many enthralling melodies had -been played--glad and gay, plaintive or resentful, full of love and -full of sorrow. Out of tune the mind which had felt so keenly, thought -so deeply, spoken so temperately, and stood so firmly "midst passion's -whirlpool, storm, and whirlwind." His life's philosophy has become a -disgust of life, his melancholy seeks the darkest side of all things, -his mirth is grown to bitter scorn, and his wit is without shame. - -There was a time when all before his eyes was green--vernally green, -life's own lush, unfaded colour. This was followed by a period of -gloom, during which he watched the shadows of life spread over the -bright and beautiful, blotting out their colours. Now it is black, and -worse than black; he sees the base mire cover the earth with its filth, -and heeds how it fills the air with its stench. - -Shakespeare had come to the end of his first great circumnavigation -of life and human nature: an immense disillusionment was the result. -Expectation and disappointment, yearning and content, life's gladness -and holiday-making, battle mood and triumph, inspired wrath and -desperate vehemence--all that once had thrilled him is now fused and -lost in contempt. - -Disdain has become a persistent mood, and scorn of mankind flows with -the blood in his veins. Scorn for princes and people; for heroes, who -are but fellow-brawlers and braggarts after all; and for artists, who -are but flatterers and parasites seeking possible patrons. Scorn for -old age, in whose venerableness he sees only the unction or hypocrisy -of an old twaddler. Scorn for youth, wherein he sees but profligacy, -slackness, and gullibility, while all enthusiasts are impostors, -and all idealists fools. Men are either coarse and unprincipled, or -so weakly sentimental as to be under a woman's thumb; and woman's -distinguishing qualities are feebleness, voluptuousness, fickleness, -and falsehood; a fool he who trusts himself to them or lets his actions -depend upon them. - -This mood has been growing on Shakespeare for some time. We have -felt it grow. It shows first in _Hamlet_, but is harmless as yet in -comparison with the scathing bitterness of later times. There is a -breath, a whisper, in the "Frailty, thy name is Woman!" addressed to -Hamlet's mother. Ophelia is rather futile than specially weak; she is -never false, still less faithless. Even the inconstant Queen Gertrude -can scarcely be called false. There was malignity and temper in that -challenge of moral hypocrisy, _Measure for Measure_, and enough -earnestness to overpower the comic, although not sufficient bitterness -to make the peaceful conclusion impossible. The tragedy of _Macbeth_ -was brought to a consoling end; the powers of good triumphed at the -last. - -There was only one malign character in _Othello_, evil indeed, but -solitary. Othello, Desdemona, Emilia, &c., are all good at heart. -There is no bitterness in _Lear_, no scorn of mankind, but sympathy -and a wonderful compassion pervading and dominating all. Shakespeare -has divided his own Ego among the characters of this play, in order to -share with them the miseries and suffering of life on this earth; he -has not gathered himself up to judge and despise. - -It is from thenceforward that the undertone of contempt first begins to -be felt. A period of some years follows, in which his being narrows and -concentrates itself upon an abhorrence of human nature, accompanied, so -far as we can judge, by a correspondingly enormous self-esteem. It is -as though he had for a moment felt such a scorn for his surroundings -of court and people, friends and rivals, men and women, as had nearly -driven him wild. - -We see the germs of it in _Antony and Cleopatra_. What a fool is this -Antony, who puts his reputation and a world-wide dominion in jeopardy -in order to be near a cold-blooded coquette, who has passed from hand -to hand, and whose caprice puts on all the colours of the rainbow. We -find it in full bloom in _Troilus and Cressida_. What a simpleton this -Troilus, who, credulous as a child, devotes himself body and soul to a -Cressida; a typical classic she, treachery in woman's form, as false -and flighty as foam upon the waves, whose fickleness has become a -by-word. - -Shakespeare has now reached that point of departure where man feels -the need of stripping woman of the glamour with which romantic naïveté -and sensual attraction have surrounded her, and finds a gratification -in seeing merely the sex in her. Sympathy with love, and a conception -of woman as an object worthy of love, goes the way of all other -sympathies and illusions at this stage. "All is vanity," says Kohélet, -and Shakespeare with him. As in all artist souls, there was in his -a peculiar blending of enthusiast and cynic. He has now parted with -enthusiasm for a time, and cynicism is paramount. - -Such an all-pervading change in the disposition and temper of a great -personality was not without its reasons, possibly its one first cause. -We can trace its workings without divining its origin, but we may seek -to orient ourselves with regard to its conditions. Leverier came to the -conclusion in 1846 that the disturbances in the path of Uranus were -caused by something behind the planet which neither he nor anybody -else had ever seen. He indicated its probable position, and three -weeks afterwards Galle found Neptune on the very spot. Unfortunately, -Shakespeare's history is so very obscure, and such fruitless search in -every direction has been made after fresh documents, that we have no -great hope of finding any new light. - -We can but glance around the horizon of his life, and note how English -circumstances and conditions grouped themselves about him. Material -for cheering or depressing reflections can be found at all times, but -the mind is not always equally prone to assimilate the cheering or -depressing. Certain it is that Shakespeare has now elected to seek out -and dwell upon the ugly and sorrowful, the unclean and the repulsive. -His melancholy finds its nourishment therein, and his bitterness has -learned to suck poison from every noxious plant which borders his path -through life. His contempt of mankind and his weariness of existence -swell and grow with each experience, and in the events and conditions -of those years there was surely matter enough for abhorrence, rancour, -and scorn. - - - - -II - -_THE COURT--THE KING'S FAVOURITES AND RALEIGH_ - -Under the circumstances Shakespeare could do nothing but keep as -close to King and Court as possible, even though the King's dreary, -and the Court's profligate qualities grew year by year. James aspired -to a comparison with Solomon for wisdom; he certainly resembled him -in prodigality, and Henry III. of France in his susceptibility to -manly beauty. His passion for his various favourites recalls that of -Edward II. for Gaveston in Marlowe's drama. He was, says a chronicle -of the time, as susceptible as any schoolgirl to handsome features -and well-formed limbs in a man. The parallels his contemporaries drew -between him and his predecessor on this score did not work out to -his advantage. Elizabeth, they said, who was unmarried, loved only -individuals of the opposite sex, all eminent men, whom, even then, she -never allowed to rule her. James, on the contrary, was married, and yet -entertained a passion for one _mignon_ after another, giving the most -exalted positions in the country to these men, who were worthless and -arrogant, and by whom he was entirely led. In our day Swinburne has -characterised James as combining with "northern virulence and pedantry -... a savour of the worst qualities of the worst Italians of the worst -period of Italian decadence." Was he, in truth, of Scotch descent -on both sides? His exterior recalled little of his mother's charms, -and still less those of the handsome Darnley. His contemporaries -doubted. They neither believed that Darnley's jealousy was groundless, -nor the modern embellishment that the Italian singer and private -secretary's ugly face made any tender feeling on Mary Stuart's side -quite impossible. The Scottish Solomon was invariably alluded to by -the outspoken, jest-loving Henry IV. of France as "Solomon, the son of -David" (Rizzio). - -The general enthusiasm which greeted King James on his accession -speedily gave way to a very decided unpopularity. Again and again, upon -a score of different points, did he offend English national pride, -sense of justice, and decency. - -The lively Queen, who romped through the court festivities, and spent -her days in dressing herself out for masquerades, had her favourites, -much as the King had his. At one time, indeed, the same family served -them both. The Queen set her affection on the elder brother, the Earl -of Pembroke, and the King bestowed his upon the younger, whom he -made Earl of Montgomery and Knight of the Garter. Whether he did not -find the harmony of disposition for which he had looked, or whether -the impression Montgomery made upon him was displaced by another -and stronger, certain it is that no later than 1603 he was already -violently infatuated with a youth of twenty, who afterwards became the -most powerful man in Great Britain. - -This was a young Scot, Robert Carr, who first attracted the King's -attention by breaking his leg in a tourney at which James was present. -He had as a lad been one of the King's pages at home in Scotland, had -since pursued his fortunes in France, and was now in service with Lord -Hay. The King gave special orders that he should be nursed at the -castle, sent his own doctor to him, visited him frequently during his -illness, and made him Knight and Gentleman of the Bedchamber as soon as -he was convalescent. He kept him constantly about his person, and even -took the trouble to teach him Latin. Step by step the young man was -advanced until he stood among the foremost ranks of the country. - -It was his nationality which specially offended the people, for -Scottish adventurers swarmed about the King, and the Scots were still -regarded as stranger-folk in England. The new title of Great Britain -had also caused great discontent. Was the glorious name of England -no longer to distinguish them? Scotch moneys were made current on -English soil, and English ships were compelled to carry the cross of -St. Andrew, with that of St. George upon their flags. Englishmen found -themselves slighted, and were fearful that the Scot would creep into -English lordships and English ladies' beds, as a contemporary writing -expresses it. The conflicts in Parliament concerning the extension -of national privileges to the Scotch were incessant. Bacon undertook -the King's cause, and discreet and biblical objections were made that -things would fall out as they did with Lot and Abraham. Families -combined together, or were set at variance among themselves; and it -grew to a case of, "Go you to the right? I go to the left." - -In 1607 James observed that he intended to "give England the labour -and the sweat, Scotland the fruit and the sweet;" and it was a -notorious fact, that where his passions were concerned, the Scotch were -persistently preferred to the English. - -James, having meanwhile found it necessary to provide his favourite -with estates, procured them in the following manner. When Raleigh -came to grief, he had secured the revenues of his estate, Sherborne, -to Lady Raleigh, and his son as heir to it after his death. A few -months later the King's lawyers discovered a technical error in the -deed of conveyance which rendered it invalid. Raleigh wrote from his -prison to Salisbury, entreating the King not to deprive his family -of their subsistence for the sake of a copyist's blunder. The King -made many promises, and assured Raleigh that a new and correct deed -should be drawn up. The imprisoned hero had begun, at about this time, -to entertain renewed hope of freedom, for he believed that Christian -IV., then on a visit to England, 1606, would intercede for him. But -when Lady Raleigh, under this impression, threw herself on her knees -before James at Hampton Court, the King passed her by without a word. -From the year 1607 the King had resolved upon seizing Sherborne for -his favourite. In 1608 Raleigh was required to prove right and title -thereunto, and he possessed only the faulty document. At Christmastide, -taking her two little sons by the hand, Lady Raleigh cast herself a -second time before James, and implored him for a new and accurate deed. -The only reply she obtained was a broad Scotch, "I maun hae the lond--I -maun hae it for Carr." It is said that the high-spirited woman lost all -patience upon this, and springing to her feet called upon God to punish -the despoiler of her property. Raleigh, on the 2nd of January 1609, -tried the more politic method of writing to Carr, entreating him not to -aspire to the possession of Sherborne. He received no answer, and upon -the 10th of the same month the estate was handed over to the favourite -as a gift. It is to be regretted that Raleigh, who had never concealed -his opinion of the King's favourites, should have lowered himself by -writing to Carr as "one whom I know not, but by honourable fame." - -Lady Raleigh accepted a sum of money in compensation, which bore no -relation to the real value of Sherborne, and Raleigh was left in the -Tower. It is a highly characteristic feature that he remained there -year after year until he succeeded (in 1616) in arousing his kingly -gaoler's cupidity afresh. In the hope of his finding the anticipated -gold-mines in Guiana his prison doors were opened for a while -(1616-17), and his failure to discover them was made a pretext for his -execution.[1] - - -[1] "Sir Walter Raleigh was freed out of the Tower the last -week, and goes up and down, seeing sights and places built or bettered -since his imprisonment,"--Letter from John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley -Carleton, 27th March 1616 ("The Court and Times of James the First"). -Gardiner's "History of England," ii. 43; Gosse, "Raleigh," 172. - - - - -III - -_THE KING'S THEOLOGY AND IMPECUNIOSITY--HIS DISPUTES WITH THE HOUSE OF -COMMONS_ - -The King's interest in parsons and theological discussions was not a -whit inferior to his passion for his favourites. He constantly gave -public expression to a superstition which diverted even contemporary -culture. It is jestingly alluded to in a letter from Sir Edward Hoby to -Sir Thomas Edmondes, dated Nov. 19, 1605. "His Majesty in his speech -observed one principal point, that most of all his best fortunes had -happened unto him upon the Tuesday; and particularly he repeated his -deliverance from Gowry [the brothers Ruthven] and this [Gunpowder -Plot], in which he noted precisely that both fell upon the fifth day of -the month: and therefore concluded that he made choice that the next -sitting of Parliament might begin upon a Tuesday." If James supported -the claims of the clergy, it was less on religious grounds than because -his own kingly power was thereby strengthened, and he disseminated, to -the best of his ability, the doctrine that all questions must finally -be referred to his personal wisdom and insight. Relations between the -temporal and the spiritual jurisdictions were already strained. The -secular judges frequently objected that the Spiritual Court entered -into certain lawsuits before making sure that the case appertained -to them. The clergy resisted, asserting that the two courts were -independent of one another, and that their spiritual prerogatives -emanated direct from the Crown. In 1605 the Archbishop of Canterbury -complained of the secular judges to the King, and they, in their turn, -appealed to Parliament. Fuller, a member of Parliament, and one of the -principal advocates of the Puritan party, defended two of the accused -who had been shamefully mishandled by the Spiritual Court (the High -Commission), and he denied this "Popish authority," as he called it, -any right to impose fines or inflict imprisonment. For these reckless -utterances he was sent to gaol, and kept there until he retracted. The -question of the supremacy of temporal jurisdiction over the spiritual -began to ferment in the public mind. The King held by the latter, -because it exercised an authority which Parliament was powerless to -control, while Lord Chief Justice Coke stood by the former. On the -latter giving vent, however, to the opinion, in the King's presence, -that the sovereign was bound to respect the law of the land, and to -remember that spiritual jurisdiction was extraneous, James clenched -angry fists in his face, and would have struck him, had not Coke, -alarmed, fallen on his knees and entreated pardon. - -The King's ardent orthodoxy prompted him next to appear as a -theological polemist. A certain professor of theology at Leyden, -Conrad Vorstius by name, had, according to James's ideas, been guilty -of heresy. It was of so slight a nature that, in spite of the rigid -orthodoxy of the greater part of the Dutch theologians, it had raised -no protest in Holland, since statesmen, nobles, and merchants were all -agreed upon tolerance in matters of religion. James, however, made such -a vindictive assault upon them, that, for fear of forfeiting their -English alliance, they were compelled to give Vorstius his dismissal. - -At the precise moment of James's full polemical heat against Vorstius, -two unlucky Englishmen, Edward Wrightman and Bartholomew Legate, were -convicted of holding heretical opinions. The latter admitted that he -was an Aryan, and had not prayed to Jesus for many years. James was -fire and flame. Elizabeth had burnt two heretics. Why shouldn't he? -Public opinion saw no cruelty, but merely righteousness in such a -proceeding, and they were both accordingly burned alive in March 1612. - -It was one of the clerkly James's customs to issue proclamations. Among -the first of these was a warning issued against the encroachments of -the Jesuits, advising them of a date by which they must have decamped -from his kingdom and country. Another very forcibly recommended -unanimity of religion--that is to say, complete uniformity of ceremony. -A bold priest, Burgess by name, preached a sermon in the King's -presence, soon after this, on the insignificance of ceremonies. They -resembled, he said, the glass of the Roman Senator, which was not -worth a man's life or subsistence. Augustus, having been invited to a -feast by this Senator, was greeted on his arrival by terrible cries. A -slave, who had broken some costly glass, was about to be thrown into -the fishpond. The Emperor bade them defer the punishment until he had -inquired of his host whether he had glass worth a man's life. Upon the -Senator answering that he possessed glass worth a province, Augustus -asked to see it, and smashing it into fragments, remarked, "Better -that it should all perish than that one man should die." "I leave the -application to your Majesty." - -The proclamations continued undiminished, however, and it became a -favourite amusement of James to issue edicts forbidding lawful trades. -This was the cause of much discontent, and appeal was made to the -Lord Chief Justice. In 1610 two questions were, laid before Coke: -whether the King could prohibit the erection of new houses in London -by proclamation (a naïve notification had been issued with a view -to preventing the "overdevelopment" of the capital), or forbid the -manufacture of starch (in allusion to a manifesto limiting the uses -of wheat to purposes of food). The answer was, returned that the King -had neither power to create offences by proclamation, nor make trades, -which did not legally subject themselves to judicial control, liable to -punishment by the Star Chamber. After this ensued a temporary respite -from edicts levying fines or threatening imprisonment. - -The dissensions between King and People became so violent that they -soon led to a complete rupture between James and the House of Commons, -which would not submit to his highhanded levying and collecting of -taxes in order to squander the money on his own pleasures and caprices. -James, who required £500,000 to pay his debts, was made to endure -a speech in Parliament concerning the prodigality of himself and -favourites. An insulting rumour added that it had been said in the -House that the King must pack all the Scots in his household back to -the country whence they came. James, losing all patience, prorogued -Parliament, and finally dissolved it in February 1611. - -This was the beginning of a conflict between the Crown and the People -which lasted throughout James's lifetime, causing the Great Revolution -under his son, and being only finally extinguished seventy-eight years -afterwards by the offer from both Houses of the Crown to William of -Orange. - -It was to no purpose that the King's revenues were increased year by -year, by illegal taxation too: nothing sufficed. In February 1611 he -divided £34,000 among six favourites, five of whom were Scotch. In the -March of the same year he made Carr Viscount Rochester and a peer of -England. For the first time in English history a Scot took his seat -in the House of Lords, and a Scot, moreover, who had done his best to -inflame the King against the Commons. - -To relieve its pecuniary distress the Court hit upon the expedient -of selling baronetcies. Every knight or squire possessed of money -or estates to the value of a hundred a year could become a baronet, -provided he were willing to disburse £1080 (a sum sufficient to support -thirty infantry-men in Ireland for three years) in three yearly -payments to the State coffers. This contrivance brought no very great -relief, however. Either the extravagance was too reckless, or the -seekers after titles were not sufficiently numerous. - -Things had gone so far in 1614, that, in spite of the hitherto -unheard-of sale of Crown property, James was at his wits' end for -want of money. He owed £680,000, not to mention a yearly deficit of -£200,000. The garrisons in Holland were on the point of mutinying for -their pay, and the fleet was in much the same condition. Fortresses -were falling into ruins for want of repair, and English Ambassadors -abroad were fruitlessly writing home for money. It was once more -decided to summon Parliament. In spite of the most shameless packing, -however, the Commons came in with a strong Opposition; and they had -much to complain of. The King, among other things, had given Lord -Harrington the exclusive right of coining copper money, in return for -his having lent him £300,000 at his daughter's wedding. He had also -granted a monopoly of the manufacture of glass, and had given the sole -right of trade with France to a single company. - -The Upper House declined to meet the Lower on a common ground of -procedure, and when Bishop Neile, one of the greatest sycophants -the royal influence possessed in the Lords, permitted himself some -offensive strictures on the Commons, such a storm broke loose among -the latter that one member (an aristocrat), abused the courtiers as -"spaniels" towards the King and "wolves" towards the people, and -another went so far as to warn the Scotch favourites that the Sicilian -Vespers might find a parallel in England. - -James, who, in a lengthy peroration, had attempted to influence the -Commons in his favour, saw that he had nothing to hope from them and -dissolved Parliament in the following year. - -In order to free him from debt, and to contrive, if possible, some -means of supplying the sums swallowed up by the Government and Court, -a scheme was devised of inducing private citizens to send money to the -King, apparently of their own free will. The bishops inaugurated it by -offering James their Church plate and other valuables. This example -was followed by all who hoped or expected favours from the court; and -a great number of people sent money to the Treasury at Whitehall. Thus -the idea obtained that James should issue a summons for all England -to follow this example. It seemed, at first, as if this self-taxation -would bring in a good round sum. The King asked the city for a loan of -£100,000, and it replied (very differently to the response it had made -to Elizabeth) that they would rather give £10,000 than lend £100,000. -In the course of little over a month £34,000 came in, but with that the -stream ceased. Government wrote fruitlessly to all the counties and -their officials, &c., to renew the summons. The sheriffs unanimously -replied that if the King were to summon Parliament he would experience -no difficulty in getting money. During two whole months only £500 came -in. Fresh appeals were made and renewed pressure attempted without -obtaining the desired results. - -The luckless Raleigh, who had heard of these things in his prison, -but was without adequate information from the outside world, wrote a -pamphlet on the prerogatives of Parliament, full of good advice to the -King, whom he assumed to be personally guiltless of the abuses his -ministers practised in his name. He naïvely looked for his freedom in -return for the tract, which naturally was suppressed. - -The notorious Peckham case was another cause of popular ill-humour. In -the course of this trial, a man who had been greatly exasperated by -clerical and official demeanour, and had expressed himself indiscreetly -thereon, was subjected to repeated torture on the pretext of a sermon -which had never been preached or printed, but which an examination of -his house had brought to light. Bacon degraded himself by urging on the -executioners at the rack--a form of torture which had been abolished -in common law, but was still considered legitimately applicable in -political cases. - -That James was personally cruel is shown, amongst other things, by -his frequent pardons on the scaffold. He kept such men as Cobham, -Grey, and Markham waiting two hours with the axe hanging over their -heads, undergoing all the tortures of death, before they were informed -that their execution had been deferred. The times, however, were as -cruel as he. Through all the published letters of that period runs -incessant mention of hanging, racking, breaking on the wheel, half -hanging, and executions, without the least emotion being expressed. -Any death gave invariable rise to suspicions of poison. Even when the -King lost his eldest son, it was stubbornly believed that he had rid -himself of him from jealousy of his popularity. As every death was -attributed to foul play, so every disease or sickness was assigned -to witchcraft. Sorcerers and witches were condemned and despised, -but believed in, nevertheless, even by such men as Philip Sidney's -friend, Fulk Greville, Lord Brook and Chancellor of the Exchequer under -James. He obviously fully credits the witchcraft of which he speaks so -disdainfully in his work, "Five Years of King James's Government." - - - - -IV - -_THE CUSTOMS OF THE COURT_ - -The tone of the Court was vicious throughout. Relations between the -sexes were much looser than would have been expected under a king who, -in general, troubled himself little about women. We find a description -in Sir Dudley Carleton's letters of a bridal adventure, which ended -in the King going in night-gear to awaken the bride next morning and -remaining with her some time, "in or upon the bed, chuse which you will -believe." James spoke of the Queen in public notices as "Our dearest -bedfellow." In the half-imbecile, half-obscene correspondence between -James and Carr's successor, Buckingham, the latter signs himself, "Your -dog," while James addresses him as "Dog Steenie." The King even calls -the solemn Cecil, "little beagle;" and the Queen, writing to Buckingham -to beg him intercede with the King for Raleigh's life, addresses him as -"my kind dog." - -With personal dignity, all decency also was set aside. Even the elder -Disraeli, James's principal admirer and apologist, acknowledges that -the morals of the Court were appalling, and that these courtiers, -who passed their days in absolute idleness and preposterous luxury, -were stained by infamous vices. He quotes Drayton's lines from the -"Mooncalf," descriptive of a lady and gentleman of this circle-- - - "He's too much woman, and she's too much man." - -Neither does he deny the contemporary Arthur Wilson's account of many -young girls of good family, who, reduced to poverty by their parents' -luxurious lives, looked upon their beauty as so much capital. They came -up to London in order to put themselves up for sale, obtained large -pensions for life, and ultimately married prominent and wealthy men. -They were considered sensible, well-bred women, and were even looked -upon as _esprits forts_. The conversation of the men was so profligate, -that the following sentiment, less decently expressed, must have been -frequently heard: "I would rather that one should believe I possessed -a lady's favours, though I did not, than really possess them when none -knew thereof." - -Gondomar, the Spanish envoy, played an important part at the Court of -King James. Don Diego Sarmiento de Acuna, Count of Gondomar, was one of -the first diplomatists of Spain. He must have lacked the intuitions of -a statesman, in so far as he flattered himself that England could be -brought back to Roman Catholicism, but he was a past-master in the art -of managing men. He knew how to awe by rare firmness of decision and -how to win by exemplary suppleness; he knew when to speak and when to -be silent; and, finally, he understood how to further his master's aims -by the most intelligent means. He had as free access to James as any -English courtier, having acquired it by lively sallies and by talking -bad Latin, in order to give the King an opportunity of correcting him. - -Ladies of rank crowded on to their balconies to attract this man's -attention as he rode or drove to his house; and it appears, says -Disraeli, that any one of them would have sold her favours for a good -round sum. Noticeable among these ladies of title, says Wilson, were -many who owned some pretensions to wit, or had charming daughters or -pretty nieces, whose presence attracted many men to their houses. -The following anecdote made considerable noise at the time, and has -been variously repeated. In Drury Lane, Gondomar, one day, passed the -house of a charming widow, a certain Lady Jacob. He saluted her, and -was amazed to find that in return to his greeting she merely moved -her mouth, which she opened, indeed, to a very great extent. He was -profoundly astonished by this lack of courtesy, but reflected that -she had probably been overtaken by a fit of the gapes. The same thing -occurring, however, on the following day, he sent one of his retinue -to inform her that English ladies were usually more gracious than to -return his greeting in such an outrageous manner. She replied, that -being aware that he had acquired several good graces for a handsome -sum, she had wished to prove to him that she also had a mouth which -could be stopped in the same fashion. Whereupon he took the hint, and -immediately despatched her a present. - -In all this, however, the women merely followed the example of the men. -The English Ambassador at Madrid had long been aware of, and profited -by, the possibility of buying the secrets of the Spanish Government at -comparatively reasonable prices. In May 1613, however, he discovered -that Spain, in the same manner, annually paid large sums to a whole -series of eminent persons in England. He saw, to his disgust, the name -of the English Admiral, Sir William Monson, among the pensioners of -Spain, and learned, to his consternation, that the late Chancellor of -the Exchequer, Lord Salisbury, had been in her pay up to the moment of -his death. In the following December he obtained a complete list of -men enjoying Spanish pay, and was thunderstruck on reading the names -of men whose integrity he had never doubted, and who were filling the -highest offices of state. Not daring to trust the secret to paper, -correspondence by no means being considered inviolable in those days, -he applied for permission to bring the disgraceful information to James -in person. - - - - -V - -_ARABELLA STUART AND WILLIAM SEYMOUR_ - -An event occurring in the royal family (concerning which Gardiner -observes that, in our day, such a thing would rouse the wrath of the -British people from one end of the kingdom to the other) serves to -illustrate both the heartlessness of the King and the lawless condition -of the people. - -Arabella Stuart, who was King James's cousin, had possessed her own -appanage from the time of Queen Elizabeth. She had her apartments -in the Palace, and associated with the Queen's ladies. Her letters -show a refined and lovable woman's soul, absolutely untroubled by any -political ambition. She says in a letter to her uncle Shrewsbury that -she wishes to refute the apparent impossibility of a young woman's -being able to preserve her purity and innocence among the follies with -which a court surrounds her. She is alluding, amongst other things, to -one of the eternal masquerades through which the Queen and her ladies -racketed, attired, upon this occasion, "as sea nymphs or nereids, to -the great delight of all beholders" (Arthur Wilson's "History of Great -Britain," 1633). She kept apart as much as possible from this whirl of -gaiety, and the various foreign potentates who applied for her hand -were all dismissed. She would not, she said, wed a man whom she did -not know. Nevertheless it was rumoured that she intended to marry some -foreign prince who would enforce her rights to the English throne. -James sent her to the Tower at Christmas 1609 on account of this -report, and summoned the Council. The misunderstanding was cleared up, -and she was hastily set at liberty, James expressly assuring her that -he would have no objection to her marrying a subject. - -A few weeks after she learned to know and love the man to whom she -devoted herself with a passion and fidelity which recalls that of -Imogen for Posthumus in Shakespeare's _Cymbeline_. This was young -William Seymour, a son of Lord Beauchamp, one of the first noblemen in -England. He was received in her apartments, and obtained her promise in -February, the King's assurance to Arabella giving them every security -for the future. Nevertheless, the young Princess's choice could not -have fallen more unfortunately. Lord Beauchamp was the son of the Earl -of Hertford and Catherine Grey, the inheritress of the Suffolk rights -to the throne. The Earl's eldest son was still alive, and William -Seymour had no claim to the crown at the moment; but the fact that his -brother might die childless made him an always possible pretender. -The Suffolk claims had been recognised by Act of Parliament, and the -Parliament which had acknowledged James was powerless to change the -succession. In the face of this notorious fact, James ignored the -consideration that neither Seymour and Arabella, nor any one else, -wanted to deprive him of the throne in favour of the young pair. Both -were summoned before the Council and examined. - -Seymour was made to renounce all thought of marriage with Arabella, and -the young couple did not see each other for three months. In May 1610, -however, they were secretly married. - -When the news reached James's ears in July, he was furious. Arabella -was detained in custody at Lambeth, and Seymour was sent to the Tower. - -Arabella strove in vain to touch the King's heart. Great sympathy was -felt in London, however, for the young couple, and secret meetings -were permitted them by their gaolers. When the correspondence between -them was discovered, Arabella was commanded to travel to Durham and -put herself under the care of its Bishop. On her refusal to quit her -apartments, she was carried away by force. Falling ill on the journey, -she was given permission to pause by the way, and, attiring herself -like one of Shakespeare's heroines, she seized the opportunity to -escape. She drew on a pair of French trousers over her skirt, put on a -man's coat and high boots, wore a manly wig with long curls over her -hair, set a low-flapped black hat upon her head, threw a short cloak, -around her, and fastened a small sword at her side. Thus disguised, -she fled by horse to Blackwall, where a French ship awaited her and -Lord Seymour, the latter having arranged his escape for the same time. -An accident prevented their meeting, and Arabella's friends, growing -impatient, insisted, in spite of her protests, on setting out at once. -When Seymour arrived next day, he learned to his disappointment, that -the ship had set sail. He succeeded, however, in getting put over to -Ostend. Meanwhile, Arabella, a few miles from Calais, induced the -captain to lay-to for an hour or so to give Seymour an opportunity of -overtaking them. They were here surprised by an English cruiser, which -had been sent from Dover to capture the fugitives, and Arabella was -brought back to the Tower. When she implored pardon, James brutally -replied that she had eaten forbidden fruit, and must pay the price of -her disobedience. Despair deprived her of her reason, and she died -miserably, after five years of imprisonment. Not until after her death -was her husband permitted to return to England. - - - - -VI - -_ROCHESTER AND LADY ESSEX_ - -It was Rochester who was the real ruler of England all this time. He -was the acknowledged favourite; to him every suitor applied and from -him came every reward. He was made head of the Privy Council after -the death of Lord Dunbar, and was nominated Lord High Treasurer of -Scotland, a title which gave him great prestige in his native country. -He was also made Baron Brandspech, and, in accordance with the general -expectation, Viscount Rochester and Knight of the Garter. The only -decided opposition he had to encounter was that of young Prince -Henry, the nation's darling, who could not endure his arrogant way, -and was, moreover, his rival in fair ladies' favours. After the death -of the Prince, Rochester was more powerful than ever. As principal -Secretary, Carr managed all the King's correspondence, and on more than -one occasion he answered letters without consulting either King or -Council. The King, if he was aware of this, had reached such a pitch of -infatuation that he submitted to everything. Carr was given a new title -in 1613 and the Viscount Rochester was made Earl of Somerset. In 1614 -the King made him Lord Chamberlain "because he loved him better than -all men living." In the interim he had been appointed Keeper of the -Seals and Warden of the Cinque Ports. - -It was from such a height as this that he fell, and the circumstances -of his overthrow form perhaps the most interesting events, from a -psychological point of view, of James' reign. They made a great -impression on contemporary minds, and occupy a large space in the -letters of the period--letters in which Shakespeare's name is never -mentioned and of whose very existence their historico-polemical writers -do not seem to have been aware. - -It was one of James's ambitions on his coming to England to put an end -to the feuds and dissensions which were rife among the great families. -To this end he arranged a match between Essex's son, and a daughter -of the house which had ruined his father and driven him to death. In -January 1608, accordingly, the fourteen-year-old Earl was married to -the Lady Frances Howard, just thirteen years of age, and he thus became -allied with the powerful houses of Howard and Cecil. Mr. Pory wrote -to Sir Robert Cotton on the occasion of the marriage, "The bridegroom -carried himself as gravely and as gracefully as if he were of his -father's age." - -The Church in those times sanctioned these marriages between children, -but every sense of fitness demanded that they should be immediately -parted. Young Essex was sent on foreign travel, and did not return to -claim his bride until he was eighteen. He was a solidly built youth, -possessed of a heavy and imperturbably calm disposition. Frances, on -the other hand, was obstinately and stormily passionate in both her -likes and dislikes. She had been brought up by a coarse and covetous -mother, and early corrupted by contact with the vices of the Court. -She took a deep dislike to her youthful bridegroom from the first and -refused to live with him. Her relations, however, compelled her to -accompany him to his estate, Chartley. - -She had previously attracted the attention of both Prince Henry and the -favourite Rochester. Expecting more from Rochester, as a contemporary -document explains, than from the unprofitable attentions of the Prince, -she chose the former, a fact which can hardly have failed to augment -the ill-will already existing between the King's son and the King's -friend. From the moment of her choice all the passionate intensity of -her nature was concentrated upon avoiding any intercourse with her -husband and in assuring Rochester that his jealousy on that score was -groundless. - -She chose for her confidante a certain Mrs. Turner, a doctor's widow, -who, after leading a dissipated life, was settling down to a reputation -for witchcraft. Lady Essex begged some potion of her which should chill -the Earl's ardour, and this not working to her satisfaction, she wrote -the following letter to her priestess, which was later produced at the -trial and made public by Fulk Greville:-- - -"Sweet Turner, as thou hast been hitherto, so art thou all my hopes -of good in this world. My Lord is lusty as ever he was, and hath -complained to my brother Howard, that hee hath not layne with mee, nor -used mee as his wife. This makes me mad, since of all men I loath him, -because he is the only obstacle and hindrance, that I shall never enjoy -him whom I love." - -Upon the Earl's complaining a second time, the two applied to a -Dr. Forman, quack and reputed sorcerer, for some means of causing -an aversion (frigidity _quoad hanc_) in the Earl. The mountebank -obligingly performed all manner of hocus-pocus with wax dolls, &c., and -these in their turn failing, Lady Essex wrote to him:-- - - "Sweet Father, although I have found you ready at all - times to further mee, yet must I still crave your helpe; - wherefore I beseech you to remember that you keepe the - doores close, and that you still retaine the Lord with - mee and his affection towards mee. I have no cause but to - be confident in you, though the world be against mee; yet - heaven failes mee not; many are the troubles I sustaine, the - doggednesse of my Lord, the crossenesse of my enemies, and - the subversion of my fortunes, unlesse you by your wisdome - doe deliver mee out of the midst of this wildernesse, which - I entreat for God's sake. From Chartley.--Your affectionate - loving daughter, FRANCES ESSEX." - -In the beginning of the year 1613, a woman named Mary Woods accused -Lady Essex of attempting to bribe her to poison the Earl. The -accusation came to nothing, however, and the Countess soon afterwards -tried a new tack. It was now three years since her husband's return -from abroad, and if she could succeed in convincing the Court that -the marriage had never been consummated there was some chance of its -being declared void. Having won her father and her utterly unscrupulous -uncle, the powerful Lord Northampton, to her side, she induced the -latter, who played Pandarus to this Cressida, to represent the -situation to the King. James, loving Rochester as much as ever, and -taking a pleasure in completing the happiness of those he loved, lent -a willing ear. Northampton and Suffolk both took the matter up warmly, -clearly seeing how advantageous an alliance with Carr, whom they had -hitherto regarded as an enemy, would be to their plans. A meeting -between the relatives of both parties was arranged. It consisted of -the Earls of Northampton and Suffolk on Lady Essex's side, and the -Earl of Southampton and Lord Knollys on her husband's. Essex, while -resolved not to make any declaration which might prove an obstacle to -his marrying again, fully conceded that he was not qualified to be -this particular lady's husband. A commission of clergy and lawyers was -therefore appointed to inquire into the matter. - -A committee was nominated of six midwives and ten Godfearing matrons of -rank, who had all borne children, to ascertain if Lady Essex was, as -she asserted, a virgin. The lady's modesty insisted upon being closely -veiled during the examination, which naturally gave rise to a rumour -that another woman had been substituted. - -The examination, which terminated in favour of the plaintiff, convinced -none but those who had undertaken it, and was the occasion of much -coarse-grained jesting. - -With considerable impudence, Lady Essex maintained that her husband -had been deprived of his manhood by witchcraft; but she was careful -not to mention either Dr. Forman or herself as the instigators -of this sorcery. Several members of the commission were prepared -beforehand to declare the marriage void, it having been made worth -their while to fall in with the wishes of the King and his favourite. -Archbishop Abbot, however, an independent spirit, insisted from the -first that it was utterly improbable that witchcraft could produce -the assigned result, and urged that in accommodating the Countess -they were establishing a precedent of which any childless wife could -take advantage. The votes being equal, Abbot petitioned the King to -allow his withdrawal. James, however, appointed two new members, -both bishops, instead, and thus made the votes 7 to 5 in favour of -"nullity." Abbot, as the result of his protest, became for a while -the most popular man in England. Bishop Neile, who had always been -despised, sank still lower in the public esteem, and Bishop Bilson of -Winchester, of whom better things had been expected, was overwhelmed -with ridicule. His son, whom the King knighted in order to reward his -father, was acclaimed by general consent, Sir Nullity Bilson. - -Throughout his whole career, and in his late relations with Lady Essex, -Rochester had been guided by an intimate and capable adviser, Sir -Thomas Overbury. He had assisted Rochester in the composition of his -love-letters to the Countess, and he knew a great deal too much about -the secret meetings, which he had himself arranged, between the lovers -at Paternoster Row, Hammersmith, &c. When he learned that Rochester -intended to supplement the connection by marriage, he strove by every -means in his power to prevent it. He had been accustomed to dictate to -his master in everything, but Rochester had now grown restive, and was -resolved, by fair means or foul, on freeing himself from this control. -To this end the King was given to understand that it was a common -jest that Rochester managed the King, but Overbury ruled Rochester. -In order to get rid of him in an honourable manner, he was appointed -to some official post abroad. Overbury, however, whose ambition bound -him to England, detected that this was but a mild form of banishment, -and strove to excuse himself, finally declining outright. This was -considered a breach of a subject's duty by James, and, upon the -advice of the favourite, Overbury was sent to the Tower. Rochester -now began to play a double game, and while assuring the prisoner that -he was doing his utmost to obtain his release, he was, in reality, -concentrating all his influence upon keeping him where he was. It was -necessary to befool Overbury into thinking he had reason to be grateful -to him, in case the prisoner should one day be released, and should -wish to reveal all that Rochester was most anxious to keep concealed. - -It was commanded from the first that Overbury should have no contact -whatever with the outside world, an order which speaks for itself. -When, however, the Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir William Wood, -interpreted these directions so literally that he refused Rochester's -own messengers access, it became necessary to replace him by the more -amenable Sir Gervase Helwys. - -Lady Essex, who was not the woman for half measures, preferred to make -certain of Overbury once for all, and was determined that he should -never leave the Tower alive. For this purpose she again applied to Mrs. -Turner, who was well supplied with means serviceable to the occasion. -The first thing necessary was to assure themselves of the man to whose -immediate care the prisoner was intrusted. Lady Essex applied to Sir -Thomas Monson, Master of the Tower Armoury, and through his influence -Helwys was induced to dismiss Overbury's attendant and supply his place -with Richard Weston, a former servant of Anne Turner. - -This man was instructed by Mrs. Turner to meet Lady Essex at Whitehall, -and to receive from her a little phial whose contents were to be mixed -with the prisoner's food. Meeting Helwys on his way to Overbury's -cell, and supposing him to be initiated into the secret, Weston -consulted him as to the best way of administering the poison. Helwys, -horror-stricken, prevailed upon him to throw away the contents of -the phial. He was in too much awe of the Howard family to venture an -accusation, and Weston at his instigation told Lady Essex that the -poison had been duly administered, and that the prisoner's health was -failing in consequence. Overbury was, in truth, suffering greatly from -the frustration of his hopes of release, and he naïvely requested -Rochester to send him an emetic in order that the King, hearing of his -sickness, might be moved to compassion. It is not known what kind of -medicament Rochester sent, nor whether he was aware of Lady Essex's -attempt, but he seems to have played his own hand on this occasion. - -On finding that Overbury, in spite of his steadily failing health, -still continued to live, Lady Frances renewed her activity. Rochester -was sending sweetmeats, jellies, and wines to the prisoner, and Lady -Essex mixed poison with all these condiments, quite unconscious of -the fact that Helwys, now upon the alert, took care that none of them -should reach the prisoner. Losing all patience, she looked round for -some more certain means than this poison, which worked with such -astonishing and irritating deliberation. Learning that the apothecary -Franklin was attending Overbury, she bribed his boy to give the sick -man a poisoned injection. This was done, and the prisoner died in the -Tower on the following day. Northampton immediately spread about a -report that Sir Thomas Overbury had by no means led such a secluded -life in the Tower as was generally supposed, but had by his dissolute -life there contracted a disease of which he died. The rumour was -generally believed, but that some suspicions were entertained can be -seen in the letters of the times. John Chamberlain, writing to Sir -Dudley Carleton on the 14th October 1613, speaks of Overbury's death as -being caused by this disease, "or something worse." - -Thus the last obstacle was cleared from the path which led this -brilliant pair to the altar. Lady Frances was happy, and much farther -removed from any feeling of remorse than Lady Macbeth. The King was -full of affection for her, and, in order that she might not be wanting -her title of Countess, Rochester was made Earl of Somerset. The wedding -was celebrated with inordinate pomp on the 26th December 1613. The -bride had the assurance to appear with maidenly hair unbound upon her -shoulders. John Chamberlain, writing to Mrs. Alice Carleton, December -30th, says, "She was married in her hair, and led to the chapel by her -bridemen, a Duke of Saxony that is here, and the Earl of Northampton, -her great-uncle." The wedding was celebrated in the Chapel Royal, in -the same place and by the same bishop who had solemnised the previous -marriage. King, Queen, and Archbishop were all present, not to mention -those of the nobility who wished to stand well with the King and his -favourite, and rich gifts were brought by all. Gondomar, wishing to -show himself attentive to so highly favoured a pair, sent them some -magnificent jewels. The City of London, the Merchant Adventurers, the -East India Company, and the Customs sent each their present of precious -metals of great value. Gold, silver, and jewels were showered upon them -throughout the first half of January 1614. Bacon, though personally -no admirer of Somerset, naturally did not hold back. It is very -significantly remarked in a letter from John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley -Carleton, December 23, 1613, "Sir Francis Bacon prepares a masque to -honour the marriage, which will stand him in about £2000, and though -he have been offered some help by the House, and especially by Mr. -Solicitor, Sir Henry Yelverton, who would have sent him £500, yet he -would not accept it, but offers them the whole charge with the honour." -A few years later it is Bacon who conducts the poisoning case against -Rochester. - -The day following the wedding the King sent a message to the Lord -Mayor, inviting him to arrange a fête for Lord and Lady Somerset. The -City vainly endeavoured to excuse itself on the ground of insufficient -space, but the King himself suggested a remedy, and it was arranged -that the guests should go in procession from Westminster to the City, -the gentlemen on horseback and the ladies in carriages. The bride was -pleased to consider her carriage suitable to the occasion, but not -being satisfied with her horses, she sent to borrow Lord Winwood's. He, -replying that it did not beseem so great a lady to borrow, gallantly -begged her acceptance of the horses as a gift. - -Macaulay has likened this Court to that of Nero, and Swinburne has -added that these celebrations recall the bridals of Sporus and Locusta. -Chapman had already inscribed to Rochester two of the dedicatory -sonnets which accompanied the last books of his translation of the -Iliad, and filled them with absurdly exaggerated praise of the -Viscount's "heroic virtues." He now wrote his "Andromeda Liberata" -in glorification of the nuptials, and on his being attacked on that -score, he retorted with his exceedingly naïve "Defence of Perseus and -Andromeda." - -Life with Lady Frances could have no beneficial effect upon Somerset's -character. Nothing was magnificent enough for him, and he was -constantly importing new fashions in order to please his master and his -wife. That ingenuously moralising historian, Arthur Wilson, complains -bitterly of his appearance, his curled and perfumed locks, smooth -shaven face and bare neck, and the golden embroideries lavished upon -his attire. His only occupation was to solicit estates and money of -the King. The subjects supplied him handsomely, for every petitioner -paid tribute to Somerset. How much he received in this manner is -uncertain, but he spent not less than £90,000 a year. It may be said -to his credit, that he never, as did the later favourites, sought to -tamper with the law, and he now and then displayed some generosity, -but it was the exactions of his Howard connections which ruined him. -The Council's most honourable members, amongst whom was Shakespeare's -patron, Pembroke, saw with indignation that he predisposed the King in -favour of their rivals. - -His successor appeared in 1614. George Villiers, a young, handsome man -of lively disposition, was promoted step by step, yet not too hastily, -for fear of wounding Somerset's feelings. His presence at Court, -however, was exceedingly disagreeable to the latter, who treated his -rival with cold insolence, and seized every opportunity of humbling -him. Somerset's passionate temper and arrogant disposition soon -betrayed him into treating the King with similar superciliousness. He -was rebuked by James, and a temporary reconciliation was effected; but -how far Carr was from the enjoyment of a clear conscience is shown by -his soliciting a general pardon, such as Wolsey had received from Henry -VIII., from the King at this time, which was to include every possible -offence, not forgetting murder. This, he pointed out to James, was in -case his enemies should attempt to destroy him by false accusations -after the King's death. James was willing, but Lord Ellesmere refused -to apply the great seal to the document in question. The King's wrath -was great but unavailing. Ellesmere fell upon his knees, but refused to -affix the seal. - -Soon after this Somerset experienced the need of this comprehensive -absolution which he had failed to secure. The apothecary's boy, who -had administered the injection to Overbury, fell dangerously ill -at Flushing, and, wishing to ease his burdened soul, confessed the -murder to Lord Winwood. Helwys was examined, Weston was examined, and -Lord and Lady Somerset were soon implicated in the case. As soon as -Somerset heard that he was accused, he quitted the King, with whom -he was staying at Royston, and started for London in order to clear -himself. The King, by this time, was profoundly weary of his old -favourite, and entirely taken up by his new. To give some idea of -James's dissimulation, we will quote Sir Anthony Weldon's account, as -an eye-witness, of the parting between the King and Somerset. "The -Earle when he kissed his hand, the King hung about his neck, slabbering -his cheeks, saying, 'For God's sake, when shall I see thee again? On my -soul, I shall neither eat nor sleep until you come again.' The Earle -told him, on Monday (this being on the Friday). 'For God's sake, let -me,' said the King. 'Shall I, shall I;' then lolled about his neck. -'Then, for God's sake, give thy lady this kiss for me.' In the same -manner at the stayres' head, at the middle of the stayres, and at the -stayres' foot. The Earl was not in his coach when the King used these -very words, 'I shall never see his face more.'" - -Short work was made of the subordinate culprits. Mrs. Turner, Weston, -Helwys, and the apothecary Franklin, were all declared guilty and -hanged. The Countess bore testimony to her husband's innocence, and -he went to the Tower with the collar of the Garter and the George -about his neck. He threatened that if he were brought to trial he -would betray secrets which contained an accusation against the -King--contemporary letters show that this was understood to mean -that he would confess to having poisoned Prince Henry at the King's -instigation; but he abandoned this accusation later, and conducted -his defence with dignity, denying all complicity in the murder. The -Countess was less self-possessed. The judgment hall was filled with -spectators, and the Earl of Essex amongst them was seated exactly -opposite her. As the accusation was read, she trembled and turned pale, -and when Weston's name was reached, she covered her face with her fan. -When, according to custom, she was asked if she acknowledged herself -guilty, she could but answer, Yes. She was condemned to death, and to -the question whether she had anything further to add, replied that she -would say nothing to palliate her guilt, but prayed the King's mercy. -Somerset was also unanimously declared guilty. - -The King pardoned them both. He could hardly send to the scaffold the -man who had so long been his most intimate friend, neither could he -well despatch thither the daughter of his Chancellor of the Exchequer. -But although Somerset steadily maintained his innocence, both he and -his wife were sent to the Tower. - -In the letters written at the time of the trial, as much mention is -made of Sir George Villiers as of Somerset. The new favourite has been -ill for some time, "not without suspicion of smallpox, which if it had -fallen out _actum erat de amicitia_. But it proves otherwise, and we -say there is much casting about how to make him a great man, and that -he shall now be made of the Garter," &c. - -He was soon made Cupbearer, Chamberlain, Master of the Horse, Marquis -of Buckingham, and Keeper of the Great Seal, and he retained his -pernicious influence well into the reign of Charles the First. It is -highly characteristic of James that he was now as anxious to procure -Villiers Raleigh's old estate, Sherborne, from the imprisoned Somerset -as he had been to wrest it from the imprisoned Raleigh for Somerset. He -must have regarded it as a lawful "morrowing gift," so inextricably had -it become associated with a rising favourite in his mind. Somerset was -given to understand that he would obtain a free pardon, together with -the restitution of the rest of his properties, if he would secure the -now all-powerful Villiers' protection by relinquishing Sherborne in his -favour. On his obstinately refusing, he and Lady Somerset were left to -languish for six long years in the Tower.[1] - -[1] Arthur Wilson: "The History of Great Britain, being the -Life and Reign of James the First," 1653. Sir A. Weldon: "A Cat may -look upon a King," London, 1652. The author of "Memoirs of Sophia -Dorothea": "The Court and Times of James the First, illustrated by -Authentic Letters," 2 vols., London, 1848. Fulk Greville: "The Five -Years of King James." "Secret History of the Court of James the First," -edited by Sir Walter Scott, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1811. "An Inquiry into -the Literary and Political Character of James the First," by the author -of "Curiosities of Literature," London, 1816. Samuel R. Gardiner: -"History of England from the Accession of James I. to the Outbreak -of the Civil War," vol. ii., London, 1883. Edmond Gosse: "Raleigh," -London, 1886. "The Court and Character of King James, Written and -taken by Sir A. W(eldon), being an Eye and Ear Witness," London, 1650. -Aulicus Coquinariæ: "A Vindication in Answer to a Pamphlet entitled -'The Court and Character of King James,'" London, 1650. - - - - -VII - -_CONTEMPT OF WOMEN--TROILUS AND CRESSIDA_ - -In order to give a complete picture, it was necessary to trace events -down to the years in which external happenings ceased to work upon -Shakespeare's mind. He died in the same year that the Lady Arabella -perished in the Tower, and when the scandal of the Somerset trial was -beginning to fade from the public mind. It is obviously impossible -to point to any one cause which could have made an especially deep -impression on his inner life. All we can say with certainty is, that -the general atmosphere of the times, of the corrupt condition of morals -here described, could hardly fail to leave some mark on a disposition -which, just at this time, was susceptible and irritable to the highest -degree. If, as we maintain, there now ensued a period during which -his melancholy was prone to dwell upon the darkest side of life; if -he shows, in these years, a sickly tendency to imbibe poison from -everything; and if all his observation and experience seem to result in -a contempt of mankind, so did the general condition of society afford -ample nourishment for the mood of scorn for human nature. - -In the merely external, Shakespeare's life cannot at this time have -undergone any great catastrophe. He was now (1607) forty-three -years of age. As soon as the play was over, between five and six -of an afternoon, he stepped into one of the Thames boats and was -set across the river to his house, where his books and work awaited -him. He studied much, making himself familiar with the works of his -contemporaries, plunging anew into Plutarch, reading Chaucer and Gower, -and pondering over More's _Utopia_. He worked as hard as ever. Neither -the rehearsal in the morning nor the play at mid-day had power to weary -him. He read through old dramatic manuscripts to see if new treatment -could revive them into use, and returned to long-laid-by manuscripts of -his own to work upon them afresh. - -He attended to business at the same time, received the rents of his -houses at Stratford, collected his tithes from the same place, and -watched the lawsuits in which the purchase of these tithes had involved -him. He had obtained the object of his existence, so far as the -possession of property was concerned; but never had he been so downcast -and dispirited, never had he felt so keenly the emptiness of life. - -So long as Shakespeare was young, the general condition of society and -the ways and worth of men had troubled him less. Then, except for the -feeling of belonging to a despised caste and the increasing spread of -Puritanism, he was at peace with his surroundings. Now he saw more -sharply the true outlines of his times and his world, and perceived -more clearly that eternal infirmity of human nature, which at all times -only waits for a propitious climate in order to develop itself. - -The last work which had lain ready on his table was _Antony and -Cleopatra_. He had there, for the second time, given his impression of -the subversion of a world. - -There was a pendant to this war of the East (which was in reality -waged for Cleopatra's sake), a war fought by all the countries of the -Mediterranean for the possession of a loose woman; the most famous of -all wars, the old Trojan war, set going by a "cuckold and carried on -for a whore," so it will shortly be described by a scandalous buffoon, -whom Shakespeare uses, so to speak, in his own name. Here was stuff for -a tragicomedy of right bitter sort. - -From childhood he, and every one else, had been filled with the -fame and glory of this war. All its heroes were models of bravery, -magnanimity, wisdom, friendship, and fidelity, as if such things -existed! For the first time in his life he feels a desire to mock--to -shout "Bah!" straight out of his heart--to turn the wrong side out, the -true side. - -Menelaus and Helen--what a ridiculous couple! The wretched head of -horned cattle moves heaven and earth, causes thousands of men to be -slain, and all that he may have his damaged beauty back again.[1] -Menelaus stood too low for his satire, however. Shakespeare himself -had never felt thus. Neither was it in his humour to portray a woman -who, like Helen, had openly left one man for another, a husband for -a lover--there was none of woman's special duplicity in that. The -transfer from one to another, which alone was of interest to him, in -her case was already past and gone. Helen's destiny is settled before -the drama begins. There is no play, no inner variety in her character, -no dramatic situation between her in Troy and Menelaus without. - -But in the old legends of Troy which sagas and folk-tales had handed -down to him, he found, in miniature, the plot whereon the whole war -turned. Cressida, a rejuvenated Helen; Troilus, the simpleton who -loved her, and whom she betrayed; and round about them grouped all -those archetypes of subtlety, wisdom, and strength--that venerable old -twaddler Nestor, and that sly fox Ulysses, &c. Here was something -which urged him on to representation. Here was a plot which chimed in -with his mood. - -Shakespeare had no interest in delineating that _bellâtre_, Prince -Paris; he had felt him as little as he had Menelaus. But he had many -a time felt as Troilus did--the honest soul, the honourable fool, who -was simple enough to believe in a woman's constancy. And he knew well, -too well, that Lady Cressida, with the alluring ways, the nimble wit, -the warm blood, speaking lawful passion with (to not too true an ear) -the lawful modesty of speech. She would rather be desired than confer, -would rather be loved than love, says "yes" with a "no" yet upon her -lips, and flames up at the least suspicion of her truth. Not that she -is false. Oh, no! why false? We believe in her as her lover believes in -her, and as she believes in herself--until she leaves him for the Greek -camp. Then she has scarcely turned her back upon him than she loses -her heart to the first she meets, and her constancy fails at the first -proof to which it is put. - -All his life through these two forms had preoccupied his imagination. -In _Lucretia,_ he coupled Troilus with Hector among Trojan heroes. In -the fourth act of the _Merchant of Venice_, he made Lorenzo say: - - "In such a night. - Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls, - And sighed his soul towards the Grecian tents - Where Cressid lay." - -In _Henry V._, Pistol included Doll Tearsheet among "Cressid's kind," -making Doll doubly ridiculous by classing her with the Trojan maid of -far-famed charm. In _Much Ado About Nothing_; (Act v.), Benedict called -Troilus "the first employer of Pandars." In _As You Like It_ (Act iv.), -Rosalind jested about him, and yet yielded him a certain recognition. -Protesting that no man ever yet died for love, she said, "Troilus had -his brains dashed out with a Grecian club, yet did what he could to die -before, _and he is one of the patterns of love_." In _Twelfth Night_ -and in _All's Well' that Ends Well_, the Fool and Lafeu both jested -about Pandarus and his ill-famed zeal in bringing Troilus and Cressida -together. - -Slowly, like the Hamlet tradition, this subject had been growing ripe -in Shakespeare's mind. It had hitherto lived in his imagination in -much the same form in which it had been handled by his compatriots. By -Chaucer, first and foremost, who in his _Troilus and Cressida_ (about -1360) had translated, elaborated, and enlarged Boccaccio's beautiful -poem, _Filostrato_. But neither Chaucer nor any other Englishman who -had translated or reproduced the subject (such as Lydgate, 1460, -who restored Guido delle Columne's _Historia Trojana,_ or Caxton, -who in 1471 published a translation of Raoul le Fevre's _Recueil -des Histoires de Troyes_) had found in it any material for satire. -Especially had none of its earlier elaborators found any fault with -the character of Cressida. Not the poets once. Chaucer founded his -heroine in all essentials upon Boccaccio's. He, who was the first to -gather the material into a poetic whole, had no intention of presenting -his heroine in an unfavourable light. He wished to give expression, -as he openly declares, to his own devotion to his lady-love in his -description of Troilus's passion for Cressida. The old Trouvere, Benoit -de St. Maure, and his _Histoire de la Guerre de Troie_ (about 1160), -was undoubtedly his model. It is from him he received the impression -that Griseida (into whom he transforms Benoit's Briseida) gradually -falls a victim to the seductions of Diomedes, in whose company she -leaves Troy, and little by little grows untrue to Troilus. He adds a -stanza to this effect, on the inconstancy of women.[2] It was not to -be expected that Boccaccio should kneel before women with the platonic -love and devout worship of Dante and Petrarch. Beatrice is a mystical, -Laura an earthly ideal. Griseida is a young lady from the Court of -Naples, such as it was then. A young, lovable, and frail woman of -flesh and blood. But only frail, never base, and very far from being a -coquette. Boccaccio never forgets that he has dedicated the poem to his -love and that she also left the place where they had dwelt together, -for one where he durst not follow her. He says clearly that in the -portrayal of Griseida's charms he has drawn a picture of his love, but -he refrains with consummate tact from driving the comparison further. - -Chaucer, as little as Boccaccio, found anything in the relations of -the lovers to satirise. He intends, to the best of his abilities, to -prove their love as innocent and lawful as possible. He paints it with -a naïve and enraptured simplicity, which proves how far he is from -mockery.