REV. GANG
m
3TSTEPS OF SHAKSPERR;
OB
RAMBLE WITH THE EARLY DRAMATISTS,
CONTAINING
MUCH NEW AND INTERESTING INFORMATION
RESPECTING
SHAKSPERE, LYLY, MARLOWE, GREENE,
lf AND OTHERS.
LONDON:
JOHN RUSSELL SMITH,
36, SOHO SQUARE.
M.PCCC.LXII.
*c What a piece of work is man ! how noble in
in faculty ! in form and moving, how express and
how like an angel ! in apprehension, how like a gc
world ! the paragon of animals ! "
^ unconsciously
A151
637
" In Hamlet he seems to have wished to exemplify the m<(>r
sity of a due balance between our attention to the objects of qu
and our meditation on the workings of our minds, an equilim
tween the real and the imaginary worlds. In Hamlet thi^'
disturbed ; his thoughts and the images of his fancy are far .
than his actual perceptions, and his very perceptions, instant^
through the medium of his contemplations, acquire, as they pas
and a colour, not naturally their own. Hence we see a great, n
enormous intellectual activity, and a proportional aversir n
action, consequent upon it, with all its symptoms and ac< on
qualities. This character Shakspere places in circumi stance
which it is obliged to act on the spur of the momer* : — H
brave and careless of death ; but he vacillates from sens bility,
crastinates from thought, and loses the power of actio .1 in th
•of resolve."
Coleridge, unconsciously descri ling h,
TO
THE GHOST OF APOLLO,
3 S E SONS, POETICAL OR MEDICAL,
ARE MOST CANTANKEROUS FELLOWS,
A MOST SWEET DISCORD.
being acquainted with any parties critically
sant with Elizabethan literature, I am urged by a
)f duty, like Nelson, or rather with the devotion
urtius, to publish these discoveries, be they true
iginary; I have no theories to defend, and can
subscribe to the words of the Reverend Mr.
:' I have anywhere used the unbecoming language
olute certainty, or assumed the unauthorized tone
tation to others, — I would plead, in bar of judg-
i he difficulty of conveying the result of one's own
ction, [and without conviction, such an essay were
jui] >ertinence not to be excused] without either
iriiig ^)ver-confident, or employing such a multi-
y w£t]vords and forms of deprecation as would
;uaiD IJnount to a worse abuse of the Liberty of
Pre ANT l^hat I think I have arrived at a true
ion A Sfcppearance ^n print is sufficient evidence."
ben 7ision; Shakspere Society.
IV
I would also gladly join the reverend gentleman in
the following request, " I shall be deeply oblige^ '
one who will kindly set me right;" but, oh v
fond idea, how precious green ! — nothing can *,
rabid thirst for revenge, nothing can mol
wounded prejudices of a Shaksperian critic ;—
prophetic soul ! I see myself rushing, like Ca
into the house of destruction, into a den of mi
like France's England, a hotbed of assassins ; —
Woe's me, woe's me ; Apollo, oh, Apollo !
Save me from their knives and tomahawks ;
Save me from these critical savages.
Oh, Apollo !
God " of physicke and of poesie,"
Give me — thy blessing.
that hath saved thy life, says Marlowe ;* and so say all
my critics, kindness and forgiveness beaming in their
celestial visages ; or as a pilgrim at a higher shrine than
Apollo's hath sung : —
" But mercy is above this scepter'd sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself ;
And critic's power doth then show likest God'i:
When mercy seasons justice."
* Vide Annotation, page 27.
CONTENTS.
WAS SHAB SPERE A LAWYER'S CLERK ? 1
SHAKSPERH'S LATIN 9
WHAT WAS SHAKSPERE'S OCCUPATION BEFORE GOING
TO LONDON? 13
ANNOTATIONS 14
HAMLET .)....> , .... 34
SHAKSPERITS GREEK 77
HAMLET, IpiRON, &c 87
LYLY'S E^DYMION 91
ALL'S WBLL THAT ENDS WELL 99
LYLY'S sA.PHO AND PHAO, CAMPASPE, GALLATHEA . 101
LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST 103
LYLY'S MJIDAS 105.
PERICLES 115
SPENSER, HENRY VI., ROMEO AND JULIET . . . .118
MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR 124
THOMASI'NASH 133
CHRISTOJPHER MARLOWE 138
ROBERT (GREENE 146
THE SONNETS 154
MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 159
EDWARD III 175
MERCHANT OF VENICE, TAMING OF THE SHREW, TAMING
OF A SHREW, KING JOHN, HENRY V. . . .179
THE
FOOTSTEPS OF SHAKSPERE.
DN reading in January, 1859, a paragraph in a news
paper, that Lord Campbell was about publishing some
remarks on Shakspere's Legal Acquirements, it struck
me, as an interesting occupation for a leisure hour, to
examine into the subject beforehand, and see how far
my own opinions might coincide with those of the
Judge. As it is believed by some, though dis-
by others, that Shakspere, before going to
i, was for several years a lawyer's clerk at Strat-
may be presumed, if such were the case, his
iraseology and imagery would be most abundant
;arlier plays ; and I cannot give the result of my
;ation more concisely and distinctly, than by
ating on a few extracts from his Lordship's
e great difficulty is to discover, or to conjecture,
3asonable probability, how Shakspere was em-
from about 1579, when he most likely left school,
ait 1586, when he is supposed to have gone to
i."
Shakspere' s actual occupations during these im-
B
2 THE FOOTSTEPS
portant years, when his character was formed, there is
not a scintilla of contemporary proof."
" An attorney's clerk/' — " first suggested by Chalmers
and since countenanced by Malone, yourself, &c.," "but
impugned by nearly an equal number of biographers
and critics of almost equal authority.'-1
(C We should only have to recollect the maxim, that
the vessel long retains the flavour with which it has been
once imbued."
" In Two Gentlemen of Verona, Pericles of Tyre,
and Titus Andronicus, &c. in fourteen of the thirty- seven
dramas generally attributed to Shakspere, — I find nothing
that fairly bears upon this controversy."
It may here be remarked, that no "flavour " in the
first three plays ought to be considered, according to
Lord Campbell's own showing, strong presumptive evi
dence, Shakspere could not have been a lawyer's clerk
at Stratford.
But let us see what law phrases and allusions are to
be found in these plays : —
Thaliard. " For if a king bid a man be a villain, he is
bound by the indenture of his oath to be one." —
Pericles, act i., scene 3.
2nd. lish. "Help, master, help; here's a fish hangs in
the net, like a poor man's right in the law ; 'twill hardly come
out." — Pericles., act ii., scene 1.
Prot. " That they are out by lease."—-
Two Gentlemen of Verona, act v., scene 2.
Tit. " I did my lord, yet let me be their bail to answer
their suspicion." — Titus Andronicus, act ii., scene 4.
If there be any more law-phrases in these three plays,
they are so few and trivial as to have escaped observation.
OF SHAKSPERE.
3
We will now proceed to another extract from his
Lordship's book : —
" Hamlet. In this tragedy various expressions and allusions
crop out, showing the substratum of law in the author's mind,"
" Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee"
and,
" Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week."
" this passage has been quoted by Judges on the bench
as an authority upon the press-gang, and upon the de
bated question whether shipwrights as well as common
sea-men are liable to be pressed into the service of the
royal navy/'
" The discussion as to whether Ophelia was entitled
to Christian burial, proves that Shakspere had read and
studied Plowden's Report of the celebrated case of Hales
v. Petit, tried in the reign of Philip and Mary, and that
he intended to ridicule the counsel who argued, and the
Judges who decided it. Upon an inquisition before the
Coroner, a verdict of felo de se was returned. Under
this finding, his body was to be buried in a cross-road,
with a stake thrust through it, and all his goods were
forfeited to the crown."
" Hamlet's own speech, &c., abounds with lawyer-like
thoughts and words."
The having " studied Plowden's Report and the ridi
culing of the counsel and of the Judges " no more proves
Shakspere to have been a lawyer's clerk, than that a
novelist, who ridicules the contradictory evidence of
medical men in a case of poisoning, must necessarily
have been an apothecary's apprentice. I shall here
4 THE FOOTSTEPS
give Hamlet's speech according to the first edition,, 1603,
as being more suitable to the present inquiry : —
Ham. Look you, there's another Horatio,
Why mai't not be the skull of some lawyer ?
Methinks he should indite that fellow
Of an action of Batterie, for knocking
Him about the pate with's shovel, now where is your
Quirkes and quillets now, your vouchers and
Double vouchers, your leases and free-holde,
And tenements ? why that same boxe there will scarce
Holde the conveiance of his land, and must
The honor lie there ? O pittiful transformance !
I prethee tell me Horatio,
. Is parchment made of sheep-skinnes ?
Hor. I my Lorde, and of calves-skinnes too.
Ham. I faith they prove themselves sheepe and calves
That deale with them, or put their trust in them."
It may here be objected, this speech proves too
much for the advocates of the attorney's office ; the
writer must have been a practised lawyer, or else, student-
like, he picked the various terms and phrases out of a
book, and so concocted the speech. As there is scarcely
an atom of law in the three preceding plays, it is con
trary to all probability Shakspere should have " bottled
up " his law for three whole years, and then suddenly
burst out, like Minerva from Jupiter's head, a full-blown
lawyer.
Let us examine the chronology of the first six plays ;
Pericles, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Titus Androni-
cus, are acknowledged to be the first three. Hamlet
was certainly in existence in 1589, and most probably
written in '88; in act fifth, scene first, Hamlet says,
" By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken
OF SHAKSPERE. 5
note of it ; the age is grown so picked, that the toe of
the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he
galls his kibe;" and again, "For O, for O, the hobby
horse is forgot. 9> Now in Love's Labour's Lost is the
following passage : —
Arm. How hast thou purchased this experience ?
Moth. By my penny of observation.
Arm. But 0,— but 0.—
Moth. — the hobby horse is forgot.
Act iii., scene 1.
It is therefore evident, these two plays were intimately
connected together in the poet's mind, and must have
been produced about the same time. That the comedy
followed the tragedy, may be inferred from its containing
an allusion to Bank's dancing horse, exhibited in London
in 1589.
As the Comedy of Errors contains an allusion to the
civil contests in France, which followed upon the assas
sination of Henry III, in August, 1589, it was most
probably written after Love's Labour's Lost. In this
latter play we find there is a sprinkling of law, but
in the Comedg of Errors the poet luxuriates, riots in
legal jokes and quibbles, like a whale off Wick gambol
ling amongst the herrings, " very like a whale."
As all the other plays, the Poems as well as the Son
nets* were written at a later period, it is unnecessary to
refer to them. We may therefore sum up : — there is
not in the first three plays a scintilla of evidence, that
Shakspere had been a lawyer's clerk ; in the fourth and
* I have proved clearly and concisely, that the Sonnets extend over
the period from 1591 to 1596, vide The Sonnets of Shafrspere, re
arranged. London, J. Russell Smith, 1859.
O THE FOOTSTEPS
fifth, Hamlet and Love's Labour's Lost, there is sufficient
to justify the supposition ; but in the last,, the Comedy
of Errors, he rejoices in " the professional jokes of the
attorney's office in great abundance." Such circum
stantial evidence forces upon us the conviction, Shaks-
pere commenced the study of the law after he went to
London, and probably only a few months previous to
the composition of Hamlet ; and it may be added, not
only Hamlet's speech, but all the knowledge he displayed
of the law in these three plays, leads to the inference
that he first took to the study thereof, not merely from
his love of universal knowledge, but also "profession
ally," as it furnished not only instructive matter, but
food in abundance for jokes and quibbles to please the
million.
Having now made a searching examination into the
first six plays, we are better enabled to judge what value
should be set on a certain celebrated Epistle ; vide Lord
Campbell's book, p. 26 :—
" An Epistle to the Gentlemen Students of the Two
Universities, by Thomas Nash," prefixed to the first
edition of Robert Greene's Menaphon, in 1589. The
alleged libel on Shakspere is in the words following : —
" I will turn back to my first text of studies of delight,
and talk a little in friendship with a few of our trivial
translators. It is a common practice now-a-days,
amongst a sort of shifting companions that run thro'
every art, and thrive by none, to leave the trade of Nove-
rint, whereto they were born, and busy themselves with
the endeavours of art, that could scarcely Latinize their
neck- verse if they should have need ; yet English Seneca,
OF SHAKSPERE. 7
read by candle light, yields many good sentences, as
blood is a beggar, and so forth ; and if you intreat him
fair, in a frosty morning, he will afford you whole
Hamlets; I should say handfuls of tragical speeches.
But O grief! Tempus edax rerum — what is that will
always last ? The sea exhaled by drops will in continu
ance be dry ; and Seneca, let blood, line by line, and
page by page, at length must needs die to our stage."
Presuming that this epistle is a personal attack on
Shakspere, we know, the great " endeavour of art " in
such writings is so to word the article, that it shall read
at the first glance complimentary, and yet be full of
spiteful and offensive allusions; the writer also shows
still greater skill, if he can season it with a few lies,
having an air of truth. This epistle is a masterpiece of
the kind ; for one set of critics contend it does not refer
to Shakspere personally ; that Nash alludes only to
playwrights, who busy themselves with the endeavour
of art in adopting sentences from Seneca so as to rival
whole Hamlets in tragical speeches ; — evidently compli
mentary. But others consider Shakspere is the party
alluded to, and hence arose the supposition he had been
a lawyer's clerk.
Nash may have been misled by Hamlet's apparently
intimate knowledge of the law ; and yet as the public
might naturally suppose the author had been brought
up to the law, the assertion may have been an inten
tional falsehood ; but it was a master-stroke to insinuate
the tragical speeches were, purloined from an English
Seneca; and the sneer about not being able to " Latinize
his neck-verse if it should be needful " must have had a
8 THE FOOTSTEPS
telling effect upon the Gentlemen Students of the two
Universities.
As this epistle is thus evidently written with the most
cunning malevolence, we are no more justified in be
lieving, on its authority, Shakspere had been a lawyer's
clerk, than that the tragical speeches are purloined from
Seneca, and that he could not, at this time, 1589, Lati
nize his neck-verse. It is gratifying to find these views
corroborated by the concluding remarks of the learned
Judge ; — " But, my dear Mr. Payne Collier, — still I
must warn you, that I myself remain rather sceptical ;
their statement that he had belonged to the profession
of the law may be as false as that he was a plagiarist
from Seneca. Nash and Robert Greene may have in
vented it or repeated it on some groundless rumour/'
I have no doubt that Nash is Guildenstern or Rosen-
crantz, and Greene the other; for we cannot suppose
the latter would have allowed Nash to prefix such an
epistle to Menaphon, unless he also had had a quarrel
with Shakspere. This epistle is the retort courteous to
our gentle Willy ; it is highly interesting to see the
infant Hercules in the very struggles of his contest with
the two serpents, " whom I will trust, as I will adders
fanged;" the one on this occasion, hissed, gnashed, and
showed his fangs; the other in 1592, spat his venom
out and died; — it is worthy of note, that in neither
instance is there a word against Shakspere's private
character.
OF SHAKSPERE. 9
There is every reason to believe, that Shakspere, on
going to London, was extremely deficient in a know
ledge of Latin. Jonson says, "he had small Latin
and less Greek "; and it is very remarkable, in the
first two plays the classical allusions are few and trivial,
the ordinary stock of a school boy ; in Pericles, Jove,
Juno, Diana, Cynthia, Neptune; Lucina and JEscu-
lapius have the flavour of the doctor's shop ; in the Two
Gentlemen of Verona, the Hellespont, Elysium, Hero's
tower and bold Leander, Phaeton, and Orpheus ;
" Madam, 'twas Ariadne passioning
For Theseus' perjury, and unjust flight,"
perhaps denotes, he had already commenced his studies.
But Titus Andronicus is a Koman play, and in all pro
bability selected for the special purpose of showing off
his classical acquirements ; and it should be noticed,
this classical ornamentation is taken entirely from the
JEtnied and Ovid's Metamorphoses. There is also such a
marked distinction in this play from the others in style,
that Hallam says, ( ' it is not Shakspere's in any sense ";
but that does not at all follow ; there is a similar dif
ference between the Venus and Adonis and the Lucrece,
altho' only one year elapsed between them. It may be
reasonably conjectured, that Titus Andronicus is a more
laboured production ; that our poet having produced the
best comedy, made an ambitious effort to surpass his
rivals in the higher and sublimer regions of tragedy;
that a young and comparatively uneducated poet should
in his twenty-third year mistake the blood and murder,
the horrors of the barbarian school for the true sublime,
is not to be wondered at ; especially when we reflect,
10 THE FOOTSTEPS
that for two centuries the master-pieces of the human
intellect have been regarded, not only by foreigners but
by his own countrymen, as the productions of a wild
and irregular genius, deficient in judgment and taste.
But now it is advanced, that Plato and Socrates had
prefigured in their minds the plays of Shakspere as the
highest form of the drama, and truest to nature : —
" It is truly singular/' says Coleridge, " that Plato,
genuine prophet and anticipator as he was of the
Protestant Christian Era, should have given in his
Dialogue of the Banquet, a justification of our Shakspere;
for he relates that, when all the other guests had either
dispersed or fallen asleep, Socrates only, together with
Aristophanes and Agathon, remained awake ; and that,
while he continued to drink with them out of a large
goblet, he compelled them, tho' most reluctantly, to
admit that it was the business of one and the same
genius to excel in tragic and comic poetry, or that the
tragic poet ought, at the same time, to contain within
himself the powers of comedy," Remains, vol. xi., p. 12 ;
and further on he writes, p. 63, " I own I am proud
that I was the first in time who publicly demonstrated
to the full extent of the position, that the supposed
irregularity and extravagancies of Shakspere were the
mere dreams of a pedantry that arraigned the eagle
because it had not the dimensions of the swan ; — the
judgment of Shakspere is commensurate with his
genius."
It may then be taken for granted, that Skakspere on
going to London and being thrown into the society of
University men, felt conscious, perhaps galled and
OF SHAKSPERE. 11
ashamed, of his deficiencies in classical literature ; that
he spent some time in a diligent application to those
studies, and acquired the power of reading the Latin
authors with facility. Latin composition, verses, and
discourses, he probably regarded as sheer pedantry,
dilettantism, a lamentable waste of useful time; as
Biron says : —
" Small have continual plodders ever won,
Save base authority from others' books;"
in Hamlet he says, Seneca is heavy and Plautus light,
and gives in the character of Laertes a sly rap at the
University man, who could only express his grief for
his sister's loss by calling on Pelion and Olympus to fall
upon him; his classical knowledge, or at least the
display thereof, culminates in Love's Labour's Lost-,
although it again bursts forth in the first part of Henry
VI, probably in consequence of Nash's spiteful epistle.
It has been said, that in the Two Gentlemen of
Verona we see " the germ of other plays, or rather, the
germ of some other of his most admired characters," so
it may be said, that in Titus Andronicus we see the
classical allusions of future works; — apart from the
beautiful passages quoted by Mr. Knight in his valuable
Notice on the Authenticity of Titus Andronicus, the
following extracts may be adduced as not only additional
evidence that Shakspere was the author, but that he
also wrote the play, Dido and ^Eneas, referred to in
Hamlet : —
" To bid ^Eneas tell the tale twice o'er,
How Troy was burnt, and he made miserable ? "
12 THE FOOTSTEPS
" And I have read that Hecuba of Troy
Ran mad through sorrow."
" So pale did shine the moon on Pyramus,
When he by night lay bath'd in maiden blood."
" As Cerberus at the Thracian poet's feet."
" As Tarquin erst
That left the camp to sin in Lucrece bed."
" Take this of me, Lucrece was not more chaste
Than this Lavinia, Bassianus' love."
The following lines are also Shaksperian : —
" Romans, friends, followers, favourers of my right."
" Gracious Lavinia, Rome's rich ornament."
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods ?
Draw near them then in being merciful :
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge."
; What, hast not thou full often struck a doe,
And borne her cleanly by the keeper's nose."
" She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd ;
She is a woman, therefore may be won ;
She is Lavinia, therefore must be lov'd."
Oh ! had the monster seen those lily hands
Tremble like aspen leaves upon a lute,
And make the silken strings delight to kiss them."
OF SHAKSPERE. 13
The last two extracts may be compared with the
following : —
" How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st, &c.,
Do I envy those jacks, that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand."
Sonnet 130.
Suf. " She's beautiful ; and therefore to be woo'd ;
She is a woman ; therefore to be won." —
Henry VI "., act v., scene 3.
Glo. " Was ever woman in this humour woo'd ?
Was ever woman in this humour won ? " —
Richard III.
What was Shakspere's occupation before going to
London ?
" Of Shakspere's actual occupations during these
important years, when his character was formed, there
is not a scintilla of contemporary proof." "Nay, not
withstanding the admonition to be found in his works,
' Throw physic to the dogs/ it has been gravely
suggested, that he must have been initiated in medicine,
from the minute inventory of the contents of the
apothecary's shop in Romeo and Juliet" — Shakspere's
Legal Acquirements.
The gravity of the Bench relaxes into a smile, but it
is not safe for a man living in a glass house to throw
stones ; — what says young Hamlet ? —
" I' faith they prove themselves sheepe and calves
That deale with them, or put their trust in them."
When I first entered upon the inquiry, " Had Shakspere
14 THE FOOTSTEPS
been a lawyer's clerk ? " I commenced with Romeo and
Juliet under the impression it was one of his earlier
plays ; and I cannot express my surprise, as the further
I proceeded, the more strong became my conviction, he
must, at some period or other, have studied medicine ;
for the whole play breathes of it — is instinct with the
spirit thereof. But as it was written in 1591, it can be
of no value as evidence, whether he studied medicine
before or after settling in London. Let us, then, ex
amine the first six plays with reference to this point, but
in the reverse order, beginning with the last, and ending
with " Shakspere's own muse his Pericles first bore."
In the Comedy of Errors there is but little physic,
just sufficient to show the author was conversant with the
subject. In Love's Labour's Lost, physic predominates
over law. Armado's letter to the king is adduced by
Lord Campbell as being " drawn up in the true lawyer-
like tautological dialect ; — no ordinary man could have
hit it off so exactly without having engrossed in an
attorney's office;" but the commencement of the letter
hits off the medical language of the period just as accu
rately ; " So it is beseiged with sable-coloured melan
choly, I did commend the black oppressing humour to
the most wholesome physic of the health-giving air, and,
as I am a gentleman, betook myself to walk." The first
scene in the second act is full of medical jokes :—
Moth. " A wonder, master ; here's a Costard broken in the
shin.
Cost. No salve, sir, but a plantain.
Arm. We will talk no more of this matter.
Moth. Till there be more matter in the shin.
Arm. Thou wer't immured, restrained, captivated, bound.
OF SHAKSPERE. 15
Cost. True, true ; and now you will give me my purga
tion, and let me loose."
In act fourth, scene second, we read : — Hoi. "This is a gift
that I have ; simple, simple, a foolish extravagant spirit,
full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions,
motives, revolutions ; these are begot in the ventricle of
memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and
delivered upon the mellowing of occasion." It may be
said, " no ordinary man could have hit it off so exactly
without having" dissected in a school of medicine.
Rosaline's advice to Biron is a medical lecture, and he
replies, " I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital." It is
very evident, that in this play, physic predominates over
law. It should also be here mentioned, that the lan
guage of Armado is not very different from that of
Andrew Borde, the physician, who, according to Hearne,
gave rise to the name of Merry Andrew, the fool of the
mountebank stage. His Breviary of Health, first printed
in 1547, begins thus : " Egregious doctours and maysters
of the eximious and archane science of physicke, of
your urbanitie exasperate not your selve." — Pictorial
Shakspere.
Hamlet is, like Romeo and Juliet, undeniably a medi
cal production, and could only have been written by
one who had studied the philosophy of medicine, par
ticularly psychology; and whilst "the various expres
sions and allusions, which crop out, show the substratum
of physic in the author's mind," and give to the play
life and nature, the legal allusions and expressions are
merely so many weeds, and the whole crop might
be weeded out without injury, if not with benefit.
16 THE FOOTSTEPS
Ophelia's song is further evidence of Shakspere's
professional studies, as it is not uncommon in virtuous
young women for insanity to take an erotic form. " The
pregnant hinges of the knee" has been quoted by an
eminent anatomist as proof, Shakspere must have dis
sected ; and Hamlet's challenge : —
" Woul't drink up Esil? eat a crocodile?
I'll do't."
has a strong flavour of the doctor's shop, the one being
a nauseously bitter draught, and the other, most likely,
an equally filthy electuary.*
In Titus Andronicus it may be said, both law and
physic are at a discount.
In the Two Gentlemen of Verona " various expressions
and allusions crop out, showing the substratum of
physic in the author's mind." Who but a medical
student could have put into Julia's pretty lips : —
" And here is writ — love-wounded Proteus ; —
Poor wounded name ! my bosom, as a bed,
Shall lodge thee, till thy wound be thoroughly heal'd ;
And thus 1 search it with a sovereign kiss."
and Speed's jocularity is worthy of Guy's Hospital or
the Edinburgh Infirmary : —
Speed. "Without you? nay, that's certain, for without
you were so simple, none else would ; but you are so without
* Had Hamlet said, "Woul't drink up Esil? eat a Pharaoh," there
never would have been a doubt on the subject, since the mummy was
certainly used medicinally : —
Gasp. " Your followers
Have swallow' d you like mummia, and, being sick
With such unnatural and horrid physic,
Yomit you up i' the kennel." — Webster's White Demi.
OF SHAKSPERE. 17
these follies, that these follies are within you and shine through
you like the water in an urinal ; that not an eye that sees you
but is a physician to comment on your malady."
Pericles : — the whole play is redolent of physic, of the
apothecary's shop; not only Cerimon, but Pericles,
Helicanus, Dionizza, and Marina, talk physic. As the
three last acts are entirely medical, I must refer the
reader to the play itself; the following extracts can
answer for themselves : —
Cer. " I held it ever,
Virtue and cunning were endowments grefater
Than nobleness and riches : careless heirs
May the two latter darken and expend ;
But immortality attends the former,
Making a man a god. 'Tis known, I ever
Have studied physic, through which secret art,
By turning o'er authorities, I have
[Together with my practice] made familiar
To me and to my aid, the blest infusions
That dwell in vegatives, in metals, stones :
And I can speak of the disturbances
That nature works, arid of her cures ; which gives me
A more content in course of true delight
Than to be thirsty after tottering honour,
Or tie my treasure up in silken bags,
To please the Fool and Death."—
Act iii., scene 2.
"Trivial as the sketch may be called of this good
physician, it is a portrait ; we see him, and we know
him, though observed only under one phase. Here, in
the recovery of the Queen from her trance, we have a
most natural description of the physician's skill being
suddenly called into action; his swift orders mingled
with his reasoning on cases, his haste to apply the reme-
18
THE FOOTSTEPS
dies, the broken sentences, his reproof to a loitering
servant, the keeping the gentlemen back to ' give her
air;' the whole, as if by magic, making the reader an
absolute spectator of the scene."
"Compared to all that precedes it, or to anything
else, the first scene of the fifth act is wonderfully grand,
beautiful, and refined in art. Every one ought to know
it ; but it is too long for me to quote. The recall from
a state of stupefaction caused by grief, and the prolonged,
yet natural recognition of Marina, interwoven with a
thousand delicate hues of poetry, lead us on in admira
tion, till we think nothing can be added to the effect.
Still the crown of all is to come, in the poetical con
clusion, true to nature while it rests on our imagination.
Pericles, instantly after his sudden rush of joy, his over
wrought excitement, fancies he listens to the ' music of
the spheres ! ' — he wonders that others do not hear these
f rarest sounds;' — then he sinks on his couch to rest,
and still insisting that there is f most heavenly music/
falls into a sleep, while Marina, like an angel, watches
at his side I" — Ch. Armitage Brown, p. 242.
To the great knowledge of medicine displayed in this
production, as further proof of his early studies, may be
added the following passage: — "He is bound by the
indenture of his oath;" evidently the apprentice rejoices
in the pleasure of soon being out of his indentures.
We may then sum up ; — the first play is essentially
medical, and could only have been written by one who
had studied medicine ; take away the scenes connected
with Cerimon, Marina, and the stupor of Pericles, and
the play dwindles to an idle story, a copy of juvenile
OF SHAKSPERE. 19
verses in imitation of old Gower. In the second and
fifth, the Two Gentlemen of Verona and Love's Labour's
Lost, physic predominates over law; — whilst Hamlet
could only have been written by one who had studied the
philosophy of medicine. Thus, in four out of the first
five plays, the doctor stands prominently forward; but
the whole force and strength of the argument lies in the
first two plays ; there can be but one verdict, — Pericles,
the play I was so fond of as a boy, settles the question,
— Shakspere must have been "during those important
years, when his character was formed," an Apothecary's
Apprentice ; nor am I acquainted with any position in
life more suitable for, and so completely in harmony
with, the actual growth and development of his pecu
liarly practical and universal mind.
This conviction is powerfully corroborated by the fol
lowing extract from Coleridge : — " For a young author's
first work almost always bespeaks his recent pursuits ;
and his first observations of life are either drawn from
the immediate employments of his youth, and from the
characters and images most deeply impressed on his
mind in the situation in which those employments had
placed him ; or else they are fixed on such objects and
occurrences in the world as are easily connected with,
and seem to bear upon, his studies and the hitherto
exclusive subjects of his meditation. Just as Ben
Jonson, who applied himself to the drama after having
served in Flanders, fills his earliest plays with true or
pretended soldiers, the wrongs and neglects of the
former, and the absurd boasts and knavery of their
counterfeits. So Leasing' s first comedies are placed in the
20 THE FOOTSTEPS
Universities, and consist of events and characters con
ceivable in an academic life." — Literary Remains, vol. ii.
It should here be mentioned, that All's Well that
Ends Well was written in the spring of 1587, and was
corrected and augmented probably about 1599. In one
of the most highly finished scenes we find the following
legal phraseology : —
Par. " Sir, for a quart d'ecu he will sell the fee-simple of
his salvation, the inheritance of it ; and cut the entail from
all remainders, and a perpetual succession for it perpetually." —
Act iv., scene 3.
Even if this passage had been in the original sketch,
it would have been no evidence of Shakspere having
been a lawyer's clerk; since it is preceded by three
plays, in which there are only trifling allusions to the
law ; but as the comedy is founded upon the story of a
young lady, the daughter of a physician, curing the
King of France with a celebrated prescription of her
father's, it does serve as corroborative evidence to the
two preceding plays, abounding in medical allusions.
Thus, after a close and searching examination of these
plays, we light on the interesting fact, that Shakspere in
his youth had been, not a lawyer's clerk, but an apothe
cary's apprentice. How mysterious are the ways of
Providence; how far beyond the ken of common minds !
What possible situation in life could Fortune's dearest
spite have dropped him into, so suitable for the
growth and development of his bodily and mental
powers ? Active exercise and mental culture ; a neo
phyte in the temple of nature, soon to be her great
High Priest! At first, as a lesson in humility, he
OF SHAKSPERE. -21
sweeps the shop and dusts the bottles; then gains a
practical knowledge of chemical compounds, and studies
botany, not lazily in a botanic garden, but practically,
rambling through the fields and woods, collecting medi
cinal plants, thus sucking the milk of knowledge direct
from the breasts of nature. Then doctoring the stable-
boys at the Hall or Castle, he becomes knowing in
horse-flesh, hounds, and hawks; tea's with the house
keeper, wine's with the butler, so learns heraldry and
chaffing with the maids ; — then called up at night to a
labour, he hurries to the patient in town or country ;
the baby's squalls appeased, and the mother comfortable,
pleased and thankful that all is well, he homewards takes
his way, musing now on earthly, now on heavenly things;
now gazing at the glorious morning star, an orb ne'er
seen nor dreamt of by the lawyer's clerk ; if seen, mis
taken for the moon ; if dreamt of, 'tis the chancellor's
wig.
As the proper study of mankind is man, and Shaks-
pere did man as effectually as any tourist does the Rhine
or Switzerland; what could he learn of man in a
lawyer's office, save the meanness and selfishness of his
character ; whilst in the same worldly-minded creature,
stretched on the bed of sickness, oft the nobler feelings
of our nature are displayed, as well as in the kindly
offices of that ministering angel, woman; thus, like
a beautiful rose-bud, daily absorbing fresh juices and
odours, healthily grew and expanded Shakspere's mind
in the doctor's shop.
