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MEMORIALS 

OF 

SHAKSPEARE; 

OR, 

SKETCHES   OF 
HIS   CHARACTER  AND   GENIUS, 

BY  VARIOUS  WRITERS, 

NOW  FIRST  COLLECTED  . 

WITH 

A  PREFATORY  AND  CONCLUDING  ESSAY, 
AND  NOTES, 

BY   NATHAN   DRAKE,  M.D.  H.A.L. 

AUTHOR   OF  "  SHAKSPEARE   AND   HIS  TIMES,"  &C. 

FORMING    A   VALUABLE    ACCOMPANIMENT  TO 
EVERY  EDITION  OF  THE  POET. 


LONDON: 
HENRY  COLBURN,  NRW  BURLINGTON  STREET.      »     \> 

1828. 


• 

i-iO- 


PR 

<•••£>-] 


PRINTED    BY    A.    J.    VALPY,    RED    LION     COURT,    FLEET    STREET,    LONDON, 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


IT  may  be  necessary  to  state  that  the 
Notes  distinguished  by  the  letters  of  the  alpha 
bet  are  from  the  pen  of  the  Editor ;  whilst  those 
marked  by  an  asterisk  are  the  production  of  the 
authors  of  their  respective  papers. 


February,  1828. 


'I-: 


CONTENTS. 


PART  I. 


PREFATORY  ESSAY:  Explanatory  of  the  Plan  of  the  Work, 
id  containing  an  Inquiry  into  the  Merits  of  Shakspeare's 
rincipal  Editors,  Commentators,  and  Critics  .  .  3 


PART  II. 

Memorials  of  Shakspeare ;  or  Sketches  of  his  Character  and 
enius. 

On  the  Characteristics  of  Shakspeare. — COLERIDGE.  73 

On  the  Universality  of  the  Genius  of  Shakspeare,  and  on  his 
•egularities  in  relation  to  Dramatic  Unity. — CAMPBELL.  87 

On  the  Genius  of  Shakspeare,  and  on  his  Four  Dramas, 
icbeth,  Othello,  Hamlet,  and  Lear. — BLACK  WOOD'S  EDIN- 
RGH  MAGAZINE.  .......  93 

On  the  Character  and  Feelings  of  Shakspeare. — FREDERICK 

HLEGEL.  105 

On  the  Influence  of  Shakspeare  over  the  Human  Mind. — 
;TROSPECTIVE  REVIEW.  ......  110 

On  Shakspeare,  and  on  the  Character  of  his  Tragedies. — 
IDAME  DE  STAEL  HOLSTEIN 113 

On  Shakspeare,  and  on  the  Character  of  his  Comedies.— 
LEGORY.  .  .......  128 

On  the  Fame  and  Acquirements  of  Shakspeare.— AUGUSTUS 

ILLIAM  SCHLEGEL. 131 


VI  CONTENTS. 

On  the  Natural  Style  of  Shakspeare  as  contrasted  with  t 
Romantic  and  Burlesque. — GODWIN.  1 

On  the  Art  of  Shakspeare. — AUGUSTUS  WILLIAM  SCHI 
GEL.  \ .         .      '  .         .         .         .         .         .     1 

On  the  Method  of  Shakspeare. — ENCYCLOPEDIA  METB 
POLITANA.     .       .         .        r.         .         .         .        ^     .     1 

On    Shakspeare's    Delineation    of   Character. — AUGUST 
WILLIAM  SCHLEGEL.        l}".    •     .       '.**'"'.        .         .     1 

On    Shakspeare's  Love  of   Natural    Beauty.— EDINBUR< 
REVIEW 1 

On  Shakspeare's  Delineation  of  Passion. — AUGUSTUS  W] 
LIAM  SCHLEGEL. ,  :      .     1 

On  the  Individuality  of  Shakspeare's  Characters. — QUA 
TERLY  REVIEW.  .         .         .         .  ,_.«.:       .     1 

On  Shakspeare,  in  reference  to  the  Age  in  which  he  fl< 
rished. — AUGUSTUS  WILLIAM  SCHLEGEL.     .         ,.  '     .     1 

The  Life  and  Genius  of  Shakspeare. — VILLEMAIN.     .     x 
Shakspeare  compared  with  Homer. — GODWIN.  .     c* 

On  the  Similitude  between  Shakspeare  and  Homer  in  relat 
to  their  knowledge  of  the  Human  Heart. — BEATTIE.        .     ' 

Shakspeare  and  .<Eschylus  compared. — CUMBERLAND.     ' 
Shakspeare  and  Chaucer  compared. — GODWIN.  .     \ 

Shakspeare  and  Calderon  compared. — FREDERICK  SCH 
GEL. < 

Shakspeare  and  Corneille  compared,  with  Observations 
Shakspeare's  characters  in  low  life. — GARDEN  STONE.      .     ' 

Shakspeare  and  Voltaire  compared,  as  to  their  use  and  i 
nagement  of  preternatural  machinery. — LESSING.     .         .     ! 


CONTENTS.  Vll 

Shakspeare  compared  with  Chapman,  Hey  wood,  Middleton, 
Brook,  Sidney,  and  Beaumont  and  Fletcher. — LAMB.       .     287 

PART  III. 

Criticisms  on   some  of  the  Principal  Dramas  of  Shakspeare. 

Observations  on  the  Tempest  of  Shakspeare.— W A RTON  .  299 

Observations  on  the  Tempest  concluded. — WARTON.  307 

Observations  on  King  Lear. — WARTON.      .         .         .  316 

Observations  on  King  Lear  continued. — WARTON.       .  325 

Observations  on  King  Lear  concluded. — WARTON.      .  333 

Critical  Remarks  on  Othello. — ANONYMOUS.       .       .  342 

Critical  Remarks  on  Othello  continued. — ANONYMOUS.  351 

Critical  Remarks  on  Othello  concluded. — ANONYMOUS.  362 

Criticism  on    the   Character   and    Tragedy  of    Hamlet. — 
MACKENZIE.  .......     370 

Criticism   on   the  Character  and    Tragedy  of  Hamlet  con 
cluded. — MACKENZIE. 381 

Observations  on  the  Tragedy  of  Hamlet. — ANONYMOUS,  389 

A  Delineation  of  Shakspeare's  Characters  of  Macbeth  and 
Richard.— CUMBERLAND 412 

On  the  Characters  of  Macbeth  and  Richard   continued. — 
CUMBERLAND .     418 

On  the  Characters  of  Macbeth  and  Richard  continued. — 
CUMBERLAND 428 

On  the  Characters  of  Macbeth  and  Richard  concluded. — 
CUMBERLAND.  ......    437 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

Critical  Remarks  on  the  Character  of  Falstaff. — MACKEN 
ZIE.     .........  .    447 

Critical  Remarks  on  the  Character  of  Falstaff  concluded. — 
MACKENZIE 455 

On  the   Characters  of  Falstaff  and  his  Group. — CUMBER 
LAND.  463 


PART  IV. 

CONCLUDING  ESSAY:  Containing  Three  Miniature  Portraits 
of  Shakspeare,  by  Dryden,  Goethe,  and  Sir  Walter  Scott;  and 
a  Brief  Parallel  between  Shakspeare  and  Sir  Walter  Scott  as 
Delineators  of  Character. 


MEMORIALS   OF   SHAKSPEARE. 
PART  I. 


PREFATORY   ESSAY. 


-  Mo  s.' 
•  rftrnl  Jfeinfofo 


MEMORIALS 


Otf 


SHAKSPEARE. 


PREFATORY  ESSAY 


Explanatory  of  the  Plan  of  the  Work,  and  containing  an  In 
quiry  into  the  Merits  of  Shakspeare's  Principal  Editors, 
Commentators,  and  Critics. 

No  AUTHOR  has,  perhaps,  given  rise  to  more 
extensive  commentary,  criticism,  and  persevering 
literary  research  than  Shakspeare ; a  and  none 

8  The  very  orthography  and  orthoepy  of  his  name  have 
become  a  subject  of  doubt,  and  have  given  rise  to  no  slight 
controversy ;  though  I  am  persuaded  not  only  from  the  third 
signature  to  his  will,  which  is  indisputably  written  William 
Shakspeare,  but  from  the  following  very  curious  document 
which  has  been  communicated  to  me  by  Captain  James  Saun- 
ders,  of  Stratford-upon-Avon,  who  has  with  indefatigable  in 
dustry  collected  a  large  mass  of  very  valuable  materials  relative 
to  the  poet  and  his  family,  that  the  intermediate  e  was  very 
seldom  written,  and  yet  more  rarely  pronounced. 

"  Notices  of  the  Shakspeare's  taken  from  'the  Entries  of 
the  Common  Council  of  the  Corporation  of  Stratford,  from 
their  book  A . 


4  MEMORIALS   OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

certainly  has  better  claims,  from  the  excellency 
and  utility  of  his  writings,  to  every  illustration 

«  The  name  of  John  Shalcspeare  occurs  in  this  book    168 
times  under  seventeen  different  modes  of  spelling,  viz  : 
Modes.     1.  Shackesper      .  .4    times. 

2.  Shackespere    ....       4 

3.  Shacksper  2 

4.  Shackspor        ....       1 

5.  Shackspere      .     *;  .){    ^  \\      3 

6.  Shakespere      .         .         .         .13 

7.  Shakspayr 1 

8.  Shaksper         ....       1 

9.  Shakspere    „  .*  >  r   •.,,       •         •       5 

10.  Shakspeyr  .       '•     .  •         •     15 

11.  Shakysper  '','-;ii   ;/   ^I'i  ydj       3 

12.  Shakyspere  .       'K»   iiirwW     .     10 

13.  Shaxpeare  .     .v.'KiO  ln>.j  ,»*  65 

14.  Shaxper  ....       8 

15.  Shaxpere  tg;-;;:n.'K]     .     :!  .;,  23 

16.  Shaxspere  ;*;•:),•«  uJ/m  my     9 

17.  Shaxspeare  .         •     [t  •  J     •       1 

J  •"  . 

168 

"  One  leading  point  of  controversy,"  observes  Captain  Saun- 
ders,  "  seems  to  be  materially  put  to  rest  by  the  preceding 
summary;  viz.  the  pronunciation  of  the  name  at  that  time. 
The  first  syllable  was,  evidently,  given  short,  without  the 
lengthening  and  softness  of  the  intermediate  e;  for  only  three 
such  modes,  embracing  twenty-one  instances,  are  to  be  found 
here.  It  must  be  allowed,  a  middle  y  occurs  in  two  varieties 
of  thirteen  instances,  which  may  be  of  doubtful  authority;  but 
the  great  body  of  testimony  is  in  favour  of  the  short  power 
of  the  first  syllable.  There  is  much  reason  to  presume  that  the 
10th  variety  was  the  spelling  and  pronunciation  of  John  Shak- 
speare  himself;  for  they  were  his  own  accounts,  or  those  of 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  5 

which  philology  and  philosophy  can  afford ; 
especially  since  we  know  that  the  bard,  partly 
from  extrinsic  circumstances,  and  partly  from  the 
innate  modesty  of  his  nature,  which  led  him  to  a 
very  humble  estimate  of  his  own  merits,  was 
prevented  paying  that  attention  to  his  productions 
which  is  now  almost  universally  extended  to  every 
publication,  however  trivial  in  its  subject,  and 
insignificant  in  its  style. 

There  are  three  modes  by  which  it  has  been 
attempted,  through  the  medium  of  the  press,  to 
illustrate  and  render  more  familiar  the  writings 
of  Shakspeare,  and  these  may  be  classed  in  the 
following  order : — 

Istly.  Editions  of  Shakspeare  accompanied  by 

Prolegomena  and  copious  Annotations. 
2dly.    Detached  Publications    exclusively   ap 
propriated  to  Shakspeare. 

3dly.      Criticisms     on     Shakspeare    dispersed 
through  various  miscellaneous  departments  of 
literature. 
It   will   be    evident   from    the    tenor    of  the 

others  made  by  him,  and  if  not  by  himself,  immediately  under 
his  inspection.  The  13th  mode  is  by  far  predominant,  and  was 
thus  written  by  Mr.  Henry  Rogers,  who  was  a  man  of  educa 
tion,  and  town-clerk,  though  even  in  his  hand  the  15th  variety 
is  sometimes  seen." 

I  have  only  to  add  that,  as  the  letter  x  was  manifestly 
introduced  as  corresponding  in  sound  with  ks,  and  for  the  sake 
of  dispatch  perhaps  in  writing  the  name,  the  vast  preponderance 
of  examples  under  No.  13,  ought  and  must,  I  should  think, 
decide  all  doubts  both  as  to  the  spelling  and  pronunciation. 


6  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

present  volume,  that  of  these  modes  a  selection 
from  the  last  almost  entirely  occupies  its  pages ; 
but  before  we  proceed  any  farther  in  relation  to  its 
construction,  it  may  not  be  useless  or  uninteresting 
to  make  a  few  observations  on  what  has  been 
effected  for  the  poet  in  the  two  prior  branches  by 
his  editors  and  more  formal  critics. 

Nothing  can  place  in  a  more  striking  point  of 
view  the  incurious  disposition  of  our  ancestors  with 
regard  to  literary  and  biographical  information, 
than  the  circumstance  that  four  folio  editions15  of 
the  works  of  Shakspeare,  who  had  been  highly 
popular  in  his  day,  and  in  the  most  popular  depart 
ment  of  his  art,  were  suffered  to  appear  and  occupy 
the  space  of  nearly  one  hundred  years  without  a 
single  explanatory  note,  or  the  annexation  of  a 


*  It  is  well  known  that  there  were  two  impressions  of  the 
third  folio  edition  of  Shakspeare's  Plays,  one  in  1663,  and  the 
other  in  1664 ;  the  first  with  Droeshout's  head  of  Shakspeare  in 
the  title-page,  and  the  second  without  any  engraving  ;  but  both 
these  copies  have  been  hitherto  referred  to  as  containing  the 
spurious  Plays;  whereas  the  impression  of  1663  does  not 
include  them,  but  ends  with  the  play  of  Cymbeline,  both  in  the 
catalogue  prefixed,  and  in  the  book  itself.  In  the  title-page  also 
of  the  copy  of  1663,  the  work  is  said  to  be  "  Printed  for  Philip 
Chetwinde,"  whilst  the  impression  of  1664  has  only  the  initials 
of  the  bookseller,  P.  C.  in  the  title-page.  Both  these  copies, 
owing  to  the  great  fire  of  London  occurring  so  soon  after  their 
publication,  are  even  more  scarce  than  the  first  folio;  and  I 
should  add  that,  in  three  copies  which  I  have  seen  of  this*  folio  of 
1663,  one  of  which  is  in  my  own  possession,  the  head  of  Shak 
speare  exhibits  a  clear  and  good  impression. 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  7 

particle  of  biographical  anecdote.  Indeed,  an 
apathy  nearly  approaching  this  appears  to  have 
existed  until  a  late  period  in  the  eighteenth  century ; 
for,  with  the  exception  of  Betterton,  who  took  a 
journey  into  Warwickshire  for  the  purpose  of  col 
lecting  information  relative  to  the  poet,  scarcely 
an  effort  was  made  to  throw  any  additional  light 
upon  his  history  until  the  era  of  Capell  and 
S  tee vens,  when,  as  might  have  been  expected  from 
such  a  lapse  of  time  so  unfortunately  neglected, 
the  keenest  research  retired  from  the  pursuit 
baffled  and  disappointed. 

The  few  facts  which  Betterton  collected  with 
such  laudable  and  affectionate  zeal  at  the  close  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  were  presented  to  the 
world  by  Rowe,  who,  in  his  edition  of  the  bard  in 
1709,  first  gave  to  the  admirers  of  dramatic  genius 
a  Life  of  Shakspeare.  The  fate  of  this  document 
must  be  pronounced  somewhat  singular,  and  cer 
tainly  undeserved ;  it  had  remained,  until  within 
these  last  seven  years,  nearly  the  sole  source c  and 

c  What,  previous  to  Rowe,  had  been  incidentally  mentioned 
as  connected  with  the  name  of  Shakspeare  by  Dugdale,  Fuller, 
Phillips,  Winstanley,  Langbaine,  Blount,  Gildon,and  Anthony 
Wood,  amounted  to  a  mere  trifle;  and  what  has  since  tran 
spired  through  the  traditionary  medium  of  Mr.  Jones  of  Tar- 
bick,  and  Mr.  Taylor  of  Warwick,  who  died  in  1 790,  and  from 
the  MS  of  Aubrey  and  Oldys,  has  added  but  little  that  can  be 
depended  upon.  The  researches,  however,  which  have  been 
lately  made  into  the  proceedings  of  the  Bailiffs  Court,  the  Re 
gister,  and  other  public  writings  of  the  poet's  native  town,  have 
happily  contributed  two  or  three  facts  to  the  scanty  store. 


8  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

undisputed  basis  of  what  little  has  been  preserved 
to  us  of  one  so  justly  the  pride  and  delight  of  his 
country,  when  Mr.  Malone,  the  most  indefatigable, 
and,  in  general,  the  most  correct  of  the  Shak- 
speare  commentators,  and  who  for  half  a  century 
had  been  sedulously  endeavouring  to  substantiate 
the  few  facts,  and  extend  the  meagre  narrative  of 
Rowe,  suddenly  turned  round  upon  the  hapless 
biographer,  boasting,  with  a  singular  dereliction  of 
all  his  former  opinions,  that  he  would  prove  eight 
out  of  the  ten  facts  which  Rowe  had  brought  for 
ward,  to  be  false. 

That  he  has  in  a  great  measure  failed  in  this 
attempt,  and  left  the  credibility  of  Rowe's  state 
ments  little  shaken  by  the  scepticism  of  his  latter 
enquiries,  must  be  a  subject  of  congratulation  to 
all  who  have  dwelt  with  interest  on  the  scanty 
memorials  which  time  has  spared  us  of  the  personal 
history  of  the  poet.  As  it  is  scarcely  indeed 
within  the  sphere  of  probability  to  suppose  that  at 
this  distant  period,  when  more  than  two  centuries 
have  passed  since  the  death  of  its  object,  biography 
can  supply  us  with  many  additional  facts,  it  must 
assuredly  be  an  ungrateful  and  thankless  task  to 
endeavour  to  strip  us  of  what  small  portion  had 
been  treasured  up,  and  to  leave  us  on  a  subject, 
which,  from  its  imperfect  state,  had  excited  deep 
regret,  a  perfect  and  remediless  blank. 

In  every  other  part  of  his  duty  as  an  editor, 
Mr.  Malone  has  exhibited  remarkable  efficiency 
and  success,  and  his  text  may  be  justly  consi- 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  9 

dered  as  the  purest  and  most  correct  extant.     It 
is,  indeed,  not  a  little  extraordinary  that,  previous 
to  his  labours,  and  we  may  add,  with  some  qua 
lification,  those  of  Steevens,  every  editor  of  Shaks- 
peare  has  grossly  and  knowingly  deviated  from 
the  only  authentic  standards,  the  quartos  and  first 
folio.     They  have  all,  in  fact,  from  Rowe  to  the 
era  alluded   to,  acknowledged  the   necessity  of, 
and  professed  an  adherence  to,  these  first  impres 
sions  ;  and  all,  from  indolence,  presumption,    or 
caprice,  have,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  deviated 
from,  or  neglected  to  consult  them.     Howe  took 
the  fourth  folio,  which,  like  the  second  and  third, 
is  full  of  the  most  arbitrary  alterations,  as  the  basis 
of  his  text.      Pope,  though  declaring  his  convic 
tion  of  the  paramount  obligation  of  faithfully  fol 
lowing  the  earliest  text,  based  his  own  edition  on 
that  of  Rowe  ;  whilst  Theobald,  anxious  to  expose 
the  errors  of  his  immediate  predecessor,  committed 
a  somewhat  similar  mistake,  by  giving  us  a  cor 
rected  text  from  Pope  instead  of  a  copy  of  the 
first  folio  collated  with  the  quartos.     The  nume 
rous    references,   however,   to  these   the   primal 
editions,  which  were  necessary  to  effect  his  pur 
pose,  enabled  him  to  remove  many  corruptions ; 
and,  had  he  more  uniformly  submitted  to  their 
authority,  he  might  have  produced  a  copy  of  his 
author,  to  which,   in   point  of  accuracy  of  text, 
little  could  have  been  objected.     But,  though  su 
perior  in  industry  and  fidelity  to  Pope,  he  also 


10  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

was  not  untainted  with  a  spirit  of  innovation,  and 
too  often  exhibited  a  capricious  love  of  change. 

Yet,  inadequate  as  these  editors  proved  them 
selves  to  the  task  which  they  undertook,  they 
were  in  all  the  duties  of  their  office  greatly  su 
perior  to  their  immediate  successors,  Sir  Thomas 
Hanmer  and  Bishop  Warburton ;  who  both  im 
plicitly  adopting,  for  their  sole  authority,  the 
edition  of  Pope,  added,  to  the  imperfections  of  an 
already  faulty  copy,  a  multitude  of  fresh  errors, 
the  result  of  unbridled  conjecture  and  arrogant 
conceit. 

Had  Dr.  Johnson,  into  whose  hands  the  poet 
was  next   destined  to  pass,    possessed  as  much 
industry  as  talent,  the  labours  of  every -subsequent 
editor,  as  far  as  the  integrity  of  the  text  is  con 
cerned,  might  have  been  spared.      No  man,  in 
fact,  was  better  acquainted  with  the  requisites  for 
the  task  which  he  undertook  than  this  celebrated 
moralist  and  philologer,  as  the  scheme  of  a  new 
edition  of  the  poet  which  he  published  in  1756, 
nine  years  anterior  to  the  appearance  of  his  edi 
torial  labours,    fully   evinces.      But   alas!   when 
this  long-promised  edition  came  forth,  it  was  but 
too  evident  that  he  wanted  the  perseverance  and 
research  to  carry   his   own  well-conceived  plan 
into  execution.     "We  can,  however,  with  grateful 
pleasure  record   that,    imperfect   as    his   labours 
were,  he  not  only  greatly  surpassed  his  prede 
cessors,   but    first   pointed   out   the   path   which 


PREFATORY     ESSAY.  11 

led  succeeding  commentators  to  more  successful 
results. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  a  plan  for  illus 
trating   Shakspeare   similar    to   that  which   Dr. 
Johnson  had  sketched  and  partially  pursued,  had 
been   long  carrying  on  by  one  of  his  contem 
poraries,   though    not    announced   to   the   public 
until  three  years  after  the  Doctor's  edition.     As 
early,  indeed,  as  the  year  1745,  Johnson,  shocked 
at  the  lawless  licence  of  Hanmer's  plan,  affixed 
to  some  strictures  on  the  baronet's  edition,  brief 
proposals  for-  a  new  impression  of  the  bard ;  and 
a  like   feeling  of  indignation   operating  simulta 
neously  on  the  mind  of  Capell,   this  gentleman 
employed  not  less  than  six  and  thirty  years  in 
the  endeavour  to  do  justice  to  his  favourite  poet. 
Unfortunately  for  his  reputation,  the  text  and  the 
commentary   were  published   separately  and   at 
widely-distant   periods ;    the   first    appearing  in 
1768,  and  the  latter  in  1783,  two  years  after  his 
decease.     It  might  have  been  expected  from  the 
singular  industry  of  Capell,   which   was   almost 
exhaustless,  and  the  years  which  he  had  devoted 
to  collation  and  transcription/  that  he  would  have 
presented  us  with  a  text  of  great  comparative 

d  "  Mr.  Capell,  we  are  told,  spent  a  whole  life  on  Shakspeare; 
and  if  it  be  true,  which  we  are  also  told,  that  he  transcribed  the 
works  of  that  illustrious  poet  ten  times  with  his  own  hand,  it  is 
no  breach  of  charity  to  add,  that  much  of  a  life  that  might  have 
been  employed  to  more  valuable  purposes,  was  miserably 
wasted." — Chalmer's  Biographical  Dictionary,  vol.  viii.  p.  201. 


12  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

purity ;  but  he  too,  notwithstanding  the  plodding 
patience  of  his  nature,  could  not  escape  the  rage 
for  emendation ;  and  the  innovations  and  arbitrary 
alterations  which  he  introduced  into  the  pages  of 
his  author,  "amount,"  says  Mr.  Malone,  who 
took  the  pains,  by  a  rigorous  examination,  to 
ascertain  the  fact,  "to  no  less  a  number  than 
nine  hundred  and  seventy- two. "e 

If  however,  as  an  editor,  he  failed  in  one  im 
portant  part  of  his  duty,  he  had  the  merit  of  first 
carrying  another  into  execution,  that  of  explaining 
and  illustrating  Shakspeare  through  the  medium 
of  his  contemporaries  ;  for,  in  the  "  Introduction" 
to  his  edition  of  the  poet,  he  not  only  announced 
his  being  engaged  in  drawing  up  a  large  body  of 
notes  critical  and  explanatory  but  that  he  had 
prepared  and  had  gotten  in  great  forwardness 
another  work,  on  which  he  had  been  employed 
for  more  than  twenty  years,  to  be  entitled  "  The 
School  of  Shakspeare,"  consisting  wholly  of  ex 
tracts  from  books  familiar  to  the  poet,  and  unfold 
ing  the  sources  whence  he  had  drawn  a  large 
portion  of  his  various  knowledge,  classical,  his 
torical,  and  romantic.  This  announcement,  which 
was  made  fifteen  years  before  the  work  appeared, 
had  a  result  which  could  scarcely  have  been  con 
templated  by  the  laborious  compiler ;  for  he  had 
been  so  full  and  explicit  in  detailing  what  he  had 

•  Johnson  and  Steevens's  Shakspeare,  apud   Reed,  1803, 
Vol.  16,  p.  384. 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  13 

done,  and  what  he  was  about  to  do,  that,  as  a 
lively  memorialist  remarks,  "  while  he  was  diving 
into  the  classics  of  Caxton,  and  working  his  way 
underground,  like  the  river  Mole,  in  order  to 
emerge  with  all  his  glories  ;  while  he  was  looking 
forward  to  his  triumphs ;  certain  other  active  spirits 
went  to  work  upon  his  plan,  and  digging  out  the 
promised  treasures,  laid  them  prematurely  before 
the  public,  defeating  the  effect  of  our  critic's 
discoveries  by  anticipation.  Farmer,  Steevens, 
Malone,  and  a  whole  host  of  literary  ferrets,  bur 
rowed  into  every  hole  and  corner  of  the  warren 
of  modern  antiquity,  and  overran  all  the  coun 
try,  whose  map  had  been  delineated  by  Edward 
Capell." f 

As  Capell,  however,  was  the  first  efficient  ex 
plorer  of  the  mine,  and  led  the  way  to  others  in  a 
mode  of  illustration  which,  when  judiciously  pur 
sued,  has  certainly  contributed  more  than  any 
other  species  of  commentary  to  render  the  poet 
better  understood,  it  may  not  be  uninteresting  in 
this  place,  and  before  I  touch  upon  the  efforts  of 
those  who  followed  in  the  same  track,  to  give  a 
slight  glance  at  what  criticism  had  been  previously 
doing  in  the  field  of  annotation.  Rowe's  edition 
being  without  notes,  Pope  stands  foremost  in  the 
list  of  those  who  accompanied  the  text  with  a  com 
mentary  of  any  kind :  this,  however,  is  nearly  li 
mited  to  conjectural  criticism,  which  he  appears  to 

f  Chalmers's  Biographical  Dictionary,  vol.  viii,  p.  200. 


14  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

have  employed  without  fear  or  controul,  expunging 
whatever  he  disliked,  and  altering  whatever  he  did 
not  understand ;  and  as  he  was  miserably  deficient 
in  a  knowledge  of  the  language  and  literature,  the 
manners  and  customs  of  the  age  of  Shakspeare,  he 
had,  of  course,  abundant  opportunities  for  the  ex 
ercise  of  a  fanciful  and  unrestrained  ingenuity. 
His  preface,  however,  is  beautifully  written,  and  in 
many  parts  with  a  just  feeling  and  conception  of 
the  character  and  genius  of  his  great  author ;  but 
by  no  means  entitled  to  the  lavish  encomium  of 
Dr.  Johnson,  who  terms  it,  as  a  piece  of  general 
criticism,  "  so  extensive  that  little  can  be  added, 
and  so  exact  that  little  can  be  disputed,"  praise 
which  the  warmest  admirer  of  Pope  must  now  con 
demn  as  hyperbolical. 

With  Theobald,  whose  sole  merit  as  a  commen 
tator  turns  upon  minute  verbal  criticism  and  a  few 
occasional  illustrations  from  writers  contemporary 
with  the  poet,  commenced  that  system  of  osten 
tation,  petty  triumph  and  scurrility,  which  has  so 
much  disgraced  the  annotators  on  Shakspeare, 
and  on  which,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  it  will  be  neces 
sary  very  shortly  to  make  some  farther  stric 
tures. 

It  is  scarcely  worth  while  to  mention  the  notes 
of  Hanmer  otherwise  than  to  remark,  that  they  too 
often  betray  an  equal  degree  of  confidence  and 
want  of  judgment ;  his  efforts,  indeed,  appear  to 
have  been  chiefly  directed  towards  giving  the  ve 
nerable  bard  a  more  modern  aspect  by  the  most 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  15 

unauthorised  innovations  on  his  language  and  his 
metre. 

Nor  can  we  estimate  the  commentary  of  War- 
burton  at  a  higher  value ;  it  is,  in  fact,  little  better 
than  a  tissue  of  the  wildest  and  most  licentious  con 
jecture,  in  which  his  primary  object  seems  to  have 
been  rather  the  exhibition  of  his  own  ingenuity 
than  the  elucidation  of  his  author.  It  excited  a 
transient  admiration  from  the  wit  and  learning 
which  it  displayed,  though  these  were  mis 
placed,  and  then  dropped  into  irretrievable  obli 
vion. 

When  the  mighty  mind  of  Johnson  addressed 
itself  to  the  task  of  annotation,  the  expectations  of 
the  public  were  justly  raised ;  much  was  hoped  for, 
and  much  certainly  was  effected,  but  yet  much  of 
what  had  been  anticipated  remained  undone.  One 
of  his  greatest  deficiencies  sprang  from  his  very 
partial  acquaintance  with  the  manners,  customs, 
and  superstitions  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth ;  nor, 
indeed,  were  the  predominating  features  of  his  in 
tellect,  powerful  and  extraordinary  though  they 
were,  well  associated  with  those  of  the  poet  he  had 
to  illustrate;  they  were  too  rugged,  stern,  and 
inflexible,  wanting  that  plasticity,  that  comprehen 
sive  and  imaginative  play,  which  so  wonderfully 
characterized  the  genius  of  Shakspeare.  This  dis 
similarity  of  mental  construction  is  no  where  more 
apparent  than  in  the  short  summaries  which  he  has 
annexed  to  the  close  of  each  drama,  and  which  are 
nearly,  if  not  altogether,  void  of  that  enthusiasm, 


16  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

that  tasteful  yet  discriminative  warmth  of  appro 
bation,  which  it  is  but  natural  to  suppose  the  study 
of  such  splendid  efforts  of  genius  would  have  ge 
nerated  in  any  ardent  mind.  Many  of  his  notes, 
however,  display  much  acumen  in  the  develope- 
ment  and  explanation  of  intricate  and  verbally 
obscure  passages;  and  his  preface,  though  some 
what  too  elaborate  in  its  diction,  and  rather  too 
methodically  distributive  of  its  praise  and  blame,  is 
certainly,  both  as  to  its  style  and  tone  of  criticism, 
one  of  the  noblest  compositions  in  our  language. 

Perhaps  there  is  not  in  the  annals  of  literature 
a  more  striking  contrast  than  that  which  obtains 
between  the  prefaces  of  Johnson  and  Capell, 
brought  into  immediate  comparison  as  they  were 
by  being  published  so  nearly  together ;  for,  whilst 
the  former  is  remarkable  as  one  of  the  most 
splendid  and  majestic  efforts  of  an  author  distin 
guished  for  the  dignity  of  his  composition,  the  latter 
is  written  in  a  style  peculiarly  obsolete  and  almost 
beyond  precedent,  bald,  disjointed,  and  uncouth. 
Capell,  however,  as  I  have  already  observed,  had 
not  only  the  merit  of  opening,  but  of  entering  upon 
the  best  mode  of  illustrating  his  author ;  and  the 
frank  avowal  of  his  plan  led  Steevens,  who  had  re-, 
printed,  as  early  as  1766,  twenty  of  the  old  quarto 
copies  of  Shakspeare's  plays,  to  cultivate  with 
equal  assiduity  and  more  dispatch  the  same  curious 
and  neglected  field.  The  first  fruits  of  his  research 
into  the  literature  and  costume  of  the  age  of 
Shakspeare  appeared  in  his  coadjutorship  with 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  17 

Johnson  in  a  new  edition  of  the  poet  in  1773,  in 
ten  volumes  octavo.  From  this  period,  until  his 
death  in  1800,  Steevens  was  incessantly  and  en 
thusiastically  employed  upon  his  favourite  author : 
a  second  edition,  almost  entirely  under  his  revision, 
appeared  in  1778;  a  third,  superintended  by  Mr. 
Reed,  in  1785 ;  and  a  fourth,  of  which,  though  in  the 
title-page  he  retained  the  name  of  Johnson,  he  might 
justly  be  considered  as  the  independent  editor, 
in  1793.  On  this  last  edition,  occupying  fifteen 
volumes  octavo,  and  which  was  subsequently  en 
larged,  by  materials  which  he  left  behind  him,  to 
twenty-one  volumes  of  the  same  size,  and  printed 
under  the  care  of  Mr.  Reed  in  1803,  the  reputation 
of  Steevens,  as  an  editor  and  commentator,  must 
entirely  rest. 

That  in  the  first  of  these  capacities  he  possessed 
an  uncommon  share  of  industry  and  perseverance, 
cannot  be  denied ;  for  it  is  recorded  that,  whilst 
preparing  the  edition  of  1793,  he  devoted  to  it 
"  solely,  and  exclusively  of  all  other  attentions,  a 
period  of  eighteen  months ;  and  during  that  time 
he  left  his  house  every  morning  at  one  o'clock 
with  the  tiampstead  patrole,  and  proceeding  with 
out  any  consideration  of  the  weather  or  the  season  > 
called  up  the  compositor,  and  woke  all  his  devils.''^ 

g  Vide  Gentleman's  Magazine,  vol.  70,  p.  178.  This  article, 
which  appears  to  have  been  written  by  Mr.  Burke,  closes  with 
the  following  very  impressive  and  momentous  truth  ;  comment 
ing  on  the  acknowledged  talents  and  erudition  of  Mr.  Steevens, 
he  adds  :  "  When  Death,  by  one  stroke,  and  in  one  moment, 

B 


18  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

But  unfortunately  this  editorial  assiduity,  accom 
panied  as  it  was  by  great  attention  to  the  collation 
of  the  oldest  copies  of  his  author,  was  broken  in 
upon  and  vitiated  by  his  frequent  attempts  to 
restore  what  he  conceived  wanting  to  the  metrical 
harmony  of  the  text.  He  had,  in  fact,  neither 
heart  nor  ear  for  many  of  the  sweetest  and  most 
fanciful  strains  of  Shakspeare ;  and  poetry  with 
him  being  synonymous  with  accuracy  of  versifi 
cation,  he  hesitated  not  to  adopt  many  unauthor 
ised  readings  for  the  sole  purpose  of  rendering  a 
line  mechanically  exact ;  a  practice  which  has,  as 
may  well  be  imagined,  very  greatly  diminished 
the  value  of  his  labours.11 

As  a  commentator,  Mr.  Steevens  possessed  many 
of  the  first  requisites  for  the  due  execution  of  his 
task.  He  was  a  man  of  great  learning  and  elo 
quence,  and,  in  many  instances,  of  great  sagacity 

makes  such  a  dispersion  of  knowledge  and  intellect — when  such 
a  man  is  carried  to  his  grave — the  mind  can  feel  but  one  emo 
tion  :  we  consider  the  vanity  of  every  thing  beneath  the  sun, — 

WE  PERCEIVE  WHAT  SHADOWS  WE  ARE,  AND  WHAT  SHADOWS 
WE  PURSUE/' 

h  "  Mr.  Steevens,"  observes  Mr.  Kemble,  "  had  no  ear  for 
the  colloquial  metre  of  our  old  dramatists  :  it  is  not  possible, 
on  any  other  supposition,  to  account  for  his  whimsical  desire, 
and  the  pains  he  takes,  to  fetter  the  enchanting  freedom  of 
Shakspeare's  numbers,  and  compel  them  into  the  heroic  march 
and  measured  cadence  of  epic  versification.  The  « native  wood- 
notes  wild,'  that  could  delight  the  cultivated  ear  of  Milton,  must 
not  be  modulated  anew,  to  indulge  the  fastidiousness  of  those 
who  read  verses  by  their  fingers."  Macbeth  and  Richard  the 
Third :  An  Essay,  by  J.  P.  Kemble,  p.  101. 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  19 

and  acumen ;  and,  above  all,  he  was  most  inti 
mately  conversant  with  the  language  and  lite 
rature,  the  manners,  customs,  and  superstitions  of 
the  age  of  Shakspeare.  But  he  had  with  these 
and  other  mental  endowments,  many  counteract 
ing  qualities  and  defects,  and  such,  indeed,  as 
have  thrown  no  little  odium  on  his  memory.  He 
had,  for  instance,  both  wit  and  humour  in  no 
very  measured  degree,  but  neither  temper  nor 
mercy  to  controul  them;  and  he  had  vivacity  of 
imagination,  and  great  point  in  expression,  without 
a  particle  of  poetic  taste  and  feeling.  From  a 
mind  thus  constituted,  much  of  illustration,  and 
much  also  of  what  is  revolting  and  disgusting, 
might  be  expected ;  and  these  are,  in  fact,  the 
characteristics  of  the  commentary  of  George 
Steevens,  in  which,  whilst  a  stream  of  light  is 
often  thrown  upon  the  writings  of  the  poet 
through  the  editor's  intimacy  with  the  obsolete 
literature  of  a  former  age,  there  runs  through  a 
great  part  of  his  annotations  a  vein  of  the  most 
unsparing  though  witty  ridicule,  often  indulged 
at  the  expense  of  those  whom  he  had  himself  en 
trapped  into  error,  and  of  which  a  principal  object 
seems  to  have  been  that  of  irritating  the  feelings, 
and  exulting  over  the  supposed  sufferings  of  con 
temporary  candidates  for  critical  fame.  Nor  was 
this  sportive  malignancy  the  worst  feature  in  the 
literary  conduct  of  Steevens;  there  was  a  pruri 
ency  in  his  imagination  which  led  him  to  dwell 
with  revolting  minuteness  on  any  allusion  of  his 


20  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

author,  however  remote  or  indirect,  to  coarse  and 
indelicate  subjects  ;  and  what  adds  greatly  to  the 
offence,  was  the  endeavour  to  shield  himself  from 
the  disgrace  which  he  was  conscious  of  meriting, 
by  annexing  to  these  abominable  disquisitions  the 
names  of  Collins  and  Amner,  the  latter  belonging 
to  a  gentleman  of  great  virtue  and  piety  with 
whom  he  had  quarrelled,  and  whose  feelings  he 
knew  would  be  agonized  by  such  an  attribution. 

It  is,  indeed,  a  most  melancholy  consideration, 
to  reflect  that  some  of  the  worst  passions  of  the 
human  breast,  and  some  of  the  coarsest  language 
by  which  literature  has  been  disgraced,  are  to  be 
found  amongst  the  race  of  commentators ;  a  class 
of  men  who,  from  the  very  nature  of  their  pursuit, 
that  of  emendatory  or  laudatory  criticism,  might 
be  thought  exempt  from  such  degrading  propen 
sities.  In  this  country  more  especially  has  this 
disgusting  exhibition,  even  to  the  present  day, 
sullied  the  labours  of  the  commentators  on  our 
elder  dramatic  poesy ;  and,  above  all,  is  it  to  be 
deplored  that  Shakspeare,  whose  character  was 
remarkable  for  its  suavity  and  benevolence,  who 
has  seldom  been  mentioned,  indeed,  by  his  con 
temporaries  without  the  epithets  gentle  or  beloved 
accompanying  his  name,  should  have  his  pages 
polluted  by  such  a  mass  of  idle  contention  and 
vindictive  abuse. 

Every  man  of  just  taste  and  feeling  must  be 
grateful  for,  and  delighted  by,  the  labours  of  those 
who  are  competent  to  illustrate  and  explain  a 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  21 

poet  so  invaluable  as  Shakspeare,  nor  could  any 
commentary,  with  these  purposes  solely  in  view, 
be  ever  deemed  too  long  or  elaborate ;  but  when 
these  critics  turn  aside  from  their  legitimate  ob 
ject  to  ridicule,  and  indeed  abuse  each  other  in 
the  grossest  manner,  to  indulge  a  merciless  and 
malignant  triumph  over  their  predecessors  or  con 
temporaries,  or  to  bring  into  broad  daylight  what 
common  decency  requires  should  be  left  in  its 
original  obscurity,  who,  whatever  may  be  the  wit 
exhibited  in  the  attempt,  but  must  view  such  con 
duct  with  abhorrence  ?  The  enormity,  however, 
carries  with  it  its  own  punishment,  as  being  indi 
cative  of  such  a  temper  and  such  feelings  as  must 
necessarily  lead  those  who  combat  not  their  in 
fluence  into  wretchedness  and  self-reproach,  and 
not  unfrequently,  indeed,  into  the  agonies  of 
despair  and  the  ravings  of  insanity ;  consequences 
which,  as  partly  springing  from  this  source,  and 
partly  from  religious  indifference,  have  unhappily 
been  exemplified  in  the  closing  hours  of  the  witty 
Steevens  and  intemperate  Ritson ;  men  who,  by 
their  caprice  or  violence,  lived  without  friendship 
or  sympathy,  and,  owing  to  their  scepticism,  died 
without  consolation  or  hope.1 

i  Dr.  Dibdin,  describing  the  character  of  Ritson  under  the 
appellation  of  Sycorax,  remarks,  "his  malice  and  ill-nature 
were  frightful ;  and  withal,  his  love  of  scurrility  and  abuse 
quite  intolerable.  He  mistook,  in  too  many  instances,  the  man 
ner  for  the  matter ;  the  shadow  for  the  substance.  He  passed 
his  criticisms,  and  dealt  out  his  invectives  with  so  little  cere- 


22  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

From  results  such  as  these,  which  cannot  be 
contemplated  without  the  most  painful  and  humi- 

mony  and  so  much  venom,  that  he  seemed  born  with  a  scalping 
knife  in  his  hand,  to  commit  murder  as  long  as  he  lived !  To 
him  censure  was  sweeter  than  praise  ;  and  the  more  elevated 
the  rank,  and  respectable  the  character  of  his  antagonist,  the 
more  dexterously  he  aimed  his  blows,  and  the  more  frequently 
he  renewed  his  attacks." — Bibliomania,  p.  9. 

A  temper  such  as  this,  uncontrolled  as  it  was  by  any  restric 
tive  influence  from  revealed  religion,  terminated  in  what  might 
have  been  anticipated,  a  loss  of  reason  from  the  indulgence  of 
unrestrained  passion  ;  and  he  expired  in  a  receptacle  for  insane 
persons,  at  Hoxton,  Sept.  3d,  1803! 

I  sincerely  wish  a  more  consolatory  account  could  be  given 
of  the  closing  hours  of  the  witty  and  accomplished  Steevens; 
but  the  same  writer  has  furnished  us  with  such  an  awful  yet, 
at  the  same  time,  highly  monitory  description  of  his  departure, 
as  cannot  fail  to  read  a  lesson  of  the  very  first  importance  to 
every  human  being.  "  The  latter  moments,"  he  says,  "  of  STEE 
VENS  were  moments  of  mental  anguish.  He  grew  not  only 
irritable,  but  outrageous;  and,  in  full  possession  of  his  faculties, 
he  raved  in  a  manner  which  could  have  been  expected  only 
from  a  creature  bred  up  without  notions  of  morality  or  religion. 
Neither  complacency  nor  'joyful  hope'  soothed  his  bed  of 
death.  His  language  was,  too  frequently,  the  language  of  im 
precation;  and  his  wishes  and  apprehensions  such  as  no 
rational  Christian  can  think  upon  without  agony  of  heart.  Al 
though  I  am  not  disposed  to  admit  the  whole  of  the  testimony 
of  the  good  woman  who  watched  by  his  bed-side,  and  paid 
him,  when  dead,  the  last  melancholy  attentions  of  her  office— 
although  my  prejudices  (as  they  may  be  called)  will  not  allow 
me  to  believe  that  the  windows  shook,  and  that  strange  noises 
and  deep  groans  were  heard  at  midnight  in  his  room— yet  no 
creature  of  common  sense  (and  this  woman  possessed  the 
quality  in  an  eminent  degree)  could  mistake  oaths  for  prayers, 


PREFATORY    ESSAY*  23 

Hating  emotions,  I  now  turn  with  pleasure  to  the 
last  great  editor  of  Shakspeare,  Mr.  Malone,  who, 
though  not  possessing  a  particle  of  the  wit  and 
humour  of  Steevens,  was  his  equal  in  point  of 
general  knowledge  and  Shakspearian  lore.  Stee 
vens  had  early  discovered  and  appreciated  the 
editorial  acumen  and  patient  research  of  Malone, 
and  an  intimacy,  at  first  very  cordial,  took  place 
between  them,  the  former  trusting  to  avail  himself 
of  the  talents  of  his  new  friend  in  the  capacity 
of  an  humble  and  very  useful  coadjutor.  When 
the  latter,  however,  relying  on  his  own  resources, 
ventured  to  publish,  in  1780,  a  Supplement  to  the 
edition  of  1778,  Steevens  felt  piqued  and  alarmed, 
sensations  which  arose  even  to  enmity  on  Malone's 
intimating  his  intention  of  bringing  forth  a  new 
and  entirely  independent  edition  of  the  bard;  a  de 
sign  which  the  elder  commentator  thus  mentions 
with  no  little  poignancy  and  humour  in  a  letter  to 
Mr.  Warton,  in  April  1783:  "Whatever  the  vege- 

or  boisterous  treatment  for  calm  and  gentle  usage.     If  it  be 
said — why 

'  draw  his  frailties  from  their  dread  abode?' 
the  answer  is  obvious,  and,  I  should  hope,  irrefragable.  A  duty, 
and  a  sacred  one  too,  is  due  TO  THE  LIVING.  Past  examples 
operate  upon  future  ones;  and  posterity  ought  to  know,  in  the 
instance  of  this  accomplished  scholar  and  literary  antiquary, 
that  neither  the  sharpest  wit,  nor  the  most  delicate  intellectual 
refinement,  can,  alone,  afford  a  man  *  PEACE  AT  THE  LAST.' 
The  vessel  of  human  existence  must  be  secured  by  other 
anchors  than  these,  when  the  storm  of  death  approaches ! " — 
Bibliomania,  p.  589. 


24  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

table  spring  may  produce,"  he  observes,  "  the  cri 
tical  one  will  be  prolific  enough.  No  less  than  six 
editions  of  Shakspeare  (including  CapelFs  notes, 
with  Collins's  prolegomena)  are  now  in  the  mash- 
tub.  I  have  thrown  up  my  licence.  Reed  is  to 
occupy  the  old  red  lattice,  and  Malone  intends  to 
froth  and  lime  at  a  little  snug  booth  of  his  own 
construction.  Ritson  will  advertise  sour  ale  against 
his  mild.j 

Little,  it  is  evident,  was  now  wanting  to  esta 
blish  a  complete  breach  between  these  rival  anno- 
tators,  and  this  little  occurred  very  shortly  after 
wards  ;  for  Malone  having  contributed  some  notes 
to  the  edition  of  Shakspeare  published,  in  1785, 
under  the  superintendence  of  Reed,  in  which  he 
occasionally  opposed  the  dicta  of  Steevens,  the 
latter  demanded  that  these  notes  should  be  re- 
published  verbatim  in  the  promised  edition  of 
Malone,  that  he  might  have  an  opportunity  of 
answering  them  as  they  were  originally  written ; 
a  proposal,  which  on  Malone's  indignantly  re 
fusing  to  listen  to,  an  open  rupture,  as  to  Shak 
speare,  took  place  between  them ;  and  when  the 
edition  of  Malone  came  forth  in  1790,  Steevens 
angrily  commenced  his  threatened  task,  the  result 
appearing  in  his  own  re-impression  of  the  bard  in 
1793;  in  which,  whilst  he  availed  himself  of  the 
labours  of  his  rival,  he  ungenerously  affected  to 
treat  his  opinions  with  ridicule  and  contempt. 

1  Wooll's  Biographical  Memoirs  of  the  Rev.  Joseph  Warton, 
D.D.  p.  398. 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  25 

The  edition  of  Malone,  however,  which  in  ten 
volumes  octavo  included  as  well  the  poems  as  the 
plays  of  Shakspeare,  was  so  well  received  by  the 
public  as  to  induce  its  editor  to  devote  almost  the 
entire  remainder  of  his  days  to  its  revision  and 
improvement;  and  in  1821,  nine  years  after  his 
death,  it  re-appeared  in  twenty-one  volumes  octavo, 
under  the  care  and  arrangement  of  Mr.  Boswell,  to 
whom  the  materials  thus  industriously  accumulated 
by-  the  deceased  critic  had  been  very  happily 
consigned. 

As  an  editor  of  Shakspeare,  Mr.  Malone  may  be 
justly  considered  as  in  many  respects  superior  to 
his  predecessors.  Not  one  of  them,  in  fact,  had 
attempted  the  task  without,  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  neglecting  or  tampering  with  the  original 
text;  whilst  Malone,  by  the  scrupulous  fide 
lity  with  which  he  adhered  to  the  elder  copies, 
whether  quarto  or  first  folio,  never  adopting  a 
reading  unsanctioned  by  their  authority,  unless 
where  an  absolute  want  of  intelligibility  from 
typographical  carelessness  compelled  him  to  do  so, 
and  then  never  without  due  notice,  presented  us, 
for  the  first  time,  with  as  perfect  a  transcript  of  the 
words  of  Shakspeare  as  can  now  probably  be 
obtained. 

Nor  are  his  powers  as  a  commentator,  though 
he  has  little  pretension  to  the  intellectual  vivacity 
of  Steevens,  to  be  lightly  estimated.  His  notes, 
though  somewhat  dry  and  verbose,  are  full  of  infor 
mation;  his  History  of  the  Stage  is  singularly 


26  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

elaborate  and  exact ;  and  Mr.  Boswell  assures  us 
that  "  Professor  Porson,  who  was  by  no  means  in 
the  habit  of  bestowing  hasty  or  thoughtless  praise, 
declared  to  him  that  he  considered  the  Essay  on 
the  three  parts  of  Henry  the  Sixth  as  one  of  the 
most  convincing  pieces  of  criticism  that  he  had  ever 
read;  nor,"  he  adds,  "was  Mr.  Burke  less  liberal 
in  his  praises." k 

The  chief,  and  perhaps  the  only  prominent  fault  of 
Malone  as  an  illustrator  of  Shakspeare,  has  arisen 
from  his  too  anxious  efforts  to  pour  out  all  he  had 
acquired  on  each  subject  without  due  reference  to 
its  greater  or  minor  importance ;  a  want  of  discri 
mination  which  has  not  unfrequently  rendered 
him  heavy  and  tedious.  It  is,  indeed,  devoutly  to 
be  wished  that  an  edition  of  Shakspeare  were 
undertaken,  which,  whilst  in  the  notes  it  expunged 
all  that  was  trifling,  idly-controversial,  indecorous, 
and  abusive,  should,  at  the  same  time,  retain  every 
interesting  disquisition,  though  in  many  instances 
re-modelled,  re-written,  and  condensed ;  nor  fearing 
to  add  what  farther  research  under  the  guidance 
of  taste  might  suggest.  In  bulk,  such  an  edition 
might  not  be  less  than  what  has  appeared  so  for 
midable  in  the  impressions  of  Steevens  and  Malone, 
but  the  commentary  would  assume  a  very  different 
aspect. l 

Chalmers's  Biographical  Dictionary,  vol.  xxi.  p.  207. 
1  I  consider  the  specimen  of  an  edition  of  Shakspeare  given 
to  the  public  by  Mr.  Caldecott  in  1819,  as  approaching  very 
nearly  this  description,  and  I  rather  wonder  sufficient  encou- 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  27 

After  this  cursory  account  of  the  chief  editors  of 
Shakspeare,  I  have  now  to  turn  to  that  branch  of 

ragement  has  not  been  afforded  Mr.  Caldecott  for  the  prosecu 
tion  of  his  design.  The  volume  is  entitled  "  Hamlet  and  As 
You  Like  It.  A  Specimen  of  a  new  Edition  of  Shakspeare." 
London :  John  Murray. — The  principle  on  which  the  work  is 
constructed  is  thus  explained  by  the  editor :  "  The  first  folio 
is  made  the  groundwork  of  the  proposed  edition  and  present 
specimen,  in  which  also  will  be  admitted  such  additional  matter 
as  has  occurred  in  the  twenty  quartos  published  by  Mr.  Stee- 
vens. — Wherever  the  reading  of  the  folio  is  departed  from,  the 
folio  text  is  given  in  its  place  on  the  margin  ;  but  unless  any 
thing  turns  upon  the  old  spelling,  in  which  case  it  is  retained  in 
the  text,  the  modern  spelling  is  throughout  adopted  ;  and  the 
punctuation  is  altogether  taken  into  the  editor's  hands.  Where- 
ever  also  such  alterations  as  appear  material  are  found  in  the 
folio  1632,  they  are  noticed  in  the  margin. — Not  to  interpose 
any  thing  of  length  between  the  author  and  his  reader,  we  have 
thought  it  proper  to  throw  the  notes  that  are  grammatical, 
philological,  critical,  historical,  or  explanatory  of  usages,  to  the 
end  of  each  play ;  and  at  the  bottom  of  the  pages  of  the  text, 
to  give  such  only  as  were  immediately  necessary  to  explain  our 
author's  meaning. — We  have  made  no  comments  but  where  we 
have  felt  doubt  ourselves,  or  seen  that  others  have ;  and  we 
have  suffered  nothing  like  difficulty  to  pass  without  offering 
our  conjecture  at  least,  or  acknowledging  our  inability  to  re 
move  it." — Advertisement  to  the  Reader,  pp.  vii — x. 

The  only  alteration  which  I  should  wish  to  see  made  in  this 
plan,  would  be  to  have  the  whole  of  the  notes  immediately 
connected  with  the  text  instead  of  the  larger  portion  of  them 
thrown,  as  is  now  the  case,  to  the  end  of  each  play.  I  am  per 
suaded,  indeed,  that  the  trouble  occasioned  by  the  necessity  of 
almost  perpetually  turning  from  one  part  of  a  book  to  another, 
would  with  many  persons  prove  an  insuperable  bar  to  the  con 
sultation  of  any  commentary.  May  not  a  feeling  by  the  public 
of  the  inconveniency  of  this  arrangement,  have  in  some  degree 
operated  to  arrest  the  completion  of  the  editor's  labours? 


28  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

my  subject  which  includes  the  DETACHED  PUBLI 
CATIONS  EXCLUSIVELY  APPROPRIATED  to  the  poet, 

and  which,  as  opening  a  field  of  great  extent 
and  no  little  intricacy,  I  shall,  for  the  sake  of  per 
spicuity,  arrange  under  the  three  heads  of  contro 
versial,  annotative,  and  dissertative  criticism,  passing, 
however,  as  lightly  and  rapidly  over  the  ground 
occupied  by  my  first  division  as  possible,  present 
ing  as  it  does,  with  occasional  illustrations  of  some 
value,  so  much  of  what  is  vindictive,  trivial,  or 
repulsive. 

The  arena  opens  most  inauspiciously  with  the 
controversy  of  Rymer,  Gildon,  and  Dennis,  on  the 
merits  and  demerits  of  the  bard,  three  men  as  little 
calculated  by  their  temper,  taste,  and  talents,  to 
do  justice  to  the  subject  as  could  well  be  enume 
rated.  This  was  followed  by  the  attack  of  Theobald 
on  Pope  under  the  title  of  "  Shakspeare  Restored," 
and  by  the  war- hoop  which  was  not  unjustly 
raised  against  the  dogmatism  and  supercilious 
arrogance  of  Warburton,  by  Grey,  Edwards,  Holt, 
Nichols,  and  Heath ;  a  pentarchy  displaying  no 
small  portion  of  wit,  humour,  and  sarcastic  keen 
ness.  The  irony  of  Edwards,  indeed,  was  con 
ducted  in  his  "Canons  of  Criticism"  with  uncom 
mon  skill  and  point,  forming,  in  its  tone  and  manner, 
a  striking  contrast  to  the  bitter  and  vehement  spirit 
of  Heath ;  whilst  the  pamphlet  of  Mr.  Holt  points 
out  in  its  very  title-page  what  may  be  considered, 
notwithstanding  the  subsequent  host  of  commen 
tators  and  critics,  as  yet  to  be  successfully  achieved 


PREFATORY    ESSAY,  29 

for  the  fame  of  Shakspeare ;  namely,  "  to  rescue 
that  aunciente  English  Poet  and  Play-wrighte 
Maister  William  Shakspeare  from  the  many 
Errours  faulsely  charged  on  him  by  certaine  new 
fangled  Wittes ;  and  to  let  him  speak  for  himselfe, 
as  right  well  he  wotteth,  when  freede  from  the 
many  careless  Mistakings  of  the  heedless  first 
Imprinters  of  his  Workes." 

Nor  were  the  three  great  editors  of  Shakspeare, 
Johnson,  Steevens,  and  Malone,  more  fortunate  than 
their  predecessors  Pope  and  Warburton  had  been, 
in  escaping  the  ebullitions  of  spleen  and  malignity. 
From  the  coarse  and  bitter  invective  of  Kenrick 
however,  unaccompanied  as  it  was  by  any  supe 
rior  talent,  Johnson  had  nothing  to  apprehend, 
and  he  disdained  to  reply  ;  but  his  coadjutor 
Steevens,  and  the  indefatigable  Malone,  had  to 
meet  and  to  parry  the  keen  and  envenomed  arrows 
of  Ritson,  a  man  certainly  of  considerable  sagacity 
and  very  minute  accuracy,  but  whose  unhappy 
and  uncontrolled  temper  led  him,  as  I  have  before 
remarked,  into  the  most  indecorous  and  merciless 
abuse. 

Nor  was  this  the  only  opponent  whose  talents 
were  of  a  formidable  kind,  that  Mr.  Malone  had  to 
contend  with.  One  of  the  most  singular  and  daring 
attempts  at  imposition  in  the  literary  world  per 
haps  on  record,  brought  him  into  contact  with  Mr. 
George  Chalmers,  a  critic  and  antiquary  of  much 
acuteness  and  penetration,  and  as  industrious  as 
himself.  I  allude  to  the  pretended  Shakspeare 


30  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Manuscripts  published  by  the  Irelands  in  1795,  a 
forgery  by  the  younger  of  these  gentlemen,  which 
engaged  much  of  the  public  attention  for  three  or 
four  years,  and  furnishes  not  less  than  nineteen 
articles  in  the  last  and  most  complete  list  of 
Detached  Publications  relative  to  the  poet.  Gross 
and  despicable,  however,  as  was  the  fraud,  it  had 
the  incidental  merit  of  eliciting  much  curious  infor 
mation  on  the  history,  costume,  and  manners  of  the 
Elizabethan  era;  nor  can  the  "Inquiry"  of  Mr. 
Malone,  the  chief  detector  of  the  imposition,  or 
the  "Apologies  for  the  Believers"  by  Mr.  Chal 
mers,  be  read  without  feeling  respect  for  the  skill, 
ingenuity,  and  unwearied  patience  with  which 
these  laborious  critics  carried  on  their  researches. 

Retreating,  however,  from  the  thorny  paths  of 
controversy,  I  pass  on  to  take  a  brief  notice  of 
those  who,  either  as  annotators  or  glossographers, 
have  endeavoured,  by  occasional  separate  works,  to 
illustrate  and  explain  our  bard.  Grey  and  Heath, 
who  have  already  been  mentioned  as  the  oppugnors 
of  Warburton,  possess  great  acumen  in  this  de 
partment  ;  the  former  especially,  as  contesting 
perhaps  with  Capell  the  merit  of  first  pursuing  the 
plan  of  illustrating  Shakspeare  through  the  medium 
of  contemporary  usage  and  literature.  Previously, 
though  with  inferior  tact,  had  appeared  the  Notes, 
Observations,  and  Remarks  of  Peck,  Upton,  and 
Whalley,  commentators  with  whom,  if  we  set  aside 
the  classical  erudition  of  Upton,  may  be  arranged, 
as  of  approximating  worth,  the  names  of  Davies, 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  31 

Chedworth,  Seymour,  and  Jackson;  the  latter, how 
ever,  being  entitled  to  peculiar  notice,  as  having 
thrown  fresh  light  on  the  state  of  the  early  im 
pressions  of  Shakspeare  from  a  skilful  application 
of  his  professional  knowledge  as  a  typographer, 
tracing  to  their  source,  and  correcting  several 
errors  which  had  originated  solely  from  the  incor 
rectness  of  the  printer.1" 

There  are  not  wanting,  moreover,  in  this  branch 
of  Detached  Publications  on  Shakspeare,  some 
names  of  first-rate  celebrity  as  annotators ;  for 
instance,  those  of  Tyrwhitt,  Monk  Mason,  Whit 
er,"  and  Douce,  the  last  gentleman  in  particular 

m  The  work  of  Mr.  Jackson  is  entitled,  "  Shakspeare's 
Genius  Justified  ;  being  Restorations  and  Illustrations  of  Seven 
Hundred  Passages  in  Shakspeare's  Plays,"  8vo.  1819.  If  it 
must  be  granted  that  Mr.  Jackson  has  occasionally  allowed 
himself  to  imagine  more  blunders  than  ever  really  sprang  from 
the  source  he  contends  for,  he  has  yet  most  assuredly  detected, 
in  frequent  instances,  errors  evidently  arising  from  the  ignorance 
or  carelessness  of  the  printer,  and  consequently  many  of  his 
emendations  must  be  pronounced  at  once  striking  and  correct. 

n  Mr,  Winter's  production,  which  is  entitled  "  A  Specimen 
of  a  Commentary  on  Shakspeare,"  consists  of  two  parts.  1 . 
"  Notes  on  As  You  Like  It.  2.  An  Attempt  to  explain  and 
illustrate  various  passages  on  a  New  Principle  of  Criticism, 
derived  from  Mr.  Locke's  Doctrine  of  the  Association  of  Ideas." 

This  second  part,  which,  as  the  author  tells  us,  is  '« an  en 
deavour  to  unfold  the  secret  and  subtile  operations  of  genius 
from  the  most  indubitable  doctrine  in  the  theory  of  metaphy 
sics,"  exhibits  a  most  ingenious,  and,  not  seldom,  a  very  con 
vincing  train  of  reasoning  and  illustration,  though  the  basis  on 
which  it  is  built  cannot  but  occasionally  throw  open  the  most 
cautious  commentator  to  the  delusions  of  imagination. 


32  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

having,  in  his  Illustrations  of  Shakspeare  and  of  An 
cient  Manners,  exhibited,  in  the  form  of  notes  and 
occasional  disquisitions,  an  almost  unparalleled 
wide  range  of  research  with  a  fulness  of  informa 
tion,  a  richness  of  recondite  lore,  and  an  urbanity 
of  manner,  which  are  truly  delightful. 

I  shall  close  this  section  with  the  mention  of  the 
highly  useful,  and,  in  one  instance  truly  interest 
ing,  labours  of  the  glossographers  on  Shakspeare. 
The  Indices  of  Ascough  and  Twiss  are  copious  and 
correct,  and  can  scarcely  be  dispensed  with  by 
those  who  wish  to  study  Shakspeare  with  philolo 
gical  accuracy;  whilst  the  "Glossary"  of  Arch 
deacon  Nares,  adapted  not  only  to  the  works  of 
our  great  dramatic  bard,  but  to  those  of  his  con 
temporaries,  superadds  to  the  verbal  wealth  of  a 
dictionary  a  vast  fund  of  the  most  entertaining 
and  instructive  illustration  in  relation  to  the  man 
ners,  customs,  and  superstitions  of  the  reigns  of 
Elizabeth  and  James.  It  is  a  work,  indeed,  which 
will  ever  be  considered  as  a  necessary  companion 
to  the  study  of  the  poetical  and  miscellaneous  lite 
rature  of  these  periods,  and  may  be  deemed,  with 
respect  to  Shakspeare,  as  superseding  much  of  the 
commentary  which  now  so  frequently,  and  often 
so  inconveniently,  loads  the  pages  of  our  favourite 
author. 

The  last  division  of  Detached  Publications 
exclusively  appropriated  to  our  poet,  comprehends, 
according  to  the  arrangement  which  I  have  adopted, 
that  species  of  criticism  which,  from  its  continuity 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  33 

and  style,  may  be  termed  the  Dissertative,  and 
which,  if  not  more  useful  than  a  well-conducted 
series  of  annotation,  is,  at  least,  from  the  extensive 
field  it  is  capable  of  embracing,  biographical,  histo 
rical,  moral,  and  philosophical,  and  the  scope 
which  it  yields  to  ingenuity  and  talent,  calculated 
to  be  much  more  pleasing  and  interesting. 

It  has  accordingly  been  productive  of  a  large 
portion  of  valuable  disquisition,  and  one  of  the 
earliest  attempts  in  the  department  will  bear  ample 
testimony  to  the  truth  of  the  affirmation,  namely, 
the  "Essay  on  the  Learning  of  Shakspeare"  by 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Farmer;  a  work  which,  from  the 
perspicuity  of  its  arrangement,  the  liveliness  of  its 
style,  and  the  strength  and  adroit  application  of 
the  evidence  it  adduces,  has  nearly  set  the  question 
at  rest ;  though  it  must  be  allowed,  I  think,  that  he 
has  carried  his  depreciation  of  the  scholarship  of 
the  poet  somewhat  too  far. 

This  was  speedily  followed  by  the  celebrated 
"  Essay"  of  Mrs.  Montagu,  "  on  the  Writings  and 
Genius  of  Shakspeare,  compared  with  the  Greek 
and  French  Dramatic  Poets/'  and  including  a  very 
satisfactory  defence  of  the  bard  against  the  misre 
presentations  of  Voltaire;  a  production  which, 
notwithstanding  the  sneers  of  Dr.  Johnson,0  is  justly 

0  Vide  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson,  vol.  2.  p.  82.  As  a  coun 
terpoise  to  these  sneers,  the  opinion  of  Cowper,  a  very  compe 
tent  judge,  may  be  satisfactorily  quoted.  Speaking  of  her 
"  Essay  "  to  a  correspondent,  he  says  :  "  the  learning,  the  good 
sense,  the  sound  judgment,  and  the  wit  displayed  in  it,  fully 

C 


34  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

entitled  to  all  the  praise  that  has  been  bestowed 
upon  it.  The  section,  in  particular,  on  the 
"Preternatural  Beings"  of  our  Dramatist,  is  writ 
ten  not  only  with  great  taste,  but  with  great  powers 
of  eloquence,  and  great  beauty  of  expression. 

Passing  over  two  or  three  publications  of  little 
moment,  our  attention  becomes  fixed  by  Professor 
Richardson's  "Essays  on  Shakspeare's  Dramatic 
Characters."  Of  these  the  first  portion  was  pub 
lished  in  1774,  a  second  in  1784,  and  a  third  in 
1788;  and  the  whole  were  re-printed  together  in 
1797,  and  again  with  additions  in  1812.  The 
characters  commented  on  are  those  of  Macbeth, 
Hamlet,  Jaques,  Imogen,  Richard  the  Third, 
Falstaff,  King  Lear,  Timon  of  Athens,  and  Fluellen. 
To  which  are  added,  "Essays  on  Shakspeare's 
Imitation  of  Female  Characters ;"  "  On  the  Faults 
of  Shakspeare;"  "  On  the  chief  Objects  of  Criti 
cism  in  the  Works  of  Shakspeare ;"  and  "  On 
Shakspeare's  Representation  of  National  Charac 
ters." 

This  work,  written  in  that  spirit  of  philosophical 
criticism  for  which  our  northern  neighbours  are  so 
justly  celebrated,  is  a  well-executed  attempt  to 
unfold  the  ruling  principles  which  appear  to  bias 
and  govern  the  mind  and  actions  of  the  principal 
characters  in  the  dramas  of  Shakspeare,  and  to 
demonstrate  that  they  are  in  strict  conformity  with 

justify  not  only  my  compliment,  but  all  compliments  that 
either  have  been  already  paid  to  her  talents,  or  shall  be  paid 
hereafter."— Hayley's  Life  of  Cowper. 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  35 

the  laws  and  constitution  of  our  nature,  and,  con 
sequently,  not  only  most  striking  proofs  of  the 
consummate  skill  of  the  poet,  but  admirable  lessons 
of  moral  truth  and  wisdom.  The  very  ingenious 
and  satisfactory  manner  in  which  the  critic  has  thus 
endeavoured  to  prove  poetry  one  of  the  best 
teachers  of  philosophy,  is  entitled  to  high  praise, 
and  has  been  adequately  acknowledged  by  the 
public. 

About  three  years  after  Professor  Richardson's 
first  publication,  appeared  Mr.  Maurice  Morgan's 
"Essay  on  the  Dramatic  Character  of  Sir  John 
Falstaff,"  in  which,  with  singular  eloquence  and 
ingenuity,  he  strives  to  convince  his  readers  that 
Shakspeare  did  not  intend  to  represent  the  jocular 
knight  as  a  coward.  The  experiment,  however, 
for  such  he  confesses  it  to  be,  was  too  paradoxical 
to  succeed  ;  but  the  work  in  which  it  was  made 
had  higher  and  more  important  objects  in  view, 
and  includes  not  only  the  character  of  Falstaff,  but 
aims  at  the  developement  of  the  art  and  genius  of 
Shakspeare,  and,  through  him,  of  the  principles  of 
human  nature  itself. 

Whilst,  therefore,  we  cannot  but  retain  our 
former  opinions  as  to  the  courage  of  Sir  John,  and 
must  continue  to  exclaim,  in  reference  to  this  point, 

"  A  plague  on  all  cowards  still," 

yet  such  are  the  taste,  talents,  and  brilliancy  of 
expression  poured  out  upon  the  digressionary  to 
pics  just  mentioned,  as  to  render  the  little  volume 
which  includes  them  one  of  the  most  interesting 


36  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

to  which  the  fertile  subject  of  Shakspeare   has 

given  birth. 

There  is,  indeed,  in  this  production  of  Mr. 
Morgan  so  much  profundity  of  remark,  and  oc 
casionally  so  much  beautifully  expressed  enthu 
siasm,  that  I  am  irresistibly  induced,  in  this  one 
instance,  to  deviate  from  the  plan  laid  down  ;  and 
although  taken  from  a  detached  publication  ex 
pressly  on  the  poet,  to  insert  here,  as  a  precursory 
portrait  to  those  given  in  the  subsequent  part  of 
my  volume,  what  this  ingenious  critic  has  said 
with  such  philosophical  acuteness  on  the  masterly 
formation  of  Shakspeare's  characters,  and  with  such 
tasteful  fervor  on  the  bard  himself,  and  on  the  pe 
culiar  structure  of  his  genius. 

"The  reader  must  be  sensible,"  he  remarks, 
"  of  something  in  the  composition  of  Shakspeare's 
characters,  which  renders  them  essentially  differ 
ent  from  those  drawn  by  other  writers.  The  cha 
racters  of  every  drama  must,  indeed,  be  grouped ; 
but  in  the  groupes  of  other  poets,  the  parts  which 
are  not  seen  do  not  in  fact  exist.  But  there  is 
a  certain  roundness  and  integrity  in  the  forms  of 
Shakspeare,  which  give  them  an  independence  as 
well  as  a  relation,  insomuch  that  we  often  meet 
with  passages  which,  though  perfectly  felt,  cannot 
be  sufficiently  explained  in  words  without  un 
folding  the  whole  character  of  the  speaker. 

"  Bodies  of  all  kinds,  whether  of  metals,  plants, 
or  animals,  are  supposed  to  possess  certain  first 
principles  of  being,  and  to  have  an  existence  in- 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  37 

dependent  of  the  accidents  which  form  their  mag 
nitude  or  growth.     These  accidents  are  supposed 
to  be  drawn  in  from  the  surrounding  elements, 
but  not  indiscriminately;    each  plant  and  each 
animal  imbibes  those  things  only  which  are  proper 
to  its  own  distinct  nature,  and  which  have  besides 
such  a  secret  relation  to  each  other,  as  to  be  ca 
pable  of  forming  a  perfect  union  and  coalescence  : 
but  so   variously   are   the   surrounding   elements 
mingled  and  disposed,  that  each  particular  body 
even  of  those  under  the  same  species,   has  yet 
some  peculiar  of  its   own.      Shakspeare  appears 
to  have  considered  the  being  and  growth  of  the 
human  mind  as  analogous  to  this  system.     There 
are   certain   qualities   and    capacities  which   he 
seems  to  have  considered  as  first  principles ;  the 
chief  of  which  are  certain  energies  of  courage  and 
activity,  according  to  their  degrees ;  together  with 
different  degrees  and  sorts  of  sensibilities,  and  a 
capacity,  varying  likewise  in  the  degree  of  dis 
cernment  and  intelligence.     The  rest  of  the  com 
position  is  drawn  from  an  atmosphere  of  surround 
ing  things ;  that  is,  from  the  various  influences  of 
the  different  laws,  religions,  and  governments  in 
the  world,  and  from  those  of  the  different  ranks  and 
inequalities  in  society,  and  from  the  different  pro 
fessions  of  men,  encouraging  or  repressing  passions 
of  particular  sorts,  and  inducing  different  modes 
of  thinking  and  habits  of  life;  and  he  seems  to 
have  known  intuitively  what  those  influences  in 
particular  were  which  this  or  that  original  con- 


3iS  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

stitution  would  most  freely  imbibe,  and  which 
would  most  easily  associate  and  coalesce.  But 
all  these  things  being,  in  different  situations,  very 
differently  disposed,  and  these  differences  exactly 
discerned  by  him,  he  found  no  difficulty  in  marking 
every  individual,  even  among  characters  of  the 
same  sort,  with  something  peculiar  and  distinct. 
Climate  and  complexion  demand  their  influence ; 
<  Be  this  when  thou  art  dead,  and  I  will  kill  thee,  and 
love  thee  after,'  is  a  sentiment  characteristic  of,  and 
fit  only  to  be  uttered  by  a  Moor. 

"  But  it  was  not  enough  for  Shakspeare  to  have 
formed  his  characters  with  the  most  perfect  truth 
and  coherence ;  it  was  farther  necessary  that  he 
should  possess  a  wonderful  facility  of  compressing, 
as  it  were,  his  own  spirit  into  these  images,  and 
of  giving  alternate  animation  to  the  forms.     This 
was  not  to  be  done  from  without;  he  must  have 
felt  every  varied  situation,  and  have  spoken  through 
the  organ  he  had  formed.     Such  an  intuitive  com 
prehension   of  things,    and   such  a  facility,   must 
unite  to  produce  a  Shakspeare.     The  reader  will 
not  now  be  surprised  if  I  affirm  that  those  charac 
ters  in  Shakspeare,  which  are  seen  only  in  part, 
are  yet  capable  of  being  unfolded  and  understood 
in  the  whole ;  every  part  being  in  fact  relative,  and 
inferring  all  the  rest.     It  is  true  that  the  point  of 
action  or  sentiment  which  we  are  most  concerned 
in,  is  always  held  out  for  our  special  notice.     But 
who  does  not  perceive  that  there  is  a  peculiarity 
about  it,  which  conveys  a  relish  of  the  whole  ?    And 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  39 

very  frequently,  when  no  particular  point  presses, 
he  boldly  makes  a  character  act  and  speak  from 
those  parts  of  the  composition  which  are  inferred 
only,  and  not  distinctly  shown.  This  produces  a 
wonderful  effect ;  it  seems  to  carry  us  beyond  the 
poet  to  nature  itself,  and  gives  an  integrity  and 
truth  to  facts  and  character,  which  they  could  not 
otherwise  obtain.  And  this  is  in  reality  that  art  in 
Shakspeare,  which,  being  withdrawn  from  our  no 
tice,  we  more  emphatically  call  nature.  A  felt 
propriety  and  truth  from  causes  unseen,  I  take  to 
be  the  highest  point  of  poetic  composition.  If  the 
characters  of  Shakspeare  are  thus  whole,  and,  as  it 
were,  original,  while  those  of  almost  all  other  wri 
ters  are  mere  imitation,  it  may  be  fit  to  consider 
them  rather  as  historic  than  dramatic  beings ;  and, 
when  occasion  requires,  to  account  for  their  con 
duct  from  the  whole  of  character,  from  general 
principles,  from  latent  motives,  and  from  policies 
not  avowed. 

"  Shakspeare  differs  essentially,  indeed,  from  all 
other  writers :  him  we  may  profess  rather  to  feel 
than  to  understand  ;  and  it  is  safer  to  say,  on  many 
occasions,  that  we  are  possessed  by  him,  than  that 
we  possess  him.  And  no  wonder; — he  scatters 
the  seeds  of  things,  the  principles  of  character  and 
action,  with  so  cunning  a  hand,  yet  with  so  care 
less  an  air,  and,  master  of  our  feelings,  submits 
himself  so  little  to  our  judgment,  that  every  thing 
seems  superior.  We  discern  not  his  course ;  we  see 
no  connection  of  cause  and  effect;  we  are  rapt  in 


40  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

ignorant  admiration ;  and  claim  no  kindred  with  his 
abilities.  All  the  incidents,  all  the  parts,  look  like 
chance,  whilst  we  feel  and  are  sensible  that  the 
whole  is  design.  His  characters  not  only  act  and 
speak  in  strict  conformity  to  nature,  but  in  strict 
relation  to  us ;  just  so  much  is  shown  as  is  requi 
site,  just  so  much  is  impressed:  he  commands 
every  passage  to  our  heads  and  to  our  hearts,  and 
moulds  us  as  he  pleases,  and  that  with  so  much 
ease,  that  he  never  betrays  his  own  exertions.  We 
see  these  characters  act  from  the  mingled  motives 
of  passion,  reason,  interest,  habit,  and  complection, 
in  all  their  proportions,  when  they  are  supposed  to 
know  it  not  themselves ;  and  we  are  made  to  ac 
knowledge  that  their  actions  and  sentiments  are, 
from  these  motives,  the  necessary  result.  He  at 
once  blends  and  distinguishes  every  thing ; — every 
thing  is  complicated,  every  thing  is  plain.  I  re 
strain  the  farther  expressions  of  my  admiration 
lest  they  should  not  seem  applicable  to  man ;  but 
it  is  really  astonishing  that  a  mere  human  being, 
a  part  of  humanity  only,  should  so  perfectly  com 
prehend  the  whole;  and  that  he  should  possess 
such  exquisite  art,  that,  whilst  every  woman  and 
every  child  shall  feel  the  whole  effect,  his  learned 
Editors  and  Commentators  should  yet  so  very  fre 
quently  mistake  or  seem  ignorant  of  the  cause. 
A  sceptre  or  a  straw  are,  in  his  hands,  of  equal 
efficacy ;  he  needs  no  selection ;  he  converts  every 
thing  into  excellence ;  nothing  is  too  great,  nothing 
is  too  base.  Is  a  character  efficient  like  Richard, 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  41 

it  is  every  thing  we  can  wish ;  is  it  otherwise,  like 
Hamlet,  it  is  productive  of  equal  admiration.  Action 
produces  one  mode  of  excellence,  and  inaction 
another:  the  chronicle,  the  novel,  or  the  ballad; 
the  king  or  the  beggar ;  the  hero,  the  madman,  the 
sot  or  the  fool ;  it  is  all  one ; — nothing  is  worse, 
nothing  is  better :  the  same  genius  pervades  and  is 
equally  admirable  in  all.  Or,  is  a  character  to  be 
shown  in  progressive  change,  and  the  events  of 
years  comprised  within  the  hour; — with  what  a 
magic  hand  does  he  prepare  and  scatter  his  spells ! 
The  understanding  must,  in  the  first  place,  be  sub 
dued  ;  and  lo !  how  the  rooted  prejudices  of  the 
child  spring  up  to  confound  the  man  !  The  Weird 
Sisters  rise,  and  order  is  extinguished.  The  laws 
of  nature  give  way,  and  leave  nothing  in  our  minds 
but  wildness  and  horror.  No  pause  is  allowed  us 
for  reflection.  Horrid  sentiment,  furious  guilt  acid 
compunction,  air-drawn  daggers,  murders,  ghosts, 
and  inchantment,  shake  and  '  possess  us  wholly.'  In 
the  meantime  the  process  is  completed.  Macbeth 
changes  under  our  eye, '  the  milk  of  human  kindness 
is  converted  to  gall ;'  'he  has  supped  full  of  horrors/ 
and  his  'May  of  life  is  fallen  into  the  sear,  the  yellow 
leaf;'  whilst  we,  the  fools  of  amazement,  are  insen 
sible  to  the  shifting  of  place  and  the  lapse  of  time, 
and,  till  the  curtain  drops,  never  once  wake  to  the 
truth  of  things,  or  recognize  the  laws  of  exist 
ence.  On  such  an  occasion,  a  fellow  like  Rymer, 
waking  from  his  trance,  shall  lift  up  his  constable's 


42  MEMORIALS    OF     SHAKSPEARE. 

staff,  and  charge  this  great  magician,  this  daring 
'practicer  of  arts  inhibited,'  in  the  name  of  Aristotle, 
to  surrender;  whilst  Aristotle  himself,  disowning 
his  wretched  officer,  would  fall  prostrate  at  his  feet, 
and  acknowledge  his  supremacy. — O  supreme  of 
dramatic  excellence  !  (might  he  say,)  not  to  me  be 
imputed  the  insolence  of  fools.  The  bards  of 
Greece  were  confined  within  the  narrow  circle  of 
the  chorus,  and  hence  they  found  themselves  con 
strained  to  practise,  for  the  most  part,  the  precision, 
and  copy  the  details  of  nature.  I  followed  them, 
and  knew  not  that  a  larger  circle  might  be  drawn, 
and  the  drama  extended  to  the  whole  reach  of 
human  genius.  Convinced,  I  see  that  a  more  com 
pendious  nature  may  be  obtained ;  a  nature  of 
effects  only,  to  which  neither  the  relations  of  place, 
nor  continuity  of  time,  are  always  essential.  Nature, 
condescending  to  the  faculties  and  apprehensions 
of  man,  has  drawn  through  human  life  a  regular 
chain  of  visible  causes  and  effects  ;  but  poetry  de 
lights  in  surprise,  conceals  her  steps,  seizes  at 
once  upon  the  heart,  and  obtains  the  sublime  of 
things  without  betraying  the  rounds  of  her  ascent : 
true  poesy  is  magic,  not  nature;  an  effect  from 
causes  hidden  or  unknown.  To  the  Magician 
I  prescribed  no  laws ;  his  law  and  his  power  are 
one ;  his  power  is  his  law.  Him,  who  neither  imi 
tates,  nor  is  within  the  reach  of  imitation,  no  pre 
cedent  can  or  ought  to  bind,  no  limits  to  contain. 
If  his  end  be  obtained,  who  shall  question  his 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  43 

course?  Means,  whether  apparent  or  hidden,  are 
justified  in  poesy  by  success  ;  but  then  most  per 
fect  and  most  admirable  when  most  concealed. "p 

After  quoting  this  passage,  which  rivals  in  its 
tone  and  manner  what  has  since  been  so  eloquently 
expressed  by  Schlegel  and  other  German  critics 
on  the  character  of  Shakspeare,  and  which  seemed 
to  me  so  analogous  to  the  primary  object  of  my 
volume  as  to  warrant  its  insertion  here  as  a  prefa 
tory  portrait,  I  proceed  to  notice,  though  necessa 
rily  very  briefly,  those  who  have  since  contributed 
to  enrich  this  pleasing  province  of  Shakspearian 
criticism. 

In  1785  were  printed  some  ingenious  remark8 
on  the  characters  of  Richard  the  Third  and  Mac 
beth,  written  by  Mr.  Whately,  and  controverted 
the  succeeding  year  by  the  celebrated  actor  John 
Philip  Kemble  under  the  title  of  "  Macbeth  Re 
considered  ;"  the  former  attributing  the  scruples 
and  remorse  of  Macbeth  to  constitutional  timidity, 
and  the  latter  denying  the  charge.  Nearly  at  the 
same  time  appeared  the  Rev.  Martin  Sherlock's 
"  Fragment  on  Shakspeare,  extracted  from  Advice 
to  a  young  Poet ;"  a  little  work  originally  written 
by  the  author  in  Italian,  with  the  view  of  counter 
acting  on  the  continent  the  prejudices  so  widely 
circulated  against  our  great  bard  by  Voltaire.  The 
Fragment  on  Shakspeare  was  soon  translated  into 
French,  and  from  French  into  English,  and  cer- 

p  Pages  58  ad  62,  and  66  ad  71. 


44  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

tainly,  though  written  in  a  peculiar  warmth  of 
style,  displays  a  correct  estimate  of  the  powers  of 
a  poet  whom,  to  adopt  the  language  of  Mr.  Sher 
lock,  Nature  made,  and  then  broke  the  mould. 

In  the  course  of  the  two  succeeding  years,  1787 
and  1788,  Mr.  Felton  presented  the  public  with  his 
"Imperfect  Hints  towards  a  new  Edition  of  Shak- 
speare ;"  a  work  written  chiefly  in  the  year  1782, 
with  the  object  of  recommending  and  furnishing 
instructions  for  a  splendid  and  highly  embellished 
edition  of  the  poet ;  and  brought  forward  at  a  pe 
riod  when  Boydell's  magnificent  Shakspeare  was 
in  preparation,  and  in   the  hope  of  contributing 
some  useful  hints  towards  that  national  undertaking. 
Mr.  Felton  has  displayed  in  this  production  a 
very  intimate  acquaintance  with  all  that  has  been 
effected  for  the  Bard  of  Avon,  through  the  medium 
of  the  painter  and  engraver,  from  the  first  prints 
connected  with  the  page  of  Shakspeare  in  the  edi 
tion  by  Howe  in  1709,  to  the  era  of  the  noble  pic 
ture-gallery  in  Pall  Mall.     It  is,  indeed,  a  work  of 
considerable  interest,  written  with  great  judgment 
and  knowledge  of  the   various  branches  of  the 
art  of  design,  and  with  a  deep  and  enthusiastic 
feeling  for  the  beauties  of  the  admirable  poet  whom 
its  author  is  so  anxious  to  illustrate.     That  the 
strictures  of  Mr.  Felton  have  contributed  towards 
promoting  a  correct  taste  and  increased  love  for 
graphic   embellishment,   as    connected   with   the 
dramas  of  Shakspeare,  there  can  be  little  doubt ; 
and  how  gratifying  is  it  to  reflect  on  the  splendid 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  45 

homage  which,  during  the  last  forty  years,  has  been 
paid  to  the  genius  of  our  immortal  bard  by  the 
pencils  of  the  most  accomplished  of  our  artists,  by 
such  men  as  Reynolds,  West,  Romney,  Fuseli,  and 
Smirke ! 

The  next  publication  in  this  department,  which, 
from  the  novelty  of  its  object,  has  a  claim  to  our 
attention,  proceeds  from  the  pen  of  the  Rev.  James 
Plumptre,  M.  A.,  who,  in  the  year  1796,  printed 
"Observations  on   Hamlet,  and  on  the  Motives 
which  most  probably  induced  Shakspeare  to  fix 
upon  the  Story  of  Amleth,  from  the  Danish  Chro 
nicle  of  Saxo  Grammaticus,  for  the  Plot  of  that  Tra 
gedy.    Being  an  Attempt  to  prove  that  he  designed 
it  as  an  indirect  Censure  on  Mary  Queen  of  Scots." 
This  was  followed  the  succeeding  'year  by  an  Ap 
pendix,  containing  some  farther  arguments  in  sup 
port   of   the    hypothesis.     Much   ingenuity   and 
research,  and  perhaps  some  play  of  fancy,  have 
been  exhibited  by  the  author  of  these  pamphlets 
in  maintaining  the  fresh  ground  on  which  he  has 
ventured  to  take  his  stand ;  and  it  will,  I  think,  be 
allowed  that,  notwithstanding  several  assaults,  and 
some  of  them  powerful  ones,  have  been  brought 
against  his   position,  he  has  by  no  means  been 
compelled  to  relinquish  it.     Indeed  I  have  some 
reason  to  believe  that  he  meditates  by  additional 
proofs  a  farther  corroboration  of  his  opinion,  assur 
edly  not  lightly  assumed,  nor  illogically  supported. q 

'  The  editor  has  much  pleasure  in  placing  before  his  readers 
the  following  summary  of  the  age  of  Shakspeare  from  the  pen 
of  the  very  ingenious  author  of  these  pamphlets,  viz. : 


46  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

With  peculiar  pleasure  I  now  turn  to  the  pro 
duction  of  a  pamphlet  written  by  Mr.   Octavius 

"  A  Chronological  Table  of  some  of  the  Principal  Events 
connected  with  Shakspeare  and  his  Plays.  By  the  Rev.  James 
Plumptre,  M.A. 

The  Chronology  of  the  plays  according  to  the  system  of  Dr. 
Drake : 
A.D. 
1533.  Queen  Elizabeth  born,  Sept.  7th. 

36.  Anne  Boleyn  beheaded,  May  19th. 

42.  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  born  Dec.  8th.     Lost  her  father  a 
few'  days  after. 

48.  Sent  into  France. 

50.  Edward  (Lord)  Coke  born. 

53.  Edmund  Spenser  born. 

54.  Queen  Elizabeth  prisoner  at  Woodstock. 

58.  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  married  to  Francis  II.  of  France, 

April  14th: 

Queen  Elizabeth  ascended  the  throne  of  England, 
Nov.  17th. 

60.  Francis  II.  died  Dec.  4th. 

61.  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  returned  from  France,  Aug.  9th. 

64.  SHAKSPEARE  born  April  23d. 

Belleforest  began  to  publish  his  Novels,  which  in  the 
end  amounted  to  7  vols.  In  one  of  these  is  the  His 
tory  of  Hamlet  from  the  Danish  Chronicle  of  Saxo 
Grammaticus. 

65.  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  married  to  Lord  Darnley,  July  29th. 

66.  Rizzio  murdered,  March  9th. 
James  VI.  born,  June  19th. 

67.  Monday  morning,  Feb.  10th.     King  Henry  (Lord  Darn- 

ley)  murdered  in  the  21st  year  of  his  age. 
April  24th.     Bothwell  seized  Mary. 
May  14th.     Mary  married  to  Bothwell;  Mary  aged  24, 

Bothwell  aged  44. 
June  Iftb.    Mary  surrendered  to  the  Rebels,  and  sent  to 

Lochleven  Castle. 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  47 

Gilchristin  1808,  and  entitled  "An  Examination 
of  the  Charges  maintained  by  Messrs.  Malone, 
A.  D. 

1567.  June  20th.  Dalgleish  taken.     Captain  Blackadder  and 
three  others  executed  for  the  murder  of  King  Henry. 
July  29th.  James  VI.  crowned. 
Dec.  4th.    Murray's  Secret  Council. 
-15th.    Parliament   at  which  the  letters  were  pro 
duced. 

68.  Jan.  3d.    Dalgleish  executed. 

May  2d.    Mary  escaped  from  Lochleven  castle. 

-  13th.    Battle  of  Langside. 

-  16th.    Mary  fled  to  England. 

July  13th.    Mary  conducted  to  Bolton  castle. 
Oct.  4th.    Conference  at  York.     Mary  removed  to  Tut- 
bury. 

69.  Duke  of  Norfolk's  scheme  for  marrying  Mary. 

Earls  of  Northumberland's  and  Westmoreland's  Rebellion. 
November,  Mary  removed  to  Coventry. 

70.  Elizabeth  resolves  to  give  up  Mary. 
Murray  murdered. 

July  10th.    Mary  at  Chatsworth — at  Buxton — at 

71.  Buchanan's  Detection  published. 

72.  June.    Duke  of  Northumberland  beheaded. 

73.  Oct.  6th.   Thomas  Wriothesley,  Earl  of  Southampton, 

born. 

79.  Spenser  published  his  Shepherd's  Calendar. 

80.  April  10th.    Before  this  Spenser  began  his  Fairy  Queen. 
86.  About  this  time  SHAKSPEARE  removed  from  Stratford 

to  London,  aged  22. 
June  27th.    A  grant  of  3028  acres  of  land  in  Ireland  to 

Spenser,  by  Queen  Elizabeth. 
Sept.  20th.    Babington  'and    the     other    conspirators 

against  Elizabeth  executed. 
Mary  removed  to  Fotheringay. 
Oct.  llth.   Commissioners  arrive  at  Fotheringay, 


48  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Chalmers,  and  others,  of  Ban  Jonson's  Enmity, 
&c.  towards  Shakspeare ;"  a  little  work,  which  has 

A.  D. 

1586.  Oct.  19th.   Trial  of  Mary. 

25th.    Her  sentence. 

Dec.  6th.    Her  sentence  published. 
87.  Feb.   1st.    Her  warrant  signed. 

—  7th.   Tuesday.  Earls  of  Shrewsbury  and  Kent  ar 
rive. 

—  8th.    Mary  beheaded. 

89.  Nov.    The   Privy  Council  appoint  assessors  with   the' 

master  of  the  revels. 
Nov.  24th.   James  VI.  (1st  of  England)  married  to  the 

Princess  Anne  of  Denmark. 
The  Old  Play  of  Hamlet,  by  Kydd,  written  before  this. 

90.  First  three  books  of  the  Fairy  Queen  published. 
PERICLES  written,  Shakspeare's  first  play. 

90-1.  Feb.     Pension  of  50/.'  per  annum  granted  to  Spenser, 
by  Queen  Elizabeth. 

91.  COMEDY  OF  ERRORS  written. 
LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST  written. 

92.  HENRY  VI.,  PART  1st,  (or  2d,  according  to  the  common 

enumeration)  written. 

— • PART  2d  (or  3d,  according  to  the  common 

enumeration)  written. 

93.  MIDSUMMER  NIGHT'S  DREAM  written. 
ROMEO  AND  JULIET  written. 

Venus  and  Adonis  published.  Written  probably  be 
tween  1587  and  1590.  Dedicated  to  Lord  Southamp 
ton. 

94.  TAMING  OF  THE  SHREW  written. 

Rape  ofLucrece  published.  Dedicated  to  Lord  South 
ampton. 

95.  Two  GENTLEMEN  OF  VERONA  written. 
RICHARD  THE  THIRD  written. 

Spenser's  Amoretti,  addressed  to  Elizabeth,  published. 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  49 

completely  manifested,  in  opposition  to  many  idle 
and  malevolent  suggestions,  the  cordial  and  unin- 

A.D. 

1596.  RICHARD  THE  SECOND  written. 

HENRY  THE  FOURTH,  Parts  1st  and  2d  written. 
Second  Three  Books  of  Spenser's  Fairy  Queen  published. 

97.  MERCHANT  OP  VENICE  written. 
HAMLET  written. 

98.  KINO  JOHN  written. 

ALL'S  WELL  THAT  ENDS  WELL  written. 

99.  Jan.  16th.   Spenser  died. 
HENRY  THE  FIFTH  written. 

MUCH  ADO  ABOUT  NOTHING  written. 
Shakspeare's   Passionate  Pilgrim  surreptitiously  pub 
lished. 

NOT.  Players,  and  probably  Shakspeare,  at  Edinburgh. 
1600.  As  You  LIKE  IT  written. 

Aug.  5th.  Cowrie's  Conspiracy  against  James. 

1.  MERRY  WIVES  OF  WINDSOR  written. 
TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA  written. 

Earl  of  Essex's  Rebellion.  Richard  II.  acted.  Prosecu 
tion  of  Essex  conducted  by  Coke,  Attorney-General, 
with  uncommon  severity. 

2.  KINO  HENRY  THE  EIGHTH  written. 
TIMON  OF  ATHENS  written. 

3.  MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE  written. 

March  24th,  Thursday.   Queen  Elizabeth  died. 

May  7th.  James  I.  entered  London. 

May  19th.  James  granted  a  licence  to  Shakspeare,  Arc. 

First  Edition  of  Hamlet  published. 

Shakspeare  gave  up  acting  about  this  time. 

Club  at  the  Mermaid  flourished. 

4.  KINO  LEAR  written. 

Second  Edition  of  Hamlet  published,  and  enlarged  to 

almost  as  much  again. 
Dec.  4th.  Tragedy  of  Gowry  acted. 

D 


50  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

terrupted  friendship  which  ever  existed  between 
these  two  celebrated  contemporaries/ 

In  1812,  Mr.  Capel  Lofft  published  a  thick 
duodecimo  volume  under  the  title  of  "  Aphorisms 
from  Shakspeare,"  with  a  Preface  and  'Notes.  An 

A.D. 

1605.  CYMBELINE  written. 

6.  MACBETH  written. 

7.  JULIUS  CJESAR  written. 

8.  ANTONY  AXD  CLEOPATRA  written. 

Black  Letter  Historic  of  Hamblet  published,  said  by  Mr. 
Malone  to  be  a  republication,  but  I  see  no  reason  for 
the  supposition. 

9.  CORIOLANUS  written. 

Shakspeare's  Sonnets  and  Lover's  Complaint  published. 

10.  WINTER'S  TALE  said  to  have  been  written,  but   the 

date  very  doubtful. 

11.  THE  TEMPEST  written. 

12.  OTHELLO  written. 

13.  TWELFTH  NIGHT  written,  ShaJcspeare's  last  play. 
March  10th.     Shakspeare    purchased    a    tenement    in 

Blackfriars. 
Shakspeare  quitted  London.    Retired  to  Stratford. 

14.  July  9th.   Fire  at  Stratford. 

16.  Feb.  25th.   Shakspeare's  Will  drawn  up. 

March  25th.— _     signed. 

April  23d,  Tuesday.     Shakspeare  died,  aged  52. 

The  Editor  has  only  to  remark  that  the  order  and  relation 
of  many  of  the  events  in  the  above  Chronological  Table  by 
Mr.  Plumptre,  tend  much  to  strengthen  the  hypothesis  which 
this  gentleman-  has  endeavoured,  with  so  much  patient  re 
search,  to  substantiate. 

'  The  same  side  of  the  question  has  been  taken  by  Mr. 
Giffordin  his  «  Life  of  Ben  Johnson,"  arid  by  the  Editor  of  this 
work  in  his  «  Noontide  Leisure."— See  his  «  Tale  of  the  Days 
of  Shakspeare." 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  51 

attempt  to  collect  the  moral  wisdom  of  Shakspeare 
had  been  previously  made  by  Mrs.  Griffiths,  whose 
"  Morality  of  Shakspeare's  Drama  illustrated," 
appeared  in  an  octavo  volume  in  1775.  Mr.  Lofft, 
however,  has  taken  a  wider  range,  and  by  condens 
ing  his  materials  into  the  form  of  brief  maxims, 
has  rendered  his  work  a  more  convenient  yet  com 
prehensive  manual  for  the  purposes  of  daily  life. 
It  is  a  volume  of  which,  towards  the  close  of  his 
Introduction,  the  compiler  has  justly  observed: 
"  I  know  not  how  to  imagine  that  any  one  should 
rise  from  its  perusal  without  still  higher  thoughts 
of  Shakspeare  than  they  brought  with  them  when 
they  sate  down;  some  accession  of  intellectual 
strength ;  improvement  in  the  conduct  of  life ;  a 
more  lively  sense  of  the  beauty  of  virtue,  and  of 
all  the  relative  offices  and  affections  which  cement 
and  adorn  society,  constituting  individual  happiness 
and  public  welfare.  I  know  not  any  professed 
system  of  ethics  froiri  which  they  could  have  been 
extracted  more  copiously,  more  perspicuously  and 
correctly,  or,  by  the  influence  of  their  form  and 
manner,  so  impressively." ' 

There  is  a  passage  in  the  Poetaster  of  Ben 
Jonson,  acted  in  1601,  so  admirably  and  minutely 
descriptive  of  this  aphoristic  wealth  in  our  great 
dramatist,  arid  of  its  applicability  to  the  business 
and  bosom  of  every  human  being,  as  to  induce  the 
conviction  that,  though  ostensibly  predicated  of 
Virgil,  it  was  covertly  meant  as  a  faithful  picture  of 
*  Introduction,  p.  xxvi. 


52  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

the  poetry  of  the  author  s  beloved  friend  and  pa 
tron,  his  admired  Shakspeare,  several  of  whose 
best  plays  had  been  brought  forward  anterior  to 
the  appearance  of  the  Poetaster. 

That  which  he  hath  writ 

Is  with  such  judgment  labored  and  distill'd 
Through  all  the  needful  uses  of  our  life, 
That  could  a  man  remember  but  his  lines, 
He  should  not  touch  on  any  serious  point 
But  he  might  breathe  his  spirit  out  of  him. — 
His  learning  savours  not  the  school-like  gloss 
That  most  consists  in  echoing  words  and  terms. 
And  soonest  wins  a  man  an  empty  name ; 
Nor  any  long  or  far-fetch'd  circumstance  ; — 
But  a  direct  and  analytic  sum 
Of  all  the  worth  and  first  effects  of  arts  : 
And  for  his  poesy,  'tis  so  ramm'd  with  life, 
That  it  shall  gather  strength  of  life  with  being, 
And  live  hereafter  more  admir'd  than  now.t 

Next  to  the  history  of  the  individual  who,  by 
his  actions  or  his  writings,  has  contributed  to  the 
moral  and  intellectual  improvement  of  his  species, 
there  is  implanted  in  the  human  breast  a  natural 
desire  to  be  made  acquainted  with  what  had  been 
his  aspect  and  his  features,  and  in  no  instance  has 
this  been  more  powerfully  felt  than  in  relation  to 
Shakspeare ;  yet,  from  among  the  numerous  efforts 
which  have  been  made  to  gratify  this  inclination  as 
to  the  person  of  our  bard,  there  are  but  two  or  three 
which  have  any  pretensions  to  consideration,  and 
of  these  the  bust  at  Stratford  seems  entitled  to  the 

*  Poetaster,  Act.  v.  Scene  1st. 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  53 

foremost  place.  On  this  interesting  relique,  which 
had  hitherto  not  been  adequately  estimated,  there 
appeared,  in  the  year  1616,  some  very  ingenious 
observations  from  the  pen  of  one  of  the  most  accom 
plished  antiquaries  of  the  present  day.  This  little 
brochure,  entitled  "  Remarks  on  the  Monumental 
Bust  of  Shakspeare,  at  Stratford-upon-Avon,  by 
J.  Britton,  F.  S.  A.,"  had  the  merit  of  recalling  and 
fixing  the  attention  of  the  public  on  certainly  a  most 
pleasing  and  highly  authenticated  representation  of 
the  poet ;  a  representation  which  has  since  fur 
nished  frequent  employment  both  for  the  pen  of 
the  critic,  and  the  burine  of  the  engraver. 

The  subsequent  year  produced  a  work  in  re 
lation  to  our  dramatist  on  a  very  comprehensive 
scale,  as  will  be  immediately  perceived  from  its 
title,  which  runs  thus :  "  Shakspeare  and  his 
Times:  including  the  Biography  of  the  Poet;  Cri 
ticisms  on  his  Genius  and  Writings ;  a  New  Chro 
nology  of  his  Plays ;  a  Disquisition  on  the  Object 
of  his  Sonnets,  and  a  History  of  the  Manners,  Cus 
toms,  and  Amusements,  Superstitions,  Poetry,  and 
Elegant  Literature  of  his  age.  By  Nathan  Drake, 
M.  D."  Two  volumes  4to. 

As  a  farther  illustration  of  the  plan  on  which 
these  volumes  are  constructed,  the  following  ex 
tract  from  the  author's  preface  may  prove  perhaps 
acceptable : — 

"  Though  two  centuries,"  he  observes,  "  have 
now  elapsed  since  the  death  of  Shakspeare,  no  at 
tempt  has  hitherto  been  made  to  render  him  the 


54  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

medium  for  a  comprehensive  and  connected  view 
of  the  times  in  which  he  lived. 

"Yet,  if  any  man  be  allowed  to  fill  a  station 
thus  conspicuous  and  important,  Shakspeare  has 
undoubtedly  the  best  claim  to  the  distinction ;  not 
only  from  his  pre-eminence  as  a  dramatic  poet,  but 
from  the  intimate  relation  which  his  works  bear  to 
the  manners,  customs,  superstitions,  and  amuse 
ments  of  his  age. 

"  Struck  with  the  interest  which  a  work  of  this 
kind,  if  properly  executed,  might  possess,  the 
author  was  induced,  several  years  ago,  to  commence 
the  undertaking,  with  the  express  intention  of 
blending  with  the  detail  of  manners,  &c.  such  a 
portion  of  criticism,  biography,  and  literary  history, 
as  should  render  the  whole  still  more  attractive 
and  complete. 

,  "  In  attempting  this,  it  has  been  his  aim  to  place 
Shakspeare  in  the  foreground  of  the  picture,  and 
to  throw  around  him,  in  groups  more  or  less  dis 
tinct  and  full,  the  various  objects  of  his  design ; 
giving  them  prominency  and  light,  according  to 
their  greater  or  smaller  connection  with  the  prin 
cipal  figure. 

"  More  especially  has  it  been  his  wish  to  infuse 
throughout  the  whole  plan,  whether  considered  in 
respect  to  its  entire  scope,  or  to  the  parts  of  which  it 
is  composed,  that  degree  of  unity  and  integrity,  of 
relative  proportion  and  just  bearing,  without  which 
neither  harmony,  simplicity,  nor  effect,  can  be 
expected  or  produced. 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  55 

"  With  a  view  also  to  distinctness  and  perspi 
cuity  of  elucidation,  the  whole  has  been  distributed 
into  three  parts  or  pictures,  entitled, — SHAK- 
SPEARE  IN  STRATFORD  ; — SHAKSPEARE  IN  LON 
DON  ; — SHAKSPEARE  IN  RETIREMENT  ; — which, 
though  inseparably  united,  as  forming  but  portions 
of  the  same  story,  and  harmonized  by  the  same 
means,  have  yet,  both  in  subject  and  execution, 
a  peculiar  character  to  support. 

"  The  first  represents  our  poet  in  the  days  of 
his  youth,  on  the  banks  of  his  native  Avon,  in  the 
midst  of  rural  imagery,  occupations,  and  amuse 
ments  ;  in  the  second,  we  behold  him  in  the  capital 
of  his  country,  in  the  centre  of  rivalry  and  compe 
tition,  in  the  active  pursuit  of  reputation  and  glory ; 
and  in  the  third,  we  accompany  the  venerated 
bard  to  the  shades  of  retirement,  to  the  bosom  of 
domestic  peace,  to  the  enjoyment  of  unsullied 
fame." 

Feeling  myself  precluded  from  giving  any  opi 
nion  on  this  production,  which  could  scarcely 
indeed  be  divested  of  partiality,  I  must  beg  leave 
to  refer  those  of  my  readers,  who  may  wish  to 
ascertain  in  what  manner  it  has  been  executed,  to 
the  various  Reviews  mentioned  in  the  note  below.*  * 

The  year   1817   seems  to  have  been  fertile  in 

•'  Vide  Literary  Gazette,  Nov.  22nd,  and  Dec.  13th,  1817.;-*. 
Monthly  Magazine,  Jan.  1818. — Edinburgh  Magazine,  Jan. 
1818. — British  Critic,  April,  1818. — Gentleman's  Magazine, 
Sept.  and  Octob.  1818. — Edinburgh  Monthly  Review,  April, 
1819.— Monthly  Review,  August,  1819,  &c.  &c. 