[3] He does not even rave over Cressida's faithlessness to -Troilus; she is excused, she trembles and hesitates before she falls. -Inconstancy is forced upon her by the overwhelming might of hard -circumstance. - -There is nothing in these two poets that can compare with the -passionate heat and hatred, the boundless bitterness with which -Shakespeare delineates and pursues his Cressida. His mood is the more -remarkable that he in no wise paints her as unlovableor corrupt; she is -merely a shallow, frivolous, sensual, pleasure-loving coquette. - -She does little, on the whole, to call for such severity of judgment. -She is a mere child and beginner in comparison with Cleopatra, for -instance, who, for all that, is not so unmercifully condemned. But -Shakespeare has aggravated and pointed every circumstance until -Cressida becomes odious, and rouses only aversion. The change from love -to treachery, from Troilus to Diomedes, is in no earlier poet effected -with such rapidity. Whenever Shakespeare expresses by the mouth of -one or another of his characters the estimate in which he intends his -audience to hold her, one is astounded by the bitterness of the hatred -he discloses. It is especially noticeable in the scene (Act iv.) in -which Cressida comes to the Greek camp and is greeted by the kings with -a kiss. - -At this point Cressida has as yet offended in nothing. She has, out -of pure, vehement love for him, passed such a night with Troilus as -Juliet did with Romeo, persuaded to it by Pandarus, as Juliet was by -her nurse. Now she accepts and returns the kiss wherewith the Greek -chieftains bid her welcome. We may remark, in parenthesis, that at that -time there was no impropriety in such a greeting. In William Brenchley -Rye's "England as seen by Foreigners in the Days of Elizabeth and James -the First," are found, under the heading "England and Englishmen," the -following notes by Samuel Riechel, a merchant from Ulm:--"Item, when a -foreigner or an inhabitant goes to a citizen's house on business, or is -invited as a guest, and having entered therein, he is received by the -master of the house, the lady, or the daughter, and by them welcomed; -he has even the right to take them by the arm and kiss them, which -is the custom of the country; and if any one does not do so, it is -regarded and imputed as ignorance and ill-breeding on his part." - -For all that, Ulysses, who sees through her at the first glance, breaks -out on occasion of this kiss which Cressida returns: - - "Fie, fie upon her, - There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lips, - Nay, her foot speaks, her wanton spirit looks out - At every joint and motive of her body. - Oh, these encounterers, so glib of tongue, - That give occasion welcome ere it comes, - And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts - To every ticklish reader! Set them down - For sluttish spoils of opportunity, - And daughters of the game." - -So Shakespeare causes his heroine to be described, and doubtless -it is his own last word about her. Immediately before her he had -portrayed Cleopatra. When we remember the position occupied in his -drama by the Egyptian queen, whom he, for all that, has stamped as the -most dangerous of all dangerous coquettes, we can only marvel at the -distance his spiritual nature has traversed since then. - -There was in Shakespeare's disposition, as we have already remarked, a -deep and extraordinary tendency to submissive admiration and worship. -Many of his flowing lyrics spring from this source. Recall his humility -of attitude before the objects of this admiration, before Henry V., -for example, and his adoration for the friend in the Sonnets. We -still find this need of giving lyrical and ecstatic expression to his -hero-worship in _Antony and Cleopatra_. He by no means undertakes a -defence of the desolating temptress, but with what glamour he surrounds -her! What eulogies he lavishes upon her! She stands in an aureole of -the adulation of all the other characters in the drama. At the time -Shakespeare wrote this great tragedy, he had still so much of romantic -enthusiasm remaining to him that he found it natural to let her -live and die gloriously. Let be that she was a sorceress, still she -fascinates. - -What a change! Shakespeare, who had hitherto worshipped women, has -become a misogamist. This mood, forgotten since his early youth, rises -up again in hundredfold strength, and his very soul overflows in scorn -for the sex. - -What is the cause? Has anything befallen him--anything new? Upon what -and whom does he think? Does he speak out of new and recent experience, -or is it the old sorrow from the time of the Sonnets, of which he made -use in the construction of Cleopatra's character, and is this the same -grief which has taken new shape in his mind and is turning sour? is it -this which has grown increasingly bitter until it corrodes? - -There are two types of artist soul. There is the one which needs -many varying experiences and constantly changing models, and which -instantly gives a poetic form to every fresh incident. There is the -other which requires amazingly few outside elements to fertilise it, -and for which a single life circumstance, inscribed with sufficient -force, can furnish a whole wealth of ever-changing thought and modes -of expression. Sören Kierkegaard among writers, and Max Klinger among -painters, are both great examples of the latter type. - -To which did Shakespeare belong? His many-sidedness and fertility -is incontrovertible, and every particular points to the use of a -multiplicity of models. But for all that, his groups of feminine -characters can frequently be traced back to an original type, and -therefore, most likely, to a single model. When one momentous incident -of a poet's life is known, we are very apt to relate to it everything -in his works which could possibly have any connection with it. In this -manner the French literary and critical world most obstinately found -traces of Alfred de Musset's life with George Sand in every expression -of melancholy or complaint of desolation in his poems. In his biography -of his brother, however, Paul de Musset has revealed the fact that -the "December Night," which seems so obvious a supplement to the "May -Night" that turns upon George Sand, was really written in quite another -spirit, to a totally different woman. Also, the character delineated in -the "Letter to Lamartine," which was generally believed to be that of -the famous poetess, had in reality nothing whatever to do with her. - -It is quite possible, therefore, that this last woman's character, -instead of being only a variant of the Cleopatra type, was a product -of a new, fiery, and scorching impression of feminine inconstancy and -worthlessness. We are too entirely ignorant of the circumstances of -the poet's life to venture any decided opinion, all we can say is, -that incidents and novel experiences are not absolutely necessary as -an explanation. There is a remote possibility that the first sketch of -the play was already written in 1603, in which case it would be more -than likely that the dark lady was once more his prototype. On the -other hand, it may be, as already suggested, that in a productive soul -one circumstance will take the place of many, and an experience which -at first seemed wholly tragic may, in the rapid inner development of -genius, come to wholly change its character. He has suffered under -it; it has sucked his heart's blood and left him a beaten man on his -path through life. He has sought to embody it in serious and worthy -forms, until suddenly it stands before him as a burlesque. His misery -no longer seems a cruel destiny, but a well-merited punishment for -immoderate stupidity, and this bitter mood has sought relief in such -scornful laughter as that whose discord strikes so harshly in _Troilus -and Cressida_. - -We can imagine that Shakespeare began by worshipping his lady-love, -complaining of her coldness and hardness, celebrating her fingers in -song, cursing her faithlessness, and feeling himself driven nearly wild -with grief at the false position in which she had placed him; this -is the standpoint of the Sonnets. In the course of years the fever -had stormed itself out, but the memory of the enchantment was still -visibly fresh, and his mind pictured the loved one as a marvellous -phenomenon, half queen, half gipsy, alluring and repellant, true and -false, strong and weak, a siren and a mystery; this is the standpoint -of _Antony and Cleopatra_. Then, possibly, when life had sobered him -down, when he had cooled, as we all do cool in the hardening ice of -experience, he suddenly and sharply realised the insanity of an exotic -enthusiasm for so worthless an object. He looks upon this condition, -which invariably begins with self-deception and must of necessity end -in disillusionment, as a disgraceful and tremendous absurdity; and his -wrath over wasted feelings and wasted time and suffering, over the -degradation and humiliation of its self-deception, and ultimately the -treason itself, seeks final and supreme relief in the outburst, "What a -farce!" which is in itself the germ of _Troilus and Cressida_. - - -[1] Heine, some hundreds of years later, expresses the same -feeling in his - - "O König Wiswamatra, - O welch ein Ochs bist du, - Dass du so viel kämpfest und brüssest - Und Alles für eine Kuh!" - -[2] - - Giovine donna è mobile, e vogliosa - E negli amanti molti, e sua bellezza - Estima più che allo specchio, e pomposa - Ha vanagloria di sua giovinezza; - La qual quanto piacevole e vezzosa - E più, cotanto più seco l'apprezza - Virtù non sente, nè conoscimento, - Volubil sempre come foglia al vento." - -[3] - - "Her armes smale, her streghte bak and softe, - Her sides long, fleshly, smothe, and white, - He gan to stroke; and good thrift bad ful oft. - Her snowish throte, her brestes round and lite: - Thus in this hevene he gan him to delite, - And then withal a thousand times her kiste - That what to dou for joie unnethe he wiste." - - - - -VIII - -_TROILUS AND CRESSIDA--THE HISTORICAL MATERIAL_. - -In the twenty-fourth book of the Iliad Homer makes his solitary mention -of Troilus as a son whom Priam had lost before the opening of the poem. -The old King says: - - "O me, accursed man, - All my good sons are gone, my light the shades Cimmerian - Have swallowed from me. I have lost Mestor, surnamed the Fair, - Troilus, that ready knight at arms, that made his field repair - Ever so prompt and joyfully." - -This is all the great old world poet says of the king's son, whose fame -in the Middle Ages outshone Hector's own. This brief mention of an -early death stirred the imagination and set fancy at work. The cyclic -poets expanded the hint and developed Troilus into a handsome youth who -fell by Achilles' lance. It had become the custom under Imperial Rome -to derive the empire from the Trojans, and the theory gave birth to -many fabrications, professing to emanate from eye-witnesses of the war. - -Yet it was not before the time of Constantine the Great, that a -description was given which quite displaced Homer during the Middle -Ages. This was Dictys Cretensis' book, _De Bello Trojano,_ translated -from the original Greek into Latin. The translator, a certain Quintus -Septimius, informs us that Dictys was a brother in arms of Idomeneus, -and at his prince's suggestion wrote this book in Phœnician characters, -and afterwards caused it to be buried with him. An earthquake in the -time of Nero brought it to light. The translator is evidently simple -enough to believe in the truth of this account. A more daring forgery -was issued about 635, after the fall of the Western Empire of Rome. -The author is supposed to be a certain Dares Phrygius, who was one of -Hector's counsellors, and who wrote the Iliad before Homer. The title -of this book also is _De Bello Trojano_, and it professes to have been -translated into Latin by Cornelius Nepos, who is said to have found the -manuscript at Athens, "where, in his day, Homer was considered half -mad" because he had depicted gods and men as carrying on a war with one -another. Troilus is the most prominent hero of the book, which is a -wretched compilation of far-fetched reminiscences. - -Dares, however, became the fountain-head for all mediæval -story-tellers, first and foremost among them being Benoit de St. -Maure, troubadour to Henry II. of England. Of his poem, containing -30,000 verses, only fragments have ever been printed. As a genuine -Trouvere of the early half of the twelfth century, he has adorned his -ancient material with sumptuous descriptions of towns, palaces, and -accoutrements. He enters, so far as he is able, into the spiritual life -of his hero, and supplies him with what, according to the notions of -his times, he could not possibly lack--a love motive. He represents -Briseis, Achilles' vaunted love, as the daughter of Kalchas, whom, -following the example of Dares, he makes a Trojan. Briseida, who is -beloved by Troilus, returns to Troy after her father goes over to the -Greeks. When Kalchas wishes to regain his daughter, she is exchanged, -as in Shakespeare's drama, for the prisoner Antenor. Diomedes is -sent by the Greeks to escort her, and Briseida falls a victim to his -seductive arts. Many of the incidents in Shakespeare's play are to be -found in Benoit--that Diomedes is experienced in women, for example; -that Briseis gives him a favour wherewith to adorn his lance; that -he dismounts Troilus and sends his horse to his lady-love, and that -Troilus inveighs against her broken faith, &c. - -Now it can be traced how, in the further development of the theme, one -writer after another adds some feature which Shakespeare in his turn -still further elaborates. Guido de Colonna (or delle Columne), a judge -at Messina in 1287, retranslates Benoit de St. Maure into barbarous -Latin, making no acknowledgment of his source, and transforming -Achilles into a raw, bloodthirsty barbarian. - -Boccaccio, who prefers significant names, and the title of whose poem, -_Filostrato_, signifies "one struck to earth by love," changes Briseida -into Cryseida (thus in old editions), in order that her name may mean -"the golden," and he it is who adds Pandarus, the "all-giver," who aids -Troilus in his love affairs. He is Cryseida's kinsman and is evidently -sympathetic all through.[1] - -It is Chaucer who first submits the character of Pandarus to an -important change, and makes it the transition point of the Pandarus we -find in Shakespeare. In his poem Troilus's young friend has become the -elderly kinsman of Creseyde, and he brings the young pair together, -mostly out of looseness. It is he who persuades the young maiden and -leads her astray by means of lying impostures. It was not Chaucer's -intention, as it was Shakespeare's, to make the old fellow odious. His -_rôle_ is not carried out with the cynical and repulsive lowness of -Shakespeare's character. Chaucer endeavours to ward off any painful -impression by making the shameless old rascal the wit of his poem. -He did not achieve his object; his readers saw only the procurer in -Pandarus, whose name became thenceforward a by-word in the English -language, and it was as such that Shakespeare drew the character in -downright, unmistakable disgust.[2] - -We have yet other sources, Latin, French, and English, for the -details of the drama. From Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, for example (which -Shakespeare must have known from childhood), he took the idea of -making Ajax almost an idiot in his conceited stupidity. It is in the -third book of the _Metamorphoses_ that Ulysses, fighting with Ajax for -Achilles' weapon, overwhelms his opponent with biting sarcasms.[3] -Shakespeare found the name of Thersites in the same book, with a word -concerning his _rôle_ as lampooner of princes. - -We may doubt whether Shakespeare knew Lydgate's _Book of Troy_. -Most of his details with regard to the siege are taken from an old -writing translated from the French and published by Wynkyn de Worde -in 1503. Here, for example, is the parade of heroes, the talk of -King Neoptolemus being no son of Achilles, and the corrupted names -of the six gates of Troy--Dardane, Timbria, Helias, Chetas, Troyen, -and Antenorides. Here also he would find the name of Hectors horse, -Galathea, the archer who calls upon the Greeks, the bastard Margarelon, -Cassandra's warning to Hector, the glove Cressida gives away, and -Troilus's idea that a man is not called upon to be merciful in war, but -should take a victory as he may.[4] - -We cannot tell if Shakespeare was further indebted to some old dramatic -writings, whereof only the names have survived to us. In 1515, a -"Komedy" called the _Story of Troylus and Pandor_ was played before -Henry VIII. On New Year's Day, 1572, a play about Ajax and Ulisses was -performed at Windsor Castle, and another in 1584 concerning Agamemnon -and Ulisses.[5] In Henslowe's Daybook for April and May 1599 we see -that the poets Dekker and Henry Chettle (Dickers and Harey Cheattel, -in his amusing orthography) wrote a piece, at his invitation, for the -Lord Admiral's troupe, _Troeyles and creasseday_. In May he lends -them a sum of money on it, changing its title to _A tragedy about -Agamemnon_. It is finally entered at the Stationers' Hall in February -1603 as a piece entitled _Troilus and Cresseda_, "as it was played by -the Lord Chamberlain's men"[6] (Shakespeare's company). The fact that -in Shakespeare's drama, as we have it, rhyme is introduced in various -parts of the dialogue, and several other details of versification, -seems to point to the possibility that the so-called piece was in -reality Shakespeare's first sketch of the play. It is one of Fleay's -tediously worked out theories that the drama was produced in three -different parts, with an interval of from twelve to thirteen years -between each. He is quite regardless of the fact that the parts are -absolutely inseparable, and is evidently entirely innocent of the -manner of growth of poems. He also totally ignores such important -evidence as that of the preface to the oldest edition, 1609, which -positively asserts that the piece has never hitherto been played. It -is, of course, possible that this edition, like most of its kind, was -unauthorised, but even then the writer of the preface would scarcely -lie about a fact which could be so easily verified, and which, -moreover, he was not in the least interested in falsifying. - - -[1] Troilus says to him: - - "Non m'hai piccola cosa tu donata - Ne me a piccola cosa donato hai - La vita mia ti fia sempre obligata - In l'hai da morte in via suscitata." - -[2] _Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespearegesellschaft_, iii, -252, and vi. 169. Francesco de Sanctis: _Historia della letterature -italiana_, i. 308. - -[3] - - "Huic modo ne prosit, quod, uti est, hebes esse, videtur. - Artis opus tantæ rudis et sine pectore miles - Indueret? - Ajacis stolidi Danais Sollertia prosit - Tu vires sine mente geris, mihi cura futuri - Tu pugnare potes, pugnandi tempora mecum - Eligit Atrides. In tantum corpore prodes." - Met. xiii. 135, 290, 327, 360. - -[4] Halliwell-Phillips: _Memoranda on Troilus and Cressida._ -1880. (Only twenty copies). - -[5] "Ajax and Ulisses shoven on New Yeares day at nights by the -children of Wynsor. The history of Agamemnon and Ulisses presented and -enacted before her Majestie by the Earle of Oxenford his boyes on St. -John daie at night at Greenwiche. 1584. - -[6] "Entered for his (Master Robertes') copie in full court -holden this day to print when he hath gotten sufficient aucthority -for yt the Booke of Troilus and Cressida, as it is acted by my Lord -Chamberlain's men." - - - - -IX - -_SHAKESPEARE AND CHAPMAN--SHAKESPEARE AND HOMER_ - -We have now apparently exhausted the literary sources of this -mysterious and so little understood work. But we have not, for all -that, solved the fundamental question which has occupied so many brains -and pens. Was it Shakespeare's intention to ridicule Homer? Did he know -Homer? - -To a Dane, _Troilus and Cressida_ recalls the mockery Holberg's -_Ulysses von Ithacia_ makes of the Homeric material, just as the -_Ulysses_ reminds us of Shakespeare's play. _Troilus and Cressida_ -seems to have represented to the English poet much what Holberg's -play did to him, a satire, namely, on the absurdities the Gothic -and Anglo-Saxon understanding (_i.e._ narrow-mindedness) found in -Homer. It is sufficiently remarkable that Shakespeare should have -written a travesty which could, in spite of many reservations, be -classed with _Ulysses von Ithacia_. As far as Holberg is concerned, -the explanation is simple enough. His is the taste of the enlightened -age, and the ancient civilisation's noble naïveté viewed in the light -of dry rationalism, filled him with amazement and laughter. But what -has Shakespeare to do with rationalism? His was the very time of -the renaissance of that old world civilisation, the moment of its -resurrection. How came he to scorn it? - -The general working of the public mind towards the ancient Greeks had -prompted Elizabeth to write a commentary on Plato and to translate -the Dialogues of Socrates; but Shakespeare's knowledge of Greek was -defective, and thus it was that he, as playwright, represented the -popular trend, in contradistinction to the numerous other poets, who, -like Ben Jonson, prided themselves on their erudition. - -Moreover, like the Romans, and subsequently the Italians and French, -the Englishmen of his day believed themselves to be descended from -those ancient Trojans, whom Virgil, as true Roman, had glorified at -the expense of the Greeks. The England of Shakespeare's time took a -pride in her Trojan forefathers, and we find evidence in other of his -works that he, as English patriot, sided with the Trojans in the old -battles of Ilion, and was, consequently, prejudiced against the Greek -heroes. In my opinion, however, all this has little to do with the -point at issue. We have already found it probable that Chapman was the -poet whose intimacy with Pembroke roused Shakespeare's jealousy, making -him feel slighted and neglected, and causing him so much melancholy -suffering. I am not ignorant of the arguments which have been brought -forward in support of the theory that the rival poet was not Chapman -but Daniel, nor of what Miss Charlotte Stopes and G. A. Leigh have to -say on the subject of Minto and Tyler.[1]. I do not, however, consider -that they have been able to refute the strong evidence in favour of its -being no other than Chapman who was the poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets -78-86. - -In the year 1598 Chapman had just published the first seven books of -his _Iliad_, namely, the first, second, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, -and eleventh of Homer. The remaining books, followed by a complete -_Odyssey_, were not published until 1611, two years after the first -appearance of _Troilus and Cressida_. To render the comparatively -unknown Homer into good English verse was an achievement worthy of the -acknowledgments Chapman received. His translation is to this day, in -spite of its faults, the best that England possesses. Keats himself has -written a sonnet in praise of it. - -How great a reputation Chapman enjoyed as a dramatist may be seen in -the dedication of John Webster's tragedy _The White Divel_ (1612), -at the close of which he says: "Detraction is the sworn friend to -ignorance. For mine owne part, I have ever truly cherisht my good -opinion of other men's worthy labours, especially of that full and -haightened stile of Maister Chapman. The labour'd and understanding -workes of Maister Johnson: The no less worthy composures of the both -worthy and excellent Maister Beamont and Maister Fletcher: and lastly -(without wrong last to be named), the right happy and copious industry -of Mr. Shakespeare, Mr. Decker and Mr. Heywood." As will have been -noticed, Chapman's name heads the list, while Shakespeare's comes at -the bottom in conjunction with such insignificant men as Decker and -Heywood! - -Nevertheless (or possibly on that account) there is little doubt that -Shakespeare found Chapman personally antipathetic. His style was -unequalled for arrogance and pedantry; he was insufferably vain of his -learning, and not a whit less conceited of the divine inspiration he, -as poet, must necessarily possess. Even the most ardent of his modern -admirers admits that his own poems are both grotesque and wearisome, -and Shakespeare must certainly have suffered under the miserable -conclusion Chapman added to Marlowe's beautiful _Hero and Leander_, -a poem that Shakespeare himself so greatly admired. Take only the -fragment of introductory prose which prefaces his translation of Homer, -and try to wade through it. Short as it is, it is impossible. Read but -the confused garrulity and impossible imagery of the dedication in -1598, and could a more shocking collection of mediæval philology be -found outside the two pages he writes about Homer? - -Swinburne, who loves him, says of his style: "Demosthenes, according -to report, taught himself to speak with pebbles in his mouth; but it -is presumable that he also learnt to dispense with their aid before he -stood up against Eschines or Hyperides on any great occasion of public -oratory. Our philosophic poet, on the other hand, before addressing -such audience as he may find, is careful always to fill his mouth -till the jaws are stretched well-nigh to bursting with the largest, -roughest, and most angular of polygonal flintstones that can be hewn or -dug out of the mine of language; and as fast as one voluminous sentence -or unwieldy paragraph has emptied his mouth of the first batch of -barbarisms, he is no less careful to refill it before proceeding to a -fresh delivery."[2] The comparison is strikingly exact. - -It is this incomprehensible style which made Chapman's readers so few -in number, and caused his frequent complaints of being slighted and -neglected. As Swinburne jestingly says of him: - - "We understand a fury in his words, - But not his words." - -Even in his fine translation of Homer, he is unable to forego his -tendency to obscurity, and constrained and inflated expression. It is -universally admitted that even a translation must take some colouring -from its translator, and no man in England was less Hellenic than -Chapman. Swinburne has rightly observed that his temperament was more -Icelandic than Greek, that he handled the sacred vessels of Greek -art with the substantial grasp of the barbarian, and when he would -reproduce Homer he gave rather the stride of a giant than the step of a -god. - -In all probability it was the grief Shakespeare felt at seeing Chapman -selected by Pembroke, added to the ill-humour caused by the elder -poet's arrogance and clumsy pedantry, which goaded him into wanton -opposition to the inevitable enthusiasm for the Homeric world and its -heroes. - -And so he gave his bitter mood full play. - -He touches upon the _Iliad's_ most beautiful and most powerful -elements, Achilles' wrath, the friendship between Achilles and -Patroclus, the question of Helen being delivered to the Greeks, the -attempt to goad Achilles into renewing the conflict, Hector and -Andromache's farewell, and Hector's death, but only to profane and -ridicule all. - -It was a curious coincidence that Shakespeare should lay hands on -this material just at the most despondent period of his life; for -nowhere could we well receive a deeper impression of modern crudeness -and decadence, and never could we meet with a fuller expression of -German-Gothic innate barbarism in relation to Hellenism than when we -see this great poet of the Northern Renaissance make free with the -poetry of the old world. - -Let us recall, for instance, the friendship, the brotherhood, existing -between Achilles and Patroclus as it is drawn by Homer, and then see -what an abomination Shakespeare, under the influence of his own times, -makes of it.[3] He causes Thersites to spit upon the connection, and by -not allowing any one to protest, so full of loathing for humanity has -he become, leaves us to suppose his version to be correct. - -How refined and Greek is Homer's treatment of Helen's position. There -is no hint there of the modern ridicule of Menelaus; he is equally -worthy, equally "beloved by the gods," and still the same mighty hero, -if his wife has been abducted. Nor is there any scorn for Helen, only -worship for her marvellous beauty, which even the old men upon the -walls turn their heads to watch, only compassion for her fate and -sympathy with her sufferings. And now, here, this eternal mockery of -Menelaus as a deserted husband, these endless good and bad jests on his -lot, this barbaric laughter over Helen as unchaste! - -Thersites is made the mouthpiece of most of it. Shakespeare found his -name in Ovid, and a description of his person in Homer, in one of the -books first translated by Chapman:-- - - "----All sate, and audience gave, - Thersites only would speak all. A most disordered store - Of words he foolishly poured out, of which his mind held more - Than it could manage; anything with which he could procure - Laughter, he never could contain. He should have yet been sure - To touch no kings; t' oppose their states becomes not jesters' parts, - But he the filthiest fellow was of all that had deserts - In Troy's brave siege. He was squint-eyed, and lame of either foot; - So crook-backed that he had no breast; sharp-headed where did shoot - (Here and there spersed) thin mossy hair. He most of all envied - Ulysses and Æacides, whom yet his spleen would chide." - -The argument which has been brought forward to prove that Shakespeare -could not have known this description creating the character of -Thersites is worthless. It has been considered impossible that he, -who knew so well how to turn all material to account, should not -have profited, in that case, by the famous scene where Odysseus -beats Thersites. As a matter of fact, Shakespeare did so, and with -much humour, only it is Ajax who is the chastiser, while Thersites -exclaims (Act ii. sc. 3): "He beats me, and I rail at him. O worthy -satisfaction! would it were otherwise; that I could beat him, while he -railed at me." - -Clearly enough, the character of the witty, malicious lampooner made an -impression upon Shakespeare, and he, probably following the example of -earlier plays, transformed him into a clown, and made him act as chorus -accompanying the action of the play. Such, obviously, was the Fool in -_Lear_; but how different is the melancholy, emotional satire to which -King Lear's faithful companion in distress gives vent from the flaying, -scorching scorn, the stream of fierce invective wherewith Thersites -overwhelms every one and everything. - -One cannot but see that these lampoons of Menelaus and Helen represent -Shakespeare's own feeling, partly because Thersites is undoubtedly used -as a kind of Satyr-chorus, and partly because the dispassionate and -unprejudiced characters of the drama express themselves in harmony with -him. - -Notice, for instance, this reply of Thersites (Act ii. sc. 3): - - "After this, the vengeance upon the whole camp! or, rather, - the bone-ache! for that, methinks, is the curse upon those - that war for a placket" - - "Here is such patchery, such juggling, and such knavery! all - the argument is a cuckold and a whore; a good quarrel to - draw emulous factions and bleed to death upon. Now the dry - serpigo on the subject! and war and lechery confound all!" - -Or read this description of Menelaus (Act v. sc. I): - - "And the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, his brother - the bull, the primitive statue and oblique memorial of - cuckolds; a thrifty shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at - his brother's leg--to what form but that he is, should wit - larded with malice, and malice forced with wit, turn him to? - To an ass, were nothing; he is both ass and ox; to an ox, - were nothing; he is both ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a - cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an owl, a puttock, or a - herring without a roe, I would not care; but to be Menelaus! - I would conspire against destiny. Ask me not what I would be - if I were not Thersites; for I care not to be the louse of a - lazar, so I were not Menelaus." - -One can by no means accept this as merely the outburst of a brawling -slave's hatred of his superiors, for the entirely unprejudiced Diomedes -expresses himself in the same spirit to Paris (Act iv. sc. I): - - "_Paris_. And tell me, noble Diomede, faith, tell me true, - Even in the soul of sound good fellowship, - Who, in your thoughts, merits fair Helen best, - Myself or Menelaus. - _Diomedes_. Both alike: - He merits well to have her that doth seek her, - Not making any scruple of her soilure, - With such a hell of pain and world of charge; - And you as well to keep her, that defend her, - Not palating her dishonour, - With such a costly load of wealth and friends: - He, like a puling cuckold, would drink up - The lees and dregs of a flat tamed piece; - You, like a lecher, out of whorish loins - Are pleased to breed out your inheritors: - Both merits poised, each weighs nor less nor more; - But he as he, the heavier for a whore. - _Paris_. You are too bitter to your countrywoman. - _Diomedes_. She's bitter to her country: hear me, Paris: - For every false drop in her bawdy veins - A Grecian's life hath sunk; for every scruple - Of her contaminated carrion weight - A Trojan hath been slain: since she could speak - She hath not given so many good words breath - As for her Greeks and Trojans have suffered death." - -In the _Iliad_ these forms represent the outcome of the imagination of -the noblest people of the Mediterranean shores, unaffected by religious -terrors and alcohol; they are bright, glad, reverential fantasies, born -in a warm sun under a deep blue sky. From Shakespeare they step forth -travestied by the gloom and bitterness of a great poet of a Northern -race, of a stock civilised by Christianity, not by culture; a stock -which, despite all the efforts of the Renaissance to give new birth -to heathendom, has become, once for all, disciplined and habituated -to look upon the senses as tempters which lead down into the mire; to -which the pleasurable is the forbidden and sexual attraction a disgrace. - -How significant it is that Shakespeare only sees Greek love as -scourged by the lash of venereal diseases. Throughout the entire -play a pestilential breath of innuendo is blown with outbursts of -cursing, all centering on a contagion which first showed itself some -thousand years after the Homeric times. As Homeric friendships are -bestialised, so is Greek love profaned to suit modern circumstances. -To Thersites, the Greek princes are, every one of them, scandalous -rakes. "Here's Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough, and one that loves -quails, but he has not as much brain as earwax" (Act v. sc. I). "That -same Diomed's a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust knave.... They say -he keeps a Trojan drab and uses the traitor Calchas' tent.--Nothing -but lechery; all incontinent varlets" (Act v. sc. I). Achilles, that -"idol of idiot worshippers," that "full dish of fool," has Queen -Hecuba's daughter as a concubine, and has treacherously promised her -to leave his fellow-countrymen in the lurch. "Patroclus will give me -anything for the intelligence of this whore: the parrot will not do -more for an almond than he for a commodious drab. Lechery, lechery -still, nothing else holds fashion." Of Menelaus and Paris, "cuckold and -cuckold-maker," enough has already been said. Helen has been sternly -condemned, and of Cressida with her two adorers, Troilus and Diomedes, -"How the devil luxury, with his fat rump and potato-fingers, tickles -these two together! Fry lechery, fry" (Act v. sc. 2). - -It is clear that the Christian conception of faithlessness in love -has displaced the old Hellenic innocence and naïveté. How fervent is -Achilles' love for Briseis in Homer; how honest, warm, and indignant -he is when he asks Agamemnon's messengers if among the children of -men only the Atrides love their wives, and he himself answers that -every man who is brave and of good understanding loves and shelters -his wife, as he of his inmost heart loved and would shelter Briseis, -prisoner of war though she was. None the less does Homer tell us how -immediately after Achilles has ended his speech and dismissed his -guests, he stretches himself upon his couch, "in the inner room of -his tent, richly wrought, and that fair lady by his side that he from -Lesbos brought, bright Diomeda." It never occurs to the Greek poet that -this implies any faithlessness to the absent Briseis, but Shakespeare's -standard is thoroughly and mediævally rigorous. - -On two points the comparison between Homer and Shakespeare is -inevitable. The first is the farewell between Hector and Andromache. -There is nothing finer in Greek poetry (which is to say, any poetry) -than this tragic idyl, so profoundly human and movingly beautiful as -it is. The pure womanliness which out of deep grief and pain utters -a complaint without weakness, and expresses without sentimentality a -boundless love poured out upon this one object: "Thy life makes still -my father be, my mother, brother, and besides thou art my husband too. -Most loved, most worthy." - -In contrast to this womanliness stands the man's strength, untouched by -harshness, stirred by the deepest tenderness, but fixed in immovable -determination. The picture of the child, too, frightened by the nodding -plumes upon his father's helm, until Hector sets the casque upon the -ground and kisses the tears from the eyes of his boy. The scene takes -place in the sixth book of the _Iliad;_ and could not have been known -to Shakespeare, inasmuch much as it was as yet untranslated by Chapman. -See what he sets in its place: - - "_Andromache_. Unarm, unarm, and do not fight to-day. - - _Hector_. You train me to offend you: get you in: By all the - everlasting gods I'll go! - - _Andromache_. My dreams will, sure, prove ominous to the day. - - _Hector_. No more, I say." - -This is the harshness of a mediæval duke; the golden dust is brushed -from the wings of the Greek Psychè. If Harald Hardrada, as chieftain of -the Varangians, ever gave a thought to the spirit of Greek art, as he -passed with his troops through the streets of Constantinople, he must -have looked upon it thus, despising the ancient Hellenes because he -found the modern cowardly and effeminate. - -Shakespeare had no particular place and no particular people in his -mind when he wrote this play; he simply robbed the finest scenes of -their beauty, because his mind, at that time, had elected to dwell upon -the lowest and basest side of human nature. - -The second point is the mission to Achilles, told in the ninth book -of the _Iliad_. It was translated and published by Chapman in 1598, -and must certainly have been known to Shakespeare.[4] This book is -one of the few finished works of art which have been produced upon -this earth. The Greek Epos itself contains nothing more consummate -than its delineation of character, the contrast between the arrogant -and the intellectual, the polished and the humorous, the interplay of -personality from the highest pathos to the reiterated twaddle of the -old man. Achilles' wrath, Nestor's experience, Odysseus' subtle tact, -Phœnix's good-natured rambling, the wounded pride of the Hellenic -emissaries, are all gathered together in the endeavour to induce -Achilles to quit his tent. - -Contrast this with the burlesque attempt to provoke that cowardly snob -and raw dunce, of an Achilles out of his exclusiveness, by passing -him by without returning his greeting or seeming conscious of his -existence; this same Achilles, who falls upon Hector with his myrmidons -and scoundrelly murders him, just as the hero, wearied by battle, -has taken off his helmet and laid aside his sword. It reads like the -invention of a mediæval barbarian. But Shakespeare is neither mediæval -nor a barbarian. No, he has written it down out of a bitterness so deep -that he has felt hero-worship, like love, to be an illusion of the -senses. As the phantasy of first love is absurd, and Troilus's loyalty -towards its object ridiculous, so is the honour of our forefathers and -of war in general a delusion. Shakespeare now suspects the most assured -reputations; he believes that if Achilles really lived at all, he was -most probably a stupid and vainglorious boaster, just as Helen must -have been a hussy by no means worthy of the turmoil which was made -about her. - -As he distorted Achilles into an absurdity, so he wrenched all other -personalities into caricatures. Gervinus has justly remarked that -Shakespeare here acts very much as his Patroclus does when he mimics -Agamemnon's loftiness and Nestor's weakness, for Achilles' delectation -(Act i. sc. 3). We feel in the delineation of Nestor that Anglo-Saxon -master-hand which seizes upon the unsightly details which the Greek -ignores: - - "He coughs and spits, - And with a palsy fumbling on his gorget, - Shakes in and out the rivet." - -And we recognise in the allusion to the mimicry of Agamemnon that cheap -estimate of an actor's profession, which, with a contempt for the whole -guild of poets, is discernible throughout Shakespeare's works, in spite -of his efforts to raise both callings in the eyes of the public.[5] - -Nestor is overwhelmed with ridicule, and is made to declare, at -the close of the first act, that he will hide his silver beard in -a golden beaver, and will maintain in duel with Hector that his -own long-dead wife was as great a beauty and as chaste a wife as -Hector's--grandmother. - -Ulysses, who is intended to represent the wise man of the play, is as -trivial of mind as the rest. There was a certain amount of grandeur in -the way Iago handled Othello, Rodrigo, and Cassio, as though they were -mere puppets in his hands; but there is none in the sport Ulysses makes -of those swaggering numskulls, Achilles and Ajax. The bitterness which -breathes out of all that Shakespeare writes at this period has found -gratification in making Ulysses not one whit more sublime than the -fools with whom he plays. - -Amongst German critics, Gervinus has characterised _Troilus and -Cressida_ as a good-naturedly humorous play. No description could -be more unlikely. Seldom has a poet been less good-natured than -Shakespeare here. No less impossible is the theory (also nourished -in Gervinus' imagination) that the poet of the English Renaissance -was offended by the loose ethics of Homeric poetry. Shakespeare most -certainly was never so moral as this moralising German critic (and -what German critic is not moralising) would have him to be. It is -not a sense of the ethics of Homer, but a feeling for his poetry -that is lacking. In Shakespeare's time men took too much pleasure in -classical culture to appreciate the antique naïveté. It was not until -the beginning of the nineteenth century, when popular poetry once more -began to be universally honoured, that Homer displaced Virgil in the -popular estimation. Even Goethe preferred Virgil to Homer. Gervinus -is equally wide of the mark when, in his anxiety to prove _Troilus -and Cressida_ a purely literary satire, he hazards the assertion that -Shakespeare never intended here to "hold up a mirror to his times;"[6] -for it is precisely his own times, and no other, that were in his mind -when he wrote this play. - - -[1] _Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespearegesellschaft_, xxv. p. -196; _Westminster Review_, Feb. 1897. - -[2] A. C. Swinburne: _Essay on Chapman_. - -[3] - - "_Patroclus_. No more words, Thersites; peace! - - "_Thersites_. I will hold my peace when Achilles' brach bids - me, shall I?" (Act ii. sc. i.) - - "_Thersites_. Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy - talk: thou art thought to be Achilles' male varlet. - - "_Patroclus_. Male varlet, you rogue! What's that? - - "_Thersites_. Why, his masculine whore. Now the rotten - diseases of the South, the guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs, - loads o' gravel i' the back, lethargies, cold palsies, raw - eyes, dirt rotten livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of - impostume, sciaticas, lime-kilns i' the palm, incurable - bone-ache, and the rivalled fee-simple of the tetter, take - and take again all such preposterous discoveries." (Act v. - sc. 2.) - -[4] The expression "by Jove multi potent," Act iv., sc. 5, is -taken from Chapman. This is the only time it is used by Shakespeare. - -[5] - - And, like a strutting player, whose conceit - Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich - To hear the wooden dialogue and sound - Twixt his stretched footing and the scaffoldage, - Such to be pitied and o'er-wrested seeming - He acts thy greatness in." - -And the passage previously quoted from Macbeth: - - "Life's but . . . . . a poor player, - That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, - And then is heard no more." - -Also the 110th Sonnet. - -[6] "Sein gutmüthiges humoristisches Spiel."--"So kann allerdings -aus der ganzen Darstellung die naheliegende Wahrzeit gezogen werden: -dass die erhabenste Dichtung ohne streng sittlichen Grundlagen nicht -das sei, wozu sie befähigt und berufen ist."--"Gewiss würde er dies -Stück nicht unter die rechnen wollen, die der Zeit einen Spiegel -vorhalten."--Gervinus: _Shakespeare_, iv. 22, 31, 32. - - - - -X - -_SCORN OF WOMAN'S GUILE AND PUBLIC STUPIDITY_ - -Troilus and Cressida first appeared in 1609 in two editions, one of -which is introduced by a remarkable and diverting preface, entitled "A -never writer to an ever reader, News." It says:-- - - "Eternall reader, you have heere a new play, never stal'd - with the stage, never clapper-clawd with the palmes of - the Vulgar, and yet passing full of the palme comicall; - for it is a birth of your brain, that never undertooke - anything comicall, vainely: And were but the vaine names - of commedies changde for the titles of Commodities, or of - Playes for Pleas; you should see all those grand censors, - that now stile them such vanities, flocke to them for the - maine grace of their gravities: especially this author's - Commedies, that are so framed to the life, that they serve - for the most common Commentaries, of all the actions of - our lives, shewing such a dexteritie, and power of witte, - that the most displeased with playes are pleased with his - comedies. And all such dull and heavy-witted worldlings, as - were never capable of the witte of a commedie, coming by - report of them to his representations, have found that witte - there, that they never found in themselves, and have parted - better witted than they came: feeling an edge of witte set - upon them, more than ever they dreamed they had brain to - grind it on. So much and such sauvred salt of witte is in - his Commedies, that they seem (for their height of pleasure) - to be borne in that sea that brought forth Venus. Amongst - all there is none more witty than this. And had I time I - would comment upon it, though I know it needs it not (for so - much as will make you think your testerne well bestowed), - but for so much worth, as ever poore I know to be stuft in - it. It deserves such a labour, as well as the best Commedy - in Terence or Plautus. And believe this, that when he is - gone, and his Commedies out of sale, you will scramble for - them and set up a new English inquisition. Take this for a - warning, and at the perrill of your pleasures losse, and - judgements, refuse not nor like this the less for not being - sullied with the smoaky breath of the multitude; but thanke - fortune for the scape it hath made amongst you. Since by the - grand possessors wills I believe you should have prayed for - them rather than been prayed. And so I leave all such to be - prayed for (for the state of their witte's health) that will - not praise it. VALE." - -How remarkable a comprehension of Shakespeare's work this old-time -preface shows, how clear-sighted an enthusiasm, and how just a -perception of his position in the future. - -The play was again published in 1623 in folio, and under conditions -which betray the publisher's perplexity as to its classification. It is -altogether missing from the list of contents, in which the plays are -arranged under three headings, comedies, histories, and tragedies. It -is thrust, unpaged, into the middle of the book, between the histories -and the tragedies, between _Henry VIII._ and _Coriolanus_, probably -because the editor mistakenly deemed it to contain more of history and -of tragedy than of comedy. Of all Shakespeare's works, it is _Troilus -and Cressida_ which most nearly approaches the _Don Quixote_ of -Cervantes. - -It is a proof of the stultifying effect of the too close attention -of philological critics to metrical peculiarities (peculiarities -which a poet can always accommodate as he thinks proper) upon the -finer psychological sense, that either the whole or a greater part of -_Troilus and Cressida_ has been taken for the work of Shakespeare's -youth, and has been attributed to the _Romeo and Juliet_ period. This -view has been taken by L. Moland and C. d'Hericault in their _Nouvelles -Françaises du 14me Siècle_, and not a few undiscerning -biographers of Shakespeare. - -The contrast between the two plays is remarkable and instructive. -_Romeo and Juliet_ is a genuine work of youth, a product of truth and -faith. _Troilus and Cressida_ is the outcome of the disillusionment, -suspicion, and bitterness of ripe manhood. The critics have been -deceived by the apparently astonishing youthfulness of parts of -_Troilus and Cressida_, some upon the ground of its occasional -euphuisms and bombast (evidently satirical), others by the enthusiasm -of youth and absorption in love which some of Troilus's replies -express; for instance: - - "I tell thee I am mad - In Cressid's love: thou answer'st 'She is fair,' - Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart - Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice," &c. - -In his most ardent raptures there sounds a note of ridicule.[1]. - -All this is a complete inversion of _Romeo and Juliet_. His youthful -tragedy portrayed a woman so staunchly true in love that she is driven -thereby to a bitter death. _Troilus and Cressida_ deals with a woman -whose constancy fails at the first proof. There is no abyss between the -soul and the senses in _Romeo and Juliet_; the two melt into one in -fullest harmony. But it is the lower side of love's ideal nature which -is parodied in _Troilus and Cressida,_ and causes it to resemble the -flippant accompaniment to the serenade in Mozart's _Don Juan_, which -caricatures the sentimentality of the text. - -It is true that there is a chivalrous fine feeling and sensual -tenderness in Troilus's love, which seems to foreshadow, as it were, -that which some centuries later found such full expression in Keats. -But the melancholy of Shakespeare's matured perception sets its iron -tooth in everything at this period of his life, and he looks upon -absorption in love as senseless and laughable. He shows us how blindly -Troilus runs into the snare, giddy with happiness and uplifted to the -heavens, and how the next moment he awakes from his intoxication, -betrayed; but he shows it without sympathy, coldly. Therefore, the play -never once arouses any true emotion, since Troilus himself never really -interests. The piece blazes out, but imparts no warmth. Shakespeare -wrote it thus, and therefore, while _Troilus and Cressida_ will find -many readers who will admire it, few will love it. - -Shakespeare deliberately made Cressida sensually attractive, but -spiritually repulsive and unclean. She has desire for Troilus, but no -love. She is among those who are born experienced; she knows how to -inflame, win, and keep men enchained, but the honourable love of a man -is useless to her. At the same time she is one of those who easily -find their master. Any man who is not imposed upon by her airs, who -sees through her mock-prudish rebuffs, subdues her without difficulty. -All her sagacity amounted to, after all, was that Troilus would -continue ardent so long as she said "No;" that men, in short, value -the unattainable and what is won with difficulty,--the wisdom of any -commonplace coquette. Never has Shakespeare represented coquetry as so -void of charming qualities. - -Cressida is never modest even when she is most prudish; she understands -a jest, even bold and libertine ones, and she will bandy them with -enjoyment. With all her kittenish charm she is uninteresting, and, in -spite of her hot blood, she betrays the coldest selfishness. She is -neither ridiculous nor unlovely, but as little is she beautiful; in no -other of Shakespeare's characters is the sensual attraction exercised -by a woman so completely shorn of its poetry. - -Her uncle Pandarus is as experienced as she is in the art of exciting -by alternately thrusting forward and holding back. He has been named a -demoralised Polonius, and the epithet is good. He is an old voluptuary, -who finds his amusement in playing the spy and go-between, now that -more active pleasures are denied to him. The cynical enjoyment with -which Shakespeare (in spite of his contempt for him) has drawn him is -very characteristic of this period of his life. Pandarus is clever -enough, and often witty, but there is no enjoyment of his wit; he is -as comical, base, and shameless as Falstaff himself, but he never -calls forth the abstract sympathy we feel for the latter. Nothing -makes amends for his vileness, nor for that of Thersites, nor for that -of any other character in the whole play. Here, as in other plays, -_Timon of Athens_ in particular, is shown that deep-seated Anglo-Saxon -vein which, according to the popular estimate, Shakespeare entirely -lacked,--that vein in which flows the life-blood of Swift's, Hogarth's, -and even some of Byron's principal works, and it shows how, after all, -there was some sympathy between the Merrie England of those days and -the later Land of Spleen. - -We have noticed the harsh strength of Ulysses' judgment of Cressida, -and in the decisive scene, in which Troilus is the unseen witness of -Cressida's perfidy, are written words so weighty and so full of emotion -that we feel Shakespeare's very soul speaks in them. - -Diomedes begs Cressida for the scarf which Troilus has given her. - - "_Diomedes_. I had your heart before, this follows it. - - _Troilus (aside)_. I did swear patience. - - _Cressida_. You shall not have it, Diomed, faith you shall - not: I'll give you something else. - - _Diomedes_. I will have this: whose was it? - - _Cressida_. It is no matter. - - _Diomedes_. _Come, tell me whose it was?_ - - _Cressida_. _'Twas one that loved me better than you will'_ - _But, now you have it, take it._" - -And the bit of feminine psychology which Shakespeare has given in -Cressida's farewell to Diomedes: - - "Good-night: I prithee, come. - Troilus, farewell! one eye yet looks on thee, - _But with my heart the other eye doth see_. - Ah, poor our sex! This fault in us I find, - The error of our eye directs our mind." - -And the terrible words Shakespeare puts into Troilus's mouth when -he tries so desperately to shake off the impression, and deny the -possibility of what he has seen: - - - "_Ulysses_. Why stay we, then?' - _Troilus_. To make a recordation to my soul - Of every syllable that here was spoken. - But if I tell how these two did co-act, - Shall I not lie in publishing this truth? - Sith yet there is a credence in my heart - An esperance so obstinately strong, - That doth invert the attest of eyes and ears, - As if those organs had deceptious functions - Created only to calumniate. - Was Cressid here? - _Ulysses_. I cannot conjure, Trojan. - _Troilus_. She was not, sure. - _Ulysses_. Most sure she was. - _Troilus_. Why, my negation hath no taste of madness. - _Ulysses_. Nor mine, my lord. Cressid was here but now. - _Troilus_. Let it not be believed for womanhood! - _Think, we had mothers_: do not give advantage - To stubborn critics, apt, without a theme, - For depravation, to square this general sex - By Cressid's rule; rather think this not Cressid. - _Ulysses_. What hath she done, prince, that can soil our - mothers? - _Troilus_. Nothing at all, unless that that were she." - -Not only Troilus, but the whole play has here become permeated by -Ulysses' conception of Cressida, and in this despairing outburst, -"Think, we had mothers," is the pith of the piece uttered forth with -terrible clearness. - -Yet Troilus and Cressida by no means represent the whole of the play. -In order to counterbalance the slightness of the action, the bombastic -speech, the railing abuse, and the heavy bitter Juvenal-like satire of -his drama, Shakespeare has interpolated some serious and thoughtful -utterances in which some of the fruits of his abundant experience are -expressed in weighty and concise form. - -Achilles, and more especially Ulysses, give vent to profound political -and psychological reflections, entirely regardless of the fact that -the one is a thoughtless blockhead, and the other is a crafty and -unsympathetic nature, the mere negative pole of Troilus, cold as he -is warm, cunning as he is naïve. These remarkable and thoughtful -utterances, not in the least in harmony with their characters, stand in -direct contradiction to the whole play and its farcical treatment, but -they are none the less notable for that. This singular inconsistency is -one of the many in which this incongruous play is so rich, and it is -these very contradictions which make it attractive, insomuch as they -reveal the conflicting moods from which it sprang. They arrest the -attention like the irregular features of a face whose expression varies -between irony, satire, melancholy, and profundity. - -Ulysses, who is represented as the sole statesman among the Greeks, -degrades himself by low flattery of the idiotic Ajax, servilely -referring to him as "this thrice worthy and right valiant lord," -who should not soil the victory he has won by going as messenger to -Achilles' tent, and he persuades the princes to pass Achilles by -without greeting him. On this occasion Achilles, who is otherwise but -a braggart, dolt, coward, and scoundrel, surprises us by a succession -of outbursts, in each of which he gives voice to as deep and bitter -knowledge of human nature as does Timon of Athens himself. - - "What, am I poor of late? - 'Tis certain greatness once fall'n out with Fortune - Must fall out with men too: what the declined is - He shall as soon read in the eyes of others, - As feel in his own fall. - . . . . . . . - And not a man, for being simply man, - Hath any honour, but honour for those honours - That are without him, as place, riches, favour, - Prizes of accident as oft as merit: - Which when they fall, as being slippery standers, - The love that leaned on them is slippery too, - Do one pluck down another, and together - Die in the fall." - -Ulysses now enters upon a thoughtful conversation with Achilles, -calling his attention to the fact that no man, however highly advanced -he may be, has any real knowledge of his worth until he has received -the judgment of others and observed their attitude towards him. -Achilles answers him a happy and pertinent analogy on principles of -pure philosophical reasonings, and Ulysses continues: - - "That no man is the lord of anything - Till he communicate his parts to others; - Nor doth he of himself know them for aught - Till he behold them formed in the applause - Where they're extended: who like an arch reverberates - The voice again, or, like a gate of steel - Fronting the sun, receives and renders back - His figure and his heart." - -Achilles interrupts a long discourse, ending with a thrust at Ajax, -with the question "What, are my deeds forgot?" and the remarkable -answer he receives reveals, to an observant reader, one of the sources -of the bitterness and pessimism of the play. It can scarcely be doubted -that Shakespeare at this time felt himself ousted from the popular -favour by younger and less worthy men: we know that immediately after -his death he was eclipsed by Fletcher. He is absorbed by a feeling of -the ingratitude of man and the injustice of what is called the way of -the world. We found the first traces of this feeling in the words of -Bertram's dead father, quoted by the King in _All's Well that Ends -Well_, and here it breaks out in full force in a reply whose very weak -pretext is that of showing Achilles how ill advised he is to rest upon -his laurels: - - "Time hath, my lord, a wallet on his back, - Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, - A great-sized monster of ingratitudes: - Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devoured - As fast as they are made, forgot as soon - As done: perseverance dear, my lord, - Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hang - Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail - In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; - For honour travels in a strait so narrow, - Where but one goes abreast: keep then the path; - For emulation hath a thousand sons - That one by one pursue: if you give way, - Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, - Like to an entered tide, they all rush by - And leave you hindmost; - Or like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank, - Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, - O'errun and trampled on: then what they do in present, - Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours; - For time is like a fashionable host, - That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, - And with his arms outstretched, as he would fly, - Grasps in the comer; welcome ever smiles, - And farewell goes out sighing. Oh, let not virtue seek - Remuneration for the thing it was; - For beauty, wit, - High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, - Love, friendship, charity are subjects all - To envious and calumniating time. - One touch of nature makes the whole world kin, - That all with one consent praise new-born gauds, - Though they are made and moulded of things past; - And give to dust that is a little gilt - More land than gilt o'erdusted." - -How plainly is one of the sources betrayed here of the black waters -of bitterness which bubble up in _Troilus and Cressida_, a bitterness -which spares neither man nor woman, war nor love, hero nor lover, and -which springs in part from woman's guile, in part from the undoubted -stupidity of the English public. In the latter part of the conversation -between Ulysses and Achilles the former has some renowned words on -the direction of the state--its ideal government, that is to say. The -incongruity between the circumstance of utterance and the utterance -itself is nowhere more striking in this play than here. Ulysses tells -Achilles that they all know why he refuses to take part in the battle; -every one is well aware that he is in love with Priam's daughter; and -when Achilles exclaims in amazement at finding the secrets of his -private life disclosed, Ulysses, with a solemnity inconsistent with the -triviality of the subject and the grim ways of espionage, gives the -almost mystical and too profound answer: - - "Is that a wonder? - The providence that's in a watchful state - Knows almost every grain of Pluto's gold, - Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps, - Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods, - Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles. - There is a mystery--with whom relation - Durst never meddle--in the soul of state; - Which hath an operation more divine - Than breath or pen can give expression to." - -He then turns abruptly to the subject of Achilles's amours with -Polyxena being common talk, and seeks to provoke the lover into -joining the combat by telling him that it has become a common jest -that Achilles has conquered Hector's sister, but that Ajax has subdued -Hector himself, and then ends his speech with the following obscure -allusion to the relation between Achilles and Ajax:-- - - "Farewell, my lord. I as your lover speak: - The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break."[2] - -In spite of the strange inconsistency of all these political allusions, -they are of the greatest interest to us, inasmuch as they so clearly -indicate Shakespeare's next great work, the Roman tragedy of -_Coriolanus_ (1608). - -Ulysses makes steady protest against the vulgar error that it is the -gross work, and not the guiding spirit, which is decisive in war and -politics. He complains of the abuse Achilles and Thersites heap upon -the leaders of the campaign (Act i. sc. 3): - - "They tax our policy and call it cowardice, - Count wisdom as no member of the war, - Forestall prescience, and esteem no act - But that of hand: the still and mental parts - That do contrive how many hands shall strike - When fitness calls them on, and know by measure - Of their observant toil the enemies' weight-- - Why, 'this hath not a finger's dignity," &c. - -It is, of course, Thersites who has taken the lead; the light wit and -deep humour of the earlier clowns is displaced in him by the frantic -outbursts of a contemptible scamp. Throughout, Thersites is intended as -a caricature of the envious and worthless (if sharpsighted) plebeian, -of whose wit Shakespeare has need for the complete scourging of an -arrogant and corrupt aristocracy, but whose politics are the subject -of his utter disgust and scorn. As the haughty intelligence of Ulysses -seems to foreshadow Prospero, but without his bright supernatural -clearness, so does Thersites seem to be a preliminary sketch for -Caliban, barring his heavy, earthy, grotesque clumsiness. The character -more immediately allied to that of Thersites, however, is not Caliban, -but that grim cynic Apemantus in _Timon of Athens_. - -Still more significant than the previously quoted lines is the speech -in which Ulysses (Act i. sc. 3) develops a political view which was -obviously Shakespeare's own, and which is soon to be proclaimed in -_Coriolanus_. Its point of view proceeds from the conviction, expressed -in our day by Nietzsche, that the distance between man and man must on -no account be bridged over, and is introduced by a half-astronomical, -half-astrological explanation of the Ptolemaic system: - - "The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre - Observe degree, priority, and place, - Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, - Office and custom, in all line of order; - And therefore is the glorious planet Sol - In noble eminence enthroned and sphered - Amidst the others; whose med'cinable eye - Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil, - And posts, like the commandment of a king, - Sans check to good and bad: but when the planets - In evil mixture to disorder wander, - What plagues and what portents! what mutiny! - What raging of the sea! frights, changes, horrors, - Divert and crack, rend and deracinate - The unity and married calm of states - Quite from their fixture." - -The remainder of the passage has become a fixed ingredient of English -Shakespearian anthologies, and carries us on directly into _Coriolanus_: - - "Oh, when degree is shaked, - Which is the ladder to all high designs, - Then enterprise is sick.... - Take but degree away, untune that string, - And hark, what discord follows! each thing meets - In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters - Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores, - And make a sop of all this solid globe: - Strength should be lord of imbecility, - And the rude son should strike the father dead. - Force should be right; or rather right and wrong, - Between whose endless jar justice resides, - Should lose their names, and so should justice too. - . . . . . . . . - This chaos, when degree is suffocate, - Follows the choking. - And this neglection of degree it is - That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose - It hath to climb. The general's disdained - By him one step below, he by the next, - That next by him beneath... - ... It grows to an envious fever - Of pale and bloodless emulation." - -Shakespeare has so often emphasised the superiority of real merit to -outside show, that he needs no vindication from a charge of worship of -mere rank and station. What he here expresses is merely that inherently -aristocratic point of view which we recognized in his early works, and -which has intensified with increasing years. It was from the first -founded upon a conviction that only among an hereditary aristocracy, -under a well-established monarchy, was any patronage of his art and -profession possible, and the opinion, steadily nourished by the enmity -of the middle classes, will soon be expressed with extraordinary -vehemence in _Coriolanus_. - -_Troilus and Cressida_, then, which seems at first sight to be -a romantic play founded on an old world subject, is in reality, -despite its embellishments, a satire on the ancient material, and a -parody of romanticism itself. It cannot therefore be classed with -the attempts made by other great poets to resuscitate the old Greek -personalities. Racine's _Iphigenia in Aulis_ and Goethe's _Iphigenia -in Tauris_, were written in serious earnestness, although neither of -them approximated closely to the old world of tradition. Racine's -Greeks are courtly Frenchmen from the salons, and Goethe's are German -princes and princesses, of humane and classic culture, who attitudinise -like the figures in a painting by Raphael Mengs. It may be said that -Shakespeare's Hector, who quotes Aristotle, and his Lord Achilles, -with his spurs and long sword, are as much noblemen of the Renaissance -as Racine's Seigneur Achilles is a courtier in periwig and red-heeled -shoes. But Racine meant no satire, while Shakespeare most deliberately -caricatured. All turns to discord under his touch; love is betrayed, -heroes are murdered, constancy ridiculed, levity and coarseness -triumph, and no gleam of better things shines out at the end. The play -closes with an indecent jest of the loathsome Pandar's. - - -[1] Troilus's euphuisms:-- - - "I was about to tell thee: when my heart - As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain, - Lest Hector or my father should perceive me, - I have, as when the sun doth light a storm, - Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile" (Act i. sc. I). - "----O gentle Pandarus, - From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings, - And fly with me to Cressid" (Act iii. sc. 2). - -[2] F. Halliwell-Phillips has published, concerning these last -two lines, a miniature book, _The Fool and the Ice_, London, 1883. He -explains that a whole little history lies behind this curious simile. -When Lord Chandos's Company played at Evesham, near Stratford (before -1600), a country fool there, Jack Miller by name, became so infatuated -with their clown that he wanted to run away with them, and had, -consequently, to be locked up. He saw from the window, however, that -the company was preparing to depart, and springing out, sped, in spite -of the danger, over forty yards of ice so thin that it would not bear a -piece of brick which was laid upon it. (First told in a little book by -the player Robert Arnim, afterwards one of Shakespeare's colleagues. It -was published in 1603 under the title "Foole upon Foole, or Sixe Sortes -of Sottes, by Colonnico del Mondo Snuffe," clown at the Globe Theatre.) - - - - -XI - -_DEATH OF SHAKESPEARE'S MOTHER--CORIOLANUS--HATRED OF THE MASSES_ - -Shakespeare's mother was buried on the 9th of September 1608. He had -travelled about the country of late, playing with his company, from the -middle of May until far into the autumn, during which period court and -aristocracy were absent from the capital. It is not certain whether -he had returned to London at this time or not, but he hastened to -Stratford on hearing of his mother's death, and must have stayed some -time on his property, "New Place," after attending her funeral; for -we find him still at Stratford on the 16th of October. On that day he -stands godfather to the son of a friend of his youth, Henry Walker, an -alderman of the borough, who is mentioned in Shakespeare's will. - -The death of a mother is always a mournfully irreparable loss, often -the saddest a man can sustain. We can realise how deeply it would go -to Shakespeare's heart when we remember the capacity for profound -and passionate feeling with which nature had blessed and cursed him. -We know little of his mother; but judging from that affinity which -generally exists between famous sons and their mothers, we may suppose -that she was no ordinary woman. Mary Arden, who belonged to an old and -honourable family, which traced its descent (perhaps justly) back to -the days of Edward the Confessor, represented the haughty patrician -element of the Shakespeare family. Her ancestors had borne their coat -of arms for centuries, and the son would be proud of his mother for -this among other reasons, just as the mother would be proud of her son. - -In the midst of the prevailing gloom and bitterness of his spirit, -this fresh blow fell upon him, and, out of his weariness of life as -his surroundings and experiences showed it to him, recalled this one -mainstay to him--his mother. He remembered all she had been to him for -forty-four years, and the thoughts of the man and the dreams of the -poet were thus led to dwell upon the significance in a man's life of -this unique form, comparable to no other--his mother. - -Thus it was that, although his genius must follow the path it had -entered upon and pursue it to the end, we find, in the midst of all -that was low and base in his next work, this one sublime mother-form, -the proudest and most highly-wrought that he has drawn, Volumnia. - -The _Tragedy of Coriolanus_ was first published in 1623, in folio -edition, but 1608 is the generally accepted date of its production, -partly because a speech in Ben Jonson's _The Silent Woman_ (1609) -seems to indicate a reminiscence of _Coriolanus_, and partly because -many different critics concur in the opinion that its style and -versification point to that year. - -How came this work to emerge from the depths of all the discontent, -despondency, hatred of life, and contempt for humanity which went at -this time to make up Shakespeare's soul? He was angry and soured, and -the sources of his embittered feelings are embodied in his plays, -seeking outlet, now under one, now under another form. In _Troilus -and Cressida_ it was the relation of the sexes; here it is social -conditions and politics. - -His point of view is as personal as it well could be. Shakespeare's -aversion to the mob was based upon his contempt for their -discrimination, but it had its deepest roots in the purely physical -repugnance of his artist nerves to their plebeian atmosphere. It was -obvious in _Troilus and Cressida_ that the irritation with public -stupidity was at its height. He now, for the third time, finds in his -Plutarch a subject which not only responds to the mood of the moment, -but also gives him an opportunity for portraying a notable mother; and -he is irresistibly drawn to give his material dramatic style. - -It is the old traditional story of Coriolanus, great man and great -general, who, in the remote days of Roman antiquity, became involved in -such hopeless conflict with the populace of his native city, and was -so roughly dealt with by them in return, that he was driven, in his -bitterness, to reckless deeds. - -Plutarch, however, was by no means prejudiced against the people, and -the subject had to be entirely re-fashioned by Shakespeare before it -would harmonise with his mood. The historian may be guilty of serious -contradictions in matters of detail, but he endeavours, to the best -of his ability, to enter into the circumstances of times which were -of hoary antiquity, even to him. The main drift of his narrative is -to the effect that Coriolanus had already attained to great authority -and influence in the city, when the Senate, which represented the -wealth of the community, came into collision with the masses. The -people were overridden