At what time he quitted medicine for the stage is
uncertain ; but he certainly did not do so, as ill-natured
22 THE FOOTSTEPS
people said, from a love of idleness and pleasure, but in
obedience to an internal impulse — an urgent, imperative
law of nature ; not but that he also acted with perfect
freewill ; for being well aware, that success in the medical
trade does not depend on professional skill and abilities,
nor on kindness and attention, but on other arts un
necessary here to mention, he wisely cut the doctor's
shop and took to the theatre, just as a duckling, though
nursed by a hen, instinctively takes to the water ; and
thus, fate and freewill acting harmoniously together,
England for once had the right man in the right place.
Thus the two great difficulties ; his hurried marriage,
and his going to London without his wife, are satisfac
torily cleared up by the fact of his having been an apothe
cary's apprentice. The hurried marriage (about which,
says the Rev. Gr. Gilfillan, a deal of nonsense has been
uttered, arising from a confusion of marriage with the
then common practice of previous betrothal), may be
easily explained on the supposition, Shakspere got leave
of absence for a few days, as his master could not dis
pense with his services for a longer period. It may also
be reasonably conjectured, that Shakspere, as soon as he
was out of his indentures in April, 1585, instead of
going to London to walk the hospitals and study for the
Hall, went immediately under an engagement to the
Blackfriars Theatre, being related to one of the per
formers, Thomas Greene, his fellow-townsman. Mrs.
William certainly could not have accompanied him on
this first trip, as she had been confined of twins only a
few weeks previously.
Our poet has with a grateful feeling, that does him
OF SHAKSPERE. 23
honour,, portrayed his good and learned master under
the character of Cerimon in Pericles, and again as Friar
Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet; but the half-starved
Apothecary at Mantua is, I am sorry to say, doctorlike,
a malicious description of the opposition-shop at Strat
ford. This account is confirmed by the following ex
tract from Mr. Knight's Biography, p. 183, in which he
gives, though unintentionally, a most accurate descrip
tion of that nearly extinct animal, the ancient apothe
cary : — " The kind old man, going forth from his cell in
the evening twilight to fill his osier basket with weeds
and flowers, and moralising on the properties of plants,
which at once yield poison and medicine, has all the
truth of individual portraiture ; and the young Shaks-
pere may have known some kindly old man, full of
axiomatic wisdom, and sufficiently confident in his own
management, like the well-meaning Friar Lawrence."
Joseph Warton also makes a very striking observation
on the passage, " I do remember an apothecary," which
is well parried by Mr. Knight in his illustration, but, as
usual, the truth lies in medio. Warton objects that
Romeo, to remember these terms, must think ; but the
fact is, the items came naturally, uncalled for, into his
mind ; for was he not an apothecary's apprentice ? thus
the speech is highly appropriate and characteristic ; but
the critics, not being aware of this fact, are quite at sea
on this occasion as on several others. "I appeal to
those," says Warton, "who know anything of the
human heart, whether Romeo, in this distressed situa
tion, could have leisure to think of the alligator, empty
boxes and bladders, and other furniture of this beggarly
24 THE FOOTSTEPS
shop, and to point them out so distinctly to the audience.
The description is, indeed, very lively and natural, but
very improperly put into the mouth of a person agitated
with such passion as Borneo is represented to be/'
<f What, then," replies Mr. Knight, " had he leisure to
do? Had he leisure to run off into declamations
against fate, &c. From the moment he had said, ' Well,
Juliet, I will lie with you to-night. Let's see for means/
the apothecary's shop became to him the object of the
most intense interest." — Delightful treat to see a well-
fought battle between romanticist and classicist !
The tradition of the Royal College of Surgeons, that
Shakspere had been a barber- surgeon, and stuck up his
pole next door to the Boar's Head, Eastcheap, is scarcely
tenable ; nor can it be traced to an earlier period than
about the middle of the last century. Nor can Shaks-
pere's fondness for amputations, or rather decapitations,
verbal as well as corporal, be adduced as evidence of his
surgical skill ; other playwrights did the same, and even
more freely; they merely followed the example of her
Majesty's gracious government in those happy days. Nor
could he have been the pupil of a physician, nor of an
incumbent licensed by the bishop to practise medicine,
since in either case he would certainly have been advised
and encouraged to become a proficient in classical liter
ature. The question is thus reduced to its narrowest
compass ; Shakspere must have been " during those im
portant years when his character was formed/'
AN APOTHECARY'S APPRENTICE,
THE STUDENT OF NATURE.
OF SHAKSPERE. 25
I take this opportunity of proposing the following**
explanation of a passage in the Two Gentlemen of
Verona, which has much perplexed the commentators : —
Vol. " And that my love may appear plain and free,
All that was mine in Silvia, I give thee.
Jul. O me, unhappy ! [Faints.
Pro. Look to the boy." —
Act v., scene 4.
" I give thee " means I forgive thee, and should have
been printed "I 'give thee;" Valentine says to his
penitent friend, I forgive you not only my banishment,
&c., but since
" Who by repentance is not satisfied,
Is nor of heaven nor earth,"
therefore, to prove the sincerity of my love and forgive
ness in the strongest form possible, I forgive all you
have done against Silvia, a far more unpardonable
offence than any personal injury to myself. Valentine,
who had just overheard Silvia's declaration of her pas
sionate love for himself, and her detestation of his
friend, could never have dreamt of giving his sweetheart
to Proteus, nor was she one to submit to be given away
so easily, she hath- a- way of her own ; and shortly after
wards Valentine says : —
" Thurio, give back, or else embrace thy death ;
Come not within the measure of my wrath ;
Do not name Silvia thine ; if once again,
Milan shall not behold thee."
No sooner has Valentine forgiven his friend, than Julia,
exclaiming, " O me, unhappy ! " pretends to faint ; and
then, by giving to Proteus his own ring, the sly baggage
c
26 THE FOOTSTEPS
brings about an eclaircissement at a most auspicious
moment, when her lover was in a soft and repentant
mood ; for is not Julia, though a warm-hearted girl, a
cunning gipsy too ? Does she not tell fibs in saying,
she " neglected to deliver a ring to madam Silvia ? " —
Jul. " Madam, lie sends your ladyship this ring." —
Act iv., scene 4.
Did she not, also, in the first act, favour us with an
insight into her character by refusing the love-letter,
and then playing tricks to get a peep at it ? —
" How angrily I taught my brow to frown,
When inward joy enforc'd my heart to smile ! "
This play, the Two Gentlemen of Verona, is of singular
value in assisting us to gain a knowledge of Shakspere's
heart as well as of his mind; not because it contains
the " germ of other plays," but inasmuch as it contains
a passage foreshadowing a page in the history of his
own life ; when, a few years after, his own friend and
mistress happily behave false to him ; he again, for is
not Valentine, Shakspere, forgives his friend : —
" Ah ! but those tears are pearl, which thy love sheds,
And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds."
Valentine's expression, " I 'give thee," reminds us of a
passage in the Jew of Malta, act i. : —
Abig. " Father, forgive me — "
in the note we read,
forgive me — ] Old ed. : " give me — "
it does not follow, that give is here a misprint for for-
OF SHAKSPERE. 27
give; most probably Abigail, agonised at her father's
violent language, was about exclaiming : —
" Give me thy blessing,"
as Barabas had just said : —
" I charge thee on my blessing that thou leave
These devils and their damned heresy ! "
assuredly the old edition gives the correct reading ; one
touch of nature in Marlowe.
Ghost. "I find thee apt;
And duller should' st thou be than the fat weed
That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,
Would'st thou not stir in this." —
Hamlet, act i., scene 5.
" The fat weed " is undoubtedly the henbane, a narcotic ;
the whole plant is covered with unctuous fetid hairs.
It is found in great abundance in Oxfordshire, and is
here poetically and appropriately located on Lethe's
bank. " The fat weed that roots itself in ease " is a
most graphic description of the plant, and as it is the
reading of the quartos, rots must consequently be
regarded as a misprint in the folio.
Cymbeline. The speeches of the spirits and of Jupiter,
in the vision of Posthumus, are not only universally
acknowledged to be an interpolation of the players, but
they are also directly opposed to the conception of the
28 THE FOOTSTEPS
poet, who intended the dream to be a dumb show, like
the vision of Katharine in Henry VIII. This is proved
by the speech of Posthumns at the end, and by a
speech at the opening of the play : —
1 Gent. " I cannot delve him to the root. His father
Was called Sicilius, &c. ;
And had, besides this gentleman in question,
Two other sons, who, in the wars o' the time,
Died with their swords in hand."
Thus, the audience would readily recognise the spirits,
and when Jupiter throws his thunderbolt, the book or
label is supposed to fall on the bosom of Posthumus ;
Jupiter re-ascends, and the ghosts vanish. The vision
consequently, is an integral part ; but it is to be hoped
future editors will expunge the fustian from this beau
tiful drama.
Fer. " This is a most majestic vision, and
Harmonious charmingly. May I be bold
To think these spirits ?
Pro. Spirits, which by mine art
I have from their confines called to enact
My present fancies.
Fer. Let me live here ever ;
So rare a wonder'd father, and a wife,
Make this place paradise." —
t, act iv., scene 1.
Charmingly, or by magic, is contra-indicated by the
subsequent question and answer ; if Ferdinand knew it
was all magic, the question and answer are unnecessary,
OF SHAKSPERE. 29
mere tautology; charming lays, sanctioned by Gifford,
Johnson, and others, is far preferable, and in all proba
bility the true reading. Ferdinand is charmed not only
by the splendour of the scene, but also by the song, and
by the beautiful verses of Iris and Ceres, which were
probably performed in recitative music.
The last passage is evidently corrupt; the masque
has just been enacted, "a contract of true love to
celebrate," and Ferdinand naturally and gallantly ex
claims : —
" A wonder'd father, and so rare a wife,
Make this place paradise."
Wonder'd, wonderful, able to do wonders.
Ari. " Where the bee sucks, there suck I ;
In a cowslip's bell I lie ;
There I couch when owls do cry :
On the bat's back I do fly,
After sunset, merrily.
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bow." —
(, act v., scene 1.
Ariel, during the mid-day heat, or his custom of an
afternoon, takes his siesta in a cowslip's bell; sleeps
there at night; and, like other fashionables in Milan
and Naples, promenades after sunset.
The usual reading, " after summer" is a misprint,
caused by the repetition of the word merrily. No
naturalist could possibly have committed such a blunder
as, " on a bat's back I do fly after summer," though he
30 THE FOOTSTEPS
might have written on a swift's back ; but then he could
scarcely have added " merrily/' for it would be no joke
to sit a swallow : —
" The swallow follows not summer more willing, than we
your lordship." — Timon, act iii., scene 6.
Ariel is nearly related to Puck ; he evidently loves a bit
of mischief, and enjoys the fun of leading Caliban and
his companions into ' ' the filthy mantled pool ; " and his
riding on a bat's back after sunset is a specimen of his
humour, an image as full of playfulness as a kitten or a
puppy-dog running after its tail.
" Flying after summer" may be a very fine idea, but it
destroys the illusion of the scene, the domesticity of the
isle ; and is besides, inconsistent with the simplicity of
Ariel's character, who is thinking only of his present
happiness. In this pretty song about cowslips and
blossoms, Ariel is describing the merry month of May,
and perhaps the early part of June, in the neighbour
hood of London or around Stratford ; consequently, if
he flies after anything, it must be after the spring, and
not after the summer ; in the middle of May, cowslip
wine is made, and by the end of June how fares it with
the blossom that hangs on the bough of the lime-tree?
As the Tempest was first printed in the folio of 1623,
the error remained unnoticed till Theobald proposed
sunset, and Mr. Hunter in his Illustrations, appears
inclined to adopt it ; even the prefix Cer. to the Song
in the Masque was wanting, till Theobald made that
important correction.
OF SHAKSPERE. 31
On looking over some of Mr. Staunton's annotations,
I find he has anticipated me in the words cumber* d for
numbered in Cymbeline, and sheaf for cheff or chief e in
Hamlet : —
" Of a most select and generous sheaf in that."
I had previously marked the passage in Every Man out
of his Humour, but his extract from the Magnetic Lady
is conclusive : —
" That it is found in noblemen and gentlemen
Of the best sheaf."—
Act iii., scene 4.
Perhaps he may not object to the following remark as
corroborative of his discovery : cheff in French has the
meaning of " fag-end of a piece of cloth," and chiffe is
a " paltry cloth or rag/' The origin and meaning of
the word sheaf may probably be found in an old French
dictionary.
But as there are spots in the s.un, Mr. Staunton, I
presume, has committed an oversight in his reading of
" it lifted up his head/' instead of its head ; Hamlet,
act first, scene second. In the quarto of 1603, to which
he refers, we read : —
" And lifted up his head to motion,
Like as he would speak."
Pern. " If what in rest you have, in right you hold," —
King John, act iv., scene 2.
This passage has caused much discussion ; may not in
right be a misprint for unright ?
32 THE FOOTSTEPS
Brut. " For if thou path, thy native semblance on," —
Julius Ccesar, act ii., scene 1.
Another contested passage ; may not path be a misprint
for pass ?
" 0, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour." —
Twelfth Night, act i., scene 1 .
"So the early text/' says Mr. Staunton, "but Pope
changed sound to south, and the alteration has been ap
proved, perhaps too readily, by nearly every edit or since his
time." Mr. Knight, I think, adopts the same reading,
and has given other reasons than those adduced by Mr.
Staunton, why south could not have been the word used
by Shakspere. Both editors, I believe, are correct in
rejecting south] but I never heard of a sound "stealing
and giving odour;" the image is too incongruous,
although a sound breathing is unobjectionable. Sound
is merely a misprint for wind, and the " sweet wind " is
the Zephyr,* which "is said to produce flowers and
fruits by the sweetness of its breath." How the poor
ignorant Shakspere would have been belaboured by the
classical Popes, Johnsons, and Farmers, had the misprint
in the early text been south, for then they might have
discovered, "the breath of Auster is pernicious to
flowers."
* " Mild as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes." — Milton.
OF SHAKSPERE. 33
Since writing the above, I find Howe changed sound
into wind, meaning, it must be presumed, the south wind ;
but the following lines appear to settle the question : —
Bel. " O thou goddess,
Thou divine Nature, how thyself thou blazon'st
In these two princely boys ! They are as gentle
As zephyrs, blowing below the violet,
Not wagging his sweet head."
Sooth. I saw Jove's bird, the Roman eagle, wing'd
From the spungy south to this part of the west." —
Cymbeline, act iv., scene 2.
Mr. Halliwell in his edition of Marston, appears to
have misapprehended the following passage : —
Ant. " The first thing he spake was, — Mellida !
And then he swooned.
Mel. Aye me !
Ant. Why sigh you, fair ?
Ros. Nothing but little humours ; good sweet, on. —
Antonio and Mellida, p. 16.
In a note, the editor observes, — " Ros. This prefix
should obviously be Mel. ;" but that it is the lively
Rosaline, and not the gentle Mellida, who pertly replies
to Antonio dressed as an Amazon, may be judged from
the last line in the scene : —
Ros. " Sweet Lady, nay good sweet, now by my troth weele
be bedfellows."
" 0 thou allbearing earth ;"— " O chaune thy breast."
Act iii., p. 31.
34 THE FOOTSTEPS
instead of " 0 chaune" Mr. Dilke reads, — " Open thy
breast" But chaune is merely a misprint for cleave ; —
and " wound the earth that it may cleave in twain/'
says Tamburlaine.
On entering upon this inquiry I commenced, as
already stated, with Romeo and Juliet; I then read
Hamlett being the next play in the same volume of the
Pictorial Shakspere; and not having seen either of the
plays for more than twenty years, I was forcibly struck,
however paradoxical it may sound, with the similarity
of character in Romeo and Hamlet; that is, as far as
the elements are concerned. Romeo is gentleness with
resolution, a keen wit, a little more impulsive, but then
he is younger, under a southern sky, and his disease is
love ; whilst Hamlet's simulated madness necessitates an
increased watchfulness over his impulses.
In two plays so dissimilar and representing two so
dissimilar phases of the mind, parallel passages are not
likely to occur ; but we may compare Hamlet's state
of mind after the interview with his father's spirit, and
Romeo's on hearing of the death of Juliet : —
Hor. " These are but wild and hurling words, my lord,
Ham. It is an honest ghost.
You hear this fellow in the cellarage.
Well said, old mole ! can'st work i' the ground
so fast." — Hamlet, act i.; scene 5.
Sal. " Your looks are pale and wild.
Rom. Tush, thou art deceived.
OP SHAKSPERE. 35
Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd.
How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry." — Romeo and Juliet, act v.
The cast of thought in these passages is evidently
similar ; the difference lies in time and circumstance ;
both Romeo and Hamlet give vent to their overwrought
feelings in bitter jests. The behaviour of Hamlet to
Laertes, is throughout identical with Romeo's behaviour
to Tybalt and Paris. " The wit of Romeo/' says Mr.
Knight, " is the unaccustomed play of the intellect,
when the passions have come to the clenching point, —
but it is under control;" "the courage of Romeo is
reflective and forbearing ;" assuredly Hamlet's courage
is also reflective and forbearing ; and his wit is certainly
under control.
The resemblance is much stronger, and the divergence
far less in the first sketch, than in the perfect Hamlet.
"Mr. Hallam, speaking of Romeo and Juliet as an
early production of our poet, points out as a proof of
this, ' the want of that thoughtful philosophy, which,
when once it had germinated in Shakspere' s mind,
never ceased to display itself.' Hamlet, as it now
stands, is full of this thoughtful philosophy. But the
original sketch, as given in the quarto of 1603, exhibits
few traces of it in the form of didactic observations.
The whole dramatic conduct of the action is indeed
demonstrative of a philosophical conception of incidents
and characters : but in the form to which Mr. Hallam
refers, 'the thoughtful philosophy' is almost entirely
wanting in that sketch." — Pictorial Shakspere.
That Hamlet is Shakspere himself ought only to be
36 THE FOOTSTEPS
mentioned, to be granted ; — the philosophical soliloquies,
the reflections in the churchyard, are acknowledged to
be his own meditations; the wit is essentially that of
the hero of the Mermaid-, the remarks about the play
are acknowledged to be his ; the advice to the players
evidently his own opinions, in fact himself speaking;
and the quarrel with his friends has been before alluded
to ; — take away then the witty sallies, the philosophy,
the scenes with the players and his friends, and what
remains of Hamlet but the scene with the ghost and the
soliloquy about his mother, which is the very passage
that forced on me the conviction, Hamlet is Shakspere
himself, and not, strickly speaking, a poetical conception,
for the soliloquy is in tone and feeling identical with
various sonnets.
With regard to the passage, " for the play, I remember,
pleased not the million/' Mr. Knight observes, "the
introduction of these lines, we think, cannot be ac
counted for upon any other supposition, but that they
were written by Shakspere himself; and he is so
thoroughly in earnest in his criticism upon the play,
and his complaint of its want of success is so apparently
sincere, that it is impossible to imagine, that the passage
had reference to something non-existent." And I may
add, the passage about " his two school- fellows " at the
end of the third act, grated so harshly on my feelings,
that I felt Shakspere must have had a quarrel with two
of his friends.
Further, I may remark, that Hamlet and Shakspere
are of the same age. Hamlet is usualy spoken of as
being a very young man ; but it seems highly impro-
OF SHAKSPERE. 37
bable, imcompatible with the character, that a man so
well acquainted, so versed in the ways of the world,
should only " have just crossed the threshold of man
hood-/' and under the persuasion, that in its composition
Shakspere had drawn his materials from the burning
fiery lava of his own feelings, the genuine potheen of
life, instead of having his muse inspired by the cold
mountain dew of Parnassus or by the watery springs of
Helicon ; under this impression, I have examined and
compared certain dates in the play, in reference to
Shakspere' s own age and that of his parents.
John Shakspere is supposed to have been born about
1530, and he married Mary Arden, in December, 1557,
consequently when the play was written in 1588, it
could be justly said of them : —
" Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round
Neptune's salt-wash and Tellus' orbed ground ;
And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen,
About the world have times twelve thirties been ;
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands>
Unite commutual in most sacred bands."
and the clown says, " I have been sexton here, man and
boy, thirty years ;" the coincidence in the years is at
least curious. Again the clown says, he has been a
grave-maker ever since "the very day that young
Hamlet was born;" the clown refers to his appointment,
of course he was not the grave-maker when a boy ; —
and again he says, " Here's a scull now : this scull has
lain in the earth three- and- twenty years." " Alas, poor
Yorick !" says Hamlet, " I knew him, Horatio." Now
the grave-digger could scarcely have called him young
38 THE FOOTSTEPS
Hamlet, had lie been thirty years of age; altho' he
might have been called young, longer than usual, in
contradistinction to old Hamlet, his father. Shakspere
appears, like De Quincey, to have remembered some old
servant or friend of the family when he was only
eighteen or twenty months old.
The deliberate and precise alteration of the various
dates in the amended copy, clearly and decisively points
out Shakspere' s intention.
Consequently there can be no doubt, the buried
Majesty of Denmark was in the poet's mind his own
father ; and the Queen ? of all his female creations the
most poetical, — of all, the most practical, high-spirited,
and affectionate, dotingly fond of her son, and as much
doted upon by the living as by her former husband ; —
who can this wonderful woman be ? Who else but his
own mother, Mary Arden, the poetical and practical
mother of the poetical and practical son.
One problem, which it is supposed Shakspere has
undertaken to solve in this play, is, that the madness,
under which Hamlet appears to be labouring, is in
reality assumed ; essentially a medico-psychological
study; has he succeeded in carrying out this idea?
Apparently not ; for tho' it is in a measure spoken of as
a disputed point, yet, commentators and critics of the
highest authority assert, he is not perfectly sane.
"Mr. Kean's conception of the part was good, the
melancholy abstraction, the vacillation, the derange
ment of a noble mind overthrown, partly affected and
partly real, were finely delineated." — Life of Charles
Kean, p. 260.
OF SHAKSPERE. o9
This question is not to be settled by eloquent periods
and ornate descriptions,, but by an analysis or ana
tomical dissection of the play : for we have to deal with
a young doctor, who had intimately studied the divine
architecture of man, whatever may have been his
knowledge of the " Architecture of the Heavens," at
that time a disputed point.
The play opens with a scene proving the reality of
the ghost. In the second scene Hamlet makes his
appearance quibbling ; from which it may be inferred,
he is not only witty, but naturally of a cheerful dispo
sition. In his reply to his mother, like a tender and
affectionate son, he avoids wounding her feelings ; but
in the first copy we read : —
" Him have I lost, I must of course forego,"
a line clearly showing his grief depended not on the
loss of his father ; but as such an observation might
raise in his mother's mind a suspicion her marriage was
the cause, the poet in the amended copy judiciously
omitted the line and put in its stead : —
" But I have that within which passeth show."
No sooner is Hamlet left alone, than he gives vent to
his feelings in a speech of the most exquisite sensibility
and pathos, concluding with : —
" 0 most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets ;
It is not, nor it cannot come to good ;
But break, my heart ; for I must hold my tongue ! "
Yet the critics and commentators, apparently resolved
in the very beginning to make him a weak-minded man,
40 THE FOOTSTEPS
unanimously attribute his melancholy to the death of
his father, although in the whole speech there is not the
slightest expression of regret for his loss ; the real
cause being the deep wound to his moral and religious
feelings, that his mother, whom he so dearly loved,
that such a radiant angel should have sinned, married
her deceased husband's brother. No doubt Hamlet
has a natural regret for the loss of his father ; but he
would rather, he himself had died, than his mother
should have committed such a fearful sin, an incestuous
marriage : —
" Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven,
Ere I had seen that day, Horatio."
This scene reminds us of the first scene in All's Well
that End's Well, written in the preceding year, 1587 ;
in each instance there is a mystification, which is
cleared up to the audience by a soliloquy.
The King and Queen and all the Court suppose,
Hamlet's grief proceeds from the loss of his father;
nor does he, because he dare not undeceive them : —
<c But break, my heart ! for I must hold my tongue."
It is comfortable to have an authority on one's side;
Professor Richardson in his Philosophical Analysis of
Shaksjwre's Remarkable Characters, thus writes, — " the
death of his father was a natural evil, and as such he
endures it. The impropriety of Gertrude's behaviour,
her ingratitude to the memory of her former husband,
and the depravity she discovers in the choice of a suc
cessor, afflict his soul, and cast him into utter agony.
Here then is the principle and spring of all his actions."
OF SHAKSPERE. 41
In the third scene we have another insight into
Hamlet's character, which has apparently been quite
overlooked by the critics : —
Laer. " Farewell. [exit Laertes.
Pol. What is 't, Ophelia, he hath said to yoji ?
Oph. So please you, something touching the lord Hamlet.
Pol. Marry, well bethought :
'Tis told me, he hath very off of late
Given private time to you ; and you yourself
Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.
Oph. He hath, my lord, of late, made many tenders
Of his affection to me.
Pol. Affection ? puh ! you speak like a green girl,
Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
OpJi. My lord, he hath importun'd me with love,
In honourable fashion.
Pol. Ay, fashion you may call it ; go to, go to.
OpJi. And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,
With all the vows of heaven.
Pol. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks.
This is for all, —
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,
Have you to slander any moment's leisure,
As to give words or talk with the lord Hamlet.
Look to 't, I charge you; come your ways.
Oph. I shall obey, my lord." — Act i., scene 3.
Here it is evident,, Hamlet has, like Helena in All's
Well that Ends Well, "very oft of \&iQ" forgotten his
father and is making hot love to Ophelia ; — we may then
sum up, — in the audience chamber Hamlet makes his
appearance quibbling, consequently he cannot be in a
very melancholy mood, but in his address to his mother
and in the soliloquy, he shows us the exquisite sensibility
of his nature, and how deeply distressed and outraged
42 THE FOOTSTEPS
have been his moral and religious sentiments, by his
mother's marriage ; — he receives his friends graciously ;
and common report says, he gives much of his time to
Ophelia. I trust then, it has been clearly proved,
Hamlet is not at the opening of the play the profoundly
melancholy character he is generally represented.
Throughout the interview with the ghost, Hamlet's
intellect remains clear and unaffected ; he never loses
his presence of mind ; the frenzied excitement he felt at
first, gradually softens down during the spirit's narrative,
giving place to a desire of revenge. By the fading away
of the ghost, the strain on his nerves and intellect is
somewhat relieved, and he recovers still further by the
act of writing in his tables ; so that on the arrival of his
friends he seeks to turn off their inquiries and give relief
to his still agitated feelings by jesting ; and it is possible,
this excitement of the feelings, with intellectual power to
control them, may have suggested the idea of feigning
himself mad.
Before proceeding any further, we must examine into
the duration or period of time occupied by the play ; for
there is no immediate connexion marked between the
first and second acts ; but as the second act opens with
Polonius sending money and notes to his son, a con-
siderable period must have elapsed since Laertes de
parted, and since Hamlet saw the ghost.
The first act occupied two nights and the intervening
day. In the second act, scene first, Polonius has just
dismissed Reynaldo, when the gentle Ophelia hurries in
with her hand on her heart, " Oh, my lord, I have been
so affrighted," and tells him about Hamlet's strange
OF SHAKSPERE. 43
visitation ; Polonius then goes to the castle, " come go
we to the king," to whom he immediately announces : —
" The ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,
Are joyfully returned; " — Act ii., scene 2.
on leaving the royal presence, or rather exeunt king and
attendants, he has an amusing conversation with Hamlet,
to whom he presents Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
We have then the scene with the players, in which
Hamlet says, " we'll have 't tomorrow night ; " the act
terminates with the soliloquy "the spirit that I have
seen may be the devil, the play's the thing, wherein I'll
catch the conscience of the king."
We thus see the second act occupies exactly one day.
On the following day in the evening, the play is per
formed ; thus the whole of the third act, and the first
three scenes of the fourth act occupy one day and a
night ; and to Hamlet's remark, " my father died within
these two hours," Ophelia replies, " Nay, 'tis twice two
months, my lord ; " and as the first act occurred two
months after the death of the king, " But two months
dead ! — nay, not so much, not two," consequently two
months must have elapsed between the first and second
acts.
The fourth scene in the fourth act occurs at daybreak,
and the three remaining scenes occupy at least several
weeks, as Fortinbras and the English ambassadors appear
in the last act.
The fifth act occupies half a day or a few hours only,
as the king on leaving the churchyard says to Laertes,
" we'll put the matter to the present push."
44 THE FOOTSTEPS
We may now return and examine Hamlet's conduct in
act second, scene first. For two long months had Hamlet
submitted to have his letters refused, and access to his
Ophelia denied ; what ! what ! I hear voices around me
exclaiming, Hamlet constantly breaking his vow ! im
possible ! it is, however, ye impalpable beings ! perfectly
true, down in black and white, on the word of Ophelia.
Polonius laid his commands on her at the very hour
Horatio was telling Hamlet about the ghost ; we may
be certain, he neither visited nor wrote to her that
evening ; consequently it must have been during these
two months, after he had vowed his vow, " unmixed
with baser matter," that Ophelia " did repel his letters
and denied his access." But when has Shakspere ever
made love " baser matter," " seconds ; " love is the crea
tive principle of nature, and the poet of nature has always
made lovely woman the primum mobile ; Silvia, Juliet,
&c., all quit father and mother and make runaway
matches, and are by the moral poet of nature punished or
rewarded according to their deserts.
The truth then must be faced ; Hamlet is undeniably
in an ecstasy of love, as Polonius calls it ; and no doubt
the interview was followed by beneficial effects on both
sides ; his anxiety would be relieved by the sight of her .
and Ophelia ? less palpitation of the heart, less sighing
over her " sewing in her chamber ; " she now would have
undoubted evidence, that his affection depended on her
love, was caused by her unkindness. And I have noticed
it these thirty years, young ladies do not break their
hearts, though their cruelty may drive their lovers to
distraction ; they seem, sweet enchantresses, to have an
OF SHAKSPERE. 45
implicit reliance on certain charms in their possession to
cure the disease ; was such Shakspere's opinion ? how
was Ophelia affected on this occasion, and also the
Queen ? —
Pol. "How now, Ophelia? what's the matter?
OpJi. Alas, my lord, I have been so affrighted.
Pol. Mad for thy love ?
Oph. My lord, I do not know ;
But truly I do fear it." — Act ii., scene 1.
Queen, " And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish,
That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet's wildness : so shall I hope your virtues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honours.
Oph. Madam, I wish it may."
Act. in., scene 1.
O, sweet, innocent, and gentle Ophelia ! the faith of
the sisterhood is strong within thee. On the supposition
that only a few days elapse between the first and second
acts, this scene has generally been regarded as a simu
lated ecstasy on the part of Hamlet, to deceive the king
and his courtiers ; but the lapse of two months, with the
rejection of his letters and visits, incontestably settles the
question. This view of his passionate love is confirmed
by his own self-accusing conscience in the Queen's
bedchamber : —
Ham. " Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, laps'd in time and passion, let's go by
The important acting of your dread command ? "
On the following morning, Hamlet having been sum
moned to the presence of the king, meets Ophelia ; at
this interview Ophelia, discovering he is more seriously
46 THE FOOTSTEPS
affected than she had previously imagined, becomes her
self deeply agitated and distressed; and soon after,
hearing of her father's lamentable death and her lover's
banishment, her brother being still in Paris, no wonder
the young lady breaks her heart and becomes deranged.
On the same evening, after this meeting with Ophelia,
the play is performed, at which the king is proved
guilty ; — soon afterwards, Hamlet, just on the point of
departure to visit the queen, thus expresses his burning
desire for vengeance : —
" Now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on."
On the way to his mother he suddenly comes on the
king at his prayers ; notwithstanding the privacy and
secrecy of the opportunity, by a desperate effort of his
will he controls the almost irresistible impulse to kill
him ; strange to say, this scene is regarded as a proof of
-his irresolution ; and though Johnson accused him of
being influenced by motives inhuman and fiendish, it is
now universally agreed, the reasons assigned by Hamlet
are not his real motives, but mere excuses, a self-decep
tion, to avoid the shedding of blood, marks of irresolu
tion and procrastination. The critics in accusing him
on this occasion of weakness and irresolution, are
certainly consistent with their previous opinion in
attributing his deep grief to the death of his father,
though he never uttered a single regret for him, nor
said a word about him except that he was ' ' an excellent
king/' and compared with his brother, " Hyperion to a
satyr."