56  MEMORIALS   OF   SHAKSPEARE. 

Shakspearian  literature ;  for  within  a  few  months 
after  the  appearance  of  the  volumes  just  men 
tioned,  came  forth  Mr.  Hazlit's  "  Characters  of 
Shakspeare's  Plays,"  one  motive  for  the  production 
of  which,  he  tells  us,  was  "  some  little  jealousy  of 
the  character  of  the  national  understanding;  for  we 
were  piqued  that  it  should  be  reserved  for  a 
foreign  critic  (Schlegel)  to  give  reasons  for  the  faith 
which  we  English  have  in  Shakspeare.  Certainly 
no  writer  among  ourselves  has  shown  either  the 
same  enthusiastic  admiration  of  his  genius,  or  the 
same  philosophical  acuteness  in  pointing  out  his 
characteristic  excellencies."  * 

This  is  just  and  liberal  praise,  nor  can  the  spirit 
of  emulation  from  which  he  admits  his  undertaking 
to  have  partly  originated,  be  in  any  degree  blamed. 
The  confession,  in  fact,  is  only  hazardous  to  him 
self,  for  it  immediately  throws  his  labours  into  a 
field  of  dangerous  comparison.  From  the  free  and 
unreserved  manner,  indeed,  in  which  Mr.  Hazlitt 
has  spoken  of  his  contemporaries,  he  has  been  al 
most  necessarily  subjected  to  much  harsh  cen 
sure  ;  but  of  the  work  before  us,  it  may,  I  think,  be 
justly  said  that  it  is  written  with  great  taste  and 
feeling,  and  exhibits,  for  the  most  part,  a  judicious, 
spirited,  and  correct  analysis  of  the  characters  of 
our  great  bard.  Nor  will  the  enthusiastic  admira 
tion  with  which  it  abounds,  though  strongly,  and 
sometimes  rather  quaintly,  expressed,  be  estimated 
by  any  poetical  mind  as  out  of  place ;  for,  as  the 
v  Preface,  p.  ix. 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  57 

author  has  well  observed,  "  it  may  be  said  of  Shak- 
speare,  that '  those  who  are  not  for  him  are  against 
him :'  for  indifference  is  here  the  height  of  injustice. 
We  may  sometimes,  in  order  '  to  do  a  great  right, 
do  a  little  wrong.'  An  overstrained  enthusiasm  is 
more  pardonable  with  respect  to  Shakspeare  than 
the  want  of  it,  for  our  admiration  cannot  easily 
surpass  his  genius."  w 

Much  controversy  having  arisen  amongst  the 
critics  and  commentators  on  Shakspeare  as  to  the 
genuineness  of  the  pictures  and  prints  reputed  to 
be  portraits  of  the  bard ;  and  numerous  impositions 
on  this  head  having  been  practised  on  the  credulity 
of  the  public,  it  became  an  object  of  no  little  interest 
to  ascertain  what  were  the  pretensions  of  those 
apparently  best  entitled  to  notice,  by  the  character 
of  their  advocates,  and  the  evidence  collected  in 
their  favour  ;  a  desideratum  which  has  been  satis 
factorily  supplied  by  Mr.  James  Boaden,  who,  in 
the  year  1824,  published  "An  Inquiry  into  the 
Authenticity  of  various  Pictures  and  Prints,  which, 
from  the  decease  of  the  Poet  to  our  own  times,  have 
been  offered  to  the  public  as  Portraits  of  Shak 
speare." 

In  this  volume,  which,  instead  of  turning  out,  as 
might  have  been  anticipated  from  its  title,  a  some 
what  dry  antiquarian  discussion,  is  one  of  the  most 
entertaining  productions  to  which  the  fame  of 
Shakspeare  has  given  birth,  the  ingenious  author 
has  brought  forward  very  convincing  proofs  in 

w  Preface,  p.  xv. 


58  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

favour  of  the  authenticity  of  four  representations  of 
the  poet,  namely,  the  Print  from  Martin  Droe-> 
shout/  the  Bust  at  Stratford-upon-Avon/  the 

*  Mr.  Boaden  concludes  his  observations  on  the  head  by 
Droeshout,  by  observing  that  "  it  has  a  verification  certainly 
more  direct  than  any  other.  Ben  Jonson  is  express  upon 
its  likeness;  Shakspeare's  friends  and  partners  at  the  Globe 
give  this  resemblance  in  preference  to  some  OTHERS,  equally 
attainable.  There  can  be  no  ground  of  preference,  but  greater 
likeness.  If  they  knew,  absolutely,  of  no  other  portrait,  which 
I  cannot  think,  the  verisimilitude  of  this  is  equally  undisturbed." 
— Inquiry,  p.  24. 

i  The  sculptor  of  this  bust,  who  had  hitherto  remained  un 
known,  and  only  an  object  of  conjecture,  is  at  length  ascer 
tained  by  the  recent  publication  of  the  "  Life-,  Diary,  and 
Correspondence  of  Sir  William  Dugdale."  Edited  by  W. 
Hamper,  Esq.,  London  1827.  In  this  interesting  volume  oc 
curs  the  following  entry  : — 

"  Shakspeares  and  John  Combes  Monumts.  at  Stratford, 
sup'  Avon,  made  by  one  Gerard  Johnson." 

A  note  informs  us  that  this  is  taken  from  a  folio  MS.  left  by 
Dugdale,  now  in  the  possession  of  his  representative,  and 
entitled  "'Certificates  returned  in  Aprill  and  May  1593,  of 
all  the  Strangers,  Forreiners  abiding  in  London,'  where  they 
were  borne,  and  last  lived  before  theyre  coming  over,  what 
children  every  of  them  had,  as  also  what  servants  and  appren 
tices,  Strangers  and  English,  of  what  Church  every  of  them  was, 
and  English  people  every  of  them  did  sett  on  work." 

The  Certificate  relative  to  our  sculptor,  is  as  follows  : 
"  (St.  Thomas  Apostell's.) 

"  Garratt  Johnson,  and  Mary  his  wyffe,  housholders ;  a 
Hollander,  borne  at  Amsterdam ;  a  Torabe  maker ;  5  sonnes, 
aged  22,  11,  10,6,4,  and  1  daughter  aged  14,  all  borne  in 
England;  26  years  resident ;  a  denizen;  Englishe  Churche; 
4  Jurnimen;  2  Prentizes,  and  1  Englishman  at  work;  no 


servant. 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  59 

Chandos  Head,  and  the  Portrait  by  Cornelius 
Jansen.  The  small  Head  engraved  by  Marshall 
for  the  edition  of  Shakspeare's  Poems  of  1640, 
might,  I  think,  have  been  spared,  as  it  is  evidently 
a  mere  reduction  from  the  larger  print  of  Droeshout, 
and  so  reduced  as  to  impart  to  the  countenance 
what  the  original  engraving  in  no  degree  warrants, 
— an  air  of  vulgarity  and  cunning,  features  as  dis 
cordant  as  possible  with  our  conception  of  the  cha 
racter  of  Shakspeare. 

Of  the  four  prior  heads,  it  may,  in  my  judg 
ment,  be  correctly  affirmed  that,  whilst  the  fea 
tures  in  their  outline  very  strongly  resemble  each 
other,  the  predominating  expression  in  each  is  of 
a  different,  though  nearly  allied  cast;  the  terms 
tenderness,  cheerfulness,  intellectuality,  and  sivectness, 
being  very  decidedly  applicable  to  them  in  the 
order  in  which  they  have  been  enumerated  above ; 
developements  of  mind  and  disposition,  such  as 
we  know  from  his  life  and  writings  formed  the 
character  of  the  man,  and  which  we  cannot  there 
fore  but  conclude,  either  conjointly  or  successive 
ly,  stamped  their  image  on  his  countenance. 

.The  portrait  of  Cornelius  Jansen  is  the  favourite, 
and  perhaps  justly  so,  of  Mr.  Boaden,  as  it  seems, 
of  the  four  resemblances,  to  make  the  nearest  ap 
proach  to  the  combination  of  qualities  I  have  just 
mentioned.  "The  expression  of  the  countenance," 
he  remarks,  "  really  equals  the  demand  of  the 
fancy  ;  and  you  feel  that  every  thing  was  possible 
to  a  being  so  happily  constituted."2 

1  In  short,  in  the  portrait  of  Droeshout  we  may  be  said  to 


60  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Annexed  to  the  disquisition  on  the  Graphic 
Portraits  of  Shakspeare,  which  forms  the  principal 
object  of  his  volume,  Mr.  Boaden  has  added  some 
very  ingenious  observations  and  conjectures  on  a 
Poetical  Portrait  of  the  Bard,  which  first  appeared 
in  the  folio  of  1632,  entitled  "  On  Worthy  Master 
Shakespeare,  and  his  Poems,"  and  subscribed 
"The  friendly  Admirer  of  his  Endowments,  I. 
M.  S." 

To  this  poem,  as  of  very  superior  merit,  the 
Editor  has  repeatedly  referred  in  his  "  Shakspeare 
and  his  Times ;"  and  in  a  note  to  his  "  Tale  of  the 
Days  of  Shakspeare,"  in  his  "  Noontide  Leisure," 
1824,  he  remarks  :  "though  a  just  appreciation  of 
the  genius  of  Shakspeare  was  by  no  means  so 
general  and  extended  in  the  reign  of  James  as  in 
these  our  own  days,  yet  were  there  several  exalted 
spirits  among  the  contemporaries  of  the  poet,  who 
fully  and  critically  knew  the  incomparable  value 
of  their  countryman,  and  expressed  their  estimate 
too  of  his  poetical  character  in  terms  which  have 
not  since  been  surpassed,  if  equalled  ;  and  I  would 
particularly  mention  as  instances  of  this,  the  poem 
of  Ben  Jonson,  and  the  verses  to  which  the  initials 
I.  M.  S.  are  annexed,  commencing  'A  mind  reflect 
ing  ages  past.'  This  latter  production,  which  was 
first  prefixed  to  the  folio  of  1632,  I  have  already 

behold  A  Man  who  had  suffered  himself,  and  felt  for  others  ; 
in  that  of  the  bust,  A  Man  of  great  humour  and  constitutional 
pleasantry ;  in  the  Chandos  Head,  A  Man  of  mvid  imagination 
and  high  mental  powers  ;  and  in  that  of  Jansen,  A  Man  who 
was  deeply  and  alike  entitled  to  our  love  and  admiration. 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  61 

noticed,  in  my  *  Shakspeare  and  his  Times,'  Vol.  2, 
p.  545  et  seq. ;  and  I  must  say  that  I  think  it 
beyond  all  competition,  the  most  powerful,  com 
prehensive,  and  splendid  poetical  encomium  on 
our  immortal  bard  which  has  yet  been  produ 
ced."  * 

With  this  eulogy  Mr.  Boaden  not  only  fully 
accords,  but  enters  at  considerable  length,  and 
with  great  taste  and  powers  of  discrimination, 
into  the  origin  and  merits  of  the  poem  which  gave 
birth  to  it.  After  setting  aside  the  supposition 
of  its  having  been  written  by  Jasper  Mayne,  Stu 
dent,  or  John  Marston,  Satirist,  or  John  Milton, 
Senior,  he  offers  very  cogent  reasons  for  ascribing 
it  to  George  Chapman,  the  once  celebrated  trans 
lator  of  Homer;  and  he  enables  his  reader  at 
the  same  time,  by  transcribing  the  poem,  and 
comparing  it  with  numerous  passages  from  Chap 
man,  to  form  a  judgment  for  himself.  That 
this,  from  the  striking  nature  of  the  evidence 
brought  forward,  will  be  in  favour  of  Mr.  Boaden 's 
conjecture  as  to  its  parentage,  there  can  be  little 
doubt ;  nor,  as  to  its  merit,  when  considered  as  a 
metrical  picture,  will  he  feel  less  inclined  perhaps 
to  agree  with  him,  when  he  describes  it  to  be  the 
truest  portrait  that  exists  of  the  powers  of  Shak 
speare  as  a  poet. 

In  the  same  year  with  Mr.  Boaden's  publication, 
appeared   "The  Life  of  Shakspeare;   Enquiries 
into  the  Originality  of  his  Dramatic  Plots  and 
•  Vide  vol.  1.  p.  34. 


62  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Characters ;  and  Essays  on  the  Ancient  Theatres 
and  Theatrical  Usages."  By  Augustine  Skottowe. 
Two  volumes  8vo. 

The  Biography  of  Shakspeare  in  this  work, 
which,  with  an  Appendix  of  Notes,  occupies  rather 
better  than  a  third  part  of  the  first  volume,  is  writ 
ten  with  elegance  and  accuracy,  and  with  a  strict 
attention  to  what  little  novelty  the  latest  researches 
of  Mr.  Malone  had  brought  forth.  The  History  of 
the  Stage  by  this  industrious  editor  is  skilfully 
epitomised,  and  not  without  some  additional  facts, 
and  several  inferences  which,  though  at  variance 
with  those  of  his  predecessor,  Mr.  Skottowe  has 
ably  supported.  He  has,  indeed,  in  several  other 
places,  dissented  from  the  opinions  and  conjectures 
of  Mr.  Malone,  and  in  none  with  more  success 
than  where  he  maintains,  against  the  scepticism  of 
that  critic,  the  traditional  story  of  Shakspeare's 
predatory  incursions  on  the  manor  of  Sir  Thomas 
Lucy.b 

The  greater  part,  however,  of  the  labours  of 
Mr.  Skottowe  are  devoted  to  a  developement  of 
the  origin  of  Shakspeare's  dramas,  and  to  a  display 
of  the  admirable  use  which  the  poet  had  made  of 

b  That  the  narrative  of  this  youthful  frolic  has,  from  its 
universality  and  iteration,  some  foundation  in  truth,  notwith 
standing  all  that  Mr.  Malone  has  mustered  against  it,  had  been, 
indeed,  previously  asserted  by  myself  in  a  note  to  the  "  Tale 
of- the  Days  of  Shakspeare,"  in  which  I  have  endeavoured  to 
prove  Mr.  Malone's  reasoning  and  inferences  on  this  subject  to 
be  illogical  and  inconclusive.— See  Noontide  Leisure,  vol.  1. 
p.  83. 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  63 

his  materials ;  ground,  indeed,  which  had  been 
partially  pre-occupied  by  Mrs.  Lennox,  who,  in 
the  years  1753  and  4,  published,  in  three  vols. 
12mo.,  a  work  entitled  "Shakspeare  Illustrated  ; 
or  the  Novels  and  Histories  on  which  the  Plays  of 
Shakspeare  are  founded,  collected  and  translated 
from  the  original  Authors,  with  Critical  Remarks/' 
Her  task,  however,  was  but  very  imperfectly  per 
formed,  for,  of  more  than  one  half  of  the  plays  of 
her  author  the  sources  remained  unexplored  ;  and 
her  notes  were  rather  censures  on  the  liberties 
which  the  bard  had  taken  with  the  incidents  to 
which  she  had  traced  him,  than  elucidatory  of  the 
exquisite  manner  in  which  he  had  occasionally 
moulded  them  to  his  purpose,  and  yet  more  fre 
quently  embalmed  them  for  immortality,  by  blend 
ing  with  their  outline  the  richest  creations  of  his 
own  fancy.  The  subject  was  therefore  still  open 
to  Mr.  Skottowe,  and  it  is  but  justice  to  say  that 
he  has  gone  through  the  entire  series  not  only 
with  the  patient  research  of  the  literary  historian, 
but  with  the  taste  and  discriminating  tact  of  the 
elegant  and  enlightened  critic.0 

c  I  ought  here,  perhaps,  to  have  inserted  some  notice  of  a 
work  on  the  Portraits  of  Shakspeare,  which  has  appeared  within 
these  few  months,  entitled,  "  Historical  Account  of  all  the 
Portraits  of  Shakspeare  that  have  been  generally  considered 
the  most  genuine,  together  with  every  particular  which  can  be 
collected  respecting  them ;  also  Critical  Remarks  on  the  Opi 
nions  of  Boaden,  Malone,  Steevens,  &c.  &c. ;  to  which  are 
added,  some  curious  and  interesting  particulars  of  the  various 
fabricated  and  spurious  Pictures  of  the  Poet,  which  have  been 


64  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

To  the  retrospect  which  has  thus  been  taken  of 

the  Variorum  Editions  of  Shakspeare,  and  of  the 

Detached  Publications   exclusively   appropriated 

to  his  genius  and  writings,  it  now  only  remains  to 

add  a  brief  statement  of  the  plan  which  has  been 

chosen,  and  of  the  materials   which  have  been 

collected,  for  forming  the  present  volume,  which, 

as  I  have  mentioned  in  the  opening  of  this  Essay, 

is  intended  to  exemplify  the  third  mode  that  has 

been  adopted  for  the  illustration  of  Shakspeare, 

namely,  by  Criticisms  on  his  Genius  and  Writings 

dispersed  through  various  Miscellaneous  Departments 

of  Literature. 

So  much  as  Shakspeare  has  lately  attracted  the 
attention  of  all  ranks  of  the  literary  world,  it  is 
somewhat  remarkable  that  the  task  which  in  these 
pages  I  have  endeavoured  to  perform,  should  not 

foisted  upon  the  public  of  late  years,  &c.    By  Abraham  Wivell 
Portrait-painter,  8vo.    With  six  Portraits,  and  a  Frontispiece 

e  Monument  at  Stratford-upon-Avon,  1827." 

One  object  of  this  publication,  which  exhibits  considerable- 

research   is  to  prove  the  authenticity  of  the  Felton  Portrait  of 

the  bard,  which  appears  to  be  the  favourite   picture  of  Mr. 

Vivell.     He  has,  it  must  be  allowed,  added  some  strength  to 

the  testimony  in  behalf  of  the  genuineness  of  this  portrait  by 

ascertaining  that  the  initials  on  the  back  of  the  panel  on  which 

it  is  painted,  hitherto  supposed  to  be  R.  N.,  are  in  fact,  R.  B  - 

a  discovery  which  gives  weight  to  the  previous  conjecture,  that 

this  picture  might  have  come  from  the  easel  of  Richard  Bur- 

and 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  65 

have  been  executed  before ;  for  although,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  a  considerable  portion  of  valu 
able  criticism  is  connected  with  the  Variorum 
Editions  of  the  poet,  and  many  separate  works, 
and  some  of  great  merit,  have  been  entirely  de 
voted  to  Shakspeare,  yet  have  there,  moreover, 
appeared  at  various  times,  and  especially  within 
the  last  seventy  years,  numerous  disquisitions  on 
Shakspeare  and  his  dramas,  scattered  through  a 
wide  field  of  miscellaneous  and  periodical  publi 
cations,  of  which  several  may  be  put  into  compe 
tition  with  the  most  esteemed  in  the  two  classes 
to  which  I  have  just  alluded. 

To  select  these,  which,  with  but  one  exception, 
I  have  found  it  necessary  to  draw  from  writers 
only  of  the  present,  and  the  latter  half  of  the  past 
century ;  to  give  them  a  lucid  arrangement,  and 
to  accompany  them,  as  far  as  might  be  deemed 
requisite,  with  notes,  constitute  the  chief  business 
of  the  volume  now  before  my  readers.  It  is,  in 
deed,  worthy  of  remark  that,  from  the  time  of 
Ben  Jonson  to  the  period  of  Dryden,  whose  noble 
and  comprehensive,  though  brief  encomium  on 
Shakspeare  in  1668d  forms  the  exception  just 
mentioned,  there  is  no  incidental  criticism  on  our 
great  bard  worth  recording,  although  three  editi 
ons  of  his  plays  had  been  then  before  the  public ; 
and  from  the  age  of  Dryden  to  the  middle  of  the 

d  Inserted  in  his  "  Essay  on  Dramatick  Poesy,"  which  was, 
in  fact,  written  in  1665,  though  not  published  until  1668. — 
Vide  Malone's  Dryden,  vol.  1.  part  2d. 

E 


,66  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

eighteenth  century,  a  somewhat  similar  deficiency, 
notwithstanding  the  editions  of  Rowe,  Pope,  Theo 
bald,  Hanmer,  and  Warburton  had  come  forth, 
may  be  traced. 

It  is,  indeed,  from  the  prevalence  or  paucity  of 
these  casual  notices,  rather  than  from  the  tone  of 
the  professed  editor  and  critic,  that  we  may  most 
certainly  ascertain  the  popularity  or  obscurity  of 
an  author,  especially  of  a  poet.     Shakspeare  had 
been  the  great  favourite  of  the  reigns  of  Elizabeth 
and  James/and  the  prior  part  of  that  of  Charles 
the  First;  but  the  domination  of  puritanism,  and 
the  still  more  debasing  effects  of  the  dissolute 
manners  of  the  age  of  Charles  the  Second,  proved 
highly  injurious  to  all  pure  taste  and  just  manly 
feeling ;  and,  as  one  of  the  results  of  this  degraded 
state  of  the  national  literature,  Shakspeare  fell  in 
to  comparative  neglect,  and,  notwithstanding  the 
incidental  criticisms  of  Dryden  dispersed  through 
his  prefaces  and  dedications,    to  such  a  degree, 
that  we  find  Steele,  in  no.  231  of  his  Tatler,  dated 
September  the   30th,   1710,    actually  giving  the 
entire  story  of  Catharine  and  Petruchio  as  a  fact 
which  had  lately  occurred  in  a  gentleman's  family 
in  Lincolnshire.     From  which  we  cannot  but  infer 
that  he  either  knew  not  that  it  formed  the  fable  of 
a  play  in  Shakspeare,  but  copied   it  from  some 
scarce  and  forgotten  pamphlet;  or,  knowing  it  to  be 
the  property  of  our  bard,  was  convinced  such  was 
the  obscurity  into  which  the  play  had  fallen,  that 
he  might  safely  present  it  to  the  public  as  a  recent 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  67 

and  original  event.*  The  latter  was  most  probably 
the  case,  although  the  edition  by  Rowe  had  been 
published  but  the  year  before ;  and,  indeed,  if  we 
set  aside  two  or  three  notices  in  the  Spectator  by 
Hughes  and  Addison  during  the  years  1711  and 
1712, f  we  shall  not  find  it  an  easy  matter  to  dis 
cover,  in  the  popular  and  periodical  literature  of  our 
country,  any  observations  on  the  bard  of  Avon 
worth  preserving,  until  the  appearance  of  the 
Rambler  and  Adventurer  of  Johnson  and  Hawks- 
worth  in  the  years  1750  and  1753. 

From  this  period,  however,  not  only  has  Shak- 
speare  been  the  object  of  unceasing  editorship  and 
formal  voluminous  criticism,  but  the  periodical  and 
miscellaneous  productions  of  the  press,  rapidly 
and  even  prodigiously  as  they  have  encreased  of 
late,  have  been  fertile  in  casual  essays  and  remarks 
on  his  genius  and  writings ;  whilst  upon  the  con 
tinent  too,  numerous  translations  of,  and  occasional 
remarks  on  the  poet,  have  made  their  appearance. 

It  is,  I  trust,  scarcely  necessary  to  add  that,  in 
culling  from  so  wide  a  field,  I  have  been  almost 
fastidiously  careful  in  my  choice  of  specimens. 
Indeed,  as  a  warrant  for  this,  it  may  be  sufficient 
merely  to  mention  the  names  of  Dryden,  Warton, 
Mackenzie,  Cumberland,  Beattie,  Godwin,  Lamb, 
Coleridge,  Campbell,  and  Sir  Walter  Scott,  as 

«  Vide  Drake's  Essays,  Biographical,  Critical,  and  Histori 
cal,  illustrative  of  the  Tatler,  Spectator,  and  Guardian,  vol.  1. 
p.  216. 

1  Vide  Spectator,  nos.  141  and  419. 


68  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

those  who,  from  our  native  stores,  with  the  excep 
tion  of  a  few  anonymous  contributions  of  great  ex 
cellence,  have  furnished  me  with  materials. 

And,  if  we  turn  to  the  continent,  scarcely  a  less 
rich  prospect,  during  a  nearly  equal  period  of  time, 
would  seem  to  meet  our  view.  In  Germany,  for 
instance,  as  translators  of  or  occasional  critics  on 
Shakspeare,  we  can  enumerate  Wieland,  Eschen- 
burg,g  Lessing,  Voss,  Herder,  Goethe,  Tieck,  and 
the  two  Schlegels;  in  Italy,  Michele  Leoni;  in 
Spain,  Fernandez  Moratin ;  and  in  France,  Le 
Mercier,  Le  Tourneur,  Ducis,  Madame  De  Stael 
Hoi  stein,  and  Villemain. 

I  have  only  farther  to  remark  that,  from  the 
abundance  of  materials,  and  from  the  wish  of  not 
spreading  them  beyond  the  compass  of  a  single 
volume,  I  have  found  it  necessary  to  restrict  my 
selections  from  foreign  sources  to  a  few  general 

»  Eschenburgh  continued  and  completed  the  translation  of 
Shakspeare  commenced  by  Wieland.     It  was  published  be 
tween  the  years  1775  and  1782,  and  consists  of  thirteen  volumes 
8vo.     Eschenburg  was  a  man  of  great  learning  and  considera 
ble  taste  and  genius,  and  a  supplementary  volume  to  his  ver 
sion,  which  he  printed  in  1787,  contains,  for  a  foreigner,  a  very 
extraordinary  degree  of  information  concerning  Shakspeare  and 
his  writings,  his  editors,  commentators,  critics,  and  translators. 
It  is  arranged  under  ten  heads;  namely,   1.  Of  Shakspeare's 
life;  2.  His  learning;  3.  His  genius;  4.  His  defects;  5.  State 
of  the  English  Stage  during  his  time  ;  6.  Order  of  his  plays ; 
7.  English  editions  of  his  plays;  8.  Criticisms  on  the  author 
and  his  editors  ;  9.  Catalogue  of  the  foreign  translations  and 
imitations  of  Shakspeare;  and  10.  Of  his  other  poems,  with 
specimens. 


PREFATORY    ESSAY.  69 

portraitures  of  Shakspeare  from  the  two  Schlegels, 
and  to  a  few  extracts  from  Lessing,  Goethe, 
Madame  De  Stael  Holstein,  and,  lastly,  Villemain, 
of  whose  Essay  on  the  Bard,  as  given  in  the  second 
edition  of  his  Nouveaux  Melanges  Historiques  et 
Litteraires,  published  but  a  few  months  ago,  I 
have  ventured  to  insert  an  entire  translation,  con 
taining,  as  it  does,  the  latest  and  most  interest 
ing  exposee  of  the  estimation  in  which  Shakspeare 
is  at  present  held  in  the  land  of  Corneille  and 
Voltaire. 


MEMORIALS   OF   SHAKSPEARE. 


PART   II. 


• 


No.  I. 
ON  THE  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  SHAKSPEARE. 

To  JUDGE  with  fairness  of  an  author's  works,  we 
must  observe,  firstly,  what  is  essential;  and  se 
condly,  what  arises  from  circumstances.  It  is 
essential,  as  in  Milton,  that  poetry  be  simple,  sen 
suous,  and  impassionate : — simple,  that  it  may  appeal 
to  the  elements  and  the  primary  laws  of  our  nature ; 
sensuous,  since  it  is  only  by  sensuous  images  that 
we  can  elicit  truth  as  at  a  flash ;  impassionate,  since 
images  must  be  vivid,  in  order  to  move  our  pas 
sions,  and  awaken  our  affections. 

In  judging  of  different  poets,  we  ought  to  enquire 
what  authors  have  brought  into  fullest  play  our 
imagination,  or  have  created  the  greatest  excite 
ments,  and  produced  the  completest  harmony . — 
Considering  only  great  exquisiteness  of  language, 
and  sweetness  of  metre,  it  is  impossible  to  deny  ta 
Pope  the  title  of  a  delightful  writer :  whether  he 
be  a  poet  must  be  determined  as  we  define  the 
word ;  doubtless,  if  every  thing  that  pleases  be 
poetry,  Pope's  satires  and  epistles  must  be  poetry. 
Poetry,  however,  as  distinguished  from  general 
modes  of  composition,  does  not  rest  in  metre ;  it  is 
not  poetry  if  it  make  no  appeal  to  our  imagination, 
our  passions,  and  our  sympathy. — One  character 


74  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

attaches  to  all  true  poets,— they  write  from  a  prin 
ciple  within,  independent  of  every  thing  without. 
The  work  of  a  true  poet,  in  its  form,  its  shapings 
and  modifications,  is  distinguished  from  all  other 
works  that  assume  to  belong  to  the  class  of  poetry, 
as  a  natural  from  an  artificial  flower ;  or  as  the 
mimic  garden  of  a  child  from  an  enamelled  mea 
dow.  In  the  former  the  flowers  are  broken  from 
their  stems,  and  stuck  in  the  ground ;  they  are 
beautiful  to  the  eye,  and  fragrant  to  the  sense  :  but 
their  colours  soon  fade,  and  their  odour  is  transient 
as  the  smile  of  the  planter :  while  the  meadow 
may  be  visited  again  and  again  with  renewed  de 
light  ;  its  beauty  is  innate  in  the  soil,  and  its  bloom 
is  of  the  freshness  of  nature.11 

The  next  ground  of  judging  is,  how  far  a  poet  is 
influenced  by  accidental  circumstances — he  writes 
not  for  past  ages,  but  for  that  in  winch  he  lives, 
and  that  which  is  to  follow.  It  is  natural  that  he 
should  conform  to  the  circumstances  of  his  day ; 
but  a  true  genius  will  stand  independent  of  these 
circumstances  ;  and  it  is  observable  of  Shakspeare, 
that  he  leaves  little  to  regret  that  he  was  born  in 
such  an  age.  The  great  era  in  modern  times  was 
what  is  called  the  restoration  of  literature ;  the 
ages  which  preceded  it  were  called  the  dark  ages ; 
it  would  be  more  wise,  perhaps,  to  say  the  ages  in 

h  The  distinction  between  the  mere  fabricator  of  harmonious 
metre  and  the  genuine  poet,  was  never  more  impressively 
drawn  than  through  the  medium  of  this  lovely  and  truly  ori 
ginal  simile. 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    HIS    GENIUS.  75 

which  we  were  in  the  dark.     It  is  usually  over 
looked  that  the  supposed  dark  era  was  not  univer 
sal,  but  partial  and  successive,  or  alternate ;  that 
the  dark  age  of  England  was  not  the  dark  age  of 
Italy ;  but  that  one  country  was  in  its  light  and 
vigour,  while  another  was  in  its  gloom  and  bondage. 
The  Reformation  sounded  through  Europe  like  a 
trumpet ;  from  the  king  to  the  peasant  there  was 
an  enthusiasm  for  knowledge ;  the  discovery  of  a 
manuscript  was  the  subject  of  an  embassy.  Erasmus 
read  by  moonlight  because  he  could  not  afford  a 
torch,  and  begged  a  penny,  not  for  the  love  of 
charity,  but  for  the  love  of  learning.     The  three 
great  points  of  attention  were  morals,  religion,  and 
taste ;  but  it  becomes  necessary  to  distinguish  in 
this  age  mere  men  of  learning  from  men  of  genius ; 
all,  however,  were  close  copyists  of  the  ancients, 
and  this  was  the  only  way  by  which  the  taste  of 
mankind  could  be  improved,  and  the  understanding 
informed.     Whilst  Dante  imagined  himself  a  co 
pyist  of  Virgil,  and  Ariosto  of  Homer,  they  were 
both  unconscious  of  that  greater  power  working 
within  them,  which   carried  them  beyond  their 
originals ;  for  their  originals  were  polytheists.   All 
great  discoveries  bear  the  stamp  of  the  age  in  which 
they  were  made :    hence  we  perceive  the  effect  of 
their  purer  religion,  which  was  visible  in  their 
lives;  and  in  reading  their  works,  we  should  not 
content  ourselves  with  the  narration  of  events  long 
since  passed,  but  apply  their  maxims  and  conduct 
to  our  own. 


76  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Having  intimated  that  times  and  manners  lend 
their  form  and  pressure  to  the  genius,  it  may  be 
useful  to  draw  a  slight  parallel  between  the  ancient 
and  modern  stage,  as  it  existed  in  Greece  and  in 
England. — The  Greeks  were  polytheists ;  their  re 
ligion  was  local ;  the  object  of  all  their  knowledge, 
science,  and  taste,  was  their  Gods  :  their  produc 
tions  were,  therefore,  (if  the  expression  may  be 
allowed)  statuesque  ;  the  moderns  we  may  designate 
as  picturesque;  the  end  complete  harmony.  The 
Greeks  reared  a  structure,  which,  in  its  parts  and 
as  a  whole,  filled  the  mind  with  the  calm  and  ele 
vated  impression  of  perfect  beauty  and  symmetrical 
proportion.  The  moderns,  blending  materials,  pro 
duced  one  striking  whole  ;  this  may  be  illustrated 
by  comparing  the  Pantheon  with  York  Minster  or 
Westminster  Abbey.  Upon  the  same  scale  we 
may  compare  Sophocles  with  Shakspeare  :  in  the 
one  there  is  a  completeness,  a  satisfying,  an  excel 
lence  on  which  the  mind  can  rest ;  in  the  other  we 
see  a  blended  multitude  of  materials ;  great  and 
little ;  magnificent  and  mean ;  mingled,  if  we  may 
so  say,  with  a  dissatisfying,  or  falling  short  of  per 
fection  ;  yet  so  promising  of  our  progression,  that 
we  would  not  exchange  it  for  that  repose  of  mind 
which  dwells  on  the  forms  of  symmetry  in  acqui 
escent  admiration  of  grace.  This  general  charac 
teristic  of  the  ancient  and  modern  poetry  might  be 
exemplified  in  a  parallel  of  their  ancient  and  mo 
dern  music :  the  ancient  music  consisted  of  melody 
by  the  succession  of  pleasing  sounds  ;  the  modern 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    HIS    GENIUS.  77 

embraces  harmony,  the  result  of  combination,  and 
effect  of  the  whole. 

Great  as  was  the  genius  of  Shakspeare,  his 
judgment  was  at  least  equal.  Of  this  we  shall  be 
convinced,  if  we  look  round  on  the  age,  and  com 
pare  the  nature  of  the  respective  dramas  of  Greece 
and  England,  differing  from  the  necessary  dissimi 
litude  of  circumstances  by  which  they  are  modified 
and  influenced.  The  Greek  stage  had  its  origin  in 
the  ceremonies  of  a  sacrifice,  such  as  the  goat  to 
Bacchus ; — it  were  erroneous  to  call  him  only  the 
jolly  god  of  wine  :  among  the  ancients  he  was  vene 
rable  ;  he  was  the  symbol  of  that  power  which  acts 
without  our  consciousness  from  the  vital  energies  of 
nature,  as  Apollo  was  the  symbol  of  our  intellectual 
consciousness.  Their  heroes  under  his  influence 
performed  more  than  human  actions  ;  hence  tales 
of  their  favourite  champions  soon  passed  into  dia 
logue.  On  the  Greek  stage  the  chorus  was  always 
before  the  audience — no  curtain  dropped — change 
of  place  was  impossible  ;  the  absurd  idea  of  its  im 
probability  was  not  indulged.  The  scene  cannot 
be  an  exact  copy  of  nature,  but  only  an  imitation. 
If  we  can  believe  ourselves  at  Thebes  in  one  act, 
we  can  believe  ourselves  at  Athens  in  the  next. 
There  seems  to  be  no  just  boundary  but  what 
the  feelings  prescribe.  In  Greece,  however,  great 
judgment  was  necessary  where  the  same  persons 
were  perpetually  before  the  audience.  If  a  story 
lasted  twenty-four  hours  or  twenty- four  years,  it 
was  equally  improbable — they  never  attempted  to 


78  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

impose  on  the  senses  by  bringing  places  to  men, 
though  they  could  bring  men  to  places. 

Unity  of  time  was  not  necessary,  where  no 
offence  was  taken  at  its  lapse  between  the  acts,  or 
between  scene  and  scene ;  for  where  there  were  no 
acts  or  scenes,  it  was  impossible  rigidly  to  observe 
its  laws.  To  overcome  these  difficulties,  the  judg 
ment  and  great  genius  of  the  ancients  supplied 
music,  and  with  the  charms  of  their  poetry  filled 
up  the  vacuity.  In  the  story  of  the  Agamemnon  of 
JEschylus,  the  taking  of  Troy  was  supposed  to  be 
announced  by  the  lighting  of  beacons  on  the 
Asiatic  shore :  the  mind  being  beguiled  by  the 
narrative  ode  of  the  chorus  embracing  the  events 
of  the  siege,  hours  passed  as  minutes,  and  no  im 
probability  was  felt  at  the  return  of  Agamemnon  ; 
and  yet,  examined  rigidly,  he  must  have  passed  over 
from  Troy  in  less  than  fifteen  minutes.  Another 
fact  here  presented  itself,  seldom  noticed :  with 
the  ancients  three  plays  were  performed  in  one 
day;  they  were  called  Trilogies.  In  Shakspeare 
we  may  fancy  these  Trilogies  connected  into  one 
representation.  If  Lear  were  divided  into  three, 
each  part  would  be  a  play  with  the  ancients ;  or 
take  the  three  plays  of  Agamemnon,  and  divide 
them  into  acts,  they  would  form  one  play  : 

1st  Act  would  be  the  Usurpation  of  jEgisthus, 
and  Murder  of  Agamemnon  ; 

2d.  Revenge   of  Orestes,    and  Murder  of  his 
Mother ; 

3d.  The  Penance  of  Orestes ; 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    HIS    GENIUS.  79 

consuming  a  time  of  twenty-two  years :  th,e  three 
plays  being  but  three  acts,  the  dropping  of  the 
curtain  was  as  the  conclusion  of  a  play. 

Contrast  the  stage  of  the  ancients  with  that  of 
the  time  of  Shakspeare,  and  we  shall  be  struck 
with  his  genius :  with  them  it  had  the  trappings  of 
royal  and  religious  ceremony ;  with  him  it  was  a 
naked  room,  a  blanket  for  a  curtain  ;  but  with  his 
vivid  appeals,  the  imagination  figured  it  out 

A  field  for  monarchs. 

After  the  rupture  of  the  Northern  nations,  the 
Latin  language,  blended  with  the  modern,  pro 
duced  the  Romant  tongue,  the  language  of  the 
minstrels ;  to  which  term,  as  distinguishing  their 
songs  and  fabliaux,  we  owe  the  word  and  the  spe 
cies  of  romance :  the  romantic  may  be  considered 
as  opposed  to  the  antique,  and  from  this  change 
of  manners,  those  of  Shakspeare  take  their  colour 
ing.  He  is  not  to  be  tried  by  ancient  and  classic 
rules,  but  by  the  standard  of  his  age.  That  law 
of  unity  which  has  its  foundation,  not  in  factitious 
necessity  of  custom,  but  in  nature  herself,  is  in 
stinctively  observed  by  Shakspeare. 

A  unity  of  feeling  pervades  the  whole  of  his 
plays.  In  Romeo  and  Juliet  all  is  youth  and 
spring :  it  is  youth  with  its  follies,  its  virtues,  its 
precipitancies ;  it  is  spring  with  its  odours,  flowers, 
and  transiency :  the  same  feeling  commences, 
goes  through,  and  ends  the  play.  The  old  men, 
the  Capulets  and  Montagues,  are  not  common 
old  men;  they  have  an  eagerness,  an  hastiness,  a 


80  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

precipitancy— the  effect  of  spring.  With  Romeo, 
his  precipitate  change  of  passion,  his  hasty  mar 
riage,  and  his  rash  death,  are  all  the — effects  of 
youth.  With  Juliet,  love  has  all  that  is  tender  and 
melancholy  in  the  nightingale,  all  that  is  volup 
tuous  in  the  rose,  with  whatever  is  sweet  in  the 
freshness  of  spring ;  but  it  ends  with  a  long  deep 
sigh,  like  the  breeze  of  the  evening.  This  unity 
of  character  pervades  the  whole  of  his  dramas.1 

1  This  description  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  is  evidently  founded 
on  what  Schlegel  has  so  beautifully  said  on  the  same  subject  in 
his  Dramatic  Lectures,  which  were  delivered  to  an  admiring 
audience  as  early  as  1808.  It  is,  perhaps,  the  very  finest  pas 
sage  in  his  characters  of  the  plays  of  Shakspeare ;  criticisms 
which,  though  uniformly  written  with  great  eloquence,  have  not 
been  unjustly  charged  with  a  tincture  of  mysticism,  and  with  a 
spirit  of  indiscriminate  eulogy. 

"  It  was  reserved  for  Shakspeare,"  remarks  this  powerful 
writer,  "  to  unite,  in  his  Romeo  and  Juliet,  purity  of  heart  and 
the  glow  of  imagination,  sweetness  and  dignity  of  manners,  and 
passionate  violence,  in  one  ideal  picture.  By  the  manner  in 
which  he  has  handled  it,  it  ha»s  become  a  glorious  song  of  praise 
on  that  inexpressible  feeling  which  ennobles  the  soul,  and  gives 
to  it  its  highest  sublimity,  and  which  elevates  even  the  senses 
themselves  into  soul,  and  at  the  same  time  is  a  melancholy 
elegy  on  its  frailty  from  its  own  nature  and  external  circum 
stances  ;  at  once  the  deification  and  the  burial  of  love.  It 
appears  here  like  a  heavenly  spark  that,  descending  to  the 
earth,  is  converted  into  a  flash  of  lightning,  by  which  mortal 
creatures  are  almost  in  the  same  moment  set  oir  fire  and  con 
sumed.  Whatever  is  most  intoxicating  iti  the  odour  of  a  south 
ern  spring,  languishing  in  the  song  of  the  nightingale,  or  volup 
tuous  on  the  first  opening  of  the  rose,  is  breathed  into  this 
poem.  But  even  more  rapidly  than  the  earliest  blossoms  of 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    HIS    GENJUS.  81 

Of  that  species  of  writing  termed  tragi-comedy, 
too  much  has  been  produced,  but  it  has  been 
doomed  to  the  shelf.  With  Shakspeare,  his 
comic  constantly  re-acted  on  his  tragic  characters. 
Lear,  wandering  amidst  the  tempest,  had  all  his 
feeling  of  distress  increased  by  the  overflowings 
of  the  wild  wit  of  the  Fool;  as  vinegar  poured  upon 
wounds  exacerbates  their  pain,  thus  even  his 
comic  humour  tends  to  the  developement  of  tragic 
passion. 

The  next  character  belonging  to  Shakspeare  as 
Shakspeare,  was  the  keeping  at  all  times  the  high 
road  of  life:  with  him  there  were  no  innocent 
adulteries ;  he  never  rendered  that  amiable  which 
religion  and  reason  taught  us  to  detest ;  he  never 
clothed  vice  in  the  garb  of  virtue,  like  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher,  the  Kotzebues  of  his  day ;  his  fathers 

youth  and  beauty  decay,  it  hurries  on  from  the  first  timidly-bold 
declaration  of  love  and  modest  return  to  the  most  unlimited 
passion,  to  an  irrevocable  union ;  then,  amidst  alternating 
storms  of  rapture  and  despair,  to  the  death  of  the  two  lovers, 
who  still  appear  enviable  as  their  love  survives  them,  and  as  by 
their  death  they  have  obtained  a  triumph  over  every  separating 
power.  The  sweetest  and  the  bitterest,  love  and  hatred,  fes 
tivity  and  dark  forebodings,  tender  embraces  and  sepulchres, 
the  fulness  of  life  and  self-annihilation,  are  all  here  brought 
close  to  each  other;  and  all  these  contrasts  are  so  blended  in 
the  harmonious  and  wonderful  work  into  a  unity  of  impression, 
that  the  echo  which  the  whole  leaves  behind  in  the  mind  re 
sembles  a  single  but  endless  sigh." — Vol.  2,  p.  187,  Black's 
Translation. 


82  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

were  roused  by  ingratitude,  his  husbands  were 
stung  by  unfaithfulness;  the  affections  were  woun 
ded  in  those  points  where  all  may  and  all  must 
feel.j  Another  evidence  of  exquisite  judgment  in 
Shakspeare  was,  that  he  seized  hold  of  popular 
tales.  Lear  and  the  Merchant  of  Venice  were 
popular  tales,  but  so  excellently  managed,  both 
were  the  representation  of  men  in  all  ages  and  at 
all  times. 

His  dramas  do  not  arise  absolutely  out  of  some 
one  extraordinary  circumstance;  the  scenes  may 
stand,  independently  of  any  such  one  connecting 
incident,  as  faithful  reflections  of  men  and  man 
ners.  In  his  mode  of  drawing  characters,  there 
were  no  pompous  descriptions  of  a  man  by  him 
self;  his  character  was  to  be  drawn  as  in  real  life, 
from  the  whole  course  of  the  play,  or  out  of  the 
mouths  of  his  enemies  or  friends :  this  might  be 
exemplified  in  the  character  of  Polonius,  which 
actors  have  often  misrepresented.  Shakspeare 
never  intended  to  represent  him  as  a  buffoon :  it 
was  natural  that  Hamlet,  a  young  man  of  genius 
and  fire,  detesting  formality,  and  disliking  Polonius 

J  What  is  here,  and  subsequently,  said  by  Mr.  Coleridge  on 
the  morality  and  comparative  purity  of  Shakspeare,  ought  never 
to  be  forgotten.  It  is  one  of  those  admirable  features  in  this 
great  poet  which  has  rendered  his  plays  not  merely,  like  those 
of  his  contemporaries  and  successors,  a  source  of  gratification 
for  the  feelings  and  imagination,  but  has  stamped  them  as  the 
vehicle  of  the  noblest  lessons  of  practical  wisdom  and  virtue. 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    HIS    GENIUS.  83 

for  political  reasons,  as  imagining  that  he  had  as 
sisted  his  uncle  in  his  usurpation,  should  express 
himself  satirically ;  but  Hamlet's  words  should 
not  be  taken  as  Shakspeare's  conception  of  him. 
In  Polonius  a  certain  induration  of  character  arose 
from  long  habits  of  business  ;  but  take  his  advice  to 
Laertes,  the  reverence  of  his  memory  by  Ophelia, 
and  we  shall  find  that  he  was  a  statesman  of  bu 
siness,  though  somewhat  passed  his  faculties  :  one 
particular  feature  which  belonged  to  his  character 
was,  that  his  recollections  of  past  life  were  of 
wisdom,  and  showed  a  knowledge  of  human 
nature  ;  whilst  what  immediately  passed  before 
and  escaped  from  him,  was  emblematical  of  weak 
ness. 

Another  excellence  in  Shakspeare,  and  in  which 
no  other  writer  equalled  him,  was  in  the  language 
of  nature;  so  correct  was  it  that  we  could  see  our 
selves  in  all  he  wrote ;  his  style  and  manner  had 
also  that  felicity,  that  not  a  sentence  could  be  read 
without  its  being  discovered  if  it  were  Shakspearian. 
In  observations  of  living  character,  such  as  of 
landlords  and  postillions,  Fielding  had  great  excel 
lence  ;  but  in  drawing  from  his  own  heart,  and  de 
picting  that  species  of  character  which  no  obser 
vation  could  teach,  he  failed  in  comparison  with 
Richardson,  who  perpetually  placed  himself,  as  it 
were,  in  a  day-dream  :  but  Shakspeare  excelled  in 
both ;  witness  an  accuracy  of  character  in  the  Nurse 
of  Juliet.  On  the  other  hand,  in  relation  to  the 


84  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

great  characters  of  Othello,  lago,  Hamlet,  and 
Richard  the  Third,  as  he  never  could  have  witnessed 
any  thing  similar,  he  appears  invariably  to  have 
asked  himself,  How  should  I  act  or  speak  in  such 
circumstances  ? — His  comic  characters  were  also 
peculiar  :  a  drunken  constable  was  not  uncommon ; 
but  he  could  make  folly  a  vehicle  for  wit,  as  in  Dog 
berry  ;  every  thing  was  as  a  sub-stratum  on  which 
his  creative  genius  might  erect  a  superstructure. 

To  distinguish  what  is  legitimate  in  Shakspeare 
from  what  does  not  belong  to  him,  we  must  observe 
his  varied  images  symbolical  of  moral  truth,  thrust 
ing  by  and  seeming  to  trip  up  each  other,  from  an 
impetuosity  of  thought,  producing  a  metre  which  is 
always  flowing  from  one  verse  into  the  other,  and 
seldom  closing  with  the  tenth  syllable  of  the 
line ;  an  instance  of  which  may  be  found  in  the 
play  of  Pericles,  written  a  century  before,  but 
which  Shakspeare  altered,  and  where  his  alteration 
may  be  recognised  even  to  half  a  line  :  this  was  the 
case  not  merely  in  his  later  plays,  but  in  his  early 
dramas,  such  as  Love's  Labour  Lost,  the  same  per 
fection  in  the  flowing  continuity  of  interchange 
able  pauses  is  constantly  perceptible. 

Lastly,  contrast  his  morality  with  the  writers  of 
his  own  or  the  succeeding  age,  or  with  those  of 
the  present  day,  who  boast  of  their  superiority : 
he  never,  as  before  observed,  deserted  the  high 
road  of  life  ;  he  never  made  his  lovers  openly 
gross  or  profane;  for  common  candour  must 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    HIS    GENIUS.  85 

allow  that  his  images  were  incomparably  less  so 
than  those  of  his  contemporaries  ;  even  the  letters 
of  females  in  high  life  were  coarser  than  his 
writings. 

The  writings  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  bear  no 
comparison;  the  grossest  passages  of  Shakspeare 
were  purity  to  theirs ;  and  it  should  be  remem 
bered  that,  though  he  might  occasionally  disgust  a 
sense  of  delicacy,  he  never  injured  the  mind ;  he 
caused  no  excitement  of  passion  which  he  flattered 
to  degrade  ;  never  used  what  was  faulty  for  a  faulty 
purpose ;  carried  on  no  warfare  against  virtue,  by 
which  wickedness  may  be  made  to  appear  as  not 
wickedness,  and  where  our  sympathy  was  to  be 
entrapped  by  the  misfortunes  of  vice :  with  him 
vice  never  walked,  as  it  were,  in  twilight.  He 
never  inverted  the  order  of  nature  and  propriety, 
like  some  modern  writers,  who  suppose  every 
magistrate  to  be  a  glutton  or  a  drunkard,  and 
every  poor  man  humane  and  temperate;  with 
him  we  had  no  benevolent  braziers  or  senti 
mental  rat-catchers.  Nothing  was  purposely  out  of 
place. 

If  a  man  speak  injuriously  of  a  friend,  our  vin 
dication  of  him  is  naturally  warm  :  Shakspeare 
had  been  accused  of  profaneness  ;  he  (Mr.  C.), 
from  the  perusal  of  him,  had  acquired  a  habit  of 
looking  into  his  own  heart,  and  perceived  the 
goings  on  of  his  nature ;  and  confident  he  was, 
Shakspeare  was  a  writer  of  all  others  the  most 


86  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

calculated  to  make  his  readers  better  as  well  as 
wiser. 

COLERIDGE.k 

k  This  outline  of  an  Introductory  Lecture  by  Mr.  Coleridge, 
delivered  in  1813,  on  the  Characteristics  of  Shakspeare,  has 
been  taken  from  a  report  published  in  a  newspaper  of  the 
day. — It  has  condensed  into  a  small  compass,  and  with  much 
felicity  of  imagery  and  diction,  all  the  leading  features  of  the 
great  dramatist ;  forming  a  picture  which,  as  coming  from  one 
of  the  most  original  and  imaginative  poets  of  the  present 
times,  has  on  that  account,  likewise,  a  peculiar  claim  to  our 
notice. 


UNIVERSALITY    OF    HIS    GENIUS,    &C.  87 


No.  II. 

ON  THE  UNIVERSALITY  OF  THE  GENIUS  OF  SHAK- 
SPEARE,  AND  ON  HIS  IRREGULARITIES  IN  RE 
LATION  TO  DRAMATIC  UNITY. 

SHAKSPEARE  created  our  romantic  drama,  or,  if 
the  assertion  is  to  be  qualified,  it  requires  but  a  small 
qualification.  There  were  undoubtedly  prior  occu 
pants  of  the  dramatic  ground  in  our  language ;  but 
they  appear  only  like  unprosperous  settlers  on  the 
patches  and  skirts  of  a  wilderness  which  he  con 
verted  into  a  garden.  He  is  therefore  never  com 
pared  with  his  native  predecessors.  Criticism 
goes  back  for  names  worthy  of  being  put  in  com 
petition  with  his,  to  the  first  great  masters  of 
dramatic  invention ;  and  even  in  the  points  of  dissi 
milarity  between  them  and  him,  discovers  some  of 
the  highest  indications  of  his  genius.  Compared 
with  the  classical  composers  of  antiquity,  he  is  to 
our  conceptions  nearer  the  character  of  an  universal 
poet ;  more  acquainted  with  man  in  the  real  world, 
and  more  terrific  and  bewitching  in  the  preter 
natural.  He  expanded  the  magic  circle  of  the 
drama  beyond  the  limits  that  belonged  to  it  in  anti 
quity  ;  made  it  embrace  more  time  and  locality ; 
filled  it  with  larger  business  and  action,  with  vicis 
situdes  of  gay  and  serious  emotion,  which  classical 
taste  had  kept  divided ;  with  characters  which 


88  MEMORIALS    OT    SHAKSPEARE. 

developed  humanity  in  stronger  lights  and  subtler 
movements;  and  with  a  language   more  wildly, 
more  playfully  diversified  by  fancy  and  passion, 
than  was  ever  spoken  on  any  stage.     Like  nature 
herself,  he  presents  alternations  of  the  gay  and  the 
tragic ;  and  his  mutability,  like  the  suspense  and 
precariousness  of  real  existence,  often  deepens  the 
force  of  our  impressions.     He  converted  imitation 
into  illusion.     To  say  that,  magician  as  he  was,  he 
was  not  faultless,  is  only  to  recal  the  flat  and  stale 
truism,  that  every  thing  human  is  imperfect.    But 
how  to  estimate  his  imperfections !     To  praise  him 
is  easy — Infacili  causa  cuivis  licet  esse  diserto ; — but 
to  make  a  special,  full,  and  accurate  estimate  of 
his  imperfections,  would  require  a   delicate   and 
comprehensive  discrimination,  and   an  authority, 
which  are  almost  as  seldom  united  in  one  man  as 
the  powers  of  Shakspeare  himself.     He  is  the  poet 
of  the  world,     The  magnitude  of  his  genius  puts  it 
beyond  all  private  opinion  to  set  defined  limits  to 
the  admiration  which  is  due  to  it.   We  know,  upon 
the  whole,  that  the  sum  of  blemishes  to  be  de 
ducted  from  his  merits  is  not  great,  and  we  should 
scarcely  be  thankful  to  one  who  should  be  anxious 
to  make  it.     No  other  poet  triumphs  so  anoma 
lously  over  eccentricities  and  peculiarities  in  com 
position,  which  would  appear  blemishes  in  others; 
so  that  his  blemishes  and  beauties  have  an  affinity 
which  we  are  jealous  of  trusting  any  hand  with  the 
task  of  separating.     We  dread  the  interference  of 
criticism  with  a  fascination  so  often  inexplicable 


UNIVERSALITY    OF     HIS    GENIUS,    &C.  89 

by  critical  laws,  and  justly  apprehend  that  any 
man  in  standing  between  us  and  Shakspeare  may 
show,  for  pretended  spots  upon  his  disk,  only  the 
shadows  of  his  own  opacity. 

Still  it  is  not  a  part  even  of  that  enthusiastic 
creed,  to  believe  that  he  has  no  excessive  mixture 
of  the  tragic  and  comic,  no  blemishes  of  language 
in  the  elliptical  throng  and  impatient  pressure  of 
his  images,  no  irregularities  of  plot  and  action, 
which  another  Shakspeare  would  avoid,  if  "nature 
had  not  broken  the  mould  in  which  she  made  him," 
or  if  he  should  come  back  into  the  world  to  blend 
experience  with  inspiration. 

The  bare  name  of  the  dramatic  unities  is  apt  to 
excite  revolting  ideas  of  pedantry,  arts  of  poetry, 
and  French  criticism.  With  none  of  these  do  I 
wish  to  annoy  the  reader.  I  conceive  that  it  may 
be  said  of  those  unities  as  of  fire  and  water,  that 
they  are  good  servants,  but  bad  masters.  In  per 
fect  rigour  they  were  never  imposed  by  the  Greeks, 
and  they  would  be  still  heavier  shackles  if  they 
were  closely  rivetted  on  our  own  drama.  It  would 
be  worse  than  useless  to  confine  dramatic  action 
literally  and  immoveably  to  one  spot,  or  its  imagi 
nary  time  to  the  time  in  which  it  is  represented. 
On  the  other  hand,  dramatic  time  and  place  cannot 
surely  admit  of  indefinite  expansion.  It  would  be 
better,  for  the  sake  of  illusion  and  probability,  to 
change  the  scene  from  Windsor  to  London,  than 
from  London  to  Pekin ;  it  would  look  more  like 
reality,  if  a  messenger,  who  went  and  returned  in 


90  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

the  course  of  the  play,  told  us  of  having  performed 
a  journey  often  or  twenty  rather  than  of  a  thousand 
miles,  and  if  the  spectator  had  neither  that  nor  any 
other  circumstance  to  make  him  ask  how  so  much 
could  be  performed  in  so  short  a  time. 

In  an  abstract  view  of  dramatic  art,  its  prin 
ciples  must  appear  to  lie  nearer  to  unity  than  to 
the  opposite  extreme  of  disunion,  in  our  concep 
tions  of  time  and  place.  Giving  up  the  law  of 
unity  in  its  literal  rigour,  there  is  still  a  latitude  of 
its  application  which  may  preserve  proportion  and 
harmony  in  the  drama. 

The  brilliant  and  able  Schlegel  has  traced  the 
principles  of  what  he  denominates  the  romantic  in 
opposition  to  the  classical  drama,  and  conceives 
that  Shakspeare's  theatre,  when  tried  by  those 
principles,  will  be  found  not  to  have  violated  any 
of  the  unities,  if  they  are  largely  and  liberally  un 
derstood.  I  have  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Schlegel's 
criticism  will  be  found  to  have  proved  this  point  in 
a  considerable  number  of  the  works  of  our  mighty 
poet.  There  are  traits,  however,  in  Shakspeare, 
which,  I  must  own,  appear  to  my  humble  judg 
ment  incapable  of  being  illustrated  by  any  system 
or  principles  of  art  I  do  not  allude  to  his  historical 
plays,  which,  expressly  from  being  historical,  may 
be  called  a  privileged  class ;  but  in  those  of  purer 
fiction,  it  strikes  me  that  there  are  licences  con- , 
ceded  indeed  to  imagination's  "  chartered  liber 
tine,"  but  anomalous  with  regard  to  anything 
which  can  be  recognized  as  principles  in  dramatic 


UNIVERSALITY     OF    HIS    GENIUS,    &C.  91 

art.  When  Perdita,  for  instance,  grows  from  the 
cradle  to  the  marriage  altar  in  the  course  of  the 
play,  I  can  perceive  no  unity  in  the  design  of  the 
piece,  and  take  refuge  in  the  supposition  of  Shak- 
speare's  genius  triumphing  and  trampling  over  art. 
Yet  Mr.  Schlegel,  as  far  as  I  have  observed,  makes 
no  exception  to  this  breach  of  temporal  unity ; 
nor,  in  proving  Shakspeare  a  regular  artist  on  a 
mighty  scale,  does  he  deign  to  notice  this  circum 
stance  even  as  the  ultima  Thule  of  his  licence.  If 
a  man  contends  that  dramatic  laws  are  all  idle 
restrictions,  I  can  understand  him ;  or  if  he  says 
that  Perdita's  growth  on  the  stage  is  a  trespass  on 
art,  but  that  Shakspeare's  fascination  over  and 
over  again  redeems  it,  I  can  both  understand  and 
agree  with  him.  But  when  I  am  left  to  infer  that 
all  this  is  right  on  romantic  principles,  I  confess 
that  those  principles  become  too  romantic  for  my 
conception.  If  Perdita  may  be  born  and  married 
on  the  stage,  why  may  not  Webster's  Duchess  of 
Malfy  lie-in  between  the  acts,  and  produce  a  fine 
family  of  tragic  children  ?  Her  Grace  actually 
does  so  in  Webster's  drama,  and  he  is  a  poet  of 
some  genius,  though  it  is  not  quite  so  sufficient  as 
Shakspeare's,  to  give  a  "  sweet  oblivious  antidote" 
to  such  "  perilous  stuff."  It  is  not,  however, 
either  in  favour  of  Shakspeare's  or  of  Webster's 
genius  that  we  shall  be  called  on  to  make  allow 
ance,  if  we  justify  in  the  drama  the  lapse  of  suc-h  a 
number  of  years  as  may  change  the  apparent 
identity  of  an  individual.  If  romantic  unity  is  to 


92  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

be  so  largely  interpreted,  the  old  Spanish  dramas, 
where  youths  grow  grey-beards  upon  the  stage, 
the  mysteries  and  moralities,  and  productions 
teeming  with  the  wildest  anachronism,  might  all 
come  in  with  their  grave  or  laughable  claims  to 

romantic  legitimacy. 

Nam  sic 
Et  Laberi  mimos  ut  pulcbra  poemata  mirer. 

Hon. 

On  a  general  view,  I  conceive  it  may  be  said  that 
Shakspeare  nobly  and  legitimately  enlarged  the 
boundaries  of  time  and  place  in  the  drama ;  but, 
in  extreme  cases,  I  would  rather  agree  with  Cum 
berland,  to  wave  all  mention  of  his  name  in  speak 
ing  of  dramatic  laws,  than  accept  of  those  licences 
for  art  which  are  not  art,  and  designate  irregularity 
by  the  name  of  order. 

CAMPBELL.1 

i  Specimens  of  English  Poetry,  vol.  1.  These  observations 
of  Mr.  Campbell  on  the  genius  of  Shakspeare,  and  on  one  of 
his  most  remarkable  violations  of  the  unity  of  time,  are  the 
product  of  sound  and  unbiassed  judgment,  and  form  a  neces 
sary  corrective  of  the  somewhat  too  unqualified,  and,  T  may 
say,  systematic  eulogy  of  Schlegel,  and  one  or  two  other  critics, 
who,  in  attempting  to  gift  the  poet  with  underletting  excellence 
in  the  mechanism  and  construction  of  all  his  plots,  have  as 
suredly  gone  rather  too  far. 


MACBETH,    OTHELLO,    HAMLET,    AND    LEAR.    93 


No.  III. 

ON  THE  GENIUS  OF  SHAKSPEARE,  AND  ON  HIS 
FOUR  DRAMAS,  MACBETH,  OTHELLO,  HAMLET, 
AND  LEAR. 

SHAKSPEARE  alone  is  of  no  age.  He  speaks  a 
language  which  thrills  in  our  blood  in  spite  of  the 
separation  of  two  hundred  years.  His  thoughts, 
passions,  feelings,  strains  of  fancy, — all  are  of  this 
day,  as  they  were  of  his  own  ;  and  his  genius  may 
be  contemporary  with  the  mind  of  every  genera 
tion  for  a  thousand  years  to  come. — He,  above  all 
poets,  looked  upon  men,  and  lived  for  mankind. 
His  genius,  universal  in  intellect  and  sympathy, 
could  find,  in  no  more  bounded  circumference,  its 
proper  sphere.  It  could  not  bear  exclusion  from 
any  part  of  human  existence.  Whatever  in  nature 
and  life  was  given  to  man,  was  given  in  contem 
plation  and  poetry  to  him  also ;  and  over  the  un- 
dimmed  mirror  of  his  mind  passed  all  the  shadows 
of  our  mortal  world.  Look  through  his  plays,  and 
tell  what  form  of  existence,  what  quality  of  spirit, 
he  is  most  skilful  to  delineate  ?  Which  of  all  the 
manifold  beings  he  has  drawn,  lives  before  our 
thoughts,  our  eyes,  in  most  unpictured  reality? 
Is  it  Othello,  Shylock,  Falstaff,  Lear,  the  Wife  of 
Macbeth,  Imogen,  Hamlet,  Ariel?  In  none  of 
the  other  great  dramatists  do  we  see  any  thing 


94  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

like  a  perfected  art.  In  their  works,  every  thing,  it 
is  true,  exists  in  some  shape  or  other,  which  can 
be  required  in  a  drama  taking  for  its  interest 
the  absolute  interest  of  human  life  and  nature ; 
but,  after  all,  may  not  the  very  best  of  their  works 
be  looked  on  as  sublime  masses  of  chaotic  confu 
sion,  through  which  the  elements  of  our  moral 
being  appear  ?  It  was  Shakspeare,  the  most 
unlearned  of  all  our  writers,  who  first  exhibited 
on  the  stage  perfect  models,  perfect  images  of  all 
human  characters,  and  of  all  human  events.  We 
cannot  conceive  any  skill  that  could  from  his  great 
characters  remove  any  defect,  or  add  to  their  per 
fect  composition.  Except  in  him,  we  look  in  vain 
for  the  entire  fulness,  the  self-consistency,  and 
self-completeness,  of  perfect  art.  All  the  rest  of 
our  drama  may  be  regarded  rather  as  a  testimony 
of  the  state  of  genius — of  the  state  of  mind  of  the 
country,  full  of  great  poetical  disposition,  and 
great  tragic  capacity  and  power — than  as  a  col 
lection  of  the  works  of  an  art.  Of  Shakspeare 
and  Homer  alone,  it  may  be  averred  that  we  miss 
in  them  nothing  of  the  greatness  of  nature.  In 
all  other  poets  we  do;  we  feel  the  measure  of  their 
power,  and  the  restraint  under  which  it  is  held  ; 
but  in  Shakspeare  and  in  Homer,  all  is  free  and 
unbounded  as  in  nature ;  and  as  we  travel  along 
with  them  in  a  car  drawn  by  celestial  steeds,  our 
view  seems  ever  interminable  as  before,  and  still 
equally  far  off  the  glorious  horizon. 

"After  thus  speaking"  of  Shakspeare  himself, 


MACBETH,  OTHELLO,   HAMLET,  AND  LEAR.      95 

may  we  presume  yet  farther,  and  speak  of  his  in 
dividual  works  ?  Although  there  is  no  one  of  them 
that  does  not  bear  marks  of  his  unequalled  hand 
— scarcely  one  which  is  not  remembered  by  the 
strong  affection  of  love  and  delight  towards  some 
of  its  characters, — yet  to  all  his  readers  they  seem 
marked  by  very  different  degrees  of  excellence, 
and  a  few  are  distinguished  above  all  the  rest. 
Perhaps  the  four  that  may  be  named,  as  those 
which  have  been  to  the  popular  feeling  of  his 
countrymen  the  principal  plays  of  their  great  dra 
matist,  and  which  would  be  recognised  as  his 
master- works  by  philosophical  criticism,  are  Mac 
beth,  Othello,  Hamlet,  and  Lear.  The  first  of  these 
has  the  most  entire  tragic  action  of  any  of  his 
plays.  It  has,  throughout,  one  awful  interest, 
which  is  begun,  carried  through,  and  concluded 
with  the  piece.  This  interest  of  the  action  is  a 
perfect  example  of  a  most  important  dramatic 
unity,  preserved  entire.  The  matter  of  the  inter 
est  is  one  which  has  always  held  a  strong  sway 
over  human  sympathy,  though  mingled  with  ab 
horrence,  the  rise  and  fall  of  ambition.  Men  look 
on  the  darings  of  this  passion  with  strong  sym 
pathy,  because  it  is  one  of  their  strongest  inherent 
feelings — the  aspiring  of  the  mind  through  its 
consciousness  of  power  shown  in  the  highest  forms 
of  human  life.  But  it  is  decidedly  a  historical,  not 
a  poetical  interest.  Shakspeare  has  made  it  poe 
tical  by  two  things  chiefly — not  the  character  of 
Macbeth,  which  is  itself  historical — but  by  thepre- 


96  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

ternatural  agencies  with  which  the  whole  course  of 
the  story  is  involved,  and  by  the  character  of  Lady 
Macbeth.  The  illusion  of  the  dagger  and  the 
sleep-walking  may  be  added  as  individual  circum 
stances  tending  to  give  a  character  of  imagination 
to  the  whole  play.  The  human  interest  of  the 
piece  is  the  acting  of  the  purpose  of  ambition,  and 
the  fate  which  attends  it — the  high  capacities  of 
blinded  desire  in  the  soul,  and  the  moral  retribu 
tion  which  overrules  the  affairs  of  men.  But  the 
poetry  is  the  intermingling  of  preternatural  agency 
with  the  transactions  of  life — threads  of  events 
spun  by  unearthly  hands — the  scene  of  the  cave 
which  blends  unreality  with  real  life — the  prepa 
ration  and  circumstances  of  midnight  murder — 
the  superhuman  calmness  of  guilt,  in  its  elated 
strength,  in  a  woman's  soul — and  the  dreaminess 
of  mind  which  is  brought  on  those  whose  spirits 
have  drunk  the  cup  of  their  lust.  The  language 
of  the  whole  is  perhaps  more  purely  tragic  than 
that  of  any  other  of  Shakspeare's  plays;  it  is 
simple,  chaste,  and  strong — rarely  breaking  out 
into  fanciful  expression,  but  a  vein  of  imagination 
always  running  through.  The  language  of  Mac 
beth  himself  is  often  exceedingly  beautiful.  Per 
haps  something  may  be  owing  to  national  remem 
brances  and  associations ;  but  we  have  observed 
that,  in  Scotland  at  least,  Macbeth  produces  a 
deeper,  a  more  breathless,  and  a  more  perturbing 
passion,  in  the  audience,  than  any  other  drama. 
If  Macbeth  is  the  most  perfect  in  the  tragic 


MACBETH,    OTHELLO,    HAMLET,    AND    LEAR.    97 

action  of  the  story,  the  most  perfect  in  tragic 
passion  is  Othello.  There  is  nothing  to  determine 
unhappiness  to  the  lives  of  the  two  principal  per 
sons.  Their  love  begins  auspiciously;  and  the 
renown,  high  favour,  and  high  character  of  Othello, 
seem  to  promise  a  stability  of  happiness  to  himself 
and  the  wife  of  his  affections.  But  the  blood 
which  had  been  scorched  in  the  veins  of  his  race, 
under  the  suns  of  Africa,  bears  a  poison  that  swells 
up  to  confound  the  peace  of  the  Christian  marriage- 
bed.  He  is  jealous ;  and  the  dreadful  overmastering 
passion  which  disturbs  the  steadfastness  of  his  own 
mind,  overflows  upon  his  life  and  her's,  and  con 
sumes  them  from  the  earth.  The  external  action 
of  the  play  is  nothing — the  causes  of  events  are 
none ;  the  whole  interest  of  the  story,  the  whole 
course  of  the  action,  the  causes  of  all  that  happens, 
live  all  in  the  breast  of  Othello.  The  whole  destiny 
of  those  who  are  to  perish  lies  in  his  passion. 
Hence  the  high  tragic  character  of  the  play- 
showing  one  false  illusory  passion  ruling  and  con 
founding  all  life.  All  that  is  below  tragedy  in  the 
passion  of  love  is  taken  away  at  once  by  the  awful 
character  of  Othello,  for  such  he  seems  to  us  to  be 
designed  to  be.  He  appears  never  as  a  lover — but 
at  once  as  a  husband  ;  and  the  relation  of  his  love 
made  dignified,  as  it  is  a  husband's  justification  of 
his  marriage,  is  also  dignified,  as  it  is  a  soldier's 
relation  of  his  stern  and  perilous  life.  It  is  a 
courted,  not  a  wooing,  at  least  unconsciously- 
wooing  love ;  and  though  full  of  tenderness,  yet  is 

G 


98  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

it  but  slightly  expressed,  as  being  solely  the  gentle 
affection  of  a  strong  mind,  and  in  no  wise  a  passion. 
"  And  I  loved  her,  that  she  did  pity  them."  Indeed 
he  is  not  represented  as  a  man  of  passion,  but  of 
stern,  sedate,  immoveable  mood.  "  I  have  seen 
the  cannon,  that,  like  the  devil,  from  his  very  arm 
puffed  his  own  brother" — and  can  he  be  angry  ? 
Montalto  speaks  with  the  same  astonishment,  call 
ing  him  respected  for  wisdom  and  gravity.  There 
fore,  it  is  no  love  story.  His  love  itself,  as  long  as 
it  is  happy,  is  perfectly  calm  and  serene,  the  pro 
tecting  tenderness  of  a  husband.  It  is  not  till  it  is 
disordered  that  it  appears  as  a  passion.  Then  is 
shown  a  power  in  contention  with  itself — a  mighty 
being  struck  with  death,  and  bringing  up  from  all 
the  depths  of  life  convulsions  and  agonies.  It  is  no 
exhibition  of  the  power  of  the  passion  of  love,  but 
of  the  passion  of  life  vitally  wounded,  and  self- 
overmastering.  What  was  his  love?  He  had 
placed  all  his  faith  in  good — all  his  imagination  of 
purity,  all  his  tenderness  of  nature  upon  one  heart ; 
and  at  once  that  heart  seems  to  him  an  ulcer. 
It  is  that  recoiling  agony  that  shakes  his  whole 
body — that  having  confided  with  the  whole  power 
of  his  soul,  he  is  utterly  betrayed — that  having 
departed  from  the  pride  and  might  of  his  life, 
which  he  held  in  his  conquest  and  sovereignty 
over  men,  to  rest  himself  upon  a  new  and  gracious 
affection,  to  build  himself  and  his  life  upon  one 
beloved  heart,— having  found  a  blessed  affection, 
which  he  had  passed  through  life  without  knowing, 


MACBETH,    OTHELLO,    HAMLET,    AND    LEAR.     99 

— and  having  chosen,  in  the  just  and  pure  goodness 
of  his  will,  to  take  that  affection  instead  of  all  other 
hopes,  desires,  and  passions,  to  live  by, — that  at 
once  he  sees  it  sent  out  of  existence,  and  a  damned 
thing  standing  in  its  place.  It  is  then  that  he  feels 
a  forfeiture  of  all  power,  and  a  blasting  of  all  good. 
If  Desdemona  had  been  really  guilty,  the  greatness 
would  have  been  destroyed,  because  his  love  would 
have  been  unworthy — false.  But  she  is  good,  and 
his  love  is  most  perfect,  just,  and  good.  That  a 
man  should  place  his  perfect  love  on  a  wretched 
thing,  is  miserably  debasing,  and  shocking  to 
thought;  but  that,  loving  perfectly  and  well,  he 
should,  by  hellish  human  circumvention,  be 
brought  to  distrust,  and  dread,  and  abjure  his  own 
perfect  love,  is  most  mournful  indeed — it  is  the  in 
firmity  of  our  good  nature,  wrestling  in  vain  with 
the  strong  powers  of  evil.  Moreover,  he  would,  had 
Desdemona  been  false,  have  been  the  mere  victim 
of  fate  ;  whereas,  he  is  now  in  a  manner  his  own 
victim.  His  happy  love  was  heroic  tenderness; 
his  injured  love  is  terrible  passion  ;  and  disordered 
power,  engendered  within  itself  to  its  own  destruc 
tion,  is  the  height  of  all  tragedy.  The  character  of 
Othello  is  perhaps  the  most  greatly  drawn,  the 
most  heroic  of  any  of  Shakspeare's  actors ;  but  it 
is,  perhaps,  that  one  also  of  which  his  reader  last 
acquires  the  intelligence.  The  intellectual  and 
warlike  energy  of  his  mind— his  tenderness  of 
affection — his  loftiness  of  spirit — his  frank,  generous 
magnanimity — impetuosity  like  a  thunderbolt,  and 


100 


MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE 


that  dark  fierce  flood  of  boiling  passion,  polluting 
even  his  imagination— compose  a  character  entirely 
original ;  most  difficult  to  delineate,  but  perfectly 

delineated. 

Hamlet  might  seem  to  be  the  intellectual  off 
spring  of  Shakspeare's  love. m  He  alone,  of  all  his 
offspring,  has  Shakspeare's  own  intellect.  But  he 
has  given  him  a  moral  nature  that  makes  his  cha 
racter  individual.  Princely,  gentle,  and  loving ; 
full  of  natural  gladness,  but  having  a  depth  of  sen 
sibility  which  is  no  sooner  touched  by  the  harsh 
events  of  life  than  it  is  jarred,  and  the  mind  for 
ever  overcome  with  melancholy.  For  intellect  and 
sensibility  blended  throughout,  and  commensurate, 
and  both  ideally  exalted  and  pure,  are  not  able  to 
pass  through  the  calamity  and  trial  of  life  :  unless 
they  are  guarded  by  some  angel  from  its  shock, 
they  perish  in  it,  or  undergo  a  worse  change. 
The  play  is  a  singular  example  of  a  piece  of  great 
length,  resting  its  interest  upon  the  delineation  of 
one  character;  for  Hamlet,  his  discourses,  and 
the  changes  of  his  mind,  are  all  the  play.  The 
other  persons,  even  his  father's  ghost,  are  im 
portant  through  him ;  and  in  himself,  it  is  the 

m  There  is  great  truth  and  no  little  acumen  in  this  remark ; 
for  it  may,  without  fear  of  contradiction,  be  asserted  that  the 
character  of  Hamlet  is  that  of  a  man  of  very  extraordinary  and 
exalted  genius,  and  the  only  instance,  perhaps,  on  the  stage  of 
such  a  delineation,  and  of  the  whole  interest  of  a  play  turning 
on  the  construction  and  aberrations  of  the  mind  of  one  indivi 
dual. 


MACBETH,   OTHELLO,   HAMLET,    AND    LEAR.   101 

variation  of  his  mind,  and  not  the  varying  events 
of  his  life,  that  affords  the  interest.  In  the  repre 
sentation,  his  celebrated  soliloquy  is  perhaps  the 
part  of  the  play  that  is  most  expected,  even  by 
the  common  audience.  His  interview  with  his 
mother,  of  which  the  interest  is  produced  entirely 
from  his  mind — for  about  her  we  care  nothing — is 
in  like  manner  remarkable  by  the  sympathy  it 
excites  in  those,  for  whom  the  most  intellectual  of 
Shakspeare's  works  would  scarcely  seem  to  have 
been  written.  This  play  is  perhaps  superior  to 
any  other  in  existence  for  unity  in  the  delineation 
of  character. 

We  have  yet  to  speak  of  the  most  pathetic  of  the 
plays  of  Shakspeare — Lear.  A  story  unnatural 
and  irrational  in  its  foundation,  but  at  the  same 
time  a  natural  favourite  of  tradition,  has  become, 
in  the  hands  of  Shakspeare,  a  tragedy  of  surpassing 
grandeur  and  interest.  He  has  seized  upon  that 
germ  of  interest  which  had  already  made  the  story 
a  favourite  of  popular  tradition,  and  unfolded  it 
into  a  work  for  the  passionate  sympathy  of  all — 
young,  old,  rich  and  poor,  learned  and  illiterate, 
virtuous  and  depraved.  The  majestic  form  of  the 
kingly-hearted  old  man — the  reverend  head  of  the 
broken-hearted  father — "  a  head  so  old  and  white 
as  this" — the  royalty  from  which  he  is  deposed, 
but  of  which  he  can  never  be  divested — the  father's 
heart,  which,  rejected  and  trampled  on  by  two 
children,  and  trampling  on  its  one  most  young  and 
duteous  child,  is,  in  the  utmost  decree,  a  father's 


102  MEMORIALS     OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

still— the  two  characters,  father  and  king,  so  high  to 
our  imagination  and  love,  blended  in  the  reverend 
image  of  Lear— W  in  their  destitution,  yet  both 
in  their  height  of  greatness— the  spirit  blighted 
and  yet  undepressed— the  wits  gone,  and  yet  the 
moral  wisdom  of  a  good  heart  left  unstained,  al 
most  unobscured— the  wild  raging  of  the  elements, 
joined  with  human  outrage  and  violence  to  per 
secute  the  helpless,  unresisting,  almost  unoffend 
ing  suiferer — and  he  himself  in  the  midst  of  all 
imaginable  misery  and  desolation,  descanting  upon 
himself,  on  the  whirlwinds  that  drive  around  him, 
and  then  turning  in  -tenderness  to  some  of  the  wild 
motley  association  of  sufferers  among  whom  he 
stands — all  this  is  not  like  what  has  been  seen  on 
any  stage,  perhaps  in  any  reality ;  but  it  has  made 
a  world  to  our  imagination  about  one  single  ima 
ginary  individual,  such  as  draws  the  reverence  and 
sympathy  which  should  seem  to  belong  properly 
only  to  living  men.     It  is  like  the  remembrance  of 
some  wild  perturbed  scene  of  real  life.     Every 
thing  is  perfectly  woful  in  this  world  of  wo.     The 
very  assumed  madness   of  Edgar,  which,  if  the 
story  of  Edgar  stood  alone,  would  be  insufferable, 
and  would  utterly  degrade  him  to  us,  seems,  asso 
ciated  as  he  is  with  Lear,  to  come  within  the  con 
secration  of  Lear's  madness.     It  agrees  with  all 
that  is  brought  together  ;-— the  night— the  storms— 
the  houselessness-— Gloster  with  his  eyes  put  out— 
the  fool — the  semblance  of  a  madman,  and  Lear 
in  his  madness, — are  all  bound  together  by  a  strange 


MACBETH,    OTHELLO,    HAMLET,   AND    LEAR.    103 

kind  of  sympathy,  confusion  in  the  elements  of 
nature,  of  human  society  and  the  human  soul. 
Throughout  all  the  play,  is  there  not  sublimity  felt 
amidst  the  continual  presence  of  all  kinds  of  dis 
order  and  confusion  in  the  natural  and  moral 
world ; — a  continual  consciousness  of  eternal  order, 
law,  and  good  ?  This  it  is  that  so  exalts  it  in  our 
eyes.  There  is  more  justness  of  intellect  in  Lear's 
madness  than  in  his  right  senses — as  if  the  inde 
structible  divinity  of  the  spirit  gleamed  at  times 
more  brightly  through  the  ruins  of  its  earthly  ta 
bernacle.  The  death  of  Cordelia  and  the  death  of 
Lear  leave  on  our  minds,  at  least,  neither  pain  nor 
disappointment,  like  a  common  play  ending  ill  ; 
but,  like  all  the  rest,  they  show  us  human  life  in 
volved  in  darkness,  and  conflicting  with  wild  powers 
let  loose  to  rage  in  the  world ; — a  life  which  con 
tinually  seeks  peace,  and  which  can  only  find  its 
good  in  peace — tending  ever  to  the  depth  of  peace, 
but  of  which  the  peace  is  not  here.  The  feeling  of 
the  play,  to  those  who  rightly  consider  it,  is  high 
and  calm,  because  we  are  made  to  know,  from 
and  through  those  very  passions  which  seem  there 
convulsed,  and  that  very  structure  of  life  and  hap 
piness  that  seems  there  crushed, — even  in  the  law 
of  those  passions  and  that  life,  this  eternal  truth, 
that  evil  must  not  be,  and  that  good  must  be.  The 
only  thing  intolerable  was,  that  Lear  should,  by 
the  very  truth  of  his  daughter's  love,  be  separated 
from  her  love ;  and  his  restoration  to  her  love,  and 
therewith  to  his  own  perfect  mind,  consummates  all 


104  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

that  was  essentially  to  be  desired — a  consum 
mation,  after  which  the  rage  and  horror  of  mere 
matter-disturbing  death  seems  vain  and  idle.  In 
fact,  Lear's  killing  the  slave  who  was  hanging  Cor 
delia — bearing  her  dead  in  his  arms — and  his 
heart  bursting  over  her — are  no  more  than  the  full 
consummation  of  their  re-united  love ;  and  there 
father  and  daughter  lie  in  final  and  imperturbable 
peace.  Cordelia,  whom  we  at  last  see  lying  dead 
before  us,  and  over  whom  we  shed  such  floods  of 
loving  and  approving  tears,  scarcely  speaks  or  acts 
in  the  play  at  all :  she  appears  but  at  the  begin 
ning  and  the  end,  is  absent  from  all  the  impres 
sive  and  memorable  scenes ;  and  to  what  she  does 
say,  there  is  not  much  effect  given  ; — yet,  by  some 
divine  power  of  conception  in  Shakspeare's  soul, 
she  always  seems  to  our  memory  one  of  the  prin 
cipal  characters  ;  and  while  we  read  the  play,  she 
is  continually  present  to  our  imagination.  In  her 
sister's  ingratitude,  her  filial  love  is  felt ;  in  the 
hopelessness  of  the  broken-hearted  king,  we  are 
turned  to  that  perfect  hope  that  is  reserved  for  him 
in  her  loving  bosom;  in  the  midst  of  darkness, 
confusion,  and  misery,  her  form  is  like  a  hovering 
angel,  seen  casting  its  radiance  on  the  storm. 

BLACKWOOD'S  EDINBURGH  MAGAZINE." 

n  Vol.5,  pp.  217,226,  7,8,  9. 


HIS    CHARACTER    AND     FEELINGS.  105 


No.  IV. 

ON  THE    CHARACTER    AND    FEELINGS  OF 
SHAKSPEARE. 

IT  is  in  the  minor  pieces  of  Shakspeare  that  we 
are  first  introduced  to  a  personal  knowledge  of 
the  great  poet  and  his  feelings.  When  he  wrote 
sonnets,  it  seems  as  if  he  had  considered  himself  as 
more  a  poet  than  when  he  wrote  plays ;  he  was 
the  manager  of  a  theatre,  and  he  viewed  the  drama 
as  his  business,  on  it  he  exerted  all  his  intellect 
and  power ;  but  when  he  had  feelings  intense  and 
secret  to  express,  he  had  recourse  to  a  form  of 
writing  with  which  his  habits  had  rendered  him 
less  familiar.  It  is  strange  but  delightful  to  scru 
tinize,  in  his  short  effusions,  the  character  of  Shak 
speare.0  In  them  we  see  that  he  who  stood  like  a 
magician  above  the  world,  penetrating  with  one 
glance  into  all  the  depths,  and  mysteries,  and  per 
plexities  of  human  character,  and  having  power  to 
call  up  into  open  day  the  darkest  workings  of  the 

o  I  am  convinced,  indeed,  that  if,  in  the  present  day,  any 
fresh  light  is  to  be  thrown  on  the  character,  and  even  on  the 
circumstances  of  the  life  of  Shakspeare,  it  must  be  from  a  very 
close  and  profound  study  of  his  Sonnets.  A  few  years  ago  a 
work  was  advertised  under  the  title  of  "  Shakspeare  his  own 
Biographer,"  avowedly  built  on  these  materials;  but,  from 
some  cause  or  other,  it  has  not  hitherto  made  its  appearance. 


106  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

human  passions — that  this  great  being  was  not  de 
prived  of  any  portion  of  his  human  sympathies  by 
the  elevation  to  which  he  was  raised,  but  preserved, 
amidst  all  his  stern  functions,  a  heart  overflowing 
""  with  tenderness,  purity,  and  love.  His  feelings  are 
intense,  profound,  acute  almost  to  selfishness  ;  but 
he  expresses  them  so  briefly  and  modestly,  as  to 
form  a  strange  contrast  with  most  of  those  poets 
who  write  concerning  themselves.  For  the  right 
understanding  of  his  dramatic  works,  these  lyrics 
are  of  the  greatest  importance.  They  show  us 
that  in  his  dramas  he  very  seldom  speaks  accor 
ding  to  his  own  feelings  or  his  own  thoughts,  but 
according  to  his  knowledge.  The  world  lay  clear 
and  distinct  before  his  eyes,  but  between  him  and 
it  there  was  a  deep  gulf  fixed.  He  gives  us  a 
portrait  of  what  he  saw,  without  flattery  or  orna 
ment,  having  the  charm  of  unrivalled  accuracy  and 
truth.  Were  understanding,  acuteness,  and  pro 
foundness  of  thought,  (in  so  far  as  these  are  neces 
sary  for  the  characterizing  of  human  life,)  to  be  con 
sidered  as  the  first  qualities  of  a  poet,  there  is  none 
worthy  to  be  compared  with  Shakspeare.  Other 
poets  have  endeavoured  to  transport  us,  at  least 
for  a  few  moments,  into  another  and  an  ideal  con 
dition  of  mankind  ;  but  Shakspeare  is  the  master 
of  reality.  He  sets  before  us,  with  a  truth  that  is 
often  painful,  man  in  his  degraded  state,  in  this 
corruption  which  penetrates  and  contaminates  all 
his  being,  all  that  he  does  and  suffers,  all  the 
thoughts  and  aspirations  of  his  fallen  spirit.  In 


HIS    CHARACTER    AND    FEELINGS.  107 

this  respect  he  may  not  unfrequejitly  be  said  to  be 
a  satirical  poet,  and  well  indeed  may  the  picture 
which  he  presents  of  human  debasement,  and  the 
enigma  of  our  being,  be  calculated  to  produce  an  ef 
fect  far  more  deep  and  abiding  than  the  whole  body 
of  splenetic  and  passionate  revilers,  whom  we  com 
monly  call  by  the  name  of  satiric  poets.  In  the 
midst  of  all  the  bitterness  of  Shakspeare,  we  per 
ceive  continually  glimpses  of  thoughts  and  recol 
lections  more  pure  than  satirists  partake  in ;  medi 
tation  on  the  original  height  and  elevation  of  man ; 
the  peculiar  tenderness  and  noble-minded  senti 
ment  of  a  poet :  the  dark  world  of  his  representation 
is  illuminated  with  the  most  beautiful  rays  of  pa 
triotic  inspiration,  serene  philanthropy,  and  glow 
ing  love. 

But  even  the  youthful  glow  of  love  appears  in 
his  Romeo  as  the  mere  inspiration  of  death,  and  is 
mingled  with  the  same  sceptical  and  melancholy 
views  of  life  which,  in  Hamlet,  give  to  all  our 
being  an  appearance  of  more  than  natural  discord 
and  perplexity,  and  which,  in  Lear,  carry  sorrow 
and  passion  into  the  utmost  misery  of  madness. 
This  poet,  who  externally  seems  to  be  most  calm 
and  temperate,  clear  and  lively  ;  with  whom  in 
tellect  seems  everywhere  to  predominate  ;  who,  as 
we  at  first  imagine,  regards  and  represents  every 
thing  almost  with  coldness, — is  found,  if  we  exa 
mine  into  the  internal  feelings  of  his  spirit,  to 
be  of  all  others  the  most  deeply  sorrowful  and 
tragic. 


108  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Shakspeare  regarded  the  drama  as  entirely  a 
thing    for    the   people,    and    at    first   treated   it 
throughout  as  such.     He  took  the  popular  comedy 
as  he  found  it,  and  whatever  enlargements  and 
improvements  he  introduced  into  the  stage,  were 
all   calculated  and   conceived,    according  to   the 
peculiar  spirit  of   his   predecessors    and   of  the 
audience  in  London.     Even  in  the  earliest  of  his 
tragic  attempts,  he  takes  possession  of  the  whole 
superstitions  of  the  vulgar,  and   mingles   in   his 
poetry  not  only   the  gigantic  greatness   of  their 
rude  traditions,  but  also  the  fearful,   the  horrible, 
and  the  revolting.     All  these,  again,  are  blended 
with  such  representations   and  views   of  human 
debasement  as  passed,  or  still  pass,  with  common 
spectators  for  wit,   but   were   connected   in   the 
depths  of  his   reflective   and   penetrating   spirit, 
with  the  very  different  feelings  of  bitter  contempt 
or  sorrowful  sympathy.     He  was  not,  in  know 
ledge,  far  less  in  art,  such  as  since  the  time  of 
Milton  it  has  been  usual  to  represent  him.     But 
I  believe  that  the  inmost  feelings  of  his  heart,  the 
depths  of  his  peculiar,  concentrated,  and  solitary 
spirit,  could  be   agitated  only   by   the   mournful 
voice  of  nature.     The  feeling  by  which  he  seems 
to  have  been  most  connected  with  ordinary  men 
is  that  of  nationality.     He  has  represented   the 
heroic   and   glorious  period  of  English    history, 
during  the  conquests  in  France,    in   a  series  of 
dramatic  pieces,  which  possess  all  the  simplicity 
and  liveliness  of  the  ancient  chronicles,  but  ap- 


HIS    CHARACTER    AND    FEELINGS.  109 

proach,  in  their  ruling  spirit  of  patriotism  and 
glory,  to  the  most  dignified  and  effectual  produc 
tions  of  the  epic  muse.p 

In  the  works  of  Shakspeare,  a  whole  world  is 
unfolded.  He  who  has  once  comprehended  this, 
and  been  penetrated  with  its  spirit,  will  not  easily 
allow  the  effect  to  be  diminished  by  the  form,  or 
listen  to  the  cavils  of  those  who  are  incapable  of 
understanding  the  import  of  what  they  would 
criticise.  The  form  of  Shakspeare's  writings  will 
rather  appear  to  him  good  and  excellent,  because 
in  it  his  spirit  is  expressed  and  clothed,  as  it  were, 
in  a  convenient  garment. 

FREDERICK  ScHLEGEL.q 

p  No  writer,  I  believe,  has  contributed  so  largely  and  effec 
tively  to  the  maintenance  of  national  enthusiasm,  and  its  almost 
necessary  result,  undaunted  confidence  and  surpassing  heroism, 
as  Shakspeare. 

q  Lectures  on  the  History  of  Literature,  Ancient  and  Modern. 
Translated  from  the  German.  In  two  Volumes,  Edinburgh, 
1815.  Vol.  2.  p.  144.  et  seq. 


HO  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE, 


No.  V. 

ON  THE  INFLUENCE   OF   SHAKSPEARE    OVER  THE 
HUMAN  MIND. 

SHAKSPEARE  was  the  profoundest  thinker,  the 
wittiest,  the  airiest,  the  most  fantastic  spirit,  (recon 
ciling  the  extremes  of  ordinary  natures,)  that  ever 
condescended  to  teach  and  amuse  mankind.  He 
plunged  into  the  depths  of  speculation ;  he  pene 
trated  to  the  inner  places  of  knowledge,  plucking 
out  the  heart  of  the  mystery ;  he  soared  to  the 
stars;  he  trod  the  earth,  the  air,  the  waters. 
Every  element  yielded  him  rich  tribute.  He  sur 
veyed  the  substances  and  the  spirits  of  each  ;  he 
saw  their  stature,  their  power,  their  quality,  and 
reduced  them  without  an  effort  to  his  own  divine 
command. 

It  is  impossible  to  forget  all  that  he  has  done  for 
us,  or  the  world  that  he  has  laid  open.  He  was 
the  true  magician,  before  whom  the  astrologers  and 
Hermetic  sages  were  nothing,  and  the  Arabian 
wizards  grew  pale.  He  did  not,  indeed,  trace  the 
Sybil's  book,  nor  the  Runic  rhyme ;  nor  did  he 
drive  back  the  raging  waters  or  the  howling  winds ; 
but  his  power  stretched  all  over  the  human  mind, 
from  wisdom  to  fatuity,  from  joy  to  despair,  and 
embraced  all  the  varieties  of  our  uncertain  nature. 
He  it  was,  at  whose  touch  the  cave  of  Prosper 


HIS  INFLUENCE  OVER  THE  HUMAN  MIND.     Ill 

opened  and  gave  out  its  secrets.  To  his  bidding, 
Ariel  appeared.  At  his  call,  arose  the  witches  and 
the  earthy  Caliban,  the  ghost  who  made  "  night 
hideous,"  the  moonlight  Fays,  Titania,  and  Oberon, 
and  the  rest.  He  was  the  "  so  potent "  master 
before  whom  bowed  kings  and  heroes,  and  jewel 
led  queens,  men  wise  as  the  stars,  and  women 
fairer  than  the  morning.  All  the  vices  of  life  were 
explained  by  him,  and  all  the  virtues ;  and  the 
passions  stood  plain  before  him.  From  the  cradle 
to  the  coffin  he  drew  them  all.  He  created,  for 
the  benefit  of  wide  posterity,  and  for  the  aggran 
dizement  of  human  nature  ;  lifting  earth  to  heaven, 
and  revealing  the  marvels  of  this  lower  world,  and 
piercing  even  the  shadowy  secrets  of  the  grave. 

There  is,  perhaps,  no  one  person  of  any  consi 
derable  rate  of  mind  who  does  not  owe  something 
to  this  matchless  poet.  He  is  the  teacher  of  all 
good — pity,  generosity,  true  courage,  love.  His 
works  alone  (leaving  mere  science  out  of  the  ques 
tion)  contain,  probably,  more  actual  wisdom  than 
the  whole  body  of  English  learning.  He  is  the 
text  for  the  moralist  and  the  philosopher.  His 
bright  wit  is  cut  out  "  into  little  stars ;"  his  solid 
masses  of  knowledge  are  meted  out  in  morsels  and 
proverbs ;  and,  thus  distributed,  there  is  scarcely 
a  corner  which  he  does  not  illuminate,  or  a  cottage 
which  he  does  not  enrich.  His  bounty  is  like  the 
sea,  which,  though  often  unacknowledged,  is  every 
where  felt ;  on  mountains  and  plains  and  distant 
places,  carrying  its  cloudy  freshness  through  the 


112  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

air,  making  glorious  the   heavens,  and  spreading 
verdure  on  the  earth  beneath. 

It  is  because  he  has  thus  outshone  all  writers  of 
all  nations  in  dramatic  skill,  in  fine  knowledge  of 
humanity,  in  sweetness,  in  pathos,  in  humour,  in 
wit,  and  in  poetry ; — it  is  because  he  has  subdued 
every  passion  to  his  use,  and  explored  and  made 
visible  the  inequalities  and  uttermost  bounds  of 
the  human  mind, — because  he  has  embodied  the 
mere  nothings  of  the  air,  and  made  personal  and 
probable  the  wildest  anomalies  of  superstition, — 
because  he  has  tried  every  thing,  and  failed  in  no 
thing, — that  we  bow  down  in  silent  admiration 
before  him,  and  give  ourselves  up  to  a  completer 
homage  than  we  would  descend  to  pay  to  any 
other  created  man. 

RETROSPECTIVE  REVIEW,  Vol.  7th,  pp.  380,  381. 


CHARACTER    OF    HIS    TRAGEDIES.  113 


No.  VI. 

ON  SHAKSPEARE,  AND  ON  THE  CHARACTER  OF 
HIS  TRAGEDIES. 

THERE  are  beauties  of  the  first  order  to  be  found 
in  Shakspeare,  relating  to  every  country  and  every 
period  of  time.  His  faults  are  those  which  be 
longed  to  the  times  in  which  he  lived;  and  the 
singularities  then  so  prevalent  among  the  English, 
are  still  represented  with  the  greatest  success  upon 
their  theatres. 

Shakspeare  did  not  imitate  the  ancients ;  nor, 
like  Racine,  did  he  feed  his  genius  upon  the  Gre 
cian  tragedies.  He  composed  one  piece  upon  a 
Greek  subject,  Troilus  and  Cressida ;  in  which  the 
manners  in  the  time  of  Homer  are  not  at  all  ob 
served.  He  excelled  infinitely  more  in  those  tra 
gedies  which  were  taken  from  Roman  subjects. 
But  history,  and  the  Lives  of  Plutarch,  which 
Shakspeare  appears  to  have  read  with  the  utmost 
attention,  are  not  purely  a  literary  study ;  we  may 
therein  trace  the  man  almost  to  a  state  of  exist 
ence.  When  an  author  is  solely  penetrated  with 
the  models  of  the  dramatic  art  of  antiquity,  and 
when  he  imitates  imitations,  he  must  of  course 
have  less  originality  :  he  cannot  have  that  genius 
which  draws  from  Nature  ;  that  immediate  genius, 
if  I  may  so  express  myself,  which  so  particularly 


114  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

characterizes  Shakspeare.  From  the  times  of  the 
Greeks  down  to  this  time,  we  see  every  species  of 
literature  derived  one  from  another,  and  all  arising 
from  the  same  source.  Shakspeare  opened  a  new 
field  of  literature  :  it  was  borrowed,  without  doubt, 
from  the  general  spirit  and  colour  of  the  North ; 
but  it  was  Shakspeare  who  gave  to  the  English 
literature  its  impulse,  and  to  their  dramatic  art  its 
character. 

A  nation  which  has  carved  out  its  liberty  through 
the  horrors  of  civil  war,  and  whose  passions  have 
been  strongly  agitated,  is  much  more  susceptible 
of  the  emotion  excited  by  Shakspeare,  than  that 
which  is  caused  by  Racine.  When  misfortune 
lies  heavy  and  for  a  long  time  upon  a  nation,  it 
creates  a  character,  which  even  succeeding  pros 
perity  can  never  entirely  efface.  Shakspeare  was 
the  first  who  painted  moral  affliction  in  the  highest 
degree  :  the  bitterness  of  those  sufferings  of  which 
he  gives  us  the  idea,  might  pass  for  the  phantoms 
of  imagination,  if  Nature  did  not  recognise  her  own 
picture  in  them. 

The  ancients  believed  in  a  fatality,  which  came 
upon  them  with  the  rapidity  of  lightning,  and  de 
stroyed  them  like  a  thunderbolt.  The  moderns, 
and  more  especially  Shakspeare,  found  a  much 
deeper  source  of  emotion  in  a  philosophical  distress, 
which  was  often  composed  of  irreparable  misfor 
tunes,  of  ineffectual  exertions,  and  blighted  hopes. 
But  the  ancients  inhabited  a  world  yet  in  its  in 
fancy,  were  in  possession  of  but  very  few  histo- 


CHARACTER    OF    HIS    TRAGEDIES.  115 

ries,  and  withal  were  so  sanguine  in  respect  to  the 
future,  that  the  scenes  of  distress  painted  by  them 
could  never  be  so  heart-rending  as  those  in  the 
English  tragedies. 

The  terror  of  death  was  a  sentiment,  the  effects 
of  which,  whether  from  religion  or  from  stoicism, 
was  seldom  displayed  by  the  ancients.    Shakspeare 
has  represented  it  in  every  point  of  view  :  he  makes 
us  feel  that  dreadful  emotion  which  chills  the  blood 
of  him,  who,  in   the  full  enjoyment   of  life   and 
health,  learns  that  death  awaits  him.     In  the  tra 
gedies  of  Shakspeare,  the  criminal  and  the  virtuous, 
infancy  and  old  age,  are  alike  condemned  to  die, 
and  express  every  emotion  natural  to  such  a  situ 
ation.     What  tenderness  do  we  feel,  when  we  hear 
the  complaints  of  Arthur,  a  child  condemned  to 
death  by  the  order  of  King  John ;    or  when  the 
assassin  Tyrrel  comes  to  relate  to   Richard  the 
Third   the   peaceful  slumber  of  the   children  of 
Edward  ?     When  a  hero  is  painted  just  going  to  be 
deprived  of  his  existence,  the  grandeur  of  his  cha 
racter,  and  the  recollection  of  his  achievements, 
excite   the   greatest  interest ;    but  when  men  of 
weak  minds,  and  doomed  to  an  inglorious  destiny, 
are  represented  as  condemned  to  perish, — such  as 
Henry  VI.,  Richard  II.,  and  King  Lear, — the  great 
debates  of  Nature  between  existence  and  non- 
existence  absorb  the  whole  attention  of  the  spec 
tators.      Shakspeare    knew    how  to   paint  with 
genius    that   mixture   of  physical   emotions   and 
moral  reflections  which  are  inspired  by  the  ap- 


]16  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

proach  of  death,  when  no  intoxicating  passion 
deprives  man  of  his  intellectual  faculties. 

Another  sentiment  which  Shakspeare  alone 
knew  how  to  render  theatrical,  was  pity  unmixed 
with  admiration  for  those  who  suffer ;  pity  for  an 
insignificant  being,  and  sometimes  for  a  contemp 
tible  one.  There  must  be  an  infinity  of  talent  to 
be  able  to  convey  this  sentiment  from  real  life  to 
the  stage,  and  to  preserve  it  in  all  its  force ;  but 
when  once  it  is  accomplished,  the  effect  which  it 
produces  is  more  nearly  allied  to  reality  than  any 
other.  It  is  for  the  man  alone  that  we  are  inter 
ested,  and  not  by  sentiments  which  are  often  but 
a  theatrical  romance :  it  is  by  a  sentiment  so  nearly 
approaching  the  impressions  of  life,  that  the  illusion 
is  still  the  greater. 

Even  when  Shakspeare  represents  personages 
whose  career  has  been  illustrious,  he  draws  the 
interest  of  the  spectators  towards  them  by  senti 
ments  purely  natural.  The  circumstances  are 
grand,  but  the  men  differ  less  from  other  men  than 
those  in  the  French  tragedies/  Shakspeare  makes 
you  penetrate  entirely  into  the  glory  which  he 
paints :  in  listening  to  him,  you  pass  through  all 

r  It  is  this  fidelity  to  nature,  independent  of  all  extrinsic  cir 
cumstances,  which  has  given  to  Shakspeare  such  a  decided 
superiority  over  all  other  dramatic  writers.  Whatever  may  be 
the  artificialities  which  surround  his  characters,  we  distinctly 
see,  through  the  veil,  the  human  heart.  I  would  particularly 
point  to  the  Dramatis  Persona,  of  Troilus  and  Cressida  as  a 
striking  proof,  among  many  others,  of  this  excellency. 


CHARACTER    OF    HIS    TRAGEDIES.  117 

the  different  shades  and  gradations  which  lead  to 
heroism ;  and  you  arrive  at  the  height  without 
perceiving  any  thing  unnatural. 

The  national  pride  of  the  English,  that  senti 
ment  displayed  in  their  jealous  love  of  liberty, 
disposed  them  much  less  to  enthusiasm  for  their 
chiefs  than  that  spirit  of  chivalry  which  existed  in 
the  French  monarchy.  In  England,  they  wish  to 
recompense  the  services  of  a  good  citizen ;  but  they 
have  no  turn  for  that  unbounded  ardour  which  ex 
isted  in  the  habits,  the  institutions,  and  the  charac 
ter  of  the  French.  That  haughty  repugnance  to 
unlimited  obedience,  which  at  all  times  charac 
terised  the  English  nation,  was  probably  what 
inspired  their  national  poet  with  the  idea  of 
assailing  the  passions  of  his  audience  by  pity  rather 
than  by  admiration.  The  tears  which  were  given 
by  the  French  to  the  sublime  characters  of  their 
tragedies,  the  English  author  drew  forth  for  private 
sufferings  ;  for  those  who  were  forsaken ;  and  for 
such  a  long  list  of  the  unfortunate,  that  we  cannot 
entirely  sympathize  with  Shakspeare's  sufferers 
without  acquiring  also  some  of  the  bitter  expe 
rience  of  real  life. 

But  if  he  excelled  in  exciting  pity,  what  energy 
appeared  in  his  terror !  It  was  from  the  crime  itself 
that  he  drew  dismay  and  fear.  It  may  be  said  of 
crimes  painted  by  Shakspeare,  as  the  Bible  says 
of  Death,  that  he  is  the  KING  OF  TERRORS.  How 
skilfully  combined  are  the  remorse  and  the  super- 


118  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

stition    which    increases    with   that  remorse,   in 
Macbeth. 

Witchcraft  is  in  itself  much  more  terrible  in  its 
theatrical  effect  than  the  most  absurd  dogmas  of 
religion.  That  which  is  unknown,  or  created  by 
supernatural  intelligence,  awakens  fear  and  terror 
to  the  highest  degree.  In  every  religious  system, 
terror  is  carried  only  to  a  certain  length,  and  is 
always  at  least  founded  upon  some  motive.  But 
the  chaos  of  magic  bewilders  the  mind.  Shak- 
speare,  in  "  Macbeth,"  admits  of  fatality,  which 
was  necessary  in  order  to  procure  a  pardon  for  the 
criminal ;  but  he  does  not,  on  account  of  this  fata 
lity,  dispense  with  the  philosophical  gradations  of  the 
sentiments  of  the  mind.  This  piece  would  be  still 
more  admirable  if  its  grand  effects  were  produced 
without  the  aid  of  the  marvellous,  although  this 
marvellous  consists,  as  one  may  say,  only  of  phan 
toms  of  the  imagination,  which  are  made  to  appear 
before  the  eyes  of  the  spectators.  They  are  not 
mythological  personages  bringing  their  fictitious 
laws  or  their  uninteresting  nature  amongst  the  in 
terests  of  men :  they  are  the  marvellous  effects  of 
dreams,  when  the  passions  are  strongly  agitated. 
There  is  always  something  philosophical  in  the 
supernatural  employed  by  Shakspeare.5  When  the 

•  Without  this  intermixture,  which  is  necessary  to  give  a 
metaphysical  possibility  to  the  interference,  the  supernatural 
would  degenerate  into  the  puerile.  The  thrilling  terror,  which 
Shakspeare  beyond  all  others  knows  how  to  communicate, 


CHARACTER    OF    HIS    TRAGEDIES,  119 

witches  announce  to  Macbeth  that  he  is  to  wear 
the  crown,  and  when  they  return  to  repeat  their 
prediction  at  the  very  moment  when  he  is  he 
sitating  to  follow  the  bloody  counsel  of  his  wife, 
who  cannot  see  that  it  is  the  interior  struggle  of 
ambition  and  virtue  which  the  author  meant  to  re 
present  under  those  hideous  forms  ? 

But  he  had  not  recourse  to  these  means  in 
"  Richard  III.,"  and  yet  he  has  painted  him  more 
criminal  still  than  Macbeth  ;  but  his  intention  was 
to  pourtray  a  character  without  any  of  those  invo 
luntary  emotions,  without  struggles,  without  re 
morse;  cruel  and  ferocious  as  the  savage  beasts 
which  range  the  forests,  and  not  as  a  man  who, 
though  at  present  guilty,  had  once  been  virtuous. 
The  deep  recesses  of  crimes  were  opened  to  the 
eyes  of  Shakspeare,  and  he  descended  into  the 
gloomy  abyss  to  observe  their  torments. 

In  England,  the  troubles  and  civil  commotions 
which  preceded  their  liberty,  and  which  were 
always  occasioned  by  their  spirit  of  independence, 
gave  rise  much  oftener  than  in  France  to  great 
crimes  and  great  virtues.  There  are  in  the  English 
history  many  more  tragical  situations  than  in  that 
of  the  French  ;  *  and  nothing  opposes  their  exer 
cising  their  talents  upon  national  subjects. 

Almost  all  the  literature  of  Europe  began  with 

depends,  in  a  great  measure,  upon  this  skilful  blending  of  the 
philosophical  with  the  superhuman. 

1  This  can  scarcely  be  said  when  we  recollect  the  horrors  of 
the  late  Revolution. 


120  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

affectation.  The  revival  of  letters  having  com 
menced  in  Italy,  the  countries  where  they  were 
afterwards  introduced  naturally  imitated  the  Ita 
lian  style.  The  people  of  the  North  were  much 
sooner  enfranchized  than  the  French  in  this  studied 
mode  of  writing  ;  the  traces  of  which  may  be  per 
ceived  in  some  of  the  ancient  English  poets,  as 
Waller,  Cowley,  and  others.  Civil  wars  and  a 
spirit  of  philosophy  have  corrected  this  false  taste; 
for  misfortune,  the  impressions  of  which  contain 
but  too  much  variety,  excludes  all  sentiments  of 
affectation,  and  reason  banishes  all  expressions 
that  are  deficient  in  justness. 