by usurers, the law was terribly severe upon -debtors, and the poor were subjected to incessant distraint; their few -possessions were sold, and men who had fought bravely for their country -and were covered with honourable scars were frequently imprisoned. -In the recent war with the Sabines the patricians had been forced to -promise the people better treatment in the future, but the moment the -war was over they broke their word, and distraint and imprisonment -went on as before. After this the plebeians refused to come forward at -the conscription, and the patricians, in spite of the opposition of -Coriolanus, were compelled to yield. - -Shakespeare was evidently incapable of forming any idea of the free -citizenship of olden days, still less of that period of ferment during -which the Roman people united to form a vigorous political party, a -civic and military power combined, which proved the nucleus round which -the great Roman Empire eventually shaped itself--a power of which J. L. -Heiberg's words on thought might have been predicted: "It will conquer -the world, nothing less." - -Much the same thing was occurring in Shakespeare's own time, and, under -his very eyes, as it were, the English people were initiating their -struggle for self-government. But they who constituted the Opposition -were antagonistic to him and his art, and he looked without sympathy -upon their conflict. Thus it was that those proud and self-reliant -plebeians, who exiled themselves to Mons Sacer sooner than submit -to the yoke of the patricians, represented no more to him than did -that London mob which was daily before his eyes. To him the Tribunes -of the People were but political agitators of the lowest type, mere -personifications of the envy of the masses, and representatives of -their stupidity and their brute force of numbers. Ignoring every -incident which shed a favourable light upon the plebeians, he seized -upon every instance of popular folly which could be found in Plutarch's -account of a later revolt, in order to incorporate it in his scornful -delineation. Again and again he insists, by means of his hero's -passionate invective, on the cowardice of the people, and that in the -face of Plutarch's explicit testimony to their bravery. His detestation -of the mass thrived upon this reiterated accentuation of the wretched -pusillanimity of the plebeians, which went hand-in-hand with a -rebellious hatred for their benefactors. - -Was it Shakespeare's intention to allude to the strained relations -existing between James and his Parliament? Does Coriolanus represent -an aristocratically-minded poet's side-glance at the political -situation in England? I fancy it does. Heaven knows there was little -resemblance between the amazingly craven and vacillating James and -the haughty, resolute hero of Roman tradition, who fought a whole -garrison single-handed. Nor was it personal resemblance which suggested -the comparison, but a general conception of the situation as between -a beneficent power on the one hand and the people on the other. He -regarded the latter wholly as mob, and looked upon their struggle for -freedom as mutiny, pure and simple. - -It is hard to have to say it, but the more one studies Shakespeare -with reference to contemporary history, the more is one struck by the -evident necessity he felt, in spite of the undoubted disgust with -which King and Court inspired him, for seeking the support of the -kingly power against his adversaries. Many are the unmistakable, though -discreet and delicate, compliments he addresses to the monarch. - -It was even before his accession that we detected, in _Hamlet_, the -first glance in the direction of James. The accentuation of Hamlet's -relations with the players is not without its acknowledgments and -appeal to the Scottish monarch. In _Measure for Measure_ the stress -laid upon the Duke's doubly careful watch over all that transpires -in Vienna during the apparent neglect of his absence was undoubtedly -intended to excuse James's somewhat cowardly desertion of London, -immediately after his coronation, for the whole time the plague raged -there. We find this feeling again in _Coriolanus_, and again in _The -Tempest_, which was written for the wedding festivities of the Princess -Elizabeth and the Elector Palatine, and which contains, under cover of -the sagacious Prospero, many subtle and dainty, but utterly undeserved, -compliments to the wise and learned King James. There is a striking -analogy between the relations of Molière to Louis XIV. and those of -Shakespeare to his king. Both great men had the religious prejudices of -the people against them; both, as poets of the royal theatre, had to -make some show of subservience, but Molière could feel a more sincere -admiration for his Louis than could Shakespeare for his James. - -In an otherwise masterly review of _The Tempest_ in the _Universal -Review_ for 1889, Richard Garnett has called _Coriolanus_ a reflection -of a Conservative's view of James's struggle with the Parliament. This -is an exaggeration, which leads him to raise the question as to whether -the play owed its origin to the first conflict with the House, or the -second in 1614. He pronounces for the latter, and thus arrives at an -opinion, held by himself alone, that _Coriolanus_ was Shakespeare's -last work. - -The argument on which he bases this view proves, on closer inspection, -to be entirely worthless. Some lines in the fifth Act (sc. 5) run as -follows: - - "Think with thyself - How much more unfortunate than all living women - Are we come thither." - -In the older editions of North's translations of Plutarch (1595 and -1603) it stands thus: "How much more _unfortunately_ than all the women -living," the form _unfortunate_ of the tragedy not appearing until the -edition of 1612. This circumstance was detected by Halliwell-Phillips, -and led him and Garnett to the conclusion that Shakespeare used the -edition of 1612, and cannot therefore have written his drama before -that year. When we consider how very slight the deviation is, and -how it was practically necessitated by the metre, we see what a -poor criterion it is of the date of production. Moreover, precisely -the opposite conclusion might be drawn from a comparison of North's -translation with other details of the play. In the fourth Act (sc. 5) -we find, for example: - - "----For if - I had feared death, of all men i' the world - I would have Voided thee; but _in mere spite_ - To be quit of those my banishers - Stand I before thee here." - -In the 1579 and 1595 editions of North it stands thus: "For if I had -feared death, I would not have come thither to have put myself in -hazard, but prickt forward _with spite_" - -In all later editions the italicised words are omitted, "with desire -to be revenged" being substituted in their stead. According to this -method, a very much earlier date might be assumed for _Coriolanus_, but -both arguments are equally worthless. - -We have, therefore, no occasion to abandon 1608 on that ground, -and we have certainly no need to do so for the sake of a fanciful -approximation of the position of Coriolanus to that of James at the -dissolution of Parliament in 1614. - -Thus much, at any rate, can be declared with absolute certainty, that -the anti-democratic spirit and passion of the play sprang from no -momentary political situation, but from Shakespeare's heart of hearts. -We have watched its growth with the passing of years. A detestation of -the mob, a positive hatred of the mass as mass, can be traced in the -faltering efforts of his early youth. We may see its workings in what -is undoubtedly Shakespeare's own description of Jack Cade's rebellion -in the _Second Part of Henry VI_, and we divine it again in the -conspicuous absence of all allusion to Magna Charta displayed in _King -John_. - -We have already stated that Shakespeare's aristocratic contempt for -the mob had its root in a purely physical aversion for the atmosphere -of the "people." We need but to glance through his works to find the -proof of it. In the _Second Part of Henry VI_. (Act iv. sc. 7) Dick -entreats Cade "that the laws of England may come out of his mouth;" -whereupon Smith remarks aside: "It will be stinking law; for his breath -stinks with eating toasted cheese." And again in Casca's description -of Cæsar's demeanour when he refuses the crown at the Lupercalian -festival: "He put it the third time by, and still he refused it; the -rabblement hooted and clapped their chapped hands, and threw up their -sweaty nightcaps, and _uttered such a deal of stinking breath_ because -Cæsar refused the crown, that it had almost choked Cæsar; for he -swooned and fell down at it: and for mine own part, I durst not laugh -for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air" (_Julius Cæsar_, -Act i. sc. 2). - -Also the words in which Cleopatra (in the last scene of the play) -expresses her horror of being taken in Octavius Cæsar's triumph to Rome: - - "Now, Iras, what thinkest thou? - Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shalt be shown - In Rome as well as I: mechanic slaves, - With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers, shall - Uplift us to the view; _in their thick breaths,"_ - _Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclosed_ - _And forced to drink their vapour._" - -All Shakespeare's principal characters display this shrinking from the -mob, although motives of interest may induce them to keep it concealed. -When Richard II., having banished Bolingbroke, describes the latter's -farewell to the people, he says (_Richard II_., Act i. sc. 4): - - "Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green, - Observed his courtship to the common people; - How did he seem to dive into their hearts - With humble and familiar courtesy, - Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smile - And patient underbearing of his fortune, - As 'twere to banish their effects with him. - Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench, - A brace of draymen bid God-speed him well, - And had the tribute of his supple knee, - With 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends.'" - -The number of these passages proves that it was, in plain words, their -evil smell which repelled Shakespeare. He was the true artist in this -respect too, and more sensitive to noxious fumes than any woman. At -the present period of his life this particular distaste has grown to a -violent aversion. The good qualities and virtues of the people do not -exist for him; he believes their sufferings to be either imaginary or -induced by their own faults. Their struggles are ridiculous to him, and -their rights a fiction; their true characteristics are accessibility to -flattery and ingratitude towards their benefactors; and their only real -passion is an innate, deep, and concentrated hatred of their superiors; -but all these qualities are merged in this chief crime: they _stink_. - - "_Cor_. For the mutable _rank-scented_ many, let them - Regard me as I do not flatter, and - Therein behold themselves" (Act iii. sc. I). - "_Brutus_. I heard him swear, - Were he to stand for consul, never would he - Appear i' the market-place, nor on him put - The napless vesture of humility; - Nor, showing as the manner is, his wounds - To the people, beg their _stinking breaths"_ (Act ii. sc. I). - - -When Coriolanus is banished by the people, he turns upon them with the -outburst: - - "You common cry of curs! _whose breath I hate_ - As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize - As the dead carcases of unburied men - That do corrupt my air" (Act iii. sc. 3) - -When old Menenius, Coriolanus's enthusiastic admirer, hears that the -banished man has gone over to the Volscians, he says to the People's -Tribunes: - - "You have made good work, - You and your apron-men: you that stood so much - Upon the voice of occupation and - The breath of _garlic-eaters!_" (Act iv. sc. 6). - - -And a little farther on: - - "Here come the clusters. - And is Aufidius with him? You are they - That made the air unwholesome when you cast - Your _stinking_ greasy caps up, hooting at - Coriolanus' exile." - -If we seek to know how Shakespeare came by this non-political but -purely sensuous contempt for the people, we must search for the reason -among the experiences of his own daily life. Where but in the course of -his connection with the theatre would he come into contact with those -whom he looked upon as human vermin? He suffered under the perpetual -obligation of writing, staging, and acting his dramas with a view -to pleasing the Great Public. His finest and best had always most -difficulty in making its way, and hence the bitter words in _Hamlet_ -about the "excellent play" which "was never acted, or, if it was, not -above once; for the play, I remember, pleased not the _million_." - -Into this epithet, "the million," Shakespeare has condensed his -contempt for the masses as art critics. Even the poets, and they are -many, who have been honest and ardent political democrats, have seldom -extended their belief in the majority to a faith in its capacity for -appraising their art. The most liberal-minded of them all well know -that the opinion of a connoisseur is worth more than the judgment of a -hundred thousand ignoramuses. With Shakespeare, however, his artist's -scorn for the capacity of the many did not confine itself to the sphere -of Art, but included the world beyond. As, year after year, his glance -fell from the stage upon the flat caps covering the unkempt hair of the -crowding heads down there in the open yard which constituted the pit, -his sentiments grew increasingly contemptous towards "the groundlings." -These unwashed citizens, "the understanding gentlemen of the ground," -as Ben Jonson nicknamed them, were attired in unlovely black smocks -and goatskin jerkins, which had none too pleasant an odour. They were -called "nutcrackers" from their habit of everlastingly cracking nuts -and throwing the shells upon the stage. Tossing about apple-peel, -corks, sausage ends, and small pebbles was another of their amusements. -Tobacco, ale, and apple vendors forced their way among them, and even -before the curtain was lifted a reek of tobacco-smoke and beer rose -from the crowd impatiently waiting for the prima donna to be shaved. -The fashionable folk of the stage and boxes, whom they hated, and with -whom they were ever seeking occasion to brawl, called them _stinkards_. -Abuse was flung backwards and forwards between them, and the pit threw -apples and dirt, and even went so far as to spit on to the stage. In -the _Gull's Hornebooke_ (1609) Dekker says: "The stage, like time, will -bring you to most perfect light and lay you open: neither are you to -be hunted from thence, though the _scarecrows_ in the _yard_ hoot at -you, hiss at you, spit on you." As late as 1614 the prologue to an old -comedy, _The Hog has lost his Pearl_, says: - - "We may be pelted off for what we know, - With apples, eggs, or stones, from _those below_." - -Who knows if Shakespeare was better satisfied with the less rowdy -portion of his audience? Art was not the sole attraction of the -theatre. We read in an old book on English plays:-- - -"In the play-houses at London it is the fashion of youthes to go first -into the _yarde_ and carry their eye through every gallery; then, like -unto ravens, when they spy the carrion, thither they fly and press as -near to the fairest as they can."[1] These fine gentlemen, who sat or -reclined at full length on the stage, were probably as much occupied -with their ladies as the less well- to-do theatre-goers. We know that -they occasionally watched the play as Hamlet did, with their heads in -their mistresses' laps, for the position is described in Fletcher's -_Queen of Corinth_ (Act i. sc. 2): - - "For the fair courtier, the woman's man, - That tells my lady stories, dissolves riddles, - Ushers her to her coach, _lies at her feet_ - _At solemn masques, applauding what she laughs at._" - -Dekker (_Gulfs Hornebooke_) informs us that keen card-playing went on -amongst some of the spectators, while others read, drank, or smoked -tobacco. Christopher Marlowe has an epigram on this last practice, -and Ben Jonson complains in his _Bartholomew Fair_ of "those who -accommodate gentlemen with tobacco at our theatres." He gives an -elaborate description in his play, _The Case is Altered_ of the manner -in which capricious lordlings conducted themselves at the performance -of a new piece:-- - -"And they have such a habit of dislike in all things, that they will -approve nothing, be it never so conceited or elaborate; but sit -dispersed, making faces and spitting, wagging their upright ears, and -cry, filthy, filthy; simply uttering their own condition, and using -their wryed countenances instead of a vice, to turn the good aspects of -all that shall sit near them, from what they behold" (Act ii. sc. 6). - -The fact that women's parts were invariably played by young men may -have contributed to the general rowdyism of the play-going public, -although, on the other hand, it must have been conducive to greater -morality on the part of those directly connected with the theatre. -It was surely a real amelioration of Shakespeare's fate that the -difficulties with which he had to struggle were not increased by that -enthralling and ravishing evil which bears the name of actress.[2]. - -The notion of feminine characters being taken by a woman was so foreign -to England that the individual who ascertained the use of forks in -Italy, discovered the existence of actresses at the same time and -in the same place. Coryate writes from Venice in July 1608:--"Here -I observed certaine things that I never saw before; for I saw women -act, a thing I never saw before, though I have heard that it hath been -sometimes used in London; and they performed it with as good a grace, -action, gestures, and whatsoever convenient for a player, as I ever -saw any masculine actor." It was not until forty-four years after -Shakespeare's death that a woman stepped on to the English stage. -We know precisely when and in what play she appeared. On the 8th of -December 1660 the part of Desdemona was taken by an Englishwoman. The -prologue read upon this occasion is still in existence.[3] - -A theatrical audience of those days was, to Shakespeare's eyes at any -rate, an uncultivated horde, and it was this crowd] which represented -to him "the people." He may have looked upon them in his youth with -a certain amount of goodwill and forbearance, but they had become -entirely odious to him now. It was undoubtedly the constant spectacle -of the "_understanders_" and the atmosphere of their exhalations, which -caused his scorn to flame so fiercely over democratic movements and -their leaders, and all that ingratitude and lack of perception which, -to him, represented "the people." - -With his necessarily slight historical knowledge and insight, -Shakespeare would look upon the old days of both Rome and England in -precisely the same light in which he saw his own times. His first Roman -drama testifies to his innately anti-democratic tendencies. He seized -with avidity upon every instance in Plutarch of the stupidity and -brutality of the masses. Recall, for example, the scene in which the -mob murders Cinna, the poet, for no better reason than its fury against -Cinna, the conspirator (_Julius Cæsar_, Act iii. sc. 3): - - "_Third Citizen_. Your name, sir, truly. - - "_Cinna_. Truly my name is Cinna. - - "_First Citizen_. Tear him to pieces; he's a conspirator. - - "_Cinna_. I am Cinna the poet. I am Cinna the poet. - - "_Fourth Citizen_. Tear him for his bad verses. Tear him for - his bad verses. - - "_Cinna_. I am not Cinna the conspirator. - - "_Fourth Citizen_. It is no matter, his name's Cinna; pluck - but his name out of his heart, and turn him going. - - "_Third Citizen_. Tear him, tear him!" - -All four citizens are alike in their bloodthirsty fury. Shakespeare -displays the same aristocratic contempt for the fickle crowd, whose -opinion wavers with every speaker; witness its complete change of front -immediately after Antony's oration. It was this feeling, possibly, -which was at the bottom of his want of success in dealing with Cæsar. -He probably found Cæsar antipathetic, not on the ground of his -subversion of a republican form of government, but as leader of the -Roman democracy. Shakespeare sympathised with the conspiracy of the -nobles against him because all popular rule--even that which was guided -by genius--was repugnant to him, inasmuch as it was power exercised, -directly or indirectly, by an ignorant herd. - -This point of view meets us again and again in _Coriolanus_; and -whereas, in his earlier plays, it was only occasionally and, as it -were, accidentally expressed, it has now grown and strengthened into -deliberate utterance. - -I am aware that, generally speaking, neither English nor German critics -will agree with me in this. Englishmen, to whom Shakespeare is not only -their national poet, but the voice of wisdom itself, will, as a rule, -see nothing in his poetry but a love of all that is simple, just, and -true. They consider that due attention, on the whole, has been paid to -the rights of the people in this play; that it contains the essence, -as it were, of all that can be urged in favour of either democracy or -aristocracy, and that Shakespeare himself was impartial. His hero is -by no means, they say, represented in a favourable light; he is ruined -by his pride, which, degenerating into unbearable arrogance, causes -him to commit the crime of turning his arms against his country, and -brings him to a miserable end. His relations with his mother represent -the sole instance in which the inhuman, anti-social intractability -of Coriolanus' character relaxes and softens; otherwise he is hard -and unlovable throughout. The Roman people, on the other hand, are -represented as good and amiable in the main; they are certainly -somewhat inconstant, but Coriolanus is no less fickle than they, and -certainly less excusable. That plebeian greed of plunder which so -exasperated Marcius at Corioli is common to the private soldier of all -times. No, they say, Shakespeare was totally unprejudiced, or, if he -had a preference, it was for old Menenius, the free-spoken, patriotic -soul who always turns a cheerfully humorous side to the people, even -when he sees their faults most plainly. - -I am simply repeating here a view of the matter actually expressed -by eminent English and American critics--a view which, presumably -therefore, represents that of the English-speaking public in general.[4] - -In Germany also--more particularly at the time when Shakespeare's -dramas were interpreted by liberal professors, who involuntarily -brought them into harmony with their own ideas and those of the -period--many attempts were made to prove that Shakespeare was -absolutely impartial in political matters. Some even sought to make him -a Liberal after the fashion of those who, early in this century, went -by that name in Central Europe. - -We have no interest, however, in re-fashioning Shakespeare. It is -enough for us if our perception is fine and keen enough to recognise -him in his works, and we must actually put on blinders not to see on -which side Shakespeare's sympathies lie here. He is only too much of -one mind with the senators who say that "poor suitors have strong -breaths," and Coriolanus, who is never refuted or contradicted, says no -more than what the poet in his own person would endorse. - -In the first scene of the play, immediately following Menenius' -well-known parable of the belly and the other members of the body, -Marcius appears and fiercely advocates the view Menenius has humorously -expressed: - - "He that will give good words to thee will flatter - Beneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs, - That like not peace nor war? He that trusts to you, - Where he should find you lions, finds you hares; - Where foxes, geese; you are no surer, no, - Than is the coal of fire upon the ice, - Or hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is - To make him worthy whose offence subdues him, - And curse that justice did it. Who deserves greatness, - Deserves your hate; and your affections are - A sick man's appetite, who desires most that - Which would increase his coil ... - ... Hang ye! Trust ye! - With every minute you do change a mind; - And call him noble that was now your hate, - Him vile that was your garland." - -The facts of the play bear out every statement here made by Coriolanus, -including the one that the plebeians are only brave with their tongues, -and run as soon as it comes to blows. They turn tail on the first -encounter with the Volscians. - - "_Marcius_. All the contagion of the south light on you, - You shames of Rome! You herd of--Boils and plagues' - Plaster you o'er! that you may be abhorred - Farther than seen, and one infest another - Against the wind a mile! You souls of geese, - That bear the shapes of men, how have you run - From slaves that apes would beat! Pluto and hell! - All hurt behind; backs red and faces pale - With flight and agu'd fear!" (Act i. sc. 4). - -By dint of threatening to draw his sword upon the runaways, he succeeds -in driving them back to the attack, compels the enemy to retreat, -and forces himself single-handed, like a demigod or very god of war, -through the gates of the town, which close upon him before his comrades -can follow. When he comes forth again, bleeding, and the town is taken, -his wrath thunders afresh on finding that the only idea of the soldiery -is to secure as much booty as possible: - - "See here these movers, that do prize their hours - At a crack'd drachm! Cushions, leaden spoons, - Irons of a doit, doublets that hangmen would - Bury with those that wore them, these base slaves, - Ere yet the fight be done, pack up:--Down with them!" - -As far as Coriolanus is concerned the popular party is simply the body -of those who "cannot rule nor ever will be ruled" (Act iii. sc. I). -The majority of nobles are too weak to venture to oppose the people's -tribunes as they should, but Coriolanus, perceiving the danger of -allowing these men to gain influence in the government of the city, -courageously, if imprudently, braves their hatred in order to thwart -and repress them (Act iii. sc. I). - - "_First Senator_. No more words, we beseech you. - _Coriolanus_. How! no more? - As for my country I have shed my blood, - Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs - Coin words till their decay, against those measels, - Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought - The very way to catch them." - -He further asserts that the people had not deserved the recent -distribution of corn, for they had attempted to evade the summons -to arms, and during the war they chiefly displayed their courage in -mutinying. They had brought groundless accusations against the senate, -and it was contemptible to allow them, out of fear of their numbers, -any share in the government. His last words upon the subject are: - - "... This double worship, - Where one part does disdain with cause, the other - Insult without all reason; where gentry, title, wisdom, - Cannot conclude but by the yea and no - Of general ignorance,--it must omit - Real necessities, and give way the while - To unstable slightness: purpose so barr'd it follows, - Nothing is done to purpose. ..." - -So, in _Troilus and Cressida_, would Ulysses, who represents all -that is truly wise in statesmanship, have spoken. There is no humane -consideration for the oppressed condition of the poor, no just -recognition of the right of those who bear the burden to have a voice -in its distribution. That Shakespeare held the same political views -as Coriolanus is amply shown by the fact that the most dissimilar -characters approve of them in every particular, excepting only the -violent and defiant manner in which they are expressed. Menenius' -description of the tribunes of the people is not a whit less scathing -than that of Marcius. - -"Our very priests must become mockers, if they shall encounter such -ridiculous subjects as you are. When you speak best unto the purpose, -it is not worth the wagging of your beards; and your beards deserve -not so honourable a grave as to stuff a butcher's cushion, or to be -entombed in an ass's pack-saddle. Yet you must be saying, Marcius is -proud, who, in a cheap estimation, is worth all your predecessors since -Deucalion" (Act ii. sc. I). - -When Coriolanus's freedom of speech has procured his banishment, -Menenius exclaims in admiration (Act iii. sc. I): - - "_His nature is too noble for this world_: - He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, - Or Jove for's power to thunder. His heart's his mouth." - -Thus he is exiled for his virtues, not for his failings, and at -heart they all agree with Menenius. When Coriolanus has gone over to -the enemy, and their one anxiety is to appease his wrath, Cominius -expresses the same view of the culpability of people and tribunes -towards him (Act iv. sc. 4): - - "Who shall ask it? - The tribunes cannot do't for shame; the people - Deserve such pity of him as the wolf - Does of the shepherd." - -Even the voice of one of the two serving-men of the Capitol exalts -Coriolanus and justifies his scorn for the love or hatred of the -people, the ignorant, bewildered masses-- - -"... So that, if they love, they know not why, they hate upon no better -a ground: therefore for Coriolanus neither to care whether they love or -hate him manifests the true knowledgehe has of their dispositions; and -out of his noble carelessness lets them plainly see't" (Act ii. sc. 2). - -This is almost too well expressed for a servant; we perceive that the -poet has taken no particular pains to disguise his own voice. The same -man tells how well Coriolanus has deserved of his country; he did not -rise, as some do, by standing hat in hand and bowing himself into -favour with the people: - -"... But he hath so planted his honours in their eyes and his actions -in their hearts, that for their tongues to be silent and not confess -so much were a kind of ungrateful injury; to report otherwise were a -malice, that giving itself to lie, would pluck reproof and rebuke from -every ear that heard it." - -This uncultured mind bears the same testimony as that of the most -refined and intelligent patricians to the greatness of the hero. It is -not difficult, I think, to follow the mental processes from which this -work evolved. When Shakespeare came to reflect on what had constituted -his chief gladness here on earth and made his melancholy life endurable -to him, he found that his one lasting, if not too freely flowing, -source of pleasure had been the friendship and appreciation of one or -two noble and nobly-minded gentlemen. - -For the people he felt nothing but scorn, and he was now, more -than ever, incapable of seeing them as an aggregation of separate -individualities, they were merged in the brutality which distinguished -them in the mass. Humanity in general was to him not millions of -individuals, but a few great entities amidst millions of non-entities. -He saw more and more clearly that the existence of these few -illustrious men was all that made life worth living, and the belief -gave impetus to that hero-worship which had been characteristic of his -early youth. Formerly, however, this worship had lacked its present -polemical quality. The fact that Coriolanus was a great warrior made -no particular impression on Shakespeare at this period; it was quite -incidental, and he included it simply because he must. It was not -the soldier that he wished to glorify but the demigod. His present -impression of the circumstances and conditions of life is this: there -must of necessity be formed around the solitary great ones of this -earth a conspiracy of envy and hatred raised by the small and mean. As -Coriolanus says, "Who deserves greatness, deserves your hate." - -Owing to this turn of thought, Shakespeare found fewer heroes to -worship; but his worship became the more intense, and appears in this -play in greater force than ever before. The patricians, who have a -proper understanding of his merit, regard Coriolanus with a species of -lover-like enthusiasm, a sort of adoration. When Marcius's mother tells -Menenius that she has had a letter from her son, and adds, "And I think -there's one at home for you," Menenius cries: - - "I will make my very house reel to-night: a letter for me! - - "_Virgilia_. Yes, certain, there's a letter for you; I saw't. - - "_Menenius_. A letter for me! It gives me an estate of - seven years' health; in which time I will make a lip at the - physician: the most sovereign prescription in Galen is but - empiricutic, and, to this preservative, of no better report - than a horse-drench" (Act ii. sc. I). - -So speaks his friend; we will now listen to his bitterest enemy, -Aufidius, the man whom he has defeated and humiliated in battle after -battle, who hates him, and vows that neither temple nor prayer of -priest, nor any of those things which usually restrain a man's wrath, -shall prevail to soften him. He has sworn that wherever he may find -his enemy, be it even on his own hearth, he will wash his hands in -his heart's blood. But when Marcius forsakes Rome, and repairing to -the Volscians, actually seeks Aufidius in his own home, upon his own -hearth, we hear only the admiration and genuine enthusiasm which the -sound of his voice and the mere majesty of his presence calls forth in -the adversary who would gladly hate him, and still more gladly despise -him if he could. - - "O Marcius, Marcius! - Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart - A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter - Should from yond cloud speak divine things, - And say ''Tis true,' I'd not believe them more - Than thee, all noble Marcius. Let me twine - Mine arms about that body, where against - My grained ash an hundred times hath broke, - And scarred the moon with splinters: here I clip - The anvil of my sword, and do contest - As hotly and as nobly with thy love, - As ever in ambitious strength I did - Contend against thy valour. Know thou first, - I loved the maid I married; never man - Sighed truer breath; but that I see thee here, - Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart - Than when I first my wedded mistress saw - Bestride my threshold" (Act iv. sc. 5). - -We have, then, in this play an almost wildly enthusiastic hero-worship -upon a background of equally unqualified contempt for the populace. -It is something different, however, from the humble devotion of his -younger days to alien greatness (as in _Henry V._), and is founded -rather on an overpowering and defiant consciousness of his own worth -and superiority. - -The reader must recall the fact that his contemporaries looked -upon Shakespeare not so much as a poet who earned his living as an -actor, but as an actor who occasionally wrote plays. We must also -remember that the profession of an actor was but lightly esteemed in -those days, and the work of a dramatist was considered as a kind of -inferior poetry, which scarcely ranked as literature. Probably most -of Shakespeare's intimates considered his small narrative poems--his -_Venus and Adonis_, his _Lucretia,_ &c.--his real claim to notoriety, -and they would regret that for the sake of money he had joined the -ranks of the thousand and one dramatic writers. We are told in the -dedication of _Histrio Mastix_ (1634), that the playwrights of the day -took no trouble with what they wrote, but covetously pillaged from old -and new sources, "chronicles, legends, and romances." - -Shakespeare did not even publish his own plays, but submitted to their -appropriation by grasping booksellers, who published them with such a -mutilation of the text, that it must have been a perfect terror to him -to look at them. This mishandling of his plays would be so obnoxious -to him, that it was not likely he would care to possess any copies. He -was in much the same position in this respect as the modern author, -who, unprotected by any law of international copyright, sees his works -mangled and mutilated in foreign languages. - -He would doubtless enjoy a certain amount of popularity, but he -remained to the last an actor among actors (not even then in the first -rank with Burbage) and a poet among poets. Never once did it occur to -any of his contemporaries that he stood alone, and that all the others -taken together were as nothing in comparison with him. - -He lived and died one of the many. - -That his spirit rose in silent but passionate rebellion against this -judgment is obvious. Were there moments in which he clearly felt and -keenly recognised his greatness? It must have been so, and these -moments had grown more frequent of late. Were there also times when -he said to himself, "Five hundred, a thousand years hence, my name -will still be known to mankind and my plays read"? We cannot say; -it hardly seems probable, or he would surely have contended for the -right to publish his own works. We cannot doubt that he believed -himself worthy at this time of such lasting fame, but he had, as we -can well understand, no faith at all that future generations would -see more clearly, judge more truly, and appraise more justly than his -contemporaries. He had no idea of historical evolution, his belief was -rather that the culture of his native country was rapidly declining. -He had watched the growth of narrow-minded prejudice, had seen the -triumphant progress of that pious stupidity which condemned his art -as a wile of the devil; and his detestation of the mass of men, past, -present, and to come, made him equally indifferent to their praise or -blame. Therefore it pleased him to express this indifference through -the medium of Coriolanus, the man who turns his back upon the senate -when it eulogises him, and of whom Plutarch tells us that the one thing -for which he valued his fame was the pleasure it gave his mother. Yet -Shakespeare makes him say (Act i. sc. 9): - - "My mother, - Who has a charter to extol her blood, - When she does praise me grieves me." - -Shakespeare has now broken with the judgments of mankind. He dwells on -the cold heights above the snow-line, beyond human praise or blame, -beyond the joys of fame and the perils of celebrity, breathing that -keen atmosphere of indifference in which the soul hovers, upheld by -scorn. - -Some few on this earth are men, the rest are _spawn_, as Menenius calls -them; and so Shakespeare sympathises with Coriolanus and honours him, -endowing him with Cordelia's hatred of unworthy flattery, even placing -her very words in his mouth (Act ii. sc. 2): - - "But your people - I love them as they weigh." - -Therefore it is he equips his hero with the same stern devotion to -truth with which, later in the century, Molière endows his Alceste, -but, instead of in the semi-farcical, it is in the wholly heroic manner -(Act iii. sc. 3): - - "Let them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death, - Vagabond exile, flaying, pent to linger - But with a grain a day. I would not buy - Their mercy at the price of one fair word." - -We see Shakespeare's whole soul with Coriolanus when he cannot bring -himself to ask the Consulate of the people in requital of his services. -Let them freely give him his reward, but that he should have to ask for -it--torture! - -When his friends insist upon his conforming to custom and appearing in -person as applicant, Shakespeare, who has hitherto followed Plutarch -step by step, here diverges, in order to represent this step as being -excessively disagreeable to Marcius. According to the Greek historian, -Coriolanus at once proceeds with a splendid retinue to the Forum, and -there displays the wounds he has received in the recent wars; but -Shakespeare's hero cannot bring himself to boast of his exploits to the -people, nor to appeal to their admiration and compassion by making an -exhibition of his wounds: - - "I cannot - Put on the gown, stand naked, and entreat them, - For my wounds' sake, to give their suffrage: please you - That I may pass this doing" (Act ii. sc. 2). - -He finally yields, but has hardly set foot in the Forum before he -begins to curse at the position in which he has placed himself: - - "What must I say? - 'I pray, sir '--Plague upon't! I cannot bring - My tongue to such a pace:--'Look, sir, my wounds! - I got them in my country's service when - Some certain of your brethren roared and ran - From the noise of our own drums'" (Act ii. sc. 3). - -He makes an effort to control himself, and, turning brusquely to the -nearest bystanders, he addresses them with ill-concealed irony. On -being asked what has induced him to stand for the Consulate, he hastily -and rashly replies: - - "Mine own desert. - "_Second Citizen_. Your own desert!. - "_Coriolanus_. Ay, but not mine own desire. - "_Third Citizen_. How not your own desire? - "_Coriolanus_. No, sir, 'twas never my desire to trouble - the poor with begging." - -Having secured a few votes in this remarkably tactless manner, he -exclaims: - - "Most sweet voices! - Better to die, better to starve, - Than crave the hire which first we do deserve." - -When the intrigues of the tribunes succeed in inducing the people to -revoke his election, he so far forgets himself in his fury at the -insult that they are enabled to pronounce sentence of banishment -against him. He then bursts into an outbreak of taunts and threats: -"You common cry of curs! I banish _you_!"--which recalls how some -thousand years later another chosen of the people and subsequent object -of democratic jealousy, Gambetta, thundered at the noisy assembly at -Belleville: "Cowardly brood! I will follow you up into your very dens." - -The nature of the material and the whole conception of the play -required that the pride of Coriolanus should occasionally be expressed -with repellant arrogance. But we feel, through all the intentional -artistic exaggeration of the hero's self-esteem, how there arose in -Shakespeare's own soul, from the depth of his stormy contempt for -humanity, a pride immeasurably pure and steadfast. - - -[1] _Plays confuted in Five several Actions_, by Stephen -Gosson, 1580. - -[2] It is therefore a droll error into which the otherwise -admirable writer, Professor Fr. Paulson, falls in his essay, _Hamlet -die Tragedie des Pessimismus (Deutsche Rundschau_, vol. lix. p. 243), -when he remarks as a proof of the sensuality of Hamlet's nature: "Man -erinnere sich nur seiner Intimität mit der Schauspielern; als sie -ankommen, fällt sein Blick sogleich auf die Füsse der _Schauspielerin._ - -[3] "A Prologue to introduce the first woman that came to act -on this stage, in the tragedy called _The Moor of Venice_: "-- - - "I come unknown to any of the rest - To tell you news; I saw the lady drest. - The woman plays to day; mistake me not, - No man in gown or page in petticoat: - A woman to my knowledge, yet I can't - If I should die, make affidavit on't.... - 'Tis possible a virtuous woman may - Abhor all sorts of looseness and yet play, - Play on the stage when all eyes are upon her. - Shall we count that a crime, France counts an honour?" - -[4] See _Shakespeare's Tragedy of Coriolanus_, by the Rev. -Henry N. Hudson, Professor of Shakespeare at Boston University. Boston, -1881. - - - - -XII - -_CORIOLANUS AS A DRAMA_ - -The tragedy of _Coriolanus_ is constructed strictly according to rule; -the plot is simple and powerful, and is developed, with steadily -increasing interest, to a logical climax. With the exception of -_Othello_, Shakespeare has never treated his material in a more simply -intelligible fashion. It is the tragedy of an inviolably truthful -personality in a world of small-minded folk; the tragedy of the -punishment a reckless egoism incurs when it is betrayed into setting -its own pride above duty to state and fatherland. - -Shakespeare's aristocratic sympathies did not blind him to Coriolanus' -unjustifiable crime and its inevitable consequences. Infuriated by -his banishment; the great soldier goes over to the enemies of Rome -and leads the Volscian army against his native city, plundering and -terrifying as he goes. He spurns the humble entreaties of his friends, -and only yields to the women of the city when, led by his mother and -his wife, they come to implore mercy and peace. - -Coriolanus' fierce outburst when the name of traitor is flung at him -proves that Shakespeare did not look upon treason as a pardonable crime: - - "The fires of the lowest hell fold in your people! - Call me their traitor!--Thou injurious tribune! - Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths, - In thy hands clutched as many millions, in - Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say - 'Thou liest,' unto thee, with a voice as free - As I do pray the gods" (Act iii. sc. 3). - -Immediately after this his outraged pride leads him to commit the very -crime he has so wrathfully disclaimed. No consideration for his country -or fellow-citizens can restrain him. The forces which arrest his -vengeance are the mother he has worshipped all his life and the wife -he tenderly loves. He knows that it is himself he is offering up when -he sacrifices his rancour on the altar of his family. The Volscians -will never forgive him for delivering up their triumph to Rome after he -had practically delivered up Rome to them. And so he perishes, finally -overtaken by Aufidius' long-accumulated jealousy acting through the -disappointed rage of the Volscians. In Plutarch Shakespeare found his -plot and the chief characters of his play ready to hand. He added the -individuality of the tribunes and of Menenius (with the exception of -the parable of the belly). Virgilia, who is little more than a name in -the original, Shakespeare has transformed by one of his own wonderful -touches into a woman whose chief charm lies in the quiet gentleness of -her nature. "My gracious silence, hail!" thus Marcius greets her (Act -ii. sc. I), and she is exhaustively defined in the exclamation. Her -principal utterances, as well as Volumnia's most important speeches, -are mere versifications of Plutarch's prose, and this is why these -women have so much genuinely Roman blood in their veins. Volumnia is -the true Roman matron of the days of the Republic. Shakespeare has -wrought her character with special care, and her rich and powerful -personality is not without its darker side. Her kinship with her son is -perceptible in all her ways and words. She is more prone, as a woman, -to employ, or at least approve of, dissimulation, but her nature is not -a whit less defiantly haughty. Her first thought may be jesuitical; her -second is always violent: - - "_Vol_. Oh, sir, sir, sir, - I would have had you put your power well on, - Before you had worn it out. - _Cor_ Let go. - _Vol_. You might have been enough the man you are, - With striving less to be so: lesser had been - The thwartings of your dispositions, _if - You had not showed them how ye were disposed - Ere they lacked power to cross you._ - _Cor_. Let them hang. - _Vol. Ay, and burn too_" (Act iii. sc. 2). - -When matters come to a climax, she shows no more discretion in her -treatment of the tribunes than did her son, but displays precisely -the same power of vituperation. On reading her speeches we realise -the satisfaction and relief it was to Shakespeare to vent himself in -furious invectives through the medium of his dramatic creations: - - "_Vol_.... Hadst thou foxship - To banish him that struck more blows for Rome - Than thou hast spoken words? - _Sic_. O blessed heavens! - _Vol_. More noble blows, than ever thou wise words; - And for Rome's good. I'll tell thee what; yet go: - Nay, but thou shalt stay too: I would my son - Were in Arabia, and thy tribe before him, - His good sword in his hand" (Act iv. sc. 2). - -A comparison between Volumnia's final appeal to her son in the last act -and the speech as it is given in Plutarch is of the greatest interest. -Shakespeare has followed his author step by step, but has enriched him -by the addition of the most artlessly human touches: - - "There's no man in the world - More bound to's mother; yet here he lets me prate - Like one i' the stocks. Thou hast never in thy life - Showed thy dear mother any courtesy; - When she, (poor hen!) fond of no second brood, - Has clucked thee to the wars and safely home, - Loaden with honour" (Act v. sc. 3). - -How the stern, soldierly bearing of the woman is softened by these -touches with which Shakespeare has embellished her portrait! - -The diction both here and throughout the play is that of Shakespeare's -most matured period; but never before had he used bolder similes, shown -more independence in his method of expression, nor condensed so much -thought and feeling into so few lines. We have already drawn attention -to the masterly handling of his material--a handling, however, which by -no means precludes the intrusion of several extravagances, some heroic, -some simply childish. - -The hero's bodily strength and courage, for example, are strained to -the mythical. He forces his way single-handed into a hostile town, -holds his own there against a whole army, and finally makes good his -retreat, wounded but not subdued. Even Bible tradition, in which divine -aid comes to the rescue, cannot furnish forth such deeds. Neither -Samson's escape from Gaza (Judges xvi.) nor David's from Keilah (1 Sam. -xxiii.) can compare with this amazing exploit. - -Equally unlikely is the foolishly defiant and arrogant attitude -assumed by the senate, and more especially by Coriolanus, towards the -plebeian party. Upon what do the nobles rely to support them in such an -attitude? They have already been compelled to yield the political power -of tribuneship, and it never even occurred to them to defy the sentence -of banishment pronounced by these same tribunes. How comes it then that -they seize every opportunity to taunt and scorn? How is it that these -patricians, who have spoken so many brave words, make so poor a show of -resistance when the Volscians are at their gates? They are so steeped -in party spirit that their first thought, when defeat comes upon them, -is to rejoice in the confusion and discomfiture the plebeians have -brought upon themselves, and finally, abandoning all self-respect, they -crawl to the feet of their exasperated conqueror. - -The confusion of Shakespeare's authority in this part of the story -would account for much.[1] According to Plutarch, Coriolanus, in the -course of his victorious march from one Latin town to another, plunders -the plebeians, but spares the patricians. A sudden change of public -opinion occurs in Rome during his siege of Lavinium, and the popular -party desires to recall Coriolanus, but the senate refuses--why, we -are not told. The enemy is close upon them before a parley is agreed -upon. Coriolanus offers easy terms, the admission of the Volscians to -the Latin Federation being the chief stipulation. Despite the general -feeling of discouragement in Rome, the senate answers haughtily that -Romans will never yield to fear, and the Volscians must first lay down -their arms if they desire to obtain a "favour." Directly after this -defiance they make the most abject submission, and send their women as -suppliants to the hostile camp. - -While Shakespeare's Coriolanus has none of this consideration for -his former friends, his patricians are as cowardly and incapable as -the historian's. Cominius, Titus Lartius, and the others, who are -originally represented as valiant men, make a very poor show at the -end. Several, in short, of Plutarch's abundant contradictions have -found their way into Shakespeare's play; they mark the beginning of a -certain inconsequence which henceforward betrays itself in his work. -From this point onwards his plays are no longer as highly finished as -formerly. - -I am not alluding here to the inconsistencies of his hero, for they -only serve to give life and truth to his character, and the poet either -represented them unconsciously, or was too ingenuous to avoid them; -witness the reflection made by Coriolanus at the very moment of his -rebellious disinclination to ask the suffrages of the people: - - "Custom calls me to't; - What custom wills, in all things should we do't, - The dust on antique time would lie unswept, - And mountainous error be too highly heapt - For truth to o'er-peer" (Act ii. sc. 3). - -Coriolanus is utterly unconscious that this speech of his strikes at -the very root of that ultra-conservatism which he affects. The very -thing he has refused to understand is, that if we invariably followed -custom, the follies of the past would never be swept away, nor the -rocks which hinder our progress burst asunder. To Coriolanus, what is -customary is right, and he never realises the fact that his disdain -for the tribunes and people has led him into a politically untenable -position. We are by no means sure that Shakespeare's perceptions -in this case were any keener than his hero's; but, consciously or -unconsciously, it is this very inconsistency in Coriolanus' character -which makes it so vividly lifelike. - -_ Troilus and Cressida_ overflowed with contempt for the feminine sex -as such, for love as a comical or pitiable sensuality, for mock heroics -and sham military glory. _Coriolanus_ is brimful of scorn for the -masses; for the stupidity, fickleness, and cowardice of the ignorant, -slavish souls, and for the baseness of their leaders. - -But the passionate disdain possessing Shakespeare's soul is destined to -a stronger and wilder outburst in the work he next takes in hand. The -outbreak in _Timon_ is against no one sex, no one caste, no one nation -or fraction of humanity; it is the result of an overwhelming contempt, -which excepts nothing and no one, but embraces the whole human race. - - -[1] The matter is interestingly discussed in Kreyssig's -instructive and sympathetic work: _Vorlesungen über Shakespeare_, 1859, -vol. ii. p. 110. - - - - -XIII - -_TIMON OF ATHENS--HATRED OF MANKIND_ - -Timon of Athens has come down to us in a pitiable condition. The text -is in a terrible state, and there are, not only between one scene and -another, but between one page and another, such radical differences in -the style and general spirit of the play as to preclude the possibility -of its having been the work of one man. The threads of the story are -often entirely disconnected, and circumstances occur (or are referred -to) for which we were in no way prepared. The best part of the -versification is distinctly Shakespearian, and contains all that wealth -of thought which was characteristic of this period of his life; but the -other parts are careless, discordant, and desperately monotonous. The -prose dialogue especially jars, thrust as it is, with its long-winded -straining after effect, into scenes which are otherwise compact and -vigorous. - -All Shakespeare students of the present day concur in the opinion that -_Timon of Athens_, like _Pericles_, is but a great fragment from the -master-hand. - -The _Lyfe of Timon of Athens_ was printed for the first time in the -old folio edition of 1623. Careful examination shows us that the first -pages of the play of _Timon_ (which is inserted between _Romeo and -Juliet_ and _Julius Cæsar_) are numbered 80, 81, 82, 81, instead of -78, 79, 80, 81, and end at page 98. The names of the actors, for which -in no other case is more than the necessary space allowed, here occupy -the whole of page 99, and page 100 is left blank. _Julius Cæsar_ begins -upon the next page, which is numbered 109. Fleay noticed that _Troilus -and Cressida_, which, as we remarked, is unnumbered, would exactly fill -the pages 78 to 108. By some error, which furnishes us with another -hint, the second and third pages of this play are numbered 79 and 80. -Obviously it was the publisher's original intention to include _Troilus -and Cressida_ among the tragedies. On its being subsequently observed -that there was nothing really tragic about the play, they cast about, -since _Julius Cæsar_ was already printed, for another tragedy which -would as nearly as possible fill the vacant space. - -Shakespeare found the material for _Timon of Athens_ in the course of -his reading for _Antony and Cleopatra_. There is, in Plutarch's "Life -of Antony," a brief sketch of Timon and his misanthropy, his relations -with Alcibiades and the Cynic Apemantus, the anecdote of the fig-tree, -and the two epitaphs. The subject evidently attracted Shakespeare by -its harmony with his own distraught and excited frame of mind at the -time. He was soon absorbed in it, and in some form or another he made -acquaintance with Lucian's hitherto untranslated dialogue _Timon_, -which contained many incidents giving fulness to the story, and from -which he appropriated the discovery of the treasure, the consequent -return of the parasitic friends, and Timon's scornful treatment of them. - -Shakespeare probably found these details in some old play on the same -subject. Dyce published, in 1842, an old drama on Timon which had been -found in manuscript, and was judged by Steevens to date from 1600, or -thereabouts. It seems to have been written for some academic circle, -and in it we find the faithful steward and the farewell banquet with -which the third act closes. In the older drama, instead of warm water, -Timon throws stones, painted to resemble artichokes, at his guests. -Some trace of these stones may be found in these lines in Shakespeare's -play: - - "_Second Lord_. Lord Timon's mad. - _Third Lord_. I feel't upon my bones. - _Fourth Lord_. One day he gives us diamonds, next day stones." - -In the old play, when Timon finds the gold, and his faithless mistress -and friends flock around him once more, he repulses them, crying: - - "Why vexe yee me, yee Furies? I protest, - and all the Gods to witnesse invocate, - I doe abhorre the titles of a friende, - of father, or companion. I curse - the aire yee breathe, I lothe to breathe that air." - -He naïvely intimates a change of mind in the epilogue: - - "I now am left alone: this rascall route - hath left my side. What's this? I feele through out - a sodeine change: my fury doth abate, - my hearte grows milde and lays aside its hate;" - -and concludes with a still more ingenuous appeal for applause: - - "Let loving hands, loude sounding in the ayre, - cause Timon to the citty to repaire." - -We have no proof that Shakespeare was acquainted with this particular -work. He probably used some other contemporary play, belonging to the -theatre, which had proved a failure in its original form, and which -both his company and his own inclinations urged him to thoroughly -recast. It was not so entirely rewritten, however, that we can look -upon the play as actually the work of Shakespeare--there are too many -traces of another and a feebler hand; but the vital, lyrical, powerful -pathos is his, and his alone. - -There are two theories on this subject. Fleay, in his well-known -and thorough investigation of the matter, endeavours to prove that -the original scheme was Shakespeare's, but that some inferior hand -amplified it for acting purposes. Fleay selected all the indubitably -Shakespearian portions, and had them printed as a separate play, -contending that it "not only included all that was of any value (which -will scarcely be disputed), but that, on the score of intelligibility, -none of the rejected speeches were needed."[1] Swinburne, who scarcely -ever agrees with Fleay, also shares the belief that Shakespeare used no -ready-made groundwork for his play. His first opinion was that _Timon -of Athens_ was interrupted by Shakespeare's premature death, but later -he inclined to the theory that, after working upon it for some time, -the poet laid it aside as being little suited to dramatic treatment. -Swinburne does not undervalue the work done by Shakespeare on that -account, but remarks, on the contrary, that, had Juvenal been gifted -with the inspiration of Æschylus, he might have written just such -another tragedy as the fourth act of the drama.[2] - -The theory that Shakespeare made use of a finished play which he only -partially rewrote, leaving the rest in its clumsy imperfection, was -originally propounded by the English critics Sympson and Knight. It was -first attacked and afterwards eagerly supported by Delius, who gives -the reasons for his change of opinion at great length.[3] H. A. Evans, -the commentator of the Irving edition, also shares this latter view. -There is no dispute between the two parties concerning the portions -written by Shakespeare; the contention is simply this: Did Shakespeare -remodel another man's play, or did another man complete his? - -As Fleay's attempt to construct a connected and intelligible play from -the Shakespearian fragments failed, because a great part of the weak -and spurious matter is absolutely necessary to the coherence of the -whole, it certainly seems more reasonable to accept Shakespeare as the -reviser. Some of the English critics incline to the opinion that the -inferior scenes were the work of the contemporary poets George Wilkins -and John Day. - -After a lapse of nearly 300 years it is impossible to give any decided -opinion on the matter, more especially for a critic whose mother -tongue is not English. In these days of occultism and spiritualism the -simplest way out of the difficulty would be for some of those favoured -individuals, who hold communion with the other world by means of small -tables and pencils, to induce Shakespeare himself to settle the matter -once for all. Meanwhile we must be content with probabilities. To those -who only know the work through translations, or to those who, like -Gervinus and Kreyssig, the German critics, have not devoted sufficient -attention to the language, the necessity of assuming a second writer -may not be so obvious. It is not impossible, of course, that the -feeble, prosy, and long-winded parts were written by Shakespeare, -roughly sketched in such a fit of despondency and utter indifference -to detail that he could not force himself to revise, re-write, and -condense; but the possibility is an exceedingly remote one. We know how -finely Shakespeare generally constructed his plays, even in the first -rough draft. - -The drama, as it stands, presents the picture of a thoughtlessly and -extravagantly open-handed nature, whose one unfailing pleasure is -to give. King Lear only gave away his possessions once, and then in -his old age and to his daughters; but Timon daily bestows money and -jewels upon all and sundry. At the opening of the play he is, without -appearing to be personally luxurious, living in the midst of all the -voluptuousness with which a Mæcenas, in the gayest of all the world's -gay capitals, could surround himself. Artists and merchants flock -round the generous patron who pays them more than they ask. A chorus -of sycophants sing his praises day and night. It is but natural that, -under those circumstances, a carelessly good-natured temperament should -look upon society as a circle for the exchange of friendly services, -which it is equally honourable to render or receive. - -He pays no heed to the faithful steward who warns him that this life -cannot last. He no more disturbs himself about the melting of his money -from his coffers than if he were living in a communistic society with -the general wealth at his disposal. - -At last the tide of fortune turns. His coffers are empty; the steward -is no longer able to find him money to fling away, and Timon must go -a borrowing in his turn. Almost before the report of his ruin has had -time to spread, bills come pouring in, and his impatient creditors, -yesterday his comrades, send messengers for their money. All his -requests for a loan are refused by his former friends--one on the -ground of his own poverty, while another professes to be offended -because he was not applied to in the first instance, and a third will -not even lend a portion of the large sums Timon has but lately lavished -upon him. - -Timon has hitherto been one of fortune's favourites, but now the true -nature of the world is suddenly revealed to him, as it was to Hamlet -and King Lear. Like theirs, but far more harshly and bitterly, his -former confiding simplicity is replaced by frantic pessimism. Wishing -to show his false friends all the contempt he feels for them, Timon -invites them to a final banquet, and they supposing that he has -recovered his wealth, attend with excuses on their lips for their -recent behaviour. The table is sumptuously spread, but the covered -dishes contain only warm water, which Timon disdainfully flings in the -faces of his guests. - -He cuts himself adrift from all intercourse with mankind, and retreats -to the woods to lead the solitary life of a Stoic. The half-jesting -retirement of Jaques in _As You Like It_, and his dismissal of all who -trouble his solitude, are here carried out in grim earnest. - -It is not for long that he remains poor, for he has hardly begun to -dig for the roots on which he lives than he finds treasure buried in -the earth. Unlike Lucian's misanthrope, who rejoices in the possession -of gold as a means of securing a life free from care, Shakespeare's -Timon sickens at the sight of his wealth. Neither does he care for the -honourable amends made by his countrymen. We learn it so late in the -day that we can scarcely believe that Timon was formerly a skilful -general, who had done good service to his country. This feature is -taken from Lucian, and the character of the luxurious Mæcenas would -have gained in interest and nobility if this trait had been impressed -upon us earlier in the play. The senate, meanwhile, being threatened -with war, offers Timon the sole command. He proudly rejects the -overtures made by these misers and usurers in purple, and even remains -unsoftened by the faithful devotion of his steward. He anathematises -every one and all things, and returns to his cave to die by his own -hand. - -The non-Shakespearian elements of the play do not prevent his genius -and master-hand from pervading the whole, and it is easy to see how -this work grew out of the one immediately preceding it, to trace the -connecting links between the two plays. - -When Coriolanus is exasperated by the ingratitude of the plebeians, he -joins the enemies of his country and people, and becomes the assailant -of his native city. When Timon falls a victim to the thanklessness of -those he has loaded with benefits, his hatred embraces the whole human -race. The contrast is very suggestive. The despair of Coriolanus is of -an active kind, driving him to deeds and placing him at the head of -an army. Timon's is of the passive sort: he merely curses and shuns -mankind. It is not until the discovery of the treasure determines him -to use his wealth in spreading corruption and misery that his hatred -takes a semi-practical form. This contrast was not an element of the -drama until Shakespeare made it so. - -The whole conduct of his Alcibiades forms a complete parallel to that -of Coriolanus, and here again the connection between the two plays is -obvious. Shakespeare found a brief account of the mutual relations -of Timon and Alcibiades in North's translation of Plutarch's "Life -of Antony," together with a description of Timon's good-will towards -the general on account of the calamities that he foresaw he would -bring upon the Athenians. The name of Alcibiades would not recall -to Shakespeare, as it does to us, the most glorious period of Greek -culture, and such names as Pericles, Aristophanes, and Plato--he -generally gives Latin names to his Greeks, such as Lucius, Flavius, -Servilius, &c.; nor did it represent to him the unrivalled -subtlety, charm, instability, and reckless extravagance of the man. -He would read Plutarch's comparison of Alcibiades and Coriolanus, in -which the Greek and Roman generals are considered homogeneous, and -for Shakespeare Alcibiades was merely the soldier and commander; on -that account he let him occupy much the same relation to Timon that -Fortinbras did to Hamlet. - -Where Timon merely hates, Alcibiades seizes his weapons; and when Timon -curses indiscriminately, Alcibiades punishes severely but deliberately. -He does not tear down the city walls and put every tenth citizen to the -sword, as he is invited to do; he only seeks vengeance on his personal -enemies and those whom he considers guilty. But Timon, like Hamlet, -generalises his bitter experiences, and loathes everything that bears -the form or name of man. When Athens sends to entreat him to take -the command and save the city from the violence of Alcibiades, he is -harder and colder, and a hundred times more bitterly relentless, than -Coriolanus, who, after all, could bow to entreaty, or than Alcibiades, -who is satisfied with a strictly limited vengeance. Timon's loathing of -life and hatred of humanity is consistent throughout. - -Like _Coriolanus_, this play was undoubtedly written in a frame of mind -which prompted Shakespeare less to abandon himself to the waves of -imagination than to dwell upon the worthlessness of mankind, and the -scornful branding of the contemptible. There is even less inventiveness -here than in _Coriolanus_: the plot is not only simple, it is -scanty--more appropriate to a parable or didactic poem than a drama. -Most of the characters are merely abstractly representative of their -class or profession, _e.g._ the Poet, the Painter, the servants, the -false friends, the flatterers, the creditors and mistresses. They are -simply employed to give prominence to the principal figure, or rather, -to a great lyrical outburst of bitterness, scorn, and execration. - -In the poet's description of his work in the first scene of the play, -Shakespeare has indicated his point of view with unusual precision: - - "I have, in this rough work, shaped out a man - Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug - With amplest entertainment. . . - . . . His large fortune, - Upon his good and gracious nature hanging, - Subdues and properties to his love and tendance - All sorts of hearts." - -He unfolds an allegory in which Fortune is represented as enthroned -upon a high and pleasant hill, from whose base all kinds of people are -struggling upwards to better their condition: - - "Amongst them all - Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fixed, - One do I personate of lord Timon's fame, - Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her; - Whose present grace to present slaves and servants - Translates his rivals." - -The Painter justly observes that the allegory of the hill and the -enthroned Fortune could be equally well expressed in a picture as a -poem, but the Poet continues: - - "When Fortune, in her shift and change of mood, - Spurns down her late beloved, all his dependants, - Which laboured after him to the mountain's top, - Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down, - Not one accompanying his declining foot." - -Shakespeare has defined his purpose here as clearly as did Daudet, some -hundreds of years later, in the first chapter of his _Sappho_, in which -the whole course of the story is symbolised in the ever-increasing -difficulty with which the hero mounts the stairs, carrying the heroine -to the highest story of the house in which he lives. The bitterness of -Shakespeare's mood is shown in the distinct indication that the Poet -and the Painter, rogues and toadies as they are, stand in the first -ranks of their professions, and cannot, therefore, claim the excuse -of poverty. It is significant of the dramatist's low opinion of his -fellow-craftsmen--not one of them is mentioned in his will--that he -should make his Poet most eloquent in condemnation of his own peculiar -faults. Hence Timon's ejaculation in the last act: - - "Must thou needs stand for a villain in thine own work - Wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men?" - -In _Timon_, as in _Coriolanus_, Shakespeare put his own thoughts -and feelings into the mouths of the various characters of the play. -Falseness and ingratitude are the subjects of the most frequent -allusion. They were uppermost in the poet's mind at the time, and the -changes are rung upon these vices by the Epicurean and the Cynic, by -servants and strangers, before and after the climax. Even the fickle -Poet serves, as we have seen, as spokesman for the all-prevailing idea; -and the Painter, who is every whit as worthless, says with droll irony -(Act v. sc. I): - -"Promising is the very air o' the time: it opens the eyes of -expectation: performance is ever the duller for his act; and, but in -the plainer and simpler kind of people, the deed of saying is quite -out of use. To promise is most courtly and fashionable: performance -is a kind of will or testament, which argues a great sickness in his -judgment that makes it." - -If there was one thing Shakespeare loathed above another, it was the -lifeless ceremony which disguises hollowness and fraud. Early in the -play (Act i. sc. 2) Timon says to his guests: - - "Nay, my lords, - Ceremony was but devised at first - To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes, - Recanting goodness, sorry ere 'tis shown; - But where there is true friendship, there needs none." - -Although Apemantus is the converse of Timon at every point--coarse -where he is refined, mean where he is generous, and base where he is -noble--yet in his first monologue the Cynic also strikes the keynote of -the piece (Act i. sc. 2): - - "We make ourselves fools, to disport ourselves; - And spend our flatteries, to drink those men - Upon whose age we void it up again, - With poisonous spite and envy. - Who lives, that's not depraved or depraves? - Who dies, that bears not one spurn to their graves - Of their friend's gift?" - -The first stranger says in a speech, whose monotony