OF SHAKSPERE. 47
Hamlet, like his critics, is consistent with himself;
the very next night, being at sea, he writes out a new
commission : —
Ham. " An earnest conjuration from the king, —
As England was his faithful tributary, &c.,
Without debatement further, more, or less,
He should the bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving time allowed"
It would seem, these erroneous impressions about
Hamlet's character, have arisen from a misapprehension
or inattention to the doctrines of his religion ; — a heart
full of tenderness and noble feelings, a keen and ready
wit, quick in action as thought or lightning, with a will
strong to control the most sudden and violent impulse,
an intellect godlike, but subordinate to his religious
belief. Had he killed the king at his prayers, his soul
at the moment pure and free from sin, what would have
been the inevitable consequence ? Scarcely could he have
sheathed his sword, 'ere his father's ghost appears,
furious, " poor fool ! weak, rash, and imbecile fool ! you
swore to revenge my murder ; your uncle is in heaven
and I'm in hell ; " exit the perturbed spirit ; Hamlet,
now really mad, rushes after his father to the regions
below ; — finale, an awful smell of brimstone.
His father's spirit had told him something about the
other world : —
Ghost. " I am thy father's spirit ;
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night ;
And, for the day, confm'd to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purg'd away."
48 THE FOOTSTEPS
Shakspere is not answerable for the religion in the
play, which is the Roman Catholic ; and probably pur
gatory was still in his day the popular belief amongst
the lower classes. " Purgatory, a place in which souls
are supposed by the Papists to be purged by fire from
carnal impurities, before they are received into heaven,"
— Johnson.
Hamlet therefore naturally wishes his father's murderer
to undergo the penalty of his crime, a limited period of
punishment, and not an eternal damnation. The follow
ing passage has evidently been misunderstood as well
by Johnson as by the Coleridges and Lambs : —
Ham. " Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven ;
And that his soul may be as damn'd and black,
As hell, whereto it goes."
t{ hell" here does not mean the place of eternal punish
ment ; but purgatory, or the place of departed spirits ;
vide Johnson : —
" the place of separate sonls whether good or bad.
and in Tamburlaine, Cosroe exclaims : —
" My soul begins to take her flight to hell,
And summons all my senses to depart."
•
and in Nash's Pierce Pennilesse, his Supplication to the
Devil, we read, p. 66, — " Hell is a place where the souls
of intemperate men, and ill livers of all sorts, are de
tained and imprisoned till the general resurrection."
The last words of the ghost were, "remember me;"
that is, not his mere murder, but his suffering the tor
tures of purgatory ; Claudius must therefore undergo
the same penalties : but the critics can not or will not
OF SHAKSPERE. 49
perceive the difference between temporal and eternal
punishment; they will persist in judging Hamlet by
protestant doctrines and not as a papist. Shakspere
avoids the abusive language of the early reformers, and
generally portrays his friars as good and estimable men ;
but he never hesitates to point out at the same time the
evil tendencies of the doctrines of the Church of Rome ;
and his intention on the present occasion evidently is,
to show the injurious action of a belief in purgatory;
how much it tends to nourish an unforgiving spirit ;
just as in the Lucrece he shows the injurious effects of
the priestly power of absolution ; when Tarquiii has his
hand on the chamber-door, he starts, frightened at the
thought of his intended crime, but is instantly re-assured :
" Then Love and Fortune be my gods, my guide !
My will is back'cl with resolution ;
Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried,
The blackest sin is cleared with absolution" —
Stanza 51.
Hamlet's revenge must consequently be regarded as
essentially papistical, and perfectly natural under the
circumstances.
On quitting the king he proceeds to his mother's
chamber; after a few words, hearing a noise behind the
arras, quick as lightning, he draws his sword, " a rat,
dead for a ducat, dead;'5 unfortunately, instead of the
king, it was that " wretched, rash, intruding fool,"
Polonius. To his affrighted exclamation on the sudden
entrance of the ghost, his mother sighs forth, " Alas he's
mad;" of course she listens patiently, like a sensible
woman, not understanding a word about it, to his learned
dissertation on insanity ; nods yes, yes, to everything he
50 THE FOOTSTEPS
says, and departs promising him, "I have no life to
breathe what thou hast said to me;" and goes, like an
innocent and affectionate wife straight to her jolly old
king and tells him all, " poor dear boy ! alas, he's mad."
The queen never had, and even now, she has not the
slightest suspicion the king had killed his brother ; nor
had Hamlet the slightest suspicion of such a deed, till
Horatio told him about the ghost: —
Ham. " My father's spirit in arms ! all is not well ;
I doubt some foul play."
and on the spirit telling him of his murder, he exclaims
in astonishment, " Murther ? "
As the ghost, on this occasion, in the queen's bed
chamber, is pleased to remark : —
" Do not forget ; this visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose,"
the commentators have eagerly seized upon this un
lucky observation, as undoubted proof, on the word of a
ghost, of Hamlet's irresolution and unfixedness of purpose;
but they have merely dropped on a mare's nest ! every
child in the kingdom knows, a ghost knows nothing ex
cept just what concerns himself; and this ghost, as
Shakspere intended, betrays the most astonishing igno
rance ; for he says, " I am come to whet thy almost
blunted purpose;" and yet Hamlet has jnst slain
Polonius ; the ghost knew from his cold midnight walks,
and from not seeing his fraternal murderer by the fire
side below, that Hamlet had not yet revenged his mur
der ; he therefore naturally supposed his son had been
remiss in the undertaking. But the fact is, Hamlet,
being a moral and religious man, and fearing lest the
OF SHAKSPEBE. 51
spirit might have been an evil spirit tempting him to
sin, would not put his uncle to death, till he had clearer
evidence of his guilt ; which was proved only an hour
or two ago, and from that moment his blood had been
boiling at fever-heat to execute his father's dread com
mand ; with a desperate effort he had luckily checked
the violent impulse to kill the king at his prayers, and
then, with thought rapid as lightning, and with a will
as quick and decisive, he passed his sword through the
arras, thinking the king was there; assuredly Hamlet
needed no fresh stimulus; evidently the ghost was at
fault ; the old gentleman had neglected applying at the
telegraph office before leaving home to take his midnight
walk.
Hamlet, shortly after his mother's departure, as may
be easily guessed, was arrested by his two dear friends
and taken before the king; who immediately ordered
him to sea ; on the road to the vessel he soliloquizes : —
" Now whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event, &c."
This speech has again been adduced as proof of his
irresolution and procrastination ; but surely it is nothing
else than the natural depression following over-excite
ment ; he has not had a wink of sleep for at least twenty-
four hours, and during the last twelve his mind has been
constantly on the stretch in a state of violent excitement;
now that all hope of revenge is over for the present, a de
pression follows, a hopeless sinking at the heart, though
he struggles against it and upbraids himself for not
having done, what lie never had an opportunity of doing;
52
THE FOOTSTEPS
he now blames himself for ever having doubted the
spirit was his father's ; but a few hours' sleep on board
the vessel restored life and energy to his exhausted
frame.
We next meet with Hamlet in the church-yard ; as
the funeral procession approaches, he notices : —
" The queen, the courtiers : Who is that they follow ?
And vyith such maimed rites ! This doth betoken,
The corse they follow did with desperate hand
Foredo its own life. 'Twas of some estate :
Couch we a while, and mark."
He then overhears Laertes say : —
" I tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministering angel shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling."
Let us remember, that Hamlet has not heard anything
of Ophelia since last he saw her in the palace, we may
then judge, what an intensity of passion and self-control
must be concentrated in these words, " What, the fair
Ophelia !* On Laertes leaping into the grave and giving
way to the violence of his feelings, is it wonderful or
surprising, that Hamlet's pent-up feelings should burst
out beyond all control, and sweep him away in the
torrent? and yet, what? he leaps into the grave, is
assaulted by Laertes, and this so-called madman says : —
" I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat ;
Sir, though I am not splenetive and rash,
Yet have I something in me dangerous,
Which let thy wiseness fear : Away thy hand."
The very language of one exerting the highest mastery
* Romeo's exclamation, on hearing of the death of Juliet, " Is it even
so?" is identical with Hamlet's; each has the same powerful will to
suppress any sudden emotion.
OF SHAKSPERE. 53
over himself; they are separated, and Hamlet makes a
passionate speech, which is neither a real aberration nor
a simulated frenzy, but merely the speech of a man in
a towering passion, ending, " Nay, an thou'lt mouth, Fll
rant as well as thou;" the queen echoes the cry, "this
is mere madness;" and then Hamlet makes a most
characteristic speech ; the first half, the quiet observation
of a man who has completely recovered from his passion ;
the second half, simulated madness on purpose to carry
on the deception about his lunacy : —
Ham. " Hear you, sir ;
What is the reason you use me thus ?
I lov'd you ever : But it is no matter ;
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day."
That the king and queen should attribute Hamlet's
conduct to insanity is natural enough ; but if either be
mad, Laertes is the one; there has been time enough
for his grief to settle down, and yet he leaps into the
grave, calling frantically out : —
" Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead ;
Till of this flat a mountain you have made,
To o'er-top old Peliori, or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus."
But in defence of his sanity, it must be remembered,
this speech is undoubtedly a satirical stroke of the poet
against the affectation of "the young gentlemen of the
two Universities," and of his poetical rivals, Peele,
Greene, and Marlowe, who could only express the vio
lence of their love and grief by such bombastic raving ;
and to which Hamlet replies : —
54 THE FOOTSTEPS
" And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us ; till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make Ossa like a wart ! "
not a very irrational reply for a man in a passion.
After returning from the funeral, Horatio says :—
" It must be shortly known to him from England,
What is the issue of the business there.
Ham. It will be short ; the interim is mine ;
And a man's life's no more than to say, one."
It is folly guessing and scheming what Hamlet
would or might have done ; it is clear he intended acting
quickly and decisively ; but events were hurrying on with
fearful rapidity beyond the control of the actors; for
scarcely had he told Horatio, how cleverly he had paid
off Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, when Lord Osric
comes with a message from the king requesting him to
play at foils with Laertes ; he accepts the chalenge ;
and to Horatio's remark, ' ' you will lose this wager, my
lord," he replies, " I do not think so ; but thou wouldst
not think, how ill all's here about my heart ; but it is
no matter." How could he feel otherwise than ill at
heart ? it is not more than an hour or two, since he first
heard of Ophelia's death, saw her buried with maimed
rites, and quarrelled with her brother, whom he had
" ever loved ; " he cannot, like Romeo, say, " I'll lie
with her to-night ; '' he must fulfil the dread command
of his father's spirit ; and when executed, what is the
world to him ? Ophelia dead ! Ophelia whom he loved
more than forty thousand brothers, and for whose love
he wept over the dead body of Polonius, " he weeps for
what is done." In this state of depression, and the heart
OF SHAKSPERE. 55
ill at ease, the mind naturally anticipates coming evils,
and is more inclined to trust to chance or fate, than rely
on its own energies ; but Hamlet rises superior to this
feeling, and is, throughout, thoroughly master of him
self; in the scene with the frivolous courtier he is
" most acute, playful, but always the gentleman ; " and,
as he quibbled at his first appearance, he again in this
last scene, notwithstanding his being so ill at heart,
shows the witty and poetical side of his nature : —
Ham. " I'll be your foil, Laertes ; in mine ignorance
Your skill shall, like a star, i' the darkest night,
Stick fiery off indeed."
And on hearing the weapon was poisoned, he instantly
stabs the king, " now venom do thy work," and makes
the horror-stricken wretch drink of the poisoned bowl ;
he acts with the same rapid thought and decisive will,
as when he pierced the arras with his sword, " a rat,
dead for a ducat, dead;" and thus the king dies at the
culminating point of his iniquitous career.
" The catastrophe," says Johnson, " is not very happily
produced ; the exchange of weapons is rather an expe
dient of necessity than a stroke of art. A scheme might
easily be formed to kill Hamlet with the dagger, and
Laertes with the bowl." Let us examine and analyse
this scene of horrors. — The Queen fallen from her origi
nal loveliness and purity, and become addicted to drink,
dies of the bowl poisoned by him, who first poisoned her
mind, corrupted her affections from her husband, and
induced her to form an incestuous marriage ; she dies
first, mercifully. The king dies at the moment, his cup
of guilt is full to the brim ; his beloved Gertrude dying
56 THE FOOTSTEPS
by his guilty means, and he not daring to put forth a
hand to save her. Laertes was guilty in the first in
stance of casting suspicion on Hamlet's honour and love,
and now like a base knight he fights with a poisoned
foil, and justly falls by the hand of Hamlet. The only
innocent person is Hamlet, but tragic propriety compels
his death ; he has however the consolation of having re
venged his father's murder ; nor could he have died
more appropriately than by Laertes' hand, whose father
he had killed, though accidentally ; and of whose sister's
insanity and death he was the unhappy, though innocent
cause. We thus see, what a botch Johnson with his
bowl and dagger would have made of the retributive
justice, so clearly shown in this last scene.
Putting Hamlet himself aside, it becomes a curious
question, What was Shakspere's intention in writing this
fifth act ? it is a satire throughout ; the scene with Osric
is acknowledged to be a satire, so is the scene with the
clowns; and by like reasoning, the burial scene is a
satire on the forms and ceremonies of the Romish
Church; the bombast of Laertes is in the same cate
gory ; and when Hamlet leaps into the grave, calling
out, " I am Hamlet the Dane," had not Laertes acted
naturally, and violently assaulted him, what a fine oppor
tunity for the poet to have given us a poetical duet in
alternate chaunts to the praise of Ophelia ; particularly
as Hamlet, overpowered by his love, forgets on this
occasion his pretended lunacy — forgets the ghost and
OF SHAKSPERE. 57
the dread command, {f remember me;" but was not
Hamlet's excited harangue also intended for satire, espe
cially in ridicule of Tamburlaine's rhodomontade when
Zenocrate dies : —
" What, is she dead? Tchelles, draw thy sword
And wound the earth, that it may cleave in twain,"
the exclamation, "What, the fair Ophelia/' appears
to be the link connecting the two scenes together : —
" Nay, an' thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou ;"
it should be remembered, Tamburlaine at this time
was a popular drama; nor is it credible Shakspere
would have placed Hamlet in such a false position,
as the hero of a disgraceful row at Ophelia's grave,
without some definite object, readily understood by the
audience ; the poet has therefore given us in its prosaic
truthfulness to nature, a scene both local and universal
in its application, a satire against Elizabethan bombast
and the sentimental prettinesses of the classical school.
Thus while these various scenes of buffoonery for the
million, and of Night Thoughts for a Young, are woven
together into an harmonious whole, Hamlet throughout,
except at the duel, may be regarded as the mere puppet
of the poet, a mouthpiece for the expression of his own
sentiments ; hence the supposition, which the soliloquy
in act first, scene second, gave rise to, is most forcibly
and wonderfully confirmed, and becomes a conviction in
this fifth and final act, — that Hamlet is Shakspere
himself.
58 THE FOOTSTEPS
Here follow a few remarks on some of the much vexed
passages : —
King. " But now my cousin Hamlet, and my son, —
Ham. A little more than kin and less than kind." [aside.
Act i., scene 2.
" less than kind" is usually explained by "I am little of
the same nature with you ;" this explanation, however,
conveys an unfavourable impression, as a vain and con
ceited remark, and uncalled for, especially as an aside ;
as if Hamlet had said, " I am not such a vile fellow as
you ;" whereas, the straightforward meaning, " Altho' I
am now more nearly related to you, my feelings are less
than kind," shows to the audience the exact state of his
sentiments at the moment. The quibble may then,
perhaps, be thus explained, ie A little more than kin and
less than natural/' that is, "Altho' I am now, in a
sense, your son, I have not the natural feelings of a son
towards you."
King. " How is it that the clouds still hang on you ?
Ham. Not so, my lord ; I am too much i' the sun." —
Act. i., scene 2.
1 ' too much i' the sun " is usually explained as meaning,
" deprived of the charities of kindred." Mr. Staunton's
annotation is, " By this Hamlet may mean, f I am too
much in the way/ a mote in the royal eye ; but his reply
is purposely enigmatical."
The observation, ' ' less than kind," was an aside ; but
OF SHAKSPERE. 59
" too much i' the sun," is a direct and open reply to his
majesty ; it must therefore bear a courteous and even
complimentary signification; as if Hamlet had said,
" Not so, my lord, I am too much in your Majesty's
favour ; you are too gracious for me to feel myself under
a cloud." To be in disgrace at Court is to be under
a cloud ; to be in favour is to be basking in the sun
shine of the royal presence, one of the commonest
images in the language. This explanation is confirmed
by the concluding words of the scene, and by the follow
ing extract : — " The Queene seemade troubled to-daye,
says Harrington. Hatton came out from her presence
with ill countenance, and pulled me aside by the girdle,
and saide, in secret waie, If you have any suite to
daie, I praye you put it aside. The sunne doth not
shine" — Drake's Shakspere, vol. ii., p. 150.
This harsh explanation, " deprived of the charities of
kindred," reminds us of "the swaggering upspring
reels," which does not mean " the upstart king/' but a
dance, a kind of hop; and thus through these erro
neous interpretations, there is attributed to Hamlet-*a
worse feeling towards his uncle at the present moment,
than the context justifies.
Ham. [reads] " For if the sun breed maggots in a dead
dog, being a god kissing carrion, — Have you a daughter?" —
Act ii., scene 2.
This passage has caused much ingenious speculation ;
but the simplest and easiest explanation is, not unfre-
60 THE FOOTSTEPS
quently, nearer the truth than a more erudite or far
fetched meaning. Instead of finishing the sentence,
Hamlet carries on his joke of pretending not to know
Polonius, and asks, "Have you a daughter?" On this
occasion we must remember, the conversation is a tete-d-
tete, and that two months have passed away since
Hamlet saw the ghost; time has weakened the impres
sion, he suspects it to have been an illusion, though at
intervals the idea rises vividly in his mind, it may have
been his father's spirit; in the meantime absence has
added strength to his love, by dwelling on the image of
Ophelia ; and it is hardly two hours ago since he was
made supremely happy by a stolen interview with her :
—his asking, "Have you a daughter?" is therefore a
direct allusion to his visit that morning, and to the
strict seclusion in which she had been kept during the
last two months, not allowed to walk out, lest Hamlet
should meet her. He therefore says, "Let her not
walk i3 the sun : conception is a blessing ; but not as
your daughter may conceive, — [before marriage] friend,
look to 3t.33 This mocking or jesting should be com
pared with Polonius' speech to Ophelia, to which it is
the retort courteous . —
Pol. Affection ? pub ! you speak like a green girl,
Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
Do not believe his vows,
Mere implorators of unholy suits,
Breathing like sanctified and pious bonds,
The better to beguile."—
Act i., scene 3.
OF SHAKSPERE. 61
" Soft you now !
The fair Ophelia."-
Act iii., scene 1.
With regard to the soliloquy, " To be or not to be,"
Mr. Hunter in his Illustrations has drawn attention to
the fact, that in the first sketch the king says, "See
where he comes poring upon a book/' and he adds, " It
is thus manifest the poet's intention was, that these
should be meditations of Hamlet on something which
he found written in a book which he holds in his hand,
and are not to be regarded as from the beginning thoughts
springing up in his own mind/'
Before analysing his conduct to Ophelia, we must
first carefully examine into all the circumstances re
specting the exact position of each party. Ophelia has for
two months steadily obeyed her father's injunctions in
denying herself to Hamlet : but yesterday he rushed
into her presence in an ecstasy of love, and to-day there
is a decided change in her favour ; the king and queen
are consenting parties to her love; as gentleness and
submission are two leading traits in her character, she
readily agrees to practise what she must regard as a
very innocent bit of deception on her lover ; she looks
forward then to the interview, a little anxious, perhaps,
but with feminine faith in her charms; But a great
change has come over Hamlet since yesterday morning ;
this evening will be decided the guilt or innocence of the
king ; he is therefore absorbed with his vow ; love must
yield to his father's dread command ; on his way to the
presence of the king he revolves in his mind a philoso
phical problem on life and death; he is therefore in a grave
and serious mood.
62 THE FOOTSTEPS
Notwithstanding the deep affection he bore Ophelia,
and the serious mood he was in, Shakspere will make
him act inexorably according to the laws of his feigned
madness ; and happily his disease is a melancholy and
not a lunacy. All his observations, therefore, are uttered
in harmony with his feelings, in a kind, though sad and
regretful tone. This view of the question is supported
by the remark of the king, " There's something in his
soul, o'er which his melancholy sits on brood/3 words
quite incompatible with the supposition he spoke
mockingly, dancing and grinning about the lobby like a
lunatic.
He first addresses her in words most sweet and sad : —
" Nymph, in thy orisons,
Be all my sins remembered."
" I humbly thank" you, well, well, well !"
" No, no ! I never gave you ought."
On her again offering to return his gifts, he then sus
pects she is playing a part ; his " ha ! ha I" is simply the
exclamation on this suspicion arising in his mind, and he
asks, "Are you honest?" merely meaning, "Are you
acting honestly, of your own accord, in offering to restore
these gifts?" the question is most natural; he had not
spoken to her for full two months ; she prevaricates of
necessity, and says questionly, " My lord ! " he is then
satisfied she is playing a part, and he quibbles on the
word honest, and asks, "Are you fair ?" but at the same
time everything is done in the kindest and gentlest
manner ; ' ( Get thee to a nunnery ; go thy ways, and
quickly too," was the best advice he could give ; for this
very evening his fate will be decided ; " blood and de-
OF SHAKSPERE. 63
struction shall be so in use/' that her father, the king's
confidential minister, had better " let the doors be shut
upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in's
own house." This allusion to her father, which Hamlet
certainly could not avoid, as the king and Polonius were
listening behind the arras, is the first sentence, and
perhaps the only one, that really grated on her feelings ;
but the young lady got no more than she deserved ; she
was telling fibs (f at home, my lord."
The conversation should be divided into two parts;
in the first, Hamlet gives, according to the method of
his madness, the best possible advice, if she could only
have understood it ; the latter part is intended to deceive
the listeners, and Ophelia of course is not hurt at his
remarks, attributing them to his insanity ; but the king
was a Hamlet also, and not so easily outwitted; his
guilty conscience began to suspect that Hamlet's mind
was dwelling on his father's sudden death, and " I do
doubt the hatch, and the disclose will be some danger."
Had Hamlet addressed Ophelia in a jeering and offen
sive manner, Polonius would certainly have remarked
upon it ; besides, the king said, " tbo' it lacked form a
little, it was not like madness." And a few hours after,
at the play, he is very attentive, and quite sweet on
Ophelia : —
Ham. " No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.
Pol. Oho ! do you mark that ? "
Ophelia was also probably deceived by Hamlet's mimetic
art, " the feature of blown youth, blasted with ecstasy,"
that is, of melancholia, with its vacant and abstracted
64 THE FOOTSTEPS
look " lent on vacuity " as opposed to the ecstasy of
love : —
" He seem'd to find his way without his eyes ;
And, to the last, bended their light on me."
The grand Anglo-Saxon character of Hamlet, with
its sensibilities and energies, is not to be understood by
reading his speeches thirty times over as Kemble did,
but by a cautious analysis, by comparing passage with
passage ; throughout this scene, Hamlet acts the melan
cholic character admirably, meditative, self -accusing, and
Ham. " When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin."—
Act iii., scene 1.
Bodkin is said to be a small sword, and that Csesar was,
according to old writers, slain by bodkins ; but Hamlet
is speaking slightingly of our tenure of life, " who would
bear such fardels, such a weary life, when it can so
easily be put an end to by a bodkin, by a little pin ; "•
a similar passage occurs in Richard II. : —
*K. Rich. " For within the hollow crown,
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,
Keeps death his court : and there the antick sits,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp ;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene
To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks ;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit, —
As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and, humour'd thus,
OF SHAKSPERE. 65
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and — farewell
king." — Act iii., scene 2.
The bare bodkin and the little pin should be taken
as evidence of Shakspere's anatomical knowledge. His
handwriting may also be adduced as evidence of his
medical profession, at least that he had not been a
lawyer's clerk: —
Ham. " I sat me down ;
Devis'd a new commission ; wrote it fair ;
/ once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair, and labour'd much
How to forget that learning." — Act v., scene 2.
The following passages have been quoted as illustra
tive of irresolution and weakness in the character of
Hamlet :—
1 . " But no more like my father
Than I to Hercules."
2. " The time is out of joint — 0 cursed spite
That ever I was born to set it right."
3. Soliloquy after the dismissing the players, act ii.
4. " Now might I do it," &c., act iii., scene 3.
5. Soliloquy, act iv., scene 4.
6. " But thou would'st not think," &c., act v.
The three last passages have been alreadyfully explained.
Schlegel says, " But in the resolutions which he so often
embraces, and always leaves unexecuted, the weakness
of his volition is evident : he does himself only justice
when he says, there is no greater dissimilarity than
between himself and Hercules." — Blackwood's Maga
zine, vol. xxx vii.
66 THE FOOTSTEPS
Schlegel is not quite so sane as Hamlet, he confuses
self-accusations and reproaches with resolutions.
The germ of Goethe's estimate of Hamlet's character,
and of the leading idea which Shakspere intended to
convey, is contained in the following paragraph : —
" The time is out of joint ; O cursed spite !
That ever I was born to set it right."
" In these words, I imagine, will be found the key to
Hamlet's whole procedure. To me it is clear, that
Shakspere meant in the present case to represent the
effects of a great action laid upon a soul unfit for the
performance of it. In this view the whole piece seems
to me to be composed."
It is evident, Goethe, like Coleridge, has looked into
the depths of his own moral consciousness, and has mis
taken his own image for Hamlet ; for Goethe had his
weak side, " he had only, therefore, to keep in abeyance
the native force of resolution, which gave him mastery,
and in that abeyance a weak, wavering character stood
before him, the original of which was himself." — Lewes'
Life of Goethe.
Let us now test Goethe's test : —
Ham. " Why what should be the fear ?
I do not set my life at a pin's fee ;
And, for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself? "
So far he seems to have the soul of a hero, well fitted
for the performance of a great action ; but two or three
hours afterwards, when the excitement has subsided,
Shakspere, true to nature, puts into his mouth words
denoting exhaustion of body and mind ; and showing,
OF SHAKSPERE. 67
if anything further, not weakness, but exquisite sensi
bility and tenderness. The passage, quoted by Goethe,
may be compared with the soliloquy in the fourth act,
and also with "how ill all's here about my heart."
These three passages occur at a period of depression
following violent, and, in two instances, long-continued
excitement.
With regard to the soliloquy at the end of the second
act, what is Hamlet's position ? he has just dismissed
the players, and also the two sponges, saying, with the
usual courtesy of society, " My good friends, I'll leave
you till night : you are welcome to Elsinore,"
JRos. " Good my lord !
Ham. Ay, so, God be wi' you."
merely meaning, good riddance of you ; has he not just
discovered they are false friends, and did he not say,
" Nay, then I have an eye of you ; " he then breaks
out: —
"0, what a rogue and peasant slave am I ! "
uttered in a self- accusing, slightly accented tone ; having
now the opportunity of testing the king's conscience, he
believes for the moment, that his uncle is really guilty,
and gradually works himself into a violent passion.
But the first part of this speech is usually delivered
in a very different manner ; — the reader or actor sits
down in an attitude of great exhaustion, and pulling out
the white handkerchief, covers his face in due theatrical
form ; then in a low, depressed, and melancholy tone
he drawls out, " O, what a rogue and peasant slave am
I !" gradually working himself into a passion on getting
68 THE FOOTSTEPS
to " Am I a coward ? who calls me villain ? " De gus-
tibus non disputandum, every man to his own fancy.
But as Hamlet makes his appearance in this scene
quizzing Polonius, and becomes moody and suspicious
on discovering his two friends to be spies, and on the
arrival of the players immediately conceives the idea of
testing his uncle's guilt, concealing or keeping down
his excitement by again jesting with Polonius, I should
suspect, that, on being left alone, he would be in a
bitter and scornful, rather than in a low, depressed, and
melancholy mood.
I trust it has been clearly proved in the foregoing
pages, there are in Hamlet " no tokens of an unhinged
mind," no symptoms of an " aberration of intellect ; "
nor can the passage, — t( I have of late, but [wherefore I
know not,] lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of
exercises," &c., be adduced as evidence of mental aliena
tion. Had this scene, act second, scene second, occurred a
few days or within a fortnight after his seeing the ghost,
we might suspect, especially as he has just been playing
the madman with Polonius, that Hamlet is simulating
the precursory symptoms of melancholia, the soliloquy
at the end being the paroxysm ; but as two months have
elapsed, such a suspicion is untenable, and he must con
sequently be regarded as describing his actual condition.
It does riot, however, follow, that his mind is diseased,
since similar symptoms occasionally accompany derange
ment of the liver and digestive organs, and sorely test
OF SHAKSPERE. 69
the doctor's judgment, whether brain or stomach be the
cause of this effect defective : —
" For this effect, defective, comes from cause."
But Shakspere, when he wrote the play, was in the
same state of mind as Hamlet ; of course he had not a
father murdered, a mother incestuously married, nor
had he seen a ghost ; yet still he was in a very similar
predicament. He was suffering under the pangs of a
rejected play ; he saw himself surpassed by Marlowe as
a tragic writer ; he saw his just and reasonable ambition
of becoming a distinguished dramatist passing from the
regions of reality into the semblance of an airy nothing
ness; and he had quarrelled with two of his most
intimate friends. Let us compare his position with
Hamlet's : —
Hamlet. Shakspere.
A father murdered and in pur- A play damned, the author in
gatoiy. purgatory.
A mother's incestuous mar- Dead beat by Marlowe.
riage.
Has to kill his uncle. The chance of two duels on
his hands.
Has seen a ghost. Has seen the ghost of his
own ambition.
No wonder Shakspere, like Hamlet, has bad dreams,
and views the world with a jaundiced eye; and had this
play been damned, and followed the fate of Dido and
^Eneas, Shakspere's own mind might have become un
hinged, as Hamlet's is supposed to have been; there
would have been no Love's Labour's Lost, or at least
with the part of Biron omitted ; for the soundest intel-
70 THE FOOTSTEPS
lect must be influenced by external circumstances as
well as by the state of its earthly tenement ; if wonder
fully, so are we fearfully made.
Let us now examine the ghost; no mortal has
hitherto ever ventured to do so ; perhaps religious awe
forbids the summoning a spiritual being before a human
tribunal ; but is he really a spirit or only moonshine ?
in either case he declines answering the summons; so
the only way to get at him is for his Majesty to have
the Prince tried for the murder of Polonius. During
the trial it is brought out, the ghost was seen on three
successive nights, at the same hour and place, and in
armour; that the Prince cross-questioned Horatio
minutely about his being arm'd ; and was afterwards
overheard talking to himself, "my father's spirit in
arms ! all is not well ; I doubt some foul play." That
on the fourth night, the Prince, violently excited,
followed the ghost a short distance alone, and to his
friends, who soon afterwards joined him, he spoke " wild
and hurling words;" his own statement of what the
ghost had said, was adduced as corroborative evidence
against him ; for it was proved the ghost said nothing
on the first three nights, nor had the officers heard
anything on the fourth night, excepting a sound like
fc swear," which was proved to be the reverberation of a
" fellow in the cellarage," calling out ' ' where is it,"
meaning the coal-box. It was then ably argued by the
counsel for the prosecution, that the ghost was a ghost-
story, all moonshine as usual ; what was the ghost then ?
simply, like the spectre of the Brocken, an image reflected
from the King's statue, which had just been erected at
OF SHAKSPERE. 71
the entrance to the Castle ; that the waving of the arm
was merely an undulation of the air; as the Prince
advanced towards the figure, it receded by a well-known
law in optics, and when he stopped and said, he would
go no further, the figure politely stopped also. It was
then clearly and succinctly pointed out, that the speech
of the said ghost was merely the Prince's imagination,
his own thoughts ; for he is told literally nothing but
what he knew before, and the rest was a wretched
suspicion, based on a partial knowledge of the action
of drugs ; at this point the Prince was heard to mutter,
" the unkindest cut of all ;" and the Court was startled
by a deep groan, when the learned counsel amidst an
audible applause, clenched the subject by observing, How
can a ghost speak, when he has no bodily or material
organs? It was further proved, that in the Queen's
chamber the ghost was not visible to her, nor was it
armed, as shown by the Prince's remark, " in his habit
as he lived;" this was adduced as additional evidence,
that the ghost on the platform was merely a reflection
in the air; and it was further shown, that the said
ghost's speech in the chamber, was only an echo or
reflection of the Prince's own thoughts, of his own
speech : —
Ham. " Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command ?