Nevertheless,  we  find  in  Shakspeare  a  few  of 
those  studied  turns  connected  even  with  the  most 
energetic  pictures  of  the  passions.  There  are 
some  imitations  of  the  faults  of  Italian  literature  in 
"  Romeo  and  Juliet ;"  but  how  nobly  the  English 
poet  rises  from  this  miserable  style! — -how  well 
does  he  know  how  to  describe  love,  even  in  the 
true  spirit  of  the  North  ! 

In  "  Othello,"  love  assumes  a  very  different  cha 
racter  from  that  which  it  bears  in  "  Romeo  and 
Juliet."  But  how  grand,  how  energetic  it  ap 
pears  !  how  beautifully  Shakspeare  has  represented 
what  forms  the  tie  of  the  different  sexes,  courage 
and  weakness !  When  Othello  protests  before  the 
senate  of  Venice  that  the  only  art  which  he  had 
employed  to  win  the  affection  of  Desdemona  were 
the  perils  to  which  he  had  been  exposed,*  how 
What  charming  verses  are  those  which  terminate  the  jus- 


CHARACTER    OF    HIS    TRAGEDIES.  121 

every  word  he  utters  is  felt  by  the  female  sex ; 
their  hearts  acknowledge  it  all  to  be  true.  They 
know  that  it  is  not  flattery  in  which  consists  the 
powerful  art  of  men  to  make  themselves  beloved, 
but  the  kind  protection  which  they  may  afford  the 
timid  object  of  their  choice  :  the  glory  which  they 
may  reflect  upon  their  feeble  life,  is  their  most 
irresistible  charm. 

The  manners  and  customs  of  the  English  rela 
ting  to  the  existence  of  women,  were  not  yet  set 
tled  in  the  time  of  Shakspeare  ;  political  troubles 
had  been  a  great  hindrance  to  social  habits.  The 
rank  which  women  held  in  tragedy  was  then 
absolutely  at  the  will  of  the  author;  therefore 
Shakspeare,  in  speaking  of  them,  sometimes  uses 
the  most  noble  language  that  can  be  inspired  by 
love,  and  at  other  times  the  lowest  taste  that  was 
popular.  This  genius,  given  by  passion,  was  in 
spired  by  it,  as  the  priests  were  by  their  gods : 
they  gave  out  oracles  when  they  were  agitated, 
but  were  no  more  than  men  when  calm. 

Those  pieces  taken  from  the  English  history, 
such  as  the  two  upon  Henry  IV.,  that  upon  Henry 
V.,  and  the  three  upon  Henry  VI.,  have  an  unli- 

tification  of  Othello,  and  which  La  Harpe  has  so  ably  translated 
into  truth ! 

She  lov'd  me  for  the  dangers  I  had  pass'd ; 
And  I  lov'd  her,  that  she  did  pity  them. 

SHAKSPEARE. 
EUe  aima  raes  malheurs,  et  j'airaai  sa  pitie. 

LA  HARPE. 


122  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

mited  success  in  England ;  nevertheless,  I  believe 
them  to  be  much  inferior  in  general  to  his  trage 
dies  of  invention,  "King  Lear,"  "Macbeth," 
"  Hamlet,"  "  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  &c.  The  irre 
gularities  of  time  and  place  are  much  more  remark 
able.  In  short,  Shakspeare  gives  up  to  the  popu 
lar  taste  in  these  more  than  in  any  other  of  his 
works.  The  discovery  of  the  press  necessarily 
diminished  the  condescension  of  authors  to  the 
national  taste :  they  paid  more  respect  to  the  ge 
neral  opinion  of  Europe  ;  and  though  it  was  of  the 
greatest  importance  that  those  pieces  which  were 
to  be  played  should  meet  with  success  at  the  re 
presentation,  since  a  means  was  found  out  of  ex 
tending  their  fame  to  other  nations,  the  writers 
took  more  pains  to  shun  those  illusions  and  plea 
santries  which  could  please  only  the  people  of 
their  own  nation.  The  English,  however,  were 
very  backward  in  submitting  to  the  general  good 
taste  :  their  liberty  being  founded  more  upon  na 
tional  pride  than  philosophical  ideas,  they  rejected 
every  thing  that  came  from  strangers,  both  in 
literature  and  politics. 

Before  it  would  be  possible  to  judge  of  the 
effects  of  an  English  tragedy  which  might  be 
proper  for  the  French  stage,  an  examination  re 
mains  to  be  made,  which  is,  to  distinguish  in  the 
pieces  of  Shakspeare  that  which  was  written  to 
please  the  people ;  the  real  faults  which  he  com 
mitted;  and  those  spirited  beauties  which  the 

V 


CHARACTER    OF    HIS    TRAGEDIES.  123 

severe  rules  of  the  French  tragedies  exclude  from 
their  stage. 

The  crowd  of  spectators  in  England  require  that 
comic  scenes  should  succeed  tragic  effects.  The 
contrast  of  what  is  noble  with  that  which  is  not, 
as  I  have  observed  before,  always  produces  a  dis 
agreeable  impression  upon  men  of  taste.  A  noble 
style  must  have  shades ;  but  a  too  glaring  opposition 
is  nothing  more  than  fantasticalness.  That  play 
upon  words,  those  licentious  equivocations,  popu 
lar  tales,  and  that  string  of  proverbs  which  are 
handed  down  from  generation  to  generation,  and 
are,  as  one  may  say,  the  patrimonial  ideas  of  the 
common  people, — all  these  are  applauded  by  the 
multitude,  and  censured  by  reason.  These  have 
no  connection  with  the  sublime  effects  which 
Shakspeare  drew  from  simple  words  and  common 
circumstances  artfully  arranged,  which  the  French 
most  absurdly  would  fear  to  bring  upon  their  stage. 

Shakspeare,  when  he  wrote  the  parts  of  vulgar 
minds  in  his  tragedies,  sheltered  himself  from  the 
judgment  of  taste  by  rendering  himself  the  object 
of  popular  admiration  :  he  then  conducted  himself 
like  an  able  chief,  but  not  like  a  good  writer. 

The  people  of  the  North  existed,  during  many 
centuries,  in  a  state  that  was  at  once  both  social 
and  barbarous ;  which  left,  for  a  long  time,  the 
vestiges  of  the  rude  and  ferocious.  Traces  of  this 
recollection  are  to  be  found  in  many  of  Shak- 
speare's  characters,  which  are  painted  in  the  style 
that  was  most  admired  in  those  ages,  in  which 


124  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE 

they  only  lived  for  combats,  physical  power,  and 
military  courage. 

We  may  also  perceive  in  Shakspeare  some  of 
the  ignorance  of  his  century  with  regard  to  the 
principles  of  literature ;  his  powers  are  superior  to 
the  Greek  tragedies  for  the  philosophy  of  the  pas 
sions,  and  the  knowledge  of  mankind  ;  *  but  he 
was  inferior  to  many  with  regard  to  the  perfec 
tion  of  the  art.  Shakspeare  may  be  reproached 
with  incoherent  images,  prolixity,  and  useless  re 
petitions;  but  the  attention  of  the  spectators  in 
those  days  was  too  easily  captivated,  that  the 
author  should  be  very  strict  with  himself.  A  dra 
matic  poet,  to  attain  all  the  perfection  his  talents 
will  permit,  must  neither  be  judged  by  impaired 
age,  nor  by  youth,  who  find  the  source  of  emotion 
within  themselves. 

The  French  have  often  condemned  the  scenes 

*  Among  the  great  number  of  philosophical  traits  which  are 
remarked  even  in  the  least  celebrated  works  of  Shakspeare, 
there  is  one  with  which  I  was  singularly  struck.  In  that  piece 
entitled  Measure  for  Measure,  Lucien,  the  friend  of  Claudius, 
and  brother  to  Isabella,  presses  her  to  go  and  sue  for  his  pardon 
to  the  Governor  Angelo,  who  had  condemned  this  brother 
to  die.  Isabella,  young  and  timid,  answers,  that  she  fears  it 
would  be  useless;  that  Angelo  was  too  much  irritated,  and 
would  be  inflexible,  &c.  Lucien  insists,  and  says  to  her, 

— Our  doubts  are  traitors, 

And  make  us  lose  the  good  we  might  win 
By  fearing  to  attempt. 

Who  can  have  lived  in  a  revolution,  and  not  be  sensible  of  the 
truth  of  these  words  ? 


CHARACTER    OF    HIS    TRAGEDIES.  125 

of  horror  represented  by  Shakspeare  ;  not  because 
they  excited  an  emotion  too  strong,  but  because 
they  sometimes  destroyed  the  theatrical  illusion. 
They  certainly  appear  to  me  susceptible  of  criti 
cism.  In  the  first  place,  there  are  certain  situ 
ations  which  are  only  frightful ;  and  the  bad 
imitators  of  Shakspeare  wishing  to  represent  them, 
produced  nothing  more  than  a  disagreeable  in 
vention,  without  any  of  the  pleasures  which  the' 
tragedy  ought  to  produce ;  and  again,  there  are 
many  situations  really  affecting  in  themselves, 
which  nevertheless  require  stage  effect  to  amuse 
the  attention,  and  of  course  the  interest. 

When  the  governor  of  the  tower,  in  which  the 
young  Arthur  is  confined,  orders  a  red-hot  iron  to 
be  brought,  to  put  out  his  eyes ;  without  speaking 
of  the  atrociousness  of  such  a  scene,  there  must 
pass  upon  the  stage  an  action,  the  imitation 
of  which  is  impossible ;  and  the  attention  of  the 
audience  is  so  much  taken  up  with  the  execution 
of  it,  that  the  moral  effect  is  quite  forgotten. 

The  character  of  Caliban,  in  the  "  Tempest,"  is 
singularly  original ;  but  the  almost  animal  figure, 
which  his  dress  must  give  him,  turns  the  attention 
from  all  that  is  philosophical  in  the  conception  of 
this  part. 

In  reading  "  Richard  III.,"  one  of  the  beauties 
is  what  he  himself  says  of  his  natural  deformity. 
One  can  feel  that  the  horror  which  he  causes 
ought  to  act  reciprocally  upon  his  own  mind,  and 


126  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

render  it  yet  more  atrocious. — Nevertheless,  can 
there  be  any  thing  more  difficult  in  an  elevated 
style,  or  more  nearly  allied  to  ridicule,  than  the  imi 
tation  of  an  ill-shaped  man  upon  the  stage  ?  Every 
thing  in  nature  may  interest  the  mind  ;  but  upon 
the  stage,  the  illusion  of  sight  must  be  treated 
with  the  most  scrupulous  caution,  or  every  serious 
effect  will  be  irreparably  destroyed. 

Shakspeare  also  represented  physical  sufferings 
much  too  often.  Philoctetes  is  the  only  example 
of  any  theatrical  effect  being  produced  by  it;  and, 
in  this  instance,  it  was  the  heroic  cause  of  his 
wounds  that  fixed  the  attention  of  the  spectators. 
Physical  sufferings  may  be  related,  but  cannot  be 
represented.  It  is  not  the  author,  but  the  actor, 
who  cannot  express  himself  with  grandeur ;  it  is 
not  the  ideas,  but  the  senses,  which  refuse  to 
lend  their  aid  to  this  style  of  imitation. 

In  short,  one  of  the  greatest  faults  which  Shak 
speare  can  be  accused  of,  is  his  want  of  simplicity 
in  the  intervals  of  his  sublime  passages.  When  he 
is  not  exalted,  he  is  affected  ;  he  wanted  the  art 
of  sustaining  himself,  that  is  to  say,  of  being  as 
natural  in  his  scenes  of  transition,  as  he  was  in 
the  grand  movements  of  the  soul. 

Otway,  Rowe,  and  some  other  English  poets, 
Addison  excepted,  all  wrote  their  tragedies  in  the 
style  of  Shakspeare  ;u  and  Otway's  "  Venice  Pre- 

«  This  is  a  great  mistake ;  for  assuredly  neither  Otway  nor 
Rowe  can  be  said,  either  as  to  manner  or  diction,  to  have  ap- 


CHARACTER    OF    HIS    TRAGEDIES.  127 

served"  almost  equalled  his  model.  But  the  two 
most  truly  tragical  situations  ever  conceived  by 
men,  were  first  portrayed  by  Shakspeare  : — mad 
ness  caused  by  misfortune,  and  misfortune  aban 
doned  to  solitude  and  itself. 

Ajax  is  furious ;  Orestes  is  pursued  by  the 
anger  of  the  gods ;  Phoedra  is  consumed  by  the 
fever  of  love;  but  Hamlet,  Ophelia,  and  King 
Lear,  with  different  situations  and  different  cha 
racters,  have  all,  nevertheless,  the  same  marks  of 
derangement:  it  is  distress  alone  that  speaks  in 
them ;  every  idea  of  common  life  disappears  be 
fore  this  predominant  one :  they  are  alive  to 
nothing  but  affection  ;  and  this  affecting  delirium 
of  a  suffering  object  seems  to  set  it  free  from  that 
timidity  which  forbids  us  to  expose  ourselves 
without  reserve  to  the  eyes  of  pity.  The  spec 
tators  would  perhaps  refuse  their  sympathy  to 
voluntary  complaints ;  but  they  readily  yield  to 
the  emotion  which  arises  from  a  grief  that  cannot 
answer  for  itself. — Insanity,  as  portrayed  by  Shak 
speare,  is  the  finest  picture  of  the  shipwreck  of 
moral  nature,  when  the  storm  of  life  surpasses  its 

strength. 

MADAME  DE  STAEL  HOLSTEIN.V 

preached  the  style  of  Shakspeare.  Had  they  such  an  object  in 
view,  which  I  do  not  believe,  they  must  be  pronounced  to  have 
egregiously  failed. 

T  Influence  of  Literature  upon  Society.  Translated  from  the 
French  of  Madame  De  Stael  Holstein.  Second  edition.  In  2 
vols.  London  :  printed  for  Henry  Colburn.  Vol.  l.p.  288  to 
p.  305. 


128  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 


No.  VII. 

ON  SHAKSPEARE,  AND  ON  THE  CHARACTER 
OF  HIS  COMEDIES. 

AMONGST  English  comic  writers,  Shakspeare 
must  occupy  not  only  the  first,  but  the  highest 
place.  His  dramas,  after  a  lapse  of  two  centuries, 
are  still  gazed  at  with  unabated  ardour  by  the  po 
pulace,  are  still  read  with  admiration  by  the  scho 
lar.  They  interest  the  old  and  the  young,  the 
gallery  and  the  pit,  the  people  and  the  critic.  At 
their  representation  appetite  is  never  palled,  ex 
pectation  never  disappointed.  The  changes  of 
fashion  have  not  cast  him  into  shade,  the  varia 
tions  of  language  have  not  rendered  him  obsolete. 
His  plots  are  lively,  and  command  attention ;  his 
characters  are  still  new  and  striking;  and  his  wit 
is  fertile  even  to  exuberance.  Perhaps  there  never 
was  a  drama  which  so  happily  combined  tender 
sentiment  with  comic  force  as  As  You  Like  It; 
there  is  scarcely  a  character  in  it  which  fails  to 
interest.  Adam  and  Jaques  are  truly  original; 
and  even  the  buffoonery  of  the  clown  is  of  a  supe 
rior  cast.  In  the  Merchant  of  Venice  the  unity  of 
action  is  somewhat  violated  by  a  double  plot,  but 
perhaps  two  plots  were  never  so  happily  combined 
as  in  this  play ;  and  the  one  rises  so  naturally  out 
of  the  other,  that  not  the  smallest  confusion  is  pro- 


CHARACTER    OF    HIS    COMEDIES.  129 

duced.  The  comic  scenes  pleasantly  relieve  the 
mind  from  the  effect  produced  by  the  serious. 
The  conclusion  is  unexpected,  and  the  effect  of 
the  whole  is  truly  happy.  Gratiano  appears  to 
me  a  character  which  Shakspeare  only  could  have 
penned  ;  though,  from  the  little  interest  which  he 
has  in  the  plot,  he  is  less  noticed  than  he  would 
have  been  for  his  sportive  wit,  had  he  been  of  more 
importance  to  the  main  action.  Perhaps  the 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  is  one  of  the  most  regular 
of  Shakspeare's  comedies ;  and  I  scarcely  know  a 
play  that  comes  more  completely  under  that  de 
scription.  The  principal  character,  Falstaff,  is, 
however,  scarcely  so  well  depicted  as  in  Henry 
the  Fourth.  In  the  scenes  with  the  Prince,  when 
debauchery  and  cheating  are  the  themes,  the  old 
knight  seems  more  in  his  proper  element  than  in 
his  rencounter  with  ladies.  Much  Ado  About 
Nothing,  though  the  subject  in  some  measure  jus 
tifies  the  title,  is  yet  abundant  in  wit  and  plea 
santry  ;  and  Measure  for  Measure  and  the  Twelfth 
Night  are  truly  interesting.  The  Winters  Tale  is 
the  most  irregular  of  our  author's  comedies  :  there 
the  unity  of  time  is  indeed  violated  beyond  all 
bounds ;  yet  it  contains  some  exquisite  strokes  of 
nature  and  poetry,  and  many  pleasant  playful 
scenes.  Of  the  Midsummer- Night's  Dream  it  is 
difficult  to  judge  by  any  of  the  rules  of  criticism ; 
it  is  in  every  point  of  view  a  most  extraordinary 
piece,  and  I  confess  I  should  like  to  see  it  well 
performed.  The  scenes  between  Bottom,  Quince, 


130  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

and   their  company  of  players,  are   exquisitely 
humorous. 

GREGORYS 

w  Letters  on  Literature,  Taste,  and  Composition,  vol.  2. 
p.  252  et  seq.  It  would  be  difficult  to  compress  into  a  shorter 
compass  a  more  eloquent  and  just  description  of  the  influence 
of  the  dramas  of  Shakspeare  on  all  ranks  and  ages,  than  what 
the  opening  of  this  number  affords  us. 


HIS    FAME    AND    ACQUIREMENTS.  131 


No.  VIII. 

ON  THE  FAME  AND  ACQUIREMENTS  OF 
SHAKSPEARE. 

SHAKSPEARE  is  the  pride  of  his  nation.  A  late 
poet  has,  with  propriety,  called  him  the  genius  of 
the  British  isles.  He  was  the  idol  of  his  contem 
poraries  ;  and  after  the  interval  of  puritanical  fa 
naticism  which  commenced  in  a  succeeding  age, 
and  put  an  end  to  every  thing  like  liberal  know 
ledge;  after  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second, 
during  which  his  works  were  either  not  acted,  or 
very  much  disfigured,  his  fame  began  to  revive  with 
more  than  its  original  brightness  towards  the 
beginning  of  the  last  century ;  and  since  that  period 
it  has  increased  with  the  progress  of  time,  and  for 
centuries  to  come, — I  speak  with  the  greatest  con 
fidence, — it  will  continue  to  gather  strength,  like  an 
Alpine  avalanche,  at  every  period  of  its  descent. 
As  an  important  earnest  of  the  future  extension  of 
his  fame,  we  may  allude  to  the  enthusiasm  with 
which  he  was  naturalised  in  Germany  the  moment 
that  he  was  known.  The  language,  and  the  im 
possibility  of  translating  him  with  fidelity,  will  be 
for  ever,  perhaps,  an  invincible  obstacle  to  his 
general  diffusion  in  the  South  of  Europe.*  In 

*  This  impossibility  extends  also  to  France ;  for  it  must  not 
be  supposed  that  a  literal  translation  can  ever  be  a  faithful  one. 


132  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

England,  the  greatest  actors  vie  with  each  other  in 
the  characters  of  Shakspeare ;  the  printers  in 
splendid  editions  of  his  works ;  and  the  painters  in 
transferring  his  scenes  to  the  canvas.  Like  Dante, 
Shakspeare  has  received  the  indispensable  but 
cumbersome  honour  of  being  treated  like  a  clas 
sical  author  of  antiquity. 

The  ignorance  or  learning  of  our  poet  has  been 
the  subject  of  endless  controversy,  and  yet  it  is  a 
matter  of  the  easiest  determination.  Shakspeare 
was  poor  in  dead  learning,  but  he  possessed  a 
fulness  of  living  and  applicable  knowledge.  He 
knew  Latin,  and  even  something  of  Greek,  though 
not,  probably,  enough  to  read  the  writers  with  ease 
in  the  original  language.  Of  the  modern  lan 
guages,  the  French  and  Italian,  he  had  also  but 
a  superficial  acquaintance.  The  general  direction 
of  his  inclination  was  not  towards  the  collection  of 
words  but  of  facts.  He  had  a  very  extensive 
acquaintance  with  English  books,  original  and 
translated  :  we  may  safely  affirm  that  he  had  read 
all  that  his  language  then  contained  which  could 
be  of  any  use  to  him  in  any  of  his  poetical  objects. 
He  was  sufficiently  intimate  with  mythology  to 
employ  it  in  the  only  manner  he  wished,  as  a  sym 
bolical  ornament.  He  had  formed  the  most  correct 
notions  of  the  spirit  of  ancient  history,  and  more 
particularly  of  that  of  the  Romans  ;  and  the  history 

Mrs.  Montagu  has  sufficiently  shown  how  wretchedly  Voltaire 
translated  some  passages  of  Hamlet,  and  the  first  acts  of  Julius 
Csesar,  into  rhymeless  alexandrines. 


HIS    FAME    AND    ACQUIREMENTS.  133 

of  his  own  country  was  familiar  to  him  even  in 
detail.  Fortunately  for  him,  it  had  not  yet  been 
treated  in  a  diplomatic  and  pragmatical,  but  merely 
in  the  chronicle  style ;  that  is,  it  had  not  yet  as 
sumed  the  appearance  of  dry  investigations  respect 
ing  the  developement  of  political  relations,  diplo- 
matical  transactions,  finances,  &c.  but  exhibited 
a  visible  image  of  the  living  and  moving  of  an  age 
full  of  distinguished  deeds.  Shakspeare  was  an 
attentive  observer  of  nature ;  he  knew  the  technical 
language  of  mechanics  and  artisans ;  he  seems  to 
have  been  well  travelled  in  the  interior  of  England, 
and  to  have  been  a  diligent  inquirer  of  navigators 
respecting  other  countries ;  and  he  was  most  accu 
rately  acquainted  with  all  the  popular  usages, 
opinions,  and  traditions,  which  could  be  of  use  in 
poetry. 

The  proofs  of  his  ignorance,  on  which  the  great 
est  stress  is  laid,  are  a  few  geographical  blunders 
and  anachronisms.  Because  in  a  comedy  founded 
on  a  tale,  he  makes  ships  land  in  Bohemia,  he  has 
been  the  subject  of  laughter.  But  I  conceive  that 
we  should  be  very  unjust  towards  him,  were  we  to 
conclude  that  he  did  not,  as  well  as  ourselves, 
possess  the  valuable  but  by  no  means  difficult 
knowledge  that  Bohemia  is  no  where  bounded  by 
the  sea.  He  could  never,  in  that  case,  have  looked 
into  a  map  of  Germany,  whereas  he  describes  the 
maps  of  both  Indies  with  the  discoveries  of  the 
latest  navigators.*  In  such  matters  Shakspeare  is 
*  Twelfth  Night,  or  What  You  Will— Act  3.  Sc.  2. 


134  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

only  faithful  in  the  historical  subjects  of  his  own 
country.  In  the  novels  on  which  he  worked,  he 
avoided  disturbing  his  audience  to  whom  they  were 
known,  by  the  correction  of  errors  in  secondary 
things.  The  more  wonderful  the  story,  the  more 
it  ranged  in  a  purely  poetical  region,  which  he 
transfers  at  will  to  an  indefinite  distance.  These 
plays,  whatever  names  they  bear,  take  place  in 
the  true  land  of  romance,  and  in  the  century  of 
wonderful  love  stories.  He  knew  well  that  in  the 
forest  of  Ardennes  there  were  neither  the  lions 
and  serpents  of  the  Torrid  Zone,  nor  the  shep 
herdesses  of  Arcadia ;  but  he  transferred  both  to 
it,  because  the  design  and  import  of  his  picture  re 
quired  them.  Here  he  considered  himself  entitled 
to  the  greatest  liberties.  He  had  not  to  do  with 
a  petty  hypercritical  age  like  ours,  which  is  always 
seeking  in  poetry  for  something  else  than  poetry ; 
his  audience  entered  the  theatre,  not  to  learn  true 
chronology,  geography,  and  natural  history,  but  to 
witness  a  vivid  exhibition.  I  undertake  to  prove 
that  Shakspeare's  anachronisms  are,  for  the  most 
part,  committed  purposely,  and  after  great  con 
sideration.  It  was  frequently  of  importance  to 
him  to  bring  the  subject  exhibited,  from  the  back 
ground  of  time  quite  near  to  us.  Hence,  in 
Hamlet,  though  avowedly  an  old  northern  story, 
there  prevails  the  tone  of  modish  society,  and  in 
every  respect  the  costume  of  the  most  recent 
period.  Without  those  circumstantialities,  it  would 
not  have  been  allowable  to  make  a  philosophical 


HIS    FAME    AND    ACQUIREMENTS.  135 

inquirer  of  Hamlet,  on  which  however  the  sense  of 
the  whole  is  made  to  rest.  On  that  account  he 
mentions  his  education  at  a  university,  though  in 
the  age  of  the  historical  Hamlet  there  was  not  yet 
any  university.  He  makes  him  study  at  Witten 
berg,  and  no  selection  could  be  more  suitable. 
The  name  was  very  popular :  from  the  story  of  Dr. 
Faustus  of  Wittenberg,  it  was  wonderfully  well 
known  ;  it  was  of  particular  celebrity  in  protestant 
England,  as  Luther  had  taught  and  written  there 
shortly  before  ;  and  the  very  name  must  have  im 
mediately  suggested  the  idea  of  freedom  in  think 
ing.  I  cannot  even  consider  it  an  anachronism 
that  Richard  the  Third  should  speak  of  Machiavel. 
The  word  is  here  used  altogether  proverbially :  the 
contents  of  the  book  of  the  prince  have  been  in 
existence  ever  since  the  existence  of  tyrants; 
Machiavel  was  merely  the  first  to  commit  them 
to  writing. 

AUGUSTUS  WILLIAM  SCHLEGEL.* 

*  Lectures  on  Dramatic  Art  and  Literature.  Translated 
from  the  original  German  by  John  Black.  In  two  Volumes. 
Vol.  1.  pp.  102,  103,  117,  118,  119,  120. 


136  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 


No.  IX. 

ON  THE  NATURAL  STYLE  OF  SHAKSPEARE  AS 
CONTRASTED  WITH  THE  ROMANTIC  AND  BUR 
LESQUE. 

THERE  are  three  principal  schools  in  the  poetry 
of  modern  European  nations,  the  romantic,  the 
burlesque,  and  the  natural.  On  the  first  revival 
of  poetry,  the  minds  of  men  perhaps  universally 
took  a  bent  towards  the  former :  we  had  nothing 
but  Rowlands  and  Arthurs,  Sir  Guys,  and  Sir 
Tristram,  and  Paynim  and  Christian  knights. 
There  was  danger  that  nature  would  be  altogether 
shutout  from  the  courts  of  Apollo.  The  senses 
of  barbarians  are  rude,  and  require  a  strong  and 
forcible  impulse  to  put  them  in  motion.  The  first 
authors  of  the  humorous  and  burlesque  tales  of 
modern  times  were  perhaps  sensible  of  this  error 
in  the  romance  writers,  and  desirous  to  remedy  it. 
But  they  frequently  fell  into  an  opposite  extreme, 
and  that  from  the  same  cause.  They  deliver  us, 
indeed,  from  the  monotony  produced  by  the  per 
petual  rattling  of  armour,  the  formality  of  pro 
cessions,  and  tapestry,  and  cloth  of  gold,  and  the 
eternal  straining  after  supernatural  adventures, 
But  they  lead  us  into  squalid  scenes,  the  coarse 
buffoonery  of  the  ale-house,  and  the  offensive 
manners  engendered  by  dishonesty  and  intempe- 


HIS    STYLE.  137 

ranee.  Between  the  one  and  the  other  of  these 
classes  of  poetry,  we  may  find  things  analogous  to 
the  wild  and  desperate  toys  of  Salvator  Rosa,  and 
to  the  boors  of  Teniers,  but  nothing  that  should 
remind  us  of  the  grace  of  Guido,  or  of  the  soft  and 
simple  repose  of  Claude  Lorraine. 

The  Decamerone  of  Boccaccio  seems  to  be  the 
first  work  of  modern  times  which  was  written 
entirely  on  the  principle  of  a  style,  simple,  un 
affected,  and  pure.  Chaucer,  who  wrote  precisely 
at  the  same  period,  was  the  fellow-labourer  of 
Boccaccio.  He  has  declared  open  war  against 
the  romance  manner  in  his  Rime  of  Sire  Thopas. 
His  Canterbury  Tales  are  written  with  an  almost 
perpetual  homage  to  nature.  The  Troilus  and 
Creseide,  though  a  tale  of  ancient  times,  treats 
almost  solely  of  the  simple  and  genuine  emotions 
of  the  human  heart. 

Boccaccio  and  Chaucer,  it  might  be  supposed, 
would  have  succeeded  in  banishing  the  swelling 
and  romantic  style  from  the  realms  of  poetry.  We 
might  have  imagined  that,  as  knowledge  and  civi 
lisation  grew,  the  empire  of  nature  would  have 
continually  become  more  firmly  established.  But 
this  was  not  the  case.  These  eminent  writers 
rose  too  high  beyond  their  contemporaries,  and 
reached  to  refinements  that  their  successors  could 
not  understand.  Pulci  and  Boiardo  took  the  ro 
mantic  style  under  their  protection  in  the  following 
century ;  and,  by  the  splendour  of  their  talents, 
and  the  treasures  of  their  fancy,  bestowed  upon  it 


138  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

extensive  and  lasting  empire. — Ariosto  and  Tasso 
adopted  and  carried  to  perfection  the  style  of 
Pulci  and  Boiardo.  Taste  and  literature  had 
made  no  advances  in  England  in  the  fifteenth 
century ;  and,  in  the  sixteenth  and  early  part  of  the 
seventeenth,  our  countrymen  resorted  for  models 
principally  to  Italy.  The  Earl  of  Surry  and  his 
contemporaries  were  the  introducers  of  the  Italian 
school  in  this  island.  Spenser  in  his  Faerie  Queen 
combined  at  once  all  the  imperfections  of  the  alle 
gorical  and  the  romantic.  Even  the  transcendent 
genius  of  Milton  formed  itself  upon  these  originals ; 
and,  however  we  may  adore  the  wonders  of  his  in 
vention,  impartial  criticism  must  acknowledge  that 
he  studied  much  in  the  school  of  the  artificial,  the 
colossal,  and  the  wild,  and  little  in  that  of  nature. 

It  is  incumbent  upon  us,  however,  not  to  treat 
the  romantic  style  with  too  undiscriminating  a 
severity.  The  fault  was  in  thinking  this  the  only 
style  worthy  of  an  elevated  genius,  or  in  thinking 
it  the  best.  It  has  its  appropriate  and  genuine 
recommendations.  It  is  lofty,  enthusiastic,  and 
genial  and  cherishing  to  the  powers  of  imagination. 
Perhaps  every  man  of  a  truly  poetical  mind  will 
be  the  better  for  having  passed  a  short  period  in 
this  school.  And  it  may  further  safely  be  affirmed 
that  every  man  of  a  truly  poetical  mind,  who  was 
reduced  to  make  his  choice  between  the  school  of 
coarse,  burlesque,  and  extravagant  humour,  such 
as  that  of  Hudibras  for  example,  and  the  school 
of  extravagant  heroism  and  chivalry,  such  as  that 


HIS    STYLE.  139 

of  Tasso,  would  decide  for  the  latter.  The  first 
chills  and  contracts,  as  it  were,  the  vessels  and 
alleys  of  the  heart,  and  leaves  us  with  a  painful 
feeling  of  self-degradation.  The  second  expands 
and  elevates  the  soul,  and  fills  the  mind  of  the 
reader  with  generous  pride,  complacence  in  the 
powers  he  feels,  and  a  warm  and  virtuous  ardour 
to  employ  them  for  the  advantage  of  others. 

It  is  time  that  we  should  quit  the  consideration 
of  these  two  less  glorious  spheres  of  human  genius, 
and  turn  back  to  the  temple  of  Nature,  where 
Shakspeare  for  ever  stands  forth  the  high  priest 
and  the  sovereign.  The  portraits  drawn  by  those 
who  have  studied  with  success  in  her  school,  are 
dishonoured  by  being  called  portraits;  they  are 
themselves  originals  above  all  exception  or  chal 
lenge.  The  representations  drawn  in  the  romantic 
or  the  burlesque  style  may  be  to  a  great  degree 
faithful  exhibitions  of  what  has  actually  existed  ; 
but,  if  they  are,  at  least  they  exhibit  a  nature, 
vitiated,  distorted,  and,  so  to  express  the  idea, 
denaturalised.  The  artificial  and  preconcerted  is 
only  shown,  and  those  fainter  and  evanescent 
touches,  by  which  every  man  betrays  the  kind  to 
which  he  belongs,  are  lost.  The  portraits  of  Shak 
speare,  on  the  other  hand,  abound  in,  and  may 
almost  be  said  to  be  made  up  of  these  touches.  In 
his  characters  we  see  the  habits  and  prejudices  of 
the  man,  and  see,  as  through  a  transparent  me 
dium,  how  every  accident  that  befals  him  acts 
upon  his  habits,  his  prejudices,  and  upon  those 


140  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

passions  which  are  common  to  us  all.  How  pre 
cisely  is  this  the  case  with  Justice  Shallow !  How 
completely  are  the  starts  and  sallies  of  Hotspur, 
his  repetitions,  the  torrent  of  his  anger,  his  fiery 
temper,  and  his  images  drawn  often  from  the  most 
familiar  and  ordinary  life, — how  completely  are 
they  the  very  man  that  the  poet  desired  to  present 
to  us !  Shakspeare  does  not  describe,  he  does 
seem  to  imagine  the  personages  of  his  scene  ;  he 
waves  his  magic  wand,  and  the  personages  them 
selves  appear,  and  act  over  again,  at  his  command, 
the  passions,  the  impressions,  and  the  sorrows  of 
their  former  life.  The  past  is  present  before  us. 

GODWIN/ 

y  Life  of  Chaucer,  Vol.  4.  p.  189.  It  has  been  justly  observed 
by  Mr.  Godwin,  that  what  comes  nearest  to  the  pre-eminence 
of  Shakspeare  in  the  natural  style,  is  the  Prologue  to  the  Can 
terbury  Tales  of  Chaucer,  the  Don  Quixote  of  Cervantes,  the 
Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  of  Addison,  the  Lovelace  of  Richardson, 
the  Parson  Adams  of  Fielding,  the  Walter  Shandy  of  Sterne., 
and  the  Hugh  Strap  of  SmolleU 


HIS    ART.  141 


No.  X. 
ON  THE  ART  OF  SHAKSPEARE. 

To  ME  Shakspeare  appears  a  profound  artist, 
and  not  a  blind  and  wildly-luxuriant  genius.     I 
consider,  generally  speaking,  all  that  has  been  said 
on  this  subject  as  a  mere  fabulous  story,  a  blind 
and  extravagant  error.    In  other  arts  the  assertion 
refutes  itself;  for  in  them  acquired  knowledge  is 
an  indispensable  condition  before  any  thing  can  be 
performed.     But  even  in  such  poets,  as  are  usually 
given  out  for  careless  pupils  of  nature,  without  any 
art  or  school  discipline,  I  have  always  found,  on 
a   nearer  consideration,   when   they  have   really 
produced  works  of  excellence,  a  distinguished  cul 
tivation  of  the  mental  powers,  practice  in  art,  and 
views  worthy  in  themselves  and   maturely  con 
sidered.     This  applies  to  Homer  as  well  as  Dante. 
The  activity  of  genius  is,  it  is  true,  natural  to  it, 
and  in  a  certain  sense  unconscious ;  and  conse 
quently  the  person  who  possesses  it  is  not  always 
at  the  moment  able  to  render  an  account  of  the 
course  which  he  may  have  pursued  ;  but  it  by  no 
means  follows  that  the  thinking  power  had  not  a 
great  share  in  it.     It  is  from  the  very  rapidity  and 
certainty  of  the  mental  process,  from  the  utmost 
clearness  of  understanding,  that  thinking  in  a  poet 
is  not  perceived  as  something  abstracted,  does  not 


142  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

wear  the  appearance  of  meditation.  That  idea  of 
poetical  inspiration,  which  many  lyrical  poets  have 
brought  into  circulation,  as  if  they  were  not  in  their 
senses,  and  like  Pythia,  when  possessed  by  the 
divinity,  delivered  oracles  unintelligible  to  them 
selves  (a  mere  lyrical  invention),  is  least  of  all  ap 
plicable  to  dramatic  composition,  one  of  the  pro 
ductions  of  the  human  mind  which  requires  the 
greatest  exercise  of  thought.  It  is  admitted  that 
Shakspeare  has  reflected,  and  deeply  reflected,  on 
character  and  passion,  on  the  progress  of  events 
and  human  destinies,  on  the  human  constitution, 
on  all  the  things  and  relations  of  the  world  ;  this  is 
an  admission  which  must  be  made,  for  one  alone  of 
thousands  of  his  maxims  would  be  a  sufficient  refu 
tation  of  whoever  should  attempt  to  deny  it.  So 
that  it  was  only  then  respecting  the  structure  of 
his  own  pieces  that  he  had  no  thought  to  spare  ? 
This  he  left  to  the  dominion  of  chance,  which  blew 
together  the  atoms  of  Epicurus?  But  supposing 
that  he  had,  without  the  higher  ambition  of  ac 
quiring  the  approbation  of  judicious  critics  and 
posterity,  without  the  love  of  art  which  endeavours 
at  self-satisfaction  in  a  perfect  work,  merely  la 
boured  to  please  the  unlettered  crowd;  this  very 
object  alone,  and  the  theatrical  effect,  would  have 
led  him  to  bestow  attention  to  the  conduct  of  his 
pieces.  For  does  not  the  impression  of  a  drama 
depend  in  an  especial  manner  on  the  relation  of 
the  parts  to  each  other  ?  And  however  beautiful 
a  scene  may  be  in  itself,  will  it  not  be  at  once  re- 


HIS    ART.  143 

probated  by  spectators  merely  possessed  of  plain 
sense,  who  give  themselves  up  to  nature,  whenever 
it  is  at  variance  with  what  they  are  led  to  expect 
at  that  particular  place,  and  destroys  the  interest 
which  they  have  already  begun  to  take?  The 
comic  intermixtures  may  be  considered  as  a  sort 
of  interlude  for  the  purpose  of  refreshing  the 
spectators  after  the  straining  of  their  minds  in  fol 
lowing  the  more  serious  parts,  if  no  better  purpose 
can  be  found  for  them  ;  but  in  the  progress  of  the 
main  action,  in  the  concatenation  of  the  events, 
the  poet  must,  if  possible,  display  even  more  supe 
riority  of  understanding  than  in  the  composition  of 
individual  character  and  situations,  otherwise  he 
would  be  like  the  conductor  of  a  puppet-show, 
who  has  confused  the  wires,  so  that  the  pup 
pets,  from  their  mechanism,  undergo  quite  dif 
ferent  movements  from  those  which  he  actually 
intended. 

The  English  critics  are  unanimous  in  their 
praise  of  the  truth  and  uniform  consistency  of 
his  characters,  of  his  heart-rending  pathos  and 
his  comic  wit.  Moreover,  they  extol  the  beauty 
and  sublimity  of  his  separate  descriptions,  images, 
and  expressions.  This  last  is  the  most  super 
ficial  and  cheap  mode  of  criticising  works  of 
art.  Johnson  compares  him,  who  should  endea 
vour  to  recommend  this  poet  by  passages  uncon- 
nectedly  torn  from  his  works,  to  the  pedant  in 
Hierocles,  who  exhibited  a  brick  as  a  sample 
of  his  house.  And  yet  he  himself  speaks  so 


144  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

little,  and  so  very  unsatisfactorily,  of  the  pieces 
considered  as  a  whole  !  Let  any  man,  for  in 
stance,  bring  together  the  short  characters  which 
he  gives  at  the  close  of  each  play,  and  see  if  the 
aggregate  will  amount  to  that  sum  of  admiration 
which  he  himself,  at  his  outset,  has  stated  as  the 
correct  standard  for  the  appreciation  of  the  poet. 
It  was,  generally  speaking,  the  prevailing  tendency 
of  the  time  which  preceded  our  own,  a  tendency 
displayed  also  in  physical  science,  to  consider 
what  is  possessed  of  life  as  a  mere  accumulation  of 
dead  parts,  to  separate  what  exists  only  in  con 
nection,  and  cannot  otherwise  be  conceived,  instead 
of  penetrating  to  the  central  point,  and  viewing  all 
the  parts  as  so  many  irradiations  from  it.  Hence, 
nothing  is  so  rare  as  a  critic  who  can  elevate  him 
self  to  the  contemplation  of  an  extensive  work  of 
art.  Shakspeare's  compositions,  from  the  very 
depth  of  purpose  displayed  in  them,  have  been 
exposed  to  the  misfortune  of  being  misunderstood. 
Besides,  this  prosaical  species  of  criticism  applies 
always  the  poetical  form  to  the  details  of  execu 
tion  ;  but  in  so  far  as  the  plan  of  the  piece  is  con 
cerned,  it  never  looks  for  more  than  the  logical 
connection  of  causes  and  effects,  or  some  partial 
and  trivial  moral  by  way  of  application  ;  and  all 
that  cannot  be  reconciled  to  this  is  declared  a  su 
perfluous,  or  even  a  detrimental,  addition.  On 
these  principles  we  must  equally  strike  out  the 
most  of  the  choral  songs  of  the  Greek  tragedies, 
which  also  contribute  nothing  to  the  developement 


, 


HIS    ART.  145 

of  the  action,  but  are  merely  an  harmonious  echo 
of  the  impressions  aimed  at  by  the  poet.  In  this 
they  altogether  mistake  the  rights  of  poetry,  and 
the  nature  of  the  romantic  drama,  which,  for  the 
very  reason  that  it  is  and  ought  to  be  picturesque,' 
requires  richer  accompaniments  and  contrasts  for 
its  main  groupes.  In  all  art  and  poetry,  but  more 
especially  in  the  romantic,  the  fancy  lays  claims  to 
be  considered  as  an  independent  mental  power 
governed  according  to  its  own  laws. 

In  an  essay  on  Romeo  and  Juliet*  written  a 
number  of  years  ago,  I  went  through  the  whole  of 
the  scenes  in  their  order,  and  demonstrated  the 
inward  necessity  of  each  with  reference  to  the 
whole  ;  I  showed  why  such  a  particular  circle  of 
characters  and  relations  was  placed  around  the 
two  lovers;  I  explained  the  signification  of  the 
mirth  here  and  there  scattered,  and  justified  the 
use  of  the  occasional  heightening  given  to  the  po 
etical  colours.  From  all  this  it  seemed  to  follow 
unquestionably,  that  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
plays  of  wit  now  become  unintelligible  or  foreign 
to  the  present  taste,  (imitations  of  the  tone  of 
society  of  that  day,)  nothing  could  be  taken  away> 
nothing  added,  nothing  otherwise  arranged,  with 
out  mutilating  and  disfiguring  the  perfect  work. 
I  should  be  ready  to  undertake  the  same  thing  in 

*  In  the    first  volume  of  Charakteristiken  und  Kritiktn, 
published  by  my  brother  and  myself. 

K 


146  MEMORIALS   OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

all  the  pieces  of  Shakspeare  produced  in  his  ma- 
turer  years,  but  this  would  require   a   separate 

book. 

AUGUSTUS  WILLIAM  SCHLEGEL.Z 

*  Lectures  on  Dramatic  Literature,  vol.  2.  p.  123  to  p.  128. 


HIS    METHOD.  147 


No.  XL 
ON  THE  METHOD  OF  SHAKSPEARE. 

THOSE  who  tread  the  enchanted  ground  of  po 
etry  oftentimes  do  not  even  suspect  that  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  method  to  guide  their  steps.  Yet 
even  here  we  undertake  to  shew  that  it  not  only 
has  a  necessary  existence,  but  the  strictest  phi 
losophical  application. — It  may  surprise  some  of 
our  readers,  especially  those  who  have  been 
brought  up  in  schools  of  foreign  taste,  to  find  that 
we  rest  our  proof  of  these  assertions  on  one  single 
evidence,  and  that  that  evidence  is  Shakspeare  > 
whose  mind  they  have  probably  been  taught  to 
consider  as  eminently  immethodicaL  In  the  first 
place,  Shakspeare  was  not  only  endowed  with 
great  native  genius,  (which  indeed  he  is  commonly 
allowed  to  have  been,)  but  what  is  less  frequently 
conceded,  he  had  much  acquired  knowledge. 
"His  information,"  says  Professor  Wilde,  "was 
great  and  extensive,  and  his  reading  as  great  as 
his  knowledge  of  languages  could  reach.  Consi 
dering  the  bar  which  his  education  and  circum 
stances  placed  in  his  way,  he  had  done  as  much 
to  acquire  knowledge  as  even  Milton.  A  thou 
sand  instances  might  be  given  of  the  intimate 
knowledge  that  Shakspeare  had  of  facts.  I  shall 
mention  only  one.  I  do  not  say  that  he  gives  a 


148  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

good  account  of  the  Salic  law,  though  a  much 
worse  has  been  given  by  many  antiquaries.  But 
he  who  reads  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury's  speech 
in  Henry  the  Fifth,  and  who  shall  afterwards 
say  that  Shakspeare  was  not  a  man  of  great 
reading  and  information,  and  who  loved  the  thing 
itself,  is  a  person  whose  opinion  I  would  not  ask 
or  trust  upon  any  matter  of  investigation."  Then, 
was  all  this  reading,  all  this  information,  all  this 
knowledge  of  our  great  dramatist,  a  mere  rudis 
indigestaque  moles'?  Very  far  from  it.  Method, 
we  have  seen,  demands  a  knowledge  of  the  rela 
tions  which  things  bear  to  each  other,  or  to  the 
observer,  or  to  the  state  and  apprehensions  of  the 
hearers.  In  all  and  each  of  these  was  Shak 
speare  so  deeply  versed,  that  in  the  personages  of 
a  play,  he  seems  "  to  mould  his  mind  as  some  in 
corporeal  material  alternately  into  all  their  various 
forms."  In  every  one  of  his  various  characters 
we  still  feel  ourselves  communing  with  the  same 
human  nature.  Every  where  we  find  individu 
ality;  no  where  mere  portrait.  The  excellence 
of  his  productions  consists  in  a  happy  union  of  the 
universal  with  the  particular.  But  the  universal  is 
an  idea.  Shakspeare,  therefore,  studied  mankind 
in  the  idea  of  the  human  race;  and  he  followed 
out  that  idea  into  all  its  varieties  by  a  method 
which  never  failed  to  guide  his  steps  aright.  Let 
us  appeal  to  him,  to  illustrate  by  example  the 
difference  between  a  sterile  and  an  exuberant 
mind,  in  respect  to  what  we  have  ventured  to  call 


HIS    METHOD.  149 

the  science  of  method.  On  the  one  hand  observe 
Mrs.  Quick  ley's  relation  of  the  circumstances  of 
Sir  John  Falstaff's  debt.*  On  the  other  hand 
consider  the  narration  given  by  Hamlet  to  Horatio, 
of  the  occurrences  during  his  proposed  transpor 
tation  to  England,  and  the  events  that  interrupted 
his  voyage.* 

If,  overlooking  the  different  value  of  the  matter 
in  these  two  narrations,  we  consider  only  the  form, 
it  must  be  confessed  that  both  are  immethodical. 
We  have  asserted  that  method  results  from  a 
balance  between  the  passive  impression  received 
from  outward  things,  and  the  internal  inactivity 
of  the  mind  in  reflecting  and  generalising ;  but 
neither  Hamlet  nor  the  Hostess  hold  this  balance 
accurately.  In  Mrs.  Quickley,  the  memory  alone 
is  called  into  action  ;  the  objects  and  events  recur 
in  the  narration  in  the  same  order,  and  with  the 
same  accompaniments,  however  accidental  or  im 
pertinent,  as  they  had  first  occurred  to  the  narrator. 
The  necessity  of  taking  breath,  the  efforts  of  re 
collection,  and  the  abrupt  rectification  of  its 
failures,  produce  all  her  pauses,  and  constitute 
most  of  her  connexions.  But  when  we  look  to 
the  Prince  of  Denmark's  recital,  the  case  is  widely 
different.  Here  the  events,  with  the  circumstan 
ces  of  time  and  place,  are  all  stated  with  equal 
compression  and  rapidity  ;  not  one  introduced 
which  could  have  been  omitted  without  injury  to 

*  Henry  IV.  Part  1.  Act  2.  Sc.  1.          *  Act  5.  Sc.  2. 


150  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE, 

the  intelligibility  of  the  whole  process.  If  any 
tendency  is  discoverable,  as  far  as  the  mere  facts 
are  in  question,  it  is  to  omission  ;  and  accordingly 
the  reader  will  observe  that  the  attention  of  the 
narrator  is  called  back  to  one  material  circum 
stance,  which  he  was  hurrying  by,  by  a  direct 
question  from  the  friend  (How  WAS  THIS  SEALED?) 
to  whom  the  story  is  communicated.  But  by  a 
trait  which  is  indeed  peculiarly  characteristic  of 
Hamlet's  mind,  ever  disposed  to  generalise,  and 
meditative  to  excess,  all  the  digressions  and  en 
largements  consist  of  reflections,  truths,  and  prin 
ciples  of  general  and  permanent  interest,  either 
directly  expressed  or  disguised  in  playful  satire. 

Instances  of  the  want  of  generalisation  are  of  no 
rare  occurrence ;  and  the  narration  of  Shakspeare's 
Hostess  differs  from  those  of  the  ignorant  and  un 
thinking  in  ordinary  life,  only  by  its  superior 
humour,  the  poet' s  own  gift  and  infusion,  not  by  its 
want  of  method,  which  is  not  greater  than  we  often 
meet  with  in  that  class  of  minds  of  which  she  is 
the  dramatic  representative.  Nor  will  the  excess 
of  generalisation  and  reflection  have  escaped  our 
observation  in  real  life,  though  the  great  poet  has 
more  conveniently  supplied  the  illustrations.  In 
attending  too  exclusively  to  the  relations  which 
the  past  or  passing  events  and  objects  bear  to 
general  truth,  and  the  moods  of  his  own  mind,  the 
most  intelligent  man  is  sometimes  in  danger  of 
overlooking  that  other  relation,  in  which  they  are 
likewise  to  be  placed,  to  the  apprehension  and 


HIS    METHOD.  151 

sympathies  of  his  hearers.  His  discourse  appears 
like  soliloquy  intermixed  with  dialogue.  But  the 
uneducated  and  unreflecting  talker  overlooks  all 
mental  relations,  and  consequently  precludes  all 
method  that  is  not  purely  accidental.  Hence, — 
the  nearer  the  things  and  incidents  in  time  and 
place,  the  more  distant,  disjointed,  and  impertinent 
to  each  other,  and  to  any  common  purpose,  will 
they  appear  in  his  narration;  and  this  from  the 
absence  of  any  leading  thought  in  the  narrator's 
own  mind.  On  the  contrary,  where  the  habit  of 
method  is  present  and  effective,  things  the  most 
remote  and  diverse  in  time,  place,  and  outward 
circumstance,  are  brought  into  mental  contiguity 
and  succession,  the  more  striking  as  the  less  ex 
pected.  But  while  we  would  impress  the  necessity 
of  this  habit,  the  illustrations  adduced  give  proof 
that  in  undue  preponderance*  and  when  the  pre 
rogative  of  the  mind  is  stretched  into  despotism, 
the  discourse  may  degenerate  into  the  wayward 
or  the  fantastical. 

Shakspeare  needed  not  to  read  Horace  in  order 
to  give  his  characters  that  methodical  unity  which 
the  wise  Roman  so  strongly  recommends : — 

Si  quid  inexpertum  scenee  committis,  et  audes 
Personam  formare  novam ;  servetur  ad  imum 
Qualis  ab  incepto  processerit,  et  sibi  constet. 

But  Wiis  was  not  the  only  way  in  which  he  fol 
lowed  an  accurate  philosophic  method :  we  quote 
the  expressions  of  Schlegel,  a  foreign  critic  of 
great  and  deserved  reputation : — "  If  Shakspeare 


152  MEMORIALS    Of    SHAKSPEARE. 

deserves  our  admiration  for  his  characters,  he  is 
equally  deserving  of  it  for  his  exhibition  si  passion, 
taking  this  word  in  its  widest  signification,  as  in 
cluding  every  mental  condition,  every  tone  from 
indifference  or  familiar  mirth,  to  the  wildest  rage 
and  despair.     He  gives  us  the  history  of  minds : 
he  lays  open  to  us>  in  a  single  word,  a  whole  series  of 
preceding  conditions"    This  last  is  a  profound  and 
exquisite  remark ;  and  it  necessarily  implies  that 
Shakspeare  contemplated  ideas,  in  which  alone  are 
involved  conditions  and  consequences  ad  infinitum. 
Purblind  critics,  whose  mental  vision  could  not 
reach  far  enough  to  comprise  the  whole  dimensions 
of  our  poetical  Hercules,  have  busied  themselves 
in  measuring  and  spanning  him  muscle  by  muscle, 
till  they  fancied  they  had  discovered  some  dispro 
portion.,    There  are  two  answers  applicable   to 
most  of  such  remarks.    First,  that  Shakspeare  un 
derstood  the  true  language  and  external  workings 
of  passion  better  than  his  critics.    He  had  a  higher, 
and  a  more  ideal,  and  consequently  a  more  metho 
dical  sense  of  harmony  than  they.     A  very  slight 
knowledge  of  music  will  enable  any  one  to  detect 
discords  in  the  exquisite  harmonies  of  Haydn  or 
Mozart ;  and  Bentley  has  found  more  false  gram 
mar  in  the  Paradise  Lost  than  ever  poor  boy  was 
whipped  for  through  all  the  forms  of  Eton  or  West 
minster  ;  but  to  know  why  the  minor  note  is  in 
troduced  into  the  major  key,  or  the  nominative 
case  left  to  seek  for  its  verb,  requires  an  acquaint 
ance  with  some  preliminary  steps  of  the  methodical 


HIS    METHOD. 


15* 


scale,  at  the  top  of  which  sits  the  author,  and  at 
the  bottom  the  critic.  The  second  answer  is,  that 
Shakspeare  was  pursuing  two  methods  at  once ; 
and  besides  the  psychological  *  method,  he  had 
also  to  attend  to  the  poetical.  Now  the  poetical 
method  requires  above  all  things  a  preponderance 
of  pleasurable  feeling ;  and  where  the  interest  of 
the  events  and  characters  and  passions  is  too 
strong  to  be  continuous  without  becoming  painful, 
there  poetical  method  requires  that  there  should 
be,  what  Schlegel  calls  "  a  musical  alleviation  of 
our  sympathy."  The  Lydian  mode  must  temper 
the  Dorian.  This  we  call  method. 

We  said  that  Shakspeare  pursued  two  methods. 
Oh !  he  pursued  many,  many  more — "  both  oar 
and  sail" — and  the  guidance  of  the  helm,  and  the 
heaving  of  the  lead,  and  the  watchful  observation 
of  the  stars,  and  the  thunder  of  his  grand  artillery. 
What  shall  we  say  of  his  moral  conceptions  ?  Not 
made  up  of  miserable  clap-traps,  and  the  tag-ends 
of  mawkish  novels,  and  endless  sermonising; — but 
furnishing  lessons  of  profound  meditation  to  frail 
and  fallible  human  nature.  He  shows  us  crime 
and  want  of  principle  clothed  not  with  a  spurious 
greatness  of  soul,  but  with  a  force  of  intellect 
which  too  often  imposes  but  the  more  easily  on  the 

*  We  beg  pardon  for  the  use  of  this  insolens  verbum  ;  but  it 
is  one  of  which  our  language  stands  in  great  need.  We  have  no 
single  term  to  express  the  philosophy  of  the  human  mind ;  and 
what  is  worse,  the  principles  of  that  philosophy  are  commonly 
called  metaphysical,  a  word  of  very  different  meaning. 


154  MEMORIALS     OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

weak,  misjudging  multitude.  He  shows  us  the 
innocent  mind  of  Othello  plunged  by  its  own  un 
suspecting  and  therefore  unwatchful  confidence,  in 
guilt  and  misery  not  to  be  endured.  Look  at  Lear, 
look  at  Richard,  look,  in  short,  at  every  moral 
picture  of  this  mighty  moralist !  Whoso  does  not 
rise  from  their  attentive  perusal  "  a  sadder  and 
a  wiser  man" — let  him  never  dream  that  he  knows 
any  thing  of  philosophical  method. 

Nay,  even  in  his  style,  how  methodical  is  our 
"  sweet  Shakspeare."  Sweetness  is  indeed  its 
predominant  characteristic,  and  it  has  a  few  imme- 
thodical  luxuriances  of  wit;  and  he  may  occa 
sionally  be  convicted  of  words  which  convey 
a  volume  of  thought,  when  .the  business  of  the 
scene  did  not  absolutely  require  such  deep  medi 
tation.  But  pardoning  him  these  dulcia  vitia,  who 
ever  fashioned  the  English  language,  or  any  lan 
guage,  ancient  or  modern,  into  such  variety  of 
appropriate  apparel,  from  "  the  gorgeous  pall  of 
scepter'd  tragedy"  to  the  easy  dress  of  flowing 
pastoral?  .  . 

More  musical  to  lark  than  shepherd's  ear, 

When  wheat  is  green,  and  hawthorn  buds  appear. 

Who,  like  him,  could  so  methodically  suit  the 
very  flow  and  tone  of  discourse  to  characters  lying 
so  wide  apart  in  rank,  and  habits,  and  peculiari 
ties,  as  Holofernes  and  Queen  Catharine,  Falstaff 
and  Lear?  When  we  compare  the  pure  English 
style  of  Shakspeare  with  that  of  the  very  best 
writers  of  his  day,  we  stand  astonished  at  the 


HIS    METHOt).  155 

method  by  which  he  was  directed  in  the  choice  of 
those  words  and  idioms,  which  are  as  fresh  now  as 
in  their  first  bloom  ;  nay,  which  are  at  the  present 
moment  at  once  more  energetic,  more  expressive, 
more  natural,  and  more  elegant,  than  those  of  the 
happiest  and  most  admired  living  speakers  or 
writers. 

But  Shakspeare  was  "  not  methodical  in  the 
structure  of  his  fable/'  Oh  gentle  critic  1  be  ad 
vised.  Do  not  trust  too  much  to  your  professional 
dexterity  in  the  use  of  the  scalping-knife  and 
tomahawk.  Weapons  of  diviner  mould  are  wielded 
by  your  adversary ;  and  you  are  meeting  him  here 
on  his  own  peculiar  ground,  the  ground  of  idea,  of 
thought,  and  of  inspiration.  The  very  point  of  this 
dispute  is  ideal.  The  question  is  one  of  unity  ;  and 
unity,  as  we  have  shown,  is  wholly  the  subject  of 
ideal  law.  There  are  said  to  be  three  great  unities 
which  Shakspeare  has  violated;  those  of  time, 
place,  and  action.  Now  the  unities  of  time  and 
place  we  will  not  dispute  about.  Be  ours  the 
poet,— 

qui  pectus  inaniter  angit, 

Irritat,  mulcet,  falsis  terroribus  implet 

Ut  magus,  et  modo  me  Thebis,  modo  ponit  Athenis. 

The  dramatist  who  circumscribes  himself  within 
that  unity  of  time  which  is  regulated  by  a  stop 
watch,  may  be  exact,  but  is  not  methodical ;  or 
his  method  is  of  the  least  and  lowest  class.  But 

Where  is  he  living  dipt  in  with  the  sea, 

That  chides  the  banks  of  England,  Wales,  or  Scotland, 


156  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

who  can  transpose  the  scenes  of  Macbeth,  and 
make  the  seated  heart  knock  at  the  ribs  with  the 
same  force  as  now  it  does,  when  the  mysterious 
tale  is  conducted  from  the  open  heath,  on  which 
the  weird  sisters  are  ushered  in  with  thunder  and 
lightning,  to  the  fated  fight  of  Dunsinane,  in 
which  their  victim  expiates  with  life  his  credulity 
and  his  ambition  ?  To  the  disgrace  of  the  Eng 
lish  stage,  such  attempts  have  indeed  been  made 
on  almost  all  the  dramas  of  Shakspeare.  Scarcely 
a  season  passes  which  does  not  produce  some 
usteron  proteron  of  this  kind  in  which  the  mangled 
limbs  of  our  great  poet  are  thrown  together  "  in 
most  admired  disorder." — There  was  once  a  noble 
author,  who,  by  a  refined  species  of  murder,  cut 
up  the  play  of  Julius  Ctesar  into  two  good  set 
tragedies.  M.  Voltaire,  we  believe,  had  the  grace 
to  make  but  one  of  it ;  but  whether  his  Brutus  be 
an  improvement  on  the  model  from  which  it  was 
taken,  we  trust,  after  what  we  have  already  said, 
we  shall  hardly  be  expected  to  discuss. 

Thus  we  have  seen  that  Shakspeare's  mind, 
rich  in  stores  of  acquired  knowledge,  commanded 
all  these  stores,  and  rendered  them  disposable,  by 
means  of  his  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  great 
laws  of  thought  which  form  and  regulate  method. 
We  have  seen  him  exemplifying  the  opposite 
faults  of  method  in  two  different  characters ;  we 
have  seen  that  he  was  himself  methodical  in  the 
delineation  of  character,  in  the  display  of  passion, 
in  the  conceptions  of  moral  being,  in  the  adapta- 


HIS    METHOD.  157 

ttons  of  language,  in  the  connexion  and  admirable 
intertexture  of  his  ever-interesting  fable.  Let  it 
not,  after  this,  be  said  that  poetry — and  under 
the  word  poetry  we  will  now  take  leave  to  include 
all  the  works  of  the  higher  imagination,  whether 
operating  by  measured  sound,  or  by  the  harmo 
nies  of  form  and  colour,  or  by  words,  the  more 
immediate  and  universal  representatives  of  thought 
— is  not  strictly  methodical;  nay,  does  not  owe 
its  whole  charm,  and  all  its  beauty,  and  all  its 
power,  to  the  philosophical  principles  of  method* 
ENCYCLOPAEDIA  METROPOLITANA,  Part  1st." 

»  This  number  and  the  preceding  one  will  be  considered,  I 
think,  as  containing  unanswerable  refutations  of  the  once  very 
prevalent  idea,  that  Shakspeare's  plays  were  the  mere  offspring 
of  wild  and  irregular  genius,  uncontrolled  by,  and  even  ignorant 
of,  the  laws  of  method  and  composition.  It  must  be  confessed, 
indeed,  that  both  Schlegel  and  the  writer  in  the  Encyclo 
pedia  have  expressed  themselves,  in  one  or  two  instances,  in 
language  not  sufficiently  qualified ;  but  that  they  have  obtained 
the  purpose  which  they  had  in  view,  that  they  have  proved 
Shakspeare  in  his  noblest  pieces  to  have  been  not  only  philoso 
phically  profound,  but,  in  the  best  sense,  strictly  methodical, 
can  admit  of  little  doubt. — I  must  here  also  remark  that  the 
present  paper  cannot  fail  of  imparting  a  highly  favourable  im 
pression  of  the  critical  department  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Metro- 
politana;  and  it  is  but  justice  to  add  that  the  scientific  is 
conducted  with  equal  if  not  superior  ability* 

..::i?iiw-  -O:  .  ..'r 


MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 


No.  XII. 

ON  SHAKSPEARE'S  DELINEATION  OF  CHARACTER. 

SHAKSPEARE'S  knowledge  of  mankind  has  be* 
come  proverbial :  in  this  his  superiority  is  so 
great,  that  he  has  justly  been  called  the  master  of 
the  human  heart.  A  readiness  in  remarking  even 
the  nicer  involuntary  demonstrations  of  the  mind, 
and  the  expressing  with  certainty  the  meaning  of 
these  signs  acquired  from  experience  and  reflec 
tion,  constitutes  the  observer  of  men ;  acuteness  in 
drawing  still  farther  conclusions  from  them,  and  in 
arranging  the  separate  observations  according  to 
grounds  of  probability  in  a  connected  manner, 
may  be  said  to  be  knowing  men.  The  distinguish 
ing  property  of  the  dramatic  poet  who  is  great  in 
characterization  is  something  altogether  different 
from  this,  which  either,  take  it  which  way  we  will, 
includes  in  it  this  readiness  and  this  acuteness,  or 
dispenses  with  both.  It  is  the  capability  of  trans 
porting  himself  so  completely  into  every  situation, 
even  the  most  unusual,  that  he  is  enabled,  as 
plenipotentiary  of  the  whole  human  race,  without 
particular  instructions  for  each  separate  case,  to 
act  and  speak  in  the  name  of  every  individual.  It 
is  the  power  of  endowing  the  creatures  of  his  ima 
gination  with  such  self-existent  energy,  that  they 


HIS    DELINEATION    OF  CHARACTER.  159 

afterwards  act  in  each  conjuncture  according  to 
general  laws  of  nature :  the  poet,  in  his  dreams, 
institutes,  as  it  were,  experiments  which  are  re 
ceived  with  as  much  authority  as  if  they  had  been 
made  on  real  objects.  The  inconceivable  in  this, 
and  what  never  can  be  learned,  is,  that  the  cha 
racters  appear  neither  to  do  nor  to  say  anything 
on  account  of  the  spectator  ;  and  yet  that  the  poet, 
by  means  of  the  exhibition  itself  without  any  sub 
sidiary  explanation,  communicates  the  gift  of  look 
ing  into  the  inmost  recesses  of  their  minds.  Hence 
Goethe  has  ingeniously  compared  Shakspeare's 
characters  to  watches  with  chrystalline  plates  and 
cases,  which,  while  they  point  out  the  hours  as 
correctly  as  other  watches,  enable  us  at  the  same 
time  to  perceive  the  inward  springs  whereby  all 
this  is  accomplished. 

Nothing,  however,  is  more  foreign  to  Shakspeare 
than  a  certain  dissecting  mode  of  composition, 
which  laboriously  enumerates  to  us  all  the  motives 
by  which  a  man  is  determined  to  act  in  this  or 
that  particular  manner.  This  way  of  accounting 
for  motives,  the  rage  of  many  of  the  modern  his 
torians,  might  be  carried  at  length  to  an  extent 
which  would  abolish  every  thing  like  individuality, 
and  resolve  all  character  into  nothing  but  the 
effect  of  foreign  or  external  influences,  while  we 
know  that  it  frequently  announces  itself  in  the 
most  decided  manner  in  the  earliest  infancy.  After 
all,  a  man  acts  so  because  he  is  so.  And  how 
each  man  is  constituted,  Shakspeare  reveals  to  us 


160  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

in  the  most  immediate  manner :  he  demands  and 
obtains  our  belief,  even  for  what  is  singular  and 
deviates  from  the  ordinary  course  of  nature.    Never, 
perhaps,  was  there  so  comprehensive  a  talent  for 
characterization  as  Shakspeare's.  It  not  only  grasps 
the  diversities  of  rank,  sex,  and  age,  down  to  the 
dawnings  of  infancy ;  not  only  do  the  king  and 
the  beggar,  the  hero  and  the  pickpocket,  the  sage 
and  the  idiot,  speak  and  act  with  equal  truth; 
not  only  does  he  transport  himself  to  distant  ages 
and  foreign  nations,  and  portray  in  the  most  accu 
rate  manner,  with  only  a  few  apparent  violations 
of  costume,  the  spirit  of  the  ancient  Romans,  of 
the  French  in  their  wars  with  the  English,  of  the 
English  themselves  during  a  great  part  of  their 
history,  of  the  southern  Europeans,  (in  the  serious 
part  of  many  comedies,)  the  cultivated  society  of 
that  time,  and  the  former  rude  and  barbarous  state 
of  the  North ;  his  human  characters  have  not  only 
such  depth  and   precision  that  they  cannot  be 
arranged  under  classes,  and  are  inexhaustible  even 
in  conception:  no,  this  Prometheus  not  merely 
forms  men,  he  opens  the  gates  of  the  magical 
world  of  spirits,  calls  up  the  midnight  ghost,  exhi 
bits  before  us  his  witches  amidst  their  unhallowed 
mysteries,  peoples  the  air  with  sportive  fairies  and 
sylphs ;  and  these  beings,  existing  only  in  imagina 
tion,  possess  such  truth  and  consistency,  that  even 
when  deformed  monsters,  like  Caliban,  he  extorts 
the  assenting  conviction,  if  there  should  be  such 
beings  they  would  so  conduct  themselves.     In  a 


HIS    DELINEATION    OF    CHARACTER.  161 

word,  as  he  carries  with  him  the  most  fruitful  and 
daring  fancy  into  the  kingdom  of  nature,  on  the 
other  hand,  he  carries  nature  into  the  regions  of 
fancy,  lying  beyond  the  confines  of  reality.  We 
are  lost  in  astonishment  at  seeing  the  extraor 
dinary,  the  wonderful,  and  the  unheard  of,  in  such 
intimate  nearness. 

Pope  and  Johnson  appear  to  contradict  each 
other  in  a  singular  manner,  when  the  first  says, 
all  the  characters  of  Shakspeare  are  individuals, 
and  the  second,  they  are  species.  And  yet,  per 
haps,  these  opinions  may  admit  of  reconciliation. 
Pope's  expression  is  unquestionably  the  more  cor 
rect.  A  character  which  should  merely  be  a 
personification  of  a  naked  general  idea  could 
neither  exhibit  any  great  depth  nor  any  great 
variety.  The  names  of  genera  and  species  are 
well  known  to  be  merely  auxiliaries  for  the  un 
derstanding,  that  we  may  embrace  the  infinite 
variety  of  nature  in  a  certain  order.  The  charac 
ters  which  Shakspeare  has  thoroughly  delineated 
possess  undoubtedly  a  number  of  individual  pecu 
liarities,  but  at  the  same  time  a  signification 
which  is  not  applicable  to  them  alone :  they  gene 
rally  supply  materials  for  a  profound  theory  of 
their  distinguishing  property.  But  even  with  the 
above  correction,  this  opinion  must  still  have  its 
limitations.  Characterization  is  merely  one  in 
gredient  of  the  dramatic  art,  and  not  dramatic 
poetry  itself.  It  would  be  improper  in  the  ex 
treme,  if  the  poet  were  to  draw  our  attention  to 


162  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

superfluous  traits  of  character,  when  he  ought  to 
endeavour  to  produce  other  impressions.  When 
ever  the  musical  or  the  fanciful  preponderate,  the 
characteristical  is  necessarily  thrown  into  the  back 
ground.  Hence  many  of  the  figures  of  Shakspeare 
exhibit  merely  external  designations,  determined 
by  the  place  which  they  occupy  in  the  whole : 
they  are  like  secondary  persons  in  a  public  pro 
cession,  to  whose  physiognomy  we  seldom  pay 
much  attention;  their  only  importance  is  derived 
from  the  solemnity  of  their  dress,  and  the  object  in 
which  they  are  engaged.  Shakspeare's  messen 
gers,  for  instance,  are  for  the  most  part  merely 
messengers,  yet  not  common,  but  poetical  messen 
gers  :  the  messages  which  they  have  to  bring  is 
the  soul  which  suggests  to  them  their  language. 
Other  voices  too  are  merely  raised  as  melodious 
lamentations  or  rejoicings,  or  reflections  on  what 
has  taken  place ;  and  in  a  serious  drama  without 
chorus,  this  must  always  be  more  or  less  the  case, 
if  we  would  not  have  it  prosaical. 

If  the  delineation  of  all  the  characters  of  Shak 
speare,  separately  considered,  is  inimitably  firm 
and  correct,  he  surpasses  even  himself  in  so  com 
bining  and  contrasting  them,  that  they  serve  to 
bring  out  each  other.  This  is  the  very  summit  of 
dramatic  characterization  ;  for  we  can  never  esti 
mate  a  man  altogether  abstractedly  by  himself 
according  to  his  true  worth ;  we  must  see  him  in 
his  relations  with  others  ;  and  it  is  here  that  most 
dramatic  poets  are  deficient.  Shakspeare  makes 


HIS    DELINEATION    OF    CHARACTER.  163 

each  of  his  principal  characters  the  glass  in  which 
the  others  are  reflected,  and  in  which  we  are  en 
abled  to  discover  what  could  not  be  immediately 
revealed  to  us.  What  in  others  is  most  profound, 
lies  in  him  at  the  surface.  We  should  be  very  ill 
advised  were  we  always  to  take  the  declarations 
of  the  characters  respecting  themselves  and  others 
for  sterling  gold.  Ambiguity  of  intention,  very 
properly  in  him,  overflows  with  the  most  praise 
worthy  principles ;  and  sage  maxims  are  not  un- 
frequently  put  in  the  mouth  of  imbecility,  to  show 
how  easily  such  common-place  truisms  may  be  ac 
quired.  Nobody  ever  painted  as  he  has  done  the 
facility  of  self-deception,  the  half  self-conscious 
hypocrisy  towards  ourselves,  with  which  even 
noble  minds  attempt  to  disguise  the  almost  inevi 
table  influence  of  selfish  motives  in  human  nature. 
This  secret  irony  of  the  characterization  is  deser 
ving  of  admiration  as  a  storehouse  of  acuteness 
and  sagacity;  but  it  is  the  grave  of  enthusiasm. 
But  this  is  the  conclusion  at  which  we  arrive 
when  we  have  had  the  misfortune  to  see  human 
nature  through  and  through ;  and  besides  the 
melancholy  truth  that  no  virtue  and  greatness 
are  altogether  pure  and  genuine,  and  the  dan 
gerous  error  that  the  highest  perfection  is  attain 
able,  we  have  no  remaining  choice.  Here  we  may 
perceive,  notwithstanding  his  power  in  exciting 
the  most  fervent  emotions,  a  certain  cool  in 
difference  in  the  poet  himself,  but  still  the  indiffer 
ence  of  a  superior  mind,  which  has  run  through 


164  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

the  circle  of  human  existence,  and  survived  feel 
ing. 

The  irony  in  Shakspeare  has  not  merely  a  re 
ference  to  the  separate  characters,  but  frequently 
to  the  whole  of  the  action.  Most  poets  who 
portray  human  events  in  a  narrative  or  dramatic 
form,  take  themselves  apart,  and  exact  from  their 
readers  a  blind  approbation  or  condemnation  of 
whatever  side  they  choose  to  support  or  oppose. 
The  more  zealous  this  rhetoric  is,  the  more  easily 
it  fails  of  its  effect.  In  every  case  we  perceive  that 
the  subject  does  not  come  immediately  before  us, 
but  that  we  view  it  through  the  medium  of  a 
different  way  of  thinking.  When,  however,  the 
poet,  by  a  dexterous  manoeuvre,  occasionally 
allows  us  a  glance  of  the  less  brilliant  reverse  of 
the  picture,  he  then  places  himself  in  a  sort  of 
secret  understanding  with  the  select  circle  of  the 
intelligent  among  his  readers  or  spectators ;  he 
shows  them  that  he  previously  saw  and  admitted 
the  validity  of  their  objections ;  that  he  himself 
is  not  tied  down  by  the  subject  represented,  but 
soars  freely  above  it ;  and  that,  if  he  chose,  he 
could  unrelentingly  annihilate  the  beautiful  and 
irresistibly  attractive  scenes  which  his  magic  pen 
has  produced.  Wherever  the  proper  tragic  enters, 
it  is  true,  every  thing  like  irony  immediately 
ceases ;  but  from  the  avowed  raillery  of  comedy, 
to  the  point  where  the  subjection  of  mortal  beings 
to  an  inevitable  destiny  demands  the  highest  de 
gree  of  seriousness,  there  are  a  multitude  of  human 


HIS    DELINEATION    OF    CHARACTER.  165 

relations  which  unquestionably  may  be  considered 
in  an  ironical  view,  without  confounding  the  eter 
nal  line  of  separation  between  good  and  evil.  This 
purpose  is  answered  by  the  comic  characters  and 
scenes  which  are  interwoven  in  the  most  of  Shak- 
speare's  pieces,  where  romantic  fables  or  historical 
events  are  made  the  subject  of  a  noble  and  ele 
vating  exhibition.  A  determinate  parody  of  the 
serious  part  is  frequently  not  to  be  mistaken  in 
them ;  at  other  times  the  connexion  is  more  loose 
and  arbitrary  ;  and  the  more  wonderful  the  inven 
tion  of  the  whole,  the  more  easily  it  becomes 
merely  a  light  delusion  of  the  fancy.  The  comic 
interruptions  everywhere  serve  to  prevent  the  play 
from  being  converted  into  an  employment,  to 
preserve  the  mind  in  the  possession  of  its  hilarity, 
and  to  keep  off  that  gloomy  and  inert  seriousness 
which  so  easily  steals  into  the  sentimental,  but 
not  tragical,  drama.b  Most  assuredly  Shakspeare 
did  not  wish  in  this  to  comply  with  the  taste  of 
the  multitude  contrary  to  his  own  better  judgment; 

b  Notwithstanding  one  or  two  instances  of  physical  suffering 
introduced  on  the  stage  in  the  plays  of  Shakspeare,  and  which 
had  better,  perhaps,  have  been  omitted,  there  is  yet  nothing  in 
the  impression  which  his  genuine  tragic  dramas  leave  behind 
them,  of  gloom  and  horror,  nothing  of  that  wild,  painful,  and 
harassing  sensation  so  frequently  felt  from  the  perusal  of  the 
tragedies  of  his  contemporaries.  The  lights  and  shades,  in 
deed,  are  so  skilfully  mingled  in  his  pieces,  and  the  moral  so 
broad  and  pure,  that  we  perpetually  recur  to  them  as  tran 
scripts  of  human  life  and  passion,  which  never  cease  to  instruct 
and  please  the  mind,  never  fail  to  soothe  and  satisfy  the  heart. 


166  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

for  in  various  pieces,  and  in  considerable  parts  of 
others,  especially  when  the  catastrophe  approaches, 
and  the  minds  are  consequently  more  on  the  stretch, 
and  no  longer  susceptible  of  any  entertainment 
serving  to  divert  their  attention,  he  has  abstained 
from  all  comic  intermixtures.  It  was  also  an 
object  with  him  that  the  clowns  or  buffoons 
should  not  occupy  a  more  important  place  than 
that  which  he  had  assigned  them :  he  expressly 
condemns  the  extemporising  with  which  they  * 
loved  to  enlarge  their  parts.* c  Johnson  founds 
the  justification  of  the  species  of  drama  in  which 
seriousness  and  mirth  are  mixed,  on  this,  that  in 
real  life  the  vulgar  is  found  close  to  the  sublime, 
that  the  merry  and  the  sad  usually  accompany 
and  succeed  one  another.  But  it  does  not  follow 
that  because  both  are  found  together,  they  must 
not  therefore  be  separated  in  the  compositions  of 
art.  The  observation  is  in  other  respects  just,  and 
this  circumstance  invests  the  poet  with  a  power  to 
proceed  in  that  manner,  because  every  thing  in 
the  drama  must  be  regulated  by  the  conditions  of 
theatrical  probability ;  but  the  mixture  of  such 

*  In  Hamlet's  directions  to  the  players. 

c  There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  much  of  what  has 
been  objected  to  as  occurring  in  some  passages  in  the  parts  of 
Shakspeare's  clowns,  has  been  foisted  into  these  parts  during 
their  performance  on  the  stage,  by  the  presumptuous  officious- 
ness  of  the  actors,  and  adopted  into  the  text,  as  favourites 
wilh  the  lower  orders,  by  the  first  editors,  who  were,  as  is  well 
known,  the  very  fellows  and  companions  of  those  who  had  taken 
these  unwarrantable  liberties. 


HIS    DELINEATION    OF    CHARACTER.  167 

dissimilar,  and  apparently  contradictory  ingre 
dients,  in  the  same  works,  can  only  be  justifiable 
on  principles  reconcileable  with  the  views  of  art, 
which  I  have  already  described.  In  the  dramas 
of  Shakspeare  the  comic  scenes  are  the  anti- 
chamber  of  the  poetry,  where  the  servants  remain : 
these  prosaic al  associates  must  not  give  such  an 
extension  to  their  voice  as  to  deafen  the  speakers 
in  the  hall  itself;  however,  in  those  intervals  when 
the  ideal  society  has  retired,  they  deserve  to  be 
listened  to :  the  boldness  of  their  raillery,  the 
pretension  of  their  imitations,  may  afford  us  many 
a  conclusion  respecting  the  relations  of  their 
masters. 

Shakspeare's  comic  talent  is  equally  wonderful 
with  that  which  he  has  shown  in  the  pathetic  and 
tragic ;  it  stands  on  an  equal  elevation,  and  pos 
sesses  equal  extent  and  profundity  :  all  that  I 
before  wished  was,  not  to  admit  that  the  former 
preponderated.  He  is  highly  inventive  in  comic 
situations  and  motives :  it  will  be  hardly  possible 
to  show  whence  he  has  taken  any  of  them ; 
whereas,  in  the  serious  part  of  his  dramas,  he  has 
generally  laid  hold  of  something  already  known. 
His  comic  characterization  is  equally  true,  various, 
and  profound,  with  his  serious.  So  little  is  he 
disposed  to  caricature,  that  we  may  rather  say 
many  of  his  traits  are  almost  too  nice  and  delicate 
fof  the  stage,  that  they  can  only  be  properly 
seized  by  a  great  actor,  and  fully  understood  by 
a  very  acute  audience.  Not  only  has  he  delinea- 


168  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

ted  many  kinds  of  folly,  he  has  also  contrived  to 
exhibit  mere  stupidity  in  a  most  diverting  and 
entertaining  manner.  There  is  also  a  peculiar 
species  of  the  farcical  to  be  found  in  his  pieces, 
which  seems  to  us  to  be  introduced  in  a  more 
arbitrary  manner,  but  which,  however,  is  founded 
in  imitation  of  an  actual  custom.  This  is  the 
introduction  of  the  buffoon ;  the  fool  with  his  cap 
and  motley  dress,  called  in  English,  clown,  who 
appears  in  several  comedies,  though  not  in  all, 
but  in  Lear  alone  of  the  tragedies,  and  who  gene 
rally  exercises  his  wit  merely  in  conversation  with 
the  principal  persons,  though  he  is  also  sometimes 
incorporated  with  the  action.  In  those  times  it 
was  not  only  usual  for  princes  to  keep  court  fools ; 
but  in  many  distinguished  families  they  retained, 
along  with  other  servants,  such  an  exhilarating 
house-mate  as  a  good  antidote  against  the  insipi 
dity  and  wearisomeness  of  ordinary  life,  as  a 
welcome  interruption  of  established  formalities. 
Great  men,  and  even  churchmen,  did  not  consider 
it  beneath  their  dignity  to  recruit  and  solace  them 
selves  after  important  concerns  with  the  conver 
sation  of  their  fools.  The  celebrated  Sir  Thomas 
More  had  his  fool  painted  along  with  himself  by 
Holbein.  Shakspeare  appears  to  have  lived  im 
mediately  before  the  time  when  the  custom  began 
to  be  abolished ;  in  the  English  comic  authors 
who  succeeded  him,  the  clown  is  no  longer  to  be 
found.  The  dismissal  of  the  fool  has  been  extolled 
as  a  proof  of  refinement;  and  our  honest  fore- 


HIS    DELINEATION    OF    CHARACTER.  169 

fathers  have  been  pitied  for  taking  delight  in  such 
a  coarse  and  farcical  entertainment.  I  am  much 
rather,  however,  disposed  to  believe  that  the 
practice  was  dropped  from  the  difficulty  in  finding 
fools  able  to  do  full  justice  to  their  parts  :*  on  the 
other  hand,  reason,  with  all  its  conceit  of  itself, 
has  become  too  timid  to  tolerate  such  bold  irony ; 
it  is  always  careful  lest  the  mantle  of  its  gravity 
should  be  disturbed  in  any  of  its  folds ;  and  rather 
than  allow  a  privileged  place  to  folly  beside  itself, 
it  has  unconsciously  assumed  the  part  of  the  ridi 
culous  ;  but,  alas !  a  heavy  and  cheerless  ridicule.* 
It  would  be  easy  to  make  a  collection  of  the  ex 
cellent  sallies  and  biting  sarcasms  which  have 
been  preserved  of  celebrated  court  fools.  It  is 
well  known  that  they  frequently  told  such  truths 
to  princes  as  are  never  now  told  to  them.*  Shak- 

*  See  Hamlet's  praise  of  Yorick.     In  The  Twelfth  Night, 
Viola  says  : 

This  fellow  is  wise  enough  to  play  the  fool; 

And  to  do  that  well,  craves  a  kind  of  wit; 

He  must  observe  their  mood  on  whom  he  jests, 

The  quality  of  the  persons,  and  the  time; 

And  like  the  haggard,  check  at  every  feather 

That  comes  before  his  eye.     This  is  a  practice 

As  full  of  labour  as  a  wise  man's  art : 

For  folly  that  he  wisely  shows  is  fit, 

But  wise  men's  folly  fall'n  quite  taints  their  wit. 

*  "  Since  the  little  wit  that  fools  have  was  silenced,  the  little 
foolery  that  wise  men  have  makes  a  greater  show." — As  You 
Like  It,  Act  1.  Sc.  2. 

*  Charles  the  Bold,  of  Burgundy,  is  known  to  have  frequently 
boasted  that  he  wished  to  rival  Hannibal  as  the  greatest  general 


170  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

speare's  fools,  along  with  somewhat  of  an  over 
straining  for  wit,  which  cannot  altogether  be 
avoided  when  wit  becomes  a  separate  profession, 
have,  for  the  most  part,  an  incomparable  humour, 
and  an  infinite  abundance  of  intellect,  enough  to 
supply  a  whole  host  of  ordinary  wise  men. 

AUGUSTUS  WILLIAM  ScHLEGEL.d 

of  all  ages.  After  his  defeat  at  Grarison,  his  fool  accompanied 
him  in  his  hurried  flight,  and  exclaimed,  "  Ah,  your  Grace, 
they  have  for  once  Hanniballed  us !  "  If  the  Duke  had  given 
an  ear  to  this  warning  raillery,  he  would  not  so  soon  after 
wards  have  come  to  a  disgraceful  end. 

d  Lectures  on  Dramatic  Literature,  vol.  ii.  p.  128 — 132.  and 
138—145.  Black's  Translation. 


HIS  LOVE  OF  NATURAL  BEAUTY.     171 


No.  XIII. 
ON  SflAKSPEARE'S  LOVE  OF  NATURAL  BEAUTY. 

SHAKSPEARE  was  familiar  with  all  beautiful 
forms  and  images,  with  all  that  is  sweet  or  majestic 
in  the  simple  aspects  of  nature — with  that  inde 
structible  love  of  flowers  and  odors,  and  dews  and 
clear  waters — and  soft  airs  and  sounds,  and  bright 
skies,  and  woodland  solitudes,  and  moonlight  bowers, 
which  are  the  material  elements  of  poetry — and 
with  that  fine  sense  of  their  undefinable  relation  to 
mental  emotion,  which  is  its  essence  and  vivifying 
soul — and  which,  in  the  midst  of  his  most  busy  and 
atrocious  scenes,  falls,  like  gleams  of  sunshine  on 
rocks  and  ruins — contrasting  with  all  that  is  rugged 
and  repulsive,  and  reminding  us  of  the  existence 
of  purer  and  brighter  elements — which  HE  ALONE 
has  poured  out  from  the  richness  of  his  own  mind 
without  effort  or  restraint,  and  contrived  to  inter 
mingle  with  the  play  of  all  the  passions,  and  the 
vulgar  course  of  this  world's  affairs,  without  desert 
ing  for  an  instant  the  proper  business  of  the  scene, 
or  appearing  to  pause  or  digress  from  love  of  orna 
ment  or  need  of  repose ; — He  alone,  who,  when 
the  object  requires  it,  is  always  keen,  and  worldly, 
and  practical — and  who  yet,  without  changing  his 
hand,  or  stopping  his  course,  scatters  around  him, 


172  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

as  he  goes,  all  sounds  and  shapes  of  sweetness,— 
and  conjures  up  landscapes  of  immortal  fragrance 
and  freshness,  and   peoples  them  with  spirits  of 
glorious  aspect  and  attractive  grace — and  is  a  thou 
sand  times  more  full  of  fancy,  and  imagery,  and 
splendor,  than  those  who,  for  the  sake  of  such 
qualities,  have  shrunk  back  from  the  delineation  of 
character  or  passion,  and  declined  the  discussion 
of  human  duties  and  cares.     More  full  of  wisdom, 
and  ridicule,  and  sagacity,  than  all  the  moralists 
and  satirists  in  existence,  he  is  more  wild,  airy, 
and  inventive,  and  more  pathetic  and  fantastic  than 
all  the  poets  of  all  regions  and  ages  of  the  world, 
and  has  all  those  elements  so  happily  mixed  up  in 
him,  and  bears  his  high  faculties  so  temperately, 
that  the  most  severe  reader  cannot  complain  of  him 
for  want  of  strength  or  of  reason,  nor  the  most 
sensitive    for  defect    of    ornament  or   ingenuity. 
Every  thing  in  him  is  in  unmeasured  abundance 
and  unequalled  perfection ;  but   every  thing   so 
balanced  and  kept  in  subordination,  as  not  to  jostle 
or  disturb,  or  take  the  place  of  another.    The  most 
exquisite  poetical  conceptions,  images,  and  descrip 
tions,  are  given  with  such  brevity,  and  introduced 
with  such  skill,  as  merely  to  adorn,  without  load 
ing  the  sense   they   accompany.      Although   his 
sails  are  purple  and   perfumed,  and  his  prow  of 
beaten  gold,  they  waft  him  on  his  voyage,  not  less, 
but  more  rapidly  and  directly  than  if  they  had 
been  composed  of  baser  materials.     All  his  excel 
lences,  like  those  of  Nature  herself,  are  thrown 


HIS  LOVE  OF  NATURAL  BEAUTY. 


173 


out  together ;  and,  instead  of  interfering  with, 
support  and  recommend  each  other.  His  flowers 
are  not  tied  up  in  garlands,  nor  his  fruits  crushed 
into  baskets — but  spring  living  from  the  soil,  in  all 
the  dew  and  freshness  of  youth ;  while  the  grace 
ful  foliage  in  which  they  lurk,  and  the  ample 
branches,  the  rough  and  vigorous  stem,  and  the 
wide-spreading  roots  on  which  they  depend,  are 
present  along  with  them,  and  share,  in  their  places, 
the  equal  care  of  their  creator. 

What  other  poet  has  put  all  the  charm  of  a 
moonlight  landscape  into  a  single  line  ? — and  that 
by  an  image  so  true  to  nature,  and  so  simple,  as  to 
seem  obvious  to  the  most  common  observation? — 

See  how  the  Moonlight  SLEEPS  on  yonder  bank! 

Who  else  has  expressed,  in  three  lines,  all  that  is 
picturesque  and  lovely  in  a  summer's  dawn  ? — first 
setting  before  our  eyes,  with  magical  precision,  the 
visible  appearances  of  the  infant  light,  and  then, 
by  one  graceful  and  glorious  image,  pouring  on  our 
souls  all  the  freshness,  cheerfulness,  and  sublimity, 
of  returning  morning  ?— 

See,  love  !  what  envious  streaks 

Do  lace  the  severing  clouds  in  yonder  East : 
Night's  candles*  are  burnt  out, — and  jocund  Day 
Stands  tiptoe  on  the  misty  mountain  tops. 

*  If  the  advocates  for  the  grand  style  object  to  this  ex 
pression,  we  shall  not  stop  to  defend  it ;  but,  to  us,  it  seems 
equally  beautiful,  as  it  is  obvious  and  natural,  to  a  person 
coming  out  of  a  lighted  chamber  into  the  pale  dawn.  The 


174  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Where  shall  we  find  sweet  sounds  and  odours  so 
luxuriously  blended  and  illustrated  as  in  these  few 
words  of  sweetness  and  melody,  where  the  author 
says  of  soft  music — 

O  it  came  o'er  my  ear,  like  the  sweet  South 
That  breathes  upon  a  bank  of  violeta, 
Stealing  and  giving  odour. 

This  is  still  finer,  we  think,  than  the  noble  speech 
on  music  in  the  Merchant  of  Venice,  and  only  to 
be  compared  with  the  enchantments  of  Prospero's 
island ;  where  all  the  effects  of  sweet  sounds  are 
expressed  in  miraculous  numbers,  and  traced  in 
their  operation  on  all  the  gradations  of  being,  from 
the  delicate  Ariel  to  the  brutish  Caliban,  who, 
savage  as  he  is,  is  still  touched  with  those  super 
natural  harmonies,  and  thus  exhorts  his  less  poe 
tical  associates — 

Be  not  afraid,  the  isle  is  full  of  noises, 

Sounds,  and  sweet  airs,  that  give  delight,  and  hurt  not. 
Sometimes  a  thousand  twanging  instruments 
Will  hum  about  mine  ears,  and  sometimes  voices, 
That  if  I  then  had  waked  after  long  sleep, 
Would  make  me  sleep  again. — 

word  candle,  we  admit,  is  rather  homely  in  modern  language, 
while  lamp  is  sufficiently  dignified  for  poetry.  The  moon 
hangs  her  silver  lamp  on  high,  in  every  schoolboy's  copy  of 
verses ;  but  she  could  not  be  called  the  candle  of  heaven  with 
out  manifest  absurdity.  Such  are  the  caprices  of  usage.  Yet 
we  like  the  passage  before  us  much  better  as  it  is,  than  if  the 
candles  were  changed  into  lamps.  If  we  should  read  '  The 
lamps  of  heaven  are  quenched/  or  *  wax  dim,'  it  appears  to  us 
that  the  whole  charm  of  the  expression  would  be  lost. 


HIS  LOVE  OF  NATURAL  BEAUTY.     175 

Observe,  too,  that  this  and  the  other  poetical 
speeches  of  this  incarnate  demon  are  not  mere 
ornaments  of  the  poet's  fancy,  but  explain  his 
character,  and  describe  his  situation  more  briefly 
and  effectually  than  any  other  words  could  have 
done.  In  this  play,  and  in  the  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream,  all  Eden  is  unlocked  before  us,  and  the 
whole  treasury  of  natural  and  supernatural  beauty 
poured  out  profusely,  to  the  delight  of  all  our  facul 
ties.  We  dare  not  trust  ourselves  with  quotations ; 
but  we  refer  to  those  plays  generally — to  the  forest 
scenes  in  '  As  You  Like  it' — the  rustic  parts  of  the 
Winter's  Tale — several  entire  scenes  in  Cymbeline 
and  in  Romeo  and  Juliet — and  many  passages  in 
all  the  other  plays — as  illustrating  this  love  of 
nature  and  natural  beauty  of  which  we  have  been 
speaking — the  power  it  had  over  the  poet,  and  the 
power  it  imparted  to  him.  Who  else  would  have 
thought,  on  the  very  threshold  of  treason  and  mid 
night  murder,  of  bringing  in  so  sweet  and  rural  an 
image  at  the  portal  of  that  blood-stained  castle  ? 

This  guest  of  summer, 
The  temple-haunting  martlet,  does  approve 
By  his  loved  masonry  that  heaven's  breath 
Smells  wooingly  here.     No  jutting  frieze, 
Buttress,  nor  coigne  of  vantage,  but  this  bird 
Has  made  his  pendent  bed,  and  procreant  cradle. 

Nor  is  this  brought  in  for  the  sake  of  an  elaborate 
contrast  between  the  peaceful  innocence  of  this 
exterior,  and  the  guilt  and  horrors  that  are  to  be 
enacted  within.  There  is  no  hint  of  any  such 


176  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

suggestion,  but  it  is  set  down  from  the  pure  love 
of  nature  and  reality— because  the  kindled  mind  of 
the  poet  brought  the  whole  scene  before  his  eyes, 
and  he  painted  all  that  he  saw  in  his  vision.  The 
same  taste  predominates  in  that  emphatic  exhorta 
tion  to  evil,  where  Lady  Macbeth  says, 

Look  like  the  innocent  flower, 

But  be  the  serpent  under  it. 

And  in  that  proud  boast  of  the  bloody  Richard — 

- But  I  was  born  so  high  : 

Our  aery  buildeth  in  the  cedar's  top, 

And  dallies  with  the  wind,  and  scorns  the  sun. 

The  same  splendour  of  natural  imagery,  brought 
simply  and  directly  to  bear  upon  stern  and  repul 
sive  passions,  is  to  be  found  in  the  cynic  rebukes  of 
Apemantus  to.Timon. 


Will  these  moist  trees 


That  have  outlived  the  eagle,  page  thy  heels, 

And  skip  when  thou  point'st  out  ?  will  the  cold  brook, 

Candied  with  ice,  caudle  thy  morning  taste 

To  cure  thine  o'er-night's  surfeit? 

No  one  but  Shakspeare  would  have  thought  of 
putting  this  noble  picture  into  the  taunting  address 
of  a  snappish  misanthrope — any  more  than  the 
following  into  the  mouth  of  a  mercenary  murderer  : 

Their  lips  were  four  red  roses  on  a  stalk, 
And  in  their  summer  beauty  kissed  each  other. 

Or  this  delicious  description  of  concealed  love  into 
that  of  a  regretful  and  moralizing  parent. 


HIS    LOVE    OF    NATURAL    BEAUTY.  177 

But  he,  his  own  affection's  counsellor, 
Is  to  himself  so  secret  and  so  close, 
As  is  the  bud  bit  with  an  envious  worm, 
Ere  he  can  spread  his  sweet  leaves  to  the  air, 
Or  dedicate  his  beauty  to  the  sun. 

And  yet  all  these  are  so  far  from  being  unnatural, 
that  they  are  no  sooner  put  where  they  are  than 
we  feel  their  beauty  and  effect,  and  acknowledge 
our  obligations  to  that  exuberant  genius  which 
alone  could  thus  throw  out  graces  and  attractions 
where  there  seemed  to  be  neither  room  nor  call  for 
them.  In  the  same  spirit  of  prodigality,  he  puts 
this  rapturous  and  passionate  exaltation  of  the 
beauty  of  Imogen  into  the  mouth  of  one  who  is  not 
even  a  lover : 


-  It  is  her  breathing  that 


Perfumes  the  chamber  thus !  the  flame  o'th'  taper 
Bows  towards  her  !  and  would  under-peep  her  lids 
To  see  th'  enclosed  lights,  now  canopied 
Under  the  windows,  white  and  azure,  laced 
With  blue  of  Heaven's  own  tinct — on  her  left  breast 
A  mole  cinque-spotted,  like  the  crimson  drops 
I'  the  bottom  of  a  cowslip. 

EDINBURGH  REVIEW.* 

e  Vol.  xxviii,  pp.  473—477. 


M 


178  MEMORIALS     OF    SHAKSPEARE, 


No.  XIV. 
ON  SHAKSPEARE'S  DELINEATION   OF  PASSION, 

IF  SHAKSPEARE  deserves  our  admiration  for  his 
characters,  he  is  equally  deserving  of  it  for  his 
exhibition  of  passion,  taking  this  word  in  its  widest 
signification,  as  including  every  mental  condition, 
every  tone  from  indifference  or  familiar  mirth  to 
the  wildest  rage  and  despair.  He  gives  us  the 
history  of  minds ;  he  lays  open  to  us,  in  a  single 
word,  a  whole  series  of  preceding  conditions.  His 
passions  do  not  at  first  stand  displayed  to  us  in 
all  their  height,  as  is  the  case  with  so  many  tragic 
poets,  who,  in  the  language  of  Lessing,  are  tho 
rough  masters  of  the  legal  style  of  love.  He 
paints,  in  a  most  inimitable  manner,  the  gradual 
progress  from  the  first  origin ;  "he  gives,"  as 
Lessing  says,  "a  living  picture  of  all  the  most 
minute  and  secret  artifices  by  which  a  feeling 
steals  into  our  souls,  of  all  the  imperceptible  ad 
vantages  which  it  there  gains,  of  all  the  stratagems 
by  which  every  other  passion  is  made  subservient 
to  it,  till  it  becomes  the  sole  tyrant  of  our  desires 
and  our  aversions."  Of  all  poets,  perhaps,  he 
alone  has  pourtrayed  the  mental  diseases,  melan 
choly,  delirium,  lunacy,  with  such  inexpressible 
and,  in  every  respect,  definite  truth,  that  the 


HIS    DELINEATION    OF    PASSION.  179 

physician  may  enrich  his  observations  from  them 
in  the  same  manner  as  from  real  cases/ 

And  yet  Johnson  has  objected  to  Shakspeare  that 
his  pathos  is  not  always  natural  and  free  from 
affectation.  There  are,  it  is  true,  passages,  though 
comparatively  speaking  very  few,  where  his  poetry 
exceeds  the  bounds  of  true  dialogue,  where  a  too 
soaring  imagination,  a  too  luxuriant  wit,  rendered 
the  complete  dramatic  forgetfulness  of  himself 
impossible.  With  this  exception,  the  censure 
originates  only  in  a  fanciless  way  of  thinking,  to 
which  every  thing  appears  unnatural  that  does 
not  suit  its  tame  insipidity.  Hence  an  idea  has 
been  formed  of  simple  and  natural  pathos,  which 
consists  in  exclamations  destitute  of  imagery  and 
nowise  elevated  above  every-day  life.  But  ener 
getical  passions  electrify  the  whole  of  the  mental 
powers,  and  will  consequently,  in  highly  favoured 
natures,  express  themselves  in  an  ingenious  and 
figurative  manner.  It  has  been  often  remarked 

f  Never  was  lunacy,  as  the  effect  of  severe  grief  and  disap 
pointment,  painted  in  stronger  or  more  correct  colours  than  in 
the  person  of  Lear ;  and  where  shall  we  find  the  first  stage  of 
melancholia  expressed  in  terms  more  admirably  true  to  nature 
than  in  the  following  description  from  the  lips  of  Hamlet?  "  I 
have  of  late,'*  he  says,  "  but  wherefore  I  know  not,  lost  all  my 
mirth,  foregone  all  custom  of  exercise;  and,  indeed,  it  goes  so 
heavily  with  my  disposition,  that  this  goodly  frame,  the  earth, 
seems  to  me  but  a  sterile  promontory ;  this  most  excellent  ca 
nopy,  the  air,  look  you,  this  brave  overhanging  firmament,  this 
majestic  roof  fretted  with  golden  fire,  why  it  appears  no  other 
thing  to  me  than  a  foul  and  pestilent  congregation  of  vapours." 


180  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

that  indignation  gives  wit ;  and  as  despair  occa 
sionally  breaks  out  into  laughter,  it  may  sometimes 
also  give  vent  to  itself  in  antithetical  comparisons. 
Besides,  the  rights  of  the  poetical  form*have  not 
been  duly  weighed.  Shakspeare,  who  was  always 
sure  of  his  object,  to  move  in  a  sufficiently  power 
ful  manner  when  he  wished  to  do  so,  has  occa 
sionally,  by  indulging  in  a  freer  play,  purposely 
moderated  the  impressions  when  too  painful,  and 
immediately  introduced  a  musical  alleviation  of 
our  sympathy.*  He  had  not  those  rude  ideas  of 
his  art  which  many  moderns  seem  to  have,  as  if 
the  poet,  like  the  clown  in  the  proverb,  must  strike 
twice  on  the  same  place.  An  ancient  rhetorician 
delivered  a  caution  against  dwelling  too  long  on 
the  excitation  of  pity ;  for  nothing,  he  said,  dries 
so  soon  as  tears  ;  and  Shakspeare  acted  conform 
ably  to  this  ingenious  maxim  without  knowing 
it.  The  paradoxical  assertion  of  Johnson,  that 
Shakspeare  had  a  greater  talent  for  comedy  than 
tragedy,  and  that  in  the  latter  he  has  frequently 
displayed  an  affected  tone,  does  not  even  deserve 
to  be  so  far  noticed  that  we  should  adduce,  by 
way  of  refutation,  the  great  tragical  compositions 
of  the  poet,  which,  for  overpowering  effect,  leave 
almost  every  thing  which  the  stage  has  yet  seen 

*  A  contemporary  of  the  poet  tenderly  felt  this  while  he 
says : — 

Yet  so  to  temper  passion,  that  our  ears 
Take  pleasure  in  their  pain,  and  eyes  in  tears 
Both  smile  and  weep. 


HIS    DELINEATION    OF    PASSION.  181 

far  behind  them  :  a  few  of  the  much  less  cele 
brated  scenes  would  be  quite  sufficient.  What 
might  to  many  readers  lend  an  appearance  of 
truth  to  this  opinion,  are  the  plays  on  words, 
which,  not  unfrequently  in  Shakspeare,  are  in 
troduced  into  serious  and  sublime  passages,  and 
into  those  also  of  a  peculiarly  pathetic  nature.  I 
shall  here,  therefore,  deliver  a  few  observations 
respecting  a  play  on  words  in  general,  and  its 
poetical  use.  A  thorough  investigation  would 
lead  us  too  far  from  our  subject,  and  too  deeply 
into  considerations  on  the  essence  of  language, 
and  its  relation  to  poetry,  or  rhyme,  &c.  There 
is,  in  the  human  mind,  a  desire  that  language 
should  exhibit  the  object  which  it  denotes  in  a 
sensible  manner  by  sound,  which  may  be  traced 
even  as  far  back  as  the  origin  of  poetry.  As,  in 
the  shape  in  which  language  comes  down  to  us, 
this  is  seldom  the  case  in  a  perceptible  degree,  an 
imagination  which  has  been  powerfully  excited  is 
fond  of  laying  hold  of  the  congruity  in  sound 
which  may  accidentally  offer  itself,  that  by  such 
means  he  may,  in  a  single  case,  restore  the  lost 
resemblance  between  the  word  and  the  thing. 
For  example,  it  was  common  to  seek  in  the  name 
of  a  person,  though  often  accidentally  bestowed, 
a  reference  to  his  qualities  and  fortune, — it  was 
purposely  converted  into  an  expressive  name. 
Those  who  cry  out  against  plays  on  words  as  an 
unnatural  and  affected  invention,  only  betray  their 
own  ignorance.  With  children,  as  well  as  nations 


182  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

of  the  most  simple  manners,  a  great  inclination  to 
them  is  often  displayed,  as  correct  ideas  respect 
ing  the  derivation  and  affinity  of  words  have  not 
been  developed  among  them,  and  do  not  conse 
quently  stand  in  the  way  of  this  caprice.  In 
Homer  we  find  several  examples;  the  Books  of 
Moses,  the  oldest  written  memorial  of  the  primi 
tive  world,  are,  as  is  well  known,  full  of  them. 
On  the  other  hand,  poets  of  a  very  cultivated 
taste,  or  orators  like  Cicero,  have  delighted  in 
them.  Whoever,  in  Richard  the  Second,  is  dis 
gusted  with  the  affecting  play  of  words  of  the 
dying  John  of  Gaunt  on  his  own  name,  let  him 
remember  that  the  same  thing  occurs  in  the  Ajax 
of  Sophocles.  We  do  not  mean  to  say  that  all 
plays  on  words  are  on  all  occasions  to  be  justified. 
This  must  depend  on  the  disposition  of  mind, 
whether  it  will  admit  of  such  a  play  of  fancy,  and 
whether  the  sallies,  comparisons,  and  allusions, 
which  lie  at  the  bottom  of  them,  possess  internal 
solidity.  Yet  we  must  not  proceed  upon  the 
principle  of  trying  how  the  thought  appears  after 
it  is  deprived  of  the  resemblance  in  sound,  any 
more  than  we  are  to  endeavour  to  feel  the  charm 
of  rhymed  versification  after  being  deprived  of 
rhyme.  The  laws  of  good  taste  on  this  subject 
must  also  vary  with  the  quality  of  the  languages. 
In  those  which  possess  a  great  number  of  homo- 
nymes,  that  is,  words  possessing  the  same,  or 
nearly  the  same  sound,  though  quite  different  in 
their  derivation  and  signification,  it  is  almost  more 


HIS    DELINEATION    OF    PASSION.  183 

difficult  to  avoid  than  to  fall  on  plays  of  words. 
It  has  also  been  dreaded  lest  a  door  might  be 
opened  to  puerile  witticism,  if  they  were  not  pro-; 
scribed  in  the  most  severe  manner.  I  cannot 
find,  however,  that  Shakspeare  had  such  an  in 
vincible  and  immoderate  passion  for  plays  on 
words.  It  is  true  he  often  makes  a  most  lavish 
use  of  this  figure;  in  other  pieces  he  has  intro 
duced  it  very  sparingly  ;  and  in  some  of  them,  for 
example  in  Macbeth,  I  do  not  believe  that  the 
least  vestige  of  it  is  to  be  found.  Hence,  in  re 
spect  to  the  use  or  the  rejection  of  plays  on  words, 
he  must  have  been  guided  by  the  measure  of  the 
objects,  and  the  different  style  in  which  they  re 
quired  to  be  treated,  and  have  followed  probably, 
as  in  every  thing  else,  principles  which  would  bear 
a  strict  examination. 