betrays the fact -that it was not entirely Shakespeare's although he has retouched it in -several places (notably the italicised lines): - - "Who can call him - His friend that dips in the same dish? for, in - My knowing, Timon hath been this lord's father, - And kept his credit with his purse; - Supported his estate; nay, Timon's money - Has paid his men their wages: _he ne'er drinks, - But Timon's silver treads upon his lip_; - And yet, (oh, see the monstrousness of man - When he looks out in an ungrateful shape!) - He does deny him in respect of his, - What charitable men afford to beggars" (Act iii. sc. 2). - -Finally, like the serving-man in the Capitol, who expresses his -approval of Coriolanus' self-conceit, Timon's servant, when his -application for a loan is refused, says: - - "The devil knew not what he did when he made man politic; he - crossed himself by 't: and I cannot think but, in the end, - the villainies of men will set him clear. How fairly this - lord strives to appear foul! takes virtuous copies to be - wicked; _like those that, under hot, ardent zeal, would set - whole realms on fire._" - -This direct, unmistakable attack upon Puritanism has a remarkable -effect coming from the lips of a Grecian servant, and we may gather -from it some idea of the general aim of all these outbursts against -hypocrisy. - -We must now, with a view to defining the non-Shakespearian elements -of the play, devote some attention to its dual authorship. In the -first act it is particularly the prose dialogues between Apemantus and -others which seem unworthy of Shakespeare. The repartee is laconic but -laboured--not always witty, though invariably bitter and disdainful. -The style somewhat resembles that of the colloquies between Diogenes -and Alexander in Lyly's _Alexander and Campaspe_. The first of -Apemantus' conversations might have been written by Shakespeare--it -seems to have some sort of continuity with the utterances of Thersites -in _Troilus and Cressida_--but the second has every appearance of -being either an interpolation by a strange hand, or a scene which -Shakespeare had forgotten to score out. Flavius's monologue (Act i. sc. -2) never came from Shakespeare's pen in this form. Its marked contrast -to the rest shows that it might be the outcome of notes taken by some -blundering shorthand writer among the audience. - -The long conversation, in the second act, between Apemantus, the Fool, -Caphis, and various servants, was, in all probability, written by an -alien hand. It contains nothing but idle chatter devised to amuse the -gallery, and it introduces characters who seem about to take some -standing in the play, but who vanish immediately, leaving no trace. A -Page comes with messages and letters from the mistress of a brothel, -to which the Fool appears to belong, but we are told nothing of the -contents of these letters, whose addresses the bearer is unable to read. - -In the third act there is much that is feeble and irrelevant, together -with an aimless unrest which incessantly pervades the stage. It is not -until the banqueting scene towards the end of the act that Shakespeare -makes his presence felt in the storm which bursts from Timon's lips. -The powerful fourth act displays Shakespeare at his best and strongest; -there is very little here which could be attributed to alien sources. -I cannot understand the decision with which English critics (including -a poet like Tennyson) have condemned as spurious Flavius's monologue -at the close of the second scene. Its drift is that of the speech in -the following scene, in which he expresses the whole spirit of the play -in one line: "What viler things upon the earth than friends!" Although -there is evidently some confusion in the third scene (for example, the -intimation of the Poet's and Painter's appearance long before they -really arrive), I cannot agree with Fleay that Shakespeare had no share -in the passage contained between the lines, "Where liest o' nights, -Timon?" and "Thou art the cap of all the fools alive." - -One speech in particular betrays the master-hand. It is that in which -Timon expresses the wish that Apemantus's desire to become a beast -among beasts may be fulfilled: - - "If thou wert the lion, the fox would beguile thee: if thou - wert the lamb, the fox would eat thee: if thou wert the fox, - the lion would suspect thee when, peradventure, thou wert - accused by the ass: if thou wert the ass, thy dulness would - torment thee: and still thou livedst but as a breakfast - to the wolf: if thou wert the wolf, thy greediness would - afflict thee, and oft thou shouldst hazard thy life for thy - dinner." - -There is as much knowledge of life here as in a concentrated essence of -all Lafontaine's fables. - -The last scenes of the fifth act were evidently never revised by -Shakespeare. It is a comical incongruity that makes the soldier who, -we are expressly told, is unable to read, capable of distinguishing -Timon's tomb, and even of having the forethought to take a wax -impression of the words. There is also an amalgamation of the two -contradictory inscriptions, of which the first tells us that the dead -man wishes to remain nameless and unknown, while the last two lines -begin with the declaration, "Here lie I, Timon." Notwithstanding the -shocking condition of the text, the repeatedly occurring confusion -of the action, and the evident marks of an alien hand, Shakespeare's -leading idea and dominant purpose is never for a moment obscured. Much -in _Timon_ reminds us of _King Lear_, the injudiciously distributed -benefits and the ingratitude of their recipients are the same, but in -the former the bitterness and virulence are tenfold greater, and the -genius incontestably less. Lear is supported in his misfortunes by -the brave and manly Kent, the faithful Fool, that truest of all true -hearts, Cordelia, her husband, the valiant King of France. There is but -one who remains faithful to Timon, a servant, which in those days meant -a slave, whose self-sacrificing devotion forces his master, sorely -against his will, to except one man from his universal vituperation. In -his own class he does not meet with a single honestly devoted heart, -either man's or woman's; he has no daughter, as Lear; no mother, as -Coriolanus; no friend, not one. - -How far more fortunate was Antony! It is a corrupt world in the process -of dissolution that we find in _Antony and Cleopatra._ Most of it is -rotten or false, but the passion binding the two principal characters -together by its magic is entirely genuine. Perdican's profound speech -in De Musset's "_On ne badine pas avec l'amour_ applies both to them -and the whole play: "Tous les hommes sont menteurs, inconstants, faux, -bavards, hypocrites, orgueilleux; toutes les femmes sont artificieuses, -perfides, vaniteuses; le monde n'est qu'un égout sans fond; mais il -y au monde une chose sainte et sublime, c'est l'union de deux de ces -êtres imparfaits." This simple fact, that Antony and Cleopatra love -one another, ennobles and purifies them both, and consoles us, the -spectators, for the disaster their passion brings upon them. Timon has -no mistress, no relation with the other sex, only contempt for it. - -There is a significant revelation of the crudity and stupidity with -which, even before the end of the seventeenth century, Shakespeare's -admirers made free with him, in an adaptation which Shadwell published -in 1678 under the title "The History of Timon the Man Hater into a -Play." In this Timon is represented as deserting his mistress Evandra, -by whom he is passionately loved to the last. This introduction of a -sympathetic woman's character naturally secured the play a success -which was never attained by Shakespeare's hero, a solitary misanthrope -alone with his bitterness. Shakespeare has intentionally veiled the -defects of nature and judgment which deprive Timon to some extent of -our sympathy, both in his prosperity and his misfortunes. He had never -in his bright days attached himself so warmly to any heart that he felt -it beat in unison with his own. Had he ever been powerfully drawn to a -single friend, he would not have squandered his possessions so lightly -on all the world. Because he only loved mankind in the mass, he now -hates them in the mass. He never, now as then, shows any powers of -discrimination. - -Shakespeare merely used him as a well-known example of the punishment -simple-minded trustfulness brings upon itself; his indiscretion is the -outcome of native nobility, and his wrath is perfectly justifiable. We -feel that Timon possesses the poet's sympathy and compassion, even when -his abhorrence of humanity passes the bounds of hatred, and becomes a -passion for its annihilation. Timon turns hermit in order to escape -from the sight of human beings, and this misanthropy is no mere mask -worn to conceal his despair at the loss of this world's goods, since it -stands the test of the finding of the treasure. He no longer looks upon -wealth as the means of procuring pleasure, but only as an instrument of -vengeance. It is for that, and that alone, that he rejoices when the -"yellow glittering, precious gold" falls into his hands: - - "Why, this - Will lug your priests and servants from your sides, - . . . Make the hoar leprosy adored, place thieves - And give them title, knee, and approbation - With senators on the bench; this is it - That makes the wappened widow wed again; - She whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores - Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices - To the April day again" (Act iv. sc. 3) - -When Alcibiades, who was formerly on friendly terms with him and has -retained some kindly feeling towards him, disturbs his solitude by a -visit, Timon receives him with the exclamation: - - "The canker gnaw thy heart - For showing me again the eyes of man! - _Alcibiades_. What is thy name? Is man so hateful to thee - That art thyself a man? - _Timon_. I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind - For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog - That I might love thee something" (Act iv. sc.3). - - -So might old Schopenhauer, with his loathing for men and his love for -dogs, have expressed himself. Timon explains this hatred as the result -of a dispassionate insight into the worthlessness of human nature: - - "For every guise of fortune - Is smoothed by that below: the learned pate - Ducks to the golden fool: all is oblique; - There's nothing level in our cursèd natures - But direct villany." - -When Alcibiades, who appears in company with two hetæræ addresses -Timon in friendly fashion, the latter turns to abuse one of the women, -declaring that she carries more destruction with her than the soldier -does in his sword. She retorts, and he rails at her in the fashion of -_Troilus and Cressida_. In his eyes the wanton woman is merely the -disseminator of disease, and he expresses the hope that she may bring -many a young man to sickness and misery. Alcibiades offers to serve him: - - "Noble Timon, - What friendship may I do thee? - _Timon_. None, but to maintain my opinion. - _Alcibiades_. What is it, Timon? - _Timon_. Promise me friendship, but perform none." - -When Alcibiades informs him that he is leading his army against Athens, -Timon prays that the gods will give him the victory, in order that he -may exterminate the people root and branch, and himself afterwards. He -gives him gold for his war, and conjures him to rage like a pestilence: - - "Let not thy sword skip one: - Pity not honoured age for his white beard; - He is an usurer: strike me the counterfeit matron, - It is her habit only that is honest, - Herselfs a bawd: let not the virgin's cheek - Make soft thy trenchant sword; for those milk paps - That through the window bars bore at men's eyes - Are not within the leaf of pity writ, - But set them down horrible traitors: spare not the babe, - Whose dimpled smile from fools exhaust their mercy; - Think it a bastard, whom the oracle - Hath doubtfully pronounced thy throat shall cut, - And mince it sans remorse: swear against objects; - Put armour on thine ears and on thine eyes; - Whose proofs, nor yells of mothers, maids, nor babes, - Nor sight of priests in holy vestments bleeding, - Shall pierce a jot. There's gold to pay thy soldiers: - Make large confusion: and, thy fury spent, - Confounded be thyself" (Act iv. sc. 3). - -The women, seeing his wealth, immediately beg him for gold, and he -answers, "Hold up, you sluts, your aprons mountant." They are not to -swear, for their oaths are worthless, but they are to go on deceiving, -and being "whores still," they are to seduce him to attempts to convert -them, and to deck their own thin hair with the hair of corpses, that -of hanged women preferably; they are to paint and rouge until they -themselves lie dead: "Paint till a horse may mire upon your face." - -They shout to him for more gold; they will "do anything for gold." -Timon answers them in words which Shakespeare, for all the pathos of -his youth, has never surpassed, words whose frenzied scathing has never -been equalled: - - "Consumptions sow - In hollow bones of men: strike their sharp shins, - And mar men's spurring; crack the lawyer's voice, - That he may never more false title plead, - Nor sound his quillets shrilly: hoar the flamen, - That scolds against the quality of flesh, - And not believes himself: down with the nose, - Down with it flat: take the bridge quite away - Of him that, his particular to foresee, - Smells from the general weal: make curled-pate ruffians bald, - And let the unscarred ruffians of the war - Derive some pain from you: plague all: - That your activity may defeat and quell - The source of all erection. There's more gold: - Do you damn others, and let this damn you, - And ditches grave you all. - _Phrynia and Timandra_. More counsel with more gold, - bounteous Timon." - -The passion in this is overpowering. One need only compare it with -Lucian to realise the fire that Shakespeare has put into the old Greek, -whose reflections are only savage in substance, being absolutely tame -in expression--"The name of misanthrope shall sound sweetest in my -ears, and my characteristics shall be peevishness, harshness, rudeness, -hostility towards men," &c. Compare this scene with the latter part -of Plutarch's _Alcibiades_, to which we know Shakespeare had referred, -and see what the poet's acrimony has made of Timandra, the faithful -mistress who follows Alcibiades to Phrygia. They are together when his -murderess sets fire to the house, and it is Timandra who enshrouds -his body in the most costly material she possesses, and gives him as -splendid a funeral as her isolated position can secure. - -Apemantus follows close upon Alcibiades, and after he is driven away, -two bandits appear, attracted by the report of the treasure. Timon -welcomes them, crying, "Rascal thieves, here's gold." He adds good -advice to the money. They are to drink wine until it drives them mad, -so they may, perchance, escape hanging; they are to put no trust in -physicians, whose antidotes are poisons; when they can, they are to -kill as well as steal. Theft is universal, the law itself being only -made to conceal robbery: - - "Rob one another. There's more gold. Cut throats. - All that you meet are thieves: to Athens go; - Break open shops; _nothing can you steal_ - _But thieves do lose it_." - -The worthy Proudhon himself has not set forth more plainly his axiom, -"Property is theft." - -When the Senate appeals to Timon for his assistance as general and -statesman, he first professes sympathy, then cries: - - "If Alcibiades kill my countrymen, - Let Alcibiades know this of Timon, - That Timon cares not." - -He may sack Athens, pull old men by the beard, and give the sacred -virgins over to the mercies of the soldiery. Timon cares as little as -the soldier's knife recks of the throats it cuts. The most worthless -blade in Alcibiades' camp is more valued by him than any life in -Athens. All feeling for country, home, even for the helpless, has -utterly perished. - -Shakespeare borrows a final touch from Plutarch, which, in his hand, -becomes a masterpiece of bloodthirsty irony. He declares he does not, -as they suppose, rejoice in the general desolation; his countrymen -shall once more enjoy his hospitality. A fig-tree grows by his cave, -which it is his intention to cut down; but before it is felled, any -friend of his, high or low, who wishes to escape the horrors of a -siege, is welcome to come and hang himself. He next announces that his -grave is prepared, and they that seek him may come thither and find an -oracle in his tombstone, then: - - "Lips, let sour words go by and language end: - What is amiss, plague and infection mend! - Graves only be man's works and death their gain! - Sun, hide thy beams! Timon hath done his reign." - -These are his last words. May pestilence rage amongst men! May it -infect and destroy so long as there is a man left to dig a grave! May -the world be annihilated as Timon is about to annihilate himself. The -light of the sun will presently be extinguished for him; let it be -extinguished for all! - -This is not Othello's sorrow over the power of evil to wreck -the happiness of noble hearts, nor King Lear's wail over the -ever-threatening possibilities and the heaped-up miseries of life: -it is an angry bitterness, caused by ingratitude, which has grown so -great that it darkens the sky of life and causes the thunder to roll -with such threatening peals as we have never heard even in Shakespeare. -All that he has lived through in these last years, and all that he -has suffered from the baseness of other men, is concentrated in this -colossal figure of the desperate man-hater, whose wild rhetoric is like -a dark essence of blood and gall drawn off to relieve suffering. - - -[1] _New Shakespeare Society's Transactions_, 1874, pp. 130-194. - -[2] Swinburne: _A Study of Shakespeare_, pp. 212-215. - -[3] _Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakespearegesellschaft_, iii. pp. 334-361. - - - - -XIV - -_CONVALESCENCE--TRANSFORMATION--THE NEW TYPE_ - -The last, wildest words of this bitter outbreak had been spoken. The -dark cloud had burst and the skies were slowly clearing. - -It seems as though the blackest of his griefs had been lightened in -the utterance, and now that the steady _crescendo_ had burst into its -most furious _forte_, he breathed more freely again. He had said his -say; Timon had called for the extinction of humanity by plague, sexual -disease, slaughter, and suicide. The powers of cursing could go no -farther. - -Shakespeare has shouted himself hoarse and his fury is spent. The fever -is over and convalescence has set in. The darkened sun shines out once -more, and the gloomy sky shines blue again. - -How and why! Who shall say? - -In all the obscurity of Shakespeare's life-history, nowhere do we -feel our ignorance of his personal experiences more acutely than -here. Some have sought an explanation in the resignation which comes -with advancing years, and of which we certainly catch glimpses in -his latest works. But Shakespeare neither was, nor felt himself, old -at forty-five; and the word resignation is meaningless in connection -with this marvellous softening of his long exasperated mood. It is -more than a mere reconciliation; it is a revival of that free and -lambent imagination which has lain so long in what seemed to be its -death-swoon. There is no play of fancy in resignation. - -Once more he finds life worth living, the earth beautiful, -enchantingly, fantastically attractive, and those who dwell upon it -worthy of his love. - -In the purely external circumstances no change has occurred. The -political outlook in England is the same, and it is not likely that he -would be greatly stirred by events such as the assassination of Henry -IV. of France in 1610 and the consequent expulsion of the Jesuits from -Great Britain. Details--like the decree forbidding English Catholics -(Recusants) from coming within ten miles of the Court, and James's -removal of his mother's bones and their pompous re-interment in -Westminster Abbey--could have little effect upon Shakespeare. - -What has personally befallen him that has had such power to re-attune -his spirit and lead it back from discord to the old melody and harmony? -Surely we are now brought face to face with one of the decisive crises -of his life. - -Let us anticipate the works yet to be written--_Pericles, Cymbeline, -Winter's Tale_, and _The Tempest._ - -In this last splendid period of his life's glowing September, his -dramatic activity, bearing about it the clear transparent atmosphere of -early autumn, is more richly varied now than it has ever been. - -What figures occupy the most prominent place in the poet's sumptuous -harvest-home but the young, womanly forms of Marina, Imogen, Perdita, -and Miranda. These girlish and forsaken creatures are lost and found -again, suffer grievous wrongs, and are in no case cherished as they -deserve; but their charm, purity, and nobility of nature triumph over -everything. - -They must have had their prototypes or type. - -A new world has opened out to Shakespeare, but it would be profitless -to spend much time on more or less probable conjectures concerning how -and by whom it was revealed. We will, therefore, only lightly touch -upon the possibility that Shakespeare, after and during the violent -crisis of his loathing for humanity, was gradually reconciled to life -by some young and womanly nobility of soul, and by all the poetry which -surrounds it and follows in its train. - -All these youthful women are akin, and are sharply separated from the -heroines of his former plays. They are half-real, half-imaginary. The -charm of youth and fantastic romance shines round them like a halo; the -foulness of life has no power to defile them. They are self-reliant -without being endowed with the buoyant spirit of his earlier -adventurous maidens, and they are gentle without being overshadowed by -the pathetic mournfulness of his sacrificial victims. Not one comes to -a tragic end, and not one ever utters a jest, but all are holy in the -poet's eyes. - -The situations of Marina and Perdita are very similar; both are -castaways, apparently fatherless and motherless, left solitary amidst -dangerous or pitiable circumstances. Imogen is suspected and her life -threatened, like Marina's, and although she is suspected and sentenced -to death by her nearest and dearest, her strength never falters, and -even her love for her unworthy husband is unimpaired. - -Miranda is deprived of her rank and condemned to the solitude of a -desert island, but is sheltered even there by a father's watchful -care. There is indeed a half-fatherly tenderness in the delineation of -Miranda, and the conception of the native charm of a young girl as a -wonderful mystery of nature. Neither Molière's Agnes nor Shakespeare's -Miranda have ever looked upon the face of a young man before they meet -the one they love, but Agnes possesses only the artificially-preserved -ignorance and innocence which disappear like dew before the sun of -love. To Shakespeare, Miranda appears like a being from another world, -an ideal of pure spiritual womanhood and maidenly passion, before which -he almost kneels in worship. - -Let us glance back at Shakespeare's gallery of women. - -There are the viragoes of his youth, bloodthirsty women like Tamora, -guilty and powerful ones like Margaret of Anjou, and later, Lady -Macbeth, Goneril, and Regan; there are feeble women like Anne in -Richard III., and shrews like Katharine and Adriana, in whom we seem to -detect a reminiscence of the wife at Stratford. - -Then we have the passionately loving, like Julia in _Two Gentlemen of -Verona_, Venus, Titania, Helena in _All's Well that Ends Well_, and, -above all, Juliet. There are the charmingly witty and often frolicsome -young girls, like Rosaline in _Love's Labours Lost_, Portia in the -_Merchant of Venice_, Beatrice, Viola, and Rosalind. - -Then the simply-minded, deeply-feeling, silent natures, with an element -of tragedy about them, pre-ordained to destruction--Ophelia, Desdemona, -Cordelia. After these come the merely sensual types of his bitter -mood--Cleopatra and Cressida. - -And now, lastly, the young girl, drawn with the ripened man's rapture -over her youth, and a certain passion of admiration.[1]. She had been -lost to him, as Marina to her father Pericles, and Perdita to her -father Leontes. He feels for her the same fatherly tenderness which his -last incarnation, the magician Prospero, feels for his daughter Miranda. - -He had taken a greater burden of life upon himself in the past than -he well could bear, and he now lays its heaviest portion aside. No -more tragedies! No more historical dramas! No more of the horrors of -realism! In their stead a fantastic reflection of life, with all the -changes and chances of fairy-tale and legend! A framework of fanciful -poetry woven around the charming seriousness of the youthful woman and -the serious charm of the young girl. - -It works like a vision from another world, an enchantment set in -surroundings as dream-like as itself. A ship in the open sea off -Mitylene; a strange, delightful, ocean-encircled Bohemia; a lonely, -magically-protected island; a Britain, where kings of the Roman period -and Italians of the sixteenth century meet young princes who dwell in -woodland caves and have never seen the face of woman. - -Thus he gradually returns to those brighter moods of his youth from -which the fairy dances of the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ had evolved, or -that unknown Forest of Arden in which cypresses grew and lions prowled, -and happy youth and mirthful maidenhood carelessly roamed. Only the -spirit of frolic has departed, while free play is given to a fancy -unhampered by the laws of reality, and much earnest discernment lies -behind the untrammelled sport of imagination. He waves the magician's -wand and reality vanishes, now, as formerly. But the light heart has -grown sorrowful, and its mirth is no more than a faint smile. He offers -the daydreams of a lonely spirit now, rich but evanescent visions, -occupying in all a period of from four to five years. - -Then Prospero buries his magic wand a fathom deep in the earth for ever. - - -[1] In Mrs. Jameson's charming old book, _Shakespeare's -Female Characters_, she has grouped his women in an arbitrary manner. -Disregarding all chronological sequence, she divides twenty-three -characters into four groups:--1. Characters of Intellect. 2. Characters -of Passion and Imagination. 3. Characters of the Affections. 4. -Historical characters. Heine characterises forty-five feminine figures -in his _Shakespeare's Mädchen und Frauen_, but the last twenty-one are -only distinguished by a few quotations, and he makes no attempt at any -deeper interpretation, historical or psychological. - - - - -XV - -_PERICLES--COLLABORATION WITH WILKINS AND ROWLEY--SHAKESPEARE AND -CORNEILLE_ - -Sevenfold darkness surrounds Shakespeare's productions in that -transition period during which morbid distrust was giving way to the -brighter view of life we find in his later plays. We possess a brief -series of plays: _Timon of Athens_ and _Pericles_, which are plainly -only partially his work, and _Henry VIII._ and _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, -of which we may confidently assert that Shakespeare had nothing to do -with them beyond the insertion of single important speeches and the -addition of a few valuable touches. - -He had not adapted other men's work since his novitiate, neither -had he blended his own intellectual produce with alien and inferior -efforts. What is the reason of such an association suddenly and -repeatedly occurring now? I will state my view of the matter without -any circumlocution or criticism of the opinion of others. We noticed -in _Coriolanus_ that Shakespeare's changed attitude towards humanity -had also affected his attitude towards his art. A certain carelessness -of execution had made itself felt. His steadily increasing despair -of finding any virtue or worth in the world, and the ever-growing -resentment against the coarseness and thanklessness of men, were -accompanied by his corresponding indifference and negligence as a -dramatist. - -We have followed Shakespeare through his early struggles and youthful -happiness to the great and serious epoch of his life, and through the -anything but brief period of gloom to its crisis in the wild outburst -of _Timon of Athens_; after which we recognised the first symptoms -of convalescence. A perspective of not too profoundly-serious nor -realistic dramas has opened out before us, whose freely playing fantasy -proves that Shakespeare is once more reconciled to life. - -It stands to reason that this reconciliation was not effected by any -sudden change, and Shakespeare would not immediately return to the old -striving after perfection in his profession--did not do so, in fact, -until that very last work in which he laid aside his art for ever. We -saw that he had strained too much at life, and he now realises that he -has done the same with art. Either he no longer taxes his strength to -the uttermost when he writes, or he has lost that power for which no -task was too heavy, no horror too terrible to depict. From this moment -we feel a foreboding that this mighty genius will lay down his pen some -years before his life is to end, and we realise that his mind is being -gradually withdrawn from the theatre. He has already ceased to act; -soon he will have ceased to write for the stage. He longs for rest, -for solitude, away from the town, far into the country; away from his -life's battlefield to the quietude of his birthplace, there to pass his -remaining years and die. - -He may have reasoned thus: For whom should he write? Where were they -for whom he had written the plays of his youth? They were dead or -far away; he had lost sight of them and they of him--how long does -any warm sympathy with a productive intellect usually last? With his -ever-increasing indifference to fame, he shrank more and more from -the exertion entailed by laborious planning and careful execution, -and as little did he care whether the work he did was known by his -or another man's name. In his utter contempt for what the crowd did -or did not believe about him, he allowed piratical booksellers to -publish one worthless play after another with his immortal name upon -the title-page--_Sir John Oldcastle_ in 1600, _The London Prodigal_ in -1605, _A Yorkshire Tragedy_ in 1608, _Lord Cromwell_ in 1613--and he -either obscured or permitted others to obscure his work by associating -it with the feeble or affected productions of younger and inferior -men. We saw in _Timon_, as we shall presently see in _Pericles_ and -other plays, how the lines drawn by his master-hand have been blurred -by others, traced by clumsy and unsteady fingers. It is not always -easy to distinguish whether it was Shakespeare who began the play and -wearied of his work half-way through, as Michael Angelo so frequently -did, carelessly looking on at its completion by another hand, or -whether he had the attempts of others lying before him and hid his own -poetical strength and greatness in these fungus growths of childish -versification and unhealthy prose, leaving it to chance whether the -future generations, to whom he never gave much thought, would be able -to distinguish his part in them. It may be that he treated his work for -the theatre much as a modern author does when he makes over his ideas -to a collaborator, or writes anonymously in a newspaper or periodical. -He believes that among his friends are three or four who will recognise -his style, and if they do not (as frequently happens) it is no great -matter. - -On the title-page of the first quarto edition of _Pericles_, in 1609, -are these words: "The late, and much admired play called Pericles, -Prince of Tyre.... By William Shakespeare." "The late"--the play cannot -have been acted before 1608, for there is no contemporary mention of it -before that date, whereas from 1609 onwards it is frequently noticed. -"The much admired play"--everything witnesses to the truth of these -words.[1] Many contemporary references testify to the favour the play -enjoyed. In an anonymous poem, _Pimlyco, or Runne Redcap_ (1609), -Pericles is mentioned as the new play which gentle and simple crowd to -see: - - "Amazde I stood, to see a Crowd - Of civill Throats stretched out so lowd - (As at a New Play). All the Roomes - Did swarm with Gentiles mix'd with Groomes, - So that I truly thought all These - Came to see _Shore_ or _Pericles_." - -The previously mentioned prologue (p. 539) to Robert Tailor's -_The Hog has Lost his Pearl_ (1614) cannot wish the play anything -better than that it may succeed as well as _Pericles_: - - "And if it prove so happy as to please, - Weele say 'tis fortunate like _Pericles_." - -In 1629, Ben Jonson, exasperated by the utter failure of his play _The -New Inn_, affords evidence, in the ode addressed to himself which -accompanies the drama, of the persistent popularity of _Pericles_: - - "No doubt some mouldy tale - Like Pericles, and stale - As the shrieves crusts and nasty as his fish-- - Scraps out of every dish - Thrown forth and raked into the common tub, - May keep up the Play-club." - -In Sheppard's poem, _The Times displayed in Six Sestyads._ Shakespeare -is said to equal Sophocles and surpass Aristophanes, and all for -_Pericles'_ sake: - - "With Sophocles we may - Compare great Shakespeare: Aristophanes - Never like him his Fancy could display, - Witness the _Prince of Tyre, his Pericles._" - -This play was not included in the First Folio edition, probably because -the editors could not come to an agreement with the original publisher; -for these pirates were protected by law as soon as the book was entered -at Stationers' Hall. During Shakespeare's lifetime and after his death -it was one of the most popular of English dramas. - -_Pericles_ was formerly considered one of Shakespeare's earliest works, -an opinion held strangely enough by Karl Elze in our own day. But all -English critics now believe, what Hallam was the first to discover, -that the language of such parts of it as were written by Shakespeare -belongs in style to his latest period, and it is unanimously declared -to have been written somewhere about the year 1608, after _Antony and -Cleopatra_ and before _Cymbeline_ and _The Tempest_. (See, for example, -P. Z. Round's introduction to the Irving edition, or Furnival's _Triar -Table of the order of Shakespeare's Plays_, reprinted in Dowden and -elsewhere.) My own opinion of course is, that _Pericles_ follows -naturally upon _Coriolanus_ and _Timon of Athens_, and forms an -appropriate overture to the succeeding fantastically idyllic plays. -The reader will have noticed that, unlike Dowden and Furnivall, I -have not been able to assign so early a date for the whole series -of pessimistic dramas as 1608 would imply.[2] I assume that certain -portions of _Pericles_ were forming in Shakespeare's mind even in the -midst of the venom to which he was giving vent for the last time in -_Timon of Athens_. In such periods of violent upheaval there may be an -undercurrent to the surface-current in the mind of a poet as well as in -another man's, and it is this undercurrent which will presently gain -strength and become the prevalent mood. - -The intelligent reader will have realised that all this dating of -Shakespeare's pessimistic works can only be approximate. I am inclined -to advance them a year, because I fancy I can trace a connection -between _Coriolanus_ and Shakespeare's own thoughts of his mother, who -died in 1608. But a son does not only think of his mother at the moment -she is taken from him, and the fear of losing her in the illness which -probably preceded her death may have recalled his mother's image to -Shakespeare's mind with special force long before he actually lost her. -Here, as in all cases where it is not expressly mentioned, the reader -is requested to see an underlying Perhaps or Possibly, and to add one -where he feels the need of it. Only the main lines of the sequence are -at all certain. Where external criterions are missing, the internal -alone cannot determine the question of a year or a month. As far as -_Pericles_ is concerned, we do possess some guide, for it is most -unlikely that Shakespeare's share in the play would be added after it -was performed in 1608, especially in the face of the assurance on the -title-page. - -The work as it has come down to us is not in reality a drama at all, -but an incompletely dramatised epic poem. We are taken back to the -childhood of dramatic art. The prologue to each act and the various -explanatory passages interpolated throughout the play are supposed -to be spoken by the old English poet John Gower, who had treated the -subject in narrative verse about the year 1390. He introduces the play -to the audience and explains it, as it were, with his pointer. Anything -that cannot well be acted he narrates, or has represented in dumb-show. -He speaks in the old octosyllabic rhymed iambics, which, as a rule, -however, do not rhyme: - - "To sing a song that old was _sung_ - From ashes ancient Gower has _come_, - Assuming man's _infirmities_, - To glad your ears and please your _eyes_" - -And in the last lines of the prologue to the fourth act: - - "Dionyza doth _appear_, - With Leonine a _murderer_." - -He jestingly alludes to the fact that the play includes nearly the -whole of Pericles' life, from youth to old age. Marina is born at the -beginning of the third act, and is about to be married at the close of -the fifth. Nothing could well be farther from that unity of time and -place which was attempted in France at a later period. The first act -is laid at Antioch, Tyre, and Tarsus; the second in Pentapolis, on the -sea-shore, in a corridor of Simonides' palace, and lastly in a hall of -state. The third act opens on board ship and continues in the house of -Cerimon at Ephesus. The fourth act begins with an open place near the -sea-shore and ends in a brothel at Mitylerie; the fifth, on Pericles' -ship off Mitylene, ending in the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. There is -as little unity of action as of time and place about the play; its -disconnected details are merely held together by the individuality of -the principal characters, and there is neither rhyme nor reason in its -various incidents; pure chance seems to rule all. The reader will seek -in vain for any intention--I do not mean moral, but any fundamental -idea in the play. Gower certainly institutes a contrast between an -immoral princess at the beginning of the play and a virtuous one at the -close, but this moral contrast has no connection with the intermediate -acts. - -Pericles was an old and very popular subject. Its earliest form was -probably that of a Greek romance of the fifth century, of which a -Latin translation is still extant. It was translated into various -languages during the Middle Ages, and one version has found its way -into the _Gesta Romanorum_. In the twelfth century it was incorporated -by Godfrey of Viterbo in his great _Chronicle_. John Gower, who adapts -it in the eighth book of his _Confessio Amantis,_ gives Godfrey as his -authority. The Latin tale was translated into English by Lawrence Twine -in 1576, under the title of _The Patterne of Paynfull Aduentures_, a -second edition of which was published in 1607. In all but the English -adaptations the hero's name is given as Apollonius of Tyre. There can -be no doubt that Shakespeare's play was based upon the 1607 editon, and -this in itself is sufficient to refute the antiquated notion that his -part in it belonged to his youthful period. It was on the substance -of this play, and doubtless also upon Shakespeare's share in it, that -George Wilkins founded the romance he published in 1608 under the -title of _The Painfull Aduentures of Pericles Prince of Tyre, Being -the true history of the Play of Pericles as it was lately presented -by the worthy and ancient John Gower_. The fact that Wilkins, in the -dedication of his book, which is a mere abstract of Twine and the play, -calls it "a poor infant of my braine," and the still more remarkable -similarity of the style and metrical structure of the first act of -_Pericles_ with Wilkins' own play, _The Miseries of enforced Marriage_, -would seem to point to him as the author of the extraneous portions -of _Pericles_. In both dramas a quantity of disconnected material has -been brought together in a long-drawn-out play, destitute of dramatic -situations or interest, and in both we find the same jarring and -awkward inversions of words. The incidents of the _Enforced Marriage_ -recall some of the non-Shakespearian elements of _Timon_; here, also, -we are shown a spendthrift, evidently in possession of the sympathies -of his author, by whom he is considered a victim. The mingling of -prose, blank verse, and clumsily-introduced couplets with the same -rhymes constantly recurring, reminds us of those acts and scenes in -which Shakespeare had no part. Fleay observes that 195 rhymed lines -occur in the two first acts of _Pericles_, and only fourteen in the -last three, so marked is the contrast of style between the two parts, -and he notices that this frequency of rhyme corresponds closely to -the method of George Wilkins' own work. Both he and Boyle agree with -Delius, who was the first to express the opinion, that Wilkins is -the author of the first two acts. By dint of comparisons of style, -Fleay came to the conclusion that Gower's two speeches in five-footed -iambics, before and after Scenes 5 and 6 (which differ so markedly in -form and language from his other monologues), were written by William -Rowley, who had been associated in the previous year with Wilkins and -Day in the production of a wretched melodrama, _The Travels of Three -English Brothers_. His attempt, however, to ascribe to Rowley the two -prose scenes which take place in the brothel is made more on moral -than æsthetic grounds, and can have very little weight. My own opinion -is that they were entirely written by Shakespeare. They are plainly -presupposed in certain passages which are unmistakably Shakesparean; -they accord with that general view of life from which he is but now -beginning to escape, and they markedly recall the corresponding scenes -in _Measure for Measure_. - -It is impossible to ascertain the precise circumstances under which -the play was produced. Some critics have maintained that it originally -began with what is now the third act, and that Shakespeare, having lain -it aside, gave Wilkins and Rowley permission to complete it for the -stage. But in reality the two men wrote the play in collaboration and -disposed of it to Shakespeare's company, which in turn submitted it to -the poet, who worked upon such parts as appealed to his imagination. As -the play now belonged to the theatre, and Wilkins was not at liberty -to publish it, he forestalled the booksellers by bringing it out as a -story, taking all the credit of invention and execution upon himself. - -Never was a drama contrived out of more unlikely material. The name of -the knightly Prince of Tyre is changed, probably because it did not -suit the metre, from Apollonius to Pericles, which was corrupted from -the Pyrocles of Sidney's _Arcadia_. He comes to Antioch to risk his -life on the solution of a riddle. According to his success or failure -he is to be rewarded by the Princess's hand or death. The riddle -betrays to him the abominable fact that the Princess is living in -incest with her own father. He withdraws from the contest, and flies -from the country to escape the wrath of the wicked prince, who is even -more certain to slay him for success than for failure. He returns -to Tyre, but feeling insecure even there, he falls into a state of -melancholy, and quits his kingdom to escape the pursuit of Antiochus. - -Arriving at Tarsus at a time when its inhabitants are suffering from -famine, he succours them with corn from his ships. Soon afterwards -he is wrecked off Pentapolis and cast ashore. His armour is dragged -out of the sea in fishermen's nets, and Pericles takes part in a -knightly tournament. The king's daughter, Thaisa, falls in love with -him at first sight, as did Nausicaa with Odysseus. She ignores all the -young knights around her for the sake of this noble stranger, who has -suffered shipwreck and so many other misfortunes. She will marry him -or none; he shines in comparison with the others as a precious stone -beside glass. Pericles weds Thaisa, and bears her away with him on -his ship. They are overtaken by a storm, during which Thaisa dies in -giving birth to a daughter. The superstition of the sailors requires -that her corpse shall be immediately thrown into the sea. The coffin -drifts ashore at Ephesus, where Thaisa reawakes to life unharmed. -The newborn child is left by Pericles to be nursed at Tarsus. As -Marina grows up, her foster-mother determines to kill her because she -outshines her daughter. Pirates land and prevent the murder; carrying -off Marina, they sell her to the mistress of a brothel in Mitylene. She -preserves her purity amidst these horrible surroundings, and, finding -a protector, gains her release. She is taken on board Pericles' ship -that she may charm away his melancholy. A recognition ensues, and, in -obedience to a sign from Diana, they sail to Ephesus; the husband is -reunited to his wife and the newly-found daughter to her mother. - -This is the dramatically impossible canvas which Shakespeare undertook -to retouch and finish. That he should have made the first sketch of -the play, as Fleay so warmly maintains, seems very improbable upon a -careful study of the plot. To write such a beginning to an already -finished end would have been an almost impossible task for Wilkins -and his collaborator, involving a terribly active vigilance; for the -setting of the Shakespearian scenes, Gower's prologues, interludes, -and epilogues, &c., is a frame of their own making. Everything favours -the theory that it was Shakespeare who undertook to shape a half- or -wholly-finished piece of patchwork. - -He hardly touched the first two acts, but they contain some traces of -his pen--the delicacy with which the incest of the Princess is treated, -for example, and Thaisa's timid, almost mute, though suddenly-aroused -love for him who at first glance seems to her the chief of men. The -scene between the three fishermen, with which the second act opens, -owns some turns which speak of Shakespeare, especially where a -fisherman says that the avaricious rich are the whales "o' the land, -who never leave gaping till they've swallowed the whole parish, church, -steeple, bells, and all," and another replies, "But, master, if I had -been the sexton, I would have been that day in the belfry.' - - "_Second Fisherman_. Why, man? - - "_Third Fisherman_. Because he should have swallowed me too: - and when I had been in his belly, I would have kept such a - jangling of the bells, that he should never have left till - he cast bells, steeple, church, and parish up again." - -It is not impossible, however, that these gleams of Shakespearean wit -are mere imitations of his manner. But, on the other hand, the obvious -mimicry of the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ in Gower's prologue to the -third act is commonplace and clumsy enough: - - "Now sleep yslaked hath the rout; - No din but snores the house about. - . . . . . . . - The cat, with eyne of burning coal, - Now couches fore the mouse's hole; - And crickets sing at the oven's mouth, - E'er the blither for their drouth." - -Compare this with Puck's: - - "Now the wasted brands do glow, - Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud," &c. - -An awkwardly introduced pantomime interrupts the prologue, which is -tediously renewed; then suddenly, like a voice from another world, -a rich, full tone breaks in upon the feeble drivel, and we hear -Shakespeare's own voice in unmistakable and royal power: - - "Thou God of this great vast, rebuke these surges, - Which wash both heaven and hell; and thou, that hast - Upon the winds command, bind them in brass, - Having called them from the deep! Oh, still - Thy deafening, dreadful thunders; gently quench - Thy nimble, sulphurous flashes!--Oh, how, Lychorida, - How does my queen?--Thou stormest venomously: - Wilt thou spit all thyself? The seaman's whistle - Is as a whisper in the ears of death, - Unheard."... - -The nurse brings the tiny new-born babe, saying: - - "Here is a thing too young for such a place, - Who, if it had conceit, would die, as I - Am like to do: take in your arms this piece - Of your dead queen. - _Pericles_. How, how Lychorida! - _Lychorida_. Patience, good sir; do not assist the storm. - Here's all that is left living of your queen, - A little daughter: for the sake of it, - Be manly and take comfort." - -The sailors enter, and, after a brief, masterly conversation, -full of the raging storm and the struggle to save the ship, they -superstitiously demand that the queen, who has but this instant drawn -her last breath, should be thrown overboard. The king is compelled to -yield, and turning a last look upon her, says: - - "A terrible childbed hast thou had, my dear; - No light, no fire: the unfriendly elements - Forgot thee utterly; nor have I time - To give thee hallowed to thy grave, but straight - Must cast thee, scarcely coffined, in the ooze; - Where, for a monument upon thy bones, - And e'er-remaining lamps, the belching whale - And humming water must o'erwhelm thy corse, - Lying with simple shells." - -He gives orders to change the course of the ship and make for Tarsus, -because "the babe cannot hold out to Tyrus." There is so mighty a -breath of storm and raging seas, such rolling of thunder and flashing -of lightning in these scenes, that nothing in English poetry, not -excepting Shakespeare's _Tempest_ itself, nor Byron's and Shelley's -descriptions of Nature, can surpass it. The storm blows and howls, -hisses and screams, till the sound of the boatswain's whistle is lost -in the raging of the elements. These scenes are famous and beloved -among that seafaring folk for whom they were written, and who know the -subject-matter so well. - -The effect is tremendously heightened by the struggles of human passion -amidst the fury of the elements. The tender and strong grief expressed -in Pericles' subdued lament for Thaisa is not drowned by the storm; it -sounds a clear, spiritual note of contrast with the raging of the sea. -And how touching is Pericles' greeting to his new-born child: - - "Now, mild may be thy life! - For a more blustrous birth had never babe: - Quiet and gentle thy conditions, for - Thou art the rudeliest welcomed to this world - That ever was prince's child. Happy what follows! - Thou hast as chiding a nativity - As fire, air, water, earth, and heaven can make, - To herald thee from the womb." ... - -Although Wilkins' tale follows the course of the play very faithfully, -there are but two points in which the resemblance between them extends -to a similarity of wording. The first of these occurs in the second -act, which was Wilkins' own work, and the second here. In his tale -Wilkins says: - - "Poor inch of nature! Thou art as rudely welcome to the - world as ever princess' babe was, and hast as chiding a - nativity as fire, air, earth, and water can afford thee." - -Even more striking than the identity of words is the exclamation "Poor -inch of nature!" It is so entirely Shakespearian that we are tempted to -believe it must have been accidentally omitted in the manuscripts from -which the first edition was printed. - -It is not until the birth of Marina in the third act that Shakespeare -really takes the play in hand. Why? Because it is only now that it -begins to have any interest for him. It is the development of this -character, this tender image of youthful charm and noble purity, which -attracts him to the task. - -How Shakespearian is the scene in which Marina is found strewing -flowers on the grave of her dead nurse just before Dionyza sends -her away to be murdered; it foreshadows two scenes in plays which -are shortly to follow--the two brothers laying flowers on the -supposed corpse of Fidelio in _Cymbeline_ and Perdita, disguised as a -shepherdess, distributing all kinds of blossoms to the two strangers -and her guests in _The Winter's Tale_. - -Marina says - -(Act iv. sc. I): - - "No, I will rob Tellus of her weed - To strew thy green with flowers: the yellows, blues, - The purple violets, and marigolds, - Shall as a carpet hang upon thy grave - While summer-days do last.--Ay me! poor maid, - Born in a tempest, when my mother died, - This world to me is like a lasting storm, - Whirring me from my friends." - -The words are simple, and not especially remarkable in themselves, but -they are of the greatest importance as symptoms. They are the first -mild tones escaping from an instrument which has long yielded only -harsh and jarring sounds. There is nothing like them in the dramas of -Shakespeare's despairing mood. - -When, weary and sad, he consented to re-write parts of this _Pericles_, -it was that he might embody the feeling by which he is now possessed. -Pericles is a romantic Ulysses, a far-travelled, sorely tried, -much-enduring man, who has, little by little, lost all that was dear -to him. When first we meet him, he is threatened with death because he -has correctly solved a horrible riddle of life. How symbolic this! and -he is thus made cautious and introspective, restless and depressed. -There is a touch of melancholy about him from the first, accompanied -by an indifference to danger; later, when his distrust of men has been -aroused, this characteristic despondency becomes intensified, and gives -an appearance of depth of thought and feeling. His sensitive nature, -brave enough in the midst of storm and shipwreck, sinks deeper and -deeper into a depression which becomes almost melancholia. Feeling -solitary and forsaken, he allows no one to approach him, pays no heed -when he is spoken to, but sits, silent and stern, brooding over his -griefs (Act iv. sc. I). Then Marina comes into his life. When she is -first brought on board, she tries to attract his attention by her -sweet, modest play and song; then she speaks to him, but is rebuffed, -even angrily repulsed, until the gentle narrative of the circumstances -of her birth and the misfortunes which have pursued her arrests the -king's attention. The restoration of his daughter produces a sudden -change from anguished melancholy to subdued happiness. - -So, as a poet, had Shakespeare of late withdrawn from the world, and -in just such a manner he looked upon men and their sympathy until the -appearance of Marina and her sisters in his poetry. - -It is probable that Shakespeare wrote the part of Pericles for Burbage, -but there is much of himself in it. The two men had more in common -than one would be apt to suppose from the only too well-known story of -their rivalry on a certain intimate occasion. It is just such trivial -anecdotes as this that make their way and are remembered. - -Shakespeare has spiritualised Pericles; Marina, in his hands, is a -glorified being, who is scarcely grown up before her charm and rare -qualities rouse envy and hatred. We first see her strewing flowers -on a grave, and immediately after this we listen to her attempt to -disarm the man who has undertaken to murder her. She proves herself as -innocent as the Queen Dagmar of the ancient ballad. She "never spake -bad word nor did ill turn to any living creature." She never killed a -mouse or hurt a fly; once she trod upon a worm against her will and -wept for it. No human creature could be cast in gentler mould, and -truth and nobility unite with this mildness to shed, as it were, a halo -round her. - -When, after rebuffing and rejecting her, Pericles has gradually -softened towards Marina, he asks her where she was born and who -provided the rich raiment she is wearing. She replies that if she were -to tell the story of her life none would believe her, and she prefers -to remain silent. Pericles urges her: - - "Prithee, speak: - Falseness cannot come from thee; for thou look'st - Modest as Justice, and thou seem'st a palace - For the crowned Truth to dwell in; I will believe thee. - . . . . . . . . . - Tell thy story; - If thine considered prove the thousandth part - Of my endurance, thou art a man, and I - Have suffered like a girl: yet thou dost look - Like Patience gazing on kings' graves, and smiling - Extremity out of act." - - -All this rich imagery brings Marina before us with the nobility of -character which is so fitly expressed in her outward seeming. It is -Pericles himself who feels like a buried prince, and it is he who -has need of her patient sympathy, that the violence of his grief may -be softened by her smile. It is all very dramatically effective. The -old Greek tragedies frequently relied on these scenes of recovery -and recognition, and they never failed to produce their effect. The -dialogue here is softly subdued, it is no painting in strong burning -colours that we are shown, but a delicately blended pastel. In order to -gain an insight into Shakespeare's humour at the time _As You Like It_ -and _Twelfth Night_ were written, the reader was asked to think of a -day on which he felt especially well and strong and sensible that all -his bodily organs were in a healthy condition,--one of those days in -which there is a festive feeling in the sunshine, a gentle caress in -the air. - -To enter into his mood in a similar manner now you would need to recall -some day of convalescence, when health is just returning after a long -and severe illness. You are still so weak that you shrink from any -exertion, and, though no longer ill, you are as yet far from being -well; your walk is unsteady, and the grasp of your hand is weak. But -the senses are keener than usual, and in little much is seen; one gleam -of sunshine in the room has more power to cheer and enliven than a -whole landscape bathed in sunshine at another time. The twitter of a -bird in the garden, just a few chirps, has more meaning than a whole -chorus of nightingales by moonlight at other moments. A single pink -in a glass gives as much pleasure as a whole conservatory of exotic -plants. You are grateful for a trifle, touched by friendliness, and -easily moved to admiration. He who has but just returned to life has an -appreciative spirit. - -As Shakespeare, with the greater susceptibility of genius, was more -keenly alive to the joyousness of youth, so more intensely than others -he felt the quiet, half-sad pleasures of convalescence. - -Wishing to accentuate the sublime innocence of Marina's nature, he -submits it to the grimmest test, and gives it the blackest foil one -could well imagine. The gently nurtured girl is sold by pirates to a -brothel, and the delineation of the inmates of the house, and Marina's -bearing towards them and their customers, occupies the greater part of -the fourth act. - -As we have already said, we can see no reason why Fleay should -reject these scenes as non-Shakespearian. When this critic (whose -reputation has suffered by his arbitrariness and inconsistency) does -not venture to ascribe them to Wilkins, and yet will not admit them to -be Shakespeare's, he is in reality pandering to the narrow-mindedness -of the clergyman, who insists that any art which is to be recognised -shall only be allowed to overstep the bounds of propriety in a -humorously jocose manner. These scenes, so bluntly true to nature -in the vile picture they set before us, are limned in just that -Caravaggio colouring which distinstinguished Shakespeare's work during -the period which is now about to close. Marina's utterances, the best -he has put into her mouth, are animated by a sublimity which recalls -Jesus' answers to his persecutors. Finally, the whole _personnel_ is -exactly that of _Measure for Measure,_ whose genuineness no one has -ever disputed. There is also an occasional resemblance of situation. -Isabella, in her robes of spotless purity, offers precisely the same -contrast to the world of pimps and panders who riot through the play -that Marina does here to the woman of the brothel and her servants. - -After all that he had suffered, it was hardly possible Shakespeare -would relapse into the romantic, mediæval worship of woman as woman. -But his natural rectitude of spirit soon led him to make exceptions -from the general condemnation which he was inclined for a time to pass -upon the sex; and now that his soul's health was returning to him, he -felt drawn, after having dwelt solely upon women of the merely sensual -type, to place a halo round the head of the young girl, and so he -brings her with unspotted innocence out of the most terrible situations. - -When she sees that she is locked into the house, she says: - - "Alack, that Leonine was so slack, so slow! - He should have struck, not spoke; or that these pirates, - Not enough barbarous, had but o'erboard thrown me - For to seek my mother! - _Bawd_. Why lament you, pretty one? - _Marina_. That I am pretty. - _Bawd_. Come, the gods have done their part in you. - _Marina_. I accuse them not. - _Bawd_. You are 'light into my hands, where you are like to live. - _Marina_. The more my fault - To 'scape his hands where I was like to die. - . . . Are you a woman? - _Bawd._ What would you have me be, an I be not a woman? - _Marina._ An honest woman, or not a woman." - -The governor Lysimachus seeks the house, and is left alone with Marina. -He begins: - - "Now, pretty one, how long have you been at this trade? - _Marina_. What trade, sir? - - _Lysimachus_. Why, I cannot name't but I shall offend. - - _Marina_. I cannot be offended with my trade. Please you to - name it. - - _Lysimachus_. How long have you been of this profession? - - _Marina_. E'er since I can remember. - - _Lysimachus_. Did you go to't so young? Were you a gamester - at five or at seven? - - _Marina_. Earlier too, sir, if now I be one. - - _Lysimachus_. Why, the house you dwell in proclaims you to - be a creature of sale. - - _Marina_. Do you know this house to be a place of such - resort, and will come into't? I hear say you are of - honourable parts, and are the governor of this place. - - _Lysimachus_. Why, hath your principal made known unto you - who I am? - - _Marina_. Who is my principal? - - _Lysimachus_. Why, your herb-woman; she that sets seeds and - roots of shame and iniquity. Oh, you have heard something of - my power, and so stand aloof for more serious wooing. . . . - Come, bring me to some private place: come, come. - - _Marina_. If you were born to honour, show it now; If put - upon you, make the judgment good That thought you worthy of - it." - -Lysimachus is arrested by her words and his purpose changed. He gives -her gold, bids her persevere in the ways of purity, and prays the gods -will strengthen her. She succeeds in obtaining her freedom and in -supporting herself by her talents. The lasting impression she had made -on the governor in her degradation is proved by his sending for her to -charm King Pericles' melancholy, and later he aspires to her hand. - -The scenes quoted do not give an intellectual equivalent for all that -has been dared in order to produce them, but they bear witness to the -desire Shakespeare felt of painting youthful womanly purity shining -whitely in a very snake-pit of vice, and the spirit in which it is -accomplished is that of both Shakespeare and the Renaissance. - -At a somewhat earlier period such a subject would have assumed, in -England, the form of a _Morality_, an allegorical religious play, in -which the steadfastness of the virtuous woman would have triumphed over -_Vice_. At a somewhat later period, in France, it would have been a -Christian drama, in which heathen wickedness and incredulity were put -to confusion by the youthful believer. Shakespeare carries it back to -the days of Diana; his virtue and vice are alike heathen, owning no -connection with church or creed. - -Thirty-seven years later, during the minority of Louis XIV., Pierre -Corneille made use of a very similar subject in his but little-known -tragedy, _Théodore, Vierge et Martyre_. The scene is laid in the same -place in which _Pericles_ begins, in Antioch during the reign of -Diocletian. - -Marcella, the wicked wife of the governor of the province, determines -that her daughter Flavia shall marry the object of her passion, -Placidus. He, however, has no thought but for the Princess Theodora, a -descendant of the old Syrian kings. Theodora is a Christian, and these -are the times of Christian persecution. In order to revenge herself -upon the young girl and estrange Placidus from her, Marcella causes her -to be confined in just such another house as that into which Marina was -sold. - -The dramatic interest would naturally lie in the development of -Theodora's feelings when, she finds herself abandoned to her fate. But -the chaste young girl will not, and cannot, express in words the horror -she must feel; and in any case the laws of propriety would not allow -her to do so on the French stage. Corneille avoided the difficulty by -exchanging action for narrative. Various false or incomplete accounts -of what has taken place keep the audience in anxious expectation. - -Placidus is told that Theodora's sentence has been commuted to one of -simple banishment. He breathes again. Then he hears that Theodora has -actually been taken to the house; that Didymus, her Christian admirer, -bribed the soldiers to allow him to enter first, and that shortly -afterwards he returned, covering his face with his cloak as though -ashamed. He is furious. The third announcement informs him that it was -Theodora who came out disguised in Didymus's clothes. Placidus' rage -now gives way to agonising jealousy. He believes that Theodora has -yielded willingly to Didymus, and he suffers tortures. Finally we learn -the truth. Didymus himself tells how he rescued Theodora unharmed; he -is a Christian, and expects to die. "Live thou without jealousy," he -says to Placidus; "I can endure the death penalty." "Alas!" answers -Placidus, "how can I be other than jealous, knowing that this glorious -creature owes more than life to thee. Thou hast given thy life to -save her honour; how can I but envy thy happiness!" Both Theodora and -Didymus are martyred, and the pagan lover, who did nothing to help his -love, is left alone with his shame. - -The sole contrast intended here is between the noble qualities -developed by the Christian faith and that baseness which was considered -inseparable from heathendom. - -Two things arrest our attention in this comparison: firstly, the -superiority of the English drama, which openly represents all things -on the stage, even such subjects as are only passingly alluded to by -society; and, secondly, the marked difference in the spirit of that Old -England of the Renaissance from the all-pervading Christianism of the -early classic period in "most Christian" France. - -The calm dignity of Marina's innocence has none of that taint of the -confessional which was plainly obnoxious to Shakespeare, and which -neither the mediæval plays before him, nor Corneille and Calderon -after, could escape. Corneille's Theodora is a saint by profession and -a martyr from choice. She gives herself up to her enemies at the end -of the play, because she has been assured by supernatural revelation -that she will not again be imprisoned in the house from which she -has just escaped. Shakespeare's Marina, the tenderly and carefully -outlined sketch of the type which is presently to wholly possess his -imagination, is purely human in her innate nobility of nature. - -It is deeply interesting to trace in this sombre yet fantastically -romantic play of _Pericles_ the germs of all his succeeding works. - -Marina and her mother, long lost and late recovered by a sorrowing -king, are the preliminary studies for Perdita and Hermione in _A -Winter's Tale_. Perdita, as her name tells us, is lost and is -living, ignorant of her parentage, in a strange country. Marina's -flower-strewing suggests Perdita's distribution of blossoms, -accompanied by words which reveal a profound understanding of -flower-nature, and Hermione is recovered by Leontes as is Thaisa by -Pericles. - -The wicked stepmother in _Cymbeline_ corresponds to the wicked -foster-mother in _Pericles_. She hates Imogen as Dionyza hates Marina. -Pisanio is supposed to have murdered her as Leonine is believed to have -slain Marina, and Cymbeline recovers both sons and daughter as Pericles -his wife and child. - -The tendency to substitute some easy process of explanation, such as -melodramatic music or supernatural revelation, in the place of severe -dramatic technique, which appears at this time, betrays a certain -weariness of the demands of the art. Diana appears to the slumbering -Pericles as Jupiter does to Posthumus in _Cymbeline_. - -But it is for _The Tempest_ that _Pericles_ more especially prepares -us. The attitude of the melancholy prince towards his daughter seems -to foreshadow that of the noble Prospero towards his child Miranda. -Prospero is also living in exile from his home. But it is Cerimon who -approaches more nearly in character to Prospero. Note his great speech: - - "I held it ever, - Virtue and cunning were endowments greater - Than nobleness and richer: careless heirs - May the two latter darken and expend; - But immortality attends the former, - Making a man a god. 'Tis known I ever - Have studied physic, through which secret art, - By turning o'er authorities, I have, - Together with my practice, made familiar - To me and to my aid the blest infusions - That dwell in vegetives, in metals, stones; - And I can speak of the disturbances - That Nature works, and of her cures; which doth give me - A more content in course of true delight - Than to be thirsty after tottering honour - Or tie my treasure up in silken bags, - To please the fool and death" (Act iii. sc. 2). - -The position in which Thaisa and Pericles stand in the second act -towards the angry father, who has in reality no serious objection to -their union, closely resembles that of Ferdinand and Miranda before -the feigned wrath of Prospero. Most notable of all is the preliminary -sketch we find in _Pericles_ of the tempest which ushers in the play of -that name. Over and above the resemblance between the storm scenes, we -have Marina's description of the hurricane during which she was born -(_Pericles_, Act iv. sc. I), and Ariel's description of the shipwreck -(_Tempest_, Act i. sc. 2). - -Many other slight touches prove a relationship between the two plays. -In _The Tempest_ (Act ii. sc. I), as in _Pericles_ (Act v. sc. I), we -have soothing slumbrous music and, mention of harpies (_Tempest_, Act -iii. sc. 3, and _Pericles_, Act iv. sc. 3). The words "virgin knot," so -charmingly used by Marina: - - "If fires be hot, knives sharp, or waters deep, - Untied I still my virgin knot will keep" (Act iv. sc. 2), - -are also employed by Prospero in reference to Miranda in _The Tempest_ -(Act iv. sc. I); and it will be observed that these are the only two -instances in which they occur in Shakespeare. - -Thus the germs of all his latest works lie in this unjustly neglected -and despised play, which has suffered under a double disadvantage: -it is not entirely Shakespeare's work, and in such portions of it -as are his own there exist, in the dark shadow cast by her hideous -surroundings about Marina, traces of that gloomy mood from which he -was but just emerging. But for all that, whether we look upon it as a -contribution to Shakespeare's biography or as a poem, this beautiful -and remarkable fragment, _Pericles_, is a work of the greatest -interest.[3] - - -[1] The complete title runs thus:--"The late, and much admired -Play, called Pericles, Prince of Tyre, with the true Relation of the -whole History, adventures, and fortunes of the said Prince: As also, -The no lesse strange and worthy accidents, in the Birth and Life of -his Daughter MARIANA. As it hath been diuers and sundry times acted -by his Maiesties Seruants, at the Globe on the Bancside. By William -Shakespeare. Imprinted at London for Henry Gosson, and are to be sold -at the Signe of the Sunne in Paternoster Row. 1609." - -[2]The Triar Table determines their order thus:-- - - Troilus and Cressida 1606-7 - Antony and Cleopatra 1606-7 - Coriolanus 1607-8 - Timon of Athens. 1607-8 - -[3] Delius: _Ueber Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre. -Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft_, iii. 175-205; F. -G. Fleay: _On the Play of Pericles. The New Shakspere Society's -Transactions_, 1874, 195-254; Swinburne: _A Study of Shakespeare_, p. -206; Gervinus: _Shakespeare_, vol. i. 187, and Elze: _Shakespeare_, p. -409, still believe _Pericles_ to be a work of Shakespeare's youth. - - - - - -XVI - -_FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER_ - -It was a comparatively easy task to distinguish Shakespeare's part in -_Timon of Athens_ and _Pericles_, for it consisted of all that was -important in either play. The identity of the men who collaborated -with him seems to have been decided by pure chance, and is of little -interest to us now-a-days. It is a different matter, however, in the -case of two other dramas of this period which have been associated with -Shakespeare's name--_The Two Noble Kinsmen_ and _Henry VIII_.