0, say.
Ghost. Do not forget : This visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose ;"
and the following lines of the ghost were merely the
72 THE FOOTSTEPS
utterance of the Prince's own feelings on seeing his
mother looking amazed at him.
The verdict was, guilty of the death of Polonius,
with a recommendation to mercy as a monomaniac ;
and the Judge condemned him to transportation for life,
to the penal settlements in England, where his spirit
has ever since dwelt, not only mad himself, but the
cause of a literary lunacy among many others. All
concerned in the prosecution were handsomely rewarded,
and remained ever afterwards firm supporters of the
government; the learned Judge was for his valuable
services promoted by his Majesty to be Lord Chancellor,
and soon after stepped into the shoes of old Polonius.
We thus make the astounding discovery, that the
Danish Prince is a monomaniac, whilst Hamlet is
perfectly sane. The Prince, in consequence of the
sudden death of his father, and his mother's hasty
marriage, on hearing Horatio's account of his " father's
spirit in arms," immediately suspects " all is not right ;"
and on seeing what was probably a mere reflection in
the air, his heated imagination becomes excited to
phrensy, and under this excitement, the impression
remains 011 the retina, and he continues seeing the
supposed ghost in his mind's eye ; on the arrival of his
friends, the wild and hurling words denote a mind
already affected; with the cunning and half- conscious
ness of his condition, he tells them not to be surprised,
should he "put an antick disposition on." It is thus
evident, Shakspere knew what a ghost was ; and it has
already been shown, the words of the ghost in the
Queen's chamber were merely the Prince's own
OF SHAKSPERE.
73
thoughts; no wonder his mother exclaimed, "poor
boy, alas, he's mad." But with regard to Hamlet,
the case is altered ; his ghost is a reality, which nobody
can deny ; unfortunately Shakspere has forgotten to tell
us how to call spirits from the vasty deep and make
them visible and audible ; Hamlet therefore is perfectly
sane. We may then sum up, — the Danish Prince is a
monomaniac; but Hamlet himself is the healthy
Shakspere, not " a lame limb of the law," but
" An apothecary's apprentice,
The student of nature."
Postscript. — On making a careful examination of the
preceding analysis, we find the following important
passage, the address of Hamlet to Laertes, has by some
unaccountable oversight, been omitted : —
Ham. " Give me your pardon, sir ; I have done you wrong ;
But pardon 't, as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows, and you must needs have
heard,
How I am punish'd with a sore distraction.
What I have done,
That might your nature, honour, and exception,
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness." —
Hamlet, act v., scene 2.
This passage has given great offence, under the
supposition Hamlet is uttering a deliberate falsehood,
" a direct lie/' since he said in the first act, he should
feign madness, and actually did so, only an hour or
two ago, on leaving the churchyard ; and in the chamber-
scene had solemnly assured his mother, he was only
" mad in craft ;" but, happily, this supposition of his
falsehood is altogether a misapprehension.
74 THE FOOTSTEPS
The sea- voyage had effectually cleared Hamlet's biliary
system ; and he re-appears in this fifth act a wiser and
a sadder man. When he justifies himself to Horatio,
" is't not perfect conscience to quit him with this arm/'
he does so in a straightforward and rational manner,
without hinting a word about the ghost and the dread
command ; and, when he slays Claudius, there is not any
exhibition of the same fiend -like vindictiveness as in the
third act. His estimate also of Laertes' conduct,
" For by the image of my cause, I see
The portraiture of his,"
differs widely from his treatment of Guildenstern and
Rosencrantz ; in the one case he manifests a clear and
healthy judgment; but in his behaviour to his two
school-fellows, the precursory symptoms of an attack of
insanity are very apparent, — " distrustful of friends and
relatives, very fretful and irascible on slight occasions ;
subject to a kind of uneasiness, which he cannot describe
or account for/' Essay on Insanity ; and thus when
Hamlet says to Laertes, "What I have done, I here
proclaim was madness," he speaks the simple truth ; for
he is now conscious, that each appearance of the ghost
was a temporary hallucination, produced by the violent
excitement, under which at the moment he was labouring.
— There is no moral obliquity of vision in Shakspere,
" if then you do not like him, surely you are in some
manifest danger, not to understand him."
As Hamlet in the first four acts is influenced or
governed by one predominant idea, a false impression,
an hallucination, he must consequently be insane, and
OF SHAKSPERE. 75
his feigned madness a real madness. His insanity is that
form of monomania,* which is combined with melan
cholia and depression, and the poet has with admirable
skill and judgment shown the latter symptom following
each paroxysm of maniacal excitement; vide Hamlet's
speech at the end of the first act, and again in act fourth,
scene fourth. Consequently the omissions in the folio are
omissions of the players ; this is very evident in Hamlet's
speech in the queen's chamber, where the passages are
omitted, the points of the daggers he would speak to his
mother, being at the time in a state of maniacal excite
ment. The exclamation of Claudius, in act fourth, scene
third, ' ' alas, alas ! " can only be a hypocritical expression
of sympathy, and the omission of the passage is most
probably a slip of the compositor.
* Monomania, or partial insanity, is that form of mental derangement
in which there exists some prominent and fixed delusion, giving a tone
to the whole character, feelings, and conduct of the individual. It was
to this form of insanity that Locke's famous dictum especially applied,
when he said of madmen, that "they reasoned correctly on false
premises."
" The intellect, also, in the melancholic is usually clear and composed,
unable only to resist the morbid depression or the hopeless delusions
that spring from it and feed it." They are also very positive about their
sanity, asserting the same with the utmost precision and calmness of
manner; and though "an acutencss of wit belongs to most of the
varieties," yet the discursive faculty of reason is often affected ; as
Hamlet says, — "Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot
reason ; " — but it is otherwise in the scene with Osric, in the fifth act,
which is probably intended as a contrast or counter-scene to this very
passage in act second, scene second ; in the one, Hamlet is unable to
carry on a chain of reasoning, — in the other, his mind is clear and col
lected, notwithstanding his being so ill at heart . —
If or. "His purse is empty already ; all his golden words are spent."
Ham. " Do but blow them to their trials, the bubbles are out."
Act v., scene 2.
76 THE FOOTSTEPS
It should also be noted as evidence of Shakspere's
wonderful art, that the first appearance of the ghost is
not purely subjective, but has an objective cause ; and
again in the queen's chamber the ghost is preceded by
Hamlet's intense gaze at his father's picture, " in his
habit as he lived." We need not then be surprised at
his recovery under the kind and respectful attention of
the pirates, who love and reverence him as their prince,
together with the beneficial action of a sea-sickness, of
the sea-air, and absolute rest from all excitement.
But the other parties on the platform do not labour
under an hallucination ; they saw a something, which in
their frightened imaginations and according to the
notions of those times they supposed to be a ghost;
theirs was merely an error of judgment; and had the
matter been explained to them, they would more or less
readily, according to their faith in ghosts, have acknow
ledged the same.*
It is scarcely credible, considering his other engage
ments and studies, Shakspere could have applied himself
so diligently and earnestly, and have acquired during his
residence in London such a mastery over the theory and
practice of physic as is exhibited in Hamlet, unless he
had previously received some professional instruction.
* Although the ghost of Banquo is an hallucination, an image
purely subjective, yet Macbeth is not mad like Hamlet ; he quickly
recovers himself and recognizes it as the phantasm of his own guilty
soul : — " Hence, horrible shadow ! Unreal mockery, hence ! " As
OF SHAKSPERE. 77
According to Rowe, " it is without controversy, Shaks-
pere had no knowledge of the writings of the ancient
poets ; " Pope also speaks of him, as being without that
knowledge of the best models, the ancients, to inspire
him with an emulation of them ; and so it is echoed up
to the present day. Dr. Johnson observes, " whether
Shakspere knew the unities and rejected them by design,
or deviated from them by happy ignorance, it is, I think,
impossible to decide, and useless to inquire. We may
reasonably suppose, that when he rose to notice, he did
not want the counsels and admonitions of scholars and
critics ; and that he at last deliberately persisted in a
practice, which he might have begun by chance."
Perhaps it is not " so impossible to decide and useless
to inquire," as the learned lexicographer supposes
in this passage of lucky guesses; and although, like
Shakspere, I have but small Latin and less Greek,
still the story of Hamlet so strongly reminds one of the
story of the House of Atreus, I thought it advisable to
look into a translation of the Greek tragedies, and I find
myself amply repaid for the trouble.
When Nash accused him of stealing from Seneca, Shaks
pere must have chuckled and curled his lip with disdain,
knowing he had been poaching in a far more aristocratic
preserve; that he had been conning over the Orestes
and the masterpieces of the Greek drama; he found
them apparently "a little more than kin and less than
Hamlet is undeniably a monomaniac, all the learned disquisitions upon
him must henceforth be regarded as a poetical delusion j and his
critics have the delightful task of commencing a new series, sane
essays on an insane subject, the national drama of England.
B2
78 THE FOOTSTEPS
kind," for he bagged but very little game; though
unmistakably Pylades lives again in Horatio.
Considering the circumstances and the situation of
the two parties, there is a strong analogy and resemblance
between Horatio's speech at the end of the first scene,
and the following extract from the commencement of
the Electro, of Sophocles : —
Tutor. "Now therefore, O Orestes, and you, 0 Pylades,
dearest of friends, we must quickly deliberate what we ought to
do. Since already the bright beam of the sun is making audible
to us the morning song of the birds ; and the dark night of stars
has departed. Before then any man comes forth from his house
deliberate in counsel, since we are in a situation where it is no
longer time to hesitate, but the crisis requires action."
Hor. " So have I heard, and do in part believe it ;
But see the sun in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high mountain top,
Break we our watch up, and by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen to-night
Unto young Hamlet ; for upon my life
This Spirit dumb to us will speak to him :
Do you consent, we shall acquaint him with it,
As needful in our love, fitting our duty ? "
Ed. 1603.
It appears to me, that it is to this line, " the bright
beam of the sun is making audible to us the morning
song of the birds," we owe the beautiful passage, " The
cock that is the trumpet to the morn/' as well as f( the
sun in russet mantle clad ; " and in the amended copy
the poet has judiciously altered sun into morn.
In the commencement of the Iphigenia in Aulis,
which is also a night scene, the following lines remind
us of Bernardo's statement : —
OF SHAKSPERE. 79
Again. " What star is that
There sailing ?
Alt. Sirius in his middle height
Near the sev'n Pleiads riding.
Again. Not the sound
Of birds is heard, nor of the sea ; the winds
Are hush'd in silence on the Euripus."
IpJiigenia in Aulis.
Ber. " Have you had quiet guard ?
Fran. Not a mouse stirring.
Hor. Well sit we down,
And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
Ber. Last night of all,
When yon same star, that's westward from the pole,
Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself,
The bell then beating one " —
Hamlet , act i., scene 1.
However slight the resemblance and coincidence of
these passages may appear to the reader, yet there
cannot be the least doubt the second scene in Hamlet
is a paraphrase of the " second scene " in the Electro,
of Sophocles, between Electra and Chorus, as may
be judged by the following extracts ; Hamlet's expres
sion " like Niobe,* all tears/' is confirmation strong ;
Hamlet soliloquizes, so does Electra : —
Cho. " 0 Electra, child of a most wretched mother, how
unceasingly you are thus ever uttering lamentations for
Agamemnon.
Elec. But I do not wish to abandon this habit, so as not
to mourn for my miserable father.
Cho. But not at all either by lamentations or prayers will
you raise your father from the all-receiving gulf of Pluto ; but
proceeding from moderate to unreasonable grief, continually
* " Shakspere caught this idea from an ancient ballad." — Steevens.
80 THE FOOTSTEPS,
lamenting, you destroy yourself. Why do you love grief, as I
see you do, in which there is no relief from misfortune ?
Elec. 0 miserable Niobe, but I consider you a goddess,
thou who in your tomb of stone ever weepest.
Cho. Grief has not appeared to you alone of mortals, O my
child, in lamenting which you exceed those who are within,
from the same source with whom you are sprung and are akin
to them in family.
Cho. Beware of saying more. It is not right to quarrel
with the powerful so as to provoke them ; — Death is the natural
fate of all mortals."
and further on Electra says, that her mother thus abuses
her : —
" O thou impious object of hatred, have you alone lost a
father, and is no other mortal in affliction."
and towards the end of the play Electra thus speaks to
the Tutor :—
" Hail, 0 father, for I think I see my father, hail, and know
that of all men I have most hated and most loved you in one
day."
The following extracts remind us of Hamlet's address
to his mother in her bed-chamber : —
Elec. " A.nd when I see the crowning insult of all, the
murderer in my father's bed with my wretched mother, if I may
call her a mother who sleeps with him, but she is so shameless
that she cohabits with the polluter, fearing no fury, but as it
were triumphing in her deeds. Such speeches she howls out,
and being present at the same time, her illustrious bridegroom
excites her to the same course, that thorough coward, that
entire evil, he who fights his battles with the aid of women.
The following passages remind us of the ghost : —
" Like to the god perchance some demon spoke."
Electra of Euripides.
" Had these eyes seen my father, had I ask'd him
In duty if 1 ought to slay my mother,
OF SHAKSPERE. 81
I think lie would have pray'd me not to plunge
My murdering sword in her that gave me birth."
" Yet my soul
Was struck with horror, 'lest some vengeful power
Spake this, which I misdeem'd thy voice divine." —
Orestes.
The first line may have been merely a coincidence,
but the observation of Orestes, that his father would
have prayed him not to kill his mother, strongly im
presses on us the opinion, Shakspere must have read
these two tragedies : —
Ghost. " But howsoever, let not thy heart
Conspire against thy mother aught,
Leave her to heaven,
And to the burthen that her conscience bears."
Ham. " My mother she has sent to speak with me ;
0 God, let ne'er the heart of Nero enter
This soft bosom.
Let me be cruel, not unnatural.
1 will speak daggers, those sharp words being spent,
To do her wrong my soul shall ne'er consent." —
Ed.. 1603.
As Orestes praises his friend, so does Hamlet; the
parallel passages are too similar to be accidental : —
Orest. " Life hath no blessing like a prudent friend ; "
"But I forbear
Nor with intemperate praise thine ear offend."
Ham. " Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man," —
" Nay why should I flatter thee ? "—Ed. 1603.
Pylad. " Should'st thou but hope I would survive thy death."
Orest. " 0 save thee for thy father, die not with me,
Thou hast a country.
82 THE FOOTSTEPS
Pylad. Together will I die with thee and her." —
Orestes.
1 Hor. No, I am more an antike Roman,
Then a Dane, here is some poison left.
Ham. Upon my love I charge thee let it go/' — Ed. 1603.
The scene also, where Hamlet questions Horatio about
the appearance of the ghost, is probably an imitation of
the dialogue between ^Edipus and locasta about the
murder of Laius in ^Edipus Tyrannus.
These extracts irresistibly prove, that Shakspere, be
fore composing Hamlet, must have devoted much time
and thought to the study of the Greek drama. He was
certainly no profound Greek scholar, and aimed not at
being " an old-clothes philosopher ;" yet he looked, as
no man else ever did, into the very souls of the Greek
dramatists, face to face. That he read not only Sophocles
and Euripides, but JEschylus also, is beyond a doubt ;
for who is Ophelia, the virgin sacrificed to Diana ? who
is she, but the Iphigenia of ^Eschylus, the meek, sub
missive, sacrificial lamb ; surely we may say, and not
irreverently, such a wonderful re-creation is more nearly
allied to the spirit of God than to the genius of man : —
" Arrn'd in a woman's cause, around
Tierce for the war the princes rose ;
No place affrighted pity found.
In vain the virgin's streaming tear,
Her cries in vain, her pleading pray'r,
Her agonizing woes.
Could the fond father hear unmov'd ?
The Fates decreed ; the king approv'd ;
Then to th' attendants gave command
Decent her flowing robes to bind ;
OF SHAKSPERE. 83
Prone on the altar withN&trong hand
To place her, like a spotless hind ;
And check her sweet voice, that no sound
Unhallow'd might the rites confound.
Rent on the earth her maiden veil she throws
That emulates the rose ;
And on the sad attendants rolling
The trembling lustre of her dewy eyes,
Their grief-impassion'd souls controlling,
That ennobled, modest grace,
"Which the mimic pencil tries
In the imag'd form to trace,
The breathing picture shows ;
And as, amidst his festal pleasures,
Her father oft rejoic'd to hear
Her voice in soft mellifluous measures
Warble the sprightly fancied air ;
So now in act to speak the virgin stands :
But when, the third libation paid,
She heard her father's dread commands
Injoining silence, she obey' d ;
And for her country's good,
With patient meek submissive mind
To her hard fate resigned,
Pour'd out the rich stream of her blood." —
The Agamemnon.
Mrs. Jameson says of Ophelia, " in her the feminine
character appears resolved into its very elementary
principles — modesty, grace, and tenderness;" and did
she not for two long months ' ' with patient, meek, sub
missive mind " " repel his letters and deny his access to
her," as she promised her father, " I shall obey, my
lord."
But the tender and most tragic Euripides could not
conceive such a character ; he makes a wretched mess
84 THE FOOTSTEPS
of the affair by portraying Iphigenia as going, like an
Electra, triumphantly to the sacrifice, and then saves her
life at the altar. Aristotle knew better, old ^Eschylus
knew better, so did Shakspere, and so did Miss Bronte ;
her prim, starch, but plucky little governess, notwith
standing the entreaties of her kind old father, is sacri
ficed to the goddess Diana, her heart perishes with
Monsieur Paul in the storm.
But Goethe' s Iphigenia , however beautiful as a
dramatic poem, is not a re-creation ; it is merely a
modern copy of the Iphigenia of Euripides, or rather a
christianised Electra ; for the foundation of each cha
racter is based on a deep religious sense of duty. And
Goethe's opinion about Hamlet's weakness, "a great
action laid upon a soul unfit for the performance of it,"
is far more applicable to Orestes,* nor is it inapplicable
to Agamemnon himself; the following lines correspond
remarkably with the passage quoted by Goethe : —
Again. " 0 that this high honour
Some other had received not I."
" Distraction's in the thought, unhappy me.
My misery sinks me."
Iphigenia in Aulis.
* Orestes in JEschylus^ is undeniably mad ; but in Euripides his
madness is at least problematical. He appears to have had an attack
of remittent fever, and in the course of six days wasted away to a
mere skeleton; and afterwards he became subject to epileptic fits: —
Herdsman. " But his frenzy of its force
Abating, on the earth the stranger falls,
Foam bursting from his mouth." —
IpJiigenia in Tauris.
Possibly Euripides may also have been an apothecary's apprentice,
or at least a student in medicine ; Socrates, his intimate friend, is
said to have been an accoucheur, though some pretend, he only
practised in cerebral midwifery, infants of the brain.
OF SHAKSPERE. 85
Ham. " The time is out of joint ; O cursed spite !
That ever I was born to set it right."— Ed. 1603.
Ores. " Like to the god perchance some demon spoke.
Elec. What, from the sacred tripod ! vain surmise.
Ores. Ne'er can my reason deem this answer just.
Elec. Sink not unmann'd, to weak and timorous thoughts."
Electro, of Euripides.
It is astonishing with what amazing self-confidence
and originality this Warwickshire lad measures himself
with the mightiest names of Greece, names at that time
held by all other men as gods, as something divine and
superhuman ; whatever he touches he turns to gold, or
purifies it through the fire of his own genius ; who but a
Shakspere could have translated the madness of Orestes
into the monomaniac and simulated madness of Hamlet ?
and who, but a poetical doctor, could have metempsy-
chosed Apollo into a ghost? "the god of poesie and
physicke ; " and such a ghost ! never in the most high
and palmy state of Greece did Apollo appear to mortal
eyes so like a god, so like a spirit of the other world,
Porson, in some remarks on the three great tragedians
of Greece, observes, that the language of Euripides
" pleases us by its natural simplicity and plainness, —
though sometimes it descends too much towards the
humble and ordinary style." " Sophocles, on the con
trary, while he is anxious to avoid vulgar phraseology,
and plebeian modes of expression, is somewhat too prone
to indulge in forced metaphors, harsh inversions of lan
guage, and other faults of that nature, which render his
verses, at times, too obscure to be pleasing." — Parson's
Life by Watson, p. 108.
This passage is just as applicable to the later dramas
86 THE FOOTSTEPS
of Shakspere as to the tragedies of Sophocles ; and as
Shakspere is said to have a greater affinity in his genius
to Sophocles, than to either of the other Greek drama
tists, the question arises, is this similarity of style an
accidental resemblance, or an imitation ?
As we occasionally meet with critical remarks, such
as, " there is something very Greekish in this," — " we
have here another instance of Shakspere's profound
knowledge of poetic story," — "the Greek dramatists,*
whose practice Shakspere follows in many things,
whether knowingly or unconsciously," — and as Macbeth
is said to have some analogy to the Electra of Sophocles
and to the Trilogy of ./Eschylus, it follows as the more
reasonable explanation, that Shakspere must have had
a far more intimate knowledge of the Greek language,
than the warmest supporters of his classical learning
have given him credit for.
Mr. Armitage Brown jumped to the conclusion, that
Hamlet was written before the autumn of 1589, and is
supported therein by Mr. Knight ; but there are plaus
ible grounds for this opinion, not noticed by these
gentlemen ; Shakspere must have been forcibly struck by
the extraordinary success of Tamburlaine and Faustus ;
and it seems as if the latter play gave rise to Hamlet ;
for who and what is he ? Shakspere, meditating a new
tragedy, and looking out for a suitable subject, for
tunately looked in, and found what he wanted, a philo
sopher and a wit, Faustus and Mephistophiles in one.
Happily his philosophy and wit are always on the side
of religion and morality ; though these tendencies are
* Hartley Coleridge, in a note to Massinger, p. xxxviii.
OF SHAKSPERE. 87
not so distinctly visible in the witty philosopher of
France, nor in the author of the German Faust.
We may then easily imagine, how Hamlet arose in
the poet's mind ; — he selects the story from Saxo Gram-
maticus as the sketch or outline of the play ; perceives
its resemblance to the old Greek story of Orestes, but un
luckily he has no god at his command, the doctors having
rejected Apollo, and retained, as usual with mankind,
the worst part only, the snake as their emblem; he
meditates over his difficulties, " Ah there's the rub !
about my brains ! ha ! ha ! the ghost's the thing." So
he pours into the witches' cauldron nine Greek tragedies,
tumbles Faustus and Mephistophiles on the top of them,
and then, like Curtius for his country's good, plunges
over head and ears into the cauldron himself, and re
appears as — Hamlet the Dane.
But he borrows not nature from these classical divini
ties ; he returns to nature and himself, to Pericles ; for
is not Pericles Hamlet ? at least, " a piece of him " : —
" If them livest, Pericles, them hast a heart
That even cracks for woe."
As both Potter and Francklin, in their translations,
adopt the very phrases used in Hamlet, it is curious if
they never suspected Shakspere may have read these
tragedies; it shows very clearly, how injurious, how
benumbing to the mind, are prejudices and preconceived
opinions.
It may be reasonably inferred from the words of
Marcellus : —
88 THE FOOTSTEPS
" And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war :
Why such impress of shipwrights,"
that Hamlet was composed during the summer of 1588,
and was brought out in the winter season some weeks
before Christmas. I have previously shown that Shaks-
pere must have gone to London in 1585, taking up to
town with him Pericles, a modest, amiable young man ;
the success of this play encouraged him, gave him more
swing and confidence, so that he speaks out more freely
and boldly, and manifests himself more openly in
Valentine. We may then suppose he brought out
Pericles in 1585, Valentine in the spring of 1586, and
Titus Andronicus the following Christmas ; and in the
spring of 1587, as I shall hereafter show, All's Well that
Ends Well. About the same period Marlowe produced
Tamburlaine, say, both parts in 1586; Faustus is con
sidered to have appeared in 1588, and probably as early
as December, '87 ; Shakspere, constantly studying the
principles of his art, and struck with the great popularity
of Tamburlaine, brings forth, not as a vulgar imitator,
bat as a young artist, Dido and ^Eneas at Christmas,
1587. We may imagine what must have been his feel
ings; how galled and wounded, how disgusted with
himself and with the world ! He, conscious of his own
superiority as a poet, finds himself a successful comic
writer, but has failed in his highest ambition, in tragedy;
whilst Marlowe has written three tragedies, each a
popular favourite, and the last far superior to the two
parts of Tamburlaine. There can be little doubt Mar
lowe at this moment was in the public opinion [though
OF SHAKSPERE. 89
certainly not by the judicious few] regarded as the
greater genius of the two.
Hamlet, however, was more than successful ; it created
a tremendous sensation, and took London by storm.
Then Shakspere, flushed with his triumph, poured forth
the rejoicings of his soul in Love's Labour's Lost ; no
longer did "this brave o'er-hanging — this majestical
roof fretted with golden fire, appear no other thing to
him than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours ; "
all nature laughed around him ; he had vanquished his
enemies, and, hurling the giants down, he seated himself
on the dramatic throne, as on a rock environed by the
sea, smiling at the multitudinous waves of barbarism
roaring around him ; and Biron was the expression of
his exultant feelings.
Hamlet and Biron must, then, be regarded as the
same person ; " the clouds hang on " the one, and the
other is " too much i' the sun ; " " the gibing spirit "is
strong in Hamlet, and had the joyous-hearted and
chivalrous Biron seen the ghost of a murdered father,
and his mother been guilty of an incestuous marriage,
he too, "the wit, poet, and philosopher," would have
been as melancholy, contemplative, and decisive, as
Hamlet ; like him, he soliloquizes, and is the main cha
racter, the master-spirit in the play ; it is the same man
under different circumstances: —
" The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's eye, tongue, sword :
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,
The observ'd of all observers ! "
Is not that the character of Biron, and was it not the
90 THE FOOTSTEPS
character of Hamlet previous to his father's death ? Had
Goethe known the connecting link between these two
plays, he would have saved himself the trouble of specu
lating about Hamlet's natural character. There cannot
be the slightest doubt, the lecture of Rosaline is an
honest confession of one of Shakspere's own failings,
too fond of jesting, a fault which he felt quite unquali
fied him for success in the medical trade, and so, like a
sensible man, he cut it, that is, the trade.
In the supplementary notice to the Two Gentlemen of
Verona, Pictorial Shakspere, we read : " In the first
scene he (Valentine) laughs at the passion of Proteus, as
if he knew that it was alien to his nature ; but when he
has become enamoured himself, with what enthusiasm
he proclaims his devotion : —
" Why man she is mine own ;
And I as rich in having such a jewel
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl."
" In this passionate admiration we have the germ of
Romeo, and so also in the scene where Valentine is
banished : —
* And why not death, rather than living torment.'
" We are not wandering from our purpose of contrast
ing Froteus and Valentine, by showing that the character
of Valentine is compounded of some of the elements that
we find in Romeo."
But Biron is also a similar character, compounded of
the same elements ; with what enthusiasm he proclaims
his devotion : —
" Who sees the heavenly Rosaline,
That, like a rude and savage man of Inde,
OF SHAKSPERE. 91
At the first opening of the gorgeous east,
Bows not his vassal head ; and, strucken blind,
Kisses the base ground with obedient breast ? "
They are three brothers, or rather three manifestations
of the same spirit re-appearing at different periods, and
under different circumstances. Coleridge thus speaks
of Biron's celebrated speech : — " It is logic clothed in
rhetoric; — but observe how Shakspere, in his two-fold
being of poet and philosopher, avails himself of it to
convey profound truths in the most lively images, — the
whole remaining faithful to the character supposed to
utter the lines, and the expressions themselves consti
tuting a further development of that character."
But Biron is not " the germ," " the pre-existent state "
of Benedick, the type of all that is elegant and fascina
ting ; nor Rosaline of Beatrice ; Biron is a far higher
and loftier character; Benedick may be, as Horatio
would say, " a piece of him ; " he was played upon ; but
had any one attempted to play upon Biron, they would
have caught a Tartar ; no one ever succeeded in that
game, save and except one man.
In the wit-combats at the Mermaid between Shaks-
pere and Jonson, Ben had very little chance with his
opponent, who was "an old sworder" at the game, and
had in his younger days played at the cudgels with a far
more formidable competitor. I allude to the wit-com
bats between Shakspere and Lyly at the Mitre, where
the gentle Willy met his match ; the combatants were
92 THE FOOr
thoroughly good-humoured, for each could take as well
as give. Nobody rejoiced more in the success of Hamlet
than John Lyly ; and he had shown his love and esteem
for Shakspere on a former occasion in a most marked
and flattering manner.
In the comedy of Endymion, Cynthia is supposed to
represent Queen Elizabeth, and no doubt her gracious
majesty appropriated to herself all the compliments, as
the courtly poet intended. But under this superficial
allegory was concealed a far more beautiful and poetical
one. Endymion is the youthful poet, in love with Tellus,
or nature, but loving, worshipping in a far higher degree
Cynthia, the poetry of nature ; for of poetry, as of the
moon or Cynthia, it may be said, the form is ever
changing, but the spirit is the same. Is then Endymion
himself merely a poetical conception, a poet's dream, or
a living reality ? His friend Eumenides is unmistakably
John Lyly, the satirical wit : —
Cynth. "Endymion you must now tell who Eumenides
shrineth for his saint.
End. Semele, Madame.
Cynth. Semele, Eumenides ? is it Semele ? the very wasp
of all women, whose tongue stingeth as much as
an adder's tooth ?
Eum. It is Semele, Cynthia; the possession of whose love
must only prolong my life." — Act v., scene 3.
That Shakspere is Endymion may be deduced from
the following circumstances : — In the opening of the
comedy, Endymion says, " my thoughts, Eumenides, are
stitched to the stars, which being as high as I can see,
thou maist imagine, how much higher they are than 1
OF SHAKSPERE. 93
can reach." This passage is an allusion to the line in
the Two Gentlemen of Verona : —
" Wilt thou reach stars, because they shine on thee ;"
which line again was in fact a complimentary quotation
from Campaspe, where Apelles says, " stars are to be
looked, not reach' d at."
Again in Endymion : —
Epi. " Why, you know it is said, the tide tarrieth no man.
Sam. True.
Epi. A monstrous lie, for I was tied two hours, and tarried
for one to unlose me."
The expression, " you know it is said," is evidently an
acknowledgment, a direct complimentary reference to
a well-known and humourous scene in a popular
comedy : —
Pan. " Away, ass ; you will lose the tide, if you tarry any
longer.
Launce. It is no matter if the tied were lost ; for it is the
unkindest tied, that ever man tied.
Pan. What's the unkindest tide ?
Launce. Why, he that's tied here, Crab, my dog." —
Two Gentlem-en of Verona, act ii., scene 3.
These two allusions, the stars and the pun, clearly point
at Shakspere as being the youthful poet Endymion ;
but since it is generally supposed Shakspere borrowed
the pun as well as the stars, let us examine into the
dates of these three plays ; Campaspe was published in
1584, the Two Gentlemen of Verona was most probably
written in 1586, and Endymion in 1587; for in act
third, scene fourth, Eumenides soliloquizes, " how secret
hast thou been these seven years ? " now Euphues was
published in 1580; and -again, Endymion says, "re-
94 THE FOOTSTEPS
membering my solitary 'life almost these seven years,
whom have I entertained but mine own thoughts and
thy virtues ? " Shakspere at this time was in his twenty-
fourth year, so that his consciousness of poetical inspi
ration as being a votary of the Muses dates from his
seventeenth year, not an unreasonable supposition.
Having thus from internal evidence established the
date of the play, and that Endymion andEumenides are
Shakspere and Lyly, we can readily understand the
whole drift of the allegory ; at the instigation of Tellus,
Endymion is thrown into a deep sleep by the enchantress
Dipsas, and is re-awakened by a kiss from Cynthia ; or
in other words, Shakspere, having written two plays
full of poetry and nature, falls asleep under the hands
of the goddess of dulness, or bad taste, and writes Titus
Andronicus, a tale of horrors ; his poetical genius soon
after pricks his conscience, he awakens and perceives the
error he has committed.
Side by side, and parallel with Endymion, runs the
character of Sir Tophas, the bragging soldier, with Epi
his page, a most ridiculous and amusing caricature of
Marlowe; the dulness of the wit is intentional on the
author's part and in character : —
Epi . " Nothing hath made my master a fool but flat scholar
ship."