The  objection  that  Shakspeare  wounds  our  feel 
ings  by  the  open  display  of  the  most  disgusting 
moral  odiousness,  harrows  up  the  mind  unmercifully, 
and  tortures  even  our  eyes  by  the  exhibition  of  the 
most  insupportable  and  hateful  spectacles,  is  one 
of  much  greater  importance.  He  has  never,  in  fact, 
varnished  over  wild  and  blood-thirsty  passions  with 
a  pleasing  exterior,  never  clothed  crime  and  want 
of  principle  with  a  false  show  of  greatness  of  soul, 
and  in  that  respect  he  is  every  way  deserving  of 
praise.  Twice  he  has  portrayed  downright  vil 
lains,  and  the  masterly  way  in  which  he  has  con 
trived  to  elude  impressions  of  too  painful  a  nature 


184  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

may  be  seen  in  lago  and  Richard  the  Third. g     I 
allow  that  the  reading,  and  still  more  the  sight,  of 
some  of   his    pieces  are  not  advisable  to   weak 
nerves,  any  more  than  the  Eumenides  of  jEschylus ; 
but  is  the  poet,  who  can  only  reach  an  important 
object  by  bold  and  hazardous  means,  to  allow  him 
self  to  be  influenced  by  considerations  for  persons 
of  this  description  ?     If  the  effeminacy  of  the  pre 
sent  day  is  to  serve  as  a  general  standard  of  what 
tragical  composition  may  exhibit  to  human  nature, 
we  shall  be  forced  to  set  very  narrow  limits  to  art, 
and  every  thing  like  a  powerful  effect  must  at  once 
be  renounced.     If  we  wish  to  have  a  grand  pur 
pose,  we  must  also  wish  to  have  the  means,  and 
our  nerves  should  in  some  measure  accommodate 
themselves  to  painful  impressions  when,  by  way  of 
requital,  our  mind  is  thereby  elevated  and  strength 
ened. — The  constant  reference  to  a  petty  and  puny 
race  must  cripple  the  boldness  of  the  poet.     For 
tunately  for  his  -art,  Shakspeare  lived  in  an  age 
extremely  susceptible  of  noble  and  tender  impres 
sions,  but  which  had  still  enough  of  the  firmness 
inherited  from  a  vigorous  olden  time,  not  to  shrink 
back  with  dismay  from  every  strong  and  violent 
picture.     We  have  lived  to  see  tragedies  of  which 
the  catastrophe  consists  in  the  swoon  of  an  ena 
moured  princess :  if  Shakspeare  falls  occasionally 
into  the  opposite  extreme,  it  is  a  noble  error  origi- 

*  See  Note  b,  p.  165. 


HIS    DELINEATION    OF    PASSION.  185 

nating  in  the  fulness  of  a  gigantic  strength.     And 
this  tragical  Titan,  who  storms  the  heavens,  and 
threatens  to  tear  the  world  from  off  its  hinges,  who, 
more  fruitful  than   .^Eschylus,  makes  our  hair  to 
stand  on  end,  and  congeals  our  blood  with  horror, 
possessed  at  the  same  time  the  insinuating  loveli 
ness  of  the  sweetest  poetry ;  he  plays  with  love 
like  a  child,  and  his  songs  are  breathed  out  like 
melting  sighs.     He  unites   in   his  existence  the 
utmost  elevation  and  the  utmost  depth ;   and  the 
most  foreign,  and  even  apparently  irreconcileable 
properties  subsist  in  him  peaceably  together.   The 
world  of  spirits  and  nature  have  laid  all  their  trea 
sures  at  his  feet :  in  strength  a  demigod,  in  pro 
fundity  of  view  a  prophet,  in  all-seeing  wisdom  a 
protecting  spirit  of  a  higher  order,  he  lowers  him- 
.self  to  mortals  as  if  unconscious  of  his  superiority, 
and  is  as  open  and  unassuming  as  a  child. 

AUGUSTUS  WILLIAM  ScHLEGEL.h 

h  Lectures  on  Dramatic  Literature,  Black's  Translation,  vol.  2. 
p.  132,  et  seq.  Exalted  as  this  eulogiumis,  I  know  not  that  it 
surpasses  what  must  have  been  frequently  felt  and  acknow 
ledged  by  every  poetical  mind  in  reading  Shakspeare. 


186  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 


No.  XV. 

ON  THE  INDIVIDUALITY  OF  SHAKSPEARE'S 
CHARACTERS. 

DR.  JOHNSON  praises  Shakspeare's  characters 
upon  the  ground  of  their  being  species,  not  indivi 
duals.       Johnson  could  not,  from  some  strange 
peculiarity  in  the  constitution  of  his  great  mind, 
perceive  the  individual  traits  induced  upon  the 
general  nature  presented  by  the  poet.     All  the 
persons,  for  instance,  of  the  play  of  Henry  the 
Eighth  are,  in  a  remarkable  degree,  individuals : 
this  constitutes  its  greatest  charm ;  though,  most 
likely,  it  was  the  thing  that  occasioned  the  con 
temptuous  criticism  thereon   pronounced  by  our 
great  critic.     '  The  meek  sorrows/  says  he,  '  and 
virtuous  distress  of  Katherine  have  furnished  some 
scenes,  which  may  be  justly  numbered  among  the 
greatest  efforts  of  tragedy.      But  the  genius  of 
Shakspeare  comes  in  and  goes  out  with  Katherine. 
Every  other  part  may  be   easily  conceived  and 
easily  written.'     We  cannot  subscribe  to  this  ver 
dict.     In  our  opinion,  the  genius  of  Shakspeare  is 
equally  exhibited  in  Cardinal  Wolsey. — 

Cardinal  Wolsey  was  a  'bold  bad  man;'  his 
ambition,  'that  scarlet  sin,'  prompted  him  to  re 
move  all  obstructions  in  the  way  of  his  preferment, 


INDIVIDUALITY    OF    HIS    CHARACTERS.         187 

/ 

and  he  is  suspected  of  practising  against  the  Duke 
of  Buckingham : — 

-  He  was  a  man 

Of  an  unbounded  stomach,  ever  ranking 
Himself  with  princes ; 

but  not  without  reason,  for  if  he  had  faults,  he  had 
also  many  virtues : — 

From  his  cradle 

He  was  a  scholar,  and  a  ripe  and  good  one ; 

Exceeding  wise,  fair  spoken,  and  persuading : 

Lofty  and  sour  to  them  that  loved  him  not ; 

But  to  those  men  that  sought  him,  sweet  as  summer. 

And  though  he  were  unsatisfied  in  getting, 

(Which  was  a  sin,)  yet  in  bestowing 

He  was  most  princely. 

Such  a  man  is  not  without  a  claim  upon  our  sym 
pathies — he  is  within  the  sphere  of  our  common 
humanity.  The  last  acts  of  his  life  redeem  the 
preceding.  We  have  often  admired  the  patience 
which  he  displays  when  Norfolk,  Suffolk,  and 
Surrey  produce  to  him — 


the  grand  sum  of  his  sins, 

The  articles  collected  from  his  life ; — 

while,  in  their  malice,  they  exultingly  specify  the 
charges  against  him  in  the  king's  possession,  he 
stands  in  silent  endurance,  'until  they  leave  him 
with  the  taunting  valediction — 

So  fare  you  well,  my  little  good  Lord  Cardinal ; 

— then  follows  his  fine  soliloquy,  beginning  with — 


188  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

So  farewell  to  the  little  good  you  bear  me ; 
Farewell,  along  farewell,  to  all  my  greatness  : 
This  is  the  state  of  man,  &c. — 

and  the  touching  dialogue  with  Cromwell,  wherein 
he  tells  him  that  he  has  recommended  him  to  the 
king,  and  warns  him  against  ambition  : — 

By  that  sin  fell  the  angels ;  how  can  man  then, 
The  image  of  his  Maker,  hope  to  win  by  it? 

and  concludes  with — • 


Oh  !  Cromwell !  Cromwell ! 


Had  I  but  served  my  God  with  half  the  zeal 
I  served  my  king,  he  would  not  in  mine  age 
Have  left  me  naked  to  mine  enemies. 

The  circumstances  of  his  death  are  equally  affect 
ing  :— 

After  the  stout  Earl  of  Northumberland 
Arrested  him  at  York,  and  brought  him  forward 
(As  a  man  sorely  tainted)  to  his  answer, 
He  fell  sick  suddenly,  and  grew  so  ill 
He  could  not  sit  his  mule. 
At  last,  with  easy  roads,  he  came  to  Leicester, 
Lodged  in  the  abbey,  where  the  reverend  abbot, 
With  all  his  convent,  honourably  received  him, 
To  whom  he  gave  these  words,  « O  father  abbot, 
An  old  man,  broken  with  the  storms  of  state, 
Is  come  to  lay  his  weary  bones  amongst  ye; 
Give  him  a  little  earth  for  charity !' 
So  went  to  bed,  where  eagerly  his  sickness 
Pursued  him  still ;  and  three  nights  after  this, 
About  the  hour  of  eight,  (which  he  himself 
Foretold  should  be  his  last,)  full  of  repentance, 
Continual  meditations,  tears,  and  sorrows, 


INDIVIDUALITY    OF   HIS    CHARACTERS.        189 

He  gave  his  honours  to  the  world  again, 

His  blessed  part  to  heaven,  and  slept  in  peace. 

Thus  it  is  always  with  Shakspeare.     His  worst 
characters  have  some  claim  upon  our  kindly  feel 
ings.     Genius  is  the  power  of  reflecting  nature ; 
for  genius,  as  the  word  imports,  is  nature.     The 
mind   of  Shakspeare  was  as  a  magic  mirror,  in 
which  all  human  nature's  possible  forms  and  com 
binations  were  present,  intuitively  and  inherently 
— not  conceived — but  as  connatural  portions  of  his 
own  humanity.      Whatever  his  characters  were 
besides,  they  were  also  men.     Such  they  were  in 
the  world  of  his  imagination — such  they  are  also  in 
the  world  of  reality.     It  is  this  harmony  and  cor 
respondence  between  the  world  without  and  the 
world  within,  that  gives  the  charm  to  his  produc 
tions.     His  characters  are  not  the  mere  abstrac 
tions  of  intellect  from  an  understood  class  or  species, 
but  are  generated  in  his  own  mind,  as  individuals 
having  personal  being  there,  and  are  distinctly 
brought  out,  not  so  much  as  representatives  -of 
character  in  actual  nature,  as  the  original  produc 
tions  of  a  plastic  genius,  which  is  also  nature,  and 
works  like  her.     This  is  to  be  a  poet ;  this  is  what 
is  meant  by  a  creative  imagination. 

QUARTERLY  REVIEW.' 

1  No.  70. 


190  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE, 


No.  XVI. 

ON  SHAKSPEARE,  IN  REFERENCE  TO  THE  AGE  IN 
WHICH  HE  FLOURISHED. 

SHAKSPEARE  flourished  and  wrote  in  the  last 
half  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  the  first 
half  of  that  of  James  the  First ;  and  consequently 
under  monarchs  who  were  learned  themselves,  and 
held  literature  in  honour.     The  policy  of  modern 
Europe,   by  which  the  relations  of  its   different 
states  have  been  so  variously  interwoven,  com 
menced  a  century  before.     Such  was  the  zeal  for 
the  study  of  the  ancients,  that  even  court  ladies, 
and  the  queen  herself,  were  intimately  acquainted 
with  Latin  and  Greek,  and  could  speak  the  former 
with  fluency ;   a  degree  of  knowledge  which  we 
should  in  vain  seek  for  in  the  European  courts  of 
the  present  day.     The  trade  and  navigation  of  the 
English,  which  they  carried  on  with  all  the  four 
quarters  of  the  world,  made  them  acquainted  with 
the  customs   and  mental    productions    of   other 
nations ;  and  it  would  appear  that  they  were  then 
more  indulgent  to  foreign  manners  than  they  are 
in  the  present  day.     Italy  had  already  produced 
nearly  all  for  which  her  literature  is  distinguished; 
and  translations  were  diligently,  and  even  success 
fully,  executed  in  verse  from  the  Italians.     They 


IN    REFERENCE    TO    HIS    AGE.  191 

were  not  unacquainted  with  the  Spanish  literature, 
for  it  is  certain  that  Don  Quixote  was  read  in 
England  soon  after  its  first  appearance.     Bacon, 
the  founder  of  modern  experimental  philosophy, 
and  of  whom  it  may  be  said  that  he  carried  in  his 
pocket  all  that  merits  the  name  of  philosophy  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  was  a   contemporary  of 
Shakspeare.    His  fame,  as  a  writer,  did  not  indeed 
burst  forth  till  after  his  death ;  but  what  a  number 
of  ideas  must  have  been  in  circulation  before  such 
an  author  could  arise !     Many  branches  of  human 
knowledge  have,  since  that  time,  been  cultivated 
to  a  greater  extent,  but  merely  those  branches 
which  are  totally  unproductive  to  poetry :   che 
mistry,  mechanics,   manufactures,  and  rural  and 
political   economy,  will   never  enable   a  man  to 
become  a  poet.     I  have  elsewhere*  examined  into 
the  pretensions  of  modern  cultivation,   as  it  is 
called,  which  looks  down  with  such  contempt  on 
all  preceding  ages;  I  have  shown  that  it  is  all 
little,   superficial,    and  unsubstantial   at  bottom. 
The  pride  of  what  has  been  called  the  present 
maturity  of  human  reason  has  come  to  a  miserable 
end ;  and  the  structures  erected  by  those  peda 
gogues  of  the  human  race  have  fallen  to  pieces  like 
the  baby-houses  of  children. 

The  tone  of  society  at  present  compels  us  to 
remark  that  there  is  a  wide  difference  between 
cultivation  and  what  is  called  polish.  That  artifi 
cial  polish  which  puts  an  end  to  every  thing  like 

*  In  my  Lectures  on  the  Spirit  of  the  Age. 


192  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

original  communication,   and    subjects   all   inter 
course  to  the  insipid  uniformity  of  certain  rules, 
was  undoubtedly  unknown  in  the  age  of  Shak- 
speare,  as  it  is  still  in  a  great  measure  in  England 
in  the  present  day.    They  possessed  the  conscious 
ness  of  healthful  energy,  which  always  expressed 
itself  boldly,  though  often  petulantly.     The  spirit 
of  chivalry  was  not  yet  extinguished  ;  and  a  queen 
who  required  the  observance  of  much  more  regard 
for  her  sex  than  for  her  dignity,  and  who,  from  her 
determination,  wisdom,  and  magnanimity,  was,  in 
fact,  well  qualified  to  infuse  an  ardent  enthusiasm 
into  the  minds  of  her  subjects,  inflamed  that  spirit 
to  the  most  noble  love  of  glory  and  renown.     Re 
mains  of  the  feudal  independence  were  also  still  in 
existence  ;  the  nobility  vied  with  each   other  in 
splendour  of  dress,  and  number  of  retinue ;  and 
every  great  lord  had  a  sort  of  small  court  of  his 
own.     The  distinction  of  ranks  was  yet  strongly 
marked  ;  and  this  is  what  is  most  to  be  wished  for 
by  the  dramatic  poet.     In  discourse  they  were 
delighted  with  quick  and   unexpected  answers ; 
and  the  witty  sally  passed  rapidly  like  a  ball  from 
mouth  to  mouth,  till  it  could  no  longer  be  kept  up. 
This,  and  the  excessive  extent  to  which  a  play  on 
words  was  carried,  (for  which  King  James  himself 
had  a  great  fondness,  so  that  we  need  not  wonder 
at  the  universality  of  the  mode,)  may  be  considered 
in  the  light  of  bad  taste ;  but  to  take  it  for  a  symp 
tom  of  rudeness  and  barbarity,  is  not  less  absurd 
than  to  infer  the  poverty  of  a  people  from  their 
luxurious  extravagance.     These  strained  repartees 


IN    REFERENCE    TO    HIS    AGE.  193 

frequently  occur  in  Shakspeare,  with  the  view  of 
painting  the  actual  tone  of  the  society  of  his  day ; 
it  does  not  follow,  however,  that  they  met  with  his 
approbation,  but,  on  the  contrary,  it  appears  that 
he  held  them  in  derision.  Hamlet  says,  in  the 
scene  with  the  grave-digger,  "By  the  Lord,  Hora 
tio,  these  three  years  I  have  taken  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  Lorenzo,  in  the  Merchant  of  Venice, 
alluding  to  Launcelot : 

O  dear  discretion,  how  his  words  are  suited  ! 
The  fool  hath  planted  in  his  memory 
An  army  of  good  words  :  and  I  do  know 
A  many  fools,  that  stand  in  better  place, 
Garnish'd  like  him,  that  for  a  tricksy  word 
Defy  the  matter. 

Besides,  Shakspeare,  in  a  thousand  places,  lays 
an  uncommonly  great  stress  on  the  correct  and 
refined  tone  of  good  company,  and  warns  against 
every  deviation  from  it,  either  through  boorishness 
or  affected  foppery ;  he  not  only  gives  the  most 
admirable  lectures  on  the  subject,  but  he  repre 
sents  it  in  all  its  gradations  in  every  rank,  age,  and 
sex. — It  is  true  that  Shakspeare  sometimes  intro 
duces  us  to  improper  company  ;  at  other  times  he 
suffers  ambiguous  expressions  to  be  used  in  the 
presence  of  women,  and  even  by  women  them 
selves.  This  species  of  petulance  was  probably 
not  then  unusual.  He  certainly  did  not  do  so  to 
please  the  multitude,  for  in  many  of  his  pieces  there 

N 


194  MEMORIALS    OF     SHAKSPEARE. 

is  not  the  slightest  trace  of  any  thing  of  this  sort 
to  be  found ;  and  what  virgin  tenderness  does  he 
not  preserve  throughout  many  of  his  female  cha 
racters  !  When  we  see  the  liberties  taken  by  other 
dramatic  poets  in  England  in  his  time,  and  even 
much  later,  we  must  account  him  comparatively 
chaste  and  moral.  Neither  must  we  overlook 
certain  circumstances  in  the  then  state  of  the 
theatre.  The  female  parts  were  not  acted  by 
women,  but  by  boys ;  and  no  person  of  the  fair 
sex  appeared  in  the  theatre  without  a  mask. 
Under  such  a  carnival  disguise,  much  might  be 
heard  by  them,  and  much  might  be  ventured  to  be 
said  in  their  presence,  which,  in  other  circum 
stances,  would  have  been  quite  unsuitable.  It  is 
certainly  to  be  wished  that  decency  should  be 
observed  on*  all  public  occasions,  and  consequently 
also  on  the  stage  ;  but  even  in  this  it  is  possible  to 
go  too  far.  That  censorious  spirit,  which  scents 
out  impurity  in  every  sally  of  a  bold  and  vivacious 
description,  is  at  best  but  an  ambiguous  criterion  of 
purity  of  morals ;  and  there  is  frequently  concealed 
under  this  hypocrisy  the  consciousness  of  an  im 
pure  imagination.  The  determination  to  tolerate 
nothing  which  has  the  least  reference  to  the 
sensual  relation  between  the  two  sexes,  may  be 
carried  to  a  pitch  extremely  oppressive  to  a  dra 
matic  poet,  and  injurious  to  the  boldness  and  free 
dom  of  his  composition.  If  considerations  of  such 
a  nature  were  to  be  attended  to,  many  of  the  hap 
piest  parts  of  the  plays  of  Shakspeare,  for  example, 


IN     REFERENCE    TO    HIS    AGE.  195 

in  Measure  for  Measure,  and  Atts  Well  that  Ends 
Well,  which   are   handled   with   a  due  regard  to 
decency,  must  be  set  aside  for  their  impropriety. 

Had  no  other  monument  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth 
come  down  to  us  than  the  works  of  Shakspeare,  I 
should,  from  them  alone,  have  formed  the  most 
advantageous  idea  of  its  state  of  social  cultivation. 
Those  who  look  through  such  strange  spectacles  as 
to  find  nothing  in  them  but  rudeness  and  barbarity, 
when  they  cannot  deny  what  I  have  just  now 
advanced,  have  no  other  resource  for  themselves 
but  to  say,  "  What  has  Shakspeare  to  do  with  the 
cultivation  of  his  age?  He  had  no  share  in  it. 
Born  in  a  low  situation,  ignorant  and  uneducated, 
he  passed  his  life  in  low  society,  and  laboured  for 
bread  to  please  a  vulgar  audience,  without  ever 
dreaming  of  fame  or  posterity." 

In  all  this  there  is  not  a  single  word  of  truth, 
though  it  has  been  repeated  a  thousand  times.  We 
know,  it  is  true,  very  little  of  the  life  of  the  poet ; 
and  what  we  do  know,  for  the  most  part,  consists 
of  raked  up  anecdotes  of  a  very  suspicious  nature, 
nearly  of  such  a  description  as  those  which  are 
told  at  inns  to  inquisitive  strangers,  who  wish  to 
know  something  of  a  celebrated  man  in  the  place 
where  he  lives.  The  first  actual  document  which 
enabled  us  to  have  a  peep  into  his  family  concerns 
was  the  discovery  of  his  will.  It  betrayed  an 
extraordinary  deficiency  of  critical  acumen  in  the 
commentators  of  Shakspeare,  that  none  of  them,  as 
far  as  we  know,  have  ever  thought  of  availing  them- 


196  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSFEAKE. 

selves  of  his  sonnets  for  tracing  the  circumstances  of 
his  life.  These  sonnets  paint  most  unequivocally 
the  actual  situation  and  sentiments  of  the  poet ; 
they  enable  us  to  become  acquainted  with  the 
passions  of  the  man ;  they  even  contain  the  most 
remarkable  confessions  of  his  youthful  errors.-1 
Shakspeare's  father  was  a  man  of  property  ^k  and 
in  a  diploma  from  the  Herald's  Office,  for  the  re 
newal  or  confirmation  of  his  coat  of  arms,  he  i& 
styled  Gentleman.  Our  poet,  the  oldest  of  four1 
children,  could  not,  it  is  true,  receive  an  academical 
education,  as  he  married  when  hardly  eighteen, 
probably  in  consequence  of  family  arrangements. 
In  this  private  way  of  life  he  continued  but  a  very 
few  years ;  and  he  was  either  enticed  to  London 
from  the  wearisomeness  of  his  situation,  or  banished 
from  home,  as  it  is  said,  in  consequence  of  his 

j  I  beg  leave,  in  this  place,  to  refer  to  a  former  note  on  these 
sonnets,  and  to  add  that  the  reader  who  wishes  for  an  ampler 
consideration  of  their  merits,  and  of  their  applicability  towards 
explaining  some  material  circumstances  of  the  life  of  Shakspeare, 
may  consult  my  "  Shakspeare  and  his  Times,"  vol.  ii.  p.  50.  ad 
p.  82. 

k  Up  to  the  period  of  1574,  Shakspeare's  father  might  be 
considered  as  a  man  of  property,  being  possessed  of  two  houses 
and  some  land,  beside  personal  property  ;  but  he  shortly  after 
wards  fell  into  a  state  of  poverty,  and  describes  himself  in  1597, 
four  years  before  his  death,  as  of  "  very  small  wealth  and  very 
few  friends." 

1  This  is  a  mistake,  for  John  Shakspeare  had  eight  children  : 
Jone,  Margaret,  William,  Gilbert,  Jone,  Ann,  Richard,  and 
Edmund.  Of  these,  Jone,  the  first-born,  died  very  early  after 
birth,  and  Margaret  when  five  months  old. 


IN    REFERENCE   TO    HIS    AGE.  197 

irregularities.  He  there  resorted  to  the  situation 
of  player,  which  he  considered  at  first  as  a  degra 
dation,  principally  because  he  was  seduced  by  the 
example  of  his  comrades  to  participate  in  their 
wild  and  irregular  manner  of  life.*  It  is  ex 
tremely  probable  that,  by  the  poetical  fame  which 
he  acquired  in  the  progress  of  his  career,  he  was 
the  principal  means  of  ennobling  the  stage,  and 
bringing  the  situation  of  a  player  into  better  repute. 
Even  at  a  very  early  age  he  endeavoured  to  distin 
guish  himself  as  a  poet  in  other  walks  than  those 
of  the  stage,  as  is  proved  by  his  juvenile  poems  of 
Adonis  and  Lucrece,  He  afterwards  obtained  the 
situation  of  joint  proprietor  and  manager  of  the 
theatre  for  wliich  he  laboured.  That  he  was  not 
admitted  to  the  society  of  persons  of  distinction  is 
altogether  incredible  ;  besides  many  others,  he 
found  in  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  the  friend  of 
the  unfortunate  Essex,  a  most  liberal  and  kind 
patron.  His  pieces  were  not  merely  the  delight  of 
the  million,  but  in  great  favor  at  court :  the  two 
monarchs  under  whose  reigns  he  wrote,  were, 
according  to  the  testimony  of  a  contemporary,  alto- 

*  In  one  of  his  sonnets  he  says : — 

O,  for  my  sake  do  you  with  fortune  chide, 

The  guilty  goddess  of  my  harmless  deeds, 
That  did  not  better  for  my  life  provide, 

Than  public  means  which  public  manners  breed*. 

And  in  the  following  : — 

Your  love  and  pity  doth  the  impression  fill, 
Which  vulgar  scandal  stamp'd  upon  my  brow. 


198  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSrEARE. 

gether  taken  with  him.*  They  were  acted  at 
court ;  and  Elizabeth  appears  herself  to  have  given 
occasion  to  the  writing  of  more  than  one  of  them, 
for  the  celebration  of  her  court  festivals.  It  is 
known  that  King  James  honoured  Shakspeare 
so  far  as  to  write  to  him  with  his  own  hand.  All 
this  looks  very  unlike  either  contempt  or  banish 
ment  into  the  obscurity  of  a  low  circle.  Shakspeare 
acquired,  by  his  activity  as  a  poet,  player,  and 
stage-manager,  a  considerable  property,  which  he 
enjoyed  in  his  native  spot,  in  retirement  and  in  the 
society  of  a  beloved  daughter,  in  the  last  years  of 
his  too  short  life.  Immediately  after  his  death,  a 
monument  was  erected  over  his  grave,  which  may 
be  considered  sumptuous  for  those  times. 

Amidst  such  brilliant  success,  and  with  such 
distinguished  proofs  of  respect  and  honour  from  his 
contemporaries,  it  would  be  singular  indeed  if 
Shakspeare,  notwithstanding  the  modesty  of  a 
great  mind,  which  he  certainly  possessed  in  a  pecu 
liar  degree,  should  never  have  dreamed  of  posthu 
mous  fame.  As  a  profound  thinker,  he  had  pretty 
accurately  taken  the  measure  of  the  circle  of  human 
capabilities,  and  he  could  say  to  himself  with  con 
fidence,  that  many  of  his  productions  would  not 
easily  be  surpassed.  What  foundation  then  is 
there  for  the  contrary  assertion,  which  would  de 
grade  the  immortal  artist  to  the  situation  of  a  daily 

*  Ben  Jonson  : — 

And  make  those  flights  upon  the  bunks  of  Thames, 
That  so  did  take  Eliza  and  our  James! 


IN    REFERENCE    TO    HIS    AGE.  199 

labourer  for  a  rude  multitude  ?     Merely  this,  that 
he  himself  published  no  edition  of  his  whole  works. 
We  do  not  reflect  that  a  poet,  always  accustomed 
to  labour  immediately  for  the  stage,  who  has  often 
enjoyed  the  triumph  of  overpowering  assembled 
crowds  of  spectators,  and  drawing  from  them  the 
most  tumultuous  applause,  who  is  not  dependent 
on  the  caprice  of  vitiated  stage  directors,  but  left 
to  his  own  discretion  in  the  selection  of  a  proper 
mode  of  theatrical    composition,  cares  naturally 
much  less  for  the  clpset  of  the  solitary  reader.    In 
the  first  formation  of  a  national  stage,  more  espe 
cially,  we  find  frequent  examples  of  such  negli 
gence.     Of   the   almost    innumerable    pieces    of 
Lopez  de  Vega,  many  undoubtedly   never  were 
printed,  and  are  thereby  lost ;   and  Cervantes  did 
not  print  his  earlier  dramas,  though  he  certainly 
boasts  of  them  as  meritorious  works.     As  Shak- 
speare,  on  his  retiring  from  the  theatre,  left  his 
manuscripts  behind  with  his  fellow-managers,  he 
might  rely  on  theatrical  tradition  for  handing  them 
down  to  posterity,  which  would  indeed  have  been 
sufficient  for  that  purpose,  if  the  closing  of  the 
theatres,  under   the   oppression  of  the   puritans, 
had  not  interrupted  the  natural  order  of  things. 
We  know,  besides,  that  the  poets  used  then  to  sell 
the  exclusive  possession  of  their  pieces  to  a  theatre  : 
it  is  therefore  not  improbable  that  the  right  of  pro 
perty  in  his  imprinted  pieces  was  no  longer  vested 
in  Shakspeare,  or  had  not  at  least  yet  reverted  to 
him.     His  fellow-managers  entered  on  the  publi- 


200  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

cation  seven  years  after  his  death  (which  probably 
surprised  him  in  the  intention)  as  it  would  appear 
on  their  own  account,  and  for  their  own  advantage. 

AUGUSTUS  WILLIAM  ScHLEGEL.m 

>»>  Lectures  on  Dramatic  Literature  apud  Black,  vol.  ii.  p. 
107 — 117.  The  following  attempt  to  assign  the  reasons  which 
might  prevent  the  immediate  superintendence  of  Shakspeare 
over  his  own  works,  I  have  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  poet 
in  my  •*  Tale  of  the  Days  of  Shakspeare,"  and  I  am  happy 
to  find  that  it  has  been  considered  as  making  a  probable  ap 
proximation  to  the  truth. — "  Why  do  you  not,  my  friend,"  says 
Montchensey  to  the  bard,  "  retired  as  you  now  are  from  the 
bustle  and  competition  of  a  London  life,  give  us  a  collected, 
and  what  I  will  not  hesitate  to  say  is  much  wanted,  a  corrected 
edition  of  your  dramas  ?  Not  only  are  the  quarto  copies  we 
possess  printed  in  such  a  manner  as  to  convince  me  they  have 
had  not  a  particle  of  your  superintendence;  but  a  number  of 
plays,  of  which,  I  am  persuaded,  you  have  scarcely  written  a 
line,  have  been  brought  on  the  stage  as  yours,  and  even  pub 
lished  with  your  name  ?  " 

"  It  is  very  true,"  replied  the  bard,  with  a  somewhat  jocular 
air,  "  and  I  must  be  content,  I  am  afraid,  like  many  a  greater 
man,  to  father  what  does  not  strictly  belong  to  me.  But, 
indeed,  my  good  friend,  whilst  I  heartily  thank  you  for  your 
kind  anxiety  about  the  fate  of  my  productions,  I  must  at  the 
same  time  confess  that  I  have  never  yet  dreamt  of  doing  what 
you  have  suggested.  The  fact  is,  the  pieces  you  allude  to  have 
more  than  answered  my  expectations  ;  for  they  have  not  only 
procured  me  a  bare  subsistence,  one  of  the  chief  objects  for 
which  they  were  at  first  written,  but  they  have  likewise  ob 
tained  me  the  applause  and  good-will  of  my  contemporaries, 
the  patronage  and  friendship  of  several  great  and  good  men, 
and  a  competency  for  life.  What  may  be  their  lot  when  I  am 
dead  and  gone,  and  no  longer  here  to  give  them  countenance, 
I  have  scarcely  yet  ventured  to  enquire  ;  for  though  I  will  not 


IN    REFERENCE    TO    HIS    AGE.  201 

be  weak  enough  to  pretend  an  ignorance  of  their  occasional 
merits,  I  am  too  conscious  of  their  numerous  errors  and  defects 
to  suppose  that  posterity  will  trouble  their  heads  much  about 
them." 

"  Indeed,  indeed,  my  noble  host,"  rejoined  Montchensey, 
kindling  into  unusual  animation  as  he  spoke,  "  you  much  too 
lightly  estimate  the  value  of  your  own  works.  Without  arro 
gating  to  myself  any  deep  insight  into  futurity,  I  think  I  may 
venture  to  predict  that  a  day  will  arrive  when  this  inattention 
of  yours  will  be  a  theme  of  universal  regret." 

"  Say  you  so,  my  kind  critic  ?"  returned  his  somewhat  asto 
nished  auditor,  his  mind  momentarily  sinking  into  reverie, 
whilst  his  eye  flashed  at  the  same  instant  with  an  intelligence 
that  seemed  penetrating  the  secrets  of  time;  "  Say  you  so  ?" 
he  repeated ;  then  starting,  as  it  were,  from  the  vision  before 
him,  he  added  in  a  more  subdued  tone,  and  with  a  look  in 
which  the  most  benevolent  sweetness  was  yet  mingled  with  a 
portion  of  subsiding  enthusiasm,  "  if  life  and  health  be  vouch 
safed  me,  I  will  endeavour  not  to  forget  your  suggestion.  It  is, 
indeed,  but  too  true  that  much  has  been  given  to  me,  both  on 
the  stage  and  from  the  press,  which  I  have  never  written,  and 
much  too  has  been  sacrificed  on  my  part,  the  necessary  penalty 
of  my  profession,  to  please  the  popular  ear;  and  for  all  which, 
I  must  likewise  allow,  the  bare  process  of  omission  would  be  a 
ready  cure.  But  the  attempt  to  meet  the  evil  as  it  should 
be  met,  is  not  just  now  in  my  power,  for  a  great  part  of  what 
I  have  produced  is  still  the  property  of  the  theatre;  and  though 
my  late  fellows,  Heminge  and  Condell,  would,  I  have  no  doubt, 
do  what  they  could  to  further  my  wishes,  yet  neither  does  the 
matter  rest  entirely  on  their  shoulders,  nor  would  their  co 
partners,  and  the  stationers  connected  with  them,  relinquish,  at 
the  present  period,  their  share  of  the  expected  profits  without 
a  compensation  too  extravagant  for  me  to  think  of.  Yet  a 
time  may  come  when  I  shall  more  easily  regain  the  control 
over  my  own  offspring  which  I  have  now  lost ;  and  if  it  should 
not,  you  will  recollect  that  I  am  no  critic  like  my  friend  Ben 
Jonson  ;  that,  with  the  exception  of  his  plays,  mine  partake  but 


202  MEMORIALS    OF     SHAKSPEARE. 

a  common  fate  with  those  of  my  contemporaries ;  and  that, 
moreover,  it  is  very  probable  the  revision  you  wish  for,  should 
it  pass,  as  in  all  likelihood  it  would,  beyond  the  mere  measure 
of  blotting  out,  might  in  many  instances  injure  the  effect  of  what 
had  been  happily  produced  in  the  careless  fervor  of  the  moment. 
Besides,  I  must  freely  confess  to  you  that  retirement  from  the 
stage  and  all  its  concerns  has  long  been  a  favourite  object 
with  me.  My  life  has  been  one  of  bustle  and  fatigue,  and,  oc 
casionally,  of  gaiety  and  dissipation  ;  as  an  actor,  I  never  felt 
myself  sufficiently  important  to  be  fond  of  the  occupation,  and 
though  the  hours  spent  in  composition  were  attended  with 
pleasures  great  and  peculiar  to  themselves,  and  have  been 
abundantly  rewarded  by  the  public,  I  may,  I  think,  without  any 
charge  of  ingratitude,  be  permitted  to  remark  that  even  in  this 
way  I  have  done  enough." — Noontide  Leisure,  vol.  i.  p.  47,  et 
seq. 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  203 


No.  XVII. 

THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF  SHAKSPEARE. 

THE  glory  of  Shakspeare  at  first  appeared  in 
France  to  be  a  subject  of  paradox  and  scandal ;  it 
now  threatens  the  ancient  renown  of  our  theatre. 
This  revolution,  which  has  been  already  remarked, 
undoubtedly  supposes  great  changes  in  opinions 
and  manners  ;  not  only  has  it  given  birth  to  a 
question  of  literature  and  taste,  but  it  has  awaken 
ed  many  others  which  belong  to  the  history  of 
society.  We  shall  not  here  attempt  to  enter  into 
them :  the  study  of  the  works  of  a  man  of  genius 
is  a  subject  of  itself  sufficiently  fruitful. 

Voltaire  alternately  called  Shakspeare  a  great 
poet  and  a  miserable  buffoon,  a  Homer  and  a 
Gilles.  In  his  youth,  returning  from  England,  the 
enthusiasm  which  he  brought  back  with  him  for 
some  of  the  scenes  of  Shakspeare,  was  considered 
as  one  of  the  daring  novelties  which  he  introduced 
into  France.  Forty  years  afterwards  the  same 
man  levelled  a  thousand  marks  of  sarcasm  against 
the  barbarity  of  Shakspeare,  and  he  chose  the 
Academy  in  particular  as  a  sort  of  sanctuary  for 
the  fulmination  of  his  anathemas.  I  know  not  if 
the  Academy  would,  in  the  present  day,  tolerate 


204  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

such  usage  ;  for  the  revolutions  of  taste  penetrate 
into  the  literary  world  as  well  as  into  the  world  at 
large. 

Voltaire  deceived  himself  in  wishing  to  debase 
the  astonishing  genius  of  Shakspeare  ;  and  all  the 
burlesque  citations  which  he  accumulates  for  this 
purpose,  prove  nothing  against  the  enthusiasm  of 
which  he  himself  had  once  partaken.  I  do  not 
speak  of  La  Harpe,  who  was  led  away  by  an  in 
temperate  displeasure  not  only  against  the  defects 
but  the  reputation  of  Shakspeare,  as  if  his  own 
theatre  had  been  in  the  least  degree  menaced  by 
the  gigantic  fame  of  this  poet.  It  is  in  the  life, 
the  age,  and  the  genius  of  Shakspeare,  that  the 
critic  must  seek,  without  system  and  without 
caprice,  for  the  source  of  his  singular  faults  and 
powerful  originality. 

William  Shakspeare  was  born  on  the  23rd  of 
April,  1564,  at  Stratford-upon-Avon,  in  the  county 
of  Warwick.  We  know  very  little  respecting  the 
childhood  and  the  life  of  this  celebrated  man ;  and, 
notwithstanding  the  minute  researches  of  biogra 
phical  erudition,  excited  by  the  interest  of  so  great 
a  name,  and  by  national  self-love,  the  English  are 
acquainted  with  little  more  in  relation  to  him  than 
his  works.  One  is  not  able,  even  amongst  them, 
to  determine  very  clearly  whether  he  were  a 
Catholic  or  a  Protestant,  and  they  still  discuss  the 
question  whether  he  were  not  lame,  like  the  most 
famous  English  poet  of  our  own  age. 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  205 

It  appears  that  Shakspeare  was  the  eldest  son 
of  a.  family  of  ten  children."  His  father,  who  was 
in  the  woollen  trade,0  had  successively  filled,  in 
Stratford,  the  offices  of  grand  bailiff  and  alderman,? 
until  the  time  in  which  loss  of  fortune,  and  per 
haps  the  reproach  of  Catholicism,  deprived  him  of 
all  public  employment.  According  to  some  tra 
ditions,  he  joined  to  the  woollen  trade  that  of  a 
butcher ;  and  the  young  Shakspeare,  hastily  re 
called  from  the  public  school,  where  his  parents 
could  no  longer  afford  to  keep  him,  was  early  em 
ployed,  it  is  said,  in  the  most  laborious  duties  of 
this  profession.  If  we  may  believe  an  almost  con 
temporary  author,  when  Shakspeare  was  com 
manded  to  kill  a  calf,  he  performed  this  office 
with  a  sort  of  pomp,  and  failed  not  to  pronounce  a 
discourse  before  the  assembled  neighbours.  Lite 
rary  curiosity  may,  if  so  inclined,  trace  some 
affinity  between  these  harangues  of  the  young 
apprentice,  and  the  subsequent  tragic  vocation  of 

n  This  error  is  the  very  reverse  of  one  on  the  same  subject  no 
ticed  before,  and  has  arisen  amongst  the  biographers  of  Shak 
speare  from  confounding  the  children  of  John  Shakspeare,  a 
shoemaker  at  Stratford  from  1585  to  1592,  with  those  of  the 
father  of  the  poet. 

o  It  appears,  from  a  manuscript  of  the  proceedings  of  the 
bailiff's  court  in  1555,  that  John  Shakspeare,  the  father  of  the 
poet,  was  originally  a  glover. 

p  He  was  admitted  of  the  corporation  in  1557,  became  one 
of  the  chamberlains  in  1561,  an  alderman  in  1565,  and  high- 
bailiff  of  the  borough  in  1568. 


206  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

the  poet ;  bat  it  must  be  confessed  that  such  first- 
fruits  stand  wide  apart  from  the  brilliant  inspira 
tions  and  the  poetical  origin  of  the  Greek  theatre. 
It  was  in  the  fields  of  Marathon,  and  at  the 
festivals  of  victorious  Athens,  that  .ZEschylus  first 
heard  the  voice  of  the  Muses. 

Whatever  might  be  these  early  and  obscure 
occupations  of  Shakspeare,  he  was  married  in  his 
eighteenth  year  to  a  woman  older  than  himself, 
who  rendered  him,  in  a  short  time,  the  father  of 
three  children,  but  of  whom,  otherwise,  there  is 
scarcely  a  record  in  his  history.  This  union  pro 
bably  left  open  to  him  all  the  avenues  to  an 
adventurous  life.  It  was  two  years  after  this 
marriage  that,  chasing  one  night,  in  company 
with  some  poachers,  the  deer  of  a  gentleman 
in  the  neighbourhood,  Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  he  was 
seized  by  the  keepers,  and,  avenging  himself  of 
this  first  disgrace  by  a  satirical  ballad,  he  fled  to 
London  to  avoid  the  pursuit  of  the  doubly  offended 
knight.  This  anecdote  is  the  best  authenticated 
fact  in  the  life  of  Shakspeare,  for  he  has  himself 
introduced  it  on  the  stage ;  and  that  ridiculous 
personage  Judge  Shallow,  accusing  Falstaff  of  a 
crime  against  the  laws  of  the  chase,  is  a  remem 
brance  of,  and  a  retaliation  for,  this  petty  perse 
cution. 

On  his  arrival  in  London,  Shakspeare,  it  is  said, 
was  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  holding,  at  the 
door  of  a  theatre,  the  horses  of  those  who  fre- 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  207 

quented  it,i  or  else  filled  at  first  some  inferior 
office  in  this  theatre ;  of  the  truth  of  these  anec 
dotes,  however,  notwithstanding  the  researches  of 
the  commentators,  we  must  still  remain  ignorant. 
What  appears  less  doubtful  is,  that  in  1592,  six  or 
seven  years  after  his  arrival  in  London,  he  was 
already  known,  and  even  envied,  as  an  actor,  and 
as  a  dramatic  author,  A  libel  of  the  times  con 
tains  allusions  with  regard  to  him  sufficiently 
evident,  and  of  which  the  bitterness  betrays  a 
well-founded  jealousy.  It  appears,  however,  that 
Shakspeare  did  not  give  himself  up  at  first,  or,  at 
least,  not  entirely,  to  dramatic  composition.  In 
publishing,  under  the  date  of  1593,  a  poem  enti 
tled  Venus  and  Adonis,  dedicated  to  Lord  South 
ampton,  Shakspeare  called  this  work  thz  jirst-born 
of  his  imagination.  This  little  poem  seems  to  be 
written  altogether  in  the  Italian  taste,  if  we  may 
judge  from  the  studied  nature  of  the  style,  from 
the  affectation  of  wit,  and  the  profusion  of  imagery. 
The  same  style  is  to  be  found  in  a  collection  of 
sonnets  which  he  printed  in  1596,  under  the  title 
of  The  Passionate  Pilgrim.  We  find  it  also  in  the 
poem  of  Lucrece,  another  production  of  Shak- 
speare's  which  bears  the  same  date. 

These  various  essays  may  be  regarded  as  the 
first  studies  of  this  great  poet,  which  cannot,  with 
out  a  strange  misconception,  be  supposed  destitute 

i  There  is  much  reason  to  believe  this  is  an  idle  tale  ;  for 
Howe,  who  was  acquainted  with  the  story,  has  declined  making 
use  of  it  in  his  life  of  the  bard. 


208  MEMORIALS   OF    SHA.KSPKARE. 

of  all  culture,  and  written  at  random.  Undoubt 
edly  Shakspeare,  although  living  in  a  very  learned 
age,  was  entirely  ignorant  of  the  ancient  lan- 
o-uages;r  but,  perhaps,  he  knew  Italian,  and 
besides,  in  his  time  translations  into  English  had 
already  been  made  of  nearly  all  the  ancient  works, 
and  of  a  great  number  of  the  modern  ones. 
English  poetry,  too,  was  at  this  period  no  longer  in 
a  state  of  poverty  and  coarseness ;  it  began  through 
all  its  departments  to  put  on  a  polished  appear 
ance.  Spenser,  who  died  at  the  commencement 
of  Shakspeare's  career,  had  written  a  long  poem 
in  a  learned  and  ingenious  style,  and  with  a 
degree  of  elegance  which,  though  sometimes  af 
fected,  is  greatly  superior  to  the  grotesque  diction 
of  our  Ronsard. 

It  was  especially  after  the  reign  of  Henry  the 
VIII,  and  the  revolution  in  religion,  that  a  power 
ful  excitement  had  been  given  to  the  minds  of 
men,  that  their  imaginations  had  become  heated, 
and  that  controversy  had  spread  through  the  na 
tion  the  want  of  new  ideas.  The  Bible  alone, 
rendered  popular  by  the  version  of  the  yet  inac 
tive  but  already  zealous  puritans — the  Bible  alone 
was  a  school  of  poetry  full  of  emotions  and  images  ; 
it  almost  effaced  indeed,  in  the  memory  of  the 
people,  the  legends  and  the  ballads  of  the  middle 
age.  The  psalms  of  David,  translated  into  rude 

r  This  is  not  correct ;  for  Ben  Jonson  positively  asserts,  and 
no  man  had  better  opportunities  for  ascertaining  the  fact,  that 
he  had  some  knowledge  both  of  Latin  and  Greek. 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  209 

verse,  but  full  of  fire  and  spirit,  formed  the  war- 
songs  of  the  Reformation,  and  gave  to  poetry,  which 
had  hitherto  been  considered  only  as  an  inferior 
pastime  for  the  leisure  of  the  castle  and  the  court, 
somewhat  of  an  enthusiastic  and  serious  tone. 

At  the  same  time,  the  study  of  the  ancient  lan 
guages  opened  an  abundant  source  of  recollections 
and  of  images,  which  assumed  a  sort  of  originality 
in  being  partially  disfigured  by  the  somewhat  con 
fused  notions  which  the  multitude  entertained  of 
them.  Under  Elizabeth,  Greek  and  Roman  eru 
dition  was  the  fashion  of  the  court.  All  the  classic 
authors  were  translated.  The  queen  herself  had 
put  into  verse  the  Hercules  Furens  of  Seneca;  and 
this  version,  though  little  remarkable  in  itself, 
suffices  to  explain  the  literary  zeal  of  the  nobles  of 
her  court.  They  became  learned  in  order  to  please 
the  queen,  as,  at  another  time,  they  became  phi 
losophers  or  devotees. 

This  erudition  of  the  wits  of  the  court  was  as 
suredly  not  partaken  of  by  the  people;  but  it 
showed  itself  in  some  degree  at  the  festivals  and 
public  games.  It  was  a  perpetual  mythology. 
When  the  queen  visited  any  nobleman  of  her 
court,  she  was  received  and  saluted  by  the  Penates 
or  Household  Gods,  and  Mercury  conducted  her 
into  the  chamber  of  honor.  All  the  metamorphoses 
of  Ovid  figured  in  the  pastry  of  the  dessert.  At 
the  evening  walk  the  lake  of  the  castle  was  covered 
with  Tritons  and  Nereids,  and  the  pages  were 
disguised  as  Nymphs.  When  the  queen  hunted 


210  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

in  the  park  at  break  of  day,  she  was  encountered 
by  Diana,  who  saluted  her  as  the  model  of  virgin 
purity.  Did  she  make  her  solemn  entry  into  the 
city  of  Norwich,  Love,  appearing  in  the  midst  of 
the  grave  aldermen,  came  to  present  her  with  a 
golden  arrow,  which,  under  the  influence  of  her 
powerful  charms,  could  not  fail  to  pierce  the  most 
insensible  heart ;  a  present,  says  an  ancient  chro 
nicle,*  which  her  majesty,  who  had  then  reached 
her  fortieth  year,  received  with  the  most  gracious 
acknowledgment . 

These  inventions  of  the  courtiers,  this  official 
mythology  of  chamberlains  and  ministers,  which 
formed  at  once  a  welcome  flattery  for  the  queen, 
and  an  amusing  spectacle  for  the  people,  diffused 
a  taste  for  the  ingenious  fictions  of  antiquity,  and 
rendered  them  almost  familiar  to  the  most  ignorant, 
as  we  see  them  even  in  the  very  pieces  where 
Shakspeare  seems  most  to  have  written  for  the 
people  and  for  his  contemporaries. 

Other  sources  of  imagination  were  open,  other 
materials  of  poetry  were  prepared  in  the  remains 
of  popular  traditions  and  local  superstitions,  which 
were  preserved  throughout  all  England.  At  the 
court,  astrology ;  in  the  villages,  sorcerers,  fairies, 
and  genii,  formed  a  creed  at  once  lively  and  all- 
powerful.  The  imagination  of  the  English,  ever 
prone  to  melancholy,  retained  these  fables  of  the 
North  as  a  national  belief.  At  the  same  time 

*  Holinshed. 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  211 

there  were  mingled  with  it,  as  attractions  for  more 
cultivated  minds,  the  chivalrous  fictions  of  South 
ern  Europe,  and  all  those  wonderful  relations  of 
the  Italian  Muses,  which  a  multitude  of  translations 
had  introduced  into  the  English  language.  Thus, 
on  all  sides,  and  in  every  sense,  by  the  mixture  of 
ancient  and  foreign  ideas,  by  a  credulous  adhesion 
to  native  traditions,  by  learning  and  by  ignorance, 
by  religious  reform,  and  by  popular  superstitions, 
were  laid  open  a  thousand  perspectives  for  the 
imagination ;  and,  without  searching  farther  into 
the  opinion  of  those  writers  who  have  called  this 
epoch  the  golden  age  of  English  poetry,  it  may  be 
asserted  that  England,  emerging  from  barbarism, 
agitated  in  her  opinions,  without  being  disturbed 
by  war,  full  of  imagination  and  traditional  lore, 
was  then  the  best  prepared  field  for  the  production 
of  a  great  poet. 

It  was  from  the  bosom  of  these  early  treasures 
of  national  literature  that  Shakspeare,  animated  by 
a  wonderful  genius,  promptly  formed  his  expres 
sions  and  his  style.  It  was  the  first  merit  that 
displayed  itself  in  him,  the  character  which  first 
struck  his  contemporaries ;  we  see  it  acknowledged 
in  the  surname  of  the  Poet  honey-tongmd,  which 
was  given  to  him,  and  which  we  find  in  the  rising 
literature  of  all  nations,  as  the  natural  homage 
paid  to  those  who  first  caused  the  charm  of  speech, 
and  the  harmony  of  language,  to  be  more  forcibly 
felt  and  understood. 

This  genius  or  talent  of  expression,  which  now 
forms  the  great  character  and  the  lasting  existence 


212  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

of  Shakspeare,  was  undoubtedly  that  which  first 
struck  his  own  age.    Like  our  Corneille,  he  created 
eloquence,  and  became  powerful  through  its  means. 
Behold  the  great  charm  which  suddenly  caused 
his  dramatic  pieces  to  be   distinguished   in   the 
midst  of  a  multitude  of  other  plays,  equally  inor 
dinate  and  rude,  with  which  the   English  stage 
was  at  that  time  filled.     This  epoch,  in  truth,  was 
peculiarly   fertile  in  dramatic  productions.      Al 
though  the   exterior  pomp  of  the  spectacle  was 
very  gross  and  imperfect,  the  representations  were 
flocked  to  with  passionate  eagerness.     The  rage 
for  festivals  which  had  been  created  by  Elizabeth, 
and  the  encreasing  public  prosperity  of  her  reign, 
multiplied  the  want  of  such  recreations.     A  cele 
brated  nobleman  of  her  court,  even  he  whom  she 
employed  to  pronounce  the   odious  sentence  on 
Mary  Stuart,  Lord  Dorset8  had   composed,  and 
had  brought  upon  the  London  stage,  a  tragedy 
entitled  Gorboduc.      About  the  same  period,*  Mar- 
loe  produced  his  Tamberlaine  the  Greate,  The  Mas 
sacre  of  Paris,  and  The  Tragical!  Historic   of  the 
Life  and  Death  of  Doctor  Faustus. 

It  is   certain,   besides,  that,  independently  of 

s  Thomas  Sackville,  Earl  of  Dorset,  was  one  of  the  commis 
sioners  for  the  trial  of  the  Queen  of  Scots,  but  not  present  at  her 
condemnation  at  Fotheringay  castle.  On  the  confirmation  of 
her  sentence,  he  was  chosen,  from  the  gentleness  of  his  manners, 
and  the  tenderness  of  his  disposition,  to  communicate  to  her 
the  fatal  tidings, 

4  Assuredly  not,  for  Gorboduc  was  acted  m  1561,  and  the 
earliest  of  the  pieces  mentioned  here  by  Marloe,  not  until 
1590. 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  213 

these  works  known  and  published,  there  were,  in 
the  repertory  of  the  theatres  of  this  epoch,  certain 
pieces  by  several  hands,  which  were  often  re 
touched  by  the  comedians  themselves.  It  was  in 
a  labour  of  this  kind  that  the  dramatic  genius  of 
Shakspeare  first  exercised  itself;  and  it  is  amongst 
these  works  of  the  theatrical  treasury  that  we 
must  range  several  pieces  published  under  his 
name,  rude  indeed,  like  his  own,  but  rude  without 
genius.  Such  are  The  Life  and  Death  of  Thomas 
Lord  Cromwell,  The  London  Prodigal,  Pericles,  &c. 
We  do  not  find  them  included  in  the  chronological 
list  which  the  scrupulous  Malone  has  given  of  the 
works  of  Shakspeare,  where,  going  back  as  far  as 
the  year  1 590,  he  commences  with  Titus  Andro- 
nicus.* 

From  this  period,  Shakspeare,  residing  alto 
gether  in  London,  excepting  some  occasional  visits 
which  he  made  to  his  native  town,  gave  annually 
to  the  world  one  or  two  theatrical  pieces,  tragedy, 
comedy,  pastoral  or  fairy  drama.  It  is  very  pro 
bable  that  his  way  of  life  was  similar  to  that 
which,  there  is  reason  to  think,  fell  to  the  lot  of  a 

u  Pericles,  and  the  Second  and  Third  Parts  of  Henry  VI. 
are,  doubtless,  specimens  of  what  Shakspeare  could  early 
achieve  in  this  task  of  emending  the  works  of  others.  But  of 
Titus  Andronicus,  and  the  First  Part  of  Henry  VI.,  of  Locrine, 
The  London  Prodigal,  The  Puritan,  Lord  Cromwell,  Sir 
John  Oldcastle,  and  A  Yorkshire  Tragedy,  I  do  not  believe  he 
wrote  a  line,  notwithstanding  Schlegel,  to  the  astonishment  of 
all  who  better  know  these  miserable  dramas,  has  declared  that 
"  they  deserve  to  be  classed  among  his  best  and  mat  urest  works  !'' 


214  MEMORIALS     OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

comedian  under  the  manners  of  that  age,  that  Is 
to  say,  obscure  and  free,  and  indemnifying  him 
self  for  the  want  of  dignity  and  consideration  by 
the  pursuits  of  pleasure. 

Nevertheless  his  contemporaries,  without  giving 
us  any  of  those  precious  details,  any  of  those 
familiar  anecdotes  which  one  would  wish  to  be 
able  to  relate  of  Shakspeare,  render  homage  to 
his  uprightness  and  benevolence  of  soul.  He  has 
himself  preserved  very  few  memorials  of  his  thea 
trical  career.  We  know  that  in  Hamlet  he  repre 
sented  the  ghost  in  a  very  striking  manner.  He 
filled  many  other  characters  of  the  theatre,  often 
even  several  in  the  same  piece ;  and  it  is  not  now 
an  uninteresting  subject  of  curiosity,  to  observe  on 
those  lists  of  actors  which  precede  old  editions  of 
ancient  plays,  the  great  name  of  Shakspeare 
modestly  figuring  amongst  so  many  obscure  ones 
at  the  head  of  an  almost  forgotten  work. 

There  remains  no  detail  of  the  favours  and  pro 
tection  which  he  received  from  the  court.  We 
only  know  that  Elizabeth  admired  his  talents,  and 
that  she  particularly  enjoyed  the  humorous  cha 
racter  of  FalstafF  in  his  Henry  IV.  It  seems  to 
our  modern  delicacy  that  the  admiration  of  the 
stern  Elizabeth  might  have  been  better  placed, 
and  that  she  whom  Shakspeare  gratefully  calls 

A  fair  vestal  throned  by  the  west, 

might  have  found  something  else  to  praise  in  the 
greatest  painter  of  the  revolutions  of  England, 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  215 

What  appears  more  meritorious  on  the  part  of  this 
princess,  is  the  happy  freedom  which  Shakspeare 
enjoyed  in  the  choice  of  his  subjects.  Under  the 
absolute  power  of  Elizabeth,  he  disposes  at  his 
pleasure  of  the  events  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII., 
describes  his  tyranny  with  a  simplicity  quite  his 
torical,  and  paints,  in  the  most  touching  colours, 
the  virtues  and  the  rights  of  Catherine  of  Arragon, 
driven  from  the  throne  and  the  bed  of  Henry  VIII. 
to  make  room  for  the  mother  of  Elizabeth. 

James  the  First  showed  himself  not  less  favour 
able  to  Shakspeare.  He  listened  with  pleasure  to 
the  flattering  predictions  for  the  Stuarts  which  the 
poet  had  contrived  to  introduce  into  the  very 
midst  of  his  terrible  tragedy  of  Macbeth  ;  and  as 
he  was  himself  employed  in  protecting  the  theatre, 
that  is  to  say,  in  rendering  it  less  free,  he  wished 
to  confide  to  Shakspeare  the  new  office  of  director 
of  the  comedians  of  Black- Friars ;  but  it  was  at 
this  very  period  that  Shakspeare,  scarcely  fifty 
years  old,  quitted  London,  and  retired  to  his  native 
town.  He  had  enjoyed  there  for  but  two  years 
the  little  fortune  which  he  had  amassed  by  his 
labours,  when  he  died.  His  will,  which  has  been 
published,  and  which  bears  the  date  of  the  year 
1616,  was  made,  he  says,  in  the  commencement 
of  this  deed,  in  perfect  health.  Shakspeare,  after 
having  expressed  himself  in  a  strain  of  much 
piety,  disposes  of  several  legacies  in  favour  of  his 
daughter  Judith,  of  a  sister,  and  a  niece,  and 


21G  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEAK'E. 

finally  of  his  wife,  to  whom  he  bequeaths  his  best 
bed  with  the  furniture. 

The  reputation  of  Shakspeare  has  greatly  en- 
creased  in  the  course  of  the  two  centuries  which 
have  elapsed  since  his  death  ;  and  it  is  during  this 
period  that  the  admiration  of  his  genius  hath  be 
come,  as  it  were,  a  national  superstition.  But 
even  in  his  own  age  his  loss  had  been  deeply  felt, 
and  his  memory  honoured  by  the  most  striking 
proofs  of  respect  and  enthusiasm.  Ben  Jonson, 
his  timid  rival/  paid  homage  to  him  in  some  verses 
where  he  compares  him  to  .ZEschylus,  to  Sophocles, 
and  to  Euripides,  and  where  he  cries  out  with  all 
the  same  admiration,  and  nearly  the  same  empha 
sis  as  the  English  critics  of  our  own  time  : 

Triumph,  my  Britain  !  thou  hast  one  to  show, 
To  whom  all  scenes  of  Europe  homage  owe. 
He  was  not  of  an  age,  but  for  all  time ; — 
Nature  herself  was  proud  of  his  designs, 
And  joy'd  to  wear  the  dressing  of  his  lines ; 
Which  were  so  richly  spun,  and  woven  so  fit. 

This  enthusiasm  is  sustained  throughout  the  entire 
poem  of  Ben  Jonson,  and  finishes  by  a  kind  of 
apotheosis  of  the  star  of  Shakspeare,  placed,  he 

v  "  Ben- Johnson,  son  timide  rival."  There  could  scarcely 
be  an  epithet  more  inappropriate,  when  applied  to  Ben  Jonson, 
than  what  this  adjective  conveys ;  for,  in  fact,  the  warmest 
eulogists  of  honest  Ben  must  allow  that  an  overweening,  and 
at  times  almost  offensive  confidence  in  his  own  talents  was 
amongst  the  most  glaring  of  his  defects. 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  217 

says,  in  the  heavens,  to  warm  the  theatre  for  ever 
with  the  heat  of  its  rays. 

The  same  admiration  continues  to  augment  and 
diffuse  itself  in  England ;  and  although  in  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  horrors  of 
civil  war,  and  the  superstitions  of  the  puritans,  by 
proscribing  theatrical  amusements,  had  broken  off, 
as  it  were,  this  perpetual  tradition  of  a  glory 
adopted  by  England,  we  again  find  the  remem 
brance  of  it  spread  throughout  the  land.  Milton 
preserves  it  in  the  following  lines  : 

What  needs  ray  Shakspearefor  his  honour'd  bones, 

The  labour  of  an  age  in  piled  stones  ? 

Or  that  his  hallow'd  reliques  should  be  hid 

Under  a  star-ypointing  pyramid  ? 

Dear  son  of  memory,  great  heir  of  fame, 

What  need'st  thou  such  weak  witness  of  thy  name  ? 

Thou,  in  our  wonder  and  astonishment, 

Hast  built  thyself  a  live-long  monument,  &c.  &c. 

We  see  by  these  testimonies,  and  by  many 
others  which  it  would  be  easy  to  collect,  that 
the  admiration  of  Shakspeare,  though  for  some 
time  weakened  during  the  frivolity  of  the  reign 
of  Charles  the  Second,  has  yet  never  been  in 
England  the  fruit  of  slow  theory,  or  the  tardy 
calculation  of  national  vanity.  It  is  quite  suffi 
cient,  indeed,  to  study  the  plays  of  this  extraor 
dinary  man  in'  order  to  comprehend  his  amazing 
influence  over  the  minds  of  his  compatriots  ;  and 
this  same  study  will  also  enable  us  to  discern 


218  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

beauties  sufficiently  great  to  merit  the  admiration 
of  every  people. 

The  list  of  the  undisputed  pieces  of  Shakspeare 
contains  thirty-six  works  produced  in  the  space  of 
twenty-five  years,  from  1589  to  1614.  We  do  not 
see  here  the  foolish  and  prodigious  fecundity  of  a 
Calderon,  or  of  a  Lopez  de  Vega,  of  those  inex 
haustible  authors  whose  dramas  may  be  counted 
by  thousands ;  undoubtedly  still  less  do  we  find 
the  sterile  facility  of  our  poet  Hardy.  Although 
Shakspeare,  according  to  Ben  Jonson,  wrote  with 
astonishing  rapidity,  and  never  erased  what  he 
had  written,  we  see,  by  the  limited  number  of  his 
compositions,  that  they  were  not  heaped  up  con 
fusedly  in  his  mind,  that  they  did  not  proceed  from 
it  without  reflection  and  without  effort.  The 
dramas  of  the  Spanish  poets,  those  pieces  com 
posed  in  twenty-four  hours,  as  one  of  them  has 
declared,  seem  always  an  improvisation  favoured 
by  the  richness  of  the  language  still  more  than  by 
the  genius  of  the  poet ;  they  are,  for  the  most 
part,  pompous  and  empty,  extravagant  and  com 
mon-place.  The  dramas  of  Shakspeare,  on  the 
contrary,  unite  at  once  the  sudden  flashes  of 
genius,  the  sallies  of  enthusiasm,  and  the  depths 
of  meditation.  All  the  Spanish  plays  have  the  air 
of  a  fantastic  dream,  of  which  the  disorder  destroys 
the  effect,  and  of  which  the  confusion  indeed 
leaves  not  a  trace  behind.  The  plays  of  Shak 
speare,  notwithstanding  their  defects,  are  the  work 
of  a  vigorous  imagination,  which  leaves  indelible 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  219 

impressions  on  the  mind,  and  gives  reality  and 
life  even  to  his  strangest  caprices. 

Do  these  observations  authorise  us  to  speak  of 
the  dramatic  system  of  Shakspeare  ;  to  regard  this 
system  as  justly  the  rival  of  the  ancient  drama, 
and,  finally,  to  hold  it  up  as  a  model  which  ought 
to  be  preferred  ?  I  think  not.  In  reading  Shak 
speare  with  the  most  attentive  admiration,  it  is 
impossible  for  me  to  recognise  in  him  that  system, 
those  rules  of  genius  which  he  would  wish  to  have 
thought  he  had  always  followed,  and  which  should 
supply  for  him  the  beautiful  simplicity  chosen  by 
the  happy  instinct  of  the  first  tragic  poets  of 
Greece,  and  formed  into  a  theory  by  Aristotle. 
Avoiding  the  ingenious  theories  invented  too  late,w 
let  us  return  to  the  fact.  In  what  state  did  Shak 
speare  find  the  theatre,  and  in  what  condition  did 
he  leave  it  ?  In  his  time  tragedy  was  thought  of 
simply  as  a  representation  of  singular  or  terrible 
events,  which  succeeded  one  another  without 
unity  either  of  time  or  place.  Scenes  of  buffoo 
nery  were  mixed  with  it  in  imitation  of  the 

w  Alluding,  no  doubt,  to  Schlegel,  who,  as  we  well  know,  has 
attempted,  and  with  considerable  success,  to  prove  Shakspeare 
the  great  master  of  the  romantic  drama,  and  that  he  carried  to 
a  high  degree  of  perfection  a  system  in  many  respects  more 
congenial  to  nature  and  probability  than  is  that  of  the  tragic 
poets  of  Greece.  It  is  evident,  indeed,  that  M.  Villemain  can 
not  altogether  dismiss  from  his  mind,  as  objects  of  preference, 
the  stately  uniformity  and  declamatory  splendour  of  the  French 
theatre,  nor  its  more  than  classically  rigid  adherence  to  the 
unities  of  time  and  place. 


220  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

manners  of  the  times,  and  in  the  same  way  at 
court  the  king's  jester  appeared  in  the  gravest 
ceremonies.  This  manner  of  conceiving  tragedy, 
more  convenient  for  authors,  more  surprising, 
more  varied  for  the  public,  was  equally  followed 
by  all  the  tragic  poets  of  the  times.  The  learned 
Ben  Jonson,  younger  than  Shakspeare,  but  never 
theless  his  contemporary, — Ben  Jonson,  who  knew 
both  Greek  and  Latin,  has  precisely  the  same 
irregularities  as  the  uneducated  and  unshackled 
Shakspeare ;  he  alike  produced  upon  the  theatre 
the  events  of  several  years  ;  he  travelled  from  one 
country  to  another ;  he  leaves  the  scene  void,  or 
changes  it  every  moment ;  he  mixes  the  sublime 
and  the  ludicrous,  the  pathetic  and  the  trivial, 
verse  and  prose  ;  he  has  the  same  system  as  Shak 
speare,  or  rather,  they  neither  of  them  have  any 
system ;  they  followed  the  taste  of  their  times, 
they  filled  up  familiar  outlines ;  but  Shakspeare, 
full  of  imagination,  of  originality  and  eloquence, 
threw  into  these  rude  and  vulgar  sketches  a  mul 
titude  of  new  and  sublime  ideas,  in  this  resembling 
our  Moliere,  who,  adopting  that  ridiculous  story  of 
the  Banquet  of  Peter,  which  had  run  through  all 
the  theatres  of  Paris,  transformed  it,  and  enlarged 
it  by  the  creation  of  the  part  of  Don  Juan,  and  by 
that  admirable  sketch  of  hypocrisy  which  he  alone 
has  latterly  surpassed  in  his  Tartufe. 

Such  is  Shakspeare  :*  he  has  no  other  system 

*  It  is  not  that  Shakspeare  was  ignorant  of  the  existence  of 
dramatic  laws.    He  had  read  many  of  the  dramas  of  antiquity  as 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  221 

than  his  genius ;  he  places  under  the  eye  of  the 
spectator,  who  did  not  require  more  of  him,  a  train 
of  facts  more  or  less  removed  from  each  other.  He 
relates  nothing,  he  brings  every  thing  forward,  and 
upon  the  scene ;  it  was  the  custom  of  his  contem 
poraries.  Ben  Jonson,  Marloe,  Fletcher,  and 
Beaumont,  had  neither  more  nor  less  art;  but 
often  amongst  them  this  excessive  liberty  produced 
only  vulgar  combinations;  and  they  were  frequent 
ly  deficient  in  eloquence.  In  Shakspeare,  even 
where  the  scenes  are  abrupt  and  without  connec 
tion,  they  yet  offer  something  terrible  and  unex 
pected.  Those  persons  who  meet  by  chance,  say 
things  which  it  is  impossible  to  forget.  They  pass, 
but  the  remembrance  of  them  remains ;  and  amid 
the  disorder  of  the  work,  the  impression  which  the 
poet  makes  is  always  powerful.  It  is  not  that 
Shakspeare  is  always  natural  and  true.  Assuredly, 
if  it  is  easy  to  detect  in  our  French  tragedy  something 
factitious  and  studied;  if  we  may  blame  Corneille 
for  a  tone  of  gallantry  imposed  by  his  age,  and  as 
foreign  to  the  great  men  represented  by  the  poet 
as  to  his  own  peculiar  genius ;  if  in  Racine,  the 
politeness  and  the  pomp  of  the  court  of  Louis 
XIV.  are  put  in  the  place  of  the  rude  and  simple 

translated  into  English.  In  his  tragedy  of  Hamlet,  where  he 
introduces  so  many  things,  he  has  not  forgotten  even  to  intro 
duce  the  unities  :  "  Behold,"  says  Polonius,  "  the  best  actors  in 
the  world,  either  for  tragedy,  comedy,  history,  pastoral,  pastoral- 
comical,  historical-pastoral,  scene  individable,  or  poem  unli 
mited  :  Seneca  cannot  be  too  heavy,  nor  Plautus  too  light. 
For  the  law  of  writ,  and  the  liberty,  these  are  the  only  men." 


222  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

manners  of  heroic  Greece, — how  easy  would  it  be  to 
detect  in  Shakspeare  an  impropriety  of  manners 
and  of  language  of  a  very  different  though  equally 
offensive  kind !  Often  what  deep  research  after 
metaphorical  expressions !  what  obscure  and  vain 
affectation !  This  man,  who  thinks  and  expresses 
himself  with  so  much  vigour,  constantly  employs 
subtile  and  intricate  phrases,  in  order  to  express 
things  the  most  simple  in  a  manner  the  most 
laborious. x 

It  is  here  especially  that  we  must  call  to  mind 
the  period  in  which  Shakspeare  wrote,  and  the 
imperfect  education  which  he  had  received  from 
his  times,  the  only  object  notwithstanding  of  his 
study :  these  times,  so  favourable  to  the  imagination, 
and  so  poetical,  partly  retained  the  stamp  of  the 
subtile  and  affected  barbarism  of  the  learned  of  the 
middle  ages.  In  all  the  countries  of  Europe,  ex 
cept  Italy,  taste  was  at  once  rude  and  corrupted ; 
school  divinity  and  theology  did  not  serve  to  reform 
it.  The  court  itself  of  Elizabeth  had  something  of 
the  pedantic  and  affected  in  it,  of  which  the  influ 
ence  extended  throughout  all  England.  It  must 
be  confessed  that,  when  we  read  the  strange 
speeches  which  King  James  made  to  his  parlia- 

*  This  is  an  unqualified,  and,  consequently,  an  incorrect  state 
ment.  Shakspeare,  intead  of  constantly  employing  subtile  and 
intricate  phrases,  is  frequently,  and  even  through  entire  scenes, 
remarkable,  beyond  any  other  writer  in  our  language,  for  the 
sweetness,  simplicity,  and  perspicuity  of  his  diction  and  num 
bers. 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  223 

ment,  we  are  the  less  astonished  at  the  language 
which  Shakspeare  has  often  given  to  his  heroes  and 
his  kings. 

What  we  must  admire  is,  that  he  has  illumined 
this  chaos  with  so  many  brilliant  and  astonishing 
flashes  of  genius.  As  for  the  rest,  it  is  difficult  to 
feel  on  this  point  all  the  enthusiasm  of  the  English 
critics.  The  idolatry  of  the  commentators  on 
Homer  has  been  surpassed.  They  have  made  of 
Shakspeare  a  man  who,  knowing  nothing,  had 
created  every  thing,  a  profound  metaphysician,  an 
incomparable  moralist,  the  first  of  philosophers  and 
poets.  They  have  given  the  most  subtle  explana 
tions  to  all  the  features  of  his  poetic  fancy ;  they 
have  deified  his  most  monstrous  faults,  and  regarded 
even  the  coarseness  which  he  received  from  his 
age  as  an  invention  of  his  genius.  Even  in  the 
last  century,  Johnson,  Mrs.  Montagu,  and  Lord 
Kaims,  piqued  by  the  rudeness  and  the  sallies  of 
Voltaire,  carried  to  a  great  height  the  refinement 
of  their  admiration,  which  was  often,  however, 
ingenious  and  correct. 

Some  more  modern  critics  now  reproach  these 
their  celebrated  predecessors  with  not  having  felt 
the  poetic  ideal  as  realised  by  Shakspeare :  they 
find  that  M.  Schlegel  alone  approaches  the  truth, 
when  he  terminates  the  enumeration  of  all  the 
wonders  united  in  Shakspeare  by  these  pompous 
words : y  "  The  world  of  spirits  and  of  nature  have 

y  Though  Schlegel  be  occasionally  too  mystical  and  ab 
stracted  in  his  criticisms  on  a  few  of  the  plays  of  Shakspeare,  I 


224  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

laid  their  treasures  at  his  feet :  a  demigod  in 
power,  a  prophet  in  the  profundity  of  his  views,  a 
spirit  surpassing  in  wisdom,  and  transcending  the 
lot  of  humanity,  he  lowers  himself  to  mortals  as  if 
unconscious  of  superiority,  and  is  as  artless  and 
ingenuous  as  a  child."  But  it  is  neither  by  the 
mystical  subtlety  of  the  German  critic,  nor  by  the 
pleasantry,  and  above  all  the  translations  of  Vol 
taire,  that  we  must  judge  of  the  genius  and  influ 
ence  of  Shakspeare.  Mrs.  Montagu  has  detected 
in  the  literal  version  of  Julius  Cresar,  numerous 
inadvertences,  and  the  omission  of  great  beauties  ; 
she  has  repelled  the  contempt  of  Voltaire  by  a 
judicious  criticism  on  some  defects  of  the  French 
theatre ;  but  she  cannot  palliate  the  enormous  and 
ludicrous  caprices  mixed  up  in  the  pieces  of  Shak 
speare.  "  Let  us  not  forget,"  she  remarks,  "that 
these  plays  were  to  be  acted  in  a  paltry  tavern,  to  an 
unlettered  audience,  just  emergingfrom  barbarity." 
All  the  absurd  improbabilities,  all  the  buffoon 
eries  of  which  Shakspeare  is  so  lavish,  were  com 
mon  to  the  rude  theatre  which  we  possessed  at  the 

can  see  nothing  to  object  to,  but  as  I  have  observed  before, 
much  to  admire,  in  this  strain  of  finely  expressed  enthusiasm. 
M.  Villemain,  it  must  be  confessed,  though  upon  the  whole  a 
liberal  and  very  intelligent  critic,  now  and  then  deviates  into 
the  track  of  Voltaire,  as  when,  for  instance,  just  below,  he 
speaks  of  the  "  enormous  and  ludicrous  caprices,  the  absurd 
improbabilities,  and  lavish  buffooneries"  of  Shakspeare;  charges 
which  form  a  striking  and  truly  contradictory  contrast  with  the 
noble  and  comprehensive  eulogies  of  the  poet  which,  when  this 
cant  is  forgotten,  spontaneously  escape  from  his  lips. 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  225 

same  era;  it  was  the  mark  of  the  times:  why 
should  we  now  admire  in  Shakspeare  the  defects 
which  are  every  where  else  buried  in  oblivion,  and 
which  have  survived  in  the  English  poet  only  on 
account  of  the  sublime  traits  of  genius  with  which 
he  has  surrounded  them.  It^is  necessary  then,  in 
judging  of  Shakspeare,  first  to  reject  the  mass  of 
rude  and  false  taste  which  oppresses  him ;  it  is  per 
haps  also  necessary  to  avoid  building  systems 
applicable  only  to  our  own  times,  with  these  old 
monuments  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth.  If  a  new  form 
of  tragedy  should  proceed  from  our  actual  manners 
and  the  genius  of  some  great  poet,  this  form  would 
no  more  resemble  the  tragedy  of  Shakspeare  than 
that  of  Racine.  When  Schiller,  in  a  German  play, 
borrows  from  the  Romeo  of  Shakspeare  the  lively 
and  bold  description  of  a  sudden  passion,  and  of  a 
declaration  of  love  which  almost  immediately  leads 
to  a  denouement,  he  violates  the  correctness  of  man 
ners  still  more  than  the  decorum  of  our  theatre ; 
he  coldly  imitates  a  delirium  of  Italian  imagina 
tion.  When  in  a  dramatic  poem,  filled  with  the 
abstractions  of  our  own  time,  and  which  describes 
that  satiety  of  life  and  of  science,  that  excessive 
and  vague  ennui  which  is  the  malady  of  extreme 
civilization,  Goethe  amuses  himself  in  copying  the 
wild  and  rude  songs  of  the  witches  in  Macbeth,  he 
produces  a  whimsical  and  extravagant,  instead  of 
a  simple  and  terrific  picture. 

But  if  we  consider  Shakspeare  apart,  independ- 


226  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

ent  of  the  spirit  of  imitation  and  system,  if  we 
regard  his  genius  as  an  extraordinary  phenomenon 
which  can  never  be  reproduced,  what  admirable 
features  does  it  not  unfold !  what  passion !  what 
poetry !  what  eloquence !  Yet,  fertile  and  novel  as 
his  genius  is,  he  has  most  assuredly  not  created 
every  thing ;  for  nearly  all  his  tragedies  are  little 
more  than  romances  or  chronicles  of  the  times 
distributed  into  scenes ;  but  he  has  impressed  an 
air  of  originality  on  whatever  he  has  borrowed  :  a 
popular  story,  an  old  ballad,  touched  by  his  pow 
erful  genius,  quickens  into  life,  is  transformed,  and 
becomes  an  imperishable  production.  An  energetic 
painter  of  characters,  he  does  not  preserve  them 
with  minute  accuracy ;  for  his  personages,  with 
very  few  exceptions,  in  whatever  country  he  places 
them,  have  the  English  physiognomy ;  and  to  him 
the  people  of  Rome  are  nothing  more  than  the 
populace  of  London.  But  it  is  precisely  this  want 
of  fidelity  to  the  local  manners  of  different  nations, 
this  pre-occupation  of  English  manners,  which 
renders  him  so  dear  to  his  country.  Never  poet 
was  more  national.  Shakspeare  is,  in  fact,  the 
genius  of  England  personified,  in  his  free  and  lofty 
bearing,  his  severity,  his  profundity,  and  his  me 
lancholy.  Ought  not  the  soliloquy  of  Hamlet  to 
be  the  inspiration  of  the  land  of  fogs  and  spleen  ? 
The  dark  ambition  of  Macbeth,  that  ambition  so 
violent  yet  so  premeditated, — is  it  not  a  picture 
wrought  for  that  people  where  the  throne  was  so 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS. 


227 


frequently  waded  to  through  seas  of  blood  and 


crime  ? 


How  much  is  this  indigenous  spirit  felt,  nay 
even  increased,  in  the  subjects  where  Shakspeare 
brings  before  his  auditory  all  their  national  remem 
brances,  all  their  old  customs,  and  all  the  preju 
dices  of  their  country,  with  the  proper  names  of  its 
places  and  its  men,  as  in  Richard  III.,  Henry  VI., 
and  Henry  VIII.     Let  us  figure  to  ourselves  that 
a  man  of  genius  had  sprung  up  at  the  era  of  the 
first  cultivation  of  our  language  and  our  arts ;  that, 
expressing  himself  with  a  wild  energy,  he  had 
produced  upon  the  stage,  with  the  licence  of  an 
action  without  limit,  and  the  enthusiasm  of  tradi 
tion  yet  recent,  the  revengeful  deeds  of  Louis  XL, 
the  crimes  of  the  palace  of  Charles  IX.,  the  auda 
city  of  the  Guises,  and  the  furious  atrocities  of  the 
League ;  that  this  poet  had  familiarized  our  chiefs, 
our  factions,  our  cities,  our  rivers,  our  fields,  not 
with  the  fleeting  allusions  and  in  the  harmonious 
language  of  Nerestan  and  of  Zaire,  not  with  the 
emphatic  circumlocution  and  the  modern  pomp  of 
the  old  French  disfigured  by  Dubelloy,  but  with  a 
rude  and  simple  frankness,  with  the  familiar  ex 
pression  of  the  times,  never  ennobled,  but  always 
animated  by  the  genius  of  the  painter ; — would  not 
such  pieces,  were  they  still  performed,  maintain 
an  immortal  authority  in  our  literature,  and  an  all- 
powerful  effect  on  our  theatre  ?  And  yet  we  have 
not,  like  the  English,  any  taste  for  our  old  annals, 
any  respect  for  our  old  manners,  nor,  above  all, 


228  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

any  portion  of  the  enthusiasm  of  insular  patrio 
tism.2 

The  theatre,  besides,  it  must  be  remembered, 
was  not  in  England  a  recreation  of  the  court,  an 
enjoyment  reserved  for  refined  or  delicate  minds  ; 
it  was,  and  it  still  remains,  popular.  The  English 
sailor,  on  his  return  from  his  long  voyages,  and  in 
the  intervals  of  his  adventurous  life,  hastens  to  clap 
his  hands  at  the  recital  of  Othello,  enumerating 
his  perils  and  his  shipwrecks.  In  England,  where 
the  wealth  of  the  people  affords  the  means  of  pur 
chasing  those  pleasures  of  the  theatre  which  Greece 
gratuitously  offered  to  her  free  citizens,  they  are 
the  people  who  occupy  the  pits  of  Covent- Garden 
and  Drury-Lane.  This  auditory  is  passionately 
fond  of  the  fanciful  and  varied  spectacle  which  the 
tragedies  of  Shakspeare  present ;  it  feels  with 
unspeakable  force  those  energetic  words,  those 
bursts  of  passion,  which  break  forth  from  the  midst 

z  It  is,  I  think,  highly  probable  that  the  French  people  are 
about  to  form  a  very  different  idea  of  Shakspeare  from  that 
•which  they  have  hitherto  been  taught  by  their  critics  to  enter 
tain.  An  English  theatre  has  within  the  last  twelve  months 
been  established  in  Paris,  and  Shakspeare  is  not  only  fairly 
heard,  but  we  are  told  even  popular  there.  Nothing  but  this 
was  wanting  to  dissipate  prejudices  unworthy  of  a  great  and 
enlightened  nation.  If  we  may  judge,  indeed,  from  the  cri 
tiques  lately  published  in  the  Gazette  de  France,  a  paper  justly 
celebrated  for  its  literary  merit,  this  revolution  in  taste  is  nearly 
complete ;  for  these  critiques  are  not  only  warmly,  but  discrimi- 
nately  eulogistic  of  our  poet,  but  written  at  the  same  time 
with  great  critical  acumen. 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  229 

of  a  tumultuous  drama.  Every  thing  pleases  it ; 
all  is  in  unison  with  its  nature,  and  astonishes 
without  offending. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  same   representation 
does  not  act  with  less  power  on  the  most  enlight 
ened  portion  of  the  spectators.    Those  rude  images, 
those  terrific  descriptions,  and,  if  I  may  use  the 
expression,  that  tragic  nakedness  of  Shakspeare, 
interest  and  attach  the  highest  classes  of  England, 
even   by   the  contrast  which   they  offer   to  the 
security  and  enjoyments  of  their  customary  life : 
it  is  a  violent  shock  which  diverts  and  awakens 
souls  palled   and   enervated   by  social   elegance. 
This  emotion  is  not  suffered  to  subside ;  it  is  fed 
and  supported  by  the  most  harrowing  representa 
tions.     Strike  not  out  from  the  tragedy  of  Hamlet 
the  office  and  the  pleasantry  of  the  grave-diggers, 
as  Garrick  had  attempted  to  do ;  be  present  at  this 
terrible  buffoonery;  you  will  there  behold  terror 
and  mirth  alternately  and  rapidly  agitating  an  im 
mense  audience.     By  the  dazzling,  but  somewhat 
sinister  glimmering  of  the  gas  which  enlightens 
the  theatre,  from  the  midst  of  that  luxury  and 
parade  of  dress  which  is  displayed  in  the  principal 
boxes,  you  will  see  the  most  elegant  figures  eagerly 
bending  forward   to  witness  the  dreadful  catas 
trophes  exhibited  on  the  stage.     There  youth  and 
beauty  contemplate  with  insatiable  curiosity  images 
of  destruction,  and  the  minutest  details  of  death ; 
and  then  the  strange  pleasantries  which  are  blended 
with  the  fate  of  the  persons  of  the  drama,  seem, 


230  MEMORIALS    Op    SHAKSPEARE. 

from  time  to  time,  to  relieve  the  spectators  from 
the  weight  which  oppresses  them :  long  peals  of 
laughter  issue  from  all  ranks.  Attentive  to  this 
spectacle,  the  most  rigid  countenances  alternately 
become  sad  or  gay ;  and  we  see  the  man  of  high 
dignity  smile  at  the  sarcasm  of  the  grave-digger 
who  seeks  to  distinguish  the  skull  of  a  courtier 
from  that  of  a  buffoon. 

Thus  Shakspeare,  even  in  those  parts  of  his 
works  which  most  offend  the  delicacies  of  taste, 
has  for  his  nation  an  inexpressible  charm.     He 
provides  for  the  imagination  of  his  countrymen  plea 
sures  which  never  tire ;  he  agitates,  he  attaches, 
he   satisfies   that  taste   for  singularity  on  which 
England   prides   herself;    he  converses  with  the 
English  only  of  themselves,  that  is  to  say,  of  almost 
the  only  thing  which  they  esteem  or  love ;  yet, 
separated  from  his  native  land,  Shakspeare  loses 
not  his  power.     It  is  the  character  of  a  man  of 
genius,  that  the  local  beauties,  that  the  individual 
traits  with  which  his  works  abound,  respond  to 
some  general  type  of  truth  and  nature,  and  that, 
whilst  writing  for  his  fellow-citizens,  he  pleases  all 
the  world. a    Perhaps  even  the  most  national  works 
are  those  which  are  best  calculated  for  general 
acceptance.     Such  were  the  works  of  the  Greeks, 
who  wrote  only  for  themselves,  and  are  read  by 
the  universe. 

a  A  more  decisive  and  comprehensive  eulogy  than  this  para 
graph  contains,  as  founded  on  the  poetical  character  and 
example  of  Shakspeare,  cannot  well  be  imagined. 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  231 

Brought  up  under  a  state  of  civilization  less 
happy  and  less  poetical,  Shakspeare  does  not  offer, 
in  the  same  proportion  as  the  Greeks,  those  uni 
versal  beauties  which  pervade  all  languages ;  and 
none  but  an  Englishman  can  place  him  by  the 
side  of  Homer  or  Sophocles.  Not  a  native  of  that 
happy  climate,  he  has  not  that  natural  beauty  of 
enthusiasm  and  of  poetry.  The  rust  of  the  middle 
age  still  covers  him.  His  coarseness  has  something 
of  decadency  in  it ;  it  is  often  gothic  rather  than 
young  and  artless.  Notwithstanding  his  want  of 
education,  we  may  discover  in  him  something  of 
the  erudition  of  the  sixteenth  century.  It  is  not 
that  amiable  simplicity  of  the  rising  world,  as  Fenelon 
somewhere  says,  speaking  of  Homer ;  it  is  a  lan 
guage  at  once  rude  yet  studied,  where  one  feels 
the  labour  of  the  human  mind  painfully  reverting 
to  the  springs  and  sources  of  that  modern  civiliza 
tion  so  diverse  and  so  complicated,  and  which  at 
its  very  birth  appeared  loaded  with  so  many 
shackles  and  traditions. 

But  when  Shakspeare  touches  on  the  expression 
of  natural  sentiments,  when  he  no  longer  wishes 
to  appear  either  laboured  or  subtle,  when  he  paints 
man,  we  must  confess  that  never  passion  and  elo 
quence  were  carried  farther.  His  tragic  charac 
ters,  from  the  wicked  and  hideous  Richard  III.  to 
the  thoughtful  and  visionary  Hamlet,  are  real  beings, 
who  live  in  the  imagination,  and  can  never  die. 

Like  all  the  great  masters  of  poetry,  he  excels 
in  painting  what  is  most  terrible  and  most  graceful. 


232  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

This  wild  and  rough  genius  discovers  an  unpre 
cedented  delicacy  in  the  delineation  of  female  cha 
racters.  The  very  soul  of  decorum  and  propriety 
resides  within  him  on  these  occasions.  Ophelia, 
Catharine  of  Arragon,  Juliet,  Cordelia,  Desdemona, 
Imogene,  figures  touching  and  varied,  possess  ini 
mitable  grace,  and  an  artless  purity  which  would 
not  be  expected  from  the  licence  of  a  gross  age, 
and  the  rough  vigour  of  this  masculine  genius. 
Taste,  in  which  he  is  too  often  deficient,  is  then 
supplied  by  a  delicate  instinct,  which  even  enables 
him  to  discover  what  was  wanting  in  the  refine 
ment  of  his  times./  Even  the  character  of  a  guilty 
woman  he  has  known  how  to  qualify  by  some  fea 
tures  borrowed  from  the  observation  of  nature,  and 
dictated  by  the  tenderest  sentiments.  Lady  Mac 
beth,  so  cruel  in  her  ambition  and  in  her  projects, 
recoils  with  horror  from  the  spectacle  of  blood : 
she  inspires  murder,  but  has  not  the  courage  to 
behold  it.  Gertrude,  scattering  flowers  over  the 
body  of  Ophelia,  excites  our  commiseration  not 
withstanding  the  magnitude  of  her  crime^> 

This  profound  truth  in  the  delineation  of  primi 
tive  characters,  and  these  shadowings  of  nature 
and  of  sex,  so  strongly  marked  by  the  poet,  un 
doubtedly  justify  the  admiration  of  the  English 
critics ;  but  must  we  conclude  with  them,  that  the 
forgetfulness  of  local  colouring,  so  common  in 
Shakspeare,  is  a  matter  of  indifference ;  and  that 
this  great  poet,  when  he  confounds  the  language 
of  different  classes  of  society,  when  he  places  a 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  233 

drunkard  on  the  throne,  and  a  buffoon  in  the 
Roman  senate,  has  only  followed  nature  in  dis 
daining  exterior  circumstances,  as  the  painter  who, 
content  with  catching  the  leading  character  of  the 
figure,  attends  not  to  the  drapery? 

This  theory  of  too  late  invention,  this  paradox 
of  which  the  original  author  scarcely  dreamt, 
cannot  excuse  a  fault  too  often  repeated  in  his 
plays,  and  which  presents  itself  there  under  every 
form.  It  is  indeed  laughable  to  see  a  learned 
critic,  whilst  examining  one  of  Shakspeare's  plays, 
throw  himself  into  extacies  at  the  happy  confusion* 
of  paganism  and  fairyism,  of  the  sylphs  and  Ama- 

*  It  should  be  observed  that  these  blendings  of  ideas  and 
customs  were  a  thing  very  common  before  the  times  of  Shak- 
speare,  and  that  fn  this  respect  he  only  followed  the  track  of 
his  predecessors,  without  attempting  a  more  critical  investiga 
tion.  The  Thesaid  of  Chaucer  was,  without  doubt,  his  autho 
rity.  We  see  there,  in  an  equal  degree,  the  feudal  manners 
and  the  superstitions  of  the  middle  age  transported  into  Greece. 
Theseus,  Duke  of  Athens,  gives  tournaments  in  honour  of  the 
ladies  of  that  city.  The  poet  describes  at  great  length  the 
armour  of  knights  according  to  the  fashion  of  his  own  times. 
We  may  ridicule  these  anachronisms  as  to  manners,  but  do  not 
our  own  tragedies  sometimes  present  us  with  similar  defects  ? 
When,  instead  of  exhibiting  Clytemnestra  and  Iphigenia  avoid 
ing  the  regards  of  men,  and  attended  solely  by  a  chorus  of 
Greek  women,  Racine  himself,  the  admirable  Racine,  majesti 
cally  says,  "  Guards,  follow  the  queen,"  does  he  not  introduce 
the  ceremonial  of  our  own  times  in  place  of  the  manners  of  an 
tiquity  ?  The  fault  escapes  us  owing  to  the  involuntary  pre 
occupation  of  modern  ideas.  Chaucer  had  the  same  excuse  for 
his  times. 


234  MEMORIALS     OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

zons  of  ancient  Greece,  with  the  fictions  of  the 
middle  age,  blended  by  the  poet  in  the  same  piece. 
Jt  is  yet  more  singular,  perhaps,  to  see  a  celebrated 
poet  of  the  eighteenth  century  imitate,  learnedly 
and  by  design,  this  strange  amalgamation,  which 
was  in  Shakspeare  only  the  effect  of  ignorance,  or 
the  sport  of  careless  caprice.  Let  us  praise  a  man 
of  genius  from  the  love  of  truth,  and  not  of  system. 
We  shall  then  find  that,  if  Shakspeare  often 
violates  local  and  historic  truth ;  if  he  throws  over 
almost  all  his  productions  the  uniform  hardness  of 
the  manners  of  his  own  times ;  he  also  expresses 
with  admirable  energy  the  ruling  passions  of  the 
human  heart,  hatred,  ambition,  jealousy,  the  love 
of  life,  pity,  and  cruelty. 

He  does  not  less  powerfully  excite  the  super 
stitious  feelings  of  the  soul.  Like  the  first  poets 
of  Greece,  he  has  laid  open  the  catalogue  of  phy 
sical  evils,  and  has  exposed  on  the  stage  the 
anguish  of  suffering,  the  very  dregs  of  misery,  the 
last  and  most  frightful  of  human  infirmities,  in 
sanity.  What,  in  fact,  can  be  more  tragic  than 
this  apparent  death  of  the  soul,  which  degrades  a 
noble  being  without  destroying  it?  Shakspeare 
has  often  used  these  means  of  exciting  terror,  and, 
by  a  singular  combination,  he  has  represented 
feigned  as  often  as  real  madness ;  finally,  he  has 
contrived  to  blend  both  in  the  extraordinary  cha 
racter  of  Hamlet,  and  to  join  together  the  light  of 
reason,  the  cunning  of  intentional  error,  and  the 
involuntary  disorder  of  the  soul. 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  235 

If  he  has  shown  madness  springing  from  despair; 
if  he  has  united  this  image  to  the  most  poignant  of 
all  sorrows,  the  ingratitude  of  children ;  by  a  view 
not  less  profound,  he  has  often  connected  crime 
with  madness,  as  if  the  soul  was  alienated  from 
itself  in  proportion  as  it  became  guilty.  The 
terrible  dreams  of  Richard  III.;  his  sleep  agitated 
with  the  convulsions  of  remorse ;  the  still  more 
frightful  sleep  of  Lady  Macbeth,  or  rather  the 
phenomenon  of  her  mysterious  watching,  as  much 
out  of  nature  as  her  crime  ; — all  these  inventions 
form  the  sublime  of  tragic  horror,  and  surpass  the 
Eumenides  of  jEschylus.  5 

We  may  remark  more  than  one  other  resem 
blance  between  the  English  and  the  old  Greek 
poet,  who  knew  not  more  of,  or  who  respected  as 
little,  the  severe  law  of  the  unities.  Poetical 
daring  is,  besides,  a  character  which  strikes  us 
not  less  in  Shakspeare  than  in  ^Eschylus :  it  ex 
hibits,  though  under  forms  less  polished,  the  same 
vivacity,  the  same  intemperance  of  metaphor  and 
figurative  expression,  the  same  dazzling  and  sub 
lime  fervor  of  imagination ;  but  the  incoherences 
of  a  society  scarcely  emerged  from  barbarism, 
constantly  mingle  in  Shakspeare  coarseness  with 
grandeur,  and  we  fall  from  the  clouds  into  the 
mire.  It  is  more  particularly  for  his  pieces  of 
invention  that  the  English  poet  has  reserved  that 
richness  of  colouring  which  seems  to  be  natural  to 
fyim.  His  historical  pieces  are  more  chaste,  more 
simple,  especially  where  the  subjects  are  of  modern 


236  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

date ;  for  when  he  places  antiquity  on  the  scene, 
he  has  not  unfrequently  overcharged  both  its 
national  and  individual  character. 

The  reproach  which    Fenelon   cast  upon  our 
theatre,  of  having  given  too  much  energy  to  the 
Romans,   will   apply  yet   more    strongly  to   the 
Julius    Ccesar  of  the   English  poet.      Caesar,    so 
simple   even  from  the    elevation   of  his    genius, 
scarcely   ever   speaks   in  this   tragedy  but  in   a 
pompous  and  declamatory  style.     But,  as   if  to 
recompense  us  for  this,  what  admirable  truth  and 
correctness  in  the  part  of  Brutus !    Does  he  not 
appear    such    as   Plutarch   represents   him,    the 
mildest  of  men  in  private  life,  and  led  by  virtue 
alone  to  bold  and   bloody  resolutions?     Antony 
and  Cassius  are  not  represented  with  traits  less 
profound  and  less  distinct.     I  imagine  that  the 
genius  of  Plutarch  had  strongly  possessed  Shak- 
speare,  and  had  placed  before  his  eyes  that  reality 
which,  for  the  purposes  of  modern  times,  Shak- 
speare  took  from  all  around  him. 

But  a  thing  altogether  new,  altogether  his  own 
production,  is  the  incomparable  scene  of  Antony 
stirring  up  the  Roman  people  to  insurrection  by 
the  artifice  of  his  language  :  there  you  behold  the 
emotions  of  the  populace  at  this  harangue,  those 
emotions  always  expressed  in  a  manner  so  cold, 
so  imperfect,  so  timid  in  our  modern  pieces,  and 
which  there  are  so  lively  and  so  true  to  nature, 
that  they  form  an  important  part  of  the '  drama, 
and  lead  essentially  towards  the  catastrophe. 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  237 

The  tragedy  of  Coriolanus  is  not  less  a  faithful 
transcript  from  truth,  nor  less  indebted  to  Plutarch. 
The  haughty  character  of  the  hero,  his  pride  as  a 
patrician  and  a  warrior,  his  disgust  at  the  popular 
insolence,  his  hatred  against  Rome,  his  love  for 
his  mother,  render  him  altogether  the  most  dra 
matic  personage  in  history. 

There  are  some  unworthy  buffooneries  in  the 
tragedy  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra ;  but  the  morose- 
ness  of  tarnished  glory,  that  delirium  of  debauch 
ery  and  prosperity,  that  fatalism  of  vice  which 
blindly  precipitates  itself  on  ruin, — these  assume  a 
sort  of  grandeur  from  the  force  of  truth.  Cleopatra 
is  certainly  not  a  princess  of  our  theatres  any  more 
than  of  history ;  but  she  is  truly  the  Cleopatra  of 
Plutarch,  that  prostitute  of  the  East  running  dis 
guised  in  Alexandria  by  night,  carried  to  her  lover 
on  the  shoulders  of  a  slave,  the  fool  of  voluptuous 
ness  and  drunkenness,  yet  knowing  how  to  die  with 
so  much  ease  and  courage. 

The  historical  plays  of  Shakspeare  upon  national 
subjects  are  yet  more  true  to  nature;  for  never  writer, 
as  we  have  already  observed,  was  more  completely 
identified  with  his  country.  It  is  probable,  how 
ever,  that  some  of  these  pieces  are  not  entirely  the 
composition  of  Shakspeare,  and  were  only  vivified, 
as  it  were,  by  his  powerful  hand ;  like  those  great 
works  of  painting,  where  the  master  has  thrown 
the  most  brilliant  and  vigorous  touches  over  the 
labour  of  inferior  artists,  reserving  only  for  himself 
those  strokes  of  genius  which  give  life  and  anima 
tion  to  the  design. 


238  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Thus,  in  the  first  part  of  Henry  VI. ,  shines  forth 
the  incomparable  scene  of  Talbot  and  his  son,  re 
fusing  to  quit  each  other,  and  determined  to  perish 
together ;  a  scene  as  simple  as  it  is  sublime,  where 
the  grandeur  of  the  sentiment,  and  the  vigorous 
conciseness  of  the  language,  rival  the  purest  and 
most  beautiful  passages  of  our  Corneille.  But  to 
this  scene,  of  which  the  grandeur  altogether  con 
sists  in  the  elevation  of  the  sentiments,  succeeds 
one  of  great  activity,  such  as  the  licence  of  the 
English  theatre  alone  permits  ;  and  the  various 
fortunes  of  an  engagement  multiply  under  every 
form, — the  heroism  of  father  and  son,  alternately 
rescued  by  each  other,  re-united,  separated,  and  at 
length  slain,  on  the  same  field  of  battle.  Nothing 
can  surpass  the  vehemence  and  the  patriotic  beauty 
of  this  spectacle.  The  French  reader  alone  suffers 
from  seeing  the  character  of  Joan  of  Arc  unwor 
thily  travestied  by  the  gross  prejudice  of  the  poet. 
But  this  is  one  of  those  faults  which  form  a  part  of 
the  nationality  of  Shakspeare,  and  only  rendered 
him  more  dear  to  his  contemporaries.5 

In  the  second  part  of  Henry  VI.,  some  traits  of 
a  kind  not  less  elevated  mix  themselves  with  the 
tumultuous  variety  of  the  drama.  Such  is  the 
terrible  scene  where  the  ambitious  Cardinal  Beau- 

b  The  First  Part  of  Henry  VI.,  though  not  totally  devoid  of 
beautiful  passages,  is  written  throughout,  both  as  to  style  and 
versification,  in  a  manner  so  completely  the  reverse  of  what  we 
find  in  the  genuine  plays  of  Shakspeare,  as  at  once  to  strip  it  of 
all  claim  to  be  considered  as  his.  These  discrepances,  it  must 
be  recollected,  are  not  very  perceptible  to  a  foreigner. 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  239 

fort  is  visited  on  his  death-bed  by  the  king,  whose 
confidence  he  has  betrayed,  and  whose  subjects  he 
has  oppressed.  The  delirium  of  the  dying  man, 
his  fear  of  death,  his  silence  when  the  king  asks 
him  if  he  has  any  hope  of  being  saved,  the  whole 
of  this  picture  of  despair  and  condemnation  is  ex 
clusively  the  property  of  Shakspeare.bb  Another 
merit  of  this  work,  a  merit  unknown  to,  and  almost 
irreconcileable  with  our  stage,  is  the  representation 
of  popular  movements,  the  image  absolutely  alive, 
as  it  were,  of  insurrection  and  sedition.  There,  we 
have  nothing  of  the  poet ;  we  hear  only  the  words 
themselves  which  stir  up  the  multitude  ;  we  recog 
nize  the  leader  of  the  mob. 

In  his  historical  dramas,  Shakspeare  has  suc 
ceeded  in  creating  new  situations.  He  supplies 
by  his  imagination  those  voids  which  the  most 
faithful  history  almost  necessarily  leaves  open  ;  and 
we  see  that  which  it  has  not  recorded,  but  that 
which  ought  to  be  the  truth.  Such  is  the  soliloquy 
of  Richard  II.  in  his  prison,  the  detail  of  his  hor 
rible  struggle  with  his  assassins.  So  in  that  absurd 
and  slightly  historical  drama  entitled  King  John, 
the  maternal  love  of  Constance  is  given  with  an 
expression  truly  sublime ;  and  the  scene  of  young 
Arthur  disarming  by  his  prayers  and  his  touching 
simplicity  the  keeper  who  is  about  to  put  out  his 

bb  This  is  a  mistake  of  the  French  critic ;  for  the  outlines  of 
this  terrific  scene,  and  a  portion  of  its  language,  may  be  found 
in  the  old  play  of  The  Contention  of  the  Two  famous  Houses 
of  Yorke  end  Lancaster,  probably  written  before  the  year 
1590. 


240  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

eyes,  is  at  once  so  pathetic,  so  new,  and  so  true  to 
nature,  that  the  conceits  of  language,  but  too  fami 
liar  to  the  poet,  cannot  injure  its  effect. 

It  must  be  confessed  that,  in  historical  subjects, 
the  absence  of  the  unities,*  and  the  long  duration 
of  the  drama,  admit  of  contrasts  of  great  effect,  and 
which  unfold  with  more  of  strength  and  nature,  all 
the  extremes  of  human  life  and  suffering.  Thus, 
Richard  III.,  the  poisoner,  the  murderer,  the 
tyrant,  in  the  horror  of  the  perils  which  he  has 
raised  against  him,  endures  agonies  as  great  as  his 
crimes,  is  slowly  punished  on  the  stage,  and  dies 
as  he  has  lived,  miserable  and  without  remorse . 
Thus,  Cardinal  Wolsey,  whom  the  spectator  had 
beheld  a  proud  and  all-powerful  minister,  the  base 
persecutor  of  a  virtuous  queen,  after  having  suc 
ceeded  in  all  his  designs,  smitten  by  the  royal 
displeasure,  that  incurable  wound  of  an  ambitious 
man,  dies  in  such  distress  that  he  becomes  almost 
an  object  of  pity.  Thus,  Catharine  of  Arragon,  at 
first  triumphant  and  honoured  amid  the  splendour 
of  the  court,  afterwards  humiliated  by  the  charms  of 
a  young  rival,  re-appears  to  our  eyes  a  captive  in  a 
solitary  castle,  consumed  by  languor,  but  coura 
geous  and  yet  a  queen ;  and  when,  about  to  die, 
she  learns  the  melancholy  end  of  Cardinal  Wolsey, 
she  bestows  the  benediction  of  peace  upon  his 
memory,  and  seems  to  experience  some  joy,  at 

*  We  may  read  on  this  subject  the  striking  and  ingenious 
reflections  of  M.  Guizot,  in  his  Life  of  Shakspeare ;  a  work  re 
markable  for  the  sagacity  of  its  historical  and  moral  views  on 
the  state  of  England  at  the  era  of  Elizabeth. 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  241 

least,  in  being  able  to  pardon  the  man  who  had  done 
her  so  much  injury.  Our  twenty-four  hours  are 
too  short  to  include  all  the  sorrows  and  all  the  inci 
dents  of  a  human  life. 

As  to  the  irregularities  of  Shakspeare,  even  with 
respect  to  style,  they  have  their  advantages  and 
effect.  In  that  medley  of  prose  and  verse,  how 
ever  strange  it  may  appear  to  us,  the  author  has 
been  almost  always  determined  in  his  choice  of  the 
two  modes  of  expressing  himself  by  the  character 
of  the  subject  and  situation.  The  delicious  scene 
of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  the  terrible  dialogue  between 
Hamlet  and  the  spirit  of  his  father,  require  the 
charm  or  the  solemnity  of  verse :  nothing  of  the 
kind  is  wanted  in  order  to  show  Macbeth  secretly 
conferring  with  the  assassins.  The  most  power 
ful  stage  effects  are  attached  to  these  abrupt, 
to  these  sudden  extravagances  of  expression, 
of  images,  of  sentiments ;  something  of  the  pro 
found  and  of  the  true  may  be  discovered  in 
them.  The  cold  pleasantries  of  the  musicians  in 
the  hall  adjoining  the  death-bed  of  Juliet,  these 
spectacles  of  indifference  and  of  despair  so  closely 
approaching  each  other,  more  effectually  paint  the 
nothingness  of  life  than  the  uniform  pomp  of  our 
theatric  griefs.  In  short,  that  homely  dialogue  of 
two  soldiers,  in  Hamlet,  mounting  guard,  towards 
midnight,  in  a  solitary  place,  the  deep  expression 
of  their  superstitious  fear,  their  wild  and  artless 
descriptions,  prepare  the  mind  of  the  spectator  for 

Q 


242  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

the  appearance  of  spectres  and  phantoms,  much 
better  than  would  all  the  illusions  of  poetry. 