--for -his part in them is unimportant, in one almost imperceptible, in -fact. Their real author was a young man just coming into notice, who -afterwards became one of the most famous dramatists of the day, and can -hardly have been indifferent to Shakespeare. The question, therefore, -of their mutual relations and the origin of their collaboration is one -of the greatest interest. - -A drama entitled _Philaster_ had been played at the Globe Theatre., in -1608 with extraordinary success. It was the joint work of two young -men, Francis Beaumont, aged 22, and John Fletcher, aged 28. The play -made their reputation, and they found themselves famous from the moment -of its representation. A would-be amusing, but in reality rather dull -play of Fletcher's, _The Woman-Hater_, had been put on the stage in -1606-7. It contained some good comic parts, but nothing that gave -promise of the poet's later works. - -After this triumph with _Philaster_, the two friends produced in 1609 -or 1611 their masterpiece, _The Maid's Tragedy_, and their scarcely -less admired _A King and no King_. This joint activity continued -until the death of Beaumont in 1615. During the remaining ten years -of his life Fletcher wrote alone, with the single exception of a play -produced in collaboration with Rowley, and attained to a fame which -probably eclipsed Shakespeare's in these last years of his life, as -it certainly did immediately after his death. Dryden remarks, in his -well-known _Essay of Dramatic Poetry_ (1668), "Their plays are now the -most pleasant and frequent entertainments of the stage, two of them -being acted through the year for one of Shakespeare's or Jonson's." -This statement seems somewhat exaggerated if we compare it with the -entries in Pepys' Diary; still, we know that Shakespeare's fame was -completely eclipsed towards the end of the century by that of Ben -Jonson. Samuel Butler not only prefers the latter, but speaks as though -his superiority was universally admitted.[1] - -The two new poets were neither learned proletaires, like Peele, -Greene, and Marlowe, nor of the middle classes, like Shakespeare and -Ben Jonson, but were both of good family. Fletcher's father was a -high-placed ecclesiastic, much experienced in the courts of Elizabeth -and James, and Beaumont was the son of a Justice of Common Pleas, -and related to families of some standing. One great source of their -popularity lay in the fact that they were thus enabled to reproduce to -perfection the manners of the fine gentleman, his general dissipation, -and his quick repartee. - -Francis Beaumont was born somewhere about the year 1586, at Grace -Dieu in Leicestershire. His family numbered among those of the -legal aristocracy, and many of its members were noted for poetical -propensities and abilities; there were no fewer than three poets by -name of Beaumont living at the time of Francis' death. The future -dramatist was entered at ten years of age as a gentleman-commoner at -Broadgate Hall, Oxford. He early left the university for London, where -he was made a member of the Inner Temple. His legal studies appear -to have sat lightly upon him, and he seems to have devoted himself -principally to the composition of those plays and masques which were so -frequently performed by the various legal colleges of those days. In -1613 he wrote the masque which was performed by the legal institutions -of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn in honour of the Princess -Elizabeth's marriage with the Elector-Palatine. - -It seems to have been a mutual enthusiasm for Jonson's _Volpone_ -(1605) which brought Beaumont and Fletcher together, and united them -in a brotherly friendship and fellowship in work of which history -affords few parallels. Aubrey, to whom we are indebted for a number of -anecdotes about Shakespeare, gives the following vivid picture of their -life: "They lived together on the Bankside, not far from the playhouse; -both batchelors lay together, had one wench in the house between them, -which they did so admire; the same cloathes and cloake, etc., between -them." - -The two friends soon set to work, and appear to have planned out the -dramas together, each finally working out the scenes most suited to -his talents. An anecdote related by Winstanley seems to indicate such -a method. One day while they were thus apportioning their parts in -a tavern they frequented, a man standing at the door overheard the -exclamation, "I will undertake to kill the king;" suspecting some -treasonable conspiracy, he gave information, with the result that both -poets were arrested. In support of the veracity of this anecdote, -George Darley observes that a similar incident occurs in Fletcher's -_Woman-Hater_ (Act v. sc. 2). Great bitterness is certainly expressed -in this play on the subject of informers; witness the very unflattering -sketch of their ways and manners in the third scene of the second act. - -In whatsoever fashion _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ may have originally been -written, the joint-authors must have finally revised it in company and -obliterated to the best of their ability the distinguishing marks of -their very different styles. Otherwise it would not offer, now that we -are in possession of works executed by each separately, the present -difficulty of apportioning to each the honour due to him. - -There was no lack of difference, especially of a metrical nature, -about their styles. As far as we can judge, Beaumont's was the gift -for tragedy; he had less wit and less skill than Fletcher, but he -was more genuinely inspired, richer in feeling, and more daring in -invention than his brother poet. His noble head is encircled by a halo -of sadness, for, like Marlowe and Shelley, two of England's greatest -poets, he died before he had completed his thirtieth year. - -Beaumont was a devoted admirer of Ben Jonson, and a constant frequenter -of that "Mermaid Tavern" whose literary and social gatherings have been -celebrated in his poetical epistle to the object of his admiration. -His passionate regard for the author of _Volpone_ is shown in a poem -addressed to him upon the subject, in which he exalts Jonson's art -and the charm of his comedy above all that any other poet (thereby -including Shakespeare) had ever produced for the English stage. -Jonson replies with his ode "To Mr. Francis Beaumont," in which he -reciprocates the admiring attention by a declaration of the warmest -affection, and expresses himself "not worth the least indulgent thought -thy pen drops forth," assuring his friend that he envies him his -greater talent. According to Dryden, Jonson submitted everything he -wrote to Beaumont's criticism as long as the young man was alive, and -even gave him his manuscripts to correct. - -While Beaumont's name is thus associated with Jonson, Fletcher's forms -a constellation in conjunction with that of Shakespeare. - -John Fletcher was born in December 1579, at Rye in Sussex, and was -therefore fifteen years younger than the great poet with whom he is -said to have collaborated more than once. His father, the Dean of -Peterborough, was successively promoted through the bishoprics of -Bristol and Worcester to that of London. He was a handsome, eloquent -man, with a luxurious temperament, inclined to display and pleasure of -all kinds. Every inch a courtier, all his thoughts were concentrated -upon gaining, retaining, or recovering the royal favour. - -One episode of his life of an impressively dramatic and historic -interest, calculated to make the strongest impression on the -imagination of an embryo tragic poet, must have been often related by -him to his young son. Dr. Richard Fletcher was the divine appointed by -Government to attend on Mary Stuart at the time of her execution, and -was therefore both spectator and participator in the closing scene of -the Scottish Cleopatra's life. - -When he approached the Queen in the great hall hung with black, and -invited her, as he was in duty bound to do, to unite with him in -prayer, she turned her back upon him. - -"Madam," he began with a low obeisance, "the Queen's most excellent -majesty. Madam, the Queen's most excellent majesty." Thrice he -commenced his sentence, wanting words to pursue it. When he repeated -the words a fourth time she cut him short. - -"Mr. Dean," she said, "I am a Catholic, and must die a Catholic. It is -useless to attempt to move me, and your prayers will avail me little." - -"Change your opinion, madam," he cried, his tongue being loosed at -last. "Repent of your sins, settle your faith in Christ, by Him to be -saved." - -"Trouble not yourself further, Mr. Dean," she answered. "I am settled -in my own faith, for which I mean to shed my blood." - -"I am sorry, madam," said Shrewsbury, "to see you so addicted to -Popery!"[2] - -Slowly and carefully her ladies removed her veil so as not to disturb -the arrangement of her hair. They took off her long black robe, and -she stood then in a skirt of scarlet velvet; they removed the black -bodice, and revealed one of scarlet silk. Sobbing, they drew on her -scarlet sleeves and placed scarlet slippers upon her feet. It was -like a transformation scene in a theatre when the proud woman stood -suddenly dressed in scarlet in the black funeral hall. When her women -wept and wailed she said to them, "_Ne criez pas vous, j'ai promis -pour vous. Adieu, au revoir_," and praying in a loud voice, "_In te -Domine confido_," she laid her head upon the block. It was impossible -that Richard Fletcher should ever forget the inflexible resolution and -indomitable courage displayed by the great actress, nor was he likely -to forget the terrible mingling of horror with pure burlesque in the -final scene. In his agitation, the executioner missed his aim, and a -weak blow fell upon the handkerchief with which the Queen's eyes were -bound, inflicting a slight wound upon her cheek. The second blow left -the severed head hanging by a piece of skin, which the executioner -cut as he drew back the axe. Then Dr. Fletcher witnessed a second -transformation, as marvellous as any ever produced by a magician's -wand: the great mass of thick false hair fell from the head. The Queen -who had knelt before the block possessed all the ripened charm and -dignified beauty of maturity; the head held up by the executioner -to the gaze of the little company was that of a grey, wrinkled, old -woman.[3] Could anything in the world have given young Fletcher a -keener insight into the horrors of tragic catastrophe, the solemnity -of death, and the blending of the terrible with the utterly grotesque -which life's most supreme moments occasionally produce? It must -have acted like a call and incitement to the creation of tragic and -burlesque theatrical effect. - -John Fletcher was educated at Cambridge, and probably came to London -shortly before Beaumont, to try his fortune as a dramatic writer. -His first success was with _Philaster, or Love lies Bleeding_, in -1608. Shakespeare must have witnessed its triumphant performance with -strangely mingled feelings, for it could but strike him as being in -many ways an echo of his own work. In so far as he is wrongfully -deprived of his throne, Prince Philaster occupies much the same -position as Hamlet, and several of his speeches to the king are -markedly in the style of the Danish Prince of Shakespeare's play. Thus, -in the opening scene of the first act: - - "_King_. Sure he's possess'd. - _Philaster_. Yes, with my father's spirit: It's true, O king! - A dangerous spirit. Now he tells me, king, - I was a king's heir, bids me be a king; - And whispers to me, these are all my subjects. - 'Tis strange he will not let me sleep, but dives - Into my fancy, and there gives me shapes that kneel - And do me service, cry me 'King.' - But I'll oppose him, he's a factious spirit, - And will undo me. Noble sir, your hand, - I am your servant. - _King_. Away, I do not like this," &c. - -The king, however, has nothing to fear from Philaster, for the prince -loves and is beloved by the monarch's daughter, Arethusa, whom her -father intends to wed to that arrogant braggart, Prince Pharamond of -Spain. Philaster, all unknown to himself, is beloved by Euphrasia, the -daughter of the courtier Cleon. Disguised as a page she enters the -prince's service under the name of Bellario, and displays a devotion -which no trial can shake, not even that of carrying love-letters -between Philaster and Arethusa, nor of being transferred to the service -of the latter that she may be at hand in case of need. Euphrasia's -situation and feelings resemble those of Viola in _Twelfth Night_, but -the comedy of Shakespeare's play here becomes serious and romantic -tragedy. _Philaster_ must have reminded Shakespeare yet more forcibly -of another of his plays, and one to which the second half of the title, -_i.e., Love lies Bleeding_, would have been applicable, for in the -course of the piece Philaster and Arethusa are brought into a situation -which is a counterpart of that of Othello and Desdemona. - -It happens in the following manner. The princess treats Pharamond with -as much coldness as she dares, allowing her betrothed none of the -privileges which he may claim after marriage. Pharamond, who naïvely -confides to the audience that his temperament will not stand such -treatment, is sympathised with by an exceedingly accommodating court -lady. Her name is Megra; she is one of those wanton fair ones whom -Fletcher excelled in portraying, and is closely akin to the Chloe of -his charming play _The Faithful Shepherd_, The time and place of this -assignation being betrayed, the king, enraged at the insult offered -to his daughter, breaks in upon them and overwhelms Megra with cruel -and coarse abuse. She, on her part, threatens that if her name is -publicly disgraced, she will reveal all she knows of a much too tender -friendship between the princess and a handsome page lately taken into -her service. - -The king, finding that Bellario is actually attendant upon Arethusa, -believes the slander and insists upon his instant dismissal. The -courtiers, who, in common with the people, love Philaster and look -to him to dethrone the king and rule in his stead, have watched this -obstacle of his passion for the princess with no great favour. They -hasten to report the rumour to him. Dion, Euphrasia-Bellario's own -father, mendaciously asserts that he has surprised the lovers together. -No use is made of this incident, nor of any of the opportunities -offered by Euphrasia's disguise, which remains a secret even from the -audience until the last scene of the play. Philaster in a jealous -frenzy draws his sword upon Bellario and drives him away. The page -instinctively guesses that Philaster is caught in the meshes of some -intrigue, but does not divine its nature. Her parting words might have -been addressed by Desdemona to Othello: - - "But through these tears, - Shed at my hopeless parting, I can see - A world of treason practised upon you, - And her, and me." - -Just as Desdemona, suspecting nothing, warmly pleads Cassio's cause -with Othello, so Arethusa laments to Philaster that she has been forced -to dismiss his cherished messenger of love: - - "O cruel! - Are you hard-hearted too? Who shall now tell you - How much I loved you? Who shall swear it to you, - And weep the tears I send? Who shall now bring you - Letters, rings, bracelets? lose his health in service? - Wake tedious nights in stories of your praise?" (Act iii. sc. 2). - -Philaster suffers the same agonies as the Moor of Venice, but being of -a naturally gentle disposition, he only answers her in terms hardly -to be surpassed for mournful and pathetic beauty. Later, coming upon -the princess and her page, who have met by chance in a wood, he is so -carried away by jealousy that he draws his sword first upon Arethusa -and then upon Bellario. The page takes the blow without a murmur, and -goes willingly to prison in place of Philaster for the attempt upon the -princess's life. The devotion of Desdemona is thus reproduced in both -these maidens, and finds in both a striking expression. All comes right -eventually. A revolution places Philaster upon the throne, the women -who love him recover from their wounds, and the discovery of Bellario's -sex puts an end to all scandal. Philaster marries his beloved, and she, -even more magnanimous than the queen in De Musset's _Carmosine_, closes -the play with an invitation to Bellario-Euphrasia to share their life: - - "Come, live with me; - Live free as I do. She that loves my lord, - Cursed be the wife that hates her." - -In spite of its many echoes from his own plays, Shakespeare cannot -have failed to appreciate the talent displayed in this drama. The -gentleness and charm of the women in the works of both young poets must -have appealed to him, offering as they did so marked a contrast to -those of Chapman and Marlowe, neither of whom had any appreciation of -womanliness or power to depict it. The best of Chapman's tragedies can -have contained little that would attract Shakespeare. _The Conspiracy -and Tragedy of Charles Duke of Byron, Marshall of France_, was rather a -ten-act epic than a drama. His comedies, too, even _Eastward Hoe_, with -its wonderful picture of the London of the day to which Ben Jonson and -Marston contributed their share, must have repelled him by a realism -which he always avoided in his own work. Beaumont and Fletcher laid -their scenes in Sicily, or rather in some imaginary country, whose -abstract poetry, more in accordance with the Romance nation's manner of -representing men and their passions, cannot have been unsympathetic to -Shakespeare, especially at this period of his life. - -_A King and no King_, the play which in all probability immediately -succeeded _Philaster_, contains the same merits and defects as the -latter, and here also Shakespeare might find reminiscences of his own -work. When the king's mother kneels before her son, and is raised -by him (Act iii. sc. I), we are reminded of Volumnia kneeling to -Coriolanus, and we feel that the same scene was in the mind of the two -young poets. The comic character of the play is one Bessus, a soldier -by profession, and an arrant coward in spite of his captaincy. He is -a braggart, liar, and, if occasion offers, a pander, being equally -diverting in all these capacities. Considerable humour is displayed in -the elaboration of his character, but the mighty figure of Falstaff -is plainly discernible in the background. The authors even go to the -length of appropriating some distinctly Falstaffian expressions. A -fencing-master says of Bessus (Act iv. sc. 3): - - "It showed discretion, the better part of valour."[4] - -In _Philaster_ we were shown a strong passion consumed by groundless -jealousy. In _A King and no King_ we have a still stronger passion, -that of the young Arbaces for Princess Panthea, leading to confusion -and disaster. Throughout the whole play Arbaces never doubts for a -moment that they are brother and sister. The secret of his birth is -not discovered until the last scene, just as Bellario's sex is not -made known until the end of _Philaster_. Spaconia discovers that King -Tigranes, who is as her very life to her, is in love with Panthea; -whereupon she assumes much the same position towards him that Euphrasia -did towards her love. But there is profounder study of character in the -new play. Arbaces, a mixture of vanity and boastfulness with really -excellent qualities, makes an extremely complex personality, though -not an unnatural or unsympathetic one, and we are given a study of -complicated passion in no way inferior to that in Racine's _Phèdre_, -the instinct of love violently and irresistibly aroused, but constantly -met by the fear and horror of incest. The subject is treated with great -pathos and power of language.[5] - -In 1609-10 Fletcher reached the zenith of his fame as sole author and -as collaborator with Beaumont. That sweet and fresh pastoral play -_The Faithful Shepherdess_, Fletcher's unassisted work, must have -been written before the spring of 1610, for Sir William Skipworth, to -whom, amongst others, it is dedicated, died in the May of that year. -The theme was peculiarly suited to the fresh and delicate grace of -Fletcher's lyrical gift, and here again Shakespeare may have perceived -a distinct imitation of his _Midsummer Night's Dream_. Here also the -lovers are metamorphosed, and Perigot embraces Amaryllis in the form -of Amoret, believing her to be his love; he also wounds Amoret as -Philaster wounds Arethusa. A still earlier version of the play may -be found in Spenser's _Shepherds Calendar_. Darley has observed that -Fletcher imitated several lines from the same source, and among them, -oddly enough, some which had been appropriated by Spenser from Chaucer, -whose verses greatly surpass either of the later poets in charm. In -_The Faithful Shepherdess_, for example, we have (v. 5): - - "Sort all your shepherds from the lazy clowns - That feed their heifers in the budded brooms." - -In Spenser's _Shepherds Calendar_ it stands: - - "So loytering live you, little herd grooms, - Keeping your beasts in the budded brooms." - -But in Chaucer's _House of Fame_ we find the following verse (iii. 133): - - "And many a floite and litlyng home - And pipis made of grenè corne - As have these litel herdè-groomes - That kepen bestis in the bromes." - -Fletcher's principal source, however, was, as the title tells us, -Guarini's _Pastor Fido_. - -_The Faithful Shepherdess_ is a charming idyl, too airy and delicate -to have an immediate success with his own generation, but it may be -read with pleasure to this day, and has secured lasting fame to its -author. Ben Jonson's later but also admirable pastoral play, _The Sad -Shepherd_, is the English poem of that period which most resembles it. - -Immediately after the production of this little tragi-comedy, -Fletcher offered to the Globe Theatre the most remarkable work -which had resulted from the combined labours of himself and Francis -Beaumont--_The Maid's Tragedy_. - -The first act opens with the preparations for a wedding festivity. -The king has commanded the worthy and distinguished Lord Amintor to -break off his engagement to the gentle and devoted Aspasia and to -marry Evadne, the beautiful sister of his dearest friend and comrade, -the great general Melantius. Amintor, to whom the king's command is -sacred, and who is, moreover, strongly attracted by Evadne, breaks with -Aspasia, dear as she is to him. We witness Aspasia's deep grief, the -outburst of rage on the part of her father (the cowardly Calianax), and -the performance of the masque on the eve of the wedding, in which some -of the poets' sweetest lyrics are to be found. - -The second act represents the wedding-night. The disrobing of the bride -by her friends, and all the fun and banter attendant on the occasion, -form the introduction. Then follows, between bridegroom and bride, -the first great scene of the play, as boldly dramatic as any written -by Shakespeare before or Webster after this date. Amintor approaches -Evadne with tender words, she gently repulses him. He strives to disarm -what he supposes to be her bashfulness, but she tells him calmly and -coldly that she will never be his. Still he does not understand, and -now urges her with impatient desire. Then she rises, like a serpent -about to sting, and coldly hisses that she is, and will continue to -be, the king's mistress, that the marriage has merely been arranged by -him as a screen for his relations with her. The fury and thirst for -revenge which seizes Amintor when he realises this outrage gives way to -a desperate comprehension that it is the king who has dishonoured him; -to a subject the person of the king is inviolable. - -The third act opens with an audacious visit from the king on the -following morning. With cool patronage he asks Amintor if the night -has given him satisfaction. Amintor replies composedly, and answers -the king's more particular inquiries quite in the style of the happy -husband. It is now the king's turn to be disconcerted. He sends for -Evadne and violently accuses her of treachery, against which she, -of course, passionately protests. The king, beside himself with -rage, sends for Amintor; he is furiously attacked by Evadne for his -falsehoods, and the king brutally explains the situation and the part -the husband is expected to play. This double scene is written in a -masterly fashion, with a strong sense of dramatic effect, but the rest -of the act is worthess, being chiefly composed of dialogues between -Amintor and Melantius, who learns the truth about his sister from his -friend. The two are perpetually drawing upon each other and sheathing -their swords again; firstly, because Melantius will not believe in his -sister's shame; secondly, because Amintor will not allow Melantius to -seek any revenge which will reveal his dishonour. It all reads like a -weak imitation of the Spanish dramatists before Calderon. - -The fourth act presents another series of effective scenes. The brother -accuses the sister of her infamy, and when she coldly denies everything -he threatens her with his sword, until she vows that she will take -bloody vengeance on the cruel and vicious king who has brought about -her degradation. Then the suddenly converted Evadne falls upon her -knees and implores her husband's forgiveness, which he, seeing how -bitterly she repents the life she has been living, accords. This is -followed by a particularly well-imagined scene, in which the ridiculous -old Calianax, who hates Melantius, denounces him to the king for his -attempt to persuade him, Calianax, to give up the city he held for the -monarch. In spite of its truth, Melantius listens to the accusation -quite imperturbably, and succeeds in giving it the appearance of being -merely the ramblings of an old dotard. - -In the fifth act is a skilfully prepared Judith scene--the second -great scene of the play. Evadne goes to the king's chamber, passing -through the anteroom, which resounds with the profligate jests of -the courtiers. The authors linger with a certain voluptuous cruelty -over the scene between the king, who does not awake from his sleep -until his hands have been tied to the bed, and the woman who has been -his mistress, and who now tortures him with scathing words before -she murders him. The remaining scenes are marred by their excessive -sensationalism. Aspasia, disguised as her brother, seeks Amintor, -from whom she can no longer be separated. He receives her with warm -cordiality, but she taunts, strikes, and even kicks him, wishing to -attain, if possible, the happiness of dying by his hand. He finally -loses patience and draws his sword upon her, seeing too late that it -is his beloved whom he has slain. Evadne now appears, red-handed and -glowing with love, but Amintor repulses her with horror, she is stained -with that greatest of all crimes, regicide. She kills herself in -despair, and Amintor also dies by his own hand. - -Aspasia is the perpetually slighted young woman who appears, always -resigned and gentle, in all Beaumont and Fletcher's plays. The -old coward Calianax is another of their standing characters. The -brotherhood between Melantius and Amintor possesses, in spite of -its occasional artificiality, some interest for us, as does the -corresponding friendship in the _Two Noble Kinsmen_, from the fact -that the mutual relations between the authors evidently served as -the prototype in both cases. Evadne's character, if not completely -intelligible, is entirely _hors ligne_, and most admirably suited to -dramatic treatment. The play indeed is a model of everything which -dramatic and theatrical treatment requires, and was well calculated to -impress an audience for whom Shakespeare's art was too refined. - -We cannot, therefore, be surprised that the friend and fellow-craftsman -of the two poets, who was the first to publish a collected edition -of their works after their death, should write the following words -without fear of contradiction: "But to mention them is to throw a cloud -upon all former names and benight posterity; this book being, without -flattery, the greatest monument of the scene that time and humanity -have produced, and must live, not only the crown and sole reputation of -our own, but the stain of all other nations and languages" (Shirley's -address to the reader). - - -[1] See Richard Garnett: _The Age of Dryden_, p. 249 - -[2] Froude: _History of England_, vol. xii. p. 254. - -[3] J. St. Loe Strachey: _Beaumont and Fletcher_, vol. i. p. xv. - -[4] It is Falstaff who says in the _First Part of Henry -IV_. (Act v. sc. 4), "The better part of valour is discretion." This -parallel has been overlooked both in Ingleby's _Shakespeare's Century -of Praise_ and in Furnivall's _Fresh Allusions to Shakespeare_. - -[5] - - "Know I have lost - The only difference betwixt man and beast, - My reason. - PANTHEA. - Heaven forbid! - ARBACES. - Nay, it is gone, - And I am left as far without a bound - As the wide ocean that obeys the winds; - Each sudden passion throws me where it lists, - And overwhelms all that oppose my will. - I have beheld thee with a lustful eye; - My heart is set on wickedness, to act - Such sins with thee as I have been afraid - To think of.... - I have lived - To conquer men, and now am overthrown - Only by words, brother and sister. Where - Have those words dwelling? I will find 'em out - And utterly destroy'em; but they are - Not to be grasped - Accursed man! - Thou bought'st thy reason at too dear a rate; - For thou hast all thy actions bounded in - With curious rules, where every beast is free; - What is there that acknowledges a kindred - But wretched man? Who ever saw the bull - Fearfully leave the heifer that he liked - Because they had one dam?" - - - - -XVII - -_SHAKESPEARE AND FLETCHER--THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN AND HENRY VIII_. - -In the year 1684 a drama was published for the first time under the -following title: - -"_The Two Noble Kinsmen_; presented at the Blackfriars, by the -King's Maiesties Servants, with great applause. Written by the -memorable Worthies of their time Mr. _John Fletcher_ and Mr. _William -Shakespeare_, Gent: Printed at _London_ by _Tho. Cotes_ for _John -Waterson_, and are to be sold at the signe of the _Crown_ in Paul's -Churchyard." - -This play was not included in the First Folio edition of Beaumont and -Fletcher (1647), but it appeared in the second (1679). Even supposing -the editors of the First Folio edition of Shakespeare's works to have -entertained no doubt of his share in it, it would probably remain in -Fletcher's possession until his death in 1625, and would therefore be -inaccessible to them. - -The play is of no particular value; it is far inferior to Fletcher's -best work, and not to be compared with any of Shakespeare's completed -dramas. Nevertheless, many eminent critics of this century have found -distinct traces in this play of the styles of both greater and lesser -poet. - -Like that of _Troilus and Cressida_, the theme found its way from the -pages of an old-world poet, Statius' _Thebaide_ in this case, into -those of Boccaccio, and through him it came to Chaucer. Under the form -given it by the latter it proved the foundation of several dramas of -the reigns of Elizabeth and James.[1] Most of the essential details of -_The Two Noble Kinsmen_ may be found in Boccaccio's _La Teseide._ - -It is a tale of two devoted friends, both suddenly seized by a romantic -passion for a woman whom they have watched walking in a garden from -the window of the tower in which they are held prisoners of war. Their -friendship is shattered, each claiming the exclusive right to the -affections of this lady, who is the Duke's sister Emilia. One of the -friends is set at liberty upon the express condition of his quitting -the country for ever. His irresistible longing for the fair one, -however, draws him back to live disguised in her neighbourhood. The -second friend escapes from prison, and meeting the first, engages him -in a duel, which is interrupted by Duke Theseus. They explain their -position to him, and their passion for his sister. The Duke arranges a -formal tournament between the suitors; Emilia's hand is to reward the -victor, and the vanquished is to suffer death. The conqueror, however, -is fatally injured by a fall from his horse, and it is the defeated man -who marries the princess. - -There can be no reasonable question of the traces of Fletcher's -hand in this play, for in it we find not only his easily recognised -metrical style, but many features peculiar to his poorer work--the -lax composition which permits of two plots running side by side with -no connection between them, a tendency to merely theatrical effect -and entirely motiveless action, contrived to surprise the audience at -the cost of psychology, and finally his conception of virtue and vice -in the relations between man and woman. To Fletcher, chastity meant -entire abstinence, and side by side with this "chastity" he places, and -delineates with relish, an immodest and purely sensual passion. Thus -Emilia talks of her "chastity," and the jailer's daughter alludes to -her passion for Palamon in terms which are repulsively shameless. When -Shakespeare's women love, they are neither chaste in this fashion nor -passionate in this fashion. They are sympathetically and reverentially -drawn as loving only one man and loving him faithfully, whereas the -affections of Fletcher's heroines veer round as suddenly as we saw -Evadne's veer in _The Maids Tragedy_. Therefore it is possible for him -to portray such women as Emilia, who during the tournament loves first -one and then the other of her suitors as his chances of victory are -in the ascendant. That it contains many reminiscences of Shakespeare -is no argument against Fletcher's responsibility for the greater part -of the play, but quite the contrary; we have already seen how many of -these traces are to be found even among his best works. In the _Two -Noble Kinsmen_ we find echoes from _The Midsummer Night's Dream,_ from -_Julius Cæsar_ (the quarrel between Brutus and Cassio), and, above all, -a tasteless and offensive imitation of Ophelia's madness, when the -jailer's daughter goes crazy for fear while seeking Palamon in the wood -at night, and in her raving and singing later in the play. Shakespeare -never repeated without excelling, and certainly never parodied himself -in this fashion.[2] - -Shakespeare evidently had no part in the planning of the play. There -is no originality in it, and if we do obtain a glimpse of some sort of -life's philosophy, it is certainly not his. Swinburne's surmise that -the play was sketched by Shakespeare and completed by Fletcher, can -therefore hardly be correct. Among other arguments, we may mention that -the part in which, according to Swinburne's own opinion, Shakespeare's -hand is most traceable, is the conclusion, which is hardly likely to -have been written first. - -Can any part of the play be ascribed to Shakespeare? Gardiner and -Delius believe not, and the Danish critics a few years ago shared the -same scarcely justifiable opinion. Bierfreund is uninfluenced by the -fact that many of the most eminent English critics hold a contrary -view, but such a circumstance should impose the very closest study of -the play on the part of foreign critics. In my case this has led me to -the conclusion that although the drama was planned and the greater part -executed by Fletcher, he had Shakespeare's assistance in finishing the -work. We can hardly imagine that Shakespeare vouchsafed his help from -any motive but that of interest in, and a friendly feeling for, the -younger poet, who had submitted his work to him and appealed for his -assistance. - -It would but weary the reader to go through the work from beginning to -end to show how the seal of Shakespeare's style is stamped upon it. -The traces of his pen are most frequent in the opening act; the appeal -of the first queen to Theseus ("We are three queens," &c.), in the -introductory scene, for example. These lines possess all the rhythm -peculiar to the productions of the last years of the poet's life; and -how boldly figurative and genuinely Shakespearian in expression is the -same queen's fanciful expression: - - "Dowagers, take hands; - Let us be widows to our woes; delay - Commends us to a famishing hope." - -Theseus' last speech in this act (the summing up of the situation and -circumstances) reminds us of Hamlet's monologue, "The whips and scorns -of life, the oppressors' wrongs," &c., and "Ulysses' beauty, wit, high -birth," &c. - - "Since I have known frights, fury, friends' behests, - Love's provocations, zeal, a mistress' task, - Desire of liberty, a fever, madness."... - -Mere imitations must not be confounded with Shakespeare's own style, -however. The passage in which Emilia speaks of the ardent and tender -friendship that united her to her dead friend, Flavina, which in -England has been mistakenly admired as Shakespeare's work, is in -reality a poor copy of the passage in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ -(Act iii. sc. 2) where Helena describes the love between herself and -Hermia. The unhealthy affection here set forth bears Fletcher's stamp -upon it, and is made particularly unpleasant by the use Emilia makes of -the word "innocent." - -We are again sensible of Shakespeare's touch in the monologue spoken by -the jailer's daughter, which constitutes the second scene of the third -act. Note the picturesque expression, "In me has grief slain fear," -and many others. From the moment she goes out of her mind down to the -last word she utters, Shakespeare has neither part nor lot in those -speeches whose uncouth imitation of his style must have been singularly -offensive to him. - -The greater part of the first scene of the fifth act is undoubtedly -Shakespeare's. Theseus' first speech is superb, and Arcite's address -to the knights and invocation of Mars is delightful. The lines at the -close of the play have also a Shakespearian ring about them, especially -the words so much admired by Swinburne: - - "That nought could buy - Dear love but loss of dear love." - -But there is no deeper, no intellectual interest for us in all this. -Shakespeare had nothing to do with the psychology, or rather want of -it, in this play.[3] - -Had he any greater share in _Henry VIII_.? The play was first published -in the Folio edition of 1623, where it closes the series of Historical -Plays. The first four acts are founded on Holinshed's Chronicle, and -the last upon Fox's _Acts and Monuments of the Church_, commonly known -as the _Book of Martyrs_. The authors were also directly or indirectly -indebted to a book which at that date only existed in manuscript, -George Cavendish's _Relics of Cardinal Wolsey_, which had been largely -drawn upon by Holinshed and Hall. The earliest reference to a play -of Henry VIII. may be found in the Stationers' Hall Registry for the -12th of February 1604-5, where the "Enterlude for K. Henry VIII." -is entered; but this refers to Rowley's worthless and fanatically -Protestant play "_When you see mee you know mee._" The next mention of -such a drama occurs in the well-known oft-quoted letters concerning the -burning of the Globe Theatre on the 29th of June 1613. In an epistle -from Thomas Larkin to Sir Thomas Pickering, dated "This last of June -1613," we read: "No longer since than yesterday, while Burbege's -company were acting at the Globe the play of Henry VIII., and there -shooting off certain chambers in way of triumph, the fire catched and -there burnt so furiously, as it consumed the whole house, all in less -than two hours, the people having enough to do to save themselves." -Also Sir Henry Wotton in a letter to his nephews, dated the 6th of July -1613, writes: "Now let matters of state sleep, I will entertain you at -the present with what happened at the Bankside. The king's players had -a new play, called All is True, representing some principal pieces of -the reign of Henry VIII., which was set forth with many extraordinary -circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage; -the knights of the Order, with their Georges and Garter, the guards -with their embroidered coats and the like; sufficient, in Truth, within -a while to make greatness very familiar if not ridiculous. Now King -Henry making a masque at the Cardinal Wolsey's House, and certain -canons being shot off at his entrance, some of the paper, or other -stuff wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where -being thought at first but an idle smoak, and their eyes more attentive -to the show, it kindled inwardly and ran round like a train, consuming -within less than an hour the whole House to the very grounds." - -The emphatic and thrice repeated assertion of the prologue that all -that is about to be represented is _the truth_, taken in conjunction -with other details, proves that the play described is our _Henry -VIII_., and at that date, therefore, a new work. - -Although never very highly esteemed, it was not until somewhere about -the year 1850 that it was ever doubted that _Henry VIII_. was entirely -written by Shakespeare. It would now be impossible to find any one -holding such an opinion; some of the most competent critics, indeed, -maintain that Shakespeare had nothing whatever to do with it.[4] - -That keen observer, Emerson, alluding to _Henry VIII_. in his book -_Representative Men_ draws attention to the two entirely different -rhythms of its verse--one that is Shakespearian, and another much -inferior. Almost simultaneously, Spedding published an article in the -_Gentleman's Magazine_ for August 1856 (afterwards reprinted under -the title "Who Wrote Shakespeare's Henry VIII?"), in which he points -out these differing rhythms, affirming one of them to be Fletcher's. -Furnivall and Fleay declared themselves of the same opinion in 1874. To -understand this criticism, the reader must bear in mind the following -simple evolution of English five-footed iambics. The language does -not possess what Scandinavians call feminine rhymes, alternating and -contrasting with the masculine. The first attempt to break the monotony -of the blank verse simply consisted in the addition of an extra -syllable to the original ten--_double ending_. The proportion of these -lengthened lines in Shakespeare's _Henry V._ is 18 in 100. Ben Jonson -long adhered to the old regular construction, but finally yielded to -the newer fashion. Fletcher constantly used the eleven-syllabled lines, -employing them indeed so regularly and consciously that he is betrayed -into a certain monotoneous mannerism. Instance the following from _The -Wild Goose Chase_: - - "I would I were a woman, sir, to fit you, - As there be such, no doubt, may engine you too, - May with a countermine blow up your valour. - But in good faith, sir, we are both too honest; - And the plague is, we cannot be persuaded; - For look you, if we thought it were a glory - To be the last of all your lovely ladies."... - -This will also show that Fletcher did not, as a rule, allow the idea to -overlap from one line to the next. - -In Shakespeare's later works the proportion of eleven-syllabled lines -is 33 in 100; in Massinger it is 40, and in Fletcher 50 to 80, or even -more. Again, Shakespeare made use, with ever-increasing frequency, of -_enjambement_ or "run on" lines. This style is particularly noticeable -in the passionate dramas of his bitter period, and the growing habit of -employing them led to the more and more frequent appearance of lines -ending with an adverb, article, or preposition (light and weaking -endings). There may be a hundred such in his later plays; there are, -for instance, 130 in _Cymbeline_. This feature became an extravagance -with his successors. Massinger, whose dramas are considerably shorter -than Shakespeare's, has from 150 to 170 of these weak endings in each -play. - -In comparison with Shakespeare's work there is an effeminate ring about -Fletcher's verse, and his was the Corinthian, if Shakespeare's was the -Ionic style. Separate and unalloyed, it would be impossible to mistake -them, but it is a very different matter when they are blended together -in one and the same work as in _Henry VIII_. And here again the problem -offered by the _Two Noble Kinsmen_ presents itself. Did Shakespeare -leave the play unfinished, and was it completed by Fletcher after his -death? or did he help Fletcher by writing or re-writing certain scenes -of his play? The first supposition is an utter impossibility, as far as -I am concerned. The planning of the drama was not Shakespeare's; never -in his life did anything so shapeless come from his pen. Is any part of -the play due to him? In spite of the verdicts of Furnivall and Symons, -I think so. In the first place, we are not justified in ignoring the -testimony borne by Heminge and Condell in the First Folio edition. We -have always hitherto taken for granted that they were better qualified -to judge of the authenticity of a play than we of the present day; not -one of the plays accepted by them has since been rejected by posterity, -and we need a very good reason for making an exception of _Henry VIII_. -The sole pretext we can offer is the weakness of the whole play, -including those portions of which we are in doubt. But this weakness -cannot in any way be considered as decisive. Here, working with another -man, Shakespeare did not put forth his full strength, exercise all -his powers, nor give free play to his imagination. Of this, _Henry -VIII_. is not the only example. Moreover, there are strong points of -resemblance between those parts of the play which the majority of -English critics ascribe to him and works of the same period which were -unmistakably his and his alone. - -So far back as 1765, Samuel Johnson, who never doubted that the whole -play was due to Shakespeare, remarked that the poet's genius seemed -to rise and set with Queen Katharine, and that any one might have -invented and written the rest. In 1850 James Spedding, moved thereto by -some suggestive criticism by Tennyson, came to the conclusion already -mentioned, that only certain parts were written by Shakespeare, and -that the remainder was due to Fletcher. This opinion was confirmed by -Samuel Hickson, who remarked that he had arrived at the same decision -three or four years previously, and even with the same results as far -as the separate scenes were concerned. This theory was, after a careful -examination of the metrical structure, still further corroborated by -Fleay. - -That the general scheme of the drama was not due to Shakespeare is -self-evident. Spedding observed how utterly ineffective the play is -as a whole, how the interest collapses instead of increasing, and how -the sympathy aroused in the audience is in steady opposition to the -actual development of events. The centre of interest in the first act -is undeniably Queen Katharine, and, although the deference due to -so recent a king as Elizabeth's father forbade too plain speaking, -the audience is clearly given to understand that the monarch's -passion for Anne Boleyn was really at the bottom of his conscientious -scruples concerning the wedlock in which he had lived for twenty -years. Notwithstanding this, the spectators are expected to feel joy -and satisfaction when Anne is solemnly crowned queen, and actual -triumph when she gives birth to a daughter. In the last act we have -the impeachment of Archbishop Cranmer, his acquittal by the king, and -his appointment to the godfathership of Elizabeth, all of which has -no connection whatever with the real action of the play. Wolsey, one -of the two chief characters, the evil principle in opposition to the -good Queen Katharine, disappears before her, not even surviving the -close of the third act. The whole play, in fact, resolves itself into -a succession of spectacular effects, processions, songs, dances, and -music. We are shown a great assembly of the State Council in connection -with Buckingham's trial; a great festival in Wolsey's palace, with -masquerade and dance; the great trial scene, with England's queen at -the bar; a great coronation scene, with canopy, crown jewels, and -flourish of trumpets; the dying Katharine's vision of dancing angels, -with golden vizards and palm branches in their hands; and lastly, the -great christening scene in the palace, with another procession of -canopy, trumpets, and heralds. - -An invisible writing inscribes on every page the words _Written to -order_. In all probability it was a hurriedly written piece, hastily -put together for performance at the court gaieties in honour of the -Princess Elizabeth's marriage. It was for those festivities that -Beaumont's little play, _The Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's -Inn,_ and Shakespeare's own masterpiece, _The Tempest_, were written. -Shakespeare's part in _Henry VIII_ is limited to Act i. sc. I and -2, Act ii. sc. 3 and sc. 4, Act iii. sc. 2 as far as Wolsey's first -monologue, "What should this mean," and Act v. sc. 1 and 4. - -This play cannot be classed with Shakespeare's other historical dramas, -for, as we have already observed, its events were of too recent -occurrence to allow of a strictly veracious treatment. How was it -possible to tell the truth about Henry VIII., that coarse and cruel -Bluebeard, with his six wives? Did he not inaugurate the Reformation, -and was he not the father of Queen Elizabeth? As little could the -material interests which furthered the Reformation be represented -on the stage, or the various religious and political aspects of the -Reformation itself. Fettered and bound as he was by a hundred different -considerations, Shakespeare acquitted himself of his difficult task -with tact and skill. When Henry, immediately after his encounter -with the beauteous court lady, began, after all those years, to -feel scruples on the score of his marriage with his brother's wife, -Shakespeare, without making him a hypocrite, allows us to perceive how -the new passion acted as a spur to his conscience. The character of -Wolsey is founded upon the Chronicle, and the clever parvenu's bold, -unscrupulous, yet withal self-controlled nature, is indicated by a few -light touches. Fletcher has spoiled the character by the introduction -of the badly-written monologues uttered by Wolsey after his fall. We -recognise the voice of the clergyman's son in their feeble, pastoral -strain. The picture of Anne Boleyn, delicately outlined by Shakespeare, -was also put out of drawing later in the play by Fletcher. All the -light of the piece, however, is concentrated around the figure of the -repudiated Catholic queen, Katharine of Arragon, for in her (as he -found her character in the Chronicle) Shakespeare recognised a variant -of his present all-absorbing type--the noble and neglected woman. She -closely resembles the misjudged Queen Hermione, so unjustly separated -from her husband and thrown into prison in the _Winter's Tale_. As in -_Cymbeline_ Imogen still loves Posthumus although he has cast her off, -so Katharine continues to love the man who has wronged her. - -Shakespeare has hardly put a word into the mouth of the Queen which -may not be found in the Chronicle, but he has created a character of -mingled charm and distinction, a union of Castilian pride with extreme -simplicity, of inflexible resolution with gentlest resignation, and of -a quick temper with a sincere piety, through which the temper sometimes -shows. He has drawn with a caressing touch the figure of a queen -neither beautiful nor brilliant, but true--true to the core, proud of -her birth and queenly rank, but softer than wax in the hands of her -royal lord, whom she loves after twenty-four years of married life as -dearly as on her wedding-day. Her letters show how devoted and lovable -she was, and in them she addresses Henry as "Your Grace, my husband, my -Henry," and signs herself "Your humble wife and true servant." In those -scenes in which it has fallen to Fletcher's lot to represent the Queen, -he has adhered faithfully to Shakespeare's conception of her, which -was virtually that of the Chronicle. Even in the hour of her death, -Katharine does not forget to rebuke and punish the messenger who has -failed in due respect by omitting to kneel; but she forgives her enemy -the Cardinal and sends the King this last greeting: - - "Remember me - In all humility unto his highness: - Say his long trouble now is passing - Out of the world: tell him in death I bless'd him, - For so I will.--Mine eyes grow dim." - -Her stately dignity resembles that of Hermione, but she differs -from the latter in her pride of race and piety. Hermione is neither -pious nor proud; neither was Shakespeare. We find a little proof of -his detestation of sectarianism even in the pompous play of _Henry -VIII_. In the third scene of the fifth act the porter exclaims of the -inquisitive multitude crowding to watch the christening procession: - - "There are the youths that thunder at the playhouse - and fight for bitten apples; that no audience but the - Tribulation of Tower Hill or the limbs of Limehouse, their - dear brothers, are able to endure." - -Limehouse was an artisan house in London; there also the foreigners -settled, and it resounded with the strife of religious sects. It is -amusing to note how Shakespeare contrived to have a fling at his -detested _groundlings_ and his Puritan enemies at one and the same time. - -As we all know, the drama closes with Cranmer's lengthy and flattering -prediction of the greatness of Elizabeth and James, which is marred -by the monotony of Fletcher's worst mannerisms. Shakespeare clearly -had no share in this tirade, which makes all the more strange the part -it has played in the discussions which have been carried on with so little -psychology relative to Shakespeare's religious and denominational -standpoint. How many times has the prophecy that under Elizabeth "God -shall be truly known" been quoted in support of the great poet's firmly -Protestant convictions? Yet the line was evidently never written by -him, and not a single turn of thought in the whole of this lengthy -speech owns any suggestion of his pathos and style. It is only here and -there in the play that we obtain a glimpse of Shakespeare, and then he -is fettered and hampered by collaboration with another man and by an -uncongenial task, to which only a great exertion of his genius could -here and there impart any dramatic interest. - - -[1] A careful study of the plot may be found in Theodor -Bierfreund's book: _Palamon og Arcite_, 1891. - -[2] A similar opinion is skilfully maintained by Bierfreund, -but I cannot agree with his main contention that Shakespeare had no -part in this play whatever. - -[3] Compare Hickson, Fleay, and Furnivall upon the subject of -_The Two Noble Kinsmen_. _New Shakspere Society's Transactions_, 1874. -R. Boyle maintains that he can trace Massinger's hand in the play. - -[4] In his prefatory treatise to the _Leopold Shakspere_ -(136 quarto pages), F. J. Furnivall has dealt with this play as being -in part Shakespeare's. Now he is of a different opinion, and in a -copy of the book presented by him to me, he has written on the margin -against _Henry VIII_. "Not Shakspere's." Arthur Symons, who edits -and prefaces the play in the Irving edition, told me that he now -inclines, on account of its metrical structure, to the belief that -Shakespeare had no share in it. P. A. Daniels, the erudite editor of -so many Shakespearian quartos, said that he had arrived at no decision -respecting its authorship, and characteristically added that the -identity was a matter of indifference to him so long as the play was -good. This is not the psychological standpoint. - - - - -XVIII - -_CYMBELINE--THE THEME--THE POINT OF DEPARTURE--THE MORAL--THE IDYLL ---IMOGEN--SHAKESPEARE AND GOETHE--SHAKESPEARE AND CALDERON_ - -In _Cymbeline_ Shakespeare is once more sole master of his material, -and he works it up into such a many-coloured web as no loom but his -can produce. Here, too, we find a certain off-hand carelessness of -technique. The exposition is perfunctory; the preliminaries of the -action are conveyed to us in a scene of pure narrative. The comic -passages are, as a rule, weak, the mirth-moving device being for one of -the other characters to ridicule or parody in asides the utterances of -the coarse and vain Prince Cloten. In the middle of the play (iii. 3), -a poorly-written monologue gives us a sort of supplementary exposition, -necessary to the understanding of the plot. Finally, the dramatic knot -is loosed by means of a _deus ex machinâ_, Jupiter, "upon his eagle -back'd," appearing to the sleeping Posthumus, and leaving with him an -oracular "label," in which, as though to bear witness to the poet's -"small Latin" the deity childishly derives _mulier_ from _mollis -aer_, or "tender air." But, in spite of all this, Shakespeare is here -once more at the height of his poetic greatness; the convalescent has -recovered all his strength. He has thrown his whole soul into the -creation of his heroine, and has so enchased this Imogen, this pearl -among women, that all her excellences show to the best advantage, and -the setting is not unworthy of the jewel. - -As in Cleopatra and Cressida we had woman determined solely by her -sex, so in Imogen we have an embodiment of the highest possible -characteristics of womanhood--untainted health of soul, unshaken -fortitude, constancy that withstands all trials, inexhaustible -forbearance, unclouded intelligence, love that never wavers, and -unquenchable radiance of spirit. She, like Marina, is cast into the -snake-pit of the world. She is slandered, and not, like Desdemona, at -second or third hand, but by the very man who boasts of her favours -and supports his boast with seemingly incontrovertible proofs. Like -Cordelia, she is misjudged; but whereas Cordelia is merely driven -from her father's presence along with the man of her choice, Imogen -is doomed to death by her cruelly-deceived husband, whom alone she -adores; and through it all she preserves her love for him unweakened -and unchanged. - -Strange--very strange! In Imogen we find the fullest, deepest love that -Shakespeare has ever placed in a woman's breast, and that although -_Cymbeline_ follows close upon plays which were filled to the brim -with contempt for womankind. He believed, then, in such love, so -impassioned, so immovable, so humble--believed in it now? He had, then, -observed or encountered such a love--encountered it at this point of -his life? - -Even a poet has scant enough opportunities of observing love. Love is -a rare thing, much rarer than the world pretends, and when it exists, -it is apt to be sparing of words. Did he simply fall back on his own -experiences, his own inward sensations, his knowledge of his own -heart, and, transposing his feelings from the major to the minor key, -place them on a woman's lips? Or did he love at this moment, and was -he himself thus beloved at the end of the fifth decade of his life? -The probability is, doubtless, that he wrote from some quite fresh -experience, though it does not follow that the experience was actually -his own. It is not often that women love men of his mental habit and -stature with such intensity of passion. The rule will always be that -a Molière shall find himself cast aside for some Comte de Guiche, -a Shakespeare for some Earl of Pembroke. Thus we cannot with any -certainty conclude that he himself was the object of the passion which -had revived his faith in a woman's power of complete and unconditional -absorption in love for one man, and for him alone. In the first place, -had the experience been his own, he would scarcely have left London so -soon. Yet the probability is that he must just about this time have -gained some clear and personal insight into an ideal love. In the -public sphere, too, it is not unlikely that Arabella Stuart's undaunted -passion for Lord William Seymour, so cruelly punished by King James, -may have afforded the model for Imogen's devotion to Leonatus Posthumus -in defiance of the will of King Cymbeline. - -_Cymbeline_ was first printed in the Folio of 1623. The earliest -mention of it occurs in the _Booke of Plaies and Notes thereof_ kept -by the above-mentioned astrologer and magician, Dr. Simon Forman. He -was present, he says, at a performance of _A Winters Tale_ on May -15, 1611, and at the same time he sketches the plot of _Cymbeline_, -but unfortunately does not give the date of the performance. In all -probability it was quite recent; the play was no doubt written in the -course of 1610, while the fate of Arabella Stuart was still fresh in -the poet's mind. Forman died in September 1611. - -In depth and variety of colouring, in richness of matter, profundity -of thought, and heedlessness of conventional canons, _Cymbeline_ has -few rivals among Shakespeare's plays. Fascinating as it is, however, -this tragi-comedy has never been very popular on the stage. The great -public, indeed, has neither studied nor understood it. - -In none of his works has Shakespeare played greater havoc with -chronology. He jumbles up the ages with superb indifference. The period -purports to be that of Augustus, yet we are introduced to English, -French, and Italian cavaliers, and hear them talk of pistol-shooting -and playing bowls and cards. The list of characters ends thus--"Lords, -ladies, Roman senators, tribunes, apparitions, a soothsayer, a Dutch -gentleman, a Spanish gentleman, musicians, officers, captains, -soldiers, messengers, and other attendants." Was there ever such a -farrago? - -What did Shakespeare mean by this play? is the question that now -confronts us. My readers are aware that I never, in the first instance, -try to answer this question directly. The fundamental point is, What -impelled him to write? how did he arrive at the theme? When that is -answered, the rest follows almost as a matter of course. - -Where, then, is the starting-point of this seeming tangle? We find it -on resolving the material of the play into its component parts. - -There are three easily distinguishable elements in the action. - -In his great storehouse of English history, Holinshed, Shakespeare -found some account of a King Kymbeline or Cimbeline, who is said to -have been educated at Rome, and there knighted by the Emperor Augustus, -under whom he served in several campaigns. He is stated to have stood -so high in the Emperor's favour that "he was at liberty to pay his -tribute or not" as he chose. He reigned thirty-five years, was buried -in London, and left two sons, Guiderius and Arviragus. The name Imogen -occurs in Holinshed's story of Brutus and Locrine. In the tragedy of -_Locrine_, dating from 1595, Imogen is mentioned as the wife of Brutus. - -Although Cymbeline, says Holinshed, is declared by most authorities to -have lived at unbroken peace with Rome, yet some Roman writers affirm -that the Britons having refused to pay tribute when Augustus came to -the throne, that Emperor, in the tenth year after the death of Julius -Cæsar, "made prouision to passe with an armie ouer into Britaine." He -is said, however, to have altered his mind; so that the Roman descent -upon Britain under Caius Lucius is an invention of the poet's. - -In Boccaccio's _Decameron_, again (Book II. Novel 9), Shakespare found -the story of the faithful Ginevra, of which this is the substance:--At -a tavern in Paris, a company of Italian merchants, after supper one -evening, fall to discussing their wives. Three of them have but a -poor opinion of their ladies' virtue, but one, Bernabo Lomellini of -Genoa, maintains that his wife would resist any possible temptation, -however long he had been absent from her. A certain Ambrogiuolo lays a -heavy wager with him on the point, and betakes himself to Genoa, but -finds Bernabo's confidence fully justified. He hits upon the scheme -of concealing himself in a chest which is conveyed into the lady's -bedroom. In the middle of the night he raises the lid. "He crept -quietly forth, and stood in the room, where a candle was burning. By -its light, he carefully examined the furnishing of the apartment, the -pictures, and other objects of note, and fixed them in his memory. -Then he approached the bed, and when he saw that both she and a little -child who lay beside her were sleeping soundly, he uncovered her and -beheld that her beauty in nowise consisted in her attire. But he could -not discover any mark whereby to convince her husband, save one which -she had under the left breast; it was a birth-mark around which there -grew certain yellow hairs." Then he takes from one of her chests a -purse and a night-gown, together with certain rings and belts, and -conceals them in his own hiding-place. He hastens back to Paris, -summons the merchants together, and boasts of having won the wager. -The description of the room makes little impression on Bernabo, who -remarks that all this he may have learnt by bribing a chambermaid; but -when the birth-mark is described, he feels as though a dagger had been -plunged into his heart. He despatches a servant with a letter to his -wife, requesting her to meet him at a country-house some twenty miles -from Genoa, and at the same time orders the servant to murder her on -the way. The lady receives the letter with great joy, and next morning -takes horse to ride with the servant to the country house. Loathing his -task, the man consents to spare her, gives her a suit of male attire, -and suffers her to escape, bringing his master false tidings of her -death, and producing her clothes in witness of it. Ginevra, dressed as -a man, enters the service of a Spanish nobleman, and accompanies him -to Alexandria, whither he goes to convey to the Sultan a present of -certain rare falcons. The Sultan notices the pretty youth in his train, -and makes him (or rather her) his favourite. In the market-place of -Acre she chances upon a booth in the Venetian bazaar where Ambrogiuolo -has displayed for sale, among other wares, the purse and belt he stole -from her. On her inquiring where he got them, he replies that they -were given him by his mistress, the Lady Ginevra. She persuades him -to come to Alexandria, manages to bring her husband thither also, -and makes them both appear before the Sultan. The truth is brought -to light and the liar shamed; but he does not escape so easily as -Iachimo in the play. He who had falsely boasted of a lady's favour, -and thereby brought her to ruin, is, with true mediæval consistency, -allotted the punishment he deserves: "Wherefore the Sultan commanded -that Ambrogiuolo should be led forth to a high place in the city, and -should there be bound to a stake in the full glare of the sunshine, -and smeared all over with honey, and should not be set free till his -body fell to pieces by its own decay. So that he was not alone stung -to death in unspeakable torments by flies, wasps, and hornets, which -greatly abound in that country, but also devoured to the last particle -of his flesh. His white bones, held together by the sinews alone, stood -there unremoved for a long time, a terror and a warning to all." - -These two tales--of the wars between Rome and heathen Britain, and of -the slander, peril, and rescue of Ginevra--were in themselves totally -unconnected. Shakespeare welded them by making Ginevra, whom he calls -Imogen, a daughter of King Cymbeline by his first marriage, and -therefore next in succession to the crown of Britain. - -There remains a third element in the play--the story of Belarius, his -banishment, his flight with the king's sons, his solitary life in the -forest with the two youths, the coming of Imogen, and so forth. All -this is the fruit of Shakespeare's free invention, slightly stimulated, -perhaps, by a story in the _Decameron_ (Book II. Novel 8). It is in -this invented portion, studied in its relation of complement and -contrast to the rest, that we shall find an unmistakable index to the -moods, sentiments, and ideas under the influence of which he chose this -subject and shaped it to his ends. - -I conceive the situation in this wise: the mood he has been living -through, the mood which has left its freshest impress on his mind, is -one in which life in human society seems unendurable, and especially -life in a large town and at a court. Never before had he felt so -keenly and indignantly what a court really is. Stupidity, coarseness, -weakness, and falsehood flourish in courts, and carry all before them. -Cymbeline is stupid and weak, Cloten is stupid and coarse, the queen is -false. - -Here the best men are banished, like Belarius and Posthumus; here the -best woman is foully wronged, like Imogen. Here the high-born murderess -sits in the seat of the mighty--the queen herself deals in poisons, and -demands deadly "compounds" of her physicians. Corruption reaches its -height at courts; but in great towns as a whole, wherever multitudes of -men are gathered together, it is impossible even for the best to keep -himself above reproach. The weapons used against him--lies, slanders, -and perfidy--force him to employ whatever means he can in self-defence. -Let us then turn our backs on the town, and seek an idyllic existence -in the country, in the lonely woodland places. - -This note recurs persistently in all the works of Shakespeare's latest -period. Timon longed to escape from Athens and make the solitudes -echo with his invectives. Here Belarius and the king's two sons live -secluded in a romantic wilderness; and we shall presently find Florizel -and Perdita surrounded by the autumnal beauty of a rustic festival, and -Prospero dwelling with Miranda on a lovely uninhabited island. - -When Shakespeare, in early years, had conjured up visions of a -fantastic life in sylvan solitudes, it was simply because it amused -him to place his Rosalinds and Celias in surroundings worthy of their -exquisiteness, ideal Ardennes, or perhaps we should say ideal Forests -of Arden like that in which, as a boy, he had learnt to read the -secrets of Nature. In these regions, exempt from the cares of the -working-day world, young men and maidens passed their days together -in happy idleness, pensive or blithesome, laughing or loving. The -forest was simply a republic created by Nature herself for a witty -and amorous _élite_ of the most brilliant cavaliers and ladies he had -known, or rather had bodied forth in his own image that he might live -in the company of his peers. The air resounded with songs and sighs and -kisses, with wordplays and laughter. It was a dreamland, a paradise of -dainty lovers. - -How differently does he now conceive of the solitude of the country! It -has become to him the one thing in life, the refuge, the sanctuary. It -means for him an atmosphere of purity, the home of spiritual health, -the stronghold of innocence, the one safe retreat for whoso would flee -from the pestilence of falsehood and perfidy that rages in courts and -cities. - -There no one can escape it. But now, we must observe, Shakespeare no -longer regards this contagion of untruth and unfaith with the eyes of a -Timon. He now looks down from higher and clearer altitudes. - -It is true that no one can keep his life wholly free from falsehood, -deceit, and violence towards others. But neither falsehood nor deceit, -nor even violence is always and inevitably a crime; it is often a -necessity, a legitimate weapon, a right. At bottom, Shakespeare had -always held that there were no such things as unconditional duties -and absolute prohibitions. He had never, for example, questioned -Hamlet's right to kill the king, scarcely even his right to run his -sword through Polonius. Nevertheless he had hitherto been unable to -conquer a feeling of indignation and disgust when he saw around him -nothing but breaches of the simplest moral laws. Now, on the other -hand, the dim divinations of his earlier years crystallised in his -mind into a coherent body of thought to this effect: no commandment -is unconditional; it is not in the observance or non-observance of -an external fiat that the merit of an action, to say nothing of a -character, consists; everything depends upon the volitional substance -into which the individual, as a responsible agent, transmutes the -formal imperative at the moment of decision. - -In other words, Shakespeare now sees clearly that the ethics of -intention are the only true, the only possible ethics. - -Imogen says (iv. 2): - - "If I do lie, and do - No harm by it, though the gods hear, I hope - They'll pardon it." - -Pisanio says -in his soliloquy (iii. 5): - - "Thou bidd'st me to my loss: for, true to thee, - Were to prove false, which I will never be - To him that is most true." - - -And he hits the nail on the head when he characterises himself in these -words (iv. 3): - - "Wherein I am false, I am honest; not true, to be true." - -That is to say, he lies and deceives because he cannot help it; but -his character is none the worse, nay, all the better on that account. -He disobeys his master, and thereby merits his gratitude; he hoodwinks -Cloten, and therein he does well. - -In the same way, all the nobler characters fly in the face of accepted -moral laws. Imogen disobeys her father and braves his wrath, and even -his curse, because she will not renounce the husband of her choice. So, -too, she afterwards deceives the young men in the forest by appearing -in male attire and under an assumed name--untruthfully, and yet with a -higher truth, calling herself Fidele, the faithful one. So, too, the -upright Belarius robs the king of both his sons, but thereby saves -them for him and for the country; and during their whole boyhood he -puts them off, for their own good, with false accounts of things. So, -too, the honest physician deceives the queen, whose wickedness he has -divined, by giving her an opiate in place of a poison, and thereby -baffling her attempt at murder. So, too, Guiderius acts rightly in -taking the law into his own hands, and answering Cloten's insults by -killing him at sight and cutting off his head. He thus, without knowing -it, prevents the brutish idiot's intended violence to Imogen. - -Thus all the good characters commit acts of deception, violence, and -falsehood, or even live their whole life under false colours, without -in the least derogating from their moral worth. They touch evil without -defilement, even if they suffer and now and then feel themselves -insecure in their strained relations to truth and right. - -Beyond all doubt, it must have been actual and intimate experience -that first darkened Shakespeare's view of life, and then opened his -eyes again to its brighter aspects. But it is the idea which he here -indirectly expresses that seems to have played the essential and -decisive part in uplifting his spirit above the mood of mere hatred -and contempt for humanity: the realisation that the quality of a given -act depends rather on the agent than on the act itself. Although it -be true, for example; that falsehood and deceit encounter us on every -hand, it does not necessarily follow that human nature is utterly -corrupt. Neither deceit nor any other course of action in conflict -with moral law is absolutely and unconditionally wrong. The majority, -indeed, of those who speak falsely and act unlawfully are an ignoble -crew; but even the best, the noblest, may systematically transgress the -moral law and be good and noble still. This is the meaning of moral -self-government; the only true morality consists in following out our -own ends, by our own means, and on our own responsibility. The only -real and binding laws are those which we lay down for ourselves, and it -is the breach of these laws alone that degrades us. - -Seen from this point of view, the world puts on a less gloomy aspect. -The poet is no longer impelled by a spiritual necessity to bring down -his curtain to the notes of the trump of doom, to make all voyages end -in shipwreck, all dramas issue in annihilation, or even to leaven the -tragedy of life with consistent scorn and execration for humanity at -large. - -In his present frame of mind there is a touch of weary tolerance. -He no longer cares to dwell upon the harsh realities of life; he -seeks distraction in dreaming. And he dreams of retribution, of the -suppression of the utterly vile (the queen dies, Cloten is killed), of -letting mercy season justice in the treatment of certain human beasts -of prey (Iachimo), and of preserving a little circle, a chosen few, -whom neither the errors into which passion has led them, nor the acts -of deceit and violence they have committed in self-defence, render -unworthy of our sympathies. Life on earth is still worth living so long -as there are women like Imogen and men like her brothers. She, indeed, -is an ideal, and they creatures of romance; but their existence is a -condition-precedent of poetry. - -It is to this fertilising mist of feeling, this productive trend of -thought, that the play owes its origin. - -Shakespeare has so far taken heart again that he can give us something -more and something better than poetical fragments or plays which, like -his recent ones, produce a powerful but harsh effect. He will once more -unroll a large, various, and many-coloured panorama. - -The action of _Cymbeline,_ like that of _Lear_, is only nominally -located in pre-Christian England. There is not the slightest attempt -at representation of the period, and the barbarism depicted is -mediæval rather than antique. For the rest, the starting-point of -_Cymbeline_ vaguely resembles that of _Lear_. Cymbeline is causelessly -estranged from Imogen, as Lear is from Cordelia; there is something in -Cymbeline's weakness and folly that recalls the unreason of Lear. But -in the older play everything is tragically designed and in the great -manner, whereas here the whole action is devised with a happy end in -view. - -The consort of this pitiful king is a crafty and ambitious woman, who, -by alternately flattering and defying him, has got him entirely under -her thumb. She says herself (i. 2):-- - - "I never do him wrong - But he does buy my injuries to be friends, - Pays dear for my offences." - -In other words, she knows that she can always find her profit in a -scene of reconciliation. Her object is to make Imogen the wife of -Cloten, her son by a former marriage, and thus to secure for him the -succession to the throne. This scheme of hers is the original source -of all the misfortunes which overwhelm the heroine. For Imogen loves -Posthumus, in spite of his poverty a paragon among men, and cannot be -induced to renounce the husband she has chosen. Therefore the play -opens with the banishment of Posthumus. - -The characters and incidents of Shakespeare's own invention give -perspective to the play, the underplot forming a parallel to the main -action, as the story of Gloucester and his cruel son forms a parallel -to that of Lear and his heartless daughters. Belarius, a soldier and -statesman, has twenty years ago fallen into unmerited disgrace with -Cymbeline, who, listening to the voice of calumny, has outlawed him -with the same unreasoning passion with which he now sends Posthumus -into exile. In revenge for this wrong, Belarius has carried off -Cymbeline's two sons, who have ever since lived with him in a lonely -place among the mountains, believing him to be their father. To them -comes Imogen in her hour of need, disguised as a boy, and is received -with the utmost warmth and tenderness by the brothers, who do not know -her, and whom she does not know. One of them, Guiderius, kills Cloten, -who insulted and challenged him. Both the young men take up arms to -meet the Roman invaders, and, together with Belarius and Posthumus, -they save their father's kingdom. - -Gervinus has acutely and justly remarked that the fundamental contrast -expressed in their story, as in Cymbeline's political situation, in -Imogen's relation to Posthumus and Pisanio's relation to them both, -is precisely the dual contrast expressed in the English words _true_ -and _false_--_true_ meaning at once "veracious" and "faithful" (ideas -which, in the play, shade off into each other), while _false,_ in like -manner, means both "mendacious" and "faithless." - -Life at court is beset with treacherous quicksands. The king is stupid, -passionate, perpetually misguided; the queen is a wily murderess; -and between them stands her son, Cloten, one of Shakespeare's most -original figures, a true creation of genius, without a rival in all -the poet's long gallery of fools and dullards. His stupid inefficiency -and undisguised malignity have nothing in common with his mother's -hypocritical and supple craft; he takes after her in worthlessness -alone. - -For the sake of an inartistic stage effect, Shakespeare has endowed -him with a bodily frame indistinguishable from that of the handsome -Posthumus, leaving it to his head alone to express the world-wide -difference between them. But how admirably has the poet characterised -the dolt and boor by making him shoot forth his words with an explosive -stammer! With profound humour and delicate observation, he has endowed -him with the loftiest notions of his own dignity, and given him no -shadow of doubt as to his rights. There are no bounds to his vanity, -his coarseness, his bestiality. If words could do it, not a word of his -but would wound others to the quick. And not only his words, but his -intents are of the most malignant; he would outrage Imogen at Milford -Haven and "spurn her home" to her father. His stupidity, fortunately, -renders him less dangerous, and with delicate art Shakespeare has -managed to make him from first to last produce a comic effect, thereby -softening the painful impression of the portraiture. We take pleasure -in him as in Caliban, whom he foreshadows, and who had the same designs -upon Miranda as he upon Imogen. We might even describe Caliban as -Cloten developed into a type, a symbol. - -It is such personages as these that compose the world which Belarius -depicts to Guiderius and Arviragus (iii. 3), when the two youths repine -against the inactivity of their lonely forest life, and yearn to plunge -into the social turmoil and "drink delight of battle with their peers:" - - "How you speak! - Did you but know the city's usuries, - And felt them knowingly: the art o' the court, - As hard to leave as keep; whose top to climb - Is certain falling, or so slippery, that - The fear's as bad as falling: the toil o' the war, - A pain that only seems to seek out danger - I' the name of fame and honour; which dies i' the search, - And hath as oft a slanderous epitaph. - As record of fair act; nay, many times - Doth ill deserve by doing well; what's worse, - Must court'sy at the censure.