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CxJ^ris 

PROFESSOR  J.  S.WILL 


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ESSAYS  IN 
PvOMANTIC  LITERATURE 


MACMILLAN   AND  CO.,    Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA 
MADRAS  •  MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

NEW   YORK  •  BOSTON   •   CHICAGO 
DALLAS   •  SAN   FRANCISCO 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


ESSAYS  m 
ROMANTIC  LITERATURE 


BY 


GEORGE  WYNDHAM 


EDITED 
WITH    AN    INTRODUCTION    BY 

CHARLES  WHIBLEY 


MACMILLAN   AND   CO.,  LIMITED 

ST.  MARTIN'S  STREET,  LONDON 

1919 


Copyright 


First  Edition  January  19 19 
Reprinted  April  1919 


AUG  i3  19ba 
'f'siry  OF 
S0584 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION  BY  CHARLES  WHIBLEY 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 


Vll 


xliii 


ESSAYS 

THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN  THE  LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE  1 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON 

RONSARD  AND   LA  PLlfelADE    .... 

north's  PLUTARCH  .  '      .  .  .  . 

THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

ELIZABETHAN  ADVENTURE   IN   ELIZABETHAN   LITERATURE 

SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  . 


43 
63 
115 
237 
389 
421 


GEORGE  WYNDHAM 

There  never  was  a  time  in  George  Wyndham's  life 
when  he  did  not  take  deHght  in  books.  Neither  the 
army  nor  poKtics  availed  to  kill  the  student  that 
was  bom  within  him.  A  subaltern  in  barracks, 
he  taught  himself  Itahan,  and  filled  his  leisure  with 
the  reading  of  history  and  poetry.  '  The  two  worlds 
of  dreams  and  books'  were  always  very  real  to 
him.  The  present  adventure  most  vividly  recalled 
to  his  mind  the  glory  of  the  past.  When,  in  1885, 
he  set  sail  for  Egypt,  '  I  do  not  suppose,'  he  wrote, 
'  that  any  expedition  since  the  days  of  Roman 
governors  of  provinces,  has  started  with  such  magni- 
ficence ;  we  might  have  been  Antony  going  to  Egjrpt 
in  a  purple-sailed  galley.'  A  sojourn  in  Alexandria 
after  the  campaign  and  the  prospect  of  Cyprus 
awoke  in  his  mind  visions  of  St.  Louis  and  of  the 
Turks'  assault  upon  Famagusta.  When  he  went 
to  South  Africa,  Virgil  was  in  his  haversack,  and 
he  found  in  the  Heims  Kringla  a  means  of  escape 
from  the  tedium  of  speech-making.  His  taste  in 
literature  was  cathohc,  his  enthusiasms  were  tireless. 
The  joy  he  took  in  Oil  Bias  did  not  disturb  his 
sincere  appreciation  of  Chaucer.  And  though  he 
never  lost  the  faculty  of  looking  back  to  the  remote 
past,  as  if  he  were  a  part  of  it,  or  of  welcoming  the 
bravery  of  a  new  experiment,  he  was  gradually 
finding  out  where  his  true  sympathies  lay.  At  the 
age  of  twenty-five  he  was  deep  in  the  study  of 


Vlll 


ESSAYS  OF  GEORGE  WYNDHAM 


Ronsard  and  the  P16iade,  eagerly  seeking  the  best 
editions  of  their  works,  and  making  the  transla- 
tions which  he  presently  gathered  together  in  a 
memorable  book.  Meanwhile  he  had  foimd  out 
for  himself  the  fierce  and  haunting  beauty  of 
Villon.  '  Villon's  "  Rondeau  to  Death," '  he  wrote, 
'  is  colossal  in  ten  lines.  .  .  .  Death  strides  about 
inside  those  ten  lines,  as  if  he  had  all  the  world 
to  hve  in.  If  you  know  where  to  put  the  candle 
you  can  throw  a  large  shadow  on  the  sheet.' 

Thus,  in  a  spirit  of  banter,  he  described  himself 
as  '  an  archaistic  barbarian,  wallowing  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  hankering  after  the  thirteenth,  and 
with  a  still  ruder  rehsh  for  the  pagan  horseflesh 
of  the  Sagas.'  Living  in  the  stress  of  poUtics,  he 
wrote  verses  to  his  friends,  and  took  refuge  in  a 
remote  period  of  the  past  from  the  havoc  of  warring 
parties.  In  his  mind  action  and  reflection  were 
always  mingled,  and  were  all  the  stronger  and 
clearer  for  their  close  companionship.  He  at  any 
rate  had  no  need  to  echo  Coleridge's  lament  that '  we 
judge  of  books  by  books,  instead  of  referring  what 
we  read  to  our  own  experience.'  Experience  was 
for  George  Wyndham  always  the  touchstone  of 
Uterature.  He  did  many  things,  and  he  did  them 
well,  and  he  took  joy  in  them  all.  With  the  same 
zest  that  he  read  and  discoursed  upon  A  Wintefs 
Tale  or  Troilus  and  Cressida,  he  rode  to  hounds, 
or  threw  himseK  with  a  kind  of  fury  into  a  '  point- 
to-point,'  or  made  a  speech  at  the  hustings,  or  sat 
late  in  the  night  talking  with  a  friend.  For  him 
one  enterprise  helped  another.  He  had  a  better 
understanding  of  books,  because  he  was  doing  a 
man's  work  in  the  world.  He  served  his  country 
with  greater  wisdom,  because  he  had  learned  from 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

books  the  sane  and  sound  lessons  which  history 
has  to  teach,  because  he  had  let  his  fancy  drink  deep 
at  the  pure  well  of  poetry. 

His  speeches,  dehvered  within  and  outside  the 
House  of  Commons,  are  eloquent  witnesses  of  the 
value  of  a  hterary  training.  He  preserved  even 
on  the  platform  a  respect  for  English  words  and 
phrases,  to  which  our  legislators  are  unaccustomed, 
and  he  won  a  tribute  from  Hansard,  which,  I  believe, 
is  unique.  The  index  to  the  Parhamentary  Reports 
does  not  err  on  the  side  of  humanity,  and  yet  you 
may  find  under  the  date  of  1st  February  1900,  when 
George  Wyndham  defended  the  army  in  South  Africa 
with  a  fine  energy  and  in  a  noble  style,  this  solemn 
entry:  '  Wyndham' s,  Mr.,  "Brilliant"  Defence  of 
the  War  Office.'  And  when  he  sat  him  down  to 
write,  nothing  that  he  had  learned  in  the  field  or  the 
House  of  Commons  came  amiss  to  him.  Gibbon 
once  made  confession  that  '  the  Captain  of  the 
Hampshire  Grenadiers  had  not  been  useless  to  the 
historian  of  the  Roman  Empire.'  In  all  humifity 
George  Wyndham  might  have  boasted  that  the 
panegyrist  of  Plutarch  owed  not  a  little  to  the 
subaltern  of  the  Coldstream  Guards.  Neverthe- 
less he  knew  well  that  life  was  the  substance,  not 
the  art,  of  literature.  To  do  what  is  worth  the 
doing  does  not  ask  the  same  qualities  as  to  tell 
the  news.  And  in  reviewing  Stephen  Crane's  Red 
Badge  of  Courage,  George  Wyndham  admitted  the 
general  failure  of  gallant  soldiers  to  reproduce  in 
words  the  effect  of  war.  '  Man  the  potential 
Combatant,'  he  wrote,  *  is  fascinated  by  the  pictur- 
esque and  emotional  aspects  of  battle,  and  the 
experts  tell  him  httle  of  either.  To  gratify  that 
curiosity  you  must  turn  from  the  Soldier  to  the 


X  ESSAYS  OF  GEORGE  WYNDHAM 

Artist,  who  is  trained  both  to  see  and  tell,  or  in- 
spired, even  without  seeing,  to  divine  what  things 
have  been  and  must  be.'  If  only  men  of  action 
had  always  understood  these  simple  truths,  from 
how  many  bad  books  should  we  have  been  saved  ! 


n 

Until  1892  George  Wyndham  had  served  no 
rigid  apprenticeship  to  literature.  Hitherto  he 
had  amused  his  leisure  with  making  verses,  and 
had  discovered  for  himself  in  which  provinces  of 
the  past  he  might  wander  at  his  ease.  He  had  not 
learned  the  value  of  discipline  and  self-criticism. 
And  then  there  began  the  friendship  with  W.  E. 
Henley,  which  completely  changed  his  outlook  upon 
letters.  The  friendship  was  weU  matched,  and  for- 
timate  for  them  both.  George  Wyndham  brought 
to  Henley,  condemned  perforce  to  a  life  of  physical 
inactivity,  something  of  the  outside  world — the  strife 
of  parties  and  the  hopes,  too  often  remote,  of  sound 
government.  He  confronted  the  settled  wisdom  of 
forty-three  with  the  inspiring  vitaUty  of  eight-and- 
twenty.  Henley,  on  the  other  hand,  with  his  ready 
gift  of  sympathy,  received  the  new-comer  enthusi- 
astically. He  did  far  more  than  this.  He  opened 
to  him,  generously,  the  stores  of  his  deep  and  wide 
knowledge.  He  accepted  him,  so  to  say,  as  a  pupil 
in  letters.  He  showed  him  short  cuts  to  the  right 
imderstanding  of  poetry  and  of  prose,  which  he  had 
reached  for  himself  by  toiling  along  the  stony,  tedious 
high  road  of  experiment.  He  advised  him  what  to 
read ;  he  lent  him  books ;  he  corrected  his  taste, 
where   he  thought  it  needed  correction ;    and  he 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

proved  of  what  value  apprenticeship  may  be,  even  in 
the  craft  of  letters.  Thus  he  gave  aim  and  purpose 
to  George  Wyndham's  desultory  studies,  and  the 
letters,  which  they  exchanged,  show  how  swiftly 
their  accidental  acquaintance  grew  into  an  equal 
and  lasting  friendship. 

It  was  Henley  who  took  the  first  step.  He  wrote 
from  the  office  of  The  National  Observer,  hoping,  as 
an  editor  and  a  stranger,  that,  since  the  party  was 
in  opposition,  George  Wyndham  might  have  leisure 
to  contribute  from  time  to  time  to  the  journal.  The 
response  came  (on  22nd  October  1892),  in  an  article 
criticising  Mr.  Morley  and  Lord  Rosebery,  and  called 
'  Whistling  for  the  Wind.'  Henceforth  George 
Wyndham  was  of  the  inner  coimcil  of  The  National 
Observer,  which  he  aided  not  only  with  his  pen  but 
with  the  sound  advice  of  a  practical  poHtician ; 
and  he  was  amply  repaid  by  the  training,  which 
taught  him  to  surrender  his  love  of  '  ancient  arti- 
fice '  to  the  necessity  of  a  plain  statement.  When 
The  National  Observer  passed  into  other  hands,  and 
was  succeeded  by  The  New  Review,  of  which  its 
contributors  at  least  possess  the  happiest  memory, 
George  Wyndham  embraced  the  venture  with 
an  ardour  of  enthusiasm.  He  kept  a  sanguine  eye 
upon  the  triumphant  success,  in  which  he  had  a 
simple  faith,  and  which  never  came.  He  performed 
aU  the  duties  of  a  director  with  unfailing  zeal ;  he 
touted  for  '  copy,'  hke  an  old  hand ;  having  come 
under  the  spell  of  Cecil  Rhodes  in  South  Africa,  he 
did  his  best  to  help  the  two  causes  of  Imperialism  and 
The  New  Review,  whose  Editor  preached  the  doctrine 
pure  and  undefiled,  by  persuading  the  South  Africans 
to  set  forth  their  views  in  its  pages.  More  than 
this  :   he  dared  to  desert,  now  and  again,  the  stony 


Xll 


ESSAYS  OF  GEORGE  WYNDHAM 


ground  of  politics  for  the  garden  of  verse,  and  to 
show  the  specimens  of  his  gathering  in  the  pages  of 
the  review.  Thus  he  proved  himself  a  good  com- 
rade, full  of  hope  always  and  fertile  in  resource,  as 
those  who  worked  with  him  will  not  forget.  And 
it  was  not  his  fault  nor  Henley's  that  the  readers 
of  the  'nineties  foimd  things  better  suited  to  their 
taste  than  The  New  Review. 


Ill 

But  Henley  did  Greorge  Wyndham  a  far  greater 
service  than  give  him  an  insight  into  the  triumphs 
and  failures  of  periodical  Uterature.  In  November 
1894  he  set  him  to  work  upon  an  introduction  to 
North's  Plutarch.  He  could  not  have  designed  for 
him  a  happier  enterprise,  and  George  Wyndham 
buckled  him  to  the  task  with  a  dehght  not  un- 
mingled  with  misgiving.  He  knew  well  the  diffi- 
culty of  the  imdertaking.  '  Somebody  has  truly 
said,'  he  had  written  just  before  in  a  letter,  '  that 
no  one  can  write  Poetry  after  they  are  forty,  nor 
Prose  before  it.'  And  here  he  was  at  thirty  em- 
barked upon  a  sea  of  prose,  not  knowing  when  and 
how  he  would  come  to  port.  The  gift  of  expres- 
sion was  always  his,  even  though  hitherto  in  his 
full  life  he  had  left  it  untutored,  and  he  sat  him- 
self down  resolutely  to  the  ungrateful  task  of  casti- 
gation.  'The  art  of  writing  has  to  be  learned,' 
said  he,  '  like  everything  else,  by  practice.'  And 
the  conquest  which  he  made  of  a  stubborn  medium 
is  all  the  more  to  his  credit,  because  he  had  no 
natural  love  of  prose.  '  I  have  never  cared  much  for 
prose,  however  excellent,'  he  told  Mr.  Wilfrid  Blunt, 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

when  the  work  was  done,  '  which  does  not  abound 
naturally  in  vivid  images.  .  .  .  My  dehght  in  the 
EHzabethan  and  in  some  modern  French  writers, 
is  largely  derived  from  their  use  of  imaginative 
colour.'  But  he  tackled  his  new  task  with  the  same 
zeal  wherewith  he  addressed  sport  or  poHtics,  and 
he  was  rewarded  by  finding  as  many  chances  as 
he  could  wish  for  the  use  of  the  colour  which  he 
loved. 

Scholarship  is  largely  a  matter  of  temperament, 
and  Greorge  Wyndham,  though  he  had  left  Eton 
early  to  go  into  the  army,  could  not  expel  the 
temperament,  which  nature  had  implanted  within 
him.  He  had  but  to  call  upon  a  reserve  of  strength, 
haK-suspected,  to  be  generously  answered.  With  un- 
tiring diUgence  he  read  the  Lives  in  Amyot's  French  as 
well  as  in  North's  EngHsh.  To  trace  Shakespeare's 
debt  in  Coriolanus,  Ccesar,  and  Antony  was  a  task 
very  near  to  the  heart  of  one  whose  love  of  Shake- 
speare was  not  greater  than  his  understanding.  So 
he  pegged  steadily  at  Plutarch,  '  in  growing  terror 
at  his  increasing  size,'  and  like  all  good  workmen 
found  a  real  joy  in  the  work.  '  He  is  a  very 
jolly  fellow  to  live  with,'  he  wrote,  '  and  I  shaU  be 
sorry  to  say  "  Good-bye."  ' 

Meanwhile  Henley  was  always  at  his  side  with 
encouragement  and  good  counsel.  When  George 
Wyndham  complained  that  he  lacked  learning,  '  In 
any  case,'  repHed  Henley,  '  it  isn't  learning  (so- 
called)  that  is  wanted.  It  is  instinct  and  it  is  brain.' 
So  Henley  liked  '  his  idea  no  end,'  and  told  him  it 
was  perfectly  plain  sailing.  '  'Tis  as  easy  as  lying,' 
said  he.  And  then  he  showed  irresistibly  the 
advantages  Greorge  Wyndham  would  reap  from 
the  field  of  letters.     '  You  '11  not  make  the  worse 


xiv       ESSAYS  OF  GEORGE  WYNDHAM 

Prime  Minister  or  even  Irish  Secretary,'  he  wrote, 
'  for  having  done  a  good  piece  of  critical  literature.' 
And  again  he  asked:  'How  do  the  wrestlings 
go  ?  It  is  good  to  see  you  at  it !  It  means,  I 
think,  a  style,  which  is  a  thing  worth  having,  at 
whatever  cost  I '  Indeed  it  meant  a  style,  and 
much  else  besides — ^an  increased  and  reasoned  under- 
standing of  men  and  books. 

It  was  not  all  praise  that  Henley  gave  to  George 
Wyndham.  He  knew  how  to  mingle  with  the 
praise  salutary  warnings.  '  You  have  the  writing 
mstinct,'  he  wrote  in  February  1895,  '  but  you  have 
not  fostered  and  developed  it,  on  the  one  hand ; 
on  the  other,  you  have  more  or  less  deboshed  it  by 
hallooing  and  singing  of  anthems  ;  that  is,  by  pubHc 
speaking  and  making  verses.  You  love  a  phrase 
like  pie,  and  are  all  for  altisonancy  and  colour.  But — ! 
You  forget  to  "  jine  your  flats."  You  write  at  a  heat, 
and  don't  concern  yourself  enough  with  the  minutiae 
— the  httle  foxes  whose  absence  spoils  the  vineyard's 
whole  effect — ^by  which  the  good  stuff  is  made  to 
show  in  its  goodness.'  Here  is  a  sound  lesson  in 
style,  imparted  with  a  certain  ardour,  which  Henley 
himself  was  quick  to  mitigate.  '  I  fear,'  he  added, 
'  I  have  played  the  schoolmaster  too  fiercely  and 
with  too  much  passion.'  But  when  the  work  was 
finished,  and  on  the  eve  of  pubhshing,  Henley  has  no 
doubt  as  to  its  success.  '  I  can't  help  thinking,' 
he  said,  '  this  is  going  to  be  a  pleasant  experience 
for  you — (it  has  been  that  already) — and  to  give 
you  a  reputation  outside  poUtics.  We  shall  see — 
that  also.' 

That  the  essay  on  Plutarch  gave  George  Wyndham 
a  reputation  outside  pohtics  is  certain.  It  has  stood 
the  test  of  twenty  years,  and  seems  a  better  piece 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

of  work  to-day  even  than  it  did  when  it  was  first 
submitted  to  the  eye  of  the  reviewers.  Whether  its 
pubUcation  aided  its  author's  career  is  a  question 
not  so  easily  answered.  PoUtics,  for  the  very  reason 
of  her  dulness,  is  a  jealous  mistress,  and  frowns 
disapproval  upon  those  who  are  unfaithful  for  an 
hour  to  her  solemn  blandishments.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  about  the  cordial  reception  of  the  work. 
George  Wyndham's  friends  (and  the  Press)  were 
unanimous  in  appreciation,  and  Gteorge  Wyndham 
took  a  frank  dehght  in  the  world's  approval.  He 
sunned  himself  in  the  warmth  of  the  applause. 
'  "  Bis  das,  imo  decies  et  centies,"  '  he  wrote  to 
Mr.  WiHrid  Blunt,  '  I  am  overwhelmed  by  your 
praise :  of  course  it  is  excessive,  but  I  have  not 
the  false  modesty  to  deny  that  I  rejoice  in  having 
won  such  praise  from  you.  It  pleases  me  the  more 
in  that  you  select  for  praise  the  very  field  in  which 
I  care  most  to  conquer.  ...  I  can't  thank  you 
enough  for  having  written  your  first  impression, 
for  even  if  you  revise  it,  it  is  everything  to  know  that 
I  exacted  it  once.'  That  was  the  just  spirit  in 
which  Greorge  Wyndham  received  the  plaudits  of 
his  friends.  The  work  was  done,  and  the  doing 
of  it  had  brought  him  what  was  better  worth  than 
those  plaudits — the  discipline  and  self-criticism, 
which  hitherto  had  been  absent  from  his  gay  f acihty. 


IV 

George  Wyndham  was  by  character  and  training 
a  romantic.  He  looked  with  wonder  upon  the 
world  as  upon  a  fairyland.  It  was  fortunate  for 
him,  therefore,  that  in  dealing  with  Plutarch,  he 


xvi       ESSAYS  OF  GEORGE  WYNDHAM 

dealt  not  with  the  Greek  text,  of  which  he  knew 
nothing,   but  with  North's  incomparable  version. 
Now  the  Lives,  in  travelling  by  a  roundabout  road 
from  Greek  to  EngUsh,  forgot  their  origin.     They 
are  like  a  beautiful  rose,  grafted  on  a  briar-stock. 
Amyot  is  joined  to  the   Greek  by  the  link  of  a 
Latin   translation.     North   knew   no   version   save 
Amyot's,  and  had  he  been   suddenly  enabled   to 
read  the  original,  he  would  not  have  recognised  it. 
As  Shakespeare,  in   Troilus  and  Cressida,  turned 
Homer's  heroes  into  the  rufflers  of  his  own  time, 
so  North  gave  to  the  men  of  Plutarch's  Lives  the 
gait  and  seeming  of  true  EHzabethans.     And  George 
Wyndham  envisaged  North's  version  as  an  English 
book  of  the  sixteenth  centmy,  a  book  lavishly  over- 
laid with  all  the  vivid  colours  of  speech  which  he 
loved  welL      He    felt  an  instant  sympathy  with 
North,  because  '  he  ofEers  Plutarch  neither  to  philo- 
sophers nor  grammarians,  but  to   all  who  would 
understand  life  and  human  nature.'     This  likewise 
was  the  purpose  of  Plutarch,  in  whom  the  dramatic 
sense  never  slumbered.     But  he  was  a  clumsy  writer 
of  Greek,  and  had  not  his  work  been  happily  trans- 
muted by  Amyot  and  North,  he  would  hardly  have 
kept  a  secure  hold  upon  the  imaginations  of  wise 
men.     Shakespeare  would  not  have  rifled,  Montaigne 
would  not  have  chosen  for  his  '  breviary,'  the  book 
of  a  writer,  of  whom  a  professor  might  say  with 
truth  that  his  language  is  deficient  not  only  in  Attic 
purity,   but  even  in  rhetorical    and    grammatical 
skill,  that  he  constantly  impedes  his  readers  with 
difficulties,    '  occasioned,    not    by    great    thoughts 
struggling  for  expression,'  but  by  '  carelessness.' 

However,  George  Wyndham  was  unconscious  of 
Plutarch's  faults.     He  knew  only  the  magnificent 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

works  composed  by  Amyot  and  North  on  Plutarch's 
theme ;  and  his  enthusiasm  flew  upon  a  stronger 
wing  than  it  would  have,  had  he  studied  only 
the  prose  that  came  from  Chseroneia.  Above  all, 
he  detected  in  North  an  essentially  EngUsh  quality, 
of  which  he  cherished  a  heart-whole  admira- 
tion. '  There  was  ever  in  the  EngHsh  temper,'  says 
he,  '  a  certain  jovial  forwardness,  by  far  removed 
both  from  impertinence  and  bluster,  which  inclined 
us,  as  we  should  put  it,  to  stand  no  nonsense  from 
any  body.  This  natural  characteristic  is  strongly 
marked  in  North.'  Indeed  it  is,  and  North  was  not 
merely  inclined  to  stand  no  nonsense  in  his  prose ; 
he  was  ready,  if  need  be,  and  here  again  Greorge 
Wyndham  was  on  his  side,  to  fight  for  his  country. 
It  is  true  that  in  his  work  he  was  an  accomplished 
translator,  but  he  was  a  knight  also,  who  captained 
his  three  hundred  men  in  the  Armada  year,  and 
who  certainly  '  had  the  pull '  in  scenes  of  battle 
over  the  Bishop.  This  combined  love  of  action  and 
of  letters  chimed  perfectly  with  George  Wyndham's 
temper.  With  a  natural  agreement  he  quotes 
Plutarch's  admirable  saying,  that  '  he  under- 
stood matters  not  so  much  by  words,  as  he  came 
to  understand  words  by  common  experience  and 
knowledge  he  had  in  things.'  Perhaps  Plutarch 
never  came  truly  to  understand  words ;  assuredly 
he  never  came  to  love  them  as  North  and  George 
Wyndham  loved  them ;  but  all  three  shared  a  love 
of  action  and  swift  movement. 

George  Wyndham's  essay,  then,  is  purely  romantic 
in  style  and  purpose.  He  uses  the  language  of 
chivalry  for  Plutarch's  heroes.  Of  Alexander  and 
Demetrius,  of  Pj^rhus  and  Eumenes,  he  says :  '  All 
are  shining   figures,   all  are  crowned,   all  are  the 

h 


xviii    ESSAYS  OF  GEORGE  WYNDHAM 

greatest  adventurers  in  the  world ;  and  tumbling 
out  of  one  kingdom  into  another,  they  do  battle 
in  glorious  mellays  for  cities  and  diadems  and 
Queens.'  For  this  very  reason  that  he  looked  upon 
his  own  life  as  romance,  he  uses  the  language 
of  chivalry,  and  tests  his  author  by  his  own 
experience.  He  brings  whatever  knowledge  he  had 
gained  of  poHtics  and  warfare  to  the  task  of  inter- 
preting North's  Plutarch,  He  selects  there- 
from whatever  agrees  with  his  own  humour — ^by 
no  means  a  bad  method  of  commentary,  especially 
upon  such  a  writer  as  Plutarch.  For  there  is  some- 
thing in  Plutarch  which  is  a  touchstone  of  him 
who  reads.  In  turning  over  the  pages  of  the  Lives, 
a  man  may  try  his  own  character,  may  discover 
his  own  preferences.  Or  to  choose  another  image, 
Plutarch's  book  is  a  mirror  of  truth,  which  clearly 
reveals  the  face  of  him  who  looks  therein.  Such 
was  the  road  of  criticism  which  Montaigne  trod.  In 
talking  upon  paper  about  Plutarch,  as  to  the  first 
man  he  met,  Montaigne  began  to  sketch  himseK, 
and  at  length  succeeded  in  drawing  a  fuU-length 
portrait  of  an  intimacy  which  has  seldom  been 
surpassed.  And  George  Wyndham,  following  the 
same  path,  humbly  and  (I  think)  unconsciously, 
arrived  at  the  same  end  of  self-portraiture. 

In  other  words,  he  took  the  study  of  the  Parallel 
Lives  as  an  opportunity  of  explaining  the  views  of 
the  soldier  and  the  statesman  that  he  was :  he  foimd 
in  North's  Plutarch  the  reflection  of  his  own  mind. 
He  insists  upon  the  poHtical  importance  of  Plutarch ; 
he  will  have  none  of  the  paradox  which  denies 
him  political  understanding ;  and  he  insists  upon 
this  more  gladly,  because  he  looks  out  upon  men 
and  their  actions  from  the   same   watch-tower   as 


INTRODUCTION  xix 

Plutarch  himseK.  '  Plutarch's  methods,'  says  he, '  at 
least  in  respect  of  politics  and  war,  are  not  those 
of  analysis  or  argument,  but  of  pageant  and  drama, 
with  actors  Hving  and  moving  against  a  background 
of  processions  that  live  and  move.'  That  is  what 
he  too  saw  in  life — ^pageant  and  drama  and  pro- 
cessions, in  which  he  was  intent  to  take  his  place. 
With  what  gusto  does  he  quote  from  the  Lycurgus, 
the  passage  which  follows  :  '  He  that  directeth  well 
must  needs  be  well  obeyed.  For  like  as  the  art 
of  a  good  rider  is  to  make  his  horse  gentle  and 
ready  at  commandment,  even  so  the  chiefest  point 
belonging  to  a  prince  is  to  teach  his  people  to  obey ! ' 
Here  the  doctrine  and  the  image  are  equally  near 
to  Greorge  Wyndham's  heart,  and  wisely  does  he 
comment  upon  Plutarch's  words.  '  They  set  forth 
his  chief  poUtical  doctrine,'  he  says.  .  .  .  '  That  the 
horse  (or  the  man)  should  play  the  antic  at  will 
is  to  him  plainly  absurd  :  the  horse  must  be  ridden, 
and  the  many  must  be  directed  and  controlled. 
Yet,  if  the  riding,  or  the  governing,  prove  a  failure, 
Plutarch's  quarrel  is  with  the  ruler  or  the  horse- 
man, not  with  the  people  or  the  mount.  For  he 
knows  well  that  "a  ragged  colt  oftimes  proves  a 
good  horse,  especially  if  he  be  well  ridden  and  broken 
as  he  should  be."  ' 

Never  has  the  part  which  should  be  played  by 
the  aristocrat  in  poUtics  been  better  defined.  If 
George  Wyndham  found  it  in  Plutarch's  pages, 
perhaps  because  he  sought  it  dihgently,  it  was 
most  intimately  his  own.  '  This  need  of  authority,' 
he  wrote,  '  and  the  obUgation  of  the  few  to  main- 
tain it — ^by  "  a  natural  grace,"  springing,  on  the 
one  hand,  from  courage  combined  with  forbearance ; 
and  leading,  on  the  other,  to  harmony  between  the 


XX        ESSAYS  OF  GEORGE  WYNDHAM 

rulers  and  the  ruled — is  the  text,  which  ...  is 
illustrated  throughout  the  Parallel  Lives.'  It  was 
the  text  also,  which  George  Wyndham  himself  illus- 
trated both  by  doctrine  and  by  example.  None 
knew  better  than  he  the  obUgation  of  gentleness. 
Destiny,  he  thought,  had  conferred  upon  him  duties 
as  well  as  privileges,  and  he  esteemed  the  privi- 
leges more  lightly  than  the  duties.  But  who  to-day 
will  preach  to  such  a  text,  whose  very  meaning 
is  obscured  in  the  welter  of  party  interests,  of 
party  feuds,  of  all  the  uglinesses,  that  cloud  the 
sky  of  pontics  ?  If  only  our  statesmen  would  still 
remember  Plutarch's  sound  doctrine,  enunciated 
by  George  Wjnidham,  of  harmony  between  the 
rulers  and  the  ruled,  the  darkest  problem  which 
confronts  us  would  be  solved,  and  England  would 
recover  at  last  something  of  her  natural  grace. 

Thus  George  Wyndham,  living  fiercely  in  the 
present,  sought  confirmation  and  support  in 
the  annals  of  the  past.  And  comparing  past  and 
present,  he  noted  a  double  contrast  between  the 
England  of  his  day  and  the  world  of  Plutarch's 
heroes.  These  heroes,  said  he,  extreme  in  action, 
were  all  for  compromise  in  theory.  'They  are 
ready  to  seal  with  their  blood  such  certainty  as 
they  can  attain.'  How  different  was  the  character 
which  he  gave,  with  perfect  justice,  to  his  own 
countrymen  !  '  Ever  extreme  in  theory,'  he  wrote, 
*  we  are  all  for  compromise  in  fact ;  proud  on  the 
one  score  of  our  sincerity,  on  the  other  of  our  common- 
sense.  We  are  fanatics,  who  yet  decline  to  perse- 
cute, still  less  to  suffer,  for  our  faith.  And  this 
temperance  of  behaviour,  following  hard  upon  the 
violent  utterance  of  beUef ,  is  apt  to  show  something 
irrational  and  tame,'     With  a  rare  insight,  then,  he 


INTRODUCTION  xxl 

discovers  the  essential  contrasts  in  ancient  and 
modem  politics,  supplies  the  analysis  and  the  argu- 
ment, which  he  says,  truly  enough,  Plutarch  some- 
times lacks,  and  then  willingly  draws  the  conclusion 
from  his  author's  narrative  that  'theories  and 
sentiments  are  in  politics  no  more  than  flags  and 
tuckets  in  a  battle.' 

Yet  George  Wjoidham  would  never  frown  con- 
temptuously upon  flags  and  tuckets.  He  loved 
whatever  was  sumptuous  and  decorative  in  war  or 
in  politics  as  warmly  as  he  loved  life  itself.  So 
that,  if  he  praised  Plutarch  as  the  '  dramatist  in 
pontics,'  the  '  unrivalled  painter  of  men,'  he  praised 
him  yet  more  highly  as  the  painter  of  battle  pieces. 
The  backgrounds  of  the  Lives  reminded  him  of 
those  pictures  of  a  bygone  mode,  in  which  '  armies 
engage,  fleets  are  sunk,  towns  are  sacked,  and 
citadels  escaladed.'  He  applauds  the  art  of  Plutarch 
in  selecting  the  dominant  facts :  '  the  proportion 
of  the  two  armies  and  the  space  between ;  the  sun 
flashing  on  the  distant  shields  ;  the  long  suspense  '  ; 
and  declares  that  '  there  have  been  few  between 
Plutarch  and  Tolstoi  to  give  the  scale  and  perspec- 
tive of  battle  by  observing  such  proportion  in  the 
art.'  Nor  does  it  escape  him  that  Plutarch  could 
be,  when  he  chose,  a  very  Greek  in  restraint.  He 
could  keep  the  action  off  the  stage,  and  employ 
the  artifice  of  the  messenger  as  skilfully  as  the 
best  of  the  tragedians.  He  could  contrive  '  the 
reverberation  and  not  the  shock  of  fate.'  As 
Thackeray  showed  us  Waterloo,  not  in  the  field 
but  in  Brussels,  so  Plutarch  painted  Leuctra,  un- 
erringly, in  its  effect  upon  Sparta.  But  nowhere  does 
George  Wyndham  use  the  experience  which  he  had 
won  as  a  soldier  in  Egypt  to  better  purpose,  than  in 


xxii      ESSAYS  OF  GEORGE  WYNDHAM 

his  comment  upon  Plutarch's  picture  of  the  Roman 
soldiers  after  Pydna.  He  recognises  with  the  eye 
and  ear  of  one  who  has  shared  the  joys  and  labours 
of  the  field,  the  groups  round  the  camp-fires,  the 
lights  crossing  and  recrossing,  the  songs  of  the  merry 
soldiers,  and  then  speaks,  as  his  memory  bids  him. 
'  It  is  hard,'  says  he,  '  to  analyse  the  art,  ftfr  the 
means  employed  are  of  the  simplest ;  yet  it  is 
certain  that  they  do  recall  to  such  as  have  known, 
and  that  they  must  suggest  to  others  who  have  not, 
those  sights  and  sounds  and  sensations,  which  com- 
bine with  a  special  enchantment  about  the  time  of 
the  fall  of  darkness  upon  bodies  of  men  who  have 
drunk  excitement  and  borne  toil  together  in  the 
day.'  That  is  sincerely  observed  and  rightly  said, 
and  the  sincerity  and  the  rightness  prove  that  when 
a  man  who  has  felt  the  stress  of  Hfe  learns  to  write 
he  makes  discoveries  which  elude  the  cloistered 
craftsman.  The  merit  of  George  Wyndham's  essay 
on  Plutarch  owes  much  to  the  fact  that  it  is  the 
work  of  one  who  was  a  soldier  and  a  poUtician  as 
well  as  a  writer,  who  was  not  merely  a  Combatant 
but  an  Artist. 


And  all  the  while  George  Wyndham  was  constant 
to  the  study  of  French  poetry.  The  sixteenth 
century  held  him  as  firmly  in  France  as  in 
England,  and  he  turned,  by  a  natural  sympathy, 
to  Ronsard  and  the  Pleiade.  In  this  avowed  pre- 
ference he  was  a  pioneer  of  taste,  at  any  rate 
among  his  own  countrymen.  Ronsard  had  suffered 
the  same  fate  which  has  since  overtaken  Victor 
Hugo :     he    had    been    buried    beneath    the    vast 


INTRODUCTION  xxiii 

monument  of  his  own  majestic  verse.  And  pos- 
terity, envious  always,  thinking  that  he,  who  was 
acclaimed  the  Horace  or  the  Pindar  of  his  age, 
deserved  the  chastening  rod,  took  a  fierce  revenge 
upon  the  poet  for  the  generous  praise  lavished  upon 
him  in  his  lifetime.  To-day  Ronsard  belongs  no 
longer  to  antiquity,  but  to  the  present  world  of  men 
and  poets.  The  enthusiasm  of  Barbey  d'Aurevilly, 
the  admiration  of  Gautier,  BanviUe  and  Heredia, 
the  loyal  acknowledgment,  made  by  the  Disciple 
Moreas,  of  the  Master  Ronsard,  have  had  their 
due  effect.  In  England,  not  Pater  himself  has 
written  with  a  wiser  understanding  of  the  great 
French  poet  than  George  Wyndham.  With  careful 
appreciation  he  marks  his  place  in  the  Pleiade, 
discovers  his  sources,  praises  his  sense  of  beauty. 
With  the  devotion  of  a  pilgrim  he  visited  the  castle 
of  Ronsard' s  father,  and  transcribed  the  Latin 
mottoes  incised  upon  the  door.  By  a  fortunate 
accident,  he  happened  upon  the  ruined  Priory  of 
St.  Cosme,  whither  Ronsard,  finding  his  life  a  con- 
tinual death,  retired  from  Court  to  die,  and  marked 
the  Gothic  door,  through  which  Ronsard  passed, 
from  which  he  never  emerged.  '  A  rose-tree  grew 
up  one  of  the  jambs,'  wrote  George  Wjmdham,  '  and 
a  vine  had  thrown  a  branch  across  the  grey,  worm- 
eaten  panels.  When  I  returned  next  year  the  door, 
with  its  time-worn  sculpture,  was  gone.'  What 
better  illustration  could  be  found  than  this  of 
Ronsard's  text: 

*  Tout  ce  qui  est  de  beau  ne  se  garde  longtemps 
Les  roses  et  les  lis  ne  regnent  qu'un  printemps '  ? 

While  George  Wyndham  extols  at  its  proper  worth 
the  work  of  the  Pleiade,  he   sees   plainly  enough 


xxiv     ESSAYS  OF  GEORGE  WYNDHAM 

whither  its  rules,  too  rigidly  interpreted,  would 
lead.  A  chain,  though  it  be  woven  of  roses,  is  irk- 
some to  bear,  and  perfection  itself,  solemnly  ordained, 
may  be  a  tyranny.  Mallarme  has  pointed  out 
that  the  rules  formulated  by  the  successors  of  the 
Pl^iade  would  enable  anybody  to  make  a  verse 
to  which  none  could  object.  'But,'  says  George 
Wyndham,  '  that  savours  of  deportment  rather 
than  of  poesy.'  He  recognises  it  as  '  an  admir- 
able maxim  ...  for  the  genteel  mob  of  eighteenth- 
century  couplet-mongers,  but  a  useless  counsel  and, 
so,  an  impertinence  to  the  leader  of  a  revel  or  a 
forlorn  hope.'  Thus  he  makes  plain,  in  criticising 
others,  his  own  ambition.  He  cared  not  which 
he  led — a  revel  or  a  forlorn  hope  in  life  or  letters. 
Each  of  them  suited  the  temper  of  his  mind.  He 
was  content  to  be  joyous  with  those  who  smiled, 
or  to  die  in  the  last  ditch  for  a  losing  cause.  And 
in  Ronsard,  I  think,  he  loved  the  gay  valour  of  the 
man  as  much  as  he  loved  his  sentiment  of  beauty. 
He  liked  to  remember  his  spacious  life  at  the  Court, 
the  favour  shown  him  by  EUzabeth  and  Mary 
Stuart,  the  silver  Minerva,  which  he  won  at  the 
Floral  Games  of  Toulouse.  But  most  of  all  he 
reverenced  him  because  he  '  was  every  inch  a  man, 
who  stood  four-square  to  the  whole  racket  of  his 
day.'  It  was  not  for  Ronsard,  for  all  his  love  of 
roses  and  lihes,  to  pass  his  time  idly  in  an  enchanted 
garden.  'Here,'  says  Greorge  Wyndham,  'is  a 
citizen  and  a  soldier,  a  man  who  takes  a  side  in 
pohtics  and  reUgion,  who  argues  from  the  rostrum 
and  pommels  in  the  ring,  delighting  in  all  the  trea- 
sm-es  garnered  into  the  citadel  of  the  past,  and  ready 
to  die  in  its  defence.'  In  sketching  thus  the  ideals 
of  Ronsard,  George  Wyndham  sketched  his  own. 


INTRODUCTION  xxv 


VI 


When  his  essay  on  Plutarch  was  finished,  a 
friend  demurred  to  his  spending  his  time  upon  such 
toys  of  criticism.  '  I  know  that  you  think  I  should 
be  better  employed  on  original  work.  But  I  find 
that  I  have  a  gift  of  keen  imaginative  appreciation 
combined  with  another  of  seeing  the  past  as  a  whole 
philosophically,  which  enables  me,  as  a  critic,  to 
say  things  which  strike  people  as  original.'  Thus  he 
wrote  in  defence  of  himseH,  and  he  wrote  truly. 
It  was  no  vain  boast  that  he  possessed  the  gift 
of  imaginative  appreciation,  and  having  it  he 
would  have  been  untrue  to  himself  had  he  cast  it 
away.  And  he  might  have  gone  further,  and  urged 
that  the  art  of  criticism,  as  he  saw  it,  was  creative 
also.  To  rescue  from  the  past  the  fading  figures 
of  great  men,  to  select  from  the  annals  such  facts 
as  shall  give  truth  to  portraiture,  to  set  dead 
heroes  in  the  Hght  of  day — this  surely  is  an  act  of 
creation.  Moreover,  George  Wyndham  knew  well 
that  original  work,  in  the  higher  sense,  was  out  of 
his  reach,  so  long  as  he  was  immersed  in  poUtics. 
No  man  shall  serve  God  and  Mammon,  and  the 
Mammon  of  poUtics  stands  in  stern  opposition  to 
the  God  of  originality.  We  cannot  picture  to  our- 
selves a  great  poet  sitting  in  the  seat  of  a  Prime 
Minister,  and  they  who  in  the  House  of  Commons 
have  written  fine  prose  may  be  counted  on  the  fingers 
of  a  hand.  George  Wyndham,  in  truth,  had  obeyed 
the  call  of  what  he  deemed  to  be  duty ;  he  had 
taken  (and  was  taking)  his  share  in  the  government 
of  the  coimtry,  and  so  long  as  he  did  this,  he  could 
count  neither  upon  the  leisure  nor  upon  the  egoism. 


xxvi     ESSAYS  OF  GEORGE  WYNDHAM 

which    is    necessary    for    the    doing    of    '  original 
work.' 

Meanwhile  he  iadulged  his  gift  of  imaginative 
appreciation,  and  proved  that  he  had  the  rare  faculty 
of  placing  on  their  feet  before  us  the  straylings  of 
the  past.     In  an  essay,  entitled  The  Poetry  of  the 
Prison,  for  instance,  he  has  sketched  Villon  Hghtly 
and  with  a  loyal  sympathy.   '  He  writes  of  his  shames,' 
says  he,  'as  an  old  soldier  of  his  scars.'     Thus  is 
Villon's  character  revealed  in  a  phrase.     Without  a 
hint  of  irrelevant  censure,  George  Wyndham  describes 
those  shames  as  he  knew  them,  and  acclaims  the  great 
poet,  'whose  verse  is  bitter  with  the  bitterness,  glad 
only  with  the  insolence '  of  his  age.    By  way  of  contrast 
turn  to  R.  L.  Stevenson's  essay  on  Villon — ^surely  a 
sad  aberration  in  criticism.     Stevenson  judges  Villon 
as  the  Elders  of  the  Scottish  Church  judged  Burns, 
and   cannot   contemplate   him   without   a   reproof 
upon  his  tongue.     He  tells  us  that  Villon's  '  senti- 
ments are  about  as  much  to   be  rehed  upon  as 
those  of  a  professional  beggar,'   and  proceeds  to 
find  in  his  work  '  an  unrivalled  insincerity.'     Un- 
rivalled insincerity !     You  rub  your  eyes    as  you 
read  the  words,  apphed  to  a  poet  who  in  every  word 
that  he  wrote  was  emotionally  sincere.     Still  worse, 
Stevenson  says  contemptuously,  '  it  shall  remain  in 
the  original  for  me,'  of  a  poem,  in  which  Matthew 
Arnold,  no  condoner  of  insincerity,  finds  the  '  o-ttov- 
haiorq^,  the  high   and  excellent  seriousness  which 
Aristotle  assigns  as  one  of  the  grand  virtues  of 
poetry,'  the  quahty  which  Arnold  himself  perceives 
in  Homer  and  Dante  and  Shakespeare.     Thus,  while 
Stevenson  dismisses  Villon  as  '  the  sorriest  fiigure  on 
the  rolls  of  fame,'    George   Wyndham  remembers 
that  he  '  writes  of  his  shames,  as  an  old  soldier  of 


INTRODUCTION  xxvii 

his  scars ' ;  and  who  shall  say  that  George  Wyndham 
has  not  the  better  of  it  ? 


vn 

With  an  equally  keen  perception  of  life,  George 
Wyndham  has  drawn  a  sketch  of  Shakespeare's  father. 
Acting  upon  a  hint,  thrown  out  by  R.  L.  Stevenson 
in  talk  with  Henley,  he  ascribes  to  John  Shakespeare 
something  of  the  whimsical  temperament  which  be- 
longed to  the  father  of  Charles  Dickens.  He  paints 
him  as  a  kind  of  Micawber,  perplexed  always  by  '  a 
happy-go-lucky  incuriousness,'  a  man  of  that  san- 
guine temper  that  is  sure  always  that  '  something 
will  turn  up  '  either  in  town  or  country,  prosperous 
to-day,  penniless  to-morrow,  immersed  in  lawsuits, 
crippled  by  mortgages,  yet  resolute  in  pride,  and 
appealing  always  to  the  College  of  Heralds  for  a 
grant  of  arms.  At  last  we  see  him  '  coming  not  to 
church  for  fear  of  process  for  debt' ;  and  the  essential 
truth  of  the  portrait  helps  to  explain  something  of 
Shakespeare's  own  experience,  especially  his  know- 
ledge of  law  and  heraldry.  Indeed,  throughout 
George  Wyndham's  essay  on  the  Poems  of  Shake- 
speare, the  reader  will  find  a  rare  combination  of 
research  and  understanding.  He  had  read  the  texts 
with  a  discerning  mind.  He  had  discovered  early  in 
his  quest,  as  all  discover  who  study  a  hterature,  deeply 
and  at  first  hand,  '  that  the  critics  who  have  written 
of  it,  have  never  read  it,  but  merely  handed  on  tradi- 
tional judgments,  for  the  most  part  astonishingly 
incorrect.'  But  it  was  not  merely  the  texts  that  he 
was  busied  with.  A  quick  perception  brought  the 
London  and  the  life  of  Elizabeth's  age  clearly  before 


XXVIU 


iii  ESSAYS  OF  GEORGE  WYNDHAM 


him.  He  could  see  it  in  his  mind's  eye,  because  he 
went  wandering  into  the  past,  and  knew  what  he 
himself  would  have  felt  in  the  cross-currents  of 
that  busy,  turbulent  time.  '  All  the  talk  was,'  he 
was  sure,  'of  sea-fights  and  new  editions:  Drake, 
and  Lyly,  Ralegh  and  Lodge,  Greene  and  Marlowe 
and  GrenviUe  were  names  in  every  mouth.'  There 
was  nothing  in  the  bubbling  activity  of  the  eager 
town  that  did  not  appeal  to  the  lust  of  the  eye 
and  the  pride  of  life.  Poets  and  nobles  were  alike 
fervent  worshippers  of  the  stage,  and  gladly  did 
George  Wyndham  picture  Shakespeare  as  the  friend 
of  Herbert  and  Southampton. 

His  criticism  of  the  Poems  is  far  divorced  from 
any  sort  of  pedantry,  as  well  it  might  be,  since  it 
was  written  '  in  the  midst  of  engrossing  duties.'  *  In 
the  character  of  "  Johannes  Factotum,"  '  he  wrote  in 
November  1896,  '  I  am  at  Aldershot  doing  some 
cavalry  drill ;  next  week  I  make  political  speeches. 
.  .  .  But  all  the  time  I  am  writing  an  introduction 
to  Shakespeare's  Poems.''  The  diversity  of  interest 
is  shown  in  the  work,  not  in  any  weakening  of 
the  interest,  but  in  a  resolute  avoidance  of  irrele- 
vant, conventional  criticism.  He  cares  not  for 
the  foohsh  problems  which  are  wont  to  perplex 
the  critics  of  the  Sonnets.  Mr.  W.  H.  is  not  of 
supreme  importance  to  him.  He  brushes  Mr.  Tyler's 
case  aside,  because  it  *  cannot  be  argued  without  the 
broaching  of  many  issues  outside  the  sphere  of 
artistic  appreciation.'  In  truth,  he  follows  his 
quest  not  as  a  student  of  history  but  as  a  lover  of 
art.  He  refrains  from  seeking  parallels  to  Shake- 
speare's verse,  for  that  method  '  discovers  not 
Shakespeare's  art,  but  the  common  measure  of 
poetry  in  Shakespeare's  day.'     What  he  sought  in 


INTRODUCTION  xxix 

Shakespeare's  Poems  was  the  wealth  of  his  imagery, 
the  perfect  beauty  of  his  verbal  melody. 

Even  while  he  sketches  in  briUiant  colours  the 
poet's  environment,  even  while  he  sets  in  array 
the  combatants  on  either  side  of  the  Poetomachia, 
he  firmly  detaches  the  Poems  from  Shakespeare's 
personal  experience,  and  proves  that  they  owe  little 
enough  to  the  poet's  career.  What  he  looked  for  was 
'lyrical  discourse';  what  he  found — in  Sonnet  90 
— ^was  'the  perfection  of  human  speech.'  His  letters, 
written  while  the  Essay  was  in  progress,  are  packed 
with  enjoyment.  'What  stuff  it  is!  "Lucrece" 
and  all ' — ^thus  he  writes,  '  I  had  really  never  read 
"  Lucrece,"  but  just  listen  to  this  : 

"  For  sorrow,  like  a  heavy  hanging  bell, 
Once  set  on  ringing,  with  his  own  weight  goes." 

Only  William  could  have  written  that,  and  this 
must  be  driven  into  the  people  who  ghbly  quote 
Hazhtt's  Ice-houseSy  and  wearily  repeat  that  a  lady 
in  Lucrece' s  unfortunate  predicament  is  Uttle  likely 
to  apostrophize  Time,  Opportunity,  Eternity,  Sorrow 
and  any  other  abstractions  that  suggest  a  good 
tirade.' 

To  this  theme,  then,  he  is  constant :  that  Shake- 
speare is  not  a  Rousseau,  not  a  metaphysician,  but 
a  poet,  who  aims  in  his  Poems  at  music  and  beauty ; 
not  at  seH-revelation  or  the  betterment  of  others. 
But  now  and  again  he  deserts  the  high-road  of  his 
argument  for  the  by-paths  of  ingenious  discovery. 
He  suggests  that  the  open-air  effects  of  V ernes  and 
Adonis  are  taken  one  and  aU  from  Arden.  He 
marks  how  the  day  waxes  and  wanes  from  dawn 
to  eve,  how  even  the  weather  changes,  so  that 
pausing  at  any  stanza  you  might  name  the  hour ; 


XXX      ESSAYS  OF  GEORGE  WYNDHAM 

and  thereto  he  adds  according  to  his  wont  a  luminous 
comment  from  his  own  experience :  '  A  month 
under  canvas,'  says  he,  'or,  better  still,  without 
a  tent,  will  convince  any  one  that  to  speak  of  the 
stars  and  the  moon  is  as  natural  as  to  look  at  your 
watch  or  an  almanack.'  Thus  the  Cheshire  Yeoman 
came  to  the  aid  of  the  critic  of  Uterature,  and 
spoke  with  an  authority  denied  to  the  scholar  in  his 
hbrary. 


VIII 

In  hfe  and  in  letters,  as  I  have  said,  Greorge  Wynd- 
ham  esteemed  most  highly  '  the  leader  of  a  revel 
or  a  forlorn  hope.'  In  *The  Springs  of  Romance 
in  the  Literature  of  Europe '  he  essayed  to  lead 
both.  It  was  an  address  dehvered  to  the  Students 
of  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  and  it  dealt  with 
a  subject  which  had  long  been  in  George  Wyndham's 
mind.  More  than  two  years  before  he  was  Lord 
Rector  he  had  made  the  design,  and  even  filled  in 
many  of  the  details.  'The  idea  is,'  he  wrote  to  his 
mother,  'Where  did  romance  come  from?  There 
was  none  among  our  Northern  ancestors  of  the  ninth 
century.  It  came  from  contact  of  East  and  West 
— contact  with  the  East  owing  to  the  conflict  between 
Christendom  and  the  Paynim  from  Roncesvalles  on- 
ward— contact  with  the  West,  from  the  Geraldines' 
transit  through  Wales  into  Ireland.'  The  idea  was 
fantastic  and  difficult  to  make  a  reahty,  as  George 
Wjnidha  m  acknowledged.  '  In  conclusion,'  he  wrote, 
'  I  can  say  with  Malory,  "  Now  all  was  but  enchant- 
ment" ;  and  invite  you  to  be  enchanted.' 

The  question  which  he  put  in  the  letter  quoted 
above,  he  answered  in  the  address.     '  When,  then, 


INTRODUCTION  xxxi 

and  where  does  Romance  arrive  in  Europe  ?  The 
answer  to  the  first  question  is,  not  before  the  second 
half  of  the  eleventh  century,  and,  to  the  second, 
probably  in  Great  Britain.'  So  he  begins  with  the 
Chanson  de  Roland,  which  he  thinks  was  retouched 
after  Henry  n.  of  England  '  had,  by  conquest  and 
marriage  asserted  a  shadowy  overlordship  from  the 
Grampians  to  the  Pyrenees.'  He  insists  upon  the 
importance,  for  his  argument,  of  Eleanor's  marriage 
with  Henry  of  Anjou.  '  It  is  when  they  married  (in 
1152),  and  where  they  married,  that  most  of  the 
springs  of  romance  commingle  in  the  Hterature  of 
Europe.'  And  then,  aiming  at  a  definition,  he 
asserts  that  Romance  is  welcoming  the  strange — the 
strange  in  legend,  in  allegory,  in  symbol,  and  in 
scenery.  'The  reaction  of  the  mind,'  says  he, 
'  when  confronted  with  the  strange,  is,  in  some  sort, 
a  recognition  of  ignored  reahties.  Romance  is  an 
act  of  recognition.' 

It  is  an  ingenious  argument,  ingeniously  con- 
ducted, and  illustrated  with  a  wealth  of  erudition. 
Of  George  Wyndham's  fancy  and  courage  in  its 
conduct  there  can  be  no  doubt.  But  there  is  always 
a  danger  of  dogmatising  as  to  times  and  places, 
a  danger  of  which  the  writer  himself  was  fully 
conscious.  If  we  admit  that  Romance  came  into 
Europe  in  the  second  half  of  the  eleventh  century, 
and  was  fully  grown,  so  to  say,  a  himdred  years 
later,  we  must  discard  the  whole  of  Classical 
literature  from  our  view.  Fully  prepared  for  the 
encounter,  George  Wjmdham  advanced  the  'dis- 
putable proposition,'  that  the  classics  are  not 
romantic.  He  makes  certain  concessions  to  the 
'  heckler '  ;  he  gives  him  Nausicaa  and  Medea, 
Dido  and  Camilla  ;  finally,  he  throws  to  his  possible 


xxxii    ESSAYS  OF  GEORGE  WYNDHAM 

opponents  the  whole  body  of  Apuleius.  But  he 
seems  to  miss  one  point.  If  he  makes  a  single 
exception,  he  gives  up  his  argument.  If  there  was 
Romance  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  then 
Romance  did  not  come  to  its  first  efflorescence  in 
the  Court  of  Henry  n.  and  Eleanor,  his  queen. 

Truly  the  proposition  is  '  disputable.'  No  defini- 
tion of  Romance  can  exclude  from  the  enchanted 
kingdom  a  vast  deal  of  Greek  and  Latin  literature. 
It  is  not  Nausicaa  alone  in  the  Odyssey  that  is 
romantic.  Romance  is  in  the  Odyssey^s  very  tex- 
ture and  essence.  The  return  of  the  wanderer,  who 
after  many  years  of  miraculous  dangers  comes  back 
to  his  wife  and  home  is  the  theme  of  high  romance. 
The  hair  of  Odysseus  is  wet  with  the  salt  sea  spray. 
Far-distant  havens  and  gallant  ships  have  delighted 
his  vision.  The  palace  of  Alcinous,  in  whose  garden 
pear  upon  pear  waxes  old,  and  apple  on  apple  and 
cluster  ripens  upon  cluster  of  the  grape,  and  fig  upon 
fig,  is  in  fairyland.  And  what  a  marvellous  tale 
Odysseus  has  to  tell !  There  is  the  story  of  Poly- 
phemus, the  giant  who  has  but  a  single  eye  in  the 
middle  of  his  forehead,  and  who  devoured  two  of  the 
hero's  companions  at  a  meal.  And  the  bewitchings 
of  CSrce  and  the  siren's  song,  and  the  soul-destroying 
lotus,  and  the  dark  house  of  Hades  itself — ^these 
are  the  very  stuff  of  which  romance  is  made.  Nor 
does  Homer  stand  alone.  Virgil  and  Ovid  were  in 
the  Middle  Ages  the  great  quickeners  of  romance. 
From  them  the  romancers  of  the  Middle  Ages  bor- 
rowed their  passion  ;  to  them  the  ladies  of  high 
romance  owed  allegiance.  And  is  not  Lucian's  '  True 
History '  romantic,  and  '  Daphnis  and  Chloe  ?  ' 
And  were  there  not  witches  in  Thessaly  when 
Apuleius  wrote  ? 


INTRODUCTION  xxxiii 

For  me,  indeed,  classic  and  romantic  are  terms 
which  express  neither  time  nor  place.  The  two 
modes  of  thought,  the  two  states  of  mind  have 
lived,  side  by  side,  since  the  beginning  of  time.  They 
were  bom,  both  of  them  in  the  Garden  of  Eden, 
and  the  Serpent  was  the  first  romantic.  But  if,  as 
I  think,  George  Wyndham  has  not  brought  his  good 
ship  Romance  into  port,  he  has  taken  us  a  joyous 
voyage  among  the  islands  of  fancy,  shown  us  many 
a  noble  sight,  and  left  us  careless  of  our  harbourage. 
In  truth,  the  address  given  at  Edinburgh  is  Uke 
good  talk,  set  in  a  formal  shape  as  becomes  ink  and 
paper,  but  good  talk  aU  the  same,  happy,  voluble, 
and  sometimes  controversial.  Even  when  a  friend 
may  disagree  with  him,  what  would  that  friend 
not  give  to  face  him  once  more  across  the  hearth, 
and  to  hear  his  voice,  gay  in  tone,  large  in  utter- 
ance, confronting  him  !  Above  all,  when  Greorge 
Wyndham  set  out  to  find  the  hallowed  spot,  where 
the  springs  of  romance  commingle,  he  set  out  upon 
an  adventure.  And  as  his  friend,  W.  P.  Ker,  told 
him  in  a  letter,  urging  him  to  '  go  on,'  '  nothing  good 
is  done  except  by  adventurers — ^in  that  branch  of 
learning  anyhow.' 


IX 

It  is  characteristic  of  George  Wyndham  that  if 
he  accepted  W.  P.  Ker's  eulogy  as  *  the  tribute  of 
a  sportsman  to  a  poacher,'  he  took  a  natural  pride 
in  the  praise  that  was  worth  having ;  and  with  the 
printing  of  '  The  Springs  of  Romance '  a  sudden 
thought  came  to  him.  '  I  remembered  with  regret,' 
he  wrote  to  his  mother,  '  the  big  book  I  meant  to 
write    about   romantic   literature,    with    a   leaning 


xxxiv    ESSAYS  OF  GEORGE  WYNDHAM 

towards  the  French.     Then  I  began  to  remember 
all  the  things  I  have  written,  which  I  had  forgotten. 
They  are  hidden  away  in  The  New  Review  (extinct) 
.  .  and  in  introductions  to  books  which  are  out 
of  print,  or  don't  sell.     Then  it  suddenly  flashed  on 
me  that,  without  knowing  it,  I  have  written  two- 
thirds  or  three-fourths  of  my  book!     And  I  see 
exactly  what  remains  to  be  written.      The  Spririgs 
is  the  first  chapter.     I  never  thought  of  that.  .  .  . 
Chap.   II. — ^not  written — ^will   be    The   Chroniclers 
and  the  Crusades.     It  is  not  written,    but  I  have 
all  the  stuff  and  many  notes.     That  takes  me  right 
through  the  thirteenth  century.      It  may  become 
two  chapters  in  order  to  bring  in  Dante  and  the 
Spaniards.  .  .  .  But  after  that  it  is  nearly  all  finished. 
IV.  or  V.  is  my  old  Poetry  of  the  Prison,  about 
Charles  d' Orleans  and  Villon  {New  Review,  out  of 
print) ;  V.  or  VI.  is  Chaucer  (not  written) ;  VI.  or 
VII.  North's  Plutarch,  written — ^indeed  I  must  cut 
it  down  ;    VII.  or  VIII.  is  Ronsard,  written,  .  .  . 
VEIL  or  IX.  is  Shakespeare,  written,  and  must  be 
cut  down;    IX.  or  X.  is  EHzabethan  Mariners  in 
EUzabethan  Uterature,  written  in  the  Fortnightly 
twelve  years  ago ;  X.  or  XI.  is  Scott,  written ;  XI. 
or  XII.  is  the  new  French  Romantics — ^not  pubhshed, 
but  almost  all  written,  with  many  translations.' 

Such  was  the  book  as  George  Wjmdham  had 
planned  it,  and  would  that  he  had  hved  to  match 
the  perfecting  with  the  plan!  Alas,  for  the  gaps, 
which  never  will  be  filled!  Few  men  of  our  time 
were  better  fitted  than  he  by  sentiment  and  know- 
ledge to  write  about  Chaucer.  I  would  give  a 
wilderness  of  modem  books  to  hear  him  discourse 
of  the  Chroniclers  and  the  Crusades.  Who  the  new 
French  Romantics  are  I  know  not,  and  what  he  wrote 


INTRODUCTION  xxxv 

of  them  has  not  come  to  Ught.  For  the  rest,  1  have 
put  the  book  together,  as  (I  think)  he  would  have 
wished  it  done.  All  the  finished  chapters  will  be  found 
between  these  covers,  which  he  marked  as  portions 
of  the  book  which  he  had  written  '  without  knowing 
it.'  In  the  letter  I  have  quoted  he  proposed  to 
cut  down  the  essays  on  Plutarch  and  Shakespeare. 
This  is  a  task  too  dehcate  for  friendship  to  per- 
form, and  I  have  left  them  precisely  as  they  came 
from  his  hand.  Here,  then,  is  a  book  planned  by 
George  Wyndham  himself,  marred  by  lacunae,  which 
he  would  have  filled  up,  but  none  the  less  complete 
in  itseK,  and  a  fair  picture  of  his  mind  and  art. 

George  Wyndham  possessed,  in  full  measure,  what 
Mallarme  once  called  la  joie  critique.  Literature 
was  for  him  no  irdpepyov,  no  mere  way  of  escape 
from  pohtics.  If  he  was  an  amateur  in  feeling,  he 
was  a  craftsman  in  execution.  He  loved  books, 
and  he  wrote  of  them  as  though  he  loved  them. 
His  enthusiasm  kept  pace  with  his  passion  of 
discovery.  He  combined  with  what  Hazlitt  caUed 
'  gusto '  a  marvellous  patience.  If  he  wrote  with 
excitement,  he  deemed  that  no  labour  in  the  col- 
lecting of  facts  went  imrewarded.  A  new  '  find ' 
or  a  new  '  theory '  warmed  him  Hke  wine.  He 
would  turn  it  over  in  his  mind  enthusiastically  and 
furiously  discourse  upon  it.  And  sitting  himself 
down,  with  pen  and  paper,  he  would  test  it  and 
check  it  by  all  the  means  within  his  reach.  When  he 
first  designed  his  Springs  of  Romance,  he  sketched 
what  he  would  put  into  it.  '  I  shall  stick  it  full  of 
all  I  like,'  he  said,  '  the  "  Regina  Avrillosa  "  and  the 
Border  Ballads;  The  Castle  of  Clerimont,  and  the 
Lady  of  Tripoli,  The  Song  of  Roland  and  the  Fall 
of  Constantinople,  Marco  Polo,  and  Antoine  Galand.' 


xxxvi    ESSAYS  OF  GEORGE  WYNDHAM 

As  he  came  to  the  writing,  he  contracted  his 
scope,  but  the  design  was  grandiose,  and  the 
Address,  which  was  its  result,  was  all  the  better 
for  the  knowledge  of  many  books,  which  he  had  read 
and  did  not  quote.  He  worked  all  the  more  wisely 
because  he  had  something  in  reserve.  Moreover, 
as  I  have  said,  he  brought  a  whiff  of  the  open  air 
into  criticism.  If  he  was  happy  among  his  books, 
he  was  happy  also  riding  across  country.  And  on 
hunting  days  he  neither  read  nor  wrote. 


It  may  seem  something  of  a  paradox  that  George 
Wyndham,  keenly  ahve  as  he  was  to  all  the  changing 
controversies  of  the  hour,  should  yet  have  found  a 
lasting  solace  in  the  past ;  and  yet  the  paradox 
soon  disappears  in  the  Hght  of  his  character  and 
his  upbringing.  He  had  a  simple  faith  in  the 
force  of  tradition ;  he  was  acutely  conscious  of  the 
heritage  that  was  his.  '  This  autumn  I  addict 
myself  to  Politics,'  he  wrote  to  a  friend  in  1907, 
'  beginning  at  Perth,  on  October  18th,  and  continu- 
ing at  Hexham,  Birmingham,  Dover,  Manchester, 
York,  and  Leicester.  ...  I  do  this  from  a  sense  of 
duty.  The  Gentry  of  England  must  not  abdicate.' 
There  was  his  creed  in  a  phrase  :  '  The  Gentry  of 
England  must  not  abdicate,'  for  the  very  reason 
that  the  gentry  had  its  roots  in  the  past,  that  it 
received  from  the  past  its  duties  and  its  privileges. 
He  had  not  a  profound  behef  in  platform  discourse, 
but  it  was  the  means,  nearest  to  his  hand,  of  carrying 
on  the  work  which  had  been  bequeathed  to  him  by 
his  ancestors.  He  knew  that  he  was  but  a  lantern- 
bearer,  and  he  was  resolved  that  his  lantern  should 


INTRODUCTION  xxxvii 

be  handed  to  those  who  came  after  him,  still  aUght 
and  clear-bm^ning.  Even  fox-hunting,  in  his  eyes, 
was  a  glory  of  tradition.  '  The  hounds  meet  here 
to-morrow,'  he  wrote  to  his  father  from  Saighton  on 
the  Christmas  Day  of  1907.  '  Twenty-eight  persons 
are  coming  out  from  Eaton.  .  .  .  And  the  local  Ughts 
will  try  to  hold  their  own  against  the  paladins  of 
Leicestershire  and  Meath.  It  is  interesting — apart 
from  the  fun  of  it  and  the  sport — to  see  this  when 
political  changes  may  abolish  the  gentry  and  their 
pursuits.  Personally  I  back  the  gentry.'  There  is 
George  Wyndham's  view  made  clear  as  crystal.  He 
felt  within  him  that  he  '  came  from  afar,'  that  it 
was  his  first  duty  to  defend  the  traditional  order 
of  things,  and  he  accepted  the  existing  plan  of 
political  warfare,  with  a  full  determination  to  make 
the  best  of  it.  And  let  it  be  remembered  of  him 
that  his  mind  merged  what  is  in  what  was,  that  he 
looked  upon  the  past  with  the  eye  of  the  living 
present. 

A  man  holding  such  a  creed  could  not  help 
finding  his  keenest  interest  in  bygone  times.  Gladly 
he  turned  from  the  racket  of  the  hustings  to  the 
calm  of  the  settled  past  which  yielded  its  secrets 
to  his  imagination.  He  deUghted,  as  I  have  said, 
to  be  thought  an  '  archaistic  barbarian.'  He  con- 
fessed, as  we  have  seen,  '  a  ruder  relish  for  the  pagan 
horseflesh  of  the  Sagas.'  And  gladly  would  he  have 
gone  back,  if  he  could,  still  further  into  the  child- 
hood of  the  world.  It  was  not  mere  propinquity 
which  inspired  him  with  a  passion  for  Stonehenge. 
When  he  visited  Wells,  it  was  not  the  cathedral, 
not  the  library,  with  its  Jensen's  Pliny  and  the 
autograph  of  Erasmus,  that  held  him  most  closely 
in  thrall,  it  was  Wookey  Hole,  that  strange  cavern 

c2 


xxxviii    ESSAYS  OF  GEORGE  WYNDHAM 

of  the  Mendips,  out  of  which  flows  the  river  Axe, 
and  which  was  a  place  of  refuge  for  our  remote 
forefathers.  Its  corridors  and  galleries,  its  vast 
chambers,  'like  chapter-houses,'  filled  him  with  an 
ecstatic  wonder.  It  dehghted  hiiji  to  think  that 
there  the  Britons  hid  and  defended  themselves 
against  the  beasts  of  the  fields  and  other  foes,  when 
the  lake-village  of  Glastonbury  was  destroyed, 
that  there  in  the  soil  their  combs  and  their 
pottery,  their  coins  and  their  needles  and  their 
bones  were  found.  In  a  moment  his  fancy  was  at 
work.  With  the  help  of  the  excavator  he  was  busy 
putting  the  past  together  from  the  poor  fragments 
that  remain,  and  divining  the  habits  and  ambitions 
of  the  ingenious  lake-dwellers,  who,  I  think,  made 
but  a  poor  exchange  when  they  left  their  free 
homes  in  the  marshes  of  Glastonbury  for  the 
dim-lit  caves  of  Wookey  Hole.  And,  when  the 
excavator  showed  him  a  denarius  of  124  B.C.,  he  was 
all  excitement.  '  Now  perpend,'  said  he,  '  how  is 
that  ?  The  Roman  Conquest  was  in  a.d.  70.  I 
plumped  at  once  for  the  theory  that  it  has  filtered 
through  the  dim,  but  civihsed,  Europe  of  which 
Morris  tells  his  tales.'  Here  the  archaeologists 
are  on  his  side,  for  Sir  Arthur  Evans  is  persuaded 
by  the  reUcs  of  the  fen-settlement  at  Glastonbury 
to  conclude  that  'the  more  luxurious  arts  of  the 
classical  world  were  already  influencing  even  the 
extreme  west  of  our  island  in  pre-Roman  times,' 
that  the  httle  '  Western  Venice '  of  Glastonbury 
'  may  claim  some  direct  heritage  from  a  still  older 
Venetian  culture.' 


INTRODUCTION  xxxix 


XI 


Since  George  Wyndham  felt  the  ardent  curiosity 
of  the  archaeologist,  since  in  politics  he  was  a 
stout  champion  of  tradition,  since  he  knew  well 
that  we  are  but  lantern-bearers,  it  is  not  strange 
that  he  turned  his  critical  eyes  towards  the  past, 
that  he  was  intimately  at  home  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  that  he  bade  his  research  halt  at  the 
first  half  of  the  seventeenth.  His  only  outpost  in 
the  modern  world  was  Sir  Walter  Scott,  and  Sir 
Walter  was  the  great  reviver  of  antiquity  in  our 
land.  It  is  easy,  therefore,  to  detect  a  unity  of 
purpose  in  George  Wyndham's  work,  and  this 
unity  prompts  the  question  what  more  he  would 
have  done  had  a  longer  span  of  hfe  been  allotted 
to  him.  He  died  in  the  fulness  of  his  strength  and 
courage.  His  accession  to  an  estate  had  filled  him 
with  new  hopes  and  new  ambitions.  He  had  been 
disillusioned  by  politics.  The  old  order,  for  which 
he  had  fought,  was  fast  changing.  The  passage  of 
the  Parhament  Bill  and  the  method  of  its  passage 
had  persuaded  him,  as  well  they  might,  to  take  a 
grave  view  of  the  future.  He  knew  that  war  was 
coming  with  Germany,  and  he  knew  that  little  or 
nothing  was  being  done  to  meet  the  surely  impend- 
ing danger.  Above  all,  he  disHked  the  internation- 
ahsing  of  our  politics.  He  feared  what  he  called  '  the 
Ortolan  brigade.'  He  saw  that  the  cause  of  Progress 
and  of  *  the  People  versus  the  Peers '  was  led  by 

'  E ,  curly-haired  C— — ,  "  dear  old  chappie  " 

D ,   and   all   the   other   bounding   brothers   of 

cosmopohtan  finance  and  polyglot  "  Society,"  dining 
off  truffles,'  and  imitating  '  the  Yiddish  pronunciation 


xl         ESSAYS  OF  GEORGE  WYNDHAM 

of  the  letter  E,  with  a  guttural  growl.  "  That 's  the 
dog's  letter,"  as  Shakespeare  says.'  And  yet  he  saw 
clearly  enough  that  Enghsh  life,  with  its  hunting 
and  its  soldiering  and  its  literature,  would  still  go 
on,  and  prove  '  far  more  substanti§.l '  than  the  in- 
trigues of  Party  Pohtics  or  the  grasping  dreams  of 
Sociahsm.  What,  then,  would  he  have  done  in 
what  seemed  to  him  a  disjointed  world  ?  He  had 
many  projects,  half  thought  out,  in  his  busy  mind. 
There  was  a  hf  e  of  Bolingbroke  which  he  had  reserved 
for  his  age,  and  though  Bohngbroke  lay  far  out  in 
the  wilds  of  the  eighteenth  century,  which  was  no 
century  for  him,  the  modern  half  of  his  soul  sympa- 
thised warmly  with  Bolingbroke' s  ideals  of  a  patriot 
king  and  a  contented  people.  And  there  was  his 
estate  to  manage  and  to  restore  to  the  prosperity 
which  it  had  enjoyed  two  hundred  years  or  more 
before.  In  a  letter,  one  of  the  last  he  wrote, 
which  was  actually  delivered  to  Mr.  Wilfrid  Ward 
after  his  death,  he  admitted  that  he  was  absorbed  in 
two  subjects :  '  Rural  England  and  his  library.'  Truly 
they  were  subjects  worthy  to  absorb  him.  It  was 
not  for  him  to  shirk  the  duties  of  the  countryside, 
and  the  beautiful  Ubrary  at  Clouds,  akeady  fashioned 
to  his  will,  was  fast  being  filled  with  beautiful  books. 
'  "  We  know  what  we  are,  but  we  do  not  know 
what  we  may  be,"  '  he  told  Mr.  Ward.  '  I  inay — 
perhaps — take  office  again.  But  I  doubt  it.  Inveni 
portum,^  Had  he  ?  Even  if  he  had  found  a  harbour, 
it  was  still  restless  with  the  swell  of  the  ocean. 
His  eager  mind  was  discovering  new  duties,  not 
discarding  old  ones.  '  Some  people  inherit  an 
estate,'  he  wrote  in  the  letter  to  Mr.  Ward,  from 
which  I  have  already  quoted,  '  and  go  on  as  if 
nothing    had    happened.      I    can't    do    that. 


/•   •  • 


INTRODUCTION  xli 

Suddenly  I  find  myself  responsible  for  farming  two 
thousand  four  hundred  acres,  and  for  paying  sums 
that  stagger  me  by  way  of  weekly  wages  and  repairs. 
So  I  ask  myseK  "  What  are  you  going  to  do  ?  "  I 
mean  to  use  all  my  imagination  and  energy  to  get 
something  done  that  should  last  and  remind.'  That 
he  would  have  done  that  is  certain.  He  would  have 
done  that  and  much  more  besides.  Had  the  call 
come,  he  would,  I  beheve,  have  returned  with  fresh 
vigour  to  poUtics,  in  spite  of  partisan  intrigues 
and  the  selfishness  of  Socialism.  '  The  gentry  of 
England  must  not  abdicate,'  he  had  said,  and  he 
would  not  have  abdicated.  A  year  after  his  death 
came  the  war,  which  he  had  long  foreseen  and 
pondered,  and  the  war  would  have  aroused  him  in 
a  moment  from  his  pleasant  dreams  of  fields  and 
books.  Assuredly  he  would  have  played  his  part 
in  the  defence  of  his  native  land,  and  I  think 
that  it  would  not  be  displeasing  to  him  that  his 
essays  in  the  art  of  letters  should  be  gathered 
together  and  given  to  the  world  in  this  year  of 
England's  gallantry  and  high  endeavour. 

CHARLES  WHIBLEY. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

The  Springs  of  Romance  in  the  lAtercnture  of  Europe  was 
delivered,  as  Lord  Rector's  Address,  to  the  students  of  the 
University  of  Edinburgh  in  October  1910,  and  was  pub- 
lished as  a  pamphlet  in  the  same  year.  '  The  Poetry  of 
the  Prison '  made  its  first  appearance  in  The  New  Review, 
March  1895.  *  Ronsard  and  the  Pleiade  '  served  as  a  pre- 
liminary essay  to  selected  translations  from  their  poetry, 
published  in  1906.  *  North's  PltUarch '  formed  an  introduc- 
tion to  the  reprint  of  North's  version  in  W.  E.  Henley's 
series  of  Tudor  Translations,  1895.  *  The  Poems  of  Shake- 
speare '  appeared  in  1898  as  a  preface  to  an  edition  of  the 
Poems.  *  Elizabethan  Adventure  in  Elizabethan  Litera- 
ture '  was  contributed  to  The  Fortnightly  Review  in 
November  1898.  And  Sir  Walter  Scott  was  a  speech,  pro- 
posing the  Toast  of  Honour,  delivered  at  the  Fourteenth 
Annual  Dinner  of  '  The  Edinburgh  Sir  Walter  Scott  Club  ' 
on  November  29,  1907.  It  was  published  separately  in 
1908. 


Xlill 


THE  SPRINGS   OF  ROMANCE  IN  THE 
LITERATURE   OF  EUROPE 

An  Address  deltveebd  to  the  Students  of  thb 
University  of  Edinbtjegh,  Octobbe  1910 


TO 
WILLIAM    PATON    KER 


'  It  is  not  the  contexture  of  words  but  the  effects  of 
action  that  gives  glory  to  the  times.  .  .  .' 

'  It  is  but  the  clouds  gathered  about  our  owne  judgement 
that  makes  us  think  all  other  ages  wrapt  up  in  mistes,  and 
the  great  distance  betwixt  us,  that  causes  us  to  imagine  men 
so  farre  off  to  bee  so  little  in  respect  of  ourselves,  .  .  .' 

'  It  is  not  bookes  but  onely  that  great  booke  of  the  world 
and  the  all-over-spreading  grace  of  heaven  that  makes  men 
truly  judicial.  .  .  .' 

S.  Daniel,  Defence  of  Rhime,  1603. 


THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN  THE 
LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE 


It  was  not  easy  to  choose  a  theme  for  an  address 
to  Edinburgh  University.  Your  unbounded  behef 
in  Rectorial  discretion  permits  a  latitude  that  is 
almost  embarrassing.  For  guidance  I  had  nothing 
but  a  sense  of  my  own  limitations  and  a  prospect  of 
the  scene  that  confronts  me.  These  suggested  a 
search  over  the  vast  province  of  learning  for  some 
plot,  not  wholly  unexplored  by  your  Rector,  that 
should  also  be  linked  with  the  fame  of  your  ancient 
city.  The  world  allows,  and  Scott's  monument 
attests,  that,  from  Edinburgh,  and  by  his  genius, 
'  impulse  and  area  '  were  added  to  the  great  move- 
ment of  the  last  century  which  we  call  the  Romantic 
Revival.  That  movement  changed  the  literature, 
architecture,  painting,  and  furniture  of  Europe,  and 
reversed  the  attitude  of  scholarship  towards  the 
Middle  Ages ;  a  fact  of  world-wide  importance : 
incidentally  it  renewed  the  bond  between  Scotland 
and  France  ;  a  fact  of  peculiar  interest  to  the  capital 
of  your  coimtry.  It  so  happens  that,  long  before  I 
ever  dreamed  of  the  honour  you  have  conferred, 
the  phrase — Romantic  Revival — made  me  wonder, 
what  was  revived.  '  What,'  I  asked  myself,  '  is 
Romance  ?  '  Unable  to  answer,  I  turned  to  another 
question—'  When  did  Romance  first  come  into  the 


6  THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN 

literature  of  Europe  ?  '—and  spent  some  time  in 
pursuit  of  so  elusive  a  quarry.  My  choice  of  a 
theme  was  decided  by  Edinburgh's  connection  with 
the  revival  of  Romance,  and  my  guesses  at  its  origin. 
I  must  speak  of  Romance.  • 

Some  may  feel  that  a  definition  of  Romance 
should  precede  any  survey  of  its  inception  and 
character.  I  respectfully  demur.  A  definition  of 
Romance  would  be  easy  if  there  were  general  agree- 
ment on  the  meaning  of  the  word.  Unfortunately 
there  is  not.  Most  people  if  asked,  '  What  is 
Romance  ? '  would  answer,  as  Augustine  did  of 
Time,  '  I  know  when  you  do  not  ask  me.'  When 
dealing  with  the  dimly  apprehended  we  must  dis- 
cover before  we  can  define.  Columbus  had  no 
map  of  America. 

One  way  of  discovery  would  be  to  select  an 
example  of  obvious,  though  undefined,  Romance, 
and  then  to  analyse  its  contents.  But  that  plan  if 
applied,  for  instance,  to  Ariosto's  Orlando  Furioso 
will  be  found  to  lead  away  from  definition  rather 
than  towards  it.  Analysis  of  extreme  romantic  types 
yields  a  jumble  of  mythologies,  refracted  through 
several  layers  of  history,  all  more  or  less  distorted 
and  opaque.  There  is  plenty  of  fighting  and  love- 
making,  a  good  deal  of  scenery  and  weather ;  and, 
apart  from  human  interest,  there  are  troops  of 
animals  and  some  strange  inhuman  forces  masquer- 
ading as  giants  and  dragons  and  warlocks.  From 
such  confusion  a  definition  does  not  readily  emerge. 
A  better  way  of  discovery  is  called,  I  believe — 
rather  pompously — the  historic  method.  It  amounts 
to  this.  If  you  can  establish  When  and  Where  a 
thing  happened  you  may  be  able  to  guess  Why  it 
happened  and,  even.  What  it  was.    Let  us,  then,  post- 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE  7 

pone  analysis  of  Romance,  and  set  out  by  weighing 
the  question  with  which  the  Cardinal  of  Este  greeted 
Ariosto's  presentation  of  his  masterpiece.  (1510.) 
The  prelate  asked  the  poet,  '  quite  simply,'  '  where 
he  had  been  for  all  that  rot.'  That  is  what  I  shall 
try  to  discover.  If  we  begin  by  detecting  when, 
and  where,  Romance  first  appeared  in  Europe  we 
may  be  able  to  say  why  it  appeared,  and  even  to 
hazard  a  surmise  at  its  nature.  But  the  last  is  a 
fearsome  enterprise,  trenching  on  metaphysics,  as 
the  way  is  with  all  inquiry  if  you  push  it  any  distance. 
I  shall  seek  in  the  main  for  origins,  and  call  my 
address  '  The  Springs  of  Romance  in  the  Literature 
of  Europe.' 

You  can  look  for  the  advent  of  Romance  either 
in  literature  that  remains  and  can  be  studied ;  or 
else,  in  the  theories  of  learned  men  who  infer  the 
pre-existence  of  earlier  literature,  that  has  certainly 
perished,  and  may  never  have  been  written.  They 
cite  the  songs  in  which,  Tacitus  tells  us,  the 
Germans  extolled  the  founders  of  their  race  ;  or 
the  didactic  poetry  of  the  Druids,  which  the  Druids 
were  forbidden  to  write  ;  or  they  point  in  later 
versions  to  a  barbarous  handling  of  stories  treated 
with  relative  urbanity  in  earlier  versions,  and  infer 
from  the  discrepancy  a  common  origin  for  both  of 
a  more  primitive  character  than  either  reveals. 
These  deductions  from  contemporary  references  to 
songs  that  are  lost,  and  from  antique  touches  in 
later  documents,  are  always  ingenious  and  often 
delightful.  But  they  present  two  difficulties.  In 
the  first  place,  hypothetical  literature  affords  a 
foundation  too  insecure  for  the  erection  of  theory 
that  must  itself  partake  of  conjecture.  In  the 
second  place,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  barbarous 


8  THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN 

legends  are  romantic  to  the  races  who  invent  them. 
I  shaU  return  to  that  view  before  I  conclude.  At 
the  outset  I  must  look  for  the  advent  of  Romance 
in  writings  that  still  form  part  of  the  literature  of 
Europe.  0 


The  Advent  of  Romance 

Keeping,  then,  to  Hterature  that  remains,  I 
advance  the  disputable  proposition  that  the  writings 
preserved  from  Greece  and  Rome  are  not  romantic  ; 
briefly,  that  the  classics  are  not  romantic.  If  time 
permitted  I  could,  I  think,  sustain  that  thesis,  with 
quahfications,  of  course,  and  concessions  to  any 
who  disputed  its  truth.  I  would  readily  admit  that 
the  Greeks  were  more  romantic  than  the  Romans. 
I  would  certainly  concede  Nausicaa  in  the  Odyssey 
and  Medea  in  the  Argonauts  ;  Dido  and  Camilla 
in  the  ^neid.  But,  excepting  Virgil,  whose  peculiar 
romantic  note  caught  the  ear  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
I  should  point  out  that  my  concessions  were  mainly 
in  respect  of  the  earliest  and  latest  poems  of  the 
Classic  world,  and  that,  including  even  the  JEneid,  all 
such  touches  of  romance  as  do  faintly  transfigure 
the  classics  are  to  be  found  in  stories  of  wandering 
through  strange  lands,  and  of  encounters  with  ahen 
customs  and  superstitions.  I  would  give  my  '  heck- 
ler '  the  Golden  Ass  of  Apuleius,  and  cut  the  argu- 
ment short  by  taking  refuge  in  the  considered  opinion 
of  Professor  W.  P.  Ker.  He  writes  (The  Dark 
Ages,  p.  41) :  '  Classical  literature  perished  from 
a  number  of  contributory  ailments,  but  of  these 
none  was  more  desperate  than  the  want  of  Romance 
in  the  Roman  Empire,  and  especially  in  the  Latin 
language.' 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE  9 

The  Latin  world  of  the  fifth  century  was  un- 
romantic,  and  notably  so  in  northern  Gaul,  the 
most  Roman,  because  the  least  invaded,  province 
of  the  Western  Empire.  Latinised  Gauls  led  an 
ordered  existence  of  unchallenged  convention,  re- 
volving round  garrisons,  townhalls,  and  schools. 
Their  life  was  military  and  municipal ;  their 
literature,  an  affair  of  grammar  and  rhetoric, 
written  in  classical  Latin  which  had  diverged  from 
vulgar  Latin,  so  widely  as  to  be  unintelligible  to 
all  but  the  learned.  From  the  people's  Latin, 
spoken  throughout  the  country,  almost  every  trace 
of  Celtic  words  and  Celtic  beUefs  had  been  eHmi- 
nated.  We  possess  nothing  that  can  be  called 
Romance  in  either  of  these  languages.  Yet  Latin 
Gaul  was  to  be  the  nursery-garden  of  the  first 
seedling  of  romantic  literature,  and  that  earhest 
growth  was  not  to  flourish  until  it  had  been  trans- 
planted. When,  then,  and  where,  does  Romance 
arrive  in  European  literature.  The  answer  to  the 
first  question  is,  not  before  the  second  half  of  the 
eleventh  century,  and,  to  the  second,  probably  in 
Great  Britain.  The  first  piece  of  obvious  Romance 
in  literature  that  remains  is  the  '  Song  of  Roland,' 
as  we  have  it  in  the  Oxford  MS.  (Bodleian,  Digby, 
23).  The  composition  of  the  poem  is  attributed 
to  a  Norman,  and  the  date  of  it  placed  between  the 
Norman  conquest  of  England  in  1066  and  the 
Crusaders'  conquest  of  Jerusalem  in  1099.  The 
handwriting,  as  distinguished  from  the  composition, 
is  dated  about  1170.  Romance  arrives  six  centuries 
after  the  overthrow  of  the  Western  Empire,  and 
appears  where  a  province  had  been  torn  from  it 
long  before  the  Latin  Gauls  had  ceased  to  speak 
or   write   in   languages   derived   from    Rome.     We 


10         THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN 

know  when  and  where  Romance  appeared.  To 
understand  why  it  came,  and  to  surmise  at  what  it 
was,  we  must  sketch  in  the  events  of  those  six 
centuries  which  preceded  and — as  I  shall  urge — 
prepared  for  the  Advent  of  Romance  after  1050  a.d., 
and  for  its  rapid  development  a  hundred  years 
later. 

In  the  fifth  century  two  things  happened  which 
began  the  preparation  of  Gaul  to  be  the  nursery- 
garden  of  Romance.  A  Celtic  people  established 
themselves  in  the  north-west  of  Gaul,  thenceforward 
to  be  called  Brittany,  where  their  language  is  still 
spoken  by  the  Bretons.  They  came  in  numbers, 
and  the  territory  which  they  occupied  ceased  to  be 
Latin.  We  are  told  that  they  sang  lays  to  a  little 
harp,  called  the  rote.  But  none  of  their  songs 
appears  in  literature  for  centuries.  Again  in  the 
fifth  century,  a  Teutonic  nation,  the  Francs, 
invaded  the  north-east  of  Gaul,  and  soon  ceased, 
for  the  most  part,  to  be  German.  They  were  few 
in  number,  and  their  ambition  was  to  be  like  the 
Latin  aristocracy.  Their  mother-tongue,  after  a 
brief  interval,  contained  more  words  of  Latin  than 
of  Teutonic  derivation.  Their  laws  were  written 
in  learned  Latin.  Their  religion,  after  496  a.d., 
was  orthodox  Latin  Christianity.  Clovis,  or 
Chlodoweg — if  you  like  that  name  better — ^preferred 
his  title  of  a  '  Roman  patrician '  to  the  glory  of 
his  conquests.  We  are  told  that  the  Francs  sang 
the  deeds  of  their  kings  in  poems,  accompanied  on 
harps.  It  may  well  be  so.  But  none  of  these 
poems  have  ever  appeared  in  Uterature.  They 
may,  or  may  not,  have  been  romantic.  We  have 
no  record  of  Frankish  verse,  save  one.  There  are 
eight  Latin  lines  in  the  life  of  a  saint  composed 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE         11 

in  the  ninth  century.  They  refer  to  a  legendary 
action  of  King  Clotair  in  the  seventh  century. 
The  author  presents  them  as  excerpts  translated 
from  a  song  which,  he  tells  us,  was  popular  at  that 
time.  We  have  nothing  else.  To  reconstruct  these 
non-existent  effusions  by  inference,  and  even  to  cite 
them  by  name  as  the  panegjrric  of  this  or  that 
Frankish  king,  the  song  of  Clotair,  or  of  Chlodoweg, 
is,  in  the  word  of  an  eminent  French  scholar,  '  a 
triumph  of  scientific  h3rpothesis.'  In  the  fifth,  sixth, 
and  seventh  centuries  France  was  still  Roman  and 
imromantic,  but  not  Teutonic,  and  with  Celts  on 
one  fiank. 

In  the  eighth  century  a  third  event  continued 
the  preparation  for  Romance.  The  Arabs,  after 
conquering  Spain,  invaded  the  south  of  France  and 
were  defeated  at  the  battle  of  Tours  by  Charles 
Martel  on  the  10th  October  732.  We  know  that 
the  Arabs  sang  songs,  for  we  possess  seven  odes 
written  by  them  in  '  the  days  of  ignorance  '  before 
Mahomet.  And  we  know  that,  in  the  ninth 
century,  they  brought  into  Southern  Europe  the 
viol,  or  fiddle,  conveyed  from  Persia,  upon  which 
Jongleurs  were,  much  later,  to  accompany  the 
Romances  of  Europe.  But  the  early  influence  of 
the  Arabs  produced  no  romance.  On  the  contrary, 
it  produced  dry  translations  of  the  least  romantic 
works  of  the  Greeks.  Even  the  epoch-making 
contest  at  Tours  bequeathed  no  legacy  to  romantic 
literature.  Charles  the  Hammer  never  appears  as 
one  of  its  heroes.  It  was  his  grandson,  Charlemagne, 
who  became  aU  but  the  greatest  of  romantic  figures. 
His  legendary  exploits  overshadowed  his  achieve- 
ments, and  were  sung  for  centuries  in  every  language 
of  Europe.     Yet  the  first  legend,  that  we  still  possess. 


12         THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN 

was  not  written  until  some  two  hundred  and  seventy 
years  after  his  death.  Two  other  events  were  needed 
to  complete  the  preparation.  Despite  the  lays  of 
the  Bretons,  the  songs  of  the  Francs,  the  odes  of  the 
Arabs,  accompanied  by  rotes,  harps,  and  viols,  it 
is  not  until  after  the  Normans  had  estabUshed  them- 
selves in  France  at  the  beginning  of  the  tenth  century, 
and  conquered  the  English  in  the  second  half  of  the 
eleventh  century,  that  we  find  the  advent  of  Romance 
in  European  literature.  The  placid  province  of 
Latin  Gaul  was  modified  by  the  juxtaposition  of 
Bretons,  the  absorption  of  Francs,  the  expulsion 
of  Arabs,  the  absorption  of  Normans,  and  the  con- 
quest of  England,  before  the  '  Song  of  Roland ' 
appears. 

The  Song  of  Roland 

The  ironical  adage  Post  hoc  ergo  propter  hoc 
may  be  discounted  at  once,  for  the  song  reveals  the 
influence  of  aU  those  five  events,  and,  but  for  their 
happening,  could  not  be  what  it  is.  It  is  written 
in  French  ;  because  Latinised  Gaul,  having  ceased  to 
be  Celtic,  never  became  German,  but  became  France. 
Its  hero,  Roland,  is  the  Count  of  the  Marches  of 
Brittany,  and  it  teems  with  praise  of  the  Bretons  : 

'  Icil  chevalchent  en  guise  de  baruns 
Dreites  lur  hanstes,  fermez  lur  gunfanuns  '  (1.  3054), 

*  These  ride  with  the  high  air  of  fighting-men, 
Their  spears  erect,  and  battle-pennons  furled  '  ; 

because  France  was  in  contact  with  Celtic  Brittany. 
Its  action,  in  defiance  of  history,  consists  of  conflicts 
with  Saracens  ;  because  such  conflicts  in  the  eighth, 
ninth,  and  tenth  centuries  held  the  imagination  of 
Europe  with  a  growing  horror,  that  culminated  when 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE         13 

the  Turks  took  Jerusalem  from  the  Arabs,  to  profane 
her  shrines  and  persecute  their  pious  visitors.  It  is 
written  by  a  Norman ;  because  the  author  dis- 
covered, in  the  legendary  feats  of  Roland,  a  parallel 
to  the  historic  conquests  of  his  race.  But  he  found 
it  difficult  to  harmonise  the  two.  So  Normandy, 
though  conquered,  in  his  song  is  still  '  la  franche  ' 
— the  free  (1.  2324).  Duke  Richard  is  one  of 
Charlemagne's  twelve  peers,  and  his  Normans  are 
picked  from  all  nations  for  the  highest  praise  : 

'  Armes  unt  beles  e  bons  chevals  curanz  ; 
Ja  pur  murir  cil  n'ierent  recreant ; 
Suz  ciel,  n'ad  gent  ki  durer  poissent  tant '  (1.  3047). 

'  Handsome  their  weapons  and  their  coursers  strong  ; 
Never  for  death  will  they  admit  the  wrong  ; 
No  other  nation  can  endure  so  long.' 

The  reference  to  England,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  in  the  scornful  tone  of  one  who  had  himself 
followed  William  to  Hastings  and  Westminster ; 
because  the  song  was  written  after,  and  not  before, 
the  conquest  of  England.  To  that  opinion,  at  any 
rate,  the  weight  of  French  scholarship  inclines,  as 
I  hold  conclusively.  When  the  death-stricken 
Roland  recites  the  countries  he  has  won  for  Charles 
with  his  sword  Durendal,  his  slighting  reference  to 
England — 

*  E  Engletere  que  il  teneit  sa  cambre  '  (1.  2332), 
'  And  England  which  he  kept  for  his  own  room,' 

finds  no  coimterpart  in  any  allusion  to  other 
legendary  conquests.  The  Saracen  is  detested, 
but  the  Englishman  is  despised,  whilst  other  nations, 
although  defeated,  are  hailed  as  honoured  vassals 
who   follow   the   oriflamme   to  war.     Finally,   this 


14         THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN 

song,  and  no  other,  won  a  way  for  Romance  in 
the  Hterature  of  Europe  ;  because  northern  French, 
by  becoming  the  Royal  language  of  England, 
attained  a  position  which  Latin,  for  lack  of  general 
comprehension,  could  no  longer  hold.  Northern 
French  became  the  tongue  common  to  many  nations, 
and  was  adapted,  as  Latin  never  had  been,  to  the 
expression  of  Romance.  Here  I  must  note  a  possi- 
bility of  misconception.  It  is  urged  that  some 
features  in  the  song  we  possess  are  earher  than  the 
date  attributed  to  it.  Again,  we  know  that  the 
Jongleur,  TaiUefer,  sang  some  other  song  of  Roland 
as  he  rode  in  front  of  the  Norman  advance  at 
Hastings,  tossing  his  sword  in  the  air  and  catching 
it  by  the  hilt.  But  these  considerations  do  not 
affect  my  argument.  None  of  the  romantic  features 
in  the  song  can  be  earher  than  the  Celtic  and  Sara- 
cenic influences ;  most  of  them  must  be  later  than 
the  Norman  influence,  and  that  influence  did  not 
carry  Romance  into  literature  until  after  the  Con- 
quest. 

The  view  that  the  '  Song  of  Roland '  could  not 
have  been  written  until  after  the  events  I  have 
enumerated,  or  be  what  it  is  but  for  their  happening, 
is  confirmed  if  we  glance  at  the  historic  fact  on 
which  it  is  based,  and  compare  the  song  with  the 
account  written  at  the  time.  For  the  song  reveals 
the  influence  of  aU  these  events,  and  the  contem- 
porary account  shows  scarce  a  trace  of  any  one  of 
them. 

On  the  15th  of  August  778,  Charlemagne's 
army  had  retu-ed  from  Spain  into  France  over  the 
Pjnrenees  in  safety.  But  his  rear-guard  was  am- 
bushed by  the  Basques  in  a  closely-wooded  defile 
and  kiUed  out  to  the  last  man.     That  is  the  historic 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE         15 

fact.  Now  turn  to  the  contemporary  account. 
Charlemagne's  secretary,  Eginhard,  describes  the 
tragedy  (vita  et  gesta  Garoli  cognomento  Magni,  etc., 
cap.  ix.)  in  seventeen  and  a  half  lines  of  prosaic 
Latin.  There  is  no  word  of  the  Saracens.  Three 
of  the  slaughtered  chieftains  are  named,  and  of 
these  the  third,  apparently  in  order  of  importance, 
is  Rutlandus,  the  praefect  of  the  frontier  of  Brittany 
{Rutlandus  Britannici  limitis  prcefectus).  That  is  all 
that  history  tells  us  of  Roland.  He  is  not  even  in 
command,  and  sounds  no 

'  blast  of  that  dread  horn 
On  Fontarabian  echoes  borne,' 

that  caught  the  ear  of  Walter  Scott  as  he  was 
writing  Marmion, 

We  hear  no  more  of  him  in  any  written  word 
that  remains  until  his  romantic  glory  is  unrolled  in 
the  four  thousand  and  two  ringing  hnes  of  the 
Chanson  de  Roland,  Thenceforward  it  reverberates 
through  literature,  expanding  into  the  stupendous 
cycle  of  Carlovingian  romances,  and  their  deriva- 
tives, down  to  the  day  on  which  Ariosto  presented 
the  Cardinal  of  Este  with  his  poem  '  of  ladies  and 
of  knights,  of  battles  and  loves,  of  courtesies  and  of 
daring  adventures '  : 

*  Le  Donne,  il  Cavaher,  I'Arme,  gli  Amori, 
Le  Cortesie,  I'audaci  Imprese  io  canto, 
Che  furo  al  tempo  che  passaro  i  Mori 
D' Africa  il  mare,  e  in  Francia  nocquer  tanto, 
Sequendo  Tire  e  i  giovenil  f urori 
D'Agramante  lor  Re  che  si  did  vanto 
Di  Vendicar  la  morte  di  Trojano 
Sopra  Re  Carlo  Imperator  Romano.' 

Incidentally  the  story  of  Roland  gave  proverbs 
to  the  people — a  Roland  for  an  Oliver — and  their 


16         THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN 

name  to  our  peers,  of  whom  we  still  hear  so  much, 
even  now,  when  Roland  is  almost  forgotten. 

This  comparison  between  the  song  and  the 
accoimt  written  at  the  time  exhibits — ^to  adopt  a 
Hibemicism — a  'dry  source'  in.  the  brief  Latin 
original ;  a  long  silence  ;  and,  then,  the  sudden 
advent  of  unmistakable  Romance,  full  of  the 
wonders  and  legends  of  many  lands.  Scenery  plays 
her  part  in  human  emotion.  The  mountains  are 
filled  with  menace : 

'  Halt  sunt  li  pui  e  tenebrus  e  grant 
Li  val  parfunt  e  les  ewes  curanz  '  (1.  1830). 

*  High  are  the  peaks,  and  shadow-gloom'd,  and  vast, 
Profound  the  valleys  where  the  torrents  dash.' 

We  are  told  the  name  of  each  champion's  horse  and 
sword,  and  their  marvellous  qualities. 

The  theory  that  Romance  arrived  as  a  result  of 
the  events  I  have  enumerated  is  stiU  further  con- 
firmed, if  we  proceed  from  the  advent  to  the  huge 
development  of  Romance  which  flooded  Europe  a 
hundred  years  later.  For  that  development  foUows 
immediately  on  a  renewal  and  multiphcation  of  the 
same  or  similar  influences.  Literature  is  transfigured 
into  Romance  by  the  twilight  of  the  West,  the 
mirage  of  the  East,  and  the  uncouth  strength  of 
the  North,  in  direct  proportion  to  the  commingling 
of  West  and  East  and  North  in  the  politics  of  the 
eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries. 

I  would  even  dare  to  suggest  that  our  fu*st  version 
of  the  '  Song  of  Roland  '  received  some  later  touches, 
here  and  there,  during  the  twelfth  century,  after 
those  influences  had  been  multiphed,  i,e,  at  a  time 
more  nearly  approaching  the  date,  1170,  attri- 
buted to  the  handwriting  of  the  MS.  (Bodleian,  Digby 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE         17 

23).  One  argument  for  that  view  is  rather  technical. 
French  scholars  date  the  composition  of  the  song 
before  the  conquest  of  Jerusalem  in  1099,  because  it 
nowhere  mentions  that  event.  This,  however,  in- 
volves the  difficulty  of  accounting  for  the  mention  of 
a  valley  in  Cappadocia,  called  Butentrot,  through 
which  the  Crusaders  did  actually  march.  How  comes 
it,  we  may  ask,  that  the  first  column  of  the  Saracen's 
legendary  army  in  the  song  (1.  3220)  is  said  to  have 
been  recruited  from  that  place  ?  May  not  the 
positive  inclusion  of  Butentrot  outweigh  the  negative 
omission  of  Jerusalem  ?  And  the  more,  since  the 
author,  who  swears  he  is  telling  the  truth,  might 
conceivably  borrow  local  colour  from  Butentrot  for 
an  imaginary  picture  of  the  eighth  century,  but 
would  scarcely  insert  the  most  resounding  event  of 
his  own  age,  321  years  before  it  happened. 

Another  argument  may  be  put  in  this  way. 

The  song  in  the  Oxford  MS.  contains  three 
catalogues  of  nations,  viz. — the  conquests  recited 
by  Roland  before  he  dies,  the  divisions  in  Charle- 
magne's avenging  army,  and  the  judges  summoned 
to  try  the  traitor,  Ganelon.  The  judges  include 
Bretons,  Normans,  and  Poitevins  (1.  3702).  The 
fifth,  sixth,  and  seventh  divisions  of  the  avenging 
army  (1.  3027)  are  recruited  from  Normans,  Bretons, 
and  Poitevins.  The  conquests  (1.  2322)  include 
Brittany,  Normandy,  Poitou,  Maine,  Aquitaine,  and, 
you  will  be  surprised  to  hear,  Scotland,  Wales, 
Ireland,  and  England. 

'  Jo  Ten  cunquis  Escoce,  Guales,  Irlande 
E  Engletere  que  il  teneit  sa  cambre.' 

Looking  to  literature,  excepting  the  *  Song  of 
Roland,'  no  other  poem  about  Charlemagne — and 


18         THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN 

there  are  many — attributes  to  him  any  one  of  these 
conquests.  Looking  to  history,  no  king  ever  led  all 
these  nations  in  war,  or  accepted  homage  from  their 
sovereigns,  except  Henry  of  Anjou,  who  became 
Henry  n.  of  England,  and  married  Eleanor  of  Poitou 
and  Aquitaine.  For  further  significance,  Anjou, 
his  ancestral  fief,  is  added  to  these  conquests  in 
other  foreign  MSS.  and  omitted  from  the  Oxford  MS. 
I  suggest  that  the  MS.  was  retouched,  in  respect  of 
these  names,  after  Henry  had,  by  conquest  and 
marriage,  asserted  a  shadowy  over-lordship  from  the 
Pyrenees  to  the  Grampians.  The  singular  ascription 
of  such  conquests  to  Charlemagne,  and  the  army-fist 
of  his  forces,  would  have  lacked  aU  approach  to 
fikefihood  except  to  audiences  famifiar  with  the 
short-fived  cfimax  of  Henry's  political  career. 

Even  if  this  suggestion  be  scouted,  the  catalogues 
of  nations  in  the  '  Song  of  Roland '  are  relevant  to 
my  theme.  They  iUuminate  the  theory  that  Romance 
sprang  from  a  mingling  of  Western  and  Eastern 
influences,  at  a  time  when  the  races  of  Europe 
were  bracketed  together  by  the  conquests  and 
marriages  of  northern  leaders. 


The  Development  of  Romance 

That  theory  is,  once  more,  confirmed  by  the 
great  romantic  development  of  the  twelfth  century  ; 
and  no  illustration  of  it  can,  I  submit,  be  more 
convincing  than  the  facts  of  Henry's  pofitical  career. 
They  constitute  a  renewal  and  multipfication  of  the 
influences  which  preceded  the  advent  of  Romance, 
and  were  immediately  foUowed  by  a  development 
of  Romance  that,  from  1150  onwards,  flooded  the 
whole  area  of  mediaeval  literature.     If  we  take  the 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE  19 

most  important  of  these  renewals,  and  then  the  most 
renowned  Romances  of  the  Middle  Ages,  we  can,  I 
believe,  establish  a  direct  connection  between  the 
two. 

The  Eastern,  Saracenic,  influence  was  renewed 
by  Henry's  marriage  with  Eleanor — Alienor  or 
MiiOT — a  most  remarkable  woman,  to  whose  memory 
scant  justice  is  done  if  we  associate  it  exclusively 
with  Fair  Rosamund  and  Woodstock.  Omitting — 
with  regret — most  of  the  sensational  adventures  in 
her  long  life  of  eighty-two  years,  we  must,  for  our 
purpose,  recall  that  she  was  the  granddaughter  of 
William  of  Poitou,  who  fought  in  the  First  Crusade, 
and  was  himself  the  earliest  troubadour,  or  poet  of 
southern  France.  He  wrote,  '  I  will  make  a  new 
song '  : 

'  Farai  chansonetta  nova,' 

and  so  he  did.  That  song  is  more  closely  related 
to  modern  poetry  than  any  masterpiece  in  the 
classics  (W.  P.  Ker,  Dark  Ages),  Its  reiterated 
rhymes  thrill  down  the  ages  till  they  wake  an  echo 
from  the  lyre  of  Robert  Bums.  Eleanor,  the  wife 
of  two  kings,  the  mother  of  two  kings  and  of  two 
daughters,  married  to  great  vassals  whose  songs  are 
still  remembered,  is  responsible  for  a  good  deal  of 
romance.  Thanks  to  her,  St.  George  became,  in 
the  words  of  Caxton,  'patrone  of  the  'royame  of 
Englond  and  the  crye  of  men  of  warre.'  For  that 
was  the  battle-cry  of  her  grandfather  before  the  waUs 
of  Jerusalem.  It  descended  to  her,  together  with 
his  love  of  poetry  and  his  love  of  crusading.  She 
accompanied  her  first  husband,  the  king  of  France, 
to  the  Second  Crusade,  in  1147  ;  was  divorced  in 
1152,  and,  within  two  months,  married  Henry  of 


20         THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN 

Anjou,  the  king  to  be  of  England,  bringing  with 
her  '  St.  George  for  England '  and  the  dower  of 
Poitou  and  Aquitaine.  But  these  were  not  all  that 
she  bestowed.  The  troubadours  of  southern  France, 
after  attending  her  to  the  East,*  followed  in  her 
train ;  reinforced  by  trouveres,  the  poets  of  northern 
France.  She  brought  to  Great  Britain,  with  signal 
results  in  literature,  the  artists  who  were  to  fashion 
the  romantic  material  of  many  voyages  into  the 
great  romances  of  Europe. 

The  Western,  Celtic,  influence  was  renewed 
when  Henry  became  suzerain  of  Brittany.  It  was 
multiphed  when  his  motley  array  of  vassals,  drawn 
from  one-half  of  France,  and,  accompanied  by 
Eleanor's  poets,  were  brought  into  contact  with  the 
legends  of  Wales.  The  historic  Henry,  as  Coimt 
of  Anjou,  Maine,  Touraine,  and  Poitou,  Duke  of 
Normandy  and  Aquitaine,  suzerain  of  Brittany, 
king  of  England  and  overlord  of  Wales,  had  re- 
ceived the  homage  of  the  king  of  Scotland  in  1157, 
and  connived  ten  years  later  at  the  departure, 
through  Wales,  of  the  pioneers  in  the  conquest  of 
Ireland.  He,  like  the  legendary  Charlemagne,  was 
the  war-lord  of  many  nations  who  had  crossed 
swords  with  Saracens  and  Celts  and  listened  to 
Norman  translations  of  their  strange  songs.  No 
sovereign,  we  may  add,  except,  perhaps,  his  consort, 
Eleanor,  was  better  equipped  for  turning  poHtical 
adventure  to  political  advantage.  His  earliest  tutor. 
Master  Peter  of  Saintes,  was  '  learned  above  all  his 
contemporaries  in  the  science  of  verse.'  Henry 
himself  'loved  reading  only  less  than  hunting.' 
His  hands,  it  was  said,  '  were  never  empty,'  always 
holding  '  a  bow  or  a  book.'  He  spoke  French  and 
Latin  well,  and  knew  something  of  every  tongue  from 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE         21 

the  Bay  of  Biscay  to  the  Jordan.  This  great  lover  of 
learning  and  adventure  was,  for  a  time,  '  the  virtual 
arbiter  of  Western  Europe  '  {Dictionary  of  National 
Biography),  The  lives  of  Eleanor  and  Henry  were 
potent  factors  in  the  renewal  of  the  influences  that 
preceded  the  advent  of  Romance. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  earliest  and  most  re- 
nowned among  the  poems  that  mark  its  develop- 
ment. We  shall  find  that,  like  the  '  Song  of  Roland,' 
most  of  them  derive  from  a  short,  unromantic 
original  in  Latin  ;  that  all  were  written  in  northern 
French,  and  many  of  them  in  England,  in  the 
second  half  of  the  twelfth  century,  and  that  all 
elaborate  themes  made  vivid  by  the  contact  of 
northern  armies  with  Celts  and  Saracens. 

The  Romance  of  Alexander 

The  '  dry  source '  of  the  Romance  of  Alexander 
is  a  Latin  abridgment  (eighth  century)  of  an  earlier 
Latin  translation  (fourth  century)  from  a  Greek 
forgery  (second  century).  It  produces  no  effect 
for  centuries.  Only  after  the  First  Crusade  had 
renewed  contact  with  the  East,  is  it  translated  into 
a  French  dialect  and  transfigured.  The  '  Milites  ' 
become  '  chevaliers,'  and  Alexander  a  king  sur- 
rounded by  his  barons.  Of  this  version  little 
remains.  But  after  the  Second  Crusade,  in  which 
Eleanor  took  part,  and  her  marriage  with  Henry, 
the  poets  of  their  continental  dominions  begin  the 
portentous  expansion  of  the  tale  and  embroider  it 
with  oriental  marvels.  We  get  the  '  Fountain  of 
Youth,'  '  Gog  and  Magog,'  and  the  oracular 

' .  .  .  Trees  of  the  Sun  and  Moon,  that  speak 
And  told  King  Alexander  of  his  death.'  ^ 

^  Brome's  Antipodes,  in  Lamb's  Specimens. 


22         THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN 

'  "  Signor,"  fait  Alixandre,  "  je  vus  voel  demander, 
Se  des  merveilles  d'Inde  me  saves  rien  conter." 
Oil  li  ont  respondu  :   "  Se  tu  vius  escouter 
Ja  te  dirons  merveilles,  s'es  poras  esprover. 
La  sus  en  ces  desers  pues  ii  Arbres  trover 
Qui  c  pies  ont  de  haut,  et  de  grossor  sunt  per. 
Li  Solaus  et  La  Lune  les  ont  fait  si  serer 
Que  sevent  tous  languages  et  entendre  et  parler."  '  ^ 

In  a  thirteenth-century  version,  we  witness  the  first 
appearance  of  '  The  Nine  Worthies ' — Joshua, 
David,  and  Maccabseus,  for  the  Jews ;  Hector, 
Alexander,  and  Caesar,  for  the  Heathen  ;  Arthur, 
Charlemagne,  and  Godfrey  of  Bologne,  for  the 
Christians.  They  made  their  last  bow  to  the  public, 
so  far  as  I  know,  in  Shakespeare's  Lovers  Labour  ^s 
Lost.  Meanwhile  they  bulk  largely  in  literature, 
and  were  painted  by  Perugino.  A  hundred  years 
before  the  antics  of  Holophemes,  Caxton,  in  the 
beautiful  Preface  to  his  Life  of  Godefrey  of  Boloyne, 
beseeched  Almighty  God  that  Edward  the  Fourth  of 
England  might  deserve  the  tenth  place  by  launching 
yet  another  Crusade,  but  in  vain,  for  it  never  set  sail. 
To  these  fabulous  expansions  the  French  Alexandrine 
owes  its  name,  and,  until  Plutarch  was  translated 
at  the  Renaissance,  they  moulded  the  popular  con- 
ception of  Alexander  the  Great. 


The  Romance  of  Troy 

The  '  dry  source '  of  the  Romance  of  Troy  is 
once  more  a  prosaic  Latin  abridgment  of  Greek 
forgeries,  impudently  fathered  on  a  supposititious 
defender  of  Troy,  Dares  Phrygian,  and  a  non- 
existent besieger,  Dictys  Cretensis.     It  produces  no 

^  Chanson  d' Alixandre,  ed.  1861,  Dinan,  p.  357 ;  Yule's  Marco  Polo, 
i.  122. 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE         23 

effect  till,  in  1160,  one  of  Eleanor's  poets,  Benedict 
of  Sainte  More,  dedicates  to  her  his  expansion, 
which  reaches  the  respectable  length  of  over  thirty 
thousand  Hnes.  He  asserts  the  unimpeachable 
testimony  of  Dares  and  Dictys  at  Homer's  ex- 
pense : — 

*  Ce  que  dist  Daires  et  Ditis 
I  avons  si  retrait  et  mis.' 

And  away  goes  the  development  of  Romance,  till 
the  love  of  Troilus  and  Briseida,  which  Benedict 
invented,  after  figuring  in  Boccaccio,  supplies  the 
theme  of  Chaucer's  great  romantic  poem,  and  of 
Shakespeare's  play.  In  the  course  of  the  transition 
Homer's  Briseis  becomes  Shakespeare's  Cressida. 

'  The  skilful  painting  made  for  Priam's  Troy,' 

which  Shakespeare  weaves  into  Lucrece  (11.  1366- 
1559),  and  the  speech  required  by  Hamlet  from  the 
players,  and  Lorenzo's  ecstasy  {Merchant  of  Venice, 
V.  1), 

*  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  Troyan  walls. 
And  sigh'd  his  soul  toward  the  Grecian  tents, 
Where  Cressid  lay  that  night,' — 

are  derived  from  Benedict's  expansion  no  less  than 
from  Virgil,  and  not  from  Homer.  The  Romance 
of  Troy  left  a  deep  impression  in  European  hterature, 
largely  because  of  what  a  French  scholar  has  called 
'  the  monomania  for  Trojan  descent.'  Shortly 
after  its  appearance,  no  one  in  France  or  Great 
Britain,  with  pretensions  to  birth,  cared  to  trace 
his  pedigree  from  any  ancestor  less  remote  than 
^neas.     So,   in  close  succession   to  the  Romance 


24         THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN 

of  Troy,  we  get  a  romantic  ^neid  {Roman  d'Enee), 
attributed  by  Gaston  Paris  to  the  same  author,  and 
by  others  to  Marie  de  France,  a  poetess,  who  also 
wrote  in  England  under  the  auspices  of  Henry  and 
Eleanor.  In  it  the  lordship  of  the  world  is  pro- 
mised to  the  heirs  of  Rome  and  descendants  of 
^neas,  who  are  none  other  than  the  nations  over 
whom  Henry  held  sway — 

'  Rome  fut  grant  et  bien  enclose 
A  mervelle  fu  puis  grant  cose 
Trestot  le  munt  ot  en  baillie  world 

Li  oir  en  orent  signorie  heirs 

Qui  d' Eneas  descentu  sunt 
Signer  furent  par  tot  le  munt.' 


The  Romance  of  Thebes 

About  the  same  time,  and,  as  some  hold,  again 
from  the  prolific  pen  of  Benedict,  we  get  the  Romance 
of  Thebes.  The  '  dry  source  '  is  a  Latin  abridgment 
of  Statins.  In  the  expansion  we  read — of  the 
daughters  of  Adrastus — that  their  laughter  and  kisses 
outweighed  the  worth  of  London  and  Poitiers,  the 
capitals  of  the  realms  of  Henry  and  Eleanor, 

'  Mieuz  vaut  lor  ris  et  lor  baisiers 
Que  ne  fait  Londres  ne  Peltiers.' 

The  Castle  of  Montflor  is  besieged  by  a  thousand 
knights,  and  Saracen  Almoravides  (Almoraives)  from 
the  Crusades  take  part  in  an  ambush  of  Hippomedon. 
The  Romance  of  Thebes  furnished  titles  to  romantic 
versions  of  Byzantine  stories  which  the  Crusaders 
brought  back  from  the  East.  Parthenopeus,  one 
of  the  seven  against  Thebes,  becomes  Partonopex 
of  Blois  in  a  fairy  tale  of  singular  beauty,  that 
recalls  the  story  of  Cupid  and  Psyche,  but  with 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE         25 

the  parts  reversed,  for  it  is  the  knight  who  is  for- 
bidden to  look  at  the  lady. 

I  am  no  more  concerned,  than  I  am  quahfied, 
to  obtrude  an  opinion  when  scholars  dispute  the 
attribution  of  the  '  Thebes  '  to  the  author  of  the 
'  Troy,'  or  when  they  differ  on  points  of  priority, 
interesting  in  themselves,  but  immaterial  to  this 
argument.  It  suffices  that,  but  for  the  Crusades, 
the  three  romances — of  Alexander,  of  Troy,  and 
of  Thebes — would  not  have  been  written  to  compete 
in  popular  favour  with  the  romances  of  Charle- 
magne. They  are  what  they  are,  because  of  events 
among  which  the  most  t3rpical,  and  probably  the 
most  important,  is  that  Eleanor  played  the  part — 
it  may  be  in  more  senses  than  one — of  a  Damozel 
Errant  in  the  East.  They  produced  the  develop- 
ment of  Romance  because  others,  but  Eleanor  above 
all,  attracted  troubadours,  the  masters  of  rhyme, 
and  trouveres,  the  masters  of  narrative,  to  display 
these  oriental  wares  in  French,  the  Royal  language 
of  England,  and  common  tongue  of  every  Court  in 
Western  Europe.  Amid  a  maze  of  dates  we  can  put 
our  finger  on  the  year  1147,  in  which  Eleanor  set 
out  for  Palestine,  and  say,  with  confidence,  that  here 
is  a  renewal  of  Eastern  influence  :  and,  I  would  add, 
thanks  to  troubadours,  the  triumph  of  rhyme ; 
thanks  to  trouveres,  the  art  of  telling  a  story. 

The  Arthurian  Romances 

But  if  we  do  put  our  finger  on  that  year,  we 
shall  find  that  we  have  also  covered  the  source 
from  which  a  renewal  of  Western  influence  inun- 
dated all  Europe  with  the  legends  of  Arthur  and 
his  knights  ;    incidentally  submerging  the  fame  of 


26         THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN 

Charlemagne  and  the  twelve  peers.  In  the  same 
year,  1147,  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  dedicated  the 
Historia  Regum  Britannice  to  Robert,  Earl  of 
Gloucester,  the  uncle  of  Henry  of  Anjou,  who 
directed  the  first  steps  of  his  nephew's  dazzUng 
career.  It  is  a  short  book  written  in  Latin  by 
a  Welshman.  But  it  is  the  '  dry  source  '  of  many 
a  river  of  song.  Arthur  and  Guunhumara,  or 
Guenever,  are  here  introduced  for  the  first  time 
into  literature  that  remains.  Let  no  one  suppose, 
for  a  moment,  that  Geoffrey  invented  the  legends 
which  enchanted  Europe  for  so  long,  and  have  now 
renewed  their  spell  through  the  art  of  Tennyson 
and  Swinburne  and  Wagner.  He  found  them : 
but  whether  in  Wales,  or  in  the  '  very  old  book ' 
— lihrum  vetustissimum — ^brought,  so  he  says,  out 
of  Brittany  by  Walter,  Archdeacon  of  Oxford,  is 
quite  beside  the  mark.  What  Geoffrey  did  was  to 
capture  the  world  of  letters.  His  prosaic  handling 
of  Celtic  mythology  in  a  learned  tongue  imposed 
on  the  clerks  of  Europe.  They  received  it  for  his- 
tory, and  were  amazed  at  the  close  fulfilment  of 
Merlin's  prophesies  down  to  the  very  year  in  which 
Geoffrey  began  to  write  (1135).  We  need  not 
intervene  when  scholars,  inspired  by  local  patriotism, 
dispute  the  racial  extraction  of  this  or  that  matter 
involved  ;  nor  attempt  to  decide  whether  the  Chris- 
tian graal  was  a  Pagan  caldron,  or  even,  as  some  have 
it,  a  stone.  It  is  sufficient  to  discover  what  happened 
in  literature.  For  until  these  legends  won  their 
way  into  literature  they  could  not  produce  a  romantic 
effect,  and  may,  for  all  we  can  tell,  have  been 
destitute  of  any  tinge  of  romance. 

Geoffrey's   book   was   forthwith   translated   into 
French    poems    written    by    Anglo-Normans,    and, 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE         27 

apart  from  its  contents,  gave  a  general  impulse  to 
the  production  of  verse  spun  from  the  legends  of 
Brittany  and  Wales.  In  1150  Marie  de  France, 
who  lived  in  England,  begins  to  write  her  fifteen 
lays.  About  the  same  year  we  get  the  first  story 
of  Tristan  and  Yseut  from  Beroul,  who  wrote  it  in 
England.  Unless  we  realise  that  the  author  staged 
his  legend  in  the  England  of  his  day,  without  a 
care  for  anachronisms,  we  shall  be  surprised  to  find 
the  cathedral  cities  of  Ely  and  Durham  in  the 
kingdom  of  Cornwall : 

'  N'a  chevalier  en  son  roiaume 
Ne  d'Eli  d'antresqu'  en  Dureaume  '  (1.  2199). 

In  1155  Wace,  an  Anglo-Norman  writing  in 
England,  expands  Geoffrey's  History  into  a  long 
French  poem.  He  introduces  the  '  Round  Table  ' 
into  literature.  '  Arthur,'  he  says  (1.  998),  '  made 
the  round  table,  of  which  Bretons  tell  many  fabulous 
stories  ;  the  vassals  sat  down  to  it  all  chivalrously 
and  all  equal  in  degree  '  : 

'  Fist  Artus  la  Roonde  Table 
Dont  Breton  dient  mainte  fable  : 
Hoc  seoient  li  vassal 
Tot  chievalment  et  tot  ingal.^  equal. 

In  another  passage  (1.  10,  560)  the  three  Arch- 
bishops of  London,  York,  and  Carleon  dine  at  the 
same  legendary  board  ;  for  to  Wace  it  is  a  British 
institution.  Whether  it  hails,  as  a  legend,  from 
Brittany,  from  Wales,  or  from  Arthur's  Seat  by 
Edinburgh,  it  certainly  arrives  in  literature  under  the 
auspices  of  Henry.  Wace  writes  of  him,  '  I  find  no 
more  benefactors  except  the  king,  Henry  the  Second, 
who  has  given  me  a  canonry  and  many  other  gifts. 
May  God  repay  him.'     Eventually  it  was  exhibited 


28         THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN 

as  a  piece  of  furniture  in  Winchester,  where  Henry 
had  been  crowned  in  1154.  At  Winchester,  as  at 
Glastonbury,  Henry's  magnetic  power  polarised  the 
legends  of  his  W^estern  dominions,  and  attracted 
French  artists  to  sing  them  from  all  the  realms 
bracketed  together  by  his  political  ambition. 
Wace's  poem,  for  the  first  time,  weaves  the  story 
of  Tristan  into  the  story  of  Arthur,  and  is  named, 
by  a  similar  process,  from  Brutus,  the  imaginary 
descendant  of  ^Eneas,  the  ancestor  of  all  the  French 
and  the  British  nations.  This  romantic  descent  was 
'  the  kind  of  thing  that  everybody  could  enjoy,'  and 
most  people  did  up  to  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  It  inspired  Ronsard's  Franciade,  I  once 
found  it  set  out  in  a  nobleman's  commonplace 
book  together  with  other  practical  hints,  such  as 
the  right  dishes  for  a  banquet  and  the  proper  in- 
struments for  concerted  music.  So  late  as  1605, 
Verstegan  devotes  a  stout  volume  to  destroying 
the  myth  under  the  imposing  title,  A  Restitution  of 
Decayed  Intelligence  in  Antiquities, 

In  1170  we  get  the  second  song  of  Tristan  from 
Thomas,  another  Anglo-Norman.  In  the  same  year 
Christian  of  Troyes  introduces,  for  the  first  time, 
the  love  of  Lancelot  and  Guenever.  He  was  not 
an  Anglo-Norman,  but  the  story  was  supplied  to 
him  by  Eleanor's  eldest  daughter.  In  1175  Chris- 
tian introduces  Perceval  and  the  Graal  from  a  book 
lent  by  the  Count  of  Flanders,  who  had  spent  some 
months  (1172)  in  England.  After  that,  for  fifty 
years  Arthur  and  Guenever  and  Lancelot,  Tristan 
and  Yseut,  the  Round  Table  and  the  Holy  Graal, 
are  translated  into  every  Western  tongue,  and  inter- 
laced with  every  other  story  that  seemed  true.  A 
continuous  legend  of  Western  conquerors  was  woven 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE         29 

together,  reaching  right  down  from  the  Argonauts 
who  sought  the  Golden  Fleece,  through  the  de- 
fenders of  Troy,  and  the  founders  of  Rome,  to  the 
champions  who  had  recovered  Jerusalem.  Such 
Romances  of  chivalry  stood  side  by  side  with  the 
'  new '  classics  on  the  shelves  of  Mary  Stuart's 
library.  Then  they  disappear  into  dusty  cup- 
boards, to  be  released  again  after  the  Romantic 
Revival. 