Powerful  emotions,  unexpected  contrasts,  the 
terrible  and  pathetic  carried  to  excess,  buffooneries 
mingled  with  horror,  and  which  resemble  the  sardo 
nic  laugh  of  a  dying  man, — these  form  the  leading 
features  of  the  tragic  drama  of  Shakspeare.  Under 
these  various  points  of  view,  Macbeth,  Romeo,  King 
Lear,  Othello,  Hamlet,  present  us  with  beauties 
nearly  equal.  An  interest  of  another  kind  attaches 
itself  to  works  in  which  he  has  lavishly  displayed 
the  inventions  of  the  romantic  style  of  fabling. 
Such  is  more  particularly  Cymbeline,  the  whimsical 
product  of  a  tale  of  Boccaccio,  and  of  a  chapter  of 
the  Caledonian  Chronicles,  but  a  work  full  of  spirit 
and  of  charm,  where  a  perspicuity  the  mast  lumi 
nous  reigns  together  with  an  intrigue  the  most 
complicated.  In  fact,  it  is  one  amongst  other  pieces, 
which  are,  as  it  were,  the  Saturnalia  of  this  poet's 
imagination,  always  so  irregular  and  so  free.  In 
England,  they  greatly  admire  that  piece  which  one 
of  our  critics  has  almost  overwhelmed  by  his  arro 
gant  reasoning.  The  Tempest  appears  to  the  Eng 
lish  one  of  the  most  wonderful  fictions  of  their 
poetry ;  and  is  it  not,  indeed,  a  powerful  creation, 
a  singularly  happy  union  of  the  fantastic  and  the 
comic  in  the  person  of  Caliban,  that  exemplification 
of  all  the  most  gross  and  low  propensities,  of  cow 
ardice  the  most  servile,  of  meanness  the  most 
cringing?  And  what  an  infinite  charm  in  the 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  243 

contrast  of  Ariel,  of  that  sylph  as  amiable  and 
elegant  as  Caliban  is  perverse  and  misshapen !  The 
character  of  Miranda  belongs  to  that  gallery  of 
female  portraits  so  happily  designed  by  Shakspeare; 
but  how  does  an  innocence  the  most  native,  nou 
rished  in  solitude,  distinguish  and  embellish  it ! 

In  the  eyes  of  the  English,  Shakspeare  excels 
not  less  in  comedy  than  in  tragedy.    Johnson  even 
thought  his  gaity  and  pleasantries  greatly  prefer 
able  to  his  tragic  powers.     This  last  judgment  is 
more  than  doubtful,  and,  at  all  events,  can  never  be 
the  opinion  of  foreigners.     We  know  that  nothing 
is  so  difficult  to  translate  into  another  language, 
nothing  less  easily  understood,  than  a  jest  or  witti 
cism.     The  masculine  vigour  and  daring  energy  of 
language,  the  terrible  and  pathetic  strokes  of  pas 
sion,  may  be  in  a  great  measure  retained ;  but  ridi 
cule  evaporates,  and  pleasantry  loses  all  its  force 
and  grace.     However,  the  comedies  of  Shakspeare, 
which  are  pieces  of  intrigue  more  than  pictures  of 
manners,  almost  always  preserve,  owing  to  the 
subject  itself,  a  peculiar  character  of  gaiety.     Be 
sides,  there  is  no  verisimilitude,  scarcely  any  inten 
tion  of  bringing  real  life  on  the  stage ;  and  that, 
by  the  by,  will  explain  to  us  why  a  celebrated 
enthusiast  as  to  Shakspeare  disdainfully  accuses  our 
Moliere  of  being  prosaic,  because  he  is  a  too  close, 
a  too  faithful  imitator  of  human  life,  as  if  to  copy 
nature  had  been  the  plagiarism  of  mediocrity. 

Shakspeare  has  no  fault  of  this  kind  in  his  come 
dies:    a  complication  of  whimsical  incidents,  a 


244  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

spirit  of  exaggeration,  an  almost  continual  carica 
ture,  a  dialogue  sparkling  with  wit  and  fancy,  where 
the  author  appears  more  than  the  character, — these 
are  often  the  results  of  his  comic  talent.  It  may 
be  said  that  Rabelais  has  sometimes  been  indebted 
for  his  comedies  to  the  fantastic  buffoonery  of  his 
language,  to  the  capriciousness  of  his  inventions. 
The  originality  of  Shakspeare  constantly  shows 
itself  in  the  variety  of  his  comic  productions. 
Timon  of  Athens  is  one  of  the  most  striking ;  it  has 
something  of  the  satiric  fire  of  Aristophanes,  and 
something  of  the  malignity  of  Lucian.  An  old 
English  critic  has  said  that  the  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor  is  perhaps  the  only  piece  in  which  Shak 
speare  has  given  himself  the  trouble  of  conceiving 
and  executing  a  plan.  He  has  thrown  into  it,  at 
least,  much  of  fire,  of  whim  and  gaiety ;  he  has 
made  a  near  approach  to  the  happy  prosaicism  of 
Moliere,  in  painting  in  expressive  colours  the 
manners,  the  habitudes,  and  the  reality  of  life. 

There  is  no  character  belonging  to  the  tragedies 
of  Shakspeare  more  admired  in  England,  and  there 
is  none,  indeed,  more  truly  tragical,  than  that  of 
Shy  lock  in  the  comedy  of  the  Merchant  of  Venice. 
The  inextinguishable  thirst  of  gold,  his  infamous 
and  eager  cruelty,  the  asperity  of  a  hatred  exas 
perated  by  contumely  and  disgrace,  are  traced 
with  an  incomparable  energy ;  whilst  one  of  those 
female  characters  so  beautifully  drawn  by  the 
pencil  of  Shakspeare,  throws  into  the  same  work, 
and  into  the  midst  of  a  romantic  plot,  the  charm  of 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  245 

passion.  The  comedies  of  Shakspeare  have  little 
or  no  moral  aim ;  they  amuse  the  imagination,  they 
excite  the  curiosity,  they  divert,  they  astonish,  but 
they  do  not  convey  lessons  of  manners  more  or  less 
artfully  insinuated.  Some  amongst  them  may  be 
compared  with  the  Amphitryon  of  Moliere ;  they 
have  often  the  same  grace,  the  same  free  and  poetic 
cast.  It  is  by  this  character  of  composition  that 
we  must  estimate  the  Midsummer  Night's  Dream, 
an  unequal  but  a  charming  piece,  where  fairyism 
furnishes  to  the  poet  a  tissue  of  wonders  alike 
pleasing  and  gay. 

Shakspeare,  who,  notwithstanding  his  origina 
lity,  has  every  where  availed  himself  of  the  forms 
and  designs  of  others,  has  also  imitated  the  Italian 
pastoral  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  has  very  de 
lightfully  brought  before  us  those  ideal  dramas  of 
rural  life  which  the  Aminta  of  Tasso  had  rendered 
fashionable.  His  piece  entitled  As  You  Like  It  is 
full  of  poetry  the  most  enchanting,  of  descriptions 
the  most  light  and  graceful.  Moliere  in  his  Prin- 
cesse  cC Elide  may  give  us  an  idea  of  this  union  of 
passion  without  truth,  and  of  rural  pictures  without 
nature.  It  is  a  false  species  of  fabling,  agreeably 
touched  by  a  man  of  genius.  Yet,  be  it  as  it  may, 
these  productions  so  diverse,  these  efforts  of  ima 
gination  so  various,  bear  witness  to  the  richness  of 
the  genius  of  Shakspeare ;  a  genius  not  less  bril 
liantly  discernible  in  that  multitude  of  sentiments, 
ideas,  views,  and  observations  of  every  kind,  which 
till  indiscriminately  all  his  works,  which  crowd,  as 


246  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

it  were,  under  his  pen,  and  which  we  are  able  to 
extract  even  from  his  least  happy  productions. 

We  ought  indeed  to  make  collections  of  the 
thoughts  of  Shakspeare ;  they  may  be  cited  on 
every  occasion  and  under  every  form ;  and  no  man 
who  has  a  tincture  of  letters,  can  open  his  works 
without  finding  there  a  thousand  things  which  he 
ought  not  to  forget.  In  the  midst  of  that  excess  of 
strength,  of  that  extravagance  of  expression  which 
he  often  gives  to  his  characters,  there  are  to  be 
found  traits  of  nature  which  compel  us  to  overlook 
all  his  faults.  We  need  not  be  astonished  then, 
that,  amid  a  nation  thoughtful  and  intellectual,  his 
works  should  be  deemed  the  very  foundation  and 
source  of  their  literature.  Shakspeare  is  the 
Homer  of  the  English ;  he  is  altogether  national. 
His  diction  masculine  and  picturesque,  his  lan 
guage  enriched  with  imagery  and  bold  metaphor, 
formed  the  treasury  on  which  the  elegant  writers 
of  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne  amply  drew.  His 
strong  and  familiar  pictures,  his  energy  often  trivial, 
his  imagination  excessive  and  without  rein,  continue 
to  form  the  character  and  the  ambition  of  English 
literature.  In  spite  of  philosophy  and  new  views, 
the  change  of  manners,  and  the  progress  of  know 
ledge,  Shakspeare  lives  in  the  heart  of  the  litera 
ture  of  his  country  ;  he  animates,  he  sustains  it,  as 
in  this  same  England  the  old  laws,  the  ancient 
forms,  sustain  and  animate  modern  society.  At 
a  period  when  originality  is  on  the  decline,  one 
does  not  look  back  but  with  increased  admiration 


HIS    LIFJE    AND    GENIUS.  247 

towards  this  ancient  model  so  prolific  and  so 
noble.  The  impression  of  his  example,  or  even 
a  natural  analogy  with  some  of  the  features  of  his 
genius,  is  still  visible  in  the  most  celebrated  writers 
of  England  ;  and  he  amongst  them,  who  has  the 
privilege  of  amusing  all  Europe,  Walter  Scott, 
well  as  he  has  observed,  even  with  an  antiquarian 
fidelity,  those  differences  of  manners  and  of  cus 
toms  which  Shakspeare  has  so  often  confounded, 
ought  to  be  ranged  in  his  school :  he  is  nourished 
by  his  genius ;  he  has,  both  by  imitation  and  by 
nature,  something  of  his  pleasantry  ;  he  sometimes 
rivals  him  in  his  dialogue  ;  in  short,  and  it  is  the 
most  beautiful  point  of  resemblance,  he  has  the 
greatest  affinity  with  Shakspeare  in  the  grand  art 
of  creating  and  supporting  characters,  of  rendering 
them  living  and  familiar  by  the  minutest  details, 
and  of  making  them,  if  I  may  so  say,  beings  of  this 
world,  with  a  verisimilitude  which  nothing  can 
efface,  and  which  their  name  alone  recals  to  me 
mory.0 

c  M.  Villemain  appears  to  have  exceeded  his  usual  strain  of 
eloquence  in  these  beautiful  delineations  of  the  assimilating  cha 
racters  of  Shakspeare  and  Sir  Walter  Scott.  By  the  translator 
they  were  read  with  peculiar  interest,  for  the  present  volume  had 
been  arranged,  and  the  concluding  essay,  with  the  parallel  be 
tween  these  authors,  had  been  written,  before  the  work  of  the 
French  critic  fell  into  his  hands.  He  need  scarcely  say  how 
gratified  he  felt,  not  only  by  this  corroboration  of  his  own  sen 
timents,  but  by  the  opportunity  which  was  thus  afforded  him  of 
introducing  into  his  volume  an  essay  of  such  masterly  exe 
cution. 


248  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Behold,  then,  the  immortal  charm  which  for  two 
centuries  has  continued  to  augment  the  renown  of 
Shakspeare !  For  a  long  time  shut  up  in  his  own 
country,  it  is  only  within  the  last  half  century  that 
he  has  become  an  object  of  emulation  to  foreigners; 
but  under  this  point  of  view  his  influence  has  ne 
cessarily  less  of  strength  and  brilliancy.  Copied 
by  system,  or  timidly  corrected,  he  is  of  no  value 
to  imitators.  When  he  is  re-produced  with  an 
affectation  of  barbarous  irregularity,  when  his  con 
fusion  is  laboriously  imitated  by  that  experimental 
literature  of  Germany,  which  by  turns  has  at 
tempted  every  species  of  composition,  and  tried 
sometimes  even  barbarity  itself  as  its  last  resource, 
he  has  inspired  productions  too  often  cold  and  ex 
travagant,  where  the  tone  of  our  age  has  given  the 
lie  to  the  simulated  rudeness  of  the  poet. 

When,  even  under  the  hands  of  the  energetic 
Ducis,  he  is  reduced  to  our  classical  proportions, 
and  fettered  by  the  restrictions  of  our  theatre,  he 
loses,  with  the  freedom  of  his  movements,  all  that 
he  possesses  of  the  grand  and  the  astonishing  for 
the  imagination.  The  gigantic  characters  which 
he  invented  have  no  space  to  move  in.  His  terrible 
action,  and  his  extensive  developements  of  passion, 
are  not  capable  of  being  included  within  the  limits 
of  our  rules.  He  no  longer  exhibits  his  haugh 
tiness,  his  audacity ;  he  is  Gulliver  bound  down  with 
innumerable  threads.  No  longer,  then,  wrap  up 
this  giant  in  swaddling-clothes;  leave  him  his 
daring  gambols,  his  wild  liberty.  Mutilate  not 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  249 

this  tree  full  of  sap  and  vigour;  cut  not  off  its  dark 
and  thick  branches,  in  order  to  square  its  naked 
trunk  upon  the  uniform  model  of  those  in  the 
gardens  of  Versailles. 

It  is  to  the  English  that  Shakspeare  belongs, 
and  where  he  ought  to  remain.  This  poetry  is  not 
destined,  like  that  of  the  Greeks,  to  present  a 
model  to  every  other  people,  of  the  most  beautiful 
forms  of  imagination ;  it  offers  not  that  ideal 
beauty  which  the  Greeks  have  carried  into  the 
productions  of  intellect,  as  well  as  into  the  arts  of 
design.  Shakspeare  would  seem  fated  then  to 
enjoy  a  less  universal  fame ;  but  the  fortune  and 
the  genius  of  his  countrymen  have  extended  the 
sphere  of  his  immortality.  The  English  language 
is  spoken  in  the  peninsula  of  India,  and  throughout 
that  half  of  the  new  world  which  ought  to  inherit 
from  Europe  at  large.  The  numerous  people  of 
the  United  States  have  scarcely  any  other  litera 
ture  than  the  books  of  old  England,  and  no  other 
national  theatre  than  the  pieces  of  Shakspeare. 
They  summon  over  sea,  at  an  immense  expense, 
some  celebrated  English  actor  to  represent  to  the 
inhabitants  of  New- York  those  dramas  of  the  old 
English  poet  which  are  calculated  to  act  so  power 
fully  on  a  free  people ;  there  they  excite  even 
more  applause  and  enthusiasm  than  in  the  theatres 
of  London.  The  popular  good  sense  of  these  men, 
so  industrious  and  so  occupied,  seizes  with  ardour 
the  profound  thoughts,  the  sagacious  maxims  with 
which  Shakspeare  is  filled ;  his  gigantic  images 


250  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

please  minds  accustomed  to  the  most  magnificent 
spectacles  of  nature,  and  to  the  immensity  of  the 
forests  and  rivers  of  the  New  World.  His  rude 
ness  and  inequality,  his  strange  familiarities,  offend 
not  a  society  which  is  formed  of  so  many  different 
elements,  which  knows  neither  an  aristocracy  nor 
a  court,  and  which  has  rather  the  strength  and 
arms  of  civilization  than  its  elegance  and  polite 
ness. 

There,  as  on  his  native  soil,  Shakspeare  is  the 
most  popular  of  all  writers ;  he  is  the  only  poet, 
perhaps,  whose  verses  occasionally  blend  them 
selves  with  the  simple  eloquence  and  grave  dis 
courses  of  the  American  Senate.  It  is,  above  all, 
through  him  that  this  people,  so  familiarised  with 
the  coarse  enjoyments  of  society,  appears  to  have 
become  acquainted  with  the  noble  enjoyment  of 
letters  which  it  had  hitherto  neglected,  and  indeed 
knew  little  of;  and  when  the  genius  of  the  arts 
shall  awaken  in  these  countries,  endowed  with  an 
aspect  so  poetic,  but  where  liberty  seems  as  yet  to 
have  inspired  little  save  commerce,  industry,  and 
the  practical  sciences  of  life,  we  may  expect  to  see 
the  authority  of  Shakspeare,  and  the  enthusiasm  of 
his  example,  rule  over  this  rising  republic  of  litera 
ture.  Thus,  this  comedian  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth, 
this  author  esteemed  so  uneducated,  who  had 
himself  never  collected  or  revised  his  own  works, 
rapidly  composed,  as  they  were,  for  obscure  and 
rude  theatres,  will  be  the  chief  and  model  of  a 
school  of  poetry  which  shall  speak  a  language  dif- 


HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS.  251 

fused   over  the  most  flourishing  half  of  a  new 
world. d 

VlLLEMAIN.8 

d  This  diffusion  of  the  language  and  literature  of  England, 
and  this  picture  of  the  present  and  future  popularity  of  Shak- 
speare  among  the  inhabitants  of  the  United  States,  had  been 
previously  and  somewhat  similarly  drawn  both  by  Morgan 
and  the  translator  of  this  essay  ;  the  latter,  alluding  to  the  elo 
quently  prophetic  description  of  the  author  of  the  Essay  on 
Falstaff,  remarks  :  "  not  twenty  years  had  passed  over  the 
glowing  predictions  of  Morgan,  when  the  first  transatlantic 
edition  of  Shakspeare  appeared  at  Philadelphia;  nor  is  it  too 
much  to  believe  that,  ere  another  century  elapse,  the  plains 
of  Northern  America,  and  even  the  unexplored  wilds  of 
Australasia,  shall  be  as  familiar  with  the  fictions  of  our  poet, 
as  are  now  the  vallies  of  his  native  Avon,  or  the  statelier  banks 
of  the  Thames. 

"  It  is,  indeed,  a  most  delightful  consideration  for  every  lover 
and  cultivator  of  our  literature,  and  one  which  should  excite^ 
amongst  our  authors,  an  increased  spirit  of  emulation,  that  the 
language  in  which  they  write  is  destined  to  be  that  of  so  large 
a  portion  of  the  New  World ;  a  field  of  glory  to  which  the 
genius  of  Shakspeare  will  assuredly  give  an  imperishable 
permanency ;  for  the  diffusion  and  durability  of  his  fame  are 
likely  to  meet  with  no  limit  save  that  which  circumscribes  the 
globe,  and  closes  the  existence  of  time." — Shakspeare  and  his 
Times,  vol.  ii.  p.  555. 

«  Nouveaux  Melanges  Historiques  et  Litteraires,  Tome  i.  p. 
215  ad  p.  287.  a  Paris,  1827. 


252  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 


No.  XVIII. 
SHAKSPEARE  COMPARED  WITH  HOMER. 

THE  genius  of  Homer  has  been  a  topic  of  admi 
ration  to  almost  every  generation  of  men  since  the 
period  in  which  he  wrote.     But   his   characters 
will  not  bear  the  slightest  comparison  with  the 
delineation  of  the  same  characters  as  they  stand  in 
the  Troilus  and  Cressida  of  Shakspeare.     This  is 
a  species  of  honour  which  ought  by  no  means  to 
be  forgotten,  when  we  are  making  the  eulogium  of 
our  immortal  bard   a  sort  of  illustration  of  his 
greatness,  which  cannot  fail  to  place  it  in  a  very 
conspicuous  light.     The  dispositions  of  men,  per 
haps,  had  not  been  sufficiently  unfolded  in  the 
very  early  period  of  intellectual  refinement  when 
Homer  wrote ;  the  rays  of  humour  had  not  been 
dissected  by  the  glass,  or  rendered  perdurable  by 
the  pencil,  of  the  poet.     Homer's  characters  are 
drawn  with  a  laudable  portion  of  variety  and  con 
sistency ;  but  his  Achilles,  his  Ajax,and  his  Nestor, 
are,  each  of  them,  rather  a  species  than  an  indi 
vidual,  and  can  boast  more  of  the  propriety  of 
abstraction  than  of  the  vivacity  of  a  moving  scene 
of  absolute  life.     The  Achilles,  the  Ajax,  and  the 
various  Grecian  heroes  of  Shakspeare  on  the  other 
hand,  are  absolute  men,  deficient  in  nothing  which 


COMPARED    WITH    HOMER.  253 

can  tend  to  individualise  them,  and  already  touched 
with  the  Promethean  fire,  that  might  infuse  a 
soul  into  what,  without  it,  were  lifeless  form. 
From  the  rest,  perhaps  the  character  of  Thersites 
deserves  to  be  selected  (how  cold  and  school-boy 
a  sketch  in  Homer !)  as  exhibiting  an  appropriate 
vein  of  sarcastic  humour  amidst  his  cowardice, 
and  a  profoundness  and  truth  in  his  mode  of  lay 
ing  open  the  foibles  of  those  about  him,  impossible 
to  be  excelled. 

Before   we   quit  this   branch   of  Shakspeare's 
praise,  it  may  not  be  unworthy  of  our  attention  to 
advert  to  one  of  the  methods  by  which  he  has 
attained  this  uncommon  superiority.     One  of  the 
most  formidable  adversaries  of  true  poetry  is  an 
attribute   which   is   generally  miscalled    dignity. 
Shakspeare  possessed,  no  man  in  higher  perfection, 
the  true  dignity  and  loftiness  of  the  poetical  afflatus, 
which  he  has  displayed  in  many  of  the  finest  pas 
sages  of  his  works  with  miraculous  success.     But 
he  knew  that  no  man  ever  was,  or  ever  can  be, 
always   dignified.     He   knew  that  those   subtler 
traits  of  character  which  identify  a  man,  are  fami 
liar  and  relaxed,  pervaded  with  passion,  and  not 
played  off  with  an  eternal  eye  to  decorum.     In 
this  respect  the  peculiarities  of  Shakspeare's  genius 
are  no  where  more  forcibly  illustrated  than  in  the 
play  of  Troilus  and  Cressida.     The  champions  of 
Greece  and  Troy,  from  the  hour  in  which  their 
names  were  first  recorded,   had   always  worn  a 
certain  formality  of  attire,  and  marched  with  a 


254  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

slow  and  measured  step.  No  poet  till  this  time 
had  ever  ventured  to  force  them  out  of  the  manner 
which  their  epic  creator  had  given  them.  Shak- 
speare  first  suppled  their  limbs,  took  from  them 
the  classic  stiffness  of  their  gait,  and  enriched  them 
with  an  entire  set  of  those  attributes  which  might 
render  them  completely  beings  of  the  same  species 
with  ourselves. 

GODWIN/ 

f  Life  of  Chaucer,  octavo  edition,  vol.  i.  p.  509  ad  p.  512. 
I  have  before  appealed  to  this  play  (Troilus  and  Cressida)  as  a 
proof  of  Shakspeare's  transcendent  talent  in  the  developement 
of  character ;  and  though  from  the  nature  of  its  fable,  not  one 
of  the  most  pleasing  or  interesting  of  his  productions,  yet  would 
it  be  a  difficult  task  to  select  another  exhibiting  more  profound 
and  original  traits  of  discrimination  ;  and  this  too,  notwithstand 
ing  the  materials  on  which  it  is  based,  would  appear  from  early 
and  indelible  classical  association,  to  be  altogether  fixed  and 
intractable.  The  reader,  however,  will  in  a  few  pages  more 
meet  a  further  enquiry  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Godwin  into  the 
merits  of  this  drama,  as  compared  with  Chaucer's  mode  of 
treating  the  same  subject. 


SIMILITUDE  BETWEEN  HIM  AND  HOMER.       255 


No.  XIX. 

ON  THE  SIMILITUDE  BETWEEN  SHAKSPEARE  AND 
HOMER  IN  RELATION  TO  THEIR  KNOWLEDGE  OF 
THE  HUMAN  HEART. 

KNOWLEDGE  of  the  human  heart  is  a  science  of 
the  highest  dignity.  It  is  recommended  not  only 
by  its  own  importance,  but  also  by  this,  that  none 
but  an  exalted  genius  is  capable  of  it.  To  delineate 
the  objects  of  the  material  world  requires  a  fine 
imagination,  but  to  penetrate  into  the  mental  sys 
tem,  and  to  describe  its  different  objects  with  all 
their  distinguishing  (though  sometimes  almost  im 
perceptible)  peculiarities,  requires  an  imagination 
far  more  extensive  and  vigorous.  It  is  this  kind 
of  imagination  which  appears  so  conspicuous  in 
the  works  of  Shakspeare  and  Homer,  and  which, 
in  my  opinion,  raises  them  above  all  other  poets 
whatsoever :  I  mean  not  only  that  talent  by  which 
they  can  adapt  themselves  to  the  heart  of  their 
readers,  and  excite  whatever  affection  they  please, 
in  which  the  former  plainly  stands  unrivalled ;  I 
mean  also  that  wonderfully  penetrating  and  plastic 
faculty,  which  is  capable  of  representing  every 
species  of  character,  not,  as  our  ordinary  poets  do, 
by  a  high  shoulder,  a  wry  mouth,  or  gigantic  sta 
ture,  but  by  hitting  off,  with  a  delicate  hand,  the 
distinguishing  feature,  and  that  in  such  a  manner 


256  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

as  makes  it  easily  known  from  all  others  what 
soever,  however  similar  to  a  superficial  eye.  Hot 
spur  and  Henry  V.  are  heroes  resembling  one 
another,  yet  very  distinct  in  their  characters ; 
Falstaff,  and  Pistol,  and  Bardolph,  are  buffoons, 
but  each  in  his  own  way ;  Desdemona  and  Juliet 
are  not  the  same ;  Bottom  and  Dogberry,  and  the 
grave-diggers,  are  different  characters ;  and  the 
same  may  be  said  of  the  most  similar  of  Homer's 
characters  :  each  has  some  mark  that  makes  him 
essentially  different  from  the  rest.  But  these 
great  masters  are  not  more  eminent  in  distinguish 
ing  than  in  completing  their  characters.  I  am  a 
little  acquainted  with  a  Cato,  a  Sempronius,  a 
Tinsel,  a  Sir  Charles  Easy,  &c.  ;  but  I  am  per 
fectly  acquainted  with  Achilles,  Hector,  Falstaff, 
Lear,  Pistol,  and  Quickly ;  I  know  them  more 
thoroughly  than  any  other  persons  of  my  ac 
quaintance. 

BEAT-TIE.* 

«  Forbes's  Account  of  the  Life  and  Writings  of  James  Beattie, 
LL.D.  vol.  i.  p.  72. 


COMPARED    WITH    AESCHYLUS.  257 


No.  XX. 

SHAKSPEARE  AND  AESCHYLUS  COMPARED. 

THERE  is  no  ancient  poet  that  bears  so  close  a 
resemblance  in  point  of  genius  to  any  of  the 
moderns,  as  -ZEschylus  bears  to  Shakspeare. — 
yEschylus  is  justly  styled  the  father  of  tragedy, 
but  this  is  not  to  be  interpreted  as  if  he  was  the 
inventor  of  it:  Shakspeare,  with  equal  justice, 
claims  the  same  title,  and  his  originality  is  quali 
fied  with  the  same  exception.  The  Greek  tragedy 
was  not  more  rude  and  undigested  when  JSschylus 
brought  it  into  shape,  than  the  English  tragedy 
was  when  Shakspeare  began  to  write ;  if,  therefore, 
it  be  granted  that  he  had  no  aids  from  the  Greek 
theatre,  (and  I  think  this  is  not  likely  to  be 
disputed,)  so  far  these  great  masters  are  upon 
equal  ground.  ^Ischylus  was  a  warrior  of  high 
repute,  of  a  lofty  generous  spirit,  and  deep  as  it 
should  seem  in  the  erudition  of  his  times.  In  all 
these  particulars  he  has  great  advantage  over  our 
countryman,  who  was  humbly  born,  and,  as  it  is 
generally  thought,  unlearned.  ./Eschylus  had  the 
whole  epic  of  Homer  in  his  hands,  the  Iliad, 
Odyssey,  and  that  prolific  source  of  dramatic 
fable,  the  Ilias  Minor ;  he  had  also  a  great  fabu- 

u 


258  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

lous  creation  to  resort  to  amongst  his  own  divin 
ities,  characters  ready  defined,  and  an  audience 
whose  superstition  was  prepared  for  every  thing 
he  could  offer;  he  had,  therefore,  a  firmer  and 
broader  stage  (if  I  may  be  allowed  the  expression) 
under  his  feet  than  Shakspeare  had.  His  fables 
in  general  are  Homeric,  and  yet  it  does  not  follow 
that  we  can  pronounce  for  Shakspeare  that  he  is 
more  original  in  his  plots,  for  I  understand  that 
late  researches  have  traced  him  in  all,  or  nearly 
all.  Both  poets  added  so  much  machinery  and 
invention  of  their  own  in  the  conduct  of  their 
fables,  that  whatever  might  have  been  the  source, 
still  their  streams  had  little  or  no  taste  of  the 
spring  they  flowed  from.  In  point  of  character 
we  have  better  grounds  to  decide,  and  yet  it  is  but 
justice  to  observe  that  it  is  not  fair  to  bring  a 
mangled  poet  in  comparison  with  one  who  is 
entire.  In  his  divine  personages  JEschylus  has 
the  field  of  heaven,  and  indeed  of  hell  also,  to 
himself;  in  his  heroic  and  military  characters  he 
has  never  been  excelled  ;  he  had  too  good  a  model 
within  his  own  bosom  to  fail  of  making  those 
delineations  natural.  In  his  imaginary  beings 
also  he  will  be  found  a  respectable,  though  not  an 
equal,  rival  of  our  poet ;  but  in  the  variety  of 
character,  in  all  the  nicer  touches  of  nature,  in  all 
the  extravagances  of  caprice  and  humour,  from 
the  boldest  feature  down  to  the  minutest  foible, 
Shakspeare  stands  alone:  such  persons  as  he 


COMPARED    WITH    vESCHYLUS.  259 

delineates  never  came  into  the  contemplation  of 
JEschylus  as  a  poet;  his  tragedy  has  no  dealing 
with  them ;  the  simplicity  of  the  Greek  fable,  and 
the  great  portion  of  the  drama  filled  up  by  the 
chorus,  allow  of  little  variety  of  character ;  and  the 
most  which  can  be  said  of  ^Eschylus  in  this  par 
ticular  is,  that  he  never  offends  against  nature  or 
propriety,  whether  his  cast  is  in  the  terrible  or 
pathetic,  the  elevated  or  the  simple.  His  versifi 
cation  with  the  intermixture  of  lyric  composition 
is  more  various  than  that  of  Shakspeare ;  both  are 
lofty  and  sublime  in  the  extreme,  abundantly 
metaphorical  and  sometimes  extravagant : — 

Nubes  et  inania  captat. 

§ 
This  may  be  said  of  each  poet  in  his  turn ;  in  each 

the  critic,  if  he  is  in  search  for  defects,  will  readily 
enough  discover — 

In  scenam  missus  magno  cum  pondere  versus. 

Both  were  subject  to  be  hurried  on  by  an  uncon 
trollable  impulse,  nor  could  nature  alone  suffice 
for  either.  ^Eschylus  had  an  apt  creation  of 
imaginary  beings  at  command — • 

He  could  call  spirits  from  the  vasty  deep, 

and  they  would  come. — Shakspeare  having  no  such 
creation  in  resource,  boldly  made  one  of  his  own ; 
if  ^Eschylus  therefore  was  invincible,  he  owed  it 
to  his  armour,  and  that,  like  the  armour  of  ^Eneas, 
was  the  work  of  the  gods ;  but  the  unassisted  in- 


260  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

vention  of  Shakspeare  seized  all  and  more  than 
superstition  supplied  to  JEschylus. 

CUMBERLAND..11 
h  Observer,  vol.  ii.  p.  225.  and  p.  231  to  p.  235. 


•COMPARED    WITH   CHAUCER,  261 


No.  XXI. 
SHAKSPEARE  AND  CHAUCER  COMPARED. 

THE  Troilus  and  Cressida  of  Shakspeare  has  for 
its  main  foundation  the  poem  of  Chaucer.     The 
Troilus  and  Creseide  of  the  elder  bard  seems  long 
to  have  been  regarded  by  our  ancestors  in  a  man 
ner  somewhat  similar  to  that  in  which  the  ^Eneid 
was  viewed  among  the  Romans,  or  the  Iliad  by 
the  ancient  Greeks.     Every  reader  who  advanced 
any  pretensions  to  poetical  taste,  felt  himself  obliged 
to  speak  of  it  as  the  great  classical  regular  English 
poem,  which  reflected  the  highest  lustre  upon  our 
language.     Shakspeare  therefore,  as  a  man,  felt  it 
but  a  just  compliment  to  the  merits  of  the  great 
father  of  our  poetry,  to  introduce  his  characters  in 
a  tangible  form,  and  with  all  the  advantages  and 
allurements  he  could  bestow  upon  them  before  the 
eyes  of  his  countrymen ;  and  as  a  constructor  of 
dramas,  accustomed  to  consult  their  tastes  and 
partialities,  he  conceived  that  he  could  not  adopt  a 
more  promising  plan  than  to  entertain  them  with 
a  tale  already  familiar  to  their  minds,  which  had 
been  the  associate  and  delight  of  their  early  years, 
which  every  man  had  himself  praised,  and  had 
heard  applauded  by  all  the  tasteful  and  the  wise. 
We  are  not,  however,  left  to  probability  and  con- 


I 

262  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

jecture  as  to  the  use  made  by  Shakspeare  of  the 
poem  of  Chaucer.  His  other  sources  were  Chap 
man's  translation  of  Homer,  the  Troy  Book  of 
Lydgate,  and  Caxton's  History  of  the  destruction 
of  Troy.  It  is  well  known  that  there  is  no  trace 
of  the  particular  story  of  Troilus  and  Creseide 
among  the  ancients.  It  occurs  indeed  in  Lydgate 
and  Caxton ;  but  the  name  and  actions  of  Pan- 
darus,  a  very  essential  personage  in  the  tale  as 
related  by  Shakspeare  and  Chaucer,  are  entirely 
wanting,  except  a  single  mention  of  him  by  Lyd 
gate,  and  that  with  an  express  reference  to  Chaucer 
as  his  authority.  Shakspeare  has  taken  the  story 
of  Chaucer  with  all  its  imperfections  and  defects, 
and  has  copied  the  series  of  its  incidents  with  his 
customary  fidelity ;  an  exactness  seldom  to  be 
found  in  any  other  dramatic  writer. 

Since  then  two  of  the  greatest  writers  this  island 
has  produced  have  treated  the  same  story,  each  in 
his  own  peculiar  manner,  it  may  be  neither  unen- 
tertaining  nor  uninstructive  to  consider  the  merit 
of  their  respective  modes  of  composition  as  illus 
trated  in  the  present  example.  Chaucer's  poem 
includes  many  beauties,  many  genuine  touches  of 
nature,  and  many  strokes  of  an  exquisite  pathos. 
It  is  on  the  whole,  however,  written  in  that  style 
which  has  unfortunately  been  so  long  imposed 
upon  the  world  as  dignified,  classical,  and  chaste. 
It  is  naked  of  incidents,  of  ornament,  of  whatever 
should  most  awaken  the  imagination,  astound  the 
fancy,  or  hurry  away  the  soul.  It  has  the  stately 


COMPARED  WITH  CHAUCER.        263 

march  of  a  Dutch  burgomaster  as  he  appears  in  a 
procession,  or  a  French  poet  as  he  shows  himself 
in  his  works.  It  reminds  one  too  forcibly  of  a  tra 
gedy  of  Racine.  Every  thing  partakes  of  the 
author,  as  if  he  thought  he  should  be  everlastingly 
disgraced  by  becoming  natural,  inartificial,  and 
alive.  We  travel  through  a  work  of  this  sort  as 
we  travel  over  some  of  the  immense  downs  with 
which  our  island  is  interspersed.  All  is  smooth, 
or  undulates  with  so  gentle  and  slow  a  variation  as 
scarcely  to  be  adverted  to  by  the  sense.  But  all 
is  homogeneous  and  tiresome  :  the  mind  sinks  into 
a  state  of  aching  torpidity ;  and  we  feel  as  if  we 
should  never  get  to  the  end  of  our  eternal  journey.* 
What  a  contrast  to  a  journey  among  mountains 
and  vallies,  spotted  with  herds  of  various  kinds  of 
cattle,  interspersed  with  villages,  opening  ever  and 
anon  to  a  view  of  the  distant  ocean,  and  refreshed 
with  rivulets  and  streams ;  where  if  the  eye  is  ever 
fatigued,  it  is  only  with  the  boundless  flood  of 
beauty  which  is  incessantly  pouring  upon  it ! 
Such  is  the  tragedy  of  Shakspeare. 

The  historical  play  of  Troilus  and  Cressida  ex 
hibits  as  full  a  specimen  of  the  different  styles  in 
which  this  wonderful  writer  was  qualified  to  excel, 
as  is  to  be  found  in  any  of  his  works.  A  more 
poetical  passage,  if  poetry  consists  in  sublime  pic 
turesque  and  beautiful  imagery,  neither  ancient 

*  These  remarks  apply  to  nine-tenths  of  the  poem,  though 
by  no  means  to  those  happier  passages  in  which  the  author 
unfolds  the  sentiments  of  his  personages. 


264  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

nor  modern  times  have  produced,  than  the  exhor 
tation  addressed  by  Patroclus  to  Achilles,  to  per 
suade  him  to  shake  off  his  passion  for  Polyxena, 
the  daughter  of  Priam,  and  reassume  the  terrors 
of  his  military  greatness : 

Sweet,  rouse  yourself;  and  the  weak  wanton  Cupid 
Shall  from  your  neck  unloose  his  amorous  fold, 
And  like  a  dew-drop  from  the  lion's  mane, 
Be  shook  to  air. 

ACT  iii,  SCENE  3. 

Never  did  morality  hold  a  language  more  pro 
found,  persuasive,  and  irresistible,  than  in  Shak- 
speare's  Ulysses,  who  in  the  same  scene,  and 
engaged  in  the  same  cause  with  Patroclus,  thus 
expostulates  with  the  champion  of  the  Grecian 
forces : 

For  emulation  hath  a  thousand  sons, 
That  one  by  one  pursue.     If  you  give  way, 
Or  hedge  aside  from  the  direct  forth  right, 
Like  to  an  enter*  d  tide,  they  all  rush  by, 
And  leave  you  hindmost :  there  you  lie, 
Like  to  a  gallant  horse  fallen  in  first  rank, 
For  pavement  to  the  abject  rear,  o'er-run 
And  trampled  on. 

O,let  not  virtue  seek 

Remuneration  for  the  thing  it  was  ! 

For  beauty,  wit,  high  birth,  desert  in  service, 

Love,  friendship,  charity,  are  subjects  all 

To  envious  and  calumniating  time. 

One  touch  of  nature  makes  the  whole  world  kin,  •  •  •  • 

That  all  with  one  consent  praise  new-born  gauds, 

And  give  to  dust,  that  is  a  little  gilt, 

More  praise  than  they  will  give  to  gold  o'erdusted. 


COMPARED    WITH    CHAUCER.  265 

Then  marvel  not,  thou  great  and  complete  man! 
That  all  the  Greeks  begin  to  worship  Ajax. 

The  cry  went  once  on  thee, 

And  still  it  might,  and  yet  it  may  again, 
If  thou  wouldst  not  entomb  thyself  alive, 
And  case  thy  reputation  in  thy  tent. 

But  the  great  beauty  of  this  play,  as  it  is  of  all 
the  genuine  writings  of  Shakspeare,  beyond  all 
didactic  morality,  beyond  all  mere  flights  of  fancy, 
and  beyond  all  sublime,  a  beauty  entirely  his  own, 
and  in  which  no  writer,  ancient  or  modern,  can 
enter  into  competition  with  him,  is,  that  his  men  are 
men;  his  sentiments  are  living,  and  his  charac 
ters  marked  with  those  delicate,  evanescent,  un- 
definable  touches,  which  identify  them  with  the 
great  delineations  of  nature.  The  speech  of 
Ulysses  just  quoted,  when  taken  by  itself,  is 
purely  an  exquisite  specimen  of  didactic  morality; 
but  when  combined  with  the  explanation  given  by 
Ulysses,  before  the  entrance  of  Achilles,  of  the 
nature  of  his  design,  it  becomes  the  attribute  of  a 
real  man,  and  starts  into  life.  Achilles  (says  he) 

••          stands  in  the  entrance  of  his  tent. 
Please  it  our  general  to  pass  strangely  by  him, 
As  if  he  were  forgot ;  and  princes  all, 
Lay  negligent  and  loose  regard  upon  him : 
I  will  come  last :  'tis  like,  he'll  question  me, 
Why  such  unplausive  eyes  are  bent,  why  turn'd  on  him  : 
If  so,  I  have  derision  med'cinable, 
To  use  between  your  strangeness  and  his  pride, 
Which  his  own  will  shall  have  desire  to  drink. 

When  we  compare  the  plausible  and  seemingly 


266  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

affectionate  manner  in  which  Ulysses  addresses 
himself  to  Achilles  with  the  key  which  he  here 
furnishes  to  his  meaning,  and  especially  with  the 
epithet  "  derision,"  we  have  a  perfect  elucidation 
of  his  character,  and  must  allow  that  it  is  impos 
sible  to  exhibit  the  crafty  and  smooth-tongued 
politician  in  a  more  exact  or  animated  style.  The 
advice  given  by  Ulysses  is  in  its  nature  sound  and 
excellent,  and  in  its  form  inoffensive  and  kind; 
the  name,  therefore,  of  "  derision"  which  he  gives 
to  it,  marks  to  a  wonderful  degree  the  cold  and 
self-centred  subtlety  of  his  character. 

The  following  is  a  most  beautiful  example  of 
the  genuine  Shakspearian  manner,  such  as  I  have 
been  attempting  to  describe  ;  where  Cressida  first 
proceeds  so  far  as  to  confess  to  Troilus  that  she 
loves  him : 

CRESSIDA. 

Boldness  comes  to  me  now,  and  brings  me  heart : — 
Prince  Troilus,  I  have  lov'd  you  night  and  day, 
For  many  weary  months. 

TROILUS. 
Why  was  my  Cressid  then  so  hard  to  win  ? 

CRESSIDA. 

Hard  to  seem  won ;  but  I  was  won,  my  lord, 
With  the  first  glance  that  ever — Pardon  me — 
If  I  confess  much,  you  will  play  the  tyrant. 
I  love  you  now  ;  but  not,  till  now,  so  much 
But  I  might  master  it : — in  faith,  I  lie ; 
My  thoughts  were  like  unbridled  children,  grown 
Too  headstrong  for  their  mother : — See,  we  fools ! 
Why  have  I  blabb'd  ?    Who  shall  be  true  to  us, 


COMPARED    WITH    CHAUCER,  267 

When  we  are  so  unsecret  to  ourselves  ? 

But, though  I  lov'd  you  well,  I  woo'd  you  not; — 

And  yet,  good  faith,  I  wish'd  myself  a  man  ; 

Or  that  we  women  had  men's  privilege 

Of  speaking  first.— Sweet,  bid  me  hold  my  tongue; 

For,  in  this  rapture,  I  shall  surely  speak 

The  thing  I  shall  repent. — See,  see,  your  silence, 

Cunning  in  dumbness,  from  my  weakness  draws 

My  very  soul  of  counsel. — Stop  my  mouth. 

ACT  iii,  SCENE  2. 

What  charming  ingenuousness,  what  exquisite 
ndivetb,  what  ravishing  confusion  of  soul,  are  ex 
pressed  in  these  words !  We  seem  to  perceive  in 
them  every  fleeting  thought  as  it  rises  in  the  mind 
of  Cressida,  at  the  same  time  that  they  delineate 
with  equal  skill  all  the  beautiful  timidity  and 
innocent  artifice  which  grace  and  consummate 
the  feminine  character.  Other  writers  endeavour 
to  conjure  up  before  them  their  imaginary  person 
ages,  and  seek  with  violent  effort  to  arrest  and 
describe  what  their  fancy  presents  to  them : 
Shakspeare  alone  (though  not  without  many  ex 
ceptions  to  this  happiness)  appears  to  have  the 
whole  train  of  his  characters  in  voluntary  atten 
dance  upon  him,  to  listen  to  their  effusions,  and 
to  commit  to  writing  all  the  words,  and  the  very 
words,  they  utter. 

GODWIN/ 

1  Life  of  Chaucer,  8vo,  vol.  i.  p.  499  et  seq. 


268  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 


No.  XXII. 

SHAKSPEARE  AND  CALDERON  COMPARED. 

IT  is  only  in  the  first  and  lowest  scale  of  the 
drama,  that  I  can  place  those  pieces  in  which  we 
are  presented  with  the  visible  surface  of  life  alone* 
the  fleeting  appearance  of  the  rich  picture  of  the 
world.     It  is  thus  that  I  view  them,  even  although 
they  display  the  highest  sway  of  passion  in  tra 
gedy,  or  the  perfection  of  all  social  refinements 
and  absurdities  in  comedy,  so  long  as  the  whole 
business  of  the  play  is  limited  to  external  appear 
ances,   and   these   things   are   brought  before  us 
merely  in  perspective,  and  as  pictures  for  the  pur 
poses  of  drawing  our  attention,  and  awakening  the 
sympathy  of  our  passions.     The  second  order  of 
the  art  is  that,  where  in  dramatic  representations, 
together  with  passion  and  the  pictoric  appearance 
of  things,  a  spirit  of  more  profound   sense  and 
thought  is  predominant  over  the  scene,  wherein 
there  is  displayed  a  deep  knowledge,  not  of  indi 
viduals  and  their  affairs  alone,  but  of  our  whole 
species,  of  the  world  and  of  life,  in  all  their  mani 
fold  shapes,  contradictions,  and  catastrophes,  of 
man  and  of  his  being.     Were  this  profound  know 
ledge  of  us  and  our  nature  the  only  end  of  dra 
matic  poetry,  Shakspeare  would  not  merely  deserve 


COMPARED  WITH  CALDERON.       269 

to  be  called  the  first  in  his  art,  but  there  could 
scarcely  be  found  a  single  poet,  either  among  the 
ancients  or  the  moderns,  worthy  for  a  moment  to 
be  compared  with  him.  But  in  my  opinion  the 
art  of  the  dramatic  poet  has,  besides  all  this,  yet 
another  and  a  higher  end.  The  enigma  of  life 
should  not  barely  be  expressed  but  solved;  the 
perplexities  of  the  present  should  indeed  be  repre 
sented,  but  from  them  our  view  should  be  led  to 
the  last  developement  and  the  final  issue.  The 
poet  should  entwine  the  future  with  the  present, 
and  lay  before  our  eyes  the  mysteries  of  the  inter 
nal  man. — 

The  three  worlds  of  Dante  represent  to  us  three 
great  classes  of  human  beings,  some  in  the  abyss 
of  despair,  some  in  the  region  of  hope  and  purifica 
tion,  some  in  the  enjoyment  of  perfect  blessed 
ness. — Corresponding  to  these  denouements  of  hu 
man  destiny,  there  are  also  three  modes  of  that 
high,  serious,  dramatic  representation,  which  sets 
forth  not  merely  the  appearances  of  life,  but  also 
its  deeper  purpose  and  spirit,  which  gives  us  not 
only  the  knot  but  the  solution  of  our  existence.  In 
one  of  these  we  lose  sight  of  the  hero  in  the  dark 
ness  of  a  perfect  destruction ;  in  another,  the  con 
clusion,  although  mingled  with  a  certain  dawn  of 
pleasure,  is  yet  half  sorrowful  in  its  impression  ; 
and  there  is  a  third,  wherein  out  of  misery  and 
death  we  see  a  new  life  arisen,  and  behold  the  illu 
mination  of  the  internal  man.  To  show  what  I 
mean  by  dramas,  whose  termination  is  the  total 


270  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

ruin  of  their  heroes,  I  may  mention  among  the 
tragedies  of  the  moderns,  Wallenstein,  Macbeth, 
and  the  Faustus  of  the  people.  The  dramatic  art 
of  the  ancients  had  a  peculiar  fondness  for  this  al 
together  tragical  catastrophe,  which  accorded  well 
with  their  belief  in  a  terrible  and  predestinating 
fate.  Yet  a  tragedy  of  this  kind  is  perhaps  the 
more  perfect  in  proportion  as  the  destruction  is  re 
presented  not  as  any  thing  external,  capricious,  or 
predestinated,  but  as  a  darkness  into  which  the 
hero  has  sunk  step  by  step,  descending  not  with 
out  free  will,  and  in  consequence  of  his  own  guilt. — 
Such  is  the  case  in  those  three  great  modern  tra 
gedies  which  I  have  cited. 

This  is,  upon  the  whole,  the  favourite  species 
among  the  ancients,  yet  their  theatre  is  not  without 
some  beautiful  specimens  of  the  second  and  milder 
termination  ;  examples  of  it  occur  in  both  of  the  two 
greatest  of  the  Greek  tragedians.  It  is  thus  that 
-ZEschylus,  after  he  has  opened  before  us  the  darkest 
abyss  of  sorrow  and  guilt,  in  the  death  of  Aga 
memnon,  and  the  vengeance  of  Orestes,  closes  his 
mighty  picture  in  the  Eumenides  with  a  pleasing 
feeling,  and  the  final  quelling  of  the  spirit  of  evil  by 
the  intervention  of  a  milder  and  propitious  deity. 
Sophocles  in  like  manner,  after  representing  the 
blindness  and  the  fate  of  (Edipus,  the  miserable  fate 
and  mutual  fratricide  of  his  sons,  the  long  sorrows  of 
the  sightless  old  man  and  his  faithful  daughter,  is 
careful  to  throw  a  ray  of  cheering  light  upon  the 
death  of  his  hero,  and  to  depict  in  such  colours  his 


COMPARED    WITH    CALDERON.  271 

departure  into  the  protection  of  pitying  and  ex 
pecting  deities,  as  to  leave  upon  our  minds  an  im 
pression  rather  of  soothing  and  gentle  melancholy 
than  of  tragical  distress.  There  are  many  instances 
of  the  same  kind  both  in  the  ancient  theatre  and 
the  modern ;  but  few  wherein  the  working  of  the 
passions  is  adorned  with  so  much  beauty  of  poetry 
as  in  these. 

The  third  method  of  dramatic  conclusion,  which 
by  its  representation  makes  a  spiritual  purification 
to  be  the  result  of  external  sorrows,  is  the  one 
most  adapted  for  a  Christian  poet,  and  in  this 
the  first  and  greatest  of  all  masters  is  Calderon. 
Among  the  great  variety  of  his  pieces,  I  need  only 
refer  you  to  the  Devotion  to  the  Cross,  and  the 
Stedfast  Prince,  plays  which  have  been  very  fre 
quently  translated,  and  the  remarkable  excellence 
of  which  has  been,  upon  the  whole,  pretty  gene 
rally  recognised.  The  Christianity  of  this  poet, 
however,  does  not  consist  so  much  in  the  external 
circumstances  which  he  has  selected,  as  in  his  pe 
culiar  feeling,  and  the  method  of  treating  his  sub 
ject  which  is  most  common  with  him.  Even  where 
his  materials  furnish  him  with  no  opportunity  of 
drawing  the  perfect  developement  of  a  new  life  out 
of  death  and  suffering,  yet  every  thing  is  conceived 
in  the  spirit  of  this  Christian  love,  and  every  thing 
seen  in  its  light,  and  clothed  in  the  splendour  of  its 
heavenly  colouring. 

I  am  very  far,  however,  from  wishing  to  see  the 
Spanish  drama  or  Calderon  adopted  as  a  perfect 


272  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

and  exclusive  model  for  our  theatre ;  but  I  am  so 
sensible  of  the  high  perfection  to  which  the  Chris 
tian  tragedy  and  drama  attained  in  the  hands  of 
that  great  and  divine  master,  that  I  think  he  cannot 
be  too  much  studied  as  a  distant  and  inimitable 
specimen  of  excellence,  by  any  one  who  would 
make  the  bold  attempt  to  rescue  the  modern  stage, 
either  in  Germany  or  elsewhere,  from  the  feeble 
and  ineffectual  state  into  which  it  has  fallen. — 

The  chief  fault  of  Calderon  is,  that  he  carries  us 
too  quickly  to  the  great  denouement  of  which  I 
have  spoken  above ;  for  the  effect  which  this  pro 
duces  on  us  would  have  been  very  much  increased 
by  our  being  kept  longer  in  doubt,  had  he  more 
frequently  characterised  the  riddle  of  human  life 
with  the  profundity  of  Shakspeare, — had  he  been 
less  sparing  in  affording  us,  at  the  commencement, 
glimpses  of  that  light  which  should  be  preserved 
and  concentrated  upon  the  conclusion  of  the  drama. 
Shakspeare  has  exactly  the  opposite  fault,  of  too 
often  placing  before  our  eyes,  in  all  its  mystery 
and  perplexity,  the  riddle  of  life,  like  a  sceptical 
poet,  without  giving  us  any  hint  of  the  solution. 
Even  when  he  does  bring  his  drama  to  a  last  and 
a  proper  denouement,  it  is  much  more  frequently 
to  one  of  utter  destruction  after  the  manner  of  the 
old  tragedians,  or  at  least  to  one  of  an  intermediate 
and  half  satisfactory  nature,  than  to  that  termina 
tion  of  perfect  purification  which  is  predominant  in 
Calderon. — In  short  in  every  situation  and  circum 
stance,  Calderon  is,  of  all  dramatic  poets,  the  most 


COMPARED  WITH  CALDERON.       273 

Christian;  whilst  in  the  deepest  recesses  of  his 
feeling  and  thought,  it  has  always  struck  me  that 
Shakspeare  is  far  more  an  ancient, — I  mean  an 
ancient  not  of  the  Greek,  but  of  the  Northern  or 
Scandinavian  cast. 

FREDERICK  SCHLEGEL.J 

J  Lectures  on  the  History  of  Literature,  Ancient  and  Modern, 
vol.  ii.  p.  130  et  seq. — It  is  astonishing;  that  Calderon,  consi 
dering  the  high  estimation  in  which  he  is  held  in  his  native 
land,  is  so  little  known  in  this  country.  A  selection  from  his 
dramas,  which,  with  his  Autos  Sacramentales,  occupy  fifteen 
volumes  4to,  could  not  fail,  I  should  imagine,  to  be  well 
received. 


274  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE, 


No.  XXIII. 

SHAKSPEARE  AND  CORNEILLE  COMPARED,  WITH 
OBSERVATIONS  ON  SHAKSPEARE'S  CHARACTERS 
IN  LOW  LIFE. 

VOLTAIRE'S  comparison  of  Corneille  to  our 
Shakspeare  is  neither  judiciously  nor  fairly  drawn. 
He  does  justice  to  neither.  He  is  at  evident  pains, 
but  is  unable  to  disguise  a  peevish  envy  at  his 
countryman's  great  fame,  and  a  remarkably  partial 
prejudice  against  the  English  poet.  It  is  perfectly 
evident  that  he  did  not  sufficiently  understand  the 
language,  and  consequently  could  not  discern  the 
beauties  of  Shakspeare ;  yet  he  pronounces  many 
intolerable  censures  on  him,  in  the  tone  of  an 
absolute  and  authorised  judge.  It  seems  very 
clear  that  if  Corneille  had  been  able,  from  the 
nature  of  his  language,  and  the  taste  of  his  co- 
temporaries,  to  disengage  himself  from  rhyme  and 
rigid  critical  rules,  he  would  have  resembled  Shak 
speare  more  than  he  does.  If  Shakspeare  had 
laboured  under  the  prodigious  constraint  of  rhyme* 
had  he  been  constrained  by  a  systematical  art  of 
poetry,  as  it  is  called,  he  would  have  resembled 
Corneille  very  much.  However,  there  is  a  force 
of  genius  in  Corneille  which  often  surmounts  the 

*  This  is  Voltaire's  expression. 


COMPARED    WITH    CORNEILLE.  275 

derangements  of  rhyme  and  rule. — Then  he  is  the 
great  dramatic  poet,  and  perfectly  resembles  Shak- 
speare,  who  subjected  himself  to  no  rules  but  such 
as  his  own  native  genius,  and  judgment  prescribed. 
To  this  auspicious  liberty  we  chiefly  owe  the  sin 
gular  pleasure  of  reading  his  matchless  works,  and 
of  seeing  his  wonderfully  various  and  natural  cha 
racters  occasionally  performed  by  excellent  actors 
of  both  sexes. 

It  is  extremely  remarkable  that  a  player  never 
fails  to  acquire  both  fame  and  fortune  by  excelling 
in  the  proper  and  natural  performance  even  of 
low  parts  in  Shakspeare's  capital  plays,  such  as 
from  Simple,  the  Grave-diggers,  Launcelot,  Dog 
berry,  the  Nurse  in  Romeo,  Mrs.  Quickley,  Mine 
Host  of  the  Garter,  down  to  Doll  Tear-sheet,  Bar- 
dolph,  and  Pistol,  because  true  pictures  of  nature 
must  ever  please. — The  genius  of  a  great  painter 
is  as  much  distinguished  by  an  insect  as  a  hero,  by 
a  simple  cottage  as  by  a  gorgeous  palace.  In  the 
course  of  reading  Corneille's  plays,  I  have  been 
repeatedly  struck  with  a  pleasing  recollection  of 
similar  beauties  in  Shakspeare.  Of  this  I  set 
down  one  example  :  after  two  of  the  three  Horatii 
were  killed,  the  surviving  brother's  dexterous 
retreat  was  reported  at  Rome  as  an  inglorious 
defeat  and  flight.  Old  Horatius  pours  forth  his 
rage  and  maledictions  against  the  degenerate  boy 
in  high  strains  of  poetry,  and  in  the  true  character 
of  a  heroic  Roman  father.  A  friend  offers  rational 
apologies  for  the  young  man,  and  concludes  with 


276  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

saying,  "what  could  he  do  against  such  odds," 
the  noble  answer  is,  "  He  could  have  died." 
Voltaire  tells  us  that  this  sublime  passage  is  always 
received  by  the  audience,  at  Paris,  with  bursts  of 
applause, — much  to  their  credit.  I  am  sure  the 
just  admirers  of  Shakspeare  may  find  similar  beau 
ties  in  his  plays.  One  occurs  to  me  ;  it  is  in  one 
of  his  least  esteemed  pieces,  Henry  the  Sixth, 
Part  ii,  Scene  2.  Lord  Somerset,  in  company 
with  other  leaders,  finding  their  friend,  the  gallant 
Warwick,  mortally  wounded  on  the  field  of  battle, 
exclaims, 

O  Warwick,  Warwick,  wert  thou  as  we  are, 
We  might  recover  all  our  loss  again. 
The  Queen  from  France  hath  brought  a  puissant  pow'r, 
Even  now  we  heard  the  news. — O  couldst  thou  fly  ! 

The  heroic  Briton's  answer  is, 

Why  then  I  would  not  fly. 

Perhaps  at  the  hazard  of  seeming  tedious, — my 
real  and  hearty  admiration  for  Shakspeare  pushes 
me,  irresistibly,  into  farther  remarks  on  Voltaire's 
ill-conceived  criticisms.  He  has  partly  translated 
Shakspeare's  excellent  play  of  Julius  Caesar,  which 
he  strangely  proposes  to  his  countrymen  and  all 
foreigners,  as  a  proper  and  fair  specimen  upon 
which  they  may  form  a  judgment  of  the  original 
author's  genius,  and  be  fully  enabled  to  compare 
him  with  Corneille.k  In  a  note  on  the  second 

k  Of  this  translation  his  lordship  elsewhere  observes  :  "  Vol 
taire  invites  his  countrymen  to  judge  of  Shakspeare's  merit  by 


COMPARED    WITH    CORNEILLE.  277 

page  of  this  feeble  translation,  he  says,  "  il  faut 
savoir  que  Shakspeare  avait  eu  peu  $  education,  quil 
avait  le  malheur  d'etre  reduit  d  etre  comedien,  qu'il 
fallait  plaire  au  peuple,  que  le  peuple  plus  riche  en 
Angleterre  qu  ailleurs  frequente  les  spectacles,  et  que 
Shakspeaie  le  servait  selon  son  gout."" — i.  e.  "It 
must  be  remarked  that  Shakspeare  had  little 
benefit  of  education;  that  he  was  unfortunately 
reduced  to  become  a  comedian ;  that  he  found  it 
necessary  to  please  the  populace,  who  in  England 
are  richer  than  in  other  countries,  and  frequent  the 
theatres,  and  Shakspeare  served  them  with  enter 
tainments  to  their  taste."  In  another  place,  he 
says  that  Shakspeare  introduced  low  characters 
and  scenes  of  buffoonery  to  please  the  people,  and 
to  get  money.  I  venture  to  aver,  on  full  convic 
tion  of  my  own  mind,  that  these  imputations  are 
rash,  and  even  grossly  false  and  injurious.  Shak- 

his  morsel  of  literal  translation,  made,  to  use  his  own  words, 
mot  pour  mot ;  and  then  he  adds,  with  astonishing  levity,  these 
words,  Je  rial  qu'un  mot  d  qjouter,  c'est  que  les  vers  blancs  ne 
content  que  la  peine  de  les  dieter,  cela  n'est  pas  plus  diffi 
cile  qu'une  lettre. — i.  e.  '  I  have  only  a  word  to  add,  that  is, 
that  compositions  in  blank  verse  cost  only  the  trouble  of  dic 
tating  them,  which  is  as  easy  as  a  familiar  letter.'  No  man 
of  common  sense  can  wonder  that  a  literal  translation,  mot 
pour  moty  and  written,  as  Voltaire  boasts,  with  the  indolence 
and  ease  of  a  familiar  epistle,  should  be  totally  inadequate  to 
convey  any  just  idea  of  original  genius.  Yet  I  own  I  have 
been  surprised  to  meet  with  some  Frenchmen  of  reputation  for 
taste  and  parts,  who  form  their  opinions  on  such  a  translation 
and  such  authority." 


278  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

speare's  low  characters  have  so  curious  and  so 
perfect  a  resemblance  to  nature,  that  they  must 
always  please,  as  I  have  observed,  like  master 
pieces  in  painting ;  and,  moreover,  they  never  fail 
to  illustrate  and  endear  the  great  characters. 
Take  away  the  odd,  humorous,  natural  characters 
and  scenes  of  Falstaff,  Poins,  Bardolph,  Pistol, 
Mrs.  Quick! ey,  &c.  in  his  two  plays  of  Henry  the 
IV.,  and  particularly  the  common  soldier,  Wil 
liams,  in  his  play  of  Henry  the  V.,  and  I  venture  to 
affirm  that  you  at  once  extinguish  more  than  one 
half  of  our  cordial  esteem  and  admiration  of  that 
favourite  hero.  In  the  same  manner,  expunge 
from  the  play  of  Julius  Caesar  the  representation 
of  a  giddy,  fickle,  and  degenerate  Roman  mob, 
and  you  diminish,  in  a  very  great  degree,  our  esti 
mation  of  the  two  noble  republican  characters,— 
the  honest,  sincere,  philosophical  Brutus,  and  his 
brave,  able,  and  ambitious  friend  Cassius.  The 
just  admirers  and  frequent  readers  of  Shakspeare 
will,  on  their  own  reflection,  and  without  farther 
explanation,  find  that  these  observations,  though, 
as  far  as  I  know,  they  are  new,  are  clearly  appli 
cable  to  every  one  of  his  plays  in  which  low  cha 
racters  are  introduced.  Shakspeare  was  incapable 
of  deviating  from  the  truth  of  nature  and  character 
to  please  the  great,  or  sooth  the  vulgar;  and  no 
dramatic  writer  ever  treated  the  common  people 
with  so  much  contempt.  His  scenes  in  ridicule  of 
them  are  as  exquisite  as  they  are  various ;  though 
Voltaire  ignorantly  says  he  courted  their  favour. 


COMPARED    WITH    CORNEILLE.  279 

Of  this  the  ludicrous  characters  and  true  comic 
drollery  of  Dogberry  the  constable,  and  his  low 
associates,  in  the  play  of  Much  Ado  About  Nothing, 
is  one  proof;  there  is  still  a  more  precious  scene, 
of  the  same  kind,  in  that  part  of  his  play  of  Henry 
the  VI.,  where  Jack  Cade  and  his  gang  deliberate 
on  a  reformation  of  the  state:  this  is  a  singular 
piece  of  comedy  and  ridicule  of  low  life,  appli 
cable  to  all  periods  and  all  nations;  it  has  that 
character  of  eternal  nature  which  distinguishes 
Shakspeare. 

LORD    GARDENSTONE.1 

1  Anderson's  Bee,  vol.  iv.  p.  291.  I  cannot  dismiss  this 
number  without  remarking  that  the  observations  on  Shak- 
speare's  characters  in  low  life  appear  to  me,  from  the  judgment 
and  ingenuity  which  they  display,  to  be  entitled  to  no  slight 
consideration. 


280  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 


No.  XXIV. 

SHAKSPEARE  AND  VOLTAIRE  COMPARED,  AS  TO 
THEIR  USE  AND  MANAGEMENT  OF  PRETERNA 
TURAL  MACHINERY. 

Is  it  never  permitted  now  to  admit  a  ghost  on 
the  scene  ?  Is  this  source  of  the  terrible,  of  the 
pitiable  entirely  exhausted  ?  By  no  means ;  that 
would  be  too  great  a  loss  to  the  poetic  art.  Cannot 
we  produce  many  instances  where  genius  con 
founds  all  our  philosophy  by  rendering  things  ter 
rible  to  the  imagination,  which  to  the  cool  reason 
would  appear  perfectly  ridiculous?  We  must  reason 
differently  then  ;  perhaps  the  first  principle  we 
argue  from  is  not  well  founded.  "  We  believe  no 
longer  in  apparitions."  Who  has  said  this?  or 
rather,  what  does  it  mean  when  it  is  said  ?  Does  it 
signify  that  we  are  so  far  enlightened  as  to  be  able 
to  demonstrate  their  impossibility?  Are  those  in 
contestable  truths  which  contradict  the  idea  of 
such  prodigies  so  universally  spread, — are  they 
always  so  much  in  the  minds  of  the  people,  that 
every  thing  that  is  repugnant  to  them  must  neces 
sarily  appear  ridiculous  and  absurd?  That  can 
never  be  the  sense  of  the  phrase.  "  We  believe 
no  longer  in  apparitions,"  then  can  only  mean  this. 
On  a  subject  on  which  different  opinions  may  be 


COMPARED    WITH    VOLTAIRE.  281 

supported,  and  which  never  has  been  and  never 
can  be  decided,  the  prevailing  opinion  of  the  day 
occasions  the  balance  to  preponderate  on  the  nega 
tive  side :  many  individuals  are  convinced  that 
there  are  no  apparitions ;  a  great  many  more  pre 
tend  to  be  convinced;  and  these  harangue  on  the 
subject,  and  give  and  support  the  fashionable  doc 
trine.  But  the  multitude  are  silent;  they  are  in 
different  on  the  subject;  they  sometimes  take  one 
side,  and  sometimes  the  other ;  they  laugh  at  ghosts 
in  broad  day-light,  and  listen  with  trembling  avi 
dity  at  night  to  the  terrible  stories  that  are  told  of 
them.* 

The  disbelief  of  spectres  in  this  sense  neither 
can  nor  ought  to  prevent  the  use  of  them  in  dra 
matic  poetry.  We  have  all  in  us  at  least  the  seeds 
of  this  belief,  and  they  will  be  found  most  in  the 
minds  of  the  people  for  whom  the  poet*  princi 
pally  composes.  It  depends  on  his  art  to  make 
them  vegetate,  and  on  his  address,  in  the  rapidity 
of  the  moment  to  give  force  to  the  arguments  in 
favor  of  the  reality  of  these  phantoms.  If  he  suc- 

*  "  I  am  too  well  convinced,"  says  Mr.  Pye,  "  of  the  accu 
racy  of  M.  Lessing's  knowledge  of  human  nature  to  doubt  the 
truth  of  this  account  of  German  credulity.     It   would   have 
better  suited  this  country  half  a  century  ago  than  at  present. 
But,  even  now,  there  are  more  people  who  will  feel  the  truth  of 

,it  than  will  own  it,  even  in  England." 

*  Especially  the  dramatic  poet.     It  is  said  of  Moliere  that 
he  used  to  read  all  his  comedies  to  an  old  female  servant,  and 
generally  found  her  decisions  confirmed  by  the  public. — Pye. 


282  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

ceeds,  we  may  be  at  liberty  in  common  life  to  be 
lieve  as  we  please,  but  at  the  theatre  he  will  be  the 
arbiter  of  our  faith. 

Shakspeare  knew  this  art,  and  he  is  almost  the 
only  one  who  ever  did  know  it.  At  the  appearance 
of  HIS  ghost,  in  Hamlet,  the  hair  stands  an  end, 
whether  it  cover  the  brain  of  incredulity  or  super 
stition.  M.  Voltaire  was  much  in  the  wrong  to 
appeal  to  this  ghost,  which  makes  both  him  and 
his  apparition  of  Ninus  ridiculous.  The  ghost  of 
Shakspeare  really  comes  from  the  other  world,  at 
least  it  appears  so  to  our  feelings ;  for  it  arrives  in 
the  solemn  hour,  in  the  dead  silence  of  midnight, 
accompanied  by  all  those  gloomy  and  mysterious 
accessory  ideas  with  which  our  nurses  have  taught 
us  to  expect  the  appearance  of  spectres;  while 
that  of  Voltaire's  is  not  fit  even  to  terrify  a  child. 
It  is  merely  an  actor  who  neither  says  nor  does 
any  thing  to  persuade  us  he  is  what  he  pretends 
to  be  :  on  the  contrary,  all  the  circumstances  with 
which  it  appears,  destroy  the  illusion,  and  betray 
the  hand  of  a  cold  poet,  who  wishes  indeed  to  de 
ceive  and  terrify  us,  but  does  not  know  how  to  go 
about  it.  It  is  in  the  middle  of  the  day,*  in  the 

*  Shakspeare  knew  the  consequence  of  adapting  his  scenery 
to  his  action,  in  exciting  terror  by  natural  as  well  as  super 
natural  agents  : — 

The  sun  is  in  the  heaven  ;  and  the  proud  day, 
Attended  with  the  pleasures  of  the  world, 
Is  all  too  wanton  and  too  full  of  gawds 
To  give  me  audience  : — if  the  midnight  bell 


COMPARED    WITH    VOLTAIRE.  283 


middle  of  an  assembly  of  the  states  of  the  empire, 
and  preceded  by  a  peal  of  thunder,  that  the  spirit 
of  Ninus  makes  its  appearance  from  the  tomb. 
From  whence  did  Voltaire  learn  that  apparitions 
were  so  bold  ?  What  old  woman  could  not  have 
told  him  that  apparitions  were  afraid  of  the  light  of 
the  sun,  and  were  not  fond  of  visiting  large  assem 
blies  ?  Voltaire  was  undoubtedly  acquainted  with 
all  this ;  but  he  was  too  cautious,  too  delicate,  to 
make  use  of  such  trifling  circumstances.  He  was 
desirous  indeed  of  showing  us  a  ghost,  but  he 
was  determined  it  should  be  one  of  French  extrac 
tion,  decent  and  noble.  This  decency  spoiled  the 
whole.  A  spectre,  who  takes  liberties  contrary  to 
all  custom,  law,  and  established  order  of  ghosts, 
does  not  seem  to  me  a  genuine  spectre ;  and,  in  this 
case,  every  thing  that  does  not  strengthen  the  illu 
sion  tends  to  destroy  it. 

If  Voltaire  had  examined  with  care,  he  would 
have  felt  the  inconveniency  which  on  another 
account  must  attend  the  bringing  a  phantom  before 
so  many  people.  On  its  appearance,  all  the  per 
sons  of  the  assembly  (that  is  to  say,  all  the  actors 
who  were  representing  the  council  of  the  queen 
and  the  states)  ought  to  show  in  their  countenances 
all  the  terror  that  the  situation  required ;  each  ought 
even  to  show  it  differently  from  the  rest,  to  avoid 

Did  with  his  iron  tongue  and  brazen  mouth 

Sound  one  unto  the  drowsy  race  of  night ; 

If  this  same  were  a  church-yard  where  we  stand — 

KING  JOHN. 


284  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

the  cold  uniformity  of  a  ballet.  How  could  such 
a  troop  of  stupid  assistants  be  trained  to  this  exer 
cise  ?  And  when  it  had  succeeded  as  well  as  pos 
sible,  would  not  this  variety  of  expression  of  the 
same  sentiment  have  divided  the  attention  of  the 
spectators,  and  necessarily  have  drawn  it  from  the 
principal  characters?  That  these  may  make  a  strong 
impression  on  us,  it  is  not  only  necessary  that  we 
should  see  them,  but  it  is  also  proper  that  we 
should  see  nothing  else. 

In  Shakspeare,  it  is  only  with  Hamlet  that  the 
ghost  converses.  In  the  scene  where  the  mother  is 
present,  the  spectre  is  neither  seen  nor  heard  by 
her.  All  our  attention  then  is  fixed  on  him  alone  ; 
and  the  more  we  discover  in  him  the  signs  of 
a  soul  distracted  by  terror  and  surprise,  the  more 
cause  we  have  to  think  the  apparition  which  occa 
sions  such  agitations,  as  real  as  he  seems  to  believe 
it.  The  ghost*  operates  more  on  us  through  him 
than  itself.  The  impression  that  it  makes  on  him 
passes  into  our  minds,  and  the  effect  is  too  sensible 
and  too  strong  for  us  to  doubt  of  an  extraordinary 
cause.  Of  this  secret  Voltaire  knew  little.  It  is 
precisely  because  his  spectre  tries  to  terrify  many 
people,  that  it  produces  little  terror  in  any  one. 

*  "  Fielding  makes  Partridge  account  for  his  fear  in  the 
same  manner.  '  Not  that  it  was  the  ghost  that  surprised  me 
neither ;  for  I  should  have  known  that  to  have  been  only  a 
man  in  a  strange  dress :  but  when  I  saw  the  little  man  so 
frightened  himself,  it  was  that  which  took  hold  of  me.' — Tom 
Jones,  Book  xvi.  chap.  5."— Pye. 


COMPARED    WITH    VOLTAIRE.  285 

Semiramis  cries  out  once  only  "  O  heaven,  I 
die !"  and  the  other  assistants  are  very  little  more 
affected  by  the  shade  of  Ninus  than  they  would 
be  by  the  unexpected  appearance  of  a  friend 
whom  they  believed  to  be  at  a  distance. 

I  observe  also  another  difference  between  the 
French  and  English  spectre.  The  first  is  only 
a  poetical  machine  solely  employed  to  unravel  the 
plot  ;*  we  take  no  interest  in  him.  On  the  con 
trary,  the  other  is  really  an  efficient  person  of  the 
drama,  in  whose  fate  we  are  interested ;  he  excites 
not  only  terror,  but  compassion  also. 

This  has  probably  arisen  from  the  different  man 
ner  in  which  these  two  authors  have  considered 
the  general  notion  of  apparitions.  Voltaire  has 
regarded  the  appearance  of  a  dead  person  as  a 
miracle,  and  Shakspeare  as  a  natural  event.  Which 

*  "  This  intention,  however,  is  expressly  disavowed  by 
Voltaire,  and  what  is  rather  surprising,  in  a  paragraph  in 
which  he  quotes,  with  approbation,  the  celebrated  rule  of 
Horace, 

Nee  deus  intersit  nisi  dignus  vindice  nodus. 

'  I  would  have/  he  says,  *  these  bold  attempts  never  em 
ployed  except  when  they  serve  at  the  same  time  to  add  to  the 
intrigue  and  the  terror  of  the  piece  ;  and  I  would  wish  by  all 
means  that  the  intervention  of  these  supernatural  beings  should 
not  appear  absolutely  necessary.  I  will  explain  myself:  if  the 
plot  of  a  tragic  poem  is  so  involved  in  difficulty,  that  the  poet 
can  only  free  himself  from  the  embarrassment  by  the  aid  of  a 
prodigy,  the  spectator  will  perceive  the  distress  of  the  author, 
and  the  weakness  of  the  resource/ — Dissertation  on  Tragedy, 
prefixed  to  Semiramis." — Pye. 


286  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

of  the  two  thought  most  as  a  philosopher,  is  a  ques 
tion  that  we  have  nothing  at  all  to  do  with ;  but 
the  Englishman  thought  most  as  a  poet. 

LESSING.™ 

m  Dramaturgie,  Part  I.  p.  39  et  seq.     Vide  Pye's  Commen 
tary  on  the  Poetic  of  Aristotle,  p.  275  et  seq. 


COMPARED    WITH    CHAPMAN.  287 

*noi    fgtf/rr 
oil     .?:;.o:?!f!f/;n 


No.  XXV. 

SHAKSPEARE  COMPARED  WITH  CHAPMAN,  KEY- 
WOOD,  MIDDLETON,  BROOKE,  SIDNEY,  AND  BEAU 
MONT  AND  FLETCHER. 

WITH  CHAPMAN. 

OF  all  the  English  play-  writers,  Chapman  per 
haps  approaches  nearest  to  Shakspeare  in  the 
descriptive  and  didactic,  in  passages  which  are 
less  purely  dramatic.  Dramatic  imitation  was 
not  his  talent.  He  could  not  go  out  of  himself,  as 
Shakspeare  could  shift  at  pleasure,  to  inform  and 
animate  other  existences  ;  but  in  himself  he  had  an 
eye  to  perceive,  and  a  soul  to  embrace,  all  forms. 
He  would  have  made  a  great  epic  poet,  if  indeed 
he  has  not  abundantly  shown  himself  to  be  one  ; 
for  his  Homer  is  not  so  properly  a  translation  as 
the  stories  of  Achilles  and  Ulysses  re-  written. 
The  earnestness  and  passion  which  he  has  put  into 
every  part  of  these  poems,  would  be  incredible  to  a 
reader  of  mere  modern  translations.  His  almost 
Greek  zeal  for  the  honor  of  his  heroes  is  only 
paralleled  by  that  fierce  spirit  of  Hebrew  bigotry, 
with  which  Milton,  as  if  personating  one  of  the 
zealots  of  the  old  law,  clothed  himself  when  he 
sate  down  to  paint  the  acts  of  Sampson  against  the 
uncircumcised.  The  great  obstacle  to  Chapman's 


288  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

translations  being  read  is  their  unconquerable 
quaintness.  He  pours  out  in  the  same  breath  the 
most  just  and  natural  and  the  most  violent  and 
forced  expressions.  He  seems  to  grasp  whatever 
words  come  first  to  hand  during  the  impetus  of 
inspiration,  as  if  all  other  must  be  inadequate  to 
the  divine  meaning.  But  passion  (the  all  in  all 
in  poetry)  is  everywhere  present,  raising  the  low, 
dignifying  the  mean,  and  putting  sense  into  the 
absurd.  He  makes  his  readers  glow,  weep,  trem 
ble,  take  any  affection  which  he  pleases,  be  moved 
by  words  or  in  spite  of  them,  be  disgusted  and 
overcome  their  disgust.  I  have  often  thought  that 
the  vulgar  misconception  of  Shakspeare,  as  of  a 
wild  irregular  genius,  "  in  whom  great  faults  are 
compensated  by  great  beauties,"  would  be  really 
true,  applied  to  Chapman.  But  there  is  no  scale 
by  which  to  balance  such  disproportionate  subjects 
as  the  faults  and  beauties  of  a  great  genius.  To 
set  off  the  former  with  any  fairness  against  the 
latter,  the  pain  which  they  give  us  should  be  in 
some  proportion  to  the  pleasure  which  we  receive 
from  the  other.  As  these  transport  us  to  the 
highest  heaven,  those  should  steep  us  in  agonies 
infernal." 

n  This  critique  on  Chapman  will  add  no  little  strength  to  the 
supposition  of  Mr.  Boaden,  that  the  magnificent  eulogy  on 
Shakspeare,  commencing 

A  mind  reflecting  ages  past,  &c. 
was  the  production  of  this  fervid  and  energetic  translator  of 


COMPARED    WITH    HEYWOOD.  289 


WITH  HEYWOOD. 

HEYWOOD  is  a  sort  of  prose  Shakspeare.  His 
scenes  are  to  the  full  as  natural  and  affecting. 
But  we  miss  the  poet,  that  which  in  Shakspeare 
always  appears  out  and  above  the  surface  of  the 
nature.  Heywood's  characters,  his  country  gen 
tlemen,  &c.,  are  exactly  what  we  see  (but  of  the 
best  kind  of  what  we  see)  in  life.  Shakspeare 
makes  us  believe,  while  we  are  among  his  lovely 
creations,  that  they  are  nothing  but  what  we  are 
familiar  with,  as  in  dreams  new  things  seem  old ; 
but  we  awake,  and  sigh  for  the  difference.0 

Homer,  especially  if  we  recollect  that  the  quaintness  here  justly 
complained  of,  is  by  no  means  constantly  found  in  the  minor 
pieces  of  Chapman. 

o  Of  the  astonishing  fertility  of  some  of  the  dramatic  poets  at 
this  period,  and  of  their  equally  astonishing  indifference  about 
the  preservation  of  their  works,  the  following  preface  of  Hey- 
wood  to  his  play,  entitled  "  The  English  Traveller,"  will  afford 
a  most  remarkable  example,  more  peculiarly  so  when  the  reader 
learns  that,  out  of  the  extraordinary  number  of  pieces  mentioned 
in  this  preface,  only  twenty-five  have  descended  to  posterity, 
the  remainder  having  been  in  a  great  measure  lost  through  the 
negligence  of  their  parent. 

"  If,  reader,  thou  hast  of  this  play  been  an  auditor,  there  is 
less  apology  to  be  used  by  entreating  thy  patience.  This  tragi 
comedy  (being  one  reserved  amongst  two  hundred  and  twenty 
in  which  I  had  either  an  entire  hand,  or  at  the  least  a  main 
finger)  coming  accidentally  to  the  press,  and  I  having  intelli 
gence  thereof,  thought  it  not  fit  that  it  should  pass  asjilius  po- 
puli,  a  bastard  without  a  father  to  acknowledge  it :  true  it  is 
*'  T 


290  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 


WITH  MIDDLETON. 


THOUGH  some  resemblance  may  be  traced  be 
tween  the  charms  in  Macbeth,  and  the  incanta-, 
tions  in  the  Witch  of  Middleton,  which  is  supposed 
to  have  preceded  it,  this  coincidence  will  not 
detract  much  from  the  originality  of  Shakspeare. 
His  witches  are  distinguished  from  the  witches 
of  Middleton  by  essential  differences.  These  are 
creatures  to  whom  man  or  woman  plotting  some 
dire  mischief,  might  resort  for  occasional  consulta 
tion.  Those  originate  deeds  of  blood,  and  begin 
bad  impulses  to  men.  From  the  moment  that 
their  eyes  first  meet  with  Macbeth's,  he  is  spell 
bound.  That  meeting  sways  his  destiny.  He 
can  never  break  the  fascination.  These  witches 
can  hurt  the  body;  those  have  power  over  the 

that  my  plays  are  not  exposed  to  the  world  in  volumes,  to  bear 
the  title  of  works  (as  others),  one  reason  is  that  many  of  them 
by  shifting  and  change  of  companies  have  been  negligently  lost. 
Others  of  them  are  still  retained  in  the  hands  of  some  actors, 
who  think  it  against  their  peculiar  profit  to  have  them  come 
into  print,  and  a  third  that  IT  NEVER  WAS  ANY  GREAT  AM 
BITION  IN  ME  TO  BE  IN  THIS  KIND  VOLUMINOUSLY  READ, 

All  that  I  have  further  to  say  at  this  time  is  only  this  :  censure, 
I  entreat,  as  favourably  as  it  is  exposed  to  thy  view  freely. 
"  Ever  studious  of  thy  pleasure  and  profit, 

Th.  Heywood." 

It  is  highly  probable,  I  think,  that  such  would  have  been 
precisely  the  reasons  alleged  by  Shakspeare,  had  he  been 
called  upon  to  account  for  his  inattention  to,  and  indifference 
about  the  fate  of  his  dramas. 


COMPARED  WITH  BROOKE.        291 

soul.  Hecate  in  Middleton  has  a  son,  a  low  buf 
foon  :  the  hags  of  Shakspeare  have  neither  child 
of  their  own,  nor  seem  to  be  descended  from  any 
parent.  They  are  foul  anomalies,  of  whom  we 
know  not  whence  they  are  sprung,  nor  whether 
they  have  beginning  or  ending.  As  they  are 
without  human  passions,  so  they  seem  to  be  without 
human  relations.  They  come  with  thunder  and 
lightning,  and  vanish  to  airy  music.  This  is  all 
we  know  of  them.  Except  Hecate,  they  have  no 
names,  which  heightens  their  mysteriousness. 
The  names,  and  some  of  the  properties,  which 
Middleton  has  given  to  his  hags,  excite  smiles. 
The  Weird  Sisters  are  serious  things.  Their  pre 
sence  cannot  co-exist  with  mirth.  But,  in  a  lesser 
degree,  the  witches  of  Middleton  are  fine  crea 
tions.  Their  power  too  is,  in  some  measure,  over 
the  mind.  They  raise  jars,  jealousies,  strifes,  like 
a  thick  scurf  oer  life. 

WITH   FULKE  GREVILLE,  LORD  BROOKE. 

THE  tragedies  of  Lord  Brooke  might  with  more 
propriety  have  been  termed  political  treatises  than 
plays.  Their  author  has  strangely  contrived  to 
make  passion,  character,  and  interest,  of  the  high 
est  order,  subservient  to  the  expression  of  state 
dogmas  and  mysteries.  He  is  nine  parts  Machiavel 
and  Tacitus  for  one  part  Sophocles  or  Seneca.  In 
this  writer's  estimate  of  the  faculties  of  his  own 
mind,  the  understanding  must  have  held  a  most 


292  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

tyrannical  pre-eminence.  Whether  we  look  into 
his  plays,  or  his  most  passionate  love-poems,  we 
shall  find  all  frozen  and  made  rigid  with  intellect. 
The  finest  movements  of  the  human  heart,  the 
utmost  grandeur  of  which  the  soul  is  capable,  are 
essentially  comprised  in  the  actions  and  speeches 
of  Cselica  and  Camena,  in  his  two  tragedies  of 
Alaham  and  Mustapha.  Shakspeare,  who  seems 
to  have  had  a  peculiar  delight  in  contemplating 
womanly  perfection,  whom  for  his  many  sweet 
images  of  female  excellence,  all  women  are  in  an 
especial  manner  bound  to  love,  has  not  raised  the 
ideal  of  the  female  character  higher  than  Lord 
Brooke  in  these  two  women  has  done.  But  it 
requires  a  study  equivalent  to  the  learning  of  a 
new  language  to  understand  their  meaning  when 
they  speak.  It  is  indeed  hard  to  hit : 

Much  like  thy  riddle,  Samson,  in  one  day 
Or  seven  though  one  should  musing  sit. 

It  is  as  if  a  being  of  pure  intellect  should  take 
upon  him  to  express  the  emotions  of  our  sensitive 
natures.  There  would  be  all  knowledge,  but 
sympathetic  expression  would  be  wanting. 

WITH  SIDNEY  AND  FLETCHER. 

ONE  characteristic  of  the  excellent  old  poets  is 
their  being  able  to  bestow  grace  upon  subjects 
which  naturally  do  not  seem  susceptible  of  any. 
I  will  mention  two  instances :  Zelmane  in  the  Ar- 


COMPARED    WITH    SIDNEY    AND    FLETCHER.    293 

cadia  of  Sidney,  and  Helena  in  the  All's  Well  that 
Ends  Well  of  Shakspeare.  What  can  be  more  un 
promising  at  first  sight  than  the  idea  of  a  young 
man  disguising  himself  in  a  woman's  attire,  and 
passing  himself  off  for  a  woman  among  women  ? 
and  that  too  for  a  long  space  of  time?  yet  Sir 
Philip  has  preserved  such  a  matchless  decorum, 
that  neither  does  Pyrocles'  manhood  suffer  any 
stain  for  the  effeminacy  of  Zelmane,  nor  is  the 
respect  due  to  the  princesses  at  all  diminished 
when  the  deception  comes  to  be  known.  In  the 
sweetly  constituted  mind  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  it 
seems  as  if  no  ugly  thought  nor  unhandsome  me 
ditation  could  find  a  harbour.  He  turned  all  that 
he  touched  into  images  of  honour  and  virtue.  He 
lena  in  Shakspeare  is  a  young  woman  seeking 
a  man  in  marriage.  The  ordinary  laws  of  court 
ship  are  reversed ;  the  habitual  feelings  are 
violated.  Yet  with  such  exquisite  address  this 
dangerous  subject  is  handled,  that  Helena's  for 
wardness  loses  her  no  honour ;  delicacy  dispenses 
with  her  laws  in  her  favour,  and  Nature  in  her 
single  case  seems  content  to  suffer  a  sweet  vio 
lation. 

Aspatia  in  the  Maid's  Tragedy  of  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher,  is  a  character  equally  difficult  with  He 
lena  of  being  managed  with  grace.  She  too  is 
a  slighted  woman,  refused  by  the  man  who  had 
once  engaged  to  marry  her.  Yet  it  is  artfully  con 
trived  that,  while  we  pity  her,  we  respect  her,  and 
she  descends  without  degradation.  So  much  true 


294  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEAIIE. 

poetry  and  passion  can  do  to  confer  dignity  upon 
subjects  which  do  not  seem  capable  of  it.  But 
Aspatia  must  not  be  compared  at  all  points  with 
Helena;  she  does  not  so  absolutely  predominate 
over  her  situation  but  she  suffers  some  diminution, 
some  abatement  of  the  full  lustre  of  the  female 
character,  which  Helena  never  does  :  her  charac 
ter  has  many  degrees  of  sweetness,  some  of  deli 
cacy,  but  it  has  weakness  which  if  we  do  not 
despise,  we  are  sorry  for. — 

I  have  always  considered  Ordella,  in  the  Thierry 
and  Theodoret  of  Fletcher,  the  most  perfect  idea  of 
the  female  heroic  character,  next  to  Calantha  in 
the  Broken  Heart  of  Ford/  that  has  been  embodied 
in  fiction.  She  is  a  piece  of  sainted  nature.  Yet, 
noble  as  the  whole  scene  is,  it  must  be  confessed 
that  the  manner  of  it,  compared  with  Shakspeare's 
finest  scenes,  is  slow  and  languid.  Its  motion  is 
circular,  not  progressive.  Each  line  revolves  on 
itself  in  a  sort  of  separate  orbit.  They  do  not  join 
into  one  another  like  a  running  hand.  Every  step 
that  we  go,  we  are  stopped  to  admire  some  single  ob 
ject,  like  walking  in  beautiful  scenery  with  a  guide. 
This  slowness  I  shall  elsewhere  have  occasion  to 
remark  as  characteristic  of  Fletcher.  Another 

p  Of  this  dramatist  Mr.  Lamb,,  in  a  note  to  a  scene  from  his 
Broken  Heart,  has  justly  said  that  "  he  was  of  the  first  order  of 
poets.  He  sought  for  sublimity  not  by  parcels  in  metaphors  or 
visible  images,  but  directly  where  she  has  her  full  residence  in 
the  heart  of  man;  in  the  actions  and  sufferings  of  the  greatest 
minds." 


COMPARED    WITH    SIDNEY    AND    FLETCHER.    295 

striking  difference  perceivable  between  Fletcher 
and  Shakspeare,  is  the  fondness  of  the  former  for 
unnatural  and  violent  situations.  He  seems  to 
have  thought  that  nothing  great  could  be  produced 
in  an  ordinary  way.  The  chief  incidents  in  The 
Wife  for  a  Month,  in  Cupid's  Revenge,  in  The 
Double  Marriage,  and  in  many  more  of  his  trage 
dies,  show  this.  Shakspeare  had  nothing  of  this 
contortion  in  his  mind,  none  of  that  craving  after 
romantic  incidents,  and  flights  of  strained  and  im 
probable  virtue,  which  I  think  always  betrays  an 
imperfect  moral  sensibility. 

There  are  some  scenes  in  The  Two  Noble  Kins 
men  of  Fletcher  which  give  strong  countenance  to 
the  tradition  that  Shakspeare  had  a  hand  in  this 
play.q  They  have  a  luxuriance  in  them  which 
strongly  resembles  Shakspeare's  manner  in  those 
parts  of  his  plays  where,  the  progress  of  the  inter 
est  being  subordinate,  the  poet  was  at  leisure  for 
description.  I  might  fetch  instances  from  Troilus 
and  Timon.  That  Fletcher  should  have  copied 
Shakspeare's  manner  through  so  many  entire 
scenes,  (which  is  the  theory  of  Mr.  Steevens,)  is 
not  very  probable ;  thatvhe  could  have  done  it  with 
such  facility  is  to  me  not  certain.  His  ideas  ('  as  I 
have  before  remarked'}  moved  slow;  his  versifica- 

q  It  was  ascribed,  in  the  title-page,  to  Fletcher  and  Shak 
speare  in  1634,  only  sixteen  years  after  the  death  of  the  latter. 
Fletcher  was  nearly  contemporary  with  Shakspeare.  He  was 
born  twelve  years  later  (in  1576),  and  died  nine  years  after 
him  (in  1625). 


296  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

tion,  though  sweet,  is  tedious ;  it  stops  every  mo 
ment  ;  he  lays  line  upon  line,  making  up  one  after 
the  other,  adding  image  to  image  so  deliberately 
that  we  see  where  they  join  :  Shakspeare  mingles 
every  thing ;  he  runs  line  into  line,  embarrasses  sen 
tences  and  metaphors ;  before  one  idea  has  burst  its 
shell,  another  is  hatched  and  clamorous  for  dis 
closure.  If  Fletcher  wrote  some  scenes  in  imi 
tation,  why  did  he  stop  ?  or  shall  we  say  that 
Shakspeare  wrote  the  other  scenes  in  imitation  of 
Fletcher?  that  he  gave  Shakspeare  a  curb  and 
a  bridle,  and  that  Shakspeare  gave  him  a  pair  of 
spurs ;  as  Blackmore  and  Lucan  are  brought  in  ex 
changing  gifts  in  the  Battle  of  the  Books. — 

The  wit  of  Fletcher  is  excellent,  like  his  serious 
scenes ;  but  there  is  something  strained  and  far 
fetched  in  both.  He  is  too  mistrustful  of  Nature ; 
he  always  goes  a  little  on  one  side  of  her.  Shak 
speare  chose  her  without  a  reserve,  and  had  riches, 
power,  understanding,  and  long  life,  with  her,  for 
a  dowry. 

CHARLES  LAMB/ 

*  The  comparisons  which  form  this  number  are  taken  from 
a  volume  entitled  "  Specimens  of  English  Dramatic  Poets, 
who  lived  about  the  Time  of  Shakspeare,"  published  by  Mr. 
Charles  Lamb,  in  the  year  1808.  They  are  included  in  the 
notes  accompanying  these  specimens,  and  are,  in  my  opinion, 
though  miniatures,  remarkable  for  their  justness  of  comparative 
delineation,  and  their  uncommon  beauty  and  felicity  of  lan 
guage.  They  are,  in  fact,  gems  of  the  purest  water. 


MEMORIALS  OF   SHAKSPEARE, 


PART  III. 


No.  I. 
OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  TEMPEST  OF  SHAKSPEARE. 

WRITERS  of  a  mixed  character,  that  abound  in 
transcendent  beauties  and  in  gross  imperfections, 
are  the  most  proper  and  most  pregnant  subjects 
for  criticism.  The  regularity  and  correctness  of  a 
Virgil  or  Horace  almost  confine  their  commentators 
to  perpetual  panegyric,  and  afford  them  few  oppor 
tunities  of  diversifying  their  remarks  by  the  detec 
tion  of  latent  blemishes.  For  this  reason,  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  a  few  observations  on  the 
writings  of  Shakspeare  will  not  be  deemed  useless 
or  unentertaining,  because  he  exhibits  more  nume 
rous  examples  of  excellence  and  faults  of  every 
kind,  than  are,  perhaps,  to  be  discovered  in  any 
other  author.  I  shall,  therefore,  examine  his  merit 
as  a  poet,  without  blind  admiration  or  wanton 
invective. 

As  Shakspeare  is  sometimes  blameable  for  the 
conduct  of  his  fables,  which  have  no  unity,  and 
sometimes  for  his  diction,  which  is  obscure  and 
turgid,  so  his  characteristical  excellences  may 
possibly  be  reduced  to  these  three  general  heads  : 
'his  lively  creative  imagination;  his  strokes  of 
nature  and  passion ;  and  his  preservation  of  the 


300  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

consistency  of  his  characters.'  These  excellences, 
particularly  the  last,  are  of  so  much  importance  in 
the  drama,  that  they  amply  compensate  for  his 
transgressions  against  the  rules  of  time  and  place, 
which,  being  of  a  more  mechanical  nature,  are 
often  strictly  observed  by  a  genius  of  the  lowest 
order ;  but  to  portray  characters  naturally,  and  to 
preserve  them  uniformly,  requires  such  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  heart  of  man,  and  is  so  rare  a 
portion  of  felicity,  as  to  have  been  enjoyed,  perhaps, 
only  by  two  writers,  Homer  and  Shakspeare. 

Of  all  the  plays  of  Shakspeare,  the  Tempest  is 
the  most  striking  instance  of  his  creative  power. 
He  has  there  given  the  reins  to  his  boundless 
imagination,  and  has  -carried  the  romantic,  the 
wonderful,  and  the  wild,  to  the  most  pleasing 
extravagance.  The  scene  is  a  desolate  island; 
and  the  characters  the  most  new  and  singular  that 
can  well  be  conceived :  a  prince  who  practises 
magic,  an  attendant  spirit,  a  monster  the  son  of  a 
witch,  and  a  young  lady  who  had  been  brought  to 
this  solitude  in  her  infancy,  and  had  never  beheld 
a  man  except  her  father. 

As  I  have  affirmed  that  Shakspeare's  chief 
excellence  is  the  consistency  of  his  characters,  I 
will  exemplify  the  truth  of  this  remark,  by  pointing 
out  some  master-strokes  of  this  nature  in  the  drama 
before  us. 

The  poet  artfully  acquaints  us  that  Prospero 
is  a  magician,  by  the  very  first  words  which  his 
daughter  Miranda  speaks  to  him : 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    HIS    TEMPEST.  301 

If  by  your  art,  my  dearest  father,  you  have 
Put  the  wild  waters  in  this  roar,  allay  them  : 

which  intimate  that  the  tempest  described  in  the 
preceding  scene  was  the  effect  of  Prospero's  power. 
The  manner  in  which  he  was  driven  from  his 
dukedom  of  Milan,  and  landed  afterwards  on  this 
solitary  island,  accompanied  only  by  his  daughter, 
is  immediately  introduced  in  a  short  and  natural 
narration. 

The  offices  of  his  attendant  spirit,  Ariel,  are 
enumerated  with  amazing  wildness  of  fancy,  and 
yet  with  equal  propriety :  his  employment  is  said 
to  be, 

To  tread  the  ooze 

Of  the  salt  deep; 

To  run  upon  the  sharp  wind  of  the  north ; 
To  do — business  in  the  veins  o'  th*  earth, 
When  it  is  bak'd  with  frost ; 

to  dive  into  the  fire ;  to  ride 

On  the  curl'd  clouds. 

In  describing  the  place  in  which  he  has  con 
cealed  the  Neapolitan  ship,  Ariel  expresses  the 
secresy  of  its  situation  by  the  following  circum 
stance,  which  artfully  glances  at  another  of  his 
services : — 

— In  the  deep  nook,  where  once 

Thou  cali'st  me  up  at  midnight,  to  fetch  dew 
From  the  still-vex'd  Bermudas. 

Ariel,  being  one  of  those  elves  or  spirits,  'whose 
pastime  is  to  make  midnight  mushrooms,  and  who 
rejoice  to  listen  to  the  solemn  curfew;'  by  whose 


302  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

assistance  Prospero  has  bedimmed  the  sun  at 
noon-tide, 

And  'twixt  the  green  sea  and  the  azur'd  vault, 
Set  roaring  war ; 

has  a  set  of  ideas  and  images  peculiar  to  his  station 
and  office ;  a  beauty  of  the  same  kind  with  that 
which  is  so  justly  admired  in  the  Adam  of  Milton, 
whose  manners  and  sentiments  are  all  paradisaical. 
How  delightfully,  and  how  suitably  to  his  cha 
racter,  are  the  habitations  and  pastimes  of  this 
invisible  being  pointed  out  in  the  following  exqui 
site  song ! 

Where  the  bee  sucks,  there  lurk  I : 

In  a  cowslip's  bell  I  lie ; 

There  I  couch  when  owls  do  cry. 

On  the  bat's  back  I  do  fly, 

After  sun-set,  merrily. 

Merrily  merrily  shall  I  live  now, 

Under  the  blossom  that  hangs  on  the  bough. 

Mr.  Pope,  whose  imagination  has  been  thought 
by  some  the  least  of  his  excellences,  has,  doubtless/ 
conceived  and  carried  on  the  machinery  in  his 
'  Rape  of  the  Lock,'  with  vast  exuberance  of  fancy. 
The  images,  customs,  and  employments  of  his 
sylphs,  are  exactly  adapted  to  their  natures,  are 
peculiar  and  appropriated,  are  all,  if  I  may  be 
allowed  the  expression,  sylphish.  The  enume 
ration  of  the  punishments  they  were  to  undergo, 
if  they  neglected  their  charge,  would,  on  account 
of  its  poetry  and  propriety,  and  especially  the 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    HIS    TEMPEST.  303 

mixture  of  oblique  satire,  be  superior  to  any  cir 
cumstances  in  Shakspeare's  Ariel,  if  we  could 
suppose  Pope  to  have  been  unacquainted  with  the 
Tempest  when  he  wrote  this  part  of  his  accom 
plished  poem. 

She  did  confine  thee 

Into  a  cloven  pine  ;  within  which  rift 

Imprisoned,  thou  did'st  painfully  remain 

A  dozen  years ;  within  which  space  she  dy'd, 

And  left  thee  there ;  where  thou  did'st  vent  thy  groans, 

As  fast  as  mill-wheels  strike. 

If  thou  more  murmur'st,  I  will  rend  an  oak, 
And  peg  thee  in  his  knotty  entrails,  'till 
Thou'st  howl'd  away  twelve  winters. 

For  this,  besure,  to-night  thou  shalt  have  cramps, 
Side-stiches  that  shall  pen  thy  breath  up  :  urchins 
Shall,  for  that  vast  of  night  that  they  may  work, 
All  exercise  on  thee ;  thou  shalt  be  pinch'd 
As  thick  as  honey-combs,  each  pinch  more  stinging 
Than  bees  that  made  'era. 

If  thou  neglect'stor  dost  unwillingly 
What  I  command,  I'll  rack  thee  with  old  cramps; 
Fill  all  thy  bones  with  aches  :  make  thee  roar, 

That  beasts  shall  tremble  at  thy  din. 

SHAKSPEARE. 

Whatever  spirit,  careless  of  his  charge, 
Forsakes  his  post,  or  leaves  the  fair  at  large, 
Shall  feel  sharp  vengeance  soon  overtake  his  sins, 
Be  stopp'd  in  vials,  or  transfix'd  with  pins ; 
Or  plung'd  in  lakes  of  bitter  washes  lie, 
Or  wedg'd  whole  ages  in  a  bodkin's  eye : 
Gums  and  pomatums  shall  his  flight  restrain, 
While  clog'd  he  beats  his  silken  wings  in  vain ; 
Or  alum  styptics  with  contracting  pow'r, 


304  MEMORIALS   OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Shrink  his  thin  essence  like  a  shrivell'd  flower : 

Or  as  Ixion  fix'd,  the  wretch  shall  feel 

The  giddy  motion  of  the  whirling  wheel ; 

In  fumes  of  burning  chocolate  shall  glow, 

And  tremble  at  the  sea  that  froths  below. — POPE. 

The  method  which  is  taken  to  induce  Ferdinand 
to  believe  that  his  father  was  drowned  in  the  late 
tempest,  is  exceedingly  solemn  and  striking.  He 
is  sitting  upon  a  solitary  rock,  and  weeping  over- 
against  the  place  where  he  imagined  his  father 
was  wrecked,  when  he  suddenly  hears  with  asto 
nishment  aerial  music  creep  by  him  upon  the 
waters,  and  the  spirit  gives  him  the  following 
information  in  words  not  proper  for  any  but  a  spirit 
to  utter. 

Full  fathom  five  thy  father  lies : 

Of  his  bones  are  coral  made  : 
Those  are  pearls  that  were  his  eyes : 

Nothing  of  him  that  doth  fade, 
But  doth  suffer  a  sea-change, 
Into  something  rich  and  strange. 

And  then  follows  a  most  lively  circumstance  ; 

Sea-nymphs  hourly  ring  his  knell. 

Hark !  now  I  hear  them — ding-dong-bell ! 

This  is  so  truly  poetical,  that  one  can  scarce  for 
bear  exclaiming  with  Ferdinand, 

This  is  no  mortal  business,  nor  no  sound 
That  the  earth  owns ! — 

The  happy  versatility  of  Shakspeare's  genius 
enables  him  to  excel  in  lyric  as  well  as  in  dramatic 
poesy. 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    HIS    TEMPEST.  305 

But  the  poet  rises  still  higher  in  his  management 
of  this  character  of  Ariel,  by  making  a  moral  use 
of  it,  that  is,  I  think,  incomparable,  and  the  greatest 
effort  of  his  art.  Ariel  informs  Prospero  that  he 
has  fulfilled  his  orders,  and  punished  his  brother 
and  companions  so  severely,  that  if  he  himself 
was  now  to  behold  their  sufferings,  he  would 
greatly  compassionate  them.  To  which  Prospero 
answers, 

Dost  thou  think  so,  Spirit? 

ARIEL.     Mine  would,  sir,  were  I  human. 
PROSPERO.     And  mine  shall. 

He  then  takes  occasion,  with  wonderful  dexterity 
and  humanity,  to  draw  an  argument  from  the 
incorporeality  of  Ariel,  for  the  justice  and  necessity 
of  pity  and  forgiveness : 

Hast  thou,  which  art  but  air,  a  touch,  a  feeling 
Of  their  afflictions;  and  shall  not  myself, 
One  of  their  kind,  that  relish  all  as  sharply, 
Passion'd  as  they,  be  kindlier  mov'd  than  thou  art  ? 

The  poet  is  a  more  powerful  magician  than  his 
own  Prospero :  we  are  transported  into  fairy  land ; 
we  are  wrapped  in  a  delicious  dream,  from  v/hich 
it  is  misery  to  be  disturbed ;  all  around  is  enchant 
ment  ! 

The  isle  is  full  of  noises, 

Sounds,  and  sweet  airs,  that  give  delight  and  hurt  not. 
Sometimes  a  thousand  twanging  instruments 
Will  hum  about  mine  ears,  and  sometimes  voices; 
That,  if  I  then  had  wak'd  after  long  sleep, 
Will  make  me  sleep  again:  and  then  in  dreaming, 

u 


306  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

The  clouds,  raethought,  would  open  and  show  riches 
Ready  to  drop  upon  me :  when  I  wak'd, 
I  cry'd  to  dream  again ! 

JOSEPH  WARTON.* 

•  Adventurer,  No.  93,  September  25th,  1753.  These  obser 
vations  on  the  Tempest,  written  about  seventy-five  years  ago, 
and  in  a  work  of  great  popular  acceptation,  contributed  not  a 
little  to  refix  the  attention  of  all  classes  on  our  admirable  poet ; 
nor,  though  occasionally  insisting  somewhat  too  much  on  a 
strict  adherence  to  the  rules  of  the  classical  drama,  have  they 
been  on  the  whole  superseded  or  surpassed  by  any  subsequent 
critique  on  the  same  play. 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    HIS    TEMPEST.  307 


No.  II. 

OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  TEMPEST  CONCLUDED. 

'  WHOEVER  ventures,'  says  Horace,  '  to  form  a 
character  totally  original,  let  him  endeavour  to 
preserve  it  with  uniformity  and  consistency ;  but 
the  formation  of  an  original  character  is  a  work  of 
great  difficulty  and  hazard.'  In  this  arduous  and 
uncommon  task,  however,  Shakspeare  has  won 
derfully  succeeded  in  his  Tempest :  the  monster 
Caliban  is  the  creature  of  his  own  imagination,  in 
the  formation  of  which  he  could  derive  no  assis 
tance  from  observation  or  experience. 

Caliban  is  the  son  of  a  witch,  begotten  by  a 
demon :  the  sorceries  of  his  mother  were  so  terri 
ble,  that  her  countrymen  banished  her  into  this 
desert  island  as  unfit  for  human  society ;  in  con 
formity,  therefore,  to  this  diabolical  propagation, 
he  is  represented  as  a  prodigy  of  cruelty,  malice, 
pride,  ignorance,  idleness,  gluttony,  and  lust.  He 
is  introduced  with  great  propriety  cursing  Pros- 
pero  and  Miranda,  whom  he  had  endeavoured  to 
defile ;  and  his  execrations  are  artfully  contrived 
to  have  reference  to  the  occupation  of  his  mother : 

As  wicked  dew,  as  e'er  my  mother  brush'd 
With  raven's  feather  from  unwholesome  fen, 
Drop  on  you  both  !- 


308  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 


-All  the  charms 


Of  Sycorax,  toads,  beetles,  bats,  light  on  you ! 

His  kindness  is,  afterwards,  expressed  as  much 
in  character  as  his  hatred,  by  an  enumeration  of 
offices  that  could  be  of  value  only  in  a  desolate 
island,  and  in  the  estimation  of  a  savage. 

I  pr'ythee,  let  me  bring  thee  where  crabs  grow ; 
And  I  with  my  long  nails  will  dig  thee  pig-nuts  ; 
Show  thee  a  jay's  nest ;  and  instruct  thee  how 
To  snare  the  nimble  marmozet.     I'll  bring  thee 
To  clust'ring  filberds ;  and  sometimes  I'll  get  thee 

Young  sea-malls  from  the  rock 

I'll  show  thee  the  best  springs  ;  I'll  pluck  thee  berries  ; 
I'll  fish  for  thee,  and  get  thee  wood  enough. 