--O boys! this story - The world may read in me." - -Amid these surroundings two personages have grown up whom Shakespeare -would have us regard as beings of a loftier order. - -He has taken all possible pains, from the very first scene of the play, -to inspire the spectator with the highest conception of Posthumus. One -nobleman speaks of him to another in terms such as, in bygone days, the -poet had applied to Henry Percy: - - "He liv'd in court - (Which rare it is to do) most prais'd, most lov'd; - A sample to the youngest, to the more mature - A glass that feated them; and to the graver - A child that guided dotards." - -A little farther on, Iachimo says of him to Imogen (i. 6): - - "He sits 'mongst men like a descended god; - He hath a kind of honour sets him off - More than a mortal seeming;" - -and finally, at the close of the play (v. 5), "He was the best of all, -amongst the rar'st of good ones"--an appreciation which it is a pity -Iachimo did not arrive at a little sooner, as it might have prevented -him from committing his villainies. Shakespeare throws into relief the -dignity and repose of Posthumus, and his selfpossession when the king -denounces and banishes him. We see that he obeys because he regards -it as unavoidable, though he has set at naught the king's will in -relation to Imogen. In the compulsory haste of his leave-taking, he -shows himself penetrated with a sense of his inferiority to her, and -appeals to us by the way in which he tempers the loftiness of his -bearing towards the outer world with a graceful humility towards his -wife. It is rather surprising that he never for a moment seems to think -of carrying Imogen with him into exile. This passivity is probably -explained by her reluctance to take any step not absolutely forced upon -her, that should render more difficult an eventual reconciliation. He -will wait for better times, and long and hope for them. - -As he is on the point of departure, Cloten forces himself upon -him, insults and challenges him. He remains unruffled, ignores the -challenge, contemptuously turns his back upon the oaf, and calmly -leaves him to entertain the courtiers with boasts of his own valour and -the cowardice of Posthumus, well knowing that no one will believe him. - -The character, then, is well sketched out. But his mediæval fable -compelled Shakespeare to introduce traits which, in the light of -our humaner age, seem inconsistent and inadmissible. No man with -any decency of feeling would in our days make such a wager as his; -no man would give a stranger, and one, moreover, who is to all -appearance a vain and quite unscrupulous woman-hunter, the warmest -and most insistent letter of recommendation to his wife; and still -less would any one give the same man an unwritten license to employ -every means in his power to shake her virtue, simply in order to enjoy -his discomfiture when all his arts shall have failed. And even if we -could forgive or excuse such conduct in Posthumus, we cannot possibly -extend our tolerance to his easy credulity when Iachimo boasts of his -conquest, his insane fury against Imogen, and the base falsehood of -the letter he sends her in order to facilitate Pisanio's murderous -task. Even in the worst of cases we do not admit a man's right to have -a woman assassinated because she has forgotten her love for him. They -thought otherwise in the days of the Renaissance; they did not look so -closely into the plots of the old _novelle_, and were content, in the -domain of romance, with traditional views of right and duty. - -Nevertheless, Shakespeare has done what he could to mitigate the -painful impression produced by Posthumus's conduct. Long before he -knows that Iachimo has deceived him, he repents of his cruel deed, -bitterly deplores that Pisanio has (as he thinks) obeyed him, and -speaks in the warmest terms of Imogen's worth. He says, for instance -(v. 4): - - "For Imogen's dear life take mine; and though - 'Tis not so dear, yet 'tis a life." - -He imposes upon himself the sternest penance. He comes to England with -the Roman army, and then, nameless and disguised as a peasant, fights -against the invaders. Together with Belarius and the king's sons, he is -instrumental in staying the flight of the Britons, freeing Cymbeline, -who has already been taken prisoner, winning the battle, and saving -the kingdom. This done, he once more assumes his Roman garb, and seeks -death at the hands of his countrymen, whose saviour he has been. He is -taken prisoner and brought before the king, when all is cleared up. - -From the moment he sets foot on English ground, there is in his course -of action a more high-pitched and overstrained idealism than we are apt -to find in Shakespeare's heroes--a craving for self-imposed expiation. -Still the character fails to strike us as the perfect whole the poet -would fain make of it. Posthumus impresses us, not as a favourite of -the gods, but as a man whose penitence is as unbridled and excessive as -his blind passion. - -Far other is the case of Imogen. In her perfection is indeed attained. -She is the noblest and most adorable womanly figure Shakespeare has -ever drawn, and at the same time the most various. He has drawn -spiritual women before her--Desdemona, Cordelia--but the secret -of their being could be expressed in two words. He has also drawn -brilliant women--Beatrice, Rosalind--whereas Imogen is not brilliant -at all. Nevertheless she is designed and depicted as incomparable -among her sex--"she is alone the Arabian bird." We see her in the most -various situations, and she is equal to them all. We see her exposed to -trial after trial, each harder than the last, and she emerges from them -all, not only scatheless, but with her rare and enchanting qualities -thrown into ever stronger relief. - -At the very outset she gives proof of perfect self-command in her -relation to her weak and passionate father, her false and venomous -stepmother. The treasure of tenderness that fills her soul betrays -itself in her parting from Posthumus, in her passionate regret that she -could not give him one kiss more, and in the fervour with which she -reproaches Pisanio for having left the shore before his master's ship -had quite sunk below the horizon. During his absence her thoughts are -unceasingly fixed on him. She repels with firmness the advances of her -clownish wooer, Cloten. Brought face to face with Iachimo, she first -receives him graciously, then sees through him at once when he begins -to speak ill of Posthumus, and finally treats him with princely dignity -when he has excused his offensive speeches as nothing but an ill-timed -jest. - -Next comes the bedroom scene, in which she falls asleep, and Iachimo, -as she slumbers, paints for us her exquisite purity. Then we have -her disdainful dismissal of Cloten; her reception of the letter from -Posthumus; her calm confronting (as it seems) of certain death; her -exquisite communion with her brothers; her death-like sleep and -horror-struck awakening beside the body which she takes to be her -husband's; her denunciations of Pisanio as the supposed murderer; -and, finally, the moment of reunion--all scenes which are pearls of -Shakespeare's art, the rarest jewels in his diadem, never outshone in -the poetry of any nation. - -He depicts her as born for happiness, but early inured to suffering, -and therefore calm and collected. When Posthumus is banished, she -acquiesces in the separation; she will live in the memory of her love. -Every one commiserates her; herself, she scarcely complains. She wishes -no evil to her enemies; at the end, when the detestable queen is dead, -she laments her father's bereavement, little dreaming that nothing but -the death of the murderess could have saved her father's life. - -Only one relation in life can stir her to passionate utterance--her -relation to Posthumus. When she takes leave of him she says (i. 2): - - "You must be gone; - And I shall here abide the hourly shot - Of angry eyes; not comforted to live, - But that there is this jewel in the world, - That I may see again." - -And to his farewell she replies: - - "Nay, stay a little. - Were you but riding forth to air yourself, - Such parting were too petty." - -When he is gone she cries: - - "There cannot be a pinch in death - More sharp than this is." - -Her father's upbraidings leave her cold: - - "I am senseless of your wrath'; a touch more rare - Subdues all pangs, all fears." - -To his -continued reproaches she only replies with a rapturous eulogy of -Posthumus: - - "He is - A man worth any woman; overbuys me - Almost the sum he pays." - -And her passion deepens after her husband's departure. She envies the -handkerchief he has kissed; she laments that she could not watch his -receding ship; she would have "broke her eye-strings" to see the last -of it. He has been torn away from her while she had yet "most pretty -things to say;" how she would think of him and beg him to think of her -at three fixed hours of every day; and she would have made him swear -not to forget her for any "she of Italy." He was gone before she could -give him the parting kiss which she had set "betwixt two charming -words." - -She is devoid of ambition. She would willingly exchange her royal -station for idyllic happiness in a country retreat such as that for -which Shakespeare is now longing. When Posthumus has left her she -exclaims (i. 2): - - "Would I were - A neatherd's daughter, and my Leonatus - Our neighbour shepherd's son!" - -In other words, she sighs for the lot in life which we shall find in -_The Winters Tale_ apportioned to Prince Florizel and Princess Perdita. -In the same spirit she reflects before the coming of Iachimo (i. 7): - - "Blessed be those, - How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills, - Which seasons comfort." - -And then when Iachimo ("little Iago") slanders Posthumus to her, as he -will presently slander her to Posthumus, how different is her conduct -from her husband's! She has turned pale at his entrance, at Pisanio's -mere announcement of a nobleman from Rome with letters from her lord. -To Iachimo's first whispers of Posthumus's infidelity, she merely -answers: - - "My lord, I fear, - Has forgot Britain." - -But when Iachimo proceeds to draw a gloating picture of her husband's -debaucheries, and offers himself as an instrument for her revenge upon -the faithless one, she replies with the exclamation: - - "What, ho, Pisanio!" - -She summons her servant; she has seen all she wants of this Italian. - -Even when she says nothing she fills the scene, as when, having gone -to rest, she lies in bed reading, dismisses her attendant, closes the -book and falls asleep. How wonderfully has Shakespeare brought home to -us the atmosphere of purity in this sleeping-chamber by means of the -passionate words he places in the mouth of Iachimo (ii. 2): - - "Cytherea, - How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! fresh lily, - And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch! - But kiss; one kiss!--Rubies unparagon'd, - How dearly they do't!--'Tis her breathing that - Perfumes the chamber thus." - -The influence of this scene--interpreting as it does the overpowering -impression that emanates even from the material surroundings of -exquisite womanhood, the almost magical glamour of purity and -loveliness combined--may in all probability be traced in the rapture -expressed by Goethe's Faust when he and Mephistopheles enter -Gretchen's chamber. Iachimo is here the love-sick Faust and the malign -Mephistopheles in one. Remember Faust's outburst: - - "Willkommen, süsser Dämmerschein, - Der Du dies Heiligthum durchwebst - Ergreif mein Herz, du süsse Liebespein, - Die Du vom Thau der Hoffnung schmachtend lebst! - Wie athmet hier Gefühl der Stille." - -Despite the difference between the two situations, there can be no -doubt that the one has influenced the other.[1] - -As though in ecstasy over this incomparable creation, Shakespeare once -more bursts forth into song. Once and again he pays her lyric homage; -here in Cloten's morning song, "Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate -sings," and afterwards in the dirge her brother's chant over what they -believe to be her dead body. - -Shakespeare makes her lose her self-control for the first time when -Cloten ventures to speak disparagingly of her husband, calling him a -"base wretch," a beggar "foster'd with cold dishes, with scraps o' the -court," "a hilding for a livery," and so on. Then she bursts forth into -words of more than masculine violence, and almost as opprobrious as -Cloten's own (ii. 3): - - "Profane fellow! - Wert thou the son of Jupiter, and no more - But what thou art besides, thou wert too base - To be his groom: thou wert dignified enough, - Even to the point of envy, if't were made - Comparative for your virtues, to be styl'd - The under-hangman of his kingdom, and hated - For being preferr'd so well." - -It is in the same flush of anger that she speaks the words which first -sting Cloten to comic fury, and then inspire him with his hideous -design. Leonatus' meanest garment, she says, is "dearer in her respect" -than Cloten's whole person--an expression which rankles in the mind of -the noxious dullard, until at last it drives him out of his senses. - -New charm and new nobility breathe around her in the scene in which -she receives the letter from her husband, designed to lure her to her -death. First all her enthusiasm, and then all her passion, blaze forth -and burn with the clearest flame. Hear this (iii. 2): - - "_Pisanio_. Madam, here is a letter from my lord. - _Imogen_. Who? thy lord? that is my lord: Leonatus. - O learn'd indeed were that astronomer - That knew the stars as I his characters; - He'd lay the future open.--You good gods, - Let what is here contain'd relish of love, - Of my lord's health, of his content,--yet not, - That we two are asunder,--let that grieve him: - Some griefs are medicinable; that is one of them, - For it doth physic love:--of his content, - All but in that!--Good wax, thy leave.--Bless'd be - You bees, that make these locks of counsel!" - -She reads that her lord appoints a meeting-place at Milford Haven, -little dreaming that she is summoned there only to be murdered: - - "O for a horse with wings!--Hear'st thou, Pisanio? - He is at Milford Haven: read, and tell me - How far 'tis thither. If one of mean affairs - May plod it in a week, why may not I - Glide thither in a day?--Then, true Pisanio, - (Who long'st, like me, to see thy lord; who long'st,-- - O let me 'bate!--but not like me;--yet long'st,-- - But in a fainter kind:--O not like me, - For mine's beyond beyond) say, and speak thick, - (Love's counsellor should fill the bores of hearing, - To the smothering of the sense), how far it is - To this same blessed Milford: and, by the way, - Tell me how Wales was made so happy as - To inherit such a haven: but, first of all, - How we may steal from hence; and, for the gap - That we shall make in time, from our hencegoing - And our return, to excuse: but first, how get hence: - Why should excuse be born or e'er begot? - We'll talk of that hereafter.... Prithee, speak, - How many score of miles may we well ride - 'Twixt hour and hour? - _Pis_. One score, 'twixt sun and sun, - Madam's, enough for you: [_Aside_] and too much too. - _Imo_. Why, one that rode to's execution, man, - Could never go so slow; I have heard of riding wagers, - Where horses have been nimbler than the sands - That run i' the clock's behalf. But this is foolery: - Go bid my woman feign a sickness." - -These outbursts are beyond all praise; but quite on a level with them -stands her answer when Pisanio shows her Posthumus's letter to him, -denouncing her with the foulest epithets, and the whole extent of her -misfortune becomes clear to her. It is then she utters the words (iii. -4) which Sören Kierkegaard admired so deeply: - - "False to his bed! what is it to be false? - To lie in watch there and to think on him? - To weep 'twixt clock and clock? if sleep charge nature - To break it with a fearful dream of him - And cry myself awake? that's false to's bed, is it?" - -It is very characteristic that she never for a moment believes that -Posthumus can really think it possible she should have given herself to -another. She seeks another explanation for his inexplicable conduct: - - "Some jay of Italy, - Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him." - -This is scant comfort to her, however, and she implores Pisanio, who -would spare her, to strike, for life has now lost all value for her. As -she is baring her breast to the blow, she speaks these admirable words: - - "Come, here's my heart: - Something's afore't:--soft, soft! we'll no defence; - Obedient as the scabbard.--What is here? - The scriptures of the loyal Leonatus, - All turn'd to heresy? Away, away, - Corrupters of my faith! you shall no more - Be stomachers to my heart." - -With the same intentness, or rather with the same tenderness, has -Shakespeare, all through the play, imbued himself with her spirit, -never losing touch of her for a moment, but lovingly filling in trait -upon trait, until at last he represents her, half in jest, as the sun -of the play. The king says in the concluding scene: - - "See, - Posthumus anchors upon Imogen; - And she, like harmless lightning, throws her eye - On him, her brothers, me, her master, hitting - Each object with a joy: the counterchange - Is severally in all." - -Early in the play Imogen expressed the wish that she were a neatherd's -daughter, and Leonatus a shepherd's son. Later, when, clad in manly -attire, she chances upon the lonely forest cave in which her brothers -dwell, she feels completely at ease in their neighbourhood, and in the -primitive life for which she has always longed--as Shakespeare longs -for it now. The brothers are happy with her, and she with them. She -says (Act iii. sc. 6): - - "Pardon me, gods! - I'd change my sex to be companions with them, - Since Leonatus's false." - -And later (Act iv. sc. 2): - - "These are kind creatures. Gods! what lies I have heard! - Our courtiers say all's savage but at court." - - -Belarius exclaims in the same spirit (Act iii. sc. 3): - - "Oh, this life - Is nobler than attending for a check, - Richer than doing nothing for a bauble, - Prouder than rustling in unpaid for silk." - -The princes, in whom the royal soldierly blood asserts itself in a -thirst for adventure, reply in a contrary strain: - - "_Guiderius_. Haply this life is best - If quiet life be best; sweeter to you - That have a sharper known; well corresponding - With your stiff age; but unto us it is - A call of ignorance, travelling a-bed; - A prison for a debtor, that not dares - To stride a limit." - -And his brother adds: - - "What should we speak of - When we are as old as you? When we shall hear - The rain and wind beat dark December. - . . . . We have seen nothing; - We are beastly." - -Shakespeare has diffused a marvellous poetry throughout this forest -idyl; a matchless freshness and primitive charm pervade the whole. In -this period of detestation for the abortions of culture, the poet has -beguiled himself by picturing a life far from all civilisation, an -innately noble youth in a natural state, and he depicts two young men -who have seen nothing of life and never looked upon the face of woman; -whose days have been passed in the pursuit of game, and who, like the -Homeric warriors, prepared and cooked with their own hands the spoil -procured by their bows and arrows. But their race shines through, and -they prove of better stock than we should have looked for in the sons -of the contemptible Cymbeline. Their instincts all tend towards the -noble and princely ideal. - -In the Spanish drama, which twenty-five years later received such an -impetus under Calderon, it became a leading motive to portray young men -and women brought up in solitude without having seen a single being -of the other sex, and without knowledge of their rank and parentage. -Thus in Calderon's _Life is a Dream (La vida es sueño_) of 1635, we -are shown a king's son leading a solitary life in utter ignorance of -his royal descent. He is seized by a passionate love on his first -meeting with mankind kind, and is crudely violent in the face of any -opposition, but, like the princes in _Cymbeline_, the seeds of majesty -are lying dormant and the princely instincts spring readily into life. -In the play _En esta vida todo as verdad y todo es mentira_ of 1647, -a faithful servant carries off the emperor's son from the pursuit -of a tyrant, and seeks refuge in a mountain cave of Sicily. He also -takes charge of a base-born son of the tyrant, and the two lads are -brought up together. They see no one but their foster-father, are clad -in the skins of animals and live upon game and fruit. When the tyrant -appears to claim his child and slay the emperor's son, none can tell -him which is which, and neither threats nor entreaties can prevail upon -the servant to yield the secret. Here, as in _Life is a Dream_, the -first glimpse of a woman rouses instant love in both young men. In _A -Daughter of the Air_ (_La hija del ayre_) of 1664, Semiramis is brought -up by an old priest, as Miranda is by Prospero in _The Tempest_. Like -all these beings reared in solitude remote from the turmoil of life, -Semiramis nourishes an impatient longing to be out in the world. In the -two plays of 1672, _Eco y Narciso_ and _El monstruo de los jardines_, -Calderon employs a variation of the same idea. Narcissus in the one and -Achilles in the other are brought up in solitude in order that we may -see all the emotions aroused, especially those of love and jealousy, in -a being so primitive that it cannot even name its own sensations. - -In this episode, and throughout this last period of his poetry, -Shakespeare entered a realm which the imagination of the Latin races -immediately seized upon and made their own. But in all their dramatic -poetry of this nature they never surpassed that of the English poet. - -He refrained entirely from the erotic in this idyl, and instead of -the demands of a lover's passion, he portrayed unconscious brotherly -love offered to a sister disguised as a boy. Imogen and the two -strong-natured, high-minded youths dwell charmingly together, but -their companionship is destroyed in the bud when Imogen, after having -drunk the narcotic supplied by the physician to the queen instead of -poison, lies as one dead. A gently touching element is introduced into -this moving play when the two brothers bear her forth and sing over -her bier. We witness a burial without rites or ceremonies, requiems -or church formalities, an attempt being made to fill their place with -spontaneous natural symbols. A similar attempt was made by Goethe in -the double chorus sung over Mignon's body in _Wilhelm Meister_ (Book -VIII. chap. viii.). Imogen's head is laid towards the east, and the -brothers sing over her the beautiful duet which their father had taught -them at the burial of their mother. Its rhythm contains the germ of all -that later became Shelley's poetry. - -The first verse runs: - - "Fear no more the heat of sun, - Nor the furious winter's rages; - Thou thy worldly task hast done, - Home art gone and ta'en thy wages: - Golden lads and girls all must - As chimney-sweeper, come to dust."[2] - -The concluding verses, in which the voices are heard first in solo and -then in duets, form a wonderful harmony of metric and poetic art. - -This idyl, in which he found and expressed his reawakened love for -the heart of Nature, has been worked out by Shakespeare with especial -tenderness. He by no means intended to represent a flight from scorn of -mankind as a thing desirable in itself, but merely to depict solitude -as a refuge for the weary, and existence in the country as a happiness -for those who have done with life. - -As a drama, _Cymbeline_ contains more of the nature of intrigue than -any earlier play. There is no little skill displayed in the way Pisanio -misleads Cloten by showing him Posthumus's letter, and where Imogen -takes the headless Cloten, attired in Posthumus's clothes, for her -murdered husband. The mythological dream vision seems to have been -interpolated for use at court festivities. The explanatory tablet -left by Jupiter, and the king's joyful outburst in the last scene, -"Am I a mother to the birth of three?" prove that even at his fullest -and ripest Shakespeare was never securely possessed of an unfailing -good taste, but such trifling errors of judgment are more than -counterbalanced by the overflowing richness of the fairylike poetry of -this drama - - -[1] Scarcely any poet has been more followed in modern times -than Shakespeare. We have already drawn attention to the by no means -accidental resemblances in Voltaire, Goethe, and Schiller, and we have -further instances. Schiller's _D. Jungfrau von Orleans_ is markedly -indebted to the first part of _Henry VI_. The scene between the maid -and the Duke of Burgundy (ii. 10) is fashioned after the corresponding -scene in Shakespeare (iii. 3), and that between the maid and her father -in Schiller (iv. II) answers to Shakespeare's (v. 4). The apothecary in -Oehlenschläger's _Aladdin_ is borrowed from the apothecary in _Romeo -and Juliet_. In Björnstjerne Björnson's _Maria Stuart_ (ii. 2) Ruthven -rises from a sick bed to totter into the conspirators with Knox, and -take the more eager share in the plot to murder Rizzio, as the sick -Ligarius makes his way to Brutus (_Julius Cæsar_, ii. I) to join the -conspiracy to murder Cæsar. - -[2] It is somewhat remarkable that Guiderius and Arviragus -should know anything about chimney-sweepers. - - - -XIX - -_WINTER'S TALE--AN EPIC TURN--CHILDLIKE FORMS--THE PLAY AS A MUSICAL -STUDY--SHAKESPEARE'S ÆSTHETIC CONFESSION OF FAITH_ - -We are now about to see Shakespeare enthralled and reinspired by the -glamour of fairy tale and romance. - -The _Winter s Tale_ was first printed in the Folio of 1623, but, as we -have already mentioned, an entry in Dr. Simon Forman's diary informs -us that he saw it played at the Globe Theatre on the 15th of May -1611. A notice in the official diary of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of -the Revels, goes to prove that at that date the play was quite new. -"For the king's players. An olde playe called Winter's Tale, formerly -allowed of by Sir George Bucke, and likewyse by mee on Mr. Hemmings his -word that nothing profane was added or reformed, though the allowed -book was missinge; and therefore I returned itt without fee this 19th -of August 1623." The Sir George Bucke mentioned here did not receive -his official appointment as censor until August 1610. Therefore it was -probably one of the first performances of the _Winters Tale_ at which -Forman was present in the spring of 1611. - -We have already drawn attention to Ben Jonson's little fling at the -play in the introduction to his _Bartholomew's Fair_ in 1614. - -The play was founded on a romance of Robert Greene's, published in 1588 -under the title of "Pandosto, the Triumph of Time," and was re-named -half-a-century later "The Historie of Dorastus and Fawnia." So popular -was it, that it was printed again and again. We know of at least -seventeen editions, and in all likelihood there were more. - -Shakespeare had adapted Lodge's _Rosalynde_ in his earlier pastoral -play, _As You Like It_, very soon after its publication in 1590. It is -significant that this other tale, with its peculiar blending of the -pathetic and idyllic, should only now, though it must have long been -familiar to him, strike him as suitable for dramatic treatment. Karl -Elze's theory that Shakespeare had adapted the story in some earlier -work, which Greene had in his mind when he wrote his famous and violent -accusation of plagiarism, cannot be considered as more than a random -conjecture. Greene's attack was sufficiently accounted for by that -remodelling and adaptation of older works which was practised by the -young poet from the very first, and it clearly aimed at _Henry VI_. - -Shakespeare, who could not, of course, use Greene's title, called -his play _A Winters Tale_; a title which would convey an impression, -at that time, of a serious and touching or exciting story, and he -plainly strove for a dream-like and fantastic effect in his work. -Mamillius says, when he begins his little story (Act ii. sc. I), "A sad -tale's best for winter," and in three different places the romantic -impossibility of the plot is impressed upon the audience. In the -description of the discovery of Perdita we are warned that "this news, -which is called true, is so like an old tale, that the verity of it is -in strong suspicion" (Act v. sc. 2). - -The geographical extravagances are those of the romance; it was -Greene who surrounded Bohemia with the sea and transferred the Oracle -of Delphi to the Island of Delphos. But Shakespeare contributed the -anachronisms; it was he who made the oracle exist contemporaneously -with Russia as an empire, who made Hermione a daughter of a Russian -Emperor and caused her statue to be executed by Giulio Romano. -The religion of the play is decidedly vague, the very characters -themselves seem to forget at times what they are, one moment figuring -as Christians, and the next worshipping Jupiter and Proserpina. In the -same play in which a pilgrimage is made to Delphi to obtain an oracle, -a shepherd lad says there is "but one puritan amongst them, and he -sings songs to hornpipes" (Act iv. sc. 2). All this is unintentional, -no doubt, but it greatly adds to the general fairy tale effect. - -We do not know why Shakespeare transposed the localities. In Greene's -book the tragedy of the play occurs in Bohemia, and the idyllic part -in Sicily; in the drama the situations are reversed. It might be that -Bohemia seemed to him a more suitable country for the exposure of an -infant than the better known and more thickly populated island of the -Mediterranean. - -All the main features of the play are drawn from Greene, first and -foremost the king's unreasonable jealousy because his wife, at his own -urgent request, invites Polixenes to prolong his stay and speaks to -him in friendly fashion. Among the grounds of jealousy enumerated by -Greene was the naïve and dramatically unsuitable one that Bellaria, in -her desire to please and obey her husband by showing every attention to -his guest, frequently entered his bed-chamber to ascertain if anything -was needed there.[1] Greene's queen really dies when she is cast off -by the king in his jealous madness, but this tragic episode, which -would have deprived him of his reconciliation scene, was not adopted -by Shakespeare. He did, however, include and amplify the death of -Mamillius, their little son, who pines away from sorrow for the king's -harsh treatment of his mother. Mamillius is one of the gems of the -play; a finer sketch of a gifted, large-hearted child could not be. We -can but feel that Shakespeare, in drawing this picture of the young boy -and his early death, must once again have had his own little son in his -mind, and that it was of him he was thinking when he makes Polixenes -say of his young prince (Act i. sc. 2): - - - "If at home, sir, - He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter; - Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy; - My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all: - He makes a July's day short as December; - And with his varying childness, cures in me - Thoughts that would thick my blood." - _Leontes_. So stands this squire - Offic'd with me." - - -The father's tone towards little Mamillius is at first a jesting one. - - "Mamillius, art thou my boy?" - _Mamillius_. Ay, my good lord. - _Leontes_. Why, that's my bawcock. What, hast smutch'd - thy nose? - They say it is a copy out of mine." - - -Later, when jealousy grows upon him, he cries: - - "Come, sir page, - Look on me with your welkin eye: sweet villain! - Most dear'st! my collop!--Can thy dam?--may'st be?" - -The children of the French poets of the middle and end of that century -were never childlike. They would have made a little prince destined to -a sad and early death talk solemnly and maturely, like little Joas in -Racine's _Athelie_; but Shakespeare had no hesitation in letting his -princeling talk like a real child. He says to the lady-in-waiting who -offers to play with him: - - "No, I'll none of you. - _lst Lady_. Why, my sweet lord? - _Mamillius_. You'll kiss me hard, and speak to me as if - I were a baby still." - -He announces that he likes another lady better because her eyebrows are -black and fine; and he knows that eyebrows are most becoming when they -are shaped like a half-moon, and look as though drawn with a pen. - - "_2nd Lady_. Who taught you this? - _Mamillius_. I learn'd it out of women's faces. Pray, now. - What colour are your eyebrows? - _lst Lady_. Blue, my lord. - _Mam_. Nay, that's a mock; I have seen a lady's nose - That has been blue, but not her eyebrows." - -The tale he is about to tell is cut short by the entrance of the -furious king. - -During the trial scene, which forms a parallel to that in _Henry -VIII_., tidings are brought of the prince's death (Act iii. sc. I): - - "----whose honourable thoughts - (Thoughts too high for one so tender) cleft the heart - That could conceive a gross and foolish fire - Blemished his gracious dam." - -In Greene's tale the death of the child causes that of his mother, -but in the play, where it follows immediately upon the king's defiant -rejection of the oracle, it effects a sudden revulsion of feeling in -him as a punishment direct from Heaven. Shakespeare allowed Hermione -to be merely reported dead because his mood at this time required that -the play should end happily. That Mamilius seems to pass entirely out -of every one's memory is only another proof of a fact we have already -touched upon, namely, Shakespeare's negligent style of work in these -last years of his working life. The poet, however, is careful to keep -Hermione well in mind; she is brought before us in the vision Antigonus -sees shortly before his death, and she is preserved during sixteen -years of solitude that she may be restored to us at the last. It is, -indeed, chiefly by her personality that the two markedly distinct parts -of this wasp-waisted play are held together. - -Although, as in Pericles, there is more of an epic than a dramatic -character about the work, it possesses a certain unity of tone and -feeling. As a painting may contain two comparatively unconnected groups -which are yet united by a general harmony of line and colouring, so, -in this apparently disconnected plot, there is an all-pervading poetic -harmony which we may call the tone or spirit of the play. Shakespeare -was careful from the first that its melancholy should not grow to such -an incurable gloom as to prevent our enjoyment of the charming scenes -between Florizel and Perdita at the sheep-shearing festival, or the -thievish tricks of the rascal Autolycus. The poet sought to make each -chord of feeling struck during the play melt away in the gentle strain -of reconciliation at the close. If Hermione had returned to the king -at once, which would have been the most natural course of events, the -play would have ended with the third act. She therefore disappears, -finally returning to life and the embrace of the weeping Leontes in the -semblance of a statue. - -Looked upon from a purely abstract point of view, as though it were a -musical composition, the play might be considered in the light of a -soul's history. Beginning with powerful emotions, suspense and dread; -with terrible mistakes entailing deserved and undeserved suffering, -it leads to a despair which in turn gradually yields to forgetfulness -and levity; but not lastingly. Once alone with its helpless grief and -hopeless repentance, the heart still finds in its innermost sanctuary -the memory which, death-doomed and petrified, has yet been faithfully -guarded and cherished unscathed until, ransomed by tears, it consents -to live once more. The play has its meaning and moral just as a -symphony may have, neither more nor less. It would be absurd to seek -for a psychological reason for Hermione's prolonged concealment. She -reappears at the end because her presence is required, as the final -chord is needed in music or the completing arabesque in a drawing. - -Among Shakespeare's additions in the first part of the play we find -the characters of the noble and resolute Paulina and her weakly -good-natured husband. Paulina, who has been overlooked by both Mrs. -Jameson and Heine in their descriptions of Shakespeare's feminine -characters, is one of the most admirable and original figures he has -put upon the stage. She has more courage than ten men, and possesses -that natural eloquence and power of pathos which determined honesty and -sound common sense can bestow upon a woman. She would go through fire -and water for the queen whom she loves and trusts. She is untouched -by sentimentality; there is as little of the erotic as there is of -repugnance in her attitude towards her husband. Her treatment of the -king's jealous frenzy reminds us of Emilia in _Othello_, but the -resemblance ends there. In Paulina there is a vein of that rare metal -which we only find in excellent women of this not essentially feminine -type. We meet it again in the nineteenth century in the character -of Christiana Oehlenschläger as we see it in Hauch's beautiful -commemorative poem. - -The rustic fête in the second part of the play, with the conversations -between Florizel and Perdita, is entirely Shakespeare's work; above all -is the diverting figure of Autolycus his own peculiar property. - -In Greene's tale the king falls violently in love with his daughter -when she is restored to him a grown woman, and he kills himself in -despair when she is wedded to her lover. Shakespeare rejected this -stupid and ugly feature; his ending is all pure harmony. - -Here, as in _Cymbeline_, we see the poet compelled by the nature of his -theme to dwell upon the disastrous effects of jealousy. This is the -third time he treats of such suspicions driving to madness. Othello was -the first great example, then Posthumus, and now Leontes. - -The case of Leontes is so far unique that no one has suggested causes -of jealousy, nor slandered Hermione to him. His own coarse and foolish -imaginings alone are to blame. This variation of the vice was evidently -intended to darken the background against which womanly high-mindedness -and blamelessness were to shine forth. - -Mrs. Jameson has charmingly said that Hermione combines such rare -virtues as "dignity without pride, love without passion, and -tenderness without weakness." As queen, wife, and mother, there is -a majestic lovableness about her, a grand and gracious simplicity, -a natural self-control, the proverb, "Still waters run deep," being -eminently applicable to her. Her gentle dignity contrasts well with -Paulina's enthusiastic intrepidity, and her noble reticence with -Paulina's free outspokenness. Her attitude and language during the -trial scene are superb, far outshining Queen Katherine's on a similar -occasion. Her nature, the ideal Englishwoman's nature, all meekness -and submissiveness, rises in dignified protest. She is brief in -her self-defence; life has no value for her since she has lost her -husband's love, since her little son has been removed from her as -though she were plague-stricken, and her new-born daughter "from her -breast, the innocent milk in its most innocent mouth, haled out to -murder." Her only desire is to vindicate her honour, yet the first -words of this cruelly accused and shamefully treated woman are full of -pity for the remorse which Leontes will some day suffer. Her language -is that of innocent fortitude. When about to be taken to prison she -says: - - "There's some ill planet reigns: - I must be patient till the heavens look - With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords, - I am not prone to weeping, as our sex - Commonly are; the want of which vain dew - Perchance shall dry your pities: but I have - That honourable grief lodged here which burns - Worse than tears drown." - -She bids her women not weep until she has deserved imprisonment; then -indeed their tears will have cause to flow. - -In the second half of the _Winters Tale_ we are surrounded by a fresh -and charming country, and shown a picture of rustic happiness and -well-being. No one was less influenced by the sentimental vagaries -of the fantastic pastorals of the day than Shakespeare. He had drawn -in Corin and Phebe, in _As You Like It_, an extremely natural, and -therefore not particularly poetical, shepherd and shepherdess; and the -herdsmen in the _Winters Tale_ are no beautiful languishing souls. They -do not write sonnets and madrigals, but drink ale and eat pies and -dance. The hostess serves her guests with a face that is "o' fire with -labour and the thing she took to quench it." The clowns' heads are full -of the prices of wool; they have no thought for roses and nightingales, -and their simplicity is rather comical than touching. They are more -than overmatched by the light-fingered Autolycus, who educates them -by means of ballads, and eases them of their purses at the same time. -He is a Jack-of-all-trades, has travelled the country with a monkey, -been a process-server, bailiff, and servant to Prince Florizel; he -has gone about with a puppet-show playing the Prodigal Son; finally, -he marries a tinker's wife and settles down as a confirmed rogue. He -is the clown of the piece--roguish, genial, witty, and always master -of the situation. In spite of the fact that Shakespeare seized every -opportunity to flout the lower classes, that he always gave a satirical -and repellent picture of them as a mass, yet their natural wit, -good sense, and kind-heartedness are always portrayed in his clowns -with a sympathetic touch. Before his time, the buffoon was never an -inherent part of the play; he came on and danced his jig without any -connection with the plot, and was, in fact, merely intended to amuse -the uneducated portion of the audience and make them laugh. Shakespeare -was the first to incorporate him into the plot, and to endow him, -not merely with the jester's wit, but with the higher faculties and -feelings of the Fool in _Lear_, or the gay humour of the vagabond -pedlar, Autolycus. - -The clown in the _Winter's Tale_ is the drollest and sharpest of -knaves, and is employed to unravel the knot in the story. He it is who -transports the old shepherd and his son from Bohemia to the court of -King Leontes in Sicily. - -The ludicrous features of rustic society, however, are quite -overpowered by the kind-heartedness which stamps every word coming -from the lips of these worthy country folk, and prepares us for the -appearance of Perdita in their midst. - -She has been adopted out of compassion, and, with her gold, proves a -source of prosperity to her adoptive parents. Thus she grows up without -feeling the pressure of poverty or servitude. She wins the prince's -heart by the beauty of her youth, and when we first see her she is -attired in all her splendour as queen of a rural festival. Modest and -charming as she is, she shows the courage of a true princess in face of -the difficulties and hardships she must encounter for the sake of her -love. - -She is one of Shakespeare's cherished children, and he has endowed -her with his favourite trait--a distaste for anything artificial or -unnatural. Not even to improve the flowers in her garden will she -employ the art of special means of cultivation. She will not have the -rich blooms of "carnations and streaked gillyflowers" there; they do -not thrive and she will not plant them. When Polixenes asks why she -disdains them, she replies (Act iv. sc. 3): - - "For I have heard it said - There is an art which in their piedness shares - With great creating nature." - -To which Polixenes makes the profound response: - - "Say there be; - Yet nature is made better by no mean, - But nature makes that mean: so over that art - Which you say adds to nature is an art - That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry - A gentler scion to the wildest stock, - And make conceive a bark of baser kind - By bud of nobler race; this is an art - Which does mend nature,--change it rather; but - The art itself is nature." - With great creating nature." - -These are the most profound and subtle words that could well be spoken -on the subject of the relations between nature and culture; the -clearest repudiation of that gospel of naturalism against which the -figure of Caliban and the ridicule cast upon Gonzalo's Utopia in _The -Tempest_ are protests. Perdita herself is one of those chosen flowers -which are the product of that true culture which preserves and ennobles -nature. - -They are also words of genuine wisdom on the relative positions of -nature and art. Shakespeare's art was that of nature itself, and in -this short speech we possess his æsthetic confession of faith. - -His ideal was a poetry which strayed neither in matter nor manner from -what Hamlet calls "the modesty of nature." Although he did not wholly -succeed in escaping its infection, Shakespeare invariably pursued -the artificial taste of the times with gibes. From the days when he -made merry at the expense of Euphuisms in _Love's Labours Lost_ and -Falstaff, until now, when he puts such affectedly poetical language -in the mouths of his courtiers in the _Winter s Tale_, he has always -ridiculed it vigorously. - -In the first scene of the play Camillo says in praise of Mamillius: - - "They that went on crutches before he was born desire still their - life to see him a man. - -Whereupon Archidamus sarcastically inquires: - - "Would they else be content to die?" - -and Camillo is forced to laughingly confess: - - "Yes, if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live." - -Still more absurd is the style in which the Third Gentleman describes, -in the last scene of the play, the meeting between the king and his -long-lost daughter and the aspect of the spectators. He says of Paulina: - -She had one eye declined for the loss of her husband, another -elevated that the oracle was fulfilled.[2] - -This comical diction reaches a climax in the following expressions: - - "One of the prettiest touches of all, and that _which angled - for mine eyes, caught water though not the fish_, was when - at the relation of the queen's death, with the manner how - she came to't, bravely confessed and lamented by the king, - how attentiveness wounded his daughter; till, from one sign - of dolour to another, she did, with an 'Alas,' I would fain - say, _bleed tears_, for I am sure my heart wept blood. Who - was most marble there changed colour; some swooned, all - sorrowed: if all the world could have seen't _the woe had - been universal_." - -That Shakespeare's æsthetic sense did not sanction such expressions as -these of the Third Gentleman scarcely needs stating. Perdita's language -is that of nature itself. So great is her dislike of artificiality, -that she will not even plant gardener's flowers in her garden, saying: - - "No more than were I painted I would wish - This youth should say 'twere well, and only therefore - Desire to breed by me." - -Nowhere is Shakespeare's knowledge of nature more charmingly displayed -than in her speeches. It is not only the poetic expression that is so -wonderful in Perdita's distribution of flowers; it is the intimacy -shown with their habits. She says (Act iv. sc. 3): - - "Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram; - The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun - And with him rises weeping." - -How well she knows that in England the daffodils bloom as early as -February and March, while the swallow does not come till April: - - "----O Proserpina, - For the flowers now that, frighted, thou lett'st fall - From Dis's waggon! daffodils, - That come before the swallow dares, and take - The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, - But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes - Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses, - That die unmarried, ere they can behold - Bright Phœbus in his strength--a malady - Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and - The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds, - The flower-de-luce being one! Oh, these I lack - To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend, - To strew him o'er and o'er! - _Florizel_. What, like a corse? - _Perdita_. No, like a bank for love to lie and play on: - Not like a corse; or if, not to be buried, - 'But quick and in mine arms." ... - -Florizel's answer describes her with a lover's eloquence: - - "What you do - Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet, - I'd have you do it ever: when you sing - I'd have you buy and sell so, so give alms, - Pray so, and, for the ordering your affairs, - To sing them too."... - -Her charm is equalled by her pride and resolution. When the king -threatens to have her "beauty scratched with briars" if she dares -retain her hold upon his son, although she believes all is lost, she -says: - - "I was not much afraid; for once or twice - I was about to speak and tell him plainly, - The self-same sun that shines upon his court - Hides not his visage from our cottage, but - Looks on alike." ... - -The delineation of the love between Florizel and Perdita is marked by -certain features not to be found in Shakespeare's youthful works, but -which reappear with Ferdinand and Miranda in _The Tempest_. There is -a certain remoteness from the world about it, a tenderness for those -who are still yearning and hoping for happiness and a renunciation of -any expectation as far as himself is concerned. He stands outside and -beyond it all now. In the old days the poet stood on a level, as it -were, with the love he was portraying; now he looks upon it from above -with a fatherly eye. - -As in _Cymbeline_, the court is here placed in contrast with idyllic -life, and shown as the abode of cruelty, stupidity, and vice. Even the -better of the two kings, Polixenes, is rough and harsh, and Leontes, -whom we are not to look upon as criminal, but only as misled by his -miserable suspicions, offers a true picture of the princely attitude -and princely behaviour of the time of the Renaissance, during the -sixteenth century in Italy and about a century later in England. It was -with good reason that Belarius said in _Cymbeline_ (Act iii. sc. 3): - - "And we will fear no poison, which attends - In place of greater state." - -We see that the thoughts of the king immediately turn to poison when -he believes that his wife has deceived him, and we also see that the -courtier in whom he confides has all the means ready to hand (Act i. -sc. 2): - - "And thou ... - ... might'st bespice a cup, - To give mine enemy a lasting wink; - Which draught to me were cordial. - _Camillo_. Sir, my lord, - I could do this, and that with no rash potion, - But with a lingering dram that should not work - Maliciously like poison." - -When, to escape committing this crime, Camillo takes flight with -Polixenes, and the king has to be content with wreaking his vengeance -on the hapless Hermione and her infant, he returns again and again to -the thought of having them burned: - - "Say that she were gone, - Given to the fire, a moiety of my rest - Might come to me again."' - -Then the command with regard to the child: - - "Hence with it, and, together with the dam, - Commit them to the fire!" (Act ii/sc. 3).' - -Paulina shall share their fate for daring to oppose him: - - "I'll ha' thee burnt!" - -When she is gone, he repeats his order for the burning of the infant: - - "Take it hence - And see it instantly consumed with fire.... - ... If thou refuse, - And wilt encounter with my wrath, say so; - The bastard brains with these my proper hands - Shall I dash out. Go, take it to the fire!" - -We can see that Shakespeare had no intention of allowing the drama to -become mawkish by giving too free scope to the humours of a pastoral -play. - -The resemblance between the sufferings of the infant Perdita, put -ashore on the coast of Bohemia during a tempest, and those of the -infant Marina, born during a storm at sea, is accentuated by lines -which markedly recall a well-known passage in _Pericles._ In the -_Winter's Tale_ we have (Act iii. sc. 3): - - "Thou'rt like to have - A lullaby too rough: I never saw - The heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour!"[3] - -The impression designedly produced upon the audience, that all this -is not serious earnest, enables Shakespeare to approach more nearly -to tragic dissonance than would otherwise be permissible in a work of -this kind. The atmosphere of fairy tale, so skilfully breathed here -and there throughout the play, carries with it a certain playfulness -of expression which gives a touch of raillery to incidents which would -otherwise be horrible. Playfulness it is, and we once more obtain a -glimpse of this quality which has so long deserted Shakespeare. It -would be difficult to find a more roguish bit of drollery than the old -shepherd's monologue on finding the child (Act iii. sc. 3): - - "A pretty one; a very pretty one: sure, some 'scape: though - I am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the - 'scape. This has been some stair-work, some trunk-work, some - behind-door-work: they were warmer that got this than the - poor thing is here." - -The same tone is preserved in the young shepherd's account of how -he saw Antigonus torn to pieces by a bear. Impossible to feel -horror-stricken or solemn over this: - - "And then for the land-service, to see how the bear tore out - his shoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help, and said his - name was Antigonus, a nobleman. But to make an end of the - ship, to see how the sea flap-dragoned it; but first how - the poor souls roared, and the sea mocked them; and how the - poor gentleman roared, and the bear mocked him, both roaring - louder than sea or weather." - -It does not seem very likely that the unfortunate man's chief anxiety -while the bear was tearing him to pieces would be to inform the -shepherd of his name and rank. He forgot to add his age, although, -through a slip on Shakespeare's part, the old shepherd knows without -being told that Antigonus was aged. - -Shakespeare did not concentrate his whole strength on this play either. -He took no great pains to reduce his scattered materials to order, and, -as if in defiance of those classically cultivated people who demanded -unity of time and place, he allowed sixteen years to elapse between -two acts, leaving us on the voyage between Sicily and Bohemia, between -reality and wonderland. In other words, he has freely improvised -on his instrument upon a given poetic theme; he has painted purely -decoratively, content with a general harmony of colour and unity of -tone, without giving much thought to any ultimate meaning. - - -[1] _The Historie of Dorastus and Fawnia_. Shakespeare's -Library. T. P. Collins. Vol. i. p. 7. - -[2] Julius Lange positively asserts that these expressions are -not to be taken as an intentional jest on the part of Shakespeare, but -are to be regarded as part of his style ("said in sober earnest," to -quote his own words), and he makes them the pretext of an attack upon -the "then, as now, idolised Shakespeare--in whose works, after all, we -find more high-sounding and highly-coloured words than any meaning or -real understanding of life." (_Tilskueren_, 1895, p. 699.) - -[3] In _Pericles_: - - "For thou'rt the rudliest welcome to this world - That e'er was prince's child." - - - - -XX - -_THE TEMPEST--WRITTEN FOR THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH'S WEDDING_ - -It is a different matter with that rich, fantastic wonder-poem, _The -Tempest_, on which Shakespeare concentrated for the last time all the -powers of his mind. Everything here is ordered and concise, and so -inspired with thought that we seem to be standing face to face with the -poet's idea. In spite of all its boldness of imagination, the dramatic -order and condensation are such that the whole complies with the -severest rules of Aristotle, the action of the entire play occupying in -reality only three hours. - -Owing to a notice by the Master of the Revels concerning a performance -of the play at Whitehall in 1611, the date 1610-11 was long accepted -as the year of its production. This memorandum is, however, a forgery, -and the sole bit of reliable information we possess of _The Tempest_, -before its appearance in the Folio edition of 1613, is a notice in -Vertue's Manuscripts of a performance at court in February 1613, as one -of the festivities celebrating the Princess Elizabeth's wedding. We -can prove that this was its first performance and that it was written -expressly for the occasion. - -The Princess Elizabeth had been educated at Combe Abbey, far from -the impure atmosphere of the court, under the care of Lord and Lady -Harrington, an honourable and right-minded couple. When returned to her -parents at the age of fifteen, she was distinguished by a charm and -dignity beyond her years, and soon became the special favourite of her -brother Henry, then seventeen years of age. Claimants for her hand were -not long in appearing. The Prince of Piedmont was among the first, but -the Pope would not consent to a marriage between a Catholic potentate -and a Protestant princess. The next wooer was no less a person than -Gustavus Adolphus, and his suit was rejected because James refused to -bestow his daughter upon the enemy of his friend and brother-in-law, -Christian IV. of Denmark. As early as December 1611 negotiations were -entered upon on behalf of Prince Frederick V., who had just succeeded -his father as Elector of the Palatinate. There was much to be said in -favour of an alliance with a son of the man who had stood at the head -of the Protestant League in Germany, and in May 1612 a preliminary -contract of betrothal was signed. In the August of the same year an -ambassador from the young Elector came to England. Meanwhile the -first suitor, strongly supported by the Queen's Catholic sympathies, -had reappeared. The King of Spain had also made some overtures, but -they had fallen through on account of their implying the conversion -of the Princess to the Catholic faith. It was the Elector Frederick, -therefore, who was finally victorious in the contest, and matters were -soon so far settled that he could set out on his journey to England. He -was very popular there by reason of his Protestantism, and he arrived -at Gravesend amid general rejoicing. He sailed up to Whitehall on the -22nd of October, and was enthusiastically greeted by the crowd. King -James received him warmly, and presented him with a ring worth eighteen -hundred pounds. He was ardently supported by the young Prince of Wales, -who announced his intention of following his sister on her wedding-tour -to Germany, where it was his secret purpose to look for a bride for -himself, regardless of political intrigue. - -The Elector Palatine was a remarkably handsome and prepossessing young -man. Born on the 16th of August 1596, he was at this time just sixteen -years of age, and nothing in his conduct suggested the unmanly and -contemptible character he displayed eight years later, when he, as -King of Bohemia, lost the battle of Prague through a drunken revel. -The contemporary English accounts of him abound with his praise. He -made an excellent impression everywhere, and we read, of his dignified -and princely behaviour in a letter from John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley -Carleton, dated 22nd October 1612: "He hath a train of very sober and -well-fashioned gentlemen, his whole number is not above 170, servants -and all, being limited by the King not to exceed." The condition of the -exchequer would not permit of any unnecessary extravagance, and in less -than a month after the wedding the whole retinue appointed to attend on -the Prince during his stay in England was dismissed--a slight which the -young Princess took very much to heart. - -The much beloved Prince Henry was far from well at the time of his -future brother-in-law's arrival in London. He had injured himself by -violent bodily exercise during the unusually hot summer, and had ruined -his digestion by eating great quantities of fruit. We now know that the -illness by which he was attacked was typhus fever, and it appears that -not many days after he was convalescent he incurred a severe relapse by -playing tennis in the cold open air with no more clothing on the upper -part of his body than a shirt. - -High-minded, enlightened, and honourable as he was, Prince Henry was -the idol and hope of the English nation. Queen Anne had taken the -Prince, while he was yet a boy, to visit Raleigh at the Tower, soon -after the illustrious prisoner had been forced to abandon those hopes -of the Admiralship of the Danish fleet which he had based on the visit -of Christian the Fourth, to England. Prince Henry had been intimate -with Raleigh since 1610, and is reported to have said, "No man but -my father would have kept such a bird in a cage!" He had, with great -difficulty, obtained from the King a promise that Raleigh should be -released at Christmas 1612--a promise which was never kept. - -On the morning of the 6th of November the Prince's condition was -declared hopeless. The Queen sent to the Tower for a bottle of -Raleigh's famous cordial, which she believed to have once saved her -own life, and in which Raleigh himself placed the greatest faith. He -despatched it with a message that it would save the Prince's life, -unless he were dying of poison. It only availed to ease his death -struggles, however, and, barely nineteen years of age, he died before -the day was out. - -Never before in the history of England had such hopes been fixed and -such affection lavished on an heir-apparent, and we can realise how -great would be the grief of the entire nation for his loss. According -to the manner of the times, it was generally supposed that he had been -poisoned. John Chamberlain, writing to Sir Dudley Carleton, says that -grave doubts were entertained, but adds that no traces of poison were -found when the body was opened on the second day. The editor of these -letters however (author of the _Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea_), remarks: -"There is nothing conclusive in this; for, in the first place, there -were poisons which left no trace of their presence; and, in the next, -if the effects of poisoning had been visible, the physicians would have -been afraid to say so. More than one writer has ventured to assert that -the atrocious crime was perpetrated with the connivance of the king, -whose notorious jealousy of the popular young prince at this period, -and foolish fondness for his brother Charles, induced a wretch well -known to have been guilty of similar practices--the King's favourite, -Viscount Rochester--to cause the prince to be secretly put out of the -way. It was hoped by all who objected to the marriage of the Princess -to the German Elector that Prince Henry's death would stand in the -way of the wedding, for it could hardly be celebrated at a time of -such deep mourning. The Elector, however, had come over to England on -purpose to be married, and it was not possible to delay the ceremony -long. The final marriage contract was signed by the King on the 17th of -November, and the formal betrothal took place on the 27th of the same -month. The wedding was postponed, but only until February. Sir Thomas -Lake writes on the 6th of January that mourning is given up, and the -wedding festivities are arranged. - -The bride of seventeen was solemnly united to the bridegroom of sixteen -to the general gratification of the court, on the 14th of February, in -the presence of many spectators. On the 18th of the same month John -Chamberlain writes to Mrs. Carleton: "The bridegroom and bride were -both in a suit of cloth of silver, richly embroidered with silver, -her train carried up by thirteen young ladies, or lord's daughters at -least, besides five or six more that could not come near it. These were -all in the same livery with the bride, though not so rich. The bride -was married in her hair, that hung down long, with an exceeding rich -coronet on her head, which the King valued at a million of crowns." - -The bridegroom, with the King and Prince Charles, took part in a -tournament of the wedding, and earned great applause in the evening -by a display of his splendid horsemanship (_Court and Times of James -the First_). In Wilson's _Contemporary History_ (p. 64) we read of the -bride: "Her vestments were white, the emblem of Innocency, her hair -dishevel'd, hanging down her back at length, an ornament of Virginity; -a crown of pure gold upon her head, the cognizance of Majesty, being -all beset with precious gems, shining liking a constellation, her train -supported by twelve young ladies in white garments, so adorned with -jewels that her passage looked like a milky way." - -Among the various plays chosen for performance at court during these -wedding festivities was _The Tempest_, and we shall see that it was -written expressly for the occasion. - -It is hardly necessary to