Just  as  the  advent  of  Romance  sprang  from 
early  contacts  with  Celtic  mythology  and  Saracenic 
marvels,  so  did  the  development  expand  when  those 
contacts  were  renewed  and  multipUed.  Both  found 
their  first  expression  in  French  poems,  written  for 
the  most  part  in  England,  because  the  conquest  of 
England  exalted  that  tongue  into  the  position  held 
by  Latin  through  the  Dark  Ages.  But  Latin  was 
for  the  learned  alone  ;  whereas  French,  for  many 
reasons,  appealed  to  the  nations  of  Europe.  To 
the  Celts  it  was  the  language  of  those  who  had 
defeated  their  Saxon  oppressors  ;  and  to  all  Chris- 
tian people  the  language  of  those  who  had  delivered 
Jerusalem.  It  was  written  by  poets  who  welcomed 
the  legends  which  the  Latins  had  rejected.  Every 
nation  saw  its  folk-lore  embellished  by  consummate 
artists,  and  their  eponymous  heroes  glorified  with 
pedigrees  from  the  warriors  who  had  redressed  the 
fall  of  Troy  by  erecting  the  walls  of  Rome.  In 
the  French  romances  of  the  twelfth  century  Europe 
'  found  herself.' 

Two  Objections 

Here  let  me  anticipate  some  of  the  criticism 
which  I  am  conscious  of  provoking.  It  may  be 
said  that  I  have  ignored  the  Teutonic  Romances. 


30         THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN 

In  reply,  I  would  submit  that  Teutonic  Romance 
branched  off  when  the  empire  of  Charlemagne  was 
divided  between  his  successors,  only  to  return  into 
the  main  channel  of  European  literature  after  the 
Romantic  Revival. 

The  Sagas  and  the  Nibelungenlied,  and  the 
early  English  Beowulf,  were  not  European  romances 
before  the  last  century.  Sigfried,  originally  a 
Frankish  hero,  who  picked  up  Burgundian  attri- 
butes and  echoes  of  conflicts  with  the  Huns,  counts 
for  nothing  in  the  Middle  Ages  by  comparison  with 
Roland  or  Arthur.  The  dwarf  Alberich  creeps 
through  a  French  romance,  Huon  of  Bordeau,  to 
emerge  as  Oberon  in  Shakespeare's  Midsummer 
Nighfs  Dream.  But  that  may  have  been  because 
of  his  diminutive  size.  There  was  no  room  for 
Teutonic  gods  and  giants  in  a  literature  already 
crowded  with  colossal  characters.  Yet  the  in- 
fluence of  the  North  is  not  absent  from  European 
romances.  On  the  contrary,  since  it  was  the  Nor- 
mans who  launched  them,  the  uncouth  strength 
of  the  North  accounts  for  as  much  in  Romance  as 
the  glamour  of  the  West,  to  the  mirage  of  the  East. 
Perhaps  it  accounts  for  more  than  either,  and  ex- 
plains why  aU  three  were  condemned  together  as 
'  Gothic  '  during  the  classical  interregnum  between 
the  two  Romantic  periods. 

It  may  be  said  that  I  have  exaggerated  the 
importance  of  Eleanor's  marriage  with  Henry  of 
Anjou.  On  that  issue  I  '  stick  to  my  guns.'  They 
married  (1152)  five  years  after  St.  Bernard  launched 
the  Second  Crusade  from  Vezelay,  at  the  moment 
when  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  published  the  History 
of  the  Kings  of  Britain.  Their  marriage  united  the 
influences  attracted  by  those  two  events  from  the 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE         31 

East  and  West.  It  is  when  they  married,  and  where 
they  married,  that  most  of  the  Springs  of  Romance 
commingle  in  the  hterature  of  Europe.  Nor  were 
the  results  of  that  commingling  accidental.  They 
were  produced  by  design  ;  and  the  designers  were 
largely  the  poets  of  Henry's  and  Eleanor's  cosmo- 
poUtan  court.  Mythological  legends  from  the  West, 
and  miraculous  stories  from  the  East,  were  guided 
into  one  channel  by  the  science  of  troubadours — 
the  gay  science  of  courteous  love — and  by  the  sterner 
skill  of  northern  trouveres.  The  design  was  literary ; 
but  it  was  also  political.  Henry,  an  upstart  and 
a  stranger  to  his  Normans,  Bretons,  and  Poitevins, 
Gascons,  Saxons,  and  Welshmen,  found  it  convenient 
to  exploit  the  imaginary  achievements  of  Arthurian 
knights.  None  could  be  jealous  of  such  shadows, 
and,  the  less,  since  all  were  assured  a  common 
descent  from  the  defenders  of  Troy,  and  shown  a 
common  foe  in  the  assailants  of  Jerusalem.  Henry 
took  the  cross  for  the  Third  Crusade  (1187)  as  a 
desperate  expedient  to  save  his  work  of  unification 
on  the  eve  of  its  collapse.  His  work,  akin  as  it  is 
to  the  work  of  contemporary  sovereigns,  affords 
the  most  salient  example  of  a  vast  attempt  at 
Tinification  prosecuted  throughout  the  politics  and 
literature  of  Europe  ;  and  that  effort  of  comprehen- 
sion reveals,  so  I  beUeve,  the  reason  why  Romance 
captured  the  imagination  of  Europe  in  the  middle 
of  the  twelfth  century. 

What  is  Romance  ? 

I  have  done  what  I  could  to  discover  When  and 
Where  and  Why  Romance  came  into  European 
literature.     But  what  is  Romance  ?     Are  we  any 


32         THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN 

nearer  a  definition  ?  Here  is  a  power  which  pro- 
duced great  changes  in  Europe  from  1100  to  1550, 
and  reproduced  them  from  1800  until  now.  Through 
all  those  centuries  there  must  have  been  something 
in  the  mind  of  Europe  which  needed  Romance  and 
sustained  it.  The  imromantic  interval  shrinks  to 
the  relative  proportions  of  an  episode  in  our  Western 
civiUsation.  Clearly,  Romance  is  not  a  tangle  of 
absurdities  to  be  dismissed  as  '  rot '  by  the  Cardinal 
of  Este,  or  despised  as  '  Gothic  '  by  the  imitators 
of  classic  models.  '  Imitation  will  after  though  it 
break  her  neck  '  (S.  Daniel,  Defence  of  Rhime,  1603). 
But  Romance  is  a  tissue.  In  the  twelfth  century, 
when  it  took  hold  of  the  Middle  Ages,  Romance 
displays  a  deliberate  weaving  together  of  many- 
coloured  strands.  Celtic  glamour,  the  uncouth 
strength  of  the  North,  and  marvels  from  the  fabulous 
East,  are  interlaced  in  one  woof  which  unfolds  a 
continuous  story  of  Europe,  from  the  Argonauts' 
quest  of  the  Golden  Fleece,  by  way  of  the  fall  of 
Troy,  and  the  foundation  of  Rome,  to  the  conquest 
of  Jerusalem  by  Crusaders.  An  examination  of 
these  strands  reveals  that  the  earliest  and  most  ahen 
are  largely  mythological.  They  consist  of  many 
attempts  made  by  many  races,  in  different  ages  and 
distant  countries,  to  express  in  symbols  their  guesses 
at  the  origin  and  destiny,  the  hopes  and  fears,  of 
man. 

May  we,  then,  infer  that  Romance  is  compara- 
tive mythology  ?  In  a  sense  that  is  true.  Its 
elements  are  largely  mythological.  But  that  view 
will  not  yield  a  definition  of  Romance.  If  it  did, 
all  mythologies  would  be  obviously  romantic.  But 
are  they  ?  There  is  nothing  romantic  in  a  savage's 
belief  that  the  Creator  of  the  World  is  a  great  hare, 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE         33 

or  in  a  Greek  legend  that  men  and  women  sprang 
from  stones  thrown  behind  them  by  DeucaUon  and 
Pyrrha.  These  explanations  are  not  romantic  so 
long  as  they  satisfy  the  cm*iosity  of  their  authors. 
They  only  begin  to  be  romantic — either  when  they 
cease  to  offer  a  tolerable  answer  to  the  riddle  of 
the  universe  ;  or,  in  a  greater  degree,  when  they 
confront  the  mind  of  another  civihsation  which  has 
explained  the  universe  by  a  wholly  different  im- 
aginative process.  M3i}hologies  begin  to  be  romantic 
when  they  become  strange  by  reason  of  their  antiquity 
or  alien  character.  Breton  and  Welsh  legends  were 
not  romantic  to  the  Celts,  when  they  conceived 
them.  Nor  were  the  sagas  romantic  to  the  Ice- 
landers. On  the  contrary,  their  rugged  strength 
reproduced  a  rugged  reality.  Nor  is  magic  romantic 
in  the  East ;  it  is  familiar  there.  These  strands 
in  the  fabric  of  romance  became  romantic  when 
they  struck  more  modem,  and  wholly  alien,  modes 
of  thought  by  their  strangeness.  Even  this  impact 
of  the  strange  in  mjrthology  will  not  wholly  accotint 
for  the  nature  of  romance.  If  it  did,  Latin  litera- 
ture would  have  been  romantic.  The  Romans,  no 
less  than  the  Normans,  were  confronted  by  Celts 
and  Teutons  and  the  fabulous  East,  yet  the  impact 
of  outlandish  legends  produced  but  Httle  romance  in 
Latin  literature.  Our  search  for  the  nature  of 
Romance  must  be  directed  not  only  to  the  strange 
in  mythology,  but,  more  closely,  to  the  reaction 
produced  in  the  minds  that  were  startled  by  that 
strangeness.  If  we  find  that  the  attitude  towards 
strange  mythologies  of  periods  called  Classic  differs 
profoundly  from  the  attitude  of  periods  called 
Romantic,  we  may  discover  a  clue  to  the  nature 
of  Romance  in  the  contrast  so  revealed.     And  that 

c 


34         THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN 

is  what  we  do  find.  Classic  periods  repudiated 
strange  m3rthologies  and  Romantic  periods  welcomed 
them.  Both  aimed  at  imity  in  their  order  of 
thought  and,  so  far  as  the  Romans  were  concerned, 
in  their  order  of  the  world's  government.  But  the 
Classic  world  aimed  at  unity  by  exclusion,  and  the 
Middle  Ages  at  unity  by  comprehension. 

The  Greeks  stood  for  understanding  the  universe 
by  reducing  it  to  the  terms  of  their  lofty  inteUi- 
gence,  expressed  in  terms  of  their  all  but  perfect 
language.  The  Romans  stood  for  governing  the 
world  by  reducing  it  to  one  august  state  with  one 
Imperial  religion.  To  the  Greeks  the  Barbarian 
was  unintelligible  ;  to  the  Romans,  ungovernable. 
So  both  repelled  him,  and  all  his  strange  imagina- 
tions, as  tending  to  disturb  the  pursuit  of  lucidity 
and  order.  It  is  not  the  goal  of  unity,  but  the 
method  chosen  for  reaching  that  goal,  which  stamped 
its  exclusive  character  on  the  Classic  world,  and 
sterilised  classic  literature  to  romance,  save  for  some 
faint  touches  in  the  earliest  and  latest  poems  that 
dealt  with  wandering,  and  sometimes  paused  to 
wonder.  Even  in  their  own  mythology  the  Greeks 
got  rid  of  their  Titans  at  the  beginning  of  the  world  ; 
whereas  the  uncouth  North  kept  its  giants  at  end- 
less war  against  its  gods  ;  and  the  Persians  retained 
Ahriman  in  perpetual  conflict  with  Ormuzd;  and 
the  Celts  were  uncertain  whether  their  Arthur  would 
ever  return  from  the  twilight  of  Avalon. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  we  turn  to  the  first  Romantic 
period,  we  find  the  most  striking  characteristic  of 
the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  in  a  huge 
attempt  at  imity,  throughout  pohtics  and  htera- 
ture,  prosecuted  by  an  all  but  universal  compre- 
hension.    In   that   age   political    actors   strove   to 


THE  LITERATIIRE  OP  EUROPE         35 

weld  Europe  into  one,  assisted  by  literary  authors 
who  sought  to  correlate  with  that  policy  every 
known  record  of  the  Drama  of  Mankind.  Nothing 
came  amiss  to  them.  The  political  actors  re- 
pudiated no  race,  however  foreign,  and  the  literary 
authors,  no  legend  however  ancient  or  far-fetched. 
Rather  did  they  embrace  the  strange,  seeming  to 
recognise  in  it  something  lacking  from  their  own 
conventions,  but  akin  to  a  common  humanity. 
They  aimed  at  unity  by  comprehension,  and  that 
method,  at  least  in  the  domain  of  literature,  was 
resumed  after  the  Romantic  Revival.  Walter  Scott 
and  Victor  Hugo,  no  less  than  Benedict  of  Sainte- 
More  and  Christian  of  Troyes,  were  eager  to  welcome 
the  strange  from  the  East,  the  West,  or  the  North. 
We  may  say  of  each, 

'  nexuque  pio  longinqua  revinxit.' 

I  am  not  concerned  to  exalt  the  Romantic  above 
the  Classic  method  in  Literature.  Both  have  their 
several  glories,  and  pecuHar  seeds  of  decay.  When 
Romantic  interlacing  of  many  themes  degenerates 
into  a  love  of  intricacy  for  its  own  sake,  Romance 
becomes  trivial,  and  tedious.  It  is  then  replaced 
by  classic  admiration  for  the  noblest  models.  But 
when  that  degenerates  into  a  love  of  imitation  for 
its  own  sake,  the  classic  method  becomes  slavish, 
and  tedious  in  its  turn.  Then  we  note  a  Romantic 
Revival.  I  am  solely  concerned  to  discover  a 
distinction  between  periods  called  Classic,  and 
periods  called  Romantic,  which  may  yield  a  clue 
to  the  mystery  of  Romance.  Such  a  distinction  is 
I  believe,  disclosed  in  the  diversity  of  their  atti- 
tudes towards  the  strange  and,  specially,  towards 
the  strange  in  mythology.     It  is  all  but  impossible 


36         tflE  SPRINGS  Ol'  ROMANCE  IN 

to  analyse  a  reaction  of  the  mind.  We  cannot  put 
emotions  in  a  crucible.  Yet,  guided  by  this  pro- 
found distinction,  we  may,  perhaps,  say  that 
Romance  results  from  welcoming  the  strange,  and 
specially  from  welcoming  the  symbols,  perforce 
fantastic,  in  which  foreign  lands  and  far-away  ages 
have  sought  to  express  their  '  intimations  of  im- 
mortahty '  and  doubtful  wonder  at  '  that  perpetual 
revolution  which  we  see  to  be  in  all  things  that 
never  remain  the  same.' 


Romantic  Scenery 

We  get  a  tentative  definition,  if  we  say  that 
Romance  is  not  simply  the  strange,  but  a  result  of 
welcoming  the  strange,  instead  of  excluding  it. 
Let  us  test  that  definition  by  seeing  if  it  applies  to 
things  generally  called  romantic.  Take  a  hackneyed 
illustration — mountain  scenery.  Since  the  Revival 
of  Romance,  and  the  novels  of  Walter  Scott,  most 
people  agree  that  mountain  scenery  is  romantic. 
The  definition  applies  to  that  view,  and  goes  some 
way  to  explain  it.  Mountain  scenery  is  not 
romantic,  or  even  strange,  to  the  mountaineer  who 
wrests  a  hard-won  livelihood  from  its  crags  and 
heather.  It  was  strange,  but  not  romantic,  to  the 
cultured  sybarite  of  the  eighteenth  century  who 
describes  it  in  his  journal  as  a  '  horrid  alp.'  It 
is  romantic  to  the  '  heart  city-pent '  of  the  age 
in  which  we  live,  and  only  because  its  strangeness 
is  welcome. 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE         37 

Allegory 

'  Ci  est  le  Romant  de  la  Rose 
Ou  I'art  d' Amors  est  tote  enclose.' 

Reverting  to  the  earlier  Romantic  period,  this 
definition  will,  I  believe,  throw  a  light  on  one  of  its 
features  ;  the  labjnpinthine  development  of  Allegory. 
Assuming  that  an  author  seeks  a  welcome  for  some- 
thing novel  and  strange,  he  must  express  the  new 
matter  by  images  that  are  obvious  to  his  audience  ; 
otherwise  it  remains  unintelligible,  and  imwelcome. 
In  order  to  estabhsh  the  coherence  of  his  novelties 
with  the  life  to  which  all  are  accustomed,  he  per- 
sonifies  his    sentiments   in   characters  with  whom 
all   are   familiar ;     and   that   is   allegory.     Take   a 
capital  example,  the  Romance  of  the  Rose,  which 
shaped   and   coloured   European   hterature   in   the 
thirteenth  century,  and  for  long  afterwards.     The 
author  of  the  first  part  (Guillaume  de  Lorris,  1237) 
turns  the  new  sentiments  of  '  courteous  love '  into 
the  usual  inhabitants  of    a   mediaeval  castle,  and 
illustrates   the   course    of   love    '  which   never   did 
run  smooth '  by  the  ups  and  downs  to  which  Ufe 
in  a  fortress  was  exposed.     For  that  was  the  kind 
of    thing    which    any    '  fellow    could    understajid.' 
The   author   of  the   first  part   sought   a   welcome 
for  a  new  kind  of  love,  differing,  in  its  delic£^,cy, 
from  the  romping  of  '  Floraha '  and  May  Games, 
sung  in  rustic  ditties  ;    and,  in  its  mysticism,  from 
the    stark    passion    depicted    in    classic    literature. 
The   author  of  the   second  part   (Jean  de   Meun, 
1277)   sought  a  welcome  for  a  new  kind  of  fiin, 
differing,   in  its  whimsical  satire,  from  the  blunt 
predicaments  of  Plautus,  and  the  banter  of  Horace. 
The    new    love,    and    the    new    fun,    were    made 


38         THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN 

familiar  by  allegory  to  secure  a  welcome  for  their 
strangeness. 

Fables 

WiU  a  welcome  of  the  strange  actjomit  for  another 
feature  in  mediaeval  Romance :  the  revival  of 
Fables  in  which  animals  have  most  of  the  speaking 
parts  ?  I  think  it  will.  If  you  except  the  animals 
of  ^sop,  the  dog  of  Odysseus,  the  charger  of  Alex- 
ander, and  Lesbia's  sparrow,  there  are  not  many 
animals  in  the  classics.  Man  dominates  the  scene. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  an  irruption  of  animals 
into  the  first  Period  of  Romance.  To  secure  a 
welcome  for  these  intruders  the  earUer  romantics 
had  recourse  to  ^Esop — Ysopet  as  they  call  him — 
who  had  brought  them,  long  before,  from  the  East, 
where  animals  have  ever  been  revered.  Marie  de 
France  ushers  them  in  under  the  auspices  of  an 
imaginary  emperor,  called  Romulus,  and  dedicates 
her  Fables  to  William  Longsword,  the  natural  son 
of  Henry  n. 

'  Ci  cummencerai  la  primiere 
Des  Fables  K'Ysopez  escrit.' 

But  the  animals  soon  made  themselves  at  home  by 
the  charm  of  their  own  half-strangeness  to  man. 
We  know  the  names  of  the  horses  of  nearly  aU  the 
heroes  of  Romance.  In  the  thirteenth  century, 
without  any  aid  from  heroes,  Reynard  the  Fox, 
Bruin  the  Bear,  Chanticleer  the  Cock,  '  came  to 
stay,'  till  the  classical  interregnum.  After  the  revival 
of  romance  they  returned ;  so  that,  now,  in  the 
Jungle  of  Kipling  and  the  Farmyard  of  Rostand, 
they  occupy  the  whole  of  the  stage. 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE         39 

Fantastic  Symbols 

It  is  the  note  of  Romance  to  welcome  in  litera- 
ture much  else  beside  man  :  with  dehght  when  that 
is  possible,  and,  when  it  is  not,  with  courage.  In 
Romance  man  disputes  his  place  with  other  Hving 
beings  and  elemental  forces  without  life.  He  re- 
ceives the  impression  of  scenery,  and  guesses  at 
dim  '  dominations  and  powers  '  that  baffle  his  mun- 
dane progress  and  cloud  his  longing  for  eternity. 
All  these  Romance  accepts  for  their  strangeness ; 
and,  I  would  add,  for  their  truth. 

When  their  strangeness  is  exorbitant,  Romance, 
in  order  to  make  their  truth  inteUigible,  resorts  to 
allegory  and  fable,  and  even  to  fantastic  symbols 
that  seem  ludicrous.  We  laugh,  with  Cervantes,  at 
the  giants  and  dragons  and  warlocks  of  Romance. 
It  is  our  human  privilege.  Man  is  divided  by 
laughter  from  all  that  surrounds  him.  When  we 
have  done  laughing,  we  detect  in  these  symbols  an 
attempt — ^frantic  if  you  please — to  explain  reahties 
that  are  coeval  with  man ;  that,  indeed,  preceded 
his  origin  and  may  outlast  his  existence.  Man's 
domination,  even  of  this  earth,  is  more  partial  than 
would  appear  from  the  unromantic  presentment  of 
his  case.  There  are  forces  in  nature,  by  com- 
parison with  whose  gigantic  strength  man's  efforts 
are  puny.  There  are  enemies  to  his  well-being 
that,  like  dragons,  are  not  only  dangerous  but 
loathsome.  There  are  subtleties  in  the  universe 
that,  hke  wizards,  bewilder  and  deride  his  intelli- 
gence. Even  to-day,  enhghtened  as  we  are  by 
popular  science,  we  may  recall,  without  contempt, 
the  wild  allegories  by  which  other  men,  in  other 
ages,  tried  to  explain  the  overpowering,  and  grisly. 


40         THE  SPRINGS  OF  ROMANCE  IN 

and  inscrutable ;  we  may  remember  with  human 
kindness  that  those  who  invented  the  symbols  of 
horror,  invented  also  a  vague  belief  that  horror 
can  be  conquered  by  a  charm  in  the  hand  of  the 
little  child.  ^ 

Universal  Affinity 

The  reaction  of  the  mind,  when  confronted 
with  the  strange,  is,  in  some  sort,  a  recognition 
of  ignored  reahties.  Romance  is  an  act  of  recog- 
nition. When  Shakespeare  attacks  the  reality  of 
Time,  as  if  suggesting  that,  round  Time,  there  is 
Eternity,  in  which  all  things  and  aU  men  are  co- 
existent and  co-eternal,  we  feel  that  a  rare  mind  is 
soaring  through  a  rarer  atmosphere  to  the  extreme 
verge  of  the  comprehensible.  When  Tennyson 
makes  Ulysses  say,  '  I  am  a  part  of  all  that  I  have 
met,'  we  feel  that  this  is  a  dark  saying.  Yet  there 
are  moments  when  it  seems  true  of  each  one  of  us. 
Its  truth  strikes  as  a  forgotten  face  strikes  by  its 
strange  familiarity.  At  such  moments  we  under- 
stand that  darker  utterance,  '  The  Kingdom  of  God 
is  within  you.'  A  sense  of  universal  affinity  comes 
into  literature  when  men  are  no  longer  content 
with  the  mythologies,  or  philosophies,  of  their  own 
time  and  people.  Then  they  turn,  with  a  kindly 
curiosity,  to  other  nations  and  other  ages. 

*  Than  longen  folk  to  goon  on  pilgrimages 
To  feme  halwes  couthe  in  sondry  londes.' 

Romance  revives,  and,  extending  her  welcome  to 
the  strange,  discovers  in  it  something  which  has 
always  been  latent  in  man's  mind,  although  starved 
by  convention.  The  old  northern  mythology,  with 
its  twilight  of  the  gods,  and  ceaseless  battle  against 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  EUROPE         41 

a  doom  of  eternal  cold,  is  not  so  absurd  in  the 
twentieth  century  as  amid  the  certainties  of  two 
hundred  years  ago.  We  are  taught  to  expect  that 
catastrophe  by  popular  science,  the  mythology  of 
our  day.  But  our  day  is  also  the  day  of  the 
Romantic  Revival,  and  in  it  we  imitate,  uncon- 
sciously, the  attitude  adopted  towards  the  strange 
by  our  forefathers  in  the  first  Romantic  epoch.  We 
turn,  as  they  did,  to  all  mankind's  imaginings, 
not  for  comfort,  but  for  human  fellowship,  in  the 
great  Romance  of  Man's  adventure  through  the 
Universe.  We  take  our  part  in  that  quest,  with  a 
brave  astonishment.  In  Romantic  literature  we 
listen  to  the  camp-songs  of  our  comrades,  and 

*  Greet  the  unseen  with  a  cheer.' 


THE  POETRY   OF   THE  PRISON 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON 

There  is  a  great  gulf  fixed  between  1450  and  1550, 
the  last  watch  of  the  Middle  Age  and  the  full  flush 
of  the  Renaissance.  You  pass  it  insensibly,  by  the 
way  of  the  years  ;  but  to  look  backward  after  those 
same  years  is  to  see,  as  beyond  a  bridge  that  has 
crumbled,  the  old  social  life  completely  severed  from 
the  new,  with  its  conditions  all  changed  for  all  classes. 
And  nowhere  is  this  contrast  more  deeply  marked 
than  in  the  lives  of  poets  ;  for  the  change  from 
desultory  invasion  to  world-wide  diplomacy  com- 
muted the  conditions  under  which  in  France  all, 
and  in  England  many  of,  the  writers  we  care  to 
recall,  were  moved  to  produce,  or  did  produce,  their 
work.  During  the  Hundred  Years'  War  every  man 
of  standing  in  both  countries  had  to  play  his  part. 
Of  the  English  in  the  great  expedition  under 
Edward  ni.  '  there  was  not  knight,  squire,  or  man 
of  honour,  from  the  age  of  twenty  to  sixty  years  that 
did  not  go  '  ;  ^  and  the  burden  upon  France  was 
aggravated  by  civil  war  between  the  feudatories  of 
the  Crown.  And  thus  it  came  about  that  Geoffrey 
Chaucer,  entering  the  customary  career  of  an  English 
gentleman,  suffered  its  common  accidents.  He 
joined  Edward's  expedition  in  November,  1359,  and 
was  taken  in  a  skirmish  near  Rheims.^  In  The 
Knighfs  Tale,  therefore,  we  have  the  poetry,  echoed 

1  Johnes'  Froissart,  bk.  i.  c.  206.     See  Rev.  W.  W.  Skeat's  Complete 
Works  of  Geoffrey  Chaucer,  vol.  i.  p.  xviii.  ^  Ibid. 

45 


46  THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON 

later  in  The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  of  one  who  added 
the  sharp  savour  of  personal  suffering  to  his  treat- 
ment of  materials  common  to  an  age  when  every 
house  was  a  fortress  and  every  fortress  a  gaol.  For 
Chaucer's  experience  was  one  general  in  the  Middle 
Age — was  the  lot  of  most  whose  lives  were  more 
precious  than  their  deaths  could  be  :  of  Richard 
Coeur-de-Lion,  troubadour  and  king  ;  of  Enzo  of 
Sardinia,  a  poet-king,  the  son  of  a  poet-emperor,  yet 
a  prisoner  to  the  Bolognese  from  his  twenty-fifth 
year  to  his  death,  a  caitiff  for  three-and-twenty  years ; 
of  James  i.  of  Scotland,  the  sweetest  singer  in 
Chaucer's  choir ;  of  Charles  D' Orleans,  the  father 
of  a  king,  taken  at  Agincourt,  a  stripling  of  twenty- 
five  and  the  first  prince  in  France,  to  be  caged  in 
England  until  he  was  fifty ;  of  Jehan  Regnier,  the 
precursor  of  Villon ;  of  Villon,  the  last  great  singer 
of  the  Middle  Age — in  whose  case  the  doom  was, 
indeed,  for  crime,  yet  for  crime  only  probable  in  a 
society  shattered  by  war  ;  of  Clement  Marot,  the 
sole  star  in  the  night  between  Villon  and  the  Pleiad, 
carried  first  with  his  king  a  prisoner  of  war  to  Spain, 
and  twice  afterwards  imprisoned  at  Paris  for  offences 
against  the  law. 

The  poetry  of  the  Middle  Age  is  so  much  the 
poetry  of  the  prison  that,  even  if  the  poet  escape, 
his  plot  must  still  be  laid  between  four  walls.  The 
Roman  de  la  Rose,  translated  by  Chaucer  and  copied 
by  all,  was  a  chief  and  pattern  poem.  Only  the 
books  of  Homer  have  dictated  the  plan  and  suppHed 
the  poetic  material  for  a  greater  city  of  verse  :  it  is 
a  CoHseum  out  of  whose  ruins  many  cities  have  been 
quarried.  Now  in  the  Romun  de  la  Rose  all  the 
allegory  is  of  incarceration  and  release ;  and  it  is 
an  allegory  which  none  ever  wearied  of  repeating. 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON  47 

Even  as  every  Arabic  poeiii,  on  theology  or  another 
theme,  needs  must  open  with  a  lament  over  the 
wasted  camp  from  which  the  Beloved  has  been 
ravished,  so  the  symbols  of  mediaeval  verse  are  all 
of  castles  and  surprises,  of  captivity  and  escape. 
And  the  perennial  image  of  Arabic  song  became  an 
obvious  convention  ;  not  so  the  mediaeval  allegory. 
The  tedium  of  durance,  the  hope  of  release,  the  pros- 
pect of  ransom,  the  accident  of  communication 
with  the  world  without,  were  too  near  to  life  for 
that.  These  had  been  the  personal  note  of  trou- 
veres  and  troubadours  ;  and,  later,  they  were  the 
personal  note  of  Charles  D' Orleans  and  Villon  and 
many  another.  I  have  named  Jehan  Regnier. 
Villon  borrowed  from  him  freely ;  and,  indeed,  he 
is  a  poet  whose  realism  and  pathos  have  somehow 
been  overlooked.  But,  for  the  moment,  I  shall  con- 
sider only  the  master-theme  of  his  songs,  which  are 
to  be  read  in  a  little  volume,  intituled  Les  Fortunes 
et  Adver sites  defeu  nolle  homme  Jehan  Regnier,^  He 
was  a  Burgundian,  and  being  taken  by  the  King's 
party  in  1431,  he  was  imprisoned  at  Beauvais. 
Again  and  yet  again  in  the  current  forms  of  baUade, 
rondel,  lay,  he  sets  forth  the  actual  sorrows  of  the 
practical  captive  :  his  weariness,  his  '  annoy  '  and 
disgust ;  his  long  parting  from  his  wife  ;  the  silence 
of  his  friends,  the  hopes  that  depart  him  where  he 
lies,  the  messenger  who  returns  no  more.  To  turn 
his  pages  is  stiU  to  read  '  un  autre  balade  que  ledit 
prisonnier  fit '  ;  to  find  him  imploring  his  wife  never 
to  forget,  even  as  he  will  never  forget : — 

'  My  princess  of  the  Heart  I  beg  of  thee 
That  thou  nor  I  forget  not  thee  nor  me, 


^  R6impression   textuelle   de   redition  originale,  par   Paul   Lacroix ; 
Geneve,  1867.     Only  three  copies  of  the  said  original  are  known. 


48  THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON 

But  let  us  ever  hearken  to  our  love, 
And  pray  to  God  and  to  the  maid  Mary 
That  He  will  grant  us  patience  from  above. 

Ma  princesse  du  Cueur  je  vous  suppUe 

Que  vous  ne  moy  lung  lautre  si  noublye 

Mais  noz  amours  tenons  en  audience 

Et  prions  Dieu  et  la  Vierge  Marie  ♦ 

Que  il  nous  doint  a  tous  deux  pacience ' — 

to  hear  him  thank  her  for  her  loyalty: — 

'  Ma  douce  maitresse 
Qui  m'a  donne  de  sa  largesse 
Lefleur  de  ne  nCovhliez  mie.^ 

And  she  was  loyal  indeed ;  for  at  the  end  of  two 
years,  and  after  paying  two  thousand  crowns,  she 
won  leave  to  play  the  hostage  with  her  son,  the 
while  her  husband  travelled  to  raise  the  rest  of  his 
ransom.  To  pass  the  long  days  and  nights  of  those 
two  years,  he  wrote  ballades  for  his  fellow-prisoners, 
for  his  gaolers  even.  I  have  said  that  he  was  a 
Burgundian,  so  that,  naturally,  among  the  former 
were  certain  Englishmen,  allies  of  his  master  the 
duke.     For  one  of  these  he  made  a  ballade  : — 

'  rran9ois  parler  il  ne  sgavoit 
A  peine  ne  mot  ne  demy 
En  anglois  tous  jour  il  disoit 
God  and  o  ul  lady  helpemy  I ' 

Thus  to  us  out  of  the  mediaeval  twilight,  rendered 
as  only  a  Frenchman  can  render  English,  comes 
the  cry  of  a  countryman  who  knew  no  French. 
'  Grod  and  our  Lady  help-e  me '  :  the  grotesque 
pathos  of  it !  Regnier  could  not  sleep  for  the 
man's  complaining :  he  moaned  on  through  the 
night  over  his  wounded  hands  and  feet — '  my 
fiet  and  my  handez' — into  which  the  shackles  had 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON         49 

eaten.     He   wailed   of    it    ever,    and   Regnier   lay 

awake,  listening : — 

'  Oncques  je  ne  dormy 
Mais  son  refraia  toujours  estoit 
God  and  o  ul  lady  helpemy  I ' 

It  is  the  unchanging  burden  of  his  lament ;  so 
Regnier,  whose  art  has  a  good  basis  of  reality,  takes 
it  for  his  refrain,  and  knits  up  his  every  stave  with  it. 
In  truth,  the  prison  and  its  passion  were  too  near 
to  life  for  Regnier  and  those  others  ever  to  be  con- 
ventionahsed  out  of  reaUty.  Conventions  they  had  : 
of  May  mornings,  for  instance,  and  the  coming  of 
spring.  Yet  even  these  were  less  conventional  than 
they  seem.  The  matter  was  felt  and  observed  imder 
its  traditional  phrasing.  Where  every  house  was  a 
moated  gaol  with  never  a  road  to  it  in  winter,  there 
needed  no  contrasts,  of  turnkeys  or  besieging 
trenches,  to  flush  the  enlargement  brought  roimd  by 
the  spring.  For  then,  in  the  '  golden  morning,' 
men  came  forth  from  the  half-Hght  of  loopholed  cells 
and  the  stench  of  rotting  rushes,  and  rode  out  over 
the  fields  in  their  new  apparel,  seeing  and  smelling 
the  fresh  flowers,  and  hearkening  to  birds  singing 
in  the  brakes. 

'  The  year  hath  flung  his  cloak  away 
Of  wind  and  cold  and  rainy  skies, 
And  goeth  clad  in  broideries 
Of  sun-gleams  brilliant  and  gay  : ' — 

thus  Charles  D' Orleans,  in  one  of  the  most  famous 
of  his  rondels.  And  thus,  through  another,  not  so 
famous,  he  runs  a  natural  and  famihar  fancy  of  the 
coming  of  summer  : — 

'  King  Summer's  harbingers  are  come 
To  place  his  palace  in  repair, 
And  have  spread  out  his  carpet- ware 
Woven  of  greenery  and  bloom. 

D 


50  THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON 

Laying  the  green  woof  of  their  loom 
Over  the  country,  here  and  there, 

King  Summer's  harbingers  are  come 
To  place  his  palace  in  repair. 

Hearts  long  benumbed  with  weary  gloom, 
Thank  God,  are  whole  again  and  fair  ; 
Winter,  begone  some  other-where. 
You  shall  delay  no  more  at  home, 
King  Summer's  harbingers  are  come.' 

It  is  charming,  and — ^what  is  as  much  to  the  purpose, 
if  not  more — it  is,  as  the  French  say,  vecu.  But, 
for  aU  that,  it  profited  its  author  Httle.  For  Charles 
had  long  since  come  to  laiow  by  experience — ^none 
better  ! — that  hearts  once  benumbed  with  weary- 
gloom  can  no  more  be  quite  whole,  can  never  be 
again  in  perfect  accord  with  the  renewing  year. 
He  wrote  these  rondels,  I  doubt  not,  at  Blois,  in  the 
languid  liberty  of  his  old  age,  recalling,  with  vain 
regret,  those  long  years  of  his  wasted  manhood, 
wherein  the  banishment  of  winter  and  the  release 
of  spring  stiU  found  him  in  a  northern  prison.  But 
they  were  the  toys  of  his  second  childhood.  His 
Poime  de  la  Prison,  written  in  England,  was  the 
capital  piece,  even  as  his  imprisonment  in  England 
was  the  chief  feature,  of  his  life. 

Like  ViUon's  poem,  engendered  of  a  kindred  mis- 
fortune, it  is  excellent  in  art ;  like  ViUon's,  too,  it 
has  an  interest  apart  from  art.  We  are  often 
tempted  to  fix  our  looks  on  the  lives  of  the  great 
actors  in  an  age  :  to  exaggerate,  within  these  lives, 
the  salience  of  certain  immortal  deeds,  and  then  to 
stamp  a  nation,  or  an  epoch,  with  such  same  dies 
of  individual  worth.  To  yield  to  that  temptation 
is  to  misread  history,  for  the  contours  of  an  age  may 
far  more  surely  be  traced  in  the  lives  of  those  who 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON  51 

have  suffered  their  impress  than  in  the  valour  of 
those  who  have  sought  to  change  their  shape.  Now, 
Charles  D' Orleans  and  Frangois  Villon  were  not 
great  actors  :  were  scarce  actors  at  all.  But,  while 
essentially  passive,  they  were  yet  not  dumb.  Each 
of  them  received  the  impress  of  his  age  upon  his 
life,  and  each  revealed  it,  a  little  transfigured  by 
personal  reaction,  in  his  song.  The  imprisonment 
of  Charles,  and  its  effect  on  his  hfe,  the  life  of  Villon, 
and  its  result  in  his  imprisonment,  show  the  very 
image  of  the  Middle  Age  after  the  vanishing  of  its 
soul.  Their  poetry  is  .as  it  were  the  mask  from  a 
dead  face. 

The  son  of  an  Italian  mother,  Valentina  Visconti, 
Charles  D' Orleans  was  born  in  the  midst  of  the 
Hundred  Years'  War  (1391).  Doubtless  this  paren- 
tage affected  his  personal  taste,  and  lent  a  gracious 
refinement  to  the  turn  of  his  French  ballades  and 
rondels.  Doubtless,  too,  when  a  hundred  years 
later,  Louis  xn.,  the  child  of  his  old  age,  came  to 
the  throne,  by  conferring  on  that  king  a  claim  to 
the  Duchy  of  Milan  it  led  to  a  further  expansion  of 
ItaUan  influence  in  France.  Yet  during  his  life  it 
was  powerless  to  push  on  the  hands  of  time.  It 
could  not  change  the  necessity  of  his  own  or  his 
country's  misfortune.  He  was  yet  a  boy  when  his 
father's  murder  by  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  fastened 
an  hereditary  quarrel  on  him,  and  divided  the  great 
feudatories  of  France  into  the  historic  factions  of 
Armagnac  and  Burgundian :  so  that  thenceforward 
there  could  be  nothing  but  that  blind  frenzy  of 
civil  war,  which  led  to  Agincourt  and  the  Enghsh 
occupation.  And  at  Agincourt  Charles  was  caught 
up  out  of  the  strife  to  be  a  captive  for  a  quarter- 
century,  an  idler  growing  old  in  idleness  even  while 


52         THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON 

his  own  party  grew  to  be  the  national  party — 
became,  indeed,  the  nation  itself,  brought  to  this 
late  birth  by  the  last  and  longest  agony  of  f eudahsm. 
From  his  prison  in  England  he  might  hear  of  victory 
or  of  defeat,  of  the  capture  of  his  own  town  by  the 
EngUsh  or  of  its  dehvery  by  Joan  of  Arc,  of  the 
crowning  of  an  English  king  in  Paris  or  of  a  French 
king's  return  to  his  capital.  But  for  year  after 
year  and  decade  after  decade  he  could  hear  little 
of  ransom,  and  nothing  at  all  of  peace.  During  this 
spell  of  lost  life  it  was  that  he  made  that  series  of 
ballades  set  in  a  framework  of  allegory,  which,  after 
M.  Charles  d'Hericault — ^who  bases  his  opinion  on 
certain  MSS.  bearing  the  note,  '  Ici  finit  le  livre  que 
Monseigneur  d' Orleans  ecrit  dans  sa  prison,'  and  on 
many  very  obvious  references  to  exile,  to  imprison- 
ment, to  the  hopes  of  ransom — I  have  called  his 
Poeme  de  la  Prison. 

The  two  series  of  ballades  and  the  setting  in  which 
they  are  placed  form  one  work  of  art.  Throughout, 
the  elaborate  machinery  of  allegorical  abstraction, 
first  employed  in  the  Eoman  de  la  Rose,  is  most 
dexterously  imitated  and  sustained.  But  what  a 
difference  in  the  informing  spirit  of  the  two  poems  ! 
The  Roman  de  la  Rose,  for  aU  the  irony  of  the  second 
and  longer  part,  does  at  least  show  the  final  con- 
summation of  Desire.  And,  again,  the  enemies  that 
for  a  time  debar  the  lovers  from  enjoyment,  are  far 
from  subtle  :  they  are  but  Danger,  Shame,  Fear,  and 
Slander,  which  every  young  heart  must  expect  to 
face,  and  may  hope  to  outwit  or  to  overthrow.  Now 
the  later  poem  opens,  likewise,  with  the  glorious 
morning  of  a  yoimg  life.  But  the  brave  heart  is 
soon  '  vestu  de  noir '  :  he  languishes  in  distress ; 
the  ship  of  '  Good  News,'  for  which  he  desires  a  fair 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON         53 

wind,  never  comes  for  all  his  calling ;  if  Fortune 
turn  her  wheel  in  his  favour,  soon  she  turns  it  back  ; 
and  the  Beloved  of  the  allegory,  who  should  save 
him,  dies.  So  the  hope  is  never  achieved,  and  the 
high  heart  is  conquered.  Yet  not  by  Danger  nor 
Fear.  The  new  and  victorious  enemies  of  manhood's 
endeavour  are  Melancholy  and  Weariness.  They 
were  first  noted  by  Charles  in  his  northern  prison  ; 
but  they  are  many  since  his  time  who  have  seen  the 
sun  of  their  life's  promise  '  stealing,  unseen,  to  west 
with  this  disgrace.'  Merencolie,  Ennuy,  and,  at 
last,  Nonchaloir,  the  apathy  of  a  heart  '  tout  en- 
rouille ' — eaten  with  rust :  that  is  his  rendering  of 
the  Preacher's  lament. 

It  is  not  alone  that  the  cast  of  the  allegory  re- 
appears, but  also  all  the  current  forms  of  French 
mediaeval  verse  are  with  it.  And  all  are  changed, 
are  coloured  from  within  by  a  charge  of  personal 
sorrow.  '  Le  premier  jour  du  mois  de  May  '  comes 
round  again  and  again  :  but  it  is  an  English  May 
reflecting  the  troubled  passion  of  his  heart,  and  it 
is  utterly  unlike  the  May  he  remembers.     It  is 

'  Trouble  plain  de  vent  et  de  pluie  : 
Estre  souloit  tout  autrement 
Ou  temps  qu'ay  congneu  en  ma  vie.' 

In  another  ballade  he  writes  of  the  '  Flower  and  the 
Leaf,'  and  chooses  the  leaf  for  his  wear ;  but  not 
on  the  moral  grounds  given  in  the  innumerable 
versions  of  this  mediaeval  allegory.  He  chooses  it 
because  of  his  personal  sorrow  : — 

'  Entierement  de  sa  partie  ; 
Je  n'ay  de  nnlle  flour  envie, 
Porte  la  qui  porter  la  doit, 
Car  la  fleur,  que  mon  cueur  aimoit 
Plus  que  nulle  autre  creature, 
Est  hors  de  ce  monde  passee.' 


54  THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON 

Who  was  this  flower,  the  Beloved,  the  Princess, 
mistress,  sole  friend,  of  the  poem  ?  Some  have 
said  his  wife.  Bonne  D'Armagnac,  others  France, 
or  his  liberty,  or  the  memory  of  the  women  who  had 
loved  him  when  he  was  yomig.  Yet,  as  I  think, 
since  the  poem  is  but  one  sustained  allegory,  it  is 
all  these  and  more.  It  is  the  spirit  of  his  youth : 
it  is  all  of  love,  ambition,  and  hope,  that  was  in 
him  on  the  fatal  morning  of  Agincourt.  Anyhow, 
the  Beloved  dies.  In  Ballade  LV.  news  reaches  him  : 
she  is  dangerously  ill.  In  the  next  she  recovers.  In 
the  next  she  is  no  more.  He  used  to  think,  '  at  the 
beginning  of  the  year,'  of  what  gift  he  could  give 
his  lady,  '  la  bien  aimee,'  and  now  death  has  laid  her 
in  the  grave  ;  so  at  last,  in  Ballade  LXIX.,  he  cele- 
brates her  obsequies  : — 

'  I  made  my  lady's  obsequies 

Within  the  minster  of  desire, 
And  for  her  soul  sad  diriges 

Were  sung  by  Dule  behind  the  choir  ; 

Her  sanctuary  was  one  fire 
With  many  cierges  lit  by  grief  ; 
And  on  her  tomb  in  bold  relief 

Were  painted  tears,  hemmed  with  a  girth 
Of  jewelled  letters  all  around 
That  read  :    '  Here  lyeth  in  the  ground 

The  treasure  of  all  joys  on  earth.' 

A  slab  of  gold  upon  her  lies 

With  saphirs  set  in  golden  wire  ; 
Gems  that  are  loyalty's  devise, 

And  gold  well  known  for  joy's  attire. 

Both  were  the  handmaids  of  her  hire  ; 
For  joy  and  loyalty  were  chief 
Among  the  virtues  God  was  lief 

To  show  in  fashioning  her  birth, 
That  to  his  praise  it  might  redound, 
She  being  wonderfully  found 

The  treasure  of  all  joys  on  earth. 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON  55 

Say  no  word  more.     In  ecstasies 

My  heart  is  raptured  to  expire, 
Hearing  the  noble  histories 

Of  deeds  she  did.     Whom  all  aspire 

To  set  on  high  and  ever  higher. 

God,  binding  up  death's  golden  sheaf, 
Drew  her  to  heaven,  in  my  belief. 

So  to  adorn  with  rarer  mirth 
His  paradise  where  saints  stand  round  ; 
For  joy  there  was  in  her  renowned. 

The  treasure  of  all  joys  on  earth. 

Envoy 

*         Tears  and  laments  are  nothing  worth, 
All  soon  or  late  by  death  are  bound  ; 
And  none  for  long  hath  kept  and  crowned 
The  treasure  of  all  joys  on  earth.' 

So  henceforward  he  will  worship  Nonchaloir.  So 
after  his  release  he  withdraws  from  the  battle  of 
life  to  write  rondels  with  his  friends,  seeking  to 
forget  the  old-time  tragedy  of  his  youth  and  the 
present  misery  of  his  native  land.  '  I  could  not 
believe,'  Petrarch  had  written,  '  that  this  was  the 
same  France  I  had  seen  so  rich  and  flourishing. 
Nothing  presented  itself  to  my  eyes  but  a  fearful 
soHtude,  an  utter  poverty,  land  uncultivated,  houses 
in  ruins.  Even  the  neighbourhood  of  Paris  showed 
everywhere  marks  of  desolation  and  conflagration. 
The  streets  are  deserted,  the  roads  overgrown  with 
weeds,  the  whole  is  a  vast  solitude.'  ^  That  was  in 
1360  ;  and  eighty  more  years  of  invasion  and  civil 
broil  had  come  and  gone  in  the  hapless  land  since 
then. 

As  we  have  seen,  some  seeds  of  the  Renaissance 
were  sown  in  Charles's  parentage,  but  only  to  lie 

1  Green,  History  of  the  English  People,  i.  438. 


56  THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON 

dormant  through  a  dateless  winter.  His  kinship 
with  the  South  might  colour  his  own  taste  and  shed 
a  little  lustre  on  his  court  at  Blois :  it  could  not 
redeem  him  from  the  dark  conditions  of  his  age  nor 
change  these  sensibly  through  France.  They  had 
seemed  at  their  darkest  when,  amid  the  last  spasms 
of  the  war,  Fran9ois  Villon  was  born  in  a  Paris  still 
held  by  the  Enghsh,  who  that  very  year  (1431) 
biu-ned  Joan,  '  la  bonne  Lorraine,'  at  Rouen.  But 
they  grew  darker  still  when  the  English  had  departed 
the  land,  for  not  till  after  the  tide  of  conquest  had 
turned  was  there  revealed  the  full  horror — the  rot 
and  stench — of  the  wreckage  it  had  submerged. 
The  winter  following  on  Charles  vn.'s  re-entry  into 
Paris  (1437)  was  one  of  pestilence  and  famine  and 
unheard-of  cold.  Wolves  prowled  in  the  streets, 
attacking  grown  men.^  Charles  D' Orleans  took 
refuge  from  those  evil  days  in  the  glow  of  an  easy 
mind  :  he  shut  himself  in,  as  a  man  on  winter  even- 
ings shuts  himself  into  a  little  chamber  lit  with  a 
cheerful  blaze.  It  was  not  so  with  Villon.  The 
grisly  shadows  of  his  childhood  crept  into  his  soul, 
and  from  his  soul  into  his  song  ;  so  that  when  most 
his  verses  glitter  and  ring  with  tears  and  laughter, 
there  shall  you  look  to  meet  a  woH  at  any  turn. 

The  record  of  his  manhood  opens  with  a  sordid 
tragedy,  and  closes,  so  far  as  we  know  it,  with  a 
blackguardly  revenge.  Skipping  the  follies  of  '  le 
petit  escoher,'  we  find  him,  a  young  man,  sitting,  on 
a  June  evening  in  1455,  after  supper  imder  the 
clock-tower  of  Saint  Benoit-le-betoume.  A  priest, 
one  Philippe  Sermoise,  wronged,  it  may  be,  in  a 

^  '  Fran9ois  Villon  d'apres  des  documens  nouveaux.'  Marcel  Schwob. 
Revile  des  deux  Mondes.,  15  Juillet  1892.  I  am  indebted  to  this  article 
for  the  details  of  Villon's  life,  there  published  for  the  first  time. 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON  57 

shameless  intrigue,  drew  near,  and  after  an  exchange 
of  insults,  pushed  him  down.  It  is  a  note  of  the 
time  that  every  bystander  slunk  forthwith  into  the 
shadows,  and  the  two  were  left  alone  in  the  twilight. 
Then  the  priest  drew  a  dagger  and  stabbed  Villon 
in  the  lip  ;  but  ViUon,  striking  from  under  his  cloak, 
knifed  his  antagonist  in  the  groin,  and,  finally,  being 
disarmed  by  a  newcomer,  picked  up  a  heavy  stone 
and  pashed  in  the  priest's  brain-pan.  Banished  for 
this  manslaughter,  he  took  to  the  road,  and  he 
travelled  the  highways  of  France.  They  were  in- 
fested, as  ever  in  the  Middle  Age,  yet  more  thickly 
then  than  ever,  by  a  wandering  populace  of  minstrels, 
beggars,  sham  clerks,  goliards,  broken  men,  camp- 
followers,  and  thieves.  For  the  Hundred  Years' 
War  had  come  to  an  end  with  Charles  vn.'s  entry 
into  Bordeaux  in  1453,  and  this  tide  of  scum  was 
now  swollen  beyond  any  previous  high-water  mark 
by  the  disbanding  of  his  army.  Within  its  eddies 
there  existed  from  that  year  until  its  extermination 
in  1461,  the  secret  society  (not  unlike  the  Camorra) 
of  the  '  CoquiUards,'  or  '  Companions  of  the  Shell,' 
with  a  jargon  of  its  own,  with  'prentices,  past- 
masters,  and  a  chief,  '  le  Roi  de  la  Coquille  '  :  briefly, 
a  complete  hierarchy  of  blackguardism,  with  organised 
departments  of  brutality  or  craft,  to  which  each 
newcomer  was  detailed  according  to  his  natural 
aptitude  for  crimes.  It  is  beyond  doubt,  as  M. 
Schwob  has  shown,  that  Villon  was  received  into 
this  association.  He  wrote  six  ballades  in  its  slang  ; 
he  consorted  for  years  with  two  notorious  '  com- 
panions,' Regnier  de  Montigny  and  Colin  de  Cayeux, 
in  whose  felonies  he  lent  a  hand,  and  whose  deaths 
he  mourned.  In  1456  his  banishment  was  remitted, 
and  he  returned  to  Paris  with  his  new-found  know- 


/ 


58  THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON 

ledge  of  the  world.  Nor  was  he  long  in  turning  it 
to  account.  In  the  December  of  the  same  year  you 
will  find  him,  with  Colin  de  Cayeux  and  another, 
scaling  the  high  walls  of  the  College  de  Navarre  to 
pick  the  common  chest  of  the  dons  and  students  in 
the  Faculty  of  Theology,  the  while  another  rascal 
Guy  de  Tabarie  by  name,  kept  watch  outside  over 
the  ladder  and  the  cloaks.  Villon,  for  his  share  of 
the  plunder,  pocketed  a  hundred  gold  crowns,  and, 
as  he  tells  us  in  the  Petit  Testament,  '  about  Christ- 
mas, in  the  dead  season,  when  the  wolves  Uve  on 
wind,'  he  shifted  his  quarters  to  Angers.  With  a 
wise  prevision,  as  it  turned  out ;  for  when,  next 
year  (1457),  the  chest  was  found  empty,  Tabarie 
first  blabbed,  and  then,  under  torture,  gave  full 
information  against  his  confederates.  Villon  derides 
him  in  the  Grand  Testament  for  his  habit  of  teUing 
the  truth,  and  bequeaths  a  halter  to  one  of  his 
examiners,  while  to  another,  Francois  de  Ferre- 
bourg,  a  sharper  vengeance  is  reserved.  But  for 
the  moment  the  poet  could  return  no  more  to  Paris. 
A  Companion  of  the  Shell  dared  hope  for  httle  mercy  : 
three  had  been  boiled  alive  at  Dijon  but  two  years 
before,  and  the  society  was  ever  getting  thinned  by 
the  axe  and  the  rope.  Villon,  indeed,  was  not  to 
see  Paris  again  until  he  was  amnestied  on  the  acces- 
sion of  Louis  XI.,  in  1461,  for  yet  another  crime  of 
the  *  Coquillards,'  perpetrated,  we  know  not  when, 
at  Montpipeau  :  a  crime  which  ended  in  the  hanging 
of  CoUn  de  Cayeux,  and  in  his  own  condemnation  to 
perpetual  imprisonment  at  Meimg,  in  the  donjon 
of  the  Bishop  of  Orleans.  We  get  glimpses  of  him 
at  the  courts  of  Charles  D' Orleans  and  of  Jean  n. 
de  Bourbon,  but  soon  he  wanders  out  of  sight  again, 
by  the  ways  of  those  that  love  darkness,  and  when 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON  59 

we  fish  him  up  again  he  is  in  irons  at  Meung.  There, 
on  bread  and  water,  he  must  have  composed  the 
bulk  of  the  great  poem  which  has  made  him 
immortal :  a  work  of  unfailing  execution,  of  briUiant 
lines  playing  like  forked  lightning  over  unguessed 
chasms  of  awful  truth.  He  writes  of  his  shames  in 
it  as  an  old  soldier  of  his  scars  :  '  Necessite  fait  gens 
mesprendre.  Et  faim  saiUir  les  loups  des  bois.'  The 
worship  of  the  Virgin  or  the  beastHness  of  the  stews  ; 
the  old  age  of  the  wit  told  to  hold  his  tongue,  or  of 
the  harlot  heart-sick  for  lost  loveliness  ;  the  fortune 
of  those  who  fare  sumptuously,  and,  again,  of  those 
who  beg  naked  and  see  bread  only  through  the 
windows  they  go  by ;  the  passing  of  renowned  ladies 
and  great  emperors  and  saints  :  all  these  are  as  one 
to  his  art.  The  truth  of  them  is  there,  set  down 
with  unfaltering  precision,  without  a  trace  of  effort. 
He  sings  the  '  snows  of  yester-year '  in  words  that 
haunt  the  ages,  or  lightly  casts  an  acrostic  of  his 
name  into  an  envoy  aching  with  desolation  : — 

'  Fente,  gresle,  gelle,  j'ay  mon  pain  cuict ! 
/e  suis  paillard,  la  paillarde  me  duit. 
Lequel  vault  mieux  ?     Chascun  bien  s'entresuit, 
L'ung  I'autre  vault :  c'est  a  mau  chat  mau  rat. 
Ordure  amons,  ordure  nous  afifuyt, 
iVous  deffuyons  honneur,  il  nous  deffuyt, 
En  ce  bourdeau,  ou  tenons  nostre  estat.' 

So  he  sings.  It  is  easy  as  the  wind  in  autumn,  and 
as  musical,  and — whirling  with  dead  leaves  !  With 
this  and  the  rest  of  the  Grand  Testament  in  his 
pocket  he  returned  to  Paris  in  1461,  and  we  hear  of 
him  but  once  again,  playing  a  mean  part  in  a  squalid 
brawl.  rran9ois  Ferrebouc,  the  examiner,  his  old 
enemy,  knocked  up  one  night  after  supper  by 
Villon  and  his  friends,  was  stabbed  by  an  imknown 


60         THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON 

hand.     The  record  of  his  manhood  ends  as  it  began, 
and  he  passes  for  ever  into  utter  darkness. 

From  some  lampoons  in  his  work  and  this  last 
act  of  rascahty  or  cowardice,  it  would  seem  that  he 
could  never  forgive  any  person  concerned  in  the 
criminal  investigation  of  1457  :  the  calamity  which 
made  him  an  outcast.  It  was  in  that  year,  and  in 
such  dubious  plight,  that  Villon  drifted  to  the  court 
of  Charles  D' Orleans  at  Blois.  It  was  a  strange 
meeting  of  two  poets :  the  younger,  of  twenty-six, 
a  known  criminal,  a  gaol-bird  to  be ;  the  elder,  of 
sixty-six,  aged  before  his  time,  enfeebled  with  long 
imprisonment  in  his  country's  cause,  so  fallen  into 
decay  that  six  years  later  he  could  no  longer  even 
sign  his  name.  Of  the  manner  of  their  meeting  we 
know  nothing  directly ;  but,  indirectly,  we  can 
gather  enough  from  significant  hints  in  their  writings 
and  from  the  shortness  of  one's  stay.  There  is  a 
dull  official  poem  by  Villon  on  the  birth  of  Charles's 
daughter  in  December,  1457.  It  is  copied  in  his 
hand  into  a  manuscript  containing  poem^  in  the 
writing  of  Charles  himself  and  other  rhyming  friends. 
But  the  fourteen  pages  following  ViUon's  contribu- 
tion are  blank.  An  explanation  may  be  found  in 
his  refrain  to  a  ballade,  the  first  line  of  which,  '  Je 
meurs  de  soef  aupres  de  la  fontaine,'  was  apparently 
given  out  by  Charles  as  the  text  for  a  poetical  tourna- 
ment. We  have  the  thing  done  and  copied  out  by 
Charles  and  many  of  his  guests  ;  but  Villon's  work 
is  very  different  from  theirs.  The  antithesis  to  be 
maintained  in  every  line  lent  itself  perfectly  to  the 
theme  of  his  own  false  position.  The  official  line 
has  reminded  him  of  the  reservation  with  which  he 
was  received,  of  the  half-hearted  hospitality.  He 
dies  of  thirst  beside  the  foimtain ;    chatters  with 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON  61 

cold  by  the  hearth  ;  is  an  exile  in  his  own  land.  He 
laughs  through  his  tears,  and  expects  without  hope 
— so  he  leads  up  to  the  refrain,  '  Bien  recueilly, 
deboute  de  chascun' — he  is  well  received,  and  re- 
jected of  all.  To  understand  this  ballade,  addressed 
to  his  '  clement  Prince,'  and  the  shortness  of  Villon's 
visit,  you  scarce  need  the  allusions,  scattered  through 
his  writings,  to  the  lot  of  the  man  who  has  borne 
a  reputation  for  wit  in  his  youth  :  to  the  old  monkey 
whose  tricks  no  longer  please  :  who,  if  he  hold  his 
tongue,  is  taken  for  a  worn-out  fool  and,  if  he  speak, 
is  told  to  hold  his  tongue.  Indeed,  we  are  not  left 
in  doubt  by  Charles  himself  as  to  his  impression  of 
his  guest.  He  has  sketched  his  Villon  in  a  rondel 
and,  lest  any  should  fail  to  recognise  the  Ukeness, 
assists  with  an  obvious  allusion  to  the  author  of 
the  Grand  Testament  That  poem  opens  with  this 
frightful  confession  : — 

'  "  En  Tan  trentiesme  de  mon  aage 
Que  toutes  mes  hontes  fay  beues"  ' 

The  second  of  these  two  hnes  gives  the  first  and 
the  refrain  of  Charles's  rondel,  '  Qui  a  toutes  ses 
hontes  beues  '  : — 

'  He  that  hath  drunken  all  his  shame 
Cares  nothiag  for  what  people  say ; 
He  lets  derision  pass  its  way 
As  clouds  may  go  the  way  they  came. 

If  in  the  street  they  hoot  his  name, 
He  winks  and  turns  to  wine  and  play. 

He  that  hath  drunken  all  his  shame 
Cares  nothing  for  what  people  say. 

A  truffle  likes  him  more  than  fame  ; 

If  folk  laugh,  he  must  laugh  as  they  ; 

But  if  it  comes  to  blushing — Nay, 
He  keeps  his  countenance  the  same 
Though  he  have  drunken  all  his  shame.' 


62  THE  POETRY  OF  THE  PRISON 

So  did  these  poets  meet,  and  so  they  parted. 
Both  belonged  to  the  last  hours  of  the  Middle  Age  ; 
both  saw  the  forces  of  feudalism  overthrow  the 
society  they  had  foimded ;  both  lived  and  died  in 
the  wilderness  of  the  ensuing  desolation.  The  one, 
caught  in  the  catastrophe,  became  a  waif  among 
wolves  and  robbers ;  the  other,  by  a  subtler  irony, 
was  at  once  the  leader  and  the  idle  witness,  the  '  flag 
rather  than  the  captain '  of  the  feudal  party  which, 
abjuring  its  nature,  was  to  found  the  new  order  of 
monarchy  and  national  life.  Charles  D' Orleans, 
aloof  from  his  age,  confined  perforce  in  a  foreign 
prison,  and  later,  making  a  lodge,  of  choice,  in  the 
wilderness,  distilled  into  the  narrowest  vials  songs 
sweet  as  any,  and  yet  trivial.  Of  the  cup  handed 
him  by  Destiny  he  drank  one  half,  and  then  set  it 
down  unfinished.  But  Villon  drained  it  to  the  lees  ; 
knew  all  the  life  which  renders  the  legends  of  Louis  xi. 
and  Prince  Hal  intelligible.  His  verse  is  bitter  with 
the  bitterness,  glad  only  with  the  insolence,  of  those 
days.  And  yet  it  is  great  verse — ^verse  haunted 
with  all  their  horror,  steeped  in  their  infinite  sadness. 


RONSARD   AND   LA  PLEIADE 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE 

It  is  bold  to  select  a  limited  period  in  the  poetry* 
of  one  country,  for  the  arts  have  a  continuous 
organic  life  to  be  traced  through  many  lands  back 
to  origins  in  distant  ages.  Yet  there  are  periods, 
often  long,  when  the  arts  simulate  death,  and  periods, 
always  short,  when  they  seem  to  be  born  again. 
The  greatest  of  these  rebirths  took  place  throughout 
Western  Europe  during  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
constitutes  a  feature  so  striking  that  the  epoch  in 
which  it  occurred  is  often  called  after  it,  the  Re- 
naissance. We  may  explain  the  renaissance  of  the 
arts,  but  we  cannot  explain  it  away.  There  it  is  ; 
in  architecture,  in  sculpture,  in  painting,  in  music, 
ard  perhaps,  above  all,  in  poetry.  In  poetry  some- 
thing happened — ^not,  indeed,  altogether  without 
parallels — in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  again  in 
the  nineteenth.  But  the  outburst  of  poetry  in 
Europe  during  the  Renaissance  was  greater  in 
volume,  more  ingenious  in  variety,  than  at  any  time 
before  or  since.  The  modem  world  exploded  into 
an  ecstasy  of  song. 

The  poetry  of  Ronsard  and  his  companions,  their 
conscious  endeavour  to  re-endow  the  world  with  an 
all  but  lost  delight,  is,  in  terms  of  time  and  place,  a 
central  event  of  the  Renaissance.  They  wrote  in 
the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  in  the  heart 
of  France. 


66  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE 

The  Age  and  the  Man 

I  need  not  dwell  on  the  age  in  which  they  wrote. 
It  is  enough  for  my  purpose  to  say  that  the  age  of 
Ronsard  exhibited,  in  the  vigour  of  their  prime,  new 
ideas  of  monarchy,  nationality,  and  religion,  which 
breaking  up,  and  breaking  away  from,  old  ideas  of 
feudalism,  the  empire,  and  the  papacy,  induced  an 
era  of  gorgeous  embassies  in  the  place  of  local  war 
waged  under  sordid  conditions.  '  The  Alps  had  been 
levelled  for  ever  '  when,  '  on  the  last  day  of  the  year 
1494,  the  army  of  Charles  vin.  entered  Rome.' 
Thenceforward,  until  the  fatal  day  of  Pavia,  Italy 
was  the  ring  in  which  the  Houses  of  France  and 
Austria  wrestled  for  the  headship  of  Christendom. 
Italy,  the  turning-point  in  the  welter  of  war  and 
diplomacy,  became  a  vortex,  sucking  in  streams 
of  courage  and  intellect  from  all  Europe.  Never 
had  there  been  such  contact  between  contemporary 
civilisations.  But  this  wide  embrace  of  the  present 
was  not  aU.  Of  modern  countries  Italy  remembered 
most  of  the  classic  past ;  had  always  remembered  it, 
confusedly,  as  a  man  dreaming  remembers  a  day 
of  excitement  and  success.  More  than  a  century 
before  the  French  invasion  Petrarch,  though  he 
could  not  read  them,  had  wept  with  joy  over  the 
codices  of  Homer  and  Plato.  Since  then  the  texts 
of  antiquity  had  been  recovered  and  printing-presses 
established,  so  that  between  1494  and  1515,  the  in- 
vasion of  Charles  vm.  and  the  victory  of  Fran9ois  i. 
at  Marignano,  the  press  of  Aldus  printed  in  Venice 
thirty-three  first  editions  of  the  classics.  It  was 
then  and  there  also,  in  an  Italy  which  riveted  the 
gaze  of  every  cultured  mind,  that  men,  having 
listened  once  again  to  the  songs  of  their  loveliness, 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE  67 

turned  to  unearth  and  piece  together  the  broken 
and  buried  gods  of  beauty.  The  revolution  in 
mediseval  poUtics  and  reHgion  synchronised  with  the 
recovery  of  classic  literature  and  sculpture. 

Now  Ronsard,  the  man  apart  from  the  poet,  is  an 
embodiment  of  all  the  forces  and  confusions  of  his 
time.  I  shall  speak  first  of  him  and  his  companions  ; 
next,  of  the  sources  of  their  inspiration  and  the 
aim  of  their  art ;  lastly,  of  their  achievement  and 
influence. 

Pierre  de  Ronsard,  son  of  the  Seigneur  Loys  de 
Ronsard,  the  High  Steward  of  Fran9ois  Premier's 
household,  was  born  in  1525,  the  year  of  that  king's 
defeat  at  Pavia,  which  decided  adversely  his  duel 
with  the  House  of  Austria.  The  historian  De  Thou 
wrote  afterwards  that  his  birth  made  amends  to 
France  for  even  so  great  a  disaster.  He  lay  in  the 
cradle  when  his  father  set  out  with  the  king's 
hostages  to  suffer  duress  until  the  royal  ransom 
should  be  paid.  I  visited  his  father's  castle,  De  la 
Poissonniere,  as  a  reverent  pilgrim,  some  years  ago. 
It  stands,  beneath  a  low  cliff  of  white  rock  overgrown 
with  ivy,  in  the  gentle  scenery,  elegiac  rather  than 
romantic,  to  which  Ronsard's  verse  ever  returns. 
Above  the  low  cUff  are  remnants  of  the  Foret  de 
Gastine ;  between  the  castle  and  the  little  river 
Loir,  bedecked  with  fleur  de  lis,  stretch  poplar- 
screened  meadows. 

The  castle  is  inscribed  here  and  there,  indeed 
everjrwhere,  in  the  fashion  of  that  day,  transi- 
tional between  Gothic  and  Renaissance,  with  Latin 
mottoes  curiously  appropriate  to  Ronsard's  tempera- 
ment and  to  the  alternations  of  his  posthumous 
fame.  Above  a  door  you  may  read  '  Voluptati  et 
gratiis  '  ;  about  the  windows, '  Veritas  filia  temporis  ' 


68  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE 

and  '  Respice  finem.'  Within,  beneath  his  arms  and 
those  of  France,  sculptured  on  the  apex  of  the  great 
pyramidal  chimney-piece  in  the  hall,  there  runs  the 
confident  legend  '  Non  f allunt  futura  merentem '  ; 
and  below,  in  a  deep  band,  a  fenca  of  blossoming 
roses  seems  to  grow  on  the  surface  of  the  stone.  It 
is  a  moot  point  whether  he  himself  added  this  frieze 
to  symboHse  his  love  for  a  half -guessed  princess,  who 
wore  the  rose  for  her  emblem,  or  whether  the  very 
nest  in  which  he  was  born  presaged  that  lovely 
accident  of  his  art — the  marriage  of  what  Pater  has 
called  the  askesis  of  stone  with  the  pathetic  blossom- 
ing and  fading  of  the  rose. 

But  we  are  not  to  think  that  Ronsard,  or  any  of 
his  companions,  evaded  the  conditions  of  their  age 
to  indulge  in  the  languid  fallacy  of  art  for  art's  sake. 
He  was  plunged  as  a  child  into  the  unrest  of  camps 
and  courts,  as  a  youth  into  travel  and  diplomacy, 
and,  long  years  after  he  had  deliberately  sought  the 
seclusion  of  art  and  study,  replimged  into  the  cruel 
conflicts  of  religious  animosity. 

When  nine  years  old  he  fell  ill  at  the  College  of 
Navarre,  and  was  taken  by  his  father  to  the  king's 
camp  at  Avignon.  There  he  became  page  to  the 
Dauphin  rran9ois,  who  was  poisoned  six  days  later. 
He  found  another  protector  in  Charles,  Due 
d' Orleans,  and,  at  the  age  of  twelve,  accompanied 
Madeleine  of  France  on  her  journey  to  wed  James 
of  Scotland.  Those  days  were  hectic  in  their 
precocity. 

He  passed  two  years  in  Edinburgh,  and  then 
travelled  for  six  months  in  England.  He  could 
dance  and  fence  well,  as  was  expected,  but  was 
given  over  to  solitary  wandering  and  the  writing  of 
verses.     To  prevent  such  original  vagaries  the  Due 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE  69 

d' Orleans  sent  him,  in  1540,  aged  fifteen,  on  a 
mission  to  Flanders  and  on  again  to  Scotland.  He 
was  wrecked  on  the  coast,  escaped  by  swimming, 
and,  returning  in  the  same  year  to  Germany  in  the 
suite  of  the  French  Ambassador,  Lazare  de  Baif, 
travelled  thence  to  Turin  with  Guillaume  de  Langey, 
Seigneur  du  Bellay.  Thus  it  was  that  he  came  to 
know  one  of  his  future  comrades  in  the  Pleiade, 
Antoine  de  Baif,  and  to  know  of  another,  and  greater, 
Joachim  du  Bellay,  De  Langey' s  kinsman. 

At  sixteen  he  spoke  English,  Itahan,  and  German, 
and  was  conversant,  in  all  those  tongues,  with  affairs 
of  State  ;  but,  being  stricken  by  deafness,  and  so 
handicapped  for  a  life  of  action  otherwise  promising, 
he  turned  to  letters,  learnt  Virgil  by  heart,  and  read 
the  poetry  of  Clement  Marot  and  the  Roman  de  la 
Rose,  He  acquired  the  dower  of  mediaeval  song, 
the  storied  legend  of  Guillaume  de  Loris  and  Jehan 
de  Meung,  changing  from  allegorical  romance  to 
allegorical  sarcasm,  and,  in  Marot,  the  tired  affecta- 
tions of  used  formahty.  The  Middle  Age,  though 
few  felt  this,  had  come  to  a  full  close.  Ronsard, 
probably,  was  conscious  of  that  conclusion,  for  he 
had  devoured  the  best  of  its  verse  and  was  still 
unsatisfied.  Then — as  the  way  is  with  precocious 
youth — two  accidents  assailed  and  redirected  his  life. 

The  Court,  in  which  he  still  held  a  post,  was  at 
Blois.  Wandering  thence  as  his  wont  was,  on  a 
certain  day  (21st  April  1541),  aged  sixteen,  he  met 
a  girl  in  the  forest  with  fair  hair,  brown  eyes,  and 
smiling  Hps.  He  returned  a  poet  to  write  his 
Amours  in  honour  of  Cassandra,  and  loved  her 
vainly  for  seven  years.  His  father,  who  objected  to 
poetry,  being  dead  in  1544,  he  began,  perhaps  be- 
cause he  loved,  and  love  is  new,  to  study  Greek, 


70  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE 

the  new  knowledge,  stealing  off  to  be  taught  by 
the  humanist  Dorat  with  De  Baif,  his  diplomatic 
companion.  Ere  long  the  second  accident  befell. 
Wandering  with  a  promising  career  lost  and  a 
froward  mistress  discovered,  he  met*  at  some  time 
not  long  before  1547  another  young  man,  Joachim 
du  Bellay,  from  whom  the  high  calls  of  war  and 
diplomacy  had  also,  oddly  enough,  been  muffled  by 
the  curtain  of  early  deafness.  Both  were  turning  for 
consolation  to  the  poetry  of  the  ancients.  The 
meeting  was  memorable.  Out  of  it  sprang  the 
association  of  poets  and  scholars  who  called  them- 
selves at  first  '  La  Brigade,'  and  afterwards  '  La 
Pleiade,'  in  imitation  of  poets  at  the  court  of  Ptolemy 
Philadelphus.  With  Ronsard,  Du  Bellay,  Dorat, 
and  De  Baif,  were  Estienne  Jodelle,  Pontus  de  Tyard, 
and  Remy  Belleau.  I  must  add  Olivier  de  Magny 
and,  later,  many  others  to  fill  the  places  of  the  dead 
— Jean  Passerat,  Gilles  Durant,  and  Philippe  des 
Portes.  The  original  confederacy  toiled  in  secret 
till  Du  Bellay  brought  out,  in  1549,  their  manifesto. 
La  Defense  et  Illustration  de  la  Langue  Frangaise. 
Each  guarded  his  labours  so  jealously  that,  when 
Du  Bellay  surreptitiously  read  the  Odes  on  which 
Ronsard  had  been  working,  nothing  but  the  ardour 
of  youthful  friendship  averted  a  quarrel.  This 
incident  precipitated  the  publication  of  their  poetry. 
Ronsard' s  first  four  books  of  Odes  appeared  in  1550, 
and  his  Amours  in  1552  ;  Du  Bellay's  Olive  in  1549, 
and  his  Regrets  in  1558.  I  shall  not  attempt  a 
bibliography  of  their  poetry,  amazing  in  its  amount, 
or  a  nice  discrimination  of  the  ladies  by  whom  it 
was  partly  inspired.  Louise  Labe,  the  Aspasia  of 
Lyons,  who  had  ridden  to  war  after  the  Dauphin, 
accoutred  as  a  captain,  who  played  on  many  musical 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE  71 

instruments,  read  Greek,  and  wrote  poetry  in  French 
and  Italian  ;  or,  again,  Diane  de  Poictiers,  actually 
mistress  to  the  King,  practically  a  Secretary  of  State, 
and  accidentally  governess  to  the  Queen's  children, 
the  model  for  the  Diane  Chasseresse  in  the  Louvre 
and  chatelaine  d'Anet,  with  its  fanciful  traceries 
and  elaborate  parterres,  are  both  so  tjrpical  of  that 
transitionaj  age  that  each  might  exhaust  an  essay. 
Ronsard,  alone,  sang  voluminously  to  Cassandra, 
Marie,  Helene  ;  frequently  to  Marguerite,  Duchesse 
de  Savoie,  and  Marie  Stuart.  And  surely  Ronsard 
loved  that  queen.  Else  could  he  have  put  into  the 
mouth  of  Charles  ix.  the  address  to  the  shade  of  his 
elder  brother — 

Ah  !  frere  mien,  tu  ne  dois  faire  plainte, 
De  quoi  ta  vie  en  sa  fleur  s'est  eteinte  ; 
Avoir  joui  d'une  telle  beaute, 
Sein  centre  sein,  valait  ta  royaute. 

Yet  Ronsard  loved  divine  beauty  even  more ;  per- 
haps loved  most,  certainly  cared  most  for,  the 
art  by  which  he  expressed  his  love,  and,  though 
he  loved  them,  cared  least  for  the  beautiful  women 
whose  human  loveliness  helped  him  to  detect  Divine 
Beauty  and  braced  him  to  elaborate  her  ritual.  The 
last  line  of  his  last  love  sonnet  runs  : — 

Car  I'Amour  et  la  Mort  n'est  qu'une  mesme  chose. 

He  uses  his  head  for  the  expression  of  his  art,  not 
for  the  analysis  of  his  emotion. 

Neither  shall  I  seek  to  follow  out  their  diplomatic 
journeys.  Briefly,  they  sojourned  often  in  Italy, 
or  at  Lyons,  and  spent  sweet  and  splendid  days, 
described  by  Brantome,  among  the  many  castles 
in  the  wide  valley  of  the  Loire. 

Ronsard' s  Odes  were  at  the  outset  vehemently 
attacked,  but,  first  aided  by  the  protection  of  his 


/ 


y 


72  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE 

Marguerite,  sister  to  Henri  n.,  and  then  winning  on 
their  merits,  his  poetry  and  the  poetry  of  his  com- 
panions carried  all  before  it  at  the  court  and  in  the 
country.  Ronsard  won  a  greater  fame  than  was 
ever  accorded  to  a  poet  in  his  lifetime.  He  was 
acclaimed  a  Horace,  a  Pindar,  a  Petrarch.  The 
Academy  of  the  Floral  Games  at  Toulouse  sent 
him  a  silver  Minerva ;  his  king  must  .  have  him 
at  all  times  by  his  side  ;  our  own  Elizabeth  gave 
him  a  diamond — comparing  its  water  to  the  purity 
of  his  verse  ;  and  Marie  Stuart,  when  others  had 
deserted  his  old  age,  a  buffet  worth  two  hundred 
crowns,  addressed  'A  Ronsard  FApollon  de  la  source 
des  Muses.'  Chatelard  read  his  Hymn  to  Death, 
and  no  other  office,  for  consolation  on  the  scaffold. 

Montaigne,  who  could  confer  dignity  beyond 
the  gift  of  kings,  writes,  say  in  1575 :  '  Since 
Ronsard  and  Du  Bellay  have  raised  our  French 
poetry  to  a  place  of  honour,  I  see  no  apprentice 
so  little  but  he  must  inflate  phrases  and  order 
cadences  much  about  as  they  do.  For  the  common 
herd  there  were  never  so  many  poets,  but  easy 
enough  as  it  is  for  these  to  reproduce  their  rhymes, 
they  still  fall  short  enough  of  imitating  the  rich 
descriptions  of  the  one,  and  the  delicate  inventions 
of  the  other.' 

The  striking  feature  in  the  lives  of  Ronsard  and 
his  companions  is  their  rapid  recognition ;  but  this 
instant  glory  was  soon  followed  by  sudden  eclipse. 
The  last  decade  of  Henri  ii.'s  reign  (1549-1559) 
comprises  most  of  the  work  for  which  he  and  his 
comrades  are  famous.  Through  these  years  of  poetry 
and  pageantry,  storms,  political  and  religious,  were 
silently  brewing  to  burst  over  the  head  of  Henri's 
son,  and  incidentally  to  turn  Ronsard  the  poet  into 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE  73 

a  pamphleteer.  But  whilst  they  lasted  the  Pleiade 
saw  crowns  of  lesser  states  pushed  about  like  pieces 
in  a  game;  yet  with  all  Europe  for  the  chess-board, 
and  with  players  whose  gestures  and  apparel  still 
shine  from  between  the  wars  of  dynasties  and  the 
wars  of  religion,  as  from  a  sunny  patch  between 
the  shadows  of  two  thunder-clouds.  Beneath  that 
shaft  of  light  their  lives  and  poetry  glisten.  They 
watched  the  game  of  high  politics,  wrote  sonnets  to 
the  players,  and  often  took  a  hand  in  it  themselves. 
Its  extension  over  Europe,  demanding  long  travel 
and  exile  abroad,  changed  the  inspiration  of  their 
art,  and  charged  it  with  splendid  colours.  But,  of 
them  all,  Ronsard  was  the  only  one  who  lived  on  into 
the  silence  of  old  age  amidst  altered  and  uncon- 
genial surroundings.  He  saw  his  companions  die; 
Du  BeUay  and  De  Magny  in  1560,  Jodelle  in  1573, 
Belleau  in  1577.  His  Franciade  fell  dead  of  its 
own  weight,  and  was  forgotten  in  the  horrors  of  the 
St.  Bartholomew.  Even  from  as  early  as  1560  an 
unmoral  delight  in  mere  learning  and  the  love  of 
beauty  was  no  longer  possible.  His  heart,  as  a 
patriot,  bled  for  France  in  her  misery  of  religious 
war,  which  ever  seemed  to  him,  as  a  Catholic,  wicked 
and  irrational.  So  he  set  aside  his  theories  of  art, 
his  stately  measures  and  plaintive  melodies,  and  took 
his  stand,  like  a  man,  in  the  midst  of  his  country's 
dissensions. 

This  aspect  of  his  life  is  so  rarely  considered  that 
I  recommend  the  study  of  his  Discours,  or  poetical 
pamphlets,  to  any  who  would  understand  the 
attitude  of  a  liberal  and  cultivated  scholar,  who  yet 
struck  in,  hard,  on  the  side  of  Royalty  and  Catholi- 
cism, rather  because  he  was  a  philosophic  conser- 
vative by  temperament  than  because  he  held  any 


74  EONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE 

precise  views  on  religion  or  politics.  In  his  elegy  on 
the  tumult  of  Amboise,  he  writes,  1560  : — 

Ainsi  que  rermemi  par  livres  a  seduit 
Le  peuple  devoye  qui  faussement  le  suit, 
U  faut  en  disputant  par  livres  le  confondre, 
Par  livres  I'assaillir,  par  livres  luy  Usspondre. 

But  he  was  not  content  with  diatribes.  According 
to  De  Thou,  he  placed  himseK,  in  1562,  at  the  head 
of  the  gentry  and  routed  the  Huguenot  pillagers. 
'  Qua  ex  re  commota  nobilitas  arma  sub  it,  duce  sibi 
delecto,  Petro  Ronsardo  '  (Livre  xxx.  1562). 

The  most  interesting  account  of  his  way  of  think- 
ing and  living  is  to  be  found  in  his  Besponse  aux 
injures  et  calomnies  de  je  ne  sgay  quels  predicantereaux 
et  misnistreaux  de  Geneve, 

The  brutalities  of  the  attack — Le  Temple  de 
Ronsard — which  he  countered  in  this  reply  justify 
its  violence,  and  challenge  his  parade  of  worldly 
amenities.  He  had  been  accused  of  being  a  turn- 
coat Huguenot,  an  unavowed  CathoHc  priest,  a 
pagan  who  sacrificed  a  buck  in  all  seriousness  to  a 
heathen  god,  an  evil-liver,  and  of  much  else  which 
cannot  conveniently  be  repeated.  So  he  describes 
himself,  without  extenuation,  in  this  vein  : — 

'  Waking,  I  say  my  prayers  ;  get  up,  dress,  study, 
composing  or  reading,  in  pursuit  of  my  destiny  for 
four  or  five  hours.  When  weary  I  go  to  church. 
There  follows  an  hour's  talk  and  dinner :  "  Sobre 
repas,  grace,  amugement."  If  fine,  I  wander  in  a 
wood  or  viUage,  and  seek  solitary  places. 

J'aime  fort  les  jardins  qui  sentent  le  sauvage, 
J'aime  le  flot  de  I'eau  qui  gazouille  au  rivage. 
La  devisant  sur  I'herbe  avec  un  mien  amy 
Je  me  suis  par  les  fleurs  bien  souvent  endormy 
A  I'ombrage  d'un  saule  ;  ou,  lisant  dans  un  livre, 
J'ay  cherclie  le  moyen  de  me  faire  revivre. 


EONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE  75 

'  In  bad  weather  I  go  into  society,  play  cards,  take 
part  in  gymnastics,  leaping,  wrestling,  or  fencing, 
and  make  jokes — 

et  a  la  verite 
Je  ne  loge  chez  moi  trop  de  severite 
J'ayme  a  faire  ramour,  j'ayme  a  parler  aux  femmes, 
A  mettre  par  escrit  mes  amoureuses  flammes ; 
J'ayme  les  bals,  la  dance,  et  les  masques  aussi 
La  musique  et  le  luth  emiemis  de  soucy. 

'  When  the  dusky  night  ranges  the  stars  in  order  and 
curtains  the  sky  and  earth  with  veils,  without  a  care 
I  go  to  bed,  and  there,  lifting  my  eyes,  voice,  and 
heart  up  to  the  vault  of  heaven,  I  make  my  orison, 
praying  the  divine  goodness  for  gentle  pardon  of  my 
failing.  For  the  rest  I  am  neither  rebellious  nor  ill- 
natured.  I  do  not  back  my  rule  with  the  sword. 
Thus  I  live  ;  if  your  life  be  better,  I  do  not  envy. 
Let  it  be  better  by  all  means.' 

Au  reste  je  ne  suis  ny  mutin  ny  meschant, 
Qui  fay  croire  ma  loy  par  le  glaive  trenchant. 
Voila  comme  je  vy ;   si  ta  vie  est  meilleure, 
Je  n'en  suis  envieux,  et  soit  a  la  bonne  heure. 

He  explains  that  he  is  not  a  priest ;  but,  in  those 
places  where  it  is  right  to  display  the  office  and  duty 
of  a  devout  heart,  he  is  a  stout  pillar  of  the  Church, 
wearing  the  proper  vestments  of  the  minor  orders 
which  he  had  taken,  with  certain  priories  conferred 
on  him  for  his  services,  by  his  king.  With  his 
astounding  touch  of  unconventional  admiration  for 
all  living  creatures,  he  compares  himself  in  his  cope 
to  a  snail  on  an  April  morning  : — 

Par  le  trou  de  la  chappe  apparoit  esleve 
Mon  col  brave  et  gaillard,  comme  le  chef  lave 
D'un  lima9on  d'avril  .  .  . 


76  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE 

and  discourses  of  the  snail  with  the  fair  palace  he 
carries  along  slimy  tracts  among  the  fresh  grass  and 
flowers,  shooting  out  his  horns,  a  warrior  of  the 
garden,  who  pastures  on  the  dew^  with  which  his 
house  is  besprinkled.  He  attend^  the  services  of 
his  priory  and  honours  his  prelate.  If  others  had 
done  so,  there  would  have  been  no  civil  troubles,  the 
fair  sun  of  the  ancient  age  of  Astraea  would  shine 
over  all  France.  No  ritters  from  the  Rhine  would 
have  drunk  her  vintage  and  squandered  her  money. 
No  English  would  have  bought  her  lands.  It  is 
absurd  for  a  Calvinist  to  judge  a  Catholic,  as  though 
a  Jew  accused  a  Turk,  or  a  Turk  a  Christian ;  God 
only,  the  unfailing  Judge,  knows  the  hearts  of  all. 
He  goes  on  : — 

'  You  say  my  muse  is  paid  to  flatter.  No  prince 
can  boast  (I  wish  he  could)  of  having  paid  me  a 
salary.  I  serve  whom  I  please  with  unfettered 
courage.  I  sing  the  king,  his  brother,  and  mother. 
Of  others  I  am  not  the  valet :  if  they  are  mighty 
lords,  I  too  have  a  high  heart. 

'  You  say  I  have  been  a  student,  a  courtier,  a 
soldier.  Quite  true.  But  I  have  never  been  a 
street-preacher  or  h3rpocrite  (cafard),  selling  my  vain 
dreams  to  ignorant  men.  I  'd  rather  row  in  a  galley, 
or  labour  with  swollen  hands  in  fields  that  no  one 
has  heard  of,  than  cease  to  be  a  gentleman  in  order 
to  become  a  cheat  {pipeur).  You  say  it  ill  becomes 
me  to  speak  of  virtue  :  Pharisee  !  If  all  the  am- 
brosia and  nectar  of  heaven  be  yours,  still  le  bon 
Dieu  will  keep  us  a  little  brown  bread.  If  your  new 
sect  should  carry  you  to  Paradise,  our  old  one  will  at 
least  see  the  door,  and  we,  poor  banished  wretches, 
by  God's  goodness,  will  still  find  some  room  in  a 
retired  corner  of  His  house,  though,  as  in  reason,  the 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE  77 

best  places  must  be  for  you  who  are  children  of 
grace.  And  yet  let  me  remind  you  of  the  Pharisee 
and  the  Publican.  After  all,  virtue  cannot  be  shut 
up  in  Geneva.  She  is  a  winged  creature,  who  passes 
over  the  sea,  takes  flight  to  the  sky,  and  traverses 
the  earth  Hke  lightning,  the  wandering  guest  of  all 
the  world  ! 

La  vertu  ne  se  peut  a  Gendve  enf ermer  : 

Elle  a  le  dos  aUe,  elle  passe  la  mer, 

EUe  s'envole  au  ciel,  elle  marche  sur  terre 

Viste  comme  un  esclair,  messager  du  toimerre  .  .  . 

Ainsi  de  peuple  en  peuple  elle  court  par  le  monde, 

De  ce  grand  univers  I'hostesse  vagabonde. 

'  You  say  that  in  my  frenzy  I  scatter  my  verses 
like  leaves  to  the  wind.  I  do.  Poetry  is  an  art ; 
but  not  comparable  to  the  fixed  arts  of  preaching 
and  prose.  The  right  poets  have  their  hidden 
artifice,  which  does  not  seem  art  to  verse-mongers, 
but  fares  forth  under  a  free  restraint  whithersoever 
the  muse  may  lead  it.  I  gather  my  honey,  as  the 
bees  do,  from  every  flower  of  Parnassus.  I  am  mad, 
if  you  please,  when  I  hold  a  pen,  but  without  one, 
perfectly  sane.  You  are  like  a  child  who,  seeing 
giants  and  chimseras  in  the  clouds,  holds  the  pageant 
for  truth.  The  verses  with  which  I  disport  myself, 
you  take  in  earnest ;  but  neither  your  verses  nor 
mine  are  oracles. 

'  You  say  that  the  fame  I  once  had  is  defeated. 
Do  you  really  suppose  that  your  sect  embraces  all 
the  world  ?  You  are  very  much  mistaken.  I  have 
too  much  fame.  I  would  rather  without  noise  or 
renown  be  but  a  shepherd  or  a  labourer.  There  is 
no  happiness  in  being  pointed  at  in  the  street. 


Celuy  n'est  pas  heureux  qu'on  montre  par  la 


rue. 


78  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE 

'  You  say  that  I  should  die  overwhelmed  with 
sorrow  did  I  see  our  Roman  Church  fall.  I  should 
be  unhappy.  But  I  have  a  stout  heart,  and  that 
inside  my  head  which,  if  tempests  come,  must  swim 
with  me  through  the  floods.  Perhaps  your  head,  if 
we  do  reach  an  unknown  shore,  wnl  turn  out  to  be 
useless. 

'  No  !  no  !  I  do  not  depend  on  Church  revenues 
or  royal  favour.  I  live  a  true  poet  and  have  de- 
served as  well  of  my  country  as  you,  false  impostor 
and  braggart  that  you  are. 

'  All  your  barking  will  not  strip  me  of  the  laurel 
wreath  I  have  deserved  for  service  done  to  the  French 
language. 

^  Undaunted  by  toil  I  have  laboured  for  the 
mother-tongue  of  France.  I  have  made  her  new 
words  and  restored  the  old.  I  have  raised  her 
poetry  to  a  level  with  the  art  of  Rome  and  Greece. 
I  repent  me  of  the  deed  if  this  art  is  to  be  used  by 
heretics  to  serve  the  ends  of  shop-boys. 

'  You — and  you  cannot  deny  it — are  the  issue 
of  my  muse.  You  are  my  subjects  ;  I  your  only 
king.  You  are  my  streams.  I  am  your  fountain. 
The  more  you  exhaust  me,  the  more  does  my  un- 
failing spring  cast  back  the  sands  and  gush  forth 
perpetually  to  fulfil  your  rivulets.' 

There  is  more  in  this  haughty  strain.  But  at  the 
last  he  prays  God  devoutly  that  the  fearful  end  of 
civil  strife  may  be  averted,  and  that  the  torch  of 
war,  like  a  brand  in  the  fire,  may  consume  itself  in 
smoke. 

Le  feu,  le  fer,  le  meurtre,  en  sont  le  fondement, 
Dieu  veuille  que  la  fin  en  arrive  autrement, 
Et  que  le  grand  flambeau  de  la  guerre  allumee, 
Comme  un  tison  de  feu,  se  consomme  en  fumee. 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE  79 

I  have  made  this  long  citation  because  it  reveals 
the  man,  more  fully  than  any  list,  however  con- 
gested, of  names  and  dates  ;  and  because  it  supplies 
a  corrective  to  conventional  views  based  on  this  or 
that  obvious  feature  of  Ronsard's  poetry.  It  is 
important  to  know  that  a  poet  chiefly  remembered 
for  a  few  plaintive  songs  of  fading  roses,  and  a 
deUberate  attempt  to  recast  a  language  and  develop 
the  mechanism  of  verse,  was  every  inch  a  man  who 
stood  four-square  to  the  whole  racket  of  his  day. 

For  this,  so  far  from  diminishing  the  value  of 
his  particular  love  of  loveliness,  and  personal  servi- 
tude to  the  machinery  of  art,  tends,  on  the  contrary, 
to  prove  the  general  importance  to  mankind  of  these 
things  for  which  he  cared  most.  It  is  clear  that  he 
cared  also,  and  acutely,  for  much  that  other  men 
prize.  Here  is  a  citizen  and  a  soldier,  a  man  who 
takes  a  side  in  politics  and  religion,  who  argues  from 
the  rostrum  and  pommels  in  the  ring,  a  conservative 
with  a  catholic  pleasure  in  life,  delighting  in  all  the 
treasures  garnered  into  the  citadel  of  the  past,  and 
ready  to  die  in  its  defence.  Yet  his  life-work,  for 
all  these  distractions,  consists  in  an  exaltation  of 

Beauty  that  must  die 
And  Joy  whose  hand  is  ever  at  his  lips 
Bidding  Adieu  : 

consists  in  that ;  and  in  a  curious  attention  to  the 
formalities  of  verse,  to  the  artistic  liturgy  of  beauty 
which  affirms,  paradoxically,  that  Beauty,  by  reason 
of  her  certitude,  is,  despite  of  death,  in  some 
irrational  way  at  once  divine  and  immortal.  That 
mystical  message  comes  from  a  human,  sturdy. 
God-fearing,  battle-stained  man  with  '  accents  of 
dignity  that  die  upon  the  lips  '  of  monastic  devotees 
to  art  cloistered  for  its  own  sake. 


80  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE 

Little  else  need  be  said  of  his  life.     After  the 
death  of  Charles  ix.  an  immense  solitude  encom- 
passed the  man  who  had  taken  part  in  so  many 
activities.     Tasso,  it  is  true,  in  1575,  submitted  to 
him  at  Paris  the  earher  cantos  of  his  Jerusalem 
Delivered,     But  Ronsard  retired  from  the  Court  of 
Henri  m.     His  Ufe  had,  he  writes,  become  a  con- 
tinual death,  so  he  sought  out  the  Priory  of  St.  Cosme 
to  die.     I  strayed  to  the  place  by  pure  accident. 
Walking  near  Plessis-les-Tours  one  summer  evening, 
along  the  dyke  constructed  by  our  Plantagenets  to 
restrain  the  inundations  of  the  Loire,  I  saw  a  cart- 
road  leading  through  an  avenue  of  poplars  to  a 
Gothic  archway.     I  followed  the  track  and  found, 
lit  up  by  the  sunset,  a  stone  mansion  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  neglected  and  partitioned  into  the  dwellings 
of  four  peasant  proprietors.     The  end  gable  of  the 
upper  story  was  attached  by  a  flying  gallery  to  the 
ruins  of  a  Gothic  church.     I  was  asked  if  I  was 
looking  for  the  tomb  of  Ronsard,  and  told,  with  a 
grin,  that  some  learned  men  had  failed  to  find  his 
grave  twenty  years  earher,  and  that  I  should  only 
waste  my  time.     I  thought  otherwise.     This  was 
evidently  St.   Cosme.     There,  was  the  late-Gothic 
door,  through  which  Ronsard  passed  to  his  death-bed, 
still  decorated  with  Renaissance  carvings  of  fruits 
and  flowers.     A  rose-tree  grew  up  one  of  the  jambs, 
and  a  vine  had  thrown  a  branch  across  the  grey, 
worm-eaten  panels.     When  I  returned  the  next  year 
the  door,  with  its  time-worn  sculpture,  was  gone. 
But  I  retrieved  parts  of  it  from  the  wood-heap.     The 
scene  echoed  the  note  on  which  Ronsard  harped  with 
poignant  insistence — 

Tout  ce  qui  est  de  beau  iie  se  garde  longtemps 
Les  roses  et  les  lis  ne  rdgnent  qu'un  printemps. 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE  81 

There,  he  had  dictated  his  last  verses — 

L'un  meurt  en  son  printemps,  I'autre  attend  la  vieillesse, 

Le  trespas  est  tout  un,  les  accidens  divers  : 

Le  vray  thresor  de  Fhomme  est  la  verte  jeunesse, 

Le  reste  de  nos  ans  ne  sont  que  des  hyvers. — 

and,  again,  with  his  incongruous  mingling  of  Catholic 
faith  and  pagan  despair — 

Quoy  mon  ame,  dors-tu,  engourdie  en  ta  masse  ? 
La  trompette  a  sonne,  serre  baggage,  et  va 
Le  chemin  dSserti  que  Jesus-Christ  trouva. 
Quand  tant  mouille  de  sang  racheta  nostre  race. 

This  is  the  religious  verse  of  a  man  who,  against 
his  will,  had  seen  religion  confounded  with  war  ; 
who  had  deplored — 

Un  Christ  empistole,  tout  noirci  de  fumee  ; 

who  almost  dreaded  that  the  way  of  salvation  dear 
to  his  ancestors  was  to  be  obliterated  by  insurgents 
against  whom  he  had  himself  borne  arms. 

But  he  died  in  that  way.  When  asked  at  the 
point  of  death,  '  De  quelle  resolution  il  voulait 
mourir  ?  '  he  answered,  according  to  a  contemporary, 
Binet,  '  Assez  aigrement,  qui  vous  fait  dire  cela , 
mon  bon  amy  ?  Je  veux  mourir  en  la  religion 
Catholique,  comme  mes  ayeulx,  bisayeulx,  trisayeulx, 
et  comme  j'ai  tesmoigne  assez  par  mes  escrits !  ' 

He  discoursed  at  length  on  his  life,  saying  again 
and  again,  '  Je  n'ay  aucune  haine  contre  personne, 
ainsi  me  puisse  chacun  pardonner.'  He  dictated 
two  more  Christian  sonnets,  and  remained  a  long 
while  with  arms  extended  towards  the  sky  :  at  last, 
like  one  in  his  sleep,  he  rendered  his  spirit  to  God, 
and  his  hands  in  falling  let  those  present  know  the 
moment  of  his  death. 

The  Priory  of  St.  Cosme  was  suppressed,  and  the 


82  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE 

only  design  of  Ronsard's  shattered  monument  is 
'  par  suite  d'un  vol ' — so  a  French  archaeologist  tells 
me — now  in  the  Bodleian  at  Oxford. 


Sources  and  Aim# 

Having  touched  on  the  age  in  which  the  Pleiade 
wrote,  and  dwelt  on  the  personality  of  their  leader,  I 
come  to  the  sources  of  their  inspiration  and  aim  of 
their  art.  Here  we  must  walk  warily.  From  this 
point  onward  I  shall  rather  invite  inquiry  than  seek 
to  deliver  a  judgment.  There  is  no  final  judgment. 
Conflicting  judgments  make  the  work  of  the  Pleiade 
a  matter  of  interest  to-day,  especially  to  students 
of  the  Renaissance. 

The  judgment  which  stood  unchallenged  in  France 
for  two  centuries  averred  that  having  thrown  away 
the  tradition  of  French  poetry,  and  the  French 
language  after  it,  the  Pleiade  invented,  per  saltum,  a 
new  language  and  a  new  poetry,  awkwardly,  and  all 
but  exclusively,  imitated  from  Greek  models. 

The  opposite  view,  urged  tentatively  by  Sainte- 
Beuve  in  1828,  was  emphasised  by  Pater  in  his 
famous  essay  on  Joachim  du  Bellay,  and  can  best  be 
stated  in  his  words  : — '  In  the  Renaissance,  French 
poetry  did  but  borrow  something  to  blend  with  a 
native  growth,  and  the  poems  of  Ronsard,  with  their 
ingenuity,  their  delicately  figured  surfaces,  their 
slightness,  their  fanciful  combinations  of  rhyme,  are 
but  the  correlatives  of  the  traceries  of  the  house  of 
Jacque  Cceur  at  Bourges,  or  the  Maison  de  Justice  at 
Rouen.'  Their  work,  he  writes,  shows  '  a  blending 
of  ItaHan  ornament  with  the  general  outline  of 
Northern  design,'  and  exhibits  '  the  finest  and 
subtlest  phase  of  the  Middle  Age  itself.' 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE  83 

The  first  view  makes  the  Pleiade  too  Greek  and 
violently  prone  to  innovation ;  the  second,  too 
French  and  complacently  mediaeval,  with  but  a  top- 
dressing  of  Italian  ornament.  In  truth,  their  sources 
were  manifold  ;  to  a  degree  in  excess  of  both  theories, 
taken  together.  They  drew  their  inspiration  from 
every  known  fountain  of  poetry  and,  consequently, 
aimed  in  their  art  at  designing  elaborate  channels, 
sufficiently  definite  to  contain,  yet  numerous  enough 
to  display,  all  the  flashing  waters  they  had  derived 
from  so  many  a  muse-haunted  hill. 

Let  me  enumerate  their  sources.  In  the  first 
place,  they  valued  the  best  of  mediaeval  French 
verse.  They  knew  their  thirteenth  century.  Ron- 
sard  had  studied  the  Roman  de  la  Rose,  He  knew 
of  the  romance-cycle  of  Charlemagne,  for  he  writes 
in  one  of  his  many  '  regrets  pour  Marie  Stuart '  :  — 

Que  ne  vivent  encor  les  palladins  de  France  ! 
Un  Roland,  un  Renaud  !   ils  prendroient  sa  defence 
Et  I'accompagneroient  et  seroient  bien  heureux 
D'en  avoir  seulement  un  regard  amoureux. 

They  knew  of  the  Arthurian  cycle  ;  Du  Bellay, 
in  their  manifesto,  far  from  proposing  a  classical 
subject  for  an  epic  poem,  writes,  '  choose  one  of  those 
beautiful  old  French  romances  comme  un  Lancelot, 
un  Tristan,  ou  autres,''  Ronsard,  in  his  preface  to 
his  Franciade,  when  attacking  those  who  sought  to 
write  in  classic  Latin,  says,  '  Why,  it  would  be  better 
worth  your  while — comme  un  hon  bourgeois — to  make 
a  dictionary  of  the  old  words  of  Artus,  Lancelot, 
and  Gawain,  or  a  commentary  on  the  Roman  de 
la  Rose'  They  revived  the  Alexandrine  verse  of 
twelve  syllables  from  a  very  early  French  poem 
on  the  legend  of  Alexander.  But  if  they  knew  of 
the  Alexandrian  cycle,  the  Carlovingian  cycle,  the 


84  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE 

Arthurian  cycle,  and  took  delight  in  the  Bomance  of 
the  Rose,  why,  then,  they  enjoyed  the  heritage  of 
mediaeval  French  verse,  which,  as  Matthew  Arnold 
has  truly  said,  '  took  possession  of  the  heart  and 
imagination  of  Europe  in  the  twelftk  and  thirteenth 
centuries,  and  taught  Chaucer  his  trade,  words, 
rhyme,  and  metre.'  As  Chaucer  puts  it — with  a 
narrower  application  which  may  justly  be  extended 
— '  The  note  I  trowe  maked  was  in  Fraunce.'  They 
derived  from  that  source  their  '  fluidity  of  move- 
ment '  and  the  Alexandrine  verse,  but,  so  far  as  I 
know,  nothing  else. 

In  the  second  place,  coming  to  French  poetry 
which  immediately  preceded  their  own,  they  knew 
and  appreciated  Clement  Marot,  Mellin  de  St. 
Gellais,  Heroet,  and  Maurice  Sceve.  Ronsard 
praises  all  four.  But  there  are  two  things  to  be 
noticed.  They  skip  over  Charles  d' Orleans  and 
Villon,  springing  from  the  thirteenth  century  to 
their  immediate  predecessors,  and  from  these  select 
only  four  as  bright  exceptions.  The  rest  were  Court 
poetasters,  recharging  the  ballade  and  rondeau,  like 
old  rocket-cases,  with  a  few  pinches  of  dull  flattery 
or  indecent  wit.  The  Chant  Royal  had  become  the 
exercise  of  a  drudge.  The  Blasons  were  inanities 
and  brutahties,  mere  '  gabble  of  tinkers,'  with  neither 
'  wit,  manners,  nor  honesty,'  of  which  it  is  impossible 
to  speak.  Ronsard  apostrophises  Marot  as  '  Seule 
lumiere  en  ses  ans  de  la  vulgaire  poesie  '  (Preface 
to  Odes,  1550).  Marot' s  Hero  and  Leander  can 
be  read ;  his  fable  of  The  Lion  and  the  Rat  is 
racy;  and  some  of  his  rondeaux  delightful:  yet 
Ronsard' s  tribute  was  generous.  He  must  have 
raged  against  such  pranks  in  redoubled  rhyme,  as 
for  example  : — 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE  85 

La  blanche  colombelle  belle 
Sou  vent  je  voys  priant,  criant, 
Mais  dessoubz  la  cordelle  d'elle 
Me  jecte  un  ceil  friant,  riant,  etc.  etc. 

We  may  cry  out  with  Maria,  '  What  a  cater- 
wauling do  you  keep  here  !  '  and  acknowledge  that 
the  rare  art  of  the  Middle  Age  had  decHned  to 
'  damnable  iteration.' 

Whilst  the  Pleiade  did  not  discard  the  dower 
of  mediaeval  song,  or  condemn  all  their  immediate 
predecessors,  it  cannot  be  said  that  they  present  in 
the  main  the  last  phase  of  the  Middle  Age,  decorated 
with  Italian  ornament. 

In  the  third  place,  Having  travelled  much  in  Italy, 
they  knew  Petrarch  by  heart,  and  helped  them- 
selves, no  doubt  freely,  to  his  material.  But  Du 
Bellay  wrote  '  contre  les  Petrarquistes ' ;  Ronsard 
attacked  courtiers  '  qui  n'admirent  qu'un  petit 
sonnet  Petrarquise  '  ;  and  both  were  justified  in  this 
repudiation.  The  method  of  their  verse  was  distinct 
from  the  method  of  Italian  verse,  and,  passing  from 
form  to  matter,  they  strike  a  note  of  plaintive 
mystery,  which  is  not  to  be  heard  in  Petrarch. 

In  the  fourth  place,  besides  this  direct  influence 
from  Italy,  they  receive  an  indirect  influence  already 
transfigured  by  the  School  of  Lyons,  and  notably  by 
Maurice  Sceve,  whose  Delie  is  rather  an  anagram 
of  VIdee,  the  platonic  idea  of  beauty,  than  a  title 
borrowed  from  the  Delia  whom  TibuUus  loved. 
Lyons,  the  city  of  Grolier,  was  a  centre  of  sensitive 
culture  where,  to  quote  Brunetiere,  '  the  natural- 
ism of  Italy  had  become  enriched,  perhaps  even 
a  little  over -weighted,  by  a  mystical  significance. 
Platonism,  from  being  a  relaxation  of  the  inteUigent, 
and  matter  to  put  into  a  sonnet,  had  been  there 


86  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE 

transmuted  into,  as  it  were,  an  inward  religion,  secret 
and  passionate,  of  beauty.' 

In  the  fifth  place,  they  had  all  the  Latin  authors 
at  their  finger-ends.  Yet  they  knew  them  for 
literary  echoes,  calling  Horace  '  the,  Latin  Pindar.' 
To  Du  Bellay  the  Iliad  is  '  admirable,'  the  jEneid 
'  laborious.'  But  of  the  Latins  they  set  Virgil  on 
a  lonely  eminence. 

And  so,  lastly,  they  deliberately  sought  their  in- 
spiration in  the  fullest  measure  from  the  Greeks. 
Ronsard  tells  us  that  he  once  shut  himself  up  for 
three  days  to  read  the  Iliad  at  a  sitting.  But  since 
their  main  intention  was  lyric,  their  chief  model  was 
Pindar.  I  can  speak  of  Pindar  only  at  second-hand. 
Accepting  Professor  Butcher  for  my  guide,  I  learn 
that  Pindar  made  a  twofold  claim.  On  the  one  hand, 
he  claimed  constant  inspiration,  enthusiasm,  and 
something  of  a  divine  importance  attaching  to  lyric 
poetry  as  such  ;  on  the  other,  that  lyric  poets  were 
the  trustees  and  exponents  of  an  intricate  traditional 
artifice  with  subtle  laws  which  I  they  alone  under- 
stood and  always  obeyed.  Now  that  is  precisely  the 
double  claim  put  forward  by  Ronsard. 

After  Pindar,  among  Greek  sources,  the  Pleiade 
drew  largely  on  Theocritus,  Callimachus,  Lycophron, 
and  generally  on  the  Alexandrine  poets  who  flourished 
at  the  court  of  the  Ptolemies.  Brimetiere  insists  on 
this,  and  approves  their  choice,  since,  being  absorbed 
in  remaking  a  language  and  designing  poetical 
forms,  what  they  needed  were  '  writing-masters.' 
In  the  great  edition  of  Ronsard's  works  of  1623, 
a  commentator,  Marcassus,  refers  the  reader  to 
Lycophron  for  the  elucidation  of  classical  machinery 
in  the  very  poem  from  which  I  quoted  the  apostrophe 
to   Roland   and   '  les  palladins  de   France.'     That 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE  87 

illustrates  the  multiplicity  of  the  Pleiade's  sources, 
and  the  impartiality  with  which  they  tapped  them 
even  for  one  poem.  They  drew  also  on  the  Greek 
Anthology,  republished  at  Paris  in  1551,  so  that  all 
the  flowers  of  Meleager  passed  into  their  verse  ; 
and,  later,  on  the  Anacreon,  published  by  Estienne 
at  Paris  for  the  first  time  in  1554. 

If  you  except  the  Troubadours,  there  is  scarce  a 
stream  of  lyric  verse,  ancient  or  modern,  which  they 
did  not  sedulously  conduct  into  the  swollen  river 
of  their  song  ;  and,  apart  from  literary  origins,  they 
laid  much  else  under  contribution  :  the  splendour  of 
courts,  the  pageant  of  embassies,  the  weariness  of 
exile,  the  loveliness  of  women,  the  glory  of  gardens 
— much,  too,  which  they  accepted  frankly  from  wild 
Nature,  or  went  curiously  to  seek  even  from  among 
the  appliances  of  industry  in  towns. 

The  aim  of  their  art  is  declared  in  Du  Bellay's 
Defense  et  Illustration,  and  in  Ronsard's  prefaces  to 
his  Odes  and  the  Franciade. 

They  did  not  embark  on  a  wanton  quest  after 
novelty.  Rather,  they  were  confronted  by  two 
real  difficulties — the  poverty  of  language  and  the 
degradation  of  poetry — ^which  had  to  be  surmounted 
before  French  could  become  a  medium  for  modern 
literature.  The  French  language  had  never  been 
amplified  and  elevated  to  the  pitch  required  for  that 
purpose.  French  poetry  had  fallen  and  shrunk 
from  the  state  it  once  held  in  the  hands  of  Chaucer's 
masters.  The  Pleiade  found  a  language  too  scanty 
to  convey  the  new  features  of  Renaissance  civilisa- 
tion, and  quite  unfitted  to  express  conceptions  im- 
ported from  Greek  thought.  For  that,  in  its  loftier 
and  more  suggestive  phases,  poetry,  the  first  and  last 
mode  of  speech,  is  needed  ;   but  their  native  poetry 


88  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE 

was  worn  down  to  a  jingle.  What  was  to  be  done  ? 
The  common  view  among  any  who  saw  the  difficulty 
and  sought  a  solution,  seems  to  have  been  that 
French  did  well  enough  for  ordinary  business  and  a 
good  song  ;  dog-Latin  for  law  and  history  ;  and 
that,  for  higher  flights  of  poetry  or  philosophy,  there 
was  no  expedient  save  to  master  and  employ  the 
vocabularies,  syntax,  and  poetic  forms  of  classic 
Latin  and  Greek. 

Against  this  the  Pleiade  protested.  Du  Bellay, 
in  the  first  book  of  his  manifesto,  defends  the  French 
language.  All  languages,  he  argues,  are,  so  to  say, 
'  born  equal.'  All  were  made  in  the  same  way,  for 
the  same  purpose,  viz.  by  the  human  fancy  to  inter- 
change the  conceptions  of  the  human  mind.  New 
things  must  always  have  demanded  new  words,  and 
there  is  no  reason  why  that  process  should  not  be 
continued.  French  is  not  a  barbarous  tongue,  nor 
so  poor  as  many  assert.  In  so  far  as  it  is  poor  it  is 
only  so  because  our  ancestors,  like  the  early  Romans, 
were  too  busy  with  war  to  waste  time  on  words. 
The  right  plan  is  to  follow  the  example  set  by  the 
Romans,  that  is,  to  enrich  our  own  vocabulary  by 
acclimatising  classic  words,  and  to  give  it  flexibility 
and  point  by  imitating  classic  models.  In  his  second 
book,  passing  from  the  poverty  of  language  to  the 
abasement  of  poetry,  he  urges  that  French  poetry 
can  be  lifted  from  the  rut.  The  authors  of  the 
Roman  de  la  Rose  ought  to  be  read,  not  for  imitation, 
but  to  secure  a  first  image  of  the  French  tongue.  Of 
recent  poets  some  have  done  well,  and  France  is 
obliged  to  them.  But  much  better  may  be  done.  A 
natural  gift  is  not  enough.  Forasmuch  as  our  court 
poets  drink,  eat,  and  sleep  at  their  ease,  he  who 
v/ould  be  read  and  remembered  must  endure  hunger 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE  89 

and  thirst  and  long  watches.  These  are  the  wings 
on  which  the  writings  of  men  soar  up  to  heaven. 
The  poet  is  to  avoid  copying  mere  tricks,  to  develop 
his  own  individuality,  and  to  imitate  those  of  a 
kindred  genius,  otherwise  his  imitation  will  resemble 
that  of  a  monkey.  He  is  to  read  Greek  and  Latin 
authors  day  and  night  and  to  forswear  '  Rondeaux, 
ballades,  vyrelaiz  .  .  .  et  autres  telles  epiceries.' 
Odes  are  to  be  written  by  setting  to  work  as  Horace 
did,  so  as  to  achieve  a  standard  till  then  unattempted. 
Poetry  of  this  kind  is  to  be  distinguished  from  the 
vulgar,  enriched  and  illustrated  with  appropriate 
words  and  carefully  chosen  epithets,  adorned  with 
solemn  sayings,  and  varied  in  every  way  with  poetic 
colour  and  decoration. 

Epigrams  and  satires  are  deprecated.  Sonnets, 
the  learned  and  pleasant  invention  of  Italy,  are 
praised.  The  long  poem  is  to  be  essayed,  but  let 
the  theme  be  taken  from  old  French  romances. 
Idleness  and  luxury  have  destroyed  the  desire  of 
immortality  ;  but  glory  is  the  only  ladder  upon 
whose  rungs  mortals  may  with  a  light  step  ascend  to 
heaven  and  make  themselves  the  companions  of  the 
gods.  Use  words  which  are  purely  French,  neither 
too  common  nor  too  far-fetched,  and,  if  you  like, 
sometimes  annex  some  antique  term  and  set  it,  as 
it  were  a  precious  stone,  in  your  verse.  Rhyme 
is  of  the  essence  of  French  verse.  It  must  be  rich ; 
free  rather  than  constrained ;  accepted  rather  than 
sought  out ;  appropriate  and  natural ;  in  short,  such 
that  the  verse  falling  on  it  shall  not  less  content  the 
ear  than  music  well  harmonised  when  it  falls  on  a 
perfect  chord.  Blank  verse  is  a  more  doubtful 
matter  ;  but  as  painters  and  sculptors  use  greater 
pains   to   make   nude   figures   of    lovely  and   good 


90  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE 

proportion,  so  must  blank  verse  be  athletic  and 
muscular. 

He  attacks  the  court  versifiers,  prays  to  Apollo 
that  France  may  engender  a  poet  whose  resonant 
lute  shall  silence  the  wheezy  bagpipes  of  the  day, 
and,  after  exhorting  the  French  to  write  in  their 
own  tongue,  concludes  with  an  eulogy  of  France. 

Ronsard  repeats  much  of  this  thesis  in  his  prefaces. 
He  dwells  on  the  salient  paradox  that,  whilst  the 
French  language  was  still  prattling  in  infancy,  French 
poetry  was  languishing  and  grimacing  towards  death. 
But  he  chiefly  insists  on  the  necessity  of  designing 
varied  metres  and  rhyme-schemes  for  lyric  poetry, 
attesting — and  the  duality  of  his  argument  is  an 
index  to  his  aim — first,  the  example  of  Pindar,  and 
secondly,  the  diversity  of  Nature,  which  exacts  an 
infinite  response  to  her  moods. 

For  the  rest,  he  makes  short  work  of  his  critics, 
saying,  in  the  sturdy  vernacular  which  he  could  ever 
command  for  all  his  artifice :  '  If,  reader,  you  are 
astonished  at  the  sudden  changes  in  my  manner  of 
writing,  you  are  to  understand  that  when  I  have 
bought  my  pen,  my  ink,  and  my  paper,  they  belong 
to  me,  and  I  may  honestly  do  what  I  please  with  my 
own.' 

Achievement  and  Influence 

There  can  be  no  question  of  the  vast  material 
embraced  by  the  Pleiade,  and  the  high  aim  envisaged 
in  their  attempt  to  renew  language  and  revive  lyrics. 
But  two  questions  obtrude.  What  did  they  accom- 
plish ?  What  influence  did  they  exert  ?  Again  we 
have  diverse  judgments.  It  is  for  students  of  the 
Renaissance,  and,  not  least,  for  students  of  our 
nation,  to  seek  the  final  decree.     We  cannot  know 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE  91 

French  idiomatically  and  genetically.  But  we 
emancipated  ourselves,  thirty  years  before  they  did, 
from  the  tame  conclusions  of  academic  art,  and  are 
by  so  much  the  less  afraid  to  reverse  the  judgments 
of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries. 

What,  then,  did  the  Pleiade  effect  ?  They  settled 
decisively,  and  long  before  we  did,  that  the  mother- 
tongues  of  Northern  Europe,  and  not  Greek  or 
Latin,  were  to  be  explored  for  adequate  expression, 
and  exploited  for  the  highest  flights  of  poetry.  That 
new  words  must  be  found  for  new  things  ;  that 
rhyme  is  at  once  a  necessity  for  lyrics  in  modern 
languages  which  have  no  definite  quantities,  and  a 
treasure  added  to  the  economy  of  classic  verse  ;  that 
modem  poetry,  based  on  the  number,  and  not  on  the 
time-value,  of  syllables  in  a  line,  must  be  contrived 
in  consonance  with  the  ancient  songs  and  genius  of 
European  languages,  and  not  in  clumsy  reproductions 
of  sapphics  or  alcaics  ;  that  the  lyric  must  be  of 
endless  variety  to  fit  the  multitudinous  response  of 
human  emotion  to  the  infinite  appeals  of  sensation 
and  passion.  Finding  nothing  but  worn-out  ballades 
and  rondeaux,  they  revived  the  freshness,  plaintive 
or  gay,  of  the  song,  and  invented  the  stately  pro- 
gression of  the  ode.  Ronsard  alone,  apart  from 
his  Pindaric  odes,  devised  sixty-three  lyric  metres. 
They  decided  that  beauty  is  to  be  frankly  enjoyed 
for  its  obvious  delight,  and  humbly  adored  for  its 
inward  mystery ;  that  the  poet's  calling  is  an 
arduous  enterprise  comparable  to  the  sculptor's 
ascetic  conflict  with  marble,  and  never  more  so  than 
when  he  sings  the  pathos  of 

Beauty  and  anguish  walking  hand  in  hand 

The  downward  slope  of  death. 

All  this,  I  beheve,  and  hope  to  indicate,  was  an 


92  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE 

effective  contribution  to  England  as  well  as  to 
France. 

They  reproduced  the  sonnet  on  the  exact  model 
of  Petrarch  in  such  numbers  and  with  such  ease  that 
it  cannot  be  called  an  exotic  in  French,  a  feat  un- 
accomplished in  England  till  Rossetti  wrote  the 
House  of  Life,  But,  apart  from  their  general  con- 
tribution to  the  renaissance  of  poetry,  they  settled 
some  matters  particular  to  French  verse,  as  the 
alternation  of  masculine  and  feminine  rhymes,  and 
the  sovereignty  of  the  Alexandrine.  I  use  the  word 
settled  advisedly,  for  I  am  well  aware  that  experi- 
ments in  these  directions  had  been  made  by  their 
immediate  predecessors,  just  as  a  dozen  sonnets, 
and  no  more,  had  been  hazarded  before  their  time. 
I  know  that  they  reverted  from  the  Alexandrine, 
and  that  they  did  not  invariably  observe  the  rules 
which  they  had  practically  established.  It  was  the 
volume  and  the  general  excellence  of  their  verse, 
the  dash  and  cogency  of  their  propaganda,  which 
prevailed.  Indeed,  by  the  irony  of  fate,  their  fame 
was  overthrown  for  two  centuries  in  France,  and  their 
more  varied  contributions  to  poetry  obscured,  just 
because  they  had  carried  some  few  metrical  reforms 
to  a  point  at  which  these  were  usurped  by  Malherbe 
and  his  successors,  and  emphasised  to  the  desolating 
exclusion  of  all  else. 

We  cannot  speak  of  tracing  their  influence  con- 
tinuously in  France.  It  was  sharply  rejected  early 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  accepted  again  with 
diffidence  only  after  an  interval  of  two  hundred 
years.  The  story  is  well  known.  Malherbe  (born 
1555),  who,  but  for  Ronsard,  could  never  have 
written  his  celebrated  Consolation  a  M.  du  Perier, 
after  erasing  half  his  master's  lines,  took  up  his  pen 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE  93 

again  and,  to  show  the  great  critic  he  was,  ruled  out 
the  rest.  The  poetry  of  the  Pleiade  was  no  longer 
read  at  court,  nor  at  all,  save  here  and  there  in  the 
houses  of  country  gentlemen,  and  by  an  ever- 
diminishing  band  of  defenders  in  the  university 
and  local  parliaments.  It  slept  in  dusty  volumes 
on  the  shelf,  as  the  Elizabethan  poetry  of  England 
lay  dormant  for  a  somewhat  shorter  period.  In 
1754  an  anonymous  author  describes  La  Pleiade  as 
'  les  sept  Poetes  fameux  qu'on  ne  peut  plus  lire,' 
and  sets  up  others  in  their  place.  I  do  not  know  his 
name,  but — and  this  pleases  me — he  dedicates  his 
anthology  to  an  officer  in  a  Royal  Household,  mem- 
ber of  several  academies,  and  '  ancien  Capitaine 
de  Dragons.'  The  Alexandrine  verse  and  '  classic ' 
couplet  reigned  supreme  through  an  age  of  periwigs 
and  powder,  foUowmg  on  an  age  of  full-bottomed 
wigs  and  clanking  dragoons.  The  lyric  was  an 
outcast. 

In  poetry — as  in  architecture — the  exuberance  of 
a  transitional  period  is  pruned  down  to  classic 
repose,  which,  in  turn,  becomes  first  puristic,  and 
then,  in  a  sequence  of  degradation,  conventional, 
respectable,  dull,  and  at  last  downright  ugly  and 
repellent.  But  the  hunger  for  beauty  then  becomes 
clamant,  and  the  desire  for  manifold  expression  is 
again  begotten  by  the  love  of  beauty.  So  you  have 
a  romantic  revival  of  unrestrained  abundance,  taking 
its  good  things  from  wheresoever  they  can  be  found. 

This  happened  in  1828.  That  great  critic  Sainte- 
Beuve  produced  two  works :  the  Tableau  de  la 
Poesie  frangaise  du  XV le  Siede  and  the  (Euvres 
choisies  de  Pierre  de  Ronsard,  They  effected  a  poetic 
revulsion  and  mark  an  epoch.  The  degenerate 
classic  was  arraigned  as  a  '  Roi  faineant,'  and  the 


94  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE 

romantic  ruled  in  his  place.  The  lyric  revived. 
The  metres  of  Ronsard  were  resumed  and  carried 
forward  to  the  '  Strophes  frissonnantes '  of  Victor 
Hugo.  The  ode,  the  sonnet,  the  song,  were  multi- 
plied ;  and  song,  since  then,  has  neyer  been  silenced 
in  the  native  land  of  the  Trouveres  and  Troubadours. 
It  breaks  out  repeatedly,  and  at  each  new  deHverance 
with  a  bolder  rejection  of  conventional  tyranny,  a 
heartier  acclamation  of  Ronsard,  Prince  des  Poetes 
Frangais.  From  1857  his  complete  works  were  re- 
published by  M.  Prosper  Blanchemain.  De  Banville, 
that  exquisite  conqueror  of  metrical  difficulty,  hails 
him  in  one  of  his  own  neglected  metres — 

O  mon  Ronsard,  O  maitre 
Victorieux  du  metre, 
O  sublime  echanson 

De  la  chanson ! 

Fran9ois  Coppee  is  content  to  be  Ronsard's  '  humble 
and  modest  apprentice.'  To  Emile  Deschamps  he 
is  a  '  subUme  virtuoso,  improvising  on  an  imperfect 
instrument.'     Albert  Glatigny  cries  out : — 

Dans  tes  bras  je  me  refugie, 
Et  veux,  divine  et  noble  orgie, 
Etre  ivre  de  rimes  ce  soir. 

Sully-Prudhomme,  addressing  '  le  maitre  des  char- 
meurs  de  I'oreille,'  says  the  last  word  on  the  loss  and 
recovery  of  the  lyric — 

Ah  !  depuis  que  les  cieux,  les  champs,  les  bois  et  I'onde 
N'avaient  plus  d'ame,  un  deuil  assombrissait  le  monde, 
Car  le  monde  sans  lyre  est  comme  inhabit^  ! 
Tu  viens,  tu  ressaisis  la  lyre,  tu  I'accordes 
Et,  fier,  tu  rajeunis  la  gloire  des  sept  cordes 
Et  tu  refais  aux  Dieux  une  immortalite. 