" 0 lepicfum caput, 0 madcap master ! you were worthy
to win Dipsas, were she as old again, for in your love you
have worn the nap of your wit quite off and made it thread
bare." — Act v., scene 2.
Top. " Why fool, a poet is as much as one should say, a
poet. But soft, yonder be two wrens, shall I shoot at them ?
Epi. They are two lads.
OF SHAKSPERE. 95
Top. Larks or wrens, I will kill them.
Epi. Larks ? are you blind ? they are two little boys.
Dar. Why, Sir Tophas, have you forgotten your old friends ?
Act i., seene 3.
These two larks or wrens are of course the two parts
of Tamburlaine, otherwise the whole passage is merely
silly, childish nonsense ; to add to the humour, the two
little boys are pages to Endymion and Eumenides.
Like Endymion, Sir Tophas falls in love, but with
Dipsas, and has an absurd dream of an owl [with the
face of Dipsas] the bird of wisdom, for Marlowe was a
learned man : —
Top. " Learned ? I am all Mars and Ars.
Sam. Nay, you are all mass and ass.
Top. Mock you me ? you shall both suffer, yet with such
weapons, as you shall make choice of the weapon^wherewith
you shall perish. Am I all a mass or lump, is there no
proportion in me ? am I all ass ? is there no wit in me ? Epi,
prepare them to the slaughter.
Sam. I pray, sir, hear us speak ? we call you mass, which
your learning doth well understand is all man, for Mas maris
is a man. Then As [as you know] is a weight, and we for
your virtues account you a weight.
Top. The Latin hath saved your lives." — Act i., scene 3.
The following passage is evidently a caricature of
Tamburlaine's love for Zenocrate ; — on hearing of Dipsas
being married, Sir Tophas meditates suicide: —
Top. " 0 heavens, an husband ? What death is agreeable to
my fortune ?
Sam. Be not desperate, and we will help you to find a
young lady.
Top. I love no grissels they are so brittle, they will crack
like glass, or so dainty, that if they be touched, they are
96 THE FOOTSTEPS
straight of the fashion of wax; animus majoribus instat,
I desire old matrons. What a sight would it be to embrace
one whose hair were as orient as the pearl ! whose teeth shall
be so pure a watchet, that they shall stain the truest turkis !
whose nose shall throw more beams from it than the fiery
carbuncle ! whose eyes shall be environed about with redness
exceeding the deepest coral ! And whose lips might compare
with silver for the paleness ! Such a one if you can help me
to, I will by piece-meal curtal my affections towards Dipsas,
and walk my swelling thoughts 'till they be cold/'
Tamb. " Zenocrate, lovelier than the love of Jove,
Brighter than is the silver Rhodope,
Fairer than whitest snow on Scythian hills."
" Zenocrate the loveliest maid alive,
Fairer than rocks of pearl and precious stone,
The only paragon of Tamburlaine.
Whose eyes are brighter than the lamps of heaven,
And speech more pleasant than sweet harmony ;
That with thy looks can'st clear the darken'd sky,
And calm the rage of thundering Jupiter."
Sir Tophas must also, like Endymion, fall into a deep
sleep.
But Endymion is very differently handled from Sir
Tophas; in the concluding, as well as in the earlier
scenes, the reality vividly and distinctly pierces through
the allegorical covering; in describing his dream to
Cynthia-, Endymion says, "After long debating with
herself, mercy overcame anger ; and there appeared in
her heavenly face such a divine majesty, mingled with a
sweet mildness, that I was ravished with the sight above
measure, and wished that I might have enjoyed the
sight without end ; and so she (Tellus) departed with
the other ladies, of which the one (Dipsas) retained still
OF SHAKSPERE. 97
an unmoveable cruelty, the other (Floscula) a constant
pity ;" and Cynthia, further on, observes : —
" Endymion, continue as thou hast begun, and thou shalt
find, that Cynthia shineth not on thee in vain.
End. Your Highness hath blessed me, and your words
have again restored my youth : methinks I feel my joints
strong, and these mouldy hairs to molt, and all by your virtue,
Cynthia, into whose hands the balance that weigheth time and
fortune are committed.
Cynth. What, young again? then it is pity to punish
Tellus.
Tellus. Ah, Endymion ; now I know thee and ask pardon
of thee ; suffer me still to wish thee well."
Corsites, " a thirsty soul," who is appointed guardian
of Tellus, is probably intended for Greene, who of all
the giants was, perhaps, the least removed from nature.
" No more than five dramas, the undoubted works of
Greene have come down to posterity." He himself says
in 1588, that he still maintains his "old course to palter
up something in prose;" and it is to this double qualifi
cation, prose and poetry, that the following observations
apply :-
Cor. " Shall she work stories or poetries ?
Cyntli. Could you not stir Endymion with that doubled
strength of yours?"
Tellus says, "I marvel Corsites giveth me so much
liberty ; all the world knowing his charge to be so high,
and his nature to be most strange; who hath so ill-
intreated ladies of great honour, that he hath not suf
fered them to look out of windows, much less to walk
abroad ; it may be, he is in love with me."
It appears Greene treated the ladies rather ungallantly
98 THE FOOTSTEPS
in his plays and novels ; and Nash in his Anatomic of
Absurditie, 1589, ends one of his paragraphs thus: —
" Therefore, see how far they swerve from their purpose,
who with Greene colours seek to garnish such Gorgon-
like shapes."
Chettle says of Greene, "His hair was somewhat
long ;" and Harvey speaks of " his fond disguising of a
Master of Art with ruffianly hair ;" and Nash informs
us, that "a jolly long red peake, like the spire of a
steeple, he (Greene) cherisht continually without cutting,
whereat a man might hang a jewel, it was so sharp and
pendant."
We may now understand the following allusion : —
Cynth. " But whom have we here, — is it not Corsites ?
Zon. It is ; but more like a leopard than a man.
Cyntli. Awake him. How now, Corsites, — what make you
here ? How came you deformed ? Look on thy hands, and
then thou seest the picture of thy face."
Greene, in the epistle prefixed to Perimedes, 1588,
says, he had been ' ' had in derision by two gentlemen
poets, &c. ; I but answer in print what they have offered
on the stage."
The two allusions in this comedy about the stars and
the pun, should induce us to make a closer inspection of
the Two Gentlemen of Verona ; and then the supposition
arises, that Panthino may be Lyly ; for he is a scholar
and a punster, probably his lordship's secretary, but
certainly not a mere servant.
From the examination of these two comedies, Endy-
mion and the Two Gentlemen of Verona, it may be sur
mised, these two playwrights were intimate friends, and
OF SHAKSPERE. 99
that Lyly felt flattered by the compliment Shakspere
paid him in quoting the line from Campaspe, and apply
ing it so beautifully and so appropriately. On reviewing
Endymion it strikes us also as something extraordinary,
that Lyly should have advanced so far beyond the idea
of all his contemporaries in analysing so accurately and
poetically in 1587, the genius of Shakspere; this, perhaps,
can only be accounted for on the supposition, that Shaks
pere in frequent conversations had laid open his heart to
the inspection of his elder friend, freely exposing to him
his innermost thoughts and aspirations; — no wonder
Lyly was ravished with the sight, and worshipped that
beautiful soul, that Psyche, the Warwickshire butterfly ;
a soul so different from Marlowe's, the book- worm, the
moth.
On looking into Pericles we find this conjecture cor
roborated in a singular manner ; for the whole play may
be justly regarded as a hymn of praise to the goddess
Diana or Cynthia, with an allusion to Tellus, — " Marina.
No, no ! I will rob Tellus of her weeds, to strew the
green with flowers ;" so that it contains the principal
points of the allegory itself; and it is worthy of remark,
this is the only allusion to Tellus in the whole Shaks-
perian drama, except in Hamlet , ed. 1604, " Tellus orbed
ground."
In 1587, the same year in which Endymion was
written, Nash in his epistles prefixed to Greene's Mena-
phon, thus writes : — " Idiot art-masters, that intrude
100 THE FOOTSTEPS
themselves to our ears as the alchymists of eloquence,
who (mounted on the stage of arrogance) think to out
brave better pens with the swelling bombast of bragging
blank -verse/' Hence it has been inferred, Greene must
have been jealous of the success of Tamburlaine ; but
Lyly could not have been so affected ; and the dry old
humourist was just the man, like a bright particular
star, to see through such a comet ; and the exceedingly
severe, the open and unconcealed ridicule of Marlowe
as Sir Tophas, leads to the suspicion, there must have
been a quarrel between them. This suspicion rises into
certainty on examining All's Well that Ends Welly which
must have been written about this time ; not only is it
acknowledged to be one of Shakspere's earlier plays, but
the opening so strongly reminds us of Hamlet, that it
may reasonably be conjectured to have been written in
the preceding year. The remarks of the Countess to
Helena and to Bertram, remind us of the king's words
to Hamlet, and of Polonius' advice to his son ; Helena's
reply and soliloquy are in spirit identical with Hamlet's ;
there is in both scenes the same misapprehension, which
is cleared up to the audience by the soliloquy ; Helena
weeps not for her father's death, but for Bertram's de
parture ; and Hamlet's melancholy is caused, not by his
father's death, but by his beloved mother's sinful mar
riage, that such an angel should have fallen : —
Hel. " 0, were that all ! — I think not on my father ;
And these great tears grace his remembrance more
Than those I shed for him. What was he like ?
I have forgot him : my imagination
Carries no favour in it, but Bertrams."
OF SHAKSPERE. 101
In this comedy there cannot be a doubt Parolles is a
Shaksperian portrait of Marlowe : —
Eel. " I know him a notorious liar,
Think him a great way fool, solely a coward.
Hel. Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable
star.
Par. Under Mars, I."
He is also learned, " he hath a smack of all neigh
bouring languages ;" like Sir Tophas, he is " all Mars
and Ars ;" Mr. Knight observes, " Parolles, from several
passages, appears to have been intended for a great cox
comb in dress ; to the insults of Lafeu the boaster has
nothing to oppose, — neither wit nor courage." How
well does all this coincide with what is really known of
Marlowe. Nash calls him idiot art-master, full of arro
gance ; the Reverend Mr. Dyce represents him as irre
ligious, intemperate, with not even a moderate talent for
the humourous : —
" Now strutting in a silken sute,
Then begging by the way."
Lord Lafeu must be regarded as a portrait of Lyly ;
besides genuine goodness of heart, he has also the caustic
humour of Semele's lover ; this opinion is strengthened
by the expression, " he (Parolles) was first smoked by
the old Lord Lafeu."
Let us now return to Lyly; besides Endymion he
wrote three other comedies, evidently allegorical, Sapho
102 THE FOOTSTEPS
and Phao, and Campaspe, both published in 1584, and
Gallathea in 1592.
In Sapho and Phao the courtly poet has depicted the
loves of Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou; the
great difficulty with respect to this comedy is to decide,
whether Hume copied Lyly, or Lyly, Hume; the only
difference being, the one writes dramatically, the other
historically. Hume says, " These reflections kept the
Queen in great anxiety and irresolution ; and she was
observed to pass several nights without any sleep or
repose. Soon after, he went over to his government of
the Netherlands ; lost the confidence of the states by a
rash and violent attempt on their liberties ; was expelled
that country ; retired into France, and there died : —
Sybilla. "Do so, Phao; for destiny calleth thee as well
from Sicily as from love. Other things hang over thy head,
which I must neither tell, nor thou enquire. And so fare
well."
The French Prince visited England in 1581, and died
the same year as the comedy was published in 1584.
In this comedy, Pandion has about him evident marks
of the author, John Lyly ; and the name reminds us of
Panthino in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, originally
spelt Panthion ; like Semele in Endymion, his lady-love
is rather waspish ; he comes from Athens to Syracuse,
as Lyly to London from Oxford.
In the comedy of Campaspe Queen Elizabeth might
view her own virtues reflected in the chastity and war
like courage of Alexander. The loves of Apelles and
Campaspe are probably an allusion to the marriage of
the Earl of Leicester with the Countess of Essex.
OF SHAKSPERE. 103
In Gallathea, a virgin is sacrificed every five years to
appease the wrath, of Neptune ; but at last the god, out
of respect for Diana, (Queen Elizabeth), relents, and frees
the land from the sea-monster, the Agar, by dispersing
the Invincible Armada. The two pretty girls, Gallathea
and Phillida, dressed as boys to escape being sacrificed,
represent England and Scotland armed to resist the
Spanish invasion; and their falling in love with one
another and wishing to be married, must be an allusion
to the probable union of the two countries tinder King
James. This explanation of the allegory is strenghtened
by the reference, twice repeated, to the annus mirabilis,
'88. Thus it may be presumed, the comedy in its
present form was produced about Christmas, 1588.
Let us now proceed and examine Love's Labour's
Lost, in which Shakspere is supposed to satirize Euphu
ism in the character of Don Armado ; and to have had
particular individuals in view in the characters of Holo-
f ernes and Boyet. The curate, Sir Nathaniel, is probably
intended for Lyly ; the noting down in his tables, " a
most singular and choice epithet," may have been a
habit of Lyly's, for his comedies read like compositions,
as if much of the wit had been collected and jotted
down at intervals; they have not generally the easy
flow and lightsome play of Shakspere' s comedy.
" For this production, Love's Labour's Lost, Shakspere,
it is presumed, found neither characters nor plot in any
previous romance or drama ; " but as he must have been
104 THE FOOTSTEPS
as well acquainted with the comedy ufEndymion as with
EuphueSj we may suspect Sir Tophas and Epi are the
buds, which blossomed under the enchanter's wand into
"the refined traveller of Spain" and that inimitable
monkey, Moth ; and the love of Don Arm ado for
Jaquenetta, reminding us of the marriage of Sir Tophas
with Dipsas' servant-maid Bagoa, raises the suspicion
he is another variation, a flattering likeness of that un
fortunate wight, Marlowe; who, if not, like Falstaff,
witty himself, is at least the cause of much wit and
humour in those two wags, our pleasant Willy and the
Oxford Fiddlestick :
Scint. " You will be a good one if you live ; but what is
yonder formal fellow ?
Dar. Sir Tophas, Sir Tophas, of whom we told you ; if
you be good wenches, make as though you love him, and
wonder at him.
Favil. We will do our parts.
Dar. But first let us stand aside, and let him use his
garb, for all consisteth in his gracing.
Favil. This passeth !
Scint. Why, is he not mad ?
Sam. No, but a little vain-glorious."
Endymion, act ii., scene 2.
How closely does this agree with the description of
Armado by Costard : —
" Armado o' the one side, — 0, a most dainty man !
To see him walk before a lady, and to bear her fan ;
To see him kiss his hand ! and how most sweetly a' will swear!"
The King calls him " a man of complements," a for
malist ; and Holofernes thus describes him : — " His
humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue
OF SHAKSPERE. 105
filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his
general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He
is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it
were, too peregrinate, as I may call it. He draweth out
the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his
argument." These words may be regarded as Shaks-
pere's deliberate judgment on Marlowe, delivered at
Christmas, 1597. In the scene where Armado appears
" armed for Hector/' the allusions are very character
istic, — " The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty/'
and
" Dos't thou infamomize me among potentates ?
Thou shalt die,"
recalls to us the observation of Sir Tophas, " Epi, prepare
them to the slaughter/'
The lords concealing themselves after repeating their
sonnets, is probably a hint taken from Diana's nymphs
in Gallathea, act third, scene first.
But Shakspere, by making in the gaiety of his heart
an inpious onslaught on the divinity of Euphuism, and
indulging also in a Bironical jest at Sir Nathaniel the
curate, as Alisander, drew down upon himself the good
humoured wrath of his old friend, who quickly gave him
a Roland for his Oliver, by capping him with the ears of
an ass as Midas. In this comedy there cannot be a
doubt, " our pleasant Willy, the divine Williams/' is
the king "with asses ears/' Midas is a great king and
conqueror ; he entertains Bacchus, and over their cups
F 2
106 THE FOOTSTEPS
he utters a foolish wish, that every thing he touches
may turn to gold ; this wish Bacchus grants him, re
marking at the same time he'll repent of it ; he does so,
and is freed from the consequences by bathing in the
Pactolus ; on his return from the river, passing through
a wood, he is appointed judge in a musical contest, and
gives the prize to Pan against Apollo ; the god, irate
with his folly, gives him the ears of an ass ; the king in
penitence goes to Greece, and offers up sacrifice at the
shrine of Apollo, who releases him from his punishment.
What an accurate and beautiful allegory is this of
Shakspere's career up to 1589. He goes to London in
1585, is the successful author of Pericles and the Two
Gentlemen of Verona ; studies Latin literature, associates
with the Bacchanals, and writes Titus Andronicus in
their false and gilded style, plated with Latin; he
washes out his errors in the beautiful comedy of All's
Well that Ends Well. Again, seized with the desire of
distinguishing himself in tragedy, and struck with the
success of Tamburlaine, he mistakes Pan [Marlowe] for
Apollo, and writes himself an ass in Dido and ^Eneas •
sees his error, repents, studies the Greek dramatists, and
Hamlet is the successful result.
This allegory is so transparent, so clear, and self-
evident, we need not be at all surprised, Shakspere's
commentators have never discovered it. Let us examine
the comedy of Midas a little more minutely. After
reading a few pages, the reader will not fail to notice the
great similarity between the passage beginning with ' ( my
mistress' disposition " in act first, scene first, and the
dialogue between Launce and Speed in the Two Gentlemen
OF SHAKSPERE. 107
of Verona, act third, scene first. That this dialogue is
really a jocular conversation between Shakspere and
Lyly, I have all along suspected ; there is so much differ
ence of character between them ; — Speed establishes
his character for "a quick wit;" Launce, on the con-
trary, very soon earns the reputation of " a mad cap "
and " an ass/' and yet Launce can pun as perseveringly
as Speed. An elegant critic can scarcely contain his
love for Launce ; he pictures to himself Shakspere in the
scene between Launce and Crab as there describing his
own leave-taking from Stratford. But be this as it may,
in the corresponding passage in Midas there cannot be
the slightest doubt, that Licio is Lyly, and Petulus, my
dear little pet, is our pleasant Willy j Licio speaks of
his blue nose and bald head, and is evidently a good ten
years older than his fellow-page. It is also pleasing to
note, that Lyly not only makes Petulus humorous, but
even gives him the advantage over Licio in wit. Licio
speaking of his nose, reminds us of the passage in Love's
Labour's Lost : —
Nath. " My scutcheon plain declares that I am Alexander.
Boyet. Your nose says, no, you are not ; for it stands too
right.
Biron. Your nose smells, no, in this, most tender-smelling
knight."
The conversation between the wags and huntsman,
act fourth, scene third, is a paraphrase of the second
scene in the fourth act of Love's Labour's Lost; as
Holofernes is a "Latin pedant," and knows not the
language of the chase, so the Huntsman is a " sporting
pedant," and knows not Latin ; very likely the Hunts-
108 THE FOOTSTEPS
man is Constable Dull, who blunders over " hand credo/'
and in this instance ove* "fecere disertum" Minutius
appears to be a second edition of Moth ; and Licio's ex
clamation " Deus bone " can only be regarded as a direct
allusion to the observation of Sir Nathaniel, " Laus Deo
bone intelligo." Motto's expression, " you shall have the
beard, in manner and form following " is of course an
allusion to Costard.
To the preceding may be added the following note : —
" Orpheus harp was strung with poets' sinews." —
Two Gentlemen of Verona.
" So sweet and musical
As bright Apollo's lute strung with his hair." —
Love's Labours Lost.
" As the sun, he is represented with golden hair, so it
means with golden wire.
" The very same sort of conception occurs in Lyly's
Midas, a play which most probably preceded Shakspere's.
Act fourth, scene first. Pan tells Apollo, te Had thy
lute been of lawrell, and the strings of Daphne's hair,
thy tunes might have been compared to my notes." —
Warton.
I trust the reader begins to perceive there is a very
intimate connection between Midas and Love's Labour's
Lost. Let us now examine into the character and deeds
of King Midas. In ancient biography, Midas is repre
sented as an effeminate king of Phrygia, and not a word
about his wars or any thing of the sort ; but the Midas
of the comedy is no less a mighty warrior than a mag
nificent monarch, a constant fear and jealousy to the
neighbouring potentates. We thus see, the Midas of
OF SHAKSPERE. 109
Lyly is no more the Midas of history, than the poetical
Antony of Shakspere, is the Mark Antony of history.
Amongst other ambitious schemes, Midas is exceedingly
anxious to conquer the island of Lesbos. In ancient
times the island was divided into several petty republics,
but in the comedy, it is ruled over by a king : —
Celthus. "More than all this, Amintas, though we dare
not so much as mutter it, their king (little bald-pated John
Lyly, the Fiddlestick of Oxford,) is such a one as dazzleth
the clearest eyes with majesty, daunteth the valiantest hearts
with courage, and for virtue filleth all the world with wonder."
The other passages in this scene refer to Shakspere's
imitations of the barbarian school, as Titus Andronicus,
and Dido and ^Eneas : —
" Tis true ; yet since Midas grew so mischievous, as to
blur his diadem with blood, which should glitter with nothing
but pity ; " — " well then this I say, when a lion doth so much
degenerate from princely kind, that he will borrow of the
beasts, I say he is no lion, but a monster ; — he is worthy also
to have the ears of an ass." — " He seeks to conquer Lesbos,"
that is, Euphuism.
Midas. " Methinks there's more sweetness in the pipe of
Pan, than Apollo's lute; — What hast thou done, Apollo?
the ears of an ass upon the head of a king ? — If T return to
Phyrgia I shall be pointed at. — What will they say in Lesbos,
if happily these news come to Lesbos ? ah, foolish Midas ! a
just reward, for thy pride 'to wax poor, for thy overweening
to wax dull, for thy ambition to wax humble. But I must
see to cover my shame by art, lest being once discovered to
these petty kings of Mysia, Pisidia, and Galatia, they all join
to add to mine asses ears, of all the beasts the dullest, a
sheep's heart, of all the beasts the fearfullest ; and so cast
lots for those kingdoms, that 1 have won with so many lives,
and kept with so many envies."
110 THE FOOTSTEPS
The allusions in this speech are so applicable, so per
tinent, they scarcely require any explanation : — " in
Lesbos/' at the Mitre; — the petty kings of Mysia,
Pisidia, and Galatia, are the three dramatists, Marlowe,
Peele, and Greene, proved by the initial letters ; the
kingdoms won with so many lives and kept with so
many envies refer to his plays ; — he also blames himself
for his pride, overweening, and ambition, of which he is
accused by his friends in Hamlet, and in the interview
with Ophelia, Hamlet says : —
" I am myself indifferent honest,
But I could accuse myself of such crimes ;
It had been better my mother had ne'er borne me,
O I am very proud, ambitious, disdainful." — Ed. 1603.
It may also be here mentioned, that of the three courtiers
in the opening of the play, Eristus is Peele ; Martius,
Marlowe ; and Greene, who was the neediest of the three,
is Mellacrites, who urges Midas to ask of Bacchus the
golden touch ; and afterwards when Martius says, " This
will make Pisidia wanton, Lycaonia stiffe," we have in
two words the distinctive characters of Peele and Lodge.
On the king's return, his courtiers remark : —
Erist. " I marvel what Midas meaneth to be so melancholy,
since his hunting.
Mel. It is a good word in Midas, otherwise I should term
it in another blockishness. Methinks he seemeth so jealous of
us all, and becomes so overthwart to all others, that either I
must conjecture his wits are not Ms own, or his meaning very
hard to some."
[The Reeds. Midas of Phrygia hath asses ears.]
Erist. This is monstrous and either portends some mischief
to the king, or unto the state confusion"
OF SHAKSPERE. Ill
The reader will readily perceive, how pointedly all this
refers to Hamlet : —
Hor. " This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
Ham. My father's spirit in arms ! all is not well ;
I doubt some foul play ."
The following advice from Apollo perhaps alludes to
Shakspere's quarrel with Nash and Greene, and plso
shows, that Lyly felt hurt at the practical joke in Love's
Labour's Lost : —
Apollo. " Then attend Midas,
Let thy head be glad of one crown,
And take care to keep one friend."
How pertinently does this last line apply to Shakspere ;
whilst it is scarcely applicable to the king, whose courtiers
and subjects are most faithful and obedient, and deeply
grieved at his misfortune, particularly his barber
Motto : —
Motto. " I tell you, boys, it is melancholy that now
troubleth me."
But who is Motto, and who is Dello, his boy ? , The fol
lowing ; observation of Petulus must refer to Greene's
beard, of which Nash tells us, " a jolly long red peake
like the spire of a steeple he (Greene) cherisht continually
without cutting, whereat a man might hang a jewel, it
was so sharp and pendant" : —
Pet. " And here I vow by my concealed beard, if ever it
chance to be discovered to the world, that it may make a pike-
devant. I will have it so sharp pointed, that it shall stab
Motto like a poynado."
and again we read : —
112 THE FOOTSTEPS
Pet. " Ah ; a bots on the barber ! ever since I cozened him
of the golden beard, I have had the tooth-ache.
Motto. I did but rub his gums, and presently the rheum
evaporated.
Lido. Deus bone, is that word come into the barber's
basin." — Act iii., scene 2.
Here is clear confirmation, or rather anticipation, of
Greene's words in 1592, " an upstart crow beautified
with our feathers ; " but whatever the theft may have
been, it is certain, both Lyly and Shakspere laugh at it
as a capital joke. Greene's charge is thus brought down
to something that occurred before the appearance of
Hamlet; consequently it can only have reference to
Titus Andronicus and the Two Gentlemen of Verona. As
Greene had been in Spain, it is possible Shakspere may
have taken lessons from him in Spanish, and may have
appropriated some passages from the Diana of Monte-
mayor, which Greene may have been translating for one
of his own novels ; and in the song at the end of the
scene are the lines : —
Pet. " 0 what will rid me of this pain ?
Motto. Some pellitory fetcht from Spain."
It thus appears, that Motto is Greene ; and Dello says,
" if I durst tell the truth, as lusty as I am here, I lie
upon a bed of beards ; a bots of their bristles, and they
that owe them, they are harder than flocks." This ob
servation refers to Nash's position in 1589 ; what with
the Marprelate controversy and his quarrel with Shaks
pere as well as with Greene and Lyly, whom he abuses
in his Anatomie of Absurditie, he may well be said to
" lie upon a bed of beards ; " and we may be sure, Lyly,
OF SHAKSPERE. 113
would pay off old scores and make a ridiculous puppet of
him in this comedy; — also the question of Petulus,
" yea Motto hast thou Latin," is perhaps an allusion to
Nash's Epistle prefixed to Greene's Menaphon. Nash in
writing this Epistle acted as Greene's assistant, and thus
stood in the same relative position to him, as Dello to
Motto.
We may then sum up, — Midas and Shakspere are
identical, as regards the golden touch, the ears of an ass,
the attack on Lesbos or Euphuism, and the journey to
Greece.
Act first, scene second, refers to act third, scene first,
in the Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Act fourth, scene third, refers to act fourth, scene
second, in Love's Labour's Lost.
And the observation of Eristus, " this is monstrous,
and either portends some mischief to the king or unto
the state confusion," refers to Hamlet.
Licio and Petulus are Lyly and Shakspere ;
Motto and Dello are Greene and Nash ;
and it should be particularly noticed, that Martius
(Marlowe) is the only character that speaks uniformly
with disrespect of Apollo ; and in the last scene, Midas
speaks severely, though pertinently, to him : —
Mid. " Thou art barbarous, not valiant. No more, Martius,
I am the learned'st in Phrygia to interpret these oracles."
In reading these two beautiful comedies, Endymion
and Midas, at the name of Shakspere all difficulties
vanish, the curtain of night is rent, and daylight pours
in; his name is the watchword, the "open sesame,"
Aladdin's lamp.
114 THE FOOTSTEPS
Lyly wrote another comedy, Mother Bombie, appa
rently in a combative spirit, as a trial of ingenuity
versus the Comedy of Errors.
On examining how the account stands between Shaks-
pere and Lyly during the five years from 1586 to 1590,
both inclusive, it is evident from the foregoing analysis,
the balance must be credited to Shakspere, and some
what heavily ; yet I should be sorry to make the same
charges against Lyly as have been made against Shaks
pere. These resemblances are not, on either side, to be
regarded as petty thefts or stolen ideas, but as com-
pi:mentary allusions, delightful reminiscences; when
Shakspere wrote Dogberry and his watchmen, and the
Fairies pinching FalstafF, how could he avoid remember
ing the watchmen that guarded, and the Fairies that
kissed Endymion ? Dear, good old Lyly ! yet thou liest
on the library- shelf unthumbed, for the novel-reader
understandeth thee not.
But, it seems, during the next twenty years Midas
makes frequent and terrific raids into the dominions of
the Lesbian king, and spite of all his valiant bees,
wasp-like, steals away the honey : —
" Hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus 'gins arise."
"Shakspere was familiar with his works, and para
phrases some of his best passages. He was certainly one
of those authors Greene accused him so bitterly of copy
ing. In the notes to these volumes, many such passages
are pointed out, and others may readily be added. Such
and so many resemblances could not be accidental/'
I trust it has been clearly shown, that up to the ye?v
OF SHAKSPERE. 115
1590, the borrowings from Lyly have been of the most
trivial kind; and it is just possible, that Shakspere,
acting the part of Apelles at the Blackfriars in 1585,
was pleased with the phrase, " stars are to be look'd, not
reached at," as a concise turn of his own thoughts : —
Ant. " Her face, like heaven, enticeth thee to view
A countless glory, which desert must gain :
And which, without desert, because thine eye
Presumes to reach, all thy whole heap must die." —
Pericles, act i.} scene 1.
Thaisa. " And the device he bears upon his shield
Is a black ^Ethiop, reaching at the sun." —
Act ii., scene 2.
Let us now make a further examination, and take a
closer view of poor, despised Pericles. Like Hamlet,
he is of a tender and sensitive disposition, melancholy,
and apt to soliloquize. To the valuable notice on the
authenticity of Pericles, in the Pictorial Shakspere, may
be added the following resemblances ; after reading the
riddle Pericles says : —
" Sharp physick is the last ; "
and Hamlet, on seeing his uncle praying,
"This physick but prolongs thy sickly days ; "
and again,
Sim. " What do you think, Sir, of my daughter ?
Per. As of a most virtuous princess." —
Pericles, act ii., scene 5.
116 THE FOOTSTEPS
Cor. " My lord, what doe you thinke of me ?
King. As of a true friend, and a most loving subject." —
Hamlet, ed. 1603.
Antiochus is evidently the same individual as Claudius,
and the similarity is still more distinctly marked in
the first sketch of Hamlet ; each is guilty of incest, and
in each there is the same energy and decision of cha
racter, and in each the same dread or fear : —
Ant. " He hath found the meaning, for the which we mean
To have his head.
And therefore instantly this prince must die.
It fits thee not to ask the reason why,
Because we bid it.
Thaliard, adieu ! till Pericles be dead,
My heart can lend no succour to my head." —
Pericles.
King. " To England is he gone, ne'er to return :
Our letters are unto the King of England,
That on the sight of them, on his allegiance,
He presently without demanding why,
That Hamlet lose his head, for he must die,
There's more in him than shallow eyes can see :
He once being dead, why then our state is free." —
Hamlet, ed. 1603.
The dialogue between Pericles and the fishermen,
strongly reminds us of Hamlet and the clowns in the
churchyard ; in fact, the two scenes may be regarded as
essentially the same in spirit and meaning : —
2 Fish. " Canst thou catch any fishes then ?
Per. I never practised it.
2 Fish. Nay, then thou wilt starve sure ; for here's
nothing to be got now-a-days, unless thou canst fish for }t." —
Pericles, act ii., scene 1 .
OF SHAKSPERE. 117
Here we have the very pun in Hamlet :—
Cor. " Now my good lord, do you know me ?
Ham. Yea, very well; y'are
Hamlet calls him a fishmonger because he is trying to
fish out his secret.
From these extracts it is manifest, these two plays
were intimately connected in the poet's mind ; and if
there be any truth in the critical theory about germs
and pre-existent states, we shall find the difference
between Pericles and Hamlet is so much and no more ;
the one is an apothecary's apprentice just " out of his
indentures/' going up to London to walk the hospitals ;
the other is the same individual, three years older, a
Licentiate of the Apothecaries5 Company, and a Member
of the Royal College of Surgeons ; a young gentleman
extremely well satisfied with himself, very decided and
off-hand, no fear of a ghost, and rather apt to quiz and
mock old Dr. Polonius. It is worthy of note, these ex
tracts are all taken from the first two acts, which are
supposed to bear the fewest traces of Shakspere's hand.