confute Hunter's theory, argued at great -length, that the play dates from 1596. One fact alone will sufficiently -prove its absurdity, namely, that use is made in the play of a passage -from Florio's translation of Montaigne, which was not published until -1603. Nor is there any foundation for Karl Elze's opinion (also -lengthily set forth) that _The Tempest_ was written by 1604. The -metre shows that it belongs to Shakespeare's latest period. It has a -proportion of 33 in the 100 of eleven-syllabled lines, whereas _Antony -and Cleopatra_, written long after 1604, has but 25, and _As You Like -It_, of the year 1600, only 12 in the 100. - -We have another fragment of internal evidence against the play having -been written before 1610. In May 1609 Sir George Somer's fleet was -scattered by a storm in mid-ocean while on its way to Virginia. The -admiral's ship, driven out of its course, was blown by the gale unto -the Bermudas. After all hope had been abandoned, the vessel was saved -by being stranded between two rocks in just such a bay as that to -which Ariel guides the king's ship in _The Tempest_. A little book was -written on the subject of this shipwreck, and the adventures connected -with it, by Sylvester Jourdan, and was published in 1610 under the -title, "Discovery of the Bermudas, otherwise called, The Isle of -Devils." The storm and the peril of the admiral's ship are described; -the vessel had sprung a leak, and the sailors were falling asleep at -the pumps out of sheer exhaustion when she grounded. They found the -island (hitherto regarded as enchanted) uninhabited, the air mild, and -the soil remarkably fertile. - -Shakespeare borrowed several details from this book, the name of -Bermoothes, mentioned by Ariel in the first act, for instance; and his -only reason for not following the narrative in detail was his desire to -lay the scene in an island of the Mediterranean. - -The play, then, was written for the royal wedding in 1613. This date -was first surmised by Tieck, and later declared probable by Johan -Meissner, being finally confirmed by Richard Garnett in the _Universal -Review_ of 1889. The latter maintains and proves that _The Tempest_ was -written for a private audience on the occasion of a wedding; that the -nature of the audience and the identity of the wedding are determined -by unmistakable references to the personality of the bridegroom, to -the early death of Prince Henry, and to the qualities which King James -prided himself on possessing, and for which he loved to be praised. -Over and above all this, there is internal evidence for the year 1613, -and none for any other date. - -The play is much shorter than the generality of Shakespeare's dramas, -there being only 2000 lines in _The Tempest_ against the average 3000. -It was not permitted to take up too much of the King's time nor of that -of his guests; moreover, the play had to be written and learned and -put on the stage all within the course of, at most, a few months. Thus -there was every inducement to make it short. - -Not being written for performance in an ordinary theatre, it was -desirable to have as few changes of scene as possible, and in this -respect _The Tempest_ is unique among Shakespeare's plays. After the -opening scene on the deck of the ship, no change of scenery whatever -is necessary, although the action transpires on different parts of the -island. The occasion of the play made it equally desirable to avoid -change of costume, and of this there is actually none, except where -Prospero attires himself in ducal robes at the close of the play, and -even this he effects on the stage with the assistance of Ariel. We -have already referred to the compression of the play, which, instead -of extending, as is usual with Shakespeare, over a long period, or -even (as in _Pericles_ and _The Winter's Tale_) over a whole lifetime, -merely occupies three hours, not much longer than was required for the -performance of the play. - -In spite of its brevity, two masques, of the kind generally represented -before royalty on such occasions, are introduced into the play. - -The pantomime and ballet, with its transformations, are much more -elaborate than would have been necessary if the scene was only there -for its own sake. "Enter several strange Shapes, bringing in a banquet; -they dance about it with gentle actions of salutation; and inviting the -king, &c., to eat, they depart. Thunder and lightning. Enter Ariel, -like a harpy; claps his wings upon the table, and with a quaint device -the banquet vanishes." King James had, as we know, a fancy for all -manner of stage machinery, and Inigo Jones contrived quantities of it -for use at court festivities. - -Still more suggestive is the great wedding masque, which, with its -mythological figures, Juno, Ceres, and Iris, occupies nearly the whole -of the fourth act. If it were not that _The Tempest_ was written for -a bridal performance, this masque would be condemned, so extraneous -is it to the plot, as a later interpolation, and as such, indeed, -it was considered by Karl Elze. Without it, however, the fourth act -dwindles to nothing, and the ballet is obviously required to give it -its proper length. Moreover, masque and play are inseparably connected -by the famous lines, "and like the baseless fabric of this vision," -&c. It has been attributed, without sufficient reason, to Beaumont; -but even supposing him to have composed it, it must have been planned -by the author of the play and written to his order, and it affords -unmistakable proof that _The Tempest_ was composed as an occasional -play for the diversion of princes and courtiers. The audience must have -been in possession of circumstances justifying the introduction of the -masque, and those circumstances could not be anything but a wedding. We -may now assert with absolute certainty that _The Tempest_ was performed -on the occasion of the Princess Elizabeth's wedding. They would not -revive an old play, originally written for the stage, for such a -purpose, still less would they use one which had been composed for a -previous wedding. Shakespeare would never allow anything unsuitable to -be performed; moreover, at no former marriage would such a play have -been appropriate. The fact that it was one of the king's musicians who -composed the music for Ariel's songs, "Full fathom five" in the first -act, and "Where the bee sucks" in the last, renders it still more -probable that this of the court was its first performance. Everything -indicates a royal wedding. - -We find many flattering allusions in this play to King James, who could -not possibly be neglected on such an occasion as that of his daughter's -bridal. When Prospero, explaining his position to his daughter (Act i. -sc. 2), tells how he was foremost among all the dukes for dignity and -knowledge of the liberal arts, his special study, and how, absorbed in -secret studies, he grew a stranger to his state, his speech conveys -that interpretation of James's position and character which he himself -favoured, and implies, at the same time, that the possession of these -qualities was the cause of his unpopularity. Possibly there was a -touch of well-concealed irony in all this. Garnett, indeed, finds an -intentional dramatic satire in the crustiness and self-sufficiency of -the character, proving that even the development of the highest human -qualities is attended by drawbacks. But this is carrying the parallel -between the characteristics of Prospero and James too far. Garnett can -truly say, however, that just such a prince as Prospero, wise, humane, -peace-loving, pursuing distant aims which none but he could realise -or fathom; independent of counsellors and more than a match for his -enemies in sagacity, holding himself in reserve until the decisive -moment and then taking effective action, a devoted student of every -lawful science but a sworn foe to the black art, did James imagine -himself to be, and as such did he love to be represented. - -We have seen with what mingled feelings the King and court would -prepare for the Princess's wedding. The grief for Prince Henry's death -was still so fresh that all rejoicing must be overshadowed by it. A -noisy joyous play would have been out of place, while, upon the other -hand, it would not do to destroy all festive feeling by directly -recalling the loss the royal family and the nation had so lately -sustained. Shakespeare performed this difficult task with admirable -tact and good feeling. He alluded to the death of the Prince, but in -such a manner that grief was lost in joy. Until the last act of the -play the youthful Prince Ferdinand is believed by his father and the -courtiers to be dead, and frequent expression is given to their sorrow -over their supposed loss. The Prince is not the son of Prospero, but of -Alonso, and the sonless Duke finds a son in Ferdinand, as James found -one in the Elector Palatine. - -The fact that these guarded allusions to Prince Henry's death are found -throughout the play prove that it must have been written after the 6th -of November, and, since it was evidently performed before the wedding, -which was celebrated on the 14th of February, we may see how little -time was needed by Shakespeare in which to produce a work actually -brimming over with genius, and how far he was from being enfeebled or -exhausted when, in this play, he bade farewell for ever to his art and -his position in London. - -The entire drama is permeated by the atmosphere of that age of -discovery and struggling colonists. It has been admirably shown by -Watkins Lloyd that all the topics and problems it deals with correspond -to the colonisation of Virginia--the marvels brought to light by the -discovery of new countries and new races; by the wonderful falsehoods, -and still more wonderful truths, of travellers concerning natural -phenomena and the superstitions arising from them. Sea perils and -shipwreck, the power that lies in such calamities to provoke remorse -for crimes committed; the quarrels and mutinies of colonists, the -struggles of their leaders to preserve their authority; theories on the -civilisation and government of new countries, the reappearance of old -world vices on a new soil, the contrast between the reasoning powers of -man and those of the savage; and lastly, all the demands made upon the -activity, promptitude, and energy of the conquerors. - -The date of the first Virginian settlement was May 1607, and it then -consisted of 107 colonists. The Virginia Company was not founded until -1609 and very little was known about it before 1610. Not before 1612 -could they write home, "Our colony is now seven hundred strong." These -circumstances all seem to point to 1612-13 as the period during which -_The Tempest_ was produced. - - - -XXI - -_SOURCES OF THE TEMPEST_ - -We possess no knowledge of any one particular source from which _The -Tempest_ might have been drawn, but it seems probable that Shakespeare -constructed his drama upon some already existing foundation. A -childishly old-fashioned play by Jacob Ayrer, _Comedia von der schönen -Sidea_, seems to have been founded upon a variant of the story used by -Shakespeare.[1] Ayrer died in 1605, and his work, therefore, cannot -have owed anything to that of the great dramatist. The similarity -between the two plays is confined to the relations between Prospero -and Alonso, and Ferdinand and Miranda. In the German play we have -a banished sovereign, his daughter, and a captive prince, who is -compelled to atone for his audacity in making love to the daughter by -carrying and cutting firewood. He promises his beloved she shall be -queen, and attempting to draw his sword upon his father-in-law, is -rendered powerless by magic. There is no real resemblance between the -dramas. It is, of course, possible that Dowland, or some other English -actor, might have introduced the _Sidea_ from Germany, but Shakespeare -did not know German, and in any case the play was too poor a one to -interest him. Moreover, since we know that Ayrer did occasionally -copy English works, we may safely conclude that both dramatists were -indebted to some earlier English source. There is nothing specially -original about the above incidents. In Greene's _Friar Bacon_, four -men make fruitless efforts to draw swords held in their scabbards by -magic, and _The Tempest_ would naturally possess traits in common with -other plays representing sorcery upon the stage. In Marlowe's drama, -_Dr. Faustus_, for instance, the hero punishes his would-be murderers -by making them wallow in filth (_Faustus_, Act iv. sc. 2), just as -Prospero drives Caliban, Trinculo, and Stephano into the marsh and -leaves them there up to their chins in mire (_Tempest_, Act iv.). - -It is a most arbitrary and unreasonable supposition of Meissner's that -Shakespeare borrowed his wedding masque from the one performed at -Prince Henry's christening, in which also Juno, Ceres, and Iris appear. -Shakespeare was never so lacking in inventive power that he needed to -unearth a description of an old play which had been acted before King -James at Stirling Castle some nineteen years previously. We know that -the masque itself was not yet in print. - -It was an early and correct observation that various minor details of -_The Tempest_ were taken from different books of travel. Shakespeare -found the name of Setebos, and, possibly, the first idea of Caliban -himself, in an account of Magellan's voyage to the south pole in Eden's -_Historye of Travaile in East and West Indies_ (1577). From Raleigh's -_Discovery of the large, rich, and bewtiful Empire of Guiana_ (1596) he -took the fable of the men whose heads stood upon their breasts. Raleigh -writes that, though this may be an invention, he is inclined to believe -it true, because every child in the provinces of Arromai and Canuri -maintains that their mouths were in the middle of their breasts.[2] -(See Gonzalo's speech in _The Tempest_, Act iii. sc. 2.) - -It was Hunter who first suggested that Shakespeare might have taken -some hints from Ariosto. It is possible that he had in mind some -stanzas from the 43rd canto of _Orlando Furioso_. The 15th and 14th -contain a faint foreshadowing, as it were, of Prospero and Miranda, and -the 187th stanza alludes to the power of witchcraft to raise storms -and calm seas again. The _Orlando_ had been translated into English by -Harrington, but, as we have already observed, Shakespeare was fully -qualified to read it in the original. Too much, however, has already -been made of these trivial, nay, utterly insignificant coincidences.[3] - -It is far more remarkable that the famous and beautiful passage (Act -iv.) proclaiming the transitoriness of all earthly things--a passage -which seems to be a mournful epitome of the philosophy of Shakespeare's -last years of productiveness--may be an easy adaptation of an inferior -and quite unknown poet of his day. When the spirit play conjured up by -Prospero has vanished he says: - - "These our actors, - As I foretold you, were all spirits, and - Are melted into air, into thin air, - And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, - The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, - The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, - And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, - Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff - As dreams are made on, and our little life - Is rounded with a sleep." - -In Count Stirling's tragedy of _Darius_, published in London, 1604, the -following verses occur: - - "Let Greatness of her glassy scepters vaunt, - Not scepters, no, but reeds, soon bruis'd, soon broken; - And let this worldly pomp our wits enchant, - All fades, and scarcely leaves behind a token. - Those golden palaces, those gorgeous halls, - With furniture superfluously fair, - Those stately courts, those sky-encount'ring walls, - Evanish all like vapours in the air." - -History could scarcely afford a more striking proof that in art -the style is all, subject and meaning being of comparatively small -importance. Stirling's verses are by no means bad, nor even poor, and -their decidedly pleasing rhymes express, in very similar words, exactly -the same idea we find in Shakespeare's lines, and were, moreover, their -precursors. Nevertheless, both they and the name of their author would -be utterly forgotten long since if Shakespeare had not, by a marvellous -touch or two, transformed them into a few lines of blank verse which -will hold their own in the memory of man as long as the English -language lasts. - -As Meissner[4] pointed out, Shakespeare was indebted to Frampton's -translation of Marco Polo (1579) for one or two suggestive hints. For -example, we read in Frampton of the desert of Lob in Asia: "You shall -heare in the ayre, the sound of _Tabers and other instruments_, to -putte the travellers in feare, and to make them lose their way, and to -depart their company and loose themselves: and by that meanes many doe -die, being deceived so, by evill spirits, that make these soundes, and -also doe call diverse of the travellers _by their names_." Compare this -with Caliban's words in _The Tempest_ (Act iii. sc. 2): - - "The isle is full of noises, - Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. - Sometimes a _thousand twangling instruments_ - Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices." - -And Trinculo's subsequent jesting remark, which evidently refers to -the accompaniment of a clown's morris dance: "I would I could see this -_tabourer_; he lays it on." Compare also Alonso's lament (Act iii. sc. -3): - - "Oh, it is monstrous, monstrous! - Methought the billows spoke and told me of it; - The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder, - That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced - _The name of Prospero_: it did bass my trespass." - -Shakespeare may have found the first suggestions of Caliban and Ariel -in Greene's _Friar Bacon_. In the ninth scene of this play, two -necromancers, Bungay and Vandermast, dispute as to which possess the -greater power, the pyromantic (fire) spirits or the geomantic (earth) -spirits. The fire spirits, says Bungay, are mere transparent shadows -that float past us like heralds, while the spirits of earth are strong -enough to burst rocks asunder. Vandermast maintains that earth spirits -are dull, as befits their place of abode. They are coarse and earthly, -less intelligent than other spirits, and thus it is they are at the -service of jugglers, witches, and common sorcerers. But the fine -spirits are mighty and swift, their power is far-reaching. - -A more direct suggestion of Ariel's charming ways was probably found -by Shakespeare at the close of the already mentioned _Faithful -Shepherdess_, written by his young friend Fletcher. In it the satyr -offers his services to the beautiful Corin in terms which recall -Ariel's speech to Prospero (Act i. sc. 2): - - "All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come - To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly, - To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride - On the curled clouds, to thy strong bidding task - Ariel and all his quality." - -Fletcher's satyr makes the same offer: - - "Tell me, sweetest, - What new service now is meetest - For a satyr? Shall I stray - In the middle air, and stay - The sailing rack, or nimbly take - Hold by the moon, and gently make - Suit to the pale queen of night - For a beam to give thee light? - Shall I dive into the sea, - And bring thee coral, making way - Through the rising waves that fall - In snowy fleeces?" &c. - - -But a much more striking example of Shakespeare's taste and talent for -adaptation is presented by Prospero's farewell speech to the elves (Act -v. sc. I), "Ye elves of hills, brooks," &c. Warburton was the first -to draw attention to the fact that this speech, in which Shakespeare -bids farewell to his art, and tells, through the medium of Prospero's -marvellous eloquence, of all that he has accomplished, was founded upon -the great incantation in Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ (vii. 197-219), where, -after the conquest of the golden fleece, Medea, at Jason's request, -invokes the spirits of night to obtain the prolongation of his old -father's life. A comparison of the text plainly proves Shakespeare's -indebtedness to Golding's translation of the Latin work: - -"Ye Ayres and Windes: _ye Elites of Hillies, of Brooks, of Woods alone_, - _Of standing Lakes_, and of the Night approche ye everyone - _Through helpe of whom_ (the crooked bankes much wondring at the thing) - _I haue compelled streames to run cleane backward to their spring_. - By charmes I make the calme seas rough, and make the rough seas - playne, - _And cover all the Skie with clouds and chase them thence againe._ - _By charmes I raise and lay the windes_ and burst the Viper's iaw, - _And from the bowels of the earth both stones and trees do draw._ - _Whole woods and Forrests I remoouve: I make the Mountains shake_, - And euen the earth it selfe to grone and fearefully to quake. - _I call up dead men from their graues_, and thee, O lightsome Moone, - I darken oft, though beaten brass abate thy perill soone. - _Our Sorcerie dimmes the Morning faire, and darkes the Sun at Noone._ - . . . . . . . . . . - Among the earth-bred brothers you a mortall warre did set - And brought asleepe the Dragon fell whose eyes were neuer shet." - -The corresponding lines in _The Tempest_ run: - - "_Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves_; - And ye that on the sands with printless foot - _Do chase the ebbing Neptune_, and do fly him - When he comes back; you . . . - . . . . . _by whose aid_-- - Weak masters though ye be--_I have bedimm'd_ - _The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds_, - And twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault - Set roaring war: to the dread-rattling thunder - Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak - With his own bolt: _the strong-bas'd promontory_ - _Have I made shake;_ and by the spurs _pluck'd up_ - _The pine and cedar: graves at my command_ - _Have wak'd their sleepers, op'd and let 'em forth_ - By my so potent art." - -The words employed in addressing the elves are actually the same. -Medea's power to raise and calm the waves becomes the elfin chase of -and flight from the advancing and retreating billows. Both Medea and -Prospero proclaim their power to overcloud the sky and darken the sun, -to raise winds and shatter trees, tearing them up by the roots. They -can make the very mountains tremble, and can compel the grave to give -up its dead. - -The names Prospero and Stephano may be found in Ben Jonson's _Every Man -in his Humour_ (1595). Prospero was also the name of a riding-master -well known in the London of Shakepeare's day. - -Malone has suggested that the name "Caliban" was derived from -"cannibal." Although the creature displays no tendency towards -cannibalism, it is possible that Shakespeare had this term for a -man-eater in his mind when he invented the name; it is even probable, -seeing that the passage in Montaigne from which he drew Gonzalo's -Utopia is contained in a chapter headed "Les Cannibales." Furness, who -has inaugurated such an admirable edition of Shakespeare, considers -this surmise an improbable one. He and Th. Elze incline to the belief -that the name was derived from Calibia, a town in the neighbourhood of -Tunis, but the connection is scarcely more obvious. Shakespeare found -the name Ariel in Isaiah xxix. 1, the name of a city in which David -dwelt, and he doubtless appropriated it on account of its similarity in -sound to both English and Latin words for air. - -We now seem to have exhausted all the available literary sources of -_The Tempest_, and we need only add that Dryden and Davenant, in their -abominable adaptation of the play (published in London 1670), made free -use of Calderon's already mentioned "En esta vida todo es vertad y todo -es mentira," and thus provided the Miranda, who has never seen a young -man, with a counterpart in Hippolyto, who has never seen the face of -woman. - - -[1] Jacob Ayrer: _Opera Theatricum_. Nurnburg, 1618. L. Tieck: -_Deutsches Theater_, i. p. 323. Albert Cohn: _Shakespeare in Germany_, -ii. pp. 1-75. - -[2] - - "Or that there were such men - Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find, - Each putter-out of five for one will bring us - Good warrant of." - -[3] We read of the old man: - - "Nella nostra cittade era un uom saggio - Di tutte l'arti oltre ogni creder dotto." - -Of his arrangements for his daughter, due to the bad character of his -wife, we are told: - - "Fuor del commercio popolo la invola, - Ed ove piu solingo il luogo vede, - Questo amplo e bel palagio e ricco tanto - Fece fare a demonj per incanto." - -Of the storm, which, by the way, is not raised by the said old man, but -by hermit, we are merely told: - - "E facea alcuno effetto soprumano - . . . . . . . - Fermare il vento ad un segno di croce - E far tranquillo il mar quando è più atroce." - -[4] Johan Meissner: _Untersuchungen über Shakespeare's Sturm_. - - - - -XXII - -_THE TEMPEST AS A PLAY--SHAKESPEARE AND PROSPERO--FAREWELL TO ART_ - -Although, taken from the point of view of a play, _The Tempest_ is -lacking in dramatic interest, the entire work is so marvellously rich -in poetry and so inspired by imagination, that it forms a whole little -world in itself, and holds the reader captive by that power which sheer -perfection possesses to enthrall. - -If the ordinary being desires to obtain a salutary impression of his -own insignificance and an ennobling one of the sublimity of true -genius, he need only study this last of Shakespeare's masterpieces. In -the majority of cases the result will be prostrate admiration. - -Shakespeare gave freer rein to his imagination in this play than he -had allowed himself since the days of the _Midsummer Nights Dream_ and -the _First Part of Henry IV_. He felt able, indeed compelled to do -this; and, in spite of the restraint imposed upon him by the occasion -for which it was written, he devoted his whole individuality to the -task with greater force than he had done for years. The play contains -far more of the nature of a confession than was usual at this period. -Never, with the exception of _Hamlet_ and _Timon_, had Shakespeare been -so personal. - -It may be said that, in a manner, _The Tempest_ was a continuation -of his gloomy period; once again he treated of black ingratitude and -cunning and violence practised upon a good man. - -Prospero, Duke of Milan, absorbed in scientific study, and finding -his real dukedom in his library, imprudently intrusted the direction -of his little state to his brother Antonio. The latter, betraying his -trust, won over to his side all the officers of state appointed by -Prospero, entered into an alliance with the Duke's enemy, Alonso, King -of Naples, and reduced the hitherto free state of Milan to a condition -of vassalage. Then, with the assistance of Alonso and his brother -Sebastian, Antonio attacked and dethroned Prospero. The Duke, with -his little three-year-old daughter, was carried out some leagues to -sea, placed in a rotten old hull, and abandoned. A Neapolitan noble, -Gonzalo, compassionately supplied them with provisions, clothes, and, -above all, the precious books upon which Prospero's supernatural -powers depended. The boat was driven ashore upon an island whose one -inhabitant, the aboriginal Caliban, was reduced to subjection by means -of the control exercised over the spirit world by the banished man. -Here, then, Prospero dwelt in peace and solitude, devoting himself -to the culture of his mind, the enjoyment of nature, and the careful -education of his daughter Miranda, who received such a training as -seldom falls to the lot of a princess. - -Twelve years have passed, and Miranda is just fifteen when the play -begins. Prospero is aware that his star has reached its zenith and -that his old enemies are in his power. The King of Naples has married -his daughter, Claribel, to the King of Tunis, and the wedding has been -celebrated, oddly enough, at the home of the bridegroom; but then -it was probably the first time in history that a Christian King of -Naples had bestowed his daughter upon a Mohammedan. Alonso, with all -his train, including his brother and the usurper of Milan, is on his -homeward voyage when Prospero raises the storm which drives them on his -island. After being sufficiently bewildered and humiliated, they are -finally forgiven, and the King's son, purified by the trials through -which he has passed, is as Prospero has all along intended that he -should be, united to Miranda. - -It was evidently Shakespeare's intention in _The Tempest_ to give -a picture of mankind as he now saw it, and we are shown something -quite new in him, a typical representation of the different phases of -humanity. - -In Caliban we have the primitive man, the aboriginal, the animal which -has just evolved into the first rough stages of the human being. In -Prospero we are given the highest development of Nature, the man of the -future, the superhuman man of spirit. - -We have seen that Shakespeare roughly planned such a character some -years back, in the faintly outlined sketch of Cerimon in _Pericles_ -(_ante_ p. 591). Prospero is the fulfilment of the promise contained -in Cerimon's principal speech, a man, namely, who can compel to his -uses all the beneficent powers dwelling in metals, stones, and plants. -He is a creature of princely mould, who has subdued outward Nature, has -brought his own turbulent inner self under perfect control, and has -overpowered the bitterness caused by the wrongs he has suffered in the -harmony emanating from his own richly spiritual life. - -Prospero, like all Shakespeare's heroes and heroines of this last -decade--Pericles, Imogen, and Hermione no less than Lear and -Timon--suffers grievous wrong. He is even more sinned against than -Timon, has suffered more and lost more through ingratitude. He has -not squandered his substance like the misanthrope, but, absorbed in -occupations of a higher nature, he has neglected his worldly interests -and fallen a victim to his own careless trustfulness. - -The injustice offered to Imogen and Hermione was not so detestable -in its origin as that suffered by Prospero; the wrong done them -sprang from misguided love, and was therefore easier to condone. The -crime against the Duke was actuated by such low motives as envy and -covetousness. - -Tried by suffering, Prospero proves its strengthening qualities. Far -from succumbing to the blow, it is not until it has fallen that he -displays his true, far-reaching, and terrible power, and becomes the -great irresistible magician which Shakespeare himself had so long been. -His power is not understood by his daughter, who is but a child, but -it is felt by his enemies. He plays with them as he pleases, compels -them to repent their past treatment of him, and then pardons them with -a calmness of superiority to which Timon could never have attained, but -which is far from being that all-obliterating tenderness with which -Imogen and Hermione forgive remorseful sinners. - -There is less of charity towards the offenders in Prospero's absolution -than that element of contempt which has so long and so exclusively -filled Shakespeare's soul. His forgiveness, the oblivion of a scornful -indifference, is not so much that of the strong man who knows his power -to crush if need be, as that of the wisdom which is no longer affected -by outward circumstance. - -Richard Garnett aptly observes, in his critical introduction to the -play in the "Irving Edition," that Prospero finds it easy to forgive -because, in his secret soul, he sets very little value on the dukedom -he has lost, and is, therefore, roused to very little indignation -by the treachery which deprived him of it. His daughter's happiness -is the sole thing which greatly interests him now, and he carries -his indifference to worldly matters so far that, without any outward -compulsion, he breaks his magic wand and casts his books into the -sea. Resuming his place among the ranks of ordinary men, he retains -nothing but his inalienable treasure of experience and reflection. I -quote the following passage from Garnett on account of its remarkable -correspondence with the general conception of Shakespeare's development -set forth in this book. - -"That this Quixotic height of magnanimity should not surprise, that it -should seem quite in keeping with the character, proves how deeply this -character has been drawn from Shakepeare's own nature. Prospero is not -Shakespeare, but the play is in a certain measure autobiographical.... -It shows us more than anything else what the discipline of life had -made of Shakespeare at fifty--a fruit too fully matured to be suffered -to hang much longer on the tree. Conscious superiority untinged by -arrogance, genial scorn for the mean and base, mercifulness into which -contempt entered very largely, serenity excluding passionate affection -while admitting tenderness, intellect overtopping morality but in no -way blighting or perverting it--such are the mental features of him in -whose development the man of the world kept pace with the poet, and who -now shone as the consummate perfection of both." - -In other words, it is Shakespeare's own nature which overflows into -Prospero, and thus the magician represents not merely the noble-minded -great man, but the genius, imaginatively delineated, not, as in -_Hamlet_, psychologically analysed. Audibly and visibly does Prospero's -genius manifest itself, visible and audible also the inward and outward -opposition he combats. - -The two figures in which this spiritual power and this resistance are -embodied are the most admirable productions of an artist's powers in -this or any other age. Ariel is a supernatural, Caliban a bestially -natural being, and both have been endowed with a human soul. They were -not seen, but created. - -Prospero is the master-mind, the man of the future, as shown by his -control over the forces of Nature. He passes as a magician, and -Shakespeare found his prototype, as far as external accessories were -concerned, in a scholar of mark and man of high principles, Dr. Dee, -who died in 1607. This Dr. Dee believed himself possessed of powers to -conjure up spirits, good and bad, and on this account enjoyed a great -reputation in his day. A man owning but a small share of the scientific -knowledge of our times would inevitably have been regarded as a -powerful magician at that date. In the creation of Prospero, therefore, -Shakespeare unconsciously anticipated the results of time. He not -merely gave him a magic wand, but created a poetical embodiment of the -forces of Nature as his attendant spirit. In accordance with the method -described in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ he gave life to Ariel: - - "The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling, - Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven: - And as imagination bodies forth - The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen - Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothings - A local habitation and a name. - Such tricks hath strong imagination, - That if it would but apprehend some joy, - It comprehends the bringer of that joy." - -Ariel is just such a harbinger of joy; from the moment he appears -we are content and assured of pleasurable impressions. In the whole -record of poetry he is the one good spirit who arrests and affects us -as a living being. He is a non-christian angel, a sprite, an elf, the -messenger of Prospero's thought, the fulfiller of his will through the -elementary spirits subject to the great magician's power. He is the -emblem of Shakespeare's own genius, that "affable, familiar ghost" (as -Shakespeare expresses it in his 86th sonnet) which Chapman boasted of -possessing. His longing for freedom after prolonged servitude has a -peculiar and touching significance as a symbol of the yearning of the -poet's own genius for rest. - -Ariel possesses that power of omnipresence and all those constantly -varying forms which are the special gift of imagination. He skims along -the foam, flies on the keen north wind, and burrows in the frozen -earth. Now he is a fire spirit spreading terror as he flashes in -cloven flame, encircling the mast and playing about the rigging of the -vessel, or as one great bolt hurls himself to strike with all the power -and speed of lightning. Now again, he is a mermaid, seen in fitful -glimpses, and chanting alluring songs. He sounds the magic music of the -air, he mimics the monotonous splashing of the waves, or barks like a -dog and crows like a cock. In every essence of his nature as well as -name he is a spirit of the air, a mirage, a hallucination of light and -sound. He is a bird, a harpy, and finds his way through the darkness of -night to fetch dew from the enchanted Bermudas. Faithful and zealous -servant of the good, he terrifies, bewilders, and befools the wicked. -He is compounded of charm and delicacy, and is as swift and bright as -lightning. - -He was formerly in the service of the witch Sycorax, but, incurring -her displeasure, was imprisoned by her in the rift of a cloven pine. -There he was held in suffering many years, until delivered at last -by Prospero's supernatural powers. He serves the magician in return -for his release, but never ceases to long for his promised freedom. -Although a creature of the air, he is capable of compassion, and can -understand a sentiment of devotion which he does not actually feel. -His subject condition is painful to him, and he looks forward with joy -to the hour of liberty. Spirit of fire and air as he is, his essence -exhales itself in music and mischievous pranks. - -Caliban, on the other hand, is of the earth earthy, a kind of -land-fish, a being formed of heavy and gross materials, who was raised -by Prospero from the condition of an animal to that of a human being, -without, however, being really civilised. Prospero made much of the -creature at first, caressed him and gave him to drink of water mixed -with the juice of berries; taught him the art of speech and how to -name the greater and the lesser light, and lodged him in his cell. But -from the moment Caliban's savage instinct prompted him to attempt the -violation of Miranda, Prospero treated him as a slave and made him -serve as such. Strangely enough, however, Shakespeare has made him -no prosaically raw being, untouched by the poetry of the enchanted -island. The vulgar new-comers, Trinculo and Stephano, speak in prose, -but Caliban's utterances are always rhythmic; indeed, many of the most -exquisitely melodious lines in the play fall from the lips of this poor -animal. They sound like an echo from the time he lived within the magic -circle and was the constant companion of Prospero and Miranda. - -But since, from being their fellow, he has been degraded to their -slave, all gratitude for former benefits has disappeared from his mind; -and he now employs the language they have taught him in cursing the -master who has robbed him, the original inhabitant, of his birthright. -His is the hatred of the savage for his civilised conquerors. - -We have seen that the abhorrence Shakespeare felt for the vices of the -court and fashionable life inclined him during these later years to -dream of some natural life far from all civilisation (_Cymbeline_). -But his instinct was too sure and his judgment too sound to allow of -his ever believing, with the Utopists of his day, that the natural -primitive state of man was one of innocence and nobility of soul in the -golden age of prehistoric times. Caliban is a protest against this very -theory, and Shakespeare distinctly ridicules all such fanaticism in the -lines copied from Montaigne, and placed in Gonzalo's mouth, concerning -the organisation of an ideal commonwealth; without commerce, law, or -letters, without riches or poverty, without corn, oil, or wine, and -without work of any kind, but a happy idleness for all. - -Caliban represents the primitive, the prehistoric man; yet, such as he -is, a poetically inclined philosopher of our day has discovered in him -the features of the eternal plebeian. It is instructive to witness with -how few reservations Renan was enabled to modernise the type, and shown -how, tidied up and washed and interpreted as the dull fickle democracy, -Caliban was as capable as the old aristocratic-religious despotism of -sounding a conservative note, of protecting the arts and graciously -patronising the sciences, &c. - -Shakespeare's Caliban was the offspring of Sycorax and begotten by the -Devil himself. With such a pedigree he could hardly be expected to rise -to any height of angelic goodness and purity. He is, in reality, more -of an elemental power than a human being; and therefore rouses neither -indignation nor contempt in the mind of the audience, but genuine -amusement. Invented, and drawn with masterly humour, he represents the -savage natives found by the English in America, upon whom they bestowed -the blessings of civilisation in the form of strong drink. There is -not only wit but profound significance in the scene (Act ii. sc. 2) in -which Caliban, who at first takes Trinculo and Stephano for two spirits -sent by Prospero to torment him, allows himself to be persuaded that -Trinculo is the Man in the Moon, shown to him by Miranda on beautiful -moonlight nights, and forthwith worships him as his god, because he -alone possesses the bottle with the heavenly liquor which has been put -to the creature's lips, and given him his first taste of the wonderful -intoxication produced by fire-water. - -Midway between these symbols of the highest culture and of Nature in -its crudest form Shakespeare has placed a young girl, as noble in body -and soul as her father, and yet so purely and simply a child of Nature -that she unhesitatingly follows her instincts, including that of love. -She is the counterpart of the masculine ideal in Prospero, being all -that is admirable in woman; hence her name, Miranda. To preserve her -absolutely unspotted and fresh, Shakespeare has made her almost as -young as his Juliet; and to still further accentuate the impression of -maidenly immaculateness, she has grown up without seeing a single youth -of the other sex, a trait which was used and abused by the Spaniards -later in the same century. Hence the wondering admiration of the first -meeting between Ferdinand and Miranda: - - "What! is't a spirit? - Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir, - It carries a brave form. But 'tis a spirit." - -When her father denies this she says: - - "I might call him - A thing divine, for nothing natural - I ever saw so noble." - -And Ferdinand: - - "My prime request, - Which I do last pronounce, is, O you wonder! - If you be maid or no?" - - -It is Prospero, whose greatness shows no less in his power over -human beings than over the forces of Nature, who has brought these -two together, and who, although assuming displeasure at their mutual -attraction, causes all which concerns them to follow the exact course -his will has marked out. - -He sees into the soul of mankind with as sure an eye as Shakespeare -himself, and plays the part of Providence to his surroundings as -incontestably as did the poet to the beings of his own creation. - -When Prospero shows the young people to his guests, they are playing -chess, and there would seem to be a touch of symbol in the fact that -they are playing, not only because they wish to do so, but because -they must. There is, moreover, something almost personal in the way -Prospero trains and admonishes the loving couple. Garnett is inclined -to infer from the repeated exhortations to Ferdinand to restrain the -impulse of his blood until the wedding-hour has struck, that the play -was acted some days before the royal wedding ceremony. But if these -warnings were intended for the Elector in his capacity of bridegroom, -they were a piece of tasteless impertinence. No, it is far more likely -that, as before suggested, they contain a melancholy confession, a -purely personal reminiscence. Shakespeare cannot be accused of any -excessive severity in such questions of morals. We saw in _Measure for -Measure_ that he considered the connection between the two lovers, for -which they are to be so severely punished, was to the full as good as -marriage, although entered upon without ceremonies. It was no mere -formalism which spoke here, but bitter experience. Now that he was -already, in thought, on his way back to Stratford, and was living in -anticipation of what awaited him there, Shakespeare was reminded of how -he and Anne Hathaway forestalled their ceremonial union, and he spoke -of the punishment following on such actions as a curse, which he knew: - - "Barren hate, - Sour-eyed disdain and discord shall bestrew - The union of your bed with weeds so loathly - That you shall hate it both" (Act iv. sc. I). - -As already observed, Shakespeare appropriated from some source or -another the incident of the youthful suitor being obliged to submit -to the trial of carrying and piling wood. It almost seems that his -motive in including such an incident was to show that it is man's great -and noble privilege to serve out of love. To Caliban all service is -slavery; throughout the whole play he roars for freedom, and never so -loudly as when he is drunk. For Ariel, too, all bondage, even that -of a higher being, is mere torment. Man alone finds pleasure in the -servitude of love. Thus Ferdinand bears uncomplainingly, and even -gladly, for Miranda's sake, the burden laid upon him (Act iii. sc. I): - - "I am in my condition - A prince, Miranda, I do think, a king. - . . . . . . . . - The very instant that I saw you, did - My heart fly to your service; there resides - To make me slave to it." - -She shares this feeling: - - "I am your wife if you will marry me! - If not, I'll die your maid; to be your fellow - You may deny me; but I'll be your servant - Whether you will or no." - -It is a feeling of the same nature which impels Prospero to return to -Milan to fulfil his duty towards the state whose government he has so -long neglected. - -There are certain analogies between _The Tempest_ and the _Midsummer -Night's Dream_. In both we are shown a fantastic world in which -heavenly powers make sport of earthly fools. Caliban discovering a -god in the drunken Trinculo reminds us of Titania's amorous worship -of Bottom. Both are wedding-plays, and yet what a difference! _The -Midsummer Night's Dream_ was one of Shakespeare's earliest independent -poetical works, written at the age of twenty-six, and his first great -success. _The Tempest_ was written as a farewell to art and the -artist's life, just before the completion of his forty-ninth year, and -everything in the play bespeaks the touch of autumn. - -The scenery is autumnal throughout, and the time is that of the autumn -equinox with its storms and shipwrecks. With noticeable care all the -plants named, even those occurring merely in similes, are such flowers -and fruit, &c., as appear in the fall of the year in a northern -landscape. The climate is harsh and northerly in spite of the southern -situation of the island and the southern names. Even the utterances of -the goddesses, the blessing of Ceres, for example, show that the season -is late September--thus answering to Shakespeare's time of life and -frame of mind. - -No means of intensifying this impression are neglected. The utter -sadness of Prospero's famous words describing the trackless -disappearance of all earthly things harmonises with the time of year -and with his underlying thought--"We are such stuff as dreams are made -on:" a deep sleep, from which we awaken to life, and again, deep sleep -hereafter. What a personal note it is in the last scene of the play -where Prospero says: - - "And thence retire me to my Milan, where - Every third thought shall be my grave." - -How we feel that Stratford was the poet's Milan, just as Ariel's -longing for freedom was the yearning of the poet's genius for rest. He -has had enough of the burden of work, enough of the toilsome necromancy -of imagination, enough of art, enough of the life of the town. A -deep sense of the vanity of all things has laid its hold upon him, -he believes in no future and expects no results from the work of a -lifetime. - - "Our revels now are ended. These our actors - . . . . . . . . . . were all spirits and - are melted into air, into thin air." - -Like Prospero, he had sacrificed his position to his art, and, like -him, he had dwelt upon an enchanted island in the ocean of life. He had -been its lord and master, with dominion over spirits, with the spirit -of the air as his servant, and the spirit of the earth as his slave. -At his will graves had opened, and by his magic art the heroes of the -past had lived again. The words with which Prospero opens the fifth act -come, despite all gloomy thoughts of death and wearied hopes of rest, -straight from Shakespeare's own lips: - - "Now does my project gather to a head; - My charms crack not; my spirits obey; and time - Goes upright with his carriage." - -All will soon be accomplished and Ariel's hour of deliverance is nigh. -The parting of the master from his genius is not without a touch of -melancholy: - - "My dainty Ariel! _I shall miss thee_, - But yet thou shalt have freedom." - -Prospero has determined in his heart to renounce all his magical powers: - - "To the elements - Be free, and fare thee well!" - -He has taken leave of all his elves by name, and now utters words -whose personal application has never been approached by any character -hitherto set upon the stage by Shakespeare: - - "But this rough service - I here abjure, and, when I have required - Some heavenly music, which even now I do, - . . . . . I'll break my staff, - Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, - And deeper than did ever plummet sound - I'll drown my book." - -Solemn music is heard, and Shakespeare has bidden farewell to his art. - -Collaboration in _Henry VIII_. and the production and staging of _The -Tempest_ were the last manifestations of his dramatic activity. In -all probability he only waited for the close of the court festivities -before carrying out his plan of leaving London and returning to -Stratford; and Ben Jonson's foolish thrust at _those who beget tales, -tempests, and such like drolleries_, would not find him in town. When -we drew attention to his efforts to increase his capital, and his -purchase of houses and land at Stratford, we showed that, even at that -early period, he hoped eventually to quit the metropolis, to give up -the theatre and literature and to spend the last years of his life in -the country. Even supposing him to have delayed his departure until -after the performance of _The Tempest_, an event which happened only -four months later would have supplied the final inducement to leave. -In the month of June 13 a fire broke out, as we know, at the Globe -Theatre during a performance of _Henry VIII._, and the whole building -was burned to the ground. Thus the scene of his activity for so many -long years disappeared, as it were, in smoke, leaving no trace behind. -He was probably part owner of the stage properties and costumes, which -were all consumed. In any case, the flames devoured all the manuscripts -of his plays then in the possession of the theatre, a priceless -treasure--for him surely a painful, and for us an irreparable, loss. - - - - -XXIII - -_THE RIDE TO STRATFORD_ - -That must have been a momentous day in Shakespeare's life on which, -after giving up his house in London, he mounted his horse and rode back -to Stratford-on-Avon to take up his abode there for good. - -He would recall that day in 1585 when, twenty-eight years younger, -with his life lying before him veiled in the mists of expectation and -uncertainty, he set out from Stratford to London to try his fortunes in -the great city. Then his heart beat high, and he must have felt towards -his horse much as the Dauphin did in _Henry V_. (Act iii. sc. 7) when -he said, "When I bestride him I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; -the earth sings when he touches it, the basest horn of his hoof is more -musical than the pipe of Hermes." - -Life lay behind him now. His hopes had been fulfilled in many ways; he -was famous, he had raised himself a degree in the social scale, above -all he was rich, but for all that he was not happy. - -The great town, in which he had spent the better part of a lifetime, -had not so succeeded in attaching him to it that he would feel any pain -in leaving it. There was neither man nor woman there so dear to him as -to make society preferable to solitude, and the crowded life of London -to the seclusion of the country and an existence passed in the midst of -family and Nature. - -He had toiled enough, his working days were over, and now, at last, the -cloud should be lifted from his name which had so long been cast upon -it by his profession. It was nine years since he had actually appeared -upon the stage, since he had made over his parts to others, and now he -had ceased to take any pleasure in his pen. None of those were left -for whom he had cared to write plays and put them upon the stage; the -new generation and present frequenters of the theatre were strangers -to him. There was no one in London who would heed his leaving it, no -friends to induce him to stay, no farewell banquet to be given in his -honour. - -He would remember his first arrival in London, and how, according to -the custom of all poor travellers, he sold his horse at Smithfield. He -could, if he wished, keep many horses now, but no power could renew the -joyous mood of twenty-one. Then the wind had played with the long curls -hanging below his hat, now he was elderly and bald. - -The journey from London to Stratford took three days. He would, put up -at the inns at which he was accustomed to stay on his yearly journey to -and fro, and where he was always greeted as a welcome guest, and given -a bed with snow-white sheets, for which travellers on foot were charged -an extra penny, but which he, as rider, enjoyed gratis. The hostess at -Oxford, pretty Mistress Davenant, would give him a specially cordial -greeting. The two were old and good friends. Little William, born in -1606, and now seven years old, possessed a certain, perhaps accidental, -resemblance of feature to the guest. - -As Shakespeare rode on, Stratford, so well known and yet, as settled -home, so new, would (as Hamlet says) rise "before his mind's eye." A -life of daily companionship with his wife was to begin afresh after a -break of twenty-eight years. She was now fifty-seven, and consequently -much older, in proportion, than her husband of forty-nine than when -they were lovers and newly married, the one under and the other -somewhat over twenty. There could be no intellectual bond between them -after so long a separation, and their married life was but an empty -form. - -Of their two daughters, Susanna, the elder, was now thirty, and had -been married for six years to Dr. John Hall, a respected physician at -Stratford. Judith, the younger daughter, was twenty-eight and unmarried. - -The Halls, with their little five-year-old daughter, lived in a -picturesque house in Old Stratford, at that time surrounded by woods. -Mrs. Shakespeare and Judith lived at New Place, and the spirit -prevailing in both establishments was not the spirit of Shakespeare. - -Not only the town of Stratford, but his own home and family were -desperately pious and puritanical. That power which had been most -inimical to him in London, which had dishonoured his profession, and -with which he had been at war during all the years of his dramatic -activity; that very power against which he had striven, sometimes by -open attack, more often by cautious insinuation, had triumphed in his -native town behind his back and taken complete possession of his only -home. - -The closing of the theatre, which did not occur in London until the -Puritans had completely gained the upper hand many years later, had -already been anticipated in Stratford. The performance of those plays -at which Shakespeare in his youth had made acquaintance with the men, -his future brother professionals, with whom he sought refuge in London, -was strictly forbidden. So long ago as 1602 the town council had -carried a resolution that no performance of play or interlude should -be permitted in the Guildhall, that long, low building with its eight -small-paned windows. It was the only place in Stratford suitable for -such a purpose, and was connected with many of Shakespeare's memories. -Directly above the long narrow hall, on the first floor, was the -school which he had attended daily as a child. Into the hall itself he -had awesomely penetrated the day the glories of a theatre were first -displayed before his childish eyes. And now eleven years had passed -since that wise Council had decreed that any alderman or citizen giving -his consent to the representation of plays in this building should be -fined ten shillings for every infringement of the prohibition. This not -proving a sufficient deterrent, the fine was raised in 1612 from ten -shillings to the extravagant sum of £10, equivalent to about £50 in our -day. Fifty pounds for allowing a play to be performed in the only hall -in the town suitable for the purpose! This was rank fanaticism! - -Moreover, it was a fanaticism which had found its way into his own -home. That strong tendency to Puritanism which was so marked among -his descendants until the race died out, had already developed in his -family. His wife was extremely religious, as is often the case with -women whose youthful conduct has not been too circumspect. When she -captured her boy husband of eighteen, her blood was as warm as his, but -now she was vastly his superior in matters of religion. Neither could -he look for any real intellectual companionship from his daughters. -Susanna was pious, her husband still more so. Judith was as ignorant as -a child. Thus he must pay the penalty of his long absence from home and -his utter neglect of the education of his girls. - -It was to no happy harmony of thought and feeling, therefore, that the -poet could look forward as he rode away from his dramatic fairyland -to the simplicities of domestic life. The only attractions existing -for him there were his position as a gentleman, the satisfaction of no -longer being obliged to act and write for money, and the pleasure of -living on and roaming about his own property. The very fact that he did -go back to Stratford with the little there was to attract him there -proves how slight a hold London had taken upon him, and with what a -feeling of loneliness, and (now that the bitterness was past) with what -indifference, he bade farewell to the metropolis, its inhabitants and -its pleasures. - -It was the quietude of Stratford which attracted him, its leisure, the -emptiness of its dirty streets, its remoteness, from the busy world. -What he really longed for was Nature, the Nature with which he had -lived in such intimate companionship in his early youth, which he had -missed so terribly while writing _As You Like It_ and its fellow-plays, -and from which he had so long been separated. - -Far more than human beings was it the gardens which he had bought and -planted there which drew him back to his native town--the gardens and -trees on which he looked from his windows at New Place. - - - - -XXIV - -_STRATFORD-UPON-AVON_ - -He was home again. Home once more, where he knew every road and path, -every house and field, every tree and bush. The silence of the empty -streets struck him afresh as his footsteps echoed down them, and the -river Avon shone bright and still between the willows bending down to -the water's edge. He had shot many a deer in the neighbourhood of that -stream, and it was by its banks that Jaques, in _As You Like It_, had -sat as he watched the wounded stag that sighed as though its leathern -coat would burst, while the big round tears coursed down its innocent -nose. The fine arched bridge was erected in the time of Henry VIII. -by the same Sir Hugh Clopton who had built New Place, the house which -Shakespeare had bought, and been obliged to restore before his family -could live in it. - -Close by the river stood the avenue leading to the beautiful Gothic -church of the Holy Trinity, with its slender spire and handsome -windows. Within were the graves and monuments of the neighbouring -gentry, and there, so much sooner than he could possibly have dreamed, -was Shakespeare himself to lie. - -Passing through Church Street, he would come upon the Guild Chapel, a -fine square building, from whose tower rang the weekly bells calling -to Sunday-morning service. He remembered those bells from of old, -and now they would be constantly sounding in his ears, for New Place -lay just across the road. Soon they would be tolling his own funeral -knell. Directly adjoining the chapel stood the timbered building which -represented both Guildhall and school. Once it had seemed large and -spacious; how small and mean it looked now! It was more satisfactory -to glance on to the corner where his large garden and green lawns -stood, and his eye would rest affectionately upon the mulberry-tree -his own hands had planted. Ten steps from his door lay the tavern, -quaint and low, and how familiar! Not the first time would it be that -he had sat at that table, the largest, it was said, that had ever been -cut in England from a single piece of wood. He would at least find -something to drink there, and a game of draughts or dice. With a sigh -he realised that this tavern was likely to prove his chief refuge from -his loneliness. - -Every spot was rich in memories. Five minutes' walk would bring him -to Henley Street, where he had played as a child, and where stood the -old house in which he was born. He would enter; there was the kitchen, -which had been the living room as well in his parents' time; near the -entry was the woman's storeroom, and above, the sleeping-room in which -he was born. How little he dreamed that this spot was to become a -place of pilgrimage for the whole Anglo-Saxon race--nay, for the whole -civilised world. - -He would take the road to Shottery, along which he had walked times -out of number in his youth--for had not he and Anne Hathaway kept -their trysts there? Right and left rose the high hedges separating -the fields. Trees, standing singly or in groups, were scattered about -the country, and the road, lined with elms, beeches, and willows, -wound its way through the undulating country lying between Stratford -and Shottery. Half-an-hour's walk would bring him to Anne Hathaway's -cottage, with the moss-grown roof. He would enter, and look once more -upon the wooden bench in the chimney-corner on which he and she had sat -in their ardent youth. How long ago it all seemed! There was the old -fifteenth-century bed in which Anne's parents had slept, with her, as a -child, at their feet. The mattress was nothing but a straw palliasse, -but the bedstead was beautifully carved with figures in the old style. -When, a year or two later, he bequeathed to his wife "the second best -bed," did he remember that this bed was already hers, I wonder? - -Another day he would make his way as far as Warwick and its castle. The -town was not unlike that of Stratford; it had the same timbered houses, -but here the two great towers of the castle rose and predominated over -the beautiful scenery. How vividly the past would rise up before him as -he stood on the bridge and gazed up at the castle. He would remember -his own youthful dreams concerning it, and the forms he had conjured up -from their graves to people it afresh. There was the Earl of Warwick, -who enumerated all the proofs of Gloucester's violent death in _Henry -VI._ and that other Earl in the _Second Part of Henry IV_, (Act iii. -sc. I) into whose mouth he had put words whose truth he was now proving: - - "There is a history in all men's lives - Figuring the nature of the times deceased." - -Charlcote House he would see too. He had stood as a culprit before its -master once, and had suffered the bitterest humiliation of his life, -one so deep that it had driven him away from home, and had thus been -the means of leading him to success and prosperity in London. - -How strange it was to be here again where every one knew and greeted -him. In London he had been swallowed up in the crowd. How familiar, -too, the homely provincial version of his name, with the abbreviated -first syllable. In town that first syllable was always long, a -pronunciation, which left no doubt as to the etymology of the name.[1] -It was on account of these differing pronunciations that he had, while -in London, changed the spelling of his name. He had always written -it _Shakspere_, but in town it had from the first (the dedication -of _Venus and Adonis_ and _The Rape of Lucrece_) been printed -_Shakespeare_: a spelling always followed by the various publishers of -the quarto editions of his dramas, only one adopting the orthography -_Shakspeare_.[2] - -Every one knew him, and he must exchange a word with all--with the -ploughman in the field, the farmer's wife in her poultry-yard, the -mason on the scaffolding, the fish-dealer at his stall, the cobbler in -his workshop, and the butcher in the slaughter-house. How well he could -talk to each, for no human occupation, however humble, was unfamiliar -to him. He had a thorough acquaintance from of old with the butcher's -trade. It had formed a part of his father's business, and his early -tragedies contain many a proof of his familiarity with it. The Second -and Third Parts of _Henry_ VI. are full of similes drawn from it.[3]. - -There was hardly any trade, calling, or position in life which he did -not understand as if he had been born to it. Doubtless the simple folk -of his native town respected him as much for his sound judgment and -universal knowledge as for his wealth and property. It would be too -much to expect that they should recognise anything more and greater in -him. - -Many years ago, at the outset of his career as a dramatist, he had made -a defeated king praise a country life for its simplicity and freedom -from care (_Third Part of Henry VI._, ii. 5): - - "O God! methinks it were a happy life - To be no better than a homely swain; - To sit upon a hill, as I do now, - To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, - Thereby to see the minutes how they run, - How many make the hour full complete; - How many hours bring about the day; - How many days will finish up the year; - How many years a mortal man may live. - When this is known, then to divide the times: - So many hours must I tend my flock; - So many hours must I take my rest; - So many hours must I contemplate; - So many hours must I sport myself; - So many days my ewes have been with young; - So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean; - So many years ere I shall shear the fleece: - So minutes, hours, days, months and years, - Passed over to the end they were created, - Would bring white hairs and a quiet grave." - -In just such a regular monotony were Shakespeare's own days now to pass. - - -[1] In 1875 Charles Mackay made an attempt, in the _Athenaum_, -to prove a Celtic origin for the name, deriving it from _seac_ = -dry, and _speir_--shanks, thus dry or long shanks. If we take into -consideration the numerous other names and nicknames of the day which -began with Shake--Shake-buckler, Shake-launce, Shake-shaft, &c., this -explanation does not seem very probable. Another argument in favour -of its Anglo-Saxon origin and simple meaning, _Spearshaker_, is the -contemporaneous existence of the Italian surname Crollalanza. - -[2] It may be mentioned that there were no less than -fifty-five different ways of writing the name at that time. It is -well known that such spellings were quite arbitrary. In Shakespeare's -wedding contract, for example, we have the version _Shagspere_. - -[3] - - "And as the butcher takes away the calf, - And binds the wretch and beats it when it strays, - Bearing it to the bloody slaughter-house" (II. iii. I) - - - "Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh, - And sees fast by a butcher with an axe, - But will suspect 'twas he that made the slaughter" (II. iii. 2). - - - "_Holland_. And Dick the butcher. - "_Bevis_. Then is sin struck down like an ox and - iniquity's throat cut like a calf." - (II. iv. 2). - - "_Cade_. They fell before thee like sheep and oxen, - and thou behavedst thyself as if thou hadst been in thine - own slaughter-house." (II. iv. 3). - - "So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece, - And next his throat unto the butcher's knife." (III. v. 6). - -In _As You Like It_ (ii. 2) Rosalind says, using a simile drawn from -the same trade: "This way will I take upon me to wash your liver clean -as a sound sheep's heart, that there shall be not one spot of love in -it." - -See Alfred C. Calmon, who in _Fact and Fiction about Shakespeare_ has -been very successful in pointing out the numerous reminiscences of -Stratford to be found in Shakespeare's plays. - - - - -XXV - -_THE LAST YEARS OF SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE_ - -Did Shakespeare find that peace and contentment at Stratford which he -sought? From one thing and another we are almost forced to conclude -he did not. His own family seem to have looked upon him in the light -of a returned artist-bohemian, of a man whose past career and present -religious principles were anything but a credit to them. Elze and -others believe, indeed, that, like Byron's descendants at a later date, -Shakespeare's family considered him a stain upon their reputation. This -surmise may be correct, but there is no very great foundation for it. - -It has long been inferred, from the fact that he made her his heiress, -that Susanna was Shakespeare's favourite daughter. She was probably the -individual to whom he felt most drawn in Stratford; but we must not -conclude too much from a testamentary disposition. It was plainly the -poet's intention to entail his property, and his original desire was -that his little son Hamnet, as bearer and continuer of the name, should -succeed to everything. Upon the death of the son, the elder daughter -would naturally take his place. - -It is not conceivable that Susanna could have any real understanding -of, or sympathy with, her father. Her very epitaph places her in direct -contrast with him in matters of religion, distinctly maintaining that -though she was gifted above her sex, which she owed partly to her -father, she was also wise with regard to her soul's salvation, and -that was entirely due to Him whose happiness she was now sharing. -Shakespeare had none of the credit for that.