Ronsard  and  du  Bellay  are  now  called  'les  vrais 
classiques '  {La  Lignee  des  Poetes  Frangais  au  XIXe 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE  95 

Steele,  1902).  It  is  enough  to  make  Boileau  turn  in 
his  grave. 

If,  however,  instead  of  reading  Ronsard's  poetry, 
or  the  poetry  of  poets  who  recrowned  him,  you  turn 
to  any  critical  history  of  French  literature,  you  will 
find  praise  doled  out  still  somewhat  grudgingly. 
Critics  and  compilers  of  literary  manuals  cannot 
bring  themselves  to  believe  that  the  conventional 
judgments  of  the  eighteenth  century  have  been 
definitely  reversed.  The  mystery  of  beauty  and 
exuberance  of  song  do  not  always  appeal  to  them. 
That  is  why  students  of  the  Renaissance  should 
prosecute  individual  research. 

Ronsard's  poetry  was  neglected  partly  because  of 
its  volume  ;  mainly  because  his  immediate  successors 
were  preoccupied  with  their  own  efforts.  But  they 
urged  three  excuses  for  their  neglect ; — that  his  verse 
was  overloaded  with  excerpts  from  classic  myths; 
that  his  diction  included  words  foreign  to  the  genius 
of  French  poetry,  inasmuch  as  they  were  old- 
fashioned  and  colloquial,  or  new-fangled  and  out- 
landish ;  that  he  invented  too  many  caressing 
diminutives.  These  pleas  were  repeated  by  suc- 
cessive generations  of  critics,  who,  in  the  absence  of 
reprints,  never  read  Ronsard's  poetry  for  them- 
selves. They  ought  now  to  be  re-examined.  It  may 
fairly  be  said  that  no  one  of  the  features  arraigned 
is  typical  of  Ronsard's  art,  and  that,  when  taken 
together,  they  affect  but  a  small  proportion  of  his 
seventy  or  eighty  thousand  lines.  They  are 
accidents  of  his  day  and  of  the  conditions  under 
which  he  wrote ;  obvious  to  the  next  ensuing  age, 
but  not  characteristic  for  all  time.  We  can  now 
estimate  their  insignificance. 

His  allusions  to  classic  mythology  are  but  faded 


96  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE 

apparel  tricking  a  fair  body.  We  may  reflect  that 
novels,  the  typical  product  of  our  own  literature, 
will  suffer  just  such  an  eclipse  as  the  lyrics  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  They,  too,  are  voluminous. 
Their  enthusiastic  references  to  an  Age  of  Invention, 
to  railways  and  motor  cars,  will  some  day  seem  no 
less  superfluous  than  Renaissance  references  to  an 
Age  of  Learning,  to  Apollo  and  the  muses.  Yet 
things  of  beauty  outlast  their  contemporary  trap- 
pings ;  and  even  these — at  first  a  zest,  then  a  bore — 
become  in  the  end  a  curiosity,  not  without  charm. 
The  mythology  of  Ronsard,  though  faded,  has  a 
vague  decorative  value,  as  of  old  tapestry. 

Turning  to  strictures  on  Ronsard' s  diction  :  it 
is  true  that  he  preserved  some  mediaeval  terms. 
'  Spenser  in  affecting  the  ancients  writ  no  language,' 
was  Ben  Jonson's  condemnation  of  a  like  accident 
in  the  Faery  Queen,  Censure  of  that  kind  is  the 
'  common  form '  of  seventeenth-century  criticism 
on  sixteenth-century  romance,  and  should  carry  but 
little  weight  with  us  who  live  after  the  romantic 
revival.  It  is  true,  again,  that  Ronsard  did  not 
reject  homely  words  from  high-flown  periods.  He 
writes  of  '  chemises '  and  '  chandelles ' ;  things  ab- 
horrent to  the  fastidious  pomp  of  'Le  Roi  Soleil,' 
whose  court  poets  found  nothing  amiss  in  a  Ramillies 
wig  on  the  head  of  a  Greek  god.  L' Abbe  de  MaroUes, 
in  1675,  writes — of  a  rose  ! — 

Au  moment  que  j'en  parle,  on  voit  que  sa  perruque 
Tombe  en  s'elargissant,  qu'elle  devient  caduque. 

A  wig  could  never  be  out  of  place  in  the  eyes 
of  Ronsard' s  detractors.  But  candles  were  too 
common.  The  compatriots  of  Shakespeare  who 
read,  with  no  shock  but  of  joy, — 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE  97 

Though  not  so  bright 
As  those  gold  candles  fix'd  in  heaven's  air — 

need  not  boggle  at  Ronsard's  '  chandelles.'  So,  too, 
with  some  of  his  neologisms  ;  in  our  ignorance  as 
foreigners  we  may  even  regret  that  his  '  myrteux ' 
and  '  fretillard  '  are  obsolete  in  French. 

As  for  his  diminutives,  I  deny  that  Ronsard  in- 
vented them.  He  took  them  from  old  French  songs. 
In  these,  the  pensive  lover  '  par  ung  matinet,'  in 
the  shadow  of  a  '  buyssonnet '  is  left  '  tout  seullet ' 
by  '  le  doux  roussignolet '  {Chansons  du  XV e  Siecle, 
Gaston  Paris).  Jehannot  de  Lescurel  (French 
Lyrics,  Saintsbury)  has  '  doucette,  savoureusette, 
joHette,  bellette,  jeunette,'  and  so  on,  with  a  relish- 
ing frequency  to  which  Ronsard  never  approached. 
Mythological  machinery — archaisms,  colloquialisms, 
neologisms — caressing  diminutives  these — ^were  but 
trivial  excrescences  on  a  rich  style ;  in  its  staple 
ever  fresh  and  forthright,  striking,  and  sonorous. 
Ronsard's  immediate  successors,  who  kicked  at  his 
renown,  paraded  these  excrescences  to  justify  their 
apostasy,  and  then  annexed  his  goods  under  cover  of 
the  derision  they  had  provoked.  They  ignored  the 
true  characteristics  of  his  art ;  but  they  did  not 
neglect  them.  Disguising  their  debt,  they  took  all 
they  could  carry ;  and  that  was  enough  to  furnish 
their  stock-in-trade.  Excepting  the  Drama,  every 
mode  of  poetic  expression  exhibited  by  French 
'  classic '  authors  is,  in  so  far  as  form  is  concerned, 
to  be  found  in  Ronsard,  with  much  else  of  value 
which  they  did  not  appraise.  The  French  '  classic  ' 
was  disengaged  from  the  labyrinth  of  the  Pleiade's 
production.  According  to  Brunetiere,  Ronsard's 
sentiment  for  the  harmonies  of  the  French  language 
has  never  been  equalled.     He  invented,  or  brought 


98  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE 

into  favour,  all  the  combinations  of  rhythms  and 
metres  of  which  French  is  capable.  All  his  in- 
ventions have  not  been  adopted,  but  no  new  ones 
have  been  made.  He  determined  the  essential  types 
of  French  Ijrrics,  and  fixed  the  model  not  only  of  the 
Classic,  but  even  of  the  Romantic  ode.  His  Discours 
gave  eloquence  a  place  for  ever  in  French  poetry. 
These  were  his  lasting  contributions  to  art,  and  the 
wealth  of  them  has  not,  even  now,  been  exhausted. 

The  Pleiade  called  into  being  a  paradise,  almost  a 
wilderness  of  beauty ;  florid, — I  cannot  deny  it, — in- 
tricate and  luxuriant  in  its  growth,  flaunting  its  pro- 
fusion, mad  as  midsummer  is  mad  :  and  in  the  midst 
they  planted  a  tree  of  knowledge.  Their  successors, 
having  tasted  of  that  tree,  set  to  work  with  axe  and 
bill  on  the  wilderness,  lopping  it  into  a  formal  garden 
and,  at  last,  turning  it  into  a  public  place.  Their 
rules,  as  Mallarme  suggests,  will  enable  anybody  to 
make,  with  certainty,  a  verse  to  which  nobody  can 
object.  But  that  savours  of  deportment  rather  than 
of  poesy.  It  enjoins  a  sacrifice  of  distinction  to 
avoid  a  charge  of  eccentricity  ;  an  admirable  maxim 
for  any  who  pursue  a  respectable  calling  along 
a  crowded  thoroughfare,  for  the  genteel  mob  of 
eighteenth-century  couplet-mongers,  but  a  useless 
counsel  and,  so,  an  impertinence  to  the  leader  of  a 
revel  or  a  forlorn  hope.  The  poets  of  the  French 
romantic  revival  were  leaders  in  both  capacities,  and 
they  threw  these  restraints  to  the  winds.  They  took 
Ronsard  for  their  Bible,  and,  as  Theophile  Gautier 
puts  it,  '  burned  to  go  forth  and  combat  Vhydre 
du  Perruquinisme,'  The  '  wiggery  ' — ^the  pomp  and 
pimctiho — of  '  classic '  artifice  are  now  being  relin- 
quished, though  reluctantly,  and,  so  to  say,  against  the 
grain,  by  the  wooden  compilers  of  literary  manuals. 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE  99 

Thus  it  stands  with  the  Pleiade's  influence  on  the 
French  language  and  French  poetry.  I  have  but 
one  other  question  to  propound.  What  effect  did 
the  Pleiade  work,  by  example  or  precept,  on  the 
remaking  of  the  English  language  and  of  EngHsh 
poetry  ?  What  degree  of  influence  did  they  exert 
on  our  own  Elizabethan  revival  ?  The  judgment 
has  stood  that  their  influence  was  of  the  slightest ; 
but  I  ask  for  a  stay  of  execution  and  more  evi- 
dence. Is  it  certain  that  our  late  sixteenth-century 
poets  drew  so  much  of  their  inspiration  from  Italy, 
and  so  little  of  it  from  France  ?  Mr.  Sidney  Lee 
(Elizabethan  Sonnets,  1904)  has  impugned,  has, 
indeed,  traversed  that  judgment.  He  based  his 
finding  on  the  materials  conveniently  collected  by 
Edward  Arber  in  his  invaluable  reprints.  These 
should  be  examined  more  exhaustively  with  a  less 
exclusive  attention  to  the  sonnet :  and  who  will  say 
that  MSS.,  and  odd  volumes  in  old  libraries,  which 
only  in  1895  rendered  up  four  lost  pearls  of  Thomas 
Watson's  poetry,  do  not  entice  to  many  another 
'  adventure  of  the  diver  '  ? 

The  argument  may  be  stated  thus  :  Itahan  models 
had  been  extant  since  Petrarch,  who  lived  far  into 
the  life  of  Chaucer.  Wyat  and  Surrey,  who  turned 
to  these  Italian  models  in  the  earlier  years  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  failed  to  assimilate  them,  and  did 
little  in  the  way  either  of  remaking  the  English 
language  or  reviving  Ijrrics.  The  poets  who  effected 
these  objects  for  England,  as  the  Pleiade  had  effected 
them  for  France,  praised  and  dismissed  Surrey  and 
Wyat,  the  '  courtly  makers,'  just  as  Ronsard  had 
bowed  out  his  precursors  of  Fran9ois  i.'s  court. 
But  they  were  familiar  alike  with  the  Pleiade's 
practice  and  with  their  preaching.     They  proceeded 


100  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE 

to  the  study  of  Italian  from  a  knowledge  of  French, 
and  received  Itahan  poetry  through  the  medium  of 
French  art.  Thus  transmuted  it  could  be  assimilated, 
and  this  was  done  by  EngUsh  poets,  who  echo  the 
music  of  the  Pleiade's  verse  and  repeat  its  critical 
conclusions  in  hterary  manifestoes. 

Take  the  condition  of  EngUsh  lyrics  during  the 
last  ten  years  of  Henri  n.'s  reign,  the  ghttering  and 
august  decade  of  the  Pleiade  in  its  prime,  which 
it  fulfilled  with  infinitely  varied  lyric  forms ; 
with  thousands  of  sonnets  easily  written  on  the 
Petrarchan  model;  and  —  let  it  be  noted  —  with 
critical  manifestoes  of  sedulous  ingenuitj^-.  What 
had  we  then  in  England  ?  Totters  Miscellany  of 
1557.  WiU  any  one  contend  that  even  the  verse  of 
Surrey  and  Wyat,  great  though  its  merit  be,  is  com- 
parable in  volume,  variety,  clarity,  and  assurance  to 
the  verse  of  the  Pleiade  ?  No  ;  Surrey  and  Wyat 
grope  after  Italian  models  which  could  not  be  wholly 
assimilated  even  by  them.  The  other  authors  in- 
cluded in  that  collection  are  mostly — except  Lord 
Vaux — reminiscent  of  country  catches  and  the 
'  canter  canter '  of  fourteen-syllabled  lines.  Our 
l37Tics,  stately  or  melodious,  come  much  later.  But 
TotteVs  Miscellany,  Douglas's  Virgil  (1553),  Drant's 
Horace  (1566),  Turberville's  Ovid  (1569),  reprints 
even  of  Piers  the  Plowman's  Vision  (1551,  1561), 
archaic  alike  in  language  and  poetic  form,  comprise, 
with  the  racy  doggerel  of  Skelton  and  the  somno- 
lences of  Stephen  Hawes,  all  the  recent  English  verse 
which  Spenser  had  to  read  as  a  boy.  Spenser  was 
bom  in  1552.  It  is  not,  therefore,  strange,  but  it 
is  significant,  to  find  Spenser  in  1569,  aged  seventeen, 
translating  Du  Bellay's  Vision. 

Take,  again,  the  Epistle  prefixed  to  Spenser's  early 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE  101 

anonymous  work,  The  Shepherd's  Calendar  (1579), 
dedicated  to  Sir  Philip  Sidney.  It  refers,  after 
naming  Marot  and  Sanazarius,  to  '  divers  other 
excellent  both  Italian  and  French  poets  whose 
footing  this  authour  ' — ^.e.  Spenser — '  everywhere 
followeth  :  yet  so  as  few,  but  they  be  well  scented, 
can  trace  him  out.'  It  does  not,  however,  demand 
a  very  keen  nose  to  retrace  the  footing  of  such  a 
stanza  as : — 

Bring  hither  the  pink  and  purple  columbine 

With  gelliflowers ; 
Bring  sweet  carnations  and  sops-in-wine, 

Worn  of  paramours  ; 
Strew  me  the  ground  with  daffadowndillies, 
With  cowslips,  and  king-cups  and  loved  lilies. 

The  pretty  paunce 

And  the  chevisaunce 
Shall  watch  with  the  fair  fleur-de-lice. 

That,  with  its  intricate  metre,  quickly  recurrent 
rhyme,  and  profusion  of  flowers,  is  redolent  of  the 
land  of  the  fleur  de  lis,  and  imprinted  by  the 
metrical  footing  of  the  Pleiade. 

Even  so  late  as  in  1591,  Spenser,  at  the  age  of 
thirty-nine,  translates  Du  Bellay's  Antiquitez  de 
Eome,  concluding  with  an  envoy  to 

Bellay,  first  garland  of  free  Poesie, 

in  which  Spenser  declares  the  French  poet's  im- 
mortality, and  awards  him  a  fame  '  exceeding  aU 
that  ever  went  before.' 

Thomas  Watson,  a  contemporary  of  Spenser  and 
Sidney,  may  be  named  with  them  as  a  hterary 
renovator  of  lyrics.     He  acclaims  Spenser  : 

Thou  art  Apollo,  whose  sweet  hunnie  vaine 
Amongst  the  muses  hath  the  chiefest  place. 


102  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE 

He  sojourned  in  Paris  with  Sir  Francis  Walsingham, 
Sidney's  father-in-law.  In  his  Eclogue  Sidney  is 
'  Astrophill,'  Francis  Walsingham  '  MeUboeus,'  and 
Thomas  Walsingham  '  Tityrus,'  who  is  made  to  say 
of  the  author,  '  Cory  don  '  : — 

Thy  tunes  have  often  pleas'd  mine  eare  of  yoare, 

When  milk-white  swans  did  flocke  to  heare  thee  sing, 

Where  Seane  in  Paris  makes  a  double  shoare, 
Paris  thrise  blest  if  shee  obey  her  king. 

Watson  was  familiar  with  the  verse  of  Ronsard, 
the  French  king's  reigning  poet.  He  declares  the 
use  which  he  made  of  it  in  prose  prefaces  to  certain 
numbers  of  his  'Efcaro/x-Tra^ta,  or  Passionate  Centurie 
of  Loue  (1582),  e,g,  in  the  preface  to  xxvii.  '  In 
the  first  sixe  verses  of  this  Passion,  the  author  hath 
imitated  perfectly  sixe  verses  in  an  ode  of  Ronsard, 
which  beginneth  thus :  "  Celui  qui  n'ayme  est  mal- 
heureux";  and  in  the  last  staff e  of  this  Passion 
also  he  commeth  very  neere  to  the  sense,  which 
Ronsard  useth  in  another  place,  where  he  writeth  to 
his  Mistresse  in  this  manner :  "En  veus  tu  baiser 
Pluton,"  '  etc.  He  makes  similar  ascriptions  of  the 
numbers  xxviii.  liv.  and  Ixxxiii.  In  some  Latin 
verses  prefixed  to  Watson's  work  by  C.  Downhalus 
we  read : — 

Gallica  Pamasso  ccepit  ditescere  lingua, 
Ronsardique  operis  Luxuriare  novis. 

Turning  now  to  Sir  Philip  Sidney — '  The  reviver 
of  Poetry  in  those  darke  times '  (Aubrey's  Brief 
Lives) — ^let  us  take,  as  a  test,  the  Alexandrine  verse 
of  twelve  syllables,  a  metre  peculiarly  French,  re- 
vived by  Ronsard  from  a  French  trouvere  to  be 
the  classic  metre  of  France.  In  1591,  the  year  of 
Spenser's  envoy  to  Du  Bellay,  Sir  Philip  Sidney, 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE  103 

Spenser's  friend  and  comrade  in  lyric  experiments, 
published  Astrophel  and  Stella.  The  first  sonnet  is 
written  in  Alexandrine  verse.  But  his  very  re- 
pudiation— in  the  third  sonnet — of  Pindar's  apes 
who  flaunt 

in  phrases  fine, 
Enamelling  with  pied  flowers  their  thoughts  of  gold, 

is  obviously  directed  at  the  Pleiade,  but  only,  I 
would  urge,  as  a  rhetorical  development  of  the  first 
sonnet,  written  in  their  metre,  which  ends  : — 

'Foole,'  said  my  Muse  to  me,  '  looke  in  thy  heart  and  write.' 

When  addressing  the  Lady  Penelope,  as  a  lover, 
Sidney  puts  aside  his  literary  masters,  the  more 
simply  to  adore  her.  But  when  treating  of  poetry, 
as  a  critic,  he  reveals  those  masters  to  be  none  other 
than  the  Pleiade,  the  apes  of  Pindar,  who  filled  with 
their  fame  the  court  to  which  he  had  been  accredited. 
Sidney  had  travelled  in  Italy.  But  in  1572  he  was 
Gentleman  of  the  Chamber  to  Charles  ix.,  the  king, 
patron,  and  intimate  friend  of  Konsard,  whom  his 
sovereign  once  invited,  perhaps  in  the  presence  of 
Sidney,  to  sit  beside  him  on  his  royal  throne. 

Of  these  three  dehberate  renovators  Mr.  Sidney 
Lee  has  written  : — '  It  is  clear  that  it  was  through 
the  study  of  French  that  Spenser  passed  to  the  study 
of  Italian.  .  .  .  Spenser  had  clearly  immersed  his 
thought  in  French  poetry '  ;  '  Sidney's  masters 
were  Petrarch  and  Ronsard  '  ;  and,  again,  '  Sidney 
and  Watson  both  came  under  the  impressive  influ- 
ence of  Ronsard.'  So  much  for  these,  but  the 
majority  of  Elizabethan  sonneteers  concentrated 
their  attention  on  contemporary  France,  and  derived 
their  knowledge  of  Italian  work  from  adaptations 
by  Ronsard   and  Desportes.     Mr.  Lee  prints  five 


104  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE 

sonnets  of  Daniel  side  by  side  with  their  originals  by 
Desportes,  and  six  sonnets  of  Lodge  side  by  side 
with  their  originals  by  R-onsard.  He  has  shown 
Chapman's  '  Amorous  Zodiacke '  to  be  but  a  close 
and  clumsy  translation  from  GiUes  Durant.  Mr. 
Kastner  proves  Constable's  debt  to  Desportes,  and, 
since  the  Pleiade's  influence  extended  to  Scotland, 
traces  seven  sonnets  of  Montgomery  to  Ronsard. 
Drummond  of  Hawthomden,  who  studied  Ronsard, 
Muret,  and  Pontus  de  Tyard,  did  not  neglect  French 
translations  of  Ariosto,  Tasso,  and  Sanazzaro. 

But  there  is  a  more  subtile  debt  due  from  our 
Elizabethans  to  the  Pleiade  which,  though  harder 
to  prove  with  precision,  is  yet  sensible.  Apart  from 
actual  translation,  and  outside  the  sonnet-form,  we 
can — as  in  the  stanza  quoted  from  Spenser — hear 
a  haunting  echo  of  the  Pleiade's  music,  and  see  the 
very  facture  which  distinguished  their  lyrics  by  its 
maze  of  varied  metre  and  richly  recurrent  rhyme. 
This  can  be  detected  most  readily  in  those  English 
authors  who  set  themselves  deliberately,  and  with 
ostentation,  to  the  task  of  constructing  Ijrrics  and 
vindicating  rhyme.  Daniel's  Delia  may  take  its 
title  from  Maurice  Sceve's  Delie,  but  its  inspiration 
comes  certainly  from  Ronsard. 

When  winter  snows  upon  thy  sable  hairs 

And  frost  of  age  hath  nipt  thy  beauties  near ; 

When  dark  shall  seem  the  day  that  never  clears, 
And  all  lies  wither' d  that  was  held  so  dear — 

is  pure  Ronsard.  Even  when  Daniel  translates, 
openly,  from  Marino,  he  does  it  to  the  lilt  and  colour 
of  Ronsard' s  music — 

Fair  is  the  Lily  ;   fair 

The  Rose  ;  of  Flowers  the  eye  ! 
Both  wither  in  the  air, 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE  105 

Their  beauteous  colours  die ; 
And  so  at  length  shall  lie, 
Deprived  of  former  grace, 
The  Lilies  of  thy  Breasts,  the  Roses  of  thy  Face. 

Daniel's  allusion  to  '  Tyber,  Arne,  and  Po,'  the  rivers 
of  Italy,  is  often  cited  ;  but  without  the  further 
reference  to  '  hojre  and  Rhodanus,'  the  rivers  of 
the  Pleiade.  Yet  he  drank  deeply  from  those 
streams.  Or  take  Herrick,  a  graduate  of  Cambridge, 
where,  I  have  seen  it  stated,  Ronsard's  poetry  was 
studied.     Read  Ronsard  and  then  listen  to — 

Wave  seen  the  past-best  Times,  and  these 
Will  nere  return,  we  see  the  Seas, 

And  Moons  to  wain  ; 
But  they  fill  up  their  Ebbs  again  : 

But  vanisht,  man, 
Like  to  a  Lilly-lost,  nere  can, 
Nere  can  repullulate,  or  bring 
His  dayes  to  see  a  second  Spring 

Crown  we  our  Heads  with  Roses  then. 
And  'noint  with  Tirian  Balme  ;   for  when 

We  two  are  dead 
The  World  with  us  is  buried  .  .  . 

or  listen  to — 

Then  cause  we  Horace  to  be  read 
Which  sang,  or  seyd, 
A  Goblet,  to  the  brim. 
Of  Lyrick  Wine  both  swell'd  and  crown'd 
A  Round 
We  quaffe  to  him. 

Herrick,  I  doubt  not,  had  read  Anacreon  m  Greek  : 
but  the  Pleiade  was  the  first  to  translate  Anacreon 
into  modem  verse,  and,  what  is  more,  to  write 
anacreontics  on  a  model  that  could  be,  and  was, 
easily  reproduced  in  English.  Herrick  writes  Charon 
and  Phylomel,  a  Dialogue  Sung,  But  Olivier  de 
Magny  had  written  a  dialogue  between  a  lover  and 


106  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE 

Charon,  long  a  favourite  piece  at  the  French  court, 
which,  CoUetet  tells  us,  had  been  set  to  music  by  the 
most  skilful  composers.  The  coincidence  can  hardly 
be  accidental. 

Or,  take  this  track  :  Du  Bellay  writes  in  the  metre 
of  In  Memoriam  ;  so  does  Theophile,  the  last  disciple 
of  the  Pleiade  school,  unjustly  gibbeted  by  Boileau — 

Dans  ce  val  solitaire  et  sombre 
Le  cerf ,  qui  brame  au  bruit  de  I'eau 
Penchant  ses  yeux  dans  un  ruisseau, 
S'amuse  a  regarder  son  ombre — 

SO  does  Ben  Jonson  ;  and  you  have  but  to  glance  at 
Ben  Jonson' s  lines — 

Though  Beauty  be  the  mark  of  praise 
And  yours,  of  whom  I  sing,  be  such, 
As  not  the  world  can  praise  too  much, 

Yet  'tis  your  virtue  now  I  raise — 

to  guess  the,  perhaps  unconscious,  origin  of  Tenny- 
son's melody.  Ben  Jonson,  in  his  Pindaric  ode, 
improves  on  Ronsard.  But  Ronsard  first  attempted 
a  modern  reproduction  of  strophe,  antistrophe,  and 
epode  ;  and  Ben  Jonson  follows  closely  in  his  steps. 
Perhaps  the  most  provoking,  and  yet  elusive,  echo 
rings  throughout  Wither' s  Fair  Virtue,  The  Mistress 
of  Philarete,  Compare  the  Picture  of  Fair  Virtue 
for  the  sense  to  Ronsard' s  elegy  to  Janet,  the  court 
painter,  and  for  both  sense  and  rhythm  to  the  twelfth 
ode  in  his  fifth  book — 

Through  the  Veins  disposed  true 
Crimson  yields  a  sapphire  hue, 
Which  adds  grace  and  more  delight 
By  embracing  with  the  white. 
Smooth,  and  moist,  and  soft,  and  tender 
Are  the  Palms  !   the  Fingers,  slender 
Tipt  with  mollified  pearl  : — 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE  107 

Doights  qui  de  beaute  vaincus 
Ne  sont  de  ceux  de  Bacchus, 
Tant  leurs  branchettes  sont  pleines 
De  mille  rameuses  veines 
Par  oil  coule  le  beau  sang 
Dedans  leur  yvoire  blanc, 
Yvoire  oil  sont  cinq  perlettes 
Luisantes,  claires  et  nettes, 

and  on,  and  on,  in  a  running  rivulet  of  seven-syllabled 
verse ;  a  metre  rarely  handled  with  success  in 
English,  but  inimitably  rendered  by  Wither  to  the 
very  tune  of  Ronsard. 

There  is  a  case  for  the  influence  of  the  Pleiade 
on  the  practice  of  our  Elizabethans  and  their  suc- 
cessors. But  practice  is  not  all.  The  Elizabethans 
preached  as  the  Pleiade  had  preached.  The  out- 
burst of  Elizabethan  lyrics  came  some  forty  years 
after  the  Pleiade' s  decade  of  tumultuous  production 
(1549-1559),  and,  precisely  as  with  them,  was  ac- 
companied by  manifestoes  on  the  defects  of  the 
vernacular  and  the  methods  of  exalting  poetry,  in 
that  medium,  to  the  height  which  it  held  in  Greece 
and  Rome.  The  identity  of  the  problems  confront- 
ing the  Ehzabethans  with  the  problems  solved  by 
the  Pleiade  is  apparent  from  Elizabethan  criticism  of 
language  and  verse.  Just  as  in  France  a  generation 
earher,  so  then  in  England,  while  some  were  content 
with  archaic  rhythms,  others  declared  that  poetry 
must  be  written  in  classic  languages  ;  and  yet  others 
that,  though  written  in  English,  it  must  be  crushed, 
without  rhyme,  into  the  moulds  of  classic  metres. 
William  Webbe's  A  Discourse  of  English  Poetrie 
(1586)  shows  the  extent  of  the  peril  to  which  our 
lyrics  were  exposed.  He  writes  of  '  This  brutish 
Poetrie  ...  I  mean  this  tynkerly  verse  which  we 
call  ryme.'     But  we  must  not  condemn  his  error  too 


108  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE 

harshly.  The  fact  that  he  fell  into  it  illustrates  the 
reaUty  of  the  difficulty  with  which  the  EHzabethans 
had  to  deal ;  a  difficulty  which  would  not  have 
existed  had  Surrey  and  Wyat,  by  imitating  Italian 
models,  effected  a  new  departure  which  could 
be  followed  up.  Indeed,  the  contrast  between  the 
rhyme-doggerel  that  prevailed  and  classic  master- 
pieces, familiar  to  scholars,  goes  far  to  explain  his 
mistake.  For  that  contrast  was  sharply  projected 
from  current  translations  of  the  classics  into  what 
passed  for  EngHsh  verse.  What  could  a  scholar  and 
lover  of  poetry  make  of  Turberville's  Ovid  (1569)  ? 
Penelope  opens  her  Epistle  to  Ulysses  in  this 
strain : — 

To  thee  that  lingrest  all  too  long 

Thy  wyfe  (Ulysses)  sendes  : 
Gayne  write  not  but  by  quick  returne, 

For  absence  make  amendes  .  .  . 

and  concludes  : — 

And  I  that  at  thy  parture  was 

A  Gyrle  to  beholde  : 
Of  truth  am  warte  a  Matrone  now, 

Thy  selfe  will  iudge  mee  olde. 

It  needs  no  Holophernes  to  pronounce,  '  For  the 
elegancy,  facility,  and  golden  cadence  of  poetry, 
caret,^  Webbe  despaired  of  such  an  engine.  He 
catches,  for  a  moment,  a  gleam  of  the  true  dawn 
from  the  Shepheardes  Calender,  whose  anonymous 
author — Spenser — he  caUs  '  the  rightest  English  poet 
that  ever  I  read.'  Yet  he  is  not  satisfied  with 
Spenser's  muse.  On  the  contrary,  he  proceeds  to 
show  how  Hobinol's  ditty  may  be  civilised  by  casting 
it  into  '  the  Saphick  verse '  ;  and  this  is  what  he 
makes  of  the  stanza  already  quoted,  which  begins 

Bring  hither  the  pink  and  purple  columbine  : — 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE  109 

Bring  the  Pinckes,  therewith  many  Gelliflowers  sweete, 
And  the  Cullambynes  :  let  us  have  the  Wynesops, 
With  the  Comation  that  among  the  love  laddes 
Wontes  to  be  wome  much. 

Daffadowndillies  all  a  long  the  ground  strewe, 
And  the  Cowslyppe  with  a  pretty  paunce  let  heere  lye. 
Kingcuppe  and  Lillies  so  belovde  of  all  men, 
And  the  deluce  flowre. 

That  is  where  we  were  in  1586,  a  generation  after 
the  Pleiade — ^two  generations  after  Surrey  and  Wyat 
— two  hundred  years  after  Chaucer.  Webbe  per- 
petrates this  '  Saphick  '  outrage  seriatim  on  twelve  of 
Spenser's  thirteen  stanzas,  but,  '  by  reason  of  some 
let,'  defers  execution  on  the  last,  '  to  some  other 
time,  when  I  hope  to  gratify  the  readers  with  more 
and  better  verses  of  this  sorte.'  English  poetry 
was  rescued  from  such  torture  by  literary  renovators 
who  had  studied  the  Pleiade.  The  darkness,  made 
visible  by  Webbe' s  lucubration,  was  illumined  with 
rays  reflected  from  France.  We  have  The  Arte  of 
English  Poesie,  ascribed  to  Puttenham,  published 
in  1589  ;  and  An  Apologie  for  Poetrie  by  Sir  Philip 
Sidney,  published  in  1595,  though  circulated,  un- 
known to  Webbe,  in  MS.,  smce  1582  (?). 

Their  manifestoes  exhibit  two  interesting  features. 
In  the  first  place,  they  grapple  with  exactly  those 
problems  which  the  Pleiade  had  done  much  to  solve, 
and  arrive  at  the  same  solutions.  In  the  second 
place,  they  disclose  an  intimate  acquaintance  with 
the  rules  and  genius  of  the  new  French  poetry  which 
the  Pleiade  had  created.  The  Elizabethan  essayists 
in  their  turn  sought  also  to  renew  language  and  con- 
struct lyric  metres.  For  such  enterprises  the  Italians 
offered  no  adequate  model.  They  either  wrote,  often 
very  well,  in  Latin,  or  else  were  content  to  follow 


110  EONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE 

the  lingua  toscana  of  Dante  and  the  poetic  forms  of 
Petrarch.  Their  work  was  beside  the  mark  at  which 
the  English  renovators  aimed. 

Sidney,  in  his  Apologie,  like  the  Pleiade,  finds 
our  mediaeval  verse  '  apparelled  in  the  dust  and  cob- 
webs of  an  uncivil  age,'  and,  like  the  Pleiade,  asks, 
'  What  would  it  work  if  trimmed  in  the  gorgeous 
eloquence  of  Pindar?'  Apart  from  this  aspiration 
he  is  evidently  at  home  in  the  language  on  which 
the  Pleiade  had  laboured,  and  well  aware  that  it 
approached  more  nearly  than  Italian  to  English  as  a 
medium  for  modem  verse. 

He  dwells  on  rhymes  '  by  the  French  named 
mascuhne  and  feminine,'  claiming  a  like,  indeed 
a  greater,  variety  for  English,  and  denying  it  alto- 
gether to  Italian.  He  points  out  that  the  French 
have  '  the  caesura,  or  breathing-place,  in  the  middest 
of  the  verse,'  and  that  we  almost  unfaiHngly 
observe  the  same  rule,  which  is  unknown  to  the 
Italian  or  Spaniard.  And  so,  too,  with  Puttenham. 
Puttenham,  indeed,  trounces  an  English  translator 
for  conveying  too  crudely  '  the  hymnes  of  Pjnidarus, 
Anacreon's  odes,  and  other  Hrickes  among  the 
Greeks,  very  well  translated  by  Rounsard,  the 
French  Poet,  and  applied  to  the  honour  of  a  great 
Prince  in  France.'  He  objects  to  the  use  of  French 
words— freddon,  egar,  etc. — '  which  have  no  maner 
of  conformitie  with  our  language.'  But  his  theories 
are  largely  the  theories  of  the  Pleiade,  and  he  evinces 
a  pecuhar  knowledge  of  their  art.  He  writes,  '  this 
metre  of  twelve  siUables  the  French  man  calleth  a 
verse  Alexandrine,  and  is  with  our  modem  rimers 
most  usuall.'  If  that  was  true  in  1589,  it  follows 
that  much  Enghsh  verse  has  been  lost  which  was 
modelled  on  Ronsard's  metre. 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE  111 

Puttenham  and  Sidney*  were  fighting  in  the 
'  eighties '  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  battle  for 
the  vernacular  and  modern  rhyme  which  the  Pleiade 
had  won  in  the  '  forties.'  They  use  the  Pleiade's 
weapons,  which  were  not  to  be  found  in  any  Italian 
armoury.  And  their  victory  was  not  assured  till 
Daniel,  steeped,  above  others,  in  the  influence  of 
Ronsard,  published  his  Defence  of  Rhime  (1603). 
That  defence  fitly  concludes*  the  contest  for  rhyme 
in  English  lyrics.  The  attack,  renewed  by  Milton 
(1669),  on  The  Invention  of  a  Barbarous  Age  is 
irrelevant  to  the  issue,  and  cannot  touch  Daniel's 
glorious  declaration  of  the  conservative  principle 
underlying  aU  sound  progress  in  the  arts:  'It  is 
but  a  fantastike  giddiness  to  forsake  the  waye  of 
other  men,  especially  where  it  lyes  tolerable.  But 
shall  wee  not  tend  to  Perfection  ?  Yes,  and  that 
ever  best  by  going  on  in  the  course  wee  are  in,  where 
we  have  advantage,  being  so  far  onward  of  him  that 
is  but  now  setting  forth.  For  wee  shall  never 
proceede,  if  we  bee  ever  beginning,  nor  arrive  at 
any  certaine  Porte,  sayling  with  all  windes  that 
blow.' 

I  have  but  sketched  the  outlines  of  an  inquiry 
which,  if  prosecuted,  may  prove  that  the  Pleiade 
exerted  a  more  active  influence  on  our  Elizabethan 
revival  than  most  of  us  have  hitherto  supposed.  I 
believe  it  was  great.  The  libraries  at  Petworth  and 
Hatfield  suggest  the  closeness  of  the  literary  con- 
nection between  France  and  England  during  the 
years  in  which  Queen  EHzabeth  could  neither  make 
up  her  mind  to  marry  the  French  king's  brother, 
nor  to  accept  his  sister-in-law  as  her  successor  to 
the  throne.  Even  the  Cortegiano  of  Castiglione,  the 
stock  example  of  Italian  influence,  was  printed  by 


112  RONSARD  AND  LA  PLElADE 

Wolfe  (1588)  in  three  parallel  columns — Italiano, 
Francois,  dEngliSf);  thus  attesting  the  mediating 
influence  of  French  literature  at  a  time  when  the 
Pleiade  were  the  arbiters  of  its  elegance.  But, 
whether  the  influence  of  the  Plei^e  on  our  Eliza- 
bethans was  great  or  slight,  we  may,  as  students 
of  the  Renaissance,  ponder  the  parallel  between  the 
neglect  which  both  endured  for  so  long,  and  rejoice 
at  the  reparation  at  last  accorded  to  each  by  their 
countrymen  in  France,  as  in  England.  You  may 
cavil  at  that  phrase.  But  there  can  be  no  greater 
reparation  than  to  accept  gifts  long  proffered  and 
long  neglected,  simply  and  gladly ;  gladly,  because 
they  are  good — simply,  because  they  are  needed. 
The  Ijrric  gifts  of  the  Elizabethans  ajid  the  Pleiade 
were  sorely  needed  when  a  Coleridge  or  a  Keats  in 
England,  a  Gautier  or  a  Hugo  in  France  said,  '  There 
they  were,'  and  sang,  '  Here  they  are  ! ' 

The  eighteenth  century,  for  all  its  intellectual 
turmoil,  in  the  end  produced,  hke  a  volcano,  but  a 
thin  conclusion  of  air-blown  ashes.  The  need  for 
some  inward,  unseizable  satisfaction  grew  desperate. 
Mankind  ranged  over  arid  wastes  of  thought  and 
action,  snatching,  like  hunger-stricken  herds,  at 
morality,  philosophy,  revolution,  war.  But  inanity 
gnawed  at  their  vitals.  The  mind  of  man  demands 
for  its  well-being  a  triple  diet  of  the  True,  the  Good, 
the  Beautiful,  and  is  famished  in  plenty  if  stinted 
of  but  one  element  in  its  celestial  food.  Beauty  had 
departed  as  the  cult  of  beauty  by  the  arts  declined 
from  the  classic,  through  the  conventional,  to  the 
repellent.  Then  came  revolt.  Poets,  who  are 
priests  of  Beauty,  restored  the  liturgy  of  song  by 
retrieving  these  lost  canticles  of  delight  in  loveliness. 


RONSARD  AND  LA  PLEIADE  113 

Reparation  was  made  to  the  Elizabethans  and  to  the 
Pleiade  by  their  compatriots. 

Non  fallunt  futura  merentem.  . 

Can  we  make  that  reparation  international  ?  If 
the  dynastic  wars  of  the  fourteenth  century  and  the 
sectarian  diplomacy  of  the  sixteenth  century  sent 
Chaucer  and  Sidney  to  school  in  France,  may  not  the 
democratic  understanding  embraced  in  the  twentieth 
century  by  the  two  Western  Nations  lead  to  a  yet 
larger  traffic  between  their  several  possessions  in 
'  the  realms  of  Gold  '  ?  Let  us  celebrate  our  friend- 
ship with  France  by  annexing  her  lyric  heritage,  and 
courting  reprisals  on  our  own.  The  moment  is 
propitious.  It  prompts  a  renewal  of  that  contact 
with  contemporary  endeavour,  coupled  with  a  re- 
version to  past  achievement,  which  precipitated  the 
Renaissance.  Let  this  be  done.  Then  the  poets  of 
the  two  lands,  endowed  with  the  most  ancient  and 
glorious  traditions  of  song,  may  raise  again  their 
Hymns  to  Divine  Beauty  in  conscious  antiphonies 
from  either  shore. 


NORTH'S   PLUTARCH 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 


Plutarch  was  born  at  the  little  Theban  town  of 
Chseronea,  somewhere  about  50  a.d.  The  date  of 
his  birth  marks  no  epoch  in  history ;  and  the  place 
of  it,  even  then,  was  remembered  only  as  the  field  of 
three  bygone  battles.  The  name  Chseronea,  cropping 
up  in  conversation  at  Rome,  for  the  birthplace  of  a 
distinguished  Greek  lecturer,  must  have  sounded 
strangely  f  amihar  in  the  ears  of  the  educated  Romans 
whom  he  taught,  even  as  the  name  of  Dreux,  or  of 
Tewkesbury,  sounds  strangely  familiar  in  our  own. 
But  apart  from  such  chance  encounters,  few  can 
have  been  aware  of  its  municipal  existence ;  and  this 
same  contrast,  between  the  importance  and  the  re- 
nown of  Plutarch's  birthplace,  held  in  the  case  of 
his  country  also.  The  Boeotian  plain — once  '  the 
scaffold  of  Mars  where  he  held  his  games '  ^ — was 
but  a  lonely  sheepwalk ;  even  as  all  Greece,  once  a 
Europe  of  several  States,  was  but  one,  and  perhaps 
the  poorest,  among  the  many  provinces  of  the 
Empire.  Born  at  such  a  time  and  in  such  a  place, 
Plutarch  was  still  a  patriot,  a  student  of  politics  and 
a  scholar,  and  was  therefore  bound  by  every  tie  of 
sentiment  and  learning  to  the  ancient  memories  of 
his  native  land.     Sometimes  he  brooded  over  her 

^  ''Apeas  opxwTP^-v-  {Marcellus,  21.)  This  contrast  has  been  noted  by 
R.  C.  Trench,  D.I).,  in  his  Plutarch.  Five  Lectures,  1874.  An  admirable 
volume  full  of  suggestion. 

117 


118  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

altered  fortunes.  BcBotia  '  heretofore  of  old  time 
resounded  and  rung  again  with  Oracles '  ;  but  now 
all  the  land  that  from  sea  to  sea  had  echoed  the 
clash  of  arms  and  the  cadence  of  oratory  was  '  mute 
or  altogether  desolate  and  forlorn  \:  ,  .  .  '  hardly 
able  '  he  goes  on,  '  to  make  three  thousand  men  for 
the  wars,  which  are  now  no  more  in  number  than 
one  city  in  times  past,  to  wit :  Megara,  set  forth  and 
sent  to  the  battle  of  Platsea.'  ^  At  Athens,  though 
Sulla  had  long  since  cut  down  the  woods  of  the 
Academy,  there  were  still  philosophers  ;  and  there 
were  merchants  again  at  Corinth,  rebuilded  by  JuHus 
Caesar.  But  Athens,  even,  and  a  century  before, 
could  furnish  only  three  ships  for  the  succour  of 
Pompey ;  while  elsewhere,  the  cities  of  Greece  had 
dwindled  to  villages,  and  the  villages  had  vanished. 
'  The  stately  and  sumptuous  buildings  which  Pericles 
made  to  be  built  in  the  cittie  of  Athens '  were  still 
standing  after  four  hundred  years,  untouched  by 
Time,  but  they  were  the  sole  remaining  evidence  of 
dignity.  So  that  Plutarch,  when  he  set  himself  to 
write  of  Greek  worthies,  found  his  material  selected 
to  his  hand.  Greek  rhetoricians,  himself  among 
them,  might  lecture  in  every  city  of  the  South ;  but 
of  Greek  soldiers  and  statesmen  there  was  not  one  in 
a  land  left  empty  and  silent,  save  for  the  statues  of 
gods  and  the  renown  of  great  men.  The  cradle  of 
war  and  statecraft  was  become  a  memory  dear  to 
him,  and  ever  evoked  by  his  personal  contact  with 
the  triumphs  of  Rome.  From  this  contrast  flowed 
his  inspiration  for  the  Parallel  Lives :  his  desire,  as 
a  man,  to  draw  the  noble  Grecians,  long  since  dead, 

1  Plutarch's  Morals.  Philemon  Holland,  1657,  p.  1078,  in  a  letter 
addressed  to  Terentius  Priscus,  On  oracles  that  have  ceased  to  give 
answers.' 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  119 

a  little  nearer  to  the  noonday  of  the  Hving  ;  his 
deHght,  as  an  artist,  in  setting  the  noble  Romans 
whose  names  were  in  every  mouth,  a  little  further 
into  the  twilight  of  a  more  ancient  romance.  By 
placing  them  side  by  side,  he  gave  back  to  the 
Greeks  that  touch  which  they  had  lost  with  the  living 
in  the  death  of  Greece,  and  to  the  Romans  that 
distinction  from  everyday  life  which  they  were  fast 
beginning  to  lose.  Then  and  ever  since,  an  imagina- 
tive effort  was  needed  to  restore  to  Greece  those 
trivialities  of  daily  life  which,  in  other  countries, 
an  imaginative  effort  is  needed  to  destroy ;  and 
hence  her  hold  on  the  imagination  of  every  age. 
Plutarch,  considering  his  country,  found  her  a 
solitude.  Yet  for  him  the  desert  air  was  vibrant 
with  a  rumour  of  the  mighty  dead.  Their  memories 
loomed  heroic  and  tremendous  through  the  dimness 
of  the  past ;  and  he  carried  them  with  him  when  he 
went  to  Rome,  partly  on  a  political  errand,  and  partly 
to  deliver  Greek  lectures. 

In  Juvenal's  '  Greek  city '  he  needed,  and  indeed 
he  had,  small  Latin.  '  I  had  no  leisure  to  study  and 
exercise  the  Latin  tongue,  as  well  for  the  great  busi- 
ness I  had  then  to  do,  as  also  to  satisfy  them  that 
came  to  learn  philosophy  of  me  '  :  thus,  looking 
back  from  Chseronea,  does  he  write  in  his  preface  to 
the  Demosthenes  and  Cicero,  adding  that  he  '  under- 
stood not  matters  so  much  by  words,  as  he  came  to 
understand  words  by  common  experience  and  know- 
ledge he  had  in  things.'  We  gather  that  he  wrote 
many,  if  not  all,  of  the  Lives  at  his  birthplace,  the 
'  poor  Uttle  town '  to  which  he  returned :  '  remaining 
there  willingly  lest  it  should  become  less.'  But  it 
was  in  Flavian  Rome,  in  the  '  great  and  famous  city 
thoroughly  inhabited '  and  containing  '  plenty  of  all 


120  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

sort  of  books,'  that,  *  having  taken  upon  him  to  write 
a  history  into  which  he  must  thrust  many  strange 
things  unknown  to  his  country,'  he  gathered  his 
materials  '  out  of  divers  books  and  authorities,'  or 
picked  them  up,  as  a  part  of  '  conimon  experience 
and  knowledge,'  in  familiar  converse  with  the 
cultured  of  his  day.  I  have  quoted  thus,  for  the 
light  the  passage  throws  on  the  nature  of  his  re- 
searches in  Rome,  although  the  word  '  history  '  may 
mislead.  For  his  purpose  was  not  to  write  histories, 
even  of  individuals.  He  tells  us  so  himself.  '  I  will 
only  desire  the  reader,'  he  writes  in  his  preface  to  the 
Alexander  and  Ccesar,  '  not  to  blame  me  though  I  do 
not  declare  all  things  at  large  .  .  .  for  they  must 
remember  that  my  intent  is  not  to  write  histories  but 
only  lives.  For  the  noblest  deeds,'  he  goes  on,  '  do 
not  always  shew  man's  virtues  and  vices,  but  often- 
times a  light  occasion,  a  word,  or  some  sport  makes 
men's  natural  dispositions  and  manners  appear 
more  plainly  than  the  famous  battles  won,  wherein 
are  slain  ten  thousand  men.'  'As  painters  do  take 
the  resemblance  of  the  face  and  favour  of  the 
countenance,'  making  '  no  accompt  of  other  parts  of 
the  body,'  so  he,  too,  asks  for  '  leave  to  seek  out  the 
signs  and  tokens  of  the  mind  only.'  That  was  his 
ambition  :  to  paint  a  gallery  of  portraits  ;  to  focus 
his  vision  on  the  spiritual  face  of  his  every  subject, 
and  for  every  Greek  to  hang  a  Roman  at  his  side. 
To  compass  it  he  set  himself  deliberately,  as  an 
artist,  unconscious  of  any  intention  other  than  the 
choice  of  good  subjects  and,  his  choice  once  made, 
the  rejection  from  each  of  all  but  the  particular  and 
the  significant.  He  stood  before  men's  souls  to 
study  '  the  singularity  each  possessed,'  ^  as  Velasquez 

^  Paulus  jEmilius. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  121 

in  a  later  age  before  men's  bodies ;  and,  even  as  his 
method  was  aUied,  so  was  his  measure  of  accompUsh- 
ment  not  less. 

But  the  Parallel  Lives  shows  something  different 
from  this  purpose,  is  something  more  than  a  gaUery 
of  portraits  hung  in  pairs.  Plutarch  stands  by  his 
profession.  His  immediate  concern  is  with  neither 
history  nor  poHtics,  but  with  the  '  disposition  and 
manners  '  of  the  great.  He  chooses  his  man,  and 
then  he  paints  his  picture,  with  a  master's  choice 
of  the  essential.  And  yet,  inasmuch  as  he  chooses 
every  subject  as  a  matter  of  course  on  political 
grounds — as  he  sees  all  men  in  the  State — ^it  follows 
that  his  gallery  is  found,  for  all  his  avowed  intention, 
to  consist  of  political  portraits  alone.  Thirteen, 
indeed,  of  his  sitters  belong  not  only  to  history  but 
also  to  one  chapter  of  history — a  chapter  short, 
dramatic,  bloody,  and  distinctly  political.  This  was 
the  chance.  When  Plutarch,  the  lecturer,  dropped 
into  Roman  society  fresh  from  the  contemplation  of 
Greece  '  depopulate  and  dispeopled,'  he  found  its 
members  spending  their  ample  leisure  in  academic 
debate.  After  more  than  a  hundred  years  they  were 
stiU  discussing  the  protagonists  in  that  greatest  of 
poUtical  dramas  which,  '  for  a  sumptuous  conclusion 
to  a  stately  tragedy,'  had  ushered  in  the  empire  of 
the  world.  Predisposed  by  contrast  of  origin  and 
affinity  of  taste,  he  threw  himself  keenly  into  their 
pastime,  and  he  gives,  by  the  way,  some  minute 
references  to  points  at  issue.  For  instance,  when 
Pompey  and  the  Senate  had  deserted  Italy  at  Caesar's 
approach,  a  stem-chase  of  ships  and  swords  had 
swept  round  three  continents,  and  thereon  had 
followed  a  campaign  of  words  and  pens  at  Rome. 
In  that  campaign  the  chief  attack  and  reply  had  been 


122  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

Cicero's  Cato  and  Caesar's  Anticaton ;  and  these,  he 
tells  us/  had  '  favourers  unto  his  day,  some  defend- 
ing the  one  for  the  love  they  bare  Caesar,  and  others 
allowing  the  other  for  Cato's  sake.'  We  gather 
that  he  and  his  Roman  friends  argued  of  these 
matters  over  the  dinner-table  and  in  the  lecture- 
halls,  even  as  men  argue  to-day  of  the  actors  in  the 
French  Revolution.  Now,  to  glance  at  the  '  Table 
of  the  Noble  Grecians  and  Romanes '  is  to  see  how 
profoundly  this  atmosphere  affected  his  selection  of 
Roman  lives.  For,  excluding  the  legendary  founders 
and  defenders,  with  the  Emperors  Galba  and  Otho 
(whose  lives  are  interpolations  from  elsewhere),  we 
find  that  thirteen  of  the  nineteen  left  were  party 
chiefs  in  the  constitutional  struggles  which  ended 
on  the  fields  of  Pharsalia  and  Philippi.  The  effect  on 
the  general  cast  of  the  Lives  has  been  so  momentous 
that  a  whole  quarter  covers  only  the  political  action 
which  these  thirteen  pohticians  crowded  into  less 
than  one  hundred  years.  The  society  of  idlers, 
which  received  Plutarch  at  Rome,  was  still  debating 
the  ideals  for  which  these  thirteen  men  had  fought 
and  died ;  it  was  therefore  inevitable  that,  in  seeking 
for  foreign  parallels,  he  should  have  found  almost  as 
many  as  he  needed  among  the  actors  in  that  single 
drama.  As  it  was,  he  chose  for  his  greater  por- 
traitures all  the  chief  actors,  and  a  whole  army  of 
subsidiary  characters  for  his  groups  in  the  middle 
distance:  as  Saturninus  and  Cinna  from  one  act, 
Clodius  and  Curio  from  another.  Nothing  is  wanting. 
You  have  the  prologue  of  the  Gracchi,  the  epilogue  of 
Antony,  and  between  the  play  from  the  triumph  of 
Marius  to  Brutus  in  his  despair :  '  looking  up  to  the 
firmament  that  was  full  of  stars,'  and  '  sighing '  over 

^  Ccesar. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  123 

a  cause  lost  for  ever.     And  yet  it  remains  true  that 
Plutarch  did  not  make  this  selection  from — or  rather 
this   clean   sweep   of — the   politicians   of   a   certain 
epoch  in  order  to  illustrate  that  epoch's  history,  still 
less  to  criticise  any  theory  of  constitutional  govern- 
ment/   The  remaining  Romans,  howbeit  engaged  in 
several   issues,    and   the    Greeks,    though   gathered 
from  many  ages  and  many  cities,  are  all  politicians, 
or,  being  orators  and  captains,  are  still  in  the  same 
way  chosen  each  for  his  influence  on  the  fortunes  of 
a  State.     But  they  were  not  consciously  chosen  to 
illustrate   history   or   to   discuss   politics.     Thanks, 
not  to  a  point  of  view  peculiar  to  Plutarch  but  to  an 
instinct  pervading  the  world  in  which  he  lived,  to  a 
prepossession   then   so   universal   that  he   is  never 
conscious  of  its  influence  on  his  aim,  they  are  all 
public  men.     For  himself,  he  was  painting  individual 
character ;    and  he  sought  it  among  men  bearing  a 
personal  stamp.     But  he  never  sought  it  in  a  private 
person  or  a  comedian  ;  nor  even  in  a  poet  or  a  master 
of  the  Fine  Arts.     To  look  for  distinction  in  such  a 
quarter  never  occurred  to  him  ;   could  never,  I  may 
say,  have  entered  his  head.     He  cannot  conceive 
that  any  young  '  gentleman  nobly  born  '  should  so 
much  as  wish  to  be  Phidias  or  Polycletus  or  Ana- 
creon  ;  ^   and  this  from  no  vulgar  contempt  for  the 
making  of  beautiful  things,  nor  any  mean  reverence 
for  noble  birth,  but  because,  over  and  above  the 
making  of  beautiful  things,  there  are  deeds  that  are 
better  worth  the  doing,  and  because  men  of  noble 
birth  are  freer  than  others  to  choose  what  deeds  they 
will  set  themselves  to  do.     Why,  then,  he  seems  to 
ask,  should  they  seek  any  service  less  noble  than  the 
service    of    their    countrymen  ?    why   pursue    any 

^  Preface  to  Pericles. 


124  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

ambition  less  exalted  than  the  salvation  of  their 
State  ?  For  his  part,  he  will  prefer  Lycurgus  before 
Plato  ;  for,  while  the  one  '  stabHshed  and  left  behind 
him '  a  constitution,  the  other  left  behind  him  only 
'  words  and  written  books.'  ^  His  preference  seems 
a  strange  one  now  ;  but  it  deserves  to  be  noted  the 
more  nearly  for  its  strangeness.  At  any  rate,  it  was 
the  preference  of  a  patriot  and  a  republican,  whose 
country  had  sunk  to  a  simple  province  under  an  alien 
emperor,  and  it  governed  the  whole  range  of  Plu- 
tarch's choice. 

This  result  has  been  rendered  the  more  conspicu- 
ous by  another  cause,  springing  at  first  from  an 
accident,  but  in  its  application  influenced  by  the 
political  quality  of  Plutarch's  material.  Lost  sight 
of  and  scattered  in  the  Dark  Ages,  the  Parallel  Lives 
were  recovered  and  rearranged  at  the  revival  of 
learning.  But  just  as  a  gallery  of  historical  por- 
traits, being  dispersed  and  re-collected,  will  in  all 
probability  be  hung  after  some  chronological  scheme, 
so  have  the  lives  been  shuffled  anew  under  the  in- 
fluence of  their  political  extraction,  in  such  a  sort 
as  to  change  not  only  the  complexion  but  also  the 
structure  of  Plutarch's  design.  They  form  no  longer 
a  gallery  of  political  portraits,  hung  in  pairs  for 
contrast's  sake  :  they  are  grouped  with  intelligible 
reference  to  the  history  of  Athens  and  of  Rome. 
We  know  from  Plutarch's  own  statements  that  he 
had  no  hand  in  their  present  arrangement.  He  was 
engrossed  in  depicting  the  characters  of  great  men, 
and  he  wrote  and  dedicated  each  pair  of  lives  to 
Socius  Senecio,  or  another,  as  an  independent 
'  book,'  '  treaty,'  or  '  volume.'  It  is  clear  from 
many  passages  that  he  gathered  these  '  volumes ' 

^  Lycurgus. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  125 

together  without  reference  to  their  poUtical  bearing 
on  each  other.  The  Pericles  and  Fahius  Maximus, 
which  is  now  the  Fifth  '  book,'  was  originally  the 
Tenth  ;  and  the  change  has  apparently  been  made  to 
bring  Pericles,  so  far  as  the  Greeks  are  concerned, 
within  the  consecutive  history  of  Athens  :  just  as 
the  Demosthenes  and  Cicero,  once  the  Fifth,  is  now 
by  much  removed  so  that  Cicero  may  fall  into  place 
among  the  actors  of  the  Roman  drama.  So,  too,  the 
Theseus,  now  standing  First,  as  the  founder  of  Athens, 
was  written  after  the  Demosthenes,  now  set  well-nigh 
at  the  end  of  the  series.  And  on  the  same  grounds, 
evidently,  to  the  Marius  and  the  Pompey,  written 
respectively  after  the  Ccesar  and  the  Brutus,  there 
have  been  given  such  positions  as  were  dictated  by 
the  development  of  the  drama.  The  fact  is,  Plu- 
tarch's materials,  being  all  political,  have  settled  of 
themselves,  and  have  been  sorted  in  accordance  with 
their  poUtical  nature  :  until  his  work,  pieced  to- 
gether by  humanists  and  rearranged  by  translators, 
bears  within  it  some  such  traces  of  a  new  symmetry, 
imperfect  yet  complex,  as  we  detect  in  the  strati- 
fication of  crystalline  rocks.  Little  has  been  added 
in  North's  first  edition  to  the  substance  of  Plutarch's 
book ;  1  but  its  structure  and,  as  I  hope  to  show, 
some  of  its  colour  and  surface  are  the  product,  not 
only  of  the  one  mind  which  created  it,  but  of  the 
many  who  have  preserved  it,  and  of  the  ages  it  has 
outworn.  The  mere  changes  in  the  order  of  the 
'  books  '  have  neither  increased  nor  diminished  their 
contents ;  but  by  evolving,  as  they  do,  a  more  or 
less  symmetrical  juxtaposition  of  certain  elements, 

^  In  North's  edition  of  1579  all  is  Plutarch,  through  Amyot,  excepting 
the  Annibal  and  the  Scifio  African,  which  were  manufactured  by  Donato 
Acciaiuoli  for  the  Latin  translation  of  the  Lives  published  at  Rome  by 
Campani  in  1470. 


126  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

they  have  discovered  the  extent  to  which  the  work 
is  permeated  by  those  elements.  As  the  quartz 
dispersed  through  a  rock  strikes  the  eye,  when  it  is 
crystaUised,  from  the  angles  of  its  spar ;  so  the 
amount  of  Plutarch's  poHtical  teaching,  which  might 
have  escaped  notice  when  it  was  scattered  through 
independent  books,  now  flashes  out  from  the  group- 
ing together  of  the  Athenians  who  made  and  unmade 
Athens,  and  of  the  Romans  who  fought  for  and 
against  the  Republican  Constitution  of  Rome.  For 
the  Parallel  Lives  are  now  disposed  in  a  rough 
chronological  order ;  in  so  far,  at  least,  as  this  has 
been  possible  where  the  members  of  each  pair  belong 
severally  to  nations  whose  histories  mingle  for  the 
first  time,  when  the  activity  of  the  one  ceases  and 
the  activity  of  the  other  begins.  In  earlier  days  they 
had  but  dim  intimations  of  each  other's  fortunes : 
as  when,  in  the  Camillus,  '  the  rumour  ran  to  Greece 
incontinently  that  Rome  was  taken  '  ;  and  it  is  only 
in  the  Philopoemen  and  Flaminius  that  their  fates 
are  trained  into  a  single  channel.  So  that,  rather, 
there  are  balance  and  opposition  between  the  two 
halves  of  the  whole :  the  latter  portion  being 
governed  by  the  grouping  in  dramatic  sequence  of 
the  thirteen  Romans  who  took  part  in  the  consti- 
tutional drama  of  Rome ;  whereas  the  earher  is  as 
it  were  polarised  about  the  history  of  Athens.  Con- 
sidering the  governing  lives  in  each  case,  and  dis- 
regarding their  accidental  companions,  you  will  find 
that  in  both  the  whole  pageant  is  displayed.  There 
are  excursions,  but  in  the  latter  half  we  live  at 
Rome  ;  in  the  earUer  we  are  taken  to  Athens  :  there 
to  be  spectators  of  her  rise,  her  glory,  and  her  falL 
We  listen  to  the  prologue  in  the  Solon ;  and  in  the 
Themistocles,  the  Pericles,  the  Alcibiades,  we  contem- 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  127 

plate  the  three  acts  of  the  tragedy.  The  tragedy  of 
Athens,  the  drama  of  Rome  :  these  are  the  historic 
poles  of  the  Parallel  Lives ;  while,  about  half-way 
between,  in  the  book  of  Philoposmen  and  Flaminius, 
is  the  historic  hinge,  at  the  fusion  of  Greek  with 
Roman  story.  For  Philopoemen  and  Flaminius 
were  contemporaries :  the  one  a  Greek  whom 
'  Greece  did  love  passingly  well  as  the  last  vahant 
man  she  brought  forth  in  her  age  '  ;  the  other,  a 
Roman  whom  she  loved  also,  Plutarch  tells  us, 
because,  in  founding  the  suzerainty  of  Rome,  he 
founded  it  on  the  broad  stone  of  honour.  In  this 
book  the  balance  of  sustained  interest  shifts,  and 
after  it  the  Lives  are  governed  to  the  end  by  the  de- 
velopment of  the  single  Roman  drama.  We  may 
say  to  the  end  :  since  Plutarch  may  truly  be  said  to 
end  with  the  suicide  of  Brutus.  The  Aratus,  though 
of  vivid  and,  with  the  Sylla,  of  unique  interest — ^for 
both  are  based  on  autobiographies  ^ — belongs,  it  is 
thought,  to  another  book.^  This,  I  have  already 
said,  is  true  of  the  Galba  and  the  Otho,  dissevered  as 
they  are  by  the  obvious  division  of  a  continuous 
narrative  ;  and  of  the  Artaxerxes,  which,  of  course, 
has  nothing  to  do  among  the  Greek  and  Roman  Hves  ; 
while  the  Hannibal  and  Scipio  (major),  included  by 
North,  is  not  even  Plutarch.  These  Hves,  then,  were 
added,  no  doubt,  to  complete  the  defect  of  those 
that  had  been  lost ;  as,  for  instance,  the  Metellus 
promised  by  Plutarch  in  his  Marius,  and  the  book  of 
Epaminondas  and  Scipio  (minor),  which  we  know  him 
to  have  written,  on  the  authority  of  his  son. 

If,  then,  ignoring  these  accretions,  we  study  the 

^  Freeman,  Methods  of  Historic  Study,  p.   168.      Mahaffy,  Life  and 
Thought. 

2  A.  H.  Clough,  Plutarch's  Lives.     1883. 


128  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

physiognomy  of  the  Parallel  Lives  as  revealed  in  the 
'  Table,'  the  national  tragedy  of  Athens  and  the 
constitutional  drama  of  Rome  are  seen  to  stand  out 
in  consecutive  presentment  from  its  earlier  and  latter 
portions.  Each  is  at  once  apparent,  because  each 
has  been  reconstituted  for  us.  5ut  the  fact  that 
such  reconstitution  has  been  possible — ^proving,  as 
it  does,  how  complete  was  the  unsuspected  influence 
of  Plutarch's  political  temperament  over  his  con- 
scious selection  of  great  men — ^puts  us  in  the^way  of 
tracing  this  influence  over  his  every  preference.  It 
gives  a  key  to  one  great  chamber  in  his  mind,  and  a 
clue  which  we  can  follow  through  the  windings  of 
his  book.  It  makes  plain  the  fact  that  every  one  of 
his  heroes  achieved,  or  attempted,  one  of  four  poli- 
tical services  which  a  man  may  render  to  his  feUows. 
Their  life-work  consisted  (1)  in  founding  States; 
(2)  in  defending  them  from  foreign  invasion  ;  (3)  in 
extending  their  dominion  ;  or  (4)  in  leading  poUtical 
parties  within  their  confines.  All  are,  therefore, 
men  who  made  history,  considered  each  one  in  re- 
lation to  his  State.  In  dealing,  for  instance,  with 
Demosthenes  and  Cicero,  Plutarch  '  will  not  confer 
their  works  and  writings  of  eloquence,'  but  '  their 
acts  and  deeds  in  the  government  of  the  common- 
wealth.' In  this  manner,  also,  does  he  deal  even 
with  his  '  founders,'  who  can  scarce  be  called  men, 
being  but  figures  of  legend  and  dream.  Yet  they  too 
were  evolved  under  the  spell  of  poHtical  prepossession 
in  the  nations  which  conceived  their  legends ;  and 
the  floating,  shifting  appearances,  the  '  mist  and 
hum '  of  them,  are  compacted  by  a  writer  in  whom 
that  prepossession  was  strongly  present.  That  such 
airy  creatures  should  figure  at  all  as  historical  states- 
men, having  something  of  natural  movement  and 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  129 

bulk,  in  itself  attests  beyond  all  else  to  this  habit  of 
Plutarch's  mind.  Having  'set  forth  the  lives  of 
Lycurgus  (which  established  the  law  of  the  Lacedae- 
monians), and  of  King  Numa  Pompilius,'  he  thought 
he  'might  go  a  little  further  to  the  Hfe  of  Romulus,'  and 
'  resolved  to  match  him  which  did  set  up  the  noble 
and  famous  city  of  Athens,  with  him  which  founded 
the  glorious  and  invincible  city  of  Rome.'  He  is 
dealing,  as  he  says,  with  matter  '  full  of  suspicion 
and  doubt,  being  dehvered  us  by  poets  and  tragedy 
makers,  sometimes  without  truth  and  Hkelihood,  and 
always  without  certainty.'  He  is  deahng,  indeed, 
with  shadows ;  but  they  are  shadows  projected 
backward  upon  the  mists  about  their  origin  by  two 
nations  which  were  above  all  things  political ;  and 
he  lends  them  a  further  semblance  of  consistency 
and  perspective,  by  regarding  them  from  a  pohtical 
point  of  view  in  the  Hght  of  a  later  pohtical  experi- 
ence. His  Theseus  and  his  Romulus  are,  indeed,  a 
tissue  woven  out  of  folk-lore  and  the  faint  memories 
of  a  savage  prime  :  you  shall  find  in  them  traces  of 
forgotten  customs  ;  marriage  by  capture,^  for  in- 
stance, and  much  else  that  is  frankly  beyond  behef  ; 
things  which,  he  says,  '  peradventure  will  please  the 
reader  better  for  their  strangeness  and  curiosity, 
than  offend  or  mislike  him  for  their  falsehood.'  But 
his  Lycurgus,  saving  the  political  glosses,  and  his 
Pompilius  are  likewise  all  of  legend  and  romance: 
of  the  days  '  when  the  Aventine  was  not  inhabited, 
nor  enclosed  within  the  walls  of  Rome,  but  was  full  of 
springs  and  shadowed  groves,'  the  haimt  of  Picus 
and  Faunus,  and  of  '  Lady  Silence ' ;  yet  he  con- 
trives to  cast  a  political  reflection  over  even  this 

^  The  marriage  of  Pirithous,  p.  62,  and  the  ravishment  of  the  Sabines, 
85. 

I 


130  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

noiseless  dreamland  of  folk-lore.  Lycurgus  and 
Theseus,  in  the  manner  of  their  deaths,  present 
vague  images  of  the  fate  which  in  truth  befell  the 
most  of  their  historic  parallels.  Lycurgus  kills 
himself,  not  because  his  constitution  for  Sparta  is  in 
danger,  but  lest  any  should  seek  to  change  it ;  and 
the  bones  of  Theseus,  the  Athenian,  murdered  by  his 
ungrateful  countrymen,  are  magically  discovered, 
and  are  brought  back  to  Athens  '  with  great  joye, 
with  processions  and  goodly  sacrifices,  as  if  Theseus 
himself  had  been  alive,  and  had  returned  into  the 
city  again.'  As  we  read,  we  seem  to  be  dreaming 
of  Cato's  death  at  Utica  ;  and  of  Alcibiades'  return, 
when  the  people  who  had  banished  him  to  the  ruin 
of  their  country  '  clustred  all  to  him  only  and  .  .  . 
put  garlands  of  flowers  upon  his  head.' 

The  relation  of  the  Lives  in  the  three  other  cate- 
gories to  the  political  temper  of  Plutarch  and  his 
age  is  more  obvious,  if  less  significant  of  that  temper 
and  its  prevalence  in  every  region  of  thought.  Of 
the  Romans,  Publicola  and  Coriolanus  belong  also 
to  romance.  But  both  were  captains  in  the  first 
legendary  wars  waged  by  Rome  for  supremacy  in 
Italy;  and  the  lives  of  both  are  charged  with  the  hues 
of  party  politics.  Publicola  is  painted  as  the  aristo- 
crat who,  by  patient  loyalty  to  the  Constitution, 
lives  down  the  suspicions  of  the  populace ;  Corio- 
lanus, as  a  type  of  caste  at  once  noble  for  its  courage 
and  lamentable  for  its  indomitable  pride.  Passing, 
after  these  four,  out  of  fable  into  history,  there 
remain  six  Romans  besides  the  thirteen  involved  in 
the  culminating  drama.  Three  of  these,  Furius 
Camillus,  Marcellus,  and  Quintus  Fabius  Maximus, 
were  the  heroes  of  Rome's  successful  resistance 
to  foreign  invasion,  and  two,  T.  Q.  Flaminius  and 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  131 

Paulus  iEmilius,  the  heroes  of  her  equally  successful 
foreign  and  colonial  policy  ;  while  one  only,  Marcus 
Cato,  is  chosen  as  a  constitutional  pohtician  from 
the  few  untroubled  years  between  the  assurance 
of  empire  abroad  and  the  constitutional  collapse  at 
home.  Turning  from  Italy  to  Greece,  we  find,  again, 
that  after  the  two  legendary  founders  and  Solon,  the 
more  or  less  historical  contriver  of  the  Athenian  con- 
stitution, the  remainder  Greeks  without  exception 
fall  under  one  or  more  of  the  three  other  categories  : 
they  beat  back  invasion,  or  they  sought  to  extend 
a  suzerainty,  or  they  led  political  parties  in  pursuit 
of  poHtical  ideals.  Swayed  by  his  poHtical  tempera- 
ment, Plutarch  exhibits  men  of  a  like  stamp  engaged 
in  like  issues.  But,  in  passing  from  his  public  meii  of 
Italy  to  his  public  men  of  Greece,  we  may  note  that, 
while  the  issues  which  call  forth  the  political  energies 
of  the  two  nations  are  the  same,  a  difference  merely 
in  the  order  of  event  works  up  the  same  characters 
and  the  same  situations  into  another  play  with 
another  and  a  more  complicated  plot.  Rome  had 
practically  secured  the  headship  of  the  Italian  States 
some  years  before  the  First  Punic  War.  Her  suze- 
rainty was,  therefore,  an  accomplished  fact,  fre- 
quently challenged  but  never  defeated,  before  the 
Itahan  races  were  called  upon  to  face  any  foe  capable 
of  absorbing  their  country.  But  in  Greece,  neither 
before  nor  after  the  Persian  invasion  did  any  one 
State  ever  become  permanently  supreme.  So  that, 
whereas,  in  Italy,  the  issue  of  internal  wars  and 
jealousies  was  decided  long  before  the  danger  of 
foreign  domination  had  to  be  met ;  in  Greece,  over- 
shadowed in  turn  by  the  Persian,  the  Macedonian, 
and  the  Roman,  that  issue  was  never  decided  at 
all.     It  follows  that  the  history  of  Italy  is  the  history 


132  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

of  Rome,  and  not  of  the  Latins  or  of  the  Samnites  ; 
but  that  the  history  of  Greece  is,  at  first,  the  history 
of  Athens,  of  Sparta,  and  of  Thebes  in  rivalry  with 
one  another,  and,  at  last,  of  Macedon  and  Rome 
brooding  over  leagues  and  confederacies  between  the 
lesser  islands  and  States.  The  Roman  drama  is 
single.  The  City  State  becomes  supreme  in  Italy ; 
rolls  back  wave  after  wave  of  Gauls  and  Cartha- 
ginians and  Teutons ;  extends  her  dominion  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth ;  and  then,  suddenly,  finds  her 
Constitution  shattered  by  the  strain  of  world-wide 
empire.  Plutarch  gives  the  actors  in  all  these 
scenes  ;  but  it  is  in  the  last,  which  is  the  most  essen- 
tially poHtical,  that  he  crowds  his  stage  with  the 
Uving,  and,  afterwards,  cumbers  it  with  the  dead. 
The  Greek  drama  is  complex,  and  affords  no  such 
opportunity  for  scenic  concentration.  Even  the 
first  and  simplest  issue,  of  repelling  an  invader,  is 
made  intricate  at  every  step  by  the  jealousy  between 
Sparta  and  Athens.  Plutarch  teUs  twice  over  ^  that 
Themistocles,  the  Athenian,  who  had  led  the  allies  to 
victory  at  Salamis,  proposed  to  bum  their  fleets  at 
anchor  so  soon  as  the  danger  was  overpassed  :  for  by 
this  means  Athens  might  seize  the  supremacy  of  the 
sea.  The  story  need  not  be  true :  that  it  should 
ever  have  been  conceived  proves  in  what  spirit  the 
Greek  States  went  into  alliance,  even  in  face  of  Persia. 
The  lives  of  two  other  Athenians,  Cimon  and  Aris- 
tides,  complete  Plutarch's  picture  of  the  Persian 
War ;  and  after  that  war  he  can  never  group  his 
Greeks  on  any  single  stage.  Each  of  them  seeks,  in- 
deed, to  extend  the  influence  of  his  State,  or  to 
further  his  poHtical  opinions ;  but  in  the  tangle  of 
combinations  resulting  from  their  efforts  one  feature 

^  In  the  Themutodes  and  in  the  Aristides. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  133 

remains  unchanged  among  many  changes.  Through 
all  the  fighting  and  the  scheming  it  is  ever  Greek 
against  Greek.  The  history  is  a  kaleidoscope,  but 
the  pieces  are  the  same.  That  is  the  tragedy  of 
Greece  :  the  ceaseless  duel  of  the  few  with  the  many, 
with  a  complication  of  racial  rivalries  between  inde- 
pendent City  States.  There  is  no  climax  of  develop- 
ment, there  is  no  sudden  failure  of  the  heart ;  but 
an  agony  of  spasm  twitches  at  every  nerve  in  the 
body  in  turn.  Extinction  follows  extinction  of 
political  power  in  one  State  after,  and  at  the  hands 
of,  another ;  and  in  the  end  there  is  a  total  eclipse 
of  national  life  under  the  shadow  of  Rome. 

It  is  customary  to  date  the  political  death  of 
Greece  from  the  battle  at  Chseronea,  in  which  the 
Macedonians  overthrew  the  allied  armies  of  Athens 
and  Thebes.  But  to  Plutarch,  who  had  a  better, 
because  a  nearer,  point  of  view,  the  perennial  viru- 
lence of  race  and  opinion,  which  constituted  so  much 
of  the  political  life  of  Greece,  went  after  Chseronea 
as  merrily  as  before.  The  combatants,  whose  sky 
was  but  clouded  by  the  empire  of  Alexander,  fought 
on  into  the  night  of  Roman  rule  ;  and,  when  they 
relented,  it  was  even  then,  according  to  Plutarch, 
only  from  sheer  exhaustion.  Explaining  the  lull  in 
these  rivalries  during  the  old  age  of  Philopcemen, 
he  writes  that '  like  as  the  force  and  strength  of  sick- 
ness declineth,  as  the  natural  strength  of  the  sickly 
body  impaireth,  envy  of  quarrel  and  war  surceased 
as  their  power  diminished.'  Of  these  Greeks,  other 
than  the  founders  and  the  heroes  of  the  Persian  War, 
six  were  leaders  in  the  rivalry,  first,  between  Athens 
and  Sparta  and,  then,  between  Sparta  and  Thebes. 
Of  these,  three  were  Athenians  —  Pericles,  Nicias, 
and  Alcibiades ;    two  were  Spartans — Lysander  and 


134  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

Agesilaus  ;  one  was  Pelopidas  the  Theban.  These 
six  lives  complete  Plutarch's  picture  of  the  Pelopon- 
nesian  War.  Then,  still  keeping  to  Greeks  proper, 
he  indulges  in  an  excursion  to  Syracuse  in  the  lives 
of  Dion  and  Timoleon.  Later,  in  the  lives  of  Demos- 
thenes and  Phocion,  you  feel  the  cloud  of  the  Mace- 
donian Empire  gathering  over  Greece.  And,  lastly, 
while  Rome  and  Macedon  fight  over  her  head  for  the 
substance  of  dominion  and  political  reform,  two  kings 
of  Sparta,  Agis  and  Cleomenes,  and  two  generals  of 
the  Achaean  League,  Aratus  and  Philopoemen,  are 
found  still  thwarting  each  other  for  the  shadow. 
Plutarch  shows  four  others,  not  properly  to  be  called 
Greeks  :  the  Macedonians,  Alexander  and  Demetrius, 
Pyrrhus  the  Molossian,  and  Eumenes,  born  a  Greek 
of  Cardia,  but  a  Macedonian  by  his  career.  These 
four  come  on  the  stage  as  an  interlude  between 
the  rivalries  of  the  Peloponnesian  War  and  the  last 
futilities  of  the  Achaean  League.  Alexander  for  a 
time  obliterates  all  lesser  lights  ;  and  in  the  lives  of 
the  other  three  we  watch  the  flashing  train  of  his 
successors.  All  are  shining  figures,  all  are  crowned, 
all  are  the  greatest  adventurers  of  the  world ;  and 
tumbling  out  of  one  kingdom  into  another,  they  do 
battle  in  glorious  mellays  for  cities  and  diadems 
and  Queens. 

Taking  a  clue  from  the  late  reconstitution  of  the 
most  moving  scenes  at  Athens  and  Rome,  I  follow 
it  through  the  Parallel  Lives,  and  I  sketch  the 
political  framework  it  discovers.  Into  that  frame- 
work, which  co-extends  with  Plutarch's  original 
conception,  I  can  fit  every  life  in  North's  first  edition, 
from  the  Theseus  to  the  Aratus,  I  could  not  over- 
look so  palpable  and  so  significant  a  result  of  Plu- 
tarch's political  temperament ;  and  I  must  note  it 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  135 

because  it  has  been  overlooked,  and  even  obscured, 
in  later  editions  of  Amyot  and  North.  Amyot's 
first  and  second  editions,  of  1559  and  1565,  both  end 
with  the  Otho,  which,  although  it  does  not  belong  to 
the  Parallel  Lives,  was  at  least  Plutarch.  But  to 
Amyot's  third,  of  1567,  there  were  added  the  Annihal 
and  the  Scipion  (major),  first  fabricated  for  the  Latin 
translation  of  1470  by  Donato  Acciaiuoli  and  trans- 
lated into  French  by  Charles  de  I'Escluse,  or  de  la 
Sluce,  as  North  prefers  to  call  him.  These  two  lives 
North  received  into  his  first  edition :  together  with 
a  comparison  by  Simon  Goulard  Senlisien,  an  in- 
dustrious gentleman  who,  as  '  S.  G.  S.,'  supplied  him 
with  further  material  at  a  later  date.^  For  indeed, 
once  begun  in  the  first  Latin  translation,  this  process 
of  completing  Plutarch  knew  no  bounds  for  more 
than  two  hundred  years.  The  Spanish  historian, 
Antonio  de  Guevara,  had  perpetrated  a  decade  of 
emperors,  Trajan,  Hadrian,  and  eight  more,  and 
these,  too,  were  translated  into  French  by  Antoine 
AUegre,  and  duly  appended  to  the  Amyot  of  1567  by 
its  publisher  Vascosan.  All  was  fish  that  came  to 
Vascosan's  net.  The  indefatigable  S.  G.  S.  con- 
cocted lives  of  Augustus  and  Seneca ;  translated 
biographies  from  Cornelius  Nepos ;  and,  with  an 
excellent  turn  for  symmetry,  supplied  unaided  all 
the  Comparisons  which  are  not  to  be  found  in  Plu- 
tarch. The  Chaeronean  either  wrote  them,  and  they 
were  lost ;  or,  possibly,  he  paused  before  the  scal- 
ing of  Caesar  and  Alexander,  content  with  the  perfec- 
tion he  had  achieved.     But  S.  G.  S.  knew  no  such 

^  Professor  Skeat,  in  his  Shakespeare's  Plutarch,  leaves  the  attribution  of 
these  initials  in  doubt.  They  have  been  taken  by  many  French  editors  of 
Amyot  to  stand  for  B.  de  Girard,  Sieur  du  Haillan,  but  M.  de  BUgnieres 
shows  in  his  Essai  sur  Amyot,  p.  184,  that  they  stood  for  Simon  Goulard,  the 
translator  of  Seneca. 


136  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

embarrassment ;  and  Amyot's  publisher  of  1583 
accepted  his  contributions,  as  before,  in  the  lump. 
North  in  his  third  edition  of  1603  is  a  Httle,  but  only 
a  Httle,  more  fastidious :  he  rejects  aU  the  Com- 
parisons except,  oddly  enough,  that  between  Csesar 
and  Alexander ;  but  on  the  other  fiand,  he  accepts 
from  S.  6.  S.  the  lives  of  '  worthy  chieftains '  and 
'  famous  philosophers '  ^  who — and  this  is  a  point — 
were  not,  as  all  Plutarch's  exemplars  were  before 
everything,  public  men.  Later,  the  international 
compliment  was  returned.  The  Abbe  Bellenger 
translated  into  French  eight  Hves — of  ^Eneas,  Tullus 
Hostilius,  and  so  forth — concocted  in  English  by 
Thomas  Rowe  ;  and  these  in  their  turn  were  duly 
added,  first  to  Dacier's  Plutarch  in  1734,  and  after- 
wards to  the  Amyot  of  1783  :  an  edition  you  are  not 
surprised  to  see  filling  a  small  bookcase.  Celebrities 
of  all  sorts  were  recruited,  simply  for  their  fame, 
from  every  age,  and  from  every  field  of  performance 
— ^Plato,  Aristotle,  Philip,  even  Charlemagne  !  ^  And 
the  process  of  obscuring  Plutarch's  method  did  not 
end  with  the  interjection  of  spurious  stufE.  Men 
cut  down  the  genuine  Lives  to  convenient  lengths, 
for  summaries  and  '  treasuries.'  The  undefeated 
S.  G.  S.  covered  the  margin  of  one  edition  after 
another  with  reflections  tending  to  edification.  He 
and  his  kind  epitomised  Plutarch's  matter  and 
pointed  his  moral,  grinding  them  to  the  dust  of  a 
classical  dictionary  and  the  ashes  of  a  copybook 
headline.  All  these  editions  and  epitomes  and 
maxims,  being  none  of  Plutarch's,  should  not,  of 

1  Letter  of  dedication  to  Queen  Elizabeth.     Ed.  1631,  p.  1108. 

2  Fabricated  also  by  Acciaiuoli  for  Campani's  Latin  edition  of  1470,  and 
attributed  to  Plutarch  by  an  erudile  caUing  himself  Viscellius.  Amyot 
himself  fabricated  the  lives  of  Epaminondas  and  Scipio  (minor)  at  the 
request  of  Marguerite  of  Savoye,  but  never  pubUshed  them  as  Plutarch. 


NORTH^S  PLUTARCH  137 

course,  in  reason  have  darkened  his  restriction  on 
the  choice  of  great  men.  Yet  by  their  number  and 
their  vogue,  they  have  so  darkened  it ;  and  the  more 
easily,  for  that  Plutarch,  as  I  have  shown,  says 
nothing  of  the  limit  he  observed.  Beneath  these 
additions  the  political  framework  of  the  Lives  lay 
buried  for  centuries  ;  and  even  after  they  had  been 
discarded  by  later  translators,  it  was  still  shrouded 
in  the  mist  they  had  exhaled.  Banish  the  additions 
and  their  atmosphere — fit  only  for  puritans  and 
pedants — and  once  more  the  political  framework 
emerges  in  all  its  significance  and  in  all  its  breadth. 
From  this  effect  we  cannot  choose  but  turn  to  the 
causa  causans — the  mind  that  achieved  it.  We  want 
to  know  the  political  philosophy  of  a  writer  who, 
being  a  student  of  human  character,  yet  held  it 
unworthy  his  study  save  in  public  men.  And  the 
curiosity  will,  as  I  think,  be  sharpened  rather  than 
rebated  by  the  reflection  that  many  of  his  commen- 
tators have,  none  the  less,  denied  him  any  political 
insight  at  all.^  Their  paradox  plucks  us  by  the 
sleeve.  From  a  soil  thus  impregnated  with  the  salt 
of  political  instinct  one  would  have  looked  in  the 
harvest  for  some  savour  of  political  truth ;  yet  one 
is  told  that  the  Lives,  fruitful  of  all  besides,  are 
barren  of  this.  For  my  part,  I  must  believe  that 
Plutarch's  commentators  have  been  led  to  a  false 
conclusion  along  one  of  two  paths  :  either  they  have 
listened  too  innocently  to  his  avowed  intention  of 

1  Plutarch.  Five  Lectures,  p.  89.  Paul-Louis  Courier  and  many  others 
have  written  to  the  same  effect,  questioning  Plutarch's  accuracy  and  in- 
sight. On  the  question  of  accuracy,  I  am  content  to  quote  Ste.-Beuve, 
Causeries  du  Lundi,  vi.  333 :  '  Quand  on  a  fait  la  part  du  rh6teur  et  du 
pretre  d'Apollon  en  lui,  il  reste  une  bien  plus  large  part  encore,  ce  me 
semble,  au  collecteur  attentif  et  consciencieux  des  moindres  traditions  sur  les 
grands  hommes,  au  peintre  abondant  et  curieux  de  la  nature  humaine ' :  and 
to  refer  to  Freeman,  Methods  of  Historical  Study,  pp.  167,  168,  184. 


138  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

portraying  only  character,  and  have  been  conj&rmed 
in  their  error  by  the  indiscriminate  additions  to  his 
work ;    or,  perceiving  his  exclusive  choice  of  poli- 
ticians, they  have  still  declined  to  recognise  political 
wisdom  in  an  unexpected  shape.     In  a  work  which 
is  constituted,  albeit  without  intention,  upon  Hnes 
thus  definitely  political,  one  might  have  looked  for 
many  direct  pronouncements  of  political  opinion. 
Yet  in  that  expectation  one  is  deceived — as  I  think, 
happily.     For  Plutarch's  methods,  at  least  in  respect 
of  politics  and  war,  are  not  those  of  analysis  or  of 
argument,  but  of  pageant  and  of  drama,  with  actors 
living  and  moving  against  a  background  of  proces- 
sions that  move  and  live.     With  all  the  world  for 
his  stage,  he  shakes  off  the  habit  of  the  lecture-hall, 
and  it  is  only  now  and  again  that,  stepping  before 
the  curtain,  he  will  speak  a  prologue  in  a  preface,  or 
turn  chorus  to  comment  a  space  upon  the  play. 
Mostly  he  is  absorbed  in  presenting  his  heroes  as  they 
fought  and  as  they  fell ;  in  unfolding,  in  scene  after 
scene,  his  theatrum  of  stirring  life  and  majestical 
death.     I   cannot   deny   his   many   digressions   on 
matters  religious,  moral,  philosophical,  and  social ; 
and  it  may  be  that  their  very  number,  accentuat- 
ing the  paucity  of  his  political  pronouncements,  has 
emphasised  the  view  with  which  I  cannot  concur. 
Doubtless  they  are  there ;  nor  can  I  believe  that  any 
would  wish  them  away.     It  is  interesting  to  hear 
the  Pythagorean  view  of  the  solar  system  ;  ^   and  it 
is  charming  to  be  told  the  gossip  about  Aspasia  ^ 
and  Dionysius^  after  his  fall.     In  the  Pericles,  for 
instance,  Plutarch  pauses  at  the  first  mention  of 

^  Numa  Pompilius :  marred  in  North  by  a  mistranslation.  In  the 
original  it  approximates  to  the  Copernican  rather  than  to  the  Ptolemaic 
theory.  2  Pericles.  ^  Timoleon, 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  139 

Aspasia's  name  :  '  thinking  it  no  great  digression  of 
our  storie,'  to  tell  you  '  by  the  way  what  manner  of 
woman  she  was.'  So  he  tells  you  what  manner,  and, 
after  the  telling,  excuses  himself  once  more  ;  since, 
as  he  says,  it  came  '  in  my  minde  :  and  me  thought 
I  should  have  dealt  hardly,  if  I  should  have  left  it 
unwritten.'  Who  will  resent  such  compassion  ? 
Who  so  immersed  in  affairs  as  to  die  in  willing  ignor- 
ance of  the  broken  man  who  seemed  to  be  a  '  starke 
nideotte,'  with  a  turn  for  low  life  and  repartee  ? 
Plutarch  carries  all  before  him  when  he  says  :  '  me- 
thinks  these  things  I  have  intermingled  concerning 
Dionysius,  are  not  impertinent  to  the  description  of 
our  Lives,  neither  are  they  troublesome  nor  un- 
profitable to  the  hearers,  unless  they  have  other 
hasty  business  to  let  or  trouble  them.'  He  is  irresis- 
tible in  this  vein,  which,  by  its  Hghtness,  leads  one  to 
believe  that  some  of  the  lives,  like  some  modern 
essays,  were  first  delivered  before  popular  audiences, 
and  then  collected  with  others  conceived  in  a  graver 
key.  There  are  many  such  digressions.  But,  just 
because  his  heroes  are  all  politicians,  of  long  political 
pronouncements  there  are  few  :  even  as  of  comments 
on  the  art  of  war  you  shall  find  scarce  one,  for  the 
reason  that  strategy  and  tactics  are  made  plain  on  a 
hundred  fields.  His  politicians  and  captains  speak 
and  fight  for  themselves.  It  is  for  his  readers,  if  they 
choose,  to  gather  political  wisdom  from  (say)  his  lives 
of  the  aforesaid  thirteen  Romans  ;  even,  as,  an  they 
will,  they  may  deduce  from  the  Themistodes  or  the 
Pompey  the  completeness  of  his  grasp  upon  the  latest 
theories  on  the  command  of  the  sea. 

Yet  there  are  exceptions,  though  rare  ones,  to  his 
rule  ;  and  in  questioning  the  poHtical  bent  of  his 
mind  we  are  not  left  to  inference  alone.     In  the 


140  NORTECS  PLUTARCH 

Lycurgus,  for  instance,  where  the  actor  is  but  a 
walking  shadow,  Plutarch  must  needs  deal  with  the 
system  associated  with  Lycurgus's  name  :  so  in  this 
life  we  have  the  theory  of  poHtics  which  Plutarch 
favoured,  whereas  in  the  Pericles  we  have  the  practice 
of  a  consummate  politician.  Prom  the  Lycurgus, 
then,  we  are  able  to  gauge  the  personal  equation  (so 
to  say)  of  the  mind  which,  in  the  Pericles,  must  have 
coloured  that  mind's  presentment  of  political  action 
and  debate.  Plutarch,  like  Plato  before  him,  is  a 
frank  admirer  of  the  laws  which  Lycurgus  is  said 
to  have  framed.  He  delights  in  that  '  perfectest 
manner  of  a  commonwealth,'  which  made  the  city  of 
Lycurgus  '  the  chiefest  of  the  world,  in  glory  and 
honour  of  government,  by  the  space  of  five  hundred 
years.'  He  tells  of  the  lawgiver's  journey  from 
Crete  to  Asia,  to  compare  the  '  policy  of  those  of 
Crete  (being  then  very  straight  and  severe)  with 
the  superfluities  and  vanities  of  Ionia '  ;  and  you 
may  gather  from  the  context  that  the  one  appears 
to  the  historian  '  whole  and  healthful,'  the  others 
'  sick  and  diseased.'  He  seems  also  to  approve  Ly- 
curgus's indiscriminate  contempt  for  all  '  super- 
fluous and  unprofitable  sciences '  ;  for  the  devices 
of  '  licorous  cooks  to  cram  themselves  in  corners,' 
of  '  rhetoricians  who  teach  eloquence  and  the  cunning 
cast  of  lying,'  of  goldsmiths  and  fortune-tellers  and 
panders.  Again,  it  is  with  satisfaction  that  he  paints 
his  picture  of  Lycurgus  returning  '  home  one  day 
out  of  the  fields  .  .  .  laughing '  as  he  '  saw  the 
number  of  sheaves  in  shocks  together  and  no  one 
shock  bigger  than  another  '  ;  all  Laconia  being  '  as 
it  were  an  inheritance  of  many  brethren,  who  had 
newly  made  partition  together.'  But  if  Plutarch 
approves  the  suppression  of  luxury  and  the  equal 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  141 

distribution  of  wealth  as  ideals,  he  does  not  approve 
the  equal  distribution  of  power.  He  is  in  favour 
of  constitutional  republics  and  opposed  to  hereditary 
monarchies  ;  though  he  will  tolerate  even  these  in 
countries  where  they  already  exist.  ^  But  he  is  for 
repubhcs  and  against  monarchies  only  that  the  man 
'  bom  to  rule '  may  have  authority :  such  a  man, 
for  instance,  as  Lycurgus,  '  born  to  rule,  to  com- 
mand, and  to  give  orders,  as  having  in  him  a  certain 
natural  grace  and  power  to  draw  men  willingly  to  obey 
him.'*  In  any  State,  he  postulates,  on  the  one  hand, 
an  enduring  Constitution  and  a  strong  Senate  of 
proved  men ;  on  the  other,  a  populace  with  equal 
political  rights  of  electing  to  the  Senate  and  of 
sanctioning  the  laws  that  Senate  may  propose.  Yet 
these  in  themselves  are  but  prehminary  conditions 
of  liberty  and  order.  Besides,  for  the  preservation 
of  a  State  there  are  needed  rulers  few  and  fit,  armed 
with  enough  authority  and  having  courage  enough 
to  wield  it.  It  is  essential  that  the  few,  who  are  fit, 
shall  direct  and  govern  the  many,  who  are  not.  If 
authority  be  impaired,  whether  by  incompetence 
in  the  few  or  through  jealousy  in  the  many,  then 
must  disaster  follow.  Now,  many  who  hold  this 
view  are  prone,  when  disaster  does  follow,  to  blame 
the  folly  of  the  many  rather  than  the  unfitness  of  the 
few.  But  Plutarch  is  distinguished  in  this  :  that, 
holding  the  view  as  firmly  as  any  have  held  it — now 
preaching  the  gospel  of  authority  and  now  exhibiting 
its  proof  at  every  turn — ^he  yet  imputes  the  blame 
of  failure,  almost  always,  to  incompetence  or  to 
cowardice  in  the  few.  '  He  that  directeth  well  must 
needs  be  well  obeyed.  For  like  as  the  art  of  a  good 
rider  is  to  make  his  horse  gentle  and  ready  at  com- 

^  Comparison  of  Demetrius  ivith  Antoniiis, 


142  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

mandment,  even  so  the  chiefest  point  belonging  to  a 
prince  is  to  teach  his  people  to  obey.'  I  take  these 
words  from  the  Lycurgus,  They  set  forth  Plutarch's 
chief  political  doctrine ;  and  the  statement  of  fact 
is  pointed  with  his  favourite  image.  That  the  horse 
(or  the  many)  should  play  the  antic  at  will,  is  to 
him  plainly  absurd  :  the  horse  must  be  ridden,  and 
the  many  must  be  directed  and  controlled.  Yet,  if 
the  riding,  or  the  governing,  prove  a  failure,  Plu- 
tarch's quarrel  is  with  the  ruler  and  the  horseman, 
not  with  the  people  or  the  mount.  For  he  knows 
well  that  '  a  ragged  colt  oftimes  proves  a  good 
horse,  specially  if  he  be  well  ridden  and  broken  as 
he  should  be.'  ^  This  is  but  one  of  his  innumerable 
allusions  to  horse-breaking  and  hunting :  as,  for 
instance,  in  the  Paulus  jEmilius,  he  includes  '  riders 
of  horses  and  hunts  of  Greece '  among  painters  and 
gravers  of  images,  grammarians,  and  rhetoricians, 
as  the  proper  Greek  tutors  for  completing  the  educa- 
tion of  a  Roman  moving  with  the  times.  And  no 
one  who  takes  note  of  these  allusions  can  doubt  that, 
as  one  of  a  chivalrous  and  sporting  race,  he  was 
qualified  to  deal  with  images  drawn  from  the  manege 
and  the  chase.  As  little  can  any  one  who  follows 
his  political  drama  miss  the  application  of  these 
images.  Sometimes,  indeed,  his  constant  theme  and 
his  favourite  image  almost  seem  fused  :  as  when  he 
describes  the  natural  grace  of  his  Caesar,  '  so  excellent 
a  rider  of  horse  from  his  youth,  that  holding  his 
hands  behind  him,  he  would  galop  his  horse  upon 
the  spur '  ;  a  governor  so  ever  at  one  with  those  he 
governed,  that  he  directed  even  his  charger  by  an 
inflexion  of  his  will  rather  than  of  his  body.  This 
need  of  authority  and  the  obligation  on  the  few  to 

^  Themistocles, 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  143 

maintain  it — by  a  '  natural  grace,'  springing,  on  the 
one  hand,  from  courage  combined  with  forbearance  ; 
and  leading,  on  the  other,  to  harmony  between  the 
rulers  and  the  ruled — is  the  text  which,  given  out  in 
the  Lycurgus,  is  illustrated  throughout  the  Parallel 
Lives. 

I  have  said  that,  apart  from  the  Lycurgus,  Plu- 
tarch's political  pronouncements  are  to  be  found 
mostly  in  the  prefaces  to  certain  '  books '  and  in 
scattered  comments  on  such  action  as  he  displays. 
And  of  all  these  '  books '  the  Pericles  and  Fdbius 
Maximus  is,  perhaps,  the  richest  in  pronouncements, 
in  both  its  preface  and  its  body,  all  bearing  on  his 
theory  of  authority  and  on  its  maintenance  by 
'  natural  grace.'  A  '  harmony  '  is  to  be  aimed  at ; 
but  a  harmony  in  the  Dorian  mode.  Pericles  is 
commended  because  in  later  hfe  '  he  was  wont  .  .  . 
not  so  easily  to  grant  to  all  the  people's  wills  and 
desires,  no  more  than  as  it  were  to  contrary  winds.' 
In  Plutarch's  eyes  he  did  well  when  '  he  altered  his 
over-gentle  and  popular  manner  of  government 
...  as  too  delicate  and  effeminate  an  harmony  of 
music,  and  did  convert  it  into  an  imperious  govern- 
ment, or  rather  a  kingly  authority.'  He  has  nothing 
but  praise  for  the  independence  and  fortitude  by 
which  Pericles  achieved  Caesar's  policy  of  uniting 
within  himself  all  the  yearly  offices  of  the  State, 
'not  for  a  little  while,  nor  in  a  gear  (fashion)  of 
favour,'  but  for  '  forty  years  together.'  He  com- 
pares him  to  the  captain  of  a  ship  '  not  hearkening 
to  the  passengers'  fearful  cries  and  pitiful  tears,' 
and  holds  him  up  for  an  example,  since  he  '  neither 
would  be  persuaded  by  his  friends'  earnest  requests 
and  entreaties,  neither  cared  for  his  enemies'  threats 
and  accusations  against  him,  nor  yet  reckoned  of  all 


144  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

their  foolish  scoffing  songs  they  sung  of  him  in  the 
city.'  So,  too,  in  the  same  book,  when  Plutarch 
comes  to  portray  Fabius  Maximus,  he  gives  us  that 
great  man's  view  :  that '  to  be  af eared  of  the  wagging 
of  every  straw,  or  to  regard  every  common  prating, 
is  not  the  part  of  a  worthy  man  of  charge,  but  rather 
of  a  base-minded  person,  to  seek  to  please  those 
whom  he  ought  to  command  and  govern,  because 
they  are  but  fools.'  (Thus  does  blunt  Sir  Thomas 
render  Amy  of  s  poHte,  but  equally  sound,  '  parce 
quHls  ne  sont  pas  sages,'')  But  the  independence  and 
the  endurance  necessary  in  a  ruler  are  not  to  be 
accompanied  by  irritation  or  contempt.  While  '  to 
flatter  the  common  people '  is  at  best  effeminate,' 
and  at  worst  '  the  broad  high-way  of  them  that 
practise  tyranny,'  ^  still,  '  he  is  less  to  be  blamed  that 
seeketh  to  please  and  gratify  his  common  people  than 
he  that  despiseth  and  disdaineth  them '  ;  for  here 
is  no  harmony  at  all,  but  discord.  The  words  last 
quoted  are  from  the  Comparison  between  Alcibiades 
and  Coriolanus,  two  heroes  out  of  tune  with  their 
countrymen,  whose  courage  and  independence  were 
made  thereby  of  no  avail.  But  in  the  Pericles  and 
Fabius  Maximus  Plutarch  shows  us  heroes  after  his 
own  heart,  and  in  his  preface  to  their  Hves  he  insists 
more  exphcitly  than  elsewhere  on  the  need  x)f  not 
only  courage  and  independence  but  also  forbearance 
and  goodwill ;  since  without  these,  their  comple- 
ments, the  other  virtues,  are  sterile.  Pericles  and 
Fabius,  being  at  least  as  proud  and  brave  as  Alci- 
biades and  Coriolanus, '  for  that  they  would  patiently 
bear  the  follies  of  their  people  and  companions  that 
were  in  charge  of  government  with  them,  were  mar- 
vellous profitable  members  for  their  country.'     He 

1  Furius  Camilhis. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  145 

returns  to  this  theory  of  harmony  in  his  preface  to 
the  Phocion  and  Cato.  In  every  instance  he  assumes 
as  beyond  dispute,  that  the  few  must  govern,  work- 
ing an  obedience  in  the  many  ;  but  they  are  to  work 
it  by  a  '  natural  grace '  of  adaptation  to  the  needs 
and  natures  they  command.  In  this  very  book  he 
blames  Cato  of  Utica,  not  for  the  '  ancient  simplicity  ' 
of  his  manner,  which  '  was  indeed  praiseworthy,'  but, 
simply  because  it  was  '  not  the  convenientest,  nor 
the  fittest '  for  him  ;  for  that  '  it  answered  nor  res- 
pected not  the  use  and  manners  of  his  time.' 

How  comes  it  to  pass  that  Plutarch's  heroes,  being 
thus  prone  to  compromise,  yet  fight  and  die,  often  at 
their  own  hands,  for  the  ideals  they  uphold  ?  The 
question  is  a  fair  one,  and  the  answer  reveals  a  pro- 
found difference  between  the  theory  and  the  practice 
of  politics  approved  by  the  ancient  world  and  the 
theory  and  the  practice  of  politics  approved  in  the 
England  of  to-day.  '  The  good  and  ill,'  says  Plu- 
tarch, '  do  nothing  differ  but  in  mean  and  mediocrity.' 
We  might  therefore  expect  in  his  heroes  a  reluc- 
tance to  sacrifice  all  for  a  difference  of  degree ;  and 
especially  might  we  suppose  that,  after  deciding  an 
equipoise  so  nice  as  that  between  '  authority  and 
lenity,'  his  governors  would  stake  little  on  their 
decision.  But  in  a  world  of  adjustment  and  doubt 
they  are  all  for  compromise  in  theory,  while  in  action 
they  are  extreme.  They  are  ready  in  spite,  almost 
because,  of  that  doubt,  to  seal  with  their  blood  such 
certainty  as  they  can  attain.  His  statesmen,  inas- 
much as  they  do  respect  '  the  use  and  manners '  of 
their  time,  endure  all  things  while  they  live,  and  at 
last  die  quietly,  not  for  an  abstract  idea  or  a  sublime 
emotion,  but  for  the  compromise  of  their  day: 
though  they  know  it  for  a  compromise,  and  foresee 


146  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

its  inevitable  destruction.  They  have  no  enthusi- 
asm, and  no  ecstasy.  Uninspired  from  without,  and 
seK-gathered  within,  they  Hve  their  Hves,  or  lay  them 
down,  for  the  use  and  wont  of  their  country.  In 
reading  their  history  an  Englishman  cannot  but  be 
struck  by  the  double  contrast  between  these  tend- 
encies of  theory  and  action  and  the  tendencies  of 
theory  and  action  finding  favour  in  England  now. 
Ever  extreme  in  theory,  we  are  all  for  compromise 
in  fact ;  proud  on  the  one  score  of  our  sincerity,  on 
the  other  of  our  common  sense.  We  are  fanatics, 
who  yet  decline  to  persecute,  still  less  to  suffer,  for 
our  faith.  And  this  temperance  of  behaviour,  follow- 
ing hard  on  the  violent  utterance  of  belief,  is  apt 
to  show  something  irrational  and  tame.  The  actor 
stands  charged,  often  unjustly,  with  a  lack  of  both 
logic  and  courage.  The  Greeks,  on  the  other  hand, 
who  found  '  truth  in  a  union  of  opposites  and  the  aim 
of  life  in  its  struggle,'  ^  and  the  Romans,  who  aped 
their  philosophy  and  outdid  their  deeds,  are  not,  in 
Plutarch's  pages,  open  to  this  disparagement.  They 
live  or  die  for  their  faiths  as  they  found  them,  and 
so  appear  less  extravagant  and  more  brave.  The 
temper  is  illustrated  again  and  again  by  the  manner 
in  which  they  observe  his  doctrine,  that  rulers  must 
maintain  their  authority,  and  at  the  same  time 
'  bear  the  follies  of  their  people  and  companions  that 
are  in  charge  of  government  with  them.'  To  read  the 
Pericles  or  the  Pompeius,  the  Julius  Ccesar  or  the 
Cato,  is  to  feel  that  a  soldier  may  as  well  complain 
of  bullets  in  a  battle  as  a  statesman  of  stupidity  in 
his  colleagues.  These  are  constants  of  the  problem. 
Only  on  such  terms  are  fighting  and  ruling  to  be  had. 
So,  too,  with  '  the  people  '  :   with  the  many,  that  is, 

1  The  Moral  Idealy  Julia  Wedgwood,  p.  82. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  147 

who  have  least  chance  of  understanding  the  game, 
least  voice  in  its  conduct,  least  stake  in  its  success. 
If  these  forget  all  but  yesterday's  service,  if  they 
look  only  for  to-morrow's  reward,  the  hero  is  not 
therefore  to  complain.  This  short-lived  memory  and 
this  short-sighted  imagination  are  constants  also. 
They  are  regular  fences  in  the  course  he  has  set  him- 
self to  achieve.  He  must  clear  them  if  he  can,  and 
fall  if  he  cannot ;  but  he  must  never  complain.  They 
are  conditions  of  success,  not  excuses  for  failure; 
and  to  name  them  is  to  be  ridiculous.  The  Plu- 
tarchian  hero  never  does  name  them.  He  is  obstinate, 
but  not  querulous.  He  cares  only  for  the  State ; 
he  insists  on  saving  it  in  his  own  way  ;  he  kills  him- 
self, if  other  counsels  prevail.  But  he  never  com- 
plains, and  he  offers  no  explanations.  Living,  he 
prefers  action  before  argument ;  dying,  he  chooses 
drama  rather  than  defence.  While  he  has  hope,  he 
acts  like  a  great  man  ;  and  when  hope  ceases,  he  dies 
like  a  great  actor.  He  and  his  fellows  seek  for  some 
compromise  between  authority  and  lenity,  and, 
having  found  it,  they  maintain  it  to  the  end.  They 
are  wise  in  taking  thought,  and  subHme  in  taking 
action :  whereas  now,  we  are  courageous  in  our 
theories,  but  exceeding  cautious  in  our  practice. 
Yet  who  among  modern  politicians  will  say  that 
Plutarch's  men  were  in  the  wrong  ?  Who,  hoarse 
with  shouting  against  the  cataract  of  circumstance, 
will  dare  reprove  the  dumb-show  of  their  lives  and 
deaths  ? 

I  have  shown  from  the  Lycurgus,  from  the  prefaces 
to  the  Pericles  and  the  Phocion,  and  from  scattered 
comments  elsewhere,  that  Plutarch  has  something 
to  say  upon  politics  which,  whether  we  agree  with 
him  or  not,  is  at  least  worthy  our  attention.     There 


148  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

is  yet  an  occasion  of  one  other  kind — which  he  takes, 
I  think,  only  twice — for  speaking  his  own  mind  upon 
politics.     After  the  conclusion  of  a  long  series  of 
events,  ending,  for  instance,  in  the  rule  of  Rome 
over  Greece,  or  in  the  substitution  of  the  Empire  for 
the  Republic,  he  assembles  these  conclusions,  at  first 
sight  to  him  unreasonable  and  unjust,  and  seeks  to 
interpret  them  in  the  light  of  divine  wisdom  and 
justice.     Now,  he  was  nearer  than  we  are  to  the 
two  great  sequences  I  have  denoted,  by  seventeen 
centuries  :    he  lived,  we  may  say,  in  a  world  which 
they  had  created  anew.     And  whereas  he  took  in  all 
political  questions  a  general  interest  so  keen  that  it 
has  coloured  the  whole  of  a  work  not  immediately 
addressed  to  politics,  in  these  two  sequences  his 
interest  was  particular  and  personal :    in  the  first 
because  of  his  patriotism,  and  in  the  second  because 
of  his  familiar  converse  with  the  best  in  Rome.     We 
are  happy,  then,  in  the  judgment  of  such  a  critic 
on  the  two   greatest   political  dramas   enacted   in 
the  ancient  world.      The  human — I  might  say  the 
pathetic — interest  of  the  treatment  accorded  by  the 
patriotic  Greek  to  the  growth  of  Roman  dominion 
and  its  final  extension  over  the  Hellenistic  East, 
wiU  absorb  the  attention  of  many.     But  it  offers, 
besides,  as  I  think,  although  this  has  been  questioned, 
much  of  political  wisdom.     In  any  case,  on  the  one 
count  or  upon  the  other,  I  feel  bound  to  indicate  the 
passages  in  which  he  comments  on  these  facts.     We 
are  not  in  doubt  as  to  his  general  views  on  Imperial 
aggression   and   a   '  forward  policy.'     After  noting 
that  the  Romans  forsook  the  peaceful  precepts  of 
Numa,  and  '  fiUed  all  Italy  with  murder  and  blood,' 
he   imagines   one   saying :     '  But   hath   not   Rome 
excelled    stiU,    and   prevailed    more    and    more    in 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  149 

chivalry  ?  '  And  he  repHes  :  ^  '  This  question  re- 
quireth  a  long  answer,  and  especially  unto  such  men 
as  place  fehcity  in  riches,  in  possessing  and  in  the 
greatness  of  empire,  rather  than  in  quiet  safety,  peace 
and  concord  of  a  common  weal.'  For  his  part  he 
thought  with  Lycurgus,^  that  a  city  should  not  seek 
to  command  many  ;  but  that  '  the  fehcity  of  a  city, 
as  of  a  private  man,  consisted  chiefly  in  the  exercise 
of  virtue,  and  the  unity  of  the  inhabitants  thereof, 
and  that  the  citizens  should  be  nobly  minded 
(Amyot :  francs  de  cueurs),  content  with  their  own, 
and  temperate  in  their  doings  (attrempez  en  tous  leurs 
faicts),  that  thereby  they  might  maintain  and  keep 
themselves  long  in  safety.'  But,  holding  this  general 
opinion,  and  biassed  into  the  bargain  by  his  patriot- 
ism, he  cannot  relate  the  stories  of  Aratus  and 
Philopcemen  on  the  one  hand,  or  of  Flaminius  and 
LucuUus  on  the  other,  without  accepting  the  con- 
clusion that  the  rule  of  Rome  was  at  last  necessary 
for  the  rational  and  just  government  of  the  world; 
and,  therefore,  was  inevitably  ordained  by  the  Divine 
wisdom.  Rome  '  increased  and  grew  strong  by  arms 
and  continual  wars,  like  as  piles  driven  into  the  ground, 
which  the  more  they  are  rammed  in  the  further  they 
enter  and  stick  the  faster.^  ^  For  it  was  by  obedience 
and  self-restraint,  by  a  '  yielding  unto  reason  and 
virtue '  that  the  '  Romans  came  to  command  all 
other  and  to  make  themselves  the  mightiest  people 
of  the  world.'  ^  In  Greece  he  finds  nothing  of  this 
obedience  and  this  self-restraint ;  nothing  but 
rivalry  between  leaders  and  jealousy  between  States. 
Cleomenes,  the  Spartan  king,  Aratus  and  Philopce- 
men, both  leaders  of  the  Achsean  League,  are  among 

^  Comparison  of  Lycurgus  with  Numa  Pompilius. 

~  Lycurgus.  ^  Numa  Pompilius.  *  Paulus  Mmiliua. 


150  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

the  last  of  his  Greek  heroes.  He  lingers  over  them 
lovingly ;  yet  it  is  Aratus  who,  in  jealousy  of 
Cleomenes,  brings  Antigonus  and  his  Macedonians 
into  Greece  ;  and  it  is  Flaminius,  the  Roman,  who 
expels  them.  In  this  act  some  modern  critics  have 
seen  only  one  of  many  cloaks  for  a  policy  of  calculated 
aggression,  but  it  is  well  to  remember  for  what  it  is 
worth  that  Plutarch,  the  Greek  patriot,  saw  in  it 
simply  the  act  of  a  '  just  and  courteous  gentleman,' 
and  that,  according  to  him,  the  '  only  cause  of  the 
utter  destruction  of  Greece  '  must  be  sought  earher  : 
when  Aratus  preferred  the  Macedonians  before  allow- 
ing Cleomenes  a  first  place  in  the  Achaean  League. 
In  the  Cimon  and  Lucullus,  even  after  Greece  became 
a  Roman  province,  he  shows  the  same  rivalries  on  a 
smaller  scale.  The  '  book '  opens  with  a  story  which, 
with  a  few  changes,  mostly  of  names,  might  be  set  in 
the  Ireland  of  a  hundred  years  ago.  One  Damon, 
an  antique  Rory  of  the  HiUs,  after  just  provocation, 
collects  a  band  of  moonhghters  who,  with  blackened 
faces,  set  upon  and  murder  a  Roman  captain.  The 
town  council  of  Chseronea  condemns  Damon  and  his 
companions  to  death,  in  proof  of  its  own  innocence, 
and  is  murdered  for  its  pains.  At  last  Damon  him- 
seH  is  enticed  into  a  bathhouse,  and  killed.  Then  the 
Orchomenians,  'being  near  neighbours  unto  the 
Chseroneans,  and  therefore  their  enemies,'  hire  an 
'  informer '  to  accuse  all  the  Chseroneans  of  com- 
plicity in  the  original  murder  ;  and  it  is  only  the  just 
testimony  of  the  Roman  general,  Lucullus,  who 
chances  to  be  marching  by,  which  saves  the  town 
from  punishment.  An  image  is  set  up  to  Lucullus 
which  Plutarch  has  seen ;  and  even  to  his  day 
'  terrible  voices  and  cries '  are  heard  by  the  neigh- 
bours from  behind  the  walled-up  door  of  the  bath- 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  151 

house,  in  which  Damon  had  died.  He  knows  the 
whole  story  from  his  childhood,  and  knows  that  in 
this  small  matter  Lucullus  showed  the  same  justice 
and  courtesy  which  Flaminius  had  displayed  in  a 
great  one.  For  it  is  only  the  strong  who  can  be 
just ;  and  therefore  to  the  strong  there  falls  in  the 
end,  without  appeal,  the  reward,  or  the  penalty, 
of  doing  justice  throughout  the  world.  That  seems 
to  be  Plutarch's  '  long  answer  '  to  those  who  question 
the  justice  of  the  Roman  Empire.  He  gives  it  most 
fully  in  the  life  of  Flaminius,  taking,  as  I  have  said, 
a  rare  occasion  in  order  to  comment  on  the  con- 
clusion of  a  long  series  of  events.  First,  he  sums 
up  the  results  achieved  by  the  noble  Greeks,  many 
of  whose  lives  he  has  written.  '  For  Agesilaus,'  he 
writes,  '  Lysander,  Nicias,  Alcibiades,  and  all  other 
the  famous  captains  of  former  times,  had  very  good 
skill  to  lead  an  army,  and  to  winne  the  battle,  as 
well  by  sea  as  by  land,  but  to  turn  their  victories 
to  any  honourable  benefit,  or  true  honour  among 
men,  they  could  never  skill  of  it '  ;  especially  as, 
apart  from  the  Persian  War,  '  all  the  other  wars  and 
the  battles  of  Greece  that  were  made  fell  out  against 
themselves,  and  did  ever  bring  them  unto  bondage  : 
and  all  the  tokens  of  triumph  which  ever  were  set  up 
for  the  same  was  to  their  shame  and  loss.'  Having 
summed  up  the  tragedy  of  Greece  in  these  words,  he 
turns  to  the  Roman  rule,  and  '  The  good  deeds  of  the 
Romans  and  of  Titus  Quintus  Flaminius,'  he  says, 
'  unto  the  Grecians,  did  not  only  reap  this  benefit 
unto  them,  in  recompense  that  they  were  praised 
and  honoured  of  all  the  world  ;  but  they  were  cause 
also  of  increasing  their  dominions  and  empire  over 
all  nations.'  So  that  '  peoples  and  cities  .  .  .  pro- 
cured them  to  come,  and  did  put  themselves  into 


I 


152  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

their  hands '  ;  and  '  kings  and  princes  also  (which 
were  oppressed  by  other  more  mighty  than  them- 
selves) had  no  other  refuge  but  to  put  themselves 
under  their  protection,  by  reason  whereof  in  a  very 
short  time  ...  all  the  world  came  to  submit  them- 
selves under  the  protection  of  their  empire.' 

In  the  same  way,  he,  a  republican,  acquiesced  in 
the  necessity  for  Caesar.  Having  told  the  story  of 
Brutus,  the  last  of  the  thirteen  Romans,  he  falls  on 
the  other  of  my  two  occasions,  and  '  Caesar's  power 
and  government,'  he  writes,  '  when  it  came  to  be 
established,  did  indeed  much  hurt  at  his  first  entrie 
and  beginning  unto  those  that  did  resist  him  :  but 
afterwards  there  never  followed  any  tyrannical  nor 
cruel  act,  but  contrarily,  it  seemed  that  he  was  a 
merciful  Physician  whom  God  had  ordained  of  special 
grace  to  he  Governor  of  the  Empire  of  Rome,  and  to  set 
all  things  again  at  quiet  stay,  the  which  required  the 
counsel  and  authority  of  an  absolute  Prince.'^  That 
is  his  epilogue  to  the  longest  and  the  mightiest  drama 
in  aU  history  ;  and  in  it  we  have  for  once  the  judg- 
ment of  a  playivright  on  the  ethics  of  his  play.  Yet 
so  great  a  dramatist  was  Plutarch  that  even  his 
epilogue  has  not  saved  him  from  the  fate  of  his  peers. 
While  some,  with  our  wise  King  James  i.,  blame  him 
for  injustice  to  Caesar,^  yet  others  find  him  a  niggard 
in  his  worship  of  Brutus  and  Cato.  The  fact  is, 
each  of  his  heroes  is  for  the  moment  of  such  flesh 
and  blood  as  to  compel  the  pity  of  him  that  reads ; 
for  each  is  in  turn  the  brother  of  all  men,  in  their 
hope  and  in  their  despair.     If,  then,  the  actor  chances  | 

to  be  Brutus  and  the  reader  King  James,  Plutarch 
is  damned  for  a  rebel ;  but  again,  if  the  reader  be  a 

^  In  his  interview  with  Casaubon.  See  Ste.-Beuve :  Causeries  du  Lundi, 
xiv.  402. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  153 

republican,  when  Servilia's  lover  wraps  him  in  his 
cloak  and  falls,  why,  then  is  Plutarch  but  the  friend 
of  a  tyrant.  Thus  by  the  excellence  of  his  art  he 
forces  us  to  argue  that  his  creatures  must  reign  in 
his  affection  as  surely  as  for  a  moment  they  can  seize 
upon  our  own.  Take  an  early  hero  of  the  popular 
party — take  Caius  Gracchus.  We  know  him  even 
to  his  trick  of  vehement  speech  ;  and,  knowing  him 
so  intimately,  we  cannot  but  mourn  over  that  part- 
ing from  his  wife,  when  he  left  her  to  meet  death,  and 
she,  '  reaching  after  him  to  take  him  by  the  gown,  fell 
to  the  ground  and  lay  flatlings  there  a  great  while, 
speaking  never  a  word.'  Cato,  again,  that  hero  of 
the  other  side,  lives  to  be  forbidding  for  his  affecta- 
tion ;  yet  who  but  remembers  the  clever  boy  making 
orations  full  of  '  witt  and  vehemence,'  with  a  '  cer- 
taine  gravetie '  which  '  delighted  his  hearers  and 
made  them  laugh,  it  did  so  'please  them '  ?  One  harks 
back  to  the  precocious  youngster,  once  the  hope  of 
the  winning  party,  when  Cato,  left  alone  in  Utica, 
the  last  soul  true  to  a  lost  cause,  asks  the  dissemblers 
of  his  sword  if  they  '  think  to  keep  an  old  man  alive 
by  force  ?  '  He  takes  kindly  thought  for  the  safety 
of  his  friends,  reads  the  Phcedo,  and  dozes  fitfully 
through  the  night,  and  behold  !  you  are  in  the  room 
with  a  great  man  dying.  You  feel  with  him  that 
chill  disillusion  of  the  dawn,  when  '  the  little  birds 
began  to  chirp '  ;  you  share  in  the  creeping  horror 
of  his  servants,  listening  outside  the  door  ;  and  when 
they  give  a  '  shriek  for  fear  '  at  the  '  noise  of  his  fall, 
overthrowing  a  little  table  of  geometry  hard  by  his 
bed,'  it  is  almost  a  relief  to  know  that  the  recovered 
sword  has  done  its  work.  And  who  can  help  loving 
Pompey,  with  his  '  curtesie  in  conversation  ;  so  that 
there  was  never  man  that  requested  anything  with  less 


154  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

ill  will  than  he,  nor  that  more  willingly  did  pleasure 
unto  any  man  when  he  was  requested.  For  he  gave 
without  disdain  and  took  with  great  honour '  ?  '  The 
cast  and  soft  moving  of  his  eyes  .  .  .  had  a  certain 
resemblance  of  the  statues  and  images  of  King 
Alexander.'  Even  '  Flora  the  cui*tisan  ' — Villon's 
'  Flora  la  belle  Romaine ' — pined  away  for  love  of 
him  when  he  turned  her  over  to  a  friend.  He  is  all 
compact  of  courage  and  easy  despair :  now  setting 
sail  in  a  tempest,  for  '  it  is  necessity,  I  must  go,  but 
not  to  Hve '  ;  and  again,  at  Pharsalia,  at  the  first 
reverse  '  forgetting  that  he  was  Pompey  the  Great,^  and 
leaving  the  field  to  walk  silently  away.  And  that 
last  scene  of  all :  when  on  a  desolate  shore  a  single 
'  infranchised  bondman  '  who  had  '  remained  ever  ' 
by  the  murdered  hero,  '  sought  upon  the  sands  and 
found  at  the  length  a  piece  of  an  old  fisher's  boat 
enough  to  serve  to  burn  his  naked  body  with  '  ;  and 
so  a  veteran  who  had  been  with  him  in  his  old  wars 
happens  upon  the  afflicting  scene  ;  and  you  hear  him 
hail  the  other  lonely  figure  :  '  0  friend,  what  art  thou 
that  preparest  the  funerals  of  Pompey  the  Great  ? 
.  .  .  Thou  shalt  not  have  all  this  honour  alone  .  .  . 
to  bury  the  only  and  most  famous  Captain  of  the 
Romans  ! ' 

There  is  sorcery  in  Plutarch's  presentments  of 
these  politicians,  which  may  either  blind  to  the 
import  of  the  drama  they  enact,  or  beguile  into  think- 
ing that  he  sympathises  by  turns  with  the  ideal  of 
every  leader  he  portrays.  But  behind  the  glamour 
of  their  living  and  the  glory  of  their  death,  a  relent- 
less progression  of  political  causes  and  effects  conducts 
inevitably  to  Caesar's  personal  rule.  In  no  otherbook 
do  we  see  so  full  an  image  of  a  nation's  life,  because  in 
no  other  is  the  author  so  little  concerned  to  prove 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  156 

the  truth  of  any  one  theory,  or  the  nobihty  of  any 
one  sentiment.  He  is  detached — indeed,  absorbed — 
in  another  purpose.  He  exhibits  his  thirteen  vivid 
personaUties,  holding,  mostly  by  birth,  to  one  of  two 
historic  parties,  and  inheriting  with  those  parties 
certain  traditional  aspirations  and  beliefs  ;  yet  by 
showing  men  as  they  are,  he  contrives  to  show  that 
truth  and  nobility  belong  to  many  divergent  beliefs 
and  to  many  conflicting  aspirations.  Doubtless  he 
has  his  own  view,  his  rooted  abhorrence  to  the  rule 
of  one  man  ;  and  this  persuasion  inclines  him  now 
to  the  Popular  Party  in  its  opposition  to  Sulla,  and 
again  to  the  Senate  in  its  opposition  to  Caesar.  But 
still,  by  the  sheer  force  of  his  realism,  he  drives  home, 
as  no  other  writer  has  ever  done,  the  great  truth  that 
theories  and  sentiments  are  in  politics  no  more  than 
flags  and  tuckets  in  a  battle :  that  in  fighting  and  in 
government  it  is,  after  all,  the  fighting  and  the 
governing  which  must  somehow  or  another  be 
achieved.  And,  since  in  this  world  governing  there 
must  be,  the  question  at  any  moment  is :  What  are 
the  possible  conditions  of  government  ?  In  the 
latter  days  of  the  Republic  it  appears  from  the  Lives 
that  two  sets  of  causes  had  led  to  a  monstrous  de- 
velopment of  individuals,  in  whose  shadow  all  lower 
men  must  wither  away.  So  Sertorius  sails  for  the 
'  Fortunate  Islands  '  ;  Cato  is  juggled  to  Cyprus  ; 
Cicero  is  banished  ;  while  LucuUus,  out-metalled  by 
Pompey  on  his  own  side,  '  lay  still  and  took  his 
pleasure,  and  would  no  more  meddle  with  the 
commonwealth,'  and  the  unspeakable  Bibulus  '  kept 
him  close  in  his  '  house  for  eight  months'  space,  and 
only  sent  out  bills.'  At  last  you  have  the  Trium- 
virate ;  and  then,  with  Crassus  killed,  the  two  pro- 
tagonists face  to  face  :    '  whose  names  the  strange 


156  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

and  far  nations  understood  before    the    name   of 
Romans,  so  great  were  their  victories.'     Given  the 
Roman  dominion  and  two  parties  with  the  traditions 
of  Marius  and  Sulla  behind  them,  there  was  nothing 
for  it  but  that  one  or  other  should  prove  its  com- 
petence to  rule ;    and  no  other  way  of  achieving 
this  than  finding  the  man  and  giving  him  the  power. 
The  Marians  found  Caesar,  and  in  him  a  man  who 
could  find  power  for  himself.     The  political  heirs  of 
Sulla  found,  Cato  and  Brutus,   and  Lucullus  and 
Pompey  ;  but  none  of  these  was  Caesar,  and,  such  as 
they  were,  the  Senate  played  them  off  the  one  against 
the  other.     Bemused  with  theories  and  sentiments, 
they  neither  saw  the  necessity,  nor  seized  the  means, 
of  governing  a  world  that  cried  aloud  for  govern- 
ment.    In  Plutarch  you  watch  the  play  ;  and,  what- 
ever you  may  think  of  the  actors — of  Crassus  or 
Cato,  Pompey  or  Caesar — of  the  non-actors  you  can 
think  nothing.     Bibulus,  with  his  '  bills,'  and  the 
Senate,   which  bade  Pompey  disband  his  troops, 
stand  for  ever  as  types  of  formal  incompetence. 
Plutarch  shows  that  it  is  wiser  and  more  righteous 
to  win  the  game  by  accepting  the  rules,  even  if 
sometimes  you  must  strain  and  break  them,  than  to 
leave  the  table  because  you  dislike  the  rules.     In- 
stead of  quarrelling  with  the  rules  and  losing  the 
game,  the  Senate  should  have  won  the  game,  and 
then  have  changed  the  rules.     This  Caesar  did,  as 
Plutarch  the  republican  allows,  to  the  saving  of  his 
country  and  the  lasting  profit  of  mankind.     Doubt- 
less he  shows  the  argument  in  action,  and  points  the 
moral  only  in  an  epilogue.     But  living,  as  we  do, 
after  the  politicians  of  so  many  ages  and  so  many 
parties  have  laid  competing  claims  to  the  glory  of  his 
chiefs,  this  is  our  gain.     Brutus  and  Cato,  heroes  of 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  157 

the  Renaissance  and  gods  of  liberty  a  hundred  years 
ago,  we  are  told  by  eminent  historians,  were  selfish 
oligarchs:  bunglers  who,  having  failed  to  feed  the 
city  or  to  flush  the  drains,  wrote  '  sulky  letters  '  ^ 
about  the  one  man  who  could  do  these  things,  and 
govern  the  world  into  the  bargain.  Between  these 
views  it  skills  not  to  decide.  It  is  enough  to  take 
up  the  Lives  and  to  rejoice  that  Plutarch,  writing 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  the  foundering  of 
the  Republic,  dwelt  rather  on  its  heroes  who  are 
for  ever  glorious  than  on  its  theories  which  were  for 
ever  shamed. 