Which  last  is,  indeed,  a  circumstance  of  great  use 
in  a  place  where  to  be  defended  from  the  cold 
was  neither  easy  nor  usual ;  and  it  has  a  farther 
peculiar  beauty,  because  the  gathering  wood  was 
the  occupation  to  which  Caliban  was  subjected  by 
Prospero,  who,  therefore,  deemed  it  a  service  of 
high  importance. 

The  gross  ignorance  of  this  monster  is  repre 
sented  with  delicate  judgment :  he  knew  not  the 
names  of  the  sun  and  moon,  which  he  calls  the 
bigger  light  and  the  less ;  and  he  believes  that 
Stephano  was  the  man  in  the  moon,  whom  his 
mistress  had  often  shown  him ;  and  when  Prospero 
reminds  him  that  he  first  taught  him  to  pronounce 
articulately,  his  answer  is  full  of  malevolence  and 
rage: 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    HJS    TEMPEST.  309 

You  taught  me  language  ;  and  my  profit  on't 
Is,  I  know  how  to  curse  : — 

the  properest  return  for  such  a  fiend  to  make  for 
such  a  favour.  The  spirits  whom  he  supposes  to 
be  employed  by  Prospero  perpetually  to  torment 
him,  and  the  many  forms  and  different  methods 
they  take  for  this  purpose,  are  described  with  the 
utmost  liveliness  and  force  of  fancy  : 

Sometimes  like  apes,  that  moe  and  chatter  at  me, 
And  after  bite  me  ;  then  like  hedgehogs,  which 
Lie  tumbling  in  my  bare-foot  way,  and  mount 
Their  pricks  at  my  foot- fall:  sometimes  am  I 
All  wound  with  adders,  who  with  cloven  tongues 
Do  hiss  me  into  madness. 

It  is  scarcely  possible  for  any  speech  to  be  more 
expressive  of  the  manners  and  sentiments,  than 
that  in  which  our  poet  has  painted  the  brutal  bar 
barity  and  unfeeling  savageness  of  this  son  of 
Sycorax,  by  making  him  enumerate,  with  a  kind 
of  horrible  delight,  the  various  ways  in  which  it 
was  possible  for  the  drunken  sailors  to  surprise  and 
kill  his  master : 

There  thou  may'st  brain  him, 

Having  first  seiz'd  his  books ;  or  with  a  log 
Batter  his  skull ;  or  paunch  him  with  a  stake ; 

Or  cut  his  we^and  with  thy  knife. 

-.  ifej-l^H.''*      it  •    .      ,'toiriw  /-J/h^ 

He  adds,  in  allusion  to  his  own  abominable  at 
tempt,  '  above  all  be  sure  to  secure  the  daughter ; 
whose  beauty,'  he  tells  them,  '  is  incomparable.' 
The  charms  of  Miranda  could  not  be  more  exalted 


310  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

than  by  extorting  this  testimony  from  so  insensible 
a  monster. 

Shakspeare  seems  to  be  the  only  poet  who  pos 
sesses  the  power  of  uniting  poetry  with  propriety 
of  character;  of  which  I  know  not  an  instance 
more  striking  than  the  image  Caliban  makes  use  of 
to  express  silence,  which  is  at  once  highly  poetical, 
and  exactly  suited  to  the  wildness  of  the  speaker : 

Pray  you  tread  softly,  that  the  blind  mole  may  not 
Hear  a  foot-fall. 

I  always  lament  that  our  author  has  not  pre 
served  this  fierce  and  implacable  spirit  in  Caliban 
to  the  end  of  the  play  ;  instead  of  which,  he  has* 
I  think  injudiciously,  put  into  his  mouth  words 
that  imply  repentance  and  understanding : 

I'll  be  wise  hereafter, 

And  seek  for  grace.     What  a  thrice  double  ass 
Was  I,  to  take  this  drunkard  for  a  God, 
And  worship  this  dull  fool  ? 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  Shakspeare  has 
artfully  taken  occasion  from  this  extraordinary 
character,  which  is  finely  contrasted  to  the  mild 
ness  and  obedience  of  Ariel,  obliquely  to  satirize 
the  prevailing  passion  for  new  and  wonderful 
sights,  which  has  rendered  the  English  so  ridicu 
lous.  'Were  I  in  England  now,'  says  Trinculo, 
on  first  discovering  Caliban,  '  and  had  but  this 
fish  painted,  not  an  holiday-fool  there  but  would 
give  a  piece  of  silver. — When  they  will  not  give  a 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    HIS    TEMPEST.  311 

doit  to  relieve  a  lame  beggar,  they  will  lay  out  ten 
to  see  a  dead  Indian.' 

Such  is  the  inexhaustible  plenty  of  our  poet's 
invention,  that  he  has  exhibited  another  character 
in  this  play,  entirely  his  own ;  that  of  the  lovely 
and  innocent  Miranda. 

When  Prospero  first  gives  her  a  sight  of  Prince 
Ferdinand,  she  eagerly  exclaims, 


Whatis't?  a  spirit? 


Lord,  how  it  looks  about!    Believe  me,  sir, 
It  carries  a  brave  form.     But  'tis  a  spirit. 

Her  imagining  that,  as  he  was  so  beautiful,  he 
must  necessarily  be  one  of  her  father's  aerial 
agents,  is  a  stroke  of  nature  worthy  admiration ; 
as  are  likewise  her  intreaties  to  her  father  not  to 
use  him  harshly,  by  the  power  of  his  art : 

Why  speaks  my  father  so  ungently  ?     This 
Is  the  third  man  that  e'er  I  saw ;  the  first 
That  e'er  I  sigh'dfor! 

Here  we  perceive  the  beginning  of  that  passion 
which  Prospero  was  desirous  she  should  feel  for 
the  prince,  and  which  she  afterwards  more  fully 
expresses  upon  an  occasion  which  displays  at 
once  the  tenderness,  the  innocence,  and  the  sim 
plicity  of  her  character.  She  discovers  her  lover 
employed  in  the  laborious  task  of  carrying  wood, 
which  Prospero  had  enjoined  him  to  perform. 
'  Would,'  says  she,  '  the  lightning  had  burnt  up 
those  logs  that  you  are  enjoined  to  pile !' 


312  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSVEARE, 


If  you'll  sit  down, 


Til  bear  your  logs  the  while.     Pray  give  me  that, 

I'll  carry't  to  the  pile. 

— You  look  wearily. 

It  is  by  selecting  such  little  and  almost  imper 
ceptible  circumstances,  that  Shakspeare  has  more 
truly  painted  the  passions  than  any  other  writer  : 
affection  is  more  powerfully  expressed  by  this 
simple  wish  and  offer  of  assistance,  than  by  the 
unnatural  eloquence  and  witticisms  of  Dry  den,  or 
the  amorous  declamations  of  Rowe. 

The  resentment  of  Prospero  for  the  matchless 
cruelty  and  wicked  usurpation  of  his  brother ;  his 
parental  affection  and  solicitude  for  the  welfare  of 
his  daughter,  the  heiress  of  his  dukedom ;  and  the 
awful  solemnity  of  his  character,  as  a  skilful 
magician;  are  all  along  preserved  with  equal  con 
sistency,  dignity,  and  decorum.  One  part  of  his 
behaviour  deserves  to  be  particularly  pointed  out : 
during  the  exhibition  of  a  mask  with  which  he 
had  ordered  Ariel  to  entertain  Ferdinand  and 
Miranda,  he  starts  suddenly  from  the  recollection 
of  the  conspiracy  of  Caliban  and  his  confederates 
against  his  life,  and  dismisses  his  attendant  spirits, 
who  instantly  vanish  to  a  hollow  and  confused 
noise.  He  appears  to  be  greatly  moved;  and 
suitably  to  this  agitation  of  mind,  which  his 
danger  has  excited,  he  takes  occasion,  from  the 
sudden  disappearance  of  the  visionary  scene,  to 
moralise  on  the  dissolution  of  all  things  : 

These  our  actors, 

As  I  foretold  you,  were  all  spirits ;  and 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    HIS    TEMPEST.  313 

Are  melted  into  air,  into  thin  air. 
And,  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  this  vision, 
The  cloud-capt  towers,  the  gorgeous  palaces, 
The  solemn  temples,  the  great  globe  itself, 
Yea,  all  which  it  inherit,  shall  dissolve, 
And,  like  this  unsubstantial  pageant  faded, 
Leave  not  a  rack  behind. 

To  these  noble  images  he  adds  a  short  but  com 
prehensive  observation  on  human  life,  not  excelled 
by  any  passage  of  the  moral  and  sententious 
Euripides :  * 

We  are  such  stuff 

As  dreams  are  made  of;  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep ! 

Thus  admirably  is  an  uniformity  of  character, 
that  leading  beauty  in  dramatic  poesy,  preserved 
throughout  the  Tempest.  And  it  may  be  farther 
remarked  that  the  unities  of  action,  of  place,  and 
of  time,  are  in  this  play,  though  almost  constantly 
violated  by  Shakspeare,  exactly  observed.  The 
action  is  one,  great,  and  intire,  the  restoration  of 
Prospero  to  his  dukedom :  this  business  is  trans 
acted  in  the  compass  of  a  small  island,  and  in  or 
near  the  cave  of  Prospero ;  though,  indeed,  it  had 
been  more  artful  and  regular  to  have  confined  it 
to  this  single  spot ;  and  the  time  which  the  action 
takes  up  is  only  equal  to  that  of  the  representa 
tion;  an  excellence  which  ought  always  to  be 
aimed  at  in  every  well-conducted  fable,  and  for 


314  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

the  want  of  which  a  variety  of  the  most  enter 
taining  incidents  can  scarcely  atone.* 

JOSEPH  WARTON." 

*  In  regard  to  the  necessity  for  a  strict  observance  of  the 
unities  of  time  and  place,  we  must  here  make  some  allowance 
for  the  classical  prejudices  of  Dr.  Warton,  who  has  certainly 
rated  their  importance  much  beyond  that  to  which  they  are  en 
titled.  The  following  remarks  of  a  recent  and  very  sensible 
critic  may  be  quoted  as  an  excellent  corrective  of  the  Doctor's 
Aristotelian  bias.  "  Of  the  three  unities  of  action,  time,  and 
place,"  he  observes,  "  which  Aristotle  had  deemed  indispensa 
ble,  the  first  I  have  always  thought  important  to  every  compo 
sition,  as  consisting  in  the  relation  of  every  incident  to  some 
great  action  or  end;  and  it  is  no  less  necessary  to  preserve  it 
in  epic  poetry  than  in  tragedy.  It  is  essential  even  to  history, 
for  the  detail  of  two  narratives  at  once,  or  the  intermixture  of 
them  can  only  serve  to  confuse. 

"  The  second  unity  is  that  of  time,  which  (according  to  those 
absurd  critics  who  have  merely  copied  from  the  imperfect 
sketches  left  by  the  ancients)  requires  that  a  play  should  oc 
cupy  no  more  time  in  the  supposed  action  than  it  does  in  the 
representation.  Unity  of  place,  (according  to  the  same  pre 
judiced  judges,  who  never  looked  at  the  origin  of  the  prejudice,) 
required  that  the  scene  should  be  never  shifted  from  one  place 
to  another.  By  observing  the  first  of  these,  the  ancients  had 
great  difficulty  to  find  any  interesting  events  which  could  be 
supposed  to  be  acted  in  so  short  a  time ;  on  this  account,  Aris 
totle  himself,  who  was  a  slave  to  precedent,  was  obliged  to 
change  the  time,  and  allowed  them  twenty-four  hours. 

"  That  they  might  not  violate  the  third  unity,  they  were  obliged 
to  fix  their  action  in  some  public  place,  such  as  a  court  or  area 
before  a  palace  ;  on  which  account  much  business  was  trans 
acted  there  which  ought  to  have  been  done  in  private. 

"  The  truth  is,  these  two  last  unities  arose  out  of  the  imper- 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    HIS    TEMPEST.  315 

fection  of  the  Greek  drama.  As  the  chorus  never  left  the  stage, 
the  curtain  was  not  let  down  between  the  acts.  Shakspeare 
understood  nature  better  than  those  pedantic  critics  who  have 
extolled  the  unities  of  Aristotle;  and  surely,  according  to  the 
modern  custom,  the  spectators  can,  with  no  degree  of  violence 
upon  the  imagination  while  the  action  is  suspended,  suppose  a 
certain  time  to  elapse  between  the  acts ;  and  by  a  very  small 
effort  of  the  imagination,  they  can  also  suppose  themselves 
transported,  or  the  scene  shifted,  from  one  place  to  another. 

"  Upon  the  whole  then,  it  is  plain  the  moderns  have  judged 
rightly  in  laying  aside  the  chorus ;  and  Shakspeare,  who  re 
jected  the  unities  of  time  and  place,  has  produced  the  best 
dramas." 

Letters  on  Literature,  Taste,  and  Composition,  by  George 
Gregory,  D.  D.  In  two  volumes,  London,  1808.  Vol.  2. 
p.  224,  et  seq. 

I  need  scarcely  remind  any  reader  of  Shakspeare  that  Dr. 
Johnson,  in  his  admirable  preface  to  his  edition  of  the  bard, 
was  one  of  the  first  to  exert  his  great  critical  abilities  in 
support  of  the  licence  practised  by  our  poet  as  to  the  unities  of 
time  and  place. 

tt  Adventurer,  No.  97.  October  9,  1753. 


316  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE, 


No.  III. 
OBSERVATIONS  ON  KING  LEAR. 

ONE  of  the  most  remarkable  differences  betwixt 
ancient  and  modern  tragedy,  arises  from  the  pre 
vailing  custom  of  describing  only  those  distresses 
that  are  occasioned  by  the  passion  of  love ;  a 
passion  which,  from  the  universality  of  its  domi 
nion,  may  doubtless  justly  claim  a  large  share  in  re 
presentations  of  human  life;  but  which,  by  totally 
engrossing  the  theatre,  had  contributed  to  degrade 
that  noble  school  of  virtue  into  an  academy  of 
effeminacy. 

When  Racine  persuaded  the  celebrated  Arnauld 
to  read  his  Phaedra,  '  Why,'  said  that  severe  critic 
to  his  friend,  '  have  you  falsified  the  manners  of 
Hippolitus,  and  represented  him  in  love  ?' — '  Alas !' 
replied  the  poet,  '  without  that  circumstance,  how 
would  the  ladies  and  the  beaux  have  received  my 
piece?'  And  it  may  well  be  imagined,  that  to 
gratify  so  considerable  and  important  a  part  of 
his  audience,  was  the  powerful  motive  that  in 
duced  Corneille  to  enervate  even  the  matchless 
and  affecting  story  of  CEdipus,  by  the  frigid  and 
impertinent  episode  of  Theseus's  passion  for  Dirce. 

Shakspeare  has  shown  us,  by  his  Hamlet,  Mac 
beth,  and  Csesar,  and,  above  all,  by  his  Lear,  that 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    KING    LEAR.  317 

very  interesting  tragedies  may  be  written,  that 
are  not  founded  on  gallantry  and  love ;  and  that 
Boileau  was  mistaken  when  he  affirmed, 

de  1'amour  la  sensible  peinture, 

Est  pour  aller  au  coeur  la  route  la  plus  sure. 

Those  tender  scenes  that  pictured  love  impart, 
Insure  success  and  best  engage  the  heart. 

The  distresses  in  this  tragedy  are  of  a  very 
uncommon  nature,  and  are  not  touched  upon  by 
any  other  dramatic  author.  They  are  occasioned 
by  a  rash  resolution  of  an  aged  monarch  of  strong 
passions  and  quick  sensibility,  to  resign  his  crown, 
and  to  divide  his  kingdom  amongst  his  three 
daughters ;  the  youngest  of  whom,  who  was  his 
favourite,  not  answering  his  sanguine  expectations 
in  expressions  of  affection  to  him,  he  for  ever 
banishes,  and  endows  her  sisters  with  her  allotted 
share.  Their  unnatural  ingratitude,  the  intolerable 
affronts,  indignities,  and  cruelties  he  suffers  from 
them,  and  the  remorse  he  feels  from  his  imprudent 
resignation  of  his  power,  at  first  inflame  him  with 
the  most  violent  rage,  and  by  degrees  drive  him  to 
madness  and  death.  This  is  the  outline  of  the 
fable. 

I  shall  confine  myself  at  present  to  consider 
singly  the  judgment  and  art  of  the  poet,  in  describ 
ing  the  origin  and  progress  of  the  distraction  of  Lear, 
in  which,  I  think,  he  has  succeeded  better  than 
any  other  writer;  even  than  Euripides  himself, 


318  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

whom  Longinus  so  highly  commends  for  his  repre 
sentation  of  the  madness  of  Orestes. 

It  is  well  contrived  that  the  first  affront  that  is 
offered  Lear  should  be  a  proposal  from  Gonerill, 
his  eldest  daughter,  to  lessen  the  number  of  his 
knights,  which  must  needs  affect  and  irritate  a 
person  so  jealous  of  his  rank  and  the  respect  due 
to  it.  He  is  at  first  astonished  at  the  complicated 
impudence  and  ingratitude  of  this  design,  but 
quickly  kindles  into  rage,  and  resolves  to  depart 
instantly: 

Darkness  and  devils ! 

Saddle  my  horses,  call  my  train  together — 
Degen'rate  bastard !  I'll  not  trouble  thee. — 

This  is  followed  by  a  severe  reflection  upon  his 
own  folly  for  resigning  his  crown,  and  a  solemn 
invocation  to  Nature  to  heap  the  most  horrible 
curses  on  the  head  of  Gonerill,  that  her  own  off 
spring  may  prove  equally  cruel  and  unnatural : 

that  she  may  feel, 


How  sharper  than  a  serpent's  tooth  it  is 
To  have  a  thankless  child ! 

When  Albany  demands  the  cause  of  this  passion, 
Lear  answers,  '  I'll  tell  thee !'  but  immediately 
cries  out  to  Gonerill, 

Life  and  death !  I  am  asham'd, 

That  thou  hast  power  to  shake  my  manhood  thus. 

Blasts  and  fogs  upon  thee ! 

Th'  untented  woundings  of  a  father's  curse 
Pierce  every  sense  about  thee ! 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    KING    LEAR.  319 

He  stops  a  little,  and  reflects : 


-Ha  !  is  it  come  to  this  ? 


Let  it  be  so !  I  have  another  daughter, 
Who,  I  ana  sure,  is  kind  and  comfortable. 
When  she  shall  hear  this  of  thee,  with  her  nails 
She'll  flea  thy  wolfish  visage. — 

He  was,  however,  mistaken ;  for  the  first  object  he 
encounters  in  the  castle  of  the  Earl  of  Gloucester, 
whither  he  fled  to  meet  his  other  daughter,  was  his 
servant  in  the  stocks;  from  whence  he  may 
easily  conjecture  what  reception  he  is  to  meet 
with: 

Death  on  my  state  !  Wherefore 

Should  he  sit  here  ? 

He  adds  immediately  afterwards, 

O  me,  my  heart !  my  rising  heart ! — but  down. 

By  which  single  line  the  inexpressible  anguish  of 
his  mind,  and  the  dreadful  conflict  of  opposite  pas 
sions  with  which  it  is  agitated,  are  more  forcibly 
expressed  than  by  the  long  and  laboured  speech, 
enumerating  the  causes  of  his  anguish,  that  Rowe 
and  other  modern  tragic  writers  would  certainly 
have  put  into  his  mouth.  But  Nature,  Sophocles, 
and  Shakspeare,  represent  the  feelings  of  the  heart 
in  a  different  manner ;  by  a  broken  hint,  a  short 
exclamation,  a  word,  or  a  look  : 

They  mingle  not,  'mid  deep-felt  sighs  and  groans, 
Descriptions  gay,  or  quaint  comparisons, 
No  flow'ry  far-fetch'd  thoughts  their  scenes  admit; 
111  suits  conceit  with  passion,  woe  with  wit. 


320  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAK3PEARE. 

Here  passion  prompts  each  short  expressive  speech  ; 

Or  silence  paints  what  words  can  never  reach. 

J.  W. 

When  Jocasta,  in  Sophocles,  has  discovered  that 
(Edipus  was  the  murderer  of  her  husband,  she 
immediately  leaves  the  stage ;  but  in  Corneille 
and  Dryden  she  continues  on  it  during  a  whole 
scene,  to  bewail  her  destiny  in  set  speeches.  I 
should  be  guilty  of  insensibility  and  injustice,  if  I 
did  not  take  this  occasion  to  acknowledge,  that 
I  have  been  more  moved  and  delighted  by  hearing 
this  single  line  spoken  by  the  only  actor  of  the  age 
who  understands  and  relishes  these  little  touches 
of  nature,  and  therefore  the  only  one  qualified  to 
personate  this  most  difficult  character  of  Lear,  than 
by  the  most  pompous  speeches  in  Cato  or  Tamer 
lane. v 

'    •  '         ,       '       .       '         ij,       '    :          i  !  '  'J  . 

T  That  Garrick,  who  is  here  alluded  to,  had  great  merit  in 
giving  to  his  representation  of  Lear  a  more  natural,  touching, 
and  impassioned  tone  than  had  previously  been  effected,  tradi 
tion  has  uniformly  asserted  ;  nor  was  the  acting  of  Mr.  Kemble 
in  this  part  perhaps  less  entitled  to  praise ;  but,  notwithstanding 
the  efforts  of  these  accomplished  performers,  I  cannot  but  be  of 
opinion  with  Mr.  Lamb,  where,  speaking  of  the  almost  insuper 
able  difficulty  of  justly  representing  this  sublimely  impassioned 
character,  he  tells  us,  in  language  which  may  be  said  to  form  a 
most  magnificent  picture  of  the  afflicted  monarch,  that  "they 
(the  actors)  might  more  easily  propose  to  personate  the  Satan 
of  Milton  upon  a  stage,  or  one  of  Michael  Angelo's  terrible 
figures.  The  greatness  of  Lear  is  not  in  corporal  dimension, 
but  in  intellectual :  the  explosions  of  his  passion  are  terrible  as 
a  volcano ;  they  are  storms  turning  up  and  disclosing  to  the 
bottom  that  sea,  his  mind,  with  all  its  vast  riches.  It  is  his 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    KING    LEAR.  321 

In  the  next  scene,  the  old  king  appears  in  a 
very  distressful  situation.  He  informs  Regan, 
whom  he  believes  to  be  still  actuated  by  filial  ten 
derness,  of  the  cruelties  he  had  suffered  from  her 
sister  Gonerill  in  very  pathetic  terms  : 

Beloved  Regan, 

Thy  sister's  naught. — O  Regan  !  she  hath  tied 
Sharp-tooth 'd  unkindness,  like  a  vulture,  here. 
I  scarce  can  speak  to  thee — thou'lt  not  believe, 
With  how  deprav'd  a  quality — O  Regan  ! 

It  is  a  stroke  of  wonderful  art  in  the  poet  to  repre 
sent  him  incapable  of  specifying  the  particular  ill 
usage  he  has  received,  and  breaking  off  thus 
abruptly,  as  if  his  voice  was  choked  by  tender 
ness  and  resentment. 

When  Regan  counsels  him  to  ask  her  sister  for- 

mind  which  is  laid  bare.  This  case  of  flesh  and  blood  seems 
too  insignificant  to  be  thought  on,  even  as  he  himself  neglects 
it.  On  the  stage  we  see  nothing  but  corporal  infirmities  and 
weakness,  the  impotence  of  rage ;  while  we  read  it,  we  see  not 
Lear,  but  we  are  Lear, — we  are  in  his  mind,  we  are  sustained 
by  a  grandeur  which  baffles  the  malice  of  daughters  and  storms; 
in  the  aberrations  of  his  reason,  we  discover  a  mighty  irregular 
power  of  reasoning,  immethodized  from  the  ordinary  purposes 
of  life,  but  exerting  its  powers,  as  the  wind  blows  where  it 
listeth,  at  will  upon  the  corruptions  and  abuses  of  mankind. 
What  have  looks  or  tones  to  do  with  that  sublime  identifica 
tion  of  his  age  with  that  of  the  heavens  themselves,  when  in  his 
reproaches  to  them  for  conniving  at  the  injustice  of  his  children, 
he  reminds  them  that  '  they  themselves  are  old  ?'  What  ges 
ture  shall  we  appropriate  to  this  ?  What  has  the  voice  or  the 
eye  to  do  with  these  things  7" — Lamb's  Works,  vol.  2,  p.  25. 

X 


322  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

giveness,  he  falls  on  his  knees  with  a  very  striking 
kind  of  irony,  and  asks  her  how  such  supplicating 
language  as  this  becometh  him  : 

Dear  daughter,  I  confess  that  I  am  old ; 

Age  is  unnecessary  :  on  my  knees  I  beg, 

That  you'll  vouchsafe  me  raiment,  bed,  and  food. 

But  being  again  exhorted  to  sue  for  reconciliation, 
the  advice  wounds  him  to  the  quick,  and  forces 
him  into  execrations  against  Gonerill,  which,  though 
they  chill  the  soul  with  horror,  are  yet  well  suited 
to  the  impetuosity  of  his  temper : 

She  hath  abated  me  of  half  my  train ; 

Look'd  black  upon  me  ;  struck  me  with  her  tongue, 

Most  serpent-like,  upon  the  very  heart— 

All  the  stor'd  vengeances  of  heaven  fall 

On  her  ungrateful  top  !  Strike  her  young  bones, 

Ye  taking  airs,  with  lameness ! — 

Ye  nimble  lightnings,  dart  your  blinding  flames 

Into  her  scornful  eyes  ! 

The  wretched  king,  little  imagining  that  he  is  to 
be  outcast  from  Regan  also,  adds  very  movingly  ; 

'Tis  not  in  thee 

To  grudge  my  pleasures,  to  cut  off  my  train, 
To  bandy  hasty  words,  to  scant  my  sizes. — 

Thou  better  know'st 

The  offices  of  nature,  bond  of  childhood — 
Thy  half  o'th'  kingdom  thou  hast  not  forgot, 
Wherein  I  thee  endow'd 

That  the  hopes  he  had  conceived  of  tender  usage 
from  Regan  should  be  deceived,  heightens  his 
distress  to  a  great  degree.  Yet  it  is  still  aggra- 

1 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    KING    LEAR.  323 

vated  and  increased  by  the  sudden  appearance  of 
Gonerill ;  upon  the  unexpected  sight  of  whom  he 
exclaims, 

Who  comes  here  ?     O  heavens  ! 

If  you  do  love  old  men,  if  your  sweet  sway 

Allow  obedience,  if  yourselves  are  old, 

Make  it  your  cause,  send  down  and  take  my  part ! 

This  address  is  surely  pathetic  beyond  expression ; 
it  is  scarce  enough  to  speak  of  it  in  the  cold  terms 
of  criticism.  There  follows  a  question  to  Gonerill, 
that  I  have  never  read  without  tears : 

Ar't  not  asham'd  to  look  upon  this  beard? 

This  scene  abounds  with  many  noble  turns  of 
passion,  or  rather  conflicts  of  very  different  pas 
sions.  The  inhuman  daughters  urge  him  in  vain, 
by  all  the  sophistical  and  unfilial  arguments  they 
were  mistresses  of,  to  diminish  the  number  of  his 
train.  He  answers  them  by  only  four  poignant 
words : 

I  gave  you  all ! 

When  Regan  at  last  consents  to  receive  him, 
but  without  any  attendants,  for  that  he  might  be 
served  by  her  own  domestics,  he  can  no  longer 
contain  his  disappointment  and  rage.  First  he 
appeals  to  the  Heavens,  and  points  out  to  them  a 
spectacle  that  is,  indeed,  inimitably  affecting : 

You  see  me  here,  ye  gods  !  a  poor  old  man, 
As  full  of  griefs  as  age,  wretched  in  both  : 
If  it  be  you  that  stir  these  daughters'  hearts 
Against  their  father,  fool  me  not  so  much 
To  bear  it  tamely  ! 


324  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Then  suddenly  he  addresses  Gonerill  and  Regan 
in  the  severest  terms,  and  with  the  bitterest 
threats : 

No,  you  unnatural  hags  ! 

I  will  have  such  revenges  on  you  both — 

That  all  the  world  shall — I  will  do  such  things — 

What  they  are  yet,  I  know  not — 

Nothing  occurs  to  his  mind  severe  enough  for 
them  to  suffer,  or  him  to  inflict.  His  passion 
rises  to  a  height  that  deprives  him  of  articulation. 
He  tells  them  that  he  will  subdue  his  sorrow, 
though  almost  irresistible  ;  and  that  they  shall  not 
triumph  over  his  weakness  : 

You  think  I'll  weep ! 

No  !  I'll  not  weep ;  I  have  full  cause  of  weeping : 
But  this  heart  shall  break  into  a  thousand  flaws, 
Or  e'er  I'll  weep  ! 

He  concludes, 

O  fool — I  shall  go  mad  ! — 

which  is  an  artful  anticipation,  that  judiciously 
prepares  us  for  the  dreadful  event  that  is  to  follow 
in  the  succeeding  acts. 

JOSEPH  WARTON.W 

w  Adventurer,  No.  113,  December  4,  1753. 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    KING    LEAE.  325 


No.  IV. 
OBSERVATIONS  ON  KING  LEAR  CONTINUED. 

THUNDER  and  a  ghost  have  been  frequently 
introduced  into  tragedy  by  barren  and  mechanical 
play-wrights,  as  proper  objects  to  impress  terror 
and  astonishment,  where  the  distress  has  not  been 
important  enough  to  render  it  probable  that  nature 
would  interpose  for  the  sake  of  the  sufferers,  and 
where  these  objects  themselves  have  not  been  sup 
ported  by  suitable  sentiments.  Thunder  has, 
however,  been  made  use  of  with  great  judgment 
and  good  effect  by  Shakspeare,  to  heighten  and 
impress  the  distresses  of  Lear. 

The  venerable  and  wretched  old  king  is  driven 
out  by  both  his  daughters,  without  necessaries  and 
without  attendants,  not  only  in  the  night,  but  in 
the  midst  of  a  most  dreadful  storm,  and  on  a  bleak 
and  barren  heath.  On  his  first  appearance  in  this 
situation,  he  draws  an  artful  and  pathetic  compa 
rison  betwixt  the  severity  of  the  tempest  and  of 
his  daughters : 

Rumble  thy  belly  full !  spit,  fire  !  spout,  rain  ! 
Nor  rain,  wind,  thunder,  fire,  are  my  daughters. 
I  tax  not  you,  ye  elements,  with  unkindness  ; 
I  never  gave  you  kingdom,  call'd  you  children :    . 
You  owe  me  no  subscription.     Then  let  fall 


326  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Your  horrible  pleasure.     Here  I  stand  your  slave  ; 
A  poor,  infirm,  weak,  and  despised  old  man  ! 

The  storm  continuing  with  equal  violence,  he 
drops  for  a  moment  the  consideration  of  his  own 
miseries,  and  takes  occasion  to  moralize  on  the 
terrors  which  such  commotions  of  nature  should 
raise  in  the  breast  of  secret  and  unpunished 
villainy : 


—  Tremble,  thou  wretch ! 


That  hast  within  thee  undivulged  crimes 
Unwhipt  of  justice !     Hide  thee,  thou  bloody  hand, 
Thou  perjur'd,  and  thou  similar  of  virtue 
That  art  incestuous  ! — 

_ Close  pent-up  guilts 

Rive  your  concealing  continents,  and  cry 
These  dreadful  summoners  grace ! — 

He  adds,  with  reference  to  his  own  case, 

— I  am  a  man 


More  sinn'd  against,  than  sinning. 

Kent  most  earnestly  intreats  him  to  enter  a  hovel 
which  he  had  discovered  on  the  heath  ;  and  on 
pressing  him  again  and  again  to  take  shelter  there, 
Lear  exclaims, 

Wilt  break  my  heart  ? 


Much  is  contained  in  these  four  words;  as  if  he 
had  said,  '  the  kindness  and  the  gratitude  of  this 
servant  exceeds  that  of  my  own  children.  Though 
I  have  given  them  a  kingdom,  yet  have  they  basely 
discarded  me,  and  suffered  a  head  so  old  and 


OBSERVATIONS  ON  KING  LEAK.      327 

white  as  mine  to  be  exposed  to  this  terrible  tem 
pest,  while  this  fellow  pities  and  would  protect  me 
from  its  rage.  I  cannot  bear  this  kindness  from 
a  perfect  stranger ;  it  breaks  my  heart.'  All  this 
seems  to  be  included  in  that  short  exclamation, 
which  another  writer,  less  acquainted  with  nature, 
would  have  displayed  at  large  :  such  a  suppression 
of  sentiments,  plainly  implied,  is  judicious  and 
affecting.  The  reflections  that  follow  are  drawn 
likewise  from  an  intimate  knowledge  of  man  : 

When  the  mind's  free, 

The  body's  delicate  :  the  tempest  in  my  mind 
Doth  from  my  senses  take  all  feeling  else, 
Save  what  beats  there 

Here  the  remembrance  of  his  daughters'  behaviour 
rushes  upon  him,  and  he  exclaims,  full  of  the  idea 
of  its  unparalleled  cruelty, 


Filial  ingratitude  ! 


Is  it  not,  as  this  mouth  should  tear  this  hand 
For  lifting  food  to  it! 

He  then  changes  his  style,  and  vows  with  im 
potent  menaces,  as  if  still  in  possession  of  the 
power  he  had  resigned,  to  revenge  himself  on  his 
oppressors,  and  to  steel  his  breast  with  fortitude  : 

But  I'll  punish  home. 


No,  I  will  weep  no  more !— — 

But  the  sense  of  his  sufferings  returns  again,  and 
he  forgets  the  resolution  he  had  formed  the 
moment  before : 


328  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

In  such  a  night, 

To  shut  me  out ! — Pour  on,  I  will  endure — 

In  such  a  night  as  this ! 

At  which,  with  a  beautiful  apostrophe,  he  suddenly 
addresses  himself  to  his  absent  daughters,  tenderly 
reminding  them  of  the  favours  he  had  so  lately 
and  so  liberally  conferred  upon  them : 

O  Regan,  Gonerill, 

Your  old  kind  father,  whose  frank  heart  gave  all ! — 
O  that  way  madness  lies;  let  me  shun  that; 
No  more  of  that ! 

The  turns  of  passion  in  these  few  lines  are  so 
quick  and  so  various,  that  I  thought  they  merited 
to  be  minutely  pointed  out  by  a  kind  of  perpetual 
commentary. 

The  mind  is  never  so  sensibly  disposed  to  pity 
the  misfortunes  of  others,  as  when  it  is  itself 
subdued  and  softened  by  calamity.  Adversity 
diffuses  a  kind  of  sacred  calm  over  the  breast, 
that  is  the  parent  of  thoughtfulness  and  medi 
tation.  The  following  reflections  of  Lear  in  his 
next  speech,  when  his  passion  has  subsided  for  a 
short  interval,  are  equally  proper  and  striking : 

Poor  naked  wretches,  wheresoe'er  ye  are, 
That  bide  the  pelting  of  this  pitiless  storm ! 
How  shall  your  houseless  heads,  and  unfed  sides, 
Your  loop'd  and  window'd  raggedness,  defend  you 
From  seasons  such  as  these ! 

He  concludes  with  a  sentiment  finely  suited  to 
his  condition,  and  worthy  to  be  written  in  charac- 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    KING    LEAR.  329 

ters  of  gold  in  the  closet  of  every  monarch  upon 
earth  : 

-  O  !  I  have  ta'en 

Too  little  care  of  this.     Take  physic,  pomp ! 
Expose  thyself  to  feel  what  wretches  feel ; 
That  then  may'st  shake  the  superflux  to  them, 
And  show  the  Heavens  more  just ! 

Lear  being  at  last  persuaded  to  take  shelter  in 
the  hovel,  the  poet  has  artfully  contrived  to  lodge 
there  Edgar,  the  discarded  son  of  Gloucester, 
who  counterfeits  the  character  and  habit  of  a  mad 
beggar,  haunted  by  an  evil  demon,  and  whose 
supposed  sufferings  are  enumerated  with  an  ini 
mitable  wildness  of  fancy  ;  '  Whom  the  foul  fiend 
hath  led  through  fire,  and  through  flame,  through 
ford  and  whirlpool,  o'er  bog  and  quagmire  ;  that 
hath  laid  knives  under  his  pillow,  and  halters  in 
his  pew ;  set  ratsbane  by  his  porridge ;  made  him 
proud  of  heart,  to  ride  on  a  bay  trotting  horse 
over  four-inched  bridges,  to  course  his  own  shadow 
for  a  traitor. — Bless  thy  five  wits,  Tom's  a  cold !' 
The  assumed  madness  of  Edgar,  and  the  real 
distraction  of  Lear,  form  a  judicious  contrast/ 

Upon  perceiving  the  nakedness  and  wretched 
ness  of  this  figure,  the  poor  king  asks  a  question 
that  I  never  could  read  without  strong  emotions  of 
pity  and  admiration : 

x  Nothing  can  exceed  the  minute  accuracy  with  which  the 
commencement  and  progress  of  the  insanity  of  Lear  is  drawn 
by  this  consummate  master  of  the  human  heart — it  is  a  study 
even  for  the  pathologist  ! 


330  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEAfcE. 

What !  have  his  daughters  brought  him  to  this  pass  ? 
Could'st  thou  save  nothing  ?  Did'st  thou  give  them  all  ? 

And  when  Kent  assures  him  that  the  beggar  hath 
no  daughters,  he  hastily  answers ; 

Death,  traitor,  nothing  could  have  subdued  nature 
To  such  a  lowness,  but  his  unkind  daughters. 

Afterwards,  upon  the  calm  contemplation  of  the 
misery  of  Edgar,  he  breaks  out  into  the  following 
serious  and  pathetic  reflection :  '  Thou  wert  better 
in  thy  grave,  than  to  answer  with  thy  uncovered 
body  this  extremity  of  the  skies.  Is  man  no  more 
than  this?  Consider  him  well.  Thou  owest  the 
worm  no  silk,  the  beast  no  hide,  the  sheep  no  wool, 
the  cat  no  perfume.  Ha !  here's  three  of  us  are 
sophisticated.  Thou  art  the  thing  itself:  unac 
commodated  man  is  no  more  than  such  a  poor, 
bare,  forked  animal  as  thou  art.  Off,  off,  you 
lendings !  Come,  unbutton  here/ 

Shakspeare  has  no  where  exhibited  more  inimi 
table  strokes  of  his  art  than  in  this  uncommon 
scene,  where  he  has  so  well  conducted  even  the 
natural  jargon  of  the  beggar,  and  the  jestings  of 
the  fool,  which  in  other  hands  must  have  sunk  into 
burlesque,  that  they  contribute  to  heighten  the 
pathetic  to  a  very  high  degree. 

The  heart  of  Lear  having  been  agitated  and  torn 
by  a  conflict  of  such  opposite  and  tumultuous  pas 
sions,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  his  '  wits  should  now 
begin  to  unsettle.'  The  first  plain  indication  of 
the  loss  of  his  reason  is  his  calling  Edgar  a 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    KING    LEAK.  331 

'  learned  Theban ;'  and  telling  Kent  that  '  he  will 
keep  still  with  his  philosopher.'  When  he  next 
appears,  he  imagines  he  is  punishing  his  daughters. 
The  imagery  is  extremely  strong,  and  chills  one 
with  horror  to  read  it ; 

To  have  a  thousand  with  red  burning  spits 
Come  hizzing  in  upon  them! — 

As  the  fancies  of  lunatics  have  an  extraordinary 
force  and  liveliness,  and  render  the  objects  of  their 
frenzy  as  it  were  present  to  their  eyes,  Lear  actu 
ally  thinks  himself  suddenly  restored  to  his  king 
dom,  and  seated  in  judgment  to  try  his  daughters 
for  their  cruelties  : 

I'll  see  their  trial  first;  bring  in  the  evidence. 
Thou  robed  man  of  justice,  take  thy  place ; 
And  thou,  his  yoke-fellow  of  equity, 
Bench  by  his  side.     You  are  of  the  commission, 
Sit  you  too.     Arraign  her  first,  'tis  Gonerill — 
And  here's  another,  whose  warp'd  looks  proclaim 
What  store  her  heart  is  made  of. — 

Here  he  imagines  that  Regan  escapes  out  of  his 
hands,  and  he  eagerly  exclaims, 

Stop  her  there. 

Arms,  arms,  sword,  fire — Corruption  in  the  place ! 
False  justicer,  why  hast  thou  let  her  'scape  ? 

A  circumstance  follows  that  is  strangely  moving 
indeed  ;  for  he  fancies  that  his  favourite  domestic 
creatures,  that  used  to  fawn  upon  and  caress  him, 
and  of  which  he  was  eminently  fond,  have  now 
their  tempers  changed,  and  join  to  insult  him  : 


332  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

_. The  little  dogs  and  all, 

Tray,  Blanch,  and  Sweetheart,  see  !  they  bark  at  me. 

He  again  resumes  his  imaginary  power,  and  orders 
them  to  anatomize  Regan ;  '  See  what  breeds 
about  her  heart. — Is  there  any  cause  in  nature 
that  makes  these  hard  hearts !  You,  Sir,'  speak 
ing  to  Edgar,  '  I  entertain  for  one  of  my  Hundred ;' 
a  circumstance  most  artfully  introduced  to  remind 
us  of  the  first  affront  he  received,  and  to  fix  our 
thoughts  on  the  causes  of  his  distraction. 

General  criticism  is  on  all  subjects  useless  and 
unentertaining,  but  is  more  than  commonly  ab 
surd  with  respect  to  Shakspeare,  who  must  be 
accompanied  step  by  step,  and  scene  by  scene,  in 
his  gradual  developements  of  characters  and  pas 
sions,  and  whose  finer  features  must  be  singly 
pointed  out,  if  we  would  do  complete  justice  to  his 
genuine  beauties.  It  would  have  been  easy  to 
have  declared,  in  general  terms,  '  that  the  madness 
of  Lear  was  very  natural  and  pathetic;'  and  the 
reader  might  then  have  escaped,  what  he  may, 
perhaps,  call  a  multitude  of  well-known  quota 
tions  :  but  then  it  had  been  impossible  to  exhibit 
a  perfect  picture  of  the  secret  workings  and  changes 
of  Lear's  mind,  which  vary  in  each  succeeding 
passage,  and  which  render  an  allegation  of  each 
particular  sentiment  absolutely  necessary. 

JOSEPH  WARTON.* 

y  Adventurer,  No.  116,  December  15, 1753. 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    KING    LEAR.  333 


No.   V. 

OBSERVATIONS  ON  KING  LEAR  CONCLUDED. 

MADNESS  being  occasioned  by  a  close  and  con 
tinued  attention  of  the  mind  to  a  single  object, 
Shakspeare  judiciously  represents  the  resignation 
of  his  crown  to  daughters  so  cruel  and  unnatural, 
as  the  particular  idea  which  has  brought  on  the 
distraction  of  Lear,  and  which  perpetually  recurs 
to  his  imagination,  and  mixes  itself  with  all  his 
ramblings.  Full  of  this  idea,  therefore,  he  breaks 
out  abruptly  in  the  Fourth  Act :  '  No,  they  cannot 
touch  me  for  coining :  I  am  the  king  himself/  He 
believes  himself  to  be  raising  recruits,  and  censures 
the  inability  and  unskilfulness  of  some  of  his  sol 
diers  :  '  There's  your  press-money.  That  fellow 
handles  his  bow  like  a  crow-keeper :  draw  me  a 
clothier's  yard.  Look,  look,  a  mouse !  Peace, 
peace  :  this  piece  of  toasted  cheese  will  do  it.'  The 
art  of  our  poet  is  transcendent  in  thus  making 
a  passage  that  even  borders  on  burlesque,  strongly 
expressive  of  the  madness  he  is  painting.  Lear 
suddenly  thinks  himself  in  the  field ;  *  there's  my 
gauntlet — I'll  prove  it  on  a  giant !' — and  that  he  has 
shot  his  arrow  successfully :  '  O  well-flown  barb ! 
i'th  clout,  i'th  clout :  hewgh !  give  the  word.'  He 
then  recollects  the  falsehood  and  cruelty  of  his 


334  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

daughters,  and  breaks  out  in  some  pathetic  reflec 
tions  on  his  old  age,  and  on  the  tempest  to  which 
he  was  so  lately  exposed :  '  Ha !  Gonerill,  ha  f 
Regan !  They  flattered  me  like  a  dog,  and  told  me 
I  had  white  hairs  on  my  beard,  ere  the  black  ones 
were  there.  To  say,  Ay,  and  No,  to  every  thing 
that  I  said — Ay  and  No  too,  was  no  good  divinity. 
When  the  rain  came  to  wet  me  once,  and  the 
wind  to  make  me  chatter ;  when  the  thunder  would 
not  peace  at  my  bidding ;  there  I  found  'em,  there 
I  smelt  'em  out.  Go  to,  they're  not  men  of  their 
words ;  they  told  me  I  was  every  thing :  'tis  a  lie, 
I  am  not  ague-proof.'  The  impotence  of  royalty 
to  exempt  its  possessor,  more  than  the  meanest 
subject,  from  suffering  natural  evils,  is  here  finely 
hinted  at. 

His  friend  and  adherent  Gloster,  having  been 
lately  deprived  of  sight,  enquires  if  the  voice  he 
hears  is  not  the  voice  of  the  king  ;  Lear  instantly 
catches  the  word,  and  replies  with  great  quickness, 


-Ay,  every  inch  a  king ; 


When  I  do  stare,  see  how  the  subject  quakes ; 
I  pardon  that  man's  life.     What  was  thy  cause  ? 
Adultery  ?  no,  thou  shalt  not  die  ;  die  for  adultery  ? 

He  then  makes  some  very  severe  reflections  on  the 
hypocrisy  of  lewd  and  abandoned  women,  and 
adds,  '  Fie,  fie,  fie ;  pah,  pah  ;  give  me  an  ounce 
of  civet,  good  apothecary,  to  sweeten  my  imagina 
tion  ;'  and  as  every  object  seems  to  be  present  to 
the  eyes  of  the  lunatic,  he  thinks  he  pays  for  the 
drug :  *  there's  money  for  thee  !'  Very  strong  and 


OBSERVATIONS  ON  KING  LEAR.      335 

lively  also  is  the  imagery  in  a  succeeding  speech, 
where  he  thinks  himself  viewing  his  subjects 
punished  by  the  proper  officer  : 

Thou  rascal  bedel,  hold  thy  bloody  hand  : 

Why  dost  thou  lash  that  whore  ?  strip  thy  own  back ; 

Thou  hotly  lust'st  to  use  her  in  that  kind 

For  which  thou  whip'st  her  ! 

This  circumstance  leads  him  to  reflect  on  the 
efficacy  of  rank  and  power,  to  conceal  and  palliate 
profligacy  and  injustice ;  and  this  fine  satire  is 
couched  in  two  different  metaphors,  that  are  car 
ried  on  with  much  propriety  and  elegance : 

Through  tatter'd  clothes  small  vices  do  appear ; 
Robes  and  furr'd  gowns  hide  all.    Plate  sin  with  gold, 
And  the  strong  lance  of  justice  hurtless  breaks  ; 
Arm  it  in  rags,  a  pigmy  straw  doth  pierce  it. 

We  are  moved  to  find  that  Lear  has  some  faint 
knowledge  of  his  old  and  faithful  courtier  : 

If  thou  wilt  weep  my  fortunes,  take  my  eyes. 
I  know  thee  well  enough ;  thy  name  is  Gloster. 

The  advice  he  then  gives  him  is  very  affecting  : 

Thou  must  be  patient ;  we  came  crying  hither  : 
Thou  know'st,  the  first  time  that  we  smell  the  air 
We  wawle  and  cry.— 

When  we  are  born,  we  cry  that  we  are  come 
To  this  great  stage  of  fools ! 

This  tender  complaint  of  the  miseries  of  human 
life  bears  so  exact  a  resemblance  with  the  following 
passage  of  Lucretius,  that  I  cannot  forbear  tran 
scribing  it : 


336  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Vagituque  locum  lugubri  complet,  ut  equiim  est, 
Cui  tantum  in  vita  restet  transire  malorum. 

Then  with  distressful  cries  he  fills  the  room, 
Too  sure  presages  of  his  future  doom. 

DRYDEN. 

It  is  not  to  be  imagined  that  our  author  copied 
from  the  Roman ;  on  such  a  subject  it  is  almost 
impossible  but  that  two  persons  of  genius  and  sen 
sibility  must  feel  and  think  alike.  Lear  drops  his 
moralities,  and  meditates  revenge  : 

It  were  a  delicate  stratagem  to  shoe 
A  troop  of  horse  with  felt.     I'll  put't  in  proof; 
And  when  Pve  stol'n  upon  these  sons-in-law, 
Then  kill,  kill,  kill,  kill,  kill,  kill. 

The  expedient  is  well  suited  to  the  character  of  a 
lunatic,  and  the  frequent  repetitions  of  the  word 
'kill'  forcibly  represent  his  rage  and  desire  of 
revenge,  and  must  affect  an  intelligent  audience  at 
once  with  pity  and  terror.  At  this  instant  Cor 
delia  sends  one  of  her  attendants  to  protect  her 
father  from  the  danger  with  which  he  is  threatened 
by  her  sisters  :  the  wretched  king  is  so  accustomed 
to  misery,  and  so  hopeless  of  succour,  that  when 
the  messenger  offers  to  lead  him  out,  he  imagines 
himself  taken  captive  and  mortally  wounded  : 

No  rescue  ?  what !  a  prisoner  ?  I  am  e'en 
The  nat'ral  fool  of  fortune :  use  me  well, 
You  shall  have  ransom.     Let  me  have  surgeons ; 
I  am  cut  to  the  brain. — 

Cordelia  at  length  arrives  ;  an  opiate  is  adminis 
tered  to  the  king,  to  calm  the  agonies  and  agitations 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    KING    LEAR.  337 

of  his  mind ;  and  a  most  interesting  interview 
ensues  between  this  daughter,  that  was  so  unjustly 
suspected  of  disaffection,  and  the  rash  and  mis 
taken  father.  Lear,  during  his  slumber,  has  been 
arrayed  in  regal  apparel,  and  is  brought  upon  the 
stage  in  a' chair,  not  recovered  from  his  trance.  I 
know  not  a  speech  more  truly  pathetic  than  that 
of  Cordelia  when  she  first  sees  him  : 

Had  you  not  been  their  father,  these  white  flakes 
Did  challenge  pity  of  them.     Was  this  a  face 
To  be  expos'd  against  the  warring  winds? 

The  dreadfulness  of  that  night  is  expressed  by  a 
circumstance  of  great  humanity ;  for  which  kind 
of  strokes  Shakspeare  is  as  eminent  as  for  his 
poetry  : 

My  very  enemy's  dog, 

Though  he  had  bit  me,  should  have  stood  that  night 
Against  my  fire.  And  wast  thou  fain,  poor  father, 
To  hovel  thee  with  swine,  and  rogues  forlorn, 
In  short  and  musty  straw? 

Lear  begins  to  awake ;  but  his  imagination  is 
still  distempered,  and  his  pain  exquisite ; 

You  do  me  wrong  to  take  me  out  o'  th'  grave : 
Thou  art  a  soul  in  blisa ;  but  I  am  bound 
Upon  a  wheel  of  fire,  that  mine  own  tears 
Do  scald  like  molten  lead. — 

When  Cordelia  in  great  affliction  asks  him  if  he 
knows  her,  he  replies, 

You  are  a  spirit,  I  know  ;  when  did  you  die  ? 

Y 


338  MEMORIALS     OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

This  reply  heightens  her  distress  ;  but  his  sen 
sibility  beginning  to  return,  she  kneels  to  him,  and 
begs  his  benediction.  I  hope  I  have  110  readers 
that  can  peruse  his  answer  without  tears  : 

Pray  do  not  mock  me : 

I  am  a  very  foolish,  fond  old  man, 

Fourscore  and  upwards ;  and  to  deal  plainly, 

I  fear  I  am  not  in  my  perfect  mind. 

Methinks  I  should  know  you,  and  know  this  man, 

Yet  I  am  doubtful :  for  I'm  mainly  ignorant 

What  place  this  is. — Do  not  laugh  at  me ; 

For  as  I  am  a  man,  I  think  this  lady 

To  be  my  child  Cordelia.  — - — 

The  humility,  calmness,  and  sedateness  of  this 
speech,  opposed  to  the  former  rage  and  indignation 
of  Lear,  is  finely  calculated  to  excite  commise 
ration.  Struck  with  the  remembrance  of  the  in 
jurious  suspicion  he  had  cherished  against  this 
favourite  and  fond  daughter,  the  poor  old  man 
intreats  her  'not  to  weep/  and  tells  her  that  'if 
she  has  prepared  poison  for  him,  he  is  ready  to 
drink  it ;'  'for  I  know,'  says  he,  *  you  do  not,  you • 
cannot  love  me,  after  my  cruel  usage  of  you  :  your 
sisters  have  done  me  much  wrong,  of  which  I  have 
some  faint  remembrance  :  you  have  some  cause  to 
hate  me,  they  have  none.'  Being  told  that  he  is 
not  in  France,  but  in  his  own  kingdom,  he  answers 
hastily,  and  in  connection  with  that  leading  idea 
which  I  have  before  insisted  on,  '  Do  not  abuse 
me' — and  adds,  with  a  meekness  and  contrition 
that  are  very  pathetic,  '  Pray  now  forget  and  for 
give  ;  I  am  old  and  foolish.' 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    KING    LEAH.  339 

Cordelia  is  at  last  .slain  :  the  lamentations  of 
Lear  are. extremely  tender  and  affecting;  and  this 
accident  is  so  severe  and  intolerable,  that  it  again 
deprives  him  of  his  intellect,  which  seemed  to  be 
returning. 

His  last  speech,  as  he  surveys  the  body,  consists 
of  such  simple  reflections  as  nature  and  sorrow 
dictate  : 

Why  should  a  dog,  a  horse,  a  rat  have  life, 

And  thou  no  breath  at  all  ?  Thou'lt  come  no  more ; 

Never,  never,  never,  never,  never ! — 

The  heaving  and  swelling  of  his  heart  is  described 
by  a  most  expressive  circumstance  : 

Pray  you  undo  this  button.     Thank  you,  Sir. 
Do  you  see  this?  Look  on  her,  look  on  her  lips  : 
Look  there,  look  there —  Dies. 

I  shall  transiently  observe,  in  conclusion  of  these 
remarks,  that  this  drama  is  chargeable  with  con 
siderable  imperfections.  The  plot  of  Edmund 
against  his  brother,  which  distracts  the  attention, 
and  destroys  the  unity  of  the  fable ;  the  cruel  and 
horrid  extinction  of  Gloster's  eyes,  which  ought 
not  to  be  exhibited  on  the  stage  ;  the  utter  improba 
bility  of  Gloster's  imagining,  though  blind,  that  he 
had  leaped  down  Dover  cliff;  and  some  passages 
that  are  too  turgid  and  full  of  strained  metaphors ; 
are  faults  which  the  warmest  admirers  of  Shak- 
speare  will  find  it  difficult  to  excuse.55  I  know  not, 

1  The  objection  which  is  here  made  by  Dr.  Warton  to  the 
secondary,  plot  in  Lear,  as  destroying  the  unity  of  the  fable,  and 


340  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

also,  whether  the  cruelty  of  the  daughters  is  not 
painted  with  circumstances  too  savage  and  unna- 

to  the  occasional  barbarity  of  the  scene,  will  be  found,  I  think, 
satisfactorily  replied  to  by  the  following  remarks  of  the  ingeni 
ous  Schlegel.  "  The  story  of  Lear  and  his  daughters,"  he  ob 
serves,  "  was  left  by  Shakspeare  exactly  as  he  found  it  in  a 
fabulous  tradition,  with  all  the  features  characteristical  of  the 
simplicity  of  old  times.  But  in  that  tradition,  there  is  not  the 
slightest  trace  of  the  story  of  Gloster  and  his  sons,  which  was 
derived  by  Shakspeare  from  another  source.  The  incorpora- 
tiotl  of  the  two  stories  has  been  censured  as  destructive  of  the 
unity  of  action.  But  whatever  contributes  to  the  intrigue  or 
the  denouement,  must  always  possess  unity.  And  with  what 
Jngenuity  and  skill  the  two  main  parts  of  the  composition  are 
dovetailed  into  one  another !  The  pity  felt  by  Gloster  for  the 
fate  of  Lear  becomes  the  means  which  enables  his  son  Edmund 
to  effect  his  complete  destruction,  and  affords  the  outcast  Edgar 
an  opportunity  of  being  the  saviour  of  his  father.  On  the 
other  hand,  Edmund  is  active  in  the  cause  of  Regan  and  Go- 
nerill ;  and  the  criminal  passion  which  they  both  entertain  for 
him,  induces  them  to  execute  justice  on  each  other,  and  on 
themselves.  The  laws  of  the  drama  have  therefore  been  suffi 
ciently  complied  with  ;  but  that  is  the  least :  it  is  the  very 
combination  which  constitutes  the  sublime  beauty  of  the  work. 
The  two  cases  resemble  each  other  in  the  main  :  an  infatuated 
father  is  blind  towards  his  well-disposed  child,  and  the  unna 
tural  offspring,  to  whom  he  gives  the  preference,  requite  him 
by  the  destruction  of  his  entire  happiness.  But  all  the  circum 
stances  are  so  different,  that  these  stories,  while  they  make  an 
equal  impression  on  the  heart,  form  a  complete  contrast  for  the 
imagination.  Were  Lear  alone  to  suffer  from  his  daughters, 
the  impression  would  be  limited  to  the  powerful  compassion 
felt  by  us  for  his  private  misfortune.  But  two  such  unheard  of 
examples  taking  place  at  the  same  time,  have  the  appearance  of 
a  great  commotion  in  the  moral  world  :  the  picture  becomes 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    KING    LEAR.  341 

tural ;  for  it  is  not  sufficient  to  say  that  this  mon 
strous  barbarity  is  founded  on  historical  truth,  if 
we  recollect  the  just  observation  of  Boileau, 

Le  vrai  peut  quelquefois  n'etre  pas  vraisemblable. 

Some  truths  may  be  too  strong  to  be  believed. 

SOMES. 

JOSEPH  WARTON.* 

gigantic,  and  fills  us  with  such  alarm  as  we  should  entertain  at 
the  idea  that  the  heavenly  bodies  might  one  day  fall  out  of  their 
regular  orbits.  To  save,  in  some  degree,  the  honour  of  human 
nature,  Shakspeare  never  wishes  that  his  spectators  should 
forget  that  the  story  takes  place  in  a  dreary  and  barbarous 
age.  He  lays  particular  stress  on  the  circumstance  that  the 
Britons  of  that  day  were  still  heathens,  although  he  has  not 
made  all  the  remaining  circumstances  to  coincide  learnedly 
with  the  time  which  he  has  chosen.  From  this  point  of  view, 
we  must  judge  of  many  coarsenesses  in  expression  and  manners ; 
for  instance,  the  immodest  manner  iu  which  Gloster  acknow 
ledges  his  bastard  ;  Kent's  quarrel  with  the  steward  ;  and  more 
especially  the  cruelty  personally  exercised  on  Gloster  by  the 
Duke  of  Cornwall.  Even  the  virtue  of  the  honest  Kent  bears 
the  stamp  of  an  iron  age,  in  which  the  good  and  the  bad  dis 
play  the  same  ungovernable  strength." — Lectures  on  Dramatic 
Literature,  Vol  2,  p.  206. 

»  Adventurer,  No.  122,  January  5th,  1754. 


342  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 


No.  VI. 
CRITICAL  REMARKS  ON  OTHELLO. 

OF  those  who  possess  that  superiority  of  genius 
which  enables  them  to  shine  by  their  own  strength, 
the  number  has  been  few.  When  we  take  a 
review  of  mankind  in  this  respect,  we  behold  a 
dark  and  extended  tract,  illuminated  with  scat 
tered  clusters  of  stars,  shedding  their  influence,  for 
the  most  part,  with  an  unavailing  lustre.  So  much 
however  are  mankind  formed  to  contemplate  and 
admire  whatever  is  great  and  resplendent,  that  it 
cannot  be  said  that  these  luminaries  have  exhibited 
themselves  to  the  world  in  vain.  Whole  nations, 
as  well  as  individuals,  have  taken  fire  at  the  view 
of  illustrious  merit,  and  have  been  ambitious  in 
their  turn  to  distinguish  themselves  from  the  com 
mon  mass  of  mankind.  And  since,  by  the  happy 
invention  of  printing,  we  have  it  in  our  power  to 
gather  these  scattered  rays  into  one  great  body, 
and  converge  them  to  one  point,  we  complain 
without  reason  of  not  having  light  enough  to  guide 
us  through  the  vale  of  life. 

Among  those  to  whom  mankind  is  most  in 
debted,,  the  first  place  is  perhaps  due  to  Homer 
and  to  Shakspeare.  They  both  flourished  in  the 
infancy  of  society,  and  the  popular  tales  of  the 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    OTHELLO.  343 

. 

times  were  the  materials  upon  which  they  exerted 
their  genius ;  they  were  equally  unassisted  by  the 
writings  of  others  :  the  dramatic  compositions  with 
which  Shakspeare  was  acquainted,  were  as  pon- 
temptible  as  the  crude  tales  which  served  as  the 
foundation  of  Homer's  poem.  The  genius  of  both 
poets  was  then  of  undoubted  originality,  and  varied 
as  the  scene  is  with  which  they  were  conversant. 
It  cannot  perhaps  be  said  that  an  idea  is  to  be 
found  in  their  works,  imitated  from  another.  To 
whatever  subject  they  turned  their  attention,  a 
picture  of  nature,  such  as  was  capable  of  filling 
their  minds  alone,  arose  in  full  prospect  before 
them.  An  idea  imagined  by  any  other  would  be 
inadequate  to  the  grasp  of  their  genius,  and  uncon 
genial  with  their  usual  mode  of  conception. b  In 
timately  acquainted  with  the  original  fountains  of 
human  knowledge,  accustomed  themselves  to  trace 
the  operations  of  nature,  they  disdained  to  take 
notice  of,  or  submit  to  the  obscure  and  imperfect 

b  This  is  certainly  going  somewhat  too  far  :  that  poetry  ex 
isted  before  the  age  of  Homer,  there  can  be  little  doubt;  he 
himself,  in  fact,  has  referred  to  Thamyris,  (II.  B.  594),  and  Li 
nus,  (II.  I.  570),  as  masters  in  the  art;  and  that  he  did  not 
avail  himself,  in  some  degree,  of  their  productions,  is  scarcely 
to  be  credited.  With  regard  to  Shakspeare,  we  positively  know 
that  he  has  not  only  frequently  adopted,  expanded,  and  im 
proved  the  thoughts  of  his  predecessors,  but  has  sometimes 
even  taken  the  skeleton  or  outline  of  their  pieces,  as  framework 
for  his  own  more  highly  finished  pictures ;  of  which,  indeed,  it 
may,  without  exaggeration,  be  said  that  they  leave  all  compa 
rison  behind  them. 


344  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

tracts  which  had  been  marked  out  by  an  inferior 
pencil.  They  walked  alone  and  in  their  own 
strength,  and  wherever  they  have  trod,  have  left 
marks  which  time  will  never  efface,  or,  perhaps, 
which  no  superior  splendor  of  genius  will  obscure 
or  eclipse,  but  will  ever  continue  to  be  the  highest 
objects  of  human  ambition  and  admiration. 

But  however  high  the  merit  of  Shakspeare  must 
be,  in  thus  classing  him  with  Homer,  it  would  not 
be  doing  justice  to  either  of  these  fathers  of  genius 
to  appreciate  their  respective  abilities  by  merely 
asserting  them  to  be  poets  of  the  first  order.     The 
genius  of  Homer  was   undoubtedly   superior  in 
point  of  greatness  and  fire ;  the  most  awful  and 
interesting  scenes  among  mankind  were  the  con 
tinual  subjects  of  his  song ;  the  hurry  and  grandeur 
of  battle,  the  strength  of  mighty  heroes,  and  all 
the  violence  of  passion,  seem  to  be  the  high  delight 
of  his  soul.    Like  his  rival  in  modern  times,  he  was 
conspicuous  for  a  display  of  character  ;  but  these 
were  chiefly    of  the  warlike  kind :    the   steady 
magnanimity  of  Agamemnon,  the  irresistible  fury 
of  Achilles,  the  prudent  valour  of  Ulysses,  and  the 
bodily  strength  of  Ajax,  are  painted  in  strong  and 
striking  colours ;  and  though  he  be  not  deficient 
in  those  of  a  more  humble  and  amiable  kind,  yet 
in  this   sphere  Homer,  and  every   other  writer, 
ancient  or  modern,  are  left  far  behind  by  Shak 
speare,   whose   merit   in    this    respect  is  indeed 
astonishing.     He   hath  described   the   great   and 
the  ludicrous,  the  good  and  the  bad,  with   equal 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    OTHELLO.  345 

facility,  in  all  their  shades  of  character,  and  in 
every  scene  of  human  life.  Succeeding  writers 
have  seldom  mentioned  his  name  without  the 
epithet  of  Inimitable,  and  with  much  justice ;  for 
there  have  not  been  wanting  in  the  English  lan 
guage  dramatic  writers  of  merit,  who  were  not 
insensible  to  the  singular  abilities  of  Shakspeare; 
but  of  what  writer  except  himself  can  it  be  said, 
that  no  imitation  has  been  attempted  ?  None  of  his 
characters  have  been  assumed ;  his  simplicity,  his 
sentiments,  and  even  his  style  is  altogether  his 
own.  In  imitating  Homer,  many  writers  have  not 
been  unsuccessful.  Virgil  in  beauty  and  tender 
ness  has  exceeded  him.  Tasso  in  strength  of 
description  has  often  equalled  him  ;  but  none  has 
yet,  in  any  degree,  appropriated  the  spirit  and  the 
manner  of  Shakspeare.0 

In  every  work  of  this  great  author,  we  discover 
all  the  marks  of  his  genius,  his  diversity  of  cha 
racter,  his  boundless  imagination,  his  acute  dis 
cernment,  and  his  nervous  expression;  but  in 
none  of  them  are  these  qualities  more  conspicuous 
than  in  the  tragedy  of  Othello;  a  work  also,  the 
freest  from  his  irregularities,  his  puns,  his  bombast 
and  conceits.  No  where  has  he  painted  virtue 
with  more  flaming  sublimity  than  in  the  character 

c  Unqualified  as  this  last  assertion  may  appear,  it  is  one 
nevertheless  to  which  we  are  compelled,  in  the  present  day,  to 
accede ;  nor  may  it,  perhaps,  be  hazarding  too  much  to  add, 
that  posterity  will,  in  all  probability,  have  not  much  more  to 
boast  of  in  this  respect  than  ourselves. 


346  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

of  Othello;  with  more  amiable  tenderness  than 
in  that  of  Desdemona ;  and  no  where  are  all  the 
artifices  of.  human  nature  more  fully  displayed 
than  in  the  character  of  lago :  from  the  whole,  he 
has  contrived  a  plot  the  most  moral  in  its  ten 
dency,  which  winds  up  to  the  highest  pitch  our 
sympathetic  feelings  in  concern  for  unsuspicious 
virtue,  and  at  the  same  time  rouses  our  utmost 
indignation  against  deep-laid  villainy.  From  a 
review  of  the  conduct  of  the  poet  in  producing 
such  a  noble  effect,  we  may  expect  much  pleasure 
and  improvement. 

It  may  be  observed   of  the   productions   of  a 
profound  mind,  that,  like  the  source  from  whence 
they  proceed,  they  are  not  apprehended  at  first 
sight.     Shakspeare  often  begins  his  deepest  tra 
gedies  with  the  lowest  buffoonery  of  the  comic 
kind,  with  conversations  among  the  inferior  cha 
racters,  that  do  not  seem  to  be  connected  with 
the  main   plot;    and    there   is   often   introduced 
throughout  the  work  the  opinions  of  those  en 
gaged  about  the  lower  offices,  about  the  principal 
actors,  and  the  great  designs  that  are  carrying  on  ; 
and  their  inadequate  conceptions  have  an  excellent 
effect  in  enlivening  the  story ;  for  besides  the  hu 
mour  that  is  thereby  produced,  it  elucidates  the 
subject  by  placing  it  in  a  variety  of  lights.     Ex 
amples  of  such  a  conduct  are  frequent  in  all  our 
author's  works,  and  are  not  to  be  expected  but 
from  that  extensive  capacity  which  is  capable  at 
once  to  view  the  subject  in  its  rise  and  progress, 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    OTHELLO.  347 

and  connected  with  all  its  circumstances;  which 
can  take  a  wide  range  into  the  affairs  of  men 
without  losing  sight  of  the  principal  action,  and 
whose  comprehensive  grasp  can  obtain  many  aux 
iliary  ideas  and  many  remote  designs,  without 
distracting  or  driving  out  the  great  tendency  of 
the  whole.  Writers  of  a  more  limited  capacity, 
conscious  of  their  want  of  strength  to  construct  an 
edifice  on  such  an  enlarged  plan,  and  confused  at 
the  wild  disorder  of  the  materials  as  they  lie  scat 
tered  through  nature,  generally  rush  headlong 
among  them,  and  introduce  darkness  where  con 
fusion  only  was  before  :  having  once  heated  their 
imaginations,  they  foam  away  till  they  suppose 
the  work  is  completed,  and  in  such  high- wrought 
raptures  as  darkness  and  confusion  are  but  too  apt 
to  produce.  One  prevailing  sentiment  runs  through 
the  whole  ;  in  every  speech,  according  as  the  cha 
racter  is  well  or  ill  affected  to  the  success  of  the 
adventure,  it  is  blazoned  forth  with  all  the  passion 
the  author  can  command ;  and  the  whole  mass  is 
often  chiefly  illuminated  with  many  dazzling  words 
of  wonder,  and  terror,  and  amazement.  Were  the 
subject  of  Othello  to  be  managed  in  the  French 
mode,  or  by  their  English  imitators,  we  might  ex 
pect,  in  an  introductory  soliloquy,  to  see  the  nature 
of  jealousy,  with  all  its  dire  effects,  explained  with 
much  pomp  of  language,  perhaps  by  the  personage 
who  is  chiefly  concerned  in  the  story,  or  by  a 
female  confidant  observing  all  at  once  the  altered 
mind  of  her  lord ;  and  the  same  subject  would  be 


348  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

the  continual  theme  from  speech  to  speech,  till  the 
fatal  conclusion,  which  never  fails  to  be  caused  by 
some  long-expected  and  obvious  discovery.  Dur 
ing  the  course  of  the  representation,  the  wearied 
spectator,  instead  of  that  tumultuous  joy  which  is 
produced  by  the  agitation  of  hope  and  fear,  is  only 
amused  at  times  with  the  inferior  pleasure  of  poet 
ical  description,  and  many  laboured  attempts  to 
excite  the  mind  by  pathetic  and  sublime  sentiments. 
Though  often  interrupted  by  different  speakers,  it 
is  no  other  than  an  uninteresting  and  declamatory 
poem,  where,  if  there  is  any  display  of  character, 
it  is  but  in  general  terms,  of  a  man  splendidly  good, 
or  on  the  contrary,  outrageously  wicked  ;  of  a  fair 
female,  gentle  and  amiable,  and  of  her  fierce  and 
haughty  oppressor. — The  qualities  of  good  and  bad 
are  sometimes  expressed  with  much  vigour  and 
fire,  but  the  rest  of  the  man  is  wanting ;  the  ima 
gination  cannot  lay  hold  on  a  distinct  and  natural 
character,  intermixed  with  some  foibles,  which 
never  fail  to  attend  the  best,  with  a  peculiar  bias 
of  mind  towards  a  particular  object,  or  the  preju 
dices  which  are  expected  to  be  found  from  the 
profession,  the  situation,  or  any  of  the  circum 
stances  of  his  life.  The  few  who  have  succeeded 
in  this  sphere,  is  a  proof,  that  to  excel  in  it  requires 
a  genius  of  the  highest  and  most  finished  kind. 
The  enthusiasm  of  imagination,  and  the  calm  and 
minute  observation  of  judgment,  qualities  so 
plainly  requisite,  are  seldom  found  united  in  any 
high  degree  among  mankind. 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    OTHELLO.  349 

The  characters  which  make  a  chief  figure  in  the 
tragedy  of  Othello,  are  the  Moor  himself,  Desde- 
mona,  and  lago.  The  subject  is,  the  destruction 
of  Desdemona;  and  this  catastrophe  the  author 
never  loses  sight  of.  It  is  indeed  remarkable  for 
unity  of  action,  which  of  all  the  three  unities  is  of 
principal  consequence.  Unity  of  time  and  place 
peculiar  to  this  species  of  composition,  arises  from 
the  nature  of  dramatic  representation,  the  action 
being  supposed  to  be  in  view  of  spectators  for  a 
moderate  space  of  time.  But  a  strict  attention  to 
the  unities  of  time  and  place  has  never  been  com 
pletely  attained  by  any  writer.  When  an  action 
is  to  be  represented,  of  such  importance  as  to 
awaken,  keep  alive,  and  at  last  gratify  curiosity,  it 
must  necessarily  give  rise  to  many  incidents ;  and 
in  these  incidents,  if  consistent  with  nature  and 
probability,  in  different  places  and  with  different 
intervals,  much  time  is  spent,  and  much  is  done 
behind  the  curtain,  which  cannot  be  brought  in 
review :  such  liberties  never  offend  the  reader,  and 
seldom  the  spectator ;  and  when  a  certain  degree 
of  liberty  is  thought  proper,  the  writer  may  go  a 
considerable  length  without  offending  our  sense  of 
propriety ;  and  we  partly  consider  it  as  dramatic 
narration.  To  be  scrupulously  attentive  to  the 
unities  of  time  and  place,  confines  the  genius  of 
the  writer,  makes  the  work  barren  of  incidents, 
and  consequently  less  interesting :  much  must  be 
forced  and  improbable,  and  the  internal  merit  and 
beauty  of  the  story  must  be  sacrificed  to  the 
external  and  artificial  nature  of  representation. 


350  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Those  who  contend  for  a  strict  resemblance  of  the 
artificial  action  to  the  story,  require  what  can  never 
take  place :  the  scene  is  often  changed  on  the 
same  spot,  and  it  matters  very  little  whether  from 
one  room  of  the  palace  to  another,  or  from  London 
to  York,  as  both  are  equally  impossible ;  and  the 
same  may  be  said  of  supposing  five  minutes,  when 
we  well  know  it  is  really  five  hours ;  it  may, 
without  much  greater  improbability,  be  protracted 
to  five  weeks.  A  natural  train  of  incidents  can 
scarcely  be  expected  from  a  story  accommodated 
to  the  strict  rules  of  the  stage.  They  must  be 
dull,  few,  and  uniform,  because  they  are  all  in 
some  measure  within  view,  and  comprehended  at 
first  sight ;  and  in  place  of  incident,  there  must  be 
spun  out  long  harangues  of  common-place  morality. 
Few  or  none  but  those  who  are  critically  conversant 
with  controversies  of  this  kind,  observe  infringe 
ments  of  time  and  place ;  but  all  are  offended  with 
a  want  of  probability  in  the  management  of  the  plot. 
I  have  made  these  observations,  as  Shakspeare  is 
more  remarkable  for  adhering  to  unity  of  action 
than  to  the  other  two  :  the  one  is  the  offspring  of 
genius  alone,  the  other  of  art.d 

W.  N.e 

d  These  observations  on  the  unities  of  time  and  place  are 
correctly  and  powerfully  given ;  and  when  added  to  the  re 
marks  which  have  been  previously  quoted  in  a  former  note  from 
Dr.  Gregory,  cannot  but  convince  the  reader  how  judiciously, 
and  with  what  happy  effect,  Shakspeare  has  liberated  himself 
from  an  arbitrary  and  overwhelming  yoke. 

e  Anderson's  Bee,  Vol.  1,  p.  56,  et  seq. 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON     OTHELLO.  351 


No.  VII. 

CRITICAL  REMARKS  ON  OTHELLO  CONTINUED. 

SHAKSPEARE  has  adorned  the  hero  of  this 
tragedy  with  every  virtue  that  can  render  human 
nature  great  and  amiable,  and  he  has  brought 
him  into  such  trying  situations  as  give  full  proof 
of  both.  His  love  for  Desdemona  is  of  the  most 
refined  and  exalted  kind ;  and  his  behaviour, 
upon  the  supposition  of  his  false  return,  is  an 
indication  of  his  great  spirit,  and  such  as  might  be 
expected  from  his  keen  sense  of  honour  and  war 
like  character :  though  naturally  susceptible  of  the 
tenderest  passions,  yet  being  engaged  from  his 
early  youth  in  scenes  that  required  the  exercise  of 
those  of  a  higher  nature,  he  has  not  learned 


Those  soft  parts  of  conversation 


That  chamberers  have. 

Rude  (says  he)  am  I  in  speech, 

And  little  bless'd  with  the  set  phrase  of  peace. 

His  manners  have  nothing  of  that  studied 
courtesy  which  is  the  consequence  of  polite  con 
versation,  a  tincture  of  which  is  delicately  spread 
over  the  behaviour  of  Ludovico  and  Gratiano  ;  but 
all  is  the  natural  effusion  of  gentleness  and  mag 
nanimity.  His  generous  and  soaring  mind,  always 
occupied  with  ideas  natural  to  itself,  could  not 


352  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

brook,  according  to  his  own  expression,  to  study  all 
the  qualities  of  human  dealings,  the  artifices  of 
interest,  and  the  meanness  of  servile  attentions. 
To  a  man  'constituted'  like  lago  himself,  the 
affected  interest  which  he  takes  in  the  welfare  of 
his  master,  profound  as  it  was,  must  have  been 
very  suspicious  ;  but  to  Othello  it  is  the  effect  of 
exceeding  honesty!  His  enlarged  affections  were 
used  to  diffuse  happiness  in  a  wide  circle,  to  be 
pained  with  misery,  and  displeased  with  injustice, 
if  within  his  view ;  but  he  did  not  consider  the 
small  proportion  of  mankind  that  was  inspired  by 
similar  sentiments,  and  therefore  the  parade  of 
lago  was  in  his  eyes  unbounded  generosity. 

With  so  much  nature  and  dignity  does  he 
always  act,  that,  even  when  distorted  with  angry 
passions,  he  appears  amiable. 

EMIL.  I  would  you  had  never  seen  him. 

DESD.  So  would  not  I;  my  love  doth  so  approve  him; 

That  even  his  stubborness,  his  checks,  and  frowns, 

Have  grace  and  favour  in  them. 

A  character  of  this  kind  commands  respect ; 
and  in  his  actions  we  naturally  interest  ourselves. 

lago,  who  is  the  prime  mover  of  the  events  of 
this  tragedy,  is  a  character  of  no  simple  kind  :  he 
possesses  uncommon  sagacity  in  judging  of  the 
actions  of  men  good  and  bad ;  he  discerns  the 
merit  of  Cassio  to  lie  more  in  the  theory  than  in 
the  practice  of  war.  Roderigo  he  comprehended 
completely  ;  the  amiable  nature  of  Desdemona  he 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    OTHELLO.  353 

was  not  ignorant  of;  he  often  praises  the  free  and 
noble  nature  of  Othello ;  the  beauty  of  Cassio's  life 
he  felt  with  much  regret ;  and  he  is  sensible  of  the 
intrinsic  value  of  virtue,  as  well  as  its  estimation 
among  men ;  he  knew  well  that,  without  virtue,  no 
solid  or  lasting  reputation  could  be  acquired  ;  and 
without  doubt  he  understood  the  force  of  Cassio's 
feeling  reflections  on  this  subject,  though  he  makes 
an  appearance  of  despising  them.  lago.  it  must  be 
observed,  artfully  assumes  the  character  rather  of 
strong  than  of  high  and  refined  benevolence:  in 
the  second  scene  of  the  first  act  he  says, 

With  the  little  godliness  I  have, 
I  did  full  hard  forbear  him. 

—a  character  which  he  knew  would  be  more  easily 
supported,  which  would  render  him  less  liable  of 
being  supposed  acting  from  pride,  and  consequently 
create  no  envy.  (Stontent  for  the  present  with  the 
humble  appellation  of  honest  creature,  he  found 
sufficient  amends  in  the  prospect  of  being  recom 
pensed  with  double  interest  in  the  accomplishment 
of  his  plans. 

In  his  first  interview  with  Othello,  lago  begins 
his  deep  schemes  very  successfully,  by  labouring, 
with  bold  and  masterly  cunning,  to  impress  him 
with  a  strong  sense  of  his  fidelity  and  attachment 
to  his  interests ;  he  represents  himself  as  sustaining 
a  difficult  conflict  between  two  of  the  best  prin 
ciples,  regard  to  his  master,  and  a  fear  of  seeming 
to  act  with  a  malicious  cruelty.  He  speaks  like  a 


354  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

person  fired  with  anger  that  he  cannot  contain ;  he 
does  not  give  a  detail  of  Brabantio's  proceedings 
like  an  unconcerned  spectator,  but  in  that  confused 
and  interrupted  manner  worthy  of  the  truest  pas 
sion  ;  his  reflections,  which,  according  to  calm 
reason,  ought  to  come  last,  according  to  passion 
come  first.  The  scene  which  occasioned  his  pas 
sion  is  over ;  he  then  resolves  in  his  thoughts  the 
nature  of  it ;  and  lastly,  the  part  which  he  ought 
to  have  acted  takes  possession  of  his  mind.  In 
this  last  state  he  finds  himself  when  he  meets 
Othello,  perplexed  in  deliberating  whether  he  ought 
in  conscience  to  do  contrived  murder.  Having  dis 
burdened  himself  of  this,  the  subject  opens  in  his 
mind  ;  he  goes  backward,  and  describes  what  were 
his  sensations  in  a  very  striking  manner : — 

Nine  or  ten  times 


I  thought  to  have  jerked  him  under  the  ribs. 

The  fumes  of  passion  are  now  supposed  to  be 
dissipating  ;  and  the  cause  of  his  anger  and  reflec 
tions  he  unfolds  more  clearly,  but  in  the  same  en 
raged  and  animated  strain : 


•Nay,  but  he  prated, 


And  spoke  such  scurvy  and  provoking  terms 

Against  your  honour, 

That  with  the  little  godliness  I  have, 

I  did  full  hard  forbear  him. 

Having  fully  vented  himself,  he  begins  now 
coolly  to  urge  some  prudential  arguments  with 
regard  to  Othello's  conduct  in  this  critical  affair  : 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    OTHELLO.  355 


-But  I  pray,  Sir, 


Are  you  fast  married  ?  For  be  sure  of  this. 
That  the  Magnifico  is  much  belov'd, 
And  hath  in  his  effect  a  voice  potential, 
As  double  as  the  Duke's;  he  will  divorce  you, 
Or  put  upon  you  what  restraint  or  grievance 
The  law,  (with  all  his  might  to  inforce  it  on,) 
Will  give  him  cable. 

Having  managed  his  part  in  the  succeeding 
transactions  of  this  scene  with  the  same  kind  of 
propriety,  the  busy  rascal  makes  haste  to  act  in  a 
very  different  character  with  Roderigo. 

Hitherto  lago  seems  not  to  have  formed  any 
determined  plan  of  action.  A  bait  is  laid  for  him 
in  the  simplicity  of  Roderigo,  and  how  to  get  pos 
session  of  his  treasures  seems  to  be  the  only  object 
he  had  at  first  in  view.  He  informs  him  that, 
having  received  many  injuries  from  the  Moor,  he 
has  reason  to  concur  in  schemes  against  him ;  and 
in  order  to  amuse  Roderigo,  to  bring  matters  into 
some  ferment,  and  at  the  same  time  to  have  an 
opportunity  of  showing  his  zeal  to  Othello,  he  ad 
vises  him,  as  the  most  likely  means  to  obtain  Des- 
demona,  to  inflame  her  father  by  giving  him  an 
account  of  her  marriage  with  the  Moor ;  though 
lago  himself,  it  is  probable,  expected  no  success 
from  this  device.  However,  while  his  orders  are 
executing,  he  has  leisure  to  consider  what  he  is 
about ;  for  lago,  at  his  first  setting  out,  seems  to 
have  no  intention  of  dipping  so  deep  in  wickedness 
as  '  to  bring  about'  the  dreadful  event  '  which 
closes  this  tragedy.'  Finding  no  method  to  gratify 


356  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Roderigo,  he  dexterously  makes  him  a  tool  for 
promoting  his  own  interests.  The  suit  of  Rode 
rigo,  and  the  active  hand  he  had  taken  in  it,  had 
brought  him  to  think  of  a  scheme  of  which  the 
same  persons  were  to  be  the  subject.  To  render 
Cassio  odious  to  Othello  by  scandalous  aspersions, 
and  by  these  means  to  be  preferred  in  his  place, 
are  the  objects  which  he  now  has  in  view ;  a  pur 
suit  which  he  did  not  perhaps  think  would  be 
attended  with  such  a  fatal  train  of  consequences, 
though  his  sagacious  mind  discerns  something  that 
strikes  him  with  horror. 


Hell  and  night 


Must  bring  this  monstrous  birth  to  the  world's  light. 

Shakspeare  has  shown  great  judgment  in  the 
darkness  which  he  makes  to  prevail  in  the  first 
counsels  of  lago.  To  the  poet  himself,  all  the 
succeeding  events  must  have  been  clear  and  deter 
mined  ;  but  to  bring  himself  again  into  the  situ 
ation  of  one  who  sees  them  in  embryo,  to  draw  a 
mist  over  that  which  he  had  already  cleared,  must 
have  required  an  exertion  of  genius  peculiar  to  this 
author  alone.  In  so  lively  a  manner  does  he  make 
lago  show  his  perplexity  about  the  future  manage 
ment  of  his  conduct,  that  one  is  almost  tempted  to 
think  that  the  poet  had  determined  as  little  him 
self  about  some  of  the  particulars  of  lago's  destruc 
tion.  When  with  much  reasoning  about  their 
propriety,  he  is  by  himself  digesting  his  schemes, 
he  says, 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    OTHELLO.  357 


Tis  here — but  yet  confused  ; 


Knavery's  plain  face  is  never  seen  till  used. 

But,  however  much  at  a  loss  he  may  be  about 
the  method  of  accomplishing  his  designs,  yet  for 
the  present  he  lets  slip  no  opportunity  that  will 
promote  them.  He  lays  his  foundation  sure,  as 
knowing  what  a  hazardous  structure  he  had  to  rear 
upon  it.  He  had  already  laboured  to  exhibit  him 
self  in  the  best  light  to  the  unsuspicious  Moor,  and 
he  succeeded  to  the  height  of  his  wishes  ;  for  we 
find  him  congratulating  himself  upon  the  advan 
tages  that  will  accrue  from  it : 


He  holds  me  well ; 


The  better  shall  my  purpose  work  upon  him. 

Upon  the  same  principles  does  he  go  on  work 
ing  the  downfal  of  Cassio :  his  blameless  and 
well-established  character  must  be  first  tarnished  ; 
be  must  be  known  capable  of  irregularity  before 
the  crime  he  is  accused  of  obtain  full  belief;  and 
this  more  difficult  part  of  his  undertaking  the 
indefatigable  lago  finds  means  to  accomplish,  and 
with  such  ability  as  to  promote  at  the  same  time 
the  opinion  of  his  own  honesty  and  goodness.  One 
would  have  imagined  that  he  would  have  remained 
content  with  all  the  lucky  events  of  the  tumultuous 
adventure  on  the  platform,  and  exult ;  but  he  cau 
tiously  determines  not  to  triumph  before  he  has 
gained  a  complete  victory:  his  thoughtful  and 
piercing  mind  sees  another  use  to  which  the  dis 
grace  of  Cassio  may  be  applied.  Under  a  cover 


358  MEMORIALS   OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

of  zeal  to  serve  him,  he  advises  the  virtuous  man 
to  a  scheme  that  will  further  work  his  ruin ;  and 
by  hinting  to  him  the  great  power  which  Desde- 
mona  had  over  her  husband,  he  opens  a  very  likely 
method  for  regaining  his  favour  through  her  medi 
ation.  The  bait  is  swallowed,  and  an  appearance 
of  intimacy,  most  favourable  to  his  design,  is 
thereby  produced. 

The  deliberate  villain  now  began  to  think  that 
he  had  paved  the  way  sufficiently  for  communi 
cating  the  important  secret ;  but  as  he  had  to  do 
with  a  man  whose  '  nature's  pledge'  was  not  like 
his,  '  to  spy  into  abuse,'  he  still  acts  with  extreme 
caution.  Othello  had  indulged  a  high  notion  of 
the  honour  of  Cassio,  and  the  virtue  of  Desdemona ; 
and  it  was  not  by  a  suspicious  appearance,  or  a 
slight  argument,  that  his  opinions  were  to  be 
changed.  Tago  was  sensible  of  all  these  difficul 
ties,,  and  he  encounters  them  with  much  ability. 
He  assumes  the  appearance  of  one  whose  mind 
laboured  with  the  knowledge  of  some  flagrant 
impropriety,  which  he  could  not  contain ;  and 
when  any  circumstance  recals  the  abhorred  idea, 
an  involuntary  remark  escapes,  and  immediately 
he  affects  to  recover  himself.  He  kindles  the  jea 
lousy  of  Othello  by  tantalizing  him  with  imperfect 
accounts  and  ambiguous  arguments ;  he  agitates 
and  distracts  his  soul  by  confusedly  opening  one 
source  of  suspicion,  and  leaving  him  in  the  per 
plexity  of  doubt ;  then  immediately  by  displaying 
the  matter  in  another  point  of  view,  gives  him  a 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    OTHELLO.  359 

farther  glimmering  into  the  affair ;  until  at  last, 
frantic  with  rage  and  jealousy,  Othello  insists  upon 
satisfactory  information ;  and  by  these  means,  the 
discoveries  which  he  makes  are  made  to  appear 
more  the  effect  of  necessity  than  inclination. 

Villain,  be  sure  thou  prove  my  love  a  whore. 

Incomplete  knowledge  of  what  concerns  us 
deeply,  besides  the  tortures  of  suspense  into  which 
it  throws  the  mind,  has  a  natural  effect  to  make  it 
appear  in  the  most  hideous  dolours  which  it  is 
possible  to  devise.  Alarmed  with  a  thousand 
phantoms,  the  affrighted  imagination  is  at  a  loss 
what  to  decide,  or  where  to  rest ;  racked  with  many 
contending  arguments,  agitated  with  the  anxiety 
of  hope  and  fear,  and  impatient  to  be  relieved  from 
this  internal  war,  it  flies  into  whatever  asylum  it 
can  find ;  and  solicitous  about  the  danger,  it  gene 
rally  choses  the  worst. 

Upon  the  whole,  in  this  intercourse  betwixt 
lago  and  Othello,  Shakspeare  has  shown  the  most 
complete  knowledge  of  the  human  heart.  Here 
he  has  put  forth  all  the  strength  of  his  genius ;  the 
faults  which  he  is  so  prone  to  fall  into  are  entirely 
out  of  sight.  We  find  none  of  his  quibbling,  his 
punning,  or  bombast ;  all  is  seriousness,  all  is  pas 
sion.  He  brings  human  nature  into  the  most  diffi 
cult  situation  that  can  be  conceived,  and  with 
matchless  skill  he  supports  it.  Who  can  read 
those  admirable  scenes  without  being  touched  in  4 
the  most  sensible  manner  for  the  high  grief  of 


360  MEMORIALS    OF     SHAKSPEARE. 

Othello  ?  Plunged  into  a  sea  of  troubles  which  he 
did  not  deserve,  we  see  him  torn  asunder  in  the 
most  cruel  manner.  How  feeling  are  his  reflec 
tions  on  his  own  state  of  mind ! 


Perdition  catch  my  soul 


If  I  do  not  love  thee ;  and  when  I  love  thee  not, 
Chaos  is  come  again. 

I'd  rather  be  a  toad, 

And  live  upon  the  vapour  of  a  dungeon. 
Than  keep  a  corner  in  the  thing  I  love, 
For  others'  use. 

Oh  now,  for  ever 

Farewel  the  tranquil  mind,  farewel  content. 

And  afterwards  : 

Had  it  pleased  heaven 

To  try  me  with  affliction ;  had  he  rain'd 

All  kinds  of  sores  and  shames  on  my  bare  head, 

Steep'd  me  in  poverty  to  the  very  lips, 

Given  to  captivity  me  and  my  hopes ; 

I  should  have  found  in  some  place  of  my  soul 

A  drop  of  patience.     But,  alas  !  to  make  me 

A  fixed  figure  for  the  hand  of  scorn 

To  point  his  slow  and  moving  finger  at — 

Yet  could  I  bear  that  too,  well,  very  well. 

But  there,  where  I  have  garner'd  up  my  heart ; 

Where  either  I  must  live,  or  bear  no  life ; 

The  fountain  from  the  which  my  current  runs, 

Or  else  dries  up ;  to  be  discarded  thence, 

Or  keep  it  as  a  cistern  for  foul  toads 

To  knot  and  gender  in  :  Turn  thy  complection  there, 

Patience,  thou  young  and  rose-lipt  cherubim  ; 

Ay,  there  look  grim  as  hell. 

After  sustaining  a  violent  conflict  betwixt  love 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    OTHELLO.  361 

and  revenge,  his  high  spirit  finally  resolves  into 
the  latter/ 

W.  N.« 

f  Bishop  Lowth,  speaking  of  Othello,  judiciously  observes, 
"  that  the  passion  of  jealousy,  its  causes,  circumstances,  pro 
gress,  and  effects,  are  more  accurately,  more  copiously,  more 
satisfactorily  described  in  one  drama  of  Shakspeare  than  in  all 
the  disputations  of  philosophy. 

«  Anderson's  Bee,  Vol.  i,  pp.  87  ad  90,  p.  132  ad  136. 


362  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 


No.  VIII. 
CRITICAL  REMARKS  ON  OTHELLO  CONCLUDED. 

IT  has  been  observed  of  Shakspeare  that  he 
has  not  often  exhibited  the  delicacy  of  female 
character,  and  this  has  been  sufficiently  apolo 
gized  for,  from  the  uncivilized  age  in  which  he 
lived ;  and  women  never  appearing  upon  the 
stage  in  his  time,  might  have  made  him  less 
studious  in  this  department  of  the  drama.  Indeed, 
when. we  consider  his  strength  of  mind,  his  ima 
gination,  which  delighted  in  whatever  was  bold 
and  daring,  we  should  almost  think  it  impossible 
that  he  could  enter  into  all  the  softness  and  refine 
ment  of  love.  But  in  spite  of  all  these  disad 
vantages,  he  has  shown  that,  in  whatever  view  he 
chose  to  behold  human  nature,  he  could  perform 
it  superior  to  any  other ;  for  nowhere  in  the 
writings  of  Shakspeare,  or  any  where  else,  have 
we  found  the  female  character  drawn  with  so 
much  tenderness  and  beauty  as  in  that  of  Desde- 
mona.  The  gentleness  with  which  she  behaves  to 
all  with  whom  she  converses,  the  purity,  the 
modesty,  the  warmth  of  her  love,  her  resignation 
in  the  deepest  distress,  together  with  her  personal 
accomplishments,  attract  our  highest  regard  ;  but 
that  which  chiefly  distinguishes  her,  is  that  ex- 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    OTHELLO.  363 

quisite  sensibility  of  imagination  which  interested 
her  so  much  in  the  dangers  of  Othello's  youthful 
adventures ;  a  passion  natural  enough  indeed, 
though  it  is  not  every  one  who  is  capable  of  ex 
periencing  it.  Othello,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
naturally  of  an  heroic  and  amiable  disposition  ; 
but  when  by  his  bold  undertakings  he  is  exposed 
to  imminent  dangers,  he  would  then  shine  in  his 
brightest  colours :  all  his  magnanimity  and  all 
his  address  are  brought  to  view ;  at  that  moment 
all  the  generous  affections  of  the  soul  would  be 
drawn  towards  him, — admiration  of  his  virtues, 
wishes  for  his  success,  and  solicitude  for  his  safety. 
And  when  the  best  feelings  of  the  heart  are  thus 
lavished  on  a  certain  object,  it  is  no  wonder  it 
should  settle  into  fixed  love  and  esteem. 

Such  was  the  sublimated  passion  of  Desdemona, 
inspired  solely  by  internal  beauty.  The  person  of 
Othello  had  every  thing  to  cool  desire  :  possessing 
not  only  the  black  complexion  and  the  swarthy 
features  of  the  African,  he  was  also  declined,  as  he 
says,  into  the  vale  of  years.  But  his  mind  was 
every  thing  to  Desdemona ;  it  supplied  the  place  of 
youth  by  its  ardour,  and  of  every  personal  accom 
plishment  by  its  strength,  its  elevation,  and  soft 
ness.  Where,  in  all  the  annals  of  love,  do  we  find 
so  pure  and  so  disinterested  a  passion,  supported 
with  so  much  dignity'and  nature  ?  She  loved  him 
for  the  dangers  he  had  passed ;  upon  this  fleeting  and 
incorporeal  idea  did  she  rest  her  affections,  upon 
abstract  feelings  and  qualities  of  the  mind,  which 


364  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

must  require  in  her  all  that  warmth  of  imagina 
tion,  and  liveliness  of  conception,  which  distinguish 
the  finest  genius. 

The  character  of  this  exquisite  lady  is  always 
consistently  supported.     Her   behaviour  towards 
Cassio  shows,  in  a  particular  manner,  her  liberal 
and  benevolent  heart ;  and  her  conversation  with 
Emilia   about   the    heinousness  of  infidelity  is  a 
striking  picture  of  innocent  purity :  it  is  artfully 
introduced,  and  adds  much  to  the  pathos  of  the 
tragedy.     The  circumstances  of  ordering  her  wed 
ding  sheets  to  be  put  on  her  bed,  and  the  melan 
choly  song  of  a  willow,  are  well  imagined,  and 
waken    the   mind  to  expect  some  dreadful  revo 
lution.    Indeed,  throughout  the  whole  scene  before 
her  death  an  awful  solemnity  reigns.    The  mind  of 
Desdemona  seems  to  be  in  a  most  agitated  con 
dition  :  she  starts  an  observation  about  Lodovico, 
and  immediately  falls  into  her  gloomy  thoughts, 
paying  no  attention  to  the  answer  of  Emilia,  though 
connected  with  an  anecdote  that  would  have  at 
another  time  raised  her  curiosity.    This  absence  of 
mind  shows  beyond  the  power   of  language  her 
afflicted   and   tortured  state.     But  what  gives  a 
finishing   stroke   to   the   terror   of  this  midnight 
scene,    is  the   rustling   of  the   wind,   which  the 
affrighted  imagination  of  Desdemona  supposes  to 
be  one  knocking  at  the  door.     This  circumstance, 
which  would  have  been  overlooked  as  trifling  by 
an  inferior  writer,  has  a  most  sublime  effect  in  the 
hands  of  Shakspeare ;  and  till  the  fatal  catastrophe, 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    OTHELLO.  365 

the  same  horribly  interesting  sensations  are  kept 
up.  Othello  enters  her  bedchamber  with  a  sword 
and  candle,  in  that  perturbation  and  distraction  of 
mind  which  marked  his  behaviour  since  the  sup 
posed  discovery  of  her  guilt,  remains  of  tenderness 
still  struggling  with  revenge  in  his  bosom;  and 
a  conversation  is  protracted,  during  which  the 
mind  is  arrested  in  a  state  of  the  most  dreadful 
suspense  that  can  well  be  imagined. 

Had  Othello  been  actuated  by  cruelty  alone  in 
this  action  ;  had  he,  to  gratify  a  savage  nature,  put 
Desdemona  to  death,  the  scene  would  have  been 
shocking,  and  we  should  have  turned  from  it  with 
aversion.  But  instigated  as  he  is  by  the  noble 
principles  of  honour  and  justice,  and  weighing  at 
the  same  time  the  reluctance  with  which  he  per 
forms  it,  and  the  great  sacrifice  which  he  makes  to 
his  finest  feelings,  it  on  these  accounts  produces 
those  mournfully  pleasing  sensations,  which  to 
attain  is  the  highest  praise  of  the  tragic  poet. 

In  the  final  unravelling  of  the  plot,  there  is  often 
great  difficulty  ;  it  is  the  grand  point  to  which  the 
author  aims  in  the  course  of  successive  scenes, 
and  upon  the  proper  execution  of  it  depends  much 
of  the  merit  of  the  work.  Here  Shakspeare  has 
not  fallen  off.  The  same  high  tone  of  passion  is 
preserved.  Upon  the  discovery  of  Desdemona's 
innocence,  and  the  intrigues  of  lago,  all  the  cha 
racters  act  a  very  consistent  and  natural  part. 
Othello's  distraction  is  painted  in  an  inimitable 
manner.  Unwilling  to  believe  that  he  had  acted 


366  MEMORIALS    OF     SHAKSPEARE. 

upon  false  grounds,  and  confounded  with  contrary 
evidence,  he  knows  not  where  to  betake  himself. 
After  uttering  a  few  incoherent  speeches,  which 
show  in  the  strongest  light  a  mind  rent  with  grief 
and  remorse,  he  gradually  recovers  himself;  and  re 
suming,  as  much  as  possible,  his  natural  composure 
and  firmness,  he  looks  around  him  a  little,  and 
deliberately  views  his  wretched  situation ;  but 
finding  no  peace  for  him  on  earth,  he  terminates 
his  existence.11 

lago  also  stands  forth  in  the  group  a  just  monu 
ment  of  his  own  crimes.  Seeing  the  proof  too 
plain  against  him,  he  can  brave  it  out  no  longer. 
He  sees  no  prospect  of  escape  from  any  quarter ; 
his  own  arts  are  now  of  no  avail ;  and  he  knows 
that  he  deserves  no  pity :  he  gives  up  all  for  lost, 
and  resolves  upon  a  state  of  dumb  desperation, 
most  expressive  of  the  horror  of  his  mind.  In  this 
state,  we  have  the  satisfaction  to  see  him  dragged 
to  deserved  punishment.1 

h  "  No  eloquence,"  remarks  Schlegel,  "  is  capable  of  paint 
ing  the  overwhelming  force  of  the  catastrophe  in  Othelloj  the 
pressure  of  feelings  which  measure  out  in  a  moment  the 
abysses  of  eternity." — Lectures  on  Dramatic  Literature,  vol. 
ii.  p.  192. 

1  "  lago,"  as  I  have  elsewhere  observed,  "  the  most  cool  and 
malignant  villain  which  the  annals  of  iniquity  have  ever  record 
ed,  would,  from  the  detestation  which  accompanies  his  every 
action,  be  utterly  insupportable  in  the  representation,  were  it 
not  for  the  talents,  for  the  skill  and  knowledge  in  the  springs 
and  principles  of  human  thought  and  feeling,  which  he  con 
stantly  displays,  and  which,  fortunately  for  the  moral  of  the 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    OTHELLO.  367 

It  might  now  be  expected  that  we  should  pro 
ceed  to  the  ungrateful  task  of  pointing  out  what  a 
critic  would  blame  in  this  tragedy.  I  have  already 
observed  that  it  is  perhaps  the  most  sublime  and 
finished  of  Shakspeare's  compositions ;  yet,  were  I 
to  point  out  all  its  redundancies,  puns,  conceits, 
and  other  faults,  which  are  commonly  taken  notice 
of  in  this  author,  I  might  fill  some  pages.  Such 
a  detail,  however,  would  be  trivial  and  impertinent. 
No  person,  who  can  relish  its  beauties,  will  be  much 
offended  with  any  thing  of  this  kind  in  the  course 
of  perusing  Othello.  Its  excellences  are  so  bold 
and  so  striking,  as  to  make  the  blemishes  almost 
wholly  vanish  in  the  midst  of  their  splendour.  In 
a  rude  age,  it  is  indeed  even  the  mark  of  a  rich 
and  luxuriant  mind  to  abound  in  faults,  in  the 
same  manner  that  a  strong  and  fertile  soil  produces 
most  weeds  : 

What  are  the  lays  of  artful  Addison, 

Coldly  correct,  to  Shakspeare's  warblings  wild  ! 

It  is  with  much  regret,  however,  we  must  ob 
serve  that,  after  Shakspeare  had  supported,  with 

scene,  while  they  excite  and  keep  alive  an  eager  interest  and 
curiosity,  shield  him  not  from  our  abhorrence  and  condemna 
tion." 

And,  in  reference  to  the  lights  and  shades  which  so  admi 
rably  diversify  this  striking  drama,  I  immediately  afterwards 
remark,  "  Amid  this  whirlwind  and  commotion  of  hatred  and 
revenge,  the  modest,  the  artless,  the  unsuspicious  Desdemona, 
seems,  in  the  soothing  but  transient  influence  which  she  exerts, 
like  an  evening  star,  that  beams  lovely,  for  a  moment,  on  the 
dark  heavings  of  the  tempest,  and  then  is  lost  for  ever !" — 
Shakspeare  and  his  Times,  vol.  ii.  p.  531. 


368  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

uniform  propriety,  one  of  the  most  difficult  cha 
racters  genius  ever  attempted,  he  should  at  last 
fall  off,  and  put  a  trifling  conceit  in  the  mouth  of 
the  dying  man : 

OTH.  I  kiss'd  thee  e'er  I  kill'd  thee— no  way  but  this, 
Killing  myself  to  die  upon  a  kiss. 

It  might  also  be  objected  to  the  contrivance  of 
the  plot,  that  lago  had  not  sufficient  motives  for 
the  perpetration  of  so  many  horrid  crimes;  and 
this  the  sagacity  of  Shakspeare  has  foreseen,  and 
with  much  address  obviated.  In  the  course  of  our 
observations,  we  have  already  noticed  that  he  does 
not  suppose  lago,  in  his  first  setting  out,  resolutely 
to  plan  the  destruction  of  Desdemona  and  Cassio. 
The  objects  he  had  in  view  were  to  get  possession 
of  the  wealth  of  Roderigo,  and  to  be  preferred  in 
the  place  of  Cassio  ;  but  seeing  matters  beginning 
to  be  embroiled  around  him,  the  firm  and  un 
daunted  lago  will  not  stop  short,  whatever  should 
be  the  consequence.  By  thus  viewing  his  con 
duct,  it  will  appear  natural  and  probable.  He 
wishes  (as  human  nature  ever  must)  to  view  him 
self  even  for  a  moment  in  the  light  of  an  honest 
man: — 

And  what's  he  then  that  says  I  play  the  villain,  &c. 

Act.  2.  Sc.  iv. 

But  the  principal  fault  which  we  observe  in 
this  performance,  is  a  want  of  consistency  in  sup 
porting  the  upright  and  disinterested  character 
Emilia.  We  can  easily  suppose,  in  the  first  place, 
that  she  might  procure  Desdemona's  napkin  for 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    OTHELLO.  369 

her  husband  without  seeming  to  concur  with  him, 
or  even  suspect  his  schemes ;  but  when  afterwards, 
in  the  tenth  scene  of  the  third  act,  she  sees  the 
improper  use  to  which  the  napkin  is  applied, 
and  the  great  distress  which  the  loss  of  it  occa 
sioned  to  Desdemona,  without  so  much  as  wishing 
to  explain  the  misunderstanding,  she  is  no  more 
the  open  and  virtuous  Emilia,  but  a  coadjutor 
with  her  dark  and  unfeeling  husband.  This  is  a 
remarkable  violation  of  every  appearance  of  pro 
bability,  when  we  contrast  it  with  her  noble  and 
spirited  conduct  afterwards.  We  are  surprised  to 
find  a  slip  of  so  much  magnitude  from  the  clear 
and  piercing  judgment  of  Shakspeare,  especially 
when  we  consider  that  it  would  have  been  very 
easily  remedied  by  removing  her  during  this 
interview^ 

W.  N.k 

3  If  we  consider  Shakspeare,  as  I  am  persuaded  we  must  do, 
not  intending  to  represent  Emilia  as  by  any  means  a  perfectly 
correct  character,  this  seeming  inconsistency  will  immediately 
vanish.  Of  this  opinion  is  Schlegel,  who  says  :  "  to  give  still 
greater  effect  to  the  angelic  purity  of  Desdemona,  Shakspeare 
has,  in  Emilia,  associated  with  her  a  companion  of  doubtful 
virtue.  From  the  sinful  levity  of  this  woman,  it  is  also  con 
ceivable  that  she  should  not  confess  the  abstraction  of  the 
handkerchief,  when  Othello  violently  demands  it  back :  this 
would,  otherwise,  be  the  circumstance  in  the  whole  piece  the 
most  difficult  to  justify." — Lectures  on  Dramatic  Literature, 
vol.  ii.  p.  192. 

*  Anderson's  Bee,  vol.  i.  p.  176  ad  p.  181. 


2    A 


370  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 


No.  IX. 

CRITICISM  ON  THE  CHARACTER  AND  TRAGEDY 

OF  HAMLET. 

j  -Z'.i'.i     <-.         •         ••'..'.  v  . : j'r.  .' 

CRITICISM,  like  every  thing  else,  is  subject 
to  the  prejudices  of  our  education  or  of  our 
country.  National  prejudice,  indeed,  is,  of  all 
deviations  from  justice,  the  most  common  and  the 
most  allowable ;  it  is  a  near,  though  perhaps  an 
illegitimate,  relation  of  that  patriotism  which  has 
been  ranked  among  the  first  virtues  of  characters 
the  most  eminent  and  illustrious.  To  authors, 
however,  of  a  rank  so  elevated  as  to  aspire  to 
universal  fame,  the  partiality  of  their  countrymen 
has  been  sometimes  prejudicial;  in  proportion  as 
they  have  unreasonably  applauded,  the  critics  of 
other  countries,  from  a  very  common  sort  of 
feeling,  have  unreasonably  censured  ;  and  there 
are  few  great  writers,  whom  prejudice  on  either 
side  may  not,  from  a  partial  view  of  their  works, 
find  some  ground  for  estimating  at  a  rate  much 
above  or  much  below  the  standard  of  justice. 