Mr. Armitage Brown observes, "From the moment
Marina appears, Shakspere takes her by the hand and
leads her gently onward;" it is pleasing to see the
young lady has at least one friend amongst these critics ;
her expression, "My heart leaps to be gone into my
mother's bosom," is similar to Iphigenia's exclamation
on seeing her father : — (
" My father to thy arms I wish to run
Clasp'd to thy bosom ; " — Tphigenia in Aulis.
most probably the resemblance is accidental. Unfortu-
118 THE FOOTSTEPS
nately for Mr. Brown's judgment, he further observes,
" but I cannot perceive he (Shakspere) had any con
nection with the vile crew who surround her." This is
the point, the critics and commentators having so lamen
tably misunderstood ; the poet selected the tale from old
Gower as harmonizing completely with his own poetical
conception about Tellus and Cynthia; the play is
essentially a Hymn to Diana, the goddess of chastity and
sister of Apollo, the god " of poesie and physicke." In
contrast to virgin innocence and the purity of the
married life, the apothecary's apprentice gives a
medical view of the mysteries of the temple of Venus ;
however coarse the scenes may be, they have entirely a
moral tendency, and were, apparently, not objected to in
those days, since the play was a popular favourite for
many years ; and however coarse, they are far less lewd
and prurient than several passages in Lyly's first comedy,
the Woman in the Moon, and which, we know, was per
formed in the presence of the Virgin Queen, " as it was
presented before her Highness."
From the preceding statements it would appear,
Shakspere went to London in 1585, taking Pericles with
him ; brings out the Two Gentlemen of Verona in the
spring, and Titus Andronicus in the autumn, '86 ; All's
Well that Ends Well in the spring, and Dido and Mneas
in the autumn, '87 ; being then deeply distressed at the
itejection of his tragedy, he meditates and studies long
and earnestly over the next; and in consequence of
OF SHAKSPERE. 119
being also much occupied with his duties as Captain of
the Theatrical Volunteers, Hamlet, the crowning glory
of that ever-memorable year, 1588, does not make its
appearance till just before Christmas ; then Shakspere
pours forth the exuberance of his joy in Love's Labour's
Lost, followed by that unrivalled farce, the Comedy of
Errors, in the autumn of 1589.
That our pleasant Willy shortly afterwards rusticated
himself, bolted into country quarters, frighted by the
false fire of N ash's caustic Epistle and by the Kentish
fire of Lyly's humourous comedy, can scarcely be
credited ; but it rests on indubitable authority, that he
did not make his sacrificial offering to Apollo publicly
in the year 1590, or only just before Christmas. It
appears, London was at this time rent with religious
dissensions and controversies, and the stage transformed
into a theological cock-pit. Spenser has so beautifully
and so accurately described this unfortunate period, that
I cannot do better than quote his lines from the Tears
of the Muses, where Thalia thus laments : —
" And he, the man whom Nature self had made
To mock herself, and truth to imitate.
With kindly counter, under mimic shade,
Our pleasant Willy, ah ! is dead of late ;
With whom all joy and jolly merriment
Is also deaded, and in dolour drent.
" Instead thereof, scoffin scurrility,
And scorning folly with contempt is crept,
Boiling in rimes of shameless ribaudry,
Without regard, or due decorum kept ;
Each idle wit at will presumes to make,
And doth the learned's task upon him take.
120 THE FOOTSTEPS
" But that same gentle spirit, from whose pen
Large streams of honey and sweet nectar flow,
Scorning the boldness of such base-born men,
Which dare their follies forth so rashly throw,
Doth rather choose to sit in idle cell,
Than so himself to mockery to sell."
But Spenser here makes, happily, in one sense, a slight
mistake, Shakspere did not " choose to sit in idle cell ; "
we now know, he was hard at work, studying the
Chronicles of Hall and Holinshed ; and that his brains,
like swallows in busy consultation before winging their
flight across the ocean, were deeply pondering over the
whole sweep of his historical plays, the great English
Iliad. Yet it would appear from the testimony of
eminent authorities, that he actually wrote only one
play, Romeo and Juliet, between Christmas 1589, and
Christmas 1592; during these three years, Endymion,
from some unknown cause, must have fallen asleep ; but
it is questionable whether the chloroform of the en
chanting goddess operated on Shakspere or on his com
mentators. Mr. C. Knight has, with great ability,
argued in favour of Shakspere' s claim to Henry VL, and
the Two Parts of the Contention, now called the Three
Parts of Henry VI. So conclusive, so irrefragable are
his arguments, I must refer the reader, who would
study the subject, to his admirable Essay on Henry VL
and Richard III.
I have used the term English Iliad advisedly ; for I
feel confident Shakspere intended all these plays to be
so regarded ; the youthful poet here measures himself
with Homer, as he had previously with the dramatists of
Greece ; and this assertion is based on the opening of
OF SHAKSPERE. 121
Henry VI. , which is the first in order of composition, as
well as the first of a sequence forming a perfect epic poem.
If the Reverend Mr. Hunter can say, " there is some
thing very Greekish in this : " —
Portia. " I stand for sacrifice,
The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives
With bleared visages, come forth to view
The issue of the exploit." — Merchant of Venice.
it may with equal truth be said, there is something very
Homeric in this : —
War. " This brawl to-day
Grown to this faction, in the Temple garden,
Shall send, between the red rose and the white,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night." —
Henry VI. ^ act ii., scene 4.
and it may be added, Shakspere has given us in the
first and third scenes of the first act, a better translation
than either Cowper, Pope, or Chapman, of the first book
of the Iliad i for it is literally a translation; the jars
between Gloster and Winchester reminding us of
Agamemnon and Achilles.
It is a remarkable circumstance, that in Hamlet, the
story of which resembles the story of Orestes, there
should be a paraphrase, or rather, a scene with quota
tions from a scene in the Electra of Sophocles, and in
Henry VI., the commencement of a dramatic epic, we
have a paraphrase of the first book of the Iliad ; — nor
can I resist the impression, so strong a mesmeric and
spirit-rapping hold it has on my imagination, that the
line, " the bad revolting stars, That have concented unto
Henry's death/' is a Shaksperian translation of the
Homeric phrase, " such was the will of Jove ; " that the
G
721 OF SHAKSPERE.
one gave rise to the other; — nor should it be overlooked,
that the jar commences in Henry VI. by Gloster's angry
reply to Winchester, just as in the Iliad by Agamem
non's haughty conduct to the priest Chryses ; and the
parallel may be carried still farther, since all the mis
haps to the Greeks arose from Agamemnon's taking
Briseis from Achilles, and the real cause of the Conten
tion begins with Plantaganet's claim to the Dukedom
of York in the Temple garden ; and whilst in Hamlet
the revenge is Greek, in these plays the warriors, no less
cruel than abusive, are essentially Homeric both in
their language and actions."*
Had these resemblances occurred in other plays, they
might have been regarded as accidental, but as the case
stands, such a supposition is inadmissible ; — for my part,
I believe Shakspere read the Greek authors in their own
language ; but however that may be, these facts deserve
the serious consideration of those parties, who are of
opinion, Shakspere was as ignorant as Nash and tradi
tion would make him.
It is possible, Henry VL, like Henry V., may have
been preceded by an elder play, equally ' ' contemptible "
with the Famous Victories ; but of such a play having
ever existed, there is not the slightest trace or evidence,
excepting in the inequalities of the play itself, which
may reasonably be accounted for by its having been an
early production.
* Maginn considers the character of Ulysses in Troilus and Cressida,
" to be a studied antagonism " to the Ulysses of Homer ; and, he
adds, " at all events I think it would not be far short of a miracle,
if Shakspere had not read in some language the Iliad and Odyssey."
—Eraser's Magazine, Sept. 3839, p. 270.
OF SHAKSPERE. 123
These plays, Henry VI. and the two parts of the Con
tention, must have followed one another in rapid suc
cession, and were probably brought out early in 1591,
and Richard III. the following Christmas, or in the
spring of 1592.
Besides these plays, forming an harmonious whole or
second half of the English Iliad, Romeo and Juliet was
produced within the same period, in 1591. It has been
said, Shakspere's heroines do not set a very good ex
ample, as nearly all make runaway matches ; but how
are they rewarded ? If those parties who carp and rail
at Shakspere as a writer, having no moral object in
view, would read and understand, they would cease such
idle revilings. In this very play does he set up Juliet
as an example or a warning to the boarding-school
Misses in their teens ? Is she not a most affectionate
and enthusiastic young lady, so that everyone pities and
regrets her misfortunes? but are they not the conse
quences of her own misconduct? she mystifies her
parents, and instead of pouring her griefs into the
bosom of her mother, she goes to her father-confessor,
and thus the poet shows how injurious is the influence
of the Popish priest ; and further, how assuredly young
lovers are punished for yielding to their wilful and un
bridled passions. What a contrast is this wilful, forward,
black-eyed minx to the sweet Ophelia, so dutiful and so
loving ; whose affections are far more pure, and whose
love is equally intense. Both perish; but how far
greater are the trials of Ophelia, and how far more
hopeless is her case than Juliet's. Her father murdered
by her lover, he banished and a lunatic; and whilst
124 THE FOOTSTEPS
Juliet brings her own miseries on herself by want of
candour to her parents, Ophelia is sacrificed through the
crotchety idea of Hamlet pretending to be cracked.
"Juliet plays most of her pranks," says Johnson, "under
the appearance of religion ; perhaps Shakspere meant
to punish her hypocrisy/' Is not that the character of
an Italian , rather than an English maiden ?
We have now arrived at a very interesting period in
the life of Shakspere. Shortly before Christmas, 1592,
or early in the following spring, were produced two
comedies, the Merry Wives of Windsor and Midsummer
Night's Dream. There is a tale, that the first was com
posed in the course of a fortnight by command of her
Majesty ; but her Majesty's commands must have been
limited to the writing of a comedy, as she could have
known nothing about FalstafF, since Henry IV. was not
produced till several years later. Most probably the
comedy was written in the autumn, as the German
Duke, who visited Windsor, received his passport from
Lord Howard, September 2nd, 1592.
In the two parts of Henri/ IV. the character of
Falstaff is drawn with inimitable skill, and Sir John
may truly say, " I am myself alone ;" but in the Merry
Wives of VPindsor we see our pleasant Willy in the guise
of the fat knight, like a pretty mischievous child peeping
from behind a mask, laughing and making merry with
his old friend Lyly as Sir Hugh Evans ; and at the same
OF SHAKSPERE. 125
time Marlowe, our old acquaintance Sir Tophas, Parolles,
and Don Armado, is again caricatured under the name
of Pistol.
Let us make an examination into the various allusions
and resemblances, and see how far these assertions are
borne out : —
Fal. " Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa.
You were also, Jupiter, a swan for the love of Leda. O,
Jove, a beastly fault ! and then another fault in the semblance
of a fowl ; think on't, Jove ; a foul fault." —
Act v., scene 5.
Apel. " This is Europa. This is Leda, whom Jove de
ceived in likeness of a swan.
Camp. A fair woman, but a foul deceit." —
Campaspe, act iii., scene 3.
Falstaff then lies down [like Corsites in Endymion,
around whom "the Fairies daunce and with a song
pinch him;"] a similar direction is given in the old
quartos, says Theobald, " during this song they pinch
him" (Falstaff).
On rising up Falstaff says : —
Fal. " I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.
Ford. Ay, and an ox too ; both the proofs are extant."
It is very evident Falstaff has made an ass of himself;
but what does Ford mean by "Ay, and an ox too-"
how could he, a burgher of Windsor, add, "both the
proofs are extant ;" when Falstaff had on the antlers of
" a Windsor stag," and not the horns of an ox ? Perhaps
the following extract from the comedy of Midas may
throw some light on the subject : —
Mid. " What hast thou done, Apollo ? the ears of an ass
on the head of a king ? Help, Pan ! or Midas perisheth.
126 THE FOOTSTEPS
Pan. I cannot undo what Apollo hath done, nor give thee
any amends, unless to those ears thou wilt have added these
horns.
1. Nymph. It were very well, that it might be hard to
judge, whether he were more ox or ass.
Apollo. Farewell, Midas.
Pan. Midas, farewell."
Ford's observation, :< Ay, and an ox too/' thus be
comes proof irresistible, — Shakspere was Midas, and
that he enjoyed the joke.
Fal. " Am I ridden with a Welch goat too.
Seese and putter ! have I lived to stand at the taunts of one
that makes fritters of English.
I am not able to answer the Welch flannel ; ignorance itself
is a plummet o'er me ; use me as you will."
These jests refer to Euphuism ; the author of Euphues
being transformed into a Welshman; and in Love's
Labour's Lost the Princess says of Don Armado : —
" He speaks not like a man of God's making."
From these allusions to three of Lyly's comedies,,
Campaspe, Endymion, and Midas, all in one scene, it
may be reasonably inferred, Shakspere himself is laugh
ing behind the back of the fat old knight; for it is
highly improbable he would have made these allusions
so direct and pointed without some definite object and
meaning.
The observation, " Fery goot ; I will make a prief of
it in my note-book/' directly connects Sir Hugh Evans
with Sir Nathaniel in Love's Labour's Lost : —
Nath. " A most singular and choice epithet." —
[Takes out Ms talle-book.
Ol' SHAKSPERE.
127
And we are strongly reminded of Costard's character
of Sir Nathaniel by Sir Hugh's behaviour in the field,
whilst waiting for Dr. Caius, where he shows such a
tender and generous disposition without detracting from
his personal courage.
Sir Hugh's remark, "for divers philosophers hold,
that the lips is parcel of the mouth," is a complimentary
allusion to a passage in Midas ; and his examination of
William in Latin, has reference to another passage in
the same scene : —
Lido. " Thou servest Mellacrites, and I his daughter ;
which is the better man ?
Pet. The masculine gender is more worthy than the
feminine."
It has been previously shown, that Licio is Lyly, and
Petulus Shakspere ; and here we have Sir Hugh ques
tioning a little boy called William, and at the end of the
examination his mother says : —
Mrs. P. " He is a better scholar than I thought he was.
Evans. He is a good sprag memory."
If the other allusions hold good, it must also be
granted, Shakspere here directly asserts, he is a better
scholar than the world gives him credit for.
As for Pistol, there can be no doubt about him ; he is
a braggart, a tame cheater, and in his way a learned
man, making quotations chiefly from Marlowe's and
Lyly's works, and so identifying himself: —
Slend. " If I be drunk, I'll be drunk with those, that have
the fear of God, and not with drunken knaves.
Pist. How now Mephistophilus ?
Bard. Like three German devils, three Doctor Faustus's.
128 THE FOOTSTEPS
Pist. Thou art the Mars of malecontents.
Let vultures gripe thy guts !*
0, base Gougarian wight ! wilt thou the spigot wield ?f
He loves thy gallimawfry, Ford, perpend. £
The following points evidently refer to Sir Tophas'
description of his behoved Dipsas in Endymion :• —
Fal. " My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.
Pist. Two yards and more.
Fal. No quips now, Pistol ; indeed I am in the waist two
yards about; but I am now about no waste, I am about
thrift.
Pist. As many devils entertain ; and, " To her boy" say I.
Fal. Sometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot,
sometimes my portly belly.
Pist. Then did the sun on dunghill shine." § —
Act i., scene 3.
Top. " What a low stature she is, and yet what a great
foot she carrieth ! How thrifty must she be in whom there is
no waste ! How virtuous is she like to be, over whom no man
can be jealous ! "
" There appeared in my sleep a goodly owl, who sitting
upon my shoulder, cried twit, twit, and before my eyes pre
sented herself the express image of Dipsas. I marvailed what
the owl said, till at the last, I perceived twit, twit, to it, to it ;
only by contraction admonished by this vision, to make ac
count of my sweet Venus." — Endymion, act in., scene 3.
Pist. " Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become
And by my side wear steel ? then Lucifer take all ! "
At this very time Marlowe was acting the part of a
* "A burlesque on a passage in Tamburlaine." — Stevens.
f This is a parody on " A base Grongarian, wilt thou the distaff
wield?"
J This is perhaps a ridicule on a passage in the old comedy of
Cambyses, " my sapient words I say perpend." — Stevens.
§ A quotation from Euphues, " The sun shineth upon a dunghill."
OF SHAKSPERE. 129
needy flatterer and sycophant to the young Earl of
Southampton.
As Pistol's " two yards and more " is not an original
witticism, we may feel certain, — "the world's mine
oyster, which I with sword will open " is also borrowed,
perhaps a joke of Shakspere' s or Lyly's over their oysters
at the Mitre ; — Pistol is not represented here as a wit,
but rather as a learned man, all his bright sayings are
quotations.
The above statement, containing so many allusions
and resemblances to passages in Endymion and Midas,
forms a mass of evidence, which forces on us the con
clusion, that Pistol, like Sir Tophas, is a caricature of
Marlowe ; that Sir Hugh Evans is a Welch portrait of
Lyly ; and that Shakspere is acting the part of Sir John
Falstaff, enjoying the fun, and very discreetly putting
the buck's horns upon his own head to save himself from
a worse fate, the good-humoured wrath of the monarch
of Lesbos.
It must then also be granted, Shakspere acknowledges
the truth of Shallow's accusation : —
Shal. " Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer,
and broke open my lodge.
Fal. But not kiss'd your keeper's daughter ?
Skal. Tut, a pin ! this shall be answer'd.
Fal. I will answer it straight ;— I have done all this :—
That is now answered."
A deal of nonsensical cant has been uttered against
Shakspere on this score ; but it is now acknowledged,
" Deer-stealing in Shakspere's day was regarded only as
a youthful frolic, &c." Staunton's Shakspere.
G 2
130 THE FOOTSTEPS
But the most interesting part of the comedy remains
yet to be examined into ; we have mentioned a little
boy, named William, but there is also a young lady
named Anne ; now if the preceding observations be
admitted, it follows as a matter of course, that sweet
Anne Page stands as the representative of Anne
Hathaway ; and Master Fenton, of the apothecary's ap
prentice, William Shakspere. The evidence in their
favour is as clear and strong as that which has been
advanced with regard to the other characters. " In fact
we do know," says Drake, " that Shakspere married for
love, but we do not know of any the smallest intimation
or hint, previous to the wild conjecture of Oldys, that
coldness or estrangement had subsisted between the poet
and his wife." Much ink has been spilt about his un-
happiness in having married a lady older than himself,
land the proofs after ransacking his plays, are the lines in
Twelfth Night, a couple of lines in Midsummer Night's
Dream, and the acute remark of Sir Hugh Evans, " I
like not when a 'oman has a great peard ; I spy a great
peard under her muffler."
It seems singular and not very creditable to human
nature, that such illiberal surmises should have been
drawn from the lines in Twelfth Night and so much
harped upon; whilst, as far as I am aware, no notice
whatever has been taken of the marriage of Master
Fenton and Miss Anne Page : —
Host. "What say you to young Master Fenton? he
capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he
speaks holiday, he smells April and May ; he will carry 't lie
will carry 't ; 'tis in his buttons ; he will carry 't.
OF SHAKSPERE. 131
Page. Not by my consent I promise you. The gentleman
is of no having ; he kept company with the wild Prince and
Poins ; he is of too high a region, he knows too much. No, he
shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the finger of my
substance : if he take her let him take her simply ; the wealth
I have waits on my consent, and my consent goes not that
way." — Actiii., scene 2.
Anne. Gentle Master Fenton,
Yet seek my father's love ; still seek it, sir :
If opportunity and humblest suit
Cannot attain it, why then. — Hark you hither."
[They converse apart.
Fent. " You do amaze her : Hear the truth of it.
You would have married her most shamefully,
Where there was no proportion held in love.
The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,
Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.
The offence is holy, that she hath committed ;
And this deceit looses the name of craft,
Of disobedience or unduteous title ;
Since therein she doth evitate and shun
A thousand irreligious cursed hours,
Which forced marriage would have brought upon her."
How closely and accurately do all these circumstances
fit in with Shakspere's own marriage ; probably a run-a
way match without the knowledge of their parents.
How pleasingly does the host describe the youthful
poet, ascribing to him the very sins which Goodman
Hathaway would most object to, — he dances, writes
verses, and speaks holiday. Is it not also possible and
probable, that the daughter, according to tradition,
"eminently beautiful," remained in a state of single
blessedness till her twenty-fifth year, because she would
not marry, where she did not love ; and as Justice
132 THE FOOTSTEPS
Shallow is acknowledged to have been a Lucy of Charle-
cote, it is possible, cousin Slender and Dr. Cains may
both have been rejected admirers of that " splendid gal "
Anne Hathaway, the prototype probably of Thaisa and
Silvia. Moreover, Master Fenton's address occurs just
at the end of the play, and is delivered with so much
earnestness, and the lines are so peculiarly appropriate
to Shakspere's own marriage, we are necessitated to
believe, they are the genuine utterances of his own mind,
and that his own marriage had consequently been a very
happy one; and that all the circumstances connected
with the previous contract or betrothal, " long since con
tracted" had been reputable and consonant with the
feelings of persons in their station : —
" The offence is holy that she hath committed,"
This analysis of the comedy according to "my humour,"
instead of detracting from the merriment of the Merry
Wives of Windsor, adds richness and raciness to the
story. No reader will ever confound the living characters
of the comedy with their prototypes or shadows ; and
though the poet has made the marriage of Master Fenton
and sweet Anne Page a vehicle for the justification of his
own early marriage, yet surely they will live immortal
and distinct from our pleasant Willy and his own sweet
Anne. — Mr. Halliwell has pointed out, that Sly, Herne,
Home, Brome, Page, and Ford, are names found in
MSS. in the Council Chamber, at Stratford.
OF SHAKSPERE. 133
We must now have a few minutes conversation with
Thomas Nash, as he furnishes additional evidence, that
Shakspere and Midas are one ; and also explains a
Falstaffian phrase, that has caused the shedding of much
ink. The following extracts are all taken from Mr.
Collier's edition of Pierce Penniless. Mr. Collier ob
serves, " It seems evident that Nash felt, in the opening
of the preceding epistle, (which we give literatim) that
he was performing a task ; but, towards the conclusion,
he freed himself from this impression, and shook off the
restraint upon his pen. It is impossible at this time of
day to explain some of the temporary, and designedly
ambiguous touches at authors of his day, near the close,
but the hit at Peele and his Tale of Troy, 1589, seems
pretty obvious, and Nash sets out with an obscure re
ference to Greene, and to the manner in which he was
accustomed to vaunt his University Degrees at Oxford
and Cambridge, in the title-pages of his tracts."
The prefatory epistle to Nash's edition of Astrophel
and Stella, 1591, above referred to, contains the following
" Gentlemen, that have seen a thousand lines of folly
drawn forth ex uno puncto impudentite, and two famous
mountains to go to the conception of one mouse ; that
have had your ears deafened with the echo of Fames
brazen towers, when only they have been toucht with a
leaden pen ; that have seen Pan sitting in his bower of
delight, and a number of Midasses to admire his miser
able hornpipes, let not your surfeited sight, new come
from such puppet play, think scorn to turn aside into
this theatre of pleasure."
134 THE FOOTSTEPS
These allusions refer to Greene, Shakspere, and Lyly ;
— the two universities going to form one Greene ; —
Fame's brazen towers and the leaden pen to Shakspere's
Henry VI. ; — and Lyly is the author of Midas. This
explanation is confirmed by the following passage : —
" Apollo hath resigned his ivory harp unto Astrophel,
and he, like Mercury, must lull you asleep with his
musick. Sleep Argus, sleep Ignorance, sleep Impudence,
for Mercury hath lo, and only lo Psean belongeth to
Astrophel." The name of Argus is peculiarly applicable
to Lyly ; Impudence is of course Greene, and Mr, Igno
rance can answer for himself.
We can now also readily understand the drift of
FalstafFs expression, " ignorance itself is a plummet o'er
me ; " evidently an allusion to this epistle. The worthy
knight quibbles on the word plummet, a pen or lead, that
is, " a leaden pen ; " as if he had said, " 1 am not able to
answer the Welch flannel ; Nash even may abuse or
jest over me ; use me as you will."
The reader, .on being aware that Euphues was pub
lished in 1580, and Astrophel and Stella not till 1591,
though written several years before, will readily under
stand the following humourous piece of satire, or Dello's
revenge for his ridiculous position in Midas ; ignis fatuus
is an admirable and most apposite name for Euphues,
and " arise out of dunghilles " refers to the line in
Euphues.
" The sun shineth upon a dunghill."
" The sun for a time may mask his golden head in a
cloud, yet in the end the thick veil doth vanish, and his
OP SHAKSPERE. 135
embellished blandishment appears. Long hath Astrophel
(England's sun) withheld the beams of his spirit from
the common view of our dark sense, and night hath
hovered over the gardens of the Nine Sisters, while
ignis fatuus, and gross fatty flames, (such as commonly
arise out of dunghills) have took occasion, in the middest
eclipse of his shining perfections, to wander abroad with
a wisp of paper at their tails, like hobgoblins, and lead
men up and down in a circle of absurdity a whole week,
and never know where they are."
The following points apply to Marlowe, Shakspere,
and Peele ; evidently Dello is in a very uncomfortable
and bristling humour if not " on a bed of beards/' a
hedgehog to himself as well as to his friends ; — " Nor
hath my prose any skill to imitate the almond leaf verse,
or sit tabring five years together nothing but to bee, to
bee on a paper drum/'
" Others are so hardly bested for loading, that they
are fain to retail the cinders of Troy, and the shivers
of broken trunchions to fill up their boat, that else
should go empty/'
The a almond leaf verse " is an ironical compliment;
as the second part of Tamburlaine and the first three
books of the Fairy Queen were published in 1590, the
public immediately discovered, that Marlowe had pur
loined from Spenser the passage in Tamburlaine com
mencing with : —
" Like to an almond-tree y-mounted high."
The following graphic and invaluable caricature belongs
to Mr. Ignorance and no mistake : —
136 THE FOOTSTEPS
" An asse is no great statesman in the beastes common
wealth, though he weare his ears upsevant muffe, after
the Muscovy fashion, and hange the lip like a capcase
halfe open, or looke as demurely as a sixpenny browne
loafe, for he hath some imperfections that do keep him
from the common councel : yet of many he is deemed a
very vertuous member, and one of the honestest sort of
men that are ; so that our opinion (as Sextus Empedocles)
gives the name of good or ill to every thing. Out of
whose works [latelie translated into English for the
benefit of unlerned writers] &c."
The words, " a very vertuous member and one of the
honestest sort of men/' correspond remarkably with
Chettle's account written in the following year, " he had
himself seen his demeanour, no less civil than he excellent
in the quality he professed : besides divers of worship
have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues
his honesty."
In vol. ii., p. 10. of the Shakspere Society, is an ac
count of Shakspere's bust ; " The forehead is as fine as
Raphael's or Bacon's, and the form of the nose and
exquisite refinement of the mouth, with its amiable
genial hilarity of wit and goodnature, so characteristic,
unideal ; bearing truth in every curve, with a little bit of
the teeth shewing at the moment of smiling, which must
have been often seen by those, who had the happiness to
know Shakspere, and must have been pointed out to the
sculptor as necessary to likeness when he was dead.
The whole bust is stamped with an air of fidelity, perfectly
invaluable/'
The reader cannot fail to notice the singular coinci-
OF SHAKSPERE.
137
dence between " hange the lip like a capcase half open,"
and "a little bit of the teeth shewing,"
Mr. Collier, in his remarks on Pierce Penniless,
observes, " Nash had by this time found a patron ; pos
sibly the Earl of Southampton, to whom Nash dedicates
several tracts, was the nobleman intended." This
appears highly probable, for " love's eagle-born Gani-
mede " can only be a young nobleman of singular beauty.
Nash at this time was in great distress, and apparently
dependent on the liberality of Lord Southampton, who
idolized and worshipped Shakspere. Nash therefore
changed his tune, and sycophant-like fawned on the
mighty dramatist. In the commencement of Pierce
Penniless, he writes : —
" Without redresse complaynes my careless verse,
And Midas eares relent not at my moane ; "
and in his epistle to the printer, in the second edition,
he indignantly repudiates Greene's tract as " a scald,
trivial, lying pamphlet."
Since " the two parts of the Contention were produced
as early, if not earlier, than 1591, by universal admis
sion," the play of Henry VI., alluded to by Nash in this
tract, and performed at the Rose for the first time,
March 3, 1592, must have been an imitation of Shaks
pere' s, and probably owed its success to the principal
character being performed by Alleyn, to the popularity
of the subject, and to the circumstance of English troops
being then in France assisting the King of Navarre, and
which was perhaps one inducement why Shakspere began
his historical series with Henry VI.
As Nash, in Pierce Penniless, speaks of his " beardless
138 THE FOOTSTEPS
years," I may mention, he was then in his twenty-fifth
year, he was born in November, 1567 ; Marlowe in
February, and Shakspere in April, 1564; Lyly in 1554,
and Greene probably in 1550.
As Marlowe died on June 1, 1593, we may take this
opportunity of reviewing his career as connected with
Shakspere. Tamburlaine, it is supposed, was produced
(both parts) in 1586, and, no doubt, some other play by
his hand had previously appeared [let it be remembered
the two poets are exactly of .the same age] ; thus it
becomes dubious, whether the palm of priority should
be given to Shakspere or Marlowe; but as Shakspere
went straight to London to join the Blackfriars Com
pany, it may reasonably be supposed, his thoughts had
long been turned to the stage, and that he had conse
quently written a play previous to Pericles. As Arden
of Feversham cannot be attributed to any known author
anterior to 15 92, surely the supposition is admissible,
that it was the work on which Shakspere tried his
" prentice hand ; " apart from the opinion of German
critics, it is strong presumptive evidence thereof, that
the clear and cautious judgment of Mr. C. Knight appa
rently leans to a similar supposition. Though a domestic
tragedy, it it composed decidedly on Endymion's theory,
the young Swan beats his wings vigorously, eager to
have a snap at the moon : —
" The character of Black Will is drawn with great
force, but there is probably something of a youthful
139
judgment in making the murderer speak in high poetry.
The characters and events are lifted out of ordinary life
of purpose by the poet. The ambition of a young writer
may have carried this too far, but the principle upon
which he worked was a right one. He aimed to produce
something higher than a literal copy of every- day life,
and this constitutes the essential distinction between
Arden of Feversham and the Yorkshire Tragedy, as
between Shakspere and Heywood." — Pictorial Shaks-
pere.
Even if it be not conceded that Arden of Feversham
was written by Shakspere, still he claims precedence of
Marlowe as a playwright.
It may then be taken for granted, the two parts of
Tamburlaine appeared in 1586, Faustus at Christmas,
'87, and the Jew of Malta at Christmas, '89, or early in
1590. Let any person read Tamburlaine and Faustus, —
Pericles and Hamlet, — then let him read the Jew of
Malta, and he will readily perceive how diligently and
earnestly the author must have studied the Shaksperian
plays. For the Jew differs from its predecessors not
only in a freer versification and in a more natural style,
but also in several quibbles, and in certain phrases, as,
" Who comes here ? " " but soft ; " two familiar expres
sions essentially Shaksperian. "Soft" occurs three
times in Endymion and six times in Midas, evidently
from the association of ideas ; this soft expression was
probably a conversational habit with Shakspere, as
" noting it down " was a custom with Lyly.
Mr. Dyce justly repudiates the supposition, that
Shakspere, from the Jew of Malta, " caught anything
140 THE FOOTSTEPS
more than a few trifling hints for the Merchant of
Venice ; " nor is it likely the youthful creator of Aaron
would, seven years after, copy from a copy ; for Barabas
and Ithamore, master and servant, are two unmitigated
villains, each having a resemblance to Aaron in Titus
Andronicus ; thus the dying speech of Barabas, in its
fiendish malignity, is clearly an imitation of one of
Aaron's :—
Bar. " Know, governor, 'twas I that slew thy son, —
I fram'd the challenge that did make them meet :
Know, Calymath, I aim'd thy overthrow :
And had I but escap'd this stratagem,
I would have brought confusion on you all,
Damn'd Christian dogs, and Turkish infidels ! " —
Jew of Malta, p. 347.
Aar. " Well, let my deeds be witness of my worth.