In  his  book  are  three  complete  plays  :  the  brief 
tragedy  of  Athens — that  land  of  '  honey  and  hem- 
lock,' offering  her  cup  of  sweet  and  deadly  elements 
to  the  dreamers  of  every  age  ;  with  the  drama  of 
the  merging  of  Greece  in  the  dominion  of  Rome  and 
the  drama  of  the  overthrow  of  the  Roman  Republic. 
And  the  upshot  of  all  three  is  that  the  playwright 
insists  on  the  culture  of  the  individual  for  the  sake 
of  the  State.  The  poHtical  teacher  behind  the 
political  dramatist  inculcates,  no  theory  of  politics 
but,  an  attitude  towards  life.  Good  is  the  child  of 
custom  and  conflict,  not  the  reward  of  individual 
research ;  so  he  shows  you  life  as  one  battle  in  which 
the  armies  are  ordered  States.  Every  man,  there- 
fore, must  needs  be  a  citizen,  and  every  citizen  a 
soldier  in  the  ranks.  For  this  service,  life  being  a 
battle,  he  must  cultivate  the  soldier's  virtues  of 
courage  and  courtesy.  The  word  is  North's,  and 
smacks  something  more  of  chivalry  than  Amy  of  s 
humanite ;  yet  both  may  be  taken  to  point  Plutarch's 
moral,  not  only  that  victory  is  impossible  without 
kindness  between  comrades,  and  intolerable  without 

^  Mommsen :  he  uses  the  phrase  of  Cicero. 


158  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

forbearance  between  foes,  but  also,  that  in  every  age 
of  man's  progress  to  perfection  through  strife  these 
qualities  must  be  developed  to  a  larger  growth 
measured  by  the  moral  needs  of  war  between  nations 
and  parties.  He  insists  again  and  again  on  this  need 
of  courtesy  in  a  world  wherein  all  men  are  in  duty 
bound  to  hold  opposite  opinions,  for  which  they  must 
in  honour  live  and  die.  For  this  his  Sertorius,  his 
Lucullus,  and  his  Mummius,  sketched  in  a  passing 
allusion,  are  chiefly  memorable  ;  while  of  Caesar  he 
writes  that  '  amongst  other  honours '  his  enemies 
gave  him  '  he  rightly  deserved  this,  that  they  should 
build  him  a  Temple  of  Clemency.'  Caesar,  lighting 
from  his  horse  to  embrace  Cicero,  the  arch-instigator 
of  the  opposition  he  had  overthrown,  and  walking 
with  him  '  a  great  way  a-foot '  ;  or  Demetrius,  who, 
the  Athenians  having  defaulted,  gathers  them  into 
the  theatre,  and  then,  when  they  expect  a  massacre, 
forgives  them  in  a  speech — these  are  but  two 
exemplars  of  a  style  which  Plutarch  ever  praises. 
And  if  his  standard  of  courtesy  in  victory  be  high, 
not  lower  is  his  standard  of  courage  in  defeat. 
Demosthenes  is  condemned  for  that  '  he  took  his 
banishment  unmanly,'  while  Phocion,  his  rival,  is 
made  glorious  for  his  irony  in  death  :  paying,  when 
the  stock  ran  out,  for  his  own  hemlock,  '  sith  a 
man  cannot  die  at  Athens  for  nothing.'  In  defeat 
Plutarch's  heroes  sometimes  doubted  if  life  were 
worth  living  ;  but  they  never  doubted  there  were 
things  in  life  worth  dying  for.  Even  Demosthenes 
is  redeemed  in  his  eyes  because,  at  the  last,  '  sith  the 
god  Neptune  denied  him  the  benefit  of  his  sanctuary, 
he  betook  him  to  a  greater,  and  that  was  Death.''  So 
often  does  Plutarch  applaud  the  act  of  suicide,  and 
so  scornfully  does  he  revile  those  who,  like  the  last 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  159 

king  of  Macedon,  forwent  their  opportunity,  that 
we  might  easily  misconceive  his  ethics.  But  '  when 
a  man  will  wilHngly  kill  himself,  he  must  not  do  it  to 
be  rid  of  pains  and  labour,  but  it  must  have  an 
honourable  respect  and  action.  For,  to  live  or  die 
for  his  own  respect,  that  cannot  hut  he  dishonourable. 
.  .  .  And  therefore  I  am  of  opinion  that  we  should 
not  yet  cast  off  the  hope  we  have  to  serve  our 
country  in  time  to  come  ;  but  when  all  hope  faileth 
us,  then  we  may  easily  make  ourselves  away  when 
we  list.'  Thus,  after  Selasia,  the  last  of  the  kings  of 
Sparta,  who  recalled  the  saying  of  Lycurgus  :  that, 
with  '  great  personages  .  .  .  the  end  of  their  life 
should  be  no  more  idle  and  unprofitable  then  the 
rest  of  their  life  before.'  And  this  is  the  pith  of 
Plutarch's  political  matter  :  that  men  may  not  with 
honour  live  unto  themselves,  but  must  rather  live 
and  die  in  respect  to  the  State. 


II 

Side  by  side,  and  in  equal  honour,  with  Plutarch 
the  dramatist  of  politics  there  should  stand,  I  think 
— not  Plutarch  the  moralist  but — Plutarch  the  un- 
rivalled painter  of  men.  Much  has  been  written, 
and  rightly  written,  of  his  perennial  influence  upon 
human  character  and  human  conduct;  yet  outside 
the  ethics  of  citizenship  he  insisted  on  little  that  is 
not  now  a  platitude.  The  interest  of  his  morals 
springs  from  their  likeness  to  our  own  ;  the  wonder 
of  his  portraitures  must  ever  be  new  and  strange. 
Indeed,  we  may  speak  of  his  art  much  as  he  writes, 
through  North,  of  the  '  stately  and  sumptuous  build- 
ings'  which  Pericles  'gave  to  be  built  in  the  cittie  of 
Athens.'     For  '  it  looketh  at  this  daye  as  if  it  were 


160  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

but  newly  done  and  finished,  there  is  such  a  certaine 
kynde  of  florishing  freshnes  in  it,  which  letteth  that 
the  injurie  of  time  cannot  impaire  the  sight  thereof : 
as  if  every  one  of  those  foresaid  workes  had  some 
hving  spirite  in  it,  to  make  it  seeme  joung  and  freshe : 
and  a  soul  that  lived  ever,  which  kept  them  in  good 
continuing  state.'  Yet  despite  this  '  florishing  fresh- 
nes '  the  painter  has  been  slighted  for  the  preacher, 
and  for  this  preference  of  the  ethical  before  the 
aesthetic  element  in  the  Lives,  and  of  both  before 
their  political  quahty,  Plutarch  has  mostly  himself 
to  thank.  Just  as  he  masks  a  political  framework 
under  a  professed  devotion  to  the  study  of  individual 
souls,  so,  when  he  comes  to  the  study  of  these  souls, 
he  puts  you  off  by  declaring  a  moral  aim  in  language 
that  may  easily  mislead.  '  When  first  I  began  these 
lives,'  he  writes  in  the  Paulus  ^milius,  '  my  intent 
was  to  profit  other  :  but  since,  continuing  and  going 
on,  I  have  much  profited  myself  by  looking  into  these 
histories,  as  if  I  looked  into  a  glasse,  to  frame  and 
facion  my  life,  to  the  moold  and  patterne  of  these 
vertuous  noble  men,  and  doe  as  it  were  lodge  them 
with  me,  one  after  another.'  And  again,  '  by  keep- 
ing allwayes  in  minde  the  acts  of  the  most  noble, 
vertuous  and  best  geven  men  of  former  age  ...  I 
doe  teache  and  prepare  my  selfe  to  shake  of  and 
banishe  from  me,  all  lewde  and  dishonest  condition, 
if  by  chaunce  the  companie  and  conversation  of  them 
whose  companie  I  keepe  .  .  .  doe  acquaint  me  with 
some  unhappie  or  ungratious  touche.'  Now,  as  matter 
of  fact,  he  does  not  keep  always  in  mind  these,  and 
these  only.  Doubtless  his  aim  was  moral ;  yet 
assuredly  he  never  did  pursue  it  by  denoting  none 
save  the  virtuous  acts  of  the  '  most  noble,  vertuous, 
and  best  geven  men.'     On  the  contrary,  his  practice 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  161 

is  to  record  their  every  act  of  significance,  whether 
good  or  bad.  I  admit  that  he  does  this  ever  with  a 
most  happy  and  most  gracious  touch  ;  for  his  '  first 
study '  is  to  write  a  good  man's  '  vertues  at  large,' 
and  if  '  certaine  faultes '  be  there,  '  to  pass  them 
over  Hghtly  of  reverent  shame  to  the  mere  frayelty  of 
man^s  nature.^  ^  He  lays  the  ruin  of  his  country  at 
the  door  of  Aratus  alone  ;  but  '  this,'  he  adds,  '  that 
we  have  written  of  Aratus  ...  is  not  so  much  to 
accuse  him  as  to  make  us  see  the  frayelty  and  weak- 
ness of  man's  nature :  the  which,  though  it  have 
never  so  excellent  vertues,  cannot  yet  bring  forth 
such  perfit  frute,  but  that  it  hath  ever  some  mayme 
and  blemishe.'  ^  That  is  his  wont  in  portraying  the 
ill  deeds  of  the  virtuous ;  and,  for  their  opposites, 
'  as  I  hope,'  he  writes  in  the  preface  to  the  Demetrius 
and  Antonius,  '  it  shall  not  be  reprehended  in  me  if 
amongst  the  rest  I  put  in  one  or  two  paier  of  suche,  as 
living  in  great  place  and  accompt,  have  increased 
their  fame  with  infamy.'  '  Phisicke,'  he  submits  in 
defence  of  such  a  choice,  '  dealeth  with  diseases, 
musicke  with  discordes,  to  thend  to  remove  them, 
and  worke  their  contraries,  and  the  great  Ladies  of 
all  other  artes  (Amyot :  les  plus  parfaittes  sciences  de 
toutes),  Temperaunce,  Justice,  and  Wisdom,  doe  not 
onely  consider  honestie,  uprightness  and  profit :  but 
examine  withall,  the  nature  and  effects  of  lewdness, 
corruption  and  damage  '  ;  for  '  innocencie,'  he  goes 
on,  '  which  vaunteth  her  want  of  experience  in  undue 
practices  :  men  call  simplicitie  (Amyot :  une  hestise) 
and  ignoraunce  of  things  that  be  necessary  and  good 
to  be  knowen.'  His,  then,  is  a  moral  standpoint ; 
and  yet  it  is  one  from  which  he  is  impelled  to  study — 
(and  that  as  closely  as  the  keenest  apostle  of  '  art 

^  Preface  to  the  Cimon  and  Lucullus.  ^  Agis  and  Cleomenes. 

L 


162  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

for  art ') — all  matters  having  truth  and  significance ; 
whether  they  be  evil  or  good.  For  the  sake  of  what 
is  good,  he  will  neither  distort  truth  nor  disfigure 
beauty.  Rather,  by  the  exercise  of  a  fine  selection, 
he  will  create  a  harmony  between  the  three ;  so 
that,  embracing  everything  except  the  trivial,  his 
art  reflects  the  world  as  it  shows  in  the  sight  of  sane 
and  healthy-hearted  men. 

His  method  naturally  differs  from  the  method  of 
some  modem  historians ;  but  his  canon  of  evidence, 
too  lax  for  their  purpose,  is  admirably  suited  to  his 
own.  For  instance,  in  telling  of  Solon's  meeting 
with  Croesus,  he  will  not  reject  so  famous  an  history 
on  chronological  groimds :  because,  in  the  first  place, 
no  two  are  agreed  about  chronology,  and  in  the 
second,  the  story  is  '  very  agreeable  to  Solon's 
manners  and  nature.'  That  is  his  chief  canon  ;  and 
though  the  results  he  attains  by  it  are  in  no  wise 
doubt-proof,  they  yield  a  truer,  because  a  completer, 
image  than  do  the  lean  and  defective  outlines  de- 
termined by  excluding  aU  but  contemporary  evi- 
dence. These  outUnes  belong  rather  to  the  science 
of  anthropometry  than  to  the  art  of  portraiture  ; 
and  Plutarch  the  painter  refuses  such  restraints. 
His  imagination  having  taken  the  imprint  of  his 
hero,  he  will  supplement  it  from  impressions  left  in 
report  and  legend,  so  long,  at  any  rate,  as  they  tally 
with  his  own  ideal.  Nor  is  there  better  cause  for 
rejecting  such  impressions  than  there  is  for  rejecting 
the  fossils  of  primeval  reptiles  whose  carnal  economy 
has  perished.  Given  those  fossils  and  a  knowledge 
of  morphology,  the  palaeontologist  wiU  refashion  the 
dragons  of  the  prime  ;  and  in  the  same  way  Plutarch, 
out  of  tradition  and  his  knowledge  of  mankind, 
paints  you  the  true  Themistocles.     His,  indeed,  is  the 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  163 

surer  warrant,  since  there  have  been  no  such  changes 
in  human  nature  as  science  shows  in  animal  design  ; 
so  that  the  method  is  safe  so  long  as  a  nation's 
legends  have  not  been  crushed  out  of  shape  by  the 
superincumbent  layers  of  a  conquering  race.  More- 
over, Plutarch  makes  no  wanton  use  of  his  imagina- 
tion :  give  him  contemporary  evidence,  and  he  abides 
by  it,  rejecting  all  besides.  In  his  account  of 
Alexander's  death,  having  the  court  journal  before 
him,  he  repudiates  later  embellishments :  '  for  all 
these  were  thought  to  be  written  by  some,  for  lyes 
and  fables,  because  they  would  have  made  the  ende 
of  this  great  tragedie  lamentable  and  pitifull.' 

His  results  are,  of  course,  unequal.  He  cannot 
always  revive  the  past,  nor  quicken  the  dead  anew. 
Who  can  ?  His  gallery  includes  some  pieces  done 
on  a  faded  convention,  faint  in  colour  and  angular 
in  line,  mere  pretexts  for  a  parade  of  legendary 
names :  with  certain  sketches,  as  those  of  Cimon 
and  Aristides,  which  are  hack-work  turned  out  to 
complete  a  pair.  But  first  and  last  there  stand  out 
six  or  seven  realisations  of  living  men,  set  in  an 
atmosphere,  charged  with  a  vivid  intensity  of  ex- 
pression, and  striking  you  in  much  the  same  way  as 
the  sight  of  a  few  people  scattered  through  a  big 
room  strikes  you  when  you  enter  unawares.  And 
when  you  have  done  staring  at  these,  you  will 
note  a  half-dozen  more  which  are  scarce  less  vigor- 
ously detached.  Plutarch's  first  masterpiece  is  the 
Themistocles,  and  there  is  never  a  touch  in  it  but  teUs. 
Even  as  you  watch  him  at  work,  you  are  conscious, 
leaping  out  from  beneath  his  hand,  of  the  ambitious 
boy,  '  sodainely  taken  with  desire  of  glorie,'  who, 
from  his  first  entry  into  public  Ufe,  '  stoode  at  pyke 
with  the  greatest  and  mightiest  personnes.'    But  you 


164  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

soon  forget  the  artist  in  his  creation.     You  have  eyes 
for  nothing  but  Themistocles  himself  :   now  walking 
with  his  father  by  the  seashore  ;  now,  after  Marathon 
'  a  very  young  man  many  times  solitary  alone  de- 
vising with  himself ' — in  this  way  passing  his  boy- 
hood, for  '  Miltiades  victory  would  not  let  him  sleep.^ 
Then  the  ambitious  boy  develops  into  the  poUtical 
artist ;    rivals  Aristides,  as  Fox  rivalled  Pitt ;  and 
is  found  loving  his  art  for  its  own  sake,  above  his 
country,  above  his  ambition  even,  wrapt  as  he  is, 
through  good  fortune  and  ill,  in  the  expert's  dehght 
in  his  own  accomphshment.     Knowing  what  all  men 
should  do,  and  swaying  every  several  man  to  do  it, 
he  controls  both  individuals  and  nations  with  the 
inspired  prescience  of  a  master  conducting  his  own 
symphony.     He  has  all  the  devices  at  his  fingers' 
ends.     In  the  streets  he  wiU  '  speake  to  every  citizen 
by  his  name,  no  man  telling  him  their  names '  ;   and 
in  the  coimcil  he  will  manage  even  Eurybiades,  with 
that  '  Strike  an  thou  wilt,  so  thou  wilt  heare  me,' 
which   has   been   one   of   the  world's   words   since 
its  utterance.      Now  with  '  pleasaunt  conceits  and 
answers,'  now — ^with  a  large  poetic  appeal — '  point- 
ing '  his  countrymen  '  the  waye  unto  the  sea  ' ;  this 
day,  deceiving  his  friends,  the  next  overawing  his 
enemies;  with  effrontery  or  chicane,  with  good-feUow- 
ship  or  reserve  ;    but  ever  with  infinite  dexterity, 
a  courage  that  never  falters,  and  a  patience  that 
never  wearies  :   he  keeps  the  shuttle  of  his  thought 
quick-flying   through   the  web   of   intrigue.      And 
all  for  the  fim  of  weaving  !     Till,   at  the  last,  a 
banished  man,  being  commanded  by  his  Persian 
master  to  fight  against  Greece,  '  he  tooke  a  wise 
resolution  with  himselfe,  to  make  suche  an  ende  of 
his    life,    as    the    fame    thereof    deserved.'     After 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  165 

sacrificing  to  the  gods,  and  feasting  his  friends,  he 
drank  poison,  '  and  so  ended  his  dayes  in  the  cittie  of 
Magnesia,  '  after  he  had  Hved  threescore  and  five 
yeres,  and  the  most  parte  of  them  allwayes  in  office 
and  great  charge.'  Plutarch  produces  this  notable 
piece,  not  by  comment  and  analysis  but,  simply  by 
setting  down  his  sitter's  acts  and  words.  It  is  in 
the  same  way  that  he  paints  his  Alcibiades,  with  his 
beauty  and  his  hsp  :  '  the  grace  of  his  eloquence, 
the  strength  and  valiantness  of  his  bodie  ...  his 
wisdom  and  experience  in  marshall  affayres '  ;  and 
again,  with  his  insolence  and  criminal  folly  to  the 
women  who  loved  him  as  to  the  nations  he  betrayed. 
He  fought,  like  the  Cid,  now  for  and  now  against  his 
own.  But  '  he  had  such  pleasaunt  comely  devises 
with  him  that  no  man  was  of  so  sullen  a  nature,  but 
he  left  him  merrie,  nor  so  churHshe,  but  he  would 
make  him  gentle.'  And  when  he  died,  they  felt  that 
their  country  died  with  him  ;  for  they  had  some 
little  poore  hope  left  that  they  were  not  altogether 
cast  away  so  long  as  Alcibiades  lived.' 

In  the  first  rank  of  Plutarch's  masterpieces  come, 
with  these  two,  the  Marius,  the  Cato,  the  Alexander, 
the  Demetrius,  the  Antonius,  and  the  Pompey, 
Modern  writers  have  again  and  again  repainted  some 
of  these  portraits ;  but  their  colour  has  all  been 
borrowed  from  Plutarch.  These  heroes  live  for  aU 
time  in  the  Parallel  Lives,  There  you  shall  learn 
the  fashion  of  their  faces,  and  the  tricks  of  their 
speech ;  their  seat  on  horseback  and  the  cut  of  their 
clothes  ;  with  every  tone  and  every  gesture,  all  the 
charms  and  all  the  foibles  that  made  them  the 
men  they  were.  Marcus  Cato  is  what  we  call  a 
*  character.'  He  hated  doctors  and,  no  doubt, 
schoolmasters  ;   for  did  he  not  educate  his  own  son, 


166  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

writing  for  him  '  goodly  histories,  in  great  letters  with 
his  oune  hande  '  ?  He  taught  the  boy  grammar  and 
law,  '  to  throw  a  dart,  to  play  at  the  sword,  to  vawt, 
to  ride  a  horse,  and  to  handle  all  sortes  of  weapons, 
...  to  fight  with  fistes,  to  abide  colde  and  heate, 
and  to  swimme  over  a  swift  runninge  river.'  A 
'  new  man '  from  a  little  village,  his  ideal  was  Manlius 
Curius  sitting  '  by  the  fyer's  side  seething  of  per- 
seneapes,'  and  he  tried  to  educate  everybody  on  the 
same  lines.  Being  Censor,  he  would  proceed  by  way 
of  imprisonment ;  but  at  all  times  he  was  ready  to 
instruct  with  apophthegms  and  'wise  sayings,'  and 
'  he  would  taunte  a  marvelous  fatte  man '  thus : 
'  See,  sayd  he,  what  good  can  such  a  body  do  to  the 
commonwealth,  that  from  his  chine  to  his  coddepece 
is  nothing  but  belly  ?  '  This  is  but  one  of  many 
'  wise  sayings '  reported  of  him,  whereby  '  we  may 
the  easiher  conjecture  his  maners  and  nature.'  ^ 
Even  the  Alexander  seems  a  new  thing  still ;  so  clear 
is  the  colouring,  so  vigorous  and  expressive  the  pose. 
'  Naturally,'  you  read,  '  he  had  a  very  fayre  white 
colour,  mingled  also  with  red,'  and  '  his  body  had 
so  sweete  a  smell  of  itself,  that  aU  the  apparell  he 
wore  next  inito  his  body  took  thereof  a  passing 
delightful  savor,  as  if  it  had  been  perfumed.'  This 
was  his  idea  of  a  holiday :  '  After  he  was  up  in  the 
morning,  first  of  all  he  would  doe  sacrifice  to  the 
goddes,  and  then  would  goe  to  diner,  passing  awaie 
all  the  rest  of  the  daye,  in  hunting,  writing  something, 
taking  up  some  quarrell  between  soldiers,  or  els  in 
studying.  If  he  went  any  journey  of  no  hastie 
busines,  he  would  exercise  himselfe  by  the  waie  as  he 
went,  shooting  in  his  bowe,  or  learning  to  get  up  or 

^  Plutarch's  Cato  is  accepted  bodily  by  Mommsen  for  a  typical  *  Roman 
burgess.'     History  of  Rome,  vol.  ii.  pp.  429-432. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  167 

out  of  his  charret  sodenly,  as  it  ranne.  Oftentimes 
also  for  his  pastime  he  would  hunt  the  foxe,  or  ketch 
birdes,  as  appeareth  in  his  booke  of  remembrances 
for  everie  daie.  Then  when  he  came  to  his  lodging, 
he  would  enter  into  his  bath  and  rubbe  and  nointe 
himselfe :  and  would  aske  his  pantelers  and  carvers 
if  his  supper  were  ready.  He  would  ever  suppe 
late,  and  was  very  curious  to  see,  that  every  man  at 
his  bourde  were  a  like  served,  and  would  sit  longe  at 
the  table,  by  cause  he  ever  loved  to  talke.'  But  take 
him  at  his  work  of  leading  others  to  the  uttermost 
parts  of  the  earth.  Being  parched  with  thirst,  in 
the  desert,  '  he  tooke  the  helmet  with  water,  and 
perceiving  that  the  men  of  armes  that  were  about 
him,  and  had  followed  him,  did  thrust  out  their  neckes 
to  look  upon  this  water,  he  gave  the  water  back  againe 
unto  them  that  had  geven  it  him,  and  thanked  them 
but  drank  none  of  it.  For,  said  he,  if  I  drink  alone 
all  these  men  here  will  faint,'  What  a  touch  !  And 
what  wonder  if  his  men  'beganne  to  spurre  their 
horses,  saying  that  they  were  not  wearie  nor  athirst, 
nor  did  think  themselves  mortall,  so  long  as  they  had 
such  a  king '  !  There  is  more  of  seK-restraint  in 
Plutarch's  portrait  than  appears  in  later  copies. 
Alexander  passes  by  the  ladies  of  Persia  '  without 
any  sparke  of  affection  towardes  them  .  .  .  prefer- 
ring the  beautie  of  his  continencie,  before  their  swete 
faire  faces.'  But  he  was  ever  lavish  of  valour,  loving 
'  his  honour  more  then  his  kingdome  or  his  life  '  ;  and 
it  is  with  a  '  marvelous  f  aier  white  plume '  in  his 
helmet  that  he  plunges  first  into  the  river  at  Granicus, 
and  single-handed  engages  the  army  on  the  further 
bank.  Centuries  later  at  Ivry,  Henri-Quatre,  who 
learned  Plutarch  at  his  mother's  knee,  forgot  neither 
the  feather  nor  the  act.     But  the  dead  Alexander 


168  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

never  lacked  understudies.  All  the  kings,  his  suc- 
cessors, '  did  but  counterfeate  '  him  '  in  his  purple 
garments,  and  in  numbers  of  souldiers  and  gardes 
about  their  persones,  and  in  a  certaine  facion  and 
bowing  of  their  neckes  a  little,  an4  in  uttering  his 
speech  with  a  high  voyce.'  One  of  them  is  Demetrius 
the  Fort-gainer,'  with  '  his  wit  and  manners  .  .  . 
that  were  both  fearefull  and  pleasaunt  unto  men  that 
frequented  him '  ;  his  '  sweete  countenance  .  .  . 
and  incomparable  majestic  '  ;  '  more  wantonly  geven 
to  follow  any  lust  and  pleasure  than  any  king  that 
ever  was ;  yet  alwayes  very  careful  and  diligent  in 
dispatching  matters  of  importance.'  A  leader  of 
forlorn  hopes  and  lewd  masquerades,  juggling  with 
kingdoms  as  a  mountebank  with  knives ;  the  lover 
of  innumerable  queens  and  the  taker  of  a  thousand 
towns ;  in  his  defeat,  '  not  Hke  unto  a  king,  but 
like  a  common  player  when  the  play  is  done  '  ;  drink- 
ing himself  to  death  for  that  he  found  '  it  was  that 
maner  of  life  he  had  long  desired  ' — this  Poliorcetes, 
I  say,  has  furnished  Plutarch  with  the  matter  for 
yet  another  masterpiece,  which  indeed  is  one  of  the 
greater  feats  in  romantic  reaUsm. 

Of  the  Antonius  with  his  '  Asiatic  phrase,'  it  is 
enough  to  say  that  it  is  Shakespeare's  Antony  ;  and 
at  the  Pompey  I  have  already  glanced.  The  Ccesar 
is  only  less  wonderful  than  these  because  the  man  is 
lost  in  the  leader.  Julius  travels  so  fast,  that  you 
catch  but  glimpses  as  he  races  in  his  htter  through 
the  night;  ever  dictating  to  his  secretaries,  and 
writing  by  the  way.  But  now  and  again  you  see 
him  plainly — '  leane,  white  and  soft-skinned,  and 
often  subject  to  head-ache  '  ;  filHng  his  soldiers  with 
awe,  not  at  his  valiantnesse  at  putting  himself  at 
every  instant  in  such  manifest  danger,  since  they 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  169 

knew  'twas  his  greedy  desire  of  honor  that  set  him  a 
fire  '  .  .  .  but  because  he  *  continued  all  labour  and 
hardnesse  more  than  his  bodie  could  beare.'  A 
strange  ruler  of  the  world,  this  epileptic,  *  fighting 
always  with  his  disease  '  !  He  amazes  friends  and 
enemies  by  the  swiftness  of  his  movements,  while 
Pompey  journeys  as  in  state  from  land  to  land. 
Pompey  was  of  plebeian  extraction,  Julius  was  born 
into  one  of  the  sixteen  surviving  patrician  gentes ; 
yet  JuUus  burns  with  the  blasting  heat  of  a  new  man's 
endeavour,  Pompey  as  with  the  banked  fires  of 
hereditary  self-esteem.  And  through  all  the  com- 
motion and  the  coil  he  is  still  mindful  of  the  day  of  his 
youth  '  when  he  had  been  acquainted  with  Serviha, 
who  was  extreamihe  in  love  with  him.  And  because 
Brutus  was  boorne  in  that  time  when  their  love  was 
hottest  he  persuaded  himself  that  he  begat  him.'  ^ 
What  of  anguish  does  this  not  add  to  the  sweep  of 
the  gesture  wherewith  the  hero  covered  his  face  from 
the  pedant's  sword  !  With  the  Gcesar  may  stand  the 
Marius,  and  the  Sylla  :  Sulla  the  lucky  man,  felix, 
Epaphrodittis,  beloved  of  all  women  and  the  victor 
in  every  fight,  who  '  when  he  was  in  his  chiefest 
authoritie  would  commonly  eate  and  drinke  with  the 
most  impudent  j  casters  and  scoffers,  and  all  such 
rake  belles,  as  made  profession  of  counterfeate  mirth.' 
He  laughed  his  way  to  complete  political  success  ; 
he  was  fortunate  even  in  the  weather  for  his  funeral ; 
and,  as  he  epitaphed  himself,  '  no  man  did  ever 
passe  him,  neither  in  doing  good  to  his  friends, 
nor  in  doing  mischief  to  his  enemies.'  Plutarch's 
LucuUus,  being  young  and  ambitious,  marches 
further  into  the  unknown  East  than  any  Roman 
had  ventured.     He  fords  the  river  on  foot  with  the 

^  Bruius, 


170  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

countless  hosts  of  Tigranes  on  the  farther  shore, 
'  himselfe  the  foremost  man,'  and  marches  '  directly 
towardes  his  enemy,  armed  with  an  "  anima  "  of 
Steele,  made  with  scalloppe  shelles,  shining  like  the 
sunne.'     He  urges  on  through  suijgimer  and  winter, 
till  the  rivers  are  '  congealed  with  ice,'  so  that  no 
man  can  '  passe  over  by  forde :    for  they  did  no 
sooner  enter  but  the  ise  brake  and  cut  the  vaines  and 
sinews  of  the  horse  legges.'     His  men  murmur,  but 
he  presses  on  :   till  '  the  coiuitry  being  full  of  trees, 
woddes  and  forestes,'  they  are  '  through  wet  with  the 
snow  that  fell  upon  them,'  and  at  last  they  mutiny 
and  flatly  refuse  to  take  another  step  into  the  un- 
known.    This  is  a  Lucullus  we  forget.     Plutarch 
gives  the  other  one  as  well,  and  the  two  together 
make  for  him  '  an  auncient  comedy,'  the  beginning 
whereof  is  tedious,   but  the  latter  end — with  its 
'  feasts  and  bankets,'  '  masks  and  mummeries,'  and 
'  dauncing  with  torches,'  its  '  fine  built  chambers  and 
high  raised  turrets  to  gaze  a  farre,  environed  about 
with  conduits  of  water ' ;   its  superlative  cook,  too, 
and  its  '  Ubrary  ever  open  to  all  comers  ' — is  a  matter 
to  rejoice  the  heart  of  man.     Crassus  and  Cicero 
complete  his  group  of  second-bests:  Cicero  'dogge 
leane,'  and  '  a  little  eater,'  '  so  earnest  and  vehement 
in  his  oration  that  he  mounted  still  with  his  voyce 
into  the  highest  tunes :    insomuch  that  men  were 
affrayed  it  would  one  day  put  him  in  hazard  of  his 
life.'     Here  I  may  pause  to  note  that  Plutarch's 
references  to  public  speaking  are  all  observed.     He 
writes  from  experience,  and  you  might  compile  a 
manual  of  the  art  from  him.     Well  did  he  know  the 
danger  of  fluent  earnestness.     His  Caius  Gracchus 
'had  a  servant  .  .  .  who,  with  an  instrument  of 
musicke  he  had  .  .  .  ever  stoode  behind  him ;   and 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  171 

when  he  perceived  his  Maister's  voyce  was  a  little 
too  lowde,  and  that  through  choller  he  exceeded  his 
ordinary  speache,  he  played  a  soft  stoppe  behind 
him,  at  the  sonde  whereof  Caius  immediately  fell 
from  his  extreamitie  and  easihe  came  to  himself 
againe.'  Thus,  too,  his  Demosthenes  and  Cicero  sets 
forth  full  instructions  for  removing  every  other 
blemish  of  delivery.  ^ 

The  painter  of  incident  is  scarce  less  great  than 
the  painter  of  men.  Plutarch's  picture  of  Cicero  is 
completed  by  a  presentment  of  his  death,  in  which 
the  artist's  imagination  rises  to  its  full  height. 
Himted  down  by  Antony's  sworders,  the  orator  is 
overtaken  at  night  in  a  by-lane  ;  he  stretches  out 
his  head  from  the  litter  to  look  his  murderers  in  the 
face  ;  and  '  his  head  and  his  beard  being  all  white, 
and  his  face  leane  and  wrinckled,  for  the  extreame 
sorrowes  he  had  taken,  divers  of  them  that  were  by 
held  their  handes  before  their  eyes,  whilest  Herennius 
did  cruelly  murder  him.'  Then  the  head  was  set  up 
by  Antony  '  over  the  pulpit  for  orations,'  and  '  this 
was  a  fearefull  and  horrible  sight  unto  the  Romanes, 
who  thought  they  saw  not  Ciceroes  face,  hut  an 
image  of  Antonius  life  and  dispositions  '  (Amyot : 
une  irmige  de  Fame  et  de  la  nature  d' Antonius).  This 
gift,  at  times  almost  appalling,  of  imaginative  pre- 
sentment, is  the  distinctive  note  of  Plutarch's  art. 
He  uses  it  freely  in  his  backgrounds,  which  are 
animated  as  are  those  in  certain  pictures  of  a  bygone 
mode ;  so  that  behind  his  heroes  armies  engage, 
fleets  are  sunk,  towns  are  sacked,  and  citadels 
escaladed.  Sometimes  his  effect  is  produced  by  a 
rare  restraint.  In  the  Alcihiades,  for  instance,  he 
tells  how  the  Sicihan  expedition  was  mooted  which 

^  bee  also  liis  account  of  the  several  manners  of  Cleon  and  Pericles. 


172  NORTH^S  PLUTARCH 

was  to  ruin  both  the  hero  and  his  country ;  and,  as 
Carlyle  might  have  done,  at  the  corner  of  every 
street  he  shows  you  the  groups  of  young  men  brag- 
ging of  victory,  and  drawing  plans  of  Syracuse  in 
the  dust.  Sometimes  the  touch  qf  terror  is  more 
immediate.  Take  his  description  of  the  Teutons 
from  the  Marius.  Their  voices  were  'wonderful  both 
straunge  and  beastly' ;  so  Marius  kept  his  men  close 
tiU  they  should  grow  accustomed  to  such  dread- 
ful foes.  Meanwhile  the  Teutons  '  were  passing  by 
his  campe  six  dayes  continually  together '  :  '  they 
came  raking  by,'  and  '  marching  aU  together  in  good 
array ;  making  a  noyse  with  their  harness  aU  after 
one  sorte,  they  oft  rehearsed  their  own  name, 
Ambrons,  Ambrons,  Afnhrons '  ;  and  the  Romans 
watched  them,  listening  to  the  monotonous,  un- 
human  call.  Here  and  elsewhere  Plutarch  conveys, 
with  a  peculiar  magic,  the  sense  of  great  bodies  of 
men  and  of  the  movements  thereof.  Now  and  then 
he  secures  his  end  by  reporting  a  word  or  two  from 
those  that  are  spying  upon  others  from  afar.  This 
is  how  he  gives  the  space  and  silence  that  precede  a 
battle.  Tigranes,  with  his  innumerable  host,  is 
watching  LucuUus  and  the  Romans,  far  away  on  the 
farther  shore  of  the  river.  '  They  seemed  but  a 
handful,'  and  kept  '  following  the  streame  to  meete 
with  some  forde.  .  .  .  Tigranes  thought  they  had 
marched  away,  and  called  for  Taxiles,  and  sayd 
imto  him,  laughing  :  "  Dost  thou  see,  Taxiles,  those 
goodly  Roman  legyons,  whom  thou  praisest  to  be 
men  so  invincible,  how  they  flie  away  now  ? " 
Taxiles  answered  the  king  againe  :  "I  would  your 
good  fortune  (0  king)  might  work  some  miracle  this 
day :  for  doubtless  it  were  a  straunge  thing  that 
the  Romanes  should  flie.   They  are  not  wont  to  wear 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  173 

their  brave  cotes  and  furniture  uppon  their  armour, 
when  they  meane  onely  but  to  marche  in  the  fieldes  : 
neither  do  they  carie  their  shieldes  and  targets  un- 
cased, nor  their  burganets  bare  on  their  heades,  as 
they  do  at  this  present,  having  throwen  away  their 
leather  cases  and  coveringes.  But  out  of  doubt, 
this  goodly  furniture  we  see  so  bright  and  glittering 
in  our  faces,  is  a  manifest  sign  that  they  intend  to 
fight,  and  that  they  marche  towards  us."  Taxiles 
had  no  sooner  spoken  these  wordes,  but  Lucullus,  in 
the  view  of  his  enemies,  made  his  ensign  bearer  to 
turne  sodainely  that  carried  the  first  Eagle,  and  the 
bands  toohe  their  places  to  passe  the  river  in  order  of 
battelV  The  proportion  of  the  two  armies,  and  the 
space  between ;  the  sun  flashing  on  the  distant 
shields  ;  the  long  suspense  ;  the  king's  laugh  break- 
ing the  silence,  which  yet  grows  tenser,  till  suddenly 
the  Romans  wheel  into  line :  in  truth,  they  have 
been  few  between  Plutarch  and  Tolstoi  to  give  the 
scale  and  perspective  of  battles  by  observing  such 
proportion  in  their  art !  Here  Lucullus  and  a  hand- 
ful of  Romans,  like  Clive  and  his  Englishmen,  over- 
threw a  nation  in  arms  ;  elsewhere  Plutarch  gives  the 
other  chance,  and  renders  with  touches  equally 
subtle  and  direct  the  deepening  nightmare  of  Crassus' 
march  into  the  desert.  He  tells  of  the  Parthian 
'  kettle  drommes,  hollow  within,'  and  himg  about 
with  '  little  bells  and  copper  rings,'  with  which  '  they 
aU  made  a  noise  everywhere  together,  and  it  is  like  a 
dead  sounde.'  Does  it  not  recall  the  Aztec  war- 
drums  on  the  Noche  Triste  ?  Intent,  too,  on 
creating  his  impression  of  terror,  this  rare  artist 
proceeds  from  the  sense  of  hearing  to  the  sense  of 
sight.  '  The  Romanes  being  put  in  feare  with  this 
dead  sounde,  the  Parthians  straight  threw  the  clothes 


174  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

and  coverings  from  them  that  hid  their  armour,  and 
then  showed  their  bright  helmets  and  curaces  of 
Margian  tempered  Steele,  that  glared  like  fire ;  and 
their  horses  barbed  with  Steele  and  copper.'  They 
canter  roimd  and  round  the  wretched  enemy,  shoot- 
ing their  shafts  as  they  go  ;  and  the  ammunition 
never  fails,  for  camels  come  up  '  loden  with  quivers 
full  of  arrowes.'  The  Romans  are  shot  through  one 
by  one ;  and  when  Crassus  '  prayed  and  besought 
them  to  charge  .  .  .  they  showed  him  their  handes 
fast  nailed  to  their  targets  with  arrowes,  and  their 
feete  likewise  shot  thorow  and  nailed  to  the  ground  : 
so  as  they  could  neither  flie,  nor  yet  defende  them- 
selves.' Thus  they  died,  one  before  the  other,  '  a 
cruell  Hngring  death,  crying  out  for  anguish  and 
paine  they  felt '  ;  and  '  turning  and  tormenting 
themselves  upon  the  sande,  they  broke  the  arrowes 
sticking  in  them.'  The  realism  of  it !  And  the 
pathos  of  Crassus'  speech,  when  his  son's  head  is 
shown  to  him,  which  '  killed  the  Romanes  hartes '  ! 
'  The  grief  and  sorrow  of  this  losse  (my  fellowes),' 
said  he,  '  is  no  man's  but  mine,  mine  only  ;  but  the 
noble  successe  and  honor  of  Rome  remaineth  still 
invincible,  so  long  as  you  are  yet  living.'  After 
these  two  pictures  of  confidence  and  defeat  I  should 
like  to  give  that  one  of  the  Romans  after  Pydna, 
where  Paulus  i^Emihus  was  thought  to  have  lost  his 
son.  It  is  a  wonderful  resurrection  of  departed  life. 
There  are  the  groups  round  the  camp-fires ;  the 
sudden  clustering  of  torches  towards  the  one  dark 
and  silent  tent ;  and  then  the  busy  Hghts  crossing 
and  recrossing,  and  scattering  over  the  field.  You 
hear  first  the  droning  songs  of  the  tired  and  happy 
soldiers ;  then  silence ;  then  cries  of  anxiety  and 
mournful  echoes ;    then,  of  a  sudden,  comes  the 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  175 

reappearance,  '  all  bloudied  with  new  bloude  like 
the  swift-running  grey  hound  fleshed  with  the 
bloude  of  the  hare,'  of  him,  the  missing  youth, 
'  that  Scipio  which  afterwards  destroyed  both  the 
citties  of  Carthage  and  Numantium.' 

It  is  hard  to  analyse  the  art,  for  the  means  em- 
ployed are  of  the  simplest ;  yet  it  is  certain  that  they 
do  recall  to  such  as  have  known,  and  that  they  must 
suggest  to  others  who  have  not,  those  sights  and 
soimds  and  sensations  which  combine  into  a  special 
enchantment  about  the  time  of  the  fall  of  darkness 
upon  bodies  of  men  who  have  drunk  excitement  and 
borne  toil  together  in  the  day.  How  intense,  too, 
the  flash  of  imagination  with  which  the  coming 
Africanus  is  projected  on  the  canvas  !  And  the  book 
aboimds  in  such  hghtning  impressions.  Thus,  Han- 
nibal cracks  a  soldier's  joke  before  Cannae ;  he 
pitches  the  quip  into  his  host,  Hke  a  pebble  into  the 
pond ;  and  the  broken  stillness  ripples  away  down 
all  the  ranks  in  widening  rings  of  laughter.^  Some- 
times the  sketch  is  even  shghter,  and  is  yet  con- 
vincing :  as  when  the  elder  Scipio,  being  attacked 
by  Cato  for  his  extravagant  administration,  declares 
his  '  intent  to  go  to  the  wars  with  full  sayles,^  These 
are  not  chance  effects  but  masterstrokes  of  imagina- 
tion ;  yet  that  imagination,  vivid  and  vivifying  as 
it  is,  never  leads  Plutarch  to  attempt  the  impossible. 
He  remains  the  supreme  artist,  and  is  content  with 
suggesting — what  is  incapable  of  representation — 
that  sense  of  the  portentous,  the  overpowering, 
which  is  apparent  immediately  before,  or  immed- 
iately behind,  some  notable  conjunction.  Alexander 
sounds  the  charge  which  is  to  change  the  fortunes 
of  the  world,  and  Arbela  is  rendered  in  a  few  lines. 

*  Fahius  Maximus. 


176  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

But  up  till  the  instant  of  his  sounding  it,  you  are  told 
of  his  every  act.  Plutarch,  proceeding  as  leisurely 
as  his  hero,  creates  suspense  out  of  delay.  You 
are  told  that  Alexander  slept  soundly  far  into  the 
morning,  and  that  he  was  called  three  times.  You 
are  told  how  carefully  he  dressed,  and  of  each  article 
of  armour  and  apparel  he  put  on :  his  '  SiciHan 
cassocke,'  his  '  brigandine  of  many  foldes  of  canvas,' 
'  his  head  peece  bright  as  silver,'  and  '  his  coller 
sute  Hke  to  the  same  all  set  full  of  precious  stones.' 
The  battle  has  begun  between  the  outposts,  and  he 
is  still  riding  down  the  lines  on  a  hack :  '  to  spare 
Bucephal,  because  he  was  then  somewhat  olde.' 
He  mounted  the  great  horse  '  always  at  the  last 
moment ;  and  as  soone  as  he  was  gotten  up  on  his 
backe,  the  trumpet  sounded,  and  he  gave  charge.' 
To-day  it  is  made  to  seem  as  if  that  moment  would 
never  come  ;  but  at  the  last  aU  things  being  ready, 
'  he  tooke  his  launce  in  his  left  hande  and,  holding 
up  his  right  hande  unto  heaven,  besought  the  goddes 
.  .  .  that  if  it  were  true,  he  was  begotten  of  Jupiter, 
it  would  please  them  that  day  to  helpe  him  and  to 
incorage  the  Graecians.  The  sooth-sayer  Aristander 
was  then  a-horsebacke  hard  by  Alexander  apparelled 
all  in  white,  and  a  croune  of  gold  on  his  head,  who 
shewed  Alexander  when  he  made  his  prayer,  an 
Eagle  flying  over  his  head,  and  pointing  directly 
towards  his  enemies.  This  marvellously  encouraged 
aU  the  armie  that  saw  it,  and  with  this  joy,  the  men 
of  armes  of  Alexander's  side,  encouraging  one 
another,  did  set  spurres  to  their  horse  to  charge  upon 
the  enemies.'  Until  the  heroic  instant  you  are  com- 
pelled to  note  the  hero's  every  deliberate  move- 
ment. He  and  the  httle  group  of  gleaming  figures 
about  him  are  the  merest  species  in  the  plain  before 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  177 

the  Macedonian  army,  itself  but  a  handful  in  com- 
parison to  the  embattled  nations  in  front.  The  art 
is  perfect  in  these  flash-pictures  of  great  moments 
in  time  :  in  the  Athenians  map-drawing  in  the  dust, 
in  the  Romans  watching  the  Ambrons  raking  by,  in 
Tigranes'  laugh,  in  Hannibal's  joke,  in  Alexander's 
supreme  gesture ;  and  how  instant  in  each  the 
imaginative  suggestion  of  dragging  hours  before 
rapid  and  irreparable  events  !  Equally  potent  are 
the  effects  which  Plutarch  contrives  by  revealing 
all  the  consequences  of  a  disaster  in  some  swift,  far- 
reaching  glimpse.  Thus,  when  Caesar  crossed  the 
Rubicon,  '  Rome  itself  was  filled  up  with  the  flowing 
repaire  of  all  the  people  who  came  tliither  like  droves 
of  cattelV  And  thus  does  Sparta  receive  the  news 
of  her  annihilation : — '  At  that  time  there  was  by 
chance  a  common  feast  day  in  the  citie  .  .  .  when 
as  the  messenger  arrived  that  brought  the  news  of 
the  battell  lost  at  Leuctres.  The  Ephori  knowing 
then  that  the  rumor  ranne  all  about ;  that  they 
were  all  undone,  and  how  they  had  lost  the  signorie 
and  commaundement  over  all  Grece  :  would  not 
suffer  them  for  all  this  to  breake  off  their  daunce  in 
the  Theater,  nor  the  citie  in  anything  to  chaunge 
the  forme  of  their  feast,  but  sent  unto  the  parentes 
to  everie  man's  house,  to  let  them  imderstande  the 
names  of  them  that  were  slaine  at  the  battell,  they 
themselves  remaining  still  in  the  Theater  to  see  the 
daunces  and  sportes  continued,  to  judge  who  carried 
the  best  games  away.  The  next  morning  when  everie 
man  knew  the  number  of  them  that  were  slaine,  and 
of  those  also  that  escaped  :  the  parentes  and  frendes 
of  them  that  were  dead,  met  in  the  market  place, 
looking  cheerfully  of  the  matter,  and  one  of  them 
embraced  another.     On  thother  side  the  parentes  of 

M 


178  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

them  that  scaped,  kept  their  houses  with  their  wives, 
as  folk  that  mourned.  .  .  .  The  mothers  of  them, 
that  kept  their  somies  which  came  from  the  battell, 
were  sad  and  sorrowfull,  and  spake  not  a  word. 
Contrairily,  the  mothers  of  them  wthat  were  slaine, 
went  friendly  to  visite  one  another,  to  rejoyce  together.^  ^ 
There  is  no  word  of  the  fight.  As  Thackeray  gives 
you  Waterloo  in  a  picture  of  Brussels,  so  Plutarch 
gives  you  Leuctra,  and  with  more  of  beauty  and 
pathos,  in  a  picture  of  Sparta.  Of  the  Roman  defeat 
at  Cannse  there  is  a  full  and  wonderful  account ;  but 
what  an  effective  touch  is  added  with  'the  Consul 
Terentius  Varro  returning  backe  to  Rome,  with  the 
shame  of  his  extreame  misfortune  and  overthrowe, 
that  he  durste  not  looke  upon  any  man  :  the  Senate 
notwithstanding,  and  all  the  people  following  them, 
went  to  the  gates  of  the  cittie  to  meete  him,  and  dyd 
honourably  receyve  him ' ! 

In  these  passages  Plutarch,  following  the  course 
of  Greek  tragedy,  and  keeping  the  action  off  the  stage, 
gives  the  reverberation  and  not  the  shock  of  fate  ; 
but  in  many  others  the  stark  reality  of  his  painting 
is  its  own  sufficient  charm.  He  abounds  in  un- 
familiar aspects  of  familiar  places  :  places  he  in- 
vests with  (as  it  were)  the  magic  born  of  a  wander- 
ing son's  return.  Here  is  his  Athens  in  her  decrepi- 
tude. '  The  poore  citie  of  Athens  which  had  escaped 
from  so  many  warres,  tyrannies  and  civil  dissensions,' 
is  now  besieged  by  Sulla  without,  and  oppressed  by 
the  tjn^ant  Aristion  within ;  and  in  his  presentment 
of  her  condition  there  is,  surely,  a  foreshadowing  of 
those  dark  ages  when  historic  sites  became  the  scenes 
of  new  tragedies  that  were  merely  brutal  and  in- 
significant.    At  Athens  '  men  were  driven  for  famine 

^  Agesilaus. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  179 

to  eate  feverfew  that  grew  about  the  castell '  ;  also, 
they  '  caused  old  shoes  and  old  oyle  potes  to  be  sodden 
to  dehver  some  savor  unto  that  which  they  did  eate.' 
Meanwhile  '  the  tyrant  himseKe  did  nothing  all  day 
long  but  cramme  in  meat,  drinke  dronke,  daunce, 
maske,  scoff  and  flowte  at  the  enemies  (suffering  the 
holy  lampe  of  Minerva  to  go  out  for  lack  of  oyle).' 
Is  there  not  a  grimness  of  irony  about  this  picture 
of  the  drunken  and  sinister  buffoon  sitting  camped 
in  the  Acropohs,  like  a  toad  in  a  ruined  temple, 
'  magnifying  the  dedes  of  Theseus  and  insulting 
the  priestes  '  ?  At  last  the  Roman  enters  the  city 
about  midnight  'with  a  wonderfull  fearefuU  order, 
making  a  marvellous  noise  with  a  number  of  homes 
and  sounding  of  trompets,  and  all  his  army  with  him 
in  order  of  battell,  crying,  "  To  the  sack,  to  the  sack  : 
Kill,  kill."  '  ^  A  companion  picture  is  that  of  a  Syra- 
cuse Thucydides  never  knew.^  Archimedes  is  her 
sole  defence  ;  and  thanks  to  him,  the  Roman  ships 
are  '  taken  up  with  certaine  engines  fastened  within 
one  contrary  to  an  other,  which  made  them  turne  in 
the  ayer  like  a  whirlegigge,  and  so  cast  them  upon 
the  rockes  by  the  towne  walles,  and  splitted  them  all 
to  fitters,  to  the  great  spoyle  and  murder  of  the 
persons  that  were  within  them.'  Elsewhere  the 
Mediterranean  pirates,  polite  as  our  own  highway- 
men, are  found  inviting  noble  Romans  to  walk  the 
plank ;  ^  for  Plutarch  never  misses  a  romantic  touch. 
Some  of  his  strongest  realisations  are  of  moments 
when  fate  hangs  by  a  hair :  as  that  breathless  and 
desperate  predicament  of  Aratus  and  his  men  on 
their  ladders  against  the  walls  of  Sicyon  ;  with  the 
'  curste  curres  '  that  would  not  cease  from  barking  ; 
the  captain  of  the  watch  '  visiting  the  soldiers  with  a 

^  Sylla.  *  Marcellua,  *  Pompey. 


180  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

little  bell '  ;  '  the  number  of  torches  and  a  great 
noyse  of  men  that  followed  him '  ;  the  great  grey- 
hound kept  in  a  little  tower,  which  began  to  answer 
the  curs  at  large  '  with  a  soft  girning  :  but  when 
they  came  by  the  tower  where  he  lay,  he  barked  out 
alowde,  that  all  the  place  thereabouts  rang  of  his 
barking '  ;  the  ladders  shaking  and  bowing  '  by 
reason  of  the  weight  of  the  men,  unless  they  did  come 
up  fayer  and  softly  one  after  another,'  till  at  last, 
'  the  cocks  began  to  crowe,  and  the  country  folke 
that  brought  things  to  the  market  to  sell,  began  to 
come  apace  to  the  towne  out  of  every  quarter.'  ^ 
Later  in  the  same  life  you  have  the  escalading  of 
the  Acrocorinthus :  when  Aratus  and  the  storming 
party,  with  their  shoes  off,  being  lost  on  the  slopes, 
'  sodainely,  even  as  it  had  been  by  miracle,  the  moone 
appearing  through  the  clowdes,  brought  them  to 
that  part  of  the  wall  where  they  should  be,  and 
straight  the  moone  was  shadowed  againe  ' ;  so  they 
cut  down  the  watch,  but  one  man  escaped,  and  '  the 
trompets  forthwith  sounded  the  alarom  ...  all  the 
citie  was  in  an  uprore,  the  streets  were  straight  full 
of  people  running  up  and  downe,  and  of  lights  in 
every  corner.'  Plutarch's  management  of  light,  I 
should  remark,  is  always  astonishingly  real ;  he 
never  leaves  the  sun  or  the  moon  out  of  his  picture, 
nor  the  incidence  of  clouds  and  of  the  dust  of  battle. 
Thus  varied  his  sunshine  leaps  and  wavers  on  dis- 
tant armour,  or  glares  at  hand  from  Margian  steel ; 
or  his  moonlight  glints  on  a  spear,  and  fades  as  the 
wrack  races  athwart  the  sky. 

It  is  all  the  work  of  an  incomparable  painter ; 
there  is  any  amount  of  it  in  the  Parallel  Lives ;  ^  and, 

1  Aratus. 

'^  See  the  rousing  of  Greece  in  the  PhilopoBmen;    the  declaration  of 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  181 

like  his  portraits  and  his  landscapes/  it  has  an 
aesthetic  value  which  sets  it  far  in  front  of  his  moral 
reflections.  For  value  depends,  in  part,  on  supply  ; 
and  of  this  kind  of  art  there  is  less  in  Hterature  than 
there  is  of  ethical  disquisition.  Moreover,  in  the 
Parallel  Lives  the  proportions  are  reversed,  and  the 
volume  of  Plutarch's  painting  is  very  much  greater 
than  the  volume  of  Plutarch's  moralities.  And  in 
addition  to  volume,  there  is  charm.  His  pictures 
have  kept  their  '  flourishing  freshness '  untarnished 
through  the  ages  ;  whereas  his  moral  sayings,  being 
sound,  have  long  since  been  accepted,  and,  as  I 
said,  are  grown  stale.  His  morality  is  ours  ;  but 
he  had  an  unique  opportunity  for  depicting  the 
poHtics,  the  personahties,  and  the  activity  of  a  world 
which  had  passed  away.  A  Uttle  earlier,  and  he 
might  have  laboured  like  Thucydides,  but  only  at 
a  part  of  it.  A  little  later,  and  much  would  have 
perished  which  he  has  set  down  and  saved.  He 
paints  it  as  a  whole,  and  on  that  account  is  some- 
times slighted  for  a  compiler  of  legends  ;  yet  he  had 
the  advantage  of  personal  contact  with  those  legends 
while  they  were  still  alive  ;  and  again  and  again,  as 
you  read,  this  contact  strikes  with  a  pleasant  shock. 
To  illustrate  his  argument  he  will  refer,  by  the  way, 
to  the  statue  of  Themistocles  in  the  Temple  of 
Artemis ;  to  the  effigies  of  Lucullus  at  Chaeronea ;  to 
the  buildings  of  Pericles  in  their  divinely  protracted 
youth.  The  house  of  Phocion  at  Melita,  and  the 
'  cellar '  in  which  Demosthenes  practised  his  oratory, 

liberty  in  the  Flaminius  ;  the  squadron  of  the  Lacedaemonians  at  Plataea  in 
the  Aristides  ;  the  gUmpse  of  PhiHp  at  Chaeronea  gazing  at  the  '  Holy  Band 
of  Thebans  all  dead  on  the  grounde '  in  the  Pelopidas ;  the  first  ride  of 
Alexander  on  Bucephalus  in  the  Alexander  ;  the  Macedonians  at  Pydna  in 
the  Paulus  uEmilius. 

^  See  the  country  of  the  Cimbri  in  the  Marius^  and  the  campaigns  of 
Lucullus  and  Crassus. 


182  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

were  '  whole  even  to  my  time.'  The  descendants 
of  the  soldier  who  slew  Epaminondas  are,  'to  this 
day,'  known  and  distinguished  by  the  name 
'  machoeriones.'  ^  On  the  battlefield  of  Chaeronea 
'  there  was  an  olde  oke  seene  in  my  time  which 
the  comitry  men  commonly  called  Alexander's  oke, 
bicause  his  tent  or  pavilion  was  fastened  to  it.'  ^  His 
grandfather  Mcarchus  had  told  him  how  the  defeat 
of  Antony  reheved  his  natal  city  from  a  requisition 
for  corn.^  From  his  other  grandfather,  Lamprias, 
he  heard  of  a  physician,  his  friend,  who,  '  being  a 
young  man  desirous  to  see  things,'  went  over  Cleo- 
patra's kitchen  with  one  of  Antony's  cooks ;  and 
there,  among  '  a  world  of  diversities  of  meates,' 
encountered  with  the  '  eight  wild  boares,  rosted 
whole,'  which  have  passed  bodily  into  Shakespeare. 
This  contact  was  rarely  immediate ;  but  it  was 
personal,  and  it  is  therefore  quickening.  At  its 
touch  a  dead  world  lived  again  for  Plutarch,  and  by 
his  art  that  dead  world  lives  for  us  ;  so  that  in  the 
Lives,  as  in  no  other  book,  all  antiquity,  alike  in 
detail  and  in  expanse,  lies  open  and  revealed  to  us, 
'  flat  as  to  an  eagle's  eye.'  We  may  study  it  closely, 
and  see  it  whole ;  and  to  do  so  is  to  dispossess  the 
mind  of  many  illusions  fostered  by  books  of  a 
narrower  scope.  Juvenal,  the  satirist,  and  Petro- 
nius,  the  arbiter  of  a  mode,  do  not  even  pretend  to 
show  forth  the  whole  of  life ;  yet  from  their  works, 
and  from  others  of  a  like  purview,  men  have  con- 
structed a  fanciful  world  of  unbounded  cruelty  and 
immitigable  lust.  This  same  disproportion  between 
premise  and  conclusion  rims  through  the  writing  of 
many  moderns  :  just  as  from  the  decoration  of  a 
single  chamber  at  Pompeii  there  have  been  evoked 

^  Ageailaus,  ^  Alexander.  •  Antonitis. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  183 

whole  cities,  each,  in  the  image  of  a  honeycomb 
whose  ceUs  are  lupanaria.  Even  so  some  archaeolo- 
gist of  the  future  might  take  up  an  obscene  gurgoyle, 
and  transfigure  Christianity  to  its  image !  This 
antiquity  of  cruelty  and  lust  has  been  evolved  for 
censure  by  these,  and  by  those  for  praise;  yet  if 
Plutarch  be  not  the  most  colossal,  taking,  and  in- 
genious among  the  world's  liars,  we  cannot  choose 
but  hold  that  it  never  existed.  For,  apart  from  the 
coil  of  pontics  and  the  clamour  and  romance  of 
adventure,  his  book  discovers  us  the  reUgious  and 
the  home  lives  of  old-time  Italy  and  Greece ;  and 
we  find  them  not  dissimilar  from  our  own.  We  see 
them,  it  is  true,  with  the  eyes  of  a  kindly  and  a 
moderate  man.  Yet  he  was  no  apologist,  with  a 
case  to  plead  ;  and  if  we  may  be  sure  that  he  was 
never  uncharitable,  we  may  be  equally  sure  that  he 
extenuated  nothing.  He  censures  freely  conduct 
which,  according  to  the  extreme  theory  of  ancient 
immorahty,  should  scarce  have  excited  his  surprise  ; 
and  he  alludes,  by  the  way,  in  a  score  of  places,  to 
a  loving-kindness,  extending  even  to  slaves  and 
animals,  of  which,  according  to  the  same  theory,  he 
could  have  known  nothing,  since  its  very  existence 
is  denied.  The  State  was  more  than  it  is  now  ;  but 
you  cannot  glean  that  the  Family  was  less,  even  in 
Sparta.  Shakespeare  took  from  Plutarch  the  love 
of  Coriolanus  for  his  mother,  and  found  in  it  a 
sufficient  motive  for  his  play.  But  Veturia  ^  is  by  no 
means  the  only  beloved  mother  in  the  Lives,  nor  is 
Coriolanus  the  only  adoring  son.  Epaminondas 
thought  himself  'most  happy  and  blessed'  because 
his  father  and  mother  had  lived  to  see  the  victory 
he  won  ;  ^  and  Sertorius,  making  overtures  for  peace, 

^  Shakespeare's  Volumnia.  *  Coriolanua. 


184  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

said  he  had  '  rather  be  counted  the  meanest  citizen 
in  Rome,  than  being  a  banished  man  to  be  called 
Emperor  of  the  world,'  and  the  '  chiefest  cause  .  .  . 
was  the  tender  love  he  bare  unto  his  mother.'  ^ 
When  Antipater  submitted  to  Alexander  certain  well- 
founded  accusations  against  01ym|)ia's  misgovem- 
ment :  '  "  Loe,"  said  he,  "  Antipater  knoweth  not, 
that  one  teare  of  the  mothers  eye  wiU  wipe  out  tenne 
thousande  such  letters."  '  ^  In  face  of  the  parting 
between  Cratesiclea  and  her  son  Cleomenes,  one  may 
doubt  if  in  Sparta  itself  the  love  between  mother 
and  son  was  more  than  dissembled  ;  for,  on  the  eve 
of  his  sailing,  '  she  took  Cleomenes  aside  into  the 
temple  of  Neptune  and  imbracinge  and  kissinge  him  ; 
perceivinge  that  his  harte  yerned  for  sorrowe  of  her 
departure,  she  sayed  unto  him :  "0  kinge  of 
Lacedsemon,  lette  no  man  see  for  shame  when  we 
come  out  of  the  temple,  that  we  have  wept  and  dis- 
honoured Sparta."  '  Indeed,  the  national  love  of 
Spartans  for  aU  children  bom  to  Sparta  seems  to 
have  been  eked  out  by  the  fonder  and  the  less  in- 
different affection  of  each  parent  for  his  own.  If  in 
battle  Henri-Quatre  played  Alexander,  in  the  nursery 
his  model  was  Agesilaus,  'who  loved  his  children 
deerely :  and  would  play  with  them  in  his  home 
when  they  were  little  ones,  and  ride  upon  a  little 
cocke  horse  or  a  reede,  as  a  horseback.'  ^  Paulus 
iEmilius  being  '  appointed  to  make  warre  upon  King 
Perseus,  aU  the  people  dyd  honorably  companie  him 
home  unto  his  house,  where  a  little  girl  (a  daughter 
of  his)  called  Tertia,  being  yet  an  infant,  came  weep- 
ing unto  her  father.  He,  making  muche  of  her, 
asked  her  why  she  wept.  The  poore  girl  answered, 
colling  him  about  the  necke,  and  kissing  him  : — 

^  Sertorius.  ^  Alexander, 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  185 

"  Alas,  father,  wot  you  what  ?  our  Perseus  is  dead." 
She  ment  by  it  a  title  whelpe  so  called,  which  was  her 
playe  fellowe.^  Plutarch  had  lost  his  own  daughter, 
and  he  wrote  a  letter  of  consolation  to  his  wife,  which 
Montaigne  gave  to  his  wife  when  she  was  stricken 
with  the  same  sorrow  :  '  bien  marry,'  as  he  says,  '  de 
quoy  la  fortune  vous  a  rendu  ce  present  si  propre.'  ^ 
In  the  Lives  he  is  ever  most  tender  towards  children, 
acknowledging  the  mere  possibihty  of  their  loss  for 
an  ever-abiding  terror.  '  Nowe,'  he  writes  in  the 
Solon,  '  we  must  not  arme  ourselves  with  poverty 
against  the  grief  of  losse  of  goodes  ;  neither  with 
lack  of  affection  against  the  losse  of  our  friendes  ; 
neither  with  want  of  mariage  against  the  death  of 
children  ;  but  we  must  be  armed  with  reason  against 
misfortune.'  Over  and  over  again  you  come  upon 
proof  of  the  love  and  the  compassion  children  had. 
At  the  triumph  of  the  same  ^Emilius,  through  three 
days  of  such  magnificence  as  Mantegna  has  dis- 
played, the  eyes  of  Rome  were  all  for  Perseus' 
children  :  '  when  they  sawe  the  poore  little  infants, 
that  they  knewe  not  the  change  of  their  hard  fortune 
.  .  .  for  the  compassion  they  had  of  them,  almost 
let  the  father  passe  without  looking  upon  him.'  Of 
iEmiUus'  own  sons,  one  had  died  five  days  before, 
and  the  other  three  days  survived,  that  triumph 
for  which  the  father  had  been  given  four  hundred 
golden  diadems  by  the  cities  of  Greece.  But  he 
pronounced  their  funeral  orations  himself  '  in  face  of 
the  whole  cittie  .  .  .  not  like  a  discomforted  man, 
but  like  one  rather  that  dyd  comforte  his  sorrowfull 
countrymen  for  his  mischance.  He  told  them  .  .  . 
he  ever  feared  Fortune,  mistrusting  her  change  and 

^  Cruserius,  who  translated  the  Lives  into  Latin  (1561),  by  a  strange  co- 
incidence, mourned  his  daughter's  loss  and  found  consolation  in  his  task. 


186  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

inconstancy,  and  specially  in  the  last  warre.'  But 
Rome  had  won ;  and  all  was  well,  '  saving  that 
Perseus  yet,  conquered  as  he  is,  hath  this  comforte 
left  him :  to  see  his  children  Hving,  and  that  the 
conqueror  ^Emylius  hath  lost  his.'  This  love  be- 
tween children  and  parents  might  be  expected  in 
any  picture  of  any  society  ;  yet  it  is  conspicuous  in 
the  Parallel  Lives  as  it  is  not,  I  beUeve,  in  any  recon- 
struction of  the  Plutarchian  world.  Note,  too,  the 
passionate  devotion  between  brothers,  displayed 
even  by  Cato  of  Utica,^  to  the  scandal  of  other  Stoics  ; 
and  note  everywhere  the  loyal  comradeship  between 
husbands  and  wives.  To  Plutarch  wedlock  is  so 
sacred  that  he  is  fierce  in  denouncing  a  certain 
political  marriage  as  being  '  cruell  and  tyrannicall, 
fitter  for  Sylla's  time,  rather  than  agreable  to 
Pompey's  nature.'  ^  Perhaps  the  commonest  view 
of  antique  moraUty  is  that  which  accepts  a  family 
not  unlike  the  family  we  know,  but  at  the  same 
time  denies  the  ancients  all  consideration  for  their 
domestic  animals  and  slaves.  This  tendency,  it  is 
thought,  is  a  product  of  Christianity ;  and  the 
example  of  the  elder  Cato  is  sometimes  quoted  in 
proof  of  the  view.  But  in  Plutarch's  Cato,  the 
Roman's  habit  of  selling  his  worn-out  slaves  is  given 
for  an  oddity,  for  the  exceptional  practice  of  an 
eccentric  old  man  ;  and  Plutarch  takes  the  occasion 
to  expound  his  own  feeling.  '  There  is  no  reason,' 
he  writes,  '  to  use  hvinge  and  sensible  thinges  as  we 
would  use  an  old  shooe  or  a  ragge :  to  cast  it  out 
upon  the  dongehill  when  we  have  worn  it  and  it  can 
serve  us  no  longer.  For  if  it  were  for  no  respect  els 
but  to  use  us  alwayes  to  humanitie,  we  must  ever 
showe  ourselves  kinde  and  gentle,  even  in  such  small 

1  Cato  TJtican.  *  Pompey. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  187 

po3nites  of  pitie.  And  as  for  me,  I  coulde  never  finde 
in  my  heart  to  sell  my  drawt  oxe  that  hadde  ploughed 
my  land  a  long  time,  bicause  he  coulde  plowe  no 
longer  for  age.'  Here  we  have  a  higher  standard  of 
humanity  than  obtains  in  Kving  England,  and  it  is  a 
mistake  to  suppose,  as  some  have  done,  that  it  was 
peculiar  to  Plutarch.  On  the  contrary,  his  book  is 
alive  with  illustrations  of  the  same  consideration  for 
domestic  pets  and  beasts  of  service.  A  mule  em- 
ployed in  building  a  temple  at  Athens,  used  to  '  come 
of  herselfe  to  the  place  of  labour '  :  a  docility, 
'  which  the  people  liked  so  well  in  the  poore  beast, 
that  they  appointed  she  shoulde  be  kept  whilest  she 
lived,  at  the  charge  of  the  town.'  How  many 
corporations,  I  wonder,  would  lay  a  like  load  on  the 
rates  to-day  ?  In  a  score  of  passages  is  evidence 
of  the  belief  that  '  gentleness  goeth  farther  than 
justice.'  ^  When  the  Athenians  depart  from  Attica, 
the  most  heartrending  picture  is  of  the  animals  they 
leave  deserted  on  the  sea-coast.  '  There  was  be- 
sides a  certen  pittie  that  made  men's  harts  to  yeme, 
when  they  saw  the  poore  doggs,  beasts,  and  cattell 
ronne  up  and  doune  bleating,  mouing,  and  howling 
out  alowde  after  their  masters  in  token  of  sorrow 
when  they  dyd  imbark.'  Xantippus'  dog,  '  that 
swam  after  them  to  Salamis  and  dyed  presently,'  is 
there  interred  ;  and  '  they  saye  at  this  daye  the  place 
called  the  Doggs  Grave  is  the  very  place  where  he 
was  buried.'  ^  With  like  honour  the  mares  of 
Cimon,  who  was  fond  of  racing,  are  buried  at  his 
side.  Indeed,  the  ancients,  far  from  being  callous, 
were,  as  some  would  now  think,  over-sentimental 
about  their  horses  and  dogs.  Having  no  slaves  of 
our  own,  it  is  easy  for  us  to  denoimce  slave-owning. 

1  Colo,  2  Themistocles. 


188  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

But  this  is  noteworthy  :  that  while  Plutarch,  the 
ancient,  in  dealing  with  the  revolt  of  Spartacus  and 
his  fellow-slaves,  speaks  only  of  '  the  wickedness  of 
their  master,'  and  pities  their  hard  lot.  North,  the 
modern,  dubs  them  '  rebellious  rascalls,^  ^  without  a 
word  of  warrant  either  in  the  nearer  French  or  in  the 
remoter  Greek. 

It  is,  indeed,  far  easier  to  pick  up  points  of  re- 
semblance than  to  discover  material  differences  be- 
tween the  social  life  depicted  by  Plutarch  and  our 
own  ;  and  the  likeness  extends  even  to  those  half- 
shades  of  feeling  and  iUogical  sentiment  which  often 
seem  peculiar  to  a  generation.  To  turn  from  con- 
temporary life  to  the  Parallel  Lives  is  to  find  every- 
where the  same  natural  but  inconsequent  deference 
to  birth  amid  democratic  institutions  ;  ^  the  same 
behef  that  women  have  recently  won  a  freedom 
unknown  to  their  grandmothers ;  the  same  self- 
satisfaction  in  new  developments  of  culture ;  the 
same  despair  over  the  effects  of  culture  on  a  pristine 
morahty.  There  are  even  irresistible  appeals  to  the 
good  old  days.  Numa,  for  instance,  '  enured  women 
to  speak  Httle  by  forbidding  them  to  speak  at  all 
except  in  the  presence  of  their  husbands,'  and  with 
such  success,  that  a  woman  '  chauncing  one  daye 
to  pleade  her  cause  in  persone  before  the  judges,  the 
Senate  hearing  of  it,  did  send  immediately  unto  the 
oracle  of  Apollo,  to  know  what  that  did  prognosticate 
to  the  cittie.'  ^  Here  was  a  beginning  ;  and  the  rest 
soon  followed.  Just  as  Greek  historians  had  branded 
the  first  murderers  and  parricides  by  name,  even  so 
*  the  Romanes  doe  note  .  .  .  that  the  wife  of  one 
Pinarius,  called  Thaloea,  was  the  first  which  ever 

^  Crassus.  ^  See  Themistocles  as  the  rival  of  Cimon. 

*  Comparison  of  Numa  Pompilius  with  Lycurgus. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  189 

brauled  or  quarrelled  with  her  mother-in-law.'  ^ 
That  was  in  the  days  of  Tarquin.  By  Pompey's 
time — ^though  he,  indeed,  was  fortunate  in  a  wife 
unspoiled  by  her  many  accomphshments — the  re- 
volution is  complete.  His  CorneHa  '  could  play 
well  on  the  harpe,  was  skilfuU  in  musicke  and 
geometrie,  and  tooke  great  pleasure  also  in  philo- 
sophie,  and  not  vainly  without  some  profit '  ;  yet 
was  she  '  very  modest  and  sober  in  behaviour,  with- 
out brauhng  and  foolish  curiosity,  which  commonly 
young  women  have,  that  are  indued  with  such 
singular  giftes.'  Such  a  woman  was  the  product  of 
the  Greek  culture,  and  for  that  Plutarch  has  nothing 
but  praise. 2  It  was  first  introduced,  he  tells  you, 
after  the  siege  of  Syracuse ;  for  Marcellus  it  was 
who  brought  in  '  fineness  and  curious  tables,' 
'  pictures  and  statues,'  to  supplant  the  existing 
'  monuments  of  victories ' :  things  in  themselves  '  not 
pleasant,  but  rather  fearfuU  sightes  to  look  upon, 
farre  unfit  for  feminine  eyes.'  ^  In  all  this  there  is 
little  that  differs  from  the  Hfe  we  know  :  you  have 
the  same  facts  and  the  same  reflexions — especially 
the  same  reflexions.  For  our  own  age  is  akin  to  the 
age  of  Plutarch,  in  so  far  as  both  are  certain  centuries 
in  rear  of  an  influx  of  Hellenic  ideas.  Those  ideas 
reconquered  the  West  in  the  fifteenth  century  ;  and 
since  this  second  invasion  the  results  of  the  first  have 
been  repeated  in  many  directions.  Certain  phases, 
indeed,  of  thought  and  feeling  in  Plutarch's  age  are 
re-echoed  to-day  stiU  more  distinctly  than  in  the 
world  of  his  Renaissance  translators.  For  in  re- 
moteness from  the  point  of  first  contact  with  Greek 

^  Comparison  of  Numa  Pompilius  with  Lycurgus. 

2  See  his  defence  of  it  in  Cicero,  his  attack  on  Cato  for  opposing  it,  and 
passim,  ^  Marcellus. 


190  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

influence,  and  in  the  tarnish  of  disillusion  which 
must  inevitably  discolour  any  prolonged  develop- 
ment, this  century  of  ours  is  more  nearly  alUed  to 
Plutarch's  than  the  sixteenth  was,  with  its  young 
hope  and  unbounded  enthusiasm.  The  older  activ- 
ity reminds  you  of  the  times  which  Plutarch  painted ; 
the  modern  temper,  of  the  times  in  which  he  wrote. 

But  in  the  frail  rope  which  the  mind  of  man  is 
ever  weaving,  that  he  may  cling  to  something  in  the 
void  of  his  ignorance,  there  is  one  strand  which  runs 
through  all  the  Plutarchian  centuries  ;  which  persists 
in  his  own  age  and  on  into  the  age  of  his  early 
translators  ;  but  which  in  England  has  been  fretted 
almost  through.  Nobody  can  read  the  Parallel 
Lives  without  remarking  the  signal  change  which 
has  fallen  upon  man's  attitude  towards  the  super- 
natural. Everywhere  in  Plutarch,  by  way  of  both 
narrative  and  comment,  you  find  a  confirmed  belief 
in  omens,  portents,  and  ghosts :  not  a  pious  opinion, 
but  a  conviction  bulking  huge  in  everyday  thought, 
and  exerting  a  constant  influence  on  the  ordinary 
conduct  of  life.  Death  and  disaster,  good  fortune 
and  victory,  never  come  without  forewarning. 
Before  great  Csesar  fell  there  were  '  fires  in  the 
element  .  .  .  spirites  running  up  and  downe  in  the 
nighte '  and  '  solitary  birdes  to  be  scene  at  noone 
dayes  sittinge  in  the  great  market-place.'  ^  Nor 
only  before  a  great  event,  but  also  after  it,  occur 
these  sympathetic  perturbations  in  the  other  world  : 
'  the  night  being  come,  such  things  fell  out,  as  maye 
be  looked  for  after  so  terrible  a  battle.'  ^  The  wood 
quaked,  and  a  voice  cried  out  of  heaven  !  AUied 
to  and  alongside  of  this  behef  in  an  Unseen  in  touch 
with  the  living  world  at  every  hour  of  the  day-time 

^  Julius  Ccbdar,  ^  Fublicola. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  191 

and  night,  you  have  the  solemn  practice  of  obscure 
rites  and  the  habitual  observance  of  customs  haK- 
insignificant.  Some  of  these  are  graceful ;  others 
embarrassing.  The  divination,  for  instance,  of  the 
Spartan  Ephors  must  often,  at  least  in  August  and 
November,  have  shaken  public  confidence  in  the 
State ;  for  they  '  did  sit  downe  in  some  open  place, 
and  beheld  the  stars  in  the  element,  to  see  if  they 
saw  any  starre  shoote  from  one  place  to  another,' 
and  '  if  they  did,  then  they  accused  their  Icing'  ^  To 
us,  this  giving  of  the  grotesque  and  the  terrible  in 
the  same  breath,  without  distinction  or  comment,  is 
strangely  incongruous.  Sulla's  bloody  entry  into 
Rome  was  doubly  foreshadowed  :  there  was  the  antic 
disposition  of  certain  rats,  which  first  gnawed  '  some 
juells  of  golde  in  a  church,'  and  then,  being  trapped 
by  the  '  sexton,'  ate  up  their  young  ;  and  again, 
'  when  there  was  no  cloude  to  be  seen  in  the  element 
at  all,  men  heard  such  a  sharp  sound  of  a  trompet, 
as  they  were  almost  out  of  their  wits  at  so  great  a 
noise.'  '^  No  scientific  explanation,  even  if  one  were 
forthcoming,  could  suffice  to  lull  suspicion  in  a  pious 
mind.  ^Emilius  understood  as  well  as  any  the  cause 
of  the  moon's  eclipse  :  '  nevertheless,  he  being  a 
godly  devout  man,  so  soon  as  he  perceyved  the 
moone  had  recovered  her  former  brightness  againe, 
he  sacrificed  eleven  calves.'  ^  To  add  to  the  incon- 
venience of  this  habit  of  mind,  there  were  more 
unlucky  days  in  the  year  than  holidays  in  the  medi- 
aeval calendar.  It  was  such  a  day  that  marred  the 
prospect  of  Alcibiades'  return  :  for  '  there  were  some 
that  misliked  very  much  the  time  of  his  landing  : 
saying  it  was  very  unluckie  and  unfortunate.  For 
the  very  day  of  his  returne,  fell  out  by  chaunce  on 

^  Agis  and  Cleomenes,  ^  Syllu.  ^  Paulus  J^milius. 


192  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

the  feast  which  they  call  Pljniteria,  as  you  would 
saye,  the  washing  day.'  ^  Such  feasts,  with  their 
half-meaningless  customs,  accompanied  the  behef  in 
portents  and  ghosts  and  the  ordinary  forms  of  ritual, 
being  but  another  fruit  of  the  same  intellectual 
habit.  Some  of  them  seem  absurd  anachronisms 
in  the  Rome  of  JuHus  Caesar.  At  the  Lupercal,  for 
instance,  even  in  Caesar's  day,  as  every  one  knows 
from  Shakespeare,  young  men  of  good  family  still 
ran  naked  through  the  streets,  touching  brides  at 
the  request  of  their  husbands.^  Again,  on  the  feast 
of  the  goddess  Matuta,  '  they  cause  a  chamber  mayde 
to  enter  into  her  temple,  and  there  they  boxe  her 
about  the  eares.  Then  they  put  her  out  of  the 
temple,  and  do  embrace  their  brothers'  children 
rather  than  their  own.'  ^  There  is  no  end  to  these 
customs :  customs  which  are  as  it  were  costumes  of 
the  mind,  partly  devised  to  cover  its  nakedness,  and 
partly  expressed  in  fancy.  Plutarch  tries  sometimes 
to  explain  their  origin  ;  but  he  can  only  hazard  a 
guess.  Nobody  remembers  what  they  mean.  They 
are,  rather,  a  picturesque  means  of  asserting  that 
there  really  is  an  undercurrent  of  meaning  in  the 
world. 

Beyond  and  above  these  mummeries,  now  so 
strange,  in  a  loftier  range  of  Plutarch's  thought  is 
much  that  is  familiar  and  near.  Of  some  miracles 
he  writes  almost  as  an  apologist.  It  is  said  that 
'  images  .  .  .  have  been  heard  to  sighe  :  that  they 
have  turned :  and  that  they  have  made  certen 
signes  with  their  eyes.'  These  reports  '  are  not,'  he 
adds,  '  incredible,  nor  lightly  to  be  condemned. 
But  for  such  matters  it  is  daungerous  to  give  too 
much  credit  to  them,  as  also  to  discredit  them  too 

^  Alcibiades.  ^  Julius  Ccesar.  ^  Furius  Camilhia. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  193 

much,  by  reason  of  the  weaknes  of  man's  nature, 
which  hath  no  certen  boundes,  nor  can  rule  itself, 
but  ronneth  sometimes  to  vanitie  and  superstition, 
and  otherwhile  also  despiseth  and  condemneth  holy 
and  divine  matters.'  ^  On  such  points  of  belief,  as 
on  the  immediate  inspiration  of  individuals,  '  the 
waye  is  open  and  large ' :  ^  each  must  decide  for  him- 
self, remembering  that  religion  is  the  mean  between 
superstition  and  impiety.  On  the  other  hand,  never 
once  does  Plutarch  admit  a  doubt  of  the  Divine 
Government  of  the  world.  He  approves  his  Alex- 
ander's saying :  '  that  God  generally  was  father  to 
all  mortall  men.'  ^  And  in  a  magnificent  passage 
of  North's  English  which  might  almost  have  come 
out  of  the  book  of  Common  Prayer,  he  upholds  the 
view  of  Pythagoras :  '  who  thought  that  God  was 
neither  sensible  nor  mortall,  but  invisible,  incor- 
ruptible and  only  intelligible.'  ^ 

III 

In  substance,  then,  the  book  stands  alone.  Its 
good  fortune  has  been  also  unexampled.  By  a 
chance  this  singular  image  of  the  ancient  world  has 
been  happy  beyond  others  in  the  manner  of  its 
transmission  to  our  time.  To  quote  a  Quarterly 
Reviewer :  ^  '  There  is  no  other  case  of  an  ancient 
writer — ^whether  Greek  or  Latin — ^becoming  as  well 

^  Furius  Camillus.  *  Numa  Pompilius. 

3  Alexander.  Cf.  Plutarch's  Morals,  Phil.  Holland,  1667 :  the  eighth 
book  of  Sym/posiaques ;  the  first  question,  p.  628. 

*  In  the  Brutus  North  credits  its  hero  with  a  declaration  of  belief  in 
another  life.  But  this  is  a  mistranslation  of  Amyot's  French.  We  know, 
however,  with  what  passionate  conviction  Plutarch  held  this  belief  in  '  a 
better  place,  and  a  happier  condition,'  from  the  conclusion  of  his  '  con- 
solatory letter,  sent  unto  his  own  wife,  as  touching  the  death  of  her  and  his 
daughter.'— JforaZs,  Phil.  HoUand,  1657,  p.  442. 

s  Vol.  ex..  No.  220,  p.  459,  Oct.  1861.     Apparently  Archbishop^Trench. 

N 


194  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

known  in  translations  as  he  was  in  the  classical 
world,  or  as  great  modern  writers  are  in  the  modern 
one  '  ;  and  for  this  chance  we  have  to  thank  one 
man,  Jaques  Amyot.  But  for  his  version  we  should 
have  received  none  from  North  ;  and  without  these 
two,  Plutarch  must  have  remained  sealed  to  aU  but 
Greek  scholars.  For  the  Daciers  and  the  Lang- 
homes  could  never  have  conquered  in  right  of  their 
own  impoverished  prose.  They  palmed  it  off  on  a 
pubUc  still  dazzled  by  the  fame  wherewith  their 
forerunners  had  illuminated  the  Lives ;  and  when 
these  were  ousted  from  recollection,  their  own  fate 
became  a  simple  matter  of  time. 

The  son  of  a  butcher,^  or  a  draper,  ^  Jaques  Amyot 
was  bom  at  Melun  in  1513,  and  was  sent  as  a  boy  by 
his  parents  to  study  at  Paris.  You  find  him  there 
at  fifteen,  at  Cardinal  Lemoine's  college,  and  two 
years  later  following  the  lectures  of  Thusan  and 
Danes.  For  the  University,  stiU  hide-bound  in 
scholastic  philosophy,  was  nothing  to  his  purpose  of 
mastering  Greek.  It  was  hard  in  those  years,  even 
for  the  rich,  to  find  books  in  Greek  character,^  and 
Amyot  must  live  on  the  loaves  his  mother  sent  him 
by  the  river  barges,  and  wait  for  a  pittance  on  his 
feUow-students.  Yet  he  toiled  on  with  romantic 
enthusiasm,  reading  by  the  firelight  for  lack  of 
candles  ;  tiU  at  last  he  knew  all  they  could  teach 
him,  and  left  Paris  to  become  a  tutor  at  Bourges. 
There,  thanks  to  Marguerite  de  Navarre,^  he  obtained 
a  chair  in  the  University,  whence  he  lectured  twice  a 
day  on  Greek  and  Latin  letters  during  twelve  years. 

1  Brantome. 

2  Bligni^res.     According  to  another,  parentibus  honestis  magis  quam 
copiosis. 

^  Before  1530  only  a  few  Homeric  Hymns  and  some  essays  of  Plutarch 
had  been  published.  *  The  Marguerite  of  The  Heptameron. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  196 

It  was  in  these  years  that  he  began  his  great  work 
as  a  translator:  completing  in  all  probability  the 
JEthiopian  History,^  and  the  more  famous  Daphnis 
and  Chloe.^  But,  at  the  instance  of  Marguerite's 
brother,  Fran9ois  i.,  he  also  began  the  Lives,  receiv- 
ing by  way  of  incentive  the  Abbacy  of  Bellozane  ;  ^ 
and  to  prosecute  this  purpose,  soon  after  the  king's 
death,  he  made  a  scholar's  pilgrimage  to  Italy.  In 
the  Library  of  St.  Mark  at  Venice  he  rediscovered  the 
Lives  of  Diodorus  Siculus  ;  ^  in  the  Library  of  the 
Vatican  a  more  perfect  MS.  of  the  ^Ethiopian  History, 
But  search  as  he  might  during  his  two  years'  stay 
at  Rome,  he  could  never  recover  the  missing  lives  of 
Plutarch.  He  laboured  on  the  text,  but  those  which 
Vinjurie  du  temps  nous  avoit  enviees^  were  gone  past 
retrieving.  On  his  return  the  scholar  became  a 
courtier,  in  the  castles  of  the  Loire,  and  something  of 
a  diplomat ;  for  he  acted  as  the  emissary  of  Henri  n. 
at  the  Council  of  Trent,  playing  an  inconspicuous 
part  grossly  exaggerated  by  De  Thou.  In  1554  he 
was  appointed  tutor  to  the  young  princes  who  were 
to  rule  as  Charles  ix.  and  Henri  in.  In  1559  he 
published  the  Lives  ;  the  next  year,  on  the  accession 
of  his  elder  pupil,  he  was  made  Grand  Almoner  of 
France  ;  and  in  1570  he  became  Bishop  of  Auxerre. 
In  1572  he  published  the  Morals  ;  but  this  book,  like 
the  Franciade,  published  in  the  same  year,  feU  com- 

^  Published  in  1547  with  an  interesting  passage  in  the  proem:  '  Et 
n'avoit  ce  livre  jamais  est6  imprim^,  sinon  depuis  que  la  Ubrairie  du  roi 
Matthias  Corvin  fut  saccag6e,  au  quel  sac  il  se  trouva  un  soldat  allemant 
qui  mit  la  main  dessus  pour  ce  qu'il  le  vit  richement  estof6,  et  le  vendit  k 
celuy  qui  depuys  le  fit  imprimer  en  Allemaigne.' 

2  Published  without  his  name  as  late  as  1559.  As  tutor  to  the  young 
princes  he  seems  to  have  entertained  a  certain  scruple,  which  even  led  him 
to  suppress  one  passage  in  his  translation. 

^  1546.    The  last  benefice  bestowed  by  Fran§oi3. 

*  Of  which  he  translated  and  pubUshed  seven  in  1554, 

^  Amyot :  Aux  Lecteure. 


196  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

paratively  dead.  The  halcyon  days  of  scholars  and 
poets  ended  with  the  St.  Bartholomew  ;  and  thence- 
forward the  darkness  deepened  over  these  two  and 
all  the  brilliant  company  which  had  gathered  round 
Catherine  and  Diane  de  Poictiers.  .  In  1588  the  full 
fury  of  the  CathoHc  League  fell  upon  Amyot,  for 
standing  by  his  king  after  the  murder  of  the  Guise. 
His  diocese  revolted  at  the  instigation  of  Claude 
Trahy,  a  truculent  monk ;  and  the  last  works  he 
published  are  his  Apology  and  Griefs  des  Plaintes. 
In  August  1589  he  wrote  to  the  Due  de  Nivemais : 
*  Je  suis  le  plus  afflige,  destruit  et  ruine  pauvre 
prebstre  qui,  comme  je  crois,  soit  en  France '  ;  in 
1591  he  was  divested  of  his  dignities ;  ^  and  in  1593 
he  died.  His  long  life  reflects  the  changing  features 
of  his  time.  In  youth  he  was  a  scholar  accused  of 
scepticism,  in  old  age  a  divine  attacked  for  heresy, 
and  for  some  pleasant  years  between,  a  courtier 
pacing  with  poets  and  painters  the  long  galleries  of 
Amboise  and  Chenonceaux :  as  we  may  think,  well 
within  earshot  of  those  wide  bay-windows  where  the 
daughters  of  France  '  entourees  de  leurs  gouver- 
nantes  et  filles  d'honneur,  s'edifioient  grandement 
aux  beaux  dits  des  Grecs  et  des  Romains,  rememoriez 
par  le  doulx  Plutarchus.'  ^ 

He  was,  then,  a  scholar  touched  with  the  wonder 
of  a  time  which  saw,  as  in  Angelo's  Last  Judgment, 
the  great  works  of  antiquity  lifting  their  limbs 
from  the  entombing  dust  of  obUvion ;  and  he 
was  a  courtier  behind  the  scenes  in  a  great  age  of 
political  adventure.  Was  he  also  an  accurate  trans- 
lator ?  According  to  De  Thou,  he  rendered  his 
original  '  majore  elegantia  quam  fide ' ;  according  to 

1  Grand  Almoner  and  Librarian  of  the  Royal  Library. 

2  Brantome, 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  197 

Meziriac/  he  was  guilty  of  two  thousand  blunders.  ^ 
The  verdict  was  agreeable  to  the  presumption  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  was,  of  course,  confirmed 
by  the  eighteenth  ;  but  it  has  been  revised.  Given 
the  impossibihty  of  finding  single  equivalents  in  the 
young  speech  of  the  Renaissance,  for  the  literary  and 
philosophic  connotations  of  a  language  laboured 
during  six  hundred  years  ;  and  given  the  practice 
of  choosing  without  comment  the  most  plausible 
sense  of  a  corrupted  passage,  the  better  opinion 
seems  to  be  that  Amyot  lost  little  in  truth,  and 
gained  everything  in  charm.  '  It  is  surprising,'  says 
Mr.  Long,^  and  his  word  shall  be  the  last,  '  to  find 
how  correct  this  old  French  translation  generally 
is.'  The  question  of  style  is  of  deeper  importance. 
Upon  this  Ste.-Beuve  acutely  remarks  ^  that  the 
subtlety  of  Plutarch,  as  of  Augustine,  and  the  artless 
good-nature  of  Amyot  belong  each  to  its  age  ;  and, 
further,  are  more  apparent  to  us  than  real  in  their 
authors.  We  may  say,  indeed,  without  extravag- 
ance, that  the  youth  of  Amyot' s  style,  modifying  the 
age  of  Plutarch's,  achieves  a  mean  in  full  and  natural 
harmony  with  Plutarch's  matter.  In  Amyot' s  own 
opinion,  so  great  a  work  must  appeal  to  all  men  of 
judgment  '  en  quelque  style  qu'il  soit  mis,  pourveu 
qu'il  s'entende  '  ;  ^  yet  his  preoccupation  on  this 
point  was  pxuictilious.  He  found  in  Plutarch  a 
'  scabreuse  asperite  '  —  '  epineuse  et  ferree  '  are 
Montaigne's  epithets — yet  set  himself  '  a  representer 
aucunement  et  a  adumbrer  la  forme  de  style  et 
maniere  de  parler  d'iceluy '  :  ^  apologising  to  any 

^  Who  undertook  to  translate  Plutarch,  but  failed  to  do  so. 
2  Discours  de  la  Traduction,  1635  (cf.  BUgniferes,  p.  435). 
^  Plutarch's  Lives ;   Aubrey  Stewart,  M.A.,  and  the  late  George  Long, 
M.A.,  1880,  vol.  i.  p.  xvii.  *  Causeries  du  Lundi,  iv.  469. 

*  Dedication  to  Henri  u.  ^  Aux  Lecteurs. 


198  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

who  on  that  account  should  find  his  language  less 
'  coulant '  than  of  yore.  But  Amyot  was  no  pedant ; 
he  would  render  his  original,  not  ape  him  ;  he  would 
write  French,  and  not  rack  it.  He  borrowed  at  need 
from  Greek  and  ItaUan,  but  he  weJjS  loyal  to  his  own 
tongue.  '  Nous  prendrons,'  said  he — and  the  canon  is 
unimpeachable — '  les  mots  qui  sont  les  plus  propres 
pour  signifier  la  chose  dont  nous  voulons  parler, 
ceux  qui  nous  sembleront  plus  doux,  qui  sonneront 
le  mieux  a  I'oreille,  qui  seront  coutumierement  en  la 
bouche  des  bien  parlants,  qui  seront  bons  frangois 
et  non  etrangers.'  To  render  late  Greek  into  early 
French  is  not  easy ;  so  he  takes  his  time.  Not  a 
word  is  there  save  to  further  his  conquest  of  Plu- 
tarch's meaning;  but  all  his  words  are  marshalled 
in  open  order,  and  they  pace  at  leisure.  For  his  own 
great  reward  Montaigne  wrote  :  '  Je  donne  la  palme 
avecque  raison,  ce  me  semble,  a  Jaques  Amyot,  sur 
tous  nos  escripvains  Fran9ois  '  ;  and  he  remains  the 
earUest  classic  accepted  by  the  French  Academy. 
But  for  our  dehght  he  found  Plutarch  a  language 
which  could  be  translated  into  Elizabethan  English. 
If  Amyot  was  the  right  man  for  Plutarch,  North 
was  the  right  man  for  Amyot.  He  was  bom  the 
second  and  youngest  son  of  Edward,  first  Baron 
North,  about  the  year  1535,  and  educated,  in  all 
probability,  at  Peterhouse,  Cambridge.^  His  father 
was  one  of  those  remarkable  men  of  law  who,  through 
aU  the  ranging  pohtical  and  religious  vicissitudes 
under  Henry  vn.,  Henry  vm.,  Edward  vi..  Queen 
Jane,  Mary,  and  Elizabeth — so  disastrous  to  the 
older  nobility — ever  contrived  to  make  terms  with 
the  winning  side  ;  until,  dying  in  1564,  a  peer  of  the 

^  See  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  which  gives  fuller  information 
than  I  have  found  elsewhere. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  199 

realm  and  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Cambridgeshire  and 
the  Isle  of  Ely,  he  was  buried  in  Kirtling  Church, 
where  his  monumental  inscription  may  still  be  read 
in  the  chancel.  His  son  Thomas  was  also  entered  a 
student  at  Lincoln's  Inn  (1557),  but  he  soon  preferred 
letters  before  law.  He  was  generally,  Leicester  wrote 
to  Burghley,  '  a  very  honest  gentleman,  and  hath 
many  good  things  in  him,  which  are  drowned  only 
by  poverty.'  In  particular,  we  are  told  by  his  great- 
nephew,  the  fourth  Baron,  he  was  '  a  man  of  courage,' 
and  in  the  days  of  the  Armada  we  find  him  taking 
command,  as  Captain,  of  three  hundred  men  of  Ely. 
Fourteen  years  before  (in  1574)  he  had  accompanied 
his  brother  Roger,  the  second  Baron,  in  his  Embassy- 
Extraordinary  to  Henri  m.  :  a  mission  of  interest 
to  us,  as  it  cannot  but  have  encountered  him  with 
Amyot,  and  may  have  determined  him  to  translate 
the  Lives,  He  was  already  an  author.  In  December 
1557  he  had  pubUshed,  with  a  dedication  to  Queen 
Mary,  his  translation  of  Guevara's  Libro  Aureo,^  a 
Spanish  adaptation  of  the  Meditations  of  Marcus 
Aurelius  ;  and  in  1570  The  M  or  all  Philosophie  of 
Doni  .  .  .  '  a  worke  first  compiled  in  the  Indian 
tongue.'  ^  For  the  rest,  his  immortal  service  to 
Enghsh  letters  brought  him  little  wealth,  but  much 
consideration  from  his  neighbours,  his  kinsmen,  and 
his  sovereign.  In  1568  he  was  presented  with  the 
freedom  of  the  city  of  Cambridge.  In  1576  his 
brother  gave  him  the  '  lease  of  a  house  and  household 
stuff.'  He  was  knighted  about  1591  ;  he  received 
the  Commission  of  the  Peace  in  Cambridgeshire  in 
1592  ;    in  1601  he  got  a  pension  of  £40  from  the 

1  Subsequent  editions,  1568,  1582,  1619. 

2  Second  edition,  1601      Reprinted  cas  The  Fables  of  Bidpat,  with  an 
Introduction  by  Joseph  Jacobs,  1888. 


200  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

Queen,  duly  acknowledged  in  his  dedication  of  the 
lives  added  to  the  Plutarch  of  1603.  He  died,  it  is 
likely,  before  this  edition  saw  the  light :  a  vaUant 
and  courteous  gentleman,  and  the  earhest  master  of 
great  English  prose. 

He  also  thought  the  Lives  a  booE  '  meete  to  be  set 
forth  in  Enghsh.'  ^  Truly :  but  in  what  EngHsh  ? 
He  writes  of  a  Muse  '  called  Tacita,^  as  ye  would  saye, 
ladye  Silence.'  Should  we  ?  Turning  to  a  modern 
translation,  I  jfind  '  Tacita,  which  means  silent  or 
dumb.'  The  glory  has  clearly  departed  :  but  before 
seeking  it  again  in  North's  unrivalled  language,  I 
must  ask  of  him,  as  I  have  asked  of  Amyot,  Was  he 
an  accurate  translator  ?  I  do  not  beheve  there  are 
a  score  of  passages  throughout  his  1175  foho  pages  ^ 
in  which  he  impairs  the  sense  of  his  original.  And 
most  of  these  are  the  merest  shps,  arising  from  the 
necessity  imposed  on  him  of  breaking  up  Amyot' s 
prolonged  periods,  and  his  subsequent  failure  in  the 
attribution  of  relatives  and  quahfications.  They 
are  not  of  the  shghtest  consequence,  if  the  reader,  on 
finding  an  obscurity,  will  rely  on  the  general  sense 
of  the  passage  rather  than  on  the  rules  of  syntax ; 
and  of  such  obscurities  I  will  boldly  say  that  there 
are  not  ten  in  the  whole  book.  Very  rarely  he 
mistakes  a  word — as  '  real '  for  '  royal ' — and  very 
rarely  a  phrase.  For  instance,  in  the  Pericles  he 
writes :  '  At  the  beginning  there  was  but  a  Uttle 
secret  grudge  only  between  these  two  factions,  as  an 
artificial  flower  set  in  the  blade  of  a  sworde,^  which 
stands  for  '  comme  une  feuiUe  superficieUe  en  une 
lame  de  fer.'     In  the  Solon  he  writes  :    '  his  familier 

^  Dedication  to  Elizabeth.  ^  In  the  Numa. 

3  The  first  edition  of  1559,  compared  by  me  with  Amyot's  second  edition 
of  1565.  I  had  not  the  third,  of  1567,  from  which  North  translated  ;  but 
on  several  points  I  have  referred  to  the  copy  in  the  British  Museum. 


I 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  201 

friendes  above  all  rebuked  him,  saying  he  was  to  be 
accompted  no  better  than  a  heast,^  for  '  qu'il  seroit 
bien  beste.'  Some  of  his  blunders  lend  power  to 
Amyot  and  Plutarch  both  :  as  in  that  fine  passage  of 
the  Puhlicola,  wherein  the  conspirators'  '  great  and 
horrible  othe,  drinking  the  blood  of  a  man  and 
shaking  hands  in  his  bowels,'  stands  for  '  touchant 
des  mains  aux  entrailles.'  There  is  one  such  error 
of  unique  interest.     It  stands  in  Shakespeare  that 

'  in  his  mantle  muffling  up  his  face, 
Even  at  the  base  of  Pompey's  statua, 
Which  all  the  while  ran  blood,  great  Caesar  fell '  ; 

and  we  read  in  North,  '  against  the  base,  whereupon 
Pompey's  image  stoode,  which  ranne  all  of  a  goare 
bloude ' ;  but  Amyot  simply  writes, '  qui  en  fust  toute 
ensanglantee.'  The  blunder  has  enriched  the  world : 
that  is,  if  it  was  truly  a  blunder,  and  not  a  touch  of 
genius.  For  North  will  sometimes,  though  very 
rarely  of  set  purpose,  magnify  with  a  word,  or  trans- 
figure a  sentence.  '  Le  deluge,'  for  example,  is 
always  '  Noe's  flood  '  ;  and  in  one  celebrated  passage 
he  bowdlerises  without  shame,  turning  Flora's  parting 
caress  to  Pompey  into  a  '  sweete  quippe  or  pleasant 
taunte.'  ^  Such  are  the  discrepancies  which  can  by 
any  stretch  be  called  blunders  ;  and  the  sum  of  them 
is  insignificant  in  a  work  which  echoes  its  original 
not  only  in  sense  but  also  in  rhythm  and  form. 
North  had  the  Greek  text,  or  perhaps  a  Latin  transla- 
tion, before  him.  In  the  Sertorius  he  speaks  of 
'  Gaule  Narbonensis,'  with  nothing  but '  Languedoc  ' 
in  Amyot ;  in  the  Pompey  he  gives  the  Greek,  un- 
quoted by  Amyot,  for  '  let  the  dye  be  cast ' ;  in 
dealing  with  Demosthenes'  quinsy,  he  attempts  an 

^  Greek  a5j7/cra)s:  Lat.,  Ed.  Princeps  (14:10),  'sine  morsu.'  Long  has 
another  reading  and  translation,  but  most  will  agree  that  Amyot's  is  not  a 
blunder  but  an  emendation. 


202  NORTH^S  PLUTARCH 

awkward  pun,  which  Amyot  has  disdained  ;  and  in 
the  Cicero  he  gives  in  Greek  character  the  original 
for  Latin  terms  of  philosophy,  whereas  Amyot  does 
not.  These  are  the  only  indications  I  have  found 
of  his  having  looked  beyond  the  French.  But  on 
Amyot  he  set  a  grip  which  had  its  bearing  on  the  de- 
velopment of  Tudor  prose.  It  may  even  be  that,  in 
tracing  this  development,  we  have  looked  too  ex- 
clusively to  Italian,  Spanish,  and  classical  sources. 
Sidney  read  North's  book ;  Shakespeare  rifled  it ; 
and  seven  editions  ^  were  published,  within  the 
hundred  years  which  saw  the  new  birth  of  English 
prose  and  its  glorious  fulfilment.  In  acknowledging 
our  debt,  have  we  not  unduly  neglected  the  Bishop 
of  Auxerre  ?  Sentence  for  sentence  and  rhythm 
for  rhythm,  in  aU  the  great  passages  North's  style 
is  essentially  Amyot' s.^  There  are  differences,  of 
course,  which  catch  the  eye,  and  have,  therefore,  as  I 
think,  attracted  undue  attention,  the  more  naturally 
since  they  are  all  in  North's  favour.  His  vigorous 
diction  puts  stuff  into  the  text :  he  stitches  it  with 
sturdy  locutions,  he  tags  it  with  Elizabethan 
braveries.  But  the  woof  and  the  design  are  stiU 
Amyot' s ;  and  the  two  versions  may  be  studied 
most  conveniently  abreast. 

In  neither  writer  is  the  verse  of  any  account. 
Indeed,  when  North  comes  to  an  incident  of  the 
Gymnopaedia — 'the  which  Sophocles  doth  easily 
declare  by  these  verses  : 

'  The  song  which  you  shall  sing  shall  be  the  sonnet  sayde 
By  Hermony  lusty  lasse,  that  strong  and  sturdy  mayde ; 
Which  trust  her  peticote  about  her  middle  short 
And  set  to  show  her  naked  hippes  in  frank  and  friendly  sort ' — 

1  1579  ;   1695  ;   1603 ;   1612  ;   1631 ;   1657  ;   1676. 

2  Cf.  for  instance,  in  the  Avioniiis,  Cleopatra  on  the  Cydnus ;  the  death 
of  Antonius  ;  and  the  death  of  Cleopatra. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  203 

you  feel  that  the  reference  to  Sophocles  is  not  only- 
remote  but  also  grotesque.  It  is  very  different  with 
their  prose.  And  first,  is  North's  version — ^the 
translation  of  a  translation — ^by  much  removed  from 
Plutarch  ?  In  a  sense,  yes.  It  is  even  truer  of 
North  than  of  Amyot,  that  he  offers  Plutarch  neither 
to  philosophers  nor  to  grammarians,  but  to  all  who 
would  understand  life  and  human  nature.^  But 
for  these,  and  for  all  lovers  of  language,  Plutarch 
loses  little  in  Amyot,  saving  in  the  matter  of  Uterary 
allusion ;  and  Amyot  loses  nothing  in  North,  save 
for  the  presence  of  a  score  of  whims  and  obscurities. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  recapture  in  North  an  EngHsh 
equivalent  for  those  '  gasconisms  '  which  Montaigne 
retained  in  French,  but  which  Amyot  rejected  from 
it.  The  Plutarchian  hues  are  never  lost — they  are 
but  doubly  refracted  ;  and  by  each  refraction  they 
are  broadened  in  surface  and  deepened  in  tone.  The 
sunlight  of  his  sense  is  sometimes  subdued  by  a  light 
mist,  or  is  caught  in  the  fantastic  outline  of  a  Httle 
cloud.  But  the  general  effect  is  touched  with  a 
deeper  solemnity  and  a  more  splendid  iridescence ; 
even  where  the  vapours  lie  thickest,  the  red  rays 
throb  through. 

But  the  proof  of  the  pudding  is  the  eating.  Let  us 
take  a  passage  at  random,  and  compare  the  six- 
teenth century  renderings  with  the  cold  perversions 
of  a  later  age.  For  example,  Amyot  writes  ^  that 
Pythagoras  '  apprivoisa  une  aigle,  qu'il  feit  descendre 
et  venir  a  luy  par  certaines  voix,  ainsi  comme  elle 
volait  en  Fair  dessus  sa  teste '  ;  in  North  this  eagle 
is  '  so  tame  and  gentle,  that  she  would  stoupe,  and 
come  down  to  him  by  certaine  voyces,  as  she  flewe  in 

^  Gustave  Lanson,  La  litterature  fran^aise  (1894),  p.  223. 
*  Numa  Pompilius. 


204  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

the  ayer  over  his  head  '  ;  while  in  an  accurate  modern 
Pythagoras  merely  '  tamed  an  eagle  and  made  it 
aUght  on  him.'  The  earlier  creature  flies  like  a  bird 
of  Jove,  but  the  later  comes  down  Hke  a  brick.  The 
Langhomes'  eagle  is  still  more  precipitate,  their 
P3rthagoras  still  more  peremptory.  '  That  philo- 
sopher,' as  they  naturally  call  the  Greek,  '  had  so 
far  tamed  an  eagle  that  by  pronouncing  certain  words 
he  could  stop  it  in  its  flight,  or  bring  it  down.' 
Perhaps  I  may  finish  at  once  with  the  Langhomes  by 
referring  to  their  description  of  Cleopatra  on  the 
Cydnus.  They  open  that  pageant,  made  glorious  for 
ever  by  Amyot,  North,  and  Shakespeare,  in  these 
terms :  '  Though  she  had  received  many  pressing 
letters  of  invitation  from  Antony  and  his  friends, 
.  .  .  she  by  no  means  took  the  most  expeditious 
mode  of  travelling.'  Thus  the  Langhomes ;  and 
they  denounce  the  translation  called  Dryden's  ^  for 
'  tame  and  tedious,  without  elegance,  spirit,  or  pre- 
cision '  !  Now,  it  was  a  colossal  impertinence  to  put 
out  the  Lives  among  the  Greeklings  of  Grub  Street, 
in  order  to  '  complete  the  whole  in  a  year '  ;  but  it 
must  be  noted  that,  after  North's,  this  ^  is  still  the 
only  version  that  can  be  read  without  impatience. 
Dryden's  hacks  were  not  artists,  but  neither  were 
they  prigs  :  the  vocabulary  was  not  yet  a  charnel  of 
decayed  metaphor ;  and  if  they  missed  the  rapture 
of  sixteenth-century  rhythm,  they  had  not  bleached 
the  colour,  carded  the  texture,  and  ironed  the  surface 
of  their  language  to  the  well-glazed  insignificance  of 
the  later  eighteenth  century.     Their  Plutarch  is  no 

^  Corrected  and  revised  by  A.  H.  Clough,  1883. 

2  Dryden,  in  his  dedication  to  the  Duke  of  Ormonde  (1683),  spoke  of 
North  as  ungrammatical  and  ungraceful.  The  version  he  signed  was 
*  executed  by  several  hands ' ;  but  with  his  name  on  the  title-page  it  dis- 
placed North's,  which  is  now  for  the  first  time  since  republished. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  205 

longer  wrapped  in  the  royal  robes  of  Amyot  and 
North ;  but  he  is  spared  the  cheap  though  formal 
tailoring  of  Dacier  and  the  Langhomes.  In  our  own 
time  there  have  been  translations  by  scholars  :  they 
are  useful  as  cribs,  but  they  do  not  pretend  to  charm. 
Here,  for  instance,  is  North's  funeral  of  Philopoemen  : 
'  The  souldiers  were  all  crowned  with  garlandes  of 
Laurell  in  token  of  victory,  not  withstanding  the 
teares  ranne  downe  their  cheekes  in  token  of  sorrowe, 
and  they  led  their  enemies  prisoners  shackled  and 
chained.  The  funeral  pot  in  which  were  PhiH- 
poemenes  ashes,  was  so  covered  with  garlands  of 
flowers,  nosegaies,  and  laces  that  it  could  scant  be 
scene  or  discerned.'  And  here  is  the  crib  :  '  There 
one  might  see  men  crowned  with  garlands  but  weep- 
ing at  the  same  time,  and  leading  along  his  enemies 
in  chains.  The  urn  itself,  which  was  scarcely  to  be 
seen  for  the  garlands  and  ribbons  with  which  it  was 
covered,'  etc.  Here,  too,  is  North's  Demetrius : 
'  He  took  pleasure  of  Lamia,  as  a  man  would  have 
delight  to  heare  one  tell  tales,  when  he  hath  nothing 
else  to  doe,  or  is  desirous  to  sleep  :  but  indeede  when 
he  was  to  make  any  preparation  for  warre,  he  had  not 
then  ivey  at  his  dart's  end,  nor  had  his  helmet  per- 
fumed, nor  came  not  out  of  ladies  closets,  pricked 
and  princt  to  go  to  battell :  but  he  let  all  dauncing 
and  sporting  alone,  and  became  as  the  poet  Euripides 
saith, 

'  The  souldier  of  Mars,  cruell  and  bloodie.' 

And  here  is  the  crib  :  '  He  only  dedicated  the  super- 
fluity of  his  leisure  to  enjoyment,  and  used  his  Lamia, 
like  the  mythical  nightmare,  only  when  he  was  half 
asleep  or  at  play.  When  he  was  preparing  for  war, 
no  ivy  wreathed  his  spear,  no  perfume  scented  his 


206  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

helmet,  nor  did  he  go  from  his  bedchamber  to  battle 
covered  with  finery.'  '  Dedicated  the  superfluity  of 
his  leisure  I '  At  such  a  jewel  the  Langhomes  must 
have  turned  in  envy  in  their  graves  !  But,  apart 
from  style,  modern  scholars  have  a  fetish  which  they 
worship  to  the  ruin  of  any  Uterary  claim.  Amyot 
and  North  have  been  ridiculed  for  writing,  in  accord- 
ance with  their  method,  of  nuns  and  churches,  and 
not  of  vestals  and  temples.  Yet  the  opposite  extreme 
is  far  more  fatiguing.  Where  is  the  sense  of  putting 
'  chalkaspides '  in  the  text  and  '  soldiers  who  had 
shields  of  brass  '  in  the  notes  ?  Is  it  not  really  less 
distracting  to  read,  as  in  North,  of  soldiers  '  march- 
ing with  their  copper  targets '  ?  So,  too,  with  the 
Parthian  kettle-drums.  It  is  an  injury  to  write 
'  hollow  instruments  '  in  so  splendid  a  passage  ;  and 
an  insult  to  add  in  a  note  '  the  context  seems  to 
show  that  a  drum  is  meant.'  Of  course  !  And 
'kettle-drums'  is  a  perfect  equivalent  for  poirrpa, 
'  made  of  skin,  and  hollow,  which  they  stretch  round 
brass  sounders.'  But  if  these  things  are  done  in 
England,  you  may  know  what  to  expect  of  Germany. 
In  the  picture  of  Cato's  suicide  there  is  one  supreme 
touch,  rendered  by  Plutarch  rfhr]  S'  opviOes  ySov ;  by 
Amyot  les  petits  oyseaux  commengoient  desja  a 
chanter ;  by  North,  the  little  birds  began  to  chirpe. 
But  Kaltwasser  turns  the  Httle  birds  into  crowing 
cocks ;  and  maintains  his  position  by  a  learned 
argument.  It  was  still,  says  he,  in  the  night,  and 
other  fowls  are  silent  until  dawn.^  If  the  style  of 
the  eighteenth  century  be  tedious,  the  scholarship 
of  the  nineteenth  is  intolerable.  The  truth  is  that  in 
the  sixteenth  alone  could  the  Lives  be  fitly  translated. 
For  there  were  passages,  as  of  the  arming  of  Greece, 

^  See  Plutarch's  Lives:    Stewart  and  Long,  ni.  672. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  207 

in  the  Philopoemen,  which  could  only  be  rendered  in 
an  age  still  accustomed  to  armour.  Any  modem 
rendering,  be  it  by  writer  or  by  don,  must  needs  be 
archaistically  mediaeval  or  pedantically  antique. 

Turning,  then,  to  Amyot  and  North,  the  strangest 
thing  to  note,  and  the  most  important,  is  that  the 
English,  although  without  a  touch  of  foreign  idiom, 
is  modelled  closely  upon  the  French.  Some  explana- 
tion of  this  similarity  in  form  may  be  found  in  the 
nature  of  the  matter.  The  narration,  as  opposed 
to  the  analysis,  of  action ;  the  propounding,  as  op- 
posed to  the  proof,  of  philosophy — these  are  readily 
conveyed  from  one  language  into  another,  and 
Joshua  and  Ecclesiastes  are  good  reading  in  most 
versions  of  the  Bible.  But  North  is  closer  to  Amyot 
than  any  two  versions  of  the  Bible  are  to  each  other. 
The  French  runs  into  the  English  five  times  out  of 
six,  and  in  all  the  great  passages,  not  only  word  for 
word  but  almost  cadence  for  cadence.  There  is  a 
trick  of  redundancy  in  Tudor  prose  that  makes  for 
emphasis  and  melody.  We  account  it  English,  and 
find  it  abounding  in  our  Bible.  It  is  wholly  alien 
from  modem  French  prose — wholly  aUen,  too,  from 
French  prose  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Indeed, 
I  would  go  further,  and  say  that  it  is  largely  char- 
acteristic of  Amyot  the  writer,  and  not  of  the  age  in 
which  he  wrote.  You  do  not  find  it,  for  instance,  in 
the  prose  of  Joachim  du  Bellay.^  But  now  take 
North's  account  of  the  execution  before  Brutus  of 
his  two  eldest  sons  ;  ^  '  which,'  you  read,  '  was  such 
a  pitieful  sight  to  aU  people,  that  they  could  not 
find  it  in  their  hearts  to  beholde  it,  but  turned  them- 
selves another  waye,  bicause  they  would  not  see  it.' 
That  effective  repetition  is  word  for  word  in  the 

^  Deffense  et  illustration  de  la  Langue fran^oise.  ^  Publicola'^ 


208  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

French :  '  qu'ilz  n'avoient  pas  le  cueur  de  les  re- 
garder,  ains  se  tournoient  d'un  austre  coste  pour  n'en 
rien  veoir,^  But,  apart  from  redundancy,  the  close- 
ness is  at  all  times  remarkable.  Consider  the  phrase  : 
'  but  to  go  on  quietly  and  joyfu^jly  at  the  sound 
of  these  pipes  to  hazard  themselves  even  to  death.'  ^ 
You  would  swear  it  original,  but  here  is  the  French  : 
'  ains  aller  posement  et  joyeusement  au  son  des  in- 
struments, se  hazarder  au  peril  de  la  mort.'  The 
same  effect  is  produced  by  the  same  rhythm.  Or, 
take  the  burial  of  unchaste  vestals :  ^  when  the 
muffled  Utter  passes,  the  people  '  follow  it  mourn- 
ingly  with  heavy  looks  and  speake  never  a  word '  ; 
'  avec  une  chere  basse,  et  morne  sans  mot  dire  '  ; 
and  so  on,  in  identical  Thjth.ni,  to  the  end  of  that 
magnificent  passage.  I  will  give  one  longer  example, 
from  the  return  of  Alcibiades.  You  read  in  North  : 
'  Those  that  could  come  near  him  dyd  welcome  and 
imbrace  him :  but  all  the  people  wholly  followed 
him :  And  some  that  came  to  him  put  garlands  of 
flowers  upon  his  head :  and  those  that  could  not 
come  neare  him,  sawe  him  afarre  off,  and  the  olde 
folkes  dyd  pojnite  him  out  to  the  younger  sorte.' 
And  in  Amyot :  '  Ceulx  qui  en  pouvoient  approcher 
le  saluoient  et  I'embrassoient,  mais  tous  I'accom- 
pagnoient ;  et  y  en  avoient  aucuns  qui  s'approchans 
de  luy,  luy  mettoient  des  chappeaux  de  fleurs  sur 
la  teste  et  ceulx  qui  n'en  pouvoient  approcher,  le 
regardoient  de  loing,  et  les  vieux  le  monstroient  aux 
jeunes.'  Here  is  the  very  manner  of  the  Authorised 
Version  :  flowing  but  not  prolix,  full  but  not  turgid. 
Is  it,  then,  fanciful  to  suggest  that  Amyot's  style, 
evolved  from  the  inherent  difficulty  of  his  task,  was 
accepted  by  North  for  its  beauty,  and  used  by  the 

*  Lycurgus,  2  2fuma. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  209 

translators  of  the  Bible  for  its  fitness  to  an  under- 
taking hard  for  similar  reasons  and  in  a  similar  way  ? 
Amyot  piles  up  his  epithets,  and  links  one  varied 
cadence  to  another :  yet  his  volume  is  not  of  ex- 
travagant utterance,  but  of  extreme  research.  He 
was  endeavouring  to  render  late  Greek  into  French 
of  the  Renaissance  ;  and  so  he  sought  for  perfect 
expression  not — as  to-day — in  one  word  but  in  the 
resultant  of  many.  And  this  very  volume  of  utter- 
ance, however  legitimate,  imposed  the  necessity  of 
rhythm.  His  innumerable  words,  if  they  were  not 
to  weary,  must  be  strung  on  a  wire  of  undulating 
gold.  North  copied  this  cadence,  and  gave  a  store- 
house of  expression  to  the  writers  of  his  time.  It 
seems  to  me,  therefore,  not  rash  to  trace,  through 
North,  to  Amyot  one  rivulet  of  the  many  that  fell 
into  the  mighty  stream  of  rhythm  flowing  through 
the  classic  version  of  the  English  Bible. 

But  North  and  Amyot  are  not  men  of  one  trick : 
they  can  be  terse  and  antithetical  when  they  will. 
You  read  that  Themistocles  advanced  the  honour  of 
the  Athenians,  making  them  '  to  overcome  their 
enemies  by  force,  and  their  friends  and  allies  with 
liberality  '  ;  in  Amyot :  '  Vaincre  leurs  ennemies  en 
prouesse,  et  leurs  alUez  et  amis  en  bonte '  !  North 
can  play  this  time  as  well  as  any:  e.g,,  'If  they,* 
Plutarch's  heroes,  '  have  done  this  for  heathen 
Kings,  what  should  we  doe  for  Christian  Princes  ? 
If  they  have  done  this  for  glorye,  what  shoulde  we 
doe  for  religion  ?  If  they  have  done  this  without 
hope  of  heaven,  what  should  we  doe  that  looke 
for  immortalitie  ?  '  ^  But  he  can  play  other  tunes 
too.  Much  is  now  written  of  the  development  of 
the  sentence ;    and  no  doubt  since  the  decadence 

^  Dedication  to  Elizabeth. 