No  author,  perhaps,  ever  existed,  of  whom 
opinion  has  been  so  various  as  Shakspeare.  En 
dowed  with  all  the  sublimity,  and  subject  to  all 
the  irregularities  of  genius,  his  advocates  have 
room  for  unbounded  praise,  and  their  opponents 


CRITICISM    ON    HAMLET.  371 

for  frequent  blame.  His  departure  from  all  the 
common  rules  which  criticism,  somewhat  arbitra 
rily  perhaps,  has  imposed,  leaves  no  legal  code  by 
which  the  decision  can  be  regulated ;  and  in  the 
feelings  of  different  readers,  the  same  passage  may 
appear  simple  or  mean,  natural  or  preposterous, 
may  excite  admiration,  or  create  disgust. 

But  it  is  not,  I  apprehend,  from  particular 
passages  or  incidents  that  Shakspeare  is  to  be 
judged.  Though  his  admirers  frequently  contend 
for  beauty  in  the  most  distorted  of  the  former,  and 
probability  in  the  most  unaccountable  of  the 
latter ;  yet  it  must  be  owned  that  in  both  there 
are  often  gross  defects  which  criticism  cannot 
justify,  though  the  situation  of  the  poet,  and  the 
time  in  which  he  wrote,  may  easily  excuse.  But 
we  are  to  look  for  the  superiority  of  Shakspeare  in 
the  astonishing  and  almost  supernatural  powers 
of  his  invention,  his  absolute  command  over  the 
passions,  and  his  wonderful  knowledge  of  nature. 
Of  the  structure  of  his  stories,  or  the  probability 
of  his  incidents,  he  is  frequently  careless, — these 
he  took  at  random  from  the  legendary  tale,  or  the 
extravagant  romance ;  but  his  intimate  acquaint 
ance  with  the  human  mind  seldom  or  never 
forsakes  him ;  and  amidst  the  most  fantastic  and 
improbable  situations,  the  persons  of  his  drama 
speak  in  the  language  of  the  heart,  and  in  the 
style  of  their  characters. 

Of  all  the  characters  of  Shakspeare,  that  of 
Hamlet  has  been  generally  thought  the  most' 


372  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEAHE. 

difficult  to  be  reduced  to  any  fixed  or  settled - 
principle.  With  the  strongest  purposes  of  revenge,  - 
he  is  irresolute  and  inactive ;  amidst  the,,  gloom , 
of  the  deepest  melancholy,  he  is  gay  and  jocular ;  . 
and  while  he  is  described  as  a  passionate  lover,  he , 
seems  indifferent  about  the  object  of  his  affections. 
ft  may  be  worth  while  to  inquire  whether  any 
leading  idea  can  be  found,  upon  which  these 
apparent  contradictions  may  be  reconciled,  and  a 
character  so  pleasing  in  the  closet,  and  so  much 
applauded  on  the  stage,  rendered  as  unambiguous 
in  the  general  as  it  is  striking  in  detail.  I  will 
venture  to  lay  before  my  readers  some  observa 
tions  on  this  subject,  though  with  the  diffidence 
due  to  a  question  of  which  the  public  has  doubted, 
and  much  abler  critics  have  already  written. 

The  basis  of  Hamlet's  character  seems  to  be  an  . 
extreme  sensibility  of  mind,  apt  to  be  strongly- 
impressed  by  its  situation,  and  overpowered  by. 
the  feelings  which  that  situation  excites.  Natu-  • 
rally  of  the  most  virtuous  and  most  amiable  dis-  . 
positions,  the  circumstances  in  which  he  was . 
placed  unhinged  those  principles  of  action,  which,, 
in  another  situation,  would  have  delighted  man-, 
kind,  and  made  himself  happy.  That  kind  of4 
distress  which  he  suffered  was,  beyond  all  others, » 
calculated  to  produce  this  effect.  His  misfor- , 
tunes  were  not  the  misfortunes  of  accident,  which,  > 
though  they  may  overwhelm  at  first,  the  mind, 
will  soon  call  up  reflections  to  alleviate,  and  hopes » 
to  cheer :  they  were  such  as  reflection  only  serves » 


CRITICISM    ON    HAMLET.  373 

to  irritate,  such  as  rankle  in  the  soul's  tenderest  , 
part,  her  sense  of  virtue,  and  feelings  of  natural  • 
affection  ;  they  arose  from  an  uncle's  villainy,  a  . 
mother's  guilt,  a  father's  murder ! — Yet  amidst  the  • 
gloom  of  melancholy,  and  the  agitation  of  passion, , 
in  which  his  calamities   involve  him,   there   are 
occasional  breakings-out  of  a  mind  richly  endowed 
by  nature,  and  cultivated  by  education.     We  per-  • 
ceive  gentleness   in   his   demeanour,   wit  in   his  , 
conversation,  taste  in  his  amusements,  and  wisdom  • 
in  his  reflections. 

That  Hamlet's  character,  thus  formed  by  nature, 
and  thus  modelled  by  situation,  is  often  variable 
and  uncertain,  I  am  not  disposed  to  deny.     I  will 
content  myself  with  the  supposition  that  this  is 
the  very  character  which  Shakspeare  meant  to 
allot  him.    Finding  such  a  character  in  real  life,  of 
a  person  endowed  with  feelings  so  delicate  as  to    ' 
border  on  weakness,  with  sensibility  too  exquisite  • 
to  allow  of  determined  action,  he  has  placed  it  ' 
where  it  could  be  best  exhibited,  in  scenes  of  • 
wonder,  of  terror,  and  of  indignation,  where  its  va-  • 
rying  emotions   might  be  most  strongly  marked   . 
amidst  the  workings  of  imagination,  and  the  war  of  t 
the  passions. 

This  is  the  very  management  of  the  character 
by  which,  above  all  others,  we  could  be  interested 
in  its  behalf.     Had  Shakspeare  made  Hamlet  pur-   . 
sue  his  vengeance  with  a  steady  determined  pur-   • 
pose,  had  he  led  him  through  difficulties  arising  • 
from  accidental  causes,  and  hot  from  the  doubts  • 


374  MEMORIALS     OF    SHAKSPEARK. 

and  hesitation  of  his  own  mind,  the  anxiety  of  the 
spectator  might  have  been  highly  raised ;  but  it 
would  have  been  anxiety  for  the  event,  not  for  the 
person.  As  it  is,  we  feel  not  only  the  virtues,  but 
the  weaknesses  of  Hamlet,  as  our  own  ;  we  see  a 
man  who,  in  other  circumstances,  would  have  ex 
ercised  all  the  moral  and  social  virtues,  one  whom 
nature  had  formed  to  be 

Th1  expectancy  and  rose  of  the  fair  state, 
The  glass  of  fashion,  and  the  mould  of  form, 
Th'  observ'd  of  all  observers, 

placed  in  a  situation  in  which  even  the  amiable 
qualities  of  his  mind  serve  but  to  aggravate  his  dis 
tress,  and  to  perplex  his  conduct.  Our  compassion 
for  the  firstr  and  our  anxiety  for  the  latter,  are 
excited  in  the  strongest  manner ;  and  hence  arises 
that  indescribable  charm  in  Hamlet,  which  attracts 
every  reader  and  every  spectator,  which  the  more 
perfect  characters  of  other  tragedies  never  dispose 
us  to  feel. 

The  Orestes  of  the  Greek  poet,  who,  at  his  first 
appearance,  lays  down  a  plan  of  vengeance  which 
he  resolutely  pursues,  interests  us  for  the  accom 
plishment  of  his  purpose  ;  but  of  him  we  think 
only  as  the  instrument  of  that  justice  which  we 
wish  to  overtake  the  murderers  of  Agamemnon. 
We  feel  with  Orestes,  (or  rather  with  Sophocles, 
for  in  such  passages  we  always  hear  the  poet  in  his 
hero,)  that  '  it  is  fit  that  such  gross  infringements 
of  the  moral  law  should  be  punished  with  death, 


CRITICISM    ON    HAMLET.  375 

in  order  to  render  wickedness  less  frequent;'  but 
when  Horatio  exclaims  on  the  death  of  his  friend,     - 

Now  crack'd  a  noble  heart ! 

we  forget  the  murder  of  the  king,  the  villainy  of , 
Claudius,  the  guilt  of  Gertrude;  our  recollection  • 
dwells  only  on  the  memory  of  that  '  sweet  prince/ % 
the  delicacy  of  whose  feelings  a  milder  planet ' 
should  have  ruled,  whose  gentle  virtues  should  ' 
have  bloomed  through  a  life  of  felicity  and  useful-  • 
ness. 

Hamlet,  from  the  very  opening  of  the  piece,  is  • 
delineated  as  one  under  the  dominion  of  melan-  . 
choly,  whose  spirits  were  overborne  by  his  feelings.  • 
Grief  for  his  father's  death,  and  displeasure  at  his  , 
mother's   marriage,    prey  on   his   mind;    and  he, 
seems,  with  the  weakness  natural  to  such  a  dispo-. 
sition,  to  yield  to  their   controul.     He  does  not   ' 
attempt  to  resist  or  combat  these  impressions,  but 
is  willing  to  fly  from  the  contest,  though  it  were 
into  the  grave. 

Oh!  that  this  too  too  solid  flesh  would  melt,  &c. 

Even  after  his  father's  ghost  has  informed  him  of 
his  murder,  and  commissioned  him  to  avenge  it, 
we  find  him  complaining  of  that  situation  in  which 
his  fate  had  placed  him : 

The  time  is  out  of  joint;  oh  !  cursed  spight, 
That  ever  I  was  born  to  set  it  right ! 

And  afterwards,  in  the  perplexity  of  his  condition, 
meditating  on  the  expediency  of  suicide : 


376  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

1  To  be,  or  not  to  be,  that  is  the  question. 

The  account  he  gives  of  his  own  feelings  ta 
Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern,  which  is  evidently 
spoken  in  earnest,  though  somewhat  covered  with 
the  mist  of  his  affected  distraction,  is  exactly  de 
scriptive  of  a  mind  full  of  that  weariness  of  life 
which  is  characteristic  of  low  spirits  :  '  This  goodly 
frame,  the  earth,  seems  to  me  a  sterile  promon 
tory/  £c.  And,  indeed,  he  expressly  delineates 
his  own  character  as  of  the  kind  above-mentioned, 
when,  hesitating  on  the  evidence  of  his  uncle's 

villainy,  he  says, 
• 

The  spirit  that  I  have  seen 
May  be  the  devil,  and  the  devil  hath  power 
T'  assume  a  pleasing  shape ;  yea,  and  perhaps, 
Out  of  my  weakness  and  my  melancholy, 
Abuses  me  to  damn  me. 

This  doubt  of  the  grounds  on  which  our  purpose  is 
founded,  is  as  often  the  effect  as  the  cause  of 
irresolution,  which  first  hesitates,  and  then  seeks 
out  an  excuse  for  its  hesitation. 

It  may,  perhaps,  be  doing  Shakspeare  no  injus 
tice  to  suppose  that  he  sometimes  began  a  play 
without  having  fixed  in  his  mind,  in  any  deter 
mined  manner,  the  plan  or  conduct  of  his  piece. 
The  character  of  some  principal  person  of  the 
drama  might  strike  his  imagination  strongly  in  the 
opening  scenes ;  as  he  went  on,  this  character 


CRITICISM    ON    HAMLET.  377 

would  continue  to  impress  itself  on  the  conduct  as 
well  as  the  discourse  of  that  person,  and,  it  is  pos 
sible,  might  affect  the  situations   and  incidents, 
especially  in  those  romantic  or  legendary  subjects, 
where  history  did  not  confine  him  to  certain  un 
changeable  events.     In  the  story  of  Amleth,  the 
son   of  Horwondil,  told    by   Saxo-Grammaticus, 
from  which  the  tragedy  of  Hamlet  is  taken,  the 
young  prince,  who  is  to  revenge  the  death  of  his 
father,  murdered  by  his  uncle  Fen  go,  counterfeits 
madness,  that  he  may  be  allowed  to  remain  about 
the  court  in   safety  and  without  suspicion.     He 
never  forgets  his  purposed  vengeance,  and  acts 
with  much  more  cunning  towards  its  accomplish 
ment  than  the  Hamlet  of  Shakspeare.    But  Shak- 
speare,  wishing  to  elevate  the  hero  of  his  tragedy,  . 
and  at  the  same  time  to  interest  the  audience  in  • 
his  behalf,  throws  around  him,  from  the  beginning,   • 
the  majesty  of  melancholy,  along  with  that  sort  of  • 
weakness  and  irresolution  which  frequently  attends    ' 
it.     The  incident  of  the  Ghost,  which  is  entirely    * 
the  poet's  own,  and  not  to  be  found  in  the  Danish    , 
legend,  net  only  produces  the  happiest  stage  effect,   . 
but  is  also  of  the  greatest  advantage  in  unfolding  • 
that  character  which  is  stamped  on  the  young  . 
prince  at  the  opening  of  the  play.     In  the  commu-  . 
nications  of  such  a  visionary  being,  there  is  an  un-  > 
certain  kind  of  belief,  and  a  dark  unlimited  horror,  ' 
which  are  aptly  suited  to  display  the  wavering 
purpose  and  varied  emotions  of  a  mind  endowed 
with  a  delicacy  of  feeling  that  often  shakes  its  ' 


378  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

fortitude,    with    sensibility    that    overpowers    its 
strength.1 

MACKENZIE.1" 

1  The  following  observations  on  the  conduct  of  Hamlet, 
taken  from  the  lectures  on  Shakspeare  lately  delivered  at 
Hamburgh  by  Mr.  George  Egestorf,  and  inserted  in  the  Lite 
rary  Gazette,  appear  to  me  to  exhibit  uncommon  acuteness  and 
profundity  of  remark,  both  with  regard  to  Hamlet,  and  to  the 
object  of  the  poet  in  the  delineation  of  this  remarkable  cha 
racter. 

"  Singular  it  is,"  he  observes,  "  that  so  many  theories 
should  have  been  formed  respecting  the  personal  character  of 
Hamlet,  and  that  all  should  fall  so  far  short  of  it,  as  drawn  by 
Shakspeare  himself,  and  as  the  poet  has  put  it  into  his  own 
mouth  in  the  well-known  monologue, 

To  be,  or  not  to  be,  &c. 

a  monologue,  in  which  all  is  comprised  that  can  make  a  man 
exclaim, 

How  weary,  stale,  flat,  and  unprofitable, 
Seem  to  me  all  the  uses  of  this  world ! 

and,  at  the  same  time,  every  consideration  summed  up  that 
'  must  give  us  pause/  &c. 

"  In  this  state  of  mind,  he  is  too  much  disgusted  with  every 
thing,  that  the  assumed  air  of  kindness  in  the  usurper  should 
be  able  to  make  any  impression  upon  him.  He  is  shocked  at 
the  evident  want  of  discretion,  and  at  the  inconstancy  of  his 
mother : — 

Why  she  would  hang  on  him, 
As  if  increase  of  appetite  had  grown 
By  what  it  fed  on :  and  yet  within  a  month,  &c. 
And— 

Frailty,  thy  name  is  woman  ! 

"  After  the  discovery  has  been  made  by  the  Ghost,  and  he 
is  convinced  of  the  licentiousness  and  infidelity  of  his  parent, 
he  exclaims, 


CRITICISM    ON    HAMLET.  379 

O  most  pernicious  woman  ! 

This  makes  him  so  doubtful  respecting  conjugal  faith,  that  his 
gloomy  state  of  mind  even  casts  a  dark  shade  on  the  object  of 
his  affection — the  amiable  Ophelia  ;  a  shade  which  is  not  dis 
pelled  until  it  is  too  late.  That  he  did  not  merely  feign  an  at 
tachment  to  Ophelia,  but  really  loved  her,  is  evident  from  his 
conduct  at  her  grave,  which,  indeed,  reminds  us  of  the  beau 
tiful  lines  of  Goldsmith  : — 

To  give  repentance  to  her  lover, 
And  wring  his  bosom,  is — to  die. 

"  It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  the  poet  does  not  once  bring 
Ophelia  into  the  presence  of  Hamlet  during  her  alienation  of 
mind  :  had  Hamlet  seen  her  thus,  and  had  he  still  remained 
unmoved  by  her  calamity,  of  which  he  must  have  known  his 
conduct  to  have  been  the  cause,  his  want  of  feeling  would  have 
amounted  to  unnatural  hardness  of  heart,  and  necessarily  have 
lessened  him  in  our  esteem,  or  have  even  made  us  despise  and 
hate  him.  The  harshness  of  his  conversation  with  her  must 
likewise  be  ascribed  to  the  state  of  mind  he  was  in  when  he 
encountered  her, — immediately  after  that  energetic  and  impor 
tant  monologue.  Subsequently  to  this,  as,  for  instance,  at  the 
representation  of  the  play,  his  colloquy  with  her  is  much  more 
qualified  and  less  severe,  though  still  ironical  and  sarcastic. 

"  It  is,  however,  Hamlet's  irresolution,  his  want  of  firmness, 
his  constantly  wavering  between  a  resolve  and  its  execution, 
his  poring  and  sceptic  disposition,  as  displayed  in  the  above- 
cited  monologue,  that  the  poet  intended  to  display  in  the  per 
sonal  character  of  his  hero ;  the  danger  of  a  want  of  stability, 
which  Shakspeare  points  out  to  us,  a  state  of  mind  that  is  in 
deed  inimical  to  happiness,  and  that  renders  us  inadequate  to 
the  discharge  of  the  duties  of  our  station  in  life.  Hamlet  is 
not  a  character  of  exemplary  virtue,  and  was  not  designed  by 
the  poet  to  be  such  ;  he  is,  however,  perfectly  a  dramatical 
character,  and  engages  our  attention  from  the  commencement 
to  the  conclusion  of  the  representation,  which  could  not  be  the 
case  if  he  were  a  character  unfit  for  representation  on  the 
stage.  Those  who,  notwithstanding  this,  would  fain  dispute 


380  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

the  point,  would  do  well  to  examine  the  character  of  Achilles, 
and  then  tell  us  whether  the  choler  and  obstinate  desire  of 
vengeance  in  Achilles,  so  pernicious  in  their  effects,  and  which 
brought  a  thousand  ills  on  the  Grecian  camp, — whether  these 
be  characteristics  of  a  hero  who  may  be  pointed  out  as  being 
virtuous?  and  whether  we  are  thence  to  conclude  that  Homer, 
the  father  of  poets,  made  an  injudicious  choice  in  the  subject 
of  his  epopee?  The  unbounded  pride  of  Achilles,  his  disobe 
dience  to  his  general,  his  cruelty  to  his  dead  enemy,  and  his 
selling  the  body  of  his  son  to  old  Priam, — all  these  we  abhor 
while  we  read  them ;  and  the  poet  only  shows  them,  as  Dryden 
justly  observes,  not  to  be  imitated,  but  like  rocks  and  quick 
sands,  to  be  carefully  avoided  and  shunned.  Thus  Shakspeare 
has  set  up  the  character  of  Hamlet,  like  some  pharos  or  bea 
con-light,  at  the  bickering  flame  of  which  we  are  not  to  kindle 
the  torch  which  is  to  light  us  on  our  way,  but  of  which  we  are 
to  steer  clear  on  the  ocean  of  our  lives." — Literary  Gazette, 
October  13,  1827. 

">  The  Mirror,  No.  99,  April  18,  1780. 


CRITICISM    ON    HAMLET,  381 


No.  X. 

CRITICISM  ON  THE  CHARACTER  AND  TRAGEDY 
OF  HAMLET  CONCLUDED. 

THE  view  of  Hamlet's  character  exhibited  in  the 
last  number,  may,  perhaps,  serve  to  explain  a 
difficulty  which  has  always  occurred  both  to  the 
reader  and  the  spectator,  on  perceiving  his  mad 
ness,  at  one  time,  put  on  the  appearance,  not  of 
fiction,  but  of  reality  ;  a  difficulty  by  which  some 
have  been  induced  to  suppose  the  distraction  of  the 
prince  a  strange  unaccountable  mixture  throughout 
of  real  insanity  and  counterfeit  disorder. 

The  distraction  of  Hamlet,  however,  is  clearly  * 
affected  through  the  whole  play,  always  subject  • 
to  the  controul  of  his  reason,  and  subservient  to  • 
the  accomplishment  of  his  designs.     At  the  grave  . 
of  Ophelia,  indeed,  it  ^exhibits  some   temporary 
marks  of  a  real  disorder.     His  mind,  subject  from 
nature  to  all  the  weakness  of  sensibility,  agitated 
by  the  incidental  misfortune  of  Ophelia's  death,   • 
amidst  the  dark  and  permanent  impression  of  his  • 
revenge,  is  thrown  for  a  while  off  its  poise,  and,  in 
the  paroxysm  of  thej  moment,  breaks  forth  into  • 
that    extravagant   rhapsody  which   he   utters  to  « 
Laertes. 

Counterfeited  madness,  in  a  person  of  the  cha-  . 


382  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

racter  I  have  ascribed  to  Hamlet,  could  not  be  so 
uniformly  kept  up,  as  not  to  allow  the  reigning 
impressions  of  his  mind  to  show  themselves  in  the 
midst  of  his  affected  extravagance.  It  turned 
chiefly  on  his  love  to  Ophelia,  which  he  meant  to 
hold  forth  as  its  great  subject ;  but  it  frequently 
glanced  on  the  wickedness  of  his  uncle,  his  know 
ledge  of  which  it  was  certainly  his  business  to 
conceal. 

In  two  of  Shakspeare's  tragedies  are  introduced, 
at  the  same  time,  instances  of  counterfeit  madness 
and  of  real  distraction.  In  both  plays  the  same 
distinction  is  observed,  and  the  false  discriminated 
from  the  true  by  similar  appearances.  Lear's 
imagination  constantly  runs  on  the  ingratitude  of 
his  daughters,  and  the  resignation  of  his  crown  ; 
and  Ophelia,  after  she  has  wasted  the  first  ebul 
lience  of  her  distraction  in  some  wild  and  inco 
herent  sentences,  fixes  on  the  death  of  her  father 
for  the  subject  of  her  song : 

They  bore  him  bare-fac'd  on  the  bier.- — 
And  will  he  not  come  again  ? 
And  will  he  not  come  again  ?  &c. 

But  Edgar  puts  on  a  semblance  as  opposite  as  may 
be  to  his  real  situation  and  his  ruling  thoughts. 
He  never  ventures  on  any  expression  bordering 
on  the  subjects  of  a  father's  cruelty,  or  a  son's 
misfortune.  Hamlet,  in  the  same  manner,  were 
he  as  firm  in  mind  as  Edgar,  would  never  hint  any 
thing  in  his  affected  disorder  that  might  lead  to  a 


CRITICISM    ON    HAMLET.  383 

suspicion  of  his  having  discovered  the  villainy  of 
his  uncle;  but  his  feeling,  too  powerful  for  his 
prudence,  often  breaks  through  that  disguise  which 
it  seems  to  have  been  his  original,  and  ought  to 
have  continued  his  invariable  purpose  to  main 
tain,  till  an  opportunity  should  present  itself  of 
accomplishing  the  revenge  which  he  meditated. 

Of  the  reality  of  Hamlet's  love,  doubts  have   • 
also  been   suggested.     But    if   that    delicacy   of  , 
feeling,  approaching  to  weakness,  for  which  I  con-    . 
tend,  be  allowed  him,  the  aifected  abuse,  which  he    , 
suffers  at  last  to  grow  into  scurrility,  of  his  mis-  . 
tress,  will,  1  think,  be  found  not  inconsistent  with    • 
the  truth  of  his  affection  for  her.     Feeling  its  real 
force,  and  beginning  to  play  the  madman  on  that    • 
ground,  he  would  naturally  go  as  far  from   the    . 
reality  as  possible.     Had  he  not  loved  her  at  all, 
or  slightly  loved  her,  he  might  have  kept  up  some 
appearance  of  passion  amidst  his  feigned  insanity ;    • 
but  really  loving  her,  he  would  have  been  hurt  by 
such  a  resemblance  in  the  counterfeit.     We  can    • 
bear  a  downright  caricature  of  our  friend  much    . 
easier  than  an  unfavourable  likeness. 

It  must  be  allowed,  however,  that  the  momen 
tous  scenes  in  which  he  is  afterwards  engaged, 
seem  to  have  smothered,  if  not  extinguished,  the 
feelings  of  his  love.  His  total  forge tfulness  of 
Ophelia  so  soon  after  her  death  cannot  easily  be 
justified.  It  is  vain,  indeed,  to  attempt  justi 
fying  Shakspeare  in  such  particulars.  "Time," 
says  Dr.  Johnson,  "  toil'd  after  him  in  vain."  He 


384  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

seems  often  to  forget  its  rights,  as  well  in  the  pro 
gress  of  the  passions,  as  in  the  business  of  the 
stage.  That  change  of  feeling  and  of  resolution 
which  time  only  can  effect,  he  brings  forth  within 
the  limits  of  a  single  scene.  Whether  love  is  to 
be  excited,  or  resentment  allayed,  guilt  to  be  made 
penitent,  or  sorrow  cheerful,  the  effect  is  fre 
quently  produced  in  a  space  hardly  sufficient  for 
words  to  express  it. 

It  has  been  remarked  that  our  great  poet  was 
not  so  happy  in  the  delineation  of  love  as  of  the 
other  passions.  Were  it  not  treason  against  the 
majesty  of  Shakspeare,  one  might  observe  that, 
though  he  looked  with  a  sort  of  instinctive  percep 
tion  into  the  recesses  of  nature,  yet  it  was  impos 
sible  for  him  to  possess  a  knowledge  of  the  refine 
ments  of  delicacy,  or  to  catch  in  his  pictures  the 
nicer  shades  of  polished  manners ;  and,  without 
this  knowledge,  love  can  seldom  be  introduced  on 
the  stage  but  with  a  degree  of  coarseness  which 
will  offend  an  audience  of  good  taste.  This  obser 
vation  is  not  meant  to  extend  to  Shakspeare's 
tragic  scenes:  in  situations  of  deep  distress  or 
violent  emotion,  the  manners  are  lost  in  the  pas 
sions  ;  but  if  we  examine  his  lovers  in  the  lighter 
scenes  of  ordinary  life,  we  shall  generally  find 
them  trespassing  against  the  rules  of  decorum,  and 
the  feelings  of  delicacy.0 

n  Assuredly  not  against  the  rules  of  decorum  and  the  feel 
ings  of  delicacy  of  the  age  in  which  the  poet  lived;  for  it  may, 
I  think,  on  sufficient  authority  be  asserted  that  the  lighter 


CRITICISM    ON    HAMLET.  385 

That  gaiety  and  playfulness  of  deportment  and 
of  conversation  which  Hamlet  sometimes  not  only  « 
assumes,  but  seems  actually  disposed  to,  is,  I  ap 
prehend,  no  contradiction  to  the  general  tone  of 
melancholy  in  his  character.  That  sort  of  melan 
choly  which  is  the  most  genuine  as  well  as  the 
most  amiable  of  any,  neither  arising  from  natural 
sourness  of  temper,  nor  prompted  by  accidental 
chagrin,  but  the  effect  of  delicate  sensibility,  im-  . 
pressed  with  a  sense  of  sorrow,  or  a  feeling  of  its 
own  weakness,  will,  I  believe,  often  be  found  in 
dulging  itself  in  a  sportfulness  of  external  beha 
viour,  amidst  the  pressure  of  a  sad,  or  even  the 
anguish  of  a  broken  heart.0  Slighter  emotions 
affect  our  ordinary  discourse ;  but  deep  distress,  . 

love-scenes  of  Shakspeare  are  often  more  chaste  and  delicate 
than  even  much  of  the  correspondence  on  amatory  subjects  of 
the  higher  classes  of  the  Elizabethan  era. 

0  "  He  who  is  acquainted  with  the  workings  of  the  human 
heart,"  as  I  have  remarked  elsewhere, "  will  be  far,  very  far  indeed, 
from  considering  this  as  any  deviation  from  the  truth  of  nature. 
Melancholy,  when  not  the  offspring  of  an  ill-spent  life,  or  of  an 
habitual  bad  temper,  but  the  consequence  of  mere  casualties 
and  misfortunes,  or  of  the  vices  and  passions  of  others,  operat 
ing  on  feelings  too  gentle,  delicate,  and  susceptible,  to  bear  up 
against  the  ruder  evils  of  existence,  will  sometimes  spring  with 
playful  elasticity  from  the  pressure  of  the  heaviest  burden,  and 
dissipating,  for  a  moment,  the  anguish  of  a  breaking  heart,  will, 
like  a  sun-beam  in  a  winter's  day,  illumine  all  around  it  with  a 
bright  but  transient  ray,  with  the  sallies  of  humorous  wit, 
and  even  with  the  hilarity  of  sportive  simplicity ;  an  inter 
change  which  serves  but  to  render  the  returning  storm  more 
deep  and  gloomy." — Shakspeare  and  his  Times,  vol.  ii.  p.  396. 

2  B 


386  MEMORIALS     OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

sitting  in  the  secret  gloom  of  the  soul,  casts  not  its 
regard  on  the  common   occurrences  of  life,  but 
suffers  them  to  trick  themselves  out  in  the  usual 
garb  of  indifference  or  of  gaiety,  according  to  the 
fashion  of  the  society  around  it,  or  the  situation  in 
which  they  chance  to  arise.     The  melancholy  man 
feels  in  himself  (if  I  may  be  allowed  the  expression) 
a  sort  of  double  person ;  one  which,  covered  with 
the  darkness  of  its  imagination,  looks  not  forth  into 
the  world,  nor  takes  any  concern  in  vulgar  objects 
or  frivolous  pursuits ;  another,  which  he  lends,  as 
it  were,  to  ordinary  men,  which  can  accommcdate 
itself  to  their  tempers  and  manners,  and  indulge, 
without  feeling  any  degradation  from  the  indul 
gence,  a  smile  with  the  cheerful,  and  a  laugh  with 
the  giddy. 

The  conversation  of  Hamlet  with  the  Grave-, 
digger  seems  to  me  to  be  perfectly  accounted  for  - 
under  this  supposition ;  and,  instead  of  feeling  it  - 
counteract  the  tragic  effect  of  the  story,  I  never  - 
see  him  in  that  scene  without  receiving,  from  his  * 
transient  jests  with  the  clown  before  him,  an  idea   • 
of  the  deepest  melancholy  being  rooted  at  his  heart.    - 
The  light  point  of  view  in  which  he  places  serious  - 
and  important  things,  marks  the  power  of  that  - 
great  impression  which  swallows  up  every  thing  - 
else  in  his  mind,  which  makes  Caesar  and  Alexan-   - 
der  so  indifferent  to  him,  that  he  can  trace  their 
remains  in  the  plaster  of  a  cottage,  or  the  stopper 
of  a  beer-barrel.     It  is  from  the  same  turn  of  mind,  - 
which,  from  the  elevation  of  its  sorrow,  looks  down   - 


CRITICISM    ON    HAMLET.  3S7 

on  the  bustle  of  ambition,  and  the  pride  of  fame, 
that  he  breaks  forth  into  the  reflection,  in  the  fourth 
act,  on  the  expedition  of  Fortinbras. 

It  is  with  regret  as  well  as  deference  that  I 
accuse  the  judgment  of  Mr.  Garrick,  or  the  taste 
of  his  audience ;  but  I  cannot  help  thinking  that 
the  exclusion  of  the  scene  of  the  Grave-digger  in 
his  alteration  of  the  tragedy  of  Hamlet,  was  not 
only  a  needless,  but  an  unnatural  violence  done  to 
the  work  of  his  favourite  poet. p 

Shakspeare's  genius  attended  him  in  all  his  ex 
travagances.  In  the  licence  he  took  of  departing 
from  the  regularity  of  the  drama,  or  in  his  ignorance 
of  those  critical  rules  which  might  have  restrained 
him  within  it,  there  is  this  advantage,  that  it  gives 
him  an  opportunity  of  delineating  the  passions  and 
affections  of  the  human  mind,  as  they  exist  in 
reality,  with  all  the  various  colourings  which  they 
receive  in  the  mixed  scenes  of  life  ;  not  as  they  are 
accommodated  by  the  hands  of  more  artificial 
poets  to  one  great  undivided  impression,  or  an  un 
interrupted  chain  of  congenial  events.  It  seems 

p  "  It  is  the  church-yard  scene,  in  the  fifth  act,"  observes  M. 
Egestorf,  "  from  which  we  are  to  learn  the  moral  of  this  tra 
gedy  ;  a  scene  that  has  been  considered  as  an  exuberant  ex 
crescence,  which,  however,  appears  to  be  a  chief  corner-stone 
of  the  main  edifice ;  for  there  we  see  the  nothingness  of  all 
sublunary  advantages — there  we  see  how  gaiety,  beauty,  talent, 
and  wit — how  greatness  and  power  —  nay,  how  even  the 
government  of  a  world,  are  not  only  transient  in  themselves, 
but  how  in  the  end  they  lead  to  nothing."— Vide  Literary  Ga- 
ette  for  October,  1827. 


388  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

therefore  preposterous  to  endeavour  to  regularize 
his  plays  at  the  expense  of  depriving  them  of  this 
peculiar  excellence,  especially  as  the  alteration  can 
only  produce  a  very  partial  and  limited  improve 
ment,  and  can  never  bring  his  pieces  to  the  stand 
ard  of  criticism,  or  the  form  of  the  Aristotelian  drama. 
Within  the  bounds  of  a  pleasure-garden,  we  may 
be  allowed  to  smooth  our  terraces,  and  trim  our 
hedge-rows ;  but  it  were  equally  absurd  as  imprac 
ticable,  to  apply  the  minute  labours  of  the  roller 
and  the  pruning-knife  to  the  nobler  irregularity  of 
trackless  mountains  and  impenetrable  forests. 

MACKENZIE.*1 

q  The  Mirror,  No.  100,  April  22,  1780. — If,  as  is  asserted 
at  the  close  of  this  paper,  the  licence  which  Shakspeare  as 
sumed,  enabled  him  to  paint  the  passions  and  affections  of  the 
human  mind  as  they  exist  in  reality,  and  not  as  they  are  ac 
commodated  by  more  artificial  poets  to  an  arbitrary  and  ex 
clusive  system,  who  shall  or  can  regret  his  infringement  of  any 
strict  observance  of  the  unities  of  time  and  place  ? 
•AT  "ill 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    HAMLET.  389 

l>  ./.  tM'j  f;ilJ,ni  .1  u 


No.    XI. 

\A<  f     .    .  " 

OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  HAMLET. 

THOUGH  hundreds  of  critics  have  written  of 
Shakspeare  and  his  works,  and  though  not  only 
all  his  characters,  but  even  their  most  minute  and 
unimportant  expressions,  have  been  weighed  and 
sifted ;  yet  such  is  the  boundless  range  of  his 
intellect,  that  each  play  still  retains  all  the  charm 
of  the  very  freshest  novelty,  and  on  each  succes 
sive  perusal  a  swarm  of  unexpected  ideas  seems  to 
rise  up  from  every  page.  Though  the  discussion 
of  his  genius  has  been  thus  incessant,  the  public 
mind  is  'still  unsated ;  and  we  all  turn  to  any 
criticism  on  Shakspeare  with  an  interest  and 
curiosity  felt  towards  no  other  mortal  being.  We 
entertain  a  kind  of  religious  faith  in  his  poetry. 
"We  have  all  rejoiced  in  the  broad  and  open  light 
of  his  inspiration  ;  and  in  the  midst  of  that  doubt, 
and  darkness,  and  perplexity,  which  often  brood 
over  his  delineation  of  human  passion,  we  eagerly 
turn  to  every  voice  that  tries  to  explain  or  eluci 
date  any  of  those  solemn  mysteries,  being  well 
assured  that  they  all  are  the  mysteries  of  nature. 

"We  take  up  a  play,  and  ideas  come  rolling  in 
upon  us,  like  waves  impelled  by  a  strong  wind. 


390  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEAUE. 

There  is  in  the  ebb  and  flow  of  Shakspeare's  soul 
all  the  grandeur  of  a  mighty  operation  of  nature  ; 
and  when  we  think  or  speak  of  him,  it  should  be 
with  humility,  where  we  do  not  understand,  and 
a  conviction  that  it  is  rather  to  the  narrowness  of 
our  own  ken  than  to  any  failing  in  the  art  of  the 
great  magician,  that  we  ought  to  attribute  any 
sense  of  imperfection  and  of  weakness  which  may 
assail  us  during  the  contemplation  of  his  created 
worlds. 

I  believe  that  our  admiration,  and  wonder,  and 
love  of  our  mighty  dramatist  are  so  intense,  that 
we  cannot  endure  any  long,  regular,  and  continued 
criticism  upon  him;  for  we  know  that  there  is  an 
altitude  of  his  soul  which  cannot  be  taken,  and  a 
depth  that  may  not  be  fathomed.  We  wish  rather 
to  have  some  flashings  of  thought — some  sudden 
streams  of  light  thrown  over  partial  regions  of  the 
mental  scenery, — the  veil  of  clouds  here  and  there 
uplifted,  and  the  sound  of  the  cataract  to  be  un 
expectedly  brought  upon  the  silence.  We  ask 
not  for  a  picture  of  the  whole  landscape  of  the 
soul,  nor  for  a  guide  who  shall  be  able  to  point 
out  all  its  wonders  ;  but  we  are  glad  to  listen  to 
every  one  who  has  travelled  through  the  kingdoms 
of  Shakspeare.  Something  interesting  there  must 
be  even  in  the  humblest  journal  ;  and  we  turn 
with  equal  pleasure  from  the  converse  of  those  who 
have  climbed  over  the  magnificence  of  the  highest 
mountains  there,  to  the  lowlier  tales  of  less  am- 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    HAMLET.  391 

bitious  pilgrims,  who  have  sat  on  the  green  and 
sunny  knoll,  beneath  the  whispering  tree,  and  by 
the  music  of  the  gentle  rivulet/ 

When  I  single  out  the  tragedy  of  HAMLET,  I 
enter,  as  it  were,  into  a  wilderness  of  thought 
where  I  know  my  soul  must  soon  be  lost,  but  from 
which  it  cannot  return  to  our  every-day  world, 
without  bringing  back  with  it  some  lofty  and  mys 
terious  conceptions,  and  a  deeper  insight  into  some 
of  the  most  inscrutable  recesses  of  human  nature. 

Shakspeare  himself,  had  he  even  been  as  great 
a  critic  as  a  poet,  could  not  have  written  a  regular 
dissertation  on  Hamlet.  So  ideal,  and  yet  so  real 
an  existence,  could  have  been  shadowed  out  only 
in  the  colours  of  poetry.  When  a  character  deals 
solely  or  chiefly  with  this  world  and  its  events, 
when  it  acts,  and  is  acted  upon,  by  objects  that 
have  a  palpable  existence,  we  see  it  distinctly,  as 
if  it  were  cast  in  a  material  mould, — as  if  it  partook 
of  the  fixed  and  settled  lineaments  of  the  things  on 
which  it  lavishes  its  sensibilities  and  its  passions. 
We  see,  in  such  cases,  the  vision  of  an  individual 
soul,  as  we  see  the  vision  of  an  individual  counte 
nance.  We  can  describe  both,  and  can  let  a 

r  Never  was  there  a  more  eloquent  description  than  this  of 
the  avidity  and  gratification  with  which  every  ingenious  illus 
tration  of  Shakspeare,  as  of  a  being  gifted  beyond  others  in 
the  mysteries  of  nature,  is  read  and  studied.  May  it  not 
without  much  presumption  be  considered  as  highly  recommen 
datory  of  the  object,  and,  as  the  editor  hopes,  not  inapplicable 
to  the  character  of  the  present  volume  ? 


392  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

stranger  into  our  knowledge.  But  how  tell  in 
words,  so  pure,  so  fine,  so  ideal  an  abstraction  as 
HAMLET  ?  We  can  indeed  figure  to  ourselves 
generally  his  princely  form,  that  outshone  all  other . 
manly  beauty,  and  adorn  it  with  the  consummation 
of  all  liberal  accomplishment.  We  can  behold  in 
every  look,  every  gesture,  every  motion,  the  future 
king, 

The  courtier's,  soldier's,  scholar's,  eye,  tongue,  sword  : 
TV  expectancy  and  rose  of  the  fair  state, 
The  glass  of  fashion,  and  the  mould  of  form, 
Th'  observ'd  of  all  observers  ! — 

But  when  we  would  penetrate  into  his  spirit, — 
meditate  on  those  things  on  which  he  medi- 
tates, — accompany  him  even  unto  the  brink  of 
eternity, — fluctuate  with  him  on  the  ghastly  sea  of 
despair, — soar  with  him  into  the  purest  and  serenest 
regions  of  human  thought, — feel  with  him  the 
curse  of  beholding  iniquity,  and  the  troubled  delight 
of  thinking  on  innocence,  and  gentleness,  and 
beauty, — come  with  him,  from  all  the  glorious 
dreams  cherished  by  a  noble  spirit  in  the  halls  of 
wisdom  and  philosophy,  of  a  sudden  into  the 
gloomy  courts  of  sin,  and  incest,  and  murder, — 
shudder  with  him  over  the  broken  and  shattered 
fragments  of  all  the  fairest  creation  of  his  fancy,- — 
be  borne  with  him  at  once  from  calm,  and  lofty, 
and  delighted  speculations,  into  the  very  heart  of 
fear,  and  horror,  and  tribulation, — have  the  agonies 
and  the  guilt  of  our  mortal  world  brought  into  im 
mediate  contact  with  the  world  beyond  the  grave, 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    HAMLET.  393 

and  the  influence  of  an  awful  shadow  hanging  for   , 
ever  on  our  thoughts, — be  present  at  a  fearful  - 
combat  between  all  the  stirred-up  passions  of  hu-  v 
manity  in  the  soul  of  one  man, — a  combat  in  which  . 
one  and  all  of  those  passions  are  alternately  victo 
rious  and  overcome, — I  say,  that  when  we  are  thus  * 
placed  and  thus  acted  upon,  how  is  it  possible  to 
draw  a  character  of  this  sublime  drama,  or  of  the   • 
mysterious  being  who  is  its  moving  spirit  ?   In  him, 
his  character  and  his  situation,  there  is  a  concen 
tration  of  all  the  interests  that  belong  to  humanity. 
There  is  scarcely  a  trait  of  frailty  or  of  grandeur, 
which  may  have  endeared  to  us  our  most  beloved 
friends  in  real  life,  that  is  not  to  be  found  in  Ham 
let.     Undoubtedly  Shakspeare  loved  him  beyond 
all  his  other  creations.     Soon  as  he  appears  on  the 
stage,  we  are  satisfied.     When  absent,  we  long  for 
his  return.     This  is  the  only  play  which  exists 
almost  altogether  in  the  character  of  one  single 
person.     Who  ever  knew  a  Hamlet  in  real  life  ? 
Yet  who,  ideal  as  the  character  is,  feels  not  its 
reality  ?     This  is  the  wonder.     We  love  him  not, 
we  think  of  him  not,  because  he  was  witty, — be-    • 
cause  he  was  melancholy, — because  he  was  filial ;  , 
but  we  love  him  because  he  existed,  and  was  him-  , 
self.     This  is  the  grand  sum-total  of  the  impression.    . 
I  believe  that  of  every  other  character,  either  in 
tragic  or  epic  poetry,  the  story  makes  a  part  of  the 
conception ;  but  of  Hamlet,  the  deep  and  perma 
nent  interest  is  the  conception  of  himself.     This 
seems  to  belong,  not  to  the  character  being  more 


394  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

perfectly  drawn,  but  to  there  being  a  more  intense 
conception  of  individual  human  life  than  perhaps 
in  any  other  human  composition ;  that  is,  a  being 
with  springs  of  thought,  and  feeling,  and  action, 
deeper  than  we  can  search.  These  springs  rise 
from  an  unknown  depth,  and  in  that  depth  there 
seems  to  be  a  oneness  of  being  which  we  cannot 
distinctly  behold,  but  which  we  believe  to  be 
there;  and  thus  irreconcileable  circumstances, 
floating  on  the  surface  of  his  actions,  have  not  the 
effect  of  making  us  doubt  .the  truth  of  the  general 
picture.8 

A  good  play  is  an  imitation  of  life,  in  as  far  as 
the   actions,    and  events,  and  passions  of  a  few 
hours  can  represent  those   of  a  whole  lifetime. 
Yet,  after  all,  it  is  but  a  segment  of  a  circle  that 
we  can  behold.     Were  the  dramatist  to  confine 
himself  to  that  narrow  limit,  how  little  could  he 
achieve!     He    takes,    therefore,   for   granted,    a 
knowledge,  and  a  sympathy,  and  a  passion  in  his 
spectators,  that  extends  to,  and  permeates   the 
existence  of  his  characters  long  anterior  to  the 
short    period  which   his   art  can   embrace.     He 
expects,  and  he  expects  reasonably,  that  we  are 
not  to  look  upon  every  thing  acted  and  said  before 
us  absolutely  as  it  is  said  or  acted.     It  is  his  busi 
ness  to  make  us  comprehend  the  whole  man  from 

•  I  would  particularly  point  out  this  attempt  to  develope  the 
peculiar  nature  of  the  interest  derived  from  the  exhibition  or 
study  of  the  character  of  Hamlet,  as  singularly  just  and  pro 
found. 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    HAMLET.  395 

a  part  of  his  existence ;  but  we  are  not  to  be  pas 
sive  spectators.  It  is  our  business  to  fill  up  and 
supply.  It  is  our  business  to  bring  to  the  contem 
plation  of  an  imaginary  drama  a  knowledge  of  real 
life,  and  no  more  to  cry  out  against  apparent 
inconsistencies  and  violations  of  character  as  we 
behold  them  in  poetry,  than  as  we  every  day 
behold  them  exemplified  by  living  men.  The 
pageants  that  move  before  us  on  the  stage,  how 
ever  deeply  they  may  interest  us,  are,  after  all, 
mere  strangers.  It  is  Shakspeare  alone  who  can 
give  to  fleeting  phantoms  the  definite  interest  of 
real  personages.  But  we  ought  not  to  turn  this 
glorious  power  against  himself.  We  ought  not  to 
demand  inexorably  the  same  perfect,  and  uni 
versal,  and  embracing  truth  of  character  in  an 
existence  brought  before  us  in  a  few  hurried 
scenes  (which  is  all  a  play  can  be)  that  we  some 
times  may  think  we  find  in  a  real  being,  after  long 
years  of  intimate  knowledge,  and  which,  did  we 
know  more,  would  perhaps  seem  to  us  to  be  truth 
no  longer,  but  a  chaos  of  the  wildest  and  darkest 
inconsistencies.* 

A  tragedy  is  a  leaf  torn  from  the  book  of  fate. 
Shakspeare's  story  is  like  nature  in  this,  that  you 
do  not  see  the  links  of  action,  but  you  see  powers 

*  Notwithstanding  the  popularity  of  Shakspeare,  how  seldom 
is  it  that  a  spectator  or  reader  of  his  plays  is  furnished  with  a 
knowledge  of  life  and  character  adequate  to  the  full  compre 
hension  of  the  depth,  and  accuracy,  and  extensive  range  of  his 
draughts  from  nature! 


396  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

manifesting  themselves  with  intervals  of  obscurity. 
To  improve  the  plots  of  his  plays,  with  all  their 
apparent  faults,  would  be  something  like  improving 
the  history  of  England.  We  feel  that  the  things 
have  happened  in  nature,  and  for  whatever  has 
happened,  I  presume  there  is  a  good  reason. 
Shakspeare's  soul  is  like  Intellect,  descending  into 
the  world,  and  putting  on  human  life,  faculties, 
and  sense,  whereby  to  know  the  world.  It  thus 
sees  all  things  in  their  beauty  and  power,  and  in 
their  true  relation  to  man  and  to  each  other ;  but 
not  shaken  by  them,  like  man.  He  sees  beauty 
in  external  nature, — in  men's  souls, — in  children, — 
in  Ariel, — in  Imogen, — in  thought, — in  fancy, — in 
feeling, — in  passion, — in  moral  being, — in  me 
lody, — not  in  one  thing;  but  wherever  it  is,  he 
has  the  discernment  of  it.  So  also  of  power,  and 
of  all  other  relations  and  properties  of  being  which 
the  human  spirit  can  comprehend.  I  think  that 
what  his  character  wanted  is  purity  and  loftiness 
of  will,  and  that  almost  all  the  faults  of  his  plays, 
and,  above  all,  his  exceedingly  bad  jokes  belong 
to  this  defect.  In  these  he  yielded  from  his 
nature,  though  we  cannot  doubt  that  his  nature 
had  pure  delight  in  all  things  great  and  good, 
lofty,  pure,  and  beautiful.  If  this  be  not  the 
truth,  where  is  the  solution  of  the  difficulty  to  be 
found  ?  Not,  surely,  in  his  yielding  in  base  subser 
vience  to  the  spirit  of  the  age.  He  was  above 
that,  as  Milton  was  above  it,  and  as  all  the  noblest 
spirits  of  earth  have  been  before  and  since. 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    HAMLET.  397> 

I  feel  that  I  should  be  guilty  of  presumption, 
were  I,  after  all  that  has  been  said  of  Hamlet's 
character,  to  attempt  giving  a  regular  delineation 
of  it.  Surely  there  is  in  his  nature  all  that  exalted 
and  potent  spirit,  entered  into  union  with  bodily 
life,  can  produce,  from  the  ethereal  breathings  of 
his  mind  down  to  the  exquisite  delicacy  of  his 
senses.  If  there  be  any  thing  disproportioned  in 
his  mind,  it  seems  to  be  this  only, — that  intellect 
is  in  excess.  It  is  even  ungovernable,  and  too 
subtle.  His  own  description  of  perfect  man  ending 
with  "  In  apprehension  how  like  a  god !"  appears  to 
me  consonant  with  this  character,  and  spoken  in 
the  high  and  over- wrought  consciousness  of  intel 
lect.  Much  that  requires  explanation  in  the  play, 
may  perhaps  be  explained  by  this  predominance 
and  consciousness  of  great  intellectual  power.  Is 
it  not  possible  that  the  instantaneous  idea  of  feign 
ing  himself  mad  belongs  to  this  ?  It  is  the  power 
most  present  to  his  mind,  and  therefore  in  that, 
though  in  the  denial  of  it,  is  his  first  thought  to 
place  his  defence.  So  might  we  suppose  a  brave 
man  of  gigantic  bodily  strength  counterfeiting  cow 
ardice  and  imbecility  till  there  came  a  moment  for 
the  rousing  up  of  vengeance  ;  so  Brutus,  the  lover 
of  freedom,  assumed  the  manners  of  an  ideot-slave, 
till  the  destined  call  was  heard  that  brought  him 
out  to  the  deliverance  of  his  country.  I  scarcely 
think  that  moral  sensibility  was  the  chief  charac 
teristic  of  his  mind,  as  Richardson  has  said  in  his 
excellent  essay,  and  still  less  morbid  sensibility,  as 


398  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

many  others  have  affirmed  ;  but  I  should  say  that 
the  spiritual  nature  is  strong  in  his  mind,  and 
perfect, — that  therefore  he  is  moral  and  just  in  all 
his  affections,  complete  in  all  his  faculties.  He  is 
a  being  of  power  by  high  and  clear  intuition,  and 
not  by  violence  of  will.  In  him  will  seems  an 
exceedingly  inferior  faculty,  only  arising  at  times 
in  obedience  to  higher  faculties,  and  always  waiting 
the  termination  of  their  conflict. 

If  there  be  truth  in  these  very  imperfect  notions, 
I  do  not  see  why  we  should  wonder  greatly  at 
Hamlet's  extreme  perplexity,  depression,  and  irre-  * 
solution.   All  at  once  there  was  imposed  upon  him  " 
a  greater  duty  than  he  knew   how  to  execute.  - 
Had  his  soul  been  unshaken,  and  in  possession  of. 
all  its  clearness  of  power,  perhaps  even  then  such  ~ 
duty  had   been   too   great.     It  was  his  business . 
to  kill  his  uncle,  without  decidedly  endangering  his  . 
own  life,  and  also  justifiably  to  the  country.     For  - 
a  mind,  which  till  then  had  lived  only  in  specula 
tive  thought,  to  find,  upon  entering  the  world,  such  - 
a  fearful  work  to  be  done  in  it,  was  perplexing  and  - 
appalling.     He  comes  at  once  into  contention  with  " 
the  great  powers  of  the  world, — he  is  to  preserve  - 
himself  among  them,  and  to  employ  them  for  the " 
destruction  of  another.     To   a   high   intellectual  - 
mind,  there  is  perhaps  something  repugnant  at  all 
times  in  meddling  with  such  powers ;  for  there  is 
something  blind  and  violent  in  their  motion,  and 
an  intellectual  mind  would  desire  in  action  the 
clearness  of  thought.     Hamlet  therefore  never  gets 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    HAMLET.  399 

farther,  I  believe,  than  one  step — that  of  self-pro-- 
tection  in  feigning  himself  mad.    He  sees  no  course  - 
clear  enough  to   satisfy  his  understanding ;  and  - 
with  all  due  deference  to  those  critics  in  conduct  - 
who  seem  disposed  to  censure  his  dilatoriness,  I    - 
should  be  glad  if  any  body  would  point  out  one.   - 
He  is  therefore  by  necessity  irresolute ;  but  he  feels  - 
that  he  is  letting  time  pass ;  and  the  consciousness ' 
of  duty  undone  weighs  down  his  soul.     He  thus- 
comes  to  dread  the  clear  knowledge  of  his  own  si- , 
tuation,  and   of  the   duties  arising  from  it.     He  . 
dreads  the  light  of  the  necessities  that  are  upon  - 
him ;  and  when  the  hour  to  act  comes,  he  hides , 
himself  from  it.     Sometimes  he  sets  illusions  be-  ' 
tween  himself  and  truth,  and  sometimes  he  merely  ' 
passes,  by  simple  transition,  from  the  painful  facul-  - 
ties  of  his  mind  to  those  he  likes  better. 

We  are  not  justified  in  asserting  that  Hamlet  had  . 
not  faculties  for  action,  and  that  he  was  purely  a  . 
meditative  spirit.     The  most  actively  heroic  would  ' 
have  paused  in  a  situation  of  such  overwhelming  - 
exigences,  and  with  such  an  unhinging  shock  of  - 
feelings.     When  he  does  act,  he  acts  with  great  ' 
energy,  decision,  directness,  skill,  and  felicity  of  - 
event.    Nothing  undertaken  against  him  succeeds,  - 
except  murder,  which  will  succeed  against  any 
man ;     and,   perhaps,   more   ostentatious    heroes,- 
after  they  had  received  their  own  death- wound/ 
would,  unlike  Hamlet,  have  allowed  the  incestuous ' 
king  to  escape  their  vengeance. 

It  has  been  much  canvassed  by  critics,  whether 


400  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Hamlet's  madness  was  altogether  feigned,  or  in  „ 
some  degree   real.     Most  certain  it  is,  that  his  , 
whole  perfect  being  had  received  a  shock  that  had  ' 
unsettled  his  faculties.     That  there  was  disorder ' 
in  his  soul,  none  can  doubt, — that  is,  a  shaking 
and  unsettling  of  its  powers  from  their  due  sources 
of  action.    But  who  can  believe  for  a  moment  that  f 
there  was  in  his  mind  the  least  degree  of  that, - 
which,  with  physiological  meaning,  we  call  dis-' 
ease?  Such  a  supposition  would  at  once  destroy' 
that  intellectual  sovereignty  in  his  being,  which  in  • 
our  eyes  constitutes    his  exaltation.     Shakspeare ' 
never  could  intend  that  we  should  be  allowed  to/ 
feel  pity  for  a  mind  to  which  we  were  meant  to* 
bow  ;  nor  does  it  seem  to  me  consistent  with  the' 
nature  of  his  own  imagination,  to  have  subjected, 
one  of  his  most  ideal  beings  to  such  mournful  mor-  . 
tal  infirmity.     That  the  limits  of  disorder  are  not  . 
easily  distinguishable  in  the  representation,  is  cer-  . 
tain.    How  should  they  ?  The  limits  of  disorder,  in  , 
reality,  lie  in  the  mysterious  and  inscrutable  depths  ; 
of  nature.     Neither,  surely,  could  it  be  intended  > 
by  Shakspeare  that  Hamlet  should  for  a  moment  - 
cease  to  be  a  moral  agent,  as  he  must  then  have . 
been.     Look   on   him   upon   all   great  occasions, . 
when,  had  there  been  madness  in  his  mind,  it- 
would  have  been  most  remarkable; — look  on  him  . 
in  his  mother's  closet,  or  listen  to  his  dying  words,  ' 
and  then  ask  if  there  was  any  disease  of  madness  > 
in  that  soul.u 
u  It  is  impossible  for  a  moment  to  conceive  that  Shakspeare 


'OBSERVATIONS  ON  HAMLET.  401 

It  has  often  struck  me  that  the  behaviour  of . 
Hamlet  to  Ophelia  has  appeared  more  incompre-  / 
hensible  than  it  really  is,  from  an  erroneous  opi 
nion  generally  entertained,  that  his  love  for  her 
was  profound.     Though  it  is  impossible  to  recon 
cile  all  parts  of  his  conduct  towards  her  with  each  . 
other,  or  almost  any  theory,  yet  some  great  diffi-  , 
culties  are  got  over  by  supposing  that  Shakspeare  ' 
merely  intended  to  describe  a  youthful,  an  acci-  ' 
dental,   and    transient   affection  on   the   part   of ' 
Hamlet.      There    was    nothing   in   Ophelia   that  - 
could  make  her  the  engrossing  object  of  passion 
to    so  majestic  a  spirit.     It   would   appear   that 
what  captivated  him  in   her  was,    that  being   a 
creature  of  pure,  innocent,  virgin  nature,  but  still 
of  mere  nature  only,  she  yet  exhibited,  in  great- 
beauty,  the  spiritual  tendencies  of  nature.     There 
is   in  her  frame  the  extacy  of  animal   life, — of  - 
breathing,  light-seeing  life  betraying  itself,  even , 
in  her  disordered  mind,  in  snatches  of  old  songs ' 
(not  in  her  own  words),  of  which  the  associations' 
belong  to    a    kind   of    innocent  voluptuousness/ 
There  is,   I  think,  in  all  we  ever  see  of  her,  a' 
fancy  and  character  of  her  affections  suitable  to  " 
this ;  that  is,  to  the  purity  and  beauty  of  almost  • 

ever  intended  to  represent  the  mental  faculties  of  Hamlet, 
though  powerfully  and  deeply  influenced  by  the  circumstances 
around  him,  and  simulating  madness  for  purposes  of  personal 
safety  and  effective  retribution,  as  under  any  degree  of  morbid 
derangement :  all  moral  responsibility  and  intellectual  great 
ness  of  character  would  vanish  on  such  a  supposition. 

2  c 


402  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

material  nature.     To  a  mind  like  Hamlet's,  which  / 
is  almost  perfectly  spiritual,  but  of  a  spirit  loving  x 
nature  and  life,  there  must  have  been  something  ' 
touching,    and    delightful,    and    captivating    in  > 
Ophelia,  as  almost  an  ideal  image  of  nature  and  - 
of  life.     The  acts  and  indications  of  his  love  seem  / 
to  be  merely  suitable  to  such  a  feeling.     I  see  no 
one  mark  of  that  love  which  goes  even  into  the    ' 
blood,  and  possesses  all  the  regions  of  the  soul.  ' 
Now,  the  moment  that  his  soul  has  sickened  even 
unto  the  death — that  love  must  cease,  and  there  ' 
can   remain   only   tenderness,  sorrow,    and  pity.  ' 
We  should  also  remember  that  the  sickness  of  his 
soul  arose  in  a  great  measure  from  the  momentary 
sight  he  has  had  into  the  depths  of  the  invisible 
world  of  female  hollowness  and  iniquity.     That 
other   profounder  love,  which  in  my  opinion  he 
had  not,   would   not  have  been  so  affected.     It 
would  either  have  resisted  and   purged  off  the 
baser  fire  victoriously,  or  it  would   have  driven 
him  raving  mad.     But  he  seems  to  me  to  part 
with  his  love  without  much  pain.     It  certainly 
has  almost  ceased. 

His  whole  conduct  (at  least  previous  to  Ophelia's    , 
madness   and    death)    is    consistent    with    such  m 
feelings.     He  felt  that  it  became  him  to  crush  in  „ 
Ophelia's  heart  all  hopes  of  his  love.     Events  had  . 
occurred,  almost  to  obliterate  that  love  from  his  ' 
soul.     He  sought  her,  therefore,  in  his  assumed 
madness,  te  show  her  the  fatal  truth,  and  that  in  a  * 
way  not  to  humble  her  spirit  by  the  consciousness  - 


OBSERVATIONS    ON     HAMLET.  403 

of  being  forsaken,  and  no  more  beloved ;  but  to ' 
prove  that  nature  herself  had  set  an  insuperable^ 
bar  between    them,  and  that,  when  reason  was  ' 
gone,  there  must  be  no  thought  of  love.     Accord-  ^ 
ingly,  his  first  wild  interview  as  described  by  her, 
is  of  that  character  ;  and  afterwards,  in  that  scene 
when  he  tells  her  to  go  to  a  nunnery,  and  in  which 
his  language  is  the  assumed  language  of  a  mind 
struggling  between  pretended  indifference  and  real 
tenderness,  Ophelia  feels  nothing  towards  him  but 
pity  and  grief,  a  deep  melancholy  over  the  pros 
tration  of  his  elevated  soul. 

O  what  a  noble  mind  is  here  o'erthrown ! 

Here  the  genius  of  Kemble  seemed  to  desert 
him,  and  he  threw  an  air  of  fierceness  and  anger 
over  the  mien  and  gestures  of  Hamlet,  which 
must  have  been  far  indeed  from  the  imagination  of 
Shakspeare.  It  was  reserved  for  Kean  to  restore 
nature  from  her  profanation.  In  his  gesticulations 
there  is  nothing  insulting  towards  such  an  object. 
There  is  a  kind  of  wild  bitterness,  playing  towards 
her  in  the  words  merely — that  she  might  know  all 
was  lost ;  but,  in  the  manner  of  delivering  these 
speeches,  he  follows  the  manifest  exertion  of  the 
divine  bard,  and  gives  to  them  that  mournful 
earnestness  with  which  a  high  intellectual  mind, 
conscious  of  its  superiority,  and  severed  by  pain 
from  that  world  of  life  to  which  Ophelia  belonged, 
in  a  situation  of  extreme  distress,  speaks  author 
itative  counsel  to  an  inferior  soul.  And  when, 


404  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPfcARE. 

afraid  lest  the  gentle  creature  whom  he  deeply* 
pities,  and  whom,  at  that  moment,  it  may  well  be 
said  he  loves,  might  in  her  heart  upbraid  him  for 
his  cruelty,  in  spite  even  of  the  excuse  of  his 
apparent  madness — Kean  returns  to  Ophelia,  and 
kisses  her  hand  ;  we  then  indeed  feel  as  if  a  burst 
of  light  broke  in  upon  the  darkness, — and  truth, 
and  nature,  and  Shakspeare,  were  at  once  revealed. 
I  need  not  quote  passages,  nor  use  many  argu 
ments,  to  prove  my  position,  that  Shakspeare  never  i 
could  have  intended  to  represent  Hamlet's  love  to 
Ophelia  as  very  profound.  If  he  did,  how  can  we 
ever  account  for  Hamlet's  first  exclamation,  whenj 
in  the  church-yard  he  learns  that  he  is  standing' 
by  her  grave,  and  beholds  her  coffin  ? 

What,  the  fair  Ophelia  ! 

Was  this  all  that  Hamlet  would  have  uttered, 
when  struck  into  sudden  conviction  by  the  ghast 
liest  terrors  of  death,  that  all  he  loved  in  human  ; 
life  had  perished  ?  We  can  with  difficulty  recon 
cile  such  a  tame  ejaculation,  even  with  extreme 
tenderness  and  sorrow.  But  had  it  been  in  the 
soul  of  Shakspeare  to  show  Hamlet  in  the  agony 
of  hopeless  despair, — and  in  hopeless  despair  he 
must  at  that  moment  have  been,  had  Ophelia  been 
all  in  all  to  him, — is  there  in  all  his  writings  so) 
utter  a  failure  in  the  attempt  to  give  vent  to  over 
whelming  passion  ?  When,  afterwards,  Hamlet 
leaps  into  the  grave,  do  we  see  in  that  any  power 
of  love  ?  I  am  sorry  to  confess  that  the  whole  of  i 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    HAMLfcf.  405 

that  scene  is  to  me  merely  painful.  It  is  anger 
with  Laertes,  not  love  for  Ophelia,  that  makes 
Hamlet  leap  into  the  grave.  Laertes'  conduct,  he 
afterwards  tells  us,  "  put  him  into  a  towering 
passion," — a  state  of  mind  which  it  is  not  very 
easy  to  reconcile  with  almost  any  kind  of  sorrow 
for  the  dead  Ophelia.  Perhaps  in  this,  Shak- 
speare  may  have  departed  from  nature ;  but  had 
he  been  attempting  to  describe  the  behaviour  of 
an  empassioned  lover  at  the  grave  of  his  beloved, 
I  should  be  compelled  to  feel  that  he  had  not 
merely  departed  from  nature,  but  that  he  had 
offered  her  the  most  profane  violation  and  in 
sult. 

Hamlet  is  afterwards  made,  acquainted  with  the 
sad  history  of  Ophelia;  he  knows  that  to  the 
death  of  Polonius,  and  his  own  imagined  madness, 
is  to  be  attributed  her  miserable  catastrophe. 
Yet,  after  the  burial  scene,  he  seems  utterly  to 
have  forgotten  that  Ophelia  ever  existed  ;  nor  is 
there,  as  far  as  I  recollect,  a  single  allusion  to  her 
throughout  the  rest  of  the  drama.  The  only  way 
of  accounting  for  this  seems  to  be,  that  Shakspeare 
had  himself  forgotten  her, — that  with  her  last  rites 
she  vanished  from  the  world  of  his  memory.  But 
this  of  itself  shows  that  it  was  not  his  intention  to 
represent  Ophelia  as  the  dearest  of  all  earthly 
things  or  thoughts  to  Hamlet,  or  surely  there 
would  have  been  some  melancholy,  some  miserable 
haunting  of  her  image.  But  even  as  it  is,  it  seems 


406  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

not  a   little  unaccountable    that  Hamlet  should 
have  been  so  slightly  affected  by  her  death/ 

Of  the  character  of  Ophelia,  and  the  situation 
she  holds  in  the  action  of  the  play,  I  need  say 
little.  Every  thing  about  her  is  young,  beautiful, 
artless,  innocent,  and  touching.  She  comes  before 
us  in  striking  contrast  to  the  queen,  who,  fallen  as 
she  is,  feels  the  influence  of  her  simple  and  happy 
virgin  purity.  Amid  the  frivolity,  flattery,  fawn 
ing,  and  artifice  of  a  corrupted  court,  she  moves 
in  all  the  unpolluted  loveliness  of  nature.  She  is 
like  an  artless,  gladsome,  and  spotless  shepherdess, 
with  the  gracefulness  of  society  hanging  like  a 
transparent  veil  over  her  natural  beauty.  But  we 
feel  from  the  first,  that  her  lot  is  to  be  mournful. 
The  world  in  which  she  lives  is  not  worthy  of  her. 
And  soon  as  we  connect  her  destiny  with  Hamlet, 
we  know  that  darkness  is  to  overshadow  her,  and 
that  sadness  and  sorrow  will  step  in  between  her 
and  the  ghost-haunted  avenger  of  his  father's 
murder.  Soon  as  our  pity  is  excited  for  her,  it 
continues  gradually  to  deepen;  and  when  she 
appears  in  her  madness,  we  are  not  more  prepared 
to  weep  over  all  its  most  pathetic  movements,  than 

v  Notwithstanding  all  the  ingenuity  here  exerted  to  persuade 
us  that  the  attachment  of  Hamlet  to  Ophelia  was  slight  and 
transient,  I  cannot  but  adhere  to  the  opinions  of  Mackenzie 
and  Egestorf,  the  latter  of  whom  asserts,  and  truly  asserts,  I 
think,  not  only  that  he  really  loved  her,  but  that  it  is  evident 
from  his  conduct  at  her  grave. 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    HAMLET.  407 

we  afterwards  are  to  hear  of  her  death.  Perhaps^ 
the  description  of  that  catastrophe  by  the  queen 
is  poetical  rather  than  dramatic  ;  but  its  exquisite 
beauty  prevails,  and  Ophelia,  dying  and  dead,  isj 
still  the  same  Ophelia  that  first  won  our  love. 
Perhaps  the  very  forgetfulness  of  her,  throughout 
the  remainder  of  the  play,  leaves  the  soul  at  full 
liberty  to  dream  of  the  departed.  She  has  passed 
away  from  the  earth  like  a  beautiful  air — a  delight 
ful  dream.  There  would  have  been  no  place  for 
her  in  the  agitation  and  tempest  of  the  final  catas 
trophe.  We  are  satisfied  that  she  is  in  her  grave; 
and  in  place  of  beholding  her  involved  in  the 
shocking  troubles  of  the  closing  scene,  we  remem 
ber  that  her  heart  lies  at  rest,  and  the  remem 
brance  is  like  the  returning  voice  of  melancholy 
music. w 

With  all  the  mighty  power  which  this  tragedy 
possesses  over  us,  arising  from  qualities  now  very 
generally  described ;  yet,  without  that  kingly  sha 
dow,  who  throws  over  it  such  preternatural  gran 
deur,  it  never  could  have  gained  so  universal  an 
ascendancy  over  the  minds  of  men.  A  spectre  in 
a  play  of  genius  is  always  terrible.  When  it 
appears,  there  seems  an  end  of  acting — it  is  reality. 
The  stage  is  a  world  of  imagination  disclosed  to 
our  waking,  seeing  eyes ;  but  often,  men  acting 

w  I  must  be  allowed  here  to  remark  that,  though  the  author 
professes  to  say  little  of  Ophelia,  yet  what  he  has  said  is  of  ex 
quisite  beauty,  and  superior,  I  think,  to  any  thing  previously 
said  on  the  same  subject. 


408  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

men,  are  not  the  apparent  agents  of  the  imagina 
tion.  To  children  and  to  the  people,  the  unreal- 
izing  parts  of  the  apparatus,  the  dresses,  scenery, 
&c.,  are  sufficiently  powerful  to  wrap  the  real  men 
from  their  eyes ;  and  such  spectators  see  before 
them  the  personifications  of  the  poet.  To  them  a 
king  is  a  king.  We  are  past  this.  To  us,  a  play 
loses  its  power  by  want  of  its  hold  on  the  imagina 
tion.  Now,  the  reality  of  a  ghost  is  measured  to 
that  state  of  imagination  in  which  we  ought  to  be 
held  for  the  fullest  powers  of  tragedy.  The  ap 
pearance  of  such  a  phantom  at  once  throws  open 
those  recesses  of  the  inner  spirit  over  which  flesh 
was  closing.  Magicians,  thunder-storms,  and  de 
mons,  produce  upon  me  something  of  the  same 
effect.  I  feel  myself  brought  instantaneously  back 
to  the  creed  of  childhood.  Imagination  then  seems 
not  a  power  which  I  exert,  but  an  impulse  which 
I  obey.  It  would  be  well  for  poetry,  if  more  of 
this  kind  of  imagination  remained  among  us.  It 
would  seem  that  the  Greeks  preserved  it  during 
their  highest  civilization.  Without  it,  the  gods, 
and  goddesses  of  the  Greek  theatre  would  have 
been  ludicrous  and  offensive;  but  with  it  they 
were  beautiful,  august,  glorious — or  awful,  ap 
palling,  terrible.  Thus  were  the  Furies  of  ^Eschy- 
lus  too  fearful  to  be  looked  on ;  and  thus  does  the 
Ghost  in  Hamlet  carry  us  into  the  presence  of 
eternity. 

Never  was  a  more  majestic  spirit  more  majesti 
cally  revealed .   The  shadow  of  his  kingly  grandeur, 


"OBSERVATIONS    ON   HAMLET. 

and  his  warlike  might,  rests  massily  upon  him. 
He  passes  before  us  sad,  silent,  and  stately.  He 
brings  the  whole  weight  of  the  tragedy  in  his  dis 
closures.  His  speech  is  ghost-like,  and  blends 
with  ghost-conceptions.  The  popular  memory  of 
his  words  proves  how  profoundly  they  sink  into  our 
souls.  The  preparation  for  his  first  appearance  is 
most  solemn.  The  night-watch — the  more  com 
mon  effect  on  the  two  soldiers — the  deeper  effect 
on  the  next  party,  and  their  speculations  —Hora 
tio's  communication  with  the  shadow,  that  seems 
as  it  were  half-way  between  their's  and  Hamlet's 
— his  adjurations — the  degree  of  impression  which 
they  produce  on  the  Ghost's  mind,  who  is  about  to 
speak  but  for  the  due  ghost-like  interruption  of 
the  bird  of  morning — all  these  things  lead  our 
minds  unto  the  last  pitch  of  breathless  expectation ; 
and  while  yet  the  whole  weight  of  mystery  is  left 
hanging  over  the  play,  we  feel  that  some  dread 
disclosure  is  reserved  for  Hamlet's  ear,  and  that 
an  apparition  from  the  world  unknown  is  still  a 
partaker  of  the  noblest  of  all  earthly  affections.  5 

The  depths  of  Hamlet's  heart  unclose  at  the 
spectral  likeness  of  his  father.  Henceforth  we  see, 
in  him  a  personification  of  filial  love.  That  love 
had  been  impressive,  had  it  merely  wept  over  a 
father's  grave.  But  it  assumes  a  more  awful  cha- 

x  For  further  observations  on  this  interesting  subject,  I  would 
refer  my  readers  to  a  "  Dissertation  on  the  Agency  of  Spirits 
and  Apparitions,  and  on  the  Ghost  in  Hamlet/'  in,  my  "  Shaks- 
peare  and  his  Times,"  vol.  ii.  p.  399  ad  p.  418. 


410  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

racter,  when  it  at  once  possesses  the  tenderness 
and  reverence  of  filial  piety,  joined  to  the  super 
stitious, — the  religious  fear  breathed  from  the  pale 
countenance  of  the  returning  dead.  There  is,  in 
this  strong  possession  of  love,  something  ideally 
beautiful,  from  the  unlikeness  of  his  father's  cha 
racter  to  his  own, — a  man,  kingly  and  heroic, — not 
in  the  least  degree  withdrawn  (as  Hamlet  was 
almost  altogether)  from  the  vehemence  of  human 
passions,  but  enjoying  life  in  the  full  power  and 
glory  of  impassioned  nature.  Hamlet,  who  dis 
cerns  all  things  in  their  truth,  is  not  able  to  avoid 
saying  that  he  was  killed  "  full  of  bread,  with  all 
his  sins  broad  blown,  as  flush  as  May;"  yet,  in 
saying  so,  he  does  not  in  his  heart  depart  from 
feelings  of  religious  filial  reverence.  He  sees  the 
fine  consistency  of  the  whole  character,  and  feels 
that,  "  take  him  for  all  in  all,  I  shall  not  look  upon 
his  like  again."  I  think  the  great  beauty  of  these 
two  lines  in  part  arises  from  this  dissimilitude. 
There  is  in  Hamlet  a  kind  of  speculative  consider 
ation  of  his  father's  character  and  being ;  and  yet, 
in  the  pride  and  power  of  the  consciousness  of  his 
own  intellectual  endowments,  he  does  not  for  one 
moment  doubt  that  he  ought  to  bow  down  before 
the  majesty  of  mere  human  life  in  his  father,  and 
serve  as  a  mere  instrument  of  his  revenge.  He  thus 
at  once  adopts,  blindly  and  instinctively,  a  feeling 
which  perfectly  belonged  to  his  father's  human  life, 
but  which,  for  himself,  could  have  no  part  in  his 
own. 


OBSERVATIONS    ON    HAMLET.  411 

The  effect  at  first  produced  by  the  apparition  is 
ever  afterwards  wonderfully  sustained.  I  do  not 
merely  allude  to  the  touches  of  realization  which, 
in  the  poetry  of  the  scenes,  pass  away  from  no  me 
mory, — such  as,  "The  Star," — " Where  now  it 
burns," — "The  sepulchre,  "—"The  complete  steel," 
— "  The  glimpses  of  the  moon," — "  Making  night 
hideous," — "  Look  how  pale  he  glares," — and  other 
wild  expressions,  which  are  like  fastenings  by 
which  the  mind  clings  to  its  terror.  I  rather  allude 
to  the  whole  conduct  of  the  Ghost.  We  ever  behold 
in  it  a  troubled  spirit  leaving  its  place  of  suffering 
to  revisit  the  life  it  had  left,  to  direct  and  command 
a  retribution  that  must  be  accomplished.  He  speaks 
of  the  pain  to  which  he  is  gone,  but  that  fades 
away  in  the  purpose  of  his  mission.  "  Pity  me 
not." — He  bids  Hamlet  revenge,  though  there  is 
not  the  passion  of  revenge  in  his  discourse.  The 
penal  fires  have  purified  the  grosser  man.  The 
spectre  utters  but  a  moral  declaration  of  guilt,  and 
swears  its  living  son  to  the  fulfilment  of  a  righteous 
vengeance. 

'  Blackwood's  Edinburgh  Magazine,  vol  ii.  p  504,  et  seq. 


MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 


No.  XII. 

A  DELINEATION    OF    SHAKSPEARE'S   CHARACTERS 
OF  MACBETH  AND  RICHARD. 

THERE  are  two  very  striking  characters  deline 
ated  by  our  great  dramatic  poet,  which  I  am  de 
sirous  of  bringing  together  under  one  review ; 
and  these  are  Macbeth  and  Richard  the  Third. 

The  parts  which  these  two  persons  sustain  in 
their  respective  dramas,  have  a  remarkable  coin 
cidence  :  both  are  actuated  by  the  same  guilty 
ambition  in  the  opening  of  the  story ;  both  murder 
their  lawful  sovereign  in  the  course  of  it ;  and 
both  are  defeated  and  slain  in  battle  at  the  con 
clusion  of  it:  yet  these  two  characters,  under 
circumstances  so  similar,  are  as  strongly  distin 
guished  in  every  passage  of  their  dramatic  life  by 
the  art  of  the  poet,  as  any  two  men  ever  were  by 
the  hand  of  nature. 

Let  us  contemplate  them  in  the  three  following 
periods,  viz.  :  the  premeditation  of  their  crime ; 
the  perpetration  of  it;  and  the  catastrophe  of 
their  death. 

Duncan,  the  reigning  king  of  Scotland,  has  two 
sons  :  Edward  the  Fourth  of  England  has  also  two 
sons ;  but  these  kings  and  their  respective  heirs 
do  not  affect  the  usurpers  Macbeth  and  Richard 


HIS    MACBETH    AND    RICHARD.  413 

in  the  same  degree,  for  the  latter  is  a  prince  of 
the  blood  royal,  brother  to  the  king,  and  next  in 
consanguinity  to  the  throne  after  the  death  of  his 
elder  brother  the  Duke  of  Clarence  :  Macbeth,  on 
the  contrary,  is  not  in  the  succession — 

—  And  to  be  king 
Stands  not  within  the  prospect  of  belief. 

His  views,  therefore,  being  further  removed  and 
more  out  of  hope,  a  greater  weight  of  circum 
stances  should  be  thrown  together  to  tempt  and 
encourage  him  to  an  undertaking  so  much  beyond 
the  prospect  of  his  belief.  The  art  of  the  poet 
furnishes  these  circumstances,  and  the  engine 
which  his  invention  employs,  is  of  a  preternatural 
and  prodigious  sort.  He  introduces  in  the  very 
opening  of  his  scene  a  troop  of  sybils  or  witches, 
who  salute  Macbeth  with  their  divinations,  and  in 
three  solemn  prophetic  gratulations  hail  him  Thane 
of  Glamis,  Thane  of  Cawdor,  and  King  hereafter  I 

By  SineFs  death  I  know  I'm  thane  of  Glamis  ; 
But  how  ofCawdor? 

One  part  of  the  prophecy,  therefore,  is  true  ;  the 
remaining  promises  become  more  deserving  of 
belief.  This  is  one  step  in  the  ladder  of  his  am 
bition,  and  mark  how  artfully  the  poet  has  laid 
it  in  his  way.  No  time  is  lost;  the  wonderful 
machinery  is  not  suffered  to  stand  still,  for  behold 
a  verification  of  the  second  prediction,  and  a  cour 
tier  thus  addresses  him  from  the  king :— 


414  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

And  for  an  earnest  of  a  greater  honour, 

He  bade  me  from  him  call  thee  THANE  OF  CAWDOR. 

The  magic  now  works  to  his  heart,  and  he  cannot 
wait  the  departure  of  the  royal  messenger  before 
his  admiration  vents  itself  aside — 


Glamis,  and  thane  of  Cawdor ! 


The  greatest  is  behind. 

A  second  time  he  turns  aside,  and  unable  to  re 
press  the  emotions  which  this  second  confirmation 
of  the  predictions  has  excited,  repeats  the  same 
secret  observation — • 

Two  truths  are  told 

As  happy  prologues  to  the  swelling  act 
Of  the  imperial  theme. 

A  soliloquy  then  ensues,  in  which  the  poet  judi 
ciously  opens  enough  of  his  character  to  show  the 
spectator  that  these  preternatural  agents  are  not 
superfluously  set  to  work  upon  a  disposition  prone 
to  evil,  but  one  that  will  have  to  combat  many 
compunctious  struggles  before  it  can  be  brought 
to  yield  even  to  oracular  influence.  This  alone 
would  demonstrate  (if  we  needed  demonstration) 
that  Shakspeare,  without  resorting  to  the  ancients, 
had  the  judgment  of  ages  as  it  were  instinctively. 
From  this  instant  we  are  apprised  that  Macbeth 
meditates  an  attack  upon  our  pity  as  well  as  upon 
our  horror,  when  he  puts  the  following  question  to 
his  conscience — 


Why  do  I  yield  to  that  suggestion, 


Whose  horrid  image  doth  unfix  my  hair, 


HIS    MACBETH    AND    RICHARD.  415 

And  make  my  seated  heart  knock  at  my  ribs 
Against  the  use  of  nature  ? 

Now  let  us  turn  to  Richard,  in  whose  cruel 
heart  no  such  remorse  finds  place ;  he  needs  no 
tempter.  There  is  here  no  dignus  vindice  nodus,  nor 
indeed  any  knot  at  all ;  for  he  is  already  practised 
in  murder:  ambition  is  his  ruling  passion,  and  a 
crown  is  in  view;  and  he  tells  you  at  his  very 
first  entrance  on  the  scene — • 

I  am  determined  to  be  a  villain. 

We  are  now  presented  with  a  character  full 
formed  and  complete  for  all  the  savage  purposes  of 
the  drama : — 

Impiger,  iracundus,  inexorabilis,  acer. 

The  barriers  of  conscience  are  broken  down,  and 
the  soul,  hardened  against  shame,  avows  its  own 
depravity : — - 

Plots  have  I  laid,  inductions  dangerous, 
To  set  my  brother  Clarence  and  the  king 
In  deadly  hate  the  one  against  the  other. 

He  observes  no  gradations  in  guilt,  expresses  no 
hesitation,  practises  no  refinements,  but  plunges 
into  blood  with  the  familiarity  of  long  custom,  and 
gives  orders  to  his  assassins  to  dispatch  his  brother 
Clarence  with  all  the  unfeeling  tranquillity  of  a 
Nero  or  Caligula.  Richard,  having  no  longer  any 
scruples  to  manage  with  his  own  conscience,  is 


416  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

exactly  in  the  predicament  which  the  dramatic 
poet  Diphilus  has  described  with  such  beautiful 
simplicity  of  expression  — 


yap  avros  avrov  OVK  alaf^vverait 

aur&»  (f>av\a 
Ilws  TOV  ye  jjujbev  et£or' 


The  wretch  who  knows  his  own  vile  deeds,  and  yet 
fears  not  himself,  how  should  he  fear  another,  who 
knows  them  not? 

It  is  manifest  therefore  that  there  is  an  essential 
difference  in  the  developement  of  these  characters, 
and  that  in  favour  of  Macbeth.  In  his  soul  cruelty 
seems  to  dawn  ;  it  breaks  out  with  faint  glimmer 
ings,  like  a  winter-morning,  and  gathers  strength 
by  slow  degrees.  In  Richard  it  flames  forth  at 
once,  mounting  like  the  sun  between  the  tropics, 
and  enters  boldly  on  its  career  without  a  herald. 
As  the  character  of  Macbeth  has  a  moral  advan 
tage  in  this  distinction,  so  has  the  drama  of  that 
name  a  much  more  interesting  and  affecting  cast. 
The  struggles  of  a  soul  naturally  virtuous,  whilst 
it  holds  the  guilty  impulse  of  ambition  at  bay, 
affords  the  noblest  theme  for  the  drama,  and  puts 
the  creative  fancy  of  our  poet  upon  a  resource,  in 
which  he  has  been  rivalled  only  by  the  great 
father  of  tragedy,  JEschylus,  in  the  prophetic  effu 
sions  of  Cassandra,  the  incantations  of  the  Persian 
magi  for  raising  the  ghost  of  Darius,  and  the  ima 
ginary  terrific  forms  of  his  furies  ;  with  all  which 


HIS    MACBETH    AND    RICHARD.  417 

our  countryman  probably  had  no  acquaintance,  or 
at  most  a  very  obscure  one.2 

CUMBERLAND.11 

»  The  latter  part  of  this  number,  here  omitted,  and  which  in 
cludes  a  comparison  between  jEschylus  and  Shakspeare,  will 
be  found  in  the  second  part  of  our  volume. 

»  The  Observer,  No.  55. 


2   D 


418  MEMORIALS    OF    SttAKSPEARE. 


,.,&,  No.  XIII. 

ifi'jciavfuifr    •>'•>'•••• 
ON  THE  CHARACTERS  OF  MACBETH  AND  RICHARD 

CONTINUED. 

WE  are  now  to  attend  Macbeth  to  the  perpetra 
tion  of  the  murder  which  puts  him  in  possession 
of  the  crown  of  Scotland;  and  this  introduces  a 
new  personage  on  the  scene,  his  accomplice  and 
wife  :  she  thus  developes  her  own  character — 


-Come,  all  you  spirits, 


That  tend  on  mortal  thoughts,  unsex  me  here, 

And  fill  me  from  the  crown  to  the  toe  topful 

Of  direst  cruelty;  make  thick  my  blood, 

Stop  up  the  access  and  passage  to  remorse, 

That  no  compunctious  visitings  of  nature 

Shake  my  fell  purpose,  nor  keep  peace  between 

Th'  effect  and  it.     Come  to  my  woman's  breasts, 

And  take  my  milk  for  gall,  you  murth'ring  ministers, 

Wherever  in  your  sightless  substances 

You  wait  on  nature's  mischief :  Come,  thick  night, 

And  pall  thee  in  the  dunnest  smoke  of  hell ! 

Terrible  invocation !  Tragedy  can  speak  no 
stronger  language,  nor  could  any  genius  less  than 
Shakspeare's  support  a  character  of  so  lofty  a 
pitch,  so  sublimely  terrible  at  the  very  opening. 

The  part  which  Lady  Macbeth  fills  in  the  dra 
ma,  has  a  relative  as  well  as  positive  importance, 
and  serves  to  place  the  repugnance  of  Macbeth  in 


HIS    MACBETH    AND    RICHARD.  419 

the  strongest  point  of  view  ;  she  is  in  fact  the 
auxiliary  of  the  witches,  and  the  natural  influence 
which  so  high  and  predominant  a  spirit  asserts 
over  the  tamer  qualities  of  her  husband,  makes 
those  witches  but  secondary  agents  for  bringing 
about  the  main  action  of  the  drama.  This  is  well 
worth  a  remark ;  for  if  they,  which  are  only  arti 
ficial  and  fantastic  instruments,  had  been  made 
the  sole  or  even  principal  movers  of  the  great  in 
cident  of  the  murder,  nature  would  have  been  ex 
cluded  from  her  share  in  the  drama,  and  Macbeth 
would  have  become  the  mere  machine  of  an  un 
controllable  necessity;  and  his  character,  being 
robbed  of  its  free  agency,  would  have  left  no  mo 
ral  behind.  I  must  take  leave  therefore  to  antici 
pate  a  remark,  which  I  shall  hereafter  repeat,  that 
when  Lady  Macbeth  is  urging  her  lord  to  the 
murder,  not  a  word  is  dropped  by  either,  of  the 
witches  or  their  predictions.  It  is  in  these  in 
stances  of  his  conduct  that  Shakspeare  is  so  won 
derful  a  study  for  the  dramatic  poet.  But  I  pro 
ceed — 

Lady  Macbeth,  in  her  first  scene,  from  which  I 
have  already  extracted  a  passage,  prepares  for  an 
attempt  upon  the  conscience  of  her  husband,  whose 
nature  she  thus  describes — 


-Yet  do  I  fear  thy  nature ; 


It  is  too  full  o'  th'  milk  of  human  kindness 
To  catch  the  nearest  way. 

He  arrives  before  she  quits  the  scene,  and  she  re 
ceives  him  with  consummate  address — 


420  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Great  Giamis  !  worthy  Cawdor! 

Greater  than  both  by  the  All-hail  hereafter ! 

These  are  the  very  gratulations  of  the  witches  : 
she  welcomes  him  with  confirmed  predictions, 
with  the  tempting  salutations  of  ambition,  not 
with  the  softening  caresses  of  a  wife — 

MACB.  Duncan  comes  here  to-night. 
LADY.  And  when  goes  hence? 
MACB.  To-morrow,  as  he  purposes. 
LADY.  Oh  never 

Shall  sun  that  morrow  see ! 

The  rapidity  of  her  passion  hurries  her  into  imme 
diate  explanation,  and  he,  consistently  with  the 
character  she  had  described,  evades  her  preci 
pitate  solicitations  with  a  short  indecisive  answer— 

We  will  speak  further — 

His  reflections  upon  this  interview,  and  the  dread 
ful  subject  of  it,  are  soon  after  given  in  soliloquy, 
in  which  the  poet  has  mixed  the  most  touching 
strokes  of  compunction  with  his  meditations.  He 
reasons  against  the  villainy  of  the  act,  and  honour 
jointly  with  nature  assails  him  with  an  argument 
of  double  force  : — 


He's  here  in  double  trust; 


First  as  I  am  his  kinsman  and  his  subject, 
Strong  both  against  the  deed ;  then  as  his  host, 
Who  should  against  the  murtherer  shut  the  door, 
Not  bear  the  knife  himself. 

This  appeal  to  nature,  hospitality,  and  allegiance, 


HIS    MACBETH    AND    RICHARD.  421 

was  not  without  its  impression  :  he  again  meets  his 
lady,  and  immediately  declares — 

We  will  proceed  no  further  in  this  business. 

This  draws  a  retort  upon  him,  in  which  his  tergi 
versation  and  cowardice  are  satirized  with  so  keen 
an  edge,  and  interrogatory  reproaches  are  pressed 
so  fast  upon  him,  that  catching  hold  in  his  retreat 
of  one  small  but  precious  fragment  in  the  wreck  of 
innocence  and  honour,  he  demands  a  truce  from 
her  attack,  and  with  the  spirit  of  a  combatant  who 
has  not  yet  yielded  up  his  weapons,  cries  out— 

Pr'ythee,  peace ! 

The  words  are  no  expletives ;  they  do  not  fill  up  a 
sentence,  but  they  form  one.  They  stand  in  a 
most  important  pass ;  they  defend  the  breach  her 
ambition  has  made  in  his  heart,  a  breach  in  the 
very  citadel  of  humanity ;  they  mark  the  last  dig 
nified  struggle  of  virtue,  and  they  have  a  double 
reflecting  power^  which  in  the  first  place  shows 
that  nothing  but  the  voice  of  authority  could  stem 
the  torrent  of  her  invective,  and  in  the  next  place 
announces  that  something,  worthy  of  the  solemn 
audience  he  had  demanded,  was  on  the  point  to 
follow — and  worthy  it  is  to  be  a  standard  sentiment 
of  moral  truth  expressed  with  proverbial  simpli 
city,  sinking  into  every  heart  that  hears  it — 

I  dare  do  all  that  may  become  a  man, 
J;SL  K  Who  dares  do  more  is  none. 


422  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

How  must  every  feeling  spectator  lament  that  a 
man  should  fall  from  virtue  with  such  an  appeal 
upon  his  lips ! 

OVK  eartv  oybas,  6  SeSoucws  vofiov. 

PHILONIDFS. 

A  man  is  not  a  coward  because  he  fears  to  be  unjust, 
is  the  sentiment  of  an  old  dramatic  poet. 

Macbeth's  principle  is  honour ;  cruelty  is  natural 
to  his  wife ;  ambition  is  common  to  both  :  one 
passion  favourable  to  her  purpose  has  taken  place 
in  his  heart ;  another  still  hangs  about  it,  which 
being  adverse  to  her  plot,  is  first  to  be  expelled, 
before  she  can  instil  her  cruelty  into  his  nature. 
The  sentiment  above  quoted  had  been  firmly  deli 
vered,  and  was  ushered  in  with  an  apostrophe 
suitable  to  its  importance :  she  feels  its  weight ; 
she  perceives  it  is  not  to  be  turned  aside  with  con 
tempt,  or  laughed  down  by  ridicule,  as  she  had 
already  done  where  weaker  scruples  had  stood  in 
the  way ;  but,  taking  sophistry  in  aid,  by  a  ready 
turn  of  argument  she  gives  him  credit  for  his  senti 
ment,  erects  a  more  glittering  though  fallacious 
logic  upon  it,  and,  by  admitting  his  objection,  cun 
ningly  confutes  it— 

What  beast  was't  then, 

That  made  you  break  this  enterprize  to  me? 
When  you  durst  do  it,  then  you  were  a  man, 
And  to  be  more  than  what  you  were,  you  would 
Be  so  much  more  than  man. 

Having  thus  parried  his  objection  by  a  sophistry 


HIS    MACBETH    AND    RICHARD.  423 

calculated  to  blind  his  reason,  and  enflame  his  am 
bition,  she  breaks  forth  into  such  a  vaunting  display 
of  hardened  intrepidity,  as  presents  one  of  the  most 
terrific  pictures  that  was  ever  imagined — 


•I  have  given  suck,  and  know 


How  tender  'tis  to  love  the  babe  that  milks  me  : 
I  would,  whilst  it  was  smiling  in  my  face, 
Have  pluck'd  my  nipple  from  its  boneless  gums, 
And  dash'd  its  brains  out,  had  I  but  so  sworn 
As  you  have  done  to  this. 

This  is  a  note  of  horror,  screwed  to  a  pitch  that 
bursts  the  very  sinews  of  nature.  She  no  longer 
combats  with  human  weapon,  but  seizing  the  flash 
of  the  lightning,  extinguishes  her  opponent  with 
the  stroke.  Here  tho  controversy  must  end,  for 
he  must  either  adopt  her  spirit,  or  take  her  life. 
He  sinks  under  the  attack,  and  offering  nothing  in 
delay  of  execution  but  a  feeble  hesitation,  founded 
in  fear — If  we  should  fail, — he  concludes  with  an 
assumed  ferocity,  caught  from  her,  and  not  spring 
ing  from  himself— 

— . — I  am  settled,  and  bend  up 


Each  corporal  agent  to  this  terrible  feat. 

The  strong  and  sublime  strokes  of  a  master  im 
pressed  upon  this  scene  make  it  a  model  of  drama 
tic  composition ;  and  I  must  in  this  place  remind 
the  reader  of  the  observation  I  have  before  hinted 
at,  that  no  reference  whatever  is  had  to  the  augu 
ries  of  the  witches.  It  would  be  injustice  to  sup- 


424  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

pose  that  this  was  other  than  a  purposed  omission 
by  the  poet ;  a  weaker  genius  would  have  resorted 
back  to  these  instruments.  Shakspeare  had  used 
and  laid  them  aside  for  a  time  ;  he  had  a  stronger 
engine  at  work,  and  he  could  proudly  exclaim — 

We  defy  auguries. — 

Nature  was  sufficient  for  that  work;  and  to  show 
the  mastery  he  had  over  nature,  he  took  his  human 
agent  from  the  weaker  sex. 

This  having  passed  in  the  first  act,  the  murder 
is  perpetrated  in  the  succeeding  one.  The  intro 
ductory  soliloquy  of  Macbeth,  the  chimaera  of  the 
dagger,  and  the  signal  on  the  bell,  are  awful  pre 
ludes  to  the  deed.  In  this  dreadful  interim  Lady 
Macbeth,  the  great  superintending  spirit,  enters  to 
support  the  dreadful  work.  It  is  done ;  and  he  re 
turns  appalled  with  sounds.  He  surveys  his  bloody 
hands  with  horror ;  he  starts  from  her  proposal  of 
going  back  to  besmear  the  guards  of  Duncan's 
chamber ;  and  she  snatches  the  reeking  daggers 
from  his  trembling  hands  to  finish  the  imperfect 
work — 

Infirm  of  purpose, 

Give  me  the  daggers  ! 

She  returns  on  the  scene;  the  deed  which  he  re 
volted  from  is  performed ;  and  with  the  same  un 
shaken  ferocity  she  vauntingly  displays  her  bloody 
trophies,  and  exclaims — • 

My  hands  are  of  your  colour,  but  I  shame 
To  wear  a  heart  so  white. 


HIS    MACBETH    AND    RICHARD.  425 

Fancied  noises,  the  throbbings  of  his  own  quail 
ing  heart,  had  shaken  the  constancy  of  Macbeth. 
Real  sounds,  the  certain  signals  of  approaching  vi- 
siters,  to  whom  the  situation  of  Duncan  must  be 
revealed,  do  not  intimidate  her;  she  is  prepared 
for  all  trials,  and  coolly  tells  him— 


-I  hear  a  knocking 


At  the  south  entry :  Retire  we  to  our  chamber ; 
A  little  water  clears  us  of  this  deed. 
How  easy  is  it  then ! 

The  several  incidents  thrown  together  in  this 
scene  of  the  murder  of  Duncan,  are  of  so  striking  a 
sort  as  to  need  no  elucidation ;  they  are  better  felt 
than  described,  and  my  attempts  point  at  passages 
of  more  obscurity,  where  the  touches  are  thrown 
into  shade,  and  the  art  of  the  author  lies  more  out 
of  sight. 

Lady  Macbeth  being  now  retired  from  the  scene, 
we  may,  in  this  interval,  permit  the  genius  of 
jEschylus  to  introduce  a  rival  murderess  on  the 
stage. 

Clytemnestra  has  received  her  husband  Aga 
memnon,  on  his  return  from  the  capture  of  Troy, 
with  studied  rather  than  cordial  congratulations. 
He  opposes  the  pompous  ceremonies  she  had 
devised  for  the  display  of  his  entry,  with  a  magna 
nimous  contempt  of  such  adulation — 


-Sooth  me  not  with  strains 


Of  adulation,  as  a  girl;  nor  raise 

As  to  some  proud  barbaric  king,  that  loves 


426  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Loud  acclamations  echoed  from  the  mouths 

Of  prostrate  worshippers,  a  clamorous  welcome  : 

Spread  not  the  streets  with  tapestry ;  'tis  invidious ; 

These  are  the  honours  we  should  pay  the  gods ; 

For  mortal  men  to  tread  on  ornaments 

Of  rich  embroidery — no ;  I  dare  not  do  it : 

Respect  me  as  a  man,  not  as  a  god. 

POTTER'S  ^SCHYLUS. 

These  are  heroic  sentiments ;  but  in  conclusion 
the  persuasions  of  the  wife  overcome  the  modest 
scruples  of  the  hero,  and  he  enters  his  palace  in 
the  pomp  of  triumph  ;  when  soon  his  dying  groans 
are  echoed  from  the  interior  scene,  and  the  adul- 
tress  comes  forth,  besprinkled  with  the  blood  of  her 
husband,  to  avow  the  murder — 


-I  struck  him  twice,  and  twice 


He  groaned ;  then  died.    A  third  time  as  he  lay 
I  gor'd  him  with  a  wound ;  a  grateful  present 
To  the  stern  god,  that  in  the  realms  below 
Reigns  o'er  the  dead.    There  let  him  take  his  seat. 
He  lay ;  and  spouting  from  his  wounds  a  stream 
Of  blood  bedew'd  me  with  these  crimson  drops. 
I  glory  in  them,  like  the  genial  earth, 
When  the  warm  showers  of  heav'n  descend  and  wake 
The  flowrets  to  unfold  their  vermeil  leaves. 
Come  then,  ye  reverend  senators  of  Argos, 
Joy  with  me,  if  your  hearts  be  turn'd  to  joy, 
And  such  I  wish  them.  POTTER. 

CUMBERLAND.5 

b  The  Observer,  No.  56.  The  character  of  Clytemnestra," 
observes  a  periodical  critic,  "  may  be  weighed  without  dispa 
ragement  against  that  of  Lady  Macbeth  ;  but  all  the  other  de 
lineations  are  superior  in  our  Shakspeare :  his  characters  are 


HIS   MACBETH    AND    RICHARD.  427 

more  various,  more  marked,  more  consistent,  more  natural,  more 
intuitive.  The  style  of  ^Eschylus,  if  distinguished  for  a  majes 
tic  energetic  simplicity,  greatly  preferable  to  the  mixed  meta 
phors  and  puns  of  Shakspeare,  has  still  neither  the  richness  of 
thought,  nor  the  versatility  of  diction,  which  we  find  displayed 
in  the  English  tragedy." — Monthly  Review,  vol.  Ixxxi.  p.  120. 


428  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 


. 
I 

No.  XIV. 


ON  THE  CHARACTERS  OF  MACBETH  AND  RICHARD 
CONTINUED. 

RICHARD  perpetrates  several  murders ;  but  as 
the  poet  has  not  marked  them  with  any  distin 
guishing  circumstances,  they  need  not  be  enu 
merated  on  this  occasion.  Some  of  these  he 
commits  in  his  passage  to  power,  others  after  he 
has  seated  himself  on  the  throne.  Ferociousness 
and  hypocrisy  are  the  prevailing  features  of  his 
character ;  and  as  he  has  no  one  honourable  or 
humane  principle  to  combat,  there  is  no  opening 
for  the  poet  to  develope  those  secret  workings  of 
conscience,  which  he  has  so  naturally  done  in  the 
case  of  Macbeth. 

The  murder  of  Clarence,  those  of  the  queen's 
kinsmen  and  of  the  young  princes  in  the  Tower, 
are  all  perpetrated  in  the  same  style  of  hardened 
cruelty.  He  takes  the  ordinary  method  of  hiring 
ruffians  to  perform  his  bloody  commissions,  and 
there  is  nothing  which  particularly  marks  the 
scenes  wherein  he  imparts  his  purposes  and  in 
structions  to  them  :  a  very  little  management 
serves  even  for  Tirrel,  who  is  not  a  professional 
murderer,  but  is  reported  to  be— 


HIS    MACBETH    AND    RICHARD.  429 

a  discontented  gentleman, 

Whose  humble  means  match  not  his  haughty  spirit. 

With  such  a  spirit  Richard  does  not  hold  it  neces 
sary  to  use  much  circumlocution,  and  seems  more 
in  dread  of  delay  than  disappointment  or  dis 
covery  : — 

R.  Is  thy  name  Tirrel  ? 

T.   James  Tirrel,  and  your  most  obedient  subject. 

R.  Art  thou  indeed  ? 

T.   Prove  me,  my  gracious  lord. 

R.  Dar'st  thou  resolve  to  kill  a  friend  of  mine  ? 

T.    Please  you,  I  had  rather  kill  two  enemies. 

R.  Why  then  thou  hast  it ;  two  deep  enemies, 

Foes  to  my  rest,  and  my  sweet  sleep's  disturbers, 
Are  they  that  I  would  have  thee  deal  upon  : 
Tirrel,  I  mean  those  bastards  in  the  Tower. 

If  the  reader  calls  to  mind  by  what  circumspect 
and  slow  degrees  King  John  opens  himself  to 
Hubert  under  a  similar  situation  with  this  of 
Richard,  he  will  be  convinced  that  Shakspeare 
considered  preservation  of  character  too  important 
to  sacrifice  on  any-  occasion  to  the  vanity  of  fine 
writing ;  for  the  scene  he  has  given  to  John,  a 
timorous  and  wary  prince,  would  ill  suit  the  cha 
racter  of  Richard.  A  close  observance  of  nature 
is  the  first  excellence  of  a  dramatic  poet,  and  the 
peculiar  property  of  him  we  are  reviewing. 

In  these  two  stages  of  our  comparison,  Macbeth 
appears  with  far  more  dramatic  effect  than  Richard, 
whose  first  scenes  present  us  with  little  else  than 


430  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

traits  of  perfidiousness,  one  striking  incident  of 
successful  hypocrisy  practised  on  the  Lady  Anne, 
and  an  open  unreserved  display  of  remorseless 
cruelty.  Impatient  of  any  pause  or  interruption 
in  his  measures,  a  dangerous  friend  and  a  deter 
mined  foe : — 

Effera  torquebant  avidae  prsecordia  curse 
Effugeret  ne  quis  gladios 
Crescebat  scelerata  sitis ;  preedseque  recentis 
Inceestus  flagrabat  amor  nullusque  petendi 
Cogendive  pudor :  crebris  perjuria  nectit 
Blanditiis  ;  sociat  perituro  foedere  dextras: 
Si  semel  e  tantis  poscenti  quisque  negasset, 
EfFera  preetumido  quatiebat  corda  furore. 

CLAUDIAN. 

The  sole  remorse  his  greedy  heart  can  feel 

Is  if  one  life  escapes  his  murdering  steel : 

That  which  should  quench,  inflames  his  craving  thirst, 

The  second  draught  still  deepens  on  the  first; 

Shameless  by  force  or  fraud  to  work  his  way, 

And  no  less  prompt  to  flatter  than  betray : 

This  hour  makes  friendships  which  he  breaks  the  next, 

And  every  breach  supplies  a  vile  pretext 

Basely  to  cancel  all  concessions  past, 

If  in  a.thousand  you  deny  the  last. 

Macbeth  has  now  touched  the  goal  of  his  ambition  : 

Thou  hast  it  now;  King,  Cawdor,  Glamis,  all 
The  wayward  sisters  promised — 

The  auguries  of  the  witches,  to  which  no  refer 
ence  had  been  made  in  the  heat  of  the  main 
action,  are  now  called  to  mind  with  many  circum- 


HIS    MACBETH    AND    RICHARD.  431 

stances  of  galling  aggravation,  not  only  as  to  the 
prophecy,  which  gave  the  crown  to  the  posterity 
of  Banquo,  but  also  of  his  own  safety  from  the 
gallant  and  noble  nature  of  that  general — 

Our  fears  in  Banquo 


Stick  deep,  and  in  his  royalty  of  nature 
Reigns  that,  which  would  be  fear'd. 

Assassins  are  provided  to  murder  Banquo  and  his 
son,  but  this  is  not  decided  upon  without  much 
previous  meditation;  and  he  seems  prompted  to 
the  act  more  by  desperation  and  dread  than  by 
any  settled  resolution  or  natural  cruelty.  He 
convenes  the  assassins,  and  in  a  conference  of 
some  length  works  round  to  his  point,  by  insinua 
tions  calculated  to  persuade  them  to  dispatch 
Banquo  for  injuries  done  to  them,  rather  than 
from  motives  which  respect  himself;  in  which 
scene  we  discover  a  remarkable  preservation  of 
character  in  Macbeth,  who  by  this  artifice  strives 
to  blind  his  own  conscience,  and  throw  the  guilt 
upon  theirs.  In  this,  as  in  the  former  action,  there 
is  nothing  kingly  in  his  cruelty :  in  one  he  acted 
under  the  controlling  spirit  of  his  wife ;  here  he 
plays  the  sycophant  with  hired  assassins,  and 
confesses  himself  under  awe  of  the  superior  genius 
of  Banquo — 

Under  him 

My  genius  is  rebuk'd,  as  it  is  said 
Antony's  was  by  Csesar. 

There  is  not   a  circumstance  ever  so  minute  in 


432  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

the  conduct  of  this  character,  which  does  not  point 
out  to  a  diligent  observer  how  closely  the  poet  has 
adhered  to  nature  in  every  part  of  his  delineation. 
Accordingly  we  observe  a  peculiarity  in  the  lan 
guage  of  Macbeth,  which  is  highly  characteristic  ; 
I  mean  the  figurative  turn  of  his  expressions, 
whenever  his  imagination  strikes  upon  any  gloomy 
subject — 

Oh!  full  of  scorpions  is  my  mind,  dear  wife! 

And  in  this  state  of  self- torment,  every  object  of 
solemnity,  though  ever  so  familiar,  becomes  an 
object  of  terror:  night,  for  instance,  is  not  men 
tioned  by  him  without  an  accompaniment  of  every 
melancholy  attribute  which  a  frighted  fancy  can 
annex: — 

Ere  the  bat  hath  flown 

His  cloister'd  flight,  ere  to  black  Hecate's  summons 
The  shard-born  beetle  with  his  drowsy  hums 
Hath  rung  NIGHT'S  yawning  peal,  there  shall  be  done 
A  deed  of  dreadful  note. 