I train'd thy brethren to that guileful hole,
Where the dead corpse of Bassianus lay :
I wrote the letter that thy father found,
And hid the gold within the letter mention'd,
Confederate with the queen and her two sons."
Titus Andronicus, act v., scene 1.
The Jew's love for his daughter is thus ironically
described : —
Bar. " I have no charge nor many children,
But one sole daughter, whom I hold as dear
As Agamemnon did his Iphigen ;
And all I have is hers ; "
he is quite ready to sacrifice her to " raise the wind,"
and at last poisons her for turning Christian.
But as Aaron, unlike Barabas, has one touch of nature
in his composition, so must Ithamore, who, in fact, is
Aaron himself, ita-more — the Moor again ; and so Itha-
OF SHAKSPERE. 141
more falls in love with Bellamira, and addresses to her
the following remarkable speech : —
Bell. " I have no husband, sweet, I'll marry thee.
Itha. Content : but we will leave this paltry land,
And sail from hence to Greece, to lovely Greece ; —
I'll be thy Jason, thou my golden fleece ; —
Where painted carpets o'er the meads are hurl'd,
And Bacchus vineyards overspread the world ;
Where woods and forests go in goodly green; —
I'll be Adonis, thou shalt be Love's Queen ;
The meads, the orchards, and the prim-rose lanes,
Instead of sedge and reed, bear sugar-canes :
Thou in those groves, by Dis above,
Shalt live with me, and be my love."
The last line is a quotation, slightly varied, from the
Passionate Shepherd to his Love, a beautiful song of
Shakspere's, but most unjustly attributed to Marlowe
on the weakest evidence possible. It was originally
printed as Shakspere's in the Passionate Pilgrim, 1599;
but in the following year, 1600, it was published in
England's Helicon, and subscribed with the name C.
Marlowe. So far the one publication neutralises the
other ; but fifty-three years later, or sixty years after the
death of Marlowe, Isaac Walton inserted it "in his
Complete Angler, under the character of " That smooth
song, which was made by Kit Marlowe, now at least
fifty years ago ; and an Answer to it which was made
by Sir Walter Raleigh in his younger days." War-
burton unhesitatingly gives both to Shakspere; and
" snatches of this one are sung by Sir Hugh Evans in
the Merry Wives of Windsor" The song of four stanzas,
I believe, is Shakspere's, the other two stanzas may be
142 :STEPS
anybody 's. Throughout all the acknowledged writings
of Marlowe, the nearest approach to this song is the very
speech addressed to Bellamira; "we look in vain/' says
an eminent critic, " for a single familiar image in Mar
lowe's poetry ; " another authority says, " Of an age
distinguished for the excellence of its rural poetry, this
is, without doubt, the most admirable and finished
pastoral.'' On a dispassionate examination, even grant
ing the Reply to have been written by Sir Walter,
Marlowe appears to have no more claim to this most
admirable and finished pastoral than Barnfield has to
Shakspere's Spenserian Sonnet.
The last line, then, of Ithamore's speech, " live with
me, and be my love," being a quotation from Shakspere's
song, carries with it a peculiar significance ; and it is
very remarkable, whilst Tamburlaine and Faustus are
nearly free
" From jigging veins of rhyming mother-wits,"
this tragedy abounds with rhyming couplets besides this
whole speech in rhyme, a speech singularly inappropriate
in the mouth of Ithamore, unless a hidden sense be
attached to it ; there must be some meaning in such an
extraordinary revolution in the poet's proceedings ; and
perhaps Pilia Borza's reply to Bellamira's inquiry about
Ithamore, puts us on the right scent, on the true path of
discovery : —
£el. " And where didst meet him ?
Pilia. Upon mine own freehold, within forty foot of the
gallows, conning his neck-verse, I think it, looking of a friar's
execution."
Both Mr. Collier and Mr. Dyce consider, the Jew of
OF SHAKSPERE. 143
Malta was written about 1589 or 1590; it may then be
regarded as certain, it was not produced till some time
after Nash's Epistle prefixed to Greene's Menaphon.
We can now readily understand Pilia Borza's obser
vation, that he found Ithamore " within forty foot of
the gallows, conning his neck-verse ; " and when Itha
more says, " I scorn to write a line under a hundred
crowns," Pilia significantly replies, ' ' You'd make a rich
poet, sir." We can also see the meaning of the journey
to Greece, the "by Dis above" being a jocular allusion
to his classical ignorance, and the quotation, " live with
me and be my love," from Shakspere's pretty song,
clearly pointing out the particular individual, to whom
these allusions refer. The coincidence about Greece
between Marlowe and Lyly in this play and in Midas,
both written at the same time, confirms the impression,
Shakspere must have read the Greek dramatists in their
own language, and that William deserved his mama's
praise : —
Mrs. Page. " He is a better scholar than I thought he was.
Evans. He is a good sprag memory."
Furthermore the singular comparison of Barabas' love
for his daughter to Agamemnon's love for Iphigenia
raises a suspicion, Shakspere may have read up the
Greek plays with Marlowe, and, no doubt, paid him
handsomely for his services; it also strengthens the
opinion, that Ophelia is risen, Phoenix-like, from the
ashes of Iphigenia, that Marlowe knew the fact, and that
Abigail is his translation of the character, or rather a
copy of Ophelia ; there is besides much in the bitterness
144 THE FOOTSTEPS
of Barabas, reminding us of Hamlet/s causticity to his
dear friends the two sponges.
The stertorous breathing, dilated pupil, and insensi
bility; — the blueness, coldness, and diarrhsea, — are not
so distinctive marks of apoplexy and cholera, as the
neck-verse, journey to Greece, and " by Dis above," are
diagnostic symptoms of the immortal William ; conse
quently " live with me and be my love " must be taken
from one of Shakspere's songs ; and consequently in this
short scene of Satanic comedy, Ithamore stands as his
representative, no doubt intended as a compliment, if
not a nattering likeness ; of course every portrait painter
is not a Ross or a Lawrence ; so is it equally certain,
that Pilia Borza is a self-drawn portrait of the author,
a striking likeness and original; not drawn uncon
sciously, like the self-drawn portraits of Shakspere and
Coleridge, but knowingly and intentionally, for is it not
said of Parolles, " is it possible, he should know what he
is, and be that he is ? "
As the Jew of Malta appears from the preceding ana
lysis to have been a very studied performance, it must
have cost Marlowe much thought and labour, and was
probably not produced before the spring of 1590 ; it was
followed by King John, Edward II., and the Massacre at
Paris, and by the Taming of a Shreiv in the spring of
1593; Dido, as much as belongs to Marlowe, must have
been an early work, perhaps written in '88 after the
failure of Dido and Mneas, and not proceeded with on
account of his new engagements with his humourous
and satirical patron. We thus see, Marlowe had the
tact and wordly wisdom at a great theatrical crisis to
OF SHAKSPERE. 145
staud by " the coming man/7 and swear himself in as
' ' liegeman to the Dane/' and from this time forth he
remained the humble follower and close imitator of the
mighty dramatist and no less potential manager. We
are here reminded of Steele's connexion with Addison,
" Addison, says Johnson, never considered Steele as a
rival ; but Steele lived, as he confesses, under an habitual
subjection to the predominating genius of Addison, whom
he always mentioned with reverence, and treated with
obsequiousness . ' '
During this period of seven years and a half, Marlowe
produced nine plays, seven acknowledged to be his, two
disputed : — The Two Parts of Tamburlaine, Faustus,
Jew of Malta, King John, Edward II., Massacre at
Paris, Taming of a Shrew, and Dido ; — whilst Shaks-
pere produced fourteen, — Two Gentlemen of Verona,
Titus Andronicus, All's Well that Ends Well, Dido and
Mneas, Hamlet, Love's Labour's Lost, Comedy of Errors,
Romeo and Juliet, Henry VI., Two Parts of The Conten
tion, Richard III., Merry Wives of Windsor, and Mid-
summmer Night's Dream ; — besides undergoing the
fatigues of an actor's life, and the responsibilities of a
theatrical manager; and yet not overtasked; — his in
tellectual powers, like the British oak, steadily increasing,
strengthening, and developing themselves ; assuredly his
was not a life of dissipation, but that of an artist devoted
to his profession ; truly might he say, " no more like
than I to Hercules/' but not in SchlegePs sense ; for
he might have added, a greater than Hercules is here.
146 THE FOOTSTEPS
Let us now examine Greene's celebrated Address in
the Groatsworth of Wit \ — " Yes, trust them not ; for
there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers,
that, with his Tyger's heart wrapt in a player's hyde,
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." There cannot be a doubt, Shakspere is
alluded to as the upstart crow, and there can be no
meaning, no force in the words parodied from a line ir
the True Tragedy, —
" Oh, tyger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide,"
unless that tragedy had been written by Shakspere
From the phrase c ' beautified with our feathers " it cai
only be inferred, Shakspere had purloined some beauti
ful passages, some fine sentiments, from the works o
Greene and others, and had appropriated them to hi:?
own vile purposes ; but Greene does not bring forward
any direct charge, nor adduce any instances of spoliation ;
therefore the whole passage may be regarded as a tissue
of insinuations and misrepresentations, proceeding fronc
personal animosity and wounded vanity. Besides, the
character of the writer should be known, and then the
reader may place what trust he pleases on such insinua
tions unsupported by any evidence : —
" He (Marlowe) had a friend, once gay and greene,
Who died not long before,
The wofull'st wretch was ever scene,
The worst e'er woman bore." — Marlowe, vol. iii.
That the three plays, Henry VI. and the Two Parts oi
The Contention, were really written by Shakspere, anc
OF SHAKSPERE. 147
that lie did not merely remodel them, rests on the
highest authority,, on the testimony of a very different
character from Greene : —
" And there, though last not least, is Action ;
A gentler shepherd may nowhere be found.
Whose Muse full of high thoughts' invention,
Doth like himself heroically sound." —
Colin Clout's Come Home again.
It is incredible Spenser would thus have sung the
praises of his friend, had his merits consisted in merely
adding some lines and polishing up the works ^of others,
to whom decidedly the praise of " high thoughts' inven
tion " would then have been due.
But that these plays were composed and not merely
remodelled by Shakspere, rests on still higher authority,
on the word of the poet himself; the concluding lines of
the chorus in Henry V., can have no other meaning : —
" and for their sake,
In your fair minds let this acceptance take."
Where is the force of the plea, unless Henry VI. had
been written by Shakspere? He could have appealed
more directly to the sympathies of the audience on
behalf of Henry V., by a reference to the Two Parts of
Henry IV. ; but his real object was to connect this series
from Richard II. to Henry V. with the other moiety, thus
forming an harmonious whole, one grand historical drama.
But far too much importance has been attached to
this passage in the Groatsworth of Wit ;* it seems to
* "With thee I joyne young Juvenal, that byting satyrist, that lastly
with me together writ a comedie. Sweet boy, might I advise thee, be
advised, and get not many enemies by bitter words."
The critics and commentators have too readily followed Malone's
148 THE FOOTSTEPS
have been merely a temporary outburst of envy and
malice ; for Greene did not always write thus. In the
Looking-glass for London Marlowe is satirized as Rasni,
King of Nineveh. The following lines in the opening
speech of the play identify him with " that atheist
Tamburlaine, or blaspheming with the mad priest of the
sun ": —
Ras. " Great Jewry's God, that foil'd stout Benhadad,
Could not rebate the strength that Rasni brought ;
For be he God in heaven, yet, viceroys, know,
Easni is god on earth, and none but he."
The three Kings attendant on his " royal mightiness "
are Shakspere and the two authors of the play, Greene
and Lodge. The following lines clearly prove the King
of Cilicia to be intended for Shakspere : —
K. of Oil. " Madam, I hope you mean not for to mock me.
Alv. No, king, fair king, my meaning is to yoke thee.
Hear me but sing of love, then by my sighs,
My tears, my glancing looks, my changed cheer,
Thou shalt perceive how I do hold thee dear.
K. of Oil. Your love is fixed on a greater king.
Alv. Tut, women's love it is a fickle thing.
I love my Rasiii for his dignity,
I love Cilician king for his sweet eye ;
opinion, that the party here alluded to, is Lodge ; but it certainly must
be Nash, who was often called Juvenal by the writers of that period.
Lodge was not in England at that time ; for Greene in the Address
prefixed to EupTiues Shadow, 1592, says, — " one M. Thomas Lodge who
nowe is gone to sea with mayster Candish ;" besides the Looking-glass
for London is no comedy, but a religious mystery ; and the lines to
young Juvenal are written in such a friendly spirit, they might even
confirm in an angry man the suspicion of Wash's complicity in the
tract.
OF SHAKSPERE. 149
I love my Rasni since he rules the world,
But more I love this kingly little world.
[Embraces him.
How sweet he looks ! O, were I Cynthia's fere,
And thou Endymion, I should hold thee dear.
Thus should mine arms be spread about thy neck,
[Embraces his neck.
Thus would I kiss my love at every beck ;
[Kisses Mm.
Thus would I sigh to see thee sweetly sleep,
And if thou waked'st not soon, thus would I weep,
And thus, and thus, and thus, thus much Hove the*.
[Kisses him.
K. ofdl. For all these vows beshrew me, if I prove ye :
My faith unto my king shall not be fals'd.
Alv. Good Lord, how men are coy when they are crav'd !
K. of Gil. Madam, behold our king approacheth nigh.
Alr>. Thou art Endymion, then, no more : heighho, for
him I die!"
[Faints while pointing at the King of Cilicia.
Adam, the smith's man, may possibly also be intended
for Shakspere; he looks like an imitation of Launce,
but awfully addicted to beef and ale : —
Adam. " Nay, sir, we read in the Chronicles that there
was a god of our occupation. — Marry, sir, I will stand to it,
that a smith in his kind is a physician, a surgeon, and a
barber. — I am for you ; come, let's away, and yet let me be
put in the Chronicles"
His thrashing his master for being jealous may be on
the part of Lodge, a sly rap at Greene's jealousy of
Shakspere.
The Looking-glass appears to have been written in
1591, and in imitation of Midas ; for Rasni is through
out treated with similar love and reverence; and we
seem to have the origin of the play in Midas, act fourth,
150 THE FOOTSTEPS
scene fourth, where Eristus and Mellacrites say, — "we will
all join and follow Martins," who replies, " My lords, I
give you thanks;" and the expression, "Rasni is god on
earth," has also its counterpart in Midas, when Martins
says, "That greediness of Mellacrites, whose heart
strings are made of Plutus' purse-strings, hath made
Midas a lump of earth, that should be a god on earth,"
act two, scene one. As Martius disbelieves the oracles
and is portrayed as a contemner of the gods, so Rasni
requires the wonders and signs of the anger of God to be
explained by natural causes. — If then Rasni be the
same individual as Martius, it mnst be granted, the
King of Cilicia is Shakspere.
In the Comical History of Alphonsus, King of
Arragon, it is within the bounds of probability, that
Shakspere is the Hero; Marlowe would be Belinus,
King of Naples ; and in Amurack the Great Turk, lord
over so many regions, Greene has beautifully and no
less truthfully painted his own discontent and jealousy.
When Alphonsus after slaying Flaminius, exclaims : —
" Go pack thou hence unto the Stygian lake, —
And if he ask thee who did send thee down,
Alphonsus say, who now must wear thy crown ; "
the audience would immediately remember the grand
and fearful scene in the second part of the Contention : —
" Down, down to hell and say I sent thee thither; "*
* Who wrote this most Satanic speech ? Shakspere, Greene, or
Marlowe ? Mr. Collier gives it to Greene on account of this passage in
Alphonsus ; Mr. Dyce to Marlowe on account of the lines :
" What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster
Sink in the ground ? I thought it would have mounted."
But may it not rather be held, these resemblances prove, the True
OF SHAKSPERE. 151
and thus Alphonsus, Gloster, and Shakspere would
be irrevocably conjoined in their minds.
" Belinus, Fabius, and the Milan Duke, fled for suc
cour to the Turkish court," are Marlowe, Peele, and
Nash; the last named is in the Groatsworth of Wit,
called " Young Juvenal, sweet boy/' and in the following
lines the three characters are clearly marked : —
AlpJion. " Lord, what a pleasure was it to my mind,
To see Belinus, which not long before
Did with Ms threatenings terrify the gods,
Now scud apace from warlike Laelius' blows !
The Duke of Milan, he increas'd our sport,
When doubting that his force was over-weak,
For to withstand, Miles, thy sturdy arm,
Did give more credence to his frisking skips
Thau to the sharpness of his cutting blade.
What Fabius did to pleasure us withal,
Albinius knows as well as I myself." —
Act iii, scene 1 .
Albinius is no doubt Lyly : —
Alphon. " Now to Albinius, which in all my toils
I have both faithful, yea, and friendly, found."
Alphonsushas also two other warriors on his side,Lselius
and Miles; these may be the two other playwrights
mentioned in the Groatsworth of Wit, of whom Greene
says, " let their own work serve to witness against their
own wickedness, if they persevere to maintain any more
such peasants ; " but whoever these two may have been,
it is certain Miles and Laelius are very appropriate
names for Kyd and Lodge; the little Jeronymo giving
Tragedie, or third part of Henry VI, was written by Shakspere, and
brought out at least several months before either King Alphonsus or
~Edward the Second.
152 THE FOOTSTEPS
Master Nash a good drubbing, and the religious Lodge
castigating the irreligious Marlowe. Lodge was not
only Greene's friend, but appears to have been warmly
attached to Shakspere, and is here named after Lselius,
the intimate friend of Scipio Africanus. Peele is pro
bably named Fabius after the great general, who derided
Scipio's idea of carrying the war into Africa. Peele is
also said to have been jealous of Shakspere. In these
names, Fabius and Laelius, Greene evidently intends a
most graceful and flattering compliment to Shakspere as
Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Zama.
The invocation of Medea, — Iphigena daughter of
Amurack the great Turk, — Faustus his Empress, — and
a Faustus, king of Babylon ! — what a strange and un
meaning jumble of names, unless they are intended to
remind us of Shakspere and Marlowe; — further evi
dence that the ignorant William had read the Greek
dramatists ; and again, Amurack encouraging his troops
thus significantly speaks : —
" Besides the same, remember with yourselves
What foes we have ; not mighty Tamburlaine,
Nor soldiers trained up amongst the wars,
But fearful boors, pick'd from their rural flock,
Which, till this time, were wholly ignorant
What weapons meant, or bloody Mars did crave." —
Act iv.
How applicable are these lines to Shakspere' s want of an
University education; and by "fearful boors" we are re
minded of " such peasants" as Shakspere, Burbage, & Co.
By the overthrow of Amurack, and the marriage of
Alphonsus with Iphigena, and his succession to the
OF SHAKSPERE. 153
empire, Greene acknowledges the superiority of Shaks-
pere as a poet ; whether he intended in the Second Part,
had such been written, to portray Alphonsus as a beni-
ficent monarch, or as an universal tyrant, may be pro
blematical; but the continuation appeared in a very
unexpected form, the hero being a Johannes-factotum,
and the only Shakescene in the country.
From the examination of these plays it may be
inferred, that Greene, like Lyly, took an ardent interest
in the early career of Shakspere ; but being himself a
gifted poet of most varied powers, he could not, without
a pang, see the diadem wrested from his brow.
Let us turn back for a few minutes to Love's Labour's
Lost ; it has been shown, that Biron, Armado, and Sir
Nathaniel, are Shakspere, Marlowe, and Ly]y; the three
remaining characters (sonnetteers and poets), Ferdinand,
king of Navarre, Longaville, and Dumain, must conse
quently be Greene, Lodge, and Peele ; whilst Moth is a
most happy and delightful personation of that " sweet
boy" Nash; who was called Juvenal, not merely after
the Roman satirist, but from his youthful appearance, as
in Pierce Penniless he speaks of his " beardless years,"
being then in his twenty-fifth year, and the following
lines may have given rise to the name : —
Arm. " How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my
tender Juvenal?
Moth. By a familiar demonstration of the working, my
tough senior.
Arm. Why tough senior ? why tough senior ?
Moth. Why tender Juvenal? why tender Juvenal?
Arm. I spoke it, tender Juvenal, &c." —
Act i., scene 2.
H2
154 THE FOOTSTEPS
We thus see that Shakspere, in the joy of his heart
at the success of Hamlet, immediately sought to be re
conciled with his old friends ; and that this comedy, so
popular in its own day, and still the universal favourite
of youth, was the offspring of his generous feelings, a
photographic picture, the sunshine of life, a picnic on a
summer's day. As Nash in the Anatomic of Absurditie,
published in 1589, abuses Greene as the "Homer of
women, &c.," it follows, that the celebrated epistle pre
fixed to Menaphon must have appeared in the early part
of the year, and have preceded Love's Labour's Lost.
It becomes also highly probable, that Orlando
Furioso was an earlier satire on Marlowe, and that
Sacripant, his cunning and formidable foe, was intended
for Nash. Nor is it at all improbable, the comedy lastly
written by Greene and young Juvenal was the continua
tion of the Comical History of Alphonsus, beyond doubt
a satirical production and — pity 'tis, 'tis lost.
After this long excursion with Nash, Marlowe, and
Greene, it is about time to see after our pleasant Willy,
whom we left, if I remember correctly, in a fix, uncer
tain whether he were Falstaff or Midas. But before
proceeding on with the plays, we must first take a look
at the sonnets. The joke in the Merry Wives of
Windsor at Marlowe's expense, " three German devils,
three Doctor Faustus's," is very significant.
In the " Sonnets * re-arranged" I have pointed out,
* Valuable evidence in support of the opinion, the Sonnets were an
early production, is the fact, that all the parallel passages in Mr.
Staunton's edition, are quoted from the early plays, as Love's Labour's
Lost, Romeo and Juliet, Henry FZ, and Merchant of Venice.
OF SHAKSPERE.
155
that Marlowe is alluded to in the line, "Was it the
proud full sail of his great verse/' and that he was also
"the better spirit/' and that Mephistophiles is the
" affable familiar ghost." The probability, that this ex
planation is the correct one, may be readily seen by
reference to the Tragical History of Dr. Faustus : —
Faust. " Go, and return to mighty Lucifer,
And meet me in my study at midnight.
Is't not midnight ? — come, Mephistophilis,
Veni, vem, MephistopMle !"
[Enter LUCIFEU, BELZEBUB and MEPHISTOPHILIS.]
Luc. " Do so, and we will highly gratify thee.
Faustus, we are come from hell to show thee some pastime.
Now, Faustus, how dost thou like this ?
Faust. Oh, this feeds my soul !
Luc. Tut, Faustus ! in hell is all manner of delight.
Faust. Oh, might I see hell, and return again. How
happy were I then !
Luc. Thou shalt ; I will send for thee at midnight.
C. of Lor. My lord, it may be some ghost, newly crept out
of Purgatory, come to beg a pardon of your Holiness.
Pope. It may be so. — Friars, prepare a dirge to lay the
fury of this ghost.
Emp. They say thou hast a familiar spirit, by whom
thou canst accomplish what thou list."
It therefore appears that ten sonnets, forming together
one epistle, are written in good-humoured ridicule of
Marlowe, as Tamburlaine and Faustus, the two nick
names by which he was generally known. " Oh, how I
faint," like a sentimental young lady in hysterics, is
either a quizzical expression or else a very weak one,
worthy of the Hamlet of Goethe and Coleridge. But
156 THE FOOT^
the critics and commentators have taken a very different
view of these sonnets. Thus writes Mr. Boaden : —
" The Sonnets not only allude distinctly to Daniel (as
the better spirit], but very critically point out some
other retainers of the Pembroke family. The poet
hardly preserves his temper when describing the combi
nation against him :
" Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead ?
No ! neither he, nor his compeers, by night
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
He, nor that affable familiar ghost,
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors, of my silence cannot boast."
" Alluding, perhaps/' says Mr. Stevens, " to the cele
brated Dr. Dee's pretended intercourse with an angel
and other familiar spirits." There can be no doubt
about it — the fact is upon record. Queen Elizabeth
and the Pembroke family were Dee's chief patrons.
Their exalted minds and various accomplishments did
not exempt them from the mania of their times, though
the sounder philosophy of Shakspere led him thus to
denounce the Charlatans, who then infested the great,
and upon fantastical science grounded predictions, which
hung like a mildew upon a long existence. — On the
Sonnets of Shakspere.
And this is the sort of erudite and illogical stuff that
persuaded Hallam, arid nearly all the intellects of
Britain — even Rab himself, that sagacious Scotch dog —
to believe that the healthy, jocular, and satirical Shaks
pere wrote, in his thirty-fifth year, maudlin sentimen-
OF SHAKSPERE. 157
tality to a profligate young nobleman in his nineteenth
year.
I have pointed out in the Introduction to the " Son
nets re-arranged" that Shakspere became acquainted
with the Earl of Southampton in 1589, and for several
years watched over him like a guardian ; that in Oc
tober, 1591, he addressed to him a comic-heroic poem,
and that the couplets, promising immortality to his
friend, are merely a cheerful refrain to prevent the poem
degenerating into a monotonous and adulatory strain.
I have also shown, they were collected together by
William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and given to
Thomas Thorpe for publication.
Although there are several editions of Shakspere's
Poems, yet it is to the Sonnets, I imagine, they owe
their principal attraction, since the Venus and Adonis
abounds rather too freely with lascivious descriptions,
and the Lucrece is such a " crabbed and quaint produc
tion," it is no easy matter to work through it; whils^.
the Sonnets in richness of imagery and mellifluous
versification rival the Venus and Adonis without its
indelicacy ; and, full of tenderness and noble thoughts,
they abound in the moral and poetical beauties of the
Lucrece, without its dryness ; I therefore ventured to lay
before the public a new edition of the Sonnets, arranged
on a plan never yet attempted, and apparently never
thought of, viz : — to select and re-arrange (not to re-
divide, but to re-sort) the little poems, which are evidently
addressed to his friend; and which, thus re-arranged,
form a clear and connected history; further, from the
first ( 126' are ejected those, which are addressed to a
158 THE FOOTSTEPS
female; by this simple process the Sonnets have been
removed from cloud-land, and restored to the domain of
healthy literature, making a very pleasant and readable
book, highly interesting and autobiographical.
But the most interesting feature in the Sonnets is the
evidence, that Shakspere had formed a very close inti
macy with a dark-haired lady, apparently of about twelve
months3 duration, from the summer of 1592, to the
summer of 1593, and which then came to an abrupt end
by the amorous tigress transferring her caresses to his
friend, the young Earl of Southampton. She must have
been an Italian, of some rank, the wife of one of the
merchant princes of Venice at least, or the Ambassadress
herself, if not the wife of an English nobleman. That
she was an Italian may be inferred from the fact, that in
all his plays after this period, Shakspere shows such an
intimate acquaintance with the manners and customs of
Italy, as to have given rise to the supposition, he had
visited Italy; but in truth his Italy was a lady with
raven-black eyes. Now it is very remarkable, there are
three dark ladies in the plays, Hermia, Katharine, and
Cleopatra, three black witches, equally ready with their
fists, like the lady in the Sonnets, who had decidedly a
will of her own ; that she stood as the original of the
other three cannot be doubted.
This lady, with her black and mourning eyes and a
will of her own, reminds us of Byron's two Venetian
loves ; — Marianna, with " the large black oriental eyes
with that peculiar expression in them, which is seen
rarely among Europeans ; "—Margarita, " very fine black
eyes, a thorough Venetian, with all their naivete and
OF SHAKSPERE. 159
pantaloon humour, and a devilish spirit of some sort
within her." The duration of Shakspeare's actual en
chantment reminds us, that the wisest of the Greeks,
Ulysses, remained a whole year under the Circean spell.
As the Midsummer Night's Dream and the Merry
Wives of Windsor were both written about the same
time and under similar circumstances, they should be
examined and compared together with reference to the
passages, which may be considered, rightly or wrongly,
applicable to Shakspere.
The following lines in the Midsummer Night's Dream
have frequently been adduced as evidence, that the poet
had made an unfortunate marriage : —
Lys. " Ah me ! for aught that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth :
But, either it was different in blood ; —
Her. O cross ! too high to be enthrall' d to low !
Lys. Or else misgraffed, in respect of years ; —
Her. O spite ! too old to be engag'd to young !
Lys. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends ; —
Her. O hell ; to choose love by another's eye !
Lys. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it." —
Act i. scene 1.
How do these lines affect Shakspere ? they are merely
the usual complaint of lovers contraried by their parents ;
" misgraffed in respect of years " is the only unfavorable
expression, all the rest actually confirm the supposition
160 THE FOOTSTEPS
of his domestic happiness ; for it is universally granted,
he married for love, and apparently without asking per
mission either of friends or parents. These lines then,
though so often quoted, are no proof Shakspere lived
unhappily with his wife ; nor is there any evidence or
tradition, that she ever lost his affection ; though for
a time he laboured under a delusion, under the fascina
tion of an extraordinary woman. The story of his
domestic infelicity was first started something more than
a century ago, by Oldys misinterpreting one of the
Sonnets.
Another passage in this comedy is supposed to contain
an allusion to Greene : —
Lys. [reads] " The battle with the Centaurs' to be sung
By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.
The. We'll none of that : that have 1 told my love,
In glory of my kinsman Hercules.
Lys. The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals
Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.
The. That is an old device, and it was play'd
When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.
Lys. The thrice three Muses mourning for the death
Of learning, late deceas'd in beggary.
The. That is some satire, keen, and critical,
Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony." — Actv., scene 1.
The "learning late deceas'd in beggary," Mr. C. Knight
observes, refers to the death of the poet Greene, and
" some satire keen and critical/' to the famous contro
versy of Nash and Gabriel Harvey. But let us follow
up the scent, trace the fox to his hole, and unearth him ;
— surely the Thracian singer can be no other than Shaks
pere himself; and how appositely does Mr. Ignorance
OF SHAKSPERE. 161
speak through Theseus, " it's an old story, played after
my return from Thebes as conqueror," — after Hamlet ;
— and the Athenian eunuch must be Chettle, the editor,
who omitted some offensive passages in Greene's Groats-
worth of Wit.
Furthermore, can there be any reasonable doubt, that
the beautiful lines on " the imperial votaress in maiden
meditation fancy-free " were written after the Merry
Wives of Windsor, and are Endymion's thanks for
Cynthia's kiss?
It must then be confessed, there are in this Dream
three passages of a decidedly personal nature ; and those
critics, who consider the first, as proof of his unhappy
marriage, must for the sake of consistency, acknowledge,
Hermia is the lady of the Sonnets ; and who is Lysander ?
like Valentine, he is " a gentleman and well derived ; "
his friend Demetrius is certainly Marlowe. Demetrius
comes upon us at first as a swaggerer, is spoken of as a
coward, and is the only character that uses high-flown
language ; the lines addressed to Helen, are essentially
Marlovian :
" The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.
Thou told'st me, they were stol'n into this wood,
And here am I, and wood (wild) within this wood."
" Yet, you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,
As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere."
" 0 Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine !
To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne !
Crystal is muddy. 0, how ripe in show
Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow !
That pure congealed white, high Taurus snow,
Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow,
162 THE FOOTSTEPS
When thou hold'st up thy hand ; 0 let me kiss
This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss ! "
Puck. " Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,
Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars,
And will not come ? Come, recreant ; come, thou child ;
I'll whip thee with a rod ; he is defil'd
That draws a sword on thee !
Ho, ho ! ho, ho ! Coward why com'st thou not ? "
To Lysander Puck merely calls out : —
" Here villain ; drawn and ready. Where art thou ? "
But say the critics, Demetrius is a punster, and Mar
lowe was a learned man, with no wit or humour in him.
" Soft you now," softly there, my friends ! in Tambur-
laine and Faustus there is not a single pun or quibble,
except some few amongst the clowns, probably borrowed
from the common stock of ckrwnage; but in the Jew of
Malta a change comes o'er the scene, and to the great
amusement of Shakspere and Lyly, Marlowe, by friction
with such sharp blades, becomes a wit, and so Demetrius
puns : —
" Haply some hapless man hath conscience."
" Give me a ream of paper ; we'll have a kingdom
Of gold for't."— The Jew of Malta.
realm was frequently written ream, says Mr. Dyce. Other
quibbles may be found, and particularly in Edward II.