210  NORTH^S  PLUTARCH 

advances  have  been  made.  Yet,  in  the  main,  they 
are  to  recover  a  territory  wilfully  abandoned.  In 
North  and  Amyot  there  are  sentences  of  infinite 
device — sentences  numerous  and  harmonic  beyond 
the  dreams  of  Addison  and  Swift..  I  will  give  some 
examples.  Amyot :  '  S'eblouissant  a  regarder  une 
telle  splendeur,  et  se  perdant  a  sonder  un  tel  abysme.' 
That  is  fine  enough,  but  North  beats  it :  '  Dazeled 
at  the  beholding  of  such  brightnesse,  and  confounded 
at  the  gaging  of  so  bottomlesse  a  deepe.'  ^  Amyot : 
'  Ne  plus  ne  moins  que  si  c'eust  este  quelque  doulce 
haleine  d'un  vent  salubre  et  gracieu  qui  leur  eust 
souffle  du  coste  de  Rome  pour  les  rafreshir.'  And 
North :  '  As  if  some  gentle  ayer  had  breathed  on 
them  by  some  gracious  and  healthfull  wind,  blowen 
from  Rome  to  refresh  them.'  ^  No  translation  could 
be  closer  ;  yet  in  the  first  example  North's  Engjish  is 
stronger  than  the  French,  and  in  the  second  it  flows, 
like  the  air,  with  a  more  ineffable  ease.  Take,  again, 
the  account  of  the  miracle  witnessed  during  the  battle 
of  Salamis.  Here  is  Amyot :  '  que  Von  ouit  une 
haulte  voix  et  grande  clameur  par  toute  la  plaine 
Thrasiene  jusques  a  la  mer,  comme  sHl  y  eust  eu  grand 
nombre  (Thommes  qui  ensemble  eussent  a  haulte  voix 
chante  le  sacre  cantique  de  lacchu^Sy  et  semhloit  que  de 
la  multitude  de  ceulx  qui  chantoient  il  se  levast  petit 
a  petit  une  nuee  en  Vair,  laquelle  partant  de  la  terre 
venoit  d  fondre  et  tumber  sur  les  galeres  en  la  merJ' 
And  here  is  North  :  '  that  a  lowde  voyce  was  heard 
through  all  the  plaine  of  Thriasia  unto  the  sea,  as  if 
there  had  bene  a  number  of  men  together,  that  had 
songe  out  alowde,  the  holy  songe  of  lacchus.  And 
it  seemed  by  Htle  and  Utle  that  there  rose  a  clowde 
in  the  ayer  from  those  which  sange:  that  left  the 

^  Amyot :  Aux  Lecteurs.  ^  Numa. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  211 

land,  and  came  and  lighted  on  the  gallyes  in  the  sea.' 
I  have  put  into  italics  so  much  of  Amyot  as  North 
renders  word  for  word.  His  fidelity  is  beyond  praise ; 
but  the  combination  of  such  fidehty  with  perfect 
and  musical  expression  is  no  less  than  a  miracle  of 
artistry.  North,  in  this  passage  as  elsewhere,  not 
only  writes  more  beautiful  English :  he  gives,  also, 
a  description  of  greater  completeness  and  clarity 
than  you  will  find  in  any  later  version  of  Plutarch. 
The  elemental  drama  transfigures  his  prose ;  but 
every  fact  is  reahsed,  every  sensuous  impression  is 
set  down,  and  set  down  in  its  order.  So  much  may 
be  said,  too,  of  Amyot ;  but  in  his  rendering  you  are 
aware  of  the  words  and  the  construction — in  fact, 
of  the  author.  In  North's  there  is  but  the  pageant  of 
the  sky ;  there  is  never  a  restless  sound  to  disturb 
the  illusion  ;  the  cadence  is  sublimated  of  all  save  a 
dehcate  aUiteration,  tracing  its  airy  rhythm  to  the 
ear.  The  work  is  full  of  such  effects,  some  of  simple 
melody,  and  others  of  more  than  contrapuntal  in- 
volution ;  for  he  commands  his  English  as  a  skilled 
organist  his  organ,  knowing  the  multitude  of  its  re- 
sources, and  drawing  at  need  upon  them  all.  Listen 
to  his  rendering  of  Pericles'  sorrow  for  his  son : 
'  Neither  saw  they  him  weepe  at  any  time  nor  moume 
at  the  fimeralles  of  any  of  his  kinsmen  or  friendes, 
but  at  the  death  of  Paralus,  his  younger  and  lawful 
begotten  sonne  :  for,  the  losse  of  him  alone  dyd  only 
melt  his  harte.  Yet  he  dyd  strive  to  showe  his 
naturall  constancie,  and  to  keepe  his  accustomed 
modestie.  But  as  he  woulde  have  put  a  garland  of 
flowers  upon  his  head,  sorrowe  dyd  so  pierce  his 
harte  when  he  sawe  his  face,  that  then  he  burst  out 
in  teares  and  cryed  amaine ;  which  they  never  saw 
him  doe  before  all  the  dayes  of  his  hfe.'     Yes,  the 


212  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

pathos  of  the  earth  is  within  his  compass  ;  but  he 
can  also  attain  to  the  subHmity  of  heaven :  '  The 
everlasting  seate,  which  trembleth  not,  and  is  not 
driven  nor  moved  with  windes,  neither  is  darkened 
with  clowdes,  but  is  allwayes  bright  and  cleare,  and 
at  all  times  shjming  with  a  pure  bright  light,  as  being 
the  only  habitation  and  mansion  place  of  the  etemall 
God,  only  happy  and  immortall.'  ^ 

These  two  passages  from  the  last  movement  of 
the  Pericles  can  only  be  spoken  of  in  North's  own 
language:  they  are  'as  stoppes  and  soundes  of  the 
soul  played  upon  with  the  fine  fingered  hand  of 
a  conning  master.'  ^  Yet  they  are  modelled  on 
Amy  of  s  French.  It  seems  scarce  credible  ;  and 
indeed,  if  the  mould  be  the  same,  the  metal  has  been 
transmuted.  You  feel  that  much  has  been  added 
to  the  form  so  faithfully  followed ;  that  you  are 
listening  to  an  EngHsh  master  of  essentially  EngHsh 
prose.  For  these  passages  are  in  the  tradition  of 
our  tongue :  the  first  gives  an  echo  of  Malory's 
stately  pathos,  and  the  second  an  earnest  of  our 
Apocalypse.  In  building  up  these  palaces  of  music 
North  has  followed  the  lines  of  Amyot's  construc- 
tion ;  but  his  melody  in  the  first  is  sweeter,  his 
harmony  in  the  second  peals  out  with  a  loftier 
rapture. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  the  close  relation  of  North's 
style  to  Amyot's,  because  it  is  the  rule,  and  because 
it  has  a  bearing  on  the  development  of  Tudor  prose. 
This  rule  of  likeness  seems  to  me  worthier  of  note 
than  any  exceptions  ;  both  for  the  strangeness  and 
the  importance.  But,  of  course,  there  are  excep- 
tions :  there  are  traits,  of  attitude  and  of  expression, 

^  Amyot :    '  Comme  estant  telle  habitation  et  convenable  a  la  nature 
souverainement  heureuse  et  immortelle.'  ^  Pericles. 


« 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  213 

personal  to  North  the  man  and  the  writer.  He  has  a 
national  leaning  towards  the  sturdy  and  the  bluff. 
In  a  sonnet  written  some  twenty  years  earlier,  Du 
Bellay,  giving  every  nation  a  particular  epithet, 
labels  our  forefathers  for  '  les  Anglais  mutins.'  The 
epithet  is  chosen  by  an  enemy ;  but  there  was  ever 
in  the  English  temper,  above  all,  in  the  roaring 
days  of  great  Elizabeth,  a  certain  jovial  frowardness, 
by  far  removed  both  from  impertinence  and  from 
bluster,  which  inclined  us,  as  we  should  put  it,  to 
stand  no  nonsense  from  anybody.  This  national 
characteristic  is  strongly  marked  in  North.  For 
him  Spartacus  and  his  slaves  are  '  rebellious  rascals.' 
When  Themistocles  boasts  of  being  able  to  make  a 
smaU  city  great,  though  he  cannot,  indeed,  tune  a 
viol  or  play  of  the  psalterion,  Amyot  calls  his  words 
'  un  peu  haultaines  et  odieuses  '  :  they  are  repugnant 
to  the  cultured  prelate,  and  he  gives  a  full  equivalent 
for  the  censure  of  Plutarch,  the  cultured  Greek.  ^ 
But  North  will  not  away  with  this  censure  of  a  bluff 
retort :  having  his  bias,  he  dehberately  betrays  his 
original,  making  Themistocles  answer  '  with  great 
and  stout  words.'  There  is  also  in  North's  character 
a  strain  of  kindness,  almost  of  softness,  towards 
women  and  children  and  the  pathetic  side  of  life. 
In  the  wonderful  passage  describing  the  living  burial 
of  Tuichaste  vestals,^  where  almost  every  other  word 
is  Hterally  translated,  North  turns  '  la  criminelle ' 
into  '  the  seely  offendour  '  :  as  it  were  with  a  gracious 
reminiscence  of  Chaucer's  '  ne  me  ne  list  this  seely 
woman  chide.'  And  in  the  Solon,  where  a  quaint 
injunction  is  given  for  preserving  love  in  wedlock, 

^  The  Greek  epithet  is  rendered  by  the  word  arrogant  in  Clough's  revised 
Dryden,  and  by  the  word  vulgar  in  Mr.  Stewart's  translation. 
^  Numa. 


214  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

Amyot  writes  that  so  courteous  a  custom,  being 
observed  by  a  husband  towards  his  wife,  '  garde  que 
les  courages  et  vouluntez  ne  s'alienent  de  tout  poinct 
les  uns  des  autres.'  (The  phrase  is  rendered  in  a 
modern  version  'preventing  their  leading  to  actual 
quarrel.')  But  North  lifts  the  matter  above  the 
level  of  laughter  or  puritanical  reproach :  it 
'  keepeth,'  as  he  writes,  '  love  and  good  will  waking, 
that  it  die  not  utterly  between  them.'  The  beauty 
and  gentleness  of  these  words,  in  so  strange  a  context, 
are,  you  feel,  inspired  by  chivalry  and  a  deep  re- 
verence for  women.  These  two  strains  in  North's 
character  find  vent  in  his  expression  ;  but  they  never 
lead  him  far  from  the  French.  There  is  an  insistence, 
but  no  more,  on  all  things  gentle  and  brave  ;  and  this 
insistence  goes  but  to  further  a  tendency  already  in 
Amyot.  For  in  that  age  the  language  of  gentlemen 
received  a  Uke  impress  in  both  countries  from  their 
common  standards  of  courage  and  courtesy ;  and 
among  gentlemen,  Amyot  and  North  seem  to  have 
been  drawn  yet  closer  to  each  other  by  a  common 
kinship  with  the  brave  and  gentle  soul  of  Plutarch. 
These  two  quahties  which  are  notable  in  Plutarch 
and  Amyot  in  all  such  passages,  lead  in  North  to  a 
distinct  exaggeration  of  phrase,  though  ever  in  the 
direction  of  their  true  intent.  He  makes  grim  things 
grimmer,  and  sweet  things  more  sweet.  So  that  the 
double  translation  from  the  Greek  gives  the  effect  of 
a  series  of  contours  traced  the  one  above  the  other, 
and  ever  increasing  the  curve  of  the  lowest  outline. 
But  North,  being  no  sentimentahst,  finds  occasion 
for  fifty  stout  words  against  one  soft  saying.  The 
stark  vigour  of  his  diction  is,  indeed,  its  most 
particular  sign.  The  profit  to  the  Greeks  of  a  pre- 
liminary fight  before  Salamis  is  thus  declared  by 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  215 

Amyot :  it  proved  '  que  la  grande  multitude  des 
vaisseaux,  ny  la  pompe  et  magnificence  des  pare- 
ments  d'iceulx,  ny  les  cris  superbes  et  chants  de 
victoire  des  Barbares,  ne  servent  de  rien  a  I'encontre 
de  ceulx  qui  ont  le  cueur  de  joindre  de  pres,  et  com- 
battre  a  coups  de  main  leur  ennemy,  et  quHl  ne  fault 
point  fair e  compte  de  tout  cela,  ains  alter  droit  affronter 
les  hommes  et  s' attacker  hardiment  a  eulx.^  North 
follows  closely  for  a  time,  but  in  the  last  sentence  he 
lets  out  his  language  to  the  needs  of  a  maxim  so 
pertinent  to  a  countryman  of  Drake.  The  Greeks 
saw,  says  he,  '  that  it  was  not  the  great  multitude  of 
shippes,  nor  the  pomp  and  sumptuous  setting  out  of 
the  same,  nor  the  prowde  barbarous  showts  and 
songes  of  victory  that  could  stand  them  to  purpose, 
against  noble  hartes  and  vaUiant  minded  souldiers, 
that  durst  grapple  with  them,  and  come  to  hand  strokes 
with  their  enemies  :  and  that  they  should  make  no 
reckoning  of  all  that  bravery  and  bragges,  but  should 
sticke  to  it  like  men,  and  laye  it  on  the  jacks  of  them.^ 
The  knight  who  was  to  captain  his  three  hundred 
men  in  the  Armada  year,  has  the  pull  here  over  the 
bishop  ;  and  on  occasion  he  has  always  such  language 
at  command.  '  Les  autres  qui  estoient  demourez  a 
Rome '  instead  of  marching  to  the  war  ^  are  '  the 
home-tarriers  and  house-doves ' :  upbraided  else- 
where 2  because  they  '  never  went  from  the  smoke 
of  the  chimney  nor  carried  away  any  blowes  in  the 
field.'  When  Philopoemen,  wounded  with  a  dart 
that '  pierced  both  thighes  through  and  through,  that 
the  iron  was  scene  on  either  side,'  saw  '  the  fight 
terrible,'  and  that  it  '  woulde  soon  be  ended,'  you 
read  in  Amyot  '  qu'il  perdoit  patience  de  despit,' 
but  in  North  that  '  it  spited  him  to  the  guttes,  he 

^  Coriolanus.  ^  Fahiua  Maxvmus, 


216  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

would  so  faine  have  bene  among  them.'  The  phrase 
is  born  of  sympathy  and  conviction.  North,  too, 
has  a  fine  impatience  of  fools.  Hannibal,  discover- 
ing the  error  of  his  guides,  '  les  feit  pendre  '  in 
Amyot ;  in  North  he  '  roundely  {trussed  them  up 
and  honge  them  by  the  neckes.'  ^  And  he  is  not 
sparing  in  his  censure  of  ill-Hvers.  Phcea,  you  read 
in  the  Theseus,  '  was  surnamed  a  sowe  for  her  beastly 
brutishe  behaviour,  and  wicked  life.'  He  can  be 
choleric  as  well  as  kindly,  and  never  minces  his  words. 
Apart  from  those  expressions  which  spring  from 
the  idiosyncrasy  of  his  temperament.  North's  style 
shares  to  the  full  in  the  general  glory  of  Elizabethan 
prose.  You  read  of  '  fretised  seehngs,'  ^  of  words 
that  '  dulce  and  soften  the  hardened  harts  of  the 
multitude';^  of  the  Athenians  'being  set  on  a  jolitie 
to  see  themselves  strong.'  Heads  are  '  passhed  in 
peces,'  and  men  '  ashamed  to  cast  their  honour  at 
their  heeles  '  (Amyot :  '  d'abandonner  leur  gloire  '). 
Themistocles'  father  shows  him  the  '  shipwracks  and 
ribbes  (Amyot :  ' les  corps')  of  olde  gallyes  cast  here 
and  there.*  You  have,  '  pluck  out  of  his  head  the 
worm  of  ambition '  ^  for  '  oster  de  sa  fantasie 
1' ambition '  ;  and  Caesar  on  the  night  before  his 
death  hears  Calpumia,  '  being  fast  asleep,  weepe  and 
sigh,  and  put  forth  many  fumbling  lamentable  speeches.^ 
But  in  particular.  North  is  richer  than  even  his 
immediate  followers  in  homespun  images  and  pro- 
verbial locutions.  Men  who  succeed,  '  bear  the 
bell '  ;  ^  '  tenter  la  f  ortujie  le  premier  '  is  '  to  breake 
the  ise  of  this  enterprise.'  ^  Coriolanus  by  his  pride 
'  stirred  coales  emong  the  people.'  The  Spartans 
who  thwarted  Themistocles  '  dyd  sit  on  his  skirtes  '  ; 

^  Fahius  Maximus.  ^  Lycurgus.  ^  Pvhlicola.  *  Solon. 

^  The  old  prize  for  a  racehorse.  '  Puhlicola. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  217 

and  the  Athenians  fear  Pericles  because  in  voice  and 
manner  '  he  was  Pisistratus  up  and  downe.'  The 
Veians  let  fall  their  '  peacockes  bravery '  ;  ^  and  a 
man  when  pleased  is  'as  merry  as  a  pye.'^  Raw 
recruits  are  '  fresh-water  souldiers.'  A  turncoat 
carries  '  two  faces  in  one  hoode '  ;  ^  and  the 
Carthaginians,  being  outwitted,  'are  ready  to  eate 
their  fingers  for  spyte.'  The  last  locution  occurs  also 
in  North's  Morall  Philosophie  of  1570  :  he  habitually 
used  such  expressions,  and  yet  others  which  are 
truly  proverbs,  common  to  many  languages.  For 
instance,  he  writes  in  the  Camillus,  '  these  words 
made  Brennus  mad  as  a  March  Hare  that  out  went 
his  blade ' ;  in  Cato  Utican  '  to  set  all  at  six  and  seven' ; 
in  Solon  '  so  sweete  it  is  to  rule  the  roste '  ;  in 
Pelopidas  '  to  hold  their  noses  to  the  gryndstone  '  ;  in 
Cicero,  with  even  greater  incongruity,  of  his  wife 
Terentia  '  wearing  her  husbandes  breeches.'  In  the 
Alcibiades,  the  Athenians  '  upon  his  persuasion, 
built  castles  in  the  ayer '  ;  and  this  last  has  been 
referred  to  Sidney's  Apologie ;  but  the  first  known 
edition  of  the  Apologie  is  dated  1595,  and  it  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  written  about  1581  ;  North  has 
it  not  only  in  the  Lives  (1579),  but  in  his  Morall 
Philosophie  of  1570.^  To  North,  too,  we  may  per- 
haps attribute  some  of  the  popularity  in  England 
of  engaging  jingles.  '  Pritle  pratle '  and  '  topsie 
turvie'  occur  both  in  the  Lives  and  the  Morall 
Philosophie.  And  in  the  Lives  you  have  also  '  spicke 
and  spanne  newe  '  ;  ^  with  '  hurly  burly  '  and  '  pel 
mel,'  adopted  by  Shakespeare  in  Macbeth  and 
Richard   III,     Since    North    takes    the    last    from 

1  CamiUus.  ^  Ibid.  ^  Timoleon. 

*  Fables  of  Bidpai,  1888,  p.  11. 

^  Paulus  JEmilius  ;  in  a  gorgeous  description  of  the  Macedonian  phalanx, 
from  spick  =  a  spike,  and  span  -  a  spHnter. 


218  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

Amyot  and  explains  it — '  fled  into  the  camp  pel  mel 
or  hand  over  heade ' — and  since  it  is  of  French  de- 
rivation— pelle-mesle  =  '  to  mix  with  a  shovel ' — it 
is  possible  that  the  phrase  is  here  used  for  the  first 
time. 

Gathered  together,  these  peculiarities  of  style 
seem  many  ;  and  yet  in  truth  they  are  few.  They 
are  the  merest  accidents  in  a  great  stream  of  rhythm. 
That  stream  flows  steadily  and  superbly  through  a 
channel  of  another  man's  digging.  For  North's  style 
is  Amyot' s,  divided  into  shorter  periods,  strengthened 
with  racy  locutions,  and  decked  with  Elizabethan 
tags.  In  English  such  division  was  necessary : 
the  rhythm,  else,  of  the  weightier  language  had 
gained  such  momentum  as  to  escape  control.  But 
even  so  North's  English  is  neither  cramped  nor 
pruned :  it  is  still  unfettered  by  antithesis  and 
prodigal  of  display.  His  periods,  though  shorter 
than  Amyot's,  in  themselves  are  leisurely  and  long. 
There  is  room  in  them  for  fine  words  and  lofty 
phrases  ;  and  these  go  bragging  by,  the  one  following 
a  space  after  the  other,  like  cars  in  an  endless 
pageant.  The  movement  of  his  procession  rolls  on  : 
yet  he  halts  it  at  pleasure,  to  soften  sorrow  with  a 
gracious  saying,  or  to  set  a  flourish  on  the  bravery 
of  his  theme. 


IV 

The  earliest  tribute  to  the  language  of  Amyot  and 
North  was  the  highest  that  has  ever  been,  or  can 
ever  be,  paid ;  both  for  its  own  character  and  the 
authority  of  those  who  gave  it.  For  Montaigne,  the 
greatest  literary  genius  in  France  during  the  six- 
teenth century,  wrote  thus  of  Amyot :  '  Nous  estions 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  219 

perdus,  si  ce  livre  ne  nous  eust  tires  du  bourbier : 
sa  mercy,  nous  osons  a  cette  heure  parler  et  escrire ' ;  ^ 
and  Shakespeare,  the  first  poet  of  all  time,  borrowed 
three  plays  almost  wholly  from  North.  I  do  not 
speak  of  A  Midsummer  Nighfs  Dream  and  The  Two 
Noble  Kinsmen,  for  each  of  which  a  little  has  been 
gleaned  from  North's  Theseus  ;  nor  of  the  Timon  of 
Athens,  although  here  the  debt  is  larger.^  The  wit  of 
Apemantus,  the  Apologue  of  the  Fig-tree,  and  the 
two  variants  of  Timon' s  epitaph,  are  all  in  North. 
Indeed,  it  was  the  '  rich  conceit '  of  Timon' s  tomb 
by  the  sea-shore  which  touched  Shakespeare's 
imagination,  as  it  had  touched  Antony's  ;  so  that 
some  of  the  restricted  passion  of  North's  Antonius, 
which  bursts  into  showers  of  meteoric  splendour  in 
the  Fourth  and  Fifth  Acts  of  Shakespeare's  Antony 
and  Cleopatra,  beats  too,  in  the  last  lines  of  his  Timon, 
with  a  rhythm  as  of  billows  : 

'  yet  rich  conceit 
Taught  thee  to  make  vast  Neptune  weep  for  aye 
On  thy  low  grave,  on  faults  forgiven.' 

But  in  Antony  and  Cleopatra,  as  in  Coriolanus  and  in 
Julius  Ccesar,  Shakespeare's  obhgation  is  apparent 
in  almost  all  he  has  written.  To  measure  it  you 
must  quote  the  bulk  of  the  three  plays.  '  Of  the 
incident,'  Trench  has  said,  '  there  is  almost  nothing 
which  he  does  not  owe  to  Plutarch,  even  as  con- 
tinually he  owes  the  very  wording  to  Sir  Thomas 
North  '  ;  ^  and  he  follows  up  this  judgment  with  so 
detailed  an  analysis  of  the  Julius  Ccesar  that  I  shall 
not  attempt  to  labour  the  same  ground.  As  regards 
the  Coriolanus,  it  was  noted,  even  by  Pope,  '  that  the 


?,  n.  IV. 

2  It  is  founded  on  one  passage  in  the  Alcibiades  and  another  in  the 
Antony.  ^  Plutarch.     Five  Lectures,  p.  66. 


220  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

whole  history  is  exactly  followed,  and  many  of  the 
principal  speeches  exactly  copied,  from  the  Ufe  of 
Coriolanus  in  Plutarch.'  This  exactitude,  apart  from 
its  intrinsic  interest,  may  sometimes  assist  in  re- 
storing a  defective  passage.  One  such  piece  there  is 
in  n.  iii.  231  of  the  Cambridge  Shakespeare,  1865  : 

*  The  noble  house  o'  the  Marcians,  from  whence  came 
That  Ancus  Marcius,  NurmCs  daughter's  son, 
Who,  after  great  Hostilius,  here  was  king ; 
Of  the  same  house  Puhlius  and  Quintus  were, 
That  our  best  water  brought  by  conduits  hither.' 

The  Folios  here  read  : 

'  And  Nobly  nam'd,  so  twice  being  Censor, 
Was  his  great  Ancestor.' 

It  is  evident  that,  after  '  hither,'  a  line  has  been 
lost,  and  Rowe,  Pope,  Delius,  and  others  have  tried 
their  best  to  recapture  it.  Pope,  knowing  of  Shake- 
speare's debt  and  founding  his  emendation  on  North, 
could  suggest  nothing  better  than  '  And  Censorinus, 
darling  of  the  people  '  ;  while  Delius,  still  more 
strangely,  stumbled,  as  I  must  think,  on  the  right 
reading,  but  for  the  inadequate  reason  that  '  darhng 
of  the  people '  does  not  soimd  Uke  Shakespeare.  I 
have  given  in  itahcs  the  words  taken  from  North  : 
and,  applying  the  same  method  to  the  line  suggested 
by  Dehus,  you  read :  '  And  Censorinus  that  was  so 
surnamed,^  then,  in  the  next  line,  by  merely  shifting 
a  comma,  you  read  on  :  '  And  nobly  named  so,  twice 
being  Censor. ""  Had  Dehus  pointed  out  that  he  got 
his  Hne  simply  by  following  Shakespeare's  practice 
of  taking  so  many  of  North's  words,  in  their  order, 
as  would  fall  into  blank  verse,  his  emendation  must 
surely  have  been  accepted,  since  it  involves  no 
change  in  the  subsequent  hnes  of  the  Folios  ;  whereas 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  221 

the  Cambridge  Shakespeare  breaks  one  line  into  two, 
and  achieves  but  an  awkward  result : 

'  And  [Censorinus]  nobly  named  so, 
Twice  being  [by  the  people  chosen]  censor.' 

The  closeness  of  Shakespeare's  rendering,  indicated 
by  this  use  of  italics,  is  not  particular  to  this  passage, 
but  is  universal  throughout  the  play.  Sometimes 
he  gives  a  conscious  turn  to  North's  unconscious 
humour ;  as  when,  in  the  Parable  of  the  Belly  and 
the  Members,  North  writes,  '  And  so  the  beUie,  all 
this  notwithstanding  laughed  at  their  f ollie  '  ;  and 
Shakespeare  writes  in  i.  i.,  '  For,  look  you,  I  may 
make  the  belly  smile  As  well  as  speak.'  At  others  his 
fidelity  leads  him  into  an  anachronism.  North 
writes  of  Coriolanus  that  '  he  was  even  such  another, 
a^s  Colo  would  have  a  souldier  and  a  captaine  to  be  : 
not  only  terrible  and  fierce  to  laye  aboute  him,  but  to 
make  the  enemie  afeard  with  the  soimd  of  his  voyce 
and  grimness  of  his  coimtenance.'  And  Shakespeare, 
with  a  frank  disregard  for  chronology,  gives  the 
speech,  Cato  and  all,  to  Titus  Lartius  (i.  iv.  57)  : 

'  Thou  wast  a  soldier 
Even  to  Cato's  wish,  not  fierce  and  terrible 
Only  in  strokes  ;  but  with  thy  grim  looks  and 
The  thunder-like  percussion  of  thy  sounds, 
Thou  mad'st  thine  enemies  shake.' 

But  perhaps  the  most  curious  evidence  of  the  degree 
to  which  Shakespeare  steeped  himself  in  North  is  to 
be  found  in  passages  where  he  borrowed  North's 
diction  and  applied  it  to  new  purposes.  For  instance, 
in  North  '  a  goodly  horse  with  a  capparison'  is  offered 
to  Coriolanus  ;  in  Shakespeare,  at  the  same  juncture, 
Lartius  says  of  him : 

'  O  General, 
Here  is  the  steed,  we  the  caparison.' 


222  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

Shakespeare,  that  is,  not  only  copies  North's  picture, 
he  also  uses  North's  palette.  Throughout  the  play 
he  takes  the  incidents,  the  images,  and  the  very 
words  of  North.  You  read  in  North  :  '  More  over 
he  sayed  they  nourished  against  themselves,  the 
naughty  seede  and  cockle  of  insolencie  and  sedition, 
which  had  been  sowed  and  scattered  abroade 
amongst  the  people.'     And  in  Shakespeare,  in.  i.  69  : 

'  In  soothing  them  we  nourish  Against  our  senate 
The  cockle  of  rebellion,  insolence^  sedition, 
Which  we  ourselves  have  plough'd  for,  sow^d  and  scattered.* 

Of  course  it  is  not  argued  that  Shakespeare  has  not 
contributed  much  of  incalculable  worth  :  the  point 
is  that  he  found  a  vast  deal  which  he  needed  not  to 
change.     When  Shakespeare  adds,  iv.  vii.  33  : 

'  I  think  he  '11  be  to  Rome 
As  is  the  osprey  to  the  fish,  who  takes  it 
By  sovereignty  of  nature,' 

he  is  turning  prose  into  poetry.  When  he  creates 
the  character  of  Menenius  Agrippa  from  North's 
allusion  to  '  certaine  of  the  plesauntest  olde  men,'  he 
is  turning  narrative  into  drama,  as  he  is,  too,  in  his 
development  of  Volumnia,  from  a  couple  of  refer- 
ences and  one  immortal  speech.  But  these  additions 
and  developments  can  in  no  way  minimise  the  fact 
that  he  takes  from  North  that  speech,  and  the  two 
others  which  are  the  pivots  of  the  play,  as  they  stand. 
There  is  the  one  in  which  Coriolanus  discovers  him- 
self to  Aufidius.  I  take  it  from  the  Cambridge 
Shakespeare,  and  print  the  actual  borrowings  in 
itaUcs  (IV.  V.  53) : 

'  Cob.  (Unmuffling)  //,  Tullus, 

Not  yet  thou  knowest  me,  and,  seeing  me,  dost  not 
Think  me  for  the  man  I  am,  necessity 
Commands  me  to  name  myself.  .  .  . 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  223 

My  name  is  Caius  Marcius,  who  Jiath  done 

To  thee  particularly,  and  to  all  the  Volsces, 

Great  hurt  and  mischief  ;  thereto  witness  may 

My  surname,  Coriolanus  :  the  painful  service, 

The  extreme  dangers,  and  the  drops  of  blood 

Shed  for  my  thankless  country,  are  requited 

But  with  that  surname  ;  a  good  memory. 

And  witness  of  the  mulice  and  displeasure 

Which  thou  shouldst  hear  me  :   only  that  name  remains  ; 

The  cruelty  and  envy  of  the  people, 

Permitted  hy  our  dastard  nobles,  who 

Have  all  /orsook  me,  hath  devour' d  the  rest ; 

And  suffer'd  me  hy  the  voice  of  slaves  to  be 

Whoop'd  out  of  Rome.     Now,  this  extremity 

Hath  brought  me  to  thy  hearth  :  not  out  of  hope — 

Mistake  me  not — to  save  my  life,  for  if 

I  had  feared  death,  of  all  men  i'  the  world 

I  would  have  voided  thee  ;   hut  in  mere  spite 

To  he  full  quit  of  those  my  hanisheis. 

Stand  I  before  thee  here.     Then  if  thou  hast 

A  heart  of  loreak  in  thee,  that  wilt  revenge 

Thine  own  particular  wrongs  and  stop  those  maims 

Of  shame  seen  through  thy  country,  speed  thee  straight, 

And  make  my  misery  serve  thy  turii :  so  use  it 

That  my  revengeful  services  may  prove 

As  henefits  to  thee  ;   for  I  will  fight 

Against  my  canker'd  coimtry  with  the  spleen 

Of  all  the  under  fiends.     But  if  so  he 

Thou  darest  not  this  and  that  to  prove  more  fortunes 

Thou  Wt  tired,  then,  in  a  word,  /  also  am 

Longer  to  live  most  weary. "* 

The  second,  which  is  Volumnia's  (v.  iii.  94),  is  too 
long  for  quotation.     It  opens  thus : 

'  Should  we  be  silent  and  not  speak,  our  raiment 
And  state  of  hodies  would  hewray  what  life 
We  have  led  since  thy  exile.     Think  mth  thyself 
How  more  unfortunate  than  all  living  women 
Are  we  come  hither ' ; 

and   here,    to   illustrate   Shakespeare's   method   of 
rhythmical     condensation,     is     the     corresponding 


224  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

passage  in  North.  '  If  we  helde  our  peace  (my 
Sonne)  and  determined  not  to  speaJce,  the  state  of  our 
poore  bodies,  and  present  sight  of  our  raiment,  would 
easily  bewray  to  thee  what  life  we  have  led  at  home, 
since  thy  exile  and  abode  abroad.  But  thinke  now 
with  thyself,  howe  much  more  unfortunately,  then  all 
the  women  living e  we  are  come  hether.^  I  have  in- 
dicated by  itaHcs  the  words  that  are  common  to 
both,  but  even  so,  I  can  by  no  means  show  the  sum 
of  Shakespeare's  debt,  or  so  much  as  hint  at  the 
pecuHar  glory  of  Sir  Thomas's  prose.  There  is  no 
mere  question  of  borrowed  language ;  for  North 
and  Shakespeare  have  each  his  own  excellence,  of 
prose  and  of  verse.  Shakespeare  has  taken  over 
North's  vocabulary,  and  that  is  much ;  but  it  is 
more  that  behind  that  vocabulary  he  should  have 
found  such  an  intensity  of  passion  as  would  fill  the 
sails  of  the  highest  drama.  North  has  every  one  of 
Shakespeare's  most  powerful  effects  in  his  version 
of  the  speech :  '  Trust  unto  it,  thou  shalt  no  soner 
marche  forward  to  assault  thy  countrie,  but  thy  foote 
shall  treade  upon  thy  mothers  wombe,  that  brought  thee 
first  into  this  world  '  ;  '  Doest  thou  take  it  honourable 
for  a  nobleman  to  remember  the  wrongs  and  injuries 
done  him '  ;  '  Thou  hast  not  hitherto  shewed  thy 
poore  mother  any  courtesy '  :  these  belong  to  North, 
and  they  are  the  motors  of  Shakespeare's  emotion. 
The  two  speeches,  dressed,  the  one  in  perfect  prose, 
the  other  in  perfect  verse,  are  both  essentially  the 
same  under  their  faintly  yet  magically  varied 
raiment.  The  dramatic  tension,  the  main  argument, 
the  turns  of  pleading,  even  the  pause  and  renewal 
of  entreaty,  all  are  in  North,  and  are  expressed  by 
the  same  spoken  words  and  the  same  gap  of  silence. 
In  the  blank  verse  a  shorter  cadence  is  disengaged 


1 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  225 

from  the  ampler  movement  of  prose ;  here  and 
there,  too,  a  line  is  added.  '  To  tear  with  thunder 
the  wide  cheeks  o'  the  air,'  could  only  have  been 
written  by  an  Elizabethan  dramatist ;  even  as 

'  When  she,  poor  hen,  fond  of  no  second  brood, 
Has  clucked  thee  to  the  wars,  and  safely  home,' 

could  only  have  been  written  by  Shakespeare.  The 
one  is  extravagant,  the  other  beautiful ;  but  the 
power  and  the  pathos  are  complete  without  them, 
for  these  reside  in  the  substance  and  the  texture  of 
the  mother's  entreaty,  which  are  wholly  North's. 
It  is  just  to  add  that,  saving  for  some  crucial  touches, 
as  in  the  substitution  of  '  womb  '  for  '  corps,'  they 
belong  also  to  Amyot.  To  the  mother's  immortal 
entreaty  there  follows  the  son's  immortal  reply : 
the  third  great  speech  of  Shakespeare's  play.  It  runs 
in  Amyot :  '  "  O  mere,  que  m'as  tu  fait  ?  "  et  en  luy 
serrant  estroittement  la  main  droitte  :  "  Ha,"  dit-il, 
"  mere,  tu  as  vaincu  une  victoire  heureuse  pour  ton 
pais,  mais  bien  malheureuse  et  mortelle  pour  ton 
filz  :  car  je  m'en  revois  vaincu,  par  toi  seule."  '  In 
North :  '  "  Oh  mother,  what  have  you  done  to 
me  ?  "  And  holding  her  hard  by  the  right  hand, 
"  Oh  mother,"  sayed  he,  "  you  have  wonne  a  happy 
victorie  for  your  countrie,  but  mortall  and  un- 
happy for  your  sonne  ;  for  I  see  myself  vanquished 
by  you  alone."  '  North  accepts  the  precious  jewel 
from  Amyot,  without  loss  of  emotion  or  addition 
of  phrase :  he  repeats  the  desolate  question,  the 
singultus  of  repeated  apostrophe,  the  closing  note  of 
unparalleled  doom.  Shakespeare,  too,  accepts  them 
in  turn  from  North ;  and  one  is  sorry  that  even  he 
should  have  added  a  word. 

What,  it  may  be  asked,  led  Shakespeare,  amid  all 

p 


226  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

the  power  and  magnificence  of  North's  Plutarch,  to 
select  his  Goriolanus,  his  Julius  Caesar,  and  his 
Antonius  ?  The  answer,  I  think,  must  be  that  in 
Volumnia,  Calpurnia  and  Portia,  and  Cleopatra,  he 
found  woman  in  her  three-fold  relation  to  man,  of 
mother,  wife,  and  mistress.  I  have  passed  over 
Shakespeare's  Julius  Ccesar ;  but  I  may  end  by 
tracing  in  his  Antony  the  golden  tradition  he  accepted 
from  Amyot  and  North.  It  is  impossible  to  do  this 
in  detail,  for  throughout  the  first  three  acts  all  the 
colour  and  the  incident,  throughout  the  last  two  all 
the  incident  and  the  passion,  are  taken  by  Shake- 
speare from  North,  and  by  North  from  Amyot. 
Enobarbus's  speech  (n.  ii.  194),  depicting  the  pageant 
of  Cleopatra's  voyage  up  the  Cydnus  to  meet  Antony, 
is  but  North's  '  The  manner  how  he  fell  in  love  with 
her  was  this.'  Cleopatra's  barge  with  its  poop  of 
gold  and  purple  sails,  and  its  oars  of  silver,  which 
'  kept  stroke,  after  the  sound  of  the  musicke  of  flutes  '  ; 
her  own  person  in  her  pavilion,  cloth  of  gold  of  tissue, 
even  as  Venus  is  pictured ;  her  pretty  hoys  on  each 
side  of  her,  like  Cupids,  with  their  fans ;  her  gentle- 
women like  the  Nereides,  steering  the  helm  and  hand- 
ling the  tackle  ;  the  '  wonderful  passing  sweete  savor 
of  perfumes  that  perfumed  the  wharf eside ' ;  all 
down  to  Antony  '  left  post  alone  in  the  murket-place  in 
his  Imperiall  seate,'  are  translated  bodily  from  the 
one  book  to  the  other,  with  but  a  httle  added  orna- 
ment of  EHzabethan  fancy.  Shakespeare,  indeed,  is 
saturated  with  North's  language  and  possessed  by 
his  passion.  He  is  haimted  by  the  story  as  North 
has  told  it,  so  that  he  even  fails  to  eliminate  matters 
which  either  are  nothing  to  his  purpose  or  are  not 
susceptible  of  dramatic  presentment :  as  in  i.  ii.  of 
the  Folios,   where  you  find   Lamprias,   Plutarch's 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  2^ 

grandfather,  and  his  authority  for  many  details  of 
Antony's  career,  making  an  otiose  entry  as  Lamprius, 
among  the  characters  who  have  something  to  say. 
Everywhere  are  touches  whose  colour  must  remain 
comparatively  pale  unless  they  glow  again  for  us  as, 
doubtless,  they  glowed  for  Shakespeare,  with  hues 
reflected  from  the  passages  in  North  that  shone  in 
his  memory.  For  instance,  when  his  Antony  says 
(I.  i.  53) : 

'  To-night  we  '11  wander  through  the  streets  and  note 
The  qualities  of  people,' 

you  need  to  know  from  North  that  '  sometime  also 
when  he  would  goe  up  and  downe  the  citie  disguised 
like  a  slave  in  the  night,  and  would  peere  into  poore 
men's  windowes  and  their  shops,  and  scold  and  brawl 
with  them  within  the  house  ;  Cleopatra  would  be 
also  in  a  chamber-maides  array,  and  amble  up  and 
down  the  streets  with  him '  ;  for  the  fantastic 
rowdyism  of  this  Imperial  masquerading  is  all  but 
lost  in  Shakespeare's  hurried  allusion.  During  his 
first  three  Acts  Shakespeare  merely  paints  the  man 
and  the  woman  who  are  to  suffer  and  die  in  his  two 
others ;  and  for  these  portraits  he  has  scraped  to- 
gether all  his  colour  from  the  many  such  passages  as 
are  scattered  through  the  earlier  and  longer  portion  of 
North's  Antonius,  Antony's  Spartan  endurance  in 
bygone  days,  sketched  in  Csesar's  speech  (i.  iv.  59) — 

'  Thou  didst  drink 
The  stale  of  horses  and  the  gilded  puddle 
Which  beasts  would  cough  at :  thy  palate  then  did  deign 
The  roughest  berry  on  the  rudest  hedge  ; 
Yea,  like  a  stag  when  snow  the  pasture  sheets, 
The  barks  of  trees  thou  brousedst.     On  the  Alps 
It  is  reported  thou  didst  eat  strange  flesh. 
Which  some  did  die  to  look  on  ' — 


228  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

is  thus  originated  by  North :  '  It  was  a  wonderM 
example  to  the  soiildiers,  to  see  Antonius  that  was 
brought  up  in  all  fineness  and  superfluity,  so  easily 
to  drink  puddle  water,  and  to  eate  wild  fruits  and 
rootes :  and  moreover,  it  is  reported  that  even  as 
they  passed  the  Alpes,  they  did  eate  the  barks  of 
trees,  and  such  beasts  as  never  man  tasted  their 
flesh  before.'  For  his  revels  in  Alexandria,  Shake- 
speare has  taken  '  the  eight  wild  boars  roasted 
whole '  (n.  ii.  183) ;  for  Cleopatra's  disports,  the 
diver  who  '  did  hang  a  salt  flsh  on  his  hook  '  (n.  v.  17). 
In  m.  iii.  the  dialogue  with  the  Soothsayer,  with 
every  particular  of  Antony's  Demon  overmatched 
by  Caesar's,  and  of  his  ill  luck  with  Caesar  at  dice, 
cocking,  and  quails ;  in  m.  x.  the  galley's  name, 
Antoniad ;  and  in  in.  vi.  Caesar's  account  of  the 
coronation  on  a  '  tribunal  silvered,''  and  of  Cleopatra's 
'  giving  audience '  in  the  habiUment  of  the  Goddess 
Isis,  are  other  such  colour  patches.  And  this,  which 
is  true  of  colour,  is  true  also  of  incident  in  the  first 
three  Acts.  The  scene  near  Misenum  in  n.  vi.,  with 
the  light  talk  between  Pompey  and  Antony,  is  hardly 
intelligible  apart  from  North :  '  Whereupon  An- 
tonius asked  him  (Sextus  Pompeius),  "And  where 
shall  we  sup  ?  "  "  There,"  sayd  Pompey ;  and 
showed  him  his  admiral  galley  ..."  that,"  said 
he,  "  is  my  father's  house  they  have  left  me."  He 
spake  it  to  taunt  Antonius  because  he  had  his 
father's  house.'  On  the  galley  in  the  next  scene, 
the  offer  of  Menas,  '  Let  me  cut  the  cable,'  and 
Pompey's  reply  '  Ah,  this  thou  shouldst  have  done 
and  not  have  spoke  on't  1 '  may  be  read  almost 
textually  in  North  :  '  "  Shall  I  cut  the  gables  of  the 
ankers  ?  "  Pompey  having  paused  a  while  upon  it, 
at  length  answered  him :  "  thou  shouldst  have  done 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  229 

it  and  never  told  it  me."  '  In  ni.  vii.  the  old 
soldier's  appeal  to  Antony  not  to  fight  by  sea,  with 
all  his  arguments ;  in  n.  xi.  Antony's  offer  to  his 
friends  of  a  ship  laden  with  gold ;  in  m,  xii.  his 
request  to  Caesar  that  he  may  Hve  at  Athens ;  in 
in.  xiii.  the  whipping  of  Thyreus,  with  Cleopatra's 
annoimcement,  when  Antony  is  pacified,  that  '  Since 
my  lord  Is  Antony  again,  I  will  be  Cleopatra — '  ^  all 
these  incidents  are  compiled  from  the  many  earher 
pages  of  North's  Antonius.  But  in  the  Fourth  Act 
Shakespeare  changes  his  method :  he  has  no  more 
need  to  gather  and  arrange.  Rather  the  concen- 
trated passion,  born  of,  and  contained  in.  North's 
serried  narrative,  expands  in  his  verse — ^nay,  ex- 
plodes from  it — ^into  those  flashes  of  immortal  speech 
which  have  given  the  Fourth  Act  of  Antony  and 
Cleopatra  its  place  apart  even  in  Shakespeare.  Of 
all  that  may  be  said  of  North's  Plutarch,  this  perhaps 
is  of  deepest  significance :  that  every  dramatic 
incident  in  Shakespeare's  Fourth  Act  is  contained  in 
two,  and  in  his  Fifth  Act,  in  one  and  a  half  folio 
pages  of  the  Antonius.  Let  me  rehearse  the  incidents. 
The  Fourth  Act  opens  with  Antony's  renewed 
challenge  to  Caesar,  and  is  somewhat  marred  by 
Shakespeare's  too  faithful  following  of  an  error  in 
North's  translation. 

'  Let  the  old  rujQ&an  know 
I  have  many  other  ways  to  die  ' 

is  taken  from  North  ;  but  North  has  mistaken 
Amyot,  who  correctly  renders  Plutarch's  version  of 
the  repartee,  that '  he  (Antony)  has  many  other  ways 
to  die  '  :  ('  Cesar  luyfeit  response,  quHl  avoit  beaucoup 
d' autre  moiens  de  mourir  que  celuy  Id.^)     In  North, 

^  One  of  North's  mistranslations  :  she  kept  Antony's  birthday,  not  her 
own. 


230  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

this  second  challenge  comes  after  (1)  the  sally  in 
which  Antony  drove  Caesar's  horsemen  back  to  their 
camp  (iv.  vii.);  (2)  the  passage  in  which  he  'sweetly 
kissed  Cleopatra,  armed  as  he  was,'  and  commended 
to  her  a  wounded  soldier  (iv.  viii.) ;  (3)  the  subse- 
quent defection  of  that  soldier,  which  Shakespeare, 
harking  back  to  the  earlier  defection  of  Domitius, 
described  by  North  before  Actium,  develops  into 
Enobarbus's  defection  and  Antony's  magnanimity 
(iv.  v.),  with  Enobarbus's  repentance  and  death 
(rv.  vi.  and  ix.).  In  North,  hard  after  the  challenge 
follows  the  supper  at  which  Antony  made  his 
followers  weep  (iv.  ii.)  and  the  mysterious  music 
portending  the  departure  of  Hercules  (rv.  iii.).  The 
latter  passage  is  so  full  of  awe  that  I  cannot  choose 
but  quote.  '  Furthermore,'  says  North,  '  the  self 
same  night  within  little  of  midnight,  when  aU  the 
citie  was  quiet,  full  of  feare,  and  sorrowe,  thinking 
what  would  be  the  issue  and  end  of  this  warre  :  it  is 
said  that  sodainly  they  heard  a  marvelous  sweete 
harmonie  of  sundrie  sortes  of  instruments  of  musicke, 
with  the  crie  of  a  multitude  of  people,  as  they  had 
beene  dauncing,  and  had  song  as  they  use  in  Bacchus 
feastes,  with  movinges  and  tuminges  after  the 
manner  of  the  satyres,  and  it  seemed  that  this  daunce 
went  through  the  city  unto  the  gate  that  opened  to 
the  enemies,  and  that  aU  the  troupe  that  made  this 
noise  they  heard  went  out  of  the  city  at  that  gate. 
Now,  such  as  in  reason  sought  the  interpretation  of 
this  wonder,  thought  that  it  was  the  god  unto  whom 
Antonius  bare  singular  devotion  to  counterfeate  and 
resemble  him,  that  did  forsake  them.'  ^    The  incident 

^  Translated  word  for  word  from  Amyot.  Any  one  who  cares  to  pursue 
this  tradition  of  beauty  still  further  towards  its  sources  will  find  that  in  the 
Antonius  Amyot  was  in  turn  the  debtor  of  Leonardus  Aretinus,  who  did  the 
life  into  Latin  for  the  editio  princeps  (1470)  of  Campani. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  231 

is  hardly  susceptible  of  dramatic  representation,  but 
Shakespeare,  as  it  were  spellbound  by  his  material, 
must  even  try  his  hand  at  a  miracle.  Follows,  in 
North,  the  treachery  of  Cleopatra's  troops  ;  Antony's 
accusation  of  Cleopatra  (iv.  x.  xi.  and  xii.) ; 
Cleopatra's  flight  to  the  monument  and  the  false 
message  of  her  death  (iv.  xiii.) ;  Antony's  dialogue 
with  Eros,  the  suicide  of  Eros,  and  the  attempt  of 
Antony  (iv.  xiv.) ;  and  the  death  of  Antony  (iv.  xv.). 
Every  incident  in  Shakespeare's  Act  is  contained 
in  these  two  pages  of  North ;  and  not  only  the  in- 
cidents but  the  very  passion  of  the  speeches.  '  O 
Cleopatra,'  says  Antonius,  '  it  grieveth  me  not  that 
I  have  lost  thy  companie,  for  I  will  not  be  long  from 
thee ;  but  I  am  sorry,  that  having  bene  so  great  a 
captaine  and  emperour,  I  am  in  deede  condemned  to 
be  judged  of  less  corage  and  noble  minde  then  a 
woman.'  Or  take,  again,  the  merciless  reahsm  of 
Cleopatra's  straining  to  draw  Antony  up  into  the 
monument :  — '  Notwithstanding  Cleopatra  would 
not  open  the  gates,  but  came  to  the  high  windowes, 
and  cast  out  certaine  chaines  and  ropes,  in  the  which 
Antony  was  trussed  :  and  Cleopatra  her  oune  selfe, 
with  two  women  only,  which  she  had  suffered  to 
come  with  her  into  these  monuments,  trised  Antonius 
up.  They  that  were  present  to  behold  it,  said  they 
never  saw  so  pitiefull  a  sight.  For  they  plucked 
poore  Antonius  all  bloody  as  he  was,  and  drawing 
on  with  pangs  of  death,  who  holding  up  his  hands 
to  Cleopatra,  raised  up  him  selfe  as  weU  as  he  could. 
It  was  a  hard  thing  for  these  women  to  do,  to  Hft 
him  up :  but  Cleopatra  stooping  downe  with  her 
head,  putting  to  all  her  strength  to  her  uttermost 
power,  did  lift  him  up  with  much  adoe,  and  never  let 
goe  her  hold,  with  the  helpe  of  the  women  beneath 


232  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

that  bad  her  be  of  good  corage,  and  were  as  sorie  to 
see  her  labour  so,  as  she  her  selfe.  So  when  she  had 
gotten  him  in  after  that  sorte,  and  layed  him  on  a 
bed :  she  rent  her  garments  upon  him,  clapping 
her  breast,  and  scratching  her  face  and  stomake. 
Then  she  dried  up  his  hlood  that  herayed  his  face,  and 
called  him  her  Lord,  her  husband,  and  Emperor,  jar- 
getting  her  miserie  and  calamitie,  for  the  pitie  and 
compassion  she  took  of  him.''  In  all  this  splendour 
North  is  Amyot,  and  Amyot  is  Plutarch,  while 
Plutarch  is  but  the  reporter  of  events  within  the  re- 
collection of  men  he  had  seen  Hving  ;  so  that  Shake- 
speare's Fourth  Act  is  based  on  old-world  realism 
made  dynamic  by  North's  incomparable  prose. 
Then  come  Antony's  call  for  wine  and  his  last  speech, 
which  Shakespeare  has  taken  with  scarce  a  change : 
'  And  for  himseK,  that  she  should  not  lament  nor 
sorrowe  for  the  miserable  chaunge  of  his  fortune  at 
the  end  of  his  dayes :  but  rather  that  she  should 
thinke  him  the  more  fortunate,  for  the  former 
triumphe  and  honors  he  had  received,  considering 
that  while  he  lived  he  was  the  noblest  and  greatest 
prince  of  the  world,  and  that  now  he  was  overcome 
not  cowardly,  but  vaUantly,  a  Romane  by  another 
Romane.'     In  Shakespeare : 

'  Please  your  thoughts 
In  feeding  them  with  those  my  former  fortunes 
Wherein  I  liv'd  :  the  greatest  prince  o'  the  world, 
The  noblest :   and  do  now  not  basely  die, 
Not  cowardly  put  off  my  helmet  to 
My  countryman,  a  Roman  by  a  Roman  •• 

Valiantly  vanquished.' 

To  the  end  of  the  play  the  poet's  fideUty  is  as  close  ; 
and  North's  achievement  in  narrative  prose  is  only 
less  signal  than  Shakespeare's  in  dramatic  verse. 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  233 

Every  characteristic  touch,  even  to  Cleopatra's 
outburst  against  Seleucus,  is  in  North.  Indeed,  in 
the  Fifth  Act  I  venture  to  say  that  Shakespeare  has 
not  transcended  his  original.  There  is  in  North 
a  speech  of  Cleopatra  at  the  tomb  of  Antony,  which 
can  ill  be  spared ;  since  it  is  only  indicated  in 
Shakespeare  (v.  ii.  303)  by  a  brief  apostrophe — 

'  O,  couldst  thou  speak, 
That  I  might  hear  thee  call  great  Caesar  ass 
Unpolicied ' — 

which  is  often  confused  with  the  context  addressed 
to  the  asp.  In  North  you  read :  '  She  was  carried 
to  the  place  where  his  tombe  was,  and  there  falling 
downe  on  her  knees,  imbracing  the  tombe  with  her 
women,  the  teares  running  doune  her  cheekes,  she 
began  to  speake  in  this  sorte  :  "  O  my  deare  Lord 
Antonius,  not  long  sithence  I  buried  thee  here, 
being  a  free  woman  :  and  now  I  offer  unto  thee  the 
funerall  sprinklinges  and  oblations,  being  a  captive 
and  prisoner,  and  yet  I  am  forbidden  and  kept  from 
tearing  and  murdering  this  captive  body  of  mine 
with  blowes,  which  they  carefully  gard  and  keepe, 
only  to  triumphe  of  thee  :  looke  therefore  hence- 
forth for  no  other  honors,  oferinges,  nor  sacrifices 
from  me,  for  these  are  the  last  which  Cleopatra  can 
geve  thee,  sith  nowe  they  carie  her  away.  Whilest 
we  lived  together  nothing  could  sever  our  com- 
panies :  but  now  at  our  death,  I  feare  me  they  will 
make  us  chaunge  our  countries.  For  as  thou  being 
a  Romane,  hast  been  buried  in  iEgypt :  even  so 
wretched  creature  I,  an  Egyptian,  shall  be  buried  in 
Itahe,  which  shall  be  all  the  good  that  I  have  received 
of  thy  contrie.  If  therefore  the  Gods  where  thou  art 
now  have  any  power  and  authoritie,  sith  our  gods 


234  NORTH'S  PLUTARCH 

here  have  forsaken  us :  suffer  not  thy  true  friend 
and  lover  to  be  caried  away  alive,  that  in  me,  they 
triumphe  of  thee  :  but  receive  me  with  thee,  and  let 
me  be  buried  in  one  selfe  tombe  with  thee.  For 
though  my  griefes  and  miseries  be  infinite,  yet  none 
hath  grieved  me  more,  nor  that  T  could  lesse  beare 
withall :  then  this  small  time,  which  I  had  been 
driven  to  live  alone  without  thee."  '  Her  prayer  is 
granted.  The  countryman  comes  in  with  his  figs ; 
and  then,  '  Her  death  was  very  sodaine.  For  those 
whom  Caesar  sent  unto  her  ran  thither  in  all  hast 
possible,  and  found  the  souldiers  standing  at  the 
gate,  mistrusting  nothing,  nor  understanding  of  her 
death.  But  when  they  opened  the  dores,  they  found 
Cleopatra  starke  dead,  layed  upon  a  bed  of  gold, 
attired  and  araied  in  her  royaU  robes,  and  one  of 
her  two  women,  which  was  called  Iras,  dead  at  her 
feete ;  and  her  other  woman  called  Charmion  halfe 
dead,  and  trembling,  trimming  the  Diademe  which 
Cleopatra  ware  upon  her  head.  One  of  the  souldiers 
seeing  her,  angrily  sayd  imto  her :  "Is  that  well 
done,  Charmion  ?  "  "  Verie  well,"  sayd  she  againe, 
"  and  meet  for  a  Princes  discended  from  the  race  of 
so  many  noble  kings."  She  sayd  no  more,  but  feU 
doune  dead  hard  by  the  bed.' 

I  doubt  if  there  are  many  pages  which  may  rank 
with  these  last  of  North's  Antonius  in  the  prose  of 
any  language.  They  are  the  golden  crown  of  his 
Plutarch,  but  their  fellows  are  all  a  royal  vesture 
wrapping  a  kingly  body.  For  the  Parallel  Lives  is  a 
book  most  sovereign  in  its  dominion  over  the  minds 
of  great  men  in  every  age.  Henri  iv.,  in  a  love- 
letter,  written  between  battles,  to  his  young  wife, 
Marie  de  Medicis,  speaks  of  it  as  no  other  such  hero 
has  spoken  of  any  other  volume,  amid  such  dire 


NORTH'S  PLUTARCH  235 

surroundings  and  in  so  dear  a  context.  But  if  it 
has  armed  men  of  action,  it  has  urged  men  of  letters. 
Macaulay  claimed  it  for  his  '  forte  ...  to  give  a  life 
after  the  manner  of  Plutarch,'  and  he  tells  us  that, 
between  the  writing  of  two  pages,  when  for  weeks  a 
soHtary  at  his  task,  he  would  '  ramble  five  or  six 
hours  over  rocks  and  through  copsewood  with 
Plutarch.'  Of  good  Enghsh  prose  there  is  much, 
but  of  the  world's  greatest  books  in  great  English 
prose  there  are  not  many.  Here  is  one,  worthy  to 
stand  with  Malory's  Morte  Darthur  on  either  side 
the  English  Bible. 


I 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 


TO 
MY   MOTHER 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 


Modern  critics  have  found  it  convenient  to  preserve 
the  classification  of  poetry  which  their  predecessors 
borrowed  from  the  ancients  at  the  Revival  of  Learn- 
ing. But,  in  order  to  illustrate  his  theory,  each  has 
been  forced  to  define  anew  such  terms  as  '  Ij^ic,' 
'  elegiac,'  '  epic,'  and  the  terms,  in  consequence  of 
these  repeated  attempts,  have  at  last  ceased  to  be 
definite.  Now,  despite  this  shifting  indefiniteness, 
when  we  say  of  any  poetry  that  it  is  lyrical  and 
elegiac,  we  are  understood  to  mean  that  it  deals 
with  emotion  rather  than  with  doctrine  or  drama ; 
and  further,  that  its  merit  lies,  not  so  much  in  the 
exclusive  delineation  of  anyone  emotional  experience, 
as  in  the  suggestion,  by  beautiful  imagery  and 
musical  sound,  of  those  aspirations  and  regrets 
which  find  a  voice  but  little  less  articulate  in  the 
sister-art  of  music.  Narrowing  the  definition,  we 
may  say  that  the  best  l3n'ical  and  elegiac  poetry 
expresses,  by  both  its  meaning  and  its  movement, 
the  quintessence  of  man's  desire  for  Beauty,  ab- 
stracted from  concrete  and  transitory  embodiments. 
The  matter  in  such  poetry  is  of  '  Beauty  that  must 
die '  ;  the  method,  a  succession  of  beautiful  images 
flashed  from  a  river  of  pleasing  soimd.  It  is  the 
effect  of  an  art  which  appeals  to  the  mind's  eye  with 
a  lovely  and  vivid  imagination,  and  to  the  mind's 
ear  with  a  melody  at  all  times  soft  and  (since  Beauty 

239 


240       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

dwells  with  Sadness)  at  many  times  pathetic.^  To 
illustrate  one  art  by  another  is  often  to  lose,  in  the 
confusion  of  real  distinction,  most  of  the  gain  won 
by  comparing  justly ;  yet,  at  the  risk  of  that  loss, 
it  may  be  said  of  lyrical  and  el^iac  poetry  that  it 
stands  to  other  poetry,  and  to  all  speech,  in  some 
such  relation  as  that  of  sculpture  to  architecture. 
And  this  is  particularly  true  of  Shakespeare's  Poems. 
Marble  may  be  used  for  many  ends,  and  in  all  its 
uses  may  be  handled  with  a  regard  for  Beauty  ;  but 
there  comes  a  Phidias,  possessed  beyond  others  with 
the  thirst  for  Beauty,  and  pre-eminent  both  in  per- 
ception and  in  control  of  those  quaHties  which  fit 
marble  for  expressing  Beauty  to  the  mind  through 
the  eye.  He  is  still  unsatisfied  by  any  divided 
dedication  ;  and  so,  in  the  rhythmic  procession  of  a 
frieze,  he  consecrates  it  to  Beauty  alone.  At  other 
times  he  may  be  the  first  of  architects,  an  excellent 
citizen  at  all.  The  Poems  of  Shakespeare  may  be 
compared  to  the  Frieze  of  the  Parthenon,  insomuch 

^  Mr.  Bagehot  seems  to  deny  this  when  he  says  {Hartley  Coleridge)  that 
with  '  whatever  differences  of  species  and  class  the  essence  of  lyrical  poetry 
remains  in  all  identical ;  it  is  designed  to  express,  and  when  successful 
does  express,  some  one  mood,  some  single  sentiment,  some  isolated  longing 
in  human  nature.'  I  doubt  it.  On  the  contrary  the  essence  of  lyrical, 
certainly  of  elegiac  poetry,  consists  in  the  handling  of  sentiment  and 
emotion  to  suggest  infinity,  not  unity,  not  the  science  of  psychology  but, 
the  mysticism  of  desire.  The  emotion  may  sometimes  be  isolated  for  the 
sake  of  more  effectively  contrasting  its  definiteness  with  the  vast  aspiration 
it  engenders.  A  lyrical  poet,  for  instance,  would  be  content  to  echo  the 
single  note  of  a  curlew,  but  only  because  it  suggests  a  whole  moorland ;  the 
particular  moorland,  that  is,  over  which  one  bird  is  flying,  and  therewith 
the  flight  of  all  birds,  once  a  part  of  rehgion,  over  aU  moorlands  in  all  ages. 
Such  a  poem,  if  it  were  successful,  would  give,  not  only  the  transient  mood 
of  a  single  Hstener  but,  all  the  melancholy  and  all  the  meaning  and  all  the 
emotion  without  meaning  that  have  ever  followed  the  flight  of  a  lonely 
bird  over  a  waste  place.  ]VIr.  Bagehot  knows  this,  for  he  goes  on  thus  : — 
'  Hence  lyrical  poets  must  not  be  judged  literally  from  their  lyrics :  they 
are  discourses ;  they  require  to  be  reduced  into  the  scale  of  ordinary  life, 
to  be  stripped  of  the  enraptured  element,  to  be  clogged  with  gravitating 
prose.'  And  why  is  this  to  be  done  ?  '  To  judge  the  poet.'  Exactly  ! 
But  why  judge  the  poet  instead  of  enjoying  the  poem  ? 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       241 

as  both  are  works  in  which  the  greatest  masters  of 
words  and  of  marble  that  we  know  have  exhibited 
the  exquisite  adaptation  of  those  materials  to  the 
single  expression  of  Beauty.  Other  excellences  there 
are  in  these  works — excellences  of  truth  and  nobility, 
of  intellect  and  passion ;  and  we  may  note  them, 
even  as  we  must  note  them  in  the  grander  achieve- 
ment of  their  creators  :  even  as  we  may,  if  we  choose, 
find  much  to  wonder  at  or  to  revere  in  the  lives 
of  their  creators.  But  in  these  things  of  special 
dedication  we  must  seek  in  the  first  place  for  the 
love  of  Beauty  perfectly  expressed,  or  we  rebel 
against  their  authors'  purpose.  Who  cares  now 
whether  Phidias  did,  or  did  not,  carve  the  likeness 
of  Pericles  and  his  own  amidst  the  mellay  of  the 
Amazons  ?  And  who,  intent  on  the  exquisite  re- 
sponse of  Shakespeare's  art  to  the  inspiration  of 
Beauty,  need  care  whether  his  Sonnets  were  addressed 
to  WiUiam  Herbert  or  to  another  ?  A  riddle  will 
always  arrest  and  tease  the  attention ;  but  on  that 
very  accoimt  we  cannot  pursue  the  sport  of  rimning 
down  the  answer,  unless  we  make  a  sacrifice  of  all 
other  solace.  Had  the  Sphinx's  enigma  been  less 
transparent,  it  must  have  wrecked  the  play  of 
Sophocles,  for  the  minds  of  the  audience  would  have 
stayed  at  the  outset :  much  in  the  manner  of  trippers 
to  Hampton  Court  who  spend  their  whole  time  in  the 
Maze.  Above  all,  must  the  mind  be  disencumbered, 
clean,  and  plastic,  when,  like  a  sensitive  plate,  it  is 
set  to  receive  the  impression  of  a  work  of  art. 

But  are  Shakespeare's  Poems  works  of  art  ?  Can 
the  Venus  and  Adonis,  the  Lucrece,  and  the  Sonnets 
be  received  together  as  kindred  expressions  of  the 
lyrical  and  elegiac  mood  ?  These  questions  will 
occur  to  every  one  acquainted  with  the  sHghting 

Q 


242       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

allusions  of  critics  to  the  Narrative  Poems,  or  with 
the  portentous  mass  of  theory  and  inference  which 
has  accumulated  round  the  Sonnets.  For  to  find 
these  poems  and  certain  of  these  Sonnets  so  received 
we  must  turn  back,  over  three  hundred  years,  to  one 
of  Shakespeare's  contemporaries.  Francis  Meres, 
in  his  Palladis  Tamia,  a  laboured  but  pleasing 
'  comparative  discourse '  of  EUzabethan  poets  and 
the  great  ones  of  Italy,  Greece,  and  Rome,  wrote 
thus : — '  As  the  soule  of  Euphorbus  was  thought 
to  live  in  Pylihagoras,  so  the  sweete  wittie  soule  of 
Ovid  Hves  in  meUifluous  and  honey-tongued  Shake- 
speare, witness  his  Venus  and  Adonis,  his  Lucreece, 
his  sugred  sonnets  among  his  private  friends.' 
Meres,  therefore,  was  the  first  to  coUect  the  titles 
or  to  comment  on  the  character  of  Shakespeare's 
Poems.  But  although,  since  1598,  he  has  had  many 
successors  more  competent  than  himself,  and  though 
nearly  all  have  quoted  his  saying,  not  one  has 
followed  his  example  of  reviewing  the  three  works 
together  and  insisting  on  their  common  character- 
istic. The  Poems,  indeed,  have  but  rarely  been 
printed  hand  in  hand  (so  to  speak)  and  apart  from 
the  Plays.  This  strange  omission  did  not  follow, 
as  I  think,  on  any  dehberate  judgment :  it  was, 
rather,  the  accidental  outcome  of  the  greater  in- 
terest aroused  by  the  Plays.  The  Poems  were  long 
eclipsed ;  and  critics,  even  when  they  turned  to 
them  again,  were  still  thinking  of  the  Plays — ^were 
rather  seeking  in  the  Poet  for  the  man  hid  in  the 
Playwright  than  bent  on  esteeming  the  loveliness 
of  Shakespeare's  lyrical  art.  For  this  purpose  the 
Sotmets  showed  the  fairer  promise :  so  the  critics 
have  filled  shelves  with  commentaries  on  them, 
scarcely  glancing  at  the   Venus  and  the  Lucrece ; 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       243 

and,  even  in  scrutinising  the  Sonnets,  they  have 
been  so  completely  absorbed  in  the  personal  pro- 
blems these  suggest  as  to  discuss  Httle  except 
whether  or  how  far  they  reveal  the  real  life  of  the 
man  who,  in  the  Plays,  has  clothed  so  many  imaginary 
lives  with  the  semblance  of  reaUty.  The  work  done 
in  this  field  has  been  invaluable  on  the  whole.  It 
is  impossible  to  over-praise  Mr.  Tyler's  patience  in 
research,  or  to  receive  with  adequate  gratitude  the 
long  labour  of  Mr.  Dowden's  love.  Yet  even  Mr. 
Dowden,  when  he  turns  from  considering  Shake- 
speare's art  in  the  Plays,  and  would  conjure  up  his 
soul  from  the  Sonnets,  cannot  escape  the  retribution 
inseparable  from  his  task.  This  probing  in  the 
Sonnets  after  their  author's  story  is  so  deeply  per- 
plexed an  enterprise  as  to  engross  the  whole  energy 
of  them  that  essay  it :  so  that  none  bent  on  digging 
up  the  soil  in  which  they  grew  has  had  time  to  count 
the  blossoms  they  put  forth.  Some  even  (as  Ger- 
vinus)  have  been  altogether  blinded  by  the  sweat 
of  their  labour,  holding  that  the  '  Sonnets,  aestheti- 
cally considered,  have  been  over-estimated  '  (Shake- 
speare, Commentary,  452).  He  writes  much  of 
Shakespeare's  supposed  relation  to  Southampton ; 
but  '  for  the  elegancy,  facility,  and  golden  cadence 
of  poetry,  careV  Yet  we  know  from  Meres  and 
others  that  Shakespeare  impressed  his  contem- 
poraries, during  a  great  part  of  his  hfe,  not  only  as 
the  greatest  living  dramatist,  but  also  as  a  lyrical 
poet  of  the  first  rank.  Thus  in  1598  Richard  Bame- 
field,  after  praising  Spenser,  Daniel,  and  Drayton :  — ^ 

*  And  Shakespeare  thou,  whose  hony- flowing  Vaine 
(Pleasing  the  World)  thy  Praises  doth  obtaine. 


^  '  A  Remembrance  of  some  English  Poets :   Poems  in  Divers  Humors,* 
printed  with  separate  title-page  at  the  end  of  '  The  Encomion  of  Lady 


244       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

Whose  Venus  and  whose  Lucrece,  (sweet,  and  chaste) 
Thy  Name  in  fame's  immortall  Booke  have  plac't 
Live  ever  you,  at  least  in  Fame  live  ever  : 
Well  may  the  Body  dye,  but  Fame  dies  never '  : 

and  thus  John  Weever  in  1599  (Epigrammes  in  the 
Oldest  Cut  and  Newest  Fashion) : — ■* 

'  Honie-tong'd  Shakespeare,  when  I  saw  thine  issue, 

I  swore  Apollo  got  them  and  none  other. 
Their  rosie-tainted  features  cloth'd  in  tissue, 

Some  heaven-bom  goddesse  said  to  be  their  mother  ; 
Rose-checkt  Adonis  with  his  amber  tresses, 

Fair  fire-hot  Venus  charming  him  to  love  her, 
Chaste  Lucretia,  virgine-like  her  dresses, 

Prowd  lust-stung  Tarquine  seeking  still  to  prove  her.  .  .  .' 

Now,  these  tributes  were  paid  at  a  time  when 
lyrical  poetry  was  the  delight  of  all  who  could  read 
English.  In  one  year  (1600)  three  famous  antholo- 
gies were  pubHshed — England's  Helicon,  that  is, 
England's  Parnassus,  and  Belvedere,  or  the  Garden  of 
the  Muses  ;  and,  something  more  than  a  year  later, 
the  author  of  the  Returne  from  Parnassus  writes  this 
of  Shakespeare,  when  he  reaches  him  in  his  review 
of  the  poets  whose  l3rrics  were  laid  imder  contribu- 
tion for  the  Belvedere  : — 

Ingenioso.  William  Shakespeare. 

JuDicio.  Who  loves  Adonis'  love,  or  Lucre's  rape. 

His  sweeter  verse  containes  hart  robbing  life, 
Could  but  a  graver  subject  him  content, 
Without  loves  foolish  languishment. 

Discoimting  somewhat  from  the  academical  asperity 
of  his  judgment,  you  find  Shakespeare  still  regarded 
well  into  the  seventeenth  century  ^  as  a  love  poet 
whose  siren  voice  could  steal  men's  hearts. 

Pecuniae  1698.     Michael  Drayton  in  his  Matilda,  1594-1596,  after  referring 
to  Daniel's  Rosamond,  refers  to  Shakespeare's  Lucrece.    It  is  interesting  to 
note  that  the  reference  is  cut  out  of  all  subsequent  editions. 
1  Dated  by  Arber. 


THE  POEMS  OE  SHAKESPEARE       245 

In  gauging  the  aesthetic  value  of  a  work  of  art 
we  cannot  always  tell  '  how  it  strikes  a  contem- 
porary ' ;  and,  even  when  we  can,  it  is  often  idle 
to  consider  the  effect  beside  maturer  judgments. 
But  when,  as  in  the  case  of  these  Poems,  later 
critics  have  scarce  so  much  as  concerned  themselves 
with  aesthetic  value,  we  may,  unless  we  are  to  ad- 
venture alone,  accept  a  reminder  of  the  artist's  in- 
tention from  the  men  who  knew  him,  who  approved 
his  purpose,  and  praised  his  success.  To  Francis 
Meres,  living  among  poets  who  worshipped  Beauty 
to  the  point  of  assigning  a  mystical  importance 
to  its  every  revelation  through  the  eye,  it  was 
enough  that  Shakespeare,  like  Ovid,  had  wrought 
an  expression  for  that  worship  out  of  the  sound  and 
the  cadence  of  words,  contriving  them  into  har- 
monies haxmted  by  such  unexplained  emotion  as 
the  soul  suffers  from  beautiful  sights.  We  need 
not  set  Meres  as  a  critic  beside,  say,  Hazlitt.  But 
when  Hazlitt  quarrels  with  the  Narrative  Poems 
because  they  are  not  realistic  dramas,  and  when 
Grervinus  takes  the  Sonnets  for  an  attempt  at 
autobiography,  baulked  only  by  the  inherent  diffi- 
culty of  the  Sonnet  form,  it  may  be  profitable 
to  reconsider  the  view  of  even  the  euphuist  Meres. 
Still,  none  can  be  asked  to  accept  that  view  without 
some  warning  of  the  risk  he  runs.  To  maintain, 
with  Meres,  that  Shakespeare's  Poems,  including  the 
Sonnets,  are  in  the  first  place  lyrical  and  elegiac, 
is  to  court  a  hailstorm  of  handy  missiles.  Hazlitt 
— ^who,  to  be  sure,  would  none  of  Herrick — de- 
nounced the  Narrative  Poems  for  '  ice-houses '  ; 
and  Coleridge's  ingenious  defence — that  their  wealth 
of  picturesque  imagery  was  Shakespeare's  sub- 
stitute for  dramatic  gesture — is  almost  as  damaging 


246       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

as  Hazlitt's  attack.  The  one  states,  the  other  im- 
plies, that  they  were  awkward  attempts  at  Drama, 
mere  essays  at  the  form  in  which  the  author  was 
afterwards  to  find  his  vocation.  And  when  we 
come  to  the  Sonnets,  the  view  pf  Meres,  and  of 
all  who  agree  with  Meres,  draws  a  hotter  fire :  not 
only  from  those  who  push  the  personal  theory  to 
its  extreme  conclusion,  treating  the  Sonnets  as 
private  letters  written  to  assuage  emotion  with 
scarce  a  thought  for  art,  but  also  from  those  who 
vigorously  deny  that  any  Sonnet  can  be  Ijn^ical.  Yet 
the  hazard  must  be  faced ;  for  the  Venus,  the  Lucrece, 
and  the  Sonnets  are,  each  one,  in  the  first  place 
Ijrrical  and  elegiac.  They  are  concerned  chiefly 
with  the  dehght  and  the  pathos  of  Beauty,  and  they 
reflect  this  inspiration  in  their  forms  :  all  else  in 
them,  whether  of  personal  experience  or  contem- 
porary art,  being  mere  raw  material  and  conven- 
tional trick,  exactly  as  important  to  these  works 
of  Shakespeare  as  the  existence  of  quarries  at 
Carrara  and  the  inspiration  from  antique  marbles 
newly  discovered  were  to  the  works  of  Michel- 
angelo. It  is  easy  to  gauge  the  relative  importance 
in  Shakespeare's  work  between  his  achievement 
as  an  artist  and  his  chances  as  a  man.  For  the 
relative  importance  is  measured  by  the  chasm 
which  sunders  his  work  from  the  work  of  contem- 
poraries labouring  under  Hke  conditions ;  and  if  his 
Sonnets  have  little  in  common  with  Constable's,  his 
narrative  verse  has  still  less  in  common  with  (say) 
Marston's  Pygmalion, 

Unless  this  view  be  admitted  there  is  no  excuse 
for  linking  the  Narrative  Poems  with  the  Sonnets : 
we  can  take  down  the  Plays,  or  study,  instead  of 
the  Sonnets,  such  conclusions  upon  Shakespeare's 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       247 

passionate  experience  as  the  commentator  has  been 
able  to  draw.  And  many  of  us  do  this,  yielding 
to  the  bias  of  criticism  deflected  from  its  proper 
office  by  pre-occupation  with  matters  outside  the 
mood  of  aesthetic  delight.  But  the  mistake  is  ours, 
and  the  loss,  which  also  is  ours,  is  very  great.  The 
nature  of  it  may  be  illustrated  from  that  which 
comes  upon  the  many  who  shrink  from  reading  the 
earhest  of  Shakespeare's  Plays,  or  read  it  only  in 
search  of  arguments  against  his  authorship.  Start- 
ing from  the  improbable  conjecture,  that  the  char- 
acter of  an  author  may  be  guessed  from  the  incidents 
he  chooses  to  handle,  critics  have  either  alluded  to 
Titus  Andronicus  with  an  apology,  or  have  denied 
it  to  be  Shakespeare's.^  But,  read  without  preju- 
dice or  without  anxiety  to  prove  that  Shakespeare 
could  not  have  chosen  the  theme  of  Mutilation 
for  the  spring  of  unspeakable  pathos,  the  play  in 
no  wise  '  reeks  of  blood,'  but,  on  the  contrary,  is 
sweet  with  the  fragrance  of  woods  and  fields,  is 
flooded  with  that  infinite  pity  whose  serene  foun- 
tains well  up  within  the  walls  of  an  hospital.  It  is 
true  that  Lavinia  suffers  a  worse  fate  than  Philomela 
in  Ovid's  tale ;  that  her  tongue  is  torn  out,  lest  it 
should  speak  her  wrong ;  that  her  hands  are  cut 
off,  lest  they  should  write  it.  But  mark  the  treat- 
ment of  these  worse  than  brutalities.  Thus  speaks 
Marcus  of  her  hands  (ii.  4)  : — 

'  Those  sweet  ornaments, 
Whose  circling  shadows  Kings  have  sought  to  sleep  in, 
And  might  not  gain  so  great  a  happiness 
As  have  thy  love.' 


1  Dowden,  Shakespeare,  His  Mind  and  Art,  pp.  54,  55.  Gerald  Massey, 
Shakespeare's  Sonnets  and  His  Private  Friends,  p.  851.  Halliwell-Phillipps, 
Outlines,  i.  79. 


248       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

And  again  : — 

'  O,  had  the  monster  seen  those  hly  hands 
Tremble,  like  aspen-leaves,  upon  a  lute, 
And  make  the  silken  strings  delight  to  kiss  them, 
He  would  not  then  have  touched  them  for  his  life  ! ' 

And  of  her  tongue  (iii.  1) : — 

'  0,  that  delightful  engine  of  her  thoughts, 
That  blabb'd  them  with  such  pleasing  eloquence, 
Is  torn  from  forth  its  pretty  hollow  cage 
Where,  hke  a  sweet  melodious  bird,  it  sung 
Sweet  varied  notes,  enchanting  every  ear.' 

Who  can  listen  to  these  lines  or  to  those  which  tell 
how 

'  Fresh  tears 
Stood  on  her  cheeks,  as  doth  the  honey-dew 
Upon  a  gather'd  lily  almost  wither'd,' 

and  yet  conclude  that  '  if  any  portions  of  the  Play 
be  from  his  hand,  it  shows  that  there  was  a  period 
in  Shakespeare's  authorship  when  the  Poet  had  not 
yet  discovered  himseK '  ?  In  the  same  scene,  hark 
to  the  desolate  family  : — 

'  Behold  our  cheeks 
How  they  are  stain'd,  as  meadows  yet  not  dry 
With  miry  slime  left  on  them  by  a  flood  '  : — 

and  consider  that  daughter's  kiss  which  can  avail 
her  father  nothing  : — 

'  Alas,  poor  heart,  that  kiss  is  comfortless 
As  frozen  water  to  a  starved  snake.' 

These  passages  are  stamped  with  the  plain  sign- 
manual  of  Shakespeare  :  not  the  creator  who,  living 
in  the  world,  fashioned  Hamlet  and  Ealstaff  and 
Lady  Macbeth,  but  the  lyrical  poet,  bred  in  Arden 
Forest,  who  wrote  Romeo  and  Juliet  and  Love's 
Labour '^s  Lost,  the  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  and 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       249 

the  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  the  Venus  and  the 
Lucrece,  and  the  Sonnets.  They  are  of  that  sweet 
and  liquid  utterance,  which  conveys  long  trains  of 
images  caught  so  freshly  from  Nature  that,  hke  larks 
in  cages,  they  seem  still  to  belong  to  the  fields 
and  sky. 

Our  loss  is  great  indeed  if  an  impertinent  soHcitude 
for  Shakespeare's  morals,  an  officious  care  for  his 
reputation  as  a  creator  of  character,  lead  us  to  pass 
over  Titus  Andronicus,  or  to  lend,  in  the  other  early 
plays,  a  haK-reluctant  ear  to  his  '  enchanting  song  ' 
and  his  succession  of  gracious  images.  But  that 
loss,  great  as  it  is  in  the  Plays,  is  greater  and  more 
gratuitous  in  the  Poems,  which  belong  to  the  same 
phase  of  his  genius,  and  yield  it  a  more  legitimate 
expression.  The  liquid  utterance  by  every  character 
of  such  lovely  imagery  as  only  a  poet  can  see  and 
seize  may  be,  and  is  most  often,  out  of  place  in  a 
drama :  since  it  delays  the  action,  falsifies  the 
portraiture,  and  carries  the  audience  from  the  scene 
back  to  the  Plajrwright's  boyhood  in  the  Warwick- 
shire glades.  But  in  a  poem  it  is  the  true,  the  direct, 
the  inevitable  revelation  of  the  artist's  own  delight 
in  Beauty.  And  it  is  too  much  to  ask  of  those  who 
drink  in  this  melody  without  remorse  from  the  Plays, 
that  they  shall  sacrifice  the  Poems  also  to  the  fetish 
of  characterisation,  or  shall  mar  their  enjoyment  of 
the  Sonnets  with  vain  guesses  at  a  moral  problem, 
whose  terms  no  man  has  been  able  to  state.  Let 
those,  who  care  for  characterisation  only,  avoid 
the  Poems  and  stick  to  the  Plays  :  even  as  they 
neglect  Chaucer's  Troilus  for  his  Prologue  to  The 
Canterbury  Tales,  Each  must  satisfy  his  own  taste  ; 
but,  if  there  be  any  that  dwell  overfondly  (as  it  seems 
to  others)  on  the  sweetness  of  Shakespeare's  earlier 


250       THE  POEMS  OP  SHAKESPEARE 

verse,  let  them  remember  that  he  too  dwelt  with  a 
like  fondness  on  Chaucer's  long  lyric  of  romantic  love. 
The  Troilus  must  certainly  have  been  a  part  of 
Shakespeare's  hfe,  else  he  could  never  have  written 
the  opening  to  the  Fifth  Act  oi  his  Merchant  of 
Venice : — 

'  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  Troyan  walls 
And  sigh'd  his  soul  toward  the  Grecian  tents 
Where  Cressid  lay  that  night.' 

He  had  stood  with  the  love-sick  Prince  through  that 
passionate  vigil  on  the  wall,  and  had  felt  the  sweet 
wind  '  increasing  in  his  face.'  And  if  Shakespeare, 
'  qui  apres  Dieu  crea  le  plus,'  found  no  cause  in  the 
Prologue  for  sUghting  the  Troilus,  surely  we,  who  have 
created  nothing,  may  frankly  enjoy  his  Poems  with- 
out disloyalty  to  his  Plays  ? 

Of  course,  to  the  making  of  these  Poems,  as  to  the 
making  of  every  work  of  art,  there  went  something  of 
the  author's  personal  experience,  something  of  the 
manner  of  his  country  and  his  time ;  and  these 
elements  may  be  studied  by  a  lover  of  Poetry.  Yet 
only  that  he  may  better  appreciate  the  amount 
superadded  by  the  Poet.  The  impression  which  the 
artist  makes  on  his  material,  in  virtue  of  his  inspira- 
tion from  Beauty,  and  of  his  faculty  acquired  in  the 
strenuous  service  of  Art,  must  be  the  sole  object  and 
reward  of  artistic  investigation.  For  the  student  of 
history  and  the  lover  of  art  are  bound  on  diverse 
quests.  The  first  may  smelt  the  work  of  art  in  his 
crucible,  together  with  other  products  of  contem- 
porary custom  and  morality,  in  order  to  extract  the 
ore  of  historic  truth.     But  for  the  second  to  shatter 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       251 

the  finished  creations  of  art  in  order  to  show  what 
base  material  they  are  made  of — surely  this  argues 
a  most  grotesque  inversion  of  his  regard  for  means 
and  end  ?  To  ransack  Renaissance  literature  for 
parallels  to  Shakespeare's  verse  is  to  discover,  not 
Shakespeare's  art  but,  the  common  measure  of  poetry 
in  Shakespeare's  day ;  to  grope  in  his  Sonnets  for 
hints  on  his  personal  suffering  is  but  to  find  that  he 
too  was  a  man,  bom  into  a  world  of  confusion  and 
fatigue.  It  is  not,  then,  his  likeness  as  a  man  to  other 
men,  but  his  distinction  from  them  as  an  artist, 
which  concerns  the  lover  of  art.  And  in  his  Poems 
we  find  that  distinction  to  be  this  :  that  through  all 
the  vapid  enervation  and  the  vicious  excitement  of 
a  career  which  drove  some  immediate  forerunners 
down  most  squalid  roads  to  death,  he  saw  the  beauty 
of  this  world  both  in  the  pageant  of  the  year  and  in 
the  passion  of  his  heart,  and  found  for  its  expression 
the  sweetest  song  that  has  ever  triumphed  and  wailed 
over  the  glory  of  loveliness  and  the  anguish  of  decay. 


II 

To  measure  the  amount  in  these  Poems  which  is 
due  to  Shakespeare's  art,  let  us  consider  the  environ- 
ment and  accidents  of  his  fife,  and  then  subtract  so 
much  as  may  be  due  to  these.  He  was  born  ^  at 
the  very  heart  of  this  island  in  Stratford-on-Avon, 
a  town  in  the  ancient  Kingdom  of  Mercia — the 
Kingdom  of  the  Marches — whose  place-names  still 
attest  the  close  and  full  comminghng  of  Angle  with 

^  Among  many  sources  of  information  let  me  acknowledge  my  special 
indebtedness  to  Professor  Dowden,  Mr.  Robert  BeU,  and  above  all,  the  late 
Thomas  Spencer  Baynes.  {Shakespeare  Studies.  Longmans,  Green  and 
Co.,  1894.) 


252       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

Celt.i  And  he  was  bom— April  22nd,  or  23rd,  1564— 
full  eighty  years  after  Bosworth  Field,  by  closing  the 
Middle  Age,  had  opened  a  period  of  national  union  at 
home,  and  had  made  room  and  time  for  a  crowd  of 
literary  and  artistic  influences  from  abroad.  He 
was,  therefore,  an  EngUshman  in  the  wider  exten- 
sion of  that  inadequate  term ;  and  he  lived  when 
every  insular  characteristic  flared  up  in  response  to 
stimulants  from  the  Renaissance  over-sea.  For 
nationaUty  is  not  fostered  by  seclusion,  but  dwindles, 
like  a  flre,  unless  it  be  fed  with  aUen  food.  By 
parentage  he  was  heir  to  the  virtues  and  tradi- 
tions of  diverse  classes.  His  mother,  Mary  Arden, 
daughter  of  a  small  proprietor  and  '  gentleman  of 
worship,'  could  claim  descent  from  noble  stocks, 
and  that  in  an  age  when  good  blood  argued  a  tradi- 
tion of  courtesy  among  its  inheritors  as  yet  unprized 
by  other  ranks.  But,  though  something  of  Shake- 
speare's gentleness  and  serenity  may  be  traced  to 
his  mother's  disposition,  it  is — ^with  Shakespeare  as 
with  Dickens  ^ — the  father,  John,  who  strikes  us 
the  more  sharply,  with  the  quainter  charm  of  a 
whimsical  temperament.  John  was  the  eldest  son 
of  Richard,  tenant  of  a  forest  farm  at  Snitterfield, 
owned  by  Robert  Arden  of  Wilmcote,  the  aforesaid 
'  gentleman  of  worship.'  But  John  had  a  dash  of 
the  adventurer,  and  dreamed  of  raising  the  family 
fortunes  to  a  dignity  whence  they  had  declined.^  So 
he  left  the  Httle  farm  behind  him  in  1551,  and,  shift- 
ing his  base  of  operations  some  three  or  four  miles  to 

^  Of.  the  Rev.  Stopford  Brooke's  History  of  Early  English  Literature^ 
and  T.  S.  Baynes,  who  quotes  J.  R.  Green  and  Matthew  Arnold. 

*  The  parallel  was  noted  first — but  only  in  talk — by  the  late  R.  L. 
Stevenson.  He  was  keenly  aUve  (I  am  told)  to  its  possibiUties,  which, 
indeed,  are  encouraging  enough. 

^  GriflBn  Genealogy.     IHmes,  October  14,  1895. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       253 

Stratford,  he  there  embarked  his  capital  of  hope  in  a 
number  of  varied  enterprises :  ^  with  such  success, 
that  in  six  years  he  could  pretend  to  the  hand  of 
Mary  Arden,  the  heiress  of  his  father's  landlord. 
Like  Micawber,  he  counted  on  '  something  turning 
up  '  in  a  market  town  ;  and,  although  his  career  was 
marked  from  the  very  outset  by  a  happy-go-lucky 
incuriousness,^  at  first  he  was  not  disappointed.  He 
becomes  a  burgess,  or  town-councillor,  probably  at 
Michaelmas  1557,  High  Bailiff  m  1568,  Chief  Alder- 
man in  1571  ;  purchasing  house  property,  and  mak- 
ing frequent  donations  to  the  poor.  His  high  heart 
and  his  easy  good-nature  won  him  wealth  and 
friends  ;  but  they  landed  him  at  last  in  a  labyrinth 
of  legal  embarrassments,  so  that  the  family  history 
becomes  a  record  of  processes  for  debt,  of  mortgages 
and  sales  of  reversionary  interests.  In  1578  he 
obtains  relief  from  one-haK  of  the  aldermanic  con- 
tribution to  miUtary  equipment ;  and,  again,  he  is 
altogether  excused  a  weekly  contribution  of  four- 
pence  to  the  poor.  In  the  same  year  he  mort- 
gages his  estate  of  the  Asbies  for  forty  pounds, 
and  his  sureties  are  sued  by  a  baker  for  his  debt 
of  five  pounds.  In  1579  he  sells  his  interest  in 
two  messuages  at  Snitterfield  for  four  pounds.  In 
1586  his  name  is  removed  from  the  roll  of  Aldermen 
because  he  '  doth  not  come  to  the  halles  when  they 
are  warned,  nor  hath  done  for  a  long  time.'  And 
in  1592  his  affairs  have  sunk  to  so  low  an  ebb  that 

^  He  is  described  in  the  register  of  the  Bailiff's  Court  for  1666  as  a 
'  glover,'  but  according  to  tradition  he  was  also  a  butcher,  wool-stapler, 
corn-dealer,  and  timber-merchant. 

2  He  was  fined  in  1652  for  not  removing  the  household  refuse  which  had 
accumulated  in  front  of  his  house,  and  in  1558  for  hot  keeping  his  gutter 
clean.  Some  argue,  but  not  very  plausibly,  that  every  record  or  tradition 
which  they  hold  derogatory  to  Shakespeare  or  his  father,  is  to  be  referred 
to  others  of  the  same  name. 


254       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

^—curiously  enough — with  Fluellen  and  Bardolph 
for  companions  in  misfortune,  he  '  comes  not  to 
church  for  fear  of  process  for  debt.'  ^  Yet  poverty 
and  sorrow  neither  tamed  his  ambition  nor  sealed 
up  his  springs  of  sentiment.  Through  the  lean  years 
he  persists  in  appealing  to  the  Heralds'  College  for  a 

^  Some  have  held  this  plea  a  pretext  to  cover  recusancy :  and,  from 
Malone  downwards,  the  best  authorities  have  conjectured  in  John  Shake- 
speare one  of  the  many  who  at  that  time  had  no  certitude  of,  perhaps 
no  wish  for,  a  definite  break  and  a  new  departure  in  religion.  The  Rev. 
T.  Carter  has  argued  {Sliakespeare,  Puritan  and  Recusant,  1897),  that 
John  Shakespeare  aifid  WiUiam,  were  Puritans.  Such  conscription  of  the 
dead  to  the  standards  of  reUgious  factions  may  well  seem  unnecessary  in 
any  case.  Applied  to  the  Poet  of  All  Time,  it  is  repugnant  and  absurd. 
As  to  John,  iltc.  Carter's  contention  is  found  to  rest  on  certain  entries  in 
the  municipal  accounts  of  Stratford-on-Avon.  These  show  that  images 
were  defaced  by  order  of  the  Town  Council  in  the  year  1662-3,  and  that 
Vestments  were  sold  in  1671.  Now,  John  Shakespeare  filled  a  small  office 
during  the  first,  and  the  important  post  of  Chief  Alderman  during  the 
second,  of  these  two  years.  In  order  to  gauge  how  nearly  such  transactions 
may  point  to  every  member  of  the  Town  Council,  who  did  not  repudiate 
them,  having  been  a  Puritan,  it  is  necessary  to  consider  the  attitude  of 
most  EngHshmen  towards  questions  of  ritual  at  that  time.  According  to 
Green  and  other  received  authorities  it  was  an  attitude  of  uncertainty. 
'  To  modern  eyes,'  Green  writes  {History  of  the  English  People,  ii.  308), '  the 
Church  under  Elizabeth  would  seem  little  better  than  a  religious  chaos.' 
After  ten  years  of  her  rule  *  the  bulk  of  EngUshmen  were  found  to  be 
"  utterly  devoid  of  reHgion,"  and  came  to  church  "  as  to  a  May  game."  '  It 
is  therefore  difficult  or,  as  I  hold,  impossible  to  determine  from  the  action 
of  individuals  upon  questions  of  ritual,  and  still  more  so  from  their  in- 
action, whether  they  were  Puritans,  loyal  supporters  of  the  last  new  State 
Religion,  or  Church-Papists,  viz. : — ^those  who  conformed  in  public  and 
heard  mass  at  home.  But  apart  from  such  points,  which  can  hardly 
be  determined,  Mr.  Carter  puts  himself  out  of  court  on  two  broad  issues. 
(1)  He  makes  John  a  Puritan,  and  chronicles  his  appHcation  for  coat- 
armour  (p.  177)  without  comment.  Contrast  '  Lenvoy  to  the  Author '  by 
Garter  Principall  King  of  Armes,  prefixed  to  GuiUim's  Display  ofHeraldrie, 
1610  :— 

*  Peevish  Preciseness,  loves  no  Heraldry, 
Crosses  in  Armes,  they  hold  Idolatry.  .  .  . 

Shortly  no  difference  twixt  the  Lord  and  Page. 

Hoiumrs,  Recusants '  {i.e.  puritan  recusants)  '  dae  so  multiply. 
As  Armes,  the  Ensignes  of  NobiUty, 
Must  be  laid  doume  ;  they  are  too  glorious 
Plaine  idle  shewes,  and  superstitious  : 

Plebeian  basenesse  doth  them  so  esteeme. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       255 

grant  of  arms ;  ^  and  in  1579,  being  reduced  to  the 
straitest  expedients,  he  still  pays  an  excessive  sum 
for  the  bell  at  his  daughter's  fimeral.  It  was  not 
altogether  from  Shakespeare's  own  experience,  but 
also,  we  may  think,  from  boyish  memories  of  this 
kindly  and  engaging  Micawber  that  he  was  after- 
wards to  draw  his  unmatched  pictures  of  thriftless 
joviahty.  From  him,  also,  Shakespeare  may  well 
have  derived  his  curious  knowledge  of  legal  procedure 
and  of  the  science  of  heraldry,  for  his  father  contested 
some  sixty  lawsuits,  and  applied,  at  least  three  times, 
for  coat-armour.     But  the  father,  if  he  squandered 

"  Degrees  in  hlovd,  the  steps  of  pride  and  scorne, 

All  Adam's  children,  none  are  Gentle  home  : 
Degrees  of  state,  titles  of  Ceremony  :  " 
Brethren  in  Christ,  greatnesse  is  tyranny : 
0  impure  Purity  that  so  doth  deeme  1 ' 

and  Gnillim's  own  opinion  : — '  the  swans  purity  is  too  Puritanicall,  in  that 
his  f eatters  and  outward  appearance  he  is  all  white,  but  inwardly  his  body 
and  flesh  is  very  blacke.'  (2)  He  omits  the  introduction  of  stage  plays 
into  Stratford  under  John  Shakespeare's  auspices,  and  asserts  (p.  189) 
that  '  Puritans  of  the  days  of  EHzabeth  had  not  the  abhorrence  of  the 
stage  which  the  corruptions  of  Charles  n.'s  reign  called  forth.'  I3t  me 
quote  the  Corporation  of  London  in  1575 : — '  To  play  in  plague-time 
increases  the  plague  by  infection :  to  play  out  of  plague- time  calls  down 
the  plague  from  God  '  (Fleay,  History  of  the  Stage,  p.  47) : — ^and  WilHam 
Habington,  a  devout  CathoHc,  writing  in  1634,  when  Prynne  had  just 
lost  his  ears  for  attacking  Players  in  Histrio-mastix  : — 

'  Of  this  wine  should  Prynne 
Drinke  but  a  plenteous  glasse,  he  would  beginne 
A  health  to  Shakespeare's  ghost.' 

Castara,  Part  ii.,  To  a  Friend. 

Mr.  Carter's  attempt  to  incarcerate  Shakespeare  in  the  '  prison-house  of 
Puritanism  '  rests  on  too  slender  a  basis  to  stand  unless  buttressed  by  new, 
and  not  very  convincing,  accounts  of  the  principal  movements  and  char- 
acters of  the  time.  For  example,  he  makes  James  i.  a  hero  of  Puritanism, 
in  the  face  of  his  declarations : — '  A  Scottish  Presbytery  as  well  fitteth 
with  Monarchy  as  God  and  the  Devil,'  and  his  threat  against  the  Puritans  : 
— *  I  will  make  them  conform,  or  I  will  harry  them  out  of  the  land  ! ' 

^  Conceded  in  1596  and  extended  in  1599.  Some  dispute  this.  But 
the  arms  of  1596  appear  on  Shakespeare's  monument.  Cf.  the  drafts  of 
Grants  of  Coat- Armour  proposed  to  be  conferred  on  John  Shakespeare, 
from  original  MSS.  preserved  at  the  College  of  Arms.  (Halliwell-Phillipps, 
Outlines,  ii.  pp.  56,  61.) 


256       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

his  inheritance,  left  him  an  early  love  and  under- 
standing of  the  stage.  '  The  best  companies  in  the 
Kingdom  constantly  visited  Stratford  during  the 
decade  of  Shakespeare's  active  youth  from  1573  to 
1584  '  ^  :  thanks,  I  cannot  but  think,  to  the  taste  and 
instigation  of  Shakespeare's  sire ;  for  we  first  hear 
of  stage  plays  during  the  year  in  which  he  was  High 
BaiUff,  or  Mayor,  and  we  know  that,  during  his 
year  of  ofl&ce,  he  introduced  divers  companies  to  the 
town,  and,  doubtless,  in  accordance  with  custom, 
inaugurated  their  performances  in  the  Guild-haU. 

From  the  known  facts  of  John  Shakespeare's  ex- 
traction and  career  we  may  infer  the  incidents  of  his 
son's  boyhood :  the  visits  to  the  old  home  at  high 
seasons  of  harvest  and  sheep-shearing;  the  sports 
afield  with  his  mother's  relations  ;  the  convivial 
gatherings  of  his  father's  cronies  ;  and  certain  days 
of  awe-struck  enchantment  when  the  Guild-haU  re- 
sounded to  the  tread  and  declamation  of  Players. 
But  in  the  first  years  all  these  were  incidental  to  the 
regular  curriculum  of  Stratford  Grammar-School — 
still  to  be  seen  in  the  same  building  over  the  Hall. 
Fortunately  we  know  what  that  curriculum  was, 
and  a  bound  is  set  to  speculation  on  the  nature  and 
extent  of  the  schooling  Shakespeare  had.  From  the 
testimony  of  two  forgotten  books, ^  Mr.  Baynes  has 
pieced  together  the  method  of  teaching  in  use  at 
grammar-schools  during  the  years  of  Shakespeare's 
pupilage  ;  and  his  theory  is  amply  and  minutely  con- 

1  Baynes,  p.  67. 

2  John  Brinsley's  Ludus  literarius,  or  Grammar  Schoole,  1612  (Brinsley 
was  master  of  the  Ashby-de-la-Zouche  Grammar-School  for  16  years),  and 
Charles  Hoole's  A  New  Discovery  of  the  old  Art  of  Teaching  Schoole,  etc. 
This  book,  though  of  later  date — ^Hoole  was  bom  in  1610 — has  its  own 
interest ;  since  the  author  was  head-master  of  a  school  at  Rotherham 
closely  resembling  the  Stratford  School  in  '  its  history  and  general  features.' 
— (Baynes.) 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       257 

firmed  by  many  passages  in  the  Plays.  ^  Shakespeare 
went  to  school  at  seven,  and,  after  grinding  at  Lily's 
Grammar,  enjoyed  such  conversation  in  Latin  with 
his  instructors  as  the  Ollendorfs  of  the  period  could 
provide.  The  scope  and  charm  of  these  'Confabu- 
lationes  pueriles'  may  be  guessed  from  his  sketch 
in  Love's  Labour 's  Lost : — 

Sm  Nathaniel.  '  Laus  Deo,  bone  intelligo.' 
HoLOPHEBNES.  '  Bone  !    bone  for  bene.     Priscian  a  little 

scratched ;  'twill  serve.' 
Sir  Nathaniel.  '  Videsne  quis  venit  ?  ' 
HoLOPHEBNES.  '  Video  et  gaudeo.'  ^ 

And  from  Holophemes  his  '  Fauste  precor.  Old 
Mantuan,  old  Mantuan  !  who  understandeth  thee 
not,  loves  thee  not,'  we  may  infer  that  the  pupil  did 
not  share  the  pedagogic  admiration  for  the  Eclogues 
of  the  monk,  Mantuanus.^ 

But  when,  with  ^^Esop's  fables,  these  in  their 
turn  had  been  mastered,  the  boy  of  twelve  and 
upwards  was  given  his  fill  of  Ovid,  something  less 
of  Cicero,  Virgil,  Terence,  Horace,  and  Plautus, 
and,  perhaps,  a  modicum  of  Juvenal,  Persius,  and 
Seneca's  tragedies ;  and  of  these  it  is  manifest,  from 

1  Baynes,  Shakespeare's  Studies,  pp.  147-249  :  '  What  Shakespeare  Learnt 
at  SchooV 

2  I  preserve  Theobald's  emendation.  In  one  of  the  manuals, '  Familiares 
Colloquendi  Formulae  in  usum  Scholarum  coTicinnatae,'  Mr.  Baynes  has 
found,  '  Who  comes  to  meet  us  ?  Quis  dbviam  venit  ?  He  speaks  false 
Latin,  Diminuit  Prisciani  caput;  'Tis  barbarous  Latin,  Olet  harbariem.'' 
Cf.  Holofemes : — '  O,  I  smell  false  Latin,  '  dunghill '  for  unguem.' 

3  From  Michael  Drayton's  epistle  in  verse  to  Henry  Reynolds— 0/ 
Poets  and  Poesy — 1627,  we  gather  that  his  poetic  aspirations  survived  the 
same  youthful  ordeal : — 

'  For  from  my  cradle  (you  must  know  that)  I 
Was  still  inclined  to  noble  Poesie ; 
And  when  that  once  Pueriles  I  had  read, 
And  newly  had  my  Cato  construed.  .  .  . 
And  first  read  to  me  honest  Mantuan' 


258       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

the  Poems  and  the  early  Plays/  that  Ovid  left  by 
far  the  most  profound  impression  in  Shakespeare's 
mind.  But  his  studies  were  cut  short.  At  four- 
teen 2  he  was  taken  from  school,  doubtless  to  assist 
his  father  amid  increasing  difficulties,  and  we  have 
a  crop  of  legends  suggesting  the  various  callings  in 
which  he  may  have  laboured  to  that  end.^  None 
of  these  legends  can  be  proved,  but  none  is  impossible 
in  view  of  his  father's  taste  for  general  dealing  and 
of  the  random  guidance  he  is  hkely  to  have  given  his 
son.  After  four  and  a  half  years  of  such  hand-to- 
mouth  endeavour,  sweetened,  we  may  guess,  by 
many  a  hoHday  in  the  forest  and  dereHct  deer-park 
at  Fulbrook,^  Shakespeare,  in  December  1582,  being 
yet  a  lad  of  eighteen,  married  Anne  Hathaway,  his 
senior  by  eight  years,  daughter  to  the  tenant  of 
Shottery  Farm.  This  marriage  may,  or  may  not, 
have  been  preceded  in  the  summer  by  a  betrothal 
of  legal  validity :  ^  his  eldest  child,  Susannah,  was 
bom  in  May  1583.  But  in  either  case  the  adventure 
was  of  that  romantic  order  which  is  justified  by 
success  alone,  and  such  success  must  have  seemed 
doubtful  when  twins  were  born  in  February  1585. 
About  this  period  of  youth,  '  when  the  blood  's  lava 
and  the  pulse  a  blaze,'  may  be  grouped  the  legends  of 
the  drinking-match  between  rival  villages  at  Bidford, 
and  of  the  deer-slaying  resented  by  Sir  Thomas  Lucy. 

^  Of.  in  particular  Lovers  Labour  '5  Lost  and  Titus  Andronicus. 

2  Rowe,  1709. 

^  Rowe  makes  him  a  dealer  in  wool,  on  the  authority  of  information 
collected  by  Betterton ;  Aubrey  (before  1680)  a  school-master,  and  else- 
where a  journeyman  butcher,  which  is  corroborated  by  the  Parish  Clerk  of 
Stratford,  bom  1613.  To  Malone's  conjecture,  that  he  served  in  an 
Attorney's  office,  I  will  return. 

*  The  property  of  an  attainted  traitor,  *  sequestered,  though  not  ad- 
ministered by  the  Crown.' — ^Baynes,  as  above,  p.  80. 

^  Mr.  HaUiweU-PhUlipps  argues  that  it  was.  There  is  no  evidence 
either  way. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       259 

Mr.  Baynes  places  this  latter  exploit  at  Fulbrook ; 
and,  if  he  be  right,  Sir  Thomas's  interference  was 
unwarranted,  and  may  have  been  dictated  by  Pro- 
testant bigotry  against  Shakespeare  for  his  kinship 
with  the  Ardens  of  Parkhall,  who  stood  convicted 
of  a  plot  against  the  Queen's  life.^  We  know  httle 
of  these  years ;  but  we  know  enough  to  approve 
Shakespeare's  departure  in  search  of  fortune.  For 
at  Stratford,  frowned  on  by  the  mighty  and  weighed 
down  with  the  double  burden  of  a  thriftless  father 
and  his  own  tender  babes,  there  was  nothing  for  him 
but  starvation. 


Ill 

To  London,  then,  he  set  out  on  some  day  between 
the  opening  of  1585  and  the  autumn  of  1587,  looking 
back  on  a  few  years  of  lad's  experience  and  forward 
to  the  magical  unknown.  And  to  what  a  London  ! 
Perhaps  the  first  feature  that  struck  him,  re-awak- 
ing old  delights,  was  the  theatres  on  both  banks  of 
Thames.  It  may  even  be  that  he  rode  straight  to 
one  of  these  houses — (one  built  by  James  Burbage, 
himself  a  Stratford  man) — and  that,  claiming  the 
privilege  of  a  fellow-townsman,  he  enrolled  himself 
forthwith  in  the  company  of  the  Earl  of  Leicester's 
players.^  It  is  likelier  than  not ;  for  Burbage  can 
hardly  have  built,  not  this  later  structure  but,  the 
'  Theater,'  twenty  years  earher,  for  a  first  home  of 
the  drama  in  London,  without  receiving  the  con- 
gratulations, perhaps  the  advice,  of  Shakespeare's 

^  Certain  indications,  each  slight  in  itseK,  taken  together  point  to  some 
sympathy  on  Shakespeare's  part  with  the  older  faith.  The  Rev.  Richard 
Davies  in  notes  on  Shakespeare,  made  before  the  year  1708,  says  '  he  dyed 
a  Papist.' 

2  Baynes.  Fleay  holds  that  Shakespeare  joined  the  company  at 
Stratford  and  travelled  with  it  to  London. 


260       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

father,  in  those  old  prosperous  aldermanic  days, 
when  every  stroUing  company  might  claim  a  welcome 
from  the  Mayor  of  Stratford  ;  and  the  probabihty  is 
increased  by  the  presence  of  two  other  Stratford 
men,  Heminge  and  Greene,  in  the  same  company. 
In  Blackfriars,  also,  and  near  the  theatres,  stood 
the  shop  of  Thomas  VautrouiUier,  publisher,  and 
here  Shakespeare  found  another  acquaintance:  for 
Richard  Field  served  the  first  six  years  of  his 
apprenticeship  (1579-1585)  with  VautrouiUier,  and 
Richard  was  the  son  of  '  Henry  ffielde  of  Stratford 
uppon  Aven  in  the  countye  of  Warwick,  tanner,' 
whose  goods  and  chattels  had  once,  we  know,  been 
valued  by  the  Poet's  father  and  two  other  Strat- 
fordians.^  Now,  about  the  time  of  Shakespeare's 
advent  to  London,  Richard  Field  married  Jaklin,  the 
daughter  or  widow  ^  of  VautrouiUier,  and  succeeded 
to  the  emigre's  business.  The  closeness  of  the  con- 
nection is  confirmed  by  our  knowledge  that  Field 
printed  the  first  three  editions  of  Venus  (1593,  1594, 
1596)  and  the  first  Lucrece  (1594).  But  Field  also 
printed  Pu^tenham's  Arte  of  English  Poesie  (1589), 
and,  in  '  a  neat  brevier  ItaUc,'  fifteen  books  of  Ovid's 
Metamorphoses.  In  1595,  again,  he  printed  his  fine 
edition,  the  second,^  of  North's  Plutarch,  foUowing  it 
up  with  others  in  1603,  1607,  1612.  Without  com- 
panioning Mr.  WiUiam  Blades^  so  far  as  to  infer 
that  Shakespeare  worked  as  a  printer  with  Field,  we 

^  Diet.  Nat.  Biog.     Richard  Field.     Arber,  transcript,  ii.  93. 

2  In  1588  he  married,  says  Ames,  '  JaMin,  d.  of  Vautrollier'  {Typo- 
graphical Antiquities,  ed.  Herbert,  ii.  1252)  and  succeeded  him  in  his  house 
*  in  the  Black  Friers,  neer  Ludgate.'  Collier  quotes  the  marriage  register 
— R.  Field  to  Jacklin,  d.  of  VautriUiam  12  Jan.  1588.  It  is  stated,  how- 
ever, in  a  Ust  of  master-printers  included  in  the  '  Stationers'  Register ' 
(transcript,  iii.  702)  that  Field  married  VautrouiUier's  widow,  and  suc- 
ceeded him  in  1590. 

3  The  first  was  pubHshed  by  VautrouiUier  in  1679, 
*  Shakespere  and  Typography,  1877, 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       261 

cannot  miss  the  significance  of  his  friend's  having 
given  to  the  world  the  Latin  poem  which  left  so  deep 
an  impression  on  Shakespeare's  eariier  lyrical  verse, 
and  that  Enghsh  translation  from  Amy  of  s  Plutarch, 
out  of  which  he  quarried  the  material  of  his  Greek 
and  Roman  plays. 

When  Shakespeare  came  to  London,  then,  he  found 
in  Blackfriars  a  little  colony  of  his  fellow-townsmen 
caught  up  in  the  two  most  pronounced  intellectual 
movements  of  that  day :  the  new  Enghsh  Drama 
and  the  reproduction,  whether  in  the  original  or  in 
translation,  of  classical  masterpieces.  We  know 
nothing  directly  of  his  hfe  during  the  next  five  years. 
There  is  the  tradition  that  he  organised  shelter  and 
baiting  for  the  horses  of  the  young  gallants,  who 
daily  rode  down  to  the  Theatres  after  their  midday 
meal ;  and  there  is  the  tradition  that  he  paid  one 
visit  to  Stratford  every  year.^  Yet  it  is  easy  to 
conjecture  the  experience  of  a  youth  and  a  poet 
translated  from  Warwickshire  to  a  London  rocking 
and  roaring  with  Armada-patriotism  and  the  literary 
fervour  of  the  '  university  pens.'  All  the  talk  was 
of  sea-fights  and  new  editions :  Drake  and  Lyly, 
Raleigh  and  Lodge,  Greene  and  Marlowe  and 
Grenville  were  names  in  every  mouth.  The  play- 
houses were  the  centres,  and  certain  young  lords 
the  leaders,  of  a  confused  and  turbulent  movement 
appealing  with  a  myriad  voices  to  the  lust  of  the 
eye  and  the  pride  of  life.  In  pure  letters  Greene's 
3Ienaphon  (1589),  Lodge's  Rosalynd  ^  (1590),  were 
treading  on  the  heels  of  Lyly's  later  instalments  of 
Euphues  ;    and  Sidney's  Arcadia,^  long  known  in 

1  Aubrey  (before  1680). 

2  Where  Shakespeare  found  the  germ  of  As  You  Like  It 

3  Begun  1580,  pubUshed  1590. 


262       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

MS.,  was  at  last  in  every  hand.  The  first  three 
books  of  The  Faery  Queen  were  brought  over  from 
Ireland,  and  were  pubhshed  in  the  same  year. 
Poetry,  poetical  prose,  and,  for  the  last  sign  of  a 
Uterary  summer,  even  criticism  of ^  the  aim  and  art 
of  poetry — as  Webb's  Discourse  of  English  Poetrie 
(1586),  Puttenham's  Arte  of  English  Poesie  (1589), 
and  Sidney's  Apologie  for  Poetrie  ^ — aU  kept  pouring 
from  the  press.  But  the  Play  was  the  thing  that 
chiefly  engaged  the  ambition  of  poets,  and  took  the 
fancy  of  young  lords.  The  players,  to  avoid  the 
statute  which  penalised  their  profession,  were  en- 
rolled as  servants  of  noblemen,  and  this  led,  directly, 
to  relations,  founded  on  their  common  interest, 
between  the  patron  who  protected  a  company  and 
the  poet  who  wrote  for  it.  Indirectly  it  led  to  much 
freedom  of  access  between  nobles  who,  though  not 
themselves  patrons,  were  the  friends  or*  relatives  of 
others  that  were,  and  the  leading  dramatists  and 
players.  Noblemen  are  associated  with  Poets,  i.e. 
Playwnrights,  in  contemporary  satires.  In  Ben 
Jonson's  Poetaster,  for  example,  Cloe,  the  wife  of  a 
self-made  man,  asks,  as  she  sets  out  for  the  Court : 
'  And  will  the  Lords  and  the  Poets  there  use  one 
well  too,  lady  ? '  These  artistic  relations  often 
ripened  into  close  personal  friendships  :  Ben  Jonson, 
for  example,  left  his  wife  to  live  during  five  years  as 
the  guest  of  Lord  Aubigny ;  ^  and  Shakespeare's 
friendships  with  Southampton  and  William  Herbert 
are  so  fully  attested  as  to  preclude  the  omission  of 
all  reference  to  their  lives  from   any  attempt  at 

^  Not  published  till  1595,  but  written  perhaps  as  early  as  1581. 

2  Esme  Stewart,  Lord  Aubigny,  Duke  of  Lennox  (cf.  Jonson's  Epigrams, 
19,  and  the  dedication  of  Sejanus).  '  Five  years  he  had  not  bedded  with 
her,  but  had  remained  with  my  lord  Aulbany,'  Drummond's  Conversations, 
13,  quoted  by  Fleay. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       263 

reconstituting  the  life  of  Shakespeare.  Doubtless 
they  arose  in  the  manner  I  have  suggested.  In 
1599  ^  we  read  '  the  Lord  Southampton  and  Lord 
Rutland  came  not  to  the  Court ;  the  one  doth  very 
seldom  ;  they  pass  away  the  time  in  London,  merely 
in  going  to  plays  every  day '  ;  and  from  Baynard's 
Castle  to  the  Blackfriars  Theatre  was  but  a  step  for 
Pembroke's  son,  William  Herbert,  '  the  most  uni- 
versally beloved  and  esteemed  of  any  man  of  his 
age.'  ^  Shakespeare  wrote  to  Southampton  : — '  The 
love  I  dedicate  to  your  lordship  is  without  end '  ;  ^ 
and  we  know,  apart  from  any  inference  deduced  from 
the  Sonnets,  that  William  Herbert  also  befriended 
our  poet.  His  comrades  dedicated  the  Folio  (1623) 
after  his  death  to  William  Herbert  and  his  brother 
Phihp,  as  '  the  most  incomparable  paire  of  brethren,' 
in  memory  of  the  favour  with  which  they  had  '  pro- 
sequuted  '  both  the  Plays  '  and  their  Authour  living.' 
Shakespeare  was  the  friend  of  both  Southampton 
and  Herbert ;  and  in  his  imagination,  that  mirror 
of  all  life,  the  bright  flashes  and  the  dark  shadows 
of  their  careers  must  often  have  been  reflected. 


IV 

Southampton  was  scholar,  sailor,  soldier,  and  lover 
of  letters.^  Bom  in  1573,  he  graduated  at  sixteen  as 
a  Master  of  Arts  at  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge.^ 

1  Letter  from  Rowland  White  to  Sir  Robert  Sidney.  Rowe,  on  the 
authority  of  Sir  William  Davenant,  states  that  Southampton  once  gave 
Shakespeare  £1000.  The  story,  if  it  be  true,  probably  refers  to  an  in- 
vestment in  the  Blackfriars  Theatre. 

2  Clarendon.  ^  Dedication  of  Lucrece. 

*  *  Qui  in  primo  aetatis  flore  praesidio  bonarum  literarum  et  rei  mih- 
taris  scientia  nobiUtatem  communit,  ut  uberiores  fructus  maturiore  aetate 
patriae  et  principi  profundat.' — Camden's  Britannia,  8vo,  1600,  p.  240. 

^  Southampton  was  admitted  a  student  in  1585  (set.  12).  Note  that 
Tom  Nash,  who  in  after  years  '  tasted  the  full  spring '  of  Southampton's 


264       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

At  twenty-four  he  sailed  with  Essex  as  captain  of 
the  Garland,  and,  attacking  thirty-five  Spanish 
galleons  with  but  three  ships,  sank  one  and  scattered 
her  fellows.  And  for  his  gallantry  on  shore  in  the 
same  year  (1597),  he  was  knighte4  in  the  field  by 
Essex  before  Villa  Franca,  ere  'he  could  dry  the 
sweat  from  his  brows,  or  put  his  sword  up  in  the 
scabbard.'  ^  Now,  in  1598  Essex  was  already  out 
of  favour  with  the  Queen — she  had  been  provoked 
to  strike  him  at  a  meeting  of  the  Council  in  July ; 
but  he  was  popular  in  London,  and  had  come, 
oddly  enough,  to  be  looked  on  as  a  deliverer  by 
Papists  and  Puritans  both.  In  April  1599  he  sailed 
for  Ireland,  accompanied  by  Lord  Southampton  ; 
and  we  need  not  surmise,  for  we  know,  how  closely 
Shakespeare  followed  the  fortune  of  their  arms.  In 
London,  '  the  quick  forge  and  working-house  of 
thought,'  Shakespeare  weaves  into  the  chorus  to  the 
Fifth  Act  of  his  Henry  V.  a  prophetic  picture  of  their 
victorious  return : — 

'  Were  now  the  general  of  our  gracious  empress, 
As  in  good  time  he  may,  from  Ireland  coming, 
Bringing  rebellion  broached  on  his  sword, 
How  many  would  the  peaceful  city  quit 
To  welcome  him  ! ' 

The  play  was  produced  in  the  spring  of  that  year,  but 
its  prophecy  went  unfulfilled.  Essex  failed  where  so 
many  had  failed  before  him;  and,  being  censured 
by  the  Queen,  repHed  with  impertinent  complaints 
against  her  favours  to  his  political  opponents,  Cecil, 
Raleigh,  and  that  Lord  Cobham  who  had  two  years 

liberality  {Terrors  of  Night ,  1594)  matriculated  at  the  same  College  in 
1582,  and  ever  cherished  its  memory : — '  Loved  it  still,  for  it  ever  was 
and  is  the  sweetest  nurse  of  knowledge  in  all  that  university '  {Lenten 
Stuff). 
^  Gervase  Markham,  Honour  In  Its  Perfection,  4to,  1624. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       265 

earlier  taken  umbrage  at  Shakespeare's  Henry  IV .^ 
In  September  he  returned  suddenly  from  a  futile 
campaign,  and  on  Michaelmas  Eve,  booted,  spurred, 
and  bespattered,  he  burst  into  the  Queen's  chamber, 
to  find  her  with  '  her  hair  about  her  face.'  ^  He  was 
imprisoned  and  disgraced,  one  of  the  chief  causes 
of  Elizabeth's  resentment  being,  as  she  afterwards 
alleged,  '  that  he  had  made  Lord  Southampton 
general  of  the  horse  contrary  to  her  will.'  ^  For 
Southampton  was  already  under  a  cloud.  He  had 
presumed  to  marry  Elizabeth  Vernon  without  await- 
ing the  Queen's  consent,  and  now,  combining  the 
display  of  his  political  discontent  with  the  indulgence 
of  his  passion  for  the  theatre,  he,  as  I  have  said,  is 
found  avoiding  the  Court  and  spending  his  time  in 
seeing  plays.  The  combination  was  natural  enough, 
for  theatres  were  then,  as  newspapers  are  now,  the 
cock-pits  of  political  as  of  religious  and  literary  con- 
tention. Rival  companies,  producing  new  plays, 
or  '  mending  '  old  ones  each  month,  and  almost  each 
week,  were  quick  to  hail  the  passing  triumphs,  or 
to  glose  the  passing  defeats  of  their  chosen  causes. 
Whilst  high-born  ladies  of  the  house  of  Essex  be- 
sieged the  Court  clad  in  deep  mourning,^  and  the 
chances  of  his  being  forgiven  were  canvassing  among 
courtiers  wherever  they  assembled,  Dekker  in  Patient 
Grissel  (1599),  Hey  wood  in  his  Royal  King  and  Loyal 
Subject,^  hinted  that  probation,  however  remorseless, 

^  Infra. 

2  Rowland  White  to  Sir  Robert  Sidney,  Michaelmas  day,  1599. 

3  Ihid.,  25th  October  1599.  *  Rowland  White,  passim. 

^  I  venture  to  date  this  play  1600,  although  printed  much  later,  on  the 
following  grounds  : — (1)  It  was  pubhshed  with  an  apology  for  the  number 
of  its  '  rhyming  Hnes,'  which  pleaded  that  such  lines  were  the  rage  at  the 
date  of  its  first  production,  though  long  since  discarded  in  favour  of  blank 
verse  and  '  strong  Hnes.'  The  plea  would  hardly  tally  with  a  later  date. 
(2)  The  allusion  to  Dekker's  PJiaeihon,  produced  1598,  and  re- written  for 
the  Court,  1600,  points  to  Heywood's  play  having  been  written  whilst 


266       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

might  be  but  the  prelude  to  a  loftier  honour.  Now, 
just  at  this  time  there  occurs  a  strange  reversal  in 
the  attitudes  of  the  Court  and  the  City  towards  the 
Drama.  One  Order  of  Council  follows  another/ 
enjoining  on  the  Mayor  and  Justices  that  they  shall 
limit  the  number  of  play-houses ;  but  the  City  au- 
thorities, as  a  rule  most  Puritanical,  are  obstinately 
remiss  in  giving  effect  to  these  decrees.  Mr.  Fleay 
attributes  this  wajrwardness  to  a  jealous  vindication 
of  civic  privileges :  I  would  rather  ascribe  it  to 
sympathy  with  Essex,  '  the  good  Earl.'  The  City 
authorities  could  weU,  had  they  been  so  minded, 
have  prevented  the  performance  of  Richard  II,,  with 
his  deposition  and  death,  some  '  forty  times  '  in  open 
streets  and  houses,  as  Ehzabeth  complained ;  ^  and, 
indeed,  it  is  hard  to  account  for  the  Queen's  sustained 
irritation  at  this  drama  save  on  the  ground  of  its 
close    association   with   her   past   fears    of   Essex.  ^ 

Dekker's,  referred  to  also  in  Jonson's  Poetaster,  1601,  was  attracting 
attention.  In  Poetaster,  iv.  2,  Tucca  calls  Demetrius,  who  is  Dekker, 
Phaethon.  (3)  The  passage  of  Heywood's  play  in  wldch  this  allusion 
occurs  is  significant : — 

'  Prince.     The  Martiall  's  gone  in  discontent,  my  Hege. 
King.        Pleas'd,  or  not  pleas'd,  if  we  be  England's  Bang, 
And  mightiest  in  the  spheare  in  which  we  move. 
Wee  'U  shine  along  this  Phaethon  cast  down.' 

This  trial  of  the  Marshal,  who  is  stripped  of  aU  his  offices  and  insignia, 
seems  moulded  on  the  actual  trial  of  Essex  in  June  1600,  as  described  by 
Rowland  White  in  a  letter  to  Sir  Robert  Sidney  of  June  7th,  1600 :— '  The 
poore  Earl  then  besought  their  Honors,  to  be  a  meane  unto  her  Majestic 
for  Grace  and  Mercy ;  seeing  there  appeared  in  his  offences  no  Disloyalty 
towards  Her  Highness,  but  Ignorance  and  Indiscretion  in  hymself.  I 
heare  it  was  a  most  pitifull  and  lamentable  sight,  to  see  hym  that  was  the 
Mignion  of  Fortune,  now  unworthy  of  the  least  Honor  he  had  of  many ; 
many  that  were  present  burst  out  in  tears  at  his  fall  to  such  misery.'  A 
writer  (probably  Mr.  R.  Simpson)  in  The  North  British  Review,  1870,  p.  395, 
assigns  Heywood's  play  to  1600. 

1  June  22,  1600.     March  10,  1601.    May  10, 1601.     December  31, 1601. 
Quoted  by  Fleay. 

2  Nichols,  iii.  552. 

3  Cf.  Elizabeth  to  Harrington  : — '  By  God's  Son  I  am  no  Queen  ;   this 
man  is  above  me.' 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       267 

Months  after  the  Earl's  execution,  she  exclaimed  to 
Lambard : — '  I  am  Richard  the  Second,  knowe  yee 
not  that  ?  '  ^  And  we  have  the  evidence  of  Shake- 
speare's friend  and  colleague,  Phillips,  for  the  fact 
that  Richard  II.  was  performed  by  special  request  of 
the  conspirators  on  the  eve  of  their  insane  rising  ^ 
(February  7,  1601) — that  act  of  folly,  which  cost 
Essex  his  head  and  Southampton  his  liberty  during 
the  rest  of  Ehzabeth's  reign. 

But  if  Shakespeare's  colleagues,  acting  Shake- 
speare's Plays,  gave  umbrage  to  Essex's  poHtical 
opponents  in  Henry  IV.,  applauded  his  ambition  in 
Henry  F.,  and  were  accessories  to  his  disloyalty  in 
Richard  II.,  there  were  playwrights  and  players 
ready  enough  to  back  the  winning  side.  Henslowe, 
an  apparent  time-server,  commissioned  Dekker  to 
re-write  his  Phaethon  for  presentation  before  the 
Court  (1600),  with,  it  is  fair  to  suppose,  a  greater 
insistence  on  the  presumption  and  catastrophe  of  the 
'  Sun's  Darling '  ;  and  Ben  Jonson,  in  his  Cynthia's 
Revels  (1600),  put  forth  two  censorious  aUusions  to 
Essex's  conduct.  Indeed  the  framework  of  this 
latter  play,  apart  from  its  incidental  attacks  on  other 
authors,  is  a  defence  of  '  Cynthia's  '  severity.  Says 
Cupid  (i.  1)  : — '  The  huntress  and  queen  of  these 
groves,  Diana,  in  regard  of  some  black  and  envious 
slanders  hourly  breathed  against  her  for  divine 
justice  on  Actaeon  .  .  .  hath  .  .  .  proclaim'd  a 
solemn  revels,  which  (her  godhead  put  off)  she  will 
descend    to    grace.'     The    play    was    acted    before 

1  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Outlines,  ii.  359.  Lambard,  August  1601,  had 
opened  his  Pandecta  Rotulorum  before  her  at  the  reign  of  Richard  n. 