It  is  the  darkness  of  his  soul  that  makes  the  night 
so  dreadful,  the  scorpions  in  his  mind  convoke  these 
images  ;  but  he  has  not  yet  done  with  it — 

Come,  sealing  NIGHT  ! 

Skarf  up  the  tender  eye  of  pitiful  day ; 

And  with  thy  bloody  and  invisible  hand 

Cancel  and  tear  to  pieces  that  great  bond, 

Which  keeps  me  pale.     Light  thickens,  and  the  crow 

Makes  wing  to  the  rooky  wood. 

Good  things  of  day  begin  to  droop  and  drowse, 

Whilst  NIGHT'S  black  agents  to  their  prey  do  rouse. 


HIS    MACBETH    AND    RICHARD.  433 

The  critic  of  language  will  observe  that  here  is  a 
redundancy  and  crowd  of  metaphors ;  but  the  critic 
of  nature  will  acknowledge  that  it  is  the  very  truth 
of  character,  and  join  me  in  the  remark  which 
points  it  out. 

In  a  tragedy  so  replete  with  murder,  and  in  the 
display  of  a  character  so  tortured  by  the  scorpions 
of  the  mind,  as  this  of  Macbeth,  it  is  naturally  to 
be  expected  that  a  genius  like  Shakspeare's  will 
call  in  the  dead  for  their  share  in  the  horror  of  the 
scene.  This  he  has  done  in  two  several  ways : 
first,  by  the  apparition  of  Banquo,  which  is  invisi 
ble  to  all  but  Macbeth ;  secondly,  by  the  spells 
and  incantations  of  the  witches,  who  raise  spirits, 
which  in  certain  enigmatical  predictions  shadow 
out  his  fate ;  and  these  are  followed  by  a  train  of 
unborn  revelations,  drawn  by  the  power  of  magic 
from  the  womb  of  futurity  before  their  time,  fe^"**1 

It  appears  that  Lady  Macbeth  was  not  a  party 
in  the  assassination  of  Banquo,  and  the  ghost, 
though  twice  visible  to  the  murderer,  is  not  seen 
by  her.  This  is  another  incident  highly  worthy  a 
particular  remark ;  for  by  keeping  her  free  from 
any  participation  in  the  horror  of  the  sight,  the 
poet  is  enabled  to  make  a  scene  aside  between 
Macbeth  and  her,  which  contains  some  of  the  finest 
speakings  in  the  play.  The  ghost  in  Hamlet,  and 
the  ghost  of  Darius  in  .Slschylus,  are  introduced  by 
preparation  and  prelude.  This  of  Banquo  is  an 
object  of  surprise  as  well  as  terror  ;  and  there  is 
scarce  an  incident  to  be  named  of  more  striking 

2E 


434  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

and  dramatic  effect:  it  is  one  amongst  various 
proofs,  that  must  convince  every  man,  who  looks 
critically  into  Shakspeare,  that  he  was  as  great  a 
master  in  art  as  in  nature.  How  it  strikes  me  in 
this  point  of  view,  1  shall  take  the  liberty  of  ex 
plaining  more  at  length. 

The  murder  of  Duncan  is  the  main  incident  of 
this  tragedy ;  that  of  Banquo  is  subordinate.  Dun 
can's  blood  was  not  only  the  first  so  shed  by  Mac 
beth,  but  the  dignity  of  the  person  murdered,  and 
the  aggravating  circumstances  attending  it,  consti 
tute  a  crime  of  the  very  first  magnitude.  For  these 
reasons,  it  might  be  expected  that  the  spectre  most 
likely  to  haunt  his  imagination  would  be  that  of 
Duncan ;  and  the  rather,  because  his  terror  and 
compunction  were  so  much  more  strongly  excited 
by  this  first  murder,  perpetrated  with  his  own 
hands,  than  by  the  subsequent  one  of  Banquo,. 
palliated  by  evasion,  and  committed  to  others. 
But  when  we  recollect  that  Lady  Macbeth  was 
not  only  his  accomplice,  but  in  fact  the  first  mover' 
in  the  murder  of  the  king,  we  see  good  reason  why 
Duncan's  ghost  could  not  be  called  up,  unless  she, 
who  so  deeply  partook  of  the  guilt,  had  also  shared 
in  the  horror  of  the  appearance ;  and  as  visitations 
of  a  peculiar  sort  were  reserved  for  her  in  a  later 
period  of  the  drama,  it  was  a  point  of  consummate 
art  and  judgment  to  exclude  her  from  the  affair 
of  Banquo's  murder,  and  make  the  more  susceptible 
conscience  of  Macbeth  figure  this  apparition  in  his 
mind's  eye  without  any  other  witness  to  the  vision. 


HIS    MACBETH    AND    RICHARD.  435 

I  persuade  myself  these  will  appear  very  natu 
ral  reasons  why  the  poet  did  not  raise  the  ghost  of 
the  king  in  preference,  though  it  is  reasonable  to 
think  it  would  have  been  a  much  more  noble  inci 
dent  in  his  hands  than  this  of  Banquo.  It  now 
remains  to  examine  whether  this  is  more  fully  jus 
tified  by  the  peculiar  situation  reserved  for  Lady 
Macbeth,  to  whom  I  have  before  adverted. 

The  intrepidity  of  her  character  is  so  marked, 
that  we  may  well  suppose  no  waking  terrors  could 
shake  it ;  and  in  this  light  it  must  be  acknowledged 
a  very  natural  expedient  to  make  her  vent  the 
agonies  of  her  conscience  in  sleep.  Dreams  have 
been  a  dramatic  expedient  ever  since  there  has 
been  a  drama.  JEschylus  recites  the  dream  of 
Clytemnestra  immediately  before  her  son  Orestes 
kills  her;  she  fancies  she  has  given  birth  to  a 
dragon  : — 

This  new-born  dragon,  like  an  infant  child 
Laid  in  the  cradle,  seem'd  in  want  of  food  ; 
And  in  her  dream  she  held  it  to  her  breast : 
The  milk  he  drew  was  mix'd  with  clotted  blood. 

POTTER. 

This,  which  is  done  by  ^Eschylus,  has  been  done 
by  hundreds  after  him ;  but  to  introduce  upon  the 
scene  the  very  person,  walking  in  sleep,  and  giv 
ing  vent  to  the  horrid  fancies  that  haunt  her 
dream,  in  broken  speeches  expressive  of  her  guilt, 
uttered  before  witnesses,  and  accompanied  with 
that  natural  and  expressive  action  of  washing  the 
blood  from  her  defiled  hands,  was  reserved  for  the 


436  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

original  and  bold  genius  of  Shakspeare  only.  It 
is  an  incident  so  full  of  tragic  horror,  so  daring, 
and  at  the  same  time  so  truly  characteristic,  that 
it  stands  out  as  a  prominent  feature  in  the  most 
sublime  drama  in  the  world,  and  fully  compen 
sates  for  any  sacrifices  the  poet  might  have  made 
in  the  previous  arrangement  of  his  incidents. c 

CUMBERLAND.  d 

c  Shakspeare  has  not  thought  it  necessary  to  hint  to  us  the 
repressed  yet  agonizing  struggles  which  Lady  Macbeth  must 
have  endured,  ere  her  mind,  originally  so  daringly  masculine 
and  fearless,  could  have  been  subdued  to  these  terrors  of  ima 
gination.  But  it  is  evident,  and  it  is  a  management  worthy 
of  Shakspeare,  that  the  repression  of  her  feelings  in  her  waking 
state  served  but  to  render  her,  when  volition  was  weakened  by 
sleep,  more  assuredly  the  victim  of  horror,  even  unto  death  ; 
for,  atrocious  as  her  character  is,  and  apparently  scarcely,  if  at 
all,  susceptible  of  remorse,  yet  that  some  portion  of  humanity 
lingered  in  her  heart,  is  placed  beyond  all  doubt  from  the  very 
striking  trait  which  the  poet  has  thrown  in,  in  order  to  link  her 
as  it  were  to  human  nature,  that  of  declining  to  execute  the  mur 
der  of  Duncan  herself,  when  she  placed  the  daggers  in  his 
chamber,  because  he  resembled  her  "  father  as  he  slept/ 
This  touch  of  tenderness  is  alone  sufficient  to  render  probable 
the  almost  unparalleled  horror  of  the  scene  which  precedes  her 
dissolution. 

«>  The  Observer,  No.  57. 


HIS    MACBETH    AND    RICHARD.  437 


No.  XV. 

ON  THE  CHARACTERS  OF  MACBETH  AND  RICHARD 
CONCLUDED. 

MACBETH  now  approaches  towards  his  catas 
trophe.  The  heir  of  the  crown  is  in  arms,  and  he 
must  defend  valiantly  what  he  has  usurped  vil 
lainously.  His  natural  valour  does  not  suffice  for 
this  trial :  he  resorts  to  the  witches  ;  he  conjures 
them  to  give  answer  to  what  he  shall  ask,  and  he 
again  runs  into  all  those  pleonasms  of  speech 
which  I  before  remarked.  The  predictions  he  ex 
torts  from  the  apparitions  are  so  couched  as  to 
seem  favourable  to  him ;  at  the  same  time  that 
they  correspond  with  events  which  afterwards 
prove  fatal.  The  management  of  this  incident 
has  so  close  a  resemblance  to  what  the  poet  Clau- 
dian  has  done  in  the  instance  of  Ruffinus's  vision 
the  night  before  his  massacre,  that  I  am  tempted 
to  insert  the  passage  :— 

Ecce  videt  diras  alludere  protinus  umbras, 
Quas  dedit  ipse  neci ;  quarum  quee  clarior  una 
Visa  loqui — Proh  !  surge  toro;  quid  plurima  volvit 
Anxius  I  heec  requiem  rebus,  finemque  labori 
Allatura  dies  :   Omne  jam  plebe  redibis 
Altior,  et  leeti  manibus  portabere  vulgi — 
Has  canit  ambages.     Occulto  fallitur  ille 
Omine,  nee  capitis  fixi  praesagia  sensit. 


438  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE, 

A  ghastly  vision  in  the  dead  of  night 
Of  mangled,  murder'd  ghosts  appal  his  sight ; 
When  hark  !  a  voice  from  forth  the  shadowy  train 
Cries  out — Awake !  what  thoughts  perplex  thy  brain  ? 
Awake,  arise !  behold  the  day  appears, 
That  ends  thy  labours,  and  dispels  thy  fears : 
To  loftier  heights  thy  tow'ring  head  shall  rise, 
And  the  glad  crowd  shall  lift  thee  to  the  skies — 
Thus  spake  the  voice  :  He  triumphs,  nor  beneath 
Th'  ambiguous  omen  sees  the  doom  of  death. 

Confiding  in  his  auguries,  Macbeth  now  prepares 
for  battle :  by  the  first  of  these  he  is  assured — • 

That  none  of  woman  born 

Shall  harm  Macbeth. 

By  the  second  prediction  he  is  told — 

Macbeth  shall  never  vanquish'd  be,  until 
Great  Birnam-wood  to  Dunsinane's  high  hill 
Shall  come  against  him. 

These  he  calls  sweet  boadments !  and  concludes — 
To  sleep  in  spite  of  thunder. 

This  play  is  so  replete  with  excellences,  that  it 
would  exceed  all  bounds  if  I  were  to  notice  every 
one  ;  I  pass  over,  therefore,  that  incomparable 
scene  between  Macbeth,  the  physician,  and  Sey- 
ton,  in  which  the  agitations  of  his  mind  are  so 
wonderfully  expressed ;  and,  without  pausing  for 
the  death  of  Lady  Macbeth,  I  conduct  the  reader 
to  that  crisis,  when  the  messenger  has  announced 
the  ominous  approach  of  Birnam-wood. — A  burst 
of  fury,  an  exclamation  seconded  by  a  blow,  is  the 


HIS    MACBETH    AND    RICHARD.  439 

first  natural  explosion  of  a  soul  so  stung  with 
scorpions  as  Macbeth's.  The  sudden  gust  is  no 
sooner  discharged  than  nature  speaks  her  own 
language ;  and  the  still  voice  of  conscience,  like 
reason  in  the  midst  of  madness,  murmurs  forth 
these  mournful  words  : — 

I  pall  in  resolution,  and  begin 

To  doubt  the  equivocation  of  the  fiend, 

That  lies  like  truth. 

With  what  an  exquisite  feeling  has  this  darling 
son  of  nature  here  thrown  in  this  touching,  this 
pathetic  sentence,  amidst  the  very  whirl  and  eddy 
of  conflicting  passions  !  Here  is  a  study  for  dra 
matic  poets  ;  this  is  a  string  for  an  actor's  skill  to 
touch ;  this  will  discourse  sweet  music  to  the  hu 
man  heart,  with  which  it  is  finely  unisoned  when 
struck  with  the  hand  of  a  master. 

The  next  step  brings  us  to  the  last  scene  of 
Macbeth's  dramatic  existence.  Flushed  with  the 
blood  of  Siward,  he  is  encountered  by  Macduff, 
who  crosses  him  like  his  evil  genius.  Macbeth 
cries  out  — 

Of  all  men  else  I  have  avoided  thee. 

To  the  last  moment  of  character  the  faithful  poet 
supports  him.  He  breaks  off  from  single  combat, 
and  in  the  tremendous  pause,  so  beautifully  con 
trived  to  hang  suspense  and  terror  on  the  moral 
scene  of  his  exit,  the  tyrant  driven  to  bay,  and 
panting  with  the  heat  and  struggle  of  the  fight, 
vauntingly  exclaims — 


440  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

MACB.  As  easy  may'st  thou  the  intrenchant  air 

With  thy  keen  sword  impress,  as  make  me  bleed  : 
Let  fall  thy  blade  on  vulnerable  crests  ; 
I  bear  a  charmed  life,  which  must  not  yield 
To  one  of  woman  born. 
MACD.  Despair  thy  charm  ! 

And  let  the  angel,  whom  thou  still  hast  serv'd, 
Tell  thee  Macduff  was  from  his  mother's  womb 
Untimely  ripp'd. 

MACB.  Accursed  be  that  tongue  that  tells  me  so  ! 
For  it  hath  cow'd  my  better  part  of  man. 

There  sinks  the  spirit  of  Macbeth — 

-Behold  !  where  stands 

Th'  usurper's  cursed  head  ! 

How  completely  does  this  coincide  with  the  pas 
sage  already  quoted  ! 

Occulto  fallitur  ille 


Omine,  nee  CAPITIS  FIXI  prsesagia  sentit.e 

e  It  cannot  but  be  a  subject  of  considerable  regret,  that 
the  supernatural  machinery  of  this  sublime  drama  is  so 
inadequately  represented  on  the  stage.  "  Much,"  I  have 
remarked  in  another  work,  "  of  the  dread,  solemnity,  and 
awe  which  is  experienced  in  reading  this  play,  from  the  in 
tervention  of  the  witches,  is  lost  in  its  representation,  owing 
to  the  injudicious  custom  of  bringing  them  too  forward  on  the 
scene  ;  where,  appearing  little  better  than  a  group  of  old  wo 
men,  the  effect  intended  by  the  poet  is  not  only  destroyed,  but 
reversed.  Their  dignity  and  grandeur  must  arise,  as  evil  be 
ings  gifted  with  superhuman  powers,  from  the  undefined  na 
ture  both  of  their  agency  and  of  their  external  forms.  Were 
they  indistinctly  seen,  though  audible,  at  a  distance,  and,  as  it 
were,  through  a  hazy  twilight,  celebrating  their  orgies,  and 
with  shadowy  and  gigantic  shape  flitting  between  the  pale  blue 


HIS    MACBETH    AND    RICHARD.  441 

Let  us  now  approach  the  tent  of  Richard.  It 
is  matter  of  admiration  to  observe  how  many  inci 
dents  the  poet  has  collected  in  a  small  compass, 
to  set  the  military  character  of  his  chief  personage 
in  a  brilliant  point  of  view.  A  succession  of  scouts 
and  messengers  report  a  variety  of  intelligence,  all 
which,  though  generally  of  the  most  alarming 
nature,  he  meets  not  only  with  his  natural  gallan 
try,  but  sometimes  with  pleasantry  and  a  certain 
archness  and  repartee,  which  is  peculiar  to  him 
throughout  the  drama. 

It  is  not  only  a  curious,  but  delightful  task  to 
examine  by  what  subtle  and  almost  imperceptible 
touches  Shakspeare  contrives  to  set  such  marks 
upon  his  characters,  as  give  them  the  most  living 
likenesses  that  can  be  conceived.  In  this,  above 
all  other  poets  that  ever  existed,  he  is  a  study  and 
a  model  of  perfection.  The  great  distinguishing 
passions  every  poet  may  describe ;  but  Shakspeare 
gives  you  their  humours,  their  minutest  foibles, 
those  little  starts  and  caprices,  which  nothing  but 
the  most  intimate  familiarity  brings  to  light.  Other 
authors  write  characters  like  historians ;  he,  like 
the  bosom  friend  of  the  person  he  describes.  The 

flames  of  their  cauldron  and  the  eager  eye  of  the  spectator, 
sufficient  latitude  would  be  given  to  the  imagination,  and  the 
finest  drama  of  our  author  would  receive,  in  the  theatre,  that 
deep  tone  of  supernatural  horror  with  which  it  is  felt  to  be  so 
highly  imbued  in  the  solitude  of  the  closet."— Shakspeare 
and  his  Times,  vol  ii.  p.  488. 


442  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

following  extracts  will  furnish  an  example  of  what 
I  have  been  saying. 

Ratcliff  in  forms  Richard  that  a  fleet  is  discovered 
on  the  western  r  coast,  supposed  to  be  the  party  of 
Richmond : — 

K.  RICH.  Some  light-foot  friend  post  to  the  Duke  of  Norfolk ; 

Ratcliff,  thyself;  or  Catesby— Where  is  he? 
GATES.  Here,  my  good  lord. 
K.  RICH.  Catesby,  fly  to  the  Duke. 

GATES-  I  will,  my  lord,  with  all  convenient  haste. 
K.  RICH.  Ratcliff,  come  hither  ;  post  to  Salisbury; 

When   thou  com'st  thither — DULL,  UNMINDFUL 

VILLAIN!  (to  Catesby) 

Why  stay'st  thou  here,  and  go'st  not  to  the  Duke  ? 
GATES.  First,  mighty  liege,  tell  me  your  highness'  pleasure, 

What  from  your  grace  I  shall  deliver  to  him. 
K.  RICH.  Oh,  true,  good  Catesby  ! 

I  am  persuaded  I  need  not  point  out  to  the  reader's 
sensibility  the  fine  turn  in  this  expression,  good 
Catesby  !  How  can  we  be  surprised  if  such  a  poet 
makes  us  in  love  even  with  his  villains  ? — Ratcliff 
proceeds — 

RAT.  What  may  it  please  you  shall  I  do  at  Salisbury  ? 
K.  RICH.  Why,  what  would'stthou  do  there  before  I  go? 

RAT.  Your  highness  told  me  I  should  post  before. 
K.  RICH.  My  mind  is  chang'd. 

These  fine  touches  can  escape  no  man  who  has  an 
eye  for  nature.  Lord  Stanley  reports  to  Richard — 

STANL.  Richmond  is  on  the  seas. 
K.  RICH.  There  let  him  sink,  and  be  the  seas  on  him 
White-liver'd  runagate,  what  doth  he  there? 


HIS    MACBETH    AND    RICHARD.  443 

This  reply  is   pointed  with  irony  and  invective. 
There  are  two  causes  in  nature  and  character  for 
this :  first,  Richard  was  before  informed  of  the 
news ;  his  passion  was  not  taken  by  surprise,  and 
he  was  enough  at  ease  to  make  a  play  upon  Stan 
ley's  words — on  the  seas — and  retort — be  the  seas  an 
him  ! — secondly,  Stanley  was  a  suspected  subject ; 
Richard  was  therefore  interested  to  show  a  con 
tempt  of  his  competitor   before   a  man  of  such 
doubtful  allegiance.     In  the  spirit  of  this  impres 
sion  he  urges  Stanley  to  give  an  explicit  answer  to 
the  question —  What  doth  he  there  ?  Stanley  endea 
vours  to  evade  by  answering  that  he  knows  not  but 
by  guess.    The  evasion  only  strengthens  Richard's 
suspicions,  and  he  again  pushes  him  to  disclose 
what  he  only  guesses — Well,  as  yougiiess — Stanley 
replies- 
He  makes  for  England,  here  to  claim  the  crown. 
K.  RICH.  Is  the  chair  empty?    Is  the  sword  unsway'd? 
Is  the  king  dead  ?    the  empire  unpossess'd  ? 
What  heir  of  York  is  there  alive  but  we  ? 
And  who  is  England's  king  but  great  York's  heir  ? 
Then  tell  me  what  makes  he  upon  the  sea  ? 

What  a  cluster  of  characteristic  excellences  are 
here  before  us !  All  these  interrogatories  are  ad 
hominem :  they  fit  no  man  but  Stanley;  they  can 
be  uttered  by  no  man  but  Richard  ;  and  they  can 
flow  from  the  conceptions  of  no  poet  but  the  poet 
of  nature. 

Stanley's  whole  scene  ought  to  be  investigated* 
for  it  is  full  of  beauties  ;  but  I  confess  myself  ex- 


444  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

hausted  with  the  task,  and  language  does  not 
suffice  to  furnish  fresh  terms  of  admiration,  which 
a  closer  scrutiny  would  call  forth. 

Other  messengers  succeed  Lord  Stanley.  Ri 
chard's  fiery  impatience  does  not  wait  the  telling, 
but  taking  the  outset  of  the  account  to  be  ominous, 
he  strikes  the  courier,  who,  proceeding  with  his 
report,  concludes  with  the  good  tidings  of  Buck 
ingham's  dispersion.  Richard  instantly  retracts 
and  says — 


Oh  !  I  cry  thee  mercy. 


There  is  my  purse  to  cure  that  blow  of  thine. 

This  is  another  trait  of  the  same  cast  with  that  of 
good  Catesby. 

Battles  are  of  the  growth  of  modern  tragedy. 
I  am  not  curious  enough  in  the  old  stage  to  know 
if  Shakspeare  is  the  inventor  of  this  bold  and 
bustling  innovation,  but  I  am  sure  he  is  unrivalled 
in  his  execution  of  it ;  and  this  of  Bosworth-field  is 
a  master-piece.  I  shall  be  less  particular  in  my 
present  description  of  it,  because  I  may  probably 
bring  it  under  general  review  with  other  scenes  of 
the  like  sort. 

It  will  be  sufficient  to  observe  that,  in  the  catas 
trophe  of  Richard  nothing  can  be  more  glowing 
than  the  scene,  nothing  more  brilliant  than  the 
conduct  of  the  chief  character.  He  exhibits  the 
character  of  a  perfect  general,  in  whom  however 
ardent  courage  seems  the  ruling  feature ;  he  per 
forms  every  part  of  his  office  with  minute  attention  ; 


HIS    MACBETH    AND    RICHARD.  445 

he  enquires  if  certain  alterations  are  made  in  his 
armour,  and  even  orders  what  particular  horse  he 
intends  to  charge  with.  He  is  gay  with  his  chief 
officers,  and  even  gracious  to  some  he  confides  in : 
his  gallantry  is  of  so  dazzling  a  quality,  that  we 
begin  to  feel  the  pride  of  Englishmen,  and,  over 
looking  his  crimes,  glory  in  our  courageous  king. 
Richmond  is  one  of  those  civil,  conscientious  gen 
tlemen,  who  are  not  very  apt  to  captivate  a 
spectator ;  and  Richard,  loaded  as  he  is  with 
enormities,  rises  in  the  comparison,  and,  I  suspect, 
carries  the  good  wishes  of  many  of  his  audience 
into  action,  and  dies  with  their  regret/ 

f  The  character  of  Richard  owes,  in  fact,  its  interest  almost 
entirely  to  its  intellectuality.  "  Richard,"  I  have  elsewhere  ob 
served,  "  stripped  as  he  is  of  all  the  softer  feelings,  and  all  the 
common  charities  of  humanity,  possessed  of  '  neither  pity,  love, 
nor  fear,'  and  loaded  with  every  dangerous  and  dreadful  vice, 
would,  were  it  not  for  his  unconquerable  powers  of  mind,  be 
insufferably  revolting.  But,  though  insatiate  in  his  ambition, 
envious  and  hypocritical  in  his  disposition,  cruel,  bloody,  and 
remorseless  in  all  his  deeds,  he  displays  such  an  extraordinary 
share  of  cool  and  determined  courage,  such  alacrity  and  buoy 
ancy  of  spirit,  such  constant  self-possession,  such  an  intuitive 
intimacy  with  the  workings  of  the  human  heart,  and  such  a 
matchless  skill  in  rendering  them  subservient  to  his  views,  as 
so  far  to  subdue  our  detestation  and  abhorrence  of  his  villainy, 
that  we,  at  length,  contemplate  this  fiend  in  human  shape  with 
a  mingled  sensation  of  intense  curiosity  and  grateful  terror. 

"  Yet,  the  moral  of  this  play  is  great  and  impressive. 
Richard,  having  excited  a  general  sense  of  indignation,  and 
a  general  desire  of  revenge,  and,  unaware  of  his  danger  from 
having  lost,  through  familiarity  with  guilt,  all  idea  of  moral 
obligation,  becomes  at  length  the  victim  of  his  own  enor- 


446  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

As  soon  as  he  retires  to  his  tent,  the  poet  begins 
to  put  in  motion  his  great  moral  machinery  of  the 
ghosts.  Trifles  are  not  made  for  Shakspeare; 
difficulties,  that  would  have  plunged  the  spirit  of 
any  other  poet,  and  turned  his  scenery  into  inevi 
table  ridicule,  are  nothing  in  his  way.  He  brings 
forward  a  long  string  of  ghosts,  and  puts  a  speech 
into  each  of  their  mouths  without  any  fear  of  con 
sequences.  Richard  starts  from  his  couch,  and 
before  he  has  shaken  off  the  terrors  of  his  dream, 
cries  out — 

Give  me  another  horse  ! — Bind  up  my  wounds  ! — 
Have  mercy,  Jesu  ! — Soft,  I  did  but  dream — 
O  coward  conscience,  &c. 

But  I  may  conclude  my  subject ;  every  reader  can 
go  on  with  the  soliloquy,  and  no  words  of  mine 
can  be  wanted  to  excite  their  admiration. 

CUMBERLAND.6 

mous  crimes;  he  falls  not  unvisited  by  the  terrors  of  con 
science,  for,  on  the  eve  of  danger  and  of  death,  the  retribution 
of  another  world  is  placed  before  him ;  the  spirits  of  those 
whom  he  had  murdered  reveal  the  awful  sentence  of  his  fate, 
and  his  bosom  heaves  with  the  infliction  of  eternal  torture." — 
Shakspeare  and  his  Times,  vol.  ii.  p.  373 — 375. 
»  The  Observer,  No.  58. 


CRITICAL   REMARKS    ON    FALSTAFF.  447 


No.  XVI. 

CRITICAL  REMARKS  ON  THE  CHARACTER  OF 
FALSTAFF. 

THAT  "poet  and  creator  are  the  same,"  is 
equally  allowed  in  criticism  as  in  etymology ;  and 
that,  without  the  powers  of  invention  and  imagina 
tion,  nothing  great  or  highly  delightful  in  poetry 
can  be  achieved. 

I  have  often  thought  that  the  same  thing  holds 
in  some  measure  with  regard  to  the  reader  as  well 
as  the  writer  of  poetry.  Without  somewhat  of  a 
congenial  imagination  in  the  former,  the  works  of 
the  latter  will  afford  a  very  inferior  degree  of  plea 
sure.  The  mind  of  him  who  reads  should  be  able, 
to  imagine  what  the  productive  fancy  of  the  poet 
creates  and  presents  to  his  view ;  to  look  on  the 
world  of  fancy  set  before  him  with  a  native's  ear ; 
to  acknowledge  its  manners,  to  feel  its  passions, 
and  to  trace,  with  somewhat  of  an  instinctive 
glance,  those  characters  with  which  the  poet  has 
peopled  it. 

If  in  the  perusal  of  any  poet  this  is  required, 
Shakspeare,  of  all  poets,  seems  to  claim  it  the  most. 
Of  all  poets,  Shakspeare  appears  to  have  possessed 
a  fancy  the  most  prolific,  an  imagination  the  most 
luxuriantly  fertile.  In  tnis  particular  he  has  been 


448  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

frequently  compared  to  Homer,  though  those  who 
have  drawn  the  parallel,  have  done  it,  I  know  not 
why,  with  a  sort  of  distrust  of  their  assertion. 
Did  we  not  look  at  the  Greek  with  that  reverential 
awe  which  his  antiquity  impresses,  I  think  we 
might  venture  to  affirm  that  in  this  respect  the 
other  is  more  than  his  equal.  In  invention  of 
incident,  in  diversity  of  character,  in  assemblage 
of  images,  we  can  scarcely  indeed  conceive  Homer 
to  be  surpassed ;  but  in  the  mere  creation  of 
fancy,  I  can  discover  nothing  in  the  Iliad  that 
equals  the  Tempest  or  the  Macbeth  of  Shakspeare. 
The  machinery  of  Homer  is  indeed  stupendous; 
but  of  that  machinery  the  materials  were  known  ; 
or  though  it  should  be  allowed  that  he  added 
something  to  the  mythology  he  found,  yet  still  the 
language  and  the  manners  of  his  deities  are  merely 
the  language  and  the  manners  of  men.  Of  Shak 
speare,  the  machinery  may  be  said  to  be  produced 
as  well  as  combined  by  himself.  Some  of  the 
beings  of  whom  it  is  composed,  neither  tradition 
nor  romance  afforded  him  ;  and  of  those  whom  he 
borrowed  thence,  he  invented  the  language  and 
the  manners, — language  and  manners  peculiar  to 
themselves,  for  which  he  could  draw  no  analogy 
from  mankind.  Though  formed  by  fancy,  how 
ever,  his  personages  are  true  to  nature ;  and  a 
reader  of  that  pregnant  imagination  which  I  have 
mentioned  above,  can  immediately  decide  on  the 
justness  of  his  conceptions ;  as  he  who  beholds  the 
masterly  expression  of  certain  portraits,  pronounces 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    FALSTAFF.  449 

with  confidence  on  their  likeness,  though  un 
acquainted  with  the  persons  from  whom  they 
were  drawn. 

But  it  is  not  only  in  these  untried  regions  of 
magic  or  of  witchery,  that  Ihe  creative  power  of 
Shakspeare  has  exerted  itself.  By  a  very  singular 
felicity  of  invention,  he  has  produced,  in  the  beaten 
field  of  ordinary  life,  characters  of  such  perfect 
originality,  that  we  look  on  them  with  no  less 
wonder  at  his  invention  than  on  those  preterna 
tural  beings  which  "  are  not  of  this  earth  ;"  and 
yet  they  speak  a  language  so  purely  that  of  com 
mon  society,  that  we  have  but  to  step  abroad  into 
the  world  to  hear  every  expression  of  which  it 
is  composed.  Of  this  sort  is  the  character  of 
Falstaff. 

On  the  subject  of  this  character  I  was  lately 
discoursing  with  a  friend,  who  is  very  much 
endowed  with  that  critical  imagination  of  which  I 
have  suggested  the  use  in  the  beginning  of  this 
paper.  The  general  import  of  his  observations 
may  form  neither  an  useless  nor  unamusing  field 
for  speculation  to  my  readers. 

Though  the  character  of  Falstaff,  said  my  friend, 
is  of  so  striking  a  kind  as  to  engross  almost  the 
whole  attention  of  the  audience  in  the  representa 
tion  of  the  play  in  which  it  is  first  introduced,  yet 
it  was  probably  only  a  secondary  and  incidental 
object  with  Shakspeare  in  composing  that  play. 
He  was  writing  a  series  of  historical  dramas  on 
the  most  remarkable  events  of  the  English  history, 

2  F 


450  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

from  the  time  of  King  John  downwards.  When  he 
arrived  at  the  reign  of  Henry  IV.,  the  dissipated 
youth  and  extravagant  pranks  of  the  Prince  of 
Wales  could  not  fail  to  excite  his  attention,  as 
affording  at  once  a  source  of  moral  reflection  in 
the  serious  department,  and  a  fund  of  infinite 
humour  in  the  comic  part  of  the  drama.  In  pro 
viding  him  with  associates  for  his  hours  of  folly 
and  of  riot,  he  probably  borrowed,  as  was  his  cus 
tom,  from  some  old  play,  interlude,  or  story,  the 
names  and  incidents  which  he  has  used  in  the  first 
part  of  Henry  IV.  Oldcastk,  we  know,  was  the 
name  of  a  character  in  such  a  play,  inserted  there, 
it  is  probable  (in  those  days  of  the  church's  omni 
potence  in  every  department  of  writing,)  in  odium 
of  Sir  John  Oldcastle,  chief  of  the  Lollards, 
though  Shakspeare  afterwards,  in  a  protestant 
reign,  changed  it  to  Falstaff.  This  leader  of  the 
gang,  which  the  wanton  extravagance  of  the  Prince 
was  to  cherish  and  protect,  it  was  necessary  to 
endow  with  qualities  sufficient  to  make  the  young 
Henry,  in  his  society, 


— doff  the  world  aside, 


And  bid  it  pass. 

Shakspeare  therefore  has  endowed  him  with  infinite 
wit  and  humour,  as  well  as  an  admirable  degree  of 
sagacity  and  acuteness  in  observing  the  characters 
of  men ;  but  has  joined  those  qualities  with  a 
grossness  of  mind  which  his  youthful  master  could 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    FALSTAFF.  451 

not  but  see,  nor  seeing  but  despise.  With  talents 
less  conspicuous,  Falstaff  could  not  have  attracted 
Henry;  with  profligacy  less  gross  and  less  con 
temptible,  he  would  have  attached  him  too  much. 
FalstafFs  was  just  "  that  unyoked  humour  of  idle 
ness"  which  the  Prince  could  "a  while  uphold," 
and  then  cast  off  for  ever.  The  audience  to  which 
this  strange  compound  was  to  be  exhibited  were 
to  be  in  the  same  predicament  with  the  Prince,  to 
laugh  and  to  admire  while  they  despised ;  to  feel 
the  power  of  his  humour,  the  attraction  of  his  wit, 
the  justice  of  his  reflections ;  while  their  contempt 
and  their  hatred  attended  the  lowness  of  his  man 
ners,  the  grossness  of  his  pleasures,  and  the  un- 
worthiness  of  his  vice. 

Falstaff  is  truly  and  literally  "  ex  Epicuri  grege 
porcus,"  placed  here  within  the  pale  of  this  world 
to  fatten  at  his  leisure,  neither  disturbed  by  feeling, 
nor  restrained  by  virtue.  He  is  not,  however, 
positively  much  a  villain,  though  he  never  starts 
aside  in  the  pursuit  of  interest  or  of  pleasure,  when 
knavery  comes  in  his  way.  We  feel  contempt, 
therefore,  and  not  indignation,  at  his  crimes,  which 
rather  promotes  than  hinders  our  enjoying  the 
ridicule  of  the  situation,  and  the  admirable  wit 
with  which  he  expresses  himself  in  it.  As  a  man 
of  this  world,  he  is  endowed  with  the  most  supe 
rior  degree  of  good  sense  and  discernment  of  cha 
racter  ;  his  conceptions,  equally  acute  and  just,  he 
delivers  with  the  expression  of  a  clear  and  vigorous 
understanding ;  and  we  see  that  he  thinks  like  a 


452  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

wise  man,  even  when  he  is  not  at  the  pains  to  talk 
wisely. 

Perhaps,  indeed,  there  is  no  quality  more  con 
spicuous  throughout  the  writings  of  Shakspeare, 
than  that  of  good  sense,  that  intuitive  sagacity  with 
which  he  looks  on  the  manners,  the  characters, 
and  the  pursuits  of  mankind.  The  bursts  of  pas 
sion,  the  strokes  of  nature,  the  sublimity  of  his  ter 
rors,  and  the  wonderful  creation  of  his  fancy,  are 
those  excellences  which  strike  spectators  the 
most,  and  are  therefore  most  commonly  enlarged 
on ;  but  to  an  attentive  peruser  of  his  writings,  his 
acute  perception  and  accurate  discernment  of  ordi 
nary  character  and  conduct,  that  skill,  if  I  may  so 
express  it,  with  which  he  delineates  the  plan  of 
common  life,  will,  I  think,  appear  no  less  striking, 
and  perhaps  rather  more  wonderful;  more  won 
derful,  because  we  cannot  so  easily  conceive  that 
power  of  genius  by  which  it  tells  us  what  actually 
exists,  though  it  has  never  seen  it,  than  that  by 
which  it  creates  what  never  existed.  This  power, 
when  we  read  the  works,  and  consider  the  situation 
of  Shakspeare,  we  shall  allow  him  in  a  most  extra 
ordinary  degree.  The  delineation  of  manners 
found  in  the  Greek  tragedians  is  excellent  and 
just ;  but  it  consists  chiefly  of  those  general  maxims 
which  the  wisdom  of  the  schools  might  inculcate, 
which  a  borrowed  experience  might  teach.  That 
of  Shakspeare  marks  the  knowledge  of  intimacy 
with  mankind.  It  reaches  the  elevation  of  the 
great,  and  penetrates  the  obscurity  of  the  low; 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    FALSTAFF.  453 

detects  the  cunning,  and  overtakes  the  bold ;  in 
short,  presents  that  abstract  of  life  in  all  its  modes, 
and  indeed  in  every  time,  which  every  one  without 
experience  must  believe,  and  every  one  with  expe 
rience  must  know  to  be  true.h 

With  this  sagacity  and  penetration  into  the 
characters  and  motives  of  mankind,  which  himself 
possessed,  Shakspeare  has  invested  Falstarf  in  a 
remarkable  degree :  he  never  utters  it,  however, 
out  of  character,  or  at  a  season  where  it  might 
better  be  spared.  Indeed,  his  good  sense  is  rather 
in  his  thoughts  than  in  his  speech ;  for  so  we  may 
call  those  soliloquies  in  which  he  generally  utters 
it.  He  knew  what  coin  was  most  current  with 
those  he  dealt  with,  and  fashioned  his  discourse 
according  to  the  disposition  of  his  hearers ;  and  he 
sometimes  lends  himself  to  the  ridicule  of  his  com 
panions,  when  he  has  a  chance  of  getting  any 
interest  on  the  loan. 

But  we  oftener  laugh  with  than  at  him ;  for  his 
humour  is  infinite,  and  his  wit  admirable.  This 
quality,  however,  still  partakes  in  him  of  that 
Epicurean  grossness  which  I  have  remarked  to  be 

h  It  is  to  this  extraordinary  conversancy  with  the  human 
heart,  this  union  and  incorporation,  as  it  were,  with  the  cha 
racter  which  he  delineates,  more  than  to  any  other  of  his  ex 
alted  gifts,  that  Shakspeare  is  indebted  for  his  supremacy  over 
all  other  painters  of  the  manners  and  passions  of  mankind ;  a 
supremacy  which,  in  spite  of  every  prejudice,  whether  national 
or  individual,  will  one  day  be  acknowledged  with  as  much 
universality  throughout  the  continents  of  the  world  as  in  his 
native  island. 


454  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

• 

the  ruling  characteristic  of  his  disposition.  He  has 
neither  the  vanity  of  a  wit,  nor  the  singularity  of 
a  humourist,  but  indulges  both  talents,  like  any 
other  natural'propensity,  without  exertion  of  mind* 
or  warmth  of  enjoyment.  A  late  excellent  actor, 
whose  loss  the  stage  will  long  regret,1  used  to  re 
present  the  character  of  Falstaff  in  a  manner  differ 
ent  from  what  had  been  uniformly  adopted  from 
the  time  of  Quin  downwards.  He  exchanged  the 
comic  gravity  of  the  old  school  for  those  bursts  of 
laughter  in  which  sympathetic  audiences  have  so 
often  accompanied  him.  From  accompanying  him 
it  was  indeed  impossible  to  refrain ;  yet,  though 
the  execution  was  masterly,  I  cannot  agree  in  that 
idea  of  the  character.  He  who  laughs  is  a  man  of 
feeling  in  merriment.  Falstaff  was  of  a  very  dif 
ferent  constitution.  He  turned  wit,  as  he  says  he 
did  "  disease,  into  commodity." — "  Oh  !  it  is  much 
that  a  lie  with  a  slight  oath,  and  a  jest  with  a  sad 
brow,  will  do  with  a  fellow  that  never  had  the  ache 

in  his  shoulders." 

MACKENZIE. j 

*  This  evidently  points  to  Henderson,  who,  notwithstanding 
the  practice  here  noticed,  and  which  it  must  be  confessed  was 
in  more  than  one  instance  doubtless  misplaced,  gave,  upon  the 
whole,  such  a  representation  of  Falstaff  with  regard  to  general 
truth  and  richness  of  colouring,  as  has  not  since  been,  and 
perhaps  never  will  be  exceeded. 

j  The  Lounger,  No.  68,  May  20,  1786. 


\ 


CRITICAL   REMARKS    ON    FALSTAFF.  455 


No.  XVII. 

CRITICAL  REMARKS  ON  THE  CHARACTER  OF 
FALSTAFF  CONCLUDED. 

To  a  man  of  pleasure  of  such  a  constitution  as 
Falstaff,  temper  and  good  humour  were  necessarily 
consequent.  We  find  him  therefore  but  once  I 
think  angry,  and  then  not  provoked  beyond  mea 
sure.  He  conducts  himself  with  equal  moderation 
towards  others;  his  wit  lightens,  but  does  not 
burn;  and  he  is  not  more  inoffensive  when  the 
joker,  than  unoffended  when  joked  upon  :  "  I  am 
not  only  witty  myself,  but  the  cause  that  wit  is  in 
other  men."  In  the  evenness  of  his  humour  he 
bears  himself  thus  (to  use  his  own  expression), 
and  takes  in  the  points  of  all  assailants  without 
being  hurt.  The  language  of  contempt,  of  rebuke, 
or  of  conviction,  neither  puts  him  out  of  liking 
with  himself  or  with  others.  None  of  his  passions 
rise  beyond  this  control  of  reason,  of  self-interest, 
or  of  indulgence. 

Queen  Elizabeth,  with  a  curiosity  natural  to  a 
woman,  desired  Shakspeare  to  exhibit  FalstafF  as 
a  lover.  He  obeyed  her,  and  wrote  the  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor;  but  Falstaff 's  love  is  only 
factor  for  his  interest ;  and  he  wishes  to  make  his 


456  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

mistresses,  "his    exchequer,  his  East  and  West 
Indies,  to  both  of  which  he  will  trade." 

Though  I  will  not  go  so  far  as  a  paradoxical 
critic  has  done,  and  ascribe  valour  to  Falstaff ;  yet, 
if  his  cowardice  is  fairly  examined,  it  will  be  found 
to  be  not  so  much  a  weakness  as  a  principle.  In 
his  very  cowardice  there  is  much  of  the  sagacity 
I  have  remarked  in  him;  he  has  the  sense  of 
danger,  but  not  the  discomposure  of  fear.  His 
presence  of  mind  saves  him  from  the  sword  of 
Douglas,  where  the  danger  was  real ;  but  he 
shows  no  sort  of  dread  of  the  sheriff's  visit,  when 
he  knew  the  Prince's  company  would  probably 
bear  him  out :  when  Bardolph  runs  in  frightened, 
and  tells  that  the  sheriff,  with  a  most  monstrous 
watch,  is  at  the  door,  "Out,  you  rogue !  (answers 
he)  play  out  the  play;  I  have  much  to  say  in 
behalf  of  that  Falstaff."  Falstaff's  cowardice  is 
only  proportionate  to  the  danger ;  and  so  would 
every  wise  man's  be,  did  not  other  feelings  make 
him  valiant. 

Such  feelings,  it  is  the  very  characteristic  of 
Falstaff  to  want.  The  dread  of  disgrace,  the 
sense  of  honour,  and  the  love  of  fame,  he  neither 
feels,  nor  pretends  to  feel : 


Like  the  fat  weed 


That  roots  itself  at  ease  on  Lethe's  wharf, 

he  is  contented  to  repose  on  that  earthy  corner  of 
sensual  indulgence  in  which  his  fate  has  placed 
him,  and  enjoys  the  pleasures  of  the  moment, 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    FALSTAFF.  457 

without  once  regarding  those  finer  objects  of 
delight  which  the  children  of  fancy  and  of  feeling 
so  warmly  pursue. 

The  greatest  refinement  of  morals  as  well  as  of 
mind,  is  produced  by  the  culture  and  exercise  of 
the  imagination,  which  derives,  or  is  taught  to 
derive,  its  objects  of  pursuit,  and  its  motives  of 
action,  not  from  the  senses  merely,  but  from 
future  considerations  which  fancy  anticipates  and 
realises.  Of  this,  either  as  the  prompter  or  the 
restraint  of  conduct,  Falstaff  is  utterly  devoid ;  yet 
his  imagination  is  wonderfully  quick  and  creative 
in  the  pictures  of  humour,  and  the  associations  of 
wit.  But  the  "  pregnancy  of  his  wit,"  according  to 
his  own  phrase,  "is  made  a  tapster;"  and  his 
fancy,  how  vivid  soever,  still  subjects  itself  to  the 
grossness  of  those  sensual  conceptions  which  are 
familiar  to  his  mind.  We  are  astonished  at  that 
art  by  which  Shakspeare  leads  the  powers  of 
genius,  imagination,  and  wisdom,  in  captivity  to 
this  son  of  earth ;  'tis  as  if,  transported  into  the 
enchanted  island  in  the  Tempest,  we  saw  the  re 
bellion  of  Caliban  successful,  and  the  airy  spirits  of 
Prospero  ministering  to  the  brutality  of  his  slave. 

Hence,  perhaps,  may  be  derived  great  part  of 
that  infinite  amusement  which  succeeding  audi 
ences  have  always  found  from  the  representation  of 
Falstaff.  We  have  not  only  the  enjoyment  of 
those  combinations  and  of  that  contrast  to  which 
philosophers  have  ascribed  the  pleasure  we  derive 
from  wit  in  general,  but  we  have  that  singular 


458  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

combination  and  contrast  which  the  gross,  the 
sensual,  and  the  brutish  mind  of  Falstaff  exhibits, 
when  joined  and  compared  with  that  admirable 
power  of  invention,  of  wit,  and  of  humour,  which 
his  conversation  perpetually  displays. 

In  the  immortal  work  of  Cervantes,  we  find  a 
character  with  a  remarkable  mixture  of  wisdom 
and  absurdity,  which  in  one  page  excites  our  high 
est  ridicule,  and  in  the  next  is  entitled  to  our 
highest  respect.  Don  Quixote,  like  Falstaff,  is  en 
dowed  with  excellent  discernment,  sagacity,  and 
genius ;  but  his  good  sense  holds  fief  of  his  dis 
eased  imagination,  of  his  over-ruling  madness  for 
the  achievements  of  knight-errantry,  for  heroic 
valour  and  heroic  love.  The  ridicule  in  the  cha 
racter  of  Don  Quixote  consists  in  raising  low  and 
vulgar  incidents,  through  the  medium  of  his  dis 
ordered  fancy,  to  a  rank  of  importance,  dignity, 
and  solemnity,  to  which  in  their  nature  they  are 
the  most  opposite  that  can  be  imagined.  With 
Falstaff  it  is  nearly  the  reverse ;  the  ridicule  is  pro 
duced  by  subjecting  wisdom,  honour,  and  other 
the  most  grave  and  dignified  principles,  to  the 
control  of  grossness,  buffoonery,  and  folly.  Tis 
like  the  pastime  of  a  family  masquerade,  where 
laughter  is  equally  excited  by  dressing  clowns  as 
gentlemen,  or  gentlemen  as  clowns.  In  Falstaff, 
the  heroic  attributes  of  our  nature  are  made  to 
wear  the  garb  of  meanness  and  absurdity.  In  Don 
Quixote,  the  common  and  the  servile  are  clothed 
in  the  dresses  of  the  dignified  and  majestic ;  while, 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    FALSTAFF.  459 

to  heighten  the  ridicule,  Sancho,  in  the  half-de 
ceived  simplicity,  and  half-discerning  shrewdness 
of  his  character,  is  every  now  and  then  employed 
to  pull  off  the  mask. 

If  you  will  not  think  me  whimsical  in  the  paral 
lel,  continued  my  friend,  I  should  say  that  Shak- 
speare  has  drawn,  in  one  of  his  immediately 
subsequent  plays,  a  tragic  character  very  much 
resembling  the  comic  one  of  Falstaff, — I  mean  that 
of  Richard  III.  Both  are  men  of  the  world ;  both 
possess  that  sagacity  and  understanding  which  is 
fitted  for  its  purposes;  both  despise  those  refined 
feelings,  those  motives  of  delicacy,  those  restraints 
of  virtue,  which  might  obstruct  the  course  they 
have  marked  out  for  themselves.  The  hypocrisy 
of  both  costs  them  nothing,  and  they  never  feel 
that  detection  of  it  to  themselves  which  rankles  in 
the  conscience  of  less  determined  hypocrites.  Both 
use  the  weaknesses  of  others,  as  skilful  players  at 
a  game  do  the  ignorance  of  their  opponents ;  they 
enjoy  the  advantage,  not  only  without  self-re 
proach,  but  with  the  pride  of  superiority.  Richard 
indeed  aspires  to  the  crown  of  England,  because 
Richard  is  wicked  and  ambitious  :  Falstaff  is  con 
tented  with  a  thousand  pounds  of  Justice  Shal 
low's,  because  he  is  only  luxurious  and  dissipated. 
Richard  courts  Lady  Anne  and  the  Princess  Eliza 
beth  for  his  purposes :  FalstaiF  makes  love  to  Mrs. 
Ford  and  Mrs.  Page  for  his.  Richard  is  witty 
like  Falstaff,  and  talks  of  his  own  figure  with  the 
same  sarcastic  indifference.  Indeed,  so  much  does 


460  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Richard,  in  the  higher  walk  of  villainy,  resemble 
Falstaff  in  the  lower  region  of  roguery  and  dissi 
pation,  that  it  were  not  difficult  to  show,  in  the 
dialogue  of  the  two  characters,  however  dissimilar 
in  situation,  many  passages  and  expressions  in 
a  style  of  remarkable  resemblance. 

Of  feeling,  and  even  of  passion,  both  characters 
are  very  little  susceptible ;  as  Falstaff  is  the  knave 
and  the  sensualist,  so  Richard  is  the  villain  of 
principle.  Shakspeare  has  drawn  one  of  passion 
in  the  person  of  Macbeth.  Macbeth  produces 
horror,  fear,  and  sometimes  pity  ;  Richard,  detes 
tation  and  abhorrence  only.  The  first  he  has  led 
amidst  the  gloom  of  sublimity,  has  shown  agitated 
by  various  and  wavering  emotions.  He  is  some 
times  more  sanguinary  than  Richard,  because  he 
is  not  insensible  of  the  weakness  or  the  passion  of 
revenge ;  whereas  the  cruelty  of  Richard  is  only 
proportionate  to  the  object  of  his  ambition,  as  the 
cowardice  of  FalstafF  is  proportionate  to  the  object 
of  his  fear :  but  the  bloody  and  revengeful  Mac 
beth  is  yet  susceptible  of  compassion,  and  subject 
to  remorse.  In  contemplating  Macbeth,  we  often 
regret  the  perversion  of  his  nature;  and  even 
when  the  justice  of  Heaven  overtakes  him,  we 
almost  forget  our  hatred  at  his  enormities  in  our 
pity  for  his  misfortunes.  Richard,  Shakspeare 
has  placed  amidst  the  tangled  paths  of  party  and 
ambition ;  has  represented  cunning  and  fierce  from 
his  birth,  untouched  by  the  sense  of  humanity, 
hardly  subject  to  remorse,  and  never  to  contrition; 


CRITICAL    REMARKS    ON    FALSTAFF.  461 

and  his  fall  produces  that  unmixed  and  perfect 
satisfaction  which  we  feel  at  the  death  of  some 
savage  beast  that  had  desolated  the  country  from 
instinctive  fierceness  and  natural  malignity. 

The  weird-sisters,  the  gigantic  deities  of  north 
ern  mythology,  are  fit  agents  to  form  Macbeth. 
Richard  is  the  production  of  those  worldly  and 
creeping  demons,  who  slide  upon  the  earth  their 
instruments  of  mischief  to  embroil  and  plague 
mankind.  FalstafF  is  the  work  of  Circe  and  her 
swinish  associates,  who,  in  some  favoured  hour  of 
revelry  and  riot,  moulded  this  compound  of  gross 
debauchery,  acute  discernment,  admirable  inven 
tion,  and  nimble  wit,  and  sent  him  for  a  consort 
to  England's  madcap  Prince,  to  stamp  currency 
on  idleness  and  vice,  and  to  wave  the  flag  of  folly 
and  dissipation  over  the  seats  of  gravity,  of  wisdom, 
and  of  virtue. k 

MACKENZIE.' 

k  "  Yet,  dangerous  as  such  a  delineation  may  appear,  Shak- 
speare,  with  his  usual  attention  to  the  best  interests  of  mankind, 
has  rendered  it  subservient  to  the  most  striking  moral  effects, 
both  as  these  apply  to  the  character  of  Falstaff  himself,  and 
to  that  of  his  temporary  patron,  the  Prince  of  Wales;  for  while 
the  virtue,  energy,  and  good  sense  of  the  latter  are  placed  in  the 
most  striking  point  of  view  by  his  firm  dismissal  of  a  most  fas 
cinating  and  too  endeared  voluptuary,  the  permanently  degra 
ding  consequences  of  sensuality  are  exhibited  in  their  full 
strength  during  the  career,  and  in  the  fate,  of  the  former. 

"  It  is  very  generally  found  that  great  and  splendid  vices 
are  mingled  with  concomitant  virtues,  which  often  ultimately 


462  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

lead  to  self-accusation,  and  to  the  salutary  agonies  of  remorse  ; 
but  he  who  is  deeply  plunged  in  the  grovelling  pursuits  of  ap 
petite  is  too  frequently  lost  to  all  sense  of  shame,  to  all  feeling 
of  integrity  or  conscious  worth.  Polluted  by  the  meanest  de 
pravities,  not  only  religious  principle  ceases  to  affect  the  mind, 
but  every  thing  which  contributes  to  honour  or  to  grandeur  in  the 
human  character  is  gone  for  ever ;  a  catastrophe  to  which  wit 
and  humour,  by  rendering  the  sensualist  a  more  self-deluded 
and  self-satisfied  being,  lend  the  most  powerful  assistance. 

"  Thus  is  it  with  FalstafF — to  the  last  he  remains  the  same, 
unrepentant,  unreformed ;  and,  though  shaken  off  by  all  that 
is  valuable  or  good  around  him,  dies  the  very  sensualist  he 
had  lived  ! 

"  We  may,  therefore,  derive  from  this  character  as  much  in 
struction  as  entertainment ;  and,  to  the  delight  which  we  re 
ceive  from  the  contemplation  of  a  picture  so  rich  and  original, 
add  a  lesson  of  morality  as  awful  and  impressive  as  the  history 
of  human  frailty  can  present." — Shakspeare  and  his  Times, 
vol.  ii.  pp.  383,  384. 

1  The  Lounger,  No.  69,  May  27,  1786. 


FALSTAFF  AND  HIS  GROUP.        463 


No.  XVIII. 

ON  THE  CHARACTERS  OF  FALSTAFF  AND  HIS 
GROUP. 

WHEN  it  had  entered  into  the  mind  of  Shak- 
speare  to  form  an  historical  play  upon  certain 
events  in  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Fourth  of  England, 
the  character  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  recommended 
itself  to  his  fancy,  as  likely  to  supply  him  with  a 
fund  of  dramatic  incidents ;  for  what  could  inven 
tion  have  more  happily  suggested  than  this  cha 
racter,  which  history  presented  ready  to  his  hands  ? 
a  riotous  disorderly  young  libertine,  in  whose 
nature  lay  hidden  those  seeds  of  heroism  and  am 
bition,  which  were  to  burst  forth  at  once  to  the 
astonishment  of  the  world,  and  to  achieve  the  con 
quest  of  France.  This  prince,  whose  character 
was  destined  to  exhibit  a  revolution  of  so  brilliant 
a  sort,  was  not  only  in  himself  a  very  tempting 
hero  for  the  dramatic  poet,  who  delights  in  inci 
dents  of  novelty  and  surprise,  but  also  offered  to 
his  imagination  a  train  of  attendant  characters,  in 
the  persons  of  his  wild  comrades  and  associates, 
which  would  be  of  themselves  a  drama.  Here 
was  a  field  for  invention  wide  enough  even  for  the 
genius  of  Shakspeare  to  range  in.  All  the  humours, 
passions,  and  extravagances  of  human  life  might 


464  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

be  brought  into  the  composition ;  and  when  he  had 
grouped  and  personified  them  to  his  taste  and  lik 
ing,  he  had  a  leader  ready  to  place  at  the  head  of 
the  train,  and  the  truth  of  history  to  give  life  and 
interest  to  his  drama. 

With  these  materials  ready  for  creation,  the  great 
artist  sate  down  to  his  work ;  the  canvas  was 
spread  before  him,  ample  and  capacious  as  the  ex 
panse  of  his  own  fancy ;  Nature  put  her  pencil  into 
his  hand,  and  he  began  to  sketch.  His  first  con 
cern  was  to  give  a  chief  or  captain  to  this  gang  of 
rioters ;  this  would  naturally  be  the  first  outline  he 
drew.  To  fill  up  the  drawing  of  this  personage  he 
conceived  a  voluptuary,  in  whose  figure  and  cha 
racter  there  should  be  an  assemblage  of  comic 
qualities ;  in  his  person  he  should  be  bloated  and 
blown  up  to  the  size  of  a  Silenus,  lazy,  luxurious, 
in  sensuality  a  satyr,  in  intemperance  a  baccha 
nalian.  As  he  was  to  stand  in  the  post  of  a  ring 
leader  amongst  thieves  and  cutpurses,  he  made 
him  a  notorious  liar,  a  swaggering  coward,  vain 
glorious,  arbitrary,  knavish,  crafty,  voracious  of 
plunder,  lavish  of  his  gains,  without  credit,  honour, 
or  honesty,  and  in  debt  to  every  body  about  him. 
As  he  was  to  be  the  chief  seducer  and  misleader 
of  the  heir  apparent  of  the  crown,  it  was  incum 
bent  on  the  poet  to  qualify  him  for  that  part  in 
such  a  manner  as  should  give  probability  and  even 
a  plea  to  the  temptation  :  this  was  only  to  be  done 
by  the  strongest  touches  and  the  highest  colourings 
of  a  master ;  by  hitting  off  a  humour  of  so  happy, 


FALSTAFF   AND    HIS    GROUP.  465 

so  facetious,  and  so  alluring  a  cast,  as  should  tempt 
even  royalty  to  forget  itself,  and  virtue  to  turn  revel 
ler  in  his  company.  His  lies,  his  vanity,  and  his 
cowardice,  too  gross  to  deceive,  were  to  be  so  inge 
nious  as  to  give  delight ;  his  cunning  evasions,  his 
witty  resources,  his  mock  solemnity,  his  vapouring 
self-consequence,  were  to  furnish  a  continual  feast 
of  laughter  to  his  royal  companion.  He  was  not 
only  to  be  witty  himself,  but  the  cause  of  wit  in 
other  people ;  a  whetstone  for  raillery ;  a  buffoon, 
whose  very  person  was  a  jest.  Compounded  of 
these  humours,  Shakspeare  produced  the  character 
of  Sir  John  Falstaff;  a  character,  which  neither 
ancient  nor  modern  comedy  has  ever  equalled, 
which  was  so  much  the  favourite  of  its  author  as  to 
be  introduced  in  three  several  plays,  and  which  is 
likely  to  be  the  idol  of  the  English  stage,  as  long 
as  it  shall  speak  the  language  of  Shakspeare. 

This  character  almost  singly  supports  the  whole 
comic  plot  of  the  first  part  of  Henry  the  Fourth  ; 
the  poet  has  indeed  thrown  in  some  auxiliary  hu 
mours  in  the  persons  of  Gadshill,  Peto,  Bardolph, 
and  Hostess  Quickley.  The  two  first  serve  for  little 
else  except  to  fill  up  the  action ;  but  Bardolph  as  a 
butt  to  Falstaff's  raillery,  and  the  hostess  in  her 
wrangling  scene  with  him,  when  his  pockets  had 
been  emptied  as  he  was  asleep  in  the  tavern,  give 
occasion  to  scenes  of  infinite  pleasantry.  Poins  is 
contrasted  from  the  rest  of  the  gang,  and  as  he  is 
made  the  companion  of  the  prince,  is  very  properly 
represented  as  a  man  of  better  qualities  and  morals 

2  G 


466  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAK3PEARE. 

than  FalstafFs   more  immediate  hangers-on  and 
dependents. 

The  humour  of  Falstaff  opens  into  full  display 
upon  his  very  first  introduction  with  the  prince. 
The  incident  of  the  robbery  on  the  high-way,  the 
scene  in  Eastcheap  in  consequence  of  that  ridicu 
lous  encounter,  and  the  whole  of  his  conduct 
during  the  action  with  Percy,  are  so  exquisitely 
pleasant,  that  upon  the  renovation  of  his  dramatic 
life  in  the  second  part  of  Henry  the  Fourth,  I 
question  if  the  humour  does  not  in  part  evaporate 
by  continuation ;  at  least  I  am  persuaded  that  it 
flattens  a  little  in  the  outset,  and  though  his  wit 
may  not  flow  less  copiously,  yet  it  comes  with  more 
labour,  and  is  farther  fetched.  The  poet  seems  to 
have  been  sensible  how  difficult  it  was  to  preserve 
the  vein  as  rich  as  at  first,  and  has  therefore 
strengthened  his  comic  plot  in  the  second  play  with 
several  new  recruits,  who  may  take  a  share  with 
Falstaff,  to  whom  he  no  longer  entrusts  the  whole 
burthen  of  the  humour.  In  the  front  of  these  aux 
iliaries  stands  Pistol,  a  character  so  new,  whimsical, 
and  extravagant,  that  if  it  were  not  for  a  commen 
tator  now  living,  whose  very  extraordinary  re 
searches  amongst  our  old  authors  have  supplied  us 
with  passages  to  illuminate  the  strange  rhapsodies 
which  Shakspeare  has  put  into  his  mouth,  I  should 
for  one  have  thought  Antient  Pistol  as  wild  and 
imaginary  a  being  as  Caliban ;  but  I  now  perceive, 
by  the  help  of  these  discoveries,  that  the  character 
is  made  up  in  great  part  of  absurd  and  fustian  pas- 


FALSTAFF    AND    HIS    GROUP.  467 

sages  from  many  plays,  in  which  Shakspeare  was 
versed,  and  perhaps  had  been  a  performer.  Pistol's 
dialogue  is  a  tissue  of  old  tags  of  bombast,  like  the 
middle  comedy  of  the  Greeks,  which  dealt  in 
parody.  I  abate  of  my  astonishment  at  the  inven 
tion  and  originality  of  the  poet,  but  it  does  not 
lessen  my  respect  for  his  ingenuity.  Shakspeare 
founded  his  bully  in  parody ;  Jonson  copied  his 
from  nature ;  and  the  palm  seems  due  to  Bobadil 
upon  a  comparison  with  Pistol.  Congreve  copied  a 
very  happy  likeness  from  Jonson,  and  by  the 
fairest  and  most  laudable  imitation  produced  his 
Noll  Bluff,  one  of  the  pleasantest  humourists  on 
the  comic  stage. 

Shallow  and  Silence  are  two  very  strong  aux 
iliaries  to  this  second  part  of  FalstafFs  humours ; 
and  though  they  do  not  absolutely  belong  to  his 
family,  they  are  nevertheless  near  of  a  kin,  and 
derivatives  from  his  stock.  Surely  two  pleasanter 
fellows  never  trode  the  stage  ;  they  not  only  con 
trast  and  play  upon  each  other,  but  Silence  sober 
and  Silence  tipsy  make  the  most  comical  reverse 
in  nature :  never  was  drunkenness  so  well  intro 
duced  or  so  happily  employed  in  any  drama.  The 
dialogue  between  Shallow  and  Falstaff,  and  the 
description  given  by  the  latter  of  Shallow's  youth 
ful  frolics,  are  as  true  nature  and  as  true  comedy 
as  man's  invention  ever  produced  :  the  recruits  are 
also  in  the  literal  sense  the  recruits  of  the  drama. 
These  personages  have  the  farther  merit  of  throw- 


468  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

ing  Falstaff's  character  into  a  new  cast,  and  giving 
it  the  seasonable  relief  of  variety. 

Dame  Quickly  also  in  this  second  part  resumes 
her  r6le  with  great  comic  spirit,  but  with  some 
variation  of  character  for  the  purpose  of  introdu 
cing  a  new  member  into  the  troop,  in  the  person  of 
Doll  Tearsheet,  the  common  trull  of  the  times. 
Though  this  part  is  very  strongly  coloured,  and 
though  the  scene  with  her  and  Falstaff  is  of  a 
loose  as  well  as  ludicrous  nature ;  yet,  if  we  com 
pare  Shakspeare's  conduct  of  this  incident  with 
that  of  the  dramatic  writers  of  his  time,  and  even 
since  his  time,  we  must  confess  he  has  managed  it 
with  more  than  common  care,  and  exhibited  his 
comic  hero  in  a  very  ridiculous  light,  without  any 
of  those  gross  indecencies  which  the  poets  of  his 
age  indulged  themselves  in  without  restraint. 

The  humour  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  is  not  so 
free  and  unconstrained  as  in  the  first  part.  Though 
he  still  demeans  himself  in  the  course  of  his  revels, 
yet  it  is  with  frequent  marks  of  repugnance  and 
self-consideration,  as  becomes  the  conqueror  of 
Percy;  and  we  see  his  character  approaching  fast 
towards  a  thorough  reformation.  But  though  we 
are  thus  prepared  for  the  change  that  is  to  happen 
when  this  young  hero  throws  off  the  reveller,  and 
assumes  the  king,  yet  we  are  not  fortified  against 
the  weakness  of  pity,  when  the  disappointment 
and  banishment  of  Falstaff  takes  place,  and  the 
poet  executes  justice  upon  his  inimitable  delin- 


FALSTAFF    AND    HIS    GROUP.  469 

quent  with  all  the  rigour  of  an  unrelenting  mora 
list.  The  reader  or  spectator,  who  has  accom 
panied  Falstaff  through  his  dramatic  story,  is  in 
debt  to  him  for  so  many  pleasant  moments,  that 
all  his  failings,  which  should  have  raised  contempt, 
have  only  provoked  laughter,  and  he  begins  to 
think  they  are  not  natural  to  his  character,  but 
assumed  for  his  amusement.  With  these  im 
pressions  we  see  him  delivered  over  to  mortifica 
tion  and  disgrace,  and  bewail  his  punishment  with 
a  sensibility  that  is  only  due  to  the  sufferings  of 
the  virtuous.™ 

As  it  is  impossible  to  ascertain  the  limits  of 
Shakspeare's  genius,  I  will  not  presume  to  say  he 
could  not  have  supported  his  humour,  had  he 
chosen  to  have  prolonged  his  existence  through 
the  succeeding  drama  of  Henry  the  Fifth.  We 

m  It  is  certainly  to  be  regretted  that  such  should  be  the  im 
pression  resulting  from  the  final  disposal  of  Falstaff,  which  the 
poet  might  have  avoided,  had  he  rendered  the  punishment  of 
the  knight  less  severe ;  and  instead  of  imprisonment,  which 
ultimately  occasioned  his  death,  had  he  represented  the  king 
as  being  satisfied  with  the  firm  dismissal  of  the  irreclaimable 
profligate.  How  much,  indeed,  is  it  to  be  wished  that  he  had 
adopted  the  authority  of  Stowe,  who  tells  us  that,  "  after  his 
coronation,  King  Henry  called  unto  him  all  those  young  lords 
and  gentlemen  who  were  the  followers  of  his  young  acts,  to 
every  one  of  whom  he  gave  rich  gifts ;  and  then  commanded 
that  as  many  as  would  change  their  manners,  as  he  intended 
to  do,  should  abide  with  him  in  his  court;  and  to  all  that 
would  persevere  in  their  former  like  conversation,  he  gave  ex 
press  commandment,  upon  pain  of  their  heads,  never  after  that 
day  to  come  into  his  presence" 


470  MEMORIALS     OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

may  conclude  that  no  ready  expedient  presented 
itself  to  his  fancy,  and  he  was  not  apt  to  spend 
much  pains  in  searching  for  such;  he  therefore 
put  him  to  death,  by  which  he  fairly  placed  him 
out  of  the  reach  of  his  contemporaries,  and  got  rid 
of  the  trouble  and  difficulty  of  keeping  him  up  to 
his  original  pitch,  if  he  had  attempted  to  carry 
him  through  a  third  drama,  after  he  had  removed 
the  Prince  of  Wales  out  of  his  company,  and 
seated  him  on  the  throne.  I  cannot  doubt  but 
there  were  resources  in  Shakspeare's  genius,  and 
a  latitude  of  humour  in  the  character  of  FalstafT, 
which  might  have  furnished  scenes  of  admirable 
comedy  by  exhibiting  him  in  his  disgrace ;  and 
both  Shallow  and  Silence  would  have  been  accessa 
ries  to  his  pleasantry  :  even  the  field  of  Agincourt, 
and  the  distress  of  the  king's  army  before  the 
action,  had  the  poet  thought  proper  to  have  pro 
duced  Falstaff  on  the  scene,  might  have  been  as 
fruitful  in  comic  incidents  as  the  battle  of  Shrews 
bury.  This  we  can  readily  believe  from  the  humours 
of  Fluellen  and  Pistol,  which  he  has  woven  into 
his  drama  ;  the  former  of  whom  is  made  to  remind 
us  of  Falstaff,  in  his  dialogue  with  Captain  Gower, 
when  he  tells  him  that— As  Alexander  is  kill  his 
friend  Clytus  being  in  his  ales  and  his  cups,  so  also 
Harry  Monmouth,  being  in  his  right  wits  and  his 
goot  judgements,  is  turn  away  the  fat  knight  with  the 
great  pelly  -  doublet :  He  was  full  of  jests  and  gypcs 
and  knaveries,  and  mocks ;  I  am  forget  his  name. — 
Sir  John  Falstaff. — That  is  he. — This  passage  has 


FALSTAFF    AND    HIS    GROUP.  471 

ever  given  me  a  pleasing  sensation,  as  it  marks  a 
regret  in  the  poet  to  part  with  a  favourite  cha 
racter,  and  is  a  tender  farewel  to  his  memory :  it 
is  also  with  particular  propriety  that  these  words 
are  put  into  the  mouth  of  Fluellen,  who  stands 
here  as  his  substitute,  and  whose  humour,  as  well 
as  that  of  Nym,  may  be  said  to  have  arisen  out  of 
the  ashes  of  Falstaff. 

CUMBERLAND.* 

'  The  Observer,  No.  86. 


MEMORIALS   OF   SHAKSPEARE. 
PART  IV. 


f  fc-       «•*•**•       1  '  1 

.  AH><  -rdO 


CONCLUDING  ESSAY; 

CONTAINING  THREE  MINIATURE  PORTRAITS  OF 
SHAKSPEARE  BY  DRYDEN,  GOETHE,  AND  SIR 
WALTER  SCOTT;  AND  A  BRIEF  PARALLEL  BE 
TWEEN  SHAKSPEARE  AND  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT 
AS  DELINEATORS  OF  CHARACTER. 

I  HAVE  reserved  for  insertion  in  this  fourth  and 
concluding  portion  of  my  volume,  three  miniature 
portraits  of  Shakspeare  from  the  pens  of  DRYDEN, 
GOETHE,  and  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 

Amongst  the  numerous  editors,  commentators, 
and  critics  on  Shakspeare,  there  are  few  perhaps, 
if  any,  who,  in  point  of  genius,  can  be  put  in  com 
petition  with  these  three  celebrated  characters ; 
and  it  is  therefore  truly  gratifying  to  record,  as 
emanating  in  all  of  them  from  great,  and,  in  some 
degree,  kindred  talent,  their  deep-felt  and  pointedly 
expressed  admiration  of  our  immortal  bard. 

The  criticisms  of  Dryden,  indeed,  couched  as 
they  were  in  the  most  rich,  mellow,  yet  spirited 
prose  composition  of  which  our  language  affords 
an  example,  and  annexed  too,  for  the  most  part,  in 
the  form  of  prefaces  and  dedications,  to  works  of 
great  popularity,  contributed  more  than  any  other 
means,  perhaps,  to  keep  alive,  in  an  age  of  un- 


476  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

paralleled  frivolity  and  dissipation,  some  relish  for 
manly  and  nervous  composition ;  and  there  can  be 
as  little  doubt  but  that  the  noble  and  comprehen 
sive  character  of  the  genius  of  Shakspeare  which 
the  following  striking  though  brief  passage  un 
folds,  must  have  powerfully  recalled  the  attention 
of  the  public,  even  retrograding  and  debased  as  its 
taste  had  long  been,  to  the  matchless  productions 
of  this  first  of  all  dramatic  writers. 

"  Shakspeare  was  the  man,"  he  remarks,  "  who 
of  all  modern,  and  perhaps  ancient  poets,  had  the 
largest  and  most  comprehensive  soul.  All  the 
images  of  nature  were  still  present  to  him,  and  he 
drew  them  not  laboriously,  but  luckily  :  when  he 
describes  any  thing,  you  more  than  see  it,  you  feel 
it  too.  Those  who  accuse  him  to  have  wanted 
learning,  give  him  the  greater  commendation:  he 
was  naturally  learned ;  he  needed  not  the  specta 
cles  of  books  to  read  nature ;  he  looked  inwards, 
and  found  her  there.  I  cannot  say  he  is  every 
where  alike ;  were  he  so,  I  should  do  him  injury 
to  compare  him  with  the  greatest  of  mankind.  He 
is  many  times  flat,  insipid ;  his  comic  wit  dege 
nerating  into  clenches,  his  serious  swelling  into 
bombast.  But  he  is  always  great,  when  some 
great  occasion  is  presented  to  him ;  no  man  can 
say  he  ever  had  a  fit  subject  for  his  wit,  and  did 
not  then  raise  himself  as  high  above  the  rest  of 
poets, 

Quantum  lenta  solent  inter  viburna  cupressi. 

"  The  consideration  of  this  made  Mr.  Hales  of 


CONCLUDtNG    ESSAY.  477 

Eton  say,  that  there  was  no  subject  of  which  any 
poet  ever  writ,  but  he  would  produce  it  much 
better  done  in  Shakspeare ;  and  however-  others  are 
now  generally  preferred  before  him,  yet  the  age 
wherein  he  lived,  which  had  contemporaries  with 
him,  Fletcher  and  Jonson,  never  equalled  them  to 
him  in  their  esteem ;  and  in  the  last  king's  court, 
when  Ben's  reputation  was  at  highest,  Sir  John 
Suckling,  and  with  him  the  greater  part  of  the 
courtiers,  set  our  Shakspeare  far  above  him."  ° 

After  contemplating  this  very  striking  picture 
from  the  hand  of  powerful  and  unquestioned  ge 
nius,  though  of  a  cast  materially  different  from  that 
which  formed  the  object  of  its  portraiture,  let  us 
now  turn  to  a  miniature  sketch  of  the  bard  from  the 
pencil  of  one  whose  dramatic  powers  are  animated 

0  Essay  on  Dramatick  Poesy — Malone's  Dryden,  vol.  i. 
Part  2,  pp.  98,  99.  It  has  not  been  my  object  to  include  in 
this  volume  metrical  characters  of  Shakspeare  and  his  writings, 
as  the  greater  part  of  these  has  been  given  in  the  Variorum 
editions  of  the  bard  ;  but  there  is  one  miniature  sketch  of  this 
description  that  I  do  not  remember  to  have  seen  enrolled  in 
their  lists,  and  which  is,  perhaps,  without  exception,  the  most 
sublime  delineation  of  surpassing  genius  that,  in  so  small  a 
compass,  was  ever  perfected  by  mortal  pen.  I  shall  therefore 
insert  it  here  for  the  gratification  of  my  readers  : — 

Thus,  whilst  [  wond'ring  pause  o'er  Shakspeare's  page, 
I  mark  in  visions  of  delight  the  sage, 

High  o'er  the  wrecks  of  man,  who  stands  sublime  ; 
A  column  in  the  melancholy  waste 
(Its  cities  humbled  and  its  glories  past,) 
Majestic  mid  the  solitude  of  time. 

WOLCOT. 


478  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

by  no  small  portion  of  the  spirit  which  breathes 
through  our  Romeo  and  Macbeth,  the  tender  and 
imaginative  Goethe.  That  the  author  of  Stella  and 
Clavigo,  and  Goetz  von  Berlichingen,  and,  above  all, 
of  Faustus,  which  partakes  so  largely  of  the  wild 
and  illimitable  fancy  of  Shakspeare,  should  spe*ak 
of  our  incomparable  poet  in  terms  of  the  highest 
enthusiasm,  would  naturally  be  supposed ;  and, 
accordingly,  in  one  of  his  prose  fictions,  his  Wil- 
helm  Meister,  he  describes,  in  the  person  of  this  the 
chief  character,  his  own  feelings  on  becoming  ac 
quainted  with  the  dramas  of  the  English  bard. 

"  They  appear,"  he  says,  "  the  work  of  a  celes 
tial  genius,  which  mixed  with  mankind  in  order 
to  make  us  acquainted  in  the  gentlest  way  with 
ourselves. — They  are  no  poems !  The  reader 
seems  to  have  open  before  him  the  immense  books 
of  fate,  against  which  the  tempest  of  busiest  life  is 
beating,  so  as  to  drive  the  leaves  backwards  and 
forwards  with  violence.  All  the  anticipations 
which  I  ever  experienced  respecting  man  and 
his  lot,  and  which,  unnoticed  by  myself,  have 
attended  me  from  my  youth,  I  find  fulfilled  and 
unfolded  in  Shakspeare's  plays.  It  seems  as  if  he 
had  solved  all  enigmas  for  us,  and  yet  it  is  im 
possible  to  say,  here  or  there  is  found  the  key.  His 
characters  appear  to  be  creatures  of  nature,  and 
yet  they  are  not.  These  most  perplexing  and 
most  complicated  of  her  productions  act  before  us, 
in  his  pieces,  as  if  they  were  clocks,  of  which  the 
dial-plate  and  head  were  of  crystal.  They  show, 


CONCLUDING    ESSAY.  479 

according  to  their  intention,  the  course  of  the 
hours;  and  you  can  see  at  the  same  time  the 
springs  and  wheels  which  impel  them."p 

p  Vide  Monthly  Review  for  1798.  vol.xxvii.  pp.544,  545. — 
The  enthusiastic  delight  which  Goethe  experienced  on  first  read' 
ing  Shakspeare,  seems  to  have  been  felt  in  a  nearly  equal 
degree  by  a  very  recent  writer,  who  has  made  us  acquainted 
with  his  or  her  feelings,  under  similar  circumstances,  in  the 
following  striking  and  imaginative  manner. 

"  I  remember  perfectly  well  it  was  on  a  warm  summer  even 
ing  that  I  strolled  out  to  a  favourite  seat  of  mine  under  an  old 
oak-tree,  with  a  soft  bank  of  moss  round  it,  and  so  placed  that 
it  caught  the  last  rays  of  the  evening  sun,  and  was  away  from 
every  sound  and  noise  except  a  little  babbling  brook  that  ran 
through  the  copse-wood.  That  evening  I  left  my  father  doz 
ing  over  his  pipe  and  his  newspaper,  and  stole  out  to  my 
favourite  haunt  with  the  *  Midsummer  Night's  Dream'  under 
my  arm ;  and  I  never  can  forget  the  enthusiastic  delight  I  felt 
on  my  first  perusal  of  this  piece.  Fancy,  gentle  reader,  if  you 
have  the  least  spark  of  poetry  in  your  soul,  fancy  what  it 
would  be  to  read  Shakspeare  for  ihejirst  time,  and  never  to 
have  heard  oT  him  before ;  to  read  him  without  prepossession 
and  without  expectation ;  to  have  the  pleasure  and  vanity  of 
finding  out  his  beauties,  without  having  seen  him  murdered  on 
the  stage,  or  mutilated  in  hackneyed  quotations ;  to  read  him 
without  reference  to  imputed  plagiarism  and  disputed  read 
ings  ;  in  short,  to  come  to  him  in  all  the  freshness  of  poetic 
feelings  and  young  enthusiasm;  to  be  able  to  feel  poetry,  and 
to  feel  it  for  the  first  time  by  reading  Shakspeare.  One  must 
have  been  almost  situated  as  I  was,  to  comprehend  the  rush 
of  delight  I  experienced  as  I  went  on.  It  was  like  magic  to 
me.  I  had  no  need  of  explanation,  I  had  no  need  of  know 
ledge  to  understand  my  subject ;  for  Shakspeare  is  so  truly  the 
poet  of  nature,  that,  ignorant  as  I  was  of  every  thing  but  nature, 
my  imagination  readily  conceived  every  thing  he  told.  The 


480  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

To  these  brief  but  beautiful  delineations  of  the 
mighty  mind  of  Shakspeare,  alike  estimable  for 
their  felicity  of  execution,  and  for  the  sources 
whence  they  issue,  I  have  still  one  to  add,  which, 
as  emanating  from  genius  yet  more  kindred  in  its 
character,  cannot  fail  to  be  felt  as  a  tribute  of  pe 
culiar  value.  The  sweetest  reward,  indeed,  which 

novelty  to  me  of  dramatic  dialogue  brought  the  scene  com 
pletely  before  my  eyes  ;  and  in  the  play  I  first  read,  most  of 
the  characters  are  so  entirely  fanciful,  they  called  back  again 
some  of  the  dear  wild  visions  I  had  discarded,  and  I  was  car 
ried  back  to  the  poetry  of  my  childhood's  thoughts.  The  clos 
ing  light  of  the  evening  forced  me  to  shut  the  book  ;  but  I  sat 
a  long  time  under  the  oak-tree  musing  on  tVe  scenes  I  had 
read,  till  my  fancy  had  peopled  every  hollow  tree  and  distant 
dell  with  elves  and  spirits ;  and  I  almost  expected  to  see  a 
Hermia  and  a  Helena  come  out  from  the  recesses  of  the  wood. 
Love,  such  as  is  so  beautifully  described  in  this  play,  was,  as 
yet,  an  incomprehensible  feeling  to  me ;  but  I  placed  it  with 
the  world  of  sensations  and  ideas  that  were  yet  mysteries ;  for 
I  daily  felt  the  truth  of  the  observation,  that  the  more  one 
knows,  the  more  one  finds  still  unknown.  I  had  kiot  yet  begun 
to  find  myself  ignorant,  for  the  acquisition  of  the  very  little 
knowledge  I  possessed  was  so  sudden,  that  I  had  not  recovered 
from  the  blaze  of  my  own  acquirements.  A  single  taper  will 
dazzle  the  eyes  of  one  who  has  just  emerged  from  darkness. 
Shakspeare  was  a  library  to  me  of  poetry,  of  philosophy,  of 
morality ;  I  read  his  works  till  I  almost  knew  them  by  heart ; 
and  to  those  days  of  my  ignorance,  when  I  knew  only  poetry 
and  nature,  do  I  look  back  as  the  purest  and  happiest  of  my 
life :  other  joys  came  more  rapturous,  other  pride  of  higher 
attainments  ;  but  that  evening  when  I  read  Shakspeare  for  the 
first  time,  and  felt  as  it  were  a  new  soul  awakened  within  me, 
was,  I  repeat,  one  of  the  happiest  of  my  life." — The  Pine-tree 
Dell,  and  Other  Tales,  2  vols.  12mo.  1827. 


CONCLUDING    ESSAY.  481 

genius  can  taste,  must  flow  from  the  eulogy  of 
approximating  talent ;  and  if,  as  is  the  cherished 
creed  of  some,  it  ever  be  permitted  to  the  disem 
bodied  spirit  to  be  conscious  of  what  is  passing  on 
its  former  field  of  being,  we  may,  without  a  charge 
of  enthusiasm,  picture  our  immortal  bard  as  list 
ening,  not  only  with  complacency  but  delight,  to 
praise  from  one  whom  Britain  since  his  own  days 
has  not  seen  equalled  for  fertility  of  imagination, 
and  an  almost  inexhaustible  fecundity  in  the 
knowledge  and  developement  of  human  character. 

The  reader  will  immediately  perceive  that,  in 
saying  this,  I  allude  to  Sir  Walter  Scott,  who,  at  a 
recent  convivial  meeting  of  subscribers  for  the 
establishment  of  a  Theatrical  Fund  at  Edinburgh, 
took  occasion,  whilst  commenting  on  the  benevo 
lent  purpose  for  which  they  were  assembled,  to 
introduce  the  following  testimony  of  his  deep  vene 
ration  for  the  genius  of  Shakspeare. 

"  Gentlemen,"  he  exclaimed,  after  craving  & 
bumper  all  over,  "  I  now  wish  to  offer  a  libation 
of  reverence  and  respect  to  the  memory  of  Shak 
speare.  He  was  a  man  of  universal  genius  ;  and 
from  a  period  soon  after  his  own  era  to  the  pre 
sent  day,  he  has  been  universally  idolized.  When 
I  come  to  his  honoured  name,  I  am  like  the  sick 
man  who  hung  up  his  crutches  at  the  shrine,  and 
was  obliged  to  confess  that  he  did  not  walk  better 
than  before.  It  is  indeed  difficult,  Gentlemen,  to 
compare  him  to  any  other  individual.  The  only 
one  to  whom  I  can  at  all  compare  him,  is  the  won- 

2  H 


\ 
482  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

derful  Arabian  Dervise,  who  dived  into  the  body 
of  each,  and  in  that  way  became  familiar  with  the 
thoughts  and  secrets  of  their  hearts,  He  was  a 
man  of  obscure  origin,  and,  as  a  player,  limited  in 
his  acquirements.  But  he  was  born  evidently 
with  an  universal  genius.  His  eyes  glanced  at  all 
the  varied  aspects  of  life,  and  his  fancy  pourtrayed 
with  equal  talents  the  king  on  the  throne,  and  the 
clown  who  crackles  his  chesnuts  at  the  Christmas 
fire.  Whatever  note  he  takes,  he  strikes  it  just 
and  true,  and  awakens  a  corresponding  chord  in 
our  own  bosoms.  Gentlemen,  I  propose  the  me 
mory  of  William  Shakspeare." 

Glee.  "  Lightly  tread  the  hallowed  ground." 

It  is  scarcely  possible  to  read  this  extempore 
effusion  of  cordial  applause,  and  from  such  a  quar 
ter,  without  being  almost  insensibly  drawn  into  a 
comparison  between  two  writers,  who,  if  not  in  the 
very  form  of  their  productions,  yet  in  many  of  the 
attributes  of  exalted  genius,  are  closely  allied. 

Excellence,  indeed,  as  well  in  the  structure  of 
the  romance  as  of  the  drama,  must  be  chiefly 
based  on  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the  diversities 
of  human  character,  and  on  the  capability  of  un 
folding  this  knowledge  in  the  most  distinct  and 
impressive  manner ;  qualities  which,  I  may  ven 
ture  to  affirm,  have  nowhere  been  found  in  greater 
perfection,  or  clothed  in  more  attractive  colours 
than  in  the  dramas  of  Shakspeare,  and  the  romances 
of  Scott. 


CONCLUDING    ESSAY.  483 

It  will  not  therefore,  I  trust,  be  deemed  irre 
levant,  if,  on  an  occasion  like  this,  and  whilst  the 
praise  of  Shakspeare  is  as  it  were  flowing  warm 
from  the  lips  of  living  genius,  I  close  this  volume 
and  the  series  of  portraits  of  Shakspeare,  by  a 
short  parallel  between  him  and  his  celebrated 
eulogist,  as  far  at  least  as  will  apply  to  their  very 
superior  merit  in  the  conception  and  maintenance 
of  character. 

The  comparison,  indeed,  as  including  the  wide 
range  of  historical,  female,  humorous,  and  imaginative 
characters,  may  be  said  to  embrace  a  large  portion 
of  what  constitutes  the  first  order  of  talent ;  for 
pre-eminence  in  characterization,  whether  em 
ployed  in  bringing  forward  existing,  or  in  moulding 
new  forms,  is  assuredly  one  of  the  most  valuable, 
and  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  most  rare  of 
intellectual  gifts. 

To  reproduce  with  vigour,  and  to  support  with 
consistency  throughout  a  series  of  important  ac 
tion,  and  the  play  of  all  the  passions,  some  of  the 
most  prominent  characters  of  history,  is  perhaps,  of 
all  the  achievements  of  poetry  and  romance,  the 
most  difficult.  The  peculiarly  successful  efforts  of 
Shakspeare  in  this  department  are  well  known. 
In  English  history  his  regal  characters  of  John, 
Richard  the  Second,  Richard  the  Third,  Henry  the 
Fourth,  Fifth,  Sixth,  and  Eighth;  his  Constance 
and  his  Katherine;  and  of  inferior  rank,  his  Fal- 
conbridge,  Hotspur,  Wolsey,  John  of  Gaunt,  Beau 
fort,  Gloster,  Warwick,  &c.  &c.,  need  only  to  be 


484  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

mentioned  to  be  praised ;  whilst  in  Roman  story, 
his  Bruttcs,  Antony,  and  Coriolanus,  are  not  less 
faithful  or  less  brilliant  portraits. 

If  we  now  turn  to  our  celebrated  contemporary, 
it  will  be  found  that  he  has  little  occasion  in  this 
department  to  shrink  from  a  comparison  with  his 
great  predecessor ;  for,  independent  of  spirited 
sketches  of  Charles  the  Second,  Cromwell,  and 
the  Pretender,  he  has  given  us  elaborate  and  full 
length  pictures  of  Richard  the  First,  Mary  of  Scot 
land,  Elizabeth,  and  James  the  First,  of  which  the 
costume  and  keeping  are  presented  with  almost 
matchless  fidelity  and  force.  A  nearly  equal  de* 
gree  of  praise  may  be  extended  to  his  delineations 
of  foreign  regal  character  in  the  persons  of  Saiadin 
and  Louis  the  Eleventh;  nor  has  he  represented 
with  a  less  discriminating  pencil  the  powerful 
thanes  of  his  native  land,  a  Montrose,  a  Murray f 
and  Argyle,  or  the  more  subtile  and  licentious 
nobles  of  England,  as  Leicester,  Buckingham,  &c. 
&c. 

It  has  been  affirmed  of  Shakspeare  by  some 
critics  of  no  mean  note,  that  he  has  not  exhibited 
his  usual  variety  and  originality  in  drawing  the 
female  character ;  ascribing  the  deficiency  in  a 
great  degree  to  the  custom,  in  his  day,  of  not 
admitting  actresses  on  the  stage,  the  parts  of 
women  being  always  personated  by  boys.1'  It 

q  It  is  somewhat  extraordinary  that  the  admirable  Collins, 
than  whom  no  one  has  better  appreciated,  in  other  respects, 
the  genius  of  Shakspeare,  appears  to  have  entertained  a  similar 


CONCLUDING    ESSAY.  485 

requires,  however,  but  a  slight  inspection  of  his 
dramas  to  prove  this  opinion  to  be  utterly  without 
foundation;  and,  indeed,  to  establish  what  in 
truth  is  really  the  case,  that  in  no  writer  do  we 
meet  with  a  more  interesting  and  discriminative 
portraiture  of  female  manners.  Setting  aside  the 
gloomy  portion  of  the  picture,  as  exemplified  in 
the  dark  characters  of  Regan,  Gertrude,  Lady 
Macbeth,  &c.,  and  dwelling  only  on  its  loveliest 
lights,  into  what  a  paradise  of  varied  beauty  and 

erroneous  supposition  of  his  deficiency  in  exhibiting  the  female 
character ;  for  on  noticing  Fletcher's  succession  to  the  theatre 
as  a  dramatic  poet,  he  draws  the  following  comparison  between 
himand  his  great  predecessor  : — 

Of  softer  mould  the  gentle  Fletcher  came, 

The  next  in  order,  as  the  next  in  name ; 

With  pleas'd  attention,  'midst  his  scenes  we  find 

Each  glowing  thought  that  warms  the  female  mind  ; 

Each  melting  sigh,  and  every  tender  tear, 

The  lover's  wishes,  and  the  virgin's  fear. 

His  every  strain  the  Smiles  and  Graces  own  ; 

But  stronger  Shakspeare/eft/0r  man  alone : 

Drawn  by  his  pen,  our  ruder  passions  stand 

Th'  unrivall'd  picture  of  his  early  hand. 

EPISTLE  TO  SIR  THOMAS  HANMER. 

May  I  be  allowed  in  this  place  to  mention  the  very  excellent 
edition  of  Collins,  which  has  just  fallen  into  my  hands,  under 
the  superintendence  of  the  Rev.  Alexander  Dyce,  A.B.  ?  It  is 
by  many  degrees  the  most  complete  and  satisfactory  edition  of 
Collins  which  we  possess ;  for  besides  the  biography  of  John 
son,  and  the  commentary  of  Langhorne,  it  contains  a  large 
body  of  illustrative  notes,  biographical  and  critical,  by  the  editor 
and  his  friends,  all  the  various  readings,  and  a  numerous 
selection  of  parallel  passages. 


486  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

excellence  are  we  instantly  admitted !  Where 
shall  we  look  for  more  exquisite  creations  than  this 
great  magician  has  brought  before  us  in  the  chaste 
love  and  fidelity  of  Juliet  and  Desdemona,  in  the 
romantic  tenderness  of  Imogen  and  Viola,  in  the 
filial  affection  of  Cordelia  and  Ophelia,  in  the 
naivete  and  simplicity  of  Perdita  and  Miranda,  in 
the  vivacity  and  wit  of  Rosalind  and  Beatrice,  and 
in  the  sublimity  of  virtue  in  Isabella  and  Portia  ? 

It  is  to  the  pages  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  that  we 
must  again  revert  for  a  rival  display  of  talent  in 
this  the  most  delightful  province  of  characteriza 
tion,  his  romances  abounding  in  the  richest  and 
most  diversified  forms  of  female  tenderness,  con 
stancy,  and  heroism.  He  had  early  given  indeed, 
in  his  metrical  pieces  in  this  department  of  fiction, 
some  very  interesting  sketches  of  the  kind,  and 
especially  in  his  portraits  of  Ellen  in  the  "  Lady  of 
the  Lake,"  and  of  Edith  in  the  "  Lord  of  the  Isles/' 
both  touched  with  a  graceful  and  truly  fascinating 
pencil.  But  it  is  to  his  prose  romances  that  we 
must  turn  for  the  most  decided  proofs  of  his  ori 
ginality  in  delineating  the  varied  attractions  of  the 
fair  sex.  There,  whether  we  recal  to  mind  the 
picture  of  disastrous  or  unrequited  love  in  the  suf 
ferings  of  Amy  Robsart,  Lucy  Ashton,  and  Effie 
Deans;  the  frolic  archness,  irresistible  good  hu 
mour,  and  ever-shifting  buoyancy  of  spirit,  in 
Mysie  Happer,  Brenda  Troil,  and  Catharine  Seyton  ; 
the  intellectual,  disinterested,  and  lovely  features 
of  Diana  Vernon ;  the  firmness  and  self-devotedness 


CONCLUDING    ESSAY.  46? 

of  Jeannie  Deans,  and  the  romantic  yet  noble- 
minded  heroism  of  Minna  Troll,  Rebecca,  and  Flora 
Mac  Ivor;  we  are  alike  delighted  and  surprised  at 
the  wealth  and  discrimination,  the  strength  and 
versatility  of  his  genius. 

No  man  has  equalled  Shakspeare  in  the  delinea 
tion  of  humorous  character.  It  might  be  sufficient, 
on  this  occasion,  perhaps  merely  to  mention,  as 
adequate  proof  of  the  assertion,  the  inimitable 
Falstaff  and  his  followers;  but  when  we  also 
recollect- those  exquisite  originals,  Shallow,  Slender, 
and  Silence ;  when  the  portraits  of  Dame  Quickley, 
Sir  Toby  Belch,  Sir  Andrew  Ague-cheek,  and  Malvo- 
lio  come  before  us,  and  we  turn  to  those  pleasant 
fellows,  Launcelot,  Autolycus,  Parolles,  Dogberry, 
Verges,  Touchstone,  Bottom,  Christophero  Sly,  and  a 
host  of  others  which  might  be  catalogued,  it  is 
impossible  not  to  stand  amazed  at  the  exhaustless 
fertility  of  his  powers,  nor,  whilst  contemplating 
such  a  varied  mass  of  comic  painting,  to  withhold 
our  assent  from  those  who  consider  this  depart 
ment  as  that  in  which  his  genius  most  perfectly 
luxuriated ;  a  deduction,  however,  which  ceases  to 
predominate,  so  universal  is  the  empire  of  his 
talents,  as  soon  as  the  sublimer  creations  of  his 
fancy  are  presented  to  our  view. 

After  such  an  estimate  of  the  powers  of  Shak 
speare  in  the  formation  of  humorous  character, 
it  may  justly  be  considered  as  a  daring  attempt  to 
seek  for  an  adequate  competitor ;  in  short,  pro 
lific  as  this  country  has  been  in  productions  of 


488  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE, 

humour  from  the  time  of  Ben  Jonson  to  the  pre 
sent  day,  the  effort,  I  am  persuaded,  would  be 
fruitless ;  yet  can  we  bring  forward  such  recent 
names  as  Fielding,  Smollet,  and  Sterne,  nor  will 
that  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  yield  either  in  pretension 
or  power  to  any  one  of  this  celebrated  trio.  I 
feel  inclined,  indeed,  to  place  Sir  Walter  before 
them,  in  consequence  of  his  greater  adhesion  to 
the  truth  and  modesty  of  nature  ;  and  though  we 
cannot  select  from  his  works  any  comic  personage 
that  may  altogether  rival  Falstaff,  yet  who  will 
deny  very  extraordinary  merit  to  the  conception 
and  keeping  of  such  a  character  as  Baittie  Jarvie, 
which,  without  any  tendency  to  extravagance  or 
caricature,  yet  exhibits  the  most  marked  and  ori 
ginal  traits  of  humour.  We  may  also  mention  as 
admirably  sustained  throughout,  and  touched  in 
deed  with  the  pencil  of  a  Hogarth,  the  very  amus 
ing  characters  of  the  Baron  Bradwardine,  of  Dan- 
die  Dinmont,  the  Antiquary,  and  Douce  Davie 
Deans ;  nor  should  Friar  Tuck  and  Dalgetty  be 
forgotten,  beside  a  swarm  of  characters  in  low 
Scottish  life  very  boldly  brought  out,  and  finished 
with  the  strictest  attention  to  national  point  and 
manners/  Like  Shakspeare,  indeed,  Sir  Walter 

r  Amongst  these  I  would  particularise,  as  of  singular  excel 
lency  for  fidelity  of  delineation,  ami  warmth  of  colouring,  the 
characters  of  Cuddle  Headrigg  and  his  mother  Mause,  in  "  Old 
Mortality."  Their  parts  form  a  prominent  portion  of  the  nar 
rative,  and  are  preserved  to  the  last  with  unabated  spirit  and 
humour. 


CONCLUDING    ESSAY.  489 

appears  to  be  deeply  imbued  with  a  love  of  the 
ludicrous ;  nor  has  any  writer  since  our  great  dra 
matist  exhibited  so  many  proofs  of  a  perfect  mastery 
in  the  difficult  and  dangerous  province  of  tragi 
comedy,  his  romances  being  rich  in  instances  where 
broad  humour  and  deep  pathos  are  not  only 
brought  into  contact,  bnt  mingled  v  throughout,  and 
not  unfrequently  with  the  effect  of  heightening 
each  other.  He  is  also  not  less  partial  than  the 
bard  of  Avon  to^  the  introduction  of  the  domestic 
fool,  or  what  approximates  to  this  character,  the 
butt  or  buffoon.  In  the  first  of  these  draughts  he 
has  given  us  a  perfectly  Shakspearian  transcript  in 
the  fperson  of  David  Gellatly  in  Waverley ;  in  the 
second  he  has  not  unfrequently  failed,  and  Caleb, 
in  the  "  Bride  of  Lammermoor,"  and  Claud  Halcro, 
in  the  "  Pirate,"  may  be  referred  to  as  instances. 
Nevertheless,  as  a  result,  it  will  not  be  going  too 
far  to  remark  that  in  the  romances  of  Scott,  as  in 
the  dramas  of  Shakspeare,  there  is  an  exuberant 
wealth  of  humorous  delineation ;  such,  in  short,  as 
will  not  be  met  with  in  equal  raciness  and  profu 
sion  in  any  other  writer  in  our  language  since  the 
death  of  Ben  Jonson. 

It  is,  however,  in  the  last  department  of  charac 
ter-painting 'which  I^have  to  notice,  namely,  the 
imaginative s$\3.t  the  omnipotence  of  genius  appears 
to  be  most  unequivocally  developed.  It  is  the  pro 
vince  also  in  which  it  will  be  found  most  difficult, 
I  will  not  say  to  rival,  but  to  approximate  to  the 
mighty  powers  of  Shakspeare.  When  the  daring 


490  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

creations  of  this  potent  magician  rise  before  us ; 
when  Ariel  and  Caliban,  and  the  Midsummer  Fairies, 
those  splendid  emanations  of  an  unbounded  fancy, 
are  given  to  our  view ;  when  the  wizard  powers  of 
Prospero,  and  the  unhallowed  deeds  of  the  Weird 
Sisters,  unfold  their  dark  and  mystic  agency ;  and, 
above  all,  when  the  grave  is  summoned  to  give  up 
its  charge,  and  the  awful  Spirit  of  the  Royal  Dane 
passes  before  our  shuddering  senses;  how  deeply 
do  we  feel  the  spells  of  the  poet,  and  how  tho 
roughly  during  their  influence  are  we  convinced, 
that  no  human  imagination  can  surpass  the  powers 
which  these  astonishing  efforts  proclaim  ! 

Nevertheless,  extraordinary  as  these  super 
natural  pictures  most  assuredly  are,  the  conception 
of  such  characters  as  Macbeth,  Hamlet,  Lear,  and 
Shylock,  is  scarcely  less  wonderful,  and,  in  point  of 
execution,  as  admitting  of  immediate  comparison 
with  the  scale  of  human  life,  still  more  difficult  to 
clothe  in  the  features  of  originality ;  and  yet  where 
shall  we  find  such  correct,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
such  bold  and  original  delineations  of  ambition, 
terror,  madness,  and  revenge,  as  are  brought  for 
ward  in  these  masterly  compounds  from  nature 
and  imagination  ? 

I  know  not  that  any  greater  eulogy  can  be  passed 
on  the  inventive  faculties  of  any  individual,  than  to 
be  able  justly  to  say  of  him,  that  in  this,  the  most 
arduous  province  of  characterization,  he  has  made 
the  nearest  approach  to  the  genius  of  Shakspeare. 
It  is  an  eulogy,  however,  which,  on  duly  consider- 


CONCLUDING   ESSAY.  491 

ing  the  fertility  and  beauty  of  his  creations  in  this 
department,  may,  I  think,  be  justly  passed  on  Sir 
Walter  Scott.  Throughout,  indeed,  the  whole 
series  of  his  fictions,  whether  in  poetry  or  prose, 
from  the  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel  to  Woodstock, 
there  is  a  display  of  power  in  the  delineation  of 
the  imaginative  and  the  grand,  the  gloomy  and  the 
mysterious,  in  scenery,  incident,  and  beyond  all 
in  character,  which  almost  perpetually  reminds 
us  of  the  wild  and  wonderful,  the  appalling  and 
terrific,  in  the  imperishable  pictures  of  Shak- 
speare. 

Let  us,  for  example,  summon  into  view  a  few  of 
the  numerous  characters  which  Sir  Walter  has 
gifted  with  energies  either  preternatural,  or  approx 
imating  towards  it;  beings,  in  short,  which  may 
be  said  to  hover  on  the  confines  of  another  world. 
He  has  not,  it  is  true,  except  in  one  or  two  in 
stances,  ventured  to  introduce  an  agent  entirely 
superhuman,  that  beautiful  apparition,  the  White 
Lady  of  Avenel,  constituting  the  fullest  and  most 
perfect  delineation  of  the  kind  ;  but,  like  the  bard 
of  Avon,  he  has  delighted  to  wander  into  the 
realms  of  magic,  divination,  and  witchcraft,  and  to 
exhibit  characters  yet  more  anomalous,  with  facul 
ties  bordering  on  the  wild  and  unearthly.  Of  this 
latter  description  the  Black  Dwarf  and  Fenella  are 
striking  examples,  whilst  of  the  closely  allied 
characters  of  the  magician,  astrologer,  and  alchy- 
mist,  we  have  numerous  portraits,  amongst  which 
may  be  particularized  those  of  Michael  Scott, 


492  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

Galeotti,  and  Demetrius.  The  Three  Hags  in  the 
"  Bride  of  Lammermoor"  impress  their  full  effect 
on  the  mind,  even  whilst  recollecting  the  Weird 
Sisters  in  Macbeth ;  and  that  combination  of  the 
ancient  sybil  with  the  modern  gipsey,  which  may 
be  recognised  in  the  persons  of  Meg  Merrilies, 
Madge  Wildfire,  Helen  Macgreggor,  and  Norna 
Troll,  has  produced  pictures  of  uncommon  strength 
and  energy.8 

But  where,  it  may  be  asked,  shall  we  find  in 
the  works  of  our  accomplished  contemporary,  cha 
racters  which  in  point  of  blended  passion  and  sub 
limity,  of  mingled  nature  and  imagination,  can 
compete  with  such  delineations  as  Macbeth,  Ham 
let,  Lear,  and  Shy  lock  ?  It  can  only  be  answered 
that  neither  from  this  source,  nor  from  any  other 
uninspired  composition,  can  perfect  parallels  be 
adduced ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  it  will,  I  think, 

8  Since  this  was  written,  Sir  Walter  has  produced  another 
character  of  this  latter  cast,  in  his  first  tale  of  the  Chronicles 
of  the  Canongate,  entitled  "  The  Highland  Widow."  The 
portraiture,  indeed,  of  Elspat  Mae  Tavish,  which,  like  those 
mentioned  in  the  text,  exhibits  several  traits  bordering  on  the 
supernatural,  though  last  in  point  of  date,  is  certainly  first  in 
point  of  execution;  surpassing  in  its  power  of  impression  the 
author's  most  spirited  previous  sketch  of  the  kind,  his  Meg 
Merrilies. 

I  cannot,  whilst  thus  casually  alluding  to  this  very  recent 
work,  avoid  remarking  that  the  whole  of  what  relates  to  the 
agency  of  the  assumed  chronicler,  Mr.  Crystal  Croftangryy 
is  imagined  with  peculiar  felicity,  and  sustained  with  a  vein  of 
originality  and  humour,  of  which  even  Sir  Walter  has  not  given 
us  a  more  finished  specimen. 


CONCLUDING    ESSAY.  493 

be  readily  allowed  that  the  compositions  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott  abound  in  that  species  of  characteri 
zation  which  combines  the  play  of  the  loftier  pas 
sions,  and  exhibits  the  union  of  high  intellectual 
force  and  grandeur  with  the  splendid  and  ever- 
varying  colouring  of  a  rich  and  plastic  fancy ;  and 
that  this  fecundity  and  originality  in  the  creation 
and  keeping  of  such  characters  as  Marmion, 
Roderic  Dhu,  Fergus  Mac  Ivor,  Ravenswood,  and 
Balfour  of  Burley,  not  to  mention  many  others  of 
nearly  equal  excellence,  entitle  him  not  only  to 
very  high  consideration  in  this  noblest  department 
of  genius,  but  rank  him  even  here,  (the  inexhaust 
ible  fertility  of  his  invention  in  it  being  duly 
weighed,)  next  to  our  beloved  Shakspeare. 

There  are,  indeed,  no  two  other  writers,  either 
in.  our  own  or  any  other  language,  who  in  the 
kindred  provinces  of  the  drama  and  romance  have 
brought  forward  such  numerous,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  such  varied  and  well  sustained  groups  of 
characters  ;  nor  any,  I  may  venture  to  say,  who, 
as  the  result  of  their  intimate  knowledge  of  human 
life  and  manners,  have  been  the  means  of  diffus 
ing  more  extensive  and  unalloyed  delight.  It 
may,  in  fine,  be  asserted  that  the  very  nature  and 
being  of  many  of  the  most  remarkable  characters 
on  record  are  here  more  impressively  felt  and  un 
derstood,  more  boldly  and  effectively  brought  out, 
than  in  the  didactic  and  more  elaborated  pages  of 
the  mere  philosopher  and  historian ;  and,  what  is 


494  MEMORIALS    OF    SHAKSPEARE. 

praise  transcending  all  other,  that  the  moral,  the 
instruction  to  be  derived  from  these  writings,  is 
commensurate  with  the  pleasure  which  they  be 
stow. 


THE    END. 


PRINTED    BY    A.    J.    VALPY, 
RED    LION    COURT,    FLEET    STREET. 


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