[1] Her natural inclination -to bigoted piety was confirmed and augmented by the influence of her -husband, whose sectarian zeal and narrow-minded hatred of Catholicism -are plainly shown in such of his journals and books as have been -preserved. We can fancy how Shakespeare's depth and delicacy of feeling -must have suffered under all this. It is even possible that Susanna and -her husband may have burned, on the score of what they considered his -irreligious principles, any papers that Shakespeare left behind, as -Byron's family destroyed his memoirs. This would explain their total -disappearance, which, after all, is no more strange than the utter -absence of any manuscripts belonging to Beaumont or Fletcher, or any -other dramatic writer of the period. - -The younger daughter, Judith, could not even write her own name, and -signed her mark with a quaint little flourish when she was married. -It is clearly impossible, therefore, that she could have taken any -interest in her father's manuscripts. In the seventeenth century it -was no very liberal education that a poet's daughter received; even -Milton's eldest daughter, at a much later period, was unable to write. -Susanna could just inscribe her own name, but that seems to have been -the limit of her literary accomplishments. Her utter indifference to -all such matters would sufficiently account for the destruction of -her father's papers, and this surmise is confirmed by a remarkable -statement made in his preface by Dr. John Cooke, the editor of her -husband's papers. Whilst serving as army surgeon during the Civil War, -he was stationed at Stratford to defend the bridge over the Avon. One -of his men, lately an assistant of Dr. Hall's, told him that the books -and manuscripts left by the doctor were still in existence, and offered -to accompany him to the widow's house in search of them. Cooke examined -the books, and Mrs. Hall informed him that she had others which had -belonged to her husband's partner, and had cost a considerable sum. -He replied that if the books pleased him he would be willing to pay -the original price. She then produced them, and they proved to be the -very book from which we are quoting, and some others' all ready for -printing. Cooke, who knew Dr. Hall's handwriting, told her that at -least one of these books was her husband's, and showed her the writing. -She denied it, and finding that his persistence was giving offence, he -paid the sum she named and carried off the books. - -This extract proves that Susanna neither knew her husband's handwriting -nor recognised his own books. So entirely lacking was she in any -interest in intellectual matters, that she, a rich woman, set no -greater value on her husband's works than to sell them for a trifle on -the first opportunity that offered. - -We can draw a tolerably reliable inference from this anecdote of the -interest she was likely to take in any written or printed papers left -by her father. In all probability she did not even take the trouble to -burn them, but either threw them away or sold them as waste paper. - -If we reflect that Susanna, born in better circumstances and better -educated than her mother, must have been decidedly her superior, we can -see how little Shakespeare's wife, now well stricken in years, could -have understood or appreciated her husband. She undoubtedly preferred -sermons to plays, and both her heart and house were always open to -itinerant Puritan preachers. Of this we possess reliable information. - -Shakespeare returned to London during the winter of 1614. Letters have -been preserved from his cousin Thomas Greene, the town-clerk, proving -that he was in the capital on the 16th of November and the 23rd of -December. This visit of his is interesting in two ways, for we know -that Shakespeare, capable man of business as he was, was defending the -rights of his fellow-citizens against the country gentry; and we also -know the use his family made of his absence. - -The town records of Stratford show that Shakespeare's family was -entertaining a travelling Puritan preacher just at this time, for, -according to custom, the town presented this man with a quart of sack -and a quart of claret, and we read in the municipal accounts: "_Item, -for one quart of sack and one quart of clarett wine geven to a preacher -at the New Place, xxd._" - -It is a significant fact that his family should be entertaining a -member of the sect Shakespeare held to be peculiarly inimical to -himself whilst he, the master of the house, was absent on business. - -Probably his family never saw one of his plays performed, nor even read -such of them as were printed in the pirated editions. - -Anne Hathaway's cottage, which stands unchanged, though the roof is -gradually falling in, was visited by the present writer in 1895. An -old woman lived in it, the last of the Hathaways. She was sitting on a -chair opposite the _courtship bench_, on which, according to tradition, -the lovers used to sit. In the family Bible, lying open before her, she -pointed with pride to a long list of names inscribed by the Hathaways -during hundreds of years, and forming a kind of genealogical tree. The -room was filled with all manner of pictures of William Shakespeare -and Anne Hathaway, with relics of the poet, and of famous actors and -critics of his plays. The old woman, who lived among and by these -comparatively valueless treasures, explained the meaning and story of -each thing, but to the cautiously ventured inquiry whether she had ever -read anything by this same Shakespeare who surrounded her on every -side, and on whose memory she was actually living, she returned the -somewhat astonished reply, "Read anything of him! No, I read my Bible." -If this female Hathaway has never read anything of Shakespeare, was -Anne, who must have been far behind this last scion of her race in -general and certainly Shakespearian culture, likely ever to have done -so? - -Seeing that his own family had no great opinion of him, we can hardly -be surprised that, in spite of his wealth and his oft-mentioned -kindliness of disposition, he was hardly appreciated by the upper -ten of Stratford's 1500 citizens. Although he was one of its richest -inhabitants, he was never appointed to one of the public offices of the -town during the years of his residence there. - -There were few with whom he could associate in the little town. The -most frequently alluded to of his Stratford acquaintances was a certain -John Combe (steward of Ambrose, Earl of Warwick), a man of low repute -as tax-collector and worse as money-lender and usurer. That he figured -as a philanthropist in his will does not prove very much, but he must -have been better than his reputation, or he would surely never have -been one of Shakespeare's companions. Tradition tells that the poet -and Combe not only spent much time together in their own houses, but -were also in the habit of passing their evenings in the tavern (now -called the Falcon) which lay just across the road. Here, then, the -mighty genius, stranded in a little country town, sat at the same great -table which stands there to-day, tossing dice and emptying his glass in -company with a country bumpkin of doubtful reputation. - -Tradition further adds that it was one of Shakespeare's few amusements -to compose ironical epitaphs for his acquaintances, and he is said to -have written an exceedingly contemptuous one upon John Combe in his -character of usurer and extortioner. This epitaph, however, which has -survived to us in various forms, is proved to have been printed, with -its many variations, as early as 1608. It was probably only assigned to -Shakespeare in the same manner that all the Danish witticisms of the -following century were attributed to Wessel. John Combe died in 1614, -leaving Shakespeare a legacy of five pounds. If he was the best of -Shakespeare's Stratford associates, we can figure to ourselves the rest. - -His chief companionship must have been that of Nature. - -Wiser and more profound than any other in Voltaire's _Candide_ is its -closing utterance, "_Il faut cultiver notre jardin_" Candide and his -friends, at the end of the story, come across a Turk who, absolutely -indifferent to all that is occurring in Constantinople, is entirely -absorbed in the cultivation of his garden. The only communication he -holds with the capital is to send thither for sale the fruit that -he grows. This Turk's philosophy of life makes a great impression -upon Voltaire's hero, who has known and experienced the dangers and -difficulties of nearly every human lot, and his constant refrain -throughout the last pages of the book is, "_Je sais qu'il faut cultiver -notre jardin_" "You are right," answers another character; "let us work -and give up brooding; only work makes life bearable." When Pangloss -undertakes, for the last time, to prove how wonderfully everything is -linked together in this best of all possible worlds, Candide adds the -final apostrophe, "Well said! but we must cultivate our gardens." - -This was the thought which was now singing its meagre, sad little -melody in Shakespeare's soul. - -His two gardens stretched from New Place down to the Avon; the larger -had one fault--it only communicated by a narrow lane with the bit of -ground that lay directly round the house, two small properties on the -Chapel Lane side intervening between house and garden. The smaller -garden was probably given up to flowers, the larger to the cultivation -of fruit. Warwickshire is especially noted for its apples. - -Thus Shakespeare could now improve the quality of his own fruit by that -process of grafting which Polixenes had so lately taught Perdita in the -_Winter's Tale_. He could now, as did the gardener long ago in _Richard -II_, bid his assistants bind up the dangling apricots and prop the -bending branches. - -He had planted the famous mulberry-tree with his own hand, and it stood -until the Rev. Francis Gastrell, who owned New Place in 1756, cut it -down in a fit of exasperation with the crowds who requested admission -to see it. Any one who has visited Stratford knows of the endless -pieces of furniture and little boxes which were made from its wood. -Garrick, who revived Shakespeare upon the stage, sat under it in 1744; -and when, in 1769, he was presented with the freedom of the city, the -casket in which the charter was enclosed was made from a portion of the -tree. In the same year, when, on the occasion of Shakespeare's Jubilee, -he sang his song, _Shakespeare's Mulberry-Tree_, he held in his hand a -goblet made from its wood. - -A serious attempt was made in Shakespeare's time to introduce -the breeding of silkworms at Stratford, and the planting of the -mulberry-tree may have had some connection with this experiment. - -Not even the ruins of New Place are in existence to-day, but only -the site where the house once stood, and the old well in the yard, -which is so overgrown with ivy that the windlass looks like a handle -of greenery. The foundation-stones of the boundary wall are covered -with earth and grass, and form a sort of embankment towards the road. -The gardens, however, are much as they were in Shakespeare's day; -the larger is spacious and beautiful. Wandering there of an autumn -afternoon, when the leaves are beginning to turn faintly golden, a -strange feeling comes over one--a feeling belonging to the place, from -which it is very difficult to tear oneself away. - -One seems to see him walking with grave stateliness there, clad in -scarlet, with the broad white collar falling over the sleeveless black -tunic. We see the hand which has written so many ill-understood and -insufficiently appreciated masterpieces binding up branches or lopping -off stray tendrils, while the sunlight sparkles on the plain gold -signet ring with its initials, W.S., which is still in our possession. - -The numerous portraits and the famous death-masque discovered in -Germany are all forgeries. The only genuine likenesses are the bad -engraving by Droeshout prefixed to the first Folio and the poorly -executed coloured bust by the Dutchman Gerhard Johnson on the -monument in the Church of the Holy Trinity, which was probably done -from a death-masque. It may be added that a painting was discovered -at Stratford eight years ago, which purports to be the original of -Droeshout's engraving, and the genuineness of which is still a matter -of dispute.[2] - -It holds us captive, this head with the healthy, full, red lips, -the slight brownish moustache, the fine, high, poet's brow, with -the reddish hair growing naturally and becomingly at the sides. The -expression is speaking; Shakespeare must surely have looked like -this. Even if the painting should prove a forgery, an imitation of -Droeshout's work instead of its original, it will still retain an -artistic and psychological value possessed by none of the other -portraits. As he looks out at us from the canvas, we seem to see him as -he was in those last years at Stratford, chatting with the townsfolk -and "cultivating his garden."[3] - - -[1] "Witty above her sexe, but that's not all, Wise to -salvation was good Mistress Hall, Something of Shakespeare was in that, -but this Wholly of him with whom she's now in blisse." - -[2] In the Halliwell-Phillips collection of Shakespearian -rarities, stored at the Safe Deposit, Chancery Lane, there was a copy -of the print which, according to the catalogue of the collection, is -in its original proof condition, before it was altered by "an inferior -hand." As traces of what is called the "inferior hand" are to be found -in the painting, it would seem that the latter was copied from the -print. (See John Corbin: _Two Undescribed Portraits of Shakespeare. -Harpers New Monthly Magazine_.) - -[3] R. E. Hunter: _Shakespeare and Stratford_. 1864. -Halliwell-Phillips _A Brief Guide to the Gardens_. 1863. G.L. -Lee: _Shakespeare's Home And Rural Life_. 1874. W. H. H.: -_Stratford-Upon-Avon. Historic Stratford_. 1893. _The Home and Haunts -of Shakespeare_, With An Introduction by H. H. Furness. 1892. Karl -Elze: _Shakespeare_, Chap. viii. - - - - -XXVI - -_SHAKESPEARE'S DEATH_ - -On the 9th of July 1614 a terrible calamity fell upon the little -town in which Shakespeare dwelt, and a great fire destroyed no less -than fifty-four houses, besides various barns and stables. In spite -of a prohibitive law, the houses of most of the poorer citizens were -thatched with straw, which proved, of course, highly inflammable. -Doubtless Shakespeare, whose house was spared, contributed generously -towards the alleviation of the general distress. - -In March 1612, Shakespeare, jointly with Will Johnson, a wine merchant, -John Jackson, and his friend and editor John Heminge, bought a house at -Blackfriars in London. The deed of purchase which is still in existence -in the British Museum, bears Shakespeare's authentic signature written -above the first of the appended seals. His name above and in the body -of the document has a different spelling. This property must have -necessitated a certain amount of attention, and probably occasioned -more than one journey up to town. The already mentioned sojourn -there at the close of the year 1614 was not one of these, however. -Shakespeare's object then was the fulfilment of a commission intrusted -to him by his fellow-townsfolk. - -For more than a century past, the great families had been enclosing -all the land they could seize, and their parks and preserves began to -usurp the old common lands and hunting-grounds, their object being -to crush the mediæval custom of the whole community's joint interest -in agriculture and cattle-rearing. A steady withdrawal of land from -agricultural purposes went on, and the peasant classes were growing -gradually poorer as the large landowners arbitrarily raised the -prices of meat and wool. Under these circumstances the country people -naturally did their best to prevent the enclosure of land. - -In 1614 Shakespeare's native town was agitated by a proposal to -enclose and parcel out the common land of Old Stratford and Welcombe. -That Shakespeare was averse to this plan and determined to oppose it -we learn from an utterance of his preserved in the memoranda of his -cousin, Thomas Greene, which have been published by Halliwell-Phillips. -According to these, Shakespeare said to his cousin that _he was -not able to bear the enclosing of Welcombe_. We also learn that he -concluded an agreement on the 28th of October, on behalf of his cousin -and himself, with a certain William Replingham of Great Harborough, an -ardent supporter of the enclosure project. Replingham thereby pledged -himself to indemnify the persons concerned for any loss or injury -entailed upon them by the enclosure. Shakespeare was also induced -to plead the cause of his fellow-townsmen in London, the Stratford -town council sending Thomas Greene thither to beg him to use all his -influence for the benefit of the town, which had already suffered -grievous loss through the fire. That Greene fulfilled his commission -is proved by his letter to the council of the 17th of November 1614, -in which he says he received reassuring intelligence from Shakespeare, -and that both the poet and his son-in-law, Dr. Hall, believe that the -dreaded plan will never be carried into execution.[1]. - -They were right. In 1618, in answer to a petition from the corporation, -Government decreed that no enclosure was to be made, and gave orders -that any fences already erected for that purpose were to be pulled down. - -The year 1615 seems to have passed quietly enough in that country -solitude and peace which Shakespeare had so long desired. - -He must have been taken seriously ill in January 1616, for above the -actual date of his will, _March 25th_, stands that of _January_, as -though he had begun to draw it up, and then, feeling better, had -postponed his intention of making a will. - -The last event of any importance in Shakespeare's life took place -on the 10th of February 1616; on that day his daughter Judith was -married. She was no longer quite young, being thirty-one, and it was -no very brilliant match she made. The bridegroom, Thomas Quiney, was -a tavern-keeper and vintner in Stratford, and a son of the Richard -Quiney who applied eighteen years before to his "loving countryman," -William Shakespeare, for a loan of £30. Thomas Quiney was four years -younger than his bride, therefore the maxim of _Twelfth Night_, "Let -still the woman take an elder than herself," was as little heeded in -his daughter's case as it had been in Shakespeare's own. A vintner in -a town the size of Stratford is not likely to have been either a very -wealthy man or one of such education that Shakespeare would take any -pleasure in his society. - -The last wedding festivity in which Shakespeare had taken part was the -ideally royal marriage of Ferdinand and Miranda. What a contrast was -this of Judith and her vintner! It was prose after poetry. - -Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton are supposed to have come down for the -wedding, but of this we have no certain information; The supposition -rests entirely on the following brief statement, written at least fifty -years afterwards by the rector of Stratford, John Ward. "Shakespeare, -Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting, and, it seems, drank too -hard, for Shakespeare died of a feavour there contracted." He does not -say that this merry meeting was held at the time of the wedding, but -the probabilities are that it was. Drayton was a Warwickshire man, -and possessed intimate friends in the neighbourhood of Stratford. Ben -Jonson may have been invited in return for his having asked Shakespeare -to stand as godfather to one of his children. There are good grounds -for the surmise that in any case the wine was supplied by the -son-in-law, and that the silver-gilt bowl bequeathed to Judith was used -upon this occasion. - -It was childish of the cleric to connect this little drinking party -with Shakespeare's illness. The tradition of Shakespeare's liking for -a good glass was rife in Stratford as late as the eighteenth century. -Numerous pictures of the crab-apple tree preserve the legend that -Shakespeare started off for Bidford one youthful day for the sake of -the lively topers he had heard dwelt there, and the tale runs that -he drank so hard he had to lie down under the _crab-tree_ on his way -home, and sleep for several hours. The story repeated by Ward probably -originated in these reports. All we know for certain is that some days -after the wedding Shakespeare was taken ill. - -Several circumstances tend to prove that the poet was attacked by -typhus fever. Stratford, with its low, damp situation and its filthy -roads, was a regular typhus trap in those days. Halliwell-Phillips -has published a list of enactments and penalties promulgated by the -magistrates with a view to the clearing of the streets. They extend -into the latter half of the eighteenth century, and that there are -none for the years in question is accounted for by the fact that the -documents for 1605-1646 are missing. Even so late as the Shakespeare -Jubilee in 1769, Garrick, who was fêted by the town on this occasion, -described it as "the most dirty, unseemly, ill-pav'd, wretched-looking -town in all Britain." Chapel Lane, towards which Shakespeare's house -fronted, was one of the unhealthiest streets in the town. It hardly -possessed a house, being but a medley of sheds and stables with an open -drain running down the middle of the street. It was small wonder that -the place was constantly visited by pestilential epidemics, and little -was known in those days of any laws of hygiene, and as little of any -treatment for typhus. Shakespeare's son-in-law, who was probably his -doctor, knew of no remedy for it, as his journals prove. - -Shakespeare drew up his will on the 25th of March. As we have already -said, it is still in existence, and is reproduced in facsimile in the -twenty-fourth volume of the German Shakespeare Year-book. - -The fact that it was dictated, and the extreme shakiness of the -signature at the foot of the three lengthily detailed folio pages, -prove that Shakespeare was very ill when his will was made. - -His daughter Susanna is the principal heiress. Judith receives £150 -ready money and £150 more after the lapse of three years, under certain -conditions. These are the principal bequests. Joan Hart, his sister, -is remembered in various ways. She is to receive five pounds in ready -money and all his clothes. Her three sons are separately mentioned, -although Shakespeare cannot remember the baptismal name of the second, -and are to have five pounds each. To his grand-daughter, Elizabeth -Hall, he leaves his silver plate. Ten pounds is to go to the poor of -Stratford, and his sword to Thomas Combe. Various good burghers of -the town, including Hamlet Sadler, after whom Shakespeare's son was -named, are left twenty-six shillings and eightpence each, wherewith to -buy a ring in memory of the deceased. A line inserted later bequeaths -a similar sum for a similar purpose to the three actors with whom -Shakespeare was most intimately associated in his late company, and -whom he calls "my comrades"--John Heminge, Richard Burbage, and Henry -Condell. As is well known, it is to the first and last of these -three that we owe the first Folio edition, containing nineteen of -Shakespeare's plays which would otherwise have been lost to us. - -A peculiar psychological interest attaches to the following features of -the will. - -In the first place, the much discussed and remarkable fact that in -making his last will Shakespeare apparently entirely forgot his wife. -Not until it was completed and read aloud to him did he remember that -she, who would receive, of course, the legal widow's share, should at -least be named; and then, between the last lines, he has inserted: -"_Item, Igyve unto my wief my second best bed with the furniture._" -The poverty of the gift is the more obvious when we recall how -Shakespeare's father-in-law remembered his wife in his will. - -It is also significant, more especially as it was contrary to the -custom of the times, that not a single member of Mrs. Shakespeare's -family was mentioned in the will. The name Hathaway does not occur, -although it is frequently mentioned in the wills of Shakespeare's -descendants; in that of Thomas Nash, for instance, and of Susanna's -daughter Elizabeth, who became Lady Barnard by her second marriage. The -inference is plain, that Shakespeare was on very unfriendly terms with -his wife's family. - -The next peculiarity is that Shakespeare never refers to his position -as a dramatic writer, nor makes any allusion to books, manuscripts, or -papers of any kind, as forming part of his property. This absence of -all concern for his poetical reputation is in complete accord with the -sovereign contempt for posthumous fame which we have already observed -in him. - -Finally, it is not without significance that there was neither poet nor -author mentioned among those to whom Shakespeare left money for the -purchase of that ordinary token of friendship, a ring to be worn as a -memento. It would seem as though he felt himself under no obligation -to any of his fellow-authors, and had nothing to thank them for. This -neglect is quite in harmony with the contempt he always displayed for -his brother craftsmen when he had occasion to represent them upon the -stage. He may have been willing enough to drink in company with Ben -Jonson, the honest and envious friend of so many years' standing, but -he had no more depth of affection for him than for any other of the -dramatists and lyric poets among whom his lot had been cast. As Byron -says of Childe Harold--he was one among them, not of them. - -He lingered on for four weeks, and then he died. - -He had probably completed his fifty-second year the day before, thus -dying at the same age as Molière and Napoleon. He had lived long enough -to finish his work, and the mighty turbulent river of his life came to -an end among the sands, in the daily drop, drop, drop.[2] - -A monument was erected by his family in Stratford church before the -year 1623. Below the bust is an inscription, probably of Dr. Hall's -composition. The first two lines liken him, in badly constructed Latin, -to a Nestor for judgment, a Socrates for genius, and a Virgil for -art.[3] - -We could imagine a more appropriate epitaph. - - -[1] The passage runs: "My cosen Shakespeare comyng yesterday -to town, I went to See him, how he did. He told me that they assured -him they ment to inclose no further than to Gospell Bush, and so upp -straight (leavyng out part of the dyngles to the ffield) to the gate -in Clopton hedg, and take in Salisburyes peece; and that they mean -in Aprill to survey the land, and then to give satisfaccion, and not -before; and he and Mr. Hall say they think ther will be nothyng done at -all. - -Also C. M. Ingleby: _Shakespeare and the Welcombe Enclosures_, 1883. - -[2] It is not altogether correct to say that Shakespeare -died on the same day as Cervantes. True, they both died on the 23rd -of April 1616, but the Gregorian calendar was then in use in Spain, -while England was still reckoning by the Julian; there is an actual -difference of ten days therefore. - -[3] - - "Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem arte Maronem, - Terra tegit, populus moeret, Olympus habet." - - - - -XXVII - -_CONCLUSION_ - -Even a long human life is so brief and fugitive that it seems little -short of a miracle that it can leave traces behind which endure through -centuries. The millions die and sink into oblivion and their deeds die -with them. A few thousands so far conquer death as to leave their names -to be a burden to the memories of school-children, but convey little -else to posterity. But some few master-minds remain, and among them -Shakespeare ranks with Leonardo and Michael Angelo. He was hardly laid -in his grave than he rose from it again. Of all the great names of this -earth, none is more certain of immortality than that of Shakespeare. - -An English poet of this century has written: - - "Revolving years have flitted on, - Corroding Time has done its worst, - Pilgrim and worshipper have gone - From Avon's shrine to shrines of dust; - But Shakespeare lives unrivall'd still - And unapproached by mortal mind, - The giant of Parnassus' hill, - The pride, the monarch of mankind." - -The monarch of mankind! they are proud words those, but they do not -altogether over-estimate the truth. He is by no means the only king in -the intellectual world, but his power is unlimited by time or space. -From the moment; his life's history ceases his far greater history -begins. We find its first records in Great Britain, and consequently in -North America; then it spread among the German-speaking peoples and the -whole Teutonic race, on through the Scandinavian countries to the Finns -and the Sclavonic races. We find his influence in France, Spain, and -Italy; and now, in the nineteenth century, it may be traced over the -whole civilised world. - -His writings are translated into every tongue and all the languages of -the earth do him honour. - -Not only have his works influenced the minds of readers in every -country, but they have moulded the spiritual lives of thinkers, writers -and poets; no mortal man, from the time of the Renaissance to our own -day, has caused such upheavals and revivals in the literatures of -different nations. Intellectual revolutions have emanated from his -outspoken boldness and his eternal youth, and have been quelled again -by his sanity, his moderation, and his eternal wisdom. - -It would be far easier to enumerate the great men who have known him -and owed him nothing than to reckon up the names of those who are far -more indebted to him than they can say. All the real intellectual -life of England since his day has been stamped by his genius, all her -creative spirits have imbibed their life's nourishment from his works. -Modern German intellectual life is based, through Lessing, upon him. -Goethe and Schiller are unimaginable without him. His influence is felt -in France through Voltaire, Victor Hugo, and Alfred de Vigny. Ludovic -Vitet and Alfred de Musset were from the very first inspired by him. -Not only the drama in Russia and Poland felt his influence, but the -inmost spiritual life of the Sclavonic story-tellers and brooders is -fashioned after the pattern of his imperishable creations. From the -moment of the regeneration of poetry in the North he was reverenced by -Ewald, Oehlenschläger, Bredahl, and Hauch, and he is not without his -influence upon Björnson and Ibsen. - -This book was not written with the intention of describing -Shakespeare's triumphant progress through the world, nor of telling -the tale of his world-wide dominion. Its purpose was to declare and -prove that Shakespeare is not thirty-six plays and a few poems jumbled -together and read _pêle-mêle,_ but a man who felt and thought, rejoiced -and suffered, brooded, dreamed, and created. - -Far too long has it been the custom to say, "We know nothing about -Shakespeare;" or, "An octavo page would contain all our knowledge -of him." Even Swinburne has written of the intangibility of his -personality in his works. Such assertions have been carried so far that -a wretched group of _dilettanti_ has been bold enough, in Europe and -America, to deny William Shakespeare the right to his own life-work, to -give to another the honour due to his genius, and to bespatter him and -his invulnerable name with an insane abuse which has re-echoed through -every land. - -It is to refute this idea of Shakespeare's impersonality, and to -indignantly repel an ignorant and arrogant attack upon one of the -greatest benefactors of the human race, that the present attempt has -been made. - -It is the author's opinion that, given the possession of forty-five -important works by any man, it is entirely our own fault if we know -nothing whatever about him. The poet has incorporated his whole -individuality in these writings, and there, if we can read aright, we -shall find him. - -The William Shakespeare who was born at Stratford-on-Avon in the reign -of Queen Elizabeth, who lived and wrote in London in her reign and that -of James, who ascended into heaven in his comedies and descended into -hell in his tragedies, and died at the age of fifty-two in his native -town, rises a wonderful personality in grand and distinct outlines, -with all the vivid colouring of life from the pages of his books, -before the eyes of all who read them with an open, receptive mind, with -sanity of judgment and simple susceptibility to the power of genius. - - - -THE END - - - - INDEX - - - AARON the Moor in 'Titus Andronicus' - Abbess in 'Comedy of Errors' - Abbot, Archbishop - Achilles in 'Troilus and Cressida' - 'Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare,' by John Weever (1595) - Adam in 'As You Like It' - Adriana in 'Comedy of Errors' - 'Æneid' - Æschylus - 'Æsthetiske Studier,' by George Brandes - 'Agamemnon,' by Seneca - Agamemnon in 'Troilus and Cressida' - Agincourt, Battle of, in 'Henry V.' - Ajax in 'Troilus and Cressida' - Albius in 'The Poetaster' - 'Alceste,' Molière's - Alcibiades in 'Timon of Athens' - 'Alexander and Campaspe', by Lyly - 'All's Well that Ends Well,' or 'Love's Labour's Won' (1602-1603), - chief characters in--Attack on Puritanism in, - Alonso in the 'Tempest' - 'Alphonsus, King of Arragon,' by Robert Greene - Ambrogiuolo in Boccaccio's 'Decameron' - Amintor in 'Maid's Tragedy,' by Beaumont and Fletcher - Amleth in 'Saxo Grammaticus' - 'Amores,' by Ovid - 'Amoretti,' by Spenser - 'Amphitruo,' by Plautus - Amyot, Jacques - Andersen, Hans Christian - Andromache in 'Troilus and Cressida' - Angelo in 'Measure for Measure' - Angiers in 'King John' - Anne Boleyn in 'Henry VIII.' - Anne in 'Richard III.' - Anne, James I.'s queen - Antenor in 'Troilus and Cressida' - Antigonus in 'Winter's Tale' - Antiochus in 'Pericles' - Antipholus of Syracuse in 'Comedy of Errors' - Antonio in-- - 'Merchant of Venice' - 'Tempest' - 'Twelfth Night' - Antony, Mark, in 'Julius Cæsar' - 'Antony and Cleopatra' - Attractions for Shakespeare in-- - Sources of - 'Dark Lady,' as model in--Fall of the Republic as a world-catastrophe - Apemantus in 'Timon of Athens' - 'Apology, The,' by Socrates - Apothecary in 'Romeo and Juliet' - Appleton, Morgan's 'Shakespearean Myth' - Arbaces in 'King and No King,' by Beaumont and Fletcher - Arbury, Mary Fitton's portrait at - 'Arcadia,' by Philip Sidney - Archbishop of Canterbury in 'Henry V.' - Archidamus in 'Winter's Tale, - Arden, Edward - ----Mary, mother of William Shakespeare - ----Robert, grandfather of Shakespeare - 'Arden of Feversham' - Arethusa in 'Philaster,' by Beaumont and Fletcher - Ariel in the 'Tempest' - Ariosto's 'Orlando Furioso' - Aristotle - Armada, Spanish - Armado in 'Love's Labour's Lost' - Armitage, Charles - Artemidorus in 'Julius Cæsar' - Arthur in 'King John' - Arviragus in 'Cymbeline' - 'As You Like It' (1600), Shakespeare's roving spirit and longing - for nature--Wit and chief characters in - Asbies at Wilmecote - Aspasia in 'Maid's Tragedy,' by Beaumont and Fletcher - 'Athelie,' Racine's - Aubrey - Audrey in 'As You Like It' - Aufidius in 'Coriolanus' - Augustus in Ben Jonson's 'Poetaster' - Aumerle in 'Richard II.' - Autolycus in 'Winter's Tale' - 'Axel and Valborg,' by Oehlenschläger - Ayrer's, Jacob, 'Comedia von der schönen Sidea' - - BACON, Anthony, patronised by Essex - ----Delia, Miss, supporting the Baconian Theory (1856) - ----Francis - Baconian Theory concerning Shakespeare's plays - Baif, De - Balthasar in - Merchant of Venice - Romeo and Juliet - Bandello - Banquo's ghost in 'Macbeth' - Barabas in C. Marlowe's 'Jew of Malta' - Bardolph in-- - 'Henry IV.' - 'Merry Wives of Windsor' - Barnabe Richs translation of Cinthios - 'Hecatomithi' (1581) - Barnadine in 'Measure for Measure' - Barnes, Barnabe - Barnfield, Richard - Barnstorff - 'Bartholomew Fair,' by Ben Jonson (1614) - Basianus in 'Titus Andronicus' - Bassanio in 'Merchant of Venice' - Bates in 'Henry V.' - 'Battle of Alcazar,' by George Peele - Baynard's Castle - Bear Garden - Beards 'Theatre of God's Judgements' (1597) - Beatrice in 'Much Ado About Nothing' - Beaumont's, Francis, plays and career - Belarius in 'Cymbeline' - Bellay, Joachim du - Belleforest's 'Histoires Tragiques' - 'Ben Jonson,' by Symonds - Benedick in 'Much Ado About Nothing' - Benoit de St. Maures 'Histoire de la Guerre de Troie' (1160) - Benvolio in 'Romeo and Juliet' - Bermudas - Bernabo in Boccaccio's 'Decameron' - Berni's 'Orlando Innamorato' - Bertram in 'All's Well that Ends Well' - Beyersdorff's, Robert, 'Giordano Bruno und Shakespeare' - Bianca in Othello - Bierfreund, Theodor - Biron in 'Love's Labour's Lost' - Bishop of Ely in 'Henry V.' - Blackfriars Theatre - Blade's 'Shakespeare and Typography' - Blanch in 'King John' - Blount, Edward - Boaden - Boccaccio's plays - Boece's, Hector, 'Scotorum Historiæ' - Boétie, Estienne de la, Montaigne's friendship for - Bolingbroke in 'Richard II.' - 'Book of Martyrs, Foxe's - 'Book of Troy,' Lydgate's - 'Booke of Ayres' (1601) - 'Booke of Plaies, and Notes thereon,' by Dr. Simon Forman - Börne - Bosworth Field in 'Richard III.' - Bothwell, Earl of - Bottom in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - Boyet in 'Love's Labour's Lost' - Brabantio in 'Othello' - Brandes, George - Bright, James Heywood, 267 - Briseida in Benoit's 'Histoire de la Guerre de Troie' (1160) - Brown, Henry - Browning, Robert - Browne's, Sir Thomas, 'Religio Medici' (1642) - Brown's, C. A., 'Shakespeare's Autobiographical Poems' - Brunnhofer, 350 - Bruno's, Giordano, supposed influence over Shakespeare - 'Brut,' by Layamon (1205) - Brutus, Junius, in 'Coriolanus' - ----Marcus, in 'Julius Cæsar' - Bryan, George - Buckingham, Duke of, in 'Richard III.' - Bucknill, Dr., on Shakespeare's Medical Knowledge - Burbage, James - ----Richard, actor - Burghley, Lord - Butler, Samuel - Byron - - CADE, Jack, in 'Henry VI.' - 'Cæsar's Fall' (1602) - Caius Lucius in 'Cymbeline' - Calchas in 'Troilus and Cressida' - Calderon - Calianax in 'Maid's Tragedy,' by Beaumont and Fletcher - Caliban in the 'Tempest' - Calphurnia in 'Julius Cæsar' - Cambyses - Camden, William - Camillo in 'Winter's Tale' - Campbell's, Lord, Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements - 'Candelajo,' by Giordano Bruno - 'Candide,' by Voltaire - Caphis in 'Timon of Athens' - Capulet in 'Romeo and Juliet' - Carleton, Sir Dudley - 'Carmosine,' by De Musset - Carr, Robert, Viscount Rochester and Earl of Somerset, - James I.'s favourite--Lady Essex's marriage with-- - Crime and fall of - Casca in 'Julius Cæsar' - Cassio in 'Othello' - Cassius in 'Cæsar' - Catesby, Sir William, in 'Richard III.' - 'Catiline,' by Ben Jonson - Cato - Cavalieri, Tommaso de' - Cavendishs, George, 'Relics of Cardinal Wolsey' - Cecil, Sir Robert - Celia in 'As You Like It' - Ceres in the 'Tempest' - Cerimon in 'Pericles' - Cervantes 'Don Quixote' - Chalmers, Alexander - Chamberlain, John - Chapman - Charlcote - Charmian in 'Antony and Cleopatra' - Chaucer - Chettle, Henry - Chief-justice in 'Henry IV.' - Christian IV. of Denmark - Christopher Sly in 'Taming of the Shrew' - 'Chronicle History of King Leir' - Cicero - Cinna in 'Julius Cæsar' - Cinthio - 'Clärchen,' Goethe's - Clarence, George, Duke of, in 'Richard III.' - Clarendon's estimate of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke - Claudio in-- - 'Measure for Measure' - 'Much Ado About Nothing' - 'Clavigo,' by Goethe - Cleopatra, in 'Antony and Cleopatra' - 'Cleopatra,' by Daniel (1594) - Clifford, Lord, in 'Henry VI.' - 'Cloaca Maxima,' 181 - Cloten in 'Cymbeline' - Clown in-- - 'All's Well that Ends Well, or 'Love's Labour's Won' - 'Othello' - 'Twelfth Night' - Cobham, Lord - Cobweb in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - Coleridge - 'Colin Clouts come Home Again,' by Spenser - Colliers 'Shakespeare's Library' - 'Comedia von der shönen Sidea,' by Jacob Ayrer - 'Comedy of Errors' (1589-1591) - Cominius in 'Coriolanus' - Commedia dell' Arte - 'Comus,' by Milton - Condell - 'Confessio Amantis,' by John Gower - 'Confessions d'un Enfant du Siècle, by Alfred de Musset - Conrad, Hermann - 'Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron,' by Chapman - Constable, Henry - Constance in 'King John' - 'Contemporary History,' Wilson's - Copernicus - Cordelia in 'King Lear' - Corin in 'As You Like It' - 'Coriolanus' - ---- Date of production--Shakespeare's hatred of the masses - ---- Dramatic power of--Inconsistencies in - Corneille - Coryat - Costard in 'Love's Labour's Lost,' - Countess in 'Alls Well that Ends Well,' - Cranmer in 'Henry VIII.,' - Cressida in 'Troilus and Cressida,' - Crispinus in 'Poetaster,' by Ben Jonson, - Curius in Jonson's 'Catiline' - 'Cymbeline' (1610), Shakespeare's country idyll and conception of - morality in--Dual contrast and chief characters in - Cynthia in Lyly's 'Endymion' - 'Cynthia's Revels,' by Jonson - - 'DÆMONOLOGIE,' by James I. - Dame Quickly in-- - 'Henry IV.' - 'Merry Wives of Windsor' - Damon and Pythias in the Hero and Leander puppet-show in Jonson's - 'Bartholomew Fair' - Daniel, Samuel - Danvers, Sir Charles - Dares Phrygius, 'De Bello Trojano' - 'Darius,' Count Stirling's - 'Dark Lady,' or Mary Fitton (see that title) - Darley, George - Darnley, Lord - Daudet's 'Sappho' - 'Daughter of the Air' (1664) - Dauphin in-- - 'Henry V.' - 'King John' - Davenant, Mrs., courted by Shakespeare - ---- Sir William, probable son of W. Shakespeare - Davison's 'Poetical Rhapsody,' - 'Day of the Seven Sleepers,' by T. L. Heiberg - 'De Amicitia,' by Cicero - 'De Analogia,' by Julius Cæsar - 'De Bello Trojano,' by Dares Phrygius - 'De Bello Trojano,' by Dictys Cretensis - 'De la Causa' by Giordano Bruno - 'Decameron,' by Boccaccio - Decius in 'Julius Cæsar' - 'Declaration of Popish Impostures,' by Harsnet - 'Defence of Poesy,' by Sir Philip Sidney (1583) - Dekker - "Delia," by Daniel - Delius, Nikolaus - Demetrius in 'Midsummer Dream' - 'Der bestrafte Brudermord' - 'Der junge Tischermeister,' by Tieck - 'Der Kinder Sünde der Vater Fluck,' by Paul Heyse - Desdemona in 'Othello' - Desportes, Philippe - 'Dial of Princes,' by Guevara - 'Diana,' by Montemayor (1520-1562) - Diana in 'Pericles' - Dick in 'Henry VI.' (2nd Part) - 'Dictionary of National Biography,' by Robert Devereux - Dictys Cretensis' 'De Bello Trojano' - 'Die Räuber,' by Schiller - Digges, Leonard - Diomedes in Benoit's 'Histoire de la Guerre de Troie' - 'Troilus and Cressida' - Dionyza in 'Pericles' - 'Discour sur la Tragédie,' by Voltaire - 'Discoveries,' by Ben Jonson - 'Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire - of Guiana' (1596) - Doctor Caius in 'Merry Wives of Windsor' - 'Dr. Faustus,' by Marlowe - Dogberry in 'Much Ado About Nothing' - Dolabella in 'Antony and Cleopatra' - Doll Tearsheet in 'Henry IV.' - 'Doll's House' - Don John, in 'Much Ado About Nothing' - 'Don Juan,' by Byron - ----Mozart's - Don Pedro in 'Much Ado About Nothing' - 'Don Quixote,' by Cervantes - Donne, Dr. John - Douglas in 'Henry IV.' - Dowden - Drake, Sir Francis - Drayton - Droeshout's engraving of Shakespeare - Dromio of Syracuse in 'Comedy of Errors' - Drummond, William - Dryden - Duke in-- - 'As You Like It' - 'Measure for Measure' - 'Othello' - 'Twelfth Night' - Dumain in 'Love's Labour's Lost' - Dürer's, Albert, 'Melancholia' - - EAST India Company - 'Eastward Ho!' by Chapman - Eden's 'Historye of Travaile in East and West Indies' (1577) - Edgar in 'King Lear' - Edmund in 'King Lear' - 'Edward II.,' by C. Marlowe - 'Edward III.,' authorship of - Edward IV. in-- - 'Henry VI.' - 'Richard III.' - Edward V., son of Edward IV., in 'Richard III.' - Edward, Prince of Wales, in 'Henry VI.' - 'El Principe Constante' - 'El Secreto a Voces' - Elizabeth, Princess, her marriage with the Elector Palatine, - Tempest written for - ---- Queen - Elizabeth, Queen of Edward IV., in 'Richard III.' - 'Elves,' by J. L. Heiberg - Elze, Karl - Emerson's 'Representative Men' - Emilia in-- - 'Othello,' - 'Two Noble Kinsmen' - 'Endymion,' by John Lyly - Enobarbus in 'Antony and Cleopatra,' - Escalus in 'Measure for Measure,' - 'Essay of Dramatic Poesy,' by Dryden - Essex, Earl of - ---- Lady Frances, afterwards Lady Somerset - ---- Lettice, Countess of - Eudemus in 'Sejanus' - Euphrasea or Bellario in 'Philaster,' by Beaumont and Fletcher - 'Euphues,' by Lyly - Evadne in 'Maid's Tragedy,' by Beaumont and Fletcher - Evans, Sir Hugh, in 'Merry Wives of Windsor' - 'Every Man in His Humour' (1595), by Ben Jonson - 'Every Man out of His Humour' (1599), by Ben Jonson - - FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS, by Fletcher - Falstaff in-- - 'Henry IV.' - 'Merry Wives of Windsor - 'Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth, containing the Honorable Battell - of Agin-court - Farmer, Dr. - 'Fasti,' by Ovid - Faulconbridge in King John - Faust - Feis', Jacob, 'Shakespeare and Montaigne' - Fenton in 'Merry Wives of Windsor' - Ferdinand in 'Tempest' - Fiammetta, Maria - 'Filostrato,' by Boccaccio - Fiorentino's, Sir Giovanni, 'Il Pecorone' (1558) - Fitton's, Mary, relations with Shakespeare and Earl of Pembroke-- - Addressed in the Sonnets as the Dark Lady - Fitton, Anne, elder sister of Mary Fitton - Flaubert - Flavina in 'Two Noble Kinsmen' - Flavius in-- - 'Julius Cæsar' - 'Timon of Athens' - Fleance in 'Macbeth' - Fleay - Fletcher's, John, plays and career - Florio - Florizel in 'Winter's Tale' - Fluellen in 'Henry V.' - Fool in 'King Lear' - Ford, Master and Mistress, in 'Merry Wives of Windsor' - Forest of Arden in 'As You Like It' - Forman, Dr. - Fortinbras, Prince of Norway, in 'Hamlet' - Fortunate Shipwreck - Frampton's translation of 'Marco Polo' (1579) - Frederick in 'As You Like It' - Frederick the Great and Voltaire - Freiligrath - Friar Bacon, by Greene - Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet - Friesen, Herr von - Fuller - Fulvia, wife of Mark Antony, 465, 468, 473 - Fulvia in Jonson's Catiline, 337 - Furnivall, 334, 578, 600, 608-610 - - 'GALLIC WAR,' Cæsar's - Gallus in Ben Jonsons 'Poetaster' - 'Gammer Gurton's Needle' - Gardiner - Garnett, Richard - Garnier's 'Henriade' - Gaveston in C. Marlowe's 'Edward II.' - Gawsworth Church, in 'Cheshire' - Gerutha in 'Saxo Grammaticus' - Gervinus - 'Gesta Romanorum' - Ghost in 'Hamlet' - 'Gilette of Narbonne,' Boccaccio's story of - Giordano Bruno. _See_ Bruno - Glendower in 'Henry IV.' - Globe Theatre - Gloucester, Duke of, in-- - 'Henry VI.' - 'King Lear,' - Gloucester, Richard, Earl of, in 'Henry VI.,' afterwards 'Richard III.' - Gobbo in 'Merchant of Venice' - Goethe - Gogol's 'Revisor' - Golding's, Arthur, translation of Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' - Gondomar, Count of - Goneril in 'King Lear' - Gontscharoff - Gonzago in 'Hamlet' - Gonzalo in the 'Tempest' - Gosse - 'Gossip from a Muniment-Room, being Passages in the lives of Anne - and Mary Fitton,' published by Lady Newdigate-Newdegate - Gosson, Stephen - Gower, John - Gracioso - Gravedigger in 'Hamlet' - Green, Robert, plays of - Shakespeare attacked by - ---- Thomas, Shakespeare's cousin - Gremio in 'Taming of the Shrew' - Gretchen in Goethe's 'Faust' - Greville, Fulk - Griseida or Cryseida in Boccaccio's 'Filostrato' - 'Groat's Worth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance' - by Greene (1592) - Guarini's 'Pastor Fido' - Guiderius in 'Cymbeline' - Guido delle Columne - Guildenstern in 'Hamlet' - Gull's Hornebooke' (1609), by Dekker, 539 - Gunpowder Plot - - HALL, Elizabeth, Shakespeare's grand-daughter - ---- John, Dr., husband of Susanna Shakespeare - Hall, William - Hallan, Brown - Halliwell-Phillips - Hamlet - Antecedents in fiction, history, and drama--Parallels - to circumstances in - Criticism on dramatic art in--Shakespeare's attack on Kemp and - eulogy of Tarlton--Danish March played in - Dramatic features of - Influence of 'Hamlet' on foreign literature - Local colour in - Montaigne's and Giordano Bruno's influence over Shakespeare-- - Parallels in Lyly's 'Euphues' to 'Hamlet' - Ophelia's relations with Hamlet compared with 'Faust' - Personal element in - Psychology of - Hansen, Adolf - Harington, Sir John - Lord - Harrison, Rev. W. A. - Harsnet's 'Declaration of Popish Impostures' - Hart, Joan, Shakespeare's sister - ---- William, Shakespeare's nephew - Hart's attack on Shakespeare in 1848 - Harvey - Hastings, Lord, in 'Richard III.' - Hathaway, Anne, her marriage with Shakespeare--Children of - William - Hecate in 'Macbeth' - 'Hecatomithi,' by Giraldi Cinthio (1565) - Hector - Hector in 'Troilus and Cressida' - Heiberg, J. L. - Heine, Heinrich - Helen in 'Troilus and Cressida' - Helena in-- - 'All's Well that Ends Well' - 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - Helwys, Sir Gervase - Heminge - 'Henriade,' by Garnier - 'Henry IV.' (1597), chief characters and scenes in--Freshness - and perfection of the play - 'Henry IV.':-- - First Part - Second Part - 'Henry V.,' or Prince of Wales in 'Henry IV.' (1599), as a national - drama--Patriotism and Chauvinism of--Vision of a greater England - in--'Henry V.' as typical English hero - 'Henry VI.':-- - First Part - Second Part - Third Part - Trilogy--Greene attacking Shakespeare on Shakespeare's authorship - of - 'Henry VIII.,' Shakespeare's part in - Henry, Prince, son of James I. - Henslow - 'Heptameron of Civil Discourses,' by George Whetstone (1582) - Herbert William. _See_ Earl of Pembroke - Hericault, C. d' - Hermann, Conrad - Hermia in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - Hermione in 'Winter's Tale' - Hermogenes in 'Poetaster,' by Jonson - 'Hero and Leander,' by C. Marlowe (1598) - 'Hero and Leander,' or 'Touchstone of True Love,' by Ben Jonson - Hero in 'Much Ado About Nothing' - Hertzberg, W. - Heyse's, Paul, 'Der Kinder Sünde der Vater Fluch' - Hieronimo in Kyd's 'Spanish Tragedy' - Hippolyta in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - 'Histoire de la Guerre de Troie' (1160), by Benoit de St. Maure - 'Histoires Tragiques,' by Belleforest - 'Historia Trojana,' by Guido delle Columne - 'History of the Rebellion,' by Clarendon - 'Historye of Travaile in East and West Indies' (1577), by Eden - 'Histriomastix', by Prynne - Hogarth - Holberg - Holinshed's Chronicle - Holofernes in 'Love's Labour's Lost' - Homer's 'Iliad' compared with 'Troilus and Cressida' - - Horace - Horatio in 'Hamlet' - Hotspur or Henry Percy in 'Henry IV.' - --Mastery of the character-drawing - --Achilles compared with - 'House of Fame,' by Chaucer - Hubert de Burgh in 'King John,' - Hudson, H. N. - Hughes, William - Hunsdon, Lord - 'Hystoria novellamente ritrovata di dui nobili Amanti,' by - Luigi da Porta - - IACHIMO in 'Cymbeline' - Iago in 'Othello' - Iden in 'Henry VI.' - Ides of March in 'Julius Cæsar' - 'Il Pecorone,' by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino (1558) - 'Iliad' - Imogen in 'Cymbeline' - 'Inganni' - Ingleby - Inigo Jones - 'Iphigenia in Aulis,' by Racine - 'Iphigenia in Tauris,' by Goethe - Iras in 'Antony and Cleopatra' - Iris in the 'Tempest' - Isaac, Hermann - Isabella in 'Measure for Measure' - Italy visited by Shakespeare - - JAGGARD, bookseller - James I. of England and VI. of Scotland - Jameson, Mrs. - Jamy in 'Henry V.' - Jaques in 'As You Like It' - Jeanne d'Arc - 'Jeppe pas Bjerget,' by Ludwig Holberg - Jessica in 'Merchant of Venice' - 'Jew of Malta,' by C. Marlowe - Joan of Arc or La Pucelle in 'Henry VI.' - John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, in 'Richard II.' - Jonson, Ben, his career, plays, and learning--Shakespeare compared - with - Julia in 'Two Gentlemen of Verona,'; in the 'Poetaster' - Juliet in-- - 'Measure for Measure' - Romeo and Juliet - 'Julius Cæsar' (1601), Plutarch's Lives forming material for-- - Defective representation of Cæsar's character--Characters of - Brutus and Portia--Antony's Oration - Juno in the 'Tempest' - Jupiter in 'Cymbeline' - - 'KABALE UND LIEBE,' by Schiller - Kalisch - 'Käthchen von Heilbronn,' by Kleist - Katherine in-- - 'Henry V.' - 'Henry VIII.' - 'Taming of the Shrew' - Kemp, William, actor - Kent, Earl of, in 'King Lear' - 'Kind-hart's Dreame' - King in 'Love's Labour's Lost' - 'King and no King,' by Beaumont and Fletcher - King Claudius in 'Hamlet' - King Duncan in 'Macbeth' - 'King John,' Shakespeare's sorrow at death of Hamnet - --Old play basis for--Patriotism and chief characters - in - 'King Lear' - Ingratitude denounced by Shakespeare in--Sources of, 449-453 - Titanic tragedy of human life--Construction of, 454-460 - 'King Leir' - King of France in-- - 'All's Well that Ends Well,' or 'Love's Labour's Won' - 'King John' - 'King Lear' - 'Kitchen-Stuff Woman,' by W. Kemp - Kleist - Klinger, Max - Knight - 'Knight's Conjuring' (1607), by Dekker - Knollys, Sir William, admirer of Mary Fitton - Kohélet - König - Krasinskis 'Undivine Comedy' and 'Temptation' - Kreyssig - Kronborg - Kyd - - 'LA CENA DE LE CENERI,' by Giordano Bruno - 'La Dama Duende' - 'La Gran Cenobia' - 'La Hija del Ayre' - 'La Princesse d'Elde,' by Molière - 'La Puente de Mantible' - 'La sfortunata morte di due infelicissimi amanti,' by Bandello - 'La Teseide, by Boccaccio' - 'La Tosca,' by Victorien Sardou - 'La Vida es Sueño' - 'Lady of the May,' by Sir Philip Sidney - Laertes in 'Hamlet' - Lafeu in 'All's Well that Ends Well,' or 'Love's Labour's Won' - Lambert, Edmund - ---- John - Languet's tenderness for Philip Sidney - Launce in 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' - Launcelot in 'Merchant of Venice' - Lavinia in 'Titus Andronicus' - Layamons 'Brut' (1205) - Le Beau in 'As You Like It' - Leander in Marlowe's 'Hero and Leander' - Sidney, 'Life of Shakespeare' - Leicester, Earl of - Lennox in 'Macbeth' - Leonato in 'Much Ado About Nothing' - Leonine in 'Pericles' - Leontes in 'Winter's Tale' - Lepidus in 'Antony and Cleopatra' - 'Life is a Dream,' by Calderon (1635) - Limoges in 'King John' - Lion in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - Livia in 'Sejanus' - Livy - 'Locrine' - Lodge, Thomas - 'London Prodigal' (1605) - Longaville in 'Love's Labour's Lost' - 'Lord Cromwell' (1613) - Lord Mayor of London in 'Richard III.' - Lorenzo in 'Merchant of Venice' - 'Los Empeños de un Acaso' - Lougher, John, Mary Fitton's second husband - 'Love's Labour's Lost' (1589), matter, style, - and motives of - 'Love's Labour's Won,' or 'All's Well that Ends Well' - (_see_ that title) - 'Lucan,' Marlowe's translation of - Lucentio in 'Taming of the Shrew' - Lucetta in 'Two Gentlemen of Verona - Luciana in 'Comedy of Errors' - Lucio in 'Measure for Measure' - Lucius in-- - 'Julius Cæsar' - 'Timon of Athens' - 'Titus Andronicus' - 'Lucrece,' relation to painting in - Lucy, Sir Thomas, Shakespeare's relations with - Ludovico in 'Othello' - Ludwig, Otto - Lupercal Feast in 'Julius Cæsar' - Lychorida in 'Pericles' - Lydgate - Lyly, John - Lysander in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - Lysimachus in Pericles - - 'MACBETH' (1604-1605), similarity between 'Hamlet' and 'Macbeth' - Belief in Witches--Defective text--Macbeth's children--Moral - lesson - ---- Lady, in 'Macbeth' - Macduff in 'Macbeth' - ---- Lady, in 'Macbeth' - Macmorris in 'Henry V.' - Magna Charta ignored by Shakespeare - 'Maid's Tragedy,' by Beaumont and Fletcher - Malcolm in 'Macbeth' - 'Malcontent,' by Marston - Malone, Edmund - Malvolio in 'Twelfth Night' - Mamillius in 'Winter's Tale' - 'Manfred,' by Byron - Manningham, John - 'Marco Polo,' Frampton's translation of (1579) - Mardian in 'Antony and Cleopatra' - Margaret in 'Much Ado About Nothing' - ---- Henry VI.'s widow in 'Richard III.' - ---- of Anjou in 'Henry VI.' - Maria in-- - 'Love's Labour's Lost' - 'Twelfth Night' - Mariana in 'Measure for Measure' - Marianus, Byzantine scholar - Marina in 'Pericles' - Marlowe, Christopher, English tragedy created by Shakespeare influenced - by Marlowe - Marston, John - Marullus in 'Julius Cæsar' - 'Masque of Blackness,' by Ben Jonson - 'Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn,' by Beaumont - Massey - Massinger - Mauvissière, French ambassador - 'Maydes Metamorphosis,' by Lyly - 'Measure for Measure,' chief characters and scenes in--Pessimism - and monarchical tone of - Meissner, Johan - 'Melancholia,' by Albert Dürer - Melantius in 'Maid's Tragedy,' by Beaumont and Fletcher - Menelaus in 'Troilus and Cressida' - Menenius in 'Coriolanus' - 'Menœchmi' of Plautus - Mephistopheles in 'Faust' - 'Merchant of Venice' (1596-1598), Shakespeare's craving for wealth - and position--Sources of--Chief characters in--Shakespeare's - love of music shown in - Mercutio in 'Romeo and Juliet' - Meres (1598) - 'Mermaid' Tavern - 'Merry Wives of Windsor' (1599), prosaic and bourgeois tone of--Fairy - scenes in - 'Metamorphoses', Ovid's - Michael Angelo - Mickiewicz - Middleton - 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - 'Miles Gloriosus' - Milton - Minto, Professor - Miranda in the 'Tempest' - 'Mirror of Martyrs, or The Life and Death of Sir Iohn Oldcastle Knight, - Lord Cobham,' by John Weever - 'Mirrour of Policie' (1598) - 'Miseries of Enforced Marriage', by George Wilkins - Mistress Overdone in 'Measure for Measure' - 'Mitre' Tavern - Molière - Mommsen - Montague in 'Romeo and Juliet' - Montaigne - Montemayor's 'Diana' - Montgomery, Lord - Moonshine in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - More's 'Utopia' - 'Mort de César,' by Voltaire - Mortimer in 'Henry IV.' - Moth in 'Love's Labour's Lost' - 'Much Ado About Nothing' - Muley Hamlet or Muley Mahomet in 'G. Peele's Battle of Alcazar' - Munday - Musset, Alfred de - Mustard-seed in 'Midsummer Nights Dream' - 'Mydas,' by John Lyly - - - NASH, Thomas - 'Natural History,' by Pliny - 'Natural History of the Insects mentioned by Shakespeare,' - by R. Paterson (1841) - Navarre, King of, in 'Love's Labour's Lost' - Neile, Bishop - Nerissa in 'Merchant of Venice' - Nestor in 'Troilus and Cressida' - 'New Inn,' by Ben Jonson - 'New Shakspere Society's Transactions' - Newdigate-Newdegate, Lady - 'News of Purgatory,' by Tarlton - Nicholson - Niels Steno on Geology - Nietzsche - 'Night Raven,' by Samuel Rowland - 'Nine Daies Wonder,' by Kemp - Norfolk, Duke of, in-- - 'Richard II.' - 'Richard III.' - North - Northampton, Lord - Northumberland, Earl of, in-- - 'Henry IV.' - 'Richard II.' - Nottingham, Lord - 'Nouvelles Françaises du 14me Siècle' - 'Nugæ Antiquæ,' by Rev. H. Harington (1779) - Nurse in 'Romeo and Juliet' - 'Nutcrackers,' by J. L. Heiberg - Nym in 'Merry Wives of Windsor' - - OBERON in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - Octavia in 'Antony and Cleopatra' - Octavius Cæsar in 'Antony and Cleopatra' - 'Odyssey' - Oehlenschläger - Oldcastle, Sir John. _See_ Falstaff - Oldys - Oliver in 'As You Like It' - Olivia in 'Twelfth Night' - 'On Poet-Ape,' by Ben Jonson - Ophelia in 'Hamlet' - Orlando in 'As You Like It' - 'Orlando Furioso,' Ariosto's - 'Orlando Innamorato,' by Berni - Osrick in 'Hamlet' - 'Othello' (1605) - Iago's character and significance - Theme and origin of--Othello as a monograph - Overbury, Sir Thomas - Ovid - Oxford - Oxford, Earl of - - 'PÆAN TRIUMPHALL,' by Drayton - Wage, Mr., Mrs., and Anne, in 'Merry Wives of Windsor' - 'Palace of Pleasure,' by Paynter - Palamon in 'Two Noble Kinsmen' - Palatine Anthology, The - 'Palladis Tamia,' by Francis (1598) - Pandarus in 'Troilus and Cressida' - Pandulph in 'King John,' - 'Panegyrike Congratulatorie to the King's Majestie,' by Samuel Daniel - Panurge compared with Sir John Falstaff - Paris in-- - 'Romeo and Juliet' - 'Troilus and Cressida' - Parolles in 'Love's Labour's Won,' or - 'All's Well that Ends Well' - Pascal - 'Passionate Pilgrim' (1599) - 'Pastor Fido,' by Guarini - Patroclus in 'Troilus and Cressida' - 'Patterne of Paynfull Adventures,' by Lawrence Twine - Patterson's, R., 'Natural History of the Insects mentioned - by Shakespeare' (1841) - Paulina in 'Winter's Tale' - Pavier - Paynter's 'Palace of Pleasure' - Pease-blossom in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - Peele, George - Pembroke, Lady Mary - ---- William Herbert, Earl of, passionately loved by Shakespeare - --Sonnets addressed to Mary Fitton's relations with--Career of - 'Penates,' by Ben Jonson - 'Pensées,' by Pascal - Percy, Henry. _See_ Hotspur Lady, wife of Hotspur, - in 'Henry IV.' - Perdita in 'Winter's Tale' - 'Pericles,' Shakespeare's collaboration with Wilkins and Rowley - --Corneille compared with Shakespeare--Shakespeare's restoration - to happiness - 'Persæ' of Æschylus - Peter in 'Romeo and Juliet' - Petrarch - Petruchio in 'Taming of the Shrew' - Phebe in 'As You Like It' - 'Phèdre,' by Racine - 'Philaster, or Love Lies Bleeding,' by Beaumont and Fletcher - Philippi, 307 - Phrynia in 'Timon of Athens' - 'Pimlyco, or Runne Redcap' (1609) - Pindar - Piombo, Sebastian del - Pisanio in 'Cymbeline' - Pistol in-- - 'Henry IV.' - 'Henry V.' - 'Merry Wives of Windsor' - Plato - Platonism in Shakespeare's Sonnets - Plautus - 'Players, I love yee, and your Qualitie,' by John Davies - 'Pleasant Comedie called Common Conditions' - Pliny's 'Natural History' - Plutarch - 'Poetaster,' by Ben Jonson (1601) - 'Poetical Rhapsody,' by Davison - 'Poet's Vision and a Prince's Glorie,' by Thomas Greene - Poins in 'Henry IV.' - Polixenes in 'Winter's Tale' - Polonius in 'Hamlet' - Polwheele, William, Mary Fitton's first husband - Pompey in 'Measure for Measure' - Pompey the Great - Pope, Thomas - Porter in 'Macbeth' - Portia in-- - 'Julius Cæsar' - 'Merchant of Venice' - Posthumus in 'Cymbeline' - 'Précieuses Ridicules' - Priam in 'Troilus and Cressida' - Princess in 'Love's Labour's Lost' - Propertius - Prospero in the 'Tempest' - Proteus in 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' - Provost in 'Measure for Measure' - Prynne's 'Histriomastix' - 'Psyché,' by Molière - Puck in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - Puritanism hated and attacked by Shakespeare - Pushkin, influence of 'Hamlet' on - Pyramus in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - Pyrgopolinices - Pythagoreans - - QUEEN in-- - 'Cymbeline' - 'Hamlet' - 'Queen of Corinth' - Quince in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - Quiney, Adrian - ---- Richard - ---- Thomas, husband of Judith Shakespeare - - RABELAIS compared with Shakespeare - Racine - Raigne of King Edward Third (1596) - Raleigh, Sir Walter, career of--Accusations against--Fate of - 'Ralph Roister Doister' - Raoul le Fevre's 'Recueil des Histoires de Troyes' - 'Ratsey's Ghost' - Regan in 'King Lear' - 'Relics of Cardinal Wolsey,' by George Cavendish - 'Religio Medici,' by Sir Th. Browne - Renaissance - 'Representative Men,' by Emerson - 'Return from Parnassus' (1606), by Ben Jonson - 'Revisor,' by Gogol - Rich, Lady Penelope - 'Richard II.,' C. Marlowe's Edward II. used by Shakespeare - as model for - 'Richard III.,' principal scenes and classic tendency of - Richard of York. _See_ York and Gloucester - Richter, Jean Paul - 'Right Excellent and Famous History of Promos and Cassandra' (1578), by - George Whetstone - Rivers, Earl, in 'Richard III.' - Rizzio - Rochester, Viscount. _See_ Robert Carr - Roderigo in 'Othello' - Romano, Giulio, in 'Winter's Tale' - 'Romeo and Juliet' (1591), Romanesque structure of - --Conception of love in - Ronsard - Rosalind in 'As You Like It' - Rosaline in-- - 'Love's Labour's Lost' - 'Romeo and Juliet' - 'Rosalynde,' by Lodge - Rosencrantz in 'Hamlet' - Rosse in 'Macbeth' - Rossetti, W. M. - Rowe, Shakespeare's first biographer - Rowland's, Samuel, 'Night Raven' - Rowley, William - Rushtons 'Shakespeare's Euphuism' (1871) - Russell, Mrs. Anne - Russell, Mrs. Bess - Rutland, Lord - Rutland's death in 'Henry VI., - - SACKVILLE, Thomas - 'Sad Shepherd, The,' by Ben Jonson - Sadler, Hamlet, Shakespeare's friend - Sallust in 'Catiline,' by Ben Jonson - 'Sappho,' by Daudet - Sardou's, Victorien, La Tosca - 'Satiromastix,' by Marston and Dekker - Saturninus in 'Titus Andronicus' - Saxo Grammaticus - Scheffler, Ludwig von - Schiller - 'School of Abuse,' by Stephen Gosson (1579) - Schopenhauer - Schück, Henry - 'Scotorum Historiæ,' by Hector Boece - Seasons of Shakspeare's Plays - Sebastian in-- - 'Tempest' - 'Twelfth Night, - Segar, Maister William, Garter King at Armes, notebook of - 'Sejanus,' by Ben Jonson (1603) - Seneca, poet - 'Sententiæ Pueriles' - Servilia, Brutus's mother - Servilius in Timon of Athens - Seven Ages of Man, Shakespeare's speech in 'As You Like It' - Sextus in 'Rape of Lucrece' - Sextus Pompeius in 'Antony and Cleopatra' - Seymour's, Lord William, marriage with Arabella Stuart - Shadow of the Night, by Chapman (1594) - Shakespeare, John, father of William Shakespeare - ---- Richard, grandfather of William Shakespeare - ---- William, Anne Hathaway's marriage with--Shakespeare's - conception of relation of the sexes - Aristocratic principles of--Shakespeare's hatred of the masses, - Associates of - Attacks upon--The Baconian Theory - Biographies of - Bohemian life and dissipation of - Brilliant and happiest period of--Feminine types belonging to it - Bruno's, Giordano, supposed influence over - Corneille, Pierre, compared with - Davenant, Mrs., courted by - Heath of - Diction of - Dramatic art, Shakespeare's conception of - Elizabeth, Queen, cause of Shakespeare's coolness towards - Elizabethan England in the youth of - Euphuism and pedantry ridiculed by--Traces of John Lyly's Euphues' in - 'Hamlet' - Fitton, Mary, or the Dark Lady, loved by - Greene's, Robert, attack on - Hamnet, son of Shakespeare's sorrow at death of - Italy visited by--Discussion on - James I.'s patronage of--Relations between - Jonson, Ben, compared with--Relations between - Judith, daughter of - Kemp's, actor, relations with - Knowledge of physical and philosophical - London, Shakespeare's first arrival in--Buildings, costumes, manners - --Political and religious conditions of the period - Lucy's, Sir Thomas, relations with--Shakespeare's consequent - departure from Stratford - Marlowe's, C., influence on - Melancholy, pessimism, and misanthropy of causes of--Shakespeare's - restoration to happiness - Montaigne's influence over - Morality--Shakespeare's conception of true morality - Music, Shakespeare's love of - Nature and solitude, Shakespeare's love and longing for - Painting described by - Parentage and boyhood of Shakespeare at Stratford - Pembroke, William Herbert, Earl of, passionately loved by-- - Shakespeare's Platonism and idolatry in friendship - Position of - Prosperity and wealth of--Shakespeare's purchase of New Place, - houses, and land--Money transactions and lawsuits - Puritanism hated and attacked by - Rabelais compared with - Return of Shakespeare to Stratford--Surroundings of--Visit of - Shakespeare to London--Last years of his life - Rivalry, Shakespeare's sense of - Self-transformation, Shakespeare's power of - Susannah, daughter of - Tarlton eulogised by - Tavern life of - Theatres in time of, situation and arrangements of--Costumes, - players and audiences - Will of - Womanhood, Shakespeare's ideal of - Women, Shakespeare's contempt for - 'Shakespeare and Montaigne,' by Jacob Feis - 'Shakespeare and Typography,' Blades - 'Shakespeare's Autobiographical Poems,' by C. A. Brown - 'Shakespeare's Centurie of Prayse,' by - Ingleby - 'Shakespeare's Euphuism,' by Rushton (1871) - 'Shakespeare's Knowledge and Use of the Bible,' by Bishop Charles - Wordsworth - 'Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements,' by Lord Campbell - 'Shakespeare's Library, Collier's' - 'Shakespeare's Mulberry Tree,' sung by Garrick - 'Shakespearean Myth,' by Appleton Morgan - Shallow in-- - 'Henry IV.' - 'Merry Wives of Windsor' - Sheffield, Countess of - Shelley - 'Shepheard's Spring Song for the Entertainment of King James,' - by Henry Chettle - 'Shepherdess Felismena' - 'Shepherd's Calendar,' by Spenser - Sheppard - Sherborne - 'Shirley's Eulogy' of Beaumont and Fletcher - Shottery, Anne Hathaway's cottage at - Shrewsbury battlefield in 'Henry IV.' - Shylock in 'Merchant of Venice' - Sicinius in Coriolanus - Sidney, Sir Philip - Silence, Justice, in 'Henry IV.' - 'Silent Woman, The,' by Ben Jonson (1609) - Silvayn's, Alexander, 'Orator' - Silvia in 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' - Simonides in 'Pericles' - Simpson, Mr. Richard - Sir Andrew Aguecheek in 'Twelfth Night,' - Sir John Oldcastle (1600) - Sir Tobby Belch in 'Twelfth Night' - Slender in 'Merry Wives of Windsor' - Slowacki - Smith in Henry VI. - Smith, William, founding the Baconian - Theory (1856) - Smith's, Thomas, 'Voiage and Entertainement in Rushia' - Snug in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - Socrates 'Apology' - 'Solyman and Perseda,' by Kyd - Somer, Sir George - Somerset, Earl of _See_ Robert Carr - Sonnets (1601), melancholy and sadness of--Date of Pembroke - and Mary Fitton addressed in Shakespeare's Platonism, - idolatry in friendship, and inner life shown in--Form and - poetic value of - Sören Kierkegaard - Southampton, Earl of, Shakespeare's patron--Conspiracy of - Southampton, Lady - Southwell, Elizabeth - ---- Robert - Spaccio, by Giordano Bruno - Spanish Alliance - 'Spanish Tragedy,' by Kyd - Spedding James - Speed in 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' - Spenser - Stanley, Lord, in Richard III. - Stationers' Register - Statius' 'Thebaide' - Stedefeld, G. F. - Stephano in the 'Tempest' - Stern, Alfred - Stirling's, Count, 'Darius' - Story of 'Troylus and Pandor' (1515) - Stows Summarie of the Chronicles of England, 111 - Straparola's Two Lovers of Pisa - Stratford on Avon-- - Birth of Shakespeare at--Description of town and Shakespeare's - boyhood at - Departure of Shakespeare from - Property bought by Shakespeare at Shakespeare restoring position - and prosperity of his family at - Return of Shakespeare to--Surroundings of--Visit of Shakespeare - to London--Last years of his life at - Stuart, Arabella - ---- Mary, mother of James I. - Study of Shakespeare, by Swinburne - Sturley, Abraham - Suffolk, Duke of, in 'Henry VI.' - Sullivan, E. - Summarie of the Chronicles of England, by Stow - Surrey, Henry, Earl of - 'Swan' Theatre - Swinburne - Sycorax in the Tempest - Sylvia in 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' - Symonds, John Addington - Symons, Arthur - Syren, literary club founded by Sir Walter Raleigh - - TADEMA, ALMA-- - Tagelied - Tailor's, Robert, 'Hog has Lost his Pearl' (1614) - Taine - Talbot, Lord - 'Tamburlaine the Great,' by C. Marlowe - 'Taming of the Shrew' (1596) - Tamora in 'Titus Andronicus' - 'Tancred and Gismunda' - Tantalus in Seneca's 'Thyestes' - Tarlton, actor, Shakespeare's eulogy of - 'Tarlton's Jests and News, &c.' - 'Tartuffe,' by Molière - 'Tears of Fancie,' by Watson - 'Tears of the Muses,' by Spenser - 'Tempest' (1612-1613) - Dramatic value of--Chief characters in--Shakespeare's farewell - to Art - Sources of - Wedding of Princess Elizabeth celebrated by - Temptation, by Krasinski - Thaisa in Pericles - 'The Case is Altered,' by Ben Jonson - 'The Hog has Lost His Pearl' (1614), by Robert Tailor - 'The Orator,' by Alexander Silvayn - 'The Prince,' - 'The Puritan' (1607) - 'The Supposes' - 'The Theatre,' first play-house erected in London and owned by - James Burbage - 'The Witch,' by Middleton - 'Theatre of God's Judgements' (1597) - 'Theatrum Licentia,' in Laquei Ridiculosi (1616) - 'Thebaide,' by Statius - 'Théodore, Vierge et Martyre,' by Pierre Corneille - Thersites in 'Troilus and Cressida' - Theseus in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - 'Two Noble Kinsmen' - 'Third Blast of Retraite from Plaies' (1580) - Thisbe in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - Thorpe, Thomas - Thorvaldsen - 'Thyestes,' by Seneca - Thyreus in 'Antony and Cleopatra' - Tiberius in Sejanus, by Ben Jonson - Tibullus in Ben Jonson's 'Poetaster' - Tieck - Timandra in 'Timon of Athens' - 'Timbreo of Candona,' Bandello's story of - 'Times displayed in Six Sestyads,' by Sheppard - 'Timon of Athens,' sources of--Shakespeare's part and purpose - in--Coriolanus compared with Timon--Non-Shakespearian - elements in--Shakespeare's bitterness and hatred of mankind, - Titania in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - 'Titus and Vespasian' (1592) - 'Titus Andronicus,' Shakespeare's authorship of - Titus Lartius in "Coriolanus" - Tolstoi, influence of 'Hamlet' on - 'To the Majestie of King James, a Gratulatorie Poem,' by - Michael Drayton - Tophas, Sir, in John Lyly's 'Endymion' - 'Tottel's Miscellany' (1557) - 'Totus Mundus Agit Histrionem,' motto on sign of Globe - Theatre, Shakespeare's allusion to - Touchstone in 'As You Like It' - Touchstone of True Love, or Hero and Leander, by Ben Jonson - (_see_ that title) - 'Tragedie of Antonie' - 'Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet,' etc., etc. - 'Travels of Three English Brothers' - 'Treatise on Education,' by Plutarch - 'Triar Table of the Order of Shakespeare's Plays,' by - Furnival - Trinculo in the 'Tempest' - 'Troilus and Cressida' (1609) - Contempt for women portrayed in Cressida's character - Historical material for - Homer's 'Iliad' compared with - Scorn of woman's guile and public stupidity in - 'Troilus and Cressida,' by Chaucer, (1630) - 'Troublesome Raigne of John, King of England, with the discouerie - of King Richard Cordelions Base sonne (vulgarly named the Bastard - Fawconbridge): also the death of King John at Swinstead Abbey' - Troy, destruction of - 'True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the Death of the good - King Henrie the Sixt' - 'True Tragedy of Richard III.' - Tschischwitz - Tubal in 'Merchant of Venice' - Tucca in Dekker's 'Satiromastix' - Türck, Hermann - Turgueneff, influence of 'Hamlet' on - 'Turkish Mahomet and Hyren the Fair - Greek,' by George Peele - Turner, Mrs. - 'Twelfth Night' (1601), gibes at Puritanism and chief characters - in--Melancholy tone of - Twine's, Lawrence, 'Patterne of Paynfull Adventures' - 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' - 'Two Lovers of Pisa,' by Straparola - 'Two Noble Kinsmen,' Shakespeare's and Fletcher's parts in - Tybalt in 'Romeo and Juliet' - Tycho Brahe - Tyler, Mr. Thomas - Tyrone's, O'Neil, Earl of, rebellion in - Ireland - Tyrwhitt, Thomas - - ULYSSES in 'Troilus and Cressida' - 'Ulysses von Ithacia,' by Holberg - 'Undivine Comedy,' by Krasinski - 'Utopia,' More's - - VALENTINE in 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' - Venice - Ventidius in 'Antony and Cleopatra' - 'Venus and Adonis' (1590-1591), descriptions of nature in - Vere, Bridget - Verges in 'Much Ado About Nothing' - Vernon, Lady Elizabeth, Earl of Southampton's marriage with - Sir Richard in 'Henry IV.' - Verona - Vespasian in 'Titus and Vespasian' - Victor Hugo - Vidushakus - Vigny, Alfred de - Villiers, Sir George, James I.'s favourite - Viola in 'Twelfth Night' - Virgil in 'Poetaster,' &c., by Ben Jonson - Virgilia in 'Coriolanus' - Virginia - 'Vittoria Corombona,' by Webster - 'Voiage and Entertainement in Rushia,' by Th. Smith - 'Volpone,' by Jonson - Voltaire - Voltemand in 'Hamlet' - Volumnia in 'Coriolanus' - Vorstius, Conrad - - WALKER, Henry - Wall in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - Walsingham - Ward, John, Vicar of Stratford - Warner - Warwick, Earl of, in-- - 'Edward III.' - 'Henry IV.' - 'Henry VI.' - Watkins, Lloyd - Watson's 'Tears of Fancie,' sonnets - Webster, John - Weever, John - 'Mirrors of Martyrs, or The Life and Death of Sir John Oldcastle - Knight, Lord Cobham' - Weldon, Sir Anthony - Werder, K. - Weston, Richard - Whetstone, George - 'White Divel' (1612), by John Webster - Whyte, Rowland - Widow of Florence in 'Alls Well that Ends Well' - or 'Love's Labour's Won' - 'Wild Goose Chase,' by Fletcher - 'Wilhelm Meister,' by Goethe - Wilkins, George - William Rufus, King - William in - 'As You Like It' - 'Merry Wives of Windsor' - Williams in 'Henry V.' - Willoughby, Ambrose - Wilmecote - Wilson, Arthur - Wilton - Winstanley - Winter, Sir Edward - 'Winter's Tale,' Greene supplying material for--Euphuism - ridiculed in--Chief characters in - Winwood, Lord - Witches in 'Macbeth' - 'Wit's Miserie,' by Thomas Lodge - Witt, Jan de - Wittenberg - Wolsey in 'Henry VIII.' - 'Woman-Hater,' by Fletcher - Worcester in 'Henry IV.' - Wordsworth - 'Worthies,' by Fuller - Wotton, Sir Henry - Wrightman, Edward - Wriothesley, Henry, Earl of Southampton, - Wynkyn de Worde - - YONG's, Bartholomew, translation of 'Diana' - York in 'Richard II.' - York, Duchess of, mother of Edward IV. - in 'Richard III.' - ---- Duke of, father of Edward IV., in - 'Henry VI.' - ---- Edward of. _See_ Edward IV. - ---- Edward of, son of Edward IV. _See_ 'Edward V.' - ---- Richard of, afterwards Earl of Gloucester and Richard III. - _See_ Gloucester - Yorkshire Tragedy" (1608) - - - - - THE END - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of William Shakespeare, by Georg Brandes - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 50724 *** |