2  '  Examination  of  Augustyne  Phillypps  servant  unto  the  Lord  Chamber- 
leyne,  and  one  of  his  players,'  quoted  by  Halliwell-PhiUipps,  Outlines,  ii. 
360.  PhiUips  died,  1605,  leaving  by  will  '  to  my  fellow  WiUiam  Shake- 
speare, a  thirty  shillings  piece  of  gold.* 


268       THE  POEMS  OP  SHAKESPEARE 

Elizabeth,  and  contains  many  allusions  to  the 
'  Presence.'  After  the  masque,  Cynthia  thanks  the 
masquers  (v.  3) : — 

*  For  you  are  they,  that  not,  as  some  have  done, 
Do  censure  us,  as  too  severe  and  gipur, 
But  as,  more  rightly,  gracious  to  the  good  ; 
Although  we  not  deny,  unto  the  proud, 
Or  the  profane,  perhaps  indeed  austere  : 
For  so  Actseon,  by  presuming  far. 
Did,  to  our  grief,  incur  a  fatal  doom.  .  .  . 
Seems  it  no  crime  to  enter  sacred  bowers 
And  hallow'd  places  with  impure  aspect.' 

In  1600,  such  lines  can  only  have  pointed  to  Essex- 
Actseon's  mad  intrusion  into  the  presence  of  a  Divine 
Virgin.  In  1601  if,  as  some  hold,  these  Unes  were  a 
late  addition,  the  reference  to  Essex's  execution  was 
still  more  explicit. 

We  know  that  Essex  had  urged  the  Scotch  King, 
our  James  i.,  to  enforce  the  recognition  of  his  claim 
to  the  succession  by  a  show  of  arms,^  and  that  James 
'  for  some  time  after  his  accession  considered  Essex 
a  martyr  to  his  title  to  the  EngHsh  crown.'  ^  Mr. 
Fleay  points  out  ^  that '  Lawrence  Fletcher,  comedian 
to  His  Majesty,'  was  at  Aberdeen  in  October  1601, 
and  that  Fletcher,  Shakespeare,  and  the  others  in 
his  company,  were  recognised  by  James  as  his  players 
immediately  after  his  accession  (1603).^  The  title- 
page  of  the  first  Hamlet  (1603 :  entered  in  the 
Stationers'  Registers,  July  26,  1602)  puts  the  play 
forward  'as  it  hath  beene  diverse  times  acted  by 
his  Highnesse  servants  in  the  Cittie  of  London ; 
as  also  in  the  two  Universities  of  Cambridge  and 
Oxford,  and  elsewhere'     Mr.  Fleay,  therefore,  to  my 

^  Queen  Elizabeth,  E.  S.  Beesley. 

2  Criminal  Trials,  L.  E.  K.  i.  394  ;  quoted  by  Fleay. 

3  Histcyry  of  the  Stage,  136. 

*  The  licence  is  quoted  by  Halliwell-Phillipps  in  full,  Outlines,  ii.  82. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       269 

thinking,  proves  his  case :  ^  that  Shakespeare's 
company  was  traveUing  in  1601  whilst  Ben  Jonson's 
Cynthia  was  being  played  by  the  children  of  the 
Chapel.  In  the  Ught  of  these  facts  it  is  easy  to 
understand  the  conversation  between  Hamlet  and 
Rosencrantz,  Act  ii.  2,  which,  else,  is  shrouded  in 
obscurity : — 

'  Hamlet.  What  players  are  they  ? 

Rosencrantz.  Even  those  you  were  wont  to  take  such 
delight  in,  the  tragedians  of  the  City. 

Hamlet.  How  chances  it  they  travel  ?  Their  residence, 
both  in  reputation  and  profit,  was  better  both  ways. 

Rosencrantz.  I  think  their  inhibition  comes  by  means  of 
the  late  innovation. 

Hamlet.  Do  they  hold  in  the  same  estimation  they  did 
when  I  was  in  the  City  ?  are  they  so  followed  ? 

Rosencrantz.  No,  indeed  they  are  not. 

Hamlet.  How  comes  it  ?    Do  they  grow  rusty  ? 

Rosencrantz.  Nay,  their  endeavour  keeps  in  the  wonted 
pace ;  but  there  is,  sir,  an  eyrie  of  children,  little  eyases 
that  cry  out  on  the  top  of  question  and  are  most  tyranni- 
cally 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.  .  .  .  Faith,  there  has  been  much 
to  do  on  both  sides,  and  the  nation  holds  it  no  sin  to  tarre 
them  to  controversy  ;  there  was  for  a  while  no  money  bid 
for  argimient  imless  the  poet  and  the  player  went  to  cuffs 
on  the  question.  .  .  .^ 

Hamlet.  Do  the  boys  carry  it  away  ? 

Rosencrantz.  Ay,  that  they  do.  my  lord;  Hercules  and 
his  load  too.'  ^ 


^  Mr.  Sidney  Lee  {Diet.  Nat.  Biog.  '  Shakespeare  ')  objects  that  there  is 
nothing  to  indicate  that  Fletcher's  companions  in  Scotland  belonged  to 
Shakespeare's  company.  This  hardly  touches  the  presumption  raised 
by  the  fact  that '  Fletcher,  Comedian  to  His  Majesty,'  i.e.  to  James  as  Eong 
of  Scotland  in  1601,  was  patented  with  Shakespeare,  Burbage,  and  others, 
as  the  '  King's  servants '  on  James's  accession  to  the  English  throne  in 
1603. 

*  See  infra  on  the  personal  attacks  in  Cynthia's  Bevels  and  Poetaster. 

»  I.e.  the  Globe  Theatre. 


270       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

The  collection  of  such  passages  ;  Shakespeare's  pro- 
fessed affection  for  Southampton  ;  his  silence  when 
so  many  mourned  the  Queen's  death,  marked  (as  it 
was)  by  a  contemporary  :  all  these  indications  tend 
to  show  Ihat  Shakespeare  shared  in  the  poUtical 
discontent  which  overshadowed  tlie  last  years  of 
EHzabeth's  reign.  But  it  is  safer  not  to  push  this 
conclusion,  and  sufficient  to  note  that  the  storms 
which  ruined  Essex  and  Southampton  lifted  at  least 
a  ripple  in  the  stream  of  Shakespeare's  hfe.^ 


To  turn  from  Southampton  to  Shakespeare's  other 
noble  patron,  is  to  pass  from  the  hazards  of  war 
and  pontics  to  the  lesser  triumphs  and  disasters  of 
a  youth  at  Court.  Many  shght  but  vivid  pictures 
of  Herbert's  disposition  and  conduct,  during  the  first 
two  years  of  his  life  at  Court,  are  found  in  the  in- 
timate letters  of  Rowland  White  to  Herbert's  uncle. 
Sir  Robert  Sidney.  '  My  Lord  Harbert ' — so  he 
invariably  styles  him — '  hath  with  much  a  doe 
brought  his  Father  to  consent  that  he  may  Uve  at 
London,  yet  not  before  next  spring.'  This  was 
written  19th  April  1597,  when  Herbert  was  but 
seventeen.  During  that  year  a  project  was  mooted 
between  Herbert's  parents  and  the  Earl  of  Oxford 
for  his  marriage  with  Oxford's  daughter,  Bridget 
Vere,  aged  thirteen.^  It  came  to  nothing  by  reason 
of  her  tender  years,  and  Herbert,  in  pursuance  of  a 
promise  extracted  from  a  father  confined  by  illness 

^  I  shall  not  pursue  the  further  vicissitudes  of  Southampton's  adven- 
turous career,  for  the  last  of  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  was  written  almost 
certainly  before  the  Queen's  death  or  soon  after. 

2  Mr.  Tyler,  Shakespeare^ s  Sonnets,  p.  45,  quotes  the  Rev.  W.  A.  Harrison 
and  the  original  letters,  discovered  by  him,  which  prove  the  existence  of 
this  abortive  contract. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       271 

to  his  country  seat,  came  up  to  town,  and  thrust  into 
the  many-coloured  rout,  with  all  the  flourish  and  the 
gallantry,  and  something  also  of  the  diffidence  and 
uneasiness,  of  youth.  You  catch  glimpses  of  him  : 
now,  a  glittering  figure  in  the  medley,  watching  his 
mistress,  Mary  Fitton,  lead  a  masque  before  the 
Queen,  or  challenging  at  the  Tournay  in  the  valley 
of  Mirefleur  ^ — an  equivalent  for  Greenwich,  coined 
for  the  nonce,  since  both  place  and  persons  must  be 
masked  after  the  folly  of  the  hour ;  and  again  you 
find  him  sicklied  with  ague  and  sunk  in  melancholy — 
the  Hamlet  of  his  age,  Gardiner  calls  him — seeking 
his  sole  consolation  in  tobacco. 

I  cannot  refrain  from  transcribing  Rowland 
White's  references  in  their  order,  so  clean  are  the 
strokes  with  which  he  hits  off  Herbert,  so  warm  the 
light  he  sheds  on  the  Court  that  surrounded  Herbert. 
4th  August  1599  : — '  My  lord  Harbert  meanes  to 
follow  the  camp  and  bids  me  write  unto  you,  that 
if  your  self  come  not  over,  he  means  to  make  bold 
with  you  and  send  for  Bayleigh ' — Sir  Robert 
Sidney's  charger — '  to  Penshurst,  to  serve  upon.  If 
you  have  any  armor,  or  Pistols,  that  may  steede  him 
for  himself  only,  he  desires  he  may  have  the  Use  of 
them  till  your  own  Return.'  11th  August  1599  : — 
'  He  sent  to  my  lady  ' — ('  Sidney's  sister,  Pembroke's 
mother  ') — '  to  borrow  Bayleigh.  She  returned  this 
Answer,  that  he  shall  have  it,  but  conditionally,  that 
if  you  come  over  or  send  for  yt  to  Flushing  he  may 
restore  yt,  which  he  agrees  to.'  18th  August  1599  : 
— '  My  Lord  Harbert  hath  beene  away  from  Court 
these  7  Dales  in  London,  swagering  yt  amongest  the 
Men  of  Warre,  and  viewing  the  Maner  of  the  Musters.' 

*  This  name  belongs  to  1606;  in  1600,  however,  he  also  jousted  at 
Greenwich. 


272       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

8th  September  1599  : — '  My  lord  Harbert  is  a  con- 
tinuall  Courtier,  but  doth  not  follow  his  Business  with 
that  care  as  is  fitt ;  he  is  to  cold  in  a  matter  of  such 
Greatness.'  12th  September  1599  : — '  Now  that  my 
lord  Harbert  is  gone,  he  is  much  blamed  for  his  cold 
and  weak  maner  of  pursuing  her*Majestie's  Favor, 
having  had  so  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.'  September  13, 
1599  : — '  I  hope  upon  his  return  he  will  with  more 
lisse  ^  and  care  undertake  the  great  matter,  which 
he  hath  bene  soe  cold  in.'  ^  On  the  20th  September 
1599,  White  perceives  '  that  Lord  Nottingham  would 
be  glad  to  have  Lord  Harbert  match  in  his  house  ' — 
ix.  marry  his  daughter.  This,  then,  is  the  second 
project  of  marriage  entertained  on  Herbert's  behaK. 
On  Michaelmas  Day,  White  describes  Essex's  return, 
and  you  gather  from  many  subsequent  letters  how 
great  was  the  commotion  caused  by  his  faU.  '  The 
time,'  he  writes,  September  30th,  '  is  full  of  danger,' 
and  11th  October; — 'What  the  Queen  will  deter- 
mine with  hym  is  not  knowen ;  but  I  see  litle 
Hope  appearing  of  any  soddain  liberty.'  Meanwhile 
Herbert  steers  clear  of  the  eddies,  and  prosecutes  his 
cause  with  greater  energy.  Whilst  Southampton  is 
a  truant  at  the  play,  '  My  lord  Harbert '  (11th 
October)  '  is  at  Court,  and  much  bound  to  her 
Majestie  for  her  gracious  Favor,  touching  the 
Resignation  of  the  office  of  Wales.'  Herbert,  in- 
deed, seems  to  have  been  favoured  by  all  the  Court 
faction,  including  even  Sir  Robert  Cecil,  the  chief 

1  Ft.  Hesse  =  gsAetj. 

2  About  this  time  his  father  underwent  an  operation  for  the  stone,  and, 
if  he  had  died  under  it,  his  place  in  Wales  would  have  gone  to  the  Earl  of 
Worcester  or  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury.  Herbert  was  to  secure  the  reversion 
to  himself. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       273 

enemy  of  Essex  and,  therefore,  of  Southampton. 
November   24,    1599  : — '  My   lord   Harbert   is    ex- 
ceedingly beloved  at  Court  of  all  men.'     And  29th 
November  1599,  '  9000  (Herbert)  is  very  well  be- 
loved here  of  aU,  especially  by  200  (Cecil)  and  40 
who  protest  in  aU  places  they  love  him.'     In  the 
same  letter,  '  9000  (Herbert)  is  highly  favoured  by 
1500  (the  Queen)  for  at  his  departure  he  had  access 
unto  her,  and  was  private  an  Houre  ;  but  he  greatly 
wants  advise.'     On  28th  December  1599,  we  find 
him  sick  with  ague,  and  again,  5th  January  1600  : — 
'  My  Lord  Harbert  is  sick  of  his  tertian  ague  at 
Ramesbury.'     On  the  12th  January  1600  we  have 
the  first  notice  of  Mary  Fitton  : — '  Mrs.  Fitton  is 
sicke,  and  gone  from  Court  to  her  Father's.'     19th 
January  1600 : — '  My  lord  Harbert  coming  up  to- 
wards the  Court,  fell  very  sicke  at  Newberry,  and 
was  forced  to  goe  backe  again  to  Ramisbury.     Your 
pies,'  White  continues,  exhibiting  the  solicitude  of 
uncle  and  mother  alike  for  the  young  courtier,  '  were 
very  kindly  accepted  there,  and  exceeding  many 
Thankes  returned.     My  Lady  Pembroke  desires  you 
to  send  her  speedely  over  some  of  your  excellent 
Tobacco.'^     24th    January    1600: — Herbert    has 
'  fallen  to  have  his  ague  again,  and  no  hope  of  his 
being  here  before  Easter.'     26th  January  1600 : — 
He  complains  '  that  he  hath  a  continuall  Paine  in  his 
Head,  and  finds  no  manner  of  ease  but  by  taking 
of  Tobacco.'     The  mother's  care  extended  even  to 
the  lady,  Mary  Fitton,  whom  her  son  was  soon  to 
love — supposing,  that  is,  that  he  did  not  love  her 
already.    21st  February  1600 : — '  My  lady  goes  often 
to  my  Lady  Lester,  my  Lady  Essex  and  my  Lady 

1  Tobacco  was  first  introduced  by  Nicot  as  a  sovereign  remedy  against 
disease. 


274       THE  POEMS  OP  SHAKESPEARE 

Buckhurst,  where  she  is  exceeding  welcome  ;  she 
visited  Mrs.  Fitton,  that  hath  long  bene  here  sicke 
in  London.'  But  her  son  was  soon  to  recover. 
26th  February  1600 :— '  My  lord  Harbert  is  weU 
again ;  they  all  remove  upon  Saturday  to  Wilton 
to  the  races ;  when  that  is  ended,  my  Lord  Harbert 
comes  up.'  22nd  March  1600  : — '  My  lord  Harbert 
is  at  Court  and  desires  me  to  salute  you  very  kindly 
from  him.  I  doubt  not  but  you  shall  have  great 
comfort  by  him  and  I  beheve  he  will  prove  a  great 
man  in  Court.  He  is  very  well  beloved  and  truly 
deserves  it.' 

But  some  of  the  love  he  won  brought  danger  in 
its  train.  The  next  two  references,  describing  the 
marriage  of  Mistress  Anne  Russell  to  '  the  other  Lord 
Herbert,'  viz.,  Lord  Worcester's  son,  picture  a 
masque  in  which  Mrs.  Fitton  played  a  conspicuous 
part  before  the  eyes  of  her  young  lover.  14th  June 
1600 : — '  There  is  a  memorable  mask  of  8  ladies  ; 
they  have  a  straunge  Dawnce  newly  invented  ;  their 
attire  is  this  :  Each  hath  a  skirt  of  cloth  of  silver,  a 
rich  wastcoat  wrought  with  silkes,  and  gold  and 
silver,  a  mantell  of  Camacion  Taffete  cast  under  the 
Arme,  and  there  Haire  loose  about  their  shoulders, 
curiously  knotted  and  interlaced.  These  are  the 
maskers.  My  Lady  Doritye,  Mrs.  Fitton,  Mrs.  Carey, 
Mrs.  Onslow,  Mrs.  Southwell,  Mrs.  Bes  Russell,  Mrs. 
Darcy  and  my  lady  Blanche  Somersett.  These  8 
daunce  to  the  musiq  Apollo  bringes,  and  there  is  a 
fine  speech  that  makes  mention  of  a  ninth,' — of 
course  the  Queen — '  much  to  her  Honor  and  Praise.' 
The  ceremony  was  '  honored  by  Her  Majestie's 
Presence,'  and  a  sennight  later  we  hear  how  all 
passed  off.  23rd  June  1600 : — '  After  supper  the 
maske  came  in,  as  I  writ  in  my  last ;  and  delicate  it 


THE  POEMS  OP  SHAKESPEARE       275 

was  to  see  8  ladies  soe  pretily  and  richly  attired. 
Mrs.  Fitton  leade,  and  after  they  had  donne  all  their 
own  ceremonies,  these  8  Ladys  maskers  choose  8 
ladies  more  to  daimce  the  measures.  Mrs.  Fitton 
went  to  the  Queen,  and  wooed  her  to  daunce  ;  her 
Majesty  asked  what  she  was  ;  Affection,  she  said. 
Affection  !  said  the  Queen.  Affection  is  false.  Yet 
her  Majestie  rose  and  daunced.'  .  .  .  '  The  bride  was 
lead  to  the  Church  by  Lord  Harbert,'  and  '  the  Gifts 
given  that  day  were  valewed  at  £1000  in  Plate  and 
Jewels  at  least.'  Nine  months  later  Mrs.  Fitton 
bore  Herbert  an  illegitimate  child ;  but  meanwhile 
he  pursued  his  career  as  a  successful  courtier. 
8th  August  1600  : — '  My  lord  Harbert  is  very  well 
thought  of,  and  keapes  company  with  the  best  and 
gravest  in  Court,  and  is  well  thought  of  amongst 
them.'  The  next  notice,  in  the  circumstances  as  we 
know  them,  is  not  surprising.  16th  August  1600  : — 
'  My  lord  Harbert  is  very  well.  I  now  heare  litle  of 
that  matter  intended  by  600  (Earl  of  Nottingham) 
towards  hym,  only  I  observe  he  makes  very  much 
of  hym  ;  but  I  don't  find  any  Disposition  at  all  in 
this  gallant  young  lord  to  marry.' 

With  the  next  we  come  to  Herbert's  training  for 
the  tournament,  and  gather  something  of  his  relations 
with  the  learned  men  whom  his  mother  had  collected 
at  Wilton  to  instruct  him  in  earlier  years.  Mr. 
Sandford  had  been  his  tutor,  sharing  that  office,  at 
one  time,  with  Samuel  Daniel,  the  poet  and  author 
of  the  Defence  of  Rhyme,  26th  September  1600  : — 
'  My  Lord  Harbert  resolves  this  yeare  to  shew 
hymselfe  a  man  at  Armes,  and  prepared  for  yt ;  and 
because  it  is  his  first  tyme  of  runninge,  yt  were  good 
he  came  in  some  excellent  Devize,  I  make  it  known 
to  your  lordship  that  if  you  please  to  honor  my  lord 


276       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

Harbert  with  your  advice ;  my  feare  is,  that  Mr. 
Sandford  will  in  his  Humor,  persuade  my  lord  to 
some  pedantike  Invention.'  Then,  18th  October 
1600  : — '  My  lord  Harbert  wiU  be  aU  next  weeke  at 
Greenwich,  to  practice  at  Tylt.  He  often  wishes 
you  here.  Beleve  me,  my  lord,  he"*  is  a  very  gallant 
Gentleman  and,  indeed,  wants  such  a  Frend  as  you 
are  neare  unto  him.'  Again,  24th  October  1600 : — 
'  Lord  Harbert  is  at  Greenwich  practicing  against  the 
Coronation  (?) '  ;  and,  30th  October  1600  :— '  My 
lord  Harbert  is  practicing  at  Greenwich,  I  sent  him 
word  of  this ;  he  leapes,  he  dawnces,  he  singes,  he 
gives  cownterbusses,  he  makes  his  Horse  runne  with 
more  speede ;  he  thanckes  me,  and  meanes  to  be 
exceeding  merry  with  you  this  winter  in  Baynard's 
Castel,  when  you  must  take  Phisicke.'  The  rest  is 
silence ;  for  Rowland  White,  the  intimate,  the 
garrulous,  is  succeeded  in  the  Sidney  Papers  by  duller 
correspondents,  who  attend  more  strictly  to  affairs 
of  state,  and  the  issue  of  Herbert's  intrigue  is  learned 
from  other  sources.  But  before  I  draw  on  them,  let 
me  set  Clarendon's  finished  picture  of  Herbert  ^  by 
the  side  of  these  early  thumb-nails : — '  He  was  a  man 
very  well  bred,  and  of  excellent  parts,  and  a  graceful 
Speaker  upon  any  subject,  having  a  good  proportion 
of  Learning,  and  a  ready  Wit  to  apply  it,  and  enlarge 
upon  it :  of  a  pleasant  and  facetious  humour,  and  a 
disposition  affable,  generous,  and  magnificent.  .  .  . 
Yet  his  memory  must  not  be  Flatter'd,  that  his 
virtues,  and  good  incHnations  may  be  behev'd ;  he 
was  not  without  some  allay  of  Vice,  and  without 
being  clouded  with  great  Infirmities,  which  he  had 
in  too  exorbitant  a  proportion.  He  indulged  to 
himself  the  Pleasures  of  all  kinds,   almost  in  all 

^  History  of  the  BebeUicm,  ed.  1705,  voL  i.  book  i.  p.  57. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE        277 

excesses.  To  women,  whether  out  of  his  natural 
constitution,  or  for  want  of  his  domestick  content 
and  dehght  (in  which  he  was  most  unhappy,  for  he 
paid  too  dear  for  his  Wife's  Fortune,  by  taking  her 
Person  into  the  bargain)  he  was  immoderately  given 
up.  But  therein  he  Hkewise  retain' d  such  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  administred  great  pleasure  in  the 
conversation.  To  these  he  sacrificed  Himself,  his 
precious  time,  and  much  of  his  fortune.  And  some, 
who  were  nearest  his  trust  and  friendship,  were  not 
without  apprehension,  that  his  natural  vivacity,  and 
vigour  of  mind  begun  to  lessen  and  decline  by  those 
excessive  Indulgences.'  In  time  he  filled  nearly  all 
the  greater  offices  of  the  Court,  and  '  died  of  an 
Apoplexy,  after  a  full  and  chearful  supper,'  in  1630, 
leaving  no  children  from  his  marriage,  but  a  debt  of 
£80,000  on  his  estate.^ 

I  have  lingered  over  WiUiam  Herbert,  who,  except- 
ing Southampton,  received  more  dedicatory  verses 
from  poets,  who  were  also  playwrights,  than  any 
other  noble  of  his  time  ;  for,  whether  or  not  he  was 
the  '  only  begetter '  of  Shakespeare's  Sonnets,  he 
was  certainly  Shakespeare's  friend,  and  one  of  the 
brightest  particles  in  the  shifting  kaleidoscope  of 
Court  and  Stage.  Though  now  one  company  and 
now  another  was  inhibited,  the  Court  and  Theatre 
were  never  in  closer  contact  than  during  the  last 
years  of  Ehzabeth's  reign,  when  at  Christmas  and 
Twelfth  Night  a  play  was  almost  invariably  acted 
by  request  '  in  the  Presence.'     Two  companies  of 

^  Court  arid  Times  of  Charles  /.,  ii.  73. 


278       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

players  were  the  servants  of  the  highest  officers  at 
the  Court,  the  Lord  Chamberlain  and  the  Lord 
Admiral.  And  the  Lord  Admiral  was  that  Earl  of 
Nottingham  who  '  made  very  much  '  of  Herbert  and 
desired  him  for  a  son-in-law.^  The  Theatre  was 
dignified  by  the  very  trick  of  majesty,  and  the  Court 
transfigured  by  the  spirit  of  masquerade.  Davies 
tells  of  Shakespeare  in  a  '  Kingly  part,'  picking  up  a 
glove  let  drop  by  Gloriana's  self,  with  the  gag : — 

'  And  though  now  bent  on  this  high  embassy, 
Yet  stoop  we  to  take  up  our  cousin's  glove.' 

The  tradition  that  Shakespeare  played  these  parts 
is  persistent,  and  I  cannot  doubt  that  his  allusion  to 
himself  was  obvious  to  his  audience  when  he  puts 
into  Hamlet's  mouth  these  words  : — '  He  that  plays 
the  King  shall  be  welcome  ;  his  majesty  shall  have 
tribute  of  me.'  ^ 

It  is  almost  certain  that  Mary  Fitton,  the  Queen's 
Maid  of  Honour,  was  on  intimate  terms  with  the 
players  in  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  (Shakespeare's) 
Company  ;  for  Kempe,  who  played  the  Clown's  part, 
seems  to  have  dedicated  to  her  the  account  of  his 

^  We  have  a  pretty  picture  of  his  kindness  to  Herbert's  little  cousin  in 
another  letter  of  Rowland  White  to  Sir  R.  Sidney.  April  26th,  1600  :— 
'  All  your  children  are  in  Health,  the  3  greater,  and  Htle  Mr.  Robert,  were 
at  Court,  and  in  the  Presence  at  St.  George's  Feast,  where  they  were  much 
respected.  I  brought  up  Mr.  Robert,  when  the  Knights  were  at  dinner ; 
who  plaied  the  wagg  soe  pretily  and  boldly  that  all  tooke  Pleasure  in  him, 
but  above  the  rest,  my  lord  Admirall,  who  gave  him  sweet  meats  and  he 
prated  with  his  Honor  beyond  measure.' 

2  Personal  allusions  were  the  sauce  of  every  play.  Cf .  Jonson's  Cynthia's 
Revels  (1600),  Act  v.  2  :— 

'  Amobphus.   Is  the  perfume  rich  in  this  jerkin  ? 
Perfumer.   Taste,  smell ;   I  assure  you,  sir,  pure  benjamin,  the  only 
spirited  scent  that  ever  awaked  a  Neapolitan  nostril.' 

Jonson  is  constantly  called  '  Benjamen '  (Bengemen)  in  Henslowe's  Diary. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       279 

famous  Morris  to  Norwiche,^  as  he  writes,  '  to  shew 
my  duety  to  your  honourable  selfe,  whose  favour 
(among  other  bountiful!  frends)  makes  me  (despight 
of  this  sad  world)  judge  my  hart  corke  and  my 
heeles  feathers.'  Such  an  intimacy  is  intrinsically 
probable  from  her  relations  with  Herbert,  who 
'  prosecuted  Shakespeare  with  his  favour,'  from  the 
custom  of  the  age,  and  above  all  from  her  own 
fantastic  disposition.  Elsewhere  you  read  ^  that 
'  in  the  tyme  when  that  Mrs.  Fytton  was  in  great 
favour,  and  one  of  her  Majestie's  maids  of  honor  (and 
during  the  tyme  yt,  the  Earle  of  Pembroke  ^  favoured 
her),  she  would  put  off  her  head  tire  and  tucke  upp 
her  clothes,  and  take  a  large  white  cloak,  and  march 
as  though  she  had  bene  a  man  to  meete  her  lover, 
William  Herbert.'  The  inspiration  of  Shakespeare's 
laughter-loving  heroines  in  doublet  and  hose  need 
not,  then,  have  come  exclusively  from  boys  playing 
in  women's  parts. ^ 

But  there  are  shadows  in  the  hey-day  pageantry 
of  this  Court  which  borrowed  the  trappings  and 
intrigues  of  the  Stage,  and  something  of  its  tragedies 
also.  In  1601  Southampton  is  arrested,  and  Essex 
dies  on  the  scaffold  for  the  criminal  folly  of  the 
Rising.  In  the  same  spring  WiUiam  Herbert  is 
disgraced  and  imprisoned,  because  Mary  Fitton  is 

1  Entered  at  Stationers'  Hall,  22nd  April  1600.  The  dedication,  it  is 
true,  gives  '  Anne,'  almost  certainly  in  error,  for  Mary  Fitton.  Anne,  so 
far  as  we  know,  was  never  a  Maid  of  Honour,  and  can  hardly  have  been 
one  in  1600,  since  she  had  married  Sir  John  Newdigate  in  1585.  See  W. 
Andrews,  Bygone  Cheshire,  p.  150.     He  quotes  the  Rev.  W.  A.  Harrison. 

2  In  a  document  (assigned  by  Mr.  Tyler  after  a  pencil  note  on  it  to 
Oct.  1602).  Domestic  Addenda,  Elizabeth,  vol.  xxxiv.  Mary  Fitton 
suffered  from  hysteria  {Gossip  from  a  Muniment  Room,  1897,  p.  27). 

3  Herbert  succeeded,  1601. 

*  Marston.     Sat.  ii.  (1698)  :— 

'  What  sex  they  are,  since  strumpets  breeches  use, 
And  all  men's  eyes  save  Lynceus  can  abuse.' 


280       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEAHE 

to  bear  him  a  child,  and  he  '  utterly  renounceth  all 
marriage.'  ^  In  truth  'twas  a  dare-devil  age  of  large 
morals  and  high  spirits.     Sir  Nicholas  1' Estrange 

*  Mr.  Tyler  {Shakespeare's  Sonnets,  1890,  p.  66)  quotes  (1)  the  postscript 
of  a  letter,  February  5,  1601,  from  Sir  Robert  Qecil  to  Sir  George  Carew : 
— '  We  have  no  news  but  that  there  is  a  misfortune  befallen  Mrs.  Fitton, 
for  she  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 '  {Calendar  of  Carew  MSS.).  (2)  A  letter  in  the  Record  Office 
from  Tobie  Matthew  to  Dudley  Carleton,  March  25,  1601 : — '  I  am  in 
some  hope  of  your  sister's  enlargement  shortly,  but  what  will  happen 
with  the  Erie  I  cannot  tell '  (W.  E.  A.  Axon  in  William  Andrews*  Bygone 
Cheshire,  1895).  In  1606(?)  Mary's  mother  writes : — '  I  take  no  joye  to 
heer  of  your  sister,  nore  of  that  boy^  if  it  had  pleased  God  when  I  did  hear 
her,  that  she  hade  bene  beried,  it  hade  saved  me  from  a  gret  delle  of  sorow 
and  gryffe,  and  her  fErom  shame,  and  such  shame  as  never  have  Cheshyre 
Woman;  worse  now  than  evar,  wright  no  more  of  her.' — Ihid.  Tyler 
quotes  a  document  of  the  late  Rev.  F.  C.  Fitton  copied  by  his  father 
(b.  1779)  from  a  MS.  by  Ormerod,  author  of  the  History  of  Cheshire,  con- 
taining this  entry : — 

Capt.  Lougher  =       Mary  Fitton  =  Capt.  Polwhele 

1st  husband         Maid  of  Honour  had        2nd  husband 

one  bastard  by  Wm. 

E.  of  Pembroke,  and 

♦  two  bastards  by  Sir 

Richard  Leveson,  Kt. 

This  entry  is  confirmed,  though  the  order  of  Mary  Fitton's  marriages  is 
reversed,  by  an  extract,  communicated  by  Lord  de  Tabley  to  the  Rev. 
W.  A.  Harrison,  from  '  a  very  large  (elephant)  folio  of  Cheshire  Genealogies 
with  coloured  arms,  thus : — 

Sir  Edward  ffitton 
of  Gawesworth 


Captaine 

1 
=  Mary  =  Captaine 

This  Mary  Fitton  had  by  Will. 

Lougher 

ffitton      Polewheele 

Herbert  Earle  of  Pembroke  a 

2  husb. 

mayd  of  i.  husband 

bastard.     And  also   by   Sir 

honour 

Richard  Lusan  she  had  two 
bastard  daughters.' 

Some  years  later  Mary's  mother  writes  to  her  daughter  Anne  that  Pole- 
whele  '  is  a  veri  knave,  and  taketh  the  disgrace  off  his  wyff  and  all  her 
ffryndes  to  make  the  world  thynk  hym  worthy  of  her  and  that  she  des- 
sarved  no  better.'  Also  about  1606-7  Mary's  aunt,  wife  of  Sir  Francis 
Fitton,  denounces  her  niece  as  *  the  vyles  woman  under  the  sun.'  Mary 
was  baptized  at  Gawesworth,  June  24,  1578,  so  that  her  age  was  22-23 
in  March  1601.  Cf.  also  Lady  Newdigate-Newdegate's  Gossip  from  a 
Muniment  Boom,  1897. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       281 

reports  that  when  Sir  William  KnoUys  lodged  '  at 
Court,  where  some  of  the  ladyes  and  maydes  of 
Honour  us'd  to  friske  and  hey  about  in  the  next  room, 
to  his  extreme  disquiete  a  nights,  though  he  often 
warned  them  of  it ;   at  last  he  getts  in  one  night  at 
their  revells,  stripps  off  his  shirt,   and  so  with  a 
payre  of  spectacles  on  his  nose  and  Aretine  in  his 
hand,  comes  marching  in  at  a  posteme  door  of  his 
owne  chamber,  reading  very  gravely,  full  upon  the 
faces  of  them.'     He  enjoyed  his  joke  :    '  for  he  fac'd 
them  and  often  traverst  the  roome  in  this  posture 
above  an  houre.'     As  the  coarse  web  of  Ehzabethan 
embroidery  shows  beneath  the  dehcate  ornament 
and  between  the  applied  patches  of  brilliant  colour, 
so  in  the  manners  of  EHzabeth's  Court  does  a  texture, 
equally  coarse,  run  visibly  through  the  refinements 
of  learning  and  the  bravery  of  display.     Even  in 
the  amusements  of  the  Queen,  who  read  Greek  and 
dehghted  in  Poetry,  do  we  find  this  intermingling  of 
the  barbarous,  of  the  '  Gothic  '  in  the  contemptuous 
appHcation  of  that  b3rvvord,  and  also  of  that  un- 
conscious humour  which  we  read  into  archaic  art. 
'  Her  Majesty  is  very  well,'  writes  Rowland  White 
(12th  May  1600)  ;    '  this  Day  she  appointes  to  see  a 
Frenchman  doe  Feates  upon  a  Rope,  in  the  Conduit 
Court.     To-morrow  she  hath  commanded  the  Beares, 
the  Bull  and  the  Ape,  to  be  baited  in  the  Tiltyard. 
Upon  Wednesday  she  will  have  solemne  Dawncing.' 
An  archaic  smile  is  graven  on  the  faces  above  the 
ruff  of  this  Renaissance  Cynthia,   and  our  Ninth 
Muse  is  also  our  '  Good  Queen  Bess,'  own  daughter 
to    '  Bluff   King   Hal.'     Sometimes   she   proceeded 
somewhat  drastically  to  adjust  her  several  diver- 
sions : — '  On    25th    July    1591    the    Privy    Council 
wrote  to  the  Lord  Mayor  directing  the  suppression 


282       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

of  plays  on  Sundays  and  on  Thursdays,  because  it 
interfered  with  *bear-baiting,  which  was  maintained 
for  Her  Majesty's  pleasure,  if  occasion  require.'  ^ 
This  singular  ground  was  but  one,  and  certainly  the 
least,  of  many,  for  interfering  with  the  Theatres. 
They  shut  automatically  whenever  the  number  of 
plague-cases  reached  a  statutory  Hmit ;  and  they 
were  closed,  I  have  surmised,  for  pohtical  reasons, 
and  also,  more  than  once,  for  handling  religious  con- 
troversies. 


VI 

Soon  after  Shakespeare's  advent,  the  Martin 
Marprelate  controversy,  begun  in  1588,  overflowed 
from  the  press  ^  to  the  stage.  ^  Shakespeare,  without 
doubt,  saw  Martin,  the  pseudonymous  "persona  of  the 
Reformers,  caricatured  by  their  antagonists,  with 
a  cock's  comb,  an  ape's  face,  a  wolf's  belly,  and  a 
cat's  claws,^  the  better  to  scratch  the  face  of 
Divinity  ;  ^  he  also  saw  '  blood  and  humour '  taken 
from  him,  on  the  very  boards,^  perhaps,  of  the 
theatre  in  which  he  played.  These  astounding  pro- 
ducts of  reUgious  intolerance,  coupled  with  the  pre- 
vailing taste  for  mountebank  bear-fighting,  led  to  the 
staying  of  all  plays  in  the  City  by  the  Lord  Mayor 
(Harte)  at  the  instance  of  Lord  Walsingham  '^  acting 

^  Fleay  ;  from  Chalmers's  Apology,  p.  379. 

2  The  pamphlets  are  alluded  to  by  Shakespeare.  Nash,  in  Strange 
News,  etc.,  January  12,  1593,  p.  194,  mentions  Lyly's  Almond  for  a  Parrot, 
and  bids  Gabriel  (Harvey)  respice  funem.     Cf .  Comedy  of  Errors,  iv.  4  : — 

Dro.  E.    Mistress,  Respice  funem,  or  rather,  the  prophecy  Hke  the  parrot, 
'  Beware  the  rope's  end.' — Fleay. 

3  Before  August  1589.  Arber,  Introduction  to  Martin  Marprelate. 
Fleay,  History  of  the  Stage,  p.  92. 

*  Lyly's  Pap  with  a  Hatchet,  about  September  1689. — Arber. 
^  Nash,  PasquiVs  Return,  October  1589. 

•  Nash,  Countercuffe  to  Martin  Junior,  August  1689. 
'  Fleay. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       283 

on  representations  from  Tilney,  Master  of  the  Revels. 
The  Admiral's  players  and  Lord  Strange's — i,e, 
Shakespeare  and  his  colleagues — ^were  summoned 
and  inhibited.  But  Lord  Strange's  company  con- 
tumaciously shifted  its  venue,  and  played  that 
afternoon  at  the  Cross  Keys  ;  so  two  of  the  players 
were  committed  to  the  Coimter  and  prohibited  till 
further  orders.^  On  the  death  of  Ferdinando  Lord 
Strange,  Shakespeare  and  his  colleagues  joined  the 
Chamberlain's  Company.^  And,  in  July  1597,  they, 
with  other  companies,  were  again  in  difficulties,  pro- 
bably of  a  like  origin.  The  Privy  Council,  acting  on 
a  letter  from  the  Lord  Mayor,  directed  the  Justices 
of  Surrey  and  Middlesex  '  nerest  to  London '  to 
prohibit  all  plays  '  within  London  or  about  the  city,' 
and  to  '  pluck  down  '  the  theatres  :  alleging  '  the 
lewd  matters  handled  on  the  stage '  as  the  first 
ground  for  such  action.^  The  city  fathers  had  com- 
plained that  the  theatres  tempted  their  apprentices 
to  play  truant ;  but  the  '  matters  handled  on  the 
stage '  must  have  counted  for  as  much,  or  more,  in 
fostering  their  puritanical  opposition. 

High  among  the  causes  of  offence  to  the  ultra- 
protestant  faction  at  this  time,  I  must  reckon  the 

1  Lyly,  Pap  with  a  Hatchet,  September  1589  : — '  Would  these  comedies 
(against  Martin)  might  be  allowed  to  be  played  that  are  penned.' — Fleay, 
The  English  Drama,  ii.  39. 

2  Mr.  Fleay,  in  his  Index  lists  of  Actors,  places  Shakespeare  in  Leicester's 
Company,  1587-9 ;  in  Lord  Strange's,  1589-93 ;  in  the  Chamberlain's, 
1594-1603.  From  his  Hst  of  Companies  it  appears  that  on  the  death  of 
Henry  Carey,  Lord  Hunsdon,  July  22,  1596,  who  had  been  Chamberlain 
since  1585,  George  Carey,  Lord  Hunsdon,  took  over  the  Company  under 
his  own  name  until,  on  the  27th  April  1597,  he  succeeded  Lord  Chamber- 
lain Brook,  who  died  the  5th  of  the  preceding  March.  He  kept  on  the 
Company  as  Chamberlain  from  then  till  1603. 

3  HalliweU,  Illustrations,  p.  21,  quoting  '  Registers  of  the  Privy  Council.' 
On  the  death  of  Lord  Chamberlain  Brook  (cf.  Note  ^)  and  succession  of 
George  Carey,  Lord  Hunsdon,  this  action  was  annulled,  and  his  players 
took  possession  of  the  Curtain. 


284       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

name  first  given  to  the  Sir  John  Falstaff  of  Shake- 
speare's Henry  IV. — viz.,  Sir  John  Oldcastle  ;  for 
Sir  John  Oldcastle,  Lord  Cobham,  had  died  a 
Protestant  martyr,  burned  for  Lollardy  by  Henry  v. 
Some  traces  of  this  initial  offenca  survive  in  the  re- 
vised version,  published  in  quarto,  the  first  part  in 
1598,  the  second  in  1600.     Thus  (Part  I.  i.  ii.)  :— 

'  Falstaff.  And  is  not  my  hostess  of  the  tavern  a  most  sweet 
wench  ? 
Pkincb.  As  the  honey  of  Hybla,  my  old  lad  of  the  Castle.' 

In  Part  II.  i.  ii.  line  113  the  Quarto,  instead  of  the 
Fal.  given  later  in  all  the  Folios,  prefixes  OM,  to 
Falstaff's  speech.^  In  ii.  iii.  2  Shallow  is  made  to 
say  : — '  Then  was  Jack  Falstaff,  now  Sir  John,  a  boy 
and  Page  to  Thomas  Mowbray,  Duke  of  Norfolk  ' — 
a  post  actually  filled  by  the  historical  Oldcastle.^ 
In  the  Epilogue  to  Part  n.  the  old  name  is  exphcitly 
withdrawn  : — '  Falstaff  shall  die  of  a  sweat,  unless 
already  a'  be  killed  with  your  hard  opinions ;  for 
Oldcastle  died  a  mart3rr,  and  this  is  not  the  man.' 
The  whole  transaction  is  set  forth  by  Fuller  in  a 
passage  which  I  have  not  seen  quoted.^  In  his  Hfe 
of  John  Fastolfe,  Knight,  he  writes  : — '  To  avouch 
him  by  many  arguments  vahant,  is  to  maintain  that 
the  sun  is  bright,  though  since  the  Stage  hath  been 
over  bold  with  his  memory,  making  him  a  Thra- 
sonical Puff,  and  emblem  of  Mock-valour,     True  it 

^  Theobald  concluded  that  '  the  play  being  printed  from  the  Stage 
manuscript,  Oldcastle  had  been  all  along  alter'd  into  Falstaff,  except  in 
this  single  place,  by  an  oversight,  of  which  the  printers  not  being  aware, 
continued  the  initial  traces  of  the  original  name.'  Malone  rejects  this 
conclusion,  but  the  evidence  against  him  is  decisive. 

2  Boas,  Shakspere  and  his  Predecessors,  1896,  p.  260. 

^  The  History  of  the  Worthies  of  England,  pubHshed  posthumously  by 
Fuller's  son,  1662.  This  passage  in  the  account  of  Norfolk  must  have 
been  written  less  by  a  great  deal  than  forty  years  after  Shakespeare's 
death. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       285 

is  Sir  John  Oldcastle  did  first  bear  the  brunt  of  the 
one,  being  made  the  maJcesport  in  all  plays  for  a 
coward.  It  is  easily  known  out  of  what  purse  this 
black  peny  came.  The  Papists  railing  on  him  for  a 
Heretick,  and  therefore  he  must  also  be  a  coward, 
though  indeed  he  was  a  man  of  arms,  every  inch  of 
him,  and  as  valiant  as  any  in  his  age.  Now  as  I  am 
glad  that  Sir  John  Oldcastle  is  put  out,  so  I  am  sorry 
that  Sir  John  Fastolfe  is  put  in,  to  reHeve  his  memory 
in  this  base  service,  to  be  the  anvil  for  every  dull  wit 
to  strike  upon.  Nor  is  our  Comedian  ^  excusable  by 
some  alteration  of  his  name,  writing  him  Sir  John 
Falstafe  (and  making  him  the  property  of  pleasure 
for  King  Henry  the  fifth,  to  abuse)  seeing  the 
vicinity  of  sounds  intrench  on  the  memory  of  that 
worthy  Knight,  and  few  do  heed  the  inconsiderable 
difference  in  spelling  of  their  name.' 

But  the  matter  does  not  end  here.  Shakespeare's 
name  appears  on  the  title-page  of  another  play,  also 
published  in  quarto  in  the  same  year,  1600  : — 

'  The  first  part 
of  the  true  and  hono- 
rable history,  of  the  life  of 
Sir  John  Old-castle,  the  good 
Lord  Cobham. 
As  it  hath  bene  lately  acted  by  the  Bight 
Jionorable  the  Earle  of  Notingham 
Lord  High  Admirall  of  England 

his  servants. 

Written  by  William  Shakespeare 

London,  printed  for  T.  P. 

1600.' 

Now  Shakespeare  did  not  write  this  play,^  and  his 
name    only    appears    on    certain    copies.     It    has, 

^  Shakespeare,  without  a  doubt.     Cf.  Fuller's  account  of  him,  infra. 
2  We  know  from  Henslowe's  Diary  that  it  was  written  by  M(ichael) 
D(rayton),  A(nthony)  M(onday),  Hathway  and  Wilson,  who  were  paid  in 


286       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

accordingly,  been  urged  ^that  his  name  was  added  to 
enhance  the  value  of  a  pirated  edition.  Yet  I  find 
it  hard  to  believe  that  any  one  can  have  hoped  to 
palm  off  such  a  play  as  Shakespeare's.  It  was 
written  for  and  acted  by  the  rival  Company  (the 
Admiral's)  during  the  run  of  Shakespeare's  Henry 
IV.,  abnormally  prolonged  during  several  years,  off 
and  on,  by  the  popularity  of  this  very  character. 
It  is  also,  in  fact  and  on  the  face  of  it,  a  protestant 
pamphlet,  written  specifically  in  reply  to  Shake- 
speare's abuse  of  Oldcastle's  name.  This  is  apparent 
from  the  Prologue,  the  significance  of  which  has  not, 
I  believe,  been  noted  : — 

'  The  doubtfull  Title  (Gentlemen)  prefixt 
Upon  the  Argument  we  have  in  hand, 
May  breed  suspence,  and  wrongfully  disturbe 
The  peaceful!  quiet  of  your  settled  thoughts. 
To  stop  which  scruple,  let  this  breefe  suffice. 
It  is  no  pampered  Glutton  we  present, 
Nor  aged  Counsellor  to  youthful  sinne  ; 
But  one,  whose  vertue  shone  above  the  rest, 
A  valiant  martjnr,  and  a  vertuous  Peere,^ 
In  whose  true  faith  and  loyalty  exprest 
Unto  his  Soveraigne,  and  his  Countries  weale  : 
We  strove  to  pay  that  tribute  of  our  love 
Your  favours  merit :  let  faire  Truth  he  graced  . 
Since  forged  invention  former  time  defac^d.^ 

The  villain  and  principal  character  of  the  Play, 
which  follows  to  '  grace  fair  truth,'  is  a  Priest  who 
turns  highwayman  for  his  leman's  sake,  robs  the 

full,  £10,  October  16,  1599,  with  a  gift  of  10s.  for  the  first  playing  in 
November. — Fleay,  History  of  the  Stage,  p.  108. 

^  The  astounding  inaccuracy  of  Mr.  Carter  {Shakespeare :  Puritan  and 
Recusant)  may  be  illustrated  as  above  from  this  handling  of  this  subject. 
He  attributes  this  line  to  Shakespeare,  and  gives  it  to  the  Merry  Wives  ! 
In  the  same  paragraph,  p.  144,  he  gives  the  early  use  of  the  name  Old- 
castle  to  the  Merry  Wives  instead  of  Henry  IV.,  and  the  phrase,  '  Oldcastle 
died  a  martyr,  and  this  is  not  the  man,'  also  to  the  Merry  Wives  instead 
of  to  the  Epilogue,  II.  Henry  IV. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       287 

King  in  a  scene  inverted  from  Prince  Hal's  escapade, 
is  discovered,  in  dicing  against  him,  through  staking 
a  stolen  angel  which  the  King  had  marked,  commits 
murder,  and  is  finally  hanged  in  chains.  The 
addition  of  Shakespeare's  name  to  a  missile  so 
violently  retorted  against  his  handiwork  may  well 
be  but  an  insolent  device,  for  which  there  are  many 
analogues  in  the  controversial  amenities  of  the 
time.^ 

VII 

If  there  be  dark  shadows  in  the  life  of  the  Court, 
there  are  shadows,  also  dark  enough,  in  the  other 
briUiant  world  of  letters.  Greene  starves  in  a 
garret  (September  1592).  Marlowe,  his  Hero  and 
Leander  yet  unpublished,  is  stabbed  to  death  in 
a  tavern  brawl  (1593).  And,  apart  from  the  squalid 
tragedy  of  their  deaths,  these  great  men  of  letters 
were  literary  Mohocks  in  their  lives.  There  are 
few  parallels  to  the  savage  vindictiveness  of  the 
Marprelate  controversy,  and  the  men  who  could 
wield  such  weapons  were  ever  ready  to  lay  them  with 
amazing  truculence  about  the  shoulders  of  any  new 
adventurer  into  the  arena  of  their  art.  Shakespeare 
came  in  for  his  share  of  the  bludgeoning  from  the 
outset.  The  swashing  blows  of  Tom  Nash,  in  his 
address  '  To  the  Gentlemen  students  of  both  Uni- 
versities '  (prefixed  to  Greene's  Menaphon,  1589),^ 
whistled  suspiciously  near  his  head  and  must,  at 
least,  have  been  aimed  at  some  of  his  new  colleagues.^ 

^  E.g.  Jonson  having  attacked  Dekker  in  The  Poetaster,  a  play  into 
which  he  introduces  himself  as  Horace,  Dekker  retorted  in  Satiromastix  by- 
lifting  one  of  Jonson's  characters,  Tucca,  the  better  to  rail  at  Jonson, 
again  under  his  self-chosen  name  of  Horace. 

2  Dated  by  Ed.  Arber. 

^  Ibid.  '  It  is  a  common  practice  now  a  daies  amongst  a  sort  of  shifting 
comparisons,  that  runne  through  every  arte  and  thrive  by  none,  to  leave 


288       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

And  they  are  but  a  part  of  the  general  attack  de- 
livered by  the  '  University  pens  '  upon  the  actors  and 
authors  of  the  new  Drama : — '  Who  (mounted  on 
the  stage  of  arrogance)  think  to  outbrave  better 
pens  with  the  sweUing  bombast  of  a  bragging  blank 

the  trade  of  noverint  {i.e.  attorney)  whereto  they  were  borne,  and  busie 
themselves  with  the  indevors  of  Art,  that  could  scarceUe  latinise  their 
necke- verse  (to  claim  benefit  of  clergy)  if  they  had  neede;  yet  EngUsh 
Seneca  read  by  candle  night  yeeldes  manie  good  sentences,  as  Blond  is  a 
beggar,  and  so  f oorth ;  and  if  you  intreate  him  faire  on  a  f rostie  morning, 
he  will  affoord  you  whole  Hamlets,  I  should  say  handfuls  of  tragical 
speaches.'  Mr.  Arber  has  argued  that  this  passage  does  not  refer  to 
Shakespeare,  (1)  because  his  play  of  Hamlet  was  not  yet  written,  (2)  because 
it  appHes  only  to  translators.  On  the  other  hand  (1)  the  earlier  Hamlet 
referred  to  here  and  in  Dekker's  Satirom>astix,  was  acted  by  Shakespeare's 
colleagues,  and  may  have  been  retouched  by  him  before  he  produced  the 
two  versions  attributed  to  his  authorship — ^if  indeed  the  Quarto  of  1603 
can  be  caUed  a  separate  version,  and  be  not  a  pirated  edition  made  from 
shorthand  notes.  (2)  Although  the  whole  passage  refers  to  translators, 
this  and  other  incidental  remarks  are  clearly  directed  against  the  new 
drama.  Titus  Andronicus  is  ascribed  by  Mr.  Dowden  to  the  preceding 
year,  and  is  said  by  Baynes  to  reiSlect  the  form  of  Seneca's  later  plays. 
Out  of  four  plays  acted  by  Shakespeare's  company,  June  3-13,  1594,  three 
bear  the  titles  of  plays  afterwards  ascribed  to  him,  viz.  Andronicus, 
Hamlet,  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  (Fleay,  History  of  the  Stage,  p.  97).  Many 
other  plays  with  titles  afterwards  borne  by  plays  indubitably  rewritten 
by  Shakespeare,  were  acted  even  earHer.  Fleay  and  Dowden  agree  sub- 
stantially in  placing  Love's  Labour 's  Lost,  Love's  Labour  Won  {Much  Ado 
about  Nothing),  Comedy  of  Errors,  Borneo  and  Juliet,  Two  Gentlemen  of 
Verona,  three  parts  of  Henry  VI.,  All '«  well  that  ends  well,  Troylvs  and 
Cressida,  The  Jealous  Comedy  {Merry  Wives  of  Windsor),  and  Twelfth 
Night  in  the  early  years,  1688-1693.  Without  even  considering  the  date 
at  which  Shakespeare  may  be  called  sole  author  of  a  play  (for  that  is  a 
wholly  different  question),  we  may  infer  that  his  practice  of  adding  touches 
to  the  stock  MSS.  of  his  company  was  one  which  grew  with  the  popular 
success  attending  it.  If  that  be  so,  an  attack  in  1689  on  a  play,  after- 
wards appropriated  to  Shakespeare,  cannot  be  said  to  miss  him. 

The  extensive  habit  of  anonymity  and  collaboration  in  the  production 
of  plays  shows  that  they  were  regarded  simply  as  the  property  of  the 
company,  and  were  paid  in  fuU  when  the  authors  received  their  fee.  The 
profits  were  shared :  cf .  Tucca  to  Histrio,  the  impresario,  after  the 
exhibition  of  acting  by  his  two  boys : — '  Well,  now  fare  thee  well,  my 
honest  penny-biter:  commend  me  to  seven  shares  and  a  half,  and  re- 
member to-morrow.  If  you  lack  a  service — (i.e.  a  patron  whose  service 
should  protect  against  the  statute) — you  shaU  play  in  my  name,  rascals ; 
but  you  shall  buy  your  own  cloth,  and  I  '11  have  two  shares  for  my  coun- 
tenance.' It  was  a  matter  of  business,  and  remained  so  until  the  fame 
of  certain  authors  led  to  pubUcation.  Drayton's  Plays  of  which  he  was 
sole  author  have  all  perished. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       289 

verse.'  '  Players  avant '  ^  was  their  war-cry  ;  and, 
when  Greene  himself  utters  it,  he  does  not  leave  the 
reference  in  doubt.  In  a  Groafs  Worth  of  Wit 
Bought  with  a  Million  of  Repentance  (1592)  he  warns 
Marlowe,  Peele,  and  Lodge,  his  particular  friends  in 
the  fraternity  of  '  ballet-makers,  pamphleteers,  press- 
haunters,  boon  pot-poets,  and  such  Uke,'  ^  to  beware 
of  players  : — '  Those  puppets,  who  speak  from  our 
mouths,  those  anticks  garnisht  in  our  colours.  .  .  . 
Yes,'  he  goes  on,  '  trust  them  not ;  for  there  is  an 
upstart  crow,  beautified  in  our  feathers,  that,  with  his 
tiger's  heart  lurapt  in  a  playefs  hide,^  supposes  he  is  as 
well  able  to  bombast  out  a  blank  verse  as  the  best  of 
you,  and  being  an  absolute  Johannes  fac  totum,  is,  in 
his  own  conceit,  the  only  Shakescene  in  a  country.' 
You  find  the  same  attitude  towards  players  in 
The  Return  from  Parnassus,^  Acting  is  the  '  basest 
trade '  (iv.  5),  and  again  (v.  1) : — 

'  Better  it  is  mongst  fiddlers  to  be  chiefe, 
Than  at  plaiers  trenchers  beg  relief e.' 

Such  is  the  conclusion  of  the  two  Scholars  in  the 
play  after  exhausting  every  expedient  to  win  a 
livelihood  by  their  learning.  They  go  on  to  attack 
'  those  glorious  vagabonds,' 

'  That  carried  earst  their  fardels  on  their  backes/ 

grudging  them  their  '  coursers,'  and  '  Sattan  sutes '  ^ 
'  and  pages,'  since 

'  With  mouthing  words  that  better  wits  had  framed, 
They  purchase  lands,  and  now  Esquires  are  made.' 

1  From  a  poem  by  Thomas  Brabine,  gent. ;  also  appended  to  Greene's 
Menaphon.  ^  Lodge :  cf .  W.  Raleigh,  The  English  Novel. 

^  A  line  parodied  from  the  3rd  Henry  VI. :    '  Recently  revised,  if  not 
originally  written,  by  Shakespeare.' — Baynes,  105. 

*  Acted  by  the  students  of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge. 

^  '  Satin  suits  '  is  one  of  the  catchwords  in  the  duel  between  Jonson  and 
Dekker. — Infra. 

T 


290       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

The  last  shot  must  surely  have  been  aimed  at 
Shakespeare,  who  had  procured  a  grant  of  arms  for 
his  father  in  1599,  and  had  purchased  107  acres  of 
arable  for  £320  in  1602.  But  the  d^te  of  this  Play 
is  uncertain :  Mr.  Arber  argues  far  January  in  that 
year,  and  this  would  cast  doubt  on  the  reference.  On 
the  other  hand,  Burbage  and  Kempe,  Shakespeare's 
colleagues,  are  introduced  in  their  own  persons  (iv.  5), 
when  Kempe  thus  trolls  it  off  :-^'  Few  of  the  Uni- 
versity pen  plaies  well,  they  smeU  too  much  of  that 
writer  Ovid,  and  that  writer  Metamorphosis,  and  taike 
too  much  of  Proserpina  and  Juppiter,  Why,  heres 
our  fellow  Shakespeare  puts  them  all  downe,  I  and 
Ben  Jonson  too.  O,  that  Ben  Jonson  is  a  pestilent 
fellow,  he  brought  up  Horace  giving  the  Poets  a  pill,^ 
but  our  fellow  Shakespeare  hath  given  him  a  purge 
that  made  him  beray  his  credit.'  Controversy  has 
raged  round  this  passage  ;  but  it  seems  certain  (a) 
that,  in  common  with  the  whole  scene,  it  is  an  ironical 
reflection  on  the  ignorance  and  the  social  success  of 
the  players ;  and  (h)  that  it  refers  to  Dekker's 
Satiromastix  or  The  Untrussing  of  the  Humorous 
Poet,  This  play,  in  which  Dekker  retorted  upon 
The  Poetaster,  was  pubhshed  in  1602  ;  but,  of  course, 
it  had  before  been  presented  '  pubHckly  by  the  Lord 
Chamberlaine  his  servants,  and  privately  by  the 
Children  of  Paules.'  ^ 


VIII 

Of  more  importance  than  all  the  'paper  warres 
in  Paules  Church-yard '  was  this  famous  campaign 
fought  out  upon  the  stage — the  Poetomachia  ^  in 

1  Viz.,  in  The  Poetaster,  v.  i.  «  Title-page. 

^  Dekker's  address  *  To  the  World '  prefixed  to  Satiromastix. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       291 

which  Dekker  and  Jonson  were  protagonists.  As 
distinguished  from  the  onslaught  of  the  '  university 
pens,'  it  was  a  civil  war,  involving  most  of  the  lead- 
ing playwrights  and  actors.  It  raged  for  years ;  ^  we 
know  that  Shakespeare  must  have  been  in  the  thick 
of  it ;  and  if  it  be  impossible  to  say  for  certain  on 
which  side  he  was  ranged,  it  is  easy  to  hazard  a 
guess. 

Of  his  attitude  towards  Jonson  we  know  little. 
There  is  the  tradition  that  he  introduced  him  to  the 
stage  ;  there  is  the  fact  that  he  acted  in  his  plays — 
in  Every  Man  in  His  Humour,  1598,  immediately 
before  the  Poetomachia,  and  in  Sejanus,  1604,  soon 
after  it ;  there  is  Fuller's  account  of  the  '  wit 
combats '  between  them ;  ^  there  is  the  tradition  that 

^  Jonson,  as  the  Author,  in  the  '  Apology,'  appended  to  The  Poetaster : — 

'  Three  years 
They  did  provoke  me  with  their  petulant  styles 
On  every  stage.' 

2  The  History  of  the  Worthies  of  England,  endeavoured  by  Thomas  Fuller y 
D.D,  Published,  unfinished,  by  '  the  author's  orphan,  John  Fuller,'  in 
1662.  From  its  bulk  we  may  judge  that  it  occupied  many  years  of 
Thomas  Fuller's  life,  so  that  it  brings  his  account  of  Shakespeare  fairly 
close  to  the  date  of  his  death  (1616),  and  well  within  the  range  of  plausible 
tradition.  I  quote  the  whole  passage  for  its  quaintness : — '  William 
Shakespeare  was  born  at  Stratford  on  Avon  in  this  county  (Warwick) 
in  whom  three  eminent  Poets  may  seem  in  some  sort  to  be  compounded. 
1.  Martial  in  the  warlike  sound  of  his  Sur-name  (whence  some  may  con- 
jecture him  of  a  Military  extraction),  Hasti-vihrans  or  Shakespeare.  2. 
Ovid,  the  most  naturall  and  witty  of  all  Poets,  and  hence  it  was  that  Queen 
Elizabeth  coming  into  a  Grammar-school  made  this  extempore  verse  : — 

"  Persius  a  Crab-staff e.  Bawdy  Martial,  Ovid  afin^,  Wag.'^ 

3.  Plautus,  who  was  an  exact  Comsedian,  yet  never  any  scholar,  as  our 
Shakespeare  (if  alive)  would  confess  himself.  Adde  to  all  these,  that 
though  his  Genius  generally  was  jocular,  and  inclining  him  to  festivity, 
yet  he  could  (when  so  disposed)  be  solemn  and  serious,  as  appears  by  his 
Tragedies,  so  that  Heraclitus  himself  (I  mean  if  secret  and  unseen)  might 
afford  to  smile  at  his  Comedies,  they  were  so  merry,  and  Democritus  scarce 
forbear  to  smile  at  his  Tragedies,  they  were  so  moumfull. 

'  He  was  an  eminent  instance  of  the  truth  of  that  Rule,  Poeta  rum  fit, 
sed  nascitur,  one  is  not  m>ade,  but  born  a  Poet.  Indeed,  his  learning  was 
very  little,  so  that  as  Cornish  diamonds  are  not  polished  by  any  lapidary, 


292       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare  entertained  Jonson  and  Drayton  at 
Stratford  on  the  eve  of  his  death.  ^  Against  these 
proofs  of  good-fellowship  there  is  the  conjecture,^ 
founded  on  Kempe's  speech  quoted  above,  that 
Shakespeare  had  a  hand  in  tha  production  of 
Dekker's  Satiromastix  ^  and,  perhaps,  played  William 
Rufus  in  it.  Of  Jonson's  attitude  towards  Shake- 
speare we  know  more,  but  the  result  is  ambiguous. 
We  have  the  two  poems  in  Underwoods — the  second, 
surely,  the  most  splendid  tribute  ever  paid  by  one 
poet  to  another  ?  But,  then,  we  have  Jonson's 
conversations  with  Drummond  of  Hawthomden,  in 
which  he  spared  Shakespeare  as  little  as  any,  laying 
down  that  he  '  wanted  art  and  sometimes  sense.' 
We  have,  also,  the  strong  tradition  that  Jonson 
treated  Shakespeare  with  ingratitude.  This  may 
have  sprung  from  the  charge  of  malevolence  preferred 
against  Jonson,  so  he  tells  us  himseK,  by  Shake- 
speare's comrades  {Discoveries :  '  De  Shakspeare 
nostrat.').  '  I  remember,'  he  says,  '  the  players  have 
often  mentioned  it  as  an  honour  to  Shakspeare,  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  male- 

but  are  pointed  and  smoothed  even  as  they  are  taken  out  of  the  Earth, 
so  nature  itself  was  all  the  art  which  was  used  upon  him. 

'  Many  were  the  wit-comhates  betwixt  him  and  Ben  Johnson,  which  two 
I  behold  like  a  Spanish  great  Oallion,  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 
hulk,  but  hghter  in  sailing,  could  turn  with  all  tides,  tack  about  and  take 
advantage  of  all  winds,  by  the  quickness  of  his  Wit  and  Invention.  He 
died  Anno  Domini  16  .  .  .  and  was  buried  at  Stratford  upon  Avon,  the 
Town  of  His  Nativity.' 

1  Shakespeare,  Drayton,  and  Ben  Jonson  '  had  a  merry  meeting,  and 
itt  seems  drank  too  hard,  for  Shakespeare  died  of  a  feaver  there  contracted.' 
— Diary  of  Ward,  Vicar  of  Stratford,  bearing  the  date  1662. 

2  T.  Tyler  and  R.  Simpson. 

'  Acted  by  his  Company,  the  Lord  Chamberlain's. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       293 

volent  speech.'  In  this  passage  we  probably  have 
Jonson's  settled  opmion  of  Shakespeare,  the  artist 
and  the  man.  He  allows  '  his  excellent  phantasy, 
brave  notions  and  gentle  expressions  wherein  he 
flowed,'  but,  he  quahfies,  '  with  that  facility,  that 
sometimes  it  was  necessary  he  should  be  stopped.' 
He  admits  that  '  his  wit  was  in  his  own  power,'  but 
adds : — '  Would  the  rule  of  it  had  been  so  too,  many 
times  he  fell  into  those  things  could  not  escape 
laughter.'  As  arrogant  as  men  (and  scholars)  are 
made,  Jonson  found  some  of  Shakespeare's  work 
'  ridiculous  '  ;  but  he  was  honest,  and  when  he  says, 
'  I  loved  the  man,  and  do  honour  his  memory,  on 
this  side  idolatry,  as  much  as  any,'  we  must  beUeve 
him.  But  we  are  not  to  infer  with  Gifford  that 
Drummond  misrepresented  Jonson,  or  that  Jonson, 
during  the  Poetomachia,  did  not  trounce  Shakespeare 
for  rejecting,  with  success,  the  Jonsonian  theory  of 
the  Drama. 

Gifford,  to  minimise  the  authority  of  Drummond' s 
report,  denounces  that  Petrarchan  for  a  '  bird  of 
prey '  ;  but  his  whole  apology  for  Ben  Jonson  is  a 
piece  of  special  pleading  too  violent  and  too  acerb 
to  command  much  confi.dence.  He  is  very  wroth 
with  the  critics  of  the  eighteenth  century,  who  had 
scented  an  attack  on  Shakespeare  in  the  Prologue 
to  Jonson's  Every  Man  in  His  Humour,  But  what 
are  the  facts  ?  The  Play,  in  which  Shakespeare  had 
acted  (1598),  is  pubhshed  (1600)  without  the  Pro- 
logue. A  revised  version  is  pubhshed  with  the 
Prologue  in  1616,  but,  as  Mr.  Fleay  has  proved  ^ 
from  internal  references  to  the  '  Queen '  and  '  Her 
Majesty,'  that  version  must  also  have  been  acted 
before  Elizabeth's  death   (1603),   and  he  adds  an 

^  The  English  Drama,  vol.  i.  p.  358. 


294       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

ingenious  argument  for  assigning  its  production  to 
the  April  of  1601.^  In  the  added  Prologue  Jonson 
denounces  the  '  ill  customs  of  the  age  '  in  neglecting 
the  Unities.  He  'must  justly  hate'  to  'purchase' 
the  'dehght'  of  his  audience  by  the,  devices  of  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  in  the  tyring  house  bring  wounds  to  scars.' 

With  his  usual  complacency : — 

'  He  rather  prays  you  will  be  pleas'd  to  see 
One  such  to-day,  as  other  plays  should  be  ; 
Where  neither  chorus  wafts  you  o'er  the  seas,'  etc.  etc. 

Without  referring  these  two  gibes  specifically  to 
Shakespeare's  Henry  VI,  ii.  and  iii.,  and  Henry  F. 
(although  the  second  describes  what  the  chorus  in 
Henry  V.  was  actually  doing  at  the  time  ^),  or  the 
remaining  lines  to  other  plays  from  his  hand,  it  is 
clear  that  the  whole  tirade  is  an  attack  in  set  terms 
on  the  kind  of  play  which  Shakespeare  wrote,  and 
which  the  pubhc  preferred  before  Jonson' s.^  The 
attack  is  in  perfect  accord  with  Jonson' s  reputation 
for  militant  self-sufiiciency,  and,  if  he  made  friends 

^  iii.  2,  Bobadil  says : — '  To-morrow  's  St.  Mark's  day.'  It  appears 
from  Cob's  complaint  that  the  play  was  acted  on  a  Friday.  Cf.  Jonson's 
Bartholomew  Fair,  1614  : — '  Tales,  Tempests  and  such  like  drolleries.' 

2  JBleay,  ibid. 

^  Cf .  the  copy  of  verse  by  Leonard  Digges  [floruit  1617-1636)  '  evidently 
written,'  says  HalliweU-Phillipps,  '  soon  after  the  opening  of  the  second 
Fortune  Theatre  in  1623  :— 

'  Then  some  new  day  they  would  not  brooke  a  line. 
Of  tedius  (though  well  laboured)  Gataline, 
Sejanus  was  too  irksome ;  they  prize  the  more 
Honest  lago,  or  the  jealous  Moore. 

He  goes  on  to  say  that  Jonson's  other  plays.  The  Fox  and  The  Alchemist, 
even  when  acted  '  at  a  friend's  desire  .  .  .  have  scarce  defrai'd  the  seacole 
fire  * ;  when  *  let  but  Falstaffe  come,*  Hal,  Poins,  or  '  Beatrice  and  Bene- 
dicke,'  and  '  loe,  in  a  trice  the  cock-pit,  galleries,  boxes,  all  are  fuU.' 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       295 

again  with  Shakespeare,  he  also  made  friends  again 
with  Marston.  Dekker  wrote  thus  of  him : — '  'Tis 
thy  fashion  to  flirt  ink  in  every  man's  face  ;  and  then 
to  crawle  into  his  bosome.'  ^ 

In  the  Poetomachia  Dekker  and  Marston  were  the 
victims  of  Jonson's  especial  virulence,  which  spared 
neither  the  seaminess  of  an  opposite' s  apparel  nor 
the  defects  in  his  personal  appearance  ;  but  it  is  hard 
to  say  whether  they  or  he  began  it.  Drummond  in 
his  Conversations  attributes  the  beginning  of  Jonson's 
quarrel  with  Marston  to  Marston' s  having  '  repre- 
sented him  on  the  stage  in  his  youth  given  to 
venery '  ;  and  in  Dekker's  Patient  Grissel  (1599), 
in  which  Chettle  had  a  hand,  Emulo  may  be  Jonson  ; 
for  the  taimt  at  his  thin  legs  : — '  What 's  here  ? 
laths  !  Where 's  the  hme  and  hair,  Emulo  ?  ' : — is 
of  a  piece  with  innumerable  jests  at  the  expense  of 
Jonson's  scragginess,^  and  his  early  work  at  brick- 
laying. Jonson,  at  any  rate,  did  not  reserve  his  fire 
till  1601,  though  in  his  apology  to  The  Poetaster  he 
suggests  that  he  did  : — 

'  Three  years 
They  did  provoke  me  with  their  petulant  styles 
On  every  stage.' 

It  was  in  1599  that  he  began  the  practice  of  staging 
himself  and  his  fellows  :  himseK  as  a  high-souled 
critic,  his  feUows  as  poor  iUiterates  whose  foibles  it 
was  his  duty  to  correct.  As  Asper  in  Every  Man 
out  of  His  Humour  (1559),  as  Crites  ^  in  Cynthia's 
Revels  (1600),  as  Horace  in  The  Poetaster  (1601),  he 
professes  a  lofty  caU  to  reform  the  art  and  manners  of 
his  age.  This  was  too  much  for  rivals  in  a  profession 
in  any  case  highly  competitive,  and  rendered  the 

1  Satiromastix.  ^  He  got  fat  in  later  life. 

3  Criticus  in  an  earlier  version. 


296       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

more  precarious  by  the  capricious  inhibition  of  the 
Companies  for  which  its  members  wrote.  It  was 
hard  when  their  own  men  were  '  traveUing '  ^  or 
idle,  on  account  of  the  Plague  or  for  having  offended 
the  authorities,  to  be  lampooned  by  '  the  children 
of  the  Chapel '  playing  Jonson's  pieces  before  the 
Queen.  And  at  last  in  Satiromastix  (1602),  Dekker 
gave  as  good  as  he  got,  through  the  mouth  of  the 
Tucca  he  had  borrowed  from  Jonson : — '  No,  you 
starv'd  rascal,  thou  't  bite  off  mine  eares  then,  thou 
must  have  three  or  foure  suites  of  names,  when  like 
a  lousie  Pediculous  vermin  th'ast  but  one  suite  to 
thy  backe  ;  you  must  be  caU'd  Asper,  and  Criticus, 
and  Horace,  thy  tytle  's  longer  in  reading  than  the 
stile  a  the  big  Turkes :  Asper,  Criticus,  Quintus, 
Horatius,  Flaccus.' 

Between  the  opening  in  1599  and  the  end  in 
1602,  the  wordy  war  never  relaxes.  Jonson  staged 
Marston  in  Every  Man  out  of  His  Humour  (1599) 
as  Carlo  Buffone  :  ^ — '  a  pubHc,  scurrilous  and  pro- 
fane jester  ...  a  good  feast-hound  and  banquet- 
beagle,'  whose  '  reUgion  is  raihng  and  his  discourse 
ribaldry ' ;  and,  in  Satiromastix,  Dekker  suggests 
that  Jonson-Horace,  if  at  a  tavern  supper  he  '  dips 
his  manners  in  too  much  sauce,'  shall  sit  for  a  penalty 
'  a  th'  left  hand  of  Carlo  Buffon,'*  Jonson-Crites  in 
Cynthia^s  Revels  (1600)  attacks  Hedon-Dekker  and 
Anaides-Marston  (iii.  2) : — 

'  The  one  a  light,  voluptuous  reveller, 
The  other  a  strange,  arrogating  puff, 
Both  impudent  and  arrogant  enough.' 

Dekker  retorts  by  quoting  the  hues  in  Satiromastix  ; 

^  E.g.  Shakespeare's  Company  in  1601. — Fleay. 

2  Fleay  rejects  this  attribution,  but  he  is  alone  in  his  opinion. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       297 

while  Marston  parodies  them  in  What  You  Will^  In 
The  Poetaster  (1601)  Jonson-Horace  administers  pills 
to  Demetrius  Fannius-Dekker  and  Crispinus  ^  (or 
Cri-spinas  or  Crispin-ass) -Marston,  so  that  they  vomit 
on  the  stage  such  words  in  their  vocabidary  as 
offended  his  purist  taste.  Dekker  in  Satiromastix, 
'  untrusses  the  Humorous  poet,'  i.e.  tries  Horace- 
Jonson,  and  condemns  him  to  wear  a  wreath  of 
nettles  until  he  swears,  among  other  things,  not  to 
protest  that  he  would  hang  himself  if  he  thought  any 
man  could  write  Plays  as  well  as  he  ;  not  '  to  ex- 
change compliments  with  Gallants  in  the  Lordes 
roomes,  to  make  all  the  house  rise  up  in  Armes,  and 
to  cry  that 's  Horace,  that 's  he,  that 's  he,  that 's 
he,  that  pennes  and  purges  Humours  and  diseases  '  ; 
nor,  when  his  '  playes  are  misse-likt  at  Court,'  to 
'  crye  Mew  Hke  a  Pusse-cat,'  and  say  he  is  glad  to 
'  write  out  of  the  Courtier's  Element.'  In  all  these 
Plays  acute  Hterary  criticism  is  mingled  with  brutal 
personal  abuse.  Thus,  for  sneering  at  seedy  clothes 
and  bald  or  singular  heads,^  Horace  is  countered  with 
his  bricklaying  and  his  coppered  '  face  puncht  full 
of  oylet-holes,  Hke  the  cover  of  a  warming  pan.'  One 
might  hastily  infer  that  Jonson  was  the  hfe-long 
enemy  at  least  of  Dekker  and  Marston.  Yet  it  was 
not  so.     Dekker  had  collaborated  with  him  on  the 

1  Published  1607,  'written  shortly  after  the  appearance  of  Cynthia's 
Revels.'  A.  H.  Bullen.  Introduction  to  Works  of  John  Marston,  1887. 
Acted  1601.— Fleay. 

2  Juvenal's  '  Ecce  iterum  Crispinus  ' — a  notorious  favourite  of  Domitian. 

3  Tticca.  '  Thou  wrongst  heere  a  good  honest  rascall  Crispinus,  and  a 
door  varlet  Demetrius  Fannius  {brethren  in  thine  owne  trade  of  Poetry) ; 
thou  sayst  Crispinus'  sattin  dublet  is  reveal'd  out  heere,  and  that  this 
penurious  sneaker  is  out  of  elboes.' — Satiromastix. 

Sir  Vaughan.  'Master  Horace,  Master  Horace  .  .  .  then  begin  to 
make  your  railes  at  the  povertie  and  beggarly  want  of  hair.'  Follows  a 
mock  heroic  eulogy  of  hair  by  Horace,  thirty-nine  hues  in  length. — Ibid. 

Tucca.  '  They  have  sowed  up  that  broken  seame-rent  lye  of  thine  that 
Demetrius  is  out  at  Elbowes,  and  Crispinus  is  out  with  sattin.' — Ibid. 


298       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

eve  of  these  hostilities/  though  for  the  last  time. 
Marston's  shifting  alliances  are  merely  bewildering : 
the  very  man  whom  he  hbels  at  one  time  he  assists, 
at  another,  in  HbeUing  a  third.  Outraged  (you 
would  think)  by  Jonson's  reiterated  onslaughts,  and 
conscious  of  equally  outrageous  provocation  and 
retort,  in  1604  he  plasters  Sejanus  with  praise  ;  but 
next  year,  after  the  failure  of  that  Play,  he  hits  it, 
so  to  say,  when  it  is  down.^  Between  the  two  pieces 
of  attention  he  collaborates  with  Jonson  and  Chap- 
man in  producing  Eastward  Ho.^  He,  certainly,  was 
no  friend  to  Shakespeare  ;  ^  for  when  The  Meta- 
morphosis of  Pigmalion,  his  '  nasty '  copy  of  Venus 
and  Adonis — the  epithet  is  his  own — failed  as  a 
plagiarism,  he  had  the  impudence  (Scourge  of 
Villainy,  vi.)  to  declare  it  a  parody,  written  to  note 

'  The  odious  spot 
And  blemish  that  deforms  the  lineaments 
Of  modem  Poesy's  habilii^ents.' 

Yet  he  must  have  sided  with  Shakespeare  now  and 
then.     As  we  shall  see. 

^  Dekker  and  Jonson  are  paid  for  '  Page  of  Plymouth,  Aug.  20  and 
Sept.  2,  1599.  Dekker,  Jonson,  and  Chettle  for  Robert  2,  King  of  Scots,' 
Sept.  3,  16,  16,  27,  1599. — Henslowe's  Diary,  quoted  by  Fleay. 

2  Preface  to  Sophonisba: — 'Know  that  I  have  not  laboured  in  this 
poem  to  tie  myself  to  relate  anything  as  an  historian,  but  to  enlarge  every- 
thing as  a  poet.  To  transcribe  authors,  quote  authorities  and  translate 
Latin  prose  orations  into  English  blank  verse,  hath,  in  this  subject,  been 
the  least  aim  of  my  studies  ' : — an  obvious  blow  at  Sejanus. 

3  In  which  Warton  {History  of  English  Poetry,  iv.  276,  ed.  1824)  discovers 
many  '  satirical  parodies  '  of  Shakespeare.  Gifford  replies  ;  but  Gertrude's 
parody  of  OpheUa's  song,  iii.  2,  is  a  hard  nut  for  the  apologist,  not  to 
insist  on  the  name — ^Hamlet — given  to  a  footman  who  is  accosted  by 
Potkins  with  a  '  S'foot,  Hamlet,  are  you  mad  ?  * 

*  He  harps  on  one  of  Shakespeare's  Unes : 

*  A  man,  a  man,  a  kingdom  for  a  man.' 

The  first  hne  of  Sat.  vii.  The  Scourge  of  Villainy  (1698). 
'  A  fool,  a  fool,  a  fool,  my  coxcomb  for  a  fooL' 

Parasitaster. 

*  A  boat,  a  boat,  a  full  hundred  marks  for  a  boat.' 

Eastward  Ho, 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       299 

But  amidst  the  welter  and  confusion  of  this  em- 
broilment, it  is  possible  to  discern,  if  not  a  clear-cut 
line  between  opposed  forces,  at  least  a  general 
grouping  about  two  standards.  There  was  the  tribe 
of  Ben,  with  Jonson  for  leader,  and  Chapman  for 
his  constant,^  Marston  for  his  occasional,  ally.  And, 
to  borrow  the  war-cries  of  1830,  there  was  opposed 
to  this  Classical  army  a  Romantic  levy,  with  Shake- 
speare, Dekker,  and  Chettle  among  its  chiefs. 
Where  much  must  be  left  to  surmise,  we  know  that 
Chettle  once  went  out  of  his  way  to  befriend  Shake- 
speare, apologising  handsomely  for  Greene's  on- 
slaught in  A  Groat's  Worth  of  Wit,  and  contrasting 
him  favourably  with  Marlowe  ;  and  that  Dekker, 
as  we  gather  from  Kempe's  speech  in  The  Returne 
from  Parnassus,  found  Shakespeare  an  ally  in  his 
war  against  Jonson.  ^  We  know,  too,  from  Hen- 
slowe's  Diary,  that  Dekker  and  Chettle  collaborated 
in  April  and  May  1599,  on  a  play  called  Troilus  and 
Cressida,^  and,  from  the  Stationers'  Registers,  that 
a  play  with  that  name  was  acted  by  the  Lord 
Chamberlain's  servants  (Shakespeare's  Company) 
on  February  7,  1603.  May  we  not  have  herein  the 
explanation  of  Shakespeare's  Troilus,  in  which  he 

^  Jonson  in  his  Conversations  with  Drummond  said  that  '  he  loved 
Chapman.'  They  were  imprisoned  together  for  satirising  James  First's 
Scotch  Knights  in  Eastward  Ho,  but  Chapman  turned  in  his  old  age.  One 
of  his  latest  poems  arraigns  Ben  for  his  overweening  arrogance. 

2  Some  find  an  allusion  to  this  in  Jonson's  dialogue  acted,  only  once, 
at  the  end  of  The  Poetaster  in  place  of  an  Author's  apology,  which  the 
Authorities  had  suppressed : — 

'  What  they  have  done  'gainst  me, 
I  am  not  moved  with :  if  it  gave  them  meat 
Or  got  them  clothes,  'tis  well ;  that  was  their  end, 
Only  amongst  them,  I  am  sorry  for 
Some  better  natures,  by  the  rest  so  drawn 
To  run  so  vile  a  line.' 

^  TrojeUes  and  Cressida.    Also  in  Patient  Grissel,  October  1699. 


300       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

caricatures  the  manners  and  motives  of  everybody 
in  the  Greek  (i,e,  the  Classic)  tents  ?  ^  This  play 
and  the  allusions  to  rival  poets  in  the  Sonnets  are 
the  two  deepest  mysteries  of  Shakespeare's  work. 
But  if  we  accept  the  division  of  forces  which  I  have 
suggested,  a  gleam  of  light  may  fall  on  both.  It  is 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  Shakespeare,  who  habitu- 
ally vamped  old  Plays,  took  the  Dekker-Ghettle 
play  for  the  staple  of  his  own ;  and,  if  he  did,  the 
satirical  portions  of  his  Troilus  and  Cressida,  so 
closely  akin  to  the  satire  of  Satiromastix,  may  be  a 
part  of  Dekker's  attack  on  Chapman,  Jonson,  and 
Marston.  Chapman's  Shield  of  Achilles  and  his 
'  Seaven  Boohes  of  the  Iliades  of  Homere,  Prince  of 
Poets '  ^  appeared  in  1598,  the  year  before  the 
Dekker-Chettle  Troilus,  and  were  prefaced  by 
arrogant  onslaughts,  repeated  again  and  again,  upon 
'  apish  and  impudent  braggarts,'  ^  men  of  '  loose 
capacities,'  '  rank  riders  or  readers  who  have  no 
more  souls  than  bur  bolts  '  :  upon  all,  in  short, 
who  prefer  '  sonnets  and  lascivious  ballads '  before 
'  Homerical  poems.'  ^      If    this    suggestion    be    ac- 

1  Shakespeare's  Play  was  published  in  1609,  apparently  in  two  editions  : 
(1)  with  '  As  it  was  acted  by  the  King's  Majestie's  servants  at  the  Globe 
(the  title  of  Shakespeare's  Company  after  1603) ;  and  (2)  with  a  preface 
stating  that  the  Play  had  never  been  '  Stal'd  with  the  Stage.'  But  the 
two  editions  are  '  absolutely  identical,'  even  the  Title-page  being  printed 
from  the  same  forme. — Preface  to  Cambridge  Shakespeare,  vol.  vi.  This 
mystification  does  not  affect  the  overmastering  presumption  that  Shake- 
speare's Play,  pubUshed  in  1609,  and  acted  by  his  company  between  1603- 
1609,  was  the  Play,  or  a  re- written  version  of  the  Play,  acted  by  his 
Company  in  1603.  The  presumption  that  the  1603  Play  was  founded  on 
that  of  Dekker  and  Chettle  is  also  strong.  Dekker's  Satiromastix  was 
played  by  Shakespeare's  Company  in  1601. 

2  Books  1,  2,  and  7-11  inclusive.  The  copy  in  the  British  Museum  bears 
the  autograph,  '  Sum  Ben  JonsoniL' 

^  Preface  to  the  Reader.    Folio. 

*  '  To  the  Understander,'  Shield  of  Achillea.  His  deepest  concern  is  lest 
he  should  be  thought  a  '  mahcious  detractor  of  so  admired  a  poet  as  VirgiL' 
— Epistle  dedicatory  to  the  Earl  Marshal,  Ibid. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       301 

cepted,  we  have  Shakespeare,  a  Trojan,  abetting  the 
Trojan  Dekker  against  Chapman,  an  insolent  Greek. 
Shakespeare's  play,  and  Dekker' s  of  1599,  if,  as  I 
have  surmised,  it  was  the  sketch  which  Shakespeare 
completed,  were  founded,  ultimately,  on  the 
mediaeval  romance  into  which  the  French  Trouvere, 
Benoit  de  Sainte-Maure,  first  introduced  the  loves 
of  Troilus  and  Briseida,  Roman  de  Troie  (1160) — 
afterwards  imitated  by  Boccaccio,  Guido  delle 
Colonne,  Chaucer  and  Caxton  (Becuyell  of  the 
Histories  of  Troy),^  In  this  traditional  story, 
adapted  to  flatter  a  feudal  nobility,  which  really 
believed  itself  the  seed  of  Priam,  Hector  is  the  hero, 
treacherously  murdered  by  Achilles.  In  Lucrece 
there  is  no  attack  on  the  Greeks,  but  Dekker,  who 
calls  London  Troynovant  (Seven  Deadly  Sins,  1607), 
and  the  Romantic  School  generally,  resented  the 
rehabilitation  of  Homer's  credit — Chaucer  had 
called  him  a  liar — involving,  as  it  did,  the  com- 
parative disgrace  of  their  hero  :  all  the  more  that 
the  new  glorification  of  the  Greeks  came  from 
arrogant  scholars,  who  presumed  on  their  knowledge 
of  the  Greek  language  to  rail  at  the  ignorance  and  to 
reject  the  art  of  their  contemporaries  and  pre- 
decessors. That  Shakespeare  did  so  abet  Dekker 
against  Chapman  is  a  theory  more  in  harmony  with 
known  facts  than  Gervinus'  guess  that  Shakespeare, 
chagrined  by  the  low  moral  tone  of  Homer's  heroes, 
felt  it  incumbent  on  him  to  travesty  their  action. 
Minto  and  Mr.  Dowden  find  in  Chapman  the  rival 
poet  of  Shakespeare's  Sonnets — (I  should  prefer  to 
say  one  of  the  rival  poets) — and  this  f  aUs  in  with  the 

*  Ker,  Epic  and  Romarux,  p.  378,  traces  Shakespeare's  'dreadful 
sagittary '  {Troilus  and  Cressida,  v.  v.  14)  back  to  Benoit's  '  II  ot  o  lui  un 
saietaire  Qui  moult  fu  fels  et  deputaire.' 


302       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

theory.  The  banter  of  Ben  Jonson  (Ajax)  in  the 
Play  is  more  obvious,  and  pushes,  even  beyond 
reasonable  supposition,  the  view,  which  I  submit, 
that  much  of  Shakespeare's  version  was  written  by 
him  during  the  Poetomachia.  Many  of  the  plainest 
attacks  and  counterbuffs  of  that  war  are  in  the 
Epilogues  and  Prologues  to  the  Plays  involved  in  it. 
The  Speaker  of  the  Epilogue  to  Cynthia  (1600)  will 
not  '  crave  their  favour '  of  the  audience,  but  will 
'  only  speak  what  he  has  heard  the  maker  say ' : — 

'  By  God  'tis  good,  and  if  you  like 't,  you  may.' 

As  Envy  descends  slowly,  in  the  Introduction  to  The 
Poetaster  (1601),  the  Prologue  enters  '  hastily  in 
armour,'  and  repUes  to  censures  provoked  by  this 
bragging  challenge : — 

'  If  any  muse  why  I  salute  the  stage 
An  armed  Prologue  ;  know,  'tis  a  dangerous  age, 
Wherein  who  writes,  had  need  present  his  scenes 
Forty-fold  proof  against  the  conjuring  means 
Of  base  detractors  and  illiterate  apes.  ... 
Whereof  the  allegory  and  hid  sense 
Is,  that  a  well  erected  confidence 
Can  fright  their  pride  and  laugh  their  folly  hence. 
Here  now,  put  case  our  author  should  once  more, 
Swear  that  his  play  was  good  ;  he  doth  implore 
You  would  not  argue  him  of  arrogance.' 

Marston's  Epilogue,  added,  I  imagine,  to  his  Antonio 
and  Mellida  ^  (1601),  says  : — '  Grentlemen,  though  I 
remain  an  armed  Epilogue,  I  stand  not  as  a  per- 
emptory challenger  of  desert,  either  for  him  that  com- 
posed the  Comedy,  or  for  us  that  acted  it ' ;  and,  at 
the  lips  of  the  Prologue  to  Shakespeare's  Troilus, 
the  jest  runs  on — 

^  It  is  satirised  in  The  Poetaster  (1601) ;  so  that  both  may  have  been  on 
the  boards  together. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       303 

'  Hither  am  I  come 
A  Prologue  arnCd^  but  not  in  confidence 
Of  Author's  pen  or  actor's  voice.  .  .  .' 

I  venture  to  call  this  Prologue  Shakespeare's,  for 
other  lines  in  it,  as  those  on  the  Trojan  Gates  : — 

'  With  massy  staples, 
And  corresponsive  and  fulfilling  bolts  '  : — 

are  to  me  audibly  his.^  Shakespeare,  I  hold,  wrote 
this  Prologue,  and  wrote  it  while  the  Prologue  to 
The  Poetaster  was  still  a  fresh  object  for  ridicule.^ 
That  Thersites  in  Shakespeare's  Troilus  stood  for 
Marston  can  hardly  be  doubted.  When  Agamemnon 
says  ironically  (i.  iii.  72) : — 

'  We  are  confident 
When  rank  Thersites  opes  his  mastic  '^  jaw 
We  shall  hear  music  '  : — 

the  allusion  to  Marston,  who  had  signed  himseK 
'  ThQTiomastix '  to  the  prose  Envoy  of  his  Scourge 
of   Villainy,   is   patent.^    More :     apart  from   this 

^  Mr.  Fleay,  Chronicles  of  the  English  Drama,  ii.  190,  holds  the  author- 
ship of  the  Prologue  very  doubtful.  But  this  is  a  question  not  of  evidence 
but  of  ear. 

2  Fleay,  Ibid.,  i.  366  : — '  Whoever  will  take  the  trouble  to  compare  the 
description  of  Crites  (Jonson)  by  Mercury  in  Cynthia's  Revels,  ii.  1,  with 
that  of  Ajax  by  Alexander  in  Troilvs  and  Cressida,  i.  2,  will  see  that  Ajax 
is  Jonson.'  But  he  is  inconsistent.  Ibid.,  ii.  189 : — '  The  setting  up  of 
Ajax  as  a  rival  to  Achilles  shadows  forth  the  putting  forward  of  Dekker 
by  the  King's  men  to  write  against  Jonson  his  Satiromastix,'  so  that  Ajax 
=  Dekker,  Achilles  =  Jonson.  This  inconsistency  does  not  invaHdate  his 
conclusion  that  rival  playwrights  are  satirised,  and  in  many  other  passages 
of  Troilus,  the  '  guying  '  of  the  Greek  Commander  by  Patroclus  to  amuse 
Achilles  (I.  iii.  140-196)  :— 

'  And  with  ridiculous  and  awkward  action 
Which,  Slanderer,  he  imitation  calls. 
He  pageants  us ' : — 

and  the  '  guying '  of  Ajax  by  Thersites  (undoubtedly  Marston)  also  to 
amuse  AcMUes  (in.  iii.  266-292),  are  not  to  be  explained  unless  as  portions 
easily  recognisable  at  the  time  of  the  general '  guying  '  in  the  Poetomachia. 

3  Rowe  suggested  mastiff;  Boswell  mastive. 

*  Fleay,  again  inconsistently,  refers  this  line  to  Dekker,  History  of  the 
Stage,  106,  and  to  Marston,  Chronicle  of  the  English  Drama,  i.  366. 


304       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

punning  taunt  there  is  no  parallel  for  the  foul  railing 
of  Thersites'  every  speech  outside  the  persistent 
blackguardism  of  Marston's  Satires  and  Scourge  of 
Villainy, 

Did  Shakespeare  join  elsewhere  ,with  his  own  hand 
in  the  Poetomachia  ?  The  question  arises  when  we 
reflect  that  the  Plays  contributed  to  it  by  Jonson, 
Marston,  and  Dekker  fairly  bristle  with  personaHties  : 
recognised  by  the  key  which  Dekker  suppHed  in 
Satiromastix.  Of  all  Shakespeare's  characters,  Pistol 
is  the  one  in  which  critics  have  especially  scented 
a  personal  attack;  and  some  have  thought  that 
Marlowe  was  the  victim.  But  Marlowe  never  wrote 
as  Pistol  is  made  to  speak ;  whilst  Marston  generally, 
and  particularly  in  the  Satire  {Scourge  vi.)  to  which 
I  have  already  alluded,  writes  in  the  very  lingo  of 
the  Ancient.  Urging  that  his  *  nasty '  Pigmalion  was 
in  truth  but  a  reproach  upon  Venus  and  Adonis^  he 
says,  and  the  accent  is  familiar  : — 

'  Think'st  thou  that  genius  that  attends  my  soul, 
And  guides  my  fist  to  scourge  magnificos, 
Will  deign  my  mind  be  rank'd  in  Paphian  shows  ?  ' : — 

Indeed,  when  we  remember  the  '  wit  combats  '  at  the 
Mermaid,  in  which  these  pot  companions  and  public 
antagonists — Carlo  Buff  one  cheek  by  jowl  with 
Asper — ^rallied  each  other  on  their  failings,  and 
Jonson' s  anecdote  ^  that  he  had  once  '  beaten 
Marston  and  taken  his  pistol  from  him,'  it  is  pleasant 
to  imagine  that  the  name  of  Shakespeare's  scurrilous 
puff  was  the  nickname  of  Jonson's  shifty  ally.^  For 
in  considering  this  wordy  war,  it  is  necessary  to  re- 

^  Dnimmond's  Conversations. 

2  Jonson  comments  on  some  such  adventure  in  his  Epigrams,  Lxvni. — 
On  Playwright : — 

*  Playwrit  convict  of  pubUc  wrongs  to  men. 
Takes  private  beatings,  and  begins  again. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       305 

member  that  the  fight  was,  in  the  main,  a  pantomime 
'  rally,'  in  which  big-somiding  blows  were  given  and 
returned  for  the  amusement  of  the  gallery.  Captain 
Tucca,  the  character  borrowed  from  The  Poetaster  to 
set  an  edge  on  Dekker's  retort,  speaks  the  Epilogue 
to  Satiromastix,  and  begs  the  audience  to  applaud 
the  piece  in  order  that  Horace  (Jonson)  may  be 
obUged  to  reply  once  again.  HaK  in  fun  and  half  in 
earnest  did  these  ink-horn  swash-bucklers  gibe  each 
other  over  their  cups,  and  trounce  each  other  on  the 
boards.  Yet  behind  all  the  chaff  and  bustle  '  of 
that  terrible  Poetomachia  lately  commenced  between 
Horace  the  Second  and  a  band  of  lean-witted 
poetasters,'  ^  there  was  a  real  conflict  of  hterary 
aims  ;  and  in  that  conflict  Shakespeare  took  the  part 
of  the  Romantics,  upon  whose  ultimate  success  the 
odds  were,  in  Dekker's  nervous  phraseology,  '  all 
Mount  HeHcon  to  Bun-hill.'  ^  Without  seeking 
further  to  distinguish  the  champions,  it  is  sufficient 
to  know  that  Shakespeare  was  an  actor  and  a  play- 
wright throughout  the  alarums  and  excursions  of 
these  paste-board  hostihties,  whose  casualties,  after 
all,  amounted  but  to  the  '  lamentable  merry  murder- 
ing of  Innocent  Poetry.'  ^ 

Two  kinds  of  valour  he  doth  shew  at  once ; 
Active  in  's  brain,  and  passive  in  his  bones.' 

The  Quarto  of  Shakespeare's  Henry  V.  was  pubHshed  in  1600.  Pistol  is 
beaten  in  it,  as  Thersites  is  beaten  in  Troilus.  Pistol  uses  the  fustian  word 
'  exhale ' ;  so  does  Crispinus  in  Poetaster  (noted  by  Fleay).  Pistol's 
'  Fetch  forth  the  lazar  kite  of  Cresides  kinde '  is  reminiscent  of  TroiluSy 
produced  the  year  before.  Pistol's  '  What,  have  we  Hiren  here '  is  a  mock 
quotation  from  an  early  play  of  which  Marston  makes  use  more  than  once. 

^  Address  '  To  the  World  '  prefixed  to  Satiromastix.  The  author  thanks 
Venusian  Horace  for  the  '  good  words  ' — detraction,  envy,  snakes,  adders, 
stings,  etc. — ^which  he  gives  him.  They  are  taken  from  the  Prologue  to 
The  Poetaster,  ^  '  To  the  World  '  prefixed  to  Satiromastix. 

^  Dekker,  Epilogue  to  Satiromastix.  In  the  thick  of  the  fray,  1601, 
Jonson,  Chapman,  Marston,  and  Shakespeare  each  contributed  a  poem 
on  The  Phmnix  and  the  Turtle  to  Robert  Chester's  Love's  Martyr  ! 

U 


306       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

IX 

In  examining  the  relation  between  the  lyrics 
which  Shakespeare  wrote  and  the  environment  of 
his  life,  it  was  impossible  to  overlook  this  controversy 
which  must  have  lasted  longer  and  bulked  larger 
than  any  other  feature  in  that  Hfe.^  For  Shake- 
speare, the  man,  was  in  the  first  place  an  actor  and 
a  playwright  bound  up  in  the  corporate  hfe  of  the 
Company  to  which  he  belonged.  We  are  apt  to 
reconstruct  this  theatric  world,  in  which  he  had  his 
being,  fancifully :  from  his  Plays  rather  than  from 
the  Plays  of  his  contemporaries,  and  from  the  few 
among  his  Plays  which  are  our  favourites,  just 
because  they  differ  most  widely  from  theirs.  But 
his  world  of  everyday  effort  and  experience  was  not 
altogether,  as  at  such  times  it  may  seem  to  us,  a 
garden  of  fair  flowers  and  softly  sighing  winds  and 
dehcate  perfumes,  nor  altogether  a  gorgeous  gallery 
of  gallant  inventions :  it  was  also  garish,  strident, 
pungent ;  a  Donnybrook  Fair  of  society  journaHsts, 
a  nightmare  of  Gillray  caricature.  '  A  Gentleman,' 
you  read,  '  or  an  honest  Citizen,  shall  not  sit  in  your 
pennie-bench  Theatres  with  his  squirrel  by  his  side 
cracking  nuttes  ;  nor  sneake  into  a  Taverne  with 
his  Mermaid  ;  but  he  shall  be  satjrr'd,  and  epigram'd 
upon,  and  his  humour  must  run  upo'  the  Stage : 
you  'U  ha  Every  Gentleman  in  '5  humour,  and  Every 
Gentleman  out  on 's  humour,''  ^    Shakespeare  teUs  the 

^  The  Venus  and  Liicrece  were  written,  of  course,  years  before  the 
Poetomachia ;  but,  unless  we  accept  the  improbable  view  that  Shake- 
speare brought  his  Venus  with  him  from  Stratford,  both  were  written 
under  conditions  to  which  the  Poetomachia  gives  a  clue. 

2  Dekker's  Satiromastix.  In  his  address  '  To  the  World,*  he  instances 
Captain  Hannam  as  the  Hving  prototype  taken  for  Tuxxa  by  Jonson.  In 
the  earUer  Marprelate  plays  {circa  1689)  Nash's  antagonist,  Gabriel  Harvey, 
was  put  on  the  stage.  Aubrey,  before  1680,  wrote  that  '  Ben  Jonson  and 
he  (Shakespeare)  did  gather  humour  of  men  dayly  wherever  they  came.' 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       307 

same  story,  when  he  makes  Hamlet  say  of  the 
players : — '  They  are  the  abstract  and  brief  chronicles 
of  the  time :  after  your  death  you  were  better  to 
have  a  bad  epitaph  than  their  ill  report  while  you 
live.'  ^  Note  that  he  speaks  of  the  actors,  not  the 
playwrights  :  though  much  of  their  satire  turned  on 
size  of  leg,  scantness  of  hair,  pretensions  to  gentiUty 
and  seediness  of  apparel  in  well-known  individuals 
veiled  under  transparent  disguises.  Far  more  ob- 
vious even  than  such  lampooning  was  the  actors' 
'  guying  '  of  persons  and  types  which  we  see  reflected 
in  Troilus  ^  and  enacted  in  Cynthia's  Revels,  The 
actor  playing  Crites  (v.  3)  takes  off  every  trick  of 
speech  and  gesture  in  the  person  whom  he  carica- 
tures, for,  says  Hedon : — '  SUght,  Anaides,  you 
are  mocked '  ;  and  again,  in  the  Induction,  one  of 
the  three  children  who  play  it  borrows  the  Prologue's 
cloak,  and  mimics,  one  after  another,  the  gallants 
who  frequent  the  theatre ;  so  that  here  is  the 
'  genteel  auditor  '  to  the  life,  with  his  '  three  sorts  of 
tobacco  in  his  pocket,'  swearing — '  By  this  light ' — 
as  he  strikes  his  flint,  that  the  players  '  act  Hke  so 
many  wrens,'  and,  as  for  the  poets — '  By  this 
vapour ' — that  '  an  'twere  not  for  tobacco  the  very 
stench  of  them  would  poison  '  him. 

We  can  picture  from  other  sources  both  the  condi- 
tions of  Shakespeare's  auditors  and  the  upholstering 
of  his  stage.  Dekker,^  describing  '  how  a  gallant 
should  behave  himself  at  a  playhouse,'  writes  of  the 
groundling  who  masked  the  view  of  the  'prentices  : — 

1  Hamlet,  n.  ii.  501.  Fleay,  History  of  the  Stage,  p.  160  :— '  1601,  May 
10,  the  Council  writes  to  the  Middlesex  Justices  complaining  that  the 
players  at  the  Curtain  represent  on  the  stage  under  obscure  manner,  but 
yet  in  such  sort  as  all  the  hearers  may  take  notice  both  of  the  matter  and 
the  persons  that  are  meant  thereby  ' :  certain  gentlemen  that  are  yet  aHve. 

2  I.  iii.  140-196.     m.  iii.  266-292.     Cf.  supra. 

3  GuWs  Horn-Book. 


308       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

'  But  on  the  very  rushes  where  the  comedy  is  to 
dance,  yea,  under  the  state  of  Cambyses  himself, 
must  our  feathered  estridge,  Hke  a  piece  of  ordnance, 
be  planted  valiantly  (because  impudently)  beating 
down  the  mews  and  hisses  of  the  opposed  rascaUty.' 
The  dignity  of  '  Cambyses  state '  may  be  guessed 
from  Henslowe's  list  ^  of  grotesque  properties — 
'  Serberosse  (Cerberus')  three  heads  ;  lerosses  (Iris') 
head  and  rainbow  ;  1  tomb  of  Dido  ;  1  pair  of  stairs 
for  Payeton  (Phaethon)  and  his  2  leather  antic's 
coats '  and  '  the  city  of  Rome  (!).'  The  gallant  in 
gorgeous  apparel,  his  jerkin  '  frotted  '  with  perfumes, 
'  spikenard,  opoponax,  senanthe,'  ^  the  '  Court-mis- 
tress '  in  '  Satin  cut  upon  six  taffetaes,'  the  'prentice 
and  harlot  viewed  these  plays,  farced  with  scurrilous 
lampoons,  and  rudely  staged  on  rushes,  through  an 
atmosphere  laden  with  tobacco  and  to  an  accom- 
paniment of  nut-cracking  and  spitting.  This  was 
Shakespeare's  shop,  the  '  Wooden  0  '  into  which  he 
crammed 

'  the  very  casques 
That  did  affright  the  air  at  Agineourt,'  ^ 

and  in  which,  year  after  year,  he  won  fame  and 
wealth  and  rancorous  envy  from  defeated  rivals. 

We  catch  a  last  note  of  detraction,  in  Eatseis' 
Ghost  (1605-6),  wherein  the  phantom  hightobyman 
advises  a  strolling  Player  to  repair  to  London : — 
'  There  thou  shalt  learn  to  be  frugal  (for  players  were 
never  so  thrifty  as  they  are  now  about  London), 
and  to  feed  upon  all  men ;  to  let  none  feed  upon 
thee ;  to  make  thy  hand  a  stranger  to  thy  pocket, 
thy  heart  slow  to  perform  thy  tongue's  promise ; 
and  when  thou  feelest  thy  purse  well  lined,  buy  thee 

^  Quoted  by  Fleay,  History  of  the  Stage,  114. 

2  Cynthia's  Bevels.  ^  Chorus  to  Henry  V.  L 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       309 

some  place  of  lordship  in  the  country,  that,  growing 
weary  of  playing,  thy  money  may  then  bring  thee 
to  dignity  and  reputation :  then  thou  needest  care 
for  no  man  ;  no,  not  for  them  that  before  made  thee 
proud  when  speaking  their  words  on  the  stage.' 
'  Sir,  I  thank  you,'  quoth  the  Player,  '  for  this  good 
council :  I  promise  you  I  will  make  use  of  it,  for  I 
have  heard,  indeed,  of  some  that  have  gone  to 
London  very  meanly  and  have  come  in  time  to  be 
exceeding  wealthy.'  It  is  significant,  almost  con- 
clusive, to  know  that  Shakespeare's  name  appeared 
on  the  roll  of  the  King's  Players  for  the  last  time  in 
1604  and  that  in  1605  he  purchased  an  unexpired 
term  (thirty  years)  in  the  lease  of  tithes  both  great 
and  small,  in  Stratford  :  thus  securing  an  addition 
to  his  income  equal  to  at  least  £350  ^  a  year  of  our 
money. 


Behind  this  life  of  business,  on  and  for  the  stage, 
Shakespeare,  as  the  friend  of  young  noblemen,  saw 
something  of  the  Court  with  its  gaiety  and  learning 
and  display,  ever  undermined  by  intrigue,  and  some- 
times eclipsed  by  tragedy.  He  was  impeded  in  his 
art  by  controversies  between  puritans,  churchmen, 
and  precisians,  and  exercised  in  his  affection  for  those 
who  to  their  own  ruin  championed  the  old  nobihty 
against  the  growing  power  of  the  Crown.  As  a  loyal 
citizen  of  London,  he  must  have  grieved  at  her  sins 
and  diseases,  over  which  even  Dekker,  the  railing 
ruffler  of  Satiromastix,  wailed  at  last  in  the  accents 
of  a  Hebrew  prophet : — '  0  London,  thou  art  great 
in  glory,  and  envied  for  thy  greatness  ;  thy  Towers, 
thy  Temples,  and  thy  Pinnacles  stand  upon  thy 

^  Baynes. 


310       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

head  like  borders  of  fine  gold,  thy  waters  like  frindges 
of  silver  hang  at  the  hemmes  of  thy  garments. 
Thou  art  the  goodliest  of  thy  neighbours,  but  the 
prowdest,  the  welthiest,  but  the  most  wanton. 
Thou  hast  all  things  in  thee  to  make  thee  fairest, 
and  aU  things  in  thee  to  make  thee  foulest ;  for  thou 
art  attir'd  like  a  Bride,  drawing  all  that  looke  upon 
thee,  to  be  in  love  with  thee,  but  there  is  much  harlot 
in  thine  eyes '  .  .  .  so  '  sickness  was  sent  to  breathe 
her  unwholesome  ayres  into  thy  nosthrills,  so  that 
thou,  that  wert  before  the  only  Gallant  and  Minion 
of  the  world,  hadst  in  a  short  time  more  diseases 
(than  a  common  harlot  hath)  hanging  upon  thee  ; 
thou  suddenly  becamst  the  by-talke  of  neighbors, 
the  scome  and  contempt  of  Nations.'  ^  Thus  Dekker 
in  1606 ;  and,  in  the  next  year,  Marston,  who 
equalled  him  in  blatant  spirits  and  far  excelled  him 
in  ruffianism,  left  writing  for  the  Stage,  and  entered 
the  Church  ! 

These  are  aspects  of  Shakespeare's  environment 
which  we  cannot  neglect  in  deciding  how  much  or 
how  little  of  his  l3a'ical  art  he  owed  to  anything  but 
his  own  genius  and  devotion  to  Beauty.  Least  of 
all  may  we  first  assume  that  his  art  reflects  his  en- 
vironment, and  then,  inverting  this  imaginary 
relation,  declare  it  for  the  product  of  a  golden  age 
which  never  existed.  Yet,  thanks  to  modern 
idolatry  of  naked  generahsations,  it  is  the  fashion 
to  throw  Shakespeare  in  with  other  fruits  of  the 
Renaissance,  acknowledging  the  singularity  of  his 
genius,  but  still  labelling  it  for  an  organic  part  of  a 
wide  development.  And  in  this  development  we 
have  been  taught  to  see  nothing  but  a  renewal  of 
life  and  strength,  of  truth  and  sanity,  following  on 

1  The  Seven  Deadly  SiTis  of  London  (1606), 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       311 

the  senile  mystifications  of  an  effete  Middle  Age. 
The  theory  makes  for  a  sharp  definition  of  contrast ; 
but  it  is  hard  to  find  its  justification  either  in  the  facts 
of  history  or  in  the  opinions  of  Shakespeare's  con- 
temporaries, who  believed  that,  on  the  contrary, 
they  lived  in  an  epoch  of  decadence.  In  any  age 
of  rapid  development  there  is  much,  no  doubt,  that 
may  fitly  be  illustrated  by  metaphors  drawn  from 
sunrise  and  spring ;  but  there  are  also  aspects  akui 
to  sunset  and  autumn.  The  truth  seems  to  be  that 
at  such  times  the  processes  of  both  birth  and  death 
are  abnormally  quickened.  To  every  eye  life  be- 
comes more  coloured  and  eventful  daily ;  but  it 
shines  and  changes  with  curiously  mingled  effects  : 
speaking  to  these  of  youth  and  the  hill-tops,  and  to 
those  of  declension  and  decay. 

In  1611  Shakespeare  withdrew  to  Stratford-on- 
Avon.^  Of  his  life  in  London  we  know  little  at  first 
hand.  But  we  know  enough  of  what  he  did ; 
enough  of  what  he  was  said  to  have  done  ;  enough  of 
the  dispositions  and  the  lives  of  his  contemporaries  ; 
to  imagine  very  clearly  the  world  in  which  he  worked 
for  some  twenty-three  years.  He  lived  the  life  of  a 
successful  artist,  rocked  on  the  waves  and  sunk  in 
the  troughs  of  exhilaration  and  fatigue.  He  was 
befriended  for  personal  and  poHtical  reasons  by 
brilliant  young  noblemen,  and  certainly  grieved  over 
their  misfortunes.  He  was  intimate  with  South- 
ampton and  William  Herbert,  and  must  surely 
have  known  Herbert's  mistress,  Mary  Fitton.  He 
suffered,  first,  rather  more  than  less  from  the  jealousy 
and  detraction  of  the  scholar-wits,  the  older  Uni- 

1  Baynes  argues  that  he  left  London  in  1608.  He  ceased  writing  for 
the  stage  in  1611,  and  disposed  of  his  interest  in  the  Globe  and  Blackfriars 
Theatres  probably  in  that  year. 


312       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

versity  pens,  and  then,  rather  less  than  more,  from 
the  histrionic  rivaky  of  his  brother  playwrights. 
He  was  himself  a  mark  for  scandal,^  and  he  watched 
the  thunder  clouds  of  Politics  and  Puritanism  gather- 
ing over  the  literature  and  the  drama  which  he 
loved.  ^  Yet  far  away  from  the  diist  and  din  of  these 
turmoils  he  bore  the  sorrows,  and  prosecuted  the 
success  of  his  other  life  at  Stratford.  His  only  son, 
Hamnet,  died  in  1596.  His  daughter,  Susannah, 
married,  and  his  mother,  Mary  Arden,  died  in  1608, 
and  in  the  same  year  he  bestowed  his  name  on  the 
child  of  an  old  friend,  Henry  Walker.  Through  all 
these  years,  by  lending  money  and  purchasing  land, 
he  built  up  a  fortune  magnified  by  legend  long  after 
his  death.  And  in  the  April  of  1616  he  died  himself, 
as  some  have  it,  on  his  birthday.  He  '  was  bury'd 
on  the  north  side  of  the  chancel,  in  the  great  Church 
at  Stratford,  where  a  monument  is  plac'd  on  the 
wall.     On  his  grave-stone  underneath  is : — 

"  Good  friend,  for  Jesus'  sake,  forbear 
To  dig  the  dust  inclosed  here. 
Blest  be  the  man  that  spares  these  stones, 
And  curst  be  he  that  moves  my  bones."  '  ^ 

This  shght  and  most  imperfect  sketch,  founded 
mainly  on  impressions  brought  away  from  the  study 

^  Sir  W.  Davenant  boasted  that  he  was  Shakespeare's  son  : — '  When  he 
was  pleasant  over  a  glass  of  wine  with  his  most  intimate  friends  '  (Aubrey's 
Lives  of  Eminent  Persons.  Completed  before  1680).  Cf.  HaUiwell- 
Philhpps'  Outlines,  ii.  43.  And  there  is  that  story  of  the  trick  the  poet 
played  on  Burbage :  which  might  hail  from  the  Decameron.  See  John 
Manningham's  Diary,  13th  March  1601-2. 

2  Wa.TUin, Hist,  of  Eng.  Poetry  {lS24:),iY.  320.  'In  1599  .  .  .  Marston's 
Pygmalion,  Marlowe's  Ovid,  the  Satires  of  HaU  and  Marston,  the  epigrams 
of  Davies  and  the  Caltha  poetarum,  etc.,  were  burnt  by  order  of  the  pre- 
lates, Whitgift  and  Bancroft.  The  books  of  Nash  and  Harvey  were 
ordered  to  be  confiscated,  and  it  was  laid  down  that  no  plays  should  be 
printed  without  permission  from  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  nor  any 
'  English  Historyes '  (novels  ?)  without  the  sanction  of  the  Privy  Council.' 

3  Rowe,  1709. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       313 

of  many  noble  portraits,  is  still  sufficient  to  prove 
how  little  the  Poems  owe,  even  remotely,  to  the 
vicissitudes  of  an  artist's  career.  Of  the  wild  wood- 
land life  in  Arden  Forest,  of  boyish  memories  and  of 
books  read  at  school,  there  is  truly  something  to  be 
traced  in  echoes  from  Ovid  and  in  frequent  illustra- 
tions drawn  from  sport  and  nature.  But  of  the  later 
life  in  London  there  is  Httle  enough,  even  in  the 
Sonnets  that  tell  of  rival  poets  and  a  dark  lady,  and 
nothing  that  points  so  clearly  to  any  single  experi- 
ence as  to  admit  of  definite  appUcation.  For  in 
Shakespeare's  Poems,  as  in  every  great  work  of  art, 
single  experiences  have  been  generahsed  or,  rather, 
merged  in  the  passion  which  they  rouse  as  a  height 
and  a  pitch  of  sensitiveness  immeasurable  in  contrast 
with  its  puny  origins.  The  volume  and  the  intensity 
of  an  artist's  passion  have  led  many  to  beheve  that 
great  artists  speak  for  all  mankind  of  joy  and  sorrow. 
But  to  great  artists  the  bliss  and  martyrdom  of  man 
are  of  less  import,  so  it  seems,  than  to  others.  The 
griefs  and  tragedies  that  bulk  so  largely  in  the  Hves 
of  the  inapt  and  the  inarticulate  are — so  far  as  we 
may  divine  the  secrets  of  an  alien  race — ^but  a  small 
part  of  the  great  artist's  experience  :  hardly  more, 
perhaps,  than  stimulants  to  his  general  sense  of  the 
whole  world's  infinite  appeal  to  sensation  and 
consciousness. 

XI 

Shakespeare's  Poems  are  detached  by  the  per- 
fection of  his  art  from  both  the  personal  experience 
which  supplied  their  matter  and  the  artistic  environ- 
ment which  suggested  their  rough-hewn  form.  Were 
they  newly  discovered,  you  could  tell,  of  course,  that 
they  were  written  in  England,  and  about  the  end  of 


314       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

the  Sixteenth  Century  :  just  as  you  can  tell  a  Flemish 
from  an  Italian,  a  Fourteenth  from  a  Sixteenth 
Century  picture ;  and  every  unprejudiced  critic 
has  said  of  the  Sonnets  that  they  '  express  Shake- 
speare's own  feelings  in  his  own  person.'  ^  That  is 
true.  But  it  is  equally  true,  and  it  is  vastly  more 
important,  that  the  Sonnets  are  not  an  Auto- 
biography. In  this  Sonnet  or  that  you  feel  the 
throb  of  great  passions  shaking  behind  the  perfect 
verse ;  here  and  there  you  listen  to  a  sigh  as  of  a 
world  awakening  to  its  weariness.  Yet  the  move- 
ment and  sound  are  elemental :  they  steal  on  your 
senses  like  a  whisper  trembling  through  summer- 
leaves,  and  in  their  vastness  are  removed  by  far  from 
the  suffocation  of  any  one  man's  tragedy.  The 
writer  of  the  Sonnets  has  felt  more,  and  thought 
more,  than  the  writer  of  the  Venus  and  the  Lucrece ; 
but  he  remains  a  poet — ^not  a  Rousseau,  not  a 
Metaphysician — and  his  chief  concern  is  still  to 
worship  Beauty  in  the  imagery  and  music  of  his 
verse.  It  is,  indeed,  strange  to  find  how  much  of 
thought,  imagery,  and  rhythm  is  common  to  Venus 
and  Adonis  and  the  Sonnets,  for  the  two  works  could 
hardly  belong  by  their  themes  to  classes  of  poetry 
more  widely  distinct — (the  first  is  a  late  Renaissance 
imitation  of  late  Classical  Mythology ;  the  second 
a  sequence  of  intimate  occasional  verses) — ^nor  could 
they  differ  more  obviously  from  other  poems  in  the 
same  classes.  Many  such  imitations  and  sequences 
of  sonnets  were  written  by  Shakespeare's  contem- 

*  Mr.  Dowden  : — '  With  Wordsworth,  Sir  Henry  Taylor,  and  Mr.  Swin- 
burne ;  with  Fran9ois- Victor  Hugo,  with  Kreyssig,  Ukici,  Gervinus,  and 
Hermann  Isaac ;  with  Boaden,  Armitage  Brown,  and  Hallam ;  with 
Fumivall,  Spalding,  Rossetti,  and  Palgrave,  I  beheve  that  Shakespeare's 
Sonnets  express  his  own  feelings  in  his  own  person.'  So  do  Mr.  A.  E. 
Harrison  and  Mr.  Tyler. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       315 

poraries,  but  among  them  all  there  is  not  one  poem 
that  in  the  least  resembles  Venus  and  Adonis,  and 
there  are  but  few  sonnets  that  remind  you,  even 
faintly,  of  Shakespeare's.  And  just  such  distinctions 
isolate  The  Rape  of  Lucrece,  By  its  theme,  as  a 
romantic  story  in  rhyme,  it  has  nothing  in  common 
with  its  two  companions  from  Shakespeare's  hand  ; 
but  it  is  lonelier  than  they,  having  indeed  no  fellow 
in  Elizabethan  poetry  and  not  many  in  English 
Hterature.  Leaving  ballads  on  one  side,  you  may 
count  the  romantic  stories  in  English  rhyme,  that 
can  by  courtesy  be  called  literature,  upon  the  fingers 
of  one  hand.  There  are  but  two  arches  in  the  bridge 
by  which  Keats  and  Chaucer  communicate  across  the 
centuries,  and  Shakespeare's  Lucrece  stands  for  the 
soUtary  pier.  Yet,  distinct  as  they  are  from  each 
other  in  character,  these  three  things  by  Shakespeare 
are  closely  united  in  form  by  a  degree  of  lyrical 
excellence  in  their  imagery  and  rhythm  which  severs 
them  from  kindred  competitors :  they  are  the  first 
examples  of  the  highest  quahties  in  Elizabethan 
lyrical  verse.  No  poet  of  that  day  ever  doubted 
that  '  poesie  dealeth  with  Katholon,  that  is  to  say 
with  the  universall  consideration,'  ^  or  that  of  every 
language  in  Europe  their  own  could  best  '  yeeld  the 
sweet  sly  ding  fit  for  a  verse.'  ^  But  in  these  three 
you  find  the  highest  expression  of  this  theory  and 
this  practice  ahke  :  a  sense  of  the  mystery  of  Beauty 
profound  as  Plato's,  with  such  a  golden  cadence  as 
no  other  singer  has  been  able  to  sustain. 

XII 

Venus  and  Adonis  was  pubHshed  in  1593,  the  year 
of  Marlowe's  death,   and  was   at  once  immensely 

^  Sidney,  Apologie  for  Poetrie,  ^  Ibid, 


316       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

popular,  editions  following  one  hard  upon  another, 
in  1594,  1596,  1599,  1600,  and  (two  editions)  1602. 
Shakespeare  dedicated  his  poem  to  Lord  South- 
ampton, and  called  it '  the  first  heir  of  his  invention.' 
There  is  nothing  remarkable  in  his  choice  of  a  metre 
— ^the  '  staffe  of  sixe  verses  '  (ab  ab  cc)  ;  for  four  years 
earher  Puttenham  (?)  had  described  it  {The  Arte  of 
English  Poesie,  1589)  as  '  not  only  Tnost  usual,  but 
also  very  pleasant  to  th'  eare.'  We  need  not,  then, 
suppose  that  Shakespeare  borrowed  it  exclusively 
from  Lodge.  He  may  have  been  guided  in  his 
choice.  For  Lodge  had  interwoven  a  short  allusion 
to  Adonis'  death  into  his  ScylkCs  Metamorphosis, 
also  pubhshed  in  1589  and  written  in  this  staff  of  six. 
But  Lodge's  melody  is  not  Shakespeare's  : — 

'  Her  dainty  hand  addressed  to  claw  her  dear, 
Her  roseal  lip  allied  to  his  pale  cheek, 
Her  sighs,  and  then  her  looks,  and  heavy  cheer, 

Her  bitter  threats,  and  then  her  passions  meek  : 
How  on  his  senseless  corpse  she  lay  a-crying. 
As  if  the  boy  were  then  but  now  a-dying  '  : — 

and,  indeed,  Shakespeare's  poem  is,  in  all  essentials, 
utterly  unlike  Lodge's  Scylla,  Marlowe's  unfinished 
Hero  and  Leander,  Dray1}on's  Endymion  and  Phoebe, 
and  Chapman's  Ovid's  Banquet  of  Sense,  Still  less 
does  it  resemble  the  earher  adaptations  from  Ovid's 
Metamorphoses,  as  Thomas  Peend's  '  Salmacis  and 
Hermaphroditus  '  (1565) : — 

'  Dame  Venus  once  by  Merourye 
Comprest,  a  chylde  did  beare, 
For  beauty  farre  excellyng  all 
That  erst  before  hym  weare.' 

It  borrows  from,  or  lends  to,  Henry  Constable's 
Sheepheards  Song  scarce  a  phrase,^  and  the  same 

^  The  SheephearcTs  Song  of  Venus  and  Adonis.    First  published  in 
England's  Helicon,  1600 :   it  may  have  been  written  before  Shakespeare's 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       317 

may  be  said  still  more  emphatically  of  its  relation 
to  Spenser's  five  stanzas  ^  on  '  The  Love  of  Venus 
and  her  Paramoure,'  and  to  Golding's  Ovid.  Briefly, 
it  has  nothing  to  do  either  with  studious  imitations 
of  the  Classics  or  with  the  '  rhyme  doggerel '  that 
preceded  them,  for  it  throws  back  to  the  mediaeval 
poets'  use  of  Ovid :  to  Chretien  de  Troyes,  that  is, 
the  authors  of  the  Roman  de  la  Eose,  and  Chaucer, 
who  first  steeped  themselves  in  the  Metamorphoses, 
and  then  made  beautiful  poems  of  their  own  by  the 
light  of  their  genius  in  the  manner  of  their  day. 
Sometimes  you  may  trace  the  extraction  of  an  image 
in  Shakespeare's  verse  back  and  up  the  mediaeval 
tradition.     Thus  (Sonnet  cxrx.) : — 

'  What  potions  have  I  drunke  of  syren  teares 
Distill'd  from  Ijnmbecks.' 

Thus  Chaucer  (Troilus,  iv.) : — 

'  This  Troilus  in  teares  gan  distill 
As  licour  out  of  allambick  full  fast.' 

And  thus  the  Roman  de  la  Rose  (1.  6657) : — 

'  Por  quoi  done  en  tristor  demores  ? 
Je  vois  maintes  fois  que  tu  plores. 
Cum  alambic  sus  alutel.' 