There is also in this Dream an allusion to Lyly, at least
a reminiscence of him ; Bottom says, " I see their
knavery ; this is to make an ass of me ; " he then sings
a song evidently a paraphrase of the bird- song in
Campaspe, ending with the note of the cuckoo. And
who can say, sweet bully Bottom with his ass's head is
not a burlesque of the poet himself, as Midas ; 'tis evident
OF SHAKSPERE. 163
Shakspere delighted in the joke, and roars over it like a
sucking-dove, an 'twere any nightingale ; besides, Bottom
" 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 the play ; " and
when Bottom says, — " iny chief humour is for a tyrant :
I could play Ercles rarely; — This is Ercles' vein, a
tyrant's vein," — is it not an allusion to the Groatsworth
of Wit, where the player recounts to Roberto how he
had " terribly thundered " the Twelve Labours of
Hercules.
Do we not then see in " the jealous Oberon" a divine
translation of Greene, the poet's forgiveness in the
apotheosis of his early friend, and the Blackfriars
Company in : —
" A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,
Were met together to rehearse a play,
Intended for great Theseus' nuptial day,
The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort,
Who Pyramus presented in their sport,
Forsook his scene and enter'd in a brake :
When I did him at this advantage take,
An ass's nowl I fixed on his head,
When in that moment [so it came to pass]
Titania wak'd, and straightway lov'd an ass."
As Titania is another name for Diana or Cynthia, may
not the last line refer to the high favour Shakspere was
in at court at that time.
Do we not also see in Puck the poet's forgiveness of
Nash ; has not Nash repented, has he not humbly sued
for pardon : —
164 THE FOOTSTEPS
" Without redresse complaynes my carelesse verse,
And Midas ears relent not at my moane ; "
and did he not at Christmas indignantly call the Groats-
worth of Wit " a scald, trivial, lying pamphlet," and shall
not Valentine forgive : —
" Who by repentance is not satisfied,
Is nor of heaven nor earth."
and really Nash appears to be very appositely represented
by Puck, " that shrewd and knavish sprite ; " for there
seems more a love of mischief than maliciousness in his
remarks against his friends in the epistle prefixed to
Astrophel ; and it should not be overlooked, Puck here
holds the same relative position to Oberon, as Dello to
Motto, and Nash to Greene.
That Greene and Nash are aimed at in Oberon and
Puck cannot be doubted ; it is made certain by the fact,
that the comedy was written soon after the publication
of Greene's tract, and Shakspere replies to his unjust
charges through Titania : —
Tita. " These are the forgeries of jealousy ;
And never, since the middle summer's spring,
Met we on hill, in dale —
But with thy brawls thou hast disturbd our sport."
It has been suggested, this comedy was composed as
an allegorical pageant in celebration of some nobleman's
marriage ; be that as it may, 'tis certain, — Theseus and
Hippolyta dance attendance on the squabbles of a set of
strolling vagabonds ; — such is the raw material, out of
which the enchanter has weaved this finest of gossamer
webs.
As allusion has already been made to the fair vestal
OF SHAKSPERE. 165
throned by the west, it is now time to take a peep at the
Vision of Oberon . —
Obe. " My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest,
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back,
Uttering such dulcet, and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song ;
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music.
Puck. I remember.
Obe. That very time I saw — but thou could st not —
Plying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all-armed ; a certain aim he took
At a fair Vestal, throned by the West,
And loosed a love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts ;
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon,
And the Imperial Votaress passed on,
In maiden-meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell :
It fell upon a little western flower, —
Before, milk-white ; now purple with Love's wound, —
And maidens call it Love-in-idleness."
According to Warburton, the mermaid is Mary, Queen
of Scots ; by the dolphin is denoted her marriage with
the Dauphin of France ; and by " certain stars " are
meant certain English nobles, who fell in her quarrel.
According to Mr. Boaden the first part of the Vision
refers to the pageantry at Kenil worth, where there was
a mermaid, also a dolphin with a band of music in its
stomach, but not with a mermaid on its back, and the
stars are tbe fireworks ; and he considers the little western
flower to be Amy Robsart; but the Keverend Mr.
166 THE FOOTSTEPS
Halpin, though agreeing with Boaden as to the mermaid,
the dolphin, and stars, considers the little flower to be
the Countess of Essex, and further, that Cupid is the
Earl of Leicester, the moon, Queen Elizabeth, and the
earth, the Countess of Sheffield ; — he also gives a similar
interpretation to Lyly's comedy of Endymion. All the
commentators appear to be divided between these three
interpretations, with variations; Mr. Hunter considers
Cupid's shaft as aimed at the Duke of Anjou.
But if Warburton's explanation is now generally
rejected, as being highly offensive to Queen. Elizabeth,
and no less so to the memory of the poet ; the other solu
tion is only less objectionable, because it is less offensive.
On examining this celebrated passage we find it
divided into two parts, into two allegories, totally dis
tinct, connected only by time ; and that, whilst the
second image is purely classical, the first is Elizabethan,
that is according to the pageants of those days, and
must have been " perfectly intelligible to contemporary
ears/' As the poet's intention is to offer a compliment,
a poetical tribute to the Queen, perhaps for some
gracious favour received, all the allusions and images
would be of a pleasing nature, gratifying to the feelings
of his royal Mistress ; he would never dream of pre
senting to her the ghastly head of Queen Mary, nor the
heads of her rebellious nobles, nor the bleeding heart of
an Amy Ilobsart ; all the allusions must be readily com
prehended, and agreeable to a London audience, neither
play nor allegory having been written to puzzle the
brains of the learned ; as the pleasures of Kenilworth
had occurred more than seventeen years ago, they must
OF SHAKSPERE. 167
have been forgotten, if ever known to the Londoners ;
and though the visit of the Duke of Anjou occurred only
eleven years ago/ and must have been well remembered
by a London audience, yet it was highly distasteful to the
nation ; consequently Cupid's shaft can refer neither to
the Duke of Anjou nor to the Earl of Leicester. How
then is the allegory to be explained ? who is the mer
maid ? evidently no common being,' she rules the waves,
and stars shoot from their spheres to listen to her
song. Perhaps as there is a sort of free-masonry in the
poetical academe, Byron can assist us : in the Hall of
Arimanes the spirits thus hymn forth; —
" in his hand
The sceptre of the elements, which tear
Themselves to chaos at his high command !
He breatheth — and a tempest shakes the sea ; "
but at the dulcet and harmonious breath of the sea
maid, of the Virgin Queen, " the rude sea grew civil ; "
and " certain stars shot madly from their spheres " can
only mean the suitors of the beautiful young Queen,
" mad for thy love," Elizabeth.*
Oberon, seated on a promontory, sees on a dolphin's
back a mermaid, the mistress of the sea, the waves obedient
to her high command, — an image not very unintelligible
to modern Britons, and perhaps some can remember
seeing : —
" Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all-arm'd ; a certain aim he took
* " She was a lady of great beauty, of decent stature, and of an ex
cellent shape. In her youth she was adorned with a more than usual
maiden modesty ; her skin was of pure white, and her hair of a yellow
colour, her eyes were beautiful and lively." — Sokun's Character of Queen
Elizabeth.
168 THE FOOTSTEPS
At a fair Vestal, throned by the West,
And loosed a love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts ;
And deep into the maiden's heart it pierc'd,
But Hymen heal'd the wound ; and from the blood
That fell, sprang many a sweet and lovely flower,
A German Lily, and an English Eose,
The expectancy and rose of the fair state."
Thus the mermaid is Queen Elizabeth seated on her
throne, seated in the affections of her people, and England
is the dolphin ; consequently, these beautiful lines form
two lo Paeans to the praise and glory of Cynthia, recall
ing to her mind the happy days of the first year of her
reign.
But what does Oberon mean by saying : —
" That very time I saw — but thou could'st not ; "
Does he not class Puck on a level with himself, when he
" But we are spirits of another sort :
I with the morning's love have oft made sport ; " —
Act iii., scene 2.
Oho ! do you mark that ? a rat, dead for a ducat, dead !
" We won't go home 'till morning,
Till daylight doth appear; "—
Hymn to Bacchus.
Nash was born in 1567, and Greene must have been
in 1558, at least five or six years old ; — therefore Puck
could not, but Oberon did see the first year of the
Queen's reign ; — after this, it must be granted, Oberon
and Puck are Greene and Nash, and that Shakspere
knows how to forgive.
It is perhaps scarcely necessary to mention, that
OF SHAKSPERE. 169
Shakspere constantly gives a pleasing signification to
the word mermaid, using it synonymously with siren,
which is still retained in a complimentary sense, though
the other has disappeared with the pageants : —
Ant. S. " O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears ;
Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote :
Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
And as a bride* I'll take thee and there lie." —
Comedy of Errors, act in., scene 2.
Eno. " Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
So many seamaids,-^ tended her i' the eyes,
And made their bends adornings : at the helm
A seeming Mermaid steers." —
Antony and Cleopatra, act ii., scene 2.
As the Midsummer-Night's Dream and Marlowe's
Taming of a Shrew were written at the same time and
* The beauty and appropriateness of this image cannot be fully
understood unless the reader is aware, that " brides formerly walked to
church with their hair hanging loose behind. Anne Bullen's was thus
dishevelled, when she went to the altar with King Henry VIII. ; " and
at the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth with the Palsgrave, "the bride
came into the chapel with a coronet of pearl on her head, and her hair
dishevelled and hanging down over her shoulders." As Mr. Staunton
says, " for bride I am responsible," we presume it is another of his
happy suggestions.
t The usual reading, mermaids, is evidently a misprint, probably
caused by the eye confusing seamaids with the seeming mermaid under
neath. The Nereides were not mermaids in the strict sense; "they are
commonly represented as young and handsome virgins;" — "in works
of art as youthful and beautiful maidens ; " — but " sometimes as half
woman and half fish ; " — Thetis, the mother of Achilles, it may be pre
sumed, was not one of the latter class. These lines may be regarded as
further evidence of Shakspere's thorough knowledge of classical mytho
logy. — " Tended her i' the eyes" that is, about her person ; had Antony
and Warburton been her handmaids, they would, no doubt, have made
their bends adorings.
170 THE FOOTSTEPS
on the same subject, a vixen and a shrew; however
erroneous the opinion may be regarded, it is possible the
origin of both was some trivial misunderstanding at a
pic-nic, when the lady exhibited unequivocal signs of a
shrewish disposition; and the two poets afterwards
agreed each to write a comedy on the occasion : —
" And in the wood, a league without the town,
Where I did meet thee once with Helena
To do observance to a morn of May,
There will I stay for thee."
As the interlude of Pyramus and Thisbe in the
Midsummer -Night's Dream is a travestie of Romeo and
Juliet, there must be some link, some intimate connexion
between the comedy and tragedy ; and it is highly pro
bable, a natural supposition, that Shakspere, in the
earlier stages of their acquaintance, with his dramatic
eye saw through the heart of the Italian lady, and
painted her as Juliet, the child of instinct and passion.
And as the first part of Henry VI. was written about
the same period, it follows, as a reasonable inference,
this lady stood for Margaret of Anjou; the words are
very remarkable : —
Mar. " Wilt thou accept of ransom, yea or no ?
Suf. "Fond man ! remember that thou hast a wife ;
Then how can Margaret be thy paramour. [aside.
Mar. I were best to leave him, for he will not hear.
Suf. There all is marr'd ; there lies a cooling card.
Mar. He talks at random ; sure the man is mad.
Suf. And yet a dispensation may be had.
OF SHAKSPERE. 171
Mar. And yet I would that you would answer me.
Suf. I'll win this lady Margaret. For whom ?
Why, for my king : Tush ! that's a wooden thing.
Mar. He talks of wood ; it is some carpenter."
The Lady then plays the asides in her turn, thereby
showing she has something of the ' ( infinite variety " of
Cleopatra : —
Suf. " Lady, wherefore talk you so ?
Mar. I cry you mercy, 'tis but quid for quo."
First Part of Henry FI.t act v., scene 3.
We thus see, the lady of the Sonnets is the type of so
many female characters; the wool, out of which were
spun so many yarns, Juliet, Hermia, Katharine, Mar
garet of Anjou, and Cleopatra, all evidently sisters,
daughters of one mother. And we also see how Shaks-
pere, forgetting his butterfly character, thoughtlessly,
like a moth hovering around the flame of a candle,
singes his wings and falls — a victim to high art, the
looking too curiously into one female heart.
To this list must be added Rosaline in Love's Labour's
Lost, since Biron's description of his love is almost a
transcript from the Sonnets ; and the following passage
proves that the twenty- first Sonnet, edition 1609, was
addressed to a lady, and was not a piece of silly senti
mental ism addressed to a young nobleman : —
Biron. " Lend me the nourish of all gentle tongues,—
Fye, painted rhetoric ! O, she needs it not.
To things of sale a seller's praise belongs ;
She passes praise." —
I Love's Labour's Lost, act iv., scene 3.
" Let them say more that like of hear-say well ;
I will not praise, that purpose not to sell." —
Sonnet 106, ed. 1859.
172 THE FOOTSTEPS
It may then be conjectured, Shakspere was presented
to this Italian lady early in 1589, as the successful play
wright of Hamlet ; that during the next three years he
had, on several occasions as author or manager, the
honour of a few gracious words from her ladyship ; but
she unfortunately, on recognizing herself as Juliet, ap
propriated or misapplied to herself the passionate utter
ances of Romeo; and, yielding her heart to the soft
delusion, began taking a warmer interest in the author ;
although he, on his side, had been merely dramatizing
his poetical imaginings ; and if in Henry VI. Shakspere
is really speaking through Suffolk, there cannot be a
doubt, though Suffolk be violently smitten, the poet's
heart remains untouched. Mr. Lewis, in his Life of
Goethe, speaking of the image of Friderika being
banished by Charlotte Buff, says, "It was an imagi
native passion, in which the poet was more implicated
than the man. Lotte excited his imagination, the
romance of his position heightened the charm by giving
an unconscious security to his feelings •" she was be
trothed to Kestner. How much more forcibly do
these remarks apply to Shakspere, speaking through
Suffolk :— •
" Fond man ! remember that thou hast a wife ;"
and especially when Suffolk at the royal conference
further observes : —
Suf. " Marriage is a matter of more worth,
Than to be dealt in by attorneyship ;
Not whom he will, but whom his grace affects,
Must be companion of his nuptial bed :
And therefore, lords, since he affects her most,
OF' SHAKSPERE. 173
It most of all these reasons bindeth us,
In our opinions she should be preferr'd.
For what is wedlock forced, but a hell,
An age of discord and continual strife ?
Whereas the contrary bringeth forth bliss,
And is a pattern of celestial peace." —
Henry FL, act v.} scene 5.
It is a singular circumstance, that whilst the pesti
lence was desolating England in 1592 and '93, the moral
plague was also, hawk-like, tiring on the soul of the
noblest of her sons. It is also singular, that whilst in
1588 all the bravest hearts in England, though resolute
to do their duty, must have felt anxious about the
coming contest, Shakspere also was oppressed with
anxiety, but energetically trained himself for his con
test, the crisis of his poetical career ; and England and
her spiritual incarnation were each triumphant in the
destruction of the Armada and the success of Hamlet.
But it is, perhaps, still more singular, that Shakspere in
his twenty-ninth year should have written the Venus
and Adonis as a moral epistle ; the intention was good,
though the means were bad ; and Providence, it seems,
treated him accordingly, meting out to him a reward
and punishment in accordance with his matter and his
meaning; he lost, though sore was the trial, his plague,
his fancy-love; but was rewarded by a return to a
healthy state of his moral and religious nature. Just
one hundred and ten years after, a similar obliquity of
vision occurred in another intellectual giant, when Swift
wrote a Tale of a Tub, of which it is said, " there
cannot be a doubt, that Swift thought this performance
calculated to serve the Church of England." That the
THE FOOTSTEPS
Venus and Adonis was written at this period, and for a
special purpose, may be surmised from the alteration of
the catastrophe, since Stevens remarks, the common
and more pleasing fable assures us : —
" When bright Venus yielded up her charms,
The blest Adonis languish'd in her arms."
Shakspere's history during the next six months, the
summer and autumn of 1593, is most legibly told in
the Sonnets. It is evident from the following extracts,
vide Sonnets re-arranged, the poet's conscience has
awakened to the errors of his own conduct, although he
still believes in the innocence of his friend; whose
morals, however, have already been sapped by the corrupt
society of Marlowe, and by the glowing stanzas of the
Venus and Adonis : —
" With mine own weakness being best acquainted,
Upon thy part I can set down a story
Of faults conceal' d, wherein I am attainted.
That thou, in losing me, shall win much glory." —
Sonnet 66.
" Ah ! do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow
Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe." —
Sonnet 68.
" Ah ! wherefore with infection should he live,
And with his presence grace impiety." —
Sonnet 72.
And in the 86th he earnestly appeals to his friend,
now become a roue and sowing his wild oats, to reform
and sin no more : —
" But do not so ; I love thee in such sort,
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report."
OF SHAKSPERE. 175
In the autumn of this year, 1593, Shakspere wrote
Edward III. The allusion to Lucretia appears to be
positive evidence, the play must have been written before
his own poem, and perhaps suggested to him the idea of
dedicating the Lucrece to the Earl of Southampton;
and thus fulfilling, in a very unexpected manner, his
" Vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have
honoured you with some graver labour/' This play
contains a quotation from one of the Sonnets : —
" Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds;"
and the following line,
" I might perceive his eye in her eye lost,
His ear to drink her sweet tongue's utterance"
is identical with,
" My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words
Of that tongue's uttering." —
Romeo and Juliet, act ii.
We thus find, Edward III. fastens himself to Shakspere
by three strong hooks, besides the unanimous opinion
of the German critics, corroborated by the words of an
eminent English critic, " We look in vain for some
known writer of the period, whose works exhibit a similar
combination of excellences."
This play is an example of Shakspere' s wonderful art
in selecting, since it was written with a two-fold object ;
the first part was personal, according to the immemorial
custom of poets, who find relief by giving vent to their
feelings in verse, for
" Orpheus' harp was strung with poets' sinews ;"
and the second part was written to rouse the martial
176 THE FOOTSTEPS
ardour of the nation, which was then rather languid ;
the Commons did not like the taxes in 1593. This is
some evidence that Shakspere was a loyal subject,, and
did not regard " good Queen Bess " as " a tyrant"
according to the lamentable explanation of the Sonnet
107, ed. 1609 ; " the great popularity she enjoyed proves,
that she did not infringe any established liberties of the
people •" that he, " who did so take Eliza," should in
stantly, the breath scarcely out of her body, so insult
her memory, is incredible ; " the mortal moon hath her
eclipse endured," is a genuine Shaksperian expression ;
she lives but a month, and is therefore excessively
mortal, though not a " human mortal ;" has not such
" a celerity in dying " as Cleopatra ; the line should be
compared with a passage in Hamlet : —
Hor. " and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to dooms-day with eclipse." —
Act i., scene 1.
This play, Edward III, is divided into two parts ; —
" In the first part the point of the action turns upon the
love of the king for the beautiful Countess of Salisbury,
whom he had released from the besieging Scottish army.
The whole of this connexion is no further mentioned in
the following part ; it comes to a total conclusion at the
end of the second act, where the king, conquered, and
at the same time strengthened, by the virtuous greatness
of the countess, renounces his passion, and becomes
again the master of himself. The countess then dis
appears wholly from the scene, which is changed to the
victorious campaign of Edward III, and his heroic son
OF SHAKSPERE. 177
the Black Prince. The play thus falls into two different
parts, — In the first two acts we have the Edward of ro
mance, a puling lover, a heartless seducer, a despot, and
then a penitent. In the three last acts we have the
Edward of history, — the ambitious hero, the stern con
queror, the affectionate husband, the confiding father."
— Pictorial Shakspere.
How applicable is this to Shakspere from the autumn
of 1592 to the autumn of 1594; only instead of being
the heartless seducer, he was himself most probably the
one led astray, as he says in defence of his friend : —
" And when a woman woos, what woman's son
Will sourly leave her 'till she have prevail'd."
" There is a very long and somewhat ambitious scene,
in which the king instructs his secretary to describe his
passion in verse. During the tempest of Edward's
passion, the Prince of Wales arrives at the Castle of
Roxburgh, and the conflict in the mind of the king is
well imagined : —
Edw. " I see the boy. 0, how his mother's face,
Moulded in his, corrects my stray'd desire,
And rates my heart, and chides my thievish eye ;
Who, being rich enough in seeing her,
Yet seeks elsewhere : and basest theft is that
Which cannot check itself on poverty. —
Now, boy, what news ?
Prince. I have assembled, my dear lord and father,
The choicest buds of all our English blood,
For our affairs in France ; and here we come,
To take direction from your majesty.
Edw. Still do I see in him delineate
His mother's visage ; those his eyes are hers,
178 THE FOOTSTEPS
Who, looking wistly on me, make me blush ;
For faults against themselves give evidence :
Lust is a fire ; and men, like lanthorns, show
Light lust within themselves, even through themselves.
Away, loose silks of wavering vanity !
Shall the large limit of fair Brittany
By me be overthrown ? and shall I not
Master this little mansion of myself?
Give me an armour of eternal steel ;
I go to conquer kings ; and shall I then
Subdue myself, and be my enemy's friend ?
It must not be. — Come, boy, forward, advance !
Let's with our colours sweep the air of France.
Lod. My liege, the countess with a smiling cheer,
Desires access unto your majesty.
Advancing from the door and whispering him.
Edw. Why, there it goes ! that very smile of hers
Hath ransom'd captive France ; and set the king,
The dauphin, and the peers, at liberty. —
Go, leave me, Ned, and revel with thy friends."
" The countess enters, and with the following scene
suddenly terminates the ill-starred passion of the king ;
Edw. " &c., Sec.
I am awaked from this idle dream."
" The remarks of Ulrici upon this portion of the play
are conceived upon his usual principle of connecting the
action and characterisation of Shakspere's dramas with
the development of a high moral, or rather Christian
principle. — The concluding observation of Ulrici is —
' Truly, if this piece, as the English critics assert, is not
Shakspere's own, it is a shame for them that they have
done nothing to recover from forgetfulness the name of
this second Shakspere, this twin-brother of their- great
poet/— 'There is one thing wanting/ says Mr. Knight,
OF SHAKSPERE. 179
' to make the writer a twin-brother/ which is found in
all those productions, [historical plays ;] Where is the
comedy of Edward III?" If the reader should be of
opinion, that in these interesting extracts Shakspere is
giving utterance to his own thoughts and feelings, he
can readily answer the suggestive query, " Where is the
comedy of Edward III. ? "
Having thus " awaked from this idle dream " the poet
fights the good fight again in Lucrece, published in
May, 1594 ; an effective counterblast to the Venus and
Adonis. In the same year in a more softened mood,
though still haunted by the image of the Ethiop he
composes the Merchant of Venice, his mind now dwell
ing on that " gentle spirit."
" Whose sunny locks
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece ; "
In fact we here behold a scene in real life the reverse
of Faustus with his good and evil angel : —
G. Ang. "Sweet Faustus, leave that execrable art.
Faust. Contrition, prayer, repentance, — what of them ?
G. Ang. Oh, they are means to bring thee unto heaven !
Ei. Ang. Rather illusions, fruits of lunacy,
That make men foolish that do trust them most.
G. Ang. Sweet Faustus, think of heaven and heavenly things."
However distinct the characters may be, Jessica is
evidently intended for Juliet's sister ; she has'nt a
thought for her father : —
180 THE FOOTSTEPS
' ' I will make fast the doors, and gild myself
With some more ducats and be with you straight."
Mr. Hunter in his Illustrations observes, " We may
remark, however, upon this part of the scene, that it ex
hibits a curious proof, that when Shakspere delineated,
in a manner to make the scene visible to every eye, the
garden of Portia, he thought of the garden he had him
self created of the Capulets at Verona. The passages
which open a view of this little process of the poet's
mind are these : Portia. — "Swear by your double self;"
Juliet. — " Swear by your gracious self." Bassanio. —
" The blessed candles of the night •" Romeo. — ( ' Night's
candles are burnt out." Bassanio's hyperbolical com
pliment to the eyes of Portia, —
" We should hold day with the Antipodes
If you should walk in absence of the sun,"
is not more worthy of the poet than the words which he
had put into the mouth of Romeo, —
" Her eye in heaven
Would through the airy regions stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night."
Nor can we avoid the supposition, that in the garden
scene Shakspere is speaking through Lorenzo, and dis
coursing most sweetly " of heaven and heavenly things "
in the character of tutor or instructor to his com
panion; and considering the time and circumstances
under which this play was composed, the following
passage is peculiarly significant : —
Lor. " And now, good sweet, say thy opinion,
How dost thou like the lord Bassanio's wife.
OF SHAKSPERE. 181
Jes. Past all expressing : it is very meet,
The lord Bassanio live an upright life ;
For, having such a blessing in his lady,
He finds the joys of heaven here on earth. —
Act iii., scene 5.
And how pleasing it is to believe, the following lines
were intended for his dearest friend, John Lyly : —
Bass. " The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,
The best condition'd and unwearied spirit
In doing courtesies ; and one in whom
The ancient Eoman honour more appears,
Than any that draws breath in Italy." —
Act iii., scene 2.
In 1596, having gained a thorough conquest over
himself, not a trace of the disease remaining, Shakspere
writes a satirical farewell to the lady of the Sonnets in
the Taming of the Shrew : —
" For patience she will prove a second Grissell,
And Roman Lucrece for her chastity."
Grumio's speech fixes the date and shows, that Pe-
truchio is another mask, behind which Shakspere is
amusing himself: —
Gru. " Was it fit for a servant to use his master so ;
being, perhaps, [for aught I see] two-and-thirty, — a pip out ?"
Shakspere' s manufacturing this comedy out of Mar
lowe's, and transferring the scene from Greece to Italy,
justifies the supposition, that the Taming of a Shrew and
Midsummer Night's Dream were both aimed at the same
party. Why Shakspere re-modelled Marlowe's comedy,
it is idle guessing, though it may have had some con
nexion with Lord Southampton, possibly a feu-de-joie,
182 THE FOOTSTEPS
that his friend had escaped from the enchantments of
this Italian Circe ; the earl left England in June, having
a command in the expedition against Cadiz. " It is,"
says Mr. Brown, "in the Taming of the Shrew, where
the evidence is the strongest," that Shakspere had been
in Italy.
In Marlowe's comedy, the Taming of a Shrew, Fer
nando is a softened and cocknified Tamburlaine; Au-
relius is perhaps intended for Lyly, and Polidor for
Shakspere. The comic portion is on a level with the
clownage in Faustus, and there is only one genuine bit
of wit and humour in the whole play, and that comes
from the heart and not from the head ; at this time, as
I have before stated, Marlowe was dependent on the
liberality of Southampton and Shakspere ; let it be re
membered also, that Slie is Christopher Marlowe him
self:—
Aurel. " Pardon me, father ; humbly on my knees,
I do entreat your grace to hear me speak.
Duke. Peace, villain : lay hands on them,
And send them to prison straight."
[Phylotus and Valeria runnes away.
Slie. I say we'll have no sending to prison.
Lord. My lord, this is but the play ; they're but in jest.
Slie. I tell thee, Sim, we'll have no sending
To prison, that's flat : why, Sim, am not I Don
Ckristo Vary?
Therefore I say they shall not go to prison.
Lord. No more they shall not, my lord,
They be run away.
Slie. Are they run away, Sim ? that's well ;
Then gis some more drink, and let them play
again."
OF SHAKSPE11E. 183
This is the most genuine bit of comedy Marlowe ever
wrote, and Shakspere never wrote anything more true
to nature ; and probably he had this passage in his recol
lection when he wrote : —
Put. " Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him ;
For he hath stoll'n a pix, and hanged must 'a be.
Damn'd death !
Let gallows gape for dog, let man go free,
And let not hemp his windpipe suffocate :
But Exeter hath given the doom of death,
For pix of little price." —
Henry V., act iii., scene 6.
The Taming of the Shew was immediately followed by
King John, composed most probably during the summer
of 1596; whether it was finished, or not, before the
death of Hamnet in August, matters little; in Con
stance we have a picture of the maternal sufferings of
Shakspere's wife, anxiously watching the wasting figure
of her only son ; it may be reasonably inferred such is
the case, since no editor pretends, the play was produced
before 1595, and in no other play has he painted
maternal suffering so vividly and forcibly ; and yet the
anxiety and misery of Constance are in a measure ima
ginary; she sees in her mind's eye her son wasting
away : —
Const. " There was not such a gracious creature born.
But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,
And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
And he will look as hollow as a ghost ;
As dim and meagre as an ague's (it ;
And so he'll die." —
King John, act iii., scene 4.
184 THE FOOTSTEPS
It may then be inferred, the play was composed in
1596, and brought out probably before the death of
Hamnet, if, as Gifford supposes, Jonson has in Every
Man in his Humour imitated the temptation scene be
tween the King and Hubert.
Towards the end of the year it may be presumed,
Shakspere commenced the second part of his great his
torical drama with Richard II. , closely followed by
Henry IV. and V. These latter plays furnish additional
evidence that Pistol, like Marlowe, was in his way a
learned man. From the incompatibility of the Merry
Wives of Windsor with these plays, we may be certain
it could not have been written at this period ; the cir
cumstance of its having been originally composed in
1592, confirms the opinion, Shakspere had in 1590
already sketched in his mind the whole historical drama
from Richard II. to Richard III.
Henry V., it is supposed, was written in 1599 ; and
we may presume Lyly was still living, as Captain
Fluellen is twin-brother to Sir Hugh Evans ; and his
treatment of Pistol reminds us of Lord Lafeu. The
polished language of the military pedant, Fluellen,
apart from his Welsh Euphuisms, has a remarkable re
semblance to the " finished representation of colloquial
excellence" of the pedant, Sir Nathaniel, in Love's
Labour's Lost. These four characters (the two parsons,
the lord, and the captain), are composed of the same
elements, four brothers at a birth ; but they are four
individuals quite distinct the one from the other ; they
are not brothers Cheeryble or Siamese twins, simply
because they have not grown up together in the same
OJP SHAK.SPERE. 185
shop, in the same counting-house ; their respected parent,
Mr. William Shakspere, was perfectly aware of the influ
ence of education and habit ; consequently, the captain
and the lord have none of the weakness and nervousness
of the two parsons, of Sir Hugh waiting in the field for
his enemy, " how full of cholers I am, and trempling of
mind," and of Sir Nathaniel, as Alisander, "he is a
marvellous good neighbour, insooth ; and a very good
bowler ; but, for Alisander, alas, you see how 'tis ; — a
little o'erparted."
Soon after this period Nash died, and, it is supposed,
Lyly also. Shakspere was now a gentleman in easy
circumstances ; the owner of New Place, the best house
in Stratford, sometimes farming, sometimes playmaking.
Some writers, with Hallam at their head, imagine, that
in the beginning of the seventeenth century Shakspere
must have suffered from : —
" The proud man's contumely,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes;"
in consequence of Timon, the amended Hamlet, and
Lear, having been produced at that period ; but others
rather lean to the opinion, these characters are purely
poetical conceptions, the results of a more extended
observation of human life, and unconnected with his
personal history ; and that he " was never so happy in
his own mind as when, by contrast, he was sketching
that class of moody characters — Lear, Timon, Jaques,
Hamlet, &c., referred to by Mr. Hallam." Jonson's
works have been ransacked by Steevens, Malone, and
others, in search of spiteful remarks against the mighty
186 THE FOOTSTEPS
dramatist ; but it is no.w generally acknowledged, their
accusations and charges against " malignant Ben " have
been most ably and satisfactorily refuted by Gifford's
caustic pen ; and who has not heard of their wit-combats
at the Mermaid, and of Jonson's eulogy : —
" He was not of an age, but for all time."
Exegi monumentum : I have built me a house, I have
written a book ; and be it a dream, at least it is not a
baseless fabric ; it stands on a rock, and not on sand ;
the genuineness of the documents cannot be doubted,
although they may be questioned. I ha;e no theory to
defend; "^tis a thing slipped idly from me, as a gum
which oozes from whence 'tis nourished ;" and though
the chaste severity of Shaksperian criticism may be in
clined to condemn the whole as a gallimawfry of dreamy
supposes, of idle imaginings, yet there are some points
that deserve a candid consideration, and challenge the
strictest inquiry : —
" And for their sake
Let the rest, if not acceptance take,
At least forgiveness find."
F. FICfrrON, PEINTEB, PEHKt'S FLACE, 29, OXFOBD STREET.
•
Cartwright, Robert
2957 The footsteps of ShaJcspere
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