Adonis.  The  bare  theme,  which  is  not  to  be  found  in  Ovid,  of  Venus's 
vain  sohciting  and  of  Adonis's  reluctance,  is  alluded  to  in  Marlowe's  Hero 
and  Leander : — 

*  Where  Venus  in  her  naked  glory  strove 
To  please  the  careless  and  disdainful  eyes 
Of  proud  Adonis,  that  before  her  hes  ' : — 

and  in  Robert's  Greene's  pamphlet,  Never  Too  Late  (1590) : — 
'  Sweet  Adony  dar'st  not  glance  thine  eye 
{Woseres  vous,  mon  bel  amy  ?) 
Upon  thy  Venus  that  must  die  ? 
Je  vous  en  prie,  pitty  me  : 
N^oseres  vous^  mon  bel,  mon  bel, 
N^oseres  vous,  mon  bel  amy  ? 

^  Faerie  Queene,  iii.  i,  34-38. 


318       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

But  with  greater  frequency  comes  the  evidence  of 
Shakespeare's  loving  famiUarity  with  Ovid  whose 
effects  he  fuses  :  taking  the  reluctance  of  Adonis 
from  HermaphroditiLS  {Metamorphoses,  iv.) ;  the 
description  of  the  boar  from  Meleager's  encounter 
in  viii.  ;  and  other  features  from  the  short  version 
of  Venus  and  Adonis  which  Ovid  weaves  on  to  the 
terrible  and  beautiful  story  of  Myrrha  (x.).^  In  all 
Shakespeare's  work  of  this  period  the  same  fusion  of 
Ovid's  stories  and  images  is  obvious.  Tarquin  and 
Myrrha  are  both  delayed,  but,  not  daunted,  by 
lugubrious  forebodings  in  the  dark ;  and  Titus 
Andronicus,  played  for  the  first  time  in  the  year 
which  saw  the  pubHcation  of  Venus  and  Adonis, 
is  full  of  debts  and  allusions  to  Ovid.  Ovid,  with 
his  power  of  telling  a  story  and  of  eloquent  discourse, 
his  shining  images,  his  cadences  coloured  with  asson- 
ance and  weighted  with  aUiteration  ;  Chaucer,  with 
his  sweet  liquidity  of  diction,  his  dialogues  and 
soHloquies — these  are  the  '  only  true  begetters  '  of  the 
lyric  Shakespeare.  In  these  matters  we  must  allow 
poets  to  have  their  own  way :  merely  noting  that 
Ovid,  in  whom  critics  see  chiefly  a  briUiant  man  of 
the  world,  has  been  a  mine  of  delight  for  all  poets 
who  rejoice  in  the  magic  of  sound,  from  the  dawn 
of  the  Middle  Ages  down  to  our  own  incomparable 
Milton.^    His  effects  of  aUiteration  : — 

'  Corpora  Cecropidum  pennis  pendere  putares  ; 
Pendebant  pennis.  .  .  . 
Vertitur  in  volucrem,  cui  stant,  in  vertice  cristae  '  : — 


^  a.  Le  Roman  de  la  Rose.  Chap.  cvii.  follows  the  order  of  Ovid's 
Tenth  Book,  passing  from  Pygmalion  to  '  Mirra  '  and  adding  11.  21992,  '  Li 
biaus  Adonis  en  fa  n6s.' 

2  Mackail  on  '  Milton's  Debt  to  Ovid  '  {Latin  Literature,  142.)  Of.  Ker, 
Epic  and  Rorrmnjce,  395. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       319 

his  gleaming  metaphors,  as  of  Hermaphroditus  after 
his  plunge  : — 

'  In  liquidis  translucet  aquis  ;  ut  ebumea  si  quis 
Signa  tegat  claro,  vel  Candida  lilia,  vitro  '  : — 

are  the  very  counterpart  of  Shakespeare's  manner  in 
the  Poems  and  the  Play  which  he  founded  in  part  on 
his  early  love  of  the  Metamorphoses, 

But  in  Titus  Andronicus  and  in  Venus  and  Adonis 
there  are  effects  of  the  open  air  which  hail,  not  from 
Ovid,  but  from  Arden  : — 

'  The  birds  chant  melody  on  every  bush  ; 
The  snake  lies  rolled  in  the  cheerful  sun  ; 
The  green  leaves  quiver  with  the  cooling  wind, 
And  make  a  chequer' d  shadow  on  the  ground  ': — 

Thus  the  Play  (ii.  3),  and  thus  the  Poem  : — 

'  Even  as  the  wind  is  hush'd  before  it  raineth  .  .  . 
Like  many  clouds  consulting  for  foul  weather.' 

Indeed  in  the  Poem,  round  and  over  the  sharp 
portrayal  of  every  word  and  gesture  of  the  two  who 
speak  and  move,  you  have  brakes  and  trees,  horses 
and  hounds,  and  the  silent  transformations  of  day 
and  night  from  the  first  dawn  till  eve,  and  through 
darkness  to  the  second  dawn  so  immediately  im- 
pressed, that,  pausing  at  any  of  the  cxcix.  stanzas, 
you  could  almost  name  the  hour.  The  same  express 
observation  of  the  day's  changes  may  be  observed 
in  Romeo  and  Juliet  It  is  a  note  which  has  often 
been  echoed  by  men  who  never  look  out  of  their 
windows,  and  critics,  as  narrowly  immured,  have 
denounced  it  for  an  affectation.  Yet  a  month  under 
canvas,  or,  better  still,  without  a  tent,  will  convince 
any  one  that  to  speak  of  the  stars  and  the  moon  is  as 
natural  as  to  look  at  your  watch  or  an  almanack.     In 


320       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

the  Veniis  even  the  weather  changes.  The  Poem 
opens  soon  after  sunrise  with  the  ceasing  of  a 
shower : — 

*  Even  as  the  sun  with  purple  colour'd  face, 
Had  ta'en  his  last  leave  of  the  weeping  morn.' 

But  by  the  Lxxxixth  Stanza,  after  a  burning  noon, 
the  clouds  close  in  over  the  sunset.  '  Look,'  says 
Adonis : — 

'  The  world's  comforter  with  weary  gate 
His  day's  hot  task  hath  ended  in  the  west, 
The  owl  (night's  herald)  shrieks,  'tis  very  late, 
The  sheep  are  gone  to  fold,  birds  to  their  nest, 
And  coal-black  clouds,  that  shadow  heaven's  light. 
Do  summon  us  to  part  and  bid  good-night.' 

The  next  dawn  is  cloudless  after  the  night's  rain : — 

'  Lo  here  the  gentle  lark,  weary  of  rest. 
From  his  moist  cabinet  mounts  up  on  high, 
And  wakes  the  morning,  from  whose  silver  breast 
The  sun  ariseth  in  his  majesty  ; 
Who  doth  the  world  so  gloriously  behold. 
That  cedar  tops  and  hills  seem  bumisht  gold.' 

Beneath  these  atmospheric  effects  everything  is 
clearly  seen  and  sharply  delineated  : — 

'  The  studded  bridle  on  a  ragged  bough 
Nimbly  she  fastens.' 

And  when  the  horse  breaks  loose  : — 

'  Some  time  he  trots,  as  if  he  told  the  steps.' 

Then  the  description  of  a  hunted  hare  (Stanzas 
cxrv.-cxvin.) : — 

*  Sometimes  he  runs  along  a  flock  of  sheep 
To  make  the  cunning  hounds  mistake  their  smell.  .  .  . 

By  this  poor  Wat  far  off  upon  a  hill 
Stands  on  his  hinder  legs  with  listening  ear.  .  .  . 
Then  shalt  thou  see  the  dew-bedabbled  wretch 
Turn  and  return,  indenting  with  the  way  ; 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       321 

Each  envious  briar  his  weary  legs  doth  scratch, 
Each  shadow  makes  him  stop,  each  murmur  stay  '  : — 

howbeit  a  treasure  of  observation,  is  no  richer  than 
that  other  of  the  hounds  which  have  lost  their 
huntsman : — 

'  Another  flap-mouth'd  mourner,  black  and  grim. 
Against  the  welkin,  vollies  out  his  voice. 
Another  and  another,  answer  him, 
Clapping  their  proud  tails  to  the  groimd  below, 
Shaking  their  scratch-ears,  bleeding  as  they  go.' 

The  illustrations  from  nature : — 

*  As  the  dive-dapper  peering  through  a  wave 
Who  being  lookt  on,  ducks  as  quickly  in  .  .  . 

As  the  snail  whose  tender  horns  being  hit 
Shrinks  backward  in  his  shelly  cave  with  pain  '  : — 

are  so  vivid  as  to  snatch  your  attention  from  the 
story ;  and  when  you  read  that  '  lust '  feeding  on 
*  fresh  beauty ' 

*  Starves  and  soon  bereaves 
As  caterpillars  do  the  tender  leaves,' 

the  reaUsm  of  the  illustration  does  violence  to  its 
aptness.  It  is  said  that  such  multipUcity  of  detail 
and  ornament  is  out  of  place  in  a  classic  myth.  But 
Shakespeare's  Poem  is  not  a  classic  myth.  Mr. 
Swinburne  contrasts  it  unfavourably  with  Chap- 
man's Hero  and  Leander^  in  which  he  finds  '  a  small 
shrine  of  Parian  sculpture  amid  the  rank  splendour 
of  a  tropical  jungle.'  Certainly  that  is  the  last 
image  which  any  one  could  apply  to  Venus  and 
Adonis.  Its  wealth  of  reahstic  detail  reminds  you 
rather  of  the  West  Porch  at  Amiens.  But  alongside 
of  this  reahsm,  and  again  as  in  Mediaeval  Art,  there 
are  wiKul  and  half -humorous  perversions  of  nature. 

X 


322       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

When  Shakespeare  in  praise  of  Adonis'  beauty  says 
that 

'  To  see  his  face,  the  lion  walked  along 
Behind  some  hedge,  because  he  would  not  fear  him,' 

or  that 

*  When  he  beheld  his  shadow  in  the  brook, 
The  fishes  spread  on  it  their  golden  gills,' 

you  feel  that  you  are  still  in  the  age  which  painted 
St.  Jerome's  Hon  and  St.  Francis  preaching  to  the 
birds.  But  you  feel  that  you  are  half  way  into 
another.  The  poem  is  not  Greek,  but  neither  is  it 
Mediaeval :  it  belongs  to  the  debatable  dawntime 
which  we  call  the  Renaissance.  There  is  much  in  it 
of  highly  charged  colour  and  of  curious  insistence  on 
strange  beauties  of  detail ;  yet,  dyed  and  daedal  as 
it  is  out  of  all  kinship  with  classical  repose,  neither 
its  intricacy  nor  its  tinting  ever  suggests  the  Aladdin's 
Cave  evoked  by  Mr.  Swinburne's  Oriental  epithets : 
rather  do  they  suggest  a  landscape  at  sunrise.  There, 
too,  the  lesser  features  of  trees  and  bushes  and  knolls 
are  steeped  in  the  foreground  with  crimson  light,  or 
are  set  on  fire  with  gold  at  the  horizon  ;  there,  too, 
they  leap  into  momentary  significance  with  prolonged 
and  fantastic  shadows ;  yet  overhead,  the  atmo- 
sphere is,  not  oppressive  but,  eager  and  pure  and 
a  part  of  an  immense  serenity.  And  so  it  is  in 
the  Poem,  for  which,  if  you  abandon  Mr.  Swin- 
burne's illustration,  and  seek  another  from  painting, 
you  may  find  a  more  fitting  counterpart  in  the 
Florentine  treatment  of  classic  myths :  in  Botticelli's 
Venus,  with  veritable  gold  on  the  goddess's  hair  and 
on  the  boles  of  the  pine  trees,  or  in  Piero  di  Cosima's 
Cephalus  and  Procris,  with  its  Uving  animals  at  gaze 
before  a  tragedy  that  tells  much  of  Beauty  and 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       323 

nothing  of  Pain.  Shakespeare's  Poem  is  of  love, 
not  death ;  but  he  handles  his  theme  with  just  the 
same  regard  for  Beauty,  with  just  the  same  disregard 
for  all  that  disfigures  Beauty.  He  portrays  an 
amorous  encounter  through  its  every  gesture  ;  yet, 
unless  in  some  dozen  Hnes  where  he  glances  aside, 
like  any  Mediaeval,  at  a  gaiety  not  yet  divorced  from 
love,  his  appeal  to  Beauty  persists  from  first  to  last ; 
and  nowhere  is  there  an  appeal  to  lust.  The  laughter 
and  sorrow  of  the  Poem  belong  wholly  to  the  faery 
world  of  vision  and  romance,  where  there  is  no 
sickness,  whether  of  sentiment  or  of  sense.  And 
both  are  rendered  by  images,  clean-cut  as  in  antique 
gems,  brilliantly  enamelled  as  in  mediaeval  chaHces, 
numerous  and  interwoven  as  in  Moorish  arabesques  ; 
so  that  their  incision,  colour,  and  rapidity  of  de- 
velopment, apart  even  from  the  intricate  melodies 
of  the  verbal  medium  in  which  they  Hve,  tax  the 
faculty  of  artistic  appreciation  to  a  point  at  which 
it  begins  to  participate  in  the  asceticism  of  artistic 
creation.  '  As  little  can  a  mind  thus  roused  and 
awakened  be  brooded  on  by  mean  and  indistinct 
emotion,  as  the  low,  lazy  mist  can  creep  upon  the 
surface  of  a  lake  while  a  strong  gale  is  driving  it 
onward  in  waves  and  billows  '  : — thus  does  Coleridge 
resist  the  application  to  shift  the  avenue  of  criticism 
on  this  Poem  from  the  court  of  Beauty  to  the  court 
of  Morals,  and  upon  that  subject  Httle  more  need 
be  said.  How  wilful  it  is  to  discuss  the  moral  bear- 
ing of  an  invitation  couched  by  an  imaginary 
Goddess  in  such  imaginative  terms  as  these  : — 

'  Bid  me  discourse,  I  will  inchant  thine  eare, 
Or  like  a  Fairie,  trip  upon  the  greene, 
Or  like  a  Nymph,  with  long  disheveled  heare, 
Daunce  on  the  sands,  and  yet  no  footing  seene ! ' 


324       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

As  well  essay  to  launch  an  ironclad  on  '  the  foam  of 
perilous  seas  in  fairylands  forlorn.' 

When  Venus  says,  '  Bid  me  discourse,  I  will  in- 
chant  thine  ear,'  she  instances  yet  another  peculiar 
excellence  of  Shakespeare's  lyrical  ^rt,  which  shows 
in  this  Poem,  is  redoubled  in  Lucrece,  and  in  the 
Sonnets  yields  the  most  perfect  examples  of  human 
speech  : — 

'  Touch  but  my  lips  with  those  fair  lips  of  thine, 
Though  mine  be  not  so  fair,  yet  are  they  red.  .  .  . 

Art  thou  ashamed  to  kiss  ?    Then  wink  again, 
And  I  will  wink,  so  shall  the  day  seem  night.  .  .  .' 

These  are  the  fair  words  of  her  soHciting,  and 
Adonis's  reply  is  of  the  same  silvery  quaUty  : — 

'  If  love  have  lent  you  twenty  thousand  tongues, 
And  every  tongue  more  meaning  than  your  own, 
Bewitching  like  the  wanton  mermaid's  songs. 
Yet  from  mine  ear  the  tempting  tune  is  blown.  .  .  .' 

And,  as  he  goes  on  : — 

'  Lest  the  deceiving  harmony  should  run 
Into  the  quiet  closure  of  my  breast '  : — 

you  catch  a  note  prelusive  to  the  pleading  altercation 
of  the  Sonnets.  It  is  the  discourse  in  Venus  and 
Adonis  and  Lucrece  which  renders  them  discursive. 
And  indeed  they  are  long  poems,  on  whose  first 
reading  Poe's  advice,  never  to  begin  at  the  same 
place,  may  wisely  be  followed.  You  do  well,  for 
instance,  to  begin  at  Stanza  cxxxvi.  in  order  to 
enjoy  the  narrative  of  Venus'  vain  pursuit :  with 
your  senses  unwearied  by  the  length  and  sweetness 
of  her  argument.  The  passage  hence  to  the  end  is 
in  the  true  romantic  tradition :  Stanzas  CXL.  and 
CXLI.  are  as  clearly  the  forerunners  of  Keats  as 
oxLiv.  is  the  child  of  Chaucer.     The  truth  of  such 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       325 

art  consists  in  magnifying  selected  details  until 
their  gigantic  shapes,  edged  with  a  shadowy  iri- 
descence, fill  the  whole  field  of  observation.  Certain 
gestures  of  the  body,  certain  moods  of  the  mind, 
are  made  to  tell  with  the  weight  of  trifles  during 
awe-stricken  pauses  of  delay.  Venus,  when  she  is 
baffled  by  '  the  merciless  and  pitchy  night,'  halts 

'  amazed  as  one  that  unaware 
Hath  dropt  a  precious  jewel  in  the  flood, 
Or  stonisht  as  night  wanderers  often  are, 
Their  light  blown  out  in  some  mistrustfull  wood.' 

She  starts  like  '  one  that  spies  an  adder '  ;  '  the 
timorous  yelping  of  the  hounds  appals  her  senses  '  ; 
and  she  stands  '  in  a  trembling  extasy.' 

Besides  romantic  narrative  and  sweetly  modulated 
discourse,  there  are  two  rhetorical  tirades  by  Venus 
— ^when  she  '  exclaimes  on  death  '  ^  : — 

'  Grim  grinning  ghost,  earth's- worme,  what  dost  thou  meane 
To  stifle  beautie  and  to  steale  his  breath,'  etc.  : — 

and  when  she  heaps  her  anathemas  on  love  : — 

*  It  shall  be  fickle,  false  and  full  of  fraud, 
Bud,  and  be  blasted  in  a  breathing  while  ; 
The  bottome  poyson,  and  the  top  ore-strawed 
With  sweets,  that  shall  the  truest  sight  beguile, 
The  strongest  bodie  shall  it  make  most  weake, 
Strike  the  voice  dumbe,  and  teach  the  foole  to  speake  '  : — 

and  in  both,  as  also  in  Adonis's  contrast  of  love  and 
lust : — 

'  Love  comforteth,  like  sunshine  after  raine. 
But  lust's  effect  is  tempest  after  sunne, 
Love's  gentle  spring  doth  always  fresh  remaine. 
Lust's  winter  comes  ere  summer  halfe  be  donne  ; 
Love  surf ets  not,  lust  like  a  glutton  dies  : 
Love  is  all  truth,  lust  full  of  forged  lies  '  : — 

^  I  retain  the  early  spelling,  as  something  of  the  rhetorical  force  depends 
on  the  sounds  it  suggests. 


326       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

you  have  rhetoric,  packed  with  antithesis,  and 
rapped  out  on  alliterated  syllables  for  which  the  only 
equivalent  in  English  is  found,  but  more  fully,  in 
the  great  speech  delivered  by  Lucrece.^  The  seed 
of  these  tirades,  as  of  the  dialogues  and  the  gentle 
soUloquies,  seems  derived  from  Chaucer's  Troilus 
and  Criseyde ;  and  in  his  Knight's  Tale  (1747-1758) 
there  is  also  a  foreshadowing  of  their  effective 
alliteration,  used — and  this  is  the  point — ^not  as  an 
ornament  of  verse,  but  as  an  instrument  of  accent. 
For  example : — 

'  The  helmes  they  to-hewen  and  to-shrede  ; 
Out  brest  the  blood,  with  steme  stremes  rede. 
With  mighty  maces  the  bones  they  to-breste  ; 
He  thurgh  the  thikkeste  of  the  throng  gon  threste,'  etc. 

This  use  of  aUiteration  by  Shakespeare,  employed 
earher  by  Lord  Vaux  : — 

'  Since  death  shall  dure  till  all  the  world  be  waste  '  ^  : — 

and  later  by  Spenser  ^  : — 

'  Then  let  thy  flinty  heart  that  f eeles  no  paine, 
Empierced  be  with  pitiful  remorse, 
And  let  thy  bowels  bleede  in  every  vaine. 
At  sight  of  His  most  sacred  heavenly  corse, 
So  tome  and  mangled  with  malicious  forse  ; 
And  let  thy  soule,  whose  sins  His  sorrows  wrought, 
Melt  into  teares,  and  grone  in  grieved  thought '  : — 

is  not  to  be  confused  with  '  the  absurd  following  of 
the  letter  amongst  our  EngUsh  so  much  of  late 
affected,  but  now  hist  out  of  Paules  Church  yard  '  ;  * 
for  it  does  not  consist  in  collecting  the  greatest 
number  of  words  with  the  same  initial,  but  in  letting 

1  In  denunciation  of  Night,  Opportunity,  and  Time  (764-1036). 

2  Paradise  of  Dainty  Devices,  1676. 

^  An  Hymne  of  Heavenly  Love  (September  1596). 

*  Campion,  Observations  in  the  Art  of  English  Poesy,  1602. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       327 

the  accent  fall,  as  it  does  naturally  in  all  impassioned 
speech,  upon  syllables  of  cognate  sound.  Since  in 
Enghsh  verse  the  accent  is,  and  by  Shakespeare's 
contemporaries  was  understood  to  be,  '  the  chief  lord 
and  grave  Govemour  of  Numbers,'  ^  this  aid  to  its 
emphasis  is  no  less  legitimate,  and  is  hardly  less 
important,  than  is  that  of  rhyme  to  metre  in  French 
verse  :  we  inherit  it  from  the  Saxon,  as  we  inherit 
rhyme  from  the  Norman ;  both  are  essential  ele- 
ments in  the  poetry  built  up  by  Chaucer  out  of  the 
ruins  of  two  languages.  But  Shakespeare  is  the 
supreme  master  of  its  employment :  in  these  im- 
passioned tirades  he  wields  it  with  a  naked  strength 
that  was  never  approached,  in  the  Sonnets  with  a 
veiled  and  varied  subtilty  that  defies  analysis. 
There  are  hints  here  and  there  in  the  Venus  of  this 
gathering  subtilty: — 

*  These  blew-vein'd  violets  whereon  we  leane 
Never  can  blab,  nor  know  not  what  we  meane  .  .  . 

Even  as  a  dying  coale  revives  with  winde  ... 

More  white  and  red  than  doves  and  roses  are.' 

But  apart  from  the  use  of  cognate  sounds,  which 
makes  for  emphasis  without  marring  melody,  in 
many  a  line  there  also  lives  that  more  recondite 
sweetness,  which  plants  so  much  of  Shakespeare's 
verse  in  the  memory  for  no  assignable  cause  : — 

'  Scorning  his  churlish  drum  and  ensinge  red.  ... 
Dumbly  she  passions,  frantikely  she  doteth.  .  .  . 
Showed  like  two  silver  doves  that  sit  a  billing.  .  .  . 
Leading  him  prisoner  in  a  red-rose  chaine.  ... 


1  S.  Daniel's  Defence  of  Byrne,  1603 :— '  Though  it  doth  not  strictly 
observe  long  and  short  siUables,  yet  it  most  religiously  respects  the  accent.' 
—Ibid.    Cf .  Sidney's  Apologie :— '  Wee  observe  the  accent  very  precisely.' 


328       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

Were  beautie  under  twentie  locks  kept  fast, 

Yet  love  breaks  through  and  picks  them  all  at  last.  .  .  . 

O  leame  to  love,  the  lesson  is  but  plaine 
And  once  made  perfect  never  lost  again.' 

Herein  a  cadence  of  obvious  simplicity  gives  birth 
to  an  inexplicable  charm. 

I  have  spoken  of  Shakespeare's  images,  blowing 
fresh  from  the  memory  of  his  boyhood,  so  vivid  that 
at  times  they  are  violent,  and  at  others  wrought  and 
laboured  until  they  become  conceits.  You  have 
'  No  fisher  but  the  ungrown  fry  forbears,'  with  its 
frank  reminiscence  of  a  sportsman's  scruple  ;  or,  as 
an  obvious  illustration, '  Look  how  a  bird  lies  tangled 
in  a  net ' ;  or,  in  a  flash  of  intimate  recollection  : — 

'  Like  shrill-tongu'd  tapsters  answering  everie  call, 
Soothing  the  humours  of  fantastique  wits  '  :— 

the  last,  an  early  sketch  of  the  '  Francis '  scene  in 
Henry  /F.,  which,  in  quaint  juxtaposition  with 
'  cedar  tops  and  hills '  of  '  bumisht  gold,'  seems 
instinct  with  memories  of  John  Shakespeare  and  his 
friends,  who  dared  not  go  to  church.  But,  again, 
you  have  conceits  : — 

*  But  hers  (eyes),  which  through  the  crystal  tears  gave  light. 
Shone  like  the  Moone  in  water  seen  by  night ' ; 

'  A  Hlie  prison'd  in  a  gaile  of  snow ' ;  and  '  Wish- 
ing her  cheeks  were  gardens  ful  of  flowers  So  they 
were  dew'd  with  such  distilling  showers.'  But,  div- 
ing deeper  than  diction,  aUiteration,  and  rhythm: 
deeper  than  the  decoration  of  blazoned  colours  and 
the  labyrinthine  interweaving  of  images,  now  bud- 
ding as  it  were  from  nature,  and  now  beaten  as  by 
an  artificer  out  of  some  precious  metal :  you  discover 
beneath  this  general  interpretation  of  Phenomenal 
Beauty,  a  gospel  of  Ideal  Beauty,  a  confession  of 


J 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       329 

faith  in  Beauty  as  a  principle  of  life.  And  note — 
for  the  coincidence  is  vital — that  these,  the  esoteric 
themes  of  Venus  and  Adonis,  are  the  essential  themes 
of  the  Sonnets.     In  Stanza  xxn. : — 

'  Fair  flowers  that  are  not  gathered  in  their  prime 
Rot  and  consume  themselves  in  little  time  '  : — 

and  in  Stanzas  xxvn.,  xxvin.,  xxix.,  you  have  the 
whole  argument  of  Sonnets  i.-xix.  In  Stanza 
CLXXX. : — 

'  Alas  poore  world,  what  treasure  hast  thou  lost, 
What  face  remains  alive  that 's  worth  the  viewing  ? 
Whose  tongue  is  musick  now  ?     What  canst  thou  boast. 
Of  things  long  since,  or  any  thing  insuing  ? 
The  flowers  are  sweet,  their  colours  fresh,  and  trim, 
But  true  sweet  beautie  liv'd,  and  di'de  with  him  '  : — 

you  have  that  metaphysical  gauging  of  the  mystical 
importance  of  some  one  incarnation  of  Beauty 
viewed  from  imaginary  standpoints  in  time,  which 
was  afterwards  to  be  elaborated  in  Sonnets  xiv., 
XIX.,  Lix.,  Lxvn.,  Lxvin.,  civ.,  cvi.  And  in  Stanza 
CLXX.  : — 

'  For  he  being  dead,  with  him  is  beautie  slaine. 
And  beautie  dead,  blacke  Chaos  comes  again  '  : — 

you  have  the  succinct  credo  in  that  incarnation  of  an 
Ideal  Beauty,  of  which  all  other  lovely  semblances 
are  but  '  shadows '  and  '  counterfeits,'  which  was 
to  find  a  fuUer  declaration  in  Sonnets  xxxi.  and  Lni., 
and  xcvm. 

But  in  Shakespeare's  Poems  the  beauty  and 
curiosity  of  the  ceremonial  ever  obscure  the  worship 
of  the  god  ;  and,  perhaps,  in  the  last  stanza  but  one, 
addressed  to  the  flower  bom  in  place  of  the  dead 
Adonis  and  let  drop  into  the  bosom  of  the  Goddess 
of  Love,  you  have  the  most  typical  expression  of 


330       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

those  merits  and  defects  which  are  ahke  loved  and 
condoned  by  the  slaves  of  their  invincible  sweet- 
ness : — 

'  Here  was  thy  father's  bed,  here  in  my  brest, 
Thou  art  the  next  of  blood,  and  'tis  thy  right, 
So  in  this  hollow  cradle  take  thy  rest. 
My  throbbing  hart  shall  rock  thee  day  and  night ; 
There  shall  not  be  one  minute  in  an  houre 
Wherein  I  will  not  kiss  my  sweet  love's  floure.' 

Here  are  conceits  and  a  strained  illustration  from  the 
profession  of  law  ;  but  here,  with  these,  are  lovely 
imagery  and  perfect  diction  and,  flowing  through 
every  line,  a  rhythm  that  rises  and  falls  softly,  until, 
after  a  hurry  of  ripples,  it  expends  itself  in  the  three 
last  retarding  words. 

XIII 

The  Rape  of  Lucrece  was  published  in  1594,  and 
was  dedicated  in  terms  of  devoted  affection  to  Lord 
Southampton.  It  was  never  so  popular  as  the 
Venus,  yet  editions  followed  in  1598,  1600,  1607, 
1616,  1624,  and  1632  ^  ;  and  its  subsequent  neglect 
remains  one  of  the  enigmas  of  literature.  It  is 
written  in  the  seven-lined  stanza  borrowed  by 
Chaucer  from  GuiUaume  de  Machault,  a  French 
poet,  whose  talent,  according  to  M.  Sandras^  was 
'  essentiellement  Ijrrique.'  The  measure,  indeed,  is 
capable  of  the  most  heart-searching  lyrical  effects. 
Chaucer  chose  it,  first  for  his  Compleint  unto  Pile  and, 
more  notably,  for  his  Troilus  and  Criseyde  ;  in  1589 
Puttenham  (?)  had  noted  that  '  his  meetre  Heroicall 
is  very  grave  and  stately,'  and  was  '  most  usuall 
with  our  auncient  makers '  ;   Daniel  had  used  it  for 

^  Two  others  of  1596  and  1602  have  been  cited  but  never  recovered. 
2  l^tvde  sur  G.  Chaucer,  1869. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       331 

his  Rosamund,  published  four  years  before  Lucrece, 
Spenser  for  his  Hymnes,  published  the  year  after. 
The  subject  lay  no  further  than  the  form  from 
Shakespeare's  hand.  He  took  it  from  Ovid's  Fastis 
Mr.  Furnivall  has  argued  that  he  may  also  have  read 
it  in  Livy's  brief  version  of  the  tragedy,  or  in  The 
Bape  of  Lucrece,  from  WiUiam  Painter's  The  Palace 
of  Pleasure  (1566),  where,  he  notes,  '  Painter  is  but 
Livy,  with  some  changes  and  omissions.'  Warton, 
History  of  English  Poetry  (1824,  iv.  241-2),  cites  '  A 
ballet  the  grevious  compla3mt  of  Lucrece,'  1568  ;  '  A 
ballet  of  the  death  of  Lucreessia,'  1569  ;  and  yet 
another  of  1576,  He  adds : — '  Lucretia  was  the 
grand  example  of  conjugal  fidelity  throughout  the 
Gothic  Ages.'  That  is  the  point.  Shakespeare  took 
the  story  from  Ovid,  with  the  knowledge  that 
Chaucer  had  drawn  on  the  same  source  for  the  Fifth 
Story  in  his  Legend  of  Good  Women,  just  as  Chaucer 
had  taken  it  from  Ovid,  with  the  knowledge  that  its 
appositeness  had  been  consecrated  before  1282  in 
chapter  L.  of  Le  Roman  de  la  Rose  : — 

*  Comment  Lucrece  par  grant  ire 
Son  cuer  point,  derrompt  et  dessire 
Et  chiet  morte  terre  adens, 
Devant  son  mari  et  parens.' 

And  Shakespeare  must  certainly  have  been  familiar 
with  the  allusion  to  it  in  North's  Plutarch,  as  with 
the  passage  in  Sidney's  Apologie,  where  a  painting  of 
Lucrecia  is  imagined  to  illustrate  the  art  of  those 
who  are  '  indeed  right  Poets  '  as  distinguished  from 
the  authors  of  religious  or  of  moral  and  meta- 
physical verse.  This  passage,  save  where  it  suffers 
from  the  constraint  of  an  apologetic  attitude,  stands 
still  for  a  sound  declaration  of  the  ethics  of  art ;  and 

1  Book  ii.  721  et  seq. 


332       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

in  Shakespeare's  day,  when  such  questions  were 
canvassed  as  freely  as  in  our  own,  it  may  well  have 
determined  his  choice. 

But  speculation  on  the  literary  origins  of  a  poem 
is  idle  when  the  poem  is  in  itself  far  worthier  atten- 
tion than  all  the  materials  out  of  which  it  has  been 
contrived — the  more  so  when  of  these  the  literary 
origins  are  the  most  remote  and  the  least  important. 
Shakespeare,  indeed,  owes  more  to  the  manner  of 
Chaucer's  Troilus  than  to  the  matter  of  his  Lucretia, 
or  of  its  original  in  Ovid.  For  in  treating  that  story 
the  two  poets  omit  and  retain  different  portions : 
Chaucer,  on  the  whole,  copying  more  closely  paints 
on  a  canvas  of  about  the  same  size,  whereas  Shake- 
speare expands  a  passage  of  132  lines  into  a  poem  of 
1855.  Chaucer  omits  Ovid's  note  rendered  by 
Shakespeare's 

'  Haply  that  name  of  chaste  unhap'ly  set 
This  bateless  edge  on  his  keen  appetite.' 

He  also  omits  Lucretia's  unsuspecting  welcome  of 
Tarquin,  making  him  '  stalTce  '  straight  into  the  house 
'  ful  theefly.'  Shakespeare  retains  the  welcome,  and 
reserves  the  phrase,  '  Into  the  chamber  wickedly  he 
stalks,^  for  a  later  incident.  On  the  other  hand, 
Chaucer  renders  the  passage,  '  Tunc  quoque  jam 
moriens  ne  non  procumbat  honeste,  respicit,'  some- 
what quaintly : — 

'  And  as  she  fel  adown,  she  cast  her  look 
And  of  her  clothes  yit  she  hede  took, 
For  in  her  falling  yit  she  hadde  care 
Lest  that  her  feet  or  swiche  thing  lay  bare  '  : — 

and  Shakespeare  omits  it.  Both  keep  the  image  of 
the  lamb  and  the  wolf,  together  with  Lucretia's 
jUivi  capilli,  which  are  nowhere  mentioned  by  Livy. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       333 

In  the  Lucrece,  as  in  the  Venus,  you  have  a  true 
development  of  Chaucer's  romantic  narrative ;  of 
the  dialogues,  soliloquies,  and  rhetorical  bravuras 
which  render  Books  iv.  and  v.  of  his  Troilus  perhaps 
the  greatest  romance  in  verse.  And  yet  the  points 
of  contrast  between  the  Lucrece  and  the  Venus  are 
of  deeper  interest  than  the  points  of  comparison,  for 
they  show  an  ever-widening  divergence  from  the 
characteristics  of  Mediaeval  romance.  If  the  Venus 
be  a  pageant  of  gesture,  the  Lucrece  is  a  drama  of 
emotion.  You  have  the  same  wealth  of  imagery, 
but  the  images  are  no  longer  sunHt  and  sharply 
defined.  They  seem,  rather,  created  by  the  reflex 
action  of  a  sleepless  brain — as  it  were  fantastic 
symbols  shaped  from  the  lying  report  of  tired  eyes 
staring  into  darkness  ;  and  they  are  no  longer  used 
to  decorate  the  outward  play  of  natural  desire  and 
reluctance,  but  to  project  the  shadows  of  abnormal 
passion  and  acute  mental  distress.  The  Poem  is  full 
of  nameless  terror,  of  '  ghastly  shadows  '  and  '  quick- 
shifting  antics.'  The  First  Act  passes  in  the  '  dead 
of  night,'  with  '  no  noise '  to  break  the  world's 
silence  '  but  owls'  and  wolves'  death-boding  cries,' 
nor  any  to  mar  the  house's  but  the  grating  of  doors 
and,  at  last,  the  hoarse  whispers  of  a  piteous  con- 
troversy. The  Second  shows  a  cheerless  dawn  with 
two  women  crying,  one  for  sorrow,  the  other  for 
sympathy.  There  are  never  more  than  two  persons 
on  the  stage,  and  there  is  sometimes  only  one,  imtil 
the  crowd  surges  in  at  the  end  to  witness  Lucrece's 
suicide.  I  have  spoken  for  convenience  of  '  acts ' 
and  a  'stage,'  yet  the  suggestion  of  these  terms 
is  misleading.  Excepting  in  the  last  speech  and 
in  the  death  of  Lucrece,  the  Poem  is  nowhere 
dramatic ;    it  tells  a  story,  but  at  each  situation 


334       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

the  Poet  pauses  to  survey  and  to  illustrate  the 
romantic  and  emotional  values  of  the  relation 
between  his  characters,  or  to  analyse  the  moral 
passions  and  the  mental  debates  in  any  one  of 
them,  or  even  the  physiological  perturbations  re- 
sponding to  these  storms  and  tremors  of  the  mind 
and  soul.  When  Shakespeare  describes  Tarquin's 
stealthy  approach : — 

'  Night  wandering  weazels  shriek  to  see  him  there  ; 
They  fright  him,  yet  he  still  pursues  his  fear  '  : — 

or  Lucrece  shrinking  from  the  dawn  : — 

'  Revealing  day  through  every  cranny  spies 
And  seems  to  point  her  out  where  she  sits  weeping  '  : — 

or  Collatine's  attempt  at  railing  when  he  is  in- 
articulate with  wrath  : — 

'  Yet  some  time  "  Tarquin  "  was  pronounced  plain 
But  through  his  teeth,  as  if  the  name  he  tore  '  : — 

his  method  is  wholly  aUen  from  the  popular  methods 
of  our  own  day.  Yet  would  they  be  rash  who  con- 
demned it  out  of  hand. 

The  illustration  of  gesture,  and  of  all  that  passes 
in  the  mind,  by  the  copious  use  of  romantic  imagery 
constitutes  an  artistic  process  which  is  obviously 
charged  with  sensuous  delight,  and  is  in  its  way  not 
less  reahstic  than  the  dramatic  method  which  has 
superseded  it.  The  hours  of  life,  which  even 
ordinary  men  and  women  expend  in  selfish  sensation 
and  a  fumbUng,  half-conscious  introspection,  far 
outnumber  the  hours  in  which  they  are  clearly 
apprized  of  eventful  action  and  speech  between 
themselves  and  their  fellows ;  and  in  men  of  rarer 
temperament  hfe  often  becomes  a  monodrama. 
The  dramatic  convention  is  also  but  a  convention 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       335 

with  its  own  limitations,  staling  by  over-practice 
into  the  senseless  raUies  of  a  pantomime  or  the  trivial 
symbols  of  a  meagre  psychology.  The  common- 
place sayings  and  doings  of  the  puppets  are  meant 
by  the  author  to  suggest  much  ;  and,  when  they  are 
duly  explained  by  the  critics,  we  may  all  admire 
the  reserved  force  of  the  device.  But  it  remains  a 
device.  In  the  romantic  narratives  of  Chaucer, 
Shakespeare,  and  Keats,  with  their  imaginative 
illustrations  of  the  mind's  moods  and  their  imagina- 
tive use  of  sights  and  sounds  accidental  to  moments 
of  exacerbated  sensation,  you  have  another  device 
which  portrays,  perhaps  more  truly,  the  hidden 
mysteries  of  those  temperaments  whose  secrets  are 
really  worth  our  guessing.  It  is  at  least  worth  while 
to  watch  an  artist,  who  has  shown  the  inevitable 
acts  and  words  of  any  one  man  in  any  one  situation, 
at  work  within  upon  the  accompanying  sequence  of 
inevitable  sensations  and  desires.  And  sometimes, 
too,  from  the  analysis  of  emotion  in  the  Lucrece  you 
catch  a  sideHght  on  the  more  subtle  revelation  in 
the  Sonnets : — 

'  O  happiness,  enjoy'd  but  of  a  few, 
And  if  possest,  as  soon  decayed  and  done 
As  is  the  morning's  silver  melting  dew 
Against  the  golden  splendour  of  the  sun  ! 

The  aim  of  all  is  but  to  nurse  the  life 

With  honour,  wealth,  and  ease  in  waning  age  ; 

And  in  this  aim  there  is  such  thwarting  strife 

That  one  for  all  or  all  for  one  we  gage  ; 

As  life  for  honour  in  fell  battle's  rage  ; 

Honour  for  wealth  ;  and  oft  that  wealth  doth  cost 

The  death  of  all,  and  all  together  lost. 

What  win  I  if  I  gain  the  thing  I  seek  ? 
A  dream,  a  breath,  a  froth  of  fleeting  joy. 
Who  buys  a  minute's  mirth  to  wail  a  week 
Or  sells  eternity  to  get  a  toy  ?  ' 


336       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

Vanitas  vanitatum !  Besides  this  philosophy  of 
pleasure,  there  is  also  a  pathos  in  Lucrece  which  is 
nowise  Mediaeval.  The  Poem  is  touched  with  a 
compassion  for  the  weakness  of  women,  which  is  new 
and  ahen  from  the  trouvere  convention  of  a  knight 
who  takes  pity  on  a  damsel : — 

'  Their  gentle  sex  to  weep  are  often  willing  ; 
Grieving  themselves  to  guess  at  others'  smarts, 
And  then  they  drown  their  eyes,  or  break  their  hearts  .  .  . 

Though  men  can  cover  crimes  with  bold  stem  looks, 
Poor  women's  faces  are  their  own  fault's  books.' 

Then  let 

'  No  man  inveigh  against  the  withered  flower. 
But  chide  rough  winter  that  the  flower  hath  kill'd  : 
Not  that  devoured,  but  that  which  doth  devour 
Is  worthy  blame.' 

But  in  spite  of  so  much  that  is  new  in  the  Lucrece, 
there  is  no  absolute  break  between  it  and  the  Venus  : 
the  older  beauties  persist,  if  they  persist  more 
sparsely,  among  the  fresh-blown.  As  ever  in 
Shakespeare's  earUer  work,  there  are  vivid  im- 
pressions of  things  seen  : — 

'  You  mocking  birds,  quoth  she,  your  tunes  entomb 
Within  your  hollow  swelling  feather'd  breasts  .  .  . 

Ay  me  !  the  bark  peel'd  from  the  lofty  pine. 
His  leaves  will  wither,  and  his  sap  decay  .  .  , 
As  lagging  fouls  before  the  Northern  blast. 

As  through  an  arch  the  violent  roaring  tide 
Outruns  the  eye  that  doth  behold  his  haste, 
Yet  in  the  eddy  boundeth  in  his  pride 
Back  to  the  strait  that  forced  him  on  so  fast '  .  .  . 

Illustrations  are  still  drawn  from  sport : — 

'  Look,  as  the  full  fed  hound  or  gorged  hawk 
Unapt  for  tender  smell  or  speedy  flight.'  .  .  . 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       337 

There  are,  as  ever,  conceits : — 

'  Without  the  bed  her  other  fair  hand  was, 
On  the  green  coverlet ;  whose  perfect  white 
Showed  like  an  April  daisy  on  the  grass  .  .  .' 

*  And  now  this  pale  swan  in  her  watery  nest 
Begins  the  sad  dirge  of  her  certain  ending  '  : — 

and  there  are,  as  I  have  said,  tirades  of  an  astonish- 
ing rhetorical  force,  passages  which,  recited  by  an 
Enghsh  Rachel,  would  still  bring  down  the  house. 
As  the  denunciations  of  Night : — 

'  Blind  muffled  bawd  !  dark  harbour  of  defame  ! 
Grim  cave  of  death  !  whispering  conspirator  '  : — 

of  Opportunity  : — 

'  Thy  secret  pleasure  turns  to  open  shame, 
Thy  private  feasting  to  a  public  fast, 
Thy  smoothing  titles  to  a  ragged  name  : 
Thy  sugard  tongue  to  bitter  wormwood  tast : 
Thy  violent  vanities  can  never  last ' : — 

and  of  Time  : — 

'  Eater  of  youth,  false  slave  to  false  delight, 
Base  watch  of  woes,  sin's  pack-horse,  vertue's  snare  '  : — 

whose  glory  it  is  : — 

'  To  ruinate  proud  buildings  with  thy  hours 
And  smear  with  dust  their  glitt'ring  golden  towers  .  .  . 
To  feed  oblivion  with  decay  of  things.' 

The  form  of  these  tirades  is  repeated  from  the  Venus, 
but  their  music  is  louder,  and  is  developed  into  a 
greater  variety  of  keys,  sometimes  into  the  piercing 
minors  of  the  more  metaphysical  Sonnets  : — 

'  Why  work'st  thou  mischief  in  thy  pilgrimage  ? 
Unless  thou  could' st  return  to  make  amends. 
One  poor  retiring  minute  in  an  age 
Would  purchase  thee  a  thousand  thousand  friends.  .  .  . 

Thou  ceaseless  lackey  to  eternity  ! ' 

Y 


338       THE  POEMS  OP  SHAKESPEARE 

This  last  apostrophe  is  great ;  but  that  in  Lucrece 
there  should  be  so  many  of  the  same  tremendous 
type,  which  have  escaped  the  fate  of  hackneyed 
quotation,  is  one  of  the  most  elusive  factors  in  a 
difficult  problem : —  H 

'  Pure  thoughts  are  dead  and  still 
While  Lust  and  Murder  wake  to  stain  and  kill.  .  .  . 

His  drumming  heart  cheers  up  his  burning  eye.  ... 

Tears  harden  lust,  though  marble  wears  with  raining.  .  .  . 

Soft  pity  enters  at  an  iron  gate.  .  .  . 

Unruly  blasts  wait  on  the  tender  spring, 
Unwholesome  weeds  take  root  with  precious  flowers, 
The  adder  hisses  where  the  sweet  birds  sing, 
What  virtue  breeds,  iniquity  devours.' 

These,  for  all  their  strength  and  sweetness,  might 
conceivably  have  been  written  by  some  other  of  the 
greater  poets.     But  these  : — 

'  And  dying  eyes  gleam'd  forth  their  ashy  lights.  .  .  . 

'Tis  but  a  part  of  sorrow  that  we  hear  : 

Deep  sounds  make  lesser  noise  than  shallow  fords. 

And  sorrow  ebbs,  being  blown  with  wind  of  words.  .  .  . 

O  !  that  is  gone  for  which  I  sought  to  live. 
And  therefore  now  I  need  not  fear  to  die.  .  .  . 

For  Sorrow,  like  a  heavy  hanging  bell,  ' 

Once  set  on  ringing  with  his  own  weight  goes  '  : — 

these,  I  say,  could  have  been  written  by  Shakespeare 
only.  They  may  rank  with  the  few  which  Arnold 
chose  for  standards  from  the  poetry  of  all  ages  ;  yet 
by  a  caprice  of  literary  criticism  they  are  never 
quoted,  and  are  scarce  so  much  as  known. 


I 


THE  POEMS  OP  SHAKESPEARE       339 

XIV 

The  fate  of  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  has  been  widely 
different  from  the  fate  of  his  Narrative  Poems.  The 
VeniLS  and  the  Lucrece  were  popular  at  once,  and  ran 
through  many  editions  :  the  Sonnets,  pubHshed  in 
1609,  were  not  reprinted  until  1640,  and  were  then 
so  effectually  disguised  by  an  arbitrary  process  of 
interpolation,  omission,  rearrangement,  and  mis- 
leading description  as  to  excite  but  little  attention, 
until  in  1780  Malone  opened  a  new  era  of  research 
into  their  bearing  on  the  hfe  and  character  of 
Shakespeare.  Since  then  the  tables  have  been 
turned.  For  while  the  Venus  and  the  Lucrece  have 
been  largely  neglected,  so  many  volumes,  in  support 
of  theories  so  variously  opposed,  have  been  written 
on  this  aspect  of  the  Sonnets,  that  it  has  become 
impossible  even  to  sum  up  the  contention  except 
by  adding  yet  another  volume  to  already  overladen 
shelves. 

The  controversy  has  its  own  interest ;  but  that 
interest,  I  submit,  is  aUen  from,  and  even  antagon- 
istic to,  an  appreciation  of  l3rrical  excellence.  I  do 
not  mean  that  the  Sonnets  are  '  mere  exercises ' 
written  to  '  rival '  or  to  '  parody  '  the  efforts  of  other 
poets.  Such  curiosities  of  criticism  are  born  of  a 
nervous  revulsion  from  conclusions  reached  by  the 
more  confident  champions  of  a  '  personal  theory '  ; 
and  their  very  eccentricity  measures  the  amount  of 
damage  done,  not  by  those  who  endeavour,  laudably 
enough,  to  retrieve  a  great  lost  hfe,  but  by  those  who 
allow  such  attempts  at  biography  to  bias  their  con- 
sideration of  poems  which  we  possess  intact.  If, 
indeed,  we  must  choose  between  critics,  who  dis- 
cover an  autobiography  in  the  Sonnets,  and  critics. 


340       THE  POEMS  OP  SHAKESPEARE 

who  find  in  them  a  train  of  poetic  exhalations  whose 
airy  iridescence  never  reflects  the  passionate  colours 
of  this  earth,  then  the  first  are  preferable.  At  least 
their  theory  makes  certain  additions  which,  though 
dubious  and  defective,  are  still  additions  to  our 
guesses  at  Shakespeare  the  man ;  whereas  the 
second  subtracts  from  a  known  masterpiece  its 
necessary  material  of  experience  and  emotion.  But 
we  need  not  choose  :  the  middle  way  remains  of 
accepting  from  the  Sonnets  only  the  matter  which 
they  embody  and  the  form  which  they  display. 

Taking  them  up,  then,  as  you  would  take  up  the 
Lucrece  or  another  example  of  Shakespeare's  earlier 
work,  there  is  nothing  to  note  in  their  metrical  form 
but  the  perfection  of  treatment  by  which  Shakespeare 
has  stamped  it  for  his  own.  They  were  immediately 
preceded  by  many  sonnet-sequences  :  by  so  many, 
indeed,  that  Shakespeare  could  hardly  have  taken 
his  place  at  the  head  of  his  lyrical  contemporaries 
without  proving  that  he,  too,  could  write  sonnets 
with  the  best  of  them.  Sidney's  Astrophel  and 
Stella  (written  1581-84)  had  been  published  in  1591 — 
(when  Tom  Nash  was  constrained  to  bid  some  other 
'  Poets  and  Rimers  '  to  put  out  their  '  rush  candles,' 
and  bequeath  their  '  crazed  quaterzayns '  to  the 
chandlers — for  '  loe,  here  hee  cometh  that  hath 
broek  your  legs  ') — with  the  sonnets  of  '  sundry  other 
noblemen  and  gentlemen '  appended,  among  them 
twenty-eight  by  S(amuel)  and  D(aniel),  nineteen  of 
which  were  afterwards  reprinted  in  his  Delia ;  the 
next  year  H(enry)  C(onstable)  published  twenty, 
afterwards  reprinted  in  his  Diana ;  in  1593  B. 
Barnes  published  Parthenophil  and  Parthenope,  con- 
taining a  hundred  and  four  (besides  madrigals,  odes, 
and  eclogues) ;  and  ill  1594  W.  Percy,  to  whom  this 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       341 

gathering  had  been  dedicated,  riposted  in  twenty, 
*  to  the  fairest  Coelia,'  which  touch  the  nadir  of  in- 
competence. But  in  the  same  memorable  year  three 
other  sequences  appeared,  whose  excellence  and  fame 
rendered  an  attempt  in  this  form  almost  obligatory 
upon  any  one  claiming  to  be  a  poet :  H(enry) 
C(onstable)'s  Diana,  with  '  divers  quatorzains  of 
honourable  and  learned  personages,' — notably,  eight 
by  Sidney,  afterwards  appended  to  the  Third  Edition 
of  the  Arcadia  ;  Samuel  Daniel's  Delia,  consisting  of 
fifty-five  ;  ^  and  Michael  Drayton's  Idea's  Mirrour, 
fifty-one  strong,  augmented  to  fifty-nine  in  1599  and 
eventually  (1619)  to  sixty-three.  Then  in  1595 
Spenser  published  his  Amoretti  (written  1592(?)  ), 
and  in  1596  R.  L(inche)  his  Diella  and  B.  Griffin  his 
Fidessa,  I  name  these  last  because  an  example 
from  R.  Linche  : — 

'  My  mistress'  snow-white  skin  doth  much  excell 
The  pure  soft  wool  Arcadian  sheep  do  bear  '  : — 

will  show  what  inept  fatuity  co-existed  with  the 
highest  flights  of  EHzabethan  verse  ;  and  because  the 
third  number  in  Fidessa  ^  was  reprinted  by  Jaggard 
in  the  Passionate  Pilgrim  (1599),  together  with  other 
pieces  stolen  from  Shakespeare  and  Barnefield.  The 
pubHcation  of  such  a  medley  attests  the  well-known 
fact  that  Elizabethan  sonnets  were  handed  about  in 
MS.  for  years  among  poetical  cHques,  and,  as  W. 
Percy  complains,  '  were  committed  to  the  Press ' 
without  the  authors'  knowledge,  although  '  con- 
cealed ...  as  things  privy  '  to  himself.^  It  is  also 
worth  noting  that  the  Elizabethans  I  have  named, 

^  Nineteen  of  which  had  appeared,  of.  supra. 

2  Griffin  was  ahnost  certainly  one  of  Shakespeare's  connections  by 
marriage.     See  '  Shakespeare's  Ancestry,'  The  Times,  Oct.  14,  1895. 

3  W.  Percy  to  the  Reader. 


342       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

who  signed  their  sonnet-sequences  sometimes  only 
with  initials,  often  transfigured  them  by  additions, 
omissions,  and  rearrangings  prior  to  repubUcation  ; 
and  this  was  especially  the  practice  of  Daniel  and 
Drayton,  whose  sonnets,  it  so  happens,  offer  the 
closest  points  of  comparison  to  Shakespeare's.  That 
two  of  Shakespeare's  should  have  been  pubHshed 
with  the  work  of  others  in  1599,  and  afterwards,  with 
slight  variations,  as  units  in  a  fairly  consecutive 
series,  is  quite  in  the  manner  of  the  time.  There  is 
no  mention  of  Delia  in  aU  the  twenty-eight  appended 
by  Daniel  to  Astrophel  and  Stella  ^ ;  but  nineteen  of 
these  were  interpolated  into  the  later  sequence,  which 
bears  her  name,  yet  mentions  it  in  thirteen  only  out 
of  fifty-five.  To  glance  at  Drayton's  Idea  is  to  be 
instantly  suspicious  of  another  such  mystification. 
The  proem  begins  : — 

'  Into  these  loves,  who  but  for  Passion  looks, 
At  this  first  sight  here  let  him  lay  them  by  '  : — 

and  the  author  goes  on  to  boast  that  he  sings 
'  fantasticly  '  without  a  '  far-fetched  sigh,'  an  '  Ah 
me,'  or  a  '  tear.'  Yet  the  sixty-first  in  the  completed 
series  (1619)  is  that  wonderful  sob  of  suppHcation  for 
which  Drayton  is  chiefly  remembered  : — 

'  Since  there  's  no  help,  come,  let  us  kiss  and  part ! ' 

Only  by  the  use  of  the  comparative  method  can  we 
hope  to  recover  the  conditions  under  which  sonnets 
were  written  and  pubHshed  in  Shakespeare's  day. 
A  sideHght,  for  instance,  is  thrown  on  the  half  good- 
natured,  half  malicious  rivalry  between  the  members 
of  shifting  hterary  cHques,  from  the  fact  that  Shake- 
speare,   Chapman,   Marston,    and   Jonson   aU   con- 

^  Sonnet  xui.  opens  thus  : — 

'  My  Cynthia  hath  the  waters  of  mine  eyes.' 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       343 

tributed  poems  on  the  PhcBnix  to  E»ob.  Chester's 
Love's  Martyr  (1601),^  and  that  sonnets  on  the  same 
subject  occur  in  Daniel's  additions  to  Astrophel 
(Sonnet  m.),  and  in  Drayton's  Idea  (Sonnet  xvi.). 
All  six  poets  are  suspected,  and  some  are  known, 
to  have  been  arrayed  from  time  to  time  on  opposed 
sides  in  Hterary  quarrels  ;  yet  you  find  them  handling 
a  common  theme  in  more  or  less  friendly  emulation. 
I  fancy  that  many  of  the  coincidences  between  the 
Sonnets  of  Shakespeare  and  those  of  Drayton,  on 
which  charges  of  plagiarism  have  been  f oimded,  and 
by  whose  aid  attempts  have  been  made  to  fix  the 
date  of  Shakespeare's  authorship,  may  be  explained 
more  probably  by  this  general  conception  of  a  verse- 
loving  society  divided  into  emulous  coteries.  Mr. 
Tyler  adduces  the  conceit  of  '  eyes '  and  '  heart ' 
in  Drayton's  xxxm.  (Ed.  1599),  and  compares  it 
to  Shakespeare's  xlvi.  and  XLvn.  (1609) ;  but  it 
appears  in  Henry  Constable.  Again,  he  instances 
Drayton's  illustration  from  a  '  map '  in  xun.  ^ ; 
and,  perhaps  by  reason  of  the  fashionable  interest 
in  the  New  World,  the  image  was  a  common  one : 
Daniel  employs  it  in  his  Defence  of  Byrne.  And  if 
Drayton,  in  this  sonnet,  '  strives  to  eternize  '  the 
object  of  his  affection  in  accents  echoed  by  Shake- 
speare, Daniel  does  the  like  in  his  L. : — 

'  Let  others  sing  of  Knights  and  Palladins 
In  aged  accents,  and  untimely  words,'  etc.  : — 

with  a  hit  at  Spenser  that  only  differs  in  being  a  hit 
from  Shakespeare's  reference  in  cvi. : — 

'  When  in  the  chronicle  of  wasted  time 
I  see  descriptions  of  the  fairest  wights 
And  beauty  making  beautiful  old  rhyme 
In  praise  of  ladies  dead  and  lovely  Knights.' 

1  See  Note  iv.  on  The  Sonnets.  ^  Ed.  1599 -xuv.  of  1619. 


344       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

Of  course  it  differs  also  in  poetic  excellence ;  yet 
many  chancing  on  Daniel's  later  line  : — 

'  Against  the  dark  and  Time's  consuming  rage  ' ; — 

might  mistake  it  for  one  by  the  mightier  artist. 
Drayton,  like  Shakespeare,  upbraids  someone,  whom 
he  compares  to  the  son — and  the  sex  is  significant — 
'  of  some  rich  penny-father,'  for  wasting  his  '  Love  ' 
and  '  Beauty,'  which  Time  must  conquer,  '  on  the 
unworthy '  who  cannot  make  him  '  survive '  in 
'  immortal  song.'  ^  And  the  next  number  soimds 
famihar,  with  its  curious  metaphysical  conceit  of 
identity  between  the  beloved  one  and  the  poet  who 
sings  him.  2  If  any  one  had  thought  it  worth  his 
while  to  investigate  the  biographical  problems  of 
Drayton's  obviously  doctored  Idea,  he  would  have 
found  nuts  to  crack  as  hard  as  any  in  Shakespeare's 
Sonnets.  It  is  best,  perhaps,  to  take  Sidney's 
advice,  and  to  '  beheve  with  him  that  there  are 
many  misteries  contained  in  Poetrie,  which  of 
purpose  were  written  darkely.'  At  any  rate,  the 
ironic  remainder  of  the  passage  throws  a  flood  of  Ught 
on  the  extent  to  which  the  practice  of  immortalising 
prevailed  : — '  Beheve  '  the  poets,  he  says,  '  when 
they  tell  you  they  will  make  you  immortal  by  their 
verses,'  for,  thus  doing,  '  your  name  shall  flourish  in 
the  Printers'  shoppes ;  thus  doing,  you  shall  bee  of 
kinne  to  many  a  poetical  preface ;  thus  doing,  you 
shall  be  most  fayre,  most  rich,  most  wise,  most  aU, 
you  shaU  dwell  upon  superlatives.'  ^ 

Shakespeare's  Sonnets,  then,  belong  to  a  sonneteer- 
ing age,  and  exhibit  many  curious  coincidences  with 
the  verse  of  his  friends  and  rivals.     But  his  true 

*  Sonnet  x.  Ed.  1619.  2  ^f  ^  Shakespeare's  xxxix.,  XT.n.,  Lxn. 

3  Sidney,  A'pologie. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       845 

distinction  in  mere  metrical  form,  apart  from  finer 
subtleties  of  art,  consists  in  this :  that  he  established 
the  quatorzain  as  a  separate  t3rpe  of  the  European 
Sonnet ;  he  took  as  it  were  a  sport  from  the  garden 
of  verse,  and  fixed  it  for  an  EngHsh  variety.  The 
credit  for  this  has  been  given  to  Daniel ;  but  the 
attribution  cannot  be  sustained.  For  Daniel  some- 
times hankered  after  the  Petrarchan  model,  though  in 
a  less  degree  than  any  other  of  Shakespeare's  con- 
temporaries :  he  travels  in  Italy, ^  contrasts  his  Muse 
with  Petrarch's,^  imitates  his  structure,^  and  strains 
after  feminine  rhymes.  Shakespeare  alone  selected 
the  English  quatorzain,  and  sustained  it  throughout 
a  sonnet  sequence.  "^  Even  the  merit  of  invention 
claimed  for  Daniel  must  be  denied  him.  When 
Shakespeare  makes  Slender  say  ^  : — '  I  had  rather 
than  forty  shillings  I  had  my  book  of  songs  and 
sonnets  here  '  : — he  refers  to  TotteVs  Miscellany, 
published  in  1557.  But  the  numbers  by  the  Earl  of 
Surrey  in  that  anthology  were  written  many  years 
earHer,  and  in  the  Eighth  of  his  Sonnets  there 
printed,  you  will  find  as  good  a  model  for  Shake- 
speare's form  as  any  in  Daniel's  Delia  : — 

'  Set  me  whereas  the  sunne  doth  parche  the  grene 
Or  where  his  beames  do  not  dissolve  the  yse  : 
In  temperate  heate  where  he  is  felt  and  sene  : 
In  presence  prest  of  people  madde  or  wise. 
Set  me  in  hye,  or  yet  in  lowe  degree  : 
In  longest  night,  or  in  the  shortest  daye  : 
In  clearest  skye,  or  where  clowdes  thickest  be  : 
In  lusty  youth,  or  when  my  heeres  are  graye. 

1  Delia,  XLvn.,  XLvm.  2  jn^^^  xxxvm. 

3  Ibid.,  XXXI.  and  xxxni.  and  x.  of  the  Sonnets  appended  to  Arcadia. 

*  Sidney  and  Drayton  frequently  copy  French  and  Italian  models. 
Spenser's  linked  quatrains  are  neither  sonnets  nor  quatorzains :  they 
represent  an  abortive  attempt  to  create  a  new  form, 

*  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  i.  i. 


346       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

Set  me  in  heaven,  in  earth  or  els  in  hell, 
In  hyll,  or  dale,  or  in  the  fomyng  flood  : 
Thrall,  or  at  large,  alive  where  so  I  dwell : 
Sicke  or  in  health  :  in  evyll  fame  or  good. 

Hers  will  I  be,  and  onely  with  this  thought 
Content  my  selfe,  although  my  chaunce  be  nought.^ 

The  theme  is  borrowed  from  Petrarch  ;  but  the  form 
is  Surrey's,  who  used  it  in  nine  out  of  his  fourteen 
sonnets,  and  essayed  the  Petrarchan  practice  in 
but  one.  By  this  invention  he  achieved  a  sweetness 
of  rhythm  never  attained  in  any  strict  imitation  of 
the  Itahan  model  until  the  present  century.  His 
sonnet  is  the  true  precursor  of  Shakespeare's,  and  it 
owes — directly — ^Httle  more  than  the  number  of  its 
lines  to  France  and  Italy  :  being  founded  on  EngHsh 
metres  of  alternating  rhymes,  with  a  final  couplet 
copied  by  Chaucer  from  the  French  two  centuries 
before. 

The  number  of  sonnet-sequences  pubhshed  in  the 
last  decade  of  the  Sixteenth  Century,  during  which 
Shakespeare  lived  at  London  in  the  midst  of  a 
literary  movement,  raises  a  presumption  in  favour 
of  an  early  date  for  his  Sonnets,  published  in  1609  ; 
and  this  presumption  is  confirmed  by  the  pubUcation 
of  two  of  them  in  The  Passionate  Pilgrim  (1599). 
We  know  from  civ.  that  three  years  had  elapsed 
since  he  first  saw  the  youth  to  whom  the  earHer 
Sonnets  were  addressed  ;  and  the  balance  of  internal 
evidence,  founded  whether  on  affinities  to  the  plays 
or  on  references  to  political  and  social  events  affecting 
Shakespeare  as  a  dramatist  and  a  man,^  points  to 
the  years  1599-1602  as  the  most  probable  period 

^  '  Form  and  favour  '  in  Shakespeare's  Sonnet  cxxv.,  '  golden  tresses  ' 
in  his  Lxvin.  may  also  be  echoes  of  Surrey. 

2  Cf .  Sonnet  lxvi.  : — '  And  art  made  tongue-tied  by  authority ' : — 
with  the  edict  of  June  1600,  inhibiting  plays  and  playgoers. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       347 

for  their  composition.^  Further  confirmation  of  an 
almost  decisive  character  has  been  adduced  by  Mr. 
Tyler.  ^  But  I  pass  his  arguments,  since  they  are 
based,  in  part,  on  the  assumption  that  the  youth  in 
question  was  William  Herbert ;  and,  although  Mr. 
Tyler  would,  as  I  think,  win  a  verdict  from  any 
jury  composed  and  deciding  after  the  model  of  Scots 
procedure,  his  case  is  one  which  cannot  be  argued 
without  the  broaching  of  many  issues  outside  the 
sphere  of  artistic  appreciation. 


XV 

Had  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  suffered  the  fate  of 
Sappho's  lyrics,  their  few  surviving  fragments  would 
have  won  him  an  equal  glory,  and  we  should  have 
been  damnified  in  the  amount  only  of  a  priceless 
bequest.  But  our  heritage  is  almost  certainly  in- 
tact :  the  Sonnets,  as  we  find  them  in  the  Quarto  of 
1609,  whether  or  not  they  were  edited  by  Shake- 
speare, must  so  far  have  commanded  his  approval 
as  to  arouse  no  protest  against  the  form  in  which 
they  appeared.  It  would  have  been  as  easy  for  him 
to  reshuffle  and  republish  as  it  is  impossible  to 
believe  that  he  could  so  reshuffle  and  republish,  and 
no  record  of  his  action  survive.  Taking  the  Sonnets, 
then,  as  pubhshed  in  their  author's  lifetime,  you  dis- 
cover their  obvious  division  into  two  Series  : — in  the 
First,  one  hundred  and  twenty-five,  closed  by  an 
Envoy  of  six  couplets,  are  addressed  to  a  youth  ; 
in  the  Second,  seventeen  out  of  twenty-eight  are 
addressed  to  the  author's  mistress,  and  the  others 

^  See  Note  ni.  on  The  Sonnets. 

2  Introduction  to  the   '  Shakespeare  Q.,  No.   30 '  and  Shakespeare'' s 
Scmnets.    London,  D.  Nutt,  1890. 


348       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

comment,  more  or  less  directly,  on  her  infidelity 
and  on  his  infatuation.  Most  critics — ^indeed  all  not 
quixotically  compelled  to  reject  a  reasonable  view — 
are  agreed  that  the  order  in  the  First  Series  can  scarce 
be  bettered  ;  and  that  within  that  Series  certain 
Groups  may  be  discerned  of  sonnets  written  at  the 
same  time,  each  with  the  same  theme  and  divided 
by  gaps  of  silence  from  the  sonnets  that  succeed 
them.  There  is  also  substantial  agreement  as  to 
the  confines  of  the  principal  Groups ;  but  between 
these  there  are  shorter  sequences  and  even  isolated 
numbers,  among  which  different  critics  have  suc- 
ceeded in  tracing  a  greater  or  lesser  degree  of  con- 
nection. The  analogy  of  a  correspondence,  carried 
on  over  years  between  friends,  offers  perhaps  the 
best  clue  to  the  varying  continuity  of  the  First 
Series.  There,  too,  you  have  silences  which  attest 
the  very  frequency  of  meetings,  with  silences  born 
of  long  absence  and  absorption  in  diverse  pursuits ; 
there,  too,  you  have  spells  of  voluminous  writing  on 
intimate  themes,  led  up  to  and  followed  by  sparser 
communications  on  matters  of  a  less  dear  importance. 
The  numbers  seem  to  have  been  chronologically 
arranged  ;  and,  that  being  so,  the  alternation  of  con- 
tinuous with  intermittent  production  shows  naturally 
in  a  collection  of  poems  addressed  by  one  person 
to  another  at  intervals  over  a  period  of  more  than 
three  years. 

There  are  seven  main  groups  in  the  First  Series  : — 
Group  A,  I. -XIX.  : — ^The  several  numbers  echo  the 
arguments  in  Venus  and  Adonis,  Stanzas  xxvn.- 
XXIX,  They  are  written,  ostensibly,  to  urge  marriage 
on  a  beautiful  youth,  but,  essentially,  they  con- 
stitute a  continuous  poem  on  Beauty  and  Decay. 
That  is  the  subject,  varied  by  the  introduction  of  two 


THE  POEMS  OP  SHAKESPEARE       349 

subsidiary  themes ;  the  one,  philosophic,  on  immor- 
tality conferred  by  breed  : — 

'  From  fairest  creatures,  we  desire  increase 
That  thereby  beauty's  Rose  might  never  die  '  : — 

the  other,  Hterary,  on  immortality  conferred  by 
verse : — 

'  My  love  shall  in  my  verse  ever  live  yoimg.' 

This  line  is  the  last  of  the  sonnet  which  serves  as  an 
envoy  to  the  Group.  Here  follow  Sonnets  xx.-xxi., 
xxn.,  xxin.-xxiv.,  xxv. :  occasional  verses  written, 
playfully  or  affectionately,  to  the  youth  who  is  now 
dear  to  their  author.  In  giving  the  occasional 
sonnets  I  bracket  only  those  which  are  obviously 
connected  and  obviously  written  at  the  same  time. 

Group  B,  XXVI. -xxxn.  : — A  continuous  poem  on 
absence,  dispatched,  it  may  be,  in  a  single  letter, 
since  it  opens  with  a  formal  address  and  ends  in  a 
full  close.  In  this  group  there  are  variations  on  the 
disgust  of  separation  and  the  solace  of  remembered 
love ;  but  it  is  a  poem  and  not  a  letter — turning 
each  succeeding  emotion  to  its  full  artistic  account. 

Group  C,  xxxin.-XLn.  : — The  first  of  the  more 
immediately  personal  garlands.  The  writer's  friend 
has  wronged  him  by  stealing  his  mistress's  love.  The 
counterpart  to  this  group,  evidently  written  on  the 
same  theme  and  at  the  same  time,  will  be  found 
in  the  Second  Series  (cxxxin.-cxLiv.),  addressed  in 
complaint  to  the  writer's  mistress,  or  written  in 
comment  on  her  complicity  in  this  wrong.  The 
biographical  interest  of  this  Group  has  won  it  an 
undeserved  attention  at  the  expense  of  others. 
Many  suppose  that  all  the  Sonnets  turn  on  this 
theme,  or,  at  least,  that  the  loudest  note  of  passion 
is  here  sounded.     But  this  is  not  so.     Of  all  ten  three 


350       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

at  the  most  can  be  called  tragic.  These  are  xxxiv. — 
but  it  arises  out  of  the  lovely  imagery  of  xxxni., 
XXXVI.,  but  it  ends  : — 

'  I  love  thee  in  such  sort 
As  thou  being  mine,  mine  is  thy  ^ood  report '  ; 

and  XL.,  but  it  ends : — '  Yet  we  must  not  be  foes.' 
XXXIII.  is  indeed  beautiful,  but  the  others  return  to 
the  early  theme  of  mere  immortahsing,  or  are  ex- 
pressed in  abstruse  or  playful  conceits  which  make 
it  impossible  to  believe  they  mirror  a  soul  in  pain. 
They  might  be  taken  for  designed  interpolations, 
did  they  not  refer,  by  the  way,  to  a  sorrow,  or  mis- 
fortune, not  to  be  distinguished  from  the  theme  of 
their  fellows.  Knowing  what  Shakespeare  can  do  to 
express  anguish  and  passion,  are  we  not  absurd  to 
find  the  evidence  of  either  in  these  Sonnets,  written, 
as  they  are,  on  a  private  sorrow,  but  in  the  spirit  of 
conscious  art  ? 

'  If  my  slight  Muse  do  please  these  curious  days 
The  pain  be  mine,  but  thine  shall  be  the  praise.' — xxxvni. 

Here  follow  xlhi.,  xliv.-xlv.,  XLvi.-XLvii.-XLvni., 
XLix.,  L.-Li.,  LH.,  connected  or  occasional  pieces  on 
mere  absence.  Then  Lm.-Liv.,  and  lv.  return  to  the 
theme  of  immortahsing.  The  first  two  are  steeped 
in  Renaissance  platonism ;  while  the  last  (as  Mr. 
Tyler  has  shown)  does  but  versify  a  passage  in 
which  Meres  quotes  Ovid  and  Horace  (1598) :  it 
seems  to  be  an  Envoy. 

Grou^  D,  LVI.-LXXIV.  : — The  Poet  writes  again 
after  silence  : — '  Sweet  love,  renew  thy  force.'  The 
first  three  are  occasioned  by  a  voluntary  absence  of 
his  friend ;  but  that  absence,  unexpectedly  pro- 
longed, inspires  a  mood  of  contemplation  which, 
becoming  ever  more  and  more  metaphysical,  is  by 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       351 

much  removed  from  the  spirit  of  the  earher  poem  on 
absence  {Group  B,  xxvi.-xxxn.)  with  its  reahstic 
handhng  of  the  same  theme.  In  Lix.  the  poet 
dwells  on  the  illusion  of  repeated  experience,  and 
speculates  on  the  truth  of  the  philosophy  of  cycles  : — 

'  If  there  be  nothing  new,  but  that  which  is 
Hath  been  before,  how  are  our  brains  beguiled.' 

In  LX.  he  watches  the  changing  toil  of  Time  : — 

'  Like  as  the  waves  make  towards  the  pebbled  shore 
So  do  our  minutes  hasten  to  their  end.' 

In  LXI.  he  gazes  into  the  night  at  the  phantasm  of 
his  absent  friend,  and  thus  leads  up  to  a  poem  in 
three  parts  (lxh.-lxv.,  lxvi.-lxx.,  lxxi.-lxxiv.)  on 
Beauty  that  Time  must  ruin,  on  the  disgust  of  Life, 
and  on  Death.  These  nineteen  numbers,  conceived 
in  a  vein  of  melancholy  contemplation,  are  among 
the  most  beautiful  of  all,  and  are  more  subtly  meta- 
physical than  any,  save  only  cxxm.,  cxxiv.,  cxxv. 
There  follow  lxxv.,  lxxvi.,  Lxxvn. 

Group  E,  Lxxvin.-Lxxxvi.,  is  the  second  of  a  more 
immediate  personal  interest.  It  deals  with  rival 
poets  and  their  meretricious  art — especially  with  one 
Poet  who  by  '  the  proud  full  sail  of  his  great  verse  ' 
has  bereft  the  writer  of  his  friend's  admiration.  The 
nine  are  written  in  unbroken  sequence  and  are  playful 
throughout,  suggesting  no  tragedy. 

But  in  Group  F,  Lxxxvn.-xcvi.,  the  spirit  of 
the  verse  suddenly  changes :  the  music  becomes 
plangent,  and  the  theme  of  utter  estrangement  is 
handled  with  a  complete  command  over  dramatic 
yet  sweetly  modulated  discourse.  The  Group  is, 
indeed,  a  single  speech  of  tragic  intensity,  written  in 
elegiac  verse  more  exquisite  than  Ovid's  own.  Here 
the  First  Series  is  most  obviously  broken,  and  xcvn. 


352       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

xcvni.-xcix.   emphasise   the  break.     They   tell  of 
two  absences,  the  first  in  late  summer  (xcvi.),  the 
second  in  the  spring.     They  are  isolated  from  the 
Group  which  precedes,  and  the  Group  which  follows 
them,  and  they  embrace  an  absepce  extending,  at 
least,  from  early  autumn  in  one  year  to  April  in  the 
next.     The  first  is  of  great  elegiac  beauty,  the  second 
of  curious  metaphysical  significance ;  the  third  seems 
an  inferior,  perhaps  a  rejected,  version  of  the  second. 
Group  G,  c.-cxxv.,  opens  after  a  great  silence  : — 
'  Where  art  thou.  Muse,  that  thou  forget' st  so  long  '  : 
— and  the  poet  develops  in  it  a  single  sustained  attack 
on  the  Law  of  Change,  minimising  the  importance  of 
both  outward  chances  and  inward  moods.     Once 
more  taking  his  pen,  he  invokes  his  Muse  (c.)  '  to  be 
a  satire  to  Decay,'  to  bring  contempt  on  '  Time's 
spoils,'  and  to  '  give  fame  faster  than  Time  wastes 
Life.'     True,  he  argued  against  this  in  Group  E : 
deprecating  (Lxxxn.)  '  strained  touches  of  rhetoric  ' 
when  applied  to  one  '  truely  fair '  and,  therefore, 
'  truely    sympathized  '    by    '  true    plain    words  '  : 
maintaining  (Lxxxni.)  that  silence  at  least  did  not 
'  impair  beauty,'  and  disparaging  (lxxxv.)   '  com- 
ments of  praise  richly  compiled.'     But  now  he  puts 
this  same  defence  into  the  mouth  of  his  Muse,  making 
her  argue  in  turn  (ci.)  that  Truth  and  Beauty,  which 
both  '  depend  on '  his  Love,  need  no  '  colour '  and 
no  '  pencil '  since  '  best  is  best,  if  never  intermixed.' 
Yet  he  bids  her  '  excuse  not  silence  so,'  since  it  Hes 
in  her  to  make  his  love  '  outlive  a  guilded  tomb,' 
and  '  seem  long  hence  as  he  shows  now.'     In  this 
Group,  as  in  earher  resumptions,  the  music  is  at 
first  imperfect.      But  it  soon  changes,  and  in  en. 
the  apology  for  past  silence  is  sung  in  accents  sweet 
as  the  nightingale's  described.     There  are  marked 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       353 

irregularities  in  the  poetic  excellence  of  the  Sonnets  : 
which  ever  climbs  to  its  highest  pitch  in  the  longer 
and  more  closely  connected  sequences.  This  is  the 
longest  of  all :  a  poem  of  retrospect  over  a  space 
of  three  years  to  the  time  when  '  love  was  new,  and 
then  but  in  the  spring.'  In  its  survey  it  goes  over 
the  old  themes  with  a  soft  and  silvery  touch  :  Beauty 
and  Decay,  Love,  Constancy,  the  Immortalising  of 
the  Friend's  beauty  conceived  as  an  incarnation  of 
Ideal  Beauty  viewed  from  imaginary  standpoints  in 
Time.  And  interwoven  with  this  rehandling,  chiefly 
of  the  themes  in  the  First  and  Fourth  Groups,  is 
an  apology  (cix.-cxn.,  cxvn.-cxx.,  cxxn.)  for  a 
negligence  on  the  Poet's  part  of  the  rites  of  friend- 
ship, which  he  sets  off  (occ.)  against  his  Friend's 
earher  unkindness : — '  That  you  were  once  unkind, 
befriends  me  now,''  This  apology  offers  the  third,  and 
only  other,  immediate  reference  to  Shakespeare's 
personal  experience ;  and,  on  these  sonnets,  as  on 
those  which  treat  of  the  Dark  Lady  and  the  Rival 
Poet,  attention  has  been  unduly  concentrated.  They 
seem  founded  on  episodes  and  moods  necessarily 
incidental  to  the  life  which  we  know  Shakespeare 
must  have  led.  To  say  that  he  could  never  have 
slighted  his  art  as  an  actor : — 

'  Alas,  'tis  true  I  have  gone  here  and  there 
And  made  myself  a  motley  to  the  view  .  .  . 

My  nature  is  subdued 
To  what  it  works  in  like  the  dyer's  hand  '  : — 

and  then  to  seek  for  far-fetched  and  fantastic  in- 
terpretations is  to  evince  an  ignorance,  not  only  of 
the  obloquy  to  which  actors  were  then  exposed,  and 
of  the  degradations  they  had  to  bear,  but  also  of 
human    nature    as    we    know    it    even    in    heroes. 


354       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

Wellington  is  said  to  have  wept  over  the  carnage  at 
Waterloo ;  the  grossness  of  his  material  often  infects 
the  artist,  and  '  potter's  rot '  has  its  analogue  in 
every  profession.  This  feeling  of  undeserved  de- 
gradation is  a  mood  most  incident  to  all  who  work, 
whether  artists  or  men  of  action :  an  accident,  real 
but  transitory,  which  obhterates  the  contours  of  the 
soul,  and  leaves  them  intact,  as  a  fog  swallows  the 
Town  without  destroying  it. 

In  cxxi.  there  is  a  natural  digression  from  this 
personal  apology  to  reflections  cast  on  Shakespeare's 
good  name.  In  cxxn.  the  apology  is  resumed  with 
particular  reference  to  certain  tablets,  the  gift  of  the 
Friend,  which  the  Poet  has  bestowed  on  another. 
He  takes  this  occasion  to  resume  the  main  theme 
of  the  whole  group  by  pouring  contempt  on  '  dates  ' 
and  *  records '  and  '  tallies  to  score  his  dear  love '  : 
the  tablets,  though  in  fact  given  away,  are  still 
'  within  his  brain,  fuU  charactered,  beyond  all  date 
even  to  Eternity.'  Thus  does  he  lead  up  directly 
to  the  last  three  sonnets  (cxxin.,  cxxiv.,  oxxv.), 
which  close  this  *  Satire  to  Decay,'  and  with  it  the 
whole  series  (i.-cxxv.).  They  are  pieces  of  mingled 
splendour  and  obscurity  in  which  Shakespeare  presses 
home  his  metaphysical  attack  on  the  reaUty  of  Time  ; 
and  the  difficulty,  inherent  in  an  argument  so  trans- 
cendental, is  fm*ther  deepened  by  passing  allusions 
to  contemporary  events  and  persons,  which  many 
have  sought  to  explain,  with  Httle  success.  Here 
follows  an  Envoy  of  six  couplets  to  the  whole  Series. 

The  Second  Series  shows  fewer  traces  of  design  in 
its  sequence  than  the  First.  The  magnificent  cxxrx. 
on  '  lust  in  action '  is  wedged  between  two :  one 
addressed  to  Shakespeare's  mistress  and  one  de- 
scriptive of  her  charm  ;  both  playful  in  their  fancy. 


THE  POEMS  OP  SHAKESPEARE       355 

CXLVI.  to  his  soul,  with  its  grave  pathos  and  beauty, 
follows  on  a  foolish  verbal  conceit,  written  in  octo- 
syllabic verse  ;  while  CLm.  and  cliv.  are  contrived 
in  the  worst  manner  of  the  French  Renaissance  on 
the  theme  of  a  Greek  Epigram.  ^  But  the  rest  are,  all 
of  them,  addressed  to  a  Dark  Lady  whom  Shake- 
speare loved  in  spite  of  her  infideUty,  or  they  com- 
ment on  the  wrong  she  does  him.  It  cannot  be 
doubted  that  they  were  written  at  the  same  time 
and  on  the  same  subject  as  the  sonnets  in  Group  C, 
xxxin.-XLn.,  or  that  they  were  excluded  from  that 
group  on  any  ground  except  that  of  their  being 
written  to  another  than  the  Youth  to  whom  the 
whole  First  Series  is  addressed.  Like  the  numbers 
in  Group  C,  they  are  alternately  playful  and  pathetic ; 
their  diction  is  often  as  exquisite,  their  discourse 
often  as  eloquent.  But  sometimes  they  are  sardonic 
and  even  fierce  : — 

'  For  I  have  sworn  thee  fair  and  thought  thee  bright, 
Who  art  as  black  as  hell,  as  dark  as  night.' 

XVI 

The  division  of  the  Sonnets  into  two  Series  and  a 
number  of  subsidiary  Groups  springs  merely  from 
the  author's  actual  experiences,  which  were  the 
occasions  of  their  production,  and  from  the  order  in 
time  of  those  experiences.  But  the  poetic  themes 
suggested  by  such  experiences  and  their  treatment 
by  Shakespeare  belong  to  another  sphere  of  con- 
sideration. They  derive  —  not  from  the  brute 
chances  of  Hfe  which,  in  a  man  not  a  poet,  would 
have  suggested  no  poetry,  and,  to  a  poet  not  Shake- 
speare,   would    have    dictated    poetry    of    another 

1  Dowden,  1881. 


356       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

character  and  a  lesser  perfection,  but — from  Shake- 
speare's inborn  temperament  and  acquired  skill,  both 
of  selection  and  execution.  These  poetic  themes  are 
comparatively  few  in  number,  and  recur  again  and 
again  in  the  several  Groups.  Some  are  more  closely 
connected  with  the  facts  of  Shakespeare's  life ; 
others  embody  the  general  experience  of  man ; 
others,  again,  detached,  not  only  from  the  life  of 
Shakespeare  but,  from  the  thought  of  most  men, 
embody  the  transcendental  speculations  of  rare 
minds  which,  at  certain  times  and  places — in 
Socratic  Athens  and  in  the  Europe  of  the  Renaissance 
— have  commanded  a  wide  attention.  Follows  a 
tabulation. 

(1)  Themes  personal  to  Shakespeare  : — 

His  Friend's  Error.     Group  C,  xxxin.-XLii.,  xciv.-xcvi., 

cxx.  cxxxm.-cxxxv. 
The  Dark  Lady.     Group  C,  and  the  Second  Series,  cxxvii.- 

CLH. 

His  Ovm  Error,     xxxvi.,  ex.,  cxn.,  cxvn.-cxxn. 
His  Ovm  Misfortune,     xxv.,  xxix.,  xxxvn.,  cxi. 
The  Rival  Poets,    xxi.,  xxxn.,  Group  E,  Lxxvrn.-Lxxxvi., 
and  (as  I  hold)  Lxvn.,  Lxvm:.,  lxxvi.,  and  cxxv. 

That  there  were  more  Rival  Poets  than  one  is  evident 
from  Lxxvin.  3  ; — 

'  Every  alien  pen  hath  got  my  use, 
And  under  thee  their  poesy  disperse  '  : — 

and  from  Lxxxm.  12  : — 

'  For  I  impair  not  beauty,  being  mute 
When  others  would  give  life.' 

And  among  these  others  who  stiU  sing,  while  the  Poet 
is  himself  silent,  two  are  conspicuous  : — 

'  There  lives  more  life  in  one  of  your  fair  eyes 
Than  both  your  foets  can  in  praise  devise.' 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       357 

(2)  Themes  which  embody  general  experience : — 

Love,  xx.-xxxn.,  xxxvn.,  xun.-Ln.,  lvi.,  lxih.,  lxvi., 
Lxxi.,  Lxxn.,  Lxxv.,  Lxxxvn.-xcn.,  xcvi.,  en.,  cv.,  cxv.- 
cxvi. 

Absence.  Group  B,  xxvi.-xxxi.,  xxxix.,  XLni.-Ln.,  Lvn., 
Lvm.,  xcvn.,  xcvm. 

Beauty  and  Decay.    Group  A,  i.-xix.,  xxn.,  Lxxvn. 

At  times  this  Theme  is  treated  in  a  mood  of  con- 
templation remote  from  general  experience — as  in 
Liv.,  LV.,  LX.,  Lxm.-Lxv., — and,  thus  handled,  may 
serve,  with  two  Themes,  derived  from  it : — 

Immortality  by  Breed,     i.-xiv.,  xvi.,  xvii. 

Immortality  by  Verse,    xv.,  xvn.-xix.,  xxxvni.,  liv.,  lv., 

LX.,  LXV.,  LXXIV.,  LXXXI.,  C,  CI.,  CVH.  : — 

for  a  transition  to  (3)  Themes  which  are  more 
abstruse  and  demand  a  more  particular  examination. 

Identity  with  Ms  Friend  : — 

XX.  '  My  glass  shall  not  persuade  me  I  am  old 

So  long  as  youth  and  thou  are  of  one  date.  .  .  . 

For  all  that  beauty  that  doth  cover  thee 

Is  but  the  seemly  raiment  of  my  heart.  .  .  .' 

xxxrx.  '  What  can  mine  own  praise  to  mine  own  self  bring  ? 
And  what  is 't  but  mine  own  when  I  praise  thee  ?  .  .  .' 

XLH.  '  But  here  's  the  joy  :  my  friend  and  I  are  one.  .  .  .' 

Lxn.  '  'Tis  thee,  myself,  that  for  myself  I  praise. 

Painting  my  age  with  beauty  of  thy  days.  .  .  .' 

cxxxm.  '  Me  from  my  self  thy  cruel  eye  hath  taken 

And   my   next   self   (his  friend)    thou   harder   hast 
ingrossed  '  .  .  . 

cxxxiv.  '  My  self  I  '11  forfeit,  so  that  other  mine 
Thou  wilt  restore.' 

The  conceit  of  Identity  with  the  person  addressed  is 
but  a  part  of  the  machinery  of  Renaissance  Platonics 


358       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

derived,  at  many  removes,  from  discussions  in  the 
Platonic  Academy  at  Florence.  Michelangelo  had 
written  in  1553  : — '  If  I  yearn  day  and  night  without 
intermission  to  be  in  Rome,  it  is  only  in  order  to 
return  again  to  life,  which  I  cannot  enjoy  without 
the  soul'^ — viz.,  his  friend. 

The  Idea  of  Beauty, 

In  xxxvn.  '  That  I  ...  by  a  part  of  all  thy  glory 

live  '  is  a  '  Shadow,''  cast  by  his  Friend's  excellence, 

which  yet  '  doth  such  substance  give  '  that '  I  am  not 

lame,  poor,  nor  despised.'     In  xxxi.  all  whom  the 

Poet  has  loved  and  '  supposed  dead  ' — '  love  and  all 

Love's  loving  parts  ' — are  not  truly  dead, '  but  things 

removed  that  hidden   in  there  He ' — viz. — ^in  the 

Friend's  bosom : — 

'  Their  images  I  lov'd  I  view  in  thee, 
And  thou,  all  they,  hast  all  the  all  of  me.' 

The  mystical  confusion  with  and  in  the  Friend  of  all 
that  is  beautiful  or  lovable  in  the  Poet  and  others  is 
a  development  from  the  Platonic  theory  of  the  Idea 
OF  Beauty  :  the  eternal  type  of  which  all  beautiful 
things  on  earth  are  but  shadows.  It  is  derived  by 
poetical  hyperbole  from  the  Poet's  prior  identifica- 
tion of  the  Friend's  beauty  with  Ideal  Beauty.  The 
theory  of  Ideal  Beiauty  was  a  common  feature  of 
Renaissance  Poetry  throughout  Europe.  Du  BeUay 
had  sung  it  in  France  fifty  years  before  Shakespeare 
in  England : — 

'  La,  0  mon  ame,  au  plus  haut  ciel  guidee, 
Tu  y  pourras  recognoistre  Fid^e 
De  la  beaute  qu'en  ce  monde  j 'adore.' 

We  need  not  infer  that  Shakespeare  studied  Du 
Bellay's  verse  or  the  great  corpus  of  Platonic  poetry 

^  J.  a.  Symonds's  translation. 


THE  POEMS  OP  SHAKESPEARE       369 

in  Italy.  Spenser,  who  translated  some  of  Du 
Bellay's  sonnets  at  seventeen,  had  touched  the  theory 
in  his  Hymne  of  Heavenly  Beautie  (1596) : — 

*  More  faire  is  that  (heaven),  where  those  Idees  on  hie 
Enraung^d  be,  which  Plato  so  admired  '  : — 

and  had  set  it  forth  at  length  in  his  Hymne  in 
Honour  of  Beautie  (1596) : — 

'  What  time  this  world's  great  Workmaister  did  cast 
To  make  all  things  such  as  we  now  behold, 
It  seems  that  he  before  his  eyes  had  plast 
A  goodly  Pateme.  .  .  . 

That  wondrous  Pateme  .  .  . 

Is  perfect  Beautie,  which  all  men  adore.  .  .  . 

How  vainely  then  do  ydle  wits  invent, 

That  Beautie  is  nought  else  but  mixture  made 

Of  colours  faire.  .  .  . 

Hath  white  and  red  in  it  such  wondrous  powre. 

That  it  can  pierce  through  th'  eyes  unto  the  hart  .  .  .  ? 

That  Beautie  is  not,  as  fond  men  misdeeme. 

An  outward  shew  of  things  that  only  seeme.  .  .  . 

But  that  faire  lampe  .  .  . 

...  is  heavenly  bom(e)  and  cannot  die, 

Being  a  parcell  of  the  purest  skie.  .  .  . 

Therefore  where-ever  that  thou  doest  behold 
A  comely  corpse,  with  beautie  faire  endewed, 
Ejiow  this  for  certaine,  that  the  same  doth  hold 
A  beauteous  soul.  .  .  .' 

Mr.  Walter  Raleigh  has  pointed  out  to  me  that 
Spenser  and  Shakespeare  must  have  been  famiHar 
with  Hoby's  translation  of  Baldassare  CastigHone's 
II  Cortegiano,  pubhshed  in  1561.^  Indeed  Spenser 
in  his  Hymne  in  Honour  of  Beautie  does  but  versify 

1  '  The  CouHyer  of  Count  Baldessar  Castilio  divided  into  foure  bookes. 
Very  necessary  and  profitable  for  yonge  Gentilmen  and  Gentilwomen 
abiding  in  Court,  Palaice  or  Place,  done  into  Englyshe  by  Thomas  Hoby. 
Imprinted  at  London  by  Wyllyam  Seres  at  the  signe  of  the  Hedghogge, 


360       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

the  argument  of  Hoby's  admirable  Fourth  Book. 
'  Of  the  beawtie,^  Hoby  writes,  '  that  we  meane, 
which  is  onlie  it  that  appeereth  in  bodies,  and 
especially  in  the  face  of  man  ...  we  will  terme  it 
an  influence  of  the  heavenlie  bountifulness,  the  whiche 
for  all  it  stretcheth  over  all  thjmges  that  be  created 
(Hke  the  light  of  the  Sonn)  yet  when  it  findeth  out  a 
face  well  proportioned,  and  framed  with  a  certein 
liveHe  agreement  of  severall  colours,  and  set  forth 
with  hghtes  and  shadowes,  and  with  an  orderly 
distance  and  limites  of  lines,  thereinto  it  distilleth 
itseK  and  appeereth  most  welf avoured,  and  decketh 
out  and  lyghtneth  the  subject,  where  it  shyneth  with 
a  marveylous  grace  and  gHstringe  (like  the  sonne 
beames  that  strike  against  a  beautifuU  plate  of  fine 
golde  wrought  and  sett  with  precyous  jewelles).' 

In  Hoby's  exposition  the  beauty  of  the  human  face 
is  the  best  reflector  of  the  Heavenly  Beauty  which, 
like  the  sunhght,  is  reflected  from  all  things — from 
the  '  world,'  the  '  heaven,'  the  '  earth,'  the  '  sun,' 
the  '  moon,'  the  '  planets  ' — from  '  fowls,'  '  trees,' 
'  ships,'  '  buildings  '  —  even  from  the  '  roof  of 
houses ' :  so  that  '  if  under  the  skye  where  there 
f alleth  neyther  haile  nor  rayne  a  mann  should  builde 
a  temple  without  a  reared  ridge,  it  is  to  be  thought, 
that  it  coulde  have  neyther  a  sightly  showe  nor  any 
beawtie.  Beeside  other  thinges  therefore,  it  giveth 
great  praise  to  the  world,  in  saying  that  it  is 
beawtifull.  It  is  praised,  in  sayinge,  the  beawtifull 
heaven,  beawtifull  earth,  beawtifull  sea,  beawtifuU 
rivers,  beawtifull  wooddes,  trees,  gardeines,  beawti- 
full cities,  beawtifull  churches,  houses,  armies.  In 
conclusion   this   comelye   and   holye   beawtie   is   a 

1561.'  Of.  '  Adieu,  my  trae  court-friend :  fareweU  my  dear  Castillo  ' : — 
where  Makvoh  addresses  Bilioso, — ^Marston's  The  Malcontent,  i.  i.  302. 


I 
I 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       361 

wonderous  settinge  out  of  everie  thinge.  And  it 
may  be  said  that  Good  and  beautifull  be  after  a  sort 
one  seKe  thinge,  especiallie  in  the  bodies  of  men : 
of  the  beawtie  whereof  the  nighest  cause  (I  suppose) 
is  the  beawtie  of  the  soule  :  the  which  as  a  partner 
of  the  right  and  heavenlye  beawtie,  maketh  sightly 
and  beawtifull  what  ever  she  toucheth.'  Plato's 
theory  of  Beauty  had  been  ferried  long  before  from 
Byzantium  to  Florence,  and  had  there  taken  root, 
so  that  Michelangelo  came  to  write  : — 

'  Lo,  all  the  lovely  things  we  find  on  earth, 
Resemble  for  the  soul  that  rightly  sees 
That  source  of  bliss  divine  which  gave  us  birth  : 
Nor  have  we  first-fruits  or  remembrances 
Of  heaven  elsewhere.     Thus,  loving  loyally, 
I  rise  to  God,  and  make  death  sweet  by  thee.'  ^ 

And  from  Italy  young  noblemen,  accredited  to 
Italian  courts  or  travelling  for  their  pleasure,  had 
brought  its  influence  to  France  and  England.  So 
you  have  Spenser's  Hymne ;  Drayton  harping  on 
Idea  2 ;  and  Barnfield  (1595)  apostrophising  the 
sects : — 

'  The  Stoicks  thinke  (and  they  come  neere  the  truth) 
That  vertue  is  the  chiefest  good  of  all, 
The  Academicks  on  Idea  call.' 

Shakespeare  must  have  read  Spenser's  Hymn  and 
Hoby's    Courtyer,    in   which   Plato,    Socrates,    and 

^  J.  A.  Symonds's  translation.  The  great  body  of  Platonic  poetry  did 
not  pass  without  cavil  even  in  Italy,  for  thus  does  the  Blessed  Giovenale 
Ancina  state  the  defence  and  his  reply  : — '  Mi  rispose  per  un  poco  di  scudo 
alia  difesa,  non  esser  cio  tenuto  ivi  per  lascivo,  ne  disonesto  amore,  se  ben 
vano,  e  leggiero,  ma  Platonico,  civile,  modesto,  con  simplicita,  e  senza 
malitia  alcuna,  e  per  consequente  poi  honesto,  gratioso,  e  comportabile. 
Al  che  sogginusi  io  subito,  non  amor  Platonico,  n6,  ma  si  ben  veramente 
Plutonico,  cive  Satanico,  e  Infemale.'  Nuove  Laudi  Ariose  ddla  Beatissima 
Virgine.     Rome.     1600. 

2  On  the  title-page  of  The  Shepherd's  Garland,  1593 ;  Ideas  Mirrour, 
1694.  etc. 


362       THE  POEMS  OP  SHAKESPEARE 

Plotinus  are  all  instanced :  the  phrase  —  genio 
Socratem — applied  to  him  in  the  epitaph  on  his 
monument  attests  his  fondness  for  Platonic  theories  ; 
he  was  conversant  with  these  theories,  and  in  the 
Sonnets  he  addressed  a  little  audience  equally  con- 
versant with  them ;  it  is,  therefore,  not  surprising 
that  he  should  have  borrowed  their  terminology. 
In  some  sonnets  he  does  so,  but  the  Sonnets  are  not, 
therefore,  as  some  have  argued,  an  exposition  of 
Plato's  theory  or  of  its  Florentine  developments. 
Shakespeare  in  certain  passages  does  but  lay  under 
contribution  the  philosophy  of  his  time  just  as,  in 
other  passages,  he  lays  under  contribution  the  art 
and  occupations  of  his  time,  and  in  others,  more 
frequently,  the  eternal  processes  of  nature.  His 
Sonnets  are  no  more  a  treatise  of  philosophy  than 
they  are  a  treatise  of  law.  So  far,  indeed,  is  he  from 
pursuing,  as  Spenser  did  pursue,  a  methodical  ex- 
position of  the  Platonic  theory  that  he  wholly  in- 
verts the  very  system  whose  vocabulary  he  has  rifled. 
The  Friend's  beauty  is  no  longer  Hoby's  '  plate  of 
fine  gold,'  which  reflects  Eternal  Beauty  more 
briUiantly  than  aught  else.  For  a  greater  rhetorical 
effect  it  becomes  in  Shakespeare's  hand  itself  the 
very  archetypal  pattern  and  substance  of  which  all 
beautiful  things  are  but  shadows.^ 

In  I.  the  Poet  urges  the  youth  to  marry,  '  That 
thereby  Beauty's  Eose  might  never  die ' : — 

XIV.  '  Truth  and  Beauty  shall  together  thrive 

If  from  thy  self  to  store  thou  would' st  convert : 

Or  else  of  thee  this  I  prognosticate, 

Thy  end  is  Truth's  and  Beauty's  doom  and  date.' 

^  '  Shadow '  (Lat.  umbra)  was  the  term  of  art  in  Renaissance  Platonism 
for  the  Reflection  of  the  Eternal  Type.  Giordano  Bruno  discoursed  in 
Paris  '  De  Unibria  Idearum.' 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       363 

XIX.     His  is  '  Beauty's  'pattern  to  succeeding  men.' 

LHi.  '  What  is  your  substance,  whereof  are  you  made 
That  millions  of  strange  sMdows  on  you  tend  ? 
Since  every  one  hath,  every  one,  one  shade, 
And  you,  but  one,  can  every  shadow  lend.* 

The  beauty  of  Adonis  is  such  a  shadow,  so  is  the 
beauty  of  Helen :  the  '  spring  of  the  year  .  .  .  doth 
shadow  of  your  beauty  show  .  .  .  and  you  in  every 
blessed  shape  we  know.  In  aU  external  grace  you 
have  some  part.'  And  in  xcvm.  '  The  Uly's  white, 
the  deep  vermilion  in  the  rose  '  are  : — 

'  But  figures  of  delight,  drawn  after  you,  you  pattern  of 
all  those,' 

*  As  with  your  shadow  I  with  these  did  play.' 

The  Truth  of  Beauty. 

The  theme  of  the  Idea  of  Beauty,  of  his  friend's 
beauty  as  the  incarnation  of  an  eternal  type,  is  often 
blended  with  another  metaphysical  theme — The 
Truth  of  Beauty,  e.g.  in  xiv.  (supra),  liv.  : — Truth 
is  an  ornament  which  makes  '  Beauty '  seem  more 
beauteous.  Here  the  Poet  seems  to  equivocate  on 
the  double  sense,  moral  and  intellectual,  of  our  word 
Truth,  comparable  to  the  double  sense  of  our  word 
Right,  if,  indeed,  this  be  altogether  a  confusion  of 
thought  arising  from  poverty  of  language,  and  not 
a  mystical  perception  by  poets  of  some  higher 
harmony  between  the  Beautiful,  the  Good,  and  the 
True.  Goethe  wrote  : — Das  Schone  enthdlt  das  Gute  ; 
and  Keats : — 

*  Beauty  is  Truth,  Truth  Beauty,  that  is  all 
Ye  know  on  earth  and  all  ye  need  to  know.' 

Many  hold  this  for  madness,  but  if  that  it  be,  it  has 
been  a  part  of  the  '  divine  madness '  of  poets  since 


364       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

they  first  sang — '  the  most  excellent  of  all  forms  of 
enthusiasm  (or  possession) '  ;  ^  and  Shakespeare, 
when  he  handles  the  Truth  of  Beauty,  does  so 
almost  always  with  but  a  secondary  allusion,  or  with 
no  allusion  at  all,  to  his  Friend's  constancy.  He 
argues  that  the  Idea  of  Beauty,  embodied  in  his 
Friend's  beauty,  of  which  all  other  beautiful  things 
are  but  shadows,  is  also  Truth  :  an  exact  coincidence 
with  an  '  eternal  form  '  to  which  transitory  present- 
ments do  but  approximate.  Plato  wrote : — '  Beauty 
alone  has  '  any  such  manifest  image  of  itself :  '  so 
that  it  is  the  clearest,  the  most  certain  of  all  things, 
and  the  most  lovable,'  ^  and  Shakespeare  (Lucrece, 
11.  29-30)  :— 

'  Beauty  itself  doth  of  itself  persuade 
The  eyes  of  men  without  an  orator.' 

Thus,  in  Lxn.,  the  Poet  looks  in  the  glass  and 

thinks : — 

'  No  face  so  gracious  is  as  mine, 
No  shape  so  true,  no  truth  of  such  account.^ 

And  why  is  his  shape  so  true  and  the  truth  of  it  so 
important  ?  Because,  reverting  to  the  theme  of 
Identity,  his  shape  is  that  of  the  Friend's  beauty  : — 

'  'Tis  thee  (myself)  that  for  myself  I  praise, 
Painting  my  age  with  beauty  of  thy  days.  .  .  .' 

Again  in  ci.  : — 

'  O  Truant  Muse,  what  shall  be  thy  amends 
For  thy  neglect  of  truth  in  beauty  dyed  ? 
Both  truth  and  beauty  on  my  love  depends.' 

And  the  Poet  makes  his  Muse  reply  : — 

'  Truth  needs  no  colour  with  his  colour  fixt, 
Beauty  no  pencil  beauty's  truth  to  lay  : 
But  best  is  best,  if  never  intermixt.' 


^  Plato's  Phmdrus.    Plato  and  Platonismf  Pater,  166.  ^  md.,  158. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       365 

False  Art  Obscures  the  Truth  of  Beauty. 

In  this  last  passage  the  Poet  resumes  an  argument, 
put  forward  in  earHer  numbers,  that  the  beauty  of 
his  Friend,  being  true,  can  only  suffer  from  '  false 
painting '  and  '  ornament.'  While  so  defending 
Beauty,  which  is  Truth,  from  the  disfigurement  of 
false  ornament,  Shakespeare  compares  the  false  art 
of  the  Rival  Poets,  who  also  sing  his  Love,  with  the 
common  practices  of  painting  the  cheeks  ^  and 
wearing  false  hair  ^  : — 

XXI.  *  So  is  it  not  with  me  as  with  that  Muse, 

Stirred  by  a  painted  beauty  to  his  verse,  , 

Who  heaven  itself  for  ornament  doth  use, 
And  every  fair  with  his  fair  doth  rehearse.  .  .  . 
O  let  me  true  in  love  but  truly  write, 
And  then  believe  me  my  love  is  as  fair 
As  any  mother's  child.' 

In  Lxvn.  all  these  themes  are  brought  together  : — 

*  Why  should  false  painting  immitate  his  cheek 
And  steal  dead  seeing  of  his  living  hue  ? 
Why  should  poor  Beauty  indirectly  seek 
Roses  of  shaddow,  since  his  Rose  is  true  ?  ' 

In  Lxvm.    '  His   cheek  is  the  map  of   days  out- 
worn, before  the  golden  tresses  of  the  dead  .  .  .  were 

1  Cf.  Richard  Bamfield,  The  Complaint  of  Chastitie,  1594.     An  obvious 
echo  of  the  tirades  in  Shakespeare's  Lucrece.     He  writes  of  many : — 

*  Whose  lovely  cheeks  (with  rare  vermiUion  tainted) 
Can  never  blush  because  their  faire  is  painted.' 

*  O  faire-foule  tincture,  staine  of  Women-kinde, 
Mother  of  Mischiefe,  Daughter  of  Deceate, 
False  traitor  to  the  Soule,  blot  to  the  Minde, 
Usurping  Tyrant  of  true  Beautie's  seate ; 
Right  Coisner  of  the  eye,  lewd  Follie's  baite, 

The  flag  of  filthiness,  the  sinke  of  Shame, 
The  Divell's  dey,  dishonour  of  thy  name.' 

2  Cf.  Bassanio's  speech,  Merchant  of  Venice,  iii.  2  : — '  The  world  is  still 
deceived  by  ornament.' 


366       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

shorn  away  ...  to  live  a  second  life  on  second 
head '  : — 

*  And  him  as  for  a  map  doth  nature  store 
To  shew  false  art  what  Beauty  was  of  yore.' 

Here  '  false  art '  cannot  refer,  at  any  rate  exclusively, 
to  the  actual  use  of  fucuses  and  borrowed  locks,  for 
when  the  theme  is  resumed  (Lxxxn.),  the  illustration 
of  '  gross  painting  '  is  directly  applied  to  the  '  false 
art '  of  the  Rival  Poets  : — 

'  When  they  have  devized 
What  strained  touches  Rhetoric  can  lend, 
Thou,  truly  fair,  were  truly  sympathised 
In  true  plain  words,  by  thy  true  telling  friend. 
And  their  gross  ^painting  might  be  better  used 
Where  cheeks  need  blood,  in  thee  it  is  abused.' 

Lxxxin.  continues : — 

'  I  never  saw  that  you  did  painting  need, 
And  therefore  to  your  fair  no  painting  set.  .  .  . 
Their  lives  more  life  in  one  of  your  fair  eyes 
Than  both  your  Poets  can  in  praise  devize.' 

And  in  Lxxxiv.  : — 

'  Who  is  it  that  says  most,  which  can  say  more 
Than  this  rich  praise,  that  you  alone  are  you.' 

This  '  false  painting  '  is  the  '  false  art '  of  the  Rival 
Poets  in  lxxxv.,  their  '  praise  richly  compiled,'  their 
'  golden  quill '  and  '  precious  phrase  by  all  the  Muses 
filed.' 

Imaginary  Standpoints  in  Time. 

The  Poet  views  this  Ideal  Beauty  of  his  friend  from 
Im/zginary  Standpoints  in  Time.  He  looks  back  on 
it  from  an  imaginary  future  (civ.),  and  tells  the  '  Age 
imbred.  Ere  you  were  bom  was  Beauty's  summer 
dead.'     He  looks  forward  to  it  from  the  past,  and, 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE        367 

the  descriptions  of  the  fairest  wights  in  the  Chronicle 
of  wasted  Time  (cvi.)  shew  him  that 

'  Their  antique  pen  would  have  exprest 
Even  such  Beauty  as  you  master  now.' 

So  all  their  '  praises  are  but  prophesies.'  Sometimes, 
with  deeper  mysticism,  he  all  but  accepts  the  Illusion 
of  Repeated  Experience  for  a  truth  of  Philosophy. 
'  If  there  be  nothing  new,  but  that  which  is,  hath 
been  before  '  (lix.),  then  might '  Record  with  a  back- 
ward look 

Even  of  five  hundred  courses  of  the  sun 
Show  me  your  image  in  some  antique  book.' 

For  his  Friend's  beauty  is  more  than  a  perfect  type 
prophesied  in  the  past :  it  is  a  re-embodiment  of 
perfection  as  perfection  was  in  the  prime  : — 

Lxvn.  '  O,  him  she  (Nature)  stores,  to  show  what  wealth  she 
had 
In  days  long  since  before  these  last  so  bad  .  .  .' 

Lxvm:.  '  And  him  as  for  a  map  doth  Nature  store 

To  shew  false  art  what  Beauty  was  of  yore,'' 

The  Unreality  of  Time. 

Since  this  Ideal  Beauty  is  true,  is  very  Truth,  it  is 
independent  of  Time,  and  eternal ;  it,  with  the  love  it 
engenders,  is  also  independent  of  accident,  and  is 
unconditioned : — 

cvii.  '  Eternal  love  in  love's  fresh  case 

Weighs  not  the  dust  and  injury  of  age, 
N^or  gives  to  necessary  wrinkles  place, 
But  makes  antiquity  for  aye  his  page  .  .  .' 

cxvii.  '  Love  's  not  Time's  fool,  though  rosy  lips  and  cheeks 
Within  his  bending  sickle's  compass  come.' 

Thus  does  the  whole  Series  culminate  in  an  Attack 
on  the  Reality  of  Time, — cxxm.,  cxxiv.,  cxxv.  are 


368       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

obscure  to  us  ;  yet  they  are  written  in  so  obvious  a 
sequence,  and  with  so  unbroken  a  rhythmical  swing, 
as  to  preclude  the  idea  of  extensive  corruption  in  the 
text.  They  must  once  have  been  intelligible.  Some 
attempts  at  elucidation  have  been  made  by  fixing  on 
single  words,  such  as  '  state '  (cxxiv.  1)  and  '  canopy ' 
(cxxv.  1),  and  then  endeavouring  to  discover  an 
allusion  to  historical  events  or  to  the  supposed 
nobility  of  the  person  to  whom  the  verses  were 
addressed.  But  these  attempts  dissemble  the  main 
drift  of  the  verses'  meaning,  which  is  clearly  directed, 
at  least  in  cxxm.  and  cxxiv.,  against  the  reahty  and 
importance  of  Time.  In  c,  which  opens  this  Group 
(c.-cxxv.),  the  Poet  has  bidden  his  Muse  to  '  make 
Time's  spoils  despised  everywhere.'  In  cxvi.  he 
has  declared  that  Love  is  an  eternal  power,  of  a 
worth  unknown,  but  immeasurably  superior  to  the 
accidents  of  Time.  In  lix.  he  has  urged  that  even 
our  thoughts  may  be  vain  repetitions  of  a  prior 
experience : — 

'  If  there  be  nothing  new,  but  that  which  is 
Hath  been  before,  how  are  our  brains  beguiled 
Which  labouring  for  invention  bear  amiss, 
The  second  burthen  of  a  former  child  ?  ' 

And  here,  in  a  magnificent  hjrperbole,  he  asserts  that 
'  pyramids '  (1,  2)  built  up  by  Time  with  a  might 
which  is  'newer'  by  comparison  with  his  own  change- 
lessness,  are,  for  aU  their  antiquity,  but  '  new  dress- 
ings '  of  sights  familiar  to  ante-natal  existence  : — 

'  Our  dates  are  brief  and  therefore  we  admire 
What  thou  dost  foist  upon  us  that  is  old.' 

So  far  there  is  fairly  plain  sailing,  but  the  ensuing 
Lines  7,  8,  constitute  a  real  crux : — 

'  And  rather  make  them  bom(e)  to  our  desire 
Than  think  that  we  before  have  heard  them  told  '  : 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       369 

Assuming  these  lines  to  refer  to  *  what '  Time  '  foists 
upon  us,'  the  second  imphes  that  we  ought  to 
recognise  the  old  things  foisted  upon  us  by  Time 
for  objects  previously  known,  but  that  we  'prefer 
to  regard  them  as  really  new  ' — as  just  '  bom  ' — 
(Tyler),  and  '  specially  created  for  our  satisfaction  ' 
(Dowden).  The  explanation  is  not  satisfactory, 
though  probably  the  best  to  be  got  from  the  assumed 
reference.  But  (1)  this  reference  of  '  them '  to 
'  what '  followed  by  a  singular  '  that  is,'  can  hardly 
be  sustained  grammatically,  and  (2)  it  scarce  makes 
sense.  Shakespeare  cannot  have  intended  that  we 
admire  things  for  their  age  while  '  we  regard  them 
as  really  new.'  I  suggest  that  the  plural  '  them ' 
refers  grammatically  to  the  plural  '  dates,'  and  that 
the  word  usually  printed  '  born '  ^  in  line  7  had 
best  be  printed  'borne'  as  it  is  in  the  Quarto^ 
(=' bourn  ^).  We  make  our  brief  dates  into  a  bourn 
or  limit  to  our  desire  (cf .  '  confined  doom,'  cvn.  4) 
instead  of  recollecting  that  '  we  have  heard  them 
told  '  {= reckoned)  '  before.'  There  is  but  a  colon  in 
the  Quarto  after  line  8.  And  the  third  Quatrain 
continues  to  discuss  dates  (= registers,  line  9,  and 
records,  line  11).  In  line  11  Shakespeare  denies  the 
absolute  truth  both  of  Time's  records  and  the  witness 
of  our  senses  : — 

'  For  thy  records  and  what  we  see  doth  lie.' 

The  sonnet,  in  fact,  does  but  develop  the  attack  of  the 
one  before  it  (cxxn.),  in  which  he  declares  that  the 
memory  of  his  Friend's  gift  '  shall  remain  beyond  aU 
date  even  to  Eternity  ;  that  such  a  '  record  '  is  better 
than  the  '  poor  retention  '  of  tablets  ;  and  that  he 
needs  no  '  "  tallies  "  to  "  score  "  his  dear  love.' 

^  Printed  so  first  by  Gildon,  and  accepted  by  subsequent  editors. 
*  Borne  (French),  and  in  Hamlet,  Folio  1623  and  Quarto. 

2a 


370      THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

In  cxxiv.  line  1 : — '  If  my  dear  love  were  but  the 
child  of  State  '  : — '  State  '  may  contain  a  secondary 
allusion  (as  so  often  with  Shakespeare)  to  the  dignity 
of  the  person  addressed ;  but  its  primary  meaning, 
continuing  the  sense  of  the  preQ^ding  sonnet,  and 
indeed  of  all  the  numbers  from  c,  is  '  condition ' 
or  '  circumstance.'  (Of.  '  Interchange  of  state  and 
state  itself  confounded  to  decay,'  lxiv.  ;  and  '  Love's 
great  case '  in  cvm.).  If  his  Love  were  the  child  of 
circumstance  it  might  be  disinherited  by  any  chance 
result  of  Fortune  ;  but  on  the  contrary,  '  it  was 
builded  far  from  accident  And  '  accident,^  as  were 
*  case  '  and  '  State,^  is  also  a  term  of  metaphysic  :  his 
Love  belongs  to  the  absolute  and  imconditioned,  to 
Eternity  and  not  to  Time.  In  developing  the  idea 
of  mutations  in  fortune,  Shakespeare  glances  aside 
at  some  contemporary  reverse  in  politics  or  art 
which  we  cannot  decipher.  It  may  have  been  the 
closing  of  the  Theatres,  the  censorship  of  Plays,  the 
imprisonment  of  Southampton  or  of  Herbert.  No 
one  can  tell,  nor  does  it  matter,  for  the  main  meaning 
is  clear :  namely,  that  this  absolute  Love  is  outside 
the  world  of  politics,  which  are  Hmited  by  Time,  and 
count  on  leases  of  short  numbered  hours ;  but  in 
itself  is  '  hugely  politic,'  is  an  independent  and  self- 
sufficing  State.     In  the  couplet : — 

'  To  this  I  witness,  call  the  fools  of  time 
Which  die  for  goodness,  who  have  lived  for  crime  '  : — 

some  jfind  an  allusion  to  the  merited  execution  of 
Essex,  popularly  called  '  the  good  Earl.'  But  the 
probabihty  is  that  Shakespeare  sympathised  with 
Essex  and  those  of  the  old  nobiUty  who  were  jealous 
of  the  Crown.  And,  again,  it  is  simpler  to  take  the 
lines  as  a  fitting  close  to  the  metaphysical  disquisi- 


THE  POEMS  OP  SHAKESPEARE       371 

tion,  and  to  see  in  them  a  rebuke  of  those  who  are  so 
much  the  slaves  of  Time  and  its  dates  as  to  imagine 
that  a  moment  of  repentance  cancels  the  essential 
iniquity  of  their  lives. 

cxxv.  is  even  more  obscure.  Yet  the  sense,  to 
my  mind,  again  seems  clearer  if  we  dismiss  the 
theory  that  Shakespeare  is  here  dwelling  exclusively 
on  the  dignity  of  the  person  he  addresses.  Most  of 
the  sonnets,  in  the  First  Series,  handle  the  themes 
of  an  Ideal  Beauty,  incarnate  in  a  mortal  body,  yet 
saved  from  decay  by  the  immortahty  which  verse 
confers  ;  of  the  need  that  such  verse  should  truly 
express  the  Truth  and  Beauty  of  its  object ;  and  of 
Love  and  Constancy  which  transcend  the  limitations 
of  Time.  Since  cxxv.  comes  at  the  end  of  the  perora- 
tion to  the  last  twenty-six  Sonnets,  which  are  aU 
retrospective,  and  immediately  before  the  Envoy, 
it  seems  to  me  only  reasonable  to  read  it  in  the  Hght 
of  its  immediate  predecessors  and  of  the  principal 
themes  recurring  throughout  the  whole  Series. 

The  search  for  direct  allusions  to  life  in  the  Sonnets 
distracts  us  from  the  truth,  that  the  selection  of  their 
themes  was  based  quite  as  much  upon  current 
philosophy  and  artistic  tradition  as  upon  any  actual 
experience.  Something  of  all  is  involved,  and  we 
should  lose  sight  of  none.  The  poetry  of  Europe  was 
steeped  in  Platonism,  and,  since  the  Trionf  of 
Petrarch,  the  '  Triumph  of  Time  '  and  his  ultimate 
defeat  had  been  a  common  theme  in  many  forms  of 
art,  especially  in  the  Tapestries  of  Arras  introduced 
into  great  EngUsh  houses  during  the  Sixteenth 
Century : — 

*  The  wals  were  round  about  apparelled 
With  costly  cloths  of  Arras  and  of  Toure.'' 

Faerie  Queen,  m.  i.  34. 


372       THE  POEMS  OP  SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare  wrote  out  of  his  own  experience,  but 
also  under  these  influences  of  contemporary  Art  and 
Philosophy.  And  here,  pursuing  the  earher  themes, 
he  asks  if  it  were  ought  to  him,  holding  his  views,  to 
worship  the  outward  show  of  Be^iuty  with  external 
homage,  or,  as  I  interpret  lines  3,  4,  to  win  eternity 
by  the  mere  form  of  his  verse.  This  interpretation 
of  3-4  is  borne  out  by  the  second  quatrain.  We  have 
in  it,  as  I  submit,  a  recurrence  to  his  attacks  on  the 
styles  of  poetry  which  he  deprecated  in  the  'false 
painting  '  of  Lxvn.  ;  the  '  false  art '  of  Lxvin.  ;  the 
'  compouTbds  strange '  of  lxxvi.  ;  the  '  strained 
touches  of  rhetoric  '  and  '  gross  painting  '  of  Lxxxn.  ; 
the  '  comments  of  praise  richly  compiled  '  of  lxxxv. 
These  are  the  '  compounds  sweet '  of  Une  7,  for  which 
dwellers  on  form  and  favour  pay  too  much  rent. 
'  That  you  are  you  '  (lxxxiv.)  is  all  that  needs  to  be 
said,  for  (lxxxdi.)  : — 

'  There  lives  more  life  in  one  of  your  fair  eyes 
Than  both  your  poets  can  in  praise  devise/ 

Therefore  he  tenders  his  '  oblation  poor  but  free,  Which 
is  not  mixed  with  seconds.^ 

That  last  word — '  seconds  ' — has  been  a  stumbUng- 
block  for  more  than  a  century,  thanks  to  Steevens. 
His  note  runs  thus  : — '  I  am  just  informed  by  an  old 
lady  that  seconds  is  a  provincial  term  for  the  second 
kind  of  flour,  which  is  collected  after  the  smaller  bran 
is  sifted.  That  our  author's  oblation  was  pure,  un- 
mixed with  baser  matter,  is  all  that  he  meant  to  say.' 
But  may  not  seconds  mean  '  assistants  '  and  refer  to 
the  collaboration  of  the  Two  Poets  in  Lxxxm.  ? 
It  can  hardly  mean  '  baser  matter  ' ;  since  the  con- 
trast is  between  an  offering  humble,  poor,  and  with- 
out art,  and  some  other  offering  presumably  rich 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       373 

and  artificial,  such  as  the  verse  of  the  Rival  Poets 
criticised  in  the  group  concerned  with  their  efforts. 
As  for  line  13,  '  Hence  thou  suborned  Informer,^ 
the  words  in  itaUcs  with  capitals  are  not  accidents 
of  printing.  This  word  of  violent  apostrophe  refers 
to  some  person  whose  identity  was  obvious  to  the 
object  of  Shakespeare's  verse,  and  if,  as  I  have 
tried  to  show,  these  Sonnets  belong  to  one  sequence, 
it  may  be  compared  to  the  '  frailer  spies '  of  cxxi. 


XVII 

Imagery. — These  poetic  themes  are  figured  and 
displayed  throughout  the  Sonnets  by  means  of  an 
Imagery  which,  as  in  Venus  and  Lucrece,  is  often  so 
vividly  seized  and  so  minutely  presented  as  to  en- 
gross attention  to  the  prejudice  of  the  theme.  In- 
deed, at  some  times  the  poet  himself  seems  rather  the 
quarry  than  the  pursuer  of  his  own  images — as  it 
were  a  magician  hounded  by  spirits  of  his  summon- 
ing. Conceits  were  a  fashion,  and  Shakespeare  some- 
times followed  the  fashion  ;  but  this  characteristic 
of  his  lyrical  verse  is  rather  a  passive  consequence 
of  such  obsession  than  the  result  of  any  dehberate 
pursuit  of  an  image  until  it  become  a  conceit.  Put 
'  his  '  for  '  her,'  and,  in  Lucrece  he,  himseK,  describes 
the  process : — 

*  Much  like  a  press  of  people  at  a  door, 
Throng  his  inventions  which  shall  go  before.' 

The  retina  of  his  mind's  eye,  like  a  child's,  or  that  of 
a  man  feverish  from  the  excitement  of  some  high 
day  is,  as  it  were,  a  shadow-sheet  on  which  images 
received  long  since  revive  and  grow  to  the  very  act 
and  radiancy  of  fife.     A  true  poet,  it  is  tritely  said. 


374       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

ever  remains  a  child,  but  especially  in  this,  that  his 
vision  is  never  dulled.  The  glass  of  the  windows 
through  which  he  looks  out  on  the  world  is  never 
ground  of  set  purpose  that  his  mind  may  the  better 
attend  to  business  within.  And  to  a  poet,  as  to  a 
child,  the  primal  processes  of  the  earth  never  lose 
their  wonder.  So  the  most  of  Shakespeare's  images 
are  taken  from  nature,  and  then  are  painted — ^but  the 
word  is  too  gross  to  convey  the  clarity  of  his  art — 
in  so  transparent  an  atmosphere  as  to  seem  still  a 
part  of  nature  showing  her  uses  of  perpetual  change. 
In  the  Sonnets  we  watch  the  ceaseless  Passing  of  the 
Year : — 

CIV.  '  Three  winters  cold 

Have  from  the  forests  shook  three  summers'  pride  ; 
Three  beauteous  springs  to  yellow  autumn  tum'd  ; 
In  process  of  the  seasons  have  I  seen, 
Three  April  perfumes  in  three  hot  Junes  bum'd.  .  .  .' 

v.   '  Sap    check'd    with    frost    and    lusty    leaves    quite 
gone.  .  .  .' 

xn.  ' .  .  .  lofty  trees  .  .  .  barren  of  leaves 

Which  erst  from  heat  did  canopy  the  herd.  .  .  .' 

xin.  ' .  .  .  the  stormy  gusts  of  winter's  day 

And  barren  rage  of  death's  eternal  cold.  .  .  .' 

Lxxni.  '  That  time  of  year  thou  mays't  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  '  : — 

or,  in  a  narrower  cycle  we  follow  the  Decline  of 
Day  :— 

xxxin.  '  Full  many  a  glorious  morning  have  I  seen 

Flatter  the  mountain-tops  with  sovereign  eye, 
Kissing  with  golden  face  the  meadows  green, 
Gilding  pale  streams  with  heavenly  alchymy  ; 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       375 

Anon  permit  the  basest  clouds  to  ride 

With  ugly  rack  on  his  celestial  face, 

Aud  from  the  forlorn  world  his  visage  hide, 

Stealing  imseen  to  west  with  this  disgrace.  .  .  . 

Lxxm.  '  In  me  thou  see'st  the  twilight  of  such  day 
As  after  sunset  f adeth  in  the  west ; 
Which  by  and  by  black  night  doth  take  away 
Death's  second  self,  that  seals  up  all  the  rest.' 

Taine  insists,  perhaps  too  exclusively,  on  the  vivid 
imagery  of  Shakespeare's  verse ;  Minto  and  Mrs. 
MeyneU,  perhaps  too  exclusively,  on  the  magic  of 
sound  and  association  which  springs  from  his  unex- 
pected collocation  of  words  till  then  unmated.  The 
truth  seems  to  lie  in  a  fusion  of  the  two  theories. 
When  Shakespeare  takes  his  images  from  nature, 
the  first  excellence  is  predominant ;  the  second,  when 
he  takes  them  from  the  occupations  of  men. 

Often,  in  the  Sonnets,  he  illustrates  his  theme  with 
images  from  Inheritance,^  or  Usury, ^  or  the  Law ;  ^ 
and  then  his  effects  are  rather  produced  by  the  suc- 
cessful impressment  of  technical  terms  to  the  service 
of  poetry  than  by  the  recollections  they  revive  of 
legal  processes : — 

'  When  to  the  sessions  of  sweet  silent  thought 
I  summon  up  remembrance  of  things  past.' 

^  I.  '  tender  heir.'    n.  '  by  succession.'    iv.  '  legacy ' ;  '  bequest.' 

2  IV.  '  usurer.'  vi.  '  usury  ' ;  '  loan.'  xxxi.  '  tears  '  are  '  interest  of 
the  dead.' 

3  xm.  lease ;  determination,  xvrn.  lease ;  date.  xxx.  sessions ; 
summon.  XLVi.  defendant's  plea  ;  title ;  impanneUed  ;  quest ;  tenants  ; 
verdict,  xlex.  '  And  this  my  hand  against  myself  uprear,'  viz.,  in  taking 
an  oath.  Lxxiv.  arrest ;  trial.  Lxxxvn.  charter ;  bonds ;  determinate  ; 
patent ;  misprision ;  judgment,  cxx.  fee ;  ransoms,  cxxvi.  audit ; 
quietus,  '  a  technical  term  for  the  acquittance  which  every  SherifE  (or 
accountant)  receives  on  selling  his  account,  at  the  Exchequer.'  The 
frequency  of  these  terms  in  the  Sonnets  and  Plays  led  Malone  to  conclude 
that  Shakespeare  must  at  one  time  have  been  an  attorney.  If  so,  we  may 
the  better  believe  that  Ben  Jonson  intended  Ovid  for  Shakespeare  in  The 
Poetaster,  i.  i. ; — '  Poetry  !     Ovid,  whom  I  thought  to  see  the  pleader. 


376       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

Among  such  occupations  he  draws  also  upon 
Journeys  (l.)  ;  Navigation  (lxxx.,  lxxxvi.,  cxvi.)  : — 

'  0,  no  !  it  is  an  ever-tixed  mark  (sea-mark) 
That  looks  on  tempests  and  is  never  shaken  ; 
It  is  the  star  to  every  wandering  bark  ' : — 

Husbandry  (in.) ;  Medicine  (cxvin.) ;  Sieges  (ii.) : — 

'  When  forty  winters  shall  besiege  thy  brow 
And  dig  deep  trenches  in  thy  beauty's  j/icZ<i  '  : — 

and  a  Gourtier^s  Career  (vn.,  cxiv.) : — 

xxxin.    '  Full  many  a  glorious  morning  have  I  seen 

Flatter  the  mountain- tops  with  sovereign  eye.  .  .  .' 

XXV.   '  Great  princes'  favourites  their  fair  leaves  spread 
But  as  the  marygold  at  the  sun's  eye  '  : — 

and  this  last  was  of  a  more  striking  application  than 

now  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth  or  James.     He  draws 

also  on  the  arts  of  Painting  (frequently),  of  Music 

(vnL,  cxxvin.),  of  the  Stage  (xxm.) ;   on  the  Dark 

Sciences : — 

XV.     '  Whereon  the  stars  in  secret  influence  comment.' 

cvn.     '  The  mortal  moon  hath  her  eclipse  endured, 

And  the  sad  augurs  mock  their  own  presage  ' — 

XIV.     '  Not  from  the  stars  do  I  my  judgement  pluck, 

And  yet,  methinks,  I  have  Astronomy  '  (Astrology)  : — 

SO  'prognosticating  from  his  friend's  '  eyes '  ;  on 
Alchemy  (xxxin.),  and  Distillation  (vi.,  uv.) : — 

V.     '  Then  were  not  summer's  distillation  left 
A  liquid  prisoner  pent  in  walls  of  glass.  .  .  .' 

cxix.  .  *  What  'potions  have  I  drunk  of  Syren  tears 

DistilVd  from  lymbecks  (alembics)  foul  as  hell  within.' — 

When,  as  in  these  examples,  he  takes  his  illustrations 
from  professions  and  occupations,  or  from  arts  and 

became  Ovid  the  play-maker  !  *  Ibid,  '  Misprize  !  ay,  marry,  I  would 
have  him  use  such  words  now.  .  .  .  He  should  make  himself  a  style  out 
of  these.'     Aud  passim,. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       377 

sciences,  his  magic,  no  doubt,  is  mainly  verbal ;  but 
it  springs  from  immediate  perception  (as  in  the  case 
of  annual  and  diurnal  changes),  when  his  images  are 
taken  from  subtler  effects  of  sensuous  appreciation, 
be  it  of  Shadows ;  of  the  Transparency  of  Windows 
(m.,  XXIV.) ;  of  Reflections  in  Mirrors  (m.,  xxn., 
Lxn.,  Lxxvn.,  cm.),  or  of  Hallucinations  in  the 
Dark : — 

xxvn.  '  Save  that  my  soul's  imaginary  sight 

Presents  their  shaddow  to  my  sightless  view, 
Which,  like  a  Jewell  hung  in  ghastly  night, 
Makes  black  night  beauteous.  .  .  .' 

xun.  '  When  in  dead  night  thy  fair  imperfect  shade 

Through  heavy  sleep  on  sightless  eyes  doth  say  !  * 

LXi.  '  Is  it  thy  will  thy  image  should  keep  open 
My  heavy  eyelids  to  the  weary  night  ?  ' 

And  this  source  of  his  magic  is  evident  also,  when,  as 
frequently,  he  makes  use  of  Jewels  (xxvn.,  xxxiv., 
XLVin.,  LH.,  Lxv.,  xcvi.) ; — Apparel  (n.,  xxvi., 
Lxxvi.) ; — the  Rose  (i.,  xxxv.,  liv.,  Lxvn.,  xcv., 
xcix.,  cix.) ; — the  Grave  (i.,  iv.,  vi.,  xvn.,  xxxi., 
xxxn.,  Lxxi.,  Lxxn.,  LXXvn.,  lxxxi.)  ; — Sepulchral 
Monuments  (lv.,  lxxxi.,  cvn.) ; — the  Alternation  of 
Sunshine  with  Showers  (xxxin.,  xxxiv.) ; — the  Sing- 
ing of  Birds  (xxix.),  and  their  Silence  (xcvn.,  en.). 
Realism  is  the  note  of  these  imaginative  perceptions, 
as  it  is  when  he  writes  : — 

XXXIV.  '  'Tis  not  enough  that  through  the  cloud  thou  break 
To  dry  the  rain  on  my  storm-beaten  face.  .  .  .' 

xxni.  *  As  an  imperfect  actor  on  the  Stage, 

Who  with  his  fear  is  put  beside  his  part.  .  .  .* 

L.  '  The  beast  that  bears  me,  tired  with  my  woe 
Plods  dully  on.  .  .  .' 

Lx.  '  Like  as  the  waves  make  towards  the  pebbled  shore ' 


378       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

Lxxm.    '  When  yellow  leaves,  or  none,  or  few  do  hang 
Upon  those  boughs  '  : — 

when  he  instances  the  'Dyer's  Hand'  (cxi.)  and  the 
'  crow  that  flies  in  heaven's  sweetest  air '  (lxx.) — a 
clue  to  carrion — or  when  he  captures  a  vivid  scene  of 
nursery  comedy : — 

cxLiii.  '  Lo,  as  a  careful  housewife  runs  to  catch 

One  of  her  feather'd  creatures  broke  away, 
Sets  down  her  babe,  and  makes  all  swift  despatch 
In  pursuit  of  the  thing  she  would  have  stay  ; 
Whilst  her  neglected  child  holds  her  in  chase. 
Cries  to  catch  her  whose  busy  care  is  bent 
To  follow  that  which  flies  before  her  face, 
Not  prizing  her  fair  infant's  discontent.' 

In  all  such  passages  the  magic  springs  from  imagina- 
tive observation  rather  than  from  unexpected  verbal 
collocutions.  And,  while  this  observation  is  no  less 
keen,  the  rendering  of  it  no  less  faithful,  than  in  the 
earlier  Lyrical  Poems,  Conceits,  though  still  to  be 
found,  are  fewer  : — e.g.,  of  the  Eye  and  Heart  (xxiv., 
XL VI.,  XLvn.) ;  of  the  Four  Elements — earth,  air,  fire, 
water  (xliv.,  xlv.)  ;  and  of  the  taster  to  a  King 
(cxiv.)- 

XVIII 

Eloquent  Discoxjrse. — On  the  other  hand  the 
Eloquent  Discourse  of  the  earher  Poems  becomes 
the  staple  of  the  Sonnets  and  their  highest  excellence. 
It  is  for  this  that  we  chiefly  read  them  : — 

XXXVI.    '  Let  me  confess  that  we  two  must  be  twain 

Although  our  undivided  loves  are  one.  .  .  .' 

XL.    '  Take  all  my  loves,  my  love,  yea,  take  them  all ; 

What  hast  thou  then  more   than  thou  hadst  be- 
fore ?  .  .  .' 

cxxxix.    '  O  call  me  not  to  justify  the  wrong 

That  thy  unkindness  lays  upon  my  heart.  .  .  .' 


1 
I 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       379 

CXL.   '  Be  wise  as  thou  art  cruel ;   do  not  press 

My  tongue-tied  patience  with  too  much  disdain  ; 
Lest  sorrow  lend  me  words,  and  words  express 
The  manner  of  my  pity- wanting  pain. 
1i  I  might  teach  thee  wit,  better  it  were, 
Though  not  to  love,  yet,  love  to  tell  me  so.  .  .  . 
For  if  I  should  despair,  I  should  grow  mad, 
And  in  my  madness  might  speak  ill  of  thee.' 

The  last,  addressed  to  the  Dark  Lady,  are,  it  may 
be,  as  eloquent  as  any  addressed  to  the  Youth,  but 
they  lack  something  of  those  others'  silvery  sad- 
ness : — 

Lxxi.   '  No  longer  mourn  for  me  when  I  am  dead, 
Than  you  shall  hear  the  surly  sullen  bell. 
Give  warning  to  the  world  that  I  am  fled 
From  this  vile  world,  with  vilest  worms  to  dwell : 
Nay,  if  you  read  this  line,  remember  not 
The  hand  that  wrote  it ;  for  I  love  you  so, 
That  I  in  your  sweet  thoughts  would  be  forgot. 
If  thinking  of  me  then  should  make  you  woe. 
O,  if,  I  say,  you  look  upon  this  verse 
When  I  perhaps  compounded  am  with  clay, 
Do  not  so  much  as  my  poor  name  rehearse. 
But  let  your  love  even  with  my  life  decay  ; 

Lest  the  wise  world  should  look  into  your  moan 
And  mock  you  with  me  after  I  am  gone. 

Lxxii.   '  O,  lest  the  world  should  task  you  to  recite 
What  merit  lived  in  me  that  you  should  love 
After  my  death,  dear  love,  forget  me  quite. 
For  you  in  me  can  nothing  worthy  prove  ; 
Unless  you  would  devise  some  virtuous  lie. 
To  do  more  for  me  than  mine  own  desert. 
And  hang  more  praise  upon  deceased  I 
Than  niggard  truth  would  willingly  impart : 
O,  lest  your  true  love  may  seem  false  in  this, 
That  you  for  love  speak  well  of  me  untrue. 
My  name  be  buried  where  my  body  is, 
And  live  no  more  to  shame  nor  me  nor  you. 
For  I  am  sham'd  by  that  which  I  bring  forth, 
And  so  should  you,  to  love  things  nothing  worth. 


380       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

xc.   *  Then  hate  me  when  thou  wilt ;  if  ever,  now  ; 
Now  while  the  world  is  bent  my  deeds  to  cross, 
Join  with  the  spite  of  fortune,  make  me  bow, 
And  do  not  drop  in  for  an  after-loss  : 
Ah  !  do  not  when  my  heart  hath  scap'd  this  sorrow, 
Come  in  the  rearward  of  a  conquer'd  woe  ; 
Give  not  a  windy  night  a  rainy  morrow. 
To  linger  out  a  purposed  overthrow. 
If  thou  wilt  leave  me,  do  not  leave  me  last. 
When  other  petty  griefs  have  done  their  spite  ; 
But  in  the  onset  come  ;  so  shall  I  taste 
At  first  the  very  worst  of  fortune's  might ; 
And  other  strains  of  woe,  which  now  seem  woe, 
Compar'd  with  loss  of  thee  will  not  seem  so.' 


XIX 

Verbal  Melody. — The  theme  of  xc.  is  a  sorrow 
which  has,  I  suppose,  been  suffered,  at  one  time  or 
another,  by  most  men:  it  is  hackneyed  as  dying. 
Yet  the  eloquence  is  peerless.  I  doubt  if  in  aU 
recorded  speech  such  faultless  perfection  may  be 
found,  so  sustained  through  fourteen  consecutive 
lines.  That  perfection  does  not  arise  from  any 
thought  in  the  piece  itself,  for  none  is  abstruse  ;  nor 
from  its  sentiment,  which  is  common  to  aU  who  love, 
and  suffer  or  fear  a  diminution  in  their  love's  return  ; 
nor  even  from  its  imagery,  though  the  line, '  Give  not 
a  windy  night  a  rainy  morrow  '  holds  its  own  against 
Keats's  '  There  is  a  budding  morrow  in  midnight,' 
which  Rossetti  once  chose  for  the  best  in  English 
poetry.  It  arises  from  perfect  verbal  execution : 
from  diction,  rhythm,  and  the  just  incidence  of 
accentual  stresses  enforced  by  assonance  and  aUitera- 
tion.  The  charm  of  Shakespeare's  verbal  surprises 
— e.gr.,  '  a  lass  unparalleled,'  '  multitudinous  seas,' 
instanced  by  Mrs.  Meynell — once  noted,  is  readily 
recognised,  but  much  of  his  Verbal  Melody  defies 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       381 

analysis.  Yet  some  of  it,  reminding  you  of  Chaucer's 
'  divine  liquidness  of  diction,  his  divine  fluidity  of 
movement ' : — ^ 

*  Feel  I  no  wind  that  souneth  so  like  peyne 
It  seith  "  A14s  !  why  twynned  be  we  tweyne  "  '  : — 

or  of  Surrey  : — 

'  The  golden  ^ift  that  nature  did  thee  greve 
To  /asten  /rendes,  and  /ede  them  at  thy  will 
With  form,  and  /avour,  taught  me  to  beMve 
How  thou  art  made  to  shew  her  gr^test  skill  : — 

may  be  explained  by  that  absolute  mastery  he  had 
over  the  rhythmical  use  of  our  English  accent. 
Mr.  Coventry  Patmore  has  justly  observed  ^  that 
'  the  early  poetical  critics ' — notably  Sidney  and 
Daniel — '  commonly  manifest  a  much  clearer  dis- 
cernment of  the  main  importance  of  rhyme  and 
accentual  stress,  in  Enghsh  verse,  than  is  to  be  found 
among  later  writers.'  And  this  because,  as  he  goes 
on  to  say,  '  the  true  spirit  of  English  verse  appears 
in  its  highest  excellence  in  the  writings  of  the  poets 
of  Elizabeth  and  James.'  If  we  neglect  Quantity, 
that  is  to  say  the  duration  of  syllables,  whose  sum 
makes  up  an  equal  duration  for  each  line — and  we 
must  neglect  it,  for,  except  in  the  classical  age  of 
Greece,  and  of  Rome  in  imitation  of  Greece,  no 
language  observes  so  constant  a  quantity  for  its 
syllables  as  to  afford  a  governing  element  in  verse — 
we  find  in  English  verse  Rhyme  and  Accentual  Stress 
or  Ictus.  Now,  Rhyme,  but  falteringly  nascent  in 
Folk-song  before  his  day,  was  fully  accUmatised  by 
Chaucer  from  French,  which  has  no  emphatic 
accents,  at  a  time  when  French  was  the  natural 
tongue  of  the  cultured  in  England.     In  a  language 

^  Matthew  Arnold.  ^  Essay  on  English  Metrical  Law. 


382       THE  POEMS  OP  SHAKESPEARE 

without  emphatic  accents,  or  exact  quantity,  Rhyme 
was,  and  Rhyme  is,  a  necessity  to  mark  off  and  en- 
force the  only  constant  element,  viz..  Metre  or  the 
number  of  syllables  in  each  line.  But  in  the  homely 
and  corrupt  English  of  Chaucer's  day,  and  side  by 
side  with  the  Court  poetry,  another  poetry  persisted, 
which  was  based  exclusively  upon  the  accentual 
stresses  natural  to  northern  languages.  And  it  per- 
sisted down  even  to  Shakespeare's  day.  We  find 
so  curious  and  artful  a  metrist  as  Dunbar  pursuing 
both  traditions  : — Chaucer's  rhymed  '  staff  of  seven  ' 
and  the  unrhymed,  alliterative  verse  of  Piers  Plow- 
man,  Dunbar  died,  c.  1513  (as  some  think,  at 
Flodden).  But  after  his  voice  was  silenced  we 
have  a  contemporary  poem  on  the  battle — Scottish 
Field  1 :— 

There  were  girding  forth  of  guns,  with  many  great  stones  ; 

Archers  uttered  out  their  arrows  and  eagerly  they  shotten  ; 

They  proched  us  with  spears  and  put  many  over  ; 

That  the  blood  outbrast  at  their  broken  harness. 

There  was  swinging  out  of  swords,  and  swapping  of  heads. 

We  blanked  them  with  bills  through  all  their  bright  armour, 

That  all  the  dale  dinned  of  the  derf  strokes  : — 

and  editions  of  Piers  Plowman  were  pubhshed  in  1551 
and  1561,  showing  a  continuous  appreciation  of  our 
indigenous  but  archaic  mode.  In  that  mode  the 
major  accents  faU  on  syllables  either  consonantal 
or  of  cognate  sound.  This  was  no  device  of  mere 
artifice  :  the  impassioned  speech  of  any  Enghshman 
becomes  charged  with  stresses  so  heavy  as  to  demand 
syllables  of  kindred  sound  on  to  which  they  may  fall, 
and  the  demand  is  met  unconsciously,  since  other- 
wise the  weight  of  the  accent  would  interrupt  and 

^  Cited  by  Ker  with  the  reference: — ^Ed.  Bobson,  Chetham  Society, 
1855,  from  the  Lyme  MS. ;  ed.  Furnivall  and  Hales,  Percy  Folio  Manu- 
script, 1867. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       383 

shatter  the  flow  of  discourse.  The  heavy  beat  at 
the  end  of  a  French  Une  and  the  heavy  accents  in  an 
EngHsh  line  must  be  met  and  supported  in  the  first 
case  by  Rhyme,  in  the  second,  by  syllables  similarly 
produced.  Shakespeare,  in  the  Sonnets,  whilst  re- 
velling in  the  joy  of  Rhyme,  handed  down  from  the 
French  origin  of  EngHsh  verse  and  confirmed  by 
the  imitation  of  Italian  models,  also  turned  the  other 
and  indigenous  feature  of  English  verse  to  the  best 
conceivable  advantage.  No  other  English  poet  lets 
the  accent  fall  so  justly  in  accord  with  the  melody 
of  his  rhythm  and  the  emphasis  of  his  speech,  or 
meets  it  with  a  greater  variety  of  subtly  affliated 
sounds. 

This  may  be  illustrated  from  any  one  of  the  more 
melodious  and,  therefore,  the  more  characteristic 
Sonnets.     Take  the  First ; — 

1.  From  /airest  Creatures  we  desire  incresbse 

2.  That  thereby  beauty's  i^ose  might  never  Die 

3.  But  as  the  Biiper  should  by  Time  decease 

4.  His  lender  heir  might  bear  his  memory. 

5.  But  thou  contracted  to  thine  own  bright  eyes 

6.  i^eed'st  thy  light's  /lame  with  sey-substantial  fuel 

7.  Making  a /amine  where  a&undance  lies, 

8.  Thyseli  thy  foe  to  thy  sweet  self  too  cruel 

9.  Thou  that  art  now  the  world's  fresh  ornament 

10.  And  only  herald  to  the  g&udy  sprmgr 

11.  Withm  thine  own  bud  buriest  thy  content 

12.  And  lender  churl  mak'st  waste  in  n^ggarding 

13.  Pity  the  wor^d  or  else  this  g^Zutton  be 

14.  To  eat  the  world's  due  by  the  grave  and  thee  : — 

and  you  observe  (1)  the  use  of  kindred  sounds,  of 
alliteration  or  of  assonance  or  of  both,  to  mark 
the  principal  stresses  in  any  one  line : — E.g.,  line  1, 
Creatures  and  increase,  where  both  are  used ;  line  3, 
i^^per  and  Time  ;    line  4,  heir  and  bear ;    Une  5, 


384       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

contracted  and  bright ;  line  9,  Thou  and  tiow  : — and 
(2),  and  this  is  most  characteristic,  the  juxtaposition 
of  assonantal  sounds  where  two  syllables  consecutive, 
but  in  separate  words,  are  accented  with  a  marked 
pause  between  them : — E.g.,  line  5,  br^grht  eye^  ; 
line  8,  too  cruel ;  line  11,  hud  hurie^t ;  Hne  12, 
mai'st  wa^te.  Mr.  Patmore  points  out  ^  that 
'  ordinary  EngHsh  phrases  exhibit  a  great  preponder- 
ance of  emphatic  and  unemphatic  syllables  in  con- 
secutive couples,'  and  our  eighteenth  century  poets, 
absorbed  in  Metre  and  negHgent  of  varied  Rhythm, 
traded  on  this  feature  of  our  tongue  to  produce  a 
number  of  dull  iambic  lines  by  the  use  of  their  banal 
trochaic  epithets,  '  balmy,'  '  mazy,'  and  the  rest. 
Shakespeare  constantly  varies  his  Rhythm  in  the 
Sonnets,  and  frequently  by  this  bringing  of  two 
accented  syllables  together,  with  a  pause  between. 
But,  when  he  does  so,  he  ensures  a  correct  dehvery 
by  affihating  the  two  syllables  in  soimd,  and  pre- 
fixing to  the  first  a  delaying  word  which  precludes 
any  scamping  of  the  next  ensuing  accent : — E.g, 
'  own  '  before  '  bright  eyes  ' ;  '  self  '  before  '  too 
cruel ' ;  '  churl '  before  '  mak'st  waste.'  Cf.  '  Earth ' 
before  '  sings  hymns  '  in  xxrx.  12  ;  and  xv.  8,  '  and 
wear  their  brave  state  out  of  memory.' 

It  is  by  this  combination  of  Accent  with  Rhyme 
that  Shakespeare  links  the  lines  of  each  quatrain  in 
his  Sonnets  into  one  perfect  measure.  If  you  ex- 
cept two — '  Let  me  not  to  the  marriage  of  true 
minds,'  and  '  The  expense  of  spirit  in  a  waste  of 
shame ' — ^you  find  that  he  does  not,  as  Milton  did 
afterwards,  build  up  his  sonnet,  line  upon  line,  into 
one  monumental  whole :  he  writes  three  l3a*ical 
quatrains,  with  a  pronounced  pause  after  the  second 

^  Essay  on  English  Metrical  Law. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       385 

and  a  couplet  after  the  third.  Taking  the  First 
Sonnet  once  more,  you  observe  (3)  the  binding  to- 
gether of  the  lines  in  each  quatrain  by  passing  on  a 
kindred  sound  from  the  last,  or  most  important, 
accent  in  our  line  to  the  first,  or  most  important, 
in  the  next : — E.g.  from  2  to  3,  from  Dte  to  R^per 
by  assonance ;  from  3  to  4,  from  Time  to  Tender  by 
aUiteration ;  from  6  to  7,  from  ^uel  to  -Famine ; 
from  7  to  8,  from  famine  .  .  .  lies  to  Th^/self  .  .  . 
^oe  ;  from  9  to  10,  from  Ornament  to  Herald  ;  from 
11  to  12,  from  Goident  to  lender  ;  from  13  to  14,  from 
he  to  eat.     Cf.  lx.,  lines  6,  7  : — 

*  C7rawls  to  maturity  wherewith  being  crown'd 
Crooked  eclipses  'gainst  his  glory  fight.' 

and  cvin.  9,  10  : — 

'  So  that  eternal  love  in  love's  fresh  cast 
Weighs  not  the  dust.' 

In  a  Petrarchan  sonnet  any  such  assonance,  if  it 
embraced  the  rhyme,  would  prove  a  blemish,  but 
in  the  Shakespearian  quatorzain  it  is  a  pleasant  and 
legitimate  accessory  to  the  general  binding  together 
of  the  quatrain.  Most  subtle  of  all  is  the  pent-up 
emphasis  brought  to  bear  on  Rose  in  i.  2 — a  word 
not  easily  stressed — ^by  the  frequency  of  R's  in  the 
first  line  and  their  absence  tiU  Rose  is  reached  in  the 
second.  (4)  For  a  further  binding  together  of  the 
quatrain  the  Rhyme,  or  last  syllable,  though  not 
accented,  is  often  tied  by  assonance  to  the  first 
syllable,  though  not  accented,  of  the  next  line : — 
E.g.  I.  lines  3,  4,  decease — H*5 ;  lines  7,  8,  h'es — 
t%5elf ;  lines  10,  11,  ^^ving — within,  lines  12,  13, 
niggardiTigr — Pity.  Shakespeare's  effects  of  aUitera- 
tion, apart  from  this  use  of  them  for  the  binding 

2b 


386       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

together  of   the   quatrain,   are   at  some   times   of 
astonishing  strength : — 

LXV.  7,  8.  *  When  rocks  impregnable  are  not  so  stont 

Nor  ga>te8  of  steel  so  strong  but  Time  decays  '  : — 

and  at  others  of  a  strange  sweetness  : — 

IX.  6.   '  The  world  will  be  thy  tddow  and  still  weep.^ 

Again,  at  others  he  uses  the  device  antithetically  in 
discourse : — 

XXXIX.  10.  *  Were  it  not  thy  sour  leisure  gave  sweet  leave ' : — 
and  his  rhythm  is  at  all  times  infinitely  varied  : — 

xrx.  14.   '  My  love  shall  in  my  verse  ever  live  long.  .  .  .' 
xxxni.  7.  *  And  from  the  forlorn  world  his  visage  hide.  .  .  .' 
LXXXVT.  4.  '  Making  their  tomh  the  womb  wherein  they  grew. . . .' 
XI.  10.  '  Harsh,  featureless,  and  rude,  barrenly  perish.' 

Apart  from  aU  else,  it  is  the  sheer  beauty  of  diction 
in  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  which  has  endeared  them 
to  poets.  The  passages,  which  I  have  quoted  to 
other  ends,  must  abundantly  have  proved  this.  Yet 
let  me  add  these  : — 

V.  5,  6.   '  For  never-resting  time  leads  summer  on 

To  hideous  winter,  and  confounds  him  there.' 

xvii.  7-12.  '  The  age  to  come  would  say.  This  Poet  lies. 

Such  heavenly  touches  ne'er  touch'd  earthly  faces. 

So  should  my  papers,  yellowed  with  their  age, 

Be    scom'd,    like    old    men    of    less   truth    than 

tongue, 
And  your  true  rights  be  termed  a  poet's  rage. 
And  stretched  metre  of  an  antique  song.' 

xviil.  1-4.  '  Shall  I  compare  thee  to  a  summer's  day  ? 
Thou  art  more  lovely  and  more  temperate  : 
Rough  winds  do  shake  the  darling  buds  of  May 
And  summer's  lease  hath  all  too  short  a  date.' 


THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       387 

XLvra.  10,  11.  '  Save  where  thou  art  not,  though  I  feel  thou 
art 
Within  the  gentle  closure  of  my  breast.' 

Liv.  5,  6.  '  The  canker-blooms  have  all  as  deep  a  die 
As  the  perfumed  tincture  of  the  roses.' 

LX.  9,  10.  '  Time  doth  transfix  the  flourish  set  on  youth, 
And  delves  the  parallels  in  beauty's  brow.' 

LXiv.  5,  6.  '  When  I  have  seen  the  hungry  ocean  gain 
Advantage  on  the  kingdom  of  the  shore.' 

Lxv.  1-4.  '  Since  brass,  nor  stone,  nor  earth,  nor  boundless 
sea. 
But  sad  mortality  o'ersways  their  power, 
How  with  this  rage  shall  beauty  hold  a  plea, 
Whose  action  is  no  stronger  than  a  flower  ?  ' 

Lxxxrx.  8.  '  I  will  acquaintance  strangle,  and  look  strange.' 

xciv.  9,  10.  '  The  summer's  flower  is  to  the  summer  sweet, 
Though  to  itself  it  only  live  and  die.' 

xcvn.  1-4.  '  How  like  a  winter  hath  my  absence  been. 

From  thee,  the  pleasure  of  the  fleeting  year  ! 
What  freezings  have  I  felt,  what  dark  days 

seen  ! 
What  old  December's  bareness  everywhere.' 

xovn.  12-14.  '  And  thou  away,  the  very  birds  are  mute  : 
Or,  if  they  sing,  'tis  with  so  dull  a  cheer. 
That  leaves  look  pale,  dreading  the  winter's 
near.' 

xcvin.  9  10.   '  Nor  did  I  wonder  at  the  lily's  white. 

Nor  praise  the  deep  vermilion  in  the  rose.' 

cv.  1.   '  Let  not  my  love  be  call'd  idolatry.' 

cxxxn.  5,  6.   '  And  truly  not  the  morning  sun  in  heaven 

Better  becomes  the  gray  cheeks  of  the  East.' 

CXLH.  5,  6.   '  Or,  if  it  do,  not  from  those  lips  of  thine 

That  have  profaned  their  scarlet  ornaments.' 

CXLVI.  13,  14.  '  So  shalt  thou  feed  on  death,  that  feeds  no  men, 
And  death  once  dead,  there's  no  more  dying 
then.' 


388       THE  POEMS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

XX 

It  matters  nothing  to  Art  that  Titian  may  have 
painted  his  Venus  from  the  Medici's  wife  :  Antinous 
gave  the  world  a  Type  of  Beauty  to  be  gazed  at  with- 
out a  thought  of  Hadrian.  But  the  case  is  not 
altered  when  the  man  who  rejoices  or  suffers  is  also 
the  man  who  labours  and  achieves.  It  matters 
nothing  to  Art  that  Luca  SignoreUi  painted  the  corpse 
of  his  beloved  son,  and  it  is  an  open  question  if 
Dante  loved  indeed  a  living  Beatrice.  Works  of 
perfect  Art  are  the  tombs  in  which  artists  lay  to  rest 
the  passions  they  would  fain  make  immortal.  The 
more  perfect  their  execution,  the  longer  does  the 
sepulchre  endure,  the  sooner  does  the  passion  perish. 
Only  where  the  hand  has  faltered  do  ghosts  of  love 
and  anguish  still  complain.  In  the  most  of  his 
Sonnets  Shakespeare's  hand  does  not  falter.  The 
wonder  of  them  lies  in  the  art  of  his  poetry,  not  in 
the  accidents  of  his  life  ;  and,  within  that  art,  not 
so  much  in  his  choice  of  poetic  themes  as  in  the 
wealth  of  his  Imagery,  which  grows  and  shines  and 
changes :  above  aU,  in  the  perfect  execution  of  his 
Verbal  Melody.  That  is  the  body  of  which  his 
Imagery  is  the  soul,  and  the  two  make  one  creation 
so  beautiful  that  we  are  not  concerned  with  anything 
but  its  beauty. 

P.S. — Let  me  here  acknowledge  my  great  debt  to  Mr.  W.  E. 
Henley  for  his  constant  help  in  the  writing  of  this  Essay.  But 
for  his  persuasion  I  should  never  have  attempted  a  task  which, 
but  for  his  encouragement,  I  could  never  have  accomplished. 


ELIZABETHAN   ADVENTURE 
IN   ELIZABETHAN   LITERATURE 


ELIZABETHAN   ADVENTURE 
IN   ELIZABETHAN   LITERATURE 

'  Cherish  Marchandise,  keep  the  Admiraltie.'  I  lit 
on  this  line  in  The  Libell,  little  book,  that  is,  '  on 
England's  policie,'  a  rugged  poem  interpolated  by 
Hakluyt  into  his  famous  Voyages  (1599).  The  advice 
was,  and  is,  so  obviously  sound  that  none  need  insist 
on  its  soundness ;  and  it  hit  my  fancy  on  another 
score.  It  occurs  in  a  poem  which,  else,  is  one  lament 
over  the  decadence  of  England's  sea-power ;  and 
that  lament  is  wedged  into  the  classic  story  of 
England's  earliest  and  greatest  achievements  by  sea. 
But  such  intrusion  of  counsel,  of  regret,  of  fore- 
boding, into  a  contemporary  record  of  the  golden 
age  of  expansion  struck  a  note  not  unfamihar.  A 
like  incongruity  is  still,  to-day,  the  dominant  feature 
of  our  national  attitude  towards  national  endeavour. 
A  like  lament  sings  wailing  in  our  ears. 

I  should  mock  the  mighty  dead  did  I  compare  the 
last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  with  the  last  quarter 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  There  can  be  no  compari- 
son ;  but  there  is  similarity — ^in  miniature.  Mr. 
Chamberlain  has  told  us  that  '  we  Hve  in  interesting 
times '  ;  Mr.  Goschen,  that  we  have  two  hundred 
and  fifty  effective  ships  of  war ;  and,  from  South 
Africa,  from  East  and  West  Africa,  from  the  Nile, 
from  the  Yukon  valley,  from  the  Indian  frontier, 
from  the  China  seas,  there  is  one  story  of  expansion 


392  ELIZABETHAN  ADVENTURE 

and  of  risk.  The  hopes  and  fears  of  our  kinsmen 
over-sea  loom  magnified  in  the  daily  press.  Nor  is 
there  refuge  in  Hterature  ;  books  on  the  Colonies  are 
but  collected  joumaHsm,  blue-books  but  edited 
despatches.  Men  of  action  have  their  work,  men  of 
letters  their  art ;  but  there  is  no  apparent  relation 
between  the  two. 

So  I  turn  to  EUzabethan  literature  and  dip  at 
hazard  here  and  there,  to  strike  the  track  of  EUza- 
bethan adventures.  They  did  great  things,  and  their 
contemporaries  wrote  great  books.  Let  us,  then, 
dive  into  these  Ehzabethan  books,  and  let  us  see  to 
what  extent  and  in  what  fashion  they  mirror  the 
deeds  of  the  EUzabethan  adventures.  In  them  we 
can  study  the  relation  of  literature  to  national  ex- 
pansion, and  the  aspects  of  that  relation  may  prove 
suggestive,  even  encouraging.  At  any  rate  the  study 
of  it  may  serve  for  an  anodyne  to  suspense. 

Taking  up  this  relation,  then,  the  first  thing  that 
strikes  is  the  portentous  volume  of  the  adventure, 
and  the  portentous  volume  of  the  Uterature,  which 
may  fairly  be  caUed  EUzabethan.  The  second  is 
the  narrowness  of  the  area  within  which  the  two 
overlap.  The  gigantic  output  of  EUzabethan  authors 
is  not,  as  one  might  have  supposed,  mainly  con- 
cerned with  the  prodigious  deeds  of  Elizabethan 
adventurers.  Indeed,  in  dramatic  and  lyrical  poetry, 
which  form  the  chief  features  of  EUzabethan  Utera- 
ture, it  is  only  here  and  there  that  you  discover  a 
transient  aUusion  to  the  national  ferment  which 
carried  aU  kinds  and  conditions  of  men  to  the  utter- 
most parts  of  the  earth. 

Yet  when  Shakespeare  left  the  glades  of  Warwick- 
shire he  came,  as  I  have  said  elsewhere,  to  a  '  London 
rocking  and  roaring  with  Armada  enthusiasm.'     The 


I 


IN  ELIZABETHAN  LITERATURE      393 

names  of  poets  and  playwrights  were,  no  doubt,  on 
every  tongue — Lyly  and  Lodge,  Marlowe  and  Spenser 
— but  the  air  was  ringing,  too,  with  the  names  of 
adventurers — of  Raleigh,  and  Drake,  and  Grenville. 
An  acute  critic  has  argued  that  the  literature  of  any 
epoch  portrays,  not  the  immediate  needs  and  actions 
of  an  age,  but  its  aspirations  towards  those  experi- 
ences which  are  most  remote  from  its  own.  Thus, 
in  our  own  age,  which,  in  the  main,  is  one  of  peace 
and  industry,  we  have  the  novel  and  the  ballad  of 
adventure.  Men  who  spend  their  Uves  at  desks, 
when  they  take  a  holiday  into  the  region  of  romance, 
seek  for  relaxation  in  the  terror  of  a  shipwreck  or 
the  shambles  of  a  battlefield.  This  theory  is  con- 
firmed by  a  study  of  EHzabethan  verse.  It  is  all 
but  grotesque  to  find  such  a  man  as  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh  masquerading  in  poetry  as  a  shepherd,  and 
piping  alternate  ditties  with  Edmund  Spenser  on 
what  they  were  pleased  to  call  an  '  oaten  reed.'  But 
it  is  not,  on  second  thoughts,  inexphcable.  To  the 
war-worn  and  sea- weary,  who  had  pierced  the 
tangles  of  Brazil,  threaded  the  icebergs  of  Labrador, 
and  affronted  the  batteries  of  Cadiz,  the  Arcadia  of 
convention,  with  its  '  soft  white  wool  Arcadian  sheep 
do  bear '  and  its  flageolets  tied  up  with  ribbands, 
offered  the  most  welcome,  because  the  most  com- 
plete, contrast.  It  was,  of  all  men  in  the  world,  Sir 
PhiHp  Sidney  who  wrote  '  Arcadia '  and  the  most 
moving  sequence  of  love  sonnets,  next  to  Shake- 
speare's, which  we  have  in  English. 

Having  noted  the  huge  volume  of  what  I  may 
call  '  Arcadian '  verse,  we  may  now  note,  outside 
that  volume,  and  even  within  it,  allusions  here  and 
there  which  can  only  be  appreciated  when  they  are 
referred  to  the  enterprises  that  occupied  so  many 


394  ELIZABETHAN  ADVENTURE 

Elizabethans.  In  the  sonnets  of  Shakespeare,  Daniel, 
Drayton,  Constable,  and  others,  there  are  frequent 
allusions  to  *  maps.'  In  Shakespeare's  Twelfth  Night, 
you  read  of  '  more  Unes  than  is  in  the  new  map  with 
the  augmentation  of  the  Indies.'  Now  maps  did 
not  then  '  summon  up  remembrance '  of  dull  hours 
in  a  schoolroom :  they  were  associated  in  men's 
minds  with  the  latest  attempt  at  co-ordinating  the 
latest  theory  of  the  world's  configuration,  bom  of  the 
latest  voyage  beyond  imknown  seas ;  so  that  then 
maps  thriUed  with  adventure  and  speculation  and 
mystery.  And,  again,  in  Elizabethan  poetry  and, 
more  particularly,  in  Shakespeare's  Plays,  you  have 
powerful  descriptions  of  storms  at  sea.  Pericles, 
with  his  wife  dying  in  childbirth  on  the  weltering 
ship,  addresses  the  cyclone  : — 

'  Thou  stormest  venomously, 
Wilt  thou  spit  all  thyself  ?    The  seaman's  whistle 
Is  as  a  whisper  in  the  ear  of  death 
Unheard.' 

In  Troilus  and  Cressida  you  have 

'  the  dreadful  Spout 
Which  shipmen  do  the  Hurricano  call.' 

In  The  Tempest,  amid  much  else  of  wonderful 
description,  Ariel  is  asked 

'  Hast  thou,  Spirit, 
Perform'd  to  point  the  tempest  that  I  bade  thee  ?  ' 

He  answers 

'  To  every  article. 
I  boarded  the  King's  ship  :  now  on  the  beak. 
Now  in  the  waist,  the  deck,  in  every  cabin, 
I  flamed  amazement :  Sometime  I  'd  divide. 
And  bum  in  many  places  ;  on  the  topmast, 
The  yards,  and  bowsprit,  would  I  flame  distinctly, 
Then  meet  and  join.' 


IN  ELIZABETHAN  LITERATURE      395 

But  that  description  of  a  now  familiar  phenomenon  of 
electricity  is  taken  from  EUzabethan  accounts  of 
Magellan's  first  voyage  round  the  world.  I  shall 
quote  from  Purchas  his  Pilgrimes,  pubHshed  in  1626  ; 
but,  in  this  instance,  based  on  Eden's  translation  of 
Pigafetta's  Journal ;  and  Eden  pubHshed  in  1677, 
say  ten  years  before  Shakespeare  came  to  town. 
Thus  it  runs  in  Purchas  :  '  Here  were  they  in  great 
danger  by  Tempest :  But  as  soone  as  the  three  Fires, 
called  Saint  Helen,  Saint  Nicholas,  and  Saint  Clare, 
appeared  upon  the  Cables  of  the  Ships,  suddenly  the 
tempest  and  furie  of  the  Windes  ceased.'  I  cannot 
doubt  that  Shakespeare  drew  on  this  account  of 
Magellan's  voyage  for  his  Tempest,  for  on  the  very 
next  page  in  Purchas  we  come  upon  Setebos, 
Cahban's  god.  You  read  that  four  Giants,  so  the 
story  ran,  that  is  to  say  four  savages  of  lofty  stature, 
were  shackled  by  a  stratagem,  and  that  '  when  they 
saw  how  they  were  deceived,  they  roared  like  Bulls, 
and  cryed  upon  their  great  Devill  Setebos,  to  helpe 
them.'  I  shall  insist  later  on  a  closer  connection 
between  Elizabethan  prose  and  Elizabethan  adven- 
ture ;  but,  reverting  now  to  poetry,  you  find  in 
Shakespeare  several  allusions  to  Indians  and  the 
Indies.  '  0  America,  the  Indies,'  for  example,  in 
The  Comedy  of  Errors,  an  early  play  ;  and,  again,  in 
The  Tempest,  '  They  will  not  give  a  doit  to  reUeve 
a  lame  beggar  when  they  will  lay  out  ten  to  see  a  dead 
Indian.'  A  similar  reference  to  an  Indian,  as  the 
feature  of  a  show,  wiU  be  foimd  in  Henry  VIII. 

In  that  play,  one  of  the  latest  by  Shakespeare — 
most  of  it,  indeed,  and  the  passage  which  I  shall 
quote,  being  by  Fletcher — you  have  a  wider  de- 
claration, not  of  the  instruments  and  accidents,  the 
'maps'  and   'tempests'   of  discovery,   but  of  the 


396  ELIZABETHAN  ADVENTURE 

spirit  working  in  men's  minds  which  drove  them  to 
expand  the  Empire.  It  was  written  some  years 
after  James  i.  came  to  the  throne,  but,  since  the  last 
act  shows  the  christening  of  EUzabeth,  a  prophecy 
of  the  only  safe  kind,  namely,  one  written  after  the 
event,  is  placed  in  the  mouth  of  Cranmer : — 

'  When  Heaven  shall  call  her  from  this  cloud  of  darkness  .  .  . 

Peace,  plenty,  love,  truth,  terror. 

That  were  the  servants  to  this  chosen  infant, 

Shall  then  be  his  (James's)  and  like  a  vine  grow  to  him  : 

Wherever  the  bright  sun  of  Heaven  shall  shine. 

The  honour  and  the  greatness  of  his  name 

Shall  be,  and  make  new  nations  :  he  shall  flourish. 

And,  like  a  mountain  cedar,  reach  his  branches 

To  all  the  plains  about  him.     Our  children's  children 

Shall  see  this  and  bless  heaven.' 

It  cannot  be  said  that  James  did  much  to  promote 
colonisation ;  indeed,  he  hampered  the  Virginian 
settlers  at  every  turn :  but  it  is  true  that  the  seed 
of  new  nations  was  then  sown,  far-scattered  by  the 
spirit  of  expansion. 

The  passage  may  be  paralleled  from  Shakespeare's 
contemporary,  Daniel : — 

'  AVho  in  time  knows  whither  we  may  vent 

The  treasures  of  our  tongue  ?    To  what  strange  shores 

This  gain  of  our  best  glory  shall  be  sent 

T'  enrich  unknowing  nations  with  our  stores  ? 

What  worlds,  in  th'  yet  imf ormed  Occident, 
May  'come  refined  with  th'  accents  that  are  ours  ?  ' 

In  an  earlier  poet,  Christopher  Marlowe,  Shake- 
speare's master,  you  find  the  same  theme  of  ex- 
pansion put  into  the  mouth  of  Taniburlaine  the 
Oreat,     Dying,  he  calls  out : — 

*  Give  me  a  map  ;  then  let  me  see  how  much 
Is  left  for  me  to  conquer  all  the  world. 
That  these,  my  boys,  may  finish  all  my  wants.' 


IN  ELIZABETHAN  LITERATURE      397 

And  the  stage  direction  follows  {one  brings  him  a 
map).  This  insistence  on  '  maps,'  the  Spanish  touch 
in  the  word  '  Hurricano,'  the  frequent  confusion  of 
America  with  India,  all  to  be  noted  in  these  allusions 
to  adventure  scattered  through  Ehzabethan  verse, 
are  signs  of  the  time  and  indices  to  current  opinion. 
There  is  such  another  in  one  of  Shakespeare's 
sonnets,  the  116th,  which  we  admire  for  its  mingled 
splendour  and  obscurity.     He  writes  of  love : — 

*  O  no  !  It  is  an  ever-fixed  mark 
That  looks  on  tempests  and  is  never  shaken  ; 
It  is  the  star  to  every  wandering  bark 
Whose  worth 's  unknown,  although  his  height  be  taken.' 

Here,  '  mark  '  clearly  means  a  '  sea-mark,'  or  beacon, 
but  the  reference  to  the  star,  presumably  the  North 
Star,  has  proved  a  stumbling  block  to  critics.  Yet 
some  Hght  is  shed  upon  it  by  recalling  that  the 
English  versions  of  Spanish  discoveries,  by  Eden, 
Hakluyt,  and  Lock  were  new  books  when  Shake- 
speare wrote.  For  in  those  versions  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  North  Star,  when  you  sail  far  enough 
South,  and  the  variation  of  the  compass  from  it, 
when  you  sail  far  enough  West,  constituted  themes 
for  wonder  and  mysterious  awe.  Even  in  Purchas' 
account  of  Columbus'  first  voyage,  pubHshed  so  late 
as  1625,  you  read :  '  On  the  fourteenth  day  of 
September  he  first  observed  the  variation  of  the 
Compas,  which  no  man  tiU  then  had  considered, 
which  every  day  appeared  more  evident.'  These 
shiftings  of  the  Pole  Star  which,  until  then,  had  been 
the  one  thing  stable  in  a  world  of  change,  gave  rise 
to  the  wildest  speculations.  Elsewhere,  you  find 
the  most  frantic  attempts  to  account  for  such 
apparent  changes  by  assumptions  that  the  world 


398  ELIZABETHAN  ADVENTURE 

bore  the  shape  not  of  an  apple,  but  of  a  pear,  or  that 
the  earth  was  in  parts  piled  up  in  protuberances  of 
gigantic  elevation.  America  was  to  them,  truly, 
a  new  world,  as  new  as  the  planet  Mars  would  be  to 
us  ;  and  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  regarded  in  rela- 
tion to  the  Pole  Star  may  be  gauged  from  a  passage 
in  Peter  Martyr,  written,  no  doubt,  in  1516,  but  only 
Englished  by  Eden  during  Shakespeare's  lifetime  : 
'  We  ought  therefore  certainely  to  think  ourselves 
most  boimd  unto  God,  that  in  these  our  times  it  hath 
pleased  him  to  reveale  and  discover  this  secrete  in 
the  finding  of  this  new  worlde,  whereby  wee  are 
certaynely  assured,  that  under  our  Pole  Starre ' — 
mark  that  '  our ' — '  and  under  the  ^EquinoctiaU 
line,  are  most  goodly  and  ample  regions.' 

The  third  thing,  then,  which  strikes  as  you  note 
the  insistence  on  '  maps,'  the  confusion  of  India 
with  America,  the  awe  inspired  by  new  stars,  and 
the  wonderful  tales  reported  by  Othello  of 

*  Anthropophagi  and  men  whose  heads 
Do  grow  beneath  their  shoulders,' 

is  the  recent  origin,  the  novelty,  the  consequent 
mystery  of  the  enterprises  on  which  EHzabethan 
Adventurers  embarked.  And  these  impressions 
were  of  course  heightened  by  the  fact  that  the 
Enghsh,  with  few  exceptions,  were  the  latest  in  this 
field  of  adventure,  and  that  the  accounts  of  earlier 
discoveries  had  but  recently  been  translated  out  of 
Spanish  and  Latin  into  the  English  tongue.  To 
imderstand  this,  we  must  trace  the  sequence  of 
nautical  discovery.  The  first  praise  must  be  given 
to  the  Portuguese,  who  were  first,  because  they  first 
'  trusted  the  compass,'  '  the  touched  Needle,'  which 
Purchas  writes,  '  is  the  soule  of  the  Compasse,  by 


IN  ELIZABETHAN  LITERATURE      399 

which  every  skilfull  Mariner  is  emboldened  to  com- 
passe  the  whole  body  of  the  Universe.  Let  the 
ItaUans,'  he  goes  on  '  have  their  praise  for  Invention  : 
the  praise  of  Application  thereof  to  these  remote 
Discoveries  is  due  to  the  Portugals,  who  first  began 
to  open  the  Windowes  of  the  World,  to  let  it  see  it 
seKe.'  Again,  '  the  Loadstone,'  he  writes,  '  was  the 
Lead-Stone,  the  very  seed  and  ingendring  stone  of 
Discoverie.' 

Now  nobody  wanted  to  discover  America.  They 
wanted  to  reach  India  by  sea,  to  reach  Cathay,  or 
China,  and  Cipango ;  a  fabulous  island  of  fabulous 
wealth,  whose  image  seems  to  have  been  formed, 
partly  from  Plato's  legend  of  the  island  Atlantis ; 
partly,  perhaps,  from  rumours  of  Japan  brought 
over  land,  from  mouth  to  mouth,  by  Oriental 
traders,  who  had  never  been  further  than  China,  and, 
since  the  adventure  of  Marco  Polo,  never  so  far. 
Mr.  Fiske's  admirable  book.  The  Discovery  of  America 
and  the  old  maps  which  he  reproduces  in  it,  show  that 
Columbus  and  Amerigo  Vespucci  both  died  without 
a  suspicion  that  they  had  discovered  America. 
They,  and  others  after  them  for  years,  practically, 
omitted  the  extent  of  the  Pacific  from  their  concep- 
tion of  the  Globe,  even  as  they  contracted  the  extent 
of  Asia  eastwards.  Where  they  did,  as  matter  of 
fact,  find  America,  they  expected  to  find  China,  and, 
in  the  South  Sea,  the  great  Island,  Cipango.  They 
are  always  searching  for  Cipango,  the  court  of  the 
Great  Khan,  or  the  Land  of  Ophir. 

Some  idea  of  the  pace  of  these  discoveries,  and  of 
the  resulting  confusion  and  difficulty  of  assimilation, 
may  be  gauged  from  the  fact  that  Europeans  (setting 
the  report  of  Herodotus  on  one  side)  crossed  the 
Equator  for  the  first  time  only  in  1472,  by  creeping 


400  ELIZABETHAN  ADVENTURE 

down  the  coast  of  Africa.  Remembering  that,  we 
can  realise  the  audacity  of  Columbus  twenty  years 
later.  We  can  understand  the  murmurs  of  his  men 
at  what  seemed  madness,  and  was  in  fact  the  project 
of  a  '  dreamer,  dreaming  greatly.'  The  story  is  too 
well  known  to  bear  repetition,  even  in  Elizabethan 
EngUsh.  I  merely  note  that  at  Cuba  '  he  went  on 
land,  thinking  it  to  be  Zipango '  (Purchas).  Omit- 
ting for  the  moment  John  Cabot,  we  come  next  to 
Amerigo  Vespucci,  a  Florentine,  who  served  both 
Spain  and  Portugal.  He  made  four  voyages  between 
1497-1504,  and  did,  in  fact,  discover  the  continent 
of  South  America,  saiHng  along  the  coast  of  Brazil 
as  far  south  as  latitude  34°.  But,  Hke  Columbus, 
he  died  without  knowing  this.  Even  on  the  map  of 
Ptolemy,  dated  1540,  the  New  World  was  stiU  an 
island  in  the  South  Sea — '  Novus  Orbis,  the  Atlantic 
Island  which  they  call  Brazil  and  America.'  Grerard 
Mercator  was  the  first,  in  1541,  to  trace  America 
with  some  approximation  to  it^  real  shape,  printing 
AME  in  large  type  on  the  north,  and  RICA  on  the 
south  lobe  of  that  continent.  In  1531,  Vasco  Nunez 
de  Balboa,  and  not  Cortes,  as  Keats'  famous  Sonnet 
would  lead  us  to  suppose,  gazed  at  the  Pacific  for 
the  first  time  from  a  peak  in  Darien.  I  omit  the 
conquests  of  Mexico  and  Peru  by  Cortes  and  Pizarro, 
only  to  insist  on  one  point  in  respect  of  these  dis- 
coveries, namely,  that  all  lands  discovered,  or  dis- 
coverable, in  the  New  World,  had  been  made  over  in 
anticipation  to  Castille,  and  consequently  to  Spain, 
by  a  BuU  of  Alexander  vi.,  in  1493  ;  and  on  a  second, 
namely,  that  neither  CathoHc  France  nor  Protestant 
England  ever  acquiesced  in  that  papal  injunction. 
The  '  animadversions  on  the  said  BuU,'  to  be  read  in 
Purchas  his  Pilgrimes  are  long,  and,  in  parts,  too 


IN  ELIZABETHAN  LITERATURE      401 

vigorous  for  modem  quotation.  But  the  conclusion 
is  in  the  right  spirit  of  the  Elizabethan  adventurers. 
Purchas,  after  praising  the  French  and  Henry  vn. 
for  rejecting  it,  apostrophises  his  king,  James  i. : — 
'  And  long,  long  may  his  Majestic  of  Great  Brittaine 
spread  his  long  and  quiet  Armes  to  the  furthest  East 
and  remotest  West,  in  the  gainefull  Traffiques,  in  the 
painefull  Discoveries,  in  the  Glorious  and  Christian 
Plantations  of  his  Subjects  (maugre  such  Bugbeare, 
Bull-beare  bellowings)  ...  all  Arts  and  Rehgions 
concurring  into  one  Art  of  Arts,  the  Truth  of  Re- 
ligion, and  advancing  of  the  Faith,  together  with  the 
glory  of  his  Name,  and  splendour  of  his  State,  the 
love  of  his  People,  the  hopes  of  his  Royal  Posteritie 
to  the  last  of  Ages.  Amen.  Amen.'  That  has  the 
true  Elizabethan  ring  about  it,  though  written  some 
years  after  Gloriana's  death. 

A  truer  title  of  Spain  to  our  respect  is,  that  she 
sent  out  Magellan  with  the  first  expedition  which 
accomphshed  the  circumnavigation  of  the  world ; 
an  exploit  which  can  never  be  paralleled,  unless,  in- 
structed by  Mr.  WeUs,  we  should  invade  the  planet 
Mars.  We  know  every  incident  of  that  voyage — 
and  so  did  Shakespeare — ^from  Eden's  translation  of 
Pigafetta's  journal,  upon  which  Purchas  founded  his 
later  narration.  The  story  regains  its  freslmess  when 
you  read  it  in  the  first  EngUsh  translation  of  a  sur- 
vivor's narrative.  The  Patagonian  giants,  one  of 
whom  was  '  very  tractable  and  pleasant,'  while 
another  '  declared  by  signs,  that  if  they  made  any 
more  Crosses,  Setebos  would  enter  into  his  body,  and 
make  him  burst.'  '  The  stars  about  the  South  Pole 
.  .  .  gathered  together,  which  are  Hke  two  Clouds, 
one  separate  a  little  from  another  and  somewhat 
dark  in  the  midst,'  that  is  to  say,  the  gap  in  the  stellar 

2c 


402  ELIZABETHAN  ADVENTURE 

heaven  still  called  Magellan's  Cloud ;  tlie  inevitable 
Cipango,  always  found  because  always  sought ;  the 
Cannibals ;  '  the  sea  full  of  weeds  and  herbes ' ;  '  the 
bats  as  bigge  as  eagles '  that  '  are  good  to  be  eaten, 
and  of  taste  much  Hke  a  Henne  '  ;^  all  these  observa- 
tions restore  the  sense  of  actuahty,  and  the  sense  of 
the  marvellous.  But  I  must  condense  the  pleasing 
tale.  Magellan — Fernando  de  Magellanes  in  Spanish 
— sailed  with  five  ships  on  September  20,  1519,  and 
two  hundred  and  fifty  men,  of  whom  one  was  Eng- 
lish. The  next  winter,  at  Port  Saint  Juhan,  three 
of  his  ships  mutinied.  Undaunted,  he  boarded  one, 
kiUing  its  captain,  and  now,  with  three  to  two  in  his 
favour,  he  attacked  the  others.  A  grim  monument  of 
that  strife  is  noted  by  Fiske,  when  he  comes  to  Drake's 
voyage  round  the  world.  Magellan  sailed  again 
with  the  spring,  in  August,  1520,  to  find  the  opening 
to  the  Straits,  now  named  after  him,  on  October  21. 
In  the  strait,  which  is  some  three  hundred  miles  in 
length,  one  of  his  ships  stole  away  and  back  to  Spain. 
He  took  five  weeks  in  passing  the  strait.  His  men 
might  murmur,  but  Magellan  answered  that  he 
would  go  on  if  he  had  to  eat  the  leather  off  his  ship's 
yards.  Eden,  followed  by  Purchas,  reports  that 
'  when  the  Capitayne  Magahanes  was  past  the 
Strayght,  and  sawe  the  way  open  to  the  other  ma3nie 
sea,  he  was  so  gladde  thereof  that  for  joy  the  teares 
fell  from  his  eyes.'  But  the  most  trying,  because  the 
least  expected,  experience  was  still  before  him. 
They  counted  on  Cipango  and  Cathay ;  but,  you 
read,  '  they  sayled  three  moenths  and  twentie  days 
before  they  saw  any  land  :  and,  having  by  this  time 
consumed  all  their  Bisket  and  other  Victuals,  they 
fell  into  such  necessitie  that  they  were  inforced  to 
eate  .  .  .  skinnes  and  pieces  of  leather,  which  were 


IN  ELIZABETHAN  LITERATURE      403 

foulded  about  certaine  great  Ropes  of  the  shippes.' 
Thus  did  Magellan  justify  his  word.  At  last  they 
made  the  PhiHppines,  and  knew  that  they  had 
accomphshed  the  greatest  exploit  of  navigation. 
But  Magellan  himseK  was  never  again  to  see  Europe. 
In  the  spirit  of  a  crusader  he  converted  one  tribe  to 
Christianity,  and  then  led  it  to  war  against  a  neigh- 
bour king.  In  this  contest  he  was  killed  on  April  27, 
1521.  His  followers  vacated  and  burnt  one  out  of 
the  three  remaining  ships  ;  a  second  was  driven  back 
to  the  Moluccas ;  and  the  last,  with  forty-seven 
hands,  made  for  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope ;  rounded 
it  on  May  16,  1522,  and  crossed  the  equator  on 
June  8,  only  fifty  years  after  it  had  been  crossed  for 
the  first  time  from  the  north  by  Santarem  and 
Escobar.  At  the  Cape  Verde  Islands  thirteen  hands, 
who  had  landed,  were  arrested  and  imprisoned 
by  the  Portuguese.  The  remainder,  being  called  on 
to  surrender,  stretched  every  stitch  of  canvas,  and, 
after  eight  more  weeks  of  the  ocean,  on  September  6, 
the  thirtieth  anniversary  of  the  day  on  which 
Columbus  weighed  anchor  for  Cipango,  the  Victoria 
sailed  into  the  Guadalquivir,  and  eighteen  gaunt 
siu*vivors,  out  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  men, 
landed  to  teU  the  strangest  story  ever  told  by  man 
to  men. 

Such  were  the  exploits  of  Spain  !  '  What  way 
soever,'  you  read,  '  the  Spaniards  are  called,  with  a 
beck  only,  or  a  whispering  voice,  to  anything  rising 
above  water,  they  speedily  prepare  themselves  to 
fly,  and  forsake  certainties  under  the  hope  of  more 
briUiant  success.' 

And  now  for  the  French.  The  French  entered  into 
competition  with  the  Spaniards  for  the  commerce 
and  soil  of  the  New  World  as  early  as  in  1504.     In 


404  ELIZABETHAN  ADVENTURE 

Hakluyfs  Voyages,  that  great  Elizabethan  bible  of 
adventure,  you  have  Varazzano's  account,  to  hifl 
employer,  Francis  i.,  in  1524,  of  his  discovery  of 
Florida.  There  he  found  a  '  courteous  and  gentle 
people  ' — '  vines  growing  naturaMy,  which,  growing 
up,  tooke  holde  of  the  trees  as  they  do  in  Lombardie,' 
and  people  '  clad  with  the  feathers  of  f owles  of  divers 
colours.'  These  and  other  accounts  were  translated 
out  of  French  by  Richard  Haklujrfc  (iii.  36)  and  pre- 
sented to  Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  In  Hakluyt,  also, 
you  may  read  the  discoveries  made  in  Canada  by 
Jacques  Cartier  in  1535.  Here  we  come  for  the  first 
time  upon  Montreal  (Mont  Real  in  French),  Mount 
Roiall  in  Hakluyt' s  English.  And  we  look  back 
along  the  vista  of  years  over  the  protracted  rivalry 
between  France  and  England  in  Canada,  which  was 
to  end  only  with  the  death  of  Wolfe  on  the  Heights 
of  Abraham.  But  France,  torn  by  the  throes  of 
expiring  feudahsm  and  the  new  miseries  of  religious 
war,  could  not  support  the  enterprise  she  had 
undertaken.  Yet  there  is  a  lesson  to  be  learnt 
from  her.  When  Jesuits  and  Calvinists  had  carried 
their  strife  into  New  France  beyond  the  Atlantic, 
and  when  merchants  grudged  the  necessary  expense 
for  the  construction  of  a  fort,  the  French  Viceroy, 
Champlain  (1620),  uttered  a  memorable  saying :  '  It 
is  not  best  to  yield  to  the  passions  of  men  ;  they  sway 
but  for  a  season  ;  it  is  a  duty  to  respect  the  future.' 
So  he  built  the  castle  of  St.  Louis  on  its  '  com- 
manding cliff.'  Those  words  were  spoken  fifty  years 
after  the  English  entered  the  field  against  France 
and  Spain  ;  but  they  remain  a  good  counsel  for 
Imperiahsts  to  our  own  day — '  It  is  a  duty  to  respect 
the  future.'  From  the  French,  the  English  learned  to 
look  forward  to  centuries  still  in  the  womb  of  Time  ; 


II 


IN  ELIZABETHAN  LITERATURE       405 

from  the  Spaniards,  to  follow  '  a  beck  only,  or  a 
whispering  voice,'  and  '  to  fly  and  forsake  certainties 
under  the  hope  of  more  briUiant  success.'  As  our 
own  poet  of  Empire,  Rudyard  Kipling,  has  sung  in 
our  own  day  : — 

'  Came  the  whisper,  came  the  Vision,  came  the  Power  with 

the  Need, 
Till  the  Soul  that  is  not  man's  soul  was  lent  us  to  lead.' 

And  now  we  must  consider  how  the  English  came 
to  lead.  There  was  a  false  dawn  of  enterprise  imder 
Henry  vn.,  but  it  did  not  develop  into  refulgent  glory 
until  Elizabeth  had  mounted  the  throne.  StiU  it  must 
be  noted  as  an  earnest  of  the  splendour  to  be.  The 
whole  story  may  be  read  in  the  great  work  published 
in  1599  by  the  Rev.  Richard  Hakluyt,  a  friend  of 
the  adventurers,  whose  being  thriUed  with  their 
strangely  mingled  inspiration  of  religious  fervour 
and  imperial  audacity.  Recollect,  let  me  say  it 
again,  that  the  English  were  not  seeking  America  as 
we  know  it,  but  West  India.  And,  since  Spain  was 
seeking  India  and  Cathay  by  a  south-west,  England, 
from  the  beginning,  with  one  brief  interlude,  sought 
those  fabulous  lands  by  a  north-west,  passage.  In 
1497,  the  very  year  in  which  Vespucci  discovered 
(without  knowing  it)  the  continent  of  South  America, 
and  five  years  after  Columbus  had  discovered  the 
Islands  of  the  West  Indies,  Henry  vn.  gave  John 
Cabot,  a  native  of  Venice  and  a  resident  in  Bristol, 
licence  '  to  take  sixe  EngUsh  ships  in  any  haven 
or  havens  of  the  realme  of  England  ...  to  seeke 
out,  discover,  and  finde  whatsoever  isles,  countreys, 
regions,  or  provinces  of  the  heathen  and  infidels 
whatsoever  they  be,  and  in  what  part  of  the  world 
soever  they  be,  which  before  this  time  had  been  im- 


406  ELIZABETHAN  ADVENTURE 

known  to  all  Christians.'  That  was  his  answer  to 
the  Pope's  bull.  So  you  read  that  '  John  Cabot,  a 
Venetian,  and  his  sonne  Sebastian  (with  an  EngHsh 
fleet,  set  out  from  Bristoll),  discovered  land  which 
no  man  before  that  time  had  attempted,  on  the  24 
of  June,  about  five  of  the  clock  early  in  the  morning. 
This  land  he  called  Prima  Vista,  that  is  to  say.  First 
Scene.'  I  need  not  go  into  the  thorny  question  of 
the  son's,  Sebastian's,  credibihty  in  his  narrative 
of  subsequent  discoveries  which  he  alleges  himself 
to  have  made.  His  veracity  has  been  impeached  by 
Sir  Clements  Markham  ;  but,  since  Vespucci  was  at 
one  time  similarly  accused,  I  must  hope  that,  in  the 
case  of  Sebastian  Cabot  also,  the  error  may  be 
ultimately  traced,  not  to  his  lying,  but  to  the  in- 
accurate appHcation  of  geographical  names  in  his 
own  writings  and  the  writings  of  his  early  com- 
mentators. The  real  importance  of  Sebastian's 
writings,  whether  truthful  or  not,  is  that,  years  later, 
they  inspired  the  Elizabethan  adventurers. 

Under  Henry  vm.  you  find  traces  of  sporadic 
attempts  to  follow  up  the  achievement  of  the  Cabots, 
but  they  did  not  amoimt  to  much.  We  read  that 
Henry  was  '  exhorted  with  very  weighty  and  sub- 
stantial reasons,  to  set  forth  a  discovery  even  to  the 
North  Pole,'  and  we  know  that  two  ships  sailed  for 
St.  John  and  Newfoundland  in  1527.  In  1536  an 
expedition  ended  in  '  extreme  famine,'  so  that  '  our 
men  eate  one  another,'  upon  which  the  captain  stood 
up  and  'made  a  notable  oration,  containing,  howe 
much  these  dealings  offended  the  Almightie,  and 
quoted  the  Scriptures  from  first  to  last,  what  God 
had  in  cases  of  distresse  done  for  them  that  called 
upon  Him,  and  told  them  that  the  power  of  the 
Almighty  was  then  no  lesse  than  in  al  former  time 


IN  ELIZABETHAN  LITERATURE      407 

it  had  bene.'     A  brave  and  pious  man,  whom  we 
may  well  remember  ! 

But  the  ideas  of  the  EngHsh  upon  geography 
during  the  first  half,  and  more,  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  were  still  confused.  They  went  groping  in 
different  directions,  encountering  strange  and  ter- 
rible experiences.  Robert  Tomson,  a  merchant  of 
Andover,  was  imprisoned  in  Mexico  between  1556- 
1558.  Others  were  turned  back  by  ice  and  fog  from 
the  endeavour  towards  the  North- West.  So,  still 
failing  to  apprehend  the  size  of  the  globe,  both  as  to 
the  extent  of  Asia  and  of  the  Pacific,  they  tried  to 
reach  India  and  Cathay  by  a  north-east  passage, 
north  of  Russia.  In  1553  Sir  Hugh  Willoughby  and 
Richard  Chancellor  set  out,  in  that  direction,  on  a 
'  voyage  intended  for  the  discoverie  of  Cathay  and 
divers  other  regions,  dominions,  islands,  and  places 
unknowen.'  The  expedition  was  fitted  out  by 
'  Master  Sebastian  Cabota  (Cabot),  Esquire,  and 
Govemour  of  the  mysterie  and  companye  of  the 
Marchant  Adventurers  of  the  citie  of  London.'  The 
tragic  end  of  an  adventure  thus  founded  upon  equal 
parts  of  ignorance  and  daring  has  furnished  one  of 
the  most  striking  of  all  these  striking  scenes.  The 
two  ships  were  separated  by  foul  weather.  We  have, 
first,  Chancellor's  account,  with  its  surmise  as  to  the 
fate  of  his  comrades : — '  But  if  it  be  so,  that  any 
miserable  mishap  have  overtaken  them,  if  the  rage 
and  furie  of  the  sea  have  devoured  these  good  men, 
or  if  as  yet  they  five,  and  wander  up  and  downe  in 
strange  countreys,  I  must  needs  say  they  were  men 
worthy  of  better  fortune,  and  if  they  be  Hving,  let 
us  wish  them  safetie  and  a  good  retume :  but  if  the 
crueltie  of  death  hath  taken  holde  of  them,  God  send 
them  a  Christian  grave  and  sepulchre.'     Their  end 


408  ELIZABETHAN  ADVENTURE 

was  strange  and  moving  beyond  Chancellor's 
surmise.  We  have  the  last  words  of  Sir  Hugh 
Willoughby  in  his  own  hand.  They  run  thus : — 
'  Seeing  the  year  farre  spent,  and  also  very  evill 
wether,  as  frost,  snow,  and  haile^.  as  though  it  had 
been  the  deepe  of  winter,  we  thought  best  to  winter 
there.  Wherefore  we  sent  out  three  men  south- 
south-west,  to  search  if  they  could  finde  people, 
who  went  three  dayes  journey,  but  could  finde  none  : 
after  that  we  sent  other  three  Westward  foure  dales 
journey,  which  also  returned  without  finding  any 
people.  Then  sent  we  three  men  south-east  three 
dales  journey,  who  in  like  sort  returned  without  find- 
ing of  people,  or  any  similitude  of  habitation.'  That 
is  all : — '  the  rest  is  silence,'  for  these  notes  were 
found  a  year  or  more  after,  under  the  frozen  hand 
of  Sir  Hugh  Willoughby,  sitting  frozen  in  his  cabin, 
with  all  his  Company,  singly  and  in  groups,  frozen  in 
different  parts  of  the  ship.  On  the  margin  of 
WiUoughby's  journal  you  read  the  brief  record,  '  In 
this  haven  they  died.' 

I  pass  over  the  earlier  voyages  of  John  Hawkins, 
to  Guinea  and  thence  to  the  West  Indies  with  cargoes 
of  negroes.  It  was  he  who  started  the  slave  trade, 
but  we  must  not  judge  another  age  by  the  standard 
of  to-day.  Hawkins,  recording  a  storm,  could  set 
down  that '  Almighty  God  would  not  suffer  His  elect 
to  perish ' ;  and  I  cannot  doubt  his  good  faith.  But, 
passing  over  these  voyages  to  the  West  Coast  of 
Africa,  I  come  to  the  time  when  the  seed  sown  by 
Sebastian  Cabot  in  his  writings  began  to  sprout  in 
the  minds  of  the  Elizabethan  adventurers.  Sir 
Humphrey  Gilbert,  Haleigh's  half-brother  by  an 
earlier  marriage,  had  read  and  considered  Sebastian's 
narratives,  and  he  had  also  considered  WiUoughby's 


IN  ELIZABETHAN  LITERATURE       409 

death,  and  much  else  which  to  us  seems  amazingly 
beside  the  mark  —  as  passages  from  Homer  and 
Plato ;  mediaeval  legends  of  savages  cast  up  on  the 
'  coast  of  Germany,'  wherever  that  may  have  been, 
and  the  navigations  of  '  Ochther '  in  the  time  of 
King  Alfred.  And  out  of  this  strange  compost  of 
truth  and  legend  he  framed  his  famous  discourse  '  to 
prove  a  passage  by  the  north-west  to  Cathaia.'  This 
discourse  was  written  in  1576  ;  its  author  must  be 
considered  the  prime  mover  of  the  Adventurers,  and 
his  pamphlet  conclusively  shows  how  slight  was  the 
knowledge,  how  dark  the  counsels,  of  the  men  who, 
in  truth,  made  the  world  what  it  is  to-day.  Fantastic, 
wrong-headed,  obstinate,  reckless,  but  brave  beyond 
report  and  belief,  it  was  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert  and 
his  school — Raleigh,  Drake,  Hawkins,  Frobisher, 
Davis,  Cavendish — who  made  the  New  World,  in  the 
f  uU  extension  and  intention  of  that  phrase  ;  the  New^ 
World,  not  only  of  America,  but  of  freedom  in 
thought  and  of  expansion  in  civihsation.  They 
cast  the  bread  of  civihsation  on  the  waters,  content 
that  posterity  should  see  it  return  after  three 
centuries. 

Humphrey  Gilbert  ends  his  discourse  with  these 
words ;  '  Desiring  you  hereafter  never  to  mislike 
with  me,  for  the  taking  in  hande  of  any  laudable 
and  honest  enterprise  ;  for  if  through  pleasure  or 
idlenesse  we  purchase  shame,  the  pleasure  vanisheth, 
but  the  shame  remaineth  for  ever,  and  therefore,  to 
give  me  leave  without  offence,  alwayes  to  hve  and  die 
in  this  minde.  That  he  is  not  worthy  to  hve  at  all, 
that  for  feare,  or  danger  of  death,  shunneth  his 
coimtrey's  service,  and  his  own  honour ;  seeing  death 
is  inevitable,  and  the  fame  of  vertue  immortall. 
Wherefore  in  this  behalfe,  Mutare  vel  timere  sperno  ' 


410  ELIZABETHAN  ADVENTURE 

— '  I  scorn  to  change  or  to  be  afraid.'  You  will 
see  that  in  his  death  he  Hved  up  to  that  lofty 
device. 

It  was  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert  who  fired  the 
imagination  of  Queen  Elizabeth  and  of  his  haK- 
brother,  Sir  Walter  Kaleigh,  who,  in  his  turn,  in- 
spired others  and  equipped  more  expeditions  at  his 
own  charges  than  any  other  of  the  Adventurers. 
Humphrey  Gilbert  published  his  treatise  in  1576, 
and,  in  the  same  year,  Martin  Frobisher  set  out  on 
his  first  voyage  to  the  North- West  for  the  search  of 
the  Strait  or  Passage  to  China.  He  was,  you  read 
in  Hakluyt,  '  determined  and  resolved  with  himself 
to  make  fuU  proofe  thereof,  and  to  accomplish  or 
bring  true  certificate  of  the  truth,  or  else  never  to 
retume  againe,  knowing  this  to  be  the  onely  thing 
of  the  world  that  was  left  yet  undone,  whereby  a 
notable  minde  might  be  made  famous  and  fortunate.' 
Queen  Elizabeth  waved  to  him  as  he  dropped  down 
the  Thames.  He  made  two  other  voyages  in  the 
same  direction  during  the  next  two  years,  1577-78, 
and,  in  the  fanciful  manner  of  the  day,  he  called  the 
ice-bound  land  of  frost  which  he  discovered,  Meta 
Incognita,  that  is  the  '  Unknown  Goal.'  The  reports 
are  aU  of  ice.  '  The  force  of  the  Yce  so  great,  that 
not  onely  they  burst  and  spoyled  the  foresaid  pro- 
vision, but  likewise  so  raised  the  sides  of  the  ships, 
that  it  was  friteful  to  behold,  and  caused  the  hearts 
of  many  to  faint.'  And  again,  '  We  came  by  a 
marveilous  huge  mountaine  of  Yce,  which  surpassed 
all  the  rest  that  ever  we  saw  ;  for  we  judged  it  to  be 
neere  fourscore  fathomes  above  water  .  .  .  and  of 
compasse  about  halfe  a  mile.'  They  were  bewildered 
by  icebergs  and  mists,  'getting  in  at  one  gap  and 
out  at  another.'     Later,  in  1585-6,  you  have  the  two 


IN  ELIZABETHAN  LITERATURE      411 

voyages  of  John  Davis  '  for  the  discoverie  of  the 
North-west  Passage.'  Nothing  could  daunt  them 
from  their  dream  of  Cathay.  But  the  reports  are 
the  same  : — '  the  shoare  beset  with  yce  a  league  off 
into  the  sea,  making  such  yrksome  noyse,  as  that  it 
seemed  to  be  the  true  patterne  of  desolation,  and 
after  the  same  our  Captaine  named  it.  The  Land  of 
Desolation.' 

Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert's  discourse  was  the  prime 
motor  of  these  forlorn  hopes ;  yet  his  desperate 
expectation  of  reaching  China  by  the  North- West 
issued  in  practical  advantage — the  foundation  of  the 
colony  of  Virginia  by  his  greatest  pupil,  Raleigh. 
Before  I  touch  upon  that,  I  wiU  give  you  Sir 
Humphrey's  end,  not  unworthy  of  his  motto, 
'  Mutare  vel  timere  spemo.'  He  sailed  for  the  last 
time  in  1583.  Frobisher  had  brought  back  a  few 
stones  in  which  the  '  mineral  men '  detected  gold. 
So  Elizabeth  put  her  private  money  into  the  specula- 
tion, and,  with  but  two  more  years  of  his  hcence  or 
charter  to  run.  Sir  Humphrey  sailed  for  the  Arctic 
El  Dorado,  now  reahsed,  after  three  centuries,  in 
Klondyke.  They  made  the  Orkneys  '  with  a  merrie 
wind.'  But  the  expedition  proved  disastrous.  On 
his  return.  Sir  Humphrey  would  not  leave  his  little 
frigate,  the  Squirrel,  of  ten  tons,  for  the  larger  Golden 
Hinde,  and  this  is  what  befell,  in  the  words  of  an  eye- 
witness :  '  I  will  hasten  to  the  end  of  this  tragedie, 
which  must  be  knit  up  in  the  person  of  our  Generall ; 
and  as  it  was  God's  ordinance  upon  him,  even  so 
the  vehement  persuasion  and  entreatie  of  his  friends 
could  nothing  availe  to  divert  him  from  a  wilful 
resolution  of  going  through  in  his  frigate.  .  .  .  This 
was  his  answer :  "I  will  not  forsake  my  Httle  com- 
pany going  homeward,^with  whom  I  have  passed  so 


412  ELIZABETHAN  ADVENTURE 

many  stormes  and  perils."  .  .  .  Men  which  all  their 
lifetime  had  occupied  the  sea,  never  saw  more  out- 
rageous seas.  .  .  .  Munday,  the  ninth  of  September, 
in  the  afternoone,  the  Frigat  was  neere  cast  away, 
oppressed  by  waves,  yet  at  that  time  recovered  ; 
and  giving  foorth  signes  of  joy,  the  Generall,  sitting 
abaft  with  a  booke  in  his  hand,  cried  out  to  us  in  the 
Hinde  (so  oft  as  we  did  approach  within  hearing), 
"  we  are  as  neere  to  heaven  by  sea  as  by  land." 
Reiterating  the  same  speech,  weU  beseeming  a 
souldier,  resolute  in  Jesus  Christ,  as  I  can  testifie  he 
was.  The  same  Monday  night,  about  twelve  of  the 
clock,  or  not  long  after,  the  Frigat  being  ahead  of  us 
in  the  Oolden  Hinde,  suddenly  her  lights  were  out, 
whereof  as  it  were  in  a  moment  we  lost  the  sight,  and 
withall  our  watch  cryed,  the  Generall  was  cast  away, 
which  was  too  true  ;  for  in  that  moment  the  Frigat 
was  devoured  and  swallowed  up  by  the  sea.  Yet 
still  we  looked  out  all  that  night,  and  ever  after, 
untill  we  arrived  upon  the  coast  of  England.'  Mutare 
vel  timere  sperno  :  he  would  not  change  his  ship,  and 
he  was  ready  to  die. 

Sir  Walter  Raleigh  took  up  his  brother's  work. 
He  was  bom  in  1552,  and  went  to  Oriel  College, 
in  later  years  the  Alma  Mater  of  another  empire- 
builder,  Cecil  Rhodes.  But  in  1569,  Raleigh  went 
to  France,  and  fought  for  the  Huguenots  under 
CoUgny.  Persuaded,  as  I  have  said,  by  Sir 
Humphrey  Gilbert,  he  took  up  exploration  and 
fitted  out  the  expedition  of  1576.  He  directed  these 
distant  endeavours  largely  from  the  Court,  and  from 
Ireland,  where  he  commanded  a  company  in  1579. 
But  his  heart  was  in  discovery  and  colonisation. 
Undeterred  by  Sir  Humphrey's  failure  and  death,  in 
the  next  year  he  joined,  with  another  brother.  Sir 


IN  ELIZABETHAN  LITERATURE      413 

Adrian  Gilbert,  and  a  merchant,  Sandeman,  a  com- 
pany called  '  The  Colleagues  of  the  Fellowship  for 
the  Discovery  of  the  North-west  Passage.'  He  sent 
John  Davis  out  on  that  quest,  and  about  the  same 
time  he  sent  out  his  kinsman,  Richard  Grenville, 
to  maintain  his  darling  project,  the  Colony  of 
Virginia.  Between  whiles,  you  find  him  entertain- 
ing the  poet  Spenser  in  Ireland.  Spenser  describes 
the  visit  thus  : — 

'  Whom  when  I  asked  from  what  place  he  came, 

And  how  he  hight  ?  himself  he  did  ycleep 
The  Shepheard  of  the  Ocean  by  name, 

And  said  he  came  far  from  the  main  sea  deep.' 

I  cannot  follow  out  the  vicissitudes  of  Raleigh's 
career,  but,  keeping  to  my  text,  I  may  give  some 
references  to  him  in  EHzabethan  Hterature.  His 
search  for  that  Will-o'-the-wisp,  El  Dorado  in  Guiana, 
was  acclaimed  by  a  poet,  probably  Chapman,  in  these 
strains  : — 

'  Guiana  whose  rich  feet  are  mines  of  gold. 
Whose  forehead  knocks  against  the  roof  of  stars, 
Stands  on  her  tip-toe  at  fair  England  looking, 
Kissing  her  hand,  bowing  her  mighty  breast, 
And  every  sign  of  all  submission  making 
To  be  her  sister  and  the  daughter  both 
Of  our  most  sacred  maid.' 

There  is  much  else  to  the  same  sanguine  and  delusive 
purpose  : — 

'  And  there  do  palaces  and  temples  rise 
Out  of  the  earth  to  kiss  th'  enamoured  skies.' 

Sir  Walter's  own  accoimt  of  that  expedition  fills 
many  pages  of  Hakluyt.  To  show  his  self -gathered 
resolution,  I  will  quote  one  passage :  '  I  sent  Captaine 
Whiddon  the  yeere  before  to  get  what  knowledge 
he  could  of  Guiana,  and  the  end  of  my  journey 


414  ELIZABETHAN  ADVENTURE 

at  this  time  was  to  discover  and  enter  the  same, 
but  my  intelligence  was  far  from  truth,  for  the 
country  is  situate  above  600  EngHsh  miles  further 
from  the  sea,  then  I  was  made  beheve  it  had  bin, 
which  afterward  understanding  to  be  true  by  Berreo, 
I  kept  it  from  the  knowledge  of  my  Company,  who 
else  would  never  have  been  brought  to  attempt  the 
same  :  of  which  600  miles  I  passed  400,  leaving  my 
ships  so  farre  from  mee  at  ancker  in  the  sea,  which 
was  more  of  desire  to  performe  that  discovery,  then 
of  reason,  especially  having  such  poore  and  weake 
vessels  to  transport  ourselves  in.' 

I  know  not  where  you  will  find  a  calmer  account 
of  a  more  dogged  endeavour  in  pursuit  of  a  vainer 
phantasmagoria.  But  Raleigh's  day  of  days  was 
at  the  sack  of  Cadiz  in  1596.  It  was  Raleigh  who 
overbore  the  timid  counsels  of  Lord  Thomas  Howard, 
crying  out  to  Lord  Essex,  '  Entramos  !  Entramos  !  ' 
a  permission  so  acceptable  to  the  gallant  young  Ea-rl, 
that  he  threw  his  hat  into  the  sea  for  sheer  joy. 
Then  Raleigh  betook  him  to  his  ship,  and  led  the 
van  under  the  batteries  and  right  into  the  harbour. 
When  his  vessel,  shattered  by  shot,  was  on  the  point 
of  sinking,  he  left  it  to  enter  Essex's  ship,  and,  though 
wounded  severely  by  a  splinter,  had  himself  carried 
on  shore  and  lifted  on  to  a  horse,  to  charge  with 
Essex  against  the  Spanish  army.  Of  the  sea-fight 
Hakluyt  says  : — '  What  manner  of  fight  this  was, 
and  with  what  courage  performed,  and  with  what 
terror  to  the  beholder  continued,  where  so  many 
thundering  tearing  peeces  were  for  so  long  a  time 
discharged,  I  leave  it  to  the  Reader  to  thinke  and 
imagine.'  Of  the  charge  on  shore,  he  teUs  us  : — 
'  The  time  of  the  day  was  very  hot  and  faint,  and  the 
way  was  all  of  dry  deepe  slyding  sand  in  a  maimer, 


IN  ELIZABETHAN  LITERATURE      415 

and  beside  that,  very  uneven.  .  .  .  But  the  most 
famous  Earle,  with  his  vaHant  troupes,  rather 
running  in  deede  in  good  order,  then  marching, 
hastened  on  them  with  such  unspeakable  courage 
and  celerity,  as  within  one  houres  space  and  lesse, 
the  horsemen  were  all  discomforted  and  put  to  flight, 
their  leader  being  strooken  downe  at  the  very  first 
encounter,  whereat  the  footmen  being  wonderfully 
dismayed  and  astonished  at  the  unexpected  manner 
of  the  Englishmen's  kinde  of  such  fierce  and  resolute 
fight,  retj^ed  themselves  with  aU  speed  possible  that 
they  could.' 

We  know  the  story  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  but  too 
well ;  his  cruel  imprisonment,  his  more  cruel  Hbera- 
tion  to  save  his  life  by  accompHshing  the  impossible, 
and  his  most  cruel  execution  on  a  warrant  signed 
fifteen  years  earher.  He  knew  aU  that  is  to  be  known 
of  success  and  failure,  of  Courts  and  treachery,  of 
sea-fights  and  assaults  on  cities,  of  treasure  islands, 
and  tempests,  and  long  marches  in  tangled  forests. 
And  just  because  he  knew  these  things  so  nearly, 
he  has  written  beautiful  verse  in  praise  of  their 
opposites  : — 

'  Heart-tearing  cares  and  quiv'ring  fears, 
Anxious  sighs,  untimely  tears, 

Fly,  fly  to  Courts, 

Fly  to  fond  worldlings'  sports  ; 
Where  strained  sardonic  smiles  are  glosing  still, 
And  Grief  is  forced  to  laugh  against  her  will. 

Where  Mirth's  but  mummery, 

And  sorrows  only  real  be.' 

The  man  who  was  killed  for  not  finding  El  Dorado 
wrote  : — 

'  Go  let  the  diving  negro  seek 
For  gems  hid  in  some  forlorn  creek  ; 


416  ELIZABETHAN  ADVENTURE 

We  all  pearls  scorn, 

But  what  the  dewy  mom 
Congeals  upon  each  little  spire  of  grass, 
Which  careless  Shepherds  beat  down  as  they  pass  ; 

And  gold  ne'er  here  appears, 

Save  what  the  yellow  Ceres  wears.' 

Sir  Walter  sought  his  rest  in  Arcadia  ;  but  he  only 
found  it  on  the  scaffold.  Old  and  racked  with  ague, 
he  mounted  the  steps  easily  ;  for  his  prayer  that  the 
fit  might  not  shake  him  before  his  peers  and  the 
crowd  was  granted.  And  he  made  his  dying  speech 
with  inimitable  grace  and  animation.  Then,  asking 
to  be  shown  the  axe,  '  I  prithee,'  said  he,  '  let  me  see 
it.  Dost  thou  think  I  am  afraid  of  it  ?  '  So  taking 
it  in  his  hand,  he  kissed  the  blade,  and  passing  his 
finger  lightly  along  the  edge,  said  to  the  Sheriff,  '  'Tis 
a  sharp  medicine,  but  a  sound  cure  for  all  diseases.' 
A  few  minutes  later,  when  the  headsman  hesitated, 
he  partially  raised  his  head  from  the  block,  and 
called  aloud  in  the  old  voice  of  command :  '  What 
dost  thou  fear  ?     Strike,  man  ! ' 

I  have  no  space  in  which  to  give  the  accounts  of 
Sir  E/ichard  Grenville's  voyages,  and  the  story  of 
his  death  on  the  Revenge  is  well  known.  But  it  has 
been  something  altered  in  modern  versions  to  suit 
modern  taste.  His  real  reason  for  declining  to  turn 
about  is  given  by  Raleigh  : — '  Sir  Richard  utterly 
refused  to  turn  from  the  enemy,  alleging  that  he 
would  rather  choose  to  die  than  to  dishonour  him- 
seK,  his  country,  and  Her  Majesty's  ship.'  We  must 
take  the  Adventurers  as  they  were.  Sir  Richard 
died  and  doomed  his  ship  and  company,  not  to  save 
the  wounded,  but,  as  Mr.  David  Hannay  makes 
plain,  on  the  point  of  honour.  It  was  his  rule  of  life 
never  to  turn  his  back  on  the  Spaniards,  and  he  saw 


IN  ELIZABETHAN  LITERATURE      417 

no  reason  for  changing  it  when  it  involved  his  death. 
This  appears  from  the  fuU  report  of  his  dying  speech. 
'  Here  die  I,  Richard  Grenville,  with  a  joj^ul  and  a 
quiet  mind,  for  that  I  have  ended  my  life  as  a  good 
soldier  ought  to  do,  who  has  fought  for  his  country, 
Queen,  religion,  and  honour.  Wherefore  my  soul 
joyfully  departeth  out  of  this  body,  and  shall  always 
leave  behind  it  an  everlasting  fame  of  a  true  soldier, 
who  hath  done  his  duty  as  he  was  bound  to  do.  But 
the  others  of  my  company  have  done  as  traitors  and 
dogs,  for  which  they  shall  be  reproached  all  their 
lives,  and  leave  a  shameful  name  for  ever.' 

I  have  left  Sir  Francis  Drake  to  the  last,  and  can 
now  but  touch  upon  him.  He  set  himself  grimly 
down  to  the  work  of  capturing  Spanish  treasure 
ships,  although  England  was  at  peace  with  Spain, 
upon  the  ground,  which  he  held  sufficient,  that  the 
Spaniards  imprisoned  and  executed  Enghshmen. 
That,  and  the  pretence  of  Spain  to  exclusive  dominion 
in  South  America,  seemed  to  him  to  constitute  a 
state  of  war  more  truly  than  of  peace.  He  grasped 
what  Carlyle  calls  '  the  essential  veracity '  of  the 
situation.  So  he  acted  accordingly,  and  became  the 
terror  of  Spain,  the  '  dragon,'  according  to  the 
Spanish  poet,  '  or  old  serpent '  of  the  Apocaljrpse. 
In  Hakluyt  you  catch  a  vivid  glimpse  of  him  on  his 
first  voyage,  cUmbing  a  tree  above  the  jungle  in  order 
to  see  the  Pacific.  And  there  is  the  wonderful  story 
of  his — the  second — circumnavigation  of  the  globe. 
He  sailed  November  15,  1577.  When  he  reached 
Port  St.  JuUan  you  read,  'We  found  a  gibbet 
standing  upon  the  maine,  which  we  supposed  to 
be  the  place  where  Magellan  did  execution  upon 
some  of  his  disobedient  and  rebeUious  company.' 
The  skeleton  had  hung  there  for  more  than  fifty 

2d 


418  ELIZABETHAN  ADVENTURE 

years.  On  the  homeward  track  they  passed  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  you  read,  '  This  Cape  is  a 
most  stately  thing,  and  the  fairest  Cape  we  saw  in 
the  whole  circumference  of  the  earth.  .  .  .  We 
arrived  in  England,'  so  the  record  ends,  '  the  third 
of  November,  1580,  being  the  third  yeere  of  our  de- 
parture.' I  must  omit  with  regret  aU  reference  to  the 
defeat  of  the  Spanish  Armada,  to  which  Drake  con- 
tributed, perhaps,  more  than  any  other.  He  sailed 
for  the  last  time  with  John  Hawkins  in  1595,  and 
both  of  these  great  commanders  died  during  the 
voyage.  Their  deaths  are  simply  recorded  in 
Hakluyt :  '  And  that  night  came  up  to  the  easter- 
most  end  of  S.  John,  where  Sir  John  Hawkins  de- 
parted this  Hfe.'  That,  and  no  more.  And  so,  too, 
with  Drake :  '  On  the  28  at  4  of  the  clocke  in  the 
morning  our  Grenerall  Sir  Francis  Drake  departed  this 
life,  having  beene  extremely  sicke  of  a  fluxe,  which 
began  the  night  before  to  stop  on  him.  He  used 
some  speeches  at  or  a  little  before  his  death,  rising 
and  apparelling  himseKe,  but  being  brought  to  bed 
againe  within  one  houre  died.'  What  would  we  not 
give  for  those  unreported  speeches  !  But  that  is  the 
end. 

Willoughby  had  died  '  congealed  and  frozen '  in 
the  North  some  twenty  years  before,  Raleigh  was 
to  die  on  the  scaffold  some  twenty  years  after,  the 
great  epoch  of  EUzabethan  adventure ;  and  how 
short  that  epoch  was  !  Drake,  Hawkins,  Frobisher, 
GrenviUe,  Humphrey  were  all  dead,  and,  save 
Frobisher,  who  was  carried  on  shore  to  die,  all  were 
sunk  in  shotted  hammocks  beneath  the  seas  they  had 
mastered  within  twenty  years.  The  glorious  life  of 
the  Adventurers  was  crowded  into  the  brief  compass 
of  but  two  decades.     They  set  out  late  in  the  day 


IN  ELIZABETHAN  LITERATURE      419 

with  little  knowledge,  but  with  much  hope  and  with 
boundless  courage.  Their  El  Dorados  vanished  in 
thin  air ;  but  they  founded  the  British  Empire  of 
the  sea.  And  their  names  shall  be  remembered  and 
loved  so  long  as  the  EngUsh  tongue  is  spoken  in 
the  land  they  were  never  to  see  again,  and  in  many 
other  lands  where  it  is  also  spoken,  thanks,  in  the 
first  place,  to  them. 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT 


I 

I 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT 

My  Lord  Provost  and  Gentlemen, — Any  man 
rising  to  propose  '  The  Memory  of  Sir  Walter  Scott ' 
in  any  gathering  must  needs  be  abashed.  Should 
he  keep  to  the  beaten  path,  Charity  herself  could  but 
say  with  Dr.  Johnson  that  his  speech  '  contains  much 
that  is  true  and  trite.'  Should  he  digress  from  the 
obvious.  Justice  must  add  with  the  sage,  '  and  much 
that  is  original  and  ridiculous.'  But  when,  as  now, 
a  speaker  bom  south  of  the  Tweed  stands  confronted 
by  '  The  Edinburgh  Walter  Scott  Club  '  ;  when,  as 
to-night,  your  President,  less  fortunate  in  that 
capacity  than  twelve  of  his  predecessors,  can  claim 
no  bond  of  nativity  with  you  and  the  subject  of 
your  loving  reverence ;  why  then,  gentlemen,  he 
can  only  reflect  that  you  are  wholly  responsible  for 
the  aberration  of  your  choice,  and  claim  acquittal 
for  his  conduct  of  the  case,  '  If  ' — as  Sir  Walter  was 
so  fond  of  quoting — '  If,  so  he  be  in  that  concatena- 
tion accordingly.' 

Not  for  me  the  privileged  nonchalance  of  my 
predecessors  !  Of,  say,  Mr.  Haldane,  with  his  easy 
'  In  this  Our  dining-room,  restrained  from  the 
criticism  of  .  .  .  outsiders,  we  may  let  Ourselves 
go  a  Httle  about  Ourselves.'  From  that  point  of 
view  your  President  is  an  outsider.  But  I  make  no 
apology  for  intrusion.  From  any  other  point  of 
view,  and  there  are  many,  I  may  say  to  you,  with 
Plutarch's  old  soldier  who  found  a  soUtary  freedman 

423 


424  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT 

performing  the  funeral  rites  of  Pompey  the  Great, 
'  O  Friend  .  .  .  thou  shalt  not  have  all  this  honour 
alone  ...  to  bury  the  only  and  most  famous 
captain  of  the  Romans.'  From  any  other  point 
of  view,  I  expostulate  with  Byron : — 

Scotland  !     Still  proudly  claim  thy  native  bard, 
And  be  thy  praise  his  first  and  best  reward, 
Yet  not  with  thee  alone  his  name  should  live. 
But  own  the  vast  renown  a  world  can  give. 

My  concatenation  is  oecumenical.  But  do  not  be 
alarmed.  Of  the  many  points  of  view  from  which  the 
memory  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  may  be  regarded,  I  shall 
occupy  only  three. 

There  is  one,  remote  indeed  from  the  world's 
renown  because  intimate  to  any  man  born  a  Briton, 
which  I  cannot  ignore.  To  the  Briton,  aware  of  his 
natal  prerogatives,  there  are  few  better  than  this : 
that  Walter  Scott  may  be,  first  a  Uving  part  of  his 
childhood,  and  then  the  entertainer  of  his  youth, 
before  he  becomes  the  companion  of  riper  years.  I 
remember  vividly  my  deUght  on  discovering  the 
story  of  Roh  Roy,  when  reading  that  wonderful  book 
for  the  third  time  at  the  age  of  eleven.  The  earUer 
attempts  had  been  breathless  plunges  into  seas  of 
incomprehensible  dialect ;  '  adventures  of  a  diver  ' 
hazarded  to  snatch  the  pearls  of  freebooting.  At 
eleven  I  was  still  rather  shy  of  '  Diana  Vernon.' 
Later  on  I  fell  in  love  with  her,  hke  the  rest  of  you, 
and,  after  further  reperusals,  came  at  last  to  such  an 
appreciation  of  '  Andrew  Fairservice '  as  may  be 
vouchsafed  to  a  Briton  who  is  not  a  Scot. 

But  consider  the  subtle  and  complex  charm  of 
Scott's  novels  to  any  man  who  savours  them  in 
maturity  after  looting  them  as  a  boy ;   to  any  man 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  425 

who  recalls  the  young  companions  with  whom  he 
impersonated  their  characters,  '  all  now,'  m  Scott's 
phrase, '  all  now  sequestered  or  squandered ' — ^working 
at  large  in  the  far  ranges  of  the  Empire,  or  toiling 
each  in  his  tunnel  at  home.  Any  such,  though  bom  a 
generation  after  Scott  died,  can  truly  say  with  Scott's 
friend.  Lady  Louisa  Stuart,  '  They  awaken  in  me 
feelings  I  could  hardly  explain  to  another.  They 
are  to  me  less  like  books  than  Hke  letters  one  treasures 
up,  pleasant  yet  mournful  to  the  soul,  and  I  cannot 
open  one  of  them  without  a  thousand  recollections.' 
That  is  one  point  of  view. 

Yes ;  but  turn  the  page  in  the  Letters  (i.  49)  for 
Scott's  reply  to  his  friend,  and  you  read — in  the 
language  of  courteous  formahty  which  belonged  to 
his  time  and  in  no  way  justifies  the  absurd  charge 
of  undue  deference  to  rank  sometimes  preferred 
against  him — '  I  am  very  glad  your  Ladyship  foimd 
the  tales  in  some  degree  worth  your  notice.  It  cost 
me  a  terrible  effort  to  finish  them,  for  between 
distress  of  mind  and  body  I  was  unfit  for  Hterary 
composition.  But  in  justice  to  my  booksellers  I  was 
obHged  to  dictate  while  I  was  scarce  able  to  speak  for 
pain.'  Thus,  in  the  one  year  1819,  at  the  age  of 
48,  did  Scott  give  to  Scotland  and  the  world,  in  seven 
volumes.  The  Bride  of  Lammermoor,  The  Legend  of 
Montrose,  and  Ivanhoe.  And  thus  he  fought  on  for 
thirteen  more  years,  showering  forth  volumes  each 
one  of  which  was  received  with  ecstasy  by  Europe  ; 
but,  for  himseK,  toiling  and  suffering,  yet  gentle  and 
imdaimted,  through  ruin  due  to  the  fault  of  others, 
through  bereavement,  through  fear — the  only  fear 
he  knew — lest  increasing  illness  should  destroy  that 
magic  faculty  by  which  he  was  determined  to  vindi- 
cate a  chivalrous  point  of  honour  and  to  safeguard 


426  Sm  WALTER  SCOTT 

the  home  on  which  his  human  affections  were  set. 
That,  gentlemen,  is  another  point  of  view.  From  it 
we  may  contemplate,  not  the  story-teUer  who  en- 
tranced our  boyhood,  nor  the  singer  of  Romance, 
nor  the  delineator  of  character,  nor  the  patriot  who 
revealed  Scotland  to  herself  as  another  Normandy 
of  high-born  hearts,  nor  the  essayist,  nor  the  bio- 
grapher, nor  the  captain  in  a  world-wide  Hterary 
movement ;  but  simply,  a  Man  ;  a  man  so  brave,  so 
kind,  so  sensible,  that  he  encourages  our  manhood 
and  knocks  the  nonsense  out  of  us  all. 

What  a  man  !  Think  of  his  magnanimity.  He, 
of  aU  men,  wrote  the  only  generous  criticism  on  the 
Third  Canto  of  Childe  Harold  (1816)  at  a  moment 
when  the  world,  for  reasons,  good,  bad,  and  idiotic, 
united  to  crush  the  rival  who  had  ecHpsed  his  poetic 
fame.  His  criticism  was  generous.  But  it  was 
just.  Generosity  as  a  rule  is  more  true  than  detrac- 
tion. What  can  be  soimder  than  this,  '  Almost  all 
(his)  characters  .  .  .  are  more  or  less  Lord  Byron 
himself,  and  yet  you  never  tire  of  them.  It  is  the 
same  set  of  stormy  emotions  acting  on  the  same 
powerful  mind  ...  it  is  the  same  sea  dashing  on 
the  same  rocks,  yet  presented  to  us  imder  such  a 
variety  of  appearance  that  they  have  all  the  interest 
of  novelty.'  When  Byron  dies  in  1824,  it  is  Scott, 
the  Bayard  without  reproach,  who  writes,  '  I  have 
been  terribly  distressed  at  poor  Bjrron's  death.  Li 
talents  he  was  unequalled,  and  his  faults  were  those 
rather  of  a  bizarre  temper  .  .  .  than  any  depravity 
of  disposition.  He  was  devoid  of  selfishness,  which 
I  take  to  be  the  basest  ingredient  in  the  human 
composition.' 

If  that  was  his  attitude  towards  the  rival  who  had 
beaten  him  in  poetry,  so  was  it  towards  the  partner 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  427 

who  had  ruined  him  in  business.  In  the  shock  of 
the  crash  that  levelled  the  whole  edifice  of  his  hopes, 
he  can  say, '  To  nourish  angry  passions  against  a  man 
whom  I  really  Hked,  would  be  to  lay  a  bUster  on  my 
own  heart.' 

Think  of  his  sterling  sense.  He  liked  an  artist 
to  be  '  a  right  good  John  Bull,  bland  and  honest  and 
open,  without  any  .  .  .  nonsensical  affectation.' 
'  Having  observed,'  he  writes,  '  how  very  unhappy 
hterary  persons  are  made  (not  to  say  ridiculous  into 
the  bargain)  by  pitching  their  thoughts  and  happi- 
ness on  popular  fame,'  I  '  resolved  to  avoid  at  least 
that  error.'  Some  recent  contributors  to  a  Hterary 
correspondence  may  be  pained  to  hear  that  Scott 
cared  for  popularity  only  as  a  means  to  supporting 
his  family  and  paying  twenty  shillings  in  the  poimd. 
For  that  he  would  work  '  at  the  rate  of  £24,000  a 
year,'  checked  only  by  this  saving  reflection — '  but 
then  we  must  not  bake  buns  faster  than  people  have 
appetite  to  eat  them.' 

He  loved  individual  hberty.  No  cobbler,  if  he 
had  his  way,  should  lose  his  stall  to  facilitate  street 
improvements.  That  was  before  the  days  of  the 
London  County  Council. 

But  turn  from  that  to  his  pubHc  patriotism. 
When  things  were  not  going  too  weU  with  our  armies, 
and  Joanna  BailHe  despaired  to  him  of  our  country's 
future  :  '  I  detest  croaking,'  says  he  ;  'if  true,  it  is 
unpatriotic,  and  if  false,  worse.  .  .  .  My  only  am- 
bition,' he  goes  on,  '  is  to  be  remembered,  if  remem- 
bered at  all,  as  one  who  knew  and  valued  national 
independence,  and  would  maintain  it  in  the  present 
struggle  to  the  last  man  and  the  last  guinea,  tho' 
the  last  guinea  were  my  own  property,  and  the  last 
man  my  own  son.' 


428  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT 

The  claims  of  individual  liberty  and  public 
patriotism  have  blinded  some  men  to  the  nicest 
scruples  of  personal  honour.  But  they  never  blinded 
Scott.  '  If,'  he  writes,  '  I  were  capable  in  a  moment 
of  weakness  of  doing  anything  ^short  of  what  my 
honour  demanded,  I  would  die  the  death  of  a  poisoned 
rat  in  a  hole,  out  of  mere  sense  of  my  own  degrada- 
tion.' No  wonder  that  he  fought  on  !  Refusing  a 
touching  offer  of  help  with  the  observation,  '  There 
is  much  good  in  the  world,  after  all.  But  I  will 
involve  no  friend,  either  rich  or  poor.  My  own  right 
hand  shall  do  it.'  It  is  not  as  if  he  hked  labour.  He 
loathed  it.  So  he  recalls  his  '  flourishing  planta- 
tions,' and  exclaims,  ' .  .  .  Barharus  has  segetes,  I 
will  write  my  finger-ends  off  first.' 

The  morning  rays  of  youthful  enterprise  faded  out 
from  the  '  sober  twihght '  in  which  he  laboured.  But 
he  is  never  gloomy.  On  the  contrary,  he  illumines 
his  sohtude  with  beams  of  the  mellowest  humour 
and  flashes  of  dehghtful  wit.  It  is  we  who  are  sad ; 
not  he  ;  haranguing  '  Madam  Duty  '  and  calling  her 
the  plainest  word  in  the  English  language.  And,  as 
Swinburne  has  pointed  out,  now  that  we  have  the 
Journal,  we  need  no  longer  be  sad.  For  we  see  him 
as  he  was,  gay  and  buoyant  to  the  last ;  not  tortured 
by  Fortune,  as  we  thought,  but  rounding  on  the 
fickle  goddess  with  the  merriest  quips,  until  weariness 
and  suffering  wring  from  him  the  first  faltering 
note — '  I  often  wish  I  could  he  down  and  sleep 
without  waking.  But  I  will  fight  it  out,  if  I  can.' 
And  he  just  could.  Death  released  him  in  the 
moment  of  victory.  He  was  wont,  in  his  modesty, 
to  disparage  the  writer  by  comparison  with  the 
soldier.  But  WoHe  did  not  die  more  gloriously  on 
the  Heights  of  Abraham.     And  when  he  died  we  are 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  429 

glad  to  know  that '  every  newspaper  in  Scotland  and 
many  in  England  had  signs  of  mourning  usual  on  the ' 
death  '  of  a  king.'  His  royal  soul  passed  on  its  way 
from  a  sorrowing  nation.  If  there  can  be  an  epic 
in  the  intimate  prose  of  one  man's  private  letters 
and  journal,  the  Jourrval  and  Letters  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott  are  an  epic  of  the  British  home. 

I  have  touched  on  the  redoubled  dehght  which  the 
novels  can  give  to  any  man  who  has  read  them  as  a 
boy.  I  have  dwelt  on  the  part  which  Scott  himself 
played  as  a  man.  He  was  a  great  man.  But  was 
he  a  great  artist  ?  That  is  my  third  point  of 
view.  If  we  are  to  consider  him  fairly  from  that 
point  of  view,  we  must  strip  from  his  works  the 
glamour  reflected  on  them,  both  from  our  own 
early  associations,  and  from  our  present  knowledge 
of  the  personality  which  he  was  at  such  pains  to 
dissemble. 

What  did  he  accomphsh  as  an  artist  ?  What 
effects  of  his  art  endure  ?  We  must  face  these 
questions  in  an  artistic  age,  when  so  few  achieve 
anything  memorable,  and  so  many  assert  that  the 
mighty  dead  lacked  finish.  Scott  'gives  himself 
away'  to  the  apostles  of  precious  sterihty.  Let 
us  make  that  admission.  But  let  us  also  make  the 
corresponding  claim.  He  gives  himseK  away  in 
harvests.  He  was  not,  all  allow,  '  a  barren  rascal,' 
and  we  need  not  review  the  amount  of  his  work. 
But  neither,  all  must  concede,  was  he  a  punctihous 
creator.  '  His  hterary  life '  resembled,  he  teUs  us, 
'  the  natural  Ufe  of  a  savage  ;  absolute  indolence 
interchanged  with  hard  work.'  And  we  know,  again 
from  him,  that  he  cheerfully  ended  the  second 
volume  of  a  novel  without  '  the  shghtest  idea  how 
the  story  was  to  be  woimd  up  to  a  catastrophe.'     In 


430  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT 

what  sense,  then,  was  he  a  great  artist,  or  as  we  hold 
in  this  Club,  one  of  the  greatest  ?  Scott  could  turn 
a  phrase  with  precision  when  he  pleased ;  none 
better.     But  let  us  go  deeper. 

A  great  artist,  interpreting  mankind  to  men,  and 
reconciling  man  to  his  lot,  does  one  of  two  things  ; 
and  the  greatest  do  both.  He  either  bequeathes  a 
vast  completed  monument  to  posterity,  or  else  he 
invents  a  new  method  as  a  guide  to  future  endeavour. 
Scott's  claim  under  the  first  head  is  not  in  dispute. 
Let  us  estabhsh  his  claim  under  the  second  head ; 
his  claim  to  have  invented  a  method  that  was  both 
new  and  dynamic. 

To  do  that  I  will  put  a  competent  and  impartial 
witness  into  the  box.  I  am  too  ignorant  to  be  com- 
petent, too  enamoured  to  be  impartial. 

I  put  Nassau  Senior  into  the  box.  I  have  by  me 
his  reviews  of  the  novels  conveniently  collected  from 
the  Quarterly^  and  bound  in  one  volume.  To  read 
them  is  to  look  back  at  the  immediate  impression 
made  by  the  novels  on  a  critic,  competent,  impartial, 
even  I  may  say  hostile.  Senior,  educated  at  Eton, 
and  distinguished  at  Oxford,  belongs,  in  terms  of  the 
conflict  between  '  Classics  and  Romantics,'  distinctly 
to  the  Classical  tradition,  and  is  apt  enough  to  be- 
have '  in  that  concatenation  accordingly.'  He  writes 
in  1821,  seven  years  after  Waverley  was  pubUshed, 
still  in  ignorance  of  its  authorship  so  complete,  that 
he  notes  an  heraldic  error  committed  by  the  '  un- 
known '  in  Ivanhoe,  and,  turning  to  Marmion, 
wonders  at  the  coincidence  of  '  a  similar  mistake  in 
his  great  rival.  Sir  Walter  Scott.'  And  this  is  what 
he  says — or  rather  what  '  we '  say,  for  he  never 
relaxes  the  august  plural  of  Gifford's  critical  engine : — 
'  We  shall  never  forget  the  disappointment  and  hst- 


•%, 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  431 

lessness  with  which  in  the  middle  of  a  watering-place 
long   vacation    We   tumbled    a   new,    xmtalked-of, 
anonymous  novel  out  of  the  box  which  came  to  Us 
from  Our  faithless  Hbrarian,  filled  with  substitutes 
for  everything  We  had  ordered.  .  .  .  We  opened  it, 
at   hazard,  in    the    second   volume,    and  instantly 
found  Ourselves,  with  as  much  surprise  as  Waverley 
...  in  the  centre  of  the  ChevaUer's  court.     Little 
did  We  suspect  while  we  wondered  who  this  Hterary 
giant  might  be,  that  seven  years  after.  We  should 
be  reviewing  so  many  more  of  his  volumes.'     Senior 
looks  back  once  again,  in  1824,  to  the  wonderful  day 
on  which  he  first  read  Waverley  in  the  seaside  lodging- 
house,  '  Httle  aware  that  the  work  which  was  dehght- 
ing  us  was  to  form  an  epoch  in  the  Hterary  history 
of  the  world.'     My  hostile  Classical  witness  gives 
abundant  testimony  to  the  novelty  and  force  of 
Scott's  art. 

Its  immediate  effect  was  no  less  evident  to  all  non- 
critical  contemporaries.  A  Hungarian  tradesman 
pointed  out  the  bust  of  '  le  sieur  Valtere  Skote '  as 
the  portrait  of  '  I'homme  le  plus  celebre  en  I'Europe.' 
Dr.  Walsh,  travelling  from  Constantinople  to 
England,  found  the  fame  of  Scott's  works  at  every 
stage  from  the  frontier  of  Christendom.  But  let 
us  consider  the  moment  at  which  Scott  produced 
this  effect. 

It  was  in  1814,  the  year  of  the  Congress  of  Vienna, 
that  Scott,  'rummaging  in  the  drawers  of  an  old 
cabinet,'  found  the  mislaid  MS.  of  Waverley,  and 
'  took  the  fancy  of  finishing  it.'  He  did  finish  the 
last  two  volumes  in  the  course  of  three  summer 
weeks,  and  writes,  '  I  had  a  great  deal  of  fun  in  the 
accomplishment  of  this  task,  though  I  do  not  expect 
that  it  will  be  popular  in  the  South,  as  much  of  the 


432  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT 

humour,  if  there  be  any,  is  local,  and  some  of  it  even 
professional.'  Yet  it  is  odds  to-day  that  the  name 
of  Waverley  is  famihar  to  as  many  as  the  names  of 
Castlereagh  or  Metternich. 

Scott  produced  this  effect  at  the  chmax  of  a  series 
of  poUtical  convulsions  which  had  wracked  the  diplo- 
macy and  shattered  the  armies  of  Europe.  Blood 
enough  had  been  spilled.  And  now  ink  was  to  be 
spilled.  For  that  one  book  did  more  than  any  other 
to  precipitate  the  controversy  between  Classics  and 
Romantics.  And  Scott  did  more  than  any  other 
writer  to  give  impulse  and  area  to  the  Romantic 
School. 

By  what  method,  we  may  ask,  did  he  make  the 
Chevaher  interesting  in  1814  not  only  to  Senior,  my 
Classical  witness,  but  to  nations  who  knew  nothing 
of  Scottish  manners,  and  cared  Httle  enough,  I 
dare  say,  for  an  abortive  effort  to  retrieve  one  lost 
crown,  prosecuted  in  an  age  almost  forgotten  by 
men  who  had  seen  the  crowns  of  all  Europe  redis- 
tributed, by  the  Revolution,  by  Napoleon,  and  the 
Congress  ? 

Let  us  look  at  his  method.  Waverley,  Guy  Manner- 
ing,  RedgaunUet  are  written,  as  Scott  himself  teUs  us, 
round  the  professional  knowledge  of  a  lawyer  with 
a  predilection  for  lawlessness.  Their  origins  are  of 
the  driest.  Never  did  such  irritating  grains  of  sand 
excite  the  production  of  such  pearls.  These  cannot 
be  accidents  of  Scott's  temperament  and  vocation. 
We  cannot  explain  him  as  a  hterary  oyster.  Indeed, 
the  image  is  inadequate.  They  are  not  pearls,  but, 
rather,  gems  bespeaking  design.  Senior  tries  to 
explain  the  method  of  their  execution.  He  addresses 
himself  to  a  new  harmony  in  Mterature,  and  seeks  to 
account  for  its  charm.     He  notes  that  tile  author 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  433 

of  Waverley  painted  two  classes :  beggars  and 
gipsies,  sovereigns  and  their  favourites,  '  the  very 
lowest  and  the  very  highest  ranks  of  society,'  better 
'  than  that  rank  to  which  he  must  himseK  belong.' 
And  asks  how  the  author  came  to  copy  more  correctly 
what  he  knew  imperfectly,  than  what  he  knew  well  ? 
After  canvassing  the  question,  backwards  and  for- 
wards, he  concludes  that  portraits  partly  imagined 
may  be  more  true  than  portraits  wholly  observed  ; 
and  so  affirms  that  Scott,  by  employing  both  imagina- 
tion and  observation  in  conjunction,  had  indeed 
discovered  a  new  method  which  saved  him  from  two 
dangers  :  the  danger  '  of  losing  general  resemblance 
in  too  close  a  copy  of  individuals  with  whom  he  was 
intimate,'  and  the  further  danger  '  of  introducing 
effort  .  .  .  over-colouring  and  caricature  ...  in  his 
endeavour  to  render  striking  .  .  .  representations 
of  the  well  known.'  Now  those  are  the  errors  of 
Realism.  Senior  saw  that  it  was  a  mistake,  by 
focussing  the  obvious,  to  beUe  general  experience 
widely  imagined ;  and  a  greater  mistake  to  make 
the  obvious  grotesque  in  order  to  redeem  it  from 
dulness. 

Scott  avoided  these  two  errors  to  which  realism 
is  prone.  But  he  did  far  more,  which  was  not 
apparent  to  a  Classic  making  reluctant  concessions 
to  a  Romantic.  Senior  gets  at  half  the  truth  of 
Scott's  new  departure,  but  only  at  half. 

In  order  to  get  at  the  whole  truth ;  in  order  to 
understand  the  magnitude  of  Scott's  innovation,  we 
must  consider  the  condition  of  hterature  at  the 
moment  when  he  rummaged  in  the  drawers  of  that 
old  cabinet. 

Scott's  complete  achievement  is  still  obscured  to 
us  by  the  conflict  between  Classics  and  Romantics. 

2e 


434  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT 

Nor  is  that  strange.  The  din  and  dust  of  the  con- 
flict puzzled  even  the  protagonists  engaged  in  it. 
You  have  Goethe  declaring  '  The  Classic  is  health, 
the  Romantic  disease.'  And  you  have  Victor  Hugo, 
dubbed,  like  Scott,  a  leader  of  the  Romantics, 
denying  the  existence  of  the  conflict  and  even  the 
meaning  of  the  terms.  Hugo  asserts,  in  1824,  that 
the  two  battle-cries — les  deux  mots  de  guerre — ^have 
no  meaning  unless,  indeed,  '  Classic '  meant  only 
literature  of  an  earher  epoch,  and  Romantic  only 
literature  that  had  developed  with  the  nineteenth 
century. 

But  that  will  not  do.  The  romantic  movement, 
and  the  conflict,  were  each  of  them  real  enough.  And 
two  quaUfications  must  be  added.  In  the  first  place, 
the  romantic  movement  derived  from  a  date  far 
anterior  to  1800,  from  Macpherson's  Ossian  (1761-63), 
Walpole's  Castle  ofOtranto  (1764),  and  Bishop  Percy's 
Beliques  (1765).  The  movement  then  migrated  to 
Germany,  and  became  fantastic.  It  returned  to 
Britain  and  became  gruesome.  In  the  second  place, 
the  conflict  was  not  a  straight  issue  between  Classics 
and  Romantics.  That  is  why  Hugo  and  others 
misunderstood  what  they  were  fighting  about. 
The  conflict  was  more  truly  a  triangular  turmoil 
between  Classics,  Romantics,  and  Reahsts.  It  was 
launched  by  Classics  on  the  monstrous  developments 
to  which  romantic  and  reaUstic  methods  had  been 
pushed.  The  Classics  were  making  reprisals  on  both, 
and  Scott  defeated  those  reprisals  by  combining 
the  two. 

Romance  founded  on  imagination,  and  Realism 
founded  on  observation,  are  the  primary  methods 
by  which  the  mind  seeks  to  express  tiie  need  of  the 
heart.     The  classic  method  is  a  secondary  mode. 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  435 

It  can  be,  and  had  been,  applied  alike  to  the  Romantic 
and  the  ReaHstic.  Throughout  the  eighteenth 
century  the  classic  mode  had  selected  and  poHshed 
until  the  element  of  wonder  had  disappeared  from 
literature's  image  of  hie.  The  romantic  image, 
classically  treated,  had  become,  as  it  were,  a  statue 
in  a  nobleman's  park.  The  reahstic  image,  classi- 
cally treated,  had  become,  as  it  were,  any  party  of 
nobodies — 'buddies,'  I  think,  you  call  them  in 
Scotland — seated  round  a  table,  and  applying 
deUcate  seismometers  to  every  tremor,  however 
faint,  with  which  the  heart  responds  to  any  fact, 
however  trivial.  This  was  too  dull ;  yes,  and  too 
false  to  life,  in  which  wonder  is  the  most  constant 
element.  After  smoothing  the  romantic  into  the 
inane,  it  had  to  be  galvanised  into  the  diaboUc.  After 
sweetening  the  reahstic  with  sentiment,  it  had  to  be 
salted  with  satire.  The  passion  for  wonder  revived, 
and  was  gratified.  It  was  indulged  till  the  Romantic 
School,  developing  into  the  School  of  Horror,  turned 
their  statue  into  a  hobgobhn ;  and  the  Reahstic 
School,  developing  into  a  School  of  Scandal,  turned 
their  '  nobodies '  into  high-tobymen  and  demi-reps. 
Each  tried  to  tickle  or  shock.  The  romance  of 
Ossian  was  exaggerated  to  the  gruesome  by  Monk 
Lewis.  The  reahsm  of  Defoe  was  spiced  to  the 
satirical ;  dehghtfully  by  the  incomparable  Jane 
Austen,  and  outrageously  by  ruder  hands.  Peacock, 
whose  Maid  Marian  appeared  in  1819  with  Ivanhoe, 
combines  both  extravagances  in  the  satirical- 
fantastic. 

It  is  here  that  Scott  intervenes  with  momentous 
effect  and  enduring  results.  He  eschewed,  as  Senior 
noted,  the  excesses  of  the  Reahsts.  But  he  also 
eschewed  the  excesses  of  the  Romantics.     He  re- 


436  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT 

jected  the  fantastic  from  romance,  and  the  cynical 
from  reaUsm.  His  huge  performance  was  to  hark 
back  to  the  first  springs  of  each,  at  the  moment  when 
the  Classics  declared  war  on  the  enormities  to  which 
both  were  committed. 

Scott  stepped  back — so  to  say — to  embrace  a 
wider  panorama  of  humanity  and,  from  a  position 
of  artistic  detachment,  painted  what  he  saw,  tinged 
by  the  aerial  perspective  of  wonder.  His  image  of 
life  is  the  '  verissima,  dulcissima  imago  '  ;  true,  but 
not  trite  ;  sweet,  but  not  false  ;  wonderful,  but  not 
inhuman.  He  made  an  epoch  in  Hterature  by 
creating  romantic-realism ;  by  clothing  actuaUty 
with  atmosphere  ;  by  striking  a  richer  chord  from 
notes  of  human  experience,  which  till  then  had  been 
sounded  singly. 

No  doubt  he  was  lucky — ^Uke  all  conquerors.  He 
happened  to  have  loved  the  old  romantic  poetry,  and 
imitated  it  admirably  in  his  early  poems.  He 
happened  to  have  luiderstood  the  new  reaUstic 
prose,  and  explained  Defoe's  method  in  his  famous 
analysis  of  Mrs.  Veal's  apparition  '  the  next  day  after 
her  death.'  So,  in  1814,  he  trained  the  two  into  one 
channel,  and  drew  ojff  their  united  power  from  the 
welter  of  hterary  cross-currents.  He  produced  a 
pure  stream  of  Hterary  energy.  And  that  stream 
flowed  for  fifty  years  and  more,  turning  the  mills  of 
many  movements  even  outside  hterature ;  of  the 
Oxford  movement  in  reUgion ;  the  Young  England 
movement  in  poHtics,  and  the  Morris-Rossetti  move- 
ment in  art. 

His  achievement  as  an  artist  is  that  he  appealed 
to  the  general  feelings  of  mankind  by  truth,  wonder, 
and  charm. 

Perhaps  his  strangest  charm  is  woven  by  his  un- 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  437 

expected  reconciliations — of  the  lawyer  and  outlaw, 
of  the  servant  and  master,  of  the  Jacobite  and 
Hanoverian,  of  Scotland  and  England,  of  'Time 
long  past '  and  '  To-day.' 

By  these  reconciHations,  by  searching  for  hidden 
chords  of  human  experience,  he  feels  his  way  to  the 
supreme  reconcihation  of  man  to  man's  destiny. 
That  is  the  work,  often  imconscious,  of  great  masters. 
But  for  their  magical  counterpoint  the  present  would 
be  all  to  each  of  us  ;  '  an  apex,'  Pater  calls  it,  '  be- 
tween two  hypothetical  eternities '  ;  a  naked  note, 
so  poignant  that  it  pierces.  As  Landor  puts  it,  '  The 
present,  Hke  a  note  of  music,  is  nothing  but  as  it 
appertains  to  what  is  past  and  what  is  to  come.' 
But  how  few  among  writers,  classic,  romantic,  or 
reahstic,  have  shown  this  by  their  art.  Walter  Scott 
is  of  those  few.  He  extracted  secrets  from  obhvion 
to  endow  what  is  with  the  mystery  of  what  has 
been  ;  and,  so,  puts  us  in  case  to  expect  the  future. 
He  strikes  a  full  chord  upon  the  keys  of  time.  It  is 
only  the  greatest  musicians  of  humanity,  who  thus 
exalt  the  present  by  fealty  to  the  past,  and  make  it 
a  herald  of  eternal  harmonies. 

He  leads  us  through  the  maze  of  time  and  seems 
to  hold  a  clue.  We  wander  with  him,  and  we  wonder 
with  him,  till  we  believe  with  him  that  the  labyrinth 
of  man's  fate  must  lead  some  whither  worth  our 
seeking. 

And  he  made  light  of  all  this.  But  for  necessity 
that  clamped  him  to  the  desk  till  his  pen  dropped 
from  a  dying  hand,  he  would  have  bade  farewell 
to  his  task  with  a  Sidney's 

Splendidis  longum  valedico  nugia. 
Yet  his  radiant  trifles  are  the  regaUa  of  his  native 


i 


438  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT 

land,  and  symbols  of  a  suzerainty  that  still  influences 
the  Hterature  of  Europe.  That  is  much.  But  there 
is  more.  His  worth  as  a  man  excels  his  work  as  an 
author.  It  is  an  example  of  valour  to  all  men,  in 
all  lands,  for  ever. 


Printed  by  T.  and  A.  Constablb,  Printers  to  His